Chapter 26 -- More Pressure!

But you will come to a place,
Where the only thing you feel,
Are loaded guns in your face,
And you'll have to deal with--
Pressure!

--Pressure (Billy Joel)

Kristen was in New England with Camille, helping Camille get settled in Providence. Most of Camille's college expenses were paid by scholarships, and Kristen and Will helped her out as well. Will's apartment was about an hour or so away and he made an offer to Camille that she could use his place to crash on long weekends if she just wanted to get away from school, or even if she just wanted to spend some quality time with Will.

I found myself missing Kristen for the two weeks she was gone. I turned down her invitation, since I was curious if Kristen would engage in a threesome with Will and Camille if I wasn't around. According to Kristen, they hadn't when I was there, and I wondered if I was sort of an anti-catalyst for that. If something happened, I knew that Kristen would tell me.

Even with Kristen gone, Lynette still was living at the apartment. Since I had never been happy with the whole "slave" thing, I didn't give her any orders at all. Instead, I simply asked if she would like to hug and snuggle at night, which we both seemed to enjoy. I found that I hated sleeping alone, and having her warm body available--even without engaging in sex--was very therapeutic.

June was also spending more time with me as she sensed my melancholia. It wasn't easy for her, since she was also spending time with Merry, getting her interested in being a cheerleader and helping her work out. While Kristen was gone, I asked both June and Lynette to wear clothes at the apartment, especially with Merry coming over so often. The two girls obliged me.

June found a practical solution to helping Merry: she invited Merry to spend nights together in the guest bedroom in the apartment. At first, my step-father wasn't entirely happy with the situation, but my mother pointed out that June was spending a lot of quality time with Merry, trying to get her focused on something. He reluctantly agreed to allow Merry to sleep over.

Merry noticed Lynette sleeping with me most of the time. I didn't comment on it, but June explained to Merry that Lynette was Kristen's friend, and that we both missed Kristen, and spending time together was our way of remembering Kristen.

I took the three girls to Vaughn's one night, using some of the house money as well as some money I received when I arranged a barter of a second electronic keyboard that Kristen picked up at the flea market for a multi-track TEAC open reel recorder and some extra cash.

For the first time ever in my memory, Merry refused the Belly Buster dessert at Vaughn's. When I asked why, she said, "Cheerleaders don't eat that shit."

When Merry said that, Lynette nearly choked on her iced tea.

When Lynette learned of June's attempt to help make Merry a cheerleader, Lynette got full on board as well. Merry would grow to hate Lynette, since Lynette wasn't acting as a big sister as June was, but as a hard driving coach instead.

"Let Jim sleep with that bitch!" I overheard Merry say one night when I was going off to the master bedroom to sleep with Lynette.

A few days before Kristen was due back, Lynette and I were playing pool. We were about evenly matched, and we played a number of games.

I heard the sound of running water, but ignored it for a bit. When I heard squeals of laughter, however, both Lynette and I went next door to investigate what was going on. We found June and Merry, naked in the communal shower, the two girls soaping and splashing at each other.

When Merry noticed that I was there, she tried to cover herself as much as possible. Lynette read the situation, and quickly pulled me out of the room.

Back in the pool room, I was furious. "How could June do that to me?"

"Do what?" Lynette asked me, confused.

"Take advantage of Merry like that!"

"Take advantage? They were taking a shower!" Lynette said.

"You know what goes on in those showers, Lynette!"

"They are just two friends, a little sister and a big sister, having fun."

"Sisters don't do that!"

"How the fuck would you know? I have an older sister, and we DID do things like that, Jim. We grow up hating each other, and then, all of a sudden, we're best friends."

"June was taking advantage of Merry!" I repeated.

Lynette shook her head. "You're the last person I would have figured for a prude, Jim."

Lynette left the game room, her disgust at me hanging heavy in the air.

Was I a prude?

I was laying on my bed in my bedroom. I refused dinner; I wasn't hungry. I was stewing about June and then how Lynette turned a blind eye to everything.

