Chapter 17: Halloween party and after-party

The evening of my first and only orgy ended about two a.m., more from the fact that Doug and I ran completely out of steam than that any of the women wanted to stop, although most of the women had pretty well exhausted all the sapphic combinations they could think of while the lowly males were recovering.

Deb and Doug pushed the beds together in the guest room, filled in the ‘crack’ between them with a blanket, and Marcia and the two of them went to sleep. I ended with Ashley, Christy, and Lisa in bed with me, with my last rise to fame being another coupling with Lisa as Christy rode my tongue and Ashley jilled beside us.

Sunday morning proved not to be as embarrassing as I thought it might be. We all just showed up in casual wear, did a community breakfast, and then had lively conversation about all sorts of things, including our wish to repeat what had happened the night before at sometime in the not too distant future. The feelings were unanimous as far as I could tell. I’d get more details from Ash, Christy, and Marcia later.

Deb and Doug eventually left in late morning, leaving the five of us. Lisa made motions to leave but Ashley and I insisted that she stay at least for lunch.

I served up another round of coffee fresh from my Keurig, and we all sat down at the outside table again. I leaned across and gave Lisa’s hand an affectionate squeeze. “You made a startling revelation last night.”

Lisa looked down, obviously in shame. “I’m not proud of what I did, but it was that or not eat for a third day in a row. I had absolutely no money and I was starving. I’d been begging on the street for change but the local cops scolded me and made me stop. I’d also been told I couldn’t sleep overnight in the bus station again. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep anywhere but on the ground hidden someplace where the cops wouldn’t find me, had no gainful employment, and didn’t have enough money to leave town. I went in a seedy looking bar, explained my situation to the bartender and offered him twenty percent of my take if he’d feed me and let me sleep there after hours. I also told him I’d boff him for free if he got me some other business. I fucked five guys that night and made five hundred dollars. I did more after that when I got in the same situation again in a couple of new cities. I made everyone use condoms.”

“Mom,” Ashley said in a compassionate voice, “you had no choice. You had to do something like that or die in a different way than having the guy you were running from shoot you. Anybody would have done the same thing. There’s some famous quote I learned: ‘Desperate times, desperate measures.’”

Lisa emphasized, “I had to do it more times in other cities too. God, I felt like such a slut, and I mean a real one, not a playful-sex-names slut.” She looked up and had tears coming down her cheeks. She started sobbing again.

I got up and went around the table. I picked up the small crying woman and carried her into the living room and sat on the sofa with her curled up in my lap and weeping, and then sobbing uncontrollably again. Marcia, Ash, and Christy followed along. No one said anything; we just surrounded Lisa with love and caring people who obviously accepted what she’d done without further judgment. There was no scolding or moralizing about the situation.

Lisa eventually said, “Erie was the fourth city where I had to be a hooker just to get some basics for survival that I realized I’d sunk so low that I hated myself. I wanted to die. I got to fearing that Marco Ricci wouldn’t find me and kill me. There was just one small glimmer of hope, and that was when I called you, Jim, and begged for help. Coming home and getting shot became preferable to continuing as I was. I used the last of my money for the cab ride to the airport to meet you. That was also when I had the epiphany about my life and the new direction I needed to take.”

“I said softly, “Well, you’re past that now. You’re a different person, and with friends and other people who care about you and won’t let anybody hurt you. Your nemesis is in jail, your name didn’t enter the equation in his conviction, and you have a wonderful job with a good employer about to start tomorrow.”

Lisa sobbed, “I know. I don’t deserve any of it.”

“Yes, you do,” we all chimed in unison.

We spent another hour calming and loving Lisa and getting her head in a more positive place. While the two of us were prepping a late lunch I said, “You know about what you did and all, and given how you were feeling about it a little while ago, I think you’d benefit from some counseling.”

“You mean a shrink?” I could tell by her tone that the idea didn’t sit well.

“Exactly. Sooner or later, it always helps to have someone get you back on the tracks. With something like you’re dealing with none of us are qualified to help put that in perspective for you so that it doesn’t keep raising its head as a big negative in your life. If you’ll agree, I want to give you those sessions for as long as it takes.”

Lisa stared open-mouthed at me in disbelief, “You mean you’d pay for me to go, after everything else you’ve done for me and my bad history with you?”

“Yes. It’d be my gift to you.”

“But ... I never did anything for you. I know you didn’t even like me when we first me. I realized in hindsight that I was too tarty for a conservative professor. I’m surprised you even talked to me.”

“Lisa, you gave me one of the greatest gifts in my life – Ashley. Don’t you dare say you didn’t do anything for me.” I snickered in an evil way and added, “Plus, you’re a pretty good fuck as I discovered a couple of times last night.”

Lisa lightly slapped my arm in a teasing gesture, but she understood that I was trying to lighten the mood. She even laughed at the lewd comment. I could tell she had enough of an earthy streak remaining that she liked that kind of humor.

