Life Begins (23 page)

The closest I have ever had to a
real father was Jack's father. I think Jack has always felt like he
was competing with his father for my attentions.

I never loved his father. When his
father died, I cried because I lost the closest thing I ever had to
a parent of any sort. Jack's father looked after me because of how
Jack felt for me. I don't know that he would have taken care of me
otherwise. I think he truly saw me as his future daughter-in-law.
To help me was to help his son. And I don't think Jack ever knew
how much his father loved him.

I still don’t think Jack has any
idea of his father’s love. Of all of the lessons that his father
taught him, the one that Jack could never understand was that he
was loved. I don’t know if his father ever told him. Jack’s mom and
I have talked about it. His father was one of the most affectionate
men that you could find. But the man never actually said what he
was feeling. It was like he saw emotion as a weakness. He could be
motivated by emotions, but he would never let you know that was
what he was feeling. He always hid it behind some sort of moral
wisdom. He was reserved the entire time.

I guess Jack and I have both had
to deal with the sins of our fathers. Well, Jack’s isn’t really a
sin. It is just a trait that he inherited from his father. And I
don’t know if it is really inherited. I didn’t notice it until
after his father died.

If his father had any sins, I
think it was that he never said what he thought, felt, or knew. I
think he knew just how screwed up my family was. If I was ever
going to be any good for Jack, I would need intervention. Jack
doesn't even know how truly screwed up my family is. His father
wanted me to keep it that way. It was what he could do to protect
him from the harshness of life. He seemed to want Jack to remain
untouched for as long as he could.

Jack doesn't know that his father
kept stuff away from him. It was part of the secrets that his
father wanted me to keep from him. My secrets aren't bad. They are
just what happened at my house between my parents. I received his
father's advice and support in exchange for keeping this from
Jack.

I spent the majority of my
childhood taking care of my mother. She was so strung out on drugs
or alcohol for the majority of my life that it seems odd now for
her to be reasonably sober.

She still has been going out with
lots of men. There has been a constant flow ever since the divorce.
I don't especially like it, but I know that she is lonely and
looking for love. We can't always find what we need in life. My
father left her doubting her own self-worth.

I could have turned out like my
mother. I just hated my father so much that I decided a long time
ago that he would never have any influence over me. Jack's father
made me believe that I could rise above those circumstances. Jack
gave me a reason to be more.

He is more than a lover to me. He
is my best friend. I'm sorry that I played games in the past. Since
we have actually been a couple, I can't believe how good our
relationship is. I just know that more is in store for us. We can
still go to the next level. I want to love him
completely.

With our history, I think we
deserve to be each other's first. I don't care if this lasts
forever. I just want him now. Nobody else is ever going to love me
more than he does.

I'm struggling now with his
morals. While I respect his morals, they are causing me problems
right now. I mean, I like it that he can’t be swayed easily. I
respect that. I know that he will always make the right choice. I
couldn't find another man like that. It's just a little frustrating
right now.

Is it too much to ask for a little
gratification? It's not like he doesn't want it. And it's not like
he could really be charged with sex with a minor. I mean, he's
eighteen. I'm seventeen, but I'll be turning eighteen
soon.

I keep telling him that is what I
want for my birthday. Well, he asks, and I tell him…
[This has been edited by me. Seriously, this
woman has a filthy mouth. I want our first time to be beautiful.
She is making it so coarse. I figured that you could fill in the
blank. Ironically that is the gist of what she said that I had to
edit in the first place.]

Oh, whatever. You're still upset
that I've offered to take you from a constitution to a blood
covenant. I figured the little Jewish boy would prefer the blood
covenant over the law.

~~~

She is terrible. And she wonders why we
haven't had sex. She is not ready for the commitment. She takes the
religious and makes it profane. She misses the beauty of our
relationship. I have never been able to get her to understand what
I am offering her. There is nothing vulgar or vile about what we
would do. It is not doing the nasty. It is becoming one in
spirit.

