Chapter 4

"Why do you keep asking about that?" Sandy responded. "Do you think we should?"

"Mainly, I want you to think about it ahead of time. I would also like to talk some more about the positives and negatives of your doing that," Julia told them. "Now, what are your objectives for your marriages? And don't tell me you want them the way they were. Tell me specific things you want to see happen."

"I want him to stop having sex with other women, and I want him to start making love to me again," Val answered quickly. There were sounds of assent from the others."

"In that order?" Julia probed.

"Oh!"

"In other words, if he wanted sex with you tonight, but you knew that he planned more parties, what would you do?"

"But it's not right for him to see those other women, too!" Sandy objected.

Julia could not believe how the women kept saying these things. They decried the men doing just what they had been doing. They only realized the incongruity after Julia led them to it. That time, it took at least thirty seconds of Julia's silence before Val picked it up.

"OK. We get the picture," Val said sourly.

"I wish I was sure of that," Julia countered. "Again and again, you have strong feelings about what the men are doing wrong and the reasons. Until I force you, you never see that they are doing just what you did."

"But we explained why it's not the same, Cece complained.

"Yes, you did, and your reasons make sense," Julia agreed. "But, they don't see what they are doing as any different from what you did. If you told them your history, they would be able to see that there is a real difference.

"Now, one of the differences between your orgies and theirs is the degree of anonymity."

"Huh?"

"At your parties, there were a lot of men. It is my guess that you did not spend much time with any one man, and you did not really get to be friends with any of them."

"We only wanted one thing from them," Val agreed. "The same was true back in college."

"That is not nearly as true with your husbands. There is a lot of communication at their parties. Two of the women were at both parties, and they have gotten to know each other quite well.

"I need to tell you that for future parties, there will be quite a few women ready to drop their panties for your men any time they are asked."

"How do you know that?"

"Let's just say I have ways of finding out. Although they know it cannot possibly go anywhere, the women fall in love with your men, just because of the way they are treated."

"Oh, that never happened with us," Sandy said. "They were just... just, uh..."

"I'm not saying that there is danger of your men finding a woman they prefer to you, but you need to know what is going on."

"I've tried to ask him about the parties, but he just turns the question around and asks about mine."

"Same here."

"Me, too."

"They're ganging up on us!"

"Ladies, have you not always worked together, sometimes against the men? Did you not get into swinging as a group. Can't you see why they might feel they need to act in unison as a defense?"

"Defense! Why do they need to defend against us?"

"They think that for some reason you went out and looked for more sex. They feel they have to do something to stop you. They also believe they need to 'catch up' in their own sexual experience, as we've talked before. They very much want to salvage their marriages, but they feel the you are the 'enemy' in their struggle."!

"My God! How can they even think that? The enemy!"

"Tell me," Julia prodded. "If you were in their position, what would you think? At the very least, you would be sure that they did not value the marriage in the same way that you did, wouldn't you?"

After a glum silence, Val said "We have to tell them that it's not true. We have to make them understand!"

"And what would make them believe you?"

"But we're their wives. We don't lie to them!"

"Except about major things, like cheating on them," Julia said harshly. These women were pushing her to treat them in ways that she had never treated other patients. She could easily understand why the men needed to band together against the force of the three women.

Julia let them absorb that blast, then changed her tone. "Right now, I believe your men are lost, unable to think of any reason for what you did. The only thing that they can think of is their own failure and inadequacy. If you give them another reason, it will be a big step toward reconciliation."

"We started talking about whether we should party with them," Val said, working her own change of subject.

"We do seem to get pulled back to the same subjects, don't we?" Julia quipped. "I was pointing out some of the dangers of the men continuing with their parties. They are starting to build a following of women eager to have sex with them. That will definitely help to heal the ego damage that you have caused. But will it improve your chances of reconciliation?"

"You still haven't told us what you think we should do," Cece complained.