She consented and I promised to set up some counseling for her during the evenings or weekends that she could go to without impacting her new job. Lisa had a quiet lunch with us, and then left to head back to Westborough so that she could get her act together for starting her new job the next day. We all wished her well, and I made her promise to touch base with me mid-afternoon unless she was wrapped up in some meeting or training. I was only a short walk away from the building she’d be working in. I made sure she knew how to get in touch with me, and impressed on her that if she was having any problem to call or come see me.

Marcia, Ash, Christy, and I did a thorough cleaning of the house, ran six loads of laundry, remade all the beds, reestablished the girls’ room as their ‘official’ residence, and got the house ready for our own start of a new week. The girls then studied or read, and I got my lesson plans organized in the evening, and put everything I’d need the next morning in the car.

That night we had a much tamer lovemaking session between the four of us. We’d get to a few of the other questions I had sometime soon.

Monday, we all headed off to work and classes like any normal mid-semester autumn day. The weather was rainy, but otherwise uneventful.

I got a call from Lisa mid-afternoon and she was jubilant about her new post. She uncharacteristically talked almost non-stop at a hundred miles an hour about what had happened so far that day, and then said she had to run and she’d call us in the evening. I was laughing when we hung up because of her manic state; it was so different that what she’d gone through the day before with us.

I had gotten her new email address in the call, and so I sent her a congratulatory email. I copied Ash, Chris, and Marcia so they’d also have her email.

I contacted the psychologist that the university kept on retainer for emergency student counseling and asked about someone in private practice for a friend. I commented that the person would have to be broad minded and non-judgmental. I got two names and an offer for more if either of those didn’t work out for my friend. I called the woman first, she had appointments on Wednesday evenings, so I made one for Lisa, and then emailed Lisa the particulars about the appointment, including directions about where to go, park, and find the office in the professional building. I also arranged for billing to come to me. I got a reply a half-hour later from Lisa that thanked me and promised she’d be there.

Monday night Lisa called and talked mostly to Ashley for almost an hour. She was starting to unwind a little from the euphoric state she’d been in at mid-afternoon. Ash seemed to like the New Mom, as she called her, and encouraged the conversation and long talk despite having a pile of homework to digest.

Wednesday evening, Lisa called us on the late side to tell us she’d had a good initial meeting with her new “shrink” and that she felt better just getting some of her feelings aired to an impartial outsider. I encouraged Ashley to be the point person in the family for the connection with Lisa. There hadn’t been much of a mother-daughter link when Ash and I first met, and I couldn’t see any downside to improving that relationship.

While that was going on over the following days, I also encouraged Christy to be more communicative with her parents. Chris and I drove out to her parent’s home in Westborough on Thursday afternoon and had some conversation and then we took them out to dinner. A lot of that conversation emphasized Chris’ academic achievements and the occasional work at Robotix. Marcia and Ash took Lisa to dinner for a lot of girl-girl bonding.

The Robotix work had taken a back seat to the academics for the autumn semester, mainly because of the way our course schedules worked out. Ray Jennings understood and accepted that the girls needed to devote more time there than to his business. He kept telling me he’d hire them in a heartbeat, and wanted every available consulting hour they could devote to him.

At the start of October, Ray called up with an unusual offer. There was an AI conference in February and he wanted the four of us to represent Robotix and present papers at it. He was one of the conference program chairpersons so had the ability to steer the conference in any direction he chose, but he told us he’d described our work to the rest of his committee and they were enthused about having us speak.

He also started to laugh. He said, “I didn’t tell them about Ashley and Christine – their ages I mean; I only said there were a couple of really sharp and articulate women who were doing some of the research and would be fantastic presenters. Let’s make their appearance a surprise, that is, if you accept our invitation.

I talked it over with Ash and Chris, and we decided to do it, helped in part by the free plane ride to Miami and a five-day stay in February when New England weather would really suck. I briefly thought of taking my own plane, but then decided that the weather and potential icing were too formidable that time of year to allow predictable flight ops for a single-engine Cessna.

We gave out invitations to a Halloween party at the house the Saturday closest to the magical day. As I had the prior year, I invited practically everybody I knew and I asked Ashley, Christine, and Marcia to invite all of their family and friends. I also cued Lisa that she should not only come, but also invite any friends she wanted. Doug and Deb Summer were regulars at the annual event. I gave open invitation to all my students – past and present, but usually only a third to half of them showed up. Costumes were encouraged.

The party started at four p.m. and ran until past midnight for the hardcore partiers. That year was no exception, except our first attendees showed up a little on the early side by invitation, specifically, Lisa Caldwell – Ash’s mother, and Margaret and Lenz Czerny – Chris’ parents, and for the first time Michael and Grace Calassio – Marcia’s parents. We were organized enough that we were actually able to spend over an hour of cordial and non-rushed time with them before our first regular guests started to appear. Part of that capability stemmed from my use of caterers and a bartender for the first time.

