New Year, Same Stories

 She didn't like not having New Year's plans.  Even if those plans were to do nothing, she liked having them.

She'd been at the mercy of KSL's plans for the last four years, mostly staying home and getting into a fight every single year.

It was time to venture out.

Plans had been made to drive up about 6 hours to see Mercury, where they would walk around his new city exploring.  He even said that he'd like to get a hotel room for them for the night of, even though she planned a staying a couple of days.

"You free for a chat in a few hours?"  He messaged her a few days before she was supposed to leave.

Why would they need to have a phone conversation when they'd be seeing each other in a few days?  In fact, their conversations had felt off for a couple of weeks.

"Sure" she responded, as she put away her newly purchased lingerie and the suitcase that was still out from her last trip.

When he finally did call, she told him what she'd done, and said "Now I just need you to tell me why I did that."

He sighed, then launched into a jumbled word soup that two hours later just boiled down to that he was afraid that they were getting too close, and he would like her to not come, and for them to stop having sex. 

She reminded him that she said she wanted to stop last Christmas, and when he came in October he had only wanted to see her.  He was pretty blatant about it.  He apologized, but she stopped him.  She told him that it was just a bit confusing.  Was he afraid he was leading her on, she was leading him on, or that he was falling for her?  He couldn't answer.

She told him to take the week to think about it and they'd talk again later.  Since their "relationship" had been 95% talking on the phone and 5% sex,  she didn't think that just stopping the sex and continuing to talk for hours every week was going to change much.

One thing was for sure; she needed new New Year's Eve plans.

She suddenly remembered a NYE party she'd thrown at her house in middle school.  She felt left out and terrible towards the end of the night, and went outside to greet the new year alone.  Her friends found her and followed her out there, and she felt shitty not being able to spend it the way she wanted to.  She was also a middle school brat with other things on her mind.

This one would be different.  She'd surround herself with people she loved.

An Alternate Timeline in the Year 2000, Part 2

 James wrapped her into a big fluffy towel and showed her the spare bathroom where she could take a quick shower and hang up her wet shirt.  As she reached into her bag for fresh clothes, she realized she did not pack for this trip for this specific thing to be happening.  She suddenly wanted to feel sexy instead of cute, and took another look at her clothes to throw something together.

She decided on a black double slit maxi skirt that she rolled down a few inches, showing off her stomach, and a lacy 70's inspired tank top.  She reached for her underwear and then decided to leave them off, just to see if he noticed.  It would make the skirt smoother anyways.  She walked around the house and found him in the game room.

James noticed her upped sexy attire immediately and she blushed as he looked her up and down.  She really didn't dress like this normally but she felt it was appropriate after what had happened in the hot tub.  

He got up from the couch and crossed to her, giving her a deep kiss. She squealed as he picked her up, walked backwards, and sat down with her on his lap with her legs on either side of him.  She suddenly felt very exposed with only a fairly sheer fabric between her and his very thin shorts.  She wondered if he realized how little was between then when a twitch told her everything she needed to know.

His hands reached under the slits to her bare ass and he grabbed the small handful, causing her to hoist herself up on her knees closer to him.  He buried his face in her breasts, and pulled one hand out from under her skirt to unhook her bra.  She pushed him back slightly to pull her shirt and her bra off over her head.  

He let her settle back down on his lap, as it gave his mouth better access to her breasts.  She arched her back and started grinding against him, causing him to swell further beneath her.  His hands left her breasts to tug the front her her skirt forward so that it was just his shorts between them.  James lifted her again and felt how wet she already was for him.  She reached down, nudged him, and pulled off his shorts as he lifted up.  He grabbed the condom he'd set on the edge of the couch previously, and lowered her down onto him.

She was shocked at the sensation, how it felt so good right away and seemed to push her to the very edge.  He went slow, and built up until they both couldn't stand it any longer. They came and collapsed together on the couch, with his head resting on her stomach.

"That was not on my to-do list today, but wow." She said, out of breath. "I can't believe we finally did that."

"I can't believe you think we're done." James said smiling.

An Alternate Timeline in the Year 2000, Part 1

 It was spring break in her freshman year of college, so she hopped on a greyhound to visit her friend at USF, as she did with every time off of college she had.  Not so much to spend to with her friend, but because James lived not too far away.

