Just Past Two (Comes in Threes)

by Elia Winters

  “Oh. Right. Yeah, I like it.” He chuckled at a memory. “Abby used to tease me about it. Every time I ordered one, she’d tell me I’m, and I quote, ‘really fucking old.’” Those were back in the days when they were dating, when everything had seemed simpler.

  “That what’s got you working yourself into the ground tonight? Something going on with Abby?” Mitchell glanced over as the bartender set the Old Fashioned down in front of Sam, then turned back to his own drink and nursed another sip.

  Sam drank the Old Fashioned, tipped it back and downed half in one gulp. It burned all the way down, up into his sinuses and down his throat. He hadn’t eaten much, just a sandwich after work before going to the gym, and maybe that was a mistake. It didn’t stop him from taking another large gulp from the glass. “I don’t know. Things are confusing. Got a lot on my mind.” He finished the drink in one. There it was, the soft hum of alcohol in his system. He got the bartender’s attention and ordered a second.

  Mitchell raised an eyebrow. “You aren’t gonna drink like that and drive.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Nah.” Sam shook his head. “I’m in overnight parking the next lot over. I can just take a cab.” The prospect of letting alcohol fuzz through his system was too good to pass up.

  The bartender brought him a second drink, which he downed as quickly as the first, and then ordered some tequila shots. “How about some food?” she asked. “Some nachos? Fries?”

  “Sure. Nachos.” That would be fine.

  “Don’t worry, Bella,” Mitchell reassured her. “He tries to drive and I’ll beat the shit out of him.”

  Bella laughed. “You both take it easy. It’s a quiet night. Don’t want you getting all rowdy up in here.”

  She walked away, and Mitchell let him take both tequila shots. “All right,” Mitchell repeated. “You aren’t a heavy drinking guy. Wanna tell me what’s up?”

  “I don’t know, man.” Sam was fuzzy all through his brain. “I don’t know. This is personal shit. Stuff. I’m sorry for swearing.”

  Mitchell laughed. “It’s fine. I don’t care if you swear. I’m not a priest. I’m pretty far from a priest, to tell you the truth.”

  Whatever that meant. “I don’t want to overshare or get all weird or something.”

  Mitchell shrugged. “Listen, Sam. I’ve got nothing better going on right now, and you look like you’re in a bad way.”

  “See, I’m not.” That was the weirdest part about it. “I’m not in a bad way. I’m just…” Well, he might as well get into this. “You ever think you understand everything about yourself, and then something comes along and just shakes you right down to your core? Like, you realize everything you knew about yourself was incomplete, there was this whole other half just, just there?”

  Mitchell smiled, this amused smile, like Sam had just told a great joke. “You’ve got no idea.”

  That wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting at all. Come to think of it, he didn’t really know Mitchell that well, aside from work and CrossFit and some drinks, and he’d have described them as friends, but they didn’t share anything super personal. They talked exclusively about distant stuff, stuff unconnected to their personal lives beyond the superficial. He blinked at Mitchell, taken aback. “Okay. Well…I’m going through that right now. Been going through it all week.”

  “It’s hard, reevaluating yourself. You want to get more specific, or talk generally?”

  Sam looked around. There was nobody there. “It’s sex stuff.”

  Mitchell snorted. “Yeah, I figured. So, what? You figure out you’re not straight or something?”

  “No, nothing that extreme.” He shifted on his chair. “So it started at Abby’s college reunion, when I find out she used to be this whole different person. Somebody she doesn’t think I’d like, because she used to be way more…I don’t know, sexually adventurous.” And he told the story, about making the bet, about wanting to show her that he could handle whatever she could throw at him, about them exchanging fantasies. Nachos showed up, and he split them with Mitchell, who helped himself. The nachos were a good choice, because he had been fucking starving. Normally, empty carbs and cheese weren’t his plan of attack, but there was something about nachos that really hit the spot tonight.

  “Anyway, she said she wanted to try something kinky. Some BDSM stuff. Wants me to be her Dom. And we fooled around with this, last weekend.”

