The Mark of the Immature Man Ch. 02

This is Part Two of a two-part story.

*****

When I saw Tina's number a few paragraphs before the end of her letter, I subconsciously reached for my phone even before I was done reading. I began crying when I started the letter, but by the last few paragraphs, I was bawling like a child. I don't know that it really mattered what Tina would have said to me, though it was such an unbelievably eloquent and emotional letter that I couldn't help but be moved by it. But since I hadn't ever gotten over her, if she had included her phone number and simply said, "Call me," I think I would have done what she was asking, without thinking, regardless of how terse or dispassionate the content of the message.

It took me awhile to compose myself. I cried for a good long time, cried not because the woman that I loved had told me that she still loved me, but because I now knew that she had suffered for six years on my account, and that suffering proved her love more than anything that she had said. It was such an incredible story, and I realized that Tina had done the only thing that she could have done. I certainly couldn't fault her for her handling of the situation. Quite the opposite, I figured that, in all likelihood, I literally owed her my life.

I wanted to call her immediately – to tell her that, of course, I wanted her to come back to me – but then reason and rationalism crept stealthily into my brain. This wasn't going to be as simplistic as I initially thought it would be. There was a multitude of issues that I needed to consider, and because I was at least a little more mature and forward thinking than I had been, there were complexities to any reunion with Tina that would never have entered my mind six years ago when I first lost her. I guess I had changed more than I realized. So I decided to wait until I was less emotional to make that call and until I knew exactly what I wanted to say.

When I went to bed that night – the last evening in May, I think I must have dreamed about Tina all through an unusually fitful night of sleep. Just prior to waking up, I must have been lying on my back, though I had somehow inexplicably turned my body 90° in my bed, so that my legs were dangling over the side. And then apparently while I was dreaming, I began subconsciously moving, mimicking the sexual act.

It was an incredibly vivid dream, and I simulated in reality every movement that I was making in the dream. Tina was riding me reverse cowgirl on the edge of the bed. She was standing with her feet on the floor next to the bed, squatting over my haunches and thrusting her fine ass so her pussy was sliding up and down my length while she was turning back to stare at me with an extraordinary look of sensuality decorating her gorgeous face.

She kept saying over and over again, "Keep fucking my pussy, sweetie; shoot your hot cum deep inside me!" And then I must have started thrusting my pelvis upward even more, tightening my butt muscles, and lifting my hips off the mattress to meet Tina's thrusts. And then I came, and Tina was screaming, "Oh sweetheart, yes, yes, I can feel you cumming!" When I finally opened my eyes and became fully conscious, I realized that the inside of my underwear was wet and sticky with a load of thick semen. It was only the second time in my life that I had had a nocturnal emission. The only other time was when I was 12.

After waking up, I realized that every muscle in my body was sore. It was like I had been fucking all night long. Thank god, I wasn't sleeping with Kendra that evening; I might have had some explaining to do!

Kendra – she was one of the first really significant complications that I knew I would have to deal with. There was no doubt that I liked her. During the time that we had been dating, she had developed as a kind of yin to my yang.

There was only one problem with Kendra. She wasn't Tina, and she would never become Tina, and so, despite my attraction, I had been hesitant to express myself to her emotionally. That might have been some advantage in my moving on from her, but breaking up with someone is never easy, no matter what the nature of your relationship.

I wasn't looking forward to telling Kendra about Tina, but I felt that regardless of how specific and detailed I would be in explaining my history with Tina, I owed Kendra an explanation of some kind. Even before talking to Tina, I started thinking of how I would approach Kendra. But I had a phone call to make first – the most important phone call of my life.

The next day was Saturday, and so after I had had a chance to plot out all of my talking points, I sat down to call Tina. I had actually written out what I wanted to be sure to say to her, considering that she had quite obviously spent a good deal of time phrasing her thoughts and emotions in her unbelievable letter to me. I dialed the number. But then, once I heard Tina's voice, everything that I had planned and hoped to say to her – all of my passionate, scripted thoughts – melted away like so much spring snow.

