Chapter 17

Driving her back to the Bowdoin College campus they are both quiet and lost in their own thoughts. They have pretty much said all there is to say and have done pretty much all there is to do. Pulling up in front of Megan’s dorm is both a relief and bittersweet for them both, a relief because her parents are nowhere in sight, but since it is just before 8AM that is not a surprise, but you never know with parents. But it is bittersweet because their reunion is now over, but hopefully it won’t be 5 years before they see each other again.

Sliding over on the seat Jackie gives Bucky one last hug and a kiss. She promises that she will write him with her contact info at BU just as soon as she is on campus and he promises the same when he is on campus at his school in New Hampshire. He is about to put his hand on the door handle to get out and give her a proper hug goodbye, but she shakes her head ‘No’ and says ‘This is hard enough’. And with tears in the corner of her eyes she slides across the bench seat of his car, right out the door, shuts the door, and hurries away. As she didn’t want him to see the tears in her eyes, he’s not sure he wanted her to see the ones in his.

Bucky gently puts the car into gear and slowly pulls away from the curb making sure that no campus police are out and about this early as he doesn’t need the hassle from them today.

It was 2 weeks later that Bucky walks into the local hospital for an unusual gastrointestinal virus. He was supposed to have gone to his college orientation, an Army Reserve weekend, and, more important to him, to see Jackie at school, but for the previous 8-10 days he had not been feeling well and had been vomiting on and off continuously. When he arrived at the ER they took his blood pressure and pulse and declared him ‘clinically unconscious’ as he had a BP of 71/52 and a pulse rate of 49 b/min, basically what someone should have if they were asleep or under anesthesia, yet Bucky had walked into the ER and requested assistance. The nurses and doctors spent 4-6 hours pumping him full of IV fluids, running test after test, and once he was stable, all they were able to determine was that he had been ‘sick’. The weren’t sure what he had had, but it was similar to the flu and the result was he had lost about 30 pounds, was severely anemic, and should “follow-up with his primary care physician”.

It was a week or so after this while Bucky was recuperating at home that he got a call from Megan asking if he wanted to go on a date before he went to school. With a smile Bucky agreed and they set a date for the following Friday night. Bucky and Megan wound up getting together quite a few times that August before Bucky left for college over Labor day weekend, but that is a story best told at a later time.

Arriving at his school in Southern New Hampshire on Labor day in 1993 was not the shock to Bucky that it was to most college kids who had never been away from home in their lives. For Bucky this would be the third time he had ‘lived away from home’. His first time being Basic Training and his second being his Advanced Individual Training (AIT). At 19 years old he was considered a ‘non-traditional’ student in that he had not come to college directly from high school, but in the grand scheme of things would it really matter, he was here to learn, just like all of the other kids.

He spent the day setting up his room and meeting his roommate, who’s girlfriend wasn’t going to college and lived about 20 minutes away. Actually once his roommate finished moving in he left to go visit her and didn’t come back for two days, his roommate then dropped out of school a month or so later and Bucky had a single room.

It took a few days but Bucky had made arrangements for a phone to be setup in his room, all part of being contactable by the Reserve Unit he was part of. Once it was working he made 3 important phone calls; the first home to mom, the second to his reserve unit, and the third was to Jackie. Surprisingly she was available and he was able to talk to her for a few minutes and they agreed to meet up the following weekend, he had Reserve Drill that coming weekend, and she said she would call him next week to ‘firm up the details’. Bucky said he ‘couldn’t wait to see her’.

The next 8-10 days quickly became his new normal, wake up in the morning, shower and clean-up in the bathroom, get breakfast, go to any morning classes, lunch, afternoon classes, flight time, dinner, homework, bedtime, work on the weekend or go to Reserve duties if he had any; oh and call Jackie when he could. Sometimes their calls would be “Hi, miss you, bye” other times their calls would be “What did you do today? Really that sounds like fun, I wish could do that. What are you doing right now? Oh really? What are you wearing? Are you alone? Really? You’re thinking about me? What am I wearing? Nothing ... I’m wearing nothing at all ... ooh ... yeah ... tell me more...”

Like Jackie had said when the two had first talked about the possibility of meeting up, her schedule was hectic and it was October before they got a chance to do so, in fact it was Columbus day weekend since neither would have classes on Monday and Jackie had been excused from all athletic related activities. It took no thought at all for Jackie to say “I’ll drive up to meet you. It makes no sense you driving down here since there’s no place for you to park and, honestly, it’ll be crowded in my room all weekend. I live with 2 roommates who’re not going home for the weekend. You already said you’re roommate is gone, so it’s settled, it’s done. I’m coming up. You said it’s easy to get there right? Just 93 outta Boston to 128 South to Rt3 North to New Hampshire right?”

Shocked that she would even consider it, but unwilling to argue to hard because she was right that it would be nearly impossible to park his car near BU, Bucky said “Yeah, yeah. You’re right. That’s it exactly. And once you cross into New Hampshire it’s the 6^th exit.”

“Awesome Bucky, I can’t wait to see you.”

“Me either Jackie, me either.”

And they did get together that weekend, and it was nice, but it wasn’t like the spontaneous night they had over the summer. The ‘fire’ that they had had wasn’t there. They still had a connection and they both had a great time, but the passion was missing.

The next time they talked on the phone they danced around the subject for a while until Bucky brought it up and finally Jackie sighed and said “Did we ruin something Bucky? Did we possibly build up something in our minds for so long that when we finally got together that we burned ourselves out so quickly?”

Bucky answered her sigh with one of his own and said “I’m not sure Jax, maybe. Maybe we just need to see if there is anything else to us than sex. Think about it, when we got together over the summer it was about sex. When we got together again a few weeks ago it was about sex. If that’s all we are going to be to each other maybe we need to recognize that. I don’t want it to be only that, do you.”

Jackie was silent for a few moments until she finally said “No, no I don’t. But when I think about you all I want to do is fuck you. Does that make me a bad person? Does that make us a bad couple?”

Laughing Bucky said “No Jax it doesn’t. It makes you a sexy, horny, lovely, woman. But that’s also not what a relationship is all about, sex.”

Chuckling she says “It’s not?”

“No love, it’s not. It’s also about other common interests. You know, books, sports, movies, pets, shit like that.”

“Oh, I like shit like that.”

Bucky laughs and says “Then maybe we should talk about those things, see if there’s anything we have in common.”

“I agree, I think we should too” says Jackie. “In my kinesiology class the other day we studied how different body poses can heighten a woman’s pleasure during sex. I can loan you the book so you can read it. Would you be interested? Then we would have that in common.”

Laughing louder Bucky replies saying “I didn’t quite have that in mind, but you’re getting warmer.”

“Okay, how about this book then ‘The Kama Sutra’? I think my roommate has a copy. I borrow it and we re-enact scenes from it. Yes? No?”

“Oh Jackie, you’re amazing.”

Chuckling she says “I know.”

Bucky and Jackie spent the next 10-15 minutes on the phone going back and forth on what could and couldn’t be common interests and what were and were not similar hobbies. Bucky flatly refused to accept that masturbation, mutual or solo, was in any way shape or form a sport, no matter what Jackie or her roommates stated on a 4-way speakerphone debate. He was, as he finally tried to end the debate, only going by the Olympic gaming guidelines insofar as, if it would never be considered an Olympic sport, it could not now be considered a sport.