There was a knock on by bedroom door.

"Who is it?"

"June."

"Go away."

There was another knock.

"Go away."

June opened the door. "Jim, you know that I love you very much. I'm willing to do anything for you."

"Yeah? So what?" I said sullenly, still pissed as hell.

June sighed. "I'm giving you my notice. This is the last time you're going to see me here. You don't trust me, and you don't seem to want me to be with your sister. This won't be easy for me, but I'm leaving, effective now."

"Huh?"

"I'm leaving. You asked me to do something, I did it, and you now hate me for it. I didn't sign up for that."

Wait a minute! I was pissed at June. Why was she pissed at me?

"Don't go turning this around, June..."

"You turned it around, Jim."

"No, I didn't..."

June didn't want to argue. She just turned and left, closing the door behind her.

How the fuck did I just lose June?

Before I could even fathom what just happened, there was another knock.

"June?"

"It's Merry," Merry said, opening the door. "June's going to take me home."

"Wait!" I said, but Merry didn't wait. She left and the door closed again.

Lynette was next. "I'm leaving, too, Jim," she said. "Kris should be back tomorrow. Have her call me."

"Lynette! Please bring everybody back here!"

"They are leaving, Jim!"

"Get them, please! I don't want this!"

Lynette looked at me for a moment and then left. I didn't know if she was going to get June and Merry back, or if she was going to just leave.

About five minutes later, June came back into the room alone. "What do you want?"

"Can you explain to me what was happening in the shower?"

June stared at me for a few moments. "We just did a long workout outside, doing the moves that Lynette recommended. Merry and I wanted a shower, but I figured that using the upstairs one together would be too close. Merry never saw the downstairs one, so I showed it to her. She ran over and turned off my hot water, and I did the same to her. She was throwing a face cloth at me and you came into the shower, all hot and bothered."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"Why didn't you tell me?" I demanded.

"Why didn't you ask either of us?" June countered.

"June, Merry is very special to me. I don't want anybody hurting her. I thought you might be taking..."

"Taking advantage of Merry?" June said. "That's why I can't live with you any more. You really think that I'd do that to that wonderful girl? I know how you feel, and we have a rule, don't we? If somebody wants to do something with somebody else, and there are partners involved, then the partners have to approve. Isn't that right?"

"Yeah..."

"Do you think I'd violate that rule? Have I ever done so?"

"Oh, I'm such a fucking idiot! Lynette tried to tell me that I was going off the deep end, and I wouldn't hear it. What's happening to me?"

June no longer looked confrontational. Instead, she looked maternal. "You really miss her, don't you?"

I got out of bed, and hugged June. I don't know how long I cried on her shoulder.

I said, "I'm sorry" to June, Lynette, and Merry, in that order.

Merry was the most confused of all. Her hair was still wet from her interrupted shower.

"Merry, can I make it up to you?" I asked.

"You missed Kristen, so you got mad at June?" Merry said, confused, without answering my question.

"Love makes you do stupid things," I admitted.

"Make it up, how?" Merry asked.

Conversations with Merry were seldom linear.

"Do you want to finish that shower?" I asked her.

"Downstairs?" Merry could get linear when she was interested in the answer.

"Downstairs."

"That's cool. It's like in school!"

"Do you want to finish it?"

"With June?"

"With June."

"All right."

I watched June and Merry head out of the apartment with fresh towels. Kristen had a nearly complete set of shower supplies down there, with a closet that had refills and replacements as necessary.

"Want to join them?" I asked Lynette.

"Not a good idea," Lynette said.

"Huh?"

"You made Merry afraid of you today. You'll need to wait. Trust me, Jim."

I nodded. "I'm such an asshole."

"It makes you more human."

"I don't want to be a human asshole. I want to be a regular guy."

"You have Kristen. You'll never be a regular guy. Even if you couldn't play a note."

"Thanks, Lynette."

"Tomorrow, I'm Pussy Slave."