Chris’ parents’ costumes were on the conservative side, coming as a farmer and his working wife, complete with pitchfork and looking like the American Gothic painting. The Calassio’s costumes were of a doctor and nurse, appropriate since that’s exactly what they were in their day jobs. For all I knew they might have come straight from the office.

I’d encouraged Lisa to be a little daring despite her resolution to straighten her life out. I was afraid she’d lose some of the vim and vigor that made her an interesting person. Lisa wore a cheerleader costume in the university colors, so her long shapely legs were on display along with her cleavage because of the scoop neck of the top. She looked cute and about fifteen years younger than her actual age; she was two years older than me.

I was a cowboy with as much regalia as I could garner that made me look like Marshall Dillon. I thought that appropriate since my house was in the town of Dillon. Marcia dressed up as Miss Kitty in a sexy 1880s saloon or dance hall outfit that blended nicely with mine. Ashley and Christy each dressed up like Tinkerbelle, drawing parallels to the costumes they’d used the prior year when they were pixies. They looked innocent enough that they could pull off the look, although to me they looked like sexy, appealing, and very fuckable pixies. Again, I noted that Christy’s body was changing in very feminine ways. I made her blush when I called that fact to her attention.

The caterers had arrived about ten in the morning with trays and trays of hors d’oeuvres, chaffing dishes of main courses and side dishes, and no end to creative desserts and sweet things that all had a Halloween theme to them. Of course, there was also high-test and regular witches brew punch, and some bat ice cream with blood red sauce for it that tasted remarkably like strawberries. They set up their tables and gradually the shape of a party developed both on my patio and inside the house. To make the patio hospitable on the cool night the caterers also brought several outdoor space heaters than ran on propane.

I think between the start and end of the party we had over a hundred-fifty people come and go, most eating their main course with us at our buffet. Thanks to some careful policing by the bartender, I don’t think anybody underage got into the high-test punch, and no one got inebriated so that we had to confiscate car keys or call a taxi for them.

During the party I had the opportunity to chat with Brian Watson, the comptroller for the university – the top financial guy. He was wearing a batman costume complete with cape. He knew I’d been instrumental in recommending Lisa Caldwell for the entry-level job that she’d been hired into. She’d had about six or seven weeks on the job, and I had been curious about how she was doing, but didn’t dare ask. I had my fingers crossed.

Brian pulled me aside and said to me with no little enthusiasm, “Lisa is one of the best things that could have happened to our financial operations. I mean it. She is sharp and motivated, remembers her basics and uses them to keep things under control and orderly. She’s become a role model to some of the other staff too, especially in terms of her work ethic. She’s enthused about every aspect of the job and it rubs off on the others. To top it all off, she’s already recommended some changes, one of which dealt with the insurance the university carries; in one fell swoop, she saved us close to a quarter-million dollars – and that’s on an annual basis going forward.”

I asked what she’d done, and he talked about how she’d recommended renegotiating the coverage and limits we carried. She’d apparently made a case for self-insuring in low risk areas for a high deductible that would pay for itself many times over once she completed the cost-benefit analysis. The combination of savings added up to some large numbers. Since the university admin staff was eligible for bonuses, I thought Lisa might get a pleasant surprise come the end of the year or her semi-annual review. I’d share Brian’s comments about her performance with her when I had an opportunity without the party going on.

When Doug and Deb arrived it was the first time I’d seen her off campus since our miniature orgy a few weeks prior. Doug was wearing a wolf costume and Deb dressed like Little Red Riding Hood. She threw her arms around me and gave me a knock-your-socks-off French kiss that had to have attracted some notice, especially since she was the Provost and one of the Deans, and since there were a lot of other university people around at the party. We both laughed it off, and then went on to enjoy things, but not without her whispering in my ear about wanting a return engagement, hopefully later that night. I’d suggested that they plan to stay over; she said they were both hopeful.

I wondered what kind of talk and what agreements Doug and Deb had after our orgy night on several fronts. First, we were open sexually with each other, including his sexual interaction with Lisa, Ashley, Chris, and Marcia, AND Deb’s multiple interactions with me where we tried to fuck each other senseless but also made very tender love to each other; second, he had first-hand confirmation of his wife’s affinity for other women for the first time AND that she had not mentioned it in twelve years of marriage and a couple of years of courtship; and third, that she had been quite vocal about wanting a repeat performance on many fronts, including making love with me on a frequent basis.

I tried to think about what I’d think about things were I in Doug’s shoes. I was quite liberated in my thinking about relationships and sexuality, so Deb’s bisexuality wouldn’t have bothered me in the least, and it didn’t once I’d learned about it when Ash had made a targeted inference. The sexual sharing of my partners with Doug didn’t bother me, specifically, because I knew he was married to Deb and that they had no intention of breaking apart.