The tension in the car between Lori and Blake was as thick and serious as a Russian novel. Blake was too focused on getting to the final destination of the night. The intense boy was driving as fast as he could to the Lodge at Lafayette but to him it was still taking up too much time. He was so close to his goal of the night, yet he felt that he would never arrive at the destination. The night was a real time example of Zeno’s paradox. No matter how the distance was from Blake being in bed with Lori he would never get there. The frustrated boy will still have to travel half of it to get to the new halfway point.

Lori’s anger at Blake’s action and her reevaluation made the tension stronger. She was looking forward to arriving at the Lodge. This night so far has been a big disappointment. Being at the after-prom was one step closer to the night being over. Being at the after-prom also meant she would not be alone with her thoughts. Maybe she was wrong about Blake being able to change. Maybe she wasted the last 5 years being with him.

There was also a fun reason for wanting to reach the Lodge, the small chance of having enough fun at the after-prom to salvage the night. Celebrating this rite of passage with her friends at the pool could make up for Blake’s mind being somewhere else. Her abdicating being the Brat Princess gave her the knowledge one is not entitled to anything, they have to earn it. She had to find the good in the situation and not expect it to be handed to them.

Right after pulling into the Lodge’s parking space, Blake was so concerned about getting his body to where his mind was, their room, he forgot about his passenger. Instead of getting the car door and helping Lori out of the car, the impatient boy went right to the trunk to get their overnight bags. After slamming the trunk close he hurriedly rushed to the front desk.

Lori was a modern woman so most nights Blake not acting gentlemanly would have gone unnoticed. Tonight was different. Tonight Lori needed assistance getting out of the car. The tulle gown she had on made it difficult to get out of the car seat on her own. Struggling to get out of the car just added more weight to those maybes she thought about on the way here were right.

There was no talking, not even a little harmless banter, on the way to their room. Lori was using the time getting to the room to cool down. At that moment she was fuming too much to open her mouth. Blake was too concerned about crossing the visit line which just appeared on the horizon to say anything. Blake was happy because he was going to get what he deserved. Little did he know that he was going to be upset by getting what he deserved.

Lori asked Blake to help her out of her dress. The gown was delicate and Lori was taking no chances of damaging it. Her wanting to get out of the dress as soon as they were in the room made Blake happy. The energetic yes was the most emotion the boy had showed tonight.

As Blake started to undress the lady who was going to give him his strongest desire he kissed her shoulder. Feeling the light amount of the wetness of his lips repulsed Lori. “Blake, not now. I want to get into my bikini so I can go to the swimming pool.”

Zeno’s Paradox was proven once again to Blake. He was yet again only half way to his destination tonight. “Cool we go down there for a bit then come back up here to finish what we started.”

Lori's first course of action was turning around to face Blake. She wanted to make sure he was looking in her eyes when she gave the response of “We did not start anything. You really think that we are going to have sex tonight? After how you acted tonight, there is no way we are going to have sex.”

Blake gave a WHAT as a response to Lori's revelation. The surprising fact that the night was not going to end how he planned crashed Blake from his dream world to reality. The stunning effect of that high fall made Blake revert back to being back in pursuit mode.

“You heard me. You acted like you much rather have been anywhere else tonight. I know why now. You did not take me to the prom to have a good time, you took me to the prom to fuck me.”

Lori was right and wrong about Blake not taking her to the prom to have a good time. The statement was true that having fun at the prom was not the reason. The reason why the statement was false was due to Blake’s idea of a good time. Having sex was a flawless defintion of having a good time in Blake’s personal dictionary.

“No, no, no. You are wrong. Being together would be a perfect ending to tonight. It will make the night special and unforgettable.”

Lori started snickering loudly. Hearing the word unforgettable was hilarious. How disappointed she was with Blake made it so she would never forget it. Everything her boyfriend did made the sad excuse of him taking her to the prom etched deeper into her memory. At that moment wanting to forget about the night was high up on the list of what she wanted. The only desire which was higher was that her boyfriend was the person she thought he could be.

“I am serious. You talked about how you wanted tonight to be special and unforgettable. We have been together for 5 years. Tonight should be the night we actually get together for the first time.”

