The Mammoth Book of Threesomes and Moresomes

The Gift

Lewis DeSimone

Jesse would have burned the dinner if I hadn’t been there to save it.

“What are you doing?!” I cried, opening the oven door and pulling out the rack. He had set the temperature to 450?F; I quickly turned it down and left the door open for a while to cool it off. Fortunately, the lasagne had been inside for only a few minutes, but already it was bubbling around the edges and some of the cheese on top had started to brown, long before the rest of the dish was even warm.

“You have to handle these things delicately,” I said. “The lasagne will be done when it’s done.” The oven thermometer now read 375?F, so I slid the rack gently back in and closed the door.

“You’re just anxious,” Jesse said. He was pulling silverware out of the drawer — the good stuff, the set he’d inherited from his mother. Clutching yellow linen napkins in his other hand, he stepped around the counter and began to set the table.

“I am not anxious,” I told him. I was still fingering the potholder, looking for a safe place to put it among the clutter.

It was the kitchen, with its Mary Tyler Moore window, that had sold me on the apartment. Jesse had been more partial to the view of the Charles River from the living room. When I was a kid, I’d fantasized about living in Minneapolis, imagining that all its apartments had those shutters over the kitchen counter, shutters I would throw open to converse with my guests as I whipped up dinner. But this was not Minneapolis, and reality was not a sitcom. Since moving in, we’d had surprisingly few dinner parties. Kim was our first guest in months.

“I just want everything to be perfect tonight,” I said. “I want her to feel comfortable.”

“Nick, she’ll be comfortable,” Jesse said. “We don’t need to impress her.” He adjusted the centrepiece, an opalescent blue ceramic vase with daffodils spilling out of it. I’d chosen daffodils because of their height and simplicity — I didn’t want some huge, overdone bouquet blocking our view of one another over dinner, obstructing conversation.

I gazed through the cloudy window of the oven at the glass casserole dish, the layers of pasta, sauce and cheese. I always made my lasagne just as my mother had taught me, with loads of ground beef and even ground veal on special occasions. But not tonight. In the layer where the meat should have been, there was a thick spread of spinach in deference to Kim’s vegetarianism. To compensate, I’d had a hamburger for lunch. I thanked God she wasn’t vegan.

Jesse’s arms suddenly encircled me, his head burrowing into my shoulder. “It’s going to be a beautiful evening,” he whispered. “I promise.”

Our image reflected hazily in the glass, his brown head nuzzling against my neck, a complement to the thinning blonde hair that spilled over my own brow. Within a few years, most couples we knew became clones of each other — sharing their clothes and hairstyles so that sometimes you could hardly tell them apart. Perhaps with us the pieces had just fit together better from the start, no need to shave off an edge here and there to squeeze the puzzle into place.

“Well, she’s your friend,” I said, closing my eyes. It was better that way, of course. I couldn’t have gone through with it with someone I knew too well.

“Are the wine glasses on the table?” I asked.

“Knew I forgot something,” he said, his breath rippling my shirt. But he didn’t move until the doorbell rang a few seconds later.

I glanced up at the clock above the oven. “Well, she’s prompt,” I remarked.

“Timing is everything,” Jesse said with a smile, pulling away and heading for the door. “Especially tonight.”

I darted across the room to turn down the Schubert, then busied myself pulling wine glasses out of the cupboard. I was lighting the candles on the table when I heard the voices in the foyer. There were no cries of welcome, just murmured hellos, and Jesse followed Kim into the room. She held a bottle of white wine in front of her and laid it gently into my hands as she leaned in to kiss my cheek.

“Oh, it’s chilled,” I said, my fingers tingling.

She laughed and drew away quickly. “Sorry. I should have warned you.”

“I should have known you wouldn’t show up with a bottle of warm Chardonnay,” I said with a smile.

She had trimmed her hair into a neat bob that drew attention to her face — the slightly upturned nose and high cheekbones. I’d always thought of Kim as pretty, but tonight she looked quite beautiful. Her eyes were bright blue, like Jesse’s.

“Can I help with anything?” Kim asked as I led the way into the kitchen.

Jesse slid past her to pull a serving bowl from the cupboard. “You’re doing quite enough already,” he said.

Kim blushed, a healthy pink in her cheeks. She didn’t look like the other vegetarians I knew — pasty, unnaturally thin. Kim had an athlete’s body — slender but strong. It showed in the way her feet held the ground, the subtle biceps that appeared when she bent her arm to brush a lock of hair behind her ear. She worked out regularly, she ate right, she didn’t smoke. She was a catch. It was a wonder some man hadn’t swooped her up by now.

