Sadie has a heart to heart with Sarah

Everything was for naught. Todd saw me as soon as we came into the bar. I didn’t have to enter the couples costume competition to avoid him. I didn’t have to dance all those dances with Louis. I didn’t have to pose for that photograph or make it worse by kissing Louis in it. I didn’t have to play all those couples games with him, dance romantically with him, or kiss him on stage in front of everyone.

Everything keeps playing over and over in my mind as we walk toward Louis’ car. Looking up at the dark blue Corvette, I focus on it to take my mind off of everything. Louis had told me that he loved the look of the car, which was great because it sucked as a sports car. It’s big V8 sure sounded good, but the 1979 Stingray made under 200 horsepower when new and Louis knew that it didn’t make even that much now. But he didn’t have it for performance, Louis loved his ‘Vette because he could work on it himself and it looked good. He bought this particular one because the frame and underbody were in near perfect condition, and he was able to get the parts to make the body pristine. He had it painted in matching 1979 Corvette Dark Blue paint last year and was working on getting a full set of 1979 Corvette Dark Blue interior pieces. As is, he was really just missing the carpet, headliner, and some center console pieces. Otherwise, the exterior and interior looked like it rolled off the line just yesterday. He said his next focus was to get the engine bay looking as good as it ran.

As Louis opens the door for me and I slip into the seat, I can’t help but compare his car to Marley’s Mercedes. Both were their dream cars, something they worked for. Marley had to earn a lot of money to get his as it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It performed like no other car on the road and was surprising as it was actually better than it looked, and it looked amazing. On the other hand, Louis had to find his car in a junk yard while he was in high school. He’s worked on it for years taking it from a barely running hunk of junk to an almost museum quality piece of art.

As soon as we’re on the road Louis lets go of the shifter and clasps my hand, resting our hands on my thigh. I feel my body tremble in response, but I can’t tell why as I’m both turned off and turned on by his action. I keep my face turned away from him as we cruise home, but I don’t see the park, campus, or houses flow by. Instead, I just keep seeing that damned party. There is no part of me that wants to like Louis, that wants to like being turned on by Louis. And yet the swelling in my cage and my hard nipples make it hard to deny that I was turned on by him. That I do like him in that way.

Louis squeezing my hand brings me out of my trance and I see that we’re parked in front of Sarah’s house. I have absolutely no idea what to say to Louis as I turn to him, but before I try to stammer and stutter and fail to communicate the tornado of emotions going on in my head, Louis takes the reigns and speaks first. “Hey Sadie, I can see that you’re bothered by the party. Or at least bothered with what we did there. I’m not stupid, I know you said you wanted to just be friends only an hour before we went in there. I won’t lie and say that I didn’t love what happened. Kissing you, dancing with you, being with you like that is amazing. But I only want to do it if it’s what you want to do.”

He pulls our still clasped hands up so that he can kiss the back of mine and continues, “Look, if you want to talk about it, I’m here for you whenever. If you want to avoid the subject and have some time to yourself, then so be it. And if you want to pretend that tonight didn’t happen, that we’re still friends and only friends… well, I’ll be sad, but I’ll respect that too. You don’t have to decide now… I can see that it’s eating at you. Take your time, and I’ll check in with you later this week, okay?”

Louis taking care of me is something that will forever make me feel good. And right now, even though I don’t know what I want, he’s here taking care of me in the exact way I need to be taken care of. When he leans forward, I’m almost sure he’s going to cross that line and go too far by kissing me again… which I’ll love and hate in equal measure… but instead he turns my face to the side and kisses my cheek. “I want you to be the girl you want to be Sadie. I don’t need you to be Princess BabyDoll for me or sexy for me or shy for me… I just need you to be you for me.”

After he gets out and helps me out of the car, I wave at him as he drives off and go inside. I start working on what I’m going to tell Sarah as I know she’s waiting up and will want to hear all about our date. While I honestly want to talk about my conflicted feelings toward Louis, I absolutely don’t want to tell her about Todd. But that’s going to make it difficult to be honest in sharing my feelings about Louis. Being afraid of being seen and identified by Todd is the only reason I let most of those actions happen.

I can’t think of a way to properly frame why I did what I did by the time I’m in and Sarah has dragged me to the couch, so I stumble and stammer over the parts with Todd, leaving him out but leaving in signing up for the competition, dancing, kissing, posing for the photo, and even kissing him again for the final pose of the competition. By the time I’m done I’m starting past my knees to the floor and have been doing so for at least twenty minutes. Sarah hasn’t interrupted except to take my hand in hers where she’s been rubbing it kindly.

After I finish telling about the car ride home, I’m silent for a good three minutes before Sarah speaks up. And much like Louis surprised me, Sarah is right there understanding my problem if not the true cause of the problem. “Sadie, I can see that you’re torn. You liked feeling that way with Louis. You were attracted to him and followed along that path. At the same time, you don’t want to be attracted to him and are embarrassed that you followed along that path.”

I barely nod since she’s close enough to the truth and spot on with my emotional truth. She keeps talking, quietly, slowly, but with a confidence in her voice that’s scary for me. Scary because I’m afraid her confidence is earned and that she’s right. “Look, I want to help you out and tell you that this could be your hormone imbalance. But it’s not. That’s not how hormones work. I want to help you out and tell you that this could be the devotionals. But it’s not. That’s not how they work.”

Without turning to look at Sarah I say what’s been on my mind about the devotionals for a long time. “But the devotionals are a kind of conditioning. They’re making me like things that I don’t like.”

