Chapter 5

We split the four-game series with the Sox and gratefully flew home Sunday night for a welcome open date on Monday to be followed by three night games against the Yankees.

I hadn't been called upon again in Boston, but the way the season was progressing, I felt comfortable that I would be getting into games with reasonable frequency. The current ridiculous .200 batting average didn't prey on my mind, because I knew I was only one hit away from .333. Early-season batting averages are entirely meaningless. It's only when you dig a hole for yourself with a lengthy slump in July or August that you start to lose sleep over it or start asking for hitting tips from the equipment guy in the clubhouse.

I concentrated on keeping my head in every game so that if I were suddenly called upon, it wouldn't feel like I was entering a dream sequence. Off the field, I worked on getting to know my new teammates a little better and on spending private time in the hotel room.

Thinking.

Thinking about Juniper Jones. How did I feel about her, exactly? I remembered one of my college courses in psychology -- it probably had been Psychology 101. An "approach-avoidance conflict," it was called, when Life handed you something to cope with that presented you with both highly positive and highly negative aspects.

Like a lot of stuff in psychology, giving something a name didn't seem to help much in clarifying what one ought to consider doing next. The answer seemingly always ended up being "It depends."

A couple of things, though, I knew. I knew that I had been unusually attracted to Juniper Jones right from the start. Despite her formidable height, her rail-thin figure, and her smart mouth, she'd been instantly appealing in a way that I couldn't really explain to myself but that I could -- and would -- acknowledge.

The sex had been incredible, and yes, I factored that in, too. Any guy would, I guess. You want a girl that you're confident really wants you -- right? You don't want to nurture a lot of nagging doubts about whether you're really what she wants or needs.

Juniper managed, pretty swiftly, to convince me that I was what she wanted.

Well. At least I had been at that moment.

But how meaningful is it, having a woman show you that she wants you, if you find out from credible sources (like the woman's own father) that she's a very nice girl and all, but, incidentally, she's also a slut.

So being "wanted" by Juniper Jones carried far less cachet than it perhaps would have if there had been fewer disquieting facts in evidence.

And I wasn't all that comfortable, anyway, with being only the most recent of what evidently was a pretty long line of lovers. That was especially true when I had to think about Juniper having sex with guys like Toby Marr.

Okay, I knew it was a juvenile attitude, but I thought about Toby and Juniper having sex, and all the bad stuff came rolling through my mind like somebody had just flushed a toilet inside my head.

Why -- first of all -- would any normal girl allow that cretin to get within eleven feet of her body? Sure, Toby was a good-looking guy, but his personality should have been like an instant bucket of cold water on any relationship.

Women, I knew, were a strange breed, but for the most part the women I knew had exercised some fundamental judgment about guys they agreed to have sex with. Even women who had lots of sex partners could usually be relied upon to pick and choose at least a little.

So that was a bad mark on Juniper in my mind. I mean, Jesus, the guy was poison!

And I thought about Toby Marr's big dick, too. Yeah, yeah, I know. Size doesn't matter and all that nonsense. But no amount of reassurance from the Other Sex is ever going to really convince a guy that it doesn't matter.

It's bad enough to speculate about whether your girl has slept with other guys, and maybe had found them more fulfilling (or just more filling) than she's found you.

But when you regularly shower with the rival guy, and the evidence is right there for you to see, even if you're trying not to look. Well, it makes you wonder.

And Franklin's description of Juniper's past exploits wasn't exactly comforting. Who were these faceless other guys -- some of them former Oriole players -- who'd also been there and done that before I had?

And how many were there? Was it "several" guys, or "lots" of guys? Dozens? How is a man supposed to feel about this kind of thing?

I knew what my normal response would have been. Stay away! This isn't the girl you're looking for. No fucking way. If you want a dynamite fuck, then sure, go back to Juniper, ask her out and find out whether every date ends up in your bedroom with the two of you banging away like rabbits.

That wouldn't exactly be a fate worse than death.

But maybe you ought to wear some protection. All those public service announcements hadn't been in vain. They told me that having sex with Juniper meant, essentially, that I was having sex with that indeterminately long parade of guys I was picturing -- the long line of guys she had tried on before me.

And I was having sex with all the women -- good, bad and indifferent -- that all those guys had screwed.

Risky business.

All this kind of garbage was barreling through my conscious and subconscious mind at all hours of the day and night. I was pretty good at shutting it down during the games, because I had years of experience in doing that and knew how essential it was to keep my head in the game.

But there was a lot of free time, a lot of bus trips to and from the ballpark, and down time in the hotel, and all those hours lying in hotel room beds, waiting for sleep to come, when a guy had more than enough time to ponder.

I pondered. Ponderously.

I knew I should just stay away. The sex was great, sure, but the downside of pursuing Juniper Jones was obvious.

Downsides. Plural. She was a slut, pure and simple. She might be great in bed. (Okay, she was great in bed.) She might be fun to talk to on a date. (Okay, she was.) She might be attractive and personable and articulate and amusing and...

But she was a slut.

So -- you think to yourself -- how important is it, really, that she's slept with all those other guys if she really does like you?

I mean, you got her off, right? She wasn't faking that orgasm! I'd bet on that. I'd bet my future winning World Series share on that!

