Chapter 18: Decisions, Decisions

37,000 feet above Hudson Bay, Canada

September 17, 1999

Lufthansa Flight 716 was flying high in the sky (as Caydee would say) on its nonstop journey from Los Angeles, California, USA to Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany. The Airbus A340-300 four-engine widebody had pushed back from the gate at 3:01 PM Pacific Time. Now, five hours later and three time zones to the right, it was approaching the halfway point of its journey and night had fallen. The view out the windows was nothing but blackness below and spotty stars above. In the first-class section at the front of the aircraft, just behind the cockpit door, the Kingsley family and their nanny were the holders of all four seats across the 1-2-1 configuration. Each of those seats had cost $4500, but, in Jake’s opinion, it was the only way to travel if one had to travel for more than five or six hours (in the five or six hour range, a chartered Gulfstream was the way to travel). Each seat had its own eighteen-inch video screen, two individual cushioned armrests, power outlets for laptop computers, and could be reclined completely into a six-foot-long horizontal bed.

In a strange reversal of the usual order of things, Laura was wide awake while her husband was sound asleep. Jake was in the right-side window seat (which was actually assigned to Meghan on the manifest), which he had fully reclined. He was covered with a blanket, had a pillow behind his head, and Caydee was cuddled up against him beneath the blanket, sleeping soundly as well. Laura was sitting on the right side of the middle row in her assigned seat while Meghan, equally awake and working on her fourth vodka and tonic of the flight, sat in Caydee’s assigned seat to Laura’s left. Jake’s assigned seat on the left window side was currently unoccupied. All of this shifting around was technically against the rules, but when a family spent $36,000 for round-trip tickets with an airline, the flight attendants tended not to harass them about little things like that.

“These meatballs are amazing,” Laura said as she munched out of a glass bowl filled with rounded beef and sausage covered in marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese. There were two official meal services on the flight. One had been about an hour after leveling off following takeoff. The next would be a breakfast service about two hours before they landed at 10:15 AM Central European Summer time. But in the first-class section of a Lufthansa overseas flight, one could order a variety of appetizers and snacks (as well as beverages) whenever one wished. “Here. Try one.” She speared one of the concoctions with the tiny little fork that had been provided and handed it over to Meghan, who happily took it and put it in her mouth.

“Mmm,” she said dreamily as she savored it. “That is the best meatball I’ve ever had.”

“Don’t tell Elsa that,” Laura warned.

“Uh ... I meant apart from Elsa’s, of course,” Meghan said with a blush.

“Of course,” Laura said with a chuckle. She took a sip out of her third glass of chardonnay of the journey. “I’m sure she would understand though. Elsa doesn’t serve her meatballs by themselves. They’re always part of a pasta dish of some sort. These balls are meant to be handled alone.”

Meghan looked over at her boss. “Were you trying to be funny there?” she asked.

Laura smiled. “I’m married to Jake Kingsley,” she said. “What do you think?”

Meghan laughed. “Okay,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure, because that really was kind of funny.”

Laura laughed with her for a moment and then speared another meatball and put it in her mouth. “Mmm. Nothing like a nice hot ball covered in sauce.”

“Okay,” Meghan said. “You’re crossing into the land of embarrassing me now.”

“Actually, I was being sincere that time,” Laura said.

“Oh ... sorry,” Meghan said, blushing.

Laura chuckled. “Just kidding,” she said. “You want the last two? I’m full.”

“Sure,” Meghan said, taking the plate from her and making the meatballs disappear.

“Don’t tell Jake I shared balls with you,” Laura told her when she finished the last one.

“Laura!” Meghan barked, blushing.

“Sorry,” Laura said. “Couldn’t resist.”

The Kingsleys were flying to Frankfurt to visit Celia, whose tour was currently working its way through Germany on the way to Poland. She was doing her first Frankfurt show the day they landed and the second the day after. Following that, there would be a three-day break and then three shows in Berlin. Meghan—who knew why the Kingsleys were so anxious to visit the beautiful singer—was tagging along so she could get a taste of what it was like to be a nanny on the road. Jake would be going out on tour sometime after the first of the new year and he planned on taking Laura and Caydee with him. They had asked Meghan if she would be interested in coming with them for the adventure to watch Caydee on the show days. It was not a mandatory assignment. If she chose not to go, they would allow her to remain in their home—unpaid, though she would be able to use her accumulated vacation time and the Kingsleys would continue to pay for her health and dental benefits—and they would find someone else to do the job for them. But they did not want someone else, they wanted the nanny they had had pretty much since Caydee’s birth, the nanny who loved Caydee like her own child and who Caydee loved like a second mother.

