The Humper Game Pt. 05 Ch. 07

"We still need to come up with something to say to everyone who asks, though."

Scott said, "It sure does. Congratulations on getting it together. I still want to hear—"

And Martha said, "Scott," and he ground to a halt instantly, even though she had spoken very gently. She said, "Honey, I think it's only fair to tell them about us, after that."

He said, "You're right, but it's a little late already."

She said, "Any other time, Hannah Grace may be awake and listening. I'll try to keep it short.

"Tammy, in a lot of ways my case is the exact reverse of yours. In high school and college, both, I kind of got turned off by guys who only seemed to want sex and no more. There were some guys who asked me out who didn't seem to be like that, but somehow they never asked me out more than two or three times. I don't know why, and I wish now I'd gone to them and asked. Well, I was young. Still, all my interest, such as it was, was in guys.

"But anyway, when I was a few years older than you are, I had a woman friend, and we did a lot of things together, and I really liked her. And once, we talked about why I didn't have any boyfriend or even anyone dating me at all. And I said pretty much what I did just now, in more detail.

"She suggested that maybe I would do better with a woman. I was surprised, and the whole idea felt funny, but I really liked her, and so eventually we tried it, and we were kind of partners. I loved her, and she's still a really dear friend. And please understand, she didn't really seduce me. She made that one suggestion, offering herself, and then left it for me to decide with no pressure of any kind.

"Eventually her job took her away, but somehow I kept coming up with available women, where that had never happened before. So I had a series of relationships, each lasting up to maybe a year or two. But the last one was a disaster. She liked being in control, making me do things I didn't want to just to prove she could do that, I finally realized. She had good and attractive features, too, but I finally just broke up with her. And now I was kind of turned off about sex, and women, and for that matter men. No men were ever showing any interest in me at all, by that time. So I guess I was lonely and unhappy, but I didn't think about it that way.

"I'd needed a job in there, I'd had a series of more or less temporary ones. At some point I applied with Scott, and he hired me. As things worked out, I wound up learning the whole business, what the guys out back did and the front office, too.

"Scott noticed, and he made me his personal assistant, learning everything about what he did in running the company, being with him when he met with customers and suppliers, everything. And I started falling in love with him. He was always kind and considerate and gentle. He was honest, completely. But here's the thing. He was a Christian, and I knew enough to know that he wouldn't consider dating a non-Christian, or anything that might lead to romantic attachment. So I kept my mouth shut. And you need to understand, I still thought of myself as a lesbian, pure and simple, at this point. So I was slow to recognize what happened.

"Now, somewhere in here someone brought me a young woman, a teenager. Her boyfriend had raped her, and her parents had blamed her for that, and she'd left home as soon as she was old enough, at sixteen. She'd wound up with me because she needed a place to stay.

"I guess you'd have to say I mothered her. I got her enrolled in our high school, made sure she did her homework and chores and got on the bus with breakfast in her in the morning. I lived outside of town, so the bus was necessary. Anyway, I came on her one day, crying, soon after she'd turned eighteen. She felt just worthless—'Nobody wants me and my life is ruined,' that kind of thing. And I tried to help her see that this wasn't an accurate view of things. And it turned out that one part of it was that she thought she had destroyed my love life just by being there—as if I didn't date or have a boyfriend spend the night because of her! I set her straight on that. I told her I hadn't had any love life for several years before she arrived.

"And then I realized that there were probably people out there who knew my past and assumed she was there as my lover, so I thought I'd better tell her that when I'd had a love life it had been women, and that probably people were jumping to conclusions about her. And a few days later she came to me and said that she thought what she'd been feeling for me was love, and asked me to let her try making love with me.

"I told her no, but she kept asking me. I did my best to question her enough to make sure that she wasn't asking this as an attempt to pay me back for helping her. But eventually we did make love, and we wound up partners. I was in my early thirties, and she was eighteen. And I got Scott to give her a job, on a trial basis, and she really did well.