She had been one of Jesse’s closest friends in college. They’d even dated briefly. And later, she was one of the first people he came out to. After school they had gone their separate ways, Kim bopping around the country in search of herself. It was pure coincidence that she was here at all. She’d come back to town a few years ago, for graduate school, and we’d bumped into her in line at the movies. If it hadn’t been for Woody Allen, this night might never have happened. We might have been standing here with someone else right now, someone neither of us knew very well at all.

While I opened the wine, Jesse made the salad. Salads he could handle — there was nothing to burn.

“So how’s school?” he asked, slicing into a tomato. The seeds spilled on to the cutting board, and he brushed it all into the bowl before moving on to the cucumber.

“It’s great,” Kim said. “As soon as this class is done, I’ll be free to work full-time on the dissertation.”

I handed her a glass of Chardonnay. “That’s wonderful. Congratulations.”

Jesse turned and took the other glass. “To Kim’s dissertation. And other projects.”

“To Kim,” I said, smiling.

Our glasses clinked together, a perfect little triangle.

I checked the lasagne, which still had a while to go. We settled down at the table to start on the salad first. It was past seven, but watery gold sunlight was still falling through the window.

“So what’s your dissertation about again?” I asked.

“Kate Chopin,” she said. “She’s not terribly well known these days, unless you’re an English major.”

“Any relation to Frederic?”

“Not that I know of. But it might be interesting — finding parallels between the writing and the music.”

Jesse laughed. “Wouldn’t that be nice,” he said, “something we could both read.” He leaned towards Kim. “In case you haven’t noticed — all the books in this house are mine, and all the CDs are Nick’s.”

“That’s not strictly true,” I argued.

“I stand corrected,” said Jesse, fork waving in mid-air like a baton. “All the books about music are Nick’s.”

Kim laughed. “I’d say you guys complement each other very nicely,” she said. She looked at us both in turn. “An old friend of mine used to say, differences are gifts; they give us a chance to expand our horizons.’”

“See, sweetie?” Jesse said, patting my hand. “Remember that the next time I leave the cap off the toothpaste.”

Kim caught the gesture and smiled. “Seven years?” she asked. “And no itch yet?” She laughed again, a mischievous, throaty laugh.

“Well,” I said, “we’re not saints. It’s all a question of how often you scratch.”

“But you’re great together. You know that, right?” There was a depth to her eyes, and I realized suddenly that this wasn’t just about Jesse and me. She had a stake in it, too. She needed us to be stable. She needed to know she could rely on us.

“Of course,” I replied, squeezing Jesse’s hand. “We’re very lucky.”

“Is that all there is to it?” she asked, pushing a carrot slice around on her plate. “Luck?”

“It plays a bigger role than you’d think,” I confessed. “It’s not as if I deserve this guy, you know.”

Head still bowed over his plate, Jesse looked up at me — through the chestnut hair that grazed his forehead. I called it his “come hither” look, but I’d never told him that.

“It’s not a question of deserving,” he said softly. “Love comes when you’re ready for it.” He was talking to Kim, but still gazing at me.

“Well,” Kim said through a self-conscious laugh, “then I guess I’m still not ready.”

“You are,” Jesse replied, breaking the connection at last and turning to face her. “But maybe he’s not.”

“Who?”

“The man you’re destined to be with.”

Her laughter morphed into a nervous giggle. “Ooh, destiny. That’s a little scary. So far I’ve just been destined for jerks.”

“That’s not destiny,” I told her. “Most men are jerks.”

“Well, I’ve met them all,” she said. She took a gulp of wine, a period on the remark. “I did get close once or twice — or so I thought. The grand passion that fizzles when reality sets in.”

“Preaching to the choir,” I said, raising a hand to the sky.

She went on, in a sort of reverie now. “It’s amazing how many times you have to learn the same lesson. I keep thinking it’s going to be different this time: This guy means it. This one can open his heart as easily as his pants.” She laughed at her own joke and took another sip. “But even when they do. . they seem to hate it, you know? It’s like their nerves are suddenly stripped of their protective coating. They love the feeling at first, but then it becomes too much and they can’t stand it. They have to close up again — zip their hearts back up and leave.” She smiled delicately, mysteriously. “Men can do that,” she whispered. “How do they do that?”

“Some of them feel like they have to,” Jesse said. “To survive.”

