Love Thy Neighbor Ch. 07

"So, what gives ... I know that we had a spat, Nina, one where I accused you of being unfaithful to me with your boss, Vito, and then you accused me of the same with Emily, my ex-girlfriend. Now, you show up here at the house of Vito's nephew, with Vito's nephew, Vito's daughter, the neighbors, and your ex-boyfriend, Steve. So, let's have it out. Have you been unfaithful to me? It sure looks that way," Matt confronted Nina now rather directly.

"Yes, I have ... and so have you, with Emily, who is, at least for now, Steve's girlfriend. In his words, that makes two girlfriends that you've 'poached' from him now. It also makes Emily a cheater now, too, as much as she judged the rest of us in the past. Isn't that so, Emily?" Nina now turned the tables on her husband and his ex-girlfriend.

"Okay, I'm busted! I ... cheated. Sorry, it was my ex ... and I was a bit ... weak around him. So sorry, Steve, for doing the exact same thing to you that Nina did. Not as sorry as far as Nina is concerned, but that's another matter entirely. Looks like we're all cheaters now," Emily bit her lower lip as she acknowledged that fact.

"Good, because as everyone is now a cheater, we're all on the same level playing field. No more ivory towers. No more self-righteousness. No more passive-aggression. No more guilt trips. No more martyrdom. No more judgment. Let's lay out every last card on the table now. Oh, and feel free to drink some wine and eat some breakfast. The rest of us have.

"Now, let me clear about something. My name is Bruno. This is my house, so here, you will listen to me and respect my rights and position as host. I am ... bisexual. I am intimate, sexually and otherwise, with my cousin Lauren here, and yes, she's my first cousin, my boss's daughter, too. We've had a thing going for a while now and that's not gonna stop. In fact, she's moving in with me.

"I am also intimate now with Rick and Jessica, my neighbors here. Yes, both of them. That kind of goes back to that whole bisexuality thing. Yes, they are a real, married couple, and I fuck both of them. And I do mean fuck. I penetrate both of them. Orally and anally in his case, orally, vaginally, and anally in hers. I am the Top, they're the bottoms, mostly, though if they felt like Topping now and then, I would be open to it. Both of them.

"I am not intimate with Steve, but I am with Nina, and so is Steve. And so is Rick now. Rick is now intimate with Lauren, and so is Steve. Steve is now intimate with Jessica as well. I've been more cautious with Steve, because I don't know his sexual orientation. Is he bi or straight. I very much doubt that he's gay.

"And we all know now that you're both intimate with Emily as well as Nina, aren't you, Matt and Steve? So, tell me Matt, are you prepared to share Nina ... as well as Emily, with others? I can already guess Steve's answer, as he has done very well at curbing his jealousy well for a swap. What about you, Emily? Could you stomach sharing both men? Be honest here," I spoke very boldly and made both Matt and Emily squirm a bit.

"Just bear in mind that you seem to want a divorce, but I don't, Matt. I really don't want to divorce you. Now, I am admittedly carrying an unborn child that is either yours or Bruno's, not sure which one. You two were my only current sexual partners until today for the length of my marriage to you. I haven't been that much of a slut ... until now.

"What was all that 'starter wife' crap about, anyway? I never would have signed up for a very temporary marriage. I'm not good at being exclusive, but I fully intend to make a marriage last. Permanence, not exclusivity, is the point to marriage in my book. Faithful or not, when I married you, it was with every intention of remaining your wife. I'm playing for keeps here and that talk was very hurtful to me.

"I want both of you. Hell, I want Steve, too. And Rick. And I find myself wanting Jessica and Lauren ... and even Emily. I feel as if the genie has been let out of the bottle, sexually, and I can't just put her back in now. My inner slut has been liberated. It tends to respond well to forceful, aggressive partners. I am willing to share as I hope to be shared, Matt. For keeps. For good. But the ball is in your court now ... yours and Emily's. Well?" Nina announced.

