Relationship Calculus

It was an impossible task to get all those assignments done by Wednesday even if I enjoyed the book—which I didn’t. It wasn’t difficult work, but it was annoyingly time-consuming. Busy work to make sure we were reading it. Ms. Huber probably didn’t even read them.

I decided to be proactive and ask my other teachers about getting my grades up. I used the same excuse. My new relationship distracted me and I was now doing my best to get myself on track. It worked most of the time with most of the teachers finding the situation amusing. I guess it helped that Kaylee was my girlfriend. Being the hard worker she was, she was popular among the staff. The ones she never had as teachers had heard enough good things from the ones she had to carry some weight in my favor. I suppose it also helped that everyone knew about her rather… voracious appetite.

In the end, she didn’t make good on her threat last night. Maybe my efforts won me some points there or maybe she had been bluffing. Or maybe she wasn’t ‘feeling’ Charles anymore. Instead, we hung out with some of Kaylee’s friends after school. With only Sarah and Abby there, it wasn’t the slog I thought it would be. I didn’t talk much, mostly listening as the girls vented and talked about random things. Being out of the loop so long, I couldn’t follow most of the drama, but I saw that as a win. I was there because this was something Kaylee wanted to do. Besides, I actually liked Abby and Sarah. They were far more laid back than say, Ellie. The way she looked at me always made me uncomfortable. I didn’t even want to think about Zoe.

Hearing about Sarah and Sean’s relationship was a plus—what little the two could pull from the quiet girl. Things were apparently going great and I found myself genuinely rooting for them. It sounded like the two were no longer exclusive though. Sean being popular among the girls put a lot of unwanted pressure on Sarah with girls constantly badgering her to sleep with him. Sounded like Sean had free reign among girls at school. The only limitation Sarah put on him was he was no longer allowed to go over to other girls’ houses. Team members were excluded from the rule, however, and Abby and Ellie were apparently taking full advantage. I couldn’t tell if Sarah was sleeping with other guys besides Sean. She was always the odd one of the group and far more private with her sex life.

In the end, Kaylee seemed to enjoy herself. With her in a good mood, I was in a good mood—which helped tremendously when the taskmaster came out and forced me to spend the rest of the evening catching up on work.

Thursday rolled around and I found myself having issues focusing. My mind kept wandering back to my relationship with Kaylee and my conversation with Liam. I did my best to step back and look at it from an objective perspective—which was extremely hard to do. Each time I started focusing on a problem, all the emotional baggage got swept up into it. In one of my notebooks, I flipped to a section I wasn’t using and began to write things out. I hoped something visual would help me out.

I loved Kaylee.

That was right there at the top. From there, I started writing down things we both liked to do. Hanging out with Liam. Going to the movies. Shows and things we enjoyed watching on TV. Watching/playing basketball.

The list grew larger and larger. Seeing it all put down on paper made me realize that there were overlaps in our lives. They were just so natural and routine that I never really considered them before. The sheer amount of time we spent together doing simple routine things like grabbing a snack after school or hanging out and talking made me realize how empty my life would be if Kaylee and I stopped seeing each other. I didn’t just mean it in the emotional sense. So much of my time was spent in close proximity to Kaylee, I would be left with almost nothing to do on my own.

That was also a bit problematic, but I would set that aside for now.

With that done, I moved on to things we weren’t quite in sync with. My hobbies for example. On her side, she had… sex. Just sex. I suppose I could have broken things down, but I didn’t feel like going that deep into it. At the end of the day, Kaylee liked far more aspects of sex than I did and I felt that was represented just fine.

Her friends were another thing I entered. Sarah and Abby were fine. Ellie was tolerable, but Zoe… Zoe was a fucking mental case. I hated that they were so close. I could only imagine the poison she was trying to fill her head with when I wasn’t around. She was so fucking toxic and it hurt that it was a major blind spot in Kaylee’s view. Part of it was the bank of positive memories and experiences the two had when they were dating. I’m sure that to her, Zoe was still the wonderful person she had cared about. Unfortunately, Zoe morphed into some vengeful hellspawn whenever she saw me.

Tapping the bottom of the pen against the paper, I stared at my lists and lost myself in thought. In my grand old age of nineteen, I had slept with two girls, Kaylee and Kayla. I didn’t even want to see the PPD stats on that. I was probably in the 99th percentile for my age. Obviously, I liked sleeping with Kaylee. If she was the only girl I ever slept with, I would be fine with that. Nothing new there. So I put that issue aside and focused on my time with Kayla. A true and honest look.

I enjoyed it. It felt wrong admitting it, but there it was. It was fun and refreshing to have a girl so readily respond to my actions. Before I started dating Kaylee, I’d have considered Kayla far out of my league, yet Kaylee made it sound like I made an impression. That was a much needed confidence booster. The questions facing me were simple.

