“That was amazing, seeing you both come like that,” she whispered.
“Yeah. Best idea ever,” added Kai.
Harry grinned. “I’d suggest we do it again, but it just may kill me.”
* * * *
Deborah lay in her bed, wide awake at long past midnight. Everything had happened so fast. One minute Kai was her best friend and occasional fuck-buddy, and the next she and Kai and Harry—who she’d only even seen once before—were in some weird kind of ménage relationship.
Was this going to last, or would it blow up in her face? The sex was awesome. Actually it was way beyond awesome, but her friendship with Kai was really special, and she’d hate to lose it. On the other hand, she really liked Harry, too. It didn’t seem like they’d only met so recently. It felt as if they’d known each other for a long time. Years even. And yet, what did she really know about him? Nothing much. He was some kind of geek who worked at the Aquatic Center. Hardly a biography really. He could so easily be an ax murderer in his spare time. Kind of like a hobby. Deborah giggled. Nope. He didn’t seem like an ax murderer kind of person, except possibly in a computer game.
However, one thing was true. Before this friendship, relationship, fuck-buddy thing—whatever it was—could go any further, they really needed to learn more about each other. Of course, Kai might know all about Harry. Although, since she’d been in constant contact with Kai and he hadn’t mentioned Harry at all, Deborah had the strong impression the relationship was relatively new for them.
So what they needed to do was get together and talk. Talk, not fuck. Well, maybe talk then fuck. But first talk. She, at least, couldn’t develop a deep friendship without knowing something about her man—er men.
* * * *
Kai couldn’t get the thought that a would-be rapist was after Deborah out of his mind. She was such a tiny thing. Not in temperament. She had a mind like a steel trap, and more personality and vivacity than anyone else he knew. But physically, despite all that energy and the purple hair, she was sort of shy in public and so small there was no way she could protect herself. He’d nearly died when he’d seen her running down that road, the man on the scooter chasing her.
But how was he to protect her? He couldn’t be with her twenty-four-seven, and if he tried to keep her locked up safely, she’d rebel and head off by herself anyway. Just the fact she’d decided to go walking alone instead of going down to the gym and using the treadmill said it all. The woman was obstinate, headstrong, and—and he had to admit he really loved her, dammit.
For the next few days every spare moment he had, Kai tried to think of a way to protect her. He half wanted to ask the police about the bunker or whatever it was he and Harry had found, but he wasn’t ready to do that yet. Of course, it was unlikely they’d tell him much anyway, but it annoyed him that there may be a group of nut-jobs out there attacking women. Or maybe they were would-be terrorists, and one of them just decided to attack Deborah. Or even worse, maybe they were the good guys, SAS or something, and had a rotten apple or two in the barrel. Whichever way he thought about it just made him ache to hold Deborah and keep her safe.
He even considered asking Deb and Harry to move into his apartment with him. God knows it was plenty big enough for three. But the catch there was that it wasn’t his apartment, and he had no way of knowing if the CEO would throw him out if he invited others to live with him. The free rent was really helping him financially. He’d paid off all his college loans and was starting to get a nice nest-egg, and he didn’t want to jeopardize his free housing by being stupid.
He’d even talked to Harry about protecting Deb, but Harry had no more idea of a solution than he did. Which brought him right back to the beginning. What was he supposed to do?
* * * *
“Hey, Harry. The sound system up here has gone insane. Can you come up and fix it please?”
“I’ve got a water pump in pieces all over my desk. Can it wait until tomorrow?”
“Negative on that. Listen to this.” There was the sound of squeaky gym shoes on the floor, and then a switch clicked on and loud static blasted through the phone, just about deafening him.
“On my way,” he said, hanging up fast before he could develop a permanent hearing loss. Sheesh. Likely it’s just something needing a bit of adjustment. All that bouncing on the floor up there’s probably just knocked something a tinch out of alignment.
Harry grabbed his tool box and left the maintenance department, moving briskly through the hallways and up the stairs to the gym. It looked very different during the day with sweaty bodies everywhere on the equipment and an aerobics class pounding the floor in front of the wall of mirrors where he, Kai, and Deborah had entertained themselves just a few nights ago. His dick hardened at the thought, and he forced himself to mentally catalogue potential fixes for a staticky, out-of-alignment sound system, until his cock was lying down inside his pants again.
He was so used to hearing the pounding beat of exercise music that having the instructor yell out, “One and two and one and two” about drove him insane. Another bit of encouragement to make him fix the sound system as fast as he could, he supposed.
Unfortunately the problem wasn’t that easy to fix, and he ended up tracing the wiring around the room, looking for breaks in the cable, connections that had come unplugged, or other obvious solutions. But everything looked fine to him. He really didn’t want to have to totally dismantle the sound system, which was huge, and take it down to the maintenance department if he could repair it in situ. It’d all have to be tested up here anyway, so leaving it in place, fixing it on site, made sense. If he could just find the fucking trouble.
