Kasey's Confession Ch. 17

After Bob left, I sat on the couch staring into space for what felt like hours. Then I cleaned up the living room and kitchen before taking a shower and removing my makeup. I changed into a t-shirt and sweatpants, put on tube socks, and removed the VHS tape from the player.

I threw it on the floor and was about to stomp on it when I changed my mind, picked it up and stuck it in one of my dresser drawers. Then I called Erica on her cell phone.

"What's up, Keith?" she asked. "Are you okay?"

"I don't know," I told her. "I'm freaking out a little."

"It wasn't your fault. Don't start thinking it was. Do you need me to come over?"

"Yeah, I kind of do," I said quietly.

"Give me your address."

When Erica arrived, she threw her arms around me as soon as I opened the door. She hugged me tightly, saying "I'm sorry" several times before letting me go.

"Come on inside," I told her after she released me. "Hate to make a scene in front of the neighbors," I added with a laugh.

Erica was wearing pink denim shorts, which immediately grabbed my attention and distracted me from what I wanted to say. My memory of her started falling more into place as my eyes lingered on her thighs and then drank in the full length of her legs. They were as close to perfect as any pair of legs could be. She was tall for a woman, probably close to 5'9" and her legs were incredibly long. Her thighs looked strong, were well defined but not muscular, and her calves looked equally athletic while still looking completely feminine. She tended to walk on her toes, which made the muscles in her legs tense up and release with every step she took. She left me breathless.

"Are those the shorts that caused my accident?" I asked, half-jokingly.

"The very same," she smiled. "I figured it would be safe to wear them if you weren't driving or operating any heavy equipment."

"I could still have a heart attack," I said as she walked into my kitchen, giving herself a tour of my new apartment.

"I like your new place," she said before walking out into the living room and opening the sliding glass door to my balcony. "A view of the pool, eh? It is like you have a little pervert perch up here. All those women in bikinis, and you up here enjoying the scenery..."

"Oh, come on, I'm not that bad," I told her with a laugh. "Besides, there's almost never anyone worth looking at down there. Now, if you lived here, that would be a different story."

"So, do you want to talk about it?" she asked after closing the sliding glass door.

"How did you know—"

I cut myself short, realizing that my encounter with Bob was at the front of my mind. I'd reacted to Erica asking if I wanted to talk about "it" as if she meant Bob, when she was talking about Lisa's death.

"How did I know she died?" Erica asked, looking confused. "Marci called me and told me."

For a moment I started wondering how Marci had found out so quickly about the accident. After I checked my messages the previous night, she had left me a message that was time stamped only an hour after it happened. Then I dismissed the thought as unimportant. When the police and ambulance showed up, Lisa's next of kin was notified and her family, and Marci was probably close to the family. I just couldn't quite remember how the connections lined up.

"Never mind," I sighed, "it isn't important. My head is really messed up right now. The accident on top of my memory still being confused, and then there is you and me and everything else..."

"You need time to sort everything out," Erica said, taking me by the hand and walking with me to the couch. As we sat down, she took my right hand between her hands and held onto it tightly. "You are a really great guy, Keith, and you've been through a lot. Have you been to see that shrink yet?"

"You think I'm crazy?"

"No, not at all," she said and gripped my hand tighter. "Seeing a therapist doesn't mean you're crazy, it just means you know you need help to sort things out. You were in a coma for months, you broke up with your girlfriend of three years who then got hit by a truck, you are struggling with your desire to explore your feminine side and deal with all those fantasies you're having, and then there is the whole thing with you and me. That's a lot to have on your plate at one time."

"How about we deal with one thing at a time," I said while avoiding eye contact with Erica. "How about we deal with you and me and where this is going with us?"

"Right now that probably isn't the best thing for you to focus on," she said and released my hand. She stood up and began pacing while biting at her thumbnail nervously.

"Why not? Isn't that something we need to deal with? From what I can remember, we've been in love with each other for two years and all we do is come up with excuses for why we can't be together?"

She let go of her thumbnail and let her arm drop to her side. "Being in a relationship with someone else is NOT an excuse for not being together," she snapped.

"That isn't what I mean."