“You act distant and distracted the entire night. You give one word answers and we only slowed danced for one song.”

“Yes, your favorite song.”

“It was the last song of the night. I asked to dance so many times before and you said later.

I don’t know why I am even arguing this with you. We are not going to have sex tonight. I am going to get changed and go to the pool. Come down and act like my boyfriend and we can salvage what is left of the night.”

**********
Lori was not the only girl who was having a night they wish they could forget. Kate Amos would love to have one of the men in black to erase her memories of the night. Not having knowledge of the night would not change the outcome of the night, but at least her boyfriend, Peter Collins, breaking up with her would not be at what should have been a joyous event. The boy was going to wait until graduation but his friends were bringing up all their plans for the summer. Kate was confused for she wasn’t penned in, yet alone penciled, anywhere in Peter’s event calendar. Not even the last week in June. The week her family was taking him along to the beach.

When asked about going to the beach, instead of lying Peter just told her the truth. That they were going to be over when he graduated. Kate did not like Peter’s plan. To her they were not in a real relationship. Peter was stringing her along until a better part of his life came to be. Kate was at least strong enough to force Peter’s hand. She said if he cared about her, then he would break up with her right there and then. That he would let her start moving on with her life like he already did.

Peter might have been immature, but he was not a jerk. He did not want to hurt Kate so he broke up with her right then. Peter ended the relationship because he was going away for college and did not want to be tied down with Kate this summer. This summer was all about him spending as much time with his friends as possible and getting practice being single. He was going to have a fresh start in college and wanted to be comfortable being single up there.

The heartbroken girl was wandering the halls of the hotel, not knowing where to go. She did not want to be around people so all the activities were out of the question. At the same time she did not want to go to the room she was sharing with Peter. Being there would just remind her how alone she was on such a special night.

Kate's bad luck kept getting worse when she made a random turn and encountered Blake. Having no destination while walking a hall to nowhere usually had people arrive at a bad destination. Those lost people tended to reach out to any nearby hand for help. Now the hand the lady at her low point reached out to was going to pull down even lower.

Blake asked Kate how she was doing? That is an innocent question for which people never almost never want an honest answer. People tended to use it to change up a greeting and make it a little more personal.

There are two reasons why misery loves company. The most common one was how people wanted others to feel their pain. When people were making this reason true, they wanted to bring others down to feel better about themselves. The other was to lessen the misery. Kate wanted help with ending her sorrow and a shared sorrow is a half sorrow. She took the question as an excuse to unload what was bothering her.

“Not good Blake. Pete broke up with me. He did that on prom night. He was planning to wait until he graduated. He was using me.”

There was a little pause. Kate was giving Blake time to console her. The boy did not. Kate was not deterred from reaching out. He was not with his date, maybe the same happened to him. That would explain why he could not find the words to say a simple sorry to hear that “Where’s Lori? Did she break up with you?”

One thing about Blake, he was an eternal opportunist. If he saw a chance to get what his heart desired he took it. Kate was single and if she thought he was single then he had a chance of her fulfilling his destiny tonight. “Yeah she left me. She is down at the pool right now having a good time.”

Hearing her assumption was true made Kate not feel as alone. There was someone else who was experiencing her heartache. The two heartbreakers were also at the same place right now. Kate’s mind went to a dark place and just pictured Lori and Peter having a great time together. “I bet you Peter is with her.”

“Yeah, that sucks getting discarded after being used. It is not fair that we are alone and those two get to be together. It would be nice to have someone like you to share the rest of the night with”

Blake’s luck was changing. Kate bit on that line harder than a catfish. “You want to go somewhere to chat.”

The time to act was right then. There was so much to gain and nothing to lose. If Blake could get Kate alone he would be so much closer to becoming a man. The worst which could happen was a girl he did not care about turning him down. Blake started to pull in the line “How about your room? I really am not in the mood to see anyone else.”

“Not my room, yours. Peter put on some more of his dreadful cologne. I cannot stand the smell.”

