Shanda's Awakening Pt. 03

This is purely a work of fiction. All characters depicted are over 18. I am not a writer by profession, nor do I aspire to be. I simply write for my own personal enjoyment and because I like stories with characters I can relate to who look like me. I love POSITIVE & negative comments that are aimed at being constructive rather than those that are malignant and rude from persons who do not have a single published story on this site. I hope you enjoy the story. If you don't, that's fine. Rather than write ugly comments, consider using your imagination and publishing the stories you would like to read.

Shanda's Awakening: Part 3, Final Chapter

The weekend came and Shanda along with Grayson boarded a plane to Miami to attend the private swingers event. Shanda had grappled with herself to the point of mental flagellation but in the end her flesh and curiosity won out. Grayson was patient with her, soothing her fears and answering her incessant questions. He promised her that he didn't have any expectations of either of them doing anything if she didn't feel comfortable.

Shanda trusted Grayson. His patience and his presence never failed to make her feel treasured and at ease. Shanda had never realized until now how much she needed to feel safe and how long it had been since she'd felt that way. Having that sense of safety with Grayson changed everything. She no longer felt that she needed to have all the answers or that she needed to shoulder every burden on her own. That realization hadn't come easily. In fact, it had come as the result of their first major argument.

A week prior, Shanda had been driving to Grayson's house in the pouring rain. She had just reached the outskirts of the city when her wipers stopped working. The rain was coming down in sheets and there was no way she could keep driving without risking life and limb. She pulled over and called roadside assistance but the rain and an 8 car pile up had caused major delays in assistance response time. Shanda sat in her car to wait. About 40 minutes into her wait Grayson texted her asking what she wanted for dinner. She told him to choose without her because she was stranded waiting for help. The message had barely been sent before he called asking that she send her location. Even in the pouring rain, Grayson reached her before roadside assistance did.

"You really didn't have to come. I could have waited," Shanda said.

"Really?" Grayson asked with tight lips.

"Yes, it isn't a big deal. I didn't need you to make an unnecessary trip out in this terrible weather. I really would have been fine."

"Could you stop talking please?" Grayson asked, obviously annoyed.

Shanda sat quietly until roadside towed her car. Grayson drove them to his home in uncomfortable silence. "If you're not going to talk to me then you could just take me home," Shanda said.

"I don't want you at home. I want you here with me."

"Then tell me what's wrong. Why are you angry with me?"

"Is this all I am to you? Someone you just fuck?" Grayson asked angrily.

"No, of course not. You know that's not true."

"That's how it feels when you need something or you need help and you don't say anything. You can trust me with your body, but not with other aspects of your life. Shanda, you matter to me dammit! I get that you're independent. I know you can handle it, but if you're in trouble or stranded you don't sit and wait alone for roadside assistance!"

"I'm sorry. I'm just used to doing everything by myself. Even in my marriage it was easier to do things myself rather than depend on Chad and chance being disappointed," Shanda explained sullenly.

"Baby, what happened with Chad?" Grayson asked. He had run into this wall with her hype-independence before. Shanda had a completely automatic denial of her need for help even knowing that acceptance of it would make her life easier.

"We were married for 11 years. Around the 7 or 8 year mark he started hanging out more with his friends. In hindsight I can see that he was depressed. We had dreams and goals going into our marriage. Somewhere along the way, Chad hit a wall. I didn't. At the time, I didn't think it was a competition but secretly I believe he felt that he was a failure by comparison. Chad eventually dropped out of college and started occasionally getting high. Before long he was always high. He couldn't keep a job and after a while he didn't even pretend to try."

"By that time I was working two jobs and going to school for my Masters. I had stopped putting money in our joint checking account because he would take it for drugs, so I started hiding the money in odd places in the house. I remember it being the beginning of the month so the rent was due. I was already a little behind but the landlord knew about Chad so he cut me a little slack. Well one day I went to my stash and the money was gone. I screamed and cursed at Chad but that didn't do any good. So, I talked to the landlord but he didn't have any more sympathy to spare so he gave me an eviction notice."

