As it turned out, she had every reason to be afraid.
The dream came again.
And so did she.
For the next three nights, in fact, Marla had the same dream – or some variation of it. Sometimes they were in her childhood bedroom – a setting particularly repulsive to Marla. One night, she had the same dream twice, waking up in the middle of the night and then again in the morning, both times with her body curled around itself and exhausted from the erotic Olympics of her mind.
At last, she was at the end of her rope. She was tired of the way the dream haunted her days, and her mind was wandering more and more even in the bright light of day. On the fourth day, she dialed Cassie’s number.
“What’s up, girl?” Cassie’s bubbly voice greeted her. “Ready to hit the town again soon?”
“Um, not really,” Marla said. “Listen, Cass –something did happen the other night. At the bar. With those guys. And um…I need to talk to you about it.”
“Oh my God – I knew it! I fucking knew something was up! Wait until I tell John, he’s going to…”
“No, no, Cass, not like that. It was something…weird. But not, like, rape, or anything. Okay, um, I don’t know how to say this but…”
Marla chronicled the incident in the bathroom and the subsequent nights of dreaming. Cass was surprisingly silent throughout the retelling, though Marla had almost been sure she could hear her friend’s impatience to weigh in on the matter. Still, after she’d run out of ways to explain her feelings, there was still a beat of silence on the other end.
“Cass?” Marla asked, suddenly and irrationally afraid she’d somehow offended her friend, that the one thing Cass wouldn’t tolerate was a desire to have sex with two guys at once. As though the body-positive, sex-positive, liberal-minded blonde had anything but an adventurous side.
“Oh. My. God,” Cass said. “That is the hottest fucking thing I have ever heard! Marla, you dog! I knew there was a wild side under all those boring t-shirts but…man, when you let loose you really let loose, don’t you? Whoo, go Marla!”
“Cassie,” Marla said, frustrated. “I don’t want to do anything in real life, I just need to know how to make these dreams stop!”
“Hate to break it to you, M, but it sounds to me like there’s nothing you want more in real life,” Cassie said pointedly. “I mean I can damn near hear how hot you are for the idea.”
Marla stayed silent, chewing on her lower lip. Was Cassie right? Did Marla really, really want this? If she was being honest with herself, the retelling of the story had made her pussy throb a bit, her mind flooding with the images of her dream, the feeling of those fingers sliding inside her while a second pair of hands pulled at her hair, fondled her…
“Listen,” Cassie said, her tone turning more serious. “I can’t tell you what to do. It’s your life. But in my opinion, the only way to know for sure how to handle the situation is just to go for it. Just try to meet them again and…you know…see what happens. You don’t have to make any promises. You can always back out. But…you know…you only live once. And do you really want to live wondering if you have a secret kinky side that could give you so much pleasure, knowing that you never even tried?”
“But Cass…what if…what if…”
“What if you do like it? What if you start getting it on and find yourself not wanting to stop?”
“Well…yeah…”
“Then you’ll have one night of awesome sex with two mega-hunks,” Cass said. “What’s so wrong about that?”
Marla sighed. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected from free-loving Cass. Had she wanted her friend to call her gross and crazy and weird? Or did I just want permission to act on my fantasies, she thought suddenly, the clarity coming to her like a sudden, cleansing rain.
“Listen, whatever you do, I’ll still love you, you know? And if it does happen, I want to hear every hot little detail,” Cassie said. “But I really have to go – I’m sitting in on a trial and lunch is about to end.”
“Okay Cass, thanks. You uh…you helped a lot.”
“No problem, Marla. Anytime. You know that. Love you! Bye!”
Cassie clicked off and Marla was left holding the phone, listening to the silence, her soul stirring as she thought about what would happen if she called, if she dialed that number that Tanner had written on her palm, the number she’d inexplicably copied down on a post-it before washing her hands clean…
And then she made up her mind.
5
They seemed to be having some sort of quarrel when she walked in.
