I Left My Heart in San Francisco
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An Ordinary Adult Sex LifeChapter 22: San Francisco free porn video
-- SUNDAY, JANUARY 13, 2008 --
The sky outside was dark and gray, not only because “foggy” is the standard daily weather forecast for San Francisco, but it was still quite early, way too early for any reasonable 23-year-old to be awake on a weekend morning. At this hour, the sun had not yet cleared the horizon, its rays not yet angled properly in accordance with simple geometry to shed any light on the floor-to-ceiling windows of our apartment’s great room, and even then they would need to cut through the thick mass of hanging precipitation.
I was still on East Coast time, my body having adjusted to jet lag over the past week. The sun would be up in New York right now, a million people already awake and going about their daily lives while the West Coast still slumbered. My internal clock told me it was time to wake up, so wake up I did. But my bed partners were still asleep and, unwilling to disturb them, I’d slipped out of the room unnoticed.
Or so I thought.
“Heyyy ... You alright?”
With arms folded across my chest and eyebrows furrowed in thought, I glanced back over my shoulder towards the voice that had interrupted my reverie and then returned my gaze out the window. Taking a deep breath, I exhaled slowly and nodded, answering, “Yeah, I’m fine. Just couldn’t sleep.”
Wordlessly, Dawn slid in behind me, wrapped her arms around my waist, and set her cheek down against my shoulder. She hugged me firmly, but not intrusively. I could probably have gone on staring out that window without her further disturbing me, and yet her embrace told me with absolute certainty that she was here for me, in whatever way I needed, should I choose to ask for her support.
She’s too good for you. You don’t deserve her.
Shut up, you. Do you really want to lose another one?
“The twins?” I muttered questioningly.
“Still asleep. Plumb tuckered out,” Dawn replied quietly behind my ear.
I chuckled at the sense of déjà vu, asking, “Weren’t you tuckered out?”
Dawn chuckled as well, getting the same sense as me. “You tuckered me out plenty, but I still noticed when you left.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” I stated with a sigh, reaching across my body to hug her arms against my midsection. Dawn responded by hugging me even tighter. “But still, it’s really early in the morning for you. You should go back to sleep.”
“Only if you’ll come with me.”
I sighed. “Can’t sleep. The little voice in my head won’t fucking shut up.”
“I know the feeling. Stupid voices,” Dawn muttered with a sigh.
“What’s yours saying to you now?”
“That it’s really fucking early for a college student used to late night hours, and that I should still be in bed.”
“She’s right, your little voice.”
“Perhaps. But while ‘little voice Dawn’ complains, ‘big Dawn’ would rather be here with you. Actually, ‘big Dawn’ would rather fall back asleep in your arms.” She tugged on me gently, urging, “Come on. Let’s go back to bed.”
I shook my head. “I’m serious. I can’t.”
“Fine, fine...” Dawn sighed in resignation and set her cheek down on my shoulder for just a moment before standing up straight. “You want some coffee then?”
I took a deep breath, exhaled, and patted her arms. “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.”
My best friend released me and turned to walk into the kitchen. I took one more look outside, staring out into the darkness. It was just as gray and gloomy as ever, like my mood. But just before I turned away from the window, a sliver of light pierced through the clouds on the horizon. Soon there was another ray, and another, and as the sky brightened I realized this would NOT be a foggy San Francisco morning. Bit by bit, the sun gradually came into view across the bay, quite literally illuminating my world.
Out of the darkness comes the dawn.
Is that a metaphor for my life and the way it’s going?
No, dumbshit. See, when the sky brightens in the morning as the sun comes up, the dictionary defines that as the “dawn”.
I turned to glance back toward the kitchen, and watched as my best friend puttered around to start the coffee pot.
I like my metaphor better.
Suit yourself. Just do us both a favor.
What’s that?
Don’t fuck this up.
I took a deep breath and continued to watch Dawn move about the kitchen. Good lord she was beautiful.
You hear me? DON’T fuck this up.
Easier said than done.