"Almost around the same time I noticed I was losing weight, feeling nauseous every day, and eating cornstarch like it was the best thing since sliced bread. I was pregnant, broke, and about to be evicted with two small children. Chad was too fucking high to be concerned," Shanda said with bitterness. "So I called my best friend Renata to borrow $500 that I knew she really couldn't afford to give me but she did."

"So you were able to pay the rent?"

"I'm getting to that. After Renata dropped off the money, I called my mother in law and asked me if I could bring the kids over the following week for a visit. She said yes. So I had the kids pack a bag and went to visit Chad's mom, Marguerite. The minute she looked at me she sent the kids in the yard to play. She knew I was pregnant. I don't know how she knew but she did. I broke down and told her everything. She took me with her to the bank. She gave me three thousand dollars and said, "You're a grown woman and Chad is still a boy. You do whatever you feel you need to do."

"What happened after that?" Grayson asked but he already felt like he knew the answer.

"I took the money. I gave Renanta her money back because God knows she couldn't afford it any more than I could, and I had an abortion. I never told Chad. I tried to stay married. I tried to push him to get help. I tried to honor the vows I took but my heart wasn't in it," Shanda said quietly. "I resented him with every fiber of my being. I resented him because he had the luxury of being oblivious to everything I had done just for us to survive. I resented that I had shielded everyone from his addiction and in the aftermath I was seen as the villain. But more than anything I resented that I couldn't even think about the baby I carried as a miracle. I had to think of my baby as a burden, as a thing that I needed to be rid of. I could have forgiven him for everything else but not that."

Shanda took a breath and continued with her story. "I moved out a couple of months later while he was out on a binge. It took him four days to even realize we were gone. From that point on I vowed that I would put myself or my children in a position to be dependent on anyone else again. I didn't care how hard I had to work or what I had to sacrifice to keep that vow, " Shanda said with steel in her voice.

"Shanda, baby I'm so sorry," Grayson said as he pulled her to him to hug her tenderly. "I'm nothing like Chad, but I get that I'll have to prove that to you. All I ask is that you give me the chance to. I love you and I meant what I said when I told you that it's with singular devotion. No one else and nothing else would come before you. There isn't anything I wouldn't do to make sure you're happy and provided for in all the ways you need."

In Grayson's arms Shanda knew in her heart that his words were true. If he could be patient and understanding with her, she could work on dismantling her need to carry every burden on her own. So, for the first time since she had last laid her head against her father's chest, Shanda shut her eyes, relaxed, and believed.

**********

On the ride to the airport, Shanda finally asked the question Grayson had been secretly dreaded answering.

"So mentioned that you had problems with monogamy in other relationships but you never said how all this started for you."

Despite Grayson's assurances to Shanda, he was scared. It had been a long time since he had felt this way about a woman. It had been even longer since he had dated anyone outside the lifestyle who mattered enough for him to open himself up to offer a glimpse of his world. He worried how Shanda would take it. Would she be scared, disgusted, intrigued, turned on, or would she jump on a moral high horse? He didn't know and that left him feeling unsettled.

He was only hoping for openness at this point. She was here with him, taking this trip despite her reservations. She was trying. She didn't balk at the idea or turn him down flat, so that was something. The way he felt about her, he could absolutely see being with her for the long haul. Hell she had his nose so open that he could even entertain the notion of monogamy with her, but he wasn't confident enough in his past to take that chance. He figured it was just best to lay all his cards on the table by telling the truth and allowing the chips to fall where they may.

"I had been in a relationship with Lucinda for about three and a half years. Things were good between us. Lucinda was pregnant with our son and working on her thesis in sports medicine while I was steadily climbing the ranks in the military. I was happy and in love. I had even been seriously considering marriage. Then I met Jasmine," Grayson said with a self-deprecating shake of his head.

"Jasmine had been a new lieutenant on the base and fine as fuck. I wasn't in love with her. It was just base attraction and it was mutual," Grayson explained. He didn't add that it only took two days before he had her bent over some stacked pallets behind the barracks fucking her where anyone could have walked up on them together.

