Chapter 7: Girlfriends

FEBRUARY 15, 2003, FRESHMAN YEAR

"I've fallen in love with someone else."

I stopped breathing. My heart stopped beating. The world shrunk down around us until nothing existed but me and her. And I looked ready to die.

Adrienne noticed my stricken look. She quickly hugged me while urging, "Ben, Ben, please understand."

My jaw waggled a few times before I forcibly stood up, my physical strength breaking carelessly through Adrienne's grasp. And I started heading out of the living room.

"Ben, wait!" Adrienne pleaded.

"I've gotta pee," I said robotically as I went straight to the bathroom and closed the door. Not having the energy to stand, I actually sat down on the toilet and peed that way, my mind in such turmoil I probably would have missed the bowl anyways.

'Fallen in love with someone else'? What? How? Adrienne was my girlfriend! I LOVED her! I was thinking of having a family with her! What the FUCK?

I blinked several times and after a while, I realized that I was done peeing. I was just sitting there with my bare ass on the toilet, doing absolutely nothing. But I wasn't ready to discuss Adrienne's ... revelation ... just yet. So I got up and wiped myself and washed my hands, taking the time to really make sure I had plenty of soap suds. Even then, I avoided looking into the living room as I left the bathroom, turned in the hallway, and went into my... our ... bedroom to fetch some clothes.

Adrienne must have started panicking, thinking I was walking away from her, because she was at the bedroom door when I came back out, now wearing a comfortable pair of boxers, pajama pants, and a T-shirt. The morning air was pretty cold. I looked up at Adrienne, held a finger over my lips to keep her quiet, and silently shut the door behind me. Paige never stirred awake.

I gestured back to the living room and Adrienne anxiously followed me back to the couch. I took my time, stretching out my arms and rolling my head around my neck while taking several deep breaths. And then I sat down, sinking deeply into the cushions before exhaling and saying, "Okay. Start over."

Adrienne sat beside me, but on the edge of the couch with her body twisted to face me. Her jaw quivered and she reached forward to take my hands. I let her, and felt her squeezing my fingers gently. "Ben, I love you."

"Not that part. The other thing."

"But you HAVE to know that I still love you," she said insistently.

I took a deep breath, feeling a preternatural calm settling over me. "That would seem to conflict with what you just told me."

"Come ON, Ben," Adrienne exhaled, squeezing my hands. "Haven't you ever loved more than one person at the same time? Do I even need to mention Dawn?"

I briefly came out of my cold, robotic calm and glared at Adrienne, who visibly flinched. But I softened almost immediately. "Okay. Fair enough," I conceded. But my mind raced for a brief second. Adrienne had dolled herself up for a date last night, and then not come home. I'd assumed she was out with Grace. Who else, right? But what if that was just another manipulation? What if she WASN'T with Grace? And if not her ... then... "Just please tell me it's not another guy."

My girlfriend furrowed her eyebrows, looking at me like I'd grown a horn out of the center of my forehead. "What? No!" She exhaled. "It's Grace, obviously."

I sighed and thought back over the past few months. The signs were there, from the sheer amount of time Adrienne spent with her to the way they were all over each other at the club to the simple looks in Adrienne's eyes. I exhaled and nodded. "Obviously."

"I could never love another man." Adrienne winced. "Actually, I'm not even entirely sure how I feel about you."

That caused my eyebrows to rise and I looked at Adrienne with concern. "Wait, what?"

"Don't misunderstand," she said hurriedly. "I love you. I'll always love you. Forever and always, remember?"

"But..." I began. I was relaxing, hearing the ring of truth in Adrienne's words. But I was still confused by what was going on.

Adrienne exhaled slowly. "Please, Ben. I know I'm springing all this on you rather suddenly but I need you to understand right now. Please?"

No more was necessary. I knew Adrienne still loved me, at the least. And having her actually verbalize 'I need you' was all that I had to hear. I took a deep breath and nodded, squeezing Adrienne's hands. She visibly brightened at my touch, and a trace of a smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

"I've been doing a lot of thinking. This whole thing with Grace has really spun my head around." Adrienne waggled her head at the same time as if to emphasize how confused she had felt. "But I look back at my life and the way I've always approached people, and ... uh ... I..."

