Chapter 5: Membership
Over the next three months our lives changed in a very big way but the relationship Marsha and I had outside of the club didn't change. She was still the love of my life and she was no less devoted to me than she was before we joined the club.
Marsha and I went to the club every Friday or Saturday night for the next three months. That period included three monthly meetings and the rest of the visits were to socialize and have sex with the other members. That certainly was a change from our old life.
Another change came in the form of increased business at my store. It started the Monday after our first visit to the club, when John Gardner showed up and purchased a large screen television. Over the next few weeks I must have seen half of the membership of the club in my store. They bought televisions, CD players, DVD players, and kitchen appliances.
Gary Holms, a member I had only talked to once in the bar came into the store one afternoon and told me that he did the purchasing for the company he worked for and asked my to prepare a bid for 300 television monitors to be placed in training and conference rooms at many of his companies office building locations.
Being an independent storeowner I didn't really think I had a chance to win a bid like that competing against the large distributors but I put in a bid, which gave a ten percent price reduction, same as I offered directly to the members. I couldn't afford to cut my price more than that or I would end up losing money on the deal.
I was shocked when Gary called to tell me that I had won the bid. When I asked him how I could have beaten out all of the bigger dealers Gary said, "It was my responsibility to chose the winning bid. Yours wasn't that much higher than the other bids and I was able to justify choosing your bid because you are a local business and we like to support businesses in the community.
After that deal I began to get more of that kind of business. My monthly revenue and profits were both up over fifty percent, all because of the club.
Over the three months I mentioned earlier, I learned some of the etiquette of behavior at the club. First, when talking in the bar, never discuss your sexual encounters with anyone. They are private matters between the participants. Second, when leaving the bar to go have sex with another member, never leave the room together. One person leaves first and the other follows a few minutes later. This is done to keep everyone from knowing your business. I only violated that rule once and that was when I went with Carla and she led me out of the room apparently not caring who saw us leave together.
During the first few visits to the club I felt like I do when I eat at a buffet. You know what I am talking about. You think you are supposed to try everything and end up stuffing yourself. I felt like I was supposed to have sex with two or three different women each time I went. It didn't take long for me to realize that I wasn't enjoying the sex and I wasn't satisfying the women I was with, so I decided I would go with just one woman each visit. I would spend time talking to her in the bar and then move up to one of the rooms for a slow pleasurable love making session. This worked well for me and seemed to work well for sex partners.
During those early visits I managed to ignore what Marsha was doing. I have to admit before we would get to the club I felt a little uneasy about letting Marsha go off and fuck any guy she felt like but as soon as I would get into the bar and begin chatting with a potential sex partner I would forget about Marsha. One thing I did notice was that Marsha seemed to have arrived at the idea of having sex with only one partner on each visit before I did. I noticed this because Marsha always disappeared from the bar before I did and would be in the bar waiting for me when I came back from my interludes. When I wanted to go home, Marsha was always ready to leave.
I guess the real changes for me started around our seventh visit to the club. That night I met Sue Li for the first time. Sue Li is Chinese and although she is able to communicate pretty well, she still struggles with her English. Sue Li is about five feet two inches tall and has beautiful face that lights up when she smiles. Her one problem is that she is over weight and that is why I hadn't taken the time to talk to her before. She ways around one hundred and fifty pounds which is a lot for someone as short as she is. I generally don't go for heavy woman but I decided that I was being narrow minded so I approached her in the bar and asked her if she would like to sit and talk with me for a while.
Sue Li and I sat down at a table in a corner of the room and began to talk. I asked her how long she had been in Boston and she said, "Been here five year."
I said, "How is it you happened to come to Boston?"
Sue Li said, "Chang live here. I come here to marry Chang."
I said, "Did Chang come here form China too?"
She said, "No, Chang born here."
"Then how did you meet Chang?"
"Our parents arrange."
I said, "Your parents arranged for you to marry a man you never met that lived in another country."
"Yes. My parents want me come to America. Chang's grand parents live same town my parents. They made arrangement for me to come marry Chang."
I said, "So you never met Chang until you married him?"
