by Maxine Storm
I remembered when Brent and I were in high school and I was going through a particularly tough time in my life. My mother was pressuring me to break up with Brent because she thought all relationships with men were a waste of time. I should just focus on school, and set my sights on someone rich, because men don't have anything else to offer, she would tell me. And as much as I hate to admit, her pressuring exerted its effect on me. I started to doubt myself and doubt whether things were genuine with Brent. Even when the evidence was staring me right in the face that Brent was different, and had a good heart and soul.
One day class ended and I had bolted out of the classroom, past my friends, and more importantly, past Brent who had been waiting for me near my locker.
"Michelle," he had called me, but I had ran right past him. I had felt his hand try to grasp my sweater but it had slipped out of his hand due to my speed.
"Where are you going?" he shouted after me, but I had kept running, pumping my arms as fast as I could.
I didn't want to see him - it hurt too much just going past him like that, but I had felt like I had no choice.
That morning my mother had scolded me before I went to school.
"Are you still with that boy?" she had asked.
She would always call Brent "that boy."
"Yes," I had said. "He's great."
"That's what you think now," she had said. "It's because you are young."
"No," I had said, putting my coat, hoping to get out of there, away from her negative presence for at least another day. "We have something."
My mother had laughed.
"Sure you do," she had said. "He's already planning how to get rid of you. All men do that, once they get bored. Trust me, Michelle, I know."
"No," I had said again, this time a gut reaction to her bitter words. "No that's not true."
"Has he really talked about the future with you?" she had asked me, trying to make every word sting.
I had not responded. We were just teenagers then. How far could we have discussed the future? We were just concerned with graduating at the time, and letting life come as it may, optimistic that what we had would prevail no matter what we ran into.
My mother had laughed again.
I had held back the tears and merely shook my head in response.
"See," she had said, "I told you."
I had slammed the door on my way out, and made it to school, her every word ringing in my head. I was unable to concentrate that day. All I had wondered was if she were in some sense right. I didn't want to believe anything she said. I knew she had always had trouble with men, starting with my father, who had ran out on us.
So that's why I had been running past Brent that day after class, ignoring his calls after me. I had just wanted to get away from the doubts that were haunting me.
I had ended up by a beach not too far from the school. I had just needed to hear the sound of the water and its calming effect, just like the marble fountain in the hotel was for me. I had stood there watching the tide go in and out, trying to quiet my mind.
That is when I had heard Brent chasing after me. I had realized he had never let up, no matter how far I had been running.
"Michelle!" he shouted, as he neared me.
I had not responded and kept my back turned away.
Finally he had got closer so that he had been shoulder to shoulder with me.
"Damn," he had said, "was math class that bad that you had to run out like that?"
Normally his jokes were able to make me laugh, but that day I just couldn't react the way I wanted.
I had stood there, silently.
"Hey," he had said, putting his arm around my shoulder, "what's wrong?"
"I'm not just some girl you can lead on," I had said.
Brent had given me a puzzled look.
"Of course you're not, Michelle. What's this all about?"
"You're playing me, Brent," I had said, my body stiff to his touch. "You're a player." I had wondered if those words were really mine, or something my mother had implanted in my mind at the time.
"No, Michelle. No way. You're the world to me."
"Oh yeah?" I had asked. "Prove it."
Brent's head twitched in frustration.
"You want me to prove it?" he had asked.
I had nodded.
"Oh, I'll prove it to you," he had said. "Get over here."
And with that he had dominantly spun me around and placed his arms around me so I was face to face with him.
"Every time I look at you, I lose my breath," he had said, just whispering above my ear. "I want to be around you all of the damn time. And that's causing me trouble, because I can't think of anything else. You're causing me a lot of trouble, Michelle, the way you're doing now."
He had been unable to hold himself back and then held my chin and kissed me hard, his lips rolling over mine and then my own feeling his out of their own volition. I felt the tension in my body leave as I put my hands around his face and kissed him back. My eyes closed as he had leaned into me and the bulge in his pants pressed against my body, making me quiver at his undeniable arousal.
"Michelle, I want you," he had said breathlessly. "I want to go all the way with you. It's hard for me to stop this when I'm with you."
He had kissed my neck and my face went flush. I had wanted to take the next step physically with him, too, but I was still haunted my mother's warning and doubts about men to feel like I was free to do so. But this time, I had felt that maybe those misgivings would melt away from Brent's passion and my desire to feel that unexplored intimacy with him.
Brent had kissed me again and then held my hand and led me to an area of the beach away from the boardwalk and sheltered by trees. I had felt my heart pounding in anticipation that this perhaps was the moment I had been waiting for yet dreading because of my own insecurities.
Brent had taken out a blanket from his backpack and laid it out over the sand, in an area somewhat covered by the trees and their leaves.
