She kissed Ryan. “We still have each other,” she said.
He leaned back, surprise on his face. “Of course we still have each other.”
“Good.”
She squeezed him hard, pressing her face back against his chest. He pulled her in tighter.
They stood that way for a long while.
31
Ryan pulled the car to a stop in front of the massive suburban house on what could hardly even be called a corner lot. The front of the house, and much of the driveway, were obscured by trees. Low lights lit a path to the door, and small spotlights lit up the columned facade. The driveway held a line of cars, all dark colors. The car in front of him on the street had the trademark space-age T hood ornament of a Tesla. He exhaled sharply, taking it all in, wondering if they had any business being there.
“Are we ready for this?” he asked Jennifer.
“You can say no anytime you want,” she replied, taking in for herself the extravagance before her.
“I’m just asking,” he said back.
Their preparations for this event had been a multi-day slog. Jennifer had been back and forth from the hair salon, the nail salon, a waxing salon. “If they’re all perfectly bald, I’m certainly not going to be the only one with bush,” she’d told him when he questioned it.
When she’d returned from that appointment the day before, Jennifer’s jeans had gone down in a flash to show him her freshly waxed vulva, pink, almost throbbing. “Yeah,” she said, looking down at it. “It hurt.”
Ryan had made his own trip out to a local sex shop called Priscilla’s for an accessory for himself. He’d stared at the rack of “Male Enhancers,” little red and blue pills vacupacked to cards, all with different names that made him feel woefully inadequate for needing them. Cock-SURE! Hard-All-Nite! Not that he had any reason to believe he did, in fact, need them. He’d only had trouble once or twice in their time with Bruce and Paige, but it had been the distraction of too much happening at once that had done it. Something that might well be the case at a party like this.
He’d finally decided on CockStarr, after the girl with the nose ring and the blue hair told him, “Avoid the top row. And that one called CockStarr is the only one I’ve ever been told works. So…”
He’d grabbed the pack even if the lack of space and extra “r” made him mildly nervous, along with a box of condoms and some lube, and was home before Jennifer. As the card recommended in disconcertingly broken English, Ryan took the pill on empty stomach, up with two hours before activity. It came with the rather ridiculous promise to last up to 72 hours.
Since he’d arrived home before her, he’d spent a good fifteen minutes with his electric trimmer trying to figure out what today’s wealthy man might do with their pubic hair. In the end, he’d admitted defeat, and decided against doing anything more than trim off the longer bits. As he stared at his genitals in their bathroom mirror, he shrugged, wondering if anyone really noticed or cared about such things.
When Jennifer returned from her nail appointment, she’d found him standing in front of their full length mirror, looking at his newly shorn genitals. “You trimmed,” she said.
“Yeah.” He looked at her. “Is it weird?”
She shook her head. “Doesn’t look much different. Just more visible.”
He’d nodded.
“Do we belong here?” he asked her, parked behind the Tesla, lit by the house’s ambient lighting.
“I have no idea,” she said.
Ryan smiled at her. Even in the dim light, she looked amazing. Her hair hung in a cascade of large curls. Her makeup smoky charcoal, lips glistening crimson to match her nails. Her cleavage sparkled with glitter lotion, a pale expanse over the top of her littlest and blackest of dresses. Perhaps the question was not if they belonged there, but if he did.
When picking out what he’d wear for the evening, he’d tried his hardest to look as effortlessly handsome as Bruce, but had quickly realized that it was quite difficult to try hard to do something effortlessly. He’d ultimately decided on a gray blazer with a black button down beneath it. If he didn’t look great, perhaps he’d just blend into the background. Every attempt to try something different with his hair had led to regret, so ultimately he’d stuck with his go-to side part.
Before they’d left for the evening, Jennifer had squeezed past Ryan into their small master bathroom, and he’d felt an almost instant tightening in his pants. “My, that was sudden,” she said, reaching out to feel his hardness with her hand.
“I took a thing,” he said, feeling sheepish, as though it was somehow dishonest of him if he didn’t mention it. He pointed to the torn card backing on the top in the trash can.
“Oh, really?” she smirked.
“Stupid?”
“No,” she’d said, the smirk vanishing. “Whatever will help you feel comfortable. It’s…”
“Intimidating,” he’d finished.
Everything about this felt intimidating. The house. The expanse of snow covered lawn. The Tesla. To say nothing about what was likely already happening inside the house. He reached across the center console and grabbed Jennifer’s hand.
“Did you try them again?” she asked him.
He nodded.
“Leave a voicemail?”
He sighed. “I don’t want to leave another one.”
“Yeah,” she said, sullen.
“We’ll see them tonight, or we won’t. We’ll play with them…”
“Or we won’t.”
He nodded again.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’m okay. Are you?”
She nodded a bit, revving up her enthusiasm. “Today is the day we change our lives.”
“Been doing that for a while now, I think.”
“No,” she took his other hand and turned toward him. “This is on our terms. We’re not beholden to Bruce and Paige, not afraid of looks or judgment from the Watkins or Mortons…”
He agreed. “This is the deep end.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Sink or swim.”
The deep end had seemed so improbable and far away after that phone call with Bruce, after that awful night. For the first time, this “fix” that they’d stumbled onto had seemed like a mirage, an apparition. He’d even suggested to Jennifer that they go back to see Dr. Petrillo.
Jennifer had been surprised. “I thought you didn’t want his help anymore.”
“I don’t have that same confidence that I did,” Ryan offered, feeling ashamed.
“I’ll absolutely go back, but,” she’d lifted his face up to meet hers, sitting next to him on the couch in front of the fireplace. He’d paused his video game. “But you’re still awesome. And me, I’m still awesome.”
He didn’t feel awesome. He’d told her that.
“Do you want to be in a monogamous four-way relationship with Bruce and Paige?” she’d asked him, surprising him with the question, surprising him with the concept.
“I’m not—”
“As strongly as I felt,” she’d said, “And believe me I felt more strongly than I thought, I still looked at that as the beginning. Didn’t you?”
He had. Bruce and Paige were to be their first swinging playmates. Not their last. Not their only. Perhaps enthusiasm and affection had hijacked that and steered it, but there’d always been the planned eventuality of dating again.
“We’ve got some ‘don’t do’s now, I think.” Her laugh was strained and a bit melancholy. “But we can still do this.”
He was impressed by her enthusiasm. The subject of what now had come up so infrequently that first week after the, may as well call a spade a spade, breakup. Both of them had gone on acting like business were indeed as usual, as though the date they’d scheduled for the following Friday hadn’t been canceled.