"Sorry, no. I'm just not cut out for this. It's just ... not me. I've tried. I honestly shouldn't have wasted your time and mine ... and Emily's. And Steve's. It was wrong of me, not to call you a 'starter wife,' but to make you one in the first place. It was wrong of me to ask you to marry me. To try to make Emily jealous, so she'd crawl back to me. I used you for that. I'm ... sick to my stomach, just thinking of it.

"God, I really can be a dick, can't I? A complete asshole, at least at moments like this one. For you, permanence matters more than exclusivity. For me, both matter, and I really can't picture myself growing old with anyone but Emily. I was stupid and vain and proud of myself for taking two girls away from Steve. I didn't think about who I would be hurting here by marrying the wrong woman.

"But why? I mean, think about it. Why would I want to be with a girl who lets other men just take her ... and enjoys it when they do? First, Nina, you let me take you off Steve. Then you let Bruno take you from me. Why be with a woman with whom I will always have to look over my own shoulders every fucking day, wondering if this will be the day that another man is able to seduce you through sheer, primal aggression?

"Be honest with me. I was there. I know what happened. You let me do what I wanted with you ... and you enjoyed the fact that I just ... did I wanted. You got off on being taken. You're turned-on by aggressive, assertive, forceful guys, to use your own words. That's what excites you, letting men just grab you and have their way with you.

"I can't live that way, Nina. I need a woman who will kick a man in the balls or at least slap him in the face for daring to touch her when she's clearly mine. That's clearly not you, but I dare say that, leaving aside getting with Steve on the rebound and as a revenge fling, it IS Emily. It's just how she's made ... and how you're not made. You're Old World and respond very favorably to male aggression and lust. When a man takes you, you'll let him.

"Emily would probably bite a man's dick off if he shoved it down her mouth. You'd start sucking it with enthusiasm. I was caught up in the chase, the excitement of getting one over on another dude. The competition, but was it really that much of a challenge? No offense, but an older man and a submissive slut of a girlfriend? Sorry, but that's how I see.

"So, yeah, I get that this sounds all unreasonable to you. What you're doing, it makes all of the sense in the world to folks like you. The path of least resistance. An amiable, easygoing, very natural life of sharing and free love and all that hippie stuff. It's not me. I'm just not made that way. I want my redneck girl, faithful and jealous and driving me crazy with her crazy ways.

"Who couldn't be taken. Who would be independent in some ways, but would also not need a fucking chaperone to be faithful. Who would kick a man's ass for even suggesting that she cheat on me. And who would probably kick my ass if I ever cheated on her again, knowing her. Hell, she threw three books at me the last time and threatened to shoot me with her twelve gauge!

"It's not reasonable at all, but I don't want reasonable or sensible or anything like that when it comes to love. I want to be a dick and have her be a bitch and have a knock-down drag-out fight, and then have hot, heavy, steamy makeup sex after about a week of cold showers! It's violent and messy ... and a hot mess, and it doesn't make sense to the Brunos and Laurens and Steves and Ninas of the world. Or even the Ricks and Jessicas, from the sound of it.

"You're George Michael. Freedom and all that talk. Or Restless Heart and all that talk of 'why does it have to be one way or other?' You don't see a point to monogamy. You don't see a point to violence, burning the bitch or the bastard, to angry responses and overreactions, and kicking the crap out of someone who's touched your property. You don't see things possessively, not like Emily and I do.

"Emily likes Carrie Underwood music. Did you notice that, Steve? I bet that you didn't bother to ask about that, just muttered under your breath or thought how crazy that kind of behavior was. I get it. I get why a woman would key a cheating boyfriend's car, even if it would piss me off that she did. I get why she would take a Louisville Slugger to both headlights. You probably think that it's psycho. And it is, but that's the difference between us. I don't care that it is and I can relate to it.

"So, how about it, Emily? Let's ditch this place, get a fucking divorce, elope, get married, and move wherever you like, even back to fucking Arkansas and a family farm if you wish! I know that you're a country girl and you act like it. Let's blow this place," Matt ranted, stunning me with his tirade against everything that I believed or represented.

"And the baby?" Nina asked, just out of curiosity.

