Part I ~ Part II ~ Part III ~ Part IV ~ Part V ~ Part VI ~ Part VII ~ Part VIII
The Kris Story, Part IX
or...The Seventh Night
4.27.8
...at least, I guess you could call it that. It wasn't romantic so much as it was feral and almost hostile. It was sudden, unexpected and vulgar. There was no foreplay and by the time we were done, she had left dozens of long bloody scratch marks across my back.
The next day, we had Thanksgiving dinner with a former boss of mine, who offered me a job in Parker. The following morning, I drove Kris to her new home in Ft. Collins. For over a month, this distance led to a regular lengthy commute on my part. On a nearly daily basis, I would leave for Ft. Collins after work to see her. Each following day, I would drive 90 miles back to work. On one such morning, after waking up much too late, the housemates convinced me to just quit. I could stay there, they said, "Plus, Ft. Collins is a really easy place to find a job in." While that turned out to be completely untrue, I followed their advice.
After I moved in, Kris and I somehow began breaking down some of the walls that had separated us. Some of this growth came through our constant close proximity, while some came from simple brutal honesty.
One night, while sitting around drinking, Dave suggested we all compare "lists." We all took a sheet of paper and started writing. Long after everyone else had finished she was still deep in thought, occasionally scrawling down a name or two. Of the men, I had the longest list, having slept with 9 girls. Hers, which contained names like "guy on bus" and "that one party x3", added up to a grand total of "50-ish." While depressing, it seemed to illustrate what a cry for help the previous two years had been for her. It also explained the scars on my back; her coital scratching habit likely gave her some feeling of control over her compulsively promiscuous sex life.
Later on, Kris and I recorded a rap battle together. I laid down some music and we proceeded to take turns writing and recording lines. On a personal note...I always felt that I was the song's clear winner. My rhymes were accessible and understandable to any audience, while without explanation Kris' had a tendency to confuse people. Her trebled yells about my slight plant phobia, mentions of Whizzy (the four year old jar of Cheese Whiz I had jokingly made my car mascot) and her insistence on including the phrase "kike diddly bitch" always seemed to evoke a reaction of "Huh?" outside of a select few. But I digress. It felt good, for both of us I'm sure, to get everything out in the open. We each managed not to take the other's lyrics personally and in fact had quite a bit of fun with it.
All of this had somehow been the perfect build-up to a new relationship for us. It was Dave who finally suggested it, though. Like many of my friends, he had been rooting for me to win her back over the years. What he proposed one night was for Kris to give me a second chance...for just 7 days. If she chose to, the terms dictated that she could break up with me after the week had elapsed. For some reason she agreed to give it a shot.
While I was thankful to Dave for facilitating this last opportunity to change her mind, I was secretly very apprehensive. The whole awkward idea seemed like another chance for me to get hurt. In fact, that outcome seemed like a near certainty.
To that point, not much changed between us during the experiment. We weren't any more or less affectionate towards each other and we didn't go out on any dates. It was as if nothing had really changed. We still had the same playful relationship as when we had been just roommates. When the seventh night had arrived, I fully expected her to leave me once again. With the clock counting down, we lay in bed talking about life, holding each other. Then before the week officially ran out, we made love again, this time without all of the vicious theatrics...just the two of us looking into each other's eyes
After that, time was up.
I waited for the worst, but as she began talking I realized it wasn't going to happen. She told me that she wasn't going to break up with me. Furthermore, she went on to say, "This last week I've realized that I never stopped loving you. All this time I've just been confused, and..." She continued explaining her actions, but I can't remember now what she said. I just know that we both cried tears of joy like long lost lovers reunited after some long terrible war. The next morning we went back to being the cute couple we had been years before.
Within 3 more weeks I was again feeling comfortable with my romantic side. For our monthaversary, I convinced our roommate Brett to get her out of the house for awhile. When she returned, there was a trail of rose petals leading to the bedroom. Inside, she found a brand new outfit, including a dress, shoes, purse, necklace, and unmentionables, all in her size. Also, I left a few full roses and a note telling her when to be ready. I waited outside a gas station for over an hour before showing up to whisk her away for a night on the town.
By the time we left Ft. Collins, our love story was in full swing. We had only had a single fight, which occurred when Kris had gone to Old Town with Dave. Having met some kindred spirits down there, she had decided to go hang out with them, telling Dave as she left, "I want to be with my people." This decision led to Brett and I staying up until 7 in the morning, waiting for her to arrive back home. We were so sleep deprived by the end that we found ourselves discussing which letters of the alphabet would be the most appropriate for zip-lining (I still contend that a capital B would be the best letter to zip-line with). When she finally arrived, with bloodshot eyes and looking as if she had just woken up, we took turns talking like concerned parents. "We've been up all night worrying about you!" "What the hell were you thinking?" She just sat in silence like a teenager resenting the scolding.
But that was it. The rest of our time in Ft. Collins was relatively problem free, and by the time we had left, I was ready to take the next step.
To be continued...
