After that date, Vivian Laaning became Jed Baxter's secret mistress. And for this period in her life, she subsequently labeled it her "Fantasy Time". Going into the affair, Vivian intellectually believed that it was almost axiomatic that her fling with Jed would not amount to anything beyond an adventure of wonderful sex. She had to admit, that he had been up front right from the start about his intentions. At the end of their initial tryst at her friend Angela's wedding, he articulated that their sexual get together was in essence a one night stand and that there was no future.
Vivian had to agree with his assessment that there could not be a future between them. Considering the disparity of their social circumstances, she couldn't realistically dream of even becoming an acknowledge girlfriend. Never mind that Jed was richer than Croesus, but in addition he was a world wide acknowledged celebrity superstar. He was at that time even more recognizable to the public and more revered than Donald J Trump, a real estate mogul from New York City. The latter gentleman of course subsequently became President of the United States, and thus became more consequential than Jed.
And who was she? A mere farmer's daughter that's who she was. Girls like her, might as a highlight in their life have had an inadvertently sexual contact with a male celebrity. However such encounter would merely be a hiccup in the said male celebrity's life. In this regard Vivian remembered the embarrassment that the famous British actor Hugh Grant endured when he was discovered in a romantic clinch with a Hollywood prostitute. The memorable television moment of this episode occurred where Grant appeared on the Johnny Carson's show and the iconic TV host confronted the actor with the question: "What were you thinking?"
At least thought Vivian, there's no denying she is definitely a cut above the status of a prostitute. However, Vivian did admire the pluck of Grant's prostitute, who was able to capitalize in her personal fifteen minutes of fame. It had been reported that this woman had parlayed the episode into several publicity opportunities which garnered for her in total more than two million dollars actual income.
Now in Vivian's mind set, the sex she had with Jed at Angela's wedding could easily be viewed as a one night stand. In fact both of them acknowledged such to be the case, and expected nothing further would transpire. Personally, Vivian certainly thought so and acted accordingly. In fact given her friendship with Angela, who was a very close relative of Jed, she could have acquired the necessary personal information to contact him and try to instigate further contact, but she did not do so.
Therefore, the dance she had with him at the North Central Memorial Hospital Gala Ball, had to be viewed in a different light; a tipping point if you will, something above and beyond ordinary face value of the occasion. It had been four and a half years interval between the time of the sex at Angela's wedding and the dance at the charity ball. And yet despite the huge time gap, he acted intimately as if they had been in constant contact throughout. Of course they both knew that factually a significant length of time had elapsed, but he demonstratively acted as if that absence did not in any way preclude the existence of a special relationship that had been presumably established between them.
Therefore, given the intimacy of that dance encounter, and the immediate date thereafter, where absolutely wonderful sex had occurred, what was Vivian to think? Well what Vivian did think was that she was in love. She believed it was the real bells and whistles type of love. When she was in his arms, it was not just sexual comfort she was feeling. Instead she had the feeling that he has holding on to her, protecting her against any and all adversities of life. She felt that in protecting her, he was declaring that she was HIS WOMAN. She loved that feeling.
Mind you, Vivian was not a star struck female who believed love conquers all. She was of a pragmatic mind who was well aware of real world practicability; of what could be achieved, and what could not. From her discussions with her friend Angela, who was Jed's cousin, Vivian knew that Jed was absolutely in love with his wife Felicia. Apparently truly in love. However, Felicia was frigid, and as a result Jed engaged in extra marital sex with all kinds of women, plus attending orgies at the TLR (Texas Love Ranch). According to Angela, not only was Felicia aware of her husband's infidelities but did not object to them considering her inability to provide sexual satisfaction.
Given those facts, Vivian realized the hopelessness of her desire to have Jed Baxter become HER MAN in conjunction with her becoming HIS WOMAN. The point was that even if she could convince him, and or demonstrate that she was the sexiest woman he ever had, his reaction would be so what? His only reason to have sex with other women was to satisfy sexual urges that his wife could not satisfy. Whether one woman was more proficient in providing such pleasure would be totally irrelevant since it would not alter the status quo of his desires: i.e. remaining married to Felicia.
That being the case, Vivian had to search long and hard in her mind, as to what she ultimately desired. Of course, being as profligate as she had been since first losing her cherry, she had no cause to complain of Jed's inconstancy. And for that matter, she couldn't complain if he held any disdain for her. Happily, though, he had never demonstrated any such disapproval of her.
Still Vivian realized no matter how intense her affair with Jed would become, there was no denying he would not leave Felicia. Furthermore, despite his wife's acquiescence to his infidelity, he was not prepared to acknowledge to the world that he had a mistress. He much preferred to preserve the fiction that he was in an orthodox marriage free of any infidelity accusations.
In such situation, Vivian came to the conclusion that half of a loaf was better than no loaf at all. In her mind, there was no doubt that Jed Baxter was the best, the ultimate superior man she could ever have or even hope to have the privilege to encounter, never mind to have fucked. So it would be foolish of her to jeopardize any present or future contacts sexual or otherwise that she may be fortunate enough to have with this great man.
So although she had no assurance whatsoever, that he would ever fall in love with her, never mind leave his wife, Vivian decided to enter an exclusive affair with Jed. In her mind if her affair with him would have any meaning at least to her, than if she had sex with other men it would cheapen the special chemistry, they had for each other.
Now, although Vivian was prepared to surrender to any and all whims Jed might demand to continue their relationship, she decided that she would forego birth control measures. In forming that decision, there was no desire in her mind to blackmail him into entering a more binding relationship as a result. In reality Vivian really was ambivalent of what she desired of his reaction, should she become pregnant. She wouldn't object if as a result he would be willing to leave Felicia in order to be a legitimate Dad for their child. On the other hand she knew that she could handle the situation should he have the poor taste to decamp.
The point in Vivian's mind was that if her affair with Jed Baxter turned out to be ephemeral after all, at least a baby would be a satisfactory end result to offset the disappointment of the end of the affair. Thus she entered into the affair with Jed Baxter with her eyes wide open, but with the hopeful expectation that she would not be devastated by its conclusion. To that end she made a trip to her obstetrician/gynaecologist's office, and had her IUD removed.
She realized that without her IUD in place she would definitely have to restrict her sexual activity, at least her heterosexual ones, to Jed Baxter. That decision reinforced her resolve to remain exclusive with him. Otherwise if she remained promiscuous, and became pregnant, she would be facing the same dilemma that her sister had experienced in her pregnancy. She definitely wanted to avoid that problem. If she did get pregnant, she wanted to be absolutely damn certain that it would be Jed Baxter, who would be the father of her child.
