Finding Someone

Thanks to my team. They are, Girlinthemoon, Hal, Norafares, Pixel the Cat and GeorgeAnderson. Harddaysknight is my mentor and gives me critical review. SBrooks103x also gives me a pre-post read. I love you all.

This is "Sharing is Caring." It began as a writer's challenge for the people over at Sports Illustrated. It expanded a bit, and we added a few more writers. The challenge was to write something other than what we find comfortable on the "sharing" theme. If you read only stories about monogamous relationships, you will not find some of these stories comfortable or enjoyable. Some are about that, and you will probably find those to your taste. If you do not enjoy the stories, please respect the craft. These fine writers stretched their literary muscles and wrote stories outside the box. Thanks to everyone who participated and to everyone who reads our stories. Randi.

*

By the time I started college, I had been having sex on a daily basis for two years. No, I wasn't underage. I started school when I was seven, for reasons that are unimportant. My lover, and the man I intended to spend the rest of my life loving was 13 years older than I was. I seduced him, and the first time he took me out I told him I was going to marry him and have his children. He was taken aback and amused, I think, but he had no idea of the depths of my determination. Believe me, he didn't stand a chance. He was my man, that was the end of the matter, and I was going to make it happen.

When I graduated from high school, he was two years into a four-year contract. We talked about where I was going to go to school, at length.

"Drew, I hate the idea of you moving across the country," he said. "I'd like for you to stay here and go to school here."

I wasn't any happier about going away than he was. "I'd like that, too," I said. "I didn't get a scholarship offer from any local school. Oklahoma offered me a scholarship. They have a good program, I'm one of the top 200 volleyball players in the country, and I have a chance to see just how far I can go."

"You don't need a scholarship," he said. "We have money, kitten. I can pay for you to go to school anywhere you want to go."

"I want to play volleyball," I told him. "This is important to me, Murphy. Do you understand that?"

He sighed. "Yes, I understand. You know I have to finish this contract, right?"

I nodded. "Yes, of course. It's two years, Murphy. Will you still love me in two years?"

"It's not me I'm worried about," He laughed. "You know you own me. It's you I'm worried about. I mean, those college boys are going to be on you like flies on honey. God, Drew, you're the hottest woman any of them have ever seen! You're going to find some college stud and forget all about me. That's what I'm worried about."

"You are so wrong," I said. "I'm not interested in boys, Murphy. I have a man. You are always going to be my man. I will fly home every time I have a break longer than a weekend. You can come and see me every time you have a break. We can skype, face-time, all the miracles of modern communication are going to make it as if I'm here."

I had been pacing back and forth in front of him. He caught me and pulled me down on his lap. One huge hand slid up inside my top and his fingers latched onto a suddenly stiffening nipple. "Yeah, but this isn't available on face-time," he growled.

One thing led to another and we reduced each other to smoking rubble.

Two months before school started, we flew to Norman and checked things out. Athletes were required to live in the dorms, but I had no intention of staying in that hole. Murphy had played college football, and he had filled me in on that scene. Sure, I'd maintain a presence in my "room," but I wasn't about to live there. We rented a small house just off campus, and I was set.

We had a tearful goodbye, and a new chapter of my life began. School was easy for me; it always had been. I had graduated number three from high school, and I never had any trouble with academics. I stayed in my dorm room for the first two weeks, got to know my roommates and got them used to the idea that I wasn't going to be there much. Practice was going well and if I wasn't going to start, I was going to see a great deal of playing time. I thought I had a good chance at starting.

What wasn't going well was my personal life. I was used to going to sleep snuggled up against Murphy's warmth. I was used to waking up and getting my morning snuggling. I was used to having him around to touch, hug, sit on his lap, attending to my every whim and fancy. I was spoiled, in other words. I missed all those intimate moments. I was also as horny as a cat in heat. Luckily, I could get online and buy me a toy. It was the first I'd ever had. My magic fingers had always done the trick before I started being sexually active with Murphy, but that seemed so... childish, now. I didn't have to suffer the embarrassment of going to some sleazy "adult" store and facing some leering salesperson with a dildo in my hand.