Adrienne was faltering and I squeezed her hands, giving her the most reassuring look I could.

She took a deep breath, then exhaled and stated, "I think I'm gay."

It was a good thing I already peed, because the shock that tore through me would have certainly made me wet my pants. "Excuse me?"

Adrienne nodded. "Well, not gay. I'm lesbian."

"What?"

"I mean, it's not like I just woke up and decided this. I've been wondering for a long time and do you remember Will Adler?"

"The gay guy?"

"Well ... yeah. I spent some time with him and his friends and we had a lot of discussions about this sort of thing."

"And they convinced you that you're a lesbian?"

"I don't know!" Adrienne exclaimed, sounding exhausted. "At first, I thought I was just like my other friends: you know, into guys but enjoyed 'experimenting' with each other. 'Experimenting' turned into 'making each other feel good'. And once we all got comfortable having sex with each other, it just wasn't a big deal. We were pretty much bisexual in action but only dated guys. Candy, Mizu, Heather ... they play around with girls but they LOVE men."

"Don't you? Don't you love me? And if you do, how can you be lesbian?"

"Well ... maybe I'm mostly lesbian."

"How can you be 'mostly lesbian'?" I scoffed.

"Oh, come ON," Adrienne pouted. "Don't make this harder than it already is!"

I squeezed her hands and took a deep breath, burying my attitude and gesturing for her to continue.

"You read the Kinsey thing, right? How he's got that scale from zero to six where zero is totally straight and six is totally gay? Well ... maybe I'm ... like a five."

I arched an eyebrow.

"Think about it! I've ALWAYS been horny for every hot girl I come across. I've had sex with Candy more times than with any other human being, even more than you. And ever since we've been together, I haven't even been turned on by another male. Dayna's blindfold party? I was never even tempted to jump on one of those other guys."

"Because you knew I could see," I pointed out.

"Because none of those guys turned me on," she corrected emphatically.

I frowned. "But I do?"

"Because of WHO you are, Ben. I love you. And ... I mean, I like feeling the penetration. And you KNOW I love feeling you holding me down and fucking the shit out of me. But ... well ... if girls had dicks..." She didn't finish the sentence.

"You dated a lot of guys in High School."

Adrienne shrugged. "For popularity. I would have been considered WEIRD if I didn't."

"You went out of your way to seduce a lot of guys."

"For the power rush. I liked the control sex gave me over a guy. Sure, I had orgasms. I enjoyed myself physically. But none of those guys ever made me feel red hot inside the way Candy did, or even Heather did, just by looking at them."

I frowned, feeling green envy inside. "So who makes you hotter: me or Grace?"

"Ben! Please?" Adrienne looked hurt.

I stewed for a moment. She hadn't answered the question. Maybe it was an unfair question, though, and grimacing, I gruffly managed to say, "Well, what do you expect?"

"I expect you to be my boyfriend," Adrienne said indignantly. "Listen and help me. And don't be insecure about this, Ben. I LOVE you."

"But you'd rather fuck Grace than fuck me?" I shrugged helplessly.

Adrienne winced and looked down. "It's not that simple."

I exhaled slowly, striving to find that calmness again. I sagged against the backrest, bringing my hand up to pinch the bridge of my nose and rub my forehead. If the brain doesn't have a sense of touch, then why the hell did it physically HURT when it was overworked like this?

I tried to step back from the situation and look at it from a top view. Then taking a deep breath, I looked Adrienne in the eye and said, "So let me get this straight. You think you're 'mostly lesbian' because you've always been more attracted to girls than guys. Now you've fallen in love with Grace and what, you want to be her girlfriend?"

Adrienne nodded.

"But you don't want to break up with me because you still love me, too."

Adrienne nodded again and smiled, looking optimistic that I would understand.

Then a new light bulb went off in my head. "Wait. You didn't set me up with Paige on Valentine's Day for her; you set me up for YOU. You wanted to be with Grace instead of me!"

Adrienne winced. "Well, Paige really is in love with you," she hedged.

I shook my head, feeling the anger boiling in my veins. "So what?" I barked. "You thought you could just send me a replacement?"

Adrienne winced again, but nodded. "Uh, something like that."

"Why?"

Adrienne looked at me sadly, shrugging helplessly and on the verge of tears. "It's what I do."

