Three For All

by Elia Winters

  “It’s not—” Patrick began, but Geoff pushed on.

  “I know it’s not settling, but isn’t it? When you go from as many people as you want to one, don’t you wonder what you’re missing out on? Don’t you feel like you’re narrowing your options down in a completely ridiculous way?”

  Patrick was about to argue back, but the words dried up. Geoff’s passion, the shine in his eyes, they didn’t match what he was saying. An alternate possibility occurred to him. “You’re into her.”

  Geoff froze, his mouth turning down, and then he shook his head. “No, that’s ridiculous. I wanted you to have more opportunities. You’re the one who’s polyamorous.”

  “Are you sure about that?” This was clicking into place, all the pieces aligning like tumblers in a lock ready to open. “Listen to yourself. You’re smitten with this woman.” He was smiling, but hopefully Geoff wouldn’t think he was being mocked. That wasn’t his intent. Geoff was still shaking his head, but he’d gone quiet. “It’s okay, Geoff. This is normal. You’ve only been with me, and you see this beautiful woman you work with all the time. It’s okay to be curious.”

  Geoff got to his feet, agitated. “That doesn’t make any sense. I thought of Lori because of the polyam thing, and I thought you and her might like each other. It isn’t about my feelings for her. I don’t—I wasn’t—” He twisted his hands together, then fumbled with his glasses, trying to adjust them and knocking them askew.

  Patrick got to his feet and gently righted them, then cupped Geoff’s face. Geoff put his hands over Patrick’s, holding himself steady, and his dark brown eyes were wild and confused and frightened. He wasn’t like this; Geoff was always in control of what he wanted and how he was going to get it. This panic, so out of character, drove Patrick’s nurturing instinct.

  “It’s okay,” he said again.

  “It’s not okay.” Geoff pushed Patrick’s hands away. “I can’t believe you think that about me.”

  “Think what?”

  “That I want someone else. That I want someone other than you.”

  “Isn’t that what you think about me, though? You think I want to sleep with this other woman because I’m not happy with you?”

  “I know you’re happy with me. I thought you’d want more. I thought you wouldn’t want to be limited.” He started to pace. “I didn’t think you were going to try and put all this on me.”

  “If you want to sleep with her, and she’s interested, it’s not out of the question,” Patrick said, his voice calm. This was perfectly reasonable, after all. “We can talk about it.”

  “You’re missing the point.” Geoff shook his head. He grabbed his keys off the hook near the front door. “I need to go for a walk.” He pushed out the front door and into the stairwell before Patrick could say anything more.

  Patrick watched him go, and a gentle sadness settled inside him. Geoff needed to reach this realization on his own. Now that he’d figured out what was beneath Geoff’s feelings, they were hard to interpret any other way. Hopefully, he wouldn’t stay in denial for long.

  5

  Geoff walked briskly away from the building, his mind flashing angrily through his last conversation with Patrick. How dare he? Patrick was usually so astute, and to completely misread the situation like this was out of character for him. They understood each other intimately, more than he’d ever understood another person in his life—or been understood by someone else, as far as he knew—and this felt like more than just a misread. It felt like… He searched for ways to describe it. Like a breach of trust. Yes, like that. Having the right association for the feeling settled him a bit.

  Their condo building was an old converted mill abutting a river, and the banks of that river were his favorite place to sit and think. He’d taken graduate texts there, and student papers, and fantasy novels, and sometimes his camera, but now, he climbed through the pine trees down toward the waterline with only his irritation to keep him company.

  A mammoth boulder formed part of the barrier between river and land, worn down at the water’s edge by lifetimes of current carving away the stone underneath. Geoffrey climbed out onto its surface and hung his feet over the edge, the late-spring river still higher than it would be in just a few months when it slowed to a pleasant, swimmable flow. So many things settled down in the summer, pace lagging in the heat. Spring, though, was a time of upheaval and transition.

