Life Begins

by Jack Gunthridge

  I wonder if Jack would have almost had sex with me when we were twelve if I had not been sent away. In a way, I don't think he would have. And maybe I wouldn't have been wanting him to relive that moment for the past few years. And maybe he wouldn't feel ashamed.

  Jack and I have always been together in a way. There have never been any secrets between us. We just haven't always been truthful with each other. The Brian abuse incident was partly because neither one of us wanted to admit what we felt for each other. And then when that was over, maybe I should have made my feelings known for him. I just didn't. I decided that it would be best to lead him on, even though I did love him. I had romantic visions of a sexual rampage. Jack just isn't that type of man. Even when he was twelve and about to ravage me, he was sweet about it. He is slow and deliberate in his lovemaking. That doesn't mean that he isn't passionate. He's like a skilled craftsman who enjoys his work. He truly puts his entire heart and soul into it.

  There have been times that I have not felt worthy of Jack's love. His love is pure. I have always been anything except pure. Sometimes I just want him to take the pain away. Sometimes I just want him to hurt like I do. Sometimes I didn't want to think about our past or what our future was going to be like. I just wanted to enjoy the moment with him.

  I think Jack and I might have ended our association with each other if we had not gotten together when we did. We were becoming too toxic. I had led him on too much and had denied him too many times. He is a very forgiving man, but I think I was about to exhaust the well of his forgiveness.

  When we were approaching the fifth anniversary of my return from the Catholic school, I decided that I was tired of playing games, but I didn't want to admit that I wanted a relationship with Jack. I made a bet with him instead. I bet him that if I said something that he didn't have a comeback for that he would have to start a relationship with me.

  Looking back on it now, I think it is really sad that I would ever have to make a bet with Jack like this. I think it really shows how much our relationship had deteriorated over the years. I think he had been hurt enough by me over the years that he never thought that we would be together. The bet gave him a glimmer of hope and confused him.

  I thought that if I could do something that he admired that he would be with me. I thought this would give him a way to gracefully not say something so that we could get together. We had been sparring with words for years. All he had to do was hold his tongue, and he could have me. I figured that it would be a nice compromise.

  I never expected him to talk it over with Melinda. And I don’t think he expected her to hand him over to me. I know that she was hurt by how he could so freely talk about his feelings for me in front of her, even when he had promised that he would marry her someday. I don’t think he thought talking to her would be different from any other conversation they had had about me before. It was just that now Melinda saw that Jack was poisoned with me. She knew that he would never be free of me. She had to give me a joke to finish him off. Jack doesn’t give her credit for knowing that this “betrayal” would cause him to no longer be friends with her. That is partly my fault. I have it written in the Constitution that I don’t want him spending time with her. Jack does look at it as a personal betrayal. I think he has forgiven Melinda. He knows why she did it. She gave him what he always wanted. She just loved him enough to let him go.

  I think Melinda had the right to sell him out. It was unfair for him to think that he could string her along when he felt nothing for her. I can't really blame her. Jack, on the other hand, was truly oblivious to her feelings for him. But then again, Jack can only think of me. He has an incredible blind side when it comes to me.

  I have to say that I was bit taken aback by the Declaration of Independence. I know that I had hurt him a lot over the years, but I never expected him to write down everything that I had done to him. Between my hurt and tears, I decided that I would rape him. He was passed out anyway. Wow. That sounds a lot worse than what I meant for it to. I mean, Jack had already offered himself to me at the Peace Accords. I had rejected that. He was passed out now. I figured that if I took advantage of him that he wouldn't leave me, even if he had written a Declaration of Independence. And if he is leaving me, he might as well add me taking advantage of him to the list. Sh#t the list was already long enough anyway. One more sin was not going to make that much of a difference.

  Jack woke up while I was starting to undress him. I then started crying about how much I cared for him and how he wasn't going to leave me. Since he was kind of buzzed at the moment, he wasn't really coherent. He also wasn't as comforting as he usually was. I think I ran out after that and had a good cry alone in my bedroom. I thought we were truly over.

  This did bother me. For as long as I have known Jack, he has always been... When Jack said I was his Israel, he meant that he will always love me. Even when I am terrible to him and go after other men, he is still like God. He is waiting there patiently for me to return and to give me the forgiveness that I am seeking. With the Declaration of Independence, I finally thought that I had emptied the well of his forgiveness. I had taken too much from it over the years and not done anything to replenish it. This would not really surprise me, especially after I had read all of the things I had done to hurt him. I think for the first time in my life I felt truly guilty for something I had done.

  When Jack entered my bedroom a few hours later, I was surprised to see him. I think I ended up punching him and yelling at him. Between my tears, I told him how much I hated him. But Jack didn't fight back. He merely took me within his arms and held me close to him. My punching stopped, and I started crying into him. I don't remember what I said, but I think it was something to the effect that I didn't want to lose him and that I did care for him.

