Chapter 8: Trouble in Paradise. An unwelcome guest

May started warmer than usual and then got hot; spring had flown by in only a couple of weeks, and summer was in full swing. I got the pool up and running, the lawnmower doing its weekly routine, and had started to think about interesting trips I could take with the airplane.

We’d had a reasonably sane and low drama relationship for many months at this point but that changed over one of our four-day weeks.

Monday morning I was working in my office in the afternoon expecting Ashley and Chris to come in. I had missed them in the morning dropping off their overnight bags, but if they’d been late for class I could see them heading off in that direction instead.

Ashley came into my office alone just before the lunch hour. She gave me a wan smile and explained, “Chris had to go to Minnesota – some little town up near the Canadian border. Her father’s brother died and the family packed up and left yesterday morning. They were going to drive straight through – over twenty-four hours in a car, one way. Ugh! They were driving to save money. She said she’d call if she had anything to report, but wished us well for the week. She’s due back next weekend.”

I took in that information and asked, “And, how about you? Are your plans changing?”

“Not a bit. I’m your houseguest and junior consultant when we’re not at the university.” She gestured around her at our hallowed halls. She also gave me a wink to indicate there might be other roles she’d be playing.

We drove home at the end of the school day, stopping for dinner at a small seafood restaurant in Newburyport. Once we reached the house, I asked Ashley what her plans for the evening were.

She said, “I need to study for about an hour or so, and then you’re going to fuck my brains out and leave me comatose and dripping in your man stuff from every worthy orifice.” I got a lecherous grin.

I grinned back; “Sounds like a plan. Come get me when you’re ready.”

Ashley showed up at the door to my home office about eight-thirty. She was naked, wearing her heels, and struck a pose at my door that invited only one logical response. I was on her so fast that she screamed in panic as I threw her over my shoulder and carried into the master bedroom as she screamed in mock horror and kicked her legs.

Given there were only two of us, we had the hottest fuck session I’d ever had with one woman. We quit about one in the morning and fell asleep with my arms around her – wet, sticky, dripping, satisfied, and smiling.

After working at Robotix Tuesday, we repeated our lovemaking, spent Wednesday at the college, repeated our lovemaking that night, amazed our friends at Robotix with our consulting on Thursday again, and repeated our lovemaking that evening. Ashley headed home from the college on Friday. We were very satisfied lovers.

I didn’t hear anything from either girl over the weekend, so I assumed Chris would appear on Monday. I was correct, but her appearance was anything but a reunion of two people who had missed each other.

Chris came into my office like an angry cloud first thing Monday morning. She walked up to me and slapped me across the cheek. “You bastard. You couldn’t wait to get your hands on Ashley as soon as I left to do family stuff.” She turned on her heels and strode out into the hallway where there was the steady flow of other students and faculty on the way to their first classes.

Ashley came running in right afterwards. “Oh, God. She is so pissed at us. She won’t talk to me. We have a problem. I’ll try to talk to her. Don’t do anything ... and by all means don’t get any of us in trouble. Think.”

I was nonplussed. I didn’t dare chase after Christine. I left that for Ashley to do. I just hoped that Chris wouldn’t do something that would be career ending for me. I guess even when you know someone, there’s always that shred of doubt about how they’ll behave when they’re really angry with you.

I pieced together that Chris had heard from Ashley about our nightly lovemaking sessions the week before. They had been hot, heavy, exceptionally romantic, and really cemented our side of the relationship. It had never occurred to me that Chris would get her nose out of joint because Ashley and I were continuing to have sex and make love even though she was absent. I remembered even posing that issue as a possible problem we might have, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember whether we’d ever talked about the outcome.

I didn’t see either girl until just after five-thirty. They came to my office separately. Chris came in briefly and announced that she would wait for us on a bench in the hall. Ashley appeared two minutes later looking worried. She came in and gave a shrug. She whispered, “She still won’t talk to me.”

I folded up my papers and led the girls to my Subaru. Chris got in back.

I got a little authoritative. “Chris, please sit in front. We need to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she stated flatly.

“Please. Get. In. Front!” I was firmer and insistent. She reluctantly got out of the backseat and moved to the car’s passenger seat. She buckled in, and crossed her arms in front of her chest – a body language statement if ever there was one.

Ashley got in the back seat and buckled in.

No one said anything until we had reached the Interstate to head north to go to my home in Dillon.

Eventually, I asked, “Christy, do you know how I feel about you?”

“No. Not a whole lot, I guess; since you spent last week FUCKING my supposedly best friend’s brains out – her words, by the way.” I shot a glance at Ash, and she shrugged. A few days earlier we had laughed at those words and how successful we had been at that goal with each other.

