I loved Pomona College. The retreat was a special experience, getting to know the kids I was going to be taking classes with—living with really—and the professors I’d be learning from. That first week, away from everything, sequestered in the mountains, was special. Pomona College was a relaxed place, not a high pressure, competitive atmosphere. They told us at the retreat that they didn’t want us feeling pressure, that we were all top kids from our high schools, that we’d all excelled on the SATs, that we all had what it took to not only succeed, but to thrive here. They said they had a much higher graduation rate than larger schools, they expected all of us to graduate, and that some of us would have adjustment problems but that we could get individual help if we needed it. They encouraged us to get to know the professors, the administrators, and especially each other. They said we were all now part of a large family, a supportive family that wanted everyone to succeed.
It felt like that, too. It soon felt like everyone there was family. I’d worried about fitting in, but I hadn’t had to. I liked my roommate, I liked the school and the environment, and I was sure this was where I wanted to be for the next four years.
So I settled in pretty quickly. They had both a band and an orchestra. I liked both conductors a lot. The band was just a fun experience more than anything, a laid back group that included faculty and community members and whose purpose was a fun, low-key musical experience. It was about a third the size of my high school band. They never marched.
The orchestra was much different, a serious musical organization that played a rigorous repertoire of classical literature. I had to audition to get into the group. I did, and was awarded their solo clarinet position, the first time a freshman had ever achieved that honor.
I loved the classes. Even introductory freshman classes were small and were taught not by TA’s but by professors. I was surrounded by eager, interested and really bright students, and the classes were challenging and rewarding. I could see myself thriving in that atmosphere.
I was really busy. First there was the retreat, then we were all back in school and I was getting to know my roommate and the other people on our floor in the dorm, and classes had begun and I was seeing how much more intense the studying was in college, how much reading we had to do, how more rigorous the studies were than in high school. It took a lot of time and I was learning where everything was on campus and in the town and then I had to audition and . . .
Yeah, I know. I’m running on here. But that’s what the days felt like. Exactly like that. I hardly had time to turn around. I hardly had time to think about Kevin.
Well, I’m sort of lying about that. But it was complicated. I was busy, really busy, and my mind was filled with my new life, it couldn’t help but be. Everything was new and different, and I was consumed by it. But I didn’t forget about Kevin. When I’d go to bed at night, he was in my head.
I thought about him when I was on the retreat, of course. I’d lie in bed at night, and I’d remember how we were before last summer, and then about last summer, too. I’d remember what last summer had felt like, the distance that had grown between us. And I’d thought a lot about our night at Yosemite. I’d thought about what we’d done, and how emotional it had been. Then I’d thought about Kevin crying on my chest afterward.
I’d thought at the time he’d simply been overcome by the emotion of it all. We’d finally had sex, what he’d wanted all along, and he was crying at the release of emotion he felt after our expression of our love for each other. We hadn’t talked about it. In fact, we hadn’t talked much at all after that. We’d driven back home and slept most of the way, just like the year before. Then I’d been busy with final preparations for leaving, he’d been back at his job, and that had been it.
As I say, I’d thought about him crying, but then I had a new thought. What if it hadn’t just been emotions overflowing from what we’d finally done? What if he was crying because he knew he was leaving me, and this was our one and only time together? What if he was crying because it was over, and this was goodbye?
I hadn’t emailed him. I couldn’t at the retreat. No laptops or phones, they’d told us. This was so we’d get to know each other, just all of us getting acquainted. Then when we’d come back, I’d been too busy. At least I told myself that. That was why I didn’t write during the day, but I knew there was time at night. I’d started to, a couple times, but I always stopped. I stopped because I wasn’t sure what to write. I was scared. What if I was right, that his crying was because he was saying goodbye? What if I wrote, and he wrote back saying it was over? What if he wrote back and said he was with Timothy now? What if he didn’t write back at all?
It was a week after school had started, two weeks since I’d left home, that I finally did email him. I wanted to sound happy, not how I really felt. By now, I was feeling strange. I was excited about Pomona. I really liked it, everything about it. But in private moments, my missing Kevin had become a sharp pain. I’d taken to trying not to think of him, because it hurt so badly. But I couldn’t help it at night. Lying in bed, I couldn’t help it.
