‘I was just passing. I wondered if you fancied working out.’
Josie spoke softly and smiled that calm, infuriating smile of hers.
For a moment, Crystal was taken in by it, lulled into feeling that Josie was exactly as she used to be - or rather, as she had thought her to be. Then she remembered the truth.
‘That’s what you say! In fact, I was on the way to the country club when I saw Jamie. I thought you would have already been there.’
There was no doubting now the exchange of looks between her husband and Josie.
A cold feeling flowed over her. She grimaced, a thing she hated doing because lines have a habit of ingraining themselves in features. But they were hard to dispel, bearing in mind their cause. No one had done this to her before. No one had played the same games with her husband that she played with theirs.
But Josie looked pretty serious. She was frowning as she put her glass of champagne down on the table before walking over to Crystal.
‘Are you sure he said that?’
Crystal nodded. ‘Yes. That was exactly what he said.’
Josie shook her head. ‘I’m not so sure he was telling the truth.’
Crystal frowned. ‘What makes you say that?’
Now it was Thomas who stepped forward. ‘Josie was just telling me she’d called in to see Mariana before coming here.’
‘And she said nothing?’ Crystal found that incredulous and her voice echoed that view.
Josie shook her head. Worry lines creased her brow and her lips were turned downwards.
‘Nothing at all. She was laughing when I called in to see her. Alex was there and they were having coffee. She offered me some too, though I did get the impression she wanted me to leave, but not because of any specific problem. I just got the impression that she and her father-in-law wanted to be alone.’
Crystal frowned and shook her head. ‘I find that hard to believe. He sounded so adamant that she had gone away with a friend and that their split up would be amicable.’
‘Like ours?’ voiced Thomas.
Crystal blushed. Here was Thomas actually talking about the one thing that she really wanted.
‘I don’t now what you—’
She stopped herself. Why lie? Why pussyfoot around? ‘Yes!’ she exclaimed firmly. ‘Yes! Just like us. An amicable arrangement!’
A glow came to Crystal’s features. Suddenly, her cards were spread out on the table. There it all was for her husband and Michael’s wife to see.
She took a deep breath as though a great lump had suddenly been plucked from her breast. She couldn’t help smiling, couldn’t help feeling proud of herself. She had done it, but the strange thing was that neither Josie nor Thomas looked in the least bit surprised.
What happened next amazed her.
Josie and Thomas moved closer together and put their arms around each other. Josie smiled up into Thomas’s face.
‘The truth is out at last,’ Josie exclaimed. Thomas hugged her closer and kissed the top of her head.
‘I didn’t know...’ Crystal’s mouth hung open. ‘You and Thomas?’
Josie smiled her enigmatic smile, glanced at Crystal, then gazed again into the eyes of Thomas, the man who was now holding her more tightly to his body.
‘Thomas was my first love,’ Josie explained. ‘Every other man I ever went to bed with had to match up to him. That first time is the criteria against which every other lover has to measure up to. Don’t you think so?’
Crystal stared at the deep green eyes that looked so boldly at her. Her mouth opened and closed like a goldfish. It was hard to put what she was feeling into words. Faith in the power of her own seductive skills had made her oblivious to that of others. Now she was seeing things a little more clearly.
‘I never knew,’ she said quietly.
Thomas shook his head and smiled a little sadly. ‘You never did see what was under your nose, Crys.’
‘No.’ Crystal shook her head. ‘No. Perhaps I didn’t.’
A calmness seemed to hang over all three of them.
There was a sense of suspended time around them, as though each were suddenly contemplating exactly why none of them had spoken about this before.
But there it was, this calm, just waiting for someone to pierce it and get things into motion.
It was Josie who broke the spell.
She looked up lovingly into Thomas’s eyes. He looked back down at her. Some unspoken message seemed to flash between them.
As they both looked at Crystal, they held out their arms to her. Both were smiling.
‘Don’t look so worried, Crystal,’ said Josie.
‘Come on, Crys,’ Thomas added, jerking his head to indicate he wished her to join them.
Crystal stared. Was this her husband doing this? The man to whom she had never been faithful?
And Josie. Her friend? Josie whose friendship she had abused by having an affair with her husband.
Suddenly, everything seemed so unreal.
I’m sleepwalking, she told herself. I must be sleepwalking.
But she couldn’t be. She could hear her footfall on the solid tiled floor as she walked towards them, she could feel the warm softness of their arms as they folded her to them.
‘This is the way it should be,’ said Josie, and kissed her cheek.
‘Free up, Crys,’ added Thomas, and kissed the other. Relaxation did come to Crystal. Along with it came other feelings aroused by the fact that both Josie and Thomas’s bodies were close to hers.
Why now? she asked herself. Why now?
Thomas had never made her feel that responsive before, yet now, here he was with another woman, and Crystal could feel her nipples hardening and a curling, folding sensation between her legs.
Suddenly, she didn’t want just to be hugged by them, she wanted more. Much more.
