After I cleaned up the mess in the bedroom left from a day of lovemaking with Sandy, I called Rachel. When there was no answer, I presumed she was still in Minneapolis. Nonetheless, I decided I would drop by the bookstore to see if she was there but not answering the phone. Then I could go around the corner to Wendover's Gallery to let them know my pictures were ready for the show.
Hanging from a strap on a rocking subway train, I let my mind wander about my relationships with women. Our ménage à trois seemed to be growing (and perhaps shrinking simultaneously depending on where Rachel was and whether she planned on coming back). Can it be a ménage à trois if four people are involved, or is it something more akin to polygamy? Not really that either, as only two of us were legally married, and since we weren't Mormons, we couldn't be technically married in the eyes of the church. Besides, the Mormons—or most of them—don't do polygamy anymore. What's that new fangled term, I thought. Polyamorous? Yeah, that seemed to fit, but it's a little too new to really be a defined relationship in my view. Open marriage? Possibly, I supposed, but I somehow wasn't sure I liked that idea. Maybe the right term was "married with privileges." I chuckled at that idea—sort of the inverse of the classic "friends with privileges." Yes, I liked that a lot more than polyamorous.
Lots of people do married with privileges, I thought, as the subway train rocked and clattered along. It's just that most of them don't bother to have the privilege granted by their spouse as Sandy and I had just done for each other—they just take it. Maybe it's just cheating then. I decided that trying to put a name on my relationship with Sandy was going to be difficult, if not impossible, and a serious waste of time.
The one possibility that I was still a bit uncomfortable with was the idea of Sandy fucking some guy other than me. I seemed to be emotionally fine with the idea that she might make love with another woman, but a man? That grated somehow. "Why should it?" I asked myself. "So, how is it different from you screwing women other than Sandy, which she seems fine with?"
"I mean," I asked myself, "What would it be like, watching some other guy fucking her? Would it make me livid with jealousy so I wanted to take out a pistol and shoot him? Would it be depressing? Or would I just find it erotic and get a big hard on that I could use on some other woman as Sandy watched or on Sandy after she was done with him?" I didn't know the answer. "Only one way to find out," I told myself.
That was when the subway train arrived at my destination, the 14th Street Station. Once I got upstairs I decided to try Rachel on the phone one more time. This time she answered.
"Well hello, Stevie. Long time no see. Don't you still have a job at that little bookstore down in the Village on Twelfth Street? I haven't seen you there in a while. Even Angel has been asking about you."
"I've been busy."
"Well, it hasn't been with Sandy, because she's been in London and San Francisco for ten days, so who have you been doing?"
"My god woman, is there anything you don't know?" Actually, by some fluke she didn't know Sandy had spent the whole day in bed with me yesterday.
"Not much, but right now I'm wondering about you. I can't imagine you going without sex for ten days, so, what's the story? Who?"
"Actually, if you must know, Sandy. She made a brief guest appearance, and we spent the day in bed, cell phones turned off, landline unplugged, totally off the grid. She's off to London again this afternoon. I guess that slipped by your intelligence net."
"Okay, that accounts for one day, but what about the rest of the last couple of weeks?"
"I've been working."
"Not here you haven't."
"No, I've been working on the drawings for my show."
"That's it. No 'extracurricular activity'?"
"Nope. Well, there have been a few phone calls with Sandy, but even that doesn't work very well when she is on the West Coast and working 16-hour days." I paused for a moment and then said, "Oh, and then there was Lisa."
"Lisa?" she said with mock outrage. "Who the hell is Lisa?"
"Actually you know her very well, or you did in your college days. Look," I said, changing the subject a bit, "I just came up out of the 14th Street Station, so I'm only a few blocks away. I'll pick up coffees and be there shortly." I clicked the phone off without waiting for a response and headed towards Angel's coffee shop. Now I had an interesting problem. My wife was fine with my having an affair with Lisa, but was my lover, Rachel, going to be okay with it? This polyamorous stuff was getting complicated.
Out of the subway, I walked through the Village to Angel's coffee house, my mind drifting from Rachel's tits, to Sandy's sexy legs, to Lisa's oh-so-comfy broad hips, to Angel's cute little round ass, to Sarah's long sexy legs and soft, creamy chocolate skin. My god, what had I gotten myself into?
I opened the door to the coffee house and threaded my way through the tables and chairs, occupied even at this early hour with a raft of people cribbing free Internet services for the price of a cup of coffee. They all stared intently at their screens as though the answer to all the questions in the universe would appear at any moment. I could have been the Unabomber and they wouldn't have noticed. Actually some of them looked a bit like Ted Kaczynski, but most of them weren't old enough to even know who he was.
When I got to the counter, I got my first big disappointment of the day. Behind the counter, instead of Angel with her sexy little butt, high pointy little boobs, olive skin, long dark hair, and big round brown eyes, there was a tall, ungainly-looking young man with pasty white skin ornamented with pimples, unkempt sandy hair, and an overall slovenly appearance. I stared in disbelief, asking myself, "Where's Angel?"
"Okay man. What'll it be?" he asked in a high squeaky voice after letting my silent stare build to an uncomfortable length.
"Uhhh. Where's Angel?"
"Angel? I don't know that drink. Can you tell me how to make it, man?" He sounded really stoned.
"Angel," I repeated in frustration. "She's the morning barista here."
"Oh you mean the little
Latina
dolly. God she's hot, isn't she?"
I stared at him, offended, by his locker room characterization of my favorite barista. I'd had the same thought on numerous occasions, but I didn't say it out loud, except to Rachel, who would say it herself if I didn't.
There was beginning to be a line forming behind me so he decided to get down to business, "She's not here today, so what'll it be?"
"I can see that. Does she still work here?"
"Oh, for sure. She just took the morning off and I'm filling in. So what'll it be?"
"Okay. I'll have a 12 ounce drip coffee and Rachel's usual."
