Chapter 3

On a Thursday evening, two and half weeks later, Ken sat nervously in his recliner, waiting for it to be six-thirty. Hannah, freshly bathed and brushed by Meghan two hours earlier, lay on the carpet next to the chair, her nose resting on her paws, her tennis ball within easy reach. On the forty-two inch HDTV mounted on the wall before him, the Sacramento Kings were in the process of blowing their absolute last shot at securing a playoff berth for the season. Ken hardly noticed.

Meghan was behind him, in the kitchen. Since the floor plan of the house featured an open kitchen and family room design, Ken could hear her rattling around, putting the finishing touches on the almond chicken dish she was making for dinner. She was humming as she worked, something she did habitually and, most of the time, unconsciously. Ken had learned over the years that he could gauge her mood by what she hummed. Anything by the Goo Goo Dolls or Collective Soul, her two favorite groups, meant she was happy and content. Anything from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack meant she was horny. Commercial jingles, pop music staples, or anything that qualified as a religious hymn meant she was pissed off. Currently she was doing The Memory Remains by Metallica, focusing mostly on the reprise portion. This was one she did when she was stressed out. She had been humming it a lot over the past few days.

Ken knew why she was stressed. It was for the same reason that he was stressed. Jo was coming over for dinner tonight. At Meghan's insistence, Ken had invited her the previous week.

"Why do you want her to come over for dinner?" he'd asked when she dropped this on him.

"I want to meet her," she said. "Is there anything wrong with that?"

"You never wanted to meet any of my other co-pilots," he said.

"None of them were women, dufus," she shot right back. "When a woman's husband is spending twenty-four hours a week crammed into tight quarters with another female, she tends to want to meet the woman face-to-face and get to know her."

And so, knowing he couldn't refuse, Ken extended the invitation, half-hoping that Jo would turn him down.

The truth was, Ken liked Jo a lot — more than Meghan would really care for. They had flown together six nights now and the simple fact was that he liked being in her company. She was smart and well spoken. She was easy to talk to and the hours in the cockpit breezed by where they used to crawl. He was able to talk to her about almost anything and she would listen without judgment. He had told her things that he had only discussed with Meghan before; like the fact that he was embarrassed by his parents and his upbringing (his mother and father had been hippies back in the sixties and seventies and still lived a decrepit, white trash existence on four acres of scrubland in Oregon); or the fact that he worried incessantly about his health and the possibility that it might one day deteriorate enough to cost him his pilot's license.

The ease of conversation with Jo was not the only thing, however. There was also the undeniable physical attraction he felt for her. Jo was sexy. There was no other way to put it. Yes, at first glance she had seemed like the very definition of plain but that first impression could not have been more wrong. The more time he spent with her, the sexier he found her. He liked the lilt of her voice, the shape of her face, the way her body was formed, the color and texture of her hair. None of these features seemed to stand out by themselves, but when you put them all together the sum of them somehow equaled much more than it seemed it should. Jo exuded sexiness and attraction with every fiber of her being and Ken could not help but respond to this.

What was worse was that Jo seemed to feel the same way about him — at least to some degree. She had not come out and said she was attracted to him, but it was obvious that she was. The way she smiled at him, the way she laughed at certain things he said, the body language she displayed at times, all spoke of an infatuation in progress. And while Ken had no intention of actually taking this infatuation anywhere other than mild flirtation, he instinctively knew that if he wanted to pursue a sexual relationship with Jo, that if he ramped the mild flirtation up a few notches into the danger zone, she would respond to him.

I could have sex with her if I wanted to, was the realization he'd gradually come to by the end of their first week together. I'm not going to do it, but I could!

