Authors: Jessa Hawke
Jen felt a little bit apprehensive but tried to be cool. She didn't want Seth to think that she was some kind of square who couldn't loosen up or have a good time. Besides, it wasn't like they were going to smoke a ton. She was sure that Seth would only load what they could both handle without getting silly. As they sat on the couch and smoked Jen could feel all the stress leave her body. It was strange to think that it was this easy to let go of what was ailing her. All of her thoughts of school and work were gone from where they had been, swimming around the back of her mind. Instead she was just watching television, sitting on a couch with Seth. Then she started thinking about how lucky she was that she actually got Seth to hang out. Usually she couldn't get him to hang out after work because he was always busy doing something work related. She knew that he had to work a lot to keep afloat, but sometimes it was just frustrating when she wanted to hang out and all she ever got was shot down by Seth. She felt like he didn't even want her around sometimes, but she knew that was just her mind running a little wild, like it was now that she was high with him. He seemed to be doing all right, and if his mind was spinning he certainly didn't show it. That was how it was supposed to be, Jen thought. Then she tried to stop thinking.
On the screen in front of her several cartoon characters were fighting to the death on some desert landscape with a two lane highway running through the middle of it, but nothing else. It took her a few minutes to realize she was watching an old rerun from her childhood. Man, she really must high if she couldn't recognize the iconic road runner character being harassed by the coyote who wanted to eat him. But the coyote wasn't as slick as the dog of Native American legend. He was always to slow, or too fast, or he aimed his comically enormous missiles just a little bit off. There were a lot of things that made the coyote a character that just seemed to have a lot of trouble following through with whatever it was doing. Jen thought about all the friends she had that were coyotes. They got all wound up about something and then let it loose, let it all their energy spring forward at once onto the thing at hand. Sometimes it worked out in their favor, but as everyone got older and the stakes got higher the strategy of just throwing all the energy someone could muster at something wore thinner and thinner. Jen thought about all the times that she herself had made similar mistakes when she didn't take into account how a coworker would stab her in the back during a meeting, or how she would need more time to complete whatever project she was working on. It wasn't like it happened a lot but it certainly did happen. Then Jen realized that she was high as fuck and trying to compare a comical cartoon to real life people and situations. And even though it didn't quite work out, the allegories worked out well enough that Jen found it a little bit disconcerting.
“Hey I've been thinking about something,” Seth said.
Jen's thoughts stopped and she focused on Seth.
“What have you been thinking about?” Jen asked.
“Why we don't hang out more,” Seth said. Then he paused a moment and seemed to stare off into the horizon where the ceiling met the well. Then he continued. “I guess maybe I'm just kind of shy. Not with the public, because I have to be good with them. I work with them every day. But more with people that could actually mean something to me. You're special to me, even though I probably show it like I should. I hope that you realize that the reason there isn't any competition to sit and watch me draw is that I'm not interested in anyone else. That and no one else really seems to give a damn to sit and watch me draw.”
They both chuckled at this. It felt good to laugh with Seth. He was really such a nice and genuine guy underneath his rough exterior. Because he cast a long shadow in their small town, so to speak. Des Moines just wasn't that big of a place. Many people called it “The world's biggest one stop sign town,” and that was pretty accurate. Jen didn't hate it as much as some people, but there were times that she wished that things were just a little different. For instance she wished that she could order something to eat past ten at night. But that just wasn't possible in the small town of Des Moines. Not that the place didn't have a charm all its own a lot of the time. For instance, the cost of living was way down. But one thing that Des Moines didn't have was a good grasp on the real world. So the one time Seth had to punch some racist guy in the face at the bar for calling his black friend the n-word was a huge deal. So big, in fact, that people still weren't done talking about it.
There was more than that, though. Seth had a strange past that had something to do with being part of a motorcycle club. It was hard to tell, sometimes, what was true, and what was completely false when it came to stories about Seth's past. One thing she had heard that she wasn't sure about was if he'd ever been a part of NASA. Sure, at first this seemed so crazy that there was no way it could be real. But then people from the government dropped in and out of the shop occasionally, and not the kind of people that chased down law breakers. The part of the government that actually did things besides snoop around in peoples' trash and try to hand out as many tickets as possible. They would sometimes ask to speak with Seth in private, or else leave some kind of message for him. It was strange. And she figured that now was a good as time as ever to ask. Especially with how tense things had gotten when he'd confessed his like for her.
“Have you ever been a part of NASA?” Jen asked sheepishly.
“Actually,” Seth said looking over at her. “I was part of NASA. I know that sounds like complete and total crap, and that's why I never bring it up. But I really was part of NASA for a little while. What happened was I bumped my head during one of the training exercises. Have you ever seen the weird dolly people hang from so they are suspended off the ground and have to push of things and use their inertia to roll the dolly across the floor? Well some of the guys thought it would be funny to really get me going. Well I ricocheted off some loading equipment, cracked my head on a wall, and after that had a really hard time with math. I know that sounds like not such a big deal, but before I was a whiz at math. Then all of a sudden, after spending about a week in the hospital so they could keep an eye on my brain's swelling, I couldn't do any math anymore. At all.”
Jen didn't know what to say. She'd never gone through anything like brain damage. It seemed like such a strange thing to think that someone, even in this day in age with all the medical advancements, crack their head on something and lose part of their life.
“What did you do?” Jen asked quietly. “When you realized that you'd never realize your dreams as an astronaut.”
Seth was silent for a second.
