Chapter 19: Kindergarten Cop

October 15, 1991, Chicago, Illinois

“Is this going to be a regular Tuesday thing?” Crystal asked.

“I suppose I could make you my regular Tuesday thing, if you wanted!” I teased.

“What are you having today?”

“How about I have you?” I smirked.

“You never did explain your bullshit about it not being cheating if you asked me to sleep with you. Or about why you laughed so hard when you heard my name.”

“Let me buy you a drink and I’ll tell you,” I smirked.

“And just how are you going to do that? I’m only eighteen.”

“I could manage. But a cup of coffee would work, too.”

“You are quite the flirt. What can I get you for lunch?”

“I’ll have the Chef’s salad with the roasted chicken strips added on.”

“And dessert?”

“You look good enough to eat!” I smirked.

She rolled her eyes, “I meant pie.”

“The pie last week was a one-off thing. I try to avoid too much sugar. Just the salad and a bottle of sparkling water.”

She left the table and I opened The Economist to read while I waited for my lunch. I actually had come to the diner to flirt with Crystal. It was fun, though given her attitude, I didn’t expect it to go anywhere. And even if it could, I wasn’t sure I was in a position to actually make it happen, because things with Jessica were very dicey, and she had to take priority.

She’d been reading voraciously and had finished the first volume the previous night. I’d given her the second one before leaving for work in the morning. She’d questioned me, hard, about my cousin Vickie and I’d simply replied that she should keep reading. She’d also given me a bit of grief about being interested in Donna, Debbie V, and Debbie C when they were so young. I’d reminded her that at the time, I was fourteen, so it was only a two-year age difference.

The first volume, though, was pretty uncontroversial when it came right down to it, but it laid the groundwork for everything that was to come. Yes, I’d been with a much older woman. Yes, Melanie had more or less pimped me out to the Parker girls. And yes, the Becky situation was a major element. And of course, there was the incident with Kellie Linden. But none of those things were really all that outrageous.

In the second volume, which she had started reading just as I left for the office, things were going to get ugly. Sixteen new girls, including those aforementioned young girls who were then two years older, as well as Joyce, Bethany, Kathy, Vickie, and Elyse. And a lot of drama and angst. But the thing was, that wasn’t even close to how bad things would get as the story moved forward. I just hoped that at the end, Jessica would understand me well enough to stay.

But staying wasn’t enough, really. We needed to figure out how to get past our own personalities and have a true relationship. The problem was, I wasn’t sure we could do that. And that was a primary reason for not making any changes to my situation with Bethany. In a sense, I was safe until Thanksgiving, given that I wouldn’t see her until then, but she’d hinted on the phone that she wanted me.

I was still struggling with Jennifer’s question, and I was afraid of the conclusion to which I was coming - that I probably couldn’t make love to Jennifer without ruining things with Jessica and Kara. And if THAT was true, then I probably couldn’t make love to Bethany, either. And neither Jennifer nor Bethany were girls I could ‘just fuck’, any more than Fawn had been a girl I could ‘just fuck’.

It had been said, by several of the girls, that I could never ‘just fuck’ any girl, but I didn’t think that was true. At least not at this point in my life. Maybe in the past, but Kellie Linden came to mind as a girl I ‘just fucked’. More recently, Becka, Claire, Leslie, and April were girls that I had just had physical sex with, and kept the emotional ties to a minimum. Did I care about them? Sure, in the sense that I didn’t want to hurt them, and in the sense I wanted to make sure they got what they were looking for. But there was nothing deeper with any of them.

I was so lost in thought, that I didn’t see Crystal bring my food until she tapped my shoulder. I moved the magazine, from which I hadn’t read a single word, to the side and she set the plate down.

“The article was THAT interesting?” she asked.

I shook my head, “No. I was in one of my self-analysis trances. Sorry.”

“Self-analysis trance? What’s that?”

“When I get to thinking about my life, past, present, and future, and basically tune out the entire world to try to think things through. I do it when I’m programming, too. I call it my ‘zone’. I’m effectively impervious to anything short of a bomb going off next to me. And sometimes even the bomb.”

“So like, deep concentration?”

“I suppose that’s a good way to put it.”

“Can I get you anything else?”

I made a point of overtly looking her up and down, checking her out.

“I can think of a few things!” I smirked. “But I need to finish my lunch first!”

She shook her head and walked away. I started eating, and actually reading my magazine while I ate. When I finished, I left a nice tip on the table, and went to the register to pay for my lunch. I did that, then looked for Crystal. I walked over to where she was and tapped her arm.