Like any man his age, Ken was exhilarated by the very fact that a beautiful woman desired him — regardless of whether or not he intended to act upon it. It made it all the more pleasant to be in her presence, to sit next to her on those long hauls over the desert and the Rocky Mountains. It was also something that any wife — regardless of her age, attractiveness, or how much her husband loved her — would be quite offended by. Even a wife as easy-going as Meghan would not be able to tolerate another woman trying to horn in on her territory. And so, like any man who finds himself in this sort of situation, Ken had not shared what was going on with Meghan. Or at least he had not shared it with her directly. He feared, however, that she had picked up on it through the telepathy and osmosis that a married couple developed. He also feared that Meghan had insisted that Ken invite Jo over so she could evaluate her competition and try to gauge just how far things might have gone.

Such was the reason Ken really wouldn't have been too upset if Jo had just said something along the lines of, sorry, but Roseville's a little too far for me to drive, or I've got better things to do on my day off than hang out with a married couple and their smelly dog. But, of course, she had said no such thing.

"I'd love to come to dinner and meet your wife," she'd immediately answered. "What night did you have in mind?"

And now, the moment was nearly at hand. As Ron Artest missed an easy lay-up at Arco Arena and as Hannah pushed her nose to the side just enough to make sure her ball was still there, Ken sat and worried just what sort of vibes Meghan was going to pick up. Would she realize that Jo was attracted to him? Or, even worse, would she realize that Ken was attracted to Jo? And if she did come to this realization, what would her reaction be? Would there be an embarrassing confrontation? Would there be demands that one of them transfer to a different line? Would there be days of silence and sleeping on the couch? Ken had never been faced with this situation before so he really had no way of knowing.

"Come and taste this dressing, hon," Meghan told him.

"I'm sure it's fine," he said. Meghan liked to make her own vinaigrette and had long since perfected the art.

"Thanks," she said, "but come taste it anyway. We don't have guests over very often and I want to make sure it's just right."

Ken got up from his chair and walked into the kitchen. He dabbed his finger in the decanter she used to store her dressing and tasted it. It was perfect — strong on the garlic and herbs, weak on the vinegar bite. "Up to your usual standards," he assured her.

She smiled. "Thanks," she said, leaning in and giving him a kiss. "Can you put it in the fridge for me while I put the chicken in the oven?"

"I can do that," he said. And he did. When he was done he took a moment to look at his wife as she carried her casserole dish over to the oven to pop it in. She was wearing a pair of designer jeans that fit snugly on her shapely behind and a beige spaghetti strap top that showed a decent amount of cleavage. Her hair was down around her shoulders and neatly styled with a curling iron. She seemed like she was in a pleasant enough mood. That couldn't possibly be an act, could it?

He went back to his chair and continued to not see the final downfall of the Kings. At precisely six-thirty, Hannah suddenly raised her head up and looked at the front door. She barked once and then stood and trotted into the living room. This was as reliable an indicator that someone was walking up to their door as a live security camera view would have been.

"She's here," Meghan said softly.

"Yep," Ken agreed. "Right on time."

The doorbell rang. Hannah gave one more bark and then retreated back under the dining room table. She was a good alert mechanism but not much of a protector. Whenever someone visited their home she typically spent the first twenty or thirty minutes under cover.

Ken walked to the front door. Meghan trailed just behind. Ken put his hand on the doorknob and turned it, pulling the door open. There stood Jo on the porch. She was wearing clothes not terribly different than what she wore at work. She had the same pair of loose-fitting jeans and the same battered tennis shoes. The only difference was the shirt. It was still a plain cotton button-up but it was powder blue and a little bit tighter than her Early Bird shirts. Her hair was done in the usual tight ponytail. She had a bottle of white wine in her hand and a slightly nervous look on her face.

"Jo," Ken said. "Come on in. Glad you could make it."

"Thanks for inviting me," she said, stepping inside.

This brought Jo and Meghan face to face, waiting for Ken to make the official introductions. Their eyes appraised each other, taking in each other's presence, evaluating each other as women did. Ken didn't know Jo well enough to read what was behind her eyes but had had no problem picking up Meghan's first thought. It came across as clearly as if she'd broadcast it over a radio frequency piped directly into Ken's brain. This is what I've been worried about? This mousy, plain girl?

