Ask Amy

Advisory:

This is a story about the complexities of love, of marriage and divorce, of sexual fidelity and its opposite. It has many of the elements of a "burn-the-bitch" (BTB) tale, but it is not one at all. BTB enthusiasts--and readers triggered by sexual infidelity viewed sympathetically--are advised that they will not like this story and are encouraged to stop reading it now and find something more suitable.

Another heads-up. People who prefer stories with exemplary, virtuous heroes and dastardly, evil villains won't like this one, either. Every character stays well in the middle between those two poles. It's not a bug, it's a feature--as my coder friends used to say.

All the characters are fictitious and over 18. All representations of sexual activity by municipal employees or officials, of any town, are fictitious.

My thanks (in chronological order) to my spouse, to Tennesseered, and to JBEdwards for their helpful comments and suggestions on this story. -- P.C.

* * * * *

Don't expect to find adventurous, risk-taking men working, like me, as a small-town "town planner." Picking up women in bars--even the bar area of a nice restaurant like the Quarrystone--is a gambit requiring more boldness, a better line of patter, and a tougher hide than I can usually manage.

But she had noticed the leisure reading I had set on my table, and she approached and spoke first. "Tariq Ali's new book on Churchill. What do you think of it?"

I rose and gestured to a vacant chair. "He's even a bigger right-wing racist than I imagined.... Would you care to join me?... Churchill, I mean, of course. Tariq Ali is fine, as usual. Have you read it?"

We sat, and she crossed her legs and smiled. "My husband gave it to me for Christmas. At my suggestion, of course. I'll read it next--if I ever get to the end of Infinite Jest." Amazingly, that one I had read.

The waiter approached, and she ordered a dry vermouth on the rocks.

"Infinite Jest's a long novel, all right," I replied. "And don't skip over the 400 footnotes. They're all part of the fiction."

"Endnotes," I corrected.

"You're either a professor or entirely too fussy," she said. Fortunately, she was smiling. "But yes, I discovered that about the notes."

This is a very odd first conversation for male and female strangers to have at a bar, right? But we're not in Kansas anymore. This is Woodstock, Connecticut. That's not the Woodstock where they had the big concert, by the way: that was New York.

Woodstock is a small town of substantial, unostentatious wealth in what the Department of Tourism likes to call the state's "Quiet Corner," the northeast. The area is hilly, maybe 60 percent woods and 40 percent farmland. Many of the residents live in stately old houses surrounded by brick walls with iron gates, each house on a few acres of land carved out of the woods. Some of the properties belong to celebrities willing to spend handsomely to maintain a quiet, secluded getaway place in the country. Woodstock's town center, where my acquaintance and I now sat, was small, quaint, host to several antique shops and craftspersons' galleries.

I smiled back at her. "No to the first option, anyway," I said, ruling out a professorship. "I'm a town planner--for that glamorous, sophisticated enclave known as Vernon." She kindly ignored my clumsy attempt at irony.

I appraised her again. She was somewhere in her thirties, about five-foot seven, pretty, with medium-length brown hair. Nothing remarkable about her body, but everything looked well-proportioned. Her clothes and her grooming looked upscale but simple and tasteful. Subtle makeup, a sweater that could well be cashmere, wool skirt in a muted gray plaid, low heels, a single strand of small pearls around her neck. The sweater subtly but nicely highlighted a pair of pretty, medium-sized breasts. The diamond on her hand was respectable but not pretentious, the gold wedding band fairly plain. Everything about her suggested class and good taste. Clearly, she was educated, too. She fit well into the neighborhood. Better than I did.

"How about yourself?" I asked, my mind returning to occupations.

"I write."

"Please forgive my bad manners," I said, "I'm Alan Forester."

She smiled and extended a hand. "Amy Vandenberg."

I took her hand and smiled back. "Just like the advice columnist," I observed. Too late, I realized she was probably tired of hearing that.

"Yes. Just like her."

We chatted over our drinks. I had come to town to consult with local colleagues about wastewater management. After tromping around town and country for a few miles, I was now relaxing a bit before driving home. Amy was with me because her car keys happen to be inside her shoulder bag--not, it turns out, in the clutch purse on our table--and the shoulder bag was now safely locked in the trunk of her car, a block away.

