Chapter 17

Sandra walked around the table placing folders in front of William, Lucy, and Barbara. Holding the last one, she took a seat beside Barbara. The two women had changed their appearance significantly. Rather than wearing their hair pulled back and dressing in business clothes that were tight fitting, their hair was down and their clothes were loose. It was hard to tell what they looked like under their clothes.

Across the table from Barbara, Lucy watched the woman trying to determine what she was thinking. She still wasn't sure what she thought about the woman desiring her in a sexual way. She still found it hard to believe that they had such strong feelings for her without her knowing it despite what had happened. She understood a little better how William felt when she pointed out that some woman desired him.

Looking up from the folder, Barbara said, "We've got the initial poll results for the candidates you've put up for office."

"How are they?" Lucy asked turning her attention to the business at hand.

"The numbers are pretty bad except for May Erl. The only numbers we have for her are a general approval rating," Barbara answered. She had been shocked when assembling the report thinking that William was wasting his time with this project.

"Bad in what way?" William asked without bothering to open the folder.

"None of your candidates stands a chance of getting elected," Barbara declared running a finger down the page of data.

"They are exactly what I predicted," William said after looking over the numbers.

Lucy glanced down at the numbers and then said, "That's not bad. That confirms what we thought."

"Look at Dan Colson's numbers," William said gesturing to an entry on the second page.

"Excellent," Lucy said tapping the column associated with name recognition.

Frowning, Barbara couldn't understand why they were pleased with the results. She expected all of the candidates to drop out of the race based on the polling numbers. She said, "Dan Colson's numbers are in the gutter."

"It isn't the starting positions in the race that are important, but the positions at the end of the race. I told all of the candidates exactly what they could expect," William said.

"It still looks pretty bad," Sandra said with a frown. Dan Colson had an approval rating of less than nine percent. He was virtually unknown in eighty percent of his district.

William shrugged his shoulders and said, "We've got it under control."

"I'll put the numbers in the model," Lucy said picking up the folder. She glanced over at William and then jerked her head in the direction of the two women across the table.

William nodded his head and watched Lucy leave the room. Once the door closed behind her, he turned to the women. He asked, "Is everything okay?"

"Yes," Barbara said after looking over at Sandra.

"Yes," Sandra said.

"Good," William said. "Have you gotten your feelings for Lucy under control?"

"Yes," Sandra answered. Getting past the reactions of men to their appearance had involved understanding themselves and their feelings a little better. Being appreciated for their abilities had been such a rare occurrence in the past that they had desperately clung to William and Lucy. That desperation had manifested itself as sexual desire.

Facing what had been a bitter truth, Barbara said, "We discovered that we were more than a little responsible for the reactions we were getting from men."

"You might have noticed that we've toned down our clothes," Sandra said. The interactions with others had significantly changed for the better once they had started wearing clothes that were much less sexy. Men noticed them, but still managed to treat them with respect.

Puzzled, William said, "I never noticed that you wore particularly bright clothes in the past."

"I wasn't talking about the colors of our clothes," Sandra said shaking her head. There were times when she was sure that he was from another planet.

Barbara rolled her eyes and said, "We aren't wearing sexy clothes."

"I don't remember you wearing anything particularly sexy," William said with a frown. He was pretty confident that he knew what sexy clothing looked like. He had seen a lot of examples of explicit clothing as a result of traveling around with Happy Harry. Happy Harry dealt with all kinds of people including street hookers and high-end prostitutes.

"Believe us, the clothes we used to wear are sexy. There are a lot of men who really go for the austere business woman look," Barbara said.

"Oh," William said thinking that he must have missed something important. He licked his lips and said, "The sexiest outfit Lucy wears is my shirt."

Sandra burst out laughing. Looking over at Barbara, she said, "He's hopeless."

"It is hard to believe that we missed that one," Barbara said shaking her head.

"Well, I'm glad that you've resolved your problem," William said. It was time to get to the real subject that concerned him. He asked, "Will you be staying?"

"Yes, we'll be staying," Sandra said. Her hand slipped under the table and she stroked Barbara's thigh. They had come to the realization that they were a couple and that if they were going to bring a man into their relationship that it would have to be a package deal.

William relaxed and sat back in his seat. He said, "Good. I don't know what we would have done if you had left."

Barbara slipped a hand under the table and took Sandra's hand in hers. She looked at the other woman and whispered, "Should we?"

Sandra nodded her head. She pointed a finger at Barbara to let her know that she should be the one who asked.

"Could we ask a favor?" Barbara asked licking her lips nervously.

