Meeting James – Chapter 4: Melanie comes clean to her friends and meets Gianna

True story: Meeting James – Chapter 4: Melanie comes clean to her friends and meets Gianna

by melanieatplay

It was a very emotional morning and I felt miserable. Watching James walk into McCarran and leave for Los Angeles, I felt like I was being abandoned. I knew I had no right to feel that way, but I couldn’t seem to get my emotions under control. I had never felt like this before. I thought I had experienced some bad break-ups in high school, but none of them felt as bad as this.

The cabbie took me to the car dealership and I picked up the Land Rover without incident. It was such a beautiful vehicle, it had every possible option: leather seats, power everything, and a sun roof. That should make me feel better right? It didn’t.

I wanted desperately to skip my finance class, but I couldn’t. The paper I had written over the weekend was due today and I’d lose a lot of points if it was turned in late. We were also reviewing for our midterm and the Prof was notorious for giving away test questions and telling students what they needed to study in order to do well in the exam.

I felt numb, both emotionally and mentally. I couldn’t think, let alone concentrate like I needed to, and as hard as I tried, I just couldn’t seem to pull myself together.

As the day progressed, my mood did improve somewhat. My finance class went well and I was able to go to the library and study for a few hours for my midterm exams, which were later in the week. I had also stopped by the student records office and put James’ name on my financial account, like he had asked, so he would start receiving my tuition bills. I was also able to pull up my credit card statements on my laptop and email a copy of them to James’ office. I smiled to myself when I remembered that James had told me to fax them. What’s a fax? I thought, wishing I was with him, so I could tease him about using an antiquated fax machine instead of email.

I just wanted to go home, sleep, and wake up the day James was flying back into town. If only, I thought.

As I pulled into my apartment complex my jaw dropped. OH SHIT! I looked and saw the cars of my two best friends, Sue and Samantha, parked in front of our apartment. I also saw my roommate Rachel’s car so I knew all three of them had to be inside. Sue and Samantha never come over on a Monday afternoon, I smelled an ambush.

I used my key to open the front door and the most heavenly aroma entered my nostrils. Rachel was making her famous stir fry vegetables with chicken breast. It was my favorite and definitely another bad sign. Like a convict’s last meal before the electric chair.

“Hey girl,” all three of them screeched in unison, as I walked through the door.

“Hi everyone,” I said, smiling brightly.

Leave it to my best friends to pull me out of my doldrums. I immediately felt my mood start to improve. They had already finished off a bottle of wine and they were starting on their second. Look out, it was going to be an an interesting evening.

Rachel poured me a glass of wine and we all sat down on the sofa and loveseat in the small living room.

As Rachel handed me a glass of wine she said, “Sam, do you know what happened to Mel this weekend, because we had made plans to go to the Ghost Bar on Saturday night, but she stood me up and then was nowhere to be found.”

Samantha laughed and said, “The last I heard Sue made her go to some fancy soirée at the Paris and no one has seen her since.”

I found it hilarious that they were talking about me as if I wasn’t in the room.

“Sue, can you give us a recap of the events of Friday evening, so we know that the record is correct before we continue,” she said, making all three of them laugh, while I shook my head, trying not to smile and encourage them.

I was sure that Sue had probably told Rachel and Samantha the story of Friday night at least twenty times already.

“Well, I was letting this cute guy chat me up, when I saw Melanie dancing with this handsome older man. Then, she went back to his table and they talked, drank and danced all night while she totally ignored me the entire evening. Finally, at mid-night, she made me leave because she told me that she was having such a great time with him,” Sue said, smiling at me.

“Okay Melanie, enough with the suspense, time to start dishing,” Samantha said, grinning at me.

Since we met during our freshmen year in the dorms, the four of us were inseparable and we told each other everything; who we liked, who we slept with, nothing was out of bounds. We had enjoyed each other’s company in the best of times, and we had all gotten each other through some of the very worst of times. But this one was going to be difficult.

I took a deep breath.

“It’s not really that big of a deal guys, I met him, we hooked up, and I spent the weekend with him.”

They all looked into my eyes, trying to see if there was more to the story than I had revealed.

“I’m calling bullshit,” Rachel said smiling. “When’s the last time you fucked a guy Melanie, and an older guy at that? There has to be more to the story.”

