She felt the surges of loneliness almost every day now, and quite often at the most random of times. Like on Sundays, when she’d sit down to drink her coffee and read the newspaper, and she’d remember how Starbucks was having a “Buy One Get One Free” special. She gladly accepted the free coffee, though she knew she probably couldn’t finish two in one morning. But as she placed a freshly clipped coupon on the kitchen table about an hour later, she saw the tall caramel latte and she felt almost guilty for it, like it had feelings too, and it was upset that no one had drank it and left it alone to grow cold. She just wanted someone there to drink it with her, so that the latte wouldn’t feel left out.
She felt it too later that day when she took the train to her mother’s house for her sister’s baby shower. She heard someone screaming ridiculously on the phone in the back of her cart, and turned to her side to laugh with the person next to her, but no one was there. She couldn’t describe it. It’s not like she had ever taken the train with anyone, not Jim and not even Roy. She didn’t know why she’d instinctively turn to her side, looking for someone to giggle with, when nothing in her past would indicate that that would occur. She decided instead to curl her head against the window and close her eyes, imagining. Nothing grandiose—no mansions, lottery, or tropical islands. She just imagined someone to share these small moments with her.
And of course she felt it at her sister’s baby shower. Her younger sister’s baby shower. Even surrounded by her family and closest friends, she felt alone. She watched with longing as her sister’s fiancée gently caressed her belly, held her hand, and at one point even rubbed her shoulders. She sat at the singles table with some of her high school friends as they all spoke of their boyfriends and asked her about her love life, their responses dripping with pity when she told them about her lack of one. She knew she didn’t need a man to validate her, but she couldn’t help but think that she needed one to keep her company, to touch her in all the right places, and most of all to love her.
But most of all she felt it at lunch during work. It was only thirty minutes, but it was thirty minutes of pure, unadulterated loneliness. She’d sit in the break room, pawing at her salad and flipping the pages of her book as the coworkers shuffled in and out: first Kevin, then Phyllis, then Andy and Angela (who never spent more than 5 minutes eating), then Ryan and Kelly, and then Kevin again. And then them. Jim and Karen. They’d come in holding hands, giggling about something, as Karen tousled Jim’s hair and swatted at him playfully. They chose the farthest table from her, and shared lunches like she used to in her elementary school cafeteria. He’d split his ham and cheese with her, and she’d feed him Herr’s potato chips. They’d talk about their plans for that night, or finalize their hotel plans for their trips to New York City. She didn’t really have to listen, but she found it impossible to immerse herself into the pages of her novel when the love of her life, her own happy ending, was two tables away, ignoring her as if she was just another picture on the wall.
She can’t pinpoint what day it started. She just gradually began to realize that she didn’t want to put herself in that sort of environment. She didn’t want to sit down and watch Jim and Karen on what always seemed to be like a first date—full of smiles, giggles, and irresistibility. So she didn’t go. She didn’t even walk by to use the microwave. The day she decided to avoid the lunch “experience” at all costs, she had packed herself some leftover pizza and a granola bar. She hated cold pizza, and without the microwave, she opted to just throw it out. So she ate the granola bar, and that was it.
When she got home that day, she felt that pang of emptiness again; only this time, it was in her stomach and not her heart. She felt starving, so she put on a pot of water to boil as she stepped in the shower. As she soaped herself up, she could almost feel her stomach getting smaller. She knew it was impossible to actual have physical results after skipping just a day of eating, but she felt…just so much skinnier, delicate, fragile. She was never fat, but she always found that she was comparing herself to the celebrities on the “Beach Body” countdown, thinking “Could I pull that off? Would they say that I have cellulite and fat thighs, too?”
When she got out of the shower, she no longer felt full. She was so excited at the prospect of how easy losing weight could be. It just took a little will power. Her heart was so weak and broken, but she knew she could train her mind to be strong. And her body, too. So she turned off the stove and decided to go for a run.
