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  “No, Heron never tried to do that with me,” Roberta protested.

  “Then why did you often get that feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach, huh,” her

  sister countered. “Oh, well, you’re safely married to a much nicer man, even though he may be

  Heron’s brother, and so, you’re well rid of your former autocratic fiancée. Let’s drink to that,

  shall we?”

  Tanner laughed but Roberta gave her an admonishing glance. “He’s not all that bad,

  Riles. And anyway, Tanner and I still have to put up…see him almost everyday. Besides, Heron

  has his good points. He’s generous as well, is hard working, is considerate to those in his family,

  and patient.”

  “Alright, I’ll let you have Heron having his good points as well as his bad ones. I for one,

  am drinking to the fact that I would much prefer to have as my brother-in-law your current

  husband than the one you were going to marry.”

  Tanner picked up his glass. “Here, here, I’ll drink to that one.”

  Laughing, all three lifted their glasses, clinked them, and drank.

  CHAPTER SIX

  While the enfoldment of Tanner and Roberta’s marriage into both families was not

  smooth and with complete equanimity, it was no large step for the two parents to come to accept

  this unexpected marriage from the marriage that they had been looking forward to only a few

  weeks ago. Although both mothers could not help but scold the two on their method of

  matrimony, it was obvious to them that Tanner and Roberta were very much in love. Caroline

  and Alana could not withhold their approval when they saw the happiness and contentment in

  their eyes, and how well they seem to be in tune with one another already on such short

  acquaintance. As well, both mothers were not the type to dwell on past mistakes and misgivings,

  but let their lives as well as those of their loved ones continue with hope and acceptance. The only one who had yet to accept the new marriage was, of course, Heron. He had yet

  to appear at any of the family gatherings, and appeared to avoid all contact with any members of

  his family. Even at the corporation, where he was intricately involved in business matters, he

  shunned both his brother and Riley. He even avoided his father beyond the business meetings

  that they held.

  “Come now, son,” Roy said impatiently when Heron declined for the third time going to

  lunch. “You must come to terms with this marriage sooner or later.”

  Heron stacked his papers neatly into his suitcase. “Do I, Father?”

  “He’s your brother, Heron.”

  When Heron looked at his father, his dark eyes were flat. “Who happen to have stolen my

  fiancée.”

  “Yes, I know. That was damnable on his part. On both their parts. But we can’t do

  anything about it, now, can we?”

  Heron clicked shut his briefcase. “No, Father, we can’t. Don’t worry, I’ve come to that

  realization long ago. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment with a client.” Roy with a sense of frustration and parental concern watched his oldest son walk calmly

  out of the boardroom.

  The next day, Roy thought it best that he send Heron on a month long trip to Europe to

  work out the contracts for a merger with a financial house in Germany. It had been planned that Roy would go and bring along Tanner as a junior executive so that he could be trained in the intricacies of international business transactions. As it was, Roy and Alana felt it best if they sent Heron alone, who was more than capable of sitting through hours and hours of negotiations and maneuvering through pages and pages of contracts on his own, so that he could immerse himself in the many details of the business, hoping that it would take his mind off his doomed

  engagement.

  Within a week, Heron, without a word, flew to New York, and from there, he would flew

  to Berlin.

  Riley, for her part, was glad to put behind her the disastrous extravagant preparations of a

  wedding that never materialized. Her sister and her new husband were settling into their married

  life, selling their apartments in the city and looking for a home in Marin County to set up house.

  And she was glad that now that Roberta had married the brother of Heron and not Heron himself,

  she would see less of Heron than had Roberta married him. Riley expected that at most, she

  would run into him once or twice per year, when both were expected to attend family gatherings

  during holidays or backyard barbeques. Riley more than welcomed the settling of life with her

  family back to normal, going over to her parents’ house very Sunday for dinner with the addition

  of Tanner.

  And, perhaps, if she were really inclined, now she could concentrate more on her

  personal life, which she knew she had been neglecting for a few years now. But, then, she

  reasoned, that was only because in a small county like Sonoma, which was still rural in many

  respects, there weren’t a lot of interesting men around, at least any who were single. She did

  allow herself a second go at Danny Moore, but had reached the same conclusion that she had the

  first time she went to bed with the successful developer. He might be a macho man’s man in the

  company of men, but he certainly was no woman’s man between the sheets. So, she baldly told

  him she was no longer interested in seeing him the next time he called to invite her to dinner. Heron came back from Europe little more than a month later, successful, mostly restored

  to his earlier self so that he was coolly detached to most everyone, more or less resigned to his

  brother’s marriage to his former fiancée, ready to put the whole fiasco behind him, and picked up

  his life where as if there had only be a minor blip in it.