“Door’s open,” Cage had texted her when she was on her way. “Just come in.”
They’d told her to meet at Tanner’s apartment; the two men, despite their closeness, didn’t live together. Thank God, Marla had thought. That might make things just a little too weird.
She walked in and was immediately impressed with the studio. Minimally furnished in a black-and-white color scheme, with plush white carpet and a large black leather couch on one end of the room. A small kitchen area was set off in the back end of the apartment, somewhat dividing the living space from the sleeping space, which consisted of a huge, king-size bed. The walls were decorated with medals and black-and-white photos of fighters.
“Um,” she said, her eyes drifting around the studio to avoid having to make immediate eye contact with the two men on the couch. “Nice place.”
“Thanks,” Tanner said. Only when he spoke did she look at him; the two men were sitting at opposite ends of the couch, and Cage was wearing a somewhat bitter expression that Marla found less than comforting. But his face softened when he saw her nervousness, and he offered her a small smile.
“Welcome,” he said. “Come sit down. Wine?”
“Um, sure,” Marla said, taking a seat in between the men, with plenty of space on either side. “So…this is weird…”
“Not unless you make it weird,” Tanner said. He was drinking a beer, and Cage had left his own beer on the glass table in front of the couch. Marla heard the unmistakable sound of a wine bottle being opened and poured. When Cage returned, wine in hand, Marla took it gratefully, taking a sizeable sip.
“Well, it’s weird for me,” she said, the immediate effect of the wine loosening her tongue. “This isn’t really…this isn’t my, you know, bag, or whatever.”
“That’s fine,” Cage said, settling back down onto the couch and picking up his beer once more. A moment passed without comment. Marla took another sip of wine.
“So how do we…I mean, how to you start something like this…” she said, her eyes shifting from one man to the other.
“You could strip,” Tanner said, his eyes on her, burning on her, through her. Marla immediately felt a blush rising to her cheek. “Or we could strip.”
“Um,” Marla said, wondering for the umpteenth time whether she’d made a huge mistake and should beat it before things got even weirder.
“We could show you the sex dungeon,” Cage said, and Marla immediately stood up, knowing for sure that she’d made a mistake. But then Cage’s hand was on her wrist, that electric energy cackling between them, and when she looked down at him, he was wearing a wry smile.
“I’m kidding. We’re kidding. We’re just gonna hang out for awhile. Have some drinks. See what happens,” he said. Marla’s heart was racing, but she liked the idea of hanging out, finishing her wine, having another, seeing what happened…and the friendly smile on Cage’s face put her at ease, if only a little bit.
“Okay,” she said, her eyes trapped in Cage’s gaze as she sat back down. To her other side, she heard a click, and then the TV in front of them came to life.
“Got any shows you particularly like?” Tanner asked amiably enough, scrolling through the options recorded on his TiVo. Marla watched the names of the shows go by before explaining in surprise when one particular show came up.
“You like Real Housewives of Miami?” she said, turning to him in surprise. “That show
is so…it’s so…”
“Trashy? Awful? Amazing?” he said, completing her sentence. “Yeah, I’m addicted. It’s so dumb; it’s so weird. It’s like this gorgeous little slice of modern Americana.”
“Like a Norman Rockwell illustration on crack,” Cage said, leaning forward slightly. Marla laughed, easily, honestly.
“Yeah, that’s a good way to put it,” she said, playing with her ponytail subconsciously. She’d worn one of the few dresses she owned, a semi-modest black skater dress with short sleeves. Her shoulder-length hair, pulling into a ponytail, dangled around the base of her neck. She’d put on her typical mascara and lipstick, but otherwise she hadn’t gone out of her way to gussy up. Cage and Tanner were both wearing typical dude-garb: plain t-shirts and jeans. Marla felt herself relaxing slightly as the familiar screeching of reality TV harpies filled the room.
