. 17

Standard disclaimers.

This is a story about sexual exploration and, open relationships. Open relationships can and do happily exist; but they are not for everyone. If you do not believe it is at all possible for open relationships to exist without damage to any and all involved parties, please do yourself a favor and don't waste your time reading this.

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Also, this story takes place in a world where STDs don't exist and only babies planned for and wanted do—in other words, a fantasy world. Any resemblance to real-life people is purely coincidental.

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Gwen was surprised at how easy being naked around others had become. The McCallums had been in no hurry to get dressed after they had all returned to the boat and the Nelsons followed suit, the Lady claiming that it while the lack of clothing was disturbing it would have been impolite not to follow their hosts' lead. Yvette was not being particularly modest as her husband steered the craft out of the anchorage and across the lake, the ankle of one leg casually resting on the knee of the other as she sat in a bucket seat behind where the men stood at the wheel. Gwen caught Bob looking at the top of her own thatch-crowned cleft more than once as she slouched with legs crossed at the ankles in a most unladylike fashion, posture and presentation that her mother would have disapproved of even if her had daughter had been wearing clothes. Bob eventually brought the boat to a temporary halt a safe distance from the McCallums' dock and their disapproving neighbors, allowing everyone time to get dressed. Gwen reluctantly returned to just her shorts and shirt, deciding adding the bikini beneath would be overkill.

A menu of steaks, veggies and salad had been decided upon on their trip back, the men assigned to grill duty on the deck while their wives manned the kitchen. "That was fun," Yvette said with a smile once the women were alone and she began cutting the fresh zucchini from the morning's farmer's market. "You seemed a lot more relaxed than I thought you might be. I remember how nervous you looked that day we met you!"

"Oh, I was nervous today, too," Gwen admitted, "but not as bad as that first time! I wasn't used to being that exposed in public—I'm still not!-and you really shocked me when you did—that—to Bob, right there in front of us! I also remembered you didn't have Bob...uhhh...do anything in return, and I thought that was because you were shy."

Yvette laughed. "I'm definitely not shy. I just didn't want to make it look like I was trying to put on a show, even if Bob was—I thought it might be a little too much for you. But you got in the spirit of things pretty quickly today! And I was really impressed with Tim winning the endurance award. Now that I think about it, you both outlasted me and Bob. "

"Oh, you mean..." Gwen replied, blushing when she figured out exactly what the blonde was referring to. "I didn't know you...yet, today. When?"

"Oh, yeah. I was first one out. I came hard. Usually do, one way or the other, when we're out there. I think I get as turned on teasing Bob and showing off as he does being teased and showing me off. I didn't last long at all, but I usually don't."

"I didn't notice..."

"I think you your eyes were closed at the time. You were pretty into what Tim was doing between your legs. Bob went off as soon as you opened them for those guys in the water. He's like a dog to a bone for that visual. And we both really enjoyed watching your little trip to outer space—you have so much self-control! So that left Tim, and I also have to give him the most artistic award for giving you that pearl necklace. God, there was a lot of him on you—if the peepers hadn't already left I would have thought they contributed. I consider myself somewhat of an expert on that kind of thing, and I have to say his output was impressive for a middle-aged man. Does he always come that much?"

"Sometimes," Gwen answered, the frankness of the conversation knocking her off-balance. "He tries to stay hydrated," she added, feeling the need to justify his volume.

Yvette was being liberal with the olive oil she was adding to the pan, muttering "shit" when a mistimed shake of the nearly empty bottle deposited a healthy splatter on her shirt. Wordlessly she peeled it off and tossed it on the back of a nearby chair, returning to her stirring.

"Have you and Bob always been this—had this relaxed attitude?" Gwen blurted out, unable to stop the words as they left her mouth. "Forgive me, that was a very rude thing to ask."

The woman laughed, her bare breasts shaking a bit from the effort. "It didn't sound rude to me at all. Relaxed...I like that...by relaxed, do you mean our lack of clothing, our lack of a verbal filter, or...lack of public modesty and decency?"

