Merry Ever After

by Vi Keeland, Penelope Ward, Lucy Score, Marie Force, Tijan, Kennedy Ryan

  “You okay?” Carl crinkles his brows with what looks like genuine concern. He has a kind face, and my breaths even out.

  “Yes. Sorry. Nice to meet you, too.” I step through the door. “Maybe just hungry. I skipped lunch.”

  It’s a lie. I think I’ll vomit all over his nice checker board tiles if I try to eat a thing right now.

  “Hunger I can handle.” He leads us to the living room where several people already gather. “We have a spread fit for a king and his queen.”

  There’s maybe twelve people present, some standing, others sitting in a living room decorated in what I would consider French country. Lots of flowers and colors, balanced with a few chintzy solid patterns. I’m a minimalist, so this room isn’t what I’d choose to come home to every night, but I can appreciate the furnishings are expensive and tasteful. Small platters of food are strategically placed through the room for optimal grazing. Dishes ranging from meaty things wrapped in flaky pastries to buffalo cauliflower. Wine circulates through the capillaries of the group, casting a spell of languor. Eyes crawl discreetly over strangers’ bodies, and an illicit undercurrent cuts through the banal conversation and polite laughter.

  I tuck into the corner of a love seat and nurse several glasses of chardonnay, waiting for the libation to do its job; to relax me and lull my inhibitions. So far it’s only proven to make me slightly fuzzy-headed, but still nervous as hell. I risk the occasional bite of a kabob with veggies and grilled chicken to keep the alcohol company in my empty stomach. Trey, on the other hand, works the room. Eyes glittering with promise, he floats from conversation to conversation, like a bee considering where to alight and whom to pollinate.

  “First time?”

  The husky voice comes from beside me and belongs to a pretty woman with shiny auburn hair that falls to her waist.

  “What gave it away?” I laugh with more than a little self-deprecation. “The fifth glass of wine or the way I’m huddled in a corner clutching my pearls?”

  She smiles, green eyes glowing under recessed lights. “This ain’t our first rodeo. I know the signs. Which one is yours?”

  I search the small crowd and nod to Trey, in conversation with a willowy woman wearing a knit wrap dress and her lust on her sleeve. Blonde and slim, she could not be more my opposite if she tried. Happily plus-sized and healthy, I have no complaints about my body, though on occasion Trey has. If he fantasizes about a woman like the one standing in front of him, no wonder he encouraged me to shed pounds and wear stick-straight extensions instead of my natural 4A curls. She’s eye-fucking my husband so hard someone should slip her an eyeball condom, and his gaze back isn’t exactly abstinent. The man at her side, presumably her husband, seems to be assessing Trey just as hotly. I can’t blame them. At 5’10”, Trey isn’t much taller than I am, but he’s handsome and gym-fit, compact with pecs and biceps shown to advantage in a sweater I’ve always thought too tight. Too obvious. If this isn’t a night for the obvious, though, I don’t know what is, so good choice. If he pairs up with her, am I expected to pair up with her guy? I should have read the fine print more closely.

  “Ahhh.” The redhead beside me smiles knowingly. “Raina and Ralph are regulars and your husband is just their type.”

  “Their type?” I take another huge gulp of wine, fingers gripped tight around the stem of the glass.

  “Let’s just say they like to share.” She giggles at what I assume must be horror stamped on my face. “Kelly Winfield, by the way. It’s my party.”

  “Oh.” I take her hand in my limp grip before quickly returning shaking fingers to my wine glass, like it’s a raft in choppy waters. “You have a lovely home.”

  Such polite exchanges. You’d think this was a Pampered Chef party, not the den of iniquity it’s about to become. On cue, Carl walks to the center of the room, and Kelly, with a quick reassuring squeeze to my shoulder, joins him.

  “Thank you all for coming tonight,” he says, his tone smooth and even, though a frisson of anticipation zings through the crowd. “We all know the rules, but I just want to remind you that consent is necessary. Watching is allowed only if agreed upon. Most important, have fun.”

