I Wish She Hadn't Ch. 02

When we got back to the hotel, Madi wanted to start up again with the anal. I couldn't do it. I was too drunk, though I did manage to make love to her the old-fashioned way, and we were both able to cum.

We slept so late the next morning that we didn't have enough time to have sex before we had to leave. After we got cleaned up, we checked out, had some lunch, and then jumped in my car and headed back home.

Madi was really affectionate throughout the drive back to Omaha. I think she was pretty tired out by the whole trip, and she said her ass was a little sore. So, for most of the ride, she lay across the front seat with her head in my lap, and a couple of times, she started getting kind of frisky. She said she wanted to suck my cock while I was driving, but I didn't think that was such a good idea, and I managed to talk her out of it.

When we got back to Omaha, I dropped her off at Tommy and Libby's place. I didn't want to go inside. Instead, we kissed for a long time in my car, but though Madi thought she was saying good night to me, I knew differently. I'd already decided I was leaving.

The next day was Labor Day, and everybody had the day off, but I had forgotten that. I just hung around my mother's house and did a couple of odd jobs for her. I was thought that Tommy, Libby, and Madi all had to work, but that wasn't the real reason I was escaping. When I finished my chores that afternoon, I drove back to Lincoln.

Maybe that was the coward's way. On second thought, of course it was the coward's way. There was no excuse for me not to have clarified my feelings, not to have had a serious conversation with Madi about our relationship. I owed her that. I should have told her that I was just not ready yet to commit to being "boyfriend and girlfriend."

And it wasn't really Madi. It was me. I pretty much liked everything about her, except for two things. First and foremost was her over-the-top, sexually-charged idol worship. Of course, it was probably obvious to her that I really did like that - loved it, in fact, even if I tried to convince myself otherwise. We may all curse our vanity, but when it comes right down to it, why would anyone not enjoy being adored?

And then there was the sex, and, like the adulation, even though I knew it was too much - my sex life had essentially turned into a series of highly choreographed porn scenes - I loved that, too. It was just afterwards, both of those things made me more inclined to want to get out, and less inclined to explain why.

And so, of course, I never said anything, just got in my car and went back to college for another year. I had to find a new place to live that week. In addition, I had to talk to my advisor to tie up some loose ends concerning my courses for the semester. I also had to buy my textbooks. School started the following Monday, and I knew that that year was going to make or break me. It promised to be the most challenging of my entire college experience.

So, anyway, that was my way of rationalizing the whole thing in my mind. I knew it wasn't the right thing to do, and that I was just hiding until I got the courage to say what needed to be said. I recoiled at the notion of concealment and subterfuge, but in the back of my mind, I knew that the next time I saw Madi, I would find a way to make my disappearance palatable to her. I could get her to understand that it was something that I just had to do. If there was one thing I was good at, it was bullshitting.

On the following Wednesday, I called her to apologize for not saying goodbye before I came back to Lincoln. When she answered the phone that night, I could hear the disappointment in her voice. "I didn't realize you had to go back so soon. I thought you were staying here in town. I thought the reason you took this week off was so we could hang out."

"I'm sorry, Madi. I wish I could have done that, but I've still got a whole bunch of things I need to straighten out here before school starts. I had move out of my apartment on Monday, but I found a house to live in with a bunch of guys that's only a few blocks from campus, so that's good."

"You're sharing a house with a bunch of people?"

"Yeah, three other guys. It's a big place though, and these guys are all pretty decent. I'll be able to have a little fun, even if this semester proves to be hell on earth, which is what I expect it to be."

"Do you have your own room?" It didn't take a Ph.D. in psychology to figure out why she asked that question, but I guess I understood her concerns.

"Of course! It's not like I live in the dorms now, Madi."

"Well, the reason I asked is that I thought maybe I could come to see you sometime. Maybe for a weekend?"

"Sure, of course! You're always welcome here."

"My birthday is two weeks from this Friday. I thought maybe I would drive over that weekend. Would that be okay? Could I spend that weekend with you?"

