Chapter 6: Heart Wants ll

The hike to The Clearing didn't take very long, not like the trek all the way out to the Garden of Eden or anything. But it was far enough outside of the camp boundaries and on a trail so little-used that the chances of anyone walking by on accident were slim to none. That was a good thing, because even though The Clearing itself was well off the trail and hidden behind some bushes, the noise from our frequent lovemaking sessions could possibly have been audible from the trail itself.

I knew the way by heart, right down to muscle memory of which rocks to step on and in what order when crossing the streams that ran across the path. So I didn't really need to pay attention to where I was going and instead used the majority of my brain power on trying to figure out what Dawn was going to say to me.

Dayna said that Dawn had broken up with her boyfriend, Nick, the weekend before the trip. Whether or not she'd done so for me, she couldn't say for sure.

Brandi claimed that Dawn wanted to become my girlfriend again, and that seemed to jive with the notion that Dawn had broken up with Nick for me. Although Dayna hadn't explicitly confirmed it, she hadn't denied it either. And whatever the three of them had discussed had ultimately led to Dayna's super-excited/super-horny attitude this morning. Would the prospect of Dawn becoming my girlfriend again cause Dayna to be that kind of happy? If Dayna was actually falling in love with me, wouldn't she see Dawn as competition? After all, only one of them could actually marry me and become their mother's favorite, right? Wouldn't it make sense for Dayna to be hornier and happier if Dawn confirmed that she didn't want to be my girlfriend and instead had given her big sister the green light to claim me as her own?

Um, this is Dayna we're talking about...

Well ... in theory...

You're just trying to rationalize some reason why Dawn wouldn't actually want to become your girlfriend, even though it's so blindingly obvious that Stevie Wonder already knows the truth. Hell, Brandi practically TOLD you she does. And the very fact that you're trying to rationalize some reason why not means that YOU don't want her to want to become your girlfriend again.

She's throwing a monkey wrench into everything.

Aye. That she is...

Or maybe she's not. I mean, take whatever conversation she just had with Adrienne and Sasha. It's obvious that the three of them spent all morning talking, to the point of Adrienne and Sasha returning to breakfast late and Dawn not returning at all. If Dawn had told them that she wanted to become my girlfriend, I know for SURE that Adrienne would NOT be happy. I can't see Adrienne showing up for breakfast and telling me to go talk to Dawn alone and in our clearing if she thought that Dawn was in love with me. Hell, even assuming Adrienne LET me talk to Dawn, she would have come along to supervise, wouldn't she? That must mean that Dawn doesn't want to become my girlfriend again, right?

Rationalizing again?

It's not rationalizing. It's simple cause and effect. If Dawn tells Adrienne she wants to become my girlfriend again and take me away from her, Adrienne strangles her on the spot. Cause and effect.

This should be good. Tell me more about this theory...

Unless Dawn somehow convinced Adrienne it would be okay. The pair of them had worked things out once before, and at Morris Camp no less. They'd shown themselves at least capable of sharing me, especially if they each thought doing so would be in my best interests. And what would be more in my best interests than Adrienne allowing Dawn to BE with me? Maybe it would even be in Adrienne's best interests, given her fears of marriage and family.

Wouldn't that be nice?

But then what about Sasha? Could she perhaps be waiting for the right time to make that sort of lifelong commitment to me? Especially if Adrienne doesn't want the ring or the nursery. True, Sasha is still young and career-oriented, but she has her hopes and dreams for the future, too. And she also has her fears of being a placeholder until Dawn came back. Surely SHE wouldn't be so readily accepting of Dawn joining the harem. She said just last night that the only thing that worries her about our relationship is if Dawn wants me back.

So we're back to rationalizing that Dawn doesn't want to become your girlfriend again, as evidenced by the fact that she's still breathing.

Unless she's NOT still breathing, and a righteously pissed-off Adrienne left her dead body in The Clearing for you to find and never forget.

Hell hath no fury...

Was that the reason for Sasha's grim face? And Adrienne's?

I think the sun is starting to get to you again.

Okay, okay. Putting aside crazy hypotheticals about strangled ex-soulmate girlfriends, both Sasha and Adrienne looked pretty ... resigned. Clearly, they weren't thrilled with the situation, but at the same time something seemed to have been resolved. Could it be Adrienne and Sasha begrudgingly accepting Dawn's love for me, not happy about it and still worried, but knowing they couldn't refuse?

Could be. That sort of makes sense.

But then that would confirm that Dayna and Brandi were right: Dawn wants to become my girlfriend again. She loves me, but not just as a friend the way we've been talking about. She broke up with her boyfriend for ME. And there ... in our special place ... she plans to reclaim me for her own.

Right?

Or is this wishful thinking?

My money's on wishful thinking.

But people wishfully think for things they WANT. Didn't you just say I was rationalizing reasons for her to NOT want to become my girlfriend again?

I actually didn't SAY anything. I'm a disembodied voice in your head. A clear sign of a diseased mind.

Not helping.

You want help? Make up your own damn mind. Do you want this or not?

