The Masters Project Book 5: John and Jane

The Masters Project

Book Five (John and Jane)

by Robert Lubrican

zbookstore Edition

Copyright 2010 Robert Lubrican

Second Edition 2026

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

Foreword

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Afterword

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Foreword

This is the fifth in a series of narratives concerning a research project done by the author for his Master's Program. If you've read the preceding narratives, you're fully up to speed about what this project was all about. If you haven't, you really should, because once in a while what happened before will help you understand why the author reacted in one way or another.

The family discussed in this book was a high profile family, so I have had to be very circumspect about providing details that usually wouldn't matter. Where they actually lived, for example, would tend to help identify them to the reader, and that wouldn't be good at all. So, for all you detectives out there, be advised that I have taken great pains to throw in all kinds of false clues as to who these people might be. While their story is interesting, I wouldn't want to cause them ... difficulties. You'll understand when you read it.

So don't try to figure out who they are. It won't work. I'm lying about everything ... except the things I'm not lying about ... and you won't know which is which.

A nod of thanks to Norm for providing the philosophy lesson for this story: Divorce: It's a little like suicide - it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Bob

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Chapter One

I received a letter from a woman named Jane, asking that I meet her at a coffee shop in the city, to "discuss whether or not our involvement in the research project would be appropriate." She didn't say who the 'we', in 'our involvement', was. It was on expensive stationary, and was hand-written in flowing beautiful script. Hardly anyone writes longhand any more, and her letters were both legible and feminine. I was interested immediately. I was drawn in even more when she set a time and date and then described how she would be dressed.

No phone number.

No last name.

She just signed it, "Jane".

It all seemed very mysterious, and of course, I went.

"Bodiglio's", where the letter had said she would be waiting, was a high-end kind of place, where a cup of coffee costs as much as a meal at the Sirloin Stockade or some other buffet type place. It wasn't the kind of place I hung out in, or even entered, for that matter. I was immediately cognizant of my longish and ragged hair, and my scraggly beard, which I hadn't trimmed in a month or three.

Actually, the last time either my hair or beard had been trimmed was at Kent and Lisa's house. You'll remember them from narrative number three in this series - the nudist couple. Their daughter, Nikki had taken it upon herself to "clean me up." She cut my hair and trimmed my beard ... while sitting on my lap. Remember ... they're nudists ...

Let me tell you something. Letting a naked girl straddle your naked lap while she's cutting your hair is not the wisest thing in the world to do. I hadn't wanted to go out in public for a week or two after that. But hair grows back eventually, and maybe it was worth it in the end.

Anyway, that's what I was thinking about when I walked in to Bodiglio's and looked around for a woman wearing "a fawn colored frock" and pearl necklace with matching earrings.

It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the discrete darkness inside the establishment, which could have been any of a number of high-class bars. The smells in the air, though, were all coffee, with a hint of something else delicious wafting past my nose. I surveyed the place and, in a back booth, saw her.

It wasn't her 'frock' or jewelry that tipped me. It was that she wasn't very good at making, or should I say keeping, clandestine assignations. She was sitting up, ramrod straight, with an anxious look on her face, staring right at me. Then she slumped back and her eyes went to a napkin on the table in front of her, beside a steaming cup of coffee. I saw the pearls then, and a dress that looked almost like some kind of high-fashion camouflage, all browns and tans and greens. It really did look like what I'd expect a fawn to look like.

It was obvious, though, that I wasn't the one she was looking for. That dejected slump of hers told me that much. Maybe she was expecting a man in a coat and tie, or a cardigan or something, with argyle socks and loafers and a pipe clamped between his teeth. A lot of people think that's what an academic dresses like. Some do. If you ever have one of those for a professor, by the way, drop the class.

There wasn't anything to be done about it though. I walked over and stood by the table.

"Jane?"

She looked up, startled. By some trick of illumination, there was a beam of light on her face that lit up her eyes. Either she was wearing colored contacts, or she had wolf's eyes. They were those blue-with-silver-in-them eyes that looked feral ... dangerous. The rest of her looked harmless though. She jerked, obviously uncomfortable, and pushed back into the soft seat like she was trying to get away from me.

"I'm Bob," I said. "You wrote to me?"

"Oh my! You're Bob? Oh!" Her eyes might have said 'wolf', but the rest of her was saying 'scared puppy'. She looked down again.

