I’ve got chills down my spine.
“So what the hell was it?” Alice asks.
“Exactly”, Logan says profoundly, “That’s what I’ve been wondering ever since that day too.”
“There are no photos, no official reports and nothing else to corroborate the story”, Jack says.
“Apart from the two other men who were with me”, Logan says.
“Who didn’t enter the enormous skull and who haven’t spoken about that experience since”, Jack adds.
“So what happened?” I ask.
“I don’t know. All I know, whether you want to believe me or not, is that something weird happened on the way out of that place, that shouldn’t happen according to the laws of science on this planet. Jack thinks I’m full of shit, but I’m not the kind of person to make this up.”
“I don’t think you’re full of shit”, Jack chimes in. “Seriously, you know I don’t. I’m just trained to look for plot holes, that’s all, it’s in my nature. I don’t like things that don’t make sense.”
“Your entire career is based on things that don’t make sense”, Logan says.
“My entire career is based on making the unbelievable believable”, Jack argues. “There’s a huge difference. A plot hole is when something happens that defies the laws of the universe you create. Stories must make sense within their own worlds, regardless of how believable they are to someone from a different universe. If the gates of hell existed in a world where we all knew that hell existed, it wouldn’t be so difficult to believe.”
“There isn’t much difference”, I say. “Unbelievable things happen in believable worlds all the time. Most sci-fi or superhero films have bizarre things happen in real life situations.”
“Yes, thank you, Penny”, Logan says proudly, lifting up his glass to chink it against mine. “I knew my brother was wrong.”
“All of those things go on to be explained. Superman, the X-men, Invasion of the body snatchers. Any example in any decent narrative without plot holes explains the appearance of the extraordinary. I’m just saying it’s the explanation we lack.”
“Agree”, Alice says. “I guess it would be easier to believe if we knew why it took you hours to leave.”
“Thank you, Alice”, Jack says, and chinks his glass against hers.
“Wait, wait, wait”, I say, taking the opportunity to put my hand on his arm to pull it out of the way. “Sometimes you have to suspend disbelief and just believe, don’t you? Isn’t that the magic part? The leap of faith? Indy would never have gotten to the holy grail if he didn’t believe the unbelievable existed. This is no different to that.”
“Touche”, Logan says excitedly. “I think she’s got you.”
Jack smiles. “The path is always there though, he just has to believe it exists to cross it.”
“It comes out of nowhere!” Logan says. “He can’t see it until he throws stones onto it.”
Jack shakes his head. “He can’t see it at first because he doesn’t believe it exists. That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t always there.”
“Exactly like the gates of hell”, Logan says.
“More like when someone has a crush on you and you don’t see it”, Jack confirms, and my heart skips a beat as I wonder if he’s seen right through me.
“You’d believe me if you saw them”, Logan says.
“I believe you already”, Jack says. “If you say it happened I know it’s true. I’m just telling you that if I made a film out of it, I’d have to work out a legitimate reason for why it existed, that’s all.”
“To be honest”, Alice says, “four hours of darkness might be a bit boring for your average film goer.”
“It’s a great story, Logan”, I say. “Not many people can say they’ve been to hell and made their way back out alive. I’m glad you did.”
“Me too”, Jack says, reaching around me for a moment to put his hand on Logan’s shoulder. “And seriously now, when you first told me that story and I thought I might have lost you, I couldn’t help wondering if you’d already make a will.”
“Thanks bro”, Logan says. “I’ll keep you in mind for when I get round to that.”
For the briefest of moments I’m trapped in a twin hug and I don’t want the sensation to end.
“Anyway”, Logan begins. “The moral of the story is that even if there’s something in the world that seems completely beyond the realms of possibility, don’t be surprised if you suddenly find that it exists.”
I look from Logan across to Jack expecting some kind of retort.
“Okay, I can’t disagree with that”, he says. “Even if I’m programmed to want to know why.”
The table falls silent for a moment, during which time I can see Alice thinking hard.
“Okay, wait”, she says eventually. “If we are meant to believe this happened, and I’m not saying it didn’t, and it took you four hours to do something that had just taken five minutes, what exactly are we believing in?”
“That there are weird things that happen in the world for no reason”, Logan says. “That can’t be explained by books, or science, or the world that we live in, or sometimes even by the limits of our imagination.”
“Man you guys are way deeper than I expected”, Alice says, with a giggle. “I’m going to need several more drinks if this is going to continue.”
“It was a weird experience, though”, Logan says. “If you want deep, you ought to listen to Jack go on about narrative structure and suspension of disbelief. He could bore you for hours.”
Yes please, is what I’m thinking. Please don’t stop talking and don’t move from here, either of you. Jack can talk for as long as he likes about rock solid story structure and infallible reasoning, while Logan tells me any one of a thousand of his incredible adventures, because I truly believe I’ve found my matches. That, and the fact that I’m so hot right now I think if I moved the wrong way too quickly I could come.