I joined Dawn in the kitchen as she waited for the coffee to finish brewing. I slid in behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist and leaning in to gently kiss the back of her neck. She glanced back at me with a warm smile, one that warmed my heart as much as the sunrise had illuminated the morning sky, and I leaned over her shoulder to kiss her lips.
She met me for that kiss, yielding to my tender but firm pressure, and finally let me part her lips with my tongue. Slowly, the passion of our kiss built and built, until she turned within my grasp to inhale sharply, cinch her arms around my neck, and push her tongue into my mouth instead.
The room was quiet, the hour still quite early, and even though the twins were asleep in my bed, I started thinking Dawn and I could manage a quickie on the living room couch. But just when I started to pull her out of the kitchen, I felt a firm tug on the leg of my pajama pants.
Breaking the kiss in surprise, I gawked down at BJ, who stood beside me with his hands gripping my pants and his head tilted back so far that he basically stared straight up at me. “Da-da,” he muttered.
“Hey, little man,” I greeted warmly, all thoughts of sex evaporating from my mind.
“Morning, BJ,” Dawn added, reaching down to tousle his hair playfully. The coffee pot was long since brewed, and she turned to the counter to pour us two mugs.
“Sorry for the interruption,” Kim apologized as she came into the kitchen.
“No worries,” I replied while reaching down to scoop my son into my arms. He grinned, patted my chest, and then set his head down on my shoulder while clutching my neck. His hug REALLY warmed my heart, and I hugged him firmly right back while carrying him out of the kitchen and over to his play area.
Once he spotted his toys, BJ jerked his head off my shoulder and wriggled insistently until I put him down. Once he hit the floor, he scrambled over to his Thomas the Tank Engine trains, and I knew that he would now ignore me completely. Back in the kitchen, I heard Dawn offer Kim, “Coffee?”
“No, thanks,” Kim replied. “We’re getting tea.”
The “we” caught my attention, and I glanced back to find that June had also emerged from Kim’s bedroom. Her hair was unkempt and she wore one of Kim’s pajama sets. She gave me a cute little wave in passing as she headed into the kitchen as well.
Five minutes later, all three young women joined me and BJ in the living room. Kim and I surrounded our son on the floor, half-playing with him and half-chatting with the others in adult conversation. Dawn sat on the couch just behind me, her hand on my shoulder every now and again when she leaned forward to pass me my coffee mug for a sip before taking it back to stay out of BJ’s reach. And June sat behind Kim on the other couch, both hands around her warm mug of tea, looking far more relaxed and at ease than I’d ever seen her before.
Just the five of us, my little nuclear family of three plus our two best friends. This felt right. This felt comfortable. This felt like home.
The only problem was: this wasn’t only our home. In fact, none of our names were on the lease. This apartment belonged to Adrienne, the one who actually paid the rent and refused to let the rest of us contribute a single dime. This place that we lived in didn’t actually belong to any of us, and I found myself wondering if we really belonged here anymore.
So why not get up and move out? Why not leave this apartment to Adrienne and Sasha – let them have the place to themselves in domestic bliss and get the hell out of their way? Living together made sense when we’d been a triple, with Kim and BJ included, of course, to be with me. But we weren’t a triple anymore, and in fact my relationships with them at the moment were pretty strained. Adrienne and Sasha weren’t even HERE right now, having returned from their European trip but then taken a private jet off to Santa Barbara for some impromptu romantic getaway right before my flight landed.
I couldn’t know Adrienne’s motives for sure, but it certainly felt like she was avoiding me. The way she and Sasha had immediately come to me after her big announcement New Year’s Eve had led me to believe we would work through things together. But then she’d flown off to Switzerland the very next morning, and I quite literally had not seen her since. She obviously didn’t want to be around me. So why keep putting her through this kind of misery? Why not make things easier on everybody by moving out?
But move to where? Kim’s father was still in Sunnyvale and would not tolerate me taking Kim or BJ even further away, but it wasn’t like I was thinking to move to New York or back to Orange County. As for staying in the Bay Area, JKE was in San Francisco, and it wouldn’t make any sense for me to move out of my own commuting range. Plus, June still lived in San Bruno, and I wouldn’t want to take Kim far away from her, either.