"I want to show you how much you drive me crazy," he had said. With that, he had unbuttoned his jeans and let them drop to his ankles, revealing his thick cock straining against the edges of his boxers. I had been totally overwhelmed by the sight of his almost bare manhood displaying for me - something I had only imagined in moments where I felt I had my thoughts to myself. But seeing it in person had made my eyes widen like never before and I had felt myself getting wet just touching the tip outside the cotton of his boxers. Touching it sent a pleasurable shock through my hand and into my stomach and I reflexively drew back my hand.
"It's OK, Michelle," Brent had said. "We don't have to do anything you don't want to do."
"No," I had said, feeling the desire beginning to torment my whole body, "I want to -"
I had been interrupted by the sound of car tires screeching somewhere to our left. I had unconsciously stepped out to see what it was, because of the harshness of the car breaking against the asphalt.
"Michelle!" had screamed a voice. I had recognized the car and felt my heart drop one hundred feet into a pool of ice.
It had been my mother.
"I've been driving around all over, wondering where you've been!" she screamed. "Get in the car, now!"
I had stood there, frozen with embarrassment and fear, and then felt Brent's presence beside me, for he had stepped out to see what the commotion was about. I had turned to Brent and realized he had been standing beside me, with his jeans down, and his erection practically bursting out of his boxers like a missile.
In front of my mother.
I saw Brent's face turn red with embarrassment just as bad as mine and he scampered back into the foliage behind us.
I ran into my mother's car as she slammed the doors and sped out of there just as noisily as she had arrived.
The whole ride home she had scolded me for doing the exact opposite she had commanded me to when it came to dealing with boys. While I hung my head, trying to drown out her words,
I found myself grinning at the memory of Brent and his terribly timed huge erection and the look of terror on his face as he dashed away.
As much as the entire incident was ridiculous, I could never forget it, and I could never forget feeling Brent's desire for me in that moment, and how true it was. I could never forget how real his words were and all the weight they had, and how right then and there they obliterated the doubts my mother had fed me about the genuineness of his passion.
I sat down on a bench closer to the fountain, feeling myself sink back into the present moment. I wiped a tear away and watched it disappear into the calm waters before me as they continued to murmur and fill the silence of the night around me. How was I to deal with the mixed emotions I had, I wondered. Reminiscing about Brent reminded me of how close we were and how close we might have been, if only I didn't feel imprisoned by my mother's fears that eventually became my own.
But it also made me wonder if I was just trying to escape into the past. Not just with the reminiscing, but with trying things out again with Brent like I had done tonight.
***
I took the elevator to my room and tried to settle in for bed.
As I laid down and closed my eyes, I couldn't help but see flashes of Brent's face in my mind. As much as I tried, I remembered seeing his grin when he had me laugh earlier. I didn't want to think about that right now. I was torn between wanting to see him again and never wanting to see him. I tossed and turned until I was finally able to focus on nothing but the still of the night and found myself drifting off to sleep.
***
Shortly after, I found myself startled awake by someone knocking heavily on my door.
I ignored it, thinking it probably was someone mistaking their room for mine, and I quickly fell back asleep.
"Michelle, it's me, Brent," said the voice.
I flicked on my slippers and hopped out of bed, and looked through door's peephole.
Brent.
What was he doing here - and at this time - I wondered. I hoped he wasn't up looking for a midnight booty call, because I was in no mood to entertain that from him right now.
"Brent?" I asked. "What are you doing?"
"I want to talk to you," he said. The door creaked as he leaned into it and I realized we were just inches apart separated by this door.
"No, Brent," I said. "Not now."
The truth was that I wanted to talk to him. It wasn't going to be all nice things that I was going to say. But I did want to talk more with him, even if it were just to say how I was still annoyed at him.
"Michelle," he said, "I'm going to show you."
"Show me what?" I asked, thinking he was just drunk. And his silence in responding to me made me think that even more. It was like he forgot what to say. It sort of made me blush, though, thinking that I still had that effect on him.
"Brent?" I asked. "Show me what?"
"I'm going to show you... an amazing time," he said.
"Oh, just like how tonight was amazing?" I asked.
"No," Brent said, his voice confident. "Better, much better. It'll blow your mind."
"OK, Brent," I said. "Go to sleep."
I turned off the lights and went back to bed. My heart had been racing hearing him come up to my room my room like that, even though I had pretended I wasn't that interested in what he had to say. I didn't want to give away my true feelings in the moment to him. I wanted to see what he would do, his "amazing time" that would "blow my mind." I wanted to open up the door and see his face again but I knew I couldn't do that, at least then.
But some of my discomfort in not knowing what was going to happen between us had been lessened, and I fell asleep with a small sense that maybe, just maybe, there might be something still there we could build on.
Chapter 6 - Brent
I found myself sitting alone at the bar inside the hotel, nursing my drink, unsuccessfully trying to get Michelle's face out of my head.