Once again Harry crawled around the floor, tracing everything from place to place, testing each bit as he passed it, checking all the connections, ensuring things were plugged into the correct outlets. After a while he stood up to stretch his cramped muscles and watch a karate class executing some fight moves. It was a class of adults, a mixture of women and men, older and younger, and Harry found himself watching closely as gender, age, even weight didn’t seem to give a hint of who would win each match. It’s all in the moves. Hell, I could do that. Wait a minute! Deborah could do that. I’m going to sign the three of us for a class. That’s much better than giving her a gun, which someone might take from her and use against her. I must tell Kai.
Chapter Five
Deborah loved the idea of learning karate and found every aspect of the lessons completely fascinating. The first thing they learned were single blocks and strikes. Then they were taught how to string a few techniques together. The step after that was to learn some katas, a series of movements and techniques.
“So the blocks and strikes are words, the techniques are sentences, and the katas are a paragraph. It’s just like learning to read,” she said happily.
The two men just stared at her then looked at each other. “If you say so, honey,” said Harry soothingly.
Deborah laughed. “No, really, it all makes sense now. I’m so glad you thought of this.”
Kai hugged her. “I just want you to be safe. I still shake when I remember seeing you run away from that man.”
“I wonder if his DNA turned up on any records. I wonder if he was a bad guy or just a regular man having a bad day,” she said.
“Yeah, I wonder, too, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to go asking,” said Harry.
“Likely not. But it doesn’t stop me thinking that I’d really like to know,” she answered.
They’d developed the habit of sitting in the hot tub for ten or fifteen minutes after their karate lesson, letting seldom-used muscles warm and loosen up. In a roundabout way, this had solved Deborah’s need to talk with the men and learn more about them, especially Harry. The hot tub was in an open area, and anyone could come and join them at any moment, so too much sexy talk was not possible. But chatting over movies they’d enjoyed, places they’d visited, and incidents from their pasts was as good a way of lea
rning about each other, yet in bite-size pieces to avoid the conversation from getting too heavy. The trick, Deborah thought, was remembering which things she wanted to know more about and starting the conversation so it could lead into such areas.
“Is your sister a nurse, too, Harry?”
“Huh? Say what? My sister?”
“Yes, your sister. When you took me to the Women’s Clinic, you said you knew about it because your sister’s best friend was a nurse there.”
“Ha. I told you she had a mind like a steel trap. She catches information and stores it in there forever,” said Kai.
“Yeah, that’s fine. I just thought I must have been in an alternate reality for a while because I could have sworn we were talking about that karate lesson, not about my sister. But whatever. Summer’s not a nurse, no. She works for an organization that’s trying to stop sex trafficking. Which happens here in the good ol’ US of A as well as in places like China, India, Eastern Europe, and Thailand.”
“Well, I guess they don’t call it ‘the oldest profession in the world’ without a reason, but there’s a huge difference between a woman who chooses to be a working girl, usually for the money I believe, and women and girls trafficked to work in brothels.”
“Summer says most of them are either underage, or barely legal, because men pay more for them thinking they’ll be fresh and clean. Of course, it only takes one man refusing to wear a condom to change all that,” said Harry.
“What amazes me is that they say most of the men who use brothels are already in a relationship. Often ‘good, steady, hardworking, married men with a couple kids.’ So why are they shaking the snake with a girl young enough to be their daughter, or even their granddaughter?” asked Kai.
“Shaking the snake?” Deborah laughed.
“Seriously though, the whole issue is mind-boggling. Summer could give you more horrible details than you’d ever want to hear. Although every time she forwards me a petition about this sort of thing, I always sign it because it’s the only way an average Joe has of getting politicians and lawmakers to listen to them,” added Harry.
Thinking of young girls lied to about jobs being available in America, then kidnapped, their passports and visas taken from them, and being forced to service a hundred or more clients a week almost made Deborah sick. Some of these men just wanted a quick fuck, all over and done within five minutes. Others, she knew, got off on violence, intimidation, and abusing someone younger and weaker than themselves. That was why they wanted a sex slave instead of a willing woman of their own. Not good indeed. Something that must be stopped. “Good on Summer for working to end such evil.”
“Yeah, I’m proud of her,” said Harry.
Two other people joined them in the hot tub then, and the conversation turned to sports, as it often seemed to when a group of men got together.
* * * *
They’d been learning karate for over a month, when Kai finally admitted to himself that it was up to him to ask the CEO about the others joining him in the penthouse apartment if they were ever going to be together properly and move forward with their relationship. For a start, he’d been the one who’d brought them together. Not that it’d been intentional. He’d never meant to put Deb in the position of having to face his bisexuality head-on. But in one way, that scare with the possible rapist had been a damn good thing because he’d raced off to save her and in the process had discovered neither Harry nor Deb minded being part of a threesome. And Kai had to admit the sex was much better three ways than two. Although he’d loved Deb for a long time, and was ready to admit he loved Harry as well, by having all three of them together it was a much more fulfilling relationship. No more trying to separate his persona into the gay side and the hetero side, but just accepting himself for what he was. Bisexual. Thank God the two people he loved were cool with that.
Secondly, his apartment was huge with plenty of space for all of them and all their stuff—Harry had about a million computers, well likely a dozen anyway—and Kai’s apartment was central in town so not a long commute for any of them.
