85: Whatever You Need to Do

I saw Rhonda slip out of the studio. Donna and her parents were talking with the others and I followed Rhonda.

"Thank you," she said.

"I love you."

"I meant for the chocolate."

"I still love you."

"Please stop, Brian." We wandered to a couple chairs in the lobby. Since it was Saturday, the place was pretty deserted. We sat in silence for a minute. I was so happy to see her that I couldn't think straight, but I was still so torn up inside I wanted to throw up again.

"I'm glad you came."

"She was my friend."

"What am I going to do, Rhonda? She was more than a friend. To all of us." Rhonda turned fiercely to face me. I hadn't seen her at the funeral, but sitting this close I could tell why. She'd dyed her hair black. She wore heavy eyeliner. Her sloppily applied makeup made it look like her cheek was bruised. I looked closely at her but she grabbed my face between her hands and forced me to look in her eyes. I wasn't used to a Rhonda that was so aggressive.

"You will do whatever is necessary."

"It's too late. I wasn't there to help or defend her. How could I do what was necessary?" I always told Rhonda I'd do whatever was necessary. It was one of my great rules of life. But there was nothing to do. I didn't know what she wanted.

"You will still do whatever is necessary. Just like I am." When she stared me in the eye, it was impossible to look away. Their green depths kept me mesmerized.

"Can I come and see you now, Rhonda? I could come for your birthday. If your parents won't let us be together, I'll camp out and meet you in the park."

"No."

"I've never stopped loving you, Rhonda. I never will. Let me come and see you." I sounded pathetic, even to myself.

"You can't come to see me, Brian."

"Why not? We don't have to do anything. You know I'd never force myself on you."

"I have a boyfriend." She stood up and walked back toward the studio. I heard her voice.

"Hurry up, Daddy. I promised Tommy I'd be back in time for us to go out tonight."

I made it to the restroom, but not to the toilet. I was sorry for the janitor.

I stayed in the restroom until I was pretty sure everyone had gone. I knew Dad would wait for me and was a little surprised he hadn't come looking for me. The place was empty when I came out. The security guard saw me and came to unlock the door. A girl detached herself from the shadows and slipped up beside me. I did a double-take, but it wasn't Rhonda. Donna put her hand in mine and we walked to her powder blue Mercedes.

"I asked the others if I could be with you tonight," she whispered as she started the car. "Do you want something to eat first?" My stomach growled. Right. I'd thrown up everything from the past two days. Might as well put something else in it. We went to the diner where we'd had our first date when we were planning to go to the prom. We even shared a shake, but we hardly said anything. We drove around and mindlessly commented on what had changed in the past year. The Dog and Suds wasn't open until Memorial Day. The church looked the same. The school. We'd just been in the gym yesterday. The last time she'd been there before that, she'd graduated. The day our world ended. We ended up in the cemetery, walking hand-in-hand to Denise's grave. The fresh dirt was mounded over her and there was a simple marker until a stone could be delivered. She held me as I cried and cried with me.

The house was quiet and dark when we got there and Donna silently went to my room with me, undressed me and herself, and crawled into bed with me. I mourned my loss. Denise and Rhonda. I fell asleep nursing on Donna's breast.

I woke at my usual hour and began to talk to Rhonda in my head, but felt a hand on my cock. I turned my head and Donna was looking at me as she stroked me.

"She said this was your special time together. We're still a lot alike, even though she is trying to be different. Go ahead, Brian. Go ahead and think of her while you make love to me."

It was all too easy to do. Donna straddled me and sank onto my erection, wincing a little as it parted her opening. She wasn't as wet as I'd have made her if I was thinking and the condom dragged against her. But I felt rising passion. Her kiss was genuine and fervent. Her deep green eyes were the same, but the soul I saw reflected was different. I'd let myself be lulled into thinking of my love, but awareness now that I was with her sister jolted me. Donna deserved better than that. Not to be a substitute. She deserved to be loved for who she was. I responded to her offered love and loved her in return. She seemed to realize that something changed and smiled at me.

