The Boyfriend

by Abigail Barnette

  A servant emerged from a hidden door, pushing a cart. Because honest-to-god servants waited on us here. We all stepped apart quickly, and the interloper cast his gaze down.

  “We’re joining you,” Neil said, gesturing toward the breakfast room.

  “I just finished, but I will gladly watch the two of you eat,” he said with a grin. “Come on, I have something I want to talk to you about.”

  We followed him into the room and to the table, where a member of the housekeeping staff already laid out two new places. She cleared away El-Mudad’s used plate and utensils and gestured to the delicate china cup on its saucer. “Excuse me, sir, should I leave this?”

  “Yes, thank you,” El-Mudad said with a wave of his hand. It was nothing to have a person actually serve him, the same as with Neil. It was a part of their personalities I would never understand; my social class was usually the one doing the serving, and not in big fancy houses like this. The Scaifes were made for hardware stores and fast food, not Downton Abbey.

  One of the drawbacks was the privacy aspect. El-Mudad wanted to speak to us about something apparently important enough to announce the intent of discussing but far too private to talk about in front of people who were paid to keep quiet about stuff. I had so many hopes as to what the topic of conversation would be and not enough patience to wait through the formalities of a midday snack.

  Okay, the scones and clotted cream placed on the table for us were difficult to resent. I filled my plate while our coffee was poured and resisted the urge to shoo everyone from the room.

  Finally, the three of us were alone, and I demanded, “What is it you want to talk to us about?”

  I knew what I wanted it to be about.

  “I’ve given more thought to our living arrangements,” he said, taking a sip of coffee.

  “Oh?” Neil held his cup casually in front of his mouth, but anxious hope radiated from him. I realized my legs had started to bounce under the table.

  “I do think your idea will work best,” he went on, referring to our plan that he would live with us in the house, but use the guest house and Manhattan apartment for cover when we needed it. Oh, El-Mudad? He’s just staying in our guest house for a visit. He’s renting our penthouse while he’s here on business. He’s an old friend having his beach house renovated. I hated that we would have to lie to hide our relationship, but children were involved. Not just El-Mudad’s but Olivia. Though I doubted Valerie would care if she found out Neil and I had a lover. She’d dated Neil back in the days of their unofficial university kink club and knew more about his sex life than I was strictly comfortable with her knowing. I also knew that if she felt Olivia was being exposed to something she considered harmful, she wouldn’t hesitate to protect her granddaughter with the help of Family Court. It wasn’t as though I could bring it up to her to test the waters; “Valerie, how do you feel about children raised in polygamous homes?”

  Or maybe I could. She already thought I was weird enough to randomly strike up a conversation like that with someone who barely tolerated me.

  But El-Mudad’s situation with his ex-wife was much different than what Neil and I lived. Though he didn’t talk much about the way his marriage had dissolved, it was clear from El-Mudad’s circumspection about our relationship in the wake of his divorce that he had been cautious to not give Bijou ammunition with which to attack. He never said a harsh word against her, but he didn’t seem to trust her, either.

  It was that need for caution that caused our current snag. Neil and I lived together while El-Mudad was missing. That didn’t work for any of us anymore.

  “The guest house will be available as soon as my mom and Tony move out of it,” I reminded him.

  “But you could move in with us earlier,” Neil suggested.

  “Right, you really only need to be able to lie about the house thing when your daughters come to visit you,” I pointed out.

  Neil cleared his throat. “I was thinking more along the lines of your mother and Tony leaving before the wedding. I’d be happy to help them do so if finances are presenting difficulty.”

  I raised one finger in warning. “Watch it.”

  “You’re right, Sophie. My daughters are the largest influence on my decision. I could come home with you from Venice, if not for my reservations about them.” He paused. “Which is why I suggested it was time for you to meet them. They’ll arrive on Christmas Eve.”

  My heart stuttered.

  “They’ll be coming in early in the morning. I know you’ll have guests here, but I hoped we could have brunch or…” He shrugged helplessly.

  I glanced over at Neil. “There’s probably some way we can get away for an hour, right? Maybe you could set up a tour of the countryside or a quaint village or something?”

