“Group?” I tried to imagine kissing Gena and touching her. I couldn’t quite see it. Holli and I had gotten drunk and made out once, but that had been weird because she was my best friend. Would it be weird with a woman under different circumstances?
I kind of wanted to find out.
CHAPTER SIX
As it so happened, Ian and Gena were free the next Friday night. Neil invited them out to the house, and I left work early so I could get ready.
“Do you think dinner will be done on time?” I called over my shoulder as I fastened my pearl earring.
“Yes, stop worrying about it. That’s quite Mad Men of you, isn’t it?” Neil asked with an amused slant to his mouth. I’d gone a little June Cleaver in a vintage white cocktail dress with a black lace overlay. I’d even put on crinolines under my skirt and donned a string of pearls.
“Vintage bra even!” I gestured to my super pointy chest and jumped up and down in my kitten heels. “No jiggle!”
“What brought all this on?” he asked, straightening the collar of his jacket. He wore white and black as well, a black jacket over a white button down. Instead of suit trousers, he wore dark indigo jeans. “It’s very sexy.”
“Hmm, who would I want to be sexy for?” I tapped one poppy-red oval fingernail on my matching red lips.
“Well, remember, tonight we’re just on a date. Sex is no guarantee.” He held out his arms. “How do I look?”
I stepped up and put my arms around his neck to smile up at his face. “Mmm, like a man who’s getting laid tonight, no matter what happens.”
“Well, that takes the pressure off, then.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek, rather than smudge my lipstick.
Neil had offered to cook dinner, but I’d asked our housekeeper, Julia, to do it. Neil had known Ian since college and maintained a casual friendship with him for years. If things went badly, it had the potential to get really awkward, and I didn’t want to put any added stress on him.
When the doorbell rang, we hurried to the foyer. Julia had already gone home, and the smell of the dinner she’d left in the warmer was competing with my nerves for control over my very confused stomach.
“Neil Elwood, you bastard!” Ian said with a broad grin as he held the door for Gena. “’Come by the house.’ This place isn’t a house, it’s a fucking row of condos.”
I loved Ian’s Glaswegian accent. Combined with his easy charm, it made him seem impossibly friendly.
“Hi.” Gena laughed as she stepped inside. Neil only had to lean down a little to give her cheek a kiss; the woman was a ginger Amazon. A very elegant Amazon, in a teal scoop-neck sheath dress and shiny black pumps that matched the thin belt around her waist. I had the weirdest thought that I could lose a set of car keys in her cleavage.
Ian shook Neil’s hand effusively as Gena slipped her coat off. She met my eyes with a smile, shifted her shoulders, and put on a coquettish parody of her own voice. “Well, my my, Sophie. Is this for us?”
I blushed to the roots of my hair. She was so friendly and familiar, like we’d known each other a long time, though we’d only met once, and briefly.
“Sophie, my dear,” Ian said, taking my hands and kissing my cheek. “You look incredible.”
His hands were so goddamn beautiful, and I had to consciously remind myself that holding them too long would be trés creepy. “Thank you. You’re not so bad yourself.”
“Yeah?” He said, raising his eyebrows. “Well, my wife is good at redecorating. She’s flipping husbands instead of houses now.”
“Stop,” Gena said with a chuckle and a shake of her head. “Thank you for having us, your home is lovely.”
“Why don’t you show us around?” Ian prompted.
“Good idea. Neil, why don’t you take them? I need to get dinner out—” I tried to explain, but Gena eagerly chimed in with, “Oh, Sophie, let me help you with that.”
“Excellent, I’ll give Ian a look around, and you and Sophie can get acquainted.” Neil gestured down the hallway. “Ian, would you like a tour, or the bar?”
“That second one.” Ian clapped Neil on the back, and snickering at their own joke, they headed off together.
“Those guys.” Gena’s smile was one of those perfect, long smiles that showed just the right amount of teeth. Her berry lip gloss could have been a tragedy on her pale, freckled skin, but she’d found the exact shade that worked for her. She followed me toward the kitchen. “How long have you been with Neil?”
