Chapter 4

Joe began working on his novel. Research and mulling. Even a basic outline wouldn’t happen for a while.

It wasn’t really an excuse, calling Cheryl to have her contact Bill regarding helping with the research. They both had opened the door to talking again.

“How did it go with Nick?” Joe asked her.

“Good.”

“Just good?”

“Yeah,” she chuckled. Not the giggle he missed. “Great sex and maybe the beginning of conversation.”

“He wasn’t pissed about you lying?”

“Somewhat. I led off with Rhonda. Probably guilted him. So bringing up the lie, of seeing my longtime ex-husband, he was rocked back a bit.”

“Clever.”

“Yeah. He agreed to open up. Letting the steam out as Freud might say. But he remains insistent on his not cheating.”

“Do you believe him?”

After a pause, she murmured, “No. Something else to talk to Bill about.”

“And if he proves...”

“It depends Joe. It will hurt. His lies. But I’m hoping he can be truthful about it. It’s that that bothers me.”

“Cheating and lies...”

“Hand in hand. I know. If he feels compelled to fuck around, he needs to be honest about it. It would probably be Karma, what with me fucking around on you for so long. If he becomes defensive, isn’t willing to open up ... I don’t know, Joe.”

“And you?”

“What about me?”

“Would it open you up to be with others?”

“No Joe.”

“I understand.”

“I know you do. If his opening up might mean sharing his little conquests, either verbally or actually, I’d be okay with that. Actually it’d be fun,” she giggled, a most welcome sound.

“And if Bill or whoever finds no proof?”

“It might actually be worse.”

“How so?”

“Because I would tell Nick I spied on him.”

“Revealing your lack of trust.”

“Yes.”

“Maybe your lack of trust comes from some missing honesty in his relationship to you.”

“Putting the onus on him? Probably not a good idea.”

“It could provide great make-up sex.”

“Or it could end things, Joe.”

“Then don’t check up on him.”

“I have to know Joe.”

“Who’d have thought our unconventional relationship might end up being easier.”

“No one except us. It was easier because it was easy. Just being with you and being completely honest. No lies to hide behind or make one uneasy or guilty. Enjoying ourselves and relishing the adventures we could safely share. It was perfect for me until it wasn’t.”

“I know.”

“Could I call you later? Maybe put the phone on speaker? So I could talk to your wives and the kids? Nick claims he won’t be home until late. Work.”

“You know we’d love that, Cheryl.”

“I would too, except Rhonda.”

“What if it ends up private, just you two?”

“I’d like that, but I doubt she would.”

“No hurt in asking.”

“Yes there is.”

“I suppose.”

“Talk to you later.”

“Bye, Cheryl.”

It ended up, especially for Cheryl, better than expected. She and her daughter ended up talking long enough for Nick to come home, Cheryl telling him she’s talking to Rhonda. His uneasy smile had her think “Fuck him,” but she let it slide and the conversation continued.

The success created further similar conversation. Joe and family talking to Cheryl at least once a week when Nick had plans for the evening.

Joe also talked to Chandi at least once a week. After the first call, the others had Chandi pressing the speakerphone button, although she and Joe had their private minutes before she did, so that Moe could be part of it.

Chandi and Joe emailed quite a bit as well. His medium of communication doing research for the book. She wanted to work on the darkest side. The villains of the sex rings. Joe gave her the numbers of the two investigators Bill recommended. One in Europe and one in the Unites States. Bill knew the best of the best which was needed. Finding females involved in the cruel and unsavory business of sex trafficking children willing to talk about it.

Bill also gave Joe the number of the investigator that had originally found the forgers in Paris. The couple remained in the same house Eloise had gotten her papers. Mostly retired. Contacting them needed to be discreet. Untraceable. No chance of being overheard by police or government spies. They managed to set up an interview when Joe was in Paris during the winter break.

The other interview Joe wanted ended up happening much sooner. Because of Dr. Morrow’s age, he thought it best to do it as soon as possible. Emails to Eloise had her coming to New York to participate. Though she hadn’t been much of a foster daughter to the old couple, she had become friends with the woman from phone calls meant to glean wisdom from the experienced psychologist, since Eloise would be specializing in the same field of children traumatized by incest and abuse.

When the two women met after not having seen each other for years, they embraced. “You look healthy,” Dr. Morrow remarked.

