Chapter 11: The Ties that Bind

Our morning of post-coital bliss was disrupted. We’d planned on the Gordons and Prices coming for lunch, but not on my daughter arriving with the surprise announcement that she was engaged. Trust Betts to make everything about her.

My head was absolutely spinning and I wanted time to lie in the arms of my lovers and just absorb what we had done. Lovers. I had made love to a woman. I was in love with a woman. And my husband, of course. I had lain next to them and guided my husband’s penis into her vagina! We kissed as they made love. I needed more time to bask in this glow!

Instead, we had luncheon guests. We had a future son-in-law to get to know. We had the preacher to entertain. And we had to watch Anna pack Jennifer and Courtney into the car and follow the Prices back to Kokomo. We’d managed an all-too-brief kiss in the garage before she left, crying at our parting and promising to talk later tonight.

To talk, to plan. To try to arrange our lives so that we could be together without appearing to be forcing our children together.

Still there was Betts, acting more grown-up than I’d ever seen as she and Allen sat at the table with Hayden and me and the Gordons playing pinochle as if she was one of the neighbors and not the daughter who had scoffed at our games for eighteen years!

Eventually, she and Allen left to go meet up with Doreen and others to watch the Rose Bowl. Saul and Evelyn stood to go as well and called for their daughters. Sarah came out of the family room.

“Shh. They’re asleep,” she said. We had to see this. I’d already decided Betts and Allen were not sleeping together in my house, I could scarcely let Brian and Hannah fool around. The four parents went upstairs, none too quietly to find Brian dead to the world in a beanbag chair under the dormer. Hannah lay against him with her arms wrapped around my sleeping son. She looked up at us and motioned us to silence with her finger.

“My boyfriend needs me,” she whispered. “I’m staying here.”

Saul moved quietly to his daughter and kissed her on the head. He whispered to her and she nodded. He turned and motioned us downstairs.

When we were downstairs, I started to apologize and asked what they wanted to do. Saul stopped me.

“Sarah, what happened?” His older daughter struggled to control tears leaking from her eyes.

“Jessica ... Jessica broke his heart ... again.”

“Oh, my Lord,” I said.

“I don’t know what to do,” Hayden said.

“Neither Brian nor Hannah will behave inappropriately,” Sarah continued. “Brian proved that last night.”

Saul nodded and glanced at Evelyn.

“They’ll be okay if you don’t mind,” he said. “I’ll see if I can talk to them after they deliver papers in the morning.”

“I’m going to pick them up and drive them,” Sarah said.

Between the dating group, basketball, and trying to be a good mother in planning Betts’ wedding, time was precious. I took her back to West Lafayette on the thirteenth to be ready for classes on Wednesday. As soon as I kicked her out of the car—figuratively, of course—I pressed the accelerator and headed east. As near east as I could go. I had to wind back to Delphi before I could hit a pretty straight shot on Indiana 18 across to Kokomo and into the arms of my lover. My breath caught at the thought that I had a lover, but my heart stopped completely when I saw her. So beautiful.

I felt like a teenager, barely into the privacy of her home before our lips were pressed together, held tightly to each other’s bosom. My God! If our children are behaving like this, we will all be grandparents in a year! We forced ourselves to slow down amidst talk of how much we missed each other and how the wedding plans were progressing and what our children were up to. Anna served me a cup of coffee in the kitchen as we sat to talk, but our hands constantly reached to touch each other.

At long last, she took my hand and led me to the bedroom. We simply weren’t going to do anything else today until we’d made love.

And then everything stopped.

We had held each other and made love to each other on New Year’s Eve. But Hayden had been with us. This was the first time that I was consciously about to undress with a woman and take her as my lover. I was near to hyperventilation. I was excited and frightened and nearly ready to flee. I think I would have it Anna had let go of my hand.

“My sweet, sweet lover,” she whispered as she peppered my face with little kisses. “Let’s just lie down and catch our breath. Oh, Marilyn, please don’t run from me.” How could I ignore her plea? We kicked off our shoes and just lay down on the bed next to each other, still holding hands and talking about meaningless things. Trying to let our heads catch up to our hearts. Eventually, there were little kisses and then little touches. Before long, we were lying next to each other in only our bras and panties. As our hands explored and touched each other, soon the bras were gone and my bare breasts were once again pressed against the breasts of this beautiful woman. I adored her with my hands and mouth and accepted her adoration. Her tongue on my nipples sent shivers down my spine and all the way to the soles of my feet.

