Chapter 15 #2
When she glances up again, I can tell she’s a little nervous. “So, did you have a lot of girlfriends in high school?”
“Not really. More in college. Quite a few in my early twenties, but not as many these days.”
“Can I ask you something personal?”
My gut balls up again. I want to scream “hell, no,” but I know that’s not the right answer to give the woman I’m sleeping with. I unclench my jaw and manage a tight reply. “Sure.”
She bites the corner of her lip. “Have you ever had a threesome?”
On the big list of questions I didn’t want her to ask, this hardly ranks at all. Still, I hesitate. “You really want to know?”
“Yes.” She picks up another slice of pizza and bites into it, then licks a crumb off the edge of her lip. That gorgeous mouth gets me every time, and I forget for a moment what we’re talking about.
Threesomes. Right.
“Two women at once,” I say. “Yes. I’ve done it. Once.”
I wait to see how she reacts to that. Some women ask questions like this, but don’t really want the answer. I sense Cassie might be different. I hope Cassie is different. She certainly is in most ways that matter.
“I don’t know why, but that kind of turns me on.” She grins at me. “I like picturing you with other women. Is that weird?”
“Nope. I think it’s actually called troilism.”
She blinks. “There’s a word for it?”
“Yep.” I grab another piece of pizza, deliberately grazing Cassie’s fingers as I do.
I can’t seem to stop touching her, even when it really shouldn’t be a turn-on.
“When a guy gets off imagining his partner with someone else, it’s called cuckold fantasy,” I tell her.
“When a woman does it, it’s sometimes called cuckqueaning, but I think troilism is the more common term. ”
“Jeez,” Cassie says. “What are you, some kind of sex dictionary?”
I laugh. “You had no idea what you were getting when you chose me as your frivolous sex toy.”
She grins, and I wonder if she remembers calling me that back at Olive or Twist. It seems like years ago. “You’ve been a most excellent frivolous sex toy.” She smiles and leans back against the sofa, her knee bumping mine softly. “Okay, so tell me about your threesome.”
I can tell this is turning her on, and I’m fascinated. I might have read about troilism fantasies in Playboy, but I’ve never dated a girl who had them.
You’re not dating, I remind myself. It’s only sex. That’s what you both wanted.
I finish chewing a bite of pizza and pick up my wineglass.
“Well, I’d been dating this girl pretty casually for a couple months,” I tell her.
“I guess I thought of her as my girlfriend, but she wasn’t that serious about me.
She made it clear she was seeing other people, one of whom happened to be a woman. ”
“How very enlightened of her,” Cassie says. “Did that bother you?”
“The fact that she was bi?”
“Yes.”
“Hell, no.” I clear my throat, wondering if I’m supposed to be playing it cool. Then again, Cassie’s seen my nuts shrink up in a snowy forest. We’re beyond the pretense of cool. “I guess a lot of guys get turned on thinking about two women together.”
“That’s why you got so hot and bothered at Casa Diablo the other night?”
I laugh. “One of many reasons.”
I wait to see if she’s going to ask about the other reasons, but she doesn’t, so I continue my story. “Anyway, I got invited to a party one night, and it turned out to be at the home of the other woman. The one my not-girlfriend was dating.”
“I’m already getting lost.”
I grin. “Want me to make you some cue cards?”
“I think I’m good.” Cassie picks up her wineglass and takes a small sip.
“So anyway, it got later and later at the party,” I continue. “Before I knew it, it was only the three of us alone together. My not-girlfriend and her sorta-girlfriend in the sorta-girlfriend’s apartment.”
“You think they planned it?”
“Maybe. Probably. I guess I never considered that.”
“Women can be sneaky.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to point out that Cassie doesn’t strike me that way at all. But I decide to continue with my story.
“So, the three of you are alone together…” Cassie prompts, and my dick twitches as I realize how eager she is to hear this story.
“Right,” I say. “I don’t remember who started the touching, but one thing led to another.
Clothes started coming off on the way to the bedroom.
Bras and shoes and shirts tossed all the way up the stairs.
I let the women take the lead. I guess I didn’t want anyone to feel left out or jealous or anything. ”
“And did they? Get jealous, I mean?”
I take a sip of my wine, considering. “A little. There’s no rule book, you know? Everyone has different expectations about who’s going to touch whom, or how far it’s all going to go.”