  Alana Wait decided that it was time to bring the two families together, once again, as way

  to bridge over the embarrassment and ill will. She invited Lawrence and Caroline and Riley up to their house, gathered the newlyweds and her daughter and her husband, and issued a strict command to Heron to appear for the dinner, whether he liked it or not, and on the threat of

  further harassment.

  At first, as expected, there was the general awkwardness from all concerned, so that

  everyone was overly bright when greeting one another, so determined were they to put the

  awkwardness to rest and behind them. For the first half hour, everyone fervently clung to very

  safe but very nonsensical topics, such as the weather, the heavy fog that insistently clung to the

  city for nearly a week, and the annoying traffic that seemed twenty-four hours. Only Heron stood apart, standing at the window, looking out without really enjoying the

  scene, every once in awhile glancing at the gathering, not really interested in engaging with the

  rest.

  Then Tanner said, “Everyone, everyone, I’d like your attention, for a moment. Everyone,

  if I could have your attention.”

  Everyone quieted down and gave him their attention. Tanner reached out his hand

  towards his wife, who took it, and he pulled her into his arm. Both looked a little nervous,

  Roberta even a little tearful.

  “Robbie and I have something that we need to say,” he said hesitantly. “Tanner, there’s really no need…” Alana said with some worry.

  “Yes, Mother, there is. Robbie and I need to do this. Well, we want to apologize for what

  we did, for running away like we did, and ruining everything. We know we caused a lot of pain,

  especially for…”

  Here, everyone
eyes automatically turned towards Heron, who looked completely

  unmoved and unaffected, the expression on his face coldly impassive as usual. “Anyway,” Tanner continued. “Robbie and I have every confidence that our future will

  be much more smooth sailing and happy than what the beginning portends. But that’s not

  possible without the support of our family, which you all have given without reserve or censure.

  And for that, my wife and I are very grateful more than anything else.”

  Cheers of well-wishing were issued to the new couple with couple of toasts. All this,

  Heron conspicuously kept apart from, keeping to himself by the window.

  By the time dinner was served, the initial awkwardness and tension seemed to have

  lessoned greatly, partly due to Tanner and Robert’s chagrinned apologies and appeal for tolerance and understanding. The two families felt at ease enough to engage in lively discussions

  over turtle soup, Caesar salad, red wine braised roast beef with new potatoes.

  “Well, Riley, I personally am delighted to have you and sister in our family,” Beth Anne

  said. She was sitting across from Riley two seats to the left. “I must admit that I’ve been able to

  develop a little notoriety at my school once I revealed that I have a sister-in-law who runs a

  circle of ongoing sex group. A few of them even have heard of your club. In fact, it has created a

  small dispute amongst the different departments regarding the true role of sex for humanity. As

  you may as well have expected, there is such a gamut of opinions on sex and society. You’d be

  amazed how silly the beliefs and values of sex can run even in highly educated people. One

  anthropologist has declared for humans, because of our much superior brain, sex was just an

  outdated method for procreation, that humans over time will eventually find its reproductive

  function as inconsequential as the gills are that briefly appear in all of us as a developing fetus.

  In the future, all births will be run in test tubes.”

  Riley smiled with amusement. “You mean to say that in time, penises and clitorises will

  eventually appear just as briefly in our early development, then, and disappear altogether?” “Quite frankly I don’t think the male species would survive if that were to happen, as

  attached they are to their somewhat of a fifth limb,” Beth Anne quipped. Then she said, “But,

  seriously, Riley, you must admit that sex has always been a subject that humans are so much still

  at odds with. While there are those who would subjugate it to all forms of repression, and others

  who would embrace it wholeheartedly in all its forms as they would the air that they breathe,

  most of us are left with such ambiguous and ambivalent feelings about sex. Society has always

  given such mixed signals about sex that its citizens are left, I’m afraid, to their own devices and

  imaginations. But most of us, would rather avoid the subject, altogether, wouldn’t you say?” Riley nodded. “Hence the rise of religious and moral naysayers who would like nothing

  more than to dictate their own values and beliefs on sex onto society, because most of us are

  unable to articulate how we feel about sex for ourselves.”

  “Perhaps the purpose of those who see themselves as guards against signals of depravity

  of humans should be more considered as balance against the excesses of basic human nature,”

  Heron said.

  Riley looked at him with surprise. He had not spoken to her at all that evening. He was

  also seated across the table from her but one seat to the right.

  She said mildly, “It is also said that those who see themselves as guardians of societal

  virtue are nothing more than control freaks.”

  “That’s one way of dismissing societal controls,” Heron said coolly.

  “It has always been my opinion that it’s not society that they want to control, but their

  own fears.”

