Brian and Mona - 2

By Jim Chaffee

At the house I uncorked a bottle of Blanquette de Limoux for the women. Neither Mona nor Brian had heard of the stuff, but Liz favored it. I poured into our fluted Renoir glasses, optically dazzling for the bubbles. I left Mona and Liz talking in the kitchen and moved Brian off to the living room.

I brought out several bottles of Caddenhead single malt whiskey and poured a sampling into nosing glasses. We worked from light to heavy and Brian liked the old Laphroig we sampled near the end best. That impressed me. His taste tended to sensual but severe, which explained Mona. What I didn't understand was what she saw in him.

Mona called us together.

"Write down the name of this wine, Brian," she commanded, handing him a pen and paper from her purse. She spelled it out from memory.

"What about the scotch?" he asked.

"Well, just ask for Laphroig," I said. "Don't worry about Caddenhead. That's a special bottling. The ten year old Laphroig is damned good."

"You have kids?" Mona asked Liz.

"Not together," she answered, "but I have one from a previous marriage, grown and with kids of her own now."

"None for me," I said. "You?"

"We have two," Brian said, "both by us."

"No priors for us," she added. "Married out of college, eighteen years."

"Longer than we've been together," Liz said, "but not by much."

The frigid silence I'd been expecting settled in. Their banter oozed tension. Brian's I understood. Mona emitted signals with a spectrum so broad I couldn't get a fix. This moment had hung in abeyance since we'd first locked eyes.

I met it head on. "What are you guys looking for?" I asked, stepping across the gap.

Mona looked at Brian. He didn't acknowledge her glance.

"We had a girlfriend for a while," she said, "but she broke it off. She wanted a one on one relationship with me. She said she couldn't live a lie any more."

"How did that happen? That isn't swinging."

"I met her at a lesbian bar."

I looked to Brian. He focused on his drink. Liz sat in the background, taking it all in.

"She was my first woman," Mona said, her tone so matter of fact she could have been discussing an accounting problem. "She's not a swinger. Actually, she has no interest in men at all. It was compromise to let Brian watch. It got to be too much for her, sharing me."

I let it be while she composed her thoughts. I didn't know which questions would tread on Brian. Already he seemed to shrivel away.

"We met a dancer at a strip club who was okay with Brian joining us."

"She didn't seem so cool when we got to know her," Brian said.

"There were a few problems," Mona said.

They both fell silent. I waited, then prodded.

"What was the problem?"

"Something was wrong," Brian said. "After we got together a couple times she started wanting to spend a lot of time at the house."

"We have to be careful of the kids. They're at the age they notice things. They have questions."

Brian looked up. "She wanted to move in with us. I think she was considering blackmail."

Mona held back.

"She turned out to be a hooker," Brian said.

Mona glowered at him. He held it for a brief moment, then backed down.

"You weren't looking at swingers," I said.

"Yes, we were." Mona spoke quietly, the challenge gone from her eyes. "She was a swinger."

"According to her," Brian muttered.

"The others we met were all so unappealing. Until you two." She tossed Liz half a smile.

"But you want a woman?" I asked. "Not really a couple."

"Yes, that's what we really want," Brian answered.

Mona broke in. "It's easier to find couples with bi females than to find them alone."

She kept her eyes on me, avoiding Liz. I met her gaze and she looked down. I couldn't help staring. She'd made herself up with the expertise that comes from studying other's reactions and remembering what worked. I wanted her. This was a delicate moment, and it slipped away without commitment.

We chit-chatted about this and that, eventually settling on exercise. She ran daily, five miles in the morning. I told her I lifted and ran, but found the resistance training necessary. She asked if running worked as resistance and I said no, that bone density responded to resistance and she needed to lift if she wanted that benefit.

Brian broke things up, pleading a new baby sitter and that it was already late. He wanted out. There had been momentum to start something between her and me, but it withered with the shift to exercise.

"Liz is going out of town Friday," I said. "She won't be back until a week from the following Monday. If you want we can get together when she gets back."

"Send us an e-mail," Brian said. "But we're going on vacation about that time."

It seemed we wouldn't see them again.

************************************

• << TEX Home
• Cover
• 1
• Page 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• Next >>