"I can't stay with someone over that. If it comes to it, I can always sign away my parental rights, if you don't choose to abort. Or I can just pay child support. If it's mine. Or have the new husband claim it. I just can't stay with you only for the kids," Matt shocked us all with that bit of news.

Yeah, he really was a prick, I thought again. Good riddance! What kind of man would want that? As a certain Goddess of Love said in a story that I read online recently, "Whoever wanted to make people choose between lovers was a sadist." What was the fucking point to that kind of sexual jealousy again? It just didn't click with me, but judging from her face and particularly her eyes, it registered with Emily just like that. I already knew her answer, given the way that she smiled and kissed Matt very hard on the mouth.

"Finally, you get me! I get you! Finally, someone who gets where I'm coming from now! It took you a bit there to see my point of view, but now you really do! I was brought up to think that to marry a divorced man was a sin, but so were a bunch of other things I've done these days.

"I've been screwing a married man, cheating on my boyfriend with him, and things that I wouldn't normally do and won't do again, I swear to God! I never cheated on you, Matt. Care to guess why? Because I'm yours. And when I cheated on someone, it was WITH you. Because I'm yours.

"And every time I fucked Steve, I felt guilty. Even though we broke up, he was my boyfriend, and you were a married man. Which was a bit of a turn-on and made some of my sex with him very heated, but I still felt wrong. Because I'm yours. And only yours. In my heart, I never stopped being yours ... and only yours, Matt.

"So, if you mean what you say, I'll leave with you, ditch this place, which to a deacon's daughter like me reminds me of Sodom and Gomorrah, and such ... but I have to be sure that you mean it. That you want this enough to put a ring on it. Do you? A ring that will stay on my left hand ... and yours.

"I've always felt that I was yours. Which is why I broke that fucking abstinence pledge and gave you my cherry without marrying you first," Emily let it all out in her Arkansas twang.

"Well, I guess that we've said whatever we got to say to each other, then," Steve chimed in now, "and yes, Matt, I do think that it's psycho, and a bit rich, especially coming from you. And, yes, I've never much cared for Carrie Underwood, for that and a number of other reasons. Her or Taylor Swift. They're both pretty and both pretty fucking nuts."

"Well, I do have one more thing to say to you, Steve Perelman. I care about you. And I feel bad that I hurt you after you healed me and helped console me. I feel terrible that I repaid your love and care with betrayal. It was wrong of me. I was wrong. And irrational, thinking that our sex together was cheating on him when I was with you and he was married to Nina. I get that this was insane on my part. It even sounds crazy to me.

"But, really, you're that much older than me. You're a bit jaded at times, spiritual without being religious at times, which kinda annoys me as a Christian, even if a rather backslidden one, you aren't even that devout about your Judaism, I've noticed. You're more New Age than anything else, and that bothers me for some reason. You don't seem very eager to rush into starting a family, and you actually hoped to lure me into this? Fuck that noise!

"But yes, I'm sorry ... and I apologize, and maybe, perhaps, we can be friends again. But Matt's right. If you don't get Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift, you really don't get me. Them or Miranda Lambert. And you don't care for her, either, do you?" Emily got a bit flustered.

Then she hugged Steve, resistant as he was to a hug from a girlfriend who had just dumped him for her ex.

"Goodbye, Steve. Have a nice life. Even if I don't approve of it, morally, I lost the right to judge it or throw stones ages ago, if I ever had such a right. I can't judge a man I just cheated on, can I? Even Christ told the Pharisees that the one without sin should cast the first stone. I don't really understand your choices or lifestyle, but I wager dollars to donuts that you'll be a lot happier with Nina and she with you, than me with you or her with Matt.

"Part of me will always love you and hope to be friends again. You were there for me and I for you at a time when we needed that. I'm just sorry that I tainted those memories by how I handled this breakup. Farewell, Steve. Mazel tov.

"And you, Bruno, Rick, Jessica, Lauren ... even Nina. You guys seem like nice people and very happy together. It's not my place to look down on you, either. Have a nice life of lewd, wanton debauchery. It suits heathens like you. It's just not my cup of tea, so kindly leave me out of any of your future plans, okay? Goodbye, y'all!

