Chapter 24: Bethany

October 1, 1992, San Francisco, California

“We need some ground rules,” I said.

“Oh no you don’t!” Bethany growled. “You are NOT talking me to death. Fucking me to death, yes! Talking me to death, no!”

“I’m serious. Sit, please.”

Bethany reluctantly moved to the loveseat in the sitting room of our suite at the Mark Hopkins InterContinental Hotel on Nob Hill in San Francisco. We’d checked in less than ten minutes earlier after an uneventful, but twenty-minute-delayed flight from Chicago.

“What?” she asked.

“I think we should keep this from the kids,” I said. “For a host of reasons. None of them know about Michelle, and this has similar potential problems.”

“First of all, I am NOT going to become a nun,” Bethany laughed. “And second, your Pumpkin knows all but tells nothing. You told me she knows.”

I chuckled, “True. The ‘Neighborhood Watch’ spotted me coming upstairs after spending the night with Michelle.”

“Why keep it from the kids?”

“We told Jesse and Nicholas we weren’t doing this and weren’t going to do this. I think it causes complications if they know. And we can, because I don’t expect this to last very long.”

“You BETTER last long, Mr. Adams, or I WILL kill you!” she giggled. “But in all seriousness, why?”

“Because it’s not good for either of us. Do I want to make love to you? Absolutely! Do I want to keep making love to you? Absolutely! But I think it will keep you from moving on if it goes on too long. And you need to move on. I can’t be a permanent scratching post.”

“Is that what you think this is?” Bethany sighed.

I smiled, “Tell me I’m wrong, Sweetheart. We’ve talked about this for a year since you said ‘shut up and screw me!’.”

“You don’t follow orders very well!” she smirked, then sighed. “You aren’t wrong. At least the first night. After tonight, I want you to make love to me the way you always did.”

“And then?”

“I haven’t thought that far in advance.”

“Jesus, Sweetheart! We’re both going to be thirty in six months! Don’t you think at this point we should give more thought to this than just thinking ‘I want to fuck!’, and doing it? That might work at fifteen, or even twenty-one. That might work for a ‘dalliance’. But it sure as hell doesn’t work at thirty! And it doesn’t work for us!”

“Did I take two days away from the hospital and fly all the way out here for nothing?”

“If you think spending time with me is ‘nothing’, then I’ll sleep on the couch for the next four nights,” I said flatly.

“What has gotten into you? I thought WE AGREED on this! You invited me here for SEX!”

“If you think THAT, then I suggest that the best thing to do is for me to call you a cab and send you back to Chicago on the red-eye.”

“Are you messing with me?” she demanded.

“No, I am NOT messing with you! I’m telling you that you and I are NOT about sex and are not about just randomly fucking to scratch an itch! If I thought we were, then I would have fucked you when you asked me to a year ago! When you figure out what happens on Tuesday, THEN we can talk about whatever it is that you want to do this weekend.”

She got up, grabbed the plastic card key for the door from the desk.

“I’m going for a walk!” she declared, sounding very annoyed.

I let her go. I’d made one mistake, and that was not ensuring she knew what came NEXT before we got on the plane. I should have, but my mind had been elsewhere - Michelle, Samantha, my wives, my kids, work, the User Group meeting. My problem was that I didn’t know what came next. What I did know was that it had to be talked about, and, to use the term I’d used with Samantha, negotiated.

Part of it was that Samantha was going to ask me about Bethany, and if I didn’t know the answer to the question, at least in some sort of broad outline, I felt there was a good chance she’d delay answering my question about what our future relationship was going to be. Leaving important provisions of a deal until after making the deal was a sure way for everything to go to hell. I shook my head at how clinical and business-like that sounded; but that was, indeed, what Samantha and I were doing. And it made eminent sense to me.

Another part of it was that I didn’t think being long-term lovers was in Bethany’s best interest. I felt it sent the wrong message to Nicholas, and would prevent Bethany from getting on with her life. Her decision to move out had hurt at first, but I knew it was the right thing for her to do. Just like moving to Milford had been the right decision. She HAD to be away from me to get on with her life.

The final part was related to the first two. Bethany was not someone who could integrate into Cirque du Steve. She’d tried before, and it hadn’t worked. She’d tried to be my wife and we’d failed miserably at that. As much as I loved her, in fact because I loved her, I knew she had to separate herself from me and my family. Close friends? Absolutely. Occasional lovers? Possibly, at least in the short term. Living in the same house? Impossible!

