What I Learned In College Ch 02 2

During my freshman year at Brigham Young University I lost my virginity to a gorgeous young woman from Salt Lake City, Sandra Olsen. We established a regular practice of spending Thursday evenings having sex at an apartment that belonged to her sister-in-law, Lauren Olsen. My relationship with Sandra was erotic, but hardly what one could call romantic. She had made it clear to me that she was committed, at her Mormon family's direction, to marry a young man from another upper crust Mormon family from Salt Lake who was away serving his mission. But in the meanwhile so long as we could be discreet she was happy to spend Thursday nights fucking with me and pretty much ignoring me the rest of the time aside from a bit of help with calculus. I suppose I should have been offended by the arrangement, but the sex was too good to pass up for a 19-year-old freshman in college and I found her description of the double standards she and her family shared at best strange.

Things moved along smoothly until just before Christmas when I got a call from my older sister, Karen inviting me to spend Christmas with her and her family in Idaho Falls. That call was the beginning of my next lesson that people are not what they seem.

"I'd love to visit you over the holiday," I responded. "When did you have in mind."

"I meant the whole three weeks. I'm assuming you will be needing a place to stay since neither Mom nor Dad will be home over the holidays."

"They what? Why not?"

"Oh you haven't heard have you? I knew they wanted it kept confidential, but I assumed they had told you. They've split up. Well sort of. It's complicated."

"What? Why? How?"

"Like I said, it's complicated, but for Christmas at least, neither one of them will be at home so you better come here little brother. I guess they are still technically married but they sure don't live together anymore. I'll explain the details when you get here."

I tried calling home and no one answered. I called the feed and grain/hardware store in the little rural Idaho town I had grown up in but all I could get was that my parents were out of town. I tried my Uncle Lou, who owned a ranch near where I had grown up but no one answered the phone. Then I left to take my Calculus final.

Two days later I arrived in Idaho Falls after a long Greyhound ride from Provo. My sister greeted me and took me to her house. Her children were in the car so I couldn't ask her what was going on with our parents on the ride home or during dinner which was waiting for us when we arrived. After dinner her husband put the kids to bed and she sat me down in the kitchen to explain what had happened to my parents' marriage. It was yet another lesson in people not being what they appear to be. I had always assumed my parents were a happily married couple, at least they seemed to be that way to me.

"No Richard," she said. "They have been unhappy for years. They just hid it well." She went on to explain that at some point after she and I were born our parents had for reasons no one could explain simply lost interest in sex with each other. "That's not to say they lost interest in sex. Dad found himself a lover in Idaho Falls and Mom had an affair with our Uncle, Lou."

"Uncle Lou?"

"And his wife, Sherry," my sister added as I sat with my mouth open in shock.

"Aunt Sherry?"

"Don't be so shocked," Jane chided me. "Women do have sex with other women you know, although they don't teach that at BYU yet do they. For all I know the relationship started with Sherry and then Lou joined them."

I shook my head. "So how long as all this been going on?"

"For years. Each of our parents knew about the other's dalliance and agreed to permit it so long as everyone kept it discreet. They didn't want us to know and they couldn't let the town know. You know how a small Mormon town is. Appearances matter."

That's true even in a big Mormon town like Salt Lake, I thought. My time with Sandra had been a crash course in the importance of appearances. But I wasn't going to explain my relationship with Sandra to my sister given I wasn't sure I understood it myself. I simply said, "Yes I understand that. You can't run a small business if the Church has excommunicated you and/or your spouse for philandering."

"But it happens Rich," she said. "People are people, regardless of what their church teaches."

"True," I agreed.

"What you need to do while you are home from school is talk to both Mom and Dad. Mom is at Uncle Lou's place spending time with him and Sherry. Dad is here in Idaho Falls spending time with Christine and her two kids."

I did exactly as she suggested--a long phone call with Mom at Uncle Lou's place and a face-to-face meeting with Dad in a Denny's Restaurant where I had my first ever cup of coffee. Each of my parents more or less confirmed the story my sister had told me. They each apologized for keeping it a secret from me for so long but showed no sign of embarrassment or apology for their adulterous relationships. Neither expressed any animosity against the other.

