Hunger Ch. 05

It seemed that every time I woke up lately, something new, strange, scary or wonderful was waiting just around the corner. I didn't know quite what to expect as I woke up this time. I wanted to believe I would wake up to incredible pleasure once more, but the absence of male forms in my bed seemed to indicate otherwise.

The darkness outside the window made me realize that I had probably slept the day away. I yawned and stretched, carefully cataloguing all of my injuries and sore spots, both those caused by anger and those given in moments of intense pleasure. My face was still hurting, but not as much as before, my breasts felt extra sensitive and my nether parts were slightly sore, unused to having sex with an actual man, probably shocked to bits by the thorough loving of not one but two men.

A wicked smile spread on my lips as I thought about the pleasure they had both given me. I felt my body answer the call of my thoughts with tingles spreading from my center and shivers covering my skin. I thought about Jerry's whispered words about my response to his touch, reliving the way his hands had made me feel, the tension and the explosive climaxes. I smiled as my mind caressed the memory of Ben losing control, his fierce need for me almost causing him pain.

The haze of pleasant memories was abruptly pushed aside by the realization that it was a workday and that I hadn't called in sick; and didn't I have a couple of important meetings that I'd forgotten to cancel?

I jumped out of bed and pulled my bathrobe on, quickly tying the belt in a simple knot before walking out into the hallway to search for my phone. The sound of laughter made me turn and walk towards what I suspected was two happy brothers; perhaps they would know where my phone was. As I entered the kitchen my mouth watered and my stomach grumbled loudly from the delicious smell of food filling the kitchen.

I managed to walk up to the table before they noticed me, the two brothers too busy eating, joking and laughing.

"Hey," I said looking at them with a shy smile "have you seen my phone?"

"Yes," Jerry said "but I won't give it to you until you've eaten something!"

Ben stood up and started pouring soup on a plate before cutting a large piece of flat, white bread and quickly placing the food on the table, pulling the chair out for me to sit on. The anger I felt against Jerry and the way he was trying to "handle me" was quickly dulled by Ben's kindness. I stood there staring at them for a few seconds before sitting down, surprised by how complicated my feelings towards the two brothers had become. It was as if they were interconnected in my mind, Jerry's teasing ways soothed by Ben's gentle touch; Ben's carefulness stimulated by Jerry's more straight forward approach to life.

I looked at the food in front of me, my stomach once again crying out for attention, and carefully tasted what seemed to be a spicy tomato soup; the flat white bread I just stared suspiciously at.

"It's our grandmother's recipe again," Ben told me with an encouraging smile "tomato soup with garlic and chili, and focaccia bread."

I couldn't quite understand why I was so hungry until I realized it had been more than 24 hours since I ate. Ben's eyes followed my movements as I broke a small piece of bread and tasted it. He smiled happily when I took the whole piece of bread and started stuffing my mouth with it. The food was just as delicious as the pasta he had made, was it only a day ago?

After finishing off two plates of soup and that one big piece of bread, I leaned back in my chair absolutely and totally stuffed.

"You don't eat enough!" Jerry stated with a worried frown.

"I eat just fine," I replied, anger quickly seeping back into my mind "where's my phone?"

Jerry fetched the phone from somewhere in the living room and handed it to me.

"I've answered two calls," he told me "one from your office and one from someone called Mary."

I stared at him surprised and annoyed but before I could start complaining about him answering my phone, Ben interrupted me.

"Jerry tried to wake you up a couple of hours ago, but when that didn't work he answered your phone, first when your boss called - he wished you well, told him you should stay at home as long as you needed and asked if you could call him after the weekend - and then when Mary called, because he thought that might be an even more important call."

"I thought it might be that friend of yours, at the hospital," Jerry answered softly "but it was another friend; you know the one who has a degree in phone interrogation techniques?"

Jerry laughed softly shaking his head before explaining that she had sucked everything he knew about the whole situation out of him, not even stopping to take a breath in the process. With a frown and an embarrassed smile he looked me straight in the eyes and continued.

