“There’s nothing down there that needs your attention, Porter. Look at me when I’m talking to you,” she said.
I looked up. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re sixteen,” she said. “We need to have this talk.”
“I know about sex, ma.” As if it would save me from continuing, I poked both halves of the cookie into my mouth.
“Have you had sex?” she asked.
I chewed the mouthful of cookie, wondering if I should tell her about Patty. I wanted my first sexual encounter to be memorable. Something I’d talk about with my four half-brothers while we smoked cigarettes and drank warm beers. Instead, it was something I’d chosen to forget. It had only been seven months. It seemed like a lifetime had passed.
If I couldn’t recall the details surrounding that night, I wondered if I could convince myself it didn’t happen. A drunken dream. A sexual tale conjured up by a half-drunk teenage boy with a hard on and a mind filled with sexual desire. But the memories wouldn’t go away. The underwear and jeans I threw away stood as a reminder each time I searched for a pair of jeans to wear to school.
Lying to my mother wasn’t something that I’d ever done, and Patty Wilson’s stinky pussy wasn’t going to get me to start. I drew a long breath, reached for another cookie, and braced myself for her reaction.
“Yes,” I murmured.
“Porter Quentin Reeves,” she screeched. “You’re sixteen!”
I slumped into my chair. “I’m sorry.”
It was true. I was sorry. Not for the hand jobs or the blow jobs, but for the sex. I wished I could take it back, primarily because of the putrid stench that caused me to throw away my clothes.
She forced a sigh. “So am I. I shouldn’t have yelled.” She reached for another cookie. “Who was she? Will you tell me?”
I didn’t want to. I doubted she’d be happy with my choice. Patty’s mother was a barfly, and was talked about more than religion, politics, or the weather in our town. She wasn’t married, and never had been. If the stories about her were true, she paid her rent with money she made from having sex with the ranch hands that flocked to town seeking seasonal work.
I looked away. “Patty Wilson.”
“Dear God,” my mother gasped. “We need to get you to the doctor.”
My heart shot into my throat. “Why?”
She pushed herself away from the table. “If she’s like her mother, she’s liable to have a plethora of diseases. Did you wear a condom? Please tell me you wore a condom.”
I didn’t. I wondered if the foul odor was a hint of the many diseases she carried. “I uhhm.” I offered an apologetic shrug. “I forgot.”
Her eyes widened to the point I feared they’d fall from the sockets and roll across the table. “You forgot?” she bellowed. “Forgot? Porter, you don’t forget the condom. That’s like forgetting to get dressed before you step out into a blizzard.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her face distorted into a look that could only be described as disgust. “We’ll get you to the doctor on Monday.”
I reached for another cookie only because I didn’t know what else to do. “Am I going to be okay?”
The look on her face faded, but not completely. She looked like she did the night she tried oysters for the first – and last – time. It was as if she could taste what I’d spent two weeks smelling.
She swallowed hard, and then forced a cracked smile. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
With a cookie in my left hand, I reached for my backpack with my right. I wanted to go to the upstairs shower and scrub my dick until I knew it was clean of everything Patty Wilson left on it.
“Is that all?” I asked.
“No,” she said in a stern voice. “That’s not all,”
I broke the cookie in two and waited for the wrath of my mother to come down upon me. Instead of attacking, she pinched a small piece of cookie between her fingers and gingerly placed it in her mouth.
After swallowing it, she sighed. “There will be girls that you’ll want to have sex with for the sake of satisfying your urges,” she explained. “It’s sad, but that’s what boys do.”
“Then, one day, you’ll meet someone you fall in love with. When you find that woman, you’ll know who she is. She’ll be different than the rest.” She broke off another piece of cookie but didn’t eat it. “Until you find her, you’ll have meaningless sex. You need to be truthful – before you have sex – about what your intentions are. It’s the right thing to do. The women are either a one-night-stand, or they’re not. Do you know what a one-night-stand is, Porter?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I responded. “I do.”
“Don’t you dare leave a woman wondering which category she falls into. Ever. If she knows upfront what your intentions are, it’ll save you – and her – a lot of emotional problems down the road.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Saying nothing leaves a woman to believe she’s special. In her mind, the two of you are sharing something sacred. She’ll believe, unless you tell her otherwise, that she’s in a relationship with you. If you tell her upfront that you’re only wanting sex, it gives her an opportunity to decide if she wants to simply satisfy her urges. You owe it to every woman to let her know where she stands. Before you have sex.”
I nodded but didn’t respond.
“One more thing,” she said. “Don’t you dare tell a woman she’s special just to get in her pants. If I find out you’ve done such a thing, I’ll hit you in the head with your grandmother’s cast iron skillet.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Porter?”
“Yes?”
She held my gaze. “Promise me.”
“I promise.”
“Now, and forever,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I promise.”
She studied the piece of cookie she held. “There’s nothing that’ll break a woman’s heart quicker than believing she’s special, only to find out later that she’s been used for sex.”
“I promised, ma. It won’t happen.”
