With a Couple

Someday I hope I can write like this:

“So you've never been with a couple before, Catherine?”

The question surprises him. Laura is rarely this direct when it comes to sex. The question seems to catch Catherine off guard too. She places her glass down slowly, buying time, and then says, "No." She smiles, pushing the puzzlement aside. "I've wanted to, for a very long time. I seems like I've been waiting forever. But I never met the right people, or the timing was never right, and-"

Laura gets up and takes the empty seat on the sofa. "But now you've met the right people, haven't you? Now the timing's right?"

Catherine's smile cools at the hint of rancour in Laura's voice. It's subtle, but it's there. For a moment, he thinks of interceding, then stops himself. There would be no point. It would have been better if this had happened earlier, but if Laura was going to blow, nothing in this room would prevent her.

He sits back, mentally wincing, his belly crawling with fear and uncertainty.

Catherine shifts awkwardly in her seat, as though struggling against the urge to withdraw. "Yes."

Laura tilts her head. "And why is that?"

"Honestly?"

"There's not much point in anything else."

Catherine looks to her left, directly at him, and then turns her gaze back to Laura. "Because of him. The timing's right now because of him."

"My husband?"

"Yes."

Laura looks at him herself. "Why? Are you in love him?"

Catherine's laugh is brief, sharp. There's no smile to marry up with the laughter though. Laura's eyes become flinty.

"Are you mocking me, Catherine?"

"Of course not."

"Then why laugh?"

"Because you thought I was in love with your husband."

"And you're not?"

"No. I'm in love with my own husband."

Laura shakes her head. "Then why are you here?"

Catherine smiles again, a warm, gentle smile this time. "Because I want to experience; to touch and to taste and to know the desires of others. Because my husband doesn't want any of those things. And because talking with your husband helped me accept that for some of us, there's too much adventure in the world to sit watching it pass by."

Laura picks up her glass and drains most of its contents in a single draught. "And now you want him?"

"No." Catherine leans forward, softly puts her hand on Laura's bare knee. She slides closer on the sofa. Now there's little more than a foot of space between them. He's spellbound, aware that the rawness in his midriff is easing, that the bitter tang of defeat in his mouth is fading away.

Catherine leans forward until her mouth is only inches from Laura's. "Now I want you both."

Their first kiss is patient, delicate. Their lips do little more than brush together in languid sweeps. He feels himself beginning to rise already.

How quickly things change.

The women pause, draw back fractionally from one another; he sees the hint of surprise in Laura's liquid green eyes. For a few seconds, they regard one other in silence, and then Laura leans forward, instigating a second kiss. This time the connection is deeper, more thorough. His wife strokes Catherine's hair back from her face, lets her hand fall to the other woman's shoulder, fingers trailing down the outside of her arm. Catherine shivers, inches closer, deepening the connection.

Oh, it gets better...