Then again, June might very well be willing to move with us. She’d never lived alone, and had always been dependent on her parents taking care of her. Wouldn’t leaving that sheltered existence behind be a good step in her personal development?
Two options immediately came to mind. The first was to stay in San Francisco, close to work, just in a different apartment from the one we currently occupied. It would require minimal change in our daily lives, and if we could even find another apartment in this very same building, we could still remain close to Brandi, Dayna, Adrienne, and Sasha, without actually living together.
Of course, there was no guarantee that we could find an appropriate apartment in this same building, and it certainly would cost a lot more than the zero rent we were currently paying to stay here. Besides, the second option that came to mind held a tremendous amount of appeal:
Berkeley.
First of all, Berkeley had felt like home for a lot longer than San Francisco had. I knew the town like the back of my hand, and it definitely had a relaxed, laid-back vibe more suitable for raising a toddler than the big city. Secondly, while we’d be moving further away from Brandi, Dayna, Adrienne, and Sasha, we’d be moving closer to Brooke, DJ, the twins, and of course ... to Dawn. She was sort of the deciding factor right there.
But I wouldn’t be moving to Berkeley solely for selfish reasons. Kim had already spent the last year finishing off her final academic semester of school two classes at a time, and in May would finally get her Bachelor’s degree. Plus, she’d already applied for (and been assured by Viktoriya she’d get accepted into) the Berkeley MBA program. Moving sooner than later would make it easier to finish her final undergraduate classes. And moving sooner than later would give her time to find a nice Berkeley preschool to take care of BJ for when she started attending graduate school full-time in the Fall. For a young mother with weird college class schedules, it made far more sense for us to live closer to her classes than for me to live close to work. And as a nice bonus, I’d be closer to old friends like Bert and Lynne.
Of course, there was no guarantee that my deciding factor would still be there in five months. Dawn, Brooke, and DJ would all be graduating at the end of this academic year, and THEIR potential post-graduate jobs would most likely dictate their geography. How would I handle it, moving to Berkeley to be closer to Dawn only to have her find a job far enough away that she simply HAD to live elsewhere? But perhaps that was a risk worth taking. Any job that would take her a significant distance away from Berkeley would most likely be just as far away from San Francisco. I’d have the same problem either way. And for all I knew, moving to be close to her in Berkeley just might be reason enough for Dawn to limit her job search to opportunities in the area, or maybe even stay in town to get her Master’s degree, rather than be separated from me.
I sat there and thought about it, wondering why I hadn’t thought about it sooner. On my salary, not to mention the sizeable bonus I’d just received, I could certainly afford to rent a 3-bedroom house in Berkeley. If I could talk June into moving with us and paying part of the rent, it made even more financial sense. I could be within walking distance of Dawn, Brooke, DJ, and the twins, which would make booty calls significantly easier. I could spend more time with Bert and Lynne. I could catch up with old friends still around campus like some of the younger Tri-Delts, and maybe even Viktoriya Isakova. And of course, I could finally build a family home for me, Kim, and BJ that could truly be ours.
Plus June. Horny little ex-virgin’s gonna want Big Ben as much as humanly possible once you start sleeping in the next bedroom, and maybe some more Dawn, too. She seems really happy after finally getting her Dawn fantasy last night. And don’t get me started on how crazy your sex life is gonna be once you’re within walking distance of the twins.
Get your head out of the gutter. I was having a Hallmark moment.
Especially now that June’s in on the ‘family secret’. Watching Eden go after her last night? Dayyum. Can you imagine watching the twins team up against June AND Eve together? Mushroom cloud waiting to happen...
Okay fine, Hallmark moment over. Dayyum ... Of course, just because June knows doesn’t mean that Eve knows. Besides, I rather doubt June and Eve fool around with each other.
Oh, crap. Didn’t think of that.
The point is: This is starting to look like a viable idea, right?
You’ll get no argument from me. Well, except for maybe one argument.
What’s that?
Dawn, Kim, June, the twins, Brooke, DJ ... Almost sounds like you’re forming a new harem.
