Chapter 3

Jerry almost kept his promise to fuck me all night long. I went to sleep after my fourth orgasm. I don't know when he left but I woke up to a ringing alarm clock in my hotel room. It was thoughtful of him to set the alarm.

My head was ringing louder than the alarm, my mouth felt like it was full of beaver fur, and I was thirsty. It was my first hangover – and even by the standards of many to come it was a dilly. I staggered into the bathroom and downed glass after glass of water. The pain in the back of my head was intense. My crotch ached.

Jerry had rinsed out and hung up my red dress. I checked it for remnants of my drunken eruption of margarita and meatball. There were none I could find.

I had to hurry. This was my first day as the newly-elected treasurer of a Christian charity in Kansas City. I desperately wanted to do a good job. My service on the Board of Directors was my ticket to freedom from my husband for an occasional night away from home. Despite my hangover and my fear that a big, red "A" for adultery would suddenly appear tattooed on my forehead, I had no doubts that, given the opportunity, I would repeat my experiences of the preceding night. I had to ensure that I would have that opportunity again.

I showered vigorously to wash away the smell of sex, dressed quickly, made myself presentable, and dashed to the charity's office only a block from my hotel. I arrived five minutes late. Madame President saw me come through the door and frowned. Not a good start.

"I'm sorry," I explained. "I overslept."

"Obviously," she answered, looking at me critically. I was considerably more disheveled than my usual prim and proper self. "Are you all right? You're walking as if you are in pain."

I realized that I was walking as if I still had a penis between my legs. "Oh, no, I'm fine. The bed ... the bed in the hotel was uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. I have a crick in my back. You know, a crick that makes my legs hurt. You know."

She frowned. "Well, let's get to work. We have a lot to do this morning."

As Treasurer of the charity I was required to attend the quarterly Board meetings and to remain overnight to audit the books the next day. I didn't receive a salary but the charity paid for my hotel room and gave me a small stipend for meals. I set to work, ignoring my aches in head and crotch, and four hours later I had completed the job. The President was impressed, although as I left she reminded me, "We start work here at nine a.m. sharp.

"Yes, of course. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this opportunity," I gushed as I went out the door. "You do such wonderful work and I'm honored to be part of it." What I wanted to say to her but, of course didn't, was, "You ride a broomstick."

I drove two hours from Kansas City to reach the town where I lived. My headache had faded by the time I arrived, but I was exhausted. My husband met me at the door. He was thirty-nine years old, tall and thin, and sported a pompadour of intense black hair swept back to cover his unusually large ears. He kept his hair dye carefully hidden and spent a lot of money in barber shops.

"Rebecca, you're home," he said, looking up from the television as I came through the door. He didn't get up to greet me.

"You're walking funny," he said as I dragged my suitcase to our bedroom. He didn't offer to help. He complained of a bad back which precluded him from doing any heavy work around the house. I even mowed the lawn. With a push mower. We didn't have a lot of money.

"I'm cramped from the drive." I had that excuse ready. But my crotch hurt and I was nearly comatose from exhaustion. How was I going to endure fucking this man, my husband, that night? "Where are the children?"

"Soccer practice. Could you pick them up? I have to work on my sermon."

I might never have made the mistake of getting married to the preacher if I had read Middlemarch as a teenager. When I finally read the book, it hit me like a brick falling from a third story window. Middlemarch's heroine, Dorothea Brooke, was me! And being moral and good and idealistic I married Reverend Casaubon, the older man who would be my guide and protector and soul mate. I would be his beloved helpmate and together we would make the world a better place. And like Dorothea I discovered that the preacher, my Casaubon, was shallow, controlling, lazy, and devoted to petty things of little moment.

But with this awful knowledge in my frontal lobes, what could I do? Like a million other women I was trapped in the marriage. I couldn't – wouldn't – run away and abandon my children. I had no money of my own and my husband kept a sharp idea on every penny he grudgingly gave me. Living in a small town I had no opportunity to be anything other than a respectable preacher's wife.

Most disconcerting of all, I discovered that I wasn't religious. All my life the church had been the rock that anchored my existence. Now, I was adrift on a sea of doubt. I had enough belief left not to want to make God -- if he existed -- angry, but I was willing to risk making him peeved and exasperated. I wanted to be in love and I wanted to enjoy mad, passionate sex, to escape my mundane existence, and have fun. My chances of that however, seemed slim to none. So, I stole quarters from my household money and bided my time and sought an escape from my husband for whom I developed a powerful loathing.

And, after months of anticipation, planning, and daydreaming I accomplished a brief but thrilling escape in my night with Jerry. Now, with fear and anticipation, I looked forward to my next opportunity in three months when the Board of Directors met and I would again spend the night in Kansas City.

Just before my next visit to Kansas City, Sue, my mentor in sex and sin, told me that Jerry was now engaged to be married and, thus, I would not be able to see him again. I cried. It was as if my first love had been torn from me by a cruel world. But Sue arranged a date for me with another man. And, lo and behold, I found myself in bed with him for an adequate, if not inspiring, night of sex. Getting laid was an effective antidote to lost loves.