She ran for two hours. Two. Hours. That was more than she had ever even driven in a car. She felt exhilarated, like nothing could stop her, nothing could catch up to her. She left her misery in her dust, and sprinted away from it. She came back to her apartment giggling. No one was there, no one was saying anything funny, but she just felt so happy and light. She fixed herself a big cup of water, dropped in 4 ice cubes, and collapsed on the couch just in time to turn on The Jersey Shore. She started thinking about how this is one of those random times where she felt lonely, and even went so far as to arrange the couch pillows to resemble the form of another human, and leaned up against them. She could feel her heart aching, but her desperateness was soon overruled by the loud growls of her stomach. She decided to shut both of her organs up by just going to sleep. So she fell asleep on the couch, right there, with her empty heart and empty stomach.
The next morning she woke up late: too late to make a real breakfast, and too late to pack herself a lunch. She threw another granola bar in her pocketbook along with a water bottle and headed out to work. She felt strangely energized, like yesterday’s run had given her strength to survive this day both physically and emotionally. So when lunchtime came, she quietly unwrapped her granola bar and ate in solitude as she pretended to be hard at work on a memo. And later that night, when she heard her stomach growl for the first time (of many to come), she knew how to shut it up. She knew that the sound of her heart pounding, her blood pumping through her veins like a tidal wave, and her feet smacking the pavement would drown out the sound of a measly little stomach growl. Again, she ran for hours, swinging her arms violently and taking as much of the pavement as she could underneath each stride. She never stopped; only sped up when she felt tired or when she heard a good song come on her iPod. She continued her pace all the way back up to her front door and into her kitchen. Each day felt more successful than the next. She was conquering things: conquering the roads she ran each day, conquering the stomach growls, and conquering her body fat. She was so focused on her new goals that she didn’t have the time (let alone energy) to focus on her loneliness.
And so the routine continued. Each day, she would eat one granola bar and drink 8 glasses of water. She read somewhere that the way to lose water weight was to drink more water. She was going to the bathroom every hour at work, but at least she wasn’t going to the lunchroom. She knew she was losing the weight, too, because her skirts started falling off at work. She didn’t have the money to buy new ones, so she just started to safety pin them. Her wrists were like porcelain, comprised only of the two bones connecting the arm to the hand, and ready to break at any instant. She could now overlap her thumb and pinky around her wrist. Her fingers were getting thinner too, she’d constantly have to adjust the silver band that she wore around her finger, in place of where the engagement ring used to be. She had bought it a while ago, to stop her from feeling the loneliness when she would instinctively run her left hand over her right. And a couple days later, it got too loose that she took it off entirely. Yes, this new lifestyle was working. She was shedding away all the old layers: the frumpy clothes, the fake rings, the poundage of her old self.
*********************
She weighed herself every day for the next two weeks, eager to see how much that little spike would waver between integers lower and lower each day. The joy she got from seeing that she had lost another five pounds was more than the joy that a candy bar or ice cream sundae could ever give her. She’d pull up her shirt every time she looked in the mirror, counting each new visible rib or tracing the outline of her newly defined abs. She turned to the side and loved the concavity of her stomach, the way it dipped in like a bowl. But she was still unsatisfied; there was more weight to lose, more muscles to tone, more emptiness to forget.
So she started running for another hour each day, and added in “40 minute abs” to the routine. The results were noticeable; within a week, her calf and thigh muscles were the only meat left in her legs. But all she could think about was “These hips have got to go”, so she upped the ante again, to four hours of cardio and one hour of weight training. She would go to work at 9, come home at 5, and exercise until 10, before passing out on her bed. She had no time for food, and even more so, no time for feelings and lonely TV dates on the couch built for two.
She became obsessed with the prospect of losing weight, sifting through pictures of the Olsen Twins, Lindsay Lohan, and Nicole Richie that were plastered under labels entitled “ANOREXIC!” She knew she wasn’t anorexic. She just liked to work out and lost the desire to eat. It had been forever since she even heard her stomach growl; she trained it to only require one granola bar per day. She’d break it up into pieces, and eat them sporadically throughout the work day. It wasn’t starving herself, it was enough.
