0 comments/ 12169 views/ 0 favorites Tangled Passions Pt. 01 Ch. 10-12 By: Jazz E. X. Initially Matt drifted through The Club mainly as an incidental participant in the various activities and scenarios and parties. His performance was rarely assertive; never the instigator or dominant, he took direction from others – listened and did as he was told; occasionally he merely followed suit. Usually his participation was as an extension of the dominator, although, he was given opportunities to try out other roles. And he occasionally, subtly moved into positions in which he was an extension of the primary submissive instead. It inspired odd feelings; gave him pause to think. During the following period – weeks, months –Matt established a network of his own within The Club. He became more comfortable and more confident in joining parties. Sometimes the scenes in which he joined had nothing to do with dominance or submission – just unrestrained sex and lust. Immersed in a miasma of stimulation, Matt’s involvement there was very much escapism, although, having realized that, he further realized that he wasn't about to do anything about it. So, he continued to just cruise through Club life – in and out of whatever he came across within that insulated world. Arriving one afternoon, Matt stopped to speak with a couple of familiar faces in the foyer. Nigel was in his early fifties and Tiffany maybe a few years younger. They said they had reserved a room upstairs and invited Matt to join them for a drink. Seeing no reason not to, he accepted. The room was one that he had only ever glimpsed from the door. It was a classic woman's bed/sitting room – all frill and lace. In the middle stood an ornate four poster bed, draped with pastel sheers and fringed shams. On either side of the bed were matching night tables – the drawers of one, it became apparent, contained any number of sex toys, oils and lubricants; the other contained long silk scarves, soft braided ropes and supple leather straps – aids to gentle restraint. On one side of the bed there stood a majestic old armoire, which was in fact the liquor cabinet, and across the room was a large mirrored dresser on which stood a complete selection of make-up and perfumes, the drawers stocked with assorted lingerie. Two leather wing chairs bracketed a small side table at the foot of the bed. It was into one of these that Tiffany collapsed with a loud sigh while Nigel went to the armoire to pour drinks. "I can't believe it. At last!" Tiffany said to no one in particular. "Sit down Matt." Nigel indicated the other chair. "Sherry everyone?" Matt accepted the drink and sat, feeling a little ill at ease. He didn't really know these people well and had never actually been active with them. He just listened as they spoke – as they unwound. He was surprised to learn that they were married to one another. Suddenly he wished he could or would tell Jenn. "I love our daughter dearly," Tiffany said with a sparkling giggle, "She married a lovely boy and they have an adorable baby, but..." She took a sip of her glass before putting it down and beginning to impatiently squirm her panties out from beneath her dress without getting up. "...but, three weeks was long enough for a while." "I'm glad they came," Nigel added philosophically, "Still it's been a bit of a long drought." He raised his glass, "Glad they're gone." "Cheers," Tiffany replied, raising her glass with one hand while fanning her dress with the other, as if to cool her now bare bush. "How about you, Matt? Married? Children?" Matt sputtered for a moment. The question had hit him from out in left field. "Well, I..." He gave an abbreviated version of his life over the past several years, and found he had tears in his eyes when he had finished speaking. Tiffany expressed her sympathy by climbing onto his lap and crushing her breasts against his chest while covering his face with her kisses. Nigel joined in with an arm around Matt's shoulder and a hand between his wife's legs. The warmth of their spontaneous embrace inundated Matt's psyche. His hands found their way up and under Tiffany's dress to release her bra strap then migrated around to insinuate themselves under the loose cups, moulding and kneading her bosom. In response Tiffany's hands dropped to Matt's lap and began to unloose his rapidly growing erection. Nigel continued to caress her pudendum and showered her neck, jaw and ear with kisses, as Matt passionately returned kisses on her lips and eyes and nose and cheeks. The initial compassion had rapidly metamorphosed to elemental passion, and the demands of lust overpowered all. In one fluid motion, Tiffany slipped from Matt's lap, allowing his hands to pull her dress and bra over her head and off her arms. She seemed to have landed with her mouth completely engulfing his pego. Her hands tunneled into his shirt to tweak his nipples, while her husband opened his pants and, grabbing her hips, thrust himself deep into the velvet folds of her slick vagina. Matt cupped his hands over the back of