April 2008
Waking up next to Pete had become one of her favorite things ever. He frequently spooned her, his hand possessively splayed out over her stomach. Other times, she’d wake up tucked into his side, with his arm wrapped around her shoulders. This was a slightly different boyfriend experience than she’d had before.
Previous to Pete, she had spent six months of her first year out of college on the hook with Henry, who didn’t admit to actually being her boyfriend. He was ok with qualifying their relationship as dating, but they weren’t exclusive and free to date other people. Allison told herself that she was fine with this, because hey, she was 22 and not looking for the guy she would end up marrying. It took her a few months before she worked up the courage to stay over at Henry’s overnight, out of the sheer anxiety of having to tell her parents she wouldn’t be coming home at night. But when she shared Henry’s bed with him, he rolled away after sex and slept on his own side while she slept on hers. Looking back at their relationship, she saw all the ways that he purposefully kept her at an arm’s length, trying hard to give her absolutely no reasons to develop feelings for him. She finally stopped seeing him after learning that for Henry, it wasn’t a hypothetical idea that they are free to see other people, like it was for her. He was actually dating another girl, the entire time that he was with her and sleeping with her too.
Senior year in college, she dated a guy named Patrick who preferred to go by Rick. He was a Resident Advisor in a freshman dorm and a big stickler for rules and ‘the right way to do things.’ She never spent the night with him, because he was afraid to get into trouble and lose his job. She was ok with that. They did have sex, usually in her room, in the daytime, while Dotty was at work or in class. He broke up with her towards the end of the semester, before graduation, saying something like ‘It was fun while it lasted, but now it’s done.’
And before that, there was Cameron Murphy, Murph to most, the guy she spent nearly three years of her life with, the guy she had sex with for the first time. They had started dating in the fall of her freshman year, while Cameron was a junior. He wasn’t part of the group of friends that was already forming at the time, the other freshmen who lived in the same dorm, Dotty, Leah, Pete, Josh, Shawn. He wasn’t in the a cappella group with her or the chorale and they didn’t share a lot of common interests, but somehow they still connected. They spent lots of time talking, and lots of time screwing around. She had spent a good number of nights sharing a bed with him too and had similar feelings about it in the first two years of their relationship. It wasn’t until after Cameron graduated that things soured for them and sharing a bed had lost its appeal. The geographical distance between them seemed to make him very jealous and distrusting and she eventually broke up with him. Perhaps she should have done it sooner than she did. Those last months completely tarnished the rest of the relationship previous to it and when Allison woke up in Pete’s arm in the morning, she didn’t consider it comparable to how she felt in Cameron’s.
Pete’s breath was brushed over her forehead, gently moving her hair as he slept, his arm draped around her waist. They started out slow last summer, while Alli still lived at home, and worried about confrontations with her parents over spending the weekend at Pete’s place. But a couple of months later, once she got her own place, they started seeing each other most weekends. They had the freedom to sleep naked and a queen-sized bed to do it in.
“You know, next weekend,” Pete spoke softly against her skin, his mouth moving along her jaw, “is alumni weekend.”
“Uh-huh,” Allison agreed, feeling all the tingles dispersing throughout her body as his kisses moved down to her neck.
“And we are going to be sleeping on Shawn’s couch,” he continued to kiss down to her collarbone. “So we are not going to be able to do this next weekend.”
“That sucks,” Alli’s fingers tangled in Pete’s hair as his mouth went down to her breast, planting soft kisses down towards her nipple.
“Yeah,” his tongue circled her nipple, “unless… you are incredibly insistent that you are comfortable with doing things on Shawn’s couch…” he left the sentence open, sucking her nipple into his mouth.
“I’m not,” her own voice sounded funny, affected by the sensation of Pete’s mouth on her. He worked her nipple with his tongue, grazing it ever so slightly with his teeth. She was starting to realize that she enjoyed just a little bit of pain mixed in with the pleasure, like when Pete used his teeth.
“I feel somewhat compelled,” Pete switched to her other nipple, “to keep you in this bed today. To make up for next week.”
She didn’t have a response for him this time, just moans encouraging what he was doing. He trailed his kisses down her body, pushing the blankets aside and positioning himself between her legs. He pushed her thighs apart with his hands and slid his tongue through her folds. Of course, she was already dripping with need after what his mouth had been doing to her breasts. He let his tongue glide through her slit, aiming for her opening, pushing inside it. Pete definitely knew how to make her come and he could do it in no time at all, if time was of the essence, but he was taking his time that morning. He circled her clit with his tongue, flicking it and kissing it, and moved away from it again, sliding it back down to her entrance.