I deflated like a balloon with a slow leak, feeling my anger venting out of me. Adrienne, my beautiful Adrienne, looked stricken and small. Her lip was quivering and her eyes were tight. Clearly, she was torn up inside by the conflicting emotions warring for control. The confident, self-assured young woman now seemed a scared, uncertain little girl.

I'd only seen Adrienne like this once before, back when I supposedly "broke" her by rejecting her in favor of Dawn. She was deathly afraid she'd just lost me, and I couldn't bear to stay upset with her.

Besides, she was right. This was what she did. Last year, when Adrienne was afraid to commit to dating me, she started our 'nottogether' relationship and tried to distract me with her other friends. Even after we were together, while she was depressed over her father's death she'd sent her girlfriends to fuck me, as if they could replace her in my bed.

Was I really so surprised by how she was reacting now? This was her way of stepping back from our relationship and keeping me ... occupied ... without actually losing me.

"Love isn't just about affection and time, Adrienne," I said quietly. "You've fallen in love with Grace. You want to spend more time and energy on her. I get that. But I'm not some classroom where you can just send a substitute teacher in your place."

"I just don't want you to feel lonely."

"Then don't leave me," I growled, immediately regretting it. I saw the guilt in Adrienne's eyes. She knew damn well this path was taking her away from me, and it crushed her inside to feel like she was caught choosing between me and Grace.

"Don't make me do this, Ben," Adrienne pleaded. She desperately wanted some solution where she could have the both of us.

So it was up to me. Rational logic told me I should make her choose. How could I possibly think of being with someone long-term if she wasn't even sure to choose me over someone else? Just on principle, I should make her decide which of us she wanted more.

But I didn't want to lose Adrienne. Maybe this was just a phase. Maybe she was just exploring this confusion in her sexuality by pursuing her first real "relationship" with another girl. I knew at least that Adrienne really did love me. And for that reason alone, I couldn't make any decisions that would break us up.

"Okay, we'll do it your way," I exhaled.

Adrienne visibly brightened. "Really?"

I exhaled. "If you chose her, I'd lose you."

"Ben, I would never choose her over you." Adrienne squeezed my hands. "Please believe that."

I nodded. Grace was the new and the passionate, but Adrienne and I had our history. I believed her. I HAD to believe her. "I won't keep you from her, though," I conceded. "I won't keep you from doing what makes you happy."

Adrienne gave me a tender smile and leaned back against the couch. This brought her face into a ray of morning light, which illuminated her brilliantly and cast her face and hair in a pure white glow. Exhausted, sans makeup, and wearing last night's clothes, she nevertheless looked as gorgeous as ever. "Thank you," she said in obvious relief.

I went quiet for a moment. Then taking a deep breath, I asked, "You really still love me?" I was just looking for my own reassurance.

"Forever and always," Adrienne stated emphatically.

"Okay," I nodded.

"And what about me?" a quiet voice asked from our bedroom. I turned my head to see Paige standing there, looking like a scared and uncertain little girl herself. As far as I could tell, she was wearing only the button-down shirt I'd worn on our date last night, the garment looking huge on her petite frame and hanging down to her knees.

These were too many things to deal with at once, and I didn't have the heart to hurt anyone. "You're really in love with me?" I asked the pretty redhead.

"More than I've ever felt in my life," Paige replied dreamily.

I nodded and held my arm out to her. Excitedly, Paige hustled into my embrace, hugging me fiercely. Adrienne would be dating both Grace and me. I would be dating both Adrienne and Paige.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave.

"Oh, hey guys."

I looked up from the dining table to see Dawn standing in the entryway, blinking in obvious surprise at the scene before her. I was dressed in my usual pajama pants and a T-shirt, a bowl of cereal before me. This looked completely ordinary and routine to Dawn. The shower was running in the hallway bathroom, Adrienne freshening up to start her day.

But right beside me was Paige, someone who didn't actually live here, dressed in nothing but my button-down shirt with a well-satisfied and well-fucked expression on her face, and her hair mussed up from sleeping in my bed. THAT part of the scene, Dawn wasn't quite expecting.

For her part, Paige got right to the point. "Yes, I spent the night with Ben. And yes, he popped my cherry. Any questions?"

