Part 3a: Kate's Story
Feedback most welcome.
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It was Friday, June 27, and Mark and I were out on our weekly "date night." We had completely spaced the opening night of the Blues Brothers movie last week having instead fixed a nice pasta dinner and stayed in drinking wine, watching TV and making out on the sofa. Everyone was raving about the new movie so we went to see it a week after it opened, at the Christown Mall Cinema, and we were not disappointed. It was a great, fun movie with awesome music and wonderful cameos. Had we been in aisle seats, we would have been dancing. We had originally planned on Chinese food, but after watching Aretha Franklin belt out Franklin and White's "THINK," it had to be soul food or nothing. After the movie we rode the escalator down into the mall, found a pay phone with a Yellow Pages and located a soul food restaurant just up the road on Thomas where we feasted on a delicious meal of barbecued chicken, corn bread, candied yams and potato salad.
Cheerful and stated, we drove back to Mark's house. Happily Shane and Jeff were both out, so we went onto the back porch, undressed each other and went for a romantic late night skinny dip in the pool. An erotic shower, a bottle of wine and some energetic lovemaking rounded out a perfect evening. It was almost midnight and I had no intention of going back to my house tonight, but to spare myself a lecture I played one of my oldest phone tricks on my parents. I slipped on one of Mark's T-shirts and padded out to the kitchen phone. I dialed my home number then waited for my dad to pick up the bedside phone.
"I've got it dad! It's for me! I've got it!" I said impatiently, when he picked up.
"Kate, how many times have I told you," my dad grumbled sleepily, "to tell your friends not to call so late!"
The line went dead and I hung up the phone with a satisfied smirk on my face, as I headed into the kitchen to get a glass of water. As I pulled a plastic cup from the cupboard I heard keys scraping in the lock of the front door and a familiar voice. It was Jeff, and a new girl I didn't recognize. We met in the hallway as they were headed for the den.
Jeff was an imposing figure, standing at 6'5" with broad shoulders, short spiky dark hair and tattoos on his arms. He was dressed in his usual attire, black leather vest, concert T-shirt, torn jeans and black biker boots. The "bad boy" of the band, he played rhythm guitar, rode a motorcycle and had deplorable taste in women. He was also a real sweetheart once you got to know him.
His date tonight was a tall busty blonde with thin hips and long legs. She was dressed in a black Led Zeppelin T-shirt, a short, tight denim shorts and black boots. Her straight blonde hair was parted down the middle and hung down to her shoulders, and her rather long nose and full lips made me think of Janice, lead guitarist of the Electric Mayhem band on the Muppet show.
"Oh, hey Red!" Jeff said, "This is Claire. Claire, this is Kate, our bass player I was telling you about."
"Oh wow, awesome!" Claire said with the groggy enthusiasm of someone well and truly stoned. "Jeff was playing me some tapes... of your band! Yeah! You guys are really good!" She said, swaying slightly.
"Thanks!" I said. "Nice to have met you, but I was just heading to bed."
"Wait!" Claire said, grabbing my arm. "Stay up and party with us! It'll be fun!"
"Thanks, but I'm all partied out tonight." I said as I gently disentangled my arm from her. "But you two have fun. Mark and I went skinny dipping earlier, and its perfect weather for it now."
"Skinny-dipping? Really?" Claire said, her eyes wide with excitement.
"Oh yeah." I said to her. "The water feels so good against your naked skin this time of night. The pool's just out back through those sliding glass doors." I said pointing to the other end of the Den.
"Skinny dipping!" Claire squealed to Jeff, as if she had just discovered the greatest plan in the history of plans. "That sounds so awesome! Let's go!" She giggled, as she ran to the pool, leaving a trail of discarded clothing in her wake.
Jeff stood and watched Claire run off across the patio then turned to face me, a huge grin on his face as he raised his right hand and cocked it back.
"How about that Jeff?" I said grinning smugly "I just got your date's cloths off in under a minute, using only my tongue!"
I held up my right hand to collect the high-five I so richly deserved as Jeff slapped down at my palm.
"You rock, Red!" Jeff laughed, as he blushed.
Getting Jeff, the tattooed "bad boy" of the band to blush was quite an accomplishment, and I was extremely pleased with myself as I turned to the hall and headed to Mark's room.
"Oh yeah, I just remembered something." Jeff said, as he stripped off his shirt. "Your mom called earlier and said some lady called Jenny... Swanson? Swenson? Whatever -she called about a babysitting job or something. I wrote her number on the pad by the Yellow Pages."
"Oh thanks." I said, trying to hide my excitement.
Jeff slipped through and closed the sliding glass doors as he went out to join his date in the pool.
I glanced at the notepad. It was Jenny's number all right. My heart beat a little faster as I walked back to Mark's room. He was already asleep and I crawled into bed after I placed the glass of water on the bedside table. As I lay there, tired yet unable to find sleep, I played through the events of last weekend in my head yet again.
It had been a wild emotional ride, but I was very pleased with the way things were working out. Mark, true to his word, offered no objection to me seeing Jenny, but cautioned me to be careful lest her husband discover our secret. Mark's honesty and his trust in me warmed my heart. Jenny's acceptance of her feelings for me also involved a huge investment of trust on her part. I felt incredibly special and lucky; I really did seem to have the best of both worlds.
