CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Gabe?” Chloe murmured softly.
“Yes?” he replied, drawn back from the shores of sleep.
It was almost pitch black in the room. Ellen and Holly were already asleep at his back. The rest of the day after their trip to her parents had been a pleasant comedown from the emotional peak. Little more than relaxation and tacos and doing what they felt like doing.
“I didn’t know it could be like this...that’s what I keep finding myself thinking.
My mind keeps coming back to that thought.
I remember thinking this was such bullshit, the way people talked about ‘great love’.
I guess I didn’t want to believe...because then that would mean I was missing out on it.
But it’s real and it’s more than I thought it would be in my dreams. And it’s not just... infatuation. It’s so much deeper.”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
She laughed softly. “And you feel this for five women. How do you process all that?”
“Um...it’s an experience, to be sure. Mostly I just kind of go with the flow. I trust you all.”
“Trust, yes,” she whispered, and shifted closer to him, pressing her soft, naked body against his own.
“I trust you in ways I didn’t know I could trust another person.
I didn’t really know what it meant to trust someone else with your life, I mean really trust them with your life.
But I do now. I would trust you with anything.
Absolutely anything. And honestly? I would trust the others, too. Although it’s not really the same…”
“I understand,” he replied. “And I’d trust you with anything, too.”
She made a small contented sound, then shifted closer, more onto him. He felt her hand brush against his crotch.
It was all she needed to do to ask.
He kissed her and began drifting his own hand along her body.
…
“So, you going to give me any more clues about this mystery girl?” Gabe asked.
“Nope,” Chloe replied cheerfully.
“You’re in a mood today.”
“Not really, I just know you’re going to like this. A lot.” She paused, smirked. “A lot a lot.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I know you, and I know what you’re into. Especially after that display with Krystal.”
“Oh, so that has something to do with it, huh?”
“No. Now, shut up and keep driving.”
He sighed. “I hate when you do this while I’m driving. I can’t properly discipline you.”
“I guess you’ll just have to save it up.”
He sighed again, more heavily, and drove on in silence, following the GPS.
He was honestly surprised by how low his anxiety was right now.
Certainly he was nervous, but it barely registered.
It was, he supposed, a result of logic. He knew that the only way he could seriously fuck this up was if he tried, which he wasn’t going to do under any circumstances.
He also knew that he could, at the very least, do a serviceable job of pleasing her, given his experiences over the past several months.
The interesting thing was that, typically speaking, logic didn’t work on anxiety.
“I still think this kind of cuts against the whole ‘we should slow down on the women’ thing,” he said as he turned off a main road into a nicer neighborhood.
“She’s not fucking joining the harem,” Chloe replied.
“I know. But there is also a limit to how many women I can have on the side. There’s already Sadie, Abby, and Emily.”
“Yeah, but Abby’s like, what, a few times a year?
And Emily will want to hang out now and then and fuck maybe once a month, but they’ve got each other.
Sadie’s your main side chick, but even she’s kind of reclusive.
And Stacy...is not going to want to see that much of you.
She’s got her own life and honestly I think part of this whole thing is going to rely on not getting to know you all that well.
Or maybe not, maybe she’ll fall in love with you. ”
“Great.”
“I seriously doubt it, though.”
“It’s still so weird to just...talk about this shit with you.”
She laughed. “I know. But it’s kind of like...
once I got past sorting through my emotions on this, on my fiance fucking other women, any negative connotations just sort of fell away.
I guess, I know I’ve got you locked in, and you aren’t going to leave me for another woman, and that I make you really happy, so there’s really nothing to fear.
And if you enjoy it–which you clearly do–then I should encourage it.
And I do. Plus, there’s the added benefit of getting women I actually like to be able to enjoy good, safe sex. And that’s a really big one.”
“Yeah, it does seem that way. It’s kind of ironic.
More women would probably just sleep with guys more often if the guys A) actually tried to make them orgasm and B) didn’t immediately fall in love and try to lay claim on them.
Like, if guys were as chill as they claim to be, with the like, ‘I’d be cool just sleeping together’ and were honest about that, it would probably average out to more sex. ”
“Honestly, yeah. Except that the douchebags ruined it for all guys,” Chloe muttered.