To say the date didn't go so well was an understatement. I didn't want to tell her how bad I had been missing her. It was like seeing her unearthed a chest of feelings I had suppressed for so long. For so long I had been neglecting my love life, in the truest sense of the word.
Yeah, I had been with some women after Michelle and I broke up. It was only natural. At first it was to fill the void that was left when we were no longer together. And then, as I got into business, I suddenly found myself surrounded by many new 'friends'. Well, they were your friends as long as they thought you could give them something. Money, attention, status, favors. But I wasn't like that, and I wasn't going to be. I had my own principles and I stuck to them. That's what made the business successful.
The relationships I did have - I can't say they were ever real love. I sometimes told myself they were and that this person was the one. I tried to tell myself that enough times thinking I could eventually persuade myself to believe it. But it always a lie, and deep inside, I knew it. My mind would always compare the women of my past to Michelle, and none of them stirred the emotions and longing I felt like the memory of Michelle did. I would drive someone home and sit there outside their place, wondering what was the point, like I was just going through the motions, hoping that one day Michelle would materialize while I was in the middle of that script. I would imagine seeing her the next day instead of the person I was picking up, and we'd drive to one of our old favorite hang outs while we were in high school.
Mega Burger wasn't the classiest of joints but it had been good enough for us when we were students. I remember one day when I had taken her there after class.
We had been eating our burgers in silence, looking out the unwashed window into the evening's light blues and intermittent bright headlights of the cars.
"So," Michelle had begun, "any plans after graduation?"
I had taken a bite of my burger and chewed it slowly.
"This burger is really overdone," I had said, then taking a sip of my drink.
"Brent," Michelle had said, "don't change the subject."
"What's the big deal?" I had answered her. "It's not for a while anyway."
Michelle had drummed her fingers on the table.
"It's important," she had insisted.
"Why?" I had asked her back.
"It just is," she had said, crossing her arms.
I had taken another bite of my burger. I had been so clueless back then.
"They really need to hire better cooks here," I had said, trying to wear down the tough meat.
"Brent," Michelle had said again impatiently, "I want to know what's going to happen to us."
"We'll be fine," I had said, taking another sip of my drink. "I'll become a pilot. I have to get away from my dad. I'll be a good pilot. Then I can do anything."
"What about me?" Michelle had questioned me.
"You can come, too" I had said.
Michelle had fidgeted with her hands.
"It's not that easy," she had said.
"Don't worry about it, babe," I had said, reaching across the table and holding her hand. "We'll work it out when we get to it."
But as it had happened, we really didn't. Or rather, I really didn't. Sometime later when I graduated, the night we had spent together was burned into my memory, but I didn't want to get relive that other memory now. It was too painful.
I took another drink and wondered if we could get ever make it work again. I looked around the bar, hoping to see Michelle appear as if by magic. It hurt to realize she wasn't here and I drank again to numb the pain.
The bartender was cleaning a glass and I got his attention.
"Can you get me a burger?" I said.
"Burger, sir?" he asked, stopping his cleaning. "I'm sorry, but I can't right now. The chef's asleep."
I looked at my watch. It was past midnight. I was losing track of time just thinking of her. I ran this place. I could get a burger if I wanted to. What was up with these delirious thoughts I was having? Man, I really had too much to drink. Michell
e, look what you do to me, I thought.
I was about to take another drink when I felt a tap at my shoulder.
"What are you doing out here, Brent?"
I turned to see Marsha smiling.
"Marsha," I said, happy to see her. "I just finished the date with Michelle."
"And?" she asked, taking a seat beside me.
"It didn't go so great."
Marsha tapped my knee.
"It's been a while since you really found someone you were excited to see," she said. "Maybe you were just nervous."
"Maybe," I said. I appreciated Marsha's insight. She was really like a surrogate mother to me.
When I was first starting my business, no one had my back. I put in an ad in the newspaper looking for a jack of all trades who could serve as an assistant. Combing through those applications was a real headache. But I scheduled one interview, only it turned out to be a prospective Jill of all trades. Marsha was a single mother who had been passed on by a lot of the people she applied to work for. But I was impressed by her diligent research into the business I was planning, as well as her willingness to learn new skills. She was older than me by almost twenty years but she was everything you could ask for in an assistant.
"You can't hide it," Marsha said. "I've never seen you so excited to meet someone like you were for Michelle."
"It's true," I said, shaking my head. "Well, she's really special."
"You can't give up on her," Marsha said.
"That was never an option," I said.
"Brent, I've seen you spend time with other women, but I could tell in your heart there wasn't the spark you had in the first seconds you saw Michelle the other day. The heart doesn't lie."
I shook my head and grinned again. She really knew what was what.
"I'm just not sure how to make it work with her again," I said, rolling my fingers on the bar. "Maybe too much time has gone by for us to rekindle what we had."
"Love doesn't fade like that," Marsha said.