My Best Friend Emily Ch. 08

Welcome to the next installment of this ongoing series. I decided to go ahead and keep writing and see where it takes me. As always, any similarities to anything you may have seen or heard before is a complete accident.

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I slowly became accustomed to the 'new normal.'

Most people wouldn't mind the new normal, really. I was with Emily, my best friend since I was 15 years old. Despite everything that happened between us, our relationship blossomed rapidly. It was everything I imagined it might be. It was indeed a steady stream of baseball, 80's movies, and wild, experimental sex. Once I truly got over Lisa, our relationship was off and running and I never looked back.

Emily literally had an illustrated copy of the Kama Sutra, and we started going through it, page by page. A new position a day keeps the boredom away, Emily had said to me the first night. Not everything worked for us. I'm not a particularly flexible person so when the position called for me to bend in any particular way, it didn't work out too well, at least not for long. My bullet wound was still healing and my right arm and side would start to ache if I was leaning on it for too long. If a sexual position didn't work for us we would just move to missionary or doggie style or cowgirl and finish ourselves off a more conventional way.

When Emily had her period we would strip to our underwear and I would dry hump her through several orgasms. When she had her fill she would roll me over onto my back, pull my cock out and suck me off until I came in her mouth. Then she would always bring her face right up to mine and pretend she was going to kiss me with a mouth full of my cum until I recoiled. Then she would run off to the bathroom, cackling with laughter. No, life with Emily was never boring.

Even though I had sex with Emily virtually every day in some form or another, once a week or so I still found myself waking up really early, practically in the middle of the night sometimes, and sneaking off to look at porn. I wasn't sure why I did it, except that sometimes I felt like I might be missing something good. Maybe I really was an addict or something. I also wasn't sure why I felt the need to continue to hide it from Emily. Emily wasn't Lisa. The fact that I looked at porn probably wouldn't have bothered her. In fact, if I was open about it she may have gone so far as to even want to watch it with me, just maybe not at 5am.

Maybe keeping it a secret was just part of the allure, but maybe it was the type of videos I was watching. I was still seeking out the WAM videos, women in mud and other substances, stripping, covering their bodies in goop and masturbating. I was watching a lot of cat fighting videos too, but not the 'real catfights,' and not the faked belly punching videos. I liked to watch women rolling around together, scantily clad or naked, or tearing each others clothes off, and rubbing up against each other. There were rumors that Elvis used to get women to wrestle for him wearing only white cotton panties, so how bizarre could my fetish be anyway? If it was good enough for the King, it was good enough for me.

Emily had told me that she wasn't into the WAM stuff, and I never pressed her about it. We all had our limits, I guess. I wouldn't have ever asked her to get into any kind of cat fight for me either. I know there were message boards out there where you could search for people to fight your wife or girlfriend, but I couldn't imagine even asking. It was one thing when you were watching strangers or porn stars fight. I know I was turned on when I watched Emily and Lisa fight, but that was a spontaneous thing and I wouldn't think of actually asking Emily to fight someone just for my enjoyment.

Anal had never come up again, either. We had done it that one time, and frankly it was enough for me. I guess if either of us really, really wanted to do something, the other person would indulge them. That's what love was all about, wasn't it? Making the other person happy?

I know you're wondering what happened with Lisa's family and our house and all that. Well, luckily Lisa's parents never filed a civil suit. Every day that went by I got more and more hopeful that I wouldn't have to go through something like that, although I knew there was a statute of limitations that gave them several years to go ahead with it, if they ever wanted to.

The house was a different story. I got an offer on the house from a small independent production studio. They specialized in 'true crime' movies and they wanted to buy the house and use it to shoot a movie based on our story. Using the actual house as a location would add to the authenticity, they had said to me. They would make me and Emily executive producers and pay us well for our input. I politely but adamantly declined.

There was already a book out about our story, and there was nothing I could to do to stop it. It turned out there were people who could churn out a whole 'based on true events' schlock novel in a matter of weeks. They had approached me about giving my account and I refused. Emily was more willing to talk but she knew that I didn't want her to, and in the end she respected my wishes. The resulting book was awful, relying on second-hand accounts and police reports, and filled in the gaps in the story with all sorts of speculation and sensationalized nonsense. Sure enough it was a runaway bestseller.