She worked her way down to my waist and pulled my very practical panties down, planting a kiss on my mons. I clenched my stomach muscles as the implication of her kissing me there fully dawned on me. If she ... I should ... Can I ... I want ... I pulled her up to my face to kiss her again.

“Anna, we’ve never done this before with just the two of us. I want to give you oral and I want to receive it from you. I can’t just lie back and let you have me without reciprocating. It’s not that I think I’d owe you, but I can’t stand the thought of not having you wrapped in my arms while I receive that much joy from you.”

“I guess that’s the awkward part of making love with anything but our fingers. Marilyn, I just caught your scent as I pulled your panties down and it made me want to bury my face between your legs. I would do this for you with no thought of receiving the same. But ... I mean ... If you want ... We could do it at the same time.”

Well, that’s one of those awkward moments when you finish getting out of your panties and then have to turn around on the bed and figure out how the pieces fit together and who gets the top and how to lick another woman and feeling the touch of a tongue in your secret place and burying your face to inhale the sweet fragrance of your lover and touching her sensitive bud with the tip of your tongue and...

Oh, God! I just came on Anna’s tongue!

We’re women of a certain age. We don’t just spend all our time in bed having sex. Not after the first couple of hours. When we put on robes and sat with tea in the living room, leaning against each other on the loveseat, the conversation was more relaxed. Oh, I was certainly anticipating the next round of loving my beautiful mistress, but we could talk about simple things without feeling rushed. Instead of forcing foreplay, we let afterglow transition easily into the next round of lovemaking. We showered and went out to dinner. We bought a bottle of wine and went home to toast each other, tasting the fragrant liquid on each other’s tongue. And at night it was an easy transition from a phone call with Hayden, during which he listened to us as we made love again, to a peaceful sleep, held in each other’s arms.

“I love you, Anna.”

“I love you, Marilyn.”

“We love you, Hayden.”

Of course, Hayden and I both wanted to go see Anna but we had a teenager at home. Someone had to stay here.

“You need to visit Anna this week,” I said. “Hayden, she needs to see you as much as she needs to see me.”

“I can’t do that without you, Marilyn. It would be like cheating on you and I swore I’d never do that again.”

I slapped him.

“How dare you compare our relationship with Anna with cheating?” I yelled. We were both stunned and I immediately wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down so I could kiss where the slap still stung. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, my love. I didn’t mean to hit you. Oh, Hayden, I love you so much. But don’t you see? If you think of this as cheating, then I can only consider it an affair. Did I cheat on you when I saw her last week? Please tell me you love her like I love her and this is not just an affair.”

“It’s not an affair, love,” he said as he kissed me and let the kiss deepen. “It’s something I want to last the rest of our lives. I just ... I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to tell my wife I have another wife. I don’t know how to tell my son he has another mother.”

I burst out laughing. “Forget about telling your daughter that!” The tension was broken and we both laughed and kissed some more. “How are we going to get you to our lover?”

“My new position in the company includes coordinating with some of our suppliers. There’s a parts supplier in Indianapolis that my boss suggested I go see and tour their plant just to let them know that we are watchful about the quality of parts coming in. I could try to set up the trip next week and plan to spend the night. Would that work?”

“Let’s call Anna! Just remember it has to be Monday or Tuesday when the girls are at Bill and Crystal’s house.”

And so it came about that I sent my husband off to spend the night with another woman. I was thrilled!

“The girls have been begging me to bring them down for this county basketball tournament your son and their ‘other boyfriends’ are playing in,” Anna laughed as we chatted one night. “What would you say to having three more girls in your house next weekend?”

“Three?” Hayden asked. Wake up, honey!

“You didn’t think I’d stay home, did you?”

“Oh. Yes! I was just ... stupid.”

“I hope we didn’t sate each other so thoroughly Tuesday that you don’t want to see me again so soon.”

“No. I mean...”

“Hayden, shut up and say yes,” I said. “Anna how can we arrange this so you can be with us but there aren’t so many people in the house that we can’t be together?”

The kids would be surprised when the girls came down for the tournament, even though they’d only come for Saturday’s games and have to go home Sunday. That’s the problem with kids in different school districts and different counties. Different calendars. While our kids were off for semester break, Jennifer and Courtney were still in school.