Chapter 4: Can’t Imagine You Want Me, Too

October 4th, 1995, 11:28 AM CT, Mile 754, 21 miles north of Texarkana, TX

They were sitting there going back and forth as to why he might have gotten upset, and it was beginning to piss Jill off. She had figured it out almost instantly, and these nitwits seemed clueless. Sometimes George could be clueless, too, she mused. It was really patently obvious when you run the events of what happened over in your head.

I love George, but sometimes things just go over is big head of his! she thought.

“Jesus, you are a bunch of dipshits,” Jill finally said, rolling her eyes, and sort of laughing at the same time.

“Huh?” said George. He was used to her outbursts, so he knew he just had to wait for her to explain her point of view this time.

Akilah had a decent grasp of English, but... “What’s a dipshit?”

“A silly fool,” George told her, “someone who isn’t getting the obvious that is right in front of them.”

“So why am I a ‘dipshit’?” she asked, “Is that right, ‘dipshit’?”

“Yes,” George said, “That’s the correct word, but I am still waiting for Jill to explain why she applied it in this instance.”

“You are dipshits” said Jill, “for not figuring out what clearly happened.”

“Oh yeah, Miss Smartypants?” George said, “Then what exactly happened, if you know so much!?” It was playful mocking, not mean mocking.

“He took Akilah asking you to a private place as a proposition,” Jill explained, “Obviously.”

“You’re crazy,” George said, “I have you! What the hell would I want with Akilah. I mean she’s awesome and everything, but you’re my bloody soulmate!”

“He doesn’t know that, you moron,” Jill said, rolling her eyes like the teenager she was and sometimes showed herself to be.

“Damnit, you’re right,” George said, “That’s probably what he thought was going on.”

“Shaitan,” Akilah cursed, “that was not even something I thought about. What do we do? I am lost.”

“You should go talk to him,” George said, “Once he figures out you are playing the same game from both ends, everything will be grand and we can all have a big laugh about it.”

“I can not do that,” she said, visibly shaking, “I would certainly say the wrong thing! My English is not perfect.”

“Pull yourself together, Akilah,” George told her, “First of all, your English is completely fine, and second of all you have to take responsibility for your own life.”

“I will do this,” Akilah said, “but, I really would prefer someone else to tell him the first thing. He seems to be a bit oversensitive, I think.”

They went back and forth for a while, and once again Jill was starting to boil. These people were so damned clueless. Didn’t they realize that each moment they spent debating was doing damage? Josh was extremely emotionally insecure. Each moment he spent waiting in his room running his thoughts, he was demonizing, dehumanizing, and distancing himself. Too much time passes, and it might be impossible to get him back on an even keel.

“I don’t care what you childish idiots do,” Jillian said contemptuously, “I am going to go talk to Josh about this myself.”

With that, Jillian got up and stormed off in the direction of the sleeping car, determined to save this situation and help Akilah and Josh succeed where they so clearly deserved to.

“Strong willed woman you have, George,” Akilah mused, “A woman like that where I come from would be shunned. You do not care, though, I think.”

“She is that, yes,” he admitted, “And I wouldn’t want her any other way. She is so perfectly melded for me.”

“Why is this?” she asked.

“Because if she wasn’t strong willed, we’d never get along,” he said, “I’d completely dominate her and she’d just be a shell of a person. It would be a waste of a wonderful person. Worse than that, once she became a dominated shell of a person, I would only view her with contempt, anyway. Its a character flaw of mine, but it is true.”

“You could stop her,” Akilah suggested, “I don’t know if Josh would take being talked to that way.”

“Like hell I could,” George argued, “Once she sets her mind on something, its as good as done. And trust me, Josh will be fine. She perfect at raising people’s spirits while chewing them out at the same time.”

“She never obeys you?” Akilah asked.

“Doesn’t know the meaning of the word,” George replied, “and I for one am not going to teach it to her. Don’t you see, Akilah? Her strong willed, indomitable personality, and her indefatigable passion for life is why I love her so much. She survived living in hell on earth. Her strength is part of what makes her, her.”

Akilah was mildly surprised by this. Where she came from men tended to prefer obedient women. She didn’t know that, for the most part, George was an anomaly around here. Men here just didn’t expect them to be because they had socially reached a point where they didn’t have to obey, and most didn’t. Playing their way through the world as equals was part of what made it work for them, though. Hopefully Akilah would see that on her own, and grow to be a strong-willed woman herself. She’d need it to fight the prejudice stacked against her.

“So what do we do now?” Akilah asked, finding herself in an awkward position of having someone insisting on doing her bidding for her, and not really knowing what to do.

“Well, we have nothing to do really, so lets have sex.” George said with a smirk. George, like Jill, tended to prefer to be silly in tense situations like this. It tended to break the tension.

“What?“ she started, then realized he was kidding ... and started to giggle a little.

