What Goes In Tuscany

Author's note: this is a standalone story, but if you're interested in the further extramarital adventures of Harriet and Zach (particularly Harriet!) then please do read the other stories in the series. Either way... enjoy!

"Well, this feels a little unusual..."

Harriet turned in her seat to look at Zach who smiled and nodded his agreement. "Yeah, a little, but we'll be ok."

They fell silent for a few moments as the buzz of conversation from the other wedding guests rolled around them, both Harriet and Zach retreating to their thoughts, and certainly for Harriet her mind replaying some of what had happened the night before.

Harriet stifled a yawn, and Zach teased quietly, "Late night last night?"

Laughing, she replied, "Just a little." She paused then asked, "Should we talk to them? I mean later?"

Zach thought for a moment then said, "I don't know. I mean if they want to talk to us we shouldn't be rude, but maybe we don't need to seek them out? It could be weird."

"Yeah, I agree." Harriet looked around at the groom's side of the seating. "They're not here yet and the ceremony will start any time."

"Ah, speak of the devil," Zach replied, indicating with his head towards the main entrance.

Harriet glanced that way and saw them... Claire and Andy. She looked away again and whispered to Zach, "We'd better not stare."

"No, you're right!"

But then, a few minutes later, when they'd all stood for the bride to make her entrance, Harriet couldn't help glancing over again. "They look kind of pissed off with each other," she whispered to Zach.

"I thought we weren't staring," he teased back, but then he looked over too. "You're right though. Claire looks furious with him." He turned to look at Harriet. "Maybe they've already talked about last night." He paused, and smiling teased, "You must have given him something special for her to be so pissed?"

Harriet smiled back weakly, but said nothing. Because yes, yes she had... her time with Andy the night before had been wild, intense, passionate, uninhibited, experimental. Two people who wanted each other and knew that it was that night and that night alone when it could happen. An incredible night.

"Maybe she's furious because of what you did with her, maybe she told Andy that she needed you again?" teased Harriet back with a grin. "Maybe she told him you were ten times the lover he is?"

Because it hadn't just been Harriet spending the night with Andy. It had been Zach spending the night with Claire too, partner swapping, the two couples for the night in separate rooms. Harriet and Zach had promised to tell each other everything, but not yet, not until their friend's wedding day was out of the way. For Harriet, she found her mind wandering to imagine Zach with Claire, and felt a stirring between her legs at the thought.

Zach laughed quietly. "I'll take that as a compliment, although I don't believe you..."

Fifteen minutes later, just after the wedding vows, Harriet looked over again and saw Claire quickly look away, clearly having been staring, before Claire looked over again, focused on Harriet rather than Zach. Harriet couldn't put her finger on it... the look wasn't unfriendly, but it was confusing, hard to read.

Zach had seen it too and, as Claire looked away again, whispered, "I think it's you not me..."

Harriet looked at him. "Yeah, I can't read her look."

Zach chuckled quietly. "She either wants to fuck you or kill you." He paused. "Or maybe a bit of both..."

Feeling herself blush slightly, an image flashed through her head of Claire confronting her angrily, of the anger turning to passion, of the two of them making out aggressively... the stirring between her legs threatened to become something more, and she quickly pushed the image away. In the middle of one of her best friend's wedding was emphatically not the right time to be thinking those thoughts...

But, as she stood with the rest of the congregation, she felt a little thrill of excitement... excitement at what had happened the night before, excitement at her and Zach reclaiming each other later that night and the next day, and maybe also a little excitement at what Claire and Andy might throw into the mix later. Clearly there was something there, but Harriet didn't have a clue what.

What is it about us and holidays, thought Harriet as the ceremony came to an end? Even with the very best of intentions, her and Zach seemed unable to avoid the temptation to experiment...

A few days before Harriet and Zach had flown in from Australia, the chance to go to one of Harriet's oldest friends Laura's wedding in Tuscany too good to turn down despite the long flight time and the jet lag, although it helped that they were escaping the cool of a Sydney winter to the heat of mid-summer in Italy.

While Zach was Australian through and through, Harriet had grown up in the UK, only moving Down Under in her twenties once she'd qualified as a doctor.

