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A First For Everything Ch 5: Kisses and Heartache copyright 2015, comidacomida

There were very few times I'd managed to pack so much living into a week as the time I spent visiting New York for that winter vacation, but that week did eventually come to an end. They both took me back to the airport that Friday. The plan was to get me home so I could have the weekend to get ready for classes. I said a goodbye to Maury as he held the door open for us and he wished me a good trip. You ever notice how some people have no trouble at all remembering everyone's schedule? I guess that must be why Maury found his calling as a door man-- I have enough trouble keeping track of my own.

Anyway, the trip back to California went just fine and it was good to get back to Rosey and Rita, but I was already missing spending time with Jason and JD. You ever run into one of those situations where you have two separate choices but can only get one? No matter what you end up missing whatever you don't get. Yea... it was kinda like that. Of course, knowing that classes were starting up again on Monday did make things easier: it meant that I would run into Nicole again, and I couldn't stop thinking about her ever since she mentioned needing a guy like me. It was a long shot and I knew it, but it was NICOLE!

When classes did start again I went through the whole day wondering if I'd end up getting any classes with her and, as lunch came and went without catching one glimpse of her I'd pretty much given up hope. When the bell sounded the end to PE which was, for me, the last period of the day I figured that was it. I'd finally gave over into that deep dark hole that was teenager angst... and that's when the commotion started.

See, the PE teacher, Mr. Fig (no, to this day I still don't know what his given name was) always had a thing about evening out the class into two groups of two-- two Humans and two Dogs. In this case, he had four students stay behind to put away the balls we'd been using for a militant game of Dodge Ball. Dane and I were the Dog set and we were making short work of things... until Nicole showed up.

I had just brought an armful of balls back to the equipment closet when I heard Sam, one of the two Human students say. "Oh! Hey, Nicole!"

Dane was much more direct. "Lookin' good, Nikki."

I'm not sure if I mentioned before, but she hated being called Nikki. "Get bent, Dane."

The Great Dane laughed as he went after the final set of red rubber balls but I had stopped in my tracks; she was staring right at me as she made her way over. "Hi, Sullivan."

I would like to be able to say that I kept my cool and gave a confident response but I think the greeting that came out of my muzzle sounded something like someone rubbing their paw across the side of a wet balloon. "Hi!"

Her smile felt like it was only for me and, looking back, I'm still surprised I can remember what she said when my mind was so stuck on realizing that I was still wearing my smelly gym clothes. "You have a good Winter Break?"

I nodded dumbly, probably because I was still so focused on my clothes. Eventually I even managed to add some words to the head-bob. "Yea... was good."

Her smile never wavered and she walked right up to me; I took a step back and I found the wall suddenly right behind me. Nicole stopped a half inch away. "I... uh... finally broke up with Dios."

My voice came out an octave too high, "You... did?"

She leaned forward, giving me a kiss on the cheek. "If you're free this Friday, maybe we could go out and do... something?"

My head started nodding right through her confirmation and she walked out with a spring in her step, and it didn't stop nodding until Dane caught my attention. "Kuma... hey, Kuma! We're done. Kuma? Hey, Dickbone!"

"Huh?"

The big Dog rolled his eyes, "Figures... you don't answer til I call you a--"

It was Sam who got Dane's attenion off of me. "Dude... he's hooking up with Nicole!"

In general I would say that it 'bothered me' that Dane was suddenly very buddy-buddy with me-- I certainly didn't much care for the smell of his armpit as he gave me a celebratory noogie and walked with me bent over all the way back to the locker room, spouting out tons of the usual macho teenage Dog stuff you'd expect to hear. To be honest though, I don't think I noticed it all that much at the time since my brain was still stuck in neutral after being asked out by my high school crush.

The rest of the week passed it a haze-- or maybe it didn't, but all I can really remember was being obsessed with the upcoming date. Of course, what I DO remember was Rita's response when she found out Friday that I was going on a date that night; it was "WHAT?!?!"

See... I'm a full disclosure kind of Dog. Always was and probably always will be. The thing is, I told her while I was getting ready that I was going out on a date. Rita isn't the world's most open minded lady, but I really hadn't expected her to make such a big deal out of it. I guess her quest for self improvement also extended to me. Regardless, I had to object. "No big deal... It's Friday night... not like I'm missing class."

She had been sitting at the table with a mug of coffee, but she stood up and slammed her cup down. "I KNOW what teenagers do on dates, Sullivan! You're too young to get some girl pregnant!"

