3 comments/ 12444 views/ 0 favorites What Now? By: DeepAsleep I sat up nursing beers and sighing at the streetlights until five. It had never really occurred to me why they referred to the latest hours, before dawn, as the 'watches of the night' until then. But what else had I done, but watch the night for signs of the enemy, Hope? Vigilant as any soldier, I crushed every ray of hope until my mind hurt like the fists of a gloveless boxer. Allowing myself hope, after that much beer and that much emotion would just be setting myself up for a bigger fall than I had as yet taken. The thought that I was dragging myself down with beer rather than pumping myself up with hope occurred to me, and I remember that I smiled. There wasn't much real amusement in it, but the expression fit the general description of a smile. My mistake had been thinking I could effect a change in someone that did not want to be anything but who they were. Over the last year and a half, I had been giving much serious thought to my need to accept the consequences of my actions. At five in the morning, with a beer in my hand, I stared down that particular line of thought like it was the barrel of a gun and smiled like a sick clown. Nothing but love can put a person in a place like this and nothing but love can ever make them want to get out of that place. Love is another synonym for masochism and the only difference between the two is in the spelling. Nothing can make you seek out more pain, or endure more shit. The less bitter half of me says that nothing else is really worth it, either. Worth it or not, it does not hurt any less. Love, in the small amounts I allowed myself, was pain. The antithesis of your classical drugs, love in anything but a killing dose is a somewhat ridiculous exercise in futility. With love, the more you inject, the easier it is to keep on living. I sat on the low concrete step of my front porch, my beer between my feet, still wearing my work uniform, a pair of khaki pants and a black polo with "Ranch Bowl Entertainment Center" embroidered tastefully over the left breast. Why anyone who works in a bowling alley should dress like a yuppie is beyond me. Maybe it's a subtle joke. I do not know. Lifting the beer bottle from between my feet, I took a swig and did my best to concentrate entirely on the taste of the beer. Alcohol is a dubiously effective way of forgetting, at best, and the taste of beer does nothing to really erase the thoughts that bother you. Yeast and hops cannot make you forget the sight of cocaine being freebased by a woman you have loved for three years. It does make a continuation of the living process slightly less difficult. Spoken like a true alcoholic. Maybe with a little practice... I would love to just up and judge myself a complete asshole for lacking the gumption to yell and scream and cause a scene, for lacking the ability to show up at her house every day and sit with her, talk to her, until she got disgusted enough with herself to quit on her own. It is, I think, too bad that life does not follow the same logic as the stories I write. If it were a story I had been thinking of, I would not have had such a dearth of strength. This year has been the most difficult yet, and I am left weak. If I go to hell for anything, it will be that. Perhaps one day, I will be a good enough person to destroy myself for another. But on the porch, with a beer in my hand I wasn't that cool. The argument I use to console myself is that if I cannot be strong enough for myself, how can I be strong enough for someone else? The thought pattern strikes me as something very much like bullshit. It's in our makeup to preserve ourselves with bullshit, though. I said that my mistake had lain in, 'trying to effect a change in someone else,' but that makes it sound like I was trying to break her down and rebuild her in my own image. Really I just wanted to make her want to change herself. How much more noble that sounds! I went inside and puked until every muscle in my back felt like it was going to tear itself out through my skin and dance away in a waltz of pain. Staring at what was left of my stomach all over my hands and in my hair, the idea that I had to get a new hobby struck me with amazing clarity. I rinsed off my hands and went into my room to stare out the window. Seven in the morning and everything is painted with the blue of dawn. All I want, right now, is to fall in love, hard. I want to lose myself in a girl, to live on the smell of her skin. I've spent my whole life falling in love with women ten minutes at a time, as I walked down the street or sat in restaurants. But I'm looking for something requited, something that doesn't leave me staring at a glass pipe and a lighter, feeling betrayed. There's got to be something else, somewhere else, but I know there isn't. I rub the hangover from my bruised, puffy eyes and stare at the ceiling. Sleep would be good, but still I get no rest. It doesn't feel like there is any escape. That's the joke, though. People bitch about how terrible their lives are, here in our wonderful fucking country, while people starve to death, or something equally horrible, somewhere else. I'd love to believe my life was terrible, but really I'm just dissatisfied. I could be