"All that's background. I told you I'd fallen in love with Scott, and I found myself mooning after him, the way a lot of girls I knew in middle school did over boys. I started making stupid, careless mistakes, and each time I'd promise to be more careful and then soon do something else. I was costing money, but also good will from suppliers and especially customers, and Scott finally had to fire me.

"He hated to do it, because he cared about me—he hated to have to fire anyone unless the person was actually intending to do harm—but also because I'd become his number two, his indispensable right-hand woman.

"Anyway, Lynda—that's her name—saw how unhappy I was, and decided to do something about it. And you should know that she's beautiful, absolutely stunning, and at twenty she was more so. So she went to Scott and offered him sex if he'd take me back—first a one-time encounter, then a weekend of anything he wanted, and then indefinitely, as long as he would keep me on, any time he wanted, with no recriminations if he had to fire me again. He tried to turn her down flat, but as I said, she just kept offering more. So finally he said he'd think about it, but the answer was almost certainly no. You understand, I only learned about this later.

"Well, a few days later, I had a bright idea of my own. I decided I would go to Scott and offer to do anything at all for him if only he would take me back on a trial basis. I really meant anything at all! I was sure he would say no to sex, but I hoped he would really see how much I wanted my job back, and let me try. I couldn't help kind of wishing he'd suggest that, though.

"Can you say déjà vu? Scott's reaction was to bring Lynda and me together and tell us the whole situation—and then to accept our offers, for a few months—as long as we were both in on it. He had his reasons, which I won't try to explain. Lynda was furious—she felt she'd been set up—and there was a lot to it, long discussions. Lynda's feelings were all wrong, though—one of Scott's reasons was that he cared about our relationship, wrong as it was!

"To skip all the details, we agreed. For me, it was a daydream come true. As I say, Lynda had big issues to work through—but in the end she fell in love with Scott too.

"It became really, really obvious that we were both basically straight. Bisexual, I suppose—we'd both learned to be attracted to women, but the right man was way better. The guys I'd dated in high school and college, well, they never turned me on, and I think it was because they were focused on sex, not on me.

"It's all too long to tell, but Lynda eventually asked Scott to explain the gospel to us. And we discussed it a lot, over a long time. I came to believe, and we cut off the sex completely. Lynda believed a little later. Scott had made it really clear that this wasn't a path to either of us marrying him. But we eventually decided that he and I should get married, and much as Lynda wanted him for herself, she was even more insistent than either of us that it had to be me." Ellen and I shared a look, at that last.

I said, "I see why you wanted us to hear that. I have some things to tell, too, but not tonight.

"Tammy, I should have been cleaning up while Martha talked. Let me get onto it now. We really need to get home."

Martha laughed. She told Scott, "You see, he's like you in a lot of ways!"

She went on, "Phil, you and Ellen go home. Scott and I can do dishes. We'll see you over the next few days, I think, and certainly Saturday night, if it's the Lord's will."

I told Pete and Tammy, "OK, I won't insist. But thank you, it's been a joy being here, meeting the Davidsons. Can you keep our dish safe and get it back to us when the potato salad's all gone?"

She looked into it and said, "There's enough for us all to have some tomorrow and still send you home with some." She spooned most of it into a container with a tight lid and put that in the fridge. Then she hugged me, and then Ellen. "Thank you two for coming. The potato salad was wonderful, but that's not why we're glad you're here, and you know it." I started to shake Pete's hand, but he pulled me into a hug. He hugged Ellen, too.

I took Martha's hand, but she also pulled me into a hug. "Thank you for coming, and for the wonderful German potato salad. And now that we know what's right with Pete and Tammy, we know you're responsible to a good degree, and that's important and right."

Scott did accept just a firm handshake from me, but he hugged Ellen. "We'd really like to know more about you two. You got cut off. Sometime soon, I hope."

"I'm sure Hannah won't be disappointed at missing our departure, but I'm glad to have met her."

Kelly said her goodbyes, insisting on leaving the rest of the chicken she had brought, and we went out together. She split off from us soon, and we hurried home. The potato salad went into the fridge, and we got ready for bed very quickly and went immediately to sleep.