I don't know. Do I? I've been serious when I said I thought we were better as friends. I've spent the past week reassuring everyone involved that I look at Dawn only as a friend, and those haven't been empty words. There's a lot of history between us, including a lot of BAD history, and that didn't just go away overnight. I avoided her for a year already, and I genuinely think there are very good, very valid reasons why we should never again become romantic. We are friends. We should stay friends.

But what if she wants to be more than friends?

No way. She may have convinced Adrienne and Sasha and Dayna and Brandi, but me? No way. We've had our chances, lots of them, and this will-they/won't-they back and forth has gone on long enough. True, we may have had only two really real romantic relationships, but there's been enough angst and drama for TEN lifetimes already. Enough already. I have a good situation, loving girlfriends, and know that the best place for Dawn in my life is as a sibling/best friend, the way Dayna and Brandi are to each other, and DJ and Brooke the same. Sibling/best friend is best.

You sure about that?

I'm sure. Decision made. Case closed. Even IF she's fallen back in love with me.

Do you even know for sure if she has?

Stevie Wonder, right?

But you've been wrong before. Best not to assume she has, no matter what Brandi or Dayna might think. To assume is to...

I know, I know.

Then again, what if she has?

There's no way for me to know, of course, not until I arrive and actually talk to her. It won't take very long to get there, and I'll know soon enough. Thinking and overthinking the situation isn't going to help me any. So, really, I need to STOP.

Yeah, good luck with that.

Yeah, I couldn't stop.

No really, I couldn't stop.

I still had a ways to go, and for the rest of the hike out I pondered different situations, played out scenarios of cause and effect, and generally worked myself up into a paranoid mess.

She loved me.

She didn't.

She loved me, but as a friend, just like we'd always said.

She wanted to marry me.

She didn't want to marry me.

She was going to wait for me until after my relationships with the others faded out.

Dayna was wrong; Dawn was still together with Nick.

Brandi was wrong; Dawn didn't want to become my girlfriend.

Brandi was right; Dawn did want to become my girlfriend.

Which would piss off Adrienne.

So Adrienne was following me, ready to kill Dawn with a poisoned blow dart the instant the L-word came out of Dawn's mouth.

Jeez, pull yourself together, dude.

Pull yourself together. Pull yourself together. Pull yourself together.

Be unafraid.

I'd arrived at the spot on the trail where I'd need to leave it. A few dozen feet away, Dawn was waiting for me in our clearing, ready to talk to me about... something. Something so important that Adrienne and Sasha had returned to breakfast with grim faces. Something so life-changing that Dayna had gotten super-excited/super-horny. Something so amazing for me that Brandi became jealous about how perfect my life was turning out.

Something...

Time to find out what.

So I stepped off the trail. I circled around the bushes. And I walked into The Clearing.

In all my imagined scenarios, Dawn looked up at me the instant I came into view. In most of those scenarios, she had been sitting down in some form or another. In a couple, she'd been standing with her arms folded and a cross expression on her face. In a few others, she'd been reclining naked, beckoning me to climb on and make love to her.

But in reality, Dawn sat with her back to me. She sat cross-legged in a lotus position, facing the creek, and though I wasn't very quiet in my approach, she didn't appear to notice my arrival. I walked over and around her from a four-foot radius, and when her face came into view I saw that her eyes were closed as she concentrated inward, her lips moving almost imperceptively as if she were muttering to herself.

"Hey there," I began softly, not wanting to startle her.

She blinked quickly, opened her eyes, and turned her head to look at me. An almost shy smile spread across her lips, her expression reflecting the same almost overwhelming nervousness that I felt as well. Her irises clicked back and forth as she studied me, observing my posture, my expression, and her brain whirled behind her eyes as she apparently went through the same anxious/eager/terrified scenario analysis I'd been doing myself. It was as if she was gearing herself up to tell me that she loved me, that she wanted me back, only she couldn't be sure how I'd react to such a declaration.

Butterflies danced in my stomach, the way they did when I was a teenager preparing myself to confess my true feelings. I knew ... just KNEW, that this was a momentous moment in our lives. For good or bad, I didn't know, but I knew it would be important, the kind of moment we each would remember for all eternity. After everything we'd been through, and after all the time we'd been apart, this moment was the FIRST time in a LONG time that Dawn and I were in our clearing TOGETHER. And on her BIRTHDAY no less.

So I focused on that: her birthday. There wasn't enough room on the picnic blanket to sit directly in front of her, so I moved forward and sat cross-legged a couple of feet away from her, the creek to my left, the bushes to my right, and the tree that shaded us behind me. Dawn smiled and blinked, clearly gathering her composure. So I took the opportunity to warmly say, "Happy Birthday, Dawn."

Her smile cracked. Her throat visibly gulped. And the first tear streaked down from the corner of her suddenly reddening eyes.

"I love you, Ben," she choked, sniffling and gulping once again.

The words made those butterflies in my stomach dance, but her visibly stricken demeanor made my pulse race with fear. And then she finished by explaining,

"That's why I have to leave."

"Ben! Ben! Come back!"

