Mr. Always & Forever

by Ashlee Price

  Against my own better interests, then, I let my eyes flit over to Jeff, the groom, needing to see at least something that I didn’t consider completely abhorrent in that moment. But naturally, that continued to make things worse… A heat was welling up inside me as I glanced at him from the edge of my periphery, and I could almost feel him heating up as well, his stomach knotting up uncontrollably. He wouldn’t even look at me, though… He’d flashed a quick, nanosecond-long look in my direction, not acknowledging me in the least, but I think just looking to see whether I was looking.

  And God that burned me up inside… I squeezed my hands tightly into fists, not as a sign of anger, but as a sort of nervous tick.

  I turned away from Jeff, quivering just the least bit now, and I tried to hum a little tune in my head, something that would distract me, making me focus on getting the words right so as to avoid putting up with all the bullshit around me.

  And then, Lord help me, the moment came, the practice for the kiss that would forever seal their fate together as husband and wife. I didn’t want to look, but everyone else was, and I felt as though it would be improper of me to avoid doing so. Not wanting to call undue attention to myself, I watched as Jeff and Clarissa leaned into one another, and melted slowly, sensually into one another’s lips, tongues probably twisting together inside them, the passion of the moment seeming real, palpable, and making me sick to my stomach.

  I cast my eyes down to avoid looking at the two of them any further, and at last they pulled apart, staring into one another’s eyes. As real as the kiss had seemed for both of them, however, as desperate and perfect the moment might have been to an outsider, moments after it was over Clarissa was back into dispassionate, wedding planner mode, barking out orders in her same shrill, fascist tones.

  “Okay, that was a decent start… Let’s try it again though, and make sure it all goes fucking right this time!”

  She really could be on one of those reality shows about women like herself, and I imagined her profanity being bleeped out by the censors just at that moment.

  God, how I couldn’t stand her… How the hell had the girl I’d once considered a best friend progressed this far into full-on bitch mode?

  But then again, who the hell was I to say one word of criticism against anything at all she chose to do, about how she chose to act? After the huge, unforgivable, indefensible betrayal I’d committed against her… What kind of a person did that make me?

  The rehearsal spanned on for a great deal longer, hours, in fact, leaving me gritting my teeth the entire time. Sweat continued to drip down along my spine and seep into my panties uncomfortably as I tried to remain calm and collected, and Jeff, all the while, persisted in avoiding any sort of eye contact with me whatsoever, pretending, in essence, as though I didn’t even exist…

  And at last, at long, long last, the moment of departure had arrived.

  I’d watched the two of them, the lucky bride and groom to be, kiss on the mouth a good five or six times by this point, and my ears were ringing from all of the arguing that had ensued in my presence, driving me up the wall. But finally, the practice was over, and I was free, and you can bet your ass I was the first person to go running through the door like a bat out of hell.

  Of course, it would only be another week before I was forced to bear witness to the real thing in person, and that would be way, way worse. For now, though, all I could do was try to stop myself from thinking about it, remaining intent on putting one foot ahead of the other and continuing, hoping that one way or another, I could at least make it home without my misery overtaking me in the middle of the highway.

  Finally, I was home, and I collapsed, sobbing on the bed. Crying my eyes out, getting my dress all crumpled up – a fact which Clarissa would surely begrudge me, but at this point I didn’t really give a damn anymore.

  I wept until I was dried out, and I remained like that for some time afterward, my face in the pillow, like I was trying to go about suffocating myself.

  I slid my hand beneath me then, feeling my stomach, as though any progression had taken place since I’d had my earlier revelation and now. But of course, I still felt the same, and I knew that any changes that might have taken place would have been insubstantial to say the least, and highly unnoticeable.

  I breathed in deep, thinking what little good it was doing me to wallow like this, yet it felt like just about all I could do.

  I dragged myself, at last, out of bed, and sauntered miserably into the bathroom. Shakily, I forced myself to look into the mirror. I was a real mess now, makeup running, hair mussed from plowing my head into the mattress. But I tried to get a hold of myself. To breathe in deep, to bite my lower lip, and avoid letting myself get lost in the swarm of thoughts now threatening to collapse me inward.

  But then something caught my eye. It was the pregnancy test I’d left sitting on the edge of the sink… I raised it slowly up, and peered down at the plus sign raging fierce and blue up at me. I stared for a long, long time at it, as though inwardly I believed I might still be imagining it, and if I remained staring long enough, perhaps it would go away.

  And then, finally, I collapsed onto the vanity, my head halfway in the sink, as I began to cry and to sob my lights out yet again.

  Good God, what had I done?

  Chapter 2

  So, it was like this…

  As I said, I’d been friends with Clarissa since high school. But I’d also, by extension, been friends with Jeff since then as well.

  To be honest, Clarissa had always been quite the little witch about things. But for whatever reason, she’d been one of the first popular kids to befriend me during my “overcoming social rejection” phase during my later years of high school. It’s hard to say just what she saw in me… Maybe I was just smarter than most of her friends, and she enjoyed having me to take advantage of when it came to half-assing homework assignments. Or hell, for that matter, maybe she just wanted to feel sexy by comparison whenever she stood next to me.

