It was time to turn a new leaf. Or perhaps, less of a turning a new leaf as starting a new book, or a new journal. I had been packing my belongings and given away most of the things I didn't want to move with me to graduate school. Today was the last day before the drive north. My parents and I had driven up earlier in the summer and had found a studio apartment to rent not far from campus, and my girlfriend Erin was going to help me drive my car, pulling a rented U-Haul trailer. I had accumulated more stuff than I realized over the last couple of years living off campus in college in an apartment shared with Erin and our roommate Paul. In addition to clothing and some basic kitchen wares, my mother and father had also let me pick some of the furniture from our house - a small but functional couch, a coffee table, some shelves and milk crates to accommodate my books, and a trestle table to act as both dining room table and desk until I found something better to eat on. I had decided that I should find a bed or futon in Ann Arbor rather than drive one up from York, Pennsylvania. And then there was my guitar, which, though I didn't play it very well, was a necessary release valve.
Erin had been trying to be supportive and excited for me, but I could tell underneath all that understanding she was extremely stressed out. We had talked about what a long distance relationship meant, whether we should try to maintain our exclusivity with each other or just go with the flow. Both of us had the feeling we had no idea what we were doing. We were playing with fire here.
"We need to establish our limits, honey," I said, sounding like my mother even to my own ears.
"Otherwise it's too easy to assume the wrong thing and get ourselves into loads of trouble. Like, are we going to see other people?" I looked at her sideways, trying to gauge her reaction.
"I'm going to miss you so much, sweetheart. I don't want to see other people. I want to try to stay together, keep our relationship going. Don't you?" she asked.
"That's what I'd like, but are you sure? Maybe we should consider dating others?"
"Is that what you want?" she said, turning to me full face with a rather pinched expression, trying not to sound judgmental and not succeeding.
"No, honey. I'd like to try to stay together despite the long distance, but it feels like a lot to ask," I said, hoping to defuse the tension between us.
In truth, I didn't know what I wanted. I wanted to have her come with me, and at the same time graduate school was a new adventure, a new beginning. I knew I'd make new friends, that anything was possible. Erin and I had been seeing each other for about eight months, and we were close, loving, compatible. But we had never been challenged. I honestly didn't know how much I loved her, and how strongly we were tied to each other.
"I think we should see how it goes for a while. See how hard it'll be. Then we can discuss it again in a few weeks or months. I mean, you're going to be meeting a lot of new people, right? Perhaps you'll meet someone else..."
"Erin, I'll be so busy with school, I can't imagine having any time other than to miss you."
"That's sweet, Grant. But you'll want to go out, meet your fellow grad students. Do stuff with them. I'm sure not all of them are men," she said, folding shirts and placing them neatly in one of the open boxes.
"And I'm sure I will do some of that. But my classes sound hard. The first year, new professors. I'll need to find a lab to do my research in. And I'm going to need to work on top of it all. I didn't get a teaching assistantship this semester, so I had to take that weekend job at the hospital. The rotating shifts in the clinical micro lab."
"Ugh. That sounds so tough, working at night like that."
"At least it won't be too busy, I'd guess."
"That might be even harder, you know. When you don't have anything to do in the middle of the night like that, it will be easy to fall asleep."
"Come here, you. Let me show you what is hard now," I said pulling her to me and embracing her.
I couldn't help squeezing her more tightly. Only a few hours left until my drive to Ann Arbor and not seeing Erin for at least a month or two. I kissed her lips and let myself wander across her cheek to her jaw, underneath to the sensitive skin under her ear. She arched into me, grinding her pelvis into my groin, rubbing back and forth across the bulge that had been swelling in my jeans.
"You know, Paul won't be home for another hour or so..." she whispered in my ear. "We can make as much noise as we want."
"Aaahhh, sweetheart, I want to raise the roof with your screams. But my parents are on their way with more boxes. They could be here anytime."
I laid kisses across her chest, dipping farther down her breasts. She had beautiful, silky skin, just slightly tanned, and her nipples were already swollen and poking at the confines of her bra.
"Damn, Grant, don't tease me like this. I hate you!" she said, laughing, her arm snaked around the back of my neck.
We continued to pack, teasing each other the entire time with rubs and nudges and a kiss here and there. When I bent to tape a box shut, she snaked her hand down the back of my jeans, sliding an ice cube deep between my buttocks, causing me to yowl. I reciprocated by pinging her butt with a rubber band while she was folding the sheets I was planning on taking. I had a great view of her stretched out, arms above her head holding the sheet corners, her breasts pushed out against her T-shirt. She was all sinuous curves, from the gently concave flex of her back blending into the sharper convex one of her ass, rolling into the backs of her thighs, knees and calves. She jiggled and laughed as the rubber band hit her. I abandoned the rubber band to pull her into me, and she wiggled her cheeks into my groin but did not let go of the sheet. I simply couldn't resist taking advantage to run my hands across her midriff, pulling the T-shirt up to her breasts and above, sneaking my thumbs underneath the band of her bra and over her extended nipples. Her skin was smooth and soft and irresistible every time I touched her. Another swirl of her butt across my groin would have had me drag her onto the couch to bend her over and screw her there and then, if my parents hadn't rung the bell and pushed the door open without further preamble.
I had just begun to stack the filled and taped boxes near the door. When my parents arrived, I helped my father bring up empty boxes, while Erin and my mother continued packing.
"Grant, when did you turn into such a pack rat, sweetie? Do you really need this shirt?" my mother groaned as she held up a smallish Western shirt with pearl snaps. "It can't possibly fit you. You were what, in junior high when it last fit you?"
"No, Mom, it isn't mine," I rolled my eyes. "It was a friend's - remember Dani? Danielle?"
"Oh yea, I see now it's a girl's shirt. Wasn't she your first girl friend? Yes, I remember her. Cute girl. A little ditzy perhaps. Laughed a lot."
"Yea, her. I must have kept the shirt as a reminder."
"Of?" Erin straightened, paused folding a sweater, and looked at me. Her brown eyes were curious but cautious. I'd noticed she' been prone to ask questions about past girlfriends lately.
"Do you remember a few years ago we had that horrible snow storm? It shut down the whole damn state, I think. I was stuck at Belinda's house for a couple of days. Her parents were out of town visiting her grandmother. We were there for a few days. A couple of our friends came over and played D&D with us. We cleaned out their entire food pantry by the time the storm passed and the streets were cleared enough for us to drive home. Her parents weren't too happy about us being in the house all alone."