They all began kissing each other. There was an incredible feeling in doing this, thought Crystal, as though all flesh was her flesh, and her flesh was theirs.
It was as though there was no Thomas, no Josie, and no Crystal, but only one tremendous, primeval force that once unleashed was unstoppable.
That force was now taking the three of them, moulding them together as lips kissed and hands caressed.
Crystal was aware of Thomas’s silk dressing gown falling open and his penis folding it apart as he erected.
Half dizzy with ecstasy, she ran her hand down over his stomach until her fingertips met the hardness of his penis. It felt warm, it felt so much more beguiling than it had ever felt before.
Her fingers also touched those of Josie’s. She too was exploring the rod of firm flesh. Briefly, their fingers touched, entwined in silent understanding, then went on their way to clasp the hot penis in the tightness of their hands.
Their hands no longer worked as of two separate women. They were now one and the same, both fired with the same desire to explore this man’s body, to give him pleasure and, in return, to give themselves pleasure.
Crystal continued to grasp his penis, to jerk her hand up and down it and to feel the throb of his vein as his climax drew nearer.
As she did this, Josie stroked his balls, her fingers playing over his flesh as though she were playing a refined tune on some fantastic instrument.
Josie smiled provocatively and her dark green eyes met the blue ones of her husband’s lover.
‘Are you going to go down and suck him, or shall I?’ Crystal looked at her with amazement. Was she dreaming? No, she told herself. No, you are not.
She felt Josie’s hand on her breast, felt her fingers undo the buttons of her crisp, white blouse.
No, she was not dreaming.
In fact, no dream could make her breast feel so warm as it came naked out of her blouse
. No dream could make her nipple as hard as Josie’s fingers were making it.
Crystal swallowed hard. She had a need in her to reciprocate Josie’s actions.
She reached out and pulled Josie’s tee shirt from her body so that her round, firm breasts bounced free.
Eyes filled with the pink and white perfection of them, Crystal reached out and touched one of her friend’s nipples. Her other hand maintained a firm pull on Thomas’s penis.
‘Well?’ asked Josie, eyebrows raised. ‘Are you going to suck your husband, or shall I?’
Suddenly a fire of sheer lust, and an overwhelming need to see Thomas being sucked by someone else, came over Crystal.
‘You,’ she said softly. Josie smiled.
‘I hoped you might say that.’
‘No,’ said Thomas suddenly. ‘No,’ he repeated. ‘I want Crystal to do it, and at the same time I want her to play with your sex.’
They both looked directly at Crystal. So aroused was she that Crystal did not protest. The whole idea was lustful, sordid even. But she couldn’t help that. She wanted to do this, wanted to pleasure both as they’d never been pleasured before.
‘Alright,’ she said throatily. ‘I’ll do it.’ With that, she sank to her knees. Thomas’s penis was already near her face.
Keeping her eyes on Josie’s trim white legs as she raised her skirt, Crystal took her husband’s penis into her mouth and began to suck on him.
As she sucked, she stroked Josie’s thighs. Josie pulled down her own knickers. A thatch of golden hair came into view. She’s right, Crystal said to herself, it does glisten as though it’s wet.
Immediately it came into view, her fingers reached out to touch Josie’s pubic hair. It was crisp to the touch. Still sucking vigorously on Thomas’s penis, she ran her fingers through the nest of hair, then pushed it into the first inch of Josie’s divide.
There was a slickness there, a wet juicy slipperiness as Josie’s sexual juices seeped throughout her sex and over Crystal’s fingers.
Crystal closed her eyes. The smell of sex, the feel of sex was enough to inflame her ardour and make her want more of her husband’s prick in her mouth, more of his mistress’s juices pouring over her fingers.
This is lewd, she thought to herself. Here I am giving my husband and his mistress pleasure, and yet I do not feel abused. Instead I feel as if I am adding an extra flavour to their relationship.
But in that one moment, there was nothing of Thomas except for this part of him she had in her mouth. His smell was in her head and the coarseness of his pubic hair enveloped her nose. Above her, Josie and Thomas were kissing each other, lost in their love, lost in their lust.
Josie’s hands were stroking Thomas’s chest muscles and tangling her fingers in his light smattering of chest hair.
In return, Thomas was playing with Josie’s breasts, squeezing her nipples and cupping her flesh.
There was a need in Crystal that she had never felt before. A need to give others an orgasm when she herself was getting nothing.
She would show them! An odd thought to enter her head. Why would she want to show them? Why would she want to add another dimension to their affair?
She didn’t know! She didn’t know and she didn’t care!
That was the truth of it.
She was riding an extraordinary wave of control, of sex, and of personal urgency.
The urgency was the need to make both of them come, to be their puppet master and have them orgasm because of her and not because of them.
The penis in her mouth began secreting the first of its juices.
The female sex that was warm and moist beneath her fingertips, began to tense, to tremble a shivering, shimmering effect.
But there would be more, she told herself, there would be more she could give them.
In order to do so, her tongue flicked delicately into the eyelet of Thomas’s penis.
