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* Education of a Jezebel
* Part 6 - Advanced Placement Courses
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This is part of a novel. Previous parts should be read first.
Chapter 17
With only four days to go until her escape to the vacation home with Ashley, her husband and her lover, Kelley planned her suitcase.
And while she was considering if she should take this dress or that, which bikini, she began to consider if she was aiding and abetting immoral behavior. She'd already come to the conclusion that two single people could make love without any ethical issues, even when it was just sex like Darren had been. But when someone's married, that's different, isn't it?
She remembered the hurt she felt the first time she found out Luciano had screwed some other woman, and the ache had never quite gone away. His refusal to stop the adulteries was, in the end, what had caused the divorce.
So, how could she condone what Ashley was doing? Screwing another man right under Don's nose, that was depraved, wasn't it?
She didn't stop packing, at the same time she wondered if she should just cancel, let Ashley and her husband and her lover have their fun without her.
Monday morning she marched into Sam's office, sat herself down. They went over a few details, nothing important at all. Then Kelley announced, "Remember, I'm taking Thursday and Friday off."
"No problem, it's dead around here, I can pick up anything that can't wait. What are you going to do? Anything good?"
"A friend of mine invited me to a house by the river for the weekend. It's going to be her, her husband and another guy."
Sam was titillated. "Oooh, dirty weekend! Excellent. Is the guy good looking? Have you had sex with him yet?"
"It's not like that. I haven't met him. And he's for Ashley, not me. Apparently he's a boy friend?"
"Oh! So you'll be with her husband? Or are they planning a 'whatever'?"
"As far as I'm concerned, they can have all the monkey sex they want. I'm sure I'll sit out, it just isn't right!"
"What's not right?" Sam asked.
"That married people are screwing around."
"Oh, this is coming from your religion, isn't it? And the fact that Luciano cheated on you? Let me say first, that I think cheating is wrong. I've never been married, but I lived with a guy once. We both cheated on each other, I remember how guilty I felt the next day, and so did he, it broke us up. And yes, I know, somewhere in your Bible it says that 'adultery' - whatever that is - is sinful."
"Absolutely," Kelley agreed. "When I married Luciano I promised to be faithful, and I was, right up to the moment I walked out on him."
"Okay. So that's your take on it, and you have every right to feel that way." Sam paused a minute, let her little sister gather herself. "But just because that's your morals, it doesn't make it everyone else's."
"Have you ever slept with a married man?"
"Of course I have. At the parties I go to, most of the people are married couples. And if a married guy calls me up for a date, the first thing I ask is, 'Would your wife be pissed if she knew you were taking me out for a drink?' If he says he doesn't care, or isn't upfront, he doesn't get any further, no matter what. I'm not going to help a guy cheat, that's just my style. Part of it is my morals, part of it is I don't want to get mixed up in a messy situation.
"On the other hand, if he answers, 'Yeah, she's cool with it, we've got an open marriage,' I'll consider it. I try to make sure his wife is screwing around too, I'll ask him about that. But if it seems to me his wife knows what I'm doing with him and is cool with it, what do I care?"
"But you're breaking up the sanctity of marriage!" Kelley almost screamed.
"I'm doing no such thing. Most marriages aren't holy, never were. I don't say that there's not a lot of people who get married and stay faithful to each other - that's a holy marriage. But if a man or woman decides to screw around, there's no way it's very religious, by your lights. If a man tries to screw me, or if a couple goes to one of those parties, they've already thrown that particular moral away - they've 'lusted in their hearts.' If I go to bed with him, I'm not doing anything wrong, just cooperating with his sense of morals - and by the way, I've got my own. Yeah, they're loose," Sam laughed, "but they're there!"
"So you're saying it's okay for Ashley and Don to mess around?"
"I assume they've talked it out, or else the other guy wouldn't be coming on vacation with them. Is it okay with Ashley if Don has lovers?"
"She sort of said it was, I guess."
"So there you go. They've figured out what they want, what they're cool with. Who are you or I to tell them they're wrong?"