Yet she became fascinated with the idea of anorexia. These celebrities, although she would never have wanted to identify herself with them, were hurting internally. They were wounded emotionally, and they wore their scars on the outside of their body. Nobody could see that Pam was hurting, not even Jim, who always used to know what she was feeling. Now he just looked right through her. In fact nobody seemed to even see her at all; people just stopped talking to her in general. Phyllis once remarked on how she looked thinner, but other than that, no one said anything. It was as if she was literally withering away into non-existence.
She wondered what anorexia was really like. Of course, she didn’t know, because she ate each day. She wondered if these girls were stronger than her because they were able to control even more than she could. After a particularly thin picture of Tori Spelling emerged on the cover of her weekly Star Magazine, she was hypnotized. The sharp elbows, the dainty shoulders, the delicate ankles, the flat stomach. This is what women should like look, she though. She paused for a minute, wondering if she ever had the body to look like that. “No,” she thought. “I’m naturally big boned”.
A couple of days later, she arranged her pocketbook for work like any other day-- stuffing in her cell phone, charger, planner, wallet, ID card, water bottle, and granola bar. As she turned to shut the door behind her, she paused. She saw another issue of Star Magazine on her front step, with (if possible) an even thinner picture of Tori Spelling. She ignored the headlines (Skeletal! Too thin! Needs help!) and focused in on the way her hip bones protruded from her bikini bottom. All she could think about was how she was painfully unprepared for bikini season. She was disgusting: her hips too large, and ass too big. Nearly vomiting with the prospect of herself half naked in public, she threw the granola bar under her and stomped on it. Then she went inside and threw out all of the remaining granola bars, until her pantries and fridge were almost completely bare, aside from the baking soda, expired canned goods, and an endless supply of Poland Spring. She felt liberated. She no longer had to base her day around what time she would eat each morsel of the granola bar. She smiled slightly and headed to work, where she ate nothing. She was able to do it for a couple days, too.
***************8
Finally she reached a breaking point. Perhaps she was just cranky from having eaten literally nothing, or maybe it truly was an awful day at work, but she lost it. At nothing, really. Kelly was ordering Dunder Mifflin shirts for the company barbecue, and was going around collecting sizes.
“What size do you want Pam? Medium or Large?”
“What?” she said quietly, with a slight hint of anger in her voice that only Jim would pick up on. In fact, it seemed that he did pick up on it, because he turned around almost instantly.
“Medium or large? For the barbecue shirts”
“What do you think I am, Kelly?”
"Umm, I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking. Should I put you down for a medium?”
“WHY DON’T YOU JUST BUY ME A PARACHUTE AND WE’LL CALL IT A DAY?!”
The whole office went silent, and Jim raised his eyebrows at Pam, in utter shock that her voice could reach that volume or her body could shake that much.
“Um…there won’t be any parachuting at the barbecue though. Just some volleyball and maybe a hot dog eating contest. I’ll put you down for a medium I guess..”
She heard some snickers in the audience. She didn’t know who they were coming from, or why they were laughing, but she knew that she had had enough of this situation, everyone judging her shirt size and laughing at her reaction.
“SURE, EVERYONE LAUGH AT THE BIG FAT WHALE!” she screamed, tears building up. No. She wouldn’t cry in front of these people, not after this scene she just created. So she ran out and hid in the stairwell, just crying into her knees as she tried to gather herself.
Somehow, over her own sniffling and trying to catch her breath, she heard the creaks of the stairs. Great, now Dwight is probably going to try to talk to me about PMS again, she thought.
“Hey…Pam?”
It was Jim. Oh god, It was Jim. She didn’t want him to see her like this, with her little black beads of mascara trekking down her cheeks, her hair a ratty mess, and her stomach—her fat, gross, stomach, spilling over her skirt in a muffin-like phenomena.
“Hi,” she managed to say.
“What was that all about?” he asked, sitting down next to her.
“I don’t know. Just some hormones I guess. I’ve been going through some stuff.”
“Okay…well, you know you’re not fat right?”
