Chapter 12: Advice, With a Twist

August 1, 1992, Chicago, Illinois

“Why would Elyse ask her to have lunch with us?” Michelle whispered after we left Alli with Elyse.

I laughed almost as hard as I had outside, and Kara answered.

“Michelle, she didn’t invite Alli to have lunch with us, but to see if Steve wanted to HAVE Alli for lunch!”

“What?” she asked, then gasped and covered her mouth. “Oh!”

“Let’s just get our showers and have lunch,” I said.

“Wait! Would you do that? Just go to bed with her because she asked?”

“It has been known to happen,” Kara smirked.

“Michelle, we’ll talk about it later,” I said. “OK? Let’s get our showers and have lunch.”

My wives and I went up to our room and Michelle went to the basement.

“I’m going to KILL Elyse,” I chuckled as I got into the shower.

“You’re laughing. Why?” Kara asked.

“Because Elyse teased me, I teased her back, and now she’s escalated.”

“So what will you do?” Jessica asked.

I got out of the shower and Jessica got in.

“Well, I could simply invite Alli to have lunch with us, and send her on her way. I could flirt with her and do nothing. Or I could have her in the way she implied.”

“What about the rules?” Jessica asked.

“She’s no longer a NIKA employee. And Elyse surmised that because Jacqui talked to her, she knew about the testing rule. I guarantee you that Elyse would have verified that yesterday after I left the office.”

Jessica got out of the shower and Kara got in.

“So what’s your plan?” Kara smirked.

“To not disappoint Michelle,” I said.

“Wow,” Jessica said. “That’s not the answer I would have expected.”

“Why? Doesn’t that fit with how I’ve been thinking and behaving?”

“Actually, it does,” she agreed. “And it shows Elyse you can exercise self-control.”

I chuckled, “See, that’s where the mind games start. Elyse expects me to turn it down. If I wanted to mess with Elyse, I’d actually do it!”

“Expects you to turn her down?”

“Sure. After our conversation yesterday, I teased Elyse about having Alli for breakfast. When that didn’t happen, Elyse obviously decided to have some fun and called Alli and told her I was interested, expecting me to refuse. I suppose the only real issue is that Alli is being used as a pawn and might be expecting the same treatment I gave Jacqui. But if I have to disappoint someone, it has to be Alli.”

“Who are you and what have you done with our husband?” Kara giggled, getting out of the shower.

“I’m trying to be calm, rational, and under control. I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“We want you to be happy,” Kara said. “You aren’t out of control and haven’t been in a long time. You actually approached this in a reasonable way. So whatever your decision is, I support it.”

“And what do you think?” I asked.

Kara smirked, “I’m only going to answer that if you agree to follow a majority vote.”

“And why would I do that?” I asked.

“It depends on how badly you want my opinion!” she giggled.

She finished drying off and we went to get dressed.

“The thing is,” I chuckled. “You two are just silly enough to both tell me to go for it just to see if I’d actually do it.”

“You’re right,” Jessica said. “I propose you ask Michelle and follow her guidance!”

I laughed, “I’m not sure what you think THAT is going to accomplish! I did say I’d talk to her, but you saw her reaction!”

“Yes, and I’d say she’ll confirm your decision.”

“I think so too,” Kara said. “And you know we’re just teasing you. Make your decision. I won’t object either way.”

“Me either,” Jessica said. “If it falls within the rules, you have the freedom to decide. We haven’t made any deals with Samantha yet, and it’s not clear that we will.”

“That’s an interesting way to put it,” I said. “We instead of me.”

“That is what it has to be if we go down the long-term route, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I do. Let’s head downstairs. I’ll talk to Michelle while you guys get lunch ready. OK?”

“Yes,” they both said.

We headed downstairs and I asked Michelle to come to my study while Jessica and Kara went to the kitchen to help Abbie, Elyse, and Bethany get lunch for the kids.

“I’m sorry about Elyse’s little game. But I was also a bit surprised that you were surprised that I would go to bed with a girl who asked me to. That is my history. We’ve talked about it fairly extensively.”

“Yes, but I was thinking that you’d changed. That you didn’t do that now.”

“Things are a bit in flux,” I said. “Given everything that went down with Lisa Glass, Jeri, and Samantha, I’m carefully evaluating what I should do. And do you know what my main criteria for making the decision about Alli is?”

“No.”

“Not disappointing you.”

“What? Disappointing me?”

“We’ve developed a wonderful friendship and the last thing I want to do is disappoint you. You know I’m promiscuous. But you know I’m rethinking things, at least to a point.”