Dawn's jaw just waggled up and down a couple of times with no sounds coming out. But to her credit, she recovered relatively quickly. "Uh, okay." She nodded and then focused on moving into the kitchen, opening up the refrigerator.

At first, Dawn grabbed the box of eggs. But with a shaky hand, she let go of it and seemed to decide she either didn't want eggs or still was in too much shock to actually cook something. So she grabbed the milk and set about making her own bowl of cereal. Paige and I just watched her in silence except for the sounds of corn flakes crunching in our mouths.

Dawn took two bites before she found her voice again. She sat up straight, darting her sparkling blue eyes back and forth between me and Paige before finally turning to me with a stern expression. Her eyes said, 'You and me need to talk.'

I blanched at first, but then nodded. She was my best friend. AND she was a girl. Of course she'd want details.

But in the meantime, Dawn turned her attention right to Paige with an impish grin on her face. "Did I ever tell you Ben took my virginity, too?"

"No. Really?" Paige was instantly perky and into gossip mode.

My eyebrows shot straight up. They were NOT seriously going to have this conversation, were they?

Dawn just smiled and nodded. "Back when we were sixteen. It was beautiful. How about you? How'd it go?"

"Perrrfect!" Paige exclaimed brightly. "It was even better than I imagined!"

At that point, I just got up and abandoned my bowl of cereal, shaking my head and walking out of the room. I did NOT want to be around while the two girls compared notes.

Paige spent the entire day with me, never taking off that dress shirt and making it plainly obvious to everyone around that she was my new fashion accessory. I wasn't actually sure what spent more physical contact with my body that day, my underwear or Paige. We sat together on the couch, with my little redhead either curled up against my side or literally sitting in my lap, her hands always around my arm or my shoulders. She'd never had a "morning after", this being the first time she'd ever slept in bed with a man; and from the way she was acting, I expected it was an experience she'd want to repeat over and over again. She acted like she never wanted to leave my arms for the rest of our lives.

Adrienne and Dawn sat on the other couch, Dawn chatting with me like her best friend and now chatting with Paige like she was my girlfriend, which I guess, technically, she was. And Adrienne seemed content to leave the overt physical affection to the petite redhead.

Brandi had spent the night at Matt's place. When she came home, she did a double-take at the four of us in the living room. Paige just smiled radiantly, infinitely proud of herself as she laid her head on my shoulder, hugged me fiercely, and flashed a confirming smile to my older sister.

Brandi just arched an eyebrow at me, smiled, and shook her head knowingly. Then she headed upstairs to change her clothes.

Dayna was a little more blatantly curious when she returned home as well. Rather than immediately go upstairs to change, the blonde bombshell sat down right beside us and asked for verbal confirmation that we'd hooked up. When Paige stated that she was my new girlfriend, Dayna promptly asked Adrienne, "And you?"

Adrienne smiled and nodded. "Yes, I'm still his girlfriend, too."

"You lucky dog, you," Dayna grinned at me before looking at Dawn and jerking her thumb back to me. "How come you couldn't figure out how to pull this off?"

Dawn just blushed and looked down. "Dayna, don't go there," Dawn replied quietly.

"Fine, fine," Dayna shrugged before glancing back and forth between Dawn and Adrienne. "Does, uh, she know all the 'details'?"

I stiffened in mild nervousness. From the innuendo in Dayna's voice, she was asking if Paige knew I was occasionally fucking Dayna and Brandi as well. The Dayna part, I thought my newest girlfriend might understand. But I really had no idea how Paige's sense of morality would respond to the notion of me fucking my own sister.

Adrienne blushed and shook her head. "Uh, not yet, no."

"Are you going to tell her?" Dayna continued.

Well NOW it looked like I wouldn't have a choice. I glared at Dayna and sighed. "Yeah, when the time is right."

Paige quickly sensed there was an inside conversation going on around her. "Uh, Ben? Know all the details about what?"

"Later, later," I soothed, patting Paige's leg.

"Are you hiding something from your girlfriend already?" she pouted.

"Later," I emphasized. "There's a LOT we still need to talk about."

"Oh, poo."

Dayna just chuckled and then finally excused herself to head upstairs.

