Chapter 4

The day started out so promising. Dad knew or figured out everything, including the loss of my innocence, as he called it. What's more, he didn't condemn me, just the opposite. He encouraged me to go for it, to have fun with my college boy for the next five days.

Then Barbie showed up and regurgitated all her troubles with Claudia while I listened patiently. After I reassured her I was still her best friend, she let her mind run wild with sexual fantasies about the two of us while she helped me prepare for my luncheon with Jason, and her sexy thoughts turned me into aroused mush. Before she left, I'd started to worry I might be bisexual like her.

Well, if I was, I preferred men, once again like her, and my man, my five-day lover was on his way to my house for lunch and some lovin'.

At the happy sound of my doorbell, I opened my door expecting my lover. Instead Claudia stood angry and pouting on my doorstep, demanding to know what Barbie had told me. After I put her off and scooted her back out the door, I noticed Terry's car turn onto my street. I didn't see the driver, but assumed it was Jason.

A few minutes later, I discovered Terry was the driver. He'd planned to drop Jason off and pick him up later. Jason, recognizing Claudia and being the gentleman he is, made Terry stop the car. He put the devastated girl in the car with them, and soon all three of them stood at my front door, which wasn't a serious problem, except for some reason Jason considered me the culprit because I'd turned Claudia from my door.

Frankly, his attitude pissed me off. Oh, he didn't come right and say he blamed me for Claudia's devastated condition, but his thoughts to that effect came through loud and clear, so I couldn't even confront him to clear up his convoluted logic without revealing my gift. To top off an already offensive state of affairs, as sensitive as he was, he perceived my thinly veiled anger, which only solidified his stance. The situation had deteriorated to the point where I couldn't see how it could get any worse when Claudia suddenly decided Barbie didn't visit me to make fun of her, but rather to have sex with me.

"You fucked her, didn't you?" Claudia screeched at me. "That's why she was here so long. You had sex with her!"

"Who?" Terry asked. "Who are you talking about?"

"Her!" Claudia screamed, pointing at me. "And Barbie."

"Fuck!" Terry shouted. "I'll kill the bitch."

The bitch he referred to was Barbie, I assumed. Then he turned his angry eyes on me. He was seriously pissed, and I worried he might strike out at me. I won't repeat his thoughts. I tried not to hear them, tried to let them go in one ear and out the other.

What bothered me most was Jason's attitude. He actually believed Claudia.

"I don't need this shit," I muttered and looked Jason in the eye. "If you believe her, I suggest you leave my house right now and take your angry cousin and that crazy woman with you." I turned to Terry. "And you! Talk about the kettle calling the frying pan black. You screw your sister, and you get pissed off because your girl friend messes around with another girl, and for what it's worth, I wasn't the girl. Ask Claudia about the night before last, ask her why Barbie cancelled her date with you last night, not me." Then I tore into Claudia. "And you! You told Barbie you were in love with her. Is this how you show your love? By destroying her reputation and yours. Shame on you, Claudia! Shame on you!"

I took a deep breath. "Get out. All of you. Get out of my house. Now, dammit!" I opened my front door and held it open. No one moved.

Claudia was stunned, but finally what I said to her sunk in and made her understand how foolish she'd been acting. She was the first to move. As she walked by me, she said, "I'm sorry, Katy. You're right. I should be ashamed, and I am."

I'd fucked up with Terry. I'd forgotten the only way I could know he screwed his sister was through reading his thoughts. He kept wondering how I could possibly know. He also wondered if Barbie knew. As it turned out, I didn't need to worry about him discovering my gift. In the end, he figured Jason had told me.

Terry didn't say anything as he walked by me, leaving me alone with Jason.

"Close the door, Katy," Jason said calmly.

"No, I want you to leave, Jason. You believed her. I could see it in your eyes, in your expression. You aren't my five-day lover, not any longer. You turned out to be nothing but my first and hopefully last one-night stand." Tears welled in my eyes. "You blew it, buster. I wanted you to teach me every way possible a woman could give a man pleasure. I planned to give you so much pleasure, you'd leave town on wobbly legs a mere shadow of your former self. You blew it big time. Go on, Jason. Join your cousin while you have a ride."

He reached for me, but I squirmed away. "No, I mean it, Jason. We're finished. You have romance in your heart, but your instincts stink. You let Claudia's tears make me the culprit without giving me the benefit of the doubt. I don't think I like you anymore. Leave, Jason, please. Just leave."

