Ally

I needn't have worried. Ally had thought plenty about it.

"We need to talk about our future." Ally started.

It was two days later. The day after the party Ally had awoken feeling sick, no surprise, and asked me to drive her home. "I'm just going to sleep. No need for you two to have to tiptoe around the house on your day off."

So she had driven back to our house in the late afternoon on Sunday after finding that Pete had gone fishing with his dad and wouldn't be home for hours.

"Our future?" I asked. I had given Ally a 'promise ring' on her twentieth birthday and regularly told her I loved her, which I did, but hadn't gone much beyond that.

"Yes, our future. Oh, don't look at me that way. I'm not asking you to set a date for the marriage or anything like that. We don't even know if we are getting married, remember?" Ally gave me a stern look.

I did remember now. On one of our few talks of 'where we are going' this had come up as a newer thing. Lots of our friends were putting up housekeeping and a couple even having children without 'tying the knot.'

I nodded.

"I just mean our future as in what we want from life, what we want to do, what we want to learn, what we want to experience." She looked into my eyes with so much innocence, expectation, and sincerity I leaned forward and took her hand.

"OK, you've got my attention now, what are you thinking of?" I inquired

Ally lowered her lashes looking down at our joined hands looking even more innocent, shy even. "Do you think the two of us can give each other all the things we want and need in life? Just the two of us? All the experiences? All the knowledge?"

My mind was whirling. I couldn't imagine where she was going with this.

She continued, "I mean, we go to school because there are people there that add to our knowledge. We need outside people to teach us. And in order to get enough money to live we need to go to outside people to work and get what we need." She looked back into my eyes. "Do you think we can each give each other all the other experiences that we might be able to have, just the two of us?"

I wasn't sure where she was going with this but it didn't seem as bad as I first thought, and then suddenly it seemed like it might be worse.

"What experiences are you talking about? You're not talking about taking up a new sport, are you?" I was pretty sure this wasn't it. I just wanted her to level with me what was on her mind.

"I think we might learn more, have more experiences that we can't get with just the two of us...if we try sex with other people." She said this with her voice getting real quiet for the last seven words.

I pulled my hands back and ran one through my hair. "I...I...I don't," I couldn't even talk. I backed away from Ally as she surged toward me, tears coming to her eyes and saying something- but I couldn't hear it because of the rushing of blood through my brain. I turned and ran from the room. I continued to run down the street and started running on my usual jogging route through the streets toward the ocean.

I had run since I was in Jr High School and had always enjoyed it. Runners high I guess. It seemed to always clear my mind and my body just ran on. I was hoping for this result from the thoughts that kept coming back to me. The main one was, did Ally meet someone else? Who? Over and over.

I returned to the house about an hour and a half later and was surprised to see Ally's car still parked outside. I went in quietly and found her asleep in my bed on top of the covers. It looked like she had been crying pretty hard. There were still tears on her cheeks and the green pillowcase she lay on had a huge area that was darker so I knew it was wet.

Seeing her laying like that I felt so full of love that I knew, despite my earlier actions, I would try to understand and at least listen to what she would say. I didn't see how it might possibly turn out good for me, for us as a couple, but if there was a thread of hope I was willing to cling to it.

I sat on the bed next to her and reached up, brushing her hair back from her face. She awoke with a start, sitting up, looking around as if she didn't know where she was. Then she threw herself in my arms and clung to me.

"I'm so, so, sorry," she cried, "I love you so much! I didn't mean to blind side you like that. I've been thinking and talking about this for months with the girls and should have realized you would need time just like I did." She held onto me and lightly cried. I don't think she had many tears left.

I was glad she mentioned she loved me but the inclusion of 'the girls' met the girls from Naturals and I had already seen their influence. I generally liked the changes that had come but didn't really see where it might have headed. I had just not thought about it. Being a water person, 'go with the flow' was my motto. Is this a flow I could go with? I didn't know what to say.

