Let's Make a Deal Pt. 18- Epilogue

"So in the end she was just doing things, some of them girly things, with her friends, all of whom happened to be women. I think she was pretty lonely, though I'm not sure how conscious she was of that at the time." He looked at Martha, and she nodded. "OK, so after a while one was an especially close and sympathetic friend, and they did lots of things together. Eventually this friend—whom I've met and as far as I know her I think pretty highly of—asked her about her love life.

"When Martha said she just didn't have one, and why, the woman identified herself as a lesbian—not in those words, but she made it clear—and basically said that if Martha was interested she was available. No pressure of any kind, she wouldn't be hurt and it wouldn't change her friendship if Martha said no. Martha's first reaction was to be startled and, if I'm reading between the lines right, kind of repelled by the idea." Martha nodded again. "But she thought about it for a while, and eventually said she was willing to try. She told me that she realized that if this were a man, she'd have recognized what she felt as love. They continued together until the woman moved away for job reasons, and they remain very good friends to this day.

"Martha had a few other lovers thereafter, none as satisfactory as the first one. One of them hurt her, being pretty sadistic, enjoying making her do things she didn't want to just for the pleasure of making Martha submit to her." He looked at Martha questioningly again. She said, "That really is a very good summary. You were paying attention. You're telling it better than I could."

Scott went on, "That last woman accomplished two things. She showed Martha that women as well as men could be completely selfish in love and sex, focused on their own pleasure and satisfaction. And she kind of soured her on sex as such, and love too. Now, none of those selfish young louts in high school managed to turn her on to the point where she really wanted sex with them. I think that Martha is just one of those people for whom sex as sex is not really all that important, in itself. In the right context, with her emotions involved, she can desire it intensely, I can attest to that. But at this point she was just lonely, going through daily and weekly routines.

"I think that she'd kind of drifted away from all her women friends, too."

Martha nodded and said, "Yes."

"Her last lover really had made her kind of shrink back even from social contact, for a while. Somewhere during this time, she came to work for me.

"Now we turn to Lynda. I'm going to hurt her a little describing this first part, because it will bring memories back. We need to go through it, but there it is, and you need to be aware that there are some big hurts deep down inside Lynda to this day, and be very careful. And Lynda, you're going to have to be careful to tell Brian if he hurts you that way, because he probably won't know, and if you just pull back he won't realize why and won't know what to do.

"So anyway, the long and short of it is that when she was fifteen she had a boyfriend and he raped her." He explained in a couple of sentences what she had said about how this happened. "Given that he'd been telling her he loved her, well, you can see how hard that would make it to ever trust any man again on that kind of thing.

"And to make matters worse, her parents treated this as her deliberate choice. From recent developments, I'd guess that her mother had doubts but went along with her father, but either way that didn't make any difference then. She wound up leaving home as soon as she could, at sixteen, with an after-school job and staying with a series of friends from school. Eventually, someone who knew Martha had a spare bedroom and a big house connected them up." He turned to Lynda. "I'm actually kind of unclear on that part. When you told me about all this, I hadn't realized that your folks lived so far away." He mentioned the town. "How did some friend's mother have connections here, to know about Martha?"

"They'd only moved there a couple of years before. I don't know how she knew about Martha, but I think it was second-hand. Anyway, they were taking care of me as best they could, but they just didn't have room, and the little I paid them didn't stretch to how much I cost them, and money was tight. Especially now that I'm a few years older, I can't believe how kind all these parents were to take me in, even for just a couple of months each. I'm so grateful to them all."

Martha put in, "I knew Norma a little, not that well, when they lived here. I did briefly let another teenager stay here at that time, just for a weekend, when her parents were having troubles, enough that it wasn't really safe for her to be there. And Norma knew that family well."

"Anyway." Scott went on. "On finding out the facts, Martha let her stay without paying rent, until Lynda eventually had a job. Still evenings and weekends then, I think. She got her enrolled in school, got her up and fed her, arranged for a school bus to pick her up, and made sure she went off every day. And I'll bet she supervised her keeping up on her homework, too." Both women said, "Yes!" together. "When she was out of school, Martha brought her in to apply for a job with me. You can see where the motherly and daughterly feelings they have came from.