"Not if Merry is still here."

"Yes, Jim, but it's Kristen's decision."

I ignored Lynette's implication. "Do you think that I'd scare Merry?"

"Kristen usually seems to have a sense of what needs to be done at the right time. Camille is smart and is also like that, most of the time. Your friend Patty seems to have a perfect record. I know how lucky you are, Jim."

"Lucky Asshole?"

"Those three people are your anchors. None of them are leaving you. Camille is going to New England, but she'll be with Kristen's brother. Patty is working at the pizza joint. Without those friends of yours, you are starting to fly off in all directions."

"That's poetic," I said dejectedly.

"I wanted to be a teacher or a dancer. Kristen has me going to school and majoring in business. What do I know about business?"

Lynette changed the subject, I noticed. I think it was a good idea.

"I think Kristen has plans for you," I said.

"She has plans for you, too."

"Oh?" I laughed. This wasn't news to me.

"You are going to live your dream. You will be bigger than the Beatles, and Kristen is going to be there, saying, I was a part of this."

"Success in music isn't a certainty."

"You don't know Kristen very well. You thought you were trying to manipulate her a couple of months ago, but she's manipulating you to get her to be a part of your success. You are thoroughly in her clutches and she won't let go. I tell you this because I love her as much as you do."

"I know how much you love her," I said, softly.

"The cheerleaders never had as good a friend as you," Lynette said.

"How does that follow, Lynette? Everybody loves the cheerleaders."

"Camille told me what you did with that nerd. You pointed out Sherry to Camille. You're the only heterosexual male that attended the lesser initiation that didn't try anything with the cheerleader he was sponsoring."

"Sherry was just a friend."

"We intentionally put her in a vulnerable situation with you, and you fucked up her initiation! You were supposed to take advantage of her, but instead, acted like the perfect gentleman. Camille was so nauseatingly smug about it that I would have liked to kill her. If Camille didn't vouch that you were heterosexual, there would have been gossip."

I laughed. "Sherry wouldn't have appreciated me taking advantage of her."

There was no humor in Lynette's eyes. "Sherry would have taken it in all three holes from you, and paused for pictures at every point."

I shook my head. "Some people have a weird sense of priorities."

"You are the most wonderful man I've met, and yet you have an inferiority complex."

"Who are you in love with, Lynette? Kristen or me?"

"Both of you."

"You were willing to leave me before."

"You're not perfect, Jim. You're the best guy I've met, though."

I sighed. It was difficult to think when your heart was tugging you in every direction at once.

I didn't meet Kristen at O'Hare.

It wasn't my fault. I woke up in time. June was in my bed with me. She felt me stir, and whispered, "You awake?"

"Yeah," I said, not realizing the mistake I just made.

"Great!" June said, happily. Her head descended on my prick, sending me into exquisite torture.

"So, this is what it's like to die," I said, half to myself.

"Your Goddess is arriving in a couple of hours," June said. "I have my orders. Cunt Whore is supposed to keep you here until she arrives. I will do whatever I have to do to keep you in this bed."

"You're not Cunt Whore anymore. You don't need to..."

"Cunt Whore has to," June said, seriously. "Let Kristen make her own entrance. You can tell her about your decision later, but since she doesn't know the new rules, I'm reverting to the old ones."

June went down on me, and did her damnedest to make sure that I'd not be able to come again for a while.

After she was done, I looked at her laying next to me. I said, "How do you do it?"

June and I laughed for about ten minutes straight at that.

I was teaching Merry the little I knew about pool.

I decided to show Merry the quadruple bank shot Camille used against Kristen months ago. I practiced that particular shot in secret, and I was about eight out of ten with it. Camille advised that trick shots should be nine out of ten, though, but I ignored her advice. I set up the shot and took it. I made it through four banks, but the angle on the last bank wasn't quite right.

"That's stupid," Merry said. "Why didn't you just shoot straight across?"