“I have my moments,” Eloise admitted.

“Unavoidable,” Dr. Morrow responded sadly.

“How are you holding up?”

“I miss him, of course, but he had a long sickness, so I guess I was prepared.”

“How is it here?” Joe asked. After her husband’s death, she moved into an old folks home in Northern New Jersey. Or assisted living residence, though Joe found the newer terminology a bit colder than the old one. It reminded him of assisted suicide.

She had a small, comfortable apartment, neat and clean and comfortable, warmed by art on the walls and a lit glass and wood cabinet filled with knick-knacks. Eloise made them tea, which the old woman appreciated, unsteady on her feet but still able to walk with a walker.

“Comfortable enough,” Dr. Morrow replied. “Three adequate meals and old farts like me. My kids and grandkids visit from time to time. More often since my husband died. But they have their own lives. I don’t recommend being old to anyone.”

“The price of a long life,” Joe said.

“I suppose it is. This is the best of it. Having people who appreciate my wisdom. As Eloise has done and you are doing. What can I help you with?”

“You don’t mind me recording this?” Joe asked, pulling out his digital recorder from his shoulder bag.

“Of course not.”

Joe included both women in the interview. Although Eloise had never been enslaved, Joe wanted her experience of being sexually abused as part of the main character’s history. From fry pan to fire so to speak.

“It’s obviously different,” Joe said. “From being molested by someone you trust, to being forced into rapes.”

“In a way there’s a more direct damage to the psyche,” Dr. Morrow agreed. “With incest, I think the victim is more exposed to the experience. There’s guilt along with the terrible betrayal. And confusion. It’s a deeply emotional experience, even if the memory tends to dull it over time in order to survive after the ordeal. Although, of course, the effect remains. But when forced, and as you said raped, the mind can only shut off. In order to endure the shock and pain. Like closing the mind off in a secure safe. And it’s difficult, sometimes impossible, to find the combination to open it. So that a victim can enjoy sex. Intimate contact can’t help remind of the horrid past.”

“Wouldn’t it be about giving them control?” Joe asked. “Getting being forced out of the equation?”

“They need to actually get to that place of being willing to try,” Eloise said. “There’s a lot of fear to conquer, and fear isn’t the best thing to feel about a lover.”

“I imagine it would take a very patient mate,” Joe nodded.

“And a great deal of love,” Dr. Morrow agreed. She opened a drawer in the small table between the chair she sat on and the sofa which Joe and Eloise shared. She pulled out a small leather bound address book that looked to have existed since she was young. Indexed by letters at the outer edges of the pages, she opened it to the P.

“Patricia Simon.” She said. “Trish. Probably my greatest success, of which there were never enough. The only one I’ve remained in contact with since her therapy.”

Joe took the book and copied the phone number and address.

“I file them by first names,” Dr. Morrow explained. “At least the young girls. They retained those, while changing their last name. Simon the family that fostered her. A nice Jewish couple from Albany.

“Trish is one of the strongest women I’ve ever known. She became a strident lesbian. She’s very much involved with sexual politics. Declaims the inherent aggressiveness of men.”

“Men being inherently rapists,” Joe nodded. “Understandable.”

“But she really is a sweet and gentle woman. And brilliant. She’s not the soapbox type. Mostly writing for the soap box. Her longtime partner is the one who makes the speeches. Her speeches, or a collaboration. But she’s the writer.

“She’s actually from the same province as you, Eloise. And like you, she escaped abuse, directly incest in her case. A much older brother. But unlike you, she wasn’t rescued in Paris. She was taken. Enslaved. Sold. Rescued in a raid.”

“Doesn’t sound like I can contact her,” Joe said. “Let alone interview her.”

“I doubt I have the time,” Eloise said. “Though I’d love to interview her, just to ask how she coped.”

“Call her,” Dr. Morrow gestured to her phone.

Instead, Eloise pulled out a small mobile phone. “Save you the long distance,” she smiled and punched in the numbers.

Reaching Trish, when recognizing Eloise’s accent had them speaking French immediately. They spoke of Brittany as if of Eden before the first sin, before their innocence had been violently taken from them. Their similar history had been shared briefly, and their mutual respect for Dr. Morrow, she being the source of the phone number and Eloise following in Dr. Morrow’s professional path. Only after the pleasing nostalgia of a long past idyllic home did Eloise broach the true purpose of the call. Admitting it would be a man writing about the terrible trials of a girl’s enslavement and abuse.