And what if I am? What if this is my destined role in life? To love everybody but not be ‘in love’ with anybody. Not to pour my heart into a single all-encompassing ‘Wife’ upon whom I pin all my hopes and dreams for being ‘The One’. Rather, to accept that I will always have multiple women in my life, each of whom plays a different role in a different relationship with me. Dawn as my best friend. Kim as the mother of my son. June as my co-worker and friend. My sisters as my sisters. Dayna and DJ as my sisters, too. And even Adrienne as my sister, no expectations of anything more. Do I really HAVE to have a girlfriend in order to not be alone? Do I really HAVE to get married in order to feel complete? I don’t think so, not anymore.
The word ‘husband’ is just a word, one that defines a role in a very limited one-on-one relationship. I don’t need that title in order for my life to have meaning.
I am a lover.
I am a brother.
I am a father.
I am a friend.
And isn’t all that good enough?
“Heyyy ... You alright?”
I blinked in surprise and looked up at Dawn, only now realizing that she had her hand on my shoulder, shaking it gently. “Hmm?” I replied, blinking a few times.
“You zoned out there for a minute.”
“I did?”
June chuckled. “Yeah, you kinda did.”
“Oh ... uhhh...” I furrowed my eyebrows and took a deep breath, reintegrating myself in the here and now. Just then, BJ drove one of his trains right up my arm, continuing up and across my shoulder as he climbed into my lap and used my head as an obstacle course while making ‘chugga-chugga’ noises with his mouth. I grinned and held him close.
Kim studied me closely. “Penny for your thoughts?”
I looked back at her, a little smile coming to my face as I re-imagined that little house for the three of us. I glanced up at June, wondering if she’d actually want to join us. And I looked back at Dawn, my heart filling with warmth at the idea of being closer to her.
Almost forgot that darkness/dawn/sunrise metaphor, didn’t you?
No, I didn’t. In fact, I was just thinking that while my life would NOT be incomplete if I don’t ever become a husband, I certainly wouldn’t mind if I do. Dawn has long insisted that we’re better as best friends. Maybe she’s right, but maybe she’s wrong. And if I move to Berkeley, if I put myself in a place where I can see her every day and not just occasionally on the weekends, who knows what the future might bring?
Indeed.
I smiled at everyone around me. I squeezed BJ tight. And wondered aloud, “What do you all think about me and Kim getting a house in Berkeley?”
Well behind me, back toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms, Eden and Emma suddenly filled the air with excited screams.
Dawn and the twins returned to Berkeley shortly after breakfast, all three of them excited about the possibility of me moving closer to them. But we were a long ways from my spontaneous idea becoming an actual reality, as there were a lot of things to work out first.
For one thing, June had been floored by the suggestion that she move with us. She’d lived with her parents for her entire life, and the idea of suddenly being on her own was daunting, to say the least. She had a lot to think about, and she also returned home shortly after breakfast.
That left Kim, BJ, and me alone in the apartment. Another trip to the Bay Area Discovery Museum was in order, so we parents puttered around packing up and preparing for a baby’s day out. Twenty minutes later, we were on the road in the family minivan. And a few hours after that, we were on the road coming back.
BJ fell asleep in his car seat, as expected. We parked the van in the underground garage of our apartment building, but rather than try to transfer him up to the apartment itself, I told Kim to let BJ sleep and come around to the shotgun seat.
“You want to talk about this potential move?” she asked while closing the door beside her.
I nodded. “You were pretty quiet during the first conversation.”
“Everyone was so excited and talking all at once.”
“But you weren’t excited with the rest of them?”
Kim looked thoughtful. “I haven’t decided yet. A part of me is excited, certainly. There are obvious advantages to moving to Berkeley – being closer to school and all – but I question your motives.”
“Question them? Why?”
“Indeed, ‘why’?” Kim took a deep breath and gave me a measured look. “Why do you really want to leave?”
“For the same reasons I told everybody else this morning: Dawn, DJ, Brooke, the twins, and you starting your MBA full-time in the fall.”
“Is that it?”
“Those are all very good reasons.”
“I didn’t say they weren’t. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they comprise ALL of your reasons. None of your stated reasons, for example, address your current proximity to your office, your relationship with Brandi, and of course ... Adrienne and Sasha.”