Great, now my best friend (well, ex best friend) has joined the masses and is lying straight to ny face. She said nothing.
“Pam, I need you to know that. C’mon. You have a sick body.”
She giggled. She liked hearing him compliment her, even though it was a lie. She smiled at him, stood up, and said that she should get back to work.
“Pam? One more thing. You know you can still talk to me…about anything.”
“Okay,” she agreed, as she straightened her skirt and went back to her desk, pretending that she hadn’t just had a major meltdown.
************
That night, she replayed the incident in her mind again. She convinced herself that Jim didn’t mean it when he told her they could talk about anything, that he would probably run away the moment she opened her mouth. But she still couldn’t get him out of her mind, yearning for his company and his touch. She was torturing herself by reliving the embarrassment, but she was just trying to fast forward to the good part when Jim sat down with her like old times. It occurred to her, around the seventh time of replaying the incident, that Kelly probably ended up putting her down for a medium. “God, is that what these people really think of me?” she muttered, even though no one was there to refute her. “I must not be losing as much as I think I am.”
And with that sentiment, she knew she had to work herself twice as hard tonight. She needed to run more than she had ever run before. She decided that she should run to a destination, a place to think about during the run. With each stride she took, she’d be one step closer to obtaining that special place, that eventual goal that she had set for herself. She briefly thought that perhaps her entire life up to this point had been strides trying to attain happiness, but dismissed the thought when she remembered that she had happiness and ruined it, and now her strides were just prolonging her meaningless existence.
She decided to run to Jim’s place. It was 15 miles away, about a 30 minute drive. She could do it—she had to do it. She wasn’t quite sure of what would happen when she got there, but she thought it was an appropriate goal for herself. Maybe she would see him outside with Karen, and she could show off her stride. Maybe she could look into the window and see him watching SportsCenter, getting a feel for what he’s really like at home. Or maybe, just maybe, she would ring the doorbell to have that talk.
Well, she knew she wouldn’t do the latter option. But she figured that she could fantasize on the way there about what it would be like if her and Jim were really dating, and that she was just doing a routine jog to his house where they would then snuggle up together and go for a walk in the park with his dog. That’s all she really wanted out of life, anyway—someone to walk in the park with.
The idea excited her. She knew it was bizarre and impossible, but she wanted to believe that a reward for her hard work, her self control, her newfound strength, would be granted to her upon arrival in front of Jim’s house. She looked down at the pavement as she ran, a technique her track star cousin had taught her. “The key is, Pam, to never look ahead. Just focus on where you are now, and where each step will bring you. If you look too far ahead, you’ll lose your pace.”
That was some pretty good advice, she thought. She stared intently at the ground, grimacing and furrowing her eyebrows together as she tried to stretch her legs even further apart with each step, and come up with more bouncing power than the previous. Before she knew it, she was turning Jim’s corner, approaching his quaint little apartment complex like she used to in the past. Not like she had ever run here before in the past, she was never athletic before these past couple of weeks. But she used to drive by sometimes when she was in the area, just to see what he was doing. If she parked near the neighbor’s driveway, she had a pretty clear aerial view of Jim doing the most menial of household tasks: washing dishes, folding laundry. It was boring stuff, but it amused her to no end. So she stopped at the neighbor’s driveway again, hands on her hips, feet spread apart and gently shifting her weight back and forth while blowing out of her mouth, trying to regain her breath and heartbeat. She pulled her hand up to her forehead, as if she were about to salute a captain, and peered up amidst the sunlight’s glare to see what he was doing in there.
He was reading the newspaper. Oh god, he was reading the newspaper. Suddenly the surge of loneliness that she had been so successful in evading was back, and was penetrating her whole body. She wondered how often he read the newspaper. She wondered if he had a favorite columnist, and what he thought about Sarah Palin. She wondered if he clipped coupons. She wondered if he would ever want to spend Sunday mornings with her, discussing all of this, over Starbucks two-for-one lattes. And somewhere in between all of this wondering, he looked out the window and caught her. “Holy shit,” she muttered, suddenly very aware of how creepy she was being, how disgusting she looked, and how embarrassed she was. She could tell exactly when the fact that she was standing outside his window watching him registered in his mind, and it was too much to take. She gives up thinking, analyzing, beating herself up. She gives up on the moment. And she collapses.