  He paused. There were several ways to get further into this story, and another Old Fashioned had shown up (Had he ordered that? He must have.) so he drank a little of it while he considered.

  “And you discovered you really liked it.” Again, not a question from Mitchell, a statement.

  “Yeah. I really liked it. It blew my fucking mind. But now I don’t know how to even be with Abby, because I know she liked it too, and that feels…different. Like we’ve had this shift in how we are together.” He sagged, pulling a nacho off the plate and popping it into his mouth. “I don’t know what comes next.”

  Mitchell made a thoughtful noise. He did that a lot, those contemplative noises. “How does it change who you are together?”

  “Because there’s this whole power exchange thing just, just hanging out there. And what if she wants more of it?”

  “You liked it,” Mitchell reminded him. “You can just have more of it.”

  “But I didn’t even know I was like this.” Sam sighed, tipping his head back. “I can’t believe I’m even talking about this shit. Out loud. In public. To you.” He had some more of his drink. “Don’t judge me. I’m not a deviant.”

  Mitchell laughed. He didn’t laugh much, not that kind of open-mouthed, earnest laugh, but he clearly wasn’t laughing at Sam. He was laughing…with him? He definitely seemed amused at himself, not at Sam, and Sam was missing something here.

  “Listen. Sam.” Mitchell patted Sam’s shoulder. “You’re overthinking this, man. It’s just kink. It’s only as serious as you want it to be. You like giving your wife orders, you both get off on it, great. Do it. You’re both happy with it. It doesn’t have to change anything else.” At Sam’s dubious look, he went on. “You don’t have to start wearing leather clothes and get her a collar and a leash.” He paused. “Unless you’re both into that.”

  “But it’s a whole identity thing,” Sam reiterated. “I don’t know who I am anymore. I started all this to show Abby that I could keep up with her. I didn’t think I’d get so into it.”

  “Seems like that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.” Mitchell shrugged. He stared up at the bottles behind the bar, mouth set, and finally nodded as he seemed to make up his mind about something.

  “Sam, I’m a Dominant.”

  Sam stared at him. Mitchell had spoken low, low enough that only Sam could hear, which was a good reminder that the bar wasn’t super busy and they should keep their voices down. Sam had a tendency to get loud when he was drunk.

  Mitchell waited for some kind of response, and when it didn’t come, he tipped his head. “Like you. I’m into that. It’s what I do. It’s my main sexual kink. I like to dominate the people I have sex with, if they like being dominated.”

  “Oh.” That actually made a lot of sense. Mitchell was a quietly in-control kind of guy. Sam, though? “I’m not really the dominant type,” Sam said. At Mitchell’s raised eyebrow, he explained. “I’m in control at work. I like order and structure. But it’s not like I like being bossy or something.”

  “See, I do like being bossy, but that’s just my personality. The way you are in the sack and the way you are in the rest of your life don’t have to overlap with each other.” Mitchell shrugged. He pursed his lips and then sighed. “Sam. Lots of people discover things about themselves in their thirties. It’s common. Just a few months ago, I realized I was in love with two people.”

  Sam gawked. “What?”

  “Yeah.” Mitchell gestured toward the windows, as if the people he loved were standing right out there, which of course they weren’t. “I
’m polyamorous. We all are. Me, and Ben, and Hannah.”

  “What the hell?” Sam couldn’t keep the disbelief out of his voice. “Nobody does that.”

  “Yeah, people do. We do that.” Mitchell was actually fully smiling now. “And it turns out a lot of people do that. We have a discussion group about it here in Mapleton. We meet once a month or so, talk about how to have open relationships, or sleep with other people, or have a relationship with more than two.”

  “Do I know Hannah?” Sam was trying to think about who he’d seen Mitchell with. He seldom saw Mitchell outside the restaurant or gym, but maybe he’d seen her at the restaurant.

  “My height, curvy, brown hair, wears librarian glasses?” Mitchell shifted in his chair. “She also runs the sex shop Yes Please, the one right next to the restaurant.”

  “I don’t know her, I don’t think.” Sam was still gawking. “I can’t believe you’re doing this and I didn’t even know about it. That is…unbelievable.”

