Chapter 35: An Interview and Some New Friends

October 1982, Chicago, Illinois

The drive back to Chicago was as uneventful as usual, and I arrived at the apartment just before 6:00pm. When I arrived, Elyse and Stephie were sitting on the couch and Jackie was sitting on the loveseat. Stephie hopped up as I opened the door and greeted me with a hug and a kiss.

“Hi, Peaches!” I said.

“Glad you’re home, Yankee!”

“Hi, Steve,” Elyse and Jackie both said.

“Hey,” I replied. “How was the weekend?”

“Well, it was just Kurt with me, Stephie, Jackie, and Kathy,” Elyse said with a smirk. “We decided to give him the ultimate guy fantasy! I don’t think he’s recovered yet!”

I chuckled, “Oh, if only, because I’d ask for the same thing!”

“Of course you would!” Stephie smirked.

“I’m game!” Jackie said with an inviting smile.

“You’re just jealous ‘cause you’re the only one of us who ain’t had the Yankee!” Stephie said.

Jackie didn’t say anything, but I saw a twinkle in her eye. I didn’t think the other girls noticed it, and I was happy to leave it that way. It wasn’t that I felt a need to hide it; I just didn’t feel a need to advertise it. I took my bag to my room, called Kara to let her know I’d arrived safely, and then came back to find out if the girls wanted dinner.

“Did you guys eat?” I asked.

“No. We hoped you would be back in time to make dinner for us!” Elyse said.

“Of course you did! I’ve said it before — you all just want me for my superior cooking abilities!”

“Well, and sex, of course!” Stephie teased. “That’s what we said last time!”

“I think I’ll start charging for cooking dinner,” I grinned.

“What did you have in mind?” Elyse smirked.

“On second thought, forget it,” I chuckled. “You all would pay up instantly, no matter what I wanted! And it’s not like I can’t get that, anyway!”

All three of the girls laughed, and fortunately, I didn’t have to duck any throw pillows tossed my way.

I checked my supplies and decided to make spaghetti and meatballs. Once I had everything cooking, I sat down to read some chapters in my books and to do the small amount of homework questions that had been assigned, getting up occasionally to stir the sauce. About 7:00pm I put the pasta in the boiling water and twenty minutes later, the four of us sat down to dinner. After dinner, Elyse and Stephie did the dishes while I went back to the living room to finish my homework.

About 9:00pm Jackie said she was going to head back to campus, and I walked her out to her car.

“I would, you know?” she said.

“I do. And as much fun as it would be, my life’s too complicated at this point to even consider it.”

“If you change your mind...” she said, taking a quick peck on the cheek and got into her car.

I watched her drive away, then I walked back inside and relaxed with Elyse and Stephie until bedtime. Stephie and I made love, with Stephie once again opting for slow and soft. It struck me that she was trying to change the character of our relationship by the way she behaved in bed, as if making love rather than fucking would somehow win my heart. It was a problem of my own making, and one I just had to deal with. Stephie knew where things were leading and I felt that she was going to give it her best shot to change my mind without being blunt or direct about it.

I couldn’t really fault her, either. She’d told me what she wanted, and it made sense for her to do whatever she thought was the right thing each day to achieve her goal. Given that was how I was living my life, it would be hypocritical for me to object to Stephie doing the same thing. I felt kind of bad because I didn’t think she had any chance of success, but she certainly had come into the relationship with her eyes wide open.

That got me to thinking about what I’d do if Kara wasn’t in the picture. I immediately pushed that thought out of my mind because I didn’t want to contemplate it, but it kept coming back. Would Stephie be someone I could be with long term? Or was she just a convenient lover? And where did she fall compared to Tatyana, Karin, or even Jennifer?

Jennifer? Her name had suddenly popped into my mind, unbidden. Would I consider, ever, taking Jennifer back? I surprised myself by thinking and realizing that the answer was ‘yes’, in the right circumstances, but I just didn’t see those happening.