"I love you, Donna."

"I love you, Brian."

With that, we fully committed our act to each other, not to a vision or a substitute or a mirage. I loved Donna for Donna. Never in a million years would I have guessed that a week after giving my virginity to Whitney I would be making passionate love to Donna. She'd left last summer, declaring that she was not destined to be with me, but was with me nonetheless. She might still not be destined to stay with me, but this morning was eternity enough for me.

We lay in bed, breathless from our orgasms and clutching each other tightly.

"I never thought I'd be your first, Donna."

"You weren't," she sighed. I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. Okay, both eyebrows and half my eye shot up. "I'm in college. I'm two hundred miles from the home where I graduated and six hundred miles from my parents. It seemed like a good opportunity to experiment."

"You just ... uh ... had sex with someone to try it out?" This just didn't sound like Donna.

"No, silly. I got to school and fell head-over-heels in love the first week I was there. Three weeks later I was making love to the boy I thought I'd spend my life with. He thought he'd spend the night. For the last seven months, I've thought that even if I wasn't spending my life with you, you'd still always be there for me. You'd never take advantage of me. You'd never turn your back on me. I'm sorry I didn't make love with you the night before graduation but, of course, you weren't seventeen yet. I'm glad we finally had an opportunity."

"It's not over."

"It isn't?" I proceeded to show Donna how much I treasured every square inch of her body, inside and out. I licked her to another orgasm before I claimed her again with my cock. I kissed her like my life depended on it. In fact, I think it did. I needed to show my older girlfriend how much she was loved and that I would never scorn her love. It was what I needed to do.

"You talked to her, Brian. Why did she act that way?" Samantha was demanding that I explain at lunch on Monday.

"I don't know, Sam. I don't understand it. Donna says she has some kind of mission to get back at her parents and the damned bishop. Like something she could do would make them all regret taking her away. I don't understand it at all. We had a serious discussion and then..."

"Drugs," Nicki said flatly. We all looked at her. "She's off her meds. Believe me, I've done it enough times to recognize it. She's angry and depressed and stopped taking her medication so she could wallow in the feelings. But she can't let anyone know. So she plays a game and acts as if she doesn't care and doesn't feel anything."

"What's going to happen?" Sam asked, awed at Nicki's explanation.

"No telling. She'll get too depressed to hide it, or she'll get angry enough to do something violent, or she'll keep pretending until she can't remember why she feels this way. Or something else. Once you get on those anti-depressants and mood altering drugs, getting off of them isn't easy. I doubt I'll ever be off of them."

"Shit! I'm going to go see her for her birthday," Sam declared. I shook her head.

"There was something else she said, Samantha." I didn't mean to whisper but my voice wouldn't cooperate. I was afraid I'd throw up again right here in the cafeteria. "She has a boyfriend." There it was again, like a slug in the stomach.

"Be a rock!" Whitney snapped. Automatically, I anchored my feet to the floor and prepared for the blow. The nausea passed. I breathed a sigh of relief. "I have to go to be with the Cavemen," she continued. "I'll see you all tomorrow." Whitney squeezed my shoulder then bent and gave me a kiss before she left the cafeteria. Everyone at the table sighed.

"And who wants to be Brian's girlfriend for a day?" Ms. Sullivan asked. I laughed as all the hands in our Advanced Foods class went up. "Well, that makes it easy. Kevin? Really?" she asked the only other boy in the class.

"Sure. I'd do him," Kevin sighed. "Any day." I think Kevin was the only openly gay guy in our school. It was a gutsy move to come out, but everyone knew since grade school that he was effeminate in his mannerisms. When he came out, most people just nodded their heads. The response had been less aggressive than I expected but Kevin was really blatant. Most people just avoided him. Just. Like that was nothing much. No wonder Geoff wanted to stay in the closet. Maybe I could help. Damn. I wondered if Kevin had AIDS. Shit! Why would I have to think that?

