Somebody Love Me (Journeys) Read Online Free

years. Not that any of that stuff mattered to me. Ironically, she ended up being the worst influence of all. My father wasn't aware of her dropout status when he'd introduced us, or the fact that she slept with her boyfriend.
    But I loved singing, and participating in the choir was something I could do with my dad that gave me a chance to spend time with him. Jenny and I hit it off right away and we started hanging around each other after practice. My dad seemed pleased I'd made a new friend that would be a good influence on me, unlike Mary and Cathy, who he referred to as "the girls with the crazy mother."
    What my dad didn't know was Jenny's favorite subject to talk about was having sex with her boyfriend, Dirk. I called him Dick as a joke, but she didn't take offense. She just said she really loved that about him. When I asked her what she referred to, she elbowed me and said, "His big thing, of course."
    She talked about sex even more than Cathy obsessed on her crush over the drummer, plus she added details I had no idea existed, like various positions and stuff like that. I doubt my dad had any idea she constantly talked about sex and was talking to me all the time about how great it was and how much I needed to try it. She almost had me convinced I hadn't lived until I'd "gotten off" with a guy.
    All of the stuff she told me about their encounters made me more than a little curious. Jenny had been "making love" -- the term she used when she referred to sex -- with the same guy for over two years. He was twenty-one and had his own apartment where she slept with him. She hadn't turned eighteen yet, and somehow she'd kept him interested in her even though she wasn't all that pretty.
    I figured if someone as unattractive and -- I hate to say it -- "fat" as my friend Jenny, who rarely washed her hair, could keep a man through sex, then it couldn't hurt to find out what was so great about it. Yeah, I was curious, but I still had a moral problem with the whole idea of getting your "cherry popped" just so you could say you did.
    Call me old-fashioned, but it seemed wrong for a girl to lose her virginity when she wasn't in love with a guy just so she could tell her friends she did it. But this girl was persuasive, and she told me that was how she and her boyfriend had fallen in love -- by having sex. Now that explanation captured my attention.
    I wanted somebody to love me. I needed someone like Fish was at the beginning; someone who treasured me and liked spending time with me. Someone who wanted to kiss me all the time would be a bonus. I needed that experience again like an addict needed cocaine. Jenny said she'd hook me up with a great guy, and I believed her.
    I suppose it was my own fault that I listened to her instead of using good common sense, but I finally agreed to talk to one of Dirk's friends on the phone. His name was Mike. I don't remember his last name. He was fun to talk to, though, and I even snuck out of the house a few times to call him back on a payphone so we could talk in private. He was nice -- I'd give him that -- even if he was nineteen going on twenty. And he didn't talk dirty to me on the phone.
    Jenny swore he was really cute even though she didn't have a picture of him. She promised me that I'd love him if I got to know him. I figured if I liked him even a little bit, sight unseen, then maybe we could get together and see how things went. He did have a nice voice, but that was all I knew about him. That, and his age.
    I don't know how she did it, but Jenny managed to get me all excited about meeting this guy. We'd been friends for less than a month, but she'd made me totally rethink my beliefs about sex. My friendship with Mary and Cathy had planted that seed in my mind. Jenny just made me long for it through her romantic notions. I wanted to meet Mike badly enough to lie to my parents about where I was going that night so I could see where things might lead.
    Technically I was going to see Jenny,