Simultaneously, she pushed her finger into Josie’s vagina and consistently tapped her thumb against her clitoris.
Josie’s clitoris hardened arid spasmed beneath her touch. Glowing with satisfaction, Crystal added greater zeal to her ministrations until neither could resist the need to orgasm, to tremble beneath the terrible touch of Crystal’s fingers.
They showered afterwards, all three of them together. As though it was the most normal thing in the world, Thomas made coffee and they sat around the table and drank it together.
There was a silence at first and eyes seemed shy to meet eyes.
Josie, who Crystal now thought of as the boldest of their group, was the first to speak.
‘We need to talk more. Think what might have been avoided if we’d all got together round the table from the very beginning.’
‘True,’ said Thomas and flashed a look across at Crystal. ‘But it’s not too late. We can still salvage something out of our various relationships. I mean, do we all want to end up like Mariana and Jamie?’
‘No,’ said Crystal and shook her head.
Josie frowned and put her coffee mug down on the table.
‘Talking about Jamie and Mariana, what do you think about it? I mean, it does seem a bit incredulous that Mariana made no mention of Jamie leaving when I saw her at home with her father-in-law.’
Thomas frowned. ‘That worries me.’
Both women looked to him for further enlightenment.
‘I mean,’ Thomas went on, ‘Mariana would have said.
Can we take it that she said nothing because Alex was there? Surely not. Alex was always close to them.’
‘Especially to Mariana,’ said Josie. ‘She always did like the father figure. I think her own father kept her at a distance even though she adored him.’
‘Or perhaps she adored him too much,’ added Crystal, and the eyes of her husband and his mistress were immediately directed at her.
‘Why do you say that?’ It was Josie who asked her. ‘Well you know,’ said Crystal, directing her words at Josie. ‘You were there when she talked about the Turk and the way her father pushed her away from him - as though she were trying to seduce him or something. Remember?’
Suddenly, Josie’s eyes were staring. There was fear in her look.
‘You don’t think that...’
Thomas was first up from the table. ‘There’s only one way to find out the truth of this. I’ll get dressed. Let’s get over there and sort this out. Phone Michael. Tell him about it. See if he knows anything more than we do.’
It was Crystal who sprang to her feet to phone her lover.
Josie sat silently, eyes wide, mouth open, and complexion as pale as snow. It never had been of any consequence that Michael was having an affair with her friend, so it certainly was not going to matter now they all knew where they were at.
‘He’ll meet us over there,’ said Crystal as she put the phone down.
Josie nodded.
Thomas had returned. He was dressed in cream slacks, navy sweater and sneakers. His dark eyebrows met above his nose and there was a look of anxiety in his eyes.
‘I’ll drive,’ he said quickly, and no one argued.
Josie sat alongside Thomas and Crystal sat in the back seat.
They drove silently for a while, each engrossed in their own thoughts.
Josie thought how strong Thomas’s fingers looked on the wheel. She had an intense impulse to touch them, to caress them and speak naughty words to him as to where he might put them later. On this occasion she would control her urges. First Mariana. Just to make sure. To make sure of what was... She didn’t know. None of them knew.
Thomas knew his knuckles were turning white, knew he was driving too fast. Every muscle in his body seemed to have turned to iron, though he couldn’t quite work out why. After all, they were only going over to Jamie’
s place to check things out... Or was this rigidity a simple reaction in the aftermath of the sex game with Josie and Crystal, his lover and his wife.
Crystal was staring out of the car window. She was thinking of the country club and how they had all first got together; her and Thomas. Michael and Josie, and Mariana and Jamie. Perhaps that was the problem, the catalyst. They had all met, they had all become friends. That moment had been the one to change them all, to alter the format of their relationships. It was almost as though they had each taken off their clothes and lain them aside to reveal their true selves; just as if they had entered a changing room. That’s what their meeting had been, a changing room.
Her thoughts dissipated as they swung behind the bank of dark trees that hid Jamie and Mariana’s house from the road.
The outside security light came on as they swung into the gravel patch between the garage and the side door of the house.
A soft blue light was shining out through the glass of the door.
Thomas was the first to reach it. He knocked. Crystal rang the bell and Josie went round to the front window to peer in.
‘No one at home,’ said Josie.
Crystal got down on her knees and opened the letterbox.
‘There’s a light on inside and... oh, my God!’
‘What is it?’
Thomas pushed her away and dropped to his knees to take her place.
The sound of running footsteps heralded Josie rushing breathlessly back to them.
‘Thomas!’
‘I know!’ he shouted. ‘I know. This place is a mess. It looks as though a bomb’s hit it.’
‘We have to call the police. We do have to call the police, don’t we?’
Crystal sounded frantic - and confused.
A sort of relief came to her, and also a kind of apathetic femininity as she ran into Michael’s arms. He looked highly embarrassed as she threw her arms round his neck. ‘It’s alright, Michael. They know. They don’t mind. It’s alright.’
He looked a little relieved, but not much. ‘What’s all this about?’ he asked as he restrained Crystal from plastering him with kisses.
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