The Mountains Trilogy (Boxed Set)

by Phoebe Alexander

  Why ruin a good thing with accusations and mistrust? Abby wondered. I think I’m better off just waiting this one out.

  ***

  Sarah was close to grabbing her autographed copy of The Ethical Slut off the bookshelves in the living room and rereading the passage about how to cope with your primary partner going on a date. James had only been gone for an hour, and she already felt dizzy and panicky wondering what he was doing and saying. She needed a distraction. Rachel and Jack were at some family function. She knew her mother and Dale had likely gone to bed already. What time is it in Poland? she wondered, thinking that Pawel’s calm, gentle voice might soothe her. But when she calculated the time difference, she realized it was the middle of the night there.

  I guess James is right. I am possessive of him now that we are together, she realized. She thought about all the times during their first year together that he was with Maggie, the times he went home to Ohio to visit or the times she came to Maryland to visit him. She thought about the feeling she had the first time she saw Maggie, when she’d driven over to his house to return the jacket she’d stolen from his closet right before he left for Afghanistan. She was mowing his lawn in all her long-legged, bronze-skinned glory. Then there was the time they came to see her perform in Chess. She had her hand resting on his knee, her body angled toward him as if to send the message that she had claimed him, staked out his territory and planted her flag. Somehow she had learned to cope during those long nights when she tried not to imagine them making love.

  She remembered when he returned from Afghanistan and they began to see each other again. It was almost immediately evident they both still had feelings for each other. At that time, the best she thought she could hope for was James convincing Maggie to try a poly lifestyle with Sarah as his secondary partner. She had never dreamed in a million years he would actually leave Maggie for her. She had expected to share him. If the alternative was not having him at all, she would have been happy to share him.

  But that all changed in North Carolina. She would never, ever, not in a million years, forget the way it felt when their bodies reconnected after a year apart from each other. It felt like a key fitting into a lock that could open an infinite number of doors, but the only door that seemed to matter was the one that led to her becoming his, and him becoming hers.

  Now that I have him, I guess I am scared of losing him. Maybe it’s because I’m insecure. Maybe it’s because I’m afraid I won’t be able to have his baby and he’ll leave me for someone who can. Someone younger.

  As if the fear of losing James wasn’t bad enough, Sarah began to feel a dull cramping in her womb. It felt like her muscles had clenched in a tight fist, sending an ache spreading toward her lower back. It was not as severe as what she had felt the day she lost the twins, but it was still unnerving. She did some yoga poses, she took a hot bath, but nothing seemed to take the pain away completely.

  Dr. Kapoor had put her on pelvic rest. That meant no sex, no masturbation, no orgasms. A few years ago, she would have been devastated by those orders, but now, after what she had been through with her last pregnancy, she was willing to do whatever it took to see it through. She had felt so guilty losing the twins after her threesome with James and Pawel that it was nearly enough to make her swear off sex altogether, even though she had been assured that her activities had nothing at all to do with the loss.

  That was another reason she had conceded to James’s request to meet with Vanessa. He had a high sex drive, and she felt terrible denying him. “Just give him lots of blow jobs,” Rachel had suggested.

  Sarah had laughed and shook her head. “No, that’s not going to work. I can practically climax just from sucking his cock. I enjoy it way too much. It’s too tempting.”

  “Well, if you can’t have any, why should he get some?” she had played Devil’s Advocate. “He’s the one who wants a baby, but you’re doing all the work. Why should you suffer alone?”

  It was a legitimate argument, and even James himself had expressed that he would go without if that was what Sarah wanted. But Sarah knew that it was easier said than done, and she certainly didn’t want him going behind her back again. So they had laid out very specific parameters for his relationship with Vanessa. 1. Sarah got to meet her. 2. They could only go out once a week. 3. It couldn’t interfere with any other plans or family obligations. 4. He wouldn’t spend the night. 5. He would come home and tell Sarah about the date. 6. They would keep the lines of communication open if feelings changed or if either felt the primary relationship was threatened.

