Chapter 1
Chapter 2 - Matriculation: Part 1
Chapter 2 - Matriculation: Part 2
Chapter 3 - The Search for the Ultimate Party: Part 1
Chapter 3 - The Search for the Ultimate Party: Part 2
Chapter 4 - Home, Sweet Home Part 1
Chapter 4 - Home, Sweet Home Part 2
Chapter 4 - Home, Sweet Home Part 3
Chapter 5 - Workin' For A Livin' Part 1
Chapter 5 - Workin' For A Livin' Part 2
Chapter 6 - The Thermonuclear Family Part 1
Chapter 6 - The Thermonuclear Family Part 2
Chapter 6 - The Thermonuclear Family Part 3
Chapter 7 - She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not Part 1

Other Early Adventures

Well, the rest of my high school years were pretty uneventful. I had only two more dates before graduation. I went with Judy Teel to a dance and it was okay, but she was in madly in love with David Hathaway. The only reason she even went out with me was because I knew him and she thought I could help her get in good with him. I didn't.

After that I had assorted crushes on assorted women, including Laurie Mason, the student body president, Kimberly Stinson, the homecoming queen, and Darcy and Tori, other popular girls who I had absolutely no chance with. I had no problem asking these girls out, I just had this problem with them always saying no.

This string of bad luck stretched across my Junior and Senior years. I even tried asking out a few less popular girls, but I seemed to have some kind of reputation for being a dork or something, because everybody at Leon said no. Usually seniors can date juniors or sophomores because the younger girls are impressed by the status being a senior affords. Not in my case, apparently, because everybody said no.

Finally it was time for my Senior Prom. I didn't go to the Junior Prom because I couldn't find a date. But I was going to be damned before I was going to miss the Senior Prom. I should've missed it. I went with this girl, Trish Swanson, who went to a private school. At the time I was working at Forrest Meadows Athletic Club and she was a regular customer. I used to always flirt with her and occasionally she would flirt back. The problem, and I didn't realize this until prom night, was that we had absolutely nothing in common. So the whole night was pretty much a fiasco. She was bored. I was uncomfortable. And I spent a whole lot of money on a bad date. High school sucked.

First Kiss

So there I was, a high school graduate who had never even kissed a girl. As I said, high school sucked and so did my love life. As I already told you I took four and a half years off between graduating from hell before I went to college. I moved to Beverly, Oregon, just so I could spend a little time in a town so small that it didn't even show up on a map. For the four months I lived in Beverly, I worked at Max's Famous Burgers and stayed in a boarding house run by this little old lady named Miss Johnson. Most of my time was spent between work and time at the boarding house where I did lots and lots of reading. I read everything by Kurt Vonnegut, Ken Kesey, Jack Kerouac and Douglas Adams as well as various books by Truman Capote, Anthony Burgess, Jim Carroll, James Dickey, Evan Hunter and others. I learned a lot. Companionship was on the low side, though. Which would explain why I was reading a lot of Anais Nin and A.N. Roquelare at the time.

Then I met Lena.

Lena Farrell began working at Max's Famous Burgers about a month after I did. We kind of hit it off right away and we flirted a lot while when we were at work. One night we were talking on the job and I told her that there was nothing to do in Beverly. She contended that there was lot's to do in Beverly then proceeded to list exactly zero things to do in that typically idyllic example of small town Americana that was Beverly. Then she told me that the state fair was coming to Beverly and I nearly had an orgasm, being so delighted at the possibility of an actual event in the burgeoning non-metropolis that was crushing my spirit with its complete and total banality. Then and there we made a date to go to the Oregon State Fair. Oooooohhhh!!!

Well we went to the fair the following Friday night and actually had quite a good time. Me doing my best cynical-but-lovable-high-school-graduate-with-a-crappy-job-shtick and her putting on her I-like-this-guy-but-I-can't-let-him-know-it facade. It was your typical young-people-playing-mental-games-with-each-other type of date and we both enjoyed it. Then I drove her back to her place to drop her off. We got out of the car and stood in the cool, crisp Oregon air talking about this and that without actually saying anything. Then, out of the blue, she grabbed the back of my head and pulled my mouth to hers and kissed me. Kissed me hard and long. Kissed me soft and wet. Kissed me till my toes curled up and jeans had to be readjusted. I thought we were done kissing and I went to pull back. She held the back of my head tight and pulled my lips back to hers and said "Don't pull away from me!" This was a woman in charge! Woo-Hoo! I was excited.