"Sure," William said wondering what they wanted. He couldn't recall seeing them act this nervous.

Sandra bit her lower lip, shivered, and then said, "Would you join the two of us in my room?"

"Is there something wrong with your room?" William asked sitting up. There had been only a few problems with the house and most of those had been corrected during the first few months there.

"No," Sandra answered. Not for the first time, she wondered how someone so brilliant could be so clueless.

"We want you to make love to both of us at the same time," Barbara said knowing that they were going to have to spell it out for him.

"Oh," William said. Puzzled, he asked, "Together?"

"Yes," Barbara answered knowing that there were men who would have murdered to have the two of them in bed.

"Wow," William said bringing smiles to the faces of the two women.

"I'm glad that you like the idea," Barbara said.

William didn't really know what to make of the request. He wasn't going to mention that his reaction was more one of surprise than interest. He asked, "Did you talk to Lucy about this?"

"No," Sandra answered having anticipated the question. She was pretty sure that any other man on the planet would have answered yes to their request without worrying about how their significant other would react.

Barbara said, "We were going to talk to her first, but we haven't had the chance."

"Oh," William said. Shaking his head, he said, "I'm going to have to make sure that it is alright with Lucy first."

"We know," Sandra said glancing over at Barbara. She wondered if they would ever find a man that would be so concerned about their feelings.

Barbara said, "Why don't you go talk to Lucy and then let us know."

"Okay," William said thinking that the answer was probably going to be no. Looking at the pair of women, William asked, "Is there anything else?"

"No," Barbara said.

"No," Sandra said.

William left the room to return to his workroom. He wanted to see how the model was tracking. It still suffered from numerical instabilities and he couldn't wait to have an expert programmer arrive and take on the job of fixing the program. It took too long to project the current state into the future for him to try exploring the consequences of various actions.

Entering the workroom, he paused to watch Lucy hard at work on the computer. Her fingers flew over the keyboard entering data. He smiled when she paused to run a finger across her hair to settle it behind her ear. She glanced over at him and asked, "What are you looking at?"

"You," William answered.

"So how did the talk go?" she asked nervously. She knew that losing them would really create a lot of problems around the household. It seemed that the two women were involved in just about every aspect of their lives.

Moving to where he stood behind her, William answered, "It went okay. They said that they have their feelings for you under control."

"That's good," she said feeling relieved.

"They asked me to sleep with them," William said.

Lucy wasn't surprised that they wanted to sleep with him, but she was surprised that they had actually asked him directly. She tried to remember when they had done that before and couldn't recall a single time. She turned around to face William and asked, "So which one wanted to go first?"

"They want to be together with me," William answered.

Surprised by that, Lucy said, "That's something I'd like to see."

"What?" William asked confused by her comment.

Shrugging her shoulder, Lucy said, "I think it would be rather interesting to watch two women making love to one man. I mean, there's one guy for two women. What is the second woman going to do while the guy is busy with the first?"

"I don't know," William answered. He hadn't even thought of that problem.

"I was thinking about what Ed said to us in Texas," Lucy said.

"When?" William asked not quite sure what Lucy was trying to say.

"When he was saying that we both needed to learn a bit more about loving," Lucy said.

"Oh," William said.

"I think he's right," Lucy said licking her lips. After thinking about the events with Barbara and Sandra, Lucy couldn't help but wonder if she had contributed to the problem.

"Are you telling me that you're willing to sleep with the two of them?" William asked.

Shaking her head, Lucy answered, "No."

"Okay," William said wondering what she wanted to say.

Lucy said, "I was just thinking that we needed to be a little more careful in how we deal with people. We don't really notice how people feel about us."

"You might be right," William said. He moved over to his chair and took a seat. Sometimes being aware of all of the consequences of his actions was tiring. He wished that he could relax and take things as they came along, but that wasn't possible.

Lucy gave him a worried smile and said, "You look tired."

"I am," William replied.

"Maybe you and Spirit of Desert Rock should take a little stroll out in the desert," Lucy said.

William stared off into the distance for a moment. The new programmer was going to show up in six weeks, there were the campaigns to monitor, some significant world events would occur in the next few weeks, and he had a week's worth of meetings with the rest of the staff on his various projects. He sighed and said, "There's no time."

"Yes there is," Lucy said.

"When?" William asked with a frown.

"You can make the time," Lucy said.

"When?" William asked.

Lucy sat back in her seat and said, "You've got the campaigns mapped out for the next six months. Your plans were detailed enough that I'll know if there is any kind of major deviation from what we predicted.