  They were both comfortable with the rules, and before he had left that night, he had flashed his boyish smirk and said, “I know you didn’t have to let me do this. I just want you to know how much I appreciate that you trust me.”

  And she did. Right? Why was there always that haunting voice at the back of her mind enumerating all the “what ifs” like stars in the sky? I hate that part of me hopes she really sucks in bed, Sarah mused. Part of me hopes he has a terrible time, the selfish bitch part of me.

  She struggled to find her center, her place of compersion, that altruistic, selfless feeling of finding joy in her partner’s happiness even if she wasn’t responsible for it. She wanted to be able to send James off on his date and thrill in him returning with tales of his romantic conquests. But between his past hurtful choices and the state of unrest in her womb, the best she could do was curl up with a book and hope that sleep would not elude her.

  One thought kept poking around in her mind: I guess I’m just not as good at this poly stuff as I thought I was.

  ***

  Abby got to Mia’s apartment before she got home from classes. She used her key and found the place empty and quiet, except for the dog whimpering in his kennel. I guess I’ll take him on a walk, she thought. She went to find his leash which was hung on a metal hook from the back of the door in the laundry area. She noticed the small wastebasket by the dryer was nearly overflowing with used dryer sheets and big purple tufts of lint. But there was also some mysterious piece of plastic wedged in with the rest of the trash.

  She pulled it out and examined it, an eight inch plastic stick with a light blue back and white front with two little openings covered in a plastic film. It took a moment to register what it was: a home pregnancy test. And there was a dark, emphatic plus sign in the larger of the two windows.

  ***

  Sarah did not hear the door open. She had dreamed she’d woken up in a pool of blood with tiny baby parts strewn across the sheets. A horrific nightmare which left its mark on her mind and her skin in the form of a cold sweat. She reached down to feel between her legs just as James slid into the bed behind her, pressing his strong, warm body against her. She gasped with relief when she realized her thighs weren’t wet and everything felt normal down there.

  She felt his warm breath on her neck and soft words tumble into her ear: “I love you.”

  She rolled her body toward him, cleaving to his chest and burying her face in between his firm mounds of muscles. She felt the sharp claws of the nightmare begin to loosen their grip as his scent filled her nostrils. He smelled like James, not like some other woman. She wondered if he had showered before climbing into bed.

  “Did you have a good time?” she asked in whisper.

  “Yes,” he answered and then she could feel him drinking in her scent as well.

  She wanted to know so much: how she felt, how she tasted, how it was to be inside another woman, one that wasn’t her. But he pulled her closer to his body, and she felt his cock straining against her, pressing hard into the soft flesh above her pubic bone. His sigh fell against her cheek. He’ll tell me when he’s ready, she decided, as he reached around her, cupping the top hemisphere of her round ass and simultaneously gripping it and pulling it toward him.

  He groaned and then rolled onto his back. In the dim light, she could see his cock forming a tent under the sheet as it pointed toward the ceiling.

  “Didn�
��t you….?” Her voice trailed off before finishing the question, knowing he would understand.

  “Yes, but…”

  “But what?” she asked, confused.

  “But I want my wife,” he whispered, as if it were a secret only meant for her ears.

  “I can’t. I’m not supposed to,” she answered.

  He scooped her up and pulled her on top of him, her softness sinking into his firm, muscular frame. “Just go slow and gentle. Please? You’re in control.”

  She felt his cock throbbing against her stomach, aching to be inside her. The fact that he had just been with another woman but came home to their bed and wanted her was overwhelmingly arousing. What could it hurt if he just slid inside me for a moment? Maybe just the tip? A few seconds, tops, and then I will suck him off, she bargained with herself.

  “Please?” he begged. “Just the tip? I promise I won’t go any further.” It was like he read her mind.