"The whole, you know, relationship... thing... with the three of us, sort of slipped out too."

The relationship thing, I thought to myself and stared down at my hands that were pressed against the table; a relationship, meaning something more permanent than, say, casual sex? And the three of us, in that relationship? Yes, my mind told me, you know the whole two men, one woman thing, that's not really the norm, is it?

Shocked that I hadn't stopped to think about the moral implications, I just sat there staring, my mouth slightly open. A whole range of feelings ran through my body: anger, fear, disappointment, confusion, hope, relief. I went hot, cold, numb and then back to hot again before I lifted my head up and stared at Jerry.

"What did Mary say?" I whispered.

"That was the strange thing," Jerry said "she wanted me to tell you 'she knew you had it in you'? And then she used very long words to explain how important it was that we treated you right. I'm still not sure if she threatened us with something, but in the end she just laughed. And then we hung up."

Mary's reaction didn't surprise me as previous discussions had showed me and my friends that she was extremely open-minded. But the 'you had it in you'-comment still made my thoughts spin. Was I really the kind of woman that could consciously decide to engage in a relationship with two men? The memories of what we had done along with the pleasant, humming ache I felt in my body proved that I obviously was the kind of woman that would go to bed with two men, be it a conscious decision or not.

I tried to think what other people would say, finding no answers in my own mind, otherwise so helpful in finding solutions based on logical patterns. I hadn't thought about, read about or ever heard anyone talk about anything but the two person relationships that society called normal, be it homo- or heterosexual ones. But then again, relationships outside of the norm probably wasn't something you'd be able to read about in the financial papers, or something people would discuss openly at work, over a cup of coffee, was it?

In full problem solution mode, I started thinking about how and where to find information to base my decisions on; there should be web sites, organizations, studies, shouldn't there?

I felt a warm hand caress my neck and shoulder and looked up once more, my eyes telling me what my body already knew, that Jerry was leaning in, caressing me and looking at me with a soft smile on his face.

"Don't overthink it," he said "just relax and enjoy."

But that was the thing, wasn't it? I wasn't really a 'go with the flow, spur of the moment'-kind of a person. Everything I did, all of my decisions, were at least based on a simple pros and cons list and most often had a much more solid foundation than that. Even my private life and my personal decisions were thoroughly planned.

Still silent I looked at the two brothers, not knowing how to communicate what I was thinking and feeling. They were looking worried, scanning my face for clues, wanting me to say something. I looked at Ben, keeping his hands far away from me, always careful not to intrude on my personal space, then at Jerry, his hand still on my shoulder, caressing my neck with his thumb.

I suppressed a hysterical giggle that wanted to float up to the surface as my mind began circling the same thought round and around - "the path of this righteous woman is beset on both sides by extremely attractive men". I shook the thought off and began formulating a plan; first step, tell the brothers something, to let them know some of my concerns.

"I'm not sure how to go on from here," I started "it's a very surreal situation, isn't it?"

I shook my head and looked at them, seeing their worried frowns.

"The truth is, I'm confused, worried and a bit afraid. How does this kind of 'thing' work? Are there any rules; is there something I should know?" I continued "Is this something that is kept a secret, a fun game hidden behind closed doors? Is it then a short term thing? And what happens if someone wants long term? What about love and family? What if three people suddenly becomes just two? What about my family, my friends, my life? What about your family, your friends, your lives?"

I stopped my quick flow of words, hearing a tiny note of hysteria in the last few sentences. Silence spread as the brothers looked at each other and then back at me again.

"I know just as little as you do about these types of situations," Ben answered "and I'm not sure I have any good answers, but as I see it every relationship is unique, with its own special success factors and its own set of problems. Trying to sort out the rules, finding a way to communicate is what you do in the beginning, isn't it?"

"I don't know much more than you do," Jerry added "but I do have a friend who lives with his wife and another man. They seem to have a good life together, but it's not something they talk about with people they don't know well."

