Deferred Pleasure

a Novelette by Kellis

June, 2000

Chapter 6: The Swinger

“When is Emily coming home?”

“Tomorrow: Sunday.”

They had agreed on sex instead of breakfast. He loved the “blowjob in a spotlight” afforded by the early slanting sunbeam, enhanced this morning by heavily applied lipstick. His penis soon resembled a raccoon's tail with horizontal crimson stripes from base to glans, while his testicles sported concentric red circles. They had reversed themselves and again he had inspected her at very close range. Earlier in the week he had found a gold pinkie ring on the floor at work to which no one would admit ownership. Now he pretended to find it again in the recesses of her vagina — “You have a metallic taste this morning. What have you put in there?” — that resulted in guffaws, giggles and a thoroughly satisfying indulgence finally in the missionary position.

Holly asked, “Are you looking forward to seeing her?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Her plane lands at four. We’ll take her home — to my house — then to dinner, if that’s agreeable.”

“Of course.”

“But today is all ours. I thought …”

“Thought what?”

“That we’d get up and go to lunch.”

“Sure.” He smiled. “As you like to say, we’ve worked up an appetite.”

“At the Blue Tea Room.”

“The Blue — What’s that?”

“It’s a sandwich shop.” Her hand slipped down his belly and cupped his testicles. Her fingers gently rolled the contents.

“Good sandwiches?”

“They’re okay. The reason I want to go is a friend of mine will be there, one you might enjoy.”

“Another Myrtle?” He chuckled. “I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”

“Not Myrtle. His name is Arleigh.”

“His name?”

She hesitated. At last she said softly, her breath tickling his cheek, “Gerry, I’ve been trying to show you I’ll do anything that pleases you. I brought you another woman and … and helped you with her, even guided your cock into her. I know others who’d love to play, too. I like to see you give another woman pleasure; it makes mine stronger. And it especially pleases me when she has to go home but I get to stay.

“When I mentioned another man, you didn’t seem to go for it. But haven’t you ever thought how it might be to fuck a woman at the same time as another man? Could it make your pleasure stronger, too? I know that most men don’t care for it. But a few confident ones do. Arleigh is one who does.”

He took a deep breath as if he meant to speak. Her hand released his scrotum and encircled the flaccid shaft.

When he remained silent, she continued, “It’s up to you, Gerry. What you want is what I want. But here is the chance to try it, if the idea appeals to you at all.”

He took another breath. “I don’t like it. What I particularly don’t like is the idea of another dick slipping into you, Holly.”

Her hand lightly stroked the current specimen. After a bit she asked, “Is it the reverse of what you said after Myrtle — about you possibly liking her better than me? If it is, Gerry, I assure you it’s not even remotely possible for me to prefer Arleigh.”

“You know him well, do you?”

“Yes.”

“He’s been your lover?”

Her eyes fell. “Before you came back.”

He grinned wryly. “But he’s not as exciting as I am?”

She gave his foreskin a little tug. “No one compares to you, Gerry.”

His brow wrinkled in thought as she lay quietly against him. Though she hardly moved her hand, she felt the organ begin to stiffen. The corners of her lips twitched upward.

Gerry asked, “What’s he like?”

“He’s about 25, I think. He’s a smaller man than you, particularly here.”

“What’s he do?”

“I believe he works for the state, something to do with computers. He’s a natural blond, wears his hair in a crew cut. That’s the oddest thing about him.”

“Short hair?”

“It’s the only hair he allows to grow on his body. He lives with a dyke who shaves him all over every couple days.”

“All over?”

“Well, except for his head. I think they shave each other. She has no body hair, either.”

“A man and a dyke, you say?”

“Why not? Their sexual orientation certainly doesn’t stop them from jumping each other. He plays the woman and she the man.” Holly laughed. “Apparently they forget who the cock is actually attached to. I think they plan to get married and have kids. They say they’ve found the proper way for gays to interface with society. They want to start a revolution among homosexuals.”

He grinned. “That’s a joke, right?”

“Not according to Arleigh and Billie.”

He shook his head and thought a moment. His penis was not yet fully erect. She jiggled her hand just slightly.