dead, but I'd rather just bitch about all the opportunities in front of me. Welcome to America. Give me your bland, your bored, your oppressed of spirit. Ha, ha, ha. Eight in the morning, and I should sleep, but I can't. After drinking all night and coming to the realization that I would give up many of the things that I have simply to fall hard for a woman, it would be really nice to just fall down and pass out. I get the sneaking feeling that it's not going to happen. My hands still smell like vomit and as I rub my face, washing it with dry skin, the stench of them makes me want to rinse them in bile again. I don't, because I'm not that drunk, anymore. Sometimes I wonder if I put myself in positions that would disgust me, were I sober, on purpose. Everything has the hazy, undefined quality of a nightmare. You know what you need, what you have to do, but you just can't do it. I want to cry. God, I just want to sleep in a woman's arms that I love, again. Falling in love and watching her walk out of the restaurant, pass me in her car, walk away, run down the street, is killing me. No one would believe that a man who can call someone a 'fucking cunt,' with a totally straight face is concerned with love, or is lonely, but there it is. Right in the center of me like a hole that I can't fill with endless pretty faces. A hole that I can feel the wind keening through in the cold watches of the night. We all want to be understood, but what's to understand, really? My laughable problems match your laughable problems match everyone else's ridiculous trials. I haven't heard an original story from any of the late-night people I hang out with. Not even my own, though I tell mine a little differently. It's my knack for self-deprecation that does it. Sometimes, I feel as if that is all I have going for me. It's certainly the reason I get dates, at all. Chicks like a man who will make fun of himself. It saves them the trouble. I hear, so often, that men are assholes, and I wonder if I really am such a prick, or if I'm just playing the role that's been handed to me. I'm probably just a jerk with an overdeveloped sense of what I should be, but I might be a romantic dipshit just looking for the right something or other to tide me through until next whenever. So tired. I go to bed with the light shining in around my curtains and a light fog coming from my mouth because I haven't turned the heat on. Staring at the ceiling is not quite as effective as counting sheep, but I could never force myself past an irrational fear of getting shit on by the goddam sheep. I wake up and stare at the ceiling some more. The only bright thing I can think of is that I can't be in the grip of depression, because I can't sleep. Depressed people sleep all the time, right? That means I'm right as fucking rain. Doesn't it? I stare at the ceiling until the sun goes down. They say night falls, but I think it rises. Much like that stupid question about the glass being half full, or half empty, it's really neither. Half a glass of water is half a glass of water and the arrival of night is just the world growing dark. A very rational way to look at it, I suppose. But, I like to think it rises – That's how it feels, inside. As the darkness increases, so do I. I can smell the promise of night like a fresh breath of air through a stifling room. Every evening makes a new promise, and every dawn leaves me feeling like I've missed something, maybe only by inches. Maybe I just miss the sense of accomplishment I used to get from staying up all night specifically to watch the sun come up. I don't know. Seven thirty two in the PM time, the clock says. The moment of my birth and that just makes this feeling worse. I know there has to be more for me. It's a uniquely selfish point of view. I'm a uniquely selfish person. Seven thirty two, and I tell myself to get up, get moving, and do something. But what? Always expectant, never inspired. I can't sleep at night. I can barely sleep during the day. The restless feeling of impending destiny keeps me pacing, waiting for the door or window, or whatever the fuck... Waiting for opportunity to come and sweep me up, take me away. Bored intensity. I sometimes wonder if it would be more interesting to be insane. At least then I'd have company, real or imagined. I'm up pacing, now, and that's how I get myself going. Move the legs, work the muscles, try to shake the feeling that I'm wading in oatmeal. I used to feel incomplete if I didn't get nine or ten hours of sleep. Now I'm lucky to clear six and I wonder if that's my problem. My dad said it's because I'm getting older. I think it's because my brain is tired of rehashing my problems in my dreams. Let's talk about nightmares - I used to have one a year. Now I have three a week. I don't wake up in cold sweats, or screaming, just with a vague sense of unease, as if there's someone standing over me, in the dark, and even though I can't see them, I know they're there. Half awake, after a nightmare, I don't feel fear, just a reaffirmed bored intensity. Brutal, hacksaw murder or not, at least it would be a little action. I try to want not to go to the bar on my night off, again. I'm barely twenty one and already I've come to this. It's my choice, though, every time. Understanding