NEW RULES

by: Jeannie D. ©

OFFSIDE

Alan had been away out of line with his whispered invitation, no question about that.. If he had merely suggested that we run away together to Bali to make glorious love on the warm sunny sand, I could have kissed him again and laughed it off, but the Sunshine restaurant is right next door to the Frolique Inn and I caught the implication . An invitation to lunch at the one is an invitation to an afternoon at the other. I'm not that naive.

I was still nursing my indignation when we arrived home. As we got into bed, Lenny pouted on noticing I was still wearing my panties, my usual signal that I am not in the mood. He moved close to me and put a hand on my tummy anyway. I shook him off and turned my back.

An hour later I was still wide awake, my thoughts churning. Was my smug attitude of outraged feminine virtue really justified? Maybe I had danced a bit close at the Christmas party and unquestionably my tongue had got a little out of control when I kissed Alan under the mistletoe. Was that acceptable behavior for a respectable married woman with a handsome husband and two adorable little children?

Smiling inwardly, I recognized my own hypocrisy.

I had come to my husband a virgin, an achievement my upbringing as a church-going small town girl had trained me to consider a basis for considerable pride. In my heart I knew pride was not truly merited. My thoughts went back to the excitement I experienced when I first allowed Billy Monroe to fondle my developing titties. By the eleventh grade he had progressed to an exploratory finger between my thighs whence I directed him to that private tender bundle of nerves.

After the high school graduation dance he would have had my cherry in the back seat of his dad's Buick if he hadn't exploded and smeared my beautiful blue dress with egg white the instant I put my hand on his impatient erection.

Fortunately it was raining that night and I allowed myself to get soaked on the way home. Billy was too embarrassed to ever invite me out again.

Lenny entered my life the next year at university and we got married after the sophomore year. He stayed with his studies while I retired to the community of married student quarters to have little Elizabeth and then Lenny junior.

My best friend, Kim, had moved to the university with me and married Alan at the same time I married Lenny but with the good sense to go on the pill, she missed the diapers and formula stage. She and Alan received their law degrees the same year Lenny got his master's in engineering.

I realized my thoughts had been drifting and directed them back to Alan. We'd all had a little too much wine with dinner and maybe it was possible I had subconsciously invited his advance? Was it altogether subconscious? Could I deny a small thrill of accomplishment as I sensed his involuntary response to the thrust of my pubic arch during the samba.

Kim had been my dearest friend since grade school. I thought on that but could raise no twinge of guilty conscience.

Hearing Elizabeth fretting in the next room I slipped out of bed and went to tuck her in. Looking down at her sleeping face, I felt a slow stirring in my belly as it was when she had occupied it. Another two years and there would be a Billy Monroe in her life.

Before getting back into bed I removed my panties and hung them at the foot of the bed where Lenny would see them on awakening - a signal that never fails to capture his attention.

**********

REVIEW

Alan and Lenny had a golf reservation in the morning so Alan brought Kim over to keep me company. When I opened the door to them, Alan was behind Kim with a slightly apprehensive look on his face. I linked arms with him and brought them into the kitchen and as he sat down, gave his biceps a reassuring squeeze. He relaxed and smiled up at me.

No sooner was coffee poured than Alan's pager went off. "Take it in the hallway phone." I directed him.

"Bummer." He announced on returning. "I have to go by the office. Those Anderson papers that must be filed before the end of the year have to be changed. We can still make the game, Len, I'll be back in an hour. Don't get up, I know the way out."

"What's that all about - if it's any of my business" Lenny asked.

Kim shrugged. "Just a tax matter in an acrimonious divorce action. Money- it's always money."

"I thought sex would be number one element in divorce cases."

Kim shook her head. "They always blame it on sex but it usually comes down to money - either too little or too much. Too much in this case... And next to money, the cause of most divorce is marriage."

"That's funny."

"But true." Kim sipped at her coffee. "Sex, love and marriage are seldom one pretty package, but mommy told us they are and we always react violently when life contradicts mommy. The truth is, a man does not necessarily covet his neighbor's wife when he seeks the pleasure of her company in bed, it's human nature to be friendly. But society has developed rules on just how friendly one may get and it's the conflict between nature and those rules that creates trouble."

"Well, you're the lawyer." Lenny prodded. "It's your business to understand rules. Should we submit to them, bend them, break them or just ignore them?"

"Rules are essential to an orderly society but all rules should continually be reviewed." Kim was talking to her coffee cup as if she were alone with her thoughts. "Boundaries on friendship were established when humans discovered that too much friendliness causes babies. Modern medicine has learned to uncouple that cause and effect so it's time to reevaluate the rule. Why continue to confuse the emotional desire to have children with the physical desire to have sex?"