Wednesday morning's alarm had been set for maximum sleep, no time allowed for sex or anything else extra—and it still woke us way too early. We rushed for the toilet and rushed through shaving. Somehow Kelly looked much fresher than I felt, when we got to the gym. She was waiting, talking with Elise, and she grabbed me into a big hug. She hugged Ellen, too, not quite as big maybe, and said, "That wasn't intended as anything it shouldn't be. Last night reminded me again of how lucky I am to have both of you as friends, but especially Phil." I wasn't sure what from the night before she had in mind, to be honest. OK, I really had no idea whatever.

We started out running, and Kelly told me, "I'm really glad to know what was going on with Tammy and Pete, but I'm so glad it got resolved. And thank you for not telling me, when I asked." I looked at her in surprise, and she must have caught it, because she went on, "If I ever have to tell you something I don't want spread around, I know I can trust you to keep quiet about it. I knew it anyway, I guess, but this hammered that point in."

"I wish I were more reliable about that. If you ask me and I say I won't tell, I hope it's pretty likely I won't. But in the last year and some, I've really found that too often I tell people things without checking first that it's OK. It always seems to me at the time that there's a good reason, of course."

We ran a bit more without saying anything. Eventually she said, "I really liked Scott and Martha, not to mention that Hannah is cute and sweet. But it really made me wonder. She was sure that because he was a Christian, he'd tell her no, even though she really hoped he'd say yes. But why did he say yes, and to two of them?"

"I was kind of hoping they would get to that. I can only guess, and since they're around I think it would be better to ask them. But even I can see a couple of things. Martha said that including both of them was intended to protect their relationship. He must have thought they'd both think it was an awful thing that they were having to put up with, so my guess is that he really wanted Martha back, that he would have taken her back if he thought he could trust her enough. And just maybe, he was kind of in love with her too. Obviously, he wound up in love with her in the end, anyway."

"Well, you know you told me that at school, whenever you had sex with a woman, you'd find you were in love with her at least a little. I think some people are just like that, maybe women more often than men or maybe not. I'll say one thing, I'm really looking forward to this dance. The videos you mentioned were good, but talking to Scott, he impressed me a lot in other ways, too."

"I'm wondering whether Martha will be dancing, or whether childcare will even let her go to the dance."

"I'll bet Hannah goes to dances all the time. She probably dances better than I do."

Soon enough, Ellen and Elise slowed to a walk, and we did too when we reached them. We all went outside and headed for home. Ellen and I hurried a little, especially after we left Kelly. We managed to squeeze out enough time for something quick in the shower, enough to satisfy Ellen as well as me, not enough for either of us if things were going to continue being that rushed indefinitely.

I had a couple of minutes to talk to Pete and Tammy. Pete said, "I know you can't eat lunch with Ellen or with us today, but if you can manage it, go outside to eat." He told me where to go, but he was very mysterious, and wouldn't say why. He said, "Tell Ellen, too." They hurried off to talk to some other people. I texted Ellen, telling her what Pete had said, suspecting that she would go somewhere to study instead.

But during my Monday/Wednesday philosophy class, when Ellen would be eating, she sent me a text: "Do what Pete said." So when my lunchtime came around, I went out. It was easy to find the place—even if I hadn't known it—because there was a large crowd.

Scott and Martha were in the middle of it, and Scott was playing his mandolin. Sometimes he just played fiddle tunes, the kind you'd hear at a contradance. I recognized some of them, but he did lots of things to energize them. Sometimes he played backup, as Martha sang. She had a really good voice, and understood how to use it. After every couple of numbers, Scott would say that he was playing for the contradance Saturday night—"with a really fine band called 3 Bits A Dollar"—saying where and when it was, saying that we didn't have to know how to contradance if we came half an hour early. Once in a while, he mentioned that there were videos on youtube of the band playing for dances, some showing him playing with them.

Hannah was there, either wandering around holding Martha's hand, or sometimes being held. When Scott was playing contra tunes, she mostly kind of danced to the music—Martha would let go of her, but watched closely—and occasionally she and Martha did dance figures together, do-si-do or a two-hand swing, slowly but to the music, things like that. The audience applauded them as much as Scott at those times.