“If you want answers, you have to have a cup of coffee with me.”

“I’m off work at 3:30pm. How about the coffee shop two doors down?”

“I’ll see you then,” I grinned.

“Don’t get any ideas, Steve Adams. I’m not going to go home with you and you aren’t coming back to my dorm room.”

I smirked, “No problem. There’s a very nice hotel less than a mile from here!”

I turned and walked away before she could answer, and headed back to the office.

“So, another lunch with Crystal?” Penny teased. “Did you shatter her yet?”

“Hah hah,” I said deadpan.

“Well, I know Jess just gave birth, so maybe, ‘Break Glass In Case of Emergency’ applies?” she smirked.

“No more puns! And I mean it!” I said firmly.

“Anybody want a peanut!” she said, completing the line from The Princess Bride.

We both laughed and began working through part of the design for the next release of the legal software. At 3:20pm, I excused myself and said that I had an appointment. Penny raised her eyebrow but didn’t ask. I let Keri know I was going for coffee and that I’d be back within an hour. Despite teasing Crystal, I had no intention of an afternoon assignation.

Crystal was waiting for me in a booth, with coffee already poured for two.

“I’m here. We have our coffee. I want to hear why my name was so funny. And I can’t WAIT to hear why you think sleeping with me wouldn’t be cheating.”

“You sure you want to hear this? There’s no going back and once you hear it, you can’t un-hear it!”

“You are really full of yourself, do you know that?” she asked.

I was enjoying teasing her too much to let up at this point.

“I’d MUCH rather you were full of me!” I chuckled.

“I told you that there was ZERO chance of that. You showed up despite that, which means you either accepted that statement, or you’re so full of yourself that you thought it was irrelevant.”

“What if I told you I thought it was irrelevant because it really WAS irrelevant?”

“Wait! You DON’T want to sleep with me?”

I chuckled, “I never said that. But it really doesn’t matter what I want. The only thing that matters is what YOU want. In this case, you want answers. So the question of whether or not we go to bed together is an open question for the future!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Forget it for now,” I chuckled. “You’ll find out that I’m VERY complicated. Let me explain what happened when Terry, Penny, and I were first here.”

I explained, without teasing or innuendo, the sequence of events that had led to the ten-minute fit of laughter the three of us had that day. I didn’t explain the puns, I just told them.

“Now I get it!” she laughed. “If I’d have known, I think I would have laughed right along with you. She really just randomly picked ‘Crystal’?”

“Not randomly!”

“No, it was a bad pun. It was me that was the random factor.”

“Yes, exactly!”

“Your employees sound like they’re a lot of fun and it sounds like you’re a good boss if you let them rag on you like that.”

“They think so, but I’ve known Penny since she was fourteen. She was my next-door neighbor and I taught her to program. I hired her even before she started college at IIT. She graduated earlier this year. Of course, she lives with her husband and baby now, not next door.”

“And this BS about it not being cheating?”

“Do you know what an open marriage is?” I asked.

Crystal laughed, “I forgot THAT line. Sure. They were supposedly a thing in the 60s and 70s, if you believe the stories about couples that didn’t believe in fidelity.”

“See, I think that’s where you’re wrong. Fidelity means being faithful and keeping your vows. If your vows don’t include monogamy, then you aren’t being unfaithful. You can only cheat if you’re doing something you promised not to do.”

“And you didn’t take a vow of ‘forsaking all others’?”

“Not to either of my wives.”

“I’m not surprised you’re divorced and remarried if you have that attitude.”

“Don’t make assumptions,” I grinned. “I have never been divorced.”

“So you’re a bigamist? That’s hardly cause for celebration!”

I shook my head, “I have exactly one legal wife. The state would frown on me trying to obtain a second marriage certificate.”

“You lost me then. Or you’re playing word games.”

“No, I’m not. I’ll explain completely, on one condition.”

“I told you I’m NOT going to sleep with you!”

Actually, what she just told me is that she DID want to sleep with me. She was protesting FAR too much for it to be otherwise. But I’d let her have her fiction for the moment.

“Yes, you did. And that wasn’t the condition! The condition is that you have to accept me at my word. In other words, you have to agree to believe what I’m about to tell you. I promise you I can prove it if need be.”

“If I have no idea what you’re going to say, how can I promise you that?”

“I’m promising to tell the truth and you’re promising to take me at my word unless you can prove I’m lying.”

“I suppose that make sense.”

