Let's Make a Deal Pt. 11

"Finally, there's agape. I really haven't a clue what it originally meant, specifically, in Greek, because a lot has happened to it. In translating the Hebrew Bible into Greek, the translators mostly used that word for God's love for his people, and the writers of the New Testament—which was written in Greek in the first place—followed and expanded that. So it's taken as unconditional, unselfish, seeking the good of the other person without concern for the cost to oneself. You gave me a couple that came close to saying just that.

"So. I think probably all of these are there in what you gave me. Ignoring storge, as being unhelpful or unclear to me. I think there's not much doubt that you're my friends, not just in a casual sense. You've both shown that more than once. To my utter astonishment, you clearly have eros toward me. In one way I'm so glad of it, but I'm appalled as well, since it will eventually make stopping things a lot harder. And, finally, you have at least some measure of agape toward me. You've shown it, in ways you may have missed, and what you said about wanting to make me happy even if you didn't like what it took is about as clear a statement of it as I could come up with myself.

"So you both love me. Now. You don't know how much affection I had for you, from the beginning, just as employees I was in frequent contact with. I think that's storge. You can't be in the faintest doubt that I feel eros toward you both, very, very strongly. Phileo, among other things, is what took me with Martha to the sleep lab and doctor. There's some agape there as well, I think. But, well, every time I apologize to one of you for almost anything, you jump on me and start telling me how much agape I'm showing you, implying that it's more than I should. It's not, by the way. And I fear that some of what you adduce is, well, not entirely personal to you, but a concern I'd at least like to have for anyone. But still."

He walked around the table and bent over to hug Lynda and give her a kiss. "I love you, Lynda." And on to do the same for Martha. "I love you, Martha." He went back and sat down. "Now, before I say any more, are there any questions or comments?"

They sat for a long time, a minute or two. Scott was determined not to go on until he was sure they really were ready, so he just waited. Finally, Lynda said, "From everything you said a few minutes ago, you're still thinking that in a month or maybe two the deal is over, and we just go back to employees with a normal daily routine at work. Why can't we go on the way we have been?"

"Martha, do you have anything to add to what Lynda just asked?"

"Scott, I think I have a pretty good idea of how you're going to answer. I've known you a lot longer and better than Lynda has. But I think you need to tell us both."

"OK. I'll try to explain it. Martha, since you do think you have some idea where I'm headed, please jump in if I skip steps or go too fast, or if I'm otherwise unclear.

"The trouble is that sex is meant to be part of marriage, one man and one woman in a permanent, public, committed relationship. What we're doing is wrong. It's not wrong in every way it might be, OK, but it's still seriously wrong. I'm ashamed to be doing it, much as I love you both and delight in you both. And I think I said this once before. You're putting a lot of trust in me. I demanded that you do so. But I owe the Lord my full, wholehearted obedience, and I've promised that, and I'm not giving it. If I can't be trusted to keep the most fundamental promise of my life, how can you possibly trust me to do things I promise you?

"OK, I guess I'm straining at gnats and swallowing camels here. I let myself do this by committing myself to a limited time, committing to God and to myself and to you. I agreed when Martha suggested it to consider adding one more month, and we never did discuss it again. You two need to think about your wishes on that subject. I only warn you that lengthening the term won't make ending it any easier.

"That's about all the answer I have for the question you asked. Let me mention another idea or two I can't accept either.

"If marrying you both were an acceptable alternative, at this point I'd offer that in a heartbeat. But, well, to put it frivolously first:

But I submit, m'lud, with all submission, To marry two at once is Burglaree! In the reign of James the Second, It was generally reckoned As a rather serious crime To marry two wives at a time."

Martha put in, to Lynda, "That's Gilbert and Sullivan."

Scott said, "Ahem. Since I only recited, not sang it, it was Gilbert alone. Anyway, even if it were otherwise OK, marrying both of you just isn't an option in the present legal climate. Marrying either one of you with the intention of keeping the other on the side is probably legal today, but it's not acceptable to me. Again, scripture is clear and definite on this. If I were to marry ever again, the vows would include 'forsaking all others', and that's a promise I would mean to keep.

