Chapter 13: Mike and Elizaveta's Excellent Adventure, Part VI

June 14, 1985, Paris, France

After dinner and a walk along the Champs-Élysées, everyone came back to the Hôtel Le Bristol with us, bringing two bottles of wine, which Sandy and Pete had purchased.

"Damn, Petrovich!" Clarissa exclaimed when we entered the 'Honeymoon Suite'. "Lara pulled out all the stops!"

"I think you could fit our hostel room in the bathroom!" Sandy said when she saw it.

"Mike, is there a corkscrew?" Pete asked.

"Over on the table next to the wine glasses," I said.

He found it, removed the cork from the first bottle of an amazingly inexpensive 'Cru Bourgeois' from the Medoc area of Bordeaux, which the guidebook said was typically a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and some other grapes I never heard of. He poured some into six glasses, which he handed to each of us, keeping one for himself. I turned on the radio and, checking a plastic-coated card next to it, tuned in to what was claimed to be a 'popular music' station, though it seemed to have more talk than music.

"The balcony is awesome!" Clarissa said.

"I never asked," Sandy said, "but how close is the villa in Valencia to the beach?"

"Just across the road, according to Milena," I said. "And we'll each have a modest-size guest room, though we'll need to share the common bathroom on the lower floor. Milena and Joel and Anicka and Derek are using the two large bedrooms."

"I will NOT complain about private sleeping quarters, a pool, and beach access!" Sandy declared emphatically.

"What do you think will happen with that plane that was hijacked today?" Elizaveta asked.

"No clue," I replied. "But our policy is not to negotiate with terrorists."

"I think I'm glad we're not flying to Rome or Athens," she said.

"I suppose this isn't the time to mention that terrorists hijacked a train in the Netherlands about seven years ago," Pete said.

"What?" Sandy asked, laughing. "With a demand to be taken to Cuba?!"

We all laughed.

"No," he replied. "But the Moluccan terrorist held the train for twenty days. They'd done it before in '75, too."

"There's a wonderful thought," I said.

We put thoughts of the terrorists behind us and drank and chatted. Later in the evening, when Abby excused herself to use the bathroom, I took Clarissa aside, having first checked to make sure it was OK with Elizaveta.

"What's going on?" I asked quietly.

"I have NO clue," Clarissa replied. "It really bothered me when she didn't even acknowledge your offer of an armistice. It was like you hadn't even said it. She just changed the subject."

"You haven't talked about it with her?"

"Not beyond what I've said in public."

"I wonder if she's upset because you're defending me?"

"But why?" Clarissa asked, sounding exasperated. "You've been nothing but supportive, and it's not like 'Petrovich and Lissa' is a threat to my relationship with Abby."

"Are you sure about that?" I asked. "Did she, perhaps, figure out the truth about us?"

"If so, she hasn't said anything. Honestly, I expected your pussy cat to be more concerned than she actually is."

"She's convinced you're no threat at all."

"And you think Abby thinks you might be one?"

I shrugged, "I have no clue. But we should rejoin the others before she comes back."

"I'll try to talk to her tonight."

"Be careful, Lissa. We all have to be together for more than four more weeks!"

"I will."

We moved back to the others before Abby came out of the bathroom and continued chatting and drinking wine. When the wine was gone, our friends said 'good night' and left for the hostel while Elizaveta and I agreed on a warm bubble bath.

"Abby is being rude," Elizaveta declared as we undressed.

"It's not anything she hasn't said from the beginning," I replied. "But it seems a bit more strident."

"Did something happen between you two?"

I shook my head, "No. I mean, if there was a risk Clarissa was going to become Orthodox, I might see why Abby would behave the way she is, but that's not going to happen."

"You don't believe God can heal Clarissa?"

"I don't believe Clarissa thinks she needs to be healed," I replied. "And remember, it's not the desire; it's acting on the desire.

We climbed into the tub, and when I sat down, Elizaveta reclined against me.

"But what if the Holy Spirit moved her? You know, to decide not to have sex so she could be Orthodox?"

"I don't think that's likely, and I don't think Clarissa has ever expressed anything like that. If she were straight, well, things would have been very different, I suppose. But they aren't. And having known her for more than three years, I'm positive she's a lesbian, and I'm positive she's not going to give up sex."

"You've talked about that?"

"Clarissa and I talked about literally everything," I replied.

"So she knows all the names?"

I was pretty sure she did, though I had to be careful how I relayed that to Elizaveta because if it seemed I had two different rules, it would create a serious rift. Clarissa knew because she was so far integrated into my life, she knew the girls and had even pointed out ones who were interested in me. And, as I thought about it, Clarissa had, more often than not, simply asked for confirmation of something she had figured out.

"I'm sure she can make very good assumptions as well as surmise from things that happened, many of the girls I was with. I wasn't exactly private about who I was seeing. And I didn't hide using my music to attract girls."

"I just do NOT understand how you could be so casual about it and now just freely say it as if it were no big deal!"