I closed the door behind him and burst into tears. Did I have a broken heart? Yep. Would it mend? Yes, probably before Jason left town. Would Dad say I told you so?

Dad said I told you so while we ate the luncheon I'd prepared for Jason for dinner. While I was cleaning up the dinner mess, the doorbell rang. It was Barbie, and she'd been crying.

"Take a walk with me," she said, not an order but a sincere request.

We walked in silence to a park near my house. It was hot, and by the time we sat on a park bench in the shade, I was sweating.

"I owe you an apology, Katy," Barbie said. "I embroiled you in my problems and ruined your relationship with Jason."

From her thoughts, I determined Claudia told her what happened.

"Don't worry your pretty head about Jason and me. The five-day wonder turned out to be a flash in the pan. He wasn't the man for me, not even for five lousy days."

"Still... I'm sorry, Katy. Truly sorry."

"I know. What happened wasn't your fault, Barbie. You didn't know Claudia would go off the deep end, and it certainly isn't your fault that Jason took Claudia's side without knowing or wanting to know the facts."

"How long have you known about Terry and his sister?"

I'd wondered how long it would take my big mouth to come back to haunt me. "Only a few days. I'd have told you, but..."

"But you're not like the rest of us. You don't repeat gossip and try to mind your own business. I understand. I told Terry we were finished. Well, that's not the complete truth. The breakup was mutual."

"For what it's worth, I'm glad. Terry wasn't the boy for you, no more than his cousin was the boy for me. What about you and Claudia?"

"We're finished, too, both as lovers and friends. Surprisingly, the ending was even civilized. No tears."

I grinned. "It looks like we need to find some new boyfriends, girlfriend."

My smile perked her up. "Let's. How? Where? When?"

"Tonight. I'd planned to crash a party I heard about, planned to take Jason and show him off before I asked him to get us a room so I could fuck his brains out."

Barbie's jaw dropped a foot. Well, maybe it was closer to an inch or two.

"You mean... ?"

"Yeah. Last night, I lost my innocence, as Dad calls it. I gotta tell ya, Barbie, sex is fun, and it feels good, too." I laughed gaily. "This party, it's for college guys and gals. Do you think we can pull it off?"

"The guys won't notice or care if we rub up against them just right. The gals will notice, but if we act quickly with the guys, what the gals think or want won't matter."

"Good. I want to find myself another college boy with some romance in his heart and try sex again to make sure I got it right the first time."

The party was a bust, at least for me. Barbie wrangled a date for the following night with a college boy named Harry, a date I talked her into canceling the next morning. Listening to Harry's thoughts was downright scary. He was into BDSM big time. I told Barbie I'd overheard some partygoers talking about him, which was true; they just didn't talk out loud.

I spent the night carrying the same plastic glass half-full of stale beer listening to one drunken college boy after another make a mental ass of himself. To be fair, a few candidates surfaced, boys with some romance in their hearts, but as more details emerged, they were either taken already or they had too much romance in them. One wanted a wife, and he wanted a wife now. Another was already dangling three girlfriends and would have taken me on as his fourth. He loved his three women too much to ever settle on one. I almost hooked up with him. After all, he met all three of my criteria, but one of his girlfriends arrived and scurried him away with her.

I decided another romantic I met was gay, or at least bi with a preference for men. Strangely enough, he wasn't aware of his sexual preference. He'd never been with a man. I located a gay guy and introduced them to each other. It was the least I could do.

The other candidate turned out to be a mama's boy. I passed.

A stunningly beautiful woman hit on me. I wasn't even tempted. If I ever became curious enough to try sex with a woman, I'd jump Barbie's lovely bones.

Like I said, the party was a bust.

Saturday afternoon, I was thinking about Saturday night, lamenting the fact that I'd probably curl up and watch a rented movie with my dad when the doorbell chimed.

I peered through the peephole in our front door, and a slightly distorted, round view of Jason met my eye. My heart went pity-pat, and my brain told me to tell him to go away. I opened the door.

"I came to apologize," he said. "Will you at least listen?"

"Come in."

I took him to the kitchen and fixed him a root beer. I even used the frosted mug from the freezer I'd planned to use for our ill-fated luncheon, and then sat across from him at the kitchen table with an iced tea. Unlike Jason, caffeine didn't bother me, and I liked iced tea, unsweetened with just a small squeeze of lemon.