"You're oversimplifying." I put in. "Isn't there also an emotional desire to have sex? I can get pretty horny at times but I would never screw just anyone merely to satisfy the itch." I put my hand on Lenny's shoulder and he gave me a pat on the fanny.

"You're right of course." Kim acknowledged. "Sex is a sharing experience and worthwhile sex involves sharing of more than just physical equipment. It's an offering of a place in one's life for a place in another's. That's serious sharing which should not be treated lightly but our present culture dictates the extreme case that life sharing must be exclusive. That's the taboo that causes the problems."

"Particularly today, when the practical argument for its observance is no longer compelling." I prompted. This was getting interesting.

"Precisely. I've seen it so often in the cases we've handled. The husband - or wife - succumbs to nature's hormonal urges and then, willing to justify the moment, blames the spouse. 'She's frigid' or 'He's a lousy lover' and having said it, must believe it, not realizing that it's not the act, it's breaking the rules that offends the conscience."

"Your profession has turned you into a cynic." Lenny snorted.

"Possibly, but one man's cynic is another man's realist."

"Are you realist enough to apply this line of reasoning to your own life?" Lenny's voice carried a challenge.

"The philosophy of continual reevaluation of rules or the specific argument for extending the bounds of friendship?" Kim gave Lenny her lawyer's smile. "For the first case, yes. For the second, I reserve comment."

At that moment, a double honk announced Alan's return to our driveway.

"Damn, this was just getting interesting." Lenny retrieved his golf bag from the broom closet and left with a brief kiss for each of us.

"You're a devious shyster, ma'am." I refilled our cups and returned the pot to the coffee maker. "I recognize the excuse you've been offering me on Alan's behalf but I'm not sure about the improper suggestions you have been slipping into my husband's subconscious."

Kim responded with a look of wide-eyed innocence as she dodged the issue. "Yes, Alan was greatly concerned that he might have offended you last night. I'm so glad you received him cordially today."

"Alan has no cause to feel guilty. I'm the culprit, acting the flirt - blame it on the wine. It would be hypocritical of me to take offense to his responding to my attempts to be provocative. Indeed I'm inclined to be pleased with myself. Maybe I'm not altogether the dowdy old matron I've been feeling lately."

Kim sniffed derisively. "If you're fishing for a compliment, how's this? - I'd kill to have a cleavage like your's and if I had your hips and buns, I'd be tempted to team up with some of my call-girl clients and get rich."

"Stop, stop, you'll strip me of all modesty." We both broke out laughing.

"But I hope you're not annoyed by my admission to flirting with your husband." I resumed seriously. "I don't know what possessed me. He's so handsome and I was so enjoying the party, when he kissed me under the mistletoe, I just lost control. I didn't mean..."

"Now stop right there." Kim interrupted. "Don't start with the lies. I suggest you take a few days to ask yourself just what you did mean, not specifically about Alan, just generally. Don't deceive yourself. And don't blame it on the wine, that's a cop-out."

"You're getting back to the discussion of rules."

"I suppose I am." Kim paused and nodded her head several times. "I've always held that laws and rules should be continuously reviewed. It was an opinion held by John Jay, the first Chief Justice, though not by many of today's jurists."

"You're evading the subject, my dear. I mean the specific rule you introduced into the conversation. Love, sex, marriage, remember?"

Kim laughed self-consciously and then gave me a speculative look. "Yes, of course. That's a subject that's been on my mind quite a bit lately. Maybe it's a form of mid life crisis. It's partly my fault that Alan was primed to step out of line. We long ago agreed that if either of us ever felt the urge for a little extracurricular activity, we'd be candid with each other and recently the subject has crept into our conversations again. So far it's been all hypothetical, we've even joked about our inability to pick our candidates. It has become a sort of intellectual foreplay. It turns us both on.

"Then last night when Alan confessed that he had made a pass at you, I found myself becoming thoroughly excited. It was almost disappointing to hear that he had not succeeded - please don't be angry with me for saying that.... And no, I have not been having an affair myself. I've told you often enough about my weekend with Sandy Ross back in our freshman year and you know I would rush to brag to you about any other adventure. But since I married Alan, he's been my whole sex life, and a full and satisfying sex life it's been. I have no complaints and I am not lusting for any specific other man but now and then, faced with the view that this is it - all there is to it, I just can't stand it. I don't know why but the thought of you and Alan in bed together was exquisitely stimulating. Am I losing my marbles or just being obscene?"

She reached across the table and I took her hand in both of mine.

"Neither, my dear friend. I too have had that feeling, not often but occasionally. It passes.... Tell Alan I'll forgive him if he'll forgive me.... And also tell him that if I ever do get an urge to bend the rules, he's at the top of my list."