Ken was a little surprised at this reaction for the first half-second or so. After all, he was enamored enough with Jo at this point that he felt guilty about it. Then he remembered that his first impression of Jo had been pretty much along the same lines. He looked at her now through Meghan's eyes and he could see that on a strictly aesthetic level, Meghan was far prettier. Meghan's body was voluptuous and curvy with round, full bosoms while Jo hid whatever curves she might have under baggy clothing. Meghan's face was achingly cute, the sort of face that made men stop what they were doing and stare at her, the kind of face that other women termed "adorable", while Jo's was just your basic, unremarkable female face, neither beautiful nor ugly. This was how Meghan was now seeing the woman that — whether consciously or unconsciously — she had come to think of as a rival. And, though one of the things Ken loved most about Meghan's personality was that she didn't seem to realize just how beautiful she really was, she did have enough self-esteem to know that when stacked up against Jo in the physical attractiveness department, she was the clear winner. Jo's beauty was something that crept up on you, that took a while for a person to realize.

Will Meghan see that after she's around her for a while? Ken wondered. Will the triumph she's feeling right now only last for a few minutes and then fade once that first impression wears off? He didn't know, but he found himself hoping this would not be the case.

"Meghan," Ken said. "This is Josephine — Jo for short. Jo, this is Meghan."

"It's nice to finally meet you," Jo said, holding out her right hand. "Ken's told me so much about you."

"It's nice to meet you too," Meghan said, holding out her hand.

They shook hands in the clasping, hesitant way women utilized when shaking with other women.

"Thank you for inviting me as well," Jo said when the handshake was finished.

"You're very welcome," Meghan said. "Ken's been telling me how much he enjoys flying with you so I thought it would be nice to have you over for dinner."

"I appreciate that," Jo said. "I don't get home cooked meals very often. It smells wonderful."

"Thank you," Meghan replied, her voice warming a little. One surefire way to get on Meghan's good side was to compliment her cooking. "It's almond chicken. I hope you like it."

"If it tastes as good as it smells, I guarantee I'll love it," Jo said. She held up the wine. "I brought this over to drink with the meal. Ken said you like chardonnay?"

"Sometimes a little too much," Meghan said.

Jo chuckled a little. "I surely know how that is," she said.

Meghan gave a dutiful laugh in return. She took the bottle and was about to read the label so she could complete the greeting ritual by complimenting the vintage when Hannah suddenly and unexpectedly emerged from beneath the dining room table. She walked directly over to Jo, her tail wagging.

"And this has to be Hannah," Jo said, kneeling down to the Springer Spaniel's level. She scratched her gently behind the ears and under her collar. "Hi, Hannah," she greeted, utilizing the slightly higher pitched voice people employed when talking to animals. "Your daddy has lots of pictures of you in his cell phone. You are just the cutest thing."

Hannah made a contented whine, as if acknowledging that she was just the cutest thing. Ken and Meghan both watched in amazement.

"Wow," Meghan said. "I've never seen her do that before."

"Do what?" Jo asked, still scratching and petting. Hannah actually rolled over onto her back, showing her belly.

"That," Ken said. "She never comes up to people she doesn't know."

"Usually they have to come over three or four times before she'll even stay in the same room with them," Meghan added. "That's just bizarre."

"I've always had a way with animals," Jo said with a shrug. She scratched Hannah's belly, making her leg kick. "You're such a cute girl, aren't you, Hannah? Yes you are."

Meghan was smiling and shaking her head in wonder. "If someone had told me about this, I wouldn't have believed him," she said.

"Me either," Ken said.

Jo didn't answer. She scratched and rubbed Hannah's belly for another few seconds and then stood. Hannah whined at the break of contact. When Jo didn't renew it, she reluctantly rolled back over and stood up. She stayed by Jo's feet, looking up at her and wagging her tail vigorously.

