Chapter 14
It was one week from the time that Harold broke down and had sex with Pam for the first time.
Now Harold was beginning to feel very strange around Daisy. Pam was already beginning to act very possessive, and he liked sex with her so much that he didn't want to do anything to turn her off.
He had been putting Daisy off every time that she had come to him suggesting that they get together. At first she had believed the excuses that he had provided for her, but the longer that they talked and the more excuses that he conjured up, the less disposed she was toward believing him.
One afternoon, he was sitting in his last class of the day. Daisy walked into the classroom.
"Hello, honey," she smiled, sitting down next to him.
"How's it going, Daisy?"
"Not so well."
"What seems to be your problem?" "You do," she looked at him irritably. "I don't understand."
"Oh, all of a sudden you're so preoccupied with basketball practice, needing rest, and needing time to study, that I don't get a chance to see you anymore. I just don't understand it. We had something going that was so beautiful, honey, so absolutely beautiful. Then you stood me up that day that you took your mother home."
"I told you that she was upset. She just didn't want me to go out. Dad was away, and she was just feeling kind of lonely."
"O.K., so maybe I could buy that. But I can't buy the way that you've been treating me since then."
"Just what have I done?"
"It's very simple. You haven't done anything. Meaning, I haven't been seeing you."
"I've been seeing you at school just about every day."
"But that isn't really seeing me," she exclaimed emphatically. "By really seeing you I mean getting together. I mean, dating, and better yet, I mean balling. We haven't been doing any ball-'ing."
"I'm sorry about that. It's just that if s worked out that way. I really am sorry." "I really wonder if you are." "Of course I am." "Yeah, I'm sure." "Sure I am."
"Who have you been balling with?"
"Nobody," he exclaimed.
"I don't believe that for one second," she snapped. "I know you. You're about as oversexed as I am, Harold. You've got to have somebody to go to bed with. If you're not doing it with me, then that means you're doing it with somebody else."
"No, I was just doing it a little too often before."
"Oh, so you regret doing it with me. You were overdoing it with me. Is that what you're saying?"
"No, don't take it that way," he reacted defensively. "All I'm saying is that I think I was doing it a little too much. I mean, you had so much in the way of physical charm that I just couldn't get enough of it I think that it was affecting me both in the classroom and on the basketball court. I was finding myself getting tired awfully easy."
"I don't believe any of this nonsense."
"Look, honey, don't accuse me of lying."
"I will when I'm convinced you're doing it," she snapped.
"Let's get off this kind of topic. I don't like arguing with you."
"O.K., then how about seeing me after practice tonight? Over at my pad? My folks won't be there. We have about an hour to get smashed and ball."
"But I've got a test coming up next week," he protested. "I just can't make it."
"Oh, so I'm getting another one of those lousy excuses," she snapped. "I'm getting sick of this. I really am. I don't like this nonsense you're palming off on me."
"But, honest, honey, I do have to get ready for this test. I've just got to cool it when it comes to all this sex action."
"I'm not in the least bit impressed by that argument of yours," she said. "As a matter-of-fact, I've come to the conclusion that you're a boring dud as far as I'm concerned. I don't need anybody like you. If there's one thing a girl as good looking as me doesn't need, it's to actually beg a guy to ball her. As a matter-of-fact, I'm sorry I even gave you a second chance."
"Please, honey, I dig you, I really do," he said with increasing desperation.
"Screw you," Daisy said, getting up indignantly from the seat she had been sitting in next to his.
He watched with hurt and frustration as she walked toward the back of the classroom. She sat down next to one of his team mates, Lou Bennett.
He knew that she had gone with Lou Bennett before. But after getting intimately acquainted with him, Lou had gotten the short shrift for quite a lengthy period of time.
Even though Lou hadn't been openly resentful, Harold had been able to sense that Lou was not as friendly toward him as he had been previous to that time.
Lou had a friendly gleam in his eye as Daisy sat down next to him. He watched out .of the corner of his eye as flirtatious Daisy flashed a big smile in Lou's direction, which he promptly returned.
He could not concentrate on the subject matter during the course of that class. Several times Harold was called on, and he provided unsatisfactory answers, something that annoyed him a good deal.
On one occasion when he admitted that he hadn't heard what the instructor said, he observed Daisy smiling in the back of the room. It really hurt him to be put down by her in such a manner. But, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that she had a right to feel a little hurt about being let down by him. He had gone all the way with her and had had sex with her on a number of occasions. Then suddenly he had dropped her without providing her with any kind of a meaningful explanation. Just a series of excuses.
He could hardly wait for the class session to end. He wanted to just get out of that classroom and away from flirtatious, smiling Daisy.
He couldn't help but notice however, Lou and Daisy getting up together.
He watched Lou slip his right arm around Daisy's back. They walked ever so slowly toward the door, chatting and joking continuously.
As a saddened Harold walked out of the classroom door, one of his team mates walked up to him and exclaimed:
"You look like Mr. Left Out at this point."
"What do you mean?" Harold snapped.
"I mean, it looks like your girl isn't your girl anymore."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Come on now, Harold," his friend laughed. "Don't play dumb with me. Everybody in the class saw what happened. Just what caused that blow up on the part of Daisy?"
"Look, I don't want to talk about it."
"She sure left you all of a sudden and went over to Lou. He'd just about given up on any further action with her. Now I guess he's getting her on the rebound."
"I wish you'd shut up," Harold said.
"You don't need to get uptight about it."
"Who-likes salt rubbed in his wounds?"
"Sorry, pal. I didn't mean to do anything like that."
"Maybe you didn't mean to do it, but that's what happened."
"O.K., so maybe I was wrong. Sorry about that."
"I'm sorry if I snapped back at you," Harold sighed.
"Well, we can work out all our frustrations on the basketball court," his friend patted him reassuringly on the shoulder.
"Yeah, I guess we can," he said, shaking his head.
But it didn't work out that way. Harold was hardly able to get through basketball practice.
He kept thinking about how much fun he had had with Daisy. He wondered how much longer the sex relationship would last between him and his mother. He loved having sex with Pam. She was beautiful, and possessed the same streak of wild, uninhibited desire that Daisy did. But, after all, she did remain his mother, and Daisy felt so neglected that she went back to Lou Bennett.
He thought about Daisy and how she had attempted to find out just what he was doing. There was no way that he could level with Daisy and tell her that he was having sex with his own mother.
After basketball practice, he walked slowly toward the parking lot. He generally talked with some of his team mates after practice, but not on this particular occasion. And none of them bothered him, realizing what had happened during the last class of the day.
It burned him up to realize that gossip flowed that fast. By that time the entire school knew that he had had a blow up with Daisy in the classroom, and that she had gone over to Lou Bennett and had resumed relations with him.
As he got into his Firebird, he thought about that day that Daisy had walked up to him and had asked him for a ride in it.
That had been such a happy occasion, but now Daisy was gone from his life and he wondered if she would ever return.
He thought about the unkind words his mother bad had for Daisy. He wondered if, as his mother said, he would be better off without Daisy.
At that point in time he was having a hard time believing that. He liked Daisy, and it hurt him like hell to lose her.