"I'll take Kevin on the show," I said firmly. There was silence in the class and all the girls stared at me. Ms. Sullivan just nodded and made a note in her book.

"Now, who wants the other slot?" she asked. Only three girls raised their hands. I grinned. That eliminated everyone I would have eliminated anyway. But how to choose among these three.

"Well, Brian? It's your show. How shall we do this?" Ms. Sullivan asked. We'd already talked, so we had a plan.

"Ashley, Robyn, and Sarah," I said. "I'd like you each to prepare a suggestion for what you'd like to have me demo when you are my assistant. I'll present all three suggestions to my producer on Saturday when Kevin and I film. I won't even tell him your names. He'll choose one based on the suggestion. That means I'll need your suggestions by Friday. The more detail you provide, the better. Keep in mind that while we can do some prep beforehand, the segment is only fifteen minutes, so I can't really do a step-by-step preparation of, say, pastitsio."

When I got home, I called Miss Polly and she immediately conferenced me with Harvey.

"Really? An openly gay guy?" Harvey asked. "Hmm. There's been a lot in the news lately. You know they are planning to have a Gay Pride Parade at summer solstice? Apparently it's a big thing now. It's your call, Pol. Do you want to go on record in support of gay rights?"

"Oh. Well. Do you think it will hurt Brian's popularity in light of our ... other plans?"

"After the spot we recorded on Saturday and started running this morning, I don't think there is anything we could do to dampen Brian's popularity. Brian, you might not know it, but the station is running your plea every day this week, at different times. It's edited a little differently depending on which show it appears on, but the full spot will run on Friday in your normal slot. The switchboard has been handling an unusual number of calls this morning supporting you and your friends."

"Then I say let's go with it," Miss Polly said. "I've never had a cutting edge program before."

"Good. That's settled. Brian, you'll need to come up with some gay food to do with your friend. Don't ask me what that is, but they're doing a lot with rainbows these days. Now, we have another proposition. Miss Betsy is taking a leave of absence this summer. You've undoubtedly noticed that she is pregnant. She's due at the end of July, just when we'll be getting ready for the Fair and she has elected to take off from mid-June until September. Frankly, I don't know if she'll come back to the show. That means Miss Polly needs a new assistant. How would you like the job for the summer?"

"You mean take Miss Betsy's place on a daily basis?"

"I told her when you did your first demo that she could be replaced," Miss Polly laughed.

"Holy cow!"

"If you are interested, you'll probably want to bring your Dad on Saturday so we can get a summer contract in place."

"Thank you!"

"They fucking marked me truant! Can you believe it?" Whitney stormed at lunch. "My friend was murdered and they mark me truant!" We were shocked.

"What are you going to do?"

"As soon as he told me, I asked Mr. Smith for a hall pass to see the principal. He shrugged and said, 'Sure, what's one more class?' I went tearing down to the office and demanded to see Principal Yoder. This little girl ... okay, that's not nice. I think she's a senior, but she's a mousy little thing. Anyway she stutters around that Principal Yoder has someone in his office at the moment."

"Whitney, just tell us you didn't hurt the little girl," I snorted. She glared at me.

"I might have if it hadn't been for the yelling. Coach Anders apparently got the message before I did. She was in the office ripping Yoder a new asshole. She was yelling things like 'star basketball player, ' 'best thing that ever happened, ' 'murdered friend, ' 'insensitive bureaucrats, ' 'general strike, ' and, you'll love this, 'prison shirts.' Little mousy girl and I just stared at each other. I excused myself and went back to class."

"So what happened?"

"A messenger arrived at Mr. Smith's door just before class was over. He read the note and looked at me. 'Absences excused, ' he said as if it was nothing. 'You still have to turn in the homework and make up the quiz from Friday.' The sum result is that I have a shitload of homework this week. And nobody even cares that I lost my virginity!"

That silenced everyone at the table and Whitney leaned over to kiss me while everyone stared at us.

