Molly and Her Sisters

"And somehow we got the idea of, of...trying each of you out. You know, switching. I guess it must sound like a pretty bad idea now—but we were just teasing each other, challenging each other, like 'you're too chicken to do it', and then...well, after a couple of weeks it got more serious."

Molly and Amy were watching Hannah now. She went on.

"Anyway, Friday night was the night. We switched clothes when we met here in the kitchen, and went off to each other's houses. Amy was with you, I was with Ted, and Molly was with Arnie. Then Saturday we switched back at the barbecue.

"It was stupid, Scott—we all realize that now! And you must be really furious; but please give Molly a chance to make it up to you. She loves you so much! Just look at how miserable she is." She pointed at her sister, who was crying steadily.

"So," I said, "Amy was with me, while Molly was with Arnie?" They all nodded.

I turned to Amy. "So how was it, Amy? How did sex with me compare to sex with good ol' Ted?"

Amy looked stupified. "I don't...it was...I don't know, Scott. It was great, actually."

"Yeah? Great? Please refresh my memory—how did we do it? What happened, exactly?"

Amy couldn't meet my eye. "I...I don't actually, uh, remember, it was..."

"Just two nights ago, the first time in your married life you swap husbands with one of your sisters, and you can't remember what we did? What, have you got early Alzheimer's or something?"

I turned back to Hannah. "Nice try, Hannah, but your story is total bullshit. Yes, it was Amy in my bed on Friday night, because I put a black ink mark on her back after she fell asleep and it's still there, but we didn't have sex at all.

"And I wish you hadn't tried to insult my intelligence, on top of everything else you three cunts have done, by trying to lie to me about this being the first time. You think I don't know that you three have voted Arnie the best fuck?"

They gasped, but I ignored them and went on. "You think I don't know that he's getting laid seven nights a week by one of the three of you, while I'm getting it less than twice a week? I get the consolation prize, though, don't I—I get to lick your pussies for you when you feel like it!"

I stopped, to see how they'd take it. Molly was sobbing almost hysterically, while her sisters just looked grim. I was running out of patience, but I wanted them to confess the truth.

"You get one more try," I said. "One more try to tell me the truth. And this time I want to hear it from Molly. How long have you been fucking each other's husbands?"

She looked at me, red-eyed, imploring, and I waited. The room was silent.

Finally she looked away from me, down at the table. "For years. Since just after Hannah and Arnie's wedding."

More silence. I waited.

Hannah spoke up. "It wasn't her fault, Scott. Amy and I insisted."

"But it was only once in a while, Scott!" Molly insisted. "Like, a couple of times a year."

"Okay," I said, "so then what?"

No one wanted to answer me. "So it gradually got more frequent?"

"Yes," Amy said reluctantly.

"So the three of you have been sharing the three husbands regularly—like a little round-robin? Is that right, Molly?" She nodded, miserably.

"And when did it turn into seven nights a week of pussy for Arnie, and an occasional mercy fuck for me?"

She wouldn't answer me, or look at me.

"How many of Arnie's seven nights were with you each week, Molly?"

"One or two," she murmured.

"Just wonderful," I said. I'd heard about all I could stand, and there was no reason to listen to any more.

"It was just...just sex, honey," she said, looking at me imploringly. "It had nothing to do with love—nothing to do with the way I love you, the way we love each other."

"Oh? And nothing to do with getting pregnant either, I suppose?"

She gasped, and her sisters looked alarmed.

"Scott, what are you...?"

"You think I don't know, my dear devoted wife, that you were going to get yourself knocked up by Ted, since you didn't think I could do the job?"

She shrieked, "no, Scott!" and got up, coming around the table to hug me.

I stood up and shoved her away from me, and she stumbled against the refrigerator.

"You bitch—don't you EVER touch me again! You've betrayed me in just about every way it's possible to betray a husband, with the help of your two fucking slut sisters. Now the three of you can share Arnie and Ted—unless you decide to add a new guy to your stable when you need your cunts eaten!"

And before they could answer I had slammed through the swinging door and was out of the kitchen.

