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November 1984
I look down at the beautiful woman beneath me as I move inside of her. I brace myself against the wall with one hand while the other hand grasps behind her neck. She moves her body with mine, urgently and rhythmically all at once. Her hair is splayed out on the pillow, she’s biting her lip, and her eyes are closed, but the rest of her face is relaxed.
I sigh as her teeth let go of her bottom lip, now swollen from the pressure. She reaches up and hooks her hands around my neck, pulling me down for a harsh kiss as she muffles the sounds trying to escape her throat as she reaches her peak. She tightens around me, and that’s all it takes for me to find my release.
I remove myself from her and clean up, returning to my bed in just my boxers. I kiss her shoulder and down her breasts, as she sits up in bed, retrieving her discarded panties and my t-shirt from the floor. She smiles back at me as she leaves to clean herself up in the bathroom. When she returns, she’s wearing my t-shirt, and it barely covers her ass.
I want her all over.
I can’t believe she’s here again.
This is probably the third or fourth time she’s come back to me, but it always ends the same way. I don’t remember how it started or how it became such a routine, but it was a routine.
She’d go back to him, he’d mess up, she’d come back to me. Over and over. Round and round like a carousel. Most of the time, it was only for a night or two. Sometimes longer, but never long enough. She always went back to him. That’s what happens when you have a kid with your high school sweetheart.
Fuck, why do I do this to myself? But I know the answer. It’s because I want her, and I’m not going to say no when she’s willing to give me the time of day, even if I am the second choice. We both screwed up when we were dating. We were not the perfect couple, and we’d never be the perfect couple. All we did now were quick flings between her more serious relationship.
“That was so much fun,” she curls her body around mine, and my heart jolts. When did this start to hurt so much?
“I can’t do this anymore,” I blurt out.
“What do you mean?” She asks sleepily, still running her hands up and down my bare chest.
“This is the last time this can happen.”
“This happens all the time,” she scoffs, rolling her eyes. She knows this won’t be the last time, just like I know this won’t be the last time. “You said that the last time, too. Don’t you remember?”
“Yeah, that’s kind of the point.” I turn my head to face her. “We can’t keep on doing this.”
“Why not? We’re fine.” She kisses my shoulder. Her lips are soft and warm against my skin and I want to close my eyes and relax into her body. But it’s not real. It won’t ever be real.
“Are we really fine?”
“I’m not cheating if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m separated.”
“But for how long? You know you’ll go back to him. I’m not trying to say I don’t want you to stay. I just know how this story ends.” The band-aid needs to be ripped off before I get too comfortable.
One time, she stayed for almost a month, and it felt like my skin was being ripped off when she left to go back to him, and that was before she was married. I wonder if he knows where she goes when she leaves the baby with him? I don’t want to think about it.
“However long you want me here.” She looks dead serious, but I know it’s a lie.
“Don’t lie.”
“I’m not lying!” She protests.
She is lying, and she knows it. I can’t give her what she really wants. She wants a family, a husband, a home. All I have is a dingy apartment that I’m barely in because I’m always working. He gives her that fairytale life. They have a kid, they have a house, he’s good to her most of the time… until he’s not.
“Jackie,” I say in exasperation.
“Steven,” she echos in the same tone. Her eyes bore into my soul.
“I’m not going to ask you to marry me,” I warn against the unspoken conversation I know she’s having in her mind.
“You never do,” she replies, laughing as if that’s not what she wants. She rolls over, turning her back to me. The conversation is over, and I know I'll let her in without question the next time she knocks on my door.
I wrap my arms around her, and we fall asleep like this is normal.
She leaves after a couple of weeks. She’s back with Kelso less than a week after their divorce is finalized.
Maybe one day, we’ll both change, and everything will make sense.
***
She always goes back to him. They make a perfect family. He’s the father of her child, even if Jay was conceived out of wedlock while she was cheating on me. She still insists that it wasn’t cheating because if I’d wanted to be with her, then I’d have asked her to marry me long before the deadline of her ultimatum. She insists we were not technically together when she hooked up with Kelso in Chicago. We’re both aware this is bullshit.
Eventually, I forgive her because I ran off to marry a stripper, so I figure we’re even after I spend months making Jackie’s life a living hell. We barely talked between August 1979 and December 1979; we hated each other.
She doesn’t realize she’s pregnant until she’s on a trip with Fez. He breaks up with her as soon as she figures it out. She knows the baby isn’t mine, we hadn’t been together like that since the spring. She runs to Kelso in Chicago. He breaks up with Brooke to be with Jackie and their unborn child. Jay Kelso is born in early April 1980.
