CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

They sat there, cuddling close to one another, occasionally kissing, and chatting as the sun rose over the lake.

"You know, it feels like it might end up being hot enough to go swimming in this lake," Warren said.

"Yeah, finally. 65 degree days when you’re on vacation in July can be a bit of a drag." Sophie picked up her travel mug. "I’m just about out of tea. You?"

"Pretty much. You want I should get a refill?"

"I’ll take care of it, Romeo, you just make sure the sun don’t set without me."

Warren laughed. "I think we’ve got some leeway with that, since it’s only 6:30 AM." Sophia gave him a kiss on the cheek, and stood up, heading up the path to the cabin with the two teacups.

"Morning, Jess," Sophia said upon seeing her friend on the couch. "What’s up?"

"Not much." Jess had a strange look on her face. "Hey, Soph, where’s Warren?"

"Down on the dock. I just came up to refill our tea." She giggled. "I woke up this morning with him gently fucking me. Apparently we fell asleep with him still in me, if you can believe that, and when he woke up he decided to wake me up with a little nookie. Then, after we were done, we went down to the dock to see the sun rise."

Jessie got a little faraway look in her eyes. "That sounds positively lovely." Sophie blinked. There was no sarcasm in that comment, and Jessie had never been a romantic-interlude type of person. That’s why she fit so well with Crash—they were both aggressive, sarcastic, biting, non-romantic people.

"Look, Soph, I need to ask you a favor," Jessie said, very seriously. "Can I take Warren’s tea down to him? I need to talk to him. As long as I’m not interrupting anything, of course."

"Nah, the sun’s up and the lovey-dovey stuff had petered out, anyway." Jessie laughed. "We were just going to discuss what we might like to do today, is all. We can do that later." Sophia looked at Jessie quizzically, because Jess had an obvious look of relief on her face. "Jess, is something going on?"

"All will be revealed, Sophia, I promise. But I need to talk to Warren first, especially with him on the dock down there, because I need to talk to him privately. Trust me, Sophia, I’m done with him, I talk to you."

"OK." She went and filled Warren’s travel mug and handed it to Jess. "Just don’t give him any more hickeys, OK?" she laughed.

Jessie got a very strange look on her face. "I think I’ve sworn off hickeys for a while. Thanks, Soph," and out the door she went, leaving a very confused Sophia in her wake.

"Hey, Prep Stud." Warren looked around, and saw Jess coming down the path. She got to the dock and handed Warren the travel mug. "Compliments of Sophia’s Kitchen—or teapot, at the very least—and Jessica Express Delivery."

Warren laughed. "Morning, She-Devil. No offense, but what happened to Sophia?"

Jessie sat next to Warren. "I asked her if I could borrow you for a bit. I need to talk to you."

"Sure thing, Jess. What’s on your mind?"

Jessica took a deep breath. "Remember the little conversation that we had on this very dock about 24 hours ago?" Warren nodded. "Well, I have a confession to make. I lied to you. Now, the reason I lied to you is because I couldn’t tell you the truth yesterday. Jason and I had a long talk—a series of them, actually—yesterday, so now I can tell you why and how I lied to you."

She took another deep breath, and stared out at the lake, not looking at Warren. "I told you, yesterday, that you were the only one affected by what happened the other night. That was a lie. I was affected. I was profoundly affected, and I found out later yesterday that Jay was, also."

"The first thing you need to know is that I love Jay with all my heart and soul. But something’s been missing. I knew it, and he knew it, but neither of us knew what the problem was. So we just did our thing. It was very comfortable—the way we related to each other, the way we acted, the way we made love. It was comfortable—our relationship has always been comfortable."

"And then I went to bed with you. Fun, right? A harmless diversion? That’s what I told you yesterday, right?" Warren nodded. "No," Jessie said, staring down at her hands. "It wasn’t. What that little ‘harmless diversion’ turned out to be was the greatest night of my life—sexually speaking at least, and possibly of all time." Warren’s jaw hit the ground. Jessie was staring down at her hands, and wringing them. "You spun my head around. You touched me in a place that I didn’t even know existed. It was awesome, and devastating."