As always, Sam had a way to rationalize whatever she wanted to. Kelley didn't argue with her further, but wondered if Sam's ethics were just a ruse so she could play with any guy she wanted. For that matter, the nagging voice of her conscious asked Kelley if she wasn't doing the same damn thing.
Ashley picked her up around noon on Thursday, Kelley dropped her two suitcases into the trunk. Of course the ethos of the situation had been pondered and weighed; Kelley had never come to a firm conclusion until it was too late to cancel; she felt she'd let anything they did be okay with her, she'd just stay out of it.
They drove southeast on a freeway out of the city, forty minutes later they hit the trendy town of Totten, full of flowered squares and boutiques and swank restaurants. They ate fresh salmon in a garden, reminisced and gossiped. Cheeses and delicate meats were purchased, Ashley already had booze, Kelley had brought four nice French wines.
They drove another half hour on narrow country roads, up and down dales, over rushing creeks - it had rained earlier in the week - until they came down a mountain and crossed an old trestle bridge into the town of West Brodhead. "Do we need anything for dinner?" Ashley asked, "or can we just make a picnic of what we've got?"
"We're fine. We can go grocery shopping tomorrow."
They left the town square, drove along the river on a gravel road not more than half a mile, homes of every description fronted the water fifty yards or more from each other. Ashley turned into a driveway, the house was of the cubic architecture school, two floors, much glass framed by a light wood. Ashley led her in, Kelley thought she'd entered a fairyland. A trip to the patios disclosed that the house was built upon a boulder, the river flowed just thirty feet away down a slight slope. The cottage was surrounded by fir trees, the other side of the river was a hill - or perhaps a mountain - covered by a seemingly impenetrable forest. Other than a canoe passing on the water they seemed divorced from civilization.
Ashley led her up a staircase to the bedroom level. "This is our room," she said. A window out onto the view, huge bed, huge bathroom. "I thought you might like this one." It was also facing the river, a bit smaller, and it had it's own, smaller bathroom. "You could have one in the back, but there's no view, and you'd have to share a bathroom."
"No, this is wonderful! Thank you!"
"Da nada, chick."
They took forty minutes to unload the car, put stuff away, then it was cocktail hour. The girls sat on the patio with wine, a light breeze cooled them. There was nothing and everything to talk about. Even in early September, an occasional hardwood on the opposite bank had turned to saffron or scarlet in the altitude of the mountains.
The first bottle of wine was drained, the second opened. The sun disappeared over the opposite hill, but it was still light for an hour and a half. When it became too dark to see clearly, they decided they should eat something, they chopped food for an informal charcuterie, ate on the patio
Under the influence of almost a bottle of wine each, tongues loosened. At Kelley's urging, Ashley explained the circumstances of her marriage. "Don knew what I was soon after we started dating. That was okay with him, he didn't want a boring lifestyle. We decided to head for vacation in Mexico after about six months, it was a swinger place. The second night we were in the jacuzzi and a couple approached us. I looked at Don and he flashed me an okay, we swapped with them. That was the first time. We had a ball the rest of the week, one night Don set me up with this good looking guy, just so he could watch me. Since then, we pretty much haven't stopped. Oh, we've had pauses of a few months, just because other things were going on."
"And Nick?" Kelley asked.
"Oh, he's different. I met him over a year ago at a gym, he was just getting out of a divorce. Don and I have an understanding, I told him about Nick, he said I should go over there, so I did. He turned into a regular thing, we even had some threesomes and we took him to a house party one night where we all got into an orgy. Then I found out I was feeling more for him than the other guys. Not love, exactly, not the way I love Don, but more than just sex, a lot more. I can tell Nick things, he can tell me things. Maybe I am in love with him, I don't know... Hey, the bottle's empty, I'll get another one." Kelley wondered if she'd had enough, but didn't say anything. "Let's go in the house, it's getting chilly."
Ashley lit the fireplace, they sat on the sofa, facing each other. Ashley asked, "So, how about you? Did you really stay faithful to Luciano all through your marriage."
"Didn't even think about other men," Kelley told, perhaps with a bit of slur.