"But beyond that, I'm not free to marry either of you. Again, this is something scripture is clear and definite on, in a bit different form in the Old Testament but clearly applicable, and very explicitly in the New. Christians are only free to marry other Christians. And I've personally seen a number of cases where this was disobeyed. In one or two, the nonbelieving spouse eventually became a Christian. In the rest, the results were seriously bad, spiritually I mean.

"So. It tears at my heart to say it, but at the end of the three months, or four if we all were to agree to extend it, this is still going to have to end. I just don't see any way around it."

55. Tell Me the Old, Old Story

There was silence for a while. Then Lynda said, "Well, there's obviously one way around it. What would I have to do to become a Christian?"

Scott didn't answer for a while. He finally said, "The first problem is that there's not something you can do. It's really something you have to become. 'A toad has to pass a very severe examination before he can become a dragon.' Sorry! That's just my oddball sense of humor—that was out of line, and totally irrelevant. It's from another Kai Lung story. It just popped into my head and out my mouth.

"To put it in a nutshell: you have to believe the gospel, the good news. And in order to do that, you need to understand and believe the bad news. What it really amounts to is admitting that God's view of the human situation, of your life, is the right one, and that this means you're in, we're all in, deep trouble. So deep that we're really and truly helpless to do anything about it.

"People often talk about faith in God, or say 'I believe in God', meaning only that they believe that there is a God of some kind or other, with no more content than that. How many times have I heard someone say, 'I prefer to believe in a God who . . ' something or other? The faith you have to have is something different, something way beyond that. You have to really believe that God exists, and that he's what he is, that you don't get to choose. And that he's provided ways for you to know him, at least to some degree. You have to trust God, when he tells you that you need salvation, and that you can't save yourself, and that he has provided what you need. And the only way to take what he provides is to really trust him, to be willing to accept it without trying to save yourself, without trying to find something to do that will make you good enough to deserve it.

"That leaves out the details, I'm afraid, and they matter. I think I can explain it in a way that will make it clear to you two, of all people. But I'm afraid I'm all talked out. If you really want to hear it, if that was really a serious question, then we'll talk tomorrow afternoon. Is that OK? I really am getting hoarse. Oh, wait. I said I can make it clear to you, at least I think so. Realize that that's not enough. At that point, you still have to decide whether to believe it or not."

56. Moons and Junes and Ferris Wheels

It felt to him as though, after all that, making love to Martha ought to have been a pretty subdued experience, but somehow it wasn't. Martha herself seemed unusually aroused, almost fierce. For Scott, being able to just say "I love you" seemed like such a relief that it swallowed up some of the sadness the whole afternoon had left him with. It was almost like their first time. Martha seemed ready to come almost at his first touch, and to repeat each time after a little more, and giving her such pleasure excited him.

When he did enter her, he didn't last very long, but she came off him—she had wanted to be on top—and took him in her mouth, and patiently brought him back to readiness. She kept at it long enough that he was beginning to wonder what her plan was, but she did finally move back on him. At that point she came almost immediately. And when he did come a few minutes later, she came one last time as well. She got off him and cleaned them up, then lay down next to him and kissed him. "I love you, Scott, and I'm glad you know it, and glad to be able to tell you. Whatever happens, tonight and tomorrow and when the end of our deal rolls around, remember that I love you." He was almost sorry that he was spending the night with Lynda.

They ate dinner pretty late. Their conversation, followed by such an extended session with Martha, had taken a lot of time. Toward the end of dinner, Scott said, "We didn't manage to get to the end of the questions I had. I'd planned to get to Lynda's question, but she preempted me, and I ran down before getting to this: It's plain that your loving me wasn't something that had come up just in the last few days. Please, I really would like to hear from each of you when it began, or failing that when you first realized it."

