Chapter 68: What Is It You Want?

December 23, 2002, San Francisco, California

🎤 Steve

"Do you always flirt with older men?" I asked with a smile.

"Do you always flirt with underage girls?" Emma asked with an arched eyebrow.

"Touché!" I chuckled. "I'll answer if you will."

"Not usually, but you give off this vibe that you're fun, approachable, and safe."

"I flirt all the time, but I also believe teenagers are adults, as I mentioned before."

"And how often do you sleep with underage girls, hmm?" she asked.

"This will be the second time on a plane!" I declared.

"Right, because that is what I meant!"

"Oh, it was, but you left yourself free to switch to the euphemistic answer if I didn't react badly to the implication, which I didn't."

"Which actually proves you aren't a creep!"

"An interesting analysis," I replied. "Care to explain?"

"Three possible responses — yours, which is neutral; asking me if it was an offer, or assuming it was, which is creepy; denial in a way that makes it clear the accusation was accurate, which could go either way, but not be neutral."

"I'm not sure that analysis is entirely correct, but it could inform a complete analysis. Consider, for example, someone who does sleep with underage girls, but doesn't seek them out because they come to him."

"My friend has this problem..." Emma smirked.

I laughed and said gruffly, "Your father has taught you well!"

"You're not my father, Darth! So, reading into your implication, I'm going to sleep with you, but you want to sleep with me."

"Physician, heal thyself!" I chuckled.

"You think I want to sleep with you?"

"Obviously. But wanting to do something does not imply that you would actually do it."

"Tell me that you didn't upgrade me to First Class because you thought I'd sleep with you, and I don't mean on the plane."

"I didn't upgrade you to first class because I thought you'd sleep with me."

"Smart aleck!"

"Always! That said, if you thought that was the case, you accepting the upgrade means you agreed to the transaction!"

Emma laughed, "Wow! Talk about turning things around! And you think that's true?"

"Just applying the same logic you did, and my analysis doesn't depend on my intent, only on what you thought my intent was, and of course, my thinking could change based on your response, and so on."

"Your denial was true?"

"I'll answer truthfully, if you will."

"Sure."

"I absolutely did not upgrade you because I thought you'd sleep with me or to encourage you to sleep with me. Did I notice that you're sexy? Yes. Did I consider the possibility it could lead there? Yes. Was it a quid pro quo? No. Was it done in hopes or expectations of a quid pro quo? No."

"For real?"

"For real. Your turn."

"I chose to sit next to you because, in addition to what I said before, you're handsome and in great shape. Only a blind girl wouldn't notice that! And when I asked you to sit next to you on the plane, I didn't think anything of it other than changing seats. But then you asked the agent for an upgrade, and you had to use your frequent flyer points or whatever. When I heard that, I was positive you did that in the expectation that I'd sleep with you. I thought about objecting but then decided to accept and see what happened."

"And?" I prompted.

"If I answer that, I'm basically committing myself!"

"No, you aren't. That is one thing nobody can irrevocably commit to under any circumstances. 'No' is always an answer, at any time, period, no matter how many times you've said 'yes' before that."

"I'll answer," Emma replied, "but you have to answer my question."

"A reasonable trade."

"When we left the counter, I decided if you asked, I'd say 'yes'. My question — DO you sleep with underage girls?"

"I have. But I'm not kidding about them approaching me."

"And you want to sleep with me?"

"I'm certainly attracted and intrigued. My turn for a question — now that you know it's not a quid pro quo, is your answer any different?"

"You mean, do I now have a burning desire to drag you to bed? Yes! The same one you have for me!"

"And the fact that I'm married?"

"It is between you and your wife, but I get the sense from the limited information you've shared that your marriage isn't exactly traditional."

"Mind if I ask why your parents split up?"

"Officially, it was 'irreconcilable differences', but I found out what actually happened. My mom had an affair with a doctor. My dad and the doctor's wife found out; my dad divorced my mom, and the doctor's wife forgave him and took him back."

"How badly did it affect you?"

"I was really upset, and at eleven, I totally didn't understand why my dad suddenly moved out and then took the job in Chicago, with the divorce being final just after I turned twelve. They both worked hard to make me understand it wasn't my fault, but like most kids that age, I thought it had more to do with me than it did. I found out the details later, and that changed my views."

