Circles Collide

Chapter 16:Triple Play

Malibu, California

June 18, 1997

The Kingsleys had some business in LA on this Wednesday afternoon—the bimonthly KVA meeting, which had now become weekly due to the two separate projects underway—and took the opportunity to accept a dinner invitation from Gordon and Tanisha Paladay at their Malibu home. They had not been able to get together with G and Neesh for quite some time now due to everyone’s respective schedules, and all four of them had been looking forward to the gathering ever since it had been planned the week before. Dinner was a delicately roasted prime rib, lovingly cooked to perfection by Consuela, the Paladays’ middle-aged live-in domestic servant, served with steamed asparagus spears, mashed potatoes, and a rich gravy. Jake, G, and Neesh enjoyed a bottle of 1987 Napa Valley merlot with the meal while Laura enjoyed a nice, refreshing bottle of Sprite on the rocks.

After the meal, while Consuela cleaned and put the kitchen and dining room back in serviceable condition, Jake and G retired to the composition room upstairs so they could smoke a joint, drink scotch on the rocks, and try to come up with another compilation tune that they might be able to put on G’s next CD, which he was just now starting to put together. Laura and Neesh, meanwhile, retired out to the deck, Laura with another bottle of Sprite, Neesh with a glass of her favorite chardonnay, to catch up on all the latest in each other’s lives.

“Girl, you are most definitely starting to show now,” Neesh commented as they took their seats next to each other at the patio table.

Laura smiled at the comment. She was dressed in a pair of white shorts and a green sleeveless top that was a bit tight on her. It was something she had owned pre-pregnancy and had worn frequently because it preserved her puritanical sense of public modesty by not allowing much of a view of her cleavage thanks to a high neckline and her small breasts. But now she was thinking it was time to put it away until after her post-delivery lactation period. Her breasts had swollen quite noticeably now that she was well into the second trimester, lowering that neckline and raising her cleavage border. She also had an unmistakable baby bump in her belly, which caused the hem of the shirt to occasionally ride up a bit, revealing the flesh of her midriff—another part of her body that she generally did not show in front of anyone but Jake.

“Yeah,” she said shyly. “Soon I’m going to be as big as a house. I really need to start shopping for maternity clothes soon.”

“You look good,” Neesh said, reaching over and placing her hand directly on the baby bump. She began to rub it. “You’re going to be one of those women that looks hot all throughout the pregnancy. You know? The kind of bitch that other women hate.”

Laura chuckled, enjoying the feel of Neesh’s hand on her quite a bit and knowing that Neesh was enjoying it in more than a friendly way as well.

“You’d better stop that soon,” Laura told her, an impish smile on her face, “or I just might start begging.”

“You won’t have to beg very hard,” Neesh told her, her eyes shining. “I’d love to get them boobies of yours in my mouth just as an appetizer. Look at them things.”

“Yeah,” Laura said. “They’ve never been this big before. And they are incredibly sensitive now. There’s a lot to be said about this whole second trimester horniness thing. Jake is barely able to keep up with me.”

“Is that the beginning of a beg?” Neesh asked hopefully.

Laura chuckled again. “Maybe,” she said. “But you know the rules. I would have to clear it with Jake first, which would necessitate G being briefed in.”

The look of hope fell flat. G did not know about Neesh’s bisexual dalliances and she intended to keep it that way. It was something that she believed he would not understand or approve of. “Spoilsport,” she said with a pout.

“Sorry,” Laura said, with complete sincerity. Even though she and Jake had done it that morning just before taking their showers before their flight in, she already wanted, needed some more. She had always been more than a little amorous since she and Jake had done it that first time in Coos Bay, but the hormones surging in her now had upped that by a factor of ten or more. She was constantly horny now, every minute of every day, and never satisfied. And that was just for Jake. She was craving the touch of a female almost obsessively these days but had not enjoyed such a touch since she and Celia had fooled around a little that one fateful night out on tour.

Neesh reluctantly took her hand away, noting with keen interest that her gentle caress of Laura’s soft belly had made the redhead’s nipples hard. She picked up her wine and had a quick slug of it in a vain attempt to drown her frustration. “It’s just as well,” she said with a sigh. “There probably some sea lion out there that would find a way to interrupt us.”

That gave both girls the giggles as they remembered Laura’s naked encounter with the snoozing pinniped out on that very beach a few years back.

“So ... anyway,” Neesh said. “You said you had your ultrasound a few days ago, right?” Laura had mentioned that at dinner.

“That’s right, on Monday,” she said. “That was the very day I turned sixteen weeks.”

“And you said everything was good?”

Laura nodded. “A perfectly normal sixteen-week fetus with the placenta implanted exactly where it is supposed to be. All the identifiable internal organs intact and developing normally. All the identifiable bones developing normally. Everything in proper proportion. Everything perfectly on track.”

“That’s good to hear,” Neesh said.

“It was a relief,” Laura agreed.

“But did you find out what it was?” Neesh asked.

Laura smiled. “Dr. Niven did the exam herself,” she said. “She told us that she was about ninety percent certain that Ziggy is a little girl.”

Neesh smiled. “A little girl, huh? That’s awesome, Teach. But only ninety percent?”

“In the ultrasound at sixteen weeks they determine sex by the absence or presence of external genitalia. With a boy, it’s usually pretty clear what they’re looking at so it’s easier to be one hundred percent certain. She got a good look right between Ziggy’s legs and couldn’t see little balls or a little pee-pee. So, we either have a girl cooking in there, or a boy who is going to have some hangups as he goes through life.”

Neesh laughed. “How does Jake feel about that?” she asked.

“He’s very excited,” she said. “He’s not one of those men who would be disappointed if he didn’t get a boy. He just wants a healthy baby. That’s all I want too.”

“You two are going to make great parents,” Neesh said. “Have you started thinking about names yet? Or have you already decided on Ziggy?”

Laura giggled. “Ziggy is just her nickname while she’s a fetus,” she said. “That came from Dr. Vargo explaining that a baby starts her existence as a zygote right after fertilization. We would never actually name her that any more than Pauline and Obie would have named their baby Clump.”

“Ziggy is a much cuter name than Clump,” Neesh pointed out. “And it would go along with some of those other baby names that celebrities are hanging on their kids—like your friend Mindy Snow, for instance.”

“We wouldn’t do that to little Zig,” she said. “We have talked a little about names and have decided that it should be something musical in nature—we are musicians after all, and music is what brought us together—but Jake absolutely insisted, and I agree, that we will not give our child a ‘fucked-up name’, as he puts it.”

“Musical, huh?” she asked. “Any examples?”

“Nothing but rejects so far, and not even very many of those. I suggested Leslie, you know, after Jake’s favorite guitar, the Les Paul, but he did not like that at all. He said all the girls in school would call her Lez.”

“Hey now,” Neesh said. “Nothing wrong with a little Lez every now and then.”

“True,” Laura agreed (and how, she thought, eyeing the swell of Neesh’s breasts and wishing they were in her mouth), but there is no sense in setting up someone for ridicule. Jake says you have to make the high school bullies at least work a bit to come up with something.

“He may have a point there,” Neesh said after a moment’s thought.

“Jake suggested Harmony, but ... I don’t know, I don’t really like the sound of that one. I’m not sure why, but it just doesn’t appeal to me. He agreed to take that one off the table.”

“I’m not sure I’m down with Harmony either,” Neesh opined. “In any case, I can’t wait to hear what you eventually come up with.”

“Me either,” Laura said.

They watched the sun sinking toward the sea for a few minutes, hearing the crashing of the surf and the screaming of the gulls as they flew back and forth. There was no offshore marine layer and only the gentlest of a breeze blowing.

“I saw in the papers that your girlfriend Celia is one of our neighbors now,” Neesh said, breaking the silence.

“Yes,” Laura said. “She has a beautiful house not even five minutes from here. Maybe I can talk her into having us over one of these days. I’m sure you’d love to see it.”

“She is a cool chick,” Neesh said. “At least from what I saw of her at your wedding. How is she doing these days? She over the breakup with her hubby?”

Laura shrugged. “She’s coping the best she can,” she said. “She was up in Oregon with us while we were working on the new group’s CD, helping out. We didn’t really need her up there—truthfully, they didn’t really even need me up there—but it seemed like she needed to get out of LA for a while.”

