“Yeah,” Bruce agreed, “She’s—”
“Something else.” Paige shuffled through her purse and pulled out a tin of ginger mints. She popped one in her mouth and offered them to Bruce.
“I’ve got the Altoids, all good.” He patted his breast pocket, where a tin of wintergreen Altoids clinked.
“Not my fault you don’t have any taste.” She sucked on the small mint, and the flavor of ginger began to fill her mouth. “Barb’ll kill us if we ruin them.”
“We’re not going to ruin them,” he said. “Honestly I think that no matter what we do in this situation, Barbara will be upset.”
“Perhaps.”
“They have to make the first move,” he pointed at the tail lights in front of them.
Paige laughed. “She made the first move. Then they doubled down by inviting us over. On a school night!”
“They made a move. But I don’t think they really have any idea what that move is. They drew out their queen very early in the game, with no plan.” He nodded toward the rear window of the Lamberts’ car, perhaps wishing it could tell him something, anything, about what they might be up for tonight.
She watched him for a while. “You’re such a dork,” she said. “But for some reason all the pretty ladies still seem to want to fuck you.”
“And one even married me!” Bruce lobbed back. “It’s dorky charm.”
“Is that what it is?”
“And, excuse me Mrs. Shepard, but I’m not the one who used the word noobs tonight.” He stuck his tongue out at her.
“Don’t stick that out unless you intend to use it.” She smiled. “You know, on me, or on the beautiful Jennifer…”
He took a deep breath. “I wonder how much further to their house.”
“I wonder how much further to their bed.”
Five minutes later, they pulled into Ryan and Jennifer’s townhouse driveway. The young couple stood next to their car, waiting.
Ryan fumbled in his pocket for his keys as Bruce and Paige climbed from their SUV. Here he was, inviting swingers into his house. They’re not vampires, he thought. Such an unexpected turn of events. Just a few days ago he’d resigned himself to never having a new and exciting sexual experience again, and now this, this… potential.
“Welcome,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Bruce.
They moved to the door. The keys all looked the same. Why hadn’t he turned on the outside light tonight? Well, he hadn’t because it had burned out, and he hadn’t replaced it because he hadn’t intended to bring back visitors, now had he? “It’ll just be a moment.”
He saw Paige slip her arm around Jennifer out of the corner of his eye. They looked into each other’s eyes. Ryan was distracted. Focus on the task at hand! He told himself. That feels like the key.
“Things are heating up here, Ry, right on your front stoop.”
“Yeah,” said Ryan, jamming another key into the lock. It turned. We have a winner! “Yes! Got it!”
He swung the door open, and held the storm door for Jennifer and Paige. After the women stepped past him into the house, his wife planted a soft kiss on Paige’s lips. Ryan stared into the foyer at them, not moving.
Bruce stepped toward the door, but stopped, leaning toward Ryan, who could smell aftershave, wine, and the leather of his coat. “You know,” he said, “this sort of decision has the potential to change your lives.”
Ryan turned toward him. Emotion welled up. To hear those words spoken outside their silly mantras from Dr. Petrillo, spoken by someone he had such respect for, someone he yearned to be like. To be as cool as Bruce, as smooth, as confident, all of that.
“Promise?” Ryan asked in a whisper.
Bruce smiled and clapped him on the back. “After you.”
Ryan walked into his house. Bruce followed.
Ryan closed the front door and looked up the flight of stairs to the main floor of their town house. On the landing at the top of the stairs, Jennifer and Paige stood, their fingers in each other’s hair, their lips locked together. Hands moving, jackets being pulled off.
A brand new door swinging open.
21
Momentous moments, especially ones with accompanying adrenaline and oxytocin, become hazy quickly. Things blend and morph, changing order and expanding and contracting along the timeline. Time can appear to stand still, and then, only an hour later, Ryan was discovering, seem be moving so quickly he couldn’t catch his breath.
Paige and Jennifer were pulling each other’s coats off, and Ryan couldn’t fathom what he ought to do. He stood at the landing as Bruce slid in and glanced around the first floor of the townhouse. Ryan saw Bruce catch the action out of the corner of his eye, but being a cool cat indeed, Bruce didn’t stare.
Unlike a certain young husband watching his wife grope another woman in their living room. A certain young husband still holding his keys. Bruce clapped him on the shoulder and took the keys from his hand. Ryan watched his guest set the jangling mess in a basket with another set of keys, the spares.
Jennifer’s long woolen coat fell to the floor in a heap. She stepped over it, backward, as the two women slammed into the wall. A gasp escaped Jennifer’s lips as she re-oriented herself. Eyes closed again, the kiss continued. She found the buttons on the front of Paige’s coat and pulled it open. In a moment, it fell atop her own.
Ryan stood alone now, Bruce had crossed the room to the light switches. He flipped them, noting which turned off what, and found a dimmer for the living room. The lights fell to half power. Bruce removed his own coat and hung it over the back of the couch.
“Hey, uh,” Ryan began. He stopped when he saw Bruce shake his head and press his finger to his lips. The man smiled, pointed to his eyes, then to the women with the same two fingers. Ryan shut his mouth. He followed the other man’s lead and removed his jacket. A flash of fabric caught his eye, and he saw Jennifer pulling Paige’s dress over her head. When her arms caught, they both laughed. Then the dress fell off and was subsequently tossed away.
He looked away instinctively, seeing a woman in her underwear in the company of her husband was certainly not…
Bruce stood behind him, putting both hands on his shoulders. “You need to internalize that everything here is cool,” he said, more than a whisper, but low enough that the women couldn’t hear him, or wouldn’t pay attention if they could. “Look at them, neither is doing anything they don’t want to.”
“It’s weird,” said Ryan. “Like I’m… peeping.”
“They also wouldn’t be doing this in the living room if they didn’t want an audience.”
That thought hadn’t occurred to Ryan. The level of exhibitionism in his life was the rote nudity of marriage. During sex. In between shower and clothes. In between day clothes and sleep clothes. He’d never detected in his wife that bit of—
Jennifer caught his eye, looking over Paige’s pale, freckled shoulder. Her eyes narrowed a bit. She nibbled on Paige’s neck, keeping eye contact with him the entire time. He saw what Bruce meant. This had performance in it. The central enjoyment was between the women, but an offshoot of what they were enjoying was the fact that these two men, their men, were there, watching, turned on.
“Huh,” Ryan said. He brought his hand up to his face, rubbing his cheek.
Jennifer couldn’t read his expression. He stood there, watching, his hand on his face, but his eyes didn’t seem to see them any longer. She shuddered as Paige ran her nails down her back, over the exposed flesh of the scoop neck, over the fabric, over the bump of her bra-strap, then down the small of her back, her hands separating at her ass, running a single circle around each cheek.