"Would you prefer I was dishonest and defensive or tried to pretend it didn't happen? The truth is out, Kitten, and at this point, trying to pretend I felt other than I did is kind of silly."

"And you were happy to seduce a girl, and then in the morning, what? Thank her for a nice fuck, tell her you'd see her around, and go on your way looking for the next girl to seduce?"

"I had exactly one 'groupie', if you want to call her that, and she and I ended up being lovers for more than a year. The other girls I intentionally sang to never got that far."

"And you were having sex with other girls while you were screwing your groupie?"

I decided to try a bit of levity, "No. I don't think she'd have gone for a threesome!"

Elizaveta laughed bitterly, "Not funny, Mike. You know what I meant!"

"Yes. I admitted I had multiple lovers during the same time period."

"'I had multiple lovers during the same time period'," Elizaveta mocked. "It sounds so nice and neat and clean! How about 'I was fucking different girls every night!'?"

"I'm not sure what to say in response to that," I replied.

"I'm not sure you should say anything right now!" she growled.

I took her advice and simply kept my mouth shut. She didn't move from my arms nor stop reclining against me, though I could tell she was upset. The only thing to do was let her calm down. About ten minutes passed, and then Elizaveta turned to face me.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly.

"I think you have a right to be upset," I replied. "And if you don't let it out, it's going to eat you alive."

"Will you make love to me all night, Mike? Please?"

"I'll do my best," I replied.

June 15, 1985, Paris, France

Elizaveta and I ended up getting about three hours of sleep after making love for nearly six hours. I'd been a bit surprised, but in the end, it made sense that she just wanted me to make love to her gently and slowly while we kissed. When the alarm rang on Saturday morning, we disentangled ourselves and headed to the bathroom for a joint shower.

"Sorry I was so tired," Elizaveta yawned as we moved under the spray.

"There's nothing to be sorry about," I replied. "I was just as tired by 4:00am as you were! And besides, we're going to have tomorrow afternoon and evening to play!"

"First rule — no clothes!"

"What about when they bring room service?"

"OK, robes when the food is delivered!"

"Coward!" I teased.

"And you'd be OK with another man seeing me naked?"

"It's an interesting question," I replied. "My instant reaction in my mind was 'no', but then I thought about my friends who went to a nude beach, and when we all talked about skinny dipping."

"You would do that?"

"Skinny dipping? I decided I probably would, so long as it was a secluded place and just my closest friends. A nude beach? Probably not."

"And you'd be OK with me skinny dipping with your friends?"

"I honestly don't know for sure, but I suppose it would depend. If it were Abby, Clarissa, Robby, and Lee, the ones you would have to worry about staring are NOT the guys!"

"I hadn't even thought about that!"

"And you do realize that you've probably already been naked around lesbians because of gym class and the communal showers they have in the locker rooms at the High Schools. I'm sure there were gay guys in my gym classes at some point during High School."

"And that doesn't bother you?"

I shrugged, "I don't think so, but I never really thought much about it. And our timeframe for something like that would be severely limited; after July 28th, we can't even consider it. Well, you and I could, in a private place, but not with anyone else. The scandal that would cause would be impossible to contain."

"Are you saying you want to do that?"

"Maybe. It's one of those things you might do just to say you have done it. And it's not physically dangerous like some things guys might do on a lark."

"And your friends would do that?"

"We pretty much agreed with our friend Rebekah, who left school to take a full-time job, that it would be a fun thing to do, which was just a bit crazy, but not totally nuts."

"And they'd do it?"

"Robby, Lee, and Clarissa? Sure. I don't know about Abby, but given how liberal she is, I suspect she might go along. The thing is, Robby and Lee are back in Lima, and I don't think they'll be back to McKinley until Saturday night before my ordination. And if they were to participate, Sophia would probably be with them."

"Those are the only ones you would invite?"

I chuckled, "I can see Tasha participating, but Nik would completely lose his mind. And besides, they'll be on their honeymoon. Beyond that, the people who agreed it would be fun aren't really around for the Summer, though most of them are coming back for my ordination weekend."

"I guess it just seems weird that you're OK with it. Then again," she said, her eyes narrowing, "given you've let twenty-two other girls see you naked, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised."

"The one thing actually has nothing to do with the other," I replied.

"What is it Abby called them? 'Rhetorical games'?" she asked snidely.

I finished soaping my body and stood under the spray to wash off the lather before I answered.

"No, not at all. The context is different. One is about sex, the other isn't. It's like the difference we discussed about medical exams."

Elizaveta moved under the spray to wash the lather from her body, and then we got out of the shower.

"I guess I don't see it that way," she said. "Medical exams are totally different from everything else."

"OK, but you at least acknowledge that there is a difference between nudity and sex, right?"

"Is there?"

"Do you think being naked in a locker room with Clarissa would be wrong?"

"As I said, I haven't really thought about it, so I'm not sure. It sounds to me like you want to do it."

"It's just a thought, Kitten. Don't make too much of it."