  “Why would we need to set up a tour?” Neil asked with a frown. “My brothers will be perfectly happy to keep to themselves here, and they already know the area—”

  “My family,” I interrupted him.

  His expression changed to one of horror. Presumably, he imagined my family organizing a jug band in the grand ballroom and blasting holes in the ceiling when they discharged their shotguns into the sky.

  “Right. Well, I’m sure they would love some kind of…” he waved his hands helplessly.

  “Neil, don’t panic.” El-Mudad’s mouth tilted in a slow smile. “It’s not an audition. I just don’t want you both to be strangers anymore. It would come as a shock to learn years from now of a long term relationship I’d hidden from them.”

  “Too right,” Neil agreed. “I hope you’ll let us consider your daughters our family, in the way we consider you a part of Olivia’s family.”

  I wanted that, too, but I didn’t know how to express it without sounding like I was suggesting some kind of too-self-aware-to-be-hip reboot of The Brady Bunch.

  “Then I think if your offer is still on the table...if things go smoothly when you meet the girls, I would like to come back to New York with you after we visit Venice.”

  My heart pounded so hard it made my eyes pulse.

  “You mean—” Neil began.

  “I think this is it, loves. We’re finished being apart.”

  I literally shrieked with joy as I jumped from my chair. El-Mudad was ready to catch me, standing so I couldn’t topple him. I clung to him; knowing he would stay this time made him feel more real to me than ever before. Neil was at our side in an instant, pressing his forehead against El-Mudad’s and whispering a tearful, “I love you.”

  We stayed like that for a long time, just holding each other tight. We used to embrace that way out of desperation, wanting to make the contact last and last as though it could be stored up and used when physical distance separated us. Now, it was a luxury, not a need. We wouldn’t be parted from him again. Savoring it was so, so good.

  When El-Mudad stepped back, his eyes were red and glazed with tears of joy. He seemed to remember where we were with a sudden blink. “I’m so sorry! You just arrived. You must be exhausted.”

  “You’re trying to get us into bed,” Neil accused him with one of his adorable giggles. Being in love with Neil was wonderful; watching Neil in love with someone I loved only made me love him more.

  I’d once seen photos from Neil’s first wedding. He’d looked at his ex-wife, Elizabeth, with such unabashed adoration that it had stung my heart even seeing the pictures a year after our own wedding. I’d thought the pain had come from seeing Neil in love with someone else, but it had been caused by the fact that I’d been seeing a version of Neil who wasn’t in love with me—at least, not in a way either of us could have reciprocated for each other at the time. The way he loved El-Mudad was different, because I knew both them shared that same love for me.

  El-Mudad shook his head. “I wouldn’t mind. But we don’t have to make up for any time. We have more of it now. You can rest if you need to.”

  “Honestly? I could use a nap.” The time change really screwed with me. “Otherwise, I’
m going to pass out in my plate at dinner.”

  “That won’t do in such a palace,” El-Mudad teased. He knew how I felt about the place.

  “Oh, fine, mock my beautiful home.” Neil sighed loudly. “Yes, fine. Perhaps we should go to our ‘rooms’?”

  “Our ‘separate’ rooms?” I imitated his air quotes.

  “Oh, yes, those,” El-Mudad said with a knowing tilt of his head. “The ones with the doors left wide open between them?”

  “They never!” Neil gasped, looking over his shoulder as we left together.

  El-Mudad nodded slowly and laughed. “They did. I’m sorry that your ruse didn’t fool anyone. I hope they’ve signed agreements.”

  “They have,” Neil assured him. “But apparently I should require that they dial back the cheek.”

  The Blue Apartment—or as we called it, Neil’s bedroom—was at the end of a wide hallway with an intricate herringbone wood floor. A blood-red rug led the way to the tall double doors at the end. I’d made my position on the decor known enough that I didn’t do it now, even as we passed portraits of long-dead strangers. The house had been in the family for a long time, so even Neil had no idea who half the people immortalized on the walls were.

  “The first time I was here, you told me that your bedroom took up the entire floor,” I reminded him. “How is there an adjoining room?”