  Whatever her motivations, in her way she’d done wonders to boost my self-esteem, making me feel more in touch with my classmates and likeable, and forging a deeper bond between the two of us than I’d ever really managed to find with any of the other kids I knew. Of course, she was still pissy about every little thing, but in my naivety, my willingness to fit in, I forced myself to more or less ignore her many flaws. To go along with whatever she told me, and to build up a vast wealth of loyalty to her in the process.

  And that, sooner or later, was where Jeff came in…

  Jeff, in high school, had been nothing short of a bad boy. Dark and brooding, he was everything that I would never dare to be. He skipped classes, failed tests, got in trouble for writing things on desks, and yet nothing ever seemed to bother him. I, by contrast, was as safe, as dedicated to the straight and narrow and doing things right as it was possible to be.

  But God, I wanted him…

  Even as I knew that I could have no hope in hell of ever kindling a relationship with the sexy young stud, I couldn’t help but allow myself to fantasize, to drool over him, to the point of imagining our future family together, names picked out for the kids and everything.

  This, in turn, presented its own set of problems…

  Had it been any other guy, I probably could have expected Clarissa to offer me “helpful” tips on how to snag him. Ways to act, things to say, things that would likely work for any normal girl, but would surely backfire should I attempt in any way to emulate them personally.

  But I didn’t really need to worry about it in this case, because the young man I secretly burned for just happened to have an on again, off again relationship with my new best friend, and the conflict of interests was one that violently chewed me up inside. I couldn’t tell a soul about it, couldn’t breathe a word, at the risk of sabotaging Clarissa and my relationship – a risk I simply could not dare to take.

  I had to watch them kiss in front of me, watch them grope and hold hands. I h
ad to be a third wheel to their dates, with Jeff interacting with me in a capacity that revealed some real chemistry hiding beneath the surface – yet I knew that it was only platonic, and that he would always be too blinded by Clarissa and her sexual charms to even pay any thought to me as anything beyond a friend.

  God, it ate me up so badly inside… It made things even worse to see how terrible they were together, like their dynamic was all fucked up and terrible on so many levels. They fought all the time, and I knew that some of Jeff’s bad boy tendencies went a long way in pissing Clarissa off just as much as they turned her on.

  Every other week or so, it seemed like they broke up, and once in a while I would actually delude myself into considering making my move during one of these down periods. I would have to get Clarissa’s say-so of course, reason with her, and make sure it was okay. I would wait, maybe a week or so to ensure it didn’t seem like I was going on the attack too suddenly. But then, inevitably, I would sit down to discuss the matter, and I would learn out of the blue that the two of them were reconciled, back together again, and that I’d missed my chance.

  Again, and again, and again…

  Once, right after graduation, I’d walked in on the two eighteen year olds having sex on Clarissa’s couch, her parents gone, and me there seeing whether she wanted to hang out and do something. And God, it was so awful… Seeing Jeff on top off her, bending her over the sofa. His naked ass bent as he doubled over on top of her, Clarissa moaning with pleasure until she noticed my arrival, at which point things made an abrupt, awkward stop. What was more, the two of them had been going at it anally, and somehow, to me, that made it even worse. I don’t know why, exactly… I guess because I was just so damn inexperienced, and I couldn’t even fathom someone putting themselves into my body that way, as much as the thought aroused me…

  Needless to say, I’d high-tailed it out of there like there was no tomorrow, feeling mortified, disgusted, and more hopeless than ever at the prospect of things ever progressing between Jeff and I.

  I don’t know if I just thought the two of them weren’t having sex or something, or that I naively let myself believe they were saving themselves for marriage, but seeing it firsthand really stung, and I didn’t know how the hell I would ever manage to face either of them again.

  However, once we did meet next, they sort of just gave me a teasing, playful look about it, more amused than anything. Their attitudes about sex were such that, apparently, getting caught in the act was more humorous than embarrassing, and as gross as I felt inside about the whole episode, I continued to put up a front of my own, acting like I shared in their consensus.

  And so the years went along. College came, at least for Clarissa and I, and things between her and Jeff were more turbulent than ever. I knew for a fact that there were periods during which she screwed other men while the two of them were still technically together, but I didn’t see it in my place to say anything about it…

  I don’t know exactly what Jeff was into during that period, either. I think he got into some trouble somewhere along the line, and had some making up to do as far as that went, but it must not have been serious.

  Eventually, I became occupied by my own life at last, and I kind of lost track of where things stood between the two of them, so that the last thing I knew they’d been split up for a good year or so by the time they announced their engagement, seemingly out of the blue.

  That announcement had sent it all flying back inside me, the feelings of resentment and jealousy, my inferiority complex, my hopelessness that my fantasies could ever be made a reality with Jeff.

  I just couldn’t see it…

  I couldn’t understand, for the life of me, what he saw in her. She was just getting worse and worse, more and more spoiled with age, and sometimes lately I couldn’t even stand to be around her. How could this man, so quiet and dark, seemingly unwilling to put up with bullshit, stand to commit his life to pleasing her, unpleasable as she was, and generally insufferable.

