12 Chapter 12 - Day 1, Lowest Lows and Highest Highs

My fellow Fixers dropped their mouths in astonishment at the audaciousness of the HHS for making sex an official methodology, except for Maria, who looked into my eyes as if attempting to verify the authenticity of that admission. She only knew me since yesterday. She didn't know that I'd never lie to her after she said she liked honesty off-handedly. To her, this could be an elaborate joke on my part.

I studied her face and eyes for every possible microexpression that could clue me into how she was going to take this. Sure enough, when she realized that I was serious, her face hardened. My heart sank upon seeing the signs of disappointment in her eyes. She turned her head back to her food in silence and went back to eating.

I felt like an air mattress that had a hole punched in it. I didn't even feel sad; I just felt like giving up on everything and going back to my degenerate life. The apathy slowly creeping in was even worse than sadness. All my hopes and dreams for having a normal life were vanishing before my eyes..

Everyone noticed the tension between us. Sagar shook his head and gave a wry chuckle. Jill only raised her brows in surprise and kept eating. Keith said, "No fair!"

Monica cheerfully proclaimed, "Sex, huh? Well aren't you lucky.." as if she can only see the bright side of life. After that, Maria slammed her utensils down on the tray and said, "I'm going to the bathroom. Move." in a markedly less gentle tone.

Dazed, I got up and made way for her. I did this on autopilot with my eyes practically glazed over due to how much I detached myself from the situation to prevent my whole body from shutting down or having a mental breakdown. She made her way out of the booth, flicked her long hair on my face, which left a little sting, and headed off. I was about to sit down again when Sagar said, "You idiot! Go after her." to which Keith and Monica shouted, "Yeah!" "Go already, go!"

I jumped out of my trance! What was I doing losing all hope so soon?! My eyes lit up and I almost shouted, "Thanks guys!" before speed walking in the direction they pointed. Somehow, I got the idea in my head that if Maria reacts negatively, then she would never like or love me! I was so much of a noob at this that I didn't even attempt to explain or make my case! For all I knew, she might have been misunderstanding things!

I finally caught sight of her fully black outfit and long dark hair with brown highlights walking ahead and jogged a little to catch up whenever the crowd cleared. From a few feet behind her, I said, "Maria.." in an emphatic, heavy tone. She stopped at the sound of my voice, but didn't look back. She asked, "What do you want, Tom?" with the same tone as earlier. Her usual voice was so gentle and smooth that it made this new neutral voice sound like it simmered with anger.

I stopped too and said, "Give me a chance to explain."

Maria snapped around. Her face was still hard and her arms were crossed. She said with her volume increasing, "And just what is there to explain? You're just another scumbag!"

Ouch. That stung deep. Doubly so because of the mistake that I had made with Ginger2 still fresh on my mind, but at least now I knew she was misunderstanding something. The current priority though, was to remove ourselves from the public eye. Everyone around us in the cafeteria was staring, hoping to get a scoop of drama.

Maria must have seen the pain in my eyes, because her hands flew up to her mouth and her eyes became moist, as if she couldn't believe what she just said. "Oh my God! Tom, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean that."

I managed to turn the situation into less of a shitshow by saying with a shaky voice, "It's alright. Can we talk somewhere more private?" to which Maria nodded once with guilt. She moved her hands to tug nervously on her jacket. I wasn't sure what to do with my hands either so I just stuck them in my pockets. We walked side by side in silence to a generally secluded corner. It was still in public view, but we wouldn't be overheard clearly.

Maria looked down and waited for me to speak. I tried to explain, "Maria, I didn't know my Fixing methodology would be sex. I just found out this morning."

She interrupted me with a laugh. It was a gut-twistingly cynical laugh that I never expected to come out of her mouth. She followed that up by saying, "I apologize for my overreaction. Sex is a perfectly valid Fixing methodology. Why should I care who you have sex with?"

Her gentle voice was coming back, but with it, a sense of distance. An impossible distance to traverse. My eyes widened and I said, "Maria, I.. I.."

"Stop, Tom." Maria gently said with downcast eyes. "Think for a moment. How much do you know about me? How much do I know about you? Don't make me have to move out."

I didn't care anymore. Whatever warning she was trying to give about how this might ruin our friendship can drown in hell. My blood was pumping so fast that I thought my heart would burst at the seams. I said, with more conviction than I thought I had in me, "None of that matters, because I love you."

Maria seemed to smile and sigh at the same time. She raised her head to meet my eyes. Now that I spoke my feelings, I felt naked under her unflinching gaze. My face reddened the longer she stared. I had gone and done it. I imagined she would judge me as a weirdo, a creep, or a friend who pushed too far too fast.

I looked away from her first. There were too many feelings. So many that I felt overloaded. I wasn't used to experiencing these many feelings, many of them once again depressive due to her silence. But before they could spiral downward again out of control, I heard the bells of hope ring again. She said softly, "Prove it."

"What?" I asked, mostly out of disbelief rather than her not speaking loud enough. She repeated with more emphasis on the consonants, "PUH-ROOV iT."

I was so shocked that I was tongue-tied, but my body took her command as gospel. I felt myself move automatically right in front of her, put my hands around her waist, and lean my head down. Maria placed one hand on my chest and looped the other arm around my neck, as if struggling to decide between pushing me away and pulling me in. I was flying on cloud nine at her implied consent until our masked lips touched and ruined the entire moment.

