by Julia Kent
Trevor’s slower, Joe’s with more military precision.
Trev broke his guzzling first, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and asked me, “Are you serious?”
“About what?”
“About the woman who died giving head?”
“Yep.”
“Did she swallow?” Joe asked, giving Trevor an evaluative look, as if that somehow made a difference.
“You can’t swallow when you’re dead, Joe,” I pointed out.
“Yet another reason not to be into necrophilia,” Trevor mused.
I threw the bathtub neck pillow at them. It bounced off Trevor’s knee and fell with a sound like a wet melon on tile.
“Dude must be hung like a horse,” Trevor added.
“It’s a burden some of us have to manage,” Joe said with a self-satisfied sigh, clapping Trevor on the shoulder. “I’m so glad you were spared.”
“Fuck you.”
While Trevor and Joe argued about their penises (which, for the record, are both the biggest I’ve ever seen in my life – they’re so huge! Gigantic! Like their egos!), I worked on figuring out how on earth I fucked everything up so badly.
Didn’t take long. I know how. I’m the one who did it all.
Because I’m me.
“Who ate my chocolate?” Joe called out, holding up his little gift bag as he returned to the bathroom where my lavender buds were soaking up hot water, making the bathroom smell so good. “The candy Giles made for me?”
“I ate it.”
We looked at each other.
“You ate it? All of it?” Joe was alarmed.
“Sure. It was only four pieces in that little bitty gold box. You can have mine in exchange.”
Joe’s eyes widened in shock. “You ate my chocolates?”
Impatience set in. “So what? Eat mine in return.”
“Darla.” He started to chuckle, his face filled with the blank astonishment that comes from piecing something together rapidly. “You ate my candy from Giles?” He flipped a little tag on the gift bag handle. It said “Joe.”
“Geez, Joe, when did you become so territorial about chocolate? You’re like Amy!”
“Darla, Giles made those for me.”
“Ooooo, what’s the matter? Jealous I ate your boyfriend’s special present?” I teased.
“They were a special present. Giles whispered that to me when we arrived.” Joe crossed his arms and gave me a speculative look. “He knew I had a penchant for trying out new edibles.”
“New edibles?” One of my eyes squinted while the other one tried to decide what to do as my mind furiously processed what Joe was saying.
“Oh, God,” Trevor groaned. “Not again.”
“What do you mean again?” I demanded.
“Darla,” Joe said, grabbing my shoulders, holding me in place like I was already hysterical. “You got drugged. Again.”
“Drugged?”
“Giles put some fun in those chocolates.”
“And by fun you mean –”
“Hallucinogens? Maybe some THC, maybe –”
“Aw, shit. No way!”
“Yes way.”
“That last one I ate tasted like hazelnuts and hay,” I remembered.
“Fuck,” he hissed.
“You mean I was high on some mind-altering drug when I played that roulette wheel?”
“Maybe? No idea what your tolerance is, but if you ate the entire box...”
I remembered the floaty feeling I had, like something wasn’t quite right, and yet I still had focus. Clarity. “And the cocktail waitress kept bringing me alcohol and I mixed that with whatever magic dust Giles put in the chocolates?” I asked, trying to sort it all out.
“Not magic dust,” Joe clarified. “Probably more like –”
“THAT’S NOT THE POINT, JOE!” I shouted. “You’re saying it’s not my fault!”
“What?”
“I gambled while I was on acid or something and then I drank alcohol and gambled away all that money and it wasn’t me. It was me after being drugged!”
“I guess.”
“Does that mean I completely imagined the chicken fetish thing? I didn’t really walk Mavis on a leash and change her chicken diapers, then? And all that shit with Mama and the cat tongue vibrators.”
“No. That was all real.”
“Damn.”
“Why was Giles spiking your chocolates and not ours?” Trevor asked.
“Because Giles thinks Joe is a dominant twink,” I explained, which made Trevor laugh until he was wheezing.
Joe just stared at me and asked,“Was it a roofie?”