the cause and effect of personal responsibility is not a guarantee of happy living. I still smell like puke and that's what decides it. I throw myself into the routine. The water hits me like rain from heaven and the shower is a moment, just an instant, where I'm concentrating more on what's going on around me than the riotous, neurotic milkshake that keeps getting blended and reblended in my mind. I think about how in 'Bringing Out the Dead,' the main character washes his face in that girl's bathroom with three different kinds of soap, "each one smelling like a different season," and I smile, because I thought I understood when I heard that. Maybe I did. I don't know, anymore. I didn't bother with shaving, because some days it's just too much fucking work and I always cut myself. I step from the shower, squeaky clean and cold in the winter air, steaming like a baby just born in the arctic, minus the afterbirth. And the beautiful spiritual moment when those around you realize that you have your whole life ahead of you, the appreciative awe, that first instant when you really have ALL of it ahead of you. Then the second hand ticks and it's already started falling behind, it's all downhill, now. Dressing is a matter of finding something I have not stepped on with dirty shoes, something that's not too wrinkled, just enough to fit in at the bars I go to. Jeans, a t-shirt for some group that passed through the place I work. I drive to the bar, watching the streetlights pass by, feeling like I'm driving through the mouth of some great, technological creature and all the evenly spaced lights are teeth waiting to crash down and crush my clean, efficient little imported car. The people I pass are headed home, headed in, but I'm headed out with half a tank of gas and a pocketful of useless observations. At stoplights, waiting for the signal to go like stressed out greyhounds, we look over at each other and the difference is almost tangible. It hangs between us like an invisible divider and I have my boot over the gas pedal, my leg straining in the air, waiting to let off the brake with my other foot and jam that fucker through the floor. Sometimes it feels like I am the only one not headed to, but always headed away. In the parking lot, everyone's getting high but me, out on the fringe. I can never bring myself to do it, with them, because I see the term itself as the lie inherent in their lives. "Getting high." It sounds like you're rising above it all, but really it's just getting comfortable with where you are. I never want to be comfortable in this place. That would be giving in. That would be losing. Inside, it's loud noise, the smell of beer, a hundred clouds of beautiful women that I dress not to attract. Fleeting moments of contentment as I drift towards the bartender, half a step in one girl's perfume, half a step in another's. They never get beyond pretty in sight and smell, because that would destroy the illusion that I have been building since I walked through the door. That I don't need anyone. The beer is cold and cheap, because even if getting drunk in the place you work means you have to be somewhere that for forty hours a week, you dream of getting away from, at least you get an employee discount. The Ranch Bowl might suck mightily, like a practiced hooker, but two dollars for any beer and the possibility of a good band any night of the week is too much to pass up. And I'm poor. I sit with the people I get drunk with and I get to be the quiet one, the one that sits somewhere he can watch the door. We drink and it's my night off, again. Waiting for the right one to walk in the door, expecting to know which one it is, But midnight rolls around and it's one hour to close and I'm tipping the bartender the last dollar I can afford to and walking up the hill that surrounds the parking lot, towards the gas station and it hasn't happened, yet. In the gas station, I buy a couple packs of cigarettes and a twenty of Bud-Light, because it's cheap and just as effective as good beer. The mouth that tastes like the bottom of a birdcage morning-after thing I could do without, but when you only make eight-fifty an hour, there are some sacrifices you have to make. The attendant knows me and we talk about nothing. "So, what've you been up to, tonight?" I think that he looks to smart to work here and I'd laugh if I didn't work in a bowling alley. "Getting drunk, same ol'. You know." I grin while I pack my cigarettes and he does something esoteric and gas station attendant-like. It seems like his whole job is a clip-board and a checklist that I'll never understand. "How's your night been?" "Same ol'. Drunk people from your job making mine hell." The kids that get drunk in the parking lot, illegally and the kids that get drunk in the bar, legally all tend to migrate up to the gas station at some point in the night. Good for business, hard for employees. "Yeah, they do that." I've unwrapped the cigarettes and I tap one out of the soft pack and jam it behind my ear, in case he wants to talk some more. I just want one ready for when I get outside. It's cold and I never wear a jacket. Like smoking will warm me up. I search for something to say and, "Business as usual?" flops lame and dying from my mouth. He laughs, either