One Little Question

When he texted me a little while later, I grinned, expecting it to say he was on his way.

But it didn't.

I'm going to grab a drink with the guys before heading home, it said. Go ahead and order something for dinner without me and I'll see you in a couple hours.

Instead of typing a message, I pointed my camera down my body and snapped a quick photo, sending it without comment. Moments later, my phone went off again.

I'll be home in 15.

"To Benny's old lady, who is way cooler than Jay's old lady, and let him go out for drinks after work," Adrian said, raising his pint of beer.

I folded my arms. "My wife's name is Denise. Don't call her my 'old lady.'"

Adrian rolled his eyes. "It's just an expression. Right, Rob?"

The tall, bald man beside him jerked his head up. "Huh?"

"Oh, here we go again," Adrian said, sighing. "Dude, you have to stop moping."

"I'm not moping," Rob grumbled as he moped into his beer. "I'm just thinking."

Adrian and I exchanged a look.

Rob had been "just thinking" all day, ever since Jay had gotten that little question from his wife. It was kind of alarming to watch, honestly. If Southbush had a biker bar, that's probably where we would've gone instead of Whiskey Sours, since Rob could've intimidated even the meanest motherfucker there with his towering height and countless tattoos. For some people, moping around the job site all afternoon would have been closer to the pathetic side of things than the worrying side of things, but for a guy with Rob's stature, it was just scary. I mean, I was an average-size dude and Rob was a good eight or nine inches taller than me.

That's not the kind of guy you want to rub the wrong way, you know?

It had been alarming enough that just before quitting time rolled around, Adrian pulled me to the side and asked if I was busy that night, since Rob seemed like he needed some cheering up. And as it happened, I wasn't—Denise had taken our two sons to her mom's for a visit and said she was staying for dinner—so I agreed to it.

"Who's up for a pint before heading home?" Adrian announced. "Rob? You're in."

Rob shook his head. "No, I'm—"

"—coming along and that's final." Adrian turned to Jay. "Boss-man?"

"Not your boss," Jay grumbled. "But sure, I'll come."

Adrian pointed finger guns at Seth. "Seth, baby?"

But Seth shook his head, and even when Adrian tried pulling the same thing as he had with Rob, still insisted he wasn't coming. Adrian had looked to me for support, but I shook my head subtly.

I mean, I was half-surprised the kid had made it until the end of the day. After that little question of Candice's, he looked like he wanted the ground to eat him whole. Or to lose his shit on someone for implying he wasn't pleasing his girlfriend. Especially Adrian, who had definitely gone a bit too far with the teasing.

Kendra bowed out too, citing her pregnant wife having a craving for a specific chicken sandwich from a fast-food place that was only available in the next town over, which I could definitely commiserate on. Then, as we were walking to our trucks, Jay had looked at his phone and casually said he had to get home and would take us up on the offer another day.

Adrian had made fun of him, but I'd caught a glimpse of the screen before Jay had hurriedly tilted it away, and while I couldn't say I'd seen any details on the photo, I saw enough to know he was making the right choice.

But that left just me and Adrian taking Rob out for a drink to cheer him up. And so far, Rob had been resistant to our attempts.

"Rob," I said as kindly as I could. "You're in your head about this. Halle didn't say shit about you being bad in bed. You came to that conclusion based on a bunch of other people's opinions."

Rob glared at me. "Of course I did. When you're sitting there listening to everyone else talk about how their girls beg for it and the only ones that don't are the ones who apparently don't like it, what else are you supposed to think?" He lifted his beer but paused before sipping it. "And I didn't fucking say I was bad in bed. Just at... at..."

"Eating pussy," Adrian finished. "I mean, granted, it is a learned skill. But not a hard one to master. If Benny can do it well enough that his old lady—"

"Call her that one more time and I'll crack a pool cue over your head," I said. "And I just said it doesn't do that much for me. Like, the act itself. It's kind of a turn on because... you know. Pussy. Face. Sex is about to happen. Like I mean, what about blowjobs?"

"I am in support of blowjobs," Adrian said.

I rolled my eyes. "I just mean for people giving blowjobs, sucking someone's dick probably doesn't turn on the suck-er as much as the suck-ee."

"There are plenty of suck-ers that get turned on by giving blowjobs," Adrian replied.

"But arguably, it's about the suck-ee's pleasure more than anything," I said.

