The following morning, while Frank lay in bed snoring with all the ferocity of a mad pig, I snuck out of the house. I needed some advice, and not just any advice. Most often, when facing a dilemma, I seek out one of my colleagues at work and borrow an ear for a while. While I vent, they usually listen, and smile at all the right moments, and give gentle suggestions where needed. I have never followed their advice, I mean who does? In my case, I tend to do the very opposite of what people suggest, but it still helps to vent and at least look at other avenues of consideration. Sophia’s advice, however, was a considerably different matter. She never told me what I wanted to hear, nor had she offered gentle advice while patting my shoulder---hell no! Sophia was a lot less subtle. If advice could be loaded into a gun, Sophia’s weapon of choice would be a sawed-off shot gun and she’d fire off both barrels.
My head was clear and not filled with the sort of fog that accompanies a hangover. The previous night, just as soon as I’d discovered we were presently neighbours with Lawrence, I had reached for another bottle of wine. Frank usually didn’t do wine very well, but with a little coercion, I managed to convince him to knock back a few more glasses. I needed him down for the count while I sought out my oracle, Sophia, on the following morning. A Facebook chat just wouldn’t do. An emergency of this magnitude required a face to face.
Leaving the house just after nine, I crept along the driveway to our car and slid behind the driver’s seat, feeling like an intruder in my own neighbourhood. It was ridiculous, and as I started up the car I glanced over my right shoulder to peer at Lawrence’s house, positioned uncomfortably close to my own. A wave of irritation swept over me. How dare he move into my life after all these years, bringing memories of shit that I thought I’d left behind? I pulled out of the driveway and headed for our prearranged meeting place---my favourite place on any day of the week, and at any time of the day—Starbucks. Hopefully, the combination of a healthy dose of caffeine, and an unhealthy dose of Sophia would help me see that I had been overreacting and that this situation could actually turn out alright.
Starbucks must have been the only place on a dim, freezing Sunday morning that was packed to the rafters with people. Amongst the heads buried in laptops and coffee, I found the head I was seeking. Sophia had often been my life saver in a time of trouble. I hoped that this would hold true in this situation
. She’d dyed her hair again, this time it was bright red and the long curly locks that I had remembered from the weekend before were gone. Now she sported a hairstyle to go along with her high strung tempo and motor-mouth persona and I loved her for her bravado. Even before she noticed me, I made for the counter and ordered my usual Latte Macchiato with a dash of caramel. I worried about the calories for a split second, but then threw the thought into the waste bin of my mind. I could easily burn those calories off later in the evening, with Frank’s willingness to help.
With my coffee in hand, I made my way through the packed cafe to Sophia’s table. I was happy to see that she was able to get away for our rendezvous.
“Sandy! How you been gal?” Sophia stood, knocking her chair back while it emitted a loud screech. Every head in Starbucks lifted and turned in our direction. If you went anywhere with Sophia, you had to be ready to be the centre of attention—at all times, because she didn’t just speak, she shouted! In some ways I envied her for this quality, but on mornings like this, I wished she was a little less conspicuous.
“Hey,” I returned her greeting and leaned into a ferocious hug. “Not too bad, until last night.” Doing my best to ignore the stares, I quickly sat down, dumping my car keys on the table. I took a long gulp of my coffee and savoured the explosion of sweet flavours, followed by the inevitable bitterness of the coffee beans.
“So, what’s with all of this secrecy girl?” She almost sang, her hands gesturing in the air as she spoke. “Don’t tell me you got a little one on the way?” All of this was spoken at a volume that outdid all of the other voices in the packed cafe, combined.
“Sophia, please. Just this once can we not share my life with the rest of the world?”
Thankfully she nodded and calmed herself. She must have seen the worry in my eyes. Then she began again. Sophia didn’t do subtle very well and for many people, most people in fact, she was perceived as pretty annoying. I personally respected her for the way she came across. Her passion and exuberance for life was the reason I loved her; she could take a shitty day and make it into one you’d never forget—for all the right reasons. I needed that talent today. She settled back in her chair, took a long breath and placed her hands in her lap as I had taught her to do. “Alright, Sands, tell me,” she said as she tuned down to a more acceptable volume. “What’s bothering you?”
