Chapter 4: Aftermath for the Guilty, Leaving the Girls in Good Hands

Aftermath for the guilty, leaving the girls in good hands

We got back from Cape Cod about ten o’clock on Sunday night. I rode partway back with Jess so I could get to know her better. We’d bonded in many ways, and certainly sexually, over the weekend, but I wanted to get a better gauge on her and her feelings about Paul.

I was relieved by the time we stopped in Dedham for me to get into Mike’s car. Jess was a solid career woman. The last thing she said she wanted was a husband and children. She didn’t want the guilt that would come by neglecting them to focus on her job. The promotion to COO at King Enterprises had caught her off guard, but had been her wildest dream. She was now in a place where she could self-actualize.

She did admit to having physical needs. She said, “I get really horny at work. Part of it is the rush I get doing deals or solving some complex problem, but the other part is that I need a long hard cock driving into me the way Mike and Paul did this weekend – so satisfying. Thank you for sharing. You are a special person to think that way.”

I allowed as how the thought had never really crossed my mind before, and that the whole non-monogamous sex scene was entirely new to me, even in my fantasies. “I grew up brainwashed just like 99.9999% of the population; monogamy is the only way. Well, I’ve learned that’s bullshit. There are other ways that work, and I’m living one of them.”

Jess asked me, “Do you know what polyamory is?”

“I’ve heard the term, and thrown it around, but I don’t really appreciate what it means.”

“Do some research on it. There are study groups, and even an annual conference of polyamorous people, but that’s the tip of the iceberg. I wanted to get into a group a year or so ago, but some of the other people decided to opt for monogamy, so the idea faltered. If you like the idea, let’s talk more. I have a feeling you, Paul, Mike, and Sheila are headed that way. Sure you love the sex, but I also see that you love each other. Maybe there’s room for you to love some others too. Think about it.”

I promised I’d do some homework, and call her in a couple of weeks to talk further about the concept and just to keep our new friendship alive.

As we pulled into Dillon Run, I saw Leslie sitting on my front step. She’d been crying, and I’m not the kind of woman that likes to another person doing that.

As we got out of the car in front of my townhouse, I went over to her. “Leslie, what’s wrong?”

She sobbed, “I’ve fucked up in so many ways in my life. I don’t like myself. If I were suicidal, I’d be dead, but I’m a coward about that.”

I’d handled 9-1-1 calls from suicidal people, so my training and instincts kicked in. “Come on inside, Leslie. Let’s talk. I know you have issues with me, but let’s see if we can clear the air and get you feeling better.”

Paul looked on with a jaundiced eye. He nodded approval for my invitation, but wasn’t about to slaver affection and forgiveness all over his sister.

After I got Leslie seated, I said to her, “Start talking, it’ll do you good.”

Paul puttered around in my kitchen making coffee. Sheila stood a few paces behind me listening to the interaction.

Leslie sobbed, “David’s left me. He called me a shrew and a vindictive and manipulative person who ruined other people’s lives. He said he couldn’t stand another minute in my presence.”

I nodded at that interesting turn in things. “He was helping you, wasn’t he?”

“Only because I threatened to cut him off of all sex if he didn’t. He was always a reluctant player. He said he was going to call you and apologize. I think he’s going to call Liz and Jess too for the same reason.”

“And what brought all this on?”

“You know,” she sobbed. “You emptied our bank accounts. We had ten-thousand dollars worth of checks bounce – car payments, mortgages, grocery store, my doctor, ... everything we did for ten days before the bank telephoned and cut us off. We have hundreds of dollars of bank fees.”

I stuck to the agreed upon script. “I don’t know what you mean?”

Leslie pointed at my ring. “That ring was the back breaker.” I watched her search out Paul’s hand and she saw his ring too. She pointed at it but didn’t say anything.

“Oh, this thing. Cubic zirconia.”

Leslie sobbed, “I’m so sorry. I’ll never be able to make up to you what I did ... what I tried to do. I was terrible.”

I said, “Yes, you were. You can stop now. What you’re doing is not changing our relationship with one another. We each realized that you’ve been undermining us in the other’s eyes.”

“And I did it to Liz and Jess too.”

“We all know that, although it’s too late for them. I wish someone had stopped you years ago.”

“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed again. She wallowed around in that pit, describing some of the dastardly deeds she’d done to try to get her way.

“Why did you do all those things?”

“I wanted Paul to marry my friend Alice or Stephanie. They’re nearly broke, and he’s such a good provider. They need him. Then I met Mike, and I realized he could take one of them and Paul the other; so, I went after him too.”