"Sure. I'd love to celebrate your birthday with you, Madi!"

We went on like that for another 20 minutes or so, and when I hung up, I resolved to tell Madi the truth before she came to visit. You probably already know how that turned out. It goes without saying, I never did.

I talked to her two more times before her visit, and somehow I just couldn't steer either of those conversations in the right direction. The bottom line was - there was no right direction. I just had to come right out with it, and I don't know why, but I just couldn't fucking do it.

All these years later, it is perhaps the foremost regret of my life. I knew two things about that weekend in advance. First, we were almost certainly going to spend the whole weekend making love, and second, that was going to be the last time. Knowing the second, I should never have engaged in the first.

Madi drove over on that Friday night, and I took her out to eat for her birthday. During dinner, I gave her a birthday present, or rather one of two birthday presents - I also got her some more lingerie, but that was better presented in a little more private setting.

I bought her this Schott Perfecto leather jacket that I thought she'd like. It cost me a veritable fortune, but that was the other way my pathetic, fucking brain worked. If I didn't have the guts to say what I needed to say to someone, I would try to distract them with gifts. Somehow, in my own mind, it helped me to rationalize my cowardice, even if I couldn't really afford that rationalization. Money just seemed less valuable than someone else's emotions.

Right after we ordered, I handed her the gift-wrapped box. "Happy birthday, Madi!" I said with a big smile.

I thought she was going to cry. "Oh John", she said after she'd opened it, "it's too nice! You really shouldn't have done this! It's too expensive."

"Eh..." I shrugged my shoulders. "It's only fucking money - it's not like money really means anything. I just hope you like the jacket."

"Oh, I do! It's perfect for fall and winter. But the truth is, John, I don't think I'll ever take it off, because you gave it to me." I swallowed hard, and then smiled bleakly. As usual, my cowardice had gotten me into a more difficult situation than the one I was trying desperately to get out of. "Is it okay if I try it on now?" She asked, smiling really gratefully at me.

"Why not!" I answered, feigning enthusiasm. She stood up and slipped it on. It seemed to fit perfectly. God, she looked good in it! Then she came over to my side of the table, bent low, grasped my face with both hands, and kissed me with gratitude. I could see people at several different tables watching us. When our lips parted, she whispered into my ear, "You're going to get a reward tonight!" Then, she sat back down with a big smile on her face.

The "reward" reminded me of something. "Oh, I almost forgot. I do have one more gift for you, but you'll have to wait until we get back to my place for that. I didn't think it would be a good idea to give it to you here."

"Let me guess. Is it something you'd like me to wear later tonight?"

"You know me too well!" I smiled at her, even though what I'd just said clearly wasn't true. Madi didn't know me at all. If she did, she would have known enough to stay away. And then, when I said that, I got even more depressed thinking about everything I'd just done. Why the fuck had I bought her any of that stuff, especially the lingerie? If I was trying to get out of this relationship, why in God's name would I do something that stupid?

When we finished dinner, we went back to my place. My roommates were having a fairly large party that night, and by the time we got back, it was in full swing. Madi seemed to have a good time hanging out with those people, a crowd of pleasure-seeking college students. She could hold her own with that bunch in more ways than one. I was impressed listening to her conversations with some of my roommates and their friends - she could interact with all of them on the same intellectual plane, even if she would never take a college course in her life. And she could handle beer and weed better than most of them.

Still, I could tell that what made her the happiest was when, at about 1 a.m., I suggested a furtive retreat to my bedroom. The party was still roaring, and that was definitely a good thing. We slipped away at a time when no one noticed our leaving, and as the music was cranked, it left my bedroom sonically insulated.

When we got to my room, I closed the bedroom door, kissed her, and then handed Madi the other gift I'd bought her - a red, mesh, crotchless bodystocking. I think she liked it, but, to her, what was more important was that I liked it, and I did. I don't know why, but I always found those things incredibly sexy, especially when some porn star with great tits was wearing one in a fuck movie.

