In Chapter one our heroine, Kate, a successful businesswoman turning 60, has asked herself a troubling question. Is she a slut? Thus began a series of chapters in which she describes to her husband Henry (her fourth husband) her life beginning with her late teen years and her sexual activities at each stage. The portion in italics in each story is her recollection of some memorable sexual experience from her past. In this chapter Kate tells her husband of a night of debauchery that marked the beginning of her affair with the CEO and owner of her publishing company and his wife.
It was a Tuesday afternoon. I had just returned from work and, after making myself a gin and tonic, I was changing out of my work clothes into something more relaxed. I was standing naked in my bedroom holding the finished drink when the doorbell rang. I grabbed an apron as I walked through my kitchen, threw it loosely around me, and walked to the front door, wondering who it might be. Setting my drink on the front hall table, I looked through the security window to see my husband Henry standing before me, a bottle of wine in each hand.
"Henry! What are you doing here?" I said loudly as I threw open the door. Before he could take a step forward I threw myself at him, starting a long passionate kiss.
Then, breaking the kiss, I turned and yelled over my shoulder, "Simon, it's my husband. You'll have to leave. Use the back door and hurry!" There was no Simon, of course. I was just pulling Henry's chain.
"No need to leave Simon. Just pull your boxers back on, and I'll cook for you, too," Henry yelled, calling my bluff.
We laughed at our little charade, and he handed me the two bottles of wine, excellent premier cru Burgundies, I noted. His taste in wine had improved in the years since we married. Then he turned and picked up a box of fresh foodstuffs that he had set on porch step before ringing. He had come equipped to cook me one of his gourmet meals. As I leaned forward to inspect the food box in Henry's arms, the apron, which I had loosely tied behind my neck, fell off so I was standing naked on my front porch holding a bottle of wine in each hand.
"Oh, so we are dressing formally for dinner?" Henry said.
Kicking the apron out of the way, I took a step back so he could see me in full and did a little pirouette, still holding a bottle of wine in each hand. "I wouldn't have it any other way," I said.
"But, by the way, what are you doing here? Last time we talked you were doing your spy stuff on the Costa Brava."
"Well, I was in the neighborhood, and I thought I would drop in and cook you dinner."
"The neighborhood?"
"Langley. It seems that the Cousins at Langley were more interested in the information I acquired on the Costa Brava than my friends in London were, so I had to make a quick trip to D.C. It's much quicker to fly from Dulles to San Francisco than to London, so I picked up a few things, and here I am. Besides, you promised to tell me how you met your second husband, and I thought I would like to hear it in person.
"I'll be happy to, but would you prefer to wait until after dinner so I can tell you the story in bed?"
"No need to wait. But perhaps we should move off your front porch before your rather stuffy neighbors file a public nudity report with the police."
"This is San Francisco dear, not London. Public nudity hardly merits a police report. I'm not sure it's even a crime."
'That's the price you pay for living in the center of decadence."
"What price?" I asked, unable to figure out what he was talking about.
"You see, in London if you nip out onto your front porch in the buff to greet your lover, you feel like you are really doing something wicked. Here your only concern is that you not become hypothermic."
I laughed at him, pointing out that it had been almost 90 degrees today, a heat wave by San Francisco standards.
We walked toward my kitchen, closing the front door behind us. Henry, following along behind me carrying the box of food, said, "Just uncork that bottle in your left hand and pour us each a glass. Yes, that one, the Morey Saint Denis. We can save the Chambolle-Musigny for later." After a pause he continued, "My god you have a lovely ass, woman." My gin on the front hall table was forgotten.
I did as instructed and, after handing him a glass, took a seat at the kitchen table, still naked, and sat sipping the wine, watching as he laid out the cooking tools and food stuffs needed to prepare dinner.
After a bit he spoke up. "Woman, are you just going to sit there naked, or are you going to tell me a dirty story about your second husband? It's not that I don't like to see you naked, but I've been wanting to hear this story for a couple of weeks now."
