A Well-Lived Life 2 - Book 1 - Bethany
Chapter 3: The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat

Copyright © 2015-2023 Penguintopia Productions

Coming of Age Sex Story: Chapter 3: The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat - Steve may not have been closer to anyone, other than his sister, than Bethany. Her surprise decision to move to Chicago to complete her Master's degree and be closer to Steve cemented their relationship. The Vegas odds were on her becoming the future Mrs. Adams. But what if she also had ulterior motives behind leaving Madison, and her own agenda as well? What she held back from him is exactly what caused their plans to implode in dramatic fashion. Now, it’s time for them to pick up the pieces.

Caution: This Coming of Age Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa   Fa/Fa   Mult   Romantic   Workplace   Polygamy/Polyamory   First   Slow  

January 19, 1986, Chicago, Illinois

This chapter is dedicated to Francis R. "Dick" Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Ellison S. Onizuka, Judith A. Resnik, Ronald E. McNair, Gregory B. Jarvis, and S. Christa McAuliffe.

Jessica, Kara, and I had spent a wonderful weekend together, talking, cuddling, and making love. When they did homework, I was either programming or playing one of my video games. We hadn't come any closer to finding a solution to our mutual problem of missing each other during the week, and Kara raised an issue that was potentially even more troublesome.

"Jess," Kara said as we lay in bed late Sunday morning. "I feel like I have an unfair advantage. I'm with our husband all the time and you aren't."

"That was supposed to be a good thing — you take care of Steve while I was up to my eyeballs in my education and training."

"I'm worried that the relationship won't develop properly," Kara said. "I already started out with an advantage because I've been with Steve for five years. And now I'm more or less monopolizing him during the week. Maybe that's part of the problem he's sensing."

Jessica sighed, "You know, this is turning out to be just as difficult as I was afraid it would be. All the stuff I worried about is happening. In a sense, that's OK because it means I went into this with open eyes. But it's still a problem because we don't know how to solve any of this."

"Wouldn't it be grand if love just made all the problems of the world go away?" I quipped.

"It doesn't, Snuggle Bear. If anyone on the planet knows that, it's you. Jess, are you thinking that we made a mistake?"

"No!" she declared emphatically. "The timing was just wrong. We did the right thing, and we have some adversity to work through before things fall into place. We're all smart enough and stubborn enough to make this work. I'm not giving up, and neither of you will either."

"True," I said. "And there is a light at the end of the tunnel, it's just seems like it's so far away."

"Will you do something for me?" Jessica asked.

"Anything," I said.

She laughed, "You might regret saying that some day! But this is easy — I want you to fix your relationship with Bethany. Really fix it. Well, with the obvious caveat that you can't marry her. I think you need to be able to talk to her the way you used to. Talking to Doctor Barton will be good for you, because it'll give you a man's perspective from a man who has struggled with relationships. But Bethany knows you inside out, backwards and forwards. Only Kara comes close at this point, I think."

"I'm not sure that's the right thing to do," I said.

"It is," Jessica said. "Do what you need to do to fix it. I mean that. You'll beat yourself up about it until you do."

"I'll work on it," I said. "But there are lines that can't be crossed."

"There always are, in every relationship. But, do whatever it takes. For your own good. For our good."

I nodded, understanding what she was saying, but there really was a bright red line I couldn't cross with Bethany. I wondered if Jessica was testing me, and if she was, there was no way in heck I was going to disappoint her. I'd done that to Kara, and I was not going to do that again. If Bethany and I were going to be intimate, it was going to be the kind of intimacy that Anala had taught me about, not sexual intimacy. That was the line I couldn't cross for my sake, for Jessica's sake, and most importantly, for Bethany's sake.

Jessica stayed as late as she could, finally leaving about 5:30pm, after an early dinner. Kara and I walked her out to her car, and after hugs and kisses all around, Jessica drove off. She'd be back Friday, which seemed so close and yet so far. When she turned the corner, Kara and I walked back up the steps to the porch. Kara stopped me.

"Are you going to do what she said?"

"With Bethany? Absolutely. But there are limits, as I said."

"Jess gave you permission to sleep with Bethany."