Then things got screwy.

We worked together for a couple of hours each day. She worked day shift and I worked night shift at Max's, so there was a two-hour overlap as her shift ended and mine began. Seeing as I didn't have a whole lot to do in Beverly, I would go over to her house most nights after work and hang out. She lived in a one bedroom apartment pretty much right across Highway 17 from Max's.

For the first week or so, everything was fine. We got along well. We had fun. There wasn't a whole lot to do in Beverly, let me pound that idea into your head. We played cards (rummy). We watched television (crap). We made out (a little).

By the time the weekend came around, though, things began to change. Lena was cold towards me for no particular reason. We didn't make out any more. We didn't talk much. I didn't know why. Then we had "the talk."

You know about "the talk." Everybody has "the talk." It's the talk where she tells you what things she will put up with or won't put up with. "The Talk" always occurs at the beginning of a relationship and it's never fun. For me this time was worse. Out of the blue, Lena told me that she knew why I was dating her. She knew that I was only after sex and that she wasn't going to put up with being used.

The fact that I only wanted Lena for sex was news to me. I hadn't even thought about sex with her yet. Well I had thought about it, but I hadn't tried to get it or planned to get it or even expected it. I was happy just to kiss her. I told her so. She didn't buy it. I didn't know I was selling it. I was just telling the truth, but she had heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend who told her that I was only out for one thing and that thing wasn't nice. I, however, was clueless as to my own intentions.

Anyway, that night I left Lena's place after a short but not-so-sweet argument about what I wanted from her. She ended up telling me that we could still date but that I couldn't have sex with her until we had dated for six months. I said thanks. Thanks a whole heck of a lot.

Needless to say I wasn't happy with being given this ultimatum for no particular reason. Or on the word of someone else. Someone who couldn't possibly know anything about me. No one in Beverly knew anything about me. It was enough to make you want to kill someone. But who?

I found out the next night. After work I went home instead of going to Lena's house. I was still a bit angry at her as well as my unknown assailant. I was sitting home alone, re-reading The Catcher in the Rye for about the dozenth time. Great book. I was at the part where Holden breaks the record he bought for his little sister when the phone in my room rang.

It was this girl from work, Crystal. I had met her a few times, but I kinda had gotten this wild vibe from her. Not wild in a good way, but rather wild in a Glenn Close-Fatal Attraction-sorta way. I always get really good vibes from people. These vibes are rarely ever wrong. They definitely weren't wrong with Crystal. She was a nut.

It turns out that Crystal had a crush on me. She was calling to ask me out. I told her that I couldn't go out with her because I was sorta dating Lena. She didn't take the hint. It wasn't even a hint, I straight out told her no, because I was dating Lena. But Crystal went on talking to me like I didn't even say anything. We talked for a while that night and she kept calling for a couple of days and repeating the whole escapade. Kinda boring.

Later that week I saw Lena again. The shit hit the fan. She was still mad at me about the "I-only-wanted-her-for-her-body" thing and was acting kinda sullen. Then she told me that she heard that I had been talking on the phone with Crystal. I was sorta flabbergasted. I hadn't told her. Crystal must have told her. We were the only two who knew.

Lena told me that Crystal had been bragging to her that we had been talking on the phone. She apparently forgot to tell Lena that I had done none of the actual calling, so Lena thought it was my fault. I tried to tell Lena that Crystal was a deranged lunatic and that she was the one calling me, but Lena wasn't having it. I guess Lena was a bit deranged as well. There must be something in the water of Beverly.

Out of the blue, Lena tells me that I have to tell Crystal to stop calling me or she's going to break up with me. First she won't believe me when I tell her that Crystal is doing all the calling on the telephone, now she's telling me that I need to make Crystal stop calling me. First she tells me that we can't have sex for six months because somebody told her that I was only interested in her for sex, now she tells me who I can or can't talk to on the phone. Enough!

Well that was the last time I ever saw Lena. I told her that I didn't want to see her anymore. She started screaming and yelling at me and telling me that I was going to be crawling back to her some day. It was all very “Days of Our Lives.” Oddly enough, I never crawled back to her. Psycho bitch.