Two hours, two and a half episodes, and three glasses of wine later, Marla was about as comfortable as she’d ever been on a “chill night” with Todd. She and the men had been laughing and cracking jokes, commenting on the ridiculous things that made up the show’s plotline, and indulging in a surprisingly shared sense of humor.
Marla had noticed, but not protested, that each time Cage or Tanner got up to refill her glass – they took turns – they sat down a little closer to her, until eventually she was close enough that it wouldn’t take much effort at all to lay a hand on either of their knees. The wine helped calm her down, but she still felt their physical presences as some sort of kinetic energy, their ambient body heat making her feel over-warm, her heart beat rising incrementally.
She wondered if they were about to make a move on her with the shrill background noise of a drunken, attention-seeking housewife. Her question was answered when Tanner picked up the remote again, switching the program to his music library.
“Have you listened to this guy at all?” he asked, scrolling down to put on an album that had only recently come out. Marla was familiar with the songs that were played on the radio; the slow, dark R&B single had been a guilty pleasure over the past few weeks. Her stomach flipped as the music began, slow and slinky and pointedly…sexy.
“Um, only on the radio,” she said, turning bright red. Tanner crossed his legs and turned to her slightly.
“He’s pretty good. Cage and I saw him last week – got some excellent Molly, it was a good show,” he said. Marla blushed harder; besides a bit of experimenting in college, she’d never done many drugs. For a split second, she felt a strike of panic that they might have put something in her wine. But no, all she felt was a little tipsy.
“I, uh, I’ve never done that,” she said. “What’s it like?”
She hoped to stall the inevitable with the conversation – and simultaneously wished one of them would make a move already to dispel the growing tension. The singer’s voice weaved between and around them like silk.
“You feel like…like everything was put on earth for you to love,” Cage said, on her other side, and Marla turned to him. His piercing eyes had the effect of a drug, more so than any drug Marla had ever actually taken. She felt her breath catch in her throat.
“And your skin tingles like,” Tanner said, his voice now low and close to her ear. As his sentence trailed off, Marla felt his fingers run up her leg slowly, making her flesh crawl into goose bumps, her stomach flip once more. She closed her eyes, willing herself to let it happen, to let her primal self take over, the way she had in the bar.
“You didn’t…you didn’t put any in…” she said, needing to know for sure now.
“No,” Cage said. As Tanner’s fingers ran up and down her thigh, up and down, up and down, his other hand brushed a strand of hair away from her ear.
“We’re not like that,” he whispered, making Marla shiver down to her core, her cunt suddenly dampening in her panties. His words turned into lips, nibbling around her ear. She squeaked softly, her hands coming down to grip one knee each, needing to feel like she was still on planet earth.
“We want you sharp and sober as possible,” Cage said. “So you can feel everything we’re going to do to you…”
Just as Tanner’s lips left her ear, moving down her neck, Cage leaned in and covered her lips with his. Marla moaned into his mouth, her skin alighting with flames of desire as Cage’s tongue pressed hungrily against her teeth, begging invitation to her mouth.
She obliged, the dual sensation of Cage’s tongue tickling the roof of her mouth while Tanner’s lips danced across her collarbone making her heart go into double time. Tanner’s fingers crawled upward, leaving her thighs, travelling up her hips over her dress, her ribs, the side of her breasts.
“Oh,” Marla said, breaking away from the kiss to exclaim as Tanner’s hand cupped her breast, kneading it slightly, pinching her already-erect nipple through her dress. Marla felt stupid gripping their knees, but her mind was a blank slate, her ego erased in pleasure and anticipation.
She rushed her hands up each thigh, but found herself stalled at the zippers, her attention divided, body fumbling. To her surprise, Cage closed his hand over hers and pulled it away before rising before her.
“Not yet,” he said. Meanwhile, Tanner had grabbed the bottom of her dress and pulled it upwards; Marla obliged, putting her arms above her head, until she was exposed to them, only the thin fabric of her panties covering her sex.
“Are you going to…should I…” Marla asked, her sense coming back now that she wasn’t drugged with the smell of Cage’s cologne drifting up her nose, the feel of Tanner’s lips on her pale, sensitive flesh.