I could tell that the wine was kicking in. Rachel never dropped the F-Bomb unless it was directed at her boyfriend, and that was only after he had made her mad.

I looked down, time to come clean.

“His name is James and he lives in LA. He comes into town about once a month. I really like him and I told him I’d see him when he’s here.”

“So what’s the catch, you’re working out your daddy issues with some hot, older guy, no big deal,” Samantha said, smiling at me.

I took a big gulp of wine draining the glass.

“The catch is, he has a wife and kids and he’s been giving me gifts.”

The room went silent.

“What do you mean, ‘giving you gifts,’ Melanie?” Sue said, with a look of concern in her eyes.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the tennis bracelet and handed it to her. She examined it closely and then passed it around the room.

“Melanie, I know jewelry, this has to be worth at least $4000,” Samantha said.

“Honestly, I don’t know what it’s worth Sam,” I said, as I refilled my wine glass.

“My God, what else did he get you Melanie?” Sue asked.

“Look out the front window.”

They all got up and peered through the blinds.

“See the Land Rover parked in front of the sidewalk,” I said, taking another sip of wine.

I knew their jaws were dropping open and I didn’t even have to look at them. They silently looked out the window for a full minute, before they came back to the living room and sat down without saying a word. It was like a dark storm cloud had come into the room and the tension was thick. No one knew what to say, or how to react.

Samantha finally broke the silence.

“I know you Melanie, and I want to tell you the truth. The bracelet, the car, your pussy just isn’t that good.”

We all broke out in a fit of laughter as I grabbed a pillow off the couch and threw it at her.

It was a little inside joke between the four of us. The first time I met Samantha we had both gotten drunk at a party and hooked up in her dorm room. We became fast friends and agreed that while we enjoyed our night together, our relationship would be strictly platonic going forward.

Rachel looked into my eyes and said in a serious tone, “I’m not judging you Melanie, but I know you, and this isn’t you. You don’t have sex with a guy just because he is buying you things. You are the last person on Earth that I would have thought would ever be a kept woman.”

Sugar daddy, sugar baby, kept woman, all words I would grow to loathe.

“There is a lot more to it than just sex and the monetary things he gives me, I think I’m falling for him Rachel,” I said quietly.

They were all very concerned for me, and I had to admit, I was concerned for myself.

We talked more as we ate Rachel’s delicious dinner, and of course we put away a few more bottles of wine before the evening was over. I ended up telling them about the apartment, the clothes, and the debit card. Not that I really wanted to, but, we were the type of friends that didn’t keep secrets from each other. They were all very curious about the sex as well because none of them had been with a man who wasn’t around our age. I told them the truth, the sex was great, but my attraction to James had a lot less to do with the sex and money and much more to do with the connection I felt with him when we were together.

Later that evening, after Sue and Samantha had left so they could study for their midterms, Rachel and I were sitting on the couch.

“Melanie, you could never do anything to make me stop being your friend and I love you like a sister,” Rachel said, as she looked into my eyes. “I know you had a lot of problems with money and I’m glad that he is helping you with some of that. I just don’t want to see you getting hurt. He told you he’d never leave his wife, so keep things in perspective. See him when he’s here, fuck his brains out, let him take care of you, but don’t you dare let him break your heart. If he does, then that’s your fault, not his.”

She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek and gave me a big hug, then went to her room to study.

She was right. When he came into town, I would be his, just like he wanted. But the rest of the month, he wasn’t going to change how I lived my life.

I had one more thing I had to do before I studied and went to bed. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and texted Gianna, “This is Mel, let’s meet this Friday for drinks.”

My mid-term exams went great. I found that the more I studied, the less I thought of James, and all that studying paid off, as I ended up getting all A’s on all my tests.

Even though I had three weeks to move out of the apartment I shared with Rachel, I was anxious to get into my new place. In-between studying, I was able to box my things and move them in the Land Rover. By the end of the week, I had the majority of everything I owned, in my new apartment. I also went to a furniture store and purchased a queen size bed and two flat screen TV’s, one for my bedroom and the other for the living room. The furniture store delivered the bed and TV’s on Thursday afternoon, and I paid them extra to mount the TV’s on the wall.