He Left  [under construction, m/f]

"You shouldn't smoke in this office."

"Should I put it out?"

"No, that's okay.  How are you today?"

I paused for a second, listening to the silence resonating in my ears.

"He left."

"What happened, Carla?"

"He told me yesterday, after fucking me.  I told him to make love to me,
but I guess he fucked me like a whore if he was gonna leave.  And he told
me he loved me.  But he.. left."

"Why do you say he fucked you like a whore?"

My eyebrows furrowed for a bit before I answered.  "'Cause he didn't
bother to dump me before getting his."

He shifted in his armchair and crossed his ankles, the noise of the brown
polyester crinkling through the air.

"And you were together how long?  Two years?"

"Yeah.  He was my first.  He was my best friend, in fact.. He was my first
everything.  The first friend I had that was around for more than a few
months.  He took my virginity, um, everywhere.  I still can remember them
all clear as day.. I was drunk last night and I thought I was there.  When
I passed out I had this wonderful dream.. "

"Why don't you tell me about it?"

I sighed, arching my back slightly against the faux leather of the couch,
squeezing the burning butt between my fingers slightly before lifting it to
my lips again.  "I dreamt I was pregnant.  And, well, he doesn't want a
baby, he never did, but in the dream he was really happy about it.  He was
protective, fussing all over me.  He took me out to a dinner to celebrate
and he was all over me, affectionate, kissing and hugging me and holding my
hand.  He never does that, you know."

"Why doesn't he?"

"He says it makes him uncomfortable.. In the dream, though, he was really
laying it on me.  He'd press up against my body every chance he got.. he
was hard through the whole dream, I remember that.  It seemed really big
through his trousers, pressed against my body.  And he'd take his hand and
run it along my belly, like he was feeling our baby, and if nobody was
watching or if we were sitting down he'd pull his hand down to my pussy or
touch my nipples.  He made me really wet that night."

"He doesn't show public affection normally?"

I laughed.  "Hell, no.  Never.  Not a single time.  He did that all night
in the dream, though.  And when we got back to the house he got on his
knees and begged me to marry him- he didn't propose, he begged."  I
frowned, remembering something.  "I lost my virginity earlier in that
dream.. hmm."

"Perhaps that symbolizes what you really wanted to happen when you lost
your virginity."

Memories flooded through my head.  "It wasn't exactly the best experience.
I'd had this whole fantasy built around it, with candles and bath bubbles
and.. well, when I lost my virginity we were.. dry humping, I guess you'd
call it, through my underwear.  He had a condom on even though it wasn't
REALLY sex, and I had my panties on, and he was begging me to let him put
it in.  I liked the feeling of his cock against me, rubbing up and down
just fine, but he wanted more, and finally I just let him do it."

"Did it hurt as much as you thought it would?"

I shook my head.  "It felt nice, actually.  It felt really big and hard
and stung a little bit because it stretched me out.  I felt so.. full.. it
was the oddest feeling.  But I didn't feel like I'd become ONE with him.  I
felt like he was almost intruding in me.  It was like.. his finger or
something.  It didn't feel like _him_ in me."

"Didn't feel like _real_ sex?"

"It was real sex.  That's what bothered me.  It wasn't everything I'd
expected.. and I started to cry in the middle of it.  I hid my face in the
pillow next to his head so he wouldn't see, but he told me later that he
thought I was sad.  Didn't stop him, but he thought about it.  When he was
done, we went down to the kitchen and ate.  I cried again.  He held me for
a while.  He said he was sorry.  We went back upstairs and I got another
condom and did it again.. He was like, 'Are you sure?' and I said yeah."

"Why did you do it again?"

"I figured, I'm not a virgin anymore, why hold back?  I guess it was a
little better for me that time.  The first time I probably could have come,
but I felt so sad, and well, the second time.. I didn't come, but it felt
nicer.  He held me afterwards.. I didn't cry again but I wanted to."

"I see."

