Turning Point Club Box Set

by JA Huss

“Yeah, what rules?” Quin eyes me suspiciously.

  I already know what Rochelle thinks about my rules. We discussed them earlier and I told her what to think. We’re back together so she can snag Quin. Get him back. Make him commit to her. And I’m only here as the buffer.

  And I know what Quin thinks too. I told him as well. Planted all the little ideas in his head. We’re good together. We have fun. Rochelle is the perfect player. Things can go back to the way they were.

  We will be happy again. My manipulative personality will make sure this game goes to plan. But there’s a very fine line with these two. My happiness depends on both of them thinking they need me.

  Here’s the problem with that. I don’t think Quin really needs much convincing to fall hopelessly back in love with Rochelle all by himself. And I don’t think Rochelle needs me to keep Quin interested.

  I need them way more than they need me.

  Usually, I’m happy no matter what. Last year I was happy with Rochelle just as much as I was without her. But I like fucking girls with Quin, OK? I like it. He’s the best player ever. Smith sucks at it. And he’s out for good now, anyway. And Jordan, Jesus. If Smith sucks, then Jordan is absolutely awful. It will take me years to turn Jordan into Quin. Years.

  I don’t want to wait years for happiness. Why should I when I have these two right here, right now?

  So I only have two choices. Keep Quin and Rochelle for myself and have a good time by manipulating them into thinking they need me. Or let them go be happy together and be left with an endless string of stupid games that never last and end badly.

  This is a no-brainer.

  Quin is too afraid to have a one-on-one relationship with Rochelle because he doesn’t trust her, plus he only thinks in plural relationships right now. And Rochelle is too afraid to cut me loose because she thinks Quin won’t stay if I go.

  So why not use them both at the same time?

  And I get to spoil that baby and never have any real responsibilities.

  I almost laugh at my genius.

  “I was thinking every other day,” I say, answering them both at the same time. “You know. Mondays with Quin. Tuesdays with me. Etc. Etc. Etc.”

  “What about Sunday?” Rochelle asks, slurping up a noodle so loudly, Adley looks over at her mother and squeals.

  “Do whatever you want on Sunday, just like always.”

  “Not quite like always,” Quin says. “I wasn’t technically allowed to see her on Sundays.”

  “You want to see her on Sundays?” I ask him. “Go ahead. I’ve got plans. So I won’t be around.”

  Quin thinks about this. It’s just my opening bid. I know exactly what he’ll say next.

  “I don’t think we need rules,” Quin replies.

  “Me either,” Rochelle says, placing a noodle on the tray in front of Adley.

  I watch to see what she does. God, I can’t stand the anticipation as her little fingers fumble for it. She fists it, breaks it in half, then makes another grab. A few jerky movements later she’s got it up to her mouth.

  “Ha!” I say. “I knew she’d like noodles.”

  “No rules,” Quin says. “I can come here any time I want.”

  I shrug. “What do you think about that, Rochelle? No rules? Not much of a game, is it?”

  She shrugs, unsure how to play this out. If she says she’s into the game, Quin might take that to mean he’s allowed to play along forever. Happily refusing to admit he’s got a fear of commitment. Or… whatever the fuck his problem is. Honestly, Quin is a catch. He’s a good boyfriend. He’s always been a good Number Two. And he was Number Three a few times, and he was good at that too. It’s being Number One that freaks him out.

  He’s absolutely Number One in this game. He just doesn’t realize it yet.

  But if Rochelle says she’s not into the game, then why am I here?

  Hmmm. What a dilemma. Poor Rochelle.

  “How about we all just live here?” Rochelle finally offers.

  “Here?” I say, trying to hide my amusement. “Like… just live together like a family? OK,” I say. “I’m fine with that. If you guys don’t mind that I’m at the Club every night doing Club things.”

  Rochelle squints her eyes at me. “Fucking other girls? Down in the basement?”

  “See, this is why we might need rules, Rochelle. I own a sex club. I have to be down there most weekends. And if I’m down there, I’m gonna be down there, if you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t care if you go down there,” Quin says.