"Hello." It only took the lilting grace of that one word for every memory of her and all of my strange emotions and awkward embarrassment to come flooding back simultaneously, and I was again an immature kid, hopelessly enamored by a woman twice my age.

"Tina, is it really you?"

"Oh, sweetheart, I am so glad you called me. I have been hoping and praying that you would call. It is so wonderful to hear your voice. I have missed hearing it so much. Thank you! Thank you so much for calling!" For the first few minutes of the conversation, we were both talking through our sobs and tears.

"Thank you for writing. I didn't think that I would ever hear from you again, but when I got your beautiful letter, I understood everything – why you had to leave, why you couldn't contact me sooner. Tina, I am so sorry I put you through all of that!"

"Oh, sweetie! You didn't put me through anything. Instead, I put you in harm's way, and I have felt so awful about that for the past six years. I'm sorry, sweetie; I'm so, so sorry." It was unfathomable to me that Tina felt guilt over having very possibly saved my life, but it was just so like her to think of me before she thought of herself.

"So, you've been living in North Carolina?"

"Yes, Chapel Hill. I've been working for the University here, in the Registrar's Office. How about you, sweetie? What are you doing now?"

I went on to explain about graduating from college, about my job, about teaching English, but I didn't like listening to myself talking. Instead, all I wanted to hear was Tina Roche's mellifluous voice. And then inexplicably and despite her declaration of love, I suddenly wanted to know if she had been with anyone else in the time we'd been apart. I don't know why I wanted to know that. It was juvenile of me to be curious. Besides, I hadn't planned to ask, and quite frankly it mattered naught, one way or the other. I was hopelessly in love with her. Still, for some inane reason, I asked anyway.

"Tina, if this is the wrong time to ask this question I apologize. I know I shouldn't be asking at all – it's really none of my business, so if you don't want to answer, you don't have to. But, I was wondering – has there... has there been anyone else, I mean, since you and I were together? I mean, if there has, I would completely understand, but I'm just curious." There was a long pause and a few muffled sobs.

"No, Evan, there hasn't been anyone else. I've more or less lived the life of a recluse for the past six years. I was deathly afraid that if I spent too much time in public, somehow, some way Justin would have found me. Besides, I saw no point in looking for somebody to love when I was still hoping I would be able to come back to you."

She paused for a long time, and the thoughts that ran through my head painted a mental picture that was hard to erase from my brain – a beautiful, voluptuous woman who was hidden away, suffering in silence and loneliness – a sort of Southern belle caricature of "Eleanor Rigby."

Finally, she spoke again. "What about you, Evan? Has there been anyone else in your life?"

Now, I felt like a complete ass, and I regretted prying into Tina's personal life, acting like I thought she somehow owed me an explanation that she clearly did not. I knew her question was a fair one, especially considering that I'd asked first, and I knew that she deserved an answer. I also knew that I couldn't lie to her. I cared too much for her to do that.

"Yes, I've had a few girlfriends, and I'm dating someone now, but, Tina, please, I want you to know this more than anything else in this world, and I want you to know that this is the God's honest truth – none of them could ever replace you; none of them have replaced you. I'm still hopelessly in love with you, Tina. I've never stopped being in love with you."

Then, Tina broke down. She cried uncontrollably for a good ten minutes, while I kept saying over and over again through our faltering cell phone connection, "Tina, I love you; I love you so much!" I must have said it a hundred times, and though I could not see her face, I knew that she was crying tears of joy.

I don't remember much about the remainder of the conversation. After that initial burst of emotionalism, the rest was all just inconsequential particulars – love meant so much more than all of that. I know that Tina told me that she would be arriving in Minnesota the following Wednesday morning, and that once she met with the attorneys in Rochester to iron out the inheritance of her husband's estate, she would drive up to Minneapolis that afternoon to see me. Seemingly, the timing couldn't have been better – that Wednesday was the last day of the school year.

We talked for perhaps a half an hour, and though I had failed miserably to deliver my calculated and carefully scripted declaration of undying love, I was more than satisfied with how my improvising had been received.

