Chapter 32: A True Heart-to-Heart Talk

December 4, 1994, Sydney, Australia

“Excuse me, may I ask you a question?”

I turned from where I was getting Michelle’s bag from the luggage bin to see a portly gentleman of about sixty who had been sitting in the seat in front of me.

“Sure.”

“Are you a professor?”

I shook my head, “No. What makes you think that?”

“Please accept my apologies, but I couldn’t help but overhear parts of the conversation you were having with your wife from Los Angeles to Sydney.”

“Wife?” Michelle laughed. “In my dreams!”

“Sorry, that was presumptuous of me. It just seemed from the conversation, well, never mind. I should have minded my own business.”

“It’s OK,” I said. “What can I do for you?”

“What do you do for a living?”

“I’m CEO of my own IT firm. We do software development and consulting. Why?”

“It’s just you sounded like a professor of philosophy. The fact that you aren’t makes it even more intriguing.”

“Intriguing?”

“If you were a professor of philosophy, I was going to see if I could talk you into coming to San Diego State. I think our students could benefit greatly.”

“I’m flattered. I’m Steve Adams, by the way.”

“Gerald Barkley, Dean of the Humanities department. You wouldn’t be interested in guest lecturing, would you?”

“I’m based in Chicago and have a family there. Not to mention I only have a Bachelor’s in Computer Science.”

“Summa cum laude,” Michelle added helpfully.

“And yet, the piece of paper is identical to every other BS degree in CS,” I said.

“Would you at least consider the idea of coming to speak to Freshman students? I heard your discussions of your Rap Sessions and they sound like what our courses SHOULD be like.”

“Just how much DID you hear?” I asked.

“Too much, I’m sure,” he said. “I really do apologize.”

“You must have really good hearing given the background noise on a jet!”

“My students were always shocked when I could hear whispers from the back of the room.”

“That could be VERY handy with my kids,” I chuckled. “Anyway, I live my life as a relatively open book. I think you might find several impediments. Michelle is my mistress,” I smirked. “And I’m involved in a three-way marriage of which she is not part.”

“Mistress!” she hissed. “I’ll get you for THAT Steve Adams!”

“Just calling it as I see it!” I chuckled.

“San Diego may be more conservative than the rest of California, but it’s still California,” Gerald said. “None of that needs to be mentioned. And it’s the philosophy department. They tend to be the epitome of strange relationships.”

“Let me give you my card,” I said. “I’ll be back in Chicago in about fifteen days. Call my office after the first of the year and we can talk.”

“Thanks. And I’m sorry to have eavesdropped.”

“You didn’t hear anything that wouldn’t have been said at one of those Rap Sessions.”

“I look forward to talking to you.”

We shook hands and Michelle and I filed off the plane with the rest of the business class passengers. Fortunately, clearing customs and immigration was simple and quick, and just over an hour after we walked off the plane the taxi deposited us at the Cambridge Hotel.

“I hope you don’t mind if we just shower and get right into bed,” I said. “My body clock is going to be a mess and I need to be at the SPSS office at 9:00am. You get to sleep in, if you want.”

“No, I’ll get up with you so we can have breakfast, and then I’ll work out our sightseeing plans for Tuesday afternoon through Saturday.”

“So you finally see my point of view!” I chuckled.

“I’ll probably never get here again in my life, so it might be practical to leave the hotel room for a bit!”

We undressed, showered together, then climbed into the king-size bed and quickly fell asleep.

December 5, 1994, Sydney, Australia

“Very funny, Dad!” Jesse laughed.

“What?” I asked, feigning ignorance.

“Turn the camera the right way!”

“What do you mean? I’m in Australia. We’re on the bottom of the world!”

“Dad...” he protested.

I turned the video camera right-side up so we could continue our video call.

“Happy now?” I asked, trying to sound annoyed.

“I knew it!” he said smugly.

“Yes, yes, you’re very smart!”

“I miss you, Daddy!” Birgit said.

“Me, too!” the other girls chimed in.

“How is everyone?”

“Good!” they all chimed in.

“Hi, Snuggle Bear!” Kara said.

“Hi, Tiger!” Jessica added. “I’m glad this worked out.”

“It wasn’t a sure thing, but things went quickly which is why I called to let you know to go to the office. I don’t want to keep you long. I know it’s late Sunday night there and the kids have to get to school and you both have to get to work.”

“Are we going to try this from Tokyo as well?”

“I think so, yes. I’m only going to be in Singapore a very short time, less than twenty-four hours, so we won’t try from there. We changed things so Michelle will fly home from Sydney because it didn’t make sense to pay the additional flight for her when all she’d do was be alone for a day. I won’t even get to do any sightseeing there.”

“We love you!” Jessica and Kara said together.

“I love all of you!” I said.

“Love you, Dad!” the boys said.

