Love in a Changed World Ch. 10

Chapter 10

I.

Recovering from Midge's death lock, I noticed all the girls that came with Midge were there except for Beth. After our encounter last night, I wanted to check in on her. "Where is Beth?" I asked.

"Which one of them is Beth?" Asked Nadia. The tinge in her voice wasn't quite accusation -- I've never given her cause for concern about other women. And, given her easy willingness to open our marriage to Pudge, it goes without saying that she's not a naturally jealous or suspicious woman. Still, she's a woman, and few women aren't going to want to know about another woman whose absence is noted by her husband. It would be easier to explain once Nadia had met her.

"Midget," I called across the patio -- I'd called her that since she was 13. It's an obvious nickname for a 13-year-old girl who already goes by the nickname "Midge" (Midge's given name was "Mary Margret" which is a perfectly fine name for a maiden aunt or a nun) and is four inches taller than you. It got me her attention and a pantomime of her putting me back in the sleeper hold. I ignored it, "Midget, where is Beth?" I asked.

She came over. Gave me a "playful" punch to the ribs. Her "playful" punch happened to land right where Pudge got me in the throes of early-morning passion, leaving a bruise. I yelp/gasped at the unfortunately placed shot. Which got Pudge's smiling attention, "Careful, Midge, he's a delicate flower." She saw where the "tap" landed and knew how hard she'd "tapped" me earlier. Pudge loved me, but she also loved to see me get what I had coming.

"Well, he's going to get plucked if he keeps it up," Midge answered. Then turning to the more pressing question, "I haven't seen her since you guys were up on the veranda last night."

I could tell without looking that my totally-not-the-jealous-type wife's eyes were locked on the back of my head right now. I was uniquely grateful in that moment that, while my wife shared many attributes with a certain comic book superheroine, she could not shoot heat beams from her eyes. At least I didn't think she could. I would consider the fact that the back of my head wasn't melting or bursting into flame as reasonable proof.

"I saw you and her," Midge continued as I had a vision of all of the bones of my limbs being broken one at a time, "She threw something down to the bed of the truck and scared the bejezus out of some guys looking at it. Then I went to get something more to drink. That was the last I saw of her." I chose that moment to start breathing again. "Nothing" really happened between me and young Beth, but she had wanted it to (or at least her inner pain led her to believe she did). Midge seeing Beth lock me in what surely could have looked like, from a distance, a mutually passionate kiss would have been awkward. I certainly could have explained it -- assuming I lived long enough to offer an explanation. Not having to beg for my life right now was a small blessing.

"I think we should look around for her. She wasn't in the best frame of mind last night. She'd also been drinking." I explained. "She's probably just sleeping it off, but let's be sure."

"Always thinking like a man." It was Nadia. I could tell from her tone that she wasn't worried about whatever transpired between me and Beth anymore. For one, there's no reason that I would be worried about finding her if there was something to hide. For another, she could tell I was concerned and trusted my judgement enough to know that she should be too. Her tone also was a little dismissive.

"Well, I am a man, dear." I explained. If I sounded irritated, it was because I was.

"Dingus," it was Pudge, "She means you're thinking like a person who needs to sack out for twelve hours after drinking three beers. Or as we've come to define it, 'a man'." The other girls had a laugh at that. I guess technically at my expense, but more so at the expense of my sex. She was right though. A man who had been drinking like Beth would, well, he'd be dead. If he wasn't, he'd need probably twelve to 24 hours to recover. Most women barely registered a hangover anymore. And they might sleep four hours a night on the far end. Beth could be out shopping for all I knew.

"You're right" I said.

"I know." Pudge retorted instantly.

"Still, she might be on the property somewhere," I said. If she wasn't, we had no idea where to look anyway. "Let's split up, and search the grounds, the residences, and the beach. Meet back here in, say, 40 minutes."

"Twenty." It was Nadia. She was used to being in charge, and, admittedly, better at than me. "We can search the grounds in 20 minutes with this many of us. Midge, you know the outbuildings better than the rest. I'll take the main house. Pudge, split up the rest of the girls and check the grounds. Simon, go look in the boathouse. I doubt she's there, but it's possible she took one of the boats out. There should be two boats in there: a Chris-Craft and a Ski Nautique." She paused looked among the girls to see that she was understood. She was. "Ok, back her in 20 minutes."

