Chapter 12: I'll Take Care of You ll

The rest of the week was much the same. DJ moped about the house, battling her demons over the abortion and trying to come to terms with her guilt. Brooke spent 16 hours a day trying to support her, only absent for the eight or so hours when DJ slept with me. She did her best to distract her best friend, suggesting little outings around town or into the City. She figured that we were still on vacation, so we might as well make use of the time off. Sometimes the girls invited me; sometimes they didn't. DJ would never refuse my presence, but at the same time, she couldn't help but look at me and think about how she'd killed my baby.

It was a horrible situation all around, and my insistence that I not have sex with Brooke only compounded her guilt. A few times I thought that I should do as she requested, for her sake if not mine. The problem was: even my little head understood the gravity of our situation, and he refused to rise to the occasion. Probably more of a problem with my big head, actually.

The one time my little head DID rise, on Friday, it turned out that Brooke wasn't in the mood. Constantly trying to support us was taking its toll on my little sister, and the situation wasn't exactly conducive to fostering lust. I didn't really mind. Again, the big head didn't particularly agree with the little one in the first place.

And then there were the times DJ simply forced herself to try and physically be there for me. I woke up Saturday morning with her mouth around my morning wood, and seeing HER doing this with me for the first time in a long while had me ready and willing to go. The one thing I wanted more than anything was for her and I to find our desire for each other again, and truly be together. But two minutes later she started crying mid-blowjob, and that effectively ended that attempt. I tried to go down on her instead, but she wouldn't have it. Again, guilt.

That was our life: guilt. Every day. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Guilt hung on our every word. Guilt filled up our daily schedules. Guilt kept me from getting laid.

Guilt sucks. Guilt blows. Guilt, ultimately, does neither, at least not in a good way. Guilt was the omnipresent force around us, the elephant in the room, and the invisible wall between us all at once. Guilt was killing our relationship, and for a little while, I began to think it would succeed in doing so.

But then we had a breakthrough Sunday morning.

-- SUNDAY, JANUARY 15, 2006, WINTER BREAK --

The early morning air was cold against my right cheek, the pillow reassuringly warm against my left. Instinctively, I turned my face deeper into the pillow and inched my shoulder up to carry the warm blanket higher up toward my ear.

Little by little, my body came alive as sensory input crawled along my nerves. The lone exception was my left arm, slightly deadened from being trapped beneath her pillow for some time. I'd awoken in the middle of the night to feel the uncomfortable tingling of electrons attempting in vain to travel down my arm to reach my fingertips, only to be blocked from passage by the weight of DJ's head. Those electrons cried out in anguish, as if the blockage were suffocating them. But those electrons had meant less to me than DJ's continued peaceful slumber, and so I'd fitfully returned to sleep without moving the arm.

My right hand, on the other ... uh ... hand... , felt wonderful. As it often did in the night, it had slipped beneath DJ's sleep shirt and nestled in her cleavage. The electrons from that hand returned the happy news along my nerves that my fingers were comfortably curled around the globe of a large, naked breast, and that its matching twin was squished against the hand's back side. DJ held my forearm with both of hers, snuggling against it in her sleep, and the positioning of my two arms kept my body spooned up against her.

We were joined together as one, with even our legs were pressed against each other. Both of our right legs extended relative forward across the mattress while our left legs pivoted back, so that my right leg rested over her left. As I awoke, energy sparkled down my veins as my limbs hugged DJ even tighter to me, wrapping her leg in my own and pressing my cock a little harder into the cleft of her butt cheeks. Feeling the crispness of January air against my exposed cheek, I snuggled deeper beneath the blanket that rose almost to my ear and covered half of DJ's head before me. Cocooned together like this, we were perfect, and I never wanted to leave.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you view what happened next, my move to hug DJ tighter also stirred her awake. Her head shifted position on her pillow, removing the heavy weight from my left forearm and sending those electrons screaming like mad down and back along my nerves, setting them on fire. Her breathing abruptly sharpened, although she didn't otherwise move for a minute or so. But eventually, she spun about within my grasp, her sky blue irises big and beautiful as she turned back to look at me.

"Hey," I said quietly, looking into her eyes.

"Hey," she replied, eyeballs clicking left and right as she searched my gaze. A moment later, she raised her left hand to my cheek, stroking it gently as she bit her lip and gave me an apologetic look. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For ... for this."

"Stroking my cheek? No need to apologize. I rather like it."

"No, 'us'. This is all my fault."

It was a familiar refrain. For the past week DJ had blamed herself for not keeping the baby, for not being ready to be a mother, and for generally letting me down overall. She'd promised herself that she would be everything I hoped for and more in a wife and mother, but when push had come to shove she'd backed down from that particular challenge.

As always, I shifted the blame away from her. "It's not your fault. It's nobody's fault. It just is. I still have you, and that's what's most important to me."

"I love you."

"I know," I replied with a smile, stroking her cheek back.

She smiled and then leaned in to kiss me. I'd formed a chubby in the night, my morning wood happily nestling in the cleft of her butt cheeks as we'd spooned together. It's stiffness had not abated, and she felt it against her belly now. A new smile pulled her lips off of mine, and she rubbed noses with me before taking the hand away from my cheek, sliding it down my chest, and then pushing it beneath the waistband of my pajama pants.

Her firm yet supple hand circled my naked erection, stroking up and down almost experimentally. I watched her eyes as they pointed downward and tried to peer between our bodies, not an easy thing with those Double-D tits in the way. But she was used to having such objects blocking her view, and she curled her torso to see past them. A moment later, she flicked her eyes back up to mine, her irises now filled with a mirth I had not seen from her in what felt like ages.

I was hard for her, and while such an occurrence was not unusual, I hadn't been this hard for her for a week. Even when she'd tried to wake me up with a blowjob yesterday morning I hadn't been this stiff, and it had everything to do with HER mood. Yesterday, I could see that she was forcing herself to do it. THIS morning, she WANTED to.

There's a difference. And that difference was the difference in my hardness. FINALLY, we'd turned a corner, and as we both realized it, suddenly neither of us could keep our hands off each other.

She attacked me first, rolling me onto my back and shoving her tongue down my throat while switching her grip on my cock from her left hand to her right hand. With her new grips, she started stroking me seriously and yanked down on my waistband at the same time, all while doing her best to clean my tonsils for me.

My own hands were busy, yanking up on her sleep shirt so that it bunched beneath her armpits. I wasn't diplomatic, not wanting to pull my lips away from hers to tell her my need. I simply yanked and yanked again, futilely tugging on the fabric until she took the hint and raised her arms. Pulling her night shirt off completely now required the separation of our lips, but they quickly found each other again while I happily filled my palms with wondrous titflesh.

In the back of my head, I knew we still couldn't have intercourse. No matter how much we might want to remind each other of our love, medical rules were rules for a reason. It wasn't worth jeopardizing DJ's health, and well, I was gonna need that reproductive system again down the road. So we settled for making out like horny high schoolers in the front seat of a car, each desperate to hit a home run but one or both of them scared to go that far and therefore settling for kissing like there was no tomorrow.

And just like that horny high schooler, I could see myself at least getting a nice blowjob, and DJ seemed to be of like mind. Breaking our liplock for a chance to breathe, she grinned at me with a twinkle in her eyes before raising the hem of my shirt up my chest and then kissing her way down my belly. I realized what she wanted to do, but instead of letting her, I reached down and tugged her by the armpits back up my body. She giggled in surprise as I abruptly rolled us over. And then it was MY turn to kiss my way down her belly (with a pit stop or four at her tits).

"Bennn..." DJ moaned, restraining the downward path of my head with her hands. "I wanted to do you first."

"But -I- want to do YOU first," I replied, my tone brooking no dissent. That's really what my ejaculation blockage was all about. I couldn't let myself have that satisfaction before she did.

"Are you sure you want to go down there? It's not ... icky ... to you?"

"Nothing about your pussy can EVER be icky," I replied firmly. "Someday, I'm gonna watch you push a ten pound baby through his hole and I'm only going to love it even more."

DJ giggled but winced. "Ouch. NOT the thing to say to put a girl in the mood."

"Sorry. Let me put you back in the mood." And then I licked her.

"Ohhhhhhh, gawd!" she gasped as if shocked by what I'd done. Apparently, it had been so long since anyone had done that to her that it practically felt like the first time. And I'm sure all you girls remember exactly how awesome it felt the first time somebody licked you.

So I did it again. And again. And again. I didn't stop until she ripped hairs from my roots and I didn't even stop then. She came, and then she came again, and then she came again. And it was only when she switched from hair-pulling to head-slapping that I finally pulled back from her crotch, the entire lower-half of my face covered from nose to chin in girlcum.

