Contents
Title Page
Forward and Warnings
Chapter 1 - Breakfast Meeting
Chapter 2 - Waking up
Chapter 3 - Walking Out
Chapter 4 - Stepping Out
Chapter 5 - Exposure
Chapter 6 - Sensations
Chapter 7 - Crescendo
Chapter 8 - Business
Chapter 9 - Pleasure
Chapter 10 - Roles
Chapter 11 - Introductions
Chapter 12 - Proposals
Chapter 13 - Vows
Chapter 14 - Settling In
Chapter 15 - Silent Influence
Chapter 16 - Confluence
Chapter 17 - Conflation
Chapter 18 - Acclimatizing
Chapter 19 - Alliances
Chapter 20 - Playtime
Chapter 21 - Bathing
Chapter 22 - Plumeria
Chapter 23 - Dots
Chapter 24 - Agendas
Chapter 25 - Active Influence
Chapter 26 - Influential Changes
Chapter 27 - Abundance
End of Book One
About the Author
Other Series by The Author
Island Cultural Center
Honest Attractions: Book 2
Marilyn Foxworthy
Copyright © 2019 Marilyn Foxworthy
All rights reserved.
Forward and Warnings
MY NAME IS Marilyn. I have written before about some of the remarkable men and women of the Jensen Family and others.
This time, it’s a man named Roland Jackson and the strange women that he meets on vacation and their Adventures in Honesty on the island of Kauai and the culture they create between them. This is the first book of their story.
I call it “Honest Attraction Book 2: Island Cultural Center.”
Ready?
BUT FIRST, BEFORE you turn the page, be aware of some things that you’ll find on the other side of this door. I warn you now. Here’s what you should know before you decide to read the story of our hero and his wonderful life:
1. The story is at times highly sexual. It is all consensual. If that isn’t what you want to read, stop right now. Return the book and get your money back. There’s a lot of sex. It is all portrayed as respectful, consensual, and loving. There is often a harem element where multiple women are in love with the same man.
2. This is a romance. There’s no sexual humiliation, sexual violence, bondage, or anything like that presented in any erotic way. If that’s what you’re looking for, something darker, this isn’t for you.
3. The story is a fantasy. It isn’t realistic. The Heroes are good guys. They win. The Bad Guys lose. Magic and miracles happen. There are allegorical elements to the story if you read it that way.
4. The story is revealed to a great extent through dialog. The characters talk a lot. Sometimes they talk as if they are in a play. They have fun with language.
5. Allegory alert: If you read the story as intended, many of the people, especially the women related to the primary hero in the story, actually represent different aspects of the same person. As people, we are complex beings. You will find explanations of the “oneness” of the characters, so keep in mind that what may sound polygamous, may actually be an allegory of one monogamous relationship. Or don’t. Read it however you want to, but it was written in many respects as an allegory. That doesn’t make it any less fun. It does make it more like “eroticism for philosophers” though.
6. The story is written as if our hero had kept journals of his adventures and I just edited and published them. It’s the style I enjoy right now. I was a fan of the great pulp writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs, and I think it influenced the language and style to some extent.
7. You may notice frequent references to quoted movie lines, song lyrics, and passages from other books. They may seem obscure. If you find something that one of the characters says to be a bit weird, it’s probably a movie line. You can look it up on the Internet or something if you want to. If you get it, that’s part of the fun.
WELL, READY? OUR story starts on the veranda of a resort hotel in Kauai…
Chapter 1 - Breakfast Meeting
I’d been here for a few days. It was nice. I loved it here. I came here to get away and work. This was my normal early morning seat, next to the snack bar, overlooking the bay, watching the cruise ship across the way get settled.
I liked getting up early. Usually before dawn, while it was still dark. This was Kauai. It was always warm. Even at sunup. The work that I came here to do was writing. I wrote books. Fiction. And they sold fairly well. I cranked them out at a pretty good pace and in the past year, I’d been able to quit my day job and focus on writing full time.
I’d always loved it here. At this resort. On the veranda where I was sitting now. Watching the other resort guests go by as the day started. It was a good place to sit and breathe and relax and write. The veranda wrapped around the inside of the hotel grounds and overlooked the bay, the beach, and the huge pool area. Later, I’d go sit by the pool, at another snack bar and eat fresh fruit. It was December and the fruit was in season here.
The sofa that I was sitting on, with my laptop open in front of me on a little table, was flanked by big chairs on each side that faced inward toward each other, creating a sort of enclosed conversation area. I didn’t pay that much attention when a woman sat in one of the chairs, curling her legs up under her on the cushions.
A minute went by and the woman said, “I’m divorced.”
Well, that was a strange introduction, I thought. But she had my attention. Not because she was divorced, but because she chose that as her first words to me. As if that was the most important thing about her right now and the most pertinent topic of conversation for us. Yeah, I was intrigued. What was she saying to me? I decided to engage her and find out. I could have ignored it, or deflected it, or any number of things, but I decided to see where this was going. She had a story, and as a writer, I wanted to hear it.
