Chapter 12
Jacob
The third floor is quieter in a different way.
The lighting is dimmer here, gentle rather than murky.
The walls are painted in rich, dark colours, punctuated by more street art style murals, some of them featuring exotic birds and other hybrid creatures, like mermaids and centaurs.
There are doors along the corridor with small plaques indicating what lies beyond: Lounge. Group Room. Bedroom A, B, C.
As we pass one open doorway, I glimpse a couple curled up together on a bed, fully clothed, just holding each other and stroking each other’s arms while soft music plays. Another room contains three people tangled together, but the door is mostly closed, so I don’t linger.
I also notice, with a small surge of approval, a sign on the wall: All genders welcome. All bodies honoured. No assumptions.
Jay appears at the end of the corridor, chatting with a person in a satin robe and bold lipstick. They lift a hand in greeting.
“Bedroom C’s free if you want it,” they call. “Good playlist in there. I made it myself.”
Tippi bites her lip, looking at me. “Do you want privacy?” she asks. “Just us?”
I think of the first time I touched her, the trembling newness of it.
Then I consider the electric current humming under my skin right now, augmented by our familiarity rather than stifled by it.
And Marissa’s dark eyes. And the way my body is already reacting to the possibility of what the three of us could do together.
“I… think…” I take a slow breath. “I would like to try… more than just us. But only with people you trust. And only if they understand that this is… new terrain for me.”
“Of course,” Tippi says. “Marissa is one of my favourite humans on the planet. And she’s very, very good at new terrain.” She flashes a quick grin, then sobers. “We’ll go slow. You lead, remember? If you freeze, we stop, straight away.”
I nod, heart pounding, but feet carrying me toward Bedroom C anyway.
Inside, the room is mostly bed, larger even than a super king. A wide, low platform piled with cushions and soft blankets takes up most of the space. There’s a low shelf with bottled water, condoms, and lube. A small speaker in the corner plays something slow with moaning cellos.
Marissa slips in behind us, closing the door with a quiet click. The outside world narrows to the three of us, the low music, and the bed.
“So,” she says, leaning back against the door, eyes flicking between us. “Ground rules?”
“Yes, please,” I say gratefully.
Tippi hops up onto the edge of the bed, dress riding higher on her thighs. “OK. Jacob is new to group stuff. We’re going at his pace. Anything we do has to be a yes for all three of us. No surprises. Jacob, do you want to tell Marissa your boundaries?”
I lick my lips, suddenly acutely aware of my own tongue.
“I, um… I don’t want to be touched by anyone without asking first. I’d prefer not to be restrained.
I don’t mind being watched. I’m… OK with kissing and…
more,” my brain edits frantically, “but I might need to stop abruptly if I get… you know. Overwhelmed.”
Marissa’s expression is serious, attentive.
“Thank you for telling me,” she says. “I’m OK with kissing, touching, oral, and penetrative stuff if it feels good for everyone.
I don’t want pain play tonight; I’m here for softness.
If at any point you’re uncomfortable with how I’m touching Tippi, or how she’s touching me, tell us. You’re not ruining anything.”
“Traffic lights?” Tippi suggests. “Green, amber, red?”
“That would be useful,” I agree.
Marissa smiles. “Green means more, amber means slow down or check in, red means stop and regroup. And, just to be obnoxiously clear: a ‘maybe’ is not a green. A shrug is not a green. A ‘suppose so’ is not a green.”
“I love how much of a consent snob you are,” Tippi teases, her approval clear.
“The snobbiest,” Marissa says proudly.
The nervousness is still there, but it’s layered now with something molten. The fact that we’re all talking like this, carefully, openly, makes me feel safer because it’s possible to speak this way.
“Jacob,” Tippi says softly. “Do you want to kiss me?”
“Yes,” I reply immediately, because I do.
She crosses the space between us, sliding her hands up my chest, over the soft cotton of my shirt.
When her mouth meets mine, the rest of the room blurs.
This, at least, I know. Her taste, her warmth, the way she sighs when I cup the back of her neck.
The way my nerves always, always settle when I have something as concrete and perfect as the shape of her lips to focus on.
I feel Marissa’s presence like another heat source, but she doesn’t touch yet. When Tippi finally breaks the kiss, she turns her head slightly. “Marissa,” she murmurs. “Can I have you here?”
The first touch of Marissa’s hand is to my shoulder. Light, non-intrusive, giving me time to flinch if I want to. I don’t. Her fingers slide down my arm, a different texture than Tippi’s; cooler, firmer, but equally sure.
