Chapter 23

I slumped onto the couch. With Sherri's departure, that made three. Three women who'd walked out on me. Rejected me.

Although, to be fair, Sherri hadn't really rejected me the same way as Sharon and Tina. She'd just pulled back. That could be her as much as it was me.

It still hurt.

But I didn't hurt as much as I did before I'd met Sherri. She was right—telling my story had helped. I could see how things hadn't entirely been my fault. That didn't mean I was blameless, but there was plenty of blame to go around. Certainly Sharon's role looked a little different now, rather than how it'd looked when I'd first called Sherri.

As did Tina's. In hindsight, I was embarrassed at how clueless I'd been. She'd clearly fallen in love with me while I'd been living in Tucson, but I'd been blind. Rather, I'd been too busy looking to get out of Tucson to really see her. I'd tagged her as a too young wedded-to-Arizona 'friend with benefits' to pay attention to who she really was, deep down. She deserved better, much better than the way I'd treated her.

And there was that phrase, 'friends with benefits, ' again. I shook my head ruefully. I didn't know what it meant anymore. I'd done more sexually with Sherri than with Sharon, but would be hard pressed to call us 'friends.' The word was too general to really mean anything to me.

Words, words, words. Hamlet's rant about words was certainly on target. They didn't mean much and were easily misunderstood.

I snorted softly. They weren't the only things that could be misunderstood. Sherri had found me distraught and drunk on wine and jumped to the conclusion that I was suicidal. No such chance. In 'to be or not to be, ' I was definitely 'to be.' I didn't have Hamlet's indecisions, despite joking about it from time to time.

I froze and my heart pounded. It wasn't a joke. I did have Hamlet's indecisions. What had Sherri said—my over-thinking is what made me unattractive? That I needed to be more decisive—take more pages from Allen's book and just go for it?

Oh, God. What a horrible thought. I was Hamlet!

I'd first met Shakespeare's indecisive prince in junior high. I'd gotten a book on the Danish astronomers Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, which I'd devoured again and again. I loved the idea of Kepler boldly proposing new theories that revolutionized astronomy. I'd said as much to my dad one night, as we huddled hear the telescope, waiting for some clouds to clear so we could look at Jupiter.

My father had smiled at my enthusiasm. "More bold than his fellow Dane, then. Hamlet."

Seeing my confusion, he explained the basics of Shakespeare's tale. The next day, he loaned me his college text for me to read myself. I struggled with it, but finished it out of stubbornness, more than anything. Hamlet was a wimp, I decided. He wasn't heroic like Luke Skywalker or Captain Kirk. My father had laughed at that observation and told me to read Henry V. I loved it, and I loved Prince Hal and the way he'd ruled and won the decisive battle of Agincourt. By then, the Elizabethan English wasn't too tough, and so I read another play. Over the next few months, I finished the entire tome, making me the only twelve-year-old I knew to have read Shakespeare's entire canon.

I'd dreamed about being Prince Hal, but somewhere along the line, I'd turned into Prince Hamlet.

Now I was disgusted with myself. And the disgust drove out the self-pity.

No more vacillating. I needed to act.

It might not change anything with the women, but it'd be better than going quietly into the night. It might end up being the Alamo instead of Agincourt, but better to go down fighting. It's what Allen would do. It's what I needed to do.

So, what was first? If I was going to fix things with the women, I needed to start somewhere.

First was getting off this couch. A little exercise would help me shake the tenseness in my body and might even help me think more clearly.

I threw on my coat and decided to walk down to the 7-Eleven. It was about two miles round trip, which ought to be plenty. I locked up my apartment, and headed down the same steps Sherri had taken just a little while before.

At first, my thoughts swirled and flitted from subject to subject. But I'd done this circling before and quickly recognized the old ruts. I needed new ground, even if I just ended up making new ruts there.

So what would be new?

Sherri was new, I realized. There hadn't been time to create mental ruts about her.

So, what did I want from Sherri?

I thought about it for a while, slowly trudging down to the store. I bought a quick scratch-off lottery ticket to justify the destination. When I didn't win anything, I turned around and started back.

I wanted several things, I realized. I knew I wanted her approval, but I wasn't going to get that unless I stopped being Hamlet.

I also wanted her help. Talking things out had helped, and I was going to need someone to bounce ideas off of before I tried once more to fix things with Tina or Sharon. Allen might be able to help, but Sherri would certainly have perspectives neither he nor I would.