Since arriving at the wedding hotel, more a collection of old Italian farm houses tastefully done up as accommodation around a beautiful central garden and swimming pool with amazing views of the surrounding countryside, Harriet had thrown herself into catching up with her friends from the UK who had arrived in dribs and drabs, relaxing with them by the pool during the day and partying long into the evenings.

Zach had joked that she'd need a holiday to recover from this part of the holiday, and it was probably true. Two days after the wedding they were going to go and stay in a private villa with pool nearby, making the long trip truly worthwhile, followed by a week in the UK to see her family before finally heading back home.

All things considered, the two of them really needed this time to get back to being a proper couple and to reconnect. In the last six months Harriet had started a casual relationship with her friend Phoebe, one that came entirely with Zach's support and blessing, indeed he'd given her a permanent hall pass to do anything with any woman so long as she told him all about it afterwards, but one which Harriet had realised was putting some strain on their marriage...

In recent months she'd been spending maybe a couple of nights each week with Phoebe rather than with Zach, and while she still loved the thrill of the different that came from seeing Phoebe, Zach hadn't clicked with Phoebe in quite the way that Harriet had hoped.

Harriet knew that at some point there would be a decision to be made, one where Phoebe became a closer part of both their lives or they parted ways with her. Thoughts like that were for the future though, back in Australia, but the here and now was the wedding build up and, for the first time in six months, Harriet and Zach found themselves as a straightforward couple again for a few weeks.

At least that was the plan. However, since their holiday in Bali a while back and their experiment with Harriet sleeping with two other men at once while Zach watched, plain vanilla couple life hadn't quite done it for them in the way it used to... It wasn't like they were actively looking at the wedding for more ways to experiment, but as luck would have it at this wedding experimentation pretty much found them instead.

Two nights before the wedding, Laura had a bachelorette party, or at least a mini one. Harriet had been unable to go to the main one in London a few weeks before, but a few others hadn't either so the bride had decided to organise a women only dinner in the nearest town followed by a reserved area at the local nightclub, all as part of the build up to the wedding.

Zach and some of her friend's partners had arranged their own dinner back at the hotel, so Harriet felt pretty guilt free about attending even though Zach didn't know any of the men particularly well.

Dinner itself was a well behaved affair, at least to start with, plenty of wine flowing around the table and conversation flowing with it among the fifteen women that were there.

Later on though, as dessert was cleared and the women settled back to talk further and finish the bottles of wine still on the table, one of the bridesmaids and organiser-in-chief of the evening, a woman called Imogen stood up.

"Ladies... ladies..." she said to get their attention. She put her hand on the shoulder of the bride-to-be and continued, "Thank you all for coming to celebrate one of the last nights of freedom that this poor woman has!" She raised her glass for a toast. "To freedom."

Everyone around the table laughed and did the same. "To freedom!" and they all drank.

Once the laughter had died down, Imogen went on. "We're going to the club soon, but before then I think we need more wine. And I've got the perfect drinking game for us to play..." A few of the friends who'd been on the London day out groaned and laughed, and Harriet looked at them in bemusement. "Yes, they know," laughed the bridesmaid. "Let's do this."

The game turned out to be an elimination version of "I've Never Ever", whereby Imogen had several lists prepared of things that people may or may not have done, getting more outlandish and extreme (and unlikely) by the item. Rules were simple, if you'd done the item you drank and stayed in that particular game, if you hadn't then you were out and did a drink based forfeit.

The first list was about drinking and various stupid things that people did while under the influence. It started easily with "I've never ever got so drunk that I vomited." Obviously everyone round the table drank to that and stayed in the game.

Harriet made it to the fifth item before being eliminated ("I've never ever done a flaming sambuca") although as the forfeit for dropping out then was to immediately do a flaming sambuca she didn't really feel like she was missing out. In fact, everyone ended up drinking the same amounts in the end, so the genius of the game was the hilarity that ensued when a couple of people were admitting to outlandish things that no one else had got close to.

