Made For Sex

by Joan Elizabeth Lloyd

  “Oh, Carla, this is so wonderful,” Ronnie said. She looked at the front end of Carla’s car. “Not bad,” Ronnie said. “Looks like you got out of this little accident with almost no damage at all.”

  Carla nodded and wrapped her arm around Ronnie’s waist. “I’m so glad I ran into you.” She laughed. “Literally.”

  “Me too. This way.” Ronnie led Carla under a small awning that proclaimed the restaurant to be The Villa Luigi. As they entered, Carla inhaled the enticing odor of garlic, oregano, and olive oil. They were shown to a quiet table in the back. “Give us a bottle of your Ruffino and some garlic bread,” Ronnie told the waitress who seated them. As she left, Ronnie laughed. “Remember the night we got a gallon of jug-red and drank it with an entire package of Oreos with Double Stuff?”

  “All I remember is how sick we were the next morning. I had to hold onto the floor to keep from falling off.”

  “And I puked my guts up for over an hour.” The two women laughed. “Tell me what’s new with you now,” Ronnie said.

  Carla took a deep breath. “Well, I was married for almost nine years but Bill was killed in a car accident almost five years ago.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Well…. Bill wasn’t exactly Prince Charming. He drank too much and was not a nice drunk. I had been thinking about a divorce for a year before his death.”

  “Kids?”

  “BJ—that’s Bill Junior—is thirteen, Tommy’s eleven, and Mike’s ten. Three boys. Where did I go wrong?”

  “I remember that you wanted ten kids, all girls. And you never wanted to work.”

  “Never work? God, imagine thinking that being a mommy wasn’t work.”

  “So you’re a mommy full time?”

  “Fortunately Bill left me pretty well provided for. That, and I sell a little real estate. I got my license about two years ago and I put what I make away for college for the boys. Sometimes I think I should work more, what with the boys in school all day and my folks right next door, but I can’t think of what I could do, college degree or no college degree.” Carla put her napkin in her lap. “English literature. A useful degree if ever there was one. Anyway, what about you? Married? Where do you live?”

  Ronnie waggled her left hand under Carla’s nose. The wide gold band on her third finger flashed. She also wore a thin band of diamonds on her index finger and a heavy free-form gold ring on the middle finger of her other hand. “Jack’s an independent geologist who does consulting for a number of oil companies. It’s a combination of lots of travel and a house full of computers. He’s only home about one week a month.” She heaved a sigh. “Unfortunately, no kids. I found out early on that I couldn’t have any and neither of us wanted to adopt. We live in Hopewell Junction, in Dutchess County, almost two hours north of here. What were you doing in town, by the way?”

  “Doctor’s appointment.”

  Ronnie jumped in. “Nothing serious, I hope.”

  “Nothing. A lump in my breast that turned out to be a benign cyst.”

  “I’m glad.” She squeezed her friend’s hand.

  Carla was touched. Ronnie was someone with whom she had always shared everything. It felt good sharing now. “So, Ronnie, I couldn’t help noticing the quality of your wardrobe. And the new Cadillac. Jack’s obviously doing well.”

  “Well enough. But the Caddie’s mine.”

  “You work?”

  Ronnie smiled in a way that puzzled Carla. “Yes, I work.” She paused, then continued. “And I take occasional courses in creative writing at NYU. I’ve even had a few articles published.”

  “That’s great.” The waitress brought their wine and a basket of bread dripping with butter, garlic, and herbs. When she had poured them each a glass and left, the two women picked up their glasses and tapped them together.

  “To work in all its forms,” Ronnie said mysteriously, then laughed.

  Puzzled, Carla drank.

  For the next hour, Carla and Ronnie caught up on everything that had happened since they lost touch after graduation when Ronnie traveled in Europe for a year. As the two women finished espressos and the last of the bottle of wine, Ronnie looked at her watch. “I hate to say this, but I have to run. Someone’s meeting me at two. But let’s get together next week. Noon. Why don’t we meet out front and eat somewhere else? And, don’t worry about the damage to my car. I’ll let my collision coverage take care of it.” Ronnie took the check, added a generous tip, and split the amount. After settling up, the two women stood and Ronnie reached out and hugged Carla. “God, I’ve missed you.”