"Good question, Shortcake!" I said, cursing myself. I tried to make myself look like a great pool hustler and ended up looking like a really stupid asshole.

"Rack 'em up, Jim."

I racked them up, and allowed Merry to break. She wasn't bad, but she wasn't a great player. However, whenever I tried to be fancy, like take an unnecessary bank shot, I'd miss. It made the game quite close.

"Eight ball on the opposite side pocket," I called. I took the shot, and made it.

"Cool!" Merry said. "Can we play for stakes?"

"Like what?" I asked, innocently.

"Article of clothing per game."

"No strip pool, munchkin!"

"Munchkin?"

"Sorry, Shortcake."

"Get us straight. Call June Munchkin!"

June? She wasn't that small. "She's the same size as you!"

"I heard she could munch, though."

I started wondering what my own step-sister knew about the women in my life.

How do you explain it when the love of your life walks into your playroom, and sees you naked except for boxers, and your kid sister in her bra and panties?

This was the situation that I was in when Kristen arrived. To my credit, Merry had four solids on the table, whereas I only had the eight ball to worry about.

Merry took her shot, and nothing went in. (We called this the "poke and hope" shot, which is an expression that Camille taught us.)

The position that Merry left me was perfect. It was a straight hit into the side pocket. I knew that side pockets were a bit more difficult than corner shots, but I lined it up and knew that I was perfect.

I lined up the shot, remembering Camille's instructions on how to exert more control of the cue.

"Fifty bucks says he's going to miss!" Kristen said.

I glared at my blonde Goddess, and realigned my shot.

"Five thousand says he's going to make it."

I didn't know that Camille came back--I thought that she was going to stay in New England. I looked back and saw her. She just smiled at me.

"Five thousand, one shot," Kristen agreed.

I refused to acknowledge what the girls were doing around me. I lined up the shot once again, and closed my mind to all distractions. I pulled the cue back and shot...

Plunk! I made it!

"Five thousand, Goddess!" Camille laughed.

"You've got it, Cammy," Kristen said.

"What do you say now?" Camille prodded.

Kristen looked at me and said, "I'm sorry, Jim. I won't bet against you ever again."

"Maybe you just shouldn't bet against Cammy, Kris!"

Kristen looked at me, then at Camille, and then at me. "I think you have found the winning strategy!"

Merry started reaching behind her back in a motion that I recognized that a girl does when removing her bra. It took me a few minutes to explain to Merry that I really didn't want her to lose any more of her clothes.

Apparently, after lunch was the "How Big An Asshole Was Jim These Past Two Weeks" competition. All the girls spent a lot of time relishing my clay feet and my lack of trust.

If I wanted to feel the way I was feeling, I could just have Archy come over and call me a serial rapist again.

Patty noticed how I was feeling first. "Girls, Jim doesn't need all this shit on him."

Unfortunately, the girls ignored Patty.

When June started going on about the shower episode with Merry, I had my fill.

"FUCK YOU ALL!" I shouted. "I made a fucking mistake. I apologized, and I have to relive this shit?"

I left the room, and walked out into the parking lot. I walked home. I saw cars coming along the road where I was walking. In every case, I found that I could duck onto the side of the road in case it was one of the girls.

Merry was home when I got there. I glared at her, daring her to say anything. I think it worked, as she didn't say anything.

For the first time in months, I slept in my bed in my parents' house and I didn't want to leave.

It turned out that my ally, other than Patty, was Merry. Both girls seemed to know how I felt, and they both thought that I was wronged.

Merry had a solution for my problem. She kept everybody from me, period.

There were many people at the front door of our house. My mother's instinct would be to invite them in, but Merry would give her a look as if doing so would be inviting a deadly plague into our house.

Nobody, not even June or Kristen, could get past Merry.

I woke up alone the next morning.

If that statement doesn't seem important, you should realize that statement hadn't applied to me since I moved into Kristen's apartment after her birthday party.

Well, at least, I'm back in my own home, I thought. My parents are good people. They wouldn't turn on you like those people I thought were my friends.