As for the other psycho bitch, Crystal, I never talked to her again, either. I figured out that it was Crystal that told Lena I was only interested in her for sex. Maybe those two do this to a lot of guys. Maybe it's some elaborate plan they have worked out together. It's scary.

I had Miss Johnson disconnect my phone line. I quit working at Max's the next day. I had a little money saved up, so I just kinda coasted for the next week and then I decided it was time to go. I moved to Pearl City.

Feel Like Makin' Love

So there I was, an eighteen-year-old high school graduate, jobless, in a new (Pearl) city and the world's oldest living virgin. Over the next three and a half years, very little happened as far as my love life was concerned. In fact, I would go as far as to say that for the next three and a half years nothing happened as far as my love life was concerned. I worked. I traveled. I read. And I returned to Pearl City. I had a few dates here and there, but nothing serious. Mostly, I didn't have a whole lot of time or money to spend on women. I was fulfilling many of my dreams. Going wherever and doing (almost) whatever I wanted to do. It was great. But it got lonely.

Between the time I lived in Beverly and when I started college in Pearl City only one event of any importance occurred in my love life. I lost my virginity. No big whoop. It was just like one of those 80s movies where the teenager went to spring break in Florida looking for just the right woman to lose his virginity to. Well, any woman to lose his virginity to. Then hijinks ensue and finally the guy loses his virginity. Well, that's pretty much what happened to me.

In 1993 I went to spring break in Panama City Beach, Florida with some guys from the Pearl City Gym where I worked. Brent and Mickey were two wild and crazy guys who I occasionally partied with. We all decided to go to Florida and visit the Spring Break Capitol of the World for a week. Okay, it hadn't earned that title yet, but it was still one of America's major spring break hot spots. (This message was brought to you by a subsidiary from the Panama City Beach Tourism Council).

While we were there we hit all the usual spots: La Vela, Spinnaker, Miracle Strip, Shipwreck Island, Sharkey's, etc. By Thursday of the week, I was getting a bit tired of going to La Vela and Spinnaker every night and wanted to go to this party at the Howard Johnson's next to La Vela that I had heard about on the radio. Brent and Mickey still wanted to go to La Vela so we amicably split up.

The Howard Johnson's was right on the beach a few buildings down from La Vela and Spinnaker. Behind the hotel there was a huge deck overlooking the ocean. On the deck a D.J. was playing dance music while two bars were set up to meet the beverage-related needs of the party-going consumers.

When I got to the deck, hundreds of people had crowded onto the deck and were dancing and drinking the night away to "Paul Revere" by the Beastie Boys. I grabbed myself a plastic pitcher of beer from the nearest bartender and headed out into the mating arena, searching for Miss Right.

I didn't find her. Instead I found one of my best friends from high school, Nate. He was over from Tallahassee to party down. We slid off the dance floor so that we could catch up on old times.

Nate was attending Tallahassee Community College and working in his father's hardware store. He had just got into town with a bunch of his friends, many of whom had also went to Leon High. I was eager to see who all was in town. I hadn't seen any of the fellas since graduation. Nate led the way to their room inside the Howard Johnson's. I followed slowly, keeping my eyes peeled for Miss Right.

When we walked into Nate's room, two things immediately struck me about the party that was happening within. First of all, there were only two women in the room (compared to about twelve guys). Second, one of them, Chrissy Tomberlin, was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life.

As it turned out, none of the Leon guys that had come with Nate were guys I really knew that well. That made it easier to try and get to know Chrissy.

Nate introduced me to everyone in the room that he knew. His friend Chris, whom I recognized, then introduced the other people in the room. Chris had met the other people at Spinnaker two nights earlier and they became fast friends. Among the three people Nate didn't know were the two women, including Chrissy, who smiled at me when we were introduced. He shoots, he scores!

The party went on. Nate mingled with his friends old and new and I did my best to get as close to Chrissy as possible and to find my way into any conversation she was having. I was masterful. I used witty comments and brilliant retorts to dazzle this beautiful woman. I was damn smooooooooth.

Needless to say, we spent the rest of the evening talking amongst ourselves. Chrissy and I pretty much separated ourselves from the rest of the party and got to know each other pretty well. After a while it started getting late and I mentioned to Chrissy that I didn't have a place to stay. I told her that I would have to cut our conversation short so I could go find a place to sleep. She told me not to bother. I could stay in her room.