“Is this OK?” she asks.
“Yes.” My voice is rougher than I expected.
“What about this?” she asks, stepping closer so that we form a loose triangle, her body heat joining ours.
I nod. Tippi watches my face, eyes soft, gauging every micro-expression. I realise, with a small start, that I trust her calibration more than mine.
Clothes become an incidental detail. Tippi’s dress ends up pooled somewhere on the floor, her skin warm and glowing in the amber light, the ink on her body catching shadows in new ways.
Marissa’s dress slides down over her hips in a whisper of black fabric, revealing curves and lines that are more sculpture than anatomy in my overstimulated brain.
My own shirt is unbuttoned slowly, each inch of skin exposed mapped by someone’s fingertips, someone’s mouth.
Details blur and sharpen in strange sequence.
The silky texture of Marissa’s hair under my hand when I tangle my fingers in it.
The husky sound Tippi makes when someone’s mouth closes over her shoulder.
The way their bodies fit around mine, one in front, one behind, positioning me, guiding me, but letting me choose the angle, the pressure, the pace.
My world condenses to heat and breath and the slick slide of skin on skin. To the hitch in Tippi’s voice when she says my name, like a benediction. To the way Marissa laughs softly in the middle of it all, delighted rather than mocking, like this is play and worship at once.
There are moments where it’s almost too much. The awareness of another body, another set of hands. I feel myself skidding toward overwhelm, senses blurring at the edges. Each time, Tippi’s hand finds mine and squeezes, grounding me back into my own body.
“Green?” she breathes against my ear at one point, when everything is moving and humming and I can’t tell which sound is mine.
“Green,” I gasp, desperate for this wild, impossible thing to continue. “Very green.”
It happens almost organically, with no sharp pivots and no theatrics; just the soft triangulation of bodies shifting into new configuration.
One moment Marissa’s mouth is on my neck while Tippi’s is on my collarbone; the next, the two women glance at me before leaning towards each other, as though compelled by gravity, and kiss with the familiarity of people who know exactly what the other likes.
“Any objections?” Tippi asks me quietly.
“N-no,” I reply, the words pulled out of me like a tide. “God, no. Please. Carry on.”
Marissa’s eyes light up as she eases herself into lying down, her inky hair spilling across the pillow, her breath already shallow as Tippi runs kisses over her breasts. I have to bite my own lip when she takes Marissa’s nipple between her teeth and lightly tugs.
This is better, hotter, more intoxicating than any porn, any fantasy, any idle daydream I’ve ever had, because this is Tippi. Live and in colour, unashamedly enjoying herself like it’s the most natural thing imaginable.
Tippi’s tongue glides over Marissa’s stomach, gently nipping under her belly button, and then she settles between her thighs with the same unstudied grace I’ve come to expect from her.
The tattoo on her shoulder catches the light, and her hair falls forward in a warm, golden curtain as she cups Marissa’s hips with tenderness rather than greed.
Marissa lets out a breath, something between a laugh and a tremor, as Tippi kisses up the inside of her thigh.
My entire body prickles, my cock pounding harder than my heart, as she lowers her mouth to Marissa’s slit with visible appreciation.
Marissa arches, her fingers tightening in the sheets as I watch.
I don’t feel replaced, or irrelevant. As I watch her hips lifting in a barely-there rhythm as Tippi licks her pussy like it’s sacred, I feel… invited.
A collaborator.
Watching something Tippi is gifting me the chance to witness.
She’s almost serene as she works Marissa into a breathless fever pitch, deeply attuned, alternating long, swirling licks with gentle sucking on her clit over and over. “Right there,” Marissa whispers fitfully, her head lolling back onto the pillow.
You’re a collaborator, Jacob. Collaborate.
“May I?” I ask Marissa softly, holding my hand above her breast. She nods enthusiastic agreement, Tippi smiling up at me in approval, and I take a deep breath and stop being a spectator.
Her breasts are full, her nipples responsive as I rub them between my first two fingers. Marissa moves more frantically against Tippi’s mouth in response. Emboldened, I dip my mouth and try to replicate the same sucking motion as Tippi performs on her bundle of nerves.
Marissa’s thighs tremble, her hands flying down to Tippi’s hair in reflex before she stops herself and breathlessly asks, “Can I…?”
God. She’s asking to come.
Tippi hums her assent, and the simple sound vibrates through Marissa’s body.