"This Place Is an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet"

Submitted by Stephanie:

I knew Chris from church, and he always struck me as handsome and nice, but also a bit of a loner.  I was surprised when he joined our youth group's weekend hiking trip.

Eleven of us were signed up, mostly women, and I was really looking forward to it.  We arranged the caravan and headed out late on Friday for the state park, two hours away.  Our plans were to camp until early Sunday afternoon.

Most of us were together in a minivan, and most of us were talking for most of the way.  Chris was sitting next to me, typically, silent.  I began prodding him, asking him a bit about himself, and slowly, he opened up.

He was the one I knew the least about, and also the one about whom I was the most curious.  He was an amateur carpenter, an aspiring actor, and something about his voice made him irresistibly attractive.  At one point, he put his arm around me while we were talking.  It might have been to be more comfortable, or it might have been something else.  I was fine with it, either way.

We arrived at the site, and Chris stayed close to me.  He helped me pitch my tent, and he even started the bonfire.  He sat next to me while we all talked, sang, and enjoyed each other's company.

My first inkling that something was amiss cam when he followed me back to my tent.  "Can I come in with you?" he asked.

I told him, "I think you should sleep in your own tent, but we can talk more tomorrow."  I hugged him goodnight, and he trudged away.

The next day, we all went out for hikes, and Chris was noticeably paying less attention to me.  I didn't mind, but it didn't escape my observation.  He was talking, almost animated, with some of the other girls, like Katie, Jackie, and Kelly.  He seemed to be avoiding me.  It made me a little sad, but I wasn't there to impress a guy.  I was there to have a good time with my friends, which is exactly what I did.

That night, he was absent from the bonfire.  We figured that he was in his tent, and so we didn't bother him.

A few hours later, when we had just put the fire out and gone to bed, there was a scratching at my tent.  I opened it and Chris tumbled in, reeking of alcohol.

"This place is an all-you-can-eat buffet," he said.

"What do you mean?"

He said, "Jackie and Kelly just let me go down on them.  You up for it?"

I stared at him and replayed his last words over a few times in my mind.  Once I was positive that I had heard what I had heard, I asked him to leave my tent.  He did, and I zipped it closed.

He was late coming out of his tent the next morning, so I had a chance to speak with Jackie and Kelly.  They denied doing any such things with Chris, and I'm inclined to believe them.  Mostly because they're my friends, but also because Jackie was sharing a tent with her younger brother, and such an act would be difficult to hide.

We were packing up by the time that someone collected Chris and stuffed him into the van with the rest of us.  He didn't say a word the whole way back. 

He only came back to church once since then, and I haven't seen him in over a year.