“The entertainment media were saying that you and she were getting it on,” Neesh said. “Please tell me that shit is true.”

Laura shook her head. “No truth to it at all,” she said. “Just entertainment media innuendo.”

“That’s too bad,” Neesh said. “She’s quite the piece. What about them stories about her and that female pilot?”

“Nothing to that either,” Laura said, fighting to keep looking Neesh in the eye as she lied to her. She knew she was a terrible liar and hated doing it, but that was not any of Neesh’s business and it was not her place to decide who should know Celia’s secrets.

Neesh nodded, seemingly buying the lie. “A pity,” she said. “But understandable. I saw that picture of the pilot she was supposed to be getting it on with. A little masculine looking for my tastes.”

“Suzie is cool,” Laura said. “And she’s not as butch looking as that picture suggests.”

Another nod. “What about those other stories?” Neesh asked. “The ones about you and the groupies out on tour. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to—just say no comment—but the thought of you having a bunch of slutty bitches come to your hotel room to eat you out is really fuckin’ hot, Teach.”

Laura smiled. It was her place to decide who to share her personal information with, and Neesh was a friend who would understand and be discrete with the information. “Yeah,” she said. “That happened. Not quite as much as they suggested, but with fair regularity.”

“Goddamn!” Neesh said, clearly aroused by the admission. “You have got to tell me about this. How does it work? You just go pull some slut from the audience, or what?”

And so, Laura explained the intricacies of how a traveling musician hooked up with a lesbian groupie out on the road. She made a point to explain the unbreakable, set-in-stone rule about how you never kiss a groupie. Neesh listened quite attentively, and her own nipples got hard as she heard the tale.

“And Jake knows about all this?” she asked.

“He knows,” she assured her. “It’s part of our deal.”

“Girlfriend,” Neesh said, “I really do envy you on this matter.”

“Being able to do that kept me from going crazy with lust out on the road and maybe being tempted to try something with the opposite sex. Jake would definitely not approve of that. Neither would I.”

She nodded. “Not that that keeps the fucking media from speculating about it,” she said bitterly.

“Yeah,” Laura sighed. “I know what you mean.”

What she meant was the latest unsubstantiated rumor being passed around about the little bundle in Laura’s belly. Shortly after the appointment with Dr. Vargo in which it was confirmed that Laura was pregnant, she and Jake released a statement through Pauline announcing the particulars of the situation in as sterile and straightforward and, most of all, briefly a manner as possible. Most of the entertainment media printed and aired the announcement as written the next day. After that, the speculation and rumormongering began.

Though, as Pauline had assured them, no tabloid, newspaper, or entertainment show dared publish anything about the underage transvestite story since it was provably refutable and would thus open them up to libel and slander charges (though the offending email continued to circulate and the story continued to be passed far and wide by word of mouth), the stories about her pregnancy were a completely different monster. The first had been that Laura had conceived via artificial insemination because Jake had become sterile from all the drugs he had taken over the years and all the STDs he had contracted. The next had been that she had conceived accidentally as a result of birth control failure just before an orgy the couple attended (it was taken as a given in the entertainment press that Jake and Laura regularly attended orgies) and they were unsure who the father even was. And now, the latest rumor that had appeared first in the American Watcher, and then the LA Times and on Entertainment Reports, was that they knew exactly who the father was: Gordon Paladay, known to the world as Bigg G, who was a regular visitor to the Kingsley’s clifftop house in San Luis Obispo county according to the locals (G had only been there one time, Neesh still had not been there at all). The idea that Jake was actually the father of little Ziggy and that the two of them had actually wanted to create her was never even suggested. And, since there was no way to prove that reporters filing these stories or presenting them on television knew that the rumors were untrue, there was nothing the Kingsleys or the Paladays could do except to declare the story the most ridiculous thing they had ever heard when their agents were contacted for comment on the matter.

“Where do they even come up with shit like that?” Neesh asked. “Do a group of them just sit down and make things up, or what?”

“No, that would be unethical journalism,” Laura said angrily. “Instead, they go find someone on the street, someone who does not even know us on anything more than a superficial level, and ask them their opinion on the matter. God only knows who came up with the artificial insemination story, or the orgy story, but Jake and I are pretty sure it was some of the locals in Oceano that fed them the story about Gordon being the father.”

“Yeah?” Neesh said. “What makes you think that?”

“Jake’s become friendly with some of the sheriff’s deputies that work in our area,” she said. “He donates money to their causes and he goes down to their bar on Friday nights to play guitar for them, sing for them, and drink beer with them. They told him that there were some reporters from the Watcher sniffing around last week, talking to a bunch of the locals, asking them about us and what sorts of things we did here in town. It was right after that that the story first popped up in the Watcher.”

“Assholes,” Neesh spat. “Why would you want to live among people like that?”

“We don’t live among them,” Laura said. “We live on a cliff that is miles away from any other house. Oceano is just the nearest town to where we are, the place we do our grocery shopping and fuel up our cars and things like that. We’ve never done anything to those people, have never been anything but polite and kind to them, Jake contributes a considerable amount of money to their high school music program and their libraries, and they respond to that by spreading lies and speculation about us.” She shrugged. “It’s frustrating, but it’s the price we have to pay to live where we do and be the people that we are. I love our house and I’m willing to pay that price. Besides, it doesn’t really matter where we live. The same thing used to happen when we lived in LA. Our neighbors would talk about us and the papers would print it. At least in Oceano we are isolated and secure. The reporters cannot actually approach us at our home.”

“I suppose there is something to be said for that,” Neesh allowed. “It just makes me angry. These assholes are printing and airing that my husband is fucking another man’s wife and got her pregnant and there is nothing we can do about it.”

“It’s the life we choose,” Laura said with a sigh.

“Yeah,” Neesh said bitterly. “The life we choose.”

Upstairs, Jake and Gordon had just finished burning the joint and were feeling pretty good. Jake sat with his Fender acoustic on his lap and Gordon sat behind his electric piano. So far, neither of them had played a single note. Instead, they were talking, doing much the same as their better halves and catching up on what had been going on in each other’s lives.

“I hear that song by your Brainwash peeps on the radio a couple times a day now,” G said. “I like it. It pulls you in. The Nerdlys outdid themselves with the engineering.”

Jake nodded. Brainwash’s debut song from the Brainwash II CD, What’s in a Name?, was getting saturation airplay all across the United States and Canada and was moving steadily up the charts. “It’s actually doing better than I thought it would,” he said. “I was afraid that it was over-engineered and under-polished.”

“Well, it is to some degree,” G allowed. “I can certainly hear your absence in the piece, but you had good material to start with and the Nerdlys to put their anal-retentive ways to it.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “My absence is why we were over budget and almost over time.”

“How’s the CD itself selling?” G asked.

“Not as fast as the first one,” Jake said. “We went Gold last week and are creeping slowly upward from there. I think this one will be a little more conventional than the last. We probably won’t start getting runaway sales until we’ve had three hit songs aired regularly.” Assuming we get runaway sales at all. He was really worried about that. Brainwash II just did not have the same panache as Brainwash. And there was nothing that could be done about that at this point in the game.

“You gonna have those teachers hit the road?” G asked. “That should pick up some sales for you and generate some tour income.”

“Aristocrat is hot to send them out,” Jake said. “They were willing to finance the tour and split the profits with KVA fifty-fifty. They figured we could easily price the tickets at seventy-five minimum, three hundred maximum, and sell out all of the first-rate venues. I am inclined to agree with them. Unfortunately, Brainwash balked at the idea. They voted four to one against going out.”

“What the fuck did they do that for?” G asked, appalled at the thought of a successful musical act not going out on the road.

“Of the five of them, only Steph, the guitarist, is willing to quit her teaching gig. In fact, she has already done it. The rest are too afraid of cutting themselves loose and drifting. Their school board has been clamoring to fire them for years now. They know that if they resign they will never get another teaching gig in New England.”

“That sounds idiotic,” G opined. “How much you paying them people in royalties?”

“Each individual member has made well over a million-five from the first CD and are poised to pull in almost as much with the second. Unless they completely crash and burn—which I don’t think is likely at all—they will be set for life as long as they don’t do something stupid. And if you throw in the touring income—they would be entitled to half of KVA’s cut of the profits to divide up among themselves—that puts them in an even more secure position.”