“It takes courage,” I added, “to be vulnerable. You know that.”

“Were you afraid?” Kim asked, eyes wide.

“Terrified,” I said.

Jesse gripped my hand again — warm, one finger wrapped around my knuckle. “It takes work,” he said. “You push through the fear. Again and again.”

“And if you’re lucky,” I said, “you find someone who’s willing to do that with you.”

“There’s that luck again,” she said, grimacing facetiously.

“Destiny,” Jesse said. “You have to have faith that it will happen.”

She arched her eyebrows. I saw in her eyes that Jesse was speaking a foreign language.

“It’s luck,” I told her. Somehow, luck seemed more reassuring. Luck wasn’t anyone’s fault.

The timer rang and Jesse started to rise.

“No, no, no,” I said, tossing my napkin on to the table. “I’ll take care of it. You entertain our guest. You’re the charming one.”

The lasagne was perfect, golden in the middle, brown and slightly crunchy around the edges. I carved into it with the spatula and pulled out three large squares. When I returned with a steaming plate in each hand, Jesse and Kim were laughing together. They looked remarkably comfortable, as if this were any other evening. As if they were still in college, the whole world just a figment of the future.

“I hope it’s not me,” I said, settling Kim’s plate before her.

“No,” she said, “don’t worry. I was just telling Jesse about one of my students. He was under the impression that Virginia Woolf had written Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

“And how did you disabuse him of that notion?” I asked, turning Jesse’s plate as I laid it down so that the garlic bread was on the left, where he liked it.

“Very delicately,” she said. “You have to be careful with their precious little eighteen-year-old egos.”

I went back for my own plate and fetched the bowl of freshly grated Parmesan. “Will you be happy to be done with teaching for a while,” I asked, taking my place again, “or do you think you’ll miss it?”

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll miss it,” she said, slicing into the lasagne. A burst of steam escaped, and she put her fork down to wait for it to cool. “But I’ll be back in the classroom eventually. Shaping those little minds.”

“What about the really little minds?” I asked. “You won’t miss that?”

She lifted her glass and looked into it contemplatively. “I’ve never felt called to raise children,” she said. “This isn’t about that.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I guess I need to hear it. Again.”

“That’s understandable.” She drained her glass and reached for the bottle.

Jesse, in mid-crunch on his garlic bread, suddenly perked up. “I, on the other hand, am a completely different story. My biological clock has been ticking since I was six.”

“Six?”

“Oh you should have seen me, stealing my sister’s baby dolls away. Whenever she wasn’t looking, I’d kidnap one of them and start sprucing up its outfit.”

Kim laughed and turned to me — wide-eyed and curious, like Oprah.

“I was more into Barbies myself,” I admitted. “I liked glamour, not diapers.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Jesse said with a wink.

Kim sprinkled cheese over her lasagne, shaking the spoon gently to get an even layer.

Jesse was right: I was anxious. I tend to blurt things out when I’m anxious. “I get tested every three months,” I said to break the silence, “like clockwork.”

Kim smiled and bowed her head. “I know, Nick,” she replied. “Jesse told me.”

“I just wanted to make sure you knew,” I said. “Clean bill of health.”

Jesse rolled his eyes. “We’ve already had this conversation, honey. We’ve covered all the bases.” He had such a firm jaw, almost square, with a delicate cleft that was nearly impossible to shave properly.

I nodded. They had had the conversation already. She’d asked all her questions; Jesse had asked all of ours. I should have been satisfied with that. But when Kim had called yesterday, telling us it was time, I suddenly regretted being only a vicarious part of the discussion. I wasn’t vicarious tonight, and I wasn’t going to be vicarious later on, either.

I put my fork down and took a deep breath. I’d learned that much. I’d learned how to shut off the racing of my mind. But at times like this, it seemed like a full-time job. I refilled everyone’s glass as an excuse to drain my own.

I fetched another bottle from the sideboard and poured. The Pinot felt smoother on my tongue than the tart Chardonnay. It went down more easily.

“I just want the experience,” Kim said at last, her features softened by the third glass of wine. “And time’s slipping by. I’ll be thirty-five in June, you know. I just want to know what it’s like. Is that crazy?”

“No,” Jesse said. “That makes total sense. Hell, if I could do it, I would. I’d love that experience.”