But Meghan was still undecided. On the one hand, it sounded fun to tour around the country with a rock and roll band. She had not traveled much in her life—at least not until coming into the employ of the Kingsleys—and seeing all the different cities of the US and maybe Canada as well, would be quite the adventure. On the other hand, she would be away from her family for three or four months if she accepted the assignment, would not get to see her mother or her father or her sister or her niece Kelsey, who she absolutely adored. She would be flying on airplanes every few days, sleeping in hotel rooms every night, eating catered food and room service meals instead of Elsa’s home-made cuisine.

Her mother, who had come to accept that Jake was not the man that the media portrayed him as, was nonetheless still quite opposed to her daughter working for the Kingsleys. She no longer thought that Meghan was being held there against her will, or that there was any sexual impropriety going on, but she did feel that the Kingsleys were using their money to encourage her daughter to stay in their employ instead of going back to college, finishing her degree, and moving on with her life. She warned Meghan that once Caydee was old enough and did not need a nanny any longer, she would be out on her butt like yesterday’s garbage and well into her thirties by then, with no college degree and no life skills other than taking care of a child. And she was definitely opposed to Meghan going out on tour with the Kingsleys. That, in Loraine Zachary’s not-so-humble opinion, would do nothing but solidify the Kingsley’s dependence on her and dig her in deeper. If she stayed home while the Kingsleys toured, Loraine thought privately, perhaps they would lose their grip on her and she would move home and start back to school. With that thought in mind, she had been pressuring Meghan as much as she could to not accept the assignment.

And so, the Kingsley’s had invited her along on this trip to Germany. It would be a little over a week in duration—the maximum amount of time that Jake felt comfortable being away from the Brainwash III project—and would give her a pretty good taste of what she was in for if she decided to go along. And it was a free trip to Germany! More than free, actually. The Kingsleys were paying her her normal rate plus overtime for any night she was on duty, plus a ten-thousand-dollar bonus they called “travel pay”.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” Meghan asked Laura, emboldened by the vodka surging in her bloodstream.

“Sure,” Laura said. “As long as you don’t get offended if it’s too personal for me to answer.”

Her emboldened surge tried to collapse on her. “Uh ... never mind,” she said. “Maybe it is a little too personal.”

“Is it about Jake and Celia and me?” Laura asked softly.

“Well ... yeah,” Meghan said. “I was just ... you know ... wondering—I know this is none of my business—but how long can the three of you maintain this relationship?”

“I don’t know,” Laura said with a little shrug. “It’s already gone on a lot longer than any of us ever thought it would.”

“Really?”

“Really,” she said. “When we first started this thing, we all were kind of under the assumption that it was a one-time deal. Celia had not had sex with a man since the night Greg Oldfellow told her that he’d knocked up Mindy Snow. She was very much craving a man’s attention. And I had not been with a woman since ... well ... since Celia and I fooled around a little together out on the road one night many months before.”

“You fooled around together?” Meghan asked, wide eyed. “Before you officially started ... you know ... being together?”

“When you’re out on the road for long time away from regular sex, you start to get a little crazy after a while. We call it ‘crossing the line’. That’s when ... you know ... playing with yourself to relieve the tension is no longer cutting it. You need the intimate attention of another human being. Now, since Celia and I both happened to be bisexual, we kind of helped each other one night. We didn’t do a full-on lesbian lovefest or anything, but we touched each other in her room and relieved the tension.”

“Wow,” Meghan said, blushing, but also quite intrigued.

“So, anyway,” Laura went on, “that was what led Jake and I to suggest to Celia that having a little fun together might help everyone relieve that tension. And she took us up on it.”

“How do you ask someone something like that?” Meghan asked, fascinated by the story.

