Chapter 6

Bobby didn’t intend to be quite as “straight” with Agatha as she’d been with him. She’d told him all her secrets, but he only intended to talk about things she didn’t know about him ... that might affect her.

Agatha pulled the covers up to her neck, instinctively.

“May I come in?”

She couldn’t speak. He was already in! Her mind was trying to process what he’d meant. He took a few steps toward her and her eyes widened.

“I just want to talk,” he said.

She stared at him.

“Can I sit down?”

His eyes went to the edge of the bed she was lying in. There was no chair nearby, so his meaning was obvious. She felt her body tremble and realized she was terrified. She visualized something inside her saying, “Get a grip, Agatha!” and tried to relax.

“What about?” she whispered.

“Us,” he said. He still hadn’t sat.

Her mind danced all around that small two letter word. What “us” was he talking about?

“Why do you think I asked you to do things with me?” His question was soft and she had to strain to hear it. She thought back to that night in the park, when he’d stopped to talk to her.

“You said you wanted to get to know me,” she said.

“I understand now why you accepted,” he said. “I thought you wanted to get to know me too. I thought both of us were trying to understand the other side a little better.”

She felt a stab of guilt, because she knew he really had been trying to get to know her ... while she was plotting against him.

“I know you feel guilty,” he said. “But I don’t want you to.”

She almost sat up, so astonished was she. He sat, suddenly, on the edge of the bed. She tensed, but his hands were in his lap, so she relaxed.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because we did get to know each other a little bit,” he said. “And that did affect the way you thought about me ... us. And you decided not to do what you originally planned. You took the time to look more closely and it was good for both of us. It doesn’t really matter what you planned to do, because the end result was positive.”

She tried to wrap her mind around his reasoning. It sounded so logical, but there had to be something wrong with it. If she explained it to Ethyl that way, Ethyl would laugh and say she’d just been fooled.

But she knew she hadn’t been fooled. They hadn’t put on an elaborate act, like she had. They’d all just been themselves and welcomed her, despite the fact that she thought they were all ... She didn’t like the words that came to mind, so she stopped thinking about that.

“You put on an act,” he said.

She tensed again. How did he read her mind like that?!

“But I did too,” he went on. “And I owe it to you to tell you that.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I thought about seducing you,” he said.

She stopped breathing, until her lungs couldn’t take it, and she gasped. He looked away.

“That isn’t really the right word,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually seduced anybody.” He wasn’t thinking of his sisters. “It’s more like I got to know a woman, and liked her, and she liked me too, and we just gave in to our normal urges.” He looked back at her. “You probably think it’s wrong to do that.” He looked away again. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I might be guilty of some of the things you didn’t like about me when we first met. I’ve been resisting the urge to flirt with you ... putting on an act ... just like you did.”

He smiled a funny crooked kind of smile.

“It’s ironic, kind of, when you think about it. You were pretending to be interested in me and I was pretending that I wasn’t interested in you.”

Agatha’s mind was whirling. There was so much to think about, all at the same time. He’d almost ... not quite, but almost ... admitted that he catted around with different women. That played to her old passions that involved judgment and condemnation. But he’d said he wanted to flirt with her too!

That played to passions she didn’t even know were inside her. Still, he had admitted that he had been concealing his true thoughts and that made her wary. What else was he concealing? Why was he telling her all this?

“So I wanted to apologize to you too,” he said.

She couldn’t figure out what he was apologizing for. Merely controlling one’s libido wasn’t anything to be sorry for. He hadn’t actually lied to her, like she had to him. He’d said he was pretending he wasn’t interested in her, which didn’t make sense, because he kept taking her places.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “If you were pretending you weren’t interested ... why did you keep asking me to do things with you?”

“I like being around you,” he said.

That astonished her. “Why?” she asked.

“You’re different than other women I know,” he said. “You’re a little stuffy and we believe different things ... think about things differently ... but I think that’s what makes you so interesting.”

