The House on Moore Street

Several seconds of silence passed as that detail was added to the image playing in her head before Susan commented, changing the subject entirely, "Dinner was delicious. In fact, every meal you've made has been wonderful. As good as you cook, you should be a chef."

"You think so?" Evie asked with genuine curiosity. She thought for a moment then admitted, "I do like to cook. Maybe I wasted my time going after a degree in library science."

"That's what you were studying, to be a librarian?"

"Yeah, kind of lame huh, majoring in library science with a minor in history?"

"No, I think that's wonderful, but I've got to admit it's a little surprising. You're not what I picture when I think about a librarian. For work, I go to libraries in different cities often to research local architectural history and tastes; seldom do I see a librarian I'd call pretty. That's not to say there aren't librarians who are pretty. I'm sure most that are attractive downplay their beauty to be taken seriously. But most of the librarian's I encounter are...well somewhat plain, some even dowdy."

Evie smiled, but kept quiet. She knew Susan realized she'd gone too far and was rambling, trying to extricate herself from the subject.

"Did you get your degree?" Susan asked, after she taken a swallow of beer.

"No. I'm short on credits."

"Why?"

Evie considered how to answer the question for a few seconds and decided on honesty. "I didn't finish because I was asked to leave school."

A half second after she'd again asked, "Why?" Susan's alcohol slowed brain registered the question. Remembering her mother told her Evie had been asked to leave because of some sort of scandal, she'd carefully avoided the subject...until now. "I'm sorry; maybe I'm being too nosy. Forget I asked that."

"No, no, I think talking about it may be part of the penitence I have to do. What happened wasn't really bad or wrong, it was just that we were caught. I believe if it hadn't been for who was involved, the situation would have never gotten so blown out of proportion."

Even though the question, "What happened?" was beating against her teeth trying to get out, Susan kept her mouth shut. Unintentionally she'd already embarrassed poor Evie enough, and could see the girl was uncomfortable about whatever it was that had occurred.

Evie brought the bottle to her lips and took a long pull, finishing her beer. She got up and headed for the kitchen asking, "Ready?" as she went.

"Sure, I'll take another," Susan replied feeling horrible she'd embarrassed her younger cousin. Smacking her palm against her forehead she thought, 'That was stupid.'

Evie came back through the kitchen's swinging door as the Voice in Susan's head said, "Don't worry, it'll be alright. Nothing can stop it now. The time is near. Be patient."

Handing Susan a fresh bottle, Evie took her seat again and twisted the cap off her bottle. After taking a swig, she looked her cousin right in the eye for a moment then began, "I was involved in a complicated relationship back at school. It was a beautiful relationship, but complicated because of the people involved. We did absolutely nothing wrong other than being caught, and maybe not showing enough discretion. I admit we could have been much more discreet, more careful about it, but we got too complacent, too sloppy about when and where we met. Even though it wasn't entirely my fault, we were all responsible for what happened, I left school because that was the only way to keep it quiet, and because I wanted to protect my friends' reputations. They had a lot to lose and I didn't want them held up to ridicule...it was just easier this way." Evie took another drink then lowered the bottle to her lap and looked down at it, scratching at the label with a thumbnail.

"You were protecting the boys?"

Evie looked up at her older cousin and smiled sadly, but was also a tad amused at Susan's shortsightedness. "No, the reason I left school wasn't because of Don or Keith, I was done with them by then." Her nail still scratching at the bottles label, Evie went on after a heartbeat, "I was involved with one of my professors and the wife of a...um...a faculty member."

Shocked at the revelation, Susan blurted out before she realized it, "You had sex with a man and another woman at the same time?"

Despite her discomfort talking about it, Evie was now thoroughly amused at Susan's naiveté and replied, "No not like that. I was involved with one of my female teachers and the Dean's wife."

It took all Evie had to keep from laughing at the look on Susan's face. Her cousin wore a look of total shock, amazement, and awe. Susan couldn't have been more surprised if she'd turned a corner and seen a flying saucer landing in the street.