It was a struggle sometimes, getting on with life while the story of what had happened, or at least a sensationalized version of it was still circulating. I could sense people talking behind my back at work. I did my best to ignore it, but sometimes I found myself getting so angry I started shaking. More than once I had to go hide in a bathroom stall for several minutes, shaking and practically hyperventilating, until I got myself back under control. I didn't tell anybody about it, not even Emily. My doctor had recommended that I see a psychologist when I left the hospital, to help me cope with the trauma, but I refused. I was a strong, independent mid-western man. Head-shrinkers were for East Coast intellectual types. I could handle myself. I would get through it.

I knew that Emily was still in touch with Angela, the Haitian voodoo nurse that took care of me while I was in the hospital. Well, she took care of both of us, once, when Emily decided to have sex with me while I was still lying prone in the hospital bed, and Angela helped her get off and then took care of me as well. Emily would mention Angela once in a while and I would basically nod my head and change the subject. It was good that Emily had a female friend, really. Her friends were mostly male. She was a foul-mouthed beer-drinking tomboy, and I think she felt more comfortable around men for the most part. At least that's what I thought.

I worked late one Friday night, late in the year. It was early November, shortly after the World Series ended. I was a die-hard Cardinals fan, but I was happy for the Royals. Good for them, I thought. They were due. I told Emily how I felt and she said something like fuck them and their hick fan base. But I digress. I walked into Emily's, I mean our apartment, and I saw somebody sitting on the sofa, a glass of wine in her hand. I noticed the long black hair and dark skin and immediately realized it was Angela. Frankly, she was pretty much the only black person either of us knew.

I apologize if that sounded racist, but it is what it is. Emily and I grew up in an affluent nearly all white suburb and we were both affected by the casual racism that we observed from almost everyone around us. No, I wasn't openly racist, and I didn't think I was even consciously racist. I wasn't one of those Neo-Nazi's or good-ole boys who waved confederate flags and pretended that the Civil War wasn't quite over, but I wasn't a perfectly colorblind person, either. There was always a sense of us and them. When I did interact with a black, Hispanic, Asian, or other type of 'different' person, either at work or anywhere I always strove to treat them just like I would anybody else, but there was always that almost subconscious effort to do so, and it always bothered me. Maybe the fact that it bothered me at all was more than most people could claim.

But anyway, there was Angela. She rose up to greet me. I quickly looked around for Emily. There was no sign of her. She must have been in the kitchen. Damn her for not even telling me about this, I thought.

"Hello Joe," Angela was saying to me in her lilting Caribbean accent, and I turned to look at her. I had only ever seen her in her nurses' outfit. She was sexy enough in those tight, white outfits with her ample cleavage spilling out. Here she was in a tight green dress that hugged her voluptuous body. Her ebony hair cascaded around her shoulders. The tattoo on her breast that I could just barely see in the hospital was much more in view now, a dragon that curved around her breast before disappearing under the revealing dress. The dress itself went to about mid-thigh and I gazed at her long toned legs. She was wearing four inch heels. She was dressed for more than a casual evening with a friend.

"Hi," I said cautiously. The waves of anxiety that I had been fighting since Lisa shot me were coming back to me. I struggled to keep my expression neutral and my hands from shaking.

"How are you doing?" Angela asked me.

"Fine," I lied. I dropped my work bag in its usual spot by the door and thrust my hands in my pockets. "How are you?" I asked. I could barely get the words out.

She was looking at me curiously, and I imagined that she could see right through me. "I'm okay," she said.

Angela looked like she was going to say something else, but we heard Emily's voice. "Oh good, you're home," she was saying and coming out from the kitchen. She came right up to me and kissed me on the cheek. "I took off early from work and I'm making chicken cordon bleu," she said. "I hope you don't mind that I invited Angela over for dinner."

I felt my molars grinding together, and I idly wondered why Angela's presence bothered me so much. Was I really a racist? Was it just because she was black? No, that wasn't it, I thought. I kept struggling to keep myself together, and I managed to force out "I don't mind," but it sounded fake to my ears. I probably did a Keanu Reeves caliber acting job saying it. "I'm going to go change," I said, moving past Emily and into the bedroom.