Naked, sweaty, and panting, DJ rolled onto her right side and curled into a fetal position. Her eyes were closed, and her lower lip quivered. Her breathing did not come easily, and she looked like she'd just collapsed after a marathon, even though she hadn't done anything but lay there and let me drive her crazy.

I grinned with satisfaction to see how well I'd eaten her out. With my feet on the floor, I laid my chest down on the mattress beside her so that I could turn my head and look at her face-to-face. For a long while, her eyelids were so heavy that she couldn't return my gaze. For an even longer while, her whole body was so weary she couldn't even tilt her head to look at me.

"Tired?" I asked while her eyes were still closed and her head still bowed.

She didn't respond immediately, still trying to catch her breath. Eventually, she replied, "Wiped out." And only then did her eyelids finally rise, although her gaze was still stuck somewhere around my chest.

"I thought I did good, but not that good."

"Been ... a long ... week..." she wheezed through pauses to breathe.

Nodding my understanding, I slipped off the bed and circled around so I could climb up behind her. I spooned myself against her back, now on the opposite side from which I'd woken up this morning. And I wrapped my limbs around her slender body, enfolding my fiancée in my love and my warmth.

We were both quiet for a few minutes. I cuddled her against my chest, and she sighed happily to feel me cuddling her. Eventually, she regained her breath and craned her head back to look at me. "My turn, I guess."

I chuckled and shook my head in the negative. "Don't worry about it."

"But you haven't cum yet. Haven't cum since Monday."

"So a few more hours won't kill me. Relax. Rest. Let me hug you, because that's really all I want right now."

At first, DJ looked ready to argue the point, but her weariness overrode her sense of fairness and she set her head back down on the pillow. "I've just been so stressed out..."

"I know."

"And it's been such a long time since we had sex."

I chuckled. "I know."

"That last series of orgasms, they were like dominoes, toppling one into the next," she wheezed. "Completely unprepared for that."

I felt my chest puffing up with pride, the satisfaction of satisfying my partner filling me up from within. "Glad you liked it."

"I feel like this is the first time in a week that some of these muscles in my back and shoulders have unknotted."

"Hey, I've always been a proponent of relaxation by sexual relief."

DJ mused on that for a long few seconds, and then turned her head to glance back at me. "And yet you haven't let yourself find that relief."

I shrugged. "I will, when it's time."

"Then I owe it to you now."

"DJ, you'll never owe me a thing. I already told you: You're going to be my wife. You'll never have to make anything up to me."

I'd meant to reassure her, but instead, her face crumbled. She turned away from me, and I felt her sobs beginning before I heard them. And in a broken voice, she moaned, "But I do."

I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. A half-hour ago, DJ and I woke up in each other's arms happier than we'd been in a week. We'd kissed and fondled and I'd brought her to multiple orgasms. She talked of being more relaxed and feeling better than she had in a long time, and I figured that the worst was behind us. Maybe now we would finally be able to move on after the abortion.

Instead, DJ had started crying. Bewildered, I'd tried to cuddle her tighter and reassure her that everything would be alright. But she'd broken free of my grasp and hurriedly found her nightshirt, yanking it over her head and then popping her arms through the sleeves. Her panties and pajama pants were next, and whatever else was going on, I knew that my fiancée jerking her clothes on as if she were ashamed to be naked around me could NOT be a good sign.

"I can't do this. I can't DO this!" she muttered before dropping her feet to the floor and then yanking the waistband of her pajama pants up to her waist. She started for the door, but only got two steps before my hand flashed out and latched onto her wrist, arresting her escape.

"Hey, hey!" I had to repeat myself to get her attention. Blearily, through moisture-filled eyes, she stared back at me. "What's wrong? Talk to me."

"I can't do this," she pleaded again, tugging backward and trying to free herself from my grasp.

But I didn't let go. Instead, I got a second hand onto her forearm and began pulling her back toward the bed. She resisted at first, pouting and shaking her head while I retracted her in hand-over-hand, until she was standing beside the bed. And then I wrapped both arms around her waist and hoisted her onto the mattress beside me.

She burst into tears again, the eye-clenched ugly grimace kind of bawling. We were on our sides facing each other again, and I wrapped her up tightly in my embrace. This time, she didn't try to pull away.

I let her cry it out, and she pressed her face forward into my chest so sob her heart out. I rubbed her scalp and shushed her with soothing sounds, and after another few minutes, she began to calm down.

Eventually, she tilted her head to look up at me through red-rimmed eyes, and I took her face into my hands for a quick kiss. But her lips didn't respond to my pressure, and I pulled back to look at her with a furrowed brow. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Sorry for what?"

"For failing you."

"Fail me? You didn't fail me."

"Yes I did," she answered with a nod. "I've failed you."

"How?"

"In so many ways I can't believe you've stuck with me this long."

"Stuck with you? Are you crazy? I want to marry you."

She shook her head. "No you don't. Not a fuck-up like me. You deserve better."

I sighed. "I think I'm done with other people deciding what I do and don't deserve. I know what I WANT, and what I WANT is you."

"You want what you think I can be. I can't."

"And what is it you think that -I- think you can be?"

"Wife. Mother. Soulmate."

"And you don't think you can be that for me?"

She shook her head.

"Why not?"

"Because I've failed you."

I rolled my eyes, my intent to support DJ being eroded by my annoyance with her. But I didn't want to be annoyed with her, and taking a deep breath to calm myself, I asked, "Okay, back to this. How exactly have you failed me?"

"I aborted our baby."

"Is that what this is about?"

She nodded. "It's enough."

"We talked about this. We agreed on this. We weren't ready."

"-I- wasn't ready. You were."

"I'm two years older than you and about to graduate. You're still a teenager with two and a half more years of school to finish. It's easier for me to be ready than you."

"Doesn't matter. I wasn't ready, and that's all that matters. I've failed you."

"Postponed our family, until a point where WE are both at a point where we're ready to have this family. That's not failure, that's common sense."

"I KILLED our baby."

"It wasn't a baby yet."

"But it would have been."

"We're not arguing about abortion rights here."

"I'm not. I'm just stating fact. Come August, you and I would have had a baby together. Now, because of a decision I made, we're not."

"A decision WE made. Together."

She shook her head. "A decision -I- made and that you went along with, even though it wasn't what you wanted. MY decision."

I took another deep breath. "And you're feeling guilty about it. That's normal. That's human."

She shook her head. "I'm not good enough for you. You deserve better than me."

"Seriously. Stop saying that."

"It's true. At the very least, -I- don't deserve YOU."

"Deej..."

"I can't do this anymore. I can't."

"Can't do what? BE with me?"

She shook her head.

Frowning, I sat up and glared down at her. "Seriously? You're trying to break UP with me?!?"

DJ burst into tears again, and this time my annoyance won out and I slipped off the bed, grabbing my pajama pants and pulling them on. DJ curled back into a fetal position and sobbed, and I paced around the bed to her side and then back and then over to her side once again before I cooled down enough to think clearly.

Sitting on the bed behind her, I rubbed her shoulder and asked calmly, "Tell me why you 'can't' be with me, why you think you have to break up with me."

"I can't be around you anymore. Every time I look at you, I think of how I destroyed our family. How I murdered our baby."

"There will be other chances, other babies."

She shook her head. "Not anymore. Can't do it. I committed relationship suicide without even realizing it. I did an unforgivable thing that can never be forgotten. Boom. Relationship executed."

"Getting an abortion was the right thing for US to do. WE weren't ready to start a family. There are a gazillion practical reasons, correct reasons, for choosing what WE did. What's relationship suicide is trying to break UP with me right now!"

"But I don't deserve you!"

"Will you fucking let ME decide what I do and don't deserve! Seriously! Why does every girl think they are the sole arbiter of whether or not they're good enough for me!"

"I'm not your True Love."

"There's no such thing as True Love."

"You don't mean that."

"Of course I mean that. If I believed in it, I'd still be hung up on Dawn."

"Then you never thought that -I- could be your True Love?"

"DJ, I asked you to marry me. I LOVE you, and I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I just don't believe that we each have a single True Love, as a concept. I think you and I HAVE true love, and that's good enough for me."

"And I love YOU!"

"Then what's the fucking problem?!?"

She pursed her lips and turned her face into the pillow again. And she whimpered again, "I'm not good enough for you."

"Oh, Jeezus fuckin' CHRIST." I got off the bed and started pacing around the room again.

"You were always the ideal, the goal, the dream guy," she muttered. "Even after I realized the real Ben wasn't the same as fantasy Ben, I fell in love with the real you. You are all I've ever wanted, but now that I have you, I've fucked things up. I should have been ready. I should have been better. But I've failed you."