I hit her with it, hard and true. “Lawrence Carmichael has become my neighbour.”
Sophia’s already wide blue eyes widened even further and I saw a smile twitching at the corners of her open mouth; “Lawrence, the hunk from senior high?”
I nodded and hissed, “He moved in last night. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw him standing in the driveway and I think he saw me too.”
A baby screamed at the table next to us and I shut my eyes, picturing a gentle stream by a swathe of green pastureland. Then Sophia’s voice broke the calming effect, “And that’s a problem, how?”
I opened my eyes and studied her, analyzing her face, attempting to discern whether or not she was joking. Clearly, she wasn’t. Sophia didn’t think like everyone else. She was out of the box, and often found perspectives that no one else seemed to be able to discover, and proudly went against the grain of society. This was why she was my oracle. Now I was hoping she would come up with one of off-beat solutions. I continued, “We were pretty hot together back then, Sophia, and—”
“You’re worried you might still want to fuck his brains out, and perhaps become his mistress?”
My eyes and mouth widened, and I leaned across the table; keeping my voice down, “I’m married Sophia, and that’s not why I’m worried.” Turning left, then right I made sure that no one else was listening. The conversation was about to reach adult levels.
Sophia wasn’t deterred however. “Well I would be worried, you two were like sex-starved baboons just released from solitary confinement,” she said shaking her head. “Do his butt cheeks still look like they could crush rocks?” She raised her hands and made a grabbing motion in the air.
“Stop that!” Despite my protest my mind wandered back to the night before. I hadn’t seen Lawrence’s ass, it had been too dark outside to really check him out. To my surprise I experienced a flash of regret, and dropped my eyes to the floor almost embarrassed.
“Why?” Sophia countered. “It’s the truth isn’t it? Why else would you be afraid of a long forgotten relationship from a decade ago?” She raised an eyebrow in challenge. That stopped me cold for a moment. I hadn’t actually thought of it that way, but now that she’d mentioned it, perhaps there was some truth to her words. I thought back to the moments after I’d seen him, and realized that the only memories flashing through my mind were the ones of us romping like two sex-crazed, sex addicted junkies. “Let’s face it,” she continued when I didn’t say anything, “Frank’s got it, but Lawrence; he’s really got it!”
“Look Sophia, I’m not here to talk about how much I want to fuck Lawrence,” I told her candidly. Then I paused and said, “Even if that were true, I’m as loyal as they come.” Slowly I was beginning to realize that I might still be attracted to Lawrence. It’s wasn’t like it was about love or anything that extreme. If memories of Lawrence’s naked form pressed against my body was anything to go by—Sophia was right, I still wanted to fuck him.
“It is true,” she added with certainty before I could continue.
“Even if it is, I wouldn’t go through with it. I’m telling you because I need to understand how I’m going to deal with this. Frank’s bound to find out, it won’t take long.” At that moment, frightening visions o
f the two of them sharing beers as they lounged on our sofa scuttled into my mind, like roaches from a plughole. “What if they become friends?” The words shot out of my mouth like Olympic sprinters off the blocks. “What if they get drunk and start sharing stories? What if Lawrence decides to share our sordid past with Frank? Can you imagine the trouble that would cause?”
Sophia looked at me blankly. “Not really, Sands.” Then she took a long gulp of coffee, before slipping into her counselling mode. “Those are all valid scenarios, but you’re looking at this in the wrong way.”
I downed the rest of my coffee and leaned forward to place my chin on my clasped hands. She had my attention. “So tell me then, oh oracle Sophia, how should I look at this potential shit storm?”
“Well,” she began; forming a pyramid with her hands, the manicured, red nails pointing at the stationary ceiling fan above us. “Men don’t think like women. If the tables were turned, and this was his ex moving in next door, you’d probably want to scratch her eyes out--- at least a lot of women would feel that way.” I had to agree with Sophia on that point, I couldn’t abide it, and I certainly wouldn’t want to be her friend. “You have to tell him—about your history with Lawrence—but this can actually be a good thing.”