So one night when I couldn’t stop thinking about him and couldn’t sleep, I finally got up. My roommate was asleep. He snored softly, and I’d found he didn’t wake easily. I turned on my desk lamp, and wrote an email to Kevin. I wanted to sound happy. I didn’t want to share how much I missed him, the hurt in my heart when I thought of him. I wrote about the retreat, about by classes, everything, making it upbeat. I did apologize for not writing sooner. I did tell him I missed him.
I didn’t feel much better, after I’d sent it. I missed him dreadfully, and each day that went by, the hurt didn’t become less. I’d always heard that’s the way it was supposed to work. It wasn’t working that way for me.
And what I had worried about is what happened. He didn’t email me back.
-- -- [] -- --
When I revisited that trip to Yosemite in my head, over and over, I saw lots of things differently. I thought about what he’d said when we were sitting on that hill, awed by the glory of Yosemite lying before us, after we’d been hiking and were resting next to each other. He’d said we had to accept what was going to happen, that I was leaving. He’d said he’d always love me. Then, I’d taken comfort in that; I’d thought he was recommitting himself to me. Now, it seemed like he’d been saying goodbye, even then.
My roommate knew something was wrong. In the past few days, I’d taken to lying on my bed when I wasn’t studying or in class. I wasn’t eating much, and didn’t have much energy. I’d check my email when I’d come into the room, and I’d find mail from my parents and other friends but there would be nothing from Kevin. I’d lie down, and sometimes not even get up to study.
I did go to class, and I did try to study, most of the time, but my roommate knew something was wrong. When I wouldn’t talk to him about it, and then stopped eating entirely, he finally got the dorm’s resident advisor, and he physically took me to the school’s heath clinic, where I met with a psychologist.
She said she was used to talking with kids whose high school romances didn’t last when they went to college. She wasn’t unsympathetic, she tried to help, but really couldn’t. It was my problem to get over, and I knew I could, I would, with time. I’d had the summer to get used to the idea of losing Kevin. It was just that I’d had so much hope, after Yosemite. So much hope. And then to lose it so quickly, it wasn’t easy.
I did start eating again, but life didn’t have the glow to it that it had had only weeks before.
I thought about Kevin a lot. I thought about why I hadn’t had sex with him. I’d been honest with him at the beginning. I had thought he was too young for me. I hadn’t wanted to take advantage of him. I hadn’t really said it to him, but also I was afraid of what other kids would say. I realized how much that had worried me; I always worried about the other kids. It was easy to say that was silly, now, at a distance, but then, it was a real fear, what they’d think. I’d always wanted to fit in.
There were other reasons, too. They had to do with the attitude my parents had taught me when I was young, an attitude that sex is better if you wait till marriage, if you save yourself only for your partner; that sex with love was much better than just sex for sex’s sake. These were certainly old-fashioned ideas, but I’d listened to them. I think more of a reason, though, was I was a little scared of sex. I’d never done it, I wasn’t very mature, I had even been scared for a time that having sex with Kevin would prove I was gay. Lots of silly fears, but they were there, and the package of them altogether probably conspired against me to say no.
I hadn’t realized how much having sex meant to Kevin. Until it was too late. Probably part of why I had sex with him a few weeks ago was what my mom had explained to me, why it was important to him. If I’d known that earlier, would I have lost my inhibitions earlier? I didn’t know. I hoped it would have made a difference. I’d been so foolish. I hadn’t realized what losing Kevin would mean. I hadn’t realized how deeply, thoroughly, disastrously in love with him I was.
Thanksgiving was coming, and I was going home. My parents insisted. They knew something was wrong, they could tell from my emails. They wanted to talk to me, face to face. So I was going home.
I couldn’t go on like this. I’d flunk out of college, going on like this. What I wanted was Kevin, but I was sure he was with Timothy now. In emails to Becky, I’d asked about that, and she’d said yes, they did spend some time together. So I knew.
I knew I had to put an end to this. My life was ahead of me. I’d told Kevin we couldn’t be together because I’d be going away to college. Now, I was away at college, and we weren’t together. It was just as I’d said. I had to make a final break from him. Final. Finale. I had to finalize it. Maybe then the pain would stop. Maybe then the getting used to it could start.
I decided I’d do it in person. Maybe if we spoke, if he said goodbye to me in person, and I said it to him, maybe if I kissed him one last time, held him for a few moments, maybe if he kissed me back, maybe if we did that, I’d have some closure and could move on.
