*Andy’s POV*

I finished texting the guys yet another thing that came to mind and peeked over at Gwyn. She looked tired of driving, possibly, perhaps bored of my questions? Maybe I was just being paranoid. Whatever, I thought they were awesome, and they just increased in spiciness as they went on. I was absolutely intent on being the best brand spanking new boyfriend ever. I wanted Gwyn to decide to keep me by the time she flew back here. Thus, I was focused on finishing these questions, doing sufficient research. You never knew when something like the gender of your girlfriend’s hermit crab might turn out to be essential…

I considered my list of inquiries. Hmmm… Family motto? Kind of lame, I would skip it. Ooh, one where I could make a joke, excellent! Gwyn seemed to dig on my humor. As well any reasonable being should! “So, are you related to anyone famous?”

Gwyn shrugged. “Like really distantly. John Quincy Adams, I think he was, I dunno, like the fifth president of the United States or something?” She shot me a knowing look. “Don’t even say anything! You don’t count, Hot-shot!” She was laughing, she had such cute dimples. I had the impulse to poke my finger in them.

Caught! I snickered. “But Doc-“

“Nope!” Man she had pretty eyes!

“What about my parents? They have lots of Twitter followers?” She conceded the point with a smile. “All right- first job?”

“Just a really small, part-time job, when I was in college. I worked at the Circ desk at the library. You?” This was a little embarrassing. Why had I not thought about the consequences of being asked any these questions myself?

“Well, I was only 15, I was an apprentice for this screen printer of t-shirts, that’s really the only other, uh, ‘real job,’ I’ve successfully had. I got fired from the second job I had. That one was for a theater company that went to special needs schools, but, um… I was not very good about sticking to the script. I decided it was the Andy Show and got sacked for constantly improving.” Gwyn looked at me for a second, then shook her head, grinning widely.

“That is just so…you.” We both laughed. She had a point; I couldn’t disagree with her. “Ok, so, I have one for you, Biersack.”

Oh? “Go for it.”

“So, I remember hearing that this-“ Gwyn wiggled her ring finger at me from her grip on the wheel “-red nail is a reminder of personal strength, or believing in yourself, or something along those lines. But where did that come from? Am I wrong?” I shook my head.

“No, that’s sort of it, in so many words. It actually came directly from Pen Jillette, he’s a hero of mine. You know who he is?” Gwyn nodded. “So, the story goes that his mother told him to get a manicure when he started performing, because he was always staring at his hands, so he got a red manicure as a joke. Jilette started painting one nail Candy Apple red in memory of his mother, originally.”

Gwyn’s eyebrows went up a bit. “Shit, that’s intense. Knowing you, I knew it would either be something like that, something metaphysically symbolic, or something totally scatological.” I snorted.

“I should totally tell people that, for years, it’s been an ongoing poop joke that helps me believe in my inner strength, all along! The strength of my o-ring!” That got me a mighty groan from my woman, I felt pretty proud of myself. It was generally hard to get a rise out of Gwyn, she was kind of, well, like a dude, in some respects.

Uh… I realized I just made myself mildly uncomfortable, challenging my view of my sexuality by comparing my girlfriend to a man. I squirmed internally as I eyed her amble bosom. Boobies: check. Vagina: check. Other people being any kind of persuasion really didn’t bother me at all, but I had never really quite been able to get over, or to get behind, me, er, thoughts of penises- no, bad word choices, bad thoughts! Not that I’d ever admit that I was maybe, not quite, uh, insecure was not the word .I didn’t like penis. Gwyn was not a man, why was I thinking about this again? Whatever. Moving on!

“Which tattoo of yours was your first?” Gwyn smiled in a melancholy way and patted her leg.

“One of my closest friends, Owen, died in 2005 from complications of his type I diabetes. The salamander on my right leg is based on a sketch he had in one of his college notebooks, his long-term boyfriend scanned it, saved it for me, when Owen died. We all went to Oberlin together, Owen and I were both pre-vet and working on getting into vet school when he died. I got the tattoo in 2007.” Gwyn glanced at me.

“Well, compared to that, my first tattoo is like the lamest first tattoo story ever. I got it when I was 15, for the girl I was dating. It’s sort of the Alkaline Trio logo modified. I realized later it looks like it has Hitler hair, I only realized that like, years later. My dad took me to get it-“ Gwyn was shocked.

“You’re fucking serious? Your dad took you to get a tattoo when you were fucking 15 years old? Because of a chick? Holy fuckin-“

“-Well, technically, yes. But keep in mind that part of it was that I was totally intent, since I was, like, 6 years old, on being a performer, right? I was only 15, and I wanted to start playing in bars, and we both thought getting some tattoos would help me seem like less of a weeny little kid, make me seem tougher. So it had a practical aspect too.” Gwyn tilted her head, considering.

