~Subject: STORY:"Lisa" By Dirty Dawg
~From: drambo@cloud9.net (Dawson Rambo)

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                    "Lisa" By Dirty Dawg

   How do you tell your best friend that you're in love with her?

   For a week now, I've been thinking constantly about that
question. About a week ago, Lisa called me to tell me the good
news. We hadn't talked for about six weeks, and for us, that wasn't
atypical. We had that special, intense kind of relationship where
time and distance stopped mattering almost from the outset. We
could go weeks without talking, and then pick a conversation up
where we'd left off, as if we'd only been apart minutes. Once, Lisa
called me at work, and when I picked up the phone, I heard, "...so,
as I was saying..." and I knew right where she was. That was the
kind of relationship we had. We were the best of friends,
soulmates.

   And now, it seemed like that's all we would ever be.

   And for a long time, that's all I ever wanted. Wasn't it?
Pushing back from my desk, I walk to the window in my den that
overlooks the back yard. I can see some ducks playing in the pond,
the mother gently calling to her ducklings to follow her. My
thoughts are confused and whirling around inside my head. A
thousand memories shared with Lisa flash across the movie screen
inside my head, and I fight to regain control. Shaking my head, I
walk back to the desk and sit down.

   I stare at the phone.

   It sits there, silently mocking me. Call her, it seems to say to
me, pick up the phone and make a complete fool out of yourself.
You've had more chances than anyone has a right to expect, and
you've turned away from all of them. Go ahead. Call her.

   I push the phone away in disgust and slide my chair back,
tiliting it so I can put my legs up on the desk. As I settle back,
my hands clasped behind my head, my gaze takes in the lucite
picture frame perched on one corner of the desk. It's a photo of
Lisa and me, at the beach, taken about three years ago. She's
wearing a terrycloth wrap, but it's open slightly, and the bananna-
yellow bikini she's wearing can be barely glimpsed. Her face is
tan, and her smile is wide and eager. It's obvious that we'd had a
fun day at the beach, the two of us, and her arm is casually slung
around my waist. I'm wearing jams in the picture, and I've got a
towel draped around my neck. You can see the top of my hand on
Lisa's shoulder, and I'm looking at the camera. Lisa's looking at
me, with this stupid dreamy expression on her face.

   That single picture sums up our entire relationship. She was
always looking at me, and I was always looking elsewhere. She'd
gotten tired, apparantly, looked elsewhere, and seen someone else
looking back. And now they were looking at each other, and I was
stuck staring at a goddamned picture on my desk.

   I look at the phone again, then back at the picture. How long,
I wonder. How long have I been in love with my best friend? When
did it start? My sudden, intense reaction to the news that she is
getting married tells me that the feelings have been there for a
long, long time.

   I try to remember. We've known each other for so long. So many
years between us. I know that I've always had affection for her,
always thought that she was an incredible person...and incredible
woman. An incredible friend.

   When did it become more than that? And why am I so afraid to
tell her that I love her?

   I can always take the cop-out that I'm scared that anything
romantic, anything intimate between us might turn to shit and ruin
our friendship. Even as that thought flits across my mind I dismiss
it. It's bullshit and it's a rationalization. I know enough about
myself and enough about Lisa to know that if we had gotten
involved, and it had turned to shit, we'd still be friends. Maybe
not as close as before, not with the pain of a supposed breakup
that hadn't even happened yet, not with the walls that were sure to
go up between us, but still friends.

   So what was I worried about?

   I know what it is. I just don't want to admit it. It's several
things, actually. Fear, mostly. Fear of loving someone too much. I
know how totally insane that sounds, but remember: I'm a man. I'm
genetically insane.

   The liquor cabinet called to me. I could hear Mr. John Daniels
calling to me. You might know him as Jack, but when you've been
involved with the man as long as I have, he prefers the more formal
John. Ah, sweet dark liquid of life. He has the cure for my ills.

   No, he doesn't. All he will make me do is get maudilin and
depressed. I'll rage against the storm, scream at the walls and
have huge conversations with people that aren't even in the room.
It's interesting, don't you think, that when you're having a fight
with someone that's not there, imagining their responses to your
responses...you always win those fights.

