The sun broke through the clouds to shine through my window and make me greet the day. It took me a moment to recall the events of the last evening and then I turned to find Sara had already gotten up. I lingered in the warm bed a while longer while relishing the memory of the night before. Just thinking about Sara made me feel like a teenager again and I found myself with a warm and tender emotion in my heart that I had almost forgotten over the years.
I put on my robe and my slippers and headed out to the living room and found Sara in my big chair all bundled up.
"Good morning, sweetheart!"
My heart sank when she slowly looked up at me and revealed her tear-stained face to me. She made me regret ever having been born with that look that didn't condemn me, yet she conveyed an eternity of pain in her eyes.
"Oh, my God, what have I done?"
I fell to my knees and tried to hug her and she just shrank away from me.
"Sara, I'm so sorry...I wanted it to be...I thought it would be..."
Shit. For the first time in my life I was at a loss for words.
"David, I had thought my first time with a man would be the most romantic time of my life. You didn't care that you were hurting me, did you? All you cared about was what you wanted. Now all I'll remember about giving my virginity away is that I wasted it on you."
A bullet through my head would have been easier to take than her calm and accurate assessment of me. She was right, all I cared about was my own needs, I couldn't even be patient enough to be gentle with this woman who was taking over my heart.
"Sara..."
"David, I really don't want to talk to you right now. I'm going to go take a shower and clean up and then I'd like you to leave me alone for a while, okay? I need some time to myself to think about all of this. I'm worried about getting pregnant, too, since you didn't bother to think about what could happen last night. I had wanted you to stop so we could get a condom or something, but you didn't want to listen to me and so now here I am."
So a twenty-year old girl told off the Emperor of The Assembly and left him speechless on his own living room floor while she just walked out. I sat there filled with guilt for what I had done, for what I may have ruined with someone I really and truly had come to love.
Over the next two weeks we barely spoke to each other and we always managed to stay on opposite ends of the house. Our meals together were painfully silent except for the usual social niceties. I made several futile attempts to start a conversation with Sara, and each time she would just get up and leave without responding to me.
Finally, she caught me in tears one day after she had left me in the living room alone again. I couldn't take it anymore and I just had to let it out. And then I broke down further thinking about what had become of the tough bastard I'd always fancied myself as being.
"David?"
Now she caught me.
"Are you okay?"
I tried to hide my shame and turned away from her.
"David, are you crying about me? David?"
She tried to turn me around and I flinched from her touch.
"Dammit, Sara, leave me alone."
And when I turned around, she was gone.
I guess I got a little satisfaction out of that little outburst and I built on the moment to wipe off my face and get a stiff shot of brandy to buck up my self-image. I figured I needed to get a grip on what the hell I was doing to myself and I needed to harden up a bit. This puppy-love crap was going to kill me and it had to stop.
I finished the brandy and decided to call it a night and headed off to bed. After taking care of my needs in the bathroom I climbed into the cold bed and drifted off rather quickly into a fitful sleep.
