Jack can go back and forth on what he wants out of life. Comedy would make him famous. He has studied it and can write theories on it. There is no doubt that he would be the greatest comic of his generation. He just has an Achilles’ heel: Christine.
I don’t think he would ever be happy not being with her. He has to follow his one true love. I wasn’t going to be the one to stand in his way.
I didn’t sell him out. I made him happy. That is love. And I think Jack would agree with me. It is the kind of love that he feels for Christine. You do what is best for the other person.
And that is all I have to say on the matter. Although I do have to agree with Arthur, Christine is a bitch. She makes Jack happy, though. I can’t complain. Jack deserves to be happy with how much happiness he has given other people over the years.
A part of me will always love him. My love was never large enough to conquer his love for her. I’m glad that he is happy with her. I hope she knows how fortunate she truly is. She has nothing to worry about from me. My communication with him has been strictly professional, or as two old friends who are catching up with each other. Besides, Jack would never cheat on her. He never did when he wasn’t actually dating her. Why would he now?
~~~
I’m glad all of my friends think that Christine is a bitch. They don’t know her like I do. It’s all an act, except when she wants it doggie style.
Ironically I did a similar joke the night that Melinda sold me out to Christine. Melinda was asking me about how I felt about her. I told her and explained to her that that was love. She told me that was how you loved a dog. And that’s when I did the doggie style joke.
I do miss Melinda. She was a good friend. I am still technically friends with her. Christine just doesn’t want me to talk to her. I think it is funny. Melinda was never competition, and yet Christine has always been jealous of her. Melinda has always thought that I have found a perverse joy in this and that is why I kept my friendship with her for so long. I don’t think this is the case. Melinda understands me in a way that Christine has never been able to. I could talk to Melinda about things that are important to me. Melinda would watch my Jack Benny marathons and enjoy it. Afterward, we would have an actual discussion. I can’t do this with Christine. I mean, Christine will watch stuff with me now, but she is doing it more to just be with me.
I promised Christine that I would not devote a chapter to my relationship with Melinda, or my lack of a relationship. This intermission fulfills that requirement.
I do think it is hard to write about somebody that was a big part of your life when you are with somebody that wants to write that person out of your life. The fact of the matter is that I can’t tell my life’s story without Melinda. I don’t really think she sold me out. She did for me what she knew I couldn’t do for myself.
My friends can debate which girl would be better for me. I think Melinda made the right choice for me. I did love her like you love a dog. She was a great companion. She deserves better than me.
I think Melinda’s version of the events is mostly accurate. The whole marriage thing came about after Christine’s relationship with the boyfriend who shall remain unnamed. I’m not going to recount those events here. There are parts of my life that I would like to keep untold.
I will say that a peace was fostered between me and Christine. She agreed to stop seeing the baseball player. I agreed that I would stop loving her and that I would move on with my life. We both agreed that it was in both of our best interests for me to stop loving her.
I think Arthur may be right in that there is something not healthy about my relationship with Christine. Although we had this peace accord, Christine and I were still flirting back and forth. What had started to find expression around the time of my father’s death started to become unspoken. Neither one of us was going to break the accord.
We were like an abusive cycle. She would date other men. I would feel hurt and would hang out with Melinda. Christine would get hurt by this and would go out with other men. And while all of this was happening, Christine and I would be spending the night together most weekend nights.
I’m not sure how that tradition started. I know that it started right about the time that Christine and I signed the peace accord. Through our most difficult years, those nights together kept us together. We could fight and have as much sexual tension as our young bodies could handle. Then at night, we would actually talk to each other and be what we have always needed from each other.
Those nights are some of my fondest memories.
~~~
For all of his sentimentality, Jack seems to forget certain important facts. We started spending the night together the night of his so called peace accords. It was a very emotional night for me.
I did like the boy who abused me. I didn’t like the abuse. It was that… It was a very awkward time for me. I have always wanted Jack to be my first, but something happened the night that we almost had sex. He seemed to withdraw. I took that personally. He didn’t seem interested in me. Plus he was hanging out with Melinda.
And I’m going to be honest here. I hated Melinda. I know that I am better looking than she is. I mean, I know that I am considered one of the hottest girls in school, but I’m not like a guy. I can tell when somebody of the same sex is cute or not. Melinda is cute. I can see a boy liking her. Plus she is able to talk to Jack in ways that I can’t. Jack actually likes her personality. I don’t have that going for me. All I have ever had was my body. I have known that since I was born.
I grew up seeing how my father treated women. I saw his mistresses. And he kept trading them in for younger models. Beauty like mine doesn’t last. And if it all that you have, you have a very short shelf life when it comes to men.
I also grew up with my mess of a mother. I love the woman dearly, but… A large part of my childhood was spent trying to comfort her. As she was washing her pills down with a bottle of vodka, she would hold me and pet my hair. She would tell me that a girl has to latch onto a man to survive in this world and that I would have to make sure that I chose the right man. I had to take care of my body for this reason. It was my livelihood.
