When it rains, it pours. There had never been a cliché that had described my life so aptly. It was both a curse and a blessing. Everything bad that was going to happen in a certain period of my life happened all at once. On the good side, my pain would be dealt with swiftly. On the negative side, it meant people I loved would also be gone just as swiftly. In this case, I would have rather dealt with the pain of old memories than the pain of losing Kaden. I feared that whatever Justin revealed, that I had not revealed myself, would drive Kaden from my side.
My memory of Justin was more flattering than real life. He was an inch taller than me, which was the only detail I had accurately remembered. His black hair was too greasy, his physique too skinny, and his smile too smarmy. He still looked like the bad boy James Dean, only with an evil, malicious intent on his mind rather than the depressed and tortured soul James Dean presented in his films. I was disgusted with the remembrance of his touch, and my mind screamed "What the hell were you thinking?" Glancing at Kaden, it was obvious he was wondering what I had been thinking as well. It became clear that depression and desperation helped me to view Justin in a favorable light.
Justin eyed me from head to toe, barely able to conceal a sneer at he noted my slight weight gain from when last he saw me. To any casual observer, it would only look as if his face had an odd twitch. "It seems you're doing well." He indicated my house and the front yard in a sweeping gesture.
"Amazing what one person can do when they cut off the one thing draining their finances." For once, my sarcasm was not light-hearted, but vicious.
Justin tisked at me while he took a few steps forward, "I've forgiven you for that. It really wasn't nice of you to leave me in the lurch the way you did."
I stepped closer to Kaden, my only safe haven from a demonic leach such as my ex-boyfriend. "You had a year to find a part-time job and establish yourself. I told you that my resources were severely limited. All you wanted was a free ride. I did what I had to do to save myself." Why was I defending myself to him?
Kaden was fast becoming tired of the whole situation. He stepped ahead of me, efficiently placing me behind him. A protective gesture that made me feel valued, effectively stopping the free fall of my fragile self-worth. "Why don't you say what you have to say and leave?"
Justin lifted the right side of his upper lip in a silent snarl. The hands at his side clenched into tight fists. "I came to patch things up with her, to continue our old, happy life." He turned a tame, entreated look towards me. "You were happy, weren't you, baby? We were very happy before I left."
"Are you lying to yourself or just trying to convince me?" I was incredulous at his statement. He had often told me how unhappy I looked. When I burst into tears seemingly without reason, he would get disgusted and walk out of the room. Was he trying to convince me that my tearful episodes were tears of joy; my constant depression was an expression of being unworthy of being near him? The likely explanation: He was desperate for another free ride.
"We had a good thing!" Justin's voice started to rise.
I stepped from behind Kaden, my anger giving me the courage to face my tormentor. Yet Kaden still kept a hand on my upper left arm just in case. "You had a good thing through my servitude and suffering! I did all the work. You just pretended to be responsible and fucked the girl down the hall while I was trying to pay the bills."
His face got close to mine. I could smell his putrid breath and nearly gagged. "I treated you better than any useless whore should be treated!"
There was a blur of movement. My eyes only caught a glimpse from the corner of my glasses. It was like a cut scene in a movie. One moment in time, Justine's face was within inches of mine. The next, he was flat on his back, nose bloodied with Kaden's fist extended past my face.
"Say something negative to the lady again and I put you in the hospital." Kaden's voice was quiet and calm. I could hear the torrents of hostility carefully hidden beneath.
It was hard to hide a triumphant smile as I looked down my nose at Justin. "You have definitely out stayed your welcome. If you're not off my porch in five seconds, I'll call the cops."
Kaden and I entered my home, and then we watched discreetly from my living room window as Justin picked himself up and left. I prayed that we had seen the last of him. Seeing Justin on my porch had been a nightmare. In the past, in a dark corner of my mind, I had thought of different scenarios where we would meet after I had plucked myself out of the pits of depression. Each scenario was more horrific than the next. Instead of being weak and bendable as I was in every imaginative circumstance, I was resilient in the face of my personal monster. It helped to have the support of Kaden.
His hand squeezed my left shoulder, a tender reminder to return from my thoughts. "I think we better have that talk now."