   I shake my head and try to refocus my attention on something I'm
unfamiler with. My feelings.

   What, exactly, are my feelings? I love her. I know that. I love
her very...much. I know that, too. Another thing I know is that I
am completely terrified of making love with Lisa.

   Ah. The crux.

   You see, in order to have a fully functioning adult
relationship, you have to have sex. I mean, it's not a requirement
or anything, but it does help. And it wasn't that I was a horrible
lover or that I had a tiny dick that I was ashamed of...it was just
the gnawing certaintity that I wouldn't be able to satisfy Lisa in
bed.

   Getting up from behind my desk, I walk to the couch and lay down
and put my feet over the edge. I'm relaxed now, or, a little more
relaxed than I was a moment ago. I can now look at this
dispassionately and dissect it with all the calm coldness of a
scientist examining a specimen under a microscope. No problem.

   Two things contribute to this feeling. The first is the fact
that Lisa has the rather annoying habit of discussing her sex life
with me. I knew she wasn't a virgin, or a nun, but I had no idea
that women talked about sex as eagerly...as hungrily, as nastily as
men did. Lisa had dumped more than one boyfriend because she'd
found him lacking between the sheets. More than more than once Lisa
has given me a blow-by-blow, you will pardon the expression,
description of her sexual encounters. About how one boyfriend
actually asked permission to come in her mouth. And how she had
turned him down, turned off that he was so wimpy as to even ask.
She likes her men strong and in- control. She likes a challenge.
She wants someone to tame, someone to bend to her formidable will.

   And one more thing. It had happened once already. Well, almost.
Two yeears ago. We went away for the Fourth of July weekend.
Neither of us were seeing anyone, so we decided to spend it
together. We got very, very drunk, and ended up on the couch
together. I was aware that Lisa was on the make, that she was hot
and horny and she wanted to fuck me. We started kissing and necking
and having fun, and these fears surfaced in me again. I started to
pull away, to get distracted. Lisa looked at me strangely, got up
and walked into her bedroom. The next day we didn't speak about it.
At all. It had never come up again.

   I assume that she feels that I don't find her attractive, or
that I am not interested in a romantic relationship with her. How
ironic that there is nothing further from the truth. How idiotic
that when I can finally face my feelings, can finally begin to do
something about them, Lisa is beyond my reach.

   Or is she? Perhaps this is one last attempt on her part to force
my hand. Perhaps this is what I have been waiting for, a
galvenizing event to make me realize what is right under my nose,
what has been directly in front of me for all these years.

   Do I dare? What is it that someone once said? A coward dies a
thousand deaths, but the valiant die but once. Time to make a
stand. Time to get up and do something about my life.

   I stand from the couch and grab my car keys. It's about two
hours to Lisa's house from where I live. Two long hours in the car,
looking at the road passing under my tires, listening to the radio.
Every song is about us. Every song is a love song, every twisted,
painful emotion reaching out to me from the speakers, reaching
inside my soul. I hear the words, and I feel the music and I know
the emotions. Love. Never-ending, undying love. She will be mine.
I can feel it. I will make her mine.

    I arrive at Lisa's house just after dusk. I can see that she is
home, and that she is alone. Or, so I hope. There is no strange car
parked in the driveway, just Lisa's Jeep Cherokee, black and sleek
in the soft light.

   I park my car and lock it, starting the long walk up to her
house. The front light comes on; Lisa heard my door slam. The front
door opens and she's standing there, barefoot, wearing old jeans
and a T-shirt of mine that I gave her one day on the beach. I can
tell that she's not wearing a bra, and the thought that her naked,
full breasts are pressing against a piece of clothing that I've
worn is strangely exciting. I wonder if she would sleep in just my
pajama tops, me in the bottoms. A picture fills my head, a perfect
mental snapshot of Lisa standing in her breakfast nook wearing my
light-blue pajama top, the morning paper, folded over, in one hand,
a cup of coffee in the other, reading by the early morning
sunlight. In slow motion, she turns, in my head, and looks at me,
her eyes finding mine. She's wearing her glasses, the ones that
make her look shy and sexy and bookish and devilish all at the same
time.