The girls all took off at the run.

"Thinking like a man," I thought as they sped to their assigned tasks. Of course they could search the grounds in less time than I'd given it. If it were men, we'd have to pace ourselves to cover the whole place. Girls -- women -- didn't, or at least not so much. That was part of their everyday lives now. If something was even moderately important, they ran to it. Why not? If you hardly tire and barely break a sweat. Their brains also worked faster. Nadia had laid out a full search plan while I was still counting heads. Her plan was perfect too. She'd factored in everything in that blink of time -- how much ground each girl could cover while still looking effectively, how much ground there was to cover, who had experience with the location -- everything. Right down, I realized, to giving the weakest link -- me -the only man, the simplest task. I was too in awe to be insulted.

II.

As it turned out, it was the weakest link that found the missing ginger.

The boat house was a largely utilitarian structure on a the end of a pier. It was two stories tall, with three actual floors. The lower part went the to the water and had two bays for the boats. Each bay had a hoist for hauling its boat out of the water. The middle floor had a small machine shop and work area for the guy who maintained the boats. The upper floor had a living area and dorm for that person. It was unoccupied, as the boat maintenance was currently contracted out to a service and there was no need for a mechanic in residence. Still, Manalo -- whose title I had learned was, in fact "Major Domo" -- insisted that the quarters be immaculately maintained. The quarters had a living room/kitchen and a bedroom with a head and shower. The stairs up opened right into the living room.

I figured out I had found the missing girl when I walked up the stairs. I could hear the shower running as I got to the top. There were three college-aged guys in various stages of undress passed out on the sofa and the floor. A quick check revealed they were all, thankfully, still alive. They were also a little, well, "banged" up -- no pun intended. The two who didn't have pants had bruising on their hips and thighs. The other one had dried blood under his nose and some bruising on his face. His shorts were stained. I'm not a CSI guy, but I would assume the stain was from semen. Both the naked guys' dicks, were reddish purple. All three of them smelled of booze, sweat, and sex. Again. Not a CSI guy, but these injury patterns were familiar to me. The three guys were too. They were the "truck" guys Beth and I had seen from the veranda. There were also three empty vodka bottles and two empty tequila bottles on the floor. I guess the bedpost got the night off.

The shower stopped. In a minute the tight-bodied redhead emerged from the bathroom. Her flame red hair was wrapped in a towel, and she had another -- stenciled -- "Property of NAS Key West" wrapped around her torso from the top of her half-handful-size breasts to just barely the top of her still glistening thighs. Any shorter and I would have been able to confirm she if was actually a real redhead as she claimed. She was startled to see me.

"Beth?" I said.

Recovering, she answered, "In the," she gestured to her near nakedness, "Flesh."

"We were worried about you," I said. Then asked, "Is everything alright"

"I'm fine. Was just cleaning up. Took a swim out to the buoy and back," she said. There was a navigational marker about two miles out. A causal, relaxing, four-mile swim though open, shark-infested waters. I gestured toward the passed-out guys.

"They all came on their own," She started. "I mean, came here on their own. I made them cum. I mean. They came here of their own accord then we -- I -- I mean." She stopped. "Everything was 100% consensual. Can we go in the other room and talk?"

We went in the bedroom. I sat on the only chair. Beth had a seat on the bed. I must have averted my eyes rather suddenly as she quickly took the towel from her wet hair and put it over her lap. [She was, dear readers, a natural redhead.] She went on to explain. After she left the veranda, she'd intended to go down to the boat house and set up there. Manalo, when asked, had listed it among the various open rooms available to Midge and her guests. [We hadn't told him about Pudge setting up in the guest bungalow, hence the problem of Misty and her two frat boys.] Beth explained that it sounded like a nice, secluded place to go "study". Then she recalled that she'd left her, uh "study aids" in her backpack which was in the truck. "I go down there, and the guys started asking me about the truck. I just made stuff up, which they found hilarious," She explained. "They were really nice guys. I thought, 'maybe it's time to bury the past.' Also I was super horny -- so thanks for that."