I fought hard to push all of that out of my mind. I was sure that the entire line of thinking was caused by the problems that I’d had in the past with Jennifer, and I saw nothing even remotely like that occurring with Kara. In fact, Kara and I worked hard to be sure we didn’t do anything like that. Yes, there had been some bumps in the road, but Kara had never sought to deceive me. I finally managed to clear my mind and fell asleep, listening to Stephie’s soft breathing.

Monday kicked off another week of school, and everything went according to routine, including the Tuesday digital electronics work session with Dave and Julia, and the tutoring with Jared, who said he’d told a couple of other ROTC guys about the help I was giving him and who were interested in making it into a study group. I let him know I’d be happy to do that and that I’d make the rate $5.00 per hour each, so long as there were at least three people in total.

I also had some time during the week to read the Bhagavad Gita, which wasn’t all that long, along with the commentary in the book. I liked the themes of ‘doing right’ because that lined up with my own thinking. The concepts of duty and honor, as well as the concept that salvation could be attained through any aspect of life. And the various practices, or ‘yoga’, to achieve salvation. It was a very different take than what I’d been taught as a Roman Catholic.

Because the Gita was short, I had some time to start on The Art of War, which I found quite enjoyable. There were many sayings that could be applied to all aspects of life, not just to war, and I memorized quite a few. It wasn’t so much a philosophy of life, but a book with a lot of advice. The commentary included quite a few references to Chinese philosophy — mostly Taoism and Confucianism. There were also some references to Buddhism, another religion about which I knew very little. All the reading reinforced my desire to take the world religion classes.

On Friday night, Elyse let me know that she was going to invite someone to join us on Sunday — a guy named Eduardo who was in one of her economics classes. She said he was from Seville, Spain, and thought he’d fit in with the group.

On Saturday, Katy arrived for the interview mid-afternoon as we’d planned, and we went to my room. She sat at my desk and I relaxed on the throw pillows in the bay window. She set out a notebook and pulled a portable tape recorder from her bag.

“You don’t mind if I tape record this session? That way, if there’s any question, I can verify it from the tape.”

“Sure, why not?” I said.

She pressed ‘play’ and ‘record’ on the cassette recorder and picked up her pencil. She had me identify myself and asked some demographic questions, then paused the tape recorder.

“Before I start the formal interview, I do have to ask, is everything you wrote on that form true? You’ve really had 55 sex partners? No lie?”

“No lie. Everything I wrote is true.”

“Damn. This is going to be an interesting paper!” she grinned, pressing the ‘record’ button again.

She asked many of the same questions that had been on the form she’d given me, but also asked me to expand on some of my answers. She was particularly interested in how I had been able to be with so many girls.

“So, just to be sure I have this right, two of your lovers basically spread the word about you and encouraged both you and the girls to engage in casual sexual relationships, many of which resulted in these girls losing their virginity.”

“That’s right. And once the reputation was out there, some girls sought me out on their own.”

“But then, you went to Sweden, a place known for free love, and you actually had very few partners, by comparison.”

“Also true,” I agreed.

We went on for nearly an hour until she raised the issue of my relationship with my parents. She was clearly searching for a reason why I’d gone down this path in life. We talked about my parents; how they met; their relationship as I understood it; my relationship with them, as well as with my sister and brother. I left out the entire situation with my sister because there was no way I wanted that recorded in someone’s research study, even anonymously.

The final part of the interview was about my current situation, exploring how I felt about my current lovers and what I wanted from the future. When we finished, she closed the notebook and turned off the cassette recorder, having worked her way through both sides of three hour-long tapes.

“Off the record, I’m amazed, and a bit frightened. If I hang around you, does this kind of thing always happen, or do you have female friends you don’t have sex with?”

“I do have female friends I don’t have sex with, though many of them are former lovers.”

“You mentioned before that you’re friends with every single former lover, except one. I know we talked about that, but I still find that hard to believe.”

“It’s true. The ones I hurt badly I’ve apologized to and we’ve reconciled. And that includes a couple of girls to whom I did a lot of emotional damage. Trust me; every answer I gave you is the truth. If you want to talk to someone who can verify pretty much everything, talk to Kathy, the redhead in the living room. She’s a long-time friend and former lover, and the friend who keeps us from getting too out of control. She can pretty much verify everything. If she can’t, then I can put you in touch with other girls. They’ll be OK with it, especially the ones I told you about — the bisexual one and the one who was raped.”

