A work of fiction

Is Sara’s imaginary friend real or has she, as she fears, gone mad.

As always, the fictional (and possibly imaginary) sexual activity described is between fictional characters who are at least eighteen fictional years of age. Really, I would imagine.

MONDAY, APRIL 2

Thinking back Sara had figured that she just had less of a sex drive than other girls her age. Maybe just as some girls got their breasts earlier and some got their breasts later, she would develop a libido a bit later in life. She just wasn’t interested in boys; she wasn’t interested in the ones her friends said were cool, or the ones he mother had said were cute. It made high school a bit boring but there were advantages, she was her class Valedictorian after all.

Barry was kind and he was persistent. He treated her with respect and her parents liked him. He was responsible and had a good job with a future. He would make a good father, and while she was ambivalent about him, she knew that she wanted to have children.

So, when he asked her to marry him she was honest with him. She told him that she liked him and she wanted children; that her parents wanted her to marry and that they liked him. She told him what she honestly believed to be true, that she just wasn’t that interested in sex.

She asked him to take a day and think about what she had said to him. She told him that if he asked her again the next day that she would say yes, and she told him that she would not be hurt if he did not ask. He asked ... She agreed to marry him and to be a good wife to him. To commit to ‘doing her wifely duty’ because he in turn promised to be a good husband and father.

Barry was happy to make her pregnant, and he did so twice, and she grew to love him. He wasn’t pushy or weird, so she accommodated him although she just wasn’t that into it. She didn’t mean to deceive him, but she felt that she had when she finally figured it out. Worse, he felt hurt. He felt deceived by her when she finally sucked up the courage to tell him.

She liked girls. Now if you were from New York or California or even big-city-Houston an hour south of nearby Livingston on the four-lane that wasn’t the end of the world. But it sure felt like it was the end of the world in small-town Cavelier, Texas. Her husband and her parents wanted to ‘cure’ her. Cure her, how, why, there wasn’t anything wrong with her. She had just figured out what was wrong with her libido.

She couldn’t figure out why Barry became so distant. She had told him before she accepted his proposal that she was not really interested in having sex with him. She agreed to it as part of a deal. She wasn’t reneging on that deal, he was. She wasn’t asking him to change anything. She was explaining to him why. She was confirming something that she had previously said. She was reiterating that it wasn’t him.

Barry eventually took their children to his mother’s house; her own parents agreed with his decision to do so. Homosexuality was a grave sin her own father told her. She handed him a Bible and asked him where, precisely, it said that. He could not, perhaps because he belonged to that large denomination that holds that one need not actually read any scripture at all to be an expert on it. That so long as you occasionally tithe, regularly attend on Easter and Christmas and help out at the Church pancake and sausage dinner or rummage sale then you are tight with the Lord.

She was offered a choice, get herself cured of being herself and beg for forgiveness, or become a divorcee with her ex-husband retaining custody of the children. Those children being the only reason she married Barry in the first place. When she made a counter-offer, that she would remain his wife, lie and say that she was cured and continue to provide him with regular sex if he would just come back home and bring their children back and help her smooth everything over with both of their parents, Barry exploded.

It was the first time that he had ever been like that with her. He cursed her, he called her a “whore” for offering him, her husband, sex. He called her an unfit mother for sublimating her own feelings and trying to maintain a home with two parents for the benefit of those children. He called his parents. He called her parents. He called their pastor. He called an attorney. He filed a petition for the dissolution of marriage.

Sara was at the absolute lowest point in her life. That is when her hallucinations began.

When she was in junior high school and her friends started standing her up for boys, she found an amazing, albeit imaginary, playmate that would not stand her up or abandon her, Jean. Jean looked a lot like a thirteen-year old Barbara Eden, which was not surprising since Sara had loved to watch ‘I Dream of Jeanie’ on television. Best of all Jean WAS a real Jeanie.

In junior high Jean made the loneliness go away. Jean studied with her, rode bikes, went fishing and swam in the lake with her. Jean, although small of appetite, shared many a pizza pie and quart of ice cream with her. At one-point Sara’s father became a little concerned with Jean’s influence, but her mother showed him Sara’s latest report card and her dad never mentioned Jean again.

Jean went everywhere that Sara did, she even stood remarkably silent and unseen next to Sara as she gave her high school commencement speech. Jean came to work at the lumberyard with her. Jean only left her when she began to date Barry.

“My God,” Sara thought. “After all of those years of Jean never forsaking me, it was I that forsook Jean.” Amazingly though Jean was not angry or upset. Jean loved Sara in an all-encompassing way. A perfect way in that you love a person that you know every single thing about and accept every single thing about. Jean was in love with Sara and knew Sara needed time, that Sara had some things to figure out on her own.

