"How's the party girl?" asked Lisa as she walked into our bedroom. I turned to tell her that Janet seemed okay, but before I had the chance, she saw my wife ungracefully sprawled out naked on the bed. "She's naked!" she exclaimed. "What are you two perverts doing? Bill! For heavens sake, give her some privacy!"
"Nothing I haven't seen before," replied Bill with a grin as he broke his leering gaze.
"Sam, I'm surprised at you! How..."
"It's okay, Lisa. It's okay. She's passed out. Jeez, I don't know what you're thinking, but we haven't done anything to her. We just made her comfortable. We were..."
"Okay, Sam. I just don't want Bill to get any big ideas that he'd regret," she said sourly.
"Hey, I don't regret a damn thing," answered Bill with unconcealed irritation at his wife's veiled accusation. "I haven't touched her! Just what the hell do you think I am?"
"Sorry, babe, I didn't mean..."
"You did too!"
Lisa dropped all semblance of penitence and snapped, "Oh, don't give me that 'I'm offended' crap! Just keep your hands off of her!"
"I'm not going to touch her!" Bill yelled. Then with contrition in his voice he added, "Wouldn't be right."
"Glad you see it that way," answered Lisa evenly.
Turning her attention from her husband, Lisa chastised us both, "Could you guys have at least covered her up?"
"We were going to do that," replied a smirking Bill.
Not bothering to reply to her husband, Lisa pulled the covers over my wife's nude body.
"Okay Sam," said Lisa nodding towards Jan, "what's with her?"
"She was upset yesterday. Went to some quack and got a prescription for Xanex. Must have taken some before we came over."
"Xanex? Oh, Christ! How many did she take? Where are they?"
"I don't know. In the medicine chest...her purse?"
Lisa found her purse and rooted through it and found the bottle of pills. Straightaway she went into the bath. Moments later I heard the toilet flushing. Lisa returned, holding the now empty prescription bottle upside down. "She won't be needing this," she announced as she tossed the empty bottle into a wastebasket. "Most of them were still there, thank God. She couldn't have taken too many of them. If she was that upset, she should have come to me. We would have talked it through. Why didn't you talk to her, Sam?"
"She wouldn't talk to me. Not until late this afternoon. We talked it out...at least I thought we did."
"You did. She told me in the kitchen what was bothering her. She was afraid of losing you... No thanks to lughead."
"Hey, I'm sorry," pleaded Bill calmly and with a degree of unction, "I got carried away. I jumped the gun, but I didn't force her to do anything."
"Save it for your priest," coldly replied Lisa.
Diverting a squabble I asked, "Did she tell you anything else?"
"Yes. That you love her and that she knows you love her."
"Anything else?"
"Yes. She said that she had fun. That Bill was...is a good lover."
"See! I told you she'd enjoyed herself!" interjected Bill with a smug look. "Did she say she wanted to do it again?"
Lisa thought for a moment. "I shouldn't speak for her, but she did say that if Sam was okay with it, then she was okay with it."
"Hot damn!" exclaimed Bill. "How about it, buddy? Wanna do it again? Yeah, you wanna do it!"
"Uh, I need to talk to Jan about it," I said.
"You already talked to her. What's there to discuss? You're for it, Lisa's for it, I'm for it and Jan's for it. That makes it unanimous! Four to zip...we fuck!"
Bill's celebratory expression faded. "There is one thing though; we need to keep this to ourselves. I've been thinking about this, and... For one thing, I don't want to spend the rest of my life worrying whether or not I need to use a condom every time I screw my wife.
"Bill!" responded Lisa indignantly.
"No, seriously. We're all clean, so long as it's a two-way street, I don't mind you having some fun with Sam, honey, but... let's not let this thing get out of hand. I don't want you getting some idea that you can, uh, sleep around."
"Bill! You son-of-a-bitch! You think I've been..."
"Sweetums, I didn't mean it like that! Honestly. I didn't mean to imply that I think you're, uh, getting a little extra on the side. Fuck! Let's face it, things have changed. It's just that we can't put each other at risk by sleeping around. That goes for all of us. So let's keep this just between the four of us.
"Another thing, we need to keep quiet about this. I don't know about your clients, Sam, but some of mine will take a very dim view of this sort of thing."
At that moment I was staring at Lisa's incredible knockers, soaking up her voluptuous display. She had wrapped her see-through wrap around her torso. Her body was covered, but not covered. I must admit, there didn't seem to be anything that needed further discussion. Somehow I resisted just blurting out, "Yeah, let's do it," and instead formed the words, "Uh, I really need to talk to Jan."
