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onaipwolf

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“So why were you going to Watertown so late at night, anyway?”  Hayley asked.

Hayley and Brennan were both situated in two chairs behind the counter in the gas station. Hayley sat in a black wheeled office chair from the small office room located behind the counter, and Brennan had a straight-backed wooden one that had already been there. The counter top was covered in empty candy and snack wrappers. The sun had just set, casting the world in shadow. As Hayley sat leaning back in her chair, with her feet propped up on the counter, she looked over at Brennan and smiled. The evening had that enchanted, I-hope-this-night-never-ends feel to it, and as she sat staring at him, she couldn’t help but feel her heart lighten.

“Why? Oh, I just finished working on a road up by Fairport yesterday, and the next job was at Watertown. I was supposed to report to work at six a.m. today.” Brennan opened another package of Twinkies and took a bite in between sentences. “I guess you could say I’m a little bit of a nomad.”

“Yeah, I guess you could say so.” Hayled replied and they both chuckled together.

“So was anything you told me when we first met true?” Brennan asked, bringing a more serious tone into the conversation.

The question was sobering. She hadn’t really thought about what he would think of her careless elaborations before. “No.”

She knew he wanted to know the answers, the real truth, but he remained silent, letting her take her time in answering. She felt grateful that he wasn’t pressuring her in revealing anything about herself. If he had she would have clammed up again. Finally, she answered slowly, trying to sort out the right answer as she spoke. “I have a…complicated past, and I had an unpleasant confrontation with it yesterday. I stirred up a lot of old emotions…a lot of hurt I thought I had gotten over, but had never really dealt with. Well it came back with a vengeance. I got in my car and just started driving, the open road stretching out before me. Then I ran out of gas, and that’s where you found me. Walking to the next town.”

 “No. The boyfriend I was dating when I slept with the father.” The question had taken her by surprise, but she decided to be blunt, and not skirt around the facts. She had done that enough in her life already. “I told you it was complicated.”

“I guess. But hey, that’s how things happen sometimes.”

“Don’t you care? I mean the implications…”

“So. I wasn’t there, I can’t presume to understand your reasoning behind your actions. Your choices are your own to make. Who am I to pass judgment?”

“I guess.” He never ceased to amaze her. His casual attitude was so different from everything she had grown up in, and been told her whole life. It was like a cool drink of water after a lifetime in the desert. “You want to know something?”

“Sure.” Brennan said, taking interest.

“Derek, the guy I was dating was head-over-heels in love with me, but I never really felt the same way back. I was just with him because I felt like it was what I was supposed to do. Like it was the next proper step in a series of things. He led me along, and I followed. When he explained that making love would bring honor to God because love was a gift from Him, I went along with it.”

The memories stirred within her, replaying within her mind as she spoke. She was back at Derek’s apartment. They were kissing on the couch in semi-darkness, a single 40 watt lamp casting its dim light from the corner. Derek had his hands half way up her shirt, his body laid across hers. He was a good kisser, and found herself getting swept away in it.

In between kisses, Derek spoke, a little out of breath. “Come on. Let’s go in the other room.”

He stood up, taking her hand in his as he led her into his bedroom.

“What’s in there?” Hayley asked, even though she suspected the answer.

“Nothing. A bed.” Derek answered simply as he began to kiss her again, deeply and passionately. He leaned her back, and she found herself resting on the bed. He started taking off her shirt and she protested mildly. Kissing was good, but something within her whispered that this wasn’t right, that this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. “Is this right? I mean doesn’t Pastor Jaron talk about purity and stuff?”

Derek looked down at her as he slowly, gently, pulled her shirt over her head. “Of course. But when he talks about that he means the sinners. You see, this will bring honor to God because it is a gift from Him. It’s nothing wrong.”

“Are you sure?” Hayley asked as Derek began to unclasp her bra. She thought back to what she had heard from Jaron, and the things she had read in the Bible, but it seemed like her mind was a little foggy. She couldn’t seem to remember any specific verses about it. Her lesson plans for the Discipleship program were already laid out for her, and she rarely diverged from it to go searching out verses on her own. She remembered a lot of verses talking about God’s love, how we were to be more like Him, and be nice to others, giving to the less fortunate and being a servant-leader, but strangely, nothing about this. Maybe he was right.

“Yes.” Derek was looking at her half-exposed body, an almost hungry look in his eyes. He unzipped her pants, and pulled them down the full length of her legs, taking her underwear with them. He then pulled off his own shirt, pants and boxers, tossing them aside. He ran his hand over her breasts then down her side to her thighs. He spread them apart and positioned himself over her.

He pushed himself down into her, and for a brief second she thought it wouldn’t be so bad. Then he pushed harder, and she felt blinding pain shoot through her. She bit her lip, to try silence the cry of pain, but didn’t fully succeed. It came out as a little moan, too vague to determine as a sign of either pleasure or pain. All she could think of was how she wished she were someplace else.

Finally after what seemed like an eternity, but couldn’t have been more than five minutes, she finally raised the white flag. “Derek.”

“Mmmhmm..” He mumbled, a look of pleasure on his face.

“Derek. It. Hurts.” She spoke each word individually, she could see spots behind her eyes; the pain was so intense.

“Oh. Uh-huh.”

He wasn’t listening to her. She leaned right into his ear and repeated herself a little louder. This time he heard her, and looked down, blushing crimson.

“Oh. Sorry.” He got off her, and she felt sweet relief flood her lower half.

“I have to go to the bathroom.” Hayley mumbled as she retrieved her clothes, pressing them to her body as she walked into the master bathroom that was off from the bedroom.

“Ok.”

