Panic Attack

It was such a blast- getting the Blooms to like him, sucking them in, making them think he was this great guy. Meanwhile, only he knew the truth, the game plan, what was really going to happen. Only he knew that they all had only a few hours left to live. He felt so powerful, like God must feel- in total control, totally messing with their lives.

Joh

After helping Dana with the dessert dishes, Joh

“So how’d I do?” Joh

“You did amazing,” she said. “My dad was just telling me how much he likes you, and he’s never said that about any guy I’m dating.” She pulled herself in close to him and looked at his lips, whispering, “You want to come up to my room?”

“Yeah, I’d love that,” Joh

“Sure,” Marissa said, smiling, probably thinking he had to get condoms.

She brought him his jacket, and then they went up to her room. As she went in ahead of him, he looked down the hallway, figuring that was her parents’ room down there at the end.

She put on Enya’s Watermark- did every woman in the world have this?- and then locked the door and took him by the hand and led him toward the bed. Like yesterday, when they started kissing her hand moved toward his crotch, and this time he didn’t move away.

“Can you turn the music down a little?” he asked. “It’s distracting me.”

Actually the music wasn’t distracting at all- nothing ever distracted him when he was in the zone- but he wanted Adam and Dana to be able to hear all of the sex noises loud and clear.

Back in bed, Joh

When he was through with her, she was so blown away, so thoroughly satisfied, that it took her several minutes to recover, to be able to speak.

“My God,” she said. “That was amazing. I’ve never come like that before… ever.”

Maybe women always said things like this to men in bed, but in Joh

“There’s more where that came from,” he said.

They had sex, and Joh

Lying in bed with Marissa afterward, Joh

Whenever Joh

“Really?” Joh

“No,” she said. “I know how I feel. It’s different than it is with other guys. I feel really attached to you.”

Wow, Joh

“I feel the same way,” he said sincerely.

“You do?” Her eyes got big.

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, I know we haven’t known each other very long, but I feel a really strong co

He didn’t know how he was able to say all of this without throwing up. She was so excited that she started kissing him and rolling around with him on the bed, saying things like “Oh my God” and “I’m so excited.” Joh

Joh

One thing about Marissa, she loved to talk, and she was so happy and “in love” that she wouldn’t shut up. She kept yapping away about all this boring stuff, about how she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her life, how she loved art but she wasn’t sure she wanted to work in a gallery, yadda, yadda, yadda. She’d been thinking about moving to Prague, but now that she’d met Joh

“So what do you think of my parents?” Marissa asked.

“I think they’re great,” Joh

“Yeah, I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, they’re good people, and I love them, but it’s so hard to live here with them sometimes.”

He nodded, like he felt so sorry for her. Yeah, right.

“It was fu

“What?” Joh

“My mom’s cheating on my father,” she whispered.

“Really?” Joh

Marissa told him she’d heard through a friend that Dana was cheating on Adam with this guy Tony, some trainer at her gym. So she went for the jocks. That wasn’t very surprising to Joh

Marissa wanted to screw again, and Joh