“I just kind of blurted it out,” Laura said with a smile. “It was a bit awkward, truth be told. Celia told me she didn’t think we were serious at first. But we were, and she came to realize that, and it sounded like a good idea to her as well. She really wanted to be with a man again but she’s not one to just jump into bed with someone she just met—man or woman. She has to have some sort of established relationship with them first. And she had such a relationship with Jake. The two of them loved each other. Always had, at least as long as I’ve known them.”

“And that didn’t worry you?” Meghan asked.

“Strangely, it did not,” Laura said. “I’ve never been jealous of Celia, not before we became lovers and not after. To me, the love that Jake and Celia felt for each other just was, like a law of physics or something. I’ve always known that Jake loves me too though. He has enough love to give to both of us. And that’s why this relationship between the three of us works as well as it does. It’s not based on sex—although the sex is incredible, truly the best of both worlds—but is based on mutual love. I love Jake and I love Celia. Celia loves Jake and loves me as well. And Jake loves both of us. It was that love that got us through her ectopic pregnancy and the recovery period. It’s that love that has us on this plane right now to go visit her.”

“So ... watching your husband have sex with her doesn’t bother you at all?”

Laura smiled. “Not in the least,” she said. “It’s actually very erotic. And it’s not like I’m just watching when they do it. I’m generally participating as well.”

“And that doesn’t make regular sex boring?” Meghan asked, completely fascinated now. “You know ... when it’s just you and Jake?”

“There really is no such thing as ‘regular sex’ when you’re doing it with Jake,” Laura said. “He is extraordinarily good at it.”

“Is he?” Meghan said, blushing a bit. She had always figured Jake would be good in bed. He certainly had had enough practice at it.

“Yeah,” Laura said, nodding, her eyes shining, a smile on her face. “That’s why I enjoy doing it with him so often. But, to answer your question, no, it doesn’t make the sex between Jake and I boring. And when it’s just Celia and I by ourselves, that’s not boring either. In fact, I really like it when it’s just me and C. We can take our time that way.”

“I ... I see,” Meghan said softly, pondering that. She had no interest in having sex with a woman, but the thought of Celia and Laura—both beautiful and sensuous representatives of their gender—making love together was extremely erotic. I wouldn’t mind watching them do it, she thought naughtily. Especially not if Jake was in there too. Of course, she knew that that was never going to happen, but it was a nice fantasy. Definitely something to think about during her next session of self-pleasure—which would likely be shortly after checking into their hotel suites after the flight.

“Anyway,” Laura said, “the answer to your original question, how long can this go on?” She shrugged. “None of us know. It’s already gone on a lot longer than any of us had any right to expect. Two years of triple harmony between two women and a man. Who would’ve thought it possible? But it’s true and we’re still going strong. Maybe Celia will meet someone else someday. If that happens, it’ll probably have to end. Maybe once Caydee gets a little older and realizes that having Mommy and Daddy sleep with Celia is not normal we’ll feel compelled to end it then. We just don’t know. We’re just along for the ride and enjoying what exists in the now without worrying too much about the future.”

“I guess that’s all you can do,” Meghan said.

“It’s all we want to do,” Laura confirmed.

Laura reclined her seat and went to sleep shortly after the flight attendant took away the meatball plate. Meghan went to the first-class lavatory so she could pee. There was a window in the small space and, though she knew no one could see into it, the thought of dropping her pants and panties in front of an open window seemed a little naughty. She liked to feel a little naughty. Her vagina was wet and slick from the conversation she had just had with Laura and she could smell the scent of her own arousal. She could not resist giving herself a few strokes once her bladder was empty, but stopped before she got too much into it. There would be time for playing later. Hopefully her suite would have one of those sunken jacuzzi tubs for her to play in.

Meghan’s suite—which was actually on the books as being rented to Glenn and Lynn Sutter, Jake and Laura’s married hotel names—did indeed have one of those sunken jacuzzi tubs for her to play in. It was on the 44^th floor of the Marriott Frankfurt Hotel and looked out over the impressive skyline of the city. Unfortunately, playing was not in the cards right away. She was just too damn tired after checking in. She had still not mastered the skill of sleeping on airplane flights and had only dozed in scattered sessions. Her body now felt like it was pre-dawn after staying up all night. Despite Jake’s advice that she should remain awake until bedtime in Frankfurt, she stripped down to her panties, put on one of her long t-shirts, and climbed into her King-sized bed. Less than five minutes later, she was sound asleep.

