CHAPTER 20: CHAPTER 20

Then she seemed to hesitate before she turned back to me.

I asked, "What was that about?"

"Oh, just something I have to do next week," she said.

I didn’t like the answer, and I wasn’t comfortable with what I had heard. The only thing I knew was that she was going to meet someone the following week, and she didn’t seem to want to share any more information with me. I wanted to ask more questions about it, but I had no reason to believe she was doing anything wrong, so I didn’t want to start a problem where none existed. Then she did something else that bothered me.

Instead of coming back over to me and resuming her play with my now-shrunken member, she paced nervously around the room for a minute then said, "I need to get out of this room for a while. Can we go somewhere?"

When we left her room, I glanced over at her notebook, but she had closed it so I couldn’t see what she had written. I wasn’t happy the rest of that day, but I didn’t say anything.

Everything seemed to be back to normal the next day and continued that way until the following Wednesday. On Wednesday, my four o’clock exam was canceled, so I headed over to Lucy’s apartment. I had gotten over my worry about the phone call she received, so when I got to the house, I was feeling pretty good. I ran up the stairs to her room, but she wasn’t there.

I went back downstairs to see if she was in the kitchen or out in the backyard trying to get a tan. There were two girls in the backyard that I didn’t know but figured that they must know someone in the house. So I asked them, "Do either of you know Lucy Krupp?"

One of the girls said, "Yeah, I know her."

"Have you seen her today?" I asked.

"Yeah, she was here. I think she left about twenty minutes ago," she answered.

"Did she happen to mention where she was going?" I asked again.

"She didn’t say anything, but I think she was going to see her ex-boyfriend," she replied.

When I heard that, my legs almost buckled under me. I had to hang onto the door handle to keep from falling. It felt as though all of the blood had drained from my head. I needed more information, so I tried to act unconcerned as I asked, "How do you know that?"

"A little while ago when she came back from her classes, I heard Susan telling her that Steve called and said that he was in town and wanted to see her. She ran upstairs. I asked Susan who Steve was, and she said that he was her ex-boyfriend," she said.

"Do you know where Susan is?" I asked.

"I don’t know. She left a while ago," she replied.

I said thanks and started to turn to go back into the kitchen when the girl I was talking to said, "Oh my God. Are you Lucy’s boyfriend?"

I looked back at her without saying a word, and she said, "Why can’t I keep my big mouth shut? I’m sorry."

I didn’t respond. I went back into the house and closed the door. I didn’t know what to do. I could go looking for them, but where would I look? And if I found them, what would I do? If she wants him, it’s over for us, and there is nothing I can do to change that.

I decided to go up to her room and wait for her to come back and make her tell me the truth. When I got up to her room, I started thinking, "What if she brings him here? What do I do then? That would be very humiliating for me."

I stayed anyway. As I sat, images started going through my head that were very disturbing. I kept having the image of Lucy playing with Steve’s dick the way she does with mine and then sucking him off. I was in such an agitated state that I had to get up and pace around the room.

That’s when I saw it. Lucy’s notebook was sitting on her desk right where it had been when she was talking on the phone, probably to Steve, the other day. I opened the book and turned to the last page she had written on. No help there, just some notes about reading assignments, so I turned back a page. Still nothing.

I had to go back five pages until I found what I was looking for. There on the top of the page, Lucy had written, "Wednesday 5:00 PM, 440 West Mohawk St."

I looked at my watch, and it was 4:45. That gave me fifteen minutes to get to where Lucy was meeting him. It took me twenty minutes to find Mohawk Street, then another five to find 440 West Mohawk. I just hoped that I didn’t get there too late. What if they had met there and left already? As I walked up the sidewalk to 440 West Mohawk, I saw a sign that didn’t immediately register with me. It said "Omni School for Developmentally Handicapped Children."

I went through the front door and found myself in an office area of some type. I was totally confused now. I was looking around, trying to figure out why she would be meeting Steve here. Then I thought they must have met outside and they already left.

Suddenly I heard a voice and it took a minute for me to realize that the owner of that voice was talking to me. It was someone who appeared to be a receptionist and she was asking me if she could help me. Not wanting to look like a complete idiot, I asked her a question, and it turned out to be the right one. I asked, "Is Lucy Krupp here?"

The receptionist said, "I believe so..." Then she consulted what looked like a desktop calendar and said, "Yes. She is here. She is being interviewed by Mr. Steinhower right now. They should be done in about a half hour if you would like to wait?"

"Yes, thank you," I said and sat down.

Then suddenly it started to make sense. Lucy was an education major with a psychology minor, and this was a school for the developmentally handicapped. She is here for a job interview.

Wait... a job interview when she hasn’t graduated? That sounds weird to me.

I felt very happy and stupid at the same time. Then it occurred to me that maybe she was still planning to see Steve. I decided to wait for her to come out and see what happened.

It turned out to be more like forty-five minutes before she came out from her interview. She looked directly at me, and it seemed to take a moment before it registered on her that I was there. Then a big smile lit up her face.

She came over to me and asked, "What are you doing here? How did you know I’d be here?"

"I peeked in your notebook," I replied.

"You sneak. I didn’t want to say anything to you about this until I knew if I got a job. I was too nervous, and I thought you would have made me even more nervous," she said.

"Well, did you get a job?" I asked.

We were outside on the sidewalk now, and Lucy started jumping around excitedly and said, "Yes, I got the job. I will start right after graduation. Now I can afford to stay here and work on my master’s degree. We have to go celebrate."

Later, as we were eating a celebratory dinner, I confessed about why I showed up at her interview. I told her about how the girl in the backyard told me that she was with Steve.

She got a little angry, and for a minute I thought it was directed at me, then she said, "That stupid little airhead. Why would she tell you something like that without knowing who you were or if what she was saying was true? Steve did call today and talked to Susan. He did say that he wanted to see me. I called him back and told him that I couldn’t see him. I told him about you and that I had no feelings for him. He said he understood and was happy for me, and that was the end of the call."

"I didn’t ask you to explain, but thank you for explaining anyway," I said.

"Do you remember the first time I told you I loved you?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied.

"When I said that, it was what I felt in my heart, and it is the way I still feel. When I said that, I was making a commitment to you. That you can always trust me to do the right thing for the good of us," she said.