  “It’s a lot of people’s fantasies, for sure.” Mitchell smiled sheepishly.

  Fantasies, right. That snapped Sam back to the conversation. “That’s the other thing. I have been having all these fantasies about Abby with other people. I think it started back at the reunion, when this all first came up.” He ate some more nachos, and then took the glass of water that Mitchell had ordered for him.

  “That’s a pretty common fantasy.” Mitchell finished the last of the nachos. “I think it’s called hotwifing. Is it something Abby’s interested in doing?”

  “I haven’t told her.” Sam shook his head. “That feels way too far. Even the thought of bringing it up, it’s like, I can’t imagine being someone who has these thoughts in the first place, let alone sharing them. It’s like I’m not the man she married.”

  Mitchell shrugged. “You’re not. You’re changing. We’re all changing. It’s life, man. It’s what we do.” Mitchell finally finished the last of his whisky, the same glass he’d somehow been drinking this whole conversation while Sam pounded the booze. “You think it was easy, realizing I wanted more than one person in my life, forever? Falling in love with them? I’ve been in love with Ben for years, and having to confront that, it was scary shit. It’s still scary. I don’t know what’s going to happen with us, but I want to have them both in my life. Once I realized that, it got a lot easier.”

  Mitchell, the Dominant, in a relationship with two people at once. Sam really didn’t know this guy at all. “You’re kind of rocking my worldview, here.”

  “It’s not that complicated.” Mitchell shrugged. “I get it. I tend to make things complicated. Ben’s always after me to think simpler. You want to be with Abby, obviously, and you want to have this kinky sex and explore this different side of your relationship, go for it. See where it leads.”

  “And what about…” Sam hesitated. “What about if we go past just the two of us?”

  “What, another person? A threesome?” Mitchell leaned back in his chair. “Bring it up with her. Maybe she’ll think it’s hot, too. Seems like you’re both batting a thousand when it comes to fantasies.”

  “Are we going too far, though?” That was the other question eating at his brain.

  “For what? For hot sex? It’s just sex, Sam.” Mitchell ate a jalapeño that had fallen off the nachos onto the bare plate. “Just fuck like you want to fuck. Don’t make a big deal out of it. It’s only as significant as you make it, together. It can just be fun.”

  “Right.” He wasn’t really convinced, but Mitchell was speaking some sense, for sure. Maybe it could be this simple. Abby was into being watched, clearly, her exhibitionism rising up at new points, and he could play with that. He could tease her, and they could have fun together.

  “And listen. You’re gonna find out new things about yourself. It’s okay. Let it happen. Growth, man. Growth.” He clapped Sam on the back. “You want me to drive you home?”

  “Actually.” Sam was getting another idea. “You said there’s a sex shop, Yes Please. How late are they open?”

  Chapter Five

  Sam was normally a pretty easy guy to read. He was straightforward with his feelings, up-front when he was having a bad day or needed some time to himself, a completely open book that Abby could read without trouble. For the last week, though, ever since what she’d been thinking of as Kink Night, he’d been…reserved. Normally, she wouldn’t have read too much into it. She’d tell herself that he was busy at work, and he probably was, but she wouldn’t dwell on it longer than that. Now, with whatever this “give a fantasy, get a fantasy” game they had been playing, she kept ruminating on every action of his like it might mean way more than she expected. After all, it was his turn to share a fantasy, and he’d given no sign of wanting to do anything else. In fact, up until going to the gym last night, he’d been mopey as hell, and then he’d come home late via cab, drunk on a weeknight. It wasn’t like him.

  So, sitting at dinner that Friday night, Abby geared up toward ending their game. She’d been rehearsing the speech in the mirror, about how he was obviously upset after playing with power exchange, and they’d gotten in over their heads too fast, and he would clearly be happier if they went back to the way things used to be. She wasn’t even going to talk about how the whole “fantasy swap” had been a bad idea that he hadn’t been ready for. She took a deep breath, and let it out.

  “So I’ve been thinking.”