"I made up lies and changed my schedule to create alibis to cheat with Jasmine and keep Lucinda placated. It worked up until Jasmine decided she wanted a more permanent situation with me that we had never discussed. Jasmine did a little digging. She found out where Lucinda and I lived off base and where Lucinda worked. Jasmine made it her business to come to Lucinda 'woman to woman' to share text messages and pictures with Lucinda that brought all my bullshit to light. The damage had been irreparable. Lucinda packed her belongings and moved with our newborn son on the other side of the country. Our relationship never recovered. I regret that more than I can tell you."

"At first I blamed Jasmine but that didn't keep me from fucking her, making her believe she had won a prize while I systematically fucked my way through her circle of friends and her coworkers. She screamed, hollered, stalked, damaged property, and cried. I laughed, Grayson said with a grimace. "I didn't have not a single solitary fuck to spare. I'll admit it was not my finest moments but I told you I can be an asshole under the right circumstances."

"Yes, you did. So that experience made you decide to pursue open relationships?" Shanda asked.

"Yes, but not immediately. One of Jasmine's coworkers who I had gotten sexually involved with was named Elisha. She put me in check and in time she became the catalyst in how I navigated my future relationships."

"And how did she do that?" Shanda inquired.

"She called me on all my bullshit. She wouldn't listen to me play victim in a situation I'd created," Grayson said with a chuckle as he shared a memory with her.

**********

"You know you brought all this damn drama on yourself right? If you like fucking other people you need to say that from the beginning," Elisha said with more than a little attitude. She had come to fuck not sit and listen to this nigga play a sad song over and over like he hadn't done a damn thing wrong.

"So I guess hubby knows you're here," Grayson said, taking note of the bridal set on her left hand.

"As a matter of fact he does. He knows exactly where I am and what I'm doing. No one can blow up our spot or drop a bombshell on our relationship," Elisha said matter-of-factly. "It's only cheating if they don't know and don't agree."

Grayson scoffed at that. "Jasmine was crazy."

"That's a lie and you know it. Jasmine wasn't crazy. She was typical; a fucking stereotype just like you. She didn't owe your girlfriend loyalty. You did. The way you maneuver gives side bitches the power to fuck your entire world up every time. Which by the way she did, playboy."

Grayson ignored the jibe. "So for real. Your husband knows you're fucking me and has no problem with it?"

"That's exactly what I'm telling you. Look, she said, opening her phone to show Grayson his name along with the GPS location to where they were meeting."

"So what happens when you go home? How is that not weird, him knowing another man fucked you?" Grayson asked.

"Honestly? When I get home he will fuck me ten times better because he knows another man has been in his pussy," Elisha answered. "It's hotter than you can even imagine."

"Wow, that sounds hard to believe," Grayson said, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Your dick says otherwise so don't knock it. We weren't always this way. We both cheated and caused a lot of hurt and damage to ourselves and to the people we got involved with. But we loved each other and we wanted to work it out so we went to a marriage counselor, both together and separately. It was there that we were asked the question that changed our lives."

"What was the question?" Grayson asked.

"After learning our past relationship history, he asked if we had ever considered a relationship dynamic other than traditional monogamy. We'd never thought about it. Mainstream society doesn't teach us to think about marriage in anything but the traditional way. It took some time because neither of us wanted to be the first one to say that monogamy wasn't for us. We had to change how we defined ourselves and our marriage. We had to understand that our marriage was still valid and beautiful in its own right even if it didn't follow traditional norms."

"What did you do? How did you work it out?" Grayson asked, clearly intrigued.

"We sat down together and created rules of what we could and couldn't deal with. Those rules aren't static; they change all the time but we trust each other to follow those rules implicitly and our relationship is more solid now than it's ever been."

"This shit is crazy. I find it hard to believe that the average woman would go for that," Grayson said.