"No, I don't think that she did," I said. "It's a test. And even if she did give permission, which I do not think she did, I think that in the long run it would be bad for Bethany. Look, I got Jess to agree to dalliances because I thought I would want them. I'm not so sure at this point. Maybe. But Bethany could never, ever be a dalliance. That would hurt her, it would hurt Jess, and it would hurt me."

"You really have changed," Kara said, pulling me into a tight embrace.

"Maybe I have. Don't get me wrong, I'm not ruling it out forever, but right now? I have no interest."

"Not even if Lyudmila appeared at your door asking for you to make her a woman?" Kara giggled.

"If her mom were in the Soviet Union, I might consider it. Otherwise, despite my joke with Jess, I don't feel like dying or having a 9mm castration!"

"If Tanya's dad didn't have you shot for sleeping with his daughter, I think the KGB would leave you alone."

"Lyudmila will find someone in California. And all I can say is 'look out'!" I chuckled.

"That was an interesting list of girls, though none of them really surprised me, except maybe Aimee. I know you two hit it off, but wasn't that just a fling?"

"Sure, but it was a fling that could have gone somewhere if I was of a different mindset. Anna was kind of the same, though Aimee was a better fit, if you will."

"You fit just fine!" Kara teased, and we went into the house.

January 20, 1986, Chicago, Illinois

"I declare the first of our monthly lunches in session!" Doctor Barton laughed after we'd ordered our food.

We were sitting at Medici, and his pager was sitting on the table. It had already gone off once, but it was something he could ignore until our lunch was over. If he got a page with six 9's, he'd immediately hurry the few blocks to the hospital for whatever trauma awaited him.

"How are things with the new job?" I asked.

"Just fine, though I'm not happy with the quality of Fourth Years who are doing elective surgical Sub-Internships. None of them are even close to Jessica. The Emergency Medicine program here isn't as good, either. I'm going to have to whip that into shape, but it's going to take time. My methods in Indianapolis were a bit unorthodox."

"How so?" I asked.

"First and Second Year students do not usually set foot in a hospital except on rare occasions. I think that's a foolish practice. I try to get them used to the pace and flow of the hospital, and expose them to as much as possible before they start their Third Year Clerkships. That's how you met Jessica. I had my First and Second Year students who were interested in surgery observing Bethany's surgery. Sort of a pre-Clerkship. I can usually tell who the ones are who should go into surgery. I discourage the others by pushing them to electives that better suit their skills. Jessica would make a terrible GP, don't you think?"

"Just as you would have," I said. "I'd actually like to talk to you and get some advice, if you have any."

"I always have advice," Doctor Barton said with a smile. "The question is whether or not it's any good! What's your concern?"

"The distance between me and Jess. I don't mean emotional — I'm talking purely about the 175 miles from Hyde Park to Indianapolis. You and Belinda spend a lot of time apart. How do you manage missing her?"

He nodded, "I'm afraid it's reversed from yours. It's Belinda that misses being with me, not the other way around. Maybe I'm just a cold-hearted bastard, or maybe I spend too much time working and thinking about work, but I'm happy to just see her on the weekends and vacations. That's what I needed. I think you need something entirely different."

"I tried to be a cold-hearted bastard once, but I didn't like it, so I stopped doing it."

Doctor Barton chuckled, "You either are one, or you aren't." He turned serious, "It's not something you wake up one day and decide to do or don't do. And I'd suggest not trying to be one. That's not what Jessica needs, and I daresay it's not what your other wife needs, either. You can be logical and calculating without being a cold-hearted bastard. In my case, it's partly a self-defense mechanism. When you are surrounded by death, you have to become at least somewhat indifferent to it or it'll drive you to depression. That's the number one cause for doctors having high rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, divorce, and suicide."

"I can see the value of being cool as ice in trauma surgery. If you got rattled, bad things would happen."

"Exactly," Doctor Barton said. "Jessica has the mental and emotional strength to do it. And that's going to strain your relationship in years to come. She's going to seem indifferent to things that you think should matter because she'll have learned to simply turn off her emotions in many circumstances. You may find your situation as parents to be a role-reversal, where you provide the emotional support and she provides the firm hand."

"So what do I do about the fact that I miss her?"