This was the moment for Blake to go all in. The stakes became a little higher but worth it. What were the chances that Lori would come to their room. Even if she did as long as Blake was not doing anything with Kate then he could talk his way out of the mess. If he was doing something or better yet doing it, then losing Lori as a girlfriend was worth the cost. Yeah, he would be single but a single man not a single teenage boy. The world was a paradise filled with young ladies who wanted to be with a single man. “I understand, we will go to my room.”

**************

Neuroscientists have done studies that had the findings that smell was the sense which is most likely to trigger memories. That was why smelling the pool’s chlorinated water put a smile on Lori's face when she walked into the pool area. That strong odor brought back so many good memories of spending time at Renee’s pool. Even with being solo, the triggering of remembering those good times made the after-prom start on the right note. She forgot about the horrible time she had had at the prom and the upcoming talk her and Blake needed to have. Her boy had to start showing his potential of becoming a good man for her to stay with him.

The smile on Lori’s face got bigger when she saw how authentically Matt was waving her over to join them. Matt was happy to see Lori for how she stood up for Renee. There was another more selfish reason why Matt wanted Lori to hang out with them, he could find out more about when Luke was coming home to visit. The Saturday Morning Bike Club riding together once again made Matt want that more.

Matt let Renee and Lori do the talking. He knew that he could force the conversation towards Luke, But that would be wrong and not natural. Wrong talking about what he wanted instead of what came up, as much as him inviting her over for information instead of wanting to spend time with her.

Luckily for Matt, Renee brought up that she made a spice cake for this weekend. That was not only hers but also Luke’s favorite cake. Lori started talking about how Luke’s prom was also tonight and that they should give him a quick call when his prom was finished. Matt and Renee agreed. Making that phone call would be a great way to make their prom and his be a shared experience.

*************

The sunroof of the limo was as open as Luke and Mary were to spending the night together. At each passing moment, the two lovers thought that they could not want the other more than ever. Then they felt their desperately wanting for the other become even stronger than before. They attempted to satisfy their craving of being intimate by Luke embracing Mary with his arms and she had her arms wrapped around his waist as her head was resting on his chest.

Shy, Greg K., Dirt and Rosalita did not acknowledge the two rider sharers with them. They respected Mary and Luke sharing a private moment in public. Interacting with the lovers had a high chance of making them lose the feeling of the moment. At that moment they wanted to prolong the magic of the night. The limo might have been driving them home but Luke and Lori were still having their night in heaven.

As soon as the Limo arrived at Luke’s home Greg K. immediately went to the guest home. He was not going to wait for the others. His goal was making it to Sam, Luke’s cousin, before Luke and Mary. There was no way that Greg K., Luke’s best male friend as Mary was Luke’s best friend, was going to take the chance of Sam pulling Luke and Mary out of their moment.

Luke and Mary did not notice Greg K. leaving in a hurry. Shy was happy that her man was not waiting around to escort her to the door. Shy, Mary’s female best friend as Luke was her best friend, knew exactly what he was doing. There was no way she could have made enough distance between her and the two lovers having a personal moment. Running in heels can be a bitch.

Greg K. busted in the house overflowing with chaotic energy. Sam found how urgent Greg K. came off as amusing. How could he not, it was not everyday one saw a laid back guy losing his cool while wearing a tux. Plus, there was no way the situation was urgent. Greg K. could handle pressure.

As Greg K. was giving the reason of not ruining the moment Luke and Mary were sharing, Sam 's amusement was growing. Luke’s cousin was not going to be a killjoy. Yeah he was going to chat to his little cousin for a moment. Sam saw Luke as his little brother, Luke had been living here for three years and they had gotten close.

Even with having that connection with Luke, Sam knew the reason he was there was to make sure the little after-prom party was set up for them. That the kids who were enjoying their night did not have to order what they were going to eat and the fridge was filled with their choice of beverages.

Then when Luke and Mary finally walked in, Sam understood Greg K.’s erratic behavior. The situation itself was not urgent, the time he had for telling the information made getting it out urgent. Even with understanding why, Sam’s amusement grew even stronger. Only a person with either absolutely positively no social clue or that was so wrapped in doing what they wanted, would not be able to read the sign to leave those two alone.

