Silky had been engaged when she first met Michael. He was the program director of the college radio station where she went to school and worked everyday from two to six every afternoon. In essence, he was her boss. She had a normal working relationship with him and all the others who worked and went to school there. She kept to herself mostly and lived off campus. She never dreamed that her world was soon to change.
It started all very innocent enough. Michael had just bought a new truck and like all new cars, it was in the shop. He had asked all of the other students if any of them lived out near the New Line RV and Trailer Park, but everyone else lived on campus or in the other direction. The only one who lived even remotely close to where Michael lived was Silky. So he had asked if she would give him a ride for the next few days and she, not wanting to offend "The Boss" said she'd be delighted. Thus it began.
"You don't mind stopping by the grocery store first, do you?" Silky had asked Michael, "I need to do my shopping for the week."
"Not if you stop by the hardware store too," came the reply.
"Alright, let's go shopping." Silky laughed.
They had done their shopping and Silky had dropped him off at his home, with the promise to pick him up the next morning at ten. They both had classes that started at 11:00 on Tuesdays. Silky had got home and was unpacking her purchases, when the phone rang. Answering it, Silky found to her delight that it was Reed, her fiancé. He had enlisted in the military after high school and had finished boot camp two weeks before Silky had started college. Soon he was going to Germany to do his tour, for now he was in California. They talked for a while and Silky sensed something was amiss. Finally Reed came out with it.
"Silky, we need to talk. I am thinking of making the military a career. Staying in for twenty or so years. I really like it," came the crushing blow from Reed.
In a choked voice she replied, "What does this mean for us?"
She heard him sigh and knew what it meant before he even told her, she knew that all her high school friends were right. High school romances didn't last.
"Well, Silky, for now any way, let's see other people. Let's end our engagement and just be friends. I don't know what the future holds and I want you to get your degree and do what you want with your life. You could not have that as a military wife. We'd move around too much. Keep the ring and stay in the apartment. I paid for it for the two full years. I'm sorry that I've broke your heart, Silky, but better now then after I've ruined your future too," came the answer she was dreading.
"Okay, then, good-bye," she replied hastily, not trusting her voice to say much more. She hung up, but not before she heard him say, "Ahhh, Silky, don't be that way.
Don't be what way she wondered. Was there a way you were supposed to act when the first love you ever had threw you away? Were you supposed to be nice and cordial when the man you were supposed to marry broke your heart for a job? Silky was not sure, but she knew that she didn't care how she was supposed to act; all she cared about was how she felt and how she wanted to act. Well, she thought, to hell, with Reed and his opinion. He broke up with her.
The next day, on the way to school, after picking up Michael, he noticed she was not the same person he had seen yesterday. He had wondered about her all year, since she walked in to the campus radio station. She already had airtime experience from a high school and summer job. She was very pretty and not at all vain about it. She dressed sexy, but didn't seem to notice that she was or that other men had even noticed her state of dress. She was smart, had a good radio voice and handled her show better then most second years, and she wore an engagement ring. Michael wondered if it was real or did she just use it to keep the men at bay. He wanted to find out and now with her driving him home, he had the perfect opportunity to find out.
"So tell me, who's the lucky guy?" Michael asked on the way home that night pointing to the ring.
She looked at the ring and then him like he had asked her to cut off her hand and then a single tear ran down her face. "No one anymore," she choked out, "he dumped me."
"Really, may I ask why?"
"I'm not sure, but he said it was because he wanted to make a career out of the military and that he didn't want me to sacrifice my dreams for his. Whatever that means," she shot out. Then mumbled something to her self.
Seeing a possible opening Michael smoothly answered, "Well, usually that means that the man wants out of the relationship and/or wants something different out of life and that the women is holding the man back and the best way to break it off with the woman is to say that his dreams would make her lose or ruin hers and the man would never, could never do that to the woman. Easy out for the man, makes him look good if he ever decides he wants you back."
"What," came a spitting response? "Are you serious, men do that? Why?"
"We do things like that and worse, because plain and simply, we are dogs," another smooth answer from Michael. "We never stop to think outside of our jeans."
She laughed so hard at this and the when she finally could breath, she replied, "That is so true, and to think, I gave myself to him. What a fool I was."
So, she wasn't a virgin. Good all the more easily for what Michael had in mind, now to figure out how to seduce her broken heart into his arms. Michael loved a challenge. He also loved black haired women with porcelain white skin. Silky had both and to top it off a set of eyes so green, they would make an emerald jealous. She was, as he said, pretty and not vain about it, smart, sexy, sweet tempered and on the rebound. To put is simply, she was all he dreamed for in a woman except the rebound part, and hell, beggars couldn't be choosers. Time to figure out how to make her, his.
He let her talk and pour her heart out all the way home and for about 20 minutes in his driveway and even asked her in for a cup of coffee. At first she said no, but gave in the second time he asked as he got out of the car. She talked about her ex-fiancé and how it was with him and about were they had came from and what her father was going to say when he found out. She cried part of the time and seemed to determine to move on with her life the rest of the time.
As he unlocked the door she asked, "Do you have something other that coffee?"
Wondering if she meant to get drunk, he questioned, "Like booze?"
Her eyes got wide and she laughed, "I probably should get drunk, but no, I have classes tomorrow and still have to drive home. I meant like tea or juice. I don't drink coffee, I hate the way it tastes."