  “Are you going down there?” Rochelle asks him.

  Quin shrugs. “I might. I’m not really a member anymore, though.”

  “Ah, shut the fuck up, Quin,” I say. “You’re still a member.”

  Rochelle is well on her way to pissed off right now, but I don’t care.

  “Well, maybe I’ll have a few extracurricular activities going on too,” she says. “How about this for rules? Quin gets Monday and Tuesday, like always. You get Wednesday and Thursday, like always. And I get Friday through Sunday to myself.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I say.

  Quin isn’t so sure. “What will you do on the weekends?”

  She shrugs. “Whatever I want.”

  “Do you want to get paid?” I ask her.

  “No.” She scowls at me. “I don’t need your money.”

  “Then why are you here?” Quin asks.

  Ah ha! I almost don’t stop the laugh.

  “I was invited to play a game,” she says.

  “Then you have to get paid,” Quin counters. “That’s rule number one. We pay you to do what we want.”

  “Fine,” Rochelle says, twirling pasta onto her fork. “Pay me then. Ten thousand a month, each.”

  “OK,” I say. “I guess we’ve got all that settled. It’s Wednesday, so it’s my night. But look, Rochelle, I wasn’t expecting this to be the rule. I really thought you’d go for the every other day thing. So I made plans for tonight.”

  “What plans?” she asks.

  “Club things. You know I gotta be there most of the time. When people come in they expect to see me at the bar. Plus, Jordan already texted me like six times today asking about the next girl.”

  “The next—”

  “I told him no, Rochelle,” I say, cutting her off. Is she pretending right now? Or is this real jealousy? I’m not sure. She’s a good fucking actress. “But I should go take care of it anyway.”

  “Oh,” she says, putting her fork down. “Are you leaving?” she asks Quin.

  “I guess I have to,” he says. “Not my night.”

  I throw my napkin down and stand up. “Fuck it. We always get a free night, right?”

  “Do we?” Quin asks, confused.

  “Yeah, you know. The break-in-the-new-rules night. So how about you just stay with Rochelle and the baby tonight. Help her out and shit. Come by the Club tomorrow,” I say to Rochelle, leaning in to kiss her.

  It was just gonna be a small kiss. A peck, really. But she opens her mouth for me and we linger. I get a little hard, actually.

  When I pull back, she’s staring up into my eyes. “Come by?”

  “Yeah,” I say, my voice softer than it should be. “Both of you.” I nod to Quin. “We’ll have dinner and stuff. Together.”

  “I think that should be a rule,” Quin says. “Meals together. At least once a day. So this doesn’t get weird. We need to stay in touch. Be together. Alternating days can lead to… isolation.”

  Rochelle’s face softens at his rule. Like he just said he loves her. “Yeah, OK. I’d like that.”

  I’m trying to figure out if this is a good idea or not, but before I can, Rochelle says, “Let’s have breakfast tomorrow. Like we used to.”

  And damn… if that doesn’t sound like a good idea after all. We’ve had some pretty kinky breakfasts in the back of the White Room in our day. “Breakfast,” I say. “Sounds perfect.”

  And then I do something I probably sho
uldn’t. I lean down and kiss her again. And this time my hand is on her leg. Sliding up to her pussy. She moans into my mouth a little, forcing me to make a decision.

  Stay and fuck her?

  Or get out quick.

  I pull away. “See you tomorrow then.”

  The whole way back to the Club I have doubts. Is this really a good idea? I do like Rochelle. I certainly love fucking her.

  The threesome was fun this afternoon, for sure. I love it. I can’t wait to do it again. But Rochelle and I used to have a lot of fun on our nights out alone. I liked dressing her up, fucking her in the car, and going to parties. And I have a few parties coming up that will require a date.

  I’m going to need her at those parties. And then we will go home together. Be alone together. End our night with dirty sex and it will all be very, very familiar again.

  I’d forgotten about that. And that goodbye kiss back there… it just reminded me.

  How the hell did I forget how much I enjoyed her?

