Greg watched as she moved around the bedroom, wearing only a half-slip. He was paying particular attention to her legs, long and well-toned as they were. He was snapped out of his daydream when he realized she was talking to him. "Do you like it this way?" She had her hair pulled up on top of her head from the back.
"Uh-huh."
"What's the matter with you?"
"Nothing."
She arched an eyebrow at him. "If you say so. Maybe you should think about getting dressed."
He got up and began to get ready. When he had finished except for putting on his shoes, Jill came out of the bathroom. "Zip me up, please." He stood up and worked the zipper up the back of her dress. He leaned in and kissed her on the nape of the neck when he had finished. She tilted her head back. "Thank you."
They picked up Steve at his place and were on their way again to the charity thing Steve had gotten them tickets for. "I don't even know why I go to these things. It's not like I can schmooze with potential clients."
"It must be for that generous. compassionate, helping-others side you love to show Steve." Greg was giving him a hard time.
"Oh sure, that's right. How silly of me." He gave Jill a look of mock disgust. "Why does he always have a big mouth around you? He never talks like that to me when you're not around."
Jill laughed. "Funny, cause he says the same nasty things about you when you're not around Steve."
All three of them were laughing now. They arrived at the party, and Greg left the car with the valet as they went inside. Steve's latest conquest, as Greg called her, a young paralegal named Cyndi, was meeting them at the party, so Steve went off to see if she had shown up yet, and said he would meet up with them in a bit. Greg and Jill decided to walk around and scope the place out. They made their way through the crowd and ended up back near the door, and there Jill spotted Cyndi, so they went over and greeted her. Greg scanned the room looking for Steve. "Steve just went off looking to see if you were here."
"Well, I got held up, so I just walked in. I was hoping to see someone I knew."
"It's a good thing we found you then. Let's get something to drink and see where he went." They went in the direction Steve had gone and soon caught up with him. "Look who we found." Greg tapped him on the shoulder. They moved towards the bar and after they had gotten their drinks, they mingled in the crowd.
After an hour or so, they had gotten separated from one another--Cyndi and Jill had gone off one way, Steve and Greg were talking with some people. When Cyndi walked by awhile later, Greg asked where Jill was. "Oh, she's over that way, she struck up a conversation with some group."
Greg nodded and went back to following the discussion he was listening to. He wasn't really paying attention to the time, so when Steve and Cyndi said they were going to leave, he was a bit surprised that they had been there for 4 hours. Even more, he was a bit worried that Jill hadn't made an appearance. He told them to wait and he would go and find her. He wandered around, the crowd having thinned out, until he saw a group standing in a back room, and he spotted Jill, talking to two men. He walked over to her and waited for her to notice him. "Oh hi honey."
"Hi there. We're ready to go, so I thought I'd come and find you."
"Oh, well OK. Do we have to?"
"Yes, we have to give Steve and Cyndi a ride home."
OK." She bid all her companions a goodnight and they walked towards the door.
Once they had dropped Steve and Cyndi off, Jill started to complain about having to leave the party. "How come you didn't look for me sooner?"
"Why should I? You're a big girl, you can take care of yourself."
"What if I had run off with one of those men and had wild sex?"
"If I trusted you so little to think that's what you'd do, then there's no reason for me trust you at all."
"You're not the least bit jealous that I was talking to those men?"
"Nope. I don't have need for being jealous."
"Oh come on. You've never been jealous in your life?"
"Nope. Envious maybe, but never to a point where I hated someone for what they were doing, or had, which is what jealousy is. Nothing is worth that kind of piddly emotion."
"Even me?"
"I'll say it again, if I don't trust you, I'm not gonna keep you around. You've never given me a reason not to trust you."
"I don't believe you. I'll bet you're just too stubborn to admit you've been jealous before. It's the way men are."
"Well, it's not the way I am. Have I ever done anything that would lead you to believe that I don't want other men talking to you? Name one example."
Jill was losing this argument, but wasn't about to quit. "When do I ever talk to them without you hanging around me?"
"Tonight was a good example."
"Yeah, but what about before that?"
"Plenty of times. We've been a lot of places and I don't hover over you listening to everything you say."
He parked the car and they went into the apartment, where the argument resumed on a different subject. "Why do you make me always decide everything? I feel like I'm forced into agreeing with you or I'm going to be the bad guy."
"So, should I have not have any respect for your opinions? Should I tell you what we are going to do all the time?"
"It already seems like that's the case. I don't feel like I have a choice when you want to do something."
"There is no reason why you should be uncomfortable telling me you disagree with me. I don't ask you things in the hope you will follow along blindly."
"I just know how you react when other people say something you don't like."
"Oh come on. Having a difference of opinion with someone about a football game or who the best band is is a different thing entirely than deciding on things that affect our lives. One is an academic debate, the other is a function of what's desirable or practical."
"Sometimes I think you try too hard to please me. I just wish you would not try and center everything around me."
"Well, if that's what I'm guilty of, I don't know what else I can do. It's pretty difficult to know when I'm supposed to be a tyrant and boss you around and when I'm supposed to include you in making decisions. If making you happy by not making you feel wanted is what you want, I don't know if I can do that."
"Well, then I suppose I'll never be happy with you. I need someone who will let me be myself, and I haven't felt like that for awhile. I keep thinking that you want me to be something that I'm not."
"I don't want you to be anything except the person I fell in love with. You're not that person now. People change, but I don't think I like the way you've changed. I can't seem to win with you."
Jill walked into the bedroom and was changing out of her dress into jeans and a sweater when Greg walked in and knelt down in front of her. "If this is what you want, fine. But I can't believe you want to throw away everything we've meant to each other because you think I'm doing something to hurt you when I'm not." He looked at Jill and she looked away as she started to cry. He moved to sit next to her on the bed and put his arm around her shoulder. She covered her face with her hands as she sobbed and after a few minutes she looked up at him. "I have to go. I can't go through with this."
"It's late, and you shouldn't go out in this kind of emotional state. Wait until the morning and if you still feel the same way, I won't stop you." He kissed her on the cheek and brushed the hair away from her face. She stood up and pulled the sweater off and walked around to the other side of the bed as Greg went and turned the lights off in the other room. When he returned, she was laying on the bed with her arms stretched out above her head, staring at the ceiling, but not under the covers. Greg undressed and finally got into bed and turned out the light. He laid his hand on her thigh then pulled it away quickly. She sat up and rolled over towards him, taking hold of his hands and placing them around her waist.