The Scarlet Letter Society

by Mary McCarthy

  Grinding her jeans against his, they both sighed in anticipation of their typically amazing lovemaking.

  Ted lifted her t-shirt over her head, her Boston Red Sox baseball cap falling onto the step as her moppy curls spilled out. She tugged at the button fly of his jeans as he removed her bra in a matter of seconds. Then his mouth was on her nipples, and once again she rested back on the step. His tongue, his teeth, the pressure—everything was perfect and she found herself grinding on his hard-on until her body exploded. She shook as he started to undo her jeans.

  He smiled down at her as he gently twisted her nipples with his expert thumbs and forefingers. She managed to gather herself, her shirt, her bra, her hat, and turn to go up the stairs.

  “We would probably be more comfortable upstairs,” said Maggie, clearing her throat and still shaky from the intense orgasm. Dry humping! At my age! She smiled at Ted.

  “I kinda like these steps,” he said, following her and grabbing her hips. Still both in jeans, he pressed his hardness against the crease between her back pockets. She lowered her jeans over her hips so she could feel every bit of that stiffness, automatically leaning into a sort of modified downward-facing dog yoga pose. She wore no panties under her jeans. Happy for the access, he reached around to her front and slipped two fingers into her, sliding them effortlessly in and out as he circled his hips around her ass.

  Maggie enjoyed this amazing sensation for a few moments, and then couldn’t take it anymore—it was time for his jeans to go.

  She reached behind her and lowered his already-unbuttoned jeans. She felt him step out of them and his boxers and now, finally, she could feel him against her. She reached back to stroke him and he moaned softly in appreciation. She flipped back over, sitting on her jeans to cushion her from the hardwood floor steps.

  She felt him move down two steps, scoop his arms under her waist to raise her toward his mouth, and he used his tongue to arouse her even more, if that was possible. She rested her head on her arm and let herself get close to another orgasm, but this time, she wanted him inside her. She reached down, grabbing his toned waist, and lifted him up toward her, gently stroking him for a few moments before bringing him closer to her. She teased him there for a moment until he couldn’t take it anymore and entered her with every inch of himself.

  They both made the same sound-- a release of tension, sexual energy, passion, complete bliss. He began to move inside her and she arched her back to meet his thrusts. They expertly worked against each other, pleasure cascading into simultaneous orgasms.

  They sighed, then laughed. He followed her up to the apartment so they could grab a quick shower before moving on with their days.

  Maggie chatted with Ted in the shop for a few minutes before he had to get back to work.

  “I had an interesting experience last week,” she said, wondering if this was really a good time to be talking about it.

  “Oh yeah, what’s that?” Ted smiled.

  “I met someone new. A professor at the college.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re cheating on both your estranged soon-to-be-ex-husband and me with some hot chemistry professor hunk,” he said, teasingly.

  “Actually, no, it’s not a chemistry professor,” said Maggie, feeling slightly awkward about how this conversation was going to go. “It’s a literature professor, a customer here at the shop.”

  Ted looked quizzically at her.

  “So what, he’s a new boy toy, someone you want to have a threesome with that includes me, or what?”

  Maggie looked at Ted. They had an open, honest relationship and she knew that the news would not be something he would be completely shocked by. He was pretty sexually liberal. Divorced, he had dated a number of women, encountering during his work as a musician some non-vanilla stuff, including a few threesomes she was aware of.

  “Just a hook-up, I guess,” she said, although she looked uncertain about it.

  Ted laughed. A deep, hearty laugh from all the way down in his stomach. She glanced admiringly at the wrinkles the smile created on his face. The gray hairs sprinkled in with the dark brown were so sexy, she thought as he ran his fingers through it.

  “Maggie, you sex queen, you!”

  “I’m certainly not a sex queen,” Maggie responded. “This must just be some kind of fluke thing. I mean, I was attracted to the professor, and we sort of hooked up, and I don’t know what it means or what is happening.”

