“That’s where the limits come in. We can wire a place and get video and audio and photos. We’re pretty good at that and unless he has some pros working for him, he won’t know. But that’s very expensive because this isn’t local. It could be Tokyo or Beijing or Copenhagen or London as well as somewhere closer to Chicago. Are you up for that?” Angela looked at Ronda.

“Yes.”

“Okay, girls, let’s go. You divide it up among yourselves.”

The five women took their files and left.

“If he’s doing anything, they’ll find out about it and bring you photos.”

“Good. But when we first met, you said you wouldn’t be able to work for me. What’s changed?”

“What’s changed is that if you want to go through with your plan, I’m in it too now.”

“How’s that?”

“Think I want to fuck some guy whose been fucking everything that’s available? No thank you. So I want to know what’s going on too. I wasn’t able to learn much, and I’d like to know more. There’s that too. And I’m not so much working for you as I’m helping to connect you to these gals and they’re working for you. That’s a whole different invoicing procedure.”

“Okay, if you say so.”

“That’s if you’re still up for the plan we talked about.”

“The three of us? Sure, I’m all for that. Hell, you were right about that. I shouldn’t be keeping secrets from him. No matter what. I need to be the kind of person I want to be and not the kind of person he is. And I don’t want to be someone with secrets.”

“You do love him, don’t you?”

“Yeah. I wish I didn’t but…”

“He provides well for you. Are you sure you want to know this stuff?”

“I don’t give a shit about that. Like I said, I’d rather live in a trailer house and know where I stand than live in a mansion with a guy whose just trying to avoid me.”

“According to this, he should be in Copenhagen right now and return on Thursday. Want to have supper? Out? I don’t cook.”

“Sure, then we can go to my place?”

The two women smiled at each other as they walked to a nearby Thai restaurant.

“Would you like a Syrah? Or here’s a nice Cabernet.”

“Either one is fine with me.” Angela sat in one of the velvet armchairs in the living room while Ronda opened and poured the Cabernet.

“How did you ever start- I mean, I wanted to make love with a woman for a long time, but I never could. I was afraid that…” Ronda set the two glasses on the teak coffee table, sat in the other armchair, and lifted her glass to Angela.

Angela returned the salute. “Ah, that was a long time ago.”

“Can you tell me?”

“Sure. It started when I was a kid, I guess. It was all very innocent. I masturbated from the time I was in kindergarten at least. I didn’t know what it was, just that it felt good to touch myself down there. My mom told me that it was okay but that it was like going to the bathroom, something I should do by myself. She also warned me that nobody else should touch me there.”

“Sure, everyone masturbates, even if they don’t know it. I used to hump my stuffed animals. I was masturbating but didn’t know what I was doing. How did that become making love with women?”

“By the time I was twelve I was doing sleepovers with my best friend. She lived in the same neighborhood and we often slept at her place or mine. When we did that we’d sleep in the same bed. One night it was hot and we took off our pajamas. She asked me if I liked to touch myself ‘down there’. I was so embarrassed I didn’t know what to do. But I said yes. She asked if I would touch her there. My mom had told me not to let others touch me, but never mentioned me touching someone else. So I did.”

“Did you have your psychic powers yet?”

“Not the same way I do now. They were just coming in, but I had enough to figure out what to do-what she enjoyed. She asked if I knew how to kiss. I didn’t. We had both seen people doing it in movies and on TV, but we didn’t know how. So we experimented and it wasn’t long ‘til we mastered that. We both liked it. I kept touching her with my fingers and she began to tremble the way I did when I was doing it to myself. I knew what she was experiencing and knew it was good. Then, in spite of what my mom told me, she did me. That was the first time.”

“What happened then?”

“We didn’t connect any of that to sex. But then we got our periods and we began to figure things out a little bit. The boy-girl thing. We got our boobs and boys were trying to kiss us and feel our boobs.”

“I guess that’s the same everywhere.”

“Maybe. Anyway, she moved away and I never saw her again. End of story.”

“Until now?”

“No. End of that story. I had a boyfriend in high school. He said he loved me and if I loved him I’d let him fuck me. I knew that one and I knew I didn’t want to get pregnant or get an STD. So I kept my legs crossed unless it was my hand between them. I lost my virginity when I was seventeen in college. All I knew was that I was ready. I didn’t know who or when or where. I was available for the first guy who asked, the first one who tried anything. That was anticlimactic…”

Ronda giggled at the pun.

“Thanks. It was anticlimactic but at least I knew enough about sex to keep up with the other girls in the dorm. Anyway, I never did like it much. I didn’t have any special feelings for any of the guys. They were just guys. It was like a game the girls played. Who’s fucking who. Keeping score.”

Angela was silent as she sipped her wine. “But there was a girl on the rowing team. The coxswain, the boss of the boat?”

“She’s the little one that tells people what to do?”

“Yeah. She invited me to her place one night and it was just like being twelve again. It was pleasant, nice, innocent, but entirely sexual and wonderful. Almost as good as when I’m with you. Much better than any man.”

“Say that again.” Ronda refilled her glass.

“So that’s when I knew it wasn’t just a childish fluke. And I was hearing all this stuff about lesbians in college. But I knew I wasn’t like the lesbians I knew.”

“You were still doing guys?”

“Yeah. Too many. And I could tell what they were thinking. Half the time they were fantasizing about some other woman while they were fucking me. That ruined it. I couldn’t come like that. It made them mad when they couldn’t make me come. So lots of times it would go bad.”

“Were you married when you had the kid?”

“We’re coming to that. Then there was a guy who was madly in love with me. A lot of girls are never sure about that, but I was lucky enough to be able to tell. He was totally into me. That I couldn’t resist. I married him when he asked at the beginning of our senior year. I had the baby just after we graduated.”

“It didn’t last?”

“Drunk driver killed him.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Even though he was crazy for me physically and every other way, I still felt incomplete. It was like the sexual part wasn’t quite right. He’d look at me, get hard, fuck me, we’d come.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. At its best, I guess. But I still felt something missing. Even when it was at its best.”

“So there you were with a kid to raise?”

“Yeah, I got through college early. I was twenty when the baby was born, twenty-five when Robert died-was killed. That coxswain? She called me up one day. Said she wanted to see me. Said her husband was cheating on her.”

“Oh, she got married?”

“Yes. But her husband was cheating on her, she thought. She remembered our talks about my psychic abilities and asked me to see if I could learn anything. She invited me to supper. And sure enough, through supper he was thinking about fucking another woman. Vividly. So after supper, he made some excuse and left.”

“You told her?”