Mystery Lake
[22] Jess Do It
Layla went in next, and Joel... who soon chose the name Roxanne, did what he always did, no matter what kind of body contained his beautiful soul. She wanted an apology from Alyssa for me, even though it didn't matter. It was about showing the kind of person he and she really were. If only Alyssa could understand what I see in him. This moment should have shown her clearly, but I guess there was still too much in the way.
I was genuinely afraid that Alyssa might hurt Roxanne. Not that it mattered to that darn, beautiful, self-sacrificing hero jerk who should've thought more about her own safety. Fortunately, it turned out all right. I guess.
It was monumentally weird to watch the before and after acts between Duncan and Alyssa. They didn't really seem compatible to me, but you don't need that much to have a little fun. I couldn't imagine Joel like that, but she was projecting a randy mood, and I had to wonder.
All the new names felt really rushed but also strikingly appropriate. Roxanne felt like a name Joel would throw out. Rockin rocks, lady, hehe. For me, I like the letter J, and I prefer to keep things simple and straightforward. My mom was always about Jessica Elizabeth Butler. Jess is enough for me, as is Jake. Forget it, Jake, it's a sex-twisting lake...
As I helped with Alyssa's clothes, he paused for a moment and quietly repeated his apology. I gave him a hug that probably no one else could see. He didn't expect it. Not like completely changing my physical form and identity was going to actually change who I was as a person. Same with Joel, and I hoped with everyone. Alyssa… soon-to-be-Ross... appreciated it, but looked rather confused, as if he was already into the whole iceberg guy thing.
When the Man in Black arrived, I really wanted to be cool by just heaving the entire load of camp into the trunk, but I knew innately and clearly from all of Joel's gym training that muscles don't just make you strong.
The guy, or whatever they were, and their even weirder associate didn't feel seriously threatening. I sensed a certain, long-festering sadness in him. As if he had lost someone very close to him. It might have been a while ago, but you don't get over something like that. It can turn you into a hardened rock, like my mom became, protecting me and not letting anyone or anything in for fear of getting hurt again. Or it can turn you into a wandering, floating fragment like Mom with Dad. She lost Dad a long time ago, though he still showed up at the house every few weeks to wander the halls and say a few words.
I was just glad to be done and moving on, even though I had no idea where we were going. I appreciated Layla's stories, as I always had, whether she was spouting a jumble of sentences masquerading as an impromptu speech for some class or using her puppetry skills as a goofball. It was fitting that, after some serious soul-searching, she chose puppetry and costume design as her focus. I had to wonder about the watch, even though I had the other distraction of seeing Roxanne sneak my little romance novel into her hands for a private peek. Another thing I never thought I would see out of my man.
And that was especially true when her tear ducts began to wiggle as she tried to cloak their soggy secrets. We were all distracted when a too-good-to-be-true diner popped out of nowhere with proud, colorful promises. Alas, it was too good to be true.
I wanted to throw up at what my meal had become, and I was so glad that Roxanne was by my side, even though I desperately wanted to be the one in front and protecting her and the others. How can such a doofus, an amazing one, be so brave? I don't know where she got the idea to assault the manners and appetites of those dark creatures, but it almost worked. The guy not from the Department of the Interior and his partner had to bail us out. I closed my eyes for most of it.
The urge to puke stayed with me for so long. So much for tough boy Jake. I clung to Roxanne like I was still the smaller one who needed protecting. So many of my psychology notes twisted around in my head, but it's very different when you're living things that refuse your efforts to deny them.
My general perceptions of reality and how it should be took a few hits from that bewildering lake and what immediately followed. Those hits became a relentless assault. I needed music, but I wasn't going to be rude and play without sharing. But despite our needs, we wandered our way to a place that promised a possible respite.
The question of whether we had actually peed previously in the den of dark creatures that wanted to digest us was not one I ever needed an answer to, though I suspected Roxanne was working through that imponderable. At least I could say with absolute… Nearly absolute certainty that I peed in a decent, rural truck stop. Whichever came first, whichever was real, didn't matter, but I feel like I learned a few things.
Peeing with an attachment is preferable. Handling the hose felt ungainly, especially with the awkward rope I'd been dealt by happenstance. The dribbling afterwards was a lot. Ideally, I would have liked to snap it off and use it at my convenience, like a portable potty. The way it got sticky and sweaty against itself and everything around it gave me plenty of understanding for why it's necessary for a guy to adjust himself.
I scooted in beside Roxanne so that I could look out through the windows and see her precious face. She looked broken, and I could understand that, but it hurt so much that she kept me at a distance. This useless emptiness was awful. I filled it by finding out what this place had to offer, from the pizza to the burgers to the pasta to everything else.
It was not an overflowing abundance of choices. But it didn't have to be, because it just had to cross the threshold of not being a place that wanted to kill us.
When Roxanne came back, we played a little game like we were both normal, everything was fine, and nothing was bothering us. All the while, I could see her eye twitching and her cheeks getting so red. It was subtle, and Joel could always play anything that upset him off like it was nothing. But I knew.
I let her go take that shower alone, and I waited. It hurt so much to know that she was suffering in isolation. And it was such a relief when she finally opened the door to me.
The words I knew inside that I wanted to say and that she needed from me were the easiest words I've ever spoken in my life, but they were also monumentally difficult, emphasis on 'mentally'. I probably made them look so easy, but the right words never are.