The ice was effectively broken. Ken could sense that Meghan was considerably more relaxed now. "So..." he said. "How about I put the wine in the fridge?"

"Sure, good idea," Meghan said, handing it over.

"This is a beautiful house," Meghan said brightly. "I love the décor in here."

"Thank you," Meghan said, beaming. "Would you like a tour?"

"I'd love one," Jo said.

A moment later, the two ladies were off, heading up the stairs, Hannah trailing behind them. Ken watched them until they disappeared and then breathed a small sigh of relief.

Maybe this night won't be so bad after all, he thought. He headed into the kitchen to put the wine away.

Josephine knew, of course, the reason Meghan had invited her over. Though Ken had told her several times during their long, sometimes intimate discussions in the cockpit that his wife was not the jealous type, Meghan had obviously sensed that there was a little more between her husband and his new co-pilot than a mere working relationship. Whatever means this suspicion had come to her — Ken talking about her too much, not talking about her enough, or just that mild telepathy couples developed after being together for a few years — Meghan had decided that she needed to meet the competition face to face and see just what she was up against.

Jo had been expecting this particular development and was glad for it. The nervousness she had displayed at the front door had been feigned. If all went well, Meghan would never know that she had played right into Jo's hands.

The truth of the matter was that Jo wanted Ken. He intrigued her in a way that most men did not. He had the physical features that she found attractive in a man and, more importantly, he had a depth to him that was rare among his species. He had a soul. He was honest, both with himself and with others. He was intelligent — not as intelligent as she, but that was a little more than could be reasonably expected.

Ken was also was highly attuned to his sexuality. Jo could tell just by his reactions to her on that first flight that he knew what sex was for and how it fit into a relationship. He knew it was not the most important thing, but that it was in the top three. In her experience (which was considerable), this depth of sexual awareness was almost always the mark of an exceptionally good lover. Such creatures were rare among human beings of either gender. She had learned that when she encountered such a person in her travels, she was rarely disappointed when she worked the relationship around to a sexual level. She did not want Ken forever — her goal was not to steal him away from Meghan — but she wanted more than just a single sexual encounter, more than just a sexual relationship.

Had she wanted to just have sex with Ken she could have done it pretty much at will. His reaction to her on that first flight had shown her that he was particularly susceptible to the hormonal produced pheromones she was blessed with. All she would have had to do was not take the precautions she now took whenever she was going to be around him, meet with him somewhere where they could be alone, and let nature take its course. She could do it in such a way that Ken wouldn't even remember it afterward if she didn't want him to.

But there was no challenge in that. Like anyone in possession of a predatory instinct, the thrill of the chase was a big part of the fun. When Ken finally slid his erection into her body for the first time (and she had no doubt that this would happen at some point) she wanted it to be because he couldn't contain himself anymore, because he had to possess her. The knowledge that she had earned his desire for her fairly and honestly, without resorting to an overwhelming blast of lust-inducing pheromones, would make the pleasure of enjoying his sexual abilities that much more intense.

Of course she knew that even what she considered a fair conquest of Ken still wouldn't be completely fair by most standards. She had no illusions about what she actually looked like. She wasn't hideous or even ugly, but she was plain. There was nothing remarkable about her at all. Her breasts were average sized, average shaped. Her body had curves in all the right places, but it was not the sort of body that men longed to see in a pornographic magazine. Her face was not unpleasant to look at, but it wasn't one that turned heads either. The same went for her legs and for her ass. They weren't bad but they weren't great either. She knew that a big part of the appeal she held, the lust she induced, were those same pheromones she exuded from her sweat glands. This was true even when she wasn't deliberately using them. She could dampen them down to where they were hardly noticeable, but there was no way to shut them off completely. This minuscule amount she exuded when she was satiated and clean was still enough to trigger that strange sense of attraction those around her experienced. A certain amount of Ken's attraction to her — how much or how little was debatable — was undeniably because of her scent.