"Remember back in June when I told you about that guy who talked to the girls? The one who gave me a twenty just for saying I would put a finger inside myself if I was allowed?" She looked at me with tear stained eyes like she was begging for understanding. I was trying. "Well, when Barbara and I were outside before you got there to pick me up he came out too." I sat up a little straighter at this and Ally quickly put my fears at ease. "The bouncer was right there with us, but he didn't seem intimidated, just like inside. The bouncers keep us safe, but we can still talk to anyone we want, inside or out. It's the touching that sets them off."

She looked me in the eyes and nodded a bit to see if I understood this. I nodded back. "Anyway, this guy was asking if now that I was outside would I be interested in, 'expanding my horizons,' is the way he put it. I shut him down immediately but one of the other girls who were in the area came over and asked what he met by that. Barbara and I stayed where we were waiting for you as the other girl led him down a bit and they talked. Right before you came she signaled the bouncer that it was OK and she left with him."

Ally took a big breath at this point, sat back and took both my hands in hers. She looked down at her hands as she continued. "I knew the other girl a bit, I knew almost all the regulars by then. There aren't that many. Things change over pretty quickly there."

She looked up. "Sorry, this is pretty hard for me too." She frowned a bit, looked back down at our hands and continued.

"So I was curious and called her the next day. We met for lunch a couple of days later. When I asked what had happened, did she prostitute herself? At first she laughed. She said that's what we are all doing all the time at Naturals. When I objected she said she knew what I met, and no, generally she didn't. She said a couple times there were really good looking guys that would come through and, just like if she were out in a normal club dancing or at a party she might go home with one, but none of those guys had been there before or since. This guy she wouldn't have gone with, he wasn't that great looking, but he did have the gift of gab and plenty of money. So she took a chance and it turned out great." Ally looked up at me as if this explained everything.

I was perplexed. "What do you mean by 'it turned out great?' They had sex and he was a good fuck? He paid her a lot?"

Ally looked stricken at me. Looking back I imagine it was because of my tone, definitely judgemental, and I had dropped her hands as if I was going to go running off again. "No!" she almost shouted, "Er, yes, er," at this point she took a deep breath, took up my hands again and looked into my eyes. "No, she didn't have sex." She let her breath out. "Yes he paid her a lot."

She had centered herself to go on and after realizing I was calmed down as well went on. "She said he had told her in the parking lot that the thing he liked to see was women masturbating. His ex wife would never do it and it became a thing so great it was one of the things that had led to his divorce. He had learned there were women who didn't think it was such a perverted thing that they were OK, some even happy, to do it. But he was from out of town just here for some business deal. Meeting a woman that might be open to it took time. Unless he was willing to pay for it, which he was." She had looked back down at our clasped hands as she had told me this and now she looked up to see if I had understood.

I nodded so she went on. "I talked to her about all sorts of things that day and we became a little closer. A few times we met for breakfast or lunch again. She introduced me to most of the other girls, not Barbara."

I could sense that this was like a confession for Ally. It did surprise me. I had thought Barbara was her only connection to that other world she explored once a month. All I did was nod again for her to go on.

"You know her, Michell?" She looked at me for conformation.

"Michell?" I said surprised. Michell was one of the girls I was surprised to have seen continue at Naturals. She was pretty plain and almost flat chested. I knew they had become closer than most of the girls but never knew they had gotten together outside the parties and once a month at Naturals.

"Yes, Michell." Ally smiled as if she knew what I was thinking. "She's really smart, in a street smart sort of way, and has had a pretty rough time growing up. It seems like her parents weren't there for her most of the time. She says she's going to go to cosmetology school next January but I think she could do better than that. She just doesn't believe in herself much." As Ally had said this she had let my hands go and reached for a tissue and blew her nose. She threw the tissue toward the can in the corner but didn't come close. Before I could get up and put it in, she took my hands again and looked up at me.

"Enough about Michelle. We are talking about us right now." One of the things I loved about Ally was her ability to keep me, and herself, on track.

"Wait! One more thing!" I interrupted. "How much money did that guy pay for her to masturbate in front of him? And how long did it take? Did you ask?"