“Did you explain that shit to them?”

“I did, and so did Pauline. But that’s not the only thing factoring into their decision. They all have kids in school. They don’t want to leave them for four or five months while they travel all over the country playing dates.” Jake shrugged. “Can’t say I fault them for it.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” G said, though he really had no concept of what it was like to have to worry about the welfare of children. Neither did Jake, really, but he was starting to understand it a little now.

“We’ll see how it goes,” Jake said. “Maybe by the time we get to Brainwash III, they’ll be ready to make the move.”

“There’s gonna be a Brainwash III?”

“Absolutely,” Jake said. “They have an incredible catalogue of marketable tunes. We could easily get two or three more hit CDs out of them just with their existing repertoire. And they tell me they’re getting together on the weekends again up in Providence to work on new material.”

“That’s cool,” G said. “What about the band that Phil and Ted and the boys put together? How’s that going?”

“V-tach,” Jake said, smiling. “I’m looking forward to seeing what happens with them. Aristocrat listened to the CD and agreed to MD&P for them for only twenty-five percent royalties—plus payment in advance for the cost of manufacturing and distribution, of course. Not bad for a first-time act on an indie label.”

“Not bad at all,” G agreed.

“They’re not doing it out of the kindness of their hearts,” Jake said. “They want to stay on our good side, knowing that there will be future Celia Valdez and Jake Kingsley and Brainwash releases that they can profit off of as long as they keep us happy. Besides, I think they finally have faith in me and my ability to find and produce good music. They listened to V-tach’s master and seemed quite impressed with it. It has a bunch of solid tunes that will be appealing to the younger gen-x crowd in particular. I am rather proud of the end result. I worked very closely with them through the whole process and was able to shape everything like I did with Celia and I and the first Brainwash.”

“They’re a good bunch,” G said. “I had a lot of fun playing with them for the TSF. You gonna send them out on tour?”

“We’ll have to play that one by ear,” Jake said. “Their first release will be a tune called When I’m Not Home. It’s about a dude who thinks his lady is getting dicked by someone else while he’s at work.”

“A subject to invoke strong emotion in the male listening audience,” G said.

“Agreed,” Jake said. “It’s a solid piece with a good hook. It’ll start getting airplay on Fourth of July weekend. The CD will hit the shelves on July 22. We’ll see how the sales go after that. Like with any new band, we’ll probably need to get three hits out on the air before CD sales start to take off. They’ll have to be selling an assload, however, before it becomes financially advantageous to send them out. Aristocrat has already told us they won’t finance one hundred percent of a tour for V-tach but they will spring for half if they think it will be profitable. That means they’ll have to be popular enough that we can at least expect to sell tickets for sixty minimum.”

G shook his head in amazement. “Sixty a ticket minimum for a new band,” he said in wonder. “Remember all of them years we were charging sixteen-fuckin’-fifty for all the seats in the house even after we were established?”

“I remember,” Jake said. “Times have certainly changed.”

“And they keep fuckin’ doing it,” G said. “What’s next, you think?”

“I don’t know,” Jake said. “I’m not sure where else we can go from here.” At the moment, he, nor even the Nerdlys, had the slightest inkling of the coming rise of the MP3 file with its easy transmission over the internet, its easy storage on media with greater capacity than a mere CD, and how that would change the music industry in a way that was nearly as fundamental as the invention of the sound recording itself.

But that was still a few years in the future. For now, they had a tune to work on.

“Where do we start?” asked Jake.

“The same way we did for Signed,” G said. “We come up with a concept that is shared by both of us and try to come up with lyrics and a melody for it.”

Jake nodded. “We already covered getting screwed by the record companies,” he said. “What else do we got in common?”

“We both like pussy,” G suggested. “We could write something profound about our love of sinking into some trim.”

“A sex song?” Jake asked. “Don’t you want to do something a little deeper than that?”

“Hey,” G said, “not everything has to be a fuckin’ political or philosophical masterpiece.”

“Yeah ... maybe,” Jake said, considering. “And it’s not like most of the people listening to our music have any idea what it’s actually about anyway.”

G looked over at him. “How’s that?” he asked.

“How’s what?” Jake asked.

“That bullshit you was just spouting. What do you mean that most of the people listening don’t know what we’re laying down?”

“It’s true,” Jake said. “I wish it wasn’t, but the fact is undeniable. Don’t you read your fan mail?”

“I do,” G said, “but most of it is from bitches that just want to fuck me. They don’t wax philosophical about the meaning of my lyrics.” He grinned. “They do send lots of Polaroid shots though. And now that we have the email up and running for the fan club, they send Jpegs too. You should see the collection I have.”

“Yeah,” Jake said, “I’m familiar with the concept.” He had his own collection of such shots stashed away in a corner of his office and saved on his hard-drive. “But the bitches who want to fuck are not the point. The point is that most people who listen to us on the radio and buy our CDs are getting into it because of the hook, and the music, and the guitar solos. The ones who actually understand the lyrics and the concept of the tunes are few and far between. I’d say somewhere in the vicinity of five percent or so—at least for the tunes that are not blindingly obvious.”

G was shaking his head. “I can’t accept five percent as a legitimate number,” he insisted. “I might buy fifty-fifty, but even that is stretching it.”

“It’s true,” Jake said. “I get letters and emails all the time from people who think they know what my music is about but are completely clueless. When someone actually does pick up what I’m laying down—which happens maybe once in every batch of correspondence—it stands out because it’s so rare. In fact, some bands, like Led Zeppelin or Dio for instance, don’t even try to make their lyrics meaningful. They just throw down some lines that sound cool, that rhyme, and that are backed with solid music and the fans eat it up.”

“Now you’re completely talking out of your ass,” G accused.

“Think so?” Jake said. “Tell me what Stairway to Heaven is about.”

“Uh ... well ... I’ve never actually...”

“You know the lyrics, right?” Jake asked. “Everyone knows the lyrics to Stairway. Run them down in your head right now and tell me what the song is about. Here, I’ll help.” He began to pick out the melody for Stairway on his guitar and then sing the lyrics in question. He got as far as the third stanza before G stopped him.

“All right,” the rapper said. “You made your point. Stairway ain’t got no decipherable meaning to it.”

“That’s right,” Jake said. “Fuckin’ Plant and Page don’t even know what the goddamn song is about. They just got high one day and threw down some cool sounding lyrics and it became the most popular rock song in history. And it’s not just Stairway. Kashmir? No one knows what the fuck they’re talking about there either, not even them. Basically, any Led Zeppelin song that is not about sex, Vikings, or hobbits is meaningless. And it’s not just Zeppelin either. You ever listen to Elton John? Great singer, great pianist, his music is beautifully composed and engineered, but what the fuck is he talking about in Daniel? In Levon? In Madman Across the Water? He ain’t talking about shit, that’s what he’s talking about.”

G pondered those songs Jake had just named off and concluded that he was correct about that as well. It was an interesting epiphany for him. “You don’t write shit like that, do you?” he asked.

“No,” Jake said. “Every one of the tunes that I’ve written and produced and recorded has meaning. Sometimes the meaning isn’t all that deep, but it’s always there, ready for someone to interpret.”

“You ever try to write something like that?” G asked.

“No,” Jake said. “That’s not what I’m about. I want my tunes to have meaning.”

“Do you think you could pull it off though?” G asked.

“Pull some lyrics out of my ass and lay them down? Of course I could pull it off, but why would I want to?”

“To prove your point,” G said. “As an experiment in the lack of the musical sophistication of the majority of the American population.”

“I don’t need to have that point proven to me,” Jake said.

“How about a wager then?” G asked.

“What do you mean?”

G grinned. “Are you working on your next CD yet?”

“I’ve been doing some composing at night,” he said. “Coming up with some basics. I’m at least six to eight months away from walking into the studio though.”

“Then you’ll have lots of time,” G said. “I’ll bet you that you cannot compose a completely meaningless and indecipherable tune lyrically that will not only receive saturation airplay but will chart above number five on the Billboard for at least a week.”

Jake was interested in the challenge. “What are the stakes?” he asked.

“Winner gets a case of twenty-five-year-old Glenlivet single malt, delivered to his house in person.”

Jake smiled and held out his hand. “You’re on,” he said.

They shook on it, and then tried to get to work.