"How many women do you think are okay with sitting at home being blindly faithful to a man that's fucking over them? No answer for that one huh? You believe most women wouldn't go for it because you've never asked. Like most men your ego is too fragile to put that option out there for a woman to enjoy. You'd rather think of her as a Madonna or as someone whose sexuality is tied inextricably to yours. Because how could she possibly have a fully developed sexual identity that has nothing to do with you? How dare she desire sexual gratifcation from someone other than you?"

"I don't know," he said doubtfully.

By now Elisha was fully dressed. "Hey, she said, I'm merely offering food for thought. What have you got to lose when the one who mattered is already gone? In either case, call me. You have good dick and you know how to use it," Elisha said as she walked out of the hotel room.

**********

"Elisha sounds like something else," Shanda said.

"She definitely is. I consider her one of my dearest friends. But getting back to your question, after that I started thinking back to previous relationships and realized they had ended similarly. I could be happy and completely fulfilled in a relationship. It didn't matter how pretty the woman was, how she kept house, how well she cooked, her ability to engage in conversation, or how good in bed she was. At some point, if we were together long enough I would cheat."

"You don't know that for certain," Shanda said.

"No I don't. What I do know is that I could love, physically desire, and hold a woman in the highest regard and still cheat. My past is proof of that. I want to grow with someone; with you. But I know that the only way to do that is to do it honestly, with all the cards on the table. I won't expect anything from you that I can't give myself."

"Do you still love her? Lucinda?" Shanda asked.

"No, I don't. Sometimes I question if I even knew the meaning of the word back then. I think I was trying to check off boxes. Is she pretty? Check. Is she educated? Check. Everything checked, but I never honestly asked myself if she was compatible with me. And not in the ways that society or my upbringing might dictate but in the ways I needed."

"And you and Elisha are still lovers." Shanda stated succinctly.

Grayson didn't bother with disassembling. "Yes, we are. Does that bother you?"

"I haven't decided yet," Shanda answered as she rubbed her thumb across the veins of his hand. Even though Grayson had told her that their situation was about honesty and not fairness, Shanda couldn't help that she was a fair-minded person. She didn't know if she would feel territorial knowing Grayson was intimately involved with someone or not but she knew in all fairness she didn't have a leg to stand on when it came to Cassidy. Grayson wanted the option to be with other women left open while she wanted to be with Cassidy and him everyday if she could be. Ultimately it might be Grayson telling her that he couldn't handle her desires and not the other way around.

*************

Cassidy was glad that she'd drawn the short straw to attend a legal conference at a women's college in D.C. It gave her something else to do besides think about Shanda for the entire weekend. Mentally all she could do was shake her head and berate herself for being a damned fool yet again. The shy vixen had completely gotten under her skin and she didn't have the slightest desire to extricate herself. If anything she wanted nothing more than to immerse herself and integrate herself more completely in Shanda's life. Cassidy missed her. Forty eight hours hadn't passed, yet it felt like weeks since she kissed Shanda or cuddled with her in bed. Maybe it was because she was a mom but Shanda gave the best cuddles, Cassidy thought randomly.

Shanda had thrown a monkey wrench in her entire game plan. At this point there was no denying that she had slipped, toppled, plummeted into loving Shanda Carson. Admittedly she had been taken with her before they'd shared a bed. The sex was phenomenal, there was absolutely no denying that, but that was largely superficial. Shanda was sweet, beautiful, and caring. Cassidy had thought she was beyond needing approval or validation but she had found innocently enough that she was not.

She and Shanda had gone shopping as they usually did. Of course with it being after Halloween holiday marketing was in full force with Christmas displays in full regalia to sucker all the saps of the world. Shanda, she thought with a smile, was a sap. The mall had created a pseudo Christmas Wonderland complete with a classic carousel and fake snow. Cassidy rolled her eyes at the lameness of it all, but she would never forget the joy on Shanda's face or the sparkling wonder in her eyes. It was so beautiful and innocent. Without thinking, Cassidy pulled Shanda into a kiss right there in the middle of the mall for anyone to see.