"Again, you didn't FAIL me," I spat back toward the bed, only belatedly realizing how vehement my tone sounded.

"I couldn't keep my promise of not letting you go twenty-four hours without getting off."

"That was a nice sentiment, but never a promise I was going to hold you to."

"I couldn't even get you off just NOW."

"I didn't need to right now."

"But you haven't cum in a week! YOU! Mr. Sex God!"

"It's been six days. And that's beside the point. I was more interested in making sure YOU were okay. I was happier to know that YOU got some relief and relaxation. That was way more important to me."

"But I haven't done my job as your girlfriend ... as your fiancée ... as your wife. I'm supposed to be taking care of your needs."

"Well, breaking up with me isn't exactly going to help me get off sooner than later."

"I'm sorry. Let me do that now." Brushing her bangs behind her ear, she sat up and reached for my waistband.

"Hey, what? No. Not now." I batted her hand away and sat back on my heels. "Not like this. We have to resolve this. WITHOUT you breaking up with me."

"But I don't know if I can be around you anymore. I love you, but ... I ... can't..."

"You can't do this," I finished with an eye roll.

She looked up at me miserably.

"You feel so guilty that you can't handle it anymore."

She nodded, still miserably.

"And you feel like you've done something so terrible, so shameful, that all you have left is to run away."

She dropped back down to the pillow, crying into it once more.

I rubbed my forehead. "You've been listening to Linkin Park too much this past week. Shoulda had Brooke go into your computer and delete Easier to Run."

"Wha-?"

I waved her off and stalked away from the bed for a moment, getting my grimacing glower under control before I showed my face to her again. Once I felt like I'd calmed down a bit, I turned around and returned to stand next to the bed. "You said a minute ago that you weren't my True Love. What makes you suddenly say that?"

"Two people who are meant to be together don't have things like this happen to them. If I was your True Love, I never would have aborted your baby. If I was your True Love, I never would have let you down."

"That's bullshit. Everybody lets everybody down. It's easy to be happy in a relationship when everything is going well, but nothing goes well ALL the time. What defines a relationship is how they get through adversity."

"If that's the case, then we are failing miserably."

"Then TRY with me! Don't fail miserably! WORK at this and don't fucking run away!"

"I don't know how! I've been trying for the past week!"

"Not even a week. Six days."

"FINE then! I'm NOT strong enough. I DON'T deserve you!"

"Maybe you don't! If you can't even love me enough to keep fighting for this relationship."

"I've BEEN fighting for this relationship ever since I took that damn pregnancy test!!!" DJ suddenly screamed, loud enough for people on campus to hear her. And then as if she'd broken through some kind of emotional dam, she spun around and buried her face in the pillows so suddenly I'm surprised she didn't snap her own neck.

The waterworks started up again.

"I can't do this anymore," she mumbled into the pillows. "I've wanted this to work from the very beginning. I wanted to have you so badly. This was my chance. This was my perfect chance to have my happily ever after. Dawn was gone, and I was determined to be right by your side to pick up the pieces. Still, I was always worried I'd just be another rebound. Even once we were together I always worried that you didn't truly want me for me. But you always reminded me that you chose me. Even when Dawn came crawling back, you shut her out and told me you had chosen ME. It was wonderful. It was exactly what I'd always wanted. But then I had to go and get pregnant."

I sat down on the edge of the bed, stroking DJ's back as she faced away from me.

"It freaked me out, of course. Nineteen, unmarried, and pregnant? Pretty much every girl's worst nightmare. It's the sort of thing all girls fear, almost more for how their mothers will react than anything else. But Mom was happy. YOU were happy. And then I started to think that maybe things wouldn't be so bad. I DID want to marry you. I DID want a family with you. Always you. Only you. Getting knocked up sped up our timetable, but the end result would be the same, right?"

I nodded, even though she didn't turn back to look at me.

"I tried so hard to convince myself that everything would be alright. But the whole time I couldn't shake the fear of being pregnant. My first thought, of course, was to get the abortion right away. Problem solved, back to the basics of just you and me. But then you actually seemed happy that I was pregnant, and I started having second thoughts. I went along with the idea of keeping the baby, all the while believing I could change my mind if it seemed that I couldn't handle it. But you got excited, my family got excited, and our sisters got excited. We told our friends and then you went and proposed and I started thinking that I couldn't change my mind anymore. How could I get an abortion at that point and disappoint everybody?"

"Not a very good reason to have a baby, though."

"I know. But for a long time I felt trapped. With every passing day it became harder and harder to go back. I got more and more attached to the little creature growing inside me. And yet I couldn't shake the fear. I couldn't shake the idea that having a baby at nineteen WASN'T what I wanted. I was freaking out inside, and feeling trapped into a relationship ... trapped into a marriage ... that I didn't really want."

"You don't want to marry me?"

"I DO!" DJ finally spun back to face me, tears streaking in lines down her cheeks. "But I don't ... not YET. It's ... it's like the baby ... I'm not ready yet. I want to marry you ... eventually ... Like, when I'm twenty-FOUR, not nineteen. That's why I keep putting you off from buying the ring."

"You don't want to marry me!" I exclaimed in shock.

"Ben, it's not like that."

"It's not? A few minutes ago you told me you didn't want to even date me anymore."

"I LOVE you. Please don't doubt that. I just ... Not now. I don't deserve you right now. And you deserve better than me."

"Freaking A! Will you people STOP saying that!"

"Us people?" she asked in confusion.

"You! Dawn! Stop fucking saying 'you deserve better' and just ... just ... MAN up and come out with it. You don't WANT to be with me! And then tell me the fuck WHY!"

"It was supposed to be easier than this," DJ whimpered. "You and me being together was supposed to be easy. But it's been a lot harder than I thought it would be."

"And what, you're not willing to work at this relationship?"

"I am. I've BEEN trying. But so much has happened and almost none of it has been like I planned or expected. I thought that once Dawn took herself out of the picture, that meant that maybe you were destined for me, the way I'd always dreamed. But lately I keep questioning whether or not we're truly meant to be, whether or not you really are my destiny."

"Destiny. Ha!" I spat derisively. "Okay, so maybe you're still too young to know that 'Destiny' is bullshit. Eventually you'll learn that Happily Ever After isn't about True Love. It's about being ready to settle down at the same time your partner is ready to settle down. If it's not the person you're with, then all you can do is hope that it's whoever comes next."

DJ frowned. "Whoever's next? Is that all I am to you? 'Next'? Dawn broke your heart, so you decided you'd try again with me?"

Red warning lights exploded all over the dashboard of my mind, and I suddenly realized I was on very thin ice. "Deej, it wasn't like that," I began cautiously.

"Isn't it? First Dawn, then me? You're running out of Evans girls. If we break up, what then? You'll try to steal Dayna from Kevin?"

"Now you're being ridiculous."

"Am I? Wasn't that always the dream? Marry an Evans girl? Unite the two families?"

"This isn't about marrying an Evans girl. I want YOU for YOU. The uniting of our two families would be nice... for our families. But that shouldn't be a factor for US. WE need to be two people who want to be together, period. There is no destiny. Dawn taught me that."

"So much bitterness in your voice. That's the thing. This has always been about Dawn, hasn't it?"

"Absolutely not. I've moved on from her."

"You sure?"

"Fucking sure."

"Oh, so you're cursing now? What was it you always told me? That the opposite of love isn't hate, but indifference. You aren't indifferent to Dawn. That tone in your voice ... you HATE her."

"I don't hate Dawn."

DJ slid her butt to the edge of the mattress and perched her heels on the bed frame. She gave me a hard look and asked, "Be very careful about how you answer this next question: Did you choose to be with me, or did you HAVE to move on from Dawn?"

"What?"

"It's a simple question."

I screwed up my face. "Both. I CHOSE you. I think I've made that point clear, and some days I wonder if those are the three words I've said to you more than any others. And I ALSO had to move on from Dawn. To still be hung up on her wouldn't have been fair for my relationship with you."

DJ shook her head. "Not what I meant. Let me put it this way. If you had a choice between having me and still being in love with Dawn, or NOT having me and NOT still being in love with Dawn, which would you choose?"

"Huh?"

"Have me ... OR move on from Dawn. Mutually-exclusive. Can't pick both."

"Deej, you're talking crazy."

"Choose."

"Of course I want both."

"NO. NOT both. Choose!"

"You, alright!"

"You sure? You're not saying that just because you think it's the answer I want to hear?"

"I choose YOU. Period. No matter the consequences."

"Even if it means breaking up my family? Having one of the three sisters hate another's guts for all eternity?"