After them, Gwen and Robin arrived to hang out, both friends expressing quite a bit of surprise at the new nature of Paige's and my relationship. We all waited for Gwen's indignant comments, but they never came.

Robin even asked, "What? You're not going to complain about how Paige gets to nail him and you don't?"

Gwen just blushed and smiled at her friends. "I'm good. Rick was very romantic last night. Thanks for setting us up, Adrienne."

My girlfriend (uh, the blonde girlfriend) just smiled. "No problem. He seemed like a good guy, just not my type. I'm glad he's yours."

I darted my eyes to Adrienne, my eyes communicating my own little joke: 'Not your type? What, male?'

Adrienne apparently got the message and just rolled her eyes at me.

On the other hand, some of Dayna's and Brandi's friends were less affable about the new relationship. Angela Chan and Monique St. Claire stopped by to visit their friends. Angela just waved but Monique, as was her habit, came by to brush her hands against my cheek and make some flirty comment. Paige had been around plenty of times before when Monique had done it; but on this day she headed off the French babe by throwing her arms around me and growling, "Back off bitch. This one's mine now!"

Monique stopped dead in her tracks with a look of shock as she only now noticed that Paige had crawled into my lap. She slid her gaze across to Adrienne, who simply smiled and shrugged.

"Aww," Monique pouted, puffing up her bee-stung lips and folding her arms beneath her Double-D breasts. "I guess I'll just have to wait for Dayna's next party. Or should I just drop by unannounced with a blindfold?"

I blushed beet red, something Paige did not fail to notice. My new girlfriend turned to me with a questioning look. "Do I wanna know?"

"Later, later."

"Everything is 'later'!" Paige complained.

Monique just giggled at my predicament and gave me a knowing wink. Then she joined Angela in heading upstairs.

Paige waited all of three seconds once the older girls were both gone, sliding off my lap and looking at me sternly. "Oh my word, Ben!" she exclaimed. "Have you fucked her, TOO?"

My nervous wince apparently was answer enough.

"Ben! When? How? Exactly how many secrets have you been keeping from us?"

I paled and glanced around at my friends. With Ryan and Bert at their respective homes in the East Bay, it was just me and the five girls, three of whom had no idea some of the things that went on in this house. "Every man has his secrets, Red," I told Paige.

"If we're going to keep doing this, you're gonna have to let me in," Paige pouted. "I'm not actually jealous or anything; I KNOW you're a big flirt and I KNOW you've bedded a lot of girls before me. But is it too much to ask for a little honesty? After all, I AM one of your girlfriends now, aren't I?"

I sighed and looked at Adrienne. "Did you figure on this when you came up with your little plan?"

The stunning blonde blushed. "Not exactly." Then she glanced at Gwen and Robin, who were studying us intently. "But nothing ever stays a secret for very long anyways."

"Guys..." Gwen was the first to venture in a low voice. "What is she talking about?"

Dawn piped up. "I think that's our cue to go." She stood up, gesturing to Gwen and Robin. "Come on girls. Let's find lunch."

"But-" Gwen whined.

"I'll explain. I promise," Dawn said firmly.

"Dawnnn..." Adrienne intoned with a slight concern in her voice.

"Relax, A.D.," Dawn turned around. "I'll handle it."

Adrienne thought about it and then nodded in agreement. While she and Dawn had never quite become best friends or anything, she was still confident enough in Dawn to trust the girl would keep our secrets.

Then Dawn, Gwen, and Robin left. And that made it Adrienne's cue to leave as well. "I told Grace I'd meet up with her for lunch."

Paige smiled happily. Any time she would be left alone with me she would be happy. And Adrienne came around to give me a deep, nuclear kiss to remind me that she still loved me.

The kiss helped, but a knot still formed in my gut. "Are you coming home tonight?" I asked softly, unable to even look at Adrienne as I waited for her answer.

There was a long pause of silence ... too long. I felt my heartbeat speeding up and a magnetic tug telling me to look over at her while I forced myself to keep my eyes averted, lest the sight of Adrienne actually make me start to cry.

I didn't look at her. And after another few seconds, Adrienne replied just as softly, "I don't know."

And then Adrienne left. Paige squeezed tighter around my arm, rubbing her nose against my cheek. I exhaled and wrapped my arm tighter around the pretty redhead's waist, pondering my situation. Here I sat with a beautiful young woman I felt very close to, and who was madly in love with me...