He asked, “Will Billie be at the Blue Tit Room, too?”

“Tea Room! Not today, but if you want to meet her I’m sure it can be arranged. What about it, Gerry? Want to invite Arleigh up?”

“Up you, you mean!” He grimaced. “What will he do to you?”

“Whatever you permit. Perhaps he would take me from behind with his smaller organ.” She could not entirely suppress a shiver.

His hand darted to her breast and rubbed nipple and areola. “Well, well! If you like it that way so much, why haven’t we done that since we left the woods?”

“It’s not that I love anal sex, Gerry. It’s … that I want to please you.”

“Maybe so.” She dropped her eyes before his scrutiny. He grinned slowly. “What you really want is two men at once, isn’t it?”

She took a breath and buried her face in his neck.

“Have you done that before?”

She hesitated. Finally he heard a muffled “Yes.”

“One in front with one in back?”

She raised her head and stared at him in hope mixed with apprehension. “Two at once in the vagina.”

* * * *

They arrived at the restaurant early and took a table for four, but had hardly been seated before Holly stood again and waved. “There he is!” Gerry rose leisurely, watching as a slim, short man in sport shirt, slacks and loafers approached, blond hair clipped close enough to suggest baldness. Grinning, the man went straight to Holly and raised her extended hand to his lips.

“Ah, sweetie, it’s good to see you!” he declared in a baritone. “How long has it been?”

“You know it was Johnny’s new year’s party!” she answered a bit snappily. “Arleigh Thorpe, this is Gerry, short for Gerald Ballard.”

The newcomer put out his hand, which Gerry took. “Pleased to meet you,” Gerry declared.

Arleigh’s eyes twinkled. “As the French say, at your service.”

Holly commented dryly, “At least you didn’t say it in French.”

Arleigh shrugged. “If I did, it would be no more sincere.”

By unspoken agreement they sat down together while the hovering hostess left a third menu.

Gerry said, “It sounds like you want to get right down to business.”

“Not exactly business,” Arleigh responded, “but if you want to say what’s on your mind, go ahead.”

Gerry grinned wryly. “I guess Holly told you my situation.”

The man shrugged again. “She said you two are an item.”

“That’s right.” Gerry raised his chin. “And I was paroled from prison last Thursday week.”

“Were you!”

“Yes. Make any difference to you?”

“Should it?”

“It would to some people.”

Holly began, “Gerry —”

Arleigh raised a hand. “It’s all right. How did you get along with the gay prisoners?”

“I stayed away from them.”

“Very good. If I went to prison, I would, too — if I could. With your shoulders I doubt you had as much trouble as I would.”

Gerry’s face showed his surprise. “You’re not gay?”

Arleigh’s chin rose. “Didn’t Holly tell you? Of course I’m gay. But I’m straight, too! I think most people are both, when given the chance to enter relationships naturally, because they admire and enjoy their partners. But nothing happens naturally in prison — or so I understand.”

Gerry nodded. “That is certainly the truth. If you find yourself bunking with another man, it’s because the screws want to find out something about one or both of you — at least at Horrypine.”

“That’s where you served?”

“For six years.”

“And you didn’t see any gay men?”

“I saw a lot of homosexual contact, always in the showers.”

“Nowhere else? How about the exercise yard?”

“The guards would interfere everywhere but the showers. I saw some pretty wild stuff in the showers. You went by cell block, upwards of 50 men at once.”

“See any daisy chains?”

“All the time.”

“But you didn’t participate, eh?”

“No.”

“I wouldn’t either, if I had a choice. But I’ll tell you, a small man is as susceptible to rape as any woman. You never saw gay rape?”

“No, not to be certain. Once I came on it after it was over. Like you say, a little guy, unconscious on the shower floor. He had resisted, and a gang of them beat him up first.”

“What happened to him?”

“He got it again the next time he took a shower. The same way, out cold on the floor. The screws got tired of hauling him to the hospital, I guess. They let him take showers alone.”

Arleigh took a shivery breath. He grinned sourly at Holly. “I damn well have to stay out of jail.”

Gerry said, “I guess I don’t understand your objection.”

Arleigh studied him thoughtfully. “Would you rape a woman, Gerry?”

