Buying a restaurant was supposed to be a straightforward venture—get some good food on the table, keep the booze flowing, make enough money to pay off the debts, and hopefully not end up hating the place. What I didn’t realize was that Amalia’s would become less of a business and more of a magnet for the kind of people who blur the lines between respectable society and full-blown depravity.
Take Steve, for example. He was my radio station rep, a clean-cut, all-American guy with a Subaru filled with hunting dogs and an air of responsibility that didn’t quite fit with the kind of chaos he willingly surrounded himself with. I liked him well enough—he bought drinks when we went out, and he wasn’t a complete liability, which already put him above most of the company I kept at the time.
Steve lived with Jennifer, his longtime girlfriend and eventual fiancée. Jennifer was stunning, no question about it, but there was something just slightly off about her. She was the kind of beautiful woman who, despite having all the attention in the world, carried herself like she was still trying to prove something. It was a dead giveaway that Steve held the power in that relationship. She was out of his league, but for whatever reason, he had her under his thumb. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was something darker.
At the time, I was still married, which meant I didn’t think twice about any of this. When you’re wearing a wedding ring, it’s like having blinders on. Women are just background noise. But the second that ring came off, the world got a hell of a lot more interesting.
That’s when I met Jill.
She was a friend of Jennifer’s, new to Bend, Oregon, and crashing at Steve and Jennifer’s place until she got her feet under her. We hit it off instantly. The first night we spent together, we went to some concert—a Reverend Horton Heat show, if I remember right—moshed like idiots, and had a hell of a time. It wasn’t serious, just two people drinking and having fun, no strings, no expectations.
Or so I thought.
One night, I walked into Amalia’s and found Steve slumped over the bar, chewing on the rim of his glass like he was trying to bite through it. The man looked pissed.
“I bust my ass every goddamn day,” he muttered, taking a long sip before slamming the glass down. “And you know what I come home to?”
I didn’t know where this was going, but I knew it was going to be good.
“I hear noises. From the bedroom. And I open the door… and there’s Jennifer and Jill, just going at it. Like giggling college girls.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“Jennifer. My fiancée. And Jill. In bed. Fucking.”
I sat there for a second, letting that process.
“And you…?”
“I just stood there,” he said, staring at his drink. “And I told them, ‘Start what you finish. You obviously left me out.’”
“And they…?”
“They kept going.”
At this point, my brain was short-circuiting.
“You’re telling me,” I said slowly, “that the girl I’ve been hanging out with is now banging your fiancée, and you’re mad about it?”
“I’m paying all the goddamn bills,” he said bitterly.
And that, apparently, was his main issue. Not that his fiancée was fucking another woman. Not that he walked in on it. Not even that they didn’t invite him. Just that neither of them had a job.
That was the moment Jill ceased to exist for me. Whatever attraction was there evaporated instantly. She went from being someone I had fun with to just another story about the kind of people I seemed to attract.
That should have been my first warning about the kind of world I was now navigating, but I was still too naive to see the bigger picture.
The next warning came when I got invited to a poker game.
It was in the hills outside of Bend, at some Ford dealership guy’s house. Seemed normal enough at first—guys drinking, throwing down cards, bullshitting about business. But then I started noticing the wives.
Every single one of them was dressed to the nines—tight dresses, perfect hair, makeup done like they were going to a high-end cocktail party, not sitting in on a poker game. And they all had ankle bracelets.
At first, I thought it was some weird fashion thing. Then I watched as one of the wives, right in front of her husband, walked up to me, put a hand on my shoulder, and whispered something to him while looking me dead in the eyes.
“This one. Definitely this one.”
I didn’t know what the hell that meant, but it didn’t feel like a compliment.
I played my hands, kept my mouth shut, and the second I lost, I made an excuse to leave. The vibe was too weird. It wasn’t until later that someone clued me in—those were the Bend, Oregon swingers. And I had unknowingly been auditioning.
Fast-forward a few months.
I was single now, officially divorcing, spending more time with Steve. We were at a bar off Newport, watching some Nevada football game, just bullshitting. The place was packed, but we had good seats at the bar. Then, out of nowhere, Jennifer showed up.
She leaned into me, whispering in my ear.
“You should come back to our place tonight,” she purred. “We could have some fun.”
I laughed, assuming she was joking. That’s what uncomfortable people do when faced with something they don’t know how to process.
“You realize if I’m behind you and he’s in front of you and we’re both spreading you out,” I said, “our legs are gonna touch, right? What are we supposed to do, high-five?”
Without missing a beat, she replied, “It’s okay. Steve likes you too.”
I turned slowly and locked eyes with Steve.
His face was bright red.
That’s when it all clicked. The way Jennifer carried herself. The weird poker game. The ankle bracelets. Steve’s nonchalant attitude about his fiancée banging another woman.
I was the only idiot in the room who didn’t realize what was going on.
I downed my drink, smiled, and said, “Nah. Three’s a crowd for me. But you guys have fun.”
And that was the last time I ever hung out with Steve.
Looking back, it wasn’t just about the offer. It was about the fact that, for the first time in my life, I was forced to confront my own conditioning. Coming out of a 20-year Mormon marriage, where monogamy was sacred, jealousy was normal, and even the idea of emotional affairs was enough to end a relationship, I suddenly found myself surrounded by people who didn’t play by those rules.
It made me question everything. What was monogamy, really? Was it something I believed in? Or just something I was raised to believe? What was the difference between a couple who genuinely wanted to share their experience with someone else and a couple where one person was manipulating the other into it?
For them, sex was just an experience, like ordering dessert at a restaurant. You have some, you share some, everyone leaves full and satisfied.
For me, it was something else entirely.
I never went down that road. But it did open a door in my mind I haven’t been able to close since.
So for that, I guess I owe Steve and Jennifer a thank you. Even if I never answered their calls again.
