Wife and Ex-Wife

This set the stage for Friday night, when Nina walked slowly into the guest bedroom. Amelia was already in her nightgown getting ready for bed, although she was planning to read a little beforehand.

She smiled as Nina entered. "Hi, dear," she said. Their conversation of two days before had created a bond between them, the exact nature and parameters of which neither of them fully understood. It was something more than merely having shared the same husband—but what else there was, they couldn't have articulated to save their lives.

"Hi, Amelia," Nina said, unable to look her friend in the eye.

Amelia immediately picked up on Nina's discomfiture. "Something wrong, Nina?"

When Nina didn't reply, Amelia sized her up and said decisively, "I know what it is."

"I don't think you do."

Amelia went on as if Nina had not spoken. She herself looked away from Patrick's wife as she said, "You—you need me to leave. I've overstayed my welcome. I've been here for two weeks, and I've hardly made any attempt to find my own place to live. I'm interfering in your marriage, and it was high time I got out of here."

"That's not it—not at all."

Amelia now turned her face toward Nina. "Nina, dear, you don't have to think I'm offended. I have no right to be here." She headed toward the closet and dragged out one of her bigger suitcases and dumped it on the bed. Opening one of the drawers in the dresser, she started to take out her underwear and load it into the suitcase.

Nina watched her with a kind of awe before marching up to her and seizing her by the shoulders, making her drop her underthings on the bed. "Amelia, you need to listen to me. I have something really, really important to say."

"What is it?" Amelia said apprehensively.

Nina looked around the room as if it could provide some inspiration to help her say what she wanted to say. She then gazed directly at Amelia and said, "You love Patrick, don't you? You still love him."

Amelia's knees felt weak. "Nina! God, how can you say such a thing? I don't! Really I don't."

"You do," Nina said emphatically, as if uttering a truth a child should have known. "I've seen the way you look at him. You can't help it. No one can help their feelings."

"Nina, you don't know what you're saying! I don't feel that way! And even if I did, I would never, ever try to

do

anything about it. I'm not trying to take him away from you!"

She struggled to get out of Nina's grasp and resume her packing, but Nina wouldn't let her. She was four inches and about twenty pounds heavier than Amelia, and she was now as determined as she had ever been in her whole life. But Amelia sensed, to her befuddlement, that there was no anger in what Nina was saying.

"Look, it's just better if you admit it to yourself. I know, and Patrick knows, and in your heart of hearts you know." Then, with a shaky breath: "And I'm telling you it's okay."

Amelia was so taken aback by that last sentence that she had to sit down in a heap on the bed. Her chest was heaving, and she could hardly speak. At last she managed to croak: "All right? You're saying it's all right?"

Nina herself was a bit weak in the knees, and she plumped herself down next to Amelia on the bed. She didn't answer Amelia's question directly; instead, she said, "You do love him, don't you?"

With a strangled cry, Amelia covered her face with her hands and exclaimed, "Oh, God, of course I do! I never stopped loving him from the moment I met him!" She was now rocking back and forth in misery. "And when he left me, I felt so—so empty! Tried to fill up that emptiness with all manner of other men who did nothing for me, and whom I really despised, and who probably despised me too! Omigod, these last three years have been so awful—and now it's almost worse!" She let her eyes peek out from between her fingers and look at Nina. "But now you're saying—?"

"I'm saying it's okay," Nina said, staring off into space as if finding something fascinating in the blank wall in front of her, "because Patrick loves you too."

Amelia gaped at Nina in disbelief. "Oh, Nina, don't tease me! He doesn't—I think he can barely stand the sight of me! He leaves the room the moment he sees me."

"He does that," Nina explained patiently, "because he can't admit to himself what he feels about you."

"Nina, I'm sorry to say this, but you're crazy! He loves

you!

You can't possibly doubt that!"

"Of course I don't. I know he loves me."

"Then—?"

Nina looked right at Amelia. "He loves both you and me. It's been known to happen before, you know."

There was a dumbfounded silence. Amelia now put her hands on her stomach as if she were suffering from some horrible gastrointestinal ailment. "I don't know what you're saying," she whispered.

"I think you do," Nina said flatly. "Maybe I shouldn't mention this, but over the past two weeks that you've been here, Patrick hasn't made love to me more than two or three times. And when he has, he's been a bit—rough."

