Part II
Jeff had fulfilled his part of his bargain. It had turned out much better than he had feared. In fact, it was the best s*x he could ever remember having with his wife—probably the best s*x he ever had in his entire life. He had lost count of how many times he had come that night. And, for reasons he still didn’t understand, even though he had done just about everything a man could do with another man, he didn’t think of any of what he had done that night as homosexual. He still thought of himself as ardently and exclusively straight. Karen’s presence had transformed it all into a new kind of heterosexual s*x—had made it all okay. Except for that one encounter, he had never looked at another man in s****l terms, even in the most speculative way.
Not that he wanted to have another encounter with Karen and another man, even if Karen wanted to try it again. It had freaked the other guy out completely, and Jeff was content with leaving it as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It was the cost—even if it ended up being freely paid—of what he really wanted: the three-way Karen had offered to have with another woman in exchange.
Now deciding who to be their partner was proving to be more difficult than Jeff had anticipated.
“No one you’ve ever had a relationship with, love,” Karen said as they lay spooning together in bed. “Or ever wanted to.” All such discussions took place in bed. All such discussions together when they were naked. All such discussion invariably led to s*x.
“Okay,” Jeff said, spooning with her, his c**k, still soft, in the crack of her bottom.
“No one I’ve ever caught you looking at,” she said. She had frequently seen him admiring another woman, although he always denied it.
“Okay,” he said, rocking against her, his c**k stiffening.
“No one at your job.”
There were several woman at work—some of whom Karen didn’t even know about—who, were he unmarried and given the opportunity, Jeff would happily f**k. “Okay,” Jeff said, thinking in particular about one data analyst about ten years younger than both Jeff and Karen who usually dressed in tight bottoms and revealing tops. Jeff was fully hard now as he slid his c**k between his wife’s delicious buttocks.
“No one at my job,” Karen said. Jeff had only gone to Karen’s office once or twice. There were several young, attractive women there. Perhaps that was why she rarely found reason for him to visit. Jeff visualized Karen’s office and remembered her co-workers as he stroked against her. There was a beautiful young redhead with a chest she seemed especially proud of.
Karen raised her leg and Jeff put his c**k between her thighs, stroking without entering her. He felt her hot wetness against the top of his c**k.
“No one at the gym,” she said, making a small guttural sound. They both went to the same health club a few blocks from their apartment. There were so many hot women there, usually wearing very little where the men could see them and dressing or undressing in the locker room where Karen and other women could see them. Jeff and Karen almost always followed their visits with frantic, satisfying s*x as soon as they got home.
“Okay,” Jeff said, as he shifted his angle and entered her easily. She was completely ready for him. He reached down and found her hand already between her labia stroking her c**t. He helped her.
“No one family member, no matter how distant,” Karen said. Jeff had met one of Karen’s unmarried second or third cousins a few times at weddings and other social functions. She looked like Karen but was about five years younger. Karen would watch him tolerantly as he flirted with her.
“Okay,” Jeff said, shifting his position so that she was lying on her stomach and he was on top of her, entering her from the rear. Withdrawing from her, he parted her legs, sat up on his shins, and used both hands to pull her hips up so that she was on her shoulders and her knees.
Her hand was still busy between her legs. He kept his left hand on her hip and put his right hand on her right buttock. He smoothly slid back into her, more deeply from this position.
She moaned softly. “No one who’s actually looking for a threesome,” Karen choked out. “We’re not answering any ads.”
“Okay,” Jeff said, teasing her sweet little butthole with his thumb. Her moaning grew deeper. He rocked his hips to draw himself almost entirely out of her and then drive himself home again and again. There was no more conversation until they both came.
“Whew,” Jeff said as he threw himself on his back beside her. Karen had collapsed onto her stomach, turning her head to look at him. “We’re not just going to pick up a stranger in a bar, are we?” They rarely went to bars and, when they did, virtually never talked to strangers.
“No,” Karen said. Her face had the postorgasmic glow that, whenever he saw it, made Jeff fall in love with her all over again. She smiled softly at him.
“Who’s left, then?” he asked. “How are we going to find anyone?”
“I don’t know, love,” Karen said. We’ll know the right girl when we find her.”
“So we just have to wait?”
“Poor thing,” she said, reaching over and playing with his c**k, softening but still wet with her juices. “Until then, you’ll just have to have s*x with your boring old wife,” she said, flopping his c**k back and forth until it got hard again. She swung one leg over his body, lifted herself onto her knees, and used both hands to guide him into herself.
***
After that, whenever they found themselves with an appealing young woman, Jeff would look at his wife and raise one eyebrow. Karen would squint at him and give her head a small shake, and Jeff would lower his eyebrow and shrug disappointedly. The attractive neighbor down the hall? No. The freckle-faced receptionist at their doctor’s office? No. The good-looking waitress at their favorite restaurant down the block? No. The cute little check-out girl at the supermarket? No. Their friendly, playful dental hygienist? No.
After months of Karen rejecting every candidate he suggested, Jeff despaired that they would never find a woman Karen found acceptable even to consider, much less someone they’d actually take to bed. Then, one night in bed, Karen made an announcement. “I got a text from my old college roommate Deirdre. She’s broken up with her boyfriend and she’s coming into town to interview for a job. I texted her back she could stay here.”