I laughed. “Honey, if you could do it, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Kim still had a crush on Jesse — that much was obvious. The way she looked at him now, the way her eyes glowed when she turned from me to him didn’t help my anxiety at all. It was as if there was an understanding between them, an agreement that I hadn’t signed. I took a deep breath and told myself that I was not the third wheel this time.

As if reading my discomfort, Jesse looked up from his plate and smiled at me, his eyes bright and hopeful. I unfolded my leg beneath the table and touched his foot with my own. His smile broadened.

“It’s time for dessert,” he said, rising from the table. He gathered the plates into a pile, Kim deftly scooping in one last bite before it vanished from in front of her.

I sat back in my chair. I hadn’t eaten much. Even though my stomach was churning with hunger, I hadn’t been able to get down more than a few bites. I took another sip of wine. My insides would be all liquid before long.

Jesse returned in a moment and settled dessert plates in front of us — our casual set, the ones with lithe dancers drawn on them in silhouette, striking various ballet poses. Each plate bore an eclair from our favourite neighbourhood bakery, huge chocolate-drenched pastries that ordinarily made my mouth water. I took another breath to avoid throwing up.

He unscrewed a bottle of orange muscat and began pouring it into liqueur glasses. I picked up mine as soon as he’d lifted the bottle away, but he gently slapped my hand. “Not yet,” he said. “We have to toast.”

I dutifully put the glass down. Kim was already digging into her eclair, the cream oozing on to her plate, obscuring the extended leg of a ballerina in arabesque.

“To the gift of love,” Jesse said, his glass in mid-air. Kim and I lifted ours towards him and clinked.

I’ve always hated double entendre.

I sat. I drank. I waited. The eclair sweated, untouched, before me.

“Well,” said Jesse at last, wiping a drop of cream from his lip with a napkin, “now what?”

I stared into my glass — through it, to a world painted orange.

Kim giggled and settled her fork on to the empty plate. “You boys are so coy,” she said. “Can’t we just say it, for heaven’s sake? We all know why we’re here. It’s the most natural thing in the world.”

“Not for me,” I said, still gazing into the muscat.

She laughed. “But you have done it before, haven’t you?” She paused. “Sleep with a woman, I mean.”

“Longer ago than I can remember,” I replied. “I think it was the Pleistocene epoch.”

“Otherwise known as high school,” said Jesse.

“And even then,” I said, “it took a great deal of effort. I swear, I must be a Kinsey 6.”

“Not even a 5?” she asked. “For me?”

Jesse chuckled from the other side of the table. “Between the two of us,” he said, “I’d say it averages out to a 4, so you’re in luck.”

Kim pushed her plate away and stood up. “Come on,” she said, reaching for me. “It’s like riding a bike.”

Her hand hung delicately in the air, waiting. “I was never particularly good at that, either,” I said, finally taking hold of her fingers. They were long and full of energy, and I recalled Jesse telling me that she’d played piano as a child.

And then we were all standing, spooling away from the table and across the room, holding hands like a chain of children on their way to recess.

It was dark in the bedroom, but thankfully no one bothered to flick on the lamp. The light from the living room filtered in hazily, just enough to turn the blackness to grey.

Jesse stood behind me, hands on my shoulders, chest pressed against my back — warming me, keeping me safe. Kim, before me, had kicked off her shoes, and now the top of her head barely reached my collarbone. I marvelled at how “the most natural thing in the world” could happen between such mismatched creatures.

She stood a foot or so away and lifted her hands to caress my chest. The fabric of my shirt crinkled softly against my nipples and I let my head drop back, into the crook of Jesse’s neck as she worked on the buttons, as her fingers found their way inside.

Jesse nuzzled me. His tongue flicked teasingly against an ear lobe, and then his mouth moved down, kissing my neck, closing softly against the skin and sucking. I called it his vampire kiss, pulling life from my throat. It was usually all I needed to give in to him completely.

Kim’s hands, cold at first against my skin, began to warm as she traced her way down to my belly. She unbuckled my belt, undid the button on my jeans, and a shiver rode my spine. I closed my eyes and breathed in the darkness. The zipper was just a sound in the night, the falling of my jeans just a burst of cold air against my skin.

She held me, still soft, in her hands — patiently, the way I held eggs to warm them before placing them into boiling water, to keep them from breaking against the heat. Her lips were full when she kissed me, opening against me to give me their warm undersides. Jesse’s teeth bit gently against my ear and suddenly I felt electricity around me, and my cock flickered to life.