"Rita, I'm not--"

She didn't let me finish. "It could happen! And then you either don't finish school because you have to take care of the puppy, or you abandon that poor bitch and she has to take care it alone! Either way, you--"

It was an embarrassing conversation but I wasn't ready to give up. "Nothing's gonna happen!"

She wasn't ready to give up either. "You forget I was a teenager once-- I had JD when I was seventeen."

"She won't get pregnant. Even IF something did happen... she's a Human."

It was like someone flipped a switch. She sat back down, lifting her cup to her muzzle calmly. "Oh? Okay. Alright. Have a good time, Sully!"

I had to stop for a second and give the argument up. I guess JD and I have a bit in common because it was a little difficult and I had to second-guess things. "Uh... okay?"

She nodded, eyes going back to the newspaper in front of her. "Sure. Just make sure she hasn't had any Dog partners recently because there's still--"

Suddenly the benefit of going through that studio session of Dog-Eat-Dog became apparent. "C Herp, CTVT, and Brucellosis... I know... I know."

That got her to put the newspaper down and look back at me. Rita had been working at a nursing home so I guess I'd kinda forgotten she knew about diseases and all that. Apparently she didn't know that I learned about them too. "You amaze me."

The praise threw me. "Uh... thanks?"

Rita stood up, walked over, and gave me a big hug. She gave he a kiss on the head. "I mean it, Sullivan... have a nice date."

All of the sudden it was like the argument started playing in reverse. "You don't care she's a Human?"

She ruffled my head fur and went back to the table. "Teenagers are gonna be teenagers, and out of all of the possible options I think a Human's probably safest-- well... except maybe your PAW, but--"

Rosey came to my rescue; she was apparently listening in from the other room. "RITA!"

Anyway, between my two moms it was still another twenty minutes before I got out of the house. Thankfully we agreed to meet at the school parking lot because it was a place we both knew, and I got there first... only two minutes late. About fifteen minutes later she showed up. Sometimes you forget things about people but when she drove up I remembered: she was one of the few students in school whose parents bought her a new car after she passed her driving test... and it was a NICE car.

The first date went by in a flash of nervous uncertainty, but she seemed to have a good time. I don't remember the movie we saw and I don't remember the place we went to eat, but I remember her being beautiful. I'd like to say everything went smoothly and that it was perfect but, after dinner and a movie I was tapped out of cash and she still wanted to go out on a boat ride in the bay. She mentioned something about her being a traditionalist so she wasn't going to pay for it; we ended up calling it early.

On the way back to the school parking lot she brought up my trust fund; yea... those kinds of things that are private information to adults tend to be the talk of the town for teens. We talked about Ron, the trustee of my dad's trust, and then moved on to talking about my monthly stipend, and that's when she made 'the face'. "So... an allowance?"

The conversation didn't get much better from there but at least it didn't get worse. She remained pleasant even though she didn't get her boat ride, and maybe that's why I didn't focus so much on the signs at the time. She left without so much as a kiss and I got to go back home and reaffirm to Rita that not all teenagers have sex on the first date (completely leaving out the part that I didn't exactly have a chance).

The next week at school was completely Nicole-less. I didn't get any closer to her than an occasional glimpse in the hall and I couldn't help but get the feeling that she was avoiding me. Finally, right at the end of lunch on Friday we ended up face-to-face in the hall. There were a lot of things I was wanting to say-- some things nice and others hurtful, but she beat me to it with a kiss... right on my muzzle.

To this day I can't remember exactly what she said that made everything better, but that night we went out again. Ron had transferred funds into my account on Wednesday so I resolved to make our second date a LOT better... and I managed to treat her to everything she wanted. In the end, she treated me to another kiss, and that made it PERFECT. Then she whispered something to me that almost stopped my heart. "You know, you can tell people we did it if you want to."

It really struck me as strange and for the longest time I wondered if there was something wrong with me. How could she have sex with everyone else but not like me enough to do the same? We continued going on dates and each time she reminded me that it was alright to claim her as a conquest and each time I couldn't help but wonder when she would be finally willing to let me do it without lying. That moment never came.

We dated through most of junior year and I never gave into the inquisition of questions from my classmates. Others, Dogs and Humans asked me how she was in bed. Was she loud? Was she aggressive? Did she like giving oral? I always answered the questions with silence; I didn't want to lie and I didn't want to admit that was the only guy she dated that she wouldn't do it with. Usually they took my silence for smugness but I kept saying nothing regardless. That trend continued until she broke up with me.

