Chapter 14

Laissez Faire

Nothing more was said about it for about a week but I noticed that Sandi would cast a glance at Mike's crotch at the odd moment. She didn't really attempt to hide that from me, but she was trying not to, I could tell.

Finally, one night I spoke up.

"If you want to, go ahead!"

"What?"

"Talk to Mandy and, if it's okay with her, but I don't mind if you screw Mike."

She sat up leaning on her elbow... "Really?"

"Yeah ... just not while I'm around, same as it was with Brad."

She leaned back on the pillow again. "I dunno ... I feel funny about that. It's not the same as with Brad."

"Oh, well ... I'll talk to Mandy."

Days went by and it wasn't brought up ... then she broke it.

"I talked to Mandy, about Mike."

"Okay."

"She brought it up, while we were all out at the pool actually, she said she saw me staring at his package."

"That's true enough!" I patted her ass. "You aren't very sneaky."

"Well ... I said something like 'Who wouldn't?'"

Sandi looked me straight in the eyes... "And Mandy just swept her hand toward him, palm up."

I shrugged.

She gave me a look. "Geez, Jake. You act like you don't care..."

I just shook my head. "Make up your mind, woman! I do care, but it WAS you that said she didn't want the constraints of being married, or the feeling of total commitment..."

She started to protest that ... surely with some niggling deviation in the context of 'fem-logic'. I held up my hand to stop her.

"Look, love-of-my-life! You were right, I was wrong ... sorta ... the point is that you shouldn't feel like you're 'beholden' to stay 'true to me' voluntarily.

I don't ever want to wonder if you feel like you're held back ... having you with me, one hundred percent by choice is far more meaningful than if I knew you were restraining yourself out of devotion ... Or some sense of 'duty'. Like we've said before, we're adults and don't have to put on a show 'for the kids'"

I put a finger to her lips..."Like I said ... I'm a little jealous of him, but he's a nice guy and I sure cant blame you for being curious. Go forth with my blessing." I grabbed her waist and hugged her "End of Discussion, period!"

Judging from how Mike acted around me for the next few weeks ... and Sandi seeming a little distant, she didn't waste any time.

I'll be honest. The thought bothered me ... I AM a normal guy, after all! But I worked through it with logic and reason and shoved the emotional hurt to the rear. Sandi was right ... it WAS a LOT different than with her screwing Brad. Probably because I felt Brad and I were co-conspirators at the beginning ... and I knew, by his word and actions, he was 'only friends' with Sandi.

And I was still screwing Lisa at least once a week, after all, while giving her a taste of the 'discipline' she craved.

It was over in two weeks. I knew so, because Sandi suddenly became very attentive to me, and Mike was more friendly, if still acting like a puppy who'd peed on the floor. She WAS a lot hotter in bed, though ... and, to my relief, Mike hadn't torn or stretched anything.

Payment in Kind

Life was good. The business just kept on growing. Lisa continued to manage it like I hoped she would and we ended up buying the entire building, and gave notice to the other lessee's ... after which we expanded the Customer Service Call Center by 30 seats.

Sandi gave up her 'house-turning' projects and only dabbled in the very high-end residential and middle-value commercial markets, as far as her Realty went. The rest of the time she had to devote to business administration, because Lisa kept coming up with ideas and it took all of Sandi's time to vet them and do the due-diligence.

But the buy/sell experiment had netted her a cool 500,000 buck nest-egg, thus tremendously increasing her business confidence.

But you aren't reading this as a business success story and I'm not writing one, either. The only point of me recounting all that is to remind that I don't mess around with losers.