Chapter 10

I turned one of my table lamps back on, threw on some pants and a shirt, and went over to answer my outside door. Of course, as I'd expected, it was Dorothy standing there, waiting for me to let her in.

"What are you doing here, Dorothy? Did something happen?"

"I came by to see if you'd had a chance to talk to your parents yet. About what we talked about this afternoon. Me living here with you, and sleeping in your room?"

"I haven't talked to them about it. I might not get a chance for some time. I wanted to do it when my brothers and sister weren't around to listen in. It might not be for another week or more. Was that all you came here for, to ask me about that?"

I was nervous about her being there, and was keeping my voice down to a whisper. The last thing I wanted was to have my parents find the two of us standing in the open doorway, having such a late conversation.

"I've been thinking about what we talked about, ever since you drove me home today. Thinking about what it would be like for me to live here, to not have to worry about anything, except for going to school, and normal problems like that again. I was thinking about what we'd be able to do in bed too, every night. Thinking about that has made me a bit excited and anxious. Has it had the same effect on you?"

"We can't do anything like that now. If someone heard us, there would be Hell to pay."

"I thought you said they know about us already?"

"They do, but this would be a whole new thing. They wouldn't like us sneaking around at night like this. It would be different if you were already living here, but doing it this way would just get them upset, and would end up getting me in trouble with them."

I could tell Dorothy was starting to feel bad about coming over to see me. It must have seemed like I was rejecting her, not just telling her the timing for it was very bad. I wanted to say something to make her feel better, but couldn't come up with anything. I was still dressed in the shirt and pants I'd put on before answering the door, so I offered to walk her back to her house. She shrugged her shoulders when I asked her if I could, but she didn't tell me no. Even though I was barefoot, the two of us started walking towards the front gate on my side.

It was only a block or so walking to Dorothy's house, so we took things slow. I tried explaining that I'd have loved being with her in my bed, but didn't want to do anything to upset the situation, in case she decided she was going to accept my mother's offer to come live with us until after graduation.

"I want to do that, Jim. I've already decided on it. I was hoping you had already talked to them, so we could discuss some of the other things we talked about earlier."

"What other things?"

"You know, about what my living in your room with you would mean for what we would be to each other, It would be more than us just being friends then. Wouldn't it?"

"How do you think it would change things? We'd be doing the same things we did before, just more of it. I don't see where there has to be any changes. When I talked about that before, I was mostly telling you about what my mother might think, about how we had to make sure she didn't get any wrong ideas about us, if you did end up staying in my room for a few months."

"I wouldn't be your girlfriend if I moved in with you?"

"Are you my girlfriend now? No. I don't see where anything has to change from how it already is. Remember, the reason why I brought it up to you, was so you knew you had some alternative besides living at your house with all of them driving you crazy. All that worrying and feeling bad isn't good for you. I think you need to take a break from it."

"That wasn't what I thought you meant. I mean it was, when you first asked me, because I assumed you meant I'd sleep in your sister's room. That was before you told me both your parents knew about us screwing sometimes. When I found out you meant I might come stay in your room, and everyone would know what we were doing in there, I just thought that meant you wanted us to be more."

I didn't answer her, partly because I didn't know what to say, and partly because I wasn't sure how I really felt about that aspect of it. I liked Dorothy, and liked the non sexual aspects of our relationship. I also really did enjoy everything we did together in bed.

Because she and I were sleeping together, I hadn't spent any time or effort into pursuing any new girls, to try to get them to be my girlfriend. I'd thought about doing it, and had even narrowed the possible choices down to three or four girls that I thought I might like to go out with. That's as far as it had gone though. I hadn't really talked about us dating with any of the girls I'd ended up considering as my possible future girl friends.

Dorothy and I had talked about each girl, during our many conversations. She had two that she favored over the other two. Both were friends of hers. The other two were girls I knew from being in the same classes with them. I hadn't made any secret of the fact that I was looking for someone. This had mostly been before Dorothy had that problem with her uncle and father though. Since then, we'd mostly talked about the problems Dorothy was having with her mother and sisters.

Dorothy and I had spent almost no time in the past trying to define what our relationship was. I spent more time with her than I did with anyone else from school, unless you count Kevin, and I didn't count him. My brother and I weren't close, not in the sense that we did things together, or hung out with each other. Kevin always seemed to have a girlfriend, and that took up almost every minute of his spare time.

"We are friends, right, Dorothy?"

"I have quite a few people I'm friends with. I don't screw them though. You're the only one I do that with, Jim."

"I don't do that with anyone else either, but we never really talked about our doing that. It just kind of happens, usually only those times when you get in the mood, come over to my room and let me know you are. It is one aspect of our friendship, but not one we've ever really discussed, or something we tried to define more accurately. We do it because we both need it, and because we enjoy doing it together. We're friends though, with or without it. Before, when we talked about my getting a regular girlfriend, we even talked about how you'd need to find someone else then, remember?"