He gulped at the root beer, sighed deeply and said, "From the moment I met you, Katy, I've made one mistake after the other. One, I considered you too young for me, and in truth you're probably more mature than I."

"Not really," I said.

"I've memorized what I want to say, Katy, so please don't interrupt me, or I'll lose my mental place," he said and flashed his goddam boyish grin at me.

I felt my pussy start to cream. Maybe letting him in was a mistake on my part. "Okay," I muttered and rested the cold glass against my face to cool me off. It cooled the side of my face but did nothing for my pussy.

"Two," he said. "I was afraid I'd break your heart if we had a short affair and I left you next Tuesday. You clarified that issue, but before our night was finished, I realized I might be the one with the broken heart when it came time for me to leave. I'll have more to say on this mistake later.

"Three. I believed you were sexually experienced. Instead you were a virgin. After my one previous experience with a virgin, I made a personal vow to avoid another. The experience was a disaster, both during and after the event. She became demanding, clinging... actually, her behavior was a lot like Claudia's yesterday. My experience with you was just the opposite. You were a natural. You turned what was quickly developing into a messy situation into the most memorable sex I've ever had. You started to move on me like a novice, and without prompting, turned awkward into pure grace. You turned pain into utter pleasure for both of us. You were amazing, Katy. You even had the courage to ask me to touch you so you could climax, and your orgasm was so beautiful, I ignored mine to watch yours. Then when I climaxed, you joined me with another of your own, which made me feel... I don't know, special, I guess."

He drained the mug of root beer. "Now comes the tough part. My fourth mistake was a doozy. I blamed you for Claudia's distraught condition. My fifth mistake - believing Claudia when she accused you of having sex with Barbie - relates to the fourth, so I'll discuss both at the same time. What I have to say is neither an excuse nor an attempt on my part to get you to change your mind about me. What I did was unforgivable, but I believe you should know why I took Claudia's side over yours."

"Would you like another root beer?"

"Please."

I poured the fresh root beer into the other frosted mug from the freezer and sat down at the table again, this time at his side. My college boy was winning my heart again.

"After you threw me out of your house yesterday afternoon, I looked inside myself to try to understand why I behaved so badly. You were right when you said my instincts stink, at least regarding what happened yesterday, but usually my instincts are right on. My reflective self-analysis surprised me. I was falling in love with you, Katy, and I was frightened. I was afraid five days with you would ruin me for other women."

"Hogwash," I said. What amazed me was he actually believed what he was telling me.

"I know it sounds farfetched, but it's the truth. When Terry and I stopped to help Claudia, I asked her why she was crying, and she told me she went to see you about something, but you'd refused to even speak with her, which gave me the out I was looking for. In my mind, making you less desirable than you are solved my dilemma. You weren't perfect anymore. You had a mean streak in you. Then Claudia accused you of having sex with Barbie. I glommed onto that fact like a starving man with a haunch of beef. You were mean, and you were bisexual. Frankly, the latter doesn't bother me, not in a female, but I twisted the misinformation Claudia spouted even more. I decided you'd deceived me by not telling me about your true sexual preference. Armed with these imperfections, I could spend my time here with you without falling head over heels and go away a happy man."

He gulped more root beer, draining half the mug, while I listened to his thoughts. He was telling me the truth, at least as he saw it. Now I had a dilemma. Jason didn't fit my third criteria anymore. I gotta tell ya, my pussy didn't care.

"Anyway, I acted abominable. I'm not asking or expecting you to forgive me. I just wanted you to know why my instincts flew out the window, why I acted so badly."

"Jason, I picked you for my first for three reasons. You're a romantic by nature, my first criteria. In other words, you wanted more than a piece of ass. You were sexually proficient, my next criteria. Boy, oh, boy, did you ever fit that specification! And, I believed you fit my third criteria, too. You had to leave in five days, so I wouldn't need to deal with a long-term, emotionally fraught relationship. You were right when you said I was too young for you, Jason. I'm not ready to fall madly in love. I don't want to deal with the problems that would come my way if you fell in love with me. I want a short-term, very intense love affair. Period. I want the affair to be romantic, so love is important, but I don't want the love we feel for each other to get in the way for either of us when you go away. I'm not so sure you fit my third criteria any more, Jason."