I assumed she was speaking of my father but didn’t ask. He was a subject we didn’t discuss. I’d always suspected he was one of the ranch hands that came and went, and that she never really knew him. I now wondered if he had misled her into believing she was special, only to leave her with every indication that she was nothing more than a one-night-stand.
“Ma,” I said, hoping to take her attention away from the cookie.
She looked up. I no longer questioned if she was speaking of the man who fathered me. Her wet eyes gave all the answers I needed.
“Yes?”
“I’ll be honest with them, I promise.” I glanced at my cookie and then met her teary-eyed gaze. “When can we go to the doctor?”
She chuckled as she wiped her eyes. “We’ll go on Monday.”
That Monday I found out I had Chlamydia. A dose of antibiotics cured it but left me forever fearful of having unprotected sex. From that day forward, I never had sex without using protection – or without first explaining to the woman that all we were doing was fucking.
My mother passed away the following year, but her words of wisdom were the fabric that held me together.
I blamed kissing Abby on my altered state of mind. The tumor had undoubtedly caused pressure to build on whatever portion of my brain produced logic. Consequently, it appeared I’d lost my ability to reason.
I was now forced to categorize her. She didn’t fit in the one-night-stand slot, but I struggled to admit it. Nonetheless, she didn’t belong there. That only left one place for her.
Placing her there scared the absolute shit out of me.
91
ABBY
Much to my satisfaction, we got stuck in rush hour traffic. By the time we reached San Diego three hours later, I had my doubts that the tingling sensation in my clit would ever subside.
Porter proved me wrong.
He was seated ac
ross from me. On the floor in front of him were his boots. His eyes were glued to them. He’d been frozen in that exact position since we walked into the room ten minutes earlier. The magical moment we shared at the pie shop was being dwarfed by the awkward silence.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
Glassey-eyed, he continued to stare.
I waited for what seemed like an eternity. I cleared my throat. Snapped my fingers. Hummed. Sang softly. Turned on some music. Drummed my fingers on the end table. Sang louder.
Nothing.
After twenty minutes, I’d reached the breaking point.
“Porter!” I shouted.
He looked up. It wasn’t like I’d startled him. He simply shifted his gaze upward until it met mine. Upon seeing me, his face distorted. Confused, he rubbed his eyes and glanced around the room as if he didn’t remember walking in.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was just thinking.”
“About?”
“My mother,” he said. “Something she told me when I was a kid.”
In the amount of time it took to snap one’s fingers, I went from being angry with him to hoping I could do something to comfort him. I tried to imagine losing my entire family to cancer. I couldn’t comprehend it. I doubted anyone could. I wanted to hold him in my arms and tell him everything was going to be alright, but I didn’t know if it was going to be.
“Do you want to talk?” I asked.
He wrung his hands together nervously. “We probably need to.”
What I thought was confusion now appeared to be concern. He laced his fingers together, but it didn’t last. He began to rub his hands along his thighs, and must have found comfort in it, because it was then that he began to speak.
“My mother once explained that there’s two places you can categorize women when it comes to sex. A one-night-stand, or a relationship. I don’t want to have a one-night-stand with you, Abby.” He shifted his eyes to meet mine. “That only leaves one place for you to be.”
His words bounced around in my head until I understood them. Incapable of speaking – at least for that moment – I took every inch of him into view. He was muscular from head to toe. He had a keen sense of humor. He had manners. He was a real biker. He had a big dick. He knew how to kiss a woman. And, he didn’t want to use me for sex.
He was an anomaly.
A glitch in the male population.
“I don’t want to have a one-night-stand with you, either,” I said.
It wasn’t the complete truth. Immediately following that kiss, I would have tossed my belief system aside, have let him screw me bow-legged and be on his way. Now that I knew he had other intentions, I wanted more. I wanted what every woman wants.
I wanted a relationship.
My mind began to assemble the pieces of Porter’s puzzle. In doing so, I got confused. He said he’d never been in love. He’d never allowed himself to be. I couldn’t help but wonder…
“You’re not a uhhm,” I stammered. “You’ve had sex before, right?”
He spit out a laugh. “A couple of times, yeah.”
“Okay.” I wiped my brow. “Me, too.”
“I just. I’ve never,” he muttered. “I’ve never done this.”
I leaned forward. “This being what?”
“I’ve never been in a relationship,” he admitted.
I studied him as I formulated my response. His look morphed to one of innocence. At that instant it came to me. Porter’s hard exterior was his protection. The pursed lips. The muscles. His glare. Since we met, he’d been peeling away his outer layers and setting them aside. During his twenty minutes of silence, he’d removed his last layer of defense. I realized beyond the muscles and tattoos Porter was no different than anyone else. He was vulnerable.
Exposed and unprotected, he waited for me to respond. He may have been thirty years old on the inside, but the person seated across from me was seventeen and without a family.
Seventeen and scared.
“I’ve been in a relationship before,” I said. “But I’ve been single for six years.”