"Yes, you do," agreed Lisa. "You need to talk to her, Sam. Tomorrow, sober, she might not feel the same way."
"Yeah, that's right... Look, how about if we just call it a night."
Bill and Lisa found their way out with Lisa leading Bill by the hand as if he were a little kid. Moving to Janet's side to check up on her, I heard the backdoor slam. Janet seemed okay; her breathing was even and normal. I sat at the edge of the bed, staring off in space, thinking, but not really having any cognizant thoughts. Then it hit me. We had come very close to repeating the mistake that had caused all this trouble. What if Jan was really troubled by what had happened? After all, this sort of thing was out of character for her. What if I had pushed her to screw Bill again, just so that I could screw Lisa? What then? This episode with the Xanex was deeply troubling.
It was early evening, very early, but I undressed and crawled into bed with her. With the twilight still illuminating the room, I snuggled into her, the way she loved to be snuggled even though she had no idea that I was even there. I lay there for some time, holding my wife, my love, the mother of my children, my life partner and playful playmate, thinking of all the awful ramifications that we may have unleashed. It really wasn't a decision, but I reaffirmed that she was the most important thing in my life. If Friday night was to be a one-time affair, then so be it. The pleasure of having another bounce with Lisa just wasn't worth it, not if Jan was hurt.
It was a fitful night's rest for me. For Jan's part, she slept soundly through the night. I rose at the crack of dawn, much earlier than usual. The coffee was nearly made, when Jan, wrapped in a robe, shuffled into the kitchen.
"You're up early," she commented still groggy and not fully awake.
"Went to bed early last night," I replied.
"Oh... Last night... What happened to last night? We were at Lisa's... Did I... pass out?"
"Yeah, you passed out."
"Oh, Sam! I so sorry!"
"You don't need to be sorry."
"I guess I ruined everyone's evening."
"That's not important."
"But it is important."
"No, it's not. What's important to me is you."
"Did I make a fool of myself? Oh gawd, did I..."
"No, you just passed out. I brought you home."
She looked unsure of herself, not surprising considering that she couldn't remember the night before. "Would you like a cup of coffee?" I offered helpfully.
"Thanks." She took the cup from my hand and sat at the kitchen table. Silently, she sipped the coffee. After a few moments, she looked up at me. "Did I...you know..."
"No. Nothing happened."
She looked down into her cup, as if she were studying it. A long silence ensued. Eventually, she looked up and declared, "I'm sorry I ruined your evening."
"I told you, you didn't ruin..."
"But I did! I know you wanted to... to get together with Lisa. And Bill... Bill wanted to get together with me."
"That doesn't matter. What matters is what you want." I fumbled about, trying to formulate my thoughts and put them into the right words. "Jan, this Xanex thing... I don't want you taking that shit. It's not worth it." I paused wondering how I should proceed, not at all sure that I could fix anything, but I was damned determined to try. "Tell you what. Let's you and me pack up a lunch and go out to the lake house for the day."
"But you have to work."
"The hell with it! I'll call in. Take a day off. We need to talk, really talk. The company won't collapse if I'm not there today."
"We can talk here."
"I don't want anybody intruding in on us."
"Who would intrude?"
"Lisa."
"Oh... Okay Sam. If that's what you want to do, but it's really not necessary."
"Not necessary? On that point, I couldn't disagree with you more. It's absolutely necessary."
Two hours later, we were sitting on the boat dock, looking out over the glass-smooth water, basking in the cool morning sun. The only sounds were from the birds, who seemed to be especially happy this morning. And why not? It was a beautiful morning... no ski boats, no bass boats, no jet skis, no children hooting it up, no sounds at all except for the bird calls and the occasional splash of a fish feeding at the surface. I loved weekday mornings like this, mornings when there was no one else around.
As soon as we arrived we had changed into our lake clothes, me in a faded and torn pair of swimming trunks, and Janet in a relatively modest blue string bikini that had belonged to our daughter.
"Couldn't you find a nicer swim suit? I know you have better ones than that," she chided.
"What's wrong with this one?"
"Honestly, Sam! I'm going to throw that old rag away before we leave today."
We chatted for some time, talking about nothing of importance. Having procrastinated enough, I broached the subject.
"Sam, I only took the Xanex to calm myself down. I was worried. Worried sick. Worried that you hated me."