"Is everything okay?" I asked. I was almost afraid she'd bolt screaming for the door.

Then the most amazing thing happened. Her shoulders gave a little shake and she straightened up. Her head came back up and those eyes said the wolf was back, and that the wolf wasn't afraid of anything.

"Please," she said, lifting a hand that flashed in the light. It had a huge diamond on it. "Forgive me. I think I already owe you an apology."

I sat.

It was a horseshoe shaped booth, with a round table. She was sitting in the heel of the shoe, and I sat to her left. Her body moved, almost like she thought of scooting over, but then stilled. If she was as nervous as I thought she was, she had iron control over it.

"You don't owe me anything," I said. "Except maybe a cup of coffee. This isn't the kind of place I usually drink coffee in."

I was trying to set her at ease, but she tensed up again. All I had done was draw more attention to the difference in our stations in life. This woman ran with the big dogs - anybody could see that - and I was a scruffy mutt that did its best not to get in the way when the big dogs were out and about.

She had control though, and she asserted it. She raised that flashing hand and a young man was beside our table instantly. His "How may I be of assistance?" sounded suspiciously like he wasn't asking what kind of coffee might be needed. She heard it too and waved her hand again, negligently.

"Please bring ... whatever he wants ... and some pastries too."

He relaxed. I did too, surprised that my 'fight or flight' instinct had kicked in.

"What may I get you ... sir?" he asked.

You notice I didn't capitalize the 'sir'. He didn't either.

"Coffee," I said as smoothly as I could.

What else might he bring me in a coffee bar?

"Coffee," he repeated. He had that knack of obnoxious waiters that allows them to communicate just how out of place you are in their little establishment. And how little they expect from you in the way of a tip.

Jane spoke again. "Flavia sidamo gold," she said, looking at me calculatingly with those wolf eyes. "Bring organic cream and raw sugar too."

He actually bowed. "Very good Madam, right away." He knew who he had to be polite to ... who had the money … who would be leaving the tip. She did too. It was obvious there was pretty big money behind this girl.

Well, not girl, per se. She looked to be in her mid thirties, in that late twenties kind of way that money will buy you. It wasn't that she had plastic surgery scars or anything gauche like that. She was just pampered and it kept her skin young and tight. The rest of her looked pretty young and tight too, from what I could see. That fawn colored dress fit her like a glove, with puffy fly-away sleeves that balanced it, making it a dress rather than an 'outfit'. It showed just enough cleavage for those pearls to lie on the swells of her inner breasts, but not enough to cause a man's gaze to linger there. It made it obvious that she had a fully feminine set of breasts, but didn't put them on display. I couldn't see her feet, but I would have bet the price of the coffee I was going to drink that she had on three or four inch heels with panty hose that were almost invisible. There was something about her eyes that made me think she could also be wearing a garter belt with thigh-highs, and whatever undergarments she had on were probably lacy in the extreme and another impossibly-named color.

Her makeup was flawless, the kind that takes hours to put on if someone else doesn't do it for you. She could have 'personal assistants', though. It wouldn't surprise me if she had a dozen servants. There was a shopping bag on the seat between us, from one of the stores downtown that I also never went into. When the cheapest thing in the store is a twenty-five dollar handkerchief, I don't shop there. Her hair was also flawless, a wreath of honey-blond hair that floated around her head like a force field. It had intricate whorls and what appeared to be streaks of subtly different colors in it, a little darker than the rest, with a hint of red, like a pale red ale with the sun shining through it.

A plate of something golden brown with frosting on it appeared at my elbow, along with a cup of coffee that steamed and almost assaulted my nasal cavities. I decided I'd rather look at Jane than Bruno, or whatever he called himself.

"Thank you Jacques," said Jane, looking up, like any normal person would do. She used the French pronunciation, ending with a hard 'K'.

I found myself looking at the ring on her left finger. It was the size of a marble.

"Would you please pass the tea cakes?" she asked.

I came alive and grabbed the plate, sliding it across the table towards her. The pastries on the plate looked like a cross between a cookie and a brownie, round, but thick, with streaks of chocolate in them, and both white and chocolate icing drizzled across them in little lines. She picked one up, holding her pinky finger out, and took a nibble. Her lips made me think of strawberries. She put the cookie down on the napkin.

"So, you're doing research on marriage," she said.