I feel like I’ve won a competition to meet the two most perfectly matched men for me in the whole universe, and can’t take my mind of what I’d like to happen after the television crews have packed up and everyone else has gone home. I feel a sudden urge to draw on the walls, but it’s more than that. I feel an urge not just to draw what I’m thinking but to do it, to adjust my position slightly and let the wicked times commence.
“There is a clear dichotomy in my work”, Jack begins, just the way his tongue wraps itself around the word dichotomy enough for me to be convinced of his prowess in bed, “between what we produce at the studio, and how much hard work goes into it. It’s likely the same for Jack when after hours and hours of work, the only thing he has to show for it is a three thousand year old jaw bone, or for Penny perhaps, when after countless hours spent perfecting a picture someone only looks at it for a minute.”
“Or when they grafitti over it the same night I draw it on the wall”, I say cutting in, while I glare at Alice accusingly.
“I can bore you all day with structure”, Jack says, but structure is never going to be exciting to anyone who isn’t interested in what happens behind the scenes. The finished product is what excites us all. We want to see the magic trick, not the hours of preparation that go into making it work. I love my job, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but when I tell people what I really do as a movie producer, they tend to quickly lose interest.”
“It interests me”, I say, trying not to blush. “But maybe that’s because I work in a creative field too.”
“What about you, Alice?”, Logan asks. “You know, before Jack gets wound up in another one of his boring anecdotes about how he thought of the perfect character flaw, or how the arc of the antagonist is just as important as the arc of the protagonist. What do you do for work?”
“I’m a florist”, Alice says. “My mom has a shop up in Williamsburg that used to belong to my grandparents. I’m there part time while I finish up college. I didn’t quite get through in one go the first time around but t
hat’s another story.”
“Nor did I”, Jack confesses. “Actually I didn’t get past the first year.”
“Those creative types think they don’t need to study”, Logan says.
I push him on the shoulder, a solid section of pure muscle. “Hey! I finished college”, I say.
“Are you studying floristry?” Jack asks.
“Psychology”, Alice says, “So be careful how you behave.”
“Oh man”, Logan says, “If you’re looking for subjects, you’ve got the perfect candidate here. You could spend your whole career on studying Jack.”
Jack laughs. “You know there are things that I achieved as a child that Logan has appropriated as memories of his own. If that’s not messed up, I don’t know what is.”
“Is there anything you two aren’t competitive over?” I ask.
The twins think for a moment. “Jobs?” Jack offers.
“Women”, Logan says confidently, and my heart skips another beat. “We’ve never fallen out over the same woman.”
“Have you ever dated the same woman?” Alice asks, and I want to kick her under the table.
The twins look at each other. “We dated the same girl at junior high”, Jack says.
“Ocean Parker-Reeve”, Logan says wistfully. “Her parents were hippies which was why she had such an unusual name, and probably why they were okay with our odd agreement. We were too young to do anything but kiss, but called ourselves boyfriends and girlfriend for about six months until we had to call it off.”
“What happened?” I ask.
Jack shrugs. “We outgrew each other I suppose, the normal thing. There’s so much going on at that time that you don’t really think about why. One day we were all together, the next day we weren’t.”
“So the thing about twins sharing is totally true?” Alice asks, again prompting a wide-eyed glare from my direction.
“We don’t have a problem with sharing”, Jack says, “it’s usually the other way round.”
“So you’d do it again?” Alice asks, and this time I can’t help but say something.
“Alice!” I remonstrate. “Maybe this isn’t the best topic of conversation.”
Jack has seen my drawings and knows I have an intimate fantasy about twins. If he’s shared that knowledge with Logan, then they both know I’m ready, willing and able to put fantasy into practice.
“If the right girl came along that wanted to do exactly that”, Jack says, “I wouldn’t have a problem with it. Logan may be a dick like ninety nine percent of the time, but he’s not only the best person I know, he’s my best friend too. If I found someone who wanted to be with us both, I would totally understand that.”
“There’d have to be a hierarchy obviously”, Logan adds, “Like there was with Ocean. You know, kind of like - and I’m thinking off the top of my head here - Jack would be like the back up when I was tired, or the second in command when two were needed, do you know what I mean?”
He’s deadpan but I can tell he’s joking.
“You’re such a dick”, Jack says.
“You know Ocean had her favorite, that’s all I’m saying.”
“It’s a good job I’m not the jealous, lacking self confidence type”, Jack says.
“It’s a good job neither of us are”, Logan says. “There couldn’t be anything worse in a threeway relationship than a lack of trust. What do you think Penny?”
The question makes me go red and I can’t hide it. I stutter an answer that doesn’t make any sense before starting again. “Everyone would have to be equal”, I say. “And faithful, and trustworthy. It wouldn’t work if we couldn’t trust each other.”
I realize my mistake immediately and can feel my face burning up because of it. “You know, they, I mean”, I say quickly. “Whoever it is in the relationship, that’s what I mean. I was just talking hypothetically, you know if it were me and you, not to say that that would ever happen”, - I’m digging myself in deeper and need to stop talking immediately before my face gets so hot I explode - “I’ve never had a menage”, I summarize, “so I guess I wouldn’t know.”