Thanksgiving was coming. I’d do it then. I thought about what I’d say to him all the way home. It was a two hour drive. You can do a lot of thinking in two hours.
-- -- [] -- --
I stood in Kevin’s bedroom doorway. He hadn’t wanted to see me. I’d spoken to his mom and she’d agreed with me he had to see me, and she’d made him stay home. I’d come over then, and she’d let me in. She said she had an errand to run, she’d be gone for a couple of hours, so we’d be alone to talk. That Kevin was upstairs, waiting for me. Then she smiled at me, a sad smile, put her hand on my shoulder briefly, and then left.
I stood in Kevin’s bedroom doorway. He looked up at me from where he was sitting on the side of his bed, his feet on the floor. Then he looked back down at his lap again.
I walked in and sat down next to him. Neither of us spoke right away. I’d planned what to say, but sitting next to him, seeing him, looking smaller than I remembered, looking so vulnerable, made me stop.
Then I simply decided to go ahead with what I’d planned. I’d already lost him. What would it hurt?
“Hi, Kevin,” I said softly.
“Hi.”
“Kevin, I’m sorry I didn’t write right away. I couldn’t at first, and then when I could, I was scared.”
“Scared?”
“Yeah. Scared. I’d thought about us during the time when I was at the retreat. I finally realized that what you were doing at Yosemite was saying goodbye. I figured it out, finally. I thought about last summer, when you were with Timothy a lot. I thought about how you must have felt, knowing I was going away, knowing you’d be staying, knowing how Timothy felt about you. I can be pretty dumb. I finally figured it out, though. You were saying goodbye. So I was scared, and when I did write, it was just about the college and what I was doing, and I didn’t say what I was feeling at all. I was scared. I knew I’d lost you.
“I know what you’ve decided. I never got an email from you; it’s pretty clear you’re over me. It’s pretty clear that you’ve chosen Timothy.”
I stopped at took a deep breath. This was the hard part. The part I had to make work. Had to with all my being.
“Kevin, I need to tell you something. I love you. I didn’t ever realize how much; being away from you, sure that I’d lost you, that made it so clear. I was crazy not to see it before, crazy in all the objections I put up to keep us apart. I’m not crazy anymore. I’m just hurting so bad I can hardly stand it, knowing I’ve probably left this too late. But I have to tell you, you have to know, I love you more than anything in the world. I can’t lose you. I don’t know how much you love Timothy, or he you, but I want you back. I can’t lose you to anyone!
“The problem is, I never let you know that well enough. I waited too long to realize it myself. I took you for granted. Well, no more! I’m here to tell you I love you, I was just crazy, and I’m not now. We have to talk; we have to figure out whatever we can figure out, but in the end, our love is too big to be thrown away. I’m ready, finally ready! Here and now, I’m going to show you how much I love you.
“I have a four-day weekend to do that. And if you’ll let me, we can have all the sex you want, and I want, and we both want, together. I love you, Kevin, and can’t lose you. Please, please keep loving me.”
He was looking at me now, at the tears running down my face. He’d been looking at his lap. Now he was looking at me.
“Matt?” he said, a question in his tone.
“Yeah?”
“You’re an idiot!’
“Huh?”
“You’re an idiot. I don’t love Timothy. I love you. I always have. I’ve never stopped.”
“But . . . but . . . you never answered any of my emails! And all last summer, you were distant, there was something standing between us, and I could feel it. And at Yosemite . . . I’ve thought for hours and hours about the two of us at Yosemite. You were saying goodbye to me!”
He was looking at me with the most love I’d ever seen. He was almost absorbing me with his eyes. When I stopped talking, he stood up, then leaped on me, forcing me back onto the bed.
“I can explain that,” he said, “but I’ve got something I need to do first.”
And then we were kissing, and hugging, and rolling around on the bed, and all the worries and fears of the past few weeks were gone, absolutely obliterated as our arms held each other, by our kisses and caresses and arousal. I was totally entwined with a boy who loved me as much as I did him. I wasn’t holding back now, and he never had.
We kissed, and I cried, because I hadn’t thought it would work this way, I’d thought I’d lost him, and my emotions, always too close to the surface, overcame me. I’d originally planned on telling him I knew it was over, and I had accepted he was now with Timothy. But the more I’d thought about that while driving home the more I’d refused to accept it. Losing Kevin wasn’t what I wanted, and I was going to fight for what I wanted.
