by KT Morrison
Cole kissed her lips when the waiter was gone and her hands came up, her nails scratching slowly across his stubble. He sucked her lip, pinched it in his and pulled it away, looking in her eyes. He winked, licked his lips, then went past her into the bathroom.
“Jesus Christ,” she whispered alone in the empty hall. She straightened her tights and adjusted her skirt, dried her mouth again and returned to the table.
Riding in the Range Rover, heading back to Narragansett, stomach full, tired, feet sore, Max couldn't shake the feeling that something had happened when she was in the washroom. Cole had left the table shortly after Maggie did and there was an overlap of time when they were both gone. Max was left at the table to smile and nod and do his best not to look as uncomfortable as he felt. And boy did he feel uncomfortable.
Maggie and Cole were friends, but the way he fed her that oyster? That was too much. It had to be obvious. Max put a brave face for her parents and pretended like that was normal at Farmingham. The three of them were just real good buddies.
He talked with Carol about the arrangements, told her what he and Maggie had discussed. And just like Maggie had told him, they could have done this without visiting. She wanted the Trinity, she wanted the Poirot. She wanted steak and lobster. He tried not to eye the door where they had both disappeared.
Could something have happened? It was just a few minutes but maybe Cole could have bent her over the sink and fucked her. Exciting thought, but he was left out. He didn't want to be left out. But then maybe if that was what she wanted maybe that was what he had to give her. Or support or allow. Or whatever it was he was doing. His control on this exciting project was getting weaker and weaker. He rubbed his sweaty palms together.
Maggie’s slim hand worked down his wrist, slipped between his hands, laced her fingers through his and held him. Their eyes met, she smiled wanly. A look of guilt. An acknowledgement that today was a little too far. Could see the love in there. The love for him. She still loved him. He squeezed her hand.
She said, “It’s going to be a beautiful wedding.”
He said, “I can’t wait,” leaned close and kissed her cheek.
Maggie moved forward to speak to the front, her hand still holding his. She said, “I know we said we would go back to Vermont tonight but I think we’ll stay.”
“Another night?” her mother said. “You told us you’d be leaving.”
“I know, but I think we’re tired. It's been a long day. We’ll stay, go to bed early, out early. You won’t see us in the morning.”
She checked her watch, suggesting it was a little late in the day to bring this decision to her, but given no potential conflict, no arriving guests needing the room he and Cole were in she said, “That's fine, Margaret. You should have stayed in the first place. It made more sense.”
“I know,” she said. “I wasn't thinking.”
“I knew you'd be tired,” Martin said.
“It’s too much for one day, then to drive? ...” her mother said, turning to look out her passenger window while she talked.
Maggie eased back next to him, and put her shoulder to his. Saw her other hand go out and lay palm up on her thigh. Watched Cole’s hand wander over, lace through her fingers like she'd done with Max and now his fiancée was holding hands with two men. Two men she would have sex with tonight.
Maggie looked like she was going to kill her brother.
They sat around a fire on the beach. Max and Maggie leaning against the old greyed log, Cole sitting on the stone where Max had sat and watched his fiancée suck Cole’s cock. Ken was explaining what he studied at Stanford. Told them all about regenerative medicine and his work on studying the growth of an artificial liver. Cole kept asking questions, seeming like he was genuinely curious but there was a whimsical tone to his voice as though he knew by prolonging this conversation he was driving Maggie out of her mind. His poor little girl was next to him now, her brow low, a single crease formed above her nose. She looked like a surly little brat. Max could see the humor in it. Could see the joy in making her anxious. Max never did that for her, never made her wait, never made her beg. Of course, he wasn't sure he had that ability. Not sure if depriving her would lead to her heightened arousal. Also, if he were to act like Cole was acting she would climb on him and his resolve would wane and he would be doing what she wished in a matter of seconds. Cole had power over her. In a way, had power over both of them now.
