Fool

Life was not composed of clichés. Perhaps that was why, when he offered, she didn’t want to believe anything more than a back massage would happen. No guy would be that obvious in the real world; only in predictable romance novels and shallow R-rated movies.

“You have a good back,” he told her. Strong fingers dug into her spine, working out tension she had previously been oblivious to. “Good muscles. Very strong.”

At first she couldn’t imagine why he would lie to her. Then an explanation came to mind. Maybe that was it—yes, she thought. That had to be it. He wasn’t lying. “My first school didn’t have lockers,” she murmured. “So I had to carry at least three heavy books every day.”

He didn’t comment. She laid still, her head buried in her arms, allowing her body to relax. Yet somehow the massage didn’t feel right. She had only received one other before; from her father, who had done it to soothe her after hysterical crying. That had been comforting. This . . . this was meant to relax her, but she could not feel comforted. But she dismissed the idea, because he was a safe guy. There was no reason to fear him.

“You have a lot of hair,” he said, pushing it away from her neck. A chill touched the young woman’s spine. She mumbled in agreement. The massage was starting to feel better; he was working on the tension in her shoulders.

But still, not right. Why didn’t it feel right?

A warm mouth was abruptly on the base of her neck, startling her. She could only gasp out a surprise before his tongue followed, and the touch of teeth. Like hot water from a shower, she felt her body begin to flush with excitement. She was an adult, but had never before experiences such a sensation, much less given to her from another person.

And yet a part of her felt hollow. She didn’t want to believe in clichés—but she had always wanted her first kiss to mean something. But hers did not, for their lips had made no contact.

---

That first night, she went home with an uncertainty low in her belly. When he had asked, she had denied. Assuring her he wasn’t about to force her into anything, they spent the rest of the night sitting back-to-back, eyes closed and listening to erotic palpitations from his computer speakers. She returned two nights later.

This time she did not drive home a virgin.

---

Physically, he was as close to her ideal as a mortal could become. Perhaps this was fortunate, since he was the first she saw naked. He was too tall, being six-foot-two to her five-foot-three, but built lean and strong. Almond-colored skin was pulled taut over muscle he continually tried to build, dipping into shadows where the cords pulled together. When he lay down, his hips were just prominent enough to be appealing; on his back, his shoulder blades were sharp and defined, though covered with blemishes. His hair was short but pleasant to touch; enough to run her fingers through. Even the scar running from his elbow to inner arm was attractive. When not stroking his hair, she found herself tracing the scar, and if not the scar, then the shoulder blades she found so appealing. She liked his warmth, and how he felt no shame in lying naked with her for an hour, just basking. And he smelled nice, like how green soap might, fresh and sharp.

Once she lay on her belly beside him, propped on her elbows and running her fingers over his back. Unexpectedly, he shook her off and rolled onto his back.

“Stop that.”

She blinked. “But I like your back.”

He snorted, opening an eye to scrutinize her. His expression was amused, but his tone was unreadable. “You like touching my zits?”

The way he asked it made her feel uncertain—and strangely insulted. “No,” she protested. “I like shoulder blades. Yours are really nice.”

“Hm,” he said. And just like that, he brushed off her compliment. It seemed so strange, yet she paid it no mind. He was different from most people, she knew—most people weren’t into everyday yoga exercising, didn’t coax her into trying different minerals that tasted horrible but were supposed to cleanse her system, didn’t talk about the strange things he spoke of. Most people weren’t as alarmingly insistent on changing the way she lived. When most tried to persuade her to see his or her point of view, normally she could still understand when she pondered upon it afterward—but with him, even half an hour after the fact, she found herself wondering how he had ever made sense at all.

Yet she ignored it, because she liked him. And maybe he was right, besides. He was strange, but also the first guy to make her feel attractive; the first to flirt with her in a manner even she could recognize; her first date, her first kiss, her first lover. She wanted him to be special. So she waved any warning signs as unimportant.

Even if, by the fourth time they had sex, it still hurt, she didn’t want it to mean anything. So she tossed her doubts to the rain and hid behind any excuse she could.

---

Perhaps she was the type who fell hard and fast; she trusted too deeply too quickly. She thought with her emotions. When the logic didn’t compute with her emotions, she didn’t want to listen. She avoided common sense for weeks. She was a fool.

Or perhaps she simply loved too much, and without thinking. Perhaps that still made her a fool.

---

It was a cold house. The one day she cried, not one asked if she was all right, only if she was sick.

They went to the nearby elementary school in the rain. After shooting hoops, he wandered off into the fields, and she found herself curled on the blacktop, shivering and devoid of any emotion but crushing depression. Logic was finally sinking in, and it did not make her happy.

The last words he ever said to her were, “Maybe I’ll see you next weekend.

“Maybe.”

She didn’t cry again until she was home and in her father’s arms.

---

It is one month later, and she has not learned her lesson. She has taken to a young man six years older than she. Again she is too trusting, and expects something without any basis for reciprocation. Some aspects are better—he soothes her when she cries, listens when she talks, shares more common interests with her, and it does not hurt when they have sex.

But she is a needy person, and becomes desolate when not embraced each time they meet. She grows colder as autumn chills to winter, and still she has no emotional fulfillment.

She is a fool, and she is alone.