James had been her first internet friend and crush since she was 15 years old.  He was older but she had never felt the difference.  The three of them went out to see Erin Brockovich, and she laughed when someone's cell phone went off and EVERYONE in the theatre yelled at them to turn it off.  Even the theater felt more grand than anything back where she was from.  Something about San Francisco really felt like home every time she went for a visit.

After the movie they waited at the Muni stop to take them back to James' car and the university, but it never came.  They walked up a hill to another stop and finally caught the last bus of the night.

By that time it was late, but the ride was bumpy enough to keep her awake.  She was suddenly very aware of James' body next to hers, and she casually put her hand between them, closer to him than to her.  The muni seats dipped in such a way that it wasn't long before her hand was against his thigh.  He kept his arms crossed, but inched a bit closer to her hand.  They exchanged a glance right before her friend announced their stop and bounced out of her seat.

"I'm going to walk James over to his car" she said to her friend, veering away before her friend could question it.  "Go on up and I'll call you when I'm heading back."

She and James took their time walking and talking the few blocks.  The conversation had been flowing nicely enough that he opened the car door for her to get in on the passenger side, and she slid in easily without interrupting the energy of the conversation.

He cracked the windows after a bit of time because the humidity was causing them to fog up and not be able to see the stars and the moon, the moon which he'd often told her they shared.  "It's the same moon Penny."

Eventually it got a little cold and he started up his car.  She moved to hug him goodbye and as they were pulling apart, they looked into each others eyes for a moment.  Before she realized she was doing it, she'd leaned in and kissed him.  To her relief, James was kissing her back with equal enthusiasm. They kissed until she was almost dizzy, then he suddenly said "Come back and stay with me.  Go get your stuff."  Her heart was suddenly in her throat as she realized the gravity of what he was asking her to do.

The next thing she remembered was pulling into his driveway, her packed bag in the backseat.  James took it out for her and tossed it into the spare bedroom.

"I know it's late, but do you want to go for a swim?" He asked.  "It's freezing!  And I didn't bring a suit." She replied.

"There's a hot tub, and I'm sure you brought something you could make due in." He winked at her.  She laughed, and went to see what she could throw together.  She had a sleeveless dark shirt that was long enough that it hit her at her upper thigh, and she figured she would just wear some underwear with it and it would be fine.

He was already waiting for her in the hot tub as she slid the sliding glass door closed behind her.  She held her shirt down as she got in and he chuckled at her and told her she was no fun.  She made sure she was sitting on the edge of the shirt before letting go.  They continued to chat across the hot tub from each other until he offered her a drink.  When bringing the drinks back, James sat right next to her with their thighs touching and offered a toast even though they were just drinking water.

Before she even knew what was happening, he had set his water down behind her and wrapped his arm around her, as well as put his other hand on her bare thigh under the water.  She put her head on his shoulder as she'd wanted to do on the bus and looked out at the view.  She got a bit too comfortable and felt herself nodding off.  He must have sensed it as well because he moved his hand closer to the inside of her thigh and up, moving the heavy wet fabric of her shirt. It sent a jolt through her body and her breath quickened.

"Hey," he said, breaking the silence, "Come here for a second." and tilted her head up to his face and kissed her softly, but intently.  Her entire body responded to the kiss, and she leaned into him with more intention.  He wasted no time into pulling her leg up into his lap and pinning it to his chest so she was twisted towards him.  The movement has caused her shirt to come free and was floating around her waist.  He reached down and started fingering outside of her underwear as they continued to passionately kiss.  Once she moaned from the feeling, he moved her underwear aside and started to finger her clit, taking her to the edge and finally pushing her over it.  She was a little worried that her screams had actually echoed all the way across the bay.

She was still shaking from her orgasm, and he pulled her into his lap facing him and held her underneath her shirt.  She felt like the skin to skin contact was the only thing keeping her from just floating away.

"Ready to go inside?" He asked, in such a way that she knew they were anything but done.

"Yes."

Click Here for Part 2

Brunch and Growth

"IL and I just talked about how I need to get up from the table, and that's what I did.  And I honestly feel amazing right now.  I'm getting enough space to myself, enough sleep.  I don't have to worry about him as much even though I still do because I'll always care about him, it's just a weight lifted."