His eyebrows raised. “Six years?”
I nodded. “Uh huh.”
“Holy shit,” he gasped. “Why so long?”
I met Kelvin in college. We began having sex because having sex was fun. The sex changed from fun to freaky. Four years later, I realized all he and I shared was sex. He wanted nothing from me but to screw me at will, and I granted his wish.
Realizing it left me feeling foolish. It was my own fault. A relationship that begins for all the wrong reasons never becomes right. So, I left him, vowing to never place myself in the same position again.
I swallowed six years of frustration and let out a long, exhaustive breath. “At first because I was angry about how my last boyfriend treated me. To him, I was someone to screw and nothing more. When the anger faded, I realized no one put me in that relationship but me. I decided the next time I committed myself to someone, it was going to be because I wanted to be in a relationship with them, not because I simply wanted sex. Hopefully, knowing that lets you make some sense of my choice to eat pie instead of jumping in bed.”
“It does,” he said with a nod. “Thanks for explaining it.”
Thirty minutes earlier, my plans were to christen each room in my home, stopping only when we’d completed the task. After verbally admitting what caused the failure of my previous relationship, I now felt a need to remind myself that it wasn’t simply sex that drew me to Porter.
It wasn’t going to be easy, but I needed to exercise sexual restraint for at least one night. Looking at the big picture, I knew it wouldn’t make a difference. In my manner of reasoning, however, it would prove to me that I was in it for all the right reasons.
It a was necessary step in securing my relationship’s future. Ridiculous, but necessary.
“I’m exhausted.” I stretched and did my best to fake a yawn. “I want to take a shower and unwind.”
He reached for his boots. “Okay.”
“You don’t have to leave.” I waved my hands toward the bathroom. “You can take a shower with me, or after me, I don’t care.”
I couldn’t believe the words that were spewing from my mouth.
I swallowed heavily. “We’re uhhm. We’re not having sex, though.”
He returned a blank stare.
I managed a slight smile. “I can cook something light to eat afterward if you like.”
He tossed his boots aside and stood. “This is crazy.”
“What’s that?”
“Not having sex,” he said.
I studied him, trying to imagine what he’d look like soaking wet. “Does it bother you? Being here and not having sex?”
It bothered me, but I wasn’t about to admit it. I regretted telling him he could take a shower with me. I knew if he chose to accept my offer that it would take every ounce of my willpower not to ride him like a pogo stick.
“It’s just not what I’m accustomed to,” he said. “I guess if I want things to be different, I have to do different things.”
“So, you’re going to stay?” I asked, trying to hide my excitement.
“I’ll go downstairs and grab a change of clothes off my bike while you’re in the bathroom.” He turned toward the door. “I’ll shower after you’re done.”
I guessed he felt the same way I did regarding showering together. It was a good thing, because I planned on relieving myself of some serious tension when I was in there.
“Your loss,” I teased. “It’s probably for the best, though. I doubt you’d be able to keep your hands off me. I’m irresistible when I’m wet.”
“That sounds like a challenge.” He turned around and looked me over. “I’ve never been one to back down from a dare.”
“Wait. What?” I stammered.
“Hold on just a minute while I grab my clothes.” His mouth formed a smug little smile. “I’ll go ahead and shower with y
ou.”
Being in the shower with Porter would be a true test.
One I was sure to flunk.
92
PORTER
Although I fantasized about having sex with Abby, I didn’t feel the need to act on those desires. The absence of sex left me at a loss for what I should be doing with our time. In the past, if I spent more than an hour with a girl it was because we were having sex. Consequently, the time I spent with women taught me very little about what to do with a woman if we weren’t having sex.
I had zero experience at being romantic but wanted to act in a manner that she found pleasing. More than anything, I wanted whatever Abby and I shared to be in complete contrast to the one-night-stands that defined the sexual experiences of my past.
The trip to Julian drew me even closer to Abby. A ray of hope now shined from her being. A hint that cancer didn’t always consume its victims. Some people beat deadly disease, and she stood as proof. I doubted I could defeat a brain tumor without medical attention, but I could always hope.
Filled with that hope, I began to inch my way into her life.
While Abby poured two glasses of wine, she confirmed my decision was a good one. “Truthfully, I’m glad you decided to let me shower alone.”
“I know me well enough to know I would have made achieving your goal difficult.”
She corked the bottle of wine and handed me a glass. “What goal?”
I lifted my wine glass. “Why’s this stuff pink?”
“It’s pink Moscato.” She sipped the wine. “What goal?”
I tasted the wine. The sweetness was such that I almost spit it out. I gave a taut smile and looked at the glass in disbelief. “Holy shit. This stuff’s sweet.”
“What. Goal?” she asked, her tone demanding.
“Not having sex.”
“Oh.” She gestured toward the living room. “That.”
Her home was along Mission Beach Boulevard on a corner lot that faced the ocean. I had no idea what it cost, but I knew it wasn’t cheap. If Tito’s opinion of her income was correct, I doubted she had any problems paying for it.
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