  We spent the next five or six hours drafting our Constitution. Jack put into place official definitions for our relationship. We talked about what each of us wanted from the other. We compromised. All of the issues that we had ever had were dealt with that night, except for having sex. That was the one issue that Jack would not give on. He said that he would not put that in the document. That would only happen when we were legally bound in marriage. That's not saying that other sexual favors were not written into the document. This Constitution was perfect.

  Or at least I thought it was. It seems that on our first official date a week later (on the fifth anniversary of my return from the Catholic school and fifth anniversary of Jack's father's death) that we would get into one of our biggest fights. I had told Jack that as his first official act as my boyfriend that I wanted him to plan the most perfect first date ever.

  Jack decided to pack a picnic lunch for us that we would eat in the tree house that we had always used as children. It was the place that had always been special to us during the carefree days of our childhood. This was the place where we seemed to work better as a couple. This was the place that had not been touched by the adult world. There was still a magic to it.

  The last time we had been in the tree house was the night when we almost had sex and Jack's father died. Although I considered the night whose anniversary we were celebrating, Jack had kind of blocked out that incident. I can't blame him. Maybe I should have thought about that. All I remembered about that night was how he made me feel when I was twelve. I didn't really think about how Jack would feel about his father. I had never thought that Jack might feel guilty for his father's death. Why would I? His father's death was an accident, and Jack never talked about it. He never let me know how he felt.

  What started out as a perfect date for me ended up with Jack finding out why I considered it our anniversary. After that we continued our date in silence. I tried apologizing to Jack, but he didn't even want to talk about it. The silence even continued at the school dance. I don't know how long we danced before I just finally had enough. I yelled at him and stormed off. I went to the bathroom to try not to cry and to fix my makeup if I did cry. Jack ended up talking to Arthur and L
eopold. I don't know what they said to him. When I saw him talking to his friends, I decided to dance with another guy. It was an innocent dance. I wasn't even flirting with the guy, and I wouldn't have accepted had it not been for the fact that Jack seemed to hate me at the moment. Anyway, when I was dancing with this guy, Jack comes over and cuts in. He was more accepting of my apology.

  I don't think we got to finish the dance or really even discuss everything before we were interrupted. Jim, the guy I had kind of been dating before I signed the Constitution with Jack, kind of punched Jack in the face. This sort of knocked Jack to the floor. I motioned for him to stay there, and then I went over to Jim and played the part of loose woman. It's a part I am quite good at. Once I had Jim believing that he was a strong man who impressed a poor, weak woman like me, I grabbed his balls. I mean, I had them in a death grip. I then explained to him that I was no longer dating him. I was dating Jack. When I knew that he understood this, I had him help Jack up. I then thanked Jim and kneed him in the crotch. Everything was good between me and Jack the rest of the night. Nobody else tried to dance with me.

  After the dance, Jack took me home. For the past few years, Jack would always watch me from his bedroom window as I would have other guys take me home. He always saw the goodnight kiss and the boy leaving right after that. In one of the sweetest things Jack has ever done, he kissed me with the first goodnight kiss that I actually enjoyed. He then said that he guessed he had better be heading home. I then informed him that there was no reason to do that. The pervert across the street was not watching me tonight. I told him that he could come inside and that the night didn't have to end just then.

  Like I said before, I have always made sure that Jack was the first of anything that a boy was going to do. Although he had spent the night many times before, that was the first time I had ever invited a guy inside after a date.

  Even with the rocky beginning of the date, it was still a perfect date. I don't want to say that it was perfect because of what we did. It was perfect because I was with Jack Allen Gynapsy. For the first time in our lives, we actually were together like a real couple.

  We have been a couple ever since then. I could fill millions of pages with how amazing it has been. I could tell you about the junior prom. I could tell you about the night alone in bed where the not having sex is better than anything I could imagine. We have spent the night together for a few years before we became a couple, but it was nothing compared to what it is like since we have gotten together.

  For the first time in our lives, we talk. We are no longer hiding behind a masks and walls afraid of getting our feelings hurt. Everything is out in the open.

  At some point during the first few months that we were dating, Jack came up with a couples exercise. Basically we get naked and just talk about our relationship, how it is working out for us, and stuff like that. There is no kissing or anything remotely sexual at these times. We just talk openly and freely. If either one of us is feeling a problem in the relationship, we discuss it. Jack doesn't want the relationship to start to have problems. We also add new articles to the Constitution at this time.

  In the old days, I would teach Jack techniques that I had learned from other guys. With our current relationship, we discuss ways of pleasuring each other (up to the line that Jack still refuses to cross). We actually discuss what we like when the other person does it. We also discuss what they could do differently that would be more enjoyable. The frustrations we used to experience are no longer there. We talk about everything.

  Jack and I have been together now for... God, nine months now. I am sorry that we had not gotten together sooner. I accept some responsibility for that. Jack was always willing to be with me. I'm thankful that he was patient with me and put up with all of the stupid, hurtful things I have done to him over the years. I can't imagine being with anybody else.