I also learned that although they considered themselves living separately they weren't planning on a divorce. Their plan was to continue to represent themselves as married but Dad was going to spend most of his time in Idaho Falls managing a feed and grain store his new lover (wife, roommate, friend, slut; I really didn't know what to call her) had inherited from her deceased husband while Lou and Sherry were going to move in with Mom on the theory that they were tired of living out on the ranch and my family home had plenty of room with the kids gone. Lou had leased out his alfalfa land to a big Ag company from Boise and hired a manger for his cattle business so he didn't have to be there full time. He would run the feed and grain store as a resident manager for Dad. Dad's theory was that he was just traveling on business to Idaho Falls to look after the new store he had acquired (never mind who actually owned it). Meanwhile they would all maintain their apparent marriages. It sounded crazy to me but they both told me it was essential to maintaining their standing in the community and the value of the feed and grain store. Their marriage hadn't worked out and this was as good a solution as they could come up with.

I hung around at my sister's place through Christmas day but then got on a bus to head back to Provo early. It was a long dreary ride while I considered how I should feel about the hidden implosion of my family. Somewhere north of Ogden it occurred to me that my family was doing much the same as Sandra's family. Presenting themselves to the community according to one set of standards and living their private lives in accordance with a different set of standards.

And what were my standards? I chewed on that question from Ogden down past Salt Lake City and on down to Provo without reaching a clear conclusion, but I had to admit that I certainly wasn't presenting my relationship with Sandra to the world I lived in for what it was. To my friends and to hers, she was just an acquaintance that I helped with her Calculus. Nothing more. In reality she was my fuck toy or I hers. I wasn't quite clear on that either. Each of us strongly denied that we had any stronger feeling for the other than convenient sex partner. The only person who knew our real relationship was her sister-in-law Lauren.

When my bus pulled into Provo and I walked up to the campus I was distressed to learn that my dormitory had closed for the Christmas holiday and I had no place to stay. I tried calling a couple of friends who lived in Provo without luck. Then it occurred to me that I had a key to Lauren's apartment. I figured Lauren and Sandra would be in Salt Lake for the holidays and would have no objection if I spent the time until my dorm opened at their apartment. As soon as I turned the key in the lock I heard approaching footsteps. When the door opened before me I was more than a little surprised to find Lauren.

As I perhaps explained earlier, Lauren was married to Sandra's brother, Ben. They lived in Salt Lake, but she was doing post-doc research a couple of days a week at BYU, spending a couple of nights a week in the apartment in Provo. I thought that of a bit of an unusual arrangement for a Mormon family. Normally a mom's role when children still live at home is to be a full-time-stay-at-home mom, so leaving the two children in Ben's care from Tuesday morning until Thursday evening while she went to Provo to teach was not at all normal, especially for a family like Sandra's which strived to meet the Church's appearance standards.

Lauren was very different in appearance from Sandra, tall and lean, nearly six feet, compared with Sandra's five and a half feet. Her skin was olive and her hair a shinning black, but her Latino look was offset by intense blue eyes, all in all an unusual and striking combination. When I had met her in her office she was wearing the pretty much standard University faculty garb--skirt breaking below the knees, and a loosely fitting white blouse buttoned to the throat that tried but failed to hide an ample bosom. Makeup was simple. Her long hair was done in a knot atop her head. But the Lauren who answered the door had a very different appearance.

"Richard. You're home early. Can't get into your dorm?"

"Oh yeah. I'm sorry. I didn't think anyone would be here now and I need a place to stay for a few days. Looks like it's going to snow tonight."

"Come on in," she said. "I'm here for the same reason. I've had all of Salt Lake and my family I can take so I came down here to get some lab work done. The lab work requires interminable write-ups and record keeping. I sometimes think the Prof managing the lab hired me primarily for the paperwork."

"Do you have to do most of the work in the lab on campus?" I asked.

"Mostly, but I have an office and I also do a fair bit down here also. There are less interruptions here."

"Oh, well I will try not to bother you," I said. "I have a book my calculus professor loaned me when I told him I was a little bored with his class. It's on number theory. I was going to read it over Christmas but I've been distracted."