  Ted walked over, pushing the freshly re-fitted baseball cap aside again, and kissed her passionately. But as he pulled away he had a huge grin as he asked, “Is this the part where we start using the term ‘mid-life crisis?’ Are the professor and I here because you need us to make you feel young again?”

  Maggie smiled at Ted and straightened her baseball cap.

  “I don’t know what to call it,” said Maggie.

  The shop entry bell jingled again.

  “Hey Lisa!” said Maggie as her friend walked in. Ted beamed from ear to ear watching Maggie blush. He knew her glance at the clock meant she was thankful Lisa hadn’t arrived ten minutes earlier.

  “Hi Ted,” said Lisa. “Good morning, Maggie. I have an, um, a sudden lunch meeting and I came downtown today in these ratty clothes. I was wondering if you could help me find something to wear.”

  “Of course, dear,” she responded, and Lisa loved the way it sounded: de-ah.

  Ted hugged Maggie goodbye, and she thanked him again for the flowers.

  Maggie looked at Lisa. “We’re going to want to find an outfit that says, I’m just the local baker, but please fuck me under the covered bridge again, then?”

  June 2012

  “I know where you goin’ to, I knew when you came home last night

  ‘Cause your eyes had a mist from the smoke of a distant fire.”

  —Smoke From a Distant Fire, Sanford Townsend Band

  Monthly meeting of the Scarlet Letter Society.

  Zoomdweebies Café

  Friday, June 1, 2012

  5:30 a.m.

  “Welcome to Z’s, ladies,” said Zarina, opening the shop to the beautiful June morning and its fresh sunrise.

  “Hey there, Zarina,” said Eva. “You look awfully bright and chipper this early morning.”

  She smiled.

  “This must have something to do with that slightly brooding but completely adorable young hipster gentleman we often see visiting your lovely shop,” added Eva.

  “Well, I hadn’t thought about it that way,” replied Zarina, “but I guess that’s just a good a reason as any to put a smile on my face. And you know we hate being called hipsters.”

  “We know,” said Maggie. “But what else are we supposed to call you youngins? And by the way, thanks for getting the books for us this month, hipster.”

  “No problem, Mag Hag. You don’t mind if I call you that, right? Only every time you call me a hipster.” Zarina winked at Maggie, enjoying her fake horror face response, and retreated behind the counter to begin supplying the early morning caffeine.

  Maggie began the meeting with her typical style. “Ok, so which of you adultresses read the book? You know, the one our entire tiny club is named after?”

  Lisa cleared her throat. “I read it. It’s not an easy thing to do. That old-fashioned language made me remember why we all read Cliffs Notes back in the day. But the theme of sin and the conflict between heart and mind are timeless.”

  “Well that was a thought provoking, brief but detailed book review, Lisa. Thank you for that,” said Maggie. Eva laughed.

  “What are you laughing about, missy? I bet your big-shot corporate-attorney ass didn’t even read page one,” said Maggie.

  “I did so read page one!” proclaimed Eva. “Plus more than half of the Wikipedia page.” They laughed.

  Lisa always found herself a little jealous of the relationship between Maggie and Eva, who’d known each other for years. Lisa hated feeling like the perpetual third wheel on the SLS bike, but the current company rep
resented her only friends, so she did her best to swallow her insecurity.

  “The whole first page of the book, huh? Wow, we’re impressed,” said Maggie. “Well, ladies, how about if I give my thoughts on the book? I actually took notes.”

  “Notes? Geez!” said Eva.

  “I took notes, too,” admitted Lisa, clutching her trusty notebook and flipping through it.

  “Pipe down, Eva. It looks like our little book club discussion is being led by me and Lisa, since you barely cracked the cover—er, opened the app,” said Maggie,. She continued, “There’s a reason all of our club invites include the one quote about the scarlet letter as ‘her passport into regions where other women dared not tread.’ I picked it because it describes that there are basically two types of women in this world. Those who cheat, and those who do not.”

  Lisa looked down at her coffee, then pretended to write something down in her journal.