And then, as if by magic, we were all naked, all on the bed — six hands softly caressing whatever they found, three pairs of lips gently kissing in turn. Jesse continued to kiss my neck, as his fingers roped their way through my chest hair, down to my navel. He clenched my cock in one hand and kissed me as Kim’s fingers followed his lead, tracing circles around my nipple.

I lay back and Jesse planted himself above me, holding his body aloft with outstretched arms, and smiled down at me as Kim took me back into her mouth. He lowered himself slowly, as if he were doing push-ups, and kissed me delicately on the lips.

We moved spontaneously around the bed, our gestures fluid, changing with no apparent reason — like children again, always in the moment, always ready to be surprised. At one point Kim lay back against the pillows, knees bent in the air, and Jesse sidled up between her legs. He buried his face against her, and she moaned, tossing her head from side to side. I stroked her face to gentle her and dropped my head to her breast. It was my turn to suck now, my turn to return to the buried memory of my own first nurturing. I licked the hard nipple hungrily and drew it into my mouth. Suddenly, this spot became for me the most erotic, the most essential place in the world.

She arched her back and I noticed that Jesse had slid away from her crotch. He was kneeling before her now. I looked up and saw the concentration in his eyes.

He scooted slowly forwards, hands resting on her thighs, and his cock — the head purple, fully engorged — flicked against his belly as if in invitation. He pushed against her, into her, inch by inch, as her gentle murmurs turned into moans, cries — the growing pleasure I so easily recognized. I knew what she was feeling, had felt it, lived with the incessant craving. I watched her face as the breath came faster, her cheeks flushing, her eyelids fluttering against her skin, and I knew at last what my face looked like when Jesse became a part of me, when he held me this close, when he pulsated inside me.

Kim pulled him closer and ran her fingernails down his back, cupped his ass cheeks with both hands — pushing him deeper into herself. Jesse arched his back in response, and suddenly we were eye to eye, our faces only inches apart. He pulled me with one hand against him and pressed his lips on to mine. His tongue forced its way into my mouth, fucking me as his cock fucked her. He groaned deeply, in that way of his, and my arm against his back traced the bucking of his body as he came.

I held him like that for a minute or so, until the last shudder, our lips still sealed against each other, our hearts pounding.

When I drew away, when he pulled out, Kim was rocking gently beneath us, like something bobbing on the waves of a once turbulent sea.

We rested for a while, the three of us, holding one another, leaning our heads together, sharing the warmth. We said nothing for a long time, until Kim rolled her face towards mine and leaned in close. “I need you now,” she whispered.

It was my turn. We were taking turns.

It was a shock at first — the moistness, the effortless way Kim and I moved together. I had forgotten how different it felt — those soft folds of female flesh, the way they mould themselves around a man.

We were using her, I thought suddenly, uncomfortably — not for sex per se, but for the anticipated result.

It was her gift to us, she’d said. An anniversary present, a love offering.

You guys are meant to be parents, she’d told us the night she’d first made the suggestion — planted the seed, so to speak. You’d certainly be better parents than me. And you love each other, she said, you should conceive your child in love — not with a turkey baster.

I lifted her towards me, her ass warm as I pulled it away from the sheets. I rocked with her, sliding myself in and out of her — slowly, tenderly. I was afraid to do it as forcefully as I fucked Jesse, afraid she might shatter beneath me.

She closed her eyes and threw her head back, a smile warming her face. I looked up, and it was now Jesse’s face I saw — Jesse’s blue eyes just inches away, his lips open in that familiar ellipse of passion. And he leaned forwards, pressed his lips against mine again, reached around my neck to hold my mouth close to his.

Someone’s hand stroked my side, another squeezed a nipple, still another gently swatted my ass. I kept kissing, kept fucking, eyes closed. It could as easily have been Kim I was kissing, Jesse I was fucking. In the darkness, it didn’t matter. In the darkness, we were simply making love. Literally making love — as if love itself were a thing, a product of sex, something we created together in the act of fucking. We were making this thing called love, this creature that would one day cry us awake in the middle of the night, skin a knee on the pavement outside, borrow the car and keep us up all night with worry, hold our hands years hence and let us go.

Jesse’s fingernails dug into my neck. His teeth closed gently on my lower lip, and I cried out — coming, pouring out my love, coming into the spot still wet with his own seed, mine now mingling with his, my sperm racing his for the prize. I was panting and sweating and smiling, imagining them all, millions of them, swimming together — a team, cheering one another on, not really caring which one made it to the finish line as long as one of them did. They — we — were all in this together.