The phone ringing woke her up out of the depths of stage-4 slumber sometime later. She groggily pulled herself awake, her heart hammering in her chest, her brain initially confused as to just where she was. She looked at the bedside clock and saw it read 4:45. As it was dark in the room thanks to the closed curtains and blinds, her brain assumed that it was 4:45 AM. And why wasn’t she in her room in the Kingsley house? And why did the phone ringer sound so strange? And who would be calling her at such an hour?

By the fifth ring of the phone, her brain finally remembered that she was in Germany in a hotel suite in downtown Frankfurt. She had gone to bed shortly after arriving and slept through the entire night. She took a deep breath and then reached over and picked up the handset. She put it to her ear. “Hello?” she said meekly.

“Hey, Meghan,” said Laura’s voice. “Were you sleeping?”

“Uh ... yeah,” she grunted. Of course I was sleeping, she thought, irritated. It’s 4:45 in the freaking morning!

“You’re just gonna draw out the jetlag that way,” Laura said lightly. “Anyway, we’re down the hall in Celia’s suite. She just got in a few minutes ago. We’re gonna head down for an early dinner and wanted to see if you’d like to join us.”

“Dinner?” she asked, confused.

“Uh ... yeah,” Laura said. “You know? The meal one usually eats in the late afternoon or early evening?”

She looked up at the curtains and saw that there were little spears of bright light shining through a few of the gaps. It was not 4:45 in the morning. It was 4:45 in the afternoon! She had not slept the entire night away, but only a few hours. The sensation was very disorienting. “Oh ... wow,” she said. “Dinner. Yeah. I guess I can use a little something to eat.”

“Awesome,” Laura said brightly. “We’re going to go down to a place called Katharina’s down in the building lobby. We’re told it’s pretty informal. You can meet us down there. After we eat, we’re going to go with Celia to the stadium and hang out with her until after the show. You’ll be able to watch Caydee while we’re doing that?”

Meghan knew this was not really a question, but a politely expressed order from her boss. “Yes, absolutely,” she said, most of the sleepiness now shaken off. “I’ll meet you down there in a few minutes.”

“Sounds good,” Laura said.

Meghan hung up the phone and then got out of bed. She took off her long t-shirt and tossed it on a chair next to her travel bag (Jake had insisted that she pack everything she would need into a single bag that could be easily carried from airplanes to limos and into hotels and then back again—all the better to feel what life on the road would be like). She then walked to the bathroom and emptied her moderately full bladder. She looked over at the bidet that was installed next to the toilet, considered giving it a try, and then decided she would experiment with it later. She used conventional toilet paper to wipe (a roll was thoughtfully mounted and equipped for American guests) and then washed her hands in the sink.

After putting her bra back on, she pulled on a pair of jeans, a fresh blouse, and then her shoes and socks. She went back to the bathroom and combed out her hair before pulling it back in a ponytail. She checked the information pamphlets on the writing desk and saw that Katharina’s was indeed in the lobby, very near the main entrance. She grabbed her key card and headed out the door.

The restaurant was only about half full when she arrived. The host spoke perfect English and led her immediately to a table near the back of the room where Jake and Laura sat with Celia while Caydee sat in a high chair. Jake had a large mug of beer before him while Laura had a glass of white wine and Celia had black iced tea. Caydee had one of her sippy cups full of apple juice and was munching contentedly on Cheerios from a plastic bag.

“Meghan!” Celia said happily when she saw her. She got up from her seat and pulled her into a big hug. “I’m so glad you decided to come.”

“Thanks,” Meghan said, blushing a little as the beautiful Venezuelan embraced her. “I’m still recovering from the flight.”

“You should stay up until bedtime in this time zone,” Celia advised. “That’s the best way to reset the jetlag and get acclimated.”

“I told her that,” Jake said. “These young people never listen to their elders.”

“Shitshow,” Caydee opined and then went back to eating her Cheerios.

