Win Some, Lose Some Read online

  When I washed my arms, I thought about Mayra gripping them as she rose up on her toes to kiss me goodbye. When I washed my legs, I felt the slight ache in my thighs from holding myself over her. When I washed my face and neck, I wondered how kissing her neck would differ from kissing her lips.

  The tempo of my breathing increased, and my eyes closed again. I could feel the rapid thump of my heart inside my chest and wondered how I could tell if I was sweating in the shower. I knew the temperature of the water seemed a little warmer all of a sudden.

  I also had a full-on erection.

  As an eighteen-year-old guy, I had experienced many erections before. I remembered my dad telling me about wet dreams and the like when I was a kid, and I had woken up a few times to such things though I never remembered the associated dream. I hadn’t forgotten the first time I took myself in my hand and masturbated, either, though the act was never a frequent pastime. Those times I had indulged, the woman in my thoughts was always nameless and faceless.

  Not this time.

  My hand seemed to find itself wrapped around my cock without me really even thinking about it. With images of Mayra underneath me in the car fresh in my mind, I heard myself hiss as I stroked myself from base to tip. I ran my tongue over my lips from left to right, and I could almost still taste her there.

  I angled my head back into the water for a moment, quickly rinsing my hair of conditioner before I took a step back and leaned against the cold tile wall. My body shivered as I gripped my erection again with my right hand and my left palm flattened on the wall behind me.

  In my head, I see Mayra and myself exiting the car after our make-out session and heading into the house. She takes my hand and leads me upstairs to my bedroom. She turns and walks backwards through the doorway, holding both of my hands in hers as she moves toward my bed. She sits down and pulls her shirt over her head.

  My breathing increased to the point where I was practically panting. Base to tip, tip to base.

  I reach behind her and deftly unhook her bra, but the details of her exposed flesh are unclear. My hands still find her soft, warm skin, and my mouth finds her waiting lips.

  The moisture from my tongue joined the moisture from the shower as I licked at my lips, swallowed, and stroked again—base to tip, tip to base. With my back bracing me against the wall, I moved my free hand to the opposite arm—shoulder to wrist, wrist to shoulder.

  Our clothing is gone, and she is beneath me on the bed. She reaches up and takes my head in her hands, stroking my cheeks, down to my jaw and neck.

  My fingers danced over my skin, imagining her light touch on my face and shoulder. My hand and fingers mimic what hers do in my mind as I feel a tightening in the bottom of my stomach.

  Her hands slide over the skin of my chest and down to my stomach. She traces the outlines of my abdominal muscles before her hand moves lower. Her fingers circle my cock as she spreads her legs out before me. She guides me between her thighs.

  I ended up surprised by the sudden intensity of sensations running through my body. I moved my hand faster over my cock, gripping it a little as I moved back and forth from tip to base, base to tip. My back arched away from the cool tile wall, and my other hand gripped the top of my thigh. Tip to base, base to tip.

  I’m inside of her, and it’s warm and soft, and I feel…

  An audible grunt escaped as my legs quivered and my balls tightened up against my body. A quick and intense vibration echoed through my skin until it focused between my legs. With one last shudder, I came on the shower floor with far more force than I recalled ever feeling before.

  I nearly fell.

  “Holy shit,” I murmured. My hands continued to shake a bit as I tried to catch my breath and maintain my footing. I felt dizzy—like all the blood was gone from my brain. Maybe it was. I stepped back into the stream of water and washed off again, still in a daze.

  I quickly got out of the shower and dressed in an older pair of lounge pants that were really too short for me now. They had pictures of Sponge Bob on them, for goodness’ sake, but I wouldn’t get rid of them because my mom had bought them for me when I was fourteen or so, and I still liked them. I towel dried my hair and then just climbed into bed, still somewhat afraid my legs were going to give out.

  Masturbation hadn’t felt quite like that before.

  My heart started to pound again just thinking about it. A couple minutes later, I was hard as a rock and my hand had already found its way into my pants.

  Nope—definitely hadn’t felt like this before.

  And ending the day with thoughts of Mayra? A definite win.

  Chapter 9—Almost the First Date

  There were several times in my life when I had thought God hated me. I remembered talking to my mom about it a couple of times, asking her why He made me the way He did. She always insisted I was special for a reason and that God never made us go through anything in life we couldn’t handle. The next day was one of those days when I thought all of that was a crock of shit.

  Next to the day my parents died, it was the worst day of my life.

  It started out pretty good. I didn’t have any homework, so I managed to get all my website updates done before noon. It was also payday, so I transferred from my PayPal account to my bank account all the money I collected from the website owners, which gave me plenty of money to take Mayra out for dinner in Cincinnati.

  Everything started to go downhill right after I got back from the bank, starting with Mayra’s phone call.

  “Hey!” she sang out. “Are you ready for tonight?”

  “Not really,” I admitted. “I don’t know what I should wear.”

  Mayra laughed.

  “It’s just Olive Garden,” she told me. “I don’t think they require a jacket and tie.”

  “I know,” I said, “I just wanted to…I don’t know…”

  My voice trailed off. I realized I probably should have been having this conversation with my aunt, not my actual date.