“Yeah, ok, I can see that. It’s just that my parents told me they would stop helping me with every aspect of college and everything if I got my lip pierced when I was motherfucking 18, for fuck’s sake! I mean, they didn’t follow through, I did it anyway, they got over it. But, then when I got my first tattoo, way the buttfuck later, my mom shat a brick! I mean, fuck, I was 26 years old! It’s not like it was poorly thought out, all my tattoos have a lot of fucking meaning. Fucking bullshit. Parents! Shit, man.” Hmmm… Family was clearly a contentious subject. Onto something else…

Uh-oh. The next part was fair game, but could go badly. I decided to give it a try, play it cool, but I knew I might have to abandon ship if the waters grew rocky. Gwyn was driving, after all. I kept my tone casual and light. “So, how many relationships have you been in?”

Gwyn made an ambiguous noise that sounded somewhere between unhappy and disapproving. Hmmm. I was pretty sure I had entered the danger zone. “Oh, so we’re doing that kind of shit too? I dunno, I have a little list where I keep track of that kind of thing because I have such a crap memory. Oooh, that reminds me, I have to add you to it! Fucksauce, I didn’t bring it, I’ll have to put a reminder in my phone for when I-“

“-You seriously have a paper list to keep track of your relationships?” I thought Gwyn wasn’t dating anybody? Or was it because she’d dated a lot of people before? Was Gwyn a…slut? No wonder she was so good in bed!

Gwyn laughed, but it had a slightly hard edge, making me a little anxious. My new-boyfriend alarm bells were chirping at me to try and change the subject as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Hmm. Maybe asking about this right now was too early, or bad timing? “Yes, I guess that’s weird. It has, like, little columns. Columns for people I’ve kissed, people I’ve slept with, people I’ve been in a relationship with, and other. All of them are short.” Other? Normally I’d ask, but not with Gwyn’s current mini-mood. “How long does a relationship need to be for you to count it?” I shrugged, worried that anything I said would be wrong.

Gwyn frowned. “I guess I’ve had two classic, long term relationships. One was for two years when I was in undergrad, the other was for four years, before and during vet school. Both were with dudes. I shouldn’t talk about them while I’m driving. Both of them ended badly for me. You?” Gwyn was scowling horribly and I was starting to feel kind of shitty.

“Other than Juliet? I, uh, guess you could say about the same. It got kind of complicated, with one girl kind of in the middle of another, there was this brief sort of reconciliation, well, kind of, uh…” I paused, feeling like I was making myself sound like a total douchebag.

Gwyn shook her head. “Andy, don’t worry about it, seriously. I know who you’re talking about, this isn’t an interview, and you don’t need to talk about it if it makes you uncomfortable, ok? Don’t worry about it.” She glanced at me and smiled for a second, and I felt a weight lift that I hadn’t realized was there.

I chuckled softly and decided to lighten it up. “Ok, yeah. I guess, um, two longer than a year, um, including Jules. Any funny relationship stories come to mind?”

Score! Gwyn was grinning. “Definitely, my entire romantic history has been nothing but a disaster. My first relationship was with a girl, in high school. So, officially, it only lasted three months, right? Eleven days after she dumped me, she got engaged-“

“-No shit?!’” That fucking sucked!

“Oh yes! Yes indeed, much shit. She was married, I dunno, I don’t remember, like two months later, she was only 17!” My mouth fell open and I made a sort of strangled, squawking sound. “I know, right? Meanwhile, my teenage heart had been totally trashed and was just beginning to accept being just her friend, when she asked me, I dunno, like a week or two after she got married, if I wanted to be her girlfriend-“

“What!?” This was like some fucked up, middle-aged man’s jerk-off fantasy!

“It’s all true! And I was so fucked up and in love with her, I did all this stupid shit, trying to fuck her in the bathrooms at school, walking miles to her house in the middle of the night to fuck her and shit, it was awful. She didn’t even live with her husband, it was so fucked up! She kept dumping me, then taking me back. Anyways, of course, she finally really dumped me after she got bored or whatever, some several months, and I ended up, um, overdosing and in the mental hospital. Years later, she told me she never considered us as ever having been together, even originally, because two chicks ‘can’t really have sex.’”

I made a face. “How the fuck is that a funny story?”

Gwyn just laughed. “I have to look back on that with a sense of dark humor, all the shit like that that’s happened, or it will consume me. The two apparently non-relationships I’ve had with chicks were total nuclear disasters, women fucking hate me, they always tell me it was never real sex after I get them off, fucking charming. Cunts.” She paused as I gazed out the window and decided that she already knew all that shit and I didn’t need to write it down.

“Yeah, that was really a great way to spend the senior year of high school, having an affair and getting admitted.” Gwyn snickered. “It taught me that love is so beautiful, something that has just been reinforced since. My second relationship was with this incredibly hot guy, when I was a freshman at Oberlin, and he was a senior. He was such a fox. We’re actually still friends, he’s the only ex of mine I’m still friends with.”

“What happened?” As soon as I said it, I regretted it. What the fuck was I thinking?!? Here she was, telling me these horrible stories, while she was driving, and I had just asked her for more?

Wait! Maybe that was good- did Gwyn like that? Was it, like, cleansing? Or being attentive? Maybe not while driving, though, this could wai-

“Well, after three months, he realized he was gay. I probably should have figured it out because of the whole closed-eyes-the-entire-time-during-sex thing, but he was such a sweetie! Man, he is just going to die when I tell him I got authentic Andy Biersack anal loving!”

