A Decision to be Made

A/N: This is just a chapter of dialog between Emma and Isaac. I think it’s a discussion they needed to have, but it’s long(ish) with all dialog and no action. If anyone wants a summary and then to move on to the next action chapter, then I wrote a brief summary chapter which should be just enough to explain the choice Isaac has to make.

Emma and I didn’t talk to each other over lunch on Monday. I found myself welcomed back into the group of Emma's friends, as she had told them we were back together again. But it all felt so hollow to me. I wasn’t at all sure we would stay together after her revelation of who she intended to go to prom with. She knew how I felt about Owen, and still she had not only agreed to go to prom with him, but had made me pay for the hotel room where she intended to take him to have sex afterwards.

This felt like more than I could possibly handle. We needed to talk about this, but not in front of all of her friends, obviously. So I mostly sat silent over lunch, glad to be included back in the group, but suspecting that it might be short-lived.

I couldn’t find Emma after school, so I did what I always did. I went to the library. I had no idea if she intended to join me or not. By the end of the day, I was feeling so down that I wasn’t even sure I wanted her to join me.

I sat at our usual table and tried to lose myself in a book. I failed. I couldn’t get my mind off of Emma and Owen.

Eventually I heard someone approaching and looked up to see Emma, standing at the table, looking down at me.

“Hey, Isaac,” she said. She was looking at me tentatively, unsure of the reception she was going to get. When she saw the look on my face, she knew what that reception was going to be.

“You’re pissed at me,” she said, seeing the seething anger evident on my face.

“Gee,” I said, “I wonder why.”

She looked at me, clearly saddened to see how mad I was, although I wasn’t sure why she would have expected anything different.

“You know exactly how I feel about Owen, Emma. How could you possibly do this?” My voice was already louder than what was acceptable in a library.

“We need to talk about this, Isaac,” she said, “but this isn’t the place. C’mon. Let take a drive together.”

We walked out to my Audi and I began to drive - to nowhere in particular. Being in the car alone gave us an opportunity to talk without anyone hearing us. It gave us the chance to speak freely, to raise our voices as much as we needed with no danger of someone overhearing us. It was perfect.

"Look, Isaac," she said to me almost as soon as we started to drive. "I know you have a lot to say to me. I suspect I already know a lot of what it will be. I believe I can address almost everything you want to tell me. Will you agree to just hear me out for a little bit? I promise I will listen to anything you want to say when I am done, but I need you to hear me first. Can you do that?"

I glanced over at her. I could see the sadness in her eyes. I could see the pleading as well. I felt that she really wanted to set this right. It was also much easier for me to just listen while driving anyway.

"Yes, I can do that," I said, trying to calm the anger I felt welling inside of me.

"Good," she said. She reached over and put her hand on my thigh, and then sighed loudly.

"God, this is so hard, Isaac," she began. When I glanced over at her, I could see a tear rolling down her cheek. Was it a real tear, or was this just another masterful performance from the manipulative Emma I had come to know? I had no way of assessing that.

“I know you’re upset about me going to the prom with Owen, and about what you know I am planning after the prom. I get it, Isaac. I know you hate Owen, and you hate how he treated me. I know you told me you couldn’t be with someone that was willing to be with a guy like him. I know you want me to tell you why I would pick Owen. So let me do that, okay?”

“I need you to do that, Emma. I can’t fathom it. I told you how I felt about it.”

“There are a few reasons Isaac,” she said, “but the first one is really simple. Are you sure you’re ready for it?”

“Yes,” I said, a little too angrily.

“The first, and likely biggest, reason is because he’s the only one that asked me, Isaac. I know I’m a pretty girl. I know I’m a popular girl. And yet, no one asked me to go to prom. When I was younger I would see the girls all dressed up for prom, and I thought about how much I wanted to be them. It’s my senior prom, Isaac. I really, really wanted to go, and no one asked me. Once we were officially dating, I assumed you would ask me. You never said a word about it.”

Shit.

Why was I so stupid that I never even once considered asking her to prom? Once we were official, I should have asked her. Prom was something I had long ago stopped thinking about, certain as I was that I wouldn’t find someone who wanted to go with me. So I simply hadn’t even thought to ask her. Apparently no one else did either.

“I’m sorry,” I said to her. “I just never figured I’d be going to prom, so I’d honestly forgotten all about it.”

“But I hadn’t, Isaac. Not once. And Owen asked me. I told him no, because I knew how much it would hurt you. Then, when we broke up, it was starting to look like he was my only chance to go to prom, so I called him and said yes. That’s the main reason I am going with him.”

“But there are others?”

“Yes,” she said, “and it’s important you understand them.”

“Go on then,” I said to her.

“The second reason is that I like Owen,” she said.

“What?” I said, shocked that she would say such a thing.

“I know you hate him, and that’s it hard for you to believe that I wouldn’t as well. But you mostly hate him because you think he treated me like a slut. But let’s think about it, Isaac. Nearly every Friday I go out and wait while a group of guys compete for a chance to fuck me. I willingly spread my legs for whoever earns the right to pick me. Do you think I am unaware of what that makes me? Do you think a girl like that is somehow going to be offended by a guy who uses a little sexual innuendo and openly flirts with me?”