His fingers joined in, first tracing the same path through her sopping wet folds, giving his mouth a brief respite, and then plunging inside, pressing in deep. He worked two fingers in and out of her at a leisurely pace while he gently sucked the folds in between his lips. Allison found herself getting so excruciatingly close to coming in response to everything he was doing, but each time he would back off, not letting her reach the climax yet.
“Oh God, Pete!” She couldn’t restrain the words any longer as he pulled away from her clit again, preventing her from tipping over the edge.
“Do you like this?” He looked up at her from between her legs, a devious grin across his face.
“It’s so good, but I don’t think I can stand much more of it,” she confessed.
“What would you like me to do?” His head tilted to the side, waiting.
“I need to come so bad,” she breathed out the words, closing her eyes and feeling her face flush.
“Just ask nicely,” there was a definite smile in his voice and his fingers picked up speed, driving into her.
“Pete, please,” she probably couldn’t blush any more intensely than she already had been, “please make me come, I really need it.”
He didn’t say anything in return, but his tongue was back on her, firmly licking her needy clit, and then sucking it in between his lips sharply. The pleasure that has been teetering on the very edge cascaded over her then. She felt herself shaking and shuddering while Pete continued to thrust his fingers inside.
“Holy shit!” she was crying out, pressing her hands to her chest. It felt phenomenal.
Pete had moved away, no doubt to get a condom, while she worked on calming her breathing again. He leaned over her, kissing her mouth, and when he pulled away, she saw that he was stroking himself. She couldn’t explain why exactly she liked seeing that, what she found to be a turn-on about it, but seeing Pete’s hand slide over the length of his cock made her thighs clench together.
“Roll over, dear,” he smiled down at her. She did, pulling up on her knees and sticking her ass out for him. She could hear the crinkle of the foil packet ripping open and moments later he was behind her, guiding his cock towards her opening. His hand rested on her hip as he slowly slid himself inside. It felt amazing being filled by him. He started thrusting in, working on establishing a steady rhythm. His hand went to her shoulder, seemingly pulling her back towards his cock. Her chest pointed down towards the bed, with her head resting on the pillow, and her nipples gently brushed against the sheets, producing a wonderfully arousing sensation.
She liked hearing Pete tell her what he wanted her to do and this position, which always felt slightly rougher, slightly more intense, really turned her on as well. She could imagine enjoying it if Pete had decided to grasp her hair in his hand instead of her shoulder too.
Pete pounded hard and fast from behind, bringing her to another orgasm. She turned her head, letting go of a scream into her pillow. She pressed her ass back towards him, relishing how deep his cock reached inside her.
“Do you like it a little rough like this?” Pete’s voice sounded gruff.
“Oh God, yes,” she admitted, her eyes closed, submitting to the intensity of all the sensations.
“I’m not hurting you, am I?” He checked, his voice quieter.
“Mhmm… no… so good,” forming sentences wasn’t so easy at this point.
It wasn’t much longer before Pete was coming, pressing in deep, groaning through his own release. She loved the way he tightened his grip on her when he came. She felt his weight on her as he leaned forward and a loss when he pulled out.
After their ten months together, this was Allison’s second longest relationship, but in a way, it felt even longer than that because they have known each other for six years leading up to it. They had a certain level of closeness and intimacy that was unmatched, even by Cameron, whom she was definitely in love with at one point. But perhaps she was in love with Pete now, just afraid to admit it out loud and bumble it, like their first night together.
Being a couple with Pete while among their mutual friends started out a bit awkward. There were comments and jokes, but all of them good-natured – their friends were rooting for them. No one told them that this was a bad idea or asked them what would happen when they break up. Dotty was still their biggest champion, claiming that she knew it would be forever. But at alumni weekend, there were a lot more people who didn’t yet know about their relationship, a lot of people with whom they didn’t exactly keep in touch. It was a bit of a shock to some of their a cappella friends, who seemed to have no clue or indication that this would happen. Pete was unapologetic about professing to the world that Allison was his girlfriend. He held her hand, wrapped his arm around her, kissed her in public.
They went out to The Cove with a bunch of the a cappella alumni and a few of their other friends. The bar was jammed full, with lots of other alumni and locals hanging out on a Friday night. The Cove had karaoke and they all knew the guy running it. He made some jokes at their expense as the large group settled in the front, towards the small stage, saying ‘Uh-oh, the Spartones are here, no one else will be able to get a song in edgewise.’ They were having a good night, having a few drinks, getting up there and singing, which they hadn’t had much opportunity to do these days. Pete and Allison got up to do a duet together of Dream a Little Dream of Me, which was very well received. Pete wrapped an arm around Alli’s waist and pulled her in for a big kiss at the end of the song as their friends whooped and applauded. They stepped down off the low stage heading towards their table.