It was a fine device, and I could get myself off very well with it. I would feel satisfied for a few minutes. It was the intimacy that I missed the most. It was the cuddling after sex, the moment when I would be in a room of people, someone would make some asinine comment and I would roll my eyes, look for Murphy to see him doing the same thing; we would smile at each other and feel that connection. I missed how we could look at each other, not say a word, and realize we were making fun of the same person. It was all the little things, and I was growing increasingly claustrophobic in my own little world.

I was becoming the ice bitch. I was frosty, all the time. Every single person on my team was annoying AF. There was one hoe named Rachael who got on my last nerve. She had been a starter the year before. She wasn't going to start, and she didn't like it that Kendra and I were going to start as freshmen. She gave me shit, constantly. I wasn't about to put up with it, in the mood I was in. She'd try to make me look bad in practice, trying to set me badly so I'd miss kill shots. After the fifth time she did that in practice, one day I just snapped. I reached under the net, grabbed her by the hair and dragged her under. I got in her face and screamed at her. The coaches came running over and broke us up.

Coach Ryder took me over and sat me down in the bleachers. "Drew, what's wrong with you?" she asked. "You go around with a scowl on your face and your teammates are afraid to talk to you. You snap everyone's head off and if you don't get your head out of your ass, I'm going to bench you. I see what Rachael's doing. Don't let it get to you."

I apologized and tried to "get my head out of my ass," but it was hard and I was miserable. I went to a party, and ten minutes after I got there, I was like, 'what the hell? Why am I here?' I called a Uber and went home.

The damn Uber driver was playing mad annoying shit. Some country song about "Rock Me Baby Like A Wagon Wheel." Christ! I snapped at him and I think he must have thought he finna get shanked. I had to get myself under control.

My grades were slipping because I started just skipping class and sleeping. I had a very high libido. I wanted sex, constantly, when I was with Murphy, but even that started to slip. I smoked weed, constantly, and that worried me, too.

I flew home three times in the first two months, and I would feel all refreshed and recharged, until I got on the plane to go back to Oklahoma, and the tears would begin. At the end of three months, I was going nuts.

I flew home and had a long talk with Murphy. Yeah, it was one of the dreaded, "Honey, we need to talk," moments. I could see the apprehension on his face.

"We have to do something," I told him. "I'm lonely, all the time, Murphy. I miss the hell out of you, every damn day. My grades are suffering. I just want to stay in my bed and avoid humans. I'm miserable as hell. You need to come to Oklahoma and take care of me."

"You know there's nothing I'd like better," he said. "We knew this, Kitten. I never liked the idea of you being there and me being here. What can I do? I'm under contract. I can't just leave."

"I know. It's not your fault, but I'm just going nuts," I said. "I go to class, I go to practice and I go home. I'm becoming a gym rat. I work out to forget that you won't be there when I go home. The only relationship I have is with my coaches. I have zero human interaction with anyone I give a damn about."

"Don't you have any friends? Make some friends, for God's sake, Drew. Hang out with them. You're a college student. Do college student stuff. Go to parties, get drunk. Hell, this is supposed to be the fun part of your life where you have no responsibilities outside school and you just act like a typical kid."

I burst into tears. "I have friends. They're not you, Murphy. I need you. I need you to hold me, tell me how beautiful I am, how sexy I am. I need you, Goddamn it, not some frat boy or some vapid girl who says "like" all the time."

"What can I do?" he asked.

"I don't know." I sniffled around, looking for a tissue. "I can't stand this. Maybe I should try to transfer at semester."

He frowned at me. "One thing I know about you, Drew, you're not a quitter. You're doing so well at your volleyball. Your grades aren't that bad. You can pull them up. I know how smart you are and how well you could do if you tried. I think you'd always regret it if you don't stick it out."

"I don't want to quit," I sobbed. "I'm not a quitter, but I can't stand not having you, Murphy. I need someone to love me, someone I can love."

He was very still and quiet for a long minute. "So, find someone," he said quietly.

I sat up and glared at him, indignantly. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Just calm down, Drew," he said.

"Don't tell me to 'calm down'," I snapped "I was about to. Now you just extended my saltiness for thirty minutes with that 'calm down' shit. Just tell me what that 'find someone' shit mean."

He laughed. "Okay, sorry, I know you hate that. Do you love me, Drew?"

"Why the hell you ask me that?" I was getting hotter by the second.