Through all of this, I stay in Point Place. I eventually move out of the Formans’ basement, though I know Kitty doesn’t want me to leave. I move into Fez’s apartment when he moves out to be closer to his new salon location.
Throughout this time, I’ve been relatively happy. Sam’s gone, and I was never married. I have Grooves, Leo, Red, Kitty, Forman, and Donna. Eric and Donna got married in a small ceremony in September 1979 when Eric decided not to go to Africa. Their little girl, Leia, was born in July 1980.
It's a little strange when they move to Chicago, but I get used to it. Around that same time, Kelso and Jackie move back to Point Place, into Kelso’s parent’s house. Eventually, I can see them without it being too awkward. But that doesn’t stop my stomach from twisting whenever I see Jackie around town. She’s still gorgeous, but she’s different. She’s the old Jackie from before we dated. She’s shallow and wants to be the most popular mom on the playground. She wasn’t the Jackie I knew, the broken Jackie I had helped put back together. She was his, Kelso’s, Jackie, and I could live with that.
***
May 1981
The first time Jackie shows up at my doorstep, it’s a little bit after Jay’s first birthday. I knew she and Kelso were engaged, but here she was, ready to jump my bones.
We hadn’t talked much since everything went down, but we’d agreed to be civil for our friends’ sake and Kitty and Red's sake. They were like parents to both of us, and we didn’t want to cause them any undue stress by being assholes to each other.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen her since she moved back to Point Place. Sometimes, she’d stop by Grooves with Jay. But it was always under the pretense of inviting me to dinner at the Formans’ or getting some record of some horrible music that she liked.
But now, here she was, in my doorway, alone and determined, using her fuck me eyes.
“Hi Steven, let me in, please,” she says, as demanding as ever.
I don’t say anything but move away from the door. She sits on the couch, shrugs off her jacket, and tosses it to the side. She’s wearing a tank top even though it’s not quite summer yet.
I shut the door and turn to stare at her. The straps of her tank top are sliding off her shoulders.
“Now, come sit down,” she says, patting the couch cushion.
I follow her instructions. My mouth is dry. I’m speechless.
She seems to realize that I don’t know what to say or quite understand what is happening. “Just put your hands on me,” she instructs. Her voice is low and seductive.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Was this one of my dreams? I blink a few times. Nope, she was real. This was happening. I raise an eyebrow at her.
“Don’t you want to?” She asks, leaning forward, giving me quite the view of her chest.
I feel myself tightening in my jeans. Damn her for using my body against me.
“What about Kelso?” I glance down at her left hand. She wasn’t wearing the gaudy engagement ring Kelso had given her.
“He cheated on me again,” Jackie says with a shrug.
“If we do this,” I start a sentence I’ll always regret, “it’s just sex.”
Her response is to kiss me.
***
Jackie and Kelso get married for the second time in 1986. Apparently, they’d gone to counseling to work through their issues.
I moved to Milwaukee to run a bigger Grooves store that year, but that’s just an excuse. I can’t take the back and forth. I can’t keep letting her run to me when she misses me. But I do.
Even in Milwaukee, I live in a perpetual state of one-night stands and hookups that mean nothing because I know I’ll drop everything the moment she calls.
***
December 1989
I’m on my way to Point Place. I should be heading to the Formans for their New Year’s Eve party, but I’m heading to Jackie’s place. I know I shouldn’t be, but I was never known for making the best decisions. She’d called me earlier, and I dropped everything like I knew I would.
“Steven,” she says on the phone.
It’s Jackie. She doesn’t even have to tell me; I know it’s her, even though it’s been over three years since I last saw her. “Jackie,” I reply.
“I’m getting divorced again,” she says. I’m not surprised. “He’s going back to Brooke. I think for good.”
“And why are you calling me?”
“I miss you,” she says quietly.
My throat clenches; she’s predictable. She leaves him, and she wants me for a fling. She shouldn’t get to do this to me. “I hate the way you miss me.”
“But I can’t help it,” she says.
I sigh because I feel the same way. I miss her. “Me too.”
“What are you doing tonight?” she asks.
“I was going to go to the Formans’ New Year’s party,” I reply.
“So you’re headed to Point Place?”
“I was— I mean, I am.”
“Do you think I could convince you to take a detour? Jay’s in Chicago for a while.”
I mull this over before deciding, what the hell, “Get the wine.”
We’re on our third bottle of wine, and our tounges are dancing against each other like they’d never been apart.
She moans as I bite her lip and gently squeeze her breasts. I’m on top of her on the couch. It was familiar, like in the Formans’ basement all those years ago.