****************

I grabbed my suitcase and headed out the front door without seeing them again, though I could hear the crying in the kitchen. I spent an angry, sleepless night in a room at the Hyatt, and in the morning I took the day off work and went to see my attorney, then to the bank. And I arranged to meet Arnie and Ted for lunch—I made it sound urgent enough that Ted cancelled a meeting he had scheduled.

We sat in a booth at a diner and ordered sandwiches, then I wasted no further time.

"Guys, I don't know if you're going to believe this, but our wives have been cheating on us. More specifically, they've been bed-hopping with the three of us. It appears it's been going on for years now."

Arnie was completely shocked—but to my surprise, Ted only nodded and said, "I had an idea something like that was going on. I didn't want to believe it, but..."

We both gaped at him. "What made you suspect?" I said.

"There were just too many times when Amy forgot something—when she didn't recall a conversation from earlier in the day, or the night before. I wasn't sure, of course, and I wasn't going to make an accusation before I had hard evidence.

"So I've been keeping some notes about things she's forgotten. I figured when I had something a little more conclusive, I would talk to the two of you guys.

"Anyway, how did you find out?" he asked.

I told them about the conversation I'd overheard, then about the trick with the ink mark. Ted looked thoughtful, while Arnie kept saying, "incredible—fucking incredible!"

When I'd finished he said, "are you SURE, Scott? I mean, this is so nuts!"

I said, "here's a recording of the conversation I had with the three of them last night," and I played the tape without further comment.

When it was done we looked at one another, grimly; and then began to talk seriously. Both Arnie and Ted called their offices and said they wouldn't be in that afternoon.

I said I was divorcing Molly—no way back, I said. They weren't yet sure what they would do. We talked for a couple of hours, and I was aware that, ironically, I'd never felt closer to my two brothers-in-law. They were both really great guys, and I was going to miss them.

****************

I found an apartment I liked, came back with a truck and took a few pieces of our furniture, and moved into it. I got the rest of my clothes and things out of the house by the end of the week. Molly had been calling me repeatedly, at work and on my cell. I told the office assistant to refuse her calls, and arranged for a new cell number. Keeping my apartment phone number unlisted turned out to be a good idea, too.

And I filed for divorce and made plans to get on with my life. On Thursday I had a really weird conversation with Barbara, one of my friends from work. I guess everyone in the office could see I was distracted and angry, but she finally asked me about it.

I pretty much told her the whole story, and her face showed a mix of surprise, sympathy, and a kind of twisted pleasure. That pissed me off, and I said so.

"I'm sorry, Scott!" she said. "I'm certainly not happy about what they did to you.

"It's just that..." She looked a little embarrassed. "It's just that, well, I always had the idea that you and I might...y'know, make a good couple."

I stared at her. Barbara was not only a good person, generous and fun—she was also tall and very pretty. I'd always been vaguely aware of how attractive she was, but I was so in love with Molly I really hadn't thought about it much.

Now, suddenly, it seemed to be worth thinking about. She and I talked a while longer. We left it all up in the air, but Barbara could see I was thinking about her in a whole new way.

********

Through my attorney, Molly begged and pleaded to see me, to have a chance to explain. I was sure there wasn't a damn thing she could say to me that would make the slightest difference, but I met with her anyway. And I was right.

We were in my attorney's conference room, alone—about six weeks after I moved out. I was sitting and waiting when she came in, looking sad but still very beautiful. I waited for her to sit.

"So, Molly," I said, "how have you been? Has Ted gotten you pregnant yet?"

She flushed. "No Scott—I'm not having sex with Ted, or with anyone. And I'm not going to get pregnant with anyone but you."

"You know," I said, "the night I overheard you in the kitchen, I was on my way in to tell you that Dr. Randall said my sperm count was fine. A little low, but plenty strong enough to make babies. There would have been no need to rely on Ted's help.

"On the other hand, you were fucking him and Arnie regularly anyway, so I guess it doesn't make much difference either way."

She was already near tears. "Please, Scott—can you let me explain? Can you let me say how sorry I am, how awful I feel?"

"Do you think you feel worse than I do, Molly?" She looked at me sadly, and shook her head.

"Okay," I said, with a sigh. "Go ahead. But do me a favor—don't tell me how much you love me. Don't tell me that what you did had nothing to do with you and me. Just don't, all right?"

