Chapter 9

"Leave me alone," I groaned again, trying to ignore the pounding on my door. All I wanted at this point was to be left alone, but Natalie didn't seem like she was taking the hint all that well, as the pounding continued. "I don't want to talk right now," I said. "Just go away!"

As I had assumed would be the case, the knocking continued for a few more seconds. A pause, waiting for my answer followed quickly by the veiled threat, muffled through the bedroom door, that I would have to come out sometime.

"You can't stay in there forever, you know!" my sister said. Finally, I heard her footsteps heading away from my room and I leaned back in bed, thankful for the solitude, temporary though I knew it would be.

I looked to the clock by my head, seeing that it was close to dinnertime, trying to remember exactly when I had last eaten anything substantial. I knew I had eaten breakfast the morning before, and I was pretty sure I'd eaten a sandwich sometime around midnight, after everyone else was sleeping. That was it as far as meals, and other than the occasional piece of gum or candy bar my recent diet had consisted of soda and the jar of peanut butter I had secreted into my room.

Ever since the disastrous trip to Europe, I had shut myself off from the rest of the world. I was losing weight, losing sleep and there were times I felt I was very possibly losing my mind. I wondered where it had all gone wrong. I knew when our problems had come to a head, of course. That fateful evening in Sweden was forever etched in my memory, of that I had no doubt. No, I knew what the problem was, I just didn't know how to fix it. I had tried, but even though my intentions had been good, things didn't go as planned.

The morning after I had walked in on Heather and Stacey, Heather and I had sat down and tried to hash out what had occurred. We had attempted to discuss, with some semblance of civility, just what was happening between us, but the conversation had not been pretty in the least.

Although we tried to be adult about things, and the attempt had started out calmly enough on both our parts, the discussion soon degenerated into something much uglier and much more hateful. It was almost more of a shouting match, and I'm sad to say that most of that came from me. I just couldn't understand why Heather had done what she had done, how she felt it was okay to sleep with another woman, and her answers were maddening to me, so I lashed out.

"Why do you have to act like such a whore?" I had shouted, after Heather once again professed surprise at my outrage. A sinking feeling came over her as I saw Heather's reaction to my accusation, and I cringed. I opened my voice to apologize, since even without Heather's hurt look I would have regretted saying the words almost as soon as they escaped my lips, but it was too late. The damage was done.

"What?" Heather had asked tearfully, looking up at me from where she was lying, slumped and crying on the hotel sofa.

"I don't understand what's happening," I said, trying to back away from my accusation. "What happened... you've changed."

"Did you call me a whore?" Heather asked, her shoulders shaking as she fought back tears, and more than a little bit of anger, I imagine.

"I didn't mean it like that," I said helplessly. "I just..."

"You just what?" Heather asked quietly. Her voice was tense with anger and I wanted to kick myself for not thinking before I spoke as she continued. "You didn't like all the things we did? You didn't like it when we tried new things? I was doing this for you!"

"Doing what for me?" I asked incredulously, my shame evaporating as my outrage and shock came quickly to the forefront. I stood up in a fit of stunned surprise. "Cramming a plastic cock up inside you while eating out my boss' wife? Whipping me while I'm tied up in bed? Trying to do... God knows what else to me! What the hell was that?" I asked loudly, glad that Dr. Bergerud and his family had seen fit to leave the two of us alone, at least for a few hours. Their hope had been, I believe, to give Heather and I some time to work out our issues, but that was obviously nowhere close to happening.

"I told you..." Heather stammered.

"Oh, right! You were doing it for me. How thoughtful of you. Remind me to never ask you for a favor, okay?"

Disgusted beyond measure now, sick that Heather was somehow trying to turn her behavior into something she was doing for us, I turned to leave the hotel room. I was planning on taking another walk, hoping to cool off a little. Still, it came as a surprise when I heard Heather call after me, her voice full of venom.

"Daniel!" she shouted. I paused, hoping somewhat presumptuously that an apology might be forthcoming.

"What?" I asked, realizing I was wrong as I turned and through her tears could see the look of pure fury on her face.

"Fuck you."

Sighing, wondering again just when everything had gone so wrong and how I had possibly missed the signs, I pulled on my coat and left the hotel, slamming the door behind me as I exited.

The Choral Symposium was over two days after our spat, a short span of time on the clock that was without a doubt the most unbearable I'd ever experienced. I never again attempted to broach the subject with Heather, and I could see she had no intention of doing so either. Our last days were frosty to say the least, most of our time spent in avoiding the situation. That proved simple during the day, but could have potentially posed a serious problem at night, as the two of us had been sharing the same hotel bed.