The Matt of two years ago would have turned around and walked away. The Matt of two years ago had told himself he was a man, but he hadn’t believed it, and in fact he hadn’t been. But that Matt was gone, a part of my past. That wasn’t who I was any longer. I had changed in the last two years, since I’d known Kevin. I was older now, and stronger, with more resolve and determination. I knew who I was, and I was not about to give up easily something so important to me. I was going to fight for Kevin. He was everything to me and was worth doing everything I could do to keep him. I was going to find out what had gone wrong between us, which was all me, and fix it, and not stop till it was fixed.
I was not giving him up.
We kissed, and then that wasn’t enough. We’d already had sex once, at Yosemite; it had been an urgent, passionate, desperate kind of love. We were just as eager now, and just as passionate, but we were doing this for different reasons. Then, I was afraid I’d lost him, and I’d been doing it desperately, doing it because I feared losing him more than anything else. Now, I was showing him I loved him, how much I needed him, and how I was not going to let him go, but mostly, mostly, to express how very much I loved him; he was showing me how much he loved me, too, how much he always had. The feeling in that room was different. The feeling in that room was that finally, finally, we had reached our beginning.
-- -- [] -- --
“Okay, so maybe I’m an idiot, too” he said.
We were lying on his bed, exhausted and euphoric and finally able to talk. We were still naked. I was hoping his mother had meant it when she’d said how long she’d be gone. I thought we might be pressing our luck.
“How were you an idiot?” I asked, nuzzling my lips against where his neck met his collarbone, and sort of nibbling. “You were never an idiot. You are the smart one. And the most beautiful, compassionate boy I’ve ever known.”
“Quit it,” he said and pulled me closer. “You wanted to know this stuff. How can I talk with you doing that?”
“Concentrate,” I giggled.
“I’m an idiot, too,” he repeated. “I knew you were going away to college. You wouldn’t have sex with me, so I knew right from the start you didn’t really love me, not like I loved you. You’re a nice guy, the nicest I’ve ever met. You help people. I decided that’s what you were doing with me, just helping me because I didn’t have any other friends, helping me as long as you could, right up until you had to go off to college. But I loved you so much, so hard, that I accepted what I could get.
“But then you were a senior, and you were going to graduate, and I kept thinking about how, when the summer was over, you’d be gone. I knew that when that happened, it would just about kill me. I didn’t know how I’d mange with you gone. You’d been my whole life for two years, and one day you’d suddenly be gone, and that day was coming. I knew when that happened, when you left, I’d fall apart. I knew, since you wouldn’t have sex with me, that when you were gone, you’d really be gone, and we’d have lost each other. My telling you’d I’d wait, my actual waiting, hadn’t meant anything to you.
“You’d told me how when you were in college and I was still in high school, that separation would be too much. Finally, at the beginning of last summer, I began realizing how true that was going to be. I knew then that we’d have to break up. And I knew it would be the worst thing that had ever happened to me. My parents’ divorce was nothing. This would kill me.
“So I started distancing myself from you, little by little, all last summer. I was trying to protect myself. I told Becky what I was doing and she got really mad at me, but I made her promise not to tell you. But I had to make it gradual. Losing you all at once would be too much.
“It was hard, and it hurt, but I spent a lot of time with Timothy, and that helped. He’s smart, and he cares. He knew what support I needed, and he was there for me. He worried about me, we got pretty close, but only as friends.”
I thought about Timothy, about him watching Kevin all the time, about the look in his eyes when he did it, and wondered if I’d misinterpreted all those glances. I really wondered. “Are you sure he doesn’t love you, Kevin?”
“Timothy is straight, Matt. He has a girlfriend. Becky found one for him. He’s a really good friend, but I don’t love him, and never have. He doesn’t love me, either. I’ve only ever loved, romantically loved, one person.”
“Okay, get on with it then.” I kissed his neck again, then began trailing my fingers lightly over his chest, brushing against his nipples now and then, glorying in the way it made him squirm. I was with the boy I loved.
“I put some space between us all summer, and it hurt so bad, Matt. It was so hard. When it got too bad, I’d come see you, just to be close. Then when I stayed away again, it hurt even more. By the end of the summer,” he continued, brushing futility at my fingers but wriggling so his lower body was pressed against my leg, “I was really hurting. A basket case. I went to Yosemite with you as a last, final chance to be with you before saying goodbye. It was awful. I fell even more in love with you while I was trying to keep a distance between us. That night, looking at the stars, was the best night of my life, but it was so bittersweet. I thought you’d suspect something when I was crying on your chest, I was afraid you’d ask questions and I’d lose it and tell you I loved you and plead with you not to leave me, but you didn’t, and I didn’t.