Sam did know how to get the rest of the group away from Luke and Mary naturally. He was known to partake. After saying hi to Luke and Mary along with the customary comment on how beautiful Luke’s girlfriend was, Sam suggested that Greg K. should roll a nice fat joint. That would make Luke and Mary excuse themselves. Luke and Mary were not into marijuana. Even if they were, with Mary so close to going to the Air Force Academy she did not want to take the chance of getting any of that TCH laden smoke into her system.

As Greg K. was following Sam’s sweet suggestion, Mary and Luke excused themselves by stating they were going to change. That was a lie everyone in the room, including themselves, chose to believe. Even with them both knowing that the two momentarily becoming one as soon as they were alone was inevitable they were not going to admit it. This was not about trying not to jinx the moment. This was about making sure the moment was as magical as it should be. Making an admission would take away from the spontaneity of this predestined shared moment.

Even in his room, Luke and Mary were keeping up the act that soon that magic moment of two becoming one was not going to happen. Luke and Mary turned their back to each other as they were undressing for the sake of the charade. Luke was already only in his boxers when Mary asked him for help. The zipper on the back of her dress was stuck.

Luke was more than willing to comply with the request. At that moment he wanted to marvel at the beauty which was his Mary. Seeing her strip down to the bone would be seeing her as she was, where he begins and half of him breathes in her. Luke’s touch was as soft and delicate as the clouds in heaven as he was helping his other half undress. This was reassuring to Mary. It made her know that Luke would never willingly do her harm.

Mary turned around to look Luke directly in the eyes. The moment was now and they both knew it. They could not hold back acting upon their desires, wants and needs. The owner’s of the two hearts which beat as one, held and embraced each other until they experienced the endless second of the physical merging of their souls.

************

Lori cursed herself for leaving her cellphone in her room. She now had to be in a hurry to get it and come back down to the pool. Calling Luke had to happen in a small window of him leaving the prom and arriving back home. If she missed that window then she along with Matt and Renee would be intruding into his activities. They wanted the shared moment not to intrude.

Another reason for cursing was having to deal with Blake. Being around her boyfriend was going to be another one of the bad parts of the night. All the times which were worthy to remember tonight were without him. Another downer about dealing with Blake was having to come face to face with the talk they needed to have. Blake needed to grow up and start being a man.

The sad part was that Blake somehow thought what he was doing at the moment Lori was opening the door into their room was making him a man. He was able to get Kate Amos to be the lady who granted him manhood. That was easy for she was lonely and needed to feel a connection with someone after how brutal her ex-boyfriend dumped her at the prom.

Entering the realm of being a man made Blake not hear the door open. He did hear Lori at the top of her lungs scream “You fucking bastard.” Those words filled Blake with fear. He might have believed that he was now a man, but his actions tonight only reaffirmed to everyone how much of a cowardly scared little boy he was.

Hearing Lori’s accurate description of Blake finally let the woman underneath the boy see through his deceit. The woman who was twice used tonight was not going to have any more self-pity. She was not going to be sad and wallow. Instead she was going to stand up for herself as she was laying on her back. She slapped Blake as hard as she could and pushed him off of her.

The reaction from Blake’s affair partner made Lori know that her no good soon to be ex also cheated her. That whoever that was underneath him was not Lori’s enemy but her sister. Then when Kate’s face came into the light Lori had a new level of anger at Blake. That boy was a predator, he prayed on someone who was hurting.

The new sisters made eye contact. This changed Kate’s plan of begging for forgiveness. She knew for the compassion mixed in with the fury in Lori’s eyes that they now had a bond. To make the bond stronger Kate said “Let’s make this right.”

So, they proceeded to start rectifying Blake’s actions. They took his clothes, his bags and everything else he had in that room and threw them all into the hall. As they were ejecting Blake’s belongings they were also telling him to get out. This was the beginning of the healing process for both of them.

Blake was scrambling like a confused pilot late for a mission as he was trying to get his clothes when the doors in the halls started to open. The commotion caused by Lori and Kate reacting to the vile person he was disturbed the occupants of the rooms. They needed to see what was going on. Loud noise late at night at a resort filled with teenagers had to be something worth seeing. When they saw Blake stripped down to the bone as his true self, a scared little boy, they all laughed.