"We were pretty much uninhibited after that, I guess.  It took a couple
months before we stopped using condoms, and we started to just withdraw.
It's kind of ironic when I look back on it, 'cause at the beginning he
wouldn't even rub his cock against me through my underwear without a
condom, and the last few months he didn't even pull out anymore."

"You weren't using condoms?"

"We haven't used condoms in.. hmm.. almost a year.  Maybe 8 months, 10?
We didn't intend to, you know, but one day we didn't have any and we really
wanted to, so.."

"But you had him withdraw."

"Yeah.  We were just sitting on the couch and I was teasing him, trying to
make him horny, and I was thinking to myself, haha he won't be able to put
it in..  And well, I wanted him to put it in.  I wanted to feel flesh
against flesh, to _really_ make love.  'Cause I don't think it's making
love unless you, unless.. it's bare, raw skin.  You become one.. there's
nothing between the two of you, you know?  Nothing interfering."

"So the issue was that you wanted to make love."

"Yes.  And I just took it and .. even holding his shaft against the
entrance of my pussy made me moan.  It felt so hot, and it throbbed against
me, and I could even tell where his precum rubbed my skin.  It felt so
_textured_ and it wasn't even inside yet.  And he just pushed it in me
and.. wow.  We just _sat_ there, feeling each other.  He barely thrust it
in and out before he pushed me off of him and came all over my thighs.  It
was messy, but I liked it and smeared it around with my fingers.."

"Were you thinking about the consequences?"

"The consequences didn't bother me.  The consequences don't bother me now,
I trusted him, I knew he was disease-free.  As for pregnancy, well.. It
never happened then.  I miscarried the first time I got pregnant.  I wasn't
careful at all, I'll admit that, cause I _know_ a part of me wanted his
baby.  It probably wouldn't even have qualified as an accident because I
was brazenly..  He came inside me for the first time during my period
because I told him there wasn't an egg.  To tell the truth, I didn't have a
clue if I was ovulating or dead."

"You lied to him?"

"Not really.  I'd heard it was safer during, well, my period.  And it just
burned horribly, I couldn't sleep all night.  It burned a few times after
that but I guess I got used to it.  And that's when I got pregnant, but I
didn't know it.  I'd been kind of scared that I was infertile because there
was no pregnancy before that, and I.. hmm.  I didn't know I was pregnant.
And after I lost the baby, I thought, 'Well, it takes you months and months
and months to get pregnant and you lose the baby when you do so what's the
point of even trying to be careful?'  I didn't SAY it to myself, you know,
but.. and you know, it didn't even seem real then.  It just seemed like a
picture in a magazine, where you look at it- you know that's a real living
person but it doesn't quite hit you as real."

"What would you have done if you hadn't lost the baby, Carla?"

"The baby would have been fucked up.  I was drinking, smoking-" I crushed
the dead cigarette against the ashtray for emphasis- "and getting high.  If
I'd known right away that I was pregnant, I would have been eating 100%
organic and drinking cranberry juice by the gallon.  But I had to be a
month and a half or even two months along because it hurt so bad when I
lost it.. I couldn't stand up for a week.  I had to be pretty far along."

"Not necessarily.  A miscarriage is basically a rejection of the baby-
it's a normal occurrence, mind you, but your body is reabsorbing foreign
tissue into it.  I'm not an expert, but I don't think that pain is a good
judge of how advanced the pregnancy is.  Only a doctor is."

"I didn't see a doctor.  I didn't even know what was happening to me, and
neither did he, neither of us had any clue.  I was holed up in his bed the
whole time, crying, I couldn't even uncurl my body from the fetal position.
He was scared shitless."

"Were you more careful after that?"

"No, I just said I wasn't.  In fact, we were less careful- we did it any
time of the month.  Any time of the day.  I loved this.. making love."

"Making love seems to be important to you, versus having sex or 'fucking'."

"It is."

We sat in silence for a moment, and I closed my eyes slowly, feeling my
wet eyelashes tickle my cheek.  "He said he wouldn't leave if I was
pregnant.  He said he'd marry me and we'd raise our baby in a house out in
the country.  He said he wouldn't leave, though."

"And he didn't, did he?"

"He just did."