Erica was hiding in the bushes at the Long Island Sound Yacht Club, going back and forth in her head, thinking about Jeremy vs. Payne.
When Erica came to the U.S. to find Jeremy, she gathered information about him so she could secretly work her way into his new social circles and begin dating him again.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t done this before.
Once Erica located Jeremy and saw from a distance how happy he was in his new U.S. environment, Erica wanted him even more. She wanted to show him how all of her motives had changed.
She could let go of the London marriage if that was a deal-breaker.
So while Erica tried to pretend that her ex-boyfriend Jeremy Witt was of no interest to her, thoughts of being with him again had taken over Erica’s life.
They always did.
This was why Erica was hiding behind a group of ornamental bushes at the yacht club. Here, she had an unobstructed view of Jeremy’s boat. Hopefully, she was far enough away that he wouldn’t notice her while she was spying on him, or recognize her new car if he saw it parked there.
Erica had been spying on her ex-boyfriend Jeremy and his fly-by-night girlfriends for quite a while now, and at this point, she knew how to be inconspicuous.
She would die of embarrassment if Jeremy thought she was following him around like some love-sick schoolgirl, like she used to do in the old days.
She focused her binoculars so that she could see him close up with this girl from the Platinum Club.
In her mind, if Erica had any hopes of getting Jeremy back, she needed as much information about his new life as she could get. Maybe then she could formulate a plan that would win him back, or at least make him see that she wasn’t the same small-minded person he knew back in Weybridge.
Getting more information on Jeremy was part of the reason why she was here at the yacht club tonight, but that wasn’t all of it. Erica was here tonight because she thought the girl Jeremy was bringing here this evening was the one girl he might be serious about for the rest of his life.
She suspected this because Erica had been following this girl closely over the past month. Her name was Hope, and she worked at the Platinum Club as an exotic dancer, where Jeremy frequently visited her.
And tonight, when Erica followed them, Jeremy had taken this girl out to dinner. This made Erica wonder if he was planning to bring her here to the marina to spend the night on his yacht, just as he had done with her back in Weybridge.
At the time, she was hoping for a marriage proposal. But Jeremy was only interested in having sex. Now with Hope, maybe he wanted more.
This was why tonight was so important to Erica.
Based on her years of experience with Jeremy, Erica was almost sure tonight was the night that he would bring this girl here to the marina to consummate their relationship.
That is, if his new love interest, Hope, fell for his whole romantic routine this evening.
Once they arrived at the yacht club, Jeremy would tell her that the boat was his summer home and whisper a lot of sweet nothings to get her into his bed.
Erica knew this because she had experienced the same wonderful evening herself, several years ago, when Jeremy took her to spend the day on his parents’ cruising yacht on the Thames River.
Erica had been following Jeremy to the Long Island Sound Yacht Club for a few months. The girls he took back to the boat were one-night stands. He would pick them up at the Ascot and take them back to his yacht.
Then there was Payne.
Erica met Payne the night she saw Jeremy pick up another girl. She knew where they were going. So she drowned her sorrows at the bar, and Payne was there to listen.
Payne cared about her, and when they spent the night together, he was better than Jeremy in the sack. Or, maybe Erica enjoyed herself because she was more uninhibited than she used to be. She definitely wanted to experiment more with Payne.
If only he had money.
Now, if this girl Hope decided to spend the night with Jeremy on his boat, Erica would know their relationship had escalated to the next level. Jeremy never took his one-night stands to dinner. And he had been seeing Hope for several weeks, without trying to bed her.
All Erica had to do now was figure out how to meet Jeremy again and reintroduce herself as the free spirit she had become.
She knew how bad Jeremy was.
He had taken girls back to his boat to get laid, even while Erica was dating him back in England; Erica had even introduced him to some of the girls he liked. This was how she became so close to Jeremy, and at the same time, such a good spy.
She knew Jeremy was taking other girls to his parents’ yacht who were more promiscuous than she was, but she would show Jeremy that she had changed from the dull and lackluster prude he knew back in Weybridge.
She would show him that she was sexually uninhibited now since she had come to America, and that she could please him in the bedroom and give him the more exotic life he desired.
Since the two of them had dated on and off since college, he hadn’t changed a bit, but that was one of the reasons why Erica adored him so much. Jeremy was a business major, and Erica studied art history, so she had been too much of a prig for someone like him to stay with her.
