He smiled and whispered, "Nothing I could have offered would have gotten him out of his pants."

"I heard that," Richard said.

Jean-Claude laughed. "And will you refuse her offer?"

He looked from Jean-Claude to me, then back to Jean-Claude. Richard laughed, a very masculine laugh. "No."

I was suddenly very aware of the two of them pressed on either side of me. Enough foreplay, off with the clothes.

59

The clothes came off, then Richard argued with me on what position I'd be better able to deep throat him. Like I said, the three of us together have to argue about everything. Jean-Claude settled the argument by simply saying, "Let ma petite try her way, and if it does not work, we can try yours." I began to realize that Richard and I as a couple was truly impossible, but as a threesome, if the third was our diplomat, it might work. What does it say when you need another adult in the bed to referee? Nothing I wanted to think about too deeply, not at that moment. At that moment, I let all the doubts go, all of them. I knew Richard and I too well not to suspect that we would wreck this later. But for now, right now, we had this moment. I tried to get out of my way and enjoy it, and had to trust the men to do the same.

I'd seen Richard nude, and recently, but it had been a long time since I'd seen him stretched nude on a bed, on his back, with the long length of his body spilled out in front of me. I made him spread his legs so I could lie down between them, rest my head against the muscled swell of his thigh, and gaze up the length of him. It was a form of teasing myself, almost. So close to his groin, but not touching. But it wasn't that I just wanted to look, it was the whole package. And it wasn't just that he was lovely to look at, it was that after I'd looked at the groin, only partially erect, and still impressive, the flat plain of his stomach with its perfect dimple of belly button, the swell of his chest with his nipples like dark brown punctuation to all that permanently tanned muscle; the swell of his shoulders, and finally his face. His face gazing down at me. The pure brown of his eyes like chocolate, the look in them already a little unfocused, when all I'd done was lay my cheek against his thigh and breathed out along his testicles. A feather of a touch, and already his face was showing the effect, as were other parts of his body.

It wasn't just the body, it was Richard looking down at me. The weight of him in his eyes. Him staring down the line of his own body, while I lay between his thighs. I used to think that only death would take someone away from me. But I had learned that so many lesser things can steal someone away, just as completely, just as forever. They live, they breathe, but you never get to touch them, you never see them nude, you never wake to their smile, the smell of their skin on your sheets. There are things so much less dramatic than death that are just as permanent. If I never got to be here like this with Richard again, I wanted it to last. I wanted to take my time.

Where was Jean-Claude? Sitting in the far corner of the bed opposite us. He was nude, but sitting with his back against the wall, one knee drawn up so that he was covered, for the most part, even if you looked directly at him. He looked like a great pale cat curled on the pillows. Once I would have said he looked utterly relaxed, but I knew him too well now. I saw the way he held his shoulders, the tension in one leg. He was holding himself in check, being oh, so careful.

I settled my cheek against Richard's thigh, the way a cat will scent mark you, rubbing back and forth. Just that, nothing more, but it made him writhe. His legs tensing around me, so that his legs flexed on either side of my body. The feel of even that much made me close my eyes and rest my cheek between his legs, so that my face was cradled, oh, so gently against the soft warmth of his testicles. I nestled my mouth against that silky skin. The tiny stiff hairs tickled along my face as I licked that soft, moveable skin. More hair to tickle along my lips. I preferred smoother skin, a little less fuzzy. But of course, I could have that by simply moving up.

I went up on my knees and licked along the front of his shaft, licked it like it was a big piece of candy, and I didn't want it to melt. Licked it back and forth, up and down, just on the front of the shaft, until he cried out, and his hands convulsed on the red sheets.

"Anita, please, no more teasing."

I raised up so I was kneeling between his legs. "Teasing, that's not teasing, that's foreplay."

He swallowed, and it looked like it was an effort, or maybe his throat was dry. "Then less foreplay, at least for me. I don't need it."

I looked down at him, the eagerness in his eyes, his face, his whole body. I could feel what he wanted, feel it almost like he was yelling it in my head. I looked at Jean-Claude. "Some men like a lot of foreplay."

Jean-Claude gave that Gallic shrug. "But it is not me that you are pleasing now."

"I thought you said we had to all three be touching for this to work?"

"I thought I would give you and Richard a chance to reacquaint yourselves before I joined you."

I climbed over Richard's thigh, so I could kneel beside his hip. "Sometime during all this sex, the boundaries between us will come crashing down. If we aren't all three touching when it happens, we may miss our window to bind ourselves closer."

"Perhaps," Jean-Claude said, "what do you propose?"

"Come hold Richard's hand."

"Anita," Richard began.

I wrapped my hand around the base of him, and found that he wasn't quite as hard as he had been a moment before. The thought of Jean-Claude joining us did not do it for him. I was sorry that it bothered him, but I hadn't crawled into this bed for just sex. It was an all-or-nothing deal. Sex and more metaphysical muscle, not just sex.

I squeezed him, one quick pulse, and it stole his words, made his breath shudder from between his lips. "Richard's going to need something to hold on to soon, and there's no headboard."

Richard found his voice. "That was oversharing," and he sounded a little angry.

"You know you like to hold on to something solid while I do this."

He gave me sullen eyes. It was not a look I wanted to see today, not from him. "Hold his hand, Richard, that's all I'm asking right now. Just hold his hand, or let him hold yours. Is that so much to ask?"

I turned so that I was facing away from him, but facing directly another part of his anatomy, which also had a head. I kept my hand on the base of him and slid my mouth over him. He wasn't completely hard yet, and I fought to take as much of him in as I could before he stiffened. It was easier a little softer, less hard to swallow past a certain point. Even soft, there came that moment where my body said, no, we're choking, that nothing this big should be coming down this far in one piece. It was as if I was swallowing him down, but because he was still attached and so big, it was more like I walked my throat over him, up him. I'd found that if I didn't struggle, that I could breathe with this much down my throat. I could breathe, if I didn't struggle. I could fight my way down the long, thick shaft of him, if I relaxed while I fought for it. It was a struggle to get all the way down, but at the same time, the trick was not to fight. Only I could make oral sex into a zen moment.

When my lip felt the solid touch of the front of his body, then, and only then, did I let myself begin to slide back up. It was always so much easier going up than coming down. I came up off of him, breathless, but pleased. I'd only recently been able to do that with Micah, after some very embarrassing failed attempts. Like in throwing up embarrassing. It's one of the reasons you should never try this stuff with people unless you love them. People who love you don't point and laugh.