“So they were in on this little destructive game you were playing too.”

“I told them what to do and what to say. They’re desperate, so they did it.”

“Who did the website about me?”

“I did. I know PhotoShop and used it for work. At first, I just did a couple of pictures because I hated you and that you were diverting my brother’s attention, but then I saw a website that David had been looking at and it gave me the idea. I’m sorry.”

“Leslie, will you go and get counseling?”

“Huh? What kind?”

“The kind that will make you less angry, less manipulative, and more of a family member instead of someone who can’t accept not getting her own way.”

Leslie thought for a while, and said, “Yes. That’s a good idea. Thank you. Why are you being so nice to me? You should be hating me.”

“You may become my sister-in-law, and I want to belong to a strong family. From what I’ve been led to belief, I think your parents might do well with some counseling too.”

Leslie cried some more, but nodded in understanding.

Over the course of the next two hours there were some more revelations by her about the misdeeds she’d done to control the situation, including more details about how she wanted Mike to be in the Alice-Stephanie relationship situation. Her friends would be set for life.

Paul had remained mute the entire time, sitting in one of my tall kitchen counter chairs looking at the scene in the living room. He often shook his head in disbelief as Leslie confessed some vile deed or started some untrue rumor to hurt or discredit one of us. She went back in history to when Paul and Jess had been serious, and then later, after that success, to break Paul and Liz apart.

The pile of Kleenex on the coffee table got deeper and broader as the evening went on. Leslie finally seemed cried out, and just sat there staring at the floor.

Sheila brought me a blanket, and I knew instantly what her thinking was. We’d destroyed the enemy. The dragon had been slain. It was time for amends.

I rolled Leslie onto her side with her head in my lap. I lay back and closed my eyes. Sheila covered Leslie with the blanket, and soon I had my large shawl wrapped around me by Sheila. She kissed, hesitated and then kissed Leslie’s cheek before she went upstairs.

Paul and Mike faded away, and I slept.

Leslie was devoid of emotion when we awoke in the morning. I’d eventually tucked her in, and slept on the other part of my sectional sofa. She was depressed, and I had to assess whether she was life threatening or not. I decided she was marginal.

I called Paul, and he came down and collected her. He took her off to a psychiatrist that he knew of, and had arranged an ad hoc appointment with. I talked to him later, and after she’d spent an hour with the shrink, he’d taken her home and left her.

He’d also talked to David, and gotten him to agree to at least go through some couple’s counseling with his wife before taking further action in a separation. He’d also talked to his parents, explaining the situation and chastising them for being party to some of the cabal that Leslie had created. They too agreed to join in the counseling with Leslie. Paul told them he would attend some of the sessions, but he didn’t think he was instrumental in any family cure since he’d been the target of their aggression and manipulation.

Monday night the four of us gathered up Leslie and took her out to dinner. She had remained morose over how she’d behaved, not just in a couple of incidents, but for the past ten years. She kept apologizing until we told her to stop, at least for our outing.

Sheila, Mike, Paul, and I were considerable happier, and tried to hold the high ground in talking with her. We didn’t blame or castigate her. We accepted what Leslie said, but went on with our own conversations about other things – Sheila’s students taking up a good part of the conversation as she told us humorous stories of their antics.

Back at Dillon Run, we went to drop Leslie off, but she started to sob wildly again. She choked out, “Thank you all so much for tonight. I’m such a loser, but still you accepted and loved me. Again, I’m so sorry for all that I’ve done.”

Leslie trudged into her unit, and the rest of us went down to Paul’s townhouse for a nightcap and more chat. We sat around on the sectional and briefly talked about Leslie’s future. Paul contributed, and showed some compassion for his sister. As he said, “I forgive, but I won’t forget. For a while, I’ll need to be sure she’s stopped her attempts at sabotage.”

As I left, I hugged Paul. “You are a gem. If I had a brother, I’d want one just like you. I care about Leslie too, so involve me if you can. In any case, know that I love you ... with all my heart.” I pulled Paul’s face to mine and tenderly kissed him. He was smiling when we pulled apart, obviously happy with my words to him.

Sheila, Mike, and I walked back in the direction of our units, and as I broke off, they stood at the end of our driveway making out. I went inside.

I was straightening the living room and sorting mail when Sheila came in a couple of minutes later. She had a smile and special glow.

“What’s up?”

“Mike told me he loved me. He used the ‘L’ word about me several time.” She laid her coat over the back of a chair.

“Hasn’t he said that before?”