“I’m gonna go use the bathroom and then get myself another drink on the way back,” Allison announced. “Want anything?” She looked over at Pete.
“Sure,” he picked up his pint glass. “Get me another beer?” She nodded, walking away towards the bathroom.
It took her a moment before the bartender took her order and then she stood at the bar waiting for him to get her whiskey sour and Pete’s beer, one foot up on the rail surrounding the bar. She didn’t react right away when he appeared beside her and jumped slightly at the sound of his voice.
“Hey Alli,” Cameron leaned on the bar next to her.
“Hey,” she was surprised to see him. It has been years since they’ve been in the same place at the same time. Neither of them was local to the college town where they had met nor did they live near each other these days, so she’s never previously run into him like this. “How’re you doing?”
“I’m ok, I guess,” he shrugged his shoulders. “How are you doing?”
“Good,” she smiled at him. The bartender slid the drinks over to her and she paid, looking back up at Cameron once the exchange was complete. Cameron was looking down at the two drinks in her hands.
“I saw you guys up there,” he nodded towards the stage, then looked back at Allison, “with your friend… Pete was his name, yeah?” There was something weird in Cameron’s voice that put her off a bit.
“Yeah,” she nodded along, a knot starting to tighten in her belly.
“You guys are… seeing each other now?” There were deeply creased frown lines on his forehead.
“Mhmm,” she confirmed.
“How long has that been going on?” She didn’t like the tone of his voice. It seemed accusatory and she wasn’t entirely certain what he was trying to accuse her of.
“Ten months,” her response was curt. She wasn’t smiling anymore. The nerves were welling up inside her, wondering where Cameron was going with this.
“Really?” His eyebrows went up. “Just ten months? Not at all before that?” He looked at her skeptically. She felt her face heat, a mixture of feeling embarrassed and flustered.
“Umm, there was this one time, like a year before that,” she confessed quietly. Cameron was nodding, narrowing his eyes at her.
“And… say… maybe when we were still together and doing the long-distance thing?” She felt her eyes grow wide at his insinuation as she shook her head involuntarily.
“No, nothing like that,” she told him.
“Because, if I remember things correctly,” his hand came up to stroke his full, trimmed beard. “That was a thing I said back then, that you must be fucking someone on the side, right, if you’re not interested in me when I come out 250 miles to see you?”
Allison’s mouth hung open, her eyes wide. She couldn’t believe he was bringing this up again. They were starting up exactly where they had left off when they broke up and it was dumbfounding. It has been over five years now! Why was he still harping on this stupid suspicion of his?
“No! Cameron, no. We were just friends then,” she assured him. “I never cheated on you with anyone.”
“I don’t know, it all seems like such a fucking coincidence though, doesn’t it?”
****
“Is that Murph?” Shawn nodded towards the bar. The name didn’t click in Pete’s head immediately.
“Who?” He didn’t turn, looking at Shawn instead.
“You know, Alli’s Murph. I think he’s talking to her back there,” Shawn nodded his head again. Pete hated that description of the guy, but turned this time to look at them. She seemed to be nodding in the affirmative to something Murph was saying. Yeah, that was definitely him, Alli’s ex that she stuck around with much longer than everyone thought she should have.
He wasn’t part of their group, by his own choice. He seemed to look down on them, as if they were childish and juvenile. He did come out to parties, even though it was obvious that the only reason he came was because he didn’t like Alli going out without him. He was very possessive, jealous, and had a short temper. Alli always tried to convince them all that Murph was a really nice guy and that he cared a lot about her. He was incredibly loyal, she said, and was ready to do anything for his friends. But the only impression Pete got was that he was gruff and sullen. Alli said that when they finally broke up, it was because he didn’t trust her, with the geographical distance between them after he graduated. That he was always suspicious she was doing something behind his back.
He watched them now, as the smile left Alli’s face while her conversation with her ex continued and Pete willed himself to be the better man, to not jump in there and act all possessive and protective. She could talk to anyone she wanted to talk to. But once he saw Alli’s mouth drop open while she shook her head and the words exchanged between her and Murph seemed more confrontational from a distance, based on their body language, he got up out of his seat.