"But Scott, it DIDN'T have anything to do with you and me! It was, I don't know, just a crazy thing that Hannah and Amy and I did. That we'd always done, ever since high school. Our little game, not meant to hurt anyone."

"You did this with all your boyfriends?"

"Pretty much—with everyone that any of us dated for any length of time. We've always been so close, and it...and I guess it, I don't know, made us closer. We shared everything—clothes, gossip, friends, even boyfriends."

I sat still and let her go on. What the hell, I was learning something.

"When you and I got married I figured it would stop—and it did, for several years."

"Wait a minute," I said. "Were your sisters fucking me while you and I were dating?"

She blushed. "Yes—two or three times. I didn't really want to, especially once it got serious between us—but we'd always shared in the past and they were pretty insistent."

"Well," I said sarcastically, "I guess I must have passed the test, because you didn't dump me."

She didn't say anything.

"Molly, you just don't get it, do you? You played me for a fool, just so you and your sisters could have your fun. You fucked Arnie instead of me—for years!—because he was better in bed than I was. Have you even begun to think through how that makes me feel? What the hell is so great about him, anyway?

"No, wait, don't answer that—I don't want to hear it!"

Her lip was trembling. "Scott, I know, it was...awful. But, you know, you got to have sex with all three of us."

"But I didn't know it! You moron, haven't you figured that out yet?!

"Even if we had talked about swapping around—which I never would have agreed to, but never mind that—if we had decided to do that, I would have had the pleasure and excitement of sex with other women. But I didn't know they weren't you, Molly—to me it was always you. Not someone new and exciting. Just the woman I loved, more than anything."

I was getting more and more exasperated. How could she have so little understanding of what she and her sisters had done?

"Listen," I said, "it's simple. I was your husband. You were supposed to put me ahead of anyone else—our relationship was supposed to come before your relationships with anyone else. And it didn't.

"You put Hannah and Amy before me. You put screwing Arnie before me. You were going to let Ted get you pregnant without a word to me, for Chrissakes!

"And now you can have them. But you won't have me."

I'd really had enough. I got up to leave the room.

Sobbing, she said, "but baby, I don't want them! I don't want my sisters, I want you!"

"Well," I said, "isn't that sweet? After all these years, you've decided to choose me over your sisters. But now you don't get to choose—I do. And I choose to be without the woman who's been lying to me and cheating on me, who's made a complete fool of me for years. Have a nice life."

She buried her face in her hands, crying loudly, but made no attempt to stop me as I headed out the door.

****************

After that conversation it suddenly felt like it would be easier to move on. Barbara and I started dating, and after the third date I discovered that there were other women in the world besides Molly (or her sisters) whom I could enjoy having sex with.

Barbara was energetic and appreciative, and our first night in her bed turned into a whole weekend. It was hot and it was fun—and whether it would lead to anything serious I had no idea. But it sure as hell made me feel better about myself.

We're still seeing each other—and having sex a lot—but taking it slow. Barbara is smart enough to understand how jumbled up things are for me right now, and she's not putting any pressure on me, which I appreciate.

Arnie decided not to throw Hannah out—not so surprising, I guess. He was the girls' first choice in bed, after all, and the revelations about what they'd been up to weren't nearly as devastating to him as they were to Ted and me. But he did make Hannah grow her hair long, so she could never again switch with her sisters without him knowing.

He told her if she ever fucked around on him again—with me, Ted, or anyone else—she'd be out on her ear without a penny. And he said he wouldn't mind continuing to fuck Amy or Molly once in a while—but when HE felt like it, not on their schedule. Arnie told me Hannah looked pretty pissed-off when he said that, but she kept her mouth shut.

"She knows she's on pretty thin ice right now," he said to me with a grin.

Ted found a way to give Amy the most pain of all, though he didn't do it deliberately. He lined up a really good job in Chicago and told Amy he was moving up there in three weeks.

"You can move up there with me, and we'll find a counselor and try to fix our marriage," he said to her. "Or you can stay in Cincinnati with your sisters. You choose."

Now Amy is in agony. She can't let go of Ted, but she can't live without being around her sisters, either. Too damn bad, if you ask me. Fuck her—fuck all three of them.