A/N: This is a selection from Loose, a story I previously shared about a queer physical therapist who gets into a threeway relationship with a femdom and her rockstar husband. You can find more details about Loose on my profile.
*****
While in a meeting with his bandmates and their manager, Blair, Griffin shifted his weight onto a bulge in the back pocket of his jeans. He grinned. In the past month, he'd been keeping his women's panties on his person, and good luck had abounded. The album was finished, and his band was up for a front-page interview in a major magazine to boost the first single.
His grin broadened as he thought back to his girlfriend, Chakah, packing for Fremont and complaining that he'd depleted her underwear supply. She hadn't understood why he couldn't keep one clean pair and leave the rest alone. Griffin had explained that undies were nothing to him without her seasoning on them; and though she'd given him a look, Chakah had rolled with it.
His wife, Luz, enjoyed his habit. Sometimes she made a game of tackling him and finding his good-luck panties, only to use them as a gag and fuck him once she did.
Lost in thoughts of their burgeoning threeway relationship, Griffin declined Blair's offer to take them all out to celebrate. He told his bandmates he had errands to run.
"Gotta get home to his wifey," their bassist, Ace, teased. He made a joke about being whipped that aggravated Griffin's qualms about "submission."
Just thinking the word still made him squirm, despite the late night Internet research he'd done. He'd begun to think he could get down with BDSM if nobody knew, but now he wondered if his inclinations had been evident during his whole ten years of marriage. His wife had been a femdom, after all.
Blair socked Ace's shoulder as the bassist shuffled out of the office behind the other guys. "Don't be insensitive."
Griffin disliked that comment just as much. Since Luz had returned to public life following her car accident, rumors about their divorce were worse than ever. He'd been trying to keep a cool head and focus on the positive, efforts that hadn't been helped by Blair's attempts to parlay the rumors into publicity.
True to form, his manager said, "I'll email you the preview questions for the interview. Like I expected, they asked if the new single is about your divorce."
"And I already told you, it ain't."
"That's gonna be a tough sell, since you dedicated the song to another woman at your New Year's party. Luckily, she's nobody, but..." Blair shrugged.
Griffin struggled to keep his expression neutral. "Chakah's not nobody. She used to be my wife's physical therapist, and now she's a close—" The word friend stuck in his mouth and tasted like a lie. "We're all close."
"You know what I mean: she's not hot. But they're still going to wonder what that was about."
Griffin bit the inside of his cheek to keep from defending Chakah. That would only add fuel to a fire he was trying to put out.
Though much shorter of stature, Blair placed a hand on Griffin's shoulder. He made a sympathetic face that seemed as fake as his tan. "You know, I could get you booked on a talk show tomorrow, if you're willing to confirm the split. Females love a wounded heartthrob, and everyone knows your wife is a raging feminist. We could spin it as—"
"I ain't gettin' divorced, Blair." Griffin shrugged off his manager's cold-fish touch and strode toward the door. "And for the record? Raging feminist pussy is delicious."
Fury made him deaf, dumb, and blind on the elevator ride down to the parking structure. Though he'd only planned to go box and then grab dinner, he ended up at Luz's loft after reading a rumor that she had gotten into an altercation with paparazzi and reinjured her leg. He'd been following her around in the month since she'd moved out of his house, but it wasn't like he interfered or foamed at the mouth like a peeping Tom. He simply felt an undeniable need to check up on her.
He didn't call, even though he now sat in his car across the street from her place. If she picked up, she'd only ask him to agree on a new mediation date, since he'd faked an emergency to get out of the first one.
Griffin banged his fist against the steering wheel, still regretting he'd pulled such a stunt when there wasn't even anything to argue. He had no problem with her getting what California common law said she deserved. Meanwhile, Luz didn't seem to care one way or the other. She just wanted to move on—but to what still scared him, despite two days a week with a shrink. He felt rudderless without someone in his life to love.
"Pathetic," he muttered, though his therapist had said having a big heart didn't necessarily make him needy. Griffin laughed darkly, figuring she'd change her tune if she knew where he was right then.
He picked up his phone to check the time and saw a text message from Chakah. Griffin smiled, hoping she was having a good time in Fremont at her sister's wedding, but the corners of his mouth soon dropped at the news she'd had another run in with her mother Lorraine, who was as mean in her criticisms of Chakah being big as she was steadfast in her denial about Chakah being queer. Her best friend Briggs had sent the message in her stead, saying Chakah needed support.
Fired up on her behalf, Griffin pounded the steering wheel so hard he set off the horn. He called to get the address to Chakah's family's home, needing to wrap his arms around her to be sure she was okay. After the call went to voicemail, he bit the bullet and called Luz for the address.
At first, he thought she wouldn't answer, either. The phone rang several times before he looked up to see Luz standing at her window.
"Shit." Panicked, Griffin started the engine and began to pull away.
Having answered the phone, she said, "I already see you in the car, perv. Why are you leaving?"
After bouncing his dumbass skull off the seat's headrest, Griffin plastered what he hoped was a not-creepy smile on his face. He looked at her and waved.
She flipped him off.
Shifting back into his parking space, he asked, "Would you believe I raced over here as soon as I heard the news?"
"Nice try. I'll be down in a few."
Ten minutes later, Luz pushed through the front doors of her building, carrying a bag. She was talking on the phone and looked stunning in a retro, navy-and-white romper perfectly suited for a balmy June night. With her short, dark hair spiked up and next to no makeup, Luz looked like the hard femme nineteen-year-old girl she'd been when they'd met at a gas station ten years ago.
Griffin popped the locks then pulled his T-shirt up to his nose, hoping he didn't smell as badly as he looked. It shouldn't have mattered. They weren't going on a date. Still, after she slung her bag in the backseat and then climbed in beside him, he felt nervous.
Luz covered her handset. "Her father and sister are with her now, but I gathered that her family still doesn't know about the three of us. If we both show up, Chakah will have to explain it, and I'm sure she's not ready for that conversation right now. In fact, she was hinting that she doesn't want us to be bothered coming."
"Well, Briggs ain't our biggest fan, so I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have messaged us both if Cha-Cha didn't need us there."
"Good point. He said he'll call when they leave, but it's looking like an all-nighter. He suggested we check into a hotel and come in the morning. Wedding guests are staying at the Hilton."
"Then here comes the cavalry. I just need to run home to get some things." He turned on the car and put it in drive. "You got the hotel's address?" After she showed him a text on her phone, and he entered it in the car's navigation system.