Madi borrowed my robe, snuck into the bathroom down the hall, and got dressed up in the new outfit for me. In the meantime, I lit a couple of candles, got undressed, and climbed onto the bed. I was sitting there naked on the side of it when she came back into the room, holding her anal dildo, a bottle of Astroglide, and a damp washcloth.

She slipped out of the robe, let it fall to floor, and when she did, I nearly fell off the bed! "Jesus Christ", I said to myself... out loud. Then, she locked the door behind her, dropped to her knees, and crawled toward me on all fours. Madi Adams turned 19 years old that day. I found that fucking unbelievable.

I fault myself for a lot of the things that I did when I was with Madi, but that weekend I was at my worst. I had already decided before she arrived that I couldn't stay with her, that we wanted two entirely different sets of things, and considering that, whatever I did over those next two days was a broken promise.

The bottom line is that I took advantage of her. Of course, it was Madi herself who convinced me to do everything I did - that she craved the goods I was delivering. But that's not an excuse. I knew what I was doing. I was a big boy. I could make decisions for myself, and I guess that's exactly what I did. I only thought about myself.

Over and over again, for the next 40 hours, I fucked Madi in every conceivable position, using every available orifice, and came perhaps a dozen times in, on, and over practically every square inch of her body. I have no idea how many times she came, though I can safely say that, if it was a contest, she won easily. It wasn't even close.

The marathon was put on hold for sleep and four or five hours of college-appropriate revelry on Saturday afternoon, long enough for us to eat a half a dozen hot dogs and drink twice as many beers, before watching the Cornhuskers kick the shit out of Illinois at Memorial Stadium. That contest wasn't close either.

And then late Sunday afternoon, Madi had to go back to Omaha, and I had to write an essay. And when we kissed and hugged goodbye next to her car in the street in front of that ramshackle house that I was now calling home, that was it - the very last time I saw her.

I called her again, several times, but I didn't go back to Omaha for a long, long time, and when I did, I didn't go over to Tommy and Libby's house unless I was absolutely sure that Madi wasn't there. And when Madi called and asked about coming to visit me in Lincoln, I always had an excuse - something related to school or student teaching, which is what I spent the better part of the Spring Semester doing.

I never really explained myself. Never said exactly why I didn't think I could be with her anymore. Hell, I didn't even know why, so how in God's name could I explain it to her? But I know, I know what you're thinking, and you're fucking right. At its core, it was just plain spineless cowardice.

After Christmas, she quit calling, and when that school year ended, I graduated and took a job teaching high school English in Wisconsin. And then, when I did make it back to Omaha, Libby had already divorced Tommy and moved to Minneapolis with Larry, Tommy's former friend. Needless to say, whenever I stopped in to see Tommy, the subject of Libby and, by extension, Madi never came up.

I did see Libby a couple of times, up in the Twin Cities, and I asked about Madi, but, at that point, she didn't want to talk to me about that subject. I think she was pretty disappointed in me. Besides, we both had a million things going on in our own lives. I went through a series of moves from one teaching job to another, as well as several girlfriends, and for her part, Libby ended up graduating from nursing school at the University of Minnesota. Then, she decided to leave Larry and move to Florida with another guy. Though I didn't speak to her after that, I heard she got a job as a nurse in a hospital in Gainesville.

And then for many, many years - well over a decade, almost two - I didn't hear a word from or about either of the Adams girls. Still, for all that time, I really did think that I would eventually do it, would finally get Madi's number, give her call, and tell her what I wanted to tell her all along - that I was an idiot; that I felt truly horrible about having let our relationship fall apart; and that I had come to realize that in the short time that I was with her, I was the luckiest son of bitch on the planet.

I really did intend to do it, but there had always been another woman in my life - one of whom I called my wife for almost six years. I needed to consider their feelings, so I never did as long as I was with someone else. But by the summer of last year, I had been divorced for over a year, and I hadn't even had a date, much less a girlfriend, in longer than that. My well had run dry, and now I was a thirsty bastard who missed what I didn't have.