He was restless.
Impetuous.
Maddening.
Erica knew that. Jeremy liked everything unorthodox and lascivious, while Erica had been a reserved and straitlaced preppy who liked art museums and high tea.
Still, Jeremy was the one who had taken the time to listen to her when some asshole dumped her for a prettier girl and then held her until she stopped crying.
These were the times when Erica had to settle for just being Jeremy’s friend and confidante, because even Erica considered herself to be boring, and that was the Erica Jeremy used to know.
At the time in their relationship when Jeremy left England for the United States, Erica eventually realized it was far too late for her to become the party girl Jeremy wanted to go out with, and too much in bad taste for her to press her hopes of marrying him when his recently widowed mother despised her so much.
The death of Jeremy’s father was bad timing all around for Erica, but now she was present here in Orchard Park, waiting for Jeremy at the yacht club to see if he would bring Hope home.
In what way could she make him see that she had changed completely, not just for him, but also for herself? Was it still too late to make him realize that she was exactly everything he wanted for the rest of his life?
There had to be a way, but she needed to gather more information before she met him face-to-face again, and with a plan to win him back.
Tonight, Erica arrived at the yacht club before Jeremy and Hope. She left the restaurant as soon as they were seated, so she could find a good vantage point to watch them.
She hoped Jeremy would be there shortly because she was getting tired of crouching in the bushes. She was sure that tonight would be the night. Jeremy would have to show off his yacht to this new girl at some point to get laid. He couldn’t help it.
Erica would have to wait it out.
Finally, when Jeremy drove up in his Aston Martin and parked, Erica smiled to herself. She knew Mr. Jeremy Witt’s habits so well. And Hope was with him. She wanted him to be alone, for Hope to say no, but here she was. Goddammit!
To the Jeremy Witt uninitiated, Hope looked like a natural blonde debutante from the Orchard Park Country Club set, but Erica knew better.
“He’s dating exotic dancers again,” she thought. It was late at night, so it was dark, but when Erica saw the curvaceous blonde get out of the car, she knew that Jeremy would be getting laid on his yacht that evening.
The look of surprise from the girl when she saw the size of Jeremy’s boat told Erica everything she needed to know.
He had done this so many times before in Weybridge.
Now that Erica had seen what she needed to, she could leave, but still, she kept watching.
At this point, Jeremy was giving Hope some tired old line, one she would believe, just like he did with Erica so many years ago.
As Erica watched, Hope agreed to something Jeremy said. Afterwards, she boarded the boat, with Jeremy following behind like a fox who had lured an unsuspecting hen into his lair.
“She certainly is young and naïve looking,” thought Erica, “just like I used to be.”
Watching this whole scenario unfold had Erica thinking back to one particular day of passion that she and Jeremy shared when they were sleeping together back in Weybridge.
Usually, and at Erica’s insistence, they only had sex in private places. These planned times were romantic, appropriate, and expected.
“I was so tedious and predictable,” she thought as she shifted her weight to keep her legs from cramping up. She watched through her binoculars while Jeremy turned on the interior boat lights.
As she continued to crouch behind the bushes at the marina, looking for any more signs of activity aboard the yacht, Erica closed her eyes and grabbed at a branch to steady herself, as she remembered her last encounter with Jeremy, on the Witt family yacht.
As their on-again, off-again relationship progressed, Jeremy had taken Erica back to his family’s private cruising yacht on the Thames one summer afternoon, against all of her wishes. She knew what he wanted, and so she didn’t want to go, but it turned out to be the most exciting and liberating thing she had ever done in her life.
This memory aroused her desires for Jeremy more than anything else he had ever done for her.
Back to the present.
The show was over.
Erica went back to her car, rolled down the window, and sat for a while.
She had to make a choice.
This wasn’t fair to Payne.
It was tearing Erica apart.
Jeremy had moved on, and Erica thought about what Payne had said. It was time for new beginnings. Her spying on Jeremy suddenly seemed ridiculous. All the time wasted gathering information, and for what?
Jeremy didn’t want her anymore. And it wasn’t like she didn’t have anyone in her life.
She had Payne,
She loved Payne.
So it was decided.
She would stay with Payne.
Faithfully.
Except for one wild fantasy that would take her and Payne’s relationship to a new level: a three-way encounter.
Male or Female?
His choice.