City Planner

Marion pressed. "And you? Do you have a need?"

There is a point when the wonderfully composed can seem to be woefully smug. I felt my hackles raise. "You worry about you, I'll worry about me."

Her eyes narrowed. "I am worried about me. I don't want to strike half a bargain, that would be no bargain at all for me — I can easily find half-bargains; they don't interest me. It's the couple I want." She leaned towards me like a cop would. "I want to be perfectly clear about this: I want the intimacy of being with a couple, that's what you should be accepting or rejecting."

Suddenly I went from being a cuckold to being intrigued. "What does that mean, exactly? The intimacy."

Marion sat back and turned to Erica. "You tell him."

"There would be three of us, not two of us, she would not live here but she would be here, she would always be considered." Erica looked unconvincing, confused. She looked at Marion as if wanting an answer. "That's the way I understood you."

Marion seemed to be looking down her nose at me, imperiously. "I want to insinuate myself into your intimacy, that's the more realistic way of looking at it, your intimacy would be a gift of something I've never been able to arrange for myself."

I looked at Erika as if she was a stranger. "And you want that?"

"Listen to her."

Marion was obviously intent on getting her message out — whether or not she wanted to draw me in seemed less clear. "I am ageing, I am alone, I've never been able to get the one thing I want: the intimacy of being in a loving couple."

I looked at Erica again. "You've talked about this?"

"Only in the abstract ... when we talked about it I hadn't met you yet so I was thinking about it differently than I do now. When we got together I realized how open you are; that this might be a possibility with you ... for us all."

"But open to what exactly? How do you share intimacy?"

"That's the adventure. We just open ourselves up to it and see where it goes."

"Do you move in?" I said to Marion.

"No ..."

"But she'll have a key and she'll come and go as she pleases and so will we ... at her place."

"So I walk in on her while she's taking a bath?"

"Like you do with me."

"Really?" I looked at Marion.

"I know I can't just create intimacy ... you two have it; it might work if you two treat me like you treat each other. I'm the student here, I'd learn to be like you." She could see my doubt; I wasn't trying to hide it. "Look, I've lived alone for almost 30 years. I'd love it if you walked in on me while I'm taking a bath; I'd love to cook you dinner when you dropped in on me; I'd love to go shopping with you ... or to the movies or, I don't know, doing our laundry together."

I could barely take my eyes off her, she has that kind of pulling power, but I turned to Erica. "Intimacy implies sex. What about that?"

"Of course."

I turned back to Marion. "So, you're bi-sexual?" I knew Erica probably is.

Erica seemed almost to jump to her feet. She came around and hugged me from the back, kissing me on the cheek. "You're going to have a million question ... so is Marion, so am I — it's the adventure I've been talking about. She's smart, she's beautiful and she wants to give this a try with us and so do I ..."

"No," Marion interrupted, "I don't just want to give this a try. Before anything happens I want to make a commitment to you and I want you both to make a commitment to me ... it may not work, we won't be able to force it to work but we can make a commitment to try our best to make it work. That's what I want: your decision to form this relationship."

This was getting out of hand. "And you always get your way?" She has a lofty, imperious side to her ... it's almost regal. And it's a little annoying.

She smirked, for the first time her grey eyes shone. "Why am I here? Why do I want you two? To get my way? I can always get my way when I'm alone. I want the battle of intimacy, all the variables of intimacy, all the intrigues and you two against me will make it a fair fight. Besides, I've read that one of the things that makes us happiest is doing things when we know we don't have to — like taking the dog out for a walk, not because you want to but because it wants you to, it, with those eager eyes, wagging tail and all that energy."

Erica laughed and moved quickly to Marion, giving her an awkward hug then kissing her on the cheek before looking at me with the same pleading eyes as Marion's.

I thought I finally understood Erica. "This is the adventure you've been talking about? You've always had this in mind?"

