THIS IS PART FOUR OF AN ONGOING STORY
Nine days had passed since my friend Tara had introduced me to the world of prostate stimulation and the amazing things that a woman can do with strong vaginal walls. Since then I hadn’t seen my friend Erin at all – she said she was working on a project for school, but Tara had called me and told me that she had gotten the information about vaginal strength to Erin and that she was quite certain that that was what she was working on. The fact of the matter was, I hadn’t gotten laid since I had seen Tara. However, if these exercises worked out for Erin, then the wait was going to be more than worth it.
It was Saturday, November 20th – the day before my twenty-third birthday. I was bored as all hell. Fresno State football wasn’t going to the playoffs – AGAIN – so marching band was over for the year. Most of my friends were out of town. Erin was “working on her project.” I didn’t feel like watching any of my movies, and as is usually the case, there were 137 channels and nothing on.
So I was sitting in my dorm room, just feeling sorry for myself, when I heard a knock on my door. I opened it to a very unexpected person.
My friend Kat is a good five years younger than me. She was originally a friend of my sister’s when I was growing up in Pasadena, but after we worked a summer together at a camp in southern California, we had gotten to be very good friends. She was in her senior year of high school, and if my memory served, her 18th birthday had been a mere two days earlier.
Quite surprised, I said, “Kat! Well, this is an unexpected pleasure!”
Kat smiled and said, “Well, I was bored, and I knew that tomorrow was your birthday, so I figured I’d drive up here and deliver your birthday present myself.” She had a large Macy’s bag with her, so I figured that must be it – although I couldn’t for a moment imagine what the hell she might have bought me at Macy’s. I hate Macy’s, for goodness’ sake.
“Well, that was certainly sweet of you,” I replied. “Still, that’s a good four hours drive up here from Pasadena!”
“That should give you an indicator of how bored I was,” she laughed. “Even being as close to L.A. as Pasadena is, it’s still boring as hell on the weekends. Besides that, my parents are really getting on my nerves, and so I decided to exercise my new-found adulthood and get the hell out of town for a few hours.”
A few hours? I looked over at my clock – 2:00 PM. “Kat, a few hours? You couldn’t have left any later than 10:00 this morning, and even if you left RIGHT NOW, which I very much doubt you’re going to do, you wouldn’t get back until 6:00!”
Kat laughed again, but it rang hollow. “Trust me, I don’t want to be at home right now.”
Uh-oh, that did not sound good. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
I thought she was going to start crying as she started explaining. “My older brother’s getting divorced, and he’s constantly fighting with my parents about it. No matter when I’m home, one of them is on the phone yelling at him. Then, if they’re not yelling at him, they’re sitting around the house crying. My dad hasn’t given a decent sermon in almost a month, and I’m afraid that my brother’s just going to wreck my parents’ mental health.”
I was completely taken aback. Kat’s father, a pastor in Pasadena, had always been one of the most stable people I knew, and here she was telling me that he was yelling at people, crying when he wasn’t, and delivering crappy sermons. What was going on?
I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I reached out to her and embraced her. At that point, she simply broke down, with huge sobs coming out one right after the other. I knew there wasn’t anything else I could do, so I just held her and let her cry.
After a few minutes, she stopped crying. Pulling away, she dried her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I came up here to give you a birthday present, and here I am crying on your shoulder.”
“No, no, that’s okay,” I quickly replied. “If I’m going to actually be a psychiatrist one day, it doesn’t hurt to get some practical experience beforehand. Besides, most of my friends rely on me to be a shoulder to cry on, so I wouldn’t want you to think any differently.”
“Thank you,” she said. “That really means a lot to me.”
Taking a deep breath, she composed herself, and it seemed that her demeanor brightened almost immediately. “Okay,” she said. “If you’ll give me a moment, I’ll go get your birthday present ready for you.”
She had to get it ready for me? “Uh, okay,” I said. “Whatever you need to do.”
With that, she picked up the Macy’s bag, strolled into my bedroom and shut the door behind her. I turned the TV on, and just for kicks, tried Comedy Central. Fortune of good fortune, The Daily Show was on – by far my favorite show on television! When I turned it on, Lewis Black was on, lambasting Britney Spears, as Jon Stewart looked on, doing his best to keep from laughing.