Dancing with Irene

Note to the Reader: I always get grief when I post a story with no sex in it, so this is fair warning: There is no raw sex in this story. It's a sexually-oriented romance about the consequences of swinging.

* * * * *

I had not seen Aaron Lerner in five years. Six years, once I stopped to think about it. I was at the Home Depot at Milestone Center, looking for a replacement thermostat; I ran into Aaron at the end of an isle. It took two looks to convince myself that it really was Aaron, and then, I almost walked away.

"Hello, Aaron," I said, sticking out my hand. "How are you?"

He looked just as surprised--and just as put off--as I did. "Hey man! What's going on?" There was a toilet repair kit in his hand.

I shrugged. I looked around for Irene. "You alone here?"

He nodded. "She's out with her mother, shopping. Like that isn't news."

We both laughed. Aaron hated the woman.

"So," I said. "Life treating you good?"

He held up the replacement float. "Just like this," he said. Then: "How's Dee?"

Dee's my ex-wife. Irene and Dee worked together for a long time. That's how I knew Aaron. I had it bad for his wife.

Irene was not a beautiful girl, not by any stretch of the imagination; glancing at her, most guys would not look back. She was of European descent--Greek, I think-with dark brown hair, very dark eyes, an olive complexion and features just a bit too full. She was also a bit too full around the waist (at least, the last time I had seen her), and had a habit of whining whenever Aaron gave her shit. And she was from Brooklyn.

All of which did nothing to explain her appeal to me.

"Still racing?" I asked. Aaron had owned thoroughbred horses and stabled them Charlestown Racetrack in West Virginia. We used to go down on Friday nights, occasionally with the girls, but most of the time just him and I. Now he owned five horse.

"Any of them winners?" I asked.

He just laughed. Then he asked if I wanted to go down with him to Charlestown Friday night.

I should have said no. Later, I would fervently wish I had said no. But I wanted to see Irene and I said yes.

* * *

I met him at his house. It was a two story, vinyl-sided affair, on a nice-sized lot; Irene had laid out a pair of flower beds beneath the two front windows. Beside the fences bordering her yard she had planted pansies, mums and impatiens; impatiens ran along the sidewalk. In the side yard was a Home Depot brand shed and in back, a Home Depot brand swing set and sandbox. Irene had two children, Aaron Jr. and Angie.

I rang the front doorbell. My stomach was knotted. When Aaron answered, all I could manage was, "Hey."

"Bring plenty of money?"

I looked beyond him, wanting to see Irene. "I brought my wallet," I said.

"It better be full."

"I left my credit cards home," I said, which in fact, I had. Betting horses, especially with Aaron, could be dangerous.

I waited in the living room while Aaron got his things. Most of the furniture was new from the last time I'd been there. The dining room suite--where I had once kissed Irene during a drunken game of Truth or Dare--was the same, and so was the recliner in one corner. Everything else was new.

"Where's Irene?" I asked.

He blinked, as though unsure whom I meant. "Upstairs," he said, before yelling her out her name.

"Don't do that! For Christ's sake, Aaron."

"What?"

"She doesn't have to come down."

But I did want her to come down. I also prayed that she wouldn't. I heard her footfalls on the floor above, followed by her footfalls on the stairs leading down. They were not light and happy footfalls, but the clump-thunk of anger.

I thought, Why the hell did I come here?

Irene wore a cream-colored sleeveless top over blue jean shorts. She had New Balance sneakers on her feet over white ankle socks. She had not gained any additional weight, but neither had she lost any. She wore her hair loose across her shoulders.

"Hi," she said.

"Hello, Irene."

She made no effort to come forward to shake my hand, hug me, or anything else. She just stood under the living room arch, holding a child's school book in her hand. Her hair had some gray in it. I noted the wedding bands on her left hand, the rings on her right hand, the pair of small stud earrings in her ears. Like a Polaroid photograph, I recorded it all.

She said to Aaron: "When will you be home?"

"When I get back," he said.

"I need to get the carpet cleaned," she said. "Win us some money, okay?" The carpet looked spotless.

"Two million, with Rob, here. How's that for you, babe?"

She smiled crookedly. "When did you ever win?" she asked me.

"Never."

"I didn't think so. Be careful, both of you." And then she went upstairs.

* * *

We headed south on Route 340. After a while, I asked, "So, you still go down with Jonathan?" Jonathan was Aaron's co-worker. Sometimes he had accompanied us to the track.