“Two years.” I stopped and considered. “I think cancer years might count for ten.”
“Yikes.”
“Yeah. How long have you and Ian been together?” I asked as we passed through the hallway.
“We’ve been together for eight years, but we’ve only been married for three.” She lowered her voice and leaned her head conspiratorially. “There were some speed bumps.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I pushed open the kitchen door and said, “Do you want to get the wine and the glasses? The wine is in the cooler in the island, and the glasses are up there. If you can’t find them, just open everything up, I don’t care.”
“Oh, Sophie. You are just a slice of the Midwest, aren’t you?” She shook her head. “You have no idea how good it is to be around people I understand.”
“You’re from Chicago, right?” I asked, grabbing a potholder.
“Aurora,” she corrected. “Of course, to anyone who lives in New York—”
“It’s the same thing,” I finished with her. “Wait, how did you know where I was from? Ian told me where you were at Emma’s wedding.”
Every time Gena moved, it was with this innate grace that people were either born with, or weren’t. I was on the weren’t side. She reached up for some glasses. “I hope this doesn’t embarrass you, but I read your book.”
It still amazed me that anyone had read my sad cancer narrative. I’d written it when I was at my lowest point, believing that Neil was dying. Distancing myself from it had been a survival tactic, and whenever it was brought up again, I was surprised. “Oh. Well, thanks for reading it.”
“I think it was incredibly brave, writing what you did. I know when I was twenty-five, I couldn’t have shared my life so eloquently.” She took a bottle from the cooler. “Do you have a corkscrew?”
“Oh, yeah. Shoot.” I reached for the sommelier corkscrew in the drawer. “I have no idea how to use this. Neil does it for me.”
She took the corkscrew, scored the foil on the top of the bottle, and had the cork out with a flash of her wrist.
“Wow. I’m super impressed right now.” I laughed.
“Ian drinks a lot.” She wrinkled her nose. “No, that sounds so not right.”
I laughed with her, but a slightly uncomfortable silence followed. Was she making a joke? Did Ian have a real problem? Was I just being too sensitive because of what I knew about Neil’s addiction issues?
He’d been back to Dr. Harris since we’d returned from London, but for all the time Neil spent in therapy or on the phone about therapy, he was still drinking.
I was the first to break the weird pause, but I didn’t know how to effectively change the subject. I decided to jump headfirst into something more awkward. “We both know why you’re here. We’re all thinking of having sex with each other. Or, swapping partners. Or something. I’m not really sure how it works.”
I don’t know if I expected her to be shocked by my bluntness, but I was a little put back by the way she airily waved her hand and said, “Oh, you know. Whatever we decide on, the four of us together. Ian and I have done group, we’ve done swapping, really, the only thing we don’t do is sex with someone else alone. It has to be in the same room.”
“Ah.” Neil and I sort-of had that arrangement. While I’d been totally cool with him hooking up with Emir on a different continent, when he’d been with us over the summer we’d made it a point to have sex all together, or not at all, for the duration of his stay.
“That’s not a problem, is it?” Gena asked gently. “If it is, please don’t feel pressured—”
“No, I don’t. I just…” I shook my head. I couldn’t meet her eyes. “Isn’t it weird, watching some other woman fucking your husband? Or man, I mean, if Ian is into guys, too.”
“No, he’s just into women.” She shrugged. “I like girls, though. For future reference, if you’re…”
“Oh, no.” I laughed and held up my hands. “No offense. You’re really hot. I just don’t see myself ever, you know.”
“That’s fine, too.” She leaned on the island and watched as I plated the delicate roast quail Julia had left in the warmer. “But no, I don’t find it weird to watch Ian with other women. It’s sexy, seeing someone you’ve been intimate with being intimate with someone else. It’s a whole different level of knowing someone.”
“I guess I understand that.” I placed each quail on the bed of greens as Julia had instructed me. “Neil really liked watching me with another guy.”