“No.” But he couldn’t resist a glance at Holly, who winked at him.

“Why not?”

“Because she would hate me.”

Arleigh nodded. “One way to put it. She’d hate you because you forced her, made her do it whether she wanted you or not. That’s how I think I’d feel in jail. I don’t want to be forced. And it sounds like force is all they know.”

“No,” Gerry countered, eyes twinkling. “I learned the signal, even if I never used it. If you wanted sex, you went into the shower and started jacking off with your back to the water.”

“What happened next?”

“I didn’t pay close attention, but I think you could depend on somebody coming up to you and doing the appropriate thing, either kneeling or bending over. A favorite trick was for a big guy to hang a smaller one’s knees over his shoulders. I saw one guy get dropped on his head. Broke his neck. Concrete floors are damned hard!”

Arleigh’s lips had parted.

The waitress arrived to take their order. When she left, the conversation turned to employment. Apparently Arleigh and Holly had never described that side of their lives to each other, which caused Gerry to wonder just how intimate they had actually been. Between his recounting of the computer-driven slavery of prison and theirs of inept supervisors and unnecessary make-work, the three made amusing conversation throughout the remainder of the luncheon. Arleigh insisted on paying the tab. He followed them back to the apartment in his own car.

“What do you think?” asked Holly, stopping at a yellow light to prevent losing the man behind them.

Gerry chuckled. “At least he’s not the pushy kind. He’s the first one I ever met who’s not constantly on the make.”

“I was watching to see you shake your head. If you did I missed it. Do you want to go through with this, Gerry?”

“Do you, Holly?”

“I want what you want.”

He took a deep breath. “Let’s play it by ear.”

She nodded. Then she laughed. “I’m still a virgin in my ear.”

“No, you’re not. I’ve stuck my tongue in both of them.”

“Darn it, you ruined the joke.”

“Joke?”

“You were supposed to say, ‘Which ear?’ and I would say, ‘The wild frontier.’”

“Hey, that’s pretty good!”

“Gerry, this could be a lot of fun.”

“Have you done this before with him?”

“I told you, he and I were lovers.”

“Who never even discussed what they do at work? What you mean is, you took him on with another man. Isn’t that right?”

She spared him a glance from the traffic. “Please, Gerry. What I did before … I’m sorry I sent you to jail. But none of the rest was meant to harm you.”

“I believe that. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“Not entirely. Every time I looked at Emily, I was reminded.”

“Did you feel guilty, Holly?”

“Yes. But I thanked you for her.”

“That’s a point. What if Arleigh knocks you up?”

“I’m on the pill, Gerry. You said I’ve been true in my fashion. That’s the thing I’ve really been true to! And I’ll stay true until we marry, if we do. After that I’ll leave it up to you.”

“What do you mean, ‘if we do?’ I consider us engaged.”

“Do you, Gerry. Oh, god, I hope you do!”

“I told you I’d marry you. Let’s get that straight. Do you want to marry me?”

“Oh, yes, yes!”

He chuckled. “You sure sound eager! All right, then. We are definitely engaged — and I can’t believe it.”

“That you’re engaged after being out hardly more than a week?”

“No. That I’m about to help another man fuck my fiancée.”

She shook her head. “That’s not what we’re doing. Another man is helping you!”

* * * *

As before they started with a shower. Holly stood between the two men. She soaped Gerry first with special attention to his genitals, then turned and performed the same service for Arleigh — at least so Gerry assumed. He reached around under her arms and compressed her breasts and incidentally felt the man’s smooth chest against the backs of his hands. Arleigh’s hands crept around her hips and cupped her buttocks cheeks. Gerry felt the other’s knuckles against his own hips.

Holly took his right hand off her breast and pushed it down over her slick belly into the tangle of her pubic hair. Something warm and rubbery slipped between his fingers, something quite alien to the female territory whose hairy lips yielded to the other side of his fingers. He took a breath and slowly turned his hand out, clasping the appendage, feeling out its extent. It was hard as his own but somewhat thinner. He felt no foreskin; the corona flared unobstructed. How strange to find a glans penis turned backward! How strange to touch one without thrilling to the touch!