They obviously could not fly back to Oceano tonight since Jake had been drinking scotch and smoking marijuana. At ten-thirty, they climbed into his Ford F-150, Laura behind the wheel, and started the drive back to Granada Hills, where they would spend the night.

“I’m going to shower as soon as we get there,” Laura said (she, like Jake, never referred to the Granada Hills house as “home”). “After that, I want you to eat my pussy out and then fuck me from behind.”

“Okay,” Jake said with a nod. “Sounds like a plan.” He had kind of been hoping that maybe they could give it a rest on this evening, but apparently that was not in the cards. He had never been in a position before where he was getting tired of having sex, but here it was. Being called upon to perform at least twice a day, every day, for several weeks in a row now, was starting to take a toll on his libido. He supposed it was a problem that many husbands around the world would kill to be faced with, but it was a problem, nonetheless.

“You’re a good sport about all this,” Laura said with affection, patting his leg. “I can’t believe how ... you know ... enthusiastic I’ve been lately.”

“That second trimester hormone surge is something to be reckoned with, all right,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, “and then there’s the normal effect I get whenever I’m around Neesh. She still triggers something in me. Especially now.”

Jake nodded. “I guess once you’ve seen a woman in her wedding dress getting her pussy eaten by another woman, it will have a profound and lasting effect on you.”

“And how,” Laura said with a smile at one of the hottest memories in her brain. “I’m really craving ... you know ... some female companionship of late, sweetie.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said, her eyes shining brightly. “I hope that doesn’t upset you.”

“Not in the least,” he said truthfully. In fact, her words were having quite the opposite effect. His unenthusiastic pondering of another jaw cramping session of cunnilingus followed by a pounding with his already sore and abraded member suddenly began to seem a lot more appealing. “Did you have someone in mind? Maybe Molly again?”

She shook her head. “Molly was a one-time deal,” she said. “I think she felt some shame about ... you know... you being involved in the act. I’ve tried to talk to her a few times since then but she’s always abrupt with me and ends the conversation as soon as she can.”

“A pity,” Jake said. “That was pretty fuckin’ hot what we did that night.”

“Yeah, it really was.”

“I don’t have to be there, you know,” he told her. “I mean, I loved it that I was, but it’s not necessary. You can tell her that if you want.”

Laura shook her head. “I liked having you there,” she said. “I loved it. It added so much to the experience knowing that you were watching. And then ... when you got involved. Oh God, I’m getting all wet just thinking about it.”

Jake’s libido was now making a rapid recovery. He was starting to stiffen up in his jeans at her words. “What are you saying then?” he asked carefully.

“I want to do that again,” she said. “Only this time ... well...” She was blushing furiously.

“What?” he asked.

“I think it would be really hot if you were to ... you know ... be able to do things with the other woman too.”

“Do things?” he asked. “What kind of things?”

“Everything,” Laura told him, the lust unmistakable in her eyes now.

Jake took a deep breath and swallowed slowly. The conversation had certainly taken a turn toward the interesting. But there could be mines and pitfalls here as well. “Are you saying,” he asked carefully, “that you want me to actually have sex with another woman?”

“Only if I’m there,” she said firmly. “And only if I’m involved as well.”

“Where did this come from?” he asked. “Is this just the second trimester hormones playing games with your mind? Because I certainly do not want to do anything on a momentary impulse that is going to jeopardize our relationship down the road.”

“This is not just the hormones talking,” Laura assured him. “I’ve been thinking about this ever since that night with Molly. Yes, the second trimester made the feelings stronger, and seeing Neesh tonight maybe pushed them into the light, but this is not a new thought. Whenever I ... you know ... use my toys these days, that is what I’m thinking about while I play.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me this before?” he asked, now completely erect in his jeans.

“Because I always thought it was just a fantasy before,” she said. “You don’t tell me all of your fantasies, do you?”

“No,” he said with a chuckle. “I do not.” Some of them she would definitely not understand or approve of.

“That’s why I kept it to myself. I never considered actually doing it.”

“But now you are?”

She nodded. “I’m starting to obsess about it now, sweetie,” she said. “I want to do this. I want to ... well ... it’s embarrassing.”

“What?” he asked.

“I want to watch you fuck another woman while I suck on her tits and tongue-kiss her. And I want to have you pull it out every now and then so I can suck her juices off of you. And then ... I want you to come inside of her so I can lick everything out of her.”

“Wow,” Jake whispered, resisting the urge to actually take out his cock and start playing with it. “But you know we can’t actually do that, right? I mean, even if I was doing it to another woman, I’d have to wear a condom.”

“Not necessarily,” she said.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “Of course I’d have to wear one. I can’t fuck some groupie we pick up bareback. That’s just asking for an STD, or a paternity suit, or both.”

“I’m not talking about a groupie,” Laura said. “It would have to be someone we know. Someone we trust.”

“Who do we know that would do both of us and that we could trust to be STD-free and on birth control?” he asked.

She looked at him and smiled. “I think you know who I’m talking about,” she said.

For a moment his mind was blank, and then it hit him like a freight train. “Celia?” he asked.

She nodded, the lust shine in her eyes deepening. “That’s right,” she said. “The natural choice.”

Jesus fucking Christ, he thought. What fucked-up can of worms is she trying to open here?

In the end, Jake simply had no legitimate reason to tell her no, that it couldn’t be done, that it was too dangerous. He could not just say, it’s like this, hon. Celia and I have actually already fucked before, already admitted to romantic love for each other, back when you were out on the road with Bobby Z and she was still married to Greg. We fucked four times in a Portland hotel suite and then vowed to each other that we would never do it again, never even speak of it again, not even to each other. Nor could he claim that he was not attracted to Celia, that he did not consider her an appropriate threesome participant—they were married, and Laura knew better. Nor could he suggest that maybe Celia was not into that sort of thing. They already knew she was. And, when they were with Celia these days, she constantly complained about how she was craving male company in a bad way but had no prospects for that kind of company on the horizon.

He did try to plant some doubt in his wife’s mind about her nefarious plan. “What happens if Celia starts to develop feelings for me?” he asked. “What if she starts to develop them for you? What if you see the two of us doing it and instead of arousal you start to feel jealousy?”

“None of that will happen,” she assured him. “We all already have feelings for each other. That’s the first thing. And I will not be jealous watching you two doing it as long as I’m there and involved in it.”

“What if Celia says no?” he asked next.

Laura smiled. “Then she says no. She won’t be offended by the offer; I am quite sure of that. And I don’t think she’ll say no.”

“Okay,” he reluctantly agreed. “I guess it doesn’t hurt to ask.” He was still very conflicted about the thought. True, the idea of doing Celia (again!) while his wife participated was blackly erotic. But was it a good idea? Could they really do something like this and then move on with their lives?

Celia and I did a pretty good job of that after that night in Portland, his brain reminded him. Why can’t all three of us do the same thing? And who says it has to be a one-time-only thing? Now that was an interesting thought.

“So then,” Jake said. “How do we go about this?”

“Uh ... well ... I was actually hoping that maybe you had an idea how to initiate it.”

“Me?” he asked. “It’s your idea, your fantasy.”

“True,” she agreed, “but you’re much more experienced at this sort of thing than I am.”

“I am?”

“Of course you are,” she said. “You used to do groupies and have threesomes all the time, didn’t you?”

“Well ... yeah,” he said, “but that’s hardly the same thing we’re talking about here. Those were groupies. You order them up like a pizza and they are delivered to you. No planning is involved. There is no question about whether or not she’ll give it up. She wouldn’t be there if she wasn’t going to give it up. And, while I have stumbled into the odd non-groupie threesome on occasion, I’ve never had to actually arrange for such a thing on my own and in advance. Most of the time, they just sort of happen spontaneously.”

“You’re suggesting that we try to seduce her then?” Laura asked. “Have her over and try to make things happen spontaneously.”

“You don’t make things happen spontaneously,” Jake said, lightly exasperated. “That is a contradiction in terms. And no, that is not what I was suggesting. I wasn’t suggesting anything. I was just explaining that I do not have more experience than you at this sort of thing. You have more than me. You’re the one who reeled in Molly, remember?”

“Well ... yeah,” she said. “I do remember that. Is that the answer then? Just use a lot of innuendo to suggest what we’re after and hope she picks up on it?”

