"That's why we were so taken with you when you first started to come over. You seemed such a nice young man, intelligent, and you seemed to like Nina for who she was. You took us right in boy, right in."
"I do like Nina for who she is." I told him slowly. "You're wrong about me."
He raised his eyebrows. "Oh? Are you saying that you were not taking advantage of young girls at school? Are you saying that you didn't sleep with an engaged girl right before Nina saw you for who you were?"
I shook my head. "No, I'm not saying that at all. I did all of that and more. I discovered a near foolproof way to get girls into bed with me and I abused it. I didn't realize that there were consequences to my actions, I was selfish and self-centered, and my behavior was, in fact, despicable."
"I appreciate your honesty." He told me, somewhat taken aback by my words, "But how can you sit there, after telling me what you just did, and try to say that you are not like Bob Simpson?" He asked. "Maybe I'm missing something here."
"You are." I said. "You're missing something big Mr. Blackmore. You're missing the fact that I've never treated Nina like that. I've never tried anything with Nina, not even once. Nina is my friend. That was what she started out being and that was what our relationship has always been based upon. Your daughter is the best friend I've ever had in my life and that friendship has evolved into love. When we had our fight and she stopped seeing me, what did she tell you was the reason?"
"Because you were sleeping with every girl at school!" He almost yelled. "I thought we'd established that."
"Did she tell you that she loved me?" I asked next.
"Of course." He answered, exasperated. "That's what guys like you do to…"
"No Mr. Blackmore." I cut in. "That's where you're getting locked up. You're comparing what happened between me and Nina to what happened between your wife and this Simpson guy. But that's not what happened at all."
"Because she came to her senses before it could." He said.
"No." I shook my head. "She stopped seeing me because she loved me and I wasn't returning her love. She was in love with me during the period I was sleeping with all of these girls and I was in love with her but I didn't realize it. I didn't know that you could love someone you were friends with. By the time I realized it she had gotten fed up with my other activities. She'd gotten fed up with the pain that comes with watching someone you love play with someone else. She left because she figured that I would never love her and she would never have a relationship with me, not because I was trying to sleep with her.
"Once she was gone I realized my mistake. I realized how much I loved her and I felt physical pain that she wasn't with me anymore. When she ignored me at school it hurt Mr. Blackmore, more than I ever would have thought possible. I stopped my activities with other girls and I started concentrating on getting Nina back." I held up my hand so he could see it. "You see this? I drove a car with a stickshift all the way across town with this hand bleeding from a scalpel wound just so I could have a chance to talk to her, to say my piece to her. Does that sound like the sort of thing Mr. Simpson would have done? I love her Mr. Blackmore, I want to be with her always, do you understand? I feel the way about her that you felt about your wife when you went off to the war."
This comparison upset him. "You have no idea how I felt about my wife!" He yelled. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh really?" I asked calmly. "And why is that? Is it because I'm so young?"
He didn't answer, simply looked at me.
"You were sixteen when you fell in love with your wife, weren't you?" I asked him. "About the same age that I am now, right? And your wife was only what? Fourteen, fifteen? A little younger than Nina is now. Why is it so hard for you to accept that your daughter might know what love is? Or me?"
"I just can't accept this!" He told me. "I can't accept your story that you're really a nice young man who's merely trying to court my daughter in the old fashioned way. You have a gift young man. Like you told me, you're a good listener and you give off a vibe that tells people you can be trusted. You do this so well that I came in here and told you a story that I've never told anyone before. Me, who hated your guts, told you this story." He shook his head. "I can see why the girls go for you and I can see why Nina fancies herself to be in love with you. But you're a scoundrel all the same. You use your gift for your own pleasure and I don't want my daughter to be one of your playthings."
I took a sip of beer again, trying to think my way through what he'd just said. Finally I asked him, "Do you remember what it was like to be a teenager?"
"What?" He asked.
"Do you remember what it was like to be sixteen years old and to have hormones surging through you day and night. Do you remember being able to think of nothing but sex? What it felt like? When you'd get it? Who you'd get it with?"
He swallowed nervously and then nodded. "Yes, I do."
"That's what I'm going through right now." I told him. "About two years ago I figured out a way to seduce girls easily. Never mind how I did it, but I did. I found that I could have sex pretty much with whatever girl I wanted to. Now put yourself into the shoes of a fifteen year old and ask yourself if you would be able to disregard that gift if you had it."
"Of course not." He admitted. "But…"
"Nina was never a part of that." I told him again. "I never tried to use this on Nina. Nina is my friend, do you understand? Even now, when I'm deeply in love with her, I do not use this gift on her. To do so would cheapen the relationship, would make it less than it really is. I have done nothing more than kiss your daughter Mr. Blackmore and I've only done that at her initiation.
"But that's not all. I've given up this gift for Nina. I don't do it anymore. I have the same hormones surging through my body, I have the same desires as any other sixteen going on seventeen-year-old. I could pick up that phone right now and in less than an hour I could have some girl over here that would fuck my brains out. But I don't do it. Do you know why?"
"No."
"Because of Nina." I said. "I love her Mr. Blackmore. I feel about her the same way you felt about your wife. I want to marry her some day, do you understand? I don't know how to make this any more plain to you than that, but that is the fact."
He set his empty beer bottle down on the table and sighed. "Like I said young man," He told me. "You SOUND very convincing. But how can I take the chance that you're what you say you are? How can I gamble with my daughter's life?"
"You're not really doing that." I said, finishing off the last of my own beer. "Nina is seventeen. She's an adult in all but legal status. She's decided that I am the boy for her. She loves me as much as I love her. One way or the other we're going to be together. One way or the other I'm going to marry her someday, and someday soon I'd imagine. You can try to keep us apart but it would be futile. Once she turns eighteen, and that happens in five more months, she can do whatever she wants to do. You can threaten her and try to intimidate her to stay away from me if you want. If you do that, one of two things will happen. She'll either listen to you and dump me or listen to me and dump you. Either way she is going to be filled with resentment. If she goes with me, she'll resent me for taking her away from her parents, if she goes with you she's going to resent you for taking her away from me. With either equation she loses.
"I'm not asking you to open your arms to me and welcome me into your family just yet. All I'm asking is that you acknowledge that Nina has a say in this matter. Right now she's saying she wants to be with me. The same equation holds true here. If you allow it, or at least accept it, one of two things will happen. One, I'll dump her at some point in the future and break her heart. That's something I can do with or without your consent however. If it's with your consent, at least you'll have the luxury of saying, "I told you so" to her, right? At least you won't lose your daughter in the process. Or we can continue our relationship to the point where I know it's heading. We can get married someday, Nina can get her medical degree and I can get my business degree and we can have a pleasant relationship with our in-laws on both sides. That's what I want Mr. Blackmore.