“Hey, man, how’s it going?” He extended his hand out to Murph as he approached, stopping right next to Alli.
“Hey,” Murph, jutted his chin out at him but didn’t shake his hand. His gaze switched back to Alli. “Did he know that you and I were still together? Or did you lie to both of us?” Pete was thoroughly confused by that question.
“Cameron, I swear I never cheated on you! You can ask Pete, you can ask any other one of our friends,” she gestured towards the tables, most of the occupants of which were now staring in their direction. “The first time that Pete and I hooked up was in June 2006. There’s never been anything before that. I was not hooking up with anyone while I was with you, ever.” Alli looked as if she was ready to cry and Pete finally understood what the accusation was that Murph had made.
“It’s true,” he confirmed. “I was actually seeing a couple of different people that year, when you guys were doing the long-distance thing, and neither of them was Alli.”
Murph swore under his breath and turned to the bar momentarily, pounding his fist on it. The anger in his face was frightening and Pete found himself shifting in his place, getting ready to put his body between Alli and Murph.
“Fuck! It just burns me up that you… fucked the whole thing up, Alli,” he growled through his teeth. “We had a really good thing, my mom was gonna let me use my grandmother’s ring,” he seemed to hiss at that, “and she really liked you, you know? She kept telling me that I had to find a fucking way to fix it. And how could I fucking fix the fact that I couldn’t be here 24/7, keeping you from screwing other guys?!”
“But I wasn’t,” her voice was quiet and her eyes wide as she shook her head. Pete stepped to the side, putting Alli partially behind himself.
“I really don’t think she was, man,” Pete butted in. Murph opened his mouth to say something else when two of his buddies approached him, one of them clapping a hand on his shoulder.
“Let’s get out of here,” Kevin said, his voice and the look on his face both seemed apologetic, like he was embarrassed for his friend.
“You know, Alli’s with this guy now,” he nodded towards Pete again, “the same guy who was supposedly JUST a friend, back when we were doing the long-distance thing. It’s not a coincidence, right?” Murph appealed to his buddies.
“You’re getting too fucking worked up about this, Murph,” Kevin told him quietly. “You have a serious girlfriend at home, there is absolutely no reason for you to be doing this here.” Pete felt his eyebrows rise on his forehead. He couldn’t imagine ever confronting any of his exes this way, not even if he had some kind of irrefutable proof that they had cheated on him.
“I just can’t stand knowing that… the fucking girl played me like this!” Murph wasn’t screaming. Instead, everything he said came out as a growl.
“I didn’t,” Alli had tears in her eyes now, which Pete only saw when he turned back to look at her because he was now standing completely in front of her, blocking her entirely from Murph.
Pete has never been in a fight in his life. He has never thrown a punch. And although he definitely had a couple of inches of height on Murph, the other guy looked a lot more solid than him and possibly had experience using his fists, considering how hot-tempered he had always been. Nonetheless, Pete would definitely take a beating for Alli, though it looked unlikely that he’d have to, seeing the way Murph’s friends were actively trying to pull him out of the bar. His other friend’s hand was now on his shoulder too, holding him in a firm grip as he encouraged him to walk away.
“Just go,” Kevin motioned to Pete with his hand. “He’s just being an asshole. There’s no need to stick around and indulge him in this.”
“I’m being an asshole, huh? Not the chick who fucking cheated on me?” Murph hissed at his friend. Pete turned, giving Alli a nod in the direction of where their friends sat, though a couple of the guys had stood up and were watching the whole confrontation at half the distance between the bar and their table. He waited for her to get most of the way there, while Murph continued to curse under his breath, then gave Kevin and the other guy a quick salute in gratitude for defusing, and followed her to the table.
Leah already had Alli wrapped up in her arms as she sobbed into her friend’s shoulder. He took over, pulling Alli to himself and stroking her hair. Someone had gone to get her a glass of water and they sat down, Pete pulling Alli into his lap and holding her there. Everyone was pretty quiet, the mood effectively ruined for the night. Shawn suggested they head back to his place and reboot for tomorrow, which sounded like a good idea.
They made up the pull-out sofa in Shawn’s living room and Pete pulled Alli into his chest. Her arm draped across his midsection and they lay there quietly for a long while, knowing that neither of them was actually asleep.
“There was more to our break up than I ever told anyone before,” Alli spoke softly into his chest. “There was a particular reason why Cameron got it into his head that I was cheating on him, it wasn’t entirely random.” She sighed and Pete rubbed her shoulder supportively.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he told her. He didn’t think that Alli could have possibly done anything that would legitimately constitute cheating.