"He moved back to Brooklyn . . . you didn't know that? Anyway, lately, I've been going with my neighbor, Tom." He shrugged. Tom and I didn't get along.

"Any winners in the stable?" I asked. Aaron had terrible luck with his horses.

He looked disgusted. "I lost so much money last year I made money on my taxes. I damned near got rid of the lot of them. Damn bastards."

"She go with you much?"

"Irene?" He laughed. "Never. Not once in the last three years." He gave me a querulous look. "Not that I mind, you know."

I knew. "Still after the girls?"

"Of course."

I passed a lumbering eighteen-wheeler going up a hill. "That girl at your office . . . Molly? You ever get to her?"

His grin grew really big. "That was a long time ago, but yeah. She ended up quitting. Her husband found out." He laughed, jabbing my arm. "I thought for a while he'd come after me--big son of a bitch. Not a nice guy at all. Met him at one of the Christmas parties. But she got her down on her knees for me, five or six times, so it was worth it."

Same old Aaron, I thought. "What about Irene? She ever catch on?"

He gave me that querying look again.

"What??" I asked. "Did I miss something?"

"You don't know?"

"Know what?"

"About Irene."

I was suddenly very wary. "What about Irene?"

"Dee never told you?"

"Never told me what?" I demanded.

"That Irene and I are swingers."

* * *

It was some time before I trusted myself to speak. "What are you talking about, Aaron?" I slipped the car around another big truck.

He laughed. "I can't believe you don't know."

"Enlighten me," I said.

For once, he was not flippant. "Before you and Dee broke up--shit, I'd say for a good two years before--I had Irene fucking other men."

I said nothing.

"It started out with another woman. Then another woman. Then the first woman again and I got to watch. After that, well she only let me set up men and always in a motel room or alone at our house." He grinned, though not happily. "She made me stay away until after they'd left. Then we'd have sex and I'd screw her fucking ass silly, you know?"

"Jesus, man."

He looked at me intently. "She did Tom, our old neighbor, two guys from my work, and a guy or two from her own work. She even took two guys at once, Rob."

"Aaron," I said, pained.

"Believe me," he said. "She's no angel." He had no idea how close he came to getting punched.

"So why are you telling me this? Now?"

"Thought you'd like to know. What you missed out on."

He almost got punched again. "For Christ's sakes, man. I thought you and Irene were . . . "

"Happily married?"

A pair of fire engines and an ambulance with lights flashing and sirens wailing approached from the opposite direction; I slowed and drifted onto the shoulder.

"We were never that happy, man. You know that."

"Yeah, but Aaron . . . swinging?"

"Actually," he said. "The swinging part was hers. I just took pictures and then fucked her good and hard afterwards. That was my part."

I ground my teeth and drove on.

"Don't be so judgmental," he said after a while. "At least we're still married."

I said, "I got news for you, Aaron. All the swinging in the world wouldn't have helped Dee and me. And why just her? Why not you too?"

He shrugged. "Just how it happened. I would have liked fucking her in a threesome, you know, maybe even a foursome, plug all her fucking holes--"

"You are so perverted," I cut in, unable not to laugh.

He laughed back. "Things needed shaking up, man. She didn't like to fuck anymore and didn't even like to kiss. And you could forget getting a blow job. Getting her swinging changed all that. Besides, its been years anyway. The kids got too old. We had stop."

"Thank God for that," I said. "And if it's all the same to you, I think I've heard enough for now."

"Fine. Just so you'll know, though, she said no."

"No to what?" I asked.

"What do you think?"

I honestly didn't know. Then I did.

"Don't say another word!" I threatened him. "One more word and I'm turning this car around."

"You don't understand," he said, beginning to laugh.

"I don't want to understand."

"I think you do."

"Fuck what you think, Lerner! One more word and I'll pound your face in!"

He said simply, "She said no, because she likes you so much."

* * *

I had lost forty dollars. Aaron had won eighty. His horse was running next.

"Do I bet him?" I asked.

"I'm betting to win, but that's your call, Rob."

I put down twenty dollars to Place. What could I lose. So far, I hadn't let him say anything more. Now I did. "Tell me what you meant in the car."

He said, looking at the odds-board, "She never came right out and said it, but I always knew. Remember that night you kissed her? Playing Truth or Dare?" I shrugged. "She was like, in heaven, man, the rest of the night."

What I remembered was a warm, wet mouth, soft lips and a so-what attitude afterwards. Dee cared more about the kiss than Irene did. Or so I thought.

Aaron shook his head. "You're the only guy I ever tried to set her up with, that she said no to. What's that tell you?"

