He needed to find her. Perhaps to prove to himself that he could watch, because the creeping doubt had grabbed him by the throat. A refill stop at the buffet, this time a Cabernet. Up the stairs, toward the countless rooms full of passion and ecstasy. Moans and cries built as he reached the landing. The sound of skin slapping together, an echoing thud here and there, the cries of men and women, low and high moans, repetition of words, yes, oh god. Catholic for two decades before he’d lost the faith, Ryan wondered what his old God might have made of all this.
Could it be a form of praise?
A moan crescendoed out of the first room, the door ajar. Ryan swayed and grasped for the banister, then the rail at the landing. He put both his hands on the rail and looked out over the foyer. Just breathe, he told himself, in through the nose, out through the mouth. The spinning slowed, the world snapped back into focus.
He stood before the open door. A candle flickered on the bedside table. A threesome undulated in the bed. Two women kissed over a man lying prone, one of them bouncing on his cock, the other sitting on his face. Another door was closed, but Ryan paused for a moment near it. Inside he heard a slap, then a thud, then a moan.
Muffled, a woman asked, “You like that, don’t you?”
Muffled more, choked back as if through a gag, a male voice replied, “Yes, Mistress.”
The next door hung open just a crack. He peered inside. His wife knelt on the bed, mouth around Glen’s cock, his hands on the back of her head. She doesn’t like that, Ryan announced into the room without opening his mouth. He heard her gag, then Glen pulled her head back. Jennifer gasped and looked up at him.
“What do you want?” he asked, intense.
“Fuck me,” whispered Jennifer.
His intensity mounted. “What do you want?”
Jennifer repeated, louder, more forcefully. “Fuck me.”
“What do you say?”
A beat. “Please fuck me.”
“Good girl.”
Glen flipped her over and threw her down on the bed. She could hear the rustle and rip, then the subtle unrolling, then his knees were on either side of her thighs and he slid inside her. He was smaller than Ryan, and Bruce, for that matter, but his speed was intense. As his speed built, his torso slapped against her ass, getting louder and stronger, the intensity building.
She’d said please, and by god he was giving her what she’d asked for. As the orgasmic wave rose, she turned her head, resting it on the incredibly soft sheets. The room brightened, whoever had been in the doorway stepping away to view another show.
Hearing her climax must’ve triggered Glen, because his grunting turned to near shouts, and with a few more thrusts he collapsed on top of her. His chest against her back, his arms on either side of her. His cheek against hers. Slowing breaths. His cock softening inside her until she felt it pop back out. The sensation set off another wave of tremors and she heard him say, “Yeah? That sounds good,” as the tremors rose and then fell, though his voice was far away.
Big night, wasn’t it? thought Jennifer.
Glen rolled off of her onto his back. “I’ll be right back,” he whispered. She nodded without looking. Light filled the room behind her and she heard the whir of the bathroom exhaust fan. The light was extinguished again as he closed the door.
Jennifer rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling fan, spinning lazily above. She wondered if Ryan was having a good time. Tonight was their reinvention, after all. Minor setbacks had come and gone, but this path felt right. Tonight, to have kissed several people, made out with some, given and received some wonderful oral sex, and gotten a thorough if not terribly impressive fucking just now… Well, big night didn’t quite cover it, did it? Her vulva throbbed. Next time maybe the wax could happen a few days before a party. Or not at all.
Glen had given her the encounter with Glen the Quarterback she’d always wanted, intense, rough, dominant. She sensed he’d have no issue at all if she went off to find more fun. He’d gotten what he needed, and she’d gotten the same. The question of whether there really needed to be more than that surprised her. Sometimes, often, yes, more was desirable. Required, even.
“Do you say thank you?” she asked Glen when he returned from the bathroom.
The intimidating demeanor and jockish attitude turned to deference immediately. “Thank you,” he said.
She laughed and shook her head. “No, I was asking.”
“If I say thank you,” he said, puzzled.
“If etiquette dictates…” Jennifer rolled her hand in the air, indicating he ought to follow the train.
“Oh!” He followed it. “Well, did you enjoy yourself?” he asked, lying on the bed next to her.
“Very much,” she told him.
“I wouldn’t hate hearing the words.” His smile, so earnest, so genuine, so eager to please.
She rolled on top of him and kissed him twice, the first light, the second deeper. “Thank you,” she said finally and rolled back off.
“Any time,” he replied. He sat up on the side of the bed and lifted a pair of navy blue boxers off the floor. He stood and slid them on. “And your mister…”
“Ryan.”
“Yes,” he smiled, “I know. He should really meet my missus. Magdalena. I think the four of us could have some great fun together.”
“I don’t doubt that,” she said.
Pulling his shirt over his arms and letting it hang, unbuttoned, Glen leaned down to where Jennifer sat on the bed, kissing her again. “That said, I also wouldn’t say no to getting together with you one-on-one again.”
Jennifer gave him a coy smile. “Wouldn’t say no?”
“I’d be an emphatic yes, happy?”
“Yes.”
Glen asked if he could get her anything, Jennifer declined. He offered to stay with her a while longer, she declined that as well. He said he wanted to see where the elusive Magdalena might be, offered a last kiss that Jennifer happily accepted, and left the room.
She lay naked in the center of a large California King mattress, on the softest sheets she’d ever encountered, smiling up at the ceiling fan.
What a wild night.
38
“I hoped I’d find you again,” said Julianne.
Ryan looked up with a smile.
“Welcome back,” he offered and tipped his nearly empty wine glass toward her before finishing the last mouthful. She watched him lean forward and set it on the table.
“Would you like some company?” she asked, pointing at the couch next to him.
Ryan was sitting on the middle couch of three that made up the front row of the home theater. The screen in front of him had been playing porn when he’d walked in, but by futzing with the buttons on the projector he’d switched it over to another device that now silently played It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown. After looking for a remote and finding none, he’d just resolved to watch.
She pointed at the screen and gave him a quizzical look.
He shrugged.
She moved to the back of the room and stood on her toes. With a click, the screen went dark. Without the blinding pastels of animation casting their light across the room, his eyes adjusted to the dim light of the wall sconces. Much better, he thought.
She returned and sat next to him, no longer wearing the kimono, back in her dress from earlier in the evening. “Is this evening treating you well?”
“Better now,” he said.
“I’d like to kiss you,” she told him. He nodded enthusiastically. She leaned in and gave him a sweet kiss, hands on his face, fingers in his hair. After lingering a while, she sat back. “Thank you for that.”