Gena’s eyes flared and sparkled with naughty excitement. “Ooh, do tell. I mean, if you want to.”
The only people I’d told about our threesome arrangement with Emir had been Holli and Deja. Deja wasn’t into sharing relationships, and though Holli had thought it was an amazing story, she didn’t have experience to compare. She’d never been the person in a relationship inviting a third in, she’d always been the third.
Maybe Gena would get it in a way they hadn’t; it certainly sounded like she might. Still, I couldn’t meet her eyes, and my face was as hot as the pan I carried to the sink. “It was this…thing. Neil and I went to a sex club in Paris, and we met this guy, Emir. Neil invited him to finger me in a back room. It was insanely hot.”
“It sounds like it!” Gena said with a laugh. “What about Neil? Did he like it?”
“He fucked me against the wall after. It was super rough.” I quickly added, “That’s kind of how we like it when we’re together. So, I would say, yeah. He dug it.”
“Sophie, when I met you, you seemed like a sweet, innocent little thing,” Gena said with a sigh.
“Well, now you know the truth,” I said, dusting my hands off. Don’t forget the mustard sauce! Julia would never let you hear the end of it! I turned to the refrigerator.
“Actually, I knew the truth that night,” Gena said, catching the side of her bottom lip with her teeth. “When I saw you coming out of the men’s room wobbling like a newborn foal.”
Knowing I’d been caught gave me a naughty little thrill. “Yeah, well. It was his birthday.”
“I think it’s great. It’s sweet.” Gena’s voice took on a wistful tone. “That spontaneity and passion.”
I got the uncomfortable impression that she had mistakenly revealed something to me that she may not have wished to. “Shall we take all of this to the dining room?” I asked, changing the subject. I pulled the little steel trolley from its place beneath the counter and started placing the plates on them.
“Oh, wow.” Gena’s expression froze for a blink. “That’s handy. Ian and I have an apartment. It’s, like, twenty steps from the kitchen to the dining room.”
“Oh, the dining room isn’t far.” I nodded toward the second door. “It’s right through there. I’m just lazy, and I don’t like making more than one trip. It’s like when you go to the grocery store and you’ll put a bag on every finger if you can to avoid going back out to the car.”
Gena frowned. “Wait, you do your own grocery shopping?”
“Mhm. Sometimes.” I hadn’t thought of it before, but despite how friendly we were toward each other, Gena didn’t really know anything about my life beyond my relationship with Neil. “I haven’t always been rich.”
“Then, how did you guys meet?”
Usually, I went with “through work” when talking to strangers on the subject. I hadn’t even put the whole story in my book. But Ian probably knew it, anyway. “We met in an airport. We were on the same flight, and it got delayed. We got a room, and he snuck out in the night.” The memory used to hurt, but now that we were so happy together, the sting was fading. “Fast forward to six years later, and he’s my boss.”
“Six years?” Gena’s brows drew together. “You must have been pretty young.”
“I was eighteen,” I said, with an exaggerated that’s-so-not-right grimace. “But I look about the same now as I did when I was eighteen. I lied and told him I was twenty-five.”
“You look the same now as you did when you were eighteen? I hate you,” Gena laughed.
Our dining room is beautiful. A fourteen-person table with a red mahogany top dominated the center, and golden light intensified the warmth from the pale gold paint color. The floor was glossy hardwood that zigzagged in diagonal rows, and the tall, arched windows from the kitchen were echoed in the enormous, rounded picture window that overlooked the sea. The table was set with Herend Rothschild china and Lalique glasses. Neil had picked out a minimalist flower arrangement of three beautiful orange gloriosa in a black porcelain vase, and the lighting in the room was soft, but not dim. Gena helped me slide the dinner plates onto their chargers.
“This house is truly amazing,” Gena said, gazing out at the lawn, softly illuminated below.
“I know. I would never have thought, growing up in a trailer in the U.P., I would ever live in a place like this.” I nodded to the wall. “It’s got an intercom. Wanna call the guys to dinner?”