************
“Oh my god, Pam! Pam! PAM!”
Jim was outside, shaking her, trying to get her to wake up. She was dizzy and wasn’t exactly sure what happened, but she knew that she was lying in the grass and Jim was holding her cheeks offering her water. She mumbled something, she doesn’t know what, and suddenly he was holding her hand and supporting her back as he pulled her to a sitting position.
“Thanks,” she said, accepting the water that he was practically shoving in her face.
“Of course.”
She gulped the water down, finishing the entire thing in nearly ten seconds flat.
“Ahhh”
“Do you want some more?”
She shook her head indicating ‘no’.
“I better get going,” she said, as she motioned in the direction from which she came.
“Pam, no. What the hell is going on? Why are you outside my house at 6:30 pm on a Wednesday night? And why did you collapse? And why are your shoulders so fucking bony?”
She laughed, although she didn’t know what it was at. She guessed that it finally occurred to her how crazy she was being.
“I don’t know, it’s … nevermind. I’m going to go, have a good night.”
“Pam. There is no way that you are going anywhere. Come inside, and regain yourself. You just collapsed on my neighbor’s lawn, for Christ sake.”
She wanted to say no. She wanted to be strong. She wanted to treat Jim like the granola bars that she had freed herself from last week. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t quit him, especially not like this, with that look of concern on his eyes and laced in his voice.
“Ok.”
She followed him inside, and sat down at his kitchen table with him.
“Stouffer’s or Lean Cuisine?” he said, holding up a box of frozen lasagna in each hand.
“Lean Cuisine”
“Okay, Stouffer’s it is.”
“Jim! C’mon, that has like, 400 calories per bite.”
Jim took the lasagna out of the package, tossing it carelessly in the microwave and setting it to three minutes.
“Pam. Stop. You think I don’t know what you’re up to? You think that you come into work wearing baggy clothes, eat no lunch, and pull that crazy and stunt and it goes straight over my head? C’mon. I know everything about you. I know what you used to look like. I know you used to hate working out, and here you are running to my place that must be—what, 20 miles away?”
“Fifteen”
“Let me finish. And then you collapse. Do you think I’m oblivious?”
“Jim, I’m not doing this all to get your attention. You don’t even hang out with me anyway.”
“Pam I don’t know what you’re doing it for, why you’re punishing yourself, why you hate yourself. You’re so beautiful.”
She couldn’t hold the tears back any longer. She didn’t want to talk to him about her insecurities, about how much she ate (or rather, didn’t eat). So she just started crying, denying everything that he was saying.
“So you’re honestly going to tell me that nothing is wrong with you,” he said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms.
“Yes.”
“Fine. Then pull up your shirt.”
“What?”
“Pull up your shirt Pam. Let me see what you have done to yourself.
She hesitated as she inched the fabric up, slowly exposing her belly button, and stopping until her fingers reached the bottom wire of her bra.
Jim’s jaw dropped. He knew something was off with Pam, but he didn’t know how much. He remembered the day of The Fight, the last time he saw her stomach unclothed. It was soft and smooth, and not fat by any means. But as he looked at her now, he couldn’t believe how different it was. He didn’t think it was even possible for her to lose weight. But as he stared at her here in the middle of his kitchen, gasping at the rigid bones and virtually inexistent tummy, he became frightened. Frightened of what she was doing to herself, frightened the way her ribs stuck out and would probably make a musical tune if he ran his fingers across them. But more than anything else, he was frightened that she almost died on his lawn and he never got to tell her how to feel.
“Pam…” he said, with a softness. He was no longer frazzled and confused, looking to get information out of her. He had these little puppy dog eyes, that seemed to glass over as he approached her, touching her ribs as she looked up and bit her lip, trying to hold back the tears.