It was a few weeks before summer break and it was right at the end of the day-- I think it was a Wednesday. Anyway, I caught Nicole when classes went out. We hadn't gone out anywhere on our usual date night the previous week so I stopped her to find out what she wanted to do on Friday. Her response was pretty straight forward. "Nothing. I don't think it's working out, Sullivan." She walked off, leaving me stunned.

I spent the next week trying to figure things out-- mostly alone since she avoided me in the halls. It wasn't until I finally caught up with her that things became clearer. I'd just opened my muzzle to ask her all the questions that had been bouncing around in my skull when Dane intercepted me. "What's goin' on, Kuma?"

I motioned to Nicole. "I was just gonna talk with--"

He stepped between us. "Just gonna talk with my girl?"

Two weeks of constant hell and emotional agony later I finally figured it out, and it was because of a huge, explosive argument that caught everyone's attention in the parking lot outside school. Nicole's parents HATED the fact that she dated Dogs... and that was entirely the reason she did it. I started having doubts about a lot of things, but it still didn't overcome the anger and frustration and self-esteem hit that came from dating her. That pain, however, lessened, in a very unexpected way.

The last week of school before vacation was a long, tough trudge through the mud of teenage crap, but things became even clearer when Dios cornered me in the science lab. I was just finishing up cleaning my station when I turned around to see the Terrier standing there. "You didn't score with Nicole, did you?"

It was the most direct anyone had ever been with me in regard to just how far I got with her. By that point it didn't really matter anyway. "No."

He moved around to stand across from me at the table. "Neither did I."

Dios admitting that all of his gloating and grandstanding was a lie really made me pause and question everything I knew. "But... you said--"

The Dog shrugged. "Yea... well, she said I could... and after all the stories Pierce told about the two of them what would it'a looked like if I said we didn't do anything?"

I wanted to tell him off for such a stupid stunt but, at that moment I suddenly realized that I hadn't done much different. Even though I hadn't directly admitted anything I didn't actually go so far as to dissuade people from believing that I did; they made their assumptions and I didn't counter them. What followed was an even deeper thought, and one I spoke aloud. "You think Pierce actually got somewhere with her?"

The Terrier shrugged, "Wouldn't hurt to ask, would it?"

Plan in mind, the two of us hunted down Pierce. At one point we would have gone directly to the library to look for him, but in the past year he'd quit the chess club, switched from glasses to contacts, and started hanging out with the 'cool kids'. We found him in the cafeteria chatting it up and Dios was ready to talk to him right then and there, but I realized it'd be better to get him alone. "Hold on a sec."

We had to wait ten minutes for the crowd around Pierce to disburse as everyone headed for their next classes. That's when I stepped up, Dios following right behind. "Hey, Pierce... got a minute?"

The Pug glanced our way and he must have seen that we were ready to start with an inquisition. For a moment the cool facade he'd built showed a few cracks, but he quickly repaired them. He leaned casually to put the palm of his paw on the corner of the table, but missed and stumbled. "What's... ah-- what's up?"

Dios stepped right up to him; the difference in build between the short, pudgy Pug and the tall, lanky Boston Terrier was all the more obvious at that point. "You and Nicole never did anything, did you?"

Hats off to Pierce, he didn't crack. "What? Of COURSE we did! She just couldn't stay off me... some times I had to tell HER no."

I was doubtful, but Dios was aggressively disbelieving. "She didn't do anything with Sully and she didn't do anything with me... no way in HELL she did anything with you, short stuff... now get real."

The Pug's ears went up, "She... but you were always talking about how--"

The Terrier leaned over him, forcing Pierce to bend backward. "You were always talking about it too... but you two didn't actually DO anything, did you?"

The smaller Dog's voice came out barely above a squeak. "She... said I could tell whatever stories I wanted to."

After that he admitted to everything, and so did Dios. I explained that all I got was a kiss... which surprised them both since neither had received more than a peck on the cheek. Pierce said she had said she wanted to wait until she got married but didn't want him to come across like a loser. Dios said that she was was in it for the 'team spirit' so he could get someone who was better for him than she was. At that point they both turned and looked at me to ask about MY story.

I admitted that she never really explained anything and just kind of kept me dangling there without knowing-- they both agreed that she was probably after my money (and I had to explain the trust fund thing AGAIN). After that the three of us each went our separate ways. I don't know if it answered any questions for them, but it really helped ME feel better. I didn't end up feeling GREAT and, in fact, I still felt like crap... but it it was BETTER. Regardless, I ultimately decided that I'd warn Dane... but that didn't turn out so great.