After the intensely sexual time with Abby (and her friends), it was almost a shock to come back to my life in North Carolina. In particular, I sensed that the time that Abby and I spent together after her graduation had capped of an incredible run of experiences since Catie died. Over the years, I have wondered how things would have played out if the traffic accident hadn't happened. What would that alternate timeline have held for us? It's a question without an answer. I can guess and maybe during this year, as the 40th anniversary of Catie's death approaches, I'll write something about what could have been.

But in June 1986, I had an interesting mix of feelings. Some of those feelings had to do with Abby's friends. The one I felt least connected with was "Dee" (Delaney). Oh, she played her role just fine and was active in what the five of us did together. All these years later, it felt and feels like it was just sex because she was with her friends and wasn't going to be left standing by the wayside.

Stephanie, Abby's best friend, would have gladly tag-teamed with Abby to use me at times, as her/their sex slave. I could and still can generate lots of fantasies about what that would have been like to live off campus and have them and be accessible to them. Still, I thought that when they got on campus, the draw of younger men would eventually leave me on the outside. Maybe I could provide lessons and consulting services?

Then there was Ann. She was such a delightful surprise in so many ways. This fair-skinned, natural blonde just seemed like she wanted to absorb pleasurable experiences. Not that sex was new to her (though anal sex certainly was), but that she got to experience it at a completely different level that was different and pleasurable in ways she hadn't experienced before. Certainly, part of that was my age and experiences. The other part was just the way I treated her. If I was the only "older male" sexual partner she ever had, I surely hope that I stood out as a wonderful experience for her. At a different level, there's this sort of fanciful and erotic daydream of what it would be like to travel through life with someone like her.

And, of course, there was my relationship with Abby that had started with and through Catie as something very sexual, and it had resumed (sexually) nearly six months after Catie and her mom died. In the week immediately after their deaths, Abby and I comforted each other but we were not sexually intimate. Much of that had to do with the raw emotions and shock of the moment and the revelation that Catie was pregnant with my child/children.

Somehow, it just didn't seem to be the right thing to do.

In light of everything I knew at the time, it didn't feel right to me to *substitute* Abby, her younger sister, into the lover's role that was there "for the taking." And that was the way it seemed to me, that I would be substituting Abby for Catie.

Even though the sexual tryst between the three of us had two distinct weeks of physical interactions, the period from October through December, 1985 had many conversations between Abby and I, Catie and I, and the three of us. There was an emotional bond that went beyond sex or the fact that Abby had surrendered her sexual virginity to me. I cared about Abby. She was much more to me than a statistic or a "trophy."

The relationship had become even more intensely sexual through Thanksgiving with Catie and Abby. This seemed as if it was an "open" threesome for us, even though it was hidden behind a cloak of silence outside of us. Of course, I later realized that while Catie and I had kept what we did between ourselves and our other sex partners, Abby had been sharing what was going on with her closest high school friends.

In the subsequent weeks after Catie's death and after cleaning out Catie's apartment, Abby and I became emotionally close as we were both working through our emotions and learning things about Catie (through her journals) that neither of us knew. For me, it was an open question: *Who would Abby be in my life?"

The other part of the challenge with Abby was our age difference. Fourteen years, particularly at our ages (32 and 1😎 and the types of age-related and age-appropriate experiences we had, seemed almost a lifetime in difference. In reality, it was more like half a lifetime in different experiences and we had dropped in on each other's life only a few months previous. It was strange for me to adapt to that.

For Catie, though, Abby was family and had always been so. The constant shift in the eleven years age difference was "easier" for Catie because it had been ever-present in her life with Abby as the youngest of her siblings. She had watched her younger sister grow up even when she was away from their home in Portland. Of course, the same could be said for Abby and this 11 year difference with her older sister. They had always been close, even with this age difference.

Catie, like me, had gone through her college years, gotten her degrees and had developed a professional life that she had been pursuing in Chicago. Unlike me, Catie hadn't gotten married (yet) or had children (yet). That was about to change as we were planning our (new) life together, until she died. But we had these age-related similar life experiences and transitions that made what Catie and I shared feel so natural and effortless (with or without Abby). Abby had yet to experience any of these.

Yet, I followed Catie's lead with respect to Abby. I recognize that I was trying to please Catie (there was no indication that this was somehow a test of my character) and that I got to experience incredible sexual experiences as a result of playing in this threesome. Please understand that I'm not blaming Catie for getting involved with Abby. As I was an adult male considerably older than Abby, and I could have said "no."

I felt I was in an interesting (and uncomfortable) mental bind.

And then I had a developing relationship back in North Carolina. That relationship would not have happened if the accident hadn't occurred and Catie hadn't died. It's easier to look back and see that now. Oh, I might have met this person through one of my coworkers. But, the timelines of our life experiences would have been completely different because Catie and I would be taking the steps for us to get married, Catie would have moved to North Carolina, and she and I would be preparing to bring children into our lives. Another relationship on this timeline just would not have happened. I can't tell you what would have happened with Abby, Catie and I.

And so, I went through the remainder of June with a split set of feelings. I really liked being with Abby even with the knowledge of and the presence of the linkage to Catie. It didn't feel like an *obligation* to her because of that linkage and all we had gone through after the accident. We were building a "stand alone" relationship and I could see that. There were moments when I began to entertain the idea that "maybe we could go forward together." The added "benefit" of playing with her friends was an interesting, if risky, addition.

It was as if I was living two separate lives.