"Maybe take a step back and look at what you're doing when you're apart. Do you obsess about her? Do you think about her when you should be focused on other things? Let me ask you this question — do you call her every single night?"

"Of course."

"And you spend a lot of time thinking about her."

"Yes, obviously."

"Find a way to occupy yourself and take your mind off of her. I'm not suggesting that you forget her by any stretch of the imagination, but obsessing over the fact that you miss her is probably making it worse. What do you do in your spare time?"

"Read, play computer games, and practice karate. Occasionally, I go to movies, races, and hockey games."

"Karate is a good way to take your mind off everything else. How often do you go?"

"Three times a week — Monday and Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings."

"Why don't you go each evening? That would give you one less hour to obsess! Not to mention a way to work out your frustrations!"

I grinned, "Sensei Jim will love you for suggesting that. I'm working on my black belt."

"Then start with that; and find other things that take your mind off of obsessing over the distance."

"Thanks," I said. "It's worth trying."

He smiled and nodded. We managed to eat without his pager going off again and when we finished, he paid the check and we shook hands. We agreed that we'd make the third Monday of each month our day for lunch, and I headed back to the house to get back to work.

January 21, 1986, Chicago, Illinois

The NIKA Board meeting went quite well, and all the proposals Julia made were approved. That meant that Cindi and Mario were now on a commission structure and would receive their small retroactive bonuses. Hiring approval was granted contingent on a signed contract with Waukesha County, as was a plan to start paying profit sharing to Joyce and my dad. Overall, the Board expressed their complete satisfaction with our progress.

The longest discussion came when Cindi raised the question of focusing on the PC market instead of what appeared to be the more lucrative Prime market. In the end, it was Doctor Lambert who brought the conversation to a conclusion, with his belief that companies like Prime and Digital Equipment Corporation were flying high but would soon crash because of the PC, Novell, and high-performance computer workstations like those from Sun Microsystems.

I remembered Jennifer talking about a guy at Stanford, Andy somebody-or-other who had started the company with two other graduate students. I had been intrigued because the workstations ran Unix, and had pretty advanced graphics. IIT had acquired one just before I graduated.

Beth Pater pointed out that we should consider Unix support at some point, because it seemed to be the up-and-coming thing for multi-user systems, pushing aside things like PRIMOS and VMS. She pointed to a company in New Haven, Connecticut, named Multiflow, which was building ultra-fast Unix computers. The University was supposed to receive one of the first ones commercially available, in about a year.

That evening, after karate, I asked Bethany to talk. We went to the Indian room with hot chocolate and sat in two of the basket chairs.

"What's up?" she asked.

"Jess thinks that we need to fix our relationship so that I can come to you for advice the way I used to."

"Jess actually said that?" Bethany asked, sounding surprised.

I smiled, "She said I should, and I quote, 'do whatever it takes' to fix the relationship."

Bethany laughed, "She's taking a big risk there!"

"Is she? Do you really think I'd cross that line?"

"What line? If she gave you permission..."

"Or enough rope to hang myself," I said.

Bethany nodded, "She's worried about me."

"No, she's worried about me. If she can trust me with you, she can trust me with anyone. And she can, because there is no way that I'd ever hurt you."

"And making love would hurt me?"

"I think that it would. It would imply so many things that can't ever happen and can't ever be. It would set things back years for both of us. And it would wreck everything. We can't marry. We can't be a couple. And that means we damned well can't make love, no matter how much we might want it. But that doesn't mean we can't become intimate, maybe not quite as close as before because of my wives, but close nonetheless."

"And you think that's safe?"

"I do. I can keep on the correct side of the line. Can you?"

Bethany was quiet for a moment, and it seemed like an eternity. If her answer was 'no', then there wasn't much I could do to get close to her again.

"I think so," she said.

"Bethany, if you're afraid that you'll fall back in love with me, then we can't do this."

"Who says I'm not in love with you right now?" she asked.

"Nobody. I think you know what I was getting at. Can you handle an intimate relationship that can never, ever lead to us being a couple?"

"I'm not sure," she said.

And that was the rub. If she couldn't handle it, we couldn't do it. And if we couldn't do it, then perhaps I'd talk to Sofia, because she'd suggested such a relationship. And I felt that she could handle it.