“Celia is not Molly,” Jake said. “I don’t think that would work on her. She knows us too well and we know her too well.”

“What then?” she said. “Do we just ask her?”

Jake considered this for a moment. “Well ... in most other aspects of trying to obtain something you desire in life, just asking is usually the first, simplest, and most basic step.”

She thought this over and then nodded slowly. “That is true,” she said at last.

Jake made the phone call the next morning, just after they ate the sausage and red bell pepper omelets he had prepared for breakfast. Laura was cleaning up the kitchen from his efforts. Celia picked up on the third ring, as it was her private line and she recognized the number on her caller ID screen as that belonging to the Kingsleys’ Granada Hills address.

“Hello?” her voice said in his ear.

“Hey, C,” he said lightly. “Jake.”

“What’s up?” she asked, her voice all business. Laura, in the way of females of the human species, would often call just to chat with her, but Jake, in the way of males of the human species, only called to discuss business or to convey or request information.

“Just calling to see if you have any plans for the day,” he said.

“Nothing at the moment,” she told him. “I’ve been strumming out some tunes lately, but nothing that can’t be put off. Something going on?”

“No, not really,” he told her. “Laura and I are still here in LA and decided not to fly back home until tomorrow.”

“Really?” she asked, surprised. She knew that the two of them tried to spend as little time as possible in Los Angeles.

“Yeah,” he said, preparing to tell a rather large lie, though he was much better at that sort of thing than his wife. “Elsa’s grandkids are visiting for the week and we figured we’d let them have the place to themselves for another day. Anyway, we were thinking that if you were up to it, we’d come over and visit you. We really want to try out that pool of yours and I’m willing to make you dinner in exchange for some swim time.”

This was a perfectly reasonable attempt at fishing for an invitation in exchange for a service. Celia was not much of a cook, had yet to hire someone to do it for her, and was generally in the habit of ordering food to be delivered. Jake and Laura, on the other hand, had not installed a swimming pool at their Oceano home as it was considered a major (maybe even impossible) project due to the rock that their cliff was composed of. The Granada Hills house had a pool, but they rarely used it. Celia’s new house, however, had an infinity pool that looked out over the ocean. Both of the Kingsleys were envious of it and had been dying to swim in it ever since first seeing it.

“Uh ... sure,” Celia said. “That sounds like a good deal. What are you going to cook for me?”

“Anything you want,” he said.

“Oooh,” she said, delighted now. “How about some of those ribeye steaks that you grill? I have this fancy-schmancy barbeque island out next to the pool and it hasn’t been used yet. You can break it in for me.”

“Sounds good,” he said. “How about some baked potatoes and asparagus to go with it? I can do both of those on the grill as well.”

“You read my mind,” she said. “What time?”

“How about we come over around two o’clock or so? We’ll swim for a few hours and then have dinner at six?” Maybe have a threesome with you in between the two events, he did not say.

“It’s a date,” she said.

“Cool,” Jake replied.

“I guess if I’m going to put on my bikini in front of other people I should shave the fuzz off my legs and armpits.”

And in other places too, he thought lasciviously. “I’ll let you get to that then,” he told her. “See you at two-ish.”

“See you then,” she said and then hung up.

He put the phone back in its charger and then walked back to the kitchen, where Laura was scrubbing out the cast iron pan he had used.

“Well?” she asked.

“We’re formally invited to Valdez Manor for swim time and to prepare dinner,” he said.

“Very nice,” Laura said, a twinkle in her eye. “Hopefully, we’ll also have a nice dessert too.”

“Hopefully,” he said, still having doubts that this was a good idea, but hoping that it happened anyway.

Celia’s house was on Broad Beach Road, an offshoot of the Pacific Coast Highway as it ran through Malibu. The two-lane road was atop a sixty-foot ridge that rose above the beach between Zuma Beach and Broad Beach itself. From the street, the multimillion-dollar beachfront mansions did not look all that impressive, Celia’s included. This was because all that one could see from the street was the top level of the homes, which was generally just the driveway and garage. The actual living areas of the homes were built into the slope of the ridge and extended all the way down to just above the beach level itself. All the homes in this stretch protruded out onto the beach and sat atop reinforced concrete pillars driven thirty feet into the sand and the bedrock beneath it. This kept the lower levels—where the decks and family rooms generally were found—safely above the crashing waves when a particularly strong storm blew in and drove its surge beyond the high-tide mark and all the way to the base of the ridge itself.

Casa Valdez had been built in 1990 and owned by a particularly successful local real estate developer who had sold it to Celia for eleven million dollars after he and his wife divorced following the revelation that he was actually gay, had contracted HIV from one of his many male lovers, and then passed it on to her (reasonable grounds for divorce, Jake thought when Celia told him the story). Jake pulled his truck into the driveway at precisely 2:00 PM and stopped in front of the intercom box with its all-weather security camera. He rolled down the window and pushed the button. Celia did not speak to him. She just opened the left side sliding door of the four-car garage. Jake pulled in and parked next to her Mercedes. By the time he and Laura got out, the door was already sliding back down behind them.

They went through a door and down a set of stairs to another door. This led into a large foyer with vaulted ceilings and huge picture windows that looked out to the open ocean to the south and along the beach to Point Dume to the east. A spacious hallway to the right led off to the three-room master suite where Celia slept, the laundry room, and three of the four guest bedrooms, each of which had their own private bath and ocean views. An open staircase led downward from here to the lowest level where the kitchen, family room, dining room, guest bathroom, and one more guest bedroom could be found. They went down the stairs to the family room, which was decorated in a postmodern nautical theme. Two large windows and a huge set of sliding glass doors looked out over the beach and the water. The deck itself sat directly atop the pillars over the beach and was quite large, stretching the entire width of the house from side to side and extended outward for more than thirty feet. Out here was the infinity pool, a built-in hot tub, a large barbeque island, and a collection of expensive patio furniture.

Celia greeted them at the bottom of the stairs. She was dressed in a pair of white shorts and a loose-fitting tank top with her red bikini top underneath. Flip-flops were on her feet. She gave them each a hug even though it had only been twenty-four hours since she had last seen them, and then took the bag of dinner groceries from Jake and carried it into the kitchen. They followed her and helped her put the perishables away.

“Let me get you some drinks going,” Celia said. “Teach, I have a pitcher of iced green tea in the refrigerator.”

“That sounds good,” Laura said.

“What about you, Jake?” she asked. “Should I open a bottle of wine, or do you want a mixed drink from the bar?”

“Actually,” Jake said, “I think I’ll have some of that tea as well.”

She gave him an odd look. “Really?”

“Really,” he said. “I’ll have some wine with dinner.”

“Okay then,” Celia said doubtfully. She had never known Jake to turn down an offer for an alcoholic beverage when he did not have to perform or rehearse or fly.

Jake had his reasons. He and Laura had talked it over and decided that if they were going to do this thing, they were going to do it sober, without plying Celia with alcohol to break down her resistance and mask her judgment. Of course, they could not stop her from drinking if she wanted to, but if neither of them were drinking she would be unlikely to get herself hammered before they had a chance to pose their question to her. The plan worked. Celia poured all three of them a tall glass of the green tea on ice.

“Shall we go out to the deck?” she asked after everyone had glass in hand.

“Let’s do it,” Jake said.

They returned to the family room and went out the sliding door onto the deck. It was a beautiful southern California late spring day. The sky was mostly blue with no clouds in sight, the temperature a pleasant seventy-five degrees (it had been eighty-three in Granada Hills) and a mild onshore breeze was blowing, bringing the scent of salt water to their noses. The infinity pool was smooth as glass, without so much as a ripple in the water. The infinity edge went right up to the end of the deck, making it look as if the pool blended in with the ocean. The sound of waves breaking was the dominant sound, followed by the screeching of sea birds. The beach itself was almost completely deserted. Though it belonged to the people of California, just like the vast majority of the ocean beaches in the state, it was almost impossible for anyone but the residents of this particular stretch of Broad Beach Road to get out there. There were no public easements from the road or from the PCH on this stretch and it was guarded by rocky outcroppings on both sides, located about a half mile apart; obstacles that a casual beach user or surfer would have to climb over in order to gain access. The only easy way onto that beach was from the sea itself or from the staircases that led down from the houses that fronted it.