She did not dwell on this fact. People like her rarely did. You controlled the variables you could control and accepted those you could not.

In any case, Ken was resisting her advances. In the hours they'd spent together now she'd flirted furiously with him, sending every signal she could to let him know she was his for the taking. He would flirt back with her to a certain degree but would not carry it beyond mere word games. It was frustrating at times, but this was all part of the thrill of the chase.

It honestly had not occurred to her that Ken might be virtuous enough to perpetually resist her seduction attempts. In her experience (which, again, was considerable) most men and a sizable majority of women would engage in extra-marital sex if they were attracted enough to the person offering it (as Ken obviously was) and they thought they could get away with it. Since Ken had not taken her up on her unspoken invitation so far, she figured that he must think he couldn't get away with it. That meant his wife must already be suspicious enough about the mysterious female co-pilot that he didn't think making the jump would go undetected. This suspicion had been all but confirmed when Ken told her that Meghan wanted her to come over for dinner. And such began her plan to remove Meghan's suspicions as a factor.

Ken had showed her a picture of his wife on their second or third night together and Jo knew she was a very pretty woman. Pretty women tended to judge other women's sex appeal based solely on their looks since that was how they were used to being judged. In general, the more attractive a woman was, the more single-dimensional they tended to be on this subject. A woman like Meghan would feel threatened by a woman she perceived as being more attractive than she. Conversely, she would not feel threatened by a woman she perceived as being less physically attractive than she.

This was where her plain looks and her pheromones came in particularly handy. Most women were unaffected by the attractant scent Jo produced, particularly at the minimal level she was producing it when she arrived at Ken and Meghan's house. To Meghan, she would look like nothing more than what she was: a plain Jane that most men wouldn't look twice at. It would be inconceivable to her that her husband would ever become sexually involved with someone who looked like Jo, thus leaving Jo free to continue her seduction in peace.

It was a good plan, one that had worked for her in similar circumstances in the past. As she walked in the front door and actually met Meghan for the first time (she really is beautiful, she could not help thinking as she took her in) it seemed that things were working out just like they were supposed to. Like Ken, Jo had caught the gist of Meghan's first impression of her quite easily. Meghan was not particularly good at hiding what was in her eyes and Jo was particularly good at reading such clues. The reaction of Hannah had been icing on the cake. Dogs and other animals that used scent as a primary sense always reacted favorably to Jo. Having one's beloved dog trust a newcomer inevitably caused an unconscious trust reaction in the owner. Jo did not know if this was why animals reacted that way to her — there were lots of things she didn't know about her special ability — but she counted it as a blessing now. The adoring way Meghan had looked at her while she'd rubbed Hannah's belly coupled with Meghan's initial impression of her looks made Jo think she could take Ken into his bedroom and fuck him right there and Meghan wouldn't suspect a thing — not even if they came out half-dressed and reeking of sexual musk.

I'll have him in bed with me in less than a week, Jo thought happily as Meghan led her upstairs for a tour of the house. Maybe some kind of engineered layover in Omaha? A little warning light in the cockpit that needs to be checked out by a mechanic in the morning? That would force us to stay in a hotel over night, wouldn't it?

While she was pondering this scheme, Meghan led her to the first stop on the house tour: the master bedroom. It was a fairly large room, the décor yellow and off-white primarily. A king-sized bed was the centerpiece of the room. It was neatly made up with a yellow and blue comforter with matching pillowcases and looking exactly the way a bed should look when someone was expecting a guest. Jo's eyes were drawn directly toward it, though it wasn't something she saw that had drawn her attention, it was something she smelled.

Oh my God, she thought, feeling a chill of arousal shoot through her. They just fucked each other's brains out on that bed!