“We just keep on doing this, don’t we?” I ask.
She nods. Her eyes are glazed over, but from the alcohol or the lust, I couldn’t tell. “Touch me, Steven,” she pauses, “please.”
Fuck, the way she says my name is more than I can take. She’s the only one who says my name like that. I oblige her request, running my hands down her body to the hem of her skirt and then under it.
“No underwear?” I ask as I feel her naked beneath my fingers. I coax open her folds, and she’s already wet. Damn, I have missed this.
She bites her lip. She lets out a small whimper when I brush my thumb over her clit. I engulf her lips with mine and continue to pleasure her with my fingers. And I’ll continue to do this with her because she’s my weakness. I’ll never really be over her, but I don’t think I’ll ever really be hers.
“Stay with me,” Jackie breathes, her eyes closed.
I hesitate for half a second, then say, “Okay.”
She opens her eyes and puts one of her hands on my shoulder. I stop moving my hand.
“Really?”
“Can we talk about this after?” My fingers are still inside of her. This can’t be comfortable for her.
“Fine,” she says, closing her eyes again. I resume my activities.
Later, after we’d both been satisfied, we talk. We lay everything out on the table for the first time in a long time.
“I meant it when I asked you to stay with me,” Jackie says.
We are sitting on the couch with cups of coffee in hand. It’s almost midnight, we’ve missed our chance to go to the Formans’ New Year’s party. I’m fine with that.
“And I meant it when I said okay,” I reply. I’d long since regretted telling her that whatever we had could only be physical.
“But I didn’t just mean tonight,” she says.
“I didn’t think you did.”
“You’d really stay here with me?”
“Well, okay, maybe not here, in Kelso’s family’s house,” I admit. “But if you’re really getting divorced and think it’s for good this time, you could come live in Milwaukee with me. I have enough space, even if you want to bring Jay.” And she’d be far away from Kelso.
“Oh, maybe that would be for the best. That way, Kelso can have this house, and maybe Jay doesn’t have to move away from his friends.” Jackie stares off into space.
“You’d be fine leaving Jay with Kelso and Brooke?” I’m surprised by this; she’d always been a hands-on parent.
“As long as I get to see him a lot, and you said you had space, maybe I could take him on weekends…” Jackie pauses, “Wait, this is crazy. Isn’t it?”
I shrug. Maybe it is, but I’m willing to jump in head first.
“But, it sounds right. You and me together, away from everyone else, it sounds perfect.” Jackie smiles, and it’s a beautiful sight. I suspect her smile is a rare sight these days because this one lights up her face more than a spotlight would.
“It does.”
***
December 1990
The first year is fantastic. Jackie goes to business school, we play house in my apartment, and we have Jay on the weekends. It’s almost like we’re a true family, something I thought I’d never have.
Jay and I get along surprisingly well, especially since he’s only 10. I give him a cool necklace and introduce him to all the best music. He stays with us the whole summer and learns to play guitar while hanging out with me in Grooves while Jackie is at school. We go out for burgers and fries, to the movies, and everything a dad is supposed to do with their kid. I buy him a denim jacket and a pair of sunglasses like mine. I tell him to wear them all the time when he’s at his dad’s house, mostly to bug the hell out of Kelso.
New Year’s Eve rolls around, and Jackie and I are out for dinner. I take her to a fancy restaurant because I know she’s been dying to go there.
“Happy anniversary,” I say as we clink wine glasses.
She smiles, “New Year’s Eve looks a lot different this year.”
“Does it?” I ask, taking a sip of wine. “Looks the same to me. I’m with you, and we have wine.”
“But the difference this year,” Jackie says, taking a sip from her wine, “is that I’m happy, and we’re together.”
“Cheers to that,” we clink our wine glasses together again.
I eat my steak, and Jackie eats her salad, and we polish off the bottle of wine before going home and having the most incredible sex we’d ever had.
“Are you going to ask me to marry you?” Jackie asks after, as we’re laying in bed, cuddled together.
This question slightly takes me aback. We’d never discussed marriage since she’d been back in my life. She’d just finalized her second divorce less than six months ago, and I didn’t think she’d want to be married again.
“Do you want me to?” I ask tentatively.
She pauses and then shrugs, nestling her head into my shoulder. “I don’t know.”
“Then, no, I won’t ask you to marry me.” And to be honest, marriage scares me. I’m scared of changing anything that we have going on right now. Life is pretty perfect.
***
December 1991
“Are you going to ask me to marry you?” She asks again, for the second time, a year after she asked the first time. We’re out for our anniversary dinner, but we’ve just gone to some local place for a burger and fries.
“Do you want me to?” I ask her.