  Growth, change, discovery, these spring feelings were…a giant pain the ass, honestly. He’d done so well with Patrick’s polyamory all these years. It had felt comforting: here was a man who wouldn’t hesitate to go after what he wanted, and who wouldn’t be confined by society’s rules. He wasn’t put off by Geoff’s lack of sexual experience. They wanted each other, and that’s all they needed to get started together.

  The water beneath him tumbled along, heading downstream with single-minded intensity. It must be nice not to have this kind of doubt, to know what you were doing and what your purpose was. It must be nice not to feel scared or anxious or uncertain. It must be nice not to have to feel.

  Patrick was right about his feelings for Lori, and that was the most terrifying thing of all.

  He hadn’t realized he wanted to sleep with Lori, but, of course, that made the most sense. How fitting Patrick would realize it before Geoff did. Fitting and pretty damn irritating too. He hated not knowing himself. Trying Patrick’s interpretation on, though, made a frightening amount of sense. He couldn’t ignore a logical conclusion, even when he didn’t like it—he was an academic. He’d been spending a lot of time thinking about Lori, seeing her with Patrick, but his fantasies easily spun out beyond that. He wanted her as well. He wanted to kiss her, to feel her in his arms, to know what she sounded like when she came. He’d probably been crushing on her for a while now without admitting it to himself. What a goddamn fool.

  He flopped back on the rock, the cold stone pressing against his back, and stared up at the sky through the branches of trees reaching out over the bank. He had so much to do today. There wasn’t time for an existential crisis.

  When Geoff walked back into the condo a little while later, Patrick was in the kitchen mixing up some kind of marinade for dinner that night. He looked up briefly as Geoff entered the kitchen, his expression neutral, then back to the marinade. Geoff leaned on the doorjamb while Patrick finished up the process. Chicken in the fridge, hands washed, Patrick finally turned to face his husband.

  “You going to say something, or just watch me like the Food Network?” He leaned back against the counter, bracing himself with his hands on the edge.

  “I think you’re right about me and Lori.” Geoff stayed leaning against the doorframe, mostly because his legs were unsteady. “I think I’ve been projecting.”

  To his credit, Patrick didn’t tell him, “Yeah, obviously,” or any of the other rude comments he was probably considering in that quick-moving mind of his. He just let Geoff keep talking.

  “I feel like a bisexual stereotype,” Geoff blurted.

  Patrick blinked, pushing up from the counter to stand upright. “What do you mean?”

  Geoff waved a hand, like that could possibly explain any of this embarrassing shit. “I’m happy with you. I love you. I choose you. I shouldn’t need to sleep with someone else just because she’s a woman.”

  Patrick rubbed his beard. “Do you want to sleep with her because she’s a woman? Would any woman do?”

  “No, it’s definitely because it’s her.” Geoff couldn’t picture anyone else bringing out these conflicting feelings, turning his stomach inside out. “But people say this about us. That bi people cheat. That we can’t be trusted. That we’re always going to want something else. How am I supposed to feel like that isn’t true?”

  “Do you think that about me because I’m polyamorous?” Patrick didn’t sound worried in the least, and damn, his kingdom for an ounce of Patrick’s nonchalance.

  “No.”

  Patrick walked over to him where
he stood in the doorway. “There are polyamorous straight people and gay people. There are monogamous bi people and pan people.” Patrick cupped the side of his face. “This doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

  If only Geoff could believe that. “It’s a big deal to me.”

  Patrick nodded. “Of course. I don’t mean to minimize that.” He leaned in and brushed his lips over Geoff’s, a sweet kiss that settled Geoff’s nerves slightly. “Listen. Invite her over for dinner this weekend. Let’s get to know her.”

  “Get to know her?” Geoff usually could tell if Patrick was using a euphemism or not, but this could mean anything.

  Patrick smiled. “Really. Just get to know her. You said you think I’d like her. And I definitely want to meet the woman who’s tempting my sweet, monogamous husband into bed.”

  Geoff pursed his lips, irritated. “That’s not funny.” But he had to laugh when Patrick did, pressing their foreheads together. “I don’t even know if she’s interested.”