“Do you mind if I hang out with you guys after dinner? I’m really curious to see you interact with your friends.”

“Sure. Stay as long as you like!”

We went back out to the living room to rejoin my friends.

“Three hours? You sure all you were doin’ in there is talkin’?” Stephie teased.

“You know darn well that three hours isn’t enough for a first time with Steve,” Elyse teased.

“Dial it back!” Kathy directed, be she was laughing.

“As I said, Kathy is the one who tries mightily to keep us under control,” I said to Katy. “Now I need to start dinner.”

As I started towards the kitchen, I turned to Kathy, “Kathy, I think Katy wants to speak to you about me. I said her you’d confirm the stuff I told her and you’re free to answer anything about me.”

“I should have hidden a microphone in our room!” Stephie smirked.

“Wait for the book to be published!” Katy declared mirthfully. “I think I have enough material for that, rather than a research paper!”

Katy and Kathy went to my room while I prepared dinner. They came back out to the living room after about thirty-five minutes. Kathy smirked as she went to sit with Kurt and Katy came to the kitchen to talk to me.

“She pretty much confirmed everything,” Katy said.

“I told you I was telling the truth!” I grinned.

“You know Katy, you’re his type,” Elyse said, coming to the kitchen.

“Elyse...” I warned.

Elyse ignored me and said, “Yep. brown hair with a hint of red, light freckles, about 5’8”, nice hips, small boobs, a cute face, and an athletic build!”

“I don’t EVEN want to contemplate that!” Katy declared. “I’m a one-guy woman who wants a one-woman guy. I’m no prude, but your friend here is a one-man wrecking crew!”

“That’s been said before,” I grinned. “And I’d be happy to have you as a friend. And I mean platonic, no matter what my crazy roommate says.”

“Being your friend might be VERY interesting,” Katy said, her eyes twinkling.

I got dinner on the table and called everyone to eat. When we finished, Kathy and Elyse did the dishes and then came to sit with the rest of us in the living room.

“Hey, Boston, I got something for you to try,” Stephie said, holding the jug I’d received from Emily.

Katy laughed, “Do I even have to ask? Moonshine, right?”

“See, you Yankees ain’t as dumb as people say,” Stephie said, pulling the cork and handing Katy the jug.

“Be really careful, Katy,” Kathy warned.

Katy smelled the jug and wrinkled her nose, then took a tiny sip and spit it out all over herself and the coffee table in front of her.

Stephie and Elyse burst out laughing, and I got up and got a towel for Katy and some paper towels to wipe off the coffee table.

“What the hell is that?” Katy gasped. “Turpentine?”

“My uncle’s special recipe!” Stephie grinned. “Hell, even Steve can handle it now. But the first time? He turned green! And Kurt over there looked like he was about to die.”

“Jackie took a swig with no trouble at all,” Elyse said.

“Well, keep that stuff away from me! I’ll stick to white wine and 7-up!”

“Talk about a girl’s drink!” I smirked. “How about some bourbon? Or vodka? Or maybe you’d prefer a sloe screw.”

Katy laughed, “I know what that is, so you won’t catch me out like some High School girl!”

I felt that Katy was going to fit right in with the group. She had the right sense of humor and could hold her own pretty well.

“Katy, we do this pretty much every weekend. You’re welcome to join us. Saturday is almost all studying during the afternoon, but after dinner and on Sundays it’s just hanging out and having a good time. We’ll rent a movie, have a picnic, that kind of thing. Kathy and Kurt usually spend the night.”

“You know, since Doug broke up with me, I really don’t have much to do on the weekends, so sure. I’d love to!”

“So, when is this research paper due?” I asked. “And will you let me read it?”

“It’s due at the end of the semester. I have three other subjects — one guy and two girls — who’ll be part of the paper. It’s an interesting project — trying to relate your family, friends, school, religion, and stuff like that to your attitudes towards sex and your sexual experience. I’ll need to talk to you some more, of course. I’ll let you know when. I still have to work up some questions and run everything by my professor.”