“Surprise!” Marian called out when he greeted her at the open door. “You were so quiet this morning; I had a shock when I woke up.”
“You were out cold,” he said, kissing her. “This is really nice. I mean, I was expecting a sandy, wooden beach cottage, but this is a mansion.”
“Evidently, the terrace and gardens are featured in the Times every summer for their beauty. I feel lucky to be here.”
“Come here,” he said, embracing her. “We have business to take care of.”
“Is that right?”
They kissed, missing each other. “Can you take a moment or two to satisfy an old man?”
“I believe I can,” she said, shocked and a little charmed by his attention.
She wondered about Pam and Randy Braddock. They were newlyweds, so surely they were still hungry for each other. What about the owner of the house? He’d left it to live with his lover, another older man, identity yet to be revealed. Young people thought they had the corner on romance, but they were in for a surprise. It just got better with age.
She allowed him to lead her back to the bedroom, where they undressed, chatting about what the day would bring. Once under the sheets, they didn’t wait. They knew what each other liked and got down to business. When he finally climbed in between her legs, she guided him to the right spot and he entered her, wet and ready for him. They held each other, moaning, whispering, and before long, he came.
“I just thought of something,” she said, breaking the mood. “Your dick just danced across my stage.”
“Yes, it did,” he said, laughing. “It’s my favorite stage.”
They lay together for a few minutes, but not for long, the spell broken. They were anxious to begin their new adventure together on the beach.
“I could get used to this,” he said, buttoning his shirt again. “A beautiful woman who is there for me whenever I want her, a great house on the beach, and fresh coffee.”
“Your needs are simple,” she said, pulling her jeans back on.
“That reminds me. I talked to Jacob Park. He and Trina are going to drive down from Connecticut this afternoon. I thought we’d have a little party.”
Stunned, Marian turned away, her hopes that screwing him first thing would diminish the desire for anything else dashed.
“You usually give me more time than a few hours,” Marian finally said, trying not to let her disappointment show. “I was hoping we could spend our first night alone.”
“Having them here will make it more fun,” he replied. “Trina’s niece is here from California and wants to join us.”
“Niece! How old is she, Will?”
“She’s out of college, so definitely the age of consent,” he answered.
“I don’t like younger women participating. It makes me feel so old. Besides that, if Jacob is her uncle, that’s almost abuse.”
“Don’t allow your insecurities to pop up now,” he said. “This is for you, too. I know how much you love young women!”
“I do, but still. Our first night here. Maybe we should wait and see what the area is like first.”
“We’re not having an orgy,” he said. “Just five consenting adults.”
Taking a cup out of Ted’s cupboard, she poured coffee, disappointed in how the day was going to turn out. They were swingers. Well, Will was a swinger. She went along with it, so what? But she wasn’t always in the mood for it, and Trina Park got on her nerves, with her dyed red hair and fake boobs, her shaved crotch and nasal voice. Now a niece was going to be there. Hoping against hope she wasn’t a mini-Trina, Marian let it go. Will went through cycles, and he was obviously in his manic phase, where nothing would satisfy him but another woman or two and, often, a man.
“Jacob Park loves you. You’ll have a good time with him.”
“I know. But I just had a good time with you. I’m not sure I’m up to any more good times today,” she said.
“Take some testosterone,” he said. “It’ll give you a boost.”
She didn’t want a boost, however. She wanted to get her knitting machine out and find a place to set it up in that big house. She wanted to use the Crock-Pot for dinner, sit in front of the TV and eat chili and corn bread.
Instead, she’d have to go to the grocery store and buy snacks and not just chips and pretzels. They’d eat shrimp cocktail, caviar with crème fraiche and blintzes, hot hors d’oeuvres, and drink champagne. She’d have to douche, insert a female condom, shave her legs, put on false eyelashes, and cut her toenails. Thinking of Pam at that moment, what was it she’d said?
“I’m the poster child for denial.”
“I saw you with an attractive woman on the beach. Who was that?”
“Randy Braddock’s wife,” Marian answered, sipping coffee.
She sat at the white Formica kitchen table, looking over the beach, wishing she was back out there and he was in the city.
“How exciting would that be to get them involved,” Will said, almost jumping up and down.
“Don’t go there, Will. It would be awful. I don’t want the neighbors knowing what we do. We might even get kicked out of the house.”
“I won’t. How’d you happen to meet her?”
“She was once married to a high school friend,” Marian said. “Our landlord told me about her.”
“Are you going to be mad all morning?”
“No, not at all. I would just appreciate having a say in our plans from now on. And after tonight, this house is off-limits. If you want to have a party in the city at your apartment, I’m game. But my house is not available.”
“What about uptown?”
“No. That’s still my hideaway. The association would throw me out if they ever found out. Let’s confine it to your place, as we have in the past.”
“I thought it would be fun to show this place off,” he said; he’d lied to his friends that Marian had bought a beach house. “No malice intended.”
“None taken,” she replied.
He came to her and bent down to kiss her, and she offered her lips, trying not to make an issue of it.
