Chapter 21: Relationships and Sex

It was quite a while before any of them could recover. Dan’s voice interrupted the companiable silence in the bed. “While my heartbeat was slowing down from frantic galloping, I’ve been thinking about what Dale said, and what Rosemary said. They have brought up some strong feelings that I’ve had for quite some time.

“With those feelings, I’m having trouble holding back now.”

Dan turned his body around on the big bed so he could get up on his knees facing her, and took her hand. “Delia, we’re going to be living together for weeks while my mother is in Arizona. If we are still partners when she returns, will you marry me?”

Delia shrieked, and then collapsed.

Dale was first to speak. “You had better be serious, Dan. If you hurt her, I will take you apart and bury the pieces separately.”

“Oh, Dale, calm down. He loves her. He would never hurt her in the slightest. But, Dan, hear me, it has to be more than sex. They say, any proposal that comes after an orgasm is not to be trusted. And, you are moving pretty quickly, don’t you think? She just met your mom the other night, correct?”

“That’s true. They got along fantastically, though.

“I know this is fast, and we are young. But your daughter is one in a million. You know how smart she is, and how responsible. Your boys have been in her care quite a lot. Has she ever given you cause to worry?

“I’m sure you have heard how some of the guys in school mistreated her, cat-calling her and other kinds of miserable shit. Including some guys on my basketball team, until I threatened them to make them stop. That was before we were going out, by the way.

“The football team was also starting to look after her. Do you know why? She was tutoring a bunch of the girls in her grade after school, for free, just volunteering. Mostly with algebra and geometry. Some of those girls had footballing boyfriends, and word got around to them quickly.

“After a few morons got, um, advised to leave her alone, things improved for her. Now, I have a friend who is a girl, but she’s not a girlfriend. Tallie is a lesbian, and we’ve been buddies for years. Anyway, she introduced me to Delia, and we started going out.

“I owe Tallie everything for that. Because, from our first afternoon, I was crazy for Dee. It took a long time before she started to trust that I wasn’t dating her tits, I was dating her. There was a lot of emotional scarring, from all the miserable behavior she dealt with. Even other girls were mean to her, because she had the big tits and they didn’t.”

“Yeah, I went through all that bullshit in high school with my D-cups,” said Rosemary.

“We were really getting along great. My mom could tell you; I would go on and on about Dee after we were out together. She was in my thoughts all the time. I almost resented being in my basketball practices, something I had always loved to do, because they kept us apart. Which was foolish because she was busy then doing her tutoring.

“We were just like kids playing, we were laughing and silly together.

“And then Dale got arrested. When it was a week, then two, Delia began to, I guess, wilt. Before that, she looked up to you, Dale, a lot. As it continued, she was more and more stressed, and preoccupied. One day, I’ll never forget it, she started to quarrel with me. I wasn’t going to argue, but while I was backing down Dee just burst into tears and started hitting me with her fists.

“I had never seen her so incredibly angry. Angry, scalding cries of frustration. For her mother, for her brothers, for her family, and for herself. Even for me, because she was anticipating having to quit school and go to work instead of college. I think the word for this is catastrophizing.

“It was a long time before she was able to get back her self-control. I was just holding her while she cried. Of course, things are much better now. But it was kind of a turning point for us. That day, we moved past the silly, fun, and playful dating relationship we had.