Fortunately, the suite had a sofa large enough for me, and I spent two restless nights on a lumpy hideaway bed, thankful for every painful second away from the girl I had loved.

Yes, loved, as in past tense. After what had happened, what I had seen, I didn't imagine there was any way I could ever feel the same about Heather as I had before the trip. I tried to rationalize my feelings, telling myself how lucky it was the two of us had been "together" for less than a year, but deep inside I knew I didn't buy it. It hurt.

I tried to tell myself I was better off finding out now what kind of a person Heather was, as opposed to six months down the road. What if I had proposed? The though had occurred to me to buy a ring before the trip, and find a nice quiet moment here in Sweden to ask her to marry me, but I chickened out at the last moment and considered myself all the luckier for my cold feet.

Now, I knew the chances of the two of us ever ending up together, much less remaining friends, were incredibly slim. It would take a world of heartfelt apologies before I would consider bringing Heather back into my life.

The long plane ride from Sweden to the United States, far from being the exciting, happy time we had enjoyed only a week earlier, was tense, quiet and uncomfortable for both of us. Fortunately Dr. Bergerud could sense our mutual distress and offered to switch seats with Heather.

I did my best to bottle up what I was feeling inside, but my mentor has a way of bringing out all kinds of emotions I had tried to hide, and I soon found myself tearfully spilling my guts as the plane hurtled westward toward home.

"I just don't get it," I confessed quietly, wiping my eyes far more often than I felt was necessary. I mean, I was over her, right? So why was I all choked up? "What was she doing that for?" I asked helplessly.

Dr. Bergerud looked over at me, apparently judging my emotional stability for a moment before answering.

"What does she say about it?" he replied. "Why did Heather say she was doing it?" I hated the teacher in him at that moment, forever answering a question with a question of his own, and I struggled to come up with an appropriate answer.

"I don't know," I finally sighed. "She kept giving me this lame excuse that it was for us. She was doing it for the two of us, she said."

"You said that," he reminded me gently. "But you think she was lying?"

"How could she not be?" I asked in amazement, confused that Dr. Bergerud seemed to be taking Heather's side in the argument. I realized I was even more amazed that he seemed to be just as calm about the fact that it was his own wife my girlfriend had been in bed with. "How could that possibly have been for us?"

"Didn't you tell me once that Heather was convinced that all men were infatuated with the idea of a threesome?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Maybe she was trying to find the right person to bring into your bed," Dr. Bergerud suggested.

"She was fucking your wife!" I said, a little too loudly. I grimaced as I saw a flight attendant stir from her seat near the front of the plane. Fortunately, our seats were nowhere close to the first class section, so I'm not sure she heard exactly what I said, but it was obvious that she was certain I had said it too loudly. She made a shushing motion with her finger and I nodded sheepishly. Properly chastised I turned to my professor and quietly repeated what I had said earlier. "She was fucking your wife."

What Dr. Bergerud said next boggled my mind.

"That's her business," he shrugged. "None of mine."

"What?" I asked, after pausing for what seemed like minutes. "How is that none of your business?" I looked in confusion at the person sitting next to me, wondering - not for the first time - if one night while I was sleeping everyone I knew had been replaced by an alien. Heather, Stacey, Katie and now Dr. Bergerud. No one was making sense except me.

"It's not," he said, smiling gently at my obvious confusion. "My wife and I have a... how to put it... a decidedly open relationship."

"You mean..."

"We have an open relationship," he repeated, obviously not wanting to go any further. Headless of his wishes, I charged straight ahead with my next question.

"You mean the two of you just screw anyone you want?"

"Not quite," he said. "We have boundaries just like any other couple, but they're... a bit further apart than for most."

"How far do they go?" I asked, curious as to what I might find out about my mentor.

"I'm not sure I really want to..." Dr. Bergerud started, but I interrupted before he could finish.

"Is your daughter included in your fun?" I asked. "Have you fucked Katie?" I whispered. I remembered how surprised and, in my mind at least, guilty, Katie had appeared when I arrived back at the hotel that night, obviously much earlier than expected. She hadn't appeared shocked at what was going on in the bedroom, just that I had witnessed it.