**********

SECOND OPINION

The boys returned in a happy mood. They'd obviously stopped at the nineteenth hole to bend an elbow and we all had another on the patio before Kim dragged Alan off home. I told Lenny I'd forgotten to put the roast in the oven and he got some hamburger from the freezer. After the children were fed and tucked in, we adjourned to the sofa in the den and turned on the TV. Lenny settled his head in my lap but I pulled him closer so his cheek was against my tummy.

"Alan confessed to me today that he made an improper overture to you at the party." Lenny kept his eyes on the television.

"'Improper overture'? How Victorian, but quite fitting. No gentleman would have insulted a lady by any other response to such bold advances as I had made to him." I said lightly.

Lenny laughed. "And then you chickened out?"

"Yes, I guess I did." We watched the second half of the show in silence. I watched it but I didn't see it.

"Alan and Kim are our closest and dearest friends." Lenny broke the silence. "And you were probing those cultural boundaries to friendship that Kim was talking about. Don't feel guilty and you won't need those false excuses she warned us of. Don't run away from your questions - and don't forget that I'm your friend too."

I cuddled a little closer for a long quiet moment. Peace, warmth and comfort enfolded me. "Darling, it's been a long time since we've made love on this sofa."

**********

REPLAY

The weeks flowed smoothly by. Friendships deepened with no further discussion of rules and boundaries. I could kiss Alan good night without feeling guilty. Long sweet kisses of pure companionship, intimacy just short of union. Lenny and Kim developed a comparable closeness. On our evening walks around the token lake in the nearby park, we could pair off and stroll hand in hand. And so it went for half the year.

When school let out in June, my parents drove up to take the children for two weeks of Disneyland and southern beaches. Kim suggested that the four of us drive up to Deer Valley for a weekend at Small Lake.

Arriving at the short sandy beach we had always thought to be our own private discovery, we found it to be no longer ours alone. Two couples had already set up air mattresses and grills near the water and a group of three couples was playing volleyball at one end of the sandy strip. Amazingly, everyone was completely devoid of clothing. It was almost with a sense of 'why didn't I think of that?' that we quickly transferred our gear from the car to a clear spot under a tree and removed our own clothing. The sense of freedom I immediately experienced was so refreshing I uttered a shout of joy and ran into the cool waters of the lake.

The afternoon was spent swimming and sunbathing. Introducing ourselves to the volleyball group, we accepted their invitation to join the game and later to cook our steaks on the huge grill they had set up. Everyone was outgoing, friendly and polite. No one stared or made suggestive remarks, nudity was the accepted norm... All in all, a very pleasant evening.

As shadows lengthened, Kim took my hand and we ran lightly to the water's edge. Standing ankle deep in water, we threw our arms high and wide and bade farewell to the setting sun. Turning to each other, we embraced and kissed. Startled by the intensity and duration of the kiss, we returned in embarrassment to our husbands who received us with patronizing smirks.

The four of us sat quietly on one air mattress as evening settled in. Encroaching darkness brought with it a cool breeze from the Sierras and from across the lake came the soprano yelp of a coyote, echoed from behind us and again from further up the hillside. Lenny went to the car for blankets. Kim and I moved closer to Alan for warmth.

**********

NEW GAME

As Lenny returned, Kim rose and took an eiderdown from his arms. Draping it over me and Alan, she took Lenny's hand and led him to the other air mattress. Stretching out, Alan tucked the eiderdown in around our bare bodies and we lay quietly face to face, sharing our warmth. In time we could discern a subtle change in the low murmurs and subdued laughter of Kim and Lenny. Finely tuned to the whispers of their love making, we lay hushed and serene. Alan sensed my wish that this moment not be hurried. With his arms enfolding me and with my breasts against his chest, I drifted into a deep state of contentment.

An outbreak of excited yelping from a family of coyote puppies farther up the lake aroused me from my reverie. I drew my companion to me. He kissed me gently as he entered. Slowly and tenderly we made love. I did not climax and when he came to me, I slipped into a peaceful dreamland.

Awakening as early light silhouetted the mountains to the east, I found myself looking into Alan's open eyes. I joined my lips to his as he again drove deeply into me. There were no barriers or bounds to my response. Measure for measure I greedily took and gave back the ultimate currency of human intimacy. Thrusting and gasping, leading then following, I strove for and achieved the full rewards of unrestrained physical passion.

Thrice in quick succession a flush of perspiration mingled with that of my lover - my friend.

Expended, I labored for deeper breaths of the high mountain air until the early morning chill returned me to reality. Groping around for an edge to the disarrayed eiderdown, I turned my head to see Kim, her head propped up on one hand looking over at me with a smile of amusement on her face. I blushed and grinned back at her.

*********