Letting out her breath slowly, Julia told them "Just as I said before, I honestly don't know what your best move would be. I think I can clarify your choices, though, as competition or replacement. Let me explain.

"You can compete with those other women and try to get the men to quit partying with the others and get back to just you. How could you compete when they won't have sex with you? Well, you'd have to seduce them."

"Seduce my own husband," Sandy murmured with a shake of her head.

"Sandy, that's not a bad thing for a wife to do all the time, you know," Julia chided her. "If you succeed in competing and pulling your husbands back from the other women, what will be the benefits?

"The first thing I can think of is that your relationship with your husband will be most like it was before in one way. That one way is that group sex would have no part in your marriage, per se. It is something that each of you indulged in separately, but did not share with your spouse.

"Are there negatives to the compete and win approach? Indeed there are. First of all, it will not be easy to get them to stop seeing the other women. The longer they continue, the harder it will be to stop them. As you well know, it can be addictive.

"The other negative is that you cannot realistically expect your relationship to ever be just the same. His view through the fence that night changed it irrevocably. If you decide to compete, don't go into it with that expectation."

"But you said getting back to the way it was before was a benefit of trying to compete."

"I believe I said 'getting the closest to how it was before', Julia corrected. "Specifically, I meant that group sex, even outside sex, would not be part of your relationship."

"You keep saying that!" Cece whined. "I don't see why he can't just get over it!"

"You didn't spy on the men's party, did you, Cece?"

"No. I couldn't stand to."

"Sandy, will you every feel the same about Trent after what you saw. Even years down the road?" Sandy shook her head. "How about you, Val?" Val responded negatively, also. "Cece, you probably should have spied, just so you could really understand his feelings.

"OK. What if you decide to party with the men. What possible benefits are there. First, you might be able to make a deal to get them to stop partying with other women. Now, they may insist on swapping on an ongoing basis. You would have to decide if that was a benefit, or not.

"A benefit would be that you would be sharing a key part of your life with your husband."

"No! It's not part of our life any more!" Sandy shouted.

"Sandy, I don't think you can say that the desires will ever be gone. Look how easily you got pulled into it this time."

"I don't know about the others, but I'm cured," Sandy declared. "The thought of doing that again almost makes me ill."

"Even with your closest friends?" Sandy just shook her head in confusion and dismay.

"A negative of partying with your husbands could be that they might want to include other people, as well."

"Both choices have some pretty strong negatives," Val said. "Are those really the only choices that you see?"

"Can you come up with any others?" Julia threw back to Val. After another of those looks between the three, Val shook her head.

"Now, whichever plan you choose, I believe your chances of success are better if you tell them your sexual history. It will give them a reason for what you did, instead of assuming that it was because of their shortcomings."

"Isn't there some other way to convince them that it's not their fault?" Val pled.

"I certainly don't see one. Your actions were so out of character, at least as far as they saw your character, that no amount of PR can rationalize them," Julia warned them.

They continued beating on the same points for another half hour before Julia sent them on their way. Nothing had really been resolved, as was now the frustrating pattern for the group. Julia debated refusing to see them again except individually. The problem with that was the support they needed from each other in that time of extreme stress.

One other thing had struck Julia from that session - the way the women had reacted to any suggestion of letting group sex into their marriages. Sandy had vehemently proclaimed 'No! It's not part of our life any more!', and Julia had made a note about that.

She could see evidence of something approaching schizophrenia in the trio. The pattern of their sessions had clearly indicated unreality in the way the women viewed their own sexual escapades. It was as if the group sex was separate and disconnected from their real lives as wives and mothers.

Probably due to the extreme stress of their upbringing, the women had created identities that they could retreat to - escape to. Those identities were as much fantasy as reality, particularly from where their real lives were now. Getting back into group sex was just a return to those fantasy lives.