I started taking deep breaths, greedy gulps of air. What was wrong with me? I thought. My mind raced. No, I didn't care that there was a black woman in the apartment, I decided. It wasn't that. It was something else. Angela's presence bothered me, but it was why I thought she was here. She was here to have sex with us. It was Emily inviting somebody else into our bedroom. This was how it started last time, wasn't it? We were going to have another threesome. Would it lead to anger, jealousy, and hatred? I realized the bullet wound in my chest was throbbing. It hadn't bothered me for weeks. I couldn't go through with this. I just couldn't.

I swapped out my suit for a pair of slacks and took off my tie. I moved slowly back into the living room. Emily and Angela were on opposite sides of the sofa, each with a glass of wine. They were laughing. "Hey Joe," Emily said when she saw me, "Come sit down."

Emily patted the space between them on the sofa, but I plopped down in the recliner. I sensed Angela eyeing me curiously. "Do you want a beer?" Emily asked.

"I'm okay," I said.

"Okay," Emily said, "Well, dinner will be ready in five. I hope you're good and hungry. What?" Emily asked when she realized I was staring at her. I was staring at her because I just realized what she was wearing. The blue sundress I had bought her that fateful day. The blue sundress she wore that night in the hospital. It was autumn now. It was too cold for a dress like that. She was wearing it anyway. I was speechless.

Seconds passed. Long, uncomfortable seconds. Damn her, I was thinking. Emily was my best friend and my lover, but she was so callous and thoughtless. How could she do something like this? How could she invite Angela over without telling me, and wear that dress? I wanted to scream at her, but the gentleman in me stopped me. Not in front of Angela, I thought. "Can I talk to you alone?" I eventually managed to say as casually as I could.

"Okay," Emily said, and she stood up and I followed her into the bedroom. "What's up Joe?" She asked.

"I don't think this is a good idea," I said. Yeah, it was an understatement on my part.

"What's not a good idea?" Emily asked. "Having dinner with Angela?"

"No, not that," I said, "What's going to happen afterwards."

"What's going to happen afterwards?" Emily threw my statement back at me as a question. "Nothing has to happen," she said. "Is that why you were acting so weird?"

"And the dress," I mumbled.

"The dress?" Emily said, and she looked down at herself. "Oh, right," she said.

I stared at her. There was no way she didn't remember the dress. There was no way. "You're telling me you don't remember that that was the dress I bought you on the day..." I trailed off. I couldn't say the rest. "And then the night at the hospital..." I trailed off again.

"I forgot, okay?" Emily almost shouted. "If it bothers you that much I'll take it off." Emily was already reaching behind her, pulling down the zipper. She grabbed the dress at the shoulders and pulled it down and off her body, stepping out of it. She was in a lacy yellow set of matching bra and panties. At least she was wearing underwear, I thought to myself idly. "I'll put on something else," Emily said. "Go entertain Angela."

There was more I wanted to say, much more, but I listened to Emily and went into the living room. "Is everything okay?" Angela asked, and I wondered if she heard anything of our conversation.

"Yeah," I said, "Emily is just going to go change." I sat down in the recliner. My whole body was shaking now. I tried to pass it off as being cold. I took a blanket that was sitting on the top of the recliner and wrapped it around myself.

Angela was moving closer to me. "Joe, what's wrong?" She asked.

"Nothing," I said defensively, "I'm fine."

"No you're not," Angela said. "Talk to me."

What do I say to her? I barely knew this woman. "I don't know," I said slowly. Angela was about to say something else, but Emily came back from the bedroom, dressed in a blue blouse and tan khakis. "Ahh, that's better," Emily said, as if she had just changed her clothes to be more comfortable. "Dinner should be ready now," she added as she moved to the kitchen. I looked at Angela and she was still staring at me, and I could see the concern in her eyes. She was a nurse, after all.

"We should go eat," I said, and I tossed the blanket aside and stood up, moving to the dining area. Using all of my willpower, I managed to stop shaking. I helped Angela into her seat like a gentleman and went to help Emily bring the food to the table. We sat down and ate in relative silence. I caught both Angela and Emily looking at me. I wondered what they were thinking.