"Do you really think Dawn will hate your guts for all eternity?"

"If I marry you? Yes."

"So you'll break up with me instead? That's your answer? Dawn will come around. I know that much about her. And even if she didn't, that'd be HER fucking problem."

"Still so much vehemence and anger for my big sister? You haven't moved on from her quite as much as you would have me believe."

"Yes, I'm angry with her. How else am I supposed to think about a lying, cheating slut? But that doesn't mean I haven't moved on. I Have. I'm not going backwards. I have a future now, with YOU. And I want it SOOO badly!"

"A little TOO badly, perhaps."

"And apparently you don't want a future with me enough."

"Let's say I don't. What then? You gonna decide I'm not the partner ready to settle down with you at the same time? You gonna dump me and move on to whoever comes next?"

"Of course not."

"Oh that's right. You're not the dumping type. You're the hopeless romantic who clings to the eternal idea of Happily Ever After and wants it so badly that you'll settle for just anybody who'll give it to you."

"WHAT?"

"Tell me, Ben. How many girlfriends have you had?"

"Why does that matter?"

"How many?"

I sighed and replied easily, "11." I remembered all of them, and had cherished all of them in their own way. Even Cadence ... sort of ... At least I learned something from that relationship.

"And with how many of them did end things? How many times were YOU the dumper and not the dumpee."

I sighed. "Just the last one: Amber. But what's your point?"

"My point is that I've been the dumper for every one of my relationships. I'm picky that way. None of them ever measured up to my ideal; none of them ever measured up to you. So I eventually kicked them to the curb and didn't settle for anything less than what I truly deserved. But you don't work like that. You try to believe the best in whoever you're with. You don't want to be the bad guy. And yes, you'll settle. So I can't help but wonder if you're settling for me."

"DJ, you're one of the most amazing women on the entire planet. YOU empirically can't be settled for."

"Yes I can, if it's Dawn you really want."

"I don't. I love YOU."

DJ shook her head. "No matter how much I want to believe that you truly love me, I can't be 100% sure. In the middle of last semester you and I were squarely in the fuck buddy zone. You knew what I wanted, and you knew you couldn't give it to me. But then all of a sudden I got sick and you're all over me like flypaper. And the next thing I know you're proposing marriage. Kinda fast, don't you think?"

"I always had a love for you. Everybody talks about my White Knight complex. Maybe taking care of you fueled the spark into something greater. It happened. And the proposal was a bit rushed because of the pregnancy. But NONE of that means that I don't truly love you."

"Do you? Do you want ME? Or do you want the safety and security of the family I could have given you? We'd just started dating, and MAYBE we would have lasted forever. Then again, maybe we would have broken up after a year or so. Who knows? All I know is that one day, I'm asking you if we're on a path to marriage and you're telling me you're not an egg timer. You're telling me I can't just sit around and when the sand runs out the marriage begins. You're telling me you want to take our relationship one step at a time, and then five days later I show you my pregnancy test and then all of a sudden you're ready to be married, settle down, and live happily ever after! Blink! Boom! Completely changed mind! Just like that!"

"What's your point?"

"My point is that when I turned up pregnant, you proposed first thing."

"You were pregnant. That's the honorable thing to do."

"It wasn't about honor. It wasn't about you reluctantly agreeing to do the right thing. Your whole commitment to me changed. You suddenly went from 'I love you and we'll see where the future takes us' to 'Ohmigawd we're going to be so happy together forever and always for the rest of our lives'! Because THAT'S what you want above all else: a family. That's why getting knocked up made you quote 'fall in love with me' faster than anything else I could have done. Face it, Ben. You'll settle for anyone who'll marry you and have your kids."

"NOT true."

"Isn't it? Maybe you're right. Maybe you really do love me for who I am and not what I could eventually give you. But then maybe me aborting this child was the best thing that could have happened to either of us: I don't get trapped into a family where my husband is still in love with my big sister, and you're free to find your soulmate once again."

"Dawn is NOT my soulmate. And why are you doing this? Why are you pushing me away?"

"I'm not pushing you away."

"Yes, you are. Is it a defense mechanism? Your guilt won't let you stay with me? You can't handle the pressure, so you try and fill both our heads with doubts that we can still make this work? You're pushing me away, and you're trying to RUN away."

DJ shook her head. "You're so scarred by Dawn that it's not about finding your Mrs. Right; it's about moving on from HER. You HAVE to move on from her, just for the SAKE of moving on from her. And I just happened to be 'next'."

"Is that what you tell yourself? To convince yourself that I don't truly love you? And that would make it okay for you to run away from me?"

DJ didn't answer me, not verbally. She simply bit her lip, gave me a sad frown, and got off the bed. And then she literally DID run away.

This time, I didn't stop her.

I stayed in my room for a while, processing everything that had just happened. I wondered how much of what DJ had said was real. Maybe she was just telling me things she feared but didn't believe to be true. But then maybe she was telling me things she believed to be true, but just wouldn't say. It could be hard to read her. Sometimes, she was like an open book wearing her emotions on her sleeve. There were days when I could plainly see just how much she wanted to be with me even before we got together, and even after we got together, there were days when I felt like I could literally bask in the warm glow of her love.

But then there were times when she was a closed book, burying her emotions deep within a façade of perfect beauty. I'd ask how she was doing and she'd tell me "fine". And then she'd sometimes drop to her knees and give me a blowjob to distract me.

It wasn't that she hid all of her negative emotions from me. When she was sick or stressed or tired, she was only too happy to come to me for support. Backrubs, orgasms, and talking while cuddling did wonders to lift her spirits. Sure, she talked a lot about wanting to be the best girlfriend I ever had, and she'd certainly gone out of her way to both make and keep me happy whenever possible, whether sexually or otherwise. But she also took to heart my insistence that she communicate with me, and I thought that we as a couple had done a good job of not making assumptions and actually talking through our issues. We'd certainly had a lot of issues to work out ever since she took that pregnancy test.

Yet despite our supposedly "open" communication, she'd still hid something from me. The whole duration of our relationship, she never told me about feeling trapped by the pregnancy, or by my proposal. She'd never told me her fear that I was "settling" for her. I supposed that even "openly" communicating couples can still have their secrets, especially if they believe those secrets could undermine their relationship.

And maybe I had a few secrets of my own.

Was DJ right?

DID I settle for her?

DID I choose to be with her not for her, but because I absolutely HAD to move on from Dawn?

DID I want to marry her because I knew I couldn't have Dawn, and because marrying DJ and having little Evans kids with her would be the closest thing to having my original dream?

Um, that last one never got mentioned by DJ. That one's all on you.

Shit.

What are you doing man? You've got a great thing going with a wicked hot babe with big tits and a thing for taking your dick up her ass.

HAD a good thing. Lately, I'm not so sure.

She's a chick who just had an abortion. She's entitled to be emotional. What's your sorry excuse?

She's questioning my love for her, and questioning hers for me.

That's not the problem. If it were only that, you'd be downstairs convincing her otherwise. The PROBLEM is that YOU'RE questioning your love for each other. Right now.

Am I?

Dude, you're talking to yourself again. Yes. Yes, you are.

Shit.

Simple choice: Stay up here and run your head around in circles until she walks away from you (which might actually be what you want, seeing as that's what you're currently doing). OR, get your ass downstairs and FIX THIS. However you can.

I'm going, I'm going.

Indeed, I was on my feet and already out the door.

The problem was: DJ wasn't here anymore.

Neither DJ nor Brooke was in the house, and neither of them picked up their cell phone. My first impulse was to run out the door and then go up and down the block screaming DJ's name, and I actually made it out the front door. But then I saw that Brooke's Corolla was gone, and my heart sank into my gut.

How different would my life have turned out if I'd parked the Mustang behind her in the tandem driveway last night?

But I hadn't, and they were gone. For a brief moment, I thought about calling Faye or Dayna or even DJ's parents. But I decided against freaking anybody else out if it turned out there was nothing to freak about. Maybe this was no different than the rest of the stress and second guessing DJ had been doing since the procedure. Maybe she simply needed space and time to think before coming back to me. Maybe everything would turn out all right in the end.

Or maybe not.

Really, I had no way of knowing. But in the belief that we'd be able to work through anything together, I decided to let her have her space. And there was nothing left for me to do but go inside the house and wait for their return.

It was just before 5pm when I heard a key jiggle in the front door. Having anesthetized myself with television, I was a little sluggish in hitting the power button on the remote and then sitting up straight. By the time I turned my head to the hallway, someone had already come around the corner.

"Brandi?" I gasped in surprise.