"Bruno, thank you for being a damn good host, too. Breakfast ... and Merlot? I've never been pampered in quite that way before," Emily smiled a bit sheepishly as she took Matt by the hand and they walked out of our lives just like that.

"Well, the only thing left to guess is ... who will Nina marry next, you or me?" I turned to Steve now, "and what do Lauren, Rick, and Jessica think of all this? Do you agree with Emily and plan to return to your monogamous ways or want to still fire walk with me?"

"No offense, Bruno, but that was a dumbass question. Like we'd ever leave a man who can reference Twin Peaks," Rick chuckled.

"And I didn't make that speech to you guys last night just to drop either of you. If I'm going to Hell, at least I'll be in good company," Jessica raised another glass of Merlot, "to my fellow passengers on the black train to Hell."

"Here, here!" I raised my own glass in a toast, "to my fellow heathens!"

"Here, here!" Lauren winked at me as she poured another glass from the applejack brandy from last night.

"And, well, also no offense, Bruno, but I think that I should marry my ex-boyfriend, if he'll have me. I kinda like being with you as another man's wife. Besides, he's got seniority on you, in more ways than one ... and someday, if he leaves me or dies on me, you can be my third husband. I like the sound of that. If you'd still have me at that point," Nina teased me, but she was mostly in earnest.

"I would," I freely admitted, "as long as the terms remain the same. Open marriage. None of that monogamy crap."

"Deal. If Steve will have me, of course," Nina winked at Steve, though we all guessed how he'd take it.

"Same terms as Bruno, but yeah. I want a wife who can take care of me when I get too fucking old and sick to do some stuff for myself, and at the rate that I eat, drink, and smoke, that's gonna be sooner than you think. If you can handle my being Jewish, that is," Steve laughed, "and the aforementioned behaviors."

"Sure, if you can take me being pregnant by someone else and not even knowing which someone else that might be," Nina reminded him, "I don't care who else you fuck, but you couldn't smoke indoors near the baby. I would have to put my foot down about that. And no drunk driving. I don't want to hear about you getting killed, killing someone else, totaling the car, or going to jail."

"Fair enough. I can deal with all that. But the next baby needs to be mine. I don't care if you have to go strictly anal with Bruno and Rick for a time or two or strictly oral, or oral and anal, or whatever. Next baby is mine. I'm gonna be your husband, after all. Two babies of dubious parentage, that's two too many. I'll claim this baby, too. It's a matter of vanity. I'm more than happy to share discreetly, but I don't want to lose face," Steve set down his own limit.

"That works for me. You guys?" Nina turned to Rick and me ... and Lauren and Jessica.

"Yeah, I sorta dig the idea of being the lady of my cousin's house. What about you guys?" Lauren licked her lips.

"I'm just really horny right now. And so is Rick, I think. Steve, are you horny, too? Sure looks like it to me. Everyone ready to fuck?" Jessica beamed as she bent over the table, "how about everyone does just what comes naturally right now?"

"Sounds pretty sweet to me!" Rick agreed.

"Works for me, too!" I winked at them as I pushed Rick over the table, used some shortening for lube, and started buggering them in turns, a few strokes in Rick, a few in Jessica, and so forth.

"What should I do now?" Lauren asked me.

My cousin answered her own query by parting Nina's thighs and going down on her while Steve entered her from behind. When she flipped Nina over and began rimming her, Steve nearly erupted inside her just from that. I laughed as Steve pulled Lauren up and put her next to Rick and Jessica. I grinned when Nina bent over next to Lauren, and then Steve used the shortening as well.

"If we're gonna do that, bro, you should try Rick's ass, too. You could be as straight as a barber's razor and still enjoy one that firm and tight," I smiled now.

"Don't mind if I do," Steve answered as he began buggering Rick and I entered Lauren's bottom once again ... one of my favorite places to be.

Yeah, this was the life ... and we had just begun to live it.