“No. I didn’t pass out. I wouldn’t be in this mess if I had,” I said with a sigh. “Wish it had knocked me out.”
“Giles said he wanted to give me a welcome to Vegas I’d never forget,” Joe explained as he walked to the edge of the tub and bent down, his face closer, eyes gently amused.
“He succeeded.”
“Now the mystery is solved. You didn’t go crazy. You just lost control.” He stroked my wet hand with a tender touch.
“And it wasn’t my fault.”
“No.”
“But I still lost all that money.”
“Yes.”
I kissed him then, a furtive press of the lips that was both an attempt to stop the conversation and to start sex, water sloshing all over the floor as I moved up to meet his mouth. Not that I needed to do a single damn thing to start sex – Joe and Trevor were perpetual motion machines in that arena.
Joe’s kiss was intense and soulful, making me melt just enough to remember what it felt like to loosen up and turn into a puddle of contented nothingness. It was enchanting and enticing, layers of panic and fear starting to evaporate the longer he kissed me.
I felt hope again. Maybe it would be good once more. Maybe I could get over what had just happened. Maybe sex was the answer.
And then Trevor stopped us with his anger.
TREVOR
Having five different feelings at the same time feels like juggling all four chambers of your heart along with your detached dick, but instead of my hands doing the juggling, it’s Darla who’s in charge.
And it hurts.
I stumbled across her and Joe at the animal fetish convention, wondering where they’d both disappeared to. Giles, our booking manager, had been in a panic looking for her. Darla wasn’t answering texts about logistical issues, and that made panic bloom in me.
Darla didn’t shirk her business duties. Ever.
Finding out that she’d gambled away band money, hidden that detail from us, rented out her services as a — what do you call chicken walking? — and that she’d turned to Joe but not me was one hell of a ripping pain.
I tended not to make waves. Music was what I cared about, second only to Darla and Joe. While being in control was Joe’s reason to live, my day-to-day existence was decidedly less anal retentive, especially since leaving law school.
Maybe I erred on the side of silence too much.
“I still can’t get past the fact that you didn’t tell me,” I said, bracing myself for a barrage of excuses. Darla was standing in the bathtub, naked and wet, cuddled in Joe’s arms. He clearly didn’t give a shit about being wet, because why would he? We were about to get naked and pretend they hadn’t just edged me out.
Reality sucks. My reality sucked. But I wasn’t going to hide my feelings or act like it didn’t matter. We’d been together too long to play games like that. The glue in long term relationships was honesty.
They were about to get a big dose of it.
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” Joe said, facing me square on, grabbing my forearm. His eyes were alert and caring.
Damn it.
Anger builds up inside us all when we can’t express it. Even if we can say what we’re feeling when we’re pissed, it doesn’t always go our way.
“I,” Darla started, looking down, unable to make eye contact with me. “I snuck
out of the hotel room and went gambling last night.”
“I understand that part.”
“And then I had a strategic advantage at the roulette table,” she continued.
Joe interrupted her. “A strategic advantage? In a game of chance?”
“The roulette wheel got weighted.”
“You rigged a roulette wheel? In Vegas?” He touched her arms, then thighs. “You’re fucking lucky to have all your limbs!” Said limbs were looking pink and warm, beautiful and curvy. Darla’s naked beauty made what I had to say even harder.
“No, no,” she refuted. “I didn’t rig it. It was all because of Victoria’s booger.”
My heart sank.
“Do not turn this into yet another Doc Oglethorpe story, Darla. I’m serious,” I said to them both, my heart moving slowly, like it knew the heavy burden on it needed to be moved deliberately, with great care.
“Who is Victoria? And what does a booger have to do with winning at roulette?” Joe persisted.
“None of that matters,” I said through clenched teeth, knowing there was a long yarn to be spun and that if I let them, they’d deflect. Not on purpose. No one seemed to deny that my feelings were on target.