She’d known what she was getting into when she started dating Will. It had been a blind date. At the time, he was selling insurance. Understanding he might be more interested in her because of her money, it was a journey she was willing to navigate because of his looks and his vibrant personality. But when the swapping, swinging lifestyle came up in conversation, she had second thoughts.
“I have clients who feel that way of life ruined theirs. Why would I want to take part?”
“It’s exciting,” he’d said. “Once you get over the jealousy part, it’s satisfying. It’s fun to watch your partner having sex with another person. I like to get in there and watch.”
“Watch porn, then,” she said, flaring her nostrils.
“You can’t join in porn,” he’d argued. “If I want to, I can hop right in.”
Out of curiosity, she agreed to attend a party. It was pretty titillating having several pairs of hands doing things to her body. Afterward, the guilt was unbearable, but she knew as a psychiatrist that it was misplaced. She was a free-thinking adult who’d given in to her date’s baser desires. Once she tried it, she had to admit, there was something appealing about it. The variety of bodies to look at was the best part. She didn’t go to parties at others’ homes. But if Will had one, she’d attend. He was right in some respects—watching him have sex with other women was exciting, with other men, a little strange. She knew that it would prevent her from falling in love with him, which was sad. At her age, there wasn’t much time left for love.
So now she was living in conservative Babylon, next door to the biggest prude in town, and Will had scheduled a party. Oh hell.
Chapter 6
Lisa adapted to life at the beach. The old house she was renting wasn’t insulated for year-round living, but with the fireplace going and everyone wearing a sweater, it was growing on her.
Across the front of the house
—both the lower level, where she lived, and the upper, where Tim and Brent lived—old-fashioned wood-framed windows let the spectacular winter view of the ocean into the house. Even on the dreariest days, light flooded the front rooms.
The living room was the main area where everyone hung out. There was no basement playroom or den. Lisa quickly got used to having her children around her at all times, and she wondered what her resistance to the idea had been before.
As part of the living area, the kitchen, outdated and sort of dingy, became her favorite haunt. The large table from her old kitchen filled the space, and there was usually a child with a coloring book or Legos sitting there. It was her favorite contemplative place to sit with coffee and watch the activity on the beach, often of birds looking for dinner, or the people who lived around her, including her mother and Alison, beachcombing.
By the end of the first week there, everyone respected each other’s space. As much as Pam missed Jeanie, she didn’t allow herself to run down to Lisa’s or Alison’s house. At the same time, Lisa made sure to phone first before dropping by Pam’s. Alison was known to pop in whenever the mood struck.
The passage of time also meant that Lisa needed to start thinking about getting prenatal care. Dreading the appointment, she knew her old obstetrician, a woman in her mid-thirties, Marilyn Lago, might have an opinion, and Lisa really didn’t want to hear it. When she called, the earliest appointment available was with a new partner, Steve Lafferty.
“Did you want to wait to see Marilyn? She delivered your last two, correct?” the receptionist asked.
Seeing an opportunity to switch doctors without hurting feelings, Lisa took the appointment with the new guy, even though she wasn’t thrilled about seeing a man.
“I already waited longer than I should,” she said. “I’d better see Dr. Lafferty.”
So on the morning of the appointment, Lisa shaved her legs from toes to crotch, painted her toenails, and did the usual routine women were used to doing before the dreaded gynecology exam.
She wondered how much information she’d be required to tell this guy on the first appointment. Would it be necessary for the baby’s safety to tell the doctor that the father was her half-brother? Chills passed through her body—the embarrassment, having to explain that the first encounter was innocent. But after, she should have known better. She should be prepared to be judged.
It was in this state of mind that she left the house on the day of her appointment, not bothering to tell Tim she was going out. Valarie was there, and it was awfully quiet considering Brent was in school. Trying not to fantasize, she didn’t even want to imagine that relationship, although it would be better than Elizabeth, whose presence in the apartment above made Lisa nervous, the occasional bursts of laughter that seemed forced, and one afternoon, a vocal performance of gigantic proportions when her cries of passion had also seemed slightly forced. Later that day, Tim had been solemn and moody.
“Come for a walk,” he demanded, standing at her back door.
“Come in and have a coffee,” she said. “What’s going on?”
She knew he was embarrassed, barely able to make eye contact with her.
“I need to get out for a bit.”
“Where’s Elizabeth?”
“She’s pouting,” he said, finally looking her in the eye. “I’m sorry about this afternoon.”
“No need,” Lisa said, reaching for his arm. She pulled him inside. “This place is freezing when the doors are closed.”
“Right,” he said, stepping over the threshold. “We’ll have to whisper if we talk down here. Everything comes up that floor vent.”
He pointed to the old-fashioned brass insert in the ceiling next to the fireplace.
“Ugh, I’m sorry,” she said, flushing. “Then let’s go out. Is she going to get pissed off?”
“Right now, I don’t care. I really want her to leave.”
Lisa put a long, down-filled coat on, Tim winding her scarf around her neck while she pulled a knitted cap over her head.
“If we sneak out this way, she won’t see us if she’s watching from the porch.”
Taking his hand, she led him between the houses and out to the road. Down just a few hundred feet was a public beach access.
“She won’t be able to see this far down.”
“She probably has the binoculars trained on us,” Tim said.
