No More Room in the Basement

"Hippy turned hipster," Harry muttered under his breath, and smiled to himself.

"Let there be no doubt about it," the hipster intoned, "monogamy has many social and psychological advantages. However, in a recent study of the Personality and Social Psychology Review, it was reported that there is no empirical evidence whatsoever that people in a monogamous relationship fare any better than people in nonmonogamous relationships in terms of happiness, health, sexual satisfaction, emotional intimacy or relationship longevity."

"Bullshit," Harry said, loud enough for the people a couple of rows ahead of him to turn around and glare at him.

"Not everyone believes in monogamy," Phillips continued, "but everyone lives as though they do. Because we have been conditioned to believe that sexual desire is meant for one person, and one person only, we all think of ourselves as either betraying or betrayed. We all feel either jealous or guilty. Infidelity is such a problem because we take monogamy for granted, as if it is the norm. Perhaps we should take infidelity for granted, instead.

"Let me ask you all: if monogamy is natural, then why do we have to fight ourselves to remain monogamous? Why are 95% of mammalian species nonmonogamous? Why must we deny our instincts and desires if monogamy is the natural default? The answer is simple: monogamy is not natural. It is man-made."

Harry shifted in his seat and peered around the room, looking for someone with whom to identify.

"Now, there is no doubt that monogamy is a better choice for some people. I would argue, however, that monogamy is not a beneficial choice for most people. Looking around at all of you, it is likely that you are far too young to have been involved in a long-term relationship. For the older people in the room, you have probably noticed that sex is a lot more exciting, intense and mutually satisfactory at the beginning of a long relationship than it is after twenty, ten or even five years into a relationship."

Harry sat in silence with his arms folded.

"Why is that? For men, generally, they enjoy having sex with their long-term partner for years -- decades -- into their relationship. In many, if not most, long-term relationships, the men never seem to grow tired of having sex with the same partner. Women, however, often display a much lower libido years into a new relationship. Studies validate this premise.

"There was a study conducted in 2012 by the University of Guelph in Ontario. Researchers asked both men and women how satisfied they were with their relationship, their sexual satisfaction and their sexual desire. For men, there was virtually no change whatsoever in all three of these ratings. Women were also fairly consistent over time in regard to their satisfaction with their relationships and sex lives. However, for each additional month of their relationship, women showed a dramatic decrease in sexual desire. Now, this has nothing to do with the women's age. Older women in the first year of their relationships submitted higher ratings for sexual desire than younger women in the second year of theirs. Regardless of age, the longer the relationship, the lower the score."

He paused a moment to let his last statement sink in, and he took a swig of water from a bottle while he surveyed the room.

"Moreover," he continued, "further studies indicate that when a woman strays outside of her relationship for sexual excitement, she experiences a peak in libido not only with her new partner, but with her established partner as well. We all acknowledge that hormones play an important role in libido; however, we should not downplay the importance of a woman who simply feels sexy. For many women, feeling attractive is the male equivalent of the little blue pill."

Harry suddenly stood and shouted, "So are you telling us that cheating is okay? Maybe we should all just run around and fuck whoever we want. Is that it?"

The room filled with gasps, murmurs and laughter, and heads spun to the back of the room. Phillips wore an amused expression while he waited for the din to subside.

"Of course not, sir," he responded at last. "Cheating is a violation of trust, which is one of the keys to a socially monogamous relationship. I can see there are some confused expressions in the room, so allow me to explain the difference between a socially monogamous and a sexually monogamous relationship. Social monogamy simply means that two people make a commitment to love each other exclusively. Such an arrangement requires love, trust, respect, communication, honesty, and so forth. But none of that has anything whatsoever to do with sex. Sex is merely a physical act. All too often, people make the mistake of equating sex with love, and that relationship is not always present. One can have sex without love, and love without sex.

"A couple can have a relationship where there is social monogamy, but not sexual monogamy -- so long as the those elements I just mentioned remain intact. In fact, there is ample evidence to suggest that nonmonogamy is actually a much healthier form of relationship, with greater benefits in terms of the reported levels of happiness, sexual satisfaction, sexual desire, and health.