"Yes, all of that, I guess. Not that you're indecent, or bad people," she hurriedly added, "you both just seem so comfortable in your own skin—"Gwen blushed at the unintended pun—"have you two always been that way?"

Yvette smiled down at the pan and continued to stir. "I guess I was a lot more shy a long, long time ago, when I was a girl...Bob was pretty much already the way he is now when I met him, just looking for a girl who wasn't scared off by it. I just thought it was how guys were, and the way he showed it was very attractive... he was so self-confident, like he didn't have anything to hide, made me feel like maybe having my own sinful thoughts wasn't so bad. I was raised in a very religious home—the kind of religious where dancing is a sin, and my father was a deacon in the church," she said softly. "Growing up, I always felt like every day was an exercise in self-control and self-denial, that everything other than honoring the Lord and your parents was gonna get you in a world of trouble. Silver-tongued Bob put me on the road to rethinking my moral compass, and my first job pretty much blew it up altogether."

"Your first job? Really? What was that?"

Yvette paused, sizing up the woman next to her, evaluating her, a sly smile eventually curling her lip. "I worked at a massage parlor for five years."

Gwen looked back in confusion. "You have a certification in massage therapy? When did you have time to get that? I know you said you've got degrees in teaching and Psychology..."

"It wasn't that kind of massage, Gwen," Yvette said with a patient laugh. "I do have my Bachelors in Education and my Masters in Psychology. But the place I worked didn't require certification, just strong hands and people skills." She could see her friend was still confused. "I gave back rubs and hand jobs. That kind of massage parlor, know what I mean? That's why I know so much about a man's output? I definitely saw enough of it."

Gwen was unable to hide her shock. "Oh my God, Yvette, I'm so sorry! That must have been horrible!"

"Nothing to be sorry about! I didn't have a disease, I had bills. And it wasn't horrible. It was actually a pretty good job. Not one I've ever put on a resume, but still...look, I'm not proud of what I did, but I'm not ashamed, either—I did what I did to survive." There seemed to be tinge of defiance in her voice, as if daring the other woman to disagree.

Gwen looked back nervously in the direction of the great room, towards where the men were at the grill on the deck beyond. "Does Bob know?" she asked, lowering her voice.

Another smile while she continued to stir, breasts swaying back and forth. "Bob found me the job."

"So it was his idea? I know you said he's really good at talking you into things, but even that?"

"Nope, as a matter of fact it was one of those rare times I had to talk him into something. Have I overshared, or would you like to hear how I came to be giving happy endings to strange men?"

"If you'd like to tell me, but if you don't like to talk about it I certainly understand."

"I don't mind talking about it. I'm just careful who I talk about it with. Relaxed, right? Lack of verbal filters? I don't share this with everyone, but I think seeing each other the way we did this afternoon puts us on a more personal basis, don't you?"

Gwen nodded, pretending to concentrate on the lettuce she was again rewashing, anxiously awaiting the topless woman with the knife to resume her story.

"I was sixteen when I met Bob, and my parents did not approve of him in any way, shape or form. He was a year older than me and didn't go to our church, hell, he didn't go to church at all. But he was so unlike anybody else I had ever met and he was so genuinely nice to me and I really liked that he seemed to like me for who I was and treated me as an equal, not like the boys in our congregation. I always got the feeling they thought it was God's law that I would have to marry one of them and submit to their will, and even then that just didn't seem right to me. So Bob and I found ways to see each other without my parents knowing. I think that's when I really started to understand just how much Bob liked me, always working so hard to outwit my family, although with six kids my parents had a hard time keeping track of all of us all the time.

Then I started my senior year and he went off to college, and I figured he would find a girl at school and that would be the end of it, and I would be stuck with Jimmy Evans from our congregation who liked to try and stick his hand up my dress every time our chaperones weren't looking. My parents were convinced he was a good God-fearing boy though, and I'm sure thought I would be the perfect Mrs. Evans.