I hadn't been going very fast, more of an angry stomp than a sprint away, so Dawn easily caught up to me and grabbed my hand. But while her tug back managed to arrest my forward momentum, I didn't turn around to face her. And despite her repeated tugs on my hand, I continued to keep my back to her while I grit my teeth, furrowed my forehead, and snorted through my nostrils from the rage that continued to consume me.

"Please, Ben... Please ... Let me explain," Dawn whimpered behind me.

Her words set in, and the rage that consumed my very core blossomed into an explosion that sent me spinning around so fast and with such fire in my eyes that Dawn jerked back a few steps and covered her mouth in sudden primal fear.

"Let you explain? Let you explain?!?" I seethed, nostrils flaring and eyes bugging out. "Explain WHAT? Why you need to FUCKING RUN AWAY AGAIN?!?"

Dawn's hands turned palms out defensively, and she gestured with them for me to calm down while she backed away from my renewed angry forward stomping. "This isn't like last time! I'm not running away!"

"'That's why I have to leave'?" I roared while miming air quotes with my fingers, a grand expression of outraged disbelief on my face. "Five days before the end of our vacation? 'I love you but I can't stay here because it's for your own good'? Certainly fucking sounds like fucking running away to me!"

"It wasn't my idea!" Dawn whimpered, still backing up. We'd just about returned to our original spot in The Clearing, and if she backed up much further she'd end up in the creek. "Adrienne and Sasha want me GONE!"

That brought me up short, and I stopped stomping. Blinking fast in confusion, my eyebrows furrowed and I canted my head to the side. "Say that again?"

"They want me gone. Away from here. Away from you."

I frowned, shaking my head. "I don't understand."

"Isn't it obvious? I love you. I want you back. I want US back. And that's a threat to them, so they want me to leave. I'm not running away. If it were up to me, I'd stay right here and spend the next five days rebuilding our relationship. Starting again, just like we said we would. But I can't. They want me gone. So I'm leaving, because I respect the relationships you have, and because I don't want to ruin things for you."

My head hurt. Raising my index and middle fingers from both hands, I pressed them to my temples and rubbed – no, I squeezed – hard enough to make myself grimace from the pressure. At least it was a tangible, physical pain I could understand better than the brain-ache going on INSIDE my skull.

"Okay ... okay..." I muttered, taking a deep breath. "I think you need to start at the beginning."

Still gesturing with her hands palms-out for me to calm down, Dawn nodded and said, "Okay. I'll explain everything."

Suddenly annoyed, I shook my head and gave her a weary look. "And next time, don't drop some melodramatic bomb on me like 'That's why I have to leave', alright? Ease me into that. Baby steps, with lots of exposition first so I have time to wrap my head around what's going on before you spring that on me. I've got abandonment issues because of what you did to me, alright?"

That managed to bring a smile to Dawn's face. "Me? You're Mr. Melodramatic Ominous One-Liner."

I started rubbing my forehead and grumbled, "Yeah, well just because I do it doesn't mean you have to."

"Sometimes we're a lot alike." She sat back down on the mat and gestured for me to take a spot across from her.

"One more reason we're better as friends," I sighed as I sat. "People too similar to each other make better friends than partners. It's complementary opposites that supposedly make the best romantic couples."

Dawn's face fell a bit. "So you still believe we're better off as friends."

"Isn't that what we've both been saying all along?"

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered, avoiding my eyes. "But I couldn't help hoping that ... deep down..."

"That I'd want you back?"

Her eyes flashed to me for just a second before she returned to scrutinizing the picnic blanket in front of her. "Yeah..."

I let her mull that over for a little while, let her get her bearings and catch her breath. I did the same, but when the silence started to get awkward, I took a deep breath and began, "You were going to start at the beginning."

"The beginning, right." Dawn sat up straighter, her eyes focused on a spot on the mat between us. "I guess the beginning starts with Nick."

"You broke up with him for me." It was a statement, not a question. I already knew it to be true.

"I broke up with him a year ago, actually. It started the day I came back here to Morris Camp after attending your graduation, though we didn't make it official until I left the program to go back to school."

"A year ago?" I frowned, not understanding. "But Dayna said you just broke up with him the week before coming up here."

Dawn's eyes flicked to mine for just a moment before she blushed and stared at her clasped hands in her lap, fidgeting with her fingers. "It's complicated. The upshot is that when I got back to camp, I realized that I didn't love Nick and would never love Nick as a long-term boyfriend. We were good friends, and I needed him as a friend, but I couldn't lead him on into believing something permanent would ever come out of our relationship. I couldn't have a Ryan 2.0, if you know what I mean."

"But this whole past year, you never said anything. I've asked you about Nick dozens of times, referred to him as 'your boyfriend', and you never corrected me. We even talked about your sex life."

"Like I said..."

"It's complicated," I finished for her.

"You know Nick went back to SoCal while I stayed up here. He's with Deedee, and they're the couple again. But we're still close friends, friends-with-benefits even. I'm a sexual creature too, and I couldn't really be abstinent this whole time without going crazy. I wanted to focus on my schoolwork and I didn't want a new boyfriend at Berkeley. Nick visited often enough for me to take the edge off, but we're not romantic anymore. And it was easier to tell everyone that he was my long-distance boyfriend than explain him being my long-distance booty call."

