In Chapter one our heroine, Kate, a successful businesswoman turning 60, has asked herself a troubling question. Is she a slut? Thus began a series of chapters in which she describes to her husband Henry (her fourth husband) her life beginning with her late teen years and her sexual activities at each stage. The portion in italics in each story is her recollection of some memorable sexual experience from her past. In this chapter Kate seduces a nun who has written a book advocating celibacy.
"So that's how you met the infamous Jim Worthington, CEO and majority owner of A. H. Robards and dean of the publishing industry," my husband Henry said.
"Oh yes indeedy," I said in response. "Within half an hour after I met him I was in his San Francisco apartment with his wife Sandy, fucking the both of them until we were exhausted. A fast worker, our Jimmy boy. Too bad he turned out to be such a bastard when he sold out."
"You're sure the fast worker was Jimmy?" Henry asked.
I cocked my head, responding with my body language to his question with another question, implying I couldn't begin to understand who else could be to blame for the evening's debauchery and all that followed from it.
"I mean," he said. "There were two other parties to the little menage à trois you just described. Are you sure you have been totally candid about who seduced whom?"
I laughed, "Okay, I have to admit there probably wasn't a lot of seduction that went on that evening among the three of us. We all wanted exactly what we got."
Henry and I were sitting naked on the back porch of my Pacific Heights home in San Francisco on a lovely fall evening enjoying the beginning of a second bottle of fine French Burgundy. We had just eaten one of Henry's gourmet meals, washing it down with a first bottle of equally outstanding Burgundy. He was asking me about a tale I had told him of one my sexual exploits from midway through my publishing career, the seduction of the CEO of the publishing company I worked for and his wife. The question of who seduced whom was a fair one, although largely a moot point given the proclivities of the three parties involved. You can't really seduce someone who wants you so badly he or she is practically drooling, and in all honesty, I think that is the condition all three of us were in that night.
Changing the subject as I refilled both our wine glasses, I said, "Henry dear, I'm so glad you came out here tonight instead of just heading back to dreary old London."
"Hmmm, as am I my dear. As am I. Our little after dinner romp in bed was so much better than a redeye from Dulles to London."
"God, I hope you think so," I said. "If fucking me after dinner and a good bottle of wine isn't better than an airplane ride from Dulles to Heathrow, I'm going to give up on sex, sell my erotic publishing company, and join a nunnery."
"Somehow my dear, I can't see you giving up on sex, and I certainly can't imagine you lasting for more than a week in a nunnery. Within a week, I dare say, all of the nuns would have abandoned their pledges of chastity and, after an introductory seduction by you, be romping with each other in new-found ecstasy."
My eyes gleamed as I took a sip of my wine. "I did that once you know."
"Did what?"
"Seduced a nun."
"Really. While you were attending that Catholic girls school, I assume?"
"Oh no, it was much later than that."
"Okay, I'll bite. Tell me about the time you seduced a nun, and I want all the 'juicy' details."
I smiled as I set my wine glass down and lifted both my breasts toward Henry. It had been years since I had thought of my seduction of Sister Mary Margaret.
"It was about halfway through my second marriage. As I've told you, my second husband simply wasn't very interested in sex and ignored virtually any effort I made to change him. As a result, I was horny for most of ten years and engaged in shameless and repeated extramarital sex with a variety of partners—male and female. At the same time, I was climbing rapidly up the ladder at Robards and not just because I was screwing Jim Worthington and his wife Sandy."
"Oh, so you kept at them after your first meeting did you?" Henry interrupted.
"Oh yes. He and Sandy would come to the West Coast two or three times a year and each time the three of us would have dinner in his apartment and then we would do our best to replicate the debauchery of our first meeting. I dare say we more than replicated it a number of times."
"All fucking and no business?"
"No, of course not. Do you think I'm stupid? Jim and I always found time to talk a bit of business, usually while he was recovering for another round. That was an essential part of it. He was grooming me to run the San Francisco office. After all, contrary to popular belief, you can't sleep your way to the top, if all you do is fuck. You have to be useful to your mentor for things beyond merely relieving sexual tension."
"Is that so?" Henry said. "I never thought about it that way, but we're digressing. I want to hear about how you seduced a nun."
"Oh yes, Mary Margaret. Well, Jim had this idea that I needed exposure to the full range of works the company published, so he kept moving me to different editing and product development assignments. A few years into this training regime, he and Sandy got the idea one night, as we were lying naked in their big bed in the San Francisco apartment, that, since I seemed to have murder mysteries down pat (my last five properties in that genre had all been best sellers), I should try my hand with a religious publication. I think it was Sandy's idea. She was sure I was screwing my mystery novel authors (which was true, even though I never admitted it to her or Jim) and I just think she wanted Jim to give me an assignment that couldn't possibly be helped along with carnal relations."