Warren didn’t know what to say. Jess didn’t give him a chance to think of something. "Look, I meant it when I said I love Jason. And I don’t love you, not in that way, I’m not in love with you, and I never could be. But making love to you was earth-shattering."

"So, I’m out with Jason yesterday. And we both know something’s not quite right, OK? So, we decided we needed to have a big talk, and put everything on the table, everything we were feeling and thinking, with no resentment or recriminations allowed. So I told him."

Warren gasped. "Y’know, that’s the reaction I thought I’d get from him," Jessie said with a small smile, looking at Warren for the first time. "But he didn’t He said he knew what I meant, because his night with Sophia was the best he’s ever had."

"Oh my sweet Jesus," Warren muttered.

"Yeah, what you said. Anyhow, so there we are, me telling him his best friend is better in bed than he is, and him telling me that my best friend is better than I am. We kicked that around for a while, and we discovered that ‘better’ wasn’t necessarily the right word. Different was."

"It was the little things. You’re a gentle and tender soul, Warren, and so is that girlfriend of yours. There was one point where you were eating me out, and I saw you look up at me to see if I was enjoying myself—which I was—and you looked up at me with this little grin on your face and a twinkle in your eye. And there was one point where we were doing it, and you reached down and just caressed my tit for a bit. You brushed the hair back out of my eyes at one point. Jason told me that, at one point, he was doing Sophia and she looked up at him and smiled at him, and kind of touched and rubbed his arm. Little things. Even the thing you told me about, when you and Sophia caught each other’s eye, and she winked at you."

"You let your guard down completely during sex, Warren. Apparently so does Sophia. Not only do Jay and I not, we’re not sure we even know how. You know the joke about the biting and clawing? Now, it is true that I occasionally lose control and do that involuntarily—that night is an example, I really didn’t mean to give you a hickey—but somehow that got to be how I am. Jess is an animal in bed, and Jay is a piledriver. That’s what we do. One thing Jay has on you, Warren, is that he has more stamina. He can go upwards of 45 minutes and that’s before he’s had a cum."

Warren gaped at her. "Wow."

"Yeah. So, that’s what we do. Minimal foreplay, he mounts me, and rams into me for three quarters of an hour while I bite and claw. The Crashmeister and the She-Devil. It was always good. Don’t get me wrong for a second, he’s good, and he’d say the same about me. But I found out the other night that it’s not enough."

"And, when we were talking, we realized that it’s not just sex. The other day, we walked into the living room, and you and Sophia were curled up on the couch, she was snuggled into you, and you had your arm around her, and you were both reading. This, of course, is the opportunity for me to crack wise about the lovebirds, right? Well, I don’t remember if I did, but my heart wasn’t in it."

"When we were talking, I reminded Jay of this little scene, and I wondered why we never did that, or anything like it, and he said because that wasn’t us. And I asked him why it wasn’t us, and he said that he didn’t know."

"Ah," said Warren, "now I know why you were so defensive when Sophie cracked wise about you guys cuddling last night."

"Yeah," Jessie admitted, "and I am going to apologize to her for that. Anyway, this is what we figured out. Somehow, we got locked into roles. Jay and I are both ‘on’ a lot of the time; we’re natural performers. It’s almost like playing a part. You and Soph aren’t like that."

Warren laughed. "I’m not quite so sure about that. Whose the couple that goes out and ice dances in front of a few thousand people? Not to mention swing dance clinics at the prom."

Jessie laughed. "You guys aren’t performers, you’re exhibitionists. Really. You do your thing, and allow other people to watch. Hey, look, I know a little bit about ice dancing, thanks to Sophie. I see the difference between your ice dancing and a lot of your competition. How was it that your friend Christine described you guys?"

"An oasis of romantic true-love dancing in a desert of overly-theatrical bad mock-acting."