Would I sleep with Kayla again if I had the chance?

Would I be open to sleeping with other women besides Kaylee in the future?

There should have been easy answers waiting for me, but I delayed my initial response and focused on doing a deep dive into the reasoning behind those gut responses.

Kayla’s question actually was easy. My initial response was yes. In the brief time with her, I found I had been rather comfortable considering the situation. She seemed nice and she lacked a lot of the judgment I was used to getting from girls of her caliber—namely Kaylee’s friends. Sex with her had been…fun. She was cool with me wearing a condom which allowed me some room to relax. Overall, it boiled down to comfort. Maybe it was because Kaylee had been there too, but besides the initial confusion and uncertainty, I felt comfortable being with her.

So expanding from that, what made the second question so hard to answer?

Digging deep, I suppose I always knew the answer. Fear. I was scared of sex. Not the actual act, but the consequences of it. As Kaylee said, I could have been a guy who liked using condoms. Weird, but not overly so. Maybe I could have spun it like I got off ‘pretending’ I was fertile or something.

But condoms weren’t a sure thing. Even with Kaylee, there had been a few times they broke—which pissed me off considering how hard the damn things were to get. I wouldn’t put it past the PPD to purposely design them to have a relatively high failure rate. After all, it seemed an odd conflict of interest for one of the largest manufacturers and distributors of condoms to be the government department in charge of making sure more babies were born.

Luckily I’d caught them in time, but all I needed was one fuck up. One time for the condom to break and not notice. One time for the unsuspecting girl to find herself pregnant.

Like Mom and Dad.

The DNA screening the PPD did would eventually track me down, but they might not have to look all that hard. The guy whose condom broke would be a bit more memorable than the guys who went without. After all, maybe he was wearing it for a reason…

That terrified me. The last thing I wanted was to spend the rest of my life in a lab, posh as they were. I would be nothing more than a test subject and breeding stock for the rich and famous. It wasn’t just my life either. My parents would see prison time. Paige and Elisabeth… I don’t know. God, even Kaylee was at risk now, though I had a feeling the Webb name would get her through in the end without too much damage.

So I set that piece of the equation aside. Hard to do, but I did my best. If I was just a normal, infertile kid. Hell, if I was only a C-rank like Liam. Would I be open to sleeping with other girls besides Kaylee?

After chewing on that question for a good period of time, I found that I would.

It was a bit relieving to be honest. I suppose I wasn’t much different than guys my age after all. Sleeping with Kayla had been fun—once I got past the confusion and fear. No reason to think other girls couldn’t be just as fun. I’m sure there would be some bad experiences. Kaylee would attest to that. Overall though, I think I would be okay. I would certainly feel more normal than I did now. I enjoyed sex, and I certainly wasn't a saint when it came to fantasizing about other girls even if Kaylee had been my primary focus this past year.

None of this meant that I would be turning into Sean or something who actively went out and slept with as many girls as possible. Rather it was just a statement that I would be open to it. Kaylee was still my priority, and if she was the only girl I even slept with moving forward, I would absolutely be fine with that.

After all, the question was if I was open to sleeping with other girls, not if I wanted to.

Repackaging that together with my crippling fear of ruining my life and those I loved, I still didn’t have a satisfying solution. Was beginning to think it was impossible. It was a problem that had no ‘right’ answer. No pretty solution that brought it all to a neat and tidy conclusion. I guess I was stuck in a similar position Liam was. It sucked.

This wasn’t a wasted effort though. I knew I couldn’t match Kaylee’s expectations. Maybe another guy could fit into that perfect relationship she had in her mind, but that wasn’t me. It couldn’t be me even if I wanted that life. Too much was at risk. Maybe I would enjoy some of the stuff she wanted more than I thought I would, but it was something I would never have a chance to find out.

Yet it wasn’t impossible. What she envisioned, yes, but analyzing individual aspects with an objective view...

The threesome was a good place to start. It seemed that was what she was pushing now. After watching those videos with her, I could see the appeal. The ones where the three were in sync were exciting to watch. Ones without that though, where the guy was just an accessory, not so much. I suppose I just needed to be comfortable with the other person, and her with me. Kayla was the obvious choice since she wasn’t a complete stranger. The cousin thing was a little weird, but neither Kaylee nor Kayla seemed to mind. Beyond Kayla, I don’t know. It was possible, but again, I had to have some level of comfort with them.

Partner swaps were another thing Kaylee had mentioned. I didn’t know how common they were, but I could see something like that so long as we were all comfortable around each other. Another thing to put in the ‘maybe’ list.

Time and intimacy seemed to be the common thread. So long as we didn’t rush into things, I felt that closed doors I never bothered with weren’t actually locked. I just never checked or had any interest in what was behind them. I wasn’t committing to liking what lay beyond, but there was no reason not to open a few and find out.