I said simply, “How long have you been divorced?”
I didn’t change the subject at all. If she wanted to talk about her divorce, we’d talk about it.
She looked straight at me and said, “It became final about a week ago.”
I said, “Did it take long? Sometimes they can drag out for a long time.”
I wanted to sympathize with her. She clearly wanted me to.
She said, “No. It took ten weeks. I didn’t contest it. We didn’t have any property and we lived in Nevada anyway, and it took ten weeks. Just two and a half months. And now it’s done. It was final and I got on a plane and came here. And here I am.”
I had a strange feeling about this encounter and said, “How many people have you talked to about this?”
She said, “No one. You’re the first.”
She paused and then looked out at the bay and said quietly, “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m not registered at the hotel.”
I said, “Oh. You can tell me your story if you want to. And, maybe I can help you if you need anything.”
She looked at me again and said, “I’ve been watching you. I’m sorry, but I have. I brought you your food yesterday.”
I said, “So, you work here?”
She said, “No. You are probably going to freak out. I don’t care anymore. I wanted to meet you. Your order came up and was sitting at the bar and I just walked up and grabbed it and brought it to you. You tipped me. I was a waitress for a while, so I knew how to make it look natural. I chickened out and thanked you and left.”
I said, “I’m sorry, I don’t remember that.”
She said, “You were relax
ing. Why would you remember?”
I said, “Hey, let me put away my laptop and you can tell me what you want to. Do you want some breakfast? I’d like to buy you a snack at least while we talk. It’s early and you probably haven’t eaten yet. I’m sort of flattered that you wanted to meet me.”
I really wasn’t. Not flattered. I didn’t feel flattered very often. But I did want her to feel like she was being noticed now.
I called a waitress over from the counter next to us. They didn’t normally do table service out here on the veranda this early in the morning but they weren’t busy right now and the women who worked there recognized me easily enough and one of them was happy to come see what I wanted.
I said to my guest, “Anything you want. Please.”
She looked just slightly embarrassed but went ahead and ordered some oatmeal and coffee. I ordered two hard-boiled eggs and some fruit juice. It was ready almost immediately and the woman, the one who’s divorce had just been finalized, insisted on getting up to get it from the counter.
As we got settled, I handed her the eggs and said, “Eat some protein.”
She gave me a funny look but took the eggs and set them next to her oatmeal.
As she started to eat, she said, “I don’t want anything from you.”
I looked at her sincerely and said, “Yes you do. At least two things. You want me to listen to you and you want a man to be your friend right now. I don’t mind at all.”
She said somewhat sadly, “I guess you’re right.”
I said, “Enjoy your food and tell me your story when you are ready.”
She ate in silence. Most of the time she looked out at the bay, but she spent a quarter of the time looking at me. She wasn’t shy about it. She would turn her head toward me and stare and take a spoonful of her breakfast.
When she came to the eggs, she took a bite and said, “Now that I’m here, I don’t know what to say.”
I said, “Yes you do.”
Her eyes widened sarcastically and she said, “Do I?”
I just sat and waited. I wasn’t making fun of her. I was just putting her in charge of her own story right now. I wasn’t going to assume anything yet. I didn’t know what was going on either, but it didn’t bother me at all. She was a woman from the resort and she sat down and wanted something from me. I’d let her tell me what it was. I had absolutely nothing to lose. There was no risk to me at all. In a way, I didn’t care. I would probably care about her and her circumstances, but not in a way that cost me anything at this point. This might turn into an adventure. I’d see where it went.
She finally said, “Thank you. That’s what I want to say.”
Well, if that was all she had to say for now, I guessed that I should take charge for a bit. She wanted something but wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe I could guess.
I said, “You are welcome. Hey, you’ve been here for a few days, right?”
She nodded.
I said, “But you aren’t registered at the hotel?”
She looked down and shook her head.
I said, “And you trust me for some reason and want to see if you can be safer than you are if you let me get to know you?”
She closed her eyes and looked down and nodded.
I said, “Do you want to go take a shower in my room?”
I didn’t even worry about what I’d said, or what she might think, or how she could take it for something it wasn’t. She didn’t know me but she had been watching me. Enough to decide to try to get to know me. My current thought was that she had been hanging around without a hotel room of her own and probably hadn’t had a comfortable place to sleep for a few days. Maybe she had been sleeping on the beach. She had a small bag with her that might have some clothes in it, and she didn’t look homeless, but she did look like she’d been traveling for a long time and hadn’t really freshened up afterward.
I wasn’t quite surprised when she nodded and said, “That would be nice. It isn’t why I sat down though. But it would be nice.”
Without another word, I grabbed my laptop and stood up and had her start following me to my room on the twelfth floor, overlooking the pool.
In the elevator, she said, “Are you ever going to ask me my name?”