They’d skipped dinner. Everyone full after all the tasting they had done during the day. Martin and Carol retired to separate rooms in the house. Ken hadn’t eaten so he reheated leftovers in the kitchen and Cole and Max and Maggie had sat with him around the counter and told him all the things they’d done during the day. Not all the things, of course. Cole had kept his back to Maggie, like he was purposely disregarding her, though he did seem to have an easy friendship forming with Ken. When it grew dark they came down to the beach.
“When are you going back, Ken?” she asked. Max stifled a smile.
“In the morning,” he said.
“Early?” she said.
“Pretty early.”
She checked her watch.
“Mm,” Ken hummed, recalling, “It’s at 8:15. T.F. Green.”
Maggie didn't follow through with an observation that he should go to bed, but given her rude performance last night with her friends he wouldn’t have put it past her. Max snuggled next to her and rubbed her arm.
Cole smiled wryly, said to Ken, “So, what’s the latest on stem cells?”
Maggie moaned and let her head fall against Max’s shoulder as Ken raised his eyebrows, cocked his head, and told Cole all the latest news, starting at the beginning. Her hair was still in a bun and he stroked her soft cheek and kissed the top of her head. They shared a wool blanket, much like she had done with Cole last night. She settled against him, pulled the blanket up to cover them a little better.
He jumped when she touched him. Her hand settled between his legs under the blanket, curious fingers seeking him out, trying to find his penis. He wasn’t hard, it was cold and her brother was there. Let his legs slide apart so she could locate it more easily. Found it then, her fingers divining its shape under his pants, putting some life in it, making it swell.
“Jesus, Maggie,” he whispered into her ear while he cupped his hand on her neck. Her mouth climbed his neck, kissed his chin, took his lips.
He made out with her, felt the urgency in her kisses. She moved slow, but her tongue was eager. Ken’s voice by the fire said, “Would you look at these two.”
Cole said, “You should see them at school.”
“Really? ...Aw, thats nice. After all these years too.”
Maggie laughed and pulled her kiss away. “We’re twenty-one,” she said.
Cole said, “Yeah, Max is really good to her.”
“Yeah,” Ken said, “Max has been really good for her.”
“Thanks, Ken,” Max said.
“I mean it. She needed someone like you.”
Cole nudged Ken with an elbow and said, “You need a ride in the morning? To the airport?”
Ken ran his hand through his hair, exhaled, said, “Yeah, I guess...that would be great.”
Maggie said, “There’s no room. The Jeep’s small—our luggage, the raven head, my bird cage...”
Ken frowned, said, “What bird cage?”
“Long story,” Maggie answered.
“Holy shit,” Ken laughed to the sky, “How did I end up with such a terrible family?”
“How bad a passenger are you, any way?” Cole laughed.
Maggie grimaced, rolled her head around. “You know what? ...No. I’m leaving my bird cage here. Leaving it behind.”
“So, I can come?” Ken asked, perplexed brows pointed up in the middle.
Cole checked his watch, said, “Yeah. We should hit the hay. Early start. The longer we’re up the more likely you’ll get bumped by another inanimate object.” Cole moved like he was going to head
to the trail and Ken went ahead of him. When Ken had made some distance, Cole called behind him, “Okay, Ken, we’ll see you in the morning.”
“Night, everyone,” he waved over his shoulder without looking back.
All three of their faces were turned to the dark path, watching the darker figure of her brother crunching the gravel, turning, scrolling to the right, higher up the path, to the top of the cliff and then he was gone. Maggie moved off his lap and made her way around the fire and across to Cole with her face turned to where she’d last seen Ken, watching in case he returned after forgetting something.
Max felt the coolness on his thighs, her absence robbing him of her heat. Maggie brought Cole to sit with them by the fire. She sat herself on Cole’s open lap, still watching the path.
“Is he gone?” Cole said to Max.
Max shrugged, he watched the path and all he could see was darkness. His eyes were blown out from the fire. “I think so,” he said.