I sighed. “Berkeley will be much farther from the office, true, but people commute to work by BART all the time. Brandi is developing her new relationship with Jared. I’m happy for her, and she doesn’t need me around. As for Adrienne...” My voice trailed off as I shrugged.
“What does...” Kim mimed my shrug, “ ... THAT mean?”
I shrugged again and sighed. “She’ll be more comfortable with me gone.”
“Did SHE say that to you?”
“No, but isn’t it obvious?”
Kim cocked an eyebrow. “Obvious that after everything Adrienne went through – the sex scandals and the illegal drugs and the partying and sense of losing you, after FINALLY coming back to be in your life – you think she’s going to be HAPPY about you moving out?”
“I didn’t say she’d be ‘happy’ about it. I said she’d be more comfortable. Look at the last two weeks: I haven’t SEEN her for the last two weeks. She’s avoiding me, plain and simple, and the sooner I’m gone from this apartment, the easier it’ll be for her.”
“Easier for her? Or easier for you? Easier to surround yourself with horny nymphomaniacs like Dawn, the twins, and even June now, rather than face the loss of another fiancée? You want to get out of this building so you don’t have to see your two ex-girlfriends be supremely happy together WITHOUT you. You don’t want that constant reminder that once again, your big attempt at Happily Ever After came crashing down around your feet.”
I lowered my eyelids and scowled. “You really suck at this whole ‘cheering a guy up’ thing.”
“You think I’m trying to cheer you up?”
“Clearly, you’re not.”
Kim waggled her eyebrows at me.
I took a deep breath, stared straight out the windshield, and exhaled slowly. I kept exhaling, letting my shoulders sag as I bowed my head and closed my eyes. And after taking another deep breath, I collected myself, opened my eyes, and turned to face Kim.
“You’re trying to tell me I’m running away from the situation,” I began. “As much as I hate Adrienne running away from me, you want me to realize I’m trying to do the same. I can’t leave, not yet. Maybe moving to Berkeley IS the right decision in the end. I honestly think you’ll be better off living close to campus – there are good preschools in the area, and I WILL be happier having Dawn and the twins close by – but I have to sit down and work things out with Adrienne first. I can’t just spring this on her, tell her the decision’s been made after the fact. I have to address my current situation with both her and Sasha, get that settled, and THEN I can seriously consider moving back to Berkeley.”
Kim blinked slowly, remained silent, and finally started to smile.
“But back to you. You were pretty quiet during the first conversation. And even accounting for the fact that it was hard to get a word in edgewise while everyone else got all excited about the possibilities, you haven’t told me what a potential move would mean for YOU.”
Kim blinked again and looked thoughtful. She glanced into the backseat to check on BJ before returning her attention to me, saying, “The advantages are obvious: school, BJ. I have to admit, I’d really like it if June moved with us, but that’s not a certainty. I think my father would like it if we moved away from Adrienne and Sasha, but that’s because he still doesn’t like the idea of any other women ranking higher in your life than me. He still likes to believe you’ll eventually decide to marry me.”
I sighed, thinking about my last conversation with Kim just before I left for New York, and how I’d never truly deserve to marry her. “About that...” I began.
Kim held a hand up and closed her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she shook her head and opened her eyes to give me a firm look. “Don’t worry about it. Nothing’s changed between us. I’ve told him before, even if he won’t believe it, that I’m the one that doesn’t want to marry you.”
I nodded. “June might not move with us. It could really just be you, me, and BJ in that house together, our own little family unit.”
Kim pursed her lips and gave me a wan smile. “It sounds nice. It really does.”
I frowned. “But...”
“No ‘buts’. It sounds nice.”
I arched an eyebrow skeptically.
Kim sighed and looked out the windshield again. “I just don’t want you to get any ideas about marriage, about settling for me as your lifetime endgame. Even if it’s just the three of us in a house together for a little while, we both know it won’t be like that forever.”
“I’m not asking for forever. I’m only asking for now.”
Kim sighed. “It’s all a moot point until you and Adrienne resolve things between you.”