But then he felt a reciprocal thrill. One of Arleigh’s hands closed around his own hard shaft. He twitched involuntarily but endured alien fingers exploring his intact foreskin and sensitive knob. They slid down his stem to the base, then closed gently on his testicles. Hastily he extended his own exploration and found that Holly’s report had been correct: Arleigh apparently had no pubic hair. His testicles rode higher in a smaller sack than Gerry’s.

He had been contemplating the ceiling. He cocked his head to look past the woman’s shower cap and discovered that Arleigh was kissing her. Their heads were the same height. Gerry leaned down and licked the back of her neck. She shivered. Her arm slithered under his and her hand joined Arleigh’s on his penis. A moment later he felt her other hand enclose his own around Arleigh’s organ. That accounted for both her hands. He released her breast and slid his left hand down her belly and … encountered yet another hand in her pubes. The other hand obligingly let his finger find the hard lump of her clitoris. Shortly he pushed lower and joined an alien finger in her vaginal passage. He noticed her backbone flexing side to side and surmised that she was grinding her nipples into Arleigh’s chest.

They stood thus under the warm spray, feeling and being felt, for many seconds. Suddenly Holly rotated her body inside their arms in the direction that allowed her to continue clamping a man’s hand on the other’s penis, so that she faced Gerry and raised her lips to his. He kissed her with his tongue and tasted the tuna that he remembered Arleigh having for lunch. She ground her breasts into his chest. The hands on his penis were gently masturbating him, a service that he reciprocated beyond the woman’s buttocks. His free hand cupped a buttocks cheek until he thought of another use for it. He slipped the first digit of the middle finger into her anus.

She sighed, audible above the spray, and withdrew her tongue from his mouth to demand, “Aren’t we clean enough?”

They toweled each other dry. Gerry saw that the other’s organ, while thinner, was about the same length as his own. Indeed the man’s body was hairless: underarms, chest, pubes and legs, all in contrast to Gerry.

Arleigh smiled at the direction of his gaze. “I’ll bet you’re wondering why I don’t have any hair, right?”

Gerry shrugged. “I assume a matter of taste.”

“Billie’s taste. She hates body hair.”

Gerry shook his head. “Does she know what she’s missing?”

“Who knows what she knows? She’d hold me down and shave me if I didn’t submit. I figure submission is the lesser part of nicks and bruises.”

Holly chuckled and explained, “Billie is a very large girl. Come on, you two. The bed is thataway. Or do you want me to lead you by the handles?”

“The handles?” asked Arleigh.

Gerry grinned. “That’s what Myrtle calls it.”

“You’ve met Myrtle? Good for you!” He asked Holly, “How’s Myrtle doing? I can’t remember the last time I saw her. Billie and I must invite her to our next party.”

They were standing beside the bed. Holly took a penis in each hand. Backing away from between them, she pulled the two organs toward each other. “Close it up, gentlemen,” she ordered. “Gerry, I’m about to show you I have a bigger mouth than you thought.”

A whimsical smile appeared on Arleigh’s lips as the male bodies drew close enough for the shorter man’s organ to thrust beneath the taller’s testicles. Holly took both penises into her hand and said to Gerry, “Stoop a little, will you?” He obeyed enough to line up the genitals so that they lay in full vertical contact within her hand.

“That’s right,” she continued. “Both of you lean back. Give me some room.”

She bent over the junction. Gerry could feel mouth replace hand. Her head stroked slowly up and down. Gerry groused, “Too bad we can’t see any of this.”

“We’d have to lie on the bed for that,” Arleigh said, “each with a leg under the other. Then she could come on from the side.”

“I’ve got a simpler idea,” said Gerry. “Take hold of her butt and give me your other hand. We’re going to work our way over to stand in front of that dresser.”

“The mirror? Got’cha!”

Gerry found the reflected image to be a fascinating spectacle: the men’s thighs and knees butted together with their torsos arched apart, forming a human Y. The woman’s buttocks pointed away from the glass, in which her head bobbed over the parallel organs. Both men lent a hand to hold her hair well out of the view.

“Look at that!” Gerry exclaimed. “I can’t believe how deep she’s taking us. Damn near everything, and that’s two of them! It feels like we’re hitting the back of her throat.”