I held Joel as she cried harder and more needfully than I could remember crying since a quiet day long ago when I realized that my father would never actually be a dad. I would never have the daddy I always quietly yearned for. And that wasn't something that Joel had to fill or could possibly give me. But Joel helped me start to heal those spaces. And I gladly comforted them with whatever I could give.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Joel always saw himself as the consummate, pinnacle, perfect iteration of a man with all the hard and soft sides necessary. Not entirely serious, though he could make a good case with a smile and a smirk. It only made sense that she should match that man. Although I was probably making a shallow, superficial interpretation of each. It was just good to help her.
Then things got wild.
If you'd asked me at any point previously, maybe even ten minutes before, if I thought my loving boyfriend would do what she did to me, I would have giggled and said that Joel usually has a hard time getting his mouth around certain intimate aspects. No way. But there she was, practically inhaling as ravenously as she joked about. And now it was no longer a joke.
Describing and comparing the feelings and sensations between one sex and the other tangled in my brain like a once-in-a-lifetime dissertation idea. This was all after the fact, because right then there was no way my brain was up for anything other than surviving the onslaught.
Surprise played a factor. Just trying to process being touched and overwhelmed like that. Add to that the fact that this is completely unexpected from the person I care about most, and the actual climax is just whipped cream on top of a spinning sundae of sensations. It's a heck of a lot of cream, though.
Poor Roxanne never imagined she would be in this position. I could sympathize, but I also knew it was a learning experience, even though I didn't want her to learn quite like this. It's a bummer that I didn't taste better for her, but so many different factors determine stuff like that.
She totally and happily deserved a good time for herself. Luckily, I had some experience in that department and brought it to bear. But no matter how much experience I had, the results were far more immediate and pronounced than I expected. I had to dial it back, or else I worried she might get dehydrated or pass out and hit her head. Getting weak did occur, and we spent half of the good time just sitting and trying to keep her conscious.
Although I doubted I could seriously break her, I was concerned about how close she was to an altered state or inebriation. I mentioned some medical statistics about full-body orgasms, but this felt beyond even that. The gold and blue glowing also left me with concerns. But she was happy, so it was difficult to complain about the results.
My gosh, though, my big strapping total man boyfriend had become such a soft, squirming, giggling, delirious little lady that I had to be careful about not wrecking with too much pleasure. Despite that vast chasm of character and expression, I was still totally turned on and loving her. This was the same soul, the same heart, that I fell in love with, and I knew she loved me in all sorts of quiet, playful ways. We may never be the same again, but nothing has changed. Even with her wearing my cute dress.
Back at the table, I began to get frustrated with Ross. She has a certain bullheaded impression of Joel, and no matter what he says, what she does to him, or what he does for her, nothing can shake it. Absolutely frustrating.
Layla and Roxy were a combo I could watch all day, but it was spoiled by the ass-hat in the trucker hat and dirty blue shirt. I had to be tough and be the man for Roxy, even though it was such a challenging role to pull off. I doubted that I was doing it right, but I had the right look for it, and that was probably enough. I did my best not to lose it on the walk back to the car. The jerk was still there, and it wouldn't be a good idea to hit him in public, no matter how much I imagined it. As if I'd actually be able to do it off without spinning around and falling flat on my ass.
But in the car next to Roxy, with her smile still beaming and her legs needing my support, I could really believe I was a gentleman. Not that I wanted to be one. Male psychology in my classes felt the most uncertain and the saddest. Joel helped fill in the blanks where my professors claimed to be such experts. Being a man can be so debilitatingly lonely. You have to protect, you have to show strength, you have to not show other things, and you have to do it all without the kind of support system that girls take for granted. Not that boys have it rough or girls have it rougher, or this or that is the ultimate tabulation of good and bad in society. Everyone needs love; no one wants to be alone, and it can be so hard to find happiness.
I just needed the light switch that Layla could summon to switch back and forth. Be Jake for the moments I needed it, and be myself for the rest. No matter what lay ahead, at least there was Roxy, and there were all these people around me who understood what I had been through and what I was going through. The rest of life, as always, would be the most challenging part. Mom would freak out or finally stop freaking out. Dad might not even notice a difference. And finding myself in all the great and small confusions would always be the hardest part.
Miranda's mention of fairies let me help a little with the notes I had backed up on my phone. The meager treatise of information felt like a lot, but it essentially encapsulated most of what the class had ever provided on the subject. It was a shame that Miranda's folklore class was going to pick up this exact subject next month. We needed it right now.
After that, things quieted down, and what remained was to drive to the place of promise Miranda had discovered. Sitting with Roxy kept me fueled. Smiling was so easy for her and such a challenge for me with the mounting weight, like countless invisible but inescapable bricks pressing down on my head and shoulders despite the impression of muscles holding them up. Roxy wanted to show a similar smile to mine, but I wanted to tell her that she could beam as brightly as she wished.
We would definitely have to figure something out at the motel or wherever we wound up this evening to perk her up without immobilizing her.
Assuming we actually made it somewhere. Fortunately, we encountered a series of signs that listed every single little blip on the map except for the one we wanted. Poor Roxy held her tongue even though it looked like so many delightful things were urgently running through her brain. Ross was basically breathing down her neck and in her mind, even though Joel didn't bother with self-censorship.
She didn't restrain herself when it came to that silly little book that kept gnawing at her. Surprisingly, and yet not surprisingly, I could see her actually spending time with it, taking in aspects she clearly had never considered before. For Alyssa, that probably would've been an advancement in men understanding women. I didn't need that, nor did Joel. We understood each other. But this was the way things were. As inescapable as the other way.