Tempted (26 page)

“Hi, Mrs. Kinney, how are you?”

She gave him a glance. “Fine, Alex. You?”

“Great. Really, really great.” His smile got broader.

I’d have been suspicious even if I hadn’t seen her reaction. I shot James a narrow look he missed completely. Now they were both pressing their lips together like they were trying to keep from bursting into laughter.

“Well. I’ll just be going, then.” Evelyn paused, but James just waved at her.

“Bye, Mom. See ya.”

“Buh-bye, Mrs. Kinney.” Alex wiggled his fingers.

James and Alex stood shoulder to shoulder, smiling and waving, and Evelyn took her leave without another word. I watched her go to her car, watched her slide into the driver’s seat and put the keys in the ignition. I waited to see if she’d let down her guard when she thought she wasn’t being watched, maybe break down, but she didn’t. She drove off, and I turned to them.

“What was that all about?” James burst into guffaws. Alex’s laughter was smug. I stared at them. “Oh my God. You’re high.”

I sniffed the air. The smoke from the regular cigarette was masking the tang of pot, but it was there. James opened the fridge and pulled out another ashtray, this time with a joint in it. It had gone out.

“You’re smoking pot? James?”

They were laughing about the snuffed joint, paying no attention to me. I raised my voice.

“James!” They turned to look. “Why did you have pot in the refrigerator?”

“He put it in there when his mom came in.” Alex snickered.

“Did she see you smoking it?”

“I don’t think so.” James cleared his throat and gave Alex a cautious glance. “We were sort of…fighting over it when she came in, and I…”

“He grabbed it out of my hand and stuck it in the fridge right away.”

“I’m sure she saw you.” I put my hands on my hips, not wanting to see either of them acting like boys.

They gave each other another glance, guiltier this time.

“She didn’t see the pot,” James said firmly.

“Then what did she see?” I demanded. “You two acting like teenagers? That’s not shocking. She looked like she’d seen a murder!”

Alex snorted lightly. “C’mon, Annie, it wasn’t that bad. And Evelyn always looks like that.”

“We were just fooling around.” James came from behind the island to put his arm around my shoulder. “Just acting crazy. That’s all.”

Something a little cold settled in the pit of my stomach. Fooling around could mean many things. Had they been roughhousing, fighting over the joint? Or had they been standing closer than she’d expected them to stand, maybe touching a little too long? Had they been kissing?

Alex lifted the joint to his lips and lit it, sucking in smoke while his eyes squinted shut. He breathed in. Held it. Let it out. Offered it to me. “Want some?”

“No.”

“Jamie?”

I looked at James. He looked at me. Then at Alex. “Sure.”

I said nothing, just left them in the kitchen to giggle and wrestle or whatever the hell they were doing. I went to my bedroom and shut the door against the sound of their laughter. I pulled out a book I tried to read but on which I couldn’t concentrate.

Had they been kissing? Should I care if they had? How could I be jealous of something they might have done that Alex and I had definitely done?

Was it a competition after all?

It could’ve been easy to lose sight of my marriage, having a husband and a lover, but I didn’t. Part of it was James’s unquestionable lack of jealousy about Alex and his unstinting belief that no matter how many times Alex licked me to orgasm, I loved James best. It was his complete self-confidence in the matter that allowed the three of us to enjoy what we were doing so well…and so often.

James wasn’t jealous of his best friend, so how could I be jealous of Alex? Their small secret jokes that left me out, their memories? Both were here with me now, both were attentive and passionate. Sometimes too attentive and passionate.

“Enough,” I said that night when cramps and bloating and a day with Evelyn had made sex seem like a chore rather than some exotic adventure. “Not even with Brad Pitt’s dick.”

“Damn, that’s cold.” Alex leaned back against the headboard, his shirt undone but his pants still zipped. He looked over at James, who’d just come out of the shower. “Did you hear that, man? She’s comparing us to Brad Pitt’s prick. Unfavorably.”