“You trust him?” Trish asked, continuing in French.

“With my life,” Eloise responded.

“Why?”

“He brought me here. He saved me from a life on the street. A pretty teenage runaway. You can imagine.”

“At what cost?”

Eloise laughed. “I thought it would be the usual exchange. What I’d become used to. It even looked like that. But he didn’t just remove me from the streets. He removed the streets from me.”

“But ... the usual exchange.”

“Yes. I seduced him like the whore I was. Actually I suppose I seduced one of his wives first.”

“Wives?”

“Will you listen to my explanation? I heard how bitter you are towards men. I agree they tend to think with their balls, and can forget everything else except their own pleasure, at the expense of compassion, of giving instead of just taking.”

“Of course.”

“Well, I have found some men can fight their compulsion, at least until after they have thoroughly pleasured the woman.”

“And this man is that sort?”

“Yes. As is my husband. Whom I don’t think I would have allowed into my heart without my experience with Joe Solomon.”

“Joseph Solomon? The novelist?”

“Yes.”

“Go on.”

“First, Joe having multiple wives, multiple lovers is significant.”

“His harem.”

Eloise laughed again. “If you knew them, you’d know these weren’t some group of sex slaves. Joe used to tell me they are all smarter than him.”

“A bunch of Scheherazade’s?”

“Except they wouldn’t want to distract him by stories. They enjoy fucking him too much. These are extraordinary women, Trish, every one of them. Beautiful and intelligent and charming and loving. He could have any of them or all of them at any time. He certainly didn’t need me to be his sex slave.”

“Another conquest.”

“No! Even if he’d be the first to admit it’s not a selfless act, that he gets a great deal of enjoyment from it, he always puts the woman first. And believe me, he’s quite good at that. Not just assuring an orgasm, but often several. Why else would extraordinary women stay with him? That and he’s handsome, intelligent and charming. Relationships don’t just happen in bed.

“When I made my seduction in Paris of a visiting author from America, I hoped he would take me away. Hide me in a trunk or something. Kind of desperate, I know. Nevertheless, it was my plan. I wanted to prove I was more than a stupid teenage whore cunt, literally. That I had intelligence. And it didn’t hurt that I admired him. I’d read his book, No Contest, and thoroughly enjoyed it.”

“I’m a fan as well,” Trish admitted.

“He does write remarkably from a woman’s perspective.”

“He does. Especially moms. What happened?”

“Like I said, I seduced one of his wives first. Liang. A lovely woman. An American of Chinese heritage. She pulled me from the bookstore where Joe had done his reading and was signing his book, and she fed me. At Joe’s suggestion or maybe both realized I could use a meal. We ate and talked. Had a wonderful, easy conversation. I could tell she was interested in me. Liang tends towards the lesbian side of the line between heterosexual and homosexual. I am more heterosexual, but interested. In the limo to the chateau they were staying at, we had a sort of orgy, more individual goings on, but I guess I started things going. Giving Liang what she wanted. Things continued in this huge bed, but it became entirely about me. Joe and me and with the women’s help. For the first time I felt what it meant to have someone make love to me. Enough to experience orgasms not done via my own fingers, or the efforts of a rare patient man attending to my pussy. With fingers and tongue. Never with cock. But somehow Joe made me cum while fucking. And not just once. Several times. It was truly glorious. It changed my life, maybe more than Joe getting me out of Paris. Because a man cared enough to assure my pleasure.

“And I still thought, him bringing me here, not an easy thing and expensive, that I’d have to be his whore in order to pay him. Joe with his bed full of incredible women. I still thought like a whore. Or like a slave. And like a slave I wanted to escape having to pay off my debt. Or maybe I was just a teenager lusting for adventure, with the anger my life had bestowed on me making it about being sneaky and rebellious. Foolishly perhaps, I chose a confidante, younger than me so maybe more my equal. The smartest and most beautiful of the women Joe loved.”

“Wait. She was younger than you and was Joe’s lover?”

“I know how that sounds.”

“It sounds a lot like what I had to deal with.”