"After a while, Lynda asked Martha whether she wasn't interfering with Martha's love life, just by being in the house. She'd noticed Martha didn't seem to have one, and assumed that she normally would have. Martha told her it had been a long time, and that what love life she'd had had involved women. She also warned her that enough people knew this that some of them were probably jumping to conclusions about Lynda, which might make trouble for her later. That's why she mentioned her partners' sex at all. Lynda went off and thought about this, and eventually came to her and asked Martha if she would make love to her, because she thought she'd fallen in love with her." He looked at Lynda. "That's basically what you said, isn't it?"

"Yes." She looked at Brian. "You need to realize just how badly Ron, my boyfriend, had hurt me. And then my parents. I was kind of afraid of any boy who asked me out, really just turned off by them all too. Ron had spread around a lot of lies about me, and my parents had assumed the worst about me. I felt useless and worthless. And here was this woman who took care of me without asking anything back at all. I mean, I helped out as I could, but—

"Anyway, Martha was wonderful to me. And the way she told me, what Scott just said, it was obvious that she wasn't even suggesting for one moment that she and I make love or anything like that. She was the only one, the only thing at all, in my life right then saying I was worth anything at all." Lynda was crying a little.

"I did fall in love with her. And yes, the sexual part was wrong, but even that was what I needed at the time. She never once asked me to make her feel good, really. I tried, but she let me take the lead, let me do what I was comfortable with. Ron had messed me up so badly! And you need to understand, she made me tell her enough to be sure I wasn't feeling I owed it to her, that she wasn't taking advantage of me."

Since Brian didn't move, Scott went over and gave her a hug for a long moment. He went back to his chair.

"And now we get to the really bad part, I'm afraid. Martha started making careless mistakes, the kind a business like ours just can't have, ones that cost time and trouble and money, ones that got customers mad at us and thinking we were unreliable. I talked to her each time, and she promised that it wouldn't happen again, and then in two or three weeks or so it did, not exactly the same but all just as costly. I finally had to fire her. And you need to know that this was like cutting off my right arm. Martha had gotten to be the one employee who knew all aspects of our business, had worked most of the jobs, could fill in or troubleshoot anywhere. She was my right-hand woman indeed. But I couldn't see any way out.

"Then, after, what, a month? Something like that, a few weeks, anyway, Lynda came to me to ask me to give Martha another chance. I explained why I couldn't, and she offered me sex. I wasn't expecting anything like that. As I kept explaining why I wanted to hire Martha back more than anything but couldn't trust her, and why besides being wrong it would be in every way a super-bad idea, she kept upping the stakes, until the offer was that she'd give me sex however and whenever I wanted, indefinitely, as long as I'd keep Martha on. With no recriminations if I had to fire her again.

"Well, you can see why this was tempting, but I did mostly resist. I finally told her I'd think about it, but that the answer was still likely, almost certainly, no. Please notice that I wasn't lying. The offer was so, um, seductively attractive that my problem was how to stop thinking about it long enough to do my own job! I didn't do well at resisting the temptation to fantasize about it. But I was just going to let it die, and tell Lynda I wouldn't do it if she asked again. I only left it open that much because I was afraid she'd come up with something more to offer, somehow, if I just said no again. I couldn't imagine what, but I couldn't have imagined what she'd already offered, either.

"Then Martha came to me a few days later with almost the same offer, in very different terms but amounting to the same in the end. Except that she offered to do whatever other stuff I wanted done as well. I told her I needed to think, and asked her to come back that evening, and we'd talk, not saying either yes or no. Oh, I made sure first that they weren't working together on this, but I'd really known that already. Lynda had been desperately insistent that I not tell Martha about her offer. I pretty quickly did decide this was a temptation I wasn't going to say no to, specifically, combining their offers. So I asked Lynda to come in to my office after work. And I basically spent the afternoon trying to think how this could work, protecting all of us.

