The Scarlet Letter Scandal

by Mary T. McCarthy

  The Scarlet Letter Society

  The Scarlet Letter Scandal

  The Scarlet Letter Storm (Coming Soon)

  The Scarlet Letter Society is back! Maggie, Eva, and Lisa must figure out how to handle sudden notoriety when the truth about their various infidelities comes to light and face the criticism of a suburban subdivision harboring scandalous secrets of its own. The SLS never intended for their small group to become fodder for gossip, but word of mouth and a scandalous blog post has spread like wildfire. Suddenly, the SLS early morning meetings at the Zoomdweebies coffee shop have been discovered. What will the implications be for Maggie, whose shaky love life was just starting to settle down, Eva, whose life was already in chaos, and Lisa, whose husband never knew about her “cheater’s club”? The answers are discussed at another coffee klatch, this one inside the subdivision where Lisa lives. There, the women seem normal on the surface and are quick to judge, but, they have many secrets of their own, including a full-blown sex swingers’ club. Three new women are introduced, creating an entirely new level of conflict. The Scarlet Letter Scandal continues one of the hottest, funniest, and most salacious new romance series on the market.

  For My Readers

  With gratitude

  “He wouldn’t know a clit if it slapped him in the face,” Kellie whispered breezily, tossing her long, flat-ironed ombré hair over her shoulder.

  “Well, he clearly hasn’t been slapped by enough of them then,” said Rachel.

  “It’s mortifying even listening to the two of you,” said Jeannie, entering the dining room and placing a crystal cream and sugar set on the table. “Can we please change the subject?”

  “Isn’t some sex scandal the reason you called us over here in the first place when it’s not the first Tuesday of the month?” asked Kellie, spooning what she knew was locally grown, organic fruit onto her plate.

  Jeannie placed a slice of the homemade gluten-free banana walnut bread she’d made that morning onto an antique plate, returning from the sideboard in the formal dining room to seat herself beside the two other women.

  “Yes, what’s the story?” asked Rachel, sipping her coffee while gingerly holding the fragile cup and saucer. The eager grin lit up her pale, freckled face, framed as it was by a mop of bright orange curls.

  Jeannie sighed audibly and cleared her throat.

  “I asked you here because as I said in the email I wanted to have a quick meeting of our Housewarming Club. I’m sorry Lisa Swain couldn’t make it, something about a wedding cake.” Jeannie sipped her coffee, pausing to relish the attention of her neighbors. “But this blog thing is really an unbelievable story. It came across my desk and I just had to speak with someone about it right away,” she said, concerned and almost bewildered. She wore a lavender twin cardigan set despite the summer heat.

  “So, spill it,” said Rachel. “I can’t imagine what in our housewarming welcome baskets could need immediate deliberation, so it’s clearly the other story you’re ready to tell.”

  “My sister, who spends a lot of time on the Internet for her job, said she found this, and she’s all the way up in Maine!” said Jeannie, passing out copies of a printed blog post. “I‘ll give you a minute to read it.”

  The top of the piece of printer paper showed the blog’s logo, “The Keytown Mouse,” depicting a mischievous-looking cartoon mouse nibbling on the edge of their own town’s flag.

  Friday, June 28, 2013

  posted by F. Ritchie

  Once again in our town there are stories of scandalous love affairs and clandestine meetings—right here in lil old Keytown! While rumors of the alleged suburban sex club ring in a certain local subdivision have not been substantiated (yet!), this blogger has been made aware of much ado right here in the downtown historic district.

  According to a local source, there has been a monthly meeting taking place in the wee dawn hours at a coffee shop in downtown Keytown. Several women, including two who own shops here in town, have taken part in some type of Cheaters’ Club breakfast meeting once a month for possibly years. Sources say at least three women, a formally dressed woman who doesn’t appear to work in town and two women near enough to walk to the nearby Zoomdweebies Café from their own shops (one of which may or may not be some kind of restaurant… or maybe a bakery?), meet regularly to discuss their sexcapades. A flyer spotted in the bookstore/coffee shop trash can refers to them as “The Scarlet Letter Society.” The café even opens early to accommodate these private meetings—no word on whether shop owner Zarina Harandi is a member of the clandestine club. Stay tuned for more details.