Jean was in love with Sara and now that Sara understood herself, what Sara needed, Jean had returned. Sara was a grown woman and so was Jean, they could freely have grown-up feelings of love. They could make grown-up love with each other.

Growing up Jean had always borrowed clothes from Sara, and always looked better than Sara did when wearing them, today was no different. Jean was currently wearing Sara’s long black skirt and dark grey turtleneck sweater. Jean’s long straight blonde hair was always perfect; her red nail polish was always beautiful, again today was no different.

Sara was never ever perfect. Today her black curls were frizzy, her manicure absolutely pathetic. Her nails had recently been chewed on and badly needed a trim, a buff and polish. Her black slacks and white button-down blouse were frumpy as if they had been slept in. Which in itself was a bad joke, since Barry left and took the kids to his mom’s Sara hadn’t slept.

That lack of sleep was the likely cause of her current hallucination.

But it felt really, really nice to not be alone and so Sara went with it. She knew Jean and trusted her. Jean knew every single thing about Sara right up to the point in time that she began dating Barry; now somehow she knew that Sara craved a grown-up woman’s touch. Jean kissed her; Sara kissed her back. Jean looked into her eyes, looked into Sara’s soul. Sara kissed her, she kissed her mouth and her neck.

Jean kissed Sara, she kissed her mouth and her neck and her earlobes, she slowly unbuttoned Sara’s blouse, kissing the flesh of her shoulders chest and stomach as it was revealed to her. Sara took off her top and kissed Jean again. Jean kissed Sara’s back and her sides and unhooked Sara’s bra.

Sara held Jeans sleeves and helped her out of Sara’s light weight dark grey stretchy pullover turtleneck. Jean did not need to wear a bra; her breasts were absolutely perfect. Everything about Jean was perfect. Sara kissed them, flitted her tongue on their perky nipples, while Jean played with Sara’s curly black locks.

Then Jean took Sara’s breasts into her mouth and played with her nipples, alternately sucking on one licking, flicking ... While at the same time gently massaging the other with her loving fingertips. It was totally intoxicating. Jean’s mouth providing warm, wet intense stimulation while her fingertips kept the other peaked. Switching back and forth Jean built a wave of ever-increasing stimulation It was so...

It was oh ... Oh, oh ... OH! Sara orgasmed from Jean’s ministrations to her breasts, it was amazing. She lost control. She peed. Her panties were wet. Jean reached down and touched Sara’s wetness and brought it up to her mouth.

“I ... I peed...” Sara said embarrassed, “I’m sorry.”

Jean licked Sara’s lubricant from her fingers, “It’s not pee darling, you squirted.”

“What?” Sara asked.

Jean smiled and then kissed Sara. It wasn’t pee.

“It’s the most perfect substance on earth,” said Jean, “because your body made it.”

In the afterglow of their lovemaking Jean’s unconditional love gave Sara the strength to go and confront Barry. To tell Barry that what he was doing was wrong. To condemn her for her telling him what she had figured out, for sharing with him her innermost feeling and thoughts, it was wrong.

She was sharing with him, not acting on those feelings. She was sharing with her husband and the father of her children. Barry, he was wrong. Wrong for not working with her to figure things out like he promised to do in their wedding vows, but instead recruiting others outside of their union to denounce her.

8 AM, TUESDAY, APRIL 3

Sara awoke from a bizarre dream. Her imaginary friend from school had stood by her side and supported her as she confronted Barry. Then in front of his parents she had shrunk him and put him as a captive in the pretty ornamental glass bottle Sara’s mom gave her eleven years ago for her birthday.

The bottle that looked just like Barbra Eden’s home on television’s ‘I Dream of Jeanie.’ Sara’s head was pounding; someone at her door was pounding. Sara looked as disheveled as she felt answering the door in her faded old maroon ‘Rene-Robert Cavelier High’ sweats that she had slept in.

There were three people at her door, her mother-in-law who was shouting wild, insane accusations of foul-play. A young Policewoman, Officer Cerro according to her name tag, who was trying to calm down her frantic mother-in-law. A bored looking older Policeman, a Sergeant Milroon, who was just trying to make sense of it all.

Trying to figure out how the five-foot-four woman in front of him could have possibly “disappeared” her six-foot-two estranged and soon to be ex-husband who weighed half again as much as she did from her soon to be ex-in-in-laws house without an accomplice or a weapon in front of three adults. Those adults being his own mother, father and brother...

