I Stand Before You (Judge Me Not #2)(23)

Another thing I must confess is this: the stories that fascinated me the most were the ones that dealt with Chase’s sexual reputation, the tales of his conquests. Of particular interest was that it seemed being “conquered” by Chase was something to remember.

And how did I find this out?

One day I was in the public library in town, hidden in the stacks, when I overheard two girls whispering. Okay, maybe I was eavesdropping, just a little. In any case, when I heard the name Chase Gartner, my ears perked up immediately. Standing very still, so as not to be discovered, I clutched the paperback I’d been reading, held it to my chest tightly, and listened with rapt attention.

Whispers and squeals abounded, making it difficult to decipher much of what was being said, but it became clear at one point that one of the girls had been conquered by Chase, and the other was digging for details. To my delight, Conquered was more than willing to share her recently acquired knowledge with her friend. And with me, of course, though she had no clue I was listening in.

“Being with Chase is something to remember,” Conquered gushed to her friend as she giggled and blushed. “In fact, he’s definitely ruined me for all other men.” She sighed. “No one will ever be able to compare.”

Really? I thought.

“Oh God, really?” her friend echoed. “Details, honey, give me the dirt. Like, why? How? What makes him so good? And just how good is he?”

Yes, Conquered, just how good is he? My fingers dug into pages penned by Harper Lee as I almost asked the question out loud.

“It’s hard to explain,” Conquered said slowly. Try, I thought.

“Chase is just so intense, so into what he’s doing, he makes you feel, like, everything.”

Her friend was speechless, as was I.

And then Conquered added wistfully, “Chase’s sex is just crazy-good, there’s no other way to put it.”

And that was when I dropped my book.

Luckily, both girls were too busy giggling and squealing over Chase’s crazy-good sex that they took no notice of my bumbling.

I spent another five minutes just standing there, not bothering to pick up my poor forgotten paperback. I was too busy thinking, thinking about how good this crazy – good sex with Chase Gartner could possibly be. Because, Lord knows, I sure wasn’t getting anything even close to crazy-good from my boyfriend at the time, Doug Wilson. No surprise there. It was a relationship that never should have happened, a relationship bore out of manipulation, nurtured by deceit and lies, and ending in disaster.

And this is how it all went down…

Once upon a time, my family lived south of Market Street—the very best part of town—three doors down from the respected Wilson family, three doors down from their blond-haired, hazel-eyed son, Doug, who happened to have a good-looking physique, one I’d noticed on occasion. I never pursued anything, even though it would have been easy since our parents had been friends for years. I just wasn’t all that interested. There was something off-putting about Doug Wilson. His nice fa?ade held something more sinister, a dark side perhaps. And not the appealing kind, no. I sensed Doug’s dark side was more of a flat-out * variety. Thus, I had no burning desire to get to know him. But our mothers had other plans.

Our families were close. Our dads played golf together, and our moms…well they were thicker than thieves. Mrs. Wilson and my mom did Pilates together, and hosted neighborhood parties as a kind of overly peppy team. Those things were harmless, but one day, out of the clear blue, they decided to play matchmaker with their kids, meaning Doug and me.

Pushed together by our insistent mothers, we started dating right before the start of college, freshman year. Our mothers were convinced for some reason that we were destined. The hope was that we’d fall madly in love and marry. I think Mom and Mrs. Wilson just wanted to be tied together forever; they were like some kind of disillusioned long-lost sisters. It was ridiculous and silly, but I played along…for a while.

Doug was okay, at first. I thought maybe I’d misjudged him. One thing, he was very clean-cut, the kind of guy my parents wanted me to end up with. That’s why I think I said yes when he asked to be my boyfriend, my first boyfriend.

I soon discovered there were a lot of firsts that went along with that title. Doug and I were each other’s firsts for a lot of things, most all of them physical. But sadly, as time wore on, those physical things didn’t mean all that much to me. I never grew to love Doug the way our mothers hoped for. I stayed with Doug anyway, out of obligation, out of habit, but mostly to please my mother. And she certainly was pleased, sometimes disturbingly so.

This one time, when I was home from school for spring break, my mother discovered my birth control pills. She’d been snooping around in my room. Doug and I always used condoms, but I was so fearful of being tied to him forever by that point that I’d started the pill as extra protection. Instead of being angry, like I fully expected, my mother was thrilled. She said it was great. It meant we were finally getting serious. I rolled my eyes at her utter cluelessness when she turned away. Unfortunately, finding those pills gave my mother and Mrs. Wilson some kind of green light to start planning the wedding. Yes, the wedding,

“Not for a few more years, mind you,” my mother assured me with a patronizing pat to my head. “But there’s no such thing as planning too early, you know. You’re going to have the best wedding, Kay. We’ll make sure of it.” She didn’t mean herself and me—she meant herself and Mrs. Wilson.