“What problem?” Out of nowhere, my sister, Norma, sank down on the bench next to me. “Scoot over, will you?”
“Sure.” I slid over to give her room, throwing a look across the table at Alayna that I hoped she understood meant to nix the conversation. Norma’s arrival had been a complete surprise, and there was no way I was discussing this with her.
Typical Norma, she was all about prying. “What were you saying about having a problem?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Sex parties,” Alayna said at the same time, obviously not getting the message I’d given her with my eyes.
Norma raised a brow as she reached for the lunch menu. “Sex parties? You’re still doing that?”
“I’m not exactly comfortable talking about this with my sister.” Sure, I’d told her about them in the beginning, when we were simply checking the club out, but now we’d officially become participants, and that was a whole different level of sharing.
Norma scowled. “Don’t be silly. We both know I have sex.”
Unfortunately, I did know. Walking in on her and her then boyfriend now husband Boyd while they were getting kinky was permanently seared in my brain. The most shocking part of it had been discovering that my overbearing, bossy, power-hungry sister was a bedroom submissive. It was a contradiction I had a hard time reconciling.
And I wasn’t sure I wanted to try.
“I don’t want to think about it,” I told her. “I’d think you wouldn’t want to think about me having sex either.”
“We can talk about it without me thinking about it.” She peered up from the menu she’d been scanning. “Can’t you?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that. It wasn’t like I tried to think about the quirky things she did with Boyd. Usually I didn’t let my brain focus on the matter to get that far because I didn’t like to even imagine my sister as a sexual being. She’d been too much like a mother to me, and that was just...gross.
But try telling her that.
“Why are you even here?” I asked in frustration.
“Had a meeting nearby and decided to stop by for lunch. It’s good to see you too.” She set down the menu and gave me a bright smile.
So she was staying. Okay, then.
I took a deep breath. This was all good. I hadn’t seen Norma in awhile, and we’d always been close. It would be nice to chat with her. I could save the sex talk with Alayna for later.
“Why do you think you’re a sex addict?”
I could feel my face turning bright red. “Alayna! Norma is still here.”
“She just said she has no problem talking about it with you, and I’m dying to hear why you believe you’re addicted. So spill some tea.”
“Yeah, spill some tea,” Norma echoed.
I cringed at my sister’s attempt to be in on the current lingo as I propped my elbows on the table. I bent my neck and ran my fingers across my forehead. This topic wasn’t going to go away, not now that Norma had gotten wind of it. She was unrelenting when she wanted to be, an admirable quality when I wasn’t the one she was badgering. I’d learned over the course of a lifetime that resisting her attempts to pry was futile. Best just to dive in.
If I only focused on Alayna, maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. “We’ve been going fairly regularly,” I began, “As I’ve told you―”
Norma interrupted right off the bat. “You only told me you’d gone twice.”
I swiveled in my seat so I could properly glare at her. “Look, I’m pretending you’re not here right now, so help me out and refrain from commentary.” Turning my attention back to Alayna, I went on. “We’d been going monthly, but then that wasn’t enough so we started to go more often.”
“What exactly is more often?” Alayna asked.
Before I could answer, Norma followed with her own questions. “Who’s watching the kids when you go? The nanny?”
Irritated that she couldn’t just sit silent and listen, my answer to Norma came out terse. “Sometimes the nanny. Mostly Ben.” My brother and his husband were Jacob’s favorite babysitters so I snagged him for overnights whenever he was available.
Then, to answer Alayna’s inquiry... “We’ve kind of been going every other week.”
“Why didn’t you ever ask us to watch them? We love having the boys over.” My sister was clearly offended.
I let out an exasperated huff. “You can watch them next time, okay? That’s not the important part of this conversation, you know.”
She held my glare for several seconds before holding her hands up in mock surrender. “I was just saying...” she mumbled under her breath.
Alayna, at least, could keep on topic. “Are the parties affecting your everyday life in any way?”
“We’re banging like two horny teenagers, but neither of us are complaining about that.”
“Nice.” She reached across the table to give me a high-five. “If I wasn’t so sleep deprived, I’d be jealous.” She paused to consider. “No, I’m still jealous.”
“Oh, please. You and Hudson are like rabbits. Even with twins.”
“We are,” she admitted with a smile. “Anyway, going to the parties isn’t interfering with your responsibilities or your workload, right? You still manage the house and get the bills paid and your babies dressed and fed.”
I frowned. “Yes? I mean, I do all that stuff as well as I ever have. I’m not exactly the Queen of Pentacles, but who is?”
Simultaneously, we both looked at Norma, who thankfully was too busy giving her order to a waitress to notice the unspoken compliment. My sister was the definition of the woman who could do it all. It would make me sick if I didn’t admire her so much.
“This really doesn’t sound like a problem,” Alayna said with a shrug. “You just feel guilty because you’ve found something you love and enjoy that has nothing to do with your kids. It’s hard for a lot of mothers to give themselves permission to take me time, but it’s healthy if you do. Kudos to you. You could even go more. It meets once a week, right? Some couples have date nights that often. I don’t know any of those couples, but I hear it’s a thing.”