  She lifted her hips and slid her arm down until her fingers wrapped around his thickness. She teased the head against the lips of her pussy, ever so lightly brushing the silky soft skin against her pubic hair, which she had let grow out now that she was pregnant. She felt him push insistently between her lips, rubbing against her clit. She eased her pelvis down onto his shaft so that an inch or two were buried inside her. I probably shouldn’t go any further, she decided, trying to be strong and use her willpower.

  “God, baby, you feel so fucking good,” he moaned. He had his hands wrapped around the iron scrollwork of the headboard. She wondered if he was using it to restrain himself from pushing her down onto his entire length.

  She could feel herself slowly sinking onto him, feeling every inch as she engulfed him. I’ll just stay right here with him inside me but I won’t move. I just want to feel myself wrapped around him.

  He was nearly speechless as he reached the depth of her. “I know we shouldn’t be doing this,” Sarah whispered. “But I just…”

  “Needed me inside you?”

  “Yes,” she sighed, resting her cheek against his chest, his cock still buried in her pussy. It was taking every ounce of strength she had not to move her hips.

  “I needed you too. Vanessa was great…but she’s not you.”

  It was as if he knew the exact words she needed to hear. In that moment of reunion, there’s always need for reassurance that you can’t, and won’t be replaced, she thought. She was glad he gave that gift to her so freely. She didn’t have to ask for it.

  She felt him starting to almost imperceptibly rock back and forth. “Oh, god, James, you can’t do that, or you’re going to make me come.”

  “So?”

  “I’m not supposed to orgasm,” Sarah stammered, finding the words hard to produce with the two competing forces battling inside her body: her brain telling her no and her body telling her yes, yes, yes.

  “Okay,” he answered, sensing that she was about to lose control. He lifted her off his body and rolled her back onto the mattress. She felt empty where his cock had just been, and the walls of her pussy were throbbing with unfulfilled desire.

  “Let me help you,” she offered. “Please?” She hadn’t brought him to climax for weeks now. She missed all the sounds he made, the way his fists clenched and his eyes shut tight, his lips slightly parted and his head thrown back. There was nothing sexier than watching him in the throes of orgasm and knowing that she had taken him there.

  “Are you sure, baby?”

  She answered him by placing a soft, wet kiss on his cock, which tasted of her. She wrapped her lips around him and began to stroke them up and down his shaft while simultaneously fondling his balls with her hand. She knew the right pressure, the right rhythm, the exact formula to send him over the edge. And even though she was not allowed to join him on his journey to ecstasy, just being able to send him was enough. It had to be enough.

  ***

  Abby took the dog outside into the dusky night. The sun was sinking toward the mountains behind the apartments, casting a deep amber glow that silhouetted the outline of the jagged cliffs. Above the crimson horizon, a soft orange haze was hovering like a flame over a candle. She headed up the street toward the hills at the foot of the mountain. She wanted to take that dog and just keep walking, ascending into the heavens on that rocky staircase, slipping into the oblivion of night.

  Her mind bombarded her with questions faster than she could produce answers. What will I say to her? What if it’s not her test? To her knowledge, Book didn’t have a girlfriend, so it seemed unlikely he was involved. And what about this whole random white guy at the movies? What the hell is that about?

  After a while, the sky turned a deep shade of aubergine, so dark that the outline of the mountains was beginning to blend into the star-studded sky. Abby walked along a trail that led up into the foothills, but it was getting cold, and she didn’t have a flashlight or any other supplies. It was no longer safe for her to continue, even with the dog.

  Once she reached the apartment, she confirmed that Mia’s car was in the lot before heading up the stairs. She slipped inside and put the dog’s leash back on the hook. She found Mia passed out on the couch, a textbook still open and tossed haphazardly on the carpet next to her.