After promising to call the number on Sergeant Milroon’s business card if Barry called or dropped by ... After Officer Cerro escorted her raving lunatic of a mother-in-law from the premises ... After Sara called her own mother to see if she had heard from Barry ... After she made herself a cup of strong coffee ... She looked into the colorful bottle and dropped that cup of hot coffee on her feet and on the carpeted floor of the living room.

“JEAAAAN!”

Were it not for the pain in her foot she was feeling from the hot coffee she would have been able to convince herself that she was dreaming. Maybe she was, why couldn’t she feel pain in a dream, yesterday she made love to her imaginary childhood friend in a dream and she felt ecstasy. That’s all it was, a dream; she would ride it out and see where it went. Dreams can’t hurt you.

Jean appeared. “Yes, Sara my love.”

“Jean,” Sara played dumb. “Have you seen Barry?”

“Of course dear, he is in my bottle.”

“Why?”

“You know the answer to that question as well as I do, Sara.”

“Will you let him out?”

“Yes, but not right now. He must learn a lesson.”

“Please let him out Jean.”

“Sara, my love. You are so kind; you deserve to be treated better. Barry must suffer a little, because he made you suffer.”

“I don’t want him to suffer, I just want what we had back.”

“My love, Barry took your children; he condemned you for being brave, for being honest.”

“I don’t want him to suffer.”

“You know that I won’t really hurt him Sara. He belongs to you just as I belong to you. But you must remember what your mother used to say to you growing up. ‘I do this because I love you, and you need a mother not a friend.’”

“But you are not my mother.”

“No, I am your lover. More than that I am your protector, just as your mother was your protector.”

“I don’t need a protector.”

“Yes Sara, you do. You were honest with Barry. You told the man that you stood in a Church with ... Stood before both families with ... Before God with and promised to share everything with ... You shared a secret with him that was so deep, so potentially devastating. A secret that went against what your parents had taught you and what both your parents believe. You shared with the ONE you promised to share with.

As a result, he withdrew from you; then he marshaled outside forces against you. He, not you, violated the covenant of your marriage he, not you, was truly unfaithful. He not you brought others into what should have just between the two of you.”

“That is a rationalization, I made love with you. I made love with Jean while I was married to Barry.”

“Really, did you?”

“Yes. I was unfaithful to Barry.”

“So am I real Sara?”

“You know ... Uh ... I ... I really ... You know ... I really just don’t know.”

“That’s OK, I love you Sara. I love every single solitary thing about you Sara, and I know every single solitary thing about you Sara.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Why?”

“Because if you knew me, if you really knew me, then you couldn’t love me.”

“No Sara, you are mistaken. True love comes from knowledge and understanding. Others have made you feel bad about yourself. They were wrong, some were jealous of you like your mother said; others were just victims of their own past and what they had been taught. Sara, you are you, loving, thoughtful, kind, and giving. Sara when you are you and not trying to be someone else, you are perfect.”

“You only say that I am perfect because I had sex with you. Sex is the universal barter, well at least most of the time.”

“No Sara, Barry denounced you, he shared your private, intimate marital discussions with his parents, your parents and Pastor Jones instead of doing as he promised to.”

“I want him out of that bottle and free to decide on his own to bring our children back and to accept me, flawed as I am.”

“No Sara, you did nothing wrong. You shared a feeling, shared an emotion. You were punished as if you had acted upon that emotion.”

“Jean, you and I, we made love.”

“After he rejected you. That means two things; if I am real then he had cast you aside first[a], and if I am not then you are both insane.”

“I want to see Barry,” I said.

Jean blinked and both her and Sara were transported into the fancy bottle, Barry was in there but he was not a happy camper.

“What have you done to me you...” He said.

“Barry, please calm down.”

“Fuck you. Do you have any idea how badly you have fucked-up? You are fucking toast.”

“Shut up Barry. You are just making it harder for yourself.” Sara pleaded.

“Yeah, Fuck You.”

“Barry, do you honestly think that I could have done this,” Sara said waving her hand at the bottle with its oriental carpeting and pillows, and its colorful translucent view of their now gigantic living room.

“You ... You...”

“Really?” Sara asked.

“Why am I here?”

“Jean, my Jeanie put you in this bottle because you hurt me.”

“You are insane.”

“Says the man currently held prisoner inside of the glass bottle.” Sara said.

“OK...” he said pausing looking around.

“What?”

“Huh?” He said in confusion.

“Say it Barry. Say that you are sorry, and I will get you out of here.”

“Fuck you.”