Abomination (7 page)

Jamie spent the first two days probing her personal life and was disappointed when he learned that she was still involved with her beau of three years from college.  That she still saw him every weekend.  He was finishing up the fifth year of his architecture program in Baltimore, but as soon as he graduated the following May, he would join her in Philadelphia.  She said she loved him, said that they had plans for the future, but Jamie knew better, knew that most college romances were physical affairs that were easily shredded once the reality of the separation set in.  He made it a priority from day one to speed up that process, to make her forget Mis
ter Architect-Still-in-Maryland because he wanted her and he knew that if he didn’t stake a claim, one of his classmates would. 

He began his seduction innocently enough.  The freshman and sophomore lecture halls were next door to one another, and he would chat with her between classes as well as in the student lounge in the morning.  Sometimes he would join her and her friends for lunch in the cafeteria.  They became casual friends.  After several weeks of this, he began to offer to tutor her or help her with her lab work if she was interested.  His actions were innocent flirtations, his way of letting her know he wanted to spend more time with her without being overly aggressive.  If she wouldn’t join him for a study session, she definitely would not join him for dinner. 
Or a night of sex.  She politely rebuffed his offers each time with a laugh and a smile, insisting that she was doing just fine.

He pushed the rejections aside with good humor, keeping his eye on the big picture, on the ultimate prize.  Staying on good terms with Samantha, continuing to foster their friendship, was the only important thing.  Sooner or later her college romance would shatter, a
s most did when distance was involved, and he wanted to be the one she came to when that happened. Wanted to be the one to catch her when she fell.

As the leaves on the trees began to turn color and a chill crept into the Philly air, as first trimester gave way to the second, the demands and rigors of the dental school curriculum became a weight so heavy that Samantha no longer spent her weekends in Maryland.  Jamie would often see her at the school library on Fridays and Saturdays, her nose buried deep in a physiology or dental anatomy book, or in the pre-lab setting denture teeth or waxing up crowns. 

Jamie remembered the day that Samantha had first approached him as if it were just yesterday.  It was the Saturday before the Thanksgiving weekend.  The following week was a prime time for teachers to give tests and have assignments due.  He had been sitting at a table in the library studying for his dental radiology midterm, every inch of his workspace littered with open books, notebooks, note cards, work sheets and copies of tests from previous years.  Food and drink were technically not allowed in the library, but he had a large bottle of water and a bag of sourdough pretzels near at hand and no one had asked him to dispose of them.

He was sifting through his half-inch thick stack of old tests, looking for last year’s midterm, when he heard her voice behind
him. 

Jamie
, Samantha said.  He turned slowly, finding a coquettish smile on her face.
I have a huge physiology test on Monday and I could really use your help.

And that was the beginning of the end of Samantha Hendricks and
Mister Architect-Still-in-Maryland.

During the month of December they met two or three times a week, the day and time dictated by what
class Samantha needed help in.   They kept their study sessions to the library and pre-lab and cafeteria at first, public places where he had to behave himself; nothing too intimate.  One evening in the pre-lab, where Jamie was showing Samantha his secrets to setting denture teeth, she admitted that she was still seeing Kyle McCoy (Mister Architect-Still-in-Maryland) but that it wouldn’t last much longer.  They both had demanding schedules and a mountain of work, and while Kyle was resolute on keeping the relationship going, she didn’t think she could.  The distance and time was just too much.   Jamie had nodded sagely and offered a sympathetic hug, which she eagerly accepted.

Over the next month, once Samantha admitted that her college romance was ultimately doomed, things moved swiftly.  Studying moved from the school to a local Barnes and Nobles and finally to their apartments.  She visited Kyle twice that month, and on more than one occasion when they were studying, he would call on her cell.  Jamie never asked what they did during those visits or what they spoke about over the phone.  It wasn’t his business and he didn’t want to come off as possessive.  After all, they weren’t dating
yet, and she and Kyle were technically still a couple, although one about to splinter apart. 

On February thirteenth, Samantha called Jamie to announce that she was officially single again.

On February fourteenth, Valentine’s Day, they went on their first official date.  They ate dinner at TGI Fridays then saw
Avatar
at the local Lowe’s Theater, sharing a large butter popcorn, a box of snowcaps and a large coke while they watched.  He put his arm around her shoulder during the movie and kissed her on the cheek at the end of the night, but that was it.

They went bowling the following Friday night, eating dinner and sharing a couple of drinks afterwards at the attached pub.  Samantha beat him all three games they played, scoring in the high hundreds while he consistently hovered around one-fifty.  She smiled at him sweetly
after each spare and each strike and each win, but she didn’t rub his nose in her superior bowling ability.  He wondered if she had belonged to the bowling team in high school.

The next evening found them at his one bedroom apartment.  He cooked dinner, a simple meal of spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread and steamed broccoli
, with Rocky Road sundaes for dessert.  It wasn’t much in the way of fancy, but it stretched his meager culinary abilities to their limits, and he considered himself lucky that everything was edible.  After dinner they curled up on the couch and watched when
Harry Met Sally
.  They made out for most of the movie, and Jamie was tempted to press farther.  He saw in Samantha’s eyes and felt it in her body that she wanted him to go farther, but it was only the third date and he didn’t want to ruin a good thing.  When the movie was over, she gave him a hard kiss on the lips and left.  He promptly went to the bathroom to masturbate.

The following Friday he asked Samantha what she wanted to do that evening.  She told him that she had a tough gross anatomy test on Monday and that she and her lab group would be spending most of Friday and Saturday reviewing the half a dozen cadavers in the lab.  But they could have lunch Sunday.