“Pam, why…” He still couldn’t fathom how she could ever feel this way about herself. How she could even for a second think that she wasn’t perfect. He stroked her stomach, hoping that somehow, someway, some of his own body fat would diffuse through his fingers and plant itself in her. He grabbed her waist to support her with his other hand, for the sheer fact that he thought he might knock her over with the slightest of his touches. He looked up at her, as he saw tears dripping down her face. In that moment, he wanted nothing else but to make her pain go away. He didn’t want the Stouffer’s in the microwave, he didn’t want his pride, and he didn’t want Karen.
************
He couldn’t hold back any longer, and he started to kiss her stomach ever so slightly.
“Jim, what are you doing,” she said through tears, hoping that this wasn’t just her imagination again.
“Pam,” he said in between kisses, “I need to make this okay. I need to see you smile. I need you”
She let some more tears free from her eyes, and as his kisses started getting faster, she just came right out with what she had been suppressing for a long time now.
“I love you, Jim”
He groaned. “I’ve never stopped loving you, Pam.”
He shifted his attention from her stomach to her face, cradling her head in his hands, with each kiss going deeper and deeper, taking in a little bit more of her tongue each time.
She never thought it was possible to feel so much emotion in one instant: she was still crying, but she was so intensely happy about what was going on. She threw her arms around his neck, pulling his head even closer into her, trying to take in as much of him as she could.
He didn’t want to stop kissing her, he never wanted to stop kissing her since that first time last year. But he had to come up for air, and he was worried about her standing up. So as he released his lips from hers, he leaned his forehead against the top her hair, staring down into her eyes, almost going cross-eyed from the closeness.
“Do you want to lie down?” he said.
“Jim Halpert, is that your best pick up line?”
He chuckled. “I’m just worried about you standing up is all. And yea…maybe it is.”
He led her to his room and gently brought her down to the bed, kneeling over her as he went to kiss her again.
She ran his fingers through his hair; it was softer than it should be for a man’s hair. She wondered if he used Garnier Fructisse, because it smelled a little bit like that, but she had no intentions of breaking the moment to ask. Instead she ran her hands down his arms, back and forth, as if she was sculpting him. She filed the peaks and valleys of his muscles into the back of her mind, so she could always relive this moment. She wanted all of him, now. She wanted all of him, forever.
He started to slide his hand up her torso, feeling the bumps of her ribs but not wanting to stop and lecture her about how she needs to be healthy again. He quickly forgot this, anyway, as his hands came to her breasts; gently caressing the swells that peeked out of her bra and soon peeling away at the rim of her bra to explore her nipples. He wondered if this was okay—he didn’t want to take advantage of her. Her moans validated his actions, and so he took them in between his index finger and thumb, gently stroking them. He lost all control after that. He wanted all of her, now. He wanted all of her, forever.
She wasn’t sure what was taking him so long to get her shirt off, but she enjoyed the attention that he was paying to her lips, like he really was perfectly content with just kissing her all night. But she wasn’t content with that. So she pulled her shirt over her neck, and nudged his head down to her nipples, hard and waiting for his mouth. He looked back at her with those same puppy eyes, and without saying anything, she knew he was asking if this was okay with her. He’s so considerate, she thought, and she nodded to give him the green light.
He moved down her neck, kissing each crevice he came across, startled by the harshness of her collarbone. He took a mental note of telling her, really telling her, that she needs to eat. But not now. He was on a mission, and it was a damn pleasurable one. He took her nipple in his mouth, swirling his tongue around it, while making sure that the other one didn’t feel lonely as he cupped it and flicked it back and forth.
The sensation of temperatures was setting her over the edge already. She wiggled her hips and arched her back, and began to yearn for him to be inside of her. She crawled out from under him, and pushed him down so that now she was straddling him, topless. She felt how hard he was against her knee, and unbuckled his belt to free him. She bent down to begin stroking him, and her breasts bounced ever so slightly as she worked on him, feeling him grow a little more with each stroke.