“Yes, but not in the same way. This was really special – deeper. It wasn’t the casual type of love that we use when we say something like ‘we love sex’ or ‘we love ice cream.’ It was more the kind of love you wrote in your romance novels, when the man and woman finally find each other and their hearts beat together and they’re of one mind, well that’s what just happened. Oh, God, I’m so in love I can’t stand it. I may spontaneously combust at any second.”

“What about Paul?”

“I love him too ... and you, but just not the same way or with the same intensity. I hope that’s all right with you. I’m not trying to...”

“Come here, baby,” I interrupted. Sheila came to me and I hugged her to me, and then I kissed her, and then I told her I loved her too, and we went and made love – just the two of us in my big bed.

I realized especially that night how special our sapphic love was. Women love in a different way than men. Our feelings are deeper and more long lasting. We are more sensitive to the nuances of behavior, touches, kisses, and words than men, and in that sensitivity, our love for each other is more profound. We commit and surrender in different ways than men too. We understand romance and the role sex has in it, instead of the other way around.

Thus, when Sheila and I made love, it was exceptionally special for both of us. We became a timeless linkage of two feminine energy forces. I told Sheila I loved her too.

In the morning, I told Sheila if she wanted to move in with Mike that was OK with me. She nodded her understanding, but had tears in her eyes about our eventual separation.

Paul and I were spending more time together, and so were Mike and Sheila. Both men were changing their work patterns to be with us more, and I found myself wanting to spend every waking moment with either of them.

Paul had completed the promotion process for Jess to COO of King Enterprises. More than once, he commented to me that she was in a late meeting or flying off to Asia to attend to some project or keep things on track in some deal. Initially, it made him squeamish not to be in control of the situation, but as Jess developed a steady record of success in everything she did, Paul relaxed more and trusted her actions.

Jess, for her part, remained sensitive to Paul’s desire to know everything she was doing, so she kept a steady stream of emails or texts to him that kept him plugged in. She told me that about six months into the new job she planned to wean him at least a little on his micromanagement tendencies.

Mike had hired four other people for his small venture capital company, finally listening to our advice that he was killing himself with over work. Instead of personally attending to all the research he used to do, he had the MBAs leaping around their computers, the country, and overseas. He was on the phone more, even in the evenings, but Sheila told us it was far better than having him a thousand or more miles away, coming home as a weary road warrior too tired to do anything except sleep.

The four of us got together often, and not always for sex. Inevitably, our foursome would start on a Friday evening, and wouldn’t end until Monday morning. On the one weekend a month I had to work at the 9-1-1 center, Sheila tried to pick up the slack in my absence. She loved getting serviced by two men at the same time. One week I had to fill in at the center for a colleague on the four p.m. to midnight shift plus my regular shift; Sheila could barely walk by the end of the week she’d been fucked so thoroughly by Paul and Mike.

The following month when I had a week of night shift work, I arranged for Jess to come by after work and help occupy Paul and Mike, so Sheila didn’t have to do double duty. Jess loved the interaction with the men, but so stimulated them that they had more sex than our usual two rounds. Thus, Sheila had just as much, and maybe more sex because Jess loved to have sex and also eat out Sheila.

Further, when I did get home from work about one a.m., the four of them were often so worked up that they jumped me. I had thought that I just wanted to curl up in bed and go to sleep, but they quickly dispelled me of that notion. By two a.m. most of those nights, I was panting after my tenth orgasm, and then they’d let me go to sleep. Paul would cuddle me all night and I usually purred.

Paul and I were just finishing our weekend morning exercise run one warm morning, when we had a most interesting discussion. He started it with the following question, “Have you ever felt you wanted to be with another guy other than Mike and me?”

I wasn’t sure whether there was a ‘safe’ answer to that question. If I said ‘no’ I might be shutting off an interesting option, and if I said ‘yes’ I might be pissing off my steady boyfriend.

“Why are you asking me that question?” I safely posed.

“Well, Mike and I are about to set up a joint venture in China. He’d provide the ‘going in’ research and a pot load of money, and I’d provide some of the engineering know how, and help set up the plant. We’d both handle some of the initial hiring, too, and be the marketing end of things back here in the states. We’d both be away for a month or more, probably in the August-September timeframe. We were worried about your sex life, and ... well, I thought I might introduce you to some nice guys that could watch after you.”

I laughed, “Are you pimping me out?”

He chuckled, “No, more the other way around. I’m pimping out Brad and Rob, only they don’t know it ... and if you’re not interested, I gave you an option about your sexual satisfaction.” He had that ‘I told you so’ tone of voice.