“How is that so?”
Once again, the screaming baby decided to interrupt our conversation, and Sophia cast an icy stare across the table at the parents before turning back to me. She took a deep breath, and then let it out slowly. Neither of us had kids and it was clear to see that Sophia wasn’t in a hurry to add a nursery to her home just yet. “Once Frank learns about your exploits with Lawrence, he’ll want to outdo him. He’ll want to show you that he too can make you shriek like your nails are being pulled out.”
“But he already can, and anyway I’m not a screamer like you!” I said, laughing.
“Hey,” Sophia retorted, wagging a finger at me. “I like my sex hard and loud, like everything else. Ain’t no shame in that!”
“So you don’t think he’ll flip out and get all possessive on me?”
“Frank?” Sophia shook her head, her red, medium-length hair skimming her shoulders. “I’m pretty sure he’s not insecure in that way. From what you’ve told me in the past, I’d have to say that any man with a tongue like Frank’s won’t be threatened by his wife’s ex-lover.” she declared, raising her eyebrows and blowing out a stream of air. “That man is a sex god.”
It was logic and intuition worth considering, and an example of why I’d thought to turn to Sophia before anyone else. There was no way I could have come to these conclusions on my own, at least not without some time to think it over. I didn’t have that kind of time. Frank would soon become aware that he was living next door to my ex-lover, and I needed to know how to handle this impending event before it occurred. I was also beginning to feel that Sophia knew a little too much about my sex life. All of those alcohol fueled, girls night outs had really enlightened her.
But I was feeling a lot less anxious now. “So you don’t think it will be a problem?”
“No, you worry too much, however...” She paused, and a smile spread slowly across her face, gleam lighting up her eyes like two searchlights against a night sky. “Maybe you could invite him around to your place for dinner some night, and offer him some dessert? You, Lawrence, and Frank, it could be quite the ménage à trois.”
I sat back in my chair like I’d been slapped across the face. “Sophia! That’s...that’s...”
“Appealing?”
That wasn’t the word I was looking for, but as I shook my head somewhere inside, I realized that there was a small part of me that didn’t completely hate the idea.
“But I would never do something like that. No, not me, never...”
*****
It was only a matter of time before the inevitable was going to take place. No matter how much I tried to avoid thinking about it, my mind wouldn’t let it rest. Frank and Lawrence were bound to meet at some point over the next few days or weeks, and when they did, the countdown to truth would be initiated.
I also had another problem—my feelings or more accurately, my desire for Lawrence. There was no escaping it. When I thought about him, really and truly delved into him, I wasn’t repulsed, or apathetic. In total honesty, I was still trying to figure out just how strong my body’s urges were influencing me. Frank and I have always been honest with each other. If we saw someone attractive on the street, we’d talk about it openly. It wasn’t like we were going to screw them or anything, but this was a little different.
Lawrence and I had already shared those sweat-soaked moments of ecstasy, my body at the mercy of his hungry mouth and roving hands. I couldn’t even think of him without imagining his large hands gripping my thighs, easily parting them, and opening me to his advances. If his appetite for me was as potent and all-consuming as it had once been, I doubted that he’d be able to rein in his inner animal. Of course, with thoughts like that racing through my head all day Sunday, I was feeling guilty as hell, and irritated by my awful luck. Why when everything was going so well, albeit perhaps a little stale, had Lawrence suddenly shown up in my life? As my next door neighbour of all things; it was a bad piece of luck to be sure.
As I thought it over, however, I came to the conclusion that Sophia might have been right, at least in a way. Perhaps it wouldn’t be as bad as I feared. Maybe they wouldn’t become friends. A smaller voice, likely the coward in me, reasoned that I could even somehow avoid Lawrence altogether. There was also a distant glimmer of hope that Lawrence was already married with kids, and had left all of our history behind him. They might arrive later, and our two families might grow close.
