The Following





“What’s new,” she said, walking casually down the sidewalk to greet him. Smiling, of course, but her eyes seemed different.

“Hello there, lady,” he said with valiant esteem, after having told her of the new situation that he’d found himself in. “Um, well….”

“Yeah, well, I think we have some things to talk about.”

He knew that there was something else that she wanted to talk about; it wasn’t the latest gossip at work, nor books or drugs. It was her.

“I know that’s why you called me in the first place, right?” He asked, head down in guilt.

“No, not exactly, let’s walk.”

“Let’s walk where?”

“Somewhere else.”



Gerald had known Gina for a long time. A very long time, in fact he knew her from his freshman year of college. They both decided to major in English, and he met her at the liberal arts building to sign up for and declare a major. They had been really good friends. Not best friends. Good friends.

She liked to party more than he did. Gerald was one of those guys who wasn’t all that brilliant, but liked to read difficult material. In fact, he “got into” the major more than she, who was getting better grades than he, but she didn’t have to work on it, as she read much faster than he did and wrote faster, generally understood things rapidly, that is, aside from morals and ethics, which Gerald had a good grip on, at least he thought—give the dude something to be better at. It was for these reasons that he told himself that he didn’t want to “go out” with her, although she was so hot, but she probably wouldn’t want to go out with him anyway. He would really like to fuck her. But the chance of this happening, with her and all of her boyfriends was an outlandish idea to even mentally conceive. So, he stayed in his apartment and read and read. He had a few girlfriends, and they all were very nice girls, many of them younger, and this seemed to always be the problem, to Gina. Gina hated him dating younger girls, in fact she hated him dating anybody. It was a bizarre situation, their friendship. And it pretty much remained this way, a sexually tense acquaintanceship.

The years passed, and now, they were both thirty. Thirty, wow, he never would have dreamed that he would ever make it to this age, and if he did, he would have accomplished some more things in life, but he had some problems involving drugs and mental illness, which retarded his growth. But he was growing, slowly but surely; however, Gina was not pleased with the “direction” of his growth. He was falling into the same pattern again. Dating another young girl.

They arrived at the coffee shop, sat down, and each ordered a latte of some variety. He liked them plain, she enjoyed them with vanilla. There was a few nervous beginnings of conversations, the “um so…”s and “Yeah well,”s until finally Gerald said, “Ok, why is it that you always have a problem with me dating girls, younger ones at that?”

“Because you are too old. Come on. And you know you know that you are smarter than they are. Is it that? Dominance? T-Rex Gerald.”

“No, I just generally like the young ones. They are not necessarily innocent. I’ve dated a sixteen year old who knew more about sex that I do now.”

She sipped her latte, “Maybe because you only date the young ones.”

“That’s not true. There have been several that were above my age. Over twenty six, I believe at the time.” Gerald was beginning to get defensive, as he stared into the Gina’s green eyes.

“Those were only one night stands, or well three night stands. And that girl who worked at the uni-mart. She was older than you, right? Wow, what an accomplishment there.”

“Give me a break; it was after a crazy break up….”

“Yeah, with a young girl.” She said, “What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing, how bout we look at the guys that you dated?”

“Off limits, I’m not in a crisis situation.” She said, now getting a bit nervous.

Gerald smiled, being soft-hearted, “Ok, we’ll focus on me. You know that they say now at the good ol’ psych clinic that I have narcissistic personality disorder? Cool huh? So yeah, let’s talk about my self-centered ass.”

She put her hand on his, touching his fingertips gently, “I don’t believe in any of that crap. You are fine now, and I lov….”

“What’s that?” He laughed, “What did you say?”

“I meant l really enjoy your company and I care about you. I only say that word to guys that I’m in love with. And I’m not….in…..” Her voice became softer until she became silent, staring at her napkin. “Ok,” she began again, “I just wanted to talk to you about this new girl you are dating, but I don’t know if I should bother. All we do is argue, that is ALL WE DO. Maybe…well, ok, how old is she.”

And right away she was fiercely attacking the sensitive areas of his new relationship. “20, Now please don’t……”

She cut him off and her voice became louder, “That is bullshit! Why are you doing this,that is fucking pedophilia, Mr. Jackson.” he started to laugh softly. She continued, “I’m not kidding. The girl could be your daughter, for Christ sakes. Don’t you have any sense of decency? I bet she doesn’t even bleed every month. I bet she’s got those “perfect breasts,” you always talk about. You know why they are perfect? Because they just grew, you fuck. And they never even know how to kiss…so you show them, huh? So you show them. Fuck you and fuck your life.

“I don’t understand why……”

“You don’t understand ANYTHING, that’s why you had to work so hard in college while I went out and had a good time.”

And while she was so angry, he kept staring into her eyes, noticing things---worlds that he’d never seen before…anywhere. Her dirty blond hair pulled back tight, her skin so fair, so white. If……she…were….only….mine

“No,I mean why do you care so much,” and as he said this, I noticed that we were disturbing the other students and professors studying their papers.

“Why do you think?”

“I don’t know,” he said, but I really wanted to think because she cared about him..romantically.

“Because I care about you,” she said, tears streaming down her overly emotional face.

“Ok then,” he took a chance, here we go…”How about you come over to my apartment tonight. Kelly is gone.”

“That’s her name?” Gina asked, “And to do What?”

“I don’t know, sit down.”

“To do what?”



“I just thought that since we have been friends for so long, and I am going to agree that I’ll not date this girl anymore, then you can stay the night?”

“You want to fuck me?”

He grinned, “Yeah, like that.”

“Isn’t that sweet you asshole,” and she threw the rest of her vanilla latte on his face. “You know, I really thought you were on my side, but your hedonistic ways want to make me puke..fuck you…” and she walked out of the coffee shop with her head held high, never looking back, never caring again. To think it was so crazy what he could have had, a partner for life, but instead, he would bounce from one young romance to the other, all for the sake of trying to understand why the human race is one of jealousy, of greed, of diseased colored death of love. Black against white, innocence versus evil. All of this was coming his way.