I figured Madi wouldn't want to talk to me - that she was probably married by that time - and God knows, even as selfish as I was, I knew I couldn't have her again, no matter what. It was ironic, by that time, I think I was half in love with her. But by then, all I really wanted to do was to apologize. I didn't even expect forgiveness. I figured for Madi that was probably a bridge too far.

Three years ago, my life came to a kind of crossroads. I had already spent five or six years in graduate school while working full-time as a high school teacher and serving as a grad assistant. In fact, it was the pressures of trying to earn a doctorate and simultaneously teach both high school and college courses that had started me and my wife's slow slide toward irreconcilability.

Kara was never much interested in sharing me with my students, and when I decided that I was going to go for it - to grab for the ultimate gold ring: a fucking Ph.D. - that was pretty much all she wrote. And when The University of Wisconsin saw fit to award me a doctorate and offer me an adjunct position teaching courses there while I was still teaching high school full-time, she decided that there wasn't enough left of me to bother with.

I tried to explain. I knew that my schedule deprived her of my attention, but I was trying to transition from being a high school teacher to a college professor, and no college was going to hire me as a full-time professor without my having proven that I could teach at that level. It was a temporary thing I told Kara, and once I had a couple of years under my belt, I would move on to the collegiate ranks and leave high school behind.

Kara told me in response that I could move on by myself, and 20 months ago she left me behind. About six months later, our divorce was finalized. Now, without a wife to support, I had done something pretty stupid. A little more than a year ago, I quit my high school job, and last summer was spent devoting myself to the full-time task of looking for a teaching position at a college or university.

So without a wife or a woman of any kind or work cluttering up my life, I had promised myself that I was going to do what I had been thinking about doing for 18 years. Over the past month, it was consuming my thoughts. You probably won't believe me - I know, it's just too coincidental - but, I swear to God, I was going to make some phone calls of inquiry that very night to try to get a phone number. It was a long time coming, and finally there were no more excuses.

It was ironic, because when I got the call that Tuesday afternoon, I had just hung up the phone, and I was in a really fucking good mood! The first caller, a polite, Nebraska-bred administrative assistant to the Dean of the College of Arts and Letters at Creighton University, had offered, and I had enthusiastically accepted, an opportunity to interview for an associate's position back in Omaha. The second call came from the same Omaha area code. At first, I thought it was Creighton calling back. It wasn't. It was Libby. She was calling from her mother's house. Her cell was dead.

I don't know how she got my number, probably Pat or Dan or somebody up in the Twin Cities or maybe somebody who'd gone to high school with us - my sister, Lizzie perhaps. She might have gotten it from Tommy, but I kind of doubt it. One, she wouldn't have wanted to talk to him, and two, I don't even know if he had my number.

If he did, he never called me. In all the time I knew him, my friendship with Tommy was entirely dependent on me. Occasionally, I would give him a call, or, more often, if I was back in town to see my family, I would look him up for a few hours. That was all the longer I could stand to be with him. After a while, that didn't happen very often. It was just too depressing going over there.

Anyway, I picked up the phone, and in a kind of breathless voice, I answered. "Hello." As I've already suggested, I didn't know who it was.

I could tell she'd been crying. "John? It's me, Libby."

"Libby?" I was absolutely stunned to hear her voice. "Libby Adams? Jesus, Libby, how long has it been? How are you? How the hell are you?" Under normal circumstances, I would have been excited to hear from her, and, on this particular day, her call might have saved me a bunch of phone calls, but it was clear that this was not a pleasant, little chat intend to catch us up. Something was wrong.

"I don't know, John; what maybe fifteen years... maybe more? Unfortunately, I wish I was calling under more pleasant circumstances, but..." She broke off, and I could hear muffled sobs on the other end of the line.

"What's the matter, Libby? Is something wrong?"

"Yes, John." She stopped again. Now, she wasn't even trying to muffle her crying.

"John, I have something awful to tell you." She was openly weeping now. I steadied myself. I thought maybe she or somebody else was really sick or something.