"We talked some when you were sleeping," Ben continued "and we both realize it's early days yet, but it doesn't feel uncomfortable or strange, frankly I think it feels great. If we just try to get to know each other better, and talk about things, I think we'll find out some of the answers to those questions together."

"And I think that our physical reactions to each other speaks loudly too," Jerry added "and if that was all we had, that would still be enough to at least give this a try. And it isn't all we have, because we genuinely care about you and we don't want to see you hurt again."

I had thought of them as men of few words and was stunned by what they were saying. They seemed to have the same concerns as I did, but were more confident that everything was going to be ok. I still couldn't see the full picture, I still worried about the many ways this could cause any or all of us pain and above all I was worried about the way that other people would probably judge us. No matter how many years away from high school, the damned truth was that the need to fit in and the fight for acceptance and popularity never quite ended.

I felt I needed some time alone, to be able to think things through, or at least to try to.

"I'm going to have a bath!" I told them, as I rose and walked away.

When I sank my body into warm, bubbly water minutes later I didn't have high hopes that it would be able to still my troubled thoughts, but I was hoping it would at least sooth my aching muscles.

It's important to sort through what's important and what's not, I thought, beginning the slow process of cataloguing all of the facts. Other people's opinions weren't my primary concern, were they? The way I felt about it all had to be processed first. And how did I feel about it then?

Remembering how a smile from Ben made me feel all soft and gooey inside, I smiled and realized I was perhaps half way in love with him already. But then I thought about the way a touch from Jerry could make me turn into a hot, trembling mess, but also that his touch was able to calm me in a way almost nothing had been able to do up until that point in my life. I was more than half way in lust with Jerry - that was an unchallengeable fact.

My smile grew sad; sad because my mind was trying to follow convention, trying to make me find the one perfect match, making me see which one of them that would logically be the best choice. I let my mind follow the path it had started on, worried frown covering my face.

A life with Ben would be filled with good food and pleasant company, a loving relationship where everything was well organized but where every day would probably look exactly the same, with no room for surprises. A life with Ben would perhaps be as safe a choice as I could possibly make, but also maybe a choice that would grow boring in the end? But then again, safety was a high priority issue, wasn't it? To love someone and to be able to show your true inner self, that needed the comfort of a stable relationship with someone you could trust, didn't it?

A life with Jerry would be filled with hot passion, his need for closeness and caresses coloring every aspect of the day. I hadn't realized how much I thirsted after human closeness of that kind, my response to his tactile touch proving that I needed that perhaps just as much as safety and stability. But there was a risk that Jerry might think life with me was boring after a couple of weeks, wasn't there? All of that passion he had inside might make him burn strongly but only for a short period of time, and where would that leave me?

A life with both of them, the stability of Ben and the passionate nature of Jerry; one part stabilizing the other and vice versa, the idea of it still tickled me. After all thoughts of the one perfect man, my mind stilled in one crystal clear thought. The fact was that I wanted not just one, but both of them. The complex puzzle of my mind, body, spirit and heart seemed to settle with that very important notion and I could feel calm finally winding its way through all of me.

Perhaps it was true what Ben had said, that all relationships started out shaky, with a need to define the rules and set the boundaries. I really didn't have enough experience to know what that would actually mean even in a 'normal' situation, but I guess time would tell. With a small smile I thought about the way our interactions would make for a lot of interesting days or weeks in the near future.

I was still a bit worried about what other people would think, but a quick sort-through of those thoughts made me realize two things; my friends would all probably be happy for me; and my mother would probably collapse in a hysterical fit over the immorality of her no-good daughter. Both thoughts made me smile and sink further into the warm water, happy with my decision to give the whole loving relationship thing one more try.

* * * * *

I sat staring at Jerry as Susan left us, quickly walking away from a situation she seemed to now think undesirable or even disgusting. Perhaps she hadn't been fully awake and aware when we'd been in bed together. What if what we had done had somehow hurt her? Had we crossed a line that a carefully brought up, moral woman would rather die than cross?

