Four Lovers

Round two had started.

There is no reason to describe every meeting or rendezvous. Suffice it to say that we went on like this for about eighteen months, sharing vacations together and taking each other’s wives away for weekends. It was all very satisfying and far, far ahead of the times in 1959. The sixties were just around the corner and afterward I always thought of the four of us as the advance guard. If only the story ended there. But it didn’t.

Katie and I began to cool a little --- or at least Katie did. I noticed after about a year of our unarranged arrangement with Hal and Julie, that she rarely initiated sex as she had at first. When we came together it was always satisfactory, full of affection and love but still, without the depth or heat that we had so enjoyed before.

Julie and I continued to make wild happy love every time we were together. Then, during that last fateful month, she, too, seemed preoccupied and less passionate. I began to fear that something was going on that only I was being left out of. I shrugged it off as paranoia and tried to forget it. Then the Last Weekend arrived. That’s how I’ve come to think of it over the past half-century: with capitol initials.

Julie and I had spent the night together at our place. We had eased into each other like the old friends we were and managed to give each other a night of rich and satisfying lovemaking. I took her back to her house in the morning but instead of our usual breakfast together, Katie emerged from the front door ready to go. She barely spoke to Julie as she slid into the seat next to me. I knew something had gone terribly wrong but she refused to talk about it in the car.

When we got home, she let it all out in one breath. She and Hal had fallen in love and wanted to leave together. They wanted a new life away from Julie and me. I was dumbstruck. I tried to talk to her, to reason her out of it but she was adamant. She gathered a few things and left the house within the hour. Julie called me later that morning and told me that Hal, too, had left. We didn’t talk long.

The next day, while I was at work, Katie cleaned out her things. Neighbors told me that she and a man had come with a rented truck and left with some furniture and suitcases. She only took what was hers: the antique table her sister had given us, her personal dressing table and chest of drawers, a favorite chair, and her clothes. She left all of the living room and dining room furniture, still the house seemed only half-furnished and empty.

They had moved into an apartment in a neighboring town about fifty miles away. They left the same phone number for me and for Julie --- just in case there was business that required their attention. I received a quitclaim deed in the mail signed by Katie and that put an end to any business that we might have had together. As a last gesture, I sold the house and sent Katie half the proceeds; after all, she had paid half the mortgage as long as we lived there.

Julie and I had dinner together once and talked, uselessly, about what had happened but there was no more sex. She seemed thoroughly depressed and hardly touched her food. I was glad to see that she was not drinking. We parted outside the restaurant with sad words of farewell and no promises to stay in touch.

I never heard from any of the three of them again and they have, of course, not heard from me. I have no idea how their lives have played out but as for me, I never married again. I sought and found warm and satisfying relationships with other women, some married, some not. Now I live alone along the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains and not a day goes by that I do not think of those days of wild, free love. I loved all three of them and still do.