  As usual, the Keytown Mouse you don’t even see hiding in the corner hears everything.

  “Well, holy shit!” Kellie exclaimed, not noticing when Jeannie pursed her lips. “This is hilarious! Who is this F. Ritchie mouse person, anyway? Seriously, there are still gossip columns?”

  “The whole Internet is a gossip column,” Rachel said, wryly. “It doesn’t surprise me at all that there is kinky shit going on around us.”

  “Well, I’m shocked and surprised,” said Jeannie, standing, as a blush crept up around her neck. Her brown eyes and brown hair were ordinary: a neat, short haircut framed her alarmed face, and she had applied a bit of eye shadow and lip gloss for the occasion.

  “I don’t even know what a sex club ring is and I can’t even fathom that there are women who do nothing but sit around all day gossiping about their trampy sex lives,” Jeannie continued. “I hope these women don’t have children. The poor things. This is what’s wrong with our society. That promiscuous women like these are out there cheating on their husbands and being homewreckers while the rest of us are trying to raise our children with decent morals and values in this community.”

  Straightening her knee-length navy skirt, Jeannie refilled her coffee, then sat down with a huff after finishing her stump speech. She reached up to pat down her already perfectly coiffed hair.

  Kellie and Rachel traded sidelong glances, seemingly to decide who would respond to the outburst first. They knew as a churchgoing, full-time stay-at-home mom and president of the elementary school PTA (not to mention the wife of the homeowners association president), Jeannie took issues like these seriously. Perhaps more seriously than most.

  “Who knows if it’s even true?” suggested Rachel. “At least three-quarters of what’s on the Internet is a lie, I’m sure.” She smiled helpfully in Jeannie’s direction, serving herself another piece of banana bread.

  “And not to be argumentative, but is it really even any of our business who’s doing what in the bedrooms and coffee shops of this town?” Kellie smiled to lighten the mood, but she wasn’t inclined to be overly accommodating of Jeannie’s rant. At thirty-two and the youngest of the trio, Kellie was divorced, and engaged to a man she’d met while still married. She had volunteered for the housewarming committee at the homeowners association, thinking it meant she’d get to deliver welcome baskets to new moms or new neighbors. She was surprised to realize the homeowners association operated as some kind of vigilante self-policing McMafia, enforcing ordinances about landscaping violations and bickering over boats parked in driveways.

  Jeannie put down her coffee, delivering an icy stare in Kellie’s direction.

  “This neighborhood, which my husband, Chaz, selflessly donates his volunteer time to help manage, is already under threat by reckless homeowners who have simply walked away from their mortgages and abandoned their properties, not to mention the high number of rental properties that have popped up here in Stony Mill. The last thing we need is some kind of deviant sex club, not to mention a group of harlots running around ready to steal our husbands!”

  She stood and clacked her
way into the kitchen, her low-heeled conservative pumps clicking on perfectly polished hardwood floors.

  Rachel looked at Kellie, who raised an eyebrow and shook her head, making the universal finger-circling “crazy” sign. Rachel nodded her head in the direction of the large portrait of Jesus hanging over the dining room sideboard. The Lord, bedecked in a white robe and pleasant half-smile, sat at what appeared to be a news desk, his eyes seemingly following you wherever you went in the room. She made a quick but mocking sign of the cross, folding her hands in pantomimed prayer, which caused Kellie to accidentally laugh out loud.

  Jeannie walked back in.

  “Is something funny?” she asked.

  “No, sorry, Jeannie, I was just laughing at how clumsy I am, getting crumbs all over my lap,” said Kellie, blushing and dusting imaginary crumbs from her black yoga pants.

  “Who else have you talked to about this?” asked Rachel.

  “Only the two of you so far,” Jeannie said. “I was going to mention it at my church book club tonight. I’m sure they will want to say a prayer for these sinners all around us.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’ll find some sympathetic ears there,” said Rachel. “I don’t spend too much time on the Internet when I’m at the accounting firm, but when I get back to the office I’m going to check out this Keytown Mouse and see if there are any clues about who’s writing it.”