I spent the next ten minutes telling her. She started out confused, became perplexed, and finally dumbfounded. Her coffee sat, growing cold, on the table. I sipped mine to keep my mouth from drying out.

“You’re serious? All of that is true? Wives? Kids? Other women?”

“I’m serious. Now, do you believe me when I say I wouldn’t be cheating?”

“If everything you said is true...”

“It is. Completely.”

“Then I guess I don’t have much choice except to believe you.”

“Good. Then the answer to your question is ‘yes’.”

“The answer to my question? What question?”

She finally sipped some of her coffee.

“Whether or not I’ll take you to bed.”

I should have been more careful, because now I was wearing the coffee, and would need to go home and change. I excused myself and left the coffee shop and headed home to change.

“She poured it on you?” Elyse asked when we were cuddling in bed after making love later that evening.

“No, she was sipping and spat it out. I had to leave, come home, shower, and change before I went back to the office.”

Elyse laughed, “Now that’s funny. And I can see why you didn’t say anything when you came back! Did you tell Kara and Jessica?”

“No. Jessica was out for a walk with Ashley when I came home to change. I’m not actually going to sleep with Crystal.”

“Sleeping is the LAST thing you do with any girl!” Elyse laughed.

“Literally!” I chuckled. “But, no, I’m serious.”

“Why?”

“First of all, even if I’m right about her wanting to sleep with me, now is not a good time. Second, I feel like I manipulated her, at least a little bit.”

“You didn’t do anything other than flirt, from what I can see.”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that. I’m twenty-eight with fourteen years of experience seducing girls. She’s eighteen.”

“Seducing?” Elyse laughed. “I jumped YOU! So did Kara! And a bunch of other girls! In fact, pretty much all of them!”

“Perhaps I just let you THINK you did that,” I chuckled.

“So you ARE Ted Bundy, then?”

“You’re still alive, so I’d say that’s a ‘no’!”

“Why isn’t it a good time? Because of Jessica and your journals?”

“Yes. I’m actually quite glad that Keisha and Jill agreed to wait. I’m actually having second thoughts about that.”

“They’ll be VERY upset with you.”

“They’ll get over it, too. I have to make Jess the priority right now. You understand why.”

“Because there’s a huge gap between you and her. Well, you and Kara and her.”

“Yes. I think, ultimately, we papered over the true issues. It’s something I need to talk to Doctor Green about, privately.”

“Speaking of private counseling, what did Bethany say when she called this afternoon?”

“She told me it was up to me.”

Elyse propped herself up and looked at me and smiled, “You’re getting that a lot lately. It means they trust you now.”

“That’s part of it, but in this case, Bethany can’t really recommend a course of action. What she did say is that she won’t object if I ask her to feel Doctor Mercer out about counseling ‘Abel’ about his behavior.”

“And what did you decide?”

“I told Bethany I’d think about it and call her tomorrow.”

“That means you’re going to ask her to do it. You’ve made up your mind.”

“It doesn’t count as insightful if you read my journals, Elyse!” I chuckled.

“You decided right after you came home from Ohio that you were going to see Doctor Mercer if Bethany could clear the way.”

“Yes. I need to. That whole thing was a complete and total disaster. We just didn’t know it at the time. Jennifer, Bethany, and I are in complete agreement.”

“I’m sure. But what about your sister? What does she think?”

“Right now? I am reasonably sure she has no regrets of any kind and thinks it was not only good, but right. She’s mouthed other words, but deep down, she believes being with me was both necessary AND proper.”

“You used to think that, too. Now you don’t. That’s going to hurt her. And you.”

“That’s something I’m going to have to deal with for the rest of my life.”

October 16, 1991, Chicago, Illinois

“I’m going to see Doctor Mercer about Stephanie and me,” I said to my wives as we lay in bed Wednesday night.

“You asked Bethany to set it up?” Jessica asked.

“Yes. I called her this morning. She called back later saying that Doctor Mercer had considered it, and felt she could see ‘Abel’.”

“But she doesn’t know it’s you?”

“No. Bethany and I talked about that as well. I’ll go to Ohio, and Bethany will tell Doctor Mercer that I want to chat. And I’ll tell Doctor Mercer. That keeps Bethany from revealing the confidence.”

“Won’t it cause trouble for Bethany?” Kara asked. “It’s going to be clear she knew about it for years!”

“From her research. I will never, ever reveal to Doctor Mercer that Bethany knew about it while it was going on. I’ll simply say she found out accidentally and once she knew, I was willing to talk to her and so was Stephanie.”