“We have weekly date nights.” With the waitress gone, Norma had tuned into the conversation again.
“Of course you do,” I muttered.
Alayna’s curiosity was piqued. “What kind of things do you do for your date nights?”
I propped my elbow on the table and leaned my cheek in my palm, preparing myself for whatever enviable response my totally on top of everything sister gave.
“We have season tickets to the opera and occasionally we’ll see something on Broadway. Mostly, though, we go have kinky sex at Boyd’s old apartment. We kept it just for that purpose when we got married.”
I shifted my hand to my forehead, wishing I could unhear the words “kinky sex” come out of her mouth.
Alayna, however, saw it as validation. “See? Time out for sex is totally normal!” She turned back to Norma. “You really kept an apartment just for date night sex?”
“Please, don’t encourage her, Laynie,” I begged.
“We have a lot of toys we don’t necessarily want around the kids,” Norma said, as if I hadn’t spoken. “I’m all about exposing children to early sex education, but there’s a line. And some of our equipment is flat-out dangerous.”
“Don’t ask her about the toys!” I’d have to leave the table if she started talking about her private red room of pain.
“Can’t be any worse than the toys you’ve told me about at your parties.” Alayna had a point that I refused to acknowledge.
Norma turned to me with wide eyes. “Oh! Tell me about these toys.”
“No!” I wasn’t budging on this.
She paused a moment, her eyes narrowed. “The parties are good, then?” she asked, eventually.
“Yes,” I said cautiously, wary of engaging with my sister on the topic. “They’re all a little different, but, yes, they’re all good.”
“Huh.” Her brow
wrinkled in that way it always did when she had a new idea. “Maybe Boyd and I should get a membership. Can you invite us?”
“No. Way. I’d die. I cannot go if you’re there.” I couldn’t be adamant enough.
“Why ever not? You told me you were just watching. We’ve been to strip clubs together. It can’t be any different.”
“You’d do more than just watch, and I can’t be there for that.” I wasn’t ready to admit to her that JC and I were also doing more than just watching.
“Then we’ll promise to just watch when you’re there,” she said, ever reasonable.
“What if we want to go every week?”
“Then we’ll always just watch. Why are you being so weird about this?” Her expression changed as realization dawned. “Ohhh. You’re doing more than just watching. I see.”
“You are?” It was Alayna’s eyes that were wide now.
“Don’t judge me,” I said to my friend. To my sister, I clarified. “We’re not doing any of that domination/pain stuff that you do. Don’t get any ideas that I’m into that.”
“It sounds like you’re judging me,” she said.
“I’m not. I promise.” I honestly didn’t care what she did with Boyd, as long as she was happy, and she was. “I just want to be very clear about what isn’t happening with me and JC.”
She angled her body in my direction and gave me a stern stare. “The only way we’ll be clear about what isn’t happening with you and JC is if you’ll tell us what is.”
Alayna’s expression demanded I answer as well.
Dammit, they’d ganged up on me.
“We’re having normal sex, okay? Regular old normal sex.” Quieter, I added, “While other people watch.”
“Ohhhh,” they said in unison, stretching the sound out as my confession sank in.
Alayna leaned back against the booth, her eyes wide with admiration. “That’s not regular old normal sex if people are watching, Gwen. That’s really hot, make-your-friends-jealous kind of sex.”
“Sisters too,” Norma said, equally impressed.
“It is really hot,” I admitted. Really, really hot. And I loved it. So much that it worried me.
“How does that work? Are you on a stage or…?” Alayna trailed off, obviously trying to better imagine the situation.
“No, no, no. Definitely not on a stage.” I didn’t want her to think we were depraved. Or, at least, not that depraved. “We’re in a bedroom most of the time and people watch from the hall. That’s how it started, anyway. Then we started having sneaky sex in some of the shared rooms. You know, where no one knows you’re doing it unless they’re really paying attention. But soon we stopped being sneaky. And then we were being the opposite of sneaky, drawing attention to ourselves. But last week we actually played one of the kinky party games and later, when JC banged me reverse cowgirl style on a chaise lounge, I pulled down the bodice of my dress and so not only did everyone know we were getting it on, but they also saw my tits bouncing around while we did.”
Oh, God. Maybe I was that depraved?
“People saw your tits? Oh dear. How will you ever recover?” Norma’s sarcasm was annoying.
I ignored her and looked again to Laynie.
“If you’re having a good time,” she said, “I don’t see what the problem is.”
“The problem is that we had boundaries! And our boundaries are continually being crossed. And we’re crossing them at the party, without talking about it beforehand, even though we keep swearing we won’t, and it’s all been good so far, but what happens when it isn’t good anymore? What happens if we go too far?” We were doing things our way, but our way felt like it had gotten out of control.
The worst part was that being out of control was part of what I loved so much about the parties.
“What would be too far?” Alayna asked after a beat.
“I don’t know.” I did know. I’d thought a lot about it. “Like, if other people ended up getting involved. Maybe.” As though it had just crossed my mind rather than being exactly the thing I was worried about.
“Make that a hard limit. Tell JC. He’ll respect that.” Norma used the lingo of someone who dealt with negotiating hard limits on a regular basis.