I had no proof, but I was certain Katie had been involved with Heather, and Stacey. Stacey is her mother! my conscience screamed at me, but to my surprise I didn't feel the shock I expected at the sudden realization that mother and daughter may have been intimate together.

Truth be told, I had been harboring suspicions for some time of Dr. Bergerud being somehow involved - and in a decidedly non-parental manner - with his daughter. Again, as with my suspicions of Stacey and Katie, I had no proof of anything, but the entire family seemed... a bit too close somehow.

"Yes," Dr. Bergerud said, much to my amazement. "Yes, Katie and I are intimate. Have been intimate," he corrected immediately. "Used to be intimate. Once." As suspicious as I had been, I had never really expected to receive an admission like that, and I didn't know what to say.

"Really?" was all I could gasp out. "The three of you..." Suddenly nervous, I looked around, hoping no one else was hearing our hushed conversation, but apparently no one else was awake at this time of what passed for night on the plane.

"No," he answered. "The three of us don't."

"Then what do you mean?" I asked, more confused than ever.

"It's a long story," Dr. Bergerud said. "I don't know if..."

"We're still five hours from New York," I pointed out. "Come on, spill it, whatever it is."

Dr. Bergerud sighed, looked at his watch quickly to confirm what I had said.

"Are you sure?" he asked, after coming to his decision.

"Positive," I replied. "Tell me everything." I sat back and listened in amazement as Dr. Bergerud told me the secrets of his life. By the end of his story I was more confused than ever, torn between running away from what I felt was happening and confronting Heather with my real feelings and making a plea to work out our differences. In the end, I took the easier route and avoided the conflict.

It was now three weeks after I had arrived back from Europe. Heather and I had immediately realized that the two of us could in no way function together as simple roommates, not after living together as lovers for so many months, and I had, in a moment of good will, offered to give her some room. I had turned to the only people I could at that time, and returned to my parents' home.

My sister Natalie has always been the most perceptive member of my family, and in this instance she proved frighteningly astute. I hadn't been home more than a day and a half before she cornered me in my room.

"Spill it," she said, sitting down beside me on my bed. It was two o'clock in the afternoon, but I was still in bed, under the covers, trying to hide from the world.

"Go away," I said grumpily, trying to ignore Natalie's inquisitive stare. "Go away," I repeated when she refused to budge from my side.

"Nope," she said, shaking her head. "Not until you tell me what's going on."

"I can't," I pleaded. "I don't really know what happened." Receiving nothing but a silent glare from my sister, I reluctantly began to tell Natalie the story of my relationship with Heather. I started from the very beginning, leaving out the more private details, but revealing enough so Natalie would understand both the depth of my feelings and the pain of the betrayal.

"Kinky," she said at one point, after I had glossed over Heather's failed attempt to introduce me to the world of bondage.

"Kinky?" I said. "It hurt!"

"So, she wasn't doing it right," Natalie laughed. "You gave her a second chace, didn't you?"

"Hell no!" I said angrily. "I don't understand what it was she thought was so great about it. I think it's that damn job of hers. Something weird is going on at that club. I wonder now if she was screwing guys at work the whole time was there."

"Did you ask her about that?" my sister asked pointedly.

"No," I said.

"Why not?"

"As if... Hey, how's it going Heather? Fuck anybody at work today?" I asked mockingly. "That would have gone over really well. If she doesn't want to tell me, so be it. I'm done with her."

"Oh, please!" my sister exclaimed. "You're so not over her it's not even funny. Do you see what you're like right now? How much you're obsessing over her? You love her, Daniel!"

I just shook my head, amazed at how wrong my sister could be. I was not in love with Heather. In fact, I probably never had been. It must have just been lust disguised as affection.

"No," I swore. "I don't think I was. How could I have been so blind? She was probably screwing guys left and right the whole time we were dating. I wouldn't be surprised if Dr. Bergerud and Heather were going at it too," I practically shouted. To my surprise, not only did I receive no words of consolation, but Natalie reached out and slapped me across the face.

"Shut up!" she said. "Listen to yourself, Daniel. You sound like a little brat."

"What are you talking about?" I asked in amazement. "You act like I'm to blame somehow!"

"You are," Natalie shrugged. "At least on some level."

"How? Who's the one who cheated?"

"She did," my sister said, nodding infuriatingly at me. It was never good when the two of us were arguing and Natalie started agreeing with me on a certain point, because I knew she had something much bigger to disagree with me, somewhere she thought I was clearly in the wrong.

"So if she's the one who cheated, how is it my fault?" I asked.

