My Time at Club Oase

"Oh." was all I could answer.

Denise babbled on telling me that they now had an open marriage and that they were members of Swing Time club in Mainz and that they owed it all to me. I turned to her husband and asked how he felt about it and his rueful response was that they were regulars at the Swing Time every Wednesday and that was his favorite day of the week.

"Mine too!" exclaimed Miss irrepressible Denise.

"And what happens on Wednesday's?" I asked.

And without a second's hesitation Denise exclaimed, "I get gangbanged!"

And her husband smiled and said, "And I get to watch and participate."

And then they both went into the Egyptian room being trailed by several men.

Inge looked at me and smiled and then said, "She's bad for business. We don't need her here giving it away. Go tell her that she better only have sex in there with her husband or she will owe Gerhart 100 euros."

Chapter Thirty Two

That spring Inge graduated at the top of her class in bio electrical engineering but she said she had no plans to pursue a career in her field and when I asked why not she told me that she was already pursuing a career in her field and then laughed. But I could sense a growing restlessness on her part and was not surprised when on a summer's day morning over our morning coffee she said to me: "Do you want the good news first, or the better news first?"

"Give me the better news first" I said with a laugh looking up from the morning paper and then seeing the very serious look on her face.

"The better news is: I get to keep the apartment and you get to have it all to yourself for the same amount of rent you are paying to share it with me."

Suddenly my heart leaped into my throat. What was happening?. Where was Inge going? Did she have a secret lover? Was she getting married and moving in with him? Had she decided to move to Greece as we often joked on bitterly cold winter days? Inge was my best friend, the best friend I had ever had in my life. Everyday was an adventure for us shared together and I could not conceive of that ending and now she was telling me the 'better news' was that I would be living alone! If that was the 'better' news what was the 'good' news?

"The good news is," she said, "I have a job with Siemens Electronics doing research at their research labs in Santa Barbara, California."

"What?"

"I would have told you sooner but I finally decided last night to accept their offer. The pay is very good, although nothing compared to what I make at the club, but when I hesitated in accepting they also offered me housing and all relocation costs plus a percentage of any profits from my discoveries. That could be significant because in the last year of my studies I began to pursue the interrelationship between electric impulses and brain wave activity in Parkinson's disease when....."

"Wait! Stop! I don't understand any of that but you are leaving me? You are moving to California? You're the only friend I have here."

"I know, I know but it's time for me to put my education to use. To get on with my life and to prove to myself that I have more to offer to the world than just what's between my legs."

That last statement made me angry and I left the table and went to my room dressed and then walked for more than an hour thinking about what she had said and why it angered me so much.

I realized that I was being selfish about not wanting her to go. I knew that neither of us thought of the club as any more than a stop gap in our lives and I knew that, unlike a lot of the girls there, Inge had given thought to her future after leaving and I knew that I should be doing the same. I then realized I was angry at myself for not having done so myself. I was adrift in a sea of German excess. I had a very affluent lifestyle, a job that was not only fun but filled my sexual needs and paid me well for fulfilling the sexual needs of others and I enjoyed their sincere appreciation when I did. But I was now 35 years old and knew that my looks would not last forever and knew that other than Inge I had no one to share my life with. It had almost been two years since John and I split up and I did not know where he was, just that I was still married to him. What were my plans? What did I want from life?"

Chapter Thirty Three

Inge left for the states the next month and I continued at the club for another eight months. When I would go down to the basement to my car I would notice Inge's roadster, nearly identical to mine, collecting dust in her parking place next to mine, a reminder each day to how much I missed her.

We exchanged emails on a daily basis and I could tell that she had an exciting life and was pursuing a field of inquiry that was developing into something very significant. She loved Santa Barbara and most of California north of there but hated the Los Angeles area with all of its traffic and congestion. She had taken up surfing and was becoming quite good at it. She even sent me a video clip of her riding a wave and I noticed in that clip a handsome typical California surfer dude type that she seemed very at ease with laughing together in a part of the clip.