"I'm interested in hearing your take."

"Both of them are to blame. Mom for being married to her effing job, and not having enough time for my dad, which if anything, I would have expected he would have cheated because, well, you get the picture of what didn't happen."

I chuckled, "Most kids, even adult kids, are reluctant to consider their parents' sex lives. Sorry to interrupt; go on."

"So, in my mind, Dad actually had a reason to cheat, and Mom didn't because she was the one who was always working. Mom should never have cheated and actually come home to my dad. I blame him for not being man enough to forgive her and for throwing away thirteen years of marriage."

"I'm not sure it's about being 'man enough' — some people are predisposed to being able to forgive, and others find it nearly impossible. And a lot depends on the person who cheated showing true «metanoia»."

"Greek, again?"

"Yes. It means repentance but includes the idea of turning around or reforming one's ways, in addition to being sorry. If your mom was truly sorry, then I think you have firmer ground on which to stand."

"I think she was only sorry she got caught," Emma said. "Anyway, my problem with my dad not being willing to forgive her is that he was, from everything I know, a playboy before he got married, and I mean, he had more girls than you can shake a ... stick at!"

I laughed, "Nice pause for effect to imply something else!"

"Thanks. Anyway, mom was a virgin on their wedding night, and dad had slept with dozens of girls, including, I'm reasonably certain, my aunt, right around the time he asked my mom, her younger sister, out."

If what Emma was saying was accurate, it answered a question I'd asked myself in 1985 — whether Jessica's assessment of her friend Diana's promiscuity was accurate. I'd questioned it because Diana had seemed socially awkward at the gathering at Doctor Barton's house. Of course, Diana could also have misled her daughter and possibly her husband.

"Aren't vows important?" I asked.

"Right, because there are no divorces in the world, and every marriage is 'until death do us part'!"

"If you use the traditional vows, yes," I replied. "Not everyone does. And while I try always to be a man of my word, I can see circumstances where divorce might be the right course of action. And you're dancing around a subject that I know has to be floating in your mind."

"You mean sleeping with you when you'd be cheating on your wife?"

"That would be the one," I confirmed.

"That's between you and her. I didn't make any promises, and I'd only expect you to keep promises you made to me."

"And if your mom promised to 'forsake all others', which I assume she did?" I asked.

"I still say he should have tried to work things out with her. But it's water under the bridge at this point."

"So you'd be OK with sleeping with a married man?"

"Asks the man who is OK with sleeping with an underage girl! At least MY thinking isn't breaking the law."

"Two very different points. I personally do not care what society thinks, and so long as you aren't going to report me, the risk is infinitesimal. On the other hand, I do care about keeping my word."

"I may only be sixteen, but even I can figure out that if you're married and you sleep with me, you're violating your vows!"

"Once again, your analysis is logical, consistent, and wrong!"

"How so?"

"It's more complicated than this, but allow me to give you the simple version. If you recall, I'm married to a trauma surgeon. We met when she was in medical school at Indiana University, and we lived separately, mostly only seeing each other on weekends and during a pair of visiting student rotations. When we married — and she chased me, by the way — she said she wanted a husband who would, to quote her, look good on her arm and curl her toes but wouldn't interfere with her medical career. In exchange, she offered freedom to have what were called 'dalliances'. So, no, I wouldn't be cheating."

"That's really true? Your wife gave you permission to have sex with other girls?"

"Yes. So, as I said, I wouldn't be cheating. Does that make it less exciting for you?"

Emma laughed, "You think that was part of the thrill? Enticing another woman's husband into sleeping with me?"

"I have known a few young women who have had that idea and one who thought doing so would lead to her replacing my wife."

"You don't have to worry about that! If I get married, it'll be a decade from now or more!"

"What's in your future?"

"A flight to Chicago, sleeping with you, and then sleeping with you!"

I chuckled, "An answer I'd give! I meant longer term!"

"Law and medicine are out! I saw enough from both my mom and dad to rule those out! I like nice things, so being a surf bum in Malibu is out, and the last thing I'd do is join the military."