"But you've now called off even the booty call."

"The week before we came up here."

"Because you wanted to try and get me back. So you lied to me this whole time about only wanting to become friends again."

"No, I didn't lie." She shook her head. "I called things off with him because I wanted to focus on you; that's true enough. But my intent really was just to start again as friends. I meant everything I said before about not wanting to ruin your current relationships, and I still mean it now. It wasn't until last night that I realized my heart wanted more than 'just friends'."

My head started to hurt again, and I rubbed my temples again. "We've talked about that not being a good idea."

Dawn gave me a sad look. "The heart wants what the heart wants."

"Why? I thought you'd moved past this. No more fairy tales about soulmates. No more parental pressure to unite our families. No more trying to recapture 'Perfect Dawn', and instead learning who you really are beyond all the outside forces that were pushing you toward me your whole life."

"I did. I have. I'm not Perfect Dawn anymore, nor am I trying to be."

"Then what's this about your heart wanting more than 'just friends'?"

She looked at me sadly again, took a deep breath, and swallowed thickly to fight the urge to choke up. Her eyes got misty, but just as she started to avert her gaze again, she brought it right back and focused with laser intensity right at me.

"For the past year, watching you avoid me over and over and over again, I couldn't dare hope for anything more than 'just friends'. I didn't dwell on you, didn't fixate or anything stalker-ish like that. I focused on my studies and spent time with my friends and enjoyed hanging out with DJ and Brooke and the rest of them. I've worked really hard this last year to define my identity without you in it, knowing that any friendship we might have in the future would be a bonus, something pleasant to add to my life without being the foundation of my existence. But I still wanted that friendship back, okay?"

I nodded. "Me too."

"I know. You built your foundation on them: Kim, BJ, Adrienne, Sasha. That's your bedrock. They are the ones that matter."

"I don't disagree."

"Then you understand why I have to leave."

"No, I don't." I shook my head. "Why can't you stay here and just be my friend?"

"Because New Dawn is in love with Ben, too. I didn't realize it a year ago after your graduation. I didn't realize it two weeks ago when I told Nick we had to stop. And I didn't realize it last Monday when we agreed to start again. I only realized it yesterday when you told me that Adrienne would break up with you if we ever had sex again."

"That's the lust talking. The memory of our fantastic sex life. And the thing everyone wants most is whatever they're explicitly told they can't have. Being told you can't fuck me makes you want to fuck me even more, but that's not love."

"It didn't make me want to fuck you. It made me want to kiss you. And I nearly did."

"But you didn't. And ten seconds later you affirmed that we are starting again as friends, nothing more. Friends without sex. Nothing to threaten my relationships. You even went with me to try and reassure Adrienne that we'd never be anything more than friends."

Dawn sighed, only now looking away from me as her gaze drifted across the water. "Dayna confronted me last night after the bonfire, about when I was going to tell you about my breakup with Nick. Then we got to talking about my feelings for you and what I wanted from you long-term while I asked her about what she wanted from you long-term and it kinda turned into this tug-of-war 'If you don't take him then I will' kind of thing and then I started to really consider the thought of you being married with kids to someone else and while I was okay with that I had to think about living the rest of my life on the outside as 'just friends', not even friends-with-benefits the way Dayna and Brandi are with each other but completely abstinent from you and my heart started pounding and I couldn't breathe and..." Her voice trailed off as she realized she was rambling, and she glanced back at me.

"So it IS the lust thing," I concluded with raised eyebrows. "You're not in love with me. You just want to fuck me."

"Yes..." she began. "AND no. I realized that even though I'm not Perfect Dawn anymore, I DO still want you. More than 'just friends'. Maybe not as 'soulmate wife'. Maybe not as 'mother of your children'. But MORE than 'just friends'. Forget parental pressure. Forget Old Ben and Old Dawn. Forget 21 years of history. Who I am ... here and now ... CRAVES to feel your cock eight inches inside of me in a way no other man could ever fill me, but not JUST for lust. For the intimacy of feeling YOU ... MY Ben ... my BEST friend ... my one and only BROTHER. You and me: united in one body. I LOVE you – and I want TO love you – at the very least as much as Dayna loves you: as a girlfriend. As part of the harem."

I frowned. "Just part of the harem?"

She sighed. "I'm not asking you for monogamy or exclusivity. I just want in. I meant what I said about not wanting to destroy your other relationships. I want what's best for you, and like I said: the others are the foundations of your existence. I won't take them away from you, but the heart wants what the heart wants, and it wants to be a part of your happiness, too."

"You told this to Dayna and Brandi?"

She nodded. "Last night. After the bonfire. But it was really late and I wasn't prepared to tell you or anything, so we slept on it. When we woke up this morning, the first thing Dayna asked me was if I still meant what I'd said last night. When I confirmed that I did, she got superhappy--"

"And super-horny," I added.

Dawn smiled. "That too. I was worried she'd see me as competition for your heart, but instead she just got really excited about the idea of sharing you together. Brandi seemed happy about it too."

"I remember." I nodded slowly. "But you didn't have to clear things with only them. You had to tell Adrienne and Sasha."

