Let's Mae a Deal

Author's note:

This is part of a long story. No part of it is intended to stand alone. I suggest starting with

Part 1

In revising the whole story, I've corrected errors, but also filled in a lot. This has inevitably made it all even longer. My apologies to anyone who read it in the original form and now finds it changed for the worse.

If you're looking mostly for explicit sex, this probably is not the story for you, so why don't you just go on to something else? There is explicit sex in some parts, but even there it's not the focus.

Also, some parts contain religious discussions which will offend some people and bore others. If you're one of those people, again, why not go on to something else?

63.

The devil is in the details.

Martha and Lynda continued to show up for church, even though it was a couple of weeks before Scott spent another weekend with them. They all agreed to extend the deal for one more month. The women told Scott that they were thinking about their discussion. A couple of weeks into this, Lynda asked him some questions about some passages in the Bible.

It seemed that she was reading the gospel of Matthew, and as they talked a lot more questions came out, from chapters she had already read, as well as from the section she was currently on. Once or twice, Martha put in comments which showed that she was reading this too, and thinking about what she read. Scott suggested that Lynda use a notebook to write down her thoughts as she read, both comments and questions. He told her that this would help her keep track, and also that at a later point she might find it useful to see how her viewpoint changed as she read more.

She was taking it fairly slowly. He told her that this was good, since it gave her opportunity to really think about what she read, but that it would also help her to quickly read ahead, to give more of a framework for what she was immediately working on.

On asking, he found that she was sharing Martha's Bible. From her questions he had already known that this was the King James version, and many of the things she asked about were just issues of understanding the language. He pointed out some advantages of that version. For example, the thee's and thou's and you's and ye's had just been confusing her, but once he explained how these related to the grammar and to how many people the speaker was talking to, a lot of her confusion just evaporated.

He pointed out that in a contemporary translation, she wouldn't know whether "you" meant one person or several, and gave her a couple of examples where this might matter. But he did also go out and buy each of them a contemporary translation, the one he happened to use himself, which was also one mostly used in his church. He warned them that there was no perfect translation. Martha found the older English much less confusing than Lynda did. Scott thought that this was partly just that she was much more widely read in general—because she'd had years more for it, and also because she really liked to read more than Lynda did—and partly because she noticed language more.

Within a short time, Lynda's questions—and before long, Martha was asking, too—caused him to suggest that the three of them do some systematic studying together, not to replace their own reading but alongside it. They agreed to set aside an evening, usually Tuesday but depending on their schedules, to go over what they were studying.

He really wanted to get them involved with a group at church who already had a study going, but decided not to even suggest this. He thought that Lynda in particular would be frustrated because the group took so much Biblical knowledge for granted, and that her much more basic questions would in turn disrupt their ongoing study. At his suggestion, they began with Paul's letter to the Romans. He did encourage them to keep reading in the gospels as well. He tried, in their study and in discussing any other questions they had, to give context, which typically led them into the Old Testament, where he tried to explain the context of those parts.

He had been a little bit afraid that as they got to the section, almost at the beginning of the letter, relating to sexual sin and specifically homosexuality, that the discussion would become awkward. He found that they both saw right away how that fit into Paul's line of reasoning, and that they had almost no trouble understanding the process Paul described. They pointed out that this was another case where they needed to understand, but that understanding left them with the challenge of whether or not they were going to believe it, and if they did how they would respond.

Besides the passages they were specifically studying, they discussed any questions either of the women wanted to raise. (And Scott also occasionally asked them what they made of some passage, just to see what they would say.) After a while, he began to see some patterns to their questions. Often, Martha had questions about the historicity of the Bible, and in particular the beginning of Genesis. And Lynda, somewhat to his surprise, often had more abstract, theological or philosophical, questions: How can we even know God exists, or that the Bible (or any other candidate) actually represents communication from God? If God is really good, why is the world in such a mess?

Scott did his best with all of these, pointing them (Martha especially) to books discussing the issues raised. He understood the questions very well, and freely told them he didn't pretend to have all the answers. But in his own life, he had found he had to face pretty much the same questions. He had been raised in a church where scripture was not really taken as God's word, and so true, and where (for example) evolution was taken for granted as an explanation of the origin of life. At the time he had begun to find his views on scripture changing, all of these questions had been very pressing ones for him. For the most part, he had found answers that he found satisfactory, and satisfying, but this had all been a process taking several years. He knew that some of what he said was helpful to the two women, but in many cases they needed to consider things a lot more, and he wasn't sure how matters would fall out for them.

He didn't have all the answers, especially to Martha's questions. He tried to be very direct in saying so, not speculating—or saying clearly that he was speculating, when he did. He would have done this with anyone, but he was very aware of his promise of total honesty in this case.

The more he thought about it, the more he was aware that each woman had depths he didn't know. He would have expected the historical questions to come from Lynda and the more philosophical questions from Martha. But there was no question at all but that they were asking from a serious desire to understand and evaluate, to learn the truth. Scott continued praying for them.