  Hmmm. I really need to make sure Quin is around most of the time. Or come up with excuses why I can’t go over there on my nights.

  I can’t fall in love with Rochelle. That’s ridiculous. That can’t ever happen. She belongs with Quin.

  Doesn’t she?

  I pull up to the valet at Turning Point and hand my car over. When I get inside Jordan is already at the Black Room bar, so I make my way over there and hold up a finger to the bartender to ask for a drink.

  “Where have you been?” Jordan asks.

  “Busy with Quin and Rochelle.”

  “So she’s really back, huh? I heard.”

  “From who?” I ask. I never told him anything.

  “Bumped into Smith at that little European cafe down the road. He was scoping it out for Chella. You guys are opening a tea room next door?” He nods his head in the direction of the new tea room.

  “Yeah. What did he say?” I cannot even begin to imagine Smith chatting with Jordan about Rochelle.

  “I told him our game was over. Started talking about a new girl I had in mind. And he said you weren’t gonna play. You and Quin were back with Rochelle.”

  “Hmm,” I say, taking my snifter of brandy from the bartender. Smith is on to me. That sneaky motherfucker might even be planning something I don’t know about.

  “Is that such a good idea?” Jordan asks.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You know. Quin, man. He’s all in love with her and shit. You just complicate things, right?”

  I shrug. “Maybe we like things complicated?”

  “Yeah?” Jordan laughs. “Well, if that’s true, then why are you out? Why not kick the complications up a little? We could still have a game on the side.”

  “What do you have in mind?” I ask, knowing I should put a stop to this right now. But that kiss back there with Rochelle. Damn, it felt fucking… good. I’m kinda horny.

  “Her?” Jordan says, nodding his head to a woman sitting in a booth. She’s staring at us, looking very fucking uncomfortable.

  “You brought her here for a night? Or?”

  “Or?” Jordan says. “Your call.”

  The young woman is pretty. Oval face. Long dark hair flowing over her breasts. Slim body. Very slim, in fact. Kind of willowy.

  “She’s a ballerina,” Jordan says. “New. Just got hired on over at Mountain Ballet for the spring season.”

  “Really?” I ask, unable to take my eyes off her now.

  “She’s got a very intriguing view of what rough sex means.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yeah,” Jordan says, almost sighing. “She likes to be dom, but I said, no thanks.”

  “She a top?” I ask. “Fuck that. How old is she? Like twenty-three? She has no clue what it means to be a dom.”

  “I know, right?” Jordan laughs. “But I’m thinking we can put her back in her place.” He gives me a sidelong glance. “If we try hard enough.”

  “Sounds like a helluva fight.”

  “Right?” Jordan is smiling so big, I have to chuckle.

  “Well, if you can get her to submit for you, let me know. I like them highly trained.”

  “Your call,” Jordan says, walking away. “But if I do get her to submit, then I won’t need you, will I?”

  I watch him as he slides into the booth next to her, his hands all over her body. She stiffens and slaps his face, making everyone in the bar look over at them for a moment.

  Goddamn.

  I wonder what her name is?

  Rochelle who? I laugh, taking a sip of my brandy.

  “Mr. Bricman?” Margaret says in an apologetic tone. “I’m sorry to bother you tonight. But you’ve been gone all afternoon and the Christmas tree people say they need to set things up early this year. They’re overbooked.”

  “Early?” I ask. “Fuck that.”

  “I know you hate Christmas, but they say they have no choice. The Club takes two days to decorate and—”

  “Wait,” I say, remembering the little pumpkin back at the loft. “Yeah, OK. Tell them OK.”

  “Really?” Margaret asks, stunned at my reversal.

  “Yeah. Rochelle came back. She’s got a kid now, did you know that?”

  “No,” Margaret says, her face all scrunched up. “Is it—”

  “We don’t know who the father is,” I say, reading her mind. “Either me or Quin. But she’s damn cute, Margaret. So let’s get this Christmas shit started. I can’t wait to see her on Smith’s lap at the party. I’m gonna need a million pictures of that.”

  Jordan can have that wannabe-dom girl who thinks she knows what kinky sex is.