I didn't regret not taking her up on her offer, but I did regret that I'd left her in a vulnerable state. I spoke, "Beth, I'm sorry if -- "

She cut me off, "No it was great." She went on to explain that she invited the three of them out to the boat house. They were in fact gearheads. She laughed and said they'd spent an hour in the machine shop looking over the half-disassembled 400 horsepower engine from the Chris-Craft. "I was starting to get a little jealous."

They'd all been drinking, but she'd been hitting it the hardest. The balance was that they were all buzzed but nobody was drunk, per se. There was a stereo and a song she loved came on. She started dancing. The she took off her top and kissed one of the guys. What she said next surprised me. "Simon, he stopped and said, 'Are you sure you're ok? I nearly came right there and then." The other two got up to leave, but she asked them to stay if they wanted. "The other one -the dark haired one, asked, if I really wanted this, and the third one clarified that I wasn't too drunk to consent. Then the first guy -- I'm literally half naked on his lap -- he's got a boner that I could feel -- says, 'We could do come back tomorrow night if you're not.' I knew right then that I was going to fuck these guys brains out."

I was a little embarrassed, but asked, "Beth the guy with the bloody nose..."

She giggled. "Oh my god, we were in the throes of things, and he kisses me and says, 'I've never had my face ridden by a redhead before, hit me with all your fire'." He literally came in his pants -- like a lot - and passed out when I orgasmed."

The other two were pretty obvious. The he bruises and the roughed-up cocks just the cost of doing business. She said to me, "Thank you for putting me off last night. It didn't feel like rejection. It felt like, I don't know. Like I had worth. That what you saw in me was worth not just taking me off to your bed because you could. I haven't felt I was so valued in years. Thank you so much."

Beth added, unnecessarily, "Three times. -- with each of them. So much more, I dunno, 'ready' than you old guys."

Girl was brutal. Just. Brutal.

III.

Beth got dressed in the bedroom, as I did my best to rouse Manny, Moe, and Jack as I had started to call the three motorheads. They were groggy but got themselves together as best they could. I would have expected for three young fellows who'd had the night they did to be a little more self-congratulatory. When I was their age, if three of my college buddies had spent the night railing a willing young thing like Beth, the next morning they'd certainly be boasting of the specific things they did to her. [Of course, in the physics department, this sort of thing was extremely rare, but not entirely unknown.]

I was living in the past, though. These days, if a girl took a guy, or two (as Misty and Midge), or three as happened in the boat house, to her room, what happen there wasn't what the guy (or guys) did to her. It was about what she did to them. That was clearly the case here as I noted the last guy bending over slowly to gingerly pull shorts over his battered and worn-out legs and waist. These guys weren't about to do the walk, or in this case, hobble of shame, but they weren't in place to be slapping each other on the back.

Beth skipped cheerily and energetically from the bedroom. She'd donned a light green sundress with little white flowers. It had thin straps and cinched at the waist giving an hourglass look to her otherwise straight, almost boyish, form. The hem of the skirt was bounced around her the top of her knees. On her feet were a pair of flat sandals with white straps. She'd tied her flame-colored hair in a messy ponytail. She wore no makeup. The only coloring to her face were her naturally red lips, the light burnt umber freckle on her cheeks, and the emerald jewels of her eyes. The child-like façade contrasted acutely with what had happened overnight between her and the three gearheads in the room.

Beth's obvious excess of vim and vigor was also a stark contrast to the worn and weary look of her three gentleman callers. Mind you she'd don't three times the, uh, "work" last night than any one of the three guys, and they'd been sleeping it off still while she was taking a casual four-mile open-water swim to clear her head. It would be a long time before I would get accustomed to routine seeing such indefatigability from women. As it stood it made me tired just thinking about it.

She smiled when she saw the boys. I was right, she had a pretty smile when she wasn't forcing it. I got the sense that this was the first time in a while that she wasn't. She gave them each a peck on the cheek. They were lined up like good soldiers as their general gave her address. "Boys -- men" She giggled at herself, "It has been an honor to have served you -- with you." The boys were giggling now. "You all acquitted yourselves honorably in the face of great..." she paused for effect, "...'hardship'." They were all laughing now, "I will always remember you fondly." She gave each one a peck on the cheek again, and, with that, we all walked out to the pier.

