Chapter 13

I had underestimated what would happen when we had house guests looming. Emma started worrying whether everything was neat enough, and clean enough. After all, it had been a bachelor house for a while after my parents moved to Arizona, so it had developed a certain dorm-room ambiance.

Emma had removed most of the traces, but there were some lingering issues and she started scrubbing and sweeping, moving this over here and that over there, until it hardly looked like the same house. To be honest, I’d never had an eye for this stuff, and I appreciated that she could identify it and fix it.

She cleaned out the guest room and somehow made it look bright and inviting. Even I was impressed. She bought some new towels – I knew that they were long overdue to be replaced, but I hated the thought of shopping for towels so I never did – and the bathroom suddenly looked newer and cleaner.

The night before Amy was due to arrive, Emma prowled around the house making sure that she had missed nothing. Even she couldn’t find anything to change.

“So have you given any thought to what the two of you are going to do while I’m at work?” I asked her.

“I dunno. We’ll probably spend some time talking, I think she needs that. I’ll try to find some fun things we can do, get her mind off the eternal dullness named Donald, maybe do some sightseeing – I don’t think she’s been here before. We’ll wing it.”

“Okay, I’ll try to stay out of your way.”

“Actually, I’d kind of like you to be around, maybe do a few things with us. I’ve been thinking about this. She needs to get the idea that husbands are not all like Donny, that there are some out there like you. She’s had nothing to compare him to, and I’d like her to see that there are better choices out there. If she can’t change Donny, then one solution is to dump him, find someone better.”

“Well, that seems somehow drastic. He’s maybe the world’s dullest person, but he wasn’t mean or abusive, that I could see. His main flaw is he’s uninteresting and indifferent. Maybe he could change.”

“She hasn’t had any success up to now, and he’s shown no signs that he thinks anything needs changing, even when Amy brought it up.”

“I suppose. I just feel a little bad at maybe being involved in breaking two people apart.”

“Sometimes it’s for the best. I mean, Jesus, what if she found herself pregnant with a Donny Junior? She’d pretty much be condemned to spend the rest of her life with him. You want that on your conscience?”

“You make a good point. What time does she get in again?”

“Around two. She’ll be here when you get home. I know it’s your turn, but I’ll make dinner. It’ll be good for her if she can help me.”

So we went to bed with Emma’s plans for the week whirling around in her head.

And the next day when I arrived home and let myself in, I heard laughter coming from the kitchen. I poked my head in and said hello. “Kenny, I didn’t hear you come in!” said Emma.

“Not surprised, with all the chortling going on. Amy, nice to see you. Your trip okay?”

“It was just fine, thanks. And Emma was right there to meet me when I stepped off the train. Couldn’t have been easier.”

She looked about the same as I remembered her from the resort. She still wore the same kind of slightly dowdy, loose-fitting clothes she’d worn there. I thought there was a sort of weariness in her face that I hadn’t noticed before, but I could have been imagining it.

Emma said, “Dinner will probably be another twenty minutes or so, time enough to get changed. We’ve got this, the two of us, right, Amy?” Amy nodded.

I took a quick shower, as I felt a little grimy, and changed, and by the time I came downstairs dinner was on the table.

“Well, this looks wonderful,” I said, “if you’re not careful you’ll spoil me by raising my expectations.”

“It was fun,” Emma said, “and easy with an extra set of hands.”

We ate, and Emma kept the conversation light, asking easy questions about Amy’s home town, her family, where she went to school, and so on. She made an effort, I noticed, to make me a part of the conversation, joining the give and take. I knew she was trying to show Amy that there were different ways for people to interact, especially married people.

Amy was a bit shy at first, clearly not quite at ease in social situations, but Emma made an effort to make her feel like she was among friends, making little jokes, and eventually Amy started to lighten up. I noticed that when she smiled or laughed, her face changed, becoming something more than the plain Jane she normally looked like. I thought that with some discreet makeup she could be someone’s idea of beautiful.

