The image that Kristen was painting was very frightening. “You wanted to kill me?” I repeated.
Kristen didn’t answer me. Instead, she continued. “Patty listened to me as I ranted and raved all about you. And then when I finally stopped to catch my breath, Patty made a single comment.”
Kristen paused, waiting for me to ask the obvious question.
“What did she say?” I finally asked.
“She said, ‘If you kill Jim, you’ll be an addict without any way to feed your hunger.’”
“Patty said that?” I asked. Not only was I hearing once again that Kristen didn’t love me and that she wanted to kill me, but now that my dear friend Patty insinuated something very nasty about me! This was amazing. I was too shocked to say anything.
“Patty’s very observant,” Kristen said, nodding. “It was like she knew what I felt, and she pointed out to me that anything I did to hurt you would end up hurting me. It made me hate you even more! I’ve never hated anybody in my life like I hated you the moment that became crystal clear to me.”
This news was very disturbing! “Hate?”
“Hate, Jim. After what Patty said, it hit me that she was right. If I killed you, I’d be a junkie without a fix. It was then that I was considering…”
Kristen suddenly stopped. She was still not looking at me.
From the tone of Kristen’s voice, I finally realized where Kristen was headed. Softly, I said, “You were going to kill me and then kill yourself?”
Kristen didn’t answer, but slowly nodded.
I was shocked, but I was still curious. “What did Patty say about that?”
“Patty let me rant on and on, and didn’t really say much at all, but simply nodded at me from time to time. Finally, I was tired of shouting and ranting. When I went to catch my breath, Patty told me a personal story.”
“Her rape?” I asked.
Kristen finally looked at me. “Yeah. She told me that she told you about it… you were the first person she told. But she told me about what the guy did, and how she felt afterward. She had never been betrayed like that before, and it almost made her lose faith in other people. For a year and a half, she lived a lie… she never told people what happened, even her best friend. She wanted to get even with the guy who did it… she felt much the same way that I did.”
I nodded. I had heard Patty’s story, although I had a feeling that Patty would be more open to discuss the details of her rape with another female who had a similar experience. I was still in a state of shock hearing about how Kristen truly felt about me.
Kristen continued. “Then she told me that it was you—of all people, the guy that did this to me!—that did something to her that made her realize that what she had been feeling was all wrong. She told me that you could make people do things that you wanted, and that a side-effect of what you did to her made her realize that the boy who raped her didn’t—couldn’t!—take away her sexuality, her femininity. We ended up talking for a long time.”
I waited for more from Kristen but there was nothing else forthcoming. I looked in Kristen’s tear-streaked eyes, and didn’t see the hatred that I saw in them just a few minutes ago.
“And you still hate me?” I finally asked.
“No.”
“You said the other day…”
“I said that Sherry loved you. I didn’t mean to imply that I didn’t, but when I realized what I said, it brought back the memories of that day with Patty. I felt guilty because I never told you that before.”
“Oh.”
I wasn’t entirely convinced, and there were lots of questions in my mind—questions I felt should wait for another day.
Kristen’s voice got even lower. “Patty did something strange that day.”
“Huh?”
“She said, ‘Can I try to make things better for you?’ I said, ‘Yeah, right.’ Like she can fix this addiction problem, right? Anyway, she comes over to me all of a sudden and pulls me very close and kisses me. It was totally unexpected, and I tried to pull away from her, but she had me pretty tight. After a few minutes she finally stopped.”
“Patty kissed you?”
Kristen didn’t answer my question but continued. “She asked me if I felt any different, and I asked, ‘You mean, do I still feel the addiction?’ and she nodded. I told her I did. She closed her eyes for a few moments and then said, ‘I’m sorry. The only person that can probably fix this is Jim.”
“Me?” I asked. “Ha! I tried and it didn’t work!”
Kristen ignored my outburst and continued her story. “Patty then turned to me and asked me, bluntly, how I felt about you. I was about to say that I still wanted to kill you, but then I stopped. Somehow, something did change!”
“What changed?”
“Well, it was like Patty thought she could kiss me and make the addiction go away. I mean, that’s nonsense, right? But Patty really thought that… she really believed it!”
“Yeah…?”
“Anyway, after that kiss, it was like, all that anger and hatred that I had was no longer there. I mean, I could still remember feeling that way, and I knew why I did, but the emotions were just memories… they weren’t… I don’t know. How do I describe it? They weren’t in the here and now anymore. It was like they disappeared!”
“Disappeared?”
Kristen shook her head. “I know this sounds crazy, Jim. It was like Patty figured she could, like, suck the addiction out of me. Only… she didn’t do that, but instead, it was like she sucked the bad emotions, the hatred. Do you know what I’m saying?”
“That sounds weird.”
Kristen nodded in agreement. “Yeah, but Patty had this look on her face. She started talking about you again, and this time, for some reason, I found myself a little more open to hearing what you did for her. She told me what you and she did in the mornings, and invited me to join her. I was about to tell her, ‘No way!’ but then that part of me that feels the addiction… well, it got the better of me.”
“The next day was the day you came over with Patty?”
Kristen nodded again.
“Patty and I talked a lot after that. Sometimes on the phone, sometimes face to face. She told me that I was a better match for you than she was and she had a feeling that not only did you feel terrible about what you did to me—which took a long time for me to believe!—but that you actually had feelings for me. It took a few days, but I came to enjoy being with you. And then, the afternoon after the first day of school… when you played that song for Patty and me…”
“For you,” I corrected.
“For me…” Kristen came over and gave me one of her erection special kisses. When we broke it off, Kristen finally added, “I realized that we were both stuck with each other. As much as my addiction made me like a slave to you—and I think that was the hardest part for me to accept—you were just as much a slave to me. Patty made me realize that you felt guilty every time that I suck you. You do, don’t you?”
“Well…” I admitted. I had mostly gotten over it, but I still had twinges of guilt over it. Surprisingly, that very morning, when Lynette woke me up by sucking me, I felt a bit of that guilt then!
Kristen smiled. “You do, and don’t tell me otherwise. Anyway, your guilt makes you just as much mine. I told you that more or less on New Year’s Day, Jim, after I spent a week in Europe thinking about everything. I don’t mind the addiction much any more because it binds the two of us together.”
I was about to answer Kristen when she gave me another one of her special kisses. It lasted a long time. I knew that I would need some private time to think about these new revelations.