"That is so amazing!" He friend exclaimed.  "Seriously, people in my group at work never get to this point in their lives, and I want to like, bring you in for a talk or something."

"You should bring in IL, she's the one who got me this far.  I wouldn't have been able to see things without her shedding a light on them."

It was nice to talk about how content she was despite not being entirely happy with her apartment.  Things were rough all over, and it looked like they really didn't have a choice about staying in the place for another year.  Anywhere else was going to be more expensive, and better the devil you know when it came to a lack of home repairs.

"You look amazing" her friend said to her.  "I always wanted you and KSL to get together, but maybe this is always the way it was meant to be for you two.  Leaning on each other without having romance cloud judgement or let it become something that gets weaponized in the heat of an argument."

"We are weird together.  It's like, a practice relationship.  Things that I would normally do that I know aren't healthy, I can draw boundaries without fear of loss of love, because he never loved me to begin with.  I'm learning lots of lessons that I need to learn.  There are times that I wish there was more, and times when I wish there was far less.  I think it's been good for both of us, but honestly who knows what goes through his head.  All I have is myself, and I'm only responsible for my own actions.  It's always something I keep in mind now.  Instead of playing a victim, instead I think about how to change myself to get the outcome I need.  So far, it's working."

Thwarted by Technology

He came around the corner and there was something immediately familiar about him.  Maybe she'd seen him while she was walking to work before and never noticed, maybe on one of the dating sites.

The music in her earbud swelled as they approached each other.  A few doves scattered and flew into their path.  A breeze picked up and gently blew back her hair.

It would have been a beautiful meet cute...if he had ever looked up from his phone.

Saturday Night Revisited

"Wait, you guys don't remember what you were doing before you kissed?" the one in the middle of said kiss, Banana, asked them.

"Oh my god, it was great.  I can't believe you don't remember!" The tale that followed was one of sitcom level hilarity.

"I came back from getting my stuff out of the car, and sat in-between you guys.  You were really angry at each other, yelling even.  You were yelling about how you weren't attracted to each other.  It was this hilarious 'I don't like you' 'Well I don't like you either' and so then Acrobat was like 'I'll prove it to you, I'm going to kiss you' and so you guys kissed over me, and Acrobat said 'See, I felt nothing' and YOU said 'If that's the case, then stay the fuck away from me' and it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen."

She felt her face flush with embarrassment.  It was after the fact that she had assigned all these underlying emotions to it...in the moment, they were literally just fighting like a bunch of kindergartners. About their sexual attraction towards one another.

It would be shameful...if it wasn't so darn funny.

Suicide Love

She had made plans to spend her expense check from work with her Maid of Honor from her wedding.  They hadn't made time to see one another or have sushi in a movie in so long, they needed to catch up.

"So....your life has changed a bit, huh?"  MOH asked.  "The whole marriage falling apart thing?  Yeah, no bigs." She joked.

She explained what had happened, sans the chaste make out session with KSL.  She did say she had been tempted, and that is what got her to just break up.  She and MOH had always been pretty straightforward with each other, and she was supportive and understood.  They didn't delve too deep into emotions with each other, but that sort of changed throughout the night.

Now that they were both single, they could share "whore tales" together, and they did until they went to see Suicide Squad later that night.  They sat in the cooler night air and discussed how nice it was to just be with another person, to feel the power of someone else wanting you.  The bruises, the excitement.

The utter loneliness when you didn't have someone to constantly desire you.

How the Tides Have Turned

"You're going to hell, because you are Jewish."

She was about 6 years old when these words were spoken to her.  The kid in her class every year thereafter would give her an extremely religious Christmas card, and sometimes speak to her in nice tones before ending their sentence with "...it's really too bad you are so nice, because you are going to hell."

One year she and her mom found the most religious Hannukah card they could find, and she gave it to him.  The cards stopped altogether after that year.  They never really spoke again, but they lived in the same neighborhood and heard rumors.

His parents split up, his mom got lipo and married a doctor and ran away, never speaking to her children again.

Today her mother got an updated on the family.  The boy who thought she was going to hell had gotten married and named one of his children...after her.  He knew no one else by that name, most likely his whole life. 

She wondered what that was a metaphor for.

Counter-Intuitive

She'd been feeling judged by those she trusted lately.  She felt utterly alone in decisions she had come to, but she still stood by those decisions.