  “I believe I said ‘most,’” he corrected me.

  “My room is tiny,” El-Mudad said. He held Neil’s hand in his as we walked. “I would have been offended if you’d put me up there without intending to invite me over to yours.”

  “It was meant to serve as something of a banished husband room, I suspect,” Neil told us.

  “Or a mistress’s apartment,” I suggested, and El-Mudad feigned outrage.

  “How dare you! I’m not your mistress. I’m your boyfriend.”

  We reached the doors, and I pulled one handle. “Oh, right. I’m the kept woman.”

  Since it was a private room that didn’t feature on any tours, Neil’s bedroom was outfitted with a modern en-suite bathroom—the rest of the house had pre-war plumbing, still—and a television over the enormous fireplace. The room was done up with blue-gray satin wall panels framed in molding and gold velvet draped over everything that could possibly require drapes, from the windows to the cushioned nap nook to the bed crown high above the huge bed. Mounds of ornate pillows and bolsters covered the top quarter of the creme duvet, which subtly matched the sinfully soft area rug.

  “This,” El-Mudad said, holding his arms wide at the end of the bed, “is exactly the size we need in New York.”

  “No!” I gasped. We already had plenty of space in our California King. This bed was easily twice the size. “I like to cuddle you. I won’t even be able to find you in here.”

  He put his arm around my waist and drew me up tight against his chest. His warm brown eyes gazed down into mine. “I’ll find you. I promise.”

  I tilted my head up for a quick kiss, then said, “I’m sorry. I know we travel in style, but flight grime is real. I need to take a shower.”

  “Go on.” He gave my butt a pat.

  “I may join you,” Neil said, but he was already sitting on the bed, so there was very little chance he would get up again. If he weren’t completely knocked out before dinner, I would be shocked. No matter how much of an international traveler he was, jet lag always fucked with him.

  I went into the bathroom and stripped down, then let the water run to get it warm. Though the fixtures were all updated, the shower itself was little more than a slightly-larger-than-usual standing stall with tan marble tile and a glass door. I found a hair tie in one of the vanity drawers—I had a stock of them at almost all of our houses now—and put my hair up in a scruffy but functional bun, so I didn’t have to get it wet. I gave myself a quick rinse, toweled off, and headed back out to the bedroom.

  I stopped dead in my tracks. “I’ve been in there for like fifteen minutes, and you’re already fucking?”

  Neil and El-Mudad looked up at me sheepishly from the bed, where both of them were completely naked. El-Mudad lay beneath Neil, flushed and panting.

  “Not fucking in the technical sense,” Neil argued. “There’s no penetration. Just some light frottage.”

  “Oh, just say dry humping, stop trying to sound fancy.” I climbed onto the bed and laid next to them, stretching my arms over my head to elongate my nude body. There was something so sexy about just getting out of the shower, not being dripping wet but not totally dry, either.

  Of course, watching my husband and my boyfriend grind on each other in frustrating denial would undoubtedly result in a “dripping wet” scenario.

  Neil angled his hips up and reached between their bodies to grasp El-Mudad’s cock. El-Mudad’s eyebrows drew together in a grimace of pleasure, and he whispered, “Oh yes, my love,” as Neil stroked him.

  My fingers wandered down my stomach. I was torn between wanting to get involved and just watching them. I loved the way their bodies looked together; El-Mudad all hard muscle slinking under tight, flawless skin, Neil softened a bit by age but no less powerful or beautiful. I loved the flex of the prominent veins on the back of his hand as he squeezed and pumped El-Mudad’s cock.

  I parted myself with a fingertip and circled my clit, my other hand palming my breast. Neil glanced over, and I spread my legs wide. “I’m just enjoying the show.”

  “So am I,” he groaned, his gaze fixed on my vulva.

  “I want to come inside of you, Sophie,” El-Mudad gasped. “I want your cunt to milk every last drop.”

  “Shall I get you close?” Neil asked him, rubbing his thumb over the exposed head of El-Mudad’s cock. “Far too close, perhaps, but not quite enough?”

