5
Don woke up late the next morning. It was nearly 8 when he looked at the time on his phone. It was the best night's sleep he'd had in a while. Maybe it was all the other restless nights finally catching up with him. Maybe it was the masturbatory marathon and all-consuming orgasm of the night before. Maybe it was just having someone else in the house. Whatever it was, Don found himself feeling good and looking forward to the day. That was a feeling he'd missed.
He found Flora already up when he walked out to the family room. She was laying on the couch, reading. Her shirt was pulled up showing her panties and nice ass again. Don rolled his eyes.
"Hey Don," Flora said cheerily. "Sleep well?"
"I did," Don said as if it were a surprise. "How about you?"
"Yeah," she said. "Pretty good." She dog-eared a page and closed the book. "How was your jerk-off?" She smiled devilishly at him.
Don sighed, 'It starts already,' he thought. "It was good. It was great actually."
"I bet," Flora said knowingly. "So was mine. I think you're on to something with that denial thing."
Don didn't respond. She'd missed the point. Flora had simply turned Don's denial into a new move she hadn't yet tried in her constant game.
"Have you eaten?" he asked instead.
"No. I'm starving."
"OK. Let's go see what I have."
"Me?" Flora was incredulous.
"Yeah, you," Don replied. "I'm not your servant. If you want to eat, you have to help." He smiled, smoothing his coarse words.
Flora got up and followed Don into the kitchen. He searched the cabinet and fridge for ingredients. "Jesus, I need to go to the store. I think I've got enough to make a scramble though. How are you at cooking eggs?"
"What are eggs?" Flora asked flatly.
"Right," Don confirmed. "Start by dicing up some onion and bell pepper."
He got out a cutting board and knife for her, and plopped the onion and bell pepper onto it in front of her. While she started hesitantly chopping, he got out the rest of the ingredients and utensils they'd need. He walked her through the whole process, from heating up oil in the pan to sprinkling cheese on top of the cooked eggs. Flora was tentative at first, but grew in confidence as Don patiently coached her from step to step.
"And there you go," Don said with a flourish as she sprinkled the cheese. "That wasn't so hard, was it?" He served it up on some plates and they sat down to eat.
Don waited for Flora to take the first bite. "Should I eat it?" He asked as she rolled the food around in her mouth to taste it.
"It's not going to kill you," she told him.
Don took a bite. "Hey, that's pretty good. The eggs are perfect."
"They're eggs, Don. Eggs are easy." Flora waved his compliment away.
"Ha!" he scoffed. "Eggs are actually pretty hard to get right. You nailed it. The onions are caramelized, and balanced nicely with the salty ham. And the eggs are fluffy and moist."
Flora made a face. "Ugh."
"What?"
"I hate that word, 'moist'." Flora said it with disgust.
Don laughed. "OK. But they are. You did great."
"If you say so," she dismissed.
"How do you like that book?" Don asked. Clearly, Flora was not good at taking compliments, so he changed the subject.
"It's good," she said, taking another bite. "There's some things I don't get, though." Flora talked with her mouth full. "What's individuation?"
"Oh," Don said pleased. He'd never had a conversation about this before. It was a subject that had always interested him and nobody else. "It's a Jung thing."
"Carl Jung?" Flora asked.
"Yes." Don was excited now. "You know him?"
"Just the name,"she said before shoveling a huge bite onto her mouth.
"Ah." Don tried not to look disappointed. "He was a student of Freud's."
Flora perked up a bit. "The sex guy?"
"Yyyes, I think." The way she said it made Don wonder if there wasn't some porn actor by that name. "The father of psychology." Flora nodded, so he continued. "But Jung broke from Freud and a lot of that sex stuff. Individuation was his term for the process of becoming a complete individual." Flora looked at him quizzically as she munched. "You know," Don explained, "becoming a well-rounded person. I think it's a good book for you to read." Don blanched at his own statement as soon as it had come out of his mouth.
"You don't think I'm a well-rounded person, Don?" She gave him a look of suspicion that he didn't know whether he should take seriously or not.
"I don't know that you are," he explained. "You have had a... one-track mind since I met you. But anyway, that's beside the point. Jung would say everyone is in a constant state of individuation."
"I think about sex too much, Don?" Flora continued to seem perturbed by Don's line of talk. He still couldn't decide if she was fucking with him or not.
"That's not for me to say." Don took a breath as he put his fork down. "I'm not making any value judgments. If you want to be a fuck-bunny, and it makes you happy, then you should be the best fuck-bunny you can be."
"Fuck-bunny?" Flora raised an eyebrow at Don.
"Yes. Fuck-bunny," he confirmed. "You know what bunnies do right? The problem isn't with being a fuck-bunny, it's with being nothing other than that. Just like it's a problem being nothing other than an investment banker, or a teacher, or a fireman."
"Or a father," Flora added.
Don paused. He was surprised by how quickly she had summed him up and used it to turn his explanation against him. It did sting a little, but wasn't wrong. He thought her defensiveness meant that he wasn't wrong in his summation either.
"Very good," he finally said. "Or a father. A person needs a broader base than a single pillar, or they won't be able to weather the battering winds of life's constant storms." Don sat back proud of his poetic metaphor and turn of phrase.
"Yeah," she said looking at him. "I can see that."
She was trying to hurt him now. He chose to ignore it, taking it instead as a positive sign he was on the right track.
"OK." Don held up his hands in surrender. "I guess that's something else we have in common. But there's one big difference between us."
Flora frowned at Don, but cocked her head waiting.
"Our ages. I'm old. I've had lots of life experiences--failures and successes. I've planted other roots. I may have let them wither over the years, but they're still there. I suppose I need to start nurturing some of them again, now that I can. But you're still a teenager. You haven't had the time to have many other life experiences. And besides that..." Don trailed off, he wasn't sure how much he should continue based on speculation.
"What?" Flora prompted.
"Well, besides not having the time, I worry that you haven't had the opportunity either. If you've never been given opportunities to be anything else, if no one has ever expected anything more from you than...that...then how can you be sure that a fuck-bunny is what you really want to be?" He stopped and looked at Flora for some kind of sign. He wasn't sure for what. Understanding? Agreement? "How can you know for sure that's what you want to be, and that you're not just following the only path that's been opened up to you, and convincing yourself that it was your choice to follow it?" Don stopped and waited for some reaction from Flora.
She sat across from him with her arms folded, but listening. "I guess you got me all figured out, Don." It was a weak attempt. Her heart wasn't in it. Don worried that he'd hurt her.
"No," Don assured her. "Not at all. I know almost nothing about you. I know you like to read, and that you're very, very smart. But you keep that hidden, don't you? I'm sure there's more that you keep hidden as well. But the only thing about yourself that you've shown me, that you show the world, is, well, fuck-bunny. I can only respond to what you're telling me about yourself."
"So you admit that you don't know anything about me, but still tell me that I'm a deluded slut? Is that right, Don?" Flora seemed calm and restrained, but Don guessed she was fuming inside. She held her arms tightly around herself, and her eyes were hard and fiery.