“I agree. It does,” Arleigh allowed, eyes also on the mirror.

“Did you ever suck a dick, Arleigh?”

“You know I have. Want me to suck yours?”

“No, no. The reason I ask is to see if you can explain how it is that she can take so much meat into her mouth.”

The man chuckled. “You got me! I gag if anything hits the back of my throat.”

“No kidding! You admit she gives better head?”

“Well, I don’t know about that. There’s more to good head than how deep it goes. I always thought the skillful part is how it’s finished off.”

Gerry shook his head, breathing, “My god!”

“You’re not coming already!”

“No, no. I’m thinking how unusual it must be to talk about anything when you’re getting your dick sucked.”

Arleigh grinned. “You mean, to get an answer.”

“Exactly.”

“The reason is, we’re not doing anything for Holly.”

“No? I think she’s laughing.”

The woman’s head popped up. She snorted, looking from one to the other. “I can’t believe how cool you two are — like you’re watching somebody else get his cock sucked!”

Arleigh’s eyes lit. “But we are!”

All three laughed. She threw her arms around the men’s shoulders. “Kiss me,” she ordered, “all at once.”

Gerry bent to meet the two mouths at the same height in a three-way kiss. The woman’s hands rose to press the men’s heads tighter. Gerry tasted two tongues, first accepting both, then alternately probing the other mouths. His hand cupped her nearer breast, compressing the nipple between thumb and forefinger. He felt the alien penis nose itself between his thigh and scrotum while his own pressed a slightly stubbled belly.

When Holly finally backed away from the kiss, she asked between gasps, “Will I ever get you guys into bed?”

Standing beside it again, Arleigh said to Gerry, “You’re the largest.”

“So?”

Holly explained, “So you’re on the bottom.” She squeezed a large dollop of lubricating jelly from a tube on the night stand and slathered it into her vulva while Gerry got onto the bed, now covered only with a bottom sheet, and lay on his back. Holly went to hands and knees beside him, then moved over to lie face down atop him. Her large breasts were soft on his chest. She took a moment to kiss his chin, then raised up enough to find his penis and guide it into her vagina. He felt the cold jelly, not yet warmed to her body temperature. She rotated her hips several times, working him deeper within her. His legs closed around hers.

Her breath tickled his cheek. “Better open back up, Gerry.”

Arleigh stood beside the bed, watching them, slowly pumping himself. He grinned. “Don’t forget me.”

“Sorry.” Gerry separated his legs. His hands came up to stroke her sides.

“Come on,” she encouraged, patting Arleigh’s hip.

He stepped over the near pair of legs and crouched between them. She reached behind her and took him in hand. He leaned forward, hands beside Gerry’s shoulders to bear his weight. Gerry felt pressure on the bottom of his penis, a yielding and sliding, then greater compression within the common sheath.

“Hey, tight!” exclaimed the man, grinning.

“I’ll say!” declared the woman. “Can you straighten up a little?”

Gerry raised his hips as the other began a slow thrusting. Shortly the woman’s hips found the rhythm. When Gerry attempted to add his own piston, Arleigh promptly fell out of her. Hands flurried to aid the recovery, and soon Arleigh was successfully reintroduced. After that incident Gerry allowed the other two to provide most of the action.

Though the penises had been introduced one above the other with bottoms in contact, the heads were soon rubbing each other side by side, suggesting to Gerry that the vagina was roomier side-to-side than top-to-bottom. The sensation was strange but not unpleasant. He had found vaginas smooth and tactilely featureless, aside from the cervix sometimes contacted by the glans. Now he was aware of pressures and jostlings and greater compression — and an odor very different from sweaty woman.

Then the woman began to come. Her head was drawn back above his. She moaned between gasps of breath. Her arms enclosed Gerry’s. She drew her knees up and splayed her legs wide over his hips. Her body became rigid.

But not her vagina. Her sphincters gripped the paired penises powerfully in a series of contractions, each punctuated by a moan rising to a scream.

Gerry stared up at Arleigh’s face. The man’s eyes were clenched shut. His nostrils flared for each breath. His mouth hung open, drooling a line of spittle. “I’m coming, too!” he announced.