because he understands or because it's expected. That chuckle between friends. "Same ol'," he says. It's our inside joke, I guess, not to put the second 'Same ol'.' in there. Like we, at twenty-something, have been around long enough not to have to. He's about to say something else, but he's cut off by a customer walking in, some lady who's gotta know RIGHT NOW what the cheapest pack of cigarettes is, as she counts out a stack of quarters on the counter. I grab the twenty with one hand and reach for the cigarette behind my ear. The attendant (What's his name? What's mine? We don't care.) gets a knowing smile as I back out the door and swing towards my car. I put the twenty in the back seat and pull one out as I get in and turn the key. The bottle cap goes into a glass I keep in the console, clicking against about fifty others like it. I keep it there, out in the open, because I wonder how I'll explain it all, if I get pulled over. I drink the beer on the way to Denny's, defecting to where the defectives defect. In their parking lot, I drink another beer in my car, next to a guy and girl who are drinking one in their car. We toast each other silently through the window and she laughs and he smiles. I wait until they finish and go inside, nursing my beer and trying to look happily relaxed. Getting out, I throw the empty bottle over the row of cars, to smash against the cement wall that surrounds this parking lot. There's always a cement wall, or a hill and I shake my head. From nowhere, I want to key the happy couple's car, but I don't. Inside is another group of friends. Fifteen or thirty people, a random collection screaming at the top of their ideological lungs that they are different, they are individuals, they are like no one else in society. Yet, they gather in this coffee shop so they don't have to feel alone in their difference, so they can feel different, like other people. I don't understand them, all the time, but after the bar is a long, empty time and it gives me something to think about. Why do we have to single people out? Why isn't a roleplaying, vampire wannabe geek attractive? Why can't I fall in love with all of them, make them mine, all at once, sit above the world and love everyone because they're ugly, for hating themselves, for treating themselves like shit? One at a time, trying to piece them back together. Because it would kill me, so I label it bad and let it go. Part of me rattles it's cage, wanting to get out. Why is anything beautiful? Why prize something above something else? Anything else? What if it all makes you sad, because it isn't perfect and that's wonderful? Why are flaws bad? Overweight, stretchmarks, buck teeth, a goofy eye, too big a nose, too generous a mouth, too much red paint, not enough black, for contrast, where's my beamer, who's piece of shit is that, why can't it all be wonderful? Why can't ugliness be pretty? War, famine, death, it all sucks, but why can't that be pretty, too? Bad manners, rudeness, acidity, abuse, alcoholism, aggression, blasphemy, barbarism, why is it different? What makes it different? They talk about physics, and then magic, and then a girl I don't care for at all begins whining about how everyone hates her and an uncomfortable silence descends. It's quiet like paragraphs, at our table, each person adding an unspoken sentence to create it's own story, "We Don't Want to Get Into This; An Essay." But I'm bored and I tell her she's right, shut up, I've got a headache, even though I don't, really. She starts in on me, and what an asshole everyone thinks I am and I feel it start, inside. The quickening heartbeat and everything's too bright so I know my eyes have dilated and I wonder if I'm going to explode and scream at her, watching myself tear her down from a place inside me like a mountaintop overlooking a thunderstorm, but again, I don't. I just tell her that if I wasn't an asshole, I wouldn't fit in here and she has nothing to say to that. I would bet she's confused, but I'm not that worried about it. She shut up and that's enough. In my head, the whole scene is filed under, "Fun With Passive-Aggression." What Now? Dear reader: This is a problem that has bugged me for some time. I want to see people write. Patricia51 allowed it with One Slip, the Troubador with How High a Price. Charly Ace with June Gets Even. I am sure that others have done it or have considered doing it. I see the Site has between 400 and 700 new stories a week. I want more. I have asked people to write, I have received a comment that if too many people write the site will fill up with poor writing. That everyone with a PC will flood the Site with junk. That the flood of stories will crowd out the good writers. That the site will be flooded and will slow down the approval process to week not days. I do not want to crowd out good stories with the shit I see every day. The same shit and the same story with different names for the characters and different writers. But I find the bookstores and libraries are exactly the same. I have to look longer to find books and writers to read. Do I ask writers and wannabes to write hoping that some of them will become the writers of tomorrow? Or do I just let what we have be what we are going to get? BUT isn't that what