Hayley entered the bathroom and cleaned herself off, then after relieving herself, which took some time, and some more pain, she dressed herself. She must have been taking a long time, because Derek knocked on the door just as she finished.

“Are you ok, Hayley?”

“Yeah.” She splashed some water on her face and opened the door. He was dressed, she noticed. He gave her a hug and asked again if she was alright.

She assured him she was and he led her back into the living room. They sat down on the couch and Derek put in a movie. She couldn’t say he was a complete clod. He asked her three more times if she was ok, and every time she insisted she was. As the movie ended she even began to believe it herself.

“That must have been difficult for you.” Brennan’s words brought her back to the present. She had been so caught up in telling the story she had almost forgotten she had an audience.

She summed up the end of the story, still feeling the emotions of that time in the present. “That was five months into our relationship. We never talked about it after that, and didn’t have sex again. One month later I ended up getting drunk and sleeping with my pastor. When I found out I was pregnant, I realized how messed up my whole life had become. I got out. For three months I tried to forget about everything I had known. I got a job at a grocery store, changed my address, my phone number, everything. Then, like I said, I saw Derek, and I was reminded of everything again.”

“Does Derek know what happened with the pastor?” Brennan inquired delicately.

“I’m not sure. He didn’t while we were still together, but that was before everyone found out about my pregnancy. You know, you’re the first person I’ve ever told about my experience with him. I pushed away all my feelings about it after it happened, and I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. At least that’s what I tried to convince myself. That it wasn’t really…sex. I had almost pushed it completely from my memory. Until now, I didn’t realize that was the true beginning of the end for my dealings with the church. I always thought it started with my affair. Funny how talking seems to make things clearer.” Hayley stopped herself from going further. For some reason she didn’t care to identify, she felt the sudden urge to cry, to mourn, though she wasn’t sure over exactly what. She looked over at Brennan and realized she had just told him some very personal things about herself. The revelation left her feeling a little exposed.

“It can happen on occasion.” Brennan replied as he placed a comforting hand on her knee.

He gazed into her eyes, and Hayley paused before replying, “Yeah. Sorry about going off on my troubles to you.”

“Hey, it’s the least I can do, especially after the way I acted earlier.”

As Brennan finished his sentence, a loud pop filled the air, and the room was plunged into darkness, breaking the moment between them.

“What happened?” Hayley asked as her eyes began to slowly adjust to the lack of light.

“I’m not sure. It might just be a fuse, but it’s possible the power lines are down. If that’s true, then we won’t get power back until after the storm blows over.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“No it isn’t.”

Brennan stood up, taking his hand from Hayley’s knee as he did so. She felt the residual heat from his touch still on her skin, and she blushed faintly as she realized she wanted him to touch her again, to feel his warmth next to her.

Hayley yawned and Brennan noticed. “Tired?”

“Yeah, a little.” Hayley confessed. “Though I have no idea what time it is.”

“Well if you’re tired, then you’re tired. What time it is doesn’t really matter all that much.”

“True. But where can we sleep?” Only after she said it did she realize she had used the collective term ‘we’ instead of ‘I’, and what that implied. She rushed to correct her mistake. “I mean, me, you know. It’s not like we’re sleeping together.”

She laughed nervously, trying to cover up her embarrassment.

“I know what you meant.” Brennan replied laughing. “I was thinking the office since it’s carpeted. You can stay in there, and I’ll stay out here.”

“But where will you sleep?”

“On the floor.”

“But it’s hard, and dirty. You won’t get much sleep at all.”

“Well what else would you suggest? I see no other way since we’re not sleeping together.”

Hayley could see Brennan smile, despite the relative darkness, and she realized what he was getting at. “Ok. Fine.”

“Ok, what?”

“You know what I mean. You can sleep with me in the office.”

Brennan’s voice perked up at that point. “I can sleep with you?”

She shook her head, sighing. “Not like that you perv. I meant you can sleep next to me.”

“Ok, good enough.” Brennan replied, laughing again.

“I don’t suppose there are any blankets around here are there.”

“I don’t think so, but we can check.” Brennan began looking around on the shelf beneath the counter, but didn’t come up with anything especially promising. “We could always share my jacket again.”

“Yeah, I know how that went last time. No.”

“Oh come on. I won’t try anything this time I promise.” When she still looked doubtful, he held up his hand and stated, “Scout’s honor.”

“I bet you weren’t even in Scouts.”

“Ok, so I wasn’t. But seriously, I won’t try anything.” Brennan said as he walked up to her and stared into her eyes. He softly added, “I didn’t know before. I won’t do anything you don’t ask me to.”

“Ok.” Hayley said, all her protests lost and forgotten in his gaze. Once again, he had done something totally unexpected.

Hayley looked around as they both walked into the cramped office space. Directly in front of them was a wall covered in old band posters and advertisements. No more than a few feet to their right there was a desk. It was covered in loose leaf papers and had a small thirteen inch television perched on the right edge of it. Hayley closed the door behind them and sat, then lay down on her side on the floor with her head by the desk and her back facing the decorated wall. Brennan followed suit, situating himself behind her, and then covering their upper torsos with his jacket.

They lay in silence for about two minutes before Brennan spoke. “Hayley?”

“Yes?” She responded as she turned her head back to look at him.

“Do you mind if I put my arms around your waist?”

“No.” She answered in a small voice. His request surprised her. Not so much that he had wanted to do that, but that he had asked her. She found herself deciding she needed to give him more respect than she had been. He wrapped his arms around her body, and she snuggled in, resting her head on his shoulder and arm. As she began to drift off to sleep, she became aware that though she had been in the arms of more than one man, this was the first time she had truly felt safe. That knowledge filled her with a sense of gladness that she had thought herself no longer capable of experiencing.