  “Go to work,” Patrick said, stepping back and releasing him. “It’s all going to be fine.”

  If only he had Patrick’s self-assurance.

  Lori could normally do mundane tasks without much focus, but this was the third time in an hour she’d caught herself staring at the barcode of a package without doing anything about it, scanner gun held uselessly aloft. She’d volunteered to help Hannah with inventory tonight at her sex shop, Yes, Please, but probably hadn’t been much help at all since getting here. She scanned the rest of the row of hanging packages of cock rings.

  “You doing all right?” Hannah asked.

  “I keep spacing out.” Lori pulled the “to be scanned” tag off the current display and moved to the next. “I’m probably not much help.”

  “It’s helpful that I don’t have to pay you.” Hannah finished scanning a rack on the other side of the room and tossed the tag into the trash. “And I don’t have to be here until three in the morning like usual.”

  “You might, if I can’t get my shit together.” Lori hadn’t been planning on helping with inventory, but she wanted to talk to Hannah anyway, so it didn’t hurt to help a friend. Providing she was actually being somewhat helpful.

  “Yeah, you gonna tell me what’s going on? You mentioned, and I quote, ‘some bullshit,’ but you didn’t elaborate.” Hannah was moving steadily through the racks while she spoke, methodically repeating a process she’d probably done dozens of times in her life as a business owner.

  Lori grimaced at the rack of toys, turning her back to Hannah to continue scanning. “It’s weird for me to ask advice about this. I feel like I’m the one usually giving advice.”

  “You’re not wrong.”

  Lori started in on the enormous rack of lubes, turning each small bottle to scan the barcode. “A friend of mine from work invited me over to have dinner Saturday night with him and his husband. And it’s…complicated.”

  “Complicated how? Do I know this friend?”

  “I don’t think so. His name’s Geoff. We’ve worked together for a couple of years now, but not really closely. We went out for a drink last night, and this afternoon he emailed and asked if I wanted to have dinner with him and his husband.”

  Hannah’s scanner continued to beep as she worked her way through her task. She didn’t comment, probably waiting for Lori to finish answering the rest of her question.

  “I think he’s propositioning me,” Lori added.

  “Oooh.” Hannah stopped scanning. “Him and his husband?”

  “Yeah.” Lori tried to describe their previous encounter, the discussion in her office and the bar, attempting to get the nuance right. The evening’s propositioning had been mostly subtext, so it was incredibly difficult to explain. She skipped the part about going back to her office to rub one out, but tried to give justice to the rest of the evening. Hannah’s eyebrows went up and down at various points, and she completely stopped scanning to listen. As soon as Lori finished, Hannah went back to her task with a thoughtful frown.

  “If he’s inviting you to dinner after that conversation, he’s got to be at least a little polyamorous.” Hannah checked the screen on her scanner. “He knows what he’s asking.”

  “But do I go?” That was the crux of Lori’s question, the battle waging inside her. “I’ve been studying this topic for years, and I’m not sure what he wants is actually polyamory.”

  “I seem to remember,” Hannah said slowly, “you having a conversation with me last year about how labels didn’t really matter that much, but what mattered was everyone being on the same page, and there being lots of ways to have a relationship. Or am I misremembering?”

  Lori scanned the next few lube bottles with slightly more aggression. “I don’t recall that exact conversation.”

  “Sure.” Hannah’s smile was audible. “It’s just dinner, Lori.”

  “It might not be just dinner.”

  “You don’t have to sleep with either of them if you don’t want to.”

  Even the possibility of sex with Geoff ignited a fire inside Lori that she didn’t want to interrogate. “I might want to. I don’t know if it’s him, specifically, or just an unspecified horniness because I haven’t been sleeping with anyone in way too long and I might just want to get some dick.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “I know that’s fine.” Lori appreciated Hannah’s sex-positivity, but she wasn’t questioning that aspect of her decision. “I don’t want to go fucking up their marriage if this isn’t what they really want. Geoff’s new to this. His husband, Patrick, apparently isn’t, but if Geoff’s gonna get his heart broken, hell, I don’t want anything to do with that.” Privately, the thought of Geoff getting his heart broken made her feel all soft and sensitive, but that was just because of her underlying sentimentality. He was a good guy. She would hate for him to be sad.