While Laura and Celia sat down in the loungers next to the pool, Jake set his tea down and then kicked off his own flip-flops. He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it onto the lounger next to Laura’s. Celia whistled appreciably as she saw his bare chest.

“All right,” she said with a naughty laugh. “Show us some skin!”

Jake smiled and he and Laura shared a look between them. Could be you’ll be seeing a lot more skin in a little while, he thought. “It’ll cost you a dollar to see it all,” he told her. “And you have to tuck it into my shorts.”

“Will you take a check?” she asked.

“Not from you,” he scoffed playfully. The ladies giggled.

He unbuttoned his shorts and pushed them down, revealing the baggy, mid-thigh level swimming trunks he was wearing beneath. “I’m going in!” he announced. With that, he leapt high in the air, pulled his legs up beneath him, and crashed down into the placid water with a huge splash that sent waves outward in all directions. The water was not heated and had a bit of a chilly bite to it but was refreshing, nonetheless. He surfaced and then rolled over onto his back and began to backstroke the length of the pool.

“That was a good cannonball,” Celia said good naturedly. “You got both of us.”

“That was my goal,” he said.

“How’s the water?” Laura asked.

“Perfect,” he lied. “Just perfect.”

He paddled around for a few minutes and then swam over to the edge closest to the women. He rested his arms on the deck and let his legs float out behind him. “Come on,” he told them. “Are you going to make me swim alone?”

“Okay,” Laura said, standing up. “Are you sure there are no sea lions in there?”

“Reasonably,” Jake said with a laugh.

“Come on, C,” Laura said. “Let’s get wet.”

“Best offer I’ve had today,” Celia said with another giggle.

Laura pulled off her outer layer of clothes. To Celia’s surprise, she was wearing her bikini beneath them instead of her usual modest one-piece suit. It was a green bikini, not the most revealing in the world, but it allowed Celia to see a fair amount of the top of her breasts and her smooth belly with its prominent baby bump.

“Looking hot, Teach,” Celia said appreciatively. “I thought you didn’t wear bikinis in front of anyone but Jake.”

“Well ... you’ve seen everything I have to show,” Laura reminded her.

Celia blushed a little at this. Though she knew that Jake knew about what had transpired between the two of them in that hotel room that one night, they had never talked about it in front of him before. “Uh ... yeah, I guess I have,” she said. She then looked down at the baby bump again. “I’m sorry, I just have to touch that.”

“Be my guest,” Laura said with a smile.

Celia reached out and began caressing her right on the bump.

“Mmm,” Laura said with a sigh. “Your hand feels nice.”

“So does your belly,” Celia said. “And look at your chichis! They’re all big now.”

“You wanna feel them too?” Laura asked.

All right, Jake thought, watching this transpire. We might be in business here.

Celia took this as a joke, which it mostly was. She laughed and finally took her hand away. “All right,” she said. “I guess it’s my turn.”

“I have my dollar bill ready,” Jake said.

Celia chuckled and then pulled off her tank top, revealing the red, form-fitting, strapless bikini top. Jake could see that her nipples were partially erect. He reveled in the sight of those perfect breasts as he saw more of her flesh than he had since that night in Portland. His doubts about what they were trying to do here fled far into the back of his brain. She kicked off her flip-flops and then pushed her own shorts down and off. The bikini bottoms were the same shade of red as the top and were just as form fitting. Her legs were as beautiful as they had always been and her lower belly was still flat and unlined. He imagined his wife putting her face between those legs and felt himself starting to stiffen a bit.

The ladies, being ladies, did not simply jump into the pool the way Jake had. Instead, they went to the steps in the shallow end and put their feet and ankles in first. Both of them winced as they felt the first touch of water.

“You liar!” Laura barked at him. “This water is freaking cold!”

“Not once you get all the way in,” he countered.

“There is a heater for it,” Celia said. “Maybe I should turn it on?”

Jake shook his head. The Nottingham house pool had had a heater too and he knew its ways. “It’ll take six hours before you feel a difference,” he told her. “And your accountant will scream at you about the gas bill. Just get in! You get used to it quick.”

They did not want to take his advice. Instead, they gradually worked their way into the water, one pool step at a time, each step taking nearly five minutes to accomplish, before they were finally standing on the bottom of the shallow end, the water reaching to just above Celia’s knees and just below Laura’s hips. They stood there shivering a little, not wanting to go any further.

This was the moment Jake had been waiting for. He paddled over as if he was just coming close enough to talk and then pounced, grabbing Laura around the waist with his left arm, Celia around the waist with his right and pulling them both against his body. He then kicked off the steps with his feet, propelling himself and the two ladies backwards into the deep water, forcing them to submerge to their shoulders and neck.

They were outraged by his sneak attack. Laura actually called him an asshole. Celia called him a cabron. Both of them grabbed his head and forced it underwater for a moment. When he surfaced again, Laura spit a mouthful of water at him, striking him in the face. He took his punishment like a man, actually enjoying the feel of all the female flesh pressing against him, putting their hands on him. And his trick had the desired effect. By the time they finished abusing him, they were nicely warmed up and used to the water and ready to forgive and forget.

They paddled and swam around for the next twenty minutes, playing like children who had been given access to a motel’s pool during a family road trip. Jake and Celia both did some handstands on the bottom. Laura did a few backflips into the deep end from the edge. They all splashed each other and laughed and smiled. And Jake and Laura both made a conscious effort to make physical contact with Celia’s body as much as they could get away with, bumping into her, grabbing her legs underwater, even picking her up and throwing her once. It seemed that Celia was enjoying the attention on some level. Whenever her chest broached the surface of the water, it was plain to see that her nipples were standing at attention.

Finally, a bit fatigued, they paddled over to the shallow end and sat on the pool steps, Laura between Celia and Jake.

“It’s too bad you can’t skinny dip in here,” Jake observed. “At least not during the day.”

“Yeah,” Celia said with a sigh. “That is the one drawback of this house. The neighbors are awfully close.”

This was true. Celia’s house was separated by less than six feet on both sides from her neighbors’ houses. Both neighbors had decks that protruded out and both had windows that could look down upon anything that transpired on Celia’s deck. Jake could, in fact, see the silhouette of a female walking back and forth on occasion behind some of those windows on the house to the right.

“Do your neighbors know who you are?” asked Laura.

“I have no doubt that they do,” Celia said. “Remember, the Watcher printed my address when I entered escrow. The LA Times picked up on it the next day and published it again. There were more articles when I actually closed escrow and moved in, including a picture of the house that someone took with a zoom lens from a helicopter out over the water.”

“Have you met any of them?” Jake asked.

She shook her head. “No, not officially anyway.” She pointed to the right. “The couple in that house are older, in their sixties or so. They seem like fussbudgets when I see them walking out on the beach, which they do every evening at precisely 6:15. They have one of those little yap-dogs and they don’t clean up its poop.” She pointed to the left. “Over there are two men in their forties. They are always impeccably dressed and they have a little yap-dog as well. They, at least, carry baggies with them when they walk their rodent. I waved at them once and they just looked at me, turned up their noses, and then went on their way.”

“I bet their house is very well decorated though,” Jake opined.

“I bet you’re right,” Celia said with a laugh.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Celia staring out along the infinity border at the ocean while Jake and Laura passed looks back and forth and communicated nonverbally in the way of married couples.

Ask her, Laura implored with one look.

You ask her, Jake replied with a look of his own. This was your idea.

But you’re better at this sort of thing, Laura’s look insisted.

We’ve been over this, Jake replied. I’ve never done this either.

It did not take long for Celia to realize that something was going on. She could see them furiously trading marital communication looks with each other, but could not quite interpret what they were communicating about—other than it had something to do with her. “All right, you two,” she said. “What’s going on here?”

Jake shot one more intense look at his wife. Shit or get off the pot, that look said.

Laura sighed nervously. “Okay,” she said softly. “There is a bit of a nefarious plot underway here.”

“Oh?” Celia asked, raising her eyes a bit.

“Yeah,” Laura said. “You see ... we were thinking ... Jake and I, you know ... that maybe ... uh ... how to put this?”

“I don’t know,” Celia said. “How can you put it?”

She looked over at Jake again and found no help there. She looked back at Celia and blurted, “What would you think about having sex with us?”