  Sam paused, his fork halfway to his mouth, and then carefully finished his bite before setting down the fork and chewing. He had that wide-eyed innocent look that meant she was taking him totally by surprise.

  “I know you’re upset about the way things went last weekend,” she began, ready to segue into the part about calling everything off.

  Sam interrupted her, still giving her that wide-eyed, taken-aback stare. “I’m not upset.”

  Bullshit. “You’ve been distant all week. You’ve been kind of weird ever since we did it. Like you’ve got a secret.” She paused, and he spoke into the silence.

  “I look like I’ve got a secret because I’ve got a secret.” He smiled, taking another bite of his dinner.

  What? Sam was shit at keeping secrets. He got too excited about buying her presents and always wanted to give them to her early, having more fun watching her on Christmas morning (or Christmas Eve, if he couldn’t wait) than he did opening his own gifts.

  As if reading her mind, he added, “You know I’m awful at keeping secrets.”

  “What’s the secret?” Abby set down her own fork.

  Sam shook his head. “After dinner. It’s part of the fantasy I want to share with you.”

  What the hell? She had not expected him to be ready to share a fantasy, not after being weird all week.

  “You’ve been weird all week about this. Now you’re saying it’s fine?”

  Sam shrugged. “I had a talk with Mitchell from the gym. He helped me figure some stuff out that had been bothering me.” He gestured to her plate. “Aren’t you gonna have any more? It’s really delicious.”

  Boggling, Abby narrowed her eyes, mouth open in confusion. “So you’re just fine now?”

  Sam tipped his head to the side. “I don’t know if I’m fine, but I’m better than I was. And I want to keep going, because I’m having a really good time fulfilling fantasies with you.”

  Was he telling the truth? She scrutinized him.

  “I’m not lying,” he insisted. Damn, he was too good at knowing what she was thinking when it came to things like this. “I really do have another fantasy I want to share with you.”

  “Another one?” She’d been ready for him to want to wait a while.

  He laughed. “Yeah, another one. You think I just have the one, that sex club fantasy, and that was it?”

  “Is that what your secret is?”

  “Partially.” He hesitated. “I’ll show you after dinner.”

  After dinner, she followed him into the bedroom and joined him on the edge of the bed, anticip
ation already zinging down her spine. “You remember how we used to go out dancing all the time when we were dating?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” It had been one of their favorite hobbies. “We stopped when you broke your foot.”

  “And never got back to it.” He looked tense, expectant. “I want us to go out dancing again.”

  There had to be something more to this than that. Dancing wasn’t a fantasy; it was something they used to do. “Tonight?”

  “Yeah. Tonight.” He pulled a small box out of his nightstand drawer and held it close to his body, obscuring whatever the labeling said, before handing it to her. “And I want you to wear this.”

  The white box pictured a curved, U-shaped teal device. Puzzled, she opened the box, and a silicone toy tumbled into her lap. She pushed and held the only button it seemed to have, and it buzzed once in her hand, making her drop it back on her lap.

  Oh.

  Oh.

  Sam’s expression told her all she needed to know, and the blush radiated from her face down her neck. She gingerly picked up the vibrator, holding it between her thumb and forefinger. “You want me to wear this out tonight when we go dancing?”

  “Yeah.” He licked his lips, and his eyes had gone dark. “Babe. I know you like showing off. I know it makes you hot when people are watching you. I want to know if it makes you hot if I’m the only one who knows you’re wearing a vibrator.”

  “Shit.” Her hand closed around the toy. “Won’t someone hear it?”

  “Not at Heads or Tails. Not with the music that loud.”

  Heads or Tails was always a popular salsa dancing club, their favorite place to get a little rowdy, two towns over from Mapleton and drawing a livelier crowd.

  Just the idea of this was turning her on. “How do I wear it?” she asked.

  “Take off your clothes.”

  Abby undressed, heart beginning to race in her chest. She hadn’t been clubbing in years, and had never done anything like this before. When she was naked, Sam pushed her back on the bed, leaning over her to kiss her waiting mouth. God, he could kiss, his lips on hers making everything else fade away, up until his fingers brushed up through her folds and found her clit.