"No, that was sexual adventure — I thought I'd be trying all kinds of different sexual things with you but I was wrong about that, I know that doesn't interest you much and I've discovered that it doesn't much interest me either — Sharon and Carl proved that ... eventually. I love our intimacy but you're frustrating, if you don't want to go where I want to take you you just tune out and go out and slap a puck around." She kissed Marion's hair at her temple. "Our life would no longer be binary; the possibilities would no longer be just about you and me. We want an interesting life together? This woman would guarantee that. Say yes, and let's get on with it."

"But yes to what? That's what I'm having a problem with."

"Yes to all the possibilities."

All the possibilities? The very reason I hooked up with Erica in the first place was all the possibilities, sexual possibilities at first than everything else tumbled in on top of that: her brothers, her parents, sports, the house — her life, all the more complicated now with her new job and the doctorate program. Now she wants me to shoe-horn in a 54 year old woman? "Where are you going to find the time for her?"

"Or you."

Suddenly, it all came together. "Is that what this is about?"

Erica doesn't have a lot of patience and she has a temper, which she lost. "Oh, for fucks sake are we going to make a commitment to her or not? She's smart, she's beautiful and she wants to be in our lives. You've never had a mother, she's never had a daughter, she's ..."

I stopped her. "What have you never had? What great deficiency in your life does she fill?"

She looked at me. Her clear, clever eyes bore into mine. "You're a wonderful guy, Mike, I couldn't love you more but I've been pushing you around since we met — I absolutely loath that about myself. But that's the way I am and that's the way it will be and if I keep pushing you around we're only going to end up where I want us to go. That's the last thing I want: where's the excitement in that? Where's the adventure? With Marion, that all changes."

Marion Blackmore looked like she was holding her breath; she looked like something deep and meaningful was hanging in the balance. Erica looked like she was in pain.

"We all share our lives together. How would that work?"

"We always make room for her when she wants to be with us."

"And when we want to be with her?"

Marion's thin lips with the red gloss moved. "You have a key, you have a phone. You use them."

I didn't really have a choice and I knew it: Erica always gets her way. I now said what had just this second become obvious to me. "You do realize that it will be me spending time with her, you don't have any of it: time."

"Only at first."

"You're OK with that?"

"Am I OK with opening up our marriage and bringing Marion in, yes, I'm entirely OK with that, I don't know how many ways I can say it."

"This is your excitement; your adventure ..." She was about to explode so I quickly threw my hand up to stop her. "OK! OK! I have no idea how this can work and I have no idea what I'm saying OK to, but OK." I nodded graciously to Marion. "Welcome to our lives."

"Thank you," the thin red-tinted lips smiled to show her very white, very even teeth that Erica almost immediately had her lips against, then against mine.

Then she was back in her chair and Marion had picked up her cutlery.

"It's cold," I said. Erica almost jumped to her feet, obviously she couldn't wait to please. But Marion stood up, too and pressed her hand on Erica's shoulder suggesting she sit down. "Let me heat that up for you." She grinned and honest to God the place almost lit up.

But you don't just flip a switch and allow someone into your life, or I don't. Erica does, not at the dinner table, that was stilted, awkward, none of us knew how to relax in the new reality, but after, physically, when she sat down beside Marion on the couch and took her arm and squeezed it to her — like she used to do to me, and put her head on her shoulder. That is an Erica submission move I knew well and she wanted me to see it. And Marion wanted me to see her wrap her arm around her new, what? Daughter, lover, spouse, don't know but it didn't matter. There was nothing lewd or even suggestive about it: two women getting close.

Erica glanced up at me, I guess I was standing somewhat transfixed by their sudden cozy arrangement. "I was thinking you two might want to go for a walk tomorrow. Marion's a walker."

I had any number of excuses I could offer; I hesitated in selecting one long enough so they expected one. I said to Erica, "What would I say to that if you asked me that?" I quickly answered my own question. "I'd say great and that's what I'm saying to Marion if she wants to go ... you know why? Because I'm kind of the odd guy out here so I don't want to be the one to screw this up."

Erica got up. "Let's go to bed, let's get this out of the way, too."

Marion stood up with Erica as if she thought it was a good idea. I stayed standing in place. "Do you want me to give you some time together."

"No," they both said in unison so I followed them to the bedroom.

