Upside Down (28 page)

The night went by very smoothly. Dinner was great, the company was gracious, my parents were perfect hosts. Around midnight, the guests who lived in Boston said their goodbyes. Dave, Jerry, Mark, Cindy and I stayed. We were going to spend the night at my parents’ house.

My mom had asked Bob to prepare a room for Dave and Jerry, another for Mark and one for Cindy on the guests’ side of the house. I stayed in my old bedroom, on the family’s side of the house. We climbed the stairs together and parted ways at the top. A little while after I entered my room, I texted Cindy and Mark and asked them to come talk to me in my room. It was, in fact, a suite with a sitting area and a bedroom and a bathroom. They arrived together and we sat on the couch and armchairs in the sitting area.

“I told you I’d have
a decision by my birthday dinner. I won’t beat around the bush. I’ve decided I can’t choose between you two. I love you both. I can’t lose either.”

“What?” Mark asked in frustration.

“What do you mean, exactly?” Cindy sounded more intrigued than anything else.

“I
mean precisely what I said. Since I can’t choose one because I don’t want to lose the other, I propose we try a three-way relationship.”

I paused and they looked at me,
speechless, for a long time. Mark was the first to recover his ability to talk.

“I don’t know about that, Carol. I’m not very good at sharing. I’ve never been.”

“Yeah, me neither.” Cindy added.

“I remember your nasty jealous side quite well
, Mark. By the way, you seemed to enjoy talking to Dave and his husband, Jerry, very much during dinner tonight.”

He blushed a little. I loved when Mark blushed because he looked like a little school boy who had been caught doing something he wasn’t suppose to do.

“They are very good people. I did enjoy meeting them. I’m sorry about that night.”

“Forget about it, sweetie. That is water under the bridge.”

I turned to Cindy and said, “I also remember quite well a ton of messages you left for me when I last had dinner with Mark.”

“Yeah, guilty as charged,” she raised her hands in the air.

“The thing is, my loves, I’m not the sharing type, either. I guess we’ll have to work on that together if you decide you want to try it. On the other hand, I’ve got to say that seeing you two tonight, sitting and talking so intimately and comfortably, did not bring up in me the response it usually would have – a murderous desire to twist somebody’s neck. On the contrary, I felt happy. It was amazing to see the two people I love most in this world getting along so well. It gave me hope this arrangement might work.”

“I’m not sure about that. How about you, Cindy?”

“Neither am I.”

“I didn’t expect you to decide it tonight. I wanted to keep my word and tell you about my decision. After all, it took me a while to convince myself it was a good idea. Can you at least do that, think about it?”

We exchanged smiles as Cindy stood up and I did the same thinking she was going to say goodbye. Instead, she put her arms around my waist and pulled me close. She kissed me like I wanted to have kissed her earlier tonight –deeply and passionately. All of sudden, Mark’s heat branded my back seconds before I felt his hard body covering mine. He held both Cindy and I in a tight embrace.

“If this a preview, I’ll have a lot to think about tonight
,” he whispered. “It’s a good thing I’m not sharing my room because I’ll need my privacy. You’re steamy-hot together.”

When they left my room, I lay on the bed and let a hopeful smile play on my lips. Finally, the future looked bright for the three of us.

However, things didn’t progress as fast as I had wished they would. More than two weeks had gone by since my birthday dinner. I had buried myself in work to try to avoid thinking about Mark and Cindy every second of the day. The fact was, though, I missed them terribly.

When I was awake, I found ways to distract myself but when night came and I went to sleep, I couldn’t escape the dreams. I woke up sweating and panting because the scenes were hotter and more explicit each night. Then, at the office, I sometimes caught myself staring at them, and a flash from the night before would pop up in my mind’s eye and I would gasp. The effect these scenes had in my body were immediate. One flash of a soft pair of thighs or hard biceps or both together would set my lower body on fire.

At the same time, I had noticed the way Mark and Cindy interacted. After my proposal, they seemed to be sizing themselves up. I saw the way she checked him out and licked her lips. I also saw his eyes following her round derrière when she passed by his desk. I contributed to the process. After all, it was in my best interest these two gorgeous people saw the potential in the arrangement I had suggested. When we worked together in my office, only the three of us, I would run a hand up Cindy’s arm or lean over her to get something across the table, my cleavage almost touching her mouth and I would see a bulge growing in Mark’s pants. Other times, I would rest my hands on his shoulders and lean down to say something in his ears, effectively embracing him with my upper body. Others, I would rub my behind against his arm or crotch, depending on whether he was sitting or standing. Either way, Cindy’s eyes would turn darker every time.

Unfortunately, I seemed to be the only one noticing these little
things. Either that or they were more conservative than I had thought they were. I was at my wits’ end. I had showed all my cards and had to sit and wait for their next move. I hated that.