Dawn's smile vanished. "Actually, they came to fetch me. Adrienne said they'd gotten as far as they could talking to you and to each other. Said the three of us needed to get all our cards on the table."

I arched an eyebrow. "And you brought them here?"

Dawn winced. "Adrienne's idea. Said she needed to see me in this place, our place, and for me to explain to them what YOU mean to me while sitting right here. Here, she said, I wouldn't be able to hide my true feelings. And she was right."

"The true feelings that you want me back? That you want to join the harem?"

Dawn grimaced. "I tried to soft-pedal that part ... work my way up to it. Dayna was too blinded by eagerness to really worry about it, but Brandi had her concerns about me breaking that sort of news to your girlfriends, and she gave me some advice about how to approach it. I started by trying to reassure Adrienne and Sasha that I wouldn't try to steal you away, monopolize your attention, or edge them out in any way. I told them I had another year of school left and wasn't going to come visit every weekend or anything like that."

"They didn't believe you?"

"Oh, they believed me. But bottom line, they had to know whether I truly wanted you as 'just a friend' or if I wanted something more than that. If they'd asked me yesterday morning, I would have given them the answer they wanted. But they asked me today, and I had to tell them the truth. That I love you as a lover, as a boyfriend, and yes, someday as a husband. That I'd love it if one day I was your one and only wife, though I'd never deny you the close, physically intimate relationships you have with other women, especially those within The Family. I assured Adrienne that even if we DID one day marry, that I'd never keep her from you. I rather hope you maintain your bedrock support of each other as adoptive siblings for the rest of your lives, and I asked that if you one day chose her or Sasha as that one and only wife, that they'd let me maintain our sibling-like bond as well."

"You'd be okay with me marrying one of them instead?"

Dawn's eyes darkened. "I told them I'd ... accept it ... I'd respect your decision. But I wouldn't be happy about it."

I rolled my eyes. "No wonder they want you gone."

"I can't lie to myself. I may not be Perfect Dawn anymore but I can't deny that my entire being craves to be near you. You're the air I breathe, and I've been slowly suffocating to death without you. My own fault, I know, but I can't help myself. I spent half a year trying to recover the Old Dawn that still belonged to you, then I spent the rest of the year trying to move on to being a New Dawn that didn't need you. But the truth is that I know I'll never be happy with any other man but you. I'm not going to string along some replacement Ben, because nobody else is ever going to live up to my perfect match. I'm not asking to keep you all to myself. But I'm not going to settle for someone else ever again."

I stared at Dawn, stared at the unflinching resolution on her face. She meant every single syllable, and she'd spoken them with concrete conviction that hardened her eyes as she stared into mine. And I understood exactly why Adrienne and Sasha would want her to leave.

But I didn't understand why she actually would.

"How can you say all that?" I began, swallowing thickly as I fought the emotion rising up in my own eyes. "How can you say all that and consent to leave me?"

She blinked twice, as the resolve in her eyes crumbled away. Moisture filled her eyes and she stared out across the creek again. "Because it's what's best for you."

"Bullshit."

"I'm serious. You said it yourself: you still believe we're better off as friends. You don't need me as part of your harem. You don't want me as part of your harem. You don't love me in the same way I love you."

"That doesn't mean you have to leave."

"Of course it does! If for no other reason than that your girlfriends asked me to!"

"I can talk to them."

"And say what? That they should keep around a girl who threatens your relationships with them?"

"You don't threaten my relationships with them."

"Yes I DO. I can't lie to myself. I want IN. I want YOU."

"You just said you only wanted to be part of the harem, not exclusive and not monogamous. You'd share me and not destroy my other relationships."

She shook her head. "Doesn't matter. I'd destroy them anyway. My very presence would cause Adrienne and Sasha to doubt your love for them; they told me themselves. And I know I've always said that I'm willing to share, but I also know that the person I am will always want to be your Number One. That can't happen if Adrienne's your Number One, and you know it."

"I don't rank my girlfriends."

"Please. My parents say they don't rank their daughters, but they still do."

"Different but equal."

"You gonna claim Dayna ranks higher than Adrienne? You gonna claim you don't think of Adrienne and Sasha as your 'primaries'?"

My averted look was all the answer she needed.

"I'd want to be THE primary, and that desire would influence EVERYTHING I did with you and them. I'm competitive. Always want to be the best. I would undermine your other relationships, even if I didn't do it on purpose. Then again, maybe I would do it on purpose. I've spent a lot of time figuring out who I am and who I'm not, and when push comes to shove I'm a selfish bitch who only wants what's best for herself."

"You're being too hard on yourself."

"I'm being HONEST with myself. I spent years cultivating the Perfect Dawn image because I wanted everyone to believe I was an infallible angel. You and I both know I'm not. I know I look like this flawless daydream, but underneath the skin, I'm your worst nightmare."

She said all that matter-of-factly, in a nonchalant tone that belied the harshness of her words. She sounded as if she'd come to accept her selfish imperfections and didn't want to bother fighting them anymore. Why conceal who she truly was? Why pretend to be a happy harem girl and hide her desire to be first in line?