Not long after that the emails grew less frequent and in the ones we did exchange I could sense for the first time that there was something in her life that she was holding back from me. Then she no longer returned my emails.

I waited almost a month before swallowing my pride and calling her and waking her up one morning. As she came out of her sleep I was questioning her on just what was going on and suddenly she began to cry. In all the time that I had known Inge I had never seen her cry or even come close to crying and now she was blubbering while trying to catch her breath and saying over and over again, "But I love him so much."

Finally she settled down and told me that she had stopped answering my emails because she was trying to deny her past. Jason, the guy in the video clip, had proposed to her and she had accepted, then a day later she told him that she didn't know if she was ready or not to get married.

"And why did you tell him that if you love him so much?" I asked.

"Because I love him so much I want no secrets between us and he doesn't know anything about my past except that I'm from Germany and once attended Oxford."

"Then tell him girl and if he's the man you think he is he won't care."

I could hear Inge sniffling on the other end of the line and then muttering in German.

"What?"

"I'm sorry, what I was saying was yes, I know, but what if I lose him?"

"If you lose him over that then you have lost nothing." was my response.

"But he hasn't been with that many women, I'm only the fourth woman he has ever had sex with and after our first time together he said to me that he did not care where I had learned my tricks but he owed the guy a big thank you. Right then I wanted to say to him it wasn't a guy, it was a whole lot of guys but I didn't have the courage."

"What does he do?" I asked changing the subject.

"He's the city manager of Santa Barbara. Politically active as well and if I married him I could be a big detriment in the future to his career aspirations if my past ever came out and that's another reason I haven't been able to bring myself to tell him."

"Well your choices are to turn him down and break his heart and yours or to tell him and take the CHANCE of breaking his heart and yours, but you also have the chance that he will accept your past for just what it is: Your past."

"But what if he accepts me for who I am, not who I was, and we marry and then at some point my past is exposed in a political campaign or something?"

"Well that is a chance you and he will have to take, but, it's just a chance and if he does not care about your past your feelings for one another are not a chance; they are a certainty."

"OK, OK schatzie, you make sense, but now I have to get to work. I will let you know what happens and will explain to him everything this weekend. If he has trouble dealing with who I was and who I am, because who I was will always be a part of who I am, then he is not the man for me. But, oh god do I love him." she said, beginning to sniffle again.

Chapter Thirty Four

Three days later I got a call from her and the first thing I heard after saying a sleepy 'hello' was, "Do you want to be my bridesmaid?"

"When will the wedding be? I hope soon. The weather here is awful and southern Californian sunshine sounds very very tempting."

"So does that mean if I get married in the summer you won't come schatzie?"

"Don't be silly. You know I would come even if you were getting married in Antarctica in the winter."

"You mean in the summer, the winter is the summer down there."

"No, I meant the winter because, even though you are a good friend, the best I have ever had, I would only go to your wedding in Antarctica if you had it in the winter because it would be too damn cold there in the summer which is their winter."

"Schatzie what do you mean by 'their' winter, nobody lives down there, do you mean all those little men in tuxedos?"

I had to think about that and then the image of a wedding party made up of penguins came to me and I started laughing with Inge again for the first time in many months.

Chapter Thirty Five

Weddings and their aftermath was on my mind that evening at the club and I told a few of the girls there that were Inge's friends the good news and we were chattering away when I heard a familiar voice say, "Denise?"

When I turned around there was John.

"What are you doing here?" was all I could say.

"I'm in Frankfurt for a meeting." he lied.

"Well good for you, enjoy your meeting." I said turning back to my friends.

"I want to go to a private room with you." was his response.

"I choose who I go with and I choose not to go with you." I said in a shaking voice.

"Not even for old time's sake?"

"No, not even for old times sake John. I may be a whore and a complete slut but I decide who I will be a whore and complete slut for."