What was I feeling? What did I really think about this arrangement ... beyond the obvious, that it's weird? Honestly? I thought it made some sense but not from any deep-seated conviction that it was rational; the very opposite; it was irrational, but very much Erica. She said from the beginning that our relationship was going to be different; I thought in other ways. I was wrong. She may have had something like this in mind from the get-go, probably did and she was probably right: if left alone she would be bossing me around for the rest of our life together, that was absolutely true — I'd pick and choose what to agree to but she would be unrelenting. This offered intriguing possibilities.

But there was something else at play here that was even more practical. I'm only guessing, I know, but I'm thinking she's worried about us and our time-share; she wanted a stand-in for all the time she'd be spending at work and in books, but someone who wasn't going to be competition.

And then there was the possibility that I should just take this at face value: Marion looked like a woman who any sane person from either gender would want in his or her space and bed. Finding her and arranging this threesome spoke to Erica's creativity, sexual inclinations but also her desire to take care of me. Did she sense my mother reaction would happen? Wouldn't put it past her.

They climbed onto the bed and to each other's arms. There was none of the uncertainty I would have had but there was no hunger either, none of what happened between us and with Sharon. I sat down on my side of the bed, then lay down, taking Erica's hand which was pressing into Marion's back. She looked over Marion who was on her side. "I have a few hours of work to do tonight. I just want to get this out of the way, OK?"

'This' was concealed from me by Marion's body but there weren't all that many variables, so I snuggled up to Marion and pressed my erection against her ass; I wanted to reach over her and cuddle my palm on one of the breasts I had been admiring all night but her arm was clamped to her side and I soon realized that as they kissed, she was frigging Erica, that was the 'it,' that accounted for Erica's very familiar moans.

For the second time in about as many minutes I asked myself 'what was I feeling?' I had the time, I was just lying there like the third man out I was. For my answer I didn't have to go very deep this time: Erica excites me, her body for sure, she is manifestly fuckable, everyone can imagine that ... particularly once the scowl is gone, which it pretty much is these days. But more than that she excites me because she, at heart, is kinky ... she might tell me later that her kink has always been about having another woman share our life together, but I didn't believe that. If she wasn't spending all the extra time in the office and working on her Doctorate, I could easily imagine us pursuing all kinds of sexual avenues, well I couldn't imagine the avenues, just that we would be on them. Having someone share 'our intimacy' is just a kinky convenience that she thought, rightly, that I'd probably go along with.

And I was pretty sure Marion is pretty much who she says she is; she has no reason not to be and she seems way too attractive and sensible to be a fraud; she just didn't need to be. But my antennae were up; she'd know that. I felt her hip and a little of her ass, which is toned — she could well be a walker; I pressed my still growing erection harder against her; Erica's noises have always gotten to me, particularly those signalling her climax, the ones now filling the room and soon after Marion was on her back and Erica was leaning over her kissing her in appreciation. "That was great Marion, thanks ... sorry," she said to me, "I just have so fucking much I have to do." She crawled over Marion and kissed me. "You're thinking this is unreal ... I know you. But it isn't, it's really going to happen. There are three of us now, with baby there'll be four of us in two year and God knows how many after that."

"More friends from work?" I speculated.

She laughed as she was getting to the floor. "I was thinking of your kids. Have fun." She was doing up her pants as she left and Marion was on her side looking at me. "Confused?"

"Was this always going to happen tonight? Did you know that when you came over?"

"We had talked a lot ... never about this exactly but talked around it. I've always wanted something like this ... for the last 10-15 years anyway. I don't want a husband or a partner or a lover, I've always wanted something like this, a relationship with a happily married couple." She chuckled, "But happily married couples don't usually want an interloper."

I reached out and touched her chin. "You're beautiful; this seems a very odd way of someone like you to end up."

She crawled in to me and kissed me softly on the lips. "I know how Erica feels about this, at least I think I do ... I'm pretty sure I do ..."

"How does she feel? I don't don't really get it."

She kissed me again, a little peck. "It's complicated." She pulled back so I could see how serious she is. "I'll leave it for you to put it together, you know her in ways I don't ..."

