“We actually only intended to come for a couple drinks,” Kendra had said. “Didn’t expect to, you know…”
“Connect?” offered Ryan.
“Yeah.”
“Because of that fact,” added Vince, “we unfortunately negotiated an early night with our sitter.”
“Aw, bummer,” said Jennifer.
“Might you both,” Vince had begun, then held for a moment and rethought. “I think we’d be interested in seeing you two again. How might you feel about it?”
“We’d be into that.”
“They’re pretty cool,” Jennifer told Ryan at the bar, sipping her drink. “And so are we!”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “You initiated the hell out of that.”
They clinked their drinks again.
“Who needs Bruce and Paige?” he asked.
The mention of the names brought the revelry down, but only for a moment.
“Are you tired, or up for more fun?” she asked.
Ryan flipped his robe open, revealing his hard cock.
She nodded. “That’s an answer.”
“I’m just getting started,” he said. “I mean, we thankfully don’t have children at home, or a sitter, to pull us away.”
“Yeah,” Jennifer agreed, “that was sucky.”
“Don’t you two look comfortable!”
Ryan turned to see Glen coming down the stairs, clad in black boxer briefs and nothing else. His formerly well-combed hair gave the distinct impression of a hand-combing fix.
“We were in the hot tub!” said Jennifer, turning toward Glen to welcome him back to the bar.
The look on Jennifer’s face was glee. Here came the more fun she’d asked about and hoped for.
Ryan’s impression was a bit lower. Nice, perhaps, polite to his face. He had called him Randy before, too.
“I hope you’re having a good time,” said Glen, directing the question at Ryan.
“Great time,” said Ryan.
Glen held up his hand, palm out. After a moment’s hesitation, Ryan slapped him five. “These parties are the best of all of them. I’ve been to big and small, been to some like in that movie, you know with the masks and…” he held his hand over his nose and pulled out, miming the exaggerated features of the commedia dell’arte masks from Eyes Wide Shut. “But Marty and Amanda throw the best of all of them. Mostly because of the people they invite.”
Halfway through that sentence, Glen had reconfigured his stance, moving from aiming his conversation at Ryan to smiling down at Jennifer. Ryan parsed his feelings. What was this reaction? What was he feeling? Jealousy? Dislike of Glen? Did he have a reason to dislike Glen at all? Or was it only the Randy thing. Because if that was it, reasoned Ryan, then that was really nothing at all.
After all, Bruce and Paige had vouched for this place, these people. Maybe not the individual couples, people, but Ryan had gotten the feeling that their hosts wouldn’t invite just anybody. He trusted Glen that far.
He watched as Glen ran his fingers up Jennifer’s terrycloth-clad arm.
Ryan leaned toward them, resting his arm on the bar. He wasn’t inserting himself between them, but he made sure he would be a more obvious fixture in the conversation. “We met Vince and Kendra de Martolos.”
“Oh man,” said Glen. “Those two are great!”
Ryan felt the surprise cross his face but tried not to let it show more than a moment. He’d admittedly not known Vince and Kendra long at all, but their straightforward attitudes suggested good judgment. He relaxed a little, let his shoulders drop. He watched his wife and Glen hold an exceptionally long moment of eye contact.
Movement behind the bar called his attention, and to his delight, he found himself watching Julianne shake a drink in the cocktail shaker. She wore a sky blue kimono, with a pastoral scene on the back, draped over her slender frame.
When she noticed him looking, she smiled and winked. “Hello again,” she said.
“Hi!” said Ryan.
With finesse, Julianne flipped two more traditional martini glasses up on the bar top, not the enormous monstrosities that he’d selected for his and Jennifer’s drinks. His face reddened as she poured a simple vodka martini into each, followed by two olives. She leaned forward over the bar toward him. “Your lovely is getting along famously with Glen, isn’t she?”
He nodded, looking over only briefly, before returning his gaze to her dark eyes.
“And how are you doing?”
“Better, now,” he said. “Happy to see you again.”
“The feeling is mutual.” She slid her martinis out of the way. “How about a kiss?”
The giddy thrill took him. After all, he was apparently this woman’s type. Her type. He leaned in and kissed her. The kiss moved slower than Kendra’s had, a long time with mouths closed, lifting, lingering, pressing, an inhalation of breath from each other’s mouths, the running of tongues along lips and against each other. Her hand found his hair again and the passion intensified. For a flash that could’ve lasted no more than a few seconds, but felt like minutes, Ryan was lost in her. Faces pushed together, angles finding and losing themselves.
When they separated, Julianne pressed her forehead to his, grabbing hold of the hair at the back of his head.
“Unf,” said Julianne. “I’m frightfully sorry, Ryan, but I have somewhere I must deliver these martinis.”
He sighed, catching it halfway through to reduce its volume and impact. She smiled, and he hoped perhaps he’d managed to make it sound like a cute, yearning sigh, instead of one of disappointment.
“Will you be around, though?” she asked, loosening her grip on his hair and sliding back behind the bar.
He nodded.
“I would like to have a drink with you, tonight, if you’re up for it.”
Ryan was indeed up for it. His imagination drifted, his hands running up under that kimono, sliding across her body as she untied his robe and was presented with his chemically-enhanced member.
She lifted the two martinis and came around the bar, stopping in front of him. She tilted her head back slightly, turning her neck to him, eyes asking him to nibble. With ferocity, he planted a solid kiss on her neck, then brought his teeth together. He felt her gasp as his teeth slid across her skin. He was careful, though. They were adults, after all, who couldn’t very well show up with hickeys tomorrow.
Not suitable in the real world.
After another few nibbles up and down her neck, he planted a kiss on her lips.
“To be continued,” said Julianne.
“Indeed,” agreed Ryan.
While Ryan was sharing his time with Julianne, Jennifer was losing her words amid the eye contact with Glen. On this closer inspection, she realized he actually didn’t resemble that quarterback all that much. Broad strokes had allowed for the feeling, a general swaggering similarity. This Glen was far more attractive than the other had ever been, Jennifer decided.
“So what are we doing here?” he asked her.
“I don’t know what to call that,” breathed Jennifer.
Glen smiled and lifted her chin with his index finger, their lips met, a long, soft kiss.
“That either,” said Jennifer when it ended.
“Perhaps ‘What do we want to do here?’ is a more valuable question to ask just now.”
Jennifer straightened up in her chair. She felt unmoored. She reached down to her barstool, grabbing for any semblance of stability. She and Ryan hadn’t talked about being with a single person, only couples. She knew that Glen had a partner somewhere upstairs, but she had the distinct feeling that his question was really inviting a situation with only the two of them. She wasn’t certain, but he didn’t seem to be suggesting a threesome.
She threw a quick glance at Ryan, hoping for some insight into his thoughts. He and Julianne were leaning over the bar toward each other, lost in a simple kiss growing more complex. Her gaze returned to the man in front of her, and his deep brown eyes filled her field of view.