“Just kidding,” George smiled, “Actually, I was thinking it might be a better use of time to search for Josh in the rest of the train just in case. You search the lower level while I stand guard at the stairs at each car on the way back.”

And that’s what they did. But they didn’t find hide nor hair of them, and George eventually lead Akilah through the dining car and into the Sleeper where he steered her into their Deluxe Bedroom. The truth was he knew that he wasn’t there; it just helped keep Akilah occupied and not thinking about the uncomfortable situation she found herself in at this moment. Once they got into the room, they sat and just talked in general about nothing in particular.

Why? Why did it happen! Josh thought, A girl I finally found, who turns me on in all the right ways and only interested in someone else she is. My fucking bad luck! A perpetual schlamazel, I am! That big handsome George guy, the fucking bastard. My chances, he ruined!

Josh was crying many tears, he was upset, and bugged. He didn’t understand why life had to be so cruel to him all the time. He wailed and carried on. She had seemed like such a perfect girl, so wonderful. He thought he had been so lucky to find a girl like that, and going to the same school as him, too! He didn’t have anything on George. And the girl asked him for a private conversation! She was as good as his now.

How could she do that? That was really strange in and of itself.

She just didn’t seem like the type of girl who would be interested in a guy to the point of being so forward. She really looked shy and reserved and nervous. His character judgement must be horrible to make that mistake!

Maybe he misjudged her.

Maybe she was some kind of horny slut or something.

Maybe she’d sleep with anyone.

Maybe she wasn’t worth his interest.

Maybe she was just easy.

Maybe she wasn’t worth lusting after.

Maybe friendship was a game of using with her.

Maybe she wasn’t worth it as a friend.

Then there was knock on his door.

“Go away!“ he wailed. He didn’t want to be talked to right now. He was too miserable, and too angry.

“No,” said the voice of Jill.

What the hell was she doing here? he wondered. Here to defend George, was she? Or something else it might be?

“Really, go de fuck away,” he said, “alone leave me please! Okay?” She was the last girl he wanted to talk to at the moment. He just wanted to be left the fuck alone. To drown in his own misery. Don’t people understand things like that?

“No.” Jill replied.

“Why not?” he cried out, “I doan wanna do de tawhkin’ wit’ yuh, okay?”

“Yes you do,” Jill said, “You want to hear what I have to say. It’s important. Trust me.”

Still tearing, he finally reached up and undid the latch, and slid open the heavy door.

She came in and sat down on the seat opposite him. It wasn’t a large space- it was about the size of a double slumbercoach or single roomette, but with no toilet. It was basically an open-section but enclosed. She was a beautiful girl in her own right, and she looked at him with considerable intensity. She seemed understanding, but also frustrated.

“All the things you are worried about, upset about, and crying about aren’t true,” Jill said.

Jill walked down the hallway of the sleeper to the staircase, down the stairs, and found Josh’s roomette- easy to do, as it was the only one with a closed door and there were only 4 of them to begin with on the lower level. Why he was placed on the lower level, she didn’t know. But it had made her life a little easier, so it was fine with her.

She thought about George and Akilah. They were both stubborn and spent way too much time on debating. She was glad that they all seemed to be becoming fast friends. It would mean that they were likely to have a relationship with some interesting people for a while. They seemed all to be compatible with each other. That was the main reason she was getting involved in this mess. It would be a solid case of Somebody Else’s Problem otherwise. She liked them; she wanted to see them get together.

The social connection on a long term basis had been missing from both their lives for a long time and it would be really welcome to have it back in their lives. She had never made friends with the uppity assholes in New York, and she wasn’t allowed to stay in contact with her friends back home. Her friendship with George was almost enough for her, but it was ... well, it gets boring. You run out of new things to talk about, especially when you experience everything together.

But having Josh and Akilah involved in an attempt to convince each other that they either liked or didn’t like each other, that was a mess. Probably happen on alternating days, from the way things were going now. Being frank made life so much easer. That was a long standing philosophy of hers; being out in the open makes things easier. You love someone, tell them you love them. Simple, easy.

She knocked on the door. She didn’t have to wait for the response, either.

“Go away!“ Josh wailed. Very inviting.

“No,” she replied resolutely, and calmly.

“Really, go de fuck away,” he said, “alone leave me please! Okay?” he said tearfully.

“No.” Jill replied, gently sticking to her guns...

“Why not? I doan wanna do de tawhkin’ wit’ yuh, okay?”

“Yes you do,” Jill said, “You want to hear what I have to say. It’s important. Trust me.”

The door unlatched and slid open. She walked in and sat down opposite from him and looked into his eyes. He looked defiant, and scared. But interested, wondering what she was planning on saying to him.

“All the things you are worried about, upset about, and crying about aren’t true,” she told him.

“What do yuh mean?” he asked, tears still flowing from his face. How could it all not be true?

“George is taken,” she told him. She thought that would be the end of that.