"No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have snapped at you like that. I know what you mean, and I know it seems that way, but it is like someone is trying to tell us we shouldn't be together. I broke up with Chris, you got back together with Lisa, and then you end up in a coma. I get back together with Chris and you come back to me and break up with Lisa. Can't you see how fucked up this whole thing is?"

"Are you saying we're just cursed and should give it up?"

"No, I'm saying you should deal with your issues that don't involve me while I figure out where my relationship with Chris is going, that way if things do come together for us we'll be—"

I grabbed Erica by the shoulders, pulled her in to me and kissed her, not on the cheek like we'd become so accustomed to doing, but on her lips. She didn't struggle or try to push me away, instead I felt her lips part as she returned my kiss with greater passion.

We kissed passionately for several minutes, our frenzied hands grabbing anxiously at each other's backs, arms and wherever else we could find and hold onto each other.

Then, quite abruptly, she pushed me away.

"We can't do this," she stammered, "we cannot DO THIS."

"I'm sick of us always having an excuse," I said while trying to catch my breath. "Fine, we are wonderful perfect people who never cheat on the people we're with even when we know we are with the wrong fucking person. Chris is an asshole and you belong with me."

"WHAT?"

"We belong together."

"No, not THAT, I'm talking about what you just said about my boyfriend."

"I'm sorry... no, wait a minute, I am NOT sorry. He IS an asshole and you should get rid of him."

Erica glared at me and then stormed off towards my front door. "That is the lowest thing you could EVER stoop to, Keith. You would actually talk shit about my boyfriend when he's never done anything to you? Just because I'm with him and not you doesn't make him an 'asshole.' Go see that therapist. You aren't the Keith I used to know, he would never have said what you just said."

She walked out and slammed the door behind her. I didn't try to chase after her.

I couldn't explain my statement without telling her about the tape Chris had made at the Halloween party and how he and Lisa had used it to blackmail me. I didn't regret my statement about him, but I didn't know how to explain the reason why I said it. I was too ashamed to let Erica see, or even know, what was on the tape, and I was ashamed of how I'd held on to it and masturbated daily while watching it.

Feeling frustrated and defeated, I sat back down on the couch with a huge sigh. Erica was right; I did need help to sort out the thoughts in my mind and everything that was going on in my life. I also knew I needed to do something to keep her from marrying Chris, not just because I wanted to be with her, but because I knew that the kind of man who would make that kind of video and lord it over me was not a good person. He was an asshole.

I sat for more than two hours, sorting through all the things weighing on my mind, and then got up. I turned on the television and flipped through dozens of channels and finding nothing I had any interest in watching. I then went out to a nearby clothing store to buy some new clothes. I'd intended to get clothes for work and other "regular guy" clothes, but I was distracted by a display in the women's section where there was a sale on shorts.

The shorts on sale were the kind I liked to wear, the same kind that Erica had worn during her visit, and I bought quite a few pairs. Then I saw they had shorts made of the same kind of material as my sweatpants, but in colors like pink, yellow and baby blue. I bought one of each of them as well.

Then I bought some ankle socks, the kind I remembered wearing when I was Kasey in the "other place," with lace trim around the ankles. I bought them in white and in pink.

When I got up to the counter, I avoided eye contact with the cashier, a young woman who appeared to have little or no interest in what I was buying or why. Once I paid for my new items, I took the bags home and proceeded to change into what I began calling "Casual Kasey." It involved putting on a t-shirt, sweatpant shorts, and lace ankle socks. This would be what I started wearing around the house whenever I was home alone.

Once I got past running all my problems through my head and stopped thinking about how to deal with my situation with Erica, my confusion about what I wanted, and Lisa's death, I realized I was quite worked up sexually. After all was said and done, I'd given head to a man for the first time in the real world that I could actually remember, and I'd been entranced by Erica's bare legs in her pink shorts, and through it all I hadn't gotten off.

I got the tape out of the dresser drawer. I'd thought about watching the "shemale" porn DVDs, but they didn't interest me in the way another viewing of me in a cheerleader uniform giving head to six different guys, most of which I saw every day did. The tape had become my ultimate masturbation tool and watching it got me so worked up that I had the most intense orgasms as a result.

