Driving into the city on a Sunday was not something that was normal for me. I say city and you think of New York City or Los Angeles but growing up on a farm where the nearest town has the population of 350 people then going to a place where 150 thousand people live, well that automatically classifies that place as a city.
My girlfriend had just gotten her own apartment. Janie had moved out of her mother's house to live closer to campus. She would be starting her sophomore year at the local University so living at home just would not do.
I call Janie my girlfriend but let me clear that up. Janie was one of the daughters of my grandfather's girlfriend. I had known her for years now, of the two daughters I was closest with her.
Many visits to her home growing up while my grandfather and her mother did the dating thing I would stay up with her for hours at a time late into the night talking about nothing and everything. She would talk and I would listen. I never, ever thought of making a move on her of any kind. Janie was my big sister\girl-friend.
Many of the stories that she would tell me would be about her daily experiences with boys\men. As she spoke I would imagine that the male interest of the story was after me not her. But again this was the 70's, a different time. I had to act like she was helping me with my "get the girl skills" when in reality I was living my fantasies through her experiences. But today making that drive to see her would turn out to be very different.
Knocking on her door Janie opened the door and immediately her eyes went wide, her mouth dropped open. "David," she would yell out. "What are you doing here?!" she would ask, so excited to see me. "Hi slut," I would respond. We both instantly began to laugh. It felt good to be loved and I knew that in a big sister way Janie loved me.
I walked in and looked around at all the boxes asking her if I could help her. "Of course!" she happily replied. Helping her unpack I kept trying to figure out how to move the conversation to where I needed it to go. The reason I was there was because I needed help and I didn't have anyone else in the world that could possibly understand what I was about to ask. Understand? Looking back today, I didn't have anyone that would "want" to help me.
The day moved on and we finally got her little one bedroom apartment unpacked. We would walk to the local pizza place as I listened to her go on about her daily dramas. After picking up a pizza we headed back to her apartment. "So come on, spill it", she would say. As usual Janie always knew when something was bothering me.
Without knowing how to begin, "I met someone", I blurted out. "I knew it!" she would say as she gave me that big wonderful smile of hers. Then she reached out placing her small hand on my hand to steady me as she spoke. "Well go on, don't be an ass. Spill it."
The next 5 seconds were biblical because it felt like a fucking eternity before I could speak again. Taking a deep breath I asked facetiously, "Janie you know I love you and you are my best friend right?" Taking her hand from mine Janie picked up her slice of pizza and started eating all the while staring at me like she was waiting for her favorite show to begin.
"Please, please don't break my heart. I need to know that I can trust you." I would say looking at her with what must've been the most pitiful look ever made. "Fuck off Davy, c'mon, really?" she replied with a stern look on her face. "Just say it David."
"His name is Martin."
Yeah' the moment the proverbial pin hit the floor.
Janie stopped moving. A mouthful of pizza, drink in one hand she was just staring at me. Then suddenly it was like a bomb had exploded. Janie runs to the trash can and just spits out her pizza. Turns and looks at me. My head was racing. What have I done was all I could think of. What have I done?
"I KNEW IT!" Janie screamed out scaring the hell out of me. "I knew it, I knew it, I fucking knew it!!" she would say over and over and over. I sat there eyes wide, mouth closed and heart racing. I had no clue which direction this was going to go but even now I remember that feeling of "Oh fuck. What. Have. I. Done."
Then just like that Janie runs up to me and jumps onto my lap straddling me and hugging me so hard around my neck that I thought she was going to kill me. She leaned back and gave me a huge kiss (No tongue, get your mind out of the gutter). I remember thinking again, "ok, what the fuck?" Janie just laughed, "I always knew you were gay!" she yelled out in a loud, happy voice.
Dumbfounded with what must've been the stupidest look on anyone's face I asked, "What the fuck do you mean you always knew I was gay?" Then just like that she reeled off example after example of situations where she claims that if I liked girls I would've reacted differently to each situation. But the biggest example had just happened months earlier.
She had convinced me to play a game of strip poker. Janie was always like that. She would always come up with all these off the wall ideas. It's one of the beautiful things about her that I loved so much. She was always so spontaneous. I had beaten her at strip poker that boring night, although now she was confessing that she let me win.
After she took off her bra and panties instead of trying to check out her boobs and her twinkie, I was carrying on about how I was the best strip poker player ever and no way could she ever beat me. Sitting there listening to her I started to realize that I did look at her body but I didn't look at her body. Confusing? Yes, but it made sense to me then.
Janie wanted to know everything. So I started telling her everything from first meeting him months before. How he was so easy to talk to and how we connected. Then how I had embarrassed myself by ogling him and how I tried to ignore him but couldn't stop thinking about him. Finally to the events of yesterday.