Regarding Martha's sleep problems, the women reported mixed results. She didn't need her alarm to be so loud any longer, and she often—but not always—woke up as soon as it went off. And Lynda could almost always rouse her quickly with a gentle shake—or two or three. They reported this to the sleep doctor, who encouraged them to continue using the ice occasionally to reinforce these results. Scott stopped feeling so very concerned about possible emergencies arising some night.

64.

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

Scott was very much aware of the impending deadline, as they approached the middle of their fourth month. Martha's performance at work had been excellent for all that time. He had set four months as the final deadline, and he wasn't willing to extend it more, but he also dreaded its arrival—for all their sakes.

Then, one evening, as they talked he saw that Martha was crying. He went and hugged her, just holding her, waiting for her to tell him what was wrong. Nothing in what they were discussing seemed likely to bring on tears. After a few minutes, she hugged him firmly, then stood back.

"Scott, I need to say something. I don't think I've ever done anything as hard as this before. I'm so sorry. I've been going round and round, and I can't see any other way.

"You've convinced me. I know it's not really you, but you're the main one who's been talking to us about it. I don't know all the answers. I know that my life hasn't been all that bad by a lot of people's standards, but I know how far I am from what I should be. And I've got to change, and I can't do it myself. I do believe. I don't know where it's going to take me, I don't even really know what the next steps need to be, except one. I can't keep going to bed with you. I love you so much, and if you push me I'm sure I'll give in, so I have to ask you not to."

She was crying harder. "But we made a deal. We're close to the end of it, but I can't let that influence me. I can't just try to keep on even for a couple more weeks. I've been trying to deal with this for days now, and I can't any longer. You're going to have to decide and tell me, do I still have a job since I'm bailing out on our agreement?"

Scott stepped forward and took her in his arms again. He looked her directly in the face. He said, "You know I love you too. I can't let that influence what I say, either way. Just as you said about yourself just now. And how could I ask you to go back on your choice? I've known from the beginning that I was doing wrong, big time. I told you so up front. I have some thoughts on what else you need to do next, and we can talk later, but for the question you asked: You've done whatever it took to get back in the groove at work. You've worked hours and hours, unpaid, outside of the normal day, straightening out so many things. At the beginning, I said that you'd offered me something for your job, and it was no deal no job. But that was because I couldn't trust you to not keep messing up. Of course you still have your job, unless and until you start messing up again like that. And I trust that will never happen.

"As far as the sex goes, I'm going to find it way hard to give you up. And I'm sure you're right, I could convince you to change your mind on that. But I'm also so happy I can't tell you how much, that you've made this spiritual decision. How could I ever not support you in it?

"In fact, even if I weren't a believer, if I hadn't been praying constantly for you to make that decision, I'd have to respect you on this. I love you. Twenty years ago and more I probably would have tried to spin things—to myself as well as you!—to make you, us, think it would be OK to go on. I know better now. I'm sorry that I dragged you through this in the first place, except that I'm so happy at some of the results. Honey, thank you for everything, but thank you for being so honest."

He hugged her again, and kissed her on the forehead. Before he could let her go, she pulled him closer and kissed him quickly on the mouth. "Thank you so much, Scott. I'm so thankful for everything that I could just cry, except that I already am. I'll love you forever. When you've had a chance to think, can we talk about what's next? Please?"

"Of course," he said. He let her go. He turned to Lynda, who was sitting staring at them.

"Lynda, the deal's off. It was due to expire soon, anyway. I'm so sorry that this has hit you without any warning. I'm afraid that my own conscience has been bothering me more and more the last few weeks, I hope this doesn't feel to much like you're just being abruptly dumped. I wasn't expecting it either, you know."

She jumped up and ran over to him and put her arms around him. "Scott, after what you just said to Martha, how could I ask you to go on? I love you. I think this may be even harder for me than it is for Martha. But I love you both, and I owe Martha everything. And you won't be surprised that I'm starting to cry too, I know."

And of course, she was starting to cry. "This means we're not having sex, and I guess you're going to insist on no more long kisses and touching, too, right? But it doesn't mean you're just cutting us off, does it? You can still come over for dinner sometimes, and study with us, and just talk, can't you?"

He looked at Martha. "I don't really think any of us wants to stop that, but I think we need to give Martha a chance to object." Martha shook her head and said, "Please, please keep all that up. It would kill me if you said we had to stop that."

He said, "In fact, I had already been thinking that we need to do other things together. I don't know where our relationship will go next, but if we want to keep anything from it, I think we've got to do that. We're not married, any of us, but there's lots of evidence that marriages just don't last when they're based mostly on physical affection. I think it applies to other relationships, even an odd one like ours. Of course, we have been doing a few other things, too, but I'd already been concerned about this, with us.

"I even have a suggestion for a first thing to do. I'd been planning to go contradancing this Saturday night, sitting in to play on some of the music, but dancing some too. The band lets me sit in when I come, in fact not lets me but asks me to. If I showed up to dance and didn't play, they'd let me hear about it. Can we all go together? The only real problem is that in contras it's common for more women to show up than men, so some of them dance the men's part. But you'll be there as beginners, and no one would expect you to do that, and probably you'll always get asked to dance by someone."