When I put the tape in, it began playing the snow and static sounds that followed the finale of me giving head to Chris. As much as it bothered me to watch that scene, because it was Erica's boyfriend and because he was using the tape to manipulate me, it was most often the scene I got off to. The extreme nature of it, being so wrong and so taboo, was difficult to not watch after I got really worked up watching myself with the other men.

I was about to rewind the tape to the point where Chris started filming me on my knees in the living room when I gave it a second thought. Lisa had told me there was more to the tape, something else after the snow when it appeared the tape had ended. So, instead of rewinding the tape I pressed fast forward and watched as the tape zipped through a long period of snow and a new recording began.

The new scene opened with me, dressed in a miniskirt, heels, a pink t-shirt, full makeup and my long hair in pigtails. Lisa and Marci came into the room with a cake covered with lit candles singing "happy birthday" to me. I looked delighted as I blew out the candles. Lisa, wearing her infamous much too short cut-offs and overly tight t-shirt sat down next to me excitedly. She kissed me on the cheek and went off on one of her "hunny bunny" rants while Marci asked if I was ready for my "birthday present."

I kept watching, wondering why the continuation of the tape was so important and why Lisa had told me to watch it. My being dressed as I was at my own birthday party was a bit surprising, especially with Marci there, but it was hardly a huge deal following the earlier scenes on the tape.

The birthday present was a male stripper, who came into the room accompanied by raucous dance music. He was dressed in a rather unprofessional looking policeman's uniform, and was doing a bump and grind kind of dance directly in front of me on the couch. I looked surprised but delighted, especially as he tore off his shirt and revealed a well chiseled bodybuilder's physique.

Marci and Lisa got me up on my feet. I stood, looking very wobbly in my heels, and the stripper put his arm around me and pulled me in close. He continued to bump and grind, but against my body now, and at some point his tear-away pants came off and he was grinding against me in just a very tight pair of bikini underwear.

"What the fuck..." I muttered as I watched the scene unfold. I had no memory of any of this, just as I had no memory of the Halloween party or the existence of this videotape.

On the tape I started to slide down the stripper's body. He handed me a bottle of oil and I started pouring it on his chest and biceps, massaging it into him with enthusiasm as the music kept pounding away. Then I started oiling his strong, muscular legs and yelling out something I could not hear over the music.

Moments later I pulled down his underwear and started sucking his cock. He wasn't hard when I started, but he was very well hung and it didn't take me long to get him fully erect. Once he was completely hard, I started sucking him fast and deep.

I stopped the tape, turned off the television and started at the blank screen. At first the scene had turned me on, but as I continued to watch I wondered exactly how much of my "Kasey" side had seen the light in this apparently real world I was now living in.

I ended up falling asleep on the couch. Hours later, I was awoken by a loud banging on my door. Startled, I sat up quickly and tried to pull my thoughts together enough to understand what was going on. I've never been one for waking up quickly, especially being woken up so abruptly by a loud noise.

I stumbled over to the door and looked through the view hole to see who it was, trying to remain quiet so I could pretend I wasn't home. At first I didn't recognize the face, but then I saw it was Derek, the mall rat who used to sell pretzels.

I opened the door, not even remembering that I was dressed in short shorts and lace ankle socks, and glared at him.

"What do you want?" I asked and then looked at the clock on my wall. "It is two in the morning."

"I didn't come to tell you what time it was. I figured you had clocks and shit."

"What do you want?" I asked again, this time more emphatically.

"Can I come in? Or do you have company?"

My nostrils flared as I stepped aside and motioned for him to come into my apartment. "Okay, what the fuck do you want?" I asked after closing the door.

"Nice shorts," he smirked. "Your legs look really tasty in them."

"Thanks," I said reflexively. "What do you want?"

"It seems that you have a problem, or should I say a number of problems. I would like to help you with one or more of those problems."

"What problems are those?"

"Should I list them? Well, your ex-girlfriend was run over by a truck, but I don't know if that really qualifies as a problem. It seems more like that was a problem being taken care of. Come to think of it, I do believe that problem was solved. The truck was kind of a neat idea, wasn't it? Mr. Smith's Smoked Sausages? Pretty hilarious."