"You said I would, not me. I was waiting for you to decide I should be your girlfriend. I knew you might pick one of the others, but I thought you might decide to just stay with me too, instead. I've always liked you, from that first day, back when you gave me that ride to school. I wouldn't have done it with you, if I didn't already really like you. In spite of what happened that one time, with Danny and his friends, I've always just been with boys that I liked and who liked me. I knew Danny didn't really like me, but I liked him enough for both of us, so that's why I let him."

We had made it to her house a few minutes before, and were standing near her front door, talking quietly.

"You never acted as if you even liked me that much. We almost never kiss, or hug, or even hold hands. When we're together, we either talk to each other, or else we get in bed and fuck. There never has been any in between with us. That isn't what I'm used to with a girlfriend. If you like someone, you want to do all those other things with them too. This is the first time you've ever come out and actually admitted that you like me."

Apparently, that was the wrong thing for me to tell her. She went over to her front door and opened it up, before slipping quietly inside. She didn't even bother telling me good night.

For the next week, she avoided me entirely. For my part, I felt a little relieved that some of the pressure I'd been feeling was absent, even if it only turned out to only be a temporary condition.

"Jim, how are things with your little friend? Is she still getting along okay over at her house?"

"She's fine as far as I know, Ma. We've both been pretty busy with school, and haven't seen too much of each other."

"I've noticed. You and she are still friends though?"

"As far as I know, we are."

I got up from the table, took my cereal bowl and spoon over to the sink and washed them out. This was unlike my mother, asking me about any friends of mine, especially girl friends. I wondered what had made her suspicious, or curious. I was running a bit late for leaving for school, but I'd been up late the night before, typing a big term paper for my Government class. It counted for more than half our grade, and I needed to have that class in order to graduate. This was really the last project I needed to have completed, in order to graduate. All the rest was downhill from there.

Now that I was close to graduation, I still had some big decisions I needed to make. One of these was whether I wanted to go into the Armed Services after graduation. My father thought I should, in order to get it out of the way, while the country was at peace, and to take advantage of all the free vocational training that would be available in either the Army or the Navy. They had technical training schools that taught just about any trade I might be interested in pursuing, after I got my discharge, after serving for three or four years.

I was leaning towards joining a union, and getting into a trade apprenticeship program. that would be the quickest path to becoming a Journeyman plumber, electrician or machinist. I still hadn't decided which of those trades I wanted to learn.

In my dreams, I thought about doing apprenticeship's in all three, but I knew that wasn't practical. I was also thinking that I might want to build houses, with just one or two helpers. I still had enough money left to get a good start on building my first house, but only after I had first acquired all the necessary skills to build it.

When I went outside to get into my car to drive to school, I was surprised, and pleased, to see Dorothy already sitting in the front passenger's seat.

"We need to hurry, Jim, or else I'll be late again. I can't afford anymore tardy slips, if I don't want to get detention."

"We'll make it. I'll drop you off in front, before I park. How have you been? I haven't seen you for over a week."

"I've been all right. Busy. Plus, I was mad at you, until I had a chance to really think about what you told me that night. I think I understand what you were saying better now. When we were in bed, the first few times, I didn't mean that you couldn't do any of those things to me, only that it wasn't necessary for you to do them. Like when you licked me. I liked it, but, I didn't think it was right for someone like you to be willing to do that with someone like me. You didn't need to treat me like I was special to you, because I knew I wasn't, and couldn't ever be. Because of what happened with Danny and his friends that time, and also because of how my family felt about American men, or about any of us Persian women being with men like you. Since then though, things have changed, and I've changed too. Now, I'm really an American, and I've changed how I think about things like that."

I drove quickly and quietly to the school, letting her out in front with five minutes to spare, before going into the student parking lot and finding a place to park. I ended up getting to my homeroom barely in time. I was relieved that Dorothy and I were talking again, but getting anxious all over again about what that meant, as far as all the rest of it went.

After school let out, I decided to go visit the Navy recruiter. I figured I should go find out what training programs they had to offer. The Petty Officer at the recruiting office listened to what my interests were and then started telling me that the Sea Bees, or Navy Construction Battalion. It sounded to him like they might be the ideal answer to my fit my ambitions. I was interested too, until he started telling me about where most of the Navy's current Sea Bee projects were located. I had never liked cold weather, and the Antarctica wasn't a place I had even the slightest interest in ever visiting.

I'd only been home for about fifteen minutes when Dorothy came over to our house and knocked on the front door. The next thing I heard was my mother yelling my name, telling me I had a visitor. By the time I'd opened my bedroom door, my mother, sister, and Dorothy were all sitting in the living room, having themselves a nice chat. To make things worse, my Dad was off work that day, for some reason, and he and Willy came walking in the front door, just as I was reaching the living room.