Ric and Molly

Here is Part 2 of "Rick and Molly." Please be patient...this is more of a "slow-burn" build-up story. And remember much of this is a true account.

*

"Abby," Rick said, exasperated, "I just don't understand you now. When we first got together you were like the sweetest girl, but now you act like the entire male gender is your enemy. In case you haven't noticed, I am a male. Does that make ME your enemy too?"

Abby glared at him with her smouldering dark brown eyes for a long moment. Finally, she spoke. "Rick, I am not a 'girl'. I am a WOMAN, and I suggest you treat me like one, with RESPECT."

Rick leaned against the wall of her apartment and sighed. "Please, tell me, Abby, just HOW in hell have I DISRESPECTED you? When we first met, there was almost a storybook innocence to our relationship. So just PLEASE tell me, WHAT IN HELL HAVE I DONE? I can't correct my behaviour unless I know what I have done wrong." His tone turned almost pleading. "So will you tell me? We used to TALK about shit like this!"

Abby continued regarding him coldly. She shook her head and laughed humourlessly. "As far as 'innocence,' give me a break! I could tell from early on that you wanted to get me into bed and fuck me." She laughed coldly again. "Just as I'm learning from my feminist studies about men. You really ARE animals, with only one thing on your mind. And wearing that jacket that belonged to your father is just your male tendency toward violence."

Rick, who had been gazing off into the distance, trying to make sense of this, rounded on her. "That's a fucking low blow, ABBY. You know what my father meant to me. And as far as wanting to get you into bed and fuck you, excuse the hell out of me for being a heterosexual male with heterosexual male desires! I suppose it would insult you to know that I have always thought you were a beautiful woman with a beautiful body? Yet I have honoured all your 'pronouncements' on what I can do, or what I do that will cause you to leave me! If I were REALLY the ogre that you seem to call all men, don't you think I would have pushed the envelope by now and tried to get the rest of your clothes off? But I haven't! Why? Because I love and respect you too much!" He paused to draw a breath. "When ("more like IF," he thought) we finally DO make love, I want it to be mutual, with both of us ready. I don't just want to take your virginity to say that I did it and then leave you." He softened his tone slightly. "Can't you see that I really do love you?"

Abby gazed at him for a long moment. "What if I never want to lose my virginity? And I may never marry. I want to go to graduate school!"

"Who's stopping you?" Rick retorted. "I am sure that there are other women at graduate school who are married! After all, I will be graduating college this spring too. I need to think about my future after that."

"Aren't you just going to go back to Canada?" she replied. "That's what you told me from the beginning that you wanted to do eventually."

"Yes," Rick answered tiredly, "I have said that. But I've grown to the point that I just MAY want to take you WITH me. There are excellent graduate schools in Canada!"

"Well," Abby said, "I may not want to go to Canada. And you didn't hear me when I said I might never marry? Do you think that moving me to Canada will make me want to marry you or give up my virginity to you more? Trish says --"

This was too much for Rick. "Abby," he said slowly, enunciating each word carefully, "I am bloody sick and tired of hearing about TRISH! I have tried and busted my tail to be nice to that woman, but she isn't having it! I will not bow down to her or lick her arse just to get her to like me."

Abby shook her head exasperatedly. "Haven't you ever considered that no matter how hard you try, she may not WANT to like you? Why the hell do you think I keep you separate?"

Rick smirked. "You keep us separate because you know I won't take her bullshit and I will tell her what she can do with her pigheaded behaviour!"

"And if you do THAT," Abby said, lowering her voice, "I WILL leave you!" "Oh, yes," Rick thought, "another 'if you do that I'll leave you' ultimatum."

Abby grabbed her purse and books. "Regardless," she said, "I have to get to class."

"Yeah," Rick said resignedly, "me too."

As they hurried out her apartment door in opposite directions, Rick gritted his teeth. "That did not go well at all," he thought. "Not at all." He opened the car door, started the engine (with effort) and cranked up Judas Priest as he laid rubber leaving.

A few minutes later, he pulled into the car park of the college. He saw Molly's red VW Rabbit parked nearby and found his spirits lifting, as well as his arousal...and this time, he did nothing to suppress it.

Walking into the student lounge, he fed a couple of quarters into the drink machine and got a Coke. Cracking it, he leaned against the wall and drank.