"And yes, this was wrong, and I knew it. Moreover, I was going to try to protect my own reputation as well as theirs, and that's hypocrisy, and you know what scripture says about that. Nothing I say is any excuse for what I did. I chose to do it with my eyes open, knowing it was sinful.

"So they came in, and I offered them a fairly complicated deal. I limited what I would ask them for. I limited how long this would go on. Not indefinitely. I said three months after we really started, restarting it or firing Martha if she messed up again, depending on how seriously. Martha suggested that six months was more reasonable for making sure she was doing well. We agreed that we'd try three months, extending it some—but not indefinitely—if circumstances made that desirable, to be decided mutually later. And I insisted that we needed to be able to trust each other absolutely, and so I demanded of them total honesty, no lying or misleading or even not telling about anything important. And I promised them the same from me. Lynda did say she asked you for the same, so you know what I'm talking about. And there were a couple more minor things. Major in a way, but not for our purposes here.

"Now look at my thinking. My wife had died over fifteen years earlier. And at this point I was feeling starved for sex, yes the physical side but far more the, well, spiritual connection involved. I knew that I was likely to develop a big emotional attachment to them, and I determined to keep it to myself. I figured that their sexual preferences—for women rather than men—and their strong relationship to each other, would keep them from falling in love with me at all, or even from enjoying sex with me too much. I counted on that, as incentive for Martha to not mess up again. Boy, did I turn out to be wrong about that!

"And if I'd known Lynda's history then, I'd have tried to find some way to help her, to help them both, but I'd have said no. Because the last thing she needed was another man taking advantage of her and making her have sex with him, you see.

"To get to the point, we had a lot of sex, each of them with me, I mean. At some point, one of them mentioned that she had fallen in love with me, and then the other said she had as well. They hadn't intended to tell me this, though they'd discussed it with each other, because they knew I wanted to avoid emotional entanglement, but it slipped out. I knew I owed it to them to tell them I loved them as well, given that. We discussed this quite a bit. I did make clear that this was still a temporary relationship. This is when they started coming to church, as it happens.

"After that, we started talking more seriously, and doing more things together, other things I mean. I felt that we were going to be headed for decisions, and that we needed to know each other better. We began seriously discussing the gospel and studying scripture together. And you can thank Lynda for that. She asked questions about it. I was eager to do it, but afraid of pushing them into false conversion.

We had extended the three months to four a bit earlier, and now we were heading toward that deadline. And they knew I wouldn't extend it again. Martha accepted the gospel, and we had talked quite a bit about what scripture says about sexual sin, along the way. She understood this was one thing that had to change, immediately, and she insisted on it. So that was the end of it, for all of us. We continued doing things together, especially studying scripture. You understand, we had backed off completely from all physical expressions of affection beyond quick hugs and kisses on the cheek. I don't know whether you can understand and imagine just how hard that was! Lynda's conversion followed a while later.

"At any rate, after a couple of months, I guess, I decided that it was pretty clear that their conversions were real, not self-deception. I knew from my own life how easy it is to fool yourself about important things, when you really want something, so I'd been unsure about that. So we discussed the possibility of marriage—not a given, a possibility—and talked even more deeply about things that might make it work or not work. That's when we started going through the kinds of questions you and Lynda have been talking about.

"We got to the point where it seemed pretty clear to all of us that Martha and I should get married. Understand, Lynda and I probably could have made a strong and happy marriage, but there are a bunch of areas where we were a poor fit. And in fact, when at one point Lynda thought I might be about to suggest marrying her instead of Martha, she lectured me at some length, vehemently, about why I needed to marry Martha instead. You need to see just how unselfish she is! Practical considerations aside, she wanted so much to be with me, and she cared enough about both Martha and me, and about what's right, to put this aside and think clearly about what was best. From there on, you pretty much know it all, I think. So. Comments? Questions?"

