Jenifer’s even comfortable enough to enjoy a little mild flirtation with me. Last night while I was working the front counter like I always do on Thursday nights, Jenifer’s friend Jill Moppingworth came into the store and said she saw Jenifer making out with some guy outside. Now I had already seen Jenifer that evening and I knew she was lurking around outside socializing giggling and goofing around with Jill doing girl things so I knew that Jill was just fucking with me. Still, even though it gave me weird pain in the heart to hear the words, I knew it was the joke that all girls get around to playing on their boyfriend to see if he really really likes them. Melanie did it by saying she was pregnant and observing my reaction. My slight empathic abilities always let me know when a situation is serious and I know the right way to respond to these things so I puffed up my chest and said “I don’t care” in my best I-don’t-give-a-shit-voice. I knew that this would even out the playing field a little bit and accelerate the relationship between us for the good or bad. Sure enough two seconds after Jill went bouncing outside in her giggly girlish manner Jenifer came in pretending to be mad and said “So you don’t care huh?” in her best pouty/hurt voice. Then we both cracked up and just smiled at each other. It was such a small thing but it made my heart soar. I knew Jenifer knew I really loved her and for the first time and that it was not repulsive for her to imagine me caring that much. The playfulness in that exchange made me so happy. I don’t know how I can explain it here, only extreme love or intense anger can drive the words from an intellectual man’s mind. I had an old grade school “check this box” confirmation that she liked me back. It made my whole night.
I am so self-conscious about her and Kristoff hanging out together because I am scared of him taking her away from me. I now know that if it weren’t for Kristoff stringing her along the way some men magically have the ability to do, Jenifer and I would be together. I am such a stupid silly slave of love. I wonder if I could get away with killing Kristoff? That would just make him into a martyr though. You know, the same way popular girls talk about their best friend and hang up pictures of a boy they never even spoke to in high school after he dies tragically in some drunken binge. If Kristoff died now, her heart would be buried with him.
On a lighter note, my swim class is still a joke.
Auuuugghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I can’t take the depression that comes with this newfound love. I am now thinking of Jen all the time and I get depressed when I am not around her. I have started getting these stupid suspicious feelings even if I know what the score is and that I have no right to feel this way. I follow her on my bicycle and see her at the Karma Kafé most nights. I feel like I am overcrowding her and this is going to be a turn-off point in everything we have built. I even try to play it cool, like I am just going out for a casual evening bike ride in the 100-degree weather. Right. I am such a loser sometimes. I’ve done that a couple of nights recently but today was the worst. I talked to her on the phone this afternoon, which is a weird bonus because she hates talking on the phone almost as much as I do. I am beginning to see the telephones advantage in alleviating loneliness though.
She was at her parents’ house here in Denton and in her sexy southern way she said she was sunbathing naked on the roof and would be there all afternoon. Well, the thought of that made me swoon and there was some definite swelling in the loins from the mental visualization I got of her supple sexy body on the hot gritty shingles of her house. Now there was no invitation in the slightest for me to come over. In fact I think she hinted that she wanted to be left alone for a while and any decent person would have respected that. And being the indecent person that I am, and that I vaguely remembered flying past her parents house on one of our back-road pot-smoking cruising sessions in her car, I got the notion to go for another bike ride. It’s only about 130 degrees during the hottest part of the afternoon on a cloudless day and I decide to casually ride a couple of miles over to a place I only vaguely remember.
Smart.
I didn’t even take the time to think about what I would do when/and if I got there. I just hopped on my bike and pedaled off like a dumbass. Visions of a glistening body lying in the sunshine. Sunshine would be my friend. It was one of those plans that I was sure would work out as long as I didn’t take the time to think about the next step, like a cartoon character that falls only after he acknowledges the lack of ground underneath him. But I’m in love and these sorts of things work themselves out all the time right? Well, sort of. I found the place pretty easily and I rode casually back and forth in front of it for a while trying to work up the courage to approach the house or capture a glimpse of her naked body on the roof, fully realizing the stupidity in my lack of planning.
Sweat is pouring off of me in rivers. I am flushed with heat and the blood is in my muscles not my brain as she answers the door and looks none too thrilled to find me there. Plus I stink now too. The only thing I can think to do is ask for a glass of water which she casually gives me and shows me around her parents’ awesome house. There are all these craft things everywhere, and not the painted wooden duck and “bless this house” crafty shit, but high society genuine craft shit. Her mom has a giant loom on the second floor that she’s used to make these really great rugs and wall hangings. I think this is neat because I’ve seen looms in history books, usually with pitiful pre-child-labor-law children slaving over them, but I have never seen a loom up close. I have a million questions, but Jenifer thinks I am being a dumb boy and bullshitting her. The loom is a wondrous wooden creation with its thousands of threads and tentacle arms. It has probably been sitting up there her whole life and she hasn’t thought twice about it in years. Her dad is a potter so they also have a giant walk in kiln in the backyard for firing his creations and it’s also perfect for disposing bodies if that’s your thing. The way she describes her father sometimes I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he’s been kidnapping and torturing people, searing away their flesh and bones in his giant kiln while he casually makes his pottery. Her dad has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which generally makes him an asshole I guess, but he is probably one of the best potters in the whole world. He’s sort of a mad genius always configuring his own glazes, trying to perfect a piece or else out on the road selling his dish sets at art shows. He’s not the ashtray and vase maker kind of potter if you get my drift. All of their dishes and glasses in the house are his work. As well as the bird feeders in the yard, the birdbaths and their sink basins. She even showed me a dildo he made and kept hidden that her parents didn’t think she knew about. Yeah that’s weird. But I digress.