Dinner was good. Emily was a tomboy but she was an above average cook. We finished dinner and settled back down in the living room. I sat in the recliner again while Emily and Angela sat on the sofa. Angela didn't waste any time. "Joe, what's wrong?" She asked again as soon as we were settled.

I found myself getting irritated. "Nothing's wrong, okay?" I snapped. I felt the shaking come back, betraying my words.

Angela stood up and moved until she was right beside me. "Joe, it's okay," she said softly. "It's all over. You can talk to us about whatever's bothering you/"

"I..." I started to say and stopped. I looked over at Emily, and back at Angela. "I... I can't do this," I stammered out.

"Do what?" Angela asked.

"You're here to have sex with us," I blurted out. "Emily wants another threesome."

Angela turned to look at Emily. Then she turned back to me. "You don't want to?" She asked.

"No," I said. I was shaking so badly by that point my teeth were chattering. "Not again. Not after what happened last time."

"Joe," Angela said. She was still speaking softly, but urgently. "Nobody is going to make you do anything you don't want to do." I turned to stare at her. "What do you think is going to happen?" She asked.

"We'd all have sex," I said, "And somebody will get upset... and... and..."

"Joe," Angela said, "Your wife was a very troubled person. That's not going to happen again. I'm not her. Emily isn't her."

"It would be a totally different thing," Emily suddenly said from the other side of the room. "With me and you and Lisa, it was a true love triangle. With Angela, no offense, there are none of those feelings. There would just be three people having fun."

"Emily's right," Angela said.

"So there's no fear that anybody is trying to steal anybody away from anyone," Emily added. She started moving across the room, around and behind my recliner. She placed her hands on my shoulders and started to massage me. "You're so tense," Emily said. "You're shaking."

I could only grunt, the tremors still going through me, but Emily's hands on my shoulders did feel good, and I could feel myself slowly start to relax.

"You are obviously having trouble," Angela was saying. "You need to talk to someone."

"I'm okay," I said, but the tremor that went through me right after I said it betrayed me.

"You're not Joe," Angela said, "Please talk to someone."

Emily stopped massaging my shoulders and put her arms around me. Her mouth was right by my ear. "You said it yourself," she said to me, "You need to talk to people. You know I'm always here to talk. If you need to see a professional, there's nothing wrong with it. You went through something horrible. It's almost like a soldier coming home from war and having post-traumatic stress disorder. You need to deal with it."

"It's just... it's just..." I was stammering, and suddenly I was fighting back tears. "I can hear people talking about it... talking behind my back... and the stories that are out there... and they don't know... they just don't know what it's like... to lose somebody like that... to almost die yourself. I'm so scared... I'm so scared it'll happen again... that I'll lose you... it's so hard..." That was all I could get out before I broke down completely, shaking and crying.

Emily was helping me out of the recliner. She got me to my feet and walked me slowly towards the bedroom. I let her lead me to the bed and I all but collapsed onto it, sobbing like a child. I realized that Angela was there too, and the two of them got me to lie down and they started removing my clothes, my shoes and socks, my shirt and slacks until I was just in my boxers. I curled into a fetal position, still shaking and sobbing while Emily and Angela pulled the covers over me.

I was dimly aware of both of them climbing into bed on either side of me. Emily was stroking my hair and whispering softly to me. "It's okay Joe; it's going to be okay."

After a few minutes I was able to stop sobbing but I was still shaking. I looked up. I was facing Angela. She was sitting on the bed, the concern obvious in her face. "You don't always have to be so strong," she said to me, "So macho, so hard. A man has feelings too. Don't be afraid of them."

"We're here for you Joe," Emily said. "Anything you want. Anything you need."

I was still facing Angela. "I hardly know you," I said to her. "Why... why are you doing this?"

"You hardly know me but I know you," Angela said. "Emily told me a lot about you, in the hospital and since. You are a good man."

"I'm not," I snapped, and I think all three of us were surprised by how angrily I said it. "I was horrible to Lisa. I neglected her. I took her for granted. I pushed her into... into what she did."