Slowly, Dawn stood back up. I remained seated, so she folded her arms across her chest and gave me a weary, resigned look. "So that's why I have to leave. Not to run away from our problems, and not because I don't want to be your friend. I DO. I want you and I need you. But I love YOU too much to fuck this up for you. I knew from the beginning you had a crowded dance card. I came up here to camp only hoping there would be a little room in there for me ... as a friend. My intentions were good, but even the best intentions can go astray."

"I don't want you to leave," I mumbled, staring at her feet.

"Whether you want me to or not, I have to go. For your sake. For the sake of your relationships."

"There IS room for you ... as a friend."

"Maybe there is. But I don't think we should even be friends right now. Certainly not here at camp. Too much has happened in the last day or so. Too many things have been said. You'll need the next five days to stabilize your relationships with Sasha and Adrienne. You'll need to reassure them that they're still your primaries and that you don't have feelings for me."

"But I DO have feelings for you."

"Just as friends. And maybe someday we can be friends again, after you've gotten your relationships with the others back on solid ground. But not today."

"We're supposed to be starting again," I complained. "You're not supposed to leave me."

"And we WILL start again, eventually. And I'm only leaving for a few days. Not like I'm running across the country again. I'm going home to Berkeley, and we'll see each other again soon."

"But you're talking about not even being 'friends'."

"Even as a friend, I'd be the pebble beneath the mattress. The tiny irritation that could ultimately erode the stability of your relationships with the others, Adrienne especially. I can't do that to you. Your happiness ... and hers ... are more important to me."

"But you love me."

"Love you enough to leave. Maybe we just need more time. Maybe after a few visits – Thanksgiving, Christmas, who knows – Adrienne will feel less threatened by me. I can still hope we'll work things out down the road. But for now, it's best that I get out of your way."

"I don't want you to leave," I muttered again.

"But I have to."

"I don't want you to leave," I repeated.

"Your girlfriends want me to leave."

"But -I- DON'T want you to leave," I insisted, getting up to my feet.

"It's for the best." She took a step back and raised her hands defensively as I approached her. "I don't want leave you either, but we both know I can't stay."

"Yes you can stay," I rasped as I reached out and grabbed her waist. She kept her hands up between us, staring at me with wide eyes in confusion as I added hoarsely, "YES you can stay."

Shaking her head, Dawn repeated, "I can't. I'll ruin your relationships. I have to LEAVE."

"I'm not losing you again," I growled, tightening my grip on her hips and tugging her toward me until my elbows were locked at right-angles.

Dawn's palms-out hands now came to rest on my chest. She stared at them, her lower lip quivering. "I don't want to lose you again, either. But I can't stay."

"I don't want you to go back to Berkeley."

Dawn looked up at me and barked a short laugh. "Not go back? Don't be ridiculous. I have to finish school and get my degree."

"But I don't want you to disappear again. Thanksgiving? Christmas? That's not enough. I HAVE to see you more than that. You're the air -I- breathe, and I've been dying inside ever since you left. We've already lost a whole year," I groaned, ruefully thinking about all the times I avoided her. "Two years when you count the ranch hand program. And I don't want to lose another one."

"It's just a year."

"One of us could be dead in just a year. Shit happens. How could I live with myself if we didn't make things right between us?"

"Neither of us is going to die."

"You don't KNOW that."

"But you can't live your life in fear of that, either."

"Yes I can. I can live my life terrified of losing you and take action to make sure I don't lose you again. I've lost you ENOUGH times already. I lost you when you started dating Ryan. I lost you when you cheated on me with Jaron. I lost you AGAIN when you left to be a ranch hand. And I never even got you back when you returned to school. I am NOT. LOSING YOU. AGAIN!"

"Ben, I have to go."

"NO!" Sliding my hands behind her lower back, I yanked her up tight against me. My eyes wide in abject fear, I practically shouted right in her face, "NOT AGAIN!"

"Think of Adrienne. Think of Sasha."

"I love YOU!" I shouted even louder.

Dawn blinked twice. "Excuse me?"

"I love YOU!" I repeated, feeling hot tears splash down onto my cheeks. I jerked my hands up to the sides of Dawn's head, squeezing it perhaps a little too hard in my fear of her getting away from my grip. Forcibly locking her gaze onto mine from only an inch away, I barked again, "I LOVE YOU. I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT YOU. AND I'M NOT LOSING YOU AGAIN!"

Dawn's eyes were open wide in pure shock, and her lips were slack when I planted that first kiss on her. She didn't react at all as I cried and tilted my head and kissed her again, straining for her to FEEL my anguish through my lips. Releasing my hands from the sides of her skull, I instead wrapped the entirety of my left arm around the back of her head to pull her to me while wrapping my right arm around her torso to squeeze our bodies together. My tongue pushed between her lips, I whimpered my need into her mouth, and all of a sudden, she came alive in my arms.

Fireworks exploded in my brain when her tongue touched mine in return. Her lips firmed up and molded themselves against mine. And her crooning whimper of lustful need filled my mouth, my mind ... my soul.