  “You’ve all been circulating,” Kelly says, lasciviousness edging out the sweet in her grin. “Speculating about who you’ll spend the night with. It’s time to make your moves.”

  While I’ve been in my dark corner knocking back the booze, everyone else has been plotting and planning, including Trey. He and the couple he’s been talking to turn their heads in unison to look at me. I frown discouragingly, not sure I like the vibe I’m getting from that little trio. Trey whispers something to the woman Kelly called Raina, flashes a confident smile and starts toward my corner.

  “Hey, babe,” he says, sitting beside me and slipping an arm around my shoulders. I stiffen. This dude basically abandons me at a swing party, flirts all night with anything breathing and comes slinking over here now?

  “No.” I say it with my full chest because he needs to understand I’m not going anywhere with that couple and neither of them are getting near my parts.

  He blinks at me, shock and displeasure clouding his eyes. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

  “Oh, sorry. I thought you were going to suggest we have sex with that couple over there.” I nod across the room to where Tweedle Fuck and Tweedle Fum watch us greedily. “Or me with him, or me with her or any combination. My bad.”

  “Well, I was. They’re the hottest couple here, and they want us.”

  “They can have you, but I’m not doing it.”

  “I thought you came here to try. You’re not exactly doing your part to save our marriage.”

  “Oh yeah? What about your part, Trey? Before tonight. Barely showing up for counseling, always choosing your friends over time for us, leaving everything at home to me while you laze—”

  “I don’t laze.” He looks around, making sure no one heard my sharp words. “And it makes sense that you would do a little more around the house, considering the different demands of our careers.”

  “You mean you working in sales and me a lowly teacher doing the menial labor of educating our youth?”

  “I make three times your salary, Sinclaire. Of course, you have more time to cook and clean and take care of things around the house.”

  “And you’re one of the things I take care of around our house, right?”

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this now.” Irritation sours his expression. He tips his head toward the waiting couple. “Can we talk about this later and go do what we came to do?”

  “What we came to do? Or what you guilted me into doing? You basically held our marriage hostage to this decision. Made me feel like you’d walk away if I didn’t try this.”

  “You’re being dramatic.”

  “And you’re being manipulative, but you always are, aren’t you?”

  I blink, seeing him with clear eyes maybe for the first time. The weak jaw. The sullen mouth. The shifty eyes, constantly looking out only for himself.

  “Are you coming or not?” He stands, scowling down at me like I’m a recalcitrant child in need of correction. “Not.” I lift my chin, meeting his eyes with scorn of my own, and I realize there really is no coming back from this. I didn’t think our marriage would end at a swing party, but here we are.

  He grabs my purse and snatches the spare keys I used to alarm the car. “Well you can stay here and rot on the vine if you want, but you’re not taking my car. You’ll wait til I’m done. An even swap would have been fun.”

  His smile is a vicious slash across his face when he looks back to the couple still waiting and watching us. “But Raina won’t mind taking us both on.”

  Before I can say a word or wrest the keys from him, he walks away. When he reaches them, they glance over at me, their expressions searching, querying. Trey shakes his head abruptly, not looking back, but walking with them down the hall, disappearing from the room.

  �
��Dammit.”

  I should go after him. Normally I would, but I don’t want the drama and at this point I’m not sure I care. I slump into the cushions, letting myself feel the full weight of what just happened. No, of what has been happening. It’s only tonight I’ve allowed myself to see it. I survey the room, emptied except for a couple making out on the couch next to me. They can’t be . . . surely not . . .

  But they are.

  His hand slides into her panties, and she tilts her head back, moaning and repaying the favor with her hand down his pants, gripping and tugging. He nudges her blouse aside, exposing and taking her bare breast into his mouth.