So when I was dating the boy who shall remain unnamed, it was after my parents’ divorce. Instead of learning from the mistakes she made with my father, my mother was actually trying to get a new husband. There was a parade of men in the house. Some were actually interested in her. Others liked her because she put out.
I don’t mean for that to sound cruel. I love my mom. She is just… She is just looking for love. She is so desperate for it that it doesn’t matter to her if it only lasts a moment. The act of at least pretending to be in love gives her a sort of comfort that she is looking for.
So when I met the boy whose name we’re not saying, I was at this point in my life where I felt ugly. This boy actually liked me. And he wasn’t like Jack. I could actually talk to him. We had things in common. He was fun to hang out with. And he was a good kisser. And he could hold me in a way that I wished Jack would. It was nice to have to tell a boy no for a chance. Jack tells himself no for you. It felt good to feel like somebody actually found me physically attractive.
And I’m not ripping on Jack. I don’t think he knew how much it hurt me for him to be hanging out with Melinda. I wasn’t trying to make him jealous. I was lonely and wanted somebody to hang out with. Every man I have ever dated has been because I was lonely and wanted something that I wasn’t getting from Jack.
Jack is the best boyfriend ever, but he, for a while there, was very bad at relationship stuff. He didn’t want to go out to the movies or go to dances. I could get other boys to take me to these things. They were fun to hang out with, but I couldn’t just keep having guys pay for me to do things with them without giving them something back on their investment.
I’m not a tease. I’ve just always known the game and how to play it. I learned the rules from watching my parents. If I made out with a boy, it was to keep the game going.<
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I wasn’t really good at the game until after the abusive boyfriend. You know what? I’m sick of not saying his name as if he is this mythical evil power. His name was Brian. He has no power over me. I took back what power he had over me a long time ago. And I have never given that power to anybody else. Not even Jack has that power over me. Jack wouldn’t want that power. Not that Jack doesn’t have influence over me. He lets me know when he disagrees with what I am doing, but he still sees me as a separate person that is capable of making decisions.
What was I talking about again? Oh, I actually did like Brian. And then my parents started to like him. It was nice to have both of my parents agree on something. The abuse didn’t bother me. I was willing to take it to make my parents happy. I was at that point in my life where I thought I could actually get my parents back together.
But there was also this part of me that enjoyed the abuse because it upset Jack. Jack has always been pissed off that I would go out with other men. I should be faithful to him when he couldn’t decide if we were going to be a couple. If Jack wanted the abuse to stop, all he had to do was ask me out and actually act like we were a couple.
The so called peace accords came about after Brian started to beat up Jack. It was one thing for me to get smacked around. I couldn’t stand to see him get beaten up. He’s just… He’s spent his entire life being protected. His father protected him from the cruelties of life. I have always physically protected him. When the abuse started to happen to Jack, I had to stop it. There’s just something about the man that makes you want to fight for him.
I remember he used to get bullied in grade school. A group of girls shamed the bully into leaving him alone. He then had this group of girls asking if he was okay. Women love him and would do anything for him. I can’t explain it.
As for when we actually started to spend the night together, Jack can talk about the sexual tension during the day and us being ourselves at night when we were in bed together. But the nights were about something else other than us. It was about us being there for the other person.
I would even say that the first time we spent the night together was the night that his father died. His holding me and not dealing with his own emotions is the pattern that he seems to have followed for the next few years after that event.
And as I think about it, I don’t think there was really a sexual tension between us during those years. I know that Jack wanted to do me, and I wanted to do him. But he was a major ass-hole during those years. I was jealous of Melinda for a reason. He would retreat into her emotionally. If I pissed him off, it was because he pissed me off first.
I mean, when I told him that we had to be just friends, I didn’t mean that… It’s just that at that time in my life I needed him to be… And he was trying to be… I would just get so angry that he would get into this father figure mode. There was nothing sexual about it. He would just hold me, comfort me, and tell me that it was going to be okay. He would change at these moments. It’s like he represses his own needs and desires to just be what I need him to be at that time. I have never figured out what causes this change in him.
It was present the night that we had this supposed peace accord. I know that he loves me. But there are times I just want him to f* me. I don’t want there to be anything sweet or romantic about it. I just want it be a raw expression of our feelings for each other. He is not capable of this. He does this sweet guy routine, which is okay when I need comforting. But sometimes I don’t need comforting. I need a good f*.
And I just want to point out that although he started talking about Melinda in this thing that he is trying to pass off as not being a chapter (although it is longer than the chapter about his birth), he ended up talking about me.
I also want to point out that I never played the game with Jack that I played with other men. Our problems were never with me. I mean, I have rejected him a few times. I’m a girl. Sometimes I want something a certain way, or I don’t want it at all.