"Because I'm making a point, if you'll just play along for a second. Just answer me and go along with me for a while, here."

I took a deep breath. "Okay, yes, I love you, Murphy. What the fu..."

"Are you in love with me, permanently?" He interrupted me before I could get started.

"I told you the first time we went out that you are my man," I said. "I haven't changed my mind, and I'm never going to change my mind."

"I believe you," he said. "For a long time, I wasn't convinced. You were so young and so hot and I just thought I was a crush. I thought you'd get over it and find some boy and that would be it. I know that isn't going to happen, now. I believe you. Tell me again."

"HundoP," I said. "I don't know where you're going with this, but I don't like all this fucking around. Just spill."

"You're obviously not happy," he said. "I'm telling you, find someone up there and get what you need. Don't fall in love with them. I don't want to know about it, and I never want to meet them or hear about them, but I want you happy. If you found someone, would you leave me, stop loving me, not want to be with me anymore?"

"No, but that's not going to happen," I said. "Hell naw! I belong to you, Murphy. Just you. I'll never do that. I'm sorry I've been so weird. I'll stop, now. We won't speak of this again."

He knew better than to say anything else. He knew me well enough to know that if I was done with it, I wouldn't ever mention it again and I would just ignore him if he did. I was to come to eat those words.

I went back to school. Christmas break was just around the corner and I coped. I came home for Christmas and every day I dreaded going back more. It felt like I was holding my breath, trying not to think about going back, but the day came and I was back on that plane, trying not to let the lady in the seat beside me know I was crying.

When I got back to school, I threw myself into my school work. I became a demon on the volleyball court, and I did go to parties and get drunk. After the second one and puking my guts up, I decided I wasn't that sort of party girl. A blunt, a good book and one beer was more my speed. I was desperately lonely and I began to think about what Murphy had said.

I had known since I was about 15 that I was bisexual. I guess I always was, but I didn't know what it meant. I had always found women more attractive than men. I was extremely attracted to one man: Murphy. Men in general, not so much. I loved Murphy, and he rocked my world, but let's face it, women are just prettier than men. I loved beautiful things, and women are just more beautiful. I liked looking at hunky men, and I loved getting me some dick, but it was Murphy's dick I wanted, not just a random dick.

I had no idea what me taking a lover would do to Murphy. I knew I wouldn't have to tell him anything other than that I had, but I had no idea what that would do to his psyche, and no intent to find out. There had been one dick in me in my life, and I intended to keep it that way. I thought it would be a treachery, a betrayal, if I just found some guy to keep my bed warm at night. I was very well aware of the double standard at play, but what if it was another woman? I had no idea what Murphy thought about that. I mean, he was aware that I was bisexual, that that meant nothing to our relationship. I was a one man woman.

People always reacted strangely to me expressing the idea that I was bisexual. It was like, "So, you have a man and a woman lover?" What the hell? Where did you get that idea? My sexual identity had nothing to do with the number of lovers I had. Having both was a whole different sexual identity and I had little patience with that ignorance. I didn't put up with that shit. You ever look at someone and just think, "Why no one hit you with a shovel, yet." That's the way I felt, and I decided a long time previously that once you let shitheads slide, they get to thinking they can ice-skate.

I thought Murphy would be a lot better with a woman than he would be with a man. Maybe I was being naïve. I was going to find out and I thought I knew how. Once I decided I couldn't go on the way things had been, the plan began to come together in my mind.

Two doors down from the dorm room where I didn't live, there was a beautiful woman. Her name was Shania Hogan. She was this tall gorgeous leggy blonde, and she was cool as fuck. I knew her pretty well. She was a pole vaulter on the track team, and we'd talked at meals when I ate at the school and hung out a couple of times. I knew a few things about her; she went both ways, she wasn't a slut and she was smart and driven. I liked all of those things.

I thought about it for a week. I hardly thought of anything else. The next Tuesday I caught her coming out of the weight-room and asked her out. She was a little surprised.

"I thought you had a boyfriend, Drew," she said.

"I do," I told her. "I have an ulterior motive, Shania. Look, I know you aren't going out with anyone. I like you, you're hot as fuck and I just want to get to know you better. Go out with me, okay?"

