He pursued me hard and my family harder. When he won them over, he won me.
Our first night Daniel was gentle and loving. He showed great restraint and didn’t push me too hard for the first year. He did that for me because I was precious to him.
His kisses were light and soft and even his fingers inside of me were gentle. Now I had seen porn, and it was nothing like that. It wasn’t sweaty, cursing and screaming to God. It was perfect, just perfect. And so was every Monday, Wednesday, and Sunday at eight thirty at night. Daniel was Jewish so he chose to not have sex on Friday from sundown until Sunday sun up. He also said I was such a temptation that he stayed at a friend’s house most of those weekends.
When we did have sex he called it, visiting the rose garden. It was so sweet, a lot better than what my brothers called red heads, fire bushes, how crude! And funny, well new improved Taelyn wouldn’t think so. Not Daniel’s Taelyn. And I loved who I was when I was with him, wouldn’t find it funny.
Daniel moved in with me almost two years later. We shared my little studio apartment that my scholarship had paid for. He bought a little BMW sports car with the money that he would have spent on his place. It was our car; he told me when he handed me the extra set of keys. He loved that car. I loved that it made him happy.
Daniel hadn’t done well in school. He explained that sports took up all his time. He played golf, tennis, was on a swim team, and apparently he was forced by his mother to join his high school dance team.
His desire was to become a doctor, like both his parents. His father was a chiropractor and his mother a podiatrist. I believed in him and for two years I studied with him. He was on the Dean’s list and was applying to medical schools. His dream was to be accepted into Harvard’s medical program.
His dream came true in December. When someone who had been in the program dropped out. He looked bothered by this. He said it wasn’t a true acceptance and that it was too far away from me anyway. He also said he wouldn’t be able to afford it with the car payment.
His parents would pay for school but not the car. He told me he knew it would bother me if he sold it. He knew I loved it as much as he did. I told him we would figure it out. The car was paid for so the only real expense was the insurance. He said I could keep the car here. He would find a place close to his school.
After I talked him into accepting we drove up to Cambridge, Massachusetts and looked at housing. The only place acceptable that we looked at that was still available was on Cowperthwaite Street and it was a two year lease. He was ready to hang it up then too. I hated how this was causing him to be negative and said I would get a job and help. He told me no. I pushed hard, reminding him that this was his dream and he should embrace it. I told him we could both get part time jobs. He said he would only accept my help if I agreed that after I graduated I would move here with him, and marry him. Then very quickly added that this wasn’t a proposal, he wanted that gesture to be as grand as our love but he wanted a promise that I would be able to wait. Of course I would.
I applied for jobs everywhere and so did he. He got a job at a bar working two nights a week and I got a job as a restaurant hostess working two days a week and three nights at the Cheesecake Factory.
It was a lot of work but I was able to change my class schedule so that I would only attend Tuesdays and Thursdays, from eight in the morning until four thirty. It didn’t bother me at all. I loved school and I loved Daniel.
The weather had gotten bad, go figure it was the end of January in New York, but we had packed up the moving van and it was off before the next nor’easter was supposed to hit.
Daniel and I walked inside our little place that was almost bare.
“I can’t believe you wanted me to take everything,” he said as he walked around looking at our place.
“It’s four months Daniel. I have a bed and a television that works…”
He wrapped his arms around me and gently pulled me against him. “You have a nineteen inch television and an air mattress and that chair thing.”
“I have a desk too.” I smiled.
“But the bed, couch, recliner, fifty seven inch television, Bose system--.”
“Stuff,” I interrupted him as I pushed myself up on my toes seeking a kiss. “That will actually fit in your--.”