Chapter Twelve
It never crossed Mallory’s mind to question if the door was locked. She’d officially left the realm of rational thought. And it was a disaster.
Alec takes a moment to process the scene in front of him, then looks at Mallory questioningly. Her heart pounds wildly and she has no idea what to say, no idea how to begin explaining herself. She’s not even sure what he’s seen.
“Don’t you knock?” Violet says.
“And interrupt all the fun?” His eyes narrow. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Just pretend I’m not here.”
“Well, that’s impossible. So if you’re going to stay, you can at least make yourself useful. See if that door locks,” Violet says.
Mallory’s gotta do something to get control of this situation. She stands up to leave, but Alec doesn’t seem to be interested in walking out. He examines the old-fashioned knob and turns the lock with a sharp click that echoes in the high-ceilinged room.
“Why don’t you sit on the couch and watch. If you’re a good boy, maybe we’ll invite you to join in,” Violet says.
Mallory can tell that Alec is about to say something—maybe tell her to fuck off. But Jocelyn is now once again touching Violet’s exposed breasts. Alec—always up for adventure—accepts her direction and sits on the couch.
Violet returns her attention to Mallory, “I’m not finished with your flower,” Violet says, and it could not sound any more suggestive.
Unsure what to do—no longer sure what she wants to do—she glances at Alec, and he smiles.
If she insists on leaving now, it will look like she’s only interested in being adventurous when he’s not in the room.
And that’s not the message she wants to send.
The only way to do damage control in this situation is to include him.
She returns to her seat on the stool, and Violet kneels before her and tugs off her underwear, careful not to smear the paint of her own artwork.
Violet turns to Jocelyn. “You sit on the couch, too. Don’t distract me.”
Mallory doesn’t dare look at Alec. She feels like her attraction to Violet must be palpable, and wonders if Alec wants her, too. Actually, she doesn’t want to know.
When Violet blindfolds her with her own underwear, the decision is made for her: She won’t be looking at anyone. Mallory reaches up to adjust the fabric and Violet pushes her hand away.
“Spread your legs,” she says. Mallory complies, but still Violet presses her knees apart still farther.
Then, shockingly, Violet licks the outside of her pussy.
Mallory resists the urge to take off her blindfold, barely able to endure the thought of Alec watching.
But then Violet slides her finger inside her and rational thought evaporates.
She gives herself over to the waves of pleasure.
Violet’s tongue stops, and all Mallory feels is the slow pulse of her fingers—one inside, one massaging her clit. If she were more relaxed, she would come, but the scenario she’s in makes that impossible. She pulls down the makeshift blindfold to find Violet watching her intently.
“Don’t make me tie you up,” she says, her voice throaty with desire.
But Mallory barely hears her. She’s focused on Alec.
More specifically, on Alec with a completely naked Jocelyn on his lap.
Jocelyn is straddling him, one knee on either side of his waist, her pussy grinding against him, his cock visibly hard in his jeans. His hands cup her ass, his face dipping down to her tiny, pert breasts.
Mallory’s stomach tilts, and before she can speak, Violet says, “Forget about them. Let me fuck you.”
Mallory ignores her, and because they are so attuned to one another, Alec catches her eye. He moves Jocelyn off him, and Mallory abandons the stool to join him on the couch. Alec unzips his jeans and pulls them down before guiding her onto his lap.
He looks at her with such complete and undivided attention, it’s like the rest of the world has been switched off.
He lifts up her sweater and she raises her arm so he can lift it off.
She feels his erection pressing against her, and she tries not to think about the fact that this particular erection was brought on by another woman.
The next thing she knows, Violet and Jocelyn are hooking up right next to them, their half-naked bodies tangled together. But when Alec kisses her, everything else recedes.
Together, they get his pants off and he strokes her already wet pussy, making sure she’s ready for him. She guides his cock inside her, rushing, almost as if to get it out of sight—away from the other women.
She emits a small sound as he moves inside her, her pussy sucking on him in hungry spasms. Then, taking her by surprise, Violet reaches around Jocelyn to pull Mallory’s face to her, kissing her hard, their teeth clashing.
The thrill of the strange woman’s tongue in her mouth while Alec’s cock fills her is so exciting, she moans.
Someone’s hands squeezes her nipple—hard, and the pain amid all the pleasure triggers a hard and fast orgasm.
But Violet leans into her suddenly, shoulder to shoulder, a playful move that pushes her off balance—and off Alec.
“What are you doing?” Mallory says, sitting up with her back propped against the arm of the couch.
“I want to eat you before he messes everything up,” Violet says, dropping to the floor and kneeling before her.
Mallory’s not sure what to make of this dizzying turn of events.
It’s as if the room has become its own sexual ecosystem without any rules.
Still on her knees, Violet inches herself between Mallory’s legs, bending her face to lick her pussy in long, greedy strokes.
What’s Alec thinking? She turns to him—but it seems he’s not thinking at all: Jocelyn is sucking his cock.
Mallory’s stomach lurches. He’s going to come in some other woman’s mouth.
She knows she should intervene, but her logical mind is no match for Violet’s soft, flickering tongue.
Violet teases Mallory’s clit in a way that makes her squirm, and because she already came on Alec’s cock, she’s quick to come again when Violet presses her tongue deep.
Mallory arches her back and grinds herself against Violet’s mouth, moaning in a way that sounds completely foreign to herself.
When she’s finally still and silent, Violet stands up, straddling one of Mallory’s legs.
She sticks a fresh finger inside of her and brushes her wet fingers over Mallory’s lips.
At the same time, she takes Mallory’s hand and presses it between her own legs.