I saw Merry at the door to my room. "Are you awake?" Merry whispered.

"Yeah," I answered.

"Everybody came over," Merry said. "I told them to fuck themselves. I just told them what you told them. Mom and Dad didn't seem to get angry."

"I love you, Shortcake."

Merry beamed at me.

"Um, Patty's downstairs."

"Oh?" Patty was the one person who wasn't on my shit list. I could never refuse Patty anything. "Send her in."

Merry left and a minute or so later, Patty came into my room.

"Patty! Why do they hate me?"

"Jim, you don't take criticism well."

"I love criticism," I said, truthfully. "It shows my weaknesses and I address them in my next project."

"What if the project is life?" Patty asked.

"Huh?" I asked, not following Patty.

Patty shut the door to my room. "How were you criticized, Jim?"

"I'm a serial rapist. I don't trust my own friends, I am the worst..."

"Enough," Patty said. "You're back to where you were when you got pissed off."

"No, Patty," I said, sadly. "We're back to where I was being attacked."

"You don't take personal criticism very well."

"Kristen was on their side, laughing. I thought she understood me. How could she take their side?"

"I can't answer that, Jim," Patty answered. "You'll have to ask her yourself."

"I won't," I said. "If she doesn't take my side then she's against me."

"That stupid and paranoid, Jim," Patty said.

"Patty, I trust you of all people. Was leaving the apartment wrong?"

Patty paused, considering her answer. Finally, she said, "I saw you getting angry, and I knew that you were about to blow up. June and Lynette really don't know this side of you. You are in a difficult position with many people thinking you're nearly perfect, and you disagree with that. This blow up was destined to happen."

"That wasn't an answer to my question," I pointed out.

"You were probably right to feel the way you did. You were wrong to leave. Jim, nobody knew how you were feeling. You didn't say anything. You started to withdraw into yourself, and I saw it, but nobody else did. I didn't want you to blow up like that."

"I slept alone last night."

"So did Kristen. Kristen cried herself to sleep."

I might have thought that everybody was against me except Patty and Merry, but hearing that about Kristen put all that behind me. "She did?"

Patty nodded. "Kris is out in my car. Merry won't let her in. Your sister protects you like a pit bull, Jim."

"What should I do, Patty?"

Patty shook her head. "Jim, you are a good person. Trust your instincts."

"Which means?"

"How are you feeling right now?"

"I think maybe I went too far."

"I was there at lunch yesterday. Do you want to know why all those things were brought up? People were trying to tell Kristen how great you are. You only heard the bad things, like June explaining how you overreacted to finding her in the shower with Merry. June wasn't telling that story to highlight your failing. She told it to highlight the ending: you fixed it. Can you understand that?"

"I thought..."

"Every time you do something wrong, it sticks in your mind. You find a solution and make things better, and at that point, the entire episode shouldn't be a bad memory. You seem to dwell on the first part, though. You constantly dwell on how you nearly destroyed Kristen's life, but you don't think much about how both your life and hers have gone for the better since that time."

There was a knock on my bedroom door. It was Merry.

"Hello, Shortcake!"

"Kristen says she's sorry."

"Kristen didn't do anything wrong," I said.

"Oh," Merry said, confused. "Wasn't she on the shit list?"

I looked up at Patty. "I took it out on Kris, didn't I?"

Patty nodded.

"Tell Kris I'll be right down, Shortcake."

I threw the covers off the bed, not caring that Patty saw my nakedness. I found a clean but old pair of jeans and a faded T-shirt.

I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth--I didn't want to make a bad impression on Kristen.

Patty and I went downstairs, and Kristen was in the living room.

"Hi, Kris," I said.

"I'm sorry, Jim," Kristen said. "I didn't mean..."

"Let's leave it at 'I'm sorry, ' and I'll add my own: I'm sorry."

Kristen and I kissed.

The love of my life looked at what I was wearing. "How old are those jeans?"