I didn’t want to laugh, I wanted to soak in the tub with a scented candle burning and a good book to read. “I wasn’t. I was just saying I can’t do it tonight. You’ve both rubbed me raw in half a dozen places. And I have cramps.”

“Orgasms are good for cramps.” James came up behind me and put his arms around me to nibble my ear.

“Didn’t you just hear what I said?”

“Something about somebody’s dick,” he murmured with a low laugh, sliding his hands up to cup my breasts. “I like it when you talk dirty. Say it again.”

From his lounging spot sprawled out on our bed, Alex made a shooing gesture. “She doesn’t want to, Jamie. Forget it. She doesn’t love us anymore.”

“No?” James tweaked an upright nipple. “Are you sure?”

I gave a disgruntled sigh and slipped out of his arms. “I’m tired, James. And sore.”

“Is that a compliment or an insult?” Alex asked from the bed. “Blaming us?”

I turned to give him a glare I had to work at maintaining. “You’re both insatiable satyrs, and I want to take a hot bath and read a book. I do not want to have sex. Not with you. Not with him. Not with both of you.”

“Not with Brad Pitt, either, apparently.” James tossed his towel onto the chair and strode, comfortable in his nakedness, to the dresser to yank open a drawer. “Hey, babe, do I have any clean boxers?”

“I’m sure you would,” I snapped, “if I had time to do some laundry instead of spending all my time in bed with the two of you!”

Alex stretched. “To be fair, Anne, last time it wasn’t in bed. It was on the living room floor.”

I’d been trying to make lists for the party. James had seduced me with a foot massage. Alex had joined in with a back rub. It hadn’t been difficult from there.

James turned, still naked, a pair of shorts in his hand that he tossed to the bed. “These are yours, dude.”

“Hey, I’ve been looking for those.” Alex snatched them up. “I probably have some clean ones that belong to you.”

Neither of them were blaming me, but hormones had sent me down the slippery slope to irrationality. “Well, pardon me! It’s not the underwear fairy who delivers your clean laundry, you know! It’s me! And you both wear the same size! So pardon me! Maybe next time you can both do your own damned laundry!”

The outburst made me feel better at once. Identical looks of surprise greeted me, and I revved up again. “While you’re at it, you can take over the toilet cleaning, because I’m sure not the one who can’t aim!”

Blink. Blink. James, still naked, took a step back. Alex sat up higher, looking like he meant to speak, but I cut him off before he could.

“And if you’re horny,” I shouted, “you can just take care of yourselves! Or each other! Because I’m not interested!”

With that, I stomped through the door into the bathroom and slammed the door behind me so hard it knocked a picture off the wall. It was an ugly picture, some wretched picture of kittens in a bathtub that Evelyn had given me when she’d redecorated her powder room. It fell to the tile floor. The frame split in half, along with the pane of glass, which fortunately didn’t shatter but stayed in two pieces.

I took a couple deep breaths and waited for guilt to assail me. It didn’t. I still felt good. The outburst had been silly, even I knew that. I wasn’t even mad about the laundry. I wasn’t even really mad…which somehow made my shouting all right.

Yeah. That was fucked up, and I knew it, but I smiled as I picked up the kittens and tossed them in the trash. That felt even better.

“Fuck you, kittens in the bathtub,” I whispered.

I calmed as the water filled the tub. Had I really told them to take care of each other? Would they do it?

So far no matter how tangled our bedtime arrangements, Alex and James hadn’t had sex. I’d done everything a woman can do with each of them, separately and simultaneously. They’d been side by side and facing each other. Even back to back. But they hadn’t kissed. Hadn’t touched.

Maybe that was another one of the rules they hadn’t bothered to share with me.

I drained the tub and threw on a robe. When I flung open the bathroom door, I again got two identically startled looks. Alex and James had sprawled out in my bed, both wearing only boxers. The television was set to the sports channel. They both had beers lined up along the nightstands. They could have been any long-married couple, comfortable with each other to the point of not noticing when one of them belched or picked his nose.