“So you actually considered it?”

I smiled, “She’s cute, available, and obviously wants me. So yes, I considered it.”

“And decided not to because I would be upset or disappointed?”

“Yes.”

“And if I wasn’t a factor? How would you decide?”

“In this case? Whether or not I wanted to mess with Elyse. She doesn’t expect me to do it, based on our mutual teasing yesterday and this morning. So doing it would mess with her.”

“The girl doesn’t matter?”

“The girl always matters. But Alli came here with an expectation that she’d probably have sex. It’s not like I’m tricking her into it or anything.”

“What did your wives say?”

“At first, to make my own decision. Then, they offered to give their opinion if I abided by it, but I know them well enough that they’d tell me to do it just to mess with me.”

“Seriously? They really don’t care?”

“If it was a problem, they wouldn’t have married me.”

“True. So did you ask?”

“No, because they’d just tell me to do it. I told them why I made my decision and that I was going to talk to you. Jessica proposed I talk to you and follow your guidance. I agreed because I know what your guidance will be!”

Michelle smiled, “Interesting.”

“Why?”

“My guidance is that you take her to bed. But on one condition.”

“Hang on! You’re telling me that?”

“Yes. But there’s a condition. If you take HER to bed, you have to take ME to bed.”

I started laughing; one of those huge belly laughs you’d expect from a mall Santa. Michelle had made her point succinctly and perfectly. If I’d sleep with Alli, I’d sleep with anyone who asked, and if I’d sleep with anyone who asked, I’d sleep with Michelle. Only I wouldn’t. So working the logic backwards, if I wouldn’t sleep with Michelle, then I wouldn’t sleep with just anyone who asked. And if I wouldn’t sleep with just anyone who asked, I SHOULDN’T sleep with Alli.

“Nicely done,” I said after a minute or so when I caught my breath.

“You found that amusing?” she asked with a sly grin.

“Yes. It perfectly conveyed your opinion in a very direct way, with an offer you would never make and one I would never accept. You got your point across quite succinctly.”

“So you won’t go to bed with just any girl who asks, then?”

“Old Steve’ probably, no, definitely, would have. ‘New Steve’ has other considerations.”

“Yes, he appears to be thoughtful, introspective, and wouldn’t sleep with a girl on a whim.”

“I RARELY slept with a girl on a whim. In fact, I had a reputation for being frustrating and difficult about it. In fact, despite the ‘body count’, I can only think of a couple of occasions of going to bed with someone the first day I met them.”

Elyse was one of those, but that was in the distant past. Thirteen years distant to be exact, as she and I had discussed. The most recent was Grace, Melanie’s paralegal. The others that had been opportunities for ‘first date’ or ‘first day’ encounters, such as Vera Olegovna or Tara Brooks, I’d put off for various reasons. Working backwards, probably Jenna Thiele, Melody’s friend whom I’d been with at the ‘Truth or Dare’ game would probably be the most recent before Grace. And that was over four years ago.

“‘Body count’?” Michelle laughed. “That’s probably more apt than you realize. Though I don’t think you’re exaggerating the way they did in Vietnam to pump up their reports.”

“Sometimes in the heat of battle, you make reports which are later proved to be inaccurate, but aren’t exaggerations. The Japanese reported destroying three American carriers at Midway, and yet, the Yorktown, which was successfully attacked three times, remained afloat until after the battle was over and was in the process of being towed back to Pearl Harbor when she sank.”

“I know! My grandfather was on the USS Hammann. He was a gunner’s mate. He was 19.”

Her grandfather was younger than my dad! Her grandfather had been 19 in 1942. My dad had been 25! Damn!

“My dad fought in World War II,” I said. “But he married late in life. And no,” I sighed, returning to the original conversation, “I’m not exaggerating about the number.”

“Well, I suppose you have your advice. What are you going to do?”

“I think it’s obvious,” I chuckled. “Don’t you? I mean, I’m certainly not going to take you to bed!”

“And why is that?”

“Because, all teasing and kidding aside, I respect your wishes. Completely and fully.”

She smiled, “So in your thinking, even if I actually made the offer, you wouldn’t ever accept it, giving me a second line of defense, if you will.”

“Yes, precisely. It was as safe a comment as if you had just said your advice was not to do it.”

“You’ve always been truthful with me, at least as far as I can tell.”

“I don’t believe I’ve lied or purposefully misled you.”

“You do choose your words very carefully!”

“So I’ve been told. But then again, so do you. You just did that with your advice.”