  For each of the next three Mondays the two women lunched in the same neighborhood: at a Chinese restaurant specializing in Peking Duck, an Indian hole-in-the-wall that made the best mulligatawny Carla had ever tasted, and today at a sushi bar where Carla sampled raw fish for the first time. Over ginger ice cream and green tea, Ronnie suggested their next meeting place. “I’d like you to see my place,” she said. “Let’s have lunch chez moi next week.”

  “In Hopewell Junction? I guess I could. You’ll have to give me directions.”

  “Not Hopewell Junction. Around the corner.” With an enigmatic smile, Ronnie gave Carla an address on East 54th.

  “I don’t get it, Ronnie. You have an apartment right here?” She saw Ronnie nod, then pause. “No wonder you know all the good spots to eat. Have you got a secret life? Tell me everything.”

  “Next week I promise you’ll know all.” As Ronnie left for her usual two o’clock meeting, she added, “I’ll arrange to have the whole afternoon free. We’ll talk.”

  The address that Ronnie had given Carla led her to a small, three-story brownstone on East 54th. Carla climbed the four steps to the entrance and rang the bell. Ronnie opened the door dressed in a soft gray wool long-sleeved jumpsuit, her dark blond hair loose around her shoulders. A pair of large, free-form silver earrings and a silver herringbone choker were her only jewelry. Carla was glad that she had chosen to forgo her usual jeans and had worn a dark green wool suit with a beige raw silk blouse.

  The two women bussed cheeks, and Carla followed Ronnie through a small vestibule and into a beautifully furnished living room.

  “Some fantastic place,” Carla said as she looked around. Everything was done in black, white, and shades of gray. The sofa was overstuffed, covered in black leather banded with leather straps secured with heavy metal buckles. It was accented with throw pillows in black-and-white stripes and plaids. The two comfortable-looking soft chairs were white jacquard fabric with identical black-and-white pillows. A fluffy white rug covered the center of the floor; Carla could see the original highly polished inlaid wood where the rug ended. The walls were covered with a soft silver-gray silk and the windows were draped in a slightly darker gray damask. End tables of black lacquer held white-based, modern lamps that filled the room with light.

  Vases and pots of flowers placed on tables and pedestals around the room provided the only color. Roses, chrysanthemums, and geraniums added their hues to blooming cactuses and unusual blossoms that Carla didn’t recognize. Several hanging baskets of living blooms hung from hooks in both the walls and ceiling. One wall was all windows with a decorative but highly functional iron grill outside. The opposite wall contained a long, white, glass-fronted wall unit filled with books of every kind, from popular novels to poetry to volumes on natural sciences and history. The other walls held black-and-white Ansel Adams prints and other, smaller black-and-white photographs by artists Carla didn’t know. At one end of the room sat an antique maple desk.

  Carla whistled. “Holy cow.” Through her real estate wanderings, she had learned enough to appreciate the class and expense of the decorating.

  “Just a little hideaway,” Ronnie said, laughing.

  “Little? Either you inherited a small fortune, your writing is doing extremely well, or Jack indulges you and your ‘little hideaway.’”

  “Or ‘D’ none of the above.” Ronnie handed Carla a champagne flute and fille
d it from an already opened bottle of Dom Pérignon. She clinked her glass against her friend’s and, with an enigmatic smile, said, “To ‘none of the above.’”

  They drank. “Okay,” Carla said, “give.”

  “I think we know each other well enough for me to show you my photographs. Sit down.” She motioned toward the sofa and Carla picked up a photo album covered in black satin and sat down next to her friend. When she opened the album Carla saw a picture unlike anything she had expected. A statuesque brunette posed, wearing a black leather and chain bathing suit-like outfit. The links draped over her naked breasts, the supple leather caressed her hips and belly. On her hands she wore soft, elbow-length, black leather gloves and her legs were covered with thigh-high patent leather boots with five-inch heels.