I saw the worries of my mind mirrored in my brother's face. He was nervously biting one of his thumb nails; something I hadn't seen him do since our mother had died, leaving us alone with a grieving father at the tender age of nine and a half.

Thinking about our mother's death and the way our father had struggled on with life, trying to create a stable home environment for the both of us, going about it in the only way he could think of, by finding us another mother, made me tense up. That part of our lives had not been a happy one, and was probably at least partly to blame for the way we both approached life and love; Jerry pretending that he didn't need deeper meaning, that casual, temporary flings made him happy; me being stuck in friendship or one-sided love stories, always opening myself up to people who could somehow sense that I was easy to manipulate, easy to use.

I stood up and started clearing the table; sitting around dwelling about the past wouldn't get us anywhere, would it? I smiled a short, wry smile realizing that I had turned to house work like I usually did when something worried me.

"You'd make someone a really good wife someday" Jerry said with a low voice, his standard comment to my nervous behavior not as full of good cheer as it usually was.

I just shrugged and continued cleaning up, storing left-overs in the fridge, quickly doing the dishes and then when I was all done, I just stood there leaning against the counter, staring down at my hands. What if she decided that she didn't want us? What if she didn't want me? What if she chose Jerry?

I turned and looked at Jerry who was still sitting there by the table, still stuck in thoughts or perhaps memories, just as I had been. The pain that stabbed me when I thought of Susan perhaps choosing none or even just one of us made me realize I had more invested in this than I'd thought. The 'liking her' part that Jerry had been talking about was for me perhaps more closely related to love. It shouldn't really surprise me though; I had always been quick to fall in love, and mostly masked my affection by being friendly and making sure I didn't push my attention on the object of those affections.

Restlessness once again spread through my body; I had to find something to do, otherwise I'd sit there like Jerry, slowly going insane by all of my thoughts and emotions.

"Hey," I said to Jerry "let's finish up the last things in her bedroom, clean it up and move her stuff back in so she can sleep in there tonight."

Jerry seemed to shake his thoughtful mood off as he stood up, stretched and followed me. As we entered her room, I realized by Jerry's reaction that he hadn't been in there yet; his eyes caressing the lush jewel-colors of the walls, admiring the dark, shiny wood flooring and thoughtfully contemplating the storage area that I had built, shelves stained the same dark color as the floor and doors in the same vivid colors as the walls.

The room really only needed a few finishing touches; a few doors that were not yet attached, a final adjustment to the rest of them, making sure that everything was just right. Jerry took it all in, turned to me and nodded.

"Well done big bro," he said "I'll fix the doors if you'll go get the cleaning stuff."

Just half an hour later we were all done with the fixing and cleaning, had uncovered her bed and started carrying boxes from the unused spare room. You had to appreciate an organized woman, every box carefully labelled, showing us where it should go.

One box labelled sheets and curtains gave me a slightly wrinkled set of blue-green curtains that I decided to hang and a full set of shiny satin sheets, the same color as the curtains, which I handed to Jerry, for him to be able to make the bed.

I found three thick, soft rugs that I put by the sides of the bed and a thick, satiny, multi-colored cover that I put on it, with a smile and a shake of my head, as I tried to organize the many pillows Susan had in a way that would have made any interior decorator proud.

Jerry had started opening the boxes labelled 'bedroom storage unit' and as I walked over to him I saw him freeze, a small item in his hand. He turned towards me, his eyes large and surprised. His shocked expression turned into a wide, wicked smile as he showed me what he was holding - one perfectly formed crystal dildo, the overhead light making it sparkle with small, multi-colored bursts of twinkling light.

"Whaaat" I said, my eyes glued to the beautiful thing in his hand.

Jerry handed me the cold, glittering dildo and turned to the boxes again, his quick hands unwrapping the next item in the box, shoving me another dildo. He stilled his hands and turned to me, his face somehow covered by a strange combination of wicked joy and thoughtful worry.