Maggie held Cole's cheeks and she kissed him. His head turned up to meet hers and Max could hear them breathing through their noses while their mouths made wet sucking noises against each other. Maggie gulped like she was trying to talk around their twisting tongues, partial words being formed, swallowed by Cole. Things like, all day, this guy, got me, couldn't wait, oh, touching me. Cole's hand at Maggie’s hip waved Max closer and he moved quickly to join them. He hated being left out but wondered why he was so easily disheartened, so easily dismayed. If Cole hadn't waved him he may have sat there, four feet apart, until they were done, but nothing was stopping him from being a more positive and happy piece of this.
He sat himself next to Cole against the log, his Maggie sitting sideways in Cole's lap with her knees pointed at Max. Her attention was on Cole but he didn't feel excluded.
Max said, “Where do you want to do this? Out here?”
Cole said, “Just let it happen, bro,” his eyes still on Maggie.
Maggie lifted the front of her skirt, brought it up her thighs. Cole's hand slipped underneath, worked under there and Max figured he was getting it inside her tights to touch her bare skin.
Max said, “Did anything happen when you two were in the washroom?”
They were kissing and they both started laughing, their smiling mouths pulling their kisses apart. They looked in each other's eyes.
Max said, “What?”
Maggie said, “Yeah...”
“What?”
“He said really dirty things to me.” She opened her legs wider while Cole's arm moved, trying to get access.
“What dirty things—”
“Ah,” she gasped, “oh, and he touched me, mm...”
Cole chortled softly, taking her mouth again with his own.
“He touched you?”
Maggie nodded while she kissed.
Max felt the jealousy come. His two best friends. His Maggie, who he loved and would wed, and Cole, who he was also beginning to presume he loved too. They were coming together without him. Doing things without him. Dirty things. She was sharing her intimacy with another man. Something that had been only for Max was now less exclusive. Something other men had experienced. And, as she shared herself, she learned other men's secrets. Learned the things they did. The way they kissed, the way they made love, their humor, their playfulness, their sex organs, their sexual abilities...their biology. Cole's semen was known to her. She knew its taste like she had teased him. She knew how much he came, knew he was uncircumcised. The most base and disgusting and private things that Cole had were now known by the woman he loved. And what if she liked his secrets better than Max's? What if she liked the taste of his semen, liked the size of his cock, liked his foreskin, liked those dirty things he said? Cole was a better looking guy, smart and driven like Max, ambitious like Max, but he had a better build and a bigger cock...he made Maggie laugh too. Cole had spent four years with her at Farmingham. She loved spending time with him. Would those special things she loved about her Max be diminished? Would his offerings begin to seem meager?
8
Music
Saturday, September 30th
“Take me to my room and fuck me,” she said to Cole, wrapping both her arms around his neck.
He whispered in her ear, “We’re a long way from fucking, Maggie. When I put my cock in you, you’ll be crying for it.”
“I’m crying now,” she said.
“You’re a sweet girl,” he said, and he kissed her lips, “but I want to see that whore again. Show me that whore.”
She whispered close to his ear, “Take me to my room and I’ll show you what a bad girl I am.”
He laughed, eyes low and mean. The sound familiar, she’d heard him laugh almost every day for the last four school years, but those eyes were menacing. He slipped his thumb into her mouth and she sucked it eagerly. Cole’s head angled over his shoulder but his eyes were still on hers. He said to her future husband, “You ready, Max? We’re going to turn your little slut inside out.”
He stood up and cradled her in his arms and she hugged his neck tightly. Max was quiet and she couldn’t get a good look at his face but every time she caught him in her periphery as Cole carried her across the macadam and up the trail to the house she saw that his face was crestfallen. She could see too his resignation. Her poor man a victim of his own erotic impulses. Every part of him hating seeing her with a bigger stronger man, one who was going to fuck her brains out, but yet he was surrendering. He even held the kitchen door for them to pass through.