"Of course I did," Ally said. "He paid her $450. It took less than thirty minutes but they spent a little over an hour together. Back at his hotel. Actually she had agreed to $400 but he was so satisfied he gave her a $50 tip." She smiled to herself at this, seeming to remember their conversation in her head.

"Wow." was all I could say.

"So, us?" Ally smiled up at me.

I nodded again.

"In the past few months I have had a number of conversations with Michell, Barbara, a lot of the girls from Naturals as well as old girlfriends and girls from school in between classes. It's expanding my world, my worldview." That pleading look was back in her eyes. I couldn't, didn't want to, let her down. It was almost pitiful, the love behind it.

"I'm coming to a belief, an understanding, that a lot of the problems with relationships is the lack of transparency and honesty in what men, and women, do and say. A LOT of it is because of attitudes that have come from the past. Did you know that until the 1920's men OWNED women? Just like they OWNED their dogs, cars, cows? Even now, fifty years later, most of the time a woman has to have a man sign before they can get a credit card! In the 1970's!"

Ally was obviously outraged at this.

To tell the truth it was something I didn't know, had never thought about. I guess this is one of the things they call male privilege. I thought. "About us?" I said gently. Trying to get back on subject, I thought.

"This is about us!" Ally said with a bit of exasperation. "You are a man, I am a woman! This is deeper than you are looking at it I think." She stared into my eyes. It seemed like she was looking for something in me I couldn't find myself.

She had me there. I had just thought, probably for the first time, about male privilege. After a moment I nodded again. No fool, I wasn't about to say something stupid again. I'd hear her out at least.

Now, still holding my hands, she looked across the room as if remembering a time past, she continued. "I have been thinking and learning a lot lately. I don't think we can do all this in one conversation but I do want to talk to you about everything eventually. One thing I have learned, not all in school but there's not anything I've learned that says this isn't true, is we all have an interior world that we live in. It's where you are right now when I'm talking to you." She turned to look in my eyes then as if willing me to understand.

"We are born alone and we die alone. I did read that somewhere. That is sort of what I mean. There is a part of you, what I just called your interior world, that I can have no understanding of unless you tell me. And there is a part of me, my interior world, that you don't know about unless I tell you. So the only way we learn about this from each other is telling each other. And telling the truth. And like they say sometimes the truth hurts. But that hurt is because of something in your interior world too." She stopped there as if expecting some answer or comment.

I didn't know what to say. So I just nodded again.

Ally looked down at our hands again. She paused so long I didn't think she was going to say anything and then she looked up and said, "Remember when you told me you had wanted to play shortstop for the Dodgers?"

This caught me off guard. I rallied, smiled and said, "Yes, but that was when I was a kid. I could never do that now. It's too late."

"That's what I mean!" Ally tightened her grip on our hands and pulled them up and down. "Your interior world is where the idea of being a shortstop for the Dodgers was held. Your exterior world made that an idea that couldn't work anymore so you dropped it. Some people never are able to do that. And some people call them crazy." She smiled at this last. "I mean it would be crazy if you went to LA tomorrow and wanted to try out for shortstop right?"

I had to chuckle at that. "Yeah, I wouldn't get past the front office. So our interior world has to pretty much match up with the exterior world or it's crazy making. Is that what you are saying?"

"Yes!" Ally said. "That's part of it. But the part I want us to do is the honest, open part. It's the only way we can really be close and stay close in our relationship. I need that in my exterior world. I think you would be happier to have that in yours too."

We sat for a while looking in each other's eyes until Ally said, "So, what are you thinking? Just what is going on in that interior world?" she smiled.

I looked away as I said, "Wow, that's a lot to think about! My thoughts right now are all over the place." I looked back at Ally.

"There is this book I want you to read that maybe can explain more of what I mean. I've got a copy at home. I'll bring it tomorrow." Ally dropped my hands and moved to sit on the edge of the bed.

She was getting up when I said, "What book?"

She turned back to me and said, "Open Marriage. It's a book Michelle recommended to me a few months ago and I think you might understand the ideas in it when you read it all."