"Couples who employ an open marriage concept communicate better than monogamous couples. They rate themselves as more secure in their relationships, and are happier and healthier. They also tend to be better educated, less concerned with wealth, and more likely to practice safe sex.

"I'm not suggesting that nonmonogamy or polyamory is for everyone, and it certainly would not fix a damaged relationship. There are many factors involved in having a successful relationship -- none of which involve sex. But for a couple with a healthy relationship and wildly divergent libidos, nonmonogamy can solve many of the issues that couples have."

"Bullshit!" Harry shouted. He abruptly rose from his chair, stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

***

It took so long for his burger to arrive that Harry had forgotten what he had ordered. He had spotted a little dive bar on the return home, and decided to settle his grumbling belly with some greasy food and a few cold beers. His mind was still reeling from that ridiculous speech he had witnessed, and he couldn't understand why the voice had directed him to attend that lecture. It had been a colossal waste of time.

He had just taken the first bite of his burger when he heard a familiar voice with an irritating British accent.

"Well, fancy meeting you here," Phillips said with a wry tone. He sat on the stool next to Harry and ordered a scotch.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Harry grumbled.

"Well, given that my hotel is just next door, this would seem to be the logical place for me to be at this hour," Phillips said in his arrogant manner. "The question is: what are you doing here?"

"I was hungry," Harry replied.

"That's all well and good, but what I meant was: what compelled you to attend my lecture today?"

Harry took another large bite of his burger, which gave him an excuse to pause before he answered. Answering truthfully wasn't an option, so he decided to redirect the conversation.

"Do you really believe all that bullshit?" Harry asked, staring straight ahead. "Don't you understand the value in two people being faithful to each other?"

"Of course I do," Phillips responded. He seemed amused by the conversation. "Perhaps you misunderstood me. Social monogamy is extremely valuable in many ways. What I don't find advantageous in any way is sexual monogamy."

Harry turned to face him now. "So you think people should just run around and fuck whoever they want." It was a statement more than a question.

"Why not? Where is the nobility in sexual monogamy?"

Harry shook his head and returned to his burger. He took another large bite and washed it down with a gulp of beer.

"One man, one woman," he said. "That's the way it should be. That's the way it has always been."

"Actually," Phillips corrected him, "historically speaking, sexual monogamy isn't the norm. Anthropologists say that only one in six societies enforces monogamy as a rule. Many nonmonogamous cultures exist today in the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia. Monogamy is a relatively new, and mostly Western/Judeo-Christian, concept."

"Bullshit," Harry spat. "All you Brits are alike, you know that? I read stories all the time, written by wimpy pussies just like you. You're all a bunch of weak and pathetic cucks."

"Well, aren't you a delightful ray of sunshine," Phillips said with a laugh that irritated Harry to his core. They sat in silence for a moment. Harry stared straight ahead at the ballgame on the television, and he could see Phillips watching him out of the corner of his eye. He didn't enjoy being examined as if he were an animal in a zoo.

"I'm guessing that you're not married," Phillips said. Harry refused to respond, and continued staring straight ahead, pretending to be engrossed in the ballgame. "And I'm guessing that your ex-wife cheated on you."

Harry spun toward Phillips and glared at him. "You're a goddamned genius," he said.

"Did she love you?" Phillips asked in a calm tone.

"What the hell kind of question is that?" Harry said, his voice rising in both pitch and volume. "Of course she did. We were married for almost twenty years. She loved me to death. Right up to the point when she fucked some other guy."

"Interesting," Phillips said. "And how did that make you feel when you discovered that she had slept with another man?"

Harry's face reddened and his fists clenched. "How the fuck do you think I felt?" he snapped. "Angry. A burning, white-hot anger."

"Did you love her?" Phillips said in the same annoyingly calm tone.

"You're asking a lot of stupid fucking questions. Of course I loved her."

"And when you found out she slept with another man, you must have felt hurt, betrayed. You believed she didn't love you anymore. Maybe you thought you weren't good enough for her. Maybe you worried that the other guy was better than you, and that she loved him more."

"You're really starting to piss me off."

"And what would you say if I told you that what you felt wasn't anger, but fear and insecurity?"

