Hi, I'm Amy. My last name changes throughout this story, so that's all I'll call myself. This is a story of good and bad choices.
My story starts when I was just out of college, with a finance degree from Georgetown (with twelve additional credits in Masters Level courses). I don't know why I went to Georgetown because I'm not Catholic and it's very expensive (although I had a scholarship covering tuition and books). However, it is in Washington, D. C., which was the most exciting place I'd ever been to, way different from my hometown of Ames, Iowa.
I sent resumes to a dozen organizations in Washington, D. C. One of the places where I interviewed for a job was a government relations consulting firm with the unusual name of "Go To Consulting LLC." It was one of the smaller firms of its type, only three principals and about fifteen total employees, but a high powered one. They made me the second best monetary offer that I got from the half-dozen interviews that I had at a wide variety of different businesses, and had the most appealing work, so I accepted.
Although it played no conscious part in my decision, one thing that was appealing about Go To was how hot one of the partners was. When I accepted the job Ken Vanderlee was thirty one, nine years older than I was, and though the youngest of the three principals obviously the most dynamic. He was ten inches taller than my five foot seven inch height, with a toned body, a shock of blond hair, and piercing blue eyes. His eyes looked more into your soul than your face when he made eye contact. He was energetic, smart, and treated everyone with respect.
After I worked for Go To for a while I was even more impressed with Ken, and developed a significant crush on him; one that I didn't anticipate acting upon. That is, I had no illusions about stealing Ken from his wife – whose beautiful visage and sleek body were prominently displayed in a large photo on Ken's wall. However, things can happen, and if they did there was no reason for me not to be ready.
I quickly learned that the other two principals of the firm were not the same caliber of people as Ken is. One, Tom Keating, was a forties-something letch. It didn't seem to make any difference to him that he had been married almost twenty years – anything in a skirt was fair game. I politely but firmly shot him down at least fifteen times. Finally I got sick of it and in his presence loudly talked to a co-worker about my imaginary uncle who was a plaintiff's lawyer specializing in sexual harassment cases. "My uncle told me that if I ever have a problem to let him know and he'll make me a rich woman," I pointedly proclaimed in Keating's presence. Keating finally got the message and stopped coming-on to me.
The other principal, Simon Crowe, was an obese, balding fifty year old with nicotine-stained teeth who seemed to be a heart attack waiting to happen. He was usually gruff and all business, with poor social skills.
I enjoyed my time at Go To Consulting and got regular raises the three years that I worked there. While I had a crush on Ken most of those three years I never acted on it in any way, and he was always a gentleman, even the two times that we traveled together on business and stayed three nights in a hotel each time.
I dated regularly during my time at Go To, but kept my social life apart from my work life.
When I had been at Go To for about two years my parents died in a car crash. I was an only child, and they were both only children. Three of my four grandparents were also deceased, and the fourth – my grandmother on my mother's side – lived in Washington State, three thousand miles away, and we never had been close. She was basically an aging hippy who had divorced my grandfather (who raised my mom as a single father) many years ago. I was totally devoid of family.
Ken was very warm and compassionate when I got the news about my parents' deaths. He was willing to give me as much time off – with pay and not counting vacation – as I needed to deal with it, although I only took a few days off because I needed to work to stay sane. He was the only person from my office, except for my best friend Sybil, who came to the funeral in Iowa. That meant a lot to me.
Shortly after my parents died I met a guy named Jean LeBlanc. Jean was from New Orleans and was working for a Congressman from Louisiana as a special assistant for technology. He had a degree in marine engineering. He was a year older than I was and probably the most handsome and charming (looking back on it maybe more glib than charming) guy that I had ever dated. Maybe what most attracted me to him, however, was his talk about his large and close family which – being family-less myself – I thought was great.
I certainly didn't recognize any problems with Jean's demeanor or character in the year or so that we went out before he proposed to me.
Bad Choice
I eagerly accepted Jean's marriage proposal. We had a few issues – such as he wanted kids right away while I wanted to wait several years to establish my career – and his desire to move back to Louisiana once his present job was up. I thought we could work out any kinks.
At an engagement party for Jean and I in Washington, D. C. – which Ken and his wife attended along with all of my co-workers, Tom Keating and Simon Crowe being the only no-shows – Ken was unusually pensive near the end of the evening. I had seen him talking to Jean quite a bit.
I met Ken's wife Gillian for the first time. Though she was even more beautiful and sexy in real life than in the large photo in Ken's office she also acted bored and haughty, like her shit didn't stink. I wondered how a great guy like Ken could be married to a bitch – but maybe that was just because I had feelings for Ken and she wasn't really that bad.