Gerry felt a coolness around his organ and a marked decrease in friction. Holly screamed as if she had been burned. Gerry felt his own climax rise. He clamped the woman’s hip bones in his hands and drove his penis as far as he could into her beside the other straining organ. Straining and groaning, he mixed his fluids with the others.

The weight increased as Arleigh sagged upon the woman, but Gerry was hardly aware of it. Her arms and legs relaxed. She turned panting lips to kiss Gerry’s chin, then raised her head farther, turning back, he surmised, to kiss Arleigh.

Still panting slightly, Arleigh backed off her and fell beside them on the bed. He propped his head up on an elbow, grinned with pleasure and exclaimed, “Wow!”

Holly heaved a great sigh and propped herself up with elbows on Gerry’s chest. “And it’ll get even better the more relaxed we are — the more we do it.” She studied his face a moment and demanded, “What do you think?”

He said seriously, “I doubt you can beat it for sheer sensation.”

Her eyes widened. She looked from him to Arleigh. “Men!”

“But he’s right,” argued Arleigh. “I can’t believe you don’t agree.”

She tossed her head. “Well, it’s not that I don’t agree. It’s just that men don’t ever quite seem to understand fully.”

“What did we miss?” he asked, eyes twinkling.

Her eyes swung back to Gerry. “To me it’s like being buried alive in a barrel of love.”

“‘A barrel of love,’” Arleigh repeated. “I like that.”

“Both of you all around me, in me … Ooo! I came so hard!”

“Well,” suggested Arleigh dryly, “you had the advantage on us.”

Gerry asked with interest. “Do you think all women would like that?”

“Why not?” was Arleigh’s response.

Holly was more thoughtful. “I can’t speak for all women, but I think a lot would. I met a woman anthropologist at a university party who claimed that polyandry is the natural order for the human animal.”

“Tell that to the women!” Arleigh declared.

Holly snorted. “Women aren’t the problem.”

“Implying that men are?”

“I’ve noticed that most men are uncomfortable just exposing themselves to each other.”

Arleigh nodded. “And touching each other is beyond the pale! But you’ve found two that don’t mind.”

“Yes.”

Gerry noted, “A swinger and a straight who had to expose himself every night for six years. She’s right. It can’t be common.”

Arleigh regarded him with interest. “Did you ever touch a man’s equipment before today, Gerry?”

“No, not a man’s. I handled boys’ in the orphanage.”

“How old were you?”

“I don’t know; twelve, thirteen, the last time.”

“You were curious, weren’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Well, here’s the chance to satisfy your curiosity fully.”

Gerry grunted. “I know what a man’s equipment is like.”

Arleigh’s eyes twinkled. “You know what I mean, Gerry.”

“I’m not gay.”

“I understand. But doing it over a woman makes it all right.”

Gerry looked up into Holly’s eyes. “What do you think of that idea?”

She grinned. “I would be fascinated to see what men do.”

“You’d bless it, would you?”

“I told you, Gerry: I want what you want.”

Gerry chuckled wryly. “I guess I always was curious about certain things.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Most people are. About what, for example?”

He took a breath. “Well, how a dick feels in your mouth, for example. Hey, there’s a question! You heard Arleigh say a long one gags him, but not you. Why not?”

“Practice,” she answered promptly. She chuckled at his suddenly blank expression. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

She got off him and walked out of the room toward the kitchen. He saw that Arleigh was trying not to grin.

Gerry said roughly, “Does she mean she’s sucked more dicks than you have?”

Arleigh shrugged. “She’s older.” As the other’s expression clouded over, he raised a placatory hand. “Just kidding. No, I don’t think she’s done more than I have. Here she comes. Maybe she’ll explain.”

Holly was peeling a banana, one obviously selected for length. She flung the yellow peel aside, held up the intact white pulp by one end between the tips of her fingers and thumb, and said, “Watch!” She leaned forward, bent her face parallel to the floor and thrust the fruit upward into her mouth until the whole thing, two hands-widths in length, was out of sight. The tips of her fingers stopped just at her lips.