free speech is all about? We must allow the place for the worst to publish. It is the only way to gain the writers that will be the best tomorrow. That means I will have to suffer the poor writers, the idiots, and the screaming comments on my own attempts to write a meaningful tale. Lord knows that I will be blasted by some, liked by others, and maybe read by more. I accept that. So here it is. WHAT NOW? * A challenge!!!! Read and see. No editor for this one, errors are mine. This is fiction. Any and all of this are the delusions of a weird mind. Note: This is not copyrighted so have fun. What now? I am James Reed. When I was 26 years old, I came into a hell of a lot of MONEY. It was legal, by the way. But suddenly, due to no real action on my part, I had a mountain of money. I was a high school History teacher in Baldwin, a small town in the upper part of the lower peninsula of Michigan. I had a house. My brand new money manager told me to get a bigger house but it seemed silly. I like my house. It was on the river I loved and had everything I needed. No one knew of the MONEY. The investment company handling the money meets with me every month in Grand Rapids. The meeting lasted a weekend. Mark Braxton was a nice man but he wanted me to spend and party and enjoy and I want to continue my life, pretty much as I had been living. The income alone from the MONEY was enough to equip a damn army. The taxes were heavy but I would not get a bigger house. Hell, the manager wanted anything to cut into the government's share of my money. I knew he was getting a 1% percent yearly of what his company managed but it made no difference to me. I was never going broke. Not in a billion years. The 1% was not any big deal, except that the investment company treated me like a god. I told them to call me James, they called me SIR until I told them that the next time any one in their company called me SIR I would find another company. Every one now calls me James. Even the cute receptionist. Even the janitor. Keep in mind, good people, I was basically happy. I had everything I needed, well that is not entirely true. I did not have a good wife, I did not have any children. But I had a good job, good friends, and a great river to fish. The first summer after I acquired the MONEY, I went to Alaska. I paid $6,000 for a week of fly-in fishing. It was great. I was flown by helicopter to five different rivers. The fishing was out of this world. Except there were no close friends to laugh when I fell down in the cold water, no one to have a drink after a good fish was landed or that night in the lodge, and no one to kid me about the one that got away. There was no one to talk with about life and the vast hereafter. I know fishing is an obsession and a solitary pursuit but friends do make it better. So the MONEY was invested. And the gains were invested. And I was making more MONEY. It seemed a shame that it was just getting bigger and not doing something good. That changed in late June two years after I got the MONEY. Beverly Capstan was her name. She called and asked to see me. School ended in the first part of June. It happened often, she just wants a letter of recommendation for college or for a job. I looked over my notes for all the kids who had graduated. She was third out of 81. Hey, it is a small town. I knew she had applied for Ferris State University in Big Rapids. I knew she had been accepted. So, what did she want with me? She was due Friday afternoon so that day I tied some flies for the river, changed the line and backing on an old fly reel that I used as a back up and I had a beer. She showed up at 1PM just as I was ready to prepare lunch. "Hello, Beverly. I am having hot dogs for lunch. I also have fixings, a salad, diet Pepsi for you, and a beer for me. How many dogs would you like?" "Thank you, Mr. Reed. If there are enough, may I have two? May I help with anything?" "Hey, I am cooking out of doors. I never need help cooking out of doors." I had taught this girl for four years in high school. I had never really looked her. I mean LOOKED. She was a student. She was female. She was not to be touched. Well, she was no longer a student. But does that change anything? We would be eating at my picnic table in full view of the road and any one that might pass by. Beverly was 18 years old; she was not best looking girl in the class, but she was a long, long way from being the ugliest. Between bites, I looked at my former student. Beverly was cute. She was not a beauty. She was attractive. Age and knowledge would add considerable to her appeal. Her dark brown hair surrounded her oval face. Nice cheek bones, eyes as blue and warm as a summer day, full lips. She was five five. Maybe 125 pounds? As I remembered the swimming parties in the river, she had a nice shape. Again more average than lush. She was going to be an average woman. "I am going to Ferris in the fall. I have enough scholarship money to pay for school. I do not have the money to have a dorm room and I do not have the money to get a car that will let me drive back and forth." Now this was a different problem. "Oh?" "I need a job, either in Big Rapids so I can stay in a dorm, or here in Baldwin so I can drive back and forth." "Beverly, what do you want me