   She takes them off and tosses them casually on the table to join
the coffee cup and paper, and she walkes towards me, smiling,
reaching out with her arms, taking me inside them, lifiting and
turning her head for a good- morning kis-

   "Jeff!" She squeals my name and runs down the stairs at me, into
my arms for real this time. I feel my arms going around her body,
enveloping her, feeling her warmth against me, loving it, inhaling
her scent, knowing that it's the most beautiful smell in the world,
wanting to smell that smell every morning as I wake up to greet the
bright, rational sunlight of a new day.

   "Why-? When-?" She's full of questions, this one, but her smile
tells me everything I need to know.

   "Are you alone?"

   Her face clouds for a second. "No, Alex is here." Ah, the
dreaded enemy. Alex. Such a name. Reminds me of that damn dog in
the beer commercials years ago. He's probably well trained.

   "I need to talk to you." I say, and then add, "Alone."

   Her face changes expression again, and then she nods once, a
decision made, a line crossed. She takes my hand and walks with me
back to the house, ascending the stairs slowly. There is a
heaviness to her now, a resignation that she knows what is coming
and either eagerly anticipates it or dreads it. I cannot tell, and
to be truthful, I do not care. The time has come to say what must
be said, to face the reality of the situation.

   "Alex," she is saying, bringing me into the foyer, "I want you
to meet someone. This is...Jeff, my...best friend." The words
struggle out of her mouth as if something unseen is pulling them
with a tow rope. I can hear the machinery struggling. I hear and
sense movement to my side and turn to face this man, this obstacle
in my path, this nemeisis.

   He is handsome. I see that immediately. I can say that. He is
good looking. He has a strong chin and deep eyes the color of the
ocean. They will be beautiful children, I think.

   "Glad to meet you," he says, and I can hear the strong timbre of
his voice. It is a radio announcer's voice, a voice a woman longs
to hear call her name in the throes of passion during the wolf
hours of the night. It is a voice that I immediately hate.

   "Yeah," I say lamely. "Me, too." He shakes my hand, and there is
a moment were we both consider attempting to establish superiority
by the tried-and-true method of Handshake Olympics. The moment
passes, and we drop hands like sulking schoolboys faced to shake on
the schoolyard after a fight.

   I take the initative. "Alex, I hate to impose, but Lisa and I
need to talk." Again, I add, "Alone." Surprised, he looks from me
to her, seeking some kind of ruling on this offense. Lisa is the
final aribter. She can say something hollow and trite like
"Whatever you have to say to me, you can say in front of Alex." I
know that is what he wants, but I pray that she will deny him.

   She does. "Please, Alex," she says softly. "I'll call you
tomorrow." There. It is done. Another line has been crossed. I have
achieved dominance without having to resort to any mental games. It
makes me feel good to see the look on his face. But he is not done
yet. He moves to her, smirking at me over her head as he leans down
to kiss her goodbye. It is a hungry, posessive kiss, and I see his
tongue intrude into her mouth. She pulls away, embarrased, and
glances at me to see if I've noticed, but I'm already looking away,
pretending my attention is focused elsewhere.

   Alex leaves. Lisa takes me into her living room. She sits on the
couch, directly in the middle of that hilariously small piece of
furniture. I notice that she has not left me enough room to join
her. She is distancing herself from me, pushing me away. She is
probably not even aware that she is doing it.

   I take a chair opposite the couch. My body language is free and
open. I don't cross my legs or arms, choosing instead to use my
forearms to lean on my thighs, my hands clasped loosely between my
legs. I am the picture of cool, serene confidence.

   "Well?" she asks, a small half smile/half frown playing around
the edges of her mouth. "What's so important that you drove all the
way up here to see me?"

   I take a deep breath. Where to begin? Announcing out of the blue
that I am in love with her is probably not the best course of
action. But I don't want to start a long, meandering conversation
that will lead nowhere and will only give me ample opportunity to
chicken out.

   "Well, the thing of it is..." I start, and then find myself lost
in my own thoughts. And that's what I decide to do. I will share my
thoughts, my feelings, my emotions with Lisa. Not words. I'll tell
her pictures, images, scenes that I've seen before and treasured
since. If anything, that will convince the artist's heart and the
poet's soul inside her.