"Hey, little brother," my sister replied as she came over and sat down beside me. "How's it going?"

"What are you doing here?"

"Your fiancée invited us over."

"DJ? Where is she?"

"She's coming. She decided to ride with Dayna for the drive in from the City. I rode with Brooke." My big sister glanced up and smiled to see our little sister dropping onto the couch on the other side of me. Brooke, on the other hand, wasn't smiling.

"What's going on?"

Brooke looked hesitant, and she shot a glance across me to Brandi. I turned my head to follow, seeing my big sister take a deep breath and then sigh.

Brandi must have watched my face fall, because she immediately latched onto my hands and said encouragingly, "DJ loves you. She's IN love with you."

I felt moisture forming in my eyes. "I smell a 'but' coming..."

Now it was Brandi's turn to glance over at Brooke, but my gaze stayed with my older sister. After a moment, Brandi returned her eyes to me and let out another sigh. "I really should let her do the talking."

"So there IS a 'but' coming."

"She loves you. She wants to marry you."

"But..."

Brandi pursed her lips, looking at Brooke again.

"Please ... don't leave me hanging like this," I whimpered, squeezing my sister's hands. "Just ... tell me."

"She wants a break. She needs time and space to figure this all out. The abortion has thrown her completely out of whack. She thought it would solve her fears of being trapped, of taking on the burden of child-rearing before she was ready. But instead it's made her second-guess your entire relationship. She's scared and guilt-ridden and she can barely stand to be in the same room as you. She loves you, and breaking up with you is the last thing she ever wanted to do, but..."

"But she's going to break up with me."

Brandi winced and bit her lip, feeling like she shouldn't have said as much as she had. I could tell she was clamming up now, so I turned to my other sister.

"Brooke, tell me."

She didn't have to. The way my little sister went pale and looked apologetic was answer enough.

I took a deep breath, and firmly pulled my hands out of Brandi's. "So what? You and Dayna are coming here to be witnesses to my latest epic failure?"

"It's not like that," Brandi insisted.

"She just needs some time to figure herself out," Brooke added.

"And space. So what, she's moving out?"

Brooke took a deep breath. "Sofia flunked out last semester. She's not coming back from Arizona. And she was Faye's roommate this year."

"DJ IS moving out."

"Faye's locked into her lease until summer. We're taking over the other room."

"Wait, 'we'?" I jerked out of my seat and stood up, turning around to face my little sister. "You're moving out, too?"

Brooke turned even paler, if that were possible.

"Ah, FUCK," I spat, turning and pacing around the coffee table and over toward the far side of the living room. I turned back after reaching the TV and glared back at my little sister.

"I'll visit. I'll check in on you. You'll always be my big brother," Brooke insisted.

I threw my hands up. "Everyone abandons me."

"We're not abandoning you."

A fire lit up inside my heart. Adrenaline surged through my veins and I balled my fists while clenching my jaw. "Doesn't matter," I spat out. "Because it's not gonna happen. This isn't over. DJ hasn't actually broken up with me yet, and maybe she never will. This girl was carrying my child. I proposed to her, and she accepted. This is MY relationship we're talking about, and I'll be damned if anybody decides it's over without me."

Just then, a key jiggled in the lock, and I prepared myself for one final showdown.

I still believed in a future with DJ, and I was ready to say anything it took to make that future into reality.

Anything. Everything. This was my fiancée. This was for the rest of my LIFE. This was my HAPPINESS FOREVER AFTER.

I promised myself I would make this work out.

...

I failed.

I won't go into many details about that last conversation. Suffice to say that by the end of it, DJ and I were officially broken up, and she was huddled with our sisters in a four-way estrogen-fueled tearfest.

I, on the other hand, had gone into the kitchen to make dinner.

No, seriously. I was making dinner.

Brandi had first walked through the door just before 5pm, and it was now after 7pm. My talk with DJ had lasted nearly two hours, and though it had never elevated into shouting or violence, it still had not been the most pleasant of experiences. The reasons for our break up were numerous and semi-vague. The obvious had already been stated, but what it really amounted to was that over the past week, somewhere along the way we'd lost our spark.

Scratch that: the moment we walked into the abortion clinic we lost our spark. The remainder of the week was merely realizing it.

It's easy for relationships to move forward. It's really hard for them to move back ... not without breaking, that is. I'd told myself to take things slow. To not lose my head.

Then I went and asked her to marry me.

DJ and I had gone on a whirlwind of a romance, moving from friendship to dating to pregnancy to proposal. A week ago we were engaged and expecting. But then we started going backwards. On Monday the "expecting" part went away. The engaged part had technically remained until now, even though DJ told me she wasn't really ready for that part, either.

We'd come to the brink of marriage and family. Now, we couldn't even remain boyfriend/girlfriend. There's no going back. Not for us.

DJ said she was breaking up with me because she knew I'd never do it first, even though she didn't deserve to keep me after what she'd done. She promised she would continue to love me. She blamed herself, saying that it was her shame and guilt that prevented her from continuing to be there for me the way I deserved. Yet at the same time, she confessed to never quite being able to erase her doubts about my love for her. My words were always there, and so were my actions. Nevertheless, she always felt deep in her gut that there was still something I was holding back.

She hoped that someday, maybe even someday soon, she would get past her demons and we'd find each other again. I was still her ideal man, and she insisted that our breakup was no fault of mine. She believed I could forgive her for the abortion. Now if only she could forgive herself, to bring herself to the point where she could face me again. It would be hard, because in the end she'd chosen herself over choosing me. That was a tough pill for her to swallow, and something she might regret for the rest of her life.

Hmm ... my loving girlfriend blames only herself and simply HAS to run away because she can't face what she's done to me. Where have I heard THAT before?

I felt helpless. I was pissed off. I'd worked so hard to make this relationship work. I'd accepted my pregnant girlfriend, offered to make an honest woman of her. Just when I was at the peak of bliss for my upcoming family, she'd gotten cold feet. So I'd accepted her decision to abort the baby while promising to stay by her side until she WAS ready.

All that, and she was still breaking up with me. I felt like I'd done nothing wrong ... AGAIN ... and I was losing my girlfriend ... AGAIN.

Go after Dayna after this? Yeah, right. What the fuck was WRONG with these Evans girls? Huh?

And yet, some part of me felt relieved. Maybe I would have wondered throughout my marriage to DJ if I should have married Dawn instead. Maybe I would have wondered for the rest of my life if I only settled for second-best because she got knocked up.

Maybe I simply had a picture in my head of myself standing next to my gorgeous blonde bombshell wife in front of our picket-fenced house with our children, and when Dawn had removed herself from that picture I'd been only too eager to plug DJ into her place, because she was the next closest thing I could imagine.

Or maybe we would have been just fine. Perfectly happy. Perfectly content to live our lives together, without regret or second-thought. Maybe...

But now I'll never know, because my so-called wife was moving to her old best friend's apartment with my little sister.

My head fucking hurts.

Mine, too.

I didn't want to think about it anymore. I didn't want to think about ANYTHING anymore. I was tired, and stressed, and angry, and disappointed, and confused. My heart had just been broken, and yet for some reason I didn't feel sad about that part. Just angry. Just betrayed. And a little ... numb.

And I was hungry. It was after 7pm, and I hadn't eaten since noon. I was hungry, and I was gonna do something about it. Plus, I was making enough food for everyone. Let DJ, Brooke, Dayna, and Brandi eat my food knowing they had all played a part in ruining my life. Let them feel just a little bit of guilt over THAT.

But as it turned out, I didn't make dinner all by myself. One minute I was hunched over the counter, slicing meat and dicing vegetables. The next minute somebody tapped my shoulder and I turned to see Kim standing beside me, her eyes wide as she asked, "What the heck is going on?"

I glanced out through the kitchen doorway, where I could see Dayna, Brandi, Brooke, and DJ crying while huddled together on the couch. I took a deep breath, pursed my lips, and answered glumly, "DJ just broke up with me. She got an abortion on Monday, and after a week stressing out over the guilt, she decided she can't be with me anymore."

Kim's eyes went even wider. She turned her head and gaped out the doorway for a long time, processing everything I'd just said. And when it appeared that she would remain staring out the doorway in shock for a good bit longer, I turned my attention back to my vegetables.

But Kim finished processing much faster than I would have thought. Suddenly, I felt her arms wrap around my chest as she hugged me quite firmly from behind. And as if her hug short-circuited every electron in my body, I felt myself sag forward and go limp with a heavy sigh.

She didn't let me collapse. With strength in her arms I wouldn't have expected, she kept me upright long enough for me to brace my hands against the countertop and press myself back up.