"That she dislikes me?"

He burst out laughing. "You are so dumb! You are so fucking dumb, Rob."

I had heard enough. I told him so. And for the rest of the night, although he occasionally flashed me an inquisitive grin, he never broached the subject again. Until we got back.

* * *

He said: "I'll prove what I was saying."

"Aaron."

"She never waits up. Never. Wanna bet she's waiting up tonight?" He nodded toward the house. There were lights on downstairs, and in one of the windows upstairs.

"What's that prove?" I asked.

"She's not waiting up for me." I pulled into his driveway. "Wanna make a bet?"

"I lost enough already tonight."

"Double or nothing."

"God Dammit." I saw a shadow cross one of the downstairs windows; a blind tipped up. "That means nothing," I said.

Aaron only grinned. "Coming in?"

"Not on your life."

"She'll be disappointed."

"Fuck you, Aaron." Leaning over, I opened the passenger-side door and told him: "Out. Now. Get out."

"Okay," he said, removing his seat belt. "But you're making a mistake."

"The only mistake I made," I said, angrily, "was stopping to say hello to you in the store. Now, get the fuck out of my car."

He got out, shut the door and stood back. He wore that same inquisitive smile. I gave him the finger, though I too was now grinning, and backed out of the driveway. As I drove away I felt, rather than saw, Irene's eyes following me.

* * *

It was Monday noon. I sat at my desk, eating lunch. I tried not to think of Irene, just as I'd tried not to think of her all weekend. The telephone rang. "Hey man," Aaron said.

My heart clutched. I sat upright in the chair. "What do you want?" I said.

"Remember our little conversation of the other night? Well, I gave her a choice," he said. "Either she sleeps with you, or she sleeps with somebody else. Either way, she needs a good fucking and she's going to get it."

"You know, Aaron, I've had about as much of you as I can take. One more word and I'll come over there and bust your face. I swear I will."

"Rob!" he said, laughing. "Do you want to fuck Irene or not?"

I wanted to fuck his face. I wanted to fuck the phone. I tried to strangle it instead. "Look," I said, once I had calmed down, "leave me alone, Aaron. Don't call me, don't e-mail, don't--"

Matter-of-factly, he said: "It's you or someone else, Rob. You really want Irene to fuck someone else?"

I hung up the phone. He called back.

"What is the matter with you? I'm offering her to you and you say no?" He stopped talking and I heard voices in the background. When they were gone, he continued. "Things are like they were when I did it before. I can't stand it, man. Either she fucks someone, or our marriage is over."

"Then it needs to be over," I said. "Have you ever considered a marriage counselor, Aaron? If ever counseling was meant for someone, it was meant for you."

He laughed. "Christ man, she fucked him too."

I dropped the phone on the hook. I shook my head. When the phone rang again, I got up and left the office. The next day, Irene called.

* * *

"Hello," she said.

I sat bolt upright in the chair. My heart lurched and every neuron in my brain fired.

"Rob?"

"Wait a minute," I said. I got up and closed the office door. "Irene?"

"Yes. Can we talk?"

I couldn't believe this was happening. "About what?" I said.

"About Aaron," she said bitterly.

"I--I don't like this," I said.

"I don't like it either."

"Aaron is crazy. You don't have to do this."

She laughed very softly. "I like how you can say that, Rob. I really do."

"Irene, listen--"

"No, you listen," she said. "He hasn't brought this up in three years and suddenly he wants me to do it again? After seeing you?"

"Irene," I said hurriedly. "This is not what you think."

"How do you know why I think?" she screamed at me. "You screw up your marriage and you run out on your wife. Five years later you want to ruin mine! Where the fuck do you come off Rob Gerry?"

"Irene--"

She screamed unintelligibly at me and the line went dead. For the second time in twelve hours, I tried to strangle the phone.

* * *

"Hello? Rob? Are you there?"

I stood staring at the telephone with the refrigerator door open. The answering machine had it picked up.

"Rob, this is Irene." She paused. She wasn't expecting me to answer, just composing her words. "I wanted to talk about this afternoon. Maybe you don't want to talk about it, and I certainly wouldn't blame you." She paused again. "I shouldn't have said what I did. It wasn't your fault and it certainly wasn't true."

"No," I muttered. "It wasn't."

The line went dead.