But Bob found ways to see me every time he came home on break, and he wrote me so many letters! His sister had to give them to me at school, and I hid them in my locker, but I thought it was so sweet he would go through all that trouble just for me. He kept telling me how he wanted us to be together, so, he came home for summer break, I graduated, and we did what stupid kids have done for centuries—we eloped.

My parents were furious, claimed that Bob had kidnapped me, but I was eighteen and in love and there wasn't much they could do. They figured I was on the fast path to hell and waited for me to humble myself in the eyes of the Lord and come crawling back like the Prodigal Daughter. I'm sure they weren't happy that I had been defiled and that they would have to suffer that embarrassment in front of the congregation as well as pay a healthy dowry for groping Jimmy Evans to take used goods.

Bob and I were going to make it work no matter what but we quickly figured out what all the other stupid kids over the centuries found out—love makes a lot of problems bearable, but it doesn't keep you from starving. Bob was still going to school and had two jobs to boot, and I had every intention of being the loving wife, making him dinner and washing his clothes, but it pretty quickly became apparent I was going to have to make some financial contributions as well. Well, the job market wasn't real good there to begin with, the economy was in a downturn and I was an eighteen year-old girl with no experience and no marketable skills, so I found nothing at all.

We were both getting desperate because the rent on our fleabag apartment was overdue and the landlady had a reputation for making life difficult if you didn't pay up. Bob told her our sob story, hoping we could buy some time, for what, we had no idea. The landlady told him to go see a girl in one of the other apartments in the building, that she had found jobs for some of the coeds that she rented to. Bob went to see her, turned out she was a student herself and "had some contact." She told him she'd be willing to set up an interview for me with the owner of a little business off one of the exits on the interstate. She told him what kind of business went on there, Bob said thanks but no way and came back to our apartment to tell me why she had been a dead end.

Bob knew what a massage parlor was, but I sure as hell didn't. Even after he explained it to me, though, I still wasn't as against it as he was. He said he was going to quit college and find a full time job, but I knew that we'd always be struggling to break even if he didn't have a degree, and he had to finish school for us to eventually get ahead. I kept giving myself these get-tough pep talks, that I was an adult and a married woman and nobody was going to help us but me. In three months I had gone from sleeping in a tiny bedroom with my two sisters to sleeping on the floor of a dirty apartment with my new husband and in another couple of months might be homeless. I was scared to death of living on the street and decided that moral bankruptcy was better than financial, and that I could pray for forgiveness every day and still take a paycheck. Besides, all that had been offered was an interview, and I hadn't even had a single one of those yet. I could go for the practice and I didn't have to take the job if it didn't seem right for me.

It took him a little bit, but Bob finally gave in and went back to tell the girl in the other apartment. And so a couple of days later I met with Betty Tranh, the owner of this place. Bob came along too; it was the only way he would let me go.

She took us both in her office and didn't pull any punches as to what I would be expected to do there. There were a couple of times I had convinced myself this was crazy and had started figuring out how to sleep two in a car, but then she started explaining how much I could make if I worked hard and wasn't one of those 'lazy American girls who thought they better than everyone else,' and I figured out I could make more, a lot more, doing this than anything I was qualified for. The hours were more flexible too, so I could be home when I needed to and fulfill my wifely duties. I mean, everybody wants to think of themselves as being on some sort of moral high ground, but that doesn't put macaroni and cheese dinner on the table with the broken leg that you picked up off the side of the road. Betty thought I had the right body for it—I was a few pounds lighter then and my boobs hadn't suffered the indignities of three kids, and asked if I had any experience. I couldn't lie and told her in my best serious adult voice that I didn't have any experience in this line of work, but I was a quick learner! She pointed at Bob and asked if I ever played with his dick, which made me laugh. I told her yes, and I admitted to touching Jimmy Evans' once, too. She told me I was qualified enough and offered me the job, but said she had to know right then because she had plenty of other girls who wanted a job too. And so the next afternoon I reported for my first day of work at Peaceful Dragon Asian Massage.