Tired from his own grueling week of classes, he decided to stay home that night and unwind.  He brought in Burger King for dinner and shoveled the greasy fast food into his mouth as he flipped through channels, never stopping on any one station for more than three minutes.  At eight o’clock, Samantha called to check in on him, to see where he was and what he was up to and to ask if he missed her.  Very much, he had said to the last question.  Fifteen minutes later, there was a knock at his front door.  When he opened the door, he found Samantha standing there wearing a black trench coat which fell to mid-thigh.  He smiled and invited her in.  He closed and locked the door behind her, and when he turned around, the coat was in a pile on the floor and she was clothed in only a pair of black panties and a shear black teddy.  His first thought was
Oh my fucking god. 
His second was
I hope she wore pants when driving over because its ten degrees out.  
She didn’t give him time for a third thought.  She began to kiss him while tearing his clothes off and the next thing he knew they were in his bed, going at it like animals.

That was the beginning of a relationship Jamie truly believed would be consecrated by the words
I Do
and last until one of them shed their mortal coil.  On the most basic of levels, she fulfilled his every primal, carnal need.  They had sex four, five, sometimes six times a week.  Her libido never faltered, never faded, never waned.  Even when it was her time of the month and the idea of intercourse was a messy proposition and out of the question, she would still ask him to get her off, and in return she would give him an extra-long, extra-sensuous blowjob.  The sex was
awesome (both the quality and quantity), and that was of utmost importance to any guy in his early twenties, but it wasn’t the only thing which attracted him to Samantha.  Her body was perfect and her skills exquisite (sometimes it made him queasy thinking about where she had honed those skills), but her mind wasn’t too shabby, either.  She was smart and knowledgeable, well-read and world-traveled.  She could hold her own in most conversations and arguments.

Samantha Hendricks was the perfect amalgam of brains and beauty, and the two and a half years they spent together in Philadelphia were absolute magic.

When he relocated back to northern Jersey to begin his residency in June after graduating, she promised him that nothing would change between them, that she would put all of her energy into her work and her studies and that would keep her from missing him too much when they were apart.  He believed her, partly because he thought it was true, and partly because he desperately wanted it to be true.  She was older and wiser than the sorority girl she had been when they had met, twenty-four compared to twenty one, and driven by more than just her libido.  She had more mature desires at that point in her life.  She talked about marriage and settling down and having children.  He was the one she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. 

He should have known better. 

The old axiom said
absence makes the heart grow fonder
.   In Samantha Hendricks’ case, it went
absence makes the cunt go wander
. 

Jamie sighed as he shifted on the uncomfortable motel bed.

The relationship wasn’t over.  Not officially, but it was heading downhill quickly.  Samantha could deny her slippage all she wanted.  But he knew.  Zebras couldn’t shed their stripes and leopards couldn’t change their spots and people simply didn’t change their natures.   The signs had been there since the month after they separated but he had rationalized them away, not wanting to see the truth unwind before him.   He refused to see—or failed to see—the writing on the wall, failed to comprehend that he was slowly becoming Mister Architect-Still-in-Maryland.

Mister Doctor-Now-In-Newark.

During July and August and September he had visited Samantha every weekend, going to the mall or the bookstore or watching television in her apartment while she studied.  It wasn’t like when they were both in school and saw each other every day, but it was enough for him.

It proved not to be enough for her.

Come October, he saw her only two weekends out of the four.  She claimed that she was swamped with work and didn’t need the distraction.  On one hand, he understood the distancing.  All of the stress that accompanied senior year, the final year of the trial by fire, was suddenly bearing down on her.  There were requirements to complete and tests to take and mock boards to study for.  It was a grueling final six months, and maybe his presence would be too much of a distraction.  But on the other hand… Samantha was a girl who released her stress, took a break from the rigors of studying, by fucking, and here she was telling him that she was fine without sex for two weeks.  And during the two weekends he did spend with her, she acted distracted, distant; even during sex, when she normally displayed an almost feral passion, she seemed almost  disinterested.

That was his first clue that something was wrong, but he
initially chalked up her lack of interest and energy to the strain and demands of school.  His mind made excuses, but deep down he knew the truth.  He just didn’t want to accept it.  Or even look at it.

The second clue came the first week in November, only
four weeks ago, when he decided to surprise Samantha.  It was now the third weekend she asked him not to come down to Philly because she was inundated.  He went down that Saturday anyway, his overnight bag containing a bottle of wine, scented bubble bath and edible, warming massage lotions.  He intended to do everything in his power to loosen her up and make her forget about school, if only for an evening.

He approached the door to her apartment and was about to knock when he heard a man’s voice coming from inside.  He stopped, his knuckles a mere inch from the door, then chided himself for being so paranoid.  It was the television.  It had to be.  But then he heard the voice again, this time as a laugh, followed by Samantha’s own giggle, and he knew that there was another man inside.  Could be a study partner.  Could be a whole study group.  But he didn’t think so.

He knocked on the door and Samantha asked who it was.  She sounded tipsy. 
It’s me
, he remembered saying, blood beginning to pound in his ears.  She opened the door slightly, trying to prevent him from seeing inside, but there was no chain latch, and he bulled his way past her into the apartment and into the main room where he found one of Samantha’s classmates, a douche named Peter Fauerbach, trying to escape into the bathroom before he was seen.  He froze when he saw Jamie. 

Jamie remembered the tableau with an aching clarity.  Peter and Samantha in their jammies, both tipsy, books and papers and notecards scattered about the floor like a tornado had ripped through the small apartment.  Jamie remembered the fear on Peter’s face.  He remembered Samantha begging him not to hurt Peter. 
We were just studying
, she cried, her voice almost a sob. 
We didn’t do anything. 
He remembered using every ounce of willpower to lower his blood pressure and smother the anger which rapidly swelled within him.  Because when he got angry, people got hurt.