After dinner, Emma pulled out some wine – she must have made a special trip to get it since we don’t usually have a lot in the house. Amy had to be cajoled into a glass, and I was pretty sure that alcohol had been verboten in her house growing up. And sure enough, after one glass and part of another the two of them were laughing hysterically together, like old friends. I knew Emma had a higher tolerance for that amount of wine, so she was letting on that she was drunker than she actually was.

At some point, I excused myself, saying I had to be up early for work, and said I hoped that Amy would be comfortable. They shouted their goodnights and I went upstairs.

It was actually earlier than I normally went to bed, but I thought that Emma wanted to get some alone time with Amy, fueled with wine, so she could get Amy talking about life with Donald.

I read for awhile, a book I’d been meaning to start for some time except that sex with Emma kept getting in the way. We have to have priorities, after all.

I was already asleep when Emma came to bed. She woke me when she climbed in beside me.

“Did she stagger off to her drunken bed?” I asked her hoarsely.

“Yeah, but I did get her talking some. Poor girl. She’s frustrated. In a lot of ways. We’ll go out tomorrow, do some shopping and sightseeing, maybe she’ll talk some more. I had perhaps a bit too much wine, I gotta sleep, baby.”

And she was out. So was I, for that matter.

The next evening, it was my turn for dinner prep. I was okay with cooking for myself, even with cooking for Emma, since I knew she wouldn’t judge me too harshly, but cooking for guests was not something I’d done a lot and I was a little nervous. But I supposed as long as there was no actual food poisoning involved, she couldn’t really complain. So something simple, broiled chicken cutlets with some chopped garlic and mushrooms, some rice pilaf out of a box, string beans and a salad. Hard to mess up.

And it turned out not bad. I even got a compliment from Amy. Probably just good manners, but I’ll take what I can get. I’d surrendered on dessert, though, and bought a cake from the store.

We cleared the dishes and Amy got ready to start washing, but Emma told her guests couldn’t do that, against house rules. They sparred back and forth good-naturedly until Amy gave up with a smile. She asked to be excused so she could use the bathroom and trotted upstairs.

As Emma and I washed and dried, I asked her how the day had gone.

“I drove her around, showed her some of the sights, then we did some shopping and had a late lunch. Weird thing happened. I don’t remember how we got on the subject but we got talking about dating and sex before marriage, and sex after. And like her, I didn’t have much to contribute in the before part. Our upbringings weren’t that different, though I get the impression her parents were more rigid and religious about it.”

Emma was keeping her voice low, knowing Amy would be back down soon. She went on, “But I mentioned that the after part had been eye-opening, the way you made me feel, like earthquakes and spaceships taking off, and how wonderful it left me feeling. And as I watched her, I realized that it was like trying to explain color to a person born sightless. You wouldn’t be able to find a comparable analogy to make them understand it completely.

“I asked some discreet questions and I discovered that she’s never had an orgasm. Never! Touching yourself was a serious sin in her religion, and had been drummed into her since she was able to understand words, so no making herself cum. And of course Donny is all about Donny, so no relief on that front either. I think she needs to...”

She broke off because she heard Amy’s footsteps coming downstairs and went back to washing dishes, chatting to me about the traffic around the city today.

“So what’ll we do after dinner, people? I got some more wine for us, Amy. Ken doesn’t much care for it. I dunno. Jigsaw puzzle? Monopoly? Wait, I know. How ‘bout Scrabble? I haven’t whipped Kenny’s butt yet in Scrabble. You and me against him!”

So we played Scrabble, while the two of them worked on the bottle of wine and I finished off the last of the coffee. It turns out Emma was very good with words, and Amy wasn’t far behind, so a half hour in I was pretty much toast, score-wise.

We did a couple of games, then I yawned theatrically behind my hand, and told them that I thought it might be bedtime for me. Actually, I’d gotten wrapped up in the book I’d started and wanted to get back to it, so I said my goodnights and went upstairs. Behind me, I heard Emma say, “What, all gone? Wait, I’ve got another bottle.”