   I take a deep breath and start again.

   "Do you remember the time we went to the beach for the Fourth of
July? We had so much fun that weekend, Lisa. It was just two of us,
thousands of miles away from here, from each other, from our lives.
It was like we went to Mars. We spent four whole days together,
just the two of us. It was...incredible, Lisa. The most incredible
weekend of my life. Swimming and walking down the beach, holding
hands, just laughing about anything and everything. Getting drunk
together, seeing how we were together...like that... together..."
I take another breath and begin again.

   "You see, Lisa...the overriding feeling I have from that weekend
is...rightness. It was right that we should be together like that.
Together. I keep using that word, together. But that's what I mean.
We should be...together."

   I stop, and wait for her to respond. She reaches over and grabs
one of the throw pillows and starts playing with it, teasing the
corners, plucking at the huge button in the center. She waits. I
wait.

   I continue.

   "The more I think about it, the more I come to realize that we
belong togther, Lisa." There. I'd said it.

   Lisa purses her lips a second longer. Sighing, she tosses it
aside. "Why am I hearing about this now?" Her tone is cool and
modulated. She is testing me, perhaps punishing me. I can feel the
panic rising. I fight to quell it.

   It's time to give something. To admit. "I will admit that
your... plans have made me realize certain things."

   Lisa accepts that. Her smile is curt. "What about... you know."

   "No, what?"

   "About that night. On the couch. When we started... and then did
nothing. Why did you push me away?"

   I sigh.

   "Don't you find me attractive? Don't you know that I loved you?"
The past tense scares me. Lisa just spoke about her love in the
past tense.

   "Loved?"

   "Yes. Loved. Love. There. I've said it. It's out. I love you,
Jeff. I always have. For the last six years I have loved you and
waited for you to notice. And now that I'm getting married, now
that I've met a wonderful man who loves me back, you come here and
beg me to love you again. That is what you're asking, right? For me
to drop Alex and love you again?"

   I have no choice, no alternative. "Did you ever stop?"

   She grabs the pillow again, pulling viciously at the corners.
Her head drops and I can sense that she is crying. When she speaks,
her voice is choked with emotions and tears. "No, damn you. I never
stopped." And then, quieter, almost in a whisper: "I never will."

   That is a beginning. I can work with that. I know that if I can
last the next five minutes, I will last the rest of my life with
this woman.

   "I love you," I say. "I do."

   "Who are you trying to convince?" she asks. "Me or you?"

   "You."

   "Why didn't you make love to me?"

   Again. The fear, crawling up my spine like a cold, furry spider.
The tendrils of my fear reach out to my limbs. I can feel the sweat
at the base of my back.

   "I was scared."

   Her voice is a plainitive cry in the dark. "Of WHAT?"

   "Of getting too close to you."

   Her face lifts and she looks at me. "Asshole!" she spits.
"That's bullshit, and you know it!"

   I say nothing.

   "Tell me the truth! Why didn't you make love to me?"

   Again, I say nothing.

   "Tell me!"

   "I was afraid..." I begin. "I was afraid of loving you too much.
Of losing myself inside you. You are such a part of me, of my life,
I couldn't imagine getting closer to another human being than I am
to you right now. And the thought of making love with you...I was
afraid that I couldn't satisfy you."

   That was new. To her, at least. Or, so I thought.

   "I know." Now it is my turn to stare and gape. "I always knew.
But I wanted you to try, dammit! I wanted you to at least fucking
try!"

   I stand. I walk over to her. I hold my hand out. She takes it.

   "Come with me," I say softly. She stands, looks at me, her eyes
red from crying, from pain, from the hurt I've caused her.

   "What will I tell Alex?" she whispers.

   "I'll tell him," I say. I turn and leave the living room,
bringing Lisa with me. We ascend the stairs to her bedroom. I've
slept in this bed before, with her in my arms. I've woken up next
to her, watched her sleep, noticed the form of her body under the
t-shirt she wears. My t-shirt. Tonight is different. Tonight we
will be as one.