  “Well I guess we’ve come to the right place,” said Eva. “I know I’d rather be the mistress than the wife.”

  Lisa turned to Eva and said, “But you are a wife.”

  Eva replied, “I didn’t say I wasn’t, but in addition to the fact that I’m a terrible one, obviously, I think being a mistress is so much more fun. There’s no laundry or kids’ sports practices or fights about spending money. It’s just fun.”

  “Which brings up another key quote from the book: ‘She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom’,” said Maggie. “I think that’s what Hawthorne was trying to say there. Being in a marriage can feel like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders. But when you’re with a lover, you’re in another world, and you’re free. Even if it means you pay the price of a sinner.”

  “Exactly,” said Eva. “Sin or no sin, it’s an escape from reality. And if you’re with several lovers, you’re even more free! Right, Maggie?”

  Maggie sighed. “Why do I have the feeling that we’re never going to end up actually discussing the books in our book club? Ok, well, since you seem to be asking, Eva, the professor and I are just friends.“

  “Margaret Katherine Hanson, I believe you just blushed for the first time in the history of your half-century life,” said Eva.

  “Fuck you, half-century!” said Maggie. “I’m nowhere near fifty yet!”

  Lisa looked at the two women and laughed nervously, secretly worrying she didn’t fit in to this club. She scribbled in her journal and thought to herself: how am I going to keep coming to these meetings if I’m contributing literally only fictionalized accounts of fantasy encounters with my graphic designer? I love Maggie and Eva’s stories and their confidence, but will it be enough for me to take the leap and have a real affair of my own?

  Zarina listened intently to the June meeting of the Scarlet Letter Society and wondered to herself who Maggie’s new professor friend was; whether it was a friend of her mother’s at the college. She observed the group dynamic of the women. Maggie was clearly the leader. The confidence in her boisterous New England accent alone could have made a ship full of men sail toward a hurricane if that’s what they’d been told to do.

  Eva was more serious generally and seemed so conflicted. One time she’d seem happy, giddy almost, and another day she’d seem kind of moody and somber. And Lisa? Well, she just seemed to be in a world all her own. She often came into the shop and wrote quietly; alone. She was so much more reserved than the other women. Her quiet nature always made Zarina wonder how she even got the nerve to have an affair.

  But when Zarina heard the women talking about another book selection, she couldn’t help but chime in. Anna Karenina? Ugh. Zarina had an immediate sneaking suspicion the women would not enjoy trudging through the 1852 Tolstoy classic. She’d read it herself in her last semester at college. At the meeting, Maggie had come in with the Anna Karenina opening quote,

  “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

  It was true the women often talked about their own families—whose parents were divorced (Lisa), whose mother was getting a bit senile (Eva), and who was orphaned as a kid (Maggie, who spent a fortune in therapy trying to get over those years that were so difficult to forget). But Zarina knew the book would end up being torture, if any of them even got through the tome. So she approached Maggie.

  “I hate to interrupt,” said Zarina. “And of course I’m happy to order you ladies any book you want. But I’m not sure any of you will like reading this one.” Zarina understood their desire to find wisdom and meaning in adulterous literature. But there was no sense letting them read voluminous Tolstoy about a woman treated as a social outcast…especially since Anna committed suicide at the end by hurling herself in front of a damn train.

  “What about Fear of Flying by Erica Jong?” asked Zarina. She knew Maggie’s shop was named for the 70s novel, as was her daughter Erica, who Zarina had gone to school with as a kid.

  “Oh, for the love of baby Jesus,” Maggie had said, laughing. “How have we not read it already?” She told Zarina to order copies just before they left.

  She was looking forward to reading it. Her mom had spoken fondly of the “feminist bible,” and she was eager to see what Jong’s take on the whole infidelity thing would be.

  It was barely 7 am as Eva sat in her eighth floor office building near Union Station in Washington, D.C. She thought about her boys. After a week of being “unplugged”, she thought the boys had learned their lesson and hopefully wouldn’t get busted doing stupid shit again.