In retrospect, I'm sure she thought that I was using some kind of line on her. Trying to get into her room so that I could try to get into her pants. I really wasn't. However, I'm not upset that in the end that's exactly what happened. But she wanted it just as much as I did.

We hopped into Chrissy's car and headed to her motel. She was staying with the other girl and guy that were at the party at the Motel California several miles down the strip from the Howard Johnson's. Chrissy's friends weren't ready to leave the party yet and said that they would find their own way back to the motel. It took us an hour and a half to drive to the motel, so we talked.

Most of our talk that night was minor chit-chat. Typical stuff that people just getting to know each other talk about. An interesting fact about Chrissy is that she is a big fan of frogs. She had little plastic frogs all over the car. She said she had a huge frog collection back home in Tallahassee. She said she even had a frog tattoo right below her bikini line (happiest damn frog I’ve ever seen). I got to see it later that night.

The most memorable thing she said to me that night was when we were in the car on our way to the Motel California. She told me that she wasn't going to go through the pretense of giving me her phone number or address so that I could not use them, especially since I lived on the other side of the continent. She said that we would go back to the motel and whatever happened happened and that their would be no guilt or strings attached.

This was an interesting concept to me. I had never had sex before, much less a one night stand. And this one night stand was being initiated by the woman. You never see that in any of those Porky's movies. I will say that it didn't bother me a bit, even though the thought hadn't crossed my mind. If I was going to lose my virginity, I had no plans to disrespect the woman by not calling her. But she didn't want me to. It made me feel very strange. Not strange enough not to go through with it, but strange nonetheless.

So we had sex. And it was good. What did you expect? I'm not going to give you all of the gory details. Let's just say I enjoyed it (duh) and she enjoyed it (thank goodness) and that's that. Well almost. We did it again. And again. Neither of us got very much sleep that night.

Even though Chrissy was one night standing me, we still spent the next day together. We went to the beach and hung out. Drank a few beers. Went back to the room and did it again. You know, the usual spring break activity. At one point when we were talking I gave her the impression that she had been my first. I was going to confirm it, but didn't when she said that it would be terrible to lose your virginity while at spring break. It wasn't. I assured her that I had sex lots of times before and we dropped the subject.

Later that day, Chrissy told me that she needed to go. She and her friends had to get back to Tallahassee because she had to go to work the next day. She kissed me and said goodbye. And that's all I have to say about that.

Meetings

You know, I'm pretty sure that you women have meetings. Ya'll get together once a week or month or whatever and discuss us guys. You exchange info about which guys are nice and which guys are jerks. About which guys have money and which guys are cheap. About which guys are good in bed and which guys are not. I'm sure about this because every time I try to ask out some girl, she already has some kind of misgivings about me. It seems like she's already been debriefed about me. This wouldn't be a problem, except that whoever's doing the debriefing has a lot of faulty information.

Cathy

At the beginning of my freshman year at P.C.C.C. I got started real early on trying to solve my dating dilemma (meaning my lack of having anyone to date). Me and Ned and Jeff would go to lots of parties and clubs and bars and wherever else we could think to go where women would be present. Early that year I went to a party at the house of a friend of a friend of a friend. That's where I met Cathy. In fact it turns out that the party was at Cathy's house, and as as she was the hostess, I was introduced to her. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen before. She looked a lot like that actress Jennifer Tilly, who was in Made in America and Liar Liar. Let's just say she was very attractive.

The party was going on like a typical college party. Everyone was drinking and talking and doing whatever. Then somebody came up with the brilliant idea to play “Truth or Dare.” A little high school I thought, but what the heck. I didn't really know anybody at the party other than Ned and Jeff, and they were busy with women of their own. It would be a great way for me to meet a woman or two. Boy was I right.

I was wearing a pair of jeans that had a huge rip across the thigh of one leg. Not exactly in style, but it was wash day the next day. I had nothing else clean. I strategically chose a seat next to our hostess, Cathy. The game went on uneventfully for a while until it was Cathy's turn. She chose dare. A female friend of hers dared her to stick her hand into my jeans through the rip and move it up toward my crotch as far as it would go. She went pretty far. Schwing!

Then it was my turn and I also chose dare. My dare was to lean over to Cathy and french kiss her for at least a minute. If I was sober I probably wouldn't have done it, but I wasn't sober and I did it. I think if Cathy were completely sober she probably wouldn't have done it either, but she was and she did.