I sighed heavily and turned to look at him. "You're right. It's something that I can't procrastinate on since you met my dark secret. Although, he wasn't completely to blame for my problems, he just helped them to fester and created a few new ones."
"Such as your problems with sex?" Kaden cut right to the point.
--~~--
Adam Jamison, my first love, had dumped me to become a Mormon missionary in a third world country. If that was what he actually did, I had no idea. The only thing I knew for sure was I fell for him hard and acutely felt the pain when he did not want me anymore. It had barely been a month since I had been dumped when Justin glided into my life like a vulture.
Justin managed to insert himself into my daily routine with an efficiency any multimillion dollar company would have been envious of. Three weeks into the relationship, he started to pressure me for sex. His favorite line, "Don't you think you're a little too old to still be a virgin," always managed to make me feel as if no one had wanted me through out my short life.
A week before my twentieth birthday, I surrendered to his wishes. There were no sweet words, no tender kisses, not even a "hang on, this is going to hurt like hell." His entrance into my tight canal was very painful. It took him a while to finally break through my virgin barrier. I asked if he could hold still for just a moment so I could get use to him. He laughed at me, a sound that had a hint of cruelty in it, and continued on as if I never made the request. It seemed like forever before he finally finished. I was in pain the whole time. When it was done, he smacked my hip and went into the bathroom to dispose of the condom.
I guess I should have been grateful that he was considerate enough to think of protection. Sex was never easy after that, at least for me. Whenever he would initiate sex, it was with no foreplay. He did not care if I had little to no natural lubrication, jamming away until he was fully seated within me. There was almost always bleeding afterwards. When I would confront him with my discomfort, he would snort at me and tell me that it was my fault if I got hurt in the act.
The day Justin came to me with his revelation, his mission to become a chef, I did not argue. I was almost too happy to buy him the ticket that would take him away from me.
--~~--
Kaden held my hand in both of his and he was squeezing it almost painfully. I tugged on my hand slightly, a signal for him to loosen his grip. Instead, he pulled me closer to him and held me in a fierce hug.
"I wonder how you can even stand the touch of another man after all that." His words were mumbled into my hair.
"There were two more lovers after him. One had a problem with premature ejaculation and had a small dick. The last one was almost as bad as Justin, but at least he used lubrication. I gave sex three good tries before I finally decided that it wasn't as great as people said it was, or my body just wasn't equipped to enjoy sex." I chuckled in a self-depreciating way. "I don't have a clue how to masturbate. I've tried it several times, but quickly got bored with it. Sure there are times when I get hot and bothered. Those are the times when I remember what sex was like for me, and the memory effectively kills my arousal."
Kaden sighed heavily. "It pisses me off that men can be that careless. I might have been a player, but at least I made sure the women got as much satisfaction as I did."
"They told me the stuff that I read in romance novels could never happen. The depth of feeling and love was just a myth." I sounded so forlorn even to my own ears. "I wasn't looking for a great romance, but a guy that would help me explore my sexuality."
He gave me a sexy smile and flashed me a roguish wink. "I'm your man. You want to explore your sexuality, I would be more than happy to do it with you." His mouth lightly touched my ear. "I'll be the only man you explore your sexuality with."
I playfully smacked his shoulder. "That's awfully presumptuous of you."
With a boyish shake to his head, he picked me up and twirled me around. "Honey, I'm going to satisfy you so well and send you into a constant world of bliss that you won't be craving any other man."
He scared me when he picked me up. I was not light by any stretch of the imagination and anytime anyone picked me up, or tried to pick me up, it sent me into a state of panic. It would have been horribly embarrassing if I had unintentionally hurt someone. "I don't doubt your prowess in bed, dear, but put me down! You'll hurt your back if you keep doing this."
Kaden started walking, with me as his burden, towards the bedroom. "Alex, honey, don't forget who you're talking too. I was in the army. This means the body with which I am picking you up, is an army brat carrying machine. I couldn't get hurt carrying you even if I tried. Speaking of the army, where's my shirt I lent you?"
I giggled at his antics. "I bronzed it and put it on my mantle."
"That was my favorite shirt, you imp!" Kaden's fake rage scared my cat. The poor guy scurried under my dining room table.