But then, I was curious about her brother now, and in fact wanted to hear her entire story. She'd continually promised she'd tell me when I'd finished mine. I wanted to hold her to her promise.

I also needed to be honest with myself. I wanted to have sex with Sherri. I'd loved the blowjob and I wanted another one. I also wanted to feel her legs wrapped around me as I plunged my cock into her. It wasn't an overwhelming desire, but it was there. Better to acknowledge it up front, than let it seep in and poison things. I'd already been down that road once.

I arrived back at my apartment a little chilled, but a lot calmer. I didn't quite know what all lay ahead, but I knew the next step.

That afternoon, I called Sherri's agency. I asked for a dinner date with her, and they said her next night working was Friday. I said that would work and I'd meet her at the Union Station Center Café. I told them she should look for a well-dressed man holding a red rose and that my name was Joseph. They asked me to confirm the appointment again on Friday and I agreed. Then I hung up the phone and settled onto the couch, this time with a smile.

The next couple of days went quickly, but comfortingly steady. It was like those first days back in the office after the flu. The in-box is full and there's a ton of work to do, but just being there is gratifying. I settled into a groove and cranked out a lot of good code in a surprisingly short amount of time.

Friday night I arrived at the restaurant early, wearing my suit, holding the biggest rose I'd been able to find at the florist. I let the hostess seat me, a little nervously, because I didn't want to miss Sherri when she arrived. I also hoped to see her before she saw me.

I wasn't that lucky. I sensed someone behind me and turned to see her smiling at me, clearly amused.

"Hello, Joe," she said. "I suppose I could have guessed that you'd be 'Joseph.'"

"Guilty," I said, standing up. "With the way you left, I wasn't sure you'd show if I just said it was Joe. Besides, I wanted to surprise you."

I handed her the rose, and then nodded my head to where the envelope with her fee sat discreetly on the table. Her eyebrows rose when she saw it.

"Time and companionship, I believe?" I said.

She smiled and nodded, her eyes not losing their ironic twinkle. I didn't know if I should risk trying for a hug, so I just stepped back and pulled her chair out. She graciously seated herself and let me push her chair back in. By the time I'd returned to my side of the table, she'd pocketed the envelope of cash.

"So," she began. "How are you doing?"

"Pretty well," I said. "And you?"

"I'm doing fine."

"Good."

Sherri waited for me to go on, but I just smiled and didn't say anything. She waited some more, before picking up her water glass and taking a sip.

"So," she asked, her tone business-like. "What do you want? Do you want me to help you fix things?"

"Eventually," I said. "But there are other things I want first."

"Like?"

"You told me to decide what I want and be assertive in chasing it. So I'm doing that." I paused for dramatic effect. "What I want is to hear your story."

She chuckled. "That wasn't what I was expecting."

I looked a question at her.

"Well, I was expecting you to explain why I shouldn't be mad at you."

"Are you mad at me?"

"No." She grimaced. "But I did lose a lot of respect for you toward the end of your story."

"That makes two of us."

She arched her eyebrows.

"I don't have a lot of respect for me, either. So I'm not going to try to justify why you should respect me."

She slowly nodded. "I was also expecting you to say you want my body."

"Oh, I want that, too. But later. First, I want to hear all about how an educated, attractive woman such as you ended up being the one to show up when a drunken sod called a few weeks back." I smiled to show that I was kidding.

She smiled back. Before she could speak, the waitress approached and asked what we wanted to drink.

"Iced tea," I said, winking at Sherri. "I've had enough wine recently."

Sherri ordered the same and the waitress left. She looked at me intently.

"You are in a surprisingly good mood," she said.

"Nervous energy," I said with a dismissive shrug. "But it won't last if we start talking about my problems. I want to hear your story."

Sherri smiled and pursed her lips. Whatever question she was about to ask faded, and she nodded.

"What part of my story do you want to hear?" she asked.

"All of it. Begin at the beginning. At least, that's what someone told me to do once."

Sherri chuckled. "Well, my story's not quite so long, but okay."

"Thanks."

She nodded. Then she took a sip of water.

"I've told you some of it," she began. "I grew up with my mother and little brother here in Maryland. Dad took off when I was very young and never wrote, or called, or had anything to do with us besides sending child support checks. Mom called him that 'lazy wimp bastard' more than once in front of me and my brother Danny. She made it clear that, after him, she had no use for men. But that was true for a lot of her life. My mom was—is, a professional Feminist."