So I kissed her. My hungry lips met hers and my eager tongue forced its way into the wetness of her mouth. She resisted at first, but my passion overcame her futile resistance. Cathy couldn't help but surrender to her body's unqeunched desire and my need to quench that desire. Our tongues met and an electric shock hit both of us. It began in our mouths and flowed throughout the rest of our bodies, coming to rest only in her loins and my groin. Or something like that. I never said I was a romance novelist.

We kissed. And it was good. Cathy was apparently as attracted to me as I was to her because she returned my kiss as long as I kissed her. And I had no intentions of stopping such a wonderful thing. One of her friends, however, thought that we had had enough and said so. I pulled my lips away from Cathy's and stared into her eyes as we moved apart. I saw something in her eyes that I had only seen once before. Panama City Beach on spring break. I knew I was in for a good evening.

I ended up spending the night at her house that night. No I didn't take advantage of her. She was way too drunk to for me to try anything (I was also too drunk to try anything). We made out a little (a lot) and went to bed. We hung out (ate breakfast) a little while the next day. The only moment that really stands out in my mind is when Cathy played the song "Memory" (from Cats) on the piano for me. It sticks in my mind because it is such a beautiful song and she played it so beautifully. No one else had ever created music just for me before. It made me feel like crying for a second. Then the feeling went away. And then she took me home.

The next day (Sunday), things got crazy like they always do for me. This guy, Greg, that I knew from work had been at the party Friday night. For some unknown reason, he told Cathy that I was only interested in her for sex (deja vu). Again this struck me as really odd. I had never been interested in a woman just for sex. Never was. Never will be. But here was a second occasion where I had to defend myself against charges that I was. It's enough to drive you nuts.

Well, we got into a big argument about it and I ended up hanging up on Cathy when she called me a liar. I don't even really remember why she called me a liar, but that's one thing I can't stand is to be called a liar. I do my best to always tell the truth and when someone calls me a liar, especially when I'm not lying, it pisses me off. That pretty much ended my short relationship with Cathy. Women don't like being hung up on. She didn't call back. Neither did I.

Next time I saw Greg at work, he rushed up to me and apologized. He said that he didn't really mean what he had said to Cathy. He was drunk and was trying to hit on her. When he saw that she was interested in me, he lied. He regretted it afterward. I told him not to worry about it, that it was okay. It wasn't.

Loneliness is the Weekend

I used to love the weekend. No more school. No more work. No more hiding from those jerks. But back then my world didn't extend much beyond my bedroom. Now that I've joined the human race, I don't much like weekends, especially weekends alone.

Jessie

I've found that my personality reaches to both extremes. When I fall for a girl, I really fall for her and am totally in love with her. So much so that I become blinded to her faults right up to the point that she breaks my heart. And when I am in love with a girl, even if I realize that the girl isn't perfect, I treat her as if she were. However, when the relationship ends, I have almost no feeling for that person anymore. I become cold, distant and feel little remorse. This coldness of mine extends to friends and family members I've lost as well. I love people when they are around, but I rarely miss them once they have left me. In fact, this is true for almost everyone I've ever really known. I wasn't always like this, in fact I used to remain in love with a girl long after she would dump me. That happened so many times when I was in high school that I can't even count them. It always happened when I couldn't have a girl I was interested. It always happened. Then I met Jessie. . .

During my freshman year, I met Jessie. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. And here's the strange part, she had some kind of interest in me, too! I met her during Rush Week at Lambda Lambda Lambda, my fraternity. She was a rush for the Omega Mu sorority and we met at a joint Lambda-Omega dance party. The function was held on January 31 and was a Welcome Back to School Party. Jessie was actually a friend of my friend Brad's female friend Stacy. Stacy introduced us and Jessie and I danced and talked for most of the night. We had really hit it off.

Late in the evening, all of the Lambda pledges had to go do some stupid initiation song for the older brothers and I lost track of Jessie and apparently she had left for the evening. I was quite upset that this wonderful girl that I had met had disappeared on me. Not that I was blaming her, but I would have at least said good night to her. Of course, I wanted to ask her for her phone number as well, but I didn't get the chance.

As luck would have it, I ran into Jessie later that week on campus. We chatted for a few minutes, but we both had to run to class so it didn't last for very long. She did say, however, that she was going to the Lambda-Omega Valentines Day Party and that she hoped she would see me there. Of course, I told her I would be there.