“Ooh, can I?” Gena put a little hop in her step as she came over. “What do I push?”
“The bar is… Type in zero-one-three, I think. Then, press talk.” I went to her side, in case she needed help, but she operated it like a pro.
“Boys? Oh, boys?” she said, enunciating “boys” as two syllables. “Your lovely women have put dinner on the table.”
Sharing a meal with Ian and Gena was like spending time with old friends. Maybe it was because they actually were Neil’s friends. But it was different than being around Valerie and Rudy. They were more like family to Neil, so they knew way too much about our personal business, and for me, being around them was like being on trial. We had different boundaries with Ian and Gena, and it was a refreshing change.
“So, Sophie. I know you work at a magazine—” Ian began.
Neil cut him off. “Sophie actually founded the magazine, and she’s co-editor-in-chief.”
“My friend Deja is my partner,” I added.
“Ah. Apologies.” He turned to Neil. “And you’re retired, so you’re a boring old arsehole. What about you, Sophie? How do you spend your time, what do you like to do?”
“When I had free time, I liked to smoke pot and watch stupid movies,” I said with a shrug. “And shop.”
“And force me to watch stupid movies, as well,” Neil said with a chuckle.
“What about you guys?” I asked, sitting a little straighter in my seat.
“Well, I am an interior decorator,” Gena said, lazily swinging her hand on her wrist to gesture at herself.
“And I am an architect.” Ian reached for the bottle of wine and poured himself a second glass. “And I dabble in some drawing on the side.”
“He’s downplaying.” Gena rolled her eyes. “He’s a very successful artist.”
“What kind of art?” Neil lifted his arm and rested it along the back of my chair.
“Portraiture, mostly. Figure drawing. Anything that doesn’t require a computer and loads of fucking math.”
“Maybe we could see some of your work sometime?” I suggested. “It would give us an excuse to get together again.”
“Oh, you don’t need an excuse, love. You can come and see us any time.” Ian said with a wink.
The food was fantastic. Julia had really outdone herself. I could have easily eaten myself into a food stupor, if I hadn’t been keeping the other possibilities of the evening in mind.
Everyone else must have been thinking the same thing, because at the end of the meal they all declined my offer of des
sert.
Gena cleared her throat. “So, Sophie and I were talking while you two were off playing your traditionally masculine roles.”
“I assume you were talking about the same thing we were,” Neil said, and though he smiled, the air took on a tense, delicious charge.
My stomach fluttered.
“We discussed the possibility of…having a little fun together.” Ian leaned forward, his arms crossed on the table. “But we laid down some parameters. I know this would be your first time, Sophie, and I don’t want you to feel,” he turned his hand over and back, as though he were turning the page of a book, “and Neil, obviously, agrees—”
“We don’t want you to feel pressured to do anything you didn’t want to do,” Neil interrupted, for the sake of coherence, I assume.
“Oh, um.” How did I phrase this with Neil right next to me? Ian ran the tip of his middle finger around the rim of his wine glass absently as he listened, and I couldn’t look him in the eye. “I wouldn’t be…averse…to, um.”
“Sophie?” Neil asked, a note of humor in his voice, and I realized that he’d noticed my intense concentration on Ian’s hands. I raised my eyes guiltily and caught Neil’s smirk.
“Well, you two spoke about it in more depth than we did,” Gena said with a sigh. “But I agree, Sophie, you shouldn’t do anything you don’t want to do.”
“No one will be disappointed if we just have a lovely dinner,” Neil reassured me, and I knew what he was really telling me: he wouldn’t be upset if he didn’t have sex with Gena.
That made me feel a lot better. Knowing that the two of them were a “package deal”, as Neil had once referred to them, it was only natural that Neil might worry I felt obligated to sleep with Ian so he and Gena could hook up.
How to approach this and reassure them, though, was still a delicate question. Did I just up and say, “Gena, I want to fuck your husband?” Would they believe me if I tried to couch it in more cautious language.
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