  “Fears of their own? Why would such communal impulses be masking personal fears?

  Don’t you think that’s insulting the larger and more humanitarian drive for community

  involvement?”

  “Not when such people are driven beyond guidance but to oppress.”

  “What do you suppose those fears are then, that makes them feel the need to redirect

  them externally?”

  “My guess would be that those fears are of those very things that drive them to suppress

  them in others.”

  “Sex?”

  “Amongst other things.”

  “So you don’t believe any human impulses should be attempted to be controlled, because

  that would deny that we are largely still animals?”

  “No, I didn’t say that at all. You know, it’s funny how people like you and that preacher

  Townsend always twist our words for tolerance for our more basic drives. You take the whole

  argument into an hyperbole, make them seem unreasonable, that we’re advocating complete

  liberality of all human capacities for depravity, that we’re only concerned about our own selfish,

  animalistic pleasures.”

  Heron sipped at his wine and gave a small, maddeningly patronizing smile. “Perhaps

  advocates like you haven’t really laid out your arguments well, especially when given the

  thousands of years that we have been in existence.”

  “I could say the same for you,” Riley shot back.

  “Then, consider this your one opportunity, Ms. Calderon.”

  “This isn’t a courtroom, Mr. Wait.”

  “I would think it would be highly prudent of you to take whatever opportunity that might

  be afforded to you, whether in a formal or informal setting.”

  Riley stared at him, disliking the challenge that he had just handed her, but more angry at

  herself for allowing him an opening to issue one.

  By now the two had completely forgotten where they were, or that they in the midst of a

  family dinner. Riley’s and Heron’s focus was only on each other, their eyes locked, watching,

  waiting for any signs of weakness or an opening to thrust in his or her own point. They were

  completely oblivious to the fact that all other family members had grown quiet and all their eyes

  were on them, watching intently the volley of words and ideas across the dinner table, their eyes

  going from one opponent to the other, as if they were watching a tennis match. Tanner and Beth Anne exchanged glances of amusement and anticipation, Roberta

  looked on with some bewilderment, and Ovid watched with academic interest. Caroline and

  Lawrence looked a little apprehensive and intimidated, and Roy took more of an attitude of a

  referee, watching the two narrowly as if to make sure that both sparred fairly.

  Alana watched the clash of wills and intellect with particular interest. It was the first time

  she had ever witnessed a woman being able to engage her oldest son’s attention in a conversation

  of any depth and heat. And it was the first time she ever saw a woman being able to kick Heron

  out of his habitual detachment.

  Riley kicked up one corner of her lips in a sneer. “Once a lawyer, always a lawyer, is that

  it?”

  Heron calmly continued to return her gaze, patiently waiting.

  She put the bread that she had been buttering down on the plate and brushed her hands of

  the bread crumbs. “Alright. I’m not all for complete liberality, as much as you like to accuse me

  of it. I believe in control just as the next person does. Of course I conceded that people like you

  and errant religious lea
ders have a point about limiting such baser human needs and drives. I’m

  just as aware as any moral person what that would do to society if a lot of our animal instincts

  were not held in check. But what I object to is the way people like Reverend Townsend tries to

  control them by suppressing those less acceptable needs and instincts within all of us. People like

  the reverend try to deny those drives inside us, and that the extent of them in many of us can go

  as far as perversions. And it’s the perversions that society and the reverend are afraid of.” “And rightly so, one common perversion being sadomasochism.”

  “But why not admit that humans have that dark capacity amongst us, inside us..” “You don’t then believe that that would be giving it a pass?”

  “No, I don’t. I believe in order to control a potential danger is to first acknowledge that

  potential within us.”

  “Then, let us say that society does admit that sadomasochism is possible within many of

  us. Do we all then sport leathers and chains beneath our very controlled business attire?” “Some already do.”

  Beth Anne broke into laughter, earning severe looks from her parents. She quickly

  pressed her lips together and tried to look chastised.

  Riley continued, “But why not let those who are into the practice do as they please,

  instead of making them feel ashamed and unnatural?”

  “And what if they go as far as they are danger to themselves and to others? You can’t

  deny that such games have led to physical harm. Even death. Where is it, then, do you propose

  that a line be drawn between sexual pleasure and physical injury? How do you handle those

  people who step over that line?”

  “In my club. I weed them out.”

  “If they can’t go to an outlet like your establishment, because even you, in all your open

  mindedness, will not allow even their extent of perversion, then where else is there to go for

  them? You know that they have to go somewhere for such an outlet”

  Riley thought for a moment. Then a look of surprise came over her face. “I must admit, I

  really don’t have an answer for that.”

  Heron gave a small smile of triumph that grated at Riley’s nerve. “Then, I guess, we’re

  back to square one.”