"Number theory? What the hell is that?"

I laughed. It's a little hard to explain. It's a branch of pure math that deals with the relationship of whole numbers, integers if you will. It's been around since the Greeks or before, but now it seems to be a key to cryptography."

Lauren looked at me like I was really strange. "Cryptography?"

"Yeah. Secret messages. Like spies use. Or any other communication you want to keep hidden from anyone except the person it is sent to."

"Is that really that useful these days?" she asked

"Yeah, I know. Sandra thinks I'm nuts too. But I find this kind of stuff fascinating. I'm in it just for the theory of the math. I have no interest in what it can be used for."

Lauren was a different person from the woman I had met in her office. Her long, black, hair was down, hanging well below her shoulders. She wore a pair of jeans, torn at the knees with paint spatters here and there and a loose T-shirt that draped over her obviously bra-less breasts likewise spotted with paint. Unlike Sandra, Lauren's breasts appeared to be very full but set lower on her chest with large areola and dark nipples that showed clearly through the old, thinly worn, white T-shirt she wore. I remembered that she had worn stylish flats in the office, I presumed because of her height. Now she was barefoot, her nails done in a variety of bright colors. I couldn't help but stare. Her appearance was so different from Sandra or anyone else I saw in my day-to-day life. She noticed my stare, smiling as she turned and led me into the apartment. The jeans outlined her broad, firm, ass and fit snuggly on her long legs.

As we walked in she asked, "Can I get you a glass of wine? Sandra tells me you partake."

"Uhh... Yes. Sure. I...or we do."

"So I hear," she said with a chuckle. "Sandra tells me the two of you partake in a lot of things." She turned and walked towards her kitchen gesturing for me to sit on the couch where Sandra had taken my virginity after our obscene banana split. As she walked past me her big tits swung deliciously under the T-shirt.

She returned with a jug of the same cheap wine Sandra and I routinely consumed along with what looked like the same two jelly jars. She handed me a glass of wine and then sat where Sandra had, at the opposite end of the couch her legs pulled up and crossed at the ankles as she faced me.

"My you look different than you did in your office," I said.

She smiled. "We're not in my office are we so I don't have to wear the uniform."

"Is that how you think of how people dress here? As a uniform?"

"Oh very much so. You are out of uniform too. Today it's old, tired jeans, a worn flannel shirt, and scuffed boots. Normally on campus it's tan slacks, an ironed shirt, and shinning loafers.

I laughed. "Well, I just got off the bus. These jeans, shirt, and boots are the uniform for the town I grew up in. I didn't bring my hat."

She laughed. "Let me guess: broad brimmed, sweat-stained straw?"

"That's my work hat. I have a better one for Sunday."

Lauren smiled. "As I explained to you before," she said. "Appearances matter, especially for families like Sandra's. I wasn't born into one of Utah's Founding Families, but I married in so I have to conform. Letting me come down here to teach and conduct my research is a big exception to the rules. I think the family is only willing to do it so I can keep an eye on Sandra.

"There is something else about me know but would never admit," she continued. "I have a second passion--my art."

"Your art?" I asked.

"Yes I paint abstract eroticism. I have a studio next door."

"Abstract eroticism," I echoed. I knew nothing about the various schools, current or historical, of art but I didn't want to look too dumb. "Does it sell," I asked.

"Oh yes, but not around here. Everything I paint goes to a dealer in New York and it sells under another name. In New York art circles, I am "Lydia," but in Utah I am Lauren Olsen. My art sells very well in New York. I make more money with my art sales than I do working for BYU." She laughed. "More than my husband makes working for his father's bank too."

"So that's why there are paint spatters on your clothes?"

"Yes. I rent space for a studio next door. There are several finished paintings drying there before shipment. Care to see my work?"

"Sure," I said. This woman was becoming more fascinating by the moment. A stiff LDS junior biology faculty member who had a secret life as a painter of 'abstract erotic art' whatever that was. I was fascinated. And she had great looking tits under that T-shirt.

As she spoke she unfolded her long legs from the couch and strode purposefully towards the door, wine jug and glass in hand. Good what a great ass, I thought as she turned away from me and headed for the door.