to do?" "I don't know anyone in Big Rapids, and I was hoping that you might know someone who has a job that I could get." Now I knew the problem. I did know people in Big Rapids. Some nice and some not so nice. The ones that I knew had most of the open jobs were the not so nice ones . Baldwin has damn few jobs at all. It was a hard scrabble town; every one hustled for a living. Any job she could get here or there would be minimum wage. And the college town had all those students looking for jobs. I did not see what I could do for her. So there was the question. "What do you want me to do?" The hot dogs were ready. I set up paper plates and served the food. We sat at the table where anyone and everyone could see us. We ate and talked. She sipped the diet Pepsi and I sipped my Rolling Rock Pale Ale. "If you could get me a job, it would be great. I will always be thankful." "You really need to be at the school. Driving back and forth even if it is only 50 miles will be a problem. Also, your grades will suffer if you work." "I cannot go to college without working." I could see tears in her eyes. "And there is no one else I can ask." I saw an idea off in the distance. As ideas go it was weak looking, but I needed to talk to my money manager. "Beverly, I am or was your teacher. There is a place that will hire you even without me asking. The Swan hires dancers." "I know, I was there already, the owner says I can work but ....." The tears crept down her face. "I have to dance nude and I have to let him...." This was not news to me. I knew Sam Bly. He was an ass but he stayed legal, just barely. His dancers were all over 18, too young to drink but old enough to work in bars. I guess he had told her about the lap dances and the back rooms. "You can borrow the money." "I want to be a teacher. And you know what teachers make. I just don't want to have those big payments after I get out of school." "About Bly, if nothing else comes along, will you work for him?" "If I have to, I will. But I will not fuck him or the men in that place." I sensed an iron core inside this woman. There was a remaining question I had to ask before I could go any farther with this conversation. "Beverly, if and I do mean IF I can arrange something for you, what do I get out of it?" I was truly curious about what she would say. "Mr. Reed, you make it possible for me to go to college and I will do whatever you ask." An interesting statement. I lived in a small town. I dated a woman in Grand Rapids, a good 90 minutes each way. I could only get there on weekends and not every weekend. She was OK. I definitely was not in love and marriage was out of the question. Hell, she was a nice fuck. I was ready to ask a question I never thought I would ask any female. "What if I asked you to let me arrange for your college? Anything and everything you need until you complete your studies, what would you do for me?" "Are you asking me to fuck you? How often, where, when? What about boys I would meet at school? Birth control? What happens if my Daddy finds out? He will kill you." I could see all kinds of problems with this idea. I actually did not know what I was talking about. I decided to put her on hold. "Where else were you accepted? What other colleges?" "The only one I applied to other than Ferris was the University of Michigan-Dearborn. I was accepted there too." "OK. Beverly, a home work assignment. As soon as you can, show me a year by year by year expense sheet for you to go to Ferris State University and the U of M-Dearborn. I know they have no dorms at Dearborn so start with living expenses. I need it with in a week. And do not get your hopes up. This is just a shot in the dark. I will be in Grand Rapids tonight and I will get some Dearborn papers for you. Also do Eastern Michigan University." This was busy work for her. I knew the costs. With dorms at Eastern the cost for four years would be $35,000 when the car and fuel and other expenses were counted. You know like clothes. At U of M Dearborn I had it pegged at better than $45,000, there were no dorms and apartments were not cheap in Dearborn. "I do not think that Eastern will accept me this late." I knew that Eastern would accept Lucifer himself if I gave them enough MONEY. So would Harvard. "Do not worry about that just get the homework done. You can use the computers at the school if you need." I remembered that she did not have a computer at home. She used the school machines to prepare the projects I assigned. She looked at me with a strange look. "Are you going to make me fuck you so I can go to college?" "I am trying to stop the men in Bly's bar from fucking you." "So you want what? 3 or 5 times a week? Blow jobs? You wanna fuck my ass?" "Stop. No one said I wanted to fuck you. As a college student, you will have the right to accept any level of activities you want. If you decide that sex is not in the picture, cool. I am sure that something can be worked out. You can join the army and get money for college." "I will fuck you if you put me through school. So, how many times, Mr. Reed?" I found myself thinking about this. It was a good question. If I wanted to have her, what would be a good yearly number? What about STD's? Pregnancy? I needed to think about this. Then it struck me, was she negotiating? The number of times? I looked at her. The tears had stopped. Her face was calm. "Beverly, I will have a man see you. He owes me big time. He will set up a way for you to go to Ferris or any other school you want. You do not have to fuck anyone. If he even looks at you wrong, I will have him fired. I still want the expense sheet for Ferris, U of M-Dearborn and Eastern. And I am not sure that I want you that obligated to me. It is too close to rape." 