She smiled, “Yes, we both do it. I’m curious about something, and you won’t hurt my feelings or offend me with your answer. At any point, since we first met, have you wanted to go to bed with me?”

That had been an internal struggle since the Rap Session when Kara’d had us all strip naked. Keeping THOSE thoughts under control and out of my mind had been difficult, but I’d finally reached a point where it wasn’t a struggle. And now, she was asking me to verbalize those thoughts. I could simply lie or demur, but I didn’t want to lie and I didn’t think she’d let me get away with not answering. And not answering would, I was sure, give away the information anyway. I’d had far too many deep, philosophical, heart-to-heart talks with her for her not to infer an answer.

“Yes. At the Rap Session and for several days afterwards. But I got control of those desires.”

“So your answer was easy, then. If you had no desire for me, you could easily sidestep the implication of the advice.”

I smiled ruefully and shook my head, “It’s not quite that simple. The desire is there, but it’s tempered and controlled by what I know about you and how I feel about you.”

“Feel about me?” she asked.

“I love you too much to hurt you that way.”

“Hurt me?”

“Yes, hurt you. Given everything you’ve told me, it would hurt you.”

“More than reading Lossky? Or the Bhagavad Gita? Or the Norse myths?”

I chuckled, “The only person who would think THOSE would hurt you would be Father McGraw. Well, and perhaps your parents and other priests. Those didn’t hurt you in the least. Maybe they made you think, or challenged you in some way, but that’s not harm any more than all the conversations we’ve had.”

“May I confess something?” she asked quietly.

“I’m no priest, but you know I’ll listen to anything you have to say. And do my best to help you with it.”

“You remember I told you I was curious to see you and that I liked what I saw?”

“Sure,” I said warily.

“I wanted you then. And I thought about you that way. I struggled with it.”

“Physiology is like that,” I said. “Elizabeth would say you were a victim of a biological function, an electro-chemical reaction to external stimuli. The Roman Catholic Church would call it ‘concupiscence’. I’d call it sexual attraction or lust. But whatever you call it, it’s a natural reaction. To deny that, is to deny our humanity. It’s our response to those kind of stimuli which matters. Our ability to respond in ways other than rutting like animals is the very definition of what it means to be human.”

“Hang on!” Michelle objected. “You just said that controlling your urges is the definition of what it means to be human, and you are the LAST person I’d say was controlling their urges!”

“Indeed. And what you just described is the very definition of sin - «ἁμαρτία» or ‘missing the mark’. It’s not that humans are completely corrupt as Luther and Calvin would teach, but wounded, struggling, and in need of, as Lossky and others call it, the ‘medicine of immortality’ which comes to us through the Eucharist.”

“But you can’t partake of the Eucharist. And, I don’t think you want to.”

I smiled, “I do want to, but my deep-seated belief in, what shall we call it? Non-conforming sexual relationships? That excludes me. The only way I could participate would be to deny what I believe to be true or to lie about it. And I daresay if I lie, what’s in that chalice becomes deadly poison.”

“But you’re agnostic!”

“Indeed I am. And you’ve said I have more faith than I admit. Perhaps I just admitted it!”

“So you think Elizabeth is correct, but you think our humanity somehow tamps down the lust?”

I chuckled, “For some of you, to a simmer; I think mine’s always on low boil. But Elizabeth is wrong, and even SHE knows it.”

“What am I missing?” Michelle asked.

“When the offer to talk about having sex arose, what happened?”

“You aren’t particularly interested in her. She’s not exactly sexy.”

I smirked, “Sexy is WAY more than just physical appearance. Yes, that’s the first thing we notice, but if we take just a bit of time, we discover other things. There’s a saying - ‘All cats look the same in the dark’ - which applies here.”

“So what did I miss?” she asked again.

“Why did Elizabeth decline my offer to discuss it?”

“Oh! Because she doesn’t ‘do’ married guys! Her ‘animal instinct’ is overridden by a moral precept! One that animals can’t have!”

“Exactly. So even our esteemed Elizabeth doesn’t REALLY believe that everything is biology, chemistry, and physics.”

There was a soft knock at the door.

“Steve,” Kara called out, “lunch has been ready for ten minutes.”

“OK. We’ll be right there,” I replied.

“So you don’t think I was wrong to have those feelings?”

“No. It’s what you do about them that matters. Temptation will always be there.”

Michelle nodded and we stood up. I reached for the handle to open the door but she put her hand on my arm.

“The advice was meant exactly as I said,” Michelle said softly. “If you take her to bed, you have to take me to bed.”