Lynda said, immediately, "I think you should be able to guess! I had been resenting you, and this whole deal. Martha had told me I was being ridiculous, told me in detail how and why, and we had a big screaming fight about it. There's more you should hear about that, but I think that's Martha's to tell. But I did think about what she said, over and over and over, trying to prove to myself how wrong she was. So the next day, and the next, I watched very closely how you treated us both, and then how you treated her when you made love to her, and I couldn't help it. She was right, that's all there was to it.

"And as I thought about how I'd been wrong, everything else I'd been doing came crashing down on me. I just couldn't help crying and I couldn't stop. You remember! And you were tender and loving to me, when you had every right to be furious. If I say any more, I'll be crying that way again. You know the rest as well as I do. And I fell in love with you then and there. But you'd said this was a, a business relationship, not a romance, so I knew I couldn't tell you."

She was sniffling and crying a little. Scott got up and went over to her, bent down, and picked her up and sat with her in his lap. That really opened the floodgates for a minute or two. Martha brought over the kleenex box. Scott just held her. As the tears slowed, she said, "You remember, in the end I cried at you some more, but they were happy tears. So are these. I don't know what will happen now. But I'm happy you know I love you, and happy that you love me. Remembering all that, falling in love with you, is very emotional, but they're happy memories. Nothing you could do can take today away from me. I mean, being who you are. Some guys could do that, but I know you and you won't. If I have to give up what we have now, I'll manage somehow. Thank you!"

57. There is nothing so powerful as truth—and often nothing so strange.

He sat continuing to hold her, but he looked at Martha. She said, "I may be the next one crying now. I have a major confession to make, and by what I promised I should have spoken up weeks ago." Lynda got up from his lap, kissed him soundly if briefly, and made shooing motions toward Martha, so Scott got up and went over to her. She stood up and held him, then said, "I'm not such a nice compact lap-full, but please let me sit in your lap while I tell this." So he sat down and pulled her into his lap.

"Thank you. The thing is, I fell head over heels in love with you years ago. You were teaching me what you needed me to do. This was even before Lynda came to stay with me. It's a lot like what Lynda said. You were kind and gentle with me, making sure mistakes got corrected but making sure that I understood where I'd gone wrong and why you needed things different. Being patient and not blaming me.

"And it wasn't just me! I had to be with you a lot when you dealt with customers and suppliers, and other employees, and you were the best example there could ever be. Always patient, honest and straightforward, respectful.

"And it was like I was sixteen or something again, after a while. You know my background, I did tell you about it the night we made the deal. I'd gotten pretty turned off guys because the ones who paid me any attention were, well, juvenile and selfish. And I'd fallen into sex with women, as a pattern, when a woman gave me attention unselfishly and with no demands attached. She didn't ask me for anything, she just offered herself if I felt the need. And I did. But after a while, with everyone else . . . Mostly things were good, but I never really felt what I had with Sheila.

"Then Helen kind of left me feeling down on the whole thing. Love and sex in all forms, I mean. Helen showed me that you don't have to be young, or a guy, to be juvenile and selfish, that's for sure! Anyway, I wasn't looking for anyone, certainly not a man. But you were honest and trustworthy, kind and gentle. It was like I was younger than sixteen, in fact, like a girl with a crush on somebody, sitting in middle school English class writing Martha Davidson, Mrs. Scott Davidson, Martha Davidson, Mrs. Scott Davidson, over and over in her most elegant handwriting, when she's supposed to be paying attention to the teacher.

"OK, laugh if you want, yes, it is ridiculous! And no, that wasn't me in middle school, but I knew a few who were just like that! Only, by the time I fell in love with you I knew what it was all about. I mean, I didn't have any real experience with men, of course, but I knew about it in theory, and of course I knew what love and sex meant for my own body, how I needed to be touched, all that. But by this time I knew you were a Christian, I knew your character, and that there was no way you'd ever make a pass at me. Or that you'd ever respond if I made a play for you. Maybe I could have offered you love, sex included, and worn you down in time, somehow. But your integrity was part of what I loved you for. I couldn't try to undermine it, could I?