“You know,” he said. “For a long time I didn't know what to do. I would just drink and drink and drink. Then I started to regain some of my brain's power and realized I was wasting away at the bar. Sure, the government was happy to give me a nice pension since I'd literally had my head slammed against a wall for no reason whatsoever during training, and that was pretty much complete bullshit. But I didn't sue, although I should have. I probably could have gotten a lot of money. But the craziest thing happened. All of a sudden I could draw. It was like I traded being good at math for having the ability to draw well. I mean really well. And I'd never been able to draw before that. Ever.”
Jen was shocked. She'd never known any of this before. For a second she wondered if he wasn't making it all up, but then she knew that he wasn't by the look in his eyes. It was a wistful look people get when they think back about the past and how things slipped through their fingers. They always seem like they are about to jump back through some kind of magic door and tackle the past, maybe try to integrate back into something that they long left behind. Seth wasn't lying. He was telling a hard truth about how life wasn't fair no matter how much you wanted it to be fair. And how it wasn't ever going to be fair. That was something Jen could understand.
“I had something kind of the same happen,” Jen said. “Not with the whole being smart and then turning into an amazing artist. So maybe it isn't that much the same at all. But what I'm talking about is when I thought I was going to get to meet my real father and it turned out to be somehow asshole who was just lonely and wanted to talk to someone on the internet. I can tell by the look on your face that you didn't expect something that crazy, and I agree! I didn't either! But that's how it went. Turned out the guy that I had been talking to for the past few months was really just some dude that didn't have a job or anyone close to him. So he just hung out on the internet and talked to people. I guess a lot of people do that. You know how it is in small towns. Des Moines is just big enough that you don't feel like there is no one else around, but there are some towns in this state where there are literally maybe fifty people and that's it.”
Seth nodded.
“I know what you mean,” he said. “But go on. So what happened?”
“So I show up at this cafe expecting to see my dad, right? I had a good idea what he looked like from old photos. But when I show up there is some person, some older man, too old. This guy was really, really old. I sat and talked to him awhile. He said that he was sorry and that if he could he'd go back and do it all over and never lie to me or lead me on. But then he just kept going on and on about how lonely he was and how after his wife had died he didn't have anyone to talk to and he really just needed a friend. After a while it just got kind of sad. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was when I got up to leave he started crying, he begged me to stay. But I just couldn't. There was no way that I could stay and just hang out with him for the sake of it.”
“Man,” Seth said. “That is a pretty crazy thing to have happen. At least you have a good humor about it, it seems like, anyway.”
Jen agreed. They sat in silence for a little bit, then Seth's hand slipped over to rest on her thigh. She pretended not to notice at first, but then slowly slid forward on the couch so that her legs splayed open a little bit, inviting him to slide his hand down into her jeans. First Seth undid the top button, then unzipped the zipper. He was so smooth and calm about everything, like this wasn't a big deal at all, like this was something that happened every day for him. And maybe it did, as far as Jen knew. She didn't really care if it did. It was just nice to be close to someone else, to feel them by her and to know that they wanted her as much as she wanted them. It was a good feeling to feel his hand slip down her jeans and his fingers make their way to her clit. She loved how he little played with it, making her buck and writhe with pleasure.
Jen didn't know how far she wanted to go, though. That was what she had been secretly afraid of all along. Because she did want Seth, and she wanted him badly. But she wanted it on her own terms. She didn't want to have to wait and see what he was going to do to know if she wanted it or not. Could it be that easy just to tell him that? Maybe. But there was no way to know if he was just going to give up in exasperation. It always seemed like guys wanted to just fuck and get it over with, almost. Jen didn't want to just fuck Seth though, she wanted to feel him all over and take him into her mouth. She wanted to rub her hand along his cock and feel him thrust toward her. There was so much she wanted to do.
It had never dawned on her before that she was a dominant person in the bedroom. It wasn't something she had really thought about, and honestly had that much experience with. She had had her fair share of sex, but sex didn't mean progress if all she was doing was letting her boy toy of the moment fuck her however he wanted. She wanted to start really taking control of the situation in a way that was far more than just letting things happen to her. She hoped Seth would understand.
“Listen, Seth,” she said.
Seth stopped what he was doing. She knew that he was afraid she was going to say it was a bad idea.
“I'm not going to say this is a bad idea,” she laughed. “But what I am going to say is this: I want to be in control of what happens, not you. I don't want you to think that this means I don't want to fuck you or anything like that. Because I do. That's why I'm here. I just want to do it my way, though. It isn't like you won't be getting laid, you will be. It'll just be the way I choose. How does that sound?”
Seth's eyes lit up.
“That sounds great,” Seth said. “I know that you want me, just like you know that I want you. But I can feel some hesitance when I touch you. I get that I can be a little bit intimidating, but really, please know that I'm willing to go as slow as you want, and if you want to take charge then that's fine with me.”
Jen smiled big. She stood up and stripped off her clothes. Seth's eyes locked onto her naked body. It was good to be wanted, but it was going to be even better to be in charge.
“So, this is what I want you to do,” Jen said. “I want you to strip, then go sit on a chair in your kitchen, one of the wooden ones. Then I want you to grab on to the back of the seat of the chair with your hands and not move them.”
Seth did as he was told, his rock hard erection jutting out in front of him. Jen took a gander at his big cock and realized that he was very hung. It was going to be nice to get to fuck a hung boy for a change, she thought to herself, because there were just so many that didn't really have what it took down there to be effective. But not Seth, he had a big cock, and since it appeared he wasn't shy anymore. This was good news for both of them, Jen knew, because she was about to fuck his brains out.