This time, I didn’t wake up when she finally crawled into bed and threw an arm around me. I had been feeling horny since before Amy arrived, but Emma had been afraid that she might hear us at it, so asked me to be patient. I had gone to bed with a stiffy feeling sorry for myself. I’d been uncharitably counting down the days until Amy left so Emma and I could go at it again, being as loud as we wanted.

The next day, when I came home after work, Emma was alone in the kitchen. She had a secret smile on her face.

“Well, you look happy. How’d your day go? What did the two of you do?”

She motioned me in close. “Amy’s upstairs. She’s ... Well, back story first. So after breakfast I drove us around again, pointing out the sights. We stopped later and got a couple of salads to go at Bartucci’s and took them to the park, ‘cause it was really nice out. We’re eating our salads and she worked the conversation around to what we were talking about yesterday, y’know, earthquakes and spaceships, and as circuitously as I’ve ever heard anyone approach it asked me what do you do if your husband doesn’t have a clue how to do it.

“I was going to suggest the marriage counselor thing again, but I realized she wasn’t asking that particular question, she was asking how do I get myself off. Because her husband wasn’t going to make it happen for her. So I told her about my growing up and how my parents were, so I’d never actually used a dildo until I was married even though I’d heard of them, but it had turned out to be eye-opening when I did try one.

“And she looked at me and asked, “Dildo?” As in, ‘what is this dildo thing of which you speak?’ I mean, I knew she’d been sheltered as a girl, but how do you go through life today and never hear the word dildo, and not know what it’s for? I was flabbergasted. I looked at her and I thought to myself, if anyone ever needed remedial education, it’s her.

“So I told her to finish her salad because we had someplace to go. And while she ate the last of it I looked up on my phone to find a place nearby that had dildos.

“I hustled her off and finally found the place. To be honest, I never knew it was there, or maybe I never knew what it sold because I was pretty sheltered, too. Whatever embarrassment I might have felt about going in was outweighed by the need to get her fixed up.”

Still whispering to me, she went on, “We parked nearby and I walked her down the street to the address and led her through the door. When she saw all the things displayed on the wall, I thought she was going to faint right there on the floor, ‘cause they all had pictures of the items being used.

“I didn’t want her to get overwhelmed, so I found a simple vibrator like ‘Janice’, but in gold, and also a dildo with a vibrator like the pink one you got me. Hers is green, not that that matters. She was still in shock, walking around with her jaw hanging down, not believing what she was seeing. Sensory overload.

“I told her, ‘This is enough for now, let’s go.’ and we headed toward the register. On the way we passed a shelf display with some kind of mechanical sex machine, y’know, a dildo on the end of a motorized shaft that pumps in and out, and she stopped and stared at it. She whispered to me, ‘Is that what I think it is?’

“Anyway, long story short, I bought the two things for her, along with some lube – I put it on our credit card, Ken, I hope that’s okay, but she really needs this – and we headed home.

“The awkward part was that I had to explain it to her, how to use them, because she had no idea. How sheltered do you have to be not to have even heard of things like that before? I told her that I had some paperwork to do, bills and such, and she should go experiment with them, see if she likes them. She’s been up there since we got home around three. Listen!”

I perked up my ears. I couldn’t make it out, but there was some noise coming from upstairs, undefinable but rhythmic in an erratic fashion. I smiled.

“So you’re leading her down the lurid path to sexual indulgence. What are you now, a sex evangelist?”

“Kenny, she needs this, you know she does. At minimum, it’ll keep her sane temporarily while she’s figuring out what to do about Donny.”

“I’m just poking at you. It was actually a nice thing to do. You think she likes it?”

“I think she’ll become addicted to it, give them names, even. Of course, that’d be pretty weird.”

“Yeah, weird. Ramon and Janice think so, too.”