I was so incredibly excited to see Tina. After I hung up, I jumped in the shower, and just as I had done almost six years ago, the day that I first met her, I masturbated envisioning Tina's beauty. When I got out of the shower, I knew I had another phone call to make, and I decided that I might as well get the unpleasantness over with as soon as possible.

I called Kendra, and asked her if I could come over to see her later that afternoon. I offered to take her to dinner at the Loon Café, a modest, hipster eatery in the warehouse district downtown that featured a unique Minnesota take on Tex-Mex dishes, along with an assortment of sandwiches and burgers. She enthusiastically agreed, and that enthusiasm scared me just a little. Kendra was usually quite reserved and unemotional, so hearing the excitement in her voice made me think that this was going to be even more difficult than I had expected.

She lived in a posh, high-rise condominium downtown – a building called Skyscape on Portland Avenue. It was a pretty luxurious place, and the first time I went there, I couldn't figure out how Kendra could afford it on her teaching salary, though I certainly didn't mind hanging out there. I later learned that she had grown up in one of the Twin Cities most exclusive suburbs and that her wealthy parents had agreed to set her up in her own place once she had gotten the job at Bloomington Jefferson. The apartment must have cost them a pretty penny.

When I arrived at the Skyscape late that afternoon, Kendra buzzed me up to her apartment, and when she met me at the door, I found her dressed to the nines. She was wearing a little, black dress, replete with ruffles on the shoulders and front, and a scooped neckline. It was form-fitted and also sported about six inches of sheer, diaphanous fabric around the midriff and a hemline that ended halfway up Kendra's slender thighs. The dress was augmented by a pair of black, ankle-length sandal-strapped high heels.

She looked amazing, and I knew that this was another bad sign. Kendra didn't usually dress up like this, and though there was no question that she was a really attractive woman, she didn't ordinarily play up her sexiness. Tonight she had more than done so.

Kendra Lind was about 5'5", and she barely weighed a hundred pounds. She was really slender with a narrow waist and hips, and nicely sized breasts, though they were considerably smaller than Tina's. She had long, coffee brown hair, dark eyebrows, a pale complexion, and stunning blue eyes. She looked really innocent, even though she was older than I was.

I found her really sexy, but I could tell she didn't understand that aspect of her appeal. All through high school and college, she had been really shy around guys, and she told me once that she had only had one lover before me. Now that we had been together for a little while, she had started, albeit slowly, to break out of her cocoon. She was just beginning to understand her sexuality, and though I didn't want to think about that at the time, sex was clearly on her mind that night.

When I entered her lavish living room, she greeted me with a deep kiss and a playful pinch on my butt – another bad sign and another deviation from Kendra's characteristic demeanor. Something was up, though I couldn't put my finger on it.

We shared a bottle of wine and talked for an hour or so about the end of the school year, and her plans for the summer. Though it was probably a stupid idea to do so before dinner, I tried to steer the conversation in a direction where I could segue into my break-up speech. I just wanted to get it over with.

Like my phone call to Tina that morning, I had spent a fair amount of time that afternoon plotting out my talking points, so that I would be sure to let Kendra down as gently as possible. But she was so animated and happy that I just couldn't work our conversation the right way. I decided that I would wait until dinner – maybe it would be easier in a public place.

We decided to walk to the restaurant. It was a beautiful night out, and the Loon was only about a mile away, so a stroll through downtown seemed like a pretty good idea. When we got to the restaurant, the place was packed, and even though I had a reservation for 7:30 p.m., we had to wait for a few minutes for our table.

I ordered the Walleye Tacos, and Kendra chose the Habañero Crusted Walleye – you can take us Minnesotans out of Minnesota, but you can't take the Minnesota out of us, even if you paint things up like it's San Antonio!

We order a couple of beers to go with dinner, and then shared a dessert, before walking back to the Skyscape in the gloaming. Try as I might, I still hadn't found the right moment to tell Kendra about Tina.