Being the dimwit that I often am, I didn't think to ask her for her phone number that day. Nor did it cross my mind that I could have asked Stacy for her number. But I didn't and as it turns out, it really didn't matter.

Over the next week, I thought about Jessie often and how I could go about trying to really impress her at the Valentine's party. I enlisted Jeff, who was also a Lambda pledge, as my accomplice and we put my top secret love plan into motion. It was guaranteed not to fail.

The Valentine's party was held at the Lambda house and the brothers had decided that each of the Omega ladies that came to the party would be given a carnation and escorted from the house's foyer into the dance hall by one of the pledges. This fit into my plan perfectly and when Jessie arrived, I made sure that I was her escort. We made a little bit of small talk, but soon had to part because the night's show was about to begin.

Each of the brothers and pledges of Lambda Lambda Lambda was auctioned to one of the ladies of Omega Mu. We stood on a stage in front of the crowd and told the ladies a little about ourselves and the ladies who were interested would put in bids. The highest bidder won that gentleman as her date for the evening. All of the money we raised was donated to the Pearl City Big Brothers/Big Sisters mentoring program. Most of the guys already knew most of the Omegas, so the bidding went pretty well and we made close to seven hundred dollars. I gave Stacy enough money to make sure that she would be the highest bidder on me so that I would be free to spend my time that evening with Jessie.

Immediately after the auction, the DJ began playing slow music so that the newly auctioned brothers could get to know the Omegas who had bought them. I quickly made my way to Jessie's side and asked her to dance. She said yes and we made our way to the dance floor. Unbeknownst to Jessie, Jeff hovered nearby holding the keys to my incredibly, and might I say inventive, romantic plan.

We began to dance, the song was "End of the Road," by Boyz II Men, if I remember correctly. Seconds after the song started, I stopped dancing and stepped away from Jessie. "I can't do this. It's not right," I said. She was terribly perplexed at this point. "Something's missing," I continued. At that moment Jeff, who was standing behind Jessie, handed me the dozen roses, Valentine's card and heart-shaped box of candies that I had bought in order to surprise Jessie. I gave them to her and she exploded in delight. The smile on her face made my heart melt right there on the spot. She hugged me and gave me a kiss on the cheek before she realized that everyone was watching us. Jessie began to blush and grabbed hold of my hand, pulling me off the dance floor.

She told me that she was totally embarrassed and that she wanted to kill me. But she wouldn't (or couldn't) stop grinning and I could tell she was really enjoying the whole romantic atmosphere I was doing my damnedest to create. For the rest of the evening she and I were the only people that existed in the whole world. We danced and talked and danced some more and talked some more. At the end of the evening, I read her this poem that I had memorized. It was from a book called Poems for the People, by a guy (one of my favorite authors) who calls himself Ike Krull. It is called "First Kiss" and it goes a little something like this:

You know I want you
I hope you want me, too
If we were together
There are so many things we could do

The most important thing is not your touch
But, rather, your heart that means so much
I'm not asking for lover's bliss

I'm just asking for that first kiss

Yeah, I know. It's really corny. But it worked. She leaned over and kissed me! And slipped me her phone number.

For the next month we went out a number of times: we went to dinner, we volunteered together at the Special Olympics, we went and saw the hilarious movie, Maverick. I called her on the phone every night and gave her roses all the time. We officially became a "couple." And everything seemed to be going great. But then again, I always thing that everything is going great. It never is.

One day when I was at work and the bad news arrived. The problem with Jessie is that she didn't have the guts to tell me herself. Or call me on the phone. Or write me a letter. Instead she had Stacy tell me. Stacy stopped by my work place and told me that Jessie wanted to break up with me. Something about still not being over some guy that she had just broke up with (Stacy later told me that "just" meant three years ago, it turned out that Jessie was obsessed with this guy, Ryan). I was crushed. In just one short month I had completely fallen in love with Jessie. Apparently the feeling wasn't mutual.

I guess that my biggest fault in this relationship was that I was too eager and maybe I came on too strong. What's wrong with that. I just wanted to fall in love, the kind of love you see in movies, where the couple falls for each other right away and they get together. Then after a rocky period, they live happily ever after. I just want to be loved. Is that so wrong?