"I'm not at all sure of that."

She smiled, she has a beautiful smile — the thin lips and white even teeth. "Here are the elements as I see them," she said. "She's bossy, bitchy and bi. She's probably an A personality, a risk-taker and ungovernable, accustomed to getting her own way. She has a strong sex drive, doesn't care what people think of her, she wants to be loved — more specifically, she wants to be loved by you. But she's torn — she calls it adventure, I think that's what she said tonight: she doesn't want a lifetime of bossing you around. Those are the elements, or some of them ... what makes them viable is your flexibility if not your understanding — there aren't many men out there who would accept this arrangement. She lucked out with you and she knows it. I'm hoping I've lucked out, too."

She moved in again and kissed me, hesitantly, I could tell she was gauging my reaction.

I've never had a mother; I had a long string of stand-ins, including a fairly stable woman for the four years of high school who, like them all, was in it for the money. Through my childhood and beyond I had thought a lot about the mother I never knew; I created a bond with her in my imagination, an increasingly strong bond where she was an increasingly constant and vital presence. And then one day Billy Mathews told me he stole his mother's underwear from the hamper each night and took them to bed with him; he couldn't wait to get a little older so he could slide into her bed. After that, my fiction changed.

That's what I was thinking about when my lips gently touched hers, when my fingers touched her wonderfully heavy breast: I was thinking just how easy it was for me to manipulate the fantasies of my mother after Billy Mathews got to me — and how much easier it will be now with a mother this pretty, this well built, this willing.

I was watching the ass in front of me, the surprisingly tight one in the khaki shorts, the one encased in the black sports underwear I had watched her pull on this morning at her house. "You've got an amazing ass."

She was smiling when she looked back over her shoulder. "Every mother likes to hear that."

I had admitted to her this morning about my mum fantasy after Billy Mathews — I wanted to signal to her that I was an entirely open book. We speculated on how much of that kind of thing actually went on; neither of us had any idea. She said she wanted to think a lot more about it before she talked about it with me. That disappointed me but I thought that was sensible.

When we got up in the morning — what sleep Erica got was in the spare bedroom, I closely watched both women for doubt with the fledgling arrangement. There wasn't any, not a hint of it, not even any uncertainty; it was like they were now perfectly choreographed: who went to the bathroom first, who made the bed, who got the breakfast, who kissed me, when.

We sat on a log after about 90 minutes of walking ... at a surprisingly brisk pace; the woman is fit. In a minute she slipped down to the ground and lay back against the log, her arm against my leg.

I asked her out of the blue, how long she had been married.

"Not long ... less than two years."

"What happened?"

She tried to look back at me but couldn't comfortably. "Me happened; I realized who me is."

"Funny you should mention that," I chuckled, "I've been wondering that very same thing about myself."

She wrapped her arm around my leg and kissed my knee. "We're all a riddle, aren't we? I have this theory that few of us ever figure ourselves out ..."

"Thus depression and all that?"

"Anxiety, frustration, undeveloped creativity, lack of imagination, ya, all of it. That was me, then I got married; I almost immediately realized a whole bunch of things about myself I didn't know. Who I was slowly started to come into focus. It wasn't good."

She was going to leave it at that so I leaned down behind her, pulled her head back, awkwardly kissed her near the mouth while feeling the charge as I firmly cupped her left breast. "Continue," I said, sitting back.

She shrugged. "Married life felt like a jail, I couldn't figure out why, not at first; the guy was great, we were comfortable, everything was what I thought I wanted but from the very first day I hated every minute of it. It just wasn't me, I knew that ... but what was?" She looked back at me again, this time physically turning so she could see me. "Are you sure you want to hear this?"

I gave her a light kick on the hip.

"I needed space," she said, settling back. "I needed solitude; I needed to be inside books; I needed not to have my body touched. I never loved the guy but I liked him a lot, especially after he let me go — I never saw him again but I sure wish him all the best ... I actually have fond memories of the guy; I may have put him through hell."

I had no doubt she did. "You're a complicated women. You and Erica can spend a lifetime figuring each other out."