“But that’s not what I think of you,” I argued.

“You say that, Isaac, but you don’t actually believe it.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t,” she said firmly, “but I’ll get to that later. Let me finish with Owen first. I like guys that are bold and brash, that know what they want and aren’t afraid to let people know about it. Those are the guys that typically get to have sex with me. Owen is the only guy in our D and D group that was like that.”

“What about Ben?” I asked. I’d always thought of Owen and Ben as being very similar in the way they behaved.

She just shook her head.

“Ben was a copycat. He only had whatever spine that Owen gave him. He would never have the guts to say any of the things he said to me without Owen paving the way first. I like Owen. I wouldn’t give a guy like Ben the time of day if he hadn’t been part of the group. I don’t care for guys that ride someone else’s coattails and pretend they were the ones that got themselves there.”

“I guess I can see that,” I said.

“So, as much as you failed to see it,” she went on, “Owen has always intrigued me. He often stepped over the line without realizing it, but I prefer people who like to push the edge of that line. I think you see that’s how I’m always living my life.”

I nodded. She had pushed me over an awful lot of lines in our time together.

“And that brings me to my final point about Owen, which also brings us back to what you really think of me.”

“I think you already know how I feel about you, Emma.” I said.

“No,” she said, “I don’t. You send me so damn many mixed messages that I can’t make sense of it all. You tell me you don’t think of me as a slut. You were adamant about that. And yet, you still want me to run around having what you seem to hope will be cheap, meaningless sex with other people. You seem to want me to be able to switch between being your loving, emotionally attached girlfriend and being a wanton slut, whenever you say the word. I can’t possibly do that Isaac. I don’t think it is even remotely fair of you to ask that of me.”

I certainly hadn’t ever considered that this was what I was doing, but now that she mentioned it, it was pretty easy to see her point.

“I guess I can’t really disagree with you on that point,” was all I could say to her. “But I’m not sure what that has to do with Owen.”

“Let me explain that then,” she said. “As I see it, there are only two ways that I can make things work with you. The first is the way that I decided it would work in the first place. I give myself to you, and only you, and we see if we can build a lasting emotional and physical bond between us. That’s what I decided to do the night you gave me to Ryan. I was going to give you everything, until you seemed to be unsure that’s what you wanted.”

I was still upset with myself for that one. I had caused her so much pain without even noticing it. I just nodded in agreement.

“And what’s the second way?” I asked.

“I give myself to you, just as I was planning all along, but I still try to find ways to satisfy your desire for me to have sex with other people. But pay attention to how I said that. I said that I will try to find ways to satisfy that desire. If you want our relationship to work that way, it will have to happen on my terms and not on your terms. You can’t be the one trying to push a button that magically turns me into a sex doll for guys of your choosing. If that’s what you expect of me, then we are done.”

I’ll admit that my mood had changed substantially over the course of our conversation. I had gone from being pissed at her to feeling like an absolute ass. She was right, it wasn’t at all fair for me to ask what I seemed to be asking of her. Her comment about me pushing a button to turn her into someone else’s sex doll really stung me. It was exactly what I had done that night with Ryan.

“I understand what you’re saying, and I’m sorry it took me this long to get it. I still don’t quite understand how this relates to Owen.”

“That seems pretty easy to understand, Isaac. I just told you that any sex I have outside our relationship happens on my terms. I will decide when I am ready for it. I will decide who I will and will not have sex with. I will decide whether you can watch it or not. If I am allowing others to use my body for your pleasure, then I get to decide who and where and when, not you. That’s the lesson I’ve been pushing you to learn here.”

“Jesus, Emma,” I said with a sigh. “I’m sorry that I ever expected it to be any other way.”

“Let me assure you,” she went on, “that I didn’t pick Owen just to hurt you. I picked him because he was the one bold enough to ask me to prom, and because I actually like him, mostly because of that boldness. I have to tell you that I never would have rolled the dice that night if I hadn’t already decided I wanted to have sex with him. I know you’d rather not hear that, but it’s the truth. So those are the main reasons I agreed to go to prom with him. But I also need you to understand this last point. I will be the one who decides who I choose to have sex with, and I can’t think of anyone who drives that point home more than Owen. Can you understand that?”

“Yes,” I said. I understood it perfectly.

“So, Isaac,” she went on. “It’s really up to you to decide who spends the night in that hotel room after prom. If you can decide that you want it to be just the two of us, from now until we either die or just can’t stand each other anymore, then I will call Owen and tell him I’m not going to the prom with him. You can take me to prom and make love to me all night afterwards. But then don’t expect me to ever agree to have sex with someone else unless you’re breaking up with me.”

She let that sink in for a little while.

“Any other choice involves Owen in that hotel room, fucking me in my prom dress. You’ll either accept that and we’ll stay together, or you’ll decide it’s too much and we’ll break up. It’s the only way I can do this, Isaac.”