Saturday morning I walked around the house cooling down after my run. The grass was a little shaggy. With any luck today would be the last cutting until spring. I started up the mower and began the repetitious back-and-forth pattern that suburban squatters are familiar with.
The boring work gave me time to think about my social dilemma. Nan was wild and exciting and beautiful. She was willing to share her bisexual playmates with me and would even recruit new ones, as the inclusion of Jill had shown last night. I didn't know if she expected me to allow her to have other men.
Jean, on the other hand, was sort of stodgy. We had done anal, but for the most part straight, vanilla sex seemed to be her limits. Of course, I had to admit that compared to Nan, 99.9 per cent of the population might be considered stodgy. And Jean was enthusiastic. In the looks department, Jean had a striking face and had style, but her body was slim and girlish, definitely not like Nan's.
Kathy had been somewhere in between. She had never shown any interest in girls, although the girl-girl scenes in the occasional porn film we watched didn't turn her off. She had been daring, insisting on making love on the beach each night during a vacation to the US Virgin Islands. If we were out at night by ourselves, she would often pull my dick out of my pants and fondle it, once even sucking me. She had been very attractive with an average-sized figure, which she worked to keep in good shape.
Miscellaneous thoughts flitted around my head. Nan hadn't suggested any activities with Bobby. Since she was his teacher, she knew him well, but still I was slightly bothered. Being charitable to her, she might not want to get involved with him personally until the direction of our romance was decided. Then again, we had had vague discussions about her desires for children. She didn't see herself having a child for several more years, so she might feel saddled with Bobby if we got tightly involved.
To Jean's positives, as a parent she had more to think about and more to lose if something went wrong. I liked Rebecca and Jean seemed to like Bobby. During those we-really-aren't-talking-about-what-we're-really-talking-about talks, Jean had said that she had always wanted two or three kids indicating that there might be a hers-mine-and-ours situation for both of us to think about.
Jean and I talked on a deeper level than Nan and I. Nan talked about her friends and about celebrities. It was much harder to get her to talk about where her life was going, what goals she had, how she was going to get there. I tried to remember when I was unattached before my marriage. Had I been the same way?
I pulled out the weed-whacker and trimmed up around the bushes. What did I want for the next ten years? For the rest of my life? I pondered that through my shower and shave.
"Okay, Bobby, mind your manners," Linda admonished him as she zipped up his coat. Then she straightened back up.
"Jack, remember I'm going out tonight. I know you won't be home early, but Sally and I and the girls are going for dinner and then we're going clubbing."
"You're going clubbing?" I arched an eyebrow.
"They have clubs for us old fogies, too," she replied with a smile. "I'm sure I'll be back before midnight, but don't wait up."
"Have I met this boy? Do I know his parents? Do you have a quarter for a phone call? No parking!" I repeated all the parent lines I had heard in high school, but with more of a grin than was ever on the face of the fathers that I met.
"Oh, you," Linda replied. "Get on out of here."
Jean had relented on letting Rebecca see me. Today she had suggested that we take the kids to a movie. The showing we picked was at 3:30 and we decided to have a late lunch at a McDonald's Playland near the theater. Bobby and I picked them up about 1:15.
"Wow! You look good today," I greeted Jean with a peck on the lips and frank admiration. She was wearing a pink A-line dress that zipped up the front and set off her hair and complexion to perfection on this warmer-than-usual fall day. It exposed her gorgeous legs to about four inches above her knees.
"Well," she started. "Last week was sort of quiet, so I wanted to make sure you noticed me this week."
Last weekend had been the end of her period so we hadn't done more than snuggle and neck some. When I lifted an eyebrow, she shyly looked down.
"I notice you every week. How could I ignore someone so beautiful," I gallantly asked.
After we had gotten our lunches, we went outside to the Playland. The lunchtime crowd had thinned out and Jean was able to pick a table in the corner where we could sit with our backs to the fence and still have good view of the kids in the play area.
"Eat your hamburger, Bobby, and then you can go play."
"You too, Rebecca," echoed Jean. The kids had chattered to each other about their respective schools all the way over, so they were able to take a short break to bolt down the burgers and fries before dashing to the chutes and ladders.
"They seem to get along well, don't they" I asked.
"I think it's that age where they can carry a conversation, but they are not old enough to be shy around new kids," Jean replied.
Jean started telling me about a new study that her branch was conducting about medical services on Indian reservations. After that, I began telling Jean about a German officer who was working at the Pentagon with me for several months. "So, Dieter has this idea that he thinks needs a decision immediately --"
"Wait a minute, Jack." She got up and went over to look more closely at the kids.
"You two doing OK?"
"Yes, Mama."
"Yes, Ms.Marlowe."
When she came back she plopped down at a table facing me. I was a little surprised since I thought we were both enjoying having our legs next to each other, but I also liked being able to look at her without twisting around.
As I started talking again, she crossed her legs showing a nice expanse of outside thigh. As we continued to talk, Jean leaned back resting her elbows on the table behind her. She uncrossed her legs showing some inside thigh. The gesture seemed deliberately slower than normal and I began to wonder if she were teasing me. She lifted her feet to the bench she was sitting on and wrapped her arms around her legs.
"Are you cold?"
"No, just stretching a little. I didn't do any this morning after my workout."
I resumed talking about Pentagon politics when I heard a shriek. I hopped right up.
"Are you alright?" I counted two heads and I didn't see any blood spurting.
"Yes, Mr. Williams. Bobby just told me a funny joke."
I sat back down and resumed telling Jean about my week. I turned my attention from the kids back to her. Her feet had separated but her knees were still together. As a result, I could see her panties, but the panties didn't look quite right.
"So Dieter says to General ..." I stopped in the middle of my sentence. There weren't any panties. I looked up at Jean. She had a cat-who-ate-the-canary smile.
"Go on finish telling me about Dieter." She dropped her feet to the ground.
"Well, uh, well, so Dieter -- so Dieter goes to General Jones and asks him about the deployment plans." Jean crossed her legs slowly, but the angle was wrong. I couldn't see anything. Since most of my blood had gone from my big head to my little head, I couldn't think straight either. "Uh, Deployment says, rather Dieter says ..."