“We will.” I nodded. “And after then?”
Kim took a deep breath and gave me a shrug. “I’m not getting my hopes up just yet. After you and Adrienne come to a resolution, we can talk about it again.”
I raised both eyebrows and gave her a bit of a smirk. “Not getting your hopes up ‘just yet’? That means you WANT to move, right?”
“Adrienne first.” Kim chuckled and shook her head, finally letting out a long sigh as she stared out the window again, her eyebrows furrowing. And she muttered almost to herself, “Adrienne always comes first...”
The slap came out of nowhere, fast enough to catch me completely by surprise and still hard enough to really, really hurt. My head rotated with the impact, pain exploding from my left cheek so acutely that I briefly wondered if she’d knocked a tooth out. And the force of her strike was strong enough to send me off balance, forcing me to stagger several steps to my right lest I fall flat on my face.
“You’re fucking LEAVING me!?!” Adrienne howled with raging disbelief. “After everything we’ve been through, everything I did to pick up my entire life and come back to you, you’re fucking... ABANDONING me!?!”
Holding my left cheek with one hand, I grimaced and stretched my jaw open and shut a couple of times, trying to make sure it still worked properly. My ears were ringing, and my vision swam with vertigo. But after a few seconds, I managed to stand up straight. And still holding my jaw, I turned to glare at my ex-fiancée as I yelled back, “I’m not abandoning you!”
“What? You trying to claim you DIDN’T just say you were moving with Kim and BJ back to Berkeley?!? You want me to believe you DIDN’T just say to my face that you don’t want to be a part of my life anymore?!?”
“I didn’t say we ARE moving! I said we’re CONSIDERING it! I said I wanted to TALK to you about it! And I never said I didn’t want to be a part of your life anymore! Actually, I said that I’ll ALWAYS be a part of your life, even if I’m no longer part of your daily routine!”
“It’s the same fucking THING!” Adrienne threw her hands up in the air and stomped away toward the floor-to-ceiling windows of our living room. Night had fallen before she and Sasha had even come home, and outside the windows the city lights were all around us. Dinner was done. BJ had been put to bed. There was nothing left to do tonight but talk.
But our talk wasn’t going so well.
Still holding my jaw, I gave Sasha a tight look. She sighed and walked after Adrienne, reaching up to hold her girlfriend’s shoulder with one hand while stroking the blonde’s back with the other. But Adrienne shrugged her shoulder free of Sasha’s grip and took another step away.
I glanced over at Kim, who had been silent, as usual. I didn’t particularly expect her to help me out in this conversation in any way. Her modus operandi was to watch, listen, let me make a fool of myself, critique me in private after, and hope that I did a better job next time.
Taking a deep breath, I dropped my hand away from my cheek and splayed my arms out to the sides. “What do you want from me? I’m here now, right here, standing in front of you. You’re here, standing in front of me for the first time in recent memory. I’m trying to communicate, alright? I’m trying to make sense of the way our relationship fell apart. I’m trying to understand why you’ve been avoiding me so much all this time. I’m trying to do what’s right for both of us. And I’m trying to figure out what you need me to do!”
“I need you to not fucking abandon me, alright?” Adrienne whirled back to face me. “I need to know that even when I jet off to some tropical getaway for work, you’ll always be here waiting for me. I need to know that when I run away to Santa Barbara to try and distract myself from spending all my time with my face buried in Sasha’s lap sobbing my heart out, that you’ll still love me when I finally come home. I need to know that I’m still living up to MY promise to Mom that I’ll never leave you, because I could never bear the guilt of failing in that promise after everything she’s done for me.”
I sighed. “You really need to put that guilt part aside. It doesn’t do either of us any good for you to keep making decisions based upon a sense of obligation to Mom.”
Adrienne let her head fall back while she groaned at the ceiling. “Easier said than done.”
“As for needing reassurance that I’ll be here waiting for you at the end of your travels, I will be, if that’s what you want. But doing so doesn’t require that I stay here in this apartment if that’s not what’s best for both of us. Worst case, I’ll have to make a 20-minute BART ride from Berkeley to be here for you.”
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