“I want to tell you,” she continued, “because I don’t really want to keep secrets from you. And maybe it would… shed a bit of light on what happened tonight. But…” she sighed, “I know you never really cared for him much, but Cameron really wasn’t a bad guy and we really had feelings for each other, those two years that we were both in college. Then afterward, when he started making the long drives out to see me, things kinda shifted.” Pete listened, thinking back to that time, remembering that Alli didn’t have a car then and couldn’t drive out to see Murph herself. “So, we’d go a long stretch of time between seeing each other and then he’d come over and we’d arrange it that Dotty would either go see her boyfriend or she’d stay on the sofa or whatever, so we’d have some privacy, and then all Cameron wanted to do the entire weekend was… just… you know, stay in there and fuck.”
“I’m familiar with that concept,” he nodded. “I find that it’s what I want to do when I finally see you on the weekend.”
“Yeah, ok,” Alli patted his chest, “but you know, we still do other things. We’ll watch a movie or go out to dinner, or even hang out with your friends. We might get in what? Three or four rounds, but we do other things too. Anyway, that’s not even really the point,” she sounded a bit exasperated. “It wasn’t just the amount of sex that he wanted to have, it was that…” she paused, thinking for a moment. “Well, with you, if I had told you ‘You know what Pete, I’m tired right now, I can’t go again,’ you’d just back off and it would be fine, right?”
“Right,” Pete wasn’t sure where she was going with this.
“But it wasn’t fine with Cameron. I would tell him that I didn’t want to go again or I wasn’t ready for it, or I was just not feeling it, you know, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He’d say something like ‘I didn’t drive down 250 miles just to sit around and watch TV with you.'” Pete had anger rising up inside him that he needed to work on tamping down. “He’d try to persuade me and say all kinds of things like ‘you don’t even have to do anything, just lay there, I’ll do all the work’ and eventually it just happened anyway,” she sighed. “He got his way whether I agreed to it or not.”
“Alli, that’s…” he started to say, but she interrupted him.
“Anyway, after a couple of visits like that, he got it into his head that I must not want as much sex as he does because I’m getting it from someone else. That I must be cheating on him and that’s why I’m not as excited to see him anymore or that I tell him I am not in the mood right now. He became convinced that it was because of the other guy I’m supposedly screwing.” There were so many things that he wanted to say to her right then.
“So when he saw us together tonight, he assumed that it had been me because we were friends back then too.” It was more of a statement than a question.
“Right,” she breathed out.
“Alli,” he didn’t know how to say this in a way that wouldn’t hurt her, but his brain was screaming and he couldn’t make the words stay in, inside his mouth. “He raped you.”
“No,” he felt her shake her head against his chest. “It was just… you know, we were together, it wasn’t violent or anything, he wasn’t actually hurting me.”
“You didn’t want to have sex with him, he did it anyway, despite you telling him no. It’s called date rape. Whether it was violent or not is irrelevant.” Pete wanted to scream, the anger boiling inside him, both at Cameron and the fact that Alli was defending him. He really wished now that he had punched the guy back at the bar. If he knew this ahead of time, he probably would have. “I can’t believe…” he stopped. This was the wrong time to say anything that would make Alli feel at fault – for not reporting it, for not telling anyone, for staying with that bastard while he continued to treat her that way. No, he couldn’t say anything like that to her. “I can’t believe you had to go through that.”
“Pete, I’m fine. I’m just telling you about this in respect to why he thought I was cheating on him,” she explained in a calm and collected voice.
“Right,” he tried to calm himself too. “That was a stupid fucking reason for him to suspect anything.” It hurt to imagine what it must have been like for Alli. And how did none of them notice this? How did they, her friends, miss the fact that she was going through all this shit? He felt guilt for having been so oblivious to it back then. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
“It’s ok, I’m fine,” she patted his chest, reassuring him.
“I feel like a dick just for having missed it. For being so completely unaware that this was happening,” he admitted.
“You guys already disliked him and I didn’t want to give anyone more ammunition to hate him back then,” Alli’s voice was soft. There was another stretch of silence.
“Don’t hold back, please, I want to know anytime you’re not into it or you’re tired or whatever else might be happening. I never want to put you in a situation where it feels forced,” he hoped that he hadn’t already done that.
“I know. You’d never do that,” her voice sounded as if she were smiling.
“Alli, I love you,” he said the words that haven’t made their way out of his head before, even though he’d thought them and felt them for some time now.
“I love you too,” there was still that smile, he could hear it.