her head, and, closing his eyes, fought against the urge to just blow his load right then and there. The bobbing of Tiffany's head was accentuated by the bucking caused by Nigel's solid cock pounding her from behind. With her fingers still twiddling his nipples, Matt thought he was done for, just as Tiffany moved with a magician's sleight and bounced up away from her two lovers onto the bed. Matt followed directions all afternoon as he and Nigel serviced and were serviced by an insatiable Tiffany. In the end Matt had come twice, once in her mouth and once in her ass while Nigel pumped simultaneously into her cunt. Nigel had come three times. "Practice my boy," he claimed modestly, "that's all, just practice." Matt, exhausted but satisfied, finally left them, still groping and moaning on the bed. He felt dazed. They were married, he pondered, but still managed to satisfy their cravings together. Why couldn't he tell Jenn? She would join him; of that, he was reasonably sure. He should just tell her; invite her along. He should. Despite their slow drift apart, Matt still picked up Dara from time to time and always had a word with her when they passed; until suddenly, one day – she became very aloof. He had stopped by her place and given her a lift to The Club. She had been quiet and withdrawn all the way there but had denied any problem when he asked. She left him quickly in the foyer, without acknowledging him. Puzzled by her abrupt indifference, he wondered if he had done something to offend her. After he had changed, he went out in search of her, to ask her what was wrong. He saw her for a moment but when she caught sight of him she disappeared, seeming almost to flee from him. Her sudden open avoidance was unsettling and, feeling like the wind had been taken out of his sails, he retired to the lounge for a drink. He needed to mull this over. He sat sipping his scotch for a few moments before Stewart approached him. "I say, my good man," he began, "May I have a word with you?" Matt sensed that it would be something to do with Dara. Perhaps he had taken to this, The Club, all too well; perhaps Stewart was jealous, regretting his sponsorship. Still, Stewart was as jovial as ever in his greeting, and asked Matt, almost rhetorically, if he might join him. "Absolutely," Matt replied, indicating the empty chair next to him. "Something to drink?" "No. Thank you." Stewart settled himself into the chair and gave Matt an intense, appraising sort of look, before taking a deep breath and beginning. "I'll get right to the point, Matt. I've asked Dara to stop acknowledging you," he watched Matt's face, as if searching for a reaction. Matt deliberately kept his face neutral, which wasn't really hard as the news didn't, for some reason, surprise him even slightly – it was, in fact, a relief to find out that it wasn't him or at least not directly. "I mean no offense by it." He paused in thought, then seemed to change the subject. "You appear to be doing very well here. What do you think of the place? Eh?" Matt surprised himself with the ease with which he gave his reply. "I quite like it," his training as a child when speaking to elders never having quite left him, he added, "Sir. But I'm still learning the ropes." Then he hesitated. He wanted to know why Stewart had forbid Dara to speak with him, but he didn't want to offend the elder by asking. Stewart beat him to it. "Ah, the ropes, yes." A slight smile crossed Stewart's face before he went on. "I hope you don't mind – about Dara, I mean – but your – uh – presence – active presence in her life interferes with our developing relationship – if you know what I mean." Matt nodded but said nothing. He guessed that, in spite of it all, he actually did know what Stewart meant. "It's nothing you did, don't get me wrong." His smile was warm and reassuring. "So I just figured I'd better tell you myself, for, as you’re aware, our lovely friend will say nothing – literally." "Well, thanks for letting me know." "I understand that the two arrived together, today. Don't worry about her; I'll get her home." With that, Stewart stood up and extended his hand to Matt. "Thanks. I'm glad you understand." "No problem," Matt muttered, as Stewart turned and left him – standing in the posh lounge attired in nothing but his silk briefs and happi jacket. After that, Dara looked through him and treated him like a stranger when their paths crossed, as they did less and less frequently; until any contact at all was purely incidental. Infatuation had been extinguished by the sensory overload in which Matt was becoming immersed. Dara had, it seemed, been 'just a phase'. He was busy moving on and out – diversifying, while she was apparently centering – becoming increasingly submissive. Matt supposed that was the developing relationship Stewart had alluded to. Matt noticed more and more, whenever he saw her, that her downcast eyes had taken on a permanent soft focus. They had well and truly gone their separate ways. XI. Menages à trois, large orgies, intimate gatherings, group