Part of her mind told her she’d just been insulted, but another part suggested that he’d merely overlooked what he thought of as flaws, which was an odd kind of compliment. He stood up suddenly and she flinched.

“Anyway,” he said. “I just wanted you to know that both of us weren’t being entirely honest. I think we really have started over now. I hope we can still be friends.”

He was going to leave. There was so much that was still murky and unsaid.

“You said you thought about seducing me,” she blurted.

He stood, his face passive.

“Yes.”

“Why?” she asked.

He smiled for some reason. “You’re young. You’re pretty. You lost your husband and are probably lonely.”

She was aghast.

“You’d take advantage of me like that?”

“It’s not taking advantage when you get to know each other and share something that makes both your lives more pleasant,” he said patiently. “I know you don’t think about it that way, but I do. If you came to want that ... needed that ... and I did too ... why would we deny ourselves the pleasure?”

“Because it’s wrong!” she gasped.

“Is it?” he asked. “Is it wrong to hold hands before you’re married?”

“You’re not talking about holding hands!” she said.

“Is it wrong?” he insisted.

“Of course not,” she said. “But...” He interrupted her.

“Is it wrong to share a few kisses before you’re married?”

She just looked at him.

“Come on, Agatha. We’re just having a conversation here. This is part of being friends ... exchanging ideas ... talking about thorny issues.”

“No,” she said, warily.

“How about hugs?”

“No.”

“Not even if you press your body against him?”

Her eyes narrowed. This wasn’t fair, somehow.

“Where do you draw the line?” he asked. “What is it you can’t do until you’re married?”

“Have sex!,” she said firmly.

“Isn’t kissing and hugging and handholding part of having sex?” he asked.

“Of course not,” she said.

“But all those things ... when you do them ... they make you want to have sex. I mean it’s not quite that simple, because you don’t want to have sex with every person you kiss, but the whole point is that if you want to kiss them, and hold their hands, and hug them, and touch them ... that kind of relationship usually evolves to the point where you also want to make love with them. That can be part of making love, the way I see it.”

“You’re confusing me,” she complained.

“I’m not confusing you,” he said. “You’re confusing yourself. You believe things that don’t make sense from my point of view. That doesn’t mean you’re wrong and it doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

“Somebody has to be wrong!” she objected.

“Why?” he asked. “If I wanted to kiss you, and hug you, and touch you, and you didn’t want that to happen, it would be wrong if I did those things. But if you did want them ... why would it be wrong?”

“If I did that my friends wouldn’t talk to me!” she said.

“So your friends are the ones who control what you can and cannot do?” he asked.

“That’s not fair,” she said weakly.

“You already said Ethyl won’t ever talk to you again, because she saw you with me. All we were doing was standing there talking. I don’t have any friends who would stop talking to me just because I took you to get a new furnace.”

“I know she’s not really a friend,” admitted Agatha. “I thought she was, but I know better now.”

“Then why do you care about her rules anymore?” he asked. “Why would you let what she thinks run your life? I’m not suggesting that means you should let me seduce you or anything.” He grinned and went on. “It’s kind of late for that anyway. I don’t think you can seduce someone who knows that’s what you’re trying to do ... but that’s not the point. You are young, and pretty, and interesting. You have a lot of life left to live and there’s no reason in the world you can’t have some fun and companionship while you live it. You could meet another man, fall in love again, have children. But you can only do all that if you let yourself do it, and stop worrying about Ethyl and everybody else.”

This time, when he turned to go, she didn’t stop him. She had too much to think about already.

After he left, she thought about everything he’d said. The last things he’d said were uppermost in her mind. She tried to imagine herself with a man, doing those things Bobby had suggested she could do ... falling in love ... having children ... spending time with this man doing fun things. The only men she knew were husbands of her friends and she couldn’t imagine herself with any of them. She hadn’t paid attention to any other men. She knew she’d seen them, but she’d ignored them.