Friends with benefits

I help Kristina get her last-minute things pulled together, then drive her to the airport. I stay with her until she goes through the security checkpoint; she waves to me once she’s through, then turns and walks down the corridor. It seems to me she looks a little forlorn, but maybe I’m just projecting. When she’s all the way out of sight, I drive back to school.

For the several days Kristina is gone, I find myself restless. I miss her more than I expected. When I pick her up at the airport, I’m absurdly glad when she greets me by wrapping her arms tight around me and giving me a long, deep kiss. After we pick up her bag, I ask her if she’s hungry. She nods and suggests we pick up fast food on the way back to school, but I want to give her something better than that. A friend of mine recently recommended a little Lebanese place that’s only a few blocks off the direct route from the airport to school; he said it’s inexpensive, quiet, and has fantastic food. I take her there.

Over dinner, I get Kristina talking about the funeral, which sounds like it was about as good a funeral as could be expected under the circumstances. She tells me she was able to keep calm and be a source of strength for Rob’s family and the rest of his friends. His parents and sister, especially, were deeply grateful to her for her support and praised her for her strength. When they asked her how she was able to keep from melting down, she told them she has great friends at school who had allowed her to grieve and helped her let out a lot of her pain.

“I didn’t tell them who I meant, of course,” Kristina says with a small lopsided grin. “That would have been a little awkward.”

“Just a little,” I agree.

“But I knew there was more to it than what I told them.” She hesitates.

“What do you mean?” I ask, taking my cue.

“I started to realize something on the flight out,” Kristina says slowly, “and it really came home to me while I was there. I knew I’ve been lusting after your cock ever since you ate my pussy for the first time, but that’s not all. I wouldn’t admit it to myself—I wouldn’t let myself face it—but I’ve been falling in love with you. I never stopped loving Rob, but I was falling just as hard for you as I had for him. It was absolutely agonizing, losing him this way—but if everything had gone the way it was supposed to, it would have been almost as painful losing you when I graduated and moved to be with him. I put myself in a position where no matter what happened, I was going to have to deal with terrible grief. At least this way it’s clean, I guess.

“I miss him terribly, though, and I’m going to be missing him for a long time. I love you, and I’ll need your help to get through this, but I’m—I’m just not ready to commit yet. That’s still too raw. I feel bad about that—I’m not being fair to you, I know, and I feel terrible about that—but I just—can’t. Can you forgive me?” Her eyes are pleading.

“There’s nothing to forgive, Kristina,” I say quietly. “You need to take the time you need. I’ll be here for you to do whatever I can.”

“Thank you,” Kristina says, looking like she’s had a weight removed from her shoulders. “I do still want to fuck, as often as possible. I realize I can’t ask you to save yourself for me if I’m not ready to commit to you, but I want you as often as I can get you—and I warn you,” she adds with a fragile grin, “I can be a hard woman to keep satisfied.”