disciplines, individual submissions, command performances, gambling functions; Matt's repertoire of experiences continued to grow as he became more and more involved – immersed deeper and deeper in the promiscuity of The Club and its members. Moments after pulling out of the mad rush of traffic along Marine Way onto the rather sad and narrow Wiggins Road, Matt crossed the railway tracks and felt like he'd entered another world – another time. He passed the no exit sign and meandered along between the ditches, over the humped and cracked blacktop, driving slowly until he spied the inconspicuous card operated gate. It still amazed him that the card – his card – allowed him access to the long winding drive that took him from Marshland Drive, the narrow, little dead-end street, to a modest parking lot on the river side of a rather plain building. The Club stood anonymously – a newish, nondescript three storey building, hidden from view by massive blackberry brambles, in an industrial area down on the Fraser flats of South Burnaby. A fence along the dike was hidden by the scrub and brambles that descended to the river's edge. The few neighbouring factories and warehouses were apparently set off in like isolation; they were completely out of sight and hearing of The Club. Only the noise of a tug, tackling a log boom on the river, occasionally pierced the serenity of the establishment. It was an especially quiet area. From the entrance, it was hard to tell what city one might be in, or if in a city at all. The gyms, spas, kitchen, and utilities occupied the bottom floor. A lavish main lounge, several smaller parlours, a few comfortable rooms and a quietly elegant dining room took up the middle floor. Bedrooms and cells made up the uppermost floor. All of the walls were soundproofed. What Matt had only begun to be aware of was that the place was completely covered by video surveillance. He had seen right from the start a video camera on a tripod stand here or there in various rooms, but more recently, he had begun to notice remote control cameras mounted inconspicuously in many of the rooms. Thinking of Ira Levin's novel Sliver, he imagined there might be many more than he had yet seen. It gave him pause for thought – but not enough to forsake the thrill of the freedom he had discovered there. He was to learn later that there was a full video mixing and editing studio on the bottom floor. Down in the basement, among the utilities there was also a workshop for fabricating some of collars, straps, and such devices of leather and wood and chain and silk as might be needed from time to time. Still, from the outside, the building was entirely inconspicuous and ordinary looking, except that it gave no opportunity to unauthorized eyes and was completely void of identification. Matt felt, when he entered the place, as though he were leaving himself behind in another place – guiltily sneaking away from reality, from life as he knew it; sneaking into some dim and exciting, yet, somehow sordid place. Sometimes Matt would tell Jenn he had been at the office, implying he had been there all day when he had really been at The Club for most of the time. Occasionally, although less and less frequently, he actually would drop in to the office, even if only to stay for a few minutes. He felt bad about his constant fibbing – felt trapped by his own lies. Whenever possible he would just say nothing. He often considered revealing his ignoble secret to Jenn, maybe even inviting Jenn to join him – yes, involve her in his fantasies – but he invariably procrastinated, unsure of her reaction or his – afraid to burst the bubble – his fragile reality. He thought that she would probably embrace the idea – a new adventure, but he couldn't bring himself to share it with her, for reasons he couldn't quite understand himself – greed, shame, fright, jealousy? While he still managed to be home in the evening with his wife from time to time, he stayed out late frequently, at first making excuses, then not saying anything at all. He knew he was hurting her, and worrying her, but didn't know what to do next. He felt like a real shit. And it seemed to be getting worse. Matt opened his eyes to the dawn. “Where am I? Oh, yeah, at home. In my own bed.” His mouth felt fuzzy and his limbs leaden. The marital sex last night – late last night and long overdue – had been great, hadn't it? Well, not really. Once again, Jenn had been preoccupied and had not even got there, despite a plethora of positions and gymnastics. She was obviously tense – worried about him and their apparently withering relationship. Before the accident, she had always had at least a couple of climaxes per session. Last night, they had tried it orally, manually, vaginally, and anally; she had sat on his face long and hard; they had spent ages in soixante-neuf, but all to no avail. In the end, he had taken her in missionary position and they had fallen asleep exhausted in a tender yet frightened embrace. Suddenly awake, Matt became aware of Jenn's warm