It’s just that when you’re with two people for three years, you develop a new communication layer. It’s not a sixth sense or anything surreal. It’s more like a deep subtext that frees your mind up for smaller nuances.
“A booger on a roulette wheel that allowed Darla to hit a $20,000 pile of chips does matter,” Joe protested.
“Not now. Later,” I said, pointing at him.
“I think what Trevor’s trying to say is that he’s more important than any of Victoria’s nose goblins.” Darla’s show of support was admirable. Really.
“Yyyyyyyyes,” I said slowly, pretty sure I agreed with her.
“Look, it wasn’t intentional,” Joe said, breaking the physical tension by grabbing a thick bath towel for Darla and wrapping it around her. I offered my hand and she stepped out, her feet on the white tile floor. In the warm glow of the steamy bathroom she was luminous and angelic as she looked up at me, eyes pleading in silent apology.
“I wasn’t in my right mind. Literally and figuratively,” she said softly, reaching for my hand. I threaded our fingers and looked at her, trying to find the way back to not being so upset.
“Then that makes me even more pissed off,” I said just as softly back. “Because that’s when you needed me most. It makes me think you don’t trust me.”
“What?” Her eyes filled with tears like I flipped on a light switch in her heart. The wrong one, though. I didn’t want her to cry.
“It’s partly my fault,” Joe said grudgingly. “I woke up, found Darla, and when she told me what she did, I went into rescue mode.”
I gave him a sharp look, torn between Darla’s weeping and Joe’s obvious lie about how he came up with nineteen grand. “Don’t even get me started on you,” I said, the anger turning into something less hollow and more solid. He cocked one eyebrow and normally, he’d get mad.
He didn’t.
I was challenging him and he wasn’t getting defensive.
“What do you mean?” Darla asked, wiping her eyes, looking confused as her gaze flitted back to me, her breathing uneven.
“You pokered your way to a nineteen grand gain?” I said with a laugh. “In a few hours? That’s as believable as a booger helping Darla win at roulette.”
“But it did!” she insisted.
“I believe you,” I clarified. “Weird as your story sounds. But I don’t believe Joe.”
We both stared at him.
He shrugged. “I fixed it, didn’t I? Everything’s fine. Darla’s okay now, no one needs to know, and the money is working for us in ways that make a positive difference.”
“And I didn’t need to walk chickens for eight hours,” Darla said with obvious relief. Joe frowned at that and went to the minibar, grabbing two bottles of wine and starting to guzzle.
“Hey!” Darla protested. “Those are expensive — ”
Joe cut her off with a glare, then added, “Maybe you hallucinated your magic booger.”
“Maybe I what?”
“Giles spiked the candy. Maybe you just thought you saw a green booger. Some people see little green men. You saw a little green — ”
“I did not imagine the booger, Joe,” she insisted, but her eyes were filled with doubt. Green eyes the color of boogers.
Huh.
“But if you did imagine it, then you bet your way that high with no strategic advantage,” Joe elaborated. “And if there was a booger, you played the odds well. Either way, I’m impressed. Again.”
“But I lost it all!” she moaned.
“And yet you played very well to get to that point.”
I knew what he was doing. Avoiding his shit. It was easier to focus on Darla than to deal with scrutiny from me.
I walked across the room and joined him, grabbing wine, beer and peanut butter cups. “You buying, Mr. Moneybags?” I asked him. “If you really got your hands on nineteen grand out of the blue – from poker or wherever – you’re paying for this.”
He didn’t argue.
Joe didn’t argue.
Darla walked up behind me as I chugged a tiny bottle of Riesling, her hands on my shoulders, kneading my neck. “I love you, Trevor. You know that. I didn’t come to you because I felt so stupid. I didn’t seek out Joe. He found me, walking Mavis and Rooster, panicked and desperate. It’s not like we were in planning mode, you know? I just did whatever I thought would take me out of my blind panic at any given second. Rationality wasn’t exactly part of my life for those hours.”
