I want to thank Beauteous for creating the characters and the setting for this story – essentially, she wrote the most important parts. I had the easy part to write: the SEX! A good time was enjoyed by all…J
Angelina shivered, although the room was not cold. James stood at the entrance of the bedroom, waiting. Max sat heavily on the bed, removing his socks and shoes. Angelina noticed the socks were stained and one had a hole in the toe. He patted the bed beside him. Angelina sat and removed hers as well. Why was James still standing in the doorway? She motioned him in. He gave a tentative smile, bent, removed his socks and shoes, and then sat on the other side of her. The room smelled musty. Max had obviously not thought to air it out before their rendezvous.
Max gently kissed her cheek. There was a time when those full lips alone would have made her wet. Instead, she felt a surge of anger. How could he kiss her with such affection? As though he truly loved her?
Max, the giant, was such an opposite of her first love. Stephen had been slight, almost bony, a waif of a man, yet he had called her his Little Vixen. God, she had loved him, drunk on love. What was most unbelievable was how much he adored her in return. When he was diagnosed with leukaemia, she’d thought, “Ah, so that’s it. The universe could never allow such happiness to continue,” and she’d been right. He was dead within a year. She might as well have been also. For two years, she walked around like a robot, functioning, efficient, but without emotion. She hadn’t even reacted when the mugger or rapist or whatever he was accosted her in the underground parking one night when she’d stayed late after work.
That’s how she had met Max. He’d heard her scream. She didn’t remember doing it; it must have been an automatic reflex. Max had come racing out of the dark and slammed the man against a concrete pole hard enough to send the knife flying. Her attacker had taken one look at this colossus and run for his life. The police never caught the man. Max had stuck by her for the entire night and driven her home afterward. They wound up in bed. She couldn’t remember how. Perhaps it was another automatic reflex.
From that moment on, Max considered Angelina his girl. She neither confirmed nor denied it. Sex had been rather routine. She seldom orgasmed, and when she did it was a biological response. He made love as though mining for gold, with exact attention, but no true joy. They never, ever laughed.
She felt momentarily sorry for James, stuck in the middle of “The Zombie and the Giant Have Sex.” They’d been together now for six months and Max had continually brought up the subject of a threesome. She’d laughed the first time, thinking he was doing a Seinfeld joke. She could not wrap her head around the idea of touching another woman intimately. She thought about Max with another woman and felt…nothing. If Stephen had ever wanted someone else, Angelina would have had to kill her. She’d told Max they might be better off apart. He responded with “the plan” to spice up their relationship. Perhaps if he’d been more interested in spicing her up, she might have actually felt something. He was coarse and dull but safe.
He’d spoken of love, but nothing beyond, as though that was the final destination. Now, it had become perfunctory. “Have a nice day – I love you.” “Can you pick up the dry cleaning? – I love you.” “Suck my cock because I’m horny after reading the latest Penthouse – I love you.” There were moments when she wished she could force him to take it back. Rewind. It seemed an abuse of the phrase, the way he used it. She’d never said it back.
Eventually, Max had switched tactics. “Wouldn’t you like to be the tomato sandwich?” “You know how sometimes I cum too fast for you. Two guys could definitely satisfy you.”
Angelina had argued about venereal disease, their reputations being ruined, blackmail, everything except what she really felt. How could he ever want another man to touch her the way he did? How could he want that intrusion, that violation of their relationship? “What if we like it? Are we going to invited every available guy into our bed afterward?” He’d laughed and said if she liked. At that moment, she had hated him. That wasn’t love. Love was being the center of each other’s universe, the yin to
their
yang. There was no yung spinning in the circle. Just two.
James lifted a lock of her long auburn hair, twirled it around his fingers, closed his eyes, and inhaled its scent. She remembered his poem: “
I closed my eyes, your scent Floated by on gossamer flies
.” She looked into his quiet face. He wore his brown hair very short and had a mild widow’s peak. His goatee and moustache were neatly trimmed. His eyebrows were thick, but not unruly, one slightly more pointed than the other. His ears were small and very flat against his perfectly shaped head. He was sturdily built, a sensual languidness about his movements. His eyes were almond shaped and piercingly blue, such a contrast to her deep brown.
Max pulled her sweater over her head, catching it on one earring.