“Too many shitheads lie their way into a girl’s pants, do a terrible job with sex, leaving her completely unsatisfied, and then ghost her and laughs to his douchebag friends, and now that’s her fucking ‘reward’ for hooking up, making her far less likely to do it. ”
“And it’s not even like you need to be a fucking sex wizard! It isn’t fucking hard to just rub and lick clit, finger pussy, and just do some kissing and caressing.”
“It really isn’t.”
He looked around as he saw the quality of the houses. “So, wait, she’s our age and she lives here?”
“Yes. She...got very lucky. She’s got an interesting life story so far. And I...will let her tell it, if she wants. Suffice to say, she has money and she’s a very good person, she’s just a bit...touchy. I think she’s got some mild OCD and maybe some anxiety.”
“Interesting, also unfortunate. Anxiety sucks shit through a straw,” he muttered.
Chloe snorted. “You have such a way with words.”
“Well, I have you for inspiration.”
She looked at him. “I...don’t know if that was an insult or a compliment.”
“Take it how you will.”
She sighed. “It’s there, that blue house.”
He pulled into the driveway and parked. “Okay, let’s do this. I’m so curious what she wants.”
Chloe simply smiled and got out. Gabe joined her.
They walked up to the front door, which opened before they even got a chance to knock, and he found himself looking at Stacy for the first time.
He had asked Chloe for a pic, but she’d ultimately decided to let his first glimpse of her be in real life.
And she was really hot, but in a way that none of the others were.
Chloe had described her as preppy, and she looked it.
Well, she more looked like she was trying not to.
She was indeed thin, blonde, and beautiful.
Her hair was cut a little short, down, chin-length and framing her face.
Her blue eyes were very blue. She wore a simple white t-shirt and white shorts.
Really, the main thing about her that separated her from the prep look was that she was pale instead of well-tanned.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hello,” Gabe replied.
There was definitely an anxious energy hovering about her.
“...you gonna invite us in?” Chloe asked after an awkward moment passed.
“Um, yes, come in,” Stacy replied tightly, and stepped back.
They came in and she closed the door behind them, then she led them to the right, through an open door into a small, simple living room bathed in natural light. She sat in a reclining chair across from them as they sat on a loveseat. Everything was very clean.
“So, uh, I’m Gabe. Nice to meet you,” he said.
“Right. I’m Stacy…” She sighed, cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, this is...a very awkward and uncomfortable topic for me. I’m going to be a little...stilted.”
“I understand.”
“Thank you...don’t fucking smirk at me!” she hissed at Chloe.
“I’m sorry, I’m not making fun of you. It’s just...a little amusing,” Chloe replied.
Stacy heaved another sigh. “Whatever.” She sat up straighter and focused more intently on him. “I guess the only way out is through. All right. I’ll tell you about myself, and then I’ll tell you about what I want.”
“This works for me,” Gabe replied.
“Thank you,” she whispered. She cleared her throat again.
“Okay. I was born into a rich family. I never really was comfortable with it, and the more I learned about how fucked the world is–specifically because of rich people–I grew more uncomfortable. My parents paid for me to go to college and get a degree. I chose business, much to their chagrin. They wanted me to be a lawyer. I knew it would be too much to handle for me.”
“With you so far,” he said when she paused and looked at him. It was an oddly measured look, and he was convinced it was something she made herself do, something she practiced to likely combat naturally dominating the conversation.
“Good. Things improved...sort of, in college. I was allowed to focus my efforts on things I actually gave a shit about and that mattered, unlike fucking cheerleading. But then it all fell apart in my final year. Well...actually it all came together pretty well, but at the time it was a nightmare. My parents are what you might call old-school. Like, very old school. A little ways into my final year, they suddenly had this guy they wanted me to meet.”
“Uh-oh,” he murmured.
“Yeah. They basically wanted me to go into an arranged marriage. I at least met the guy and just, oh God. No. He wanted a fucking ‘trad wife’ to fucking pop out babies and do his dishes and I would genuinely rather commit suicide than do so. However, I knew they were pretty set on this, so I outmaneuvered them. I said I would marry him once I finished college and got my degree, and also I wanted to wait until marriage for sex. And that got them off my back.”
“Very nice.”
She paused, then blushed a little, then continued. He heard the softest laugh from Chloe.