"I'd say you're a fucking asshole, and you don't know what you're talking about."

Phillips laughed, and took another sip of his drink. "I like you, mate," he said. "I don't know why, but I do."

"Well, I'm glad you find me entertaining," Harry said.

"The thing is, in order to overcome such fear and insecurity, it takes tremendous courage. It's easy to just walk away, isn't it? There is no way to avoid feeling jealous. It's a natural reaction. It takes a great deal of strength to deal with that jealousy in a productive manner and acknowledge that the one you love is an individual person with independent desires. So all of this talk about wimpy, weak and pathetic -- what did you call them -- cucks? Well, that's just pure rubbish, isn't it?"

"Go fuck yourself," Harry snarled.

Suddenly, the lights dimmed and the room grew dark. The noise from the music and the patrons in the bar became silent, and the image on the television flickered. A message appeared on the screen. It read:

DONALD F. FUPRILS GOLDEN AGE ASSISTED LIVING CENTER 35 IRON DRAGON RD. CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA

Harry heard the voice once again.

"Set him free."

The mysterious, and now familiar, whispered voice spoke to him once more, piercing the silence. Harry sat, motionless on the bar stool and stared at the message on the screen. What did it mean? Was he being sent on yet another wild goose chase? Would that voice ever leave him alone?

Harry blinked, and the lights illuminated. The sounds of music and chattering returned to normal. He looked at Phillips, who was calmly sipping his scotch, and then looked at the television. The Redskins were still trailing the Giants by a score of 14-3.

"I don't suppose you heard that?" Harry said to Phillips.

"Heard what?" Phillips asked.

"And I'm betting you didn't see it either," Harry said, motioning to the television.

"Oh, I haven't been paying attention to the game, if that's what you mean. I don't care much for American football."

"Of course you don't," Harry grumbled. He gathered his belongings and paid his tab.

"Leaving already?" Phillips asked.

"Yeah," Harry said. "I guess I have somewhere I need to be."

***

The woman behind the desk appeared startled.

"I said, is there a man here by the name of Donald Fuprils?" Harry repeated, clearly agitated.

"Yes," the woman said, hesitantly, "there is."

"Well?" Harry said, impatiently. "Can I see him?"

"Umm...well, sir, visiting hours are over in just twenty minutes. Perhaps you can come back tomorrow."

"Perhaps," Harry said, "I can see him for twenty minutes right now."

The woman emitted a loud sigh and picked up her phone. After hanging up, she asked Harry to take a seat in the waiting room. Within moments, a large black man wearing a polo shirt and khaki pants appeared. He wore some sort of badge affixed upon a lanyard around his neck.

"Sir, I'm here to escort you to Mr. Fuprils' room," he stated with a serious expression.

Harry wanted to ask why he needed an escort to visit an old man, but he just wanted to end the experience as quickly as possible. In the back of his mind, he knew that if he didn't follow the voice's directions, Marilyn would likely never return.

He trudged down the hallway, a few paces behind the security guard, and was eventually led into a small room. A frail old man sat in a wheelchair by the window, peering out into the settling darkness. Harry approached him with some hesitance, and pulled up a chair beside him. He looked back toward the door and noticed the security guard was standing just outside the door in the hallway.

"Donald?" Harry said. For the first time, the old man appeared to notice Harry's presence in the room, and his eyes widened as he smiled a toothless grin. His skin looked like a crumpled-up paper bag. He must be 100 years old, Harry thought.

"A visitor!" Donald said with a weak voice. "Why, I haven't had a visitor since..."

He seemed to trail off in thought. Harry looked at his watch and realized that he needed to get right to the point.

"Donald, my name is Harry," he said. "I was told to come here to visit you. Do you know why?"

Donald looked at him with a confused expression.

"Does the name Marilyn Chambers mean anything to you?" Harry asked, grasping for straws. The old man shook his head. "Behind the Green Door? Ginger Lynn? Linda Lovelace? Do any of these names ring a bell?"

More head-shaking.

"Do you know who I am? Harry Carvohi? Does that name mean anything to you?" Another head shake. Frustrated, Harry searched for more names. There had to be some reason the voice had brought him to this place.