“Ow!” she protested.
James deftly untangled it, folded the sweater and tossed it into the corner. His eyes strayed down over her bra to her swell of breasts. Angelina felt a blush rise. Max unhooked her bra and threw it onto the sweater. Angelina resisted the urge to cross her arms.
“You’re beautiful,” whispered James.
The voice felt so strange and so familiar. She’d heard it so many times on Literotica. Done embarrassingly private things as he’d read poems: “
We can only be described as sexy beasts of nature, oh so primal.
” Although they were not alike physically, something about his intensity reminded her of Stephen. He’d also made her laugh in their emails, a rarity these days.
She’d loved all the poems, even the indecipherable one in French, a romantic banquet of sound. She’d been deeply touched by many works, digging deep into the dark places of the soul – lonely, afraid, wistful, lusty, and so much more. Even before they started exchanging letters, she felt as though she knew a part of him few people ever shared. She had never seriously pursued a relationship with him. That way lies pain, she’d thought. Besides, he wrote once in reference to another woman “Don’t ever tie me down.” They’d exchanged silly jokes about bondage. But, inside, she felt a small twinge of disappointment, a thread of hope snapping.
Now, here they were, the three of them. Max had finally convinced Angelina to acquiesce when she, in a pathetic attempt to make him jealous, had confessed her attraction to a romantic stud on the internet who wrote erotica. She wanted him to say he could never stand the idea of another man kissing her, never mind fucking her. Instead, Max had written to James telling him his girlfriend was interested and would he like a ménage e trois. Angelina told neither of them she had already been writing to James for months under an assumed name, Vixen. Mild flirtations. They discussed joy of dancing like no one was watching, his writing, and a male perspective on relationships. He’d replied with class and maturity to all of her rants and queries. When she coquettishly asked what the hands of such an experienced lover looked like, he’d emailed her digital photographs. She burst out laughing, an unfamiliar sound.
Now, James sat beside her on the bed, softly trailing his fingertips up her arm, from waist, to inner elbow, to shoulder, to throat, the way she loved. She’d mentioned that once in a letter to him, but since he didn’t know Angelina
was
Vixen, it must be a coincidence. To her, skin was a canvas. She’d never liked painters who didn’t fill all the spaces, every corner with colour and texture and life. He kissed her shoulder, then along the back edge of her shoulder blade, to her throat and back down, gently biting her in the curve. Goose bumps rose all over her body.
“You got a reaction there,” Max’s voice clanged like dropped dishes. “Keep doing whatever the hell you’re doing,” commanded Max, “and I’ll suck her tits.”
Angelina stiffened, wanting to strike him. Max knelt in front of her and took her left nipple in his mouth, fingering the other one. She resisted the urge to pull away. James kissed her ear and whispered, “Relax.”
She nodded, but a tear slipped down her cheek. James caught it on his fingertip, examined it, and then shook his head.
“She doesn’t want to do this,” he said.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” snapped Max. “She agreed. She thought you were hot.”
“Never-the-less, it’s not a good idea. I’m leaving.”
“Fuck that and fuck you.”
“You asshole—“ Angelina stood up and pressed her hand on James’ chest.
“I’m okay,” she said. “It was a mistake. My problem, my responsibility.”
“Are you sure?” asked James.
“Yes, I have some things I need to say to Max. I never should have involved you. I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” said James. He stood, picked up his shoes and socks, and walked out.
“Where the fuck are you going?” called Max.
Angelina had not been far behind him. She’d send her brother over to pick up her stuff. She never wanted to see him again. Max was stunned. Totally clueless. She didn’t have the energy or the inclination to explain. She was still sorting it out herself.
A block down the street, blues music oozed out from the Lost Hope Bar. She figured it was a perfect choice. The bartender brought her vodka, straight up with a concerned look. She glanced in the mirror. God, she was a sight. Makeup streaked. Hair mussed. One collar up and one down. She tried to tidy herself, then turned away from the mirror to watch the band.
They were first-rate. She’d never been in here before. Max didn’t like blues and he said queers hung out at that bar. Her foot started tapping to the beat.
“Want to dance?” said a familiar voice.
Angelina whirled on her stool, stumbled and fell, face to face with James.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m just a klutz.”