body against him. He paused for a moment, savouring her delicious, familiar scent, her touch, her aura – force-field. Her soft even breathing told him she was still fast asleep. She seemed at peace, and her angelic – what? – innocence? – angelic innocence was suddenly a potent stimulant. Carefully Matt slid himself beneath the covers and quietly shuffled himself down the bed. The heady aroma of her pubis, still redolent with their love of a few hours earlier, was almost more than Matt could stand. He positioned himself carefully, paused momentarily, then fixed his face to her muff. He had always relished the warm fuzzy feeling of her bush, her pubic mound soothing against his cheek. Her scent mingled with the pungent smell of old love and sweat to waft into his olfactory awareness. Sometimes he used to just lay his face there and do nothing. Jenn would wake to find him sleeping blissfully with his face nuzzled in her crotch. Sadly, he thought, it had been a long time since then. That morning, although Jenn still slept, he felt frisky once again – actually, more than that, he felt driven. He attacked her genitals with a hunger especially for her that he had not recently known. As she woke smiling and tingling, her urinary alarms began to jangle. Wriggling and twisting in an agony/ecstasy, she whispered, "Just a minute. I've got to pee." Matt ignored her. She struggled and complained, "Matt...," enjoying, nonetheless, the growing tensions. Matt would not cease. With him relentlessly tonguing her, she struggled to the edge of the bed – getting increasingly desperate to empty her strained bladder. With a combination laugh and cry, "Don't...," she planted her feet and began to drag him, face planted firmly against her labia and arms locked around her thighs, toward the ensuite door. "Matt," she shrieked, "I've really got to go!" To which the only reply was a muffled moan from between her legs and a tightening of his arms around her. Giggling and whining, laughing and crying, she managed to drag him, his knees thumping across the floor, into the bathroom. She pleaded and beat upon his head with her hands. "You're cruel!" He managed to pin her against the vanity, forcing his tongue further into her slit, his nose bumping against her stiffening clitoris. Finally she let out a plaintive scream, "Matt!!" and could hold on no more. Her dam burst and the pee flowed forcefully and freely over Matt's face and down his chest. Matt kept his tongue firmly in place, continuing to bother her genitals despite the deluge. As the flow hit full force, as she lost control completely, her body spasmed in the throes of a most violent orgasm, the likes of which he had not recently seen from her. A vision of Dara tied to her bed, the first time he had ever done her, flashed graphically through his head. The orgasms, this one and that, were very similar – both incredibly intense. Matt's tongue went on and on, joined then by his fingers, ignoring or possibly encouraged by the yellow stream and puddle gathering at his knees. Jenn's shaking body had barely begun to relax when another paroxysm of ecstasy tore through her. Still he kept on. As the third crisis passed and the final climax gave way to denouement and afterglow, Matt stated, rather dazed, surprised and pointlessly, "Well, golden showers. We've never done that before," and began to softly sing the old Beatles lullaby Golden Slumbers with only slightly different words. While Jenn showered, Matt mopped up. It was sort of a funny carefree feeling that rippled through him. He cleaned up the puddle with no more concern than if it had been a 'puppy's mistake'. By the time he got to the shower, Jenn was just stepping out so he gave her a loving kiss before heading in. She was very subdued. Saying not a word, she merely glanced up as he closed the shower stall door. He caught her sheepish half-smile; from the sad distance in her eyes seeped some sort of final, profound resignation. Puzzled, he stepped into the invigorating heat of the shower. When, at last, he emerged from the bathroom, he felt rejuvenated and happier or, at least, more at peace than he had for quite a while. But it was, he could tell, a fragile peacefulness – a peacefulness that rested tentatively upon an amorphous melancholy; he could sense it running deep within him. Again, he resolutely refused to examine that sector of his soul. Entering the bedroom, Matt found it empty. "Jenn?" he called gently so as not to rupture the blanket of tranquility. Wrapped in his towel he headed down the hall, looking from room to room. He discovered her crying in the girls' room. She didn't acknowledge him at all as he quietly entered and stood behind her, not knowing exactly what to do. Then, without the slightest movement, she said in a low voice, "We can sell the house now." Matt replied only by putting his arms around her and pulling her back gently into his chest. They stood there for a silent age, barely rocking, lost in their own sad thoughts. Tangled Passions Pt. 01 Ch. 10-12 Two years earlier, at