Despite my efforts to imagine a positive outcome, I still wasn’t sure how to approach Frank about it. I managed to avoid the subject with Frank, and the actuality of running into Lawrence himself, for the remainder of the day. Luckily, Frank was too hung over to leave the house. The topic of our new neighbour didn’t come up again all day, but that didn’t stop me from torturing myself. I found myself drawn to the window as the moving men carted Lawrence’s furniture from their truck to his house. All I wanted was to do was to blank him out of my mind, but denial was ineffective.
Despite Sophia’s optimism, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that something big was about to happen. Once as I gazed through the carefully parted curtains of our living room window; I caught a glimpse of Lawrence. He stood in his driveway directing them, his back to me, and I wondered if he was doing that on purpose. Had he recognized me from the night before? Did he know I’d be watching? In the daylight, I got a better look at him, and it didn’t help matters—not at all. Sophia had asked me if his ass still resembled a rock-crushing machine, and sadly it did.
“You’re awfully interested in our new friend over there,” Frank said later that day when the sun was beginning to set. I turned from the curtains, pulling them back into place and deposited myself next to him on the sofa.
“Just curious, that’s all,” I murmured as I nuzzled his chest, his chest hair thick and coarse against my lips. In the corner, our TV stood silently in the shadows. We seldom watched it, and when we did it was only to help us drift off before bedtime. In autumn and winter, when it got dark earlier and stayed that way longer, we either curled up on the sofa or on the sheepskin rug by the fire, which had now become quite worn; and read a book or stared into the flames.
Frank was doing the latter, his hangover softened by the passing of time. Sunday nights were my favourite; a moment of peace before the traffic, and the haste and stress of corporate slog. It was a time for making love, and a time for contemplation. Tonight, I felt I needed both. The yearning in my body worried me though. It was as if Sophia’s words from earlier in the day had seeped into my very soul and were now manifesting. I was horny, I was in need.
Frank was only wearing a dressing gown over his boxer shorts, and the heat rising from his body met the heat emanating from my own, creating a field between u
s. Frank shifted against me, his hand reaching behind my head to stroke my hair. “You think he lives alone?” queried Frank, his fingers working the nape of my neck.
My body was moving through the early stages of arousal, and the touch of Frank’s flesh on mine accelerated the growing urges I was feeling. “Probably,” I replied, kissing his right nipple, my lips lingering long enough to suck at it and feel it harden between my lips. I moved onto his other nipple, massaging it with the tip of my tongue with slow and purposeful movements. Frank shifted against me again, and I felt his hardness, an unyielding pressure on my inner thigh, where my leg had snaked over his lap. His cock was asking me to release it. “I haven’t seen anyone else. He must be single,” I whispered in his ear letting my breath slide over his skin like a hot summer wind.
Frank’s hand in my hair became more insistent, guiding my head, pulling me down, instructing me wordlessly to obey his command. I obeyed without question, my own lust already seeping out of me, wetting my panties. Truth be told, I was turned on long before Frank began to guide my lips to his cock. If Lawrence was aware I was his neighbour, was he thinking about me in the same way I was thinking about him? I didn’t need to be shown what to do. I slid down between Frank’s legs, pulling off his boxer shorts as I went along.
When my knees met the carpet, I slipped his boxers off with a single movement. Then I tossed them behind me. With the fire crackling and warming my back, I swallowed his cock and worked his shaft aggressively between my lips. My mouth is large and my lips round and full, the kind that men covet. With long slow strokes I took him into my throat and then led him out again. Frank gasped at my ferocity and stared down at me with wide-eyed surprise.
Even after almost eight years together, we were still able to surprise each other sexually. Subtle variations in the way we pleasured one another had seen to that. It was the variety that kept us hungry. Frank didn’t always slide his tongue inside me to stroke me to orgasm. Sometimes he used a finger, or concentrated on my clitoris, or both. Likewise, I didn’t always deep throat Frank. Sometimes I’d take his head in my mouth, my tongue working the underside, building the tempo until his balls stiffened in my hand. Then I’d lie on my back and invite him in, and he’d release his lust inside of me. That bond, that understanding, was what kept our relationship rock solid.
Our First Time: Anthology of a Menage Book 2 Page 5