"Has he?" Amelia said weakly.

"Yes, he has. And I'm sure you know that that's not his usual way."

"No, it isn't," Amelia said half-audibly.

"It's because he's all torn up inside—he can't deal with the knowledge that he loves two women at the same time, can't face the sight of the two of us together under one roof."

"That's exactly why I should get out of here! Out of sight, out of mind!"

"You know it's not as simple as that. That won't solve anything. It might make the situation worse. You'll still love each other, and Patrick might come to hate me for separating you from him."

"He'd never do that."

"I don't know what he'd do—and I don't want to find out." With a sigh that seemed partly to be nerves and partly resignation, Nina picked up one of Amelia's hands and said: "That's why I think you and Patrick should be allowed to . . . express your love in any way you like."

It took Amelia some moments to understand the import of Nina's words. When she did so, she let out a gasp and said, "Oh, Nina, no! We couldn't do that to you!"

"You can and you will," Nina said with determination. She went on with a bit of desperation: "Don't you see, Amelia? It's the only way Patrick will be made whole again! He's in a horrible state right now: he can't work, he's not eating very much, and he can't bear the sight of

either

of us! He's a wreck, and he won't recover unless you and he . . ." She trailed off.

"But Nina, you're his

wife!

You can't let this happen!"

"I think I have to. He can't love

me

fully and unconstrainedly without doing this. So in a way"—she laughed shakily as she said it—"I'm doing this out of self-preservation. If I expect to keep him as my husband, I have to let him, you know . . ."

Amelia started shivering all over. Nina, noticing, wrapped her in her arms. The two women clung to each other for a long while, saying nothing. Then Amelia, her face buried in Nina's neck, said: "Oh, Nina, dearest Nina, this is the kindest, most generous thing that anyone has ever done for me. I don't think I'd be able to do it if I were in your position."

And she impulsively planted a kiss on Nina's mouth.

Nina let out an "Oh!" of surprise, and Amelia muttered, "Sorry, I shouldn't have done that."

Nina murmured, "It's okay."

Then Amelia pulled away a bit. "Have you—have you discussed this with Patrick?"

"No," Nina confessed.

"No? He doesn't know about any of this? Then how do you know he'll agree?"

"He will."

"How can you be sure? What if he says no?"

"Amelia," Nina said, taking her friend's face in her hands, "he loves you. Why would he say no?"

"But—but he doesn't want to be unfaithful to you. I'm certain of that!"

"So am I. But this won't be like that. I mean, I'm

telling

him that he can be . . . with you. That's a huge difference, isn't it?"

"I guess," Amelia said uncertainly.

"Nobody's going behind my back—neither you nor him. I really think it's the only way. In fact, maybe he should come down here tonight."

The prospect seemed to alarm Amelia. "No, not tonight!" she cried.

Nina looked at Amelia strangely. "Well, then, maybe tomorrow."

"Okay," Amelia said in a curiously defeated tone of voice. "But you'd better talk to him about this."

"I will—right now, in fact."

She got up and headed out of the room, then paused at the doorway. Turning around and giving Amelia a fractured smile, she said, "Everything will be fine, believe me. I

know

that what we're doing is right."

*

The trip up the stairs that Nina made as she left Amelia's room seemed to be the longest walk she had ever taken in her life. When she entered the bedroom, she saw Patrick idly reading a book in bed. He was already in his usual "nightwear," if it could be called that—bare-chested, and wearing only his briefs.

Nina undressed slowly, stripping naked and slipping a long nightgown over her head. She bit her lip as she carefully came into bed. Looking straight ahead and not at Patrick, she said: "I've been talking with Amelia."

"Oh?" Patrick said, ostensibly uninterested.

"Yes. I think . . ." She stopped, not really knowing how to bring up the delicate subject. The only mercy was that, given how Patrick was a man of few words, their discussion would probably be short.

She turned to him. "I know you still love Amelia, and I know that she still loves you. And I'm okay with that."

Patrick didn't respond immediately, but then he slowly put his book down on the nightstand. Nina could hear him swallow painfully. "So what then?"

"I think you know what. You can be with her tomorrow night if you want." Then, looking directly at him, she added: "You have my permission."

Patrick remained motionless, as if somehow he couldn't understand the simple sentences Nina had spoken. Then he did something Nina didn't expect.