  The woman’s wavy, auburn hair hung softly across her chest with one curl surrounding an erect dark brown nipple. In one hand she had a short, black leather riding crop. Her makeup was heavy, with bright red lipstick and exaggerated eyeshadow and liner. “I don’t get it,” said Carla.

  “Turn the page.”

  The picture on the following page was of a woman with pale white-blond braids that hung down in front of her dress. She was turned slightly sideways, looking shy and vulnerable and dressed in a puffed-sleeve pink dress, an adult version of the dress a five-year-old girl might wear, with a fluffy full skirt over several petticoats and a wide sash tied into a large bow which peeked out from behind. Her white ankle socks were neatly cuffed and her black patent leather Mary-Janes gleamed. Her face, artfully made up with soft rouge and pale pink lipstick, looked youthful and familiar. As Carla examined the face more carefully, she gasped. “That’s you.” She flipped the page backward. “So’s this.”

  “Turn the page.”

  The pictures that followed were all of Ronnie in various costumes: a harem girl with a transparent veil covering the lower half of her face, a prim gray-haired woman in a white high-necked blouse and sensible shoes, a voluptuous female pirate wearing short shorts that showed the half-moons of her ass peeking beneath and a blouse unbuttoned to the waist, and a woman in a black satin teddy standing over a man whose arms and legs were secured to the frame of a brass bed with lengths of heavy-link chain and padlocks.

  “Phew. Ronnie, I’m amazed here. Okay, fill me in.”

  “I call the album Black Satin and it’s really a menu. Selected people get to pick their…shall we say entrée and I supply the dessert.”

  “You’re trying to tell me that you’re a hooker.”

  “I’m a very selective, high-priced prostitute.”

  Carla was flabbergasted. She had expected something unusual. After all Ronnie had never been mainstream. But this? What could she say?

  Ronnie spoke, her voice a bit tentative. “No condemnation? No ‘how could you?’”

  “I’m too much in shock to say much of anything. But, of course, your life is your own.”

  Ronnie smiled. “And it’s wonderful. I enjoy every bit of my secret existence.”

  “What about Jack?”

  Ronnie smiled. “I think he knows what’s going on. He travels and I know that he entertains himself while he’s away, and so do I.”

  “What about AIDS?”

  “I thought about that a lot when all this began. Many of my friends—that’s what I call them, my friends—don’t want actual intercourse. They want oral sex, toys, and/or mutual masturbation. And those who do want to have intercourse must wear condoms.”

  “What about oral sex? Isn’t that risky?”

  “Not as risky as unprotected intercourse, but yes, it is. I thought about it a lot at the beginning, and I decided it was a risk I was willing to take.”

  “How in the world did you get involved in this?”

  Ronnie leaned back and put her feet on the coffee table. “How, indeed.”

  Chapter

  2

  “I guess it all started just over three years ago,” Ronnie explained. “You have to understand that Jack and I have always had an open relationship. I guess you’d say we were swingers. We both enjoy sex a lot and find that outside activities actually enhance what we have.”

  “You mean…with other people?”

  Ronnie chuckled. “Yes, both of us were. And it didn’t bother me at all. I loved the idea that someone else was making Jack happy, particularly since he was—and still is—away so much. And back then he’d come home with new ideas, toys, sexy lingerie.” When she saw Carla’s expression, Ronnie added, “Put your eyebrows down, Carla. You remember I was always the experimenter.”

  “I remember some of your experiments. Like Oreos and peanut butter. Go on.”

  “Well, the only strict requirement that Jack and I had, and still have, is that no one has intercourse without a condom. Period.”

  “Don’t you get jealous?”

  “I can say truthfully that I’m not jealous. I can’t speak for what goes on in Jack’s mind, but for me, not a bit. Anyway, because of his traveling, Jack and I spend at least three weeks out of every month apart. We are always very careful with each other’s feelings. We talk often, and I’m sure that Jack has no objections to what I’m doing, although he doesn’t know all the details. I have no problem with his flirtations. And they’re just that, flirtations. Nothing serious, just lust and good sex. For me too.”

  “If you can really handle it….” Carla paused. “I’m not sure I could.”

  “I don’t actually know of many who can, but Jack and I seem to do okay.”

