Chapter 2

I got a call three days later.

"Hello, Bob?" came that cultured voice.

"Hi, Jane, it's good to hear from you again," I said.

"I'm ready to make another appointment," she said.

Then, instead of making the appointment, she went on to explain that the time hadn't been right yet to talk to John about all this. He had been called away to Washington and she didn't want to talk to him on the phone. It was late May, and she suggested we meet in a park. Both the place and the way she talked made it seem like she was sneaking around to do this, but I agreed and we set the appointment. I kept it the next day.

That interview also lasted some three hours. We picked a park bench that was one of a dozen in a row. The rest of them had mostly young mothers sitting on them, watching their children play on the playground equipment nearby.

It was a lot more intimate in some ways, because I finally started filling in the notes on my regular questions. I'm not sure she was quite prepared for it. We spent half an hour talking about mundane things and then I asked her the first personal question.

"What is John's best sexual feature?"

She looked startled for a moment, but then answered gamely. "Well, I'm not sure what you mean by 'feature', but what I like about him the most when we make love is his passion. He's very passionate."

That didn't tell me a whole lot. He was passionate about a lot of things, according to what she had told me already.

"How often do you make love?" I asked.

I got another darted glance. "Well, you know... about normal."

"And your definition of normal is... ?"

She was flustered now. I had never seen her that way before, other than that first time we met, when I wasn't what she expected.

"He's very busy." She was making excuses already. "He's gone so much, and, despite what some people might think, politics is grueling work. You can't blame him for being tired most of the time."

"Jane, calm down," I said softly. "I'm not making any judgments. It's just a number. I'm not going to grab my chest and fall off the bench if it's only once a week."

Now, you have to understand here, that I was all of twenty-four when this interview took place. I hadn't had a regular lover in years. My involvement with other couples I interviewed was anything but predictable, and a lot of the couples I had interviewed had given numbers like 'once a week'. Some of the older ones said they made love a lot less frequently than that even, and some younger ones fucked like bunnies every chance they got. So I really had no idea what "normal" was for a couple where the man was forty-ish and the woman was thirty-ish. I actually expected her to say something along the lines of twice a week, but had no data to base that on. If she'd have been my wife I'd have been chasing her around the bedroom at least twice a week.

But, of course, she wasn't, and I was only twenty-four.

She colored up and I knew I had made a mistake. But she gritted her teeth for some reason, and answered the question.

"Once every three or four months," she said tightly.

"Oh," I said, thoroughly trashing my pledge that I wasn't going to judge anything.

"We go to church more often than we make love," she said. I looked up to see her blushing more furiously and realized she hadn't meant to say that out loud.

"Well, like you said," I tried to comfort her, "He IS very busy."

"You're very kind," she said, a little acidly.

I felt bad for her. Here was a beautiful, smart woman in her sexual prime, and she was being neglected. It happened all too often. It suddenly occurred to me that she might not know that.

"Hey," I said, waving a hand in what I hoped was a negligent manner. "It happens all the time. People get on track with careers, and other interests, and some things get pushed aside. It's not your fault. At least you got to have children before that happened."

"I know it's not my fault," she said, her eyes becoming more confident. "And we had child... not children. Our plan was to have two." She sat up straight. "And just because it happens all the time doesn't mean it SHOULD happen all the time. I want my husband back!"

Wow. There was a little repressed anxiety coming out all of sudden. The therapist in me wiggled to the surface.

"Have you talked with him about it?"

She slumped back against the bench. "Of course I have. He says it's not the right time to have another child. He has this stupid idea about running for the Presidency and about how he'll get me pregnant so that he's the first man in a Presidential race with a pregnant wife. It's like I'm some trophy he'll be able to hold up to talk about family values. And right how he's getting ready for a re-election campaign. I'm stuck, Bob, and I can't do anything about it. He'll get re-elected, and who knows what will happen after that. By the time my son has a brother or sister there will be more than a decade between them. I feel like a widow sometimes."