She sat down and picked up her menu. It was written in both German and English. The fare seemed to consist primarily of traditional German cuisine, which she was mostly unfamiliar with. A waiter appeared and asked if “the fräulein” would care for a drink.

“You should try one of these beers,” Jake suggested.

“Are they good?” she asked. She had developed a taste for beer lately, thanks to Jake’s influence. She particularly liked the IPAs with their strong bite.

“It’s German beer,” Jake told her. “They invented the shit.” He slid his mug across the table to her. “Here, give it a taste.”

She picked up the mug and had a sip. It was icy cold and quite flavorful. “All right,” she told the waiter. “I’ll have one of these.”

She soon found out that in addition to tasting good, the German beer packed quite a punch. She had last eaten during the breakfast service on the flight and that had been nearly eight hours ago. Her stomach was pretty much empty. Before even half of the pint was in her stomach, she was feeling a moderate beer buzz that was quite pleasant. She decided to order the bratwurst with sauerkraut and onions with a side of potato salad. When in Germany!

The food was nothing short of incredible. Jake was a great man with the grill and he would grill brats once a month or so (usually coinciding with when Elsa made her chili), but he had nothing on the brats served here. And the potato salad was spectacular as well. Elsa made a mean potato salad when the mood and cuisine of the day struck her, but this was almost an entirely different monster. She ate every scrap of everything on her plate. And then she immediately started worrying about the calories she had just consumed. Between the beer, the brats, and the potato salad, she had probably just put away close to three thousand or so. That was going to go straight to her butt. And she had already gained fifteen pounds since starting her employ with the Kingsleys—something else her mother enjoyed nagging her about.

Jake signed everything to his hotel suite once the meal was done. Part of the deal was that all of Meghan’s primary meals would be covered. They then worked their way back to the elevators for the trip back upstairs.

“The band bus will be here to pick us all up in twenty minutes,” Jake told her. “Why don’t you hang out in our suite until then?”

“Okay,” she said.

Celia’s suite was the same as hers. It had a large bedroom, an entertainment room with a bar, and a moderate sized sitting room with a fold-out bed. The views were of the Frankfurt skyline. Caydee’s portable crib had been set up in the sitting room. In the mornings, Meghan had already been briefed, the crib, as well as Caydee’s suitcase and changing supplies would be carried over to her suite to give the impression that Jake, Laura, Caydee, and herself were all staying there together and Celia was staying by herself. Everything would then be brought back in the evening hours.

“You brought your bathing suit, right?” asked Laura once they were all seated in the entertainment area.

“I did,” she said slowly. They had specifically told her that she should.

“Caydee sim!” Caydee said excitedly. “May-kin take Caydee to poo!”

“Do you think you could?” Laura asked her, again with that polite order disguised as a question. “She’s been looking forward to the pool ever since we told her about the trip.”

“Uh ... yeah, sure,” Meghan said, hiding her true feelings. “I can take her down there for a little bit.” In truth, she had a significant aversion to putting on swimwear and going to places of public bathing. The little incident she had had in Mexico one spring break had somewhat soured her on that. But it was a part of a job she was well paid for and she would have to suck it up. Besides, she was going to be with Caydee in a hotel full of wealthy business travelers and not getting obliterated on margaritas and tequila shots with a bunch of predatory college age boys. She would remain in control of herself.

“Awesome,” Laura said. “Her bathing suit is in her suitcase. There are floaties and swim diapers in there too.”

“Caydee pee in the poo!” Caydee said excitedly.

“That is not what the swim diapers are for, Caydee-girl,” Laura told her firmly. “They’re just in case Caydee can’t help but pee or poop in the pool. You should try to be a big girl and not do that, remember?”

“Awww,” Caydee said.

“Yes,” Jake said with a little chuckle, “because big girls certainly do not pee in the pool.”

“You’re not helping, sweetie,” Laura told him through gritted teeth.

“Sorry,” he said with another chuckle.

Ten minutes later, Jake, Laura, and Celia all hugged and kissed Caydee goodbye. Jake told her to be a good girl for Meghan.

“Caydee go to poo in Germy,” Caydee told him in all seriousness.

“That’s right,” Jake agreed. “Nothing like a good poo in Germany.”

They left a minute later, leaving Meghan and Caydee alone.

