Three Sides of the Coin (Catherine I) (6 page)

   It is usually around this point in his fantasy he cums
and with Catholic remorse cleans himself up, both wishing it would happen and fearing an incredible display of fury and scorn on Catherine's part where she refuses to meet his eyes ever again and he loses her to his shame or to another man.  So, this never happened, mostly because Catherine often blissfully snored through the entire event, and on those few occasions when she was aware of it, she was too tired to engage him in a more interactive effort.

             
For her, sex was a ritual, like making biscuits, which had a recipe that she was willing with small changes to adjust, but only if the improvement was demonstrable.   Otherwise, if it wasn't broken, don't fix it.   So sex was not so much mechanical as it was ritualized.   A bout of petting, then a slow slide down her body to perform oral sex on her until orgasm.  The variations included her on top, her beneath (not a frequent choice) or the once every couple of months, doggy style.  His favorite was her on top, moving her hips slowly, enjoying the sensation for a while, never more than that.  Her ritual was to come from his oral ministrations, never a hand, then to slide on his pole until the sensation, like a taste of chocolate, wore off and then and only then, she focused on him.  Her eyes would pop open as she looked down on him.  Over time, she found the best way to get him over the top was to caress his nipples harder and harder, until it was almost painful for him and he would explode with the intensity.  After a few minutes of snuggling, the tryptophan would get to him and he'd nod off.  She would wash herself and read a bit before she would slowly fall asleep. She never resented his ease of sleep versus her shot of adrenaline, but recognized it at a biological strategy to allow the woman to escape after the sex act in cave man times as he snores it off.   How ironic it was that Steven was never the type to run from.  But she recognized, in her pragmatic way, that she would get less sleep as a result of sex and so she would initiate sex only when she could afford losing the sleep, or whenever the pent up demand overwhelmed her, whichever came first.

             
So Steven would wait patiently for their cyclical destiny with sex, except when he snuck his hand between his legs, which he considered a form of waiting until she was ready.  Then he rejoiced in giving her an orgasm and further rejoiced when she would climb on top.  He thrilled to watch her pleasure herself greedily on his penis as if he was just an inhuman phallus.  She seemed bigger when she rode him and she appeared so erotic in her thrall; and he imagined a dominant female using him for her pleasure and wrenching an orgasm from him, his nipples and his lowly penis.   He feared ever telling her these things lest she deny it, or be horrified by it, and for whatever reason, stop doing it.   So the dance went on silently in his head, and for all those years they never knew what they were actually doing for each other.  It was a satisfying sex life for the both of them, so neither chose to rock the boat.  It wasn't bad, but it could have been better, but it could also have been so much worse.  It was not an uncommon lack of communication for couples.

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Now you know the beginning of the story of Catherine and Steven. I’ll let the tale unfold…….

Chapter 4: Mike-2

             
Of course, we hired her.   That might be overstating the ease by which I pulled it off.  It was me who got her hired and it was my best puppetry act to date.   I had the connections to do it, but the people in charge of the hiring had no idea that I owned a significant portion of the company, so up close I had no leverage other than as a peer.  To give credit to the firm, they gave some say so to the peer group on such things.   Unfortunately, there was another woman, a bit more aggressive, that appealed to more men than me.   She was nearly disgusted by my gay facade, and it was clear to me what she was up to.  And, Catherine's beauty aside, it might have worked even on me, if she hadn't given up before she gave it a shot.   Fortunately, guys will fall for the sex bit while they are horny, but without constant reinforcement, and some degree of confidence that the sex exchange is somewhat exclusive, guys will eventually figure out that the sex will disappear pretty quickly without a reason for it to keep going.   Well, they realize it once you tell them to start thinking with the bigger head.   My ace in the hole would have been to make a lie up that the sex monster even hit on me.   Nothing makes a straight guy believe that a woman isn't a reliable deal than to realize that she would be willing to sleep with a supposed gay guy.  But, apparently she was a fabulous lay and out of any given three men, one will brag on a liaison, thinking it will give him a conquistador status.   In this case, she was a victim of her own success as two out of the three bragged on it and her fate was sealed.   The trick was to get the two braggarts in the room with the other guy and to let the right leading statement begin the cascade of regret.

             
It also helped that the East Coast headquarters took an interest in this "Pilot Program" and wanted to review the applications.   That was my doing and Catherine's resume rose to the top of the pile.   The truth is, in a fair world that might have happened anyway.   But I don't believe the world is perfectly fair, so I try to deliberately make fair, let's say, more fair.

             
So Catherine and I spent a lot of time together and over a few months, we became more comfortable with each other's style than with others on the extended team.  The men on the team liked her, but recognized that her deep love with her husband would never allow them in her pants, and they were okay with me being teamed with her on most projects, just in case they were wrong on that account.  The women on the team were comfortable with her as it was clear to them that the only person she was competing with was herself.   If she felt someone else could do better than her, she held no illusion that it wasn't so, and she would ask for help on finding and arranging the small table knick knacks.   She preternaturally hated clutter, but recognized that some people found comfort on handling and gazing on paperweights, coffee table books and ancient photos of times gone by.  So when she needed help, she was never embarrassed to ask for it, and as a result, the other women felt she was a real person and not a social climber, and the men felt a pride that she had noticed their skills.