As confirmation to the question on Susan's astonished face, Evie, wearing a mischievous smile, nodded and said, "That's right, I had a lesbian relationship with a teacher and the wife of the Dean of the college." Somehow, Evie found it cathartic to talk about it with Susan. She felt little regret or embarrassment about having had an affair with the women. Any regret she felt came from the fact the affair had to end, and her embarrassment was not because her parents now knew she was bisexual, but was because of how it all came out.

"How long did this go on?" Susan asked almost breathlessly.

Evie paused as she thought, then answered, "Almost three years."

"Three years!" exclaimed an even more stunned Susan, "How did you get involved with these women?"

Evie paused to take a pull from her bottle and think a second before starting. "Becca, my English Lit professor and I got involved almost on the spur of the moment, least it seemed that way to me. I'd had a couple of girl/ girl relationships before, but never with an older woman. Becca intrigued me from the first minute I stepped into her class my freshman year. To me she was like...an angel. She was blonde and very fair skinned, and appeared almost ethereal in her mannerisms and movements as she glided around the classroom. Becca seemed to float as she paced in front of the class, reading or talking passionately about works from James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, or any of the classic writers. Her voice as she read was soft and wispy, almost erotic. She conveyed such emotion, such passion and feeling I just had to talk to her about my favorite authors, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Muriel Spark, and Iris Murdoch. It took almost a month for me to work up the nerve to visit her office. We sat and talked for hours that day, then got together at least once a week afterwards just to talk about different writers."

Evie took a drink from her bottle then continued, "One day we were reading from 'Delta of Venus', which is a collection of short stories by Anaïs Nin. Do you know who she was?"

Susan shook her head in response.

"She wrote quite a few books, even published several volumes of her diary. However, what I think she's best known for are her erotic stories." In her element, Evie went on eagerly, "What's amazing is even though her erotic stories weren't published until after her death sometime in the seventies, the stories themselves were written around the forties. Before her, erotica written by women was virtually unheard of, and even though she claimed the characters in her erotica were all caricatures, her style, written from the feminine point of view is well...quite hot frankly. You know, I found a copy of her collected works in the library one day when I was cleaning. Aunt Mamie must have bought it."

Rapt in Evie's tale Susan made no comment. Meanwhile in her head, the Voice was softly humming a delightful melody. It was an old, but romantic piece from the turn of her grandmother's century. Susan had heard it before, but couldn't recall the name of the tune right at that moment.

"Anyway, we spent an afternoon reading Anaïs Nin's stories to each other. As we read, I became quite aroused, and apparently so had Becca. I don't know if she planned it that way or not, but Becca seduced me, albeit willingly, and we made love on the carpeted floor of her office. After that first time, we wanted to see each other more often, but because there was no way we could meet at the dorm, we could only get together in her office or at her home."

Remaining silent, Susan could only nod, as if what Evie was saying was the most profound thing she'd ever heard. Sexually at least, it probably was.

"It was at her office I first met Charlotte, the Dean's wife. At first, I didn't know she was the Dean's wife, that fact came out a little later. On a couple of occasions I'd run into her leaving Becca's office as I arrived, but thought nothing of it. One day about five or six months after we first had sex, we were at Becca's house lying in bed after we'd made love when she asked if I'd mind having another woman join us. I didn't mind at all and told her so. Imagine my surprise when the next time we met at Becca's house Charlotte was there. That day the three of us made love and it was electric. It was also the day Charlotte told me who her husband was and swore me to secrecy about our little affair."

Again, Evie took a pull from her bottle before going on. "Over the next three years we continued to get together pretty regularly."

"All of you?" Susan asked.

"Uh huh," Evie said as she nodded, then added, "Sure, on a rare occasion just two of us would meet, but more times than not it would be all three of us."

"Where would you meet? Surely you couldn't keep getting together at just your teachers house or her office."

