(Everyone in this story is over eighteen, a consenting adult, and horny as hell)
We met him at an education conference in Chicago at the Convention Center. He taught science, I taught English, and Julia taught third grade. We all hit it off right away, and it was obvious my wife really liked him from the start. We were standing in line for registration when I saw him searching through his pockets for a pen as he stood in front of us. Being an English teacher, I am never without at least one pen and I saw him checking his pockets. I figured it was a pen he was looking for and held my spare one out to him.
"Oh, thanks," he said. "I never have one when I need it. You from Chicago?" he asked as he began filling out the form on his knee across the folder he was carrying.
"Los Angeles," I said. "Manhattan Beach."
"California? Me too. Love LA beaches. You surf?" he asked, looking up from the registration form he held on the folder.
"The pier, the Trestles, or Hermosa," I said. "I surf a Velzy five ten," I said. "You?"
"I am from Huntington," he said brightening. "Yes, I surf all those places. I surf on an old Hobie, six footer and I have a Mickey Munoz nine foot long board that I surf small stuff with.
"Ah, we talk the same language. This my wife Julia. She teaches in Torrence," I said. I turned to my wife. "This is... "
"Jeramy," he said, holding out his hand to her. "You teach in Torrence? My sister lives in Pacific Palisades. Small world. We meet in Chicago, go figure. You staying close by?"
"At the Marriott," I said.
"Me too. We'll have to meet up for lunch," he said. "Maybe I'll see you at a lecture or two."
We finished registering, then said goodbye to Jeramy and went off to our first presentation: Accommodating the Child. After listening to 50 minutes of boring, we headed for session number two.
"Jeramy seems nice," Julia said as we headed for conference room 6 to see a panel discussion on phonic vs. Whole Language. I agreed. "No ring," she said.
"What?"
"He wasn't wearing a wedding ring," she said. It was completely a female thing to say. I don't think I have ever noticed whether someone was wearing a wedding ring, but she notices every time. We got to conference room 6, found seats, and opened our conference schedules. When we got to the break, Julia said, "I wonder if he has a girl friend."
"Who?" I asked.
"Jeramy," she said as if I wasn't paying attention. "I wonder if he does."
"Of course, he does," I said. "He's thirty, lives in Huntington, is good looking, is a surfer, of course he has a girlfriend."
"You think he is good looking?" she asked.
"Don't you?" I figured she did, because it seemed all she could think about was our new friend.
"He does have very blue eyes," she said.
"Jeramy?" I said.
"Yes," she said, "of course," like I wasn't listening. "Don't you think?" I said I hadn't noticed. She then got quiet, and the lecture started up again. At lunch we met Jeramy at the restaurant in the Convention Center. He had got us a table and waved us over when we came in. We had only chatted for a short time when his cell buzzed.
He looked at the screen and said he should take it, then he excused himself and left the table. When he returned, he said, "Sophia," and put his phone away.
"Your wife?" Julia asked.
"Roommate. Well, girlfriend and roommate," he said.
"She here in Chicago?" Julia asked.
"In New Orleans," he said, "with a friend."
"A girlfriend from college?" Julia asked, taking a guess.
"A fellow she works with," he said. "We have an opened relationship," he explained. "They travel together sometimes. Went to Europe last summer. Paris." I could see Julia was surprised and very curious about what an open relationship entailed. We knew the term, but knew no one involved in one.
"They travel together?" she said. "She has her friends and you have yours?" Julia asked, dying for more details, not having the nerve to ask if they slept together but
wanting to know. He nodded and smiled.
"Yes, she sleeps with him," he said, anticipating what she really wanted to know. "We figure it is just sex, you know. It's not like we own each other. If she is having fun, I'm happy." He looked at me and gave a look like, how can I explain it? I shrugged. "They've been buddies since high school," he said in explanation.
The conversation went from there to politics, which we seemed to agree on, to the conference, and finally to good places to eat. He mentioned a favorite restaurant in the city he said was the best in Chicago, saying they had the very finest chef in the country. "They have a fillet to die for," Jeramy said. We agreed to meet there after the conference that night.
"Well, what do you think of Jeramy and Sophia having sexual friends?" Julia asked me as soon as we were out of the restaurant.
"People do," I said. "More than you'd think, probably."
"Well, you won't even share your surfboard," she said, "let alone your wife."