After half an hour they got on to the last list, involving all things related to sex. There was a frisson of excited tension around the table that there hadn't been for the other lists, but tempered by the considerable amount of alcohol consumed.

The first item was read out ("I've never ever given a blowjob") and amid much nervous laughter everyone around the table drank.

The next few items were likewise fairly tame, and everyone drank to each, but the fourth item eliminated half of the players including Laura ("I've never ever kissed a woman.")

Laughing, Imogen said, "Ok, for most of you your forfeit is a shot." She paused and looked at the bride-to-be. "Not for you though... for you, we're going to fix that for you later in the club!" She winked and Laura went bright red although smiling at the same time. Harriet turned to a couple of friends and they all laughed, knowing that the bride-to-be was very straightlaced when it came to that sort of thing.

Harriet, of course, had drunk as had six others round the table.

Next up, Imogen read out, "I've never ever had a threesome." Those already out of the game looked around at those still in, trying to work out who was about to drink and who wasn't.

After a suitable dramatic pause, Harriet raised her glass and drank to much laughter and cheering around the group while her closer friends looked at her incredulously, not quite able to believe that she'd done that and unaware of her recent adventures.

Harriet smiled back apologetically and looked around the group. At first she thought that she was the only one, then two other women also drank, one looking embarrassed and the other relatively sanguine.

So... now there were three, and as Harriet looked from one to the other Imogen read out the next on the list.

"I've never ever had sex with a woman."

Harriet felt herself blush but knew she'd have to drink. Looking at the other two one shook her head, but the other drank also. Harriet looked at her and gave her a knowing smile, a smile that her opponent in the game returned as she took a gulp of her wine. Meanwhile Harriet's friends were beside themselves, unable to believe what their most sensible, down to earth friend had got up to.

"Ok..." said Imogen. "Last two. And you two have certainly experimented!" The group laughed and Harriet couldn't help but smile. "Next one as you're both married is... I've never ever slept with another man since my wedding day." Imogen looked expectantly at both of them.

Harriet muttered to her friends, "Zach was fine with it..." and drank. When she looked up, to her immense surprise, so did her competitor.

By now the others in the group were looking at both women, wondering where this would end.

"Ok then... we're going to do a tie break otherwise we'll never get to the club," said Imogen. "Drum roll please." A few around the table drummed their hands on it, then Imogen said, "You've both said you've had a threesome but what about more? So tell us, what's the most people you've had sex with at once? Highest wins."

Harriet looked over at her competitor, who said, "Show on our fingers on three?" Harriet smiled and nodded. "Ok... one... two... three."

On three Harriet held up three fingers, remembering when in Bali she'd had the most incredible end to her night, riding one man, another in her ass, while she took Zach in her mouth. Incredible... an experience never to forget.

Laughing, her competitor also raised three fingers. Looking at Harriet she said, "I don't know how it would even be possible to go higher than three?"

Harriet grinned back. "I know, right?"

Meanwhile Imogen said to the table, "I guess we've got two winners." She paused then said with a smile, "I'm sure both Harriet and Claire will be answering a lot of questions from everyone at the club... speaking of which, drink up and let's get going."

A couple of hours later and Claire walked over to where Harriet was sitting in the night club and introduced herself properly.

"So..." shouted Harriet over the music, "how do you know the happy couple?"

"Cousin of the groom, we live quite near so see them a lot. How about you?"

"Old friend of the bride, but we live down in Australia now so it's been a couple of years since I've seen her."

"Oh, nice, whereabouts in Australia?"

Soon they were into a long conversation about Australia and the contrast to the UK. Finally, when there was a lull in the conversation, Claire said, "Pretty wild how we tied in the final game earlier..."

Harriet looked at her and could see an expression on Claire's face that was hard to read, but certainly suggested that she was keen to talk about it a bit. "Yeah," replied Harriet with a smile, "pretty wild... do you think everyone else thinks we're sluts now?"

Claire laughed. "Sluts? No, I reckon they're jealous!" She paused, then said, "So you've slept with another man since you've been married?"

Harriet looked at Claire for a few seconds, weighing her up, but then something inside told her that Claire was trustworthy and also, if she was honest, she wanted to know about the background to Claire's own escapades. "Yeah," she replied cagily.