"I guess we're on different pages at this point," I observed. "But I'm glad you're being honest about it. The last thing I want to do is hurt you."

"Why did Jessica tell you to fix things with me?"

"She has an idea of the man she wants me to be and there are a few tweaks she wants to make. I'm guessing she thinks that being friends with you will help."

"What tweaks?"

"She's not saying!" I chuckled. "But it's not like she's controlling. One thing she wanted to do was rein in my dalliances, but it turns out, I'm doing that on my own. Even what I negotiated with Jess before we got engaged is libertine compared to how I feel at the moment."

"Hmm," Bethany considered. "Is that your problem? That you aren't comfortable with the situation?"

"It's not the situation; it's that I don't have the desire."

"Is this similar to when Elyse had to fuck you back to normal, the way you did me?" Bethany asked with a smile.

"I don't think that would work," I said. "Part of the problem is thinking about Jess all the time. Doctor Barton felt I was obsessing and needed to get my mind off of it. He suggested karate."

Bethany nodded, "That could help. I suggest Leila as an antidote. You really enjoyed her, and there's no risk of any permanent relationship."

"I just don't see it that way," I sighed.

"That's my advice, as far as it goes, I guess. The question you asked before, let me think some more, OK?"

"Yes, of course."

"Thanks."

We hugged, and she went to her room and I went to mine. My estimation at this point was that Bethany and I couldn't put things back to even a semblance of how they were before, and that I had probably lost my best friend. Not as a friend, but as THE friend. I didn't like her proposed solution to my problem, either. Leila was fun, but sex with anyone other than Kara and Jessica just didn't interest me. Elyse was a special case that I could handle, but it was no longer the same.

Super Bowl Sunday, January 26, 1986, Chicago, Illinois

"I'm amazed that the Patriots made it to the Super Bowl," Jessica said, as we cuddled on the couch, waiting for the kickoff. "They had to win three road games, and that's a tough way to make it. I think they have a good shot today."

"I agree completely!" Kenneth said.

"Of course you do," Jamie said. "You're from Boston, for God's sake! The Patriots haven't got a prayer!"

Five minutes later, to a collective groan from most of the people in the room, but to the delight of Kenneth and Katy, Walter Payton fumbled the ball on the second play of the game. That allowed the Patriots to kick a field goal, with the fastest score in the history of the Super Bowl.

"You were saying, Jamie?" Kenneth laughed.

"One fumble; just wait!" Jamie retorted.

On the ensuing series, the Bears drove down the field and tied the game at 3-3. After each team ended a series with a punt, Richard Dent and Wilbur Marshall sacked Patriots quarterback Tony Eason.

"That's more like it!" Pete said.

When the Bears could only muster another field goal, Katy wondered aloud where the vaunted Bears were. On the next series, Richard Dent forced Craig James to fumble and Mike Singletary recovered the ball. The Bears quickly drove the ball into the end zone and it was 13-3. On the next possession, the Bears marched down the field again and it was 20-3.

"You were saying, Katy?" Jamie asked.

"Shit," was her reply.

The Bears added another field goal just before halftime to make it 23-3. Everyone got up to get some food as the halftime show with 'Up with People' started. Nobody particularly cared about it, so we turned down the volume on the TV and talked while we waited for the second half to start.

"Well, Katy," Kurt teased. "Minus 19 yards total offense and one first down against 236 yards for the Bears. That looks like not having a prayer, I'd say!"

"Yeah, yeah, rub it in. But the game's not over yet. Grogan is better than Eason, in my opinion. And he's smart. He can beat the 46 defense."

That led to uproarious laughter.

"Only Dan Marino managed that so far," Pete declared. "And Grogan is no Dan Marino!"

The second half started with the Patriots having to punt after Grogan was sacked twice and McMahon drove the Bears 96 yards down the field to make it 30-3. On the next drive, Reggie Phillips intercepted a pass from Grogan and returned it for a touchdown, making it 37-3. On the following drive, after another Patriot fumble, we all hooted as William 'The Refrigerator' Perry scored a touchdown. The Patriots managed a touchdown and the Bears another field goal, and the final ended up 46-10.

"A complete rout!" Jamie exclaimed as the final gun sounded.

"Well, that sucked," Katy said, frowning.