~~~
Okay. That is not at all how things happened. I told her how I felt about her the night that she dumped the boy who was abusing her. She rejected me. She was hurting. I started to comfort her. We ended up spending the night together. In the morning, she said that we could only be friends. We could still spend the night together like we had, but it was because we were friends and could take care of each other without there being anything sexual about it.
~~~
Bull sh#t! You came over and were all upset about me getting smacked around. I couldn’t stand to see you in pain. I decided to break it off with him. You weren’t capable of being anything more than a friend. You wouldn’t even give me the pleasure of being friends with benefits. You then spend the night. It was nice. We followed that pattern for the next few years.
You aren’t always right, Jack. Don’t make yourself out to be the victim. You were the reason we didn’t get together for those three years. I was more than willing to be with you publicly. But you were never willing to go out with me in public or to even go to parties. You were too busy being anti-social working on your comedy career. You’re in high school. You should be out having fun.
~~~
Well, this is my story, and I say that there was another reason we did not get together for those three years. Please see the next chapter to refresh your memory.
Before you go to the next chapter, I just want to make a few comments. First, I find it odd that Christine and I both blamed each other for us not getting together sooner. I did always think it was her fault for going out with other men. I never thought about what I was doing with Melinda. I honestly didn’t consider Melinda a love interest and didn’t know about her having a crush on me. Melinda is too much like a friend to be considered a love interest.
I will have to apologize to Christine. I didn’t know that I had hurt her. I just felt rejected by her. I always felt like I couldn’t compete with any of the men that she went out with. I could see her liking them. I could look in the mirror. Why would she choose me? I’m not the man some girls consider handsome.
So if I didn’t fight for her during those years, maybe it was because I felt like I didn’t deserve her. She would be happier with some other guy. Plus I have always had this picture of Christine as a woman who knows what she wants and who will go after it. If she had wanted me, she would have gone after me.
I still feel insecure around her. I think she can tell. She acts differently in bed at these times. And then she makes some comment about me being really cute or sweet. I know that it is a good thing, but it makes me feel even more insecure. I would just like to be enough man for her.
I also want to comment on Christine’s frankness. I have known of some of the things that have happened over at her place. I have always just chosen to not speak of them. I grew up with this belief that you knew about unpleasant things, but you just don’t speak of them. Christine doesn’t mind talking about them.
This is one of the things I have always loved and admired about her. There is an honesty to her. She’s a fountain of truth.
I also find it interesting that as we are writing this book, Christine and I are trying to define ourselves outside of our parents. There seems to be a part of us that sees our parents in ourselves. We either see their strengths or weaknesses. It is not enough that we are just trying to escape our past, but we are trying to escape our parents’ pasts as well.
Chapter Six
The Truce
How Christine and I finally did get together is not one of the most romantic stories ever told. It is actually rather legalistic.
After I told Melinda about how I felt about her, she went over to Christine's house. They plotted together and decided that I should go to Christine since she was the one that I really loved. I was not one to take being handed over lightly. I called Arthur and Leopold over. We had a nice discussion of my options. I don't think we decided anything. Teenage boys are not the greatest at love advice. Thankfully Leopold had taken
some of his sister's magazines. I took the tests to see who I was in love with. Nothing really was decided.
I then took my box of memories from my closet. I started sniffing a bottle of the shampoo that Christine always uses. I always do that when I am away from her. It brings me peace of mind and clarity. It is like being with her.
Anyway, I got high on the shampoo and wrote a declaration of independence. I loved Christine, but being with her was making me miserable. I wrote down everything throughout our history that gave me cause to end our relationship.
~~~
And Jack means he wrote everything. The thing ended up being 27 pages long. I think it was even single spaced. So it wasn't like he was trying to impress me with size. I had no idea I had hurt him that much.
He had hurt me, though. I called him that night. I was all prepared to win with the joke that Melinda gave me. Jack and I had this bet that if I could say something that he didn't have a comeback for, then he would date me.
Well, I got home from a date with Jim Walker, the captain of the football and wrestling teams. I called Jack and told him that I had a nice time with Jim. "I got my nipples pierced. At least I think his teeth pierce my nipples." Jack said, "That's nice.", and hung up the phone. He was so high off of the shampoo that he had a comeback.
So here I was crying. Melinda had handed him over to me, and he had a comeback.
~~~
I don't really remember that conversation. I remember talking to Melinda shortly before talking to Christine on the phone. Then I kind of passed out. I then came to as Christine was unbuttoning my shirt and kissing my chest. I think I actually came to when she was undoing my pants. It was a good place to wake up at, I guess.
She said that she didn't want to lose me that way. She was going to take advantage of me while I was passed out. I have always found it odd that she wants to sleep with me so badly that she would even take me passed out.
Life Begins Page 7