"Right. Do you guys ever act? Do you ever play a role, on or off the ice? You don’t have to answer, because we both know it’s no. Jay and I are locked into roles—Crash and the She-Devil—that really are only part of who we are. But somehow they became almost all of who we are."

"I’ve seen the real Jason enough to know that that is who I’m in love with. And Jay has seen the real me enough to know the same thing. The funny thing is that I got all of you, in one night, no hesitation, no reservations. You gave me everything you had. And I still haven’t recovered. And Sophie did the same to Jay."

"So, Jay and I were talking, and I found out something that I never knew, after sleeping with the guy for a year and a half—his stamina is forced. He holds back. I just thought it took a lot for him to cum. He was in Sophie for fifteen minutes and came. Because she told him to. She said to him, ‘Don’t kill yourself, go ahead and cum, we have plenty of time.’ And I never even noticed he was holding back."

"Ah, that’s because she’s used to me," Warren said. "I do not have Jay’s stamina, so I try to hold back if I can, and she’s always telling me to ‘let myself enjoy it, she’s fine’ and the like." They both laughed.

"The difference being," Jess quipped, "that by that point she’s already cum seventeen times from your tongue." Warren burst out laughing.

"Anyhow, since we decided to not hold anything back, I asked Jay—why do you hold back? Why don’t we ever have much foreplay? Why are you so aggressive when we fuck? And he asked me—why do you bite and claw me all the time? Why are you always growling, why do you never smile? Why don’t you touch me? Why don’t we ever kiss in the middle of sex?"

"And we kicked that one around a while, and the answer we came up with was that we thought the other person expected us to act the way we were. And we were too afraid to break the pattern, and too afraid to ask the other person to break the pattern."

"Until you, with me, and Sophie, with Jay, broke the pattern."

Jessie stared out into the lake for a minute. "Why did you give yourself so much to me that night?"

"I suppose it’s just because that’s the way I am. Look, Jess, I might not be 'in love' with you, and you’re not my girlfriend, but I do love you. I also trust you. "

"Yeah, but I love and trust Jay."

"Yes, but I’m naturally open with people I love and trust. I don’t think you’re naturally open with yourself. I know Jay isn’t."

"I know. I’m still a little amazed that you would give me so much of yourself, in what was supposed to be a meaningless fling."

"It wasn’t meaningless. Harmless, maybe—in theory, anyhow—but never meaningless. Why did you want to sleep with me, Jess?"

"Because I thought it would be good."

"Why’d you think that?"

"Sophia’s descriptions."

"Is that all?" Jessie just looked at him. "If Sophie was describing all her fantastic sex, but you hated me, would you still have wanted to?"

"No. No I wouldn’t."

"Right. Jess, I’m the second person you’ve ever slept with. You don’t sleep around. You held Aaron off for two years."

"True."

He looked at her. "Jess, it’s called making love, remember? Now, you didn’t get all I have to give. There’s no way you could’ve; your name is not Sophie. There’s a huge part of me that is reserved for her. But you got as much as I could give to anyone not named Sophie. And you have to understand one thing, that there is not a single other person in the universe that I would have trusted enough to do that with."

"I think I’ve just been complimented."

Warren just laughed. "Y’know what, Jess? I can see behind the She-Devil exterior. I always have been able to, from the first day we met. Remember that day?"

"Yeah."

"One of my first impressions of you was that this girl is a whole lot sweeter than she lets on."

"Prep Boy, there you go, ruining my rep again," she said with a smile.

"Uh-huh. But I have to confess that sometimes seeing behind the She-Devil is hard work."

"Yeah."

"So, what are you and Jay going to do?"

"It really turned out to be a nice talk, after all the bad stuff was out on the table. We’ve made a commitment to open up to one another. Now I have to get over my extreme hatred of appearing vulnerable, that’s all."

"Vulnerable to the outside world and vulnerable to your boyfriend are two different things, Jess."

"I know. That’s why we ended up on the couch last night. We never made love. The last person I made love with was you, and that’s an obstacle right now, because I do believe we’re both scared. However, we ended up on the couch. We cuddled, we talked. I even gave him a foot massage, because his feet were cramping. We even eschewed the only romantic thing we ever do—the grapes—because it would fall back into the old pattern. He rubbed my back. We kissed more than we usually do."