“Okay, so when she comes down, try not to stare. And kick me if I stare. Dinner will be ready in a bit.”

I sat in the small living room and flipped through a magazine so I wouldn’t have to go upstairs and disturb Amy, who was probably a little self-conscious about this new hobby. From the sounds, she had finally figured out the basics of the items.

When Emma finally called upstairs to announce that dinner was about ready, it took Amy a good ten minutes to come downstairs. She looked flushed and slightly embarrassed. But distinctly more relaxed than yesterday.

I couldn’t really ask about their day, so I talked about mine, which must have been terribly boring for Amy, but better than us discussing hers.

Emma worked the conversation around to high school, and a girlfriend she had reconnected with recently, and what school had been like for them. Just idle conversation which allowed Amy to contribute some of her school experiences. As she talked I noticed with some surprise that her body language had changed, become more calm and confident, and she was smiling more.

The next day after work when I came home, the two of them were in the kitchen again, laughing at something and interacting as if they’d been friends since they were kids. Emma looked like ... Emma, but Amy was different, more outgoing, even making little jokes, completely relaxed.

After the usual greetings, Emma said, “We went to the museum this afternoon. They had to keep asking us to keep our voices down, but we were having too good a time, so we left. We bought some wine and came home. None left for you, though.”

We talked a little more about nothing, then Amy said, “Excuse me, I have to go pee,” and went upstairs.

“She’s pretty well lit by now. So am I, actually. I couldn’t remember whose turn it was to cook, so I made something.”

She wiggled a finger at me to come closer. “Apparently, the sex toys were a big hit. A big hit. She came downstairs a while ago and asked me, a little desperately, if I had any ‘C’ batteries. I was able to find a couple and she ran back upstairs. D’you notice she seems more relaxed?”

I said that I had noticed exactly that.

“So after we got halfway through the wine, she admitted that the toys had been eye-opening, like ‘where have these been all my life?’ I’m afraid she may overdo it. The wine loosened her inhibitions, and she started asking ‘is it like that when you and Kenny, you know’. I was feeling a little self-conscious talking about what we do and what it feels like, ‘cause it’s private, but to be honest I maybe had too much wine, too.

“So I talked about it in a kind of general way, and what it made me feel like. She looked sad and jealous, and she said that she didn’t think Donny would ever develop enough skill to get her off like the dildo had. And I said that a lot of guys never figured it out, but there’s always oral and fingers, and some women – not me, specifically – even got off on anal.

“Kenny ... It was like speaking to her in a foreign language, she’d never even heard of it before, couldn’t quite understand it, didn’t know you were allowed to do that, that it felt good. She was stunned. The only sex she’d ever heard of was dick-in-pussy. Her mother certainly never told her about anything else, and none of her girlfriends, either. I’ll have to ask her, were they all raised the same way?

“She finally worked up enough courage for the question – the wine helped – and asked me if it felt good, doing those other things. I looked her straight in the eye and said, ‘Amy, it’s amazing!’ You came home shortly after that.”

Amy clopped down the stairs like she was a kid, not the bashful young woman who had arrived here a few days ago. “Is everything done? Can I set the table? What do you need?”

Emma told her everything was all set and we should sit down. She’d done chicken and dumplings and it was actually quite good. The two of them got into a non-stop conversation and I was just a neutral observer. I probably couldn’t have gotten a word in even if I had had something to contribute.

We talked for a while after dinner, but again it was mostly Amy and Emma. Emma produced another bottle of wine from who knows where. Before the honeymoon she’d hardly ever drunk alcohol, but she was certainly enjoying her wine, as was Amy. I excused myself and went to read my book.

I was almost asleep, the book lying on my chest, when Emma came in. “Oh, boy, I didn’t realize how much I’d like wine. Maybe my mother had a point in forbidding me to have it. Maybe it’s genetic, maybe the rest of my family’s closet alcoholics! I should stop with the wine. How do you make margaritas?”