Celia blinked slowly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Please repeat that.”

“We would like to have sex with you—both of us—if you are willing,” Laura said.

Celia simply stared at her for a moment. “You ... you are serious about this?” she finally asked.

“Yes,” Laura said. “I ... we ... are completely serious about this. Aren’t we, sweetie?”

“Absolutely,” Jake said, fascinated by this turn of events. He could not tell if Celia was disgusted, intrigued, or simply amused by the question. Her face remained completely expressionless. “Dead serious.”

“I see,” Celia said. “And what made you two decide to proposition me in this manner?”

“Well ... it’s like this,” Laura said. “I am bisexual and I have not been with a woman since the last time you and I ... you know ... played around a little in that hotel room out on tour. I really want to be with a woman again, Celia. And I know that you haven’t been with a man since that night in El Paso with Greg. I’m guessing that you are probably craving some ... you know ... male attention by this point. And I know that you are unwilling to just jump into bed with a guy that you don’t have some sort of relationship with. And so, it seems that maybe we can both help each other out a little bit. You are attracted to Jake, right?”

“Uh ... right,” she said carefully, casting a glance at him. “But ... Jake is your husband. If I were to have sex with him ... that would be cheating.”

Laura shook her head strenuously. “No, it wouldn’t,” she insisted. “If I’m there and participating, and I’m the one who arranged for it in the first place, it’s not cheating. It’s consenting adults openly enjoying each other and helping each other through a drought. I already know that you and I have a sexual attraction toward each other—unless you’re turned off by the fact that I’m starting to show. That doesn’t gross you out, does it?”

“No,” Celia said. “It doesn’t gross me out at all. In fact, I think you look extraordinarily sexy with your bigger boobs and your baby bump and I would love to put my hands and mouth on you, truth be told. You are not the issue, Teach.”

“I’m the issue,” Jake said.

“That is correct,” Celia said. She shook her head a little. “I cannot believe I am actually having this conversation. This is not a dream, right?”

“It can be,” Laura said in her impish voice.

Celia giggled a little and then returned to looking serious. “I have always been sexually attracted to Jake,” she said carefully. “I will freely admit that. And I know that Jake has always been sexually attracted to me. Am I correct?”

“Yes,” Jake said softly. “Ever since the first time I met you at the Grammy party.”

“And I understand that,” Laura said. “There’s nothing wrong with it. I’m giving you a chance to act on that attraction, C. The only ground rule is that I be there, watching and participating.”

“And you won’t be jealous?” Celia asked, clearly having a hard time accepting this. “You won’t be worried that Jake and I will fall in love with each other.”

Laura looked at her pointedly. “You two are already in love with each other,” she said. “I’ve known that for years, ever since I saw you two working together in the studio back when I first hired on as the sax player. And I’m in love with both of you as well. And I strongly suspect that you, C, kind of love me in that way too. That’s what will make this thing work. We wouldn’t just be slaking each other’s lust. We would be expressing our love for each other.”

“I see,” Celia said carefully. “That is a compelling argument, Teach. I do love you.” She looked over at Jake and they shared their own look with each other. “And I love you as well.”

“I know,” Jake said, speaking the truth.

“If we were to do this,” Celia said, “where would it end? Is it a one-time thing?”

Laura shrugged. “I suggest we give it a try and just go where it takes us. If we like it and decide to do it again, there’s nothing wrong with that, is there? As long as all three of us agree that we want to do it again. That should be rule number one in this thing. Everyone has to want to do it, or it is not done.”

“That’s a good rule,” Jake offered. He was starting to sense that Celia was leaning in favor of the proposition and his nervousness at discussing the subject was gradually being replaced with sexual excitement.

“And rule number two would have to be that it only happens between the three of us,” Laura added. “No Celia and Jake getting together on their own. No Laura and Celia getting together on our own.”

“You and I still get to do it on our own though, right?” Jake asked, just for clarity. He was not going to trade away his normal marital fucking for sporadic threesomes, even it was with Celia Valdez.

“Well, yes,” she said, looking at him as if he were a dolt. “Naturally.”

“Just making sure,” Jake said.

They looked over at Celia, who had a thoughtful expression on her face.

“So ... anyway,” Laura said, “that’s what we wanted to ask. That’s our nefarious plot. If you say no, our feelings won’t be hurt. We will understand. Won’t we, sweetie?”

“Totally,” Jake said.

“An interesting proposition,” Celia said.

“We thought so,” Jake said.

“What do you say?” Laura asked softly.

“What do I say?” Celia said. She smiled. “I say: let’s go upstairs and get naked.”

Laura smiled. “Let’s do it,” she said.

They were all dripping with pool water and had to dry off first. They tromped upstairs to Celia’s expansive master suite with its huge King-sized bed. They walked by the bed and into the master bath, which had an enormous jacuzzi tub and a large glass-enclosed shower stall, both of which looked out over a second-floor deck and the ocean. Celia closed the blinds to keep prying eyes from observing their business and then handed out large bath towels to her guests. And then, without fanfare, she pulled off her bikini top and tossed it into the bathtub. While Jake and Laura stared at her exquisite breasts in awe, she pushed down her bottoms as well and then used her foot to kick them into the tub too. Their eyes drifted from her breasts down to her nether region, which had been shaved smooth and was completely hairless. Her lips were already swollen and congested.

Celia looked at the two of them still standing there in their swimming suits, their eyes drinking her in. “This had better not be the part where you tell me this whole thing was a practical joke,” she warned.

“No, not at all,” Jake said quickly.

“Then get those fucking swimsuits off,” she barked. “I’m starting to feel awkward here.”

“Right,” Jake said. He quickly pushed his shorts down and kicked them into the tub as well. His manhood was already quite interested in the game being played and stood up proudly. Celia looked at it and sighed contentedly. It had been so long since she had seen one in the flesh. Far too long. And she knew from personal experience that Jake knew how to use his weapon—although Laura did not know that she knew this, and Celia and Jake had passed a few non-verbal communicative looks of their own and reached an agreement that she would remain ignorant of this information.

Laura quickly took off her top and bottoms as well. Her nipples—which had grown along with the rest of her breasts—were standing at attention. She had shaved herself this morning and only had the little landing strip of copper colored hair on her pubis. Her lips were swollen and ready for action too. She could not wait to get her hands and mouth on Celia’s body. Could not wait to see her husband’s member sliding in and out of that Venezuelan vagina.

They all used the towels to dry themselves off and then tossed them in the bathtub as well. Celia then led them into the bedroom once more. They closed all the blinds and turned on the lights. Celia tuned the radio to a soft-rock station and adjusted the volume to a low-to-moderate background level. The three of them then turned and looked at each other, indecisive about how to begin things.

Laura finally made the first move. She walked over to her husband, pressed her naked body against his, and pulled his head down for a kiss. It was a kiss of passion, their tongues swirling together while her hand slid down and grasped his erection gently, stroking it up and down a few times. She then broke the kiss and let go of him. She turned to Celia and walked over to her.

“Your turn,” she said softly, holding out her arms.

Celia stepped into them. They held each other tightly and Laura pulled Celia’s face to hers. A moment later, they were kissing each other, their tongues in each other’s mouth while their breasts pushed together. Laura slid her hands around to Celia’s backside and grasped her butt cheeks, feeling them, caressing them. Jake watched them, his excitement rising, but wondering what that etiquette was here. Should he go join the embrace? Or should he wait until he was directed to do something?

Again, Laura showed the way. She broke her embrace with Celia and then guided her over to Jake. “Now,” she said, looking at both of them, “it’s your turn.”

Jake and Celia looked at each other for a moment, both of them nervous, both excited. They did not move until Laura put her hands on their backs and prodded them forward. And then their naked bodies were against each other. Jake felt the press of her hard nipples against his chest, the touch of her bare thighs against his, the exquisite sensation of his erection pushing again the soft skin of her pubis. He saw lust in her eyes as they looked at each other, but love as well. His own expression mirrored hers.

“Go ahead,” Laura whispered, excitement quite plain in her voice. “Kiss each other. You know you want to.”

They did want to and, now that they had been given official permission, they did so. Jake put his mouth to Celia’s and they kissed lustfully, passionately. Celia, he was reminded, was a very good kisser, with soft, pouty lips and a slippery tongue that she used skillfully. She tasted of green tea and smelled of chlorine, though he was now beginning to catch the odor of her arousal drifting up to compete.