"Okay. I didn't lose it. I know right where it went. Oh yeah." She squeezed my shoulder as everyone continued to stare at her. "I hope you don't have plans for tonight," she whispered.

"Brian, are you able to do this? I'll give you a pass on it. I know you're under a lot of stress and grief. This is a powerful poem. If you aren't up to it, I'll withdraw you from the competition." I thought I'd done a pretty good job interpreting the poem I'd chosen. Like the others, it had arrived in the mail, this time postmarked Jackson, MI but with no return address. The note just said, 'Heard you need more cannon fodder. Good luck. N.' I'd had the poem since a week before prom and decided immediately that I'd use it for the competition. I'd kept what Ms. Streeter told me about the earlier poems and looked deeper for alternate meanings so I could do a good job interpreting it. I wanted to win this competition for Nicki.

"I want to do this poem, Ms. Streeter. What am I doing wrong?"

"Where is the aggression? The angst? This poem cries for passion and you read it like it was e. e. cummings. I've heard the passion in you before. Where is it now?"

"Um ... the last time you told me that teenaged angst wouldn't cut it. I tried to get to the deeper meaning."

"Not at the expense of the poet's passion. Okay, we're going to look at a video. This is a great poet of the Beat Generation, Allen Ginsberg. He opposed the military, materialism, and sexual repression. Listen to this. Watch him if you want to, but listen. Close your eyes and hear the poem come to life." She had the video already cued as if she knew in advance what I needed to hear. He started off a little tentative—a bearded man with long hair and a receding hairline with black framed glasses, reading in front of a crowd outdoors. But as the poem picked up, I sat mesmerized by the man rattling more words in a minute than the human tongue is capable of processing. It wasn't just the words; it was the cadence and the tone. It was the passion.

It was long. Twenty-some minutes later, Ms. Streeter shooed me out of her office and told me to go practice somewhere that the wind would try to blow away my words and that I should fight for every one of them.

"You had this Algebra II class last year. Why can't I figure it out?" Whitney complained as we sat at my desk.

"Well, I had Harshbarger as a teacher. There's nothing like learning from a genius," I laughed. "What's got you puzzled?"

"This whole thing of solving sets. It seems so complicated."

"It is. Here, let me show you a couple tricks Harshbarger taught us."

I worked with Whitney on her Algebra until about eight. Dad had been giving me plenty of space this week. With Mom in Seattle and Anna in Kokomo, he was spending his evenings tinkering with things to get ready for the summer. He wanted to get the tractor tuned up and said that spring had caught him behind on general maintenance. Someplace along the line, Whitney and I progressed from sitting on opposite sides of the desk to her sitting on my lap as we finished her last worksheet.

"I think I'm ready for that quiz," she said. "I'll have to stay late after school tomorrow."

"I think you'll do fine on it now."

"Is this a pop quiz I'm sitting on?" She wiggled against my cock. It had been popping up a little each time she shifted her weight.

"You know what? I think it's learned to recognize my lover. As soon as you get near, he comes to attention."

"Oh yeah. I know about teenaged boys. I don't even have to be near." Whitney stood up and in a magical display of maneuvering removed all her clothes from beneath her jersey. The Bulls were still in the hunt and she hadn't switched jerseys since the playoffs started. When her panties came out from under her jersey I was ready. I pulled off my t-shirt and she worked on my belt and jeans. I started to get up, but as soon as she had my jeans and underwear past my butt, she shoved me back in the seat. She stroked my cock as I reached under the jersey to pet her buns. Whit moved forward and straddled me, lowering herself onto my erection. Her steamy pussy felt like home. Who'd have thought that Whitney would be my first? Who'd have imagined that we could have a relationship that didn't always involve us beating each other black and blue? I reached through the armholes of the jersey and tweaked her nipples a little, then pushed the shirt aside to capture one between my lips. She was so tall that riding me in this position put her nipples right at lip level. "So good!"