'It is not rape, it is whoring." Was this barely legal girl thinking she could use me to fuck her way though college? "If I married you until you finished college and paid for everything, and you divorced me, is that whoring?" "Will you marry me?" "Do you want to have three babies? Cook and Clean? Fuck me whenever I want? Why the hell did you come here today anyway? This is a small town; you have a good idea of what kind of man I am." I was getting angry. Did this young woman want to marry me or just cut a deal so she could go to college? Was this marriage thing a school girl crush? Was she really ready to fuck me for a college education? Or did she actually want to marry me? How the bloody hell had this meeting gotten to this point? And what was I going to do? "Will you marry me?" Now what? ##### Ok, you wannabe writers, I will throw down the gauntlet. Write. Make it as good as you can. Make it real. Make it unreal. This is open for less than 3 posting on this site. y. Stay away if you have more than 2 postings on the site. Post it as: Under LOVING WIVES: What now? My Ending ABC where ABC are your initials or numbers. I have always wanted an opening to finish. Well, here is your chance. Use the spell check, find an editor. Read the story out loud. GO FOR IT. Public comments open Commentators, judge them. Tell the truth. We are trying to build the writers of tomorrow. No brickbats or complaining just help them be better writers. Ah, the winner gets an autographed picture of my dog FRED. Last, I do not like questions. So if you ask, it better be a damn good question. Winner will be determined by ME by whatever method I wish to use. All stories must show up on the site on or before July 4, 2005. Winner will be announced in the public comments section of my starting tale 2 weeks after the closing date. Be prepared for lessons on how to write better. What Now? This story is slow building so if you are looking for quick sex then look else where. All characters are over the age of 18. If this story is well received I will continue to add to it. It was January 3 and it was the night of the big homecoming basketball game. Sarah was sitting in the stands watching the game and talking to a few classmates. One of the classmates was a boy that had made it clear he wanted to be her first. Sarah was interested in him but he also was a well known player, so she would flirt and brush him off. It was halftime when Sarah got up to go get something from the concession stand. While waiting in line she saw her brother Mark and four of his friends(Chris,Daniel,Alex,Matt). She jumped out of line to go and talk to them. Marks friends where also good friends of Sarah because they had all grown up together. Sarah had never looked at any of them as more than friends. After talking to Mark and the rest of the group halftime was over so they all went to finish watching the game. It was a typical game, so after the game there was a sock-hop. Sarah didn't want to stay so Matt and Alex said they would drop her off on their way to the store. Once inside the car Sarah was quiet and just listened to Matt and Alex banter back and forth. When they pulled up in front of Sarah house Alex got out and let Sarah out of the backseat. "Thanks" Sarah said to Matt and Alex as she started walking away from the car. "Your welcome. We will be back as soon as we pick up the rest of the group." Alex said. "Okay." Sarah waited for the boys to get back to the house since her mom was gone to a friends house she was alone until they got there. She got tired of waiting and decided to lay down. As soon as she dozed off she heard the loudness of four teenagers coming through the front door. She got up and got dressed to hang out. When she went downstairs she found all the boys sitting in the living room watching t.v. She sat down next to Alex. "So what have you been up to?" She asked Alex. "Nothing just modeling and taking acting classes." "Really?That's awesome!!" Sarah stated. After about an hour everyone mafe their way upstairs except for Daniel and Mark who had started making pancakes. Once upstairs Matt turned the stereo in Marks room on and sat down in one of the chairs. Alex,Sarah,and Chris were just standing around looking at each other. After about 15 minutes of awkwardness, Chris went downstairs to see what Mark and Daniel were doing. Matt had fallen asleep in the chair. Alex and Sarah stood there looking at each other before Alex asked," So are you still a virgin?" Sarah was completely shocked that he just asked her that. "Yes, why do you ask that?" Sarah replied. "Because I heard about you," he Statefarm flatly. "What did you hear because I know I am a virgin and that I haven't done anything with anybody." She replied really blatantly. "Sorry, I didn't mean it that way I just