One day, Destiny, or something naughtier, intervened in my favor.
Josh Peterson showed up at the office, out of the blue, inviting me to have lunch with him. Arrogant as always, he ignored both Cindy and Mark and marched into my room. Normally, I would have been pissed off and sent him back from wherever he had come. Fortunately, I saw an excellent opportunity when he stormed in, with Mark and Cindy in his wake.

“Hey, you can’t go in there,” Mark was saying when the three were already in the middle of my office.

I looked up from the reports on my table, saw the three in front of me and decided on a risky strategy. I greeted Josh with a wide, warm grin as I stood up and walked towards him.

“What a great surprise, Josh.”

True to his nature, Josh pulled me into an intimate embrace and I waved at Mark and Cindy to go out behind his back.

“Thank you, guys,” I said aloud. “But Josh is an old friend. He doesn’t
follow some formalities.”

“It’s so good to see you, pet,” he pulled away just enough to look at me and kept his arms tightly wound around my waist pressing me against his lean body. “I missed you.”

Mark’s dark expression and the murderous glint in Cindy’s eyes as they went out and closed the door behind them, turned out to be all the evidence I wanted to see. I silently prayed my strategy worked without backfiring. Josh was a dangerous man who wouldn’t forgive me if he noticed I was using him. He would make me pay. I wasn’t into his kind of punishment anymore. I needed to thread very carefully.

“Josh, what brings in here?”

“We didn’t talk much at your dinner party and when I decided to come down to New York on business, I figured I’d treat you to lunch. I bet you never have a decent meal in the middle of the day, am I right?”

“You are. I’m always too busy.”

“But never too busy to get in the sack with two co-workers, instead of one. Wow, pet, I have to say. Congrats.”

He wasn’t joking and I only managed to stare at him as if he were a rare creature from another galaxy.

“Who are you? What have you done to the Josh Peterson I knew?”

His loud laughter was contagious and I joined him until my jaws hurt. That’s when my intercom buzzed. I picked up the receiver but had to catch my breath before answering Mark.

“Yeah?”

“Do you need anything, Carol? Is that guy bothering you? I can call security, you know.”

“Relax, Mark. We’re having fun in here.”

“Call me if you need anything,” his tone was harsh and I smiled.

“You bet.”

“It’s a cozy little thing you’ve got going here, Carol. I admire your guts. They’re yummy and loyal to a fault, aren’t they?”

“They are great people, Josh. As for their looks, I must agree with you but what do you mean by ‘loyal to a fault’?”

“Well, when I noticed both your colleagues there would have gladly slit my throat during dinner the other night, I figured they were involved with you. I also noticed they were too comfortable with each other to be cheating on either one. Nobody can fake that kind of thing. I mean, working together would have made it impossible for, at least one of them, not to know about the other.”

“You are still great at reading people, Josh. You’ve always have been.”

“
I’ll take that as a compliment, so, thank you.”

“It is a compliment.”

“I thought you might still be mad at the way things turned out between us.”

“Josh, when we first hooked up, I was too young to know any better. Now, I realize I owe you a lot,” I held his hand resting on my table. “You were my first master. Too bad you didn’t like the power switch in our relationship when I grew older. I wanted different things, back then. I wanted new challenges and you were happy
only if you could keep me as your little pet. That’s it. No hard feelings, no open wounds.”

“Then why did those two beautiful creatures look at me as if I were the devil? You must have told them something.”

“I told them bits and pieces of the truth. Essentially, I told them what I’ve just said. I didn’t ask them how they feel about you. They’re possessive and I noticed some animosity at dinner. I thought they were jealous of our past together.”

“How do they deal with their possessiveness in this threesome scenario?”

“Oh, that’s a long story. We’d better get going and have lunch while I tell you everything.”

I was surprised at how at ease I felt around Josh. It was the first time that happened after our turbulent relationship had ended in an ugly break-up. Apparently, time healed all wounds. I had changed, too. That must have accounted for something. Josh also seemed different, less domineering, more relaxed. We got up and left the room together. I overheard Cindy saying something to Mark under her breath. She sounded really pissed off at my lunch arrangements.

“Mark, I’m going out for lunch. I probably won’t come back. Call my cell phone if there’s any emergency, OK?”

“Absolutely,” was his reply.
One single word pronounced with such venom. Good!

When we were waiting for the elevator, Josh had his hand on the small of my back and he leaned
to whisper something in my ear. From afar, the scene must have looked intimate. At least, that’s what I hoped for. As we entered the elevator, I looked over my shoulder at Mark and Cindy staring at us. Their expressions were a mix of worry and hate.

