“About that?”
“Well, not specifically, but it comes up sometimes. Marianne gets annoyed that Harry still does it. Well, when he does it at home—not while he’s on cruise, I mean. Lynne doesn’t mind about James, whenever he does it.”
Leah’s dark eyes widened as the details kept coming.
“I don’t know what Sabrina thinks about Danny,” Christy continued with barely a pause for breath. “They aren’t officially married yet, but they live together, and I know they have sex a lot. She travels for work—she’s a model—so they ‘make up for lost time’ when they’re together. I’m sure he masturbates when they aren’t, but she’s never said anything about it.
“I don’t know about Rich,” she added thoughtfully. “I assume he still does, especially since he doesn’t have a steady girlfriend, but you never know with him. He’s just… weird sometimes. And he’s never really had a girlfriend we could talk to. He never keeps them long. Women don’t really ‘get’ him, I think. He’s so intense. And his sense of humor’s really weird. My mother says it’s ‘macabre,’ whatever that means.
“I looked it up one time,” Christy went on, “and I suppose she’s right. He jokes about killing people like it’s nothing. He threatens to kill Paul, like, every time he sees him, and sometimes even when he doesn’t! Ha ha! But he really likes him. He’s too stubborn to admit it, but I can tell.”
All of a sudden she faltered and fell silent. “Oh, sorry. I was chattering, wasn’t I?”
I slow-nodded.
“Sorry,” she repeated. “Where were we? Oh, right. So… um… yeah. Most guys masturbate.”
Leah was still trying to process everything she’d just heard, so I gave her a moment before I forged ahead.
“We do it even when we’re in a happy relationship,” I said. “So it doesn’t mean Mark’s unhappy if he does it.”
Leah finally snapped out of it. “Yeah,” she agreed, “my mom told me the same thing.” She sighed, acceptance if not enthusiasm. Then she looked at her glass. It was empty, which explained why she’d gone off on a tangent about guys and our masturbation habits. I refilled it and emptied the remaining drops into Christy’s.
“Uh-oh. Do we—?”
“Way ahead of you.” I retrieved a new bottle from the closet. It was the last one, so I made a mental note to have the man at the liquor store order more. It was an expensive habit, but it beat the alternatives.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Christy said.
“Mmm.” I twisted the top and cracked the paper tape. Then I poured a generous amount into her glass. I met her eyes and added a silent order, Don’t drink too fast.
“Yes, sir,” she said quietly.
Leah heard but didn’t say anything. Instead, she watched as Christy thought through the conversation for the past few minutes.
“Sorry,” she said eventually. “Where were we?”
Leah had to think too.
“Brooke and Hunter,” I prompted.
“Right!” Leah said. “So… um… she never did anything with him?”
“No,” Christy said. “She wanted to, though.”
“What about you?”
“Hunter’s all right. He’s cute, I suppose, but not my type.”
Leah laughed. “No, I meant you and Laurence. Did you spy on him?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did he jerk off?”
“Probably, but never where I could see.”
“That’s too bad. So, you never saw his dick?”
“I did. Um… once. I asked him to pose for me. I was learning figure drawing,” she explained. “He only wore a towel, a small one like we used for swimming. It covered him fine, so I guess he didn’t even think about it. Then he fell asleep and moved his knee. His towel parted, and I could see his penis. He started dreaming and got really hard.”
Leah hesitated. “Did you do anything?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He was my brother. And… I was too scared.”
“That’s—” Leah cleared her throat. “That’s probably a good thing.”
“I suppose.”
“Do you regret it? Not doing anything?”
“Not really. Only… sometimes I do.”
Leah sipped her drink as a way to cover her own mixed emotions. She was clearly excited, but she also felt Christy’s sense of loss. She didn’t want to seem insensitive, even though Christy had had several years to compartmentalize and adjust.
I knew better. She still missed Laurence, but it wasn’t a raw wound anymore. Besides, she’d finally drunk enough to overwhelm her metabolism, and her senses were a bit dulled. Leah hadn’t drunk nearly as much, but she was feeling its effects as well.
“I suppose that’s why I want Paul and Erin to go all the way,” Christy said after a moment. “I can pretend it’s Laurence and me. I can live…” She frowned and stared into space, and I had to admire the way her mind worked. She was listening to a conversation we’d had sometime in the past. “Oh, right! Vicariously! I can live vicariously through them.”
Leah didn’t notice the pause. She was too caught up in the story.
“Me, too,” she said. “I mean, I’ve always thought of Paul like a brother, way more than a boyfriend. It’s been that way since we were kids. And… I wanted him to be my first.”
“Me too,” Christy said. “He wasn’t my first-first. Not technically—”
“Me neither,” Leah agreed.
“—but the first one I really enjoyed.”
“Exactly!” Leah’s eyelids drooped, and she inhaled sharply in an attempt to clear her head. She raised her glass and peered at it owlishly. “What’s in this?”
“Irish whiskey,” I said. “The good stuff, 18-year-old.”
“Wow, as old as me.”
“Mmm.”
“It’s good. Not as smoky as the stuff my dad drinks.” She took another sip. “Loosens your tongue the same, though.”
“Morals, too,” Christy muttered.
“No,” I said gently. “It just gives you the courage to do what you’ve always wanted.”
“Maybe you should drink more,” Leah suggested. “Then you’d go all the way with Erin.”
I chuckled and didn’t answer.
“Okay, maybe not tonight. But as long as we’re talking about going all the way… big brother.”
I felt dizzy all of a sudden, a combination of alcohol and lack of blood to a certain vital organ.
I’m a vital organ, the little head said smugly.
Treacherous, too.
You want me to take over?
Might as well, I told him. You’re going to anyway.
“Wow!” Leah laughed when my erection sprang up. “You sure know how to make a girl happy.”
“Two of us,” Christy agreed.
“D’you mind if I borrow him?” she asked her. “I need his big dick. I know, I know,” she admitted, a bit drunkenly, “I said I don’t care about size, but that was a li’l white lie. Please don’t tell Mark,” she added quickly. “I love sucking him, but I like Paul better inside me. It’s ’cause he’s thicker. You un’erstand, don’t you?”
“Of course,” Christy said. “I told you, I think he’s perfect.”
“Almost perfect,” Leah corrected. “His timing sucks. Then again, so does mine.”
“Well, our timing’s good tonight,” I said. “Come here.”
* * *
Leah lay on her stomach and didn’t move for a long time. We’d come at the same time, but only in the way that fireworks and a bonfire go off together. My orgasm had been short and intense, a shower of sparks that had lit up the night but faded just as quickly. Hers was a fire that had started small and grown slowly, stoked with every thrust. It had been an inferno for a while, and the embers of it were still burning—her dark skin glowed with the heat of it.
Her climax eventually subsided, and she relaxed into a languorous semi-doze. A sheen of sweat covered her, and her dark hair lay damp where it touched her skin. Almost on cue, the air conditioner came on. Cool air washed over us like an invisible Niagara. I shivered at the sudden chill and had one of those random post-orgasmic thoughts that seem to happen to me more than others.