by Kit Tunstall
He pushed in and out of my mouth, moving gently, but always deeply, settling back as far in my throat as he could. Each time he did, I swallowed, knowing the sensation heightened his pleasure. He stiffened and jerked almost every time, though he had to be expecting it. It must have felt really good.
Joshua had started thrusting inside me more erratically, and I realized I was just as uncoordinated. I hovered on the edge of coming, and the first twitch of his erection was all I needed to send me over the edge. I could feel the warmth of his release through the condom as his cock spasmed inside me, and my sheath clung to him, convulsing as I surrendered to my release.
As I came, Ben started thrusting more urgently into my mouth, though he was careful not to go past the point where it hurt to take him. His arousal flowed in ever-increasing waves, and when he twitched inside my mouth, I knew he was on the edge of release. I hollowed out my cheeks and sucked firmly, hopefully giving him the stimulation he needed to come.
It must have been the final thing that sent him over the edge, because he tightened in my mouth before convulsing, spurts of his release hitting the back of my tongue and throat. They slipped down, and I had no alternative but to swallow. I would have anyway, but this made it easier, since he was so deep in my throat.
With a harsh gasp, he finally pulled carefully from my mouth and laid down on my left side.
Joshua hadn’t disengaged yet, and his semi-hard cock was inside me, but clearly sated for the moment. I was too tired and exhausted from the blissful release to manage words, so I just snuggled closer to him and Ben, basking in the afterglow without the ability to speak for several minutes.
Finally, Joshua rolled away from me with clear reluctance, dumping the used condom in the trashcan by the bed before rolling back to curve his body against my right side. I lay on my back with them on their sides on either side of me, their hands both gripping my thighs. They rubbed me in nearly identical slow circles, as though they had coordinated the motion. I was confident they hadn’t, but both were clearly good at working together for a common goal.
Their thumbs glided in tandem up my inner thighs, until their thumbs brushed against my mound. I thought about telling them I couldn’t take more for the moment, and then I considered begging for them to give me more pleasure. In the end, I couldn’t do either one. I was simply too sated. I let my eyes close and my breathing relax. I wasn’t sleeping, but was somewhere between fully alert and asleep.
“Thank you,” said Joshua.
I tried to blink open my eyes, but they felt too heavy. I was about to tell him I felt like thanking him too, but I couldn’t seem to get my lips to form syllables. It soon became obvious he wasn’t talking to me anyway.
“You’re welcome, though that implies a sense of ownership I don’t have over her.”
“How can you bear to share her?”
Ben let out a little sigh. “It was hard. Honestly, it was harder than I expected based on previous experiences with multiple partners. But it was also hot watching you please her. I liked seeing her happy and satisfied, so that made it easier.”
“You’ve done this before?” asked Joshua, sounding surprised.
“I have, but not with someone I care about as much as I do Sofia. I’ve never felt jealous before, but there was definitely a hint of it amid the desire I felt watching you two. It was like she realized that and picked the right moment to invite me to join you two. As soon as I was included, the jealousy faded away, making it easy to remember why you’re here.”
“To make her happy,” said Joshua in a tone that was difficult to interpret.
“Was it your first time sharing a woman with a friend?” asked Ben.
“Yes. It was strange, at least in the beginning, but then I lost myself in her and kind of forgot you were here until she had you come over. Even then, it didn’t bother me that you were with us. I was too focused on how good it felt to be inside her to find it strange or intimidating.”
“I can see there’s a connection between the two of you. That’s part of the reason I encouraged her to pursue you.”
I held my breath as I waited to hear the answer to the question Joshua asked next. I still wasn’t able to fully wake up, but I couldn’t allow myself to slip into sleep just yet either. I supposed I was doing a form of eavesdropping, since I wasn’t quite asleep, though they thought I was. It was too much effort to lift my eyes and let them know I was hearing every word though.
“The other reason?”
“Besides making her happy, I like knowing there’s someone else to look out for her. If something happens to me, she won’t be alone as long as she has another partner. You’re sort of my insurance policy for her safety, Joshua. Just make sure you take care of her.”
“You do the same.”
“I do,” said Ben without a hint of false modesty. “I’ll take care of her to the best of my ability and until my dying breath. I expect you to do the same if you’re going to be in a relationship with her, and this wasn’t a one-time thing. She comes before you in every instance.”
There was a brief silence, and it was difficult to interpret Joshua’s tone. “I know you don’t mean just sexually, and I’ll do my best to keep her safe and put her first.”
The rest of the tension left my body, and I started to slip over the edge into sleep. With my last remaining bit of awareness, I realized that wasn’t exactly a promise. I didn’t know why that bothered me, but it did. Maybe because Ben had been so fervent about his determination to protect me, even to the point of sharing me with someone else to keep me safe if that’s what it took.
