Limitless Love: A Polyamorous Charity Anthology

10. Brandt

Dinner was amazing. Having Merry back brought a distinct feeling—a sense of completion. We’d enjoyed our time spent together with the three of us, but Merry was one side of our square. His laughter filled gaps in the conversation, although he seemed quieter tonight. He watched me and Cairo an awful lot too, like he was assessing us. But when I asked him to tell us about his flight, he became animated, so I must have been imagining things.

“The most interesting thing on this flight was a sweet elderly lady who insisted she recognized me from a soap opera. I corrected her twice, but she just kept pressing. Well, you know me. I couldn’t resist. For the rest of the flight, I became this suave and charming television star, gave her an autograph and everything. She was overjoyed.”

“Aww, that was sweet of you,” Cairo said. “You made her day.”

Merry took a sip of his iced tea. “Hey, she made my day too. For a few hours, I had a fan.”

“But you have three fans here,” I said.

“I’ll drink to that.” Jim clinked his glass with mine.

Merry’s face turned red, but I could tell he was pleased. I caught Cairo’s eyes, and my stomach clenched. We should do it soon, tell them we wanted to date them. We were pretty much in love with them, but we would go slow in case they freaked out about it.

“Cairo, help me bring out dessert, will you?”

“Sure, babe.”

Between the two of us, we cleared the table. I had baked a chocolate cake, knowing how much Merry liked it. In the kitchen, I wrapped my arms around Cairo and shuddered.

“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he said.

“What if they say no?”

“I don’t think so. We get along well together.”

“They can still say no.”

“Brandt, take a deep breath, baby.”

I closed my eyes, inhaled, and let the breath out slowly. Cairo’s steady reassurances were calming, his touch a comforting coolness against the hot panic that threatened to overtake me.

“All right,” I said, my voice barely louder than a whisper. “Let’s do this.”

The phone rang just as we were picking up the plates of cake. The universe could be a cruel joker sometimes, especially with its impeccable timing. However, Cairo only smiled and nodded toward the phone.

“Go on. I’ll bring these out.”

I picked up the phone as he made his way out. “Hello.”

“Brandt? It’s Dr. Lively. How are you?”

I frowned. Dr. Lively? We didn’t have another appointment with her for two weeks. We saw her less regularly now, given the progression Cairo and I had made.

“I’m good, though I’m surprised by your call. Is something wrong?”

“No, not wrong. Just checking in with you and Cairo whether you’ll consider another surrogate partner?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your surrogates have indicated they’re calling off their service with you and Cairo, so it would be in your best interest to find another couple right away if you want to continue. It can take a while to find the right match.”

Dr. Lively was still talking, but I could barely comprehend her words, the implications of what she was saying. It felt like the floor had dropped out from beneath me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice sounding hollow. “What did you say? Jim and Merry called off our sessions?”

“I assumed they had spoken with you about their intentions.”

“No, they didn’t.” But they were sitting in our dining room, eating and laughing with us while behind our backs they’d been pulling away. Was anything between us real?

“I’m sorry. I thought they already did.”

“No, no. Dr. Lively, can I call you back? It’s an inconvenient time.”

“Of course.”

I ended the call and clutched the counter. My world was spinning, and not in a good way. “Babe, what’s taking you so long?” Cairo rushed over to me. “What happened? I was gone for, like, five minutes. Who called?”

I struggled to find the words to tell him our relationship with Merry and Jim had been a lie. That they were going to abandon us without so much as a warning. But all that came out was a strangled sound halfway between a laugh and a sob.

“Cairo,” I choked out. “They’re… they’re ending our sessions.”

“What? Who?”

“Merry and Jim. That was Dr. Lively on the phone wanting to know if we wished to choose new sex surrogates because Merry and Jim have ended their service.”

Cairo shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense. They wouldn’t do that. I’ll ask them.”

“No!” I grabbed his arm. “Apparently, we were wrong about the way they feel about us. We have our answer, but we don’t have to lose our dignity. Let’s finish dinner, and then after, we can talk.”