Which was not to say that I wasn't terribly nervous. Never in my wildest dreams had I ever consider the possibility of having an affair with an older, married woman, and I really had no idea what to expect from our little fling. All of my previous lesbian relationships had been with girls my own age, and all strictly monogamous although very different in nature. My affair with Allison was the result of young love, with Yolanda it was rebound, and with Betty it was a combination of things; loneliness, flattery at her dogged attention, and a curiosity about the lesbian lifestyle. Betty, a softball player I met in the 8th grade, was the closest thing to an out and out lesbian as I had ever seen. Lean, athletic and with short dark hair, she seduced me with her boyish charms, persistent advances and her precocious sexual skills.
Betty had lived with her divorced mother in a trailer park on the proverbial "wrong side of the tracks" ever since her father, a semi-professional baseball player, had abandoned them 2 years earlier. It was a scruffy, run down place and I can still remember my shock when she first took me there after school. Her mother was an exotic dancer at a "gentleman's club" over by Grand Avenue, and she was quite open about her lesbian lifestyle at home. She often had half naked, tattooed girlfriends lounging about in the living room, smoking and drinking at all hours. Betty's relationship with her mother was strained, to say the least, and I always felt uncomfortable in their home, never knowing when a profanity laden screaming match was about to break out between them. Their house was always filthy and dark, and I remember it smelling of stale cigarettes and cheap booze. It was about as different from my own white bread, suburban, middle-class home life as I could possibly imagine, but it was the only place where Betty and I could be alone together. It wasn't so bad at night when her mother was working, and we had many fun and memorable evenings there together in her room.
Betty and I had a short and stormy relationship, lasting only about three months. Looking back, I suppose trouble was inevitable in an affair involving a domineering, budding bull-dyke and a stubborn, fiery tempered redhead. I learned a lot about lesbian sex during those months, but eventually the drama drove me away. Betty became possessive, jealous, and abusive. If she even heard a rumor of me talking to a boy at school she would subject me to an angry interrogation followed by a torrent of verbal abuse, calling me horrible names until I cried. The first time she hit me was when I refused her surprise "gift" of an ultra-short hairstyling at a salon where one of her mother's girlfriends worked. She grew enraged when I balked at having my long hair cut off, accusing me of wanting my hair long because boys liked it. She bloodied my lip when I tried to leave, and caused a huge scene in the salon. She was kicked out, while her mother's girlfriend kindly called me a cab to take me home.
After a week of her constant pleading, I finally decided to give Betty one more chance. It was a bad decision, but at the time I was lonely, insecure and addicted to the sex. All was well for about two weeks, and we had some good times together. The last straw came when I refuse to let her pop my cherry in her bedroom with a strap on dildo she had stolen from her mother's room. Another huge fight ensued as she accused me of "saving myself for a boy." Eventually she grew violent, beating me and trying to force herself on me. After a desperate struggle I got my hands on one of her softball bats and nearly killed her with a blow to the head, which knocked her unconscious. I threw on my cloths, ran all the way home and hid under my bed, crying myself to sleep. I never spoke to her again. Her paranoia about me secretly wanting to be with boys became a self-fulfilling prophecy when I started high school, and I vowed never to get involved in a relationship with a butch lesbian again.
Awakening Jenny's bisexual side created what seemed like the perfect outlet for my sapphic proclivities. She didn't seem to have any desire to change me, instead accepting me for who I was. Nor did it seem she wanted to possess me. She had made it clear that she was devoted to her marriage, and especially to her baby, Max. I had no idea how long our little affair would last, but Jenny seemed to have a very deep reservoir of libidinal energy, curiosity and willingness to experiment. Even if her feelings for me were simply the result of bi-sexual curiosity, I could see this affair stretching on for at least a couple months before she was sated. And if she does develop real and lasting bisexual tendencies -- who knows?
I really liked her as a person, and was completely in lust with her gorgeous body. All of my previous experiences had been with girls my own age, and less sexually developed than myself. Being with an older woman whose body was in the full flower of womanhood was an amazing turn on. I liked the way she made me feel, and I like the way I seem to make her feel. I thought that I was being a careful and sensitive guide on a confusing and emotionally fraught journey to parts of Jenny's sexuality that she wasn't previously aware of. If I could just play it cool and avoid "thinking with my hair" (or "having a Red moment" as Mark often put it.), Jenny and I could both enjoy a wonderful, safe and discreet relationship that could fulfill both of our needs.
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Saturday was game day for the boys, so after Mark and I showered and had breakfast I talked him into loaning me the van for the day. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do today, but I thought I should check in with the parents soon. They would be suspicious if I showed up in the morning wearing my date cloths, so I changed into some jeans, an old T-shirt and sneakers that I kept in Mark's room for such occasions.
I arrived at my parent's house just after 11:00 and went in carrying my date cloths and shoes. Mom was in the kitchen fixing lunch, while dad and Erin were in the TV room watching sports.
"You were up early this morning." My dad commented.
"The early bird gets the worms." I said, flaunting the clothes and shoes.
"Our Kate is a dedicated bargain hunter." My mom said proudly. "How you managed to get up so early to hunt for garage sales after being out all night never ceases to amaze me."
"I'd happily sleep in and shop later if it wasn't 110° by noon." I said as I headed for my room.
"Oh Kate, you had a phone call from a Jenny Swenson yesterday. I left a message at Mark's house, did you get it?" My mother asked. "Something about a babysitting job. I took her number down, it's over by the phone."
"Yeah I got the message, thanks!" I said as I headed for my room to drop off my clothes.
I came back into the kitchen, reached for the phone and dialed Jenny's number. The phone rang twice and I panicked momentarily when a man's voice answered.
"Swenson residence, can I help you?" The voice said.