"Can we just stop talking about oral sex?" Rob said, sighing.

"Nah," Adrian said. "We're going to figure out if you suck at it."

Rob looked up, bewildered. "What?"

"Talk us through it," Adrian said. "Look, not to brag, but I've had women beg me for my number after a one-night stand so I can go down on them again."

"You're so full of shit," I said.

Adrian took a sip of beer, looking at me smugly. "Believe what you want, wife guy. I know where my talents lie."

"Yeah. As an excellent storyteller."

That got a chuckle out of Rob. Adrian tilted his glass towards him.

"Storyteller or not, I can help you figure this out. And Benny can sit here and be useless like always," Adrian said.

"Useful enough that someone decided I was worth marrying," I said. "How many serious relationships have you had, man-whore?"

"In this situation, my man-whoreness is much more useful," Adrian argued. "We're not trying to figure out if Rob is husband material. We're trying to figure out if he sucks at eating pussy."

From beside us, the server—a nice girl named Gwen who always chatted with Denise whenever we came here for dinner—cleared her throat, her face red. "Um, does anyone want to order food?"

"Nachos?" I asked the other two.

"You don't want a bucket of clams?" Rob said.

Adrian choked on his beer and Gwen swallowed nervously. "We, um, don't serve clams here."

Rob shook his head. "No, I mean... never mind. Nachos is good."

"Guac on the side?"

"Two orders," I said, then handed her the menus and tried to smile apologetically.

Adrian mopped the beer he'd choked on off his face, waiting until the server walked away before speaking again.

"Come on, Robbie," he said. "Let's get you out of this funk. I bet you're perfectly fine at it and you're just overthinking right now."

Rob sighed. "What am I even supposed to tell you?"

"Your technique," Adrian said. "How'd you learn to do it, what you do, how she reacts... just give us all of it."

Rob opened his mouth, then hesitated and closed it. He looked down at his beer, lifted his head, and opened his mouth again... then didn't say anything.

"Do you not have a technique?" Adrian asked.

"What do you even mean by 'technique'?" Rob asked.

Adrian glanced at me before looking back at Rob. "Well, like, I focus a lot on the, uh... outlying areas before I get down to business. Really rile them up before even getting to the good part, you know?"

Rob stared at him.

"The clit?" Adrian said, his voice vaguely concerned. "You know where that—"

"Of course I fucking know where that is!" Rob snapped.

"Okay, so what do you do to it?" I asked. "Do you suck on it? Rub your tongue on it? Lick? Flick? Circle?"

He turned to me, the anger on his face fading just enough that I could see it was masking a worried look of confusion. "I... I mean... I dunno. I mostly, like, put my tongue... in? And then I do the alphabet thing."

Adrian and I didn't even look at each other before reacting. He slapped the table and I leaned back in my chair, wincing.

"Oh, no," I groaned.

"Not the alphabet thing," Adrian said.

"What?" Rob asked defensively. "What's wrong with the alphabet thing?"

"Oh, poor Halle," Adrian said. "Dude, just... just no. The alphabet thing doesn't work."

"It's a total urban legend," I agreed. "Just... just don't do that, man."

"What's wrong with it?" he asked, his face turning red.

I exchanged a look with Adrian, who was still grimacing. He shook his head, then grabbed his beer, chugged the remaining half of it, and put the glass down on the table loudly enough that the server looked over so he could raise his hand and order another pint.

"Who told you to do that?" Adrian asked.

"I don't know," Rob muttered. "I just, like, heard that. As a teenager or something. And I mean, I watch porn, you assholes."

"Teenagers are fucking morons and porn isn't real." Adrian sat up straight. "Okay. Throw out everything you know about eating pussy. We're starting from scratch."

"So you're saying I do suck at it," Rob said.

"Dude, you just told us you use your tongue like a mouth penis and ignore any sense of consistency by spelling out twenty-six individual letters on your girl's clit," Adrian said. "Yeah, you suck."

"I can ask Gwen for some paper and a pen if you want to take notes," I said.

Rob's glare was so strong I almost felt it, but it was worth the laugh.

"Okay, lesson one," Adrian said, pinching the bridge of his nose before scooting his chair closer to the table. "The clit is the little nub that's right at the top of—"

"I know where her fucking clit is!" Rob said.

"I said throw out everything you know about eating pussy."

"Eating pussy isn't the only reason to know where the clit is," I said.