seven and nine years old, their daughters Lucy and Lisa had been on a crosswalk, heading to school one morning when a courier van involved in collision with a left turning vehicle had careened into them, killing both girls as well as the adult crossing guard and one of three other children there. The two others were seriously injured. Why were their little girls killed? Some acquaintances had actually had the audacity to say to him that it was God's will. "We'll pray for you," they had said. How could they pray to a god that killed innocent little girls? What kind of terrible being would do such a thing? He had never been devout, but it was at that moment that Matt realized there was no God; help and comfort from above would not be forthcoming. In having finally come to that conclusion, Matt began to see that the world was filled with evidence to disprove the existence of God. The endemic starvation and destitution world wide; Chernobyl; Bhopal; even there, in Vancouver, where a pretty young college girl was killed with a crossbow bolt by her jilted boyfriend. The authorities knew who did it but they couldn't do anything because they hadn't got proof that would stand up in court. If there was a decent, moral and merciful god, that would be taken care of, but the guy was still walking free. No, there was no god. After the accident they had received a one point three million dollar award. It was called a settlement, but how, Matt often wondered, could anyone ever imagine that the deaths of their daughters could ever be settled? At first he couldn't bring himself to accept it; blood money! On the other hand, as Jenn had quietly suggested, refusing the money wouldn't bring the girls back. Perhaps, with it, they could find some meaning in the remainder of their lives – some sort of equilibrium. Their lawyer pointed out that they could do with it what they liked – set up a foundation, donate it to charity, go away, or anything – and that they didn't need to decide what to do with it now, or ever. Matt was still somehow disgusted with himself when they finally did accept it – six hundred fifty thou per child; oh, but they had been worth so much more – so very, very much more. It was months later – months after the accident when they were finally summoned to their lawyer's office to meet the insurance company's man and receive the cheque – an out-of-court settlement. Although there were no tears left to cry, Matt remembered having to force himself to extend his hand, force himself to take the proffered cheque, force himself to shake the hand of the insurance agent – just a cog in the tawdry payout. Through omission, they had eventually just put the whole thing away – out of sight and out of mind. Jenn had simply deposited the money in a secure and rather anonymous bank account – with the cryptic ID code '4-LISA-N-LUCY'. They couldn't initially bring themselves to leave their home, as filled with memories and reminders as it was. Those painful memories became part of them, part of their lives, integral in their very existence for the next two years – until that moment. "We should move into a condo in another part of town." Jenn's voice was distant, not quite flat, but hollow. "We really don't need this big old house any more." Their forty-year-old home stood up on the south side of Capitol Hill. The view of the city was panoramic. They could see from the mountains of West Van and Point Atkinson, over Vancouver harbour with Stanley Park and the apartment forest of the West End – the whole metropolitan sprawl of the city. On a clear day, beyond that, they could see the Gulf Islands with Vancouver Island lying like a ghost in the smog, and from Point Roberts to Surrey, with Mount Baker rising majestically from the hazy distance. But with no one to play in the yard, no voices to peal in laughter or dismay above the soothing city sounds, no innocent eyes to appreciate it, the marvelous view and the comforting susurrus of the city seemed to be wasted. XII. Selling up, disposing of all but the most precious of their children's memorabilia, was a surprisingly quick process. They were brutal, allowing their sentiment only a fraction of what both of them could easily have hung onto. They were finally shedding the constrictive skin of grief, and shedding it with a vengeance. And once they had begun to lighten the burden of the past, the changing perspective seemed to take on a force of its own. They had entered another room in their lives – another room with other windows and other views, other closets and other wardrobes. It was frightening and exciting. Jenn suddenly hated her car – the Mom-mobile, a metallic blue '97 Jeep Cherokee. She traded it in on a new red Mazda Miata. The regrouping – re-establishing took up nearly all of their time. Matt's thoughts strayed only occasionally into the halls and rooms of The Club. His visits there dropped to a fraction of their former frequency, while their conjugal sex flourished; still, if either of them consciously noticed, neither commented. They were