  I’m in a new game now.

  Chapter Ten - Quin

  “I guess it’s just us,” Rochelle says after Bric leaves.

  We eat for a few minutes in silence. I watch the baby play with her noodles. God, I’m a lucky guy. She’s so beautiful. Both of them. They are so damn beautiful.

  But… things feel… different.

  “Are you going to stay the night?” Rochelle asks. Probably just trying to fill in the awkward silence.

  I think about this for a while, trying to figure out what’s happening.

  “Quin?” she asks again.

  “You know when you’re in a relationship and your boyfriend goes out with his buddies for a night of drunken debauchery?”

  Rochelle just looks at me from across the table. Blinks. “Um… OK.”

  “And you’re kinda pissed off about it, but what can you do, right? Be that girl?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No woman wants to be that woman, right? She wants to be cool about this. She wants to trust her man. She wants to know he’ll come home to her when he’s done with his friends and fuck her. Tell her she’s the only one he loves.”

  “Where are you going with this?” Rochelle asks.

  I ignore that. “But it’s like midnight, right? And he’s still out. So you text, Hey, how’s it going? Having a good time? Of course he’s having a good time. That’s why he’s still out with his buddies.”

  Rochelle squints her eyes at me.

  “He doesn’t answer. He’s drinking with the guys. No one answers a text when they’re out with the guys.”

  “That’s not true. You always answered me.”

  I hold up a finger. “Stay with me here, OK? So he doesn’t answer and you get mad, right? It’s three AM now and the bars are closed. Where the fuck is he? And then you think, holy shit, he got in a car accident. He’s in a ditch. He’s at the hospital. He’s dead. And then you start looking up the phone numbers for hospitals. And you consider calling to see if there was an accident. You’re imagining this whole life without him and you’re so fucking sad you just want to cry.”

  Now she knows where this is going.

  “But then, at four-thirty he stumbles through the door and flops on the couch. Passes out and shit. No hello. No sorry for making you worry. No nothing. He’s just too drunk to care. How do you f
eel then? Still sad?”

  “Quin—”

  “No,” I say, cutting her off. “No. You just need to listen for a second. I’m not trying to be a dick here, OK? I’m not. I just need you to know how I feel right now.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I know,” I say. “You already said that and I don’t need to hear it again. But I feel like that girl. I imagined all the worst-case scenarios. I had you dead and buried. At one point I even thought you might’ve killed yourself. That I might have caused you to kill yourself.”

  “Quin—”

  “No. Just fucking listen to me, goddammit.” I stop talking and wait for her to decide. I don’t want to talk over her. I just want her to hear me.

  “OK,” she finally says. “I’m listening.”

  “A whole year,” I say. “I felt like that girl for a whole year.” She opens her mouth—then closes it. She was probably going to say sorry again. I know she’s sorry. Rochelle is not a mean person. There is not a mean bone in her body. She’s good. She’s sweet. She’s loving and caring. But she did something really fucking shitty to me. And she needs to understand this. “And that whole time I prayed to God you’d reappear. Or Bric would find you and bring you home. Or you’d call, for fuck’s sake. Call me. Tell me you were alive. But you never did. And then you came back and all I felt in that first moment was relief, right? She’s alive. She’s safe. She’s OK. I will see her again. I will talk to her again. I will get another chance.”

  She sighs, puts her fork down and looks at her plate.

  “I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I’m not. And I don’t need another apology. I have already accepted the one you gave me. It’s done. I’m over it.”

  “Obviously you’re not over it.”

  “I’m over that, Rochelle. I’m over the part where I missed you.”

  This stuns her. She stares at me with the most hurt expression I’ve ever seen. It kills me. That look on her face kills me inside.

  “I see why you left. I understand why you left. I don’t blame you for leaving. I get it, you were pregnant and Chella says girls get weird when they’re pregnant. So fine. You got weird, you got better, you came back. OK. The boyfriend is home from his drunken night out with the guys and he’s ready to pass out. But you want an explanation, right? Even if it’s just one sentence.”