This wasn't a typical situation.  There are many aspects that are not favorable.  Sometimes good people do bad things.  People need to make mistakes in their life in order to truly live.

She never set out to get involved with someone she could barely stand at first.  She never intended to fall into an intense friendship with him.  She never intended to kiss someone else's boyfriend on her birthday--while she was still married.  She never expected it to feel so freeing, to show her what she needed to do to fix her life.

Sometimes good people need to do bad things to see the underlying good that can come out of it.

KSL had snapped at her recently, causing her to take an afternoon to get drunk and burn the feelings out of her.  He had been mean, but she had been judge-y.

They both had their faults.

Eventually, he apologized for hurting her.  She had ignored the apology, but moved onto the next topic.  He was still waiting to hear back from the apartment complex on approval.  It looked like he was in for a longer wait, as it was the weekend.

Their flirtationship was at an impasse.  They really couldn't move forward with a Lovers/FWB/Anything until he was out of that house and broken up with his girlfriend.

It would change things for sure, but she was uncertain in which direction.  He was feeling bad right now about the upcoming break up, so she was forgiving him for a lot of his actions.  She was beginning to see why people called him an asshole.

But she wasn't willing to give up on him just yet.  She wanted to see where her mistakes would take her.  See if she could live just a little while longer.

Origin Story

Sleuthy reminded her of all the things she'd left unsaid in the blog.  "KSL sounds like an asshole."

It was the second time a "reader" of the blog had said that.  She felt like a bad writer for letting it go this long, making him sound like an asshole.  What must people think of her if she was painting him in such a bad light?  She went back to read his tag and see what things were left unsaid.

When they first met, according to the blog, he was just an asshole getting her to run and jump to high five him.  Not the best first impression.  What was unsaid was that, at first, she had to be well caffeinated to get to his level.  He had just broken up with his girlfriend, and in hindsight he was feeling very vulnerable.   The more vulnerable he is, the louder he gets.

"Penny, tell me a story!" He would joyously demand during a lull in rehearsal.  She told him about her prom, about how she won a dance competition in junior high, and others.  One day she realized she was telling him the stories, and never the other way around.  He would always make jokes like "Don't hit me, that's my dad's job!" and whenever something bad happened he would say "prom night flashbacks!"

"Tell me a story!"  He said one day, and she retorted "I'm all out of stories KSL, YOU tell me a story."

So he did.  She got a little background on how horrible his family was, how his dad did actually beat him pretty frequently as a kid because he was abusing drugs and alcohol.  "But don't worry, he's all better now" he would reassure her, badly.  He explained how he had been screwed over by his family as well as got into brutal fights with his brother.

They shared stories of how they had gotten their scars.  She tied his gun holster into his belt every night, part of his costume for the show.  Then he was onstage for the entire show, so they never really bonded much past "story time" while she tied down his holster.

With PJ's and BFF's increased aggravation in his job and her Improv show respectively, KSL didn't really hit her radar that hard.  He was just the main character in the show, another actor amongst 10 or 11 that she had to wrangle.  She sensed his wall being up right away, but didn't see the point in trying to break it down.  They had just met.

Eventually she stopped needing to have energy drinks before each rehearsal.  Whenever he got to be too much, she could now calm him down or get him to shut up all together with just a word.  She found that he was actually a very good listener, and was responsive to things she would put her foot down about right away.

At the opening night party, they ended up on a couch alone at the beginning of the evening and got to talking, which led to some light flirting.  After a few drinks they were taking silly pictures of her in his giant shoes and laughing.   Every once in awhile people would join them, flow in and out.  They remained joined on the couch, as the bar was packed tightly.  No reason to give up prime real estate when the conversation and harmless flirting was good.

Late into the evening her husband had shown up to the bar unexpectedly, having gotten out of his rehearsal early.  KSL's face changed upon his arrival, and the energy between them changed.  It was as if he suddenly remembered that she was married, and he was back in his relationship.  It was then she realized that the flirting hadn't been all that harmless.

"Well," he said jokingly, "I'm gonna get out of here first.  You give it five and then follow to avoid suspicion."  She smiled at him and said goodbye.

At the time, she didn't think anything of it.  Until now, when she realized it had gone unsaid.  The beginning of their friendship had been really good...she had just been distracted.