Cabs, Ubers, and locksmiths available on short notice are scarce in the Quiet Corner, so Amy had called her husband, a corporate executive of some sort who worked in Boston. They decided that he would drive home, pick up her spare keys, and take them to her. They lived on the outskirts of Woodstock.

But the drive in afternoon rush hour would take him at least an hour and a half, and in any case he couldn't leave the office for another hour. That was all right with Amy. She could hang out at the Quarrystone for a few hours, work on her emails, relax a little. Truth be told (I later learned), more and more she was feeling that time spent alone--or even spent in the company of amusing strangers like me--was more pleasant than time spent with Carl, her husband.

"I'd be glad to drive you home," I offered. "Is there a house key that's not in your trunk?"

Amy thought for a minute about what she wanted. "Thank you, Alan. That's very kind of you. I accept. There's a key squirreled away on the property."

"So I'll take you home, you can pick up your spare keys there, and I'll drive you back to your car?"

She paused again. "No," she said, "just take me home. Carl can take me to get the car after dinner. My husband. That should annoy him enough. I'll text him the change of plans. He'll be pleased he doesn't have to rush home, at least."

I headed for the men's room while she fiddled with her phone. Returning, I glanced at the check, left cash to cover it and a tip, and escorted her out.

The afternoon was unusually sunny and warm for late March. A perfect day for a stroll with a beautiful woman. I wished I had parked further away.

"My treat next time, Alan," she said, as we reached my car. By Woodstock standards, the vehicle was unimpressive--a ten-year-old Honda Civic--but fortunately the inside was clean and orderly at the moment.

"I'd love there to be a next time, Amy," I replied, as we buckled up. "Any chance of your being free next week sometime?"

"My schedule is somewhat flexible," she replied. "How's lunch next Thursday, maybe one o'clock? Perhaps a different venue, though. Woodstock is pretty sophisticated, but it is a small town. How's the Camberwell Inn, in Pomfret?"

Pomfret was only four or five miles south of here. Maybe the gossips in Woodstock didn't travel much?

"Sounds great," I said. I had plenty of vacation time built up and nothing pressing scheduled for Thursday. No reason I couldn't take the afternoon off. "Pick you up?"

"No. Why don't you meet me there at one?"

She guided me to her house, somewhere in south Woodstock or north Pomfret. The brick wall was there, but the large wrought-iron gate was open, and we drove through.

"Carl shuts and locks the gate every night when he comes home," she said. "I don't really see the need. Of course he doesn't approve of leaving a spare door key lying about, either, but I overruled him on that one." We reached the circular part of her driveway and then the front door.

"Cup of coffee before you head west?" she invited.

"Thanks. I'd like that."

* * * * * 2

The house was an old and large one, beautifully proportioned. We sat in a front room filled with soft natural light from the several windows. Her coffee was excellent: a Sumatra, she said, from a local roaster. For a half hour or so we made easy conversation and enjoyed each other's company. I couldn't help noticing a certain edge to her voice whenever her husband was mentioned.

I should have avoided the topic entirely, but I failed to. "I keep picking up hints of some tension between you and Carl," I observed.

"That's normal in a relationship, don't you think? Are you married?"

"Divorced," I answered. "Married for eight years, now divorced for eight."

"Then you understand how things work. How--no matter how hard you try to do everything right--maybe even both of you try hard--sometimes, somehow it just doesn't all work quite perfectly. And people change...."

"Yes," I said. "That's been my experience."

"Okay, good," she said. "Can we continue this conversation sometime later? Perhaps when and if we get to know each other a little better?"

"Of course. I apologize, Amy. I shouldn't have intruded." I quickly cast about for an alternative topic. "You told me you are a writer. Tell me about your writing. What do you write?"

"You have to promise not to talk about it with anyone except me."

An odd request. Usually writers welcome any publicity they can get including even gossip.

"I promise."

She looked me in the eye. "I write an advice column," she said.

"You write an advice column."

"'Ask Amy'?" she prompted.

I tried not to gawk. "You are the Amy Vandenberg who writes 'Ask Amy,'" I said, less than brilliantly.

"C'est moi," she said. "And yes, I look only vaguely like the photograph. That's because the model isn't me. And yes, as you have observed, the woman who gives relationship advice daily to millions of Americans is presently in a relationship that is not working quite as well as she could wish. If appropriate, we can talk more about that at a later date. Possibly as early as next Thursday. Remember your vow of silence in-between."

