Edited by blackrandl1958
*
"She's cheating on us."
It was a pretty somber group sitting around my kitchen table. My three 'wives,' Amber, Kathy and Heather, along with their two 'husbands' Mark and Jeff. The only one missing was our other wife, Claire. She also happened to be my legal wife.
If it sounds complicated it's because it was. Polyamory wasn't as shadowy as it once was, but we were still very careful. Careers could be ruined, familial relationships strained or broken, because they couldn't or wouldn't understand. That's why we were so careful, and if one of us was involved with someone outside the group it could damage the infrastructure to the point of complete breakdown. We had rules; one of the main ones was if you wanted to bring another into the group, he/she had to be carefully vetted and the others needed to see if there was a fit. And you absolutely, under no circumstances, had sex with anyone outside the group. There were all kinds of considerations to be dealt with, one of the primary being the health of the group. Since we were all sleeping with each other in one combination or another, if one got infected with something, we all did sooner or later.
Our marriage didn't begin this way. Claire and I were married for about a year before she started talking about a polyamorous lifestyle. She left articles laying around and one day I came home to see a copy of "The Ethical Slut" on the coffee table. I read it. The woman was intelligent and articulate, extolling the virtues of that lifestyle. Then Mark, Heather, Jeff and Katie started coming around. Claire wasn't exactly pushing it, but she was hinting pretty strongly. It still took almost two years before they wore me down. I went into it with a promise from Claire that at any time I said "stop," it was over and we'd go back to being monogamous.
Jeff and Mark were bi, as were Kathy and Claire. Amber and Heather were straight, as I was, although I think Heather was thinking about it. Amber lived with us, while Kathy lived with Jeff and Mark lived with Heather. It was all mostly for appearances; bed partners were swapped weekly. Sometimes it would be Amber in my bed, sometimes Heather, occasionally Kathy, and of course my wife, Claire. I now seriously doubted she could go back.
In some ways, it was pretty good. If you wanted to do something, you knew who to call. Amber and I really liked being outdoors and we made sure we went somewhere and camped at least three times a year. She also loved to kayak and fish. We got Mark into fishing, but he decided he liked fly-fishing the best, while Amber and I would fish for anything and everything that would bite a hook. She and Mark even hunted, but I'd had my fill of that when I was young. I still enjoyed going to the range, though, for skeet and target practice.
Amber went on and on about skeet shooting, so most of the others tried it. Now it was Amber, Mark, Heather and me. They even bought their own shotguns, two over/unders in 28 gauge for the ladies, my 1100 pump, and Mark had picked up a very ornate side by side double in 20 gauge, complete with
rabbit ear" hammers. The weapons were stored at my house.
Heather was the most urbane, and she was the one who knew the trendy restaurants, where the latest gallery opening was and anything that was hot right that second. If you felt like a black-tie type of night, Heather was your girl.
Jeff loved woodworking and trade shows. I think his Lowe's card was banded with gold. I had the biggest house and property, thanks to a late grandmother, and I gave him the use of one shed dedicated to hobby and to storing his tools. The man had a lot of tools. I would help him from time to time if he needed heavy lifting. He built my dining room set, the bedroom suite for the guest room of my house and a huge armoire for Amber. I tried several times to talk him into doing it as a business, but he wasn't sure he could make a living so he wouldn't.
My wife was not the adventurous type unless it was somewhere in the tropics and included a five-star resort. Then she was all in. We did take a vacation the previous year as a group, to one of those resorts that were clothing optional and had a pretty good time. There were a few rough spots. Claire got a little buzzed and flirted so heavily with a stranger he was sure she was going to spend the night in his suite. He was a little pissed when the group swooped in and took her back to the villa.
She was hungover and apologetic. I didn't talk to her for a while and the rest of the ladies gave her hell.
"You nearly fucked up last night, girl. It took two years to talk your husband round and you nearly destroyed everything. If you need strange, then find some. Be aware if you do and we find out, you're out. No second chances. And as pissed as we would be, you better think about your husband. He'd drop you in a minute and there would go the group, so we got a stake in your behavior. Don't mess up a good thing."
She must have seen the writing on the wall and she stayed exclusively with me the rest of the trip. She apologized, I may my position clear and we put it in the past, I thought. Now it seems she hadn't.
The guy had wanted to object, but Mark is like six-three and a gym junkie, and Jeff has his own set of muscles from his hobby. I doubt either one had ever fought with anybody in their lives. I, on the other hand, was a wild-child other side of the tracks scrapper who knew when you fought the only rule was to win. I was five-eleven and 170 and none of it was fat. He kind of ignored them, but recognized something in me and backed off. I took Claire back to the room and dumped her on the bed. She was out in minutes.
I had very little to say to her for most of the next day, and the girls gave her hell for getting drunk and stupid. She never actually apologized to me, but she tried to show she was contrite. I don't think she drank more than two drinks at a time the rest of the vacation.
And now Heather thought she was cheating.
*****
"How sure are you?" She looked at me sadly.
"Not 100%, but pretty close. She's gone missing on a couple of girl's nights out. Then she started missing work, a long lunch here, leaving a couple hours early there. I checked and she wasn't with any of us. Have you noticed anything?"
"Not really, but then again she's not here that much, or with any of us for long at a time, so it could have been pretty easy for her."
Jeff asked what I wanted to do.
"Remember the last time she pulled this shit? She didn't go all the way and have sex with him but that was because we found out early enough. I think I'll call a few friends that do surveillance work. I will tell you this: if she's screwing someone on the side, I'm leaving her, and that means I'll be leaving the group. You've been her friends since long before she was with me and I won't mess up that dynamic. Besides, the lifestyle is starting to wane on me. I would have probably left before too much longer, anyway."
That shocked them into silence. It had taken them a long time to talk me into trying it, and I personally thought I was a fool for ever agreeing. I was desperately afraid I was going to lose her, anyway, and I thought maybe if we experimented for a while she'd get tired of it and it would be just us again. I was wanting to start a family and she wasn't really keen on the idea. It might be time to cut my loses.
"Don't go anything rash, Jake. We don't know anything yet."
"Her physical unfaithfulness really hasn't got much to do with it. How come any of you don't have kids yet?"