  “If it helps, I’m just wearing some decent jeans and a blouse.”

  “Yeah,” I said with a pointless nod toward the phone, “that does help.”

  “There’s just one thing,” Mayra said. Something about her tone of voice had me tensing before the words even came out of her mouth. “My dad says he has to meet you before we go out. I know. It’s goofy, but he’s just like that.”

  “Your dad”—I swallowed hard to keep from choking—“wants to meet me?”

  “Yeah, he’s kind of insisting on it.”

  I started to hyperventilate, and I could barely hear Mayra asking if that was going to be all right and me saying it was just fine so I could get off the phone and sit down with my head between my legs before I passed out.

  It didn’t help much, and my head continued to swim.

  I tried not to harp on it inside my mind—I really did. I tried to get myself all worked up over what shirt to wear with my black jeans and what shoes would be best with the whole thing. I even picked up the phone ten times to call Bethany for help, but I didn’t dial. If I did, she would definitely hear the panic I was feeling right through the phone, and then she’d be over here five minutes later. I didn’t want her to come. I wanted to do this by myself. I told Travis I didn’t need help, and I was determined to do it all on my own even if that meant going up to Mayra’s house to meet her father.

  Mayra’s father was a salesman of some sort. I wasn’t sure exactly what he did for a living, but I knew what his hobby was—hunting. He even went to the mountains and hunted bears. He was often pictured in the local newspaper with a kill of some kind, and he was very well known and respected around town.

  He had to have a lot of guns in the house.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Okay, so I knew he wasn’t going to shoot me, but what if he hated me? What if he thought I was weird and told Mayra she couldn’t go out with me? He would probably want me to shake his hand and look him in the eye as well. If I didn’t do that,
he was bound to think something was wrong with me.

  What had Mayra already told him? Did he know I had panic attacks, that I freaked out in school on a semi-regular basis or that I hit a heavy bag when it got to be too much? Would he be worried I would get mad and hit Mayra?

  I would never, ever do something like that, but what if he thought I would? What if he asked me about it, and I hesitated? I would certainly hesitate because just thinking about the potential question was enough to start me freaking out again.

  I tossed on one of the shirts in my hand and shoved my feet into my black and white Converse. I couldn’t think about what I should be wearing right now. Then again, clothing probably counts as far as first impressions go, and he would notice what I was wearing. I tossed the blue shirt back into the drawer and grabbed the green one.

  Hunters liked green, right? I didn’t own anything with a camouflage pattern on it.

  By the time I was out in my driveway, sitting in my car, I couldn’t even turn the key in the ignition. My palms were sweating. My head was throbbing, and my eyes were starting to tear up.

  “Don’t do this; don’t do this,” I whispered to myself. I tried taking a few deep breaths, but they ended up sounding like gasps instead. I placed my left hand on my chest and pushed against my sternum. I wasn’t sure if I was trying to help myself breathe normally or just keep my insides from escaping. I tried to get my right hand to turn the key, but it just wouldn’t listen.

  I glanced at the clock in the car. I would have to leave pretty much immediately to get to Mayra’s house on time.

  “No, no, no,” I muttered. I tried the key again, but my hand was shaking too much to get it to turn.

  Change the scene, I remembered my therapist telling me. If things get to be too much, do something differently.

  I got out of the car and started pacing back and forth in the driveway. I ran my hands over my face, trying to calm myself. I just had to go over there and meet him—that was it. Sixty seconds of How do you do? and Mayra and I could be off on our date.

  Date.

  I had only managed to keep myself together regarding the date itself because the idea of meeting her father was so completely overwhelming. Before Mayra’s call, I had sufficient distractions, and I did like the idea of seeing her even if the setting was different. Besides, Bethany had given me a lot of ideas about things to talk about during the drive. I had never asked Mayra anything about the soccer team just so I could save the conversation for tonight.

  Maybe she could just come over to my house instead.

  No, I made reservations at the restaurant.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  I pressed my fingertips into my eyes as I leaned against the car and tried to convince myself that it was normal to be nervous meeting your girlfriend’s dad, and I didn’t have to worry about it.

  Girlfriend?

  I spent a couple of minutes wondering if that was the right word or not. I thought it was. I mean, she came over almost every day, and she kissed me. I was pretty sure that made her my girlfriend, but I probably ought to confirm it with her.

  That is, if I could even get to her house.

  “You’re being stupid.” I growled at myself as I got back in the car. I gritted my teeth and turned the key. The car roared to life, and I managed to put it in reverse, but I couldn’t take my foot off the brake.

  One step at a time.

  I closed my eyes and tried breathing slowly again. All I had to do was drive over there. It wasn’t even that far, and I drove most of the way there when I went to school. Of course, I hadn’t been driving myself to school lately since Mayra had been picking me up.

  Tightening my grip on the steering wheel, I eased my foot off the brake and backed out of the driveway. I continued to concentrate on the act of driving to Mayra’s house rather than what would happen once I got there. The drive over was difficult, but I had done it before, and I focused on using my turn signals properly and staying exactly at the speed limit. Of course, as soon as I got to her house, I just drove past it.