She glanced at her wristwatch. "Please don't take this wrong, Alan--and no, you didn't do anything awful--but now might be a good time for you to head back to Vernon. Or wherever you live."

"Vernon," I said.

"Would you care to use the bathroom before you go?"

"Thank you, yes."

"Through the archway. Third door on your left."

When I returned she was standing. She handed me a slip of paper. "My phone number. Get in touch if a problem develops. Otherwise I'll see you Thursday at one."

She put her hands on my waist and looked up at me. "Thank you, Alan. For the cocktail, for the ride, for being an agreeable companion." Then, to my surprise, she gave me a sweet kiss on the lips. It fell well short of "passionate," but it felt like a real kiss.

I gave her hand a squeeze. "It's been a wonderful afternoon, Amy. See you next Thursday."

I started the Civic and managed to zigzag my way south to Route 44, a reasonably fast two-lane blacktop. I turned right onto 44, swung down the visor against the afternoon sun, and headed back to Vernon.

* * * * * 3

We started getting together about once a week. Seven or eight weeks into our relationship, I learned that Amy and Carl had had separate bedrooms for more than a year. "That's when I realized that our marriage was steadily, irreversibly losing altitude," she told me. "The next major event may be the crash and burn."

A room of one's own did not relieve Amy of her duty to service Carl, though. "Eventually I realized that saying yes was just a lot easier and quicker than saying no and fighting," she told me. "I always lost that fight, anyway. He's a lot bigger and stronger than me. I know it's technically rape... or was, until I started saying 'yes' again and just trying to get it over with quickly. But as long as I continue to cohabit with him--and fail to seek a restraining order--making a marital rape charge stand up in court is a chancy proposition. Or so I have been advised."

We were naked, bathing in the soft afternoon light, lying on our backs in her bed. I put my arm around her shoulder, squeezed briefly, kissed the side of her head. "I'm sorry, Amy," I said. She reached a hand to my now limp penis and gave me a gentle squeeze.

"Sticky," I said, apologetically.

"My gift to you," she replied. "Is there a nicer gift than a lady's vaginal lubrication, freely given and skilfully applied? If so, say what it is, and I shall get it for you for Christmas."

"How about a lady's love?" I teased.

"Don't be greedy! Possibly you can have everything, but you can't have everything all at once, right away. Civilization was built on delayed gratification."

I knew she was only half serious.

"And what a botch civilization has made of the world!" I countered. "I read Monday's column. The couple wants to have not one but two destination weddings, a week apart--the first in Copenhagen, the second in Venice. Not that they know a soul in either city. But now their cheapskate bridesmaids and groomsmen, and several relatives, are protesting that they can't afford $13,000 apiece in airfare and lodging and can't take two weeks off from work. So what is the poor bride to do, with so many people determined to ruin what should be the two most beautiful days in her life: the days of her two first weddings? I mean, how do you stop yourself from tracking down and shooting people like that? The bride and groom, I mean."

Amy let out a sorrowful sigh. "My staff is under strict instructions never to let me know the real name or street address of anyone who writes in. And I don't own a gun, because I'd be tempted to use it."

* * * * * 4

A couple weeks earlier, on our fifth afternoon together, Amy had the whim to see Vernon, so I took her there and drove her around. Vernon is but a town, not a city, but it is larger and much more developed than Woodstock. I'm sure there was nothing there she hadn't seen before somewhere else, but maybe I added a little perspective. I showed her the aesthetic nightmare of the commercial drags--monuments to bad suburban design in a 20th-century culture that liked cars and convenient parking more than people. But the old mill district was interesting, the residential developments were pleasant if unimaginative, and the rural areas to the east were pretty. Vernon's segment of the Hop River Trail, a rails-to-trails project, was well maintained.

We had a late lunch at Reinhardt's, a kosher-style restaurant and deli in an unremarkable strip mall along Route 30. By all accounts, Reinhardt's had the best bagels in four counties and the best corned beef east of Brooklyn. Amy seemed to be enjoying herself.

"Coffee?" I inquired as we finished our corned-beef reubens.

"Take me home and make us a pot. Your home, I mean."

"I wasn't expecting company..."

"You're a bachelor. I understand. I'll make allowances. Do this for me, Alan. Trust me.... Is there a housemate?"