“How do you mean?”
I shrug. “I wasn’t sure my not-girlfriend wanted me to actually have sex with the other woman. I thought that might be crossing some unspoken line or something. But it turns out that’s exactly what she wanted, and she got annoyed I didn’t go right for it.”
Cassie laughs, clearly enjoying the story for more than just the turn-on factor. “You mean you didn’t have a conversation about it?”
“Not really. I guess in hindsight, I suppose a little communication might have been useful.”
“That does seem to be key.”
“True,” I say, wondering if it could be that simple. What if I just told Cassie everything? About the money, the job, my family…
But no. I’ve done that before. And then I’ve watched Junie’s face crumple when I have to explain to her that we won’t be having lunch with Kaitlyn anymore. Or Paula. Or—
“Anyway,” I continue, “I guess it all worked out. Everyone got off, anyway. I made sure of that.”
“Oh, come on!” Cassie smacks my arm, making my wine slosh dangerously close to the rim. “I need more detail than that!”
“What? Like positions or something?”
“Yes, please.” She grins and sips her wine again.
“Uh, well—I was on my back for a while with my not-girlfriend riding me. Then they switched spots and the other woman climbed on. You’re sure you want to hear this?”
“Definitely.” Her cheeks are flushed, and she squirms the way I’ve seen her do when she’s really turned on.
“In a way, I was sort of like a carnival ride or something,” I say. “They experimented with touching and licking and stroking each other while they took turns riding me. Not that I had any complaints about it.”
It occurs to me I’m making this sound pretty passive. Cassie wanted a sex fantasy, and I’m basically confessing that my one shot at a threesome was sort of ho-hum. Not that it didn’t check a major box on my own sexual bucket list, but it left something to be desired. Intimacy, for one. Connection.
It occurs to me that I’m sharing more with her now than I have in all the weeks we’ve spent time together. True, it’s a years-old sex story. But I’m opening up. Doesn’t that count for something?
But then I remember what it felt like the morning after that threesome.
Bailey—that was my not-girlfriend—was primed for the role of a jet-setting millionaire’s girlfriend.
The parties, the jewelry, the crazy sex that seemed more like a ploy to keep me hooked rather than something to build intimacy.
It was par for the course, as far as my relationships go.
This thing with Cassie started out sexual, too. And I’m pretty sure I’m an idiot for even thinking it could be more.
“So, that’s pretty much it.” I take another sip of wine. I don’t know why, but I feel hollow and raw.
“I’m impressed,” Cassie says. “This was your chance to tell me some porn-star tale about how you nailed two chicks at once with your massive meat wand and left them both begging for more.”
I laugh and finish the last of my wine. “Sorry to disappoint you. If it helps, I could make up a story about the time I made a whole roomful of women come using only mental telepathy.”
“I’ll pass,” she says. “I was wondering, though. Do you think when we cross the last item off the list, there’s a chance we could still—”
The buzzing of my iPad halts Cassie’s question right there. I glance down, and instantly regret not disabling the feature that displays incoming calls to my iPhone.
Junie Traxel.
I snatch the iPad off the table and hit “decline,” angling the screen away from Cassie and I hope like hell she didn’t see the name. That she won’t ask questions or—
“Do you need to get that?”
I swallow hard, doing my best not to look guilty. “Nope. I’m with you. I don’t take calls from other people when I’m with you.”
She studies me a moment, and I can’t tell from her expression what she saw. She picks up her wine and takes a casual sip, her expression giving nothing away.
“Can I ask you something?”
I swallow hard. “Sure.”
She seems to hesitate, looking down into her glass. When she meets my eyes, she looks serious. “Do you promise— cross your heart and hope to die promise—you’re not married?”
I don’t know why, but the question fills me with relief. This is one question at least that I can answer honestly. “I cross my heart and hope to die, I am not, and have never been married. Never,” I add for extra emphasis, just in case she doesn’t believe me.
“I believe you,” she says.
“Good.”
Again, I consider telling her. About my sister. About our parents. About all the women who’ve cut and run when they realized I wasn’t the jet-setting millionaire they thought I’d be.
But I can’t do that. I can’t risk everything now. All I can do is see this thing with Cassie through to the end, exactly like we planned it.
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s Google some sex positions.”
“Okay,” she says and picks up the iPad again.