She grabbed a set of keys as we left using them to enter the apartment next door. As I expected I could smell paint and thinners as the door opened, but when she hit a switch flooding the room with light I was shocked. There were half a dozen large canvases (four feet high or taller) leaning against the walls and a couple of partially completed ones on easels. There were also smaller charcoal sketches, studies I assumed, taped to the walls. The paint on the finished and partially finished canvases was thick, laid on with a palate knife I would learn, and the colors were intense. The style was far from realism but the work was not so abstract as to not convey an image. And the images--the images were all what I would have called obscene, as least as I thought of obscenity at the age of 18. Naked lovers, their bodies entwined, were the focal point of the imagery, some just kissing but others obviously having sex. The combinations covered both genders. Their faces, if they showed at all, depicted the passion of their sexual congress. When I looked at a painting of a pair of women making love I couldn't help but think of my Mother and my Aunt Sherry.

"Wow," I said. "I can see why you show in New York and not in Utah."

She laughed. "The family would disown me for showing these here. Besides they sell much better in New York than they would here."

"So you lead two lives, good little Mormon wife when you are in Salt Lake and... this?" I said gesturing at her art.

She nodded in agreement

"And your husband? Does he know about this?" I asked, again gesturing at the paintings.

"Oh yes, and so does my father-in-law, the banker and Mormon Elder, and my mother-in-law, who presents to the world as one of the most starched middle-aged women you will ever meet. Sandra knows too. It's all part of the family's double standard, a skill they have mastered. But to the outside world, I am just Lauren Olsen, minor adjunct professor of biology at BYU and a minor member, by marriage of a well-known Mormon family in Salt Lake City. That is most of my life. This," she said gesturing at the paintings, "is just my sideline. Something I do to maintain my sanity. My husband finds my art amusing and the rest of the family tries to ignore it."

"What about Andrew, her betrothed?"

"No, not Andrew. There are a lot of things about the family he doesn't know. His parents know. They are a lot like our family and a part of the small group of families that constitute the unseen ruling elite of the Church. But not Andrew. We are all hoping he will loosen up a bit on his mission."

"It happens I 've heard," I said.

There was a tired old couch on one side of the studio. Lauren flopped down on it, her tits bouncing deliciously. She pulled her legs up to her chest and said, "Come sit. Let me refill your wine." She refilled our wine glasses and I sat looking at her, especially her large soft breasts.

"Like what you see?" she asked. "I think you are more interested in my tits than my art."

'Caught,' I thought. Well I am what I am. "Yes," I responded with a shrug. "They look delicious."

She laughed. "I'm not surprised given what Sandra has told me about you."

"Oh. And what did Sandra tell you?"

"Lots of things. She said that you were a horndog."

I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. "Anything else?"

Her eyes narrowed as she stared back at me. It was like looking at a cat about to pounce. "She said you have a great cock..."

"... and you are a great fuck."

"My my. I 've been under the impression that she has been enjoying herself. I know I have been."

"But what brings you back to Provo a week early?" she asked abandoning what was looking like a promising discussion.

"Ugh. My family," I responded shaking my head.

"I can identify," she said. "Mine can be so relaxed, almost laid back. But whenever someone outside the family is around they are the stiffest most starched people in the world and they expect the same of me. It's an art form they have mastered but it causes me nothing but stress. And they entertain continuously this time of year so I 'm always on display. What about you? What's your story?"

I told her the whole sordid tale.

"Wow. That sounds like a really shitty Christmas break... and an even worse bus ride back here. I can see why you haven't gotten very far with your supplementary reading for your Calculus class."

I laughed and took a long pull on the wine. "I've had better Christmas weeks, and yes I do want to spend some time reading over the next couple of days."

"Are you pissed at them."

Another pull on the wine. "My family? No, I don't think so. I was when my bus pulled out of Idaho Falls but it's a long ride from there to Provo and I thought about it a lot. A year ago I would have been shocked, probably apoplectic, but I've learned some things about people from hanging around with Sandra and you. People aren't always what they seem to be... and that doesn't necessarily make them evil or bad. They're just doing what they have to do to get by with whatever demons or passions drive them and the maintain the front they need for those who would never accept their alternative life."