When I’m done, I want the world to swallow me up. What makes it worse is that Alice is giggling hard and trying not to show it, and both boys are looking at me with eyes as wide as dinner plates as though they want to devour me immediately. I feel like little red riding hood under the gluttonous glare of a pair of horny wolves, which I suppose is exactly what I wanted before the evening began. The only thing is that I feel completely exposed.
“We’ve never had a menage either”, Logan says. “But I bet if we did, Jack would steal the covers after.”
“Hey, I am not a cover stealer”, Jack says. “I resent that implication. If anyone’s the cover stealer in this pairing, it’s bound to be you.”
“You could solve it with a bigger bed”, Alice says. “You’d probably have to anyway if there were three of you.”
Logan nods in agreement. “You know, I hadn’t really thought about it before, but there have got to be advantages over a conventional relationship. More free time for everyone concerned, a mediator in case of arguments, another breadwinner for the family.”
“Twice as much sex”, Alice adds.
“Or half as much depending on which side you happen to be on”, Jack says.
“It could definitely work”, Logan adds. “But it totally depends on the treble.”
“Totally agree”, Alice says. “Not everyone is cut out to share. I’m a horribly jealous girlfriend and I couldn’t imagine sharing my partner with another girl.”
“Could you handle two guys at once, though?” Logan asks, his whole face turned into a smile.
“That I would be happy to have a go at.”
“What about you, Penny?” Jack asks.
There is nothing that excites me more in the world I want to say, but I’m way too embarrassed to admit it. “I could see it working”, I say instead. “Not just for the sex, which I’m sure would be out of this world amazing, but for the relationship too. There isn’t any reason why two people can’t be in love with the same woman and that woman be in love equally with the same man. There doesn’t need to be a hierarchy for it to work.”
Logan sips his water and observes me closely, the look in his eyes telling me what I’m not sure I should allow myself to believe. I drop my eyes away from his, unable to hold the intensity of his gaze any longer, and look up towards Jack. It’s a mirror image of what I’ve just seen, the same hungry wolf with the same intense stare. I’m burning up, not just from my own sexual energy but from the body heat of the twins either side of me.
For what seems like an eternity but is probably less than a minute no-one speaks, as though with my response the conversation has reached a natural conclusion. I reach for my water, and then reach again for the other glass to even them both up.
I can hear my heart beating in my ears, and any thicker, the sexual tension in here would have to get a permit. I look at Alice, who smiles back at me like a proud mother duckling watching her eldest child take to the water, and then I tap, first on the edge of the glass with two fingers and then flat on the table, counting out the fibonacci sequence in near silent beats.
On my way to twenty one, Alice breaks the silence.
“More drinks?”, she asks.
“Or we could change bar”, Jack suggests. “Or do something else entirely.”
I wonder what the something else Jack has on his mind could be, but I don’t want to look at him in case it’s obvious what the something else I’m thinking is.
“Like what?” Alice asks, taking the question out of my mouth.
“Literally anything”, Jack says. “We’re only limited by our imagination. We could take the subway to a stop we’ve never been to before, get out and get ourselves totally lost, or we could go to the cemetery and find the oldest gravestone in there, or we could sneak into a late night film, or throw pebbles into the Hudson river, or eat key lime pie and pretend to be cold
war spies, or do some geocaching, or just do something unique none of us have ever done before just for the hell of it.”
“Geocaching”, Logan says. “But instead of trying to look for something we should leave something behind.”
“Yes”, Jack says excitedly.
“Like a treasure hunt?” I ask.
“Exactly like a treasure hunt”, Logan says, his eyes lighting up. “We leave something valuable somewhere, and then create the story behind it.”
“Why it’s there, how long it’s been there, what it might be and how you might find it”, Jack says, just as animated as his brother.
“It sounds like a fun idea”, Alice says, not entirely convincingly, “but how are we going to create a whole treasure hunt in one night?”
“We can do the story afterwards”, Jack says. “All we need to do tonight is bury something valuable and start a rumor about it. The rest we can do afterwards.”
“I’ve always wanted to do that”, I say. “I thought about doing something like that with my drawings, you know, using them as a kind of secret code to follow, but never got around to it in the end.”
“That’s a great idea”, Jack says.
“That might depend on what you choose to hide”, Alice quips.
For about the twentieth time tonight, I want to kick her under the table.
“Everyone loves a treasure hunt”, Logan says. “When we were kids, Jack used to set them up for me and it was my job to solve them. Looking back on those times, it’s pretty clear why I became an archeologist and Jack became a filmmaker and not the other way round.”
“So what do we bury?” I ask. “And where are we going to bury it?”
“Don’t worry about that”, Logan says, “I’ve got just the thing in my car.”
Chapter Fifteen
“What the hell is that?” Alice asks, as we stand around the trunk of Logan’s car in a scene reminiscent of Pulp Fiction, staring quizzically at the object in front of us.
Obsession: A Twin Menage Romance Page 10