Penny Takes the Stage

Chapter 17: Confessions

"Penelope? Penelope!" Cam pounded on the door some more. "God, please don't make me break this door down, it will hurt like the devil, and I bruise like a peach, you know that!"

The crying from the other side of the door paused, and he heard the laughter he hoped for. Cameron leaned his forehead against the door and smiled with relief. If she could laugh, perhaps all hope wasn't lost.

But what could've brought on such an extreme reaction?

They'd been going at it, hot and heavy on the couch, everything had been fun and wonderful, then suddenly she'd been crying and running for the bathroom.

He'd heard only silence from the bathroom for a couple of minutes, and he wondered if he should speak to her again, when he finally heard the click of the door unlocking. He waited, but the door didn't open, so he opened it himself, and stepped into the darkness, the tile cool against his bare feet.

"Penguin? Where are you, love?"

He felt a hand reach out and grasp his calf, so he carefully lowered himself to the ground and reached for where she must have been, leaning against the wall next to her. He felt the warmth of her body and pulled her into him, her torso still shaking with sobs and they sat in the near complete darkness, the only light coming from the TV which shone down the long hallway.

"What's wrong? Hm? You can tell me, can't you?"

More crying and violent head shaking.

"Come now. We were having such fun. At least, I was, and I thought you were too. I'm so sorry if I did something to hurt you or frighten you. What happened? Did it bring up a bad memory? Something unhappy from another love?"

Penny let out something that sounded like a snort, something that would've been funny if she hadn't been weeping. "There's only ever been you and Frederick, and I don't think I can call what I felt for him love, though I'm only realizing that now." She snuggled into Cameron's lean body even more, and he held her tighter, comforting her as best he could.

"Even though we've only known each other these few months, I feel like I can tell you anything, and I only wish you felt the same way," Cam said, kissing the top of Penny's unruly mop. "Look, we're sitting here in the toilet, in the dark, I can't even see your face, surely you can tell me what you were thinking that made you so sad?"

Penny was so still that Cameron wondered for a moment if she'd fallen asleep or something. Finally, she took a deep, shuddering breath. "Okay. Okay. I just--I always saw what making out was like in movies, you know? I mean, that's what we were doing just now, right? Making out?"

She seemed to be waiting for an answer, so Cam nodded.

"And I always assumed they were just exaggerating, like how pornos exaggerate when people have orgasms and things--I mean, no one screams like that, please." She was crying again, wiping her eyes on her sleeve, but Cam could hear the superciliousness, the scorn.

He smiled to himself in the darkness. She sounded so quintessentially Penelope.

"But then I realized tonight that they weren't exaggerating, that it was really like that when people kissed and made out. I mean, I kind of have been realizing it since we first kissed and everything." She turned to Cam, even though she couldn't see him, and grabbed the front of his shirt. "Every time we've kissed, starting with that first time, out on the terrace, has been totally amazing, like the earth moving level of amazing, you know?"

"Yes, I do know," Cam murmured, finding her mouth from where her voice was coming from and kissing her.

"Exactly," Penny continued. She cried quietly into the front of his shirt, and he held her and let her. "So I realized tonight, when you were just--touching me-- like you were, was making me feel so much, and all that time with Frederick, actually having intercourse with him, supposedly being so intimate, had made me feel nothing--" more crying into his by now sodden shirt "--well, I just suddenly felt awful, and really, really bad."