I decided to unpack our things and put them in the dressers in the bedroom. I did my stuff first, then Bethany’s. I chuckled at what was surely meant to be a surprise, and put the bags in the closet. When I finished, she hadn’t returned, so I sat down with Without Remorse, the latest Tom Clancy novel that had been released in August. I hadn’t had much time to read it, and had brought it along for reading on the plane. I was enjoying reading John Clark’s/John Kelly’s backstory in this prequel to the other Clancy books I’d read.

Bethany returned after about an hour, and came over to sit on the loveseat. I put the book on the end table next to me.

“I’m sorry,” she said sheepishly.

“It’s OK,” I said, putting my arms around her.

Bethany rotated so that she was leaning across my lap facing me.

“You’re right,” she said with a deep sigh. “I should have thought this through. We aren’t two teenagers working our way towards our first lovemaking. Or even young twenty-somethings trying to figure out if we should marry. We’re adults and we should act like adults. I, of all people, should have known that!”

“I believe one of the admonitions you’ve told me you received from your mentors was to never try to treat yourself.”

She smiled, “Very true. I guess the question is, what’s on the table?”

“Anything short of divorcing Jessica, sending Kara to a convent, and marrying you,” I chuckled.

“Drat! Maybe I SHOULD go home!” she laughed.

“So, being serious; we need to figure out what this means for Nicholas, for you and me, and for my wives.”

“Interesting order.”

“I promised to watch out for Nicholas. He’s the one that could be hurt the worst here.”

“You know what stunned me and made me walk out of here?”

“What?”

“I realized, finally, that you have become the man I wanted you to be. No ifs, ands, or buts. And, ultimately, it took a seventeen-year-old spoiled brat and a nineteen-year-old deeply-devout young woman to take you the rest of the way. Both virgins. Both needed to have sex with you to figure out the proper course for their lives. Both have had a very profound effect on you. Both will have a profound effect on you for years to come.”

“There have been others,” I protested.

“Bit players. What about you and Jennifer?”

I shook my head, “No. Josie can’t handle it. She said it was ‘OK’ and ‘fine’ but I don’t think she REALLY thinks that. I think she was simply acquiescing to Jennifer’s request. Jen agrees with me, by the way.”

“And the nearly-thirty-year-olds can simply walk away from what would be the most beautiful sexual experience of their lives, bar none. AND they both know it. I’m impressed.”

I shrugged, “We love each other.”

“I wish I could have sex like that just one time in my life. Just once. But nobody, and I mean nobody, has the connection you and Jennifer have. You both turned it off because it could have destroyed everything; but we all see it embodied in that six-year-old who just started first grade. If there is a more pure expression of love in the world, I don’t know what it could possibly be.”

“He is a special kid. But so is Nicholas. And so are all of Jesse’s siblings.”

“Do you know what makes me sad?” Bethany asked.

“No.”

“That even now, as the man I knew you could become, you still aren’t the man who could be mine. Not the way I needed.”

“Because you couldn’t share.”

“Yes.”

“But it’s OK if my wives share me with you?”

“What do you like to say? That’s up to them and to you. Me not being able to share doesn’t have any effect on them being able to share. It’s like your rule about being with girls who are in committed relationships. YOU are in a committed relationship, and that’s OK. But they can’t be.”

“So, where does this leave us?” I asked.

“Sitting in a hotel room in San Francisco debating if we’re actually going to do this.”

I chuckled, “That’s an answer I would give! What do you need from me? And I’m not talking about specific sex acts!”

“I think, this weekend we do as planned, and then occasionally, very occasionally, we make love. What I want is closeness with you until I’m ready to try a new relationship.”

“You’ve decided to try?”

She nodded, “I kept debating with myself about what it would mean for my marriage to Nick and, more importantly, what it would mean for Nicholas.”

“More than one person told me to quit thinking about violating Nick’s trust and reminded me that my loyalty to him was misplaced at this point and on this topic.”

“Jennifer?”

“Yes. And Abbie.”

“Abbie?”

“I thought I told you what she said. It was pretty funny, in one sense. Let me see if I can recall the exchange.”

“For a guy who’s been with over a hundred women, and half of those virgins, you would think you could just fuck for the sheer pleasure of it! With your attitude, I’m surprised you aren’t in some mental ward by now!”

“You aren’t the only one surprised by that!” I chuckled. “But it’s not that easy.”