“Love you, Daddy!” the girls said.

“Bye!”

“Bye!” came the chorus.

I disconnected the call and shutdown the videoconferencing software.

“Nice family!” Rob Berns, the local IT support representative said.

“Thanks.”

“I counted seven kids. By those two women?”

“No, by a total of four women. The big Smart Aleck, Jesse, is a son with my High School sweetheart who turned out to be lesbian. The next two oldest boys are with a girl I lived with for years. The three girls and youngest boy are with those two women.”

“Mate, you’re crazy!”

“So it’s been said! Let’s see if we can knock out that Unix server today and get your MS Mail talking with Chicago.”

“I think everything is good to go. I actually installed the server per the specs Hans Oostrum sent me and have the SMTP gateway installed on a PC. He sent me the configs as well, though I know you need to do some tweaking.”

“Right. The configs are different for each office, and we need to configure the necessary dialing codes, as well as ensure the routing is set up correctly.”

“Lunch first, Mate?”

“Shrimp on the barbie with Foster’s?” I grinned.

“Paul Hogan is a wanker, and that damned movie should never have been made!”

“Come on, it was really funny,” I said. “And I learned a few Aussie phrases, too.”

“Well, let’s go have some lunch and I’ll buy you a schooner of Toohey’s Black. Real beer!”

“But I was told that Foster’s was ‘Australian for beer’!” I grinned.

“And now you know why I hate Paul Hogan!”

“I have severe limitations on my carbohydrate intake due to a minor health issue, so maybe something smaller than what sounds like a large sailing ship full of beer!”

“It’s fifteen ounces. We can get you something my granddad called a ‘pony’ which is five ounces. Just to have a taste. You’re a diabetic? My dad has that problem and can’t drink beer.”

“No, I have a very strange issue with carbohydrate metabolism and adrenaline. It’s hard to explain, even for the doctors. It’s not life threatening or anything, just requires I minimize my sugars and carbohydrates. And exercise. A lot.”

“You look to be in good shape. Gym?”

“Karate. I’m an instructor.”

“I need a bloke like you to go with me to the pubs where I watch rugby and Aussie-rules. I tend to barrack for teams which are not popular in the pub! In fact, if you aren’t doing anything tonight, I can take you to a pub or two.”

“I have a traveling companion with me.”

“Mate, if you say it’s a bird and she’s half as hot as those two you had that video call with, I might have to kill you.”

“Then I won’t say it.”

Rob shook his head and we left the office to have lunch. I did sample the beer he suggested, and it was OK, but I still preferred my distilled liquor to anything fermented. That afternoon we quickly configured and tested the electronic mail system, and were both satisfied that everything was working. All that was left was to come in on Tuesday morning and check the error logs, and then I’d be free for the rest of the week.

Michelle and I had a nice quiet dinner at a restaurant not far from the hotel, took a short walk around the area and were back in our room by 8:30pm, where we simply undressed and got into bed.

“Remember what I warned you, Mr. Adams!”

“That for the next five nights I’m simply to use you as a sex toy. Got it!”

“That is NOT what I said!” Michelle protested. “And you know it!”

“Do I?” I teased. “You said I couldn’t make love to you until our last night. To me, that means it’s just a biological function. Is THAT what you want?”

“You are the most frustrating man I know!” Michelle declared, sounding exasperated.

“You and Kara agree fully on that topic!” I grinned. “But seriously, I don’t ‘fuck just to fuck’. Well, that’s not true; that’s what happened with the twins and that REALLY messed me up.”

“So you’ve never had sex with a girl just to have sex? There’s always been more to it?”

“At least an attempt, yes. It’s true I’ve been with girls where that wasn’t the case, but in nearly every instance, it left me feeling empty. May I point out that’s why your last-ditch effort to get me to see you differently didn’t work. Even doing THAT was making love. I think you misunderstand me, though not as much as I misunderstand you.”

“How so?”

“You think that all that sex I had was, effectively, meaningless. It wasn’t. Was some of it? Sure. Elyse set me up with a true ‘one-night-stand’ that was completely meaningless. There were a few others. But not many. There was true meaning in those encounters. It was the stark reality of the twins, plus a flashback to a bad situation in High School, which caused the final break. You don’t see me regretting my relationships with Mitsuko, Ailea, or Sakurako, do you?”

“No, but then again, I didn’t know about Ailea until just now. I suspected, but didn’t know.”

“In each of those cases, I developed a relationship first. The same was true for you.”

“What about Alli?” Michelle asked. “Wasn’t that pure emptiness?”

I chuckled, “No. I was doing what you needed me to do. There was serious meaning in having sex with Alli. It just wasn’t meaning with HER. It was meaning with you. You couldn’t ask me directly, but you could challenge me. So you did. And I knew what I had to do.”

“It sounds like you feel like I forced you into it.”