  I shivered at the thought of watching El-Mudad struggle through denied orgasm after denied orgasm, but not this evening. “It’s been too long,” I complained. “I need him, now.”

  Neil sat back and released him. “By all means. But wait just a moment, will you?”

  El-Mudad held his cock tight in his fist, as though he were fighting the urge to jack himself off right there.

  Neil went to his suitcase, already resting neatly on a rack, and unzipped it. He rummaged through it for a moment and returned with a rechargeable wand vibrator. “The moment this turns on, Sophie, you must leave it on your clit. You can’t move it away, no matter how long we take with you.”

  “We?” I asked, looking at both of them uncertainly.

  “He can go first,” Neil said, handing me the vibe. “And when he’s finished, I’ll fuck you.”

  I mentally calculated just how long my over-stimulated nerves would torment me. Then I pressed the wide, round tip of the vibrator against my clit and turned it on. It was still on the setting I liked, a deep, steady pulse. El-Mudad knelt between my legs and pulled me down the bed, causing me to gasp and laugh at the same time. He brushed the head of his cock up and down my slit, spreading my wetness around, then pushed inside. My body molded to him as though we were meant to be one piece. He sank so deep that I was convinced we had become a single being, yet still, I lifted up, trying to draw him in more.

  He leaned down to kiss me, then to kiss my jaw, my neck, to whisper in my ear, “Shall we do this together? I’m so close. You have no idea how much I want you when we’re apart. No idea how I ache to be inside you, to feel this cunt begging to be filled.”

  “Oh, please,” was all I could manage, because I wasn’t anywhere near as smooth a talker as him, and definitely not when teetering on the brink of orgasm. “I’m going to come!”

  “Then let me go with you,” he breathed, and slowly withdrew, tightening every muscle in my body from my toes up. He thrust forward hard, then pulled out and plunged in again, and groaned, “Now, Sophie. Come for me now.”

  The vibration on my clit had gotten me much of the way in a hurry, but it was his words, his desperate plea as he spiraled out of control himself that took me over the edge. Ple
asure spiked through me with every jerk of his cock, every hot, wet gush as he filled me. My legs crushed his waist, and I arched my back, crying out with the surprising force of my orgasm.

  He was done, but I couldn’t turn off the vibrator. While he lay atop me, trying to get his breath, the toy buzzed between us, tormenting my oversensitive flesh while I tried to twist away from the stimulation. He hissed, too sensitive, himself, and reluctantly pulled free.

  I turned my head. Neil lay beside us, pure need darkening his eyes. When El-Mudad collapsed on the pillows, Neil rolled on top of me. He slid into me in one long, steady stroke, and I came again, whimpering.

  El-Mudad took my hand in his, kissing my fingertips. I turned to look him in the eye, and he held my gaze as Neil’s painfully hard cock stretched me.

  “Tell me what it’s like,” El-Mudad whispered against my knuckles. “Tell me how he feels in you.”

  “Big,” I rasped, my throat raw. “Too big. Like I’m going to split apart. Like I want to.”

  “I want him to fuck me, one day,” he confided, as though Neil weren’t right there. “But I don’t know if I can endure it.”

  “I don’t want you to endure it,” Neil told him. “If it happens, I want you to enjoy it.”

  With every thrust, I felt El-Mudad’s cum dribble out to pool on the duvet beneath me. “I want to watch it,” I gasped, my tortured clit dragging me toward another orgasm. My toes cramped. I moaned, “I want you to be inside me while he does it. I want to feel you getting fucked.”

  There was so much I wanted to do with them, especially now that we would have the chance to. Things so filthy, I almost didn’t want to tell them. I wanted to suck El-Mudad’s cock while Neil fucked him. I wanted both of us to go down on Neil at once, tangling our tongues around his cock in a three-way kiss. I wanted to be shackled to the Sybian while they took turns with our collection of fucking machines. It wasn’t difficult to imagine El-Mudad bound, a thick dildo pistoning deep into his ass, while Neil fucked his face. There were so many ways I longed to express that my passion for them, my hunger was limitless. I trusted them both to use me and satisfy me and protect me all at once.