Either way, I was a little unsettled by Joshua’s lack of full commitment, though that was silly. We had barely begun the relationship, and I doubted he was ready to promise a lifetime commitment. I wasn’t either, and viewed through that perspective, I was no longer worried that he hadn’t promised to put me first. He’d said he’d try his best, and that was good enough for now. Besides, I had two men to put first. They might think they were doing this to protect me, but I was equally determined to protect them.
Chapter Nine
Joshua moved into our tent after that night, and though we were the subject of gossip— having overheard more than my fair share the first few days—we all ignored it, and soon enough everyone seemed to accept the idea of the three of us together. At least no one had objected to the point where they felt like they needed to leave the camp to get away from our den of iniquity.
I couldn’t imagine anybody being so morally outraged to give up the safety to be found in numbers after the HLV virus had decimated most of the population, but I was glad not to have that on my conscience. I’m not sure it would have bothered me that someone else’s judgment of my life had prompted them to leave the safety of the camp, but I suspected it might have worried me, or at least made me sad.
With my new start, and a sense of safety now that I had two lovers watching out for me, I didn’t have time or interest in indulging in darker emotions. I was too busy being happy for the first time in a long time. Ben had made me happy when it was just him and me, but something about adding Joshua to the mix had made it the perfect combination.
I wished we could all stay there happily forever, but they still had to leave the camp. I noticed they never went on the same runs together, and I assumed it was part of an agreement they had reached so that they weren’t both killed at the same time if something went wrong. They wanted to watch out for me, and I appreciated their concern.
Before the virus, I might have been annoyed by their protective tendencies and insisted I didn’t need anyone else to survive. Things had changed now though. It wasn’t just physical survival, but emotional as well. I needed them like I needed my next breath, and the idea of losing either one of them was enough to make my stomach surge with nausea. Now that I had both of them, I couldn’t imagine reverting to just two of us again.
Joshua seemed to be gifted when it came to foraging, sharing once in an offhand way tha
t his mother had taught him and his sister how to find wild edibles. He often spent hours combing the area around the camp in his quest for food and useful herbs. He was working with Grace, teaching her a few of the simple remedies his mother had passed along to him. He didn’t remember as much of them as he’d like to, but I was certain anything he could add to the camp would help.
Ben continued going out with other groups for runs, and more than once, they encountered the other party that clearly shared our territory. There had been no more gunfire, and seemingly by unspoken agreement, both groups steered clear of each other, but it was still nerve-racking to have him out there and at risk.
As part of my duties, I had started organizing the classroom system for the four children who lived at the camp. The youngest was only three, so he technically wasn’t ready for school, but he liked to come and sit at the table sometimes and color. The other three were of various ages, from five to eleven, so it was a bit of a challenge to design the curriculum for three different ages in three different levels, especially since I hadn’t gotten to the point of taking very many teacher education courses yet.
I was the closest we had to a qualified teacher though, and I certainly preferred it to laundry or gardening, though I still had those duties as well. I’d lucked out and avoided another latrine rotation so far, so I knew it had to be coming soon. That was the duty I hated most of all, but I imagined everyone in the camp would say the same thing.
We were busy and happy, and in some ways it had almost started to take on a feel of real life and contentment, as though the HLV virus had never existed, and the people who had once been part of our lives were now just a bittersweet memory. It was easy to feel that way during the day anyway, though the nights were harder.
Even with two lovers to keep me warm, and to soothe any nightmares, I still dreamed about my family a lot, though I was gradually dreaming more pleasant things than scary, and I hadn’t had the recurring nightmare that had plagued me at Fort Glacier since shortly after Joshua had moved into our tent.
That one had been based mostly on my own experiences, except in the dream instead of entering the Fort Glacier program voluntarily, I was taken from my family at gunpoint, and every time I failed one of the medical tests, they would shoot one of my family members. It had been a haunting dream, but it was fading away too, just like a lot of the other unpleasant things. Life wasn’t perfect, and I would have given anything except for the people I had in my life now to undo what had happened, but I was finding a way to be content.
Except with Joshua, and only in one regard. He was so closed off about his past, and he refused to discuss much of it. I tried several times in different ways to draw him out, but to no avail. Ben cautioned me to give him time to open up, assuring me it was probably painful to discuss whatever was in his past, but I was having a difficult time being patient.
I was deeply in love with Ben, and I was certain I could feel the same for Joshua, but I couldn’t unless and until he dropped the last barriers surrounding him. It wasn’t that I expected to hear anything dark or disturbing. I was certain his stories were similar to the rest of ours—he’d lost his family and everyone he’d ever known to the virus, and then he’d survived by whatever means were available until he found his way to the camp. To me, it felt like a lack of trust on his part that he wouldn’t confide, and if he didn’t trust me, I wasn’t certain I could completely trust him. I trusted him with my body, but my heart was a different matter.
I was confessing all this to Natalie as we harvested zucchini and yellow squash from small mounds in the garden.
“He should totally open up to you. Patience is overrated.”
I wasn’t entirely certain if she was serious or just teasing me slightly. I dug at the hill with a little more force than necessary, biting back a curse when I broke the side of the squash open. “So you think he’s being unreasonable by not telling me more about his past?”