“What’s going on?”
“This whole thing today would never have happened if Valarie was here. Instead I gave her the day off to pack. You know she’s moving in, correct?”
“I do, and I think it’s a great idea. Is it just for convenience’s sake?”
“It started out that way. But now I’m maybe more interested than I thought I would be. She’s smart and pretty. Brent loves her. I’m willing and open to see what will happen.”
“Okay, but here’s the danger,” Lisa said, thinking Tim didn’t have a whole lot of common sense. “Just like getting involved with Elizabeth wasn’t the smartest thing because now you have a situation and she might be vindictive, if you mess with your nanny, you could really screw things up.”
“You’ve got a point.”
The wind whipped up and he turned to walk backward.
“I’ll stay out of bed with her,” he finally said.
On her way to the obstetrician, Lisa thought if he was upstairs screwing his nanny, he deserved to be punished by her leaving him. The drive into Smithtown for her appointment reinforced how glad she was that she’d moved back home to Babylon. In Smithtown, she never got that sense of community she longed for. Hopefully, she’d get it in Babylon. Already, at the food store and the post office, almost everywhere she went, she ran into people she knew—old classmates, her aunt Mary, friends of Pam’s from the library. If things didn’t go well with Dr. Lafferty, she would consider changing her doctor to one in Babylon. The wind inland was dramatically less, too, making her smile. Everything at the beach was more.
“I’m here for my OB appointment with Dr. Lafferty,” she told the receptionist.
They did the address update and insurance information at the window, the hustle and bustle behind the scene the usual doctor office mayhem. Then she saw an unfamiliar face and immediately began to sweat. If that man was Dr. Lafferty, Lisa was definitely going to change to a doctor in Babylon. He was gorgeous. And then he looked up at her and they made eye contact. She swore he blushed.
“You can go right back,” the receptionist said. “You’ll talk in his office before the exam.”
Relieved but dreading it now, Lisa didn’t want to meet that guy for the first time naked. The receptionist led her to a part of the office she’d never been to—carpeted, quiet, soft lighting. The doctor’s office was your standard, impersonal, uninspired office that anyone could have occupied, an engineer or an insurance guy or a doctor. She looked around to see if there were any photographs or books. The only thing was a diploma from NYU Medical School for a doctor whose name she didn’t recognize.
The door opened behind her, and the gorgeous stranger in a white lab coat, Dr. Steven Lafferty embroidered on the pocket, walked through. He was tall, about six two, she estimated, and big, maybe two hundred pounds, with broad shoulders and chest and, as far as she could tell with his lab coat, narrow hips. He must have played football, she surmised and involuntarily shivered.
“Mrs. Chua?” he said, holding out his hand.
“Ms.,” she corrected, and then flushed, biting her tongue to keep from bursting out laughing. “We’re divorced.” Just so there are no misunderstandings.
“Okay,” he said, looking down at her chart. “Dan Chua is my lawyer. I mean for estate planning.”
“How interesting,” she said, and then couldn’t help it and started laughing. “Duh, what a dumb thing to say. Can you tell I’m nervous?”
“It’s understandable,” he replied, flushing, obviously just as nervous as she was.
He lurked over her, fumbling with her chart.
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“Why don’t you have a seat?” Lisa said gently, thinking her guffaw had set him off.
“Good idea,” he said, smiling now, trying not to stumble over his feet and failing, catching his fall by grabbing the chair, which threatened to slide away on its casters. Now he was really mortified.
“Yikes, careful,” she cautioned, reaching out for the desk, like that would help him.
“Walk much?” he asked, laughing at himself.
He looked at her and smiled, at a loss for words. Lisa Chua was beautiful. He hadn’t expected her to be so young—Dan Chua was in his late forties. This young woman wasn’t thirty yet. Her skin was so flawless, he had to force himself to look away to gather his composure. Full lips, long eyelashes on her cheeks, voluptuous, she was everything he liked about women.
Sitting down, he kept leafing through her chart back and forth, trying to recover from his trip.
“So, this is your third baby?”
What a dumb thing to say. While she talked, he imagined her on the exam table, her legs open, and trying to remain professional and respectful. It wasn’t going to happen.
When she took a breath, he closed her chart. “Ms. Chua.”
“Lisa.”
“Lisa, I think I’m going to have to pass as your physician.”
Taken aback, Lisa looked at him, confused. “Okay,” she mumbled, pushing away from his desk. The whole situation was surreal. “Should I wait to see Marilyn?”
“Yes, see Marilyn,” he said, probably a bit more forcefully than he meant. “Instead, I’d like to have coffee with you in an hour. I have office hours in Babylon this afternoon.”
Taking a deep breath, she let it out and burst out laughing.
“Coffee in Babylon in an hour is doable. I guess you can see where I live by my chart.”
“Yes, yes, right here,” he said and, giving her a goofy smile, held up her chart and pointed to her address while all the other paper fluttered out all over the floor. It defused the awkward moment, and they both laughed. Sweating in earnest now, Lisa stood up, ready to help him pick up the papers. They faced each other, close enough that she could hear him breathing and thought she could smell him, too. An extra pulse of heat went through her body.
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