I stated firmly, “Chris, I love you. I love you whether you’re mad and unhappy at me or whether you’re happy with me. I prefer the latter. I did not maliciously set out to hurt your feelings and make you mad. I apologize for my insensitivity – for our insensitivity. I erroneously assumed you would approve of what Ashley and I did with each other.”

Chris gave a little sob, “I didn’t approve.” She broke in a complete crying jag that lasted a couple of minutes. “I missed you both so much. I wanted to be made love to every night; I needed you. I never knew the uncle we put to rest; that was a duty. I wasn’t needed. I should have stayed at home – with you.” She sobbed wildly.

I reached over and put my hand on her shoulder and rubbed in an affectionate way. I couldn’t do too much going along in heavy traffic at seventy miles per hour.

“Well, I missed you too. We both did – Ashley and me. We did the best we could with you not with us.”

Chris pouted, “Yeah! Fucking through orgasm after orgasm every night.”

I nodded, “Yes, that was exactly the way it was. Ashley and I had a lovely time, but we both would have preferred that you’d been with us.”

Ashley chimed in from the back seat with confirming words.

Chris continued to cry but appeared less emotional than a few minutes earlier.

I went on, “Chris, if I couldn’t be with you and Ashley some time, for instance over the weekends, I wouldn’t be displeased that you and she got together and made love. I know you have a deep love for each other, and I would hope that would flourish even when I’m not there.

“If Ashley was away, as you were, I would want to be with you in every way I could – to interact with you, to talk, to hold you, and to make love to you. I love you, and that’s what people in love do. I would try to make it up to Ash in some way when she returned, just as the two of us want to make up for the fact that we missed you last week.”

Chris sobbed again, “Oh, God. I love you both so much. I hated being away.” She cried into a small piece of tissue in her hands.

Ashley leaned between the seat and kissed Chris on the cheek and tried to hug her from behind. “Baby, I love you too. Please don’t be angry with us. Allow us to make it up to you.”

I said, “We never talked about how we’d behave in the situation we had last week. I remembered raising the potential issue, but we never talked. We need to address and talk about the situations we’re apt to face and agree about how to behave. We need to set boundaries and limits. I never thought about all that until now. Maybe this is a good thing – a wake up call that we need to pay more attention to how our relationship is structured and how we function day by day.”

Chris sniffled the rest of the way home. After we got in the house, I gathered her into my arms and pulled her to the sofa. I held her small body in my lap and stroked her hair and arm. We were very quiet. I consciously pushed all the love energy I could muster into her.

Ash worked alone to make a salad and cooked us burgers. She even brought us drinks – mine a Chardonnay over ice just the way I liked it, and for Christy some hot tea.

We ate and then I pulled Chris into the bedroom. I stripped our clothes away until we were naked, and then curled up with her in bed. She cried hard again, and then fell asleep in my arms. Ashley snuggled in on my other side about then, and then the two of us joined Chris in the arms of Morpheus.

The next day Chris was subdued during the drive to Portsmouth, but rallied as the day went on and she worked with her team. By evening, she was pretty much normal, although Ash and I continued to walk on eggshells.

After dinner, I asked Chris what I could do for her.

She gave me a big grin and said, “Fuck my brains out. I’m overdue.”

I weighed whether that was good idea, and decided that it was, although I’d make love to her instead. I told her I wanted her to know that I loved her and worshipped her. She accepted that, and was exceptionally energetic in our lovemaking. Ash willingly took a secondary role.

The following Saturday afternoon I was reading in my living room and I got a call from Lisa Caldwell – Ashley’s mother. After some concern in a serious tone about whether Ashley and Chris were being good houseguests, she transitioned into much giggling and tittering about how her daughter thought I was so polite and nice. I immediately saw this for what it was – outrageous flirting. I was being buttered up for something.

I expressed thanks for the compliments, and told her that I thought Ashley was special too. I mentioned some of the domestic chores the girls had helped with, and that obviously scored points for her daughter. I didn’t think Lisa did domestic chores; it didn’t fit her personality.

Lisa then hit me with the real reason for her call. “Listen Professor, errr ... Jim ... may I call you Jim?” She took my one-second of silence as approval. “Jim, my high school class is having their twenty year reunion at the Boynton Golf and Tennis Club on May 20^th. I was wondering whether you would be my date for the event? I promise you a good time.”

I thought, ‘Oh, Shit!’ The last thing I wanted was a date with Lisa, and the second last thing was to attend some school class reunion where I knew no one there but Lisa, and the third to last thing was her kind of a good time. I’d catch something and die.

I politely said, “Let me check my calendar. Hold on a second.” I already knew what the answer would be, but I had to hedge things in case she was playing me. I needed to stop further calls and requests for dates from her. I decided that being straight with her was probably the best, plus a slight bend on the truth since I had been thinking of Marcia.