What I heard between the lines was that she was lonely. Imagine that. A beautiful successful woman, with a handsome successful husband, a bright child, money, things... and what she wanted was something she couldn't have.

"Oh, just go on," she said disgustedly. "What's your next question?"

I looked at the form. Masturbation was up next.

Great.

I stared at the word, and didn't say anything. By now she felt comfortable with me. That much was obvious. She had told me things that would probably curl her husband's toes. I felt a little like a spy who had wormed his way into her confidence. But I wasn't a spy. I was just a guy trying to get a good grade.

It was about then that she apparently decided I was moving too slowly. She reached out and plucked the clipboard out of my hands. Those wolf eyes flitted across it and then rose to grab mine.

"Oh my," she said, her voice rising. "Do you ask these questions to everybody?"

"Uh... usually," I mumbled.

She giggled. It was shocking to hear a giggle from a woman who looked like her... who WAS her. Women like Jane just did not giggle.

"You're embarrassed!" She arched an eyebrow. "It's a perfectly appropriate question, Bob," she said. "Especially for a woman in my situation."

She read on. I knew she was reading about whether HE masturbated or not, and whether they used toys, or did things with other people.

"My goodness, but we're going to get personal, aren't we?"

I looked up at her tone of voice. She sounded... interested.

"I'll make you a deal," she said, handing me back the clipboard. "If you'll tell me about what some of the other couples said when they answered those questions, I'll answer them too."

I mumbled something about confidentiality and she put one palm out to face me in the classic "Stop!" sign.

"I don't want to know who they are. I just want you to tell ME something that you shouldn't. I've told YOU all kinds of things I shouldn't have. Call it tit for tat. I'll feel better about you knowing so much about me... us... if I have something to hold over your head."

She had learned a thing or two from the politics she was embroiled in. I felt a trap, of sorts, closing around me, but it was a trap with no real teeth, because I knew her well enough by now to know she'd never do anything to hurt me. She wouldn't hurt a flea. I'll admit that I had developed some voyeuristic tendencies during this project, even if all I did to feed them was mostly vicariously. It would be titillating to hear about this woman's most private moments. And she needed somebody to talk to. I probably came up with ten reasons to close that trap around me.

So we talked about the couples I had talked with, and, while I didn't have hard numbers, I gave her estimates of how many couples I had interviewed who did all the things I was going to ask her about. She listened without giving me a lot of feedback. When I told her about the couples who invited other people into their sex lives, I talked about the reasons they did it. I casually mentioned that one of the women had enlisted me to get her pregnant. That was the tit I was exchanging for her tat, so to speak.

"She actually let you have sex with her?" she said, her voice not actually inflecting it as a question. "Where was her husband?"

"Well... actually... he was right there next to the bed." I looked for reaction, but there wasn't anything visible. "Most of the time," I added.

"You did it more than once?" This time it was a question.

"I'm not super virile or anything," I joked. "It usually takes more than once to get the job done."

She pursed her lips and gazed past my shoulder. "Yes... there is that," she agreed.

Her eyes came back to lock on mine. Wolf eyes.

"I'm astonished," she said, not sounding astonished at all. "There is MUCH more to you than I imagined."

"I don't' know about that," I said humbly. "I'm just a guy, like any other guy."

"Oh no you're not," she said, those eyes still pinned on me. "You're nothing like you let on to be." She looked at me speculatively. "You're a dangerous man, Bob."

"Nonsense," I tossed off.

"There were others too... weren't there? Others that... invited you into the bedroom?"

That didn't sound as much like a question as I would have wished. That trap was beginning to have more teeth than I had first felt.

"You win their trust... and ask them intimate questions... and then..." Those eyes were like steel spikes, nailing me to the bench. "You're not trying to seduce me, are you Bob?"

Believe me, folks, that is NOT the question you want a woman like Jane asking you. She had the connections to make my life miserable, and I knew it, even if I couldn't imagine what those connections might be.