Kendra held my hand throughout our walk home, and a block before we reached her building, she affectionately put her head on my shoulder. She wasn't making my job any easier, and when we got back to her apartment, things got even worse.

She told me she had a surprise for me and made me close my eyes as she walked me over to a corner of her living room. When she told me that I could open them, I was staring at the shelves of her liquor cabinet that were filled with bottles of my favorite Scotches, gins, bourbons, and tequilas.

"Kendra, what's all this? Why did you buy all of this booze?"

"I thought it might be a nice house-warming gift."

"Kendra, you've lived here as long as I've known you. What do you mean 'house-warming gift?'"

"Something to make you feel at home." She paused for a few seconds and then looked deeply into my eyes before continuing. "Evan, we've been dating for four months now, and I don't see why you're wasting your money living in that flat in Uptown when I have all of this room here. I was thinking that you might be happier living with me. I know I would be. We could drive into work together, so you could save money on gas as well." As usual, Kendra's argument was practical and logical, but Jesus, her timing was awful! Had she proposed this a week ago, I would have jumped at the opportunity, but now...

"Kendra, I've been meaning to tell you something, and I think I better do so right now. I... I don't know where to start, but..." Again, all of my "best-laid plans" quickly flew out the 21^st story window. This wasn't going to go the way that I had planned.

"Don't... don't start!" She interrupted. "Look, Evan, you don't have to give me an answer right now. I just want you to spend the night here making love to me, and we can talk about this in the morning or whenever you want to. I'll give you all the time you need."

"But, Kendra, that... that would be a big mistake! I... I..."

"No! No! No! It would be 'a big mistake' for you to look a gift horse in the mouth." And with that, she dropped to her knees and began unbuckling my belt.

"Kendra, please, I've got to tell you something – it's really important." I put my hands on her head, and tried to hold it away from my crotch, as she continued to unzip my fly, and pull down my shorts.

"It's not so important that it can't wait until morning. Right now, I just want you inside me, and I've got another surprise for you! A big surprise." By the time the words had left her lips, my cock had entered them.

Again, I tried to stop her, and kept saying over and over again, "No, Kendra, please, don't," but she wasn't taking "no" for an answer, and before I could do anything, my cock was growing harder and harder as she was staring up at me with wanton eyes while she slid her soft lips back and forth around my stiffness.

And pretty soon my pants were around my ankles, and I didn't want her to stop, even though I knew it was wrong and knew that this development was really going to complicate matters. Besides, I felt like I was cheating on Tina, cheating on both of them. But I was thinking with my dick now, and Kendra was doing things to me that she had never done before. She was on fire!

Next, she took each of my balls into her mouth, licking and sucking them with great enthusiasm, while she stroked my cock with both of her small hands. Then, she reached behind my balls with her right hand and began caressing my asshole! Before I knew it, I was moaning uncontrollably.

And then Kendra paused long enough to pull my shoes, socks, and pants off me, and then she stood up and while she continued to stroke my cock with one hand, she began unbuttoning my shirt with the other. An instant later, I was standing naked in that luxury apartment with my raging hard-on pointing provocatively at the Minneapolis skyline.

Then, she whispered into my ear, "Let's go to my bedroom. I want you to take me in my ass tonight!" This was a shocking revelation, considering that Kendra had already told me that she had never before engaged in anal sex and didn't think she ever could. And now as I tried to prepare her for the news that I could no longer be with her, she wanted to have anal sex? She grasped me hard around my girth and tried to lead me into the bedroom, but I tried again to resist.

"Kendra, I shouldn't do that!"

"You should, and you will!" She demanded with a smile on her face, momentarily playing the role of faux dominatrix.

And then her real personality re-emerged. "Come on, Evan. You've told me several times before that you like anal sex, and now I'm finally ready for it. I spent some time getting myself all prepared for you. I've cleaned myself up because I thought you wanted this, baby. But now? I've gotten so excited thinking about it. Now I need it! And I need it, right now, baby!" Kendra had never before been aggressive or demanding with me, but there was something crazy going on, and now I was caught in a trap from which it became pretty clear I could not escape.