heard that you had don't something with that boy you were sitting by at the game." He replied. "Oh, no he wishes I would let him fuck but I won't let him. He is to much of a Whore." Sarah stated wondering where this conversation was leading. After a few minutes of silence Sarah got up and went to her room. When she laid down she relayed the conversation she just had with Alex over and over in her head. Alex was cute and Sarah had always thought so but the conversation made her look at him completely different now. Alex was caramel complected, had a red tint to his hair, and had freckles. Now I know to some people this wouldnt be attractive but Alex was also 5'9 and had the body of a model. His personality was also attractive. He could make anyone laugh at any moment. All this was going through Sarah's head as she heard a light tapping on her bedroom door. "Come in." To her surprise it was Alex. When he entered he turned and shut and locked her bedroom door. "What are you doing?" She asked. "Everyone is down stairs and I was wondered if you wanted some company?" Sarah didn't know how to respond. She suddenly became really nervous and self-conscious." Uh, sure." Alex moved over to her bed and layer down beside her. Sarah heart started beating uncontrollably. Alex started to move his hands over to her hands which were folded up in front of her. Once their fingers touch it was like an electric pull. Sarah turned to face him and their eyes met. "What are you thinking?" Alex asked her as he watched her face. "I'm scared,nervous, but I want you to be the one." With that he moved in and kissed her very softly. That kissed turned into a slow but building kiss. She licked and sucked on his lips as he caressed her tongue with his. When they finally broke apart both were gasping for air. Alex got up and started to take of his shirt. Sarah being self-conscious removed her pants and underwear while still being covered up by her blankets. Alex climbed back under the blankets and once again started to kiss Sarah. This helped Sarah relax and she open her legs and could feel Alexs' pants were still on and that he was obviously hard inside his pants. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he continued to deeply and sensually assault her mouth with his tongue. Soon after she wrapped her legs around his waist he started rubbing his clothed hard prick against her bare and now extremely wet pussy. Sarah started moaning into Alexs' mouth as his hips was causing his member to grind against her clit. Alex couldn't take anymore so he raised up and took of his pants and released his hard 8 inch Dick. Sarah had never seen a hard Dick before and was scared and excited at the same time. Alex was all about safety so he pulled out a condom and rolled it down over his thick long shaft. Once he was ready he climbed back into the bed and back in between Sarahs waiting legs. He positioned his Dick at Sarahs moist entrance and paused. "You ready?"he asked Sarah. "Yes" she replied. He slowly pushed his member forward and Sarah winced with each little force. Only an inch had gone in and he could feel how tight she was. Her pussy hugged him like a silky velvety glove. He pushed in about another inch or two til he felt his dick hit her fleshy barrier. He slowly poisoned in and out of the inch that he was in to work Sarah into a more comfortable state. Sarah was lowly moaning and he knew it was now or never. He pulled almost all the way out of her wet pussy and thrust in with one solid movement till he felt his Dick hit her barrier and then push past. Sarah jerked and winced when his big Dick ripped through her virgin hole. Alex stilled himself inside her tight pussy to allow her time to recover and adjust to the feelings in her pussy. After Sarahs face a body relaxed Alex began to slowly thrust in and out of her newly woman hole. Sarah felt pain at first but as time went on and as Alex continued to thrust in and out of her she started to feel a new sensation that was like no other feeling she had ever felt before. She started matching Alexs' thrusts and pretty soon they were fuckin each other to the point of ecstasy. Alex didn't know how much more of Sarahs tight hole he could take. She was milking his Dick for all he was worth. He began to pound her pussy till he felt the tingling and tightening in his balls that told him he was ready to cum. He thrust in one last time til he was balls deep and grunted as his Dick shot out his seed into the condom. Sarah felt his release and couldn't hold out any longer her back arched and she let out a subtle scream. Her orgasm was her first and drained her. Alex pulled out and watched as Sarahs face came out of pleasure bliss and back to normal. He pulled off the condom and got up and walked to the door. While they were caught up in their sexual moment they had forgotten that they weren't alone. He put his ear to the door but couldn't hear anyone or anything. He walked over to the side of the bed and leaned down to kiss Sarah. She kissed him back and then watched as he dressed and walked out of her room. She couldn't help but feel lost. Where was their relationship going? Where they going to be boyfriend and girlfriend? Was she just a one night stand? Did he plan this? Stay tuned for more.