The men had been eerily silent as they listened to the session. Even during the breaks, no one had known what to say. Stunned was too mild a description for their reaction to the women's tale. When it was over, Will said "I think it would be better if none of us said a word about what happened right now. Let's do our Saturday plans and not see each other until at least tomorrow evening. Stick with the plan as if we didn't know anything."

The rest of Saturday, all three men struggled through their planned activities. Will actually did golf that day, then took his kids to the mall for dinner and a movie. Trent had another gig that night and had arranged for thirteen-year-old Josh to be there while he played. Bud had asked fourteen-year-old Cameron to go with him for an overnight camp and fish like his sister had the previous week. Cameron had shown no interest, so Bud had dropped the idea. Francie, however, was so eager to repeat the previous week's outing that Bud just could not resist.

Sunday evening, the men met at a bar where they could get a secluded booth. "Does what we heard yesterday change anything for any of you?" Will asked when they had each collected a drink and sat down.

"It sure does!" Bud spat out. He had managed to suppress his anger somehow until they met, but now it came out. "How could I have married such a slut? And I feel bad because she's the one who led the others into all this shit."

"No, I don't think that's right, Bud," Will countered. "I honestly think that without Cece, Val and Sandy might never have had a chance to marry anyone."

"I think Will's right, Bud," Trent echoed. "Sure, Cece's the most emotional and, uh, least rational right now, but back then - what would Sandy have done without Cece?"

Bud breathed deeply, his way of getting control of his anger. "I appreciate your saying that. Cece doesn't even have the excuse of an abusive home life, though."

"Bud, I think she is so empathetic and so attuned to Val and Sandy that it's as if she suffered with them," Will pointed out.

"That sounds like the kind of psycho-babble that a shrink would use to excuse what they did," Bud objected.

"Maybe so, but it could very well be true," Will insisted. "Sometimes things seem like 'psycho-babble' because our minds are such complicated, disorderly things that understanding them cannot always seem rational."

"Glad I majored in engineering," Trent grumped. "How could you stand to study that stuff?"

"Look, Guys," Will said, "whether it seems rational or believable or not, I think there are some important psychological factors at work here. I laid awake most of last night thinking about what we have heard, going over everything I could remember.

"We've all been frustrated at the way the women don't see what we're doing as anything like what they did, right? Well, I'm starting to believe that in their minds it really isn't the same thing at all."

"This better be good," Bud grumbled.

"Hear me out. All that sex in college was like an escape for the girls - a retreat. Thanks to Cece, they kept it pretty separate from even their college life. Remember how often they mentioned dual lives, or their other life? What if, in their minds, all of that sex was truly isolated and compartmentalized."

"I wish Sandy could have compartmentalized it better before our wedding," Trent groaned, referring to her 'fall' at the bachelorette party. "She just had to have one more shot at a big cock before settling for little old me."

Will and Bud could see that two great parties worth of ego rebuilding for Trent had pretty much been flushed when he heard that on Saturday. "Well, our wives didn't exactly behave, either, it sounds like." That was the best Will could come up with. Between that revelation and Trent seeing Sandy actually fucking, he had taken a couple of tough shots to his more fragile ego.

"The point I'm trying to make," Will pushed on, "is that they don't compare what we're doing to what they did because, in their minds, it's almost is if they didn't really do it."

"Now, that's way over the edge," Bud complained.

"Seriously. I think Val really sees the woman who did all of the stuff as someone different from my wife and the mother of my kids. Didn't you hear a few times one of them say that it didn't affect her love for her husband?"

"Yeah, that came up a few times. It didn't make any sense, but maybe..."

"There's no way for us to understand just how much their crazy parents screwed them up," Will cautioned. "They may have been fortunate not to end up in institutions or brothels. I mean look at their siblings! There's a gay bartender, a lesbian, a hooker, a drugged-out modern-day hippy, and maybe worst of all, a preacher."

"Well, what's the difference from what they did end up in?" Bud asked sourly.