Some things were straight off the table. Orgies were the most immediate thing. Fun or not didn’t matter. There was just no controlling the situation there. The risk to reward was skewed far more to risk. That was something Kaylee was probably going to have to experience alone if that’s what she wanted.

Then there was the looming issue above all. Kaylee with other guys. This was hard to look at objectively and get a feel for what I was comfortable with. No matter how I tried to separate my feelings from the issue, I was constantly fighting with my powerful, innate rejection of the entire thing. Only I knew that wasn’t the whole truth. There was something erotic about watching and listening to Kaylee with other guys and that had been lingering long before we started dating. As Liam had mentioned, I liked her just as much when she was hopping from guy to guy as I did now. Why was I making such a big deal about it now when I went into this relationship knowing this is exactly where we would end up?

I had to dig down deep with this one. So much of me wanted to reject the idea that I could enjoy watching Kaylee with other guys. It made no sense. Why would I enjoy watching the woman I love with someone else? Plenty of guys tolerated it and played out of sight, out of mind, but to enjoy it? That didn’t sound right. Even the thought of me liking it was upsetting that it made it hard to dig around for positives.

The main culprit was Kaylee herself. I loved her. All of her. Her strengths and weaknesses were all there making the one I knew and cherished. That also meant that I loved the part of her who enjoyed the company of attractive men. It was a side of her that I could only glimpse in those moments of passion from the outside looking in. The excitement, bliss, and ecstasy as she surrendered herself completely to the pleasure of the moment could only be done with another man. Not necessarily because he was the only one able to give that to her, but because she knew that she and I were not compatible in that way.

It’s why I always came back to it. Why I always asked her about her time with other men. Why I watched her numerous times, both live and on video. Why I allowed her to find and bring other men to bed with her. I wanted to know that Kaylee too. I wanted to see her. Watch her experience all the things that made her happy. I genuinely wanted her to enjoy herself with other guys so I could see the missing piece that completed the puzzle that was Kaylee. It was only in that moment that I could glimpse the whole picture of the woman I loved, fleeting at it was.

But the same reason I wanted her to do it was the same reason it hurt me. By its very nature, that was a part of Kaylee that I could never experience. I would forever be the familiar face outside looking in through the window. I could share all the moments with her, but I would never be in the moment. Even if she wanted me there, she could never invite me inside. That was the root of my jealousy and envy. That tiny, treasured piece of hers would forever be out of my reach. I felt she had the whole of me, but that piece of her would never be mine.

And even as the bell rang, dismissing us from the last class for the day, I had no answer. No matter how I tried to separate my biases and emotions on the matter, I couldn’t. I only grew more frustrated as the solution continued to elude me.

I jumped as a hand brushed against my arm. Kaylee was standing there, a concerned look on her face. “What’s wrong?”

“Noth—” I stopped myself. This wasn’t something I could solve on my own. Besides, it concerned her just as much as it did me. Yet why was my natural reaction to avoid talking about it with her? She was supposed to be my partner in crime and I was only giving her part of the plan.

That’s when it hit me, the lens shifting to make the blurred words in the distance shift into focus. I was scared. Terrified really. Not just of sex and the consequences it could bring, but of our relationship too. In order to work on this, I had to open the hood and give her full access—access no one had ever had before. That level of vulnerability was unprecedented. What if she finally got a look at Real Scott and found he wasn’t all that great after all? Too different and weird. Disgusting. That there were parts of me she simply couldn’t tolerate. I don’t know if I could mentally recover from that.

But I don’t know how we would ever move forward without doing it.

Staring into my locker, I steeled myself. I felt physically ill as my hand tightened on the cold metal door. “I was actually thinking about us.” I saw her body go stiff, worry flashing across her face before she schooled her face into a neutral expression.

“Oh?”

“Well, more focus on me in regards to us.” She still seemed nervous but said nothing as she waited for me to continue. I focused on my locker, looking that the books and things I had stuffed in there and didn’t need. I felt it was a good representation of me. Everything was just… shoved in there for no rhyme or reason. A mess that somehow managed to work despite the chaos.

Three words. I needed to say three words and maybe I would get some damn answers. But I found those three words were the hardest of all to say. Not even admitting to Kaylee that I loved her was this difficult.

Three words that fought with me every inch of the way as I dragged them from my depths and kicked them out into the world.

“I need help.”

The relief of getting them out there was nothing compared to the guilt and shame. Already, I felt like I had failed in some way. How was I supposed to be Kaylee’s support if I was a collapsing mess of a man?

The feeling of her warm hand on my arm pulled my attention to her. She had a warm smile and a look in her eyes I would never forget. All the fear and negative things that had been swirling inside me faded, chased away by the beaming light she offered. The judgment I feared was absent. Just an overwhelming desire to be there.

“How can I help?”