  The answer, of course, was relatively obvious if I was honest to myself, and it was wet and soft and pink, and probably very nice for him…

  But God, it just pissed me off…

  I tried to be nice, supportive, pretend like I was happy for them, but inwardly I still burned for Jeff, wanted him more than anything in the world.

  And that was when the night of Clarissa’s bachelorette party rolled around…

  I hadn’t especially wanted to attend the damn thing, but it seemed as though there was no possibility I could say no. What made it even worse was the fact that I couldn’t even drink to dull my senses. I was, of all things, the designated driver for Clarissa… Meaning I had to sit and drink ginger ale, while she and the gaggle of cackling hyenas she called girlfriends made jokes about Jeff’s dick and how much he’d be putting it in her over the course of the honeymoon.

  Suffice it to say, I was in a particularly bad mood when I drove back up to her doorstep later that evening, slinging her nearly unconscious body over my arm, and leading her to the front door with staggering, uncertain footsteps.

  “Jesus,” Jeff had said, clearly pissed off at how bad she’d gotten, and he helped me carry her inside, taking her the rest of the way, and tucking her into bed, where she was out like a light.

  “Thank you, so much,” said Jeff, thanking me sincerely. It occurred to me that he seemed to have cleaned up since his scrappy, misbehaved days of youth. I could still see the bad streak in his eyes, but living with Clarissa must have been like raising a damn child for him, and the responsibility of it was clearly eating away at that youthful rebelliousness.

  “Oh don’t worry about it… Somebody had to be the responsible one,” I said, smiling. I hadn’t meant it to be a dig at Clarissa, but it kind of turned out that way regardless.

  “I guess so…” he laughed. “You always were sort of the responsible one in our group, now that I think about it… And thank God for that, we needed it…”

  “Oh, well, you know,” I shrugged shyly, like this was the biggest compliment in the world he could possibly be paying me. “I like to help when I can.”

  He grinned, and looked deep into me, with something a little bit deeper than passing affection. “God, maybe it’s you I should have been marrying all along…” he said, and the moment seemed to freeze up, immediately, around us.

  I knew, of course, that he’d said it lightly. He’d meant it as a joke, a passing comment meant to be forgotten. But now that the words were out in the open, they began to take on real meaning. I held my breath as he stared into me, making my skin crawl with desire, and we both considered with dread and anticipation what it was we were about to do.

  His eyes were dripping along my body, clearly liking what they saw, as though he was just now noticing my physicality for the first time, too distracted as he’d always been by Clarissa’s pussy to think twice about her curvy, average sidekick.

  But just then, I had the upper hand… I could actually see him, growing hard for me, as slowly, zombified, he moved forward. My eyes flitted briefly toward the stairs to the second floor of the home, as though I feared at any moment Clarissa was about to wake up, and she would discover us in scandal. But of course, she was shit-faced and passed out, and whatever Jeff’s intentions might have been, I sure as hell wasn’t about to stop him…

  Before I knew it, the two of us were together. His lips were on me for the first time, pressing warm and wet and luscious against my mouth. My brain lit up, I bristled, and the sensations plumed through me, like the eruption of a volcano through my system.

  I leaned my body up against him, pushing my body into him to the greatest extent possible, loving the feeling of his hard boner pulsing up against me through his jeans.

  There was no stopping us now… No self-restraint to be found, no slowing down in the least. We’d started something that needed to be finished, and we were flying through it in desperation, burning for it.

  He pulled me with him into the g
uest bedroom, and closed the door behind us. He slipped out of his shirt, and it was like a dream as my mouth watered, taking in the sight of that six pack that I’d been fantasizing about for so long. He wrapped his arms around me, and proceeded to ravish me, putting his lips wherever he could find skin. He nibbled on the side of my neck, sinking his teeth into me, squeezing my breasts with his hands. My nipples began to harden, and my body began to burn for him, as the last lingering thoughts of his bride to be flitted rapidly from my mind.

  I moaned as he put his mouth to the folds of cleavage pushing up from above the top of my blouse, rolling his tongue through the clack as he continued to fondle me manually, and my head began to spin.

  I pulled his face desperately back up into me, giving him a last kiss before he peeled me out of my blouse. My breasts jiggled as the fabric drifted to the floor, and I struggled desperately to unhook my bra for him. He slid the straps from my shoulders, and peeled the cups away, revealing my hard, luscious nipples, presently burning for him, and looking oh so fine as he descended upon them with his mouth.

  I groaned with pleasure as he sunk his teeth into me, rolling his tongue around the perimeter of each nipple, stretching me out, making my head spin as he filled my body with untold sensations. I let my hand fall down as he ravished me, stroking his bulge through the front of his jeans, and with one free hand he slid his own palm down my skirt. He began to pet my warm, wet cunt through the lace of my panties, making my knees quiver around him as I struggled to keep myself thinking straight, and at last the beauty of it all was too much for me to handle.