"No, I can't let you say that, Bud. There was always that isolation, that separation of the sex from everything else in their lives. It was something they needed, but it was never their real lives. We all have to admit that until we looked through that fence, we all thought we had nearly perfect wives. They managed to push the women who did all of the group sex into the background for a long time."

"What you're saying would certainly explain their attitudes," Trent admitted.

"I think the 'why?' question is now answered," Will said. "At least I no longer think that Val cruelly went out to find better sex than I could give her. I think the analogy to a long-sober alcoholic taking a drink is a very good one. It makes me more willing to forgive her and try to get back to some kind of a marriage."

"No!" Bud almost shouted. "Not until I can believe that she really understands what she did to me. If I give her any kind of a pass now, can I really be sure it will never happen again?"

"And I have the big problem," Trent added. "How am I ever going to get it up again with Sandy?"

"Good points," Will agreed. "OK, what things have to happen before we start thinking about 'normalizing' our marriages.

"They have to tell us all that we heard, and tell it in person," Bud proclaimed.

"Definitely," Trent agreed. "And we have to agree that they all have shown true understanding of what they did to us and true remorse. Look, this is a dangerous time for us. I'm the weak link here. You guys could very well be back happily fucking your repentant wives while my dick is still trying to hide from Sandy. This could break us apart, but without you two with me, I don't have a chance." That was by far the most open and emotional statement Trent had ever made to anyone.

"Trent," Will asked softly, "have you decided that you truly want to be back to normal sex with Sandy?"

"Until yesterday morning, I was sure, and I was starting to feel like I could get there, too. When I heard about the bachelorette business, I... Yes, Will, I do want things back to normal. As wonderful as the parties are, it's not... not real life."

"That's exactly what I was trying to say about the women!" Will said excitedly. "So, you can see how it could have happened to them?"

"Oh. You're right," Trent admitted. "I guess I can imagine how they feel."

"And just remember," Will added, "their more emotional minds can do more strange things than your rational engineer's brain." His chuckle was an attempt to lighten things.

"We've named our two objectives," Bud interrupted. "I say we don't change a thing until we see at least one of them met. Then we decide again."

"I think you're right," Will responded. "Personally, I'm feeling a lot of sympathy for Val that will make the cutting remarks tougher to deliver, but it has to be done."

"Well, now I've got two things to remember. I won't have much trouble," Trent stated.

"And there's Morgan, too," Will teased, again trying to fight the heaviness.

"I wonder if she'll even be at the next one," Trent mused.

"She knows you'll be there," Bud quipped. "I don't think anything could keep her away."

"I think the plan is right on," Trent said quickly. "The parties? You know, I've barely even felt guilty."

"Would you be able to make love to Sandy tonight?"

"Oh, wow! That's the question, isn't it," Trent answered. "It's not so much just the memories. I mean, that's still hurts every time I think about it. Something just isn't right about her attitude."

"I know just what you mean," Bud agreed. "It's as if I'm the offender and she's the victim, waiting for me to come to my senses."

"You don't see any acknowledgment that it's all her fault?"

"Not really. We haven't talked about it directly, but there hasn't been a tearful 'I'm so sorry'."

"Do you think we should see Dr. Waxman and discuss our plan?"

"I wouldn't want to change it, no matter what she says," Trent declared.

Bud said "We heard things in her office that we were not entitled to hear. I'm afraid that if we met with her, we might give away what we knew."

"Good point," Will acknowledged. "After the women tell us the story, it might be good to meet with the doc. "I'd like to see if she agrees with my analysis.

"Bud, you didn't seem to have any guilt attacks at the second party."

"It wasn't really guilt the first time. It was more the feeling that I had lost something that I was once proud of," Bud explained. "Once it was gone - well, I've really enjoyed myself with those women."

"Here's a question," Will said. "How long do you think we should keep up the parties? We never really discussed that."

"I think I want to stay a swinger," Trent said.

"Don't go there, Trent. We did this for some good reasons. We still want to try to get our marriages back, don't we?" Will chided.