Maria hadn't realized we both still had our masks on either, so after we bounced off each other's lips in an epic fail, she lowered her head in shared embarrassment and started giggling heartily into my chest with one arm still around me. That was when I realized she was using the hand on my chest to stroke where my loudly thumping heart was. Maybe she never wanted to push me away?

A few people who were still watching us laughed and cheered in the background. Feeling strangely confident, I lowered my mask and gently lifted her chin with two fingers to look at her beautiful face. Unshed tears swam upon her eyes. I had no clue why they were there. Maybe she laughed so hard that she almost cried? I asked with some worry, "Are you ok?"

She lowered her mask in the middle of her giggles, revealing her wide smile. She said, "Yeah, I'm ok. Round two?"

I instantly took her up on that offer. I bent down and touched her lips with mine, experiencing the same feeling as yesterday evening, but without the element of surprise making me miss out on the pure happiness of the intimate contact. It was obvious that we were both entirely inexperienced. Our lips made contact and we didn't really know where to go from there.

I didn't want to get too ahead of myself by introducing my tongue into the mix. We just gave each other soft kisses on different parts of each other's lips over and over again. By now, the few people still watching us were cheering, wooping, and even whistling, which attracted more people.

I didn't mind. I felt like my dreams were coming true! Not only was Maria the girl that I loved and was way out of my league, she was willingly kissing me! On the other hand, Maria seemed to mind the attention, so she pushed lightly on my chest, indicating that the public display of affection had to end. Our faces were red and smiling when we separated. When I got a look at her face, it was sensual and needy.

The sight surprised me so much that my dick expanded from half-chub to nearly full. I wasn't too turned on before, mainly due to feeling wholesome happiness rather than sexual desire, but now.. I was raring to go. Maria had felt the hard plate of the jockstrap during our kiss, so when I winced in pain, Maria's eyes zero'ed in on my crotch.

The lust on her face quickly disappeared, replaced by timidity and some other things I couldn't parse. She quickly said, "I like you too." before pushing off me and running the short distance to the ladies room.

I had a goofy dumb smile on and almost followed her like a puppy before the sting of my dick brought my consciousness back. I watched her go and licked the bubblegum flavor lip gloss off my lips while reminiscing back to her taste and touch, despite the pain. I couldn't stop thinking about her, so I really had to go to the bathroom to take care of it, especially since I'd been having on and off boners all morning.

I waddled over to the bathroom and into a stall as inconspicuously as I could manage. If I couldn't clear my mind of the ecstatic happiness coursing through me, I was honestly fearful of a spontaneous 'accident'. The horse cock leapt free from its chains, still covered by the jumbo condom that I put on this morning. I hadn't removed it even in the shower. Precum accumulated at the tip of the far too stretched plastic. My cock's repeated softening and hardening along with having to fold inwards to stay contained in the jockstrap left the plastic awkwardly stretched, almost to the point of tearing, at some parts and loose at others.

It came off easily and so did my orgasm a short two minutes later. With the unadulterated happiness of the fresh memory of Maria's lips and body against mine, I let rip into the toilet and barely managed not to make a mess. Then an intense post-nut clarity sunk over me.

First, Maria's initial reaction upon hearing about my methodology was that I was a scumbag. I never really made anything clear or explained myself on that front. Instead, I only gave her my honest feelings. Second, she had tears in her eyes at one point. Why? Third, after I said I loved her, she only said she liked me, which makes sense, but that means whatever relationship we have now is technically unequal.

I really broke things down right there, over the toilet, until the clarity dissipated and my admittedly lovestruck mind came back. I was still euphoric, but now I had those three things to seriously ponder on. When I finally had my junk repackaged, newly bare, I exited the bathroom and returned to the table.

Maria was not back, but I still smiled happily at my friends. Although they did a simple thing by telling me to go after her, I felt very grateful. I had almost lost sight of my dreams. Looking back now, for me to base all of my happiness on whether or not I scored a 10/10 girl was wishful thinking and immature of me, but that happened to be the way my mind was geared.

Maria was the only one that had been able to make me feel such highs and such lows in this dull life of mine. I had never cried before to an anime, game, book, movie, tv show, or song. The only times I had cried were when my mom got mad at me. Today, over lunch, I almost cried. That gives you readers an idea of how much I was infatuated. I had to try to tone it down! This was an unhealthy level of obsession that might even drive a wedge between us in our future interactions. Upon making this determination, the third point in my post-nut clarity had been addressed.

"Tommy old chap. How did it go?" Keith half-shouted from his seat in his British accent. I finished my approach and sat down. They could tell from my smile that it was good news. I said blissfully, "We made out for what felt like ages."

Keith cheered, "Ayyy!" Sagar smiled and even Jill wore a slight smile. Monica laughed, scooch down next to me, and pulled my cheeks apart like a kid, "Look at this cutie pie! He gettin' all the bitches up in here!"

I laughed along with the impromptu festive atmosphere generated by Keith and Monica, but was quick to correct her, "I'm happy with just one!"

(A/N: Despite his highly rational personality and vaguely autistic mind, Tom experiences love just like any regular 18 year old. ^_^ )