  The mere idea of stopping was mind-numbing.

  I went about a half mile past the Trevino house and pulled over onto a side road. I slowly put the car in park and turned off the engine. For a moment, I just stared out the front windshield, but after a minute of that, I adjusted the seat so it was lying nearly flat. I curled up on my side and just started to shake.

  I couldn’t have what other people had, so I just gave up.

  Time stopped, started again, and then became irrelevant as I lay on my side in the driver’s seat of my car, staring at nothing. My heart thumped rapidly in my chest, and my breaths came in short, labored gasps. For a while, my body shook though that gradually wore off as exhaustion took over.

  At some point, it got dark and started to rain.

  My breathing had slowed a bit, but my heart was still racing. More than anything, I felt stiff and numb. I was as pathetic as I could possibly be. It was ridiculous to think that I could actually try to have a normal relationship with a girl. Of course her father would want to meet me. I mean, he’d be letting me take his daughter out of town for several hours. What father wouldn’t want to meet the guy she was going to be with?

  I couldn’t even go up to the front door.

  I couldn’t even park in the driveway.

  I couldn’t even stop the car.

  Mayra was definitely a very special person, and she deserved the absolute best. That wasn’t me. She deserved to be with someone who wouldn’t freak out on her just because she had an argument in front of him or because she wanted to watch television before doing homework.

  I shuddered a little at the thought.

  She was worthy of someone who could give her anything and everything, and I couldn’t even offer her a normal date where I go up to the door, shake her father’s hand, call him “sir,” and promise to have his daughter back by midnight, all with a smile on my face. I couldn’t have done any of that.

  I reached out haphazardly to flip open the little plastic compartment designed to hold change. Inside was a small blue cap from a water bottle. My dad used to drink bottled water constantly when Mom wasn’t looking. She said it was too expensive, but he claimed it tasted better, so he’d buy bottled water from the vending machine at work and drink it on the way home.

  I remembered how he would deftly untwist the cap with one hand and steer with the other. It always scared me when he took one hand off the wheel, but he could do it so fast, I would barely notice. He’d drink the whole thing down and smack his lips when he was done with it. Then he’d forget and leave the little cap inside the car when he took the bottle to the recycling bin at the service station near the house and panic all evening, thinking Mom would find it.

  I pulled the cap out with my fingers and gripped it in my fist, thinking of the way my dad would blush and look all guilty when my mom walked by. She knew he was up to something and would purposely do things to make him agitated until he confessed. He’d still do it again the next day.

  They always ended up smiling, laughing, and holding each other.

  Mayra deserved that, too, and she wasn’t going to get anything like that with me. I wouldn’t be able to joke with her about that sort of stuff, and if she gave me a hard time—even in jest—I’d probably just fall apart like the idiot I was.

  I mean, really—what did I have to offer Mayra?

  You have a lot to offer…

  My father’s voice rang in my head as I remembered a conversation we had when I was about fifteen. We were in the car on our way back from Cincinnati where I had been meeting with a new specialty therapist. I was supposed to be trying out new ways of making conversation with people, and she had told me to pick a topic that was different from the week before and tell someone about it.

  “There’s a new girl in my class,” I told my father.

  “Oh yeah? What’s her name?” Dad asked me.

  “Traci,” I replied.

  “Is she prett
y?” Dad looked over at me sideways with a half grin. I shrugged my shoulders in response, but he didn’t let it go. “Well, is she?”

  “How should I know?”

  “It’s a matter of opinion, son,” he said. “Do you find her physically attractive?”

  “I don’t see the point.”

  “Human nature,” Dad replied as he turned off the freeway and onto a smaller highway. “We are attracted to those we think might be suitable mates.”

  I snorted.

  “Is that funny?”

  “Mates,” I repeated and snickered a little.

  “Girlfriends, then,” he amended. “Future wife—whatever you want to call it.”

  “I still don’t see the point.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ll never get married.”

  “Why in the world not?” Dad asked, sounding shocked.

  “Seriously?” I replied with heavy disbelief in my voice. I could tell by the way he was gripping the steering wheel that he wasn’t happy with my response. “I can barely function in our family, Dad. What could I offer a prospective wife?”

  “A lot.” He grumbled under his breath. It was one of the few times he had really gotten angry with me. “You have a lot to offer, Matthew—that’s what. You’re very smart. You are considerate, and you help out around the house and with your sister. You know how to figure things out, and you are organized and detailed. You are thoughtful, loving, and you have your dad’s good looks.”

  His tone lightened as he chucked a bit.

  “You never forget anything,” he added, “so you wouldn’t be in the kind of trouble I was in last month when I forgot our anniversary, and your mother just about had me castrated.”

  We both laughed then but quickly fell into silence again. Just before we got to Talawanda High School, Dad looked over at me.

  “You’d be a fine catch, Matthew,” he said. “Don’t let anyone, yourself included, try to tell you otherwise. You have a lot to offer, and any girl who is smart and kind enough to realize that is going to be very lucky indeed.”