"Maybe your Celtics will do better," I said. "But forget the Red Sox. They're cursed like the Cubs."

"No shit," Kenneth said. "Selling Babe Ruth's contract is a bigger curse than that stupid goat at Wrigley Field!"

Jessica had stayed late because of the game, so we basically rushed out to the car to see her off. She was going to have to go short on sleep, but she'd insisted on staying for the game. Kara and I gave her deep kisses and hugs, and she went on her way.

January 28, 1986, Chicago, Illinois

"Steve!" Kara shrieked from the great room at about 10:40am.

I got up from my desk and ran to see what was wrong. I found Kara in tears, pointing at the TV screen. It took me a couple of seconds to fathom what I was seeing. Kara had been watching the launch of the space shuttle Challenger with school teacher Christa McAuliffe on board. What I saw on the screen bewildered me — a large cloud of smoke and what appeared to be SRBs flying independently.

"What happened?" I asked.

Before she could respond, I heard a voice that I assumed was CAPCOM say, "Flight controllers here are looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously, a major malfunction. We have no downlink."

"Oh fuck," I breathed. "The goddamned shuttle just blew up!"

I pulled Kara into my arms and we hugged as tears streamed down both our faces. We were quickly joined by everyone else who was in the house — Tom, Julia, Dave, Sofia, and George. We all stood dumbfounded, staring at the TV. A short time later, the same voice, again I assumed it was CAPCOM, confirmed what I'd guessed.

"We have a report from the Flight Dynamics Officer that the vehicle has exploded. The Flight Director confirms that. We are looking at checking with the recovery forces to see what can be done at this point."

"Oh, shit," Dave said.

"Yeah," I agreed.

Thirty seconds later, CAPCOM confirmed the report.

"We will report more as we have information available. Again, to repeat, we have a report relayed through the Flight Dynamics Officer that the vehicle has exploded. We are now looking at all the contingency operations and awaiting word from any recovery forces in the downrange field."

"Fucking hell," Tom said. "What do they do now?"

"They're dead, Tom," I said firmly, and with resignation. "There's no way they survived that."

The TV began replaying the launch, and we watched as they tried to analyze what had happened. I knew enough about the program that the last communication suggested a cause — some sort of catastrophic failure of either the engines or the external fuel tank. Commander Dick Scobee had said, "Roger. Go at throttle up."

"I wonder if they had an Apollo 13 situation." I said. "Some sort of failure in the main fuel tank? Basically, the pilot had just said he was going to increase power after they passed through 'Max-Q'."

"'Max-Q'?" Kara asked, still sobbing softly.

"Maximum dynamic pressure — it's when the combination of aerodynamic forces on the Shuttle is greatest. But given they had passed that, and the shuttle appeared to be intact, it doesn't seem like structural failure. And you could see the solid rocket boosters fly away free until they were destroyed by the Range Safety Officer, so it probably wasn't them. Hopefully, they can find enough pieces of the Challenger to figure out what happened."

"You think they're all dead?" Julia said.

"I don't see how they could be alive," I said. "There's no escape system. They had ejection seats on the test flight that Crippen and Young flew in Challenger back in 1981, but those are gone. This is worse than Grissom, Chaffee, and White. That was a ground test, this was a mission. It's the first time we've lost astronauts during a mission. The Russians have, but we haven't. And having the school teacher, McAuliffe, on board only makes it worse."

That was pretty much the end of the work day. We all called it quits because we didn't feel like working. Eventually I tired of the endless replays of the explosion and got my pipe and went to the back yard to smoke. I puffed my pipe and thought about the accident and how it was going to set back the already suffering space program. Too many people saw the program as wasteful, and others saw it as too dangerous, and I feared that this would serve as fuel for further cutbacks or even elimination of manned space flight.

President Reagan was supposed to give his State of the Union address, but he postponed it for a week and simply addressed the nation about the tragedy that had unfolded that morning. I was sure that I would never ever forget the quote at the end of the speech.

"We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth' to 'touch the face of God.'"

I was in tears again, as were all of my housemates, including the ones who had learned of the accident at school or work. Jennifer had said that Nuvatec basically shut down for the day as everyone gathered around television sets. Josie said that they had spent most of the day in the break room in Evanston, and Sofia had skipped class to stay in the Student Union to watch the coverage.