"It's really, really embarrassing to say it, but toward the end, those mistakes I kept making, they were mostly because I was mooning over you instead of keeping my mind on my work. Just like that middle school girl I mentioned. When you made us promise to be completely honest with you, making sure we understood that this included telling you anything you needed to know, I should have brought this up then. I was afraid to! You were finally going to touch me, make love to me, and I was afraid it would just kill the deal before it started if I said something. I'm so sorry, Scott. I was wrong in the first place, to let myself be distracted by it, and then I compounded it by not telling you. And I knew it mattered, and I still kept quiet." Martha was crying now, not sobbing uncontrollably the way Lynda had, but with tears overflowing her eyes and running down her face. She was leaning against him as she cried, his arms around her.

"What I told you that first night, when you asked why I wanted sex with you, well, that was all true, but I deliberately misled you by not telling you what was really behind it. The same when you asked why I wanted anal sex again. I needed to say that even when it hurt so much, the first time, right at the beginning, I wanted it and loved it just because it was you doing it. When I came to you offering you sex, I never for a moment expected you to be accept that part of it. I was all excited because I'd decided to offer it, but I thought you would turn me down. I just couldn't think of anything else that would show how serious I was. But that didn't stop me from thinking how wonderful it would be if you somehow did accept it, and then you did!

"You said you weren't willing to spank us again. I really wish you would, though. I don't have any way I can ever make up for the trouble I've caused you. And it all made Lynda get tangled up in this too. I'm so sorry, sweetheart! I'll never, ever, forget that you cared enough about me to do that," she said, looking over at Lynda. "Scott, I'm not sorry that you've taken me to bed, a lot, and I can't make myself feel sorry that you love me, too. I do know that there's no future for us, but whatever you do now, I've had you loving me, and I'll always remember it, no matter what. So I lied to you, or at least misled you, which is bad enough, and I continued it after I promised you not to do that. That's all on top of all my carelessness before. What does this mean for me, for us, now?"

Lynda had brought the kleenex over, and Martha blew her nose and wiped her eyes and face. She looked searchingly at Scott.

Scott pondered for a while. He wondered whether 'us' was him and Martha, or Martha and Lynda, or all three, but he decided it didn't really matter. "I don't know what all it will mean. Probably nothing practical. I'm going to have to think about it a lot more. I do promise that I will not spank you, whatever you say. Don't bring that up again. Ever. Please. At any rate, I love you, and what you've told me doesn't change that at all. And it's not the kind of thing that I'd fire you for, that's for sure!

"I do wish I'd communicated a little more clearly. I wanted you not to get attached to me that way, not for you to keep quiet if you did. But, obviously, what's done is done. I guess I was afraid that if I said that right out, it would sound like I wanted to leave open the possibility that you might fall in love with me. My fault, not yours.

"Anyway, if you were paying attention at all, you know that I'm as guilty in this as you are. I went into it knowing that I was likely to fall for you, at least one of you but probably both. At least to some degree. And I decided to do it anyway, and not tell you, even as I promised complete honesty and demanded that you promise it to me as well. I meant to weasel around the promise by making sure that it wasn't something you would need to know, because I wasn't going to let it make a difference. OK, it was stupid as well as wrong. But I'm in no shape to complain that you did the same as well.

"But I need to get up in the morning, and I'll need some time with Lynda before I can go to sleep. Or she'll need some with me, whichever." He paused very briefly. "I mean, we'll need some time together."

Lynda said, "Please, I have something I've got to say first. Since Martha made that big confession, I think it has to be now. I'm afraid I knew you were in love with us, and I didn't say anything. And I mean I knew, not just that I guessed and felt sure or something.

"Do you remember that first night you spent with Martha? In the middle of the night, you got up for the bathroom, and when you did it woke me up. I thought I'd go to the bathroom myself, but then I heard you stirring in Martha's room, and I went to look in. I saw what happened. I should have said something the next day, except . . . you'd have known what I overheard, then, and you didn't want me to know. But since things are the way they are now, I really need to tell you both.