“When you left for college, I was inconsolable. While you were at that retreat and out of contact, I almost lost it. If it weren’t for Becky and Timothy, I don’t know what I’d have done. Timothy stayed with me most nights, and I might not have made it without that. Then, finally you started writing, but the emails were all about college, all about what was happening, sounding so happy, and it was too hard. All the intimacy we’d had, the closeness, was absent in those emails. We were apart, and we’d lost what we’d had. How was I supposed to respond to emails like that, when you were telling me how much you loved college, and I wanted to hear how you loved me? I’d cry after reading what you wrote, not because you were happy, but because you were happy without me, and I’d lost you. I simply couldn’t write back. I knew I’d lost you. What difference did it make if I wrote back or not?
“Then you wrote you were coming home for Thanksgiving, and you were going to talk to me. I didn’t want you to. You were going to make it official, and even though I knew it was already over, I didn’t want to hear that from you. I just couldn’t.”
“I was missing you so much,” I said. Even hearing of his pain, I wasn’t crying now. I had him next to me. We were in each other’s arms. There was no need for more crying.
“I didn’t know,” he said, and moved his hips. Incredibly, after what we’d just done—after what we’d done twice, actually—he was arounsed again.
I had always worried about the fact he was so much younger than I was. I knew that fact would come into play some day, and now, here it was. He was ready, and I was still recovering. I knew right then, I needed to stop with all this worrying. This might be a good place to start, I realized. This was one worry I could learn to live with. In fact, as he pulled me to him, eager to show me once again how much he loved me, I found that worry was senseless. In the time it took to think this, I was as ready as he was.
Kevin was all I’d ever wanted. It just took me too long to realize it and get over myself. I had him now. I’d never let him go. With him, my life was complete.
I wrote this to explain to my son—should I ever have one—who I’d been as a teenager, how my life changed, and who the people were that so influenced my existence and growth then. I intended to end the tale there, but realized I’d left out an explanation that I should have addressed. And it wouldn’t be amiss to add just a little of my future life.
Way back near the beginning of this tale I had a bad moment with my dad that involved Kevin and Dad’s need to discipline me for injuring him. When he told me I’d be helping Kevin out and he’d be paging me, he smiled. I took that to mean he was happy to humiliate me, and I reacted badly to that. He finally explained that smile after my Thanksgiving weekend with Kevin, after the two of us had finally resolved our relationship.
Dad called me over to sit with him for a few minutes before I left to return to Pomona. He told me once again how happy he was for me. Then he said something that surprised me.
“Matt, do you remember two years ago, when you’d just broken Kevin’s wrist, and how bad you felt about it? Remember how torn up you were?”
I thought back, and could easily remember the entire thing. I remembered how I’d felt about hurting Kevin. I even remembered how I’d felt when I’d assumed he’d make me look like a fool by paging me repeatedly, and how I didn’t think I’d be able to manage the whole school laughing at me again.
“I wasn’t sure what to do then, Matt. I knew you needed to be aware there were consequences to what you had done, but I had to balance that with what I knew you’d gone through. I knew you still weren’t over that. You weren’t as confident as you should have been. You’d been an outgoing child and now were still withdrawn into yourself.
“So when I had to come up with a punishment, it was really hard. And the way you reacted to it, I didn’t know if what I was doing was right or not. Then, when you said I was smiling because I knew I what I’d decided would humiliate you, that really stung me. It hurt me deeply. You asked about that smile, and I said it was a discussion for another time.
“Somehow, that time has never come, but it should have, and now is perfect for this. Maybe you’ve forgotten all about all that, but I haven’t. I still think about you getting picked on so badly as a freshman, and about my not realizing it, and because of that it went on and on. When I think about what you went through, and my inability to stop it, even though I was unaware, it creates a pain inside me that doesn’t go away. And when I think about the pain I caused you by smiling when I was telling you about the consequences you’d have for Kevin’s wrist, that hurts too. But I can explain that now, and so if you ever do happen to think about it again, you won’t feel that pain again.