January 31, 1986, Chicago, Illinois

It was three days since the explosion of the shuttle, and there were a number of theories floating around as to what had caused it. There was a film from a tracking camera that showed flames leaking from one of the SRBs that had probably burned through the external fuel tank. I was surprised, given that the SRBs had been intact following the explosion, but the film evidence seemed undeniable. It was a question now of determining what went wrong, if that were possible.

I sat with most of my housemates, who skipped class, and watched the memorial service conducted at the Johnson Space Center in Texas. President Reagan gave a speech and summed up the accident and encouraged continued space exploration:

"Sometimes, when we reach for the stars, we fall short. But we must pick ourselves up again and press on despite the pain."

The speech seemed well received by the 10,000 people in attendance, and everyone in my house was in tears as the Air Force band played, and the people sang God Bless America while astronauts in T-38 jets flew a 'missing man' formation over the ceremony. When the ceremony concluded, everyone filtered out of the room. Kara and I gathered our things, and after saying goodbye to everyone, headed for Indianapolis to spend the weekend with Jessica.

"How are you doing?" Kara asked as we pulled out of the driveway.

"Shitty. This is just one of those moments everyone is going to remember. When I talked to my dad on Tuesday night, he said it was going to be like the Kennedy assassination. We'll always remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when we heard the news — or saw it, like you did. The funny thing is, I do know exactly where I was when we heard the news that Kennedy had been shot."

"But that was 1963! You were what, six months old?" Kara objected.

"Seven; to the day. November 22, 1963. I was in my dad's arms, and he was standing on the driveway by our 1958 Cadillac. He was waiting for my mom so we could take our cat, Fluffy, to the vet. We never made it to the vet that day. Dad heard the report on the car radio and we went back inside. He told me all of this years ago."

"I sure won't forget sitting there in the great room and seeing it live on TV," Kara said.

"And I won't forget hearing you call my name in utter despair and then running to you to see what had happened. And the words 'major malfunction' will always have a horrible meaning for me."

"I heard jokes that were in such poor taste. I can't believe people would say such horrible things."

"I asked Bethany about it," I said. "It's a natural response to tragedy. Remember Reagan joking about hoping that the doctors were all Republicans?"

Kara sighed, "Maybe. But that doesn't make it any less horrible."

"No, I guess it doesn't," I agreed.

January 31, 1986, Indianapolis, Indiana

"Have you and Bethany reconciled?" Jessica asked while the three of us were cuddling in bed.

"No, because she can't handle being that close to me," I said. "It really sucks."

"But I told you to do whatever it took," Jessica said.

"This isn't something I can fix, Babe. Only Bethany can. I have limits, but those limits aren't the problem here. The problem is that Bethany can't be that close to me without feeling like she'd want to be a couple. And that is a line that simply can't be crossed."

"A couple? Like a married couple?" Jessica asked.

"Yes, this isn't about fucking! This is about true intimacy, and Bethany has said she can't do that because of how she feels about me, or felt about me, or whatever it is."

"Relax, Tiger," Jessica said. "I wasn't trying to trap you or trick you or test you. I really do want you and Bethany to be friends. She needs you. But I guess she can't deal with what happened."

"My dad told me to help her, too. But you know what? There's only so much I can do. I can't fix what's wrong with her. At some point, she's going to move out, and I think that's probably for the best at this point. It has to be a clean break. I don't think anything else will work."

"Are you sure, Snuggle Bear?" Kara asked. "She's been your best friend since even before I met you."

"I don't see any alternative. Once she decided to refuse my proposal, it started a chain of events that can't be undone and leads to us being apart. Probably permanently. Oh, we'll exchange Christmas cards or whatever, and be pleasant when we run into each other, but the relationship is sundered. And it can't be fixed."

"I'm sorry," Jessica said. "I know how much you love her."

"Me too," Kara said. "It's so sad."

"She and I made mistakes, and we're paying the price for it. It sucks, but I don't know what I can do about it at this point."

"You can love us and we can love you," Kara said.

"I love you both so much," I said.

"Show us," Jessica whispered.

I did.

Chapter 4 »

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