“Don’t ever do that again,” I ordered, turning around, grabbing her arms at the elbow. Her towel was tucked between her breasts, curled in using the corner, and it dropped like a veil being lowered.
“Walk chickens for money?” she joked with a sad smile.
“Not come to me. There is nothing you could ever do that would make me shun you.” I kissed her then, hard, tasting the sweet white wine, her tears, and my own fading anger.
DARLA
I couldn’t get into it. As the water washed the crazy day off me, the air’s chill drying the last little bit on my naked body, I tried to drive the swirling thoughts out of my mind. They were like knives being thrown at me, over and over, some part of me dodging the rain of blades. I was successful, but the effort made it impossible to focus on anything but the act of avoiding being hurt by my own psyche.
That’s a very low place to be.
And exhausting.
Trevor sensed it, threading his hand through my wet, thick, untamed waves that lined my back, his palm cupping the back of my head. “You’re not okay.”
“Not even close.”
“We don’t have to do anything.” When you’ve been in a relationship with someone for a few years, the topic of not having sex comes up more and more. It’s a minefield, for sure, but it’s also one that demonstrates a certain maturity in the relationship and in all three of us. Being able to openly say “not interested” without making the others feel rejected is a dance, a tango, a few steps forward, a few steps back. In the beginning, I always said yes because — are you kidding me? Have you looked at Trevor and Joe?
Also, being in our threesome means two guys with needs. Good thing I’m a horny woman with a libido the size of a small cow (and, maybe, an ass about as big), because normally I could meet all their requests.
Right now, though, Trevor was focused on my needs. And I didn’t know what I needed, because I felt robotic. Plastic. Like cold wax being moved from place to place. My limbs didn’t feel like mine. My lips were someone else’s. In the grand scheme of life, this was a short episode. I had just enough awareness to know that. Tomorrow, with the benefit of rest and time for my biochemistry to settle back to its usual chaotic good state, I would truly process what I had done, interrogate Joe on where he “won” so much money, and find a way
to feel squared away with myself.
But in this moment, I was coated in a layer of unreality that followed the contours of my body to a T, like a spacesuit, a shrink-wrap, a second skin.
“Darla?” Joe asked, his hand on my thigh, paused. “What are you feeling right now?”
“Shame,” I blurted out, surprising myself. “I am so ashamed.”
“Oh, Darla,” Trevor said, dropping to his knees next to me, eyes filled with empathy. “You have nothing to be ashamed about.”
“I have everything to be ashamed about!” I roared back through a sob, salty tears and copper regret turning my mouth into a bitter battlefield. “Everything! I lost control, I put pride before reason, I embarrassed my stepdaddy, I got caught by my mama, I borrowed money I shouldn’t have and I screwed over my friends! I most certainly should be ashamed!”
“If I did all of that, would you shame me?” he asked kindly, holding my hand. My inner sense of feeling emotionally dirty calmed down instantly. It didn’t go away, but it became more manageable, like glitter in a bottle of water shaken hard, allowed to settle, the first few bits finding where they need to be.
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether you made it right.”
“And how would I make it right? If I did all that?”
The answer stuck in my throat. It sat there like a part of me that had been jarred loose by stress and bad choices, waiting for me to put it back where it belonged.
Except I didn’t know where it should go. Instead, it migrated through me like a virus, a disease, a parasite that fed off my shame, wreaking havoc.
As Trevor kept his gaze on me, I whispered, “Apologize. Never do it again.”
“Then you know the answer. And you’ve already done most of that.”
“No one in the band knows.”
“And they don’t have to,” Joe said, coming into my field of vision. “You can pay the eight thousand on the credit card tomorrow. No one checks finances regularly. Liam, Sam and Tyler don’t need to know.”
“That feels wrong. I should — ”
“Darla. Darla!” Trevor called out over my objections. “Why are you beating yourself up like this? You fucked up. Yes. But you are fixing it. It’s over.” His hand moved up my arm, moving to the soft skin under my biceps. “It’s like you’re flogging yourself because you don’t know how to stop.”