“But it’s not. Esther in a way is older than any of them. She did all the seducing, and Joe resisted her for years. If you met her, you’d realize what incredible restraint that took.”

“Unh-hunh,” Trish muttered.

“Anyway, Esther told Joe of my plans. I felt betrayed, but then they both made it clear to me I wasn’t going to have to pay my debt. That I could be with whomever I chose, and do whatever I wanted. Just to the point that they wanted to make sure I was safe, you know? Even if it was feigned in order to get me out of France, Joe took serious his role as protector. Joe has a bit of the white knight in him. He wants to make things better for the women in his life. His making love to me in Paris was actually about that. Showing men were able to care about my feelings, my pleasure, enough to sacrifice or at least to delay their own. Again Joe would say it isn’t entirely selfless. Because he gets off on getting us off.

“And it wasn’t bullshit what Esther and Joe told me. That he didn’t expect me to be his slave. Because not long after, Esther fixed me up with this boy. The boy who would become my husband and father to my children. Who I fell in love with the first evening I met him. And not just Esther made that happen. Joe opened me up to the possibility of trusting a man. Something I couldn’t imagine before I met him.”

“Okay, I’ll meet with him, but only if you come along,” Trish said.

“Just a second,” Eloise said, covering the phone. “She agrees to meet,” she told Joe. “She wants me there, but...”

“She lives in Poughkeepsie,” Joe said. “It’s still relatively early. It might be a bit late by the time we get there. If we could bypass New York...”

“I’d like her to meet Esther. I suppose I shouldn’t have let her know she was so young when she became your lover.”

“Your flight leaves... ?”

“Tomorrow afternoon. Early afternoon.”

Joe shrugged. “It depends on Trish. If we go there, I’d want to spend some time on the interview.”

“I wouldn’t want to hurry things either. Who needs sleep?”

“Ask.”

“Okay,” Esther returned to speaking French into the phone. “If you’d be willing to stay up late...”

“I’m a bit of a night owl.”

“Great. I’d like to bring my friend. Esther.”

“To convince me of Joe’s better angels.”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“I can’t wait to meet you!”

“You too, El.”

Essie joked, “That cutie can always sit on my lap,” when Joe told her the plan. Joe had a Mercedes sportster. He always liked the luxury and sportiness of Constance’s. Essie also owned a car, a Lexus sedan with its own luxury. Both cars were parked in a garage a couple blocks from the townhouse most of the time. Cars weren’t needed and were more of an annoyance in Manhattan, but were convenient for trips outside the city, especially for Essie, the luxury often more acceptable for her clients than, say, a Ford Fiesta, though she’d have preferred the small car’s efficiency.

Joe wanted to say, “You didn’t get enough of her last night?” but laughed instead, what with Dr. Morrow there. Essie had been the exception in Eloise’s and her husband Ben’s marriage. The only person to share their bed. A couple visits to Montreal and when the couple visited Ben’s parents. The first came from a call that Essie made after the newlyweds returned from their honeymoon, an Alaskan cruise Joe had gifted them. Eloise confessed the only problem during the wedding had been Ben being distracted by the maid of honor, Essie. Essie joked she should just put him out of his misery.

“I wouldn’t mind,” Eloise admitted.

“Me either,” Essie chuckled. She wasn’t attracted or interested in many women, but Eloise was one.

So, a couple of days later, Ben opened the door to Essie, who immediately set her luggage down and kissed him, embracing him as well to not let him escape. He relaxed into it. Even more when his wife told him it was okay.

It almost always took a couple cums for Ben to last. Essie’s beauty definitely affected him. But he was a resilient lover and quick to recover and generous. Essie considered him her second favorite male lover. After Joe of course. Which was why, along with the two women enjoying each other as well, that the threesomes continued when they could.

But this was the first time with just the two women. Okayed by Ben. Essie had brought out the fake Joe strap on for old times’ sake. But Joe was definitely not invited. Eloise never asked for permission. She knew, from early debauched times, that other men would bother Ben. She even called Ben amidst their lovemaking to include Ben in phone sex, partly to assure him Joe wasn’t there.

It wasn’t an easy decision to exclude Joe, sleeping or doing whatever so close by. Eloise remained attracted to the man who first gave her the experience of making love. The craving could only be resisted through two forces, hers and his. So she had told Joe to not be swayed by any begging early on in her relationship with Ben. She knew Joe wouldn’t cross that line. And though there had been many wistful glances his way, and except for him possibly exploiting those gazes, she never really needed him to prove his obeying her request. She never challenged it. She never made that request.