             
Over the years, I have made it my hobby to study the human mind.  One theory that I wish I had invented, but did not, was that men seek status and women seek connection.  So appealing to a man's pride and presenting yourself to women as a human being will never be a disservice to anyone.   However, the big problem is that most people are good at only one or the other.  The worst rule in the world is the Golden Rule:  "Do unto others as you would have done unto you."   It will only work, at most, half the time.  People will appreciate the effort, if they know you are trying to be fair, but most of the time they are so tied up with their own problems they don't notice.   So I am fully bought in to the Platinum rule.   I believe in upgrades: "Do unto others as they would have done unto them.”  I really wish I had invented that one.   Perhaps someday I'll invent the upgraded Plutonium Rule, but don't hold your breath.  The Platinum Rule is great.  It forces a person to think a lot harder than they would with the Golden Rule.  We all know who we are, right?  But who are you?  Now I'll have to pay attention to what makes you tick.

             
Let's take an example, again stolen from a smarter person than me.   Women will nod all during a conversation, meaning that they are listening ("We are connecting.").  Men will only nod when they agree ("I concede your status as a person who knows something worth knowing.").   Now let's review the next step where the male assumes the woman listener is the same as him.  "But I thought we agreed to this, already!  You nodded in the meeting when I said this was a good idea."

             
Her reply:  "All my nod meant was that I heard your stupid idea."

             
On the other side, the woman complains, "You aren't listening to anything I am saying!"             

             
His reply:  "You said you were going to tear out the foyer, re-route the entry and re-design in a Tuscan style."                                                                                                                                                                                        "Then why didn't you even acknowledge any of that?"              

             
"Because it is all a stupid idea!"

             
You can see why it is important that we appreciate that conversational need of whoever we are talking to is important.   Fortunately, most women learn to 'speak male,' to some extent or another.   (And men, they usually pity us as they do so.   Most women appreciate that they are men's superior in so many ways.   But we somehow must seem to be worth the extra effort it takes for them to put up with us, so we should be grateful, I suppose.)   But Catherine was one of those few people who seemed to appreciate both the men's and women's worlds simultaneously.   Chalk that up as another reason that I was so infatuated with her.   Fortunately, I was an old hand at seeming disinterested in women as I moved through my days.  So I was able to be as non-threatening as I intended with her, and eventually, after several projects she started to treat me like one of the girls.

             
I don't mean to insinuate that I was a limp wrist, just waiting for the end of the day to slip into a sexy pair of panties and a pretty frock.   But once she truly felt that I was not "Playing for the team," she was willing to treat me like a woman, with all the honors associated with that title, which included a little bit more insight to the woman's thought process about clothes, baby poop, sexuality and cleaning.   She was astute enough to appreciate the fact that baby poop was a topic wasted on me, but most women feel that men are too sensitive about gross out topics such as lime green projectile vomiting and its affect on a multi-colored blouse, and the cleaning difficulties involved with it.  First will be a discussion on why the vomit was the color it was (Involving lima beans, another topic I normally avoid), and eventually will invite some interactive discussion on various soaking and cleaning techniques.   When a woman is willing to share on such a plane, it means they have bought into the fact that they no longer consider you a sexual adversary. 

             
It is perhaps a good time to discuss my hetero-sexual strategy.   I can't have any woman who knows of me as an architect to believe that I am straight.   I don't believe that any relationship is forever, so if the inevitable happens and we break up, the woman would then have a blackmail lever over me.   So I keep an absolute policy of keeping women, mentally, at arm's length in that world.    I date women through a dating service and they think, in fact they know, that I am a rich playboy paying for the association.   They have no illusions that I am a long term commitment and a lot of pressure is off both of us.   It works out nicely for me, but it does take some work to keep the two sides of me apart.  But I do love a challenge.  

             
And perhaps the term 'At arm's length' is an unfortunate choice of words.   For interestingly enough, once you have the baby poop seal of approval, you are allowed a lot more latitude in touching women.  It is not a caress, but a touch of human contact (Connection, not status).   I am free to pull a loose thread, brush a wrinkle or dust mote off the backside of a skirt (One of my favorites), or tug and smooth a blouse for the optimum fit.   Laughs include leaning in and touching of hands or legs, all without the concern of where it might lead.

             
My absolute favorite result is when the women will pull me into a dressing room to have me opine on their clothing choices.   I love nothing more than watching a woman wiggle into a skirt, her sexy backside swaying as she fits herself into the new garment.  Or perhaps when she slides her blouse off one shoulder and I can watch her breasts swell with the sigh of poor choices or fits, or with pride of a victorious discovery.  Shopping for women is like hunting is for men, only more complex.   The hunt ends with the first dropped prey.  The shopping doesn't end until the store refuses to take back or exchange.  The hunter cannot take back the arrow, but the shopper can take back the shoes.  

             
I have become an expert at hiding my lust in the dressing room.   But it takes work, both in the hiding or avoiding the potential erection and in the research that gets me into the dressing room.   I have magazine subscriptions to women's fashion and I keep up with trends and meanings of trends.  However, as far as sacrifices go, mine are pretty minor.

             
Our job requires us to travel to various sites, sometimes if it is a greenfield, we go to the site where the office will eventually be built to get a feel for the sun, neighborhood ambiance and customer vision, then to the partial build we go to get an understanding of how the plan is suffering from the ravages of building codes, inspections, budgets and time constraints.  Toward the end of the project, we return to the site to find the minor tweaks due to material shortages, builder changes and the forever changing local building codes and inspectors, as well as the 'while you are at it, we had another idea' adjustments the customer will come up with.    If it is a remodel, the first step is mostly conceptual, and the later steps mainly revelational.   Nothing seems to make Catherine angrier in these discoveries than finding some slipshod base work.  "Don't they know how much extra work they are causing everyone else?"  She would exclaim.  I was always amused at her various rants as she always seemed to do them with a grace and humor.  She kept her standards high at the same time she kept a better than depressing monologue for anyone working on our projects.   They would smile, but not let her catch them using shortcuts.