too busy. The intensity and suddenness of their changing circumstances occupied them both for the duration and they were, once again, eminently happy together. It had been a long time. Jenn found a suitable condominium in a South Coquitlam high-rise. Situated on the south slope above the traffic of the Lougheed Highway and the freeway, it was not far from where Patsy's wedding had been the summer before. Its glass south wall offered not so much a view as an open privacy. High on the seventeenth floor, the only eyes that might see into their apartment would be racing past on the freeway or in New West or Surrey – miles away. It was a large, new, irregularly shaped block with lots of corners and curves, many of which were not right angles. They purchased a spacious one-bedroom suite on the southeast corner. A living-dining room occupied much of the south side with a huge open kitchen against the east wall. The master bedroom on the west side shared its balcony. A windowless storage room or den on the north side bracketed the entry hall with the kitchen and a large, opulent bathroom served as a hub to the roughly circular passage. Its relentless asymmetry leant a certain mystique to the place. Matt had the feeling it would take them some time to accept that the strange new apartment was theirs but it would be worth it in the end. It represented a lifestyle far removed from that to which they had vainly clung for the past two years. Still, Matt agreed with Jenn that the change could easily be justified, and, while their new digs were classy, they were not ostentatious. Jenn had even found that her new routes to work were, in fact, more direct than before. She continued as a substitute teacher – a teacher-on-call, as she had been fairly steadily for the past year. She had cut back in the last few months, but, as they settled in, she began to work more or less regularly once again. Matt thought the upheaval – the new start – had made her more relaxed; more settled; more resigned to, maybe even accepting of the blow that fate had dealt them. He also felt the soothing effect of her newfound fortitude. For a while he began to frequent his office more often. His wife and his job offered, if only temporarily, a sort of stability to his life. And an even keel reduced his need for escape through the living fantasies of The Club. Reduced, not eliminated, for like the forbidden fruit that it was, once tasted he could never completely forget the thrill, as much as he thought he should. Nevertheless, during those weeks following the move, their love regained some of its tenderness. No; that's not exactly correct. The tenderness in their love had remained constant throughout. It was their sex – their mutual lust that regained some of its former comfort and security. As a teacher on-call, Jenn had to get up early in order to be ready for a call to just about any school in the district. Not long after they had moved, after she had gotten back into the substituting routine, Jenn had gotten up and gone into the kitchen to make coffee and prepare croissants for breakfast before she was called. They had made love the night before and, Matt thought to himself, it was definitely getting better again. He lay in bed with visions of their intercourse running across his mind while the aromas of brewing coffee and baking croissants wafted into his awareness. He had noticed before the sensual, aphrodisiac quality of the smell of good fresh coffee, and certainly that morning its effects were becoming increasingly apparent below the sheets. Slipping out of bed, Matt crept down the hallway, his erection bouncing as he moved. Stopping in the entry hall, he peeked into the kitchen. Jenn, oblivious to his presence, stood at the counter, her back to him, singing rather tunelessly with the radio while she constructed lunches for them both. Her thin robe, clinging to the backs of her thighs, accentuated their voluptuousness. As Matt edged forward, determined to make her jump, he detected the pungency of their earlier love. From her or from himself he couldn't be sure, but it rose between them to mix with the redolent coffee and ignite afresh his roiling passion. Grabbing her waist firmly, he elicited a small squeal of surprise from her, before whirling her around to seize a handful of pubic beard. Recovering quickly from the start, she dropped the knife and threw her arms about his neck, mashing his lips with her own. For a long moment they teetered in an almost stylized lingual embrace before losing their balance and tumbling to the floor. Jenn's vagina wept copiously against Matt's hand as his own rigid cock sought warm entrance somewhere – anywhere. Without the slightest foreplay, nor the need for any, Jenn rolled onto her back and spread her knees as Matt jabbed himself into her, up to his pubes. Their climaxes were quick and violent, leaving them lying sweaty and panting on the floor. Once they had caught their breaths, Matt rose. "Thanks," he whispered, blowing her a kiss. "Thank you too," she replied, lying