“Why don’t you guys ever touch?” I demanded.

Blink, blink. Blink.

James was the first to answer, I think because Alex was wisely keeping his mouth shut. “What?”

I went to the bed and grabbed up the remote, turning off the television. “Both of you. Why don’t you ever touch each other when we’re fucking?”

I’d never seen James blush. He might be a butterfly, flitting back and forth or spinning in place, but he was never put out of sorts. Now I watched his chest turn blotchy and a column of red spread up his throat to turn his cheeks pink.

Alex, interestingly, looked unconcerned. He stretched a hand up behind his head, emphasizing his lean torso, and gave me a steady look. Also, an enigmatic smile, like the Mona Lisa’s but dirtier.

James cut Alex a glance. The way he moved away was subtle, but spoke volumes. Alex must have noticed, as I did, but he kept his eyes on me.

“Well?” I lifted my chin toward them.

“I’m not queer,” James said, adding hastily with a look at his friend, “not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

Alex didn’t look offended. “He’s not queer, Anne.”

The response deflated me a little. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected—or wanted—to hear. What I wanted to know. James was self-confident enough not to wonder, but maybe I needed to hear something like this to prove he loved me best.

“And I’m not polyamorous,” I said. “But I’m fucking two men.”

“Poly-whosee-whatsis?” James was still blushing.

“Polyamorous. It means have more than one lover, not just sexually but, like, in a relationship.” Alex spoke coolly, like we were discussing the weather.

James’s brow furrowed. He looked from me to Alex, then back to me. “That’s not what this is.”

I crossed my arms, the bulky fabric of my robe making it difficult. “Isn’t it?”

James shook his head. “This is just…”

Alex and I both looked at him. We waited. James gave a small, assured grin. “It’s just fun. A fling. Something fun for the summer.” His brow furrowed again. “Right?”

Alex and I didn’t look at each other. “Right, man,” he said.

I didn’t answer.

“Anne?”

I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. “Sure. Of course.”

James got up and came around the bed to take me in his arms. “What’s wrong, baby? I thought you liked this.”

I shook my head. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

James kissed me, a caress I allowed but didn’t return. “C’mon. Tell me. Why are you so grouchy? Do you want us to stop watching TV in here so you can go to bed?”

A month ago he wouldn’t have been so perceptive. We had Alex to thank for that. And that, somehow, annoyed me twice as much as if he’d been oblivious.

“No,” I snapped.

“Then what?” He was still trying to soothe, but I wasn’t having any of it.

“Then nothing!” I cried, stiff and unwilling to yield in his arms. “Just…nothing!”

Alex got up from the bed and made to move out the door. I turned on him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

He shrugged. “Giving you some privacy.”

I laughed, mocking. “Privacy? You can stick around when it’s time for me to put your prick in my mouth, but when I’m in a bad mood you’re out the door, is that it?”

“Jesus, Anne,” said James, shocked maybe by my vehemence. “What’s the matter with you?”

“I’m going to go out for a while. Give you two some time alone.” Alex made for the door.

I knew it was stupid, that I was getting myself worked up over nothing. Blaming hormones doesn’t excuse my behavior. I knew it, and I did it anyway.

“What are you going to do? Go out clubbing? Pick up some guy and give him a blow job in the back alley?”

“God, Anne. What the hell?” James looked sick.

Alex’s face had gone cold and distant. Far away. He was dismissing me, and I hated it. “Is that any of your business?”

“I think it is, yes, when you’re coming back here to my house, and my bed, and my…and my husband!” I hurt my throat from shouting. James recoiled.

Alex didn’t look affected, not even a flicker in a gaze that had gone more brown than gray. “Anne, if you want me to leave, all you have to do is say so. You don’t have to turn into a raging bitch.”