I made sure I ate, and I did some thinking about what I was supposed to be studying even if I didn't get stuff out to read and look up. The music was really, really good, and I had to work to keep track of time. The crowd that was gathered was really enthusiastic, too. I wasn't very close, but I could see that Scott's case was open on the ground next to him, and that from time to time people tossed money into it, especially as they prepared to make their way through the crowd and leave. I made my way to the front and tossed in a couple of dollars. Scott was playing by himself then, and Martha gave me her big smile and thanked me, by name.

After classes, I hurried home to work on dinner. In addition to that night's dinner, I fixed the sweet potato casserole I'd taken for Thanksgiving dinner. We would have to heat it up and then hope it could be warmed again after we got to the potluck. We were going to have to drive, even though it was reasonably close. The decision had been to hold it in the building where the dance would be Saturday, in the room used for the break during the dance.

Ellen and I had both recorded a little of the music Scott and Martha were making, so we listened to that. Quality was lousy—from the middle of a crowd, at some distance, handheld phones held up overhead, after all. Even so, it made for interesting listening.

We spent every minute we could in studying, after we cleaned up. We got to bed very soon after our nominal bedtime, no time for making love—we really wanted to be consistent about bedtime, as much as possible. We both were aware of studying we weren't getting to, but since we always tried to keep ahead we weren't actually behind in anything yet.

Thursday morning, we did make love quickly. It was Ellen's idea, not that I needed any encouragement. And we took long enough on it that, by the time we had shaved, we were late heading off to run. The story of that whole week in a capsule.

As we walked, briskly, Ellen said, "You know, I could save some time every day or two if I didn't shave my legs. Would that be OK with you?"

"I really hope you're not serious. Um. You know, Ellen, I've never told you, 'With you, anything.' I've tried to make it true, though. And it's your body. How can I say this? It would not be OK with me, but I would try not to let it affect my feelings and how we relate. I really mean that it is your body, and that decision is yours."

"I'm teasing. I would hate it, and I don't really understand why. Your legs aren't a turnoff for me, quite the contrary, and I suddenly wondered about this inconsistency."

"It's a social convention, and like most it's somewhat arbitrary. This one runs pretty deep, though. I think the women I've seen who flout it, who habitually don't shave their legs, are trying to make a statement. Usually they seem to mean that our standards of beauty for women are aimed at making them pleasing to men, and on feminist grounds they object to that. And it's not that I think there's nothing to object to in that whole set of conventions, or even in men's standards of women's beauty—but men and women are made for each other, to be partners, and pleasing one's partner, even looking pleasing to one's partner where one can, is a desirable part of that.

"I told you once, if you decided you wanted me to grow a beard, I'd try it. If you liked it, and I found it OK, I'd keep it even if I preferred to be clean shaven. If I hated it, I'd tell you, 'Well, I tried, but it's awful,' and shave it off. If I found I loved it but you hated it, I'd consider, but I'd probably keep it.

"I hope that's an acceptable answer. Acceptable to you, I mean."

During my saying all this, Kelly had joined us. I thought she was mystified about the context, but she must have thought it none of her business, because she never asked about it.

When we started running, she said, "I was late enough that I was sure you'd be running already. I'm glad you weren't."

"Up too late studying, last night. Tonight's going to be even worse. This whole week is too full.

"Did I tell you, a friend is coming to visit us this weekend? I don't think I did. She called Monday evening, to ask if she could, she has some things she wants to talk to us about. Anyway, would it be OK if we brought her along tomorrow? I would offer to have you over instead, but you've seen how our week has filled up."

"If it's OK with her, it's fine with me. Is she a believer? Or if not, won't she be pretty bored?"

"We told her what we were doing Fridays, and she said she would be interested, even if she finds herself uncomfortable with some things that get said." I elbowed Kelly's arm lightly, and grinned at her. "When we explained, she said she never would have thought of me doing something like that, but that it explained a lot about me, now that she did think about it. You can ask her what she meant, I guess. I certainly didn't know. Or ask Ellen before tomorrow evening and see if she understood."