“You are shitting me,” I accidentally spoke aloud as my hand stretched into the shower to monitor the temperature of the water. As I carefully stepped in, I thought, that’s what happens when you have deep sexual attraction and mad skills. This bitch is a pimp.
Behind the privacy of her shower curtain, I soaped my hands to wash the painful abnormality that demanded attention between my legs. At the top of my vagina was a long protruding object that looked like a swollen construction workers thumb, jutting an inch beyond my outer lips.
Upon closer inspection, my mind reasoned with the worst possible scenarios that my melodramatic brain could produce. It must be a hernia tear…in my clit? Is that even possible? When I tried to touch the bulging tissue, the pain didn’t register as pain, but hyper-stimulation. Was this what happened when you had an orgasm? Would it go back to normal, and how long would it take? How the fuck would I explain how I got a mini-dick to Doug?
When my quick, but highly contemplative, shower was over, I gingerly stepped into my clothes and sat carefully on the corner of the bed. Zelda obediently walked in with a glass of water and handed it to me. She had no idea that her charms were dismissed by my obsession with exploding vagina parts that were uncomfortably pulsating in my pants. The only thing that pulled me from my thoughts was the ice clinking at the bottom of my glass. The sound triggered reality, clarity, and guilt. While quenching my insatiable thirst, I thought about how much I truly hated ice. My girlfriend would have never brought me a drink with ice.
In fact, she would have never done a lot of things that Zelda did. The obvious point here is that they are two different women, but one had my heart over the other. It takes more than a good roll in Las Vegas to win my jackpot.
CHAPTER 11
Douglas and I did not gamble. We barely had enough money to pay our bills most months. We certainly were not going to put a five-dollar bill in a slot machine and hope for thousands, let alone twenties, like Zelda did.
When our finances continued to spiral downward, the gravity of our situation led us to consider moving in with Patty. She’d offered her four-bedroom home to us on many occasions for a small renter’s fee and swore it would be best since we were all students with odd jobs. It was also more convenient for our type of relationship. We declined until the National Guard repeatedly denied my requests to enter Active Duty and the first bill went unpaid.
When moving day came, Patty was ecstatic. She was enthusiastic as she helped Doug carry the heavier pieces into his new room across the hall from her master bedroom. Our prearranged, designated days for each partner remained the same, so I technically did not have a room of my own. My clothing was dispersed between closets and drawers in both rooms. Doug shared a bathroom with another renter, and I used the one within the master suite.
At first, it was an odd transition to share the same home with my husband and my girlfriend. We walked on eggshells to respect personalities and the dynamics of my two relationships. It was difficult to establish private time and allow natural cultivation that happens when you have one partner with the other one around the corner. The last thing any of us wanted to do was hurt the others. Within the first few days we realized we needed routine to make the transition easier and lessen awkward moments.
In a moment that could have gotten heated between Patty and me, Doug interrupted the beginning stages of a makeout session to see what was cooking for breakfast. We felt like we had been caught doing something naughty and stopped immediately.
“Morning, honey,” I said.
“Good morning, Doug,” Patty said as she dunked her hands into the sink water to shamefully scrub dishes.
“Morning, ladies! So, which one of you is cooking my breakfast?” Doug asked as he clapped his hands together and jutted his eyes back and forth between the two of us with a smile. It was a fantastic, ingenious way to fade the tension, even if it meant directing negative attention right back at him. Patty and I immediately dove right into scolding him about being late for breakfast.
“Ha! You should have been down here earlier…”
“You know where the eggs are…”
“…just like a man…”
“We already ate…”
Then, when the jokes began to die down, Patty helped him out. “I got you, Doug. We both know Emma can’t cook.” Her redirection was perfect. They always teamed up when the opportunity presented itself. It was a small way to get back at me for making them share their time and love. Douglas laughed in agreement.
In the few days before we finally sat down to work out a cooking schedule, awkward moments had become plentiful. Once meal planning was organized, it helped pinpoint who was going to be in what room at a specific time. In essence, it helped limit the number of times we bumped into each other during private moments. Weeks later, we tried to make cooking something all three of us could do, but, unless someone was working the grill, it was just too many chefs in the kitchen.
Food also gave Douglas and Patty an outlet for friendly competition. They created special meals to out-cook each other while I rocked the basic chicken dishes. The three of us agreed that we were eating the most healthy and dynamic meals on a daily basis. It was the contributing factor in the development of a hierarchy in our triadic unit. Well, we called it “our family.”
The only argument that ever came out of it was: who ate the steak? I can still remember Doug laughing on the couch while Patty yelled into the freezer as she pushed frozen meat around, “I was going to use it in my fucking stew tomorrow, you asshole!”
Once the food choreography was mastered, our living situation became a little easier. I spent most of my nights in Patty’s master bedroom, which was bigger and more comfortable. The three of us occasionally watched movies in the living room together, but, for the most part, did our own thing. I had lots of sex with Patty but limited encounters with Doug. In fact, to my recollection there were only two. His new girlfriend satisfied him and spent the night a few times, so this wasn’t a problem.
Then around December, things got a little too “over-the-top ménage a trois” for me. Douglas was innocently watching television in the living room while Patty and I were in her bedroom getting frisky. Nothing super special about that until she took the opportunity to tell me between kisses, “I think I want the cock,” verbiage she picked up from Doug’s vulgar jokes.
I immediately turned to get our strap-on from the drawer when her hand reached from the bed to grab my arm. When it did, she stopped me from pulling it out. “No, I want a real one.”
Naked by the headboard, I shook my head in confusion. My forehead scrunched so tightly, it was almost painful. “What do you mean?” I asked for clarity. It never dawned on me that she would ever ask to sleep with my husband.
“I’ve never had sex with a man before. I want to try a real one,” Patty explained. “Do you think Doug would have sex with me?” she asked.
My jaw fell to my naked chest. “So, my butch lesbian girlfriend is asking to have sex with my husband? Fuckin’ weird. I don’t know, you ask him!” I demanded, completely dumbfounded.
“Can you ask him for me?” she begged and squeezed my arm tighter.
“No! This is sick. What do you want me to do? Hold your hand while he fucks you?” I half-shouted.
“Yes.”
“Oh my God, gross! Are you serious?”
She was completely serious. “Please, Emma.” Then she shot me her infamous pitiful look, emphasizing her blazing green eyes. I was always a sucker when she did that.