Inky black clouds crept around the edges of my vision. The world around us twisted like vertigo, the light filtering through leaves and branches of the overhead tree canopy spinning like stars around the northern horizon. Suddenly, I realized that I wasn't merely being carried away by the delirium of kissing Dawn, but that I hadn't actually inhaled since starting the kiss and my brain was starting to go hypoxic from lack of oxygen.

Instinct took over and I broke the kiss long enough to gasp for air. My nostrils flared and for all our talk about each other being the air we breathed, we clearly both still needed actual air. But we only stopped kissing long enough to regain the precious oxygen. And without the slightest hesitation we came right back together with open arms, open mouths, and ready tongues.

For days, Dawn and I had watched each other get naked and have sex with other people. For days, the slightest glimpse of the other would get our motors running, would fuel our hormones, and would drive the passion that would ultimately be spent on someone else. For days, both of us wanted to give into our lustful urges, but both of us also knew with absolute certainty that we wouldn't be doing so anytime soon.

Turned out, we were both wrong.

One minute, Dawn was explaining to me exactly why she had to leave camp and let me solidify my relationships with my girlfriends. Her reasoning was sound, logical, and in my best interests.

The next minute, my tongue was in her mouth.

And many, many ... MANY ... minutes later, I thrust forward a final time, grunting my orgasm into Dawn's ear as a quart of spunk flowed out of me and into her sucking pussy. She dug her heels into my naked ass, tightening her arms around my back to pull me deeper as she felt the cum flowing out of my body to crash against her insides like waves cresting on the beach. The first wave would start receding only to be met by the second coming forth, and both our bodies twitched and humped together as I finished filling her up with my jism.

And then I collapsed, my limp body crushing her chest while she wrapped all four limbs around me to feel my heavy weight press her down.

For a long while we both basked in the afterglow of our spectacular orgasms. For a long while, we both felt warmly cocooned in our own little bubble where the outside world and the complications it would bring simply didn't exist. But gradually, our breathing returned to normal. And gradually, our awareness of the surrounding reality returned as well.

I recognized that I was crushing her, and Dawn let me roll off her sweaty, naked body to lie beside her and pant for breath while we both stared up into the trees. Neither of us spoke, both of us attempting to process what had just happened and what it might mean.

A line had been crossed, of that we had no doubt. One might think I'd be worried about how my girlfriends would react. One might think I'd be terrified of how Adrienne would react. But I wasn't. I wasn't worried at all.

Whatever happened, happened.

However Adrienne would react, she'd react.

What was done was done, and even if I could go back in time and stop it from happening, I wouldn't want to.

The worst thing about this convoluted web of relationships I'd spun had been the uncertainty. How would Adrienne react if Dawn reentered my life? How would Sasha react? Or Kim? Or Dayna? Or Brandi? How would Dawn and I dance around the rebuilding of our friendship while avoiding the temptations to backslide into our past romantic habits? How would the exact nature of my relationship with Dawn color my relationships with everyone else? How would their fear of what she and I might become influence the way they interacted not only with me, but also the way they interacted with her?

If Dawn and I had become platonic friends, everyone would wonder whether or not we'd ever start fucking again. Everyone would tip-toe around us, putting on happy faces while concealing their fears, publicly wishing us the best while privately worried what might happen if Dawn and I ever slipped up.

Well, no more uncertainty. No more worrying. "Platonic friends" had just gone out the window. Ben and Dawn just fucked. Game over, right?

Okay, maybe things wouldn't be so simple. Nobody, Dawn and I included, knew exactly what would happen now. I couldn't hide the truth. There would be no lying to the girls or concealing the fact that my sperm was currently soaking into Dawn's womb. Would my other girlfriends be understanding of that fact? Would they get angry and break up with me? Would Adrienne follow through on her threat to become 'just my sister' again? I didn't know.

What I did know was that one uncertainty had been removed. Would Dawn and I ever start fucking again? The answer to that was most equivocally "yes". And there wasn't even any uncertainty over whether or not we'd do it again.

Yes, we would. Hell yes, we would. I was Ben. She was Dawn. Physical intimacy had been a part of our relationship since we were babies, even if it didn't become sexual intimacy until we were teens. We'd taken baths and showers together. Our first explorations of the opposite sex were with each other. And now that we'd gotten started again, we weren't going to stop.

Losing control of our emotions and fucking once could perhaps have been passed off as an accident, apologized for, and explained away in a desperate attempt to salvage the situation. But we didn't fuck just once. We fucked a LOT. The first time had been hurried and not very satisfying. After I'd tackled her to the ground, Dawn merely raised the front of her skirt and tugged her panties aside while I'd pulled my cock out through my unzipped flap before I entered her. I rabbit-humped her for only forty-five seconds before losing control and filling her with my first batch of cream. The premature end to our frenzied makeout session had briefly brought some sanity back to both of us, and I lay there on top of her with my cock slowly deflating inside her snatch wondering if we'd made some major mistake.

But I'd repeated that I didn't want to lose her again, and she'd promised me that she wouldn't leave camp early no matter what, and she'd pulled my face down to hers for another kiss. One kiss turned into two, two into three, and by the time I felt a volcanic explosion of passion and emotion flooding my brain, my dick had regained rock-hard rigidity and I was pumping away inside her once again.