  Disciplining the boys had triggered her memory of the kinds of discipline that were doled out in her home as a kid. Her dad would drink, get drunk, scream at her mother for some ridiculous housewife violation—the laundry was piled up, why was the dishwasher not emptied, why couldn’t she just vacuum this fucking room? And then, on the bad days, he would hit her. Eva and her sister would hide in their bedroom closet until it was over.

  Stay out of his way, just stay out of his way. When the attacks came, whether verbal or physical, Eva’s mother would look down shamefully, never yelling back, never fighting. She just took it. To this day, living alone on the island, her abusive drunk asshole of a husband long dead, she was as vacant as an abandoned motel. It was like life had battered her down into a state of complacency that amounted to just waiting to die.

  Eva found herself getting lost in her thoughts a lot. It was difficult to concentrate at work when she had so much going on in her personal life. The paperwork stacked on the desk in front of her demanded her attention for the big trial coming up. She wanted to prepare for it, but thoughts of her troubled marriage, wayward sons, New York chef lover, and her intern Ron, were constantly getting in her way.

  The monthly visits to Maryland’s Eastern Shore were the only time she really had to herself to try to put her life into some kind of perspective. Her mother’s cottage on Matthew’s Island had a separate small caretaker’s cottage where Eva stayed when she visited. Her mom had become more and more forgetful as time went on, and once a month was the minimum Eva could visit in order to make sure her mother was getting along okay.

  “Going to your happy place?” asked Ron as he peeked his blond head around the corner into her office door.

  Ron walked in, observing Eva staring at the enormous vintage apothecary jar on the corner of her desk. It was filled with sea glass she found on the island. It was a hobby she’d picked up from her mom. Searching for the worn pieces of glass tossed onto the beach by the Chesapeake Bay was her personal form of relaxation-therapy even. She’d check the low tide charts, then ride a bike over to the hidden spot she’d found where the best variety of colors could be found. The most typical colors- white, brown, and green were found in abundance but the jar before her held only the pale turquoise she loved best. Though she had jars filled with other colors at the cottage, her office collection represented her favorite color, each piece collected at a moment of peace not otherwise found in her life.

  Eva smiled at Ron. He was
gorgeous in his sleek black suit, perfect grin, huge blue eyes staring at her eagerly.

  “That sounds like a fantastic idea,” she said.

  Ron walked over and closed the door.

  “You know, you never invite me on your New York trips,” he said, smiling at Eva. “I’d love to get out of DC once in a while.”

  “Yeah, sometime we’ll have to do that,” said Eva, immediately thinking that she’d have to find a reason to stay in a different hotel, because there was no way in hell she could stay at her usual Plaza suite and have the worlds of her two very different lovers collide. “But for now, why don’t we get out of here and take a coffee break?”

  “And by coffee break, I am guessing you mean at my apartment?” Ron beamed at her, acting surprised at the invitation.

  She grabbed her purse and they left the office separately, walking the few blocks to his apartment building.

  “What’s the matter today?” asked Ron as they walked up the steps and into his loft space apartment in an old warehouse building. “You look a world away.” Eva sat on a tan leather chair, plopping her feet on its ottoman as Ron fixed cups of coffee for both of them. She asked for Bailey’s in hers. When he returned from the small kitchen, she saw that he had unbuttoned his yellow Oxford shirt, smiling as he walked over to her with the steaming cup.

  “Oh, it’s nothing, just thinking about my day,” said Eva. “Which looks like it might be getting better already.”

  Ron’s black pants hung low on his hips. His blond hair was tousled, and Eva admired his perfect chest and abs as he put the coffee down on the table next to where she was seated. She took two long swallows of the coffee, not minding the heat burning down through her chest. What is that thing called, Eva wondered, as she ran her hand over that smooth area of skin just inside Ron’s hip bones, that amazing V-shaped valley thing? Whatever its name, there wasn’t a doubt it was singlehandedly responsible for the wrecking of homes and the falls of empires.