  Jeannie brought the coffee pot over to the table, but the other women declined another cup.

  “While we are here, do you want to discuss the neighborhood welcome baskets?” asked Kellie, unconsciously straightening up a bit in her chair.

  “Well, with all of this hubbub I had forgotten to bring it up,” said Jeannie. “Lisa Swain has volunteered to donate muffins from her bakery in town for the baskets. She can’t usually make meetings because of her shop schedule but she is willing to drop them off.”

  “That’s great,” said Kellie, happy to change the subject. “Lynette over on Oak Street has offered to provide some of her Mary Kay samples, and I was going to ask a few shops in downtown Keytown for coupons.”

  “I could help with that too,” said Rachel. “I see Lisa in town all the time since my office is near her bakery. I could offer to pick up muffins and put some feelers out around town for coupons too.”

  “Restaurants…bakeries…” Jeannie said, distracted, glancing down at the blog post on the printed page. “Hmm, I wonder which one of these downtown places is home to the ‘Scarlet Letter Society’ members.”

  Kellie stood. “Could be anyone. You just never know with people these days. Well, I have a yoga class to teach so I’d better run.”

  Taking the welcome excuse to depart, Rachel stood as well. She unconsciously straightened her slightly wrinkled celery green Banana Republic dress. What was it about being in Jeannie’s house that always made her feel like she needed to straighten something? “Yes, I need to get into the office. So many people filed late tax extensions this year.”

  Clearly not wanting to be the only one who didn’t have something busy to do, Jeannie noted, “Yes, well, the PTA meeting is coming up and I need to get over to the school to work on bulletin boards and that upcoming meeting agenda.” She glanced at her watch and escorted them to the door, offering a tight smile. “See you next time, ladies.”

  Rachel and Kellie walked down the driveway. Sporting the Adidas yoga outfit that had made her feel underdressed, Kellie glanced at Jeannie’s perfectly manicured lawn and professionally edged sidewalk. There wasn’t a weed to be seen, not even in the mulched flower area around the mailbox. Kellie thought about the crab grass and dandelions in her own yard, and the weeds in the flower containers beside her front door.

  “Why do I feel like we just got dismissed from the principal’s office?” Rachel asked her.

  “I don’t know,” said Kellie. “I don’t mean to talk about her behind her back but she sure has that way about her, doesn’t she?”

  “It must be a heavy burden to be completely perfect.” Rachel shifted in her dress, a hand automatically moving to try to control her disheveled ginger curls. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Me either,” said Kellie.

  “So we’ll have to continue our earlier conversation later, I guess?” said Rachel. “I definitely didn’t mean for her to overhear us.”

  “Ya think?” said Kellie. “I was totally horrified. The last thing I would talk about in front of the queen of the subdivision is my sex life.”

  “Especially if she knew it may or may not have been her own husband you were talking about in that clit comment, right?” Rachel asked knowingly of her younger neighbor.

  Kellie pointed a finger-gun at her head.

  “That would go over about as well as if she knew I had fake tits,” said Kellie. “And who even uses the word harlot?” she asked, giggling. She waved and started jogging toward her side of the neighborhood.

  As Rachel got in her car and pulled away, she glanced back at the beige vinyl-sided former model home and noticed Jeannie lowering the curtain she’d been holding aside, ever watchful of her neighbors.

  Kellie slowed her pace to walk past the matching pair of large faux landscaping rocks on either side of the walkway to her house, which was a slightly darker shade of beige than Jeannie’s, only two streets away. She stopped to deadhead a few geraniums and pull a few weeds from the antique black urns on either side of the red-painted door. Homeowners association be damned, she had gone to Home Depot one day and bought a can of red paint, applying it simply so she could tell people “it’s the one with the red door” when they entered her subdivision maze where the houses all looked the same.