"Of course not," I said, trying to sound dignified. "Things just... happened." Her gaze didn't soften a bit. "Really!" I said, a little panic seeping into my voice. "I didn't plan anything. This is a real research program!" I tried to sound earnest and honest.

"We'll see about that."

Now what kind of thing was THAT to say to a guy like me? I felt the need to smooth things over.

"Look, if you're uncomfortable with this, or the way I'm doing it, that's fine. I don't ask anyone to do anything that makes them uncomfortable. You don't even have to be in the project. I can toss all my notes on you and you never have to think about me again."

"Oh, you're good," she said maddeningly. "I can see it now. I just thought you were Joe Normal, but you are a brilliantly devious young man."

"Come on, Jane, it isn't like that at all!" I complained. "You're reading WAY too much into this."

"Do you find me attractive?" she asked.

This was getting worse and worse. How do you answer that kind of question from that kind of woman without burying yourself either way?

"Of course I do, but that doesn't mean I'm trying to hit on you," I said.

"And you imagine me to be a lonely political widow, pining for some affection while her hubby is off boffing interns and those impossibly beautiful young women who volunteer to help win elections. Is that it?"

The analytical part of my mind was still working, and heard all her fears and concerns about what went on in Washington bedrooms while her husband was there. But, I was in trouble here, and if I had a chance to get out of it, it was worth a try. I went on the offensive.

"Well, isn't that true?" I asked. "That's how you've described yourself. Not about the interns and all that - I don't know about that - but you ARE a political widow of sorts. You even said so."

Her eyes softened a bit. I cannot tell you how glad I was to see that.

"I suppose I did, didn't I?" Again, it wasn't a question, really. "He does that, you know," she went on. "I'm not stupid. I can smell their perfume on his ties when he gets back. He has his clothes laundered, but not his ties. Men are so foolish sometimes. They think they can get away with things, but they're wrong."

"I'm not trying to seduce you," I said weakly. "Please believe me."

"I should hope not!" she said somewhat sternly. Then, to my astonishment, she grinned. "Under these circumstances, in the roles we are playing, it should be I who am doing the seducing, not you."

My mouth dropped open and she laughed.

"Don't take me seriously," she giggled. "I'm not trying to seduce you either. All I want to do is get my husband back." Her face fell. "But that's not going to happen. Maybe I SHOULD have an affair!" she said forcefully.

"You don't want to do that," I said, clearing my throat. "It wouldn't do what you want it to do. You're not that kind of woman, Jane."

She looked at me sharply. "There WERE others, weren't there?" Once again, she wasn't asking a question.

She had trusted me. She had been astonishingly candid. I felt like I could trust her. I could be candid too.

I nodded.

"I can see why," she said, like she was talking about why someone would buy a good set of tires. "You're good."

This wasn't getting us anywhere. She had formed an opinion that I was some kind of Lothario, and it wasn't likely I could disabuse her of that notion. All I could do was act professionally, or what I thought was professionally.

"So," I said, getting ready to stand. "What do you want to do?"

She knocked me off my heels by saying: "I think I'd like some ice cream. Let's go get some ice cream."

So, we went and had ice cream.

Do you have any idea how erotic it is to talk about masturbation and oral sex with a woman who is licking an ice cream cone? No dish and spoon for her. No sirree. She got two scoops on a waffle cone, and by the time those scoops were down to that cone I had a major boner.

Of course part of that was because of her comments while she did it.

"Yes, I masturbate. I masturbate frequently," she said. "I don't use any... aids... and I usually do it when I'm taking a shower before bed."

She licked her ice cream from the bottom to the top.

"I don't know about John. He's certainly ever done it in front of me, nor I in front of him. I don't fondle him much. Not any more. He likes to get right down to business when we do make love, and he's usually ready to go when I find out that's on his mind. He used to be pretty good at making me happy that way, back when we still indulged in foreplay, but not so much any more."

She licked all the way around her scoops, just above the cone.

"How 'bout you?" she asked.