Natalie hesitated for a moment before shrugging. “Kind of, but I also think Ben’s probably right too. He’s probably just not ready to talk about it, but if it’s bothering you, and he knows it’s bothering you, then he should push past his discomfort to at least give you the basics. What do you know about his past?”
“He hasn’t mentioned much. He was in college, but I don’t even know what his major was. I know he had two parents, and they both died in the first wave, and his sister…” I frowned as I tried to recall if he’d mentioned which wave of the virus to taken her, but the information wasn’t there.
“He mentioned having a serious girlfriend, but she died before the second wave from some kind of infection. He didn’t think it was related to the HLV virus. He plays guitar, though he hasn’t practiced since the world went to hell, his favorite color is brown, and he misses pizza more than any other food.”
Natalie paused after snipping zucchini away from the stock. “That’s all you know? “
I nodded. “There are probably some other small details floating around in my head, but you see why I’m getting frustrated now? We’ve been a couple… triad… for almost a month now, and I’m still no closer to really knowing everything about him or even much of consequence, than I was before we became involved.”
“That’s pretty unreasonable. I get not wanting to talk about his past too much, but if those are the only details you have, it sounds kind of sketchy to me. Are you sure he’s what he claims to be?”
My eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t even come up with a theory about why he’d lie or pretend to be someone else, but if he’s told you details that aren’t true, maybe he’s afraid to fill in more if they’re all made up, in case he forgets what he said. It doesn’t make much sense that he’d have to be on the run for something or hide his identity now, when the government has basically collapsed, law enforcement is nonexistent, and we’re all on our own, but maybe he’s been on the run for something for so long that he’s forgotten how to be honest about it.”
I wanted to dismiss Natalie’s theory as pure speculation, bordering on paranoia, but once the idea was in my mind, I was finding it difficult to completely rule out the possibility that Joshua had been lying to me about who he was. “Why would he be on the run?”
She shrugged again. “Maybe he has state secrets. He could be a CIA agent turned whistleblower like that one guy. Remember his name?” She tilted her head for a moment, clearly lost in thought before shrugging. “I can’t actually remember his name, but I’m sure you know who I’m talking about. It was a huge scandal when he revealed all that information about the CIA spying on people.”
I nodded, unable to recall his name as well, but remembering the discussion that had grown from events that we had covered in my government class. I’d been a junior in high school that year. “That’s possible, but I kind of doubt it. He seems pretty young to be a CIA agent.”
She nodded, looking thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe he’s an escaped convict, and he committed a crime so awful that he’s sure he’d be banished from the camp if we found out.”
Unfortunately, that theory sounded a lot more plausible than the one she’d come up with before then. It was far more likely he was a prison inmate than a former spy, if he was anything nefarious at all. Hopefully, I was just letting my frustration get the best of me, coupled with Natalie’s active imagination. I tried to dismiss the thoughts as we finished collecting the ripe vegetables and taking them to Joel and Betsy.
When I returned to the tent, I found Joshua had returned as well, and he was sorting through the things he had gathered that day. I watched him form little piles on the table with interest, almost surprised when he answered my questions without hesitation. I’d gotten so used to him holding back, I half-expected him to guard the secrets of the plants he brought back too.
Not wishing to continue this way, I sat down beside him on the floor, which was basically a piece of canvas covered with a throw rug someone had brought
in. Probably Director Douche. I put my hand on his leg to get his attention. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”
He barely glanced away from his activities for a moment. “About what?”
I could practically see the walls forming around him, but I had to push, even a little bit. I just wanted to know more about him. Now that Natalie’s theory had taken hold in my mind, I was concerned she was right. What if he’d done something awful, something that would have banished him from normal society before the HLV virus? We didn’t have a full justice system in place, but if he was an escaped convict, was it our place to do something about it? Or would we just send him on his way? I didn’t know, and my heart clenched in my chest the idea of having to say goodbye to him. “Tell me about your life before the virus.”
He shrugged. “You know everything. I lived with my parents and sister, I played the guitar, and I went to college.”
“For what?”
“Botany.”
That didn’t surprise me, especially considering his foraging skills, but I was startled that he’d actually answered the question. It wasn’t exactly enough information to start writing his unauthorized biography, but even this small concession was enough to make me feel better. “What were you going to do with that?”
He shrugged. “I’d probably end up taking over my parents’ nursery. My sister had no interest in it, so I was the logical choice. I actually liked working there on weekends, and I was looking forward to changing things a bit when I was in charge. Trying some new innovations, and perhaps introducing a line of herbs. My mom knew some of the healing stuff, but not enough to make a side business, so it was on my list of things to learn.”
“What did your sister want to do?”
“She was only thirteen when the HLV virus started, so she hadn’t really made a decision yet. She vacillated between a doctor, a commercial airline pilot, and a ballet dancer. She was smart enough and talented enough to have done any of the three.”