"What did you do about it?" my sister replied, a teacher in the making as she answered my question with one of her own.

"Nothing," I answered sullenly. "What was there to do?"

"You could have talked to her about it!" Natalie blurted out, throwing up her arms in disgust. "Jesus, Daniel! How much of this could have been avoided if the two of you would have just talked about it!"

"What was there to talk about?" I asked. I knew she was right, Natalie generally is. I wasn't sure that talking would have saved things between Heather and I, but Natalie was right, we... I... should have behaved better.

"Everything," Natalie replied. "You should have talked about everything. You could have talked about her job, you could have talked about your kinks... her kinks, you could have talked about what happened in Sweden, for goodness sake, instead of running away from it!"

"Whatever," I grumbled.

"Men!" my sister proclaimed loudly. "Don't you get it?"

"What?"

"There was nothing wrong with your relationship that couldn't have been fixed. It was all about secrets. You didn't like something, but you didn't tell Heather. Heather may have had something going on at work... yes, maybe... but you don't know for sure, because you never asked her. Maybe something was going on, maybe not. Then you walk in on her in bed with someone else. You didn't really talk about it, just screamed at each other. Daniel, it's all about secrets. You just can't have secrets in a relationship... it's poison!"

My sister sat back on her hands, rocking a bit as she looked at me for some reaction. I took a deep breath, thinking about what I was going to say, knowing I was taking the conversation in a direction my sister was not expecting.

"What about your secrets?" I asked quietly.

"I have no secrets," Natalie answered quickly.

"What about Chris?" I asked.

"I don't know," my sister answered after a short pause. "What about Chris?"

"Oh, I don't know... we've never met," I said.

"It's a hassle," Natalie answered slowly. "What with work and school and everything..."

"Yeah, yeah," I said. "What's the mystery? The two of you have been going out for a while, right?"

"Yeah. I told you, we've been going out since before Christmas. Why?"

"Have Mom and Dad ever met her?" I asked.

"I don't think so, but... what?" Natalie asked abruptly, her mouth closing quickly as she realized what I had asked and what she had inadvertently revealed. Her mouth gaped open noiselessly for a moment as she tried to formulate an answer. "I..."

"Don't bother," I said, dismissing her with a wave of my hand. "I know all about your girlfriend."

Natalie said nothing for a few long seconds, the look on her face equal parts fear and relief. It almost appeared she was as scared of what I might say now that I knew, as she was thankful that her secret was finally out in the open.

I had wondered after seeing the two of them, Natalie and Chris - or Christine, I wasn't sure - making out on our parents' couch on New Year's Eve, if my parents were aware of their daughter's sexual inclination. For all I had known, I had been the only person out of the loop, so to speak, in the entire family, but Natalie's silence was answer enough. She had told no one.

"What do you know?" she asked quietly, the color slowly draining from her face.

"I know what I saw," I replied, too harshly I realized as Natalie slowly drew away from me as if to flee the room. "I'm sorry," I continued. "I heard someone come into the house last New Year's Eve. I thought it was Mom and Dad home early, and went to say hello, but it was the two of you. It looked like you wanted some private time," I said with a shrug and a small smile.

"I'm so sorry..." my sister stammered as she reached up to wipe her face. I could see tears forming in her eyes and that quickly my anger dissipated and I turned into the protective older brother.

"Hey, it's okay," I said, reaching out to wrap an arm around Natalie's shoulders. "Don't cry, please?"

"What are Mom and Dad going to say?" she asked fearfully, suddenly my scared little sister.

"Nothing," I said, more confidently than I felt. "I'm sure it will be fine," I continued. "You should really tell them. No secrets, remember?"

My sister snorted derisively. She knew as well as I that everything would not go as swimmingly as the picture I was painting. Truth was, my parents were very conservative people. Not that they were racists or homophobes by any stretch of the imagination, but I knew any announcement from Natalie that she was a lesbian, or even that she was bisexual, if that was the case, would be met with silent disapproval. Not outright hostility, of course, but their disappointment would be obvious, even if it was never stated explicitly.

"They'd just love that, wouldn't they?" Natalie said, her voice broken with emotion as she reached out to hug me. I wrapped her in my arms as tightly as I could, trying to share some of her pain.

"It'll be okay," I said softly. "We'll work something out."

"What are we going to do?" Natalie asked, her tear-streaked eyes looking at me hopefully.

"I don't know," I answered. "We'll think of something."