"You've got to be kidding!" I burst out. "That's just a book written so people won't feel bad about sleeping around as much as they want."

"Says your interior world!" Ally stood up and started putting on her shoes and looking for her purse. "Have you actually read it?" She turned to look at me.

Sheepishly I said, "No, but I've been told about it."

"Well, now -someone you supposedly care about- is asking you to read it and actually find out what's in it. Are you going to go with what you've been told, or what you know because you actually read it?" She stood in front of me obviously challenging me or maybe even throwing down the gauntlet.

"I'll read it," I said. "But what you said about having sex with other people..."

She cut me off. "We'll talk more. I'm not about to just jump in bed with someone now. And honey," she took my chin, turned my face down to her and kissed me, "we will get through this. I love you. It's not about that at all." Then she walked out of the room.

The next day Ally came over and dropped off the book and told me she would give me a few days to read it. "But right now I let's just love each other," she said, as she took off her blouse and tossed it on the chair I kept in the corner, after we had entered my bedroom.

We made slow deliberate love not the frantic 'I want to fuck your brains out and eat you alive' sessions we had have after her nights at Naturals or after showing off Ally in some way. This was more to reassure me, I believe, that she really did care for me and wanted things to work out between the two of us, that she hadn't, yet anyway, thrown down some gauntlet that was an end to our relationship.

When we were done and laying back on the pillows with my arm around her, her head on my shoulder, and her hand stroking the hair on my chest she said, "You know girls talk about sex more than most guys think." She let that sit for a minute and then added, "And not just the girls at Naturals- in fact my other friends talk about it a lot more. Hmm, maybe it is because working at Naturals you learn more, experience more, than the girls outside." She added this last in a way that seemed as she had just realized it. Her brow was creased in concentration. After a moment she continued. "Sometimes it can get quite graphic. If men could hear what women said they would have a whole different opinion of what locker room talk is I'll bet." Shen she said this she looked up at me to catch my eye.

I just looked back and nodded, giving her shoulder a squeeze, encouraging her to continue.

"I mean like Dorthy, and don't ever tell anyone-not one guy- that I'm telling you this," again looking up at me with daggers in her eyes, "she said the other day, that when she has children if she ever has a boy she'll definitely have him circumcised. And you know why?" she asked rhetorically, "Because she doesn't like to be on top of a guy who isn't circumcised. She says when she's on top, the extra skin seems like it makes it so he can't go as deep. So she'd have her kid circumcised so the women in his life would have better sex with him."

I was really surprised at this bit of information. For one I couldn't imagine Dorthy having that much experience with sex. She was a fairly plain looking friend of Ally's that I know she'd been friends with since junior high school at least. She didn't seem to be with anyone I could remember in high school. Since then I could only remember three different guys she had dated, or at least come to parties that I had attended. She had been with her current boyfriend for the last year or so. "Dorthy? Really?" I said, "I can't imagine her having that much experience to know."

Again Ally looked up at me and catching my eye, rolled hers. "That's what I mean. Guys really have no idea. She's not really a skank or slut or anything but she's had more experience than me. You know she never went steady with anyone in high school." Again looking up to assure I was on track. I nodded. "But she went on plenty of dates. And must have learned plenty on them. She even dated three guys who were in college during junior and senior year. I think she had a problem with self esteem until then. It's not like she stood out as a beauty and you know how high school was."

"Yeah, I sure do. Why do you think her self esteem changed after dating the college guys? What about them was different?" I was truly interested now.

"See? That's a difference between men and women right there. You think it's something these guys did to change her. I think a guy's ego gets in the way of his thinking right." Eye roll again. "It was just the fact that she could attract a guy in college while she's in high school that changed her. Not a thing they did." Ally lay for a moment then said, "Well, maybe it was something they did a bit. Or at least they tried to do. They always wanted sex of some kind from her. She at least had the smarts to not give in, but she realized if she was attractive enough that they would want to do it with her then she must not be as ugly as she thought."