The problem was, my husband and I weren’t in that lifestyle. We weren’t as disciplined about our sex life as Norma and her husband were. “We keep saying no sharing and no touching other people, but what if we get carried away in the moment and ignore our rules?”
“You tell us,” she countered. “If you did break your rules, what would happen?”
I had expected a speech about rules and why they had to be followed, so when she turned the question back on me instead, I was surprised and didn’t have a quick answer.
When I was quiet for several seconds, she went on. “Sometimes these things are scary because they’re new or because they’re considered taboo, so you make rules so you won’t have to deal with that fear. But often, these are also things you’re truly interested in trying, and so, when you’re in the moment and feeling less inhibited, the rules get ignored. Usually those are things you don’t regret afterward because you secretly wanted it all along. Is that the case here? Are the lines you’re worried about crossing actually lines you want to cross?”
I considered for a moment. The idea of a threesome was increasingly on my mind. JC continued to show interest in other women kissing and touching each other, and I couldn’t forget the way he’d reacted when I’d kissed the girl at the kissing booth. I’d liked that, and while I wasn’t exactly into doing more with another woman, I did like the idea of pleasing JC. I liked it a lot.
But if we did that, if we let someone else into our bed, what would happen to us?
Not sure I was ready to answer Norma’s latest inquiry, I went back to the previous question―what would happen if we dropped the rules?
“I’m afraid I’ll ruin my marriage,” I said honestly. “I’m afraid that it would create jealousies and insecurities that we’d never get over. I’m afraid that by trying to make us into something better, we’ll lose what we already have.”
“That’s valid,” Alayna said. “And until you’re okay with not knowing that answer, I’d be sure to keep those rules in place. They don’t have to be forever, but for now.”
Norma jumped in right on her heels, denying me a chance to respond. “You’re talking about this with JC, right?”
I nodded, because we were talking. Maybe not about this specifically, but we talked.
“He doesn’t want to ruin your marriage any more than you do,” she continued. “If he knows what your limits are and how important it is to you to make sure you don’t cross those limits then he’s never going to let you cross them.”
Alayna suddenly looked concerned. “He’s not pressuring you into things you don’t want to do, is he?”
“No. Definitely not. We never leave each other’s sides at these things, and he always looks to me for consent. Just, what if I’m all into the consent and then later find out it was a bad decision?”
“You mean you want a crystal ball?” Norma asked. “Oh, well, if you’d just said that from the beginning.”
I glared at her. “You aren’t helping.”
“Look, I understand why you’re nervous,” Alayna said. “Like your sister said, trying new things is always scary. That’s why you’re thinking about it so much. Because it’s new and exciting and people tend to engage more with new and exciting things. You’re not addicted. You’re normal. The best part of this is that you’re doing all of this with JC at your side instead of either of you sneaking around and exploring your desires on your own. Any mistakes you make will be together. And you guys are strong. You’ll be able to steer back on course if need be. This is all good stuff.”
“Not to mention that you’re more relaxed than I’ve seen since before you had kids,” Norma piped in.
“She definitely is,” Alayna agreed.
“But…” I didn’t know wh
at I wanted to add after that but. They were right about all of it. I had to decide and commit to the limits we’d set until I was sure I wanted to abandon them. And then I had to trust that whatever happened, JC and I would be fine because we loved each other and our foundation was solid.
“No more buts,” Alayna said, realizing what I needed to hear. “As your friend and sort of boss, I’m going to officially veto this as a concern and beg you to tell me more of the juicy stuff instead.”
“I second the veto,” Norma said, picking up a fry off the plate as the waitress set it down in front of her. “And the juicy stuff. Tell us all of that. Maybe I can pass some ideas on to Boyd.”
“Don’t say things like that to me!” I groaned.
“I won’t tell you which stuff I pass on.” She reconsidered. “Unless it turns out really good.”
“Norma!” But I laughed. Really, what else could I do?
Chapter Twelve
I watched the bottle spin, my heart pounding as I wondered where it might stop. I held my breath as it spun. Would it land on me? On my husband? On someone else?
When it finally stilled, it pointed to a man so burly I was sure that two JCs could fit in his classic tuxedo. I let out the air I’d been holding and put my hands on my tummy where butterflies threatened to take flight. Any time it could be my turn, and that knowledge made me as excited as it made me anxious.
But mostly it made me anxious.
I wanted to play, that wasn’t the problem. It was the first party we’d gone to since I’d talked to Alayna and my sister about my obsession with The Open Door, and, while I hadn’t specifically decided I wanted to invite someone else into our fun, I had decided that I wanted to try engaging more.
The adult game of spin the bottle seemed like a perfect opportunity to do just that.
I exchanged a look at my husband as the burly man rolled the body dice and got the word ass. That was how this version of the game worked. One person would spin. Whoever it landed on would roll. The dice would then tell the spinner what part of the other person’s body he or she should engage with―ear, neck, navel, mouth, nipples, or ass. Then an hourglass was flipped, the tiny sands that funneled through making sure that the activity lasted a full thirty seconds. And that it didn’t go on past that.
The Open Door: A Found Duet Novella Page 9