“Yes,” Laura half whispered, half moaned. “This is so fucking hot. I knew it would be.”

When their kiss broke, Laura put her hands between them and pried them apart. She pointed to the bed and looked at her husband. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s make her feel good.”

“Okay,” Jake said, a little breathless.

They laid Celia down on the bed on her back and went to work on her as a team. Jake kissed her some more while stroking her stomach. Laura kissed her neck and then worked her way down to her breasts. She took the left nipple into her mouth and began to suckle it while her hands stroked up and down Celia’s thighs, staying well clear of the junction between them for the time being. Jake then broke contact with her mouth and kissed his way downward, nibbling on her earlobe for a moment and then following her jawline downward onto her shoulder. He licked her armpit for moment, finding that this was a particularly erogenous zone for her.

“Madres de Dios,” she moaned as she felt his tongue there.

He kept it up for a few moments and then continued his journey south, soon arriving at her right breast. He began to suckle her, letting her feel the sheer bliss of having both nipples sucked simultaneously. She put her hands to the back of their heads and pulled them tighter. Laura, meanwhile, let her hand drift upward and finally slide along Celia’s inner thighs. Celia opened her legs widely as she felt this.

“Touch me, Teach,” she pleaded. “Please!”

Laura did not deny her. She slid her fingers into a dripping wet warmth and felt Celia clutching desperately at her. She raised her head from Celia’s nipple and looked her in the eye.

“You’re so wet,” she whispered. “Are we turning you on?”

“Si,” Celia panted. “Very much.”

“I bet you’d like my husband to fuck you now, wouldn’t you?”

Celia moaned but not reply.

“Wouldn’t you?” Laura asked, giving her a particularly hard thrust with her fingers.

“Yes,” Celia said. “I want him to fuck me! Please, let him fuck me!”

Laura looked at Jake, a lustful smile on her face. “You heard the lady,” she said. “Fuck her good.”

Jake fucked her good. He positioned himself between her legs and, for the first time since that night in Portland years before, slid his manhood into a woman other than Laura. It felt incredible. He kept on his knees while he thrust in and out of her so Laura could access Celia’s upper body to her heart’s content. And access it she did. She watched his member go in and out of her for a few moments and then, still laying on Celia’s left, began to kiss her again, deep tongue swirling kisses of feminine lust. She did this for a minute or so and then broke the kiss and adjusted her body so her head was close to where Jake’s penis was sliding in and out of her.

“She smells soooo good, sweetie,” Laura told him.

He nodded, almost incapable of speech at the moment. He was actually fucking Celia while his wife was kissing and sucking and stroking her. Was this shit really happening? Or was this a dream he was going to wake up from?

“I want to taste her,” Laura said next. “Give me a taste.”

Jake pulled his erection out of Celia’s body—she moaned almost painfully at its withdrawal—and then twisted his hips to the right. Laura leaned forward and slurped him into her mouth, sucking all of Celia’s juices off of him.

“Mmmm,” she moaned when was finished. “She tastes good too. Carry on.”

Jake slid back inside of her and resumed thrusting. Laura repositioned again and put her tongue back in Celia’s mouth, allowing her to taste herself. Celia kissed her back frantically, sucking on her tongue like it was an erection.

Jake had to use every mental block in his inventory to keep his orgasm at bay long enough for Celia to have one. The sheer eroticism of what was occurring here, the sight of his pregnant wife tongue-kissing and suckling on Celia Valdez, and the sensation of his cock in an unfamiliar vagina, his hands touching an unfamiliar body, his nose inhaling unfamiliar pheromones, all served to put him on edge almost from the first stroke. But he hung in there by sheer willpower until Celia began to pant, until her skin began to flush, until she began to thrust erratically back at him while shouting out guttural Spanish profanity

“That’s it, C!” Laura encouraged between sucks of Celia’s nipples. “Come for us! Come for us!”

She came for them, shouting it out to the world. Jake was right behind her. He finally let the mental block down and shot an incredibly large load into her still spasming body.

“Yes!” Laura cried as she witnessed this. “Put it all inside of her! All of it! And then I’m going to suck it back out!”

“Madres de Dios, Teach,” Celia panted. “That’s so fucking hot!”

“Yeah,” Laura agreed.

Jake pulled himself out of her and stood back on the floor. Laura quickly crawled between her still spread legs and put her face down into her dripping crotch. She drove her tongue up inside of Celia, licking and slurping and gathering as much of her husband’s spend as she could.

“Oh my God,” Celia moaned. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

“If it’s a dream,” Jake said, “it’s the best one I’ve ever had.”

While Laura continued to lick and suck between Celia’s legs, Jake leaned down and shared another deep, lustful kiss with her. They did this for a few minutes and then Celia pulled back. She looked in his eyes. “Go kiss her,” she told him. “And then come back and kiss me some more.”

Jake smiled and did as he was told. He moved his head down her body, stopping for a second at her nipple to have a quick suckle, and then watched his wife licking and sucking her swollen sex. He gently lifted her head up and then kissed her, tasting Celia’s juices on her tongue.

“Do you want a little lick?” Laura asked.

“Sure,” he said. He leaned down and licked up and down her slippery lips for a few seconds.

“Ohhhhh, Jesus!” Celia moaned.

He raised his head up, tongue kissed Laura again for a few moments, and then let her get back to work. He went back to the north and put his mouth on Celia’s once again. She kissed him desperately, sucking on his tongue to get every last bit of her own flavor.

Celia had her second orgasm a few minutes later. It rippled through her as Laura sucked on her clitoris and Jake kissed and bit her neck. When the spasms for that finally died down, Celia, now sweaty, flushed, and smelling quite strongly of her juices, sat up and then stood. Now it was she who pointed to the bed.

“Lay down there, Teach,” she ordered. “Now it’s your turn.”

Laura smiled and did as ordered.

Celia and Jake worked on her for nearly thirty minutes. Celia took on the primary role, kissing on her and working her way down to her swollen breasts, which she slobbered over and sucked on until Laura was frantic and desperate. She then kissed her way downward while Jake took over the role of nipple sucker and tongue kisser. She spent a while kissing and caressing the baby bump and Laura’s belly button before working her way down between her legs. Celia had learned a lot from her sessions with Suzie and was able to draw two intense orgasms out of Laura with her lips and tongue and fingers.

“Your turn,” Celia told Jake after the second orgasm.

Jake was only too happy to oblige. He mounted his wife and began to thrust in and out while Celia lay next to her, kissing her mouth, her neck, her nipples, while her hand played with the baby bump and occasionally dipped down to tweak her clitoris a little and feel Jake’s slippery member doing its work. Jake was more in control now that he had already spent once, and was able to keep up the pace long enough for Laura to have two more orgasms. His control broke, however, when Laura pulled Celia up further into the bed so she could suck on her nipples again. The spasms started and he poured his second load into her body.

After that, they fell back onto the bed, Laura in the middle, Jake on her left, Celia on her right. All were now sweaty and smelled of slaked lust. None of them spoke for the longest time. It was Laura, once again, who finally broke the silence.

“Well,” she said. “Do we regret doing that?”

“I don’t,” Jake said. “That was, by far, the most erotic thing I have ever done in my life.”

“Me too,” Celia agreed. “Nothing else even comes close. Not that first time with Suzie, not even what you and I did that one night, Teach.” Not even what Jake and I did that one night, she did not say, though she did think. “And no, no regrets.”

“Me either,” Laura said. “And, while Jake and I have had some very erotic moments in our time together—remember the airplane, sweetie?”

“Which time?” he asked. “The time in the hangar or the time in the air?”

“Both, really,” she said.

“You two did it in flight?” Celia asked, amazed and awed.

“Well, yes,” Jake said. “We had to.”

“Had to?”

“Anyway,” Laura said, “while those events were quite erotic, as was our little session with Molly the lesbian, they cannot hold a candle to what we just did.”

“Does that mean ... uh ... that we can do this again?” Jake asked carefully.

Laura smiled. “We’ll just have to see how we feel over the next few days and weeks,” she said. “There are no regrets right now, but that does not mean there won’t be any.”

“I suppose,” said Celia.

“But I have a good feeling about this,” Laura said. “A real good feeling.”