I closed the refrigerator door and stared at the handset. I looked at the caller ID. It wasn't her home number; perhaps a cell phone. I considered calling her back. Instead, I went to the bathroom and started the shower. I shaved, which made me feel better and then got under the spray. The telephone rang and I jumped out of the tub, raced into the bedroom and grabbed up the handset off the nightstand. "Hello?"

I was too late. I got only a dial tone. The phone number was the same, however, so I waited there, dripping water on the carpet, but she never called back.

* * *

A week passed. A cool front moved in, replacing the ninety-five degree afternoons with something a little better. I began to emerge from my funk. I discovered the best way to deal with Irene was the same way alcoholics deal with their affliction: "Today, I won't think of Irene."

Saturday I worked in the yard. I watched two movies in the evening and Sunday morning I slept in. Irene did not call.

Monday morning, she did.

"Hello." It took one word to convey her misery.

"I should have called back," I said.

"I wish you had."

"I'm sorry," I said.

She hesitated, then pressed ahead. "I apologize for what I said."

"Don't," I said.

"It wasn't your fault. Aaron needs no one but himself to fuck me over. I hate that word. I shouldn't use it."

I said, "Why do you stay married to that . . . that . . ."

"Cocksucker?"

"Yes!" I exclaimed, laughing. "Exactly!"

Irene laughed then and suddenly I felt a hundred--a thousand--times better. I said, "You are crazy not to leave that bastard, Irene."

I sensed her shrug. "He's my husband."

He's not your whoremaster, I wanted to say. "You do believe me when I say I had nothing to do with it. I need you to believe that, Irene."

"I do."

"I didn't even know. Aaron told me on the way to the racetrack."

"I wish he hadn't, but I guess wishing is useless."

"The truth is," I said, realizing for the first time what the truth really was, "he planned this from the very beginning. The day I saw him at Home Depot . . . it just fits so nicely."

"I'm sorry," she said again.

"Don't you be sorry for me. I'm not the one being victimized here."

She waited a moment, then said, very softly, "I have to do this, Rob. I can't say no to him. He won't take no for an answer."

I said what I thought. "You don't want to go to bed with me either, Irene."

"I don't want to go to bed with anyone."

"Then just say no. Make him stop it. Leave him, if you have to."

She started to cry. "You don't understand! I have kids, the house, all my friends and relatives--"

"No courage?"

She cried out: "Thank you very much, Rob! I call you for help and you --"

"I'm sorry. I get mad and things just come out. I won't criticize you again. Sorry," I said.

She was silent.

"When?" I finally asked.

In a very low voice she answered, "This Friday night."

"Is there someone else picked out? In case I don't show?"

She didn't answer.

"Where and when?" I asked.

* * *

The agreement was this: Dinner out, followed by a movie, and then back to her house for sex.

Aaron arranged for the kids to be with his in-laws and had booked himself a room at the Red Horse Inn. He would stay there until three o'clock; I would be gone by three-fifteen when he got home. Irene would then . . . well, that's what had my stomach in an uproar.

I paced the living room floor, back and forth, muttering to myself.

"She doesn't want to sleep with you, Rob."

"I want to sleep with her."

"Think how much fun she'll have fucking you, gritting her teeth and staring up at the ceiling."

"It won't be like that."

"Sure it won't."

"Irene," I had asked her Thursday afternoon in my head. "Have you ever enjoyed this?"

"No," she said, flatly. "Never."

* * *

At six o'clock, I headed to Frederick. I sat for ten minutes at the end of the street, tapping my fingers on the wheel and muttering curses. At seven o'clock, I pulled into the court and parked in her driveway. I couldn't get out.

"Jesus Christ, Rob. If she doesn't fuck you, she's just going to fuck someone else." I opened the door and got out. "I am someone else," I said, and went to the door and knocked.

* * *

I drove and we remained quiet most of the way. The reservation was for eight o'clock at Dutch's Daughter; the crush of people pushed that back a full forty-five minutes. Irene, dressed nicely in a blue summer dress and no stockings, fidgeted continually.

"Relax," I said. "It'll be fine."

She studied her watch. The show was at nine o'clock.

"There's things to do besides go to a movie," I said. She fretted anyway.

"I told him nine o'clock. What if he's waiting there? What if I don't show up?"

She had informed me this was Aaron's habit: keeping watch on her. "What's he gonna do?" I said. "Call the cops?"

"You don't understand, Rob. All it takes is one thing out of order and all I hear for days is how I screwed up."

"Irene--" I indicated the packed lobby. "We most certainly will not make the nine o'clock show. Just get your cell phone out and call him. Things have changed. Things always change. The world is fucked up."