Chapter 42 -- Personal Advice

Not guilty for being on your street,
Getting underneath your feet.
Not guilty... no use handing me a writ,
While I'm trying to do my bit.

--Not Guilty (George Harrison)

On Sunday morning, I woke up in bed, spooned against Lynette. I looked around, but Kristen wasn't in the room.

My movement alerted Lynette. She whispered, "Kris got up a while ago and went downstairs. She told me to keep you company."

Lynette and I kept each other company by kissing each other for about five minutes. After that, the two of us showered together. Lynette even allowed me to wash her hair.

As I got dressed, I thought about Lynette.

Lynette and I had, by this time, settled into a comfortable routine. Occasionally, Kristen would include me in her adventures with Lynette, and sometimes the two girls would do things without me. Of course, sometimes Kristen and I would do things together without Lynette.

I've always found that it difficult to explain the relationship between Lynette and me to other people. What I felt toward Lynette wasn't love--at least, if you define "love" to be what I felt for Kristen, my mother, or my sister. However, it was more than just friendship. After having Lynette being an intimate part of the relationship between Kristen and me for the last three months made it difficult to even conceive of a relationship with Kristen that didn't include Lynette.

It was plain to everybody that Lynette's real focus in her life at the current moment was Kristen and not me. Lynette had been close to Kristen for years, and once thought that a romantic relationship with Kristen was unachievable. After Kristen and I became a couple, Lynette somehow managed to become a part of our relationship. I'm not sure what happened, but whatever it was must have happened right before or during the Senior Weekend, because the Lynette that I knew up until that point would never have accepted the role of "Pussy Slave" to anybody.

Lynette once confided in me that she didn't think Kristen was capable of loving anybody else until she saw Kristen and me going together. This may sound heartless and mean, but I must admit that I thought the same way about Kristen before I got to know her better. Kristen always kept her personal life to herself and managed to appear aloof and superior to everybody else in school. Only now was I beginning to understand the (self-imposed) loneliness that she felt throughout her first eleven years of school.

Somehow, Lynette filled a need within Kristen that I couldn't fill. Maybe it was the fact that they were both female. Then again, it could be that Kristen felt free to dominate Lynette, which she may have felt that she couldn't do with me since I had the power of the tickets. Whatever it was, Lynette filled a very important need within Kristen, and likewise Kristen filled an important need that Lynette had. I remember this sort of relationship being described in biology class as a "symbiotic relationship," and I guess that's one way to describe it. Whatever it was, both Kristen, Lynette, and even I were much happier by the existence of the relationship between the two of them.

Likewise, Kristen and I shared a truly wonderful relationship, and it was pretty amazing that Kristen and Lynette's relationship didn't interfere with it, but augmented it instead. It made it even more special.

Both Lynette and I realized that Kristen was the main focus of our love, but there was also something quite consequential between the two of us that was there if you looked deep enough. The two of us were very much attuned to each other's feelings, and we could anticipate each other's moods to a point. Neither Lynette nor I would hesitate to stand up to Kristen on behalf of the other if one of us felt that Kristen did something wrong to the other.

Once I got out of the bedroom, the place felt lonely.

June went home that night, taking Archy to his parents. I guess they were thrilled that Archy was home for a quick visit. I knew that Kristen's "Uncle Jerry" would be taking Archy back to college this evening.

Last night, after June left, Sherry went home, but not before she gave me another one of her enthusiastic kisses in front of a rather surprised Lynette.

Cammy and Will were at the main house, and I remembered that Camille said that she needed to talk to me alone, a request that almost certainly had to do with the tickets.

Patty, who also told me she needed to talk with me, didn't have an opportunity to do so last night, and she promised before she left that she'd find some time before the weekend was over. I knew she was supposed to work at Roman's tonight, so that meant that she'd probably see me this afternoon.

Since Lynette--the one who did most of the cooking at the apartment--was still in the bedroom, I decided to skip breakfast, and peeled an orange that was in the fruit bowl in the kitchen and headed downstairs to the music studio as I ate the sections.