"Well if you won't come to a private room with me then I will have to do this here." he said handing me some paperwork.

"So you came back to find me to divorce me. Why now? It's been almost two years." I said after perusing the paperwork.

"I'm engaged."

"It seems everyone is getting engaged," I said with a bit of sadness as my voice trailed off.

"Are you engaged as well?"

"Not me, a friend." But would I ever find someone I thought and my eyes began to tear up.

"Let's go to a private room." I said I did not want to have the signing and final parting to take place in front of the other girls, some of whom did not like me and who would take too much pleasure in seeing my discomfort.

In the room I signed the paperwork and wished John well and was about to tell him that I regretted the way our marriage had ended when he said to me, "Do I have to pay like everyone else or will you give me a going away freebie?"

"You haven't changed John, have you? I feel sorry for the girl you are engaged to. Have you told her why your first marriage failed? No, you haven't have you? You know what ended our marriage? The deceit. Maybe if you had been honest with me we could have worked something out. And will you tell your fiance that you tried to have sex with your wife one last time? I don't think so. Get out!"

John pulled 50 euros out of his wallet and when I would not take it he set it on the table next to the bed and said, "OK, now you are paid, I should have known better than to expect a freebie from a whore."

When he said that to me I realized that I was in control here, totally in control, and I layed down on the bed spreading my legs with one leg dangling off the bed and said, "OK, I'm your whore, come fuck me."

I waited while he stripped off his clothes and shoes and then, as he approached me on the bed I smiled up at him and pushed the panic button.

Chapter Thirty Six

We never know where life will take us. A few months after watching my husband thrown out of the club naked, his clothes tossed unceremoniously after him, a man came into the club one afternoon looking for Inge. Turns out Clive was the infamous coxswain and we chatted and talked about that time in Inge's life and since. And then we talked some more, and some more and when he said he had an appointment and had to leave I was disappointed that he had not asked to go to a room with me. But then he asked if he could take me to dinner that evening.

I know it seems crazy, especially considering how and where we met, but Clive and I went out three times and he never put the moves on me. Finally, after our third date, I came into the apartment and called Inge in frustration.

When she answered the phone her first words were, "Do you know what time it is!"

"Inge, I have to know, the coxswain, did he take part?"

''WHAT!"

"The coxswain, did he do you?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Your first time, the Oxford Boating Club, when you did the crew, did the coxswain take part?"

"Well he directed things, but he never participated."

"He's gay then, I knew it!"

"Denise, what the hell are you talking about?"

"I've been seeing him and..."

"What?"

"He came into the club looking for you and we started seeing each other and I really like him and I think he really likes me but he seems to have no interest in me sexually."

I could only hear silence coming from the other end of the phone as Inge digested this.

Then she said, "Are you taking care of my apartment? My car, is it full of dust? I don't need the money, I have an interest in the patent, but maybe I should sell it? What do you think?

"Are you nuts? I'm asking you a serious question here and you go off on a tangent and yes, you should probably sell your car but as long as I am still living here not the apartment."

"OK, OK, off on a tangent to make sure you were sane and not calling me after some sort of a dream. You really did meet Clive? He was a nice guy but I never did him. Maybe he is gay? I guess the only way to know is to ask him." Inge said matter of factly.

Chapter Thirty Seven

The next time I was out with him I finally got up the courage to ask him and when I did there was a quizzical look and then a denial. "But, you never had sex with Inge that afternoon." was my answer to his denial.

"Well yes, that's true, but I was engaged at the time."

Then it hit me what a different man Clive was compared to John. But then why had he not made any advances toward me since we had been going out?

"But why have you not ...."

"Because I really like you and I don't want you to think that I think you're a whore just because..."

And before he could finish I said, "Just because I am a whore."

"I didn't say that," he interjected " I was going to say because you work at Club Oases."

"Yes, but Club Oases is basically a whorehouse."