Which brought him back to biting the bullet. His weekly e-mail to the CEO was due today, so today needed to be the day that he said something about Harry and Deborah. Although he hoped like hell the CEO was broadminded about such things. His artwork was certainly mighty broadminded. Some of it was positively X-rated, so hopefully…
Hi Mr. Driessen.
Everything is fine at the apartment. No maintenance issues or worries.
For some time I’ve been in a relationship with two other people. Since this apartment is much larger than either of their homes, I was wondering if you’d object to them moving in here with me. Of course we’d all be happy to sign a new contract agreement about caring for the property for you.
Thanks,
Kai
Kai had hardly hit send before a reply appeared.
My dear Mordecai,
I’ve always known you swing both ways. It’s one of the things I like about you. Deborah and Harrison are welcome to move in with you. They seem like fine young people. My agreement with you about the apartment remains unchanged.
Driessen.
He knows about me? He knows about Deb and Harry? Well, of course he does. He didn’t get to be CEO without having a few brains and a damn good network for information, I suppose. But hey, who knew it’d be that easy to get his approval.
Shit! What if either Harry or Deb doesn’t want to move here?
Kai grabbed his cell phone to ring them both then thought a little more. He’d gone over the options so often they came easily to his mind, but that didn’t mean the others had done the same process. Besides, he knew Deb worried about messing up the rug or whatever here. As if the housekeeper couldn’t fix anything that got dirty. It was not like they were planning wild drunken orgies here or anything.
Had he been a bit ruthless just going ahead and assuming they’d be happy to move in with him? What if they said no? Or if one said yes and the other said no and it broke up the unity they’d built between them?
No, I had to ask first. It would have been stupid me talking to them, maybe raising their hopes and expectations and then having the CEO turning my request down. The first move had to be by me. So now all I need to do is convince them both that moving in here with me is the logical next step.
So, what were his arguments? They liked spending time with each other and the relationship couldn’t really progress much farther unless they were together more. Spending days and nights together instead of snatched time here and there. It was bad enough when their work schedules didn’t mesh and one had to work on a weekend day and the others didn’t. At least if they were living together they’d always have some time together. Yeah, and the shopping and housework would be easier done communally. Oh. Likely the housekeeper would need more money if three of them were messing the place up. Or perhaps they could just agree to clean the bathrooms or something? Ah, they could work that out together. The main thing would be to get Harry and Deb to agree to move in with him.
Likely phoning them one at a time wasn’t the smartest option. He needed them both face-to-face so he could see their reactions. But first he needed to marshal his arguments. This was one discussion where he planned to get his own way completely and totally.
Kai jumped up and went to look at the second and third bedrooms. I reckon all the furniture will fit in one of those rooms, and then Harry can have the other room for his stuff. I don’t think I should change the office at all, as the CEO is sure to use that on the occasions he’s here.
* * * *
Deborah was surprised when Kai insisted she and Harry join him for dinner at his apartment. Kai didn’t cook. His idea of a meal was throwing a frozen pizza into the microwave. Months ago she’d bought him several cans of soup, and she was pretty sure the only person who’d ever eaten them was herself. But still, he’d said he was cooking dinner, so maybe he’d started taking cooking lessons or something. It should be
interesting to see what he gave them, anyway.
Deborah had been very busy lately with her job as a manager of client services at Overcoming Disabilities, Inc. A lot of her clients were younger people who’d been badly injured in accidents, usually motor vehicle accidents, but with the right kind of help many of them could live independent lives. Unfortunately many of them were simply told, “You’ll never walk again,” and they gave up. Instead of attempting various kinds of physiotherapy, they resigned themselves to life in a wheelchair and grew sad and lonely. At least by attending classes and exercises, their minds stayed alert, and they were able to see the potential for improvement and learn new ways of doing tasks. Ways that allowed them more control over their own lives. Because the more they were able to change their circumstances, the happier they tended to be, and the more empowered they were to attempt other new things and keep the cycle moving and themselves progressing.
Which wasn’t to deny how very hard it could be to see a young, formerly fit person, reduced to struggling to stand up or even to take a single, assisted step. No, plenty of them would never walk again, but most of them could gain control of certain areas of their lives, and some, a precious few, might walk or drive a car again.
Deborah sighed, shoving a folder of case files into her briefcase to take home. I will find a means of helping these people. I will!
She grabbed her cell phone off her desk and dropped it into her purse, wincing when she saw how late she was. Kai had said for them to be at his apartment at seven, and it was already ten after seven. Add to that a fifteen minute drive and there was no way she had time to go home and change her clothes first. Oh well, she’d call him when she hit the freeway and give him her ETA.
Deborah hurried out to the parking lot, surprised at how empty it was. “Looks like I was the only one working back tonight,” she muttered, as she headed toward her little, blue car, Pablo. She was parked near a hedge and had her keys in her hand, ready to press the central locking button when a huge weight landed on her back, knocking her to the concrete.
Small Woman, Big Trouble [Wet and Willing 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 5