"You ran over Lisa?" I snapped at him angrily before throwing him up against the wall.

"No, I didn't run over her, but I know who did. A fellow named Mr. Smith we both used to work for once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away. Mr. Smith's Smoked Sausages? Get it?"

"Fuck you," I said and tossed him down onto the floor. "I'm calling the police."

"I would not recommend that," Derek said from his place on the floor. "Sure, I guess they could go look for Mr. Smith and take him in for questioning and it would be like one of those scenes from one of those cop shows where they put him in some grim interrogation room and play good cop/bad cop with him, but do you think Mr. Smith is going to break under pressure? When it comes down to it, all you have is the name you think you saw on the truck, and my word that I think he did it, versus Mr. Smith the manipulative, abusive son of a bitch who turns nice boys like us into whores."

"Okay, I'll listen to your bullshit then. What other problems do I have that you can help me with?"

"Well, how about that sex tape of you where you suck a bunch of dudes at a party and then get fucked by some hunky stripper? Seems to me you'd rather there not be copies of said tape being passed around like Kasey was passed around in a galaxy far, far away. Am I right?"

"Wait a minute. Did you say 'fucked'?"

"Oh my, didn't get to that part yet, did you? Ah well, at least it was all of your own free will and everyone had a good time. The issue however is not one of 'oh my gee whiz did I get fucked by a hunky stripper?' The issue is distribution and control of this very interesting piece of archaic VHS... um, what's the word? PORN? Yes, that's it. What do you think?"

"About what, you little shit?"

"About there being copies of you in a spliced together amateur porn movie that a number of people have a copy of, that's what we are talking about. Not to mention portions of this nasty tape have been seen floating around on the Internet. What to do, Kasey. What to do."

"My name is Keith," I said as I glared at him.

"In pink shorts with legs like a goddess, I think not. Maybe if you are cruising for boys at the leather bar, but you are a princess and you need a princess name. How about Erica?"

"What about her?"

"Oh, what about HER? I forgot, that is the name of your beautiful dream girl who is always just out of reach. So sad. I guess that would not be a good name for you... UNLESS, perhaps, you don't want to be WITH Erica as much as you want to BE Erica. Catch my drift?"

"No, I don't. That's absurd."

"Is it?" Derek asked and jumped up off the floor, landing in a crouch and dancing like a monkey around my feet. "Just IMAGINE! What would it be like if you were that beautiful blonde woman that you love with all your heart?"

I shook my head and pushed him away from me.

As I turned around, ostensibly to open the door and show him out, Derek leaped towards me, still in his crouch.

"You could be INSIDE her all the time! You could be PART of her always! She's got nice legs, I hear, so you wouldn't have to give up that most favorite asset of yours. So many benefits, don't you think?"

"Get out."

Derek leaped up to a standing position, brushed some imaginary dirt off the front of his shirt and leaned towards me and whispered, "I wonder if she sucks cock as well as you do?"

I punched him directly in the mouth, hard enough to cause his head to snap back, but he rebounded quickly, turned and spit some blood out of his mouth, and then smiled.

"Don't knock it if you haven't tried it," he sang in a falsetto voice as he danced idiotically out the door.

I slammed the door in his face, just as he turned back towards me. I locked and bolted the door and went back inside. Wanting a cigarette, which I rarely smoked, I stepped out onto my balcony. As I lit the cigarette, I saw Derek continuing to dance like a fool across the parking lot on the other side of the swimming pool

.

He was loudly singing Madonna's "Like a Virgin."

By the time I finished the cigarette, he was gone, or at least there was no sign of him being in the area. When I went inside, I went straight to my bedroom and passed out on top of my bed. I didn't wake up again until the alarm went off telling me it was time to get ready for work.

At work, all I could think about was the tape, and when the guys who had been on the tape crossed my path in the course of my day, all I could think about was how I'd sucked their cocks. They didn't seem to act in any way that could be considered an acknowledgment of that night having happened. They acted like anyone else I interacted with at my job.