"He thought the alphabet thing was an acceptable pussy-eating technique, Benny," Adrian said. "Can we trust that he actually knows where it is?"

I tilted my head. "Good point. Okay, so Rob, the clit is kind of at the top of the—"

"Fuck you both," Rob muttered.

He stopped sulking enough to let Adrian share some tips with him, and honestly, once we got past making sure Rob knew where the clit was—which, to his credit, he did—I was pretty useless. As much as I hated to admit it, Adrian really did seem to know what he was talking about, and I was more than happy to let him talk.

I mean, it felt kind of weird to be the guy who knew what he was doing, at least more than Rob did. I was secure enough in myself to be able to admit that both Rob and Adrian were attractive dudes. Slightly terrifying, in Rob's case, but the muscles and broad shoulders and shaved head look was a good one for him. And Adrian was good-looking, too. He was half-Indian and had thick, glossy black hair and a classically handsome face. At the moment, he was dressed in his coveralls and work boots, but he was also one of those stylish guys who knew how to dress himself well and owned like... I dunno. Wool peacoats and shit.

Then there was me: the dad-bod ginger with pasty white skin and shaggy red hair. Sure, I worked the same job these guys did, but I never built muscle the same way they managed to.

Probably because they went to the gym and stuff.

But I didn't have time for that kind of thing. I got my cardio in by chasing a seven-year-old and my weight training by hefting a chunky four-year-old up on my shoulders regularly. My wardrobe consisted mostly of free beer t-shirts and that one hoodie I'd had since at least before my first kid was born. And whatever pair of jeans had the least amount of holes in it until Denise forced me to go shopping, where I'd buy five identical pairs of jeans and call it a day.

But that was okay. My wife liked me well enough, and I was happy with our life. Being a dad was what I was meant to do; I'd realized that the second Denise got pregnant the first time. My family was everything to me and that was how I liked it. I had my kids, my gorgeous wife, a good job, a great sex life... I was the richest man in the world.

Although, I did pick up a few new tips on the sex front that night.

"Don't take her panties off," Adrian said at one point. "Kiss everything through the fabric. I know this sounds like the least sexy thing in the world, but like, use your lips to kind of 'squeeze' hers through her panties."

"With her panties on?" Rob repeated. "Does that actually feel good?"

Adrian looked annoyed. "When you grab your cock through your boxers, does it feel good?"

"I mean, yeah, but not as good as—"

"You're building up tension," Adrian said. "You'll get under the panties eventually. Just trust the process, man."

"And what if she's not wearing panties?"

"Then do it without the panties!" Adrian threw his hands up in the air. "Just use some common sense. Improvise. Adapt."

Rob nodded, his face red all the way up to where his hairline would have been, if he had hair.

"Hickeys," Adrian said a few minutes later, and I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

"Really?" I asked.

Adrian nodded. "Inner thighs. Trust me. Don't be too rough because the skin there is sensitive, but leaving a few little hickeys around there is so fucking hot."

"For her or for me?" Rob asked dryly.

"Mostly for you, but sucking on those spots feels good for her too," Adrian said. "Now, by my understanding, you learned all your sex techniques from teenage boys, so you should know how to leave a hickey, but—"

Rob threw a nacho at him, which Adrian caught with a laugh.

He kept giving Rob tips, talking him through what he said was a patented technique, even though I was pretty sure you couldn't patent a pussy-eating technique. What was more, though, was just the passion he spoke with about it.

My wife loved oral. Given the choice, Denise probably would've picked that over actual intercourse every single time. Not that she did, because obviously we had... well, currently had two kids, but I'd known from before we even got married that getting eaten out was her thing.

For me, it was... okay. I liked that she liked it. I'm sure Denise wished my heart was in it a little more, but I couldn't change how I felt. She knew what she wanted and had spelled out what I needed to do while I was down there, and I did that dutifully every time. It just got a little... well, boring. Repetitive.

But it made her come, and that was what mattered. But listening to the way Adrian talked about it...

There was no way I'd ever fucking admit it, but the way he was describing eating pussy was seriously turning me on.

"... so at that point, she should be squirming," Adrian said, his voice low, and at some point we had all leaned in over the table to talk in hushed voices. "That's when you know. If she hasn't already taken her panties off, that's when you do it."

I twisted my mouth to the side. Denise always relaxed back against the bed. She'd run her hand through my hair, but the only squirming she did was when she was coming and tightened her thighs around my neck. If I could make her squirm with anticipation...