I said, “No. I’m not going to ask anything. You tell me what you want. You said that you don’t want anything from me…”
She said, “And you told me that I was lying.”
I said, “…and I don’t want anything from you that you don’t want to give me. I want to buy you a little breakfast, let you take a shower if you want to, and hear your story if you want to tell it to me. And I can tell that you do.”
The elevator opened and we walked toward my room.
I said, “But here’s something else I want. I want us to be absolutely honest with each other. I have this young friend from a dinner club that I belong to and he and I have been talking about his recent experiences when telling the truth. He and his wife and his in-laws have been exploring what happens when you are really honest with each other. He says that you don’t always get what you want that way, but you do get what’s honest. I think that I’d like to try that myself. I wonder if you’d like to try it with me.”
The woman and I stood in front of my door and I used my key-card to let us in. I held the door open for her and she went in before me.
The room was nice. There was a king-sized bed, a dresser, a sofa, a desk, and a small balcony with two chairs. It was bright and warm and had a great view.
The woman stared at the big sliding glass door to the outside and asked, “Can I take a look?”
I followed her out to the balcony and we stood side by side at the railing.
She said, “I came here right after signing the final divorce papers. I went and got on a plane and flew over here. I had some stupid thought that I’d come and get a job in a hotel or restaurant and stay here for a while until I figured out what I was going to do. The bastard just dumped me. We’d only been together for six months. That’s why we didn’t have any assets to split up. I’d just gotten back from a memorial service for my brother in Oregon when the jerk dropped the bomb. I don’t even want to tell you the details.”
I said, “My friend, Dave, was in Oregon a few months ago. His dad had been declared dead. They ever found his body. It was some kind of airplane accident.”
The woman looked over at me with a strange expression and said, “That was my brother. Dave Raskin is my nephew!”
I shrugged and said, “That makes sense.”
She turned to face me more fully, leaning against the railing sideways and said, “How?”
I said, “We have a connection. You felt it somehow. You were drawn to me. And, to tell the truth, I feel drawn to you. I was sitting on the veranda watching it get light and a woman that I didn’t know came and sat down and essentially said that she’d been stalking me for a few days. My response was to try to buy you breakfast and to offer to let you use my shower. And we both swear that we don’t want anything from each other except to give this time to see what adventure we are getting on. Hey, have you been on the chocolate tour? Or the inner-tube float through the old plantation canals?”
She said, “I’ve never been here before.”
I said, “Would you like to go with me?”
She frowned and said, “Yes. I really would. But what about what I am going to do? I’m kind of up a creek here. I didn’t think this through and now I’m in big trouble. What was I thinking? I shouldn’t have come here!”
I said, “Shouldn’t you have? It all makes sense to me.”
I paused and looked out at the ocean for a minute.
Then I said, “Yeah, it makes perfect sense considering what’s been going on in my life and the things that I have been learning and the ways that I am learning to look at life, the universe, and everything. I could say that you were drawn here to Kauai, to this resort, the same way that you were drawn to my table this morning. Distance makes no differ
ence at all. Is it easier to feel pushed in a direction from 50 feet away or from 3000 miles? Tell me something…well, first, tell me your name.”
She said, “Oh, um, it’s Diane. Dee Dee. Um, Jackson.”
I smiled and said, “Diane or Dee Dee?”
She said, “I don’t know.”
I said, “No problem. We’ll figure it out. But Diane Jackson?”
She nodded and I grinned.
I said, “Now that’s a crazy coincidence. I’m Roland. Roland Thurman Jackson. ”
She said, “Jackson. Oh crap! My ex-husband was William, Bill, Jackson.
I said, “No relation. Never heard of him.”
She said, “So, the universe pushes me here to meet you, a man with the same last name as me? That’s too weird.”
I said, “No, it’s really not. It would be if both of us being named Jackson had anything to do with it, but it doesn’t. That’s just a strange coincidence. Has nothing to do with what’s happening here.”
She said, “Really?”
I said, “Yep. The important thing is that you felt drawn to me and I felt accepting of you. Our names aren’t anything except convenient.”
She made a funny face and said, “Convenient?”
I said, “Yeah. Do you want to go on a tour of a chocolate plantation with me or float down drainage canals?”
She said, “I don’t know. Um, yeah, I really do. I don’t know which. I don’t know anything.”
I said, “Sure you do. Do you like hot dogs?”
She said, “Yeah. I love hot dogs. Why?”
I said, “We’ll get a hot dog sometime. They aren’t like any hot dog you’ve ever had. You’ll like them.”
She frowned and said, “Who are you?”
I said, “Nope. You first.”
She said, “Me first what?”
I said, “First you tell me who you are. But right now, you say you don’t know who you are, so we’ll wait. When you start figuring out who you are, then we’ll take a look at who I might be. But hey, let me see if I understand. You hopped on a plane. You landed and picked a hotel because it seemed close to the airport and there was a shuttle. So you came down here and…?”
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