Hal woke by habit at dawn, warm enough on the pile of cushions because the gas heater still hissed across the room, but hungry, no, starving. The food in the oven was probably dried crispy; he didn’t even want to look. He extricated himself from the two women, and shook Evelyn’s shoulder.
“Wake up,” he whispered. “When do you have to be at school?”
She grunted as she sat up. “It’s morning?”
He searched around for their clothes and they quietly dressed. Evelyn put on jeans that were way too long because they were Rebecca’s, so she had to take them off again and feel around under the cushions until she found her own. Together they tiptoed out of the apartment.
At home in the shower as he soaped Evelyn’s breasts while she washed her hair, Hal asked, “So, was last night what you wanted?”
She let the water run over her head and cascade down her breasts, carrying sweat, soap and dirt. “Yes, it was,” she said. “I think we’re learning what to do with three, don’t you?”
“It worked,” he said. “I liked it. But this is nice, too.” He soaped her breasts again, rubbing his palms in circles over them.
She sighed as she placed herself under the flow of warm water again. “I’m glad it worked out, I just wouldn’t want to lose track of this, though. Us. The pair.”
“I don’t think we ever would,” he said. “It’s just nice to have variety, someone like Rebecca, a different taste. I’d like to have many different tastes to share with you.’
“What?” she said, stopping with her hand on the faucet. She felt a physical shift, as though they had momentarily uncoupled and changed directions before rotating together again.
“You seem surprised. But you were a different person, too, with Rebecca there, and that was really interesting. Maybe confusing at first, then just exciting.” He began to whistle, which Evelyn realized she’d never heard him do before.
“We have time for boiled eggs before I have to leave,” she said, turning off the faucet, and grabbing a towel off the rack.
Rebecca woke alone. She’d heard them leave earlier, as she’d known they would, but had preferred not to let them know she cared about being left alone, calmly rolling over and drifting back to sleep so they wouldn’t realize she’d been awake. Why fuss about it? She pulled a large cushion over herself, thinking of moving out, finding a bigger place, a better job, a lover who wanted only her.
“Enough of these screwed-up sex fiends,” she mumbled to her pillows, including herself in that description because she had to admit last night had been a charge, until they’d left her. If she had the energy, she’d climb up to her loft bed for the rest of the day, but no, she decided it would be better to clean out her cupboards, throw out that Chinese food, probably rancid by now, and invite Hal for lunch. The best part of last night, she decided, was when she’d had him in her mouth, shutting out Evelyn, even the mainframe of Hal, just his cock in her mouth, like everything she’d ever wanted.
She dialled their number, knowing Hal would be working at home alone by now. “Hi,” she said when he answered brusquely with a single “Yes?” no doubt expecting a call from work.
“I loved last night,” she said after a pause. He didn’t recognize her voice, after all that?
But then he said, “Rebecca!”
She listened to his breathing quicken. “I was just thinking, you guys left so suddenly I didn’t even wake up to say goodbye! Would you like to come over for lunch?”
“Well. .” He sounded doubtful. “Evelyn’s at school, so I don’t think she could make it.”
“She used to come over for lunch all the time,” said Rebecca. “But I guess she’s having a busy day today.”
“Yeah,” said Hal after a pause that made Rebecca smile to herself. “She sometimes serves lunch at the Culinary Institute’s restaurant. We should go there, it’s a great deal.”
“And let student cooks practise on us?” Rebecca protested. “No, I’d rather have you to myself today.”
“We’d have to make reservations in advance anyhow, it’s really popular. So, OK, I’ll come over. Not for that old Chinese food, I hope.”
“Oh, God, no, I tossed that out. How about soup? Tomato soup with cheese? We called it Blushing Bunnies in Girl Scouts. Hardly gourmet, but good.”
“Blushing Bunnies?” he laughed. “Sounds as good as your blushing behind. I’ll be there.”
Well, well, she thought as she got ready, putting blush on her lips, her cheeks, and thinking about doing her ass, too, but that would probably just rub off on her clothes. She didn’t think he’d be ready for a nude greeting at the door, but maybe soon. She found two cans of tomato soup in her cupboard, and some rather hardened cheese in the fridge, but grated and melted it would taste fine. At least it wasn’t turning green.
When the bell rang at noon, she buzzed him in and greeted him at her open door with a kiss. “Back so soon?” she murmured, then, daring, slipped a hand over his cock, which rose beneath his jeans in a greeting of its own.
Take Me to Carnevale
Maxim Jakubowski
They had arranged to meet in a small cafe on the left hand side of Campo Santa Maria Formosa, right opposite the church and the hospital. It was February. It was Venice. A thin morning mist still shrouded the city, floating in from the lagoon, like a shimmering curtain of silk, half obscuring the old stones, the canals and the normal sounds of the floating city.
The connection had been made over the Internet.
He hadn’t even brought his laptop with him on this Venice trip, but the apartment they were staying in, which he had agreed to house-sit for friends travelling in India, had a computer in almost every room and a wi-fi connection and it had been, for both of them, almost too much of a temptation. Like allowing their fate to be decided by the vagaries of electronic availability.
Emma had been sitting on one of the sofas, half reading and half daydreaming, while he listened to music on his iPod. Right then the soundtrack by Nick Cave for The Assassination of Jesse James, he would remember later.
“I don’t know,” Emma had said, and he had known exactly the precise words she had uttered, just from reading her lips behind the threnody in his ears. It was something she often mumbled when things were not quite right.
He’d switched off the music and turned towards her. “What is it?”
The green of her eyes emerged from a sea of sadness. “You know. .” she replied.
He knew. Oh yes, he knew. They were just going nowhere, and no earnest conversation could put them back on track. Even in Venice.
They had reached the city a week or so earlier, arriving at Marco Polo airport. To save money, they had not gone to the extravagance of taking a water taxi but, instead, the bus which took them across the Ponte Della Liberta to Piazzale Roma where they had caught a vaporetto down the Grand Canal to the Rialto Bridge stop and, following the map they had been emailed by his friends, had somehow made their way on foot to the apartment, dodging the customary labyrinth of small bridges and lesser canals.
By now they had seen a multitude of churches, several handfuls of Titian and Canaletto paintings, eaten too much exquisite food to jade the best of palates and suffered an indigestion of baroque and classical architecture and the silences between them were growing longer.
From their bedroom window, they could see St Mark’s Place and the Doge’s Palace and the Campanile across a bend in the Canal. But the weather was cold and humid and the old building’s heating was stuttering at its best and they’d had to wear sweatshirts most of the time both inside and outside.