“Yes,” she’s not hesitant in her answer. She knows what she wants. But I still don’t. I’m not sure if I want to be married. I thought our life was fine the way it was. I didn’t want to do anything to change it.
“Maybe someday,” I say; I don’t want her to get upset.
“Good enough for me,” she replies.
We go home and have sex, but it’s not the same as it was before.
***
December 1992
The beautiful life we had together for three years is falling apart before my eyes, and I can’t stop it. It’s inevitable.
“Are you going to ask me to marry you?” she asks me for the third and final time. We’re sitting on the couch. Our anniversary dinner is leftover pizza from the other night. The wine comes from a box.
“Do you still want me to?” I ask, as I always do.
“Yes,” her face is deadpan. She already knows what I’m going to say.
“I can’t.” Because I’m not sure it’s what’s right for us. Things aren’t as great as they used to be. Jackie’s new job requires her to travel a lot, and I sense that she wants more. She wants to move, she wants a big house, and she wants that ideal life that she always dreamed of. Especially now that she has her own money.
“You never will, will you?” She can’t look at me. She’s facing the TV, but I can see the tears welling up in her eyes.
I wish I could tell her that I’ve changed, that we both have, that everything makes sense now. But it doesn’t. She’s been pulling away from me this past year. She may have wanted to marry me a year ago, but I know that she asked me this time to give me the chance to keep her. Because if I didn’t ask her to marry me, I was going to lose her. Probably for good this time.
It’d been a good run, and I would miss her. I would miss Jay. But I can’t marry her. Not after everything we’d been through over the years. As much as I wanted to, I didn’t trust her. And that’s what it came down to. Trust in her, and trust in myself. I didn’t have either of those.
“Jackie, with all of our history, you can’t think marriage is the best idea, can you?” I ask, maybe I can stop this from happening.
“I do think it is the best idea. Steven, I want another kid, but I can’t do that unless I’m married. I won’t do that, not again.” She’s still not making eye contact.
“A kid?”
“Yes, Steven, a child, with you.”
I blink at her. I’d never once thought about having a child of my own. I didn’t want a kid. How had we never discussed this before?
“Jackie, I… can’t.” I would give myself the chance to turn into Bud or Edna. It was different with Jay. He wasn’t mine, he wasn’t here every day, I didn’t have the chance to screw him up.
“Why not?” she turns to look at me, tears rolling down her face.
I can’t put it into words, at least not in a way she’d understand. I shake my head.
“Fine.” She stands up, wipes the tears from her face, and turns to me. “Michael called me earlier. He and Brooke are over. He wants me to come home.”
I stare at her. She was going to do this to me again, wasn’t she? And if she walked out on me this time, it would be the last time. I’m so angry; there’s nothing I can do but clench my fists and breathe through my nose.
“Steven?”
“I heard you,” I say. I’m trying not to cry, the anger turning to sadness.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Me too,” I reply.
I stand up and engulf her in an embrace I’m sure will be the last of its kind. She doesn’t protest. Her tongue dances against mine, and I turn us around, pushing her down onto the couch. If she’s going to leave me, I need this one more time.
I’m not gentle, and she’s not gentle with me in return. Our clothes are ripped from our bodies and thrown inelegantly around the apartment. Our hands pull through each other’s hair. Our nails scratch each other’s bodies. We know that this will be it, and we’re both angry about it and sad about it, but nothing can be done. The sex is rough and fast, and I’m not sure I’d ever had sex like it before or if I will ever again.
When we’re done, she gathers her clothes and packs a bag. I sit on the couch in my boxers, unable to will myself to move or say anything to her.
She wheels her suitcase to the door and turns to me, “You always said you knew how this story ends.”
“Nothing ever changes, does it?” I ask.
“Goodbye, Steven,” she says, leaving her key on the table in the hallway and walking out of my apartment.
I’m alone.
And nothing will ever make sense again.
***
Sometime in the late 1990s I hear from Eric that Jackie and Kelso have gotten married again, and this time they’re determined to make it stick.
I never return to Point Place, Chicago, or Milwaukee. I sell Grooves, get on a motorcycle, and take to the road. I disconnect from my past, occasionally checking in with Donna or Eric to tell them I’m not dead.
They never ask me what happened or why I left, but I know they want to.
I wonder if Jay remembers those three years when Jackie was with me. I wonder if he remembers them fondly and wonders how I am. I wonder if he still wears the necklace I got him.
I think about Jackie, too, but only after I’ve been drinking. Any other time, it hurts too much. In the dead of night, drunk, I wonder if she misses me.
Because I will forever hate the way I miss her.