“You should relax,” Cage said, and Marla’s stomach flipped again as he dropped to his knees before her. Tanner grabbed her chin, pulling her face to his, taking Cage’s place with a long, leisurely kiss. The men were acting like they had hours, days even, to take on her, that there was no rush, that every moment could be dragged out into torturous expectation…
“Fuck!” Marla cried, pulling away once more as she felt Cage’s lips land on her inner thigh; she’d never thought she was that sensitive, but now she felt her pussy getting even wetter as his lips moved up slowly, slowly, towards her panties. She looked down, Cage’s brown eyes piercing up at her, his blonde hair tickling her flesh, his mouth growing closer…closer…
Marla’s thighs clenched as he moved in closer to her sex, so close she could feel his breath against her clit, her legs spread for him.
Tanner’s lips moved back to her neck, nibbling and licking as though she were made of the world’s most delicious and addictive chocolate; his hand moved once more to her breast and she turned to him, eyes half-lidded in pleasure, moaning helplessly as Cage’s tongue came to her slit, pressing through the fabric, parting her lips, her wetness making her panties cling to her, a perfect outline of her sex on display for his mouth.
He almost seemed to growl against her as his tongue moved up to suckle her clit gently under the fabric. Marla’s back went rigid, her spine straightening, hands automatically falling to his hair. Tanner’s fingers teased her, first one nipple than the other, the pain and pleasure mingling.
“This is…this is crazy,” Marla panted, breathless with desire. She could feel how hot and wet she was, she felt herself throbbing, her clit straining. When Cage pressed two fingers against her slit, going as far into her as he could through her panties, she let her head roll back, Tanner’s lips inciting a fury of pleasure across her neck.
He draped one arm around her shoulders, so that he could play with both of her small but perky breasts, cupping them from below, from the sides, rolling his thumbs over her nipples. Cage’s breath and tongue teasing her cunt was almost too much to bear.
“Please,” she moaned, not even sure what she was begging for, only knowing that she needed it more than she’d ever needed anything. “Please, Cage…”
“Please what,” he said, voice muffled as he continued to lick at her clit through her panties.
“I want…I want…” she said, mind overwhelmed with s
ensation, nipples hard as rocks, stomach flipping again and again, a pressure building inside her that threatened to drown her.
“What do you want, Marla?” Cage growled, and Marla’s skin shook as she felt his hand coming up to grip the elastic waistband of her panties. Tanner’s lips moved back towards her ear, nuzzling into her hair, breathing in deep.
“Do you want to come?” Tanner asked, the whisper rolling through Marla’s very being, making her clit jump once more. “Do you want us to make you come?”
“Yes, please,” she squealed, her hands in Cage’s hair pressing fruitlessly, amorously. “Please make me come…”
Cage yanked downward, and a rush of cool air hit Marla’s exposed cunt, glistening with her juices. Cage wasted no time lapping at her slit, drawing his tongue upwards, her clit exposed from its sheath and buzzing with need. She cried out once more, feral and primal, as his tongue flicked over the tender button just as Tanner’s fingers squeezed around her nipples and his teeth grazed her flesh.
“Oh, don’t stop, please, please, don’t stop,” Marla moaned as Cage’s tongue moved downward once more, teasing her slit before coming up again to flick at her clit. She pressed his head into her sex, needing more, needing to come, needing the release, the pressure in her stomach building and building.
“We’ve just started,” Tanner whispered into her ear, and Marla felt herself liquefying; the pressure was threatening to overwhelm her, and she squirmed helplessly on the leather couch as Cage teased her clit, rolling over it gently before flicking upward sharply.
She felt his fingers press against her slit once more and her eyes popped open, her mouth opening in an “oh” shape, her face on fire with desire. Tanner pinched her nipples.
Cage sucked her clit in between his lips.
He slid two fingers into her sex and curled them downwards, hard.
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