  Okay. I didn’t need to see pink nipples tonight. I stand abruptly. I could call an uber and get the hell out of here. I should do that, but not beside them while they’re doing this. They’ve progressed to dry humping now, and by the sounds he’s making, it won’t be dry for long. When I walk out to the foyer, there’s a couple literally screwing against the wall. I tilt my head, trying not to stare, yet fascinated. Trey never fucked me against a wall. He implied I was too heavy. Maybe that motherfucker was too weak.

  Spying a door slightly ajar, I slip into what I presume is the office to make my call. It’s pitch dark, but I can make out a long shape across from what looks like a desk. A sofa? I fumble my way to it, and flop down.

  “Shit!”

  The expletive scares me so badly, I slide right off the couch, my butt hitting the rug covering the hardwood floor with a thump. The click of a lamp being turned on precedes a flood of light, and a wave of embarrassment.

  “Lawd,” is all I can manage when the darkness flees, exposing a man seated on the couch where I just sat . . . on him.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to sit on you. Or to disturb you, for that matter.”

  “You with the swingers?”

  His question, bold, but abrupt, takes me aback. I flinch, prepared to deny it, but realize I actually am with the swingers . . .kinda.

  “Not like that,” I mumble, standing and avoiding the navy blue eyes watching me from behind black-rimmed glasses. He has a bit of Clark Kent going on with those baby blues and raven-wing black hair. Broad shoulders and chest narrow at the waist and hips, tapering to strong legs that stretch out forever. Even sprawled on the couch, there’s something alert about him; a force field crackling with electric energy.

  “I mean, my husband is . . .” I gesture toward the door. “Out there participating.”

  “Isn’t the point of being here that you participate?” His sensual mouth tilts at one corner.

  “Why are you in here?” I ask, side stepping his question. “Shouldn’t you be out there, too?”

  “Nope. I’m an innocent bystander.”

  There’s nothing innocent about the way his gaze travels over my hips and thighs outlined by my close-fitting dress, lingers on the swell of my breasts. He’s about as innocent as a coyote in a hen house, looking for something tender to catch between his teeth.

  “No one here is innocent,” I say with a caustic laugh.

  “I’m Carl’s brother visiting from LA. I surprised him and didn’t know this . . .” He waves a hand toward the closed door of the office. “Was going on. Or that he and my sister-in-law were so deviant. I must say, it makes me like them both a lot more.”

  A giggle bursts past my lips, ridiculous in my current situation, but I can’t hold it back. His smile in return softens the sharply-drawn lines of his lean face.

  “Have a seat.” He pats the space beside him on the couch and slants an encouraging grin up at me. “Preferably not on me this time.”

  “I was gonna call an Uber,” I say, glancing uncertainly from him to the closed door.

  “Or you could stay and dog out your husband to me while he ‘participates’ out there.”

  A slow smile works its way to my lips. How can I smile and feel so calm right now? My marriage, which I’ve fought so hard for the last few years, is over, ending unceremoniously at a swing party. And here I am considering conversation with the host’s fine ass brother while I wait for Trey to finish his ménage business.

  “I believe I will,” I tell him, which elicits a satisfied smile.

  “Your name?” he asks, and the intensity of his stare makes the question more demand than request.

  “Sinclaire.” I don’t bother with the last name. Who knows how much longer I’ll have it. “Yours?”

  “Harper. What do you do, Sinclaire?”

  “I teach fifth grade.”

  His face lights up. “I wanted to be a teacher for a long time. My mom’s an educator.”

  “What’d you end up doing?”

  “I’m a writer.”

  “Anything I would have read?”

  “Oh, absolutely. I had this one blockbuster travel blog that was optioned for an online commercial and aired, like all over YouTube. I’m a really big deal.”

  I snicker. “So no? I wouldn’t have read any of your stuff is what you’re saying.”

  “Unless you like to travel to obscure locales on shoestring budgets, then no.” He grimaces, pressing his broad shoulders deeper into the cushions behind him. “Not exactly what my creative writing professors envisioned for me, but I’m making a living. Barely.”

  “I know all about barely making a living. I mean, Trey earns a lot more than I do, as he tells me every chance he gets.”