Neither of us moved for a minute or so. She held me, and I remained hunched over the counter merely trying to breathe. I then blinked, and a single teardrop fell from my left eye to roll down my cheek.

The tear didn't make it down to my jaw. Kim kissed it before it got that far, and then she stood back and patted my shoulder once again. "Stir fry? I'll go make the rice."

Head still bowed, I managed a weak grin in her direction. "Thanks."

"You gonna be okay?"

Brandi was the last one to leave the house. Dayna was outside already, standing at the bottom of the steps. The three of us had just watched Brooke back her Corolla out of the driveway and then head off down the street toward Faye's apartment.

It hadn't taken long to load up the car. The girls didn't take everything, just enough to get by for the next few days along with DJ's full-size bedsheets. Sofia from Arizona had left behind her furniture, and being cheap stuff from IKEA it wasn't worth retrieving. It included a full-size bed, conveniently enough, and apparently the girls didn't mind sharing for now.

I'd helped carry the luggage. DJ told me not to, but I rather coldly informed her that she'd relinquished the right to tell me what to do. Nobody commented on my bitter tone. I guess they felt I deserved it. I then insisted to both DJ and Brooke that they were welcome to come back at any time, no strings attached. I'd leave their bedrooms untouched in anticipation of that day. And then I hugged my little sister goodbye.

Brooke had promised to check in on me regularly, and that her departure wasn't about abandoning her brother so much as being there for DJ. I'd told her I understood and then stood back to watch her leave. I also watched DJ cry the whole time, from being helped into the car by Brooke to sobbing in her seat as the car backed out and then drove away. And only then did I finally turn to Brandi and answer her question.

"I'll be fine."

"You sure?" she asked, voice full of concern. For emphasis, she squeezed both of my hands, holding one in each of hers.

I chuckled and nodded ruefully. "Don't have much of a choice, really. It's either be fine or go to pieces."

"That's what I'm worried about."

I shook my head and then pulled my sister to me for a hug. "I'll be fine," I insisted before releasing her. I then jerked a thumb back at Kim, who stood inside the doorway a couple of feet behind me and to the right. "Besides, it's not like I'm completely alone."

Brandi nodded and then looked past my shoulder. "You take care of him. Hear?"

I turned in time to see Kim blush and then nod wordlessly, her eyes cast downward.

Brandi pulled one more hug out of me and then took a deep breath, reassuring herself that I would be alright more than anything else. She then stepped back and turned around, joining Dayna at the bottom of the stairs.

The last Evans daughter herself gave me an apologetic shrug, to which I waved her off. The failings of her younger sisters weren't her fault. She scooped an arm around Brandi's waist, the two of them walking together up the walkway and to the curb where Dayna had parallel parked. They waved, I waved, and then they were gone as well.

I stepped back and closed the door, a shiver running down my spine from more than just the January cold. Kim waited for me expectantly, her lips a straight line across. I sighed and shrugged to her, asking, "Now what?"

She didn't have an answer. I didn't really expect her to. And when she failed to say a word, I simply sighed and walked past her, heading for the stairs. After everything that had happened, I wanted a shower.

Since the beginning of time, water has represented all that is pure and clean. I'm not religious, but I understood that Christian baptism was all about cleansing the baptized of all sins. Although my desire to have a shower at that moment had less to do with conscious cleansing of my sins and more from a general sense of feeling icky, as I felt the hot spray cascading down my naked body and washing away the dirt, sweat, and tears, I could appreciate the symbolism.

For a long time I simply stood there, my hands braced against the wall in front of me while I ducked my head low enough for the water to hit me at the base of my neck and run in rivers down my back. More water ran over the top of my head, brushing my hair forward until my bangs hung down in front of my eyes. I watched the water collect various strands together, combining them until it was almost as if I only had four very thick bangs, and four thick streams of water ran down like waterfalls from their tips to splatter in the porcelain tub beneath me.

I didn't dwell on DJ, or even think of anything, really. My mind was thick and my consciousness a cloudy haze of nothingness. I simply stared at the water pouring down my four bangs, mentally measuring their thickness without any real units of measure or any recording of my findings. My actions were transitory. My measurements were of the moment, in existence one moment and gone the next, lost to the unchangeable past. Another sunk cost.

Kind of like my relationships. Each and every one of them had existed one moment, and then were gone from me in another moment. All of them over. All of them history. All of them part of my unchangeable past.

Gone forever.

Okay, so maybe my mind wasn't quite so cloudy. Out of the murkiness I'd started thinking about DJ and my broken relationship after all. So what? It's not like I was accountable to anyone but myself right now.

That's when I felt the hand slide over my shoulder. I'd been so lost to my ruminations that I hadn't noticed her come into the bathroom. Hell, I hadn't noticed her pull aside the curtain and step into the shower with me. And so I was quite startled when I felt that hand glide up the side of my left arm and onto my shoulder, and I practically jumped out of my skin as I spun my head around.

Kim looked at me with a goofy, apologetic expression on her face. Her face was guileless, and she was wearing a one-piece swimsuit, perhaps so I wouldn't get the wrong idea. I arched an eyebrow at her questioningly, but she didn't say a word. Instead, she reached down to the bottle of shampoo on the little ledge built into the form of the master bathroom's bathtub, poured out a healthy dollop of the creamy white gunk, and then lathered it in her hands.

I blinked in surprise, watching her until she held up both hands in front of her expectantly. Oblivious to my nudity, I turned around and faced her, bowing my head low once again although this time my back was to the shower's spray, blocking the water from getting past me aside from the stray sprinkle or two.

Gently, she massaged the shampoo into my hair. She massaged my scalp too while she was at it. And when she was finished, she tapped my shoulder and I took it as my cue to turn around and rinse everything out.

While I was bent over doing so, she apparently lathered up her hands with soap and began to stroke my back. When she was finished with that area, she went to work on my shoulders and arms. And after that, she knelt and did my legs.

The only area Kim didn't cover was the front of my torso, and I didn't resist when she took hold of my hips and turned me around. She soaped up my chest and belly in a workmanlike manner, not getting distracted by the appendage dangling immediately below. I, on the other hand, was getting distracted by the sensations of a beautiful young woman running her supple hands all over my naked body, swimsuit or not. I knew exactly what Kim looked like naked anyway, and the suit was skintight besides. I was rock hard and pointing right at her, and I noticed Kim look at it with the faintest of smiles before she lathered up her hands and soaped up Big Ben as well.

But it wasn't a handjob; merely a cleaning. She was finished and then turning me about to rinse off before I could even twitch more than a few times. And then she reached past me to turn off the water herself.

It wasn't like I couldn't dry myself, but I have to admit I rather enjoyed Kim toweling me off. When she was done, I stepped out of the shower and used the towel to finish off my feet and lower legs myself. And then I turned back to watch her.

Kim gave me a mysterious, Mona Lisa-like smile and gestured to the door with her eyes. I glanced at the door and thought about walking through it for four milliseconds before dismissing the thought and returning my gaze to the beautiful wet woman in my shower. Keeping my eyes on her, I backed up to the closed door and then leaned against it, effectively blocking it from being pulled inward even if she decided to open it herself. My grin was rather smug.

Kim blushed and lowered her eyes. She puckered her lips for a moment as if in thought, and then smiled another Mona Lisa smile without lifting her gaze. Demurely, she kept her eyes averted while reaching up to her left shoulder strap.

I held my breath watching Kim slide the strap off her shoulder and down her arm. She took her time, neither hurrying nor delaying for seductive purposes. She simply removed her swimsuit as if I wasn't in the room, dragging down both shoulder straps before sliding the black and red garment down her naked torso. The smile never left her face though, even when she bent to pull the suit off her legs. And in the same unhurried, workmanlike manner, she went about toweling off.

I rather enjoyed the view.

When she was dry, she wrapped the towel around her torso, covering her from bosom to mid-thigh. She then approached and stood before me expectantly, waiting with infinite patience.

I don't know why I did what I did next. Maybe I was lonely. Maybe I merely wanted to say thanks for helping me with that shower.

Maybe things would have turned out differently if I had simply stepped aside and opened the door to let her out.

But I didn't. I raised my hands to her cheeks. I tilted her head back and to the side. And then I kissed her.

That was the first time I got a true reaction out of Kim, at least in the bathroom tonight. She gasped and immediately kissed me back with a fervor that belied all of her coolly efficient actions in cleaning me. She moaned into that kiss, a moan that went straight to my loins and made my still rock hard erection throb and scream for pussy. And both of her arms went straight around the back of my neck, clutching my body to hers.

But that's when I remembered DJ. That's when I remembered that the woman I'd proposed marriage to had left me less than a half-hour ago. And that's when I abruptly let go of Kim's face, opened the bathroom door, and walked out to go to my bedroom.