“Good god!” breathed both men together. Arleigh added reverently, “It’s got to be in the bottom of her throat!”

She cut twinkling eyes around at them, then slowly withdrew the long, white stalk. She laughed at their amazed expressions and declared, “That’s nothing. I once saw a girl take a cock that was a foot long.”

Arleigh shook his head. “That banana must be eight or nine inches. How did you do it?”

“I told you: practice. On bananas.” She grinned at Gerry. “I was at a party years ago where they introduced a game called the ‘Banana Suck.’ The hostess offered a prize to the girl who could take the longest banana. It was a good party idea: a lot of laughs and half-witted observations, like ‘At least it won’t spit on you.’ When I tried it, I gagged, just like you said, Arleigh, and threw up on my new gown.” She smiled. “I always hated to get beat at anything, the more trivial the worse. So the next day I bought me some bananas and went into the bathroom to practice. Guess what I found out: the gag reflex is trainable! Here, Gerry. Try it.”

He grunted. “Maybe Arleigh ought to try it.” But he took the banana, held it a quarter of the way along its length and slowly inserted it into his mouth. When it touched the back of his throat, his stomach contracted involuntarily and his gorge rose.

Holly covered her mouth, but directed, “Don’t just touch it back there. A guy pushing a cock always tries to stick it through to your belly button. Work it back and forth.”

In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought, obeying her — and very nearly losing the remains of the turkey sandwich he had eaten for lunch. He removed the fruit, tasting bile in the back of his throat, and demanded plaintively, “How much practice?”

Arleigh turned away. Holly laughed but restrained herself. “I can only tell you this. Two weeks later there was another party. This time I won the Banana Suck!”

“Two weeks?”

“Well, ten minutes every night.”

Arleigh snickered. “And then you could even chew it up.”

She sniffed. “You should’ve been at the parties.”

“Did any men try it?”

“With a lot of other men standing around watching? You’ve got to be kidding!”

Arleigh studied Gerry speculatively. “Well, neither of our dicks is as long as what you just put in your mouth, though yours may be thicker.”

Gerry slowly took a breath. “They’re still dicks.”

Arleigh’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I resisted them for six years in a place where only dicks were available. I could’ve satisfied my curiosity a thousand times over. I think I can get along without knowing, but thanks for the offer.”

* * * *

They retired shortly after supper. With Holly’s head on his shoulder, Gerry mused, “He was right. Doing it with a woman takes the meanness out of it.”

“Gay stuff?”

“Handling him, rubbing dicks in the woman’s mouth or cunt. If that’s what you call ‘gay stuff.’”

“I thought you enjoyed it.”

“I did, I admit. But that was enough for me. I’m not queer!”

“Nobody said you were.”

“If I’d done what he wanted, though, even if it was only because I was curious, even with you helping …”

“You feel strongly about it, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do, and it’s more than just not caring for a man’s body sexually. In fact I might find sucking a dick to be stimulating. But it would also be a kind of submission, of giving in. I don’t think you can do that and continue to be a man. You can still be a person, and if you’re a woman, be loved for it, but you aren’t fully a man.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Men never give in?”

“Not voluntarily.” He chuckled. “Except to a woman, of course.”

“Oh? You’ll give in to me?”

“You know I will.” He gestured around them. “Fully.”

She smiled and snuggled closer.

After a bit he mused, “You absolutely love to have two men at once, don’t you?”

She sighed. “That’s true, Gerry, especially when one of them is very close to me. I think today may have been the best ever for me. Because of you. Because you were protecting me, I could really let myself go.”

“You really did let go, didn’t you? You’re hot, my sweet!”

Her voice was cautious. “Do you understand what I’m showing you, Gerry?”

“That you really like to fuck?”

“Oh, Gerry!” She took a breath. “Well, I guess that’s the basic point. I’m an uninhibited woman. As I told you in the beginning, I’ll do anything with you that doesn’t cause pain. Other ways, other women, other men, whatever. What you want is what I want.”

“Okay. Your point is that you really mean it, right?”

“But that’s not all.”

“What else?”

She snuggled closer. At last she said, so softly he could barely hear, “Don’t you think you’re a little bit lucky to have a woman like me?”