a moment longer, her matted hair framing her flushed face. Slowly she rose and gathered her robe together before returning her attention to the lunches. Matt padded back to the bedroom to retrieve his own robe. They ate amidst a satisfied silence that neither of them was wont to break. When they spoke, they did so in hushed voices not wishing to dispel the electricity that seemed to linger. While they sipped appreciatively at their coffee the atmosphere was rent by the ringing phone. As Jenn answered it Matt smiled slyly, and dove once more into her still sensitive, still excited muff. Resisting her attempts to push him away, he fastened his lips to her puffy clitoris and proceeded to wiggle it with his tongue, his hands on her legs holding him solidly in place. Fortunately, getting her call for the day didn't require her to say much, for her arousal was evidenced by her quickening breath and her uncontrollably quivering thighs. An audible sigh escaped her lips, but she managed to disguise it as a cough and quietly excuse herself to the caller. With great difficulty she succeeded in receiving her day's job placement before exploding into another orgasm just as she replaced the receiver. When Matt had met her, Jenn was in second year Education at SFU. They had become an item fairly quickly but waited until after her graduation to get married. She had subbed – taught on call – for almost two years before getting pregnant; hence, she had never had a class to call her own. After the girls had started school she got herself activated on the sub list once again and worked infrequently, but enough to keep her hand in it. Then, for most of the first year after the accident she found that she just could not face a class full of children – any children. She spent much of that time in a rudderless state of hopelessness. It was a therapist, whom she saw a few times, who suggested that it might be time to try again. To her surprise, she found that cruising through the schools, usually a different class every day, was, indeed, therapeutic. Matt had been skeptical but, as she had told him, there was a kind of twisted logic to it. "I get to be among children," she had explained, "but never long enough to forge too strong an attachment." That was what she really feared, growing to love some little child who would just up and leave. "No," she had said, "working on call is just fine, thanks." Their lives seemed to be finally getting back into the grooves. But now, as they, once again, settled into the routines of daily life anew, the same nagging dissatisfaction returned to haunt Matt. Once more, he began to think that his position at the firm was nothing but a sham. Again and again he'd find himself sitting aimlessly at his desk, trying to see through the nothingness that he felt engulfing him. Subtly, insidiously he began, again, to frequent The Club, and increasingly so. He knew that it was no more than an attempt to exorcise his own demons. What else could he do? Of course, much of Matt's dissatisfaction arose from the untimely deaths of his daughters. He thought about them at various times, the thoughts often coming into his head unbidden and at inopportune moments. He thought about them as the children they had been, and in the adolescence and adulthood they would never know. Sometimes their memories or projections would visit him during masturbation. It disgusted him that he could profane their exquisite memories that way; nonetheless, the visions of his girls as young adults, making love to various anonymous beaus never failed to excite his stroked approach to climax. Despite their 'new lives' – their 'having turned to a new page and started again', Matt and Jenn still visited the graves, sometimes – often on grey days – leaving flowers or dolls or small toys on the tiny headstones. Although both Jenn and he had decided, and requested through their wills that they, themselves, be cremated – "Leave the land for the living," Matt was wont to say – they couldn't bring themselves to consign the bodily remains of their daughters to a fate that was so closely associated with hell. They had been so small and innocent, so fragile. They didn't deserve such an early death; they didn't deserve to burn. It was one of those irrational thoughts that Matt and Jenn knowingly shared. They knew deserts had nothing to do with life – or death. They knew that death was final. Still, it was just two small graves; it didn't make much difference in the end. Matt had, in his own way, been just as shell-shocked as Jenn. He really only began to get back on track when he met Dara and his life had taken – was still taking – some very strange, twisty and unpredictable turns. While Dara had now been consigned to his own private history, her legacy, The Club itself, made his path far from either straight or narrow. He couldn't even begin to anticipate what truths and realities his future would reveal or destroy. Furthermore, he wasn't even sure enough of his own feelings to know whether he should complain or rejoice.