“Bullshit. Turn off the ‘emotion chip’, Commander Data! When Bethany is here for Thanksgiving, fuck her so hard she can’t walk, talk, or even see straight the next morning! Take Doctor Abbie’s advice, and ‘Make it so!’. You’ll be glad you did. And so will she!”

“And now you’ve waited nearly a year! And you’re STILL talking, not doing.”

“I think I can agree to what you want from me going forward. What about this weekend?”

“I think Abbie is right! Fuck me so hard I can’t walk, talk, or even see straight tomorrow morning! I told you what I wanted?”

“You’re sure?”

“After tonight, we’re just going to make love, slowly, gently, and sweetly. But tonight? Tonight, you are going to fuck me hard in my hot cheerleader pussy, my tight cheerleader ass, and my sassy cheerleader mouth! And after that, you’re going to cum on my face, then on my tits!”

“Jesus, Bethany! Really?”

“I have what you need to encourage you,” she smirked.

She got up from the couch and went to the bedroom.

“You rat!” she screeched. “You know!”

“Go put on your cheerleader uniform and I’ll give you the best fucking you’ve ever had!”

“Yes!” she hissed.

October 2, 1992, San Francisco, California

“I didn’t think about what this morning would be like,” Bethany giggled.

“Are you OK?”

“It’s going to take me forever to get the cum out of my hair, and the cum stains out of my cheerleader uniform! My butt hurts, my jaw hurts, and my thighs hurt.”

“Sorry?”

“Apologize again and I’m going to make Jessica and Kara very sad by cutting it off!”

I chuckled, “I’ll order room service. You should probably try to get cleaned up.”

“That last time, you banged me so hard I think I have bruises! And I was shocked at how much you came when you pulled out to cum on my tits!”

“You did ask me to do that!” I grinned.

“And I’m not sorry I did! Go call room service. I’m going to crawl to the bathroom and take a hot shower!”

I did as she asked, then went to the bathroom and got into the shower with her. We were both sweaty and sticky, and she was, almost too literally, covered in cum as she’d said she wanted to be. I’d worried about the nearly violent acts, but when she’d fiercely demanded I fuck her harder, I quickly overcame my concerns.

We were reasonably cleaned up when room service arrived with our breakfast. We ate, then went back to the bathroom to finish cleaning up, before I dressed in my suit and tie so I could head downstairs to the ballroom for the opening session of the User Group meeting.

“See you for lunch and dinner,” Bethany said, and we exchanged a soft kiss.

I went downstairs and found Cindi, Kimmy, and Keri.

“You’re alive?” Cindi smirked.

“Of course!” I grinned, then leaned close to whisper in her ear. “I TOLD you you’d be no match for me!”

She laughed softly, and her eyes twinkled, then we went into the ballroom to take our places. I surveyed the room and was ecstatic to see so many people, both familiar and new. Ben Jackson shook my hand, and I sat down, with Cindi to my right, and Julia to her right. Ben called the meeting to order promptly at 9:00am while some of the lawyers, doctors, office managers, and IT support staff were still getting bagels or Danish from the table at the back of the large ballroom.

Things went very smoothly, and after all of the speeches, I went to a small room that had been set aside for my team and had some coffee. As usual, I had nothing to do before lunch, and had reviewed Zo’s and Sam’s presentations. I felt my speech had been well-received, but I wouldn’t know until Ben gave me some feedback.

Bethany joined us for lunch, and introduced herself as Doctor Krajick, from University of Chicago, and a childhood friend of mine. She sat with me, but we were careful not to do anything or say anything which might reveal our true relationship. When lunch ended, everyone went to breakout sessions, and I went to hide in the small room and drink coffee. I read more of Without Remorse, and only came out during breaks between sessions to mingle.

Dinner that evening was at the Top of the Mark, the restaurant on the top floor of the hotel building. Ben Jackson had arranged a guest speaker, California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. He gave a short speech during dessert, and afterwards, Ben Jackson introduced me. I wasn’t sure why a politician was at the meeting, but I was sure that it had to do with the numerous California-based lawyers at the meeting.

After dinner, there was a ‘night on the town’ with several events that Ben’s team in Los Angeles had planned. I begged off as being too tired, but promised to go on the Alcatraz tour on Saturday morning. After having a few drinks with Ben and some other lawyers and doctors, I headed up to my room where Bethany, who had left immediately following dinner, was waiting for me.