So even if other guys had been there (even that fucking Toby Marr), and even if they, too, had given her great sex, it couldn't have been all that much better than what you had given her.

Couldn't have been ... Could it?

So maybe all those other guys, those past guys. Maybe they didn't matter all that much.

But then, where is it written down that Juniper Jones likes me so much she's now decided I'm her main man and wants me to have exclusive rights to all her future rolls in the hay?

She wants that on account of I'm such an incredibly handsome, virile, studly guy. On account of nobody else ever could take her to such heights of ecstasy as I did back in Bal'mer.

Yeah, right.

If she's the way they say she is -- not just Toby Marr but the way her own stepfather says she is -- how do I know that she's not in bed with some guy right this minute while I'm lying here in this Boston hotel room visualizing it?

Yeah, there she is. On her back, those incredibly long legs splayed way out in both directions, and there's this big, muscular dude between them, pounding away at her, missionary-style, and she's squirming and bouncing and obviously loving every in-stroke and every out-stroke, and she's screaming out her pleasure, unrestrained.

And of course the New Guy's got a much bigger weapon than I have -- bigger than Toby's even -- so that the next time Juniper's with me and we are doffing our duds and getting ready to have wild sex, she'll have to stifle a giggle when she sees my skinny little rod, not even capable of going -- boldly or otherwise -- where so many others have gone before.

It's bad enough being the last of many. Getting home and maybe finding out I maybe wasn't even the last?

That would be unbearable.

No. Far better to just ... stay away.

But what a terrible, terrible loss it feels like, deciding to just throw in the towel and let Juniper resume her apparently endless parade of casual lovers.

What if, maybe, the girl just needs to be loved?

My rudimentary knowledge of psychology suggested that, sometimes at least, promiscuity was nothing more than a reaction to not having ever been truly loved. Maybe this girl was just -- you know -- searching for someone who would love her.

Mr. Goodbar.

But even if she was, did I want to be the guy to take on the job of professing "love" for her? Hey, my problem -- so far -- was that she was just a girl I was interested in but who had disappointed me a little by turning out to be a bit too easy.

She hadn't made me work at it some, before she "gave in." And it wasn't like she'd just reluctantly "given in." Oh, hell, no! She had been the aggressor! And God knows she had given me a night to remember.

So I wanted to know more about Juniper. I wanted to see her again. Wanted to maybe talk to her mother.

Imagine that, discussing with Mom how best to approach a future relationship with her daughter, the slut.

And I'd already promised Franklin that before I tried to talk to Mary Jane, I'd discuss it further with him.

So there it was. Those were my choices. One -- don't try to keep up with the Joneses. Just say no.

Two -- go home, call Juniper, and if she's interested, take her home and fuck her again. With condoms, this time. Shake well. Repeat as necessary until one of you decides to call an end to it.

Three -- investigate whether maybe this girl deserves to be treated special ... Even if that's not the way she's been treating herself.

The only way -- I knew -- that the third option would make even a particle of sense would be if somehow Juniper regarded me as something more than just the most recent left fielder she'd slept with.

It was hard for me to see myself as "special." What's so special, after all, about being a college drop-out, fringe ballplayer with only a so-so past personal record with The Other Sex -- not to mention with "relationships" in general?

I'd always prided myself in being something of a realist. It's not that I went around putting myself down, but I wasn't sporting an inflated self-image, either. I was just this guy, you know? Regular, standard-issue guy. Nothing special.

I was dumb, though. Because flying back to Baltimore at dusk on Sunday, I pretty much committed myself to Option Three.

Don Quixote had nothing on me.

And I was going to have to go it alone. I didn't even have a Sancho Panza.

I didn't waste any time. When we landed at BWI I grabbed Franklin Jones while he was getting his luggage and walked him out to the parking garage.

"I'd like to kinda work on this thing a little -- try some stuff," I said. "With Juniper, I mean."

"What kinda stuff? What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I'm interested in the girl and I'm not prepared to just give up on her."

"So you're going to call her again?"

"Yeah. But not just to -- you know -- see if she wants to ... sleep with me. I want to try to set up something a little more solid than just that."

"Well, look, Travis, she's a big girl, you know? I can't stop you, whatever you do. Either one of you. But I already tried to warn you off a little. Don't think you're the first 'nice-guy' type who ever gave her a tumble. You're not. If you're thinking she's just waiting for Mr. Right to come along and tell her to clean up her act, well, I think it's going to be a little tougher than that."

"Is it okay with you if I talk to Mary Jane about it?"

"Well, there again. I'm not in charge of who my wife talks to. I'd surely prefer you didn't upset her, or maybe get her involved in some kind of conspiracy against her own daughter."

"Nothing like that. I just need ... I don't know. I need to know what the score is, going in. You know how you and Paul are always telling guys to keep their head in the game? Don't sit on the bench thinking about what they're going to be having for dinner later? It's like that here. If I'm going to try to deal with Juniper in the middle innings, I need to know how she got where she is now."

"Okay, go ahead and talk to Mary Jane all you want. But I'd prefer you try to keep me pretty much out of it, Trav. I mean, I've been part of Juniper's life for quite a while now, and we get along great. But this part of her life, it's something I haven't felt like I could deal with. Not even early-on, when her mother and I were just starting up.