My mouth opened and nothing came out. My hot girlfriend’s gay ex-boyfriend was going to be envious of the anal sex we had!?! “You have any funny stories?” Could not process information! “Andy? Uh, nevermind. I hypothesize you, like most people, were mostly a serial monogamist prior to dating Juliet, with any brief gaps in between filled with wild, sexy times, given your profession, and that your early teen years were rather girl-free.” She grinned at me.

I snickered. “’Wild, sexy times,’ eh? I guess you’re close enough, Doc.” I hesitated about the next question. Chicks were sensitive about this kind of shit, but, as I had been thinking about a minute ago, Gwyn wasn’t exactly standard-issue. “How many people have you slept with?”

Gwyn laughed. “I told you, I left my list at home! So, I mean, later, I can try and write it down and think about it when I’m not driving, but, I mean, it depends on how you define sex, too. Like, back in the day, I did some pretty wild shit where there were a fair number of people in the room. So does it count if there’s a group of people, but no one is getting penetrated? What if I only kissed some of the people in the room, do I still count them?” She chuckled. “Well, I’m sure that’s not wild by your standards, but to the average joe, er… not your cousin. Well, maybe it’d be wild by his standards too?”

Oh god! I tittered. If Joe was regularly hitting up LA orgies, I was totally ok with the rest of the world refraining from informing me of that fact. “So, you have no idea how many? Like, more or less than 100?”

Gwyn positively cackled. “Are you kidding, Hot-shot? Do you not recall me saying my list was short? My most recent ex, I think I was number 40-something for him. He was my number, I dunno, 7 or 9, something like that. Does that help? Sorry, my vagina’s not totally pristine, Biersack, but I’m definitely at less than 100. I figure asking you is pointless?” I felt my face getting hot.

I didn’t want to admit to a number that much higher than hers. “Um, well, like you said, it, uh, would depend on how you define sex-“

Gwyn was smiling. “-No worries, oh mighty rockstar Andy Biersack, it’s ok. Hazards of the job, I’m sure. I don’t judge about that. If it’s consenting and between adults, it’s cool. But don’t worry about it, what’s next?”

I felt like something was expanding infinitely in my chest. Not air from a breath, it was like, as I looked at Gwyn, I felt “-Andy?”

“Huh? Sorry, I was just kind of zoning out. Um, do you play any instruments or like to sing?” Gwyn tensed like a standoff in a movie with Clint Eastwood. Shit, what?!? What was fucked up about that? Really, come on?

She shot me a glance, then smiled, and it looked pretty genuine. But something was up a second ago. I put a little asterisk by the question in my phone, not wanting to write anything in the notebook. “I will do my very best never, ever to sing around you, Andy, but I do like to sing, especially in the car. The problem is that I have a voice that will kill innocent bystanders, with a range of approximately two notes, sometimes three on a good day.” I smiled. Hopefully she had just been self-conscious about her voice. Whatever, who cared? It wasn’t like I could spay a dog. “When I was, like, a preteen, I played the flute, but my heart wasn’t in it, so I dropped it. I got decent, though.”

“Yeah? Jinxx can play the recorder, I mean that’s sort of like the flute-“ Gwyn giggled.

“-Really?” I nodded. “Man, my grandparents both used to play the recorder. My uncle still does. That’s fucking crazy! Jinxx strikes me as some kind of weird savant. Um, I mean that in a good way. You, uh, don’t need to tell him I said that, though. Like, really.” Gwyn’s face grew pink, it was cute. Man, she really was nervous!

“It’ll be fine, he’s totally a nice guy.” I realized I had a bit of a problem. I both wanted to be finished with the drive, I was so done with being in a stupid car, I wanted to stretch my legs… YET- I had to finish my so meticulously assembled list of queries. Not knowing what I wanted the answer to be, I went for it. “How much longer?”

“We’re just getting to Olympia. So, I dunno, like, an hour, maybe, it really depends on traffic a lot around here.” I nodded, scrolling through the remaining questions. I would just have to prioritize, and make it work.

Notes

QOTD:

1. Related to anyone famous? yes, John Adams, 2nd president of the united states.
2. first job? working for interlibrary loan at my undergraduate school (part-time)
3. have any tattoos?/first one? yes/my answer is similar to Gwyn's, but not exactly the same.
4. uhh... been in any LTRs over a year long? how many (if you feel like saying?) yes. 2.
5. feel free to brag to me about how many people you've boned, i don't know how many i have off the top of my head. if you really want to know, ask and i'll try and figure it out.
6. play any instruments or like to sing? i have a terrible voice and i'm not a musician.

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note: one of my leopard geckos is gravelly ill, it's why i'm not updating all my stories as often. i don't normally ask for comments and such, i really don't like it when people do that. but i am having a really rough time right now, she's my granddaughter, hatched her myself nine years ago, and any encouragement or positive words (that are genuine) on any of my stories would be really welcome right now. it's really hard to be a veterinarian and watch your little baby be ill when you're unemployed and looking for work, to have to take your kid to one of your mentors to provide care, and not be able to do anything yourself.