"No."

"Is there a girlfriend somewhere?"

"Not at the moment."

She gave me a smile. "It's settled, then."

* * * * * 5

My house, like most on my block, was a small "Cape"--a Cape Cod-style house, probably 80 or 90 years old--I keep meaning to check the town records. The house had a steep wedge of a roof, two bedrooms upstairs, four rooms downstairs, one and a half baths, gas furnace in the basement. The house had enough closet space for about one man or half a woman, but the floors were hardwood, the neighborhood was quiet, and I felt quite at home.

We had just entered the small living room. Amy set her bag on the sofa, walked back to me, and wrapped her arms around me. I held her and kissed her lips gently. A minute later we were still kissing.

"Do you know what I'm thinking?" she asked.

"Let's skip the coffee?"

"Let's." She dialed up the intensity of the kiss. "I like your house," she said at last. "It's cozy."

"It does feel that way at the moment."

We held each other and kissed some more. It was far from our first kiss, but we both perceived that this one was different from its still-somewhat-innocent predecessors of past weeks. This one was foreplay. Amy's tongue probed my mouth. My right hand, outside her clothing, caressed her back and her bottom.

She said, "If you're contemplating fondling my breasts, now would be a good time." I smiled and obliged, and she more or less purred. Her nipples stiffened underneath her sweater and bra. She broke the kiss, unbuttoned my Oxford shirt, and then brought her lips back to mine. With one hand she caressed my chest; the other moved over my trousers and grasped my cock, which by now was easy to locate without looking.

"You're happy to see me," she deadpanned.

"I am."

"I'm happy to see you too, Alan. Though I haven't really seen much of you yet. Or much of your house."

"Would you care to see the upstairs?" I invited.

"I'd love to."

* * * * * 6

Thus began our affair. If "affair" is the right name for the next step in our odd and intimate friendship. I guess "affair" is close enough.

Fortunately, my bedroom looked presentable. I had changed the sheets and straightened up just the day before. The bed was queen-sized--a relic of my married days--so there would be room to thrash about, if it came to that. It did.

A change came over Amy once we entered the room. She seemed a bit less bold than she had been downstairs, more hesitant. Possibly I should have backed off, myself, given her more space to decide what exactly she wanted to happen. But by now I wanted her too much for that, and I took the lead. Actually, that worked out just fine. Amy was about to cross a line, and she wanted just a little push to help.

We were standing. I started pulling up her sweater, uncertain of the best way to remove it. Amy took over, tucked her gold necklace inside, then gracefully pulled the sweater up and off. The thin beige bra underneath had a pretty sheen to it, and it fit her body beautifully. The brown nipples underneath it were slightly erect. I caressed them through the satiny fabric, and they grew.

Unhooking bras is a skill I had mastered a couple decades ago, so no problem there. Amy shrugged the garment off, and I admired her upper body, Her breasts were neither big enough nor small enough to provoke a stare. They were just... I don't know... pretty and feminine and normal and beautifully shaped and soft and warm. And sensitive. I fondled them as we kissed, and again she purred.

Slacks I knew how to unzip and pull down. Amy stepped out of her shoes and then stepped out of the slacks at her ankles. Then she took off her socks. That left only the satiny panties, which matched the bra. Like most men, I love to see a woman slowly pull down her panties, but I figured Amy needed something different this time, so I squatted before her and tugged her panties right down. She inhaled sharply. I caressed her pubic mound with my cheek, savoring the faint and lovely scent of her pussy. She had removed more of her pubic hair than I would have liked, but some curly brown softness remained. When her hands began stroking my hair, I knew all was well. I gave her labia a quick kiss and stood.

I stepped back, and again I admired the view. No part of her body really grabbed your attention. Everything just fit together perfectly. "A pretty girl is like a melody." For some reason Pachelbel's Canon started running through my head--not melody so much as beautifully balanced counterpoint--and that seemed a good fit.

I guess I stared a little too long. "Everything pass inspection?" Amy inquired.

"Amy, you are beautiful. Perfect." I'm sure she didn't believe that, but I did.

We hugged and kissed and fondled for another minute. She was still fairly dry but obviously enjoying my caress. She broke away and got my clothes off me remarkably quickly. Then she knelt, took my penis into her mouth, and sucked for about one minute. Very, very skilfully. This girl's a keeper, I thought.