~~~

Whatever. I am offering him the
greatest commitment that I can make. It's not like I'm offering it
to anybody else. I would just like a bite.

~~~

She would like more than just a bite from what
I have heard. She would like a bite, a nibble, some sucking,
and…

We could go on like this forever. It's the
nature of our relationship. But the fact is that I seriously don't
know what it would be like to have sex with Christine. I know that
it would be a major commitment. I still need to find a way to do it
under the Laws of God. It will be me finding out how to exert my
own free will to do what I feel like doing without breaking God's
Laws. I have not figured that out yet.

I think a solution is possible. I am the son
of a lawyer. If there is one thing that my father taught me, it is
that the law can always be used to get around things. That is the
inherent evil of law. Although it provides order, a lawyer can
manipulate words to get a desired effect for their
client.

My problem is that I can't resolve how to get
around the Law. If I slept with Christine, I would be required to
marry her under the Law. In God's eyes, we would be married. I
could do this, but I would have to secure a marriage from her while
she is still a minor. That would require the consent of her
parents. I know that would not happen. This also means that I can't
marry her in order to have sex with her.

And with my whole future in front of me, do I
really want to get married? We love each other now, but we could
have different directions in life. We would have to agree to walk
along the same path and to go to the same college. Marriage is not
practical while we are still in high school. This all puts sex out
of the question. I can't make a commitment for the rest of my life
with so much of the future up in the air.

So it is not a question of love or desire. I
am looking at the commitment and how to keep it. If I were to marry
somebody else, would it be fair to them if I slept with Christine?
Although I love her, my future wife deserves my entire heart. She
can never have that if I sleep with Christine. The same holds true
for Christine. If I slept with somebody else, would it be fair to
her?

It goes back again to the simple rules of God.
Everything is either about man's relationship to God or man's
relationship with man. My future is uncertain. I can't commit to
sex right now.

I know that she would like for me to take her
away from her family and to create a new life for us. I just don't
know how to do it. I'm still far too young for all of
this.

I feel like I have two paths set before me. I
could be famous, or I could have Christine. For most of my life, I
was ready to choose the famous path. That is why I would have
married Melinda. She fit into that path. With Christine, though, I
don’t want anything more out of life than to be a husband or
father. Maybe that is what life is really about. Maybe we aren’t
supposed to aspire to be anything more than great lovers and
parents.

I would look to my father for advice, but… His
life doesn’t provide any answers. From what I have been told, he
could have been a great lawyer. He was the kind that could have
been on all of the news programs giving advice or defending all of
the high profile cases.

For some reason, he decided to stay small and
help the poor and wrongly accused. I have heard that he didn’t want
the big cases because of how it would affect me and Mom. He said
that his place was here. The high profile cases were usually rich
people that could afford another lawyer. Their money would get them
off anyway.

I don’t think I believe him, though. I saw how
he talked during the high profile cases that were on T.V. He would
turn to me and say, “Now, Jack, this is how you should do it…” It
was the only time that I saw my father get really animated about
anything. He seemed to care. He seemed to put down his reserved
exterior.

I liked spending time with him like that. It
was like it was my real father. He got as excited as other boys’
fathers got during a game of football or baseball. He just had
something that made him so happy that he just couldn’t hide it.
That was the only time that I ever saw my father like
that.

Could I live with myself if I turned down my
chances to become famous? What if that was my purpose in life? I
wish my father would have told me if I had a destiny. It would make
it easier to decide what I should do. I can see him with that sly
smile on his face. He is enjoying my anguish over this life
decision. It’s the thought process that he loves.

I wonder if he had any regrets with the
decisions he made. Would he have done it any differently if he were
given the chance? Or did he get it right?

Comedy is to me what law was to my father.
Could I turn away from it and find happiness in just being a
husband and father? Would that satisfy me when the world tells me
that I should want more?

And it’s not that I don’t love Christine. I am
just being asked to make a decision based entirely on love. I wish
I could stay in school forever.

I don't know why we are so eager to grow up
when we are young. When we get older, we will want to return to our
youth. Maybe Christine and I should get married. We have never
really had a childhood. Getting married would make us an official
couple. We have always been taking care of each other. We might as
well make it legal.

I don't know. I just can't do this right now.
I would like to keep what little I have left of my childhood until
I am fully ready to become an adult.

But with the loss of all innocence anyway, is
sex really that big of a deal? It would seem small next to what all
we have already gone through. It would at least be an enjoyable
entry into adulthood. I don't think our previous experiences with
the adult world have been pleasurable or worth
repeating.

I wonder why they call it losing your
virginity. I mean, some people have it taken from them, but most
people lose it by choice. And it's not like you are really losing
it. You know where it is going. It's not like you are going to lose
it and then find it in the lost and found box. You don't misplace
it, unless you miss your mark completely.

I would hope that I wouldn’t miss my mark. It
would be easy for a man to do. In the heat of the moment and with
everything being lubricated, I could see me missing my mark. I
mean, I have problems hitting the toilet sometimes. And I’m not
even excited.

~~~

We could test your scientific
theories of lost virginities. I'm not beyond appealing to your
scientific reasoning. Come on, Jack. All matter has to go
somewhere. It never just disappears. I mean, if I take yours and
you take mine, then aren't we still left virgins? We would both be
left with a virginity. It doesn't matter that it wasn't our
original one. Let's see where your virginity goes. You could write
a paper on this.

~~~

I would rather not write a paper on the
theories of lost virginities. I am kind of intrigued by her
experiment, though. It would make perfect sense that if I take hers
and she takes mine, then we would both still be left
virgins.

With my luck, though, my virginity would
disappear in a black hole and never be seen again. I haven't quite
advanced in science enough to master black holes. I just know that
they are bad business in science fiction films. No good ever comes
out of them.

So I am ending my autobiography without a
proper ending. I can't help it. I am only eighteen. I don't know
where my life is going. Everything I have written has told a story
leading up to me having sex with Christine. Since I have not done
that yet, I don't have a climax for this book. Instead I have an
ending that doesn't satisfy the reader or the
participants.

That's life. It doesn't always end the way
that we want it to. We can't always write an ending that pleases
us. Maybe some things don't end. They just keep going
on.

That’s going to be frustrating. I don’t think
I can go on much longer like this. I want to have sex with her. I
love her. I just can’t find a way to do what I really want to do
without upsetting everything else I want to do. And I’m sure sex is
good and all. I mean, a lot of people have done a lot of stuff just
to have it, which is amazing considering that it doesn’t really
take that long, even when the guy is exceptional at it. It just
seems like a lot of trouble could come from a few moments of
extreme pleasure.