I came alive again and blushed. I wasn't used to being in such rarified air and I was a bit breathless. My canned speech came to mind, which was good, because without it I have no idea what I'd have babbled about. It wasn't that she was a raving beauty, though she was quite beautiful in a girl-next-door-raised-to-the-nth-level kind of way. I think rather it was that I felt completely and totally outclassed by her, like I was with someone who spoke a foreign language that I didn't know how to communicate in. That was a singularly odd feeling. I speak four languages fluently.

But I tumbled into my canned speech and was doing just fine until I realized that she wasn't really listening to me. I'm sure she caught the gist of it, but it was odd. Remember the Evelyn Wood speed reading course that was so popular way back when? It was like she could speed hear, just picking up on the critical words that transferred the meaning. But her mind was somewhere else while she did it.

I suddenly felt impish.

"So I thought that if I could find the transaxle of the average marriage and whelp the relationship, I could find a way to improve the average cross section of the weezer-frap." It was a version of one of my favorite phrases. I try to throw in 'transaxle', 'whelp', and 'cross section' when I think someone isn't listening. It's more fun if there is somebody else present who is listening. It gets a cool reaction out of them to hear gibberish and think it is supposed to mean something.

Her eyes swung to mine and locked. Wolf eyes.

"You're playing with me." she said. "Why are you playing with me?"

She was very direct. I felt ashamed. Apparently she could listen closely and think of other things at the same time.

"I'm sorry," I said meekly. "Honest, I just thought you had other things on your mind."

"Honestly," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"No, I mean the proper word is that you 'honestly' thought I wasn't listening ... not honest." Her eyes just made chills run down my spine.

"Of course," I mumbled. "Honestly."

"You're uncomfortable, aren't you?" she asked.

"Honestly," I said. Honestly, I didn't mean to. It was just that it was right there in my head.

She smiled.

"I don't bite," she said softly.

"Maybe," I said back, "but if you did I bet it would hurt."

"It's my eyes, isn't it?" she asked. "They make everyone uncomfortable.

"They're beautiful," I said for some stupid reason. "And scary too," I added inanely.

She laughed again.

"Tell me again about your project," she said. "This time I'll listen. I promise."

I had a fleeting sense of curiosity as to why she would promise me anything. I ignored it, and told her my theory.

"So that's why you wanted photographs," she said.

"Uh ... yes." I almost said 'honestly' again, but caught myself in time.

She reached into her purse, which was on the side away from me, and pulled out an envelope. She opened the flap and extracted four or five photographs, five by sevens, and handed them to me. I saw her in some of them, and a woman who looked a lot like her in a couple of others. In one of those the woman had a pony tail and was wearing a checkered shirt. I suddenly realized it was her, but she wasn't 'fixed up' in those shots.

There was a man in all the photographs with her, appropriately handsome for a woman of her caliber, with wings of gray at his temples, in the ones where he looked a few years older. He looked to be in his early forties, and looked vaguely familiar. In two of the pictures there was a boy who looked like he could be anywhere from seven to ten. I glanced up to ask her if it was her son in the picture. She was staring at me intently.

"Your son?" I asked.

Something flickered in her eyes and she nodded. "He's away at school."

'School' in this sense, I knew, meant a military academy, or some fancy boarding school.

I got down to looking at the faces of the man and woman in the photographs. There were similarities. What was odd was that, beneath the veneer I had overlaid by my pre-conceptions about what I would see, I saw that he, too, looked like the boy next door who grew up and hit it big. I compared the two with the little boy in them. In one, he appeared younger and the setting was a back yard. There was a grill there, in the background, and a badminton net strung up on the grass behind them. That was the one where she had a pony tail. The other was of her, sitting on a short couch, or loveseat, with her son beside her, and the man standing behind them. It was more of an informal portrait. Everyone had a silly smile on their face, though. Not the restrained and dignified kind of look you'd expect from rich folks.

Her finger pointed to that picture. "That's when we found out my husband had been elected the first time."

I looked up at her.

"My husband is in politics," she said needlessly.

"I see," I said needlessly as well.

"That's why I'm not sure this is a good idea," she explained.

I couldn't tell if she meant meeting me in a dark coffee bar wasn't a good idea, or them participating in the study wasn't a good idea.

"He's very sensitive to ... publicity," she added.

Okay, now I knew what she was worried about.