So, with a smirk, when Joe stopped at the townhouse before heading north, Essie greeted him. No sedan in sight. “You need to get out of your seat, El,” Essie told her through the open window.

It tested Joe’s resolve having Essie subtly and not so subtly pleasure the cute smaller French woman in her lap. Fingers on thighs easing up to the juncture. Fingers finding purchase on a breast and nipple. Eloise’s breathe getting heavier. Fingers sliding under clothing, finding direct access to pussy. The breast becoming available via undone buttons and bra pushed aside. Breathing containing moans. Silenced when lips met lips. The work being done by fingers more and more obvious, especially finger fucking. Joe could smell the juices there.

Joe couldn’t not have an erection. He touched it casually, discretely, and imagined Eloise’s soft lips pressing when his fingers pressed. At the edges of his glans. Even thought about pulling it out and masturbating. Kisses kept their attention away from him. Except a brief pause and a noticing, smirking gaze from Essie. Glancing downward.

By the time they entered Poughkeepsie, Eloise shuttered in Essie lap, quietly ecstatic. Her orgasmic blush might have been added to by his obvious awareness when their eyes briefly met. She quickly repositioned her breast and buttoned things up.

Joe stopped at a small house, one amongst many, Little Boxes, as Pete Seeger had once sung about. Houses plopped down onto row after row of trenches in many American cities after the Second World War. Constructed, not prefab. That would neither be acceptable nor available until later. Homes for the ever expanding workers aspiring to middle class comfort.

Not much more than a year before, it had accommodated a couple and a daughter. When the daughter left to start college, the couple became the proverbial empty nesters. Less common, both of them were female, the daughter Trish’s mate’s. The father had been an abusive alcoholic and drug addict and cad. Carla, Trish’s longtime partner, had been a party girl until she realized she’d become pregnant, and she decided to sober up for the sake of the child. Her fiancé didn’t, and the pregnancy and her plea to advance the wedding date escalated his abuse, from mostly verbal with the occasional shoves bordering on hitting, she being the sort of victim that had made herself believe she deserved it, to his hands becoming fists which threatened the life of her unborn child and made her escape to a shelter, her much clearer mind realizing she never deserved the abuse. The cad part of her fiancé ended up being a blessing. She just felt sorry for the next girl enthralled by his charm and rugged good looks, even if she was thankful for the distraction. The asshole never bothered to go after her.

The shelter also brought Trish and Carla together, Trish working and interning simultaneously as a crisis counselor. It was lust at first sight for Trish, and Carla finally let her inner lesbian out, the one she held in check growing up. Her inner radical feminist was also released. She had charisma making speeches and organizing. Trish provided the texts.

The daughter grew up in the large house of Trish’s foster parents, both born rich. Both the only liberals amongst the two elite families, their intelligence and ability to keep the businesses thriving bringing reluctant acceptance, forgiving their leftists politics and their eccentricities, including giving home to a lesbian couple, one of whom was a loud, proud, butch dyke.

But as soon as they could, Trish, having changed her studies to journalism and working her way up the ladder of the local paper, and Carla working amongst the enemy, the secretary to the owner of a construction company, her dyke nature keeping the rough, testosterone driven men who surrounded her from targeting her with their latent rapist mindset, though she couldn’t avoid their sexist, misogynist mutterings, moved out of the big house and found the small house Joe and the ladies were visiting.

There, the deeply sad Trish told her story. Essie encouraged it, seeing the depression and the loneliness in Trish’s intelligent and expressive brown eyes. She had buried her soulmate only a month before. Breast cancer. The daughter, visiting just for the funeral, returned to the purposely distant UCLA where scholarships and some help from her sort of grandparents gave her the wherewithal to study film. Shame for having lesbian parents making Trish’s emotional pain worse. Ironically, her Masters thesis documentary about her adopted parents would be the first step towards becoming a successful director. From other documentaries to television shows to feature films.

Joe knew he needed to be patient. Even more so when Trish pulled Essie into a kiss. At forty, she remained a lovely woman. Soft, pale features. Dirty blonde hair. Evenly curved. A French beauty.