  “You were telling me how this thing,” Carla waved her hand around the luxurious room, “got started.”

  “Jack and I were having dinner with a business associate of his, TJ Sorenson of American Oil and Gas Products.” Ronnie closed her eyes. “It was Christmastime about three years ago. I remember that there were tiny trees and red candles on the tables.”

  “What a meal,” Jack said, settling back with a cup of espresso. “I’ve never been here before but you can be sure I’ll come here again.”

  “I discovered Chez Martin several months ago,” TJ said, “and I keep hoping that no one else will. I read the restaurant columns and am relieved every time I find other places discussed. So far no reviewer had found Chez Martin. I’m particularly glad I could share it with you. You’re two of my favorite people.” TJ Sorenson was about fifty, with a head full of white hair and a bushy white moustache, which he stroked with one index finger when he was thinking. An old-time wildcatter, TJ’s eyes were the color of cornflowers with deep lines at the corners from squinting in the bright sun for dozens of years. He was a handsome man, with the outdoor look of someone who spent a great deal of time in the sun, wind, and weather. He didn’t look old enough to have a grown son, a married daughter, and three grandchildren.

  “Thanks so much, TJ,” Ronnie said. “I’m so full I could burst.” She took a sip of her white crème de menthe on the rocks and gazed at the two men, both looking mildly uncomfortable in double-breasted suits, white shirts, and ties. Although he looks great in his usual jeans and sweatshirt, I love how Jack looks in a suit, Ronnie thought. And the slight gray at the temples of his carefully combed dark brown hair makes him look more like a banker than an oil explorer.

  “I’m glad you’re so satisfied, because I have an ulterior motive for inviting you tonight.” TJ stroked his moustache. “I would like to ask you a favor and I’m not entirely sure how to do it.”

  “Just ask,” Jack said. “You’ve been so great to me for all these years, I’ll be happy to help if I can.”

  “Well,” TJ said, “I need both of you to agree, although it’s really Ronnie’s favor.”

  Ronnie’s head popped up, her blond hair brushing her shoulders. “Me?”

  TJ sighed. “Let me explain. First of all, I hope you don’t mind that Jack has told me about your delightfully original relationship.”

  “Of course not. Jack and I are not ashamed of our lifestyle.” Ronnie stroked Jack’s hand lovingly. “We love each othe
r and have fun as well.” Jack winked one gray eye and nodded.

  “You two seem to have figured out something that works for you and you know how much I like you both.”

  Ronnie rested her elbows on the table and studied the older man. TJ, who had recently been promoted to executive vice president of American Oil, had been Jack’s first boss. The two men had hit it off almost immediately, and as TJ climbed the corporate ladder, Jack climbed with him. Several years earlier, when Jack formed his own geology consulting firm, TJ had given him moral support and had seen to it that American Oil put him on retainer. Jack and Ronnie owed him a lot.

  In addition to their business relationship, the two men had become friends. In the early days, TJ and Jack had traveled together on oil drilling expeditions, often spending weeks at a time in the field, living in a tent, and actually wielding a pick and shovel. In the years since TJ had become office-bound, Jack and Ronnie had dined occasionally with TJ and his wife Alice, most recently one evening the previous summer on the Sorensons’ new forty-foot sailboat.

  When TJ seemed at a loss as to how to continue, Ronnie said, “Whatever is bothering you can’t be that terrible. Why don’t you just come out with it?”

  “Right.” He sipped his cognac. “It’s my son. You met Tim last summer on the boat. What was your impression of him, Ronnie? As a woman. And be honest.”

  She remembered TJ’s son. He had been on his way somewhere but had paused for a moment to make small talk. She recalled an awkward young man who seemed uncomfortable with her. “He’s a nice-looking guy, as I remember,” she said, hedging. “How old is he now?”

  “He’s twenty-four. Tell me what you think of him as a person.”

  “I hardly spent any time with him,” Ronnie said. “But he was charming, seemed to know the right thing to say but I guess he seemed a bit distant, a bit difficult to get to know.”

  “He’s shy with women because he’s had a few bad experiences. And now he’s much worse. He was engaged, you know.”