"Well, the interviews for the study are confidential," I said. "Nothing specific to any individual couple will be published. By that I mean that the couples may be discussed, but not identified in the paper."

"Could you give me an example?" she asked.

"Sure." I was on more solid footing now. I pulled out the two photos with the child in them and put them side by side, angled so that we could both see them. She leaned toward me. She smelled good. I guess that's why that perfume she was wearing probably cost as much as my monthly rent.

"See here?" I pointed. "The cheekbones are the same height above the corners of the mouth. Look at where the jaw bends and goes upward. Same angle. The lips are about the same thickness from the bottom of the bottom lip to the top of the top lip. His forehead is a little taller than yours, but the proportions between the top of the nose and the hairline are the same. Both faces are narrow. In some couples one has a short, wide face, and the other a long, narrow one. There are all kinds of things that can make people look completely different. Even your skin tones are similar."

"But how would you identify us as a couple when you wrote that up?" she asked.

"Oh! That. Every couple will have a number assigned. I'm trying to come up with a numerical matrix that will quantify how much alike they look. I'm still working on that. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that each feature I mentioned got a numerical value of one. In your case, couple thirty-four would have a numerical score of at least five. Couple ... oh ... say sixteen ... might have a numerical score of two. That would mean couple thirty-four looked more alike than couple sixteen did. Couple six might have a negative score because every feature is different. Where the matrix comes in is that couple six might be more happily married than couple thirty-four. Each couple will also have a numerical score for how well they get along, and all that."'

"And that's what the interviews are for." She was quick on her feet.

"Honestly," I said, on purpose.

It got me another smile.

"I'm not sure my husband will want to participate," she said.

"I'm sensing that you do, though," I said. "Why, if you're concerned about confidentiality, would you want to do that?" I was honestly curious.

She sat there for a few seconds, mulling that over. Then those wolf eyes looked at me again.

"I want to help." she said simply.

I didn't quite believe her. At least, I thought, she wasn't being forthcoming about everything on her mind. It made me wonder why someone would want to be in a study about marriage. So far, there had been three or four couples who got into my study thinking it was for something entirely different than it was actually intended to do. Those had been my most ... interesting ... interviews. So I guess I decided to string Jane along as long as she would let herself be strung along, and just see what happened. I had never met any really wealthy or influential people in my life, at least none I could sit down and talk to. I was curious about her.

"Okay," I said. "How about we just talk a little bit, and I'll ask you some questions, and if you want to answer them you can, and if you don't, you don't have to. That will probably give you a better idea about whether you really want to be in the study or not, and about whether your husband will have a heart attack if I ask him the questions."

"Sounds like a deal," she said simply.

Now, I have to tell you ... that simple sentence, coming from her mouth, sounded all wrong. That sentence was something one of my friends might have come up with. But wealthy, educated, sophisticated society women just didn't talk like that.

I found out the reason for that as we continued to talk for the next three hours.

That's right. Three hours.

I learned a lot about Jane in those three hours. She really was the girl next door. She was born in Montana and grew up there, going to public schools. She went to college at the University of Washington and, while a starry-eyed coed there, met John at a save-the-whales rally she went to with a girlfriend for kicks. He was, at that time, a wild-haired and wild-eyed radical who thought nothing of driving spikes into trees to keep them from being cut down, or putting on S.C.U.B.A gear and drilling holes in the hulls of ships involved in the whaling trade.

That was a whole new world for a girl from 'Hicktown, America'. She was attracted to his passion and sense of commitment to what he thought was right and wrong. She also felt deliciously naughty being around people who were running from the law. Whether the law was actually looking for them or not didn't really matter. It was the excitement of being involved with demonstrations and people who screamed ranting speeches to the already-converted that fired her own thoroughly subdued passions. The only thing Jane had ever been passionate about, up to that point in her life, was who would win the game under the Friday night lights back home.

She managed to divest herself of her virginity after one of those games, in which the team won the regional championship and was, therefore, slated to go on to the state competition. She described that moment of discovery as "somewhat wet and painful", but then smiled as she remembered how both teens had been terrified that she might become pregnant from that single coupling. That terror, along with the singularly unhappy physical experience, convinced her that sex just wasn't all that it was cracked up to be, and she kept it at arm's length after that.

Until she met John. Her voice got softer, more 'confidential', as she leaned toward me in that dark bar and told me: "In fact, I was the aggressor the first time we had sex."

