I first met Vanessa Amstel when we were going through sorority rush together the second semester of our freshman year in college. Since I'm Alisha Allison, we were next to each other alphabetically all during the ordeal. I guess that we became best friends by bonding during rush and because opposites attract; and opposites we were.
Vanessa is a jock. She was on a field hockey scholarship and the star of the university field hockey team all four years, and led the nation in scoring as a senior. She is the epitome of "cute." The old cliché that if you look up "cute" in the dictionary you'd see a photo of Vanessa could actually be true in her case. Plus, she has a sculptured hard body.
I'm a girly girl. I eschew all athletics, although I think that my passion is just as challenging as playing sports. I've been dancing my whole life - ballet, jazz, modern, Latin, ballroom, you name it. I'm not cute or beautiful but I am "exotic" looking. My looks really appeal to some guys, and to others I'm blah or even weird.
Everyone, male or female, thinks that Vanessa is cute. Half the people think that I am exquisite, the other half think "what?" Even though I have what I have been told are beautiful dancer's legs, especially my thighs, I surely do not have anything close to Vanessa's hard body. Although she's only about an inch taller than I am she outweighs me by twenty pounds, and has only 14% body fat, comparable to 6% for a man.
Vanessa and I were also vastly different in what type of guy appealed to us. I don't think that Vanessa ever dated a guy that wasn't a jock, or at least had a jock body. I, on the other hand, liked the sensitive artistic type, and male muscle never turned me on.
Vanessa was a biology major and loved all sciences. I was a dance major with a minor in finance. Vanessa liked comedy clubs; I liked stage plays, especially musicals.
I don't want anyone to think that we were completely different, however. We had core values that were the same. We both sincerely believed in fidelity and trust and we NEVER cheated on a boyfriend. We also were egalitarian and hated all expressions of racism, sexism, or any other type of prejudice.
Vanessa and I pledged the same sorority, generally regarded as the "best" on campus - I guess that means the one with girls that the most guys liked to ogle. However, by the middle of our sophomore year we were totally disgusted by the materialism, infidelity, and prejudice practiced by the majority of our sorority sisters and we de-activated at the same time. We got a two bedroom apartment together and got to be as close as sisters by the time that we graduated.
In accordance with our tastes we fell in love with and married our perfect guys. Vanessa dated Kent Watkins for eighteen months and they got married a month after we graduated. Kent was the defensive star of the #2 lacrosse team in the country, and is six feet four inches, 225 pounds, with about 7% body fat - the male hard body equivalent of Vanessa. I dated Byron Bortles for fourteen months during college and three months after graduation before we got married. Byron is a serious contemplative artsy guy with a cute face, studious glasses, and an appreciation for all things aesthetic.
I was Vanessa's maid of honor; she was my matron of honor.
Although Vanessa and I didn't actually "plan" it, we certainly encouraged our spouses to locate in the same city; in fact we "just happened" to start out married life in the same apartment complex.
Considering how different that they were, Kent and Byron got along very well. They never would be bffs, like Vanessa and I were, but there never was any acrimony or tension between them. I think one of the reasons for that was that Kent wasn't the least bit attracted to me or me to him, and the same with Vanessa and Byron. However, I always liked Kent because I thought that he was "cultured" for a jock, and he treated Vanessa well. Vanessa also liked Byron because he always acted "normal," rather than ethereal, around her, and treated me well.
Byron and I had what I considered a great sex life. He was always gentle and compassionate, and we regularly made love rather than rutting like animals. I never talked about my sex life with others, but after Vanessa had a six pack of Amstel beer (yes, that is really what she did drink - she jokingly said that she got royalties on every case consumed) she would regale me about tales of the intensely passionate and vigorous sexcapades she and Kent had.
I thought that I had an amazing life. In addition to my close friendship with Vanessa - I talked to her on the phone at least every other day, and we got together, mostly with spouses but sometimes without, at least once a week - Byron and I had a nice cadre of other friends, we had jobs that we liked, and we made decent money even though we never would be multi-millionaires.
My job was as the managing director of the largest for profit dance studio in the state. I not only oversaw the finances, but I hired the instructors and even taught high level classes for adults - and one ballet class for teens - myself to keep up my skills.
Although Byron loved watching dance, he had two left feet and except for rock and roll impromptu shimming on the dance floor, he never danced. Despite how athletic she was, Vanessa also didn't do any more dancing than Byron, but surprisingly Kent was always willing to try new dance steps and sometimes he and I would dance a Latin dance or the waltz while Byron and Vanessa would throw out catcalls from a nearby table.
After three years of marriage Vanessa and Kent - who made considerably more money than Byron and I did - bought a house about ten miles from our apartment complex. A year later Byron and I followed suit, only in a subdivision that was not as "tony" as Vanessa and Kent's but not surprisingly was only four miles away from their house.