Essie broke the kiss and smiled. She gently eased Eloise into taking her place. “You two should get to know each other,” she said during their kiss. “If you don’t mind, my husband has his needs too.”

“Daughter’s room,” Trish said between kisses.

Once Essie pulled Joe into the room across the hall and shut the door, Joe muttered, “I thought...”

“Don’t worry,” Essie smiled and knelt, unzipping him and pulling his cock out, not quite half hard. “El is perfectly aware of why we’re here. They can trade stories. El knows to record it.”

“Okay,” Joe moaned, his cock quickly hardening in Essie’s mouth. He interrupted her expert blow job, removing her shirt and bra. Essie removed his pants, returning to her task. After a deep throat, Joe pulled her to her feet. They finished undressing, and Essie straddled him on the edge of the single bed. They kissed as Essie sank down on his cock. His hands grasped her ass cheeks, squeezing and relaxing their hold. Essie ended the kiss and leaned back. Joe got the hint and lowered his mouth to her tits. Bringing one nipple to hardness and then the other.

Essie’s ride quickened until he lifted her and laid her on the bed, somehow keeping his cock inside her. The squeak of the bed quieted his thrusts. They separated. Essie lay on the floor, and Joe took position between her thighs. The oval, woven rug eased the rub of his knees. Somewhat. But needs made him ignore it. Hers and his. Fingers on one breast and mouth on the other. Essie stroking her clit. Joe squeezing her ass, a finger pressing at her anus and entering it. Hands changing places so that both nipples got sucked and nibbled.

It didn’t take long for both of them to go wild against each other, Essie lifting up to meet Joe’s downward thrusts. Somehow matching even when things got fast.

“Almost ... there,” Essie managed to moan.

“Me ... too!”

The fuck quickened even more, the power of them lifting her hips higher and his cock giving exquisite friction to the more sensitive upper portion of her cunt.

“There!” she exclaimed. “There! Fuck! Joe!” and she came.

Joe’s cock continued scraping high. His strokes slowing, but being even more powerful. Until he pressed in deeper than ever, lifting her ass higher, and shot after shot of his cum filled her womb.

“Esther,” he growled.

“I wish ... you had sperm to germinate my egg.”

“Me too.”

They held tight as waves of pleasure cascaded throughout their bodies. Midway through, their lips pressed together.

Both lips and the embrace lessened pressure until they felt the last jolt of orgasm and relaxed completely, both quietly chuckling. Joe turned them over so she could rest on him, fingers sliding across her sweaty forehead and combing through her damp blond locks.

“You’re ready,” he said.

“I am.”

“You sure you don’t just want my seed?”

“Getting fucked by a turkey baster? Or worse, leaving it to happen in a test tube? Besides, I’ve seen that fat cock Eddie sports.”

Joe chuckled.

Essie changed subject. “I was thinking about checking up on those two, but even though I could tell Trish had the hots for me, I think you’re obvious male scent would turn her off.”

“Hold still,” Joe said, slipping his limp penis out. “Maybe...”

Essie anticipated his suggestion, turning over and forming a fetal position on her back. Joe left the bedroom, naked and found the bathroom. He soaked and soaped a hand towel and grabbed a bath towel and returned with them, cleaning his penis along the way. He knelt and cleaned pussy and thighs, adding kisses and tongue to the cleaning. Even suffering through sucking out some of his cum. A necessary cream pie. It got her worked up. Enough for Joe to continue the cunnilingus, a hand going up to work her nipples, until she came again. Of course, that caused Joe to be fully hard.

“Poor boy,” she patted it and then sucked it into her throat.

“Esther!” he moaned, not exactly a complaint.

“I know,” she pouted and sighed. “I think I’m odorificly presentable.”

Joe chuckled. “You’re definitely oracularly presentable.”

She winked and sashayed out of the room.

In the master bedroom she interrupted Trish sucking Eloise, Eloise obviously close. “Delicious, isn’t she?” Essie grinned and approached Trish, letting Trish paw her breasts and kiss her. “You shouldn’t leave her half done,” Essie smirked, and moved behind Trish, where her soft pale ass lifted high, and brought mouth to it, soon followed by fingers. She was careful not to be too intense there, making sure Eloise got off. Then she went full out, bringing Trish her orgasm.