She laughed. "Well, I don't know about the ulterior motive thing, but I like you, too. What the hell? Sure, I'll go out with you."

I picked her up at her room and we took an Uber. The driver was hearing impaired, and he had the most beautiful golden retriever service dog with him. I found out something else I liked about Shania. She was a dog-lover, just like me. That was the perfect beginning to a perfect date. We went and had sushi, and walked to a nightclub. I had a blunt and we sparked up on the way. When we got to the club there was a queue. We had to walk by the guy manning the door and he grabbed us as we went by, sending us right in. That didn't set too well with some of the people standing in line, but we gave zero fucks about that.

"I think he wants us to give him head," Shania said. We giggled like little girls and went inside. The beat was heavy, and we danced our asses off, mostly with each other, but sometimes with other people who asked us. She was a white girl, but she had game. I had rarely seen anyone who could hang with me on the dance floor, but she could.

Some dude danced with her and tried to join us at our booth. I let him down easy. "Hey, no offence, but we're lesbians and we just want to be alone," I told him. He smiled and went away. We had to lean in close and nearly shout to talk, and it was very intimate. She smelled good, too.

We went for coffee after the club and caught an Uber back to the dorms. She invited me up, but I just kissed her cheek, hugged her and went home. That was our first date, and we had four more, just as good. On the fifth date, I invited her to my house and cooked for her. I know my way around a kitchen, and I went all out.

We drank wine, lit up and watched a movie on Netflix. We cuddled up on the sofa with a fuzzy blanket over us and it was cozy. I was really relaxed. I could feel her glancing at me from time to time, and I finally looked over at her. She surprised me by taking my head between her hands and kissing me. She could kiss! Her lips were puffy and she tasted like wine. It went on for a looong time and I was getting hot and horny. She pulled back and looked at me with heavy-lidded eyes.

"Drew, I love you," she half-whispered. "Tell me what you're thinking. I know there's something you aren't telling me. Tell me about the 'ulterior motive.' Whatever it is, I love you and I promise I'll be okay with it."

That just broke me down and I started crying. She held me, ran her fingers through my hair and just soothed me.

"I've just been so lonely here," I told her. "I've told you all about Murphy. I miss him so much, Shania. I'm not a cheater, but until you started going out with me, I was just a mess, all the time. Now I have you, and I love you, too. The thing is, I'm IN love with Murphy. Are you in love with anyone?"

"No, I'm not," she said. "I've thought I was a few times. I could fall in love with you, but I know that when we graduate I'm going back to Texas. That's my home and I'm going back. You'll go back to Florida and Murphy, and that's not my life."

"Do you think if could be for a little while, like until we graduate?" I asked her.

"I'll have to think about that one," she said. "Tell me what you're thinking."

It all came out in a rush, everything I had been thinking, every wrenching moment of it. "I'm hoping we can be lovers," I said. "I don't even know how to ask you, so I'm just going to blurt it out. I'm going home over spring break. I want you to come with me. It's Florida; we'll have a blast. I'll introduce you to Murphy and you can tell me what you think about him. If you think he's as wonderful as I do, if you think he's as hot as I do, I'm hoping that you'll let me help you seduce him. I want to fuck him so much that we break his dick. I want him to love you as much as I do, and for you to love him. I'm hoping that if everything goes to plan, by the time we come back, he'll be fine with you and me being lovers for the rest of the time we're here."

I kind of ran out of gas, and we just looked into each other's eyes for a long time. I was drowning in those big blue pools and we still sat in silence. I felt the tears coming.

She saw my eyes filling up and shook her head, as if she was waking up. "No, Drew, don't cry." She pulled me close. "I'm sorry, I was just kind of in shock. I didn't say no, but there are some things... I don't know. What if he hates me? What if he's not attracted to me? What if I'm not attracted to him? What... hell, there are just so many what-ifs."

"Let's settle some of them," I said. "Just come home with me for spring break. We won't say a word to Murphy. If you don't feel any spark there, you tell me and the whole thing will be our secret. We'll just go, hang out on the beach, have a great time, do spring break stuff and chill. I know that you'll love him, even if you don't feel anything like sexual. Everyone loves him. He's a great friend, and I know you'll want to be friends, even if you don't ever want to be anything else. What else were you going to do over spring break?"