"Do I keep teasing her after I take her panties off?" Rob whispered.

"You can, but I don't usually bother doing much of that," Adrian replied. "Like, her panties should be completely soaked by that point, so she's more than ready for the next step."

"Which is...?"

A coy smile spread across Adrian's face. "The vortex."

Both Rob and I blinked at him.

"The fuck is the vortex?" I finally asked.

"There are a few different versions," Adrian said. "You make your mouth into an 'O' shape, okay? Then put it over her clit and—"

I'd already started shaking my head. "That doesn't work for everyone."

Adrian raised his eyebrows. "Are you arguing with the pussy-eating master?"

"I'm saying my wife doesn't enjoy having her clit sucked. She specifically told me that."

"She probably didn't have it done right," Adrian argued. "Do you suck at eating pussy, too?"

"Fuck you," I said. "She comes every time I do it. But she's told me what she likes, and that was something she said didn't feel good."

Adrian shrugged. "It's possible, but in my experience, women say that when they've had bad experiences. You don't suck hard. And it's not like when you get your dick sucked. Clits are way more sensitive than dicks are. So the vortex is more about pressure than anything. You're surrounding the clit with your lips almost... I dunno. Like, 'pulsing' is a better word than 'sucking.'"

"It sounds like sucking," I said.

He shook his head. "Trust me, man. Get Denise to let you try it, and if you're doing it right, she'll be a puddle underneath you in seconds."

I hummed, lifting my beer to my mouth. "I dunno. She likes the flat tongue technique."

"What's that?" Rob asked.

We were past making fun of him for having the sexual knowledge of a teenager with a shoddy internet connection.

"You flatten your tongue like—" I stopped and glanced around, making sure no one was paying attention to us. "—like this." I stuck my tongue out and flattened it, showing him what I meant.

"So you just lick with a really wide tongue," Rob said.

I shook my head. "You're not moving your tongue. Move your head. Start from the bottom and like..." I glanced around again, then tried to do the motion, though I kept my tongue in my mouth.

"It is a good technique, despite the fact that Benny looks like a ginger chicken right now," Adrian said, and I rolled my eyes.

"And then what?" Rob asked.

"Then... keep doing it?" I said.

"That's it? Just... that?"

"I mean, consistency is key," Adrian said. "You can change things up a bit. Like if you're doing the vortex, you can kind of get your tongue involved or change up the pressure, but you should do it sort of... you know. In the same pattern?"

"Rhythmically," I said.

Adrian nodded. "Yeah. Women like consistency. I mean, the golden rule here is that whatever you're doing, if she's into it, keep fucking doing it."

Rob's throat flexed as he swallowed. "And how do I know if she's into it?"

"Her reactions should tell you," I said.

"And if she's not reacting?"

I shrugged. "Either she's not into what you're doing, or she legitimately doesn't like oral sex."

He sighed, leaning back in his chair. "So basically, try the vortex and if that doesn't work, try the flat tongue thing, and if that doesn't work, just give up."

"You're so fucking dramatic," Adrian said. "No. Get your fingers in there. Get your tongue down at her opening and play around there a little. Or try—"

"Wait," Rob said. "You told me not to use my tongue as a mouth penis."

"Um," said Gwen, who had appeared out of nowhere again. "Does anyone want a refill?"

"I think we scared her," I said after she stumbled away with our drink orders.

"Or she's about to go home and tell her boyfriend to get his head out of his ass and eat her pussy properly," Adrian said. "Either way, not the point. Rob, you don't fuck her with your tongue. But you can put it in a bit. It's part of the teasing thing. Everything down there is sensitive, just at different levels. Your focus should be her clit, but everything else helps add to the sensation."

"Right," he said. "Okay."

"Now, what was I saying," Adrian muttered. "Oh yeah. Does Halle like it in the ass?"

I almost jumped out of my chair to hold Rob back, but Adrian lifted his hands.

"It's purely for educational purposes!" he said.

"What the actual fuck, man?" Rob growled.

"I'm saying if she's a 'don't touch my asshole ever' kind of person, I'm not going to get into the next level of stuff. But if she's into it..." Adrian looked at me for support, but I shook my head.

"I'm not talking about my wife's asshole with you."

"So Denise doesn't like backdoor stuff," Adrian said confidently. "That's okay. But if Halle does..."