Brian's face had gone through a lot of different expressions during this. He took a deep breath. "I don't know what to say at this point. I'm kind of in shock, I guess. I mean, when they first started showing up with you, I guessed you were interested in one of them, and I didn't know which. But nothing like this ever entered my head."

Scott said, "I'm glad to hear that. I really want to think this isn't my typical way of responding to temptation. But remember, I knew it was wrong from the beginning. These two, well, they weren't believers then. I really, really hope this won't affect your feelings for Lynda. I hope it won't affect your feelings toward me, too, but if it does I can understand that. But I'm the one to blame, not Lynda or Martha."

Lynda spoke up pretty sharply. "Scott, it was my idea in the first place—OK, mine and Martha's, separately. You can't take all the blame! Don't you dare try to do that!"

Brian held up a hand. "Whoa! Calm down a moment, Lynda. I love you. I'm not about to stop, it's just that it's going to take me a while to absorb this. Scott, why did you think I needed to hear all this?"

"Let me think how to say it. If Lynda had been in the same kind of relationship, say, halfway across the country, I'd think she needed to tell you about it, but maybe only that her past had involved a man and a woman. Maybe names, so you could be confident that it was all over. If she were still friends with them, I'd have suggested that she offer to let you read any mail she got from them, keep you posted in detail on any phone contact, things like that, just as a safeguard. But this kind of detail, no.

"But as it is, she's going to see us all the time, and you are too. It seemed to me that you need to know she's not hiding things. If you ever have questions about whether she's still interested in an old flame, say, you can talk to her about it. Or to me, or to Martha I suppose. But you hear about this kind of thing enough, husband happens to use wife's phone or email and sees that there's been a lot of contact and starts worrying. Or vice versa, and sometimes with reason, sometimes not. You've heard the worst, now. If she's smart—" he glanced at Lynda "—she'll pass on to you most anything I ever say to her.

"But the main reason is that Lynda was concerned that if you knew you might be so uncomfortable that it would be a real barrier between you. If that's going to happen, it has to be now, not after you're married. And she's right. If you're going to be tormented by thoughts of your wife having been intimate with someone you trusted as a brother, now is the time to call it off. You both know the scriptures on divorce.

"One more detail about what happened. When the three of us were originally talking, setting up limits, I asked each of them up front: are you sure it will be OK, knowing that I'm being intimate with the woman you love? I wasn't willing to do it if they had serious doubts about that. Well, this is all in the past. If it puts up a barrier between you and me, I'll regret it forever, but we'll live with it. If it puts up one between you and Lynda, you need to say that she's not the woman for you after all. If you need time to consider it, take the time, but you need to decide once and for all before you go any further.

"Does that make it clear?"

Brian said, "Yes, I understand. I'm still digesting it, but—"

Lynda broke in again. "Before you say one more word, you need to hear this! Scott has been behaving the way he always does. Everything he told you was true, and he really doesn't mean to mislead you, but he's trying to take all the blame for everything. You could get the idea that we'd fallen in love with him because he was so great sexually or something like that. No, Scott, you let me finish! Martha's case was different from mine. Martha, I really need to mention this."

She looked at Martha, who sort of shrugged in a go-ahead kind of way. "She had fallen in love with him just from how he acted at work, how he treated her and everyone else, years earlier, before I ever was staying with her, though of course I didn't know that. She'd never said a word, since she was sure he wouldn't respond, she knew he would think it was wrong and she knew his integrity. And she was basically right, in spite of what that sounds like now.

"My case was different. I propositioned him trying to get Martha's job back, because I cared about her. I really didn't have much hope, but I gave it a try anyway. And Scott's right, sex with him wasn't something I looked forward to, but I made up my mind I could put up with it. Anyway, when he called me into his office, I assumed it was some normal work-related thing. So when I went in and there was Martha, despite what he said, I jumped to conclusions. I thought he must have told her, and arranged with her to get her and me both involved. I should have known better, I did know how truthful he is, and he did what he'd promised me, not saying a word to her without first telling me he was going to.