Abby took a part-time job at a nearby lawn and garden supply business (though she didn't need the money since her family was quite well-off). It helped keep her occupied after her high school graduation. Her dad had returned to running his business several months earlier and it was Abby who was in that empty house during some of those days. However, she was also becoming more focused on the upcoming changes and moving to the campus in Corvallis. She was (naturally) worried about her dad and what it would be like when she started classes there. He told her to go, that he would be fine.

Being in Corvallis meant she would be less than two hours away and her brothers were also close. She knew that she could always come home on weekends. She would be moving in the middle of August which was about the same time I would be finishing my work assignment out in Oregon.

As we moved into July, there were subtle changes for both of us.

Abby and I didn't talk daily; more like every two or three days. She liked working at the lawn and garden supply and the people she worked with. She told me that in some ways she felt connected to her mother in working with the plants because of her mother's gardening interests and the time they had spent together in their yard and garden. But she also saw something else that she hadn't really experienced in quite the same way. She was working with male and female coworkers. There were some really cute guys working there. The owners expected their employees to treat each other with respect and they didn't have much tolerance for intimate personal relationships among employees. That wasn't the problem. It was some of the customers.

Some men, both older and younger than I was, would flirt with her (and she could be quite flirtatious). Others were strictly businesslike. But it was the way that some of the comments were directed at her and a level of crassness that she didn't expect and hadn't necessarily seen while she was in high school.

During one of our conversations about these experiences, I reminded her that she was a very attractive young woman (and her pouty lips and gorgeous eyes were on of the first things that anyone, and particularly any man, could see as an attractive attribute). But she was startled by the contrast that she saw in how I treated her (and how I treated Catie before she died, as well as Abby's friends) and the way that some of these customers felt they could treat her (in what they said).

"Well, they got your attention, didn't they?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. But it wasn't necessarily in a good way.

"Well, that's some guy's strategy to standout some way and get attention," I said.

I told her she was likely to experience some of the same approaches and attitudes when she got on the male-dominated campus.

"They'll be closer to your age than I am. But, your sister and I both have lived on male dominated campuses and we both knew that range of behaviors will definitely be there for you, too," I assured her. I also reminded her that if I hadn't been with her sister, that given my age, there wasn't anything special about me that would have had her want to be with me. I would have been some average guy with a pleasant disposition

"That's not true!" she protested. "I think you're wonderful!"

"Thank you," I said. "I think you're wonderful, too. But that's because we've spent time together, gotten to know each other, and we've developed a level of love and intimacy that we have shared, thanks to your sister. Otherwise, it's unlikely that any of this would have happened."

It was later she thought about the wider implications of what I said, like what if her mom and sister hadn't been in a traffic accident, etc. That was a topic in a later conversation.

Abby was silent on the other end of the line. "That makes me sad," she finally said. I asked her why.

"Because of all that we would have missed together," she said. "The way you treat me, the way you make me feel." I knew what she meant.

"Can I ask you something?" Abby asked. I told her that of course she could.

"Did you treat your wife this way?" I asked her to clarify what she meant by "this way." and she expanded upon what she meant. Really, two things. The level of caring that I seemed to display and that there wasn't a public version of me and a private version of me. I understood what she was asking about.

"Yes, I did," I said. "We had an exclusive, monogamous relationship, so there was no one else involved with us. And with the exception of the enemas, the sort of intimacy that we shared for seven years looked very much like how I treat you, your friends, and the way I treated your sister. But, suddenly something changed for her and she wanted something more or different from me that I apparently can't provide."

"When your son was born," she said. She knew that aspect of our marriage.

"Yes, and everything changed," I said. "There was nothing gradual about it. All sex, intimacy, tenderness, all of it. She didn't want anything to do with any of it. I kept trying to keep a tender and intimate side to our marriage even if there wasn't any sex. And so, after a time, she went and found somebody else who she thinks can provide what I don't or can't."

Our conversation about this went on for a bit until Abby finally said "I think Sis was right. You're wife is crazy to let you go."

"Although she's the one that left the marriage, ultimately, we both made the choice to let the other one go. Our choices were for different and related reasons."

"And none of this would have happened if she hadn't let me go," I said. "Puts a different spin on what our choices cause, doesn't it?" I asked. She agreed and for these choices she was glad that they had happened.

We both knew that our relationship, that was created through Catie, was about to change simply by the fact that she would be moving and going to Oregon State University. I told her that it is difficult to give up something or someone you love. But sometimes it's necessary, even if for a little while, to allow growth to occur that can't occur otherwise. That was the experience from the 14 year age difference speaking.

This many years later, I realize just how prescient and how self-aware I was about these changes. When I think about these times as I am writing, I am reminded that, five years later, my brother (3 years younger than I am) tried to carry on a relationship with a young woman whom he met while she was still in high school. He was 34 and she was 17 and approaching her 18th birthday when they met. Upon graduation, she was going to move to attend an in-state university. It reminded me of what Abby and I probably looked like to some people.

I tried (actually many of us tried) to warn him off because of what was about to happen. The difference was that after I had graduated from high school, I went to college and got a degree, etc. My brother didn't go to college (at least not right away) and so he didn't experience the huge changes and growth that the campus experience can bring after high school. And, of course, he experienced exactly what we tried to warn him about. She got on campus, a mostly male campus, with guys her own age rather than my brother who was closer to the age of her parents. It didn't go well for him because he couldn't see it coming even though we were warning him of what was about to happen.

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