He felt himself trying to actively restrain from coming. He felt like a little boy, but she was so fucking good, without even barely doing anything. The site of her, naked over him, could have done it all by itself, but now she was actually touching him and it was almost too much to take. He had never seen himself this big before, and he liked the pleasure in her eyes when she saw how big it was too. She bent down even further, first licking the head while still stroking his base. She looked up into him and caught his eye, and the fact that he managed to keep it in for that was truly a miracle.
As he watched her do her magic, he realized that no one had ever taken him in this deep before, and no one had ever enjoyed doing this as much as she seemed to. She went lower and lower, her breasts pushing against his inner thighs, as she moaned with pleasure. He knew he was on the brink, but didn’t want it to come yet.
“Sto…st….stop”
He could barely get the words out in between his grunts, but she stopped and had a look of disappointment. He wanted to assure her that she did nothing wrong, so he pulled her impossibly close to him, feeling her nipples against his own, and then rolling her over, preparing to enter her. He started with his left hand, inserting just two long fingers back and forth, as he reached with his left hand, straining just a little bit, to grab the condom from his dresser.
“I’m .. on…the pill” she said, in between panting.
He threw the condom away and started working on her harder, speeding up with each inclination of her calls for him.
“Jim…now… Jim…”
He could barely understand what she was saying, but he figured that with both of them where they were right now, they wouldn’t last much longer. He pushed himself inside her, first slowly, seeing how much of her that he could fill.
She let out a loud gasp, and a slight giggle.
He started groaning too, as he entered in and out, each time with more force than the next.
“Jim..yes yes yes…don’t stop…just like that…don’t stop”
He was close, too. But he didn’t want to finish like this. He wanted to see what she could do. He grabbed her shoulders and rolled under her, edging her up to sit on top of him.
She smiled at the change of pace, and he smiled even more as he watched the full show of her grinding her hips and closing her eyes as she threw her head back, bouncing up and down and riding back and forth.
He couldn’t hold it any longer. It was too much, the way her nails were digging into his chest and her teeth were gritting, as she breathed furiously and sighed every couple of seconds.
“Come for me Jim”
He started moaning even louder, as he arched his back and thrust deeper into her while she continued to ride him.
It was that extra deepness that did it for her. She started screaming, letting Jim know that she was right there with him. He thrust three last times before she was trembling and rubbing herself and he was coming inside of her. As her screams subsided, she slid off him and spread out on his bed, wiping her forehead of sweat. They laid like two gingerbread men, flattened and cooked from the heat of their passion, their hands overlapping.
“Holy shit,” she said. “That was... amazing”
He looked at her, eyes rich with exhaustion and longing and the satisfaction of this moment that he had waited so long for. “I’ve never come so hard in my life,” he replied.
“Me neither.” She said, laughing, wondering why it took them so long to do this.
“Hey, wanna grab something to eat?” he asked, hoping that she would take the bait.
“Yea. I’m starving.”
************
He held her hand as they trekked down the stairs, still a little bit sweaty, but not caring. He briefly considered eating the lasagna that had been sitting in the microwave, but knew that he wanted to take her somewhere better. He opened the door and let her out first, as a gentleman should, and opened the car door for her. He started the engine and pulled out, heading to his favorite Mexican restaurant.
“You want Mexican, Beasly?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never had it before.”
“Well tonight, we’re trying new things.”
He pulled up to the parking lot and lead her into the restaurant. He had come here just a few nights ago with Karen, and the host clearly remembered based on the look he was shooting Jim. Karen—Jim had completely forgotten about her. He didn’t have to worry about her catching them; she was visiting her brother in Allentown. Plus, tonight was amazing. He was going to break up with Karen as soon as she came back.
Pam had wondered why Jim, the guy who had ham and cheese or tuna for lunch every day, was so keen to get her to eat this Mexican food, thinking that perhaps it was some sort of aphrodisiac. Yet as she followed the host through the restaurant, adorned with Mexican decoration and ethnic music, watching as the host laughed with Jim and chatted about a recent sports game. They slid into the booth, already set for two with Tostitos and salsa in between them.