"A non-answer! All you did is rule things out!"

"I haven't decided. I'm interested in computers, but I'm not sure I want to program for the rest of my life."

"So don't. My company has systems engineers who build, deploy, and maintain servers, as well as network engineers who design, deploy, and maintain computer networks. There are plenty of jobs in computers that don't involve programming, though that is what I prefer doing."

"How long have you been at your company? Well, you said you founded it, but when?"

"In 1985, right after graduation, four friends and I founded the company."

"That sounds like a Silicon Valley thing, though you'd have dropped out of college instead!"

"I could have and could have even not gone at all, as I had a profitable computer business in High School with two friends, one of whom is on our Board of Directors but was working on her Master's when we founded the company. She prefers doing research at UofI to working for us. We sold that original company to pay for college."

"Computer company in High School is totally Silicon Valley! I saw the top-level frequent flyer card and your Amex Platinum, so you're obviously successful."

"Or leveraged to the hilt!" I countered.

"I don't think that fits you."

"You seem to read people pretty well," I replied.

"You, too. My dad taught me to be a good judge of people by playing poker, starting when I was seven!"

I chuckled, "Let me guess, Texas Hold 'Em?"

"Yes. He plays in the World Series of Poker every year. He finished in the money a couple of times but never made a final table. I take it you play?"

"Yes, with some friends a couple of times a month, but I learned to read people before I started playing Hold 'Em."

"How?"

"A mix of things, but being a karate instructor and working with teens and young adults, raising my kids, and, probably most importantly, having what we called 'rap sessions', which were basically groups of people discussing philosophy. I actually led some seminars at San Diego State and at UofC Medical School."

"So you are a teacher!"

"Not the way you meant! I don't have a teaching job unless you count being a karate instructor. I've led seminars, but as a layman, not a professional educator. The mother of two of my kids is a chemistry professor."

"I think it's time to fess up by what you mean by 'complicated'! I get the sense you haven't given me the whole story."

"Well, Alice, are you ready to step through the looking glass?"

"Given I already agreed to sleep with you in both meanings of the word, what do you think?"

"I think you're a very intelligent young woman who is easily my intellectual equal!"

Emma looked surprised, "Nobody has ever said anything like that to me!"

"Because, going back to what I said before, I treat teenagers as if they were adults, because they are! Young adults, of course, but still adults."

"And the answer?"

I smiled, pulled my wallet from my pocket, and removed the small plastic insert that contained my photos. Starting with the 'family' picture, which included my wives, all the kids, the other moms, and my girlfriends, I pointed to each person and identified them and the relationship. Emma was wide-eyed the entire time and shook her head several times.

"What did I walk into by sitting down next to you?"

"An alternate universe," I chuckled. "Through the looking glass, as I said!"

"And with all those hot women in your house, you need more?"

"A better way to understand it is to say that I reject traditional norms with regard to sex and monogamy and have a very different understanding of what physical intimacy signifies."

"A theme, though not directly stated, in Stranger in a Strange Land is that true intimacy is intellectual or spiritual, not physical."

"Exactly," I agreed. "If you got THAT from Heinlein, you're way ahead of the average person, and I might have been too cautious in saying you're my intellectual equal."

"Why?" Emma asked.

"Because if you figured that out at age sixteen, you're at least a decade ahead of me in terms of your philosophical journey compared to where I was at sixteen. I mentioned my trip to Japan, which was in the mid-90s. That's when I achieved some semblance of enlightenment, so I was nearly twenty years older than you are. I bet you have trouble in school."

"I'd like to hear what you think before I answer."

"You've been told, at one time or another, that you ask too many questions or are 'too smart for your own good' because you challenge teachers and refuse to accept the pablum that passes for education. You earn good grades in spite of your intellectual skills, not because of them, because you understand you have to repeat the pablum back, even if you don't agree. How close am I?"

"Spot on. Math and science aren't too bad because there isn't any real disagreement about two plus two or the geometric proofs or chemical formulae. Everything else is a battle because my teachers are, and I'll say this to you, complete morons."