Nadia, Pudge, and Midge were walking up the pier as we were walking out. I gather it was obvious when I didn't report back to the courtyard by the appointed time as ordered that I'd come across something. (or fell off the pier) The Pep Boys walked past the three women nodding like the good boys they were, with a deliberate effort to not make eye contact. I heard the last one call Nadia "Ma'am" as he passed. The look on her face told me the young man was lucky to leave with both his femurs. Nadia and Pudge shared a knowing look -- I knew quite well that both of them hand sent young men off on this sort of walk in their college days. Most of the boys with smiles -- though I'd like to think one at time. (Certainly not three) I walked up next to the girls and just sort of shrugged my shoulders like I didn't know what was going on.

Midge had her own moment of recognition. She looked past me at the little redhead. They made eye contact, and then Midge turned to look at the three guys walking off the dock. She turned back to Beth and mouthed "Oh my god". Midge ran over to Beth and hugged and picked her up and spun as both laughed. "I'm so happy for you, girl," Midge said adding, "I knew you just needed to get off the bench."

Apparently, Beth had maintained a chaste pretense with her freewheeling girlfriends. It made sense. She wasn't picking up 40-year-olds in the same places the other girls were bagging their frat boys. Judging from her enthusiastic response, it seemed Midge knew something of Beth's complicated relationship with sex. "We need to go shopping." Midge told the shorter girl moving on from the possibly awkward, "We are going clubbing!" She took the redhead by the hand and started off the pier.

Beth stopped, pulled away from Midge, ran back to where I was standing with Nadia and Pudge. She jumped up and wrapped her arms and legs around me. around me, gave me a light kiss on the lips and said, "Thank you so much for last night, Simon. I'll never be able to thank you enough." With that, she ran back to Midge and the two took off to do to the shops of Key West t what they'd done to those guys last night.

I waved as they left. I really didn't want to turn around but knew I would have to do so eventually. After what seemed like an hour -- maybe 20 seconds -- I relented and faced them. Nadia had her hands firmly on her hips. The look on her face told me that, whatever the explanation was, it had better be good. Pudge had her arms folded; her face read more bemusement than anything else. I looked to the water off the pier and considered swimming for it.

Pudge read my expression and my body language. Women always had the nonverbal cues down better than men. The way their brains processed information now turned that into something almost like ESP. It wasn't. They had developed amazing abilities far beyond things men could do, but nothing quite so sci fi. No, it was just acute perception paired with incredible mental processing. It was something I, a man, could understand the working s of, but couldn't replicate.

"I think you're right, sport," she laughed, "You'll have an easier time with the sharks."

It took about ten minutes of very rapid explanation to secure my continued breathing.

Nadia, as I said, was not a jealous type. She knew she had me mind, body, and soul. I'd be a fool to go looking elsewhere. I knew it. She knew I knew it. There were also practical matters to consider if I were ever so foolish enough to go looking. Aside from the obvious fact that she could beat me into a bloody pulp before I could raise a hand to defend myself, and probably crush said hand into a fleshy maraca for good measure, there was the simple fact that, by then, pretty much any guy who cheated on a woman got busted almost immediately.

Again it was a simple matter of extremely sensitive perceptions combined with brains that processed at ridiculous speeds. Catching a cheating husband, for a woman, had always been a matter of noticing the signs, putting them together, and forcing reason to overcome the woman's emotional need to believe the man she loved still loved her. Women had grown the ability to see through men's stories that far outpaced men's ability to build better lies. There wasn't much margin in trying to cheat a supercomputer. To be fair, men remained men, and many still tried.

That was something I hadn't thought about. How was it that Pudge's ex-boyfriend, Trevor, managed to carry out his cheating on her? I mean, sometimes it happens, but usually it the guy's new woman running the cover-up. That levels the intelligence playing field some. The man is still usually the weak link. Trevor's girl wasn't born a girl, and didn't have the strength, speed, endurance, or intelligence advantages that biological women have since the change.