"I didn't know there was such a thing."

She rolled her eyes. "Her phrase would be 'political activist.' Except she only worked for feminist organizations. She worked for NOW for several years, primarily in fundraising, but she also worked for NARAL, UUAW, and even for a couple of Congresswomen."

I raised my eyebrows. "That's a lot of different groups. I'm impressed."

"So was I, when I was younger. But when I got to high school, I realized it actually wasn't that impressive. There's an informal 'girls' network' here in D.C. Once you're 'in, ' you don't have to worry about getting a job—one of your friends will hire you for something. It's the same with all the other lobbying groups in town."

I snorted. "Sounds incestuous."

"Oh, it is. Particularly when you consider where congressional staffers get hired from."

"Or hired by later."

She nodded. "People pay attention to the Congress members, but often don't realize how powerful his or her staff is. The Representative doesn't have time to study up on all the issues they're going to be voting on, so they almost always ask a staffer to do the research and make a recommendation, which they almost always follow. My mom spent a lot of time wining and dining the staffers."

"I can imagine."

"Don't get me wrong," she said. "It's not all sleaze and shady influences. For a long time, Mom's job was getting the national members to write their Representatives. You'd be surprised how effective the squeaky wheel can be, when it's voters in their district."

"So how did all this politics affect you?"

She snorted again. "How does water affect a fish? I was immersed in it. I regularly helped stuff envelopes, even when I was little. When I was older, I made fundraiser calls and helped my mom's friends set up conferences and meetings. Then, in the evening, I'd sit around with them while they told war stories and bitched about the Neanderthal men they'd encountered that day."

"Must have been hard on your little brother."

Sherri fell silent and looked down at her menu. She took a deep breath and looked up.

"It had to be. Danny was always a quiet, sensitive kid and he'd just sit in the corner as our honorary 'aunts' disparaged anything that had a penis."

"Ouch."

"Oh, if they noticed him, they'd say that they didn't mean him. They'd say they were sure he'd grow up into a nice, sensitive guy. But often they'd forget he was there, particularly when they'd been drinking."

I grimaced and took a sip of my iced tea. I definitely needed to stay off the alcohol, at least for a while. The waitress came over and took our order. When she'd left, Sherri looked at me, more composed than she'd been so far.

"When I was twelve," she said, "I developed my first serious crush. She was handsome—she had this patrician air about her and these high cheekbones. I used to dream that she was a countess instead of just one of my mom's colleagues."

"Wait—'she'?"

Sherri smirked. "So how good is your gaydar, Joe?"

"Obviously not good enough," I muttered. "But you sleep with men."

"Sure. And sometimes I even enjoy it. But I don't fall in love with men. And I don't fantasize about men when I'm alone."

"So you're bi?"

"Bi, lesbian, straight—they're just labels. They're not who you are, and they don't do a good job of describing what you do. Or at least what I do."

"I can see that."

Sherri smiled over the rim of her glass before taking a drink. "So, anyway, I developed this crush on a woman who literally was old enough to be my mother, and it didn't take long for either her or my mom to figure it out. They both gently discouraged me from pursuing it, but it was my age that was the issue, not my gender."

I chuckled. "Well, I imagine a lot of your mom's friends were lesbians, too."

"Most of them," she said with a nod. "Of course, I didn't realize that when I was little. They were just my 'aunts' when they came over to visit."

"Was any of them your mom's lover?"

"Yes. A couple of them, at one time or another. Like I said, it was a 'girls' network, ' so it wasn't uncommon for women who'd broken up to make an effort to remain civil afterward. They handled it far more maturely than the breakups I saw happening between boys and girls at school."

"I'll bet."

"So," she continued, "since my age was the problem, I started checking out girls at school. I had my first girlfriend a couple of months later, right after I turned thirteen. I lost my virginity with Jenny, and discovered I really liked sex."

I laughed. "I'd figured out I really liked sex by thirteen, too, but I was reading Penthouse."

Sherri shot me a wry grin. "So was I."

I chuckled.

"Seriously," she said. "Mom wouldn't buy it for me, but she didn't get upset that I had it. Like I said, I had a lot of privacy to do whatever I wanted in my room, alone or with a lover, as long as I didn't disturb the rest of the house."