There would be no premature ejaculation the second time around. I brought her to her first orgasm and then we paused to strip off her skirt and underwear without even bothering to remove her shoes. After a while, Dawn rolled us over and sat up to hump herself up and down on my flagpole while I slid my hands up her ribcage beneath her shirt and eventually beneath her bra. She whipped the shirt over her head and reached back to unfasten her clasp while I palmed her tits and thumbed her nipples. Once she was fully naked save for her tennis shoes and socks, she slid her hands beneath my shirt to squeeze my pecs and rub my abs, letting her head flail left and right as she worked herself up to an incredible orgasm fueled by the knowledge that it was MY dick eight inches deep inside of her.

I yanked her down against my chest and kissed her gaping mouth while she screamed out her climax, palming her ass and grinding her clit against my gyrating pelvic bone to maximize her pleasure. When she was done, I pulled out and finally removed my shorts from around my ankles while also ripping my shirt over my head. I too still had my shoes on, and I planted them atop the picnic blanket while I rolled her over onto all fours and squatted above her body to drill myself downward into her cunt from behind.

Dawn gasped and groaned as I rapidly pumped her pussy like an out-of-control oil derrick. With the side of her face pressed into the picnic blanket, she gutturally grunted each time my pelvis banged down against her butt. And after she cried out another climax, I reached down and grabbed her thighs to hoist her body up and fuck her wheelbarrow-style to drive my dick even deeper into her snatch.

Fueled by lustful adrenaline, I pounded her like a madman without care for my burning forearms until I finally felt my balls tighten up. Twisting her legs, I flopped Dawn onto her back and dropped myself onto her chest, grabbing the sides of her tits and mashing them around my throbbing, thrusting shaft. Delirious with pleasure, Dawn gaped her mouth open and verbally invited me to ram my delicious cock down her throat and fill her belly with my seed. So once I had my fill of fucking her tits, I did just that, scooting forward and grabbing her head behind her ears to skull-fuck that pretty face before blowing my second load down her gullet hard enough and long enough for her to start gagging on my prick.

The tears streaking down Dawn's cheek were tears of happiness when I finally withdrew my spent dick from her mouth. I rolled onto my back and spread my weary arms, but she wasn't done with me yet. She rolled after me and sucked my cock back into her mouth, hoovering out every last drop of jizz still in my tubes and not stopping until she had me hard and ready to go once more.

Dawn mounted me again, doing all the work while I relaxed and held her ass in my hands. Once I caught my breath, she drew my hands up and placed my palms back on her big breasts. No words were spoken and none were needed. Sex had never been our problem, and from then on I instinctively knew every move she wanted me to make. I tickled her trigger spots, massaged her mammaries, and buzzed my fingers through the cleft of her butt. I yanked her chest down so I could bite her neck and shoved my middle finger through her sphincter at the moment of her next climax, and I rolled us over so that I could long-dick her all throughout her orgasmic spasms.

When she was done, I raised her legs over my shoulders and curled her body up so that I could stick my middle finger back up her butt. I rotated my hips to grind my pelvic bone against her clit and carved my cock against her vaginal walls. I shoved my tongue down her throat and manipulated her into a screaming orgasm with my oral appendage still in her mouth. And when she came down from that, I grabbed hold of her ankles and pressed them all the way back so that her toes touched the picnic blanket a foot behind her head while I slam-fucked her cunt as hard as I could.

Dawn cried happy tears as she felt one final orgasm building up inside her, and she cooed for me to cum inside her again while splitting her legs out to the sides and bringing them back to cross around my lower back as I pounded down the final stretch. My Dawn kissed me with passionate tenderness while cradling my head in her arms, repeating over and over again, "I love you ... I love you ... I'll always love you..."

I hadn't forgotten that I had three girlfriends, a baby, a baby mama, and an older sister waiting for me. I hadn't forgotten that what Dawn and I were doing would be considered cheating by those I held most dear. I always knew that there would be consequences for my actions, and while I couldn't say I considered those consequences every time I did something drastic, I hadn't forgotten them this time.

The heart wants what the heart wants. Her heart wanted me. My heart wanted her. In the end, that was all that really mattered. The consequences would be whatever the consequences would be. There was no longer any uncertainty whether or not THIS would happen. It had happened. What's done is done. And Dawn and I would face those consequences together, come what may.

Be unafraid.

There was no fear, only acceptance. Life as I'd come to know it was over. The happy status quo of my life with my three girlfriends, one baby, one baby mama, and one older sister, was about to change. But that's okay. Everything changes. Nothing ever stays status quo.

And so I came.

And Dawn came with me.

Together.

I thrust forward that final time, grunting my orgasm into Dawn's ear as a quart of spunk flowed out of me and into her sucking pussy. She dug her heels into my naked ass, tightening her arms around my back to pull me deeper as she felt the cum flowing out of my body to crash against her insides like waves cresting on the beach. The first wave would start receding only to be met by the second coming forth, and both our bodies twitched and humped together as I finished filling her up with my jism.

And as my cock spat out the final few globs of cum into the deepest recesses of her womb, she whispered right into my ear, "I'm your Dawn. Forever."