Chapter 7

That fall Leah was accepted at Colombia.

My uncle and I had been in overseas contact by telegraph. He agreed with my release of Leah. He asked me to forego returning to school for a semester. The world was changing in the Far East and he needed someone he could trust. I went to Hong Kong.

I returned to New York City eight months later. I called Leah and we met for dinner. We spent the next three days at the townhouse.

The relationship had changed. After our first night Leah had asked me if I was satisfied with her as a “free” woman. She said wouldn’t mind wearing the collar when we were together if I wanted her that way. I told her I didn’t notice any difference in her. She wanted to know if I saw changes in her? I said no. She said she felt more confidence and liked making her own decisions.

I didn’t see her again until that winter. On her Christmas break we went on a cruise to the Bahamas. The love-making was still intense. But out of bed, we had several heated arguments regarding politics. I had given her the public relations version of what my uncle’s business was involved with in Southeast Asia. She asked several pointed questions about his connections with the US government. She was knowledgeable in current world political situations. I wouldn’t be forthcoming on some matters and she became angry. She was adamantly opposed to western Vietnamese involvement. We argued when not in bed.

I didn’t see her after that till the next Christmas when I back in New York City.

It was a warm reunion. She had missed me and she, too, was often on my mind. She asked about the girls in Hong Kong. She said she knew me and that I wasn’t living like a monk. I told her there was no one special.

She had cut her long hair and was wearing it in a short, fashionable bob. I told her I always loved her long hair. She told me she was a modern woman and that long hair wasn’t fashionable.

She didn’t want to go to the townhouse. She said there was too many memories there. We spent several days at a downtown hotel. We went to movies and a play. She wanted to visit some clubs in the East Village. We avoided politics and I thought that the reunion was special.

We continued to meet this way for the next several years. Her senior year, she told me she was seeing a guy. We had made love and where sharing a cigarette. She put it out in the ashtray. She told me she was in love with this guy. He was smart and wonderful. He had a very promising future. He knew about her past, just not all of it.

She said she needed to stop seeing me. It wasn’t fair to him.

I became angry. I still felt possessive of her. I told her she wasn’t cut out to be an American wife. I asked her if he really knew what she needed?

She became angry. “What? I am supposed to be someone’s mistress or be owned by a man all my life?

Maybe that is not want I want!”

I told her she would never be happy being in an equal marital relationship. Furiously she told me, “I didn’t know her anymore.”

She climbed out the bed and got dressed.

She regained her composure by the time she had slipped her shoes on. She came and sat on the bed.

“You and your damned uncle know that part of me too well. Way, way too well!” She shook her head. “Maybe having a man own me is whom I was meant to be. But no other woman I know would accept that. The world is changing. Women can be strong and independent. I might always have to fight that submissive part of me from coming out. I want to change and put all that behind me. I think I can be happy not being owned by a man.”

I held her hand and we looked at each other.

“Jeremy you took that collar off me. You freed that girl I was. What did you think was going to happen?” she then leaned forward and kissed my cheek.

She stood and put her jacket on. “Please don’t call me. I can’t be tempted by you.”

She turned and left.

I didn’t see her again until 1968. I was a lobbyist for my uncle’s interests at the Presidential Convention that year. Our eyes met across a mass of heads at a post convention party. She immediately started across the floor to me. Every male eye followed her stunning beauty as she passed through the crowd. Her hair was cut close to her head in a shag. She wore a very short skirt which showed those fine legs to perfection.

She came into my open arms and we hugged.

She stood back from me and looked me over. “Damn you! You have no right to look so handsome!”

We sat together at the bar for hours. She had married that guy Ben from college and they had a little girl. She showed me the child’s picture. She was as beautiful as her mother.

Leah looked at the photograph. “She is her daddy’s little girl.”

Leah worked for the State Department as a linguist. Her husband was an MD and they lived in Northern Virginia.

She was at the convention with a woman’s group called Independent Voices. They wanted more say in the party.