It is important to understand something here, so it's worth stopping to point it out. Jane was (now) a cultured and educated woman. Her husband was in politics (on a national level, as it turned out), and she was quite used to picking her words with great care when she spoke "in public". I had been listening to a more or less normal story of a more or less normal girl going through more or less normal things. But her characterization of them "having sex" for the first time jarred something in my mind. I would have expected her to use the term "making love". There is a cultural difference between the two, at least in America. That would become important later in our interviews, because at various times she did change back and forth between the two phrases. Whether she was aware of this or not, I don't know, but I was aware of it, and it said momentous things between the lines of her spoken sentences. Saying that they "had sex" for the first time suggested that there was no love involved in the relationship yet, understanding, of course, that young people of that age and experience don't really know what "love" is. They may think they're in love, but aren't, by comparison with other people. It's complicated, which is what makes sex in the West complicated.

Anyway, she went on to describe how, after a rally, she was fired up emotionally and was searching for some way to maintain the high she was on. There were perhaps six or seven people in the room, and somebody was passing around a joint. When two other college students started kissing and groping each other in front of the rest of the group, pretty soon there was a cheerleading squad urging them on.

"I went to stand behind John and just slid my hands around his waist and cupped his package," she said, her eyes bright with remembrance.

Again I was jarred by her characterization of his sexual equipment as "his package."

She went on to describe how he turned around, smiled, and the next thing she knew they were having "hot and sweaty sex" in a bedroom.

She stopped suddenly and looked startled, staring at me.

"I shouldn't be telling you all this," she said. "John would be furious with me for telling someone about that."

I pushed my clipboard around so she could see it. All I had filled in was some notes on demographics. I hadn't even put anything where her name and address went, and hadn't taken any notes on what she'd told me already. To be truthful I was so interested in her story that I had forgotten to take notes. We had been talking for a couple of hours by this time and both of us had only paused to take a potty break.

"We won't tell John about what we talked about," I suggested. "Besides, didn't you say there were half a dozen other people in the room?"

"Oh no," she said. "Not then. He took me into the bedroom and locked the door. I think even then he was being careful about what he did and who saw it. I think it was instinct, because he didn't get interested in politics - running for office, I mean - until years later."

"Still, though, those people knew what was going on in there," I said.

She blinked. "We still know most of them," she said. "I won't tell you who they are, but quite a few of them are involved in politics today."

"So they can't tell on you ... him ... because he could tell on them?" I asked.

She didn't look happy about that. "Something like that, I suppose." She slumped a little bit in her seat. "It's a dirty business, Bob."

That is an example of where she talked between the lines. Here was a wealthy, successful woman, with a successful husband on the national stage. As important and influential people go, she was right up there with the best of them, or at least had the option to be. Yet she was not happy with that life. You don't live life doing "dirty business" and be happy about it. Not if you're a person like Jane.

During the remaining hour of that first interview we went on, and she described how they finished school, and he got a job opportunity with his uncle who, while he was "one of the establishment", was working for peace and the environment on the inside. They got married, and he did well in his pursuits, which eventually got people urging him to run for office. His platform was successful and he got elected and did good things, in the beginning, when he wasn't beholden to anyone for supporting his campaign financially.

When their son was born, other than "making love with John", she was never happier than when she was just being a mother. She was madly in love, and life was good. That was when the photograph of her with the pony tail, in the back yard, was taken.

Then he ran for the senate.

That took serious money, and it poured in from all kinds of sources, large and small. Suddenly there were strangers on his campaign staff, telling him what had to be done to "get the message out." His movements began to be scripted and he spent less and less time at home. It was recommended that he have his son in a "good school", and people began to "help" Jane "become" the wife of a senator.

She became agitated during this part of her narrative, her hands moving around, twisting the napkin until it wrinkled, moving her coffee cup from one place to another on the table, but not sipping from it. Her brow furrowed. But what was more interesting to me was that her voice took on that same cultured tone that had been there when I first met her ... when she'd ordered my coffee. It was almost like the change she was describing was mimicked in the way she spoke, going from that easy Midwestern style to a more clipped and polished way of speaking. While telling me her story she had reverted to that simple girl next door. Remembering the changes she had had to make when her husband became "successful" resulted in bringing her back to the present ... to the woman she now was. She could have won an Oscar if she'd been acting.