   We arrive in the bedroom. I can hear the beach. I can smell the
salt air. And then all I can smell is Lisa, because she is in my
arms, her body against mine. How many times have I hugged her, I
wonder. How many times have I felt her body pressed against me. Now
the comforting, warm weight of her breasts against my chest is
welcome and savored. The feel of her loins against mine is urgent
and needy and also welcomed.

   We kiss. Our mouths touch softly first, and then harder as the
long-awaited passion beteen us finally arrives. Lisa's mouth opens
against mine, and I feel her tongue against my lips, slipping
between them, entering my mouth, softly scraping against my teeth.
I feel her moistness and passion and suck at it, eager to have it.

   My hands find her ass and I pull her against me. "Jeff," she
whispers into my mouth. "Oh, my God, Jeff...." She can feel my
hardness pressing against her, the evidence of my desire for her,
my want for her.

   My hands move to the hem of her shirt and I go under it, across
her belly, towards her breasts. Breasts I have dreamed of,
fantasized over, lusted after. My left hand finds one, her perfect,
pale white right breast. Her softness is intriguing. It is unlike
any other breast I have ever felt. It is alove, I can feel her
nipple against my palm, pressing against me.

   I thumb the nipple softly. Lisa moans into my mouth again. She
opens against me, her slick, warm lips gently sucking at mine. The
kiss is so incredible, so deep and wet. The need passes between us,
from one mouth to the other.

   I take her shirt off. Her breasts bounce as the material of the
shirt clings, and then releases. Her nipples pucker harder under
the cool breeze.

   "Touch me," Lisa whispers. "Touch me everywhere. Make me yours.
Posess me, Jeff." I know that is what she always wanted. To belong
to me. More importantly, for us to belong to each other.

   My mouth finds the spot on her neck she has told me so much
about. And then the fear is inside me again. I know so much about
this woman. A thousand conversations. I know all her secrets, all
her vices, all her pleasures. I know what will make her happy, what
will turn her on like nothing else. I know she adores having the
small of her back lightly kissed. I know she loves to spread her
legs and be eaten for hours. I know that she likes to get nasty
sometimes, likes to talk dirty in bed and do lewd things. Every
once in a while, she likes to let a man spend on her face.

   All of a sudden, a feeling that I'm invading her privacy flashes
across me. There are no secrets left for us to discover in each
other. I know all of it. Everything.

   I am tensing, ready to push her away...and then I don't. I
realize that I may know what she likes, but we have yet to
experience it together. I remember that sixty people can look at
the same painting and see sixty different things.

   My passion rekindles and I attack her. My hands lift her up and
carry her to the bed where I dump her. My clothes vanish in a
flash, and I join her. Our hands are everywhere at once, finding
secret places and touching, caressing them. Her hand finds me and
guides me, grasping my length and pulling it closer. I feel her
moist center and cleave her neatly. As if we are made for each
other, we join on the bed and become one. The passion has never
been greater, never been this perfect. This is what I have searched
for my entire life. This perfect unison of mind and body and soul.

   We move urgently against each other, finding solace and warmth
in each other. Her mouth is against my throat, licking my pulse
point. Her legs grasp my hips as she undulates against me. She is
welcoming me with her body, using herself to squeeze and caress
that part of me that is so deep inside her I don't know where I
begin and she ends. We are one.

   "Fuck me, Jeff!"

   I speed my actions, anxious to spend within her, to give her my
gift, to prove my desire and love for her. She needs this, this
hot, sweaty movement, this give and take of fluids and lust. She
needs to feel wanted and desired, to feel lusted after and needed.
I give her all I can, drawing on what I know about her to bring
Lisa pleasure. My hands find her breasts as I fuck her, as I give
her my cock. She is no longer the pristene woman I have known and
loved. She is my woman, my cunt, my slut. She is there for me as I
am for her, and we move together even harder, faster, deeper.

   My hand moves from her breast and slides lower, towards her
center. I find her button and caress it, twist it, watching my
actions bring Lisa closer to the ultimate release, our first
together.

   And then it is upon me, as well. I feel her clasping me with
herself, drawing me in, milking me as I erupt inside her, emptying
myself inside my lover, my woman. My future wife.

   I fall against her, finding her mouth with mine. "I love you,"
I whisper. "I love you Lisa."