“You’ve always liked to play with fire, Carol. Careful not to burn yourself.”

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take. They‘re worth it.”

On the way to the restaurant, I told Josh a summarized version of recent events – just enough for him to understand my current situation.”

“Wow.”

We were sitting at our table, waiting for the waiter to bring our lunch and I laughed at his exclamation.

“Is that all you have to say, Josh?”

“No, I have tons of things to say I just don’t think they’ll help you.”

“Do you have any piece of advice?”

“I’ve never been in a situation like this. Sorry. I wish I could help.”

The waiter arrived with our steaming plates of pasta and we dug in. I was hungry and the food was delicious.

“
Enough of my love life. What about yours? Do you still go to Club Desire?”

“Funny you asked. I met a wonderful girl there. She used to bartend but you know all employees there eventually do scenes with the clients.”

“Don’t I know it!”

“Anything you want to share?”

“Never mind. Go on,” I asked him, laughing.

“So, I went there one day with a girlfriend and Meg, the bartender, brought us our drinks. I was fascinated. I never thought I’d say this but it was love at first sight.”

“Oh, now I get it.”

“What?”

“You’ve changed and I hadn’t understood how until now. You are in love, Josh!”

“Is it that obvious?” he looked embarrassed. Another emotion I’d never associate with him.

“It’s not obvious you’re in love. Not for me, anyway. But it’s obvious you’ve changed. You’re more relaxed, more open.”

“And it’s a good thing, right?”

“Oh, my gosh! You’re also insecure. Isn’t it adorable?”

Now I was ironic and he blushed. He knew exactly why I reacted like that.

“I’m sorry, Carol. I did a number on you, didn’t I? In my defense, I was young and stupid, too.”

“You were old
and experienced enough to know what you were doing. Toying with a naïve and insecure parentless girl was bound to have consequences.”

“I know it now. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of your insecurities.”

“That is true. On the other hand, I learned a lot from that experience. I became stronger and more assertive in great part because of how you used to make me feel. Aside from our sexual role-playing, I hated the way I emotionally depended on you. Especially when you became insanely jealous. I felt suffocated. That was when I learned to be independent, to look for happiness inside me and not in other people.”

“I’d say you’ve found happiness in two other people, haven’t you?”

“No, Josh. I’ve found happiness
with
them. There’s a difference. I would be devastated if I lost any one of them, for whatever reason, but I’m sure I’d move on - eventually. This way, I can be happy and share happiness with them, offering them a better version of myself because of that. However, I won’t lose my identity or I won’t become someone else to make them happy. Can you see the difference?”

“Absolutely. I’m impressed, Carol. You’ve turned into a gorgeous, wise and driven woman. I’m starting to regret my choices.”

I swatted his hand and laughed at his joke.

“Oh, stop it. You’re head over heels in love with this Meg, the bartender,” he blushed again and I kissed his cheek. “She must be quite a woman, huh?”

For the rest of the day, we walked around Manhattan as he told me everything there was to know about Meg. They had met at Club Desire. He fell in love at once but she wouldn’t give him the time of the day. He begged for a proper first date and she refused. Months later, she agreed and they had the best time together. Gradually, he had won her over.

We decided to stop at the bar across from my apartment building and have a few drinks to wrap up a rather pleasant day. We sat down on the stools and resumed talking about Meg. I smiled at Josh who looked like a teen in love and listened to him.

“Now, she’s starting to believe I’ve changed. I think I have a chance with her at something real, you know? A normal relationship.”

I thought about it for a while
, then, said.

“Funny how we toss the word ‘normal’ around so casually, huh? I never felt I was abnormal
before. So, why do I say I need a ‘normal’ relationship now?”

“Carol, I wouldn’t say a three-way is a normal relationship,
would you?”

“You are probably right,” I replied laughing.

“Probably,” he shook his head in amusement. “You’re incorrigible.”

We changed the topic to friends in common. He had more surprises in store for me. He had kept track of almost all our mutual childhood friends.

“That’s impressive, Josh.”

“Well, social media helps me a lot nowadays but I’ve always tried to hear from my friends; to know what they were up to.”

“How come you’ve never contacted me?”

“I kept track of you through friends and press. I knew exactly what you were up to and how well you were doing. I’m very proud of you, by the way.”

“Oh, thanks!”

We finished our drinks and left. It was pretty late and he walked me up to my apartment building. We stood
at the lobby, talking.

“You didn’t answer my question, though. Why didn’t you contact me directly? I bumped into you a couple of times over the years but it was always by chance.”

He looked down at his feet and I couldn’t believe my eyes, I got closer and lifted his chin to stare at me.

“I can’t believe this, Josh Peterson,” I smiled sweetly at him. “Are you embarrassed?”