Jade and I had moved into the apartment just a month before. We had sold our place downtown and were hoping for something a little quieter out towards the 'burbs as we were starting a family and the noise and hassle had gotten to be a little too much. We had just found out that we were a few weeks pregnant, and so the house hunting had taken on a bit more urgent priority.
Sandra and Crash lived upstairs above us and they were wild. Obviously athletic and active, we'd often see them unloading tents and backpacks from their pickup after some weekend offroading trip, or bringing down their mountain bikes for a little loop on one of the nearby trails in the foothills. And they were hot in the way that adrenaline addicted outdoor junkies can be - ankle tattoos around Sandra's feet, trailing vines down to her toes (when she wore her minimalist nylon sandals I couldn't stop staring down at them) and two fairly obvious pirate-fat nipple rings on Crash visible through whatever tight fitting performance material shirt he happened to be wearing when we saw him. They didn't seem to work, they were always tanned, and they were friendly to us from day one, inviting us upstairs for drinks and dragging us along to art flicks at the local indie theater.
We got along well, to say the least. In fact, within the first few get-togethers the sexual attraction between the four of us began to show. Very subtle, never overwhelming or overindulged, but palpable. Sandra was a total post-modern feminist neo-hippy, not at all uncomfortable with the paradoxes of the Gaia myths, Hindu and Buddhist symbolism, and her Power Mac (she'd make jokes about my "MegaCorp Ubiquitous Laptop" and how the designers had obviously never partaken of good drugs, good art, or a creatively hot fuck.) I was infatuated with her. And Crash never seemed to mind. They would kiss and fondle in front of us and show intimacy that was almost designed to see whether they'd hit any of our "prude" buttons. It was all very low-key of course, but I could never shake the feeling as Crash would pull her close in a hug after an evening of beers and Hong Kong zombie gangster flicks - a hug that would very naturally and organically develop into a tongue and jeans grinding grope - that the two of them were watching our reactions out of the corners of their eyes.
Luckily, we weren't very embarrassed. Jade and I had been married for about ten years and while we weren't as shamelessly exhibitionistic as Sandra and Crash, we were cool with their intimacy. We'd even talk about it. Jade had always had a fantasy of watching me with another woman and she'd have to have been blind to not notice me noticing Sandra. Several times a playful comment about Sandra had evolved into fantasy with the two of us fucking hard and fast in some corner of the small apartment as we speculated what the target of our mutual lust was up to just then (we usually decided that her and Crash were upstairs naked as well and that Crash's cock was enjoying the same wet action mine was getting.)
So when they invited us up for a standard round of pre-movie night drinks one Friday, there was no hint of the way things would actually evolve that evening. I think I’d have to admit that in fact, Jade and I started it. Since we’d found out we were expecting, Jade had not been drinking, but since we hadn’t shared the news with anyone we just passed it off as Jade not being up for alcohol. We decided that tonight we’d let Sandra and Crash know why Jade really wasn’t sharing the wine and we thought it would be cool to let them in on our happy little secret.
When Jade told them the effect was positively electric. Sandra flushed and began cooing to Jade how cool it was, that pregnancy was empowerment and the culmination of all that was feminine. She was having the most amazing reaction to it (happier than we had been, it seemed), and she got up off the unfinished pine dining chair she’d been facing us on and came over to the couch to sit next to Jade. She moved close to Jade in a girlfriendy sort of way, but seemed to be luxuriating in some vibe or essence the rest of us couldn’t see. Her hand began to tentatively reach out to Jade.
“May I?” she asked. Jade nodded, a bit more flushed, but still composed.
Sandra slid Jade’s tee-shirt up exposing her still-flat belly. Jade had taken out her navel ring recently, and her skin was smooth and taut. Sandra’s hand began moving slowly over her belly, not rubbing so much as sliding. It reminded me of the first sonogram we had had just the previous week. It was like she was listening through the flat palm of her hand.