I can see Sarah shaking her head without even looking at her. “No, that’s not right Sadie. It is conditioning and they can condition you to accept things, but they can’t make you like them. If you have a fear of spiders, conditioning like this can make you not freak out and give yourself a heart attack when you see them, but it can’t make you actually like spiders. This conditioning can and is making you comfortable being a girly girl in front of boys, but it can’t make you like boys. It can’t change your sexual identity or sexual orientation.”

I turn to Sarah, feeling my world crumble around her words. I wanted to believe that she was making me do this, that she was making me feel this. I wanted to throw my feelings toward Louis at her feet and blame her for them. But she’s right. As I tremble and shake, Sarah continues, not exactly cruelly but not trying to spare me either, “If you feel these things, then it’s something that was within you already. Buried. I might have helped you get there, but it’s a path that was already open inside of you. You have to look at this as a good thing. You might never have found this side of yourself. I’m not saying that you have to explore it but denying that it’s something within you will just be a recipe for hurt and pain. I don’t want you to hurt Sadie.”

While I can’t blame having feelings toward Louis on the hormones, I can certainly blame my crying on them. And just knowing that lets me open the flood gates as I turn and hug Sarah, sobbing on her shoulder. Sarah does exactly what I need. She doesn’t press any further. She doesn’t make me deal with my feelings anymore. She just stays there and comforts me, rubbing my back, keeping my hair away from my hot tears, and hugging my warmly.

When the crying is over and I’m finally able to pull away from Sarah, I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. I’m just emotionally wrecked. I thank Sarah for being there with me and I head in to go to bed. I’m thankful that there isn’t a devotional or sex session tonight and sleep a dreamless sleep. When my alarm wakes me up, I only take a moment to recall what happened last night and push it to the side. It’s not the time to think about it. Instead, I get dressed for my workout.

When Marley arrives, I’m taken by surprise as he’s over the top excited. He actually picks me up into a hug and spins me in a circle, my squeal filling the room. As he sets me down, he tells me that the investor finally called last night and wants to meet in person. He wouldn’t commit to anything over the phone, but he wants to talk details. Financial details.

I get almost as excited as Marley, realizing that someone like that isn’t interested in financial details if he’s not leaning toward investing. Marley tells me that the plan is to fly out next Wednesday and meet him that night. He knows that’s right in the middle of my ‘work week’ so he’ll make it as quick as possible. Fly out Wednesday morning, meet the investor for dinner, stay in a hotel, fly back Thursday morning and have me back and streaming by Thursday evening. I mentally go over what I’ll miss by not being here for a couple days. Missing my streams will hurt, but I was already prepared for that and am willing to lose a bit in order to help Marley out. I can keep up with my social media posts and they’ll actually help explain my non-streaming as I can show off being in Las Vegas. And while I’d normally care about missing any actual class time, the fact that I’ll have to miss another week of Chemistry Lab with Todd sells the whole thing in my mind.

I agree to go with Marley and even agree to do a little shopping with him on Sunday so that I can get an outfit that will be appropriate for his meeting. Our morning exercise routine goes well and if anything, he’s a little more handsy. A little more ‘personal’. It’s capped by him giving me my hormone injection where after applying the bandaid he spends an inordinate amount of time rubbing that spot. He actually keeps it up until I’m squirming in his lap and then seems to realize he's crossed over from a professional injection, and his normal innuendo fueled injection, to outright feeling up my ass.

When I get up and pull my pants up, Marley apologizes. “Hey, sorry about that. I want to keep our professional time professional and that was too far. Sorry Sadie.”

I walk with him to the door and accept his apology, but when I look up at his face I’m taken aback. It’s hard to tell on his darker skin, but I’m fairly sure he’s blushing.

After getting ready for the day in my long heart logoed hoodie over some tights I get my social media posts ready and then have a bit of lunch. As I don’t have lab, I wait for Sarah to come out and we talk over lunch. After I tell her about the upcoming trip with Marley, I get into something more personal. “I thought about what you said last night and while I’m not happy about it, I can’t find fault in your logic. And while I know I have to deal with my feelings toward Louis one way or another, I can’t let that get in the way of my long-term goals, which is streaming or my current short-term goal, which is helping Marley out.”

Sarah nods but lets me keep going without interrupting. “I know you’ll still keep up the devotionals and you’re probably wanting to get them a little more personal considering what I’ve been going through. I don’t mind that, or at least I accept that, but I want to ask that you don’t make it Louis centric at all.” I feel myself get flushed, as it feels embarrassing to talk about this but it’s true and I’m sure it will help. “Don’t make any of the sex stuff be with white men. When you do that, it makes me think of him specifically. I want a clear head when I think about Louis.”

Sarah nods again and is quiet for a moment. She gets to the problem with my thinking though more quickly than I thought she would. “That’s fine Sadie, and I can respect that. But are you ready for the opposite to happen? If you’re associating anything with white male genitalia with Louis, won’t you also associate anything with black male genitalia with Marley? Marley, who you just told me you’re going to be flying to Las Vegas with?”

I know she can see through me, so I don’t try to hide it as I shrug. “Yeah, that’s probably true. But while Marley has said he’s attracted to me, he also said he’s not looking for a relationship and wants to keep things professional. Louis, on the other hand, is wanting to have a relationship with me. So, not making me think of having sex with him is more palatable than making me thinking of having sex with Marley.”

Sarah agrees in the way that only Sarah can seem to do, both making me feel better and worse. “Okay. Sex with Marley it is!”