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Both couples had been married for around six years - we were all twenty eight at the time - and were thinking about starting families when Kent invited us to go to his company "picnic" with he and Vanessa on an early summer Saturday. Kent's company was a high class brokerage and the food, drink, and activities were sure to be spectacular, so Byron and I excitedly accepted.
Despite my normal total aversion to anything athletic and despite how pathetic I was, I actually enjoyed playing beach volleyball, engaging in ring toss contests, kayaking, and playing with the kids of Kent's co-workers. Since both Vanessa and Kent were on one of my teams, and they were by far the best athletes there, I actually won a prize - my first ever for anything not having to do with dance. Byron also seemed to be having a great time.
In the afternoon some clouds came up and very suddenly there was a cloudburst. Everyone ran for cover, some of us trying to hold an article of clothing, a blanket, or a piece of athletic equipment above our heads. Kent and I, along with a number of other people, ended up under a tree while Vanessa and Byron had scoped things out more intelligently before they ran for cover, and were under a pavilion's roof.
When the first sound of thunder reached us I quaked in my shoes a little. Byron was yelling at us to run out from under the tree and to the pavilion. Kent and I marshalled all of the possible covers for the others under the tree - especially the kids - and sent them off to the pavilion. When they all made it Kent grabbed my hand and we started to run toward safety.
I have been told, but of course do not remember, that Kent and I had taken about two steps when a bolt of lightning hit the tree we were under and jumped to us. I know that I seemed to go in and out of consciousness for some period of time before I opened my eyes in a hospital room. Byron was there, wet and without his glasses on, and with a totally distraught look on his face. When I opened my eyes he squeezed my hand, tears started to form on his cheeks, and he ran to get a doctor.
Over the next day or two I found out that both Kent and I - since we were holding hands - had been hit by a "discharge" (that's what the doctors referred to it as, I don't know if it is a correct technical term) from the same bolt of lightning that hit and snapped in half the tree that we had foolishly been under. No one could tell us what our exact prognosis was, although apparently Kent and I were in about the same shape and we would both live.
The managing doctor at the hospital we had been admitted to, and someone who claimed to have dealt with more than fifty victims of lightning strikes in his career, was direct: "The long term effects of lightning strikes on survivors are completely unpredictable. Ninety percent of the time there is some long term effect and ninety percent of those times the effect is negative. Only time will tell, but considering that both you and Mr. Watkins seem to be progressing nicely there doesn't seem to be any reason that you can't live basically normal lives."
Vanessa wheeled me into Kent's room my second night in the hospital. Both he and I lit up when we saw each other, and confirmed that we would live. We squeezed hands and remarked about how lucky we were. We chatted, and Byron - who had been talking to the nurses about my care - soon joined us.
There was something odd about how I felt as we chatted. I really couldn't put my finger on it. At one point a hallucination of Kent holding my hand and saying "I'll lead you to a better life" popped into my head. It was unsettling, especially since I wasn't religious. When Kent's bicep flexed as he pushed himself into a sitting position I felt a tingle in my spine, and he and I exchanged weird smiles. Although I was glad to be around my best friend, my husband, and Kent, I felt ill at ease.
Kent and I were released after just seventy two hours in the hospital. On the drive home - together - Vanessa and Byron chatted up a storm. Kent and I remained silent, occasionally trading the same type of bizarre smiles we had exchanged in the hospital when we first saw each other after the lightning strike.
Physically, I seemed to recover quickly from the incident. I was dancing almost normally within a week of being released from the hospital, and completely normally within two weeks. In fact it actually seemed - and this may have been Psychosomatic - that my flexibility had actually improved slightly, as had my skin tone. However despite my physical condition, emotionally and mentally I was having the most difficult time of my life.
I was having trouble concentrating at work, and it took a lot longer to do anything that required mental acuity than it had before the lightning strike. However, by investing more time I did OK. Dancing was a nice respite because my accident didn't adversely affect that at all. More troubling than my lack of concentration at work, however, was an inability to feel at ease around the two most important people in the world to me - Byron and Vanessa.
Most troubling was a completely weird and unrecognizable feeling that I had whenever Kent was around. While Byron, Vanessa, Kent and I continued to interact with the same frequency as before the lightning strike to me it wasn't the same. I was nervous and fidgety. I chalked it up to the fact that when I was around Kent my mind spun back to the traumatic experience at the picnic.
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It was near the end of the summer when my life changed completely. In the almost three months since the lightning strike Byron and I had only had sex half a dozen times. My libido was screwed up. I only had one orgasm in those encounters, but Byron seemed to be so hurt by my lack of responsiveness that after the first two less-than-stellar encounters I faked orgasms, the first time I had ever done so in my life. I had scheduled an appointment with a psychiatrist for the next week when on a Saturday morning Vanessa called.
"Hey girlfriend," she started out, "I have some good news."
"I could use some," I replied with a fake giggle.