"And are you going to have thoughts like that all the time? About being naked with other girls around? Or about other girls?"

"I can only control my thoughts to a limited extent. I can, on the other hand, not dwell on them, or worse, act on them."

"Can you? Really?" she asked, sounding as if she was accusing me.

"I gave you my word," I said softly. "There's nothing more I can do. If you don't trust me, then I don't see how we have a true, intimate relationship going forward."

I finished drying myself, applied some deodorant, and left the bathroom with a very uneasy feeling. If Elizaveta was doubting my faithfulness after just three weeks of marriage, our relationship was in serious trouble. Had we been home, I'd already have been in touch with Father Nicholas and Doctor Mercer for spiritual and secular counseling. But we were three thousand miles from home, so neither of those was really possible, and the cost of even short phone calls to the US was fairly outrageous. I took a deep breath, let it out, then started dressing.

"Mike?" Elizaveta called out softly as she came out of the bathroom.

"Yes?"

"You walked away," she said, sounding very concerned.

"You didn't say anything before I finished, and I didn't know what else to say, so I just came out to get dressed."

"You don't want to be married to me?" she asked apprehensively.

"That's not what I said at all," I replied gently. "I did acknowledge something that is absolutely true, and that's if you don't trust me, especially on that topic, our relationship is in serious trouble. May I say one thing in my defense?"

Elizaveta nodded, so I continued.

"Despite everything that I did, and as outrageous as you feel my behavior was, I never once broke my word to a girl, nor did I cheat on a girl. Ever."

Elizaveta was quiet for a moment before she spoke.

"You realize how difficult that is for me to believe, right? That all those girls would just casually accept that you were fucking other girls?"

"Believe it or not, it wasn't discussed. Remember, I wasn't steady with any of the girls, and I really only ever offered Angie a committed, exclusive relationship that would lead to marriage, but because of her illness, she couldn't make that kind of commitment. And, to be honest, anything she said or did after the one time she and I shared a serious kiss can't be held to the usual standards because there's no way to know how her illness affected her."

"It's just ... I, um, just can't see how that many girls would just do it with no kind of promise or commitment. Especially if what you said about them being virgins is true."

"It's all true," I replied. "And I think, from each of their perspectives, it made sense to them. I mean, if it hadn't, they wouldn't have done it. It's not like I got them drunk and took advantage of them or anything even remotely like that."

"So all those girls, all those virgins, just stripped and begged you to fuck them?"

"That happened exactly ONE time, and I sent her away because it was the wrong thing to do."

"Wait! Seriously? A girl took off her clothes and asked you to fuck her?!"

"Yes."

"And you said 'no'?!"

"I did. Besides her, there were girls who propositioned me, but I never once accepted a proposition like that. I had some kind of relationship with every girl I went to bed with before I went to bed with her."

Which was true, and oddly, the one who didn't fit the pattern, really, was Lara, but she was, in effect, the exception that proved the rule, and even there, it hadn't gone the way Elizaveta was suggesting.

"There were other girls who wanted to have sex with you? And you turned them down?"

"Yes."

"I'd really like to hear how you made decisions because it sure seems as if you didn't really have any criteria!"

"Either we have to skip the museum or finish dressing so we can meet the others and continue this conversation later. I'll leave it up to you."

"This is private," Elizaveta said firmly. "We need to keep our plans."

While I agreed with her, I was also concerned about her stewing for what was likely going to be fifteen hours spent at The Louvre, dinner, and the Moulin Rouge. I certainly didn't want to miss out on the museum, but seeing it paled compared to finding a way forward in our relationship.

"If you're sure," I replied.

"I am."

She moved to the dresser to get her clothes, and I finished dressing. A few minutes later, when she was dressed, we made sure we had everything we needed for the day, put on our fanny packs, and left the hotel to meet the others. As we walked along Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, I contemplated the roller-coaster ride we'd been on the past few days.

It was difficult for me to tell where we were on the track. I'd thought we'd gone over the major peak, but it was entirely possible we hadn't and that a bigger climb and fall were coming. My only hope was that, as with a real roller-coaster, the hills would become lower and lower until we were gliding on what amounted to a level track.

I felt a bit better when Elizaveta slipped her hand into mine after we'd walked for about a minute. I knew she was uneasy, and probably even more than I was, but I didn't think she saw the same looming disaster which I saw. In her mind, she'd decided she'd stay with me, but until she actually got to a point where she was enough at peace with my past that she could let it rest in her mind, there would be a major risk to our marriage.

The full weight of Doctor Mercer's advice had landed on me, and I was neck-deep in exactly the kind of situation she'd suggested would arise. I had, in effect, gone into the marriage on false pretenses, albeit I'd been technically honest with Elizaveta. And therein was the problem — the 'technical' truth was used to conceal the 'real' truth, and now that it had come out, we were both suffering because of my past behavior and my decision to limit what I'd told Elizaveta. And now, I didn't see a clear way out of the jungle in which I landed us.