  Abby remembered that she had moved the pregnancy test to a drawer in the kitchen. So if Mia had looked for it in the trashcan, she wasn’t going to find it. She looked at her lover lying there sleeping, her black hair fanned over her cheek, concealing her star tattoo. Her nose ring glinted in the lamplight and her skin glowed a buttery shade of ivory. Her breasts were nearly spilling out of her tank top, under which she was braless. Her yoga pants had ridden down on her hips and her lower abdomen looked full and round.

  She is pregnant, Abby realized, looking at the shape of her stomach. She had noticed it becoming rounder a month or so back, but she had dismissed it as holiday weight gain. She tried to remember when Mia’s last period was. She was private about such things. She wouldn’t say a word about it, she’d just stop Abby before going down on her. Sometimes Abby would find traces of evidence…tampon applicators and wrappers in the trash, and very rarely a bloodstain on a pair of panties cast onto the floor. Abby couldn’t recall the last time she had seen any vestiges of period management.

  In that moment, Abby saw her lover as a completely different person. I should feel betrayed, she realized. I should feel devastated. But looking down at Mia’s inked porcelain skin, her full, curvy lips pursed as if she were dreaming, all Abby could feel was pity.

  Here was a woman -- a part-time waitress, with no family, on the verge of flunking out of college, if not this semester, then soon – now pregnant with god-knows-whose baby. She was a rowboat being tossed about on turbulent seas. She was the type of person who would always skate by in life, never having the moxie to go after something more.

  Abby thought about waking her, about screaming at her and demanding to know how in the world she could have done this to her – to them. But what was the point? There was no way she could deny cheating, and how could she possibly justify it? The damage was done.

  Abby was becoming in expert in walking away. Her father choosing not to support her relationship choices felt like a form of betrayal, and she had walked away from him. And now this: the woman Abby thought she loved had lied and cheated, putting herself in a life-changing situation about which Abby was never consulted.

  She felt there was only one thing she could do. She unceremoniously placed her key on the kitchen counter, then she stuffed the personal items she kept there into a few grocery sacks and quietly tiptoed out the door, leaving Mia asleep on the sofa. The plastic bags cutting into her wrists, she began the trek back down the hill toward campus and her long-forsaken dorm room.

  One thought prevailed: I deserve better.

  ***

  Chapter Fifteen

  Finals

  Sarah was cleaning out her office, an end of the school year tradition. It was cathartic to throw out unwanted papers, minute
s from meetings, and leftover syllabi. She loved being able to start in the fall with clean filing cabinets. The Pandora app on her phone was blasting Broadway classics at full volume, so she didn’t hear a knock at her door. She was startled to see Esther Thompson peeking her face into her office.

  “Esther! Wow, come in! How are you?” Sarah smiled. Esther was one of those students she would never forget. “Please, have a seat!” She gestured toward one of her two guest chairs that had been moved across the room to make way for the cleaning frenzy.

  Esther slid the chair back toward Sarah’s desk and sat down. She put her backpack on the carpet and sighed, a huge grin plastered on her face.

  “You look happy!” Sarah observed. “Glad the semester is over?”

  “I had to stop by before going home for the summer. I really wanted to see you before I left.”

  “Why’s that?” Sarah asked, her curiosity piqued.

  “I want to thank you for opening my eyes!”

  “How so?” Sarah asked.

  Esther couldn’t stop smiling. “I interviewed all those girls for my research last semester, and I remember judging them. I couldn’t believe all the things they shared with me about their sex lives when I asked them about how their religion impacted whether or not they considered themselves feminists.”

  “Really? What kind of things did they tell you?”

  “Oh, like how they went all the way with some guy they had just met at a party and felt guilty afterwards. How they performed oral sex in the bathroom at the library and then told their priest at Confession. It was outrageous! I couldn’t believe that I had tried to do a research project that didn’t focus on sex, but that’s all anyone wanted to talk about.”

  “Wow,” Sarah answered, unsure if she was more surprised that Esther’s peers shared so openly with her, or that Esther had just used the phrase “oral sex.”