Like I said earlier, I usually have no feelings for people after a relationship ends. But for some reason, Jessie was different. I fell in love with her and the feeling lingered for two years. Everybody I went out with, I would compare with Jessie. More often than not, however, I didn't go out with anyone, because I just wanted to feel sorry for myself. My feelings began to change when I learned more and more about Jessie from Stacy. I learned that Jessie was actually a very childish person and that I had wasted too much of my heart on her. Stacy told me that she was out dating several other guys almost immediately after we broke up. At first I didn't want to hear such things, but eventually I had to, because I actually saw her and one of these guys. I ran into her and an ex-friend of mine, Paul the bastard, at a dance one night. Lets just say that it was obvious that they were more than just friends. After that night, I no longer mourned over the person I had lost, because the person I was in love with was never really the person I had dated. I was just blind to the fact that she wasn't the picture perfect person that I had hoped she would be when first she entered my life.

Meanwhile, me and Stacy got to be pretty good friends. In addition to my situation with Jessie, Stacy and I would often talk about her interest in Brad. She really was interested in Brad, but wasn't so sure that the feeling was mutual. Mostly I just told her that she needed to say the things to Brad that she was saying to me. She did but it didn't work out. At least she tried, though. You know, I actually had a small crush on Stacy for a while, but it was never anything I would have pursued, because of her friendship with Jessie. But it might have been nice.

P.S. About a year after I saw Jessie with Paul, she tried to get me to go out with her again. She kept showing up at Lambda functions and dropping by wherever I would be working at the time (as you will learn later, I switched jobs frequently during my college tenure) and flirting with me mercilessly. Seeing as how I had already had my heart thrashed by her once and that she hadn't really changed much, I turned her down and let her know that the likelihood of me ever dating her again was nonexistent. I had learned my lesson concerning Jessie Brandon.

The List

On one of my favorite episodes of the cheesy sitcom "Friends," the characters mention the List. Only people in relationships have need of the List. The List is five famous people, of your choice, who you are allowed to sleep with and your boyfriend or girlfriend has to allow it and they can't get mad at you. Of course, on the show, it was just a joke, but think of the possibilities for real life. Okay so, I'm just dreaming here, but I think it would be cool. I know that if any couple agreed to actually making lists the guy would take it serious and the woman would take it as a joke, so by extension, the guy would have to take it as a joke as well. My personal list is, in no particular order, Amy Locane, Jennifer Anniston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kelly Preston, and Liz Phair (if you don't understand this last choice, listen to the song "Flower"). Yes, I realize that it's highly unlikely that any of these women would ever sleep with a guy who would put their name on a list like this, but I can dream, can't I?

P.S. My Cousin Richie's list consists of Cheryl Tiegs, Iman, Sandra Bernhard, Rosie O'Donnell and Rosanne Barr, er-Arnold, er-whatever the hell her name is!

Donna

Don't rebound relationships suck? Even really short ones. I mean here you are all broken down and sad and some other woman comes along to add further to your misery. Rebound relationships never last. And if they do, they're never good.

Several months after my traumatic break-up with Jessie I met Donna Camp. She was another Omega Mu and we met at a joint function that May of that year. It was sort of a Spring Fling kinda thing. I was still feeling kinda bad about the whole Jessie Brandon affair and I was moping around all depressed and sad. For some unfathomable reason Donna Camp decided to change that.

The funny thing is that it was Jessie who introduced us. I was on campus one day and ran into Jessie and Donna between classes. They knew each other from the sorority and were on their way to class. Jessie introduced us, but I didn't really pay much attention to Donna because at the time I was so infatuated with Jessie. I guess Donna was attracted to me though, because the first opportunity she had after she met me, she did her best to make me like her.

At the Spring Fling I was kinda just hanging out, being a wallflower. Donna kept coming up to me and asking me to dance. The first few times I said no, but she kept at it and finally I said yes. As we made our way to the dance floor, Jessie came in with this bastard Paul. If she was supposed to still be hung up on this Ryan guy, why the hell was she on a date with that bastard Paul. Donna and I ignored the two of them. They headed straight for the dance floor in the general area that we were standing. I wanted to leave. Jessie was driving me crazy. The whole vibe of the evening was a bit on the shitty side, but we danced anyway.