"Sure we could, no one ever suspected, at least as far as we knew. As it turned out, we were probably right. Else, when we were eventually found out it would have been impossible to keep it all under wraps. The whole time we saw each other we really met at only three places; a motel, at Becca's house, or at her office. It was more likely though we'd meet at either Becca's house or a motel. We very seldom met at her office any more; we recognized there was more chance of being caught there." With a sheepish grin Evie added after a couple heartbeats, "Then again it did happen every once in a while when she and I would, you know, have a quickie."

With nothing to say, Susan only nodded.

"The three of us even went away together, meeting for a few days during a holiday weekend, or during the summer months. We were always careful to be discrete about what we were doing; at least we thought we were. Again, none of us thought what we were doing was wrong, bad, or indecent, but we also knew we still had to be careful. Becca was a professor at the college, although no longer teaching me and Charlotte was married."

Before going on Evie paused and took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "During those years we'd gone to Charlotte's home many times, never to have sex but just to visit. One time we were at her house and something just came over the three of us. We started pulling the clothes off one another then jumped into bed. We'd been at it maybe twenty minutes when the bedroom door opened and there stood the Dean."

Susan sat quietly, occasionally drinking from her bottle as she listened to Evie's intriguing story, the Voice still humming its soft melody in her head.

"Boy was he pissed. He just stood there, glaring at the three of us. Before he'd come in, I'd been leaning against the headboard watching as his wife ate my pussy, and Becca's face was in Charlotte's ass eating her from behind. When the door opened Becca and Charlotte turned to see who'd come in and I...I just sat there stunned. When Charlotte saw her husband standing with his hand on the doorknob and surprise on his face, she hopped out of bed and hurried to him, saying she was sorry and begging him not to be upset."

Evie paused to take another mouthful of brew, "I remember his eyes and the look on his face. His face wore shock, but his eyes showed pain, and were fixed on Charlotte as she walked over and pleaded with him. As she spoke with him the Dean glanced over at us, and I saw when the pain in his eyes turned to anger."

Pausing to remember the moment, Evie went on after a second or two, "I've never seen someone so angry speak so quietly in my life, it was frightening. While Charlotte was pleading with her husband, Becca got off the bed and started to gather her clothes. Seeing what she was doing, the Dean ordered her in a voice as cold as ice to put her ass back on the bed, and Becca did it immediately. It was such an odd situation. There we were, three naked women caught in the act by the husband of one of them. The atmosphere in the room was tense, positively electric, crackling, yet we were ready to follow his commands instantly. I don't know why, maybe because he still held sway over us being the Dean and all, maybe just because he was so angry he scared the living shit out of us. Who knows? All we were somehow sure of was it wouldn't be wise to provoke the Dean and make him angrier than he was already."

Evie paused to take a drink before going on, "He took Charlotte by the arm, led her back over to the bed, and told her to sit. Standing next to the bed, he glowered at each of us in turn. His face was red, a vein in his forehead throbbed, and I thought he might explode. Yet as angry as he was, he spoke quietly, calmly in that same ice-cold voice, when he said to Becca she was a teacher there, a respected professor, and yet she disrespected him by doing this in his own home...in his own bed even. He held her stare until she looked away, then he told her to get her stuff and get the hell out of there, that he'd decide what to do with her later. I could see Becca was scared too; I could see it by the look on her face as she snatched up her clothes and darted naked from the room."

Sipping from her beer Evie sat quietly in thought for a few moments. Then she said, "Susan, I've got to admit I was so frightened by the look on the Dean's face and his anger I couldn't move when he asked if I was a student there. I was so scared, and his tone so intimidated me, I could only nod my head...and I might have peed just a tiny bit too. He asked my name, and then just glared at me until I answered. After I'd told him, his look of anger turned to disgust, then he told me to get the hell out of there. I know I was scared, and before running out of the room I probably scurried about picking up my clothes just like Becca had done. Before I went through the door, I looked back and saw Charlotte on her knees in front of the Dean. He was just standing there with his hands akimbo looking down at her saying he had trusted her. I ran downstairs, threw on my clothes, and got out of there as fast as I could. Since Becca was already gone I had to walk back to my dorm, but it wasn't far. Besides, I was so frightened I had plenty of adrenaline to make that walk go really quickly."