I spoke into the phone again. “Lisa, I think I’d better say no. There’s a very good friend that I’m spending time with, and we’re trying to see where things might lead. Right now, I want to nurture that relationship and not confuse it with another.”

There was a long silence on the line and then Lisa said, “OK, I guess. I understand. Well, if you find that’s not working out, please give me a jingle. I think you’re special, and I think we could make some nice music together, if you know what I mean.” She gave a lecherous giggle.

“Thank you for understanding, Lisa,” I stated flatly. “I’ll keep that in mind, and don’t worry about the girls. You’ve done a fabulous job in raising Ashley to be a bright and caring person that has a natural sense about how to be a good houseguest in this situation. She could live with me for years she’s so pleasant to have around.”

I suddenly wondered whether I’d laid it on too thick, but Lisa thanked me and ended the call.

Now, I needed to do something with someone to justify what I said to Lisa. I was cautious that she might check about my dating habits. The whole idea of six degrees of separation came to mind. As a result, I called my colleague Deb and asked for Marcia’s phone number. I thought Deb would come unglued at my request; she was so happy that I was making a follow-up call with her good friend. We’d had dinner a month or so earlier at a restaurant, but I’d made no move to respond further on her matchmaking until then.

A quick call, some pleasant conversation, and I had a date for May 20^th for dinner and a movie. I got directions so I could pick up Marcia in a couple of weeks. I figured that I was killing several birds with one shot with this date. I was fending off Lisa should she ever find out what happened to me while she went to her reunion. I was signaling to Deb that I was a dating bachelor and obviously not in any other serious relationships, for instance, with two fifteen year olds. I was deflecting attention from my situation with Ashley and Chris, lest anyone start to impute impure motives to our time together; should anyone ask, they were way too young for my tastes in that regard. Lastly and quite pleasantly, Marcia had been a nice woman – hot even – and I’d have a wonderful evening in her company.

Meanwhile my two weeknights alternating with four weeknights weekly schedule with the teens played out through May as we approached the end of the semester. I asked the girls whether they wanted to skip the week that final exams were given, but they didn’t want to give up the time with me. While impressed I urged them to think about the bigger picture. It turns out they were way ahead of me.

What we settled on for final exams week was that they would live with me for the nights of exam week and go into the university with me each day for their tests or to study. Things worked out well, although we skipped working at Robotix that week. We didn’t spend all of the evening hours doing sexual things with one another, but we did have a calm and orderly household and they got to study. I didn’t mind waiting on the girls to make their lives easier.

The other side events that went on that week, and what I hadn’t known, were that the girls had been studying other courses for which they weren’t registered beyond their already overloaded course schedule. Deb had arranged it, and I’d seen the paperwork to that effect; I just hadn’t paid careful attention. Ash and Chris planned to take the final exams in these ‘extra’ courses, and if they did well, they would thus ‘test out’ of the class as far as the university was concerned, be awarded the credit, and be that much closer to their baccalaureate degrees. I couldn’t imagine doing it, but the girls took ten final exams that week – two each day, successfully testing out of Economics 302, Abnormal Psychology, Sociology 301, Network Theory, and Quantum Mechanics 601. Those were the special studies; they also had exams in most of their regular courses.

I got two letters from Ray Jennings at Robotix concerning the grades for Ash and Christy for the special projects work they were doing. The letters were such glowing praise for the pair, that an A+ was truly the hands-down grade to give them. I even had Deb put the letters in their student folders for posterity because they were strong commendations and addressed so many facets of what the girls were like. I made a mental note to thank Ray in some special way.

I had told Ashley and Chris about the upcoming date with Marcia and the circumstances with Ash’s mother that led me to that decision and slight fabrication about a ‘growing serious’ relationship. Neither of them was enthused about my dating. At best, I could describe their attitudes as worried and slightly miffed with me. They accepted the news as a fait accompli and didn’t argue or try to get me to reverse the decision. We had briefly discussed this situation a few weeks earlier.

Ashley was quite embarrassed that her mother had asked me on a date to her high school reunion. She wanted to talk to her mother, but I suggested that the best thing she could do was let things alone for now and see if Lisa would forget about me. Ash believed that was unlikely. She said her mom liked to obsess about certain men, and I was already on her radar screen, ergo I would not be forgotten despite my rebuffs.

Ashley and Chris registered for summer school after exams. I had already agreed to teach two accelerated courses during each of the two summer terms at the university but the teens didn’t take my classes. The requirement was that a course needed to have a minimum of eight students to conduct the class, and my two classes had achieved that goal with other engineering students wanting to ensure they had adequate credits by graduation time. My classes were on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from nine to noon.