This time, Kim didn't follow me.

It still was not yet eight o'clock, too early to go to sleep despite the weariness I felt from a very, very trying week. I got dressed and then stayed in my bedroom for a long while, half-wondering what DJ was doing at this very moment and half-wondering whether or not Kim would open my door and walk in to do ... well ... do whatever it was she had floating around in her head.

But eventually I got up and left my room. Kim's bedroom door was open and absent of light within. I went downstairs and found her puttering about living room, tidying up the chairs that had been pulled out from the dining table and the various knick knacks around the house that DJ, Brooke, and I had left out of their proper places over the past week. Coasters on the coffee table had been put away. Stray books had been lined up neatly together on the bookshelf. And when I peeked into the kitchen, I found that not only had Kim finished cleaning up after dinner, but she'd also managed to completely de-clutter the kitchen in such a way as to make it seem brand new.

"Wow, thanks," I commented.

"My pleasure," she replied with a smile, still puttering around straightening ... whatever.

I wasn't a slob or anything, but personally, I thought the house already looked neat enough. Still, Kim buzzed around tidying up, and my guilty conscience reared up to ask aloud, "Uh, is there anything I can do to help?"

She nodded wordlessly before glancing back my way and smiling. "I've got it. Just sit down and relax."

Frowning, I looked around trying to figure out something I could do to clean. But then Kim pulled out the swiffer duster and used it to shoo me away with a teasing smile. So I simply shrugged and flopped onto the couch while grabbing the TV remote.

Various Hollywood movies that had premiered years ago were on, and I surfed through a couple of them. Kim cruised by a few minutes later with a bowl of freshly popped popcorn and a glass of root beer. I arched an eyebrow in surprise, but she merely gave me that Mona Lisa smile and continued on her way.

I resumed watching the television, settling on the animated movie, Ice Age. I'd seen the movie multiple times already, but still found it a pleasant diversion, at least until the next scene featuring Scrat and his oh-so-futile attempt to obtain and keep his precious acorn.

Given everything that had happened to me today, my mind instantly drew the parallels between Scrat's obsession and my own. I was the prehistoric squirrel-rat, and my love life was that stupid acorn. Forever the damn thing was out of my reach. And even on those few occasions when I finally grasped it, it always managed to get pulled away from me only moments later.

This line of thinking did not put me in a good mood, so I changed the channel and found myself watching Vanilla Sky. That movie and its premise didn't make me feel any better, seeing as how we currently did not have the technology to put me in suspended animation and let me dream about the love of my life for the rest of eternity.

I finally gave up and switched back to ESPN, where they were recapping how the Panthers smoked the Giants and the Steelers beat the Bengals. But even football didn't hold my interest, and I decided to get up and see what Kim was up to now.

She wasn't anywhere on the first floor, and I headed upstairs only to find that she wasn't in her bedroom either. But a noise from behind me caught my attention, and I backed up to discover that she was in the upstairs bathroom, kneeling on the floor facing away from me and scrubbing the linoleum behind the toilet.

"Okay, I get that you feel like cleaning house now that you're back but this is just ridiculous," I commented.

"Eek!" Kim jerked in surprise at my voice suddenly appearing out of the silence, her exclamation accompanied by the dull thunk of her head impacting the toilet tank.

"Oh, crap," I muttered, darting forward and kneeling beside her while she sat back on her heels and held the side of her head. "Sorry! Sorry! I didn't mean to startle you."

"I'm fine," she replied quickly, still rubbing her head. "I didn't hit it that hard."

"It sure sounded bad."

"It's not. Really." And then to prove her point, she dropped her hand away and gave me a frank look. "See? Fine."

I pursed my lips but didn't argue the point. Shaking my head, though, I asked, "What are you doing?"

"I haven't cleaned this bathroom in a month."

"You haven't been here in a month."

She shrugged. "Classes don't start until Tuesday. I wanted to spend tonight and tomorrow cleaning up before the semester."

"The house is clean enough. I vacuumed and dusted and everything over the past week myself."

"I can tell. Still..."

"Kim, stop cleaning," I stated firmly, more from annoyance than any urge to command her.

But Kim didn't take it that way. Her posture suddenly went erect, she placed the green and yellow sponge on the floor beside her, and she brought her hands together as if praying. It took me a moment to realize she'd adopted First Position.

"Kim, I didn't mean it like that," I said hurriedly.

She dropped her hands and canted her head to the side. "Then I can resume cleaning?"

"What? No. Don't. Seriously ... Stop cleaning. Come downstairs and watch a movie with me, okay?"

Kim's eyes seemed to glow for a moment. "Okay," she replied before glancing down at her clothes. After our shower, she'd donned simple khaki shorts and a white school T-shirt. Seeing an obvious dirt smudge on the shirt, she pinched it and looked up at me. "I'll need to change and shower."

"Again?"

"I've gotten grimy from cleaning," she explained. "And I never did soap or shampoo before. I was only cleaning you."

I rolled my eyes. "Fine." And then I got up to leave.

But just before I reached the door, a sense of déjà vu came to me. I recalled being in this position with her less than an hour ago, and remembered what I had chosen to do then.

A repeat sounded like a pretty good idea now.

I closed the door with me still inside the bathroom, and then turned around to lean against it. I kept my eyes on Kim as she stood there expectantly, and as I folded my arms over my chest, my grin was once again rather smug.

Kim blushed and lowered her eyes. The Mona Lisa smile was back, but she didn't say a word. Instead, she rather calmly removed her shirt, folded it up, and placed it atop the closed toilet lid before reaching back to matter-of-factly to unclip her bra. One by one, her articles of clothing were folded and piled up, until she was fully naked in front of me. And then without once glancing back at me, she turned on the shower, adjusted the temperature, and then stepped into the spray.

Kim didn't have DJ's Barbie-like dimensions. She was a comparatively small young woman, standing about five inches shorter and skinnier from top to bottom. But the narrowing of her 22-inch waist allowed her to still have a womanly shape as my gaze traveled up and down her body, and there was no mistaking the femininity of her perky bosom and nearly as perky ass. True, she didn't have a figure that stopped traffic from across the street, but to me (especially naked, and wet), she was still an extremely desirable female.

My breathing deepened and blood diverted to my loins while I watched Kim shower. I didn't approach her, remaining with my back against the door and my arms folded across my chest. I absorbed myself in watching the minutiae of Kim cleaning herself. I watched the way her perky breasts thrust forth as she raised her arms above her head to shampoo her hair. I admired the graceful flow of her long, jet black hair as she tilted her head to the side and let her silky locks dangle so she could rub conditioner into them. And of course, I followed the paths of her hands rubbing soap all over her naked body.

For a little while, I forgot about all my troubles, my mind completely filled with the motions taking place in front of me. Kim didn't move in a seductive manner, or even acknowledge my presence. Her behavior made me feel like an invisible voyeur, having gained an illicit peek behind the door to watch a gorgeous young woman bathe herself. It was an arousing experience, even after I realized that she had rather deliberately left the shower curtain wide open to give me an unblocked view. While this realization neutered the 'invisible voyeur' aspect, it only fueled my lust to know that she actively wanted me to watch.

Without a word, I left the room when she began rinsing off. I returned moments later with a fresh towel I'd retrieved from the linen cabinet, knowing that her regular towel had already become quite damp from our previous shower. When I stepped back into the bathroom, there was no mistaking the way her downcast face lit up in relief; she probably had thought I'd simply left and wouldn't return.

Having finished rinsing off, Kim turned off the water and turned to find me standing right beside the tub, holding the towel open for her. She stepped out onto the bath mat and allowed me to enfold her in the plush terrycloth. And this time it was my turn to rub and pat her dry.

I wasn't shy about copping a few feels through the towel, not-so-accidental gropes of her breasts and butt. Even more obvious was when I planted both hands on her ass, gripping and jiggling the flesh I found under the guise of "drying" her, since the terrycloth was still between my palms and her naked skin.

And then she turned her face toward mine. My hands were still on her butt, which meant my arms were wrapped around her body. She held the towel closed together at her upper chest, and her dark brown eyes loomed large and luminous from only inches away as she looked up at me. My desire for her I found matched in her irises. And despite all the reasons and rationales for why she and I couldn't or shouldn't be together, there was nothing in the world I wanted in this moment more than her.

Still, I couldn't do this without her agreement, so I gave her a single out. "If you don't want me to kiss you right now, you're going to have to tell me to stop."

I waited three seconds. One ... two ... three. She didn't make a sound.

So I kissed her.