And cry. And mourn for a relationship we both wanted but would never have.

“You’re right.”

But I didn’t feel right. I felt like a grade-A fool. Still, I plastered a smile on my face and pushed back the tears threatening to spill. We rejoined the couple at the table.

Merry and Jim seemed oblivious to the discord underlining our gestures, but their laughter sounded hollow now. They were leaving us, abandoning this intimate partnership we had so painstakingly built.

The chatter, the laughter, it all grated until I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Why?” I asked.

“Brandt,” Cairo said. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about it.”

“Talk about what?” Merry asked. “Is something wrong?”

“You don’t care about us!” I blurted out. Not exactly what I’d intended to say, but it was the truth.

“What do you mean we don’t care about you?” Jim’s frown almost made me believe him, but Dr. Lively’s voice echoed in my head. “We don’t just care about you.”

“We love you,” Merry said.

“Come on now, Merry,” Cairo said. “There’s no reason to lie. We know.”

“You know what?” Jim asked.

“That you’ve canceled our surrogate partner therapy.”

Merry and Jim exchanged a glance. That look. My heart sank. It was all true!

“To think we called you here this evening to tell you we wanted to date you.”

“You did?” our neighbors echoed.

“What does it matter now?” I got to my feet, and so did Cairo. Before we could take another step, they blocked our path.

“Listen, we have a good explanation.” Merry placed a hand on my arm.

“It doesn’t matter if the explanation is good. We fell hard for you two, you know. We love everything about you. I thought how lucky we were that the first couple we found turned out to be the ones for us.”

“Brandt, Cairo, listen to me,” Jim said. “We ended our arrangement because we can’t date you if we’re still your surrogates. It’s unethical.”

“What?”

“Yeah, we fell for you too and want to be with you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Can’t you tell how crazy we are about you? We’ve done this sex surrogacy thing for several years, and we’ve never had this before with anyone. We instantly connected.”

“You mean it?” Cairo asked.

“Yes. We wanted to tell you about it this evening.”

With a groan, I melted against Merry. “You really aren’t leaving us?”

He tilted my chin. “We aren’t.” He settled his lips on mine in the sweetest kiss, and I squeezed my eyes shut. Thank god I would not lose this. Their kisses were the best.

Jim had his arm around Cairo. “Is your mind at ease now?”

“Yeah. I think. It feels surreal that you want to date us too.”

“Of course there are some things we have to talk about. We don’t want to stop helping couples in surrogate partner therapy, so we don’t intend to stop sleeping with others. We’ll still have orgies too. Would that bother you?”

“Honestly, if you had asked us that two months ago, I would have said yes.” I kissed Merry’s knuckles. “But after everything you and Merry have shown us, we wouldn’t be bothered. Other people deserve to know too how beautiful sex can be with multiple partners.”

“I agree.” Cairo pulled me closer, and I brought Merry along with me. Together we formed a tight circle of understanding and intimacy. “The joy, the closeness, the exploration. It’s been a revelation for us, and we don’t want to lose that. If sharing with others makes you feel happy, we support that.”

“You mean it?” Merry asked, his eyes flickering with hope.

“Every word.”

“Then I guess this means we’re dating,” I said, the heaviness in my heart earlier replaced by a lightness so buoyant I nearly floated.

“Yes,” Merry and Jim said together.

Jim hugged Cairo tighter to his side, his face lighting up in relief. “It wouldn’t be the same without you two. You really took us by surprise in the best way possible.”

“You have no idea how much that means to us,” Cairo said quietly, his eyes watering as he tried to hold back an emotional laugh. “We’ve been worried about this.”

“We’ll need to work on that. Let’s talk things out whenever we have doubts, yes?”

“Yes.”

As we embraced, the arms of Merry and Jim felt like home. We stayed that way, four bodies linked together, letting the silent house echo with the reassurance we were all there for each other. The conversation needed to continue, of course. We had details to work out, boundaries to set. But for that moment, everything was as it should be.

And I was confident it would always be this way.