  “You are three grown adults.” Hannah had finished her side of the store and moved over to the rack of display harnesses near Lori’s lube station. “We’ve been having these polyam discussion groups for months now, and doesn’t it pretty much always come down to ‘you’re grown adults, decide what you want and how to make it work’?”

  “Yeah, but it feels different when it’s in the abstract versus in my actual life.”

  Hannah laughed. “Welcome to my world, girl.”

  Lori had been witness to everything Hannah had gone through regarding her own personal development to be able to have the relationship she had now, this beautiful triad between her and Ben and Mitchell. Her relationship hadn’t been earned easily; she’d suffered through a lot of sleepless nights and long conversations with Lori as well as with her relationship partners.

  “Okay, yeah, I don’t want any of that.” Lori set down her gun. “I love you, and I’m so happy you’ve got this relationship, but I don’t want to get mixed up in this whole tangle of multiple partners right now.”

  Hannah laughed once, harsh and surprised. “You’ve been studying this for years. You’ve been telling me you think monogamy is fundamentally flawed. But now you’re saying you don’t want multiple partners?”

  “I don’t want a relationship,” Lori specified. “I can’t get mixed up with one guy, let alone two, not right now. I’m gonna move, Hannah. I’m moving away.”

  Hannah nodded slowly, her expression going wistful. “I know. I want you to stay, but I know you’re starting to look.”

  She had been looking for jobs only casually, but a serious job search was in her plans. Any day now, she was going to start applying. “I suppose it’s just dinner.”

  Hannah’s mouth turned up in a half smile. “Unless you do want more.”

  “But even then, just sex.” Lori felt the painful irony of having had a similar conversation with Hannah last year, about “just sex” versus a relationship, back when Hannah was in denial about the path of her encounters with Mitchell and Ben. “And probably nothing at all.”

  “Right.” Hannah didn’t look like she believed L
ori. “You getting déjà vu, here?”

  “It’s different than it was with you, though. Geoff and Patrick are married. Together. Happy. I’m a third wheel. You and Ben and Mitchell were just doing your own things back then. It wasn’t like they were a couple already.”

  “Not technically, no.”

  Lori knew the “technically” part, but she stuck by her distinction. “Plus, I’m moving away. Even if I go to dinner, and something else happens, there’s an expiration date. I’ll be gone in months. Maybe sooner.”

  “Go to dinner.” Hannah finished the harnesses and set her gun in the cradle to download the next patch of inventory data. “It can’t hurt.”

  Lori handed her the other scanner gun. Hannah was right; dinner was just a way to get to know Patrick and Geoff better, not anything more. “I guess not.”

  Hannah grabbed her phone. “Let’s order a pizza before we do the back room. I’m starved.”

  6

  The old mill buildings just south of Mapleton had long since been converted to offices, apartments, and condos, but Lori had never been inside any of them. When she’d finally written back to Geoff and told him that yes, she’d like to join them for dinner, he’d given her some lengthy instructions on where to park, which entrance to use, and which elevators to look for. It had seemed way too detailed, but after driving through the expansive converted industrial complex, with a dozen buildings and as many entrances, she’d been glad for the specificity. She’d found the right elevator and pressed the call button for the fourth floor, the top floor, and Geoff’s familiar voice had invited her up.

  Riding up in the achingly slow elevator, Lori stared at her warped reflection in its metallic surface, getting her bearings, her heart beating its nervous tattoo against her ribs. She repeated the mantra she’d been echoing since Thursday night. This is just dinner. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. She couldn’t lie to herself about wanting to impress, though. She’d dressed cute, in one of her favorite springtime dresses in a light yellow color that brought out the golden undertones of her skin. Plus, she’d done a full twist-out on her hair, and her shiny black curls framed her face in a bouncy cloud.