He broke down in tears.

With a kind of choked gargle, he flung himself onto Nina's body, clutching her midsection and burying his face in Nina's chest. He let out sob after sob after sob; and almost without realizing what he was doing, he pulled down the top of Nina's nightgown and exposed her breasts so that he could rub his face—and his tears—into them.

"Oh, God, Nina!" he managed to say. "I've felt so awful! This has been so hard on me . . ."

"I know it has, dear," she said, rocking him gently as if he were a huge baby.

"I love you so much, dear," he said. "You're a princess among women. No man ever had a better wife than you."

"That's sweet of you," she said.

"You love me, don't you?" he said, looking pitiably up at her.

"Of course I do, dear," she said, kissing his forehead. "That's why I'm doing this."

"And it—it's really okay?"

"Yes, dear, it really is." She managed to smile while saying it.

He resumed nestling his head between her breasts. After a while he scrabbled with the nightgown, clutching fistfuls of it with his hands and drawing it up to her waist. He gave her bottom a squeeze and wanted to put his hand between her legs, but she stopped him.

"No, dear," she whispered in his ear. "Not now. Save yourself—for her."

He yielded, but he didn't want to be out of her grasp. He kissed her breasts over and over again, licking and sucking at the nipples in such a way that Nina almost had a climax right then and there. And she could feel that Patrick had gotten hard also.

"Calm down, Patrick," she warned. "Tomorrow's a big day for you—and Amelia. You don't want to disappoint her."

He rolled off of his wife, but continued to gaze at her as if she were some goddess who had miraculously floated into his life from the heavens. He was completely out of words to describe the feelings coursing through him. So all he did was take up Nina's hand, kiss it fervently, and then fall into a drugged sleep.

Nina took more time to settle down. Gazing at her husband, she said to herself:

I just hope I'm doing the right thing.

It didn't occur to her that her rueful thought was the exact opposite of what she had said to Patrick's ex-wife only a few moments before.

*

The next morning, the three occupants of the house were even more silent than usual during their leisurely Saturday breakfast. Amelia could hardly bear to look at Nina as she cooked the bacon with unusual care and precision, resisting all attempts by a smiling and welcoming Nina to engage even in frivolous banter.

But Patrick, although also quiet, had experienced a total transformation from the alternately brooding and agitated bearing he had exhibited over the past two weeks. His features seemed more relaxed, and he beamed upon Nina and Amelia like a benevolent uncle. Once, when he reached out to stroke Amelia's hand, she reacted as if she'd been electrocuted, then gave a nervous laugh and a "How silly of me!" Nina looked on with some bemusement, but with an unspoken wave of sympathy toward her.

Poor girl! She's having trouble accepting the new reality. I hope she's a little less uptight tonight.

The moment breakfast was over, Amelia leaped up from her seat and said, "Um, I have to go run some errands." She flashed a look at Nina. "I'll be back later to help cook dinner."

Nina cried, "You're not going to look for an apartment, are you?"

There surely won't be any need of that now, will there?

"No, no," Amelia said breathlessly. "I—I just have some things to do." And she bolted from the room.

Nina was about to get up when Patrick reached over and put a hand on her arm. "Let her go, Nina. She probably just wants to be alone. She'll be okay."

"I really don't know why she's reacting this way! I thought she'd be happy."

"It's all right. I think she's just taking a while getting used to the situation."

"I hope so."

Patrick and Nina decided to spend the day together. It was cloudy but not rainy, and by common consent they took a long walk that took them to the Arboretum. As she clutched his arm, Nina reminisced about their lovely wedding, remembering all manner of charming and silly things that happened then (such as the fact that her mother seemed to be totally scatter-brained and didn't know where she should sit). Patrick led her to a secluded corner in the woods and held her close, kissing her all over her face and even placing a hand on her bottom over her coat.

"Stop that, you dirty

young

man!" she chided. "You're incorrigible!"

"With you I am," he said.

She looked him straight in the eye. "You feel better now?"

"Yes," he said. "And it's all thanks to you."

"Well, I'm not as unselfish as you seem to think."

"You'll never convince me of that."

"That's because you're a silly man who doesn't understand these things."

"If you say so."

They continued their walk.