It was as if Karen had put her mouth on Jeff’s c**k. He was immediately hard. “Your college roommate?” was all he could say.
“Yeah. Deirdre. You’ve met her. She visited the year after we graduated. And then she came to our wedding. She was one of my bridesmaids. She would have been my maid of honor, but I had to let my sister.”
He remembered. She was of Irish heritage, had straight, reddish-brown hair, green eyes, an oval face. She was small and attractive. When she’d visited, she had slept on the living room couch. Jeff had thought she was cute, but at that stage in his relationship with Karen he was too much in love with his wife even to even imagine the possibility of having s*x with another woman.
“Dee,” he said.
“She doesn’t like to be called that anymore, love. She’s Deirdre now.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” Jeff said. He paused and swallowed. “Would she be a candidate?” he asked.
Karen pressed herself against him. “Maybe,” she said, wiggling her bottom against his side. He turned so that she could feel his hardness. She wriggled against it. “We’ll see how it goes.”
“When you were roommates,” he said, sliding up and down against her, “did you ever...?”
“Not really,” she said, shifting her pelvis back and forth.
“Not really isn’t no. What does ‘not really’ mean?” he asked, lifting her thigh.
“Well, we watched some porn together a few times,” Karen said.
“And what happened?” Jeff asked, using his hand to position himself at her entrance.
“Well,” she said, drawing a breath as he entered her, “not very much. We played with ourselves.” She put her hand on herself, as if to demonstrate.
“With each other?” Jeff asked, stroking deeply inside her.
“No, with ourselves. We were in our own beds,” she said, sighing, “not together. Under the covers.”
“Did you come?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Several times. It’s much easier when someone is doing the same thing at the same time, making noises and everything. Like the girls on that Australian amateur porn site say it is.”
Jeff was imagining it all in his mind’s eye. “Anything else?”
“Once, I remember, we kissed.”
“What’s the big deal?” Jeff asked. “I see you kiss your friends all the time.”
“I don’t mean like that, like friends. I mean one Saturday night when we didn’t have dates we got pretty drunk and we tried to really make out.”
This was enough to pitch Jeff over the brink. He came inside Karen, shuddering again and again. Karen clenched on him, moved her fingers a little harder and faster, and brought herself to her own shuddering climax.
“And what happened?” Jeff asked, on his back again.
“Not too much,” Karen said, turning to lie on her back next to him. “We deep-kissed and we felt each other up through the tops we slept in.” Jeff was getting hard again. “But we were too drunk and we just kept laughing, so we stopped and went to bed. Separately.” Disappointed, Jeff softened.
“So why’d it be any different this time?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I said we’ll see.”
***
Like many people living in Manhattan, Jeff and Karen didn’t have a car, so they didn’t go to pick Deirdre up at the airport. She called deep into the evening the night her plane landed, and they waited for the Uber to bring her to their door about an hour and a half after her call. When she rang the downstairs bell, they both went down to help her with her luggage.
She looked different from how Jeff remembered her. Her hair was shorter and curlier. She was wearing more make-up. The last time he had seen her, after the wedding and just before Jeff and Karen had gone on their honeymoon, she’d been dressed casually. Now she wore a woman’s business suit. She was still very cute and looked younger than her years, which would be Karen and Jeff’s age, about thirty. They opened the inner doors and helped her in with her bags.
Deirdre smiled broadly and hugged and kissed first Karen and then Jeff. He felt her breasts press against his chest and made sure to keep his hips from hers so she wouldn’t feel his already growing excitement. They all traded the usual remarks about great it was to see each other, how the trip was, and other pleasantries.
Up in their apartment, Jeff helped Deirdre take off her coat and hung it up on the coat tree next to the front door. Deirdre’s breasts were fuller than he’d remembered them.
“I have to pee,” Deirdre said.
“You remember where the bathroom is, don’t you?” Jeff asked, trying unsuccessfully not to imagine her lifting her skirt and lowering her panties and sitting down on the toilet.
“Down the hall,” Karen said, pointing. “First door on the right, opposite the bedroom.”
Deirdre followed the directions.
Jeff looked at Karen and raised his eyebrow.
“We’ll see,” Karen said, looking at Jeff with a slight smile. “Take it easy, love.”
They heard the toilet flush and the water run. The bathroom door opened and Deirdre walked out.
“When’s the interview?” Karen asked. “How long are you planning to stay? You’re welcome for as long as you like, of course,” she said, laughing. “Are you hungry? Want a glass of wine?”
Deirdre laughed. “You haven’t changed much, Kar. Still more questions anyone can answer. What’s today? Saturday? The interview is Monday morning at ten-thirty. I wanted to come in a day early, in case the flight was late or I was jet-lagged. I’m going to take a bus up to Boston Monday afternoon, see my brother. Haven’t seen him since Christmas. Going to spend a few days with him and then fly back from there.”
Jeff realized that they only had that night and the following one if it was going to happen. And the next night she’d probably be too preoccupied with the interview. It was, as they say, now or never.
“And no, I’m not hungry. I brought food with me for the trip, and I ate the plane food, too. But yes, I could use a glass of wine. I only drank water on the plane. Experienced travelers say you should never have alcohol when you fly.”