"Hey, Rick!" Molly said as she walked over to him. Moving the can away from his lips, he regarded her. Tight tee shirt, and those jeans with no pockets that looked like they were painted on her...man, he wanted her, and he felt less ashamed about it after his argument with Abby that morning. Molly regarded him, and the smile left her face. "Don't tell me, she said softly. "You and Abby have been at it again, haven't you?"

Rick shook his head. "Molly, there are times when I just don't know about her. Here I am, about to graduate from college --"

"Yes," Molly said, even more softly. "And then you'll be going back to Canada, and I'll never see you again." She looked at the floor for a long moment, made a quick motion to wipe her eyes and then looked at him again. "Why don't we go for a coffee after class and we can talk about it better than we can here?"

Rick pondered this. Not so long ago, he would have considered this being unfaithful to Abby...now, he thought, "is there anything to be faithful TO?" "Sure," he said. He put a teasing note in his voice. "But you know I drink tea, not coffee."

Molly moved as if she were going to slap him, but then her hand motion turned into a gentle touch on his cheek -- one that filled him with desire, and not for Abby. "I'm not asking you because I want to know about your drinking habits," she said gently.

"And so," Rick said from the passenger seat of Molly's VW Rabbit as they headed back to school, "like I said, I just don't get it! It's like she's changing into a different person, and I don't know what in hell to do about it!"

Molly turned away from the road for just a second, looking through her sunglasses (which made her look even sexier, Rick thought) at him. "Rick, have you ever thought about the fact that she may BE changing? I mean REALLY changing, to the point where she may not be the girl you fell in love with? I know it sucks, but you have to face facts. And this Trish," she continued, "there may be something more going on with her than you realise."

"Oh, I realise a lot," Rick snorted. "I realise that Trish hates me, and somehow she's got Abby under some sort of fucking spell, and there's not a damned thing I can do about it." Molly stopped her car and shut the engine off. She took her sunglasses off and looked through the windscreen of her car for a long moment. He pretended not to look at her and tried to look away...but he couldn't.

Finally, she turned toward him sharply, drew in a deep breath and exhaled loudly. "Look, Rick," she said, anger creeping into her voice. "Over the past few months, I have seen where this is going. She's treating you like shit, she's being a damn fool not to recognise the best thing that's ever happened to her, and yet you're still following her around like a sick puppy!" She wiped tears away from her eyes. "I don't know what to say about how I feel about you, but I know how the hell I feel about her, and that she's a rotten little bitch!"

Reaching over, she took him by the shoulders and turned him toward her. Wordlessly, her blue eyes met his brown ones. He felt a jolt like electricity, and an even more primal desire stir inside of him.

"Molly, he began," but she would not let him finish. Pulling her toward him, their lips met. Giving in, at last, he took her in his arms as she was already doing with him. She was so soft, so gentle...but yet she was a force that would not be denied. He felt her tongue parting his lips. He opened his lips to her, and moved his tongue to her mouth. After a long moment (A minute? An hour?), he instinctively moved down and began kissing her neck. Finding her pulse, he concentrated his kisses there. Molly gasped slightly, but made no move to stop him, despite the fact that they were in a college car park and people were walking past her car. Rick cursed the centre "island" separating the bucket seats in the Rabbit for not allowing him to draw her closer as he kissed down past her collarbone, approaching her breasts.

"Whoa!" Molly finally said, drawing back, shaking her head. Immediately Rick felt a sense of regret.

"Molly, I'm sorry," he began, but she laughed.

"No need to apologise, love," she said, breathing hard. "I've been wanting to do that for a LONG time. However," she said, giving him a look somewhere between slyness and pixie-ish innocence, "in the middle of Grand Central Station is hardly the place for it!"

Leaning back in the seat, Rick exhaled. He felt that every part of him was electric, on fire. Finally he looked at her. "OK then, love," he said, using the word she had used for the first time several moments before, but putting a sharper stress on it, "just where do we go from here?"

"Well," she answered, "you have a class to go to, and I have a job to go to." Pulling her to him again, more gently this time, she gave him a lingering kiss. "Now go."

Moments later, he watched her car leave in the late-afternoon sunshine. Part of him hated himself for breaking a principle he had held for most of his life; that he had never been unfaithful to a woman he had been in a relationship with. But yet, he reflected, as he had earlier, was there anything remaining for him to be faithful TO?