Over the next eighteen months during my visits to Kansas City I had sex with six men, three of them one night stands. I got bolder. One man I fucked in the back seat of his car in the parking lot of the singles bar. Another man, who didn't count as one of my partners, I jerked off under the table in a singles bar and then took his friend home with me for the night. One night Sue and I shared the two double beds of my hotel room with two men and I had the delicious joy of watching and experiencing sex at the same time. I gained confidence. I discovered that men are easy to attract even if you have microscopic tits and mousy brown hair.

My liberation extended beyond sex. I worked assiduously to ingratiate myself with the President of the charity. At a Board meeting I was able to explain away some questionable expenditures she made from charity funds. Having scratched her back, she, in turn, scratched mine. She suggested that I take computer courses at the charity's expense. (It was the mid 1980s and computers were just becoming common.) I did so at a community college in Hickok and, then, the President hired me for a week to introduce a word processing system at the charity. A week of sex and booze in Kansas City! I also had to return to Kansas City occasionally to service and update the system. Unlike my job as treasurer, this was work for remuneration so I got paid, a pittance to be sure, but money of my own! Additional jobs began to come my way as word got around that I was cheap and good. At age 35 I had begun to develop a career. What I didn't realize was that I had stumbled into information technology, an industry that would grow beyond all imagination during the next two decades.

I gave most of my earnings to my husband, secretly hoarding only what I needed to buy a new party dress now and then. We needed the money for household expenses. My husband's church was poor and small and. He had begun to talk about getting a job to supplement his meager income as a preacher. It was not a pleasant prospect for him. Like me his whole life had been the church. And jobs were hard to come by in our town.

I had another motive in giving my husband my earnings. I wanted to forestall complaints from him about my increasingly frequent absences and independence. That turned out to be a wise decision. Because I got caught.

It happened just after I scored my first great professional triumph. A women's organization in Omaha asked me to setup their internal word processing system. They offered me one thousand dollars plus expenses for a week's work. One thousand dollars may not sound like much, but in 1985 it was a big paycheck for our family. My husband was delighted. It would be the down payment for a less-used car. I was embarrassed to drive my old car and my husband's wasn't much better. He planned to buy a better car for himself and give me his old one. "Typical," I thought. I drove 10 times more than he did.

And, then, as I was packing my bags for Omaha the world fell in around me. The phone rang. It was Charles, my most recent lover. He was the head of a charity organization in western Kansas. I had been there a week before to audit their accounts. Charles was married and a preacher, but had long since lost his religion and his love for his wife. He confided that to me after sex in my motel room. We spent two afternoons together.

"Are you free to talk?" He asked. I could hear the sound of traffic in the background. He was calling from a pay telephone.

Charles and I had agreed that we would not contact each other except in case of emergency. So, I was surprised – but I quickly put on my professional face. "Yes, Charles, what can I do to help you?" My husband was sitting on the sofa, watching TV as usual, but he seemed to be paying more than normal attention to me.

"My wife knows. Somebody saw us and told her. She's threatening a divorce. And she told me that she had written a letter to your husband at his church."

My face fell as I struggled to keep my voice business-like. "When was that, Charles?"

"Several days ago. Your husband must have the letter by now. Has he said anything?"

"No." I stole a glance at my husband. He was listening. I obfuscated. "I'll take that into account in my report. Thank you for that additional information. It was my pleasure to work with you."

"I'm trying to fix up things with my wife. Don't call me back. Good luck – and I'm sorry. Good-bye."

"Good-bye." I hung up the phone.

"Problems?" asked my husband. He was most definitely alert.

"Nothing serious," I said, trying to present a cheerful face. "A bit more work to be done. I'd better get on it now." I left him sitting on the sofa and retired to my office (our kitchen table) and got out my account books and sat down and pretended to be working. I had to wipe the tears out of my eyes. It hit me. My husband would throw me out and I would lose the children. With the scandal the charity would terminate my employment and I would have no job, no money, and no future.

I had to get out of the house. To think. "I'll take the dog for a walk," I said to my husband. "And pick up the children." He was still watching television.

Once I was outside I broke out in hysterical tears. I was going to lose the children! What could I do? I went over that question again and again. The answer came back the same every time: nothing. "God, please," I pleaded, "don't let me lose my children. I'll do whatever you want. Just let me keep the children."

When I came home, tears wiped away and children in tow, my husband asked, "When are you going to Omaha?"

"Tomorrow."

"Be careful,"

That was the end of it. I was awake half the night wondering when he would spring upon me his knowledge that I was an adulterous. I decided that he would confront me after I came back home with a thousand dollar check. I was terrified. I withdrew into my tortoise shell of respectability and repentance. My behavior in Omaha was exemplary. Neither alcohol nor penises found their way into my body. I called home every night. I attended a revival. I redoubled my effort to be a credit to my husband and his profession – and to contribute to our nearly empty bank account. I played the role of preacher's wife to perfection all day at work and I puked every night from nerves when I got back to my hotel room.

At the end of the week, after the dreaded drive home, I put on my bravest face, marched into the living room, and handed a thousand dollar check to my husband who was sitting in his favorite chair. "And guess what?"

"What?"

They want me to come back in a month to service the system. Two hundred dollars for a day's work. And another organization may hire me to do the same for them. Another thousand dollars." I bent over and kissed him on the cheek.

And now it will come, I thought. He will throw me out on the street. I will be exposed as Jezebel, the woman in red, the whore of Babylon. My children will revile me. I will be as a leper, unclean, shunned by all.