For the rest of the evening I danced with Donna and pretty much ignored Jessie and that bastard Paul. Donna kept trying to make me laugh all night long, but I wasn't in a laughing mood. Then she started calling me Kissyfur. Now I don't know why that struck me as funny, but I laughed. That was a mistake because she kept calling me that. Every time she said it I blushed, so she kept on saying it.

Well we didn't have any run-ins with the bitch and the bastard, we just spent the rest of the evening dancing and talking and laughing. Then the dance was over and Donna had to leave. We exchanged phone numbers and parted with a small kiss. I went upstairs to sleep in one of the empty beds in the frat house and fell asleep with a smile on my face.

But things quickly got difficult as they often do with me. When I called her the next day, she informed me that she had a boyfriend. Worse than that, this idiot's name was Bubba and he treated her like shit. She wouldn't leave him, though, she was still in love with him. It seems that she lost her virginity to him and so she would always be in love with Bubba. Can you imagine losing your virginity to a guy named Bubba. "Oh, give it to me, Bubba." "Ride me, Bubba." Me neither. Besides the fact that just because she lost her virginity to this nimrod she shouldn't have to put up with him treating her like shit. Some girls are just plain dumb.

I asked her why she had kissed me and flirted with me and come on so strong when she had Bubba waiting for her at home. She told me that she had done it because it seemed like the thing to do. Let me repeat that because it sounds vaguely idiotic. It seemed like the thing to do. So here I am, a guy who just had his heart broken by this heartless bitch and now some new heartless bitch is going to lead me on and do it all over again. Yeah, to me, that seems like the thing to do, too. Needless to say, I didn't call her again.

Sometimes, You Just Gotta Say What the Fuck

You always hear that college is the time when you are supposed to experiment. Try new things. Learn more about yourself. I never knew how true that was until one night with Kristy Harden and a bottle of rum showed me the extent to which I would experiment.

My sophomore year at P.C.C.C., I was a writer for the school newspaper, the Talon. In October of that year we went to the state journalism convention in Seattle. I had no idea what was going to happen at the convention other than that there would be workshops and an awards banquet. There also ended up being a lot of drinking and a lot of sex.

The convention was to last two nights and at the end of the first night, me and Kristy and a bunch of other people went upstairs to her room to party. Their were two other P.C.C.C. students with us. Mandy, Kristy's roommate for the weekend, and Sam, who was mine. Additionally, Kristy, who is a real social bug, invited four other guys who were from Seattle.

A couple of the guys ran to the liquor store and picked up a couple of 1.75 liter bottles of Bacardi Spiced Rum and a whole mess of Coke. When they got back we started getting ripped. And we continued to get ripped well into the evening. Last time I remember looking at the clock, it was after 4 a.m.

By that time most of the people had left the room. The only people left were me, Kristy, Mandy and this guy John (one of the Seattle guys). It was late, we were drunk and everybody was in a high state of horniness. Clothes began to fly. Kristy asked us to fulfill one of her fantasies - to be with two men. We had no problem fulfilling this request. Mandy, who had a fiance back home, didn't participate, but she had absolutely no problem watching. In fact, I'm pretty damn sure she enjoyed it.

So me and John are doing our best to pleasure Kristy when all of a sudden I feel someone proceeding to give me oral pleasure. Now I was currently kissing Kristy and I could still see Mandy sitting on her bed watching (and helping herself to a little pleasure). That only left one person. John.

This was definitely something I was unprepared for. My first threesome and the guy is doing things to me I never intended for any guy to do. Strange thing was, it felt good. Really good. So I didn't stop him. Luckily that's all he wanted to do. I had absolutely no intention of returning the favor. But, when he was doing it, it really didn't feel that much different from when a woman does it.

Afterwards, I felt really weird about it, kinda guilty even. I made sure to give Kristy a couple of orgasms to re-assert my manhood. I felt a little better after that, but I still felt strange. I felt like I had crossed some kind of line that I wasn't supposed to cross, which I guess was true. It didn't really bother me that much that I had let him do it, what bothered me was what other people would think if they knew. Then I realized that there would be no way for anyone to find out about it, so I stopped worrying about it.

I can't say that I didn't enjoy it, though, he did a really good job. I severely doubt I would ever do it again. I know I would never initiate such a thing, but I guess if we were in a similar situation, I might let someone else do the same thing. I still wouldn't reciprocate, though. I'm purely attracted to the beauty that is woman.