  As I am writing this, Jack is busy thinking of a way to keep us together. I think he is holding on to a hope that we could someday get married and have a family of our own. He will tell me about the wedding and how beautiful it is. I almost believe in his dream. It's not that I don't want to. I just know that once we graduate high school that the world we have always known is going to disappear. He's going to go to college. I'm going to...

  I have no future. I never have. I hope you accept this as my life's story, Mrs. Dunn. Everything I have written here is how I came to this point in my life. I come from some pretty f#cked up sh#t that I can't escape. I don't want to do anything with my life, except get married and have kids. I don't want a career, unless you count marrying well a career.

  Jack has a chance to be something. He has a lot to give to the world. He is brilliant, funny, charming, and the most beautiful soul I have ever met. I can't let him throw everything away because he loves me.

  Jack is still a child. I'm not saying that he is childish, or that he hasn't grown and learned valuable life lessons from everything that he has gone through. In many ways, he is more mature than I ever will be. He has always been a more serious person. He's just a dreamer. It's not that his dreams are bad, but I don't want him to be saddled down with me. I can never be anything to him but a ball and chain. I will only drag him down.

  Jack thinks that we can escape our pasts. We can't. We are the offspring of our parents. My parents are... I have my father's cruelty and my mother's... I'm not the brightest person in the world. All I have going for me are my looks, which will surely fade over time. When that is gone, I have nothing but a used vagina to offer a man. And Jack... Jack deserves a chance at the wonderful career that his father never had.

  Jack knows that his father should have been a successful lawyer instead of marrying his mom. Jack needs to take this opportunity and be what his father never was. I can't tell Jack this. He will give me excuses and say that his father was happy. He will also tell me that it was his Grandma Gynapsy that tells his father's story this way. She never liked his mom and thought her son deserved better. But even Jack has to admit that he knows his father thinks he should have gone on for a career instead of settling down. There's a reason they call it settling down. All of your hopes and life's ambitions die. We have seen it with our parents. My father settled for my mother. My mother settled for my father. Jack's father settled for being a good lawyer in this stupid ass town instead of being a great lawyer whose name everybody knew. Jack's father didn't want his only son to settle, too.

  Jack can talk about destiny all he wants, or the prophecies of his father. I talked to his father about this more than Jack did. I know what his father saw. I know what the actual prophecies are. Jack is supposed to save me, and I am supposed to save Jack. That is all there ever was to it. The actual specifics of it were never stated.

  From the beginning of our lives together, Jack and I have been linked, but there will come a day when we aren't. It will never enter into Jack's thinking that he can't always have me. Regardless of what his father told him, he will try to find a way to keep everything the way it always has been. It will never enter into his mind that he could save me and then leave me, or that he would need saving by me.

  Jack is looking to me to help him keep his humanity. Lately in bed he seems lost in thought. I don't think this assignment has been good for him. I don’t think this year of school has been good for him, in fact. It has caused him to see that we are running out of time. Everything that we have ever known is going to be changing. It’s not that he doesn’t want to enter the adult world. It’s that he doesn’t want to lose me. As much as he loves me, I think he knows that once we graduate, the world as we know it will be ending. He’s going to be going to college. I’ll be doing something else.

  Ever since this summer when we took our senior portraits, he has been different. It was the first time we had ever taken a professional picture together as a couple. I mean, the pictures from junior prom don’t really count. That was just an event. Our senior pictures were saying that we are an established couple. I know that he cherishes th
ese pictures. I can pretty much guarantee that there is a full set of them in his keepsake box. He also has his wallet filled with these pictures. But I know that there was something bittersweet to him about doing these pictures. On the one hand, he likes it because we are a couple. But he doesn’t like how it is documenting the end of something. It’s one thing to know that something is ending. It’s another to take pictures that are supposed to be cherished forever only to know that you will miss that moment for the rest of your life.

  He was the same way when he got his senior ring. I don’t think he really wanted it. He got it because I wanted him to give it to me. That’s also why he got his school jacket this year. I told him that I wanted to wear it. But these things don’t seem important to him. They are just signs of the end times. Signs that Jack would rather not look for. He hasn’t had time to figure out how to preserve everything from the past and what he is currently enjoying so that he can take it into this unchartered future with everything still intact. If he was able to keep me when I left for the Catholic school, his mind is going to be working to keep me now.

  I think he is trying to outsmart God in an attempt to keep me and to keep the promise of being famous. He wants both. I think for once in his life he is torn between his two loves. Only one has a promise for the future.

  As Jack is trying to outsmart the Lord God Almighty Himself, his attempts will all be in vain. He will be undone by the very woman he is trying to save. Jack is under the impression that I still need saving or that I even want to be saved. I mean, what girl wouldn't want to be saved by the man she has always loved? Me. I know my past. I know what my future has in store for me. If I stay with Jack, I will only end up bringing him down. I won't do that to him. So despite Jack's greatest attempts, he will ultimately be undone by the very person he is trying to save.