I went the long way downstairs, taking the stairs at the other end of the apartment so that I would walk by the billiard room to see if Kristen was perhaps playing another game of pool with Camille.

Instead of Camille and Kristen in the billiard room, I was surprised to see Patty sitting on the chair, listening to the soft and memorable strains of Stairway to Heaven on the record that Kristen and I were listening to yesterday afternoon.

"Hey, Patty! What's up?"

I think this was the first time that my presence ever startled Patty.

Patty recovered quickly, however. "Hi, Jim! Kristen told me that I could come over whenever I wanted today, and I felt that the two of us needed to talk."

I nodded.

"Kristen told you something that bothered you recently."

This was a statement, not a question. I've learned over the past year that Patty was like that.

I simply nodded at Patty.

Patty looked serious. "The only thing Kristen could have told you that would have upset you about me was what Kristen and I talked about before the two of you started dating."

Again I nodded.

"You have to realize that Kristen was suicidal, Jim!"

"Not to mention homicidal," I added glumly.

"She wasn't seriously going to kill you, and I doubt that she would have killed herself. She was trying to scare me."

"Patty, you are easy to talk to, but you aren't a psychiatrist! You can't make that kind of decision! That sort of thing is a matter of life and death!"

"Jim, you never realized how much Kristen prefers to be in control. She saw no future with you because she'd never be able to control you while she had the addiction."

"Kristen told me that yesterday. She told me that you said that if she killed me, she'd be a junkie without a fix. Some friend you are!"

I thought saying that would shock Patty, but I was mistaken.

"You think that I'm not your friend because I pointed out the truth to Kristen?"

"You're twisting my words around!"

Patty didn't respond, but just looked at me.

I stared at Patty, daring her to out-stare me. It was a child's game; I admit it.

Finally, I broke the silence. "I really thought you were my friend, Patty."

I slowly turned to walk away, feeling as if my best friend plunged a knife into my heart.

To her benefit, Patty didn't rise to the bait. Instead, she quietly said, "At that time, Kristen didn't have any friends, Jim. The only person she could talk to was her brother, who was living on the East Coast. I felt that Kristen needed a friend right then, and I tried to talk some sense into her. Can you really fault me for that? Isn't that what a friend is supposed to do?"

I stopped walking away. Patty did have a point. I sighed and said, "Kristen said you called her up and wouldn't take no for an answer."

"I did. I knew what she was going through. Kristen felt violated, and to her, what you did to her was even worse than what she thought happened to me."

Once again, I was at a loss. Patty's words were hitting me like a sledgehammer. I was barely able to choke out the word, "Worse?"

Patty shook her head slowly. "Look at it from her point of view. You know what you did to her. She felt humiliated to have to call my home and then Wendy's mother just to talk to me in order to set up a 'date' with you. Usually, I'm sensitive to these things, and I should have seen this when you crossed the line, but I must have been under the influence of a ticket. I was, wasn't I?"

Was Patty? My mind was a mass of confusion of mixed emotions and self-doubt. I tried to think what happened the day that I put Kristen under my power, and suddenly remembered that I gave tickets to Wendy, Camille, and Patty--and told them not to worry about how I was doing these things, but rather to think that I was pretty wonderful. "Oh, yeah," I said glumly, the realization hitting me.

Patty nodded. "That's probably why I couldn't think that you were doing something terrible, Jim. I didn't know it at the time, but I was feeling very guilty for allowing what happened to occur. When I heard her on the phone the next day, I realized that something was seriously wrong. I needed to do whatever I could to try to fix things."

"You keep saying things like that. You're sensitive to the tickets; you knew how Kristen was feeling. What are you telling me?"

Patty lowered her eyes. "I've never been able to tell anybody before. Let me see if I can do so now. If not, Jim, it's not because I don't want to."

My ears pricked up. Patty was teetering on the verge of answering a question that was on my mind for so long. I was genuinely curious. "Tell anybody what?"