In addition to her super-pheromones, Jo was blessed with an extraordinary sense of smell. It was not quite as good as Hannah's — spaniels were hunting dogs after all — but it was pretty close. She could plainly smell the intermingled odors of sexual musk, both male and female, emanating from just beneath that comforter. It was not the underlying, vague scent of mixed lust that she could faintly smell in any married couple's bed, but the strong, fresh scent from an encounter that had taken place in the last three hours and had not been washed out by laundering.

They had sex on the bed a few hours ago and then pulled the comforter up and made it look all pretty. That is so hot, so sexy!

She inhaled the aroma the way others inhaled the smell of freshly baked bread. In her mind, she could picture the two of them there, Meghan with her legs spread widely, her hands running up and down Ken's back, Ken with his tight butt moving up and down as he thrust within her, their juices running down and making the wet puddle she was now smelling.

Did Meghan initiate it? Was she trying to sate him before the arrival of the woman she was worried was trying to take him from her?

This seemed like the most logical answer, the answer Jo's instinct told her was the truth, but her eyes, which were as sharp as her nose at detecting things most people didn't notice, soon informed her this was likely not the case at all. There were scuffmarks all over the paint on the wall near the head of the bed. These marks were exactly where the brass headboard would touch if it were forced forward. That was a headboard that spent a lot of time slamming into the wall.

"Jo?" Meghan said, noticing her fixation on their bed. "Is something wrong?"

Jo dragged her eyes away, her mind still filled with the vision of Ken and Meghan making love before her arrival. "No," she said lightly. "I was just admiring your bedroom set. You have a real flair for decorating."

Meghan beamed. "Thank you," she said again.

They continued the tour. They went down a long hallway that was lined with framed photographs of Meghan and Ken. There was a picture of the two of them in flight suits standing with two other men in front of a KC-10's nose wheel. Both were much younger in that picture, although just as attractive as they were now. There was a wedding photo — Ken in a tuxedo, Meghan in a long, flowing white gown, the two of them before a Catholic priest in full-blown regalia. There were shots of them at Yosemite, at the Grand Canyon, of them kissing beneath a waterfall in some tropical paradise. There were several shots where Hannah was with them, including one where Meghan was cuddling her when she was a tiny puppy. In all of the pictures they were smiling and happy.

Jo felt the first dig of conscience as she took in the photos one by one, as she contemplated the odor of lovemaking in the bedroom. What if they're really in love? her mind whispered worriedly. What if they're two of the rare ones?

Oh come on, another part of her mind — the part that really wanted to fuck Ken — shot back. These two? In real, mutual love? Right!

Jo knew that love itself — romantic love as opposed to parental or platonic love — was common enough in the world. People fell in love with other people all the time, usually starting in their teen years. Unfortunately, that love was usually not returned. A person might exploit another person's love for them for sex or money or power, they might even think they're in love with the other person, but most intimate relationships in the world today were either mutually loveless or, at best, one-sided. Jo had assumed that this was the case with Ken and Meghan. Now, after looking at their pictures, smelling their lovemaking, knowing that they made love often enough to put a permanent crease in their wall, she was forced to wonder.

You can't sleep with Ken if they actually love each other, a voice in her head informed her. That would be wrong.

Yes yes, the more lustful part of her brain agreed. It would be wrong to endanger a mutual love relationship. But I don't know for sure that's what is going on here. So they like to fuck all the time? What of it? Sexual compatibility does not equal mutual love (although, of course, the reverse was always true). And just because they like to smile pretty when someone takes their picture doesn't mean anything either.

The do-gooder voice in her head had to agree with this logic. True mutual love marriages were rare for the simple reason that the human race had not yet learned to revere the concept of true love yet. They married each other, but usually for the wrong reasons. And though almost every couple said they loved each other in some ritualistic fashion — when they parted company for the day, when they broke communication on the phone, when they went to bed at night — most of the time it was merely lip service on at least one member of the couple's part. Chances were that Ken and Meghan were part of this mold and the signs Jo had spotted were nothing more than a particularly strong sexual compatibility coupled with a better than average acquiescence of each other.