What she said between the lines was that she didn't like the woman she now was, and she wasn't all that hot on her husband being the man he was either. She remembered the past fondly, but was all too aware that she had to live in the present, with an eye firmly on the future and the "successes" it might bring.

"Well!" she said suddenly.

I realized neither of us had spoken for quite a while. Both of us were thinking about things.

"The rest is history. So what do you think?" she asked.

"I think I'd like to talk to John," I said.

She looked ... hurt ... or something close to that. I suddenly realized that I might have just done what would look like (to her) most other people probably did. I had dismissed her, and wanted to get access to the "real" power in the family.

I tried to put a bandage on the hurt.

"But first I want to thank you," I said, reaching for her hand. I saw her arm tense, but when I laid my hand on top of hers it relaxed. "Your description of things has been fabulously helpful." I didn't think a little flattery would hurt. "You have a knack for describing things in a way most people can't." I decided not to tell her what she said between the lines. Not yet, anyway. We had had a very comfortable talk, but we weren't friends or anything. I found it interesting that I wanted to be her friend.

"I blathered," she said.

Then she did something else very interesting. She pulled her hand out from under mine ... and laid it back on top of mine. Her wolf eyes pierced mine again.

"Thank you for listening to me blather ... and for being discreet. You will be discreet ... won't you?"

"Yes ma'am," I said, my voice a little dry. When a woman like Jane asked you to do something you wanted to comply. She had come a long way from being that small-town girl from the upper Midwest. "But I hope you don't think we're done," I added.

"You want to talk more ... with me?" she asked.

"Definitely," I said. "Talking to John is just part of the package. It's pretty hard to come to conclusions about scores unless I talk to both members of a couple. But I have lots more questions for both of you."

"Oh!" She seemed surprised, but looked a lot happier too. "Well, I've really enjoyed our little chat. I'll see if I can think of a way to broach the subject with John, and encourage him to see that this isn't a liability."

Rather than ask for her number, I just gave her mine and said we'd set something up whenever she was ready.

She had a wonderful smile when it was real. It was just like the smile in that picture of her where she had the pony tail.

 

Chapter Two

 

I got a call three days later.

"Hello, Bob?" came that cultured voice.

"Hi, Jane, it's good to hear from you again," I said.

"I'm ready to make another appointment," she said.

Then, instead of making the appointment, she went on to explain that the time hadn't been right yet to talk to John about all this. He had been called away to Washington and she didn't want to talk to him on the phone. It was late May, and she suggested we meet in a park. Both the place and the way she talked made it seem like she was sneaking around to do this, but I agreed and we set the appointment. I kept it the next day.

That interview also lasted some three hours. We picked a park bench that was one of a dozen in a row. The rest of them had mostly young mothers sitting on them, watching their children play on the playground equipment nearby.

It was a lot more intimate in some ways, because I finally started filling in the notes on my regular questions. I'm not sure she was quite prepared for it. We spent half an hour talking about mundane things and then I asked her the first personal question.

"What is John's best sexual feature?"

She looked startled for a moment, but then answered gamely. "Well, I'm not sure what you mean by 'feature', but what I like about him the most when we make love is his passion. He's very passionate."

That didn't tell me a whole lot. He was passionate about a lot of things, according to what she had told me already.

"How often do you make love?" I asked.

I got another darted glance. "Well, you know ... about normal."

"And your definition of normal is ...?"

She was flustered now. I had never seen her that way before, other than that first time we met, when I wasn't what she expected.

"He's very busy." She was making excuses already. "He's gone so much, and, despite what some people might think, politics is grueling work. You can't blame him for being tired most of the time."

"Jane, calm down," I said softly. "I'm not making any judgments. It's just a number. I'm not going to grab my chest and fall off the bench if it's only once a week."

Now, you have to understand here, that I was all of twenty-four when this interview took place. I hadn't had a regular lover in years. My involvement with other couples I interviewed was anything but predictable, and a lot of the couples I had interviewed had given numbers like 'once a week'. Some of the older ones said they made love a lot less frequently than that even, and some younger ones fucked like bunnies every chance they got. So I really had no idea what "normal" was for a couple where the man was forty-ish and the woman was thirty-ish. I actually expected her to say something along the lines of twice a week, but had no data to base that on. If she'd have been my wife I'd have been chasing her around the bedroom at least twice a week.

But, of course, she wasn't, and I was only twenty-four.