Amelia kept her promise and returned by late afternoon. She had a few tiny shopping bags in her hand—far fewer than what you'd have expected for an expedition that had lasted nearly six hours. (In fact, Amelia had spent most of her time wandering dazedly around the University of Washington, hoping that the beautifully landscaped campus and its thousands of bustling students might distract her from what she knew was to come that evening—and night.)

Nina was preparing a meal focused around stuffed green peppers (

nothing too heavy for tonight: Patrick doesn't perform well with a bloated stomach

), and Amelia pitched in wherever she could, making some garlic bread from scratch and also a salad. After dinner, they all watched a movie that none of them could remember afterwards. As he sat in the exact middle of the couch in the living room, Patrick invited both of his women to snuggle up on either side of him. Nina leapt to the right of him, making sure his arm was securely placed around her shoulder (and at times nudging it down in the direction of her breast). Amelia was a little slower in falling into line, walking stiffly toward the couple and at last flopping next to Patrick's left side.

At around 10 o'clock, Nina jumped up from the couch and said in an unusually high voice, "Okay, folks, I'm heading up the stairs. You, um—" She paused.

What do I say now? "You have fun"? Too crude. "You have a good time"? Also a double entendre.

She finally settled on: "You be nice to each other."

And she fled up the stairs.

Patrick and Amelia remained on the couch. He could feel his ex-wife trembling a bit. He stood up and held out a hand to her. "Come on, dear. It's time."

Amelia looked up at him with an expression that paradoxically mingled hope, dismay, gratitude, and fear. "Are you sure?" she said.

"Yes, I'm sure—and you are too," he said softly but decisively.

He led her to the guest bedroom.

Closing the door, he turned to look at Amelia. For a time they seemed frozen, as if they were actors in a film that had gotten stuck in an old-time projector. Finally, Patrick began slowly undressing himself. Amelia just watched him in a sort of excited alarm. In seconds he was naked, his member already hard and quivering with anticipation. As she looked at him—and it—a flood of remembrance overwhelmed her. She realized that she knew every inch of this man's body, and the three or more years they'd been apart made no difference to her memory.

She fell to her knees and seized his cock with her hand—at first, only with thumb and index finger, then with her entire hand. She approached it with an excruciatingly slow bending of her torso, licking her lips before placing those lips on the very tip. That first touch made her expel a curious little mew, and Patrick thought he saw tears suddenly well up in her eyes.

She worked that member with her lips, mouth, and tongue in what she quickly became aware was her familiar manner of arousing him—not that he needed any arousal. As he gazed down upon her, he also remembered so many things about her, and how many times she had done this very act—a potent symbol of her love and devotion. He had to work hard not to send his emission flowing into her mouth.

After a few minutes he pulled her up by her shoulders and stood gazing at her. She was beautiful even when fully clothed, but he knew that her beauty would only be enhanced as successive layers of her clothing were removed. And he set about removing them—carefully and without the least haste. Blouse, skirt, stockings, bra, panties—all of them fell to the floor as he devoured her with his gaze.

He led her to the bed and urged her to lie on her back. He was by no means ready to enter her yet; he wished to prove

his

love and devotion in another way. Prying open her legs, he buried his face in her muff, relishing the familiar perfume of her sex as he licked and sucked her clitoris and labia while massaging her gorgeous bottom. She couldn't get enough of the sight of his head bobbing as he attended to her needs, and she was almost unaware of how quickly her climax creeped up on her through his firm but tender ministrations. When that orgasm burst over her, she cried out sharply, at once putting a hand on her mouth in the hope that the poor woman upstairs—the wife of the man who was now servicing her—hadn't heard.

Patrick gave Amelia an ample amount of time to recover before sliding up her body and, with an almost apologetic gesture, plugged her up with his member. That exquisite sensation of being filled by the man she loved—perhaps the only man she had ever truly loved—was so overwhelming that everything in the universe seemed reduced to herself and him. She flung her arms around his neck, bent her knees to receive him more deeply, and graciously allowed him to knead her breasts and bottom as he thrust deeply into her, over and over.

His discharge into her was a kind of glue that sealed their indissoluble bond, and she welcomed the weight of his frame on her as she sought to preserve every drop of his most precious fluid in her. She was reluctant to let him slip out of her, but recognized that this first coupling was going to be only the first of several tonight—and many more to follow in the days, weeks, months, and years to come.