She felt comfortable, like they had been her a thousand times. Like they were starting a family, and this was their daily Wednesday routine, and maybe they’d go for ice cream after to cool their mouths down. She loved watching him in this element, just talking to her like old times as he munched down on a Tostito. He pushed the bowl towards her, and she shook her head no.
“Okay, there it is. Pam, we have to talk about this. Why don’t you want to eat anything.”
“I do eat things.”
“Like what? When was the last time you ate?”
She didn’t know what to say. She thinks it was last Saturday, but wasn’t sure. She knew that sounded bad, and she didn’t want him to be worried over nothing, it was nothing, she was taking care of it. But she didn’t want to lie to him. She said nothing, and that was all he needed.
“Pam, I don’t understand. You are so beautiful, you have so much going for you. Why don’t you feel like you’re good enough?”
“I don’t know. Because I wasn’t good enough?”
“For what Pam? What could you possibly not be good enough for?”
“You, Jim.”
Her words resonated within him, like a bullet shot through his head, ricocheting around his skull and somehow finding its way to his heart. He didn’t want her to feel any pain, let alone be the reason for her pain. He didn’t realize what he was doing to her, or that he was even doing anything. He was just trying to live his life without her, as she had pretty much told him that’s how it had to be.
“I’m so sorry Pam. I was so lost. I didnt know who I was..who you were. I thought that to find ourselves we had to be apart. But that was a load of crap. I never got over you. I couldn't. I tried pretty damned hard, ignoring you and dating Karen. I just didn’t know how to deal with it."
Silence. She was looking down, fiddling her fingers. He didnt know how else to make her better, so he figured he would just keep rambling.
"You know how much I care about you? You know how miserable I was every day that I had to look at you and not touch you, not be with you? And I had to go home and pretend that I was okay with it? Pretend that Karen was you? Do you know how fucked up that is?”
She looked up at him, locking eyes. She knew they had messed up so much in their past and lost such valuable time at the impressionable stage after I'm in love with you. She never would forgive herself for letting things turn out the way they did. But here he was, laying it all out, again. She didn’t realize that he still had feelings for her, and if he she had known, she probably would have gotten the courage to talk to him a long time ago. She was touched by his words, wanting to hold him and never let him go, not this time, not ever.
“I’m sorry too, Jim. Of course I care about you. I’ve always cared about you. Letting you go that night was the worst decision I ever made. I love you”
“I love you too. In fact, I love you so much, that I am going to physically feed you this enchilada.”
“I can do it myself,” she said both to him and to herself.
And she began to eat. She ate everything actually, the Tostitos, her burritos, and the rice. She even ate one of his enchiladas. She forgot what food tasted like, and it was all coming back to her, the way each bite was different and each was a new sensation, filling the last remaining empty gap inside her: her stomach.
“Wow Beasly, you wolfed that down pretty quick. But I still want to feed you”
She laughed as he reached across, bringing the enchilada to her mouth.
“Stop Jim, I don’t want your half eaten spitty enchilada in my mouth!!”
“Well then what would you like in your mouth, Pamela?”
“Nothing else, James,” she said, enjoying the playful banter and liking the way his full name rolled off her tongue.
“Really…because I think I have something else for when we get back home...A little less spitty. Until it gets in your mouth, that is.”
Home, she thought. Home. She disregarded his innuendo, and closed her eyes as she breathed in the feeling of home. They were going home together, home to start a new life. Home to his place, where she would soon start bringing her own toothbrush and placing it in his night table drawer. Home to where they would have many future late nights, laughing and giggling. Home they would make a family, and have a baby shower of their own. Home, where she would never have to be lonely again.
Story Notes:
Second fanfic attempt! My last story was very much based on the events in a particular episode, so I tried this time to make it totally up! Hope you like :) gets a little smutty at the end
disclaimer: i do not own any of these characters, no copywright infringement intended. spoilers from casino night and the return
disclaimer: i do not own any of these characters, no copywright infringement intended. spoilers from casino night and the return
Author's Chapter Notes:
I don't own any of these characters, if I did, then Jim would be with me!
pajammies is the author of 5 other stories.
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