"You can work at a whore house and..."

"And not be a whore; I don't think so."

"OK, OK Miss logical consistency. I don't give a shit that you're a whore! How's that? I just didn't want you to think I thought that."

I gave that some thought and then said to him, "Let's go up to my apartment and you can give me the final proof."

"The final proof? You mean the final proof that I don't give a shit that you're a whore?"

"No you silly goose, the final proof that you are not gay, let's go upstairs and bumsen" I said with a laugh grabbing him and kissing him.

"I'm all for that, as long as you don't think I'm too easy." he said then paused and asked, "But exactly what does bumsen mean in German?'

"Schatzie I will only be too happy to teach you the meaning."

Chapter Thirty Eight

Clive and I have been married for ten years now and we have a bright and energetic young daughter that loves surfing as much as her father. We live in a place called Penzance out near the tip of the Cornish Peninsula. I have only been back to the US twice in that time once to be Inge's bridesmaid and once for the christening of Inge's son who is now eleven and also is quite the avid young surfer but in the much warmer waters of California.

Inge still has the apartment. She says she needs to sell it but she does use it occasionally when she and Jason come to Germany. Last year we all met there to go to some wine festivals along the nearby Rhine river. Earlier my daughter Inge, yes, I named her after my best friend, asked me where Inge and I had met? Like all children she is very curious and I always try to answer her questions as honestly as possible but this time I paused and before I could respond Inge said, "We met while your mother was at university in Germany."

The four of us laughed at that and the two children looked at each other and wondered why we all thought that was funny but laughed too and then asked if they could go out to play.

When the children were out playing the conversation turned more serious between the four of us. Inge looked at me and smiled and said, "Maybe someday you can tell her the truth, but right now I thought she might be a little too young for that."

"I never want to lie to her but I don't want her to be ashamed of me." I answered.

"Inge smiled and said, "If it were my daughter I would tell her the truth when she was older and let her know that football players are not ashamed of using their bodies to make millions and fans of their public and models are not either so why should any woman be ashamed of doing the same using sex?"

"Yes, but being a sex worker has a large degree, rightly or wrongly, of societal disapproval and could hurt her chances to pursue another life later." Said Jason.

"I think that's society's problem," answered Inge.

"Well like all parents we want what is best for our children" Clive said matter of factly.

"And what is that? What is the single most important thing you wish for your child?" Inge asked of all of us.

It was quiet for a few minutes and then I said, "I want my daughter to love and to be loved and I think that is more important than any career choice."

"And Inge what do you think is the single most important thing you wish for your son?"

"That's easy, it's the same problem all men have to deal with, I want him to listen more to his big head then his little head."

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the International Graduate School of the University of Stockholm for starting me on this journey and Inge, wherever you are, I want to thank you for your inspiration.

Let me know what you think at MoonGladeOverWater@gmail.com

Below is an excerpt of another short novel, also based to a large extent on my life.

Travelers: A Travelogue of Sexual and Personal Exploration.

It all began one Saturday afternoon in May when my husband Jeremy and I ran into a dejected Lucinda Orubixe in the travel department of Seattle's biggest bookstore.

Lucinda is a backpacker who supports her travel habit by teaching in the Seattle school system as an elementary teacher. Jeremy and I do the same thing in the secondary school system of Seattle.

We first met Lucinda in Bilbao at The Guggenheim. Jeremy and I were on our way to Santiago de Compostela. It was the second summer that we had walked the ancient pilgrim route. The first summer we had started from le Puy-en-Velay and we were finally finishing the walk. I am not really big on hiking, but when you don't make a lot of money and you choose Europe to travel in it is about the only alternative to a Eurail Pass. I had done that before, in fact that was how I met Jeremy for the second time and we both agreed that if you really want to see Europe trains just don't go to many of the most interesting places. Since car rental was more than we could really afford we decided to spend the last two summers walking through France and Spain.