Susan commented, "I guess I can understand why he was upset, but you must have been mortified."

"Yeah, I was, but it got worse. The next afternoon I was called to the Dean's office. When I arrived Becca and Charlotte were already there, seated in front of his big desk. The Dean was wearing a really angry look when I came through the door, you could see he was still pissed. Then he pointed, indicating he wanted me to sit in the chair next to Becca. Leaning back in his chair behind the desk, he just glowered at us with his chin resting on steepled fingers, no one saying anything for quite a little bit. I was so nervous it was all I could do just to sit still. After a while, he leaned forward, placed his hands on the desk blotter, and said he knew there were many men who would have been delighted to walk in on what he had yesterday, but he wasn't one of those men. Then he sat there glaring at us some more before saying the three of us made him sick. Susan he had this way of looking at you that was so... intimidating, it utterly penetrated you. I think I would have been frightened of him even if I had been there for some academic reason. He looked at each of us then asked what we thought he should do about it. No one said anything. Really, what could we say? The Dean assured us there were many things he could do, like firing Becca, expelling me, and divorcing Charlotte."

Staring at, but not seeing the rug on Susan's floor, Evie sat remembering the incident. Looking back up at her cousin she said, "It was creepy the way he looked at us Susan. I've never seen such a look of disgust and revulsion on anyone's face as he had on his. A moment later, the Dean leaned back in his chair again and said he wasn't going to do any of those things though, that is as long as the three of us saw things his way. That no one besides us knew about what had happened, and he intended to keep it that way. Sitting forward he calmly said to Becca, stating it outright like an edict, she had to leave campus and move to Minnesota. He had a friend who was Dean at a college up there who needed an English Lit professor and was impressed with Becca's credentials. He said his friend would make an offer and he suggested she take it. Leaning back again, he said he expected her to be gone within the week."

Pausing to take a swallow of beer Evie went on as a tear trickled down her cheek, "I remember the look on Becca's face. She was heartbroken and shocked. She mumbled something about her tenure and the Dean said forget it. If she didn't do as he said he'd ruin her. He'd spread the story himself, detailing what happened and she'd be fired for inappropriate behavior with a student. If it came to that, he said he'd make sure only the most perverted details got out, even if he had to make them up. She wouldn't be able to get a teaching job anywhere if he confirmed that rumor, and he assured her he would. He told Becca she only had two options; take the job in Minnesota or just leave the college, but either way she was gone by the end of the week."

Susan opened the end tables drawer, took out a box of tissues, and handed it over to Evie as the Voice in her head sing sang happily, gospel-like, "Soon, so very soon, the time we've been waiting for is finally at hand."

Evie pulled two tissues from the box saying, "Thanks," as she did so. Sniffling, she wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and then said, "I cried that day at the Dean's office too. I was so sad for Becca; she had to give up her job at a school she loved. Maybe she was also a little bit upset because she knew she had to give up Charlotte and me too. I know I was upset, but she was devastated and it hurt me deeply."

"Did he say anything to you?" Susan asked, the Voice cheerfully humming its melody again.

"Yeah, he did. He said I had to leave school and didn't care what reason I gave, but that I was out of there that day." Pulling two new tissues from the box she wiped her eyes again then said angrily, "The mother fucker called mom and dad and told them I had to leave school because of a serious sexual indiscretion. He didn't tell them exactly what happened, only enough to get the point across I'd been involved in, in his words, inappropriate sexual activity with other females at an inappropriate location. Of course the bastard put the worse kind of spin on it, outright lied about it in fact."

"He exaggerated? Protecting his wife?" asked Susan.

"Oh, he exaggerated alright, but I don't think it was to protect Charlotte. He lied to protect his precious reputation. Later, when I spoke with them on the phone, mom and dad hit the ceiling. I was so humiliated, but what could I do?" After a moment's pause Evie gave a short, ironic laugh and said, "It wouldn't have been the way I would have chosen to tell them I was bisexual, but that doesn't matter much now does it?"

Ten or fifteen seconds of silence passed then Susan asked, "Did he say anything to his wife?"