“Matt, back then, when you were starting high school, both your mom and I were pretty sure you were gay. She didn’t want us to sit down and talk to you about it because she didn’t think you were ready yet to face it yourself. She knows these things better than I ever will, so I went along. I think staying silent was probably the right thing to do. But the fact is, we both were pretty sure you were gay. And of course, as you know, our love for you wasn’t diminished by that realization. You were our son, and our love for you was unconditional and totally independent of what your sexual orientation was.”
He stopped then and smiled at me; I could read the emotion in his eyes. Hell, I was feeling that, too.
“I worried about you in high school. Your personality had changed from when you were in middle school, probably because of what happened in your freshman year. I thought you needed friends, that they’d help you to mature and grow out of your loneliness. I thought what might be best would be for you to get a boyfriend. I didn’t think you were ready for that yet, but someday.
I wasn’t supposed to let you know I thought you were gay, so I certainly couldn’t talk about a boyfriend. And your mom was harping on you about friends, so I thought if I did too, it would be ganging up. However, being a dad, and loving you as much as I did, I couldn’t help myself: I was on the lookout for potential boyfriend material. I was always thinking a boyfriend would be exactly what you needed, and I couldn’t help but look at other boys with that thought in mind.
“And when I saw Kevin in gym, the first day, I noticed him. How could anyone not notice him? He had a personality that sparkled, and anyone could see how good looking he was.
“I watched him a lot, thinking that he’d be so good for you, never imagining it would happen, just thinking that his personality would be just the thing to bring you out of your shell. So I watched. I saw when he started noticing you, then getting physically closer to you, then talking to you. I had no idea if he was gay, but I saw what he was doing, and I thought about what might be happening. And I hoped.
“Then we played Duck Duck Goose, and you knocked him down, and I had to discipline you for that, and when I did, I couldn’t help think that now you two had a reason to be together, and that perhaps I could jumpstart it with the pagers. I couldn’t help but wonder, if he paged you, and you went to find him, would I be helping push you two together? Could I be helping you in a way you weren’t even aware of? And when I thought it, I smiled.”
This was all a complete surprise to me, and my face probably made that very evident. My mouth wasn’t hanging open or anything, but my surprise had to show on my face. “So you knew I was gay, back then? You wanted me to get together with Kevin?”
He smiled, a big smile. “Yep. I’ve got pretty good taste in boyfriends, huh?”
I gave him a huge hug then, and said in his ear as I was doing so, “I love you, Dad.”
“Me too, Matt. I love you, too.”
-- -- [] -- --
Just a little more, and I’ll be done with this.
I did graduate from Pomono, then went on to get an advanced degree in education. I matriculated at Stanford and received a PhD there.
Kevin did follow me to Pomona and then Stanford. Of course he made a larger splash at both than I did, but that was who he was. His personality never changed. He did become a lawyer.
We married when I was 23 and he 21. We’re still together.
Becky had problems. She was happiest in high school when we three were together there. When we both left, she floundered. Community College didn’t work well for her. She had a couple of romances which ended quickly. She said it was because the boys never came up to either Kevin or me.
Eventually, after a number of jobs in educational administration, the job I’d wanted all along opened up: the principal of the high school the three of us had attended. I took it and am still there today. I love it.
Kevin had worked in law firms out of Stanford and had moved with me when my jobs had resulted in relocation. He was a star and it was easy for him to find jobs wherever we went. When we went back home, he quickly found a job there, and within three years, he was a partner and their chief litigator.
We moved into my parents’ house. They retired and wanted something much smaller and to travel.
Becky came to live with Kevin and I. We had all that room, and we missed Becky as much as she missed us. Our old relationships were resurrected. All three of us were happy.
Then Becky, when we pressed her because she’d begun to show signs of discontent, said the only thing she missed in life was having a baby.
So we’re talking about that. She says she loves us both and doesn’t want it to be simply a baby; she wants it to be our baby. That’s a bit hard to do, creation being as it is, but with modern medicine and three willing people, who knows what’s possible. I do know that Kevin and I are together and always will be, and while we love Becky, we were afraid having sex with her might change things. None of us wants that.
But Becky always did have a certain dominion over both of us, and she kept reminding us of the proverb ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way’, and that if you put your mind to it, nothing’s impossible.
And she, like always, was right. She’s pregnant.
THE END
First posted 2007
Revised and updated 30 December 2025