... And yet I still felt a little lonely.

Fortunately, with time and Paige's enthusiasm, my sense of loneliness evaporated beneath an abundance of affection from my little redheaded fireball. The instant Adrienne left, Paige eagerly grabbed my hand and dragged me into my bedroom.

"Ooh! Ooh! Let's do it AGAIN!" the redhead cheered excitedly, already unbuttoning my dress shirt that she'd been wearing all day.

"Whoa! Whoa!" I waved her off, right about the same time my stomach rumbled quite loudly. Everyone else had left to get food, and as much as I loved sex, it was rather hard to perform on an empty stomach. And besides... "Paige, wait. We gotta talk about this. Last night was wonderful, really. But it was also really, really risky. Do you know that?"

Paige wrinkled her nose and frowned. She exhaled slowly, seeming to deflate at the same time. "You're talking about pregnancy, aren't you?"

"Exactly when was your last period?" I bit my lip nervously.

Paige puffed upwards, blowing one of her own bangs off her forehead as she sat down on my bed and folded her arms over her chest. She'd gotten the buttons undone halfway, revealing a tantalizing slice of bare skin down the middle; but I couldn't actually see any of her goodies. "Uh, thirteen days ago. Exactly."

"Are you pretty regular?"

Paige shrugged, sounding downbeat. She knew where I was going with this. "Yeah."

"So we're smack in the middle of your peak fertility."

"It's not like you came inside me."

I sighed. "Stuff leaks."

"But Bennn..." she whined like a little kid being denied her favorite toy. "We just got started."

"And we probably shouldn't have." I shook my head, nightmares of Allie Sanders sobbing flashing through my mind. I'd been really reckless last night. "We can't have unprotected sex anymore. Not during your fertile times."

"But you'll still fuck my ass?" Paige asked hopefully, looking so adorably innocent. It was both strange and deliciously naughty to see this very young-looking girl wearing a half-unbuttoned men's dress shirt, twisting in place with her hands clasped behind her back and asking me to fuck her ass.

I nodded with an amazed expression on my face. "Uh, yeah. I can handle that. You really can't use condoms?"

Paige shook her head in the negative.

"Diaphragm? Something else?"

"Nope and nope."

"Should I even bother asking about getting on the pill?"

Paige shook her head. "I'm Catholic." Her tone said: 'discussion over'.

I sighed. "Yeah, explain that. Aren't you not supposed to have premarital sex, either?"

Paige shrugged and flipped her hair back off her shoulders while hopping onto the edge of the bed. "It's complicated."

I exhaled and sat down beside her. "Tell me. Because if we're going to keep doing this, I need to know what else we ... can't ... do."

Paige nodded. And then she explained ... ish.

I'll never quite understand Catholic rules; or at the least, I'll never understand Paige's interpretation of them. As she put it, her virginity was irreparably lost when she experienced sexual pleasure for the first time, even though it was masturbation. So since she couldn't be married as a true "virgin", she decided she might as well enjoy the physical pleasure.

Even then, she said she wanted to protect her maidenhead as her pussy was her most sacred part of her body. She knew she would end up having vaginal intercourse sometime during college, but she wanted to save it for someone really special, and that turned out to be me. It started when I came to her rescue. And she firmly decided it over the next six months.

So she'd remained a virgin throughout High School. But that didn't mean she'd been as pure as the driven snow.

That part piqued my interest. "Yeah. You said you knew 'stuff'. And you certainly showed it last night."

Paige gave me a wry grin. "What? Disappointed that I'm not the naïve, innocent little virgin you were expecting?"

"Not disappointed. And you DID keep insisting that you knew 'stuff'. But I have to admit I'm very curious as to how."

"Why Ben? Are you asking about my sexual history? That's kinda private, isn't it? And you haven't exactly been forthcoming with me about your sexual past."

"Fine, fine," I waved her off. "I don't need to know."

She giggled. "But I think you should know. You're my boyfriend now, Ben. We're not supposed to keep secrets from each other."

I arched an eyebrow at her naiveté. "We've been together for less than 24-hours, Paige. Like it or not, we're not at the full disclosure-level of commitment just yet."