Ken cornered me as things were breaking up and asked me a number of pointed questions about Jean and my goals. He raised some issues that I hadn't thought of. While he didn't come out and say it I got the distinct impression that he was concerned that I was making a bad decision. Despite the enormous amount of respect that I had for Ken, however, I shrugged it off.
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Jean and I decided to get married in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; actually, he suggested it and since I had no family and he had a big family it only made sense. I took a trip to Baton Rouge before the wedding to meet all of his relatives. It was truly an eye-opening experience for me. I was shocked at how many relatives that he had, including: his mother and father; three older sisters and a younger brother; three brothers-in-law; seven or eight nieces or nephews (I never got a good count); at least ten aunts and ten uncles; and an endless array of cousins of all ages.
Jean's spectacularly beautiful mother Adele – obviously where he got his good looks – was Cajun through and through. She always called me "Sha," never "Amy." I was confused at first since the Cajun word "Sha" is pronounced "Cher" (at least to my untrained-to-Cajun-lingo ear) and I thought that despite how completely friendly she was to me that she didn't know my name. Jean laughed when I told him that. "'Sha' is a term of affection, akin to 'dear one,' or 'sweetheart.' It also is an exclamatory expression indicating cuteness. Everyone in my family thinks that you're the cutest thing that they've ever seen in their life," he explained between laughs. "You'll get used to Cajun lingo quickly."
Jean was really serious about moving to Baton Rouge once his job with the Congressman was up. While I was reticent, I could understand him wanting to be near his family, and I so wanted to be part of a big family that I hoped that it would work out for me too. With a great recommendation from Ken I quite easily got a job as the assistant finance director for Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College (commonly known as LSU) in Baton Rouge, the best school in the state.
The wedding reception was raucous. His already energetic friends and family, when fueled by booze, were off-the-charts wild. It was primarily good fun although I was a little non-plussed at how Jean's brother, Andre, and some of his male cousins handled me when dancing. Jean didn't seem to be upset by it, however. When Adele saw me with a scowl on my face after a dance with Jean's brother Andre and asked what the problem was I told her flat out. I didn't have the problem again that night.
Sex with Jean was always good, although not the best of my life. It would have been better except that he seemed to be less concerned with my orgasm than other partners that I had had, and he seemed less than thrilled to eat me, although he sure enjoyed me sucking his cock. He got a little more responsive on the honeymoon and I started out married life fairly well satisfied.
One thing that did bug me was the LeBlanc family's attitude about kids. All three of Jean's sisters got pregnant with their first kid within a year of getting married and all family members incessantly lobbied me. I had every intention of waiting three or four years and I made that clear that I was going to stay on the pill until then. It was the only bone of contention between Adele and me; we otherwise got along well. I did notice, however, that no one in the LeBlanc extended family ever crossed Adele.
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Some unusual things happened after Jean and I had been married about six months.
Jean had picked up a three months' supply of my birth control pills for me after we had been married about four months when I had run out and I had a special project at work that I had to finish. They looked a little different than normal, although in a package that clearly said "Lo/Ovral-28 tablets" on it, made by Pfizer, the product that I had been using since college. I didn't think much of it.
Out of the blue Jean informed me that he had taken a job as the head engineer on a research vessel going to Antarctica for five months. "What the fuck? You accepted that type of job without even consulting me?" I screamed when he boldly informed me of it one Friday after work.
"Listen, Sha, I need it to advance my career. You knew that I was a marine engineer when we got married," he indignantly replied.
"Don't 'Sha' me," I sniped back. "You never once told me that your career advancement required being gone for five months, or anything close. What the hell am I supposed to do?"
"Hey, my family will always be around to help; plus haven't you made friends at work?" he replied.
"I don't want your family, I want you," I snapped.
We had a big argument that didn't solve anything. He did leave a week later; I was almost too pissed to see him off, but pulled it together and tried to put a brave face on it, and actually gave him a crocodile smile, some crocodile tears, and a kiss more passionate than he deserved, when he left.
It wasn't more than two days after he left that I started to get nausea in the morning. I thought that I was coming down with the flu. I mentioned it to Carole, one of my older female co-workers. Her eyes got big. "Are you sure you're not pregnant, Sha?" she asked. By now I was used to everyone calling me "Sha."
"I can't be, I'm on the pill," I replied.
"What pill?" she asked.
"Lo/Ovral, from Pfizer," I responded.
"That's my brand too. I hope that you didn't get a batch that was recalled," she said, almost flooring me.