Violet guides her fingers inside her, showing her how she wants to be fucked.
Mallory likes how tight and slippery she feels, and wants to make her come.
For some reason, accomplishing that is suddenly very important to her.
She lets Violet direct her strokes, moving her fingers in and out fast, barely skimming her clit before pressing hard and deep inside her.
Soon, she feels Violet’s cunt clench against her fingers.
She’s quiet, but Mallory knows she came.
The moment passes quickly, though, and Violet steps free of her legs, then disappears.
Mallory looks over at Alec. It’s like she’s snapped out of a spell and woken up in a room she doesn’t recognize: Jocelyn is on top of him. He’s thrusting inside her, his head back, eyes closed in ecstasy.
She waits for Alec to come to his senses, to push Jocelyn away and end this craziness, but he doesn’t.
Mallory has too much pride to stop him from fucking Jocelyn, but she’s also not going to sit around and watch it happen.
She pulls on her clothes, and that’s enough to get his attention. In seconds, he’s away from Jocelyn and pulling on his clothes, too. But she’s quicker than he is and is out the door first, ignoring his calls for her to wait.
Mallory is shaking when she reaches the exit of the hotel and declines the doorman’s offer to hail her a cab.
It’s a painfully perfect autumn night—the kind of evening that would usually send her and Alec to the East River to sit on a bench, hold hands, and look at the moon.
(Things they should have been doing tonight.) Alec always said that even when they were old and not running around the city doing exciting things or having crazy sex, they would always have that—long walks, holding hands, and the moon.
But now she’s not so sure. Seeing him have sex with another woman—a line has been crossed. One she didn’t agree to cross and feels now there’s no going back.
Her phone vibrates with texts.
Where are you? Don’t leave without me. If you have already, just stay where you are and tell me where to find you. Please!
She walks the short block to Central Park and finds a bench near the entrance under a streetlight.
She needs to sit and she needs to think: Is there some universe where tonight makes sense?
Yes, they’d had a threesome a few times before, but Mallory always felt that she was Alec’s priority in the room.
Surprisingly, the experiences seemed to deepen their intimacy; there was something very affirming about hooking up with other people but still only having eyes for each other. But they did have one ground rule.
And tonight, he broke it.
She watches couples walking in and out of the park, some walking dogs and others with children.
Mallory turns off her phone. Okay, the plan is: get home before him, get into bed and close her eyes and pretend this night never happened.
At least long enough to get some sleep. She’d deal with this in the morning.
But getting home involves walking, which feels like too much to ask of herself in that moment. It’s taking all of her mental effort to resist imagining him with Jocelyn.
But she shakes it off and turns her phone back on.
It rings immediately.
“Where are you?” Alec says.
“I left,” she said.
“I figured that out, Mal. Where are you? Tell me—I’ll be right there.”
“I don’t know … I want to be alone … but I don’t …” A sob catches in her throat and she swallows it.
“Where are you?” he repeats.
“I’m on a bench outside the park.”
“Stay there,” he says.
She wants to leave, to just disappear and hurt him the way he hurt her. But she doesn’t because she knows, deep down, this is at least partly her fault. She was in that room first. She could have left at any time before Alec ended up fucking Jocelyn. But she didn’t.
By the time Alec finds her, she can’t bring herself to look at him. So he sits next to her on the bench and they sit in silence. He puts his arm around her and she shrugs it off.
“Mal, come on. Look at me,” he says.
“I don’t want to.” She’s aware that she sounds like a two-year-old, but that’s how she feels—like a child, completely crushed and vulnerable and unable to soothe herself.
“What happened in there?” he says.
“You fucked some random stranger, that’s what happened,” she says, still not looking at him.
“I walked in on you and Violet first! What was that all about? What if I hadn’t come looking for you? Would you have just tapped me on the shoulder later and said ‘Sorry, I hooked up with Violet’?”
She shakes her head.
“I was going to stop her just when you walked in.” She’s almost certain it’s true.
“All I know is that I walked into a scene that was already underway. I had no sense that there was anything off-limits. You let Violet pull you away from me and didn’t seem too concerned about what I was doing while she went down on you.”
“I’m sorry but no: We’ve done things like that before, but it’s always been understood that you do not fuck some other woman!”
“Tonight seemed different. I’m sorry if I misread the situation.”
“You read what you wanted to read. The night was what you made it, Alec. And what does that say about us?”
He inches closer, putting his arm around her.
“I love you—I’m sorry. It was a misunderstanding. A mistake.”
Maybe it was. But again, what does that say about them? She thinks about the things Allison and Julie said at brunch. Most couples wouldn’t have this type of misunderstanding. They’re the only ones who are so muddled.
She really needs some time to think.
“Can you sleep somewhere else tonight?” she says.
He looks stricken.
“No, that’s not a good idea,” Alec says. “We’re not spending the night apart. Even if we don’t talk, we should at least deal with this together. I think we’re past just running away when something goes wrong.”
He’s right. Last year, she spent too many nights on Julie’s couch.
She doesn’t want to end up there again. But she also doesn’t want to fall asleep together in their bed, and then wake up in the middle of the night, reach for him, feel momentarily warm and fuzzy, and then remember what happened.
That would be worse than waking up on Julie’s couch.
But then she remembers tomorrow is his last night in town before flying to LA to interview some actress, the it-girl of the moment.
Gruff magazine is making her their new cover girl, and Alec won the plum article assignment.
He’s spending a few days—where else—at the Chateau Marmont.
How beautifully clichéd. Maybe Alec can accidentally fuck the actress, too.
They walk home in silence and go to bed in silence. But, contrary to her prediction, she doesn’t wake up once during the night to reach for him.