"Been there, done that, got the T-shirt," I chuckled. "My kids have the same opinion of most of their teachers because they've been trained in the Socratic method and, like him, are royal pains in the butt to people who pretend to know the truth when they couldn't find their butt with both hands or empty piss from a boot with the instructions printed on the heel!"

Emma laughed, "I say things like they couldn't make ice cubes if they had the recipe! And I bet anything you care to wager, you could find my butt with both hands!"

"You'd win that bet! I want to ask a question, and I hope you'll take it in the correct way and understand that a truthful answer will not upset me in any way."

"What?"

"One possibility is that you feel completely safe in the airport and on the plane, so you're flirting with no intent, because it's fun and safe and you can. The other possibility is that you're serious. Well, or it's possible you're somewhere between those two positions."

Emma smiled, "Let me answer this way — unless you've changed your mind, or your stable of women object in some way, you and I will make the beast with two backs repeatedly before I fly home in early January."

I couldn't help but laugh, thinking back to saying that to Melanie Spencer during the Summer of 1977, when we were on the way to the lake house where I'd met Michelle and Elizabeth Parker and had taken the first real steps on the path of the sexual odyssey that was my life.

"What's so funny?" Emma demanded, though her eyes conveyed that she was teasing.

"I used that phrase before you were born with Trudy Spencer's daughter, and she started beating on me in the back seat of the car. That might have been because her parents were in the front seat!"

Emma laughed, "Too funny. I take it you were teasing her and that Mr. and Mrs. Spencer were totally cool?"

"That is the correct take. Melanie stuck her tongue out at me, and I told her not to do that unless she intended to use it, and she threatened to not sleep with me that night!"

"An empty threat?"

"Yes."

"Stick your tongue out at me!" Emma commanded with a twinkle in her eye.

I did as commanded and received the expected response.

"Don't stick it out unless you intend to use it!" she said with a smirk.

"Until you can't stand it!" I declared.

"And, of course, reciprocity is required?"

"Required? Never. Not that I'd say 'no', but my strategy, and it's been extremely successful, is to do what the girl wants, when she wants, and how she wants."

Emma winked, stuck her tongue out, then licked her lips and pretended to swallow. One thing was certain, this young woman did NOT need a mindfuck, and perhaps that was because SHE was the one engaging in the mindfuck!

"Always what she wants and how she wants?" Emma asked.

"Always. I do have to ask — do you have a boyfriend?"

"Boys my age are complete idiots! And my mom would never understand me having an older, steady boyfriend!"

Which I could read in several ways, but all indications were that Emma had some experience and that she'd dated older guys, which fit her personality and intellect.

"I've heard that lament before," I said. "Including from my teenage daughter."

"To answer your next question," Emma said with a smirk, "Mom put me on the Pill when I turned fifteen. Dad felt it was license, but Mom felt it was common sense."

"I agree with your mom," I replied. "My girls know it's up to them, both in terms of taking birth control and how they conduct their lives. That said, we do have three firm rules which nobody in the house may violate. The first is that everyone has to use birth control, which, for me, is covered by a vasectomy I had shortly after my youngest daughter was born. The second rule is that everyone has to have regular STI tests. The third is that everyone has to verify their partners have had recent STI tests."

"That sounds like my mom," Emma said. "She's a stickler for telling teens to get tested and ensure their partners are tested because, as she says, you are, in effect, having sex with anyone your partner has been with."

"Which means you have had an STI test?"

"Every year at my gynecological exam, most recently in late October, right after my birthday."

Which, of course, fit perfectly with being 'Luckiest Dumb Boy', which would only be enhanced if Emma were a virgin, but I did not get that vibe. Of course, with her personality, anything was possible, and I had no idea. In the end, though, that wasn't a particularly relevant point.

"I'm not sure I'd put it the same way your mom did," I said, "but I agree with the sentiment. Your risk profile is based on everyone you have sex with, along with everyone they've had sex with, all the way down the chain, impacted by IV drug use, risky sexual activity, and before the late 80s, blood transfusions or open surgical procedures."

"I think my mom's comment is more effective for more teenagers."

"I agree, but I'm nothing if not pedantic!"

"I've been accused of that by a few teachers when I tried to make important points about what they felt were irrelevant distinctions. They were wrong."