"Well, I met him at a wedding, but there was nothing dirty about it. I just met him, and then he called me for a date a few days later. Eventually we wound up in a very dull marriage that lasted ten years, which was at least eleven years longer than it should have. It's really hard to come up with a dirty story about my second husband. Sex just wasn't his thing. Thank god for the institution of the extra marital affair. I would have gone nuts without it. I guess I have to confess, marrying him was a mistake."
"So, let me get this straight: Your first marriage was an accident, the product of your personal version of
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
. . ."
"Right," I interrupted.
"And your second marriage was a mistake?" He continued.
"Right again."
"Wow. You weren't very good at this marriage thing, were you? It's a miracle you weren't killed on your third try."
"Oh, the third marriage was great. He was the one who was killed, not me. He loved to fuck, had a really twisted imagination, left me boatloads of money when he died, and he was just such fun to be around. I really was in love with him. I'll tell you all about it some day."
"Okay, but we're focusing on how you met your second husband tonight."
"I just told you all there was to tell. We met at a wedding. I think my boss' wife introduced us, but I'm not sure, given what went on during the rest of the evening. He called up and asked me out the next week, and we were married six months later. It was all really a big mistake on my part, and his too, now that I think about it. A guy with little or no sex drive should not marry a slut, and vice-versa."
"Really, no wedding sex with your spouse-to-be the evening you met? Nothing? That doesn't sound like you."
"You're right. It should have been a warning about how dull the relationship would turn out to be, but it was a signal I missed."
I swirled my finger in my wine and then slid it into my mouth, sucking it lasciviously as I thought back to the wedding in question. "Well, I didn't say there wasn't any wedding sex that night. It just didn't happen to involve my husband-to-be. Oh, what I did that night was so nasty. I get horny just thinking about it all these years later."
Henry stood holding a ten-inch chef's knife in the air. "Aha, I knew you had a good story, so tell it to me." As he spoke, he began energetically reducing an onion to the tiny bits he needed for his recipe.
I refilled my wine glass and began my tale:
It was one of those weddings that you dread from the moment you open the invitation. The kind being thrown by your boss for his really plain, unimaginative daughter who has somehow snagged herself a man, or something that approximates a man. He really was very nerdy looking, skinny and gangly, too—the groom, not my boss. (My boss was short, fat, and unimaginative). You know you'll have to dedicate one of your precious Saturdays to the event, because after all, the bride's father is your boss, and you also know that the only people you will know there will be the same boring people you work with every day.
At this point in my career, I was still buying the "don't fuck your co-workers" line, so I wasn't expecting to have a lot of fun at this event. To make matters worse, it meant that I was going to miss one of Chloe's orgies. I had become more or less a regular at her parties by this time, and each one seemed an effort to outdo the last for debauchery. But duty calls, and I went to the wedding.
I was so wrong about this wedding. I mean, yes, it was a dull affair, the ceremony in San Francisco's biggest Episcopalian cathedral, and the reception in a ballroom at the Mark Hopkins. Must have cost a fortune. And yes, my co-workers were just as dull at the wedding and reception as they were at work, but . . . and this is a big but, there was one couple I met there who didn't fit the mold.
I was sitting by myself, dressed in a conservative beige suit that pretty successfully hid any feature of my body that a man (or a woman) might find of interest, nearing the bottom of my third or fourth glass of Champagne, when this tall, handsome, silver-haired gentleman in what was obviously a very expensive Italian suit slid into the seat next to me. He had an open bottle of Champagne in his hand, in addition to the flute the waiters were handing out and, before speaking a word, he leaned over and filled my nearly empty glass. As he did so, I felt that lightest touch of his upper arm against my breast.
Assuming he was a bit drunk and his grope was unintentional, I said, "Thank you. I was about to go in search of a waiter. They seem to be getting scarce all of a sudden. I was afraid we were running out of Champagne, but you seem to have found a source."
"I have over the years found that to be an essential wedding skill. Know where the source of the booze is and make sure you have access to it."
I laughed and turned my head to look more closely at him. He really was handsome and looked vaguely familiar.