"How was it?"

"Soft and warm and very nice and absolutely terrifying." Warren laughed. "At first. Then it got better."

"I think you’ll be OK, Jess."

"I do too." She thought for a minute. "If we can make this work, I would say that you gave me a wonderful gift the other night."

"The biggest problem is this—most of me believes that Jay and I can work this out, and then it will be better than ever, and that’s a worthy goal to be working on. But the evil part of me just wants you again."

Warren laughed. "Work out things with Jay, will you please? Then we can talk. I’m not going anywhere."

"You’d do it again?"

"Maybe. We’ll see. Not before some of this crap gets cleared up, though."

Jessie leaned in conspiratorially towards Warren. "Did you know that Sophie’s deepest, darkest, sexual fantasy is a threesome?" Warren stared at her, and then cracked up laughing. "Mine is, too." Jess added.

"That sounds intriguing." Warren said with a grin.

"PIG!" She laughed. Then she stood up. "Now I have to go drop this load on Sophie." She leaned over and kissed Warren. "Thanks, Warren. You’re the second-best."

Warren cracked up laughing, "Same goes for you."

She smiled at him, and then headed up the path.

He sat out there for quite a long time, just thinking and enjoying the morning. A couple birds kept him company from a tree branch above. He thought about going up for his fishing pole, but just didn’t feel like getting up. He knew Jess—and probably Crash—were talking to Sophia now, and he didn’t want to interrupt.

After a while, he heard footsteps coming down the path, and he looked up.

"Hi Pookie."

"Hi Snugglebear." She sat down next to him, and wrapped her arm around his. "You OK?"

"Yeah. A little stunned, but OK."

"I know. Who knew we were that good?" They both laughed. Then Sophie got serious. "I just hope we didn’t ruin things for them forever."

"I don’t think we did. Was Crash there when you guys were talking?"

"Yeah. I think he’s a little afraid to face you."

"Ah, fuck that. I’ll have to fix that, pronto."

"Listen, here’s the deal. We’re going to go up there and get properly dressed, then you and I are taking the car and getting lost for the day."

"Sounds like a plan. We’ve barely left the cabin since we got up here."

"Right. Let’s go exploring. And let’s leave the cuddling to them."

Warren laughed. "Interesting twist after interesting twist."

Sophia and Warren had a very nice day out, exploring that part of Maine, and just generally being two kids in love enjoying the day. And, when they came back, something was definitely different.

"Warren," Sophia said when the other two were out of earshot, "I don’t think I’ve ever seen Jess grin that much."

"I know. And Jay looks pretty satisfied with himself. Y’think those two old dogs taught themselves a couple of new tricks, or what?"

Things loosened up considerably after that. Sophia and Warren ended up naked-dancing again, but this time to fast music, and this time with an audience. "After all that’s happened, I still think that my enduring memory of this cabin is going to be Sophie shaking her groove thang bare-assed to Little Brown Jug," Jessie quipped. "Just like I told you, Warren—exhibitionists."

And they did experiment a little more. They kind of made an agreement that as long as it happened there, in the cabin, it was all right. There was one night when they all ended up in the same bed—"Crowded, but cozy" was Sophie’s verdict—doing the opposite partner, until after about two hours when they were right in the middle and Jason yelled "Switch!" and he and Warren did. "Shit, and I don’t think they even missed a stroke," Jess observed. And there was a second night, shortly before they left, that they did experiment with three-way, with the fourth person close at hand to be groped. " Now I think I’ve had every fantasy fulfilled," Sophia observed.

"Except for that whole Fenway park thing, of course," Warren quipped.

By the time they left, the four of them were closer than ever.

"Y’know," Crash observed, "I’m pretty sure I can get this place for these two weeks just about any year I want it, as long as I tell my Uncle early enough."

"Make that reservation for next year now!" Jess exclaimed.