She colored up and I knew I had made a mistake. But she gritted her teeth for some reason, and answered the question.

"Once every three or four months," she said tightly.

"Oh," I said, thoroughly trashing my pledge that I wasn't going to judge anything.

"We go to church more often than we make love," she said. I looked up to see her blushing more furiously and realized she hadn't meant to say that out loud.

"Well, like you said," I tried to comfort her, "He is very busy."

"You're very kind," she said, a little acidly.

I felt bad for her. Here was a beautiful, smart woman in her sexual prime, and she was being neglected. It happened all too often. It suddenly occurred to me that she might not know that.

"Hey," I said, waving a hand in what I hoped was a negligent manner. "It happens all the time. People get on track with careers, and other interests, and some things get pushed aside. It's not your fault. At least you got to have children before that happened."

"I know it's not my fault," she said, her eyes becoming more confident. "And we had child ... not children. Our plan was to have two." She sat up straight. "And just because it happens all the time doesn't mean it should happen all the time. I want my husband back!"

Wow. There was a little repressed anxiety coming out all of sudden. The therapist in me wiggled to the surface.

"Have you talked with him about it?"

She slumped back against the bench.

"Of course I have. He says it's not the right time to have another child. He has this stupid idea about running for the Presidency and about how he'll get me pregnant so that he's the first man in a Presidential race with a pregnant wife. It's like I'm some trophy he'll be able to hold up to talk about family values. And right how he's getting ready for a re-election campaign. I'm stuck, Bob, and I can't do anything about it. He'll get re-elected, and who knows what will happen after that. By the time my son has a brother or sister there will be more than a decade between them. I feel like a widow sometimes."

What I heard between the lines was that she was lonely. Imagine that. A beautiful successful woman, with a handsome successful husband, a bright child, money, things ... and what she wanted was something she couldn't have.

"Oh, just go on," she said disgustedly. "What's your next question?"

I looked at the form. Masturbation was up next.

Great.

I stared at the word, and didn't say anything. By now she felt comfortable with me. That much was obvious. She had told me things that would probably curl her husband's toes. I felt a little like a spy who had wormed his way into her confidence. But I wasn't a spy. I was just a guy trying to get a good grade.

It was about then that she apparently decided I was moving too slowly. She reached out and plucked the clipboard out of my hands. Those wolf eyes flitted across it and then rose to grab mine.

"Oh my," she said, her voice rising. "Do you ask these questions to everybody?"

"Uh ... usually," I mumbled.

She giggled. It was shocking to hear a giggle from a woman who looked like her ... who was her. Women like Jane just did not giggle.

"You're embarrassed!" She arched an eyebrow. "It's a perfectly appropriate question, Bob," she said; "Especially for a woman in my situation."

She read on. I knew she was reading about whether he masturbated or not, and whether they used toys, or did things with other people.

"My goodness, but we're going to get personal, aren't we?"

I looked up at her tone of voice. She sounded ... interested.

"I'll make you a deal," she said, handing me back the clipboard. "If you'll tell me about what some of the other couples said when they answered those questions, I'll answer them too."

I mumbled something about confidentiality and she put one palm out to face me in the classic "Stop!" sign.

"I don't want to know who they are. I just want you to tell me something that you shouldn't. I've told you all kinds of things I shouldn't have. Call it tit for tat. I'll feel better about you knowing so much about me ... us ... if I have something to hold over your head."

She had learned a thing or two from the politics she was embroiled in. I felt a trap, of sorts, closing around me, but it was a trap with no real teeth, because I knew her well enough by now to know she'd never do anything to hurt me. She wouldn't hurt a flea. I'll admit that I had developed some voyeuristic tendencies during this project, even if all I did to feed them was mostly vicariously. It would be titillating to hear about this woman's most private moments. And she needed somebody to talk to. I probably came up with ten reasons to let that trap close around me.

So we talked about the couples I had talked with, and, while I didn't have hard numbers, I gave her estimates of how many couples I had interviewed who did all the things I was going to ask her about. She listened without giving me a lot of feedback. When I told her about the couples who invited other people into their sex lives, I talked about the reasons they did it. I casually mentioned that one of the women had enlisted me to get her pregnant. That was the tit I was exchanging for her tat, so to speak.

"She actually let you have sex with her?" she said, her voice not actually inflecting it as a question. "Where was her husband?"