"Tell me about it. I mean if you're ok to share."

"I'll tell if you promise to tell me after. Deal?"

"Deal."

"Ok... where to begin? So getting on for a year ago now, my husband Zach and I started to talk about a shared fantasy where he'd watch while I slept with someone else, and then we went on holiday to Bali and..."

Harriet went on to explain at a high level how they'd befriended two men at a beach bar one night and ended up with her having an epic threesome with the two of them while Zach watched. She glossed over the detail of who did what to who when and how, figuring that Claire could fill in the gaps if she needed to, but Harriet realised when she finished that not only was she feeling quite aroused but also that there was a hint of red to Claire's cheeks that suggested something similar.

"So... most importantly, you enjoyed it? Because I've had friends who did something like that and hated it, found that they were almost just like a sex toy for the two men."

"Honestly, I absolutely loved it... I think we got lucky with the two men, but also I made sure that Zach was involved and was clearly the alpha male in the room, and I think I got most of my enjoyment from his enjoyment if that makes sense?"

"Yeah, it does. Would you try it again?" asked Claire.

"We already did!" replied Harriet. "With a couple of different guys back in Sydney. That was very good too but more intense, one of them had a bit more of a dominant personality. To be candid with you, if Zach hadn't been there it might have put me off but by having him involved it made it great still."

Claire laughed. "You're experienced then!"

"I mean that's the extent of it until now. There's... a different complication." Claire raised her eyebrow quizzically and Harriet continued. "There's a woman called Phoebe who's kind of part of our relationship now, well sort of. I see her quite often, Zach less... that's been for the last six months and seems to be going well."

"Wow... you and Zach like to experiment then?"

"I guess so."

Claire looked at her for a moment, then said, "Ok, I guess a deal's a deal. You want to know about mine?"

Harriet smiled. "A deal's a deal!"

"Ok, so where to begin? My husband Andy and I started to experiment a bit a few years back. The first time was a bit of a drunken dare to be honest, we were away for a weekend with another couple and, well, I still don't know if they'd done this before or what but the chat started getting a bit edgy one evening after dinner and one thing led to another..."

"You had a foursome?" asked Harriet with a smile.

"No, not quite... we swapped. So I ended up in bed with the other man, and Andy ended up in bed with the other woman."

Harriet could see that Claire was getting turned on just remembering it. "It was good?"

Claire looked at her and smiled. "Better than good... it was great. He was good in bed and the intimacy was something else. I'd had a couple of threesomes before I was married, before Andy, and it was all very physical. Fun but physical. Whereas giving yourself entirely to one other man for a few hours, but only those few hours, knowing that your husband is doing the same in another room, and just seizing those few hours to pour your heart and soul into connecting with that man... it was so good."

"I've never done something like that," replied Harriet. "How was it with Andy afterwards?"

"The next weekend I think we both realised that the intimacy had taken us by surprise, it was a lot to process. But when we talked about it ultimately made us stronger, having the confidence and trust in each other to experiment like that without being in the same room as each other."

Harriet sat and thought for a moment, the idea coming into her head that maybe that could go somewhere on the future list for experimentation, if Zach was ok with it.

"You should try it some time," said Claire, looking Harriet in the eye, with a look that made Harriet wonder whether Claire might be hinting at something happening between them and their husbands. "There's something very enjoyable about sleeping with someone that's completely different to your husband."

"How do you mean?"

"Well... Andy is a very intense lover, our sex life is great but sometimes I need something a bit less physical, less kinetic... something a bit more equal and someone else can be that. Of course it doesn't always work out that way, but more often than not it's good."

"It sounds intriguing, certainly," replied Harriet, trying to stay noncommittal but unable to stop her mind straying to memories of threesomes and some very physical, intense partners from them, particularly the second threesome. She'd claimed to Zach that she'd not liked that, or at least liked it only because he was there, but deep down that wasn't true... deep down she'd loved it, and while she wouldn't want it normally and certainly not with her husband the thought of a one off night with someone with that dominant, intense mentality got her heart racing. "You've done it again since?"