“No, you simply explained what needed to be done if you and I were going to consummate our relationship by making love. You certainly couldn’t have legitimately asked for a wedding ring, could you?”

“No, certainly not at that point in your life.”

“But that was the point where we found ourselves. You made a decision and I honored it. And by the way, Alli was a lot of fun.”

“Jerk!” she laughed.

“What? You wanted me to suffer? To have terrible sex? Because that would have just worked out wonderfully for you? Think what would have happened if I’d instantly regretted being with Alli?”

“You would never have come to my bed that night.”

“Most likely not. Obviously I can’t say for sure, but I think you’re right. I think your view of ‘meaningful’ and mine diverge. May I make a completely inappropriate suggestion which you should NOT follow?”

“Huh?”

I chuckled, “For anyone but you, I’d say find a nice guy, fuck him silly with no intention of developing a relationship, THEN find the man you want to marry.”

“What?! Why?”

“To get past the hang-up you have. Even after you broke up with me, you STILL have the idea of only ever sleeping with one guy. I’m seriously wondering if you’ll ever marry because of that. But as I said, I know it’s not you.”

“No, it’s not, and I could never do that.”

“Have a meaningless affair? Or get married?”

Michelle sighed and snuggled close, “You’re right.”

“So, then, how do we fix YOU so you can be fulfilled? You have everything you want right now, except a husband who can give you children. And I know how important that issue is to you. But to get there, you have to give up on the notion you can only ever be with one man.”

“If you hadn’t had your vasectomy...” she whispered.

“I know. But I had that before that fateful Rap Session in January of ‘92. In fact, it was before the first Rap Session of the semester, if I recall correctly. So it was done before we even met.”

“True; that was just silly dreaming on my part. And maybe that’s the real issue here. I mean with me, not with you. Maybe deep inside, I’m hoping for some kind of miracle.”

“I could be deep inside, if you wanted!” I teased.

“In a bit; let’s talk first.”

“Not what I had imagined for tonight, but sure.”

“I suppose, deep down, I have this stupid little-girl fantasy that somehow a fairy godmother is going to wave a magic wand and let me conceive a child with you, even though I know it’s not possible. And I know I could never be married to you the way either Kara or Jessica are, because of, well, you know.”

“I do know. I WISH I could make a baby with you, Michelle, but that was never possible giving the timing. And I think you admitting your fantasy, as you called it, is the first step to getting past the mental block that would keep you from having children of your own, something you feel you need to do to be complete. It’s no different from my belief that I needed children of my own to be complete.”

“What would you have done had you turned out to be infertile?”

“I have no idea. My friend Mikael, the one who’s married to Katt, had that issue, but it turns out there is a medical procedure which allowed it to happen. His problem was something to do with low sperm count and weak sperm, but by some process they could concentrate them, and then introduce those sperm into Katt’s womb, and they had a kid. I suppose I’d try every possible option.”

“And then adopt?”

“Probably. But it’s tough. In my case, had one of the women been unable to conceive, it wouldn’t have been as gut-wrenching for me because I had kids with the others, but the woman would feel something akin to how you feel at the moment, I suspect. Kara, unable to conceive, would have been inconsolable. She might have even been suicidal.”

“I agree with you about Kara. Having those two daughters was more important to her than anything else, including you.”

“I know. That was clear when she let me pick the names. She wanted them so badly, that she was willing to name them after former lovers of mine. Even being a wife pales next to being a mom for her.”

“Mom, wife, career,” Michelle said. “The exact opposite of Jessica.”

“Yes; well at least until our last reconciliation. Before she spent all that time with Jorge, the kids were just props. Now, it’s different. The order is still the same, but the relative weight she puts on each has changed.”

“Do you think they... ?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. That’s between Jessica and Jorge.”

“I asked if you thought they did.”

“And I answered. Jorge said he couldn’t violate the rule any more than I could, but Jessica can be VERY persuasive. And you know he had a thing for her. If it happened, it happened. I simply don’t care and I’m not going to ask her about it because it doesn’t matter.”

“You prize honesty more than just about anything.”

“I do. And I could ask her. And I believe she’d answer. But why ask? Why create problems where none exist? But we’re veering off topic.”

“I’m not sure anything is really off-topic,” Michelle said. “It’s all related to who you are and who I am and who we are.”

“Damn,” I sighed.

“What?”

“You just triggered an old memory. A letter I wrote to Karin Andersson ten years ago. I know this is strange, but do you mind if I get my laptop and read part of it to you?”

“Nothing with you is strange, Steve!” Michelle laughed. “Or, rather EVERYTHING with you is strange!”

“Nice,” I chuckled.

I slipped out of bed and got my PowerBook and brought it back to bed. I powered it up, and once I had the MacOS Finder available, I located the correct file, opened it, and read to Michelle.