Patty took a deep breath and said, "Camille and I have been best friends since, like, forever. Then something happened to her. Everybody knows her hair suddenly got lighter. She denied dyeing it, and eventually, everybody didn't think much about it. She also used to be an average student, but she started acing classes. She also started to become more popular at school, sleeping with her sister's friends, both boys and, it was whispered, girls. That was all very unlike her. I'd ask her what was happening, and she'd just shrug."

"Camille was under the influence of the tickets," I said.

"Right, but she didn't have them. Her sister did."

Patty knew about Debbie? I simply nodded to confirm this to Patty.

"I confronted Debbie and demanded to know what was happening. She simply laughed at me and handed me a ticket. This happened so fast that I couldn't ignore the ticket and run away. I was forced to take the ticket from her."

"What did Debbie command you?"

"I heard her words, Jim, and I can only tell you the last part." Patty closed her eyes and added, "I remember her saying, 'you will have no memory of what I've just said.' That was it. I left her house, and didn't worry about Camille's odd behavior much anymore. I started to take it for granted as if she was always that way--a slut, in her own words."

"OK..." I said, drawing the syllables out, hoping that Patty would continue.

"I have a hunch about one of Debbie's commands. I mean, when I saw the ticket that first time, everything within me told me to get away... run away... avoid it as if it were the plague! However, the next time I saw a ticket... in the store when you now had them... instead of getting that bad feeling, I eagerly took it, thinking that it would be fun. I knew what you were saying and what you were doing, and I just went along with it. I now think that Debbie must have made me feel that way."

That didn't follow what I understood of the tickets. When the tickets passed from Debbie to whomever was next... Camille? Anyway, commands made didn't continue, did they? But wait, what about the commands that Tim gave to Sherry... they transferred to me, didn't they?

"You're thinking of something," Patty said, looking at me.

"Do you remember what Sherry told us, about how Tim gave her a command and now she's forced to follow it with me? What if Debbie's command to you is now directed at me?"

Patty thought this over. "That could make sense. If Debbie told me to trust her, and that command is directed toward you..." Patty's voice trailed off.

I let the red haired girl think about this.

"Those things are... evil!"

"Yeah," I said with a sigh. "Tell me about it."

"You must destroy them!"

I shook my head. "Nope. That won't solve anything. Debbie got rid of them and now I have them. I got rid of Tim's tickets, and now Sherry feels she needs to give up her virginity to me."

The two of us were silent for a long time.

"The record's skipping."

Patty and I turned to see Lynette in the doorway. She was wearing only a robe.

How much did Lynette hear of our conversation? I looked wildly at Patty, and she shook her head a bit, but I didn't understand what she was trying to tell me. Was she indicating that Lynette didn't hear anything, or that she didn't know what Lynette heard?

"The record!" Lynette repeated. She moved over to the phonograph and lifted the tone arm, which was riding in the lead-out groove on side one of the Zeppelin album. "Kristen will kill you if you break that needle!"

Without thinking, I pointed to a small box to the right of the turntable. "There's another Shure cartridge in that box over there. I think the old one was about due for a change. The new one's a type III that I've been wanting to try out. Stereo Review gave it high marks."

"You want me to change Kristen's cartridge? Are you fucking nuts?" Lynette looked at me with an incredulous expression that made it look as if I just asked her to do heart surgery on herself.

"I'll do it later," I said, shrugging. "I have the screwdrivers in the studio, since that was the last place I replaced a cartridge."

Lynette picked up the record in between her palms, and carefully placed it into the paper record insert before putting it into the album cover. She placed the album in the wooden case, and switched the receiver so that it was playing a soft song from one of the FM stations.

"I'm going to the main house. I think Kris is with Cammy, and I want to tell Cammy all about the new routine that Sherry and I came up with for the squad."

"In your robe?" I asked.

Lynette opened her robe, revealing one of Kristen's designer bathing suits underneath.

I whistled appreciatively. "Give her my love," I said, softly.

Lynette smiled at me. "I'll give everybody your love, Oogie. I'm sorry for interrupting, Patty. I'll tell Kris and Cammy that you're here."