Greg had also got to read the book.
Since he'd been there the book didn't contain too many surprises for him, even if he was a bit surprised by the detail I gone in to. He did wonder whether I really intended to try and publish it, but in a way I'd already anticipated Kate's comment about my parents recognising who the author was and that might be just a tad too much information for parents to know about their daughter.
It really was only ever intended as a diary; probably something even Kate and Greg shouldn't have got to read.
He expressed surprise that I'd described the attractiveness of women in such detail; especially Kate and Jill. He even teased me that maybe I had slightly bi inclinations. But as I explained to him, if you're writing for a male audience, you have to realise they're visual and you need to paint a picture they find compelling.
Anyhow I was able to challenge him as to whether he thought I'd exaggerated Kate's beauty (a trap for him if ever there was one; although one he handled well enough by telling me that while Kate was beautiful in a classical or male fantasy sort of way, my beauty to much more to his taste).
The only bit he'd really not known about was my continuing fascination with a threesome. In a way one of my motivations for giving him the book to read was the possibility he might have wanted to talk about it but it was something he ignored. That's probably because in writing about it I'd always dismissed it as a mere fantasy; never to be acted on.
Still after the multiple orgasms I'd had in the car on the morning of Zoe's party just contemplating the situation we were in you think he might have said something.
After Kate's letter had come in and my email exchanges with her I let him read the letter too; without adding the emails.
The sentence that caught Greg's attention was different from the one I'd really wanted to discuss with him.
For Greg the key sentence was Kate's revelation of why she had given him a bad time on their date night all those years ago. The expression "panic" was catheteric to him. Greg's not one to hold grudges but there had been a stone in the shoe of his friendship with Kate all these years; how she could have done that to a friend like him.
Going home after the ball that night Greg had tried to express his disappointment with Kate spending the whole night engrossed in conversation with the boyfriend of another friend of Greg's, but Kate had brushed the issue off. He was told she had just found him fascinating. Since Greg had always found this guy a boor and not a very attractive one at that, it didn't make sense to him.
So he'd buried the issue and just gone back to being friends with Kate; their friendship over time going from strength to strength. But still, that night had always rankled with him. He'd come to understand Kate's difficulties with relationships, but that approach to brushing him off was imponderable to him.
The word panic had explained it all. It said to him that Kate had valued their friendship enough even at that tender age to be concerned about compromising it. Greg could understand how a sense of panic could produce unintended hurt.
I'd always been just a little bit worried about digging too deeply into that night. As I'd said before, originally my greatest fear was that whatever happened was just a misunderstanding and the thing that had kept Greg and Kate apart as lovers would suddenly be brushed aside and I'd actually be in competition with her. As my relationship with Greg grew, that worry disappeared. I knew Greg was mine regardless of what was discovered about the history of that night.
Kate's letter produced the best of all outcomes; for me and Greg at least. Greg could understand her actions while even Kate was self-aware enough that she had recognised the danger of a deeper relationship with Greg and had reaffirmed by her own words Greg's concern about getting mixed up in her love life. For Kate it was a little sadder because it was a confirmation of the difficult road she had ahead of her in finding the love life she both craved and was scared of.
Still, there were a couple of other sentences in the letter that were important to a discussion I wanted to have with Greg and if I didn't take my chance now while the letter was in front of him, that chance might slip.
"How would you have reacted to Kate's friends with benefits offer if she'd made it?"
Greg's not stupid. He knows when I'm asking a loaded question. He may not have known where the question was going or even what the safe answer was, but he probably sensed it was better to answer it properly instead of just fobbing me off.
"That might have depended on how she asked it. You heard how I responded when she said I could have had her body if I wanted it."
"That you wouldn't have risked the friendship just to have sex with her... but wasn't that because you wouldn't have known whether you could keep the emotional side out of it? What if he'd said 'Greg you're a great friend and I hear you might not be very experienced with girls. Would you let me give you an introduction to how it's done and how to make a girl happy, just as a favour to you as my friend?'"
"Hey, I'm just a poor innocent sex focused guy. If she'd put it like that I'd almost certainly had gone along with it."
"Did you find it sexually frustrating being so close to such a gorgeous semi naked girl all the time and not feeling you could be physical with her?"
"Of course I did. I was still a virgin so I didn't have any other female outlet for my frustration"
"Did you think of Kate when you were wanking?"
"This is getting really awkward. I think I've just been backed into a corner where not only do I have to admit that I wanked myself before I met you but that I used another girl who's now each of our best friend as inspiration. But since you asked -- yes - in my mind I've made love to Kate more often than I could count. Why are you asking me this?"
"Since girls assume all guys wank when they're not getting sex that's no admission at all. Did you just think about her body or did you actually imagine having sex with her?"
Greg was starting to blush. "I got the best results when I thought about having sex with her."
"Did you enjoy dancing naked with her at Zoe's party?"
"Of course I did. That's not something you get to do with a girl who's not your girlfriend every day."
"More so with Kate than the other girls?"
"This seems like a really dangerous conversation for me to be in. After reading your book I should try and freak you out by saying it was actually Jill I really enjoyed dancing with. But to be honest it was special being so up close and personal with a friend like Kate and even being allowed to be aroused by it."
"Did you ever get aroused just being near Kate when you were at the beach?"
"I'm starting to feel like I'm a spy under interrogation. You're not going to tie me down and start beating me up like a scene out of James Bond are you? As you know, that's the trouble with being a guy. Sure, my penis wanted to react to her, but my brain kept saying everyone's going to laugh at you if you get a boner. That tends to be a bit inhibiting, although I could never entirely stop it. Why are you asking me this?"
"If I tie you down I won't be beating you up; I can think of much better things to do with you than that." I knew his question offered me my best chance of raising the topic I really wanted to talk to him about. I paused a moment before finishing; building courage ...
"I was wondering what you'd think about having a threesome with her"
For a minute I think Greg was stunned into silence.
He started speaking carefully and hesitantly.
"Do you want me to answer the question properly or are you just joking?"