“Thanks, Max,” she giggled as her face traveled past his, floating past him in his best friend’s arms. Didn’t know what it was that was turning her on about seeing her love like that. Was it truly erotic? Did it turn her on to be taken in front of him? Or was it the knowledge that the man she loved was so aroused by this? So overwhelmed to see his libidinous fantasies brought to life. It could be both. Both were true. She loved being fucked while he watched. Loved the feeling of Jay and knew she was going to like Cole. But also felt very satisfied for Max. She was delivering something precise to him. Who else could deliver such erotic angst? She had incredible power over her Max.
“Max, max,” she whispered while Cole crossed the darkened kitchen.
He was there next to then, “What?” he said, a small sane piece of him desperate to hear that she had changed her mind.
She appealed to the dirty crazy part of her man, said, “Can you take my shoes off, I don’t want them to fall.” She flicked her feet to show him.
Cole paused at the bottom of the steel steps rising to the second floor and angled her so Max could pluck her shoes off.
“Thanks, Max,” she sighed as she was carried off again. Each step taking her from Max, literally, as he drifted behind them on the stairs, and philosophically too. Each step bringing her closer to her bedroom where she would spread her legs for her best friend and fuck him. He’d got her wet today, got her aching to be filled and now it was going to happen. When she’d got home from the wedding planning she’d had to powder herself again, all her creases were slick with her smell and her sweat. She didn’t clean. Thought it was exciting not to. Thought Cole would appreciate her lust. He was turning out to be far more powerful than she’d ever imagined. More sexy than she knew. Almost jealous feelings rose. Getting mad knowing all those other girls she’d seen him with in the past years had got to know this dirty confident part of him.
Max got ahead in the hall and he held her bedroom door open for them. He closed it when they passed and now she was alone.
Alone in her bedroom with boys. Such a forbidden thing. She’d wanted this so bad since she was just a teen. Boy crazy but a caged bird only dreaming of what it might be like to be loved. To know the touch of a boy. Now here it was, happening for real.
Cole lay her on the bed and her arms clung to him, tried to pull him on top of her but he freed himself from her clutches with his hands. He rose off the bed, looked around her room. Put his hands in his pockets and wandered. Max sat
himself on the leather chair where she had gone down on him last night. Cole walked and admired her things, his erection curving out the fly of his cotton pants.
“So this is where my little Maggie grew up.”
“Yeah,” she gasped, her breathy voice surged through her, as desperate as she felt. Her heart was beating double time.
“You painted this,” he said, standing with his back to her, looking up at a canvas on her concrete wall. A painting she had done when she was seventeen, full of dumb angst, dumb but honest—exploding feeling, leaking through her fingertips and translating all that she was missing onto canvas in cobalt and cadmium.
“Yeah, I—”
“No, I know you did it. I recognize your work.”
He turned then and came to the foot of her bed, took his jean jacket off and threw it on the floor at the base of the low case that held her records and turntable.
“Such an amazing talent, Max,” he said, looking at her.
“I know,” Max agreed.
“All that emotion, raw, untouched. Something always there under that Maggie sweetness. Little girl Margaret looking to get out. Go and play.”
Max wrung his hands together. “I love her, she’s...so amazing...”
“She is,” he said. “So much more than I ever even knew. My best friend,” he said, biting his lower lip, one corner of his mouth peeling up. “Take those tights off, show me your bare legs.”
She couldn’t wait to. Her hands went up under her skirt and she hooked them under the waistband of her cable knit tights. Wriggled them down her thighs, over her knees, turned them inside out pulling them off her feet, threw them to the floor at Max’s feet.
“She’s not wearing any panties, Max,” he said.
“I told him,” she said.
“She told me.”
“She put them in my pocket like a good girl.”
He stepped closer, coming to the side of the bed, the three of them forming a tight-angled equilateral triangle now. Equally separated but very close.