  She walked into her house, closed the door behind her, and exhaled briskly, literally blowing off the feeling of negativity that clung to her from the visit to Jeannie’s house. How did I manage to get myself into a situation where I have to deal with her? she thought, as she tried to brain-bleach the newscaster Jesus’ roaming stare. She shook out her arms, another effort to shed the puritanical vibes she felt like she’d been irradiated by. She busied herself straightening the place, grabbing shoes off the floor and putting them in the closet, placing the morning dishes in the dishwasher, wiping down the counters. She glanced at the time on her phone. Her clients would be there shortly for what was known as the Wednesday “Hump Day Nooners Club.”

  Clients came and went from the house daily. She placed “Kellie Muller, Licensed Personal Trainer” ads for her fitness and yoga classes in the local paper where everyone could see the legitimacy of her home business. She had applied for and received the necessary home business permits; the paperwork describing her renovated full basement included architectural plans showing the weights, hardwood floor yoga area, two spin machines, and two treadmills.

  But Kellie had never purchased any of it. The house was empty of that equipment.

  The door to the fully renovated basement was locked at all times by a digital combination lock on the interior door leading downstairs; a similar lock existed on the exterior entrance where steps led to the large space and its individual rooms.

  Kellie climbed the stairs to her second floor master suite, unzipping and removing her workout jacket. (Another digital lock on the door here; she liked her privacy.) She quickly entered the password on the keypad and went into the room, pulling her yoga top off. She looked up just before she ran into her fiancé, Brandon, who was standing before her completely naked. He smiled at her, stroking his erect penis.

  “Heard ya come in. I want to fuck you before the Nooners Club gets here,” he said, hunger evident in his hazel eyes.

  “Fair enough, sexy,” said Kellie, stepping out of her black yoga pants. She walked over to the door between their small sitting room and the bedroom. Hanging above the doorway was a metal bar designed for pull-ups and not used exclusively for traditional exercise. Brandon walked up behind her, pressing against her naked, shapely ass so she could feel exactly how interested he was.

  She turned to
face him, opening her mouth for a long, tongue-probing kiss. Her hands raked through his mop-top dirty blond hair and she dragged her fingernails down the sides of his rippled abs and around to his ass, where she squeezed both cheeks.

  “But we don’t have much time.”

  “They know the combination to the outside entrance downstairs,” said Brandon. “They’ll wait.” He reached down and picked up two ankle braces with hooks on them, looking at her inquisitively.

  Kellie smiled her approval and lowered herself to the floor, leaning back on her elbows and extending her feet to Brandon. He attached the foot cuffs, clasping two buckles on the sides of each ankle. While her legs were spread, he lowered his head and gave slow, teasing licks to her most sensitive place, running his hands lightly down the sides of her thighs, raising goose bumps and sending chills up her spine.

  She breathed in the smell of the sandalwood aftershave he used and her nipples hardened in anticipation of what was to come. He caressed the aroused peaks of her breasts with his strong thumbs, following the motion with his mouth and tongue. She reached down and took him into her hands as he moaned with pleasure.

  He stood up, taking her right foot in his hands and raising the hook to attach it to the metal bar, which she noticed he’d adjusted so it was about a third of the way down from the top of the doorway. A notch in the doorway marked the spot where the bar had been before. He raised her left foot and clicked the second hook into place. She could freely move her feet from side to side because he hadn’t attached the brace clamps on either side that would lock her feet in place. She expertly raised the lower half of her body and grabbed the top of the bar with her hands. He massaged her arousal with one hand, his other hand stroking his own shaft.

  Kellie arched her back, dropping her hands down to grab the corners of the doorway near the floor. She was now fully upside-down and he stood in the doorway behind her. A set of handcuffs was hung on hooks on either side of the bottom of the doorway, but there was no time for additional bondage. Brandon stroked himself just outside her wetness, entering her more deeply with each motion. She thrust her hips forward in anticipation. In this position, he could reach her breasts, which he massaged, licking his thumbs and running them over her nipples. Since she was in a swinging position, each time he entered her she rocked on the bar that held her feet in place. He reached around to grab her hips, holding her in place to fuck her harder until they both came—the first orgasms of the day in the house before they went downstairs to join the others who’d arrived seeking their own. They caught their breath, pausing to enjoy the moment before Brandon began to unshackle her.