They looked at each other, and Lynda said, "OK. How about ballroom dancing, sometime, too?"

Scott sighed, but said, "Fine, if you're willing to dance with someone as clumsy as I am who also doesn't know what to do at all. I have awful memories from being taught, back in junior high school—which is what it used to be called before the name middle school became so common, Lynda. I really mean that it's not something I can really do. I'll try if you want to, though. But the phrase 'two left feet' might as well have been invented for me. And you both know I can always use lessons in humility."

Martha said, "We can work on it by ourselves, first, if you're willing. Or we can sign you up for some lessons."

Scott was still really sceptical. "Maybe . . . I suppose it can't be worse than it was more than thirty years ago. I might even be a tiny bit less clumsy."

He added, "There are a lot of other things too, about having a relationship that mostly started with sexual attraction. We really don't know each other as well as we should. Well, we're better than some couples, I guess, because we at least have worked together a while, and we've talked about some things. But you know only the fringes of my tastes in music and literature. You know I don't much like watching TV and only very rarely go to movies. I know you watch TV and movies a lot more, but I don't know your tastes in those. And to some degree even doing them with you might not help me know you because I don't have the context to know what there is you wouldn't watch.

"I'm not much for the visual arts, either, and I don't know your tastes there. (I do hope they don't run to say Jackson Pollock!) I suspect my political views would horrify you, but I don't know yours well enough to say. And so on. There are successful relationships without common ground in any one or two of such things, but to make a go over the long haul you do need a lot of stuff in common."

They all agreed to at least start by talking about more things, especially the ones they thought were important.

65.

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

Discussions did widen. There were definitely some surprises for Scott. One, maybe important, concerned politics. He had so many frustrations, going back many years, with the whole kind of political discourse he heard that he avoided talking about it whenever possible. He found that he simply got too angry to discuss it amicably, almost no matter whom he was talking to. But what Martha had to say was, in many areas, not all that far from his own thinking. Lynda was farther from him, but she gave her positions in terms of reasons.

Lynda's tastes in music were for the most part unbearable, to Scott's ears. Martha liked a lot of different kinds of things, but fewer of the currently popular things. Her tastes generally overlapped Scott's, and each could enjoy most of what the other really liked. Scott thought that part of this was just due to Martha's caring about music less than he did.

They all preferred generally realistic artwork. Here Martha and Lynda both cared much more strongly than Scott did. Going to an exhibition of paintings or an art museum was something they might well do on occasion. But the things they passionately loved were mostly things Scott would enjoy seeing or having around. He warned them that he quickly ran out of patience with exhibitions and museums. He just could not keep looking at more and more new things, one after the other, without feeling bored and trapped, even if the individual works were ones he liked. The best he could explain it was that he became overloaded. But he expressed willingness to be taken along, as long as they realized that within half an hour or so he would have mentally checked out.

At dinner later that week, Scott realized how much he was enjoying just being with them, talking about nothing important, and he suddenly felt overwhelmed. He fought to keep from breaking down and crying. It must have showed, because both women were looking at him with concern on their faces. "Honey, is something wrong?" Martha asked. That seemed to open the floodgates for a moment.

When he had a little more control, he said, "I don't know whether I can explain. I don't understand, myself, why it suddenly hit me the way it did. You know, I originally told you that it wasn't the physical side of sex that I was really after—though I was longing for that too!—but a different kind of intimacy? And I suddenly realized how much you're still giving me that, in spite of everything. I can't tell you how much it means to me, just to sit having dinner with two, well, two really attractive women, just being with you as if we were family. Thank you so much. Not that I don't miss the sex, too."

They both came over to him, and each hugged him.

66.

Oh Baby, Do You Wanna Dance?

Saturday, Scott picked them up early enough to get to the hall before 7:00. He told them, "I've got to warm up with the band. In a few minutes when the caller gets here, if he doesn't ask you, make sure you tell him you're total beginners, and that you're here with me. The beginner teaching time isn't scheduled until 7:30, but they'll start earlier if there are people here for it. If I can, I'll come down for it as well." He told them he'd dance the first dance with Martha and the second with Lynda. After that, if he was playing with the band, they could look at him after each dance and he'd try to signal one of them if he would dance the next one.

He tuned up, and explained about having brought some beginners. They quickly went through the information they had from the caller, and warmed up on a couple of sets. When Scott saw Martha and Lynda talking to the caller, he put down his mandolin and went down to the floor. He paired up with Martha, and the caller, Mitch, began walking them through figures. Some more beginners arrived, and some dancers who were experienced enough to help, and they began again.

The beginner lesson ended with a sequence of figures that were very similar to the first dance. Mitch called for everyone to find a partner, and did a very quick walk-through, and then called out, "Now, with the music." A quick three potatoes, and the band began. It wasn't a very complicated dance, being intended to get the beginners started. Martha had no problems, and at the points when Scott could watch her neither did Lynda. Scott and Martha progressed down the set. They switched places and stood out once through. Martha watched with interest as everyone else danced. Then they were back in, progressing back up the set. At the final call, "Now, everyone swing your partner," they swung, then stayed together for an extra moment before breaking to applaud.