We wound up in my bedroom, and on my bed. Kim's hair was still damp, so I put her towel to good use by spreading it out across the upper half of the mattress underneath the back of her head; she didn't need it to cover her body.

My own body was doing the covering for her ... most of the time. Like a conquering lion, I crawled over my prey, nipping at the side of her neck or down her shoulder before slurping an erect nipple into my mouth. I worked my way downward, feeling her ab muscles tensing beneath my butterfly kisses before I centered my face at her V-junction and took a long swipe with my long tongue at her slit. She shivered and squeaked beautifully, which made me crawl back up her nakedness and grind my urgency against her crotch while I devoured her lips with my own.

Still, I remained fully-clothed while we swapped kisses and I roved all over her body. She whimpered and cooed while my hands, lips, and tongue played her body like a finely tuned instrument, so long as Big Ben remained safely trapped inside my pants. But my need was growing and after I broke away from one heavy makeout session to breathe and also rip my shirt over my head, I found that the heated desire in her eyes was now accompanied by a warning.

She wanted me – that much was evident – but she also didn't. There was a line she had drawn between us, a line she could not cross. She was my friend, my confidant, but no longer my lover. She said she still loved me, and she wanted to belong to me, but she couldn't until I was ready to be her Master.

Well maybe that time was now.

I dove back down upon her, Kim's tongue eagerly coming out to greet me as we writhed atop my bed with my pants still firmly in place. Her hands energetically stroked up and down my now bare back, feeling my muscles and stroking my spine while our mouths crashed together, parted, and then crashed together again at a new angle. And in the meantime, I found myself evaluating whether or not I wanted to take my pants off.

Big Ben obviously wanted out, but there was more to a decision like that than momentary pleasure. Freeing my cock was not only about sex, but also about responsibility. Did I want it? And could I handle it if I did?

The first question was the hardest to tackle. Did I want her? I already knew the decision was mine and mine alone. The look in Kim's eyes did not say 'no'. In fact, the look was an emphatic 'yes', but only if I was ready. If I was ready, and if I wanted her, I would have her. Period. Plain and simple. Kim had ALWAYS been mine.

My first instinct was to say 'no'. DJ had left me only hours ago. My heart was broken into a million pieces, and all common sense said to wait until I had some time to think and reflect.

But dammit, I was sick of thinking and reflecting. I was sick of wondering whether or not I was rebounding and measuring the days to see if I'd waited a proper amount of time to be "over" somebody. I'd tried to do things by the book. I'd tried to "be single" and "become independent" and "learn to be alone" without freaking the fuck out.

You know what? I don't LIKE being single. I don't LIKE being alone. I WANT to have a partner by my side. I WANT to be in love. I LIKE being in love and being happy and having lots of sex and having a partner I could depend on.

And you know what? When it comes to dependability, NO ONE is better than Kim.

It would be a good life, having Kim by my side. I knew innately that she would be an excellent wife and mother. I had already witnessed her enthusiasm for children when she babysat for little April. And there had been something wonderfully domestic about the way she'd been puttering around the house cleaning for the past hour.

DJ had accused me of wanting the safety and security of what she could provide more than I'd wanted HER. Well ... maybe so. What's so wrong with that? What's so wrong with wanting safety and security? What's so wrong with believing the woman you're with (A) wants to be with you and (B) doesn't want or need to stray?

Both Dawn and DJ had chosen to leave me, so there goes (A) wanting to be with me. Kim had always been there for me, even without the benefit of a romantic relationship. She had always been dedicated to me, looking out for my best interests even if I didn't do a damn thing for her. Fuck, the minute she found out DJ had broken up with me, she'd walked into the kitchen to help me prepare dinner. And the moment DJ was gone, she'd not only hopped into the shower to help clean me, but she'd then spent the next hour cleaning my house. It was as if she was compelled to take care of me in every single way she could imagine.

And I already knew I didn't have to worry about (B). To the best of my knowledge, Kim had never taken another lover since I'd broken up with her. She'd had all the time and opportunity in the world to hook up with whomever she wanted, but all she wanted was me. Nevermind that I was engaged to DJ. Nevermind that she had no one else to satisfy her sexual needs, not even another woman. Just me. Waiting for me. Only wanting me.

This wasn't a situation like Dawn, someone who had lived a somewhat sheltered life and then felt like she HAD to experience more. Kim didn't want or need that. She just needed me.

Safety ... and security. Ever helpful. Ever loyal. Ever willing to do anything I wanted at the drop of a hat. Shit, if you think about it, Kim is the PERFECT woman.

So yeah, I wanted her. And I didn't want to fuck around and think about it. I already knew. She loved me. She would take care of me.

She would make me happy.

So I reached for my waistband and began tugging down my pajama pants.

Kim felt my motion and inhaled sharply. Her eyes were wide and full of questions. The warning was back in her irises, and she abruptly reached down and grabbed my wrist.

I gave her a warm smile and nodded my head reassuringly. Gently, I leaned down and pecked her lips, and then I backed my head up and smiled at her again. "I'll take care of you," I promised. "Just the way you always wanted."

Her grip on my wrist relaxed. Breathing shallowly, she searched my eyes, reading the sincerity behind them. I meant it. I WOULD take care of her. And I'd do it just the way she always wanted.

She let me take off my pants.

Moments later, I was inside of her. Not all the way; she was way too tight to enter in a single thrust. But with rocking hips and her hands pulling on my ass, we managed to get my cock fully imbedded inside her body, and then with a keening sigh Kim dropped her head down onto the mattress.

"I'll take care of you," I crooned, taking up a gentle rhythm. Out ... in ... out ... in ... Slowly, I made love to her. Tenderly, I cradled her much smaller body beneath mine. Passionately, I kissed her.

Kim's warning gaze had come with two parts: Did I want her? And could I handle the responsibility if I did?

I wanted her, and now that I was taking her I was also agreeing to that responsibility. My promise to take care of her was everything, and I had to mean it.

I would be her Master. I would hold precious her safety and security. And I would NEVER let her down. I used to believe that I wasn't capable of BEING anybody's Master, but really it was a matter of having the right mindset.

Being Kim's Master wouldn't be about Dominating her, making her my plaything and forcing her to carry out my every whim. Being Kim's Master wouldn't be a slave-like relationship, where I held all the power and she had none. Being Kim's Master wouldn't even be about sexual bondage games, with the rituals of First and Second Positions and so forth.

No, I now realized that being Kim's Master had everything to do with that simple five word phrase: I'll take care of you. Being Kim's Master would be my ultimate White Knight experience: I'd protect her. I'd keep her safe. I'd ensure her survival, and take personal responsibility for her satisfaction. Being Kim's Master would not be about commands.

It would be about love.

"I'll take care of you," I reassured her once again, reveling in the feel of her tight pussy clenching around my dick over and again while I smoothly pistoned in and out of her. I adored seeing HER look of adoration as she stared up at me, holding onto my shoulders and locking her legs around my waist while I thrust over and over and over again.

"I'll take care of you," I repeated before kissing her with force and passion, driving home my promise to never let her come to harm, to always be cognizant of her best interests, and to love her the way she deserved.

She trembled beneath me, a shiver that began in her spine and carried outward from her body. I felt her orgasm from within the confines of her quivering quim, her vaginal walls already so snug clasping even tighter as she gasped in pleasure. Her eyes lit up to feel the euphoric physical representation of the bliss she felt in her heart and mind to have me proclaiming my ownership of her. And as her body shuddered beneath me in climax, her massaging inner muscles started in motion the chain reaction of my own pending ejaculation as well.

"Ohhh, Kim..." I groaned, feeling my balls churn as the semen in my testicles was brought to a boil. Despite her extremely tight channel, I sped up my thrusting in anticipation of my final release.

"Wait, I'm not protected! And I'm right in the middle of my cycle!" Kim whimpered suddenly, an apology in her eyes.

A sudden vision came to mind. I stood in front of that picket-fenced house with my children before me. But rather than a blonde bombshell by my side, instead it was ... Kim.

The perfect mother.

The perfect wife.

The one woman who would always love me and never leave me.

My eyes hardened, and with a determined smile I put more force into my thrusts. With my arms beneath Kim's body so that my hands gripped her shoulders from underneath, I sped up and hammered her even harder. Her legs were still wrapped around my waist, and she made no move to attempt to push me out of her. Instead, she looked up at me with an expression of wonder, excitement, and yes, a little fear.

But I soothed that fear by first leaning down to kiss her with a tenderness that seemed so at odds with the near-violence of my final thrusts. And then I pulled back, stared Kim right in the eyes, and intoned with a world of confidence and certainty in my voice, "I'll take care of you."

And then I came.