“Go poo now?” Caydee asked, giving the puppy-dog eyes.

Meghan sighed. “We’ll go to the pool now,” she said. “Let’s get you in your swim diaper and put your swimmies on.”

“Yay!” Caydee said happily.

She got Caydee appropriately dressed and then made sure she had both key cards—the one for her suite and the one for Celia’s—and guided Caydee out the door. They went back to her suite and she told Caydee to watch some TV for a few minutes while she got changed. She then locked herself into the bedroom. Though Jake and Laura often changed or showered while Caydee was in the room with them, Meghan was too modest to even let a girl toddler witness her nudity. She shucked off her clothes, hanging them in the bathroom, and then pulled on a frumpy, modest one-piece she had bought prior to leaving on the trip after being informed that taking Caydee swimming would be part of her duties. At home, she would wear her bikini in the hot tub but would always cover herself with a robe when coming or going and would only go out there when Jake and Laura (or Celia) were not using it. The idea of wearing her bikini at a public pool, however, was mortifying to her. She actually fretted about how much of her flesh was actually showing in the one-piece.

“All right, Meggie,” she said to herself after taking a deep breath. “You can do this.”

And so, she did it. She led Caydee to the elevators and they rode together down to the 23^rd floor of the building, which was the lobby level of the actual hotel itself (floors 1-22 were all commercial office space) and where the indoor pool was located. She followed the signs to the SCHWIMMBAD room (thankfully the signs had the English translation listed as well) and they went inside.

It was not the most impressive schwimmbad she had ever seen. It was a simple rectangular pool about forty feet long and twenty wide, with the deep end at only 2.5 meters while the shallow end was one meter deep. There was no diving board. The room did feature a large picture window, however, and the view out of it was impressive. There were about ten people in the room currently, five of whom were children between the ages of four and mid-teens. Several adults were in the water with the younger children and several more were laying on the loungers and watching. The air was humid and smelled strongly of chlorine. The shouts of the children echoed off the walls and rebounded several times before fading.

She grabbed a couple of towels from the dispenser and then claimed loungers for herself and Caydee near the steps in the shallow end. She tucked her keycards under the towels.

“Caydee go poo now!” Caydee demanded.

“All right,” Meghan said. “Let’s do it, little girl.”

They went down the steps and into the room temperature water. Caydee immediately began paddling around, using her feet to propel herself while the floaties on her upper arms kept her head above the water. She was having a blast as the huge smile on her face demonstrated. Swimming was something she absolutely loved but did not get to do very often. It was only when she visited Celia’s house or Jake and Laura took her to the Granada Hills house or they were in a hotel somewhere that she was given the pleasure. There had been talk about enrolling her in swim lessons in San Luis Obispo, but so far those plans had not manifested.

Meghan followed behind Caydee, walking on the bottom of the pool and steering her away from the deep end whenever she got too close to it. Gradually, the nanny got over her anxiety about being in a bathing suit in public and started to have a good time herself. It really was refreshing and fun to play in a pool—something she had forgotten since her ill-fated trip to Mexico.

After swimming around for twenty or thirty minutes, Caydee started to get a little tired. She was not tired enough to get out of the pool, of course, but tired enough that she wanted to go sit on the steps for a bit. They paddled over and Caydee sat on the top step. Meghan sat next to her on the second step, which situated her so her shoulders and breasts were above the water line. She had another little flash of modesty when she looked down and saw that her frumpy swimsuit was not so frumpy anymore. The water had made it cling to her chest more tightly and was outlining her moderately sized boobs instead of concealing them. A look around the room showed her that several of the dads on the loungers were sneaking little peaks at her.

She was about to slip down to the third step and submerge her boobs when the main door to the room opened and a young man came through it. He was tall, his hair light blonde and cut short. He looked younger than her, though not by much. He was certainly beyond high school age, but perhaps not old enough to buy a beer in the United States yet. He looked very clean-cut, almost wholesome, with a handsome face but a shy, hesitant look in his eyes. Meghan felt an immediate sense of physical attraction to him, which was odd, because her tastes in men ran a little more in the direction of older guys—guys in their thirties with long hair and rebellious attitudes were particularly appealing to her for some reason she could not figure out. But there was something about this kid that she instantly found appealing.