"Adam Phillips!" he said. No reaction. "Melinda? Melinda Carvohi?"

Donald's eyes lit up once more. "I had a wife named Melinda once," he said.

"Maybe that's it," Harry stated.

"I killed her," Donald said, flatly, and Harry's expression fell. "I came home one day, and found her in bed with another man," Donald continued, calmly, as if he had told the story a hundred times. "I kept a handgun in my sock drawer. Pulled it out of there, and shot her. Shot him, too. Killed them both."

"I think you did what any normal man would do in that circumstance," Harry responded after a pause. "Men step up. They take action. I admire that."

"I got life in prison," Donald continued, as if Harry hadn't spoken. "No parole."

"So what are you doing here, then?" Harry asked.

"Overcrowding in the prison," Donald explained. "So they put me in this place. I guess they figure at 93 years old, I'm not gonna break out of here. Still, they make me wear this goddamned thing." He patted a bracelet on his ankle.

"Well," Harry said, "I'm sorry to hear that. I think you did what any normal man would've done. You made sure that justice was served."

"Justice," the old man said with a smirk. "Yeah, I thought so, too. I felt pretty good about what I'd done. I even got anonymous fan mail sent to me in prison. Can you believe it?"

Harry chuckled softly. The old man's smile faded, and he returned to gazing out the window.

"I'm 93 years old," he repeated, "and I haven't experienced freedom in nearly seventy years. There is a whole world out there that I never got a chance to see. I think of all the experiences I could have had: having children, travelling, birthday parties, weddings and family gatherings. One bad decision and it cost me the rest of my life."

Harry leaned forward in his chair and rubbed his forehead.

"I'm going to die soon," Donald continued, "and when I do, it'll be like I never existed. There isn't one person on this planet who will even remember that I ever lived. My whole life has been just...wasted."

***

Harry sat in his favorite recliner in the basement, overlooking the stage. He had driven home in silence and reflected upon the words of the two men he had been encountered that day. It made little sense to him why the voice had insisted he travel all that distance to meet two complete strangers. Nothing about his entire experience, from the first time he heard that voice in his basement, made any sense.

When he had arrived home, he announced to the empty room that he had done everything that had been asked of him. He called out Marilyn's name again and again, waiting for the green door to open, before he finally gave up and slumped into his recliner. Hours passed, and he continued to stare at the door as he slowly sipped a glass of whiskey.

At last, the door opened. Three attractive women wearing black robes slowly marched into the room, followed by three more. In the center of the six was Marilyn. She wore a white robe, and was blindfolded. The six women in black led Marilyn to the center of the stage and disrobed her. They then gently lowered her to the mattress on the floor.

Something about this scene was familiar to Harry, and he smiled at the realization that they were reenacting the climactic scene from Behind the Green Door. He recalled the scene in vivid detail, as it had been permanently burnt into his brain as an adolescent. He unzipped his fly and took his cock out.

The black-robed women remained clothed, and they tended to Marilyn from all angles. Two of the women gently rubbed Marilyn's perky tits and squeezed her nipples. Two others stroked her thighs, massaged her feet, and lightly brushed their fingers over her pussy. The last two kissed her lips and neck.

Marilyn writhed on the mattress in ecstasy as the six women continued to cover every inch of her body with light touches, kisses and licks. One of the women moved between Marilyn's legs and lovingly stroked her tongue over Marilyn's labia, and she moaned softly in response. Harry's cock hardened, and he stroked it slowly as he remained fixated on the action on stage.

All six women had their mouths on Marilyn now, sucking her tits, kissing her lips and neck, licking her pussy, and sucking her toes. The green door opened, and a tall black man slowly sauntered across the stage. He was bare-chested, and wore a necklace of lion teeth around his neck. His face was streaked with white paint, and he wore white tights with a large hole cut around the crotch. His long black cock stood half-erect and bobbed up and down as he walked.

Marilyn tensed and shook with what appeared to be an orgasm as the woman between her legs continued to lick and suck her clit. The woman then moved aside, allowing the black man to take her position. He knelt in front of Marilyn and positioned his now fully-erect dick at her entrance. She writhed and bucked in pleasure, and gave a low moan as he entered her.