  “Excuse me for saying so, but he sounds like a real asshole who doesn’t deserve a classy lady like you.”

  “How do you know I’m classy?”

  “I actually don’t. Just what I came up with instead of something awkward like I think you’re one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen.” His steady, heated stare makes my face burn, and not for the first time, I thank God for melanin hiding blushing cheeks.

  “Are you flirting with me at a swing party?”

  “Is it working?”

  I don’t tell him it definitely is working because that would make me as crazy as he is.

  “Um . . .so are you and your brother close?” I ask, hoping to redirect the conversation somewhere other than me and the irrational, growing attraction I have for a total stranger who isn’t even here to swing, but I suspect . . .could get it.

  “I thought so, but apparently he and Kelly have been running a den of debauchery all these years right under my nose.” He narrows his eyes into a pseudo-outraged glare. “And never invited me!”

  I laugh, as he knew I would, and feel my own shoulders lower, sink into the softness of the cushions.

  “I’m not sure I’ll be eating off any of their surfaces anytime soon,” he goes on, full lips spreading to show his teeth. “There’s no telling what’s happening on that kitchen table right now.”

  He has a small gap between his two front teeth, and for some reason, my mind drifts to inserting my tongue right there in that tiny space in an otherwise perfect smile.

  “You keep staring at my lips like that,” he says, his voice dipping darker, going rougher. “I’ll assume you want to kiss me.”

  My eyes snap to his face, and I try to smile, but his expression has sobered. His gaze, flagrantly assessing, wanting, snatches my breath. My breasts rise and fall with the labor of pulling air in my lungs under the heat of his regard. I try to see myself through his eyes; to figure out what is provoking the quicksilver lust apparent in his stare.

  “You have a thing for curvy women? For big girls?” I ask, flicking a brow up. “For Black girls? For teachers? For—”

  “I apparently have a thing for you,” he murmurs, sitting up and resting his elbows on his knees. He drags his stare from the natural curls piled atop my head, over the red dress clinging to my body and down to my best pair of heels. I agonized over what to wear tonight. What message do you want to send at your first swing party? The fact that I’m here should have said it all, but it didn’t apparently because here I am in the office with a stranger I’m not having sex with, while Trey is God knows where fucking two.

 
; And that strikes me as really unfair.

  Maybe I misjudged this night. I thought it was for Trey. I was doing it to save my marriage. I was doing it to convince Trey somehow that we are worth fighting for. That there is hope. Well tonight has shown me there isn’t hope. At least not with him, but I did come prepared to fuck a stranger. I did come prepared to be open and available. But ever since we arrived, I filtered this night through my failure to make Trey happy. Through my inability to please him. Through my insecurity of not being enough for him, when honestly? He isn’t enough for me. Not by a long shot and not in a long time. He’s gotten everything his way our entire marriage. I relocated to Chicago because of his job. I turned down demanding responsibilities so we would have more time for each other. Only problem is he didn’t do the same, so he’s never available for me.

  Who am I?

  What have I allowed him to take from me these last five years?

  And how do I get it back?

  “Would you like to fuck me, Harper?”

  As soon as the words leave my mouth, I want to Hoover them back down my throat. The audacity, the nerve, the unabashed confidence . . . .to vocalize what I want. Where has that been? I let that son of a bitch take my voice when it used to be my hallmark. It used to be clarion in my head and in the world. I made myself heard in my boisterous family of six. I spoke out in meetings at work, representing my colleague’s concerns to the teacher’s union. I protested, marched, organized in the streets whenever the need arose because that’s who I am. And Trey, somehow with his tight sweaters and his small mind and his UDE—Underwhelming Dick Energy— made me forget that inside the walls of my own home.

  Harper stares at me, his rawboned face not betraying shock or disgust, but curiosity and something else. A muscle ticks along the granite line of his jaw, and emotion, tamped down, flares in his eyes with blue heat like a gas flame.

  “I’d like that very much,” Harper finally says. “As long as it’s not just to get back at your husband.”