"But isn't that kind of work illegal?" Gwen asked, still amazed at how casual Yvette made it all sound.

"Technically, maybe, yeah, I guess, but there were and still are billboards all up and down I-95 advertising these places, so my eighteen-year old brain figured if they advertised 'em they must be legal and I left it at that. The local cops got free samples, so they weren't about to screw up a good thing. As long as what we were doing didn't cross over the line into actual prostitution, they let things slide."

"But...didn't it?"

"Nah, I always thought of it as a more complete massage," she said with a laugh. "Betty made it clear that using your hands was okay, using one of your orifices was not. She was this tiny little Vietnamese woman, tough as nails, who came here as a refugee with even less than Bob and I had and had worked her ass off to make a good life for herself and was not about to let it get taken away from her. If you were hooking, either inside the business or freelancing, you were out of there. She didn't want the legal hassle and she didn't want the competition. Betty was really nice to work for, though. She took care of her employees, paid well, provided uniforms—white tank top and shorts, no underwear—we had adjustable tables and she put rubber floor mats down for us to stand on while we worked. We even had a real break room with a refrigerator and nice furniture, much better than what Bob and I had at home! She didn't take any shit, either—if you were a client with questionable attitude or hygiene you cleaned up your act or were out the door.

"She was the first independent woman I had ever really known and I looked up to her. She was also very patient with me, took me under her wing and did most of my training. I know I was terrible at it when I started! I just thought you grabbed on and started tugging until white stuff came out. Even though she said I had experience, I didn't have a lot—handjobs were for teenagers in the backseat of cars, and I was a married woman who had more adult ways of pleasing her husband. But she taught me different touches, and different moves—I remember the first time she got a guy close to coming then took her hands off his dick and worked his chest instead. He groaned and start humping the air to get her to come back, which I thought was so cool! She was so efficient, never acting like she was in a hurry but still getting clients off the table without them feeling rushed so she could get another paying customer on it.

"Betty was the one that taught me men had two sex organs—their penis and their brain. She really knew how to stroke egos as well as dicks. When she was around the clients she always referred to their cocks as 'dragons'; angry dragons, sleeping dragons, dragon ready to strike, that kind of thing. I asked her why and she told me that even the man with the littlest dick wants to be told he is the master of a mysterious, ferocious beast. So, I took it a step further and started using fake Vietnamese-to-English translations to describe the dicks under my care—alert dragon looking left, wary dragon looking right, eager dragon straining its neck. I always told the guys with little ones that they 'had a beautiful stout dragon overfull with essence' She laughed at how ridiculous that sounded coming out of a white girl with a southern drawl, but also told me I was a smart girl for doing it—'make bigger tip that way'. Of course, she also laughed at me the first time I saw an armored dragon."

"Armored dragon?"

"Uncircumcised. My second day without Betty in the room with me, and the guy turns over and I thought something was wrong with him! I hurried off and told her that this guy didn't look right. She came in to take a look, called me a silly girl and apologized to the client that I was new, did the massage with me watching and showed how the armor slid down and out of the way to reveal the dragon beneath. After he was gone she told me all guys are born like that, but most American boys have it cut off when they're little. Even though Betty did all the work on that one, she still let me keep the tip. She was really good to work for..."

"Still, working there, it couldn't have been very nice experience..."

"It really was pretty good once I got used to it—I have to guess way better than plucking chickens at the processing plant, which was another job I applied for and didn't get. Almost to a person my clients were polite and respectful, and I've always thought it had to do with them being naked. I think clothes are another layer of mental protection and people feel braver and less vulnerable when they're in them, take them off and all you have is you. I've been to strip clubs, and the guys there just seem more arrogant, almost like they're better people than the performers; they've got their clothes on and the girls don't so they've got the advantage. If you made strip club patrons get naked at the door I think their attitudes would change considerably. I could tell how vulnerable some of my clients felt when they were naked on my table, especially when they turned over, and I really worked hard to make them feel comfortable. I know I felt like I was giving back some control when I took my clothes off for them."