Renewal Ch. 20-24

"My plan was to order some dinner," I said. "Does everyone want to stay?"

"Please stay," Joy said, barely looking up. "I'd really like that." And who today would say no to Joy?

Jess and Al went to shower downstairs. Jack and Carly took the kid's bathroom, where he could put her in the tub. Tal ducked into ours and we heard the shower go on. The camera was still on. Joy laid flat out on the bed in a confusion of wet sheets and towels. Her braids were coming out. There were red splotches on her body from the pressure of other bodies. She was dotted with sweat. Semen and smegma had congealed on her legs. And she was laughing. "Oh, my. Wow. Goodness!"

"How do you feel?" Lea asked.

"Full. Happy. Tired. Sore."

Lea picked up the marker. "Two more F's, three more P's," she said, putting the marks on Joy's body.

"Four O's," Joy said.

Lea surveyed the result. "Sure looks like a gangbang."

"Feels like one, too," Joy said. "If I never see another cock again it'll be too soon."

I tried really hard to not take that at face value. I called Luca's and ordered some thin crust pizzas with a precise selection of upscale toppings and a couple of salads. I'd picked up a cheesecake earlier in the day. When I got downstairs everyone was tidily dressed in various pieces of cotton, denim and fleece. Tal had the basketball game on in the den and the three guys and Jess were there. I took drink orders.

Lea came downstairs in a long skirt and tank top of Joy's, nipples hard against the cotton. leading the way. "Joy needs a bit of quiet time, "she said, "she'll be down soon." She and Carly sat in the kitchen with me as I marshalled plates and silverware, opened the bar and began making drinks.

"I thought," I said to Carly, "That you might be mad at me."

"I was, before, for you even asking her."

"It came up for me. We don't keep secrets. I wasn't expecting a yes, but she found her own desire. Then it took a lot of arranging."

Carly put up both hands. "Right. We talked about that. I forgive you."

I took a couple of deep breaths and backed away from that cliff. "Thank you. Is there something else?"

"I guess I don't quite get the point."

"I get a lot of joy from witnessing her pleasure. It excites me that that she can turn you guys on. That she finds her own purpose in something that that I want her to do. And that after all of that she still chooses me. Maybe that's selfish, but it's not only me. We started down this road a few years ago. It led here."

"And you can stand it?"

"I can, somehow. I felt a lot of different things today. Happy and terrified, abandoned and seen. I don't know how it's all going to shake out. But I knew that going in."

Carly shrugged. "And you gambled your marriage anyway?"

"I don't think so. Things with Lea and Tal have been fine."

"Right." She turned to Lea. "How long has this been going on?"

"Joy never told you about us?"

"She told me about the four of you, not the two of you. But maybe I just wanted to hear it that way."

"A couple weekends a year since that trip." Lea said. "Occasionally with Danny or Tal, but mostly just us."

"God," Carly said. "A polyamorous cabal. Among my friends."

"Cabal? I don't know," Lea said, "it's just a part of life, now, I have a husband and a girlfriend. Occasionally I sleep with her husband, too."

"And she sleeps with yours," I said. "It's been fine."

"It has," Joy said. "It really has."

My wife was at the kitchen door, freshly washed, beautiful silver hair finely brushed out and hanging halfway down her shoulders, a headband across her forehead to keep it out of her eyes. She had put on some light eye makeup and lipstick. She was wearing only a mid-thigh length pareo wrapped very low around her hips. The scoreboard screamed her accomplishment. Not that anyone would forget what had happened that afternoon.

"Don't you want to get dressed?" I asked this familiar stranger.

"No," she said. I began to object, I guess out of habit. "Not your call. We'll talk later."

She bent over to pick up the tray of chips and hummus and veggies and I could see under the pareo. Her vulva were closed, like usual. Why was that a letdown?

The doorbell rang. Joy gave me an enigmatic smile. "Shall I get it?"

What have I started? But I had no answer yet. "No." Back off, I said to myself. Don't go all batshit. But my mind was racing as I signed the check; I wanted her to do it, I want her to want to do it; her return to me absolves me of the sin of offering her in the first place. Yet you know not the nature of her return. Patience, grasshopper.

I carried the food to the kitchen. I put the pizzas directly on the wire shelves to reheat. Scored the cheesecake. Transferred the salads to a couple of colorful bowls and mixed them. Started a pot of decaf in the coffeemaker. Set the table. Opened a couple bottles of chianti. Clapped my hands, stuck my head in the den. "Dinner's ready!" and with a flourish I brought out the trays and bowls and fed my wife's lovers.

Each couple was sitting closer together than they were to the next person. Next to me. Joy's pareo had hiked above her hips and I wanted to reach down and touch her, right there at the table. Joy! Naked! Here! Available to all! Every one of them had her today! Any one of them could take her at any time. Tomorrow. On demand? Maybe. Now? She was theirs, too. And she chose naked. Is she saying, come have me again? You will never have me again?

"Danny?" I hear her voice from far away. "Come back! Where did you go?"

"I don't even know how to try to tell you."

"I'm still me, love," she said. "But try to keep up." Joy clinked her glass, then stood. "I want to say something, more than this," gesturing at her labelled torso. "This happened, supposedly, because I had a one-night stand at a conference. Cliched, right? But I felt bad and wanted to make it up to him, so Danny got a couple days of "wife on demand" from me. That got his imagination going, I guess. He asked for this. It seemed okay, I had imagined it in Hawaii, and ended up just saying, what the hell, go for it. You only live once. And maybe to spite him, a little, in a battle-of-the-sexes sort of way."

"You win this round, honey," Carly said and the other women applauded. She put a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

"We started talking about his fantasies a few years ago. Then out of nowhere, almost, Lea and I found erotic love, and blessing of blessings, Danny and Tal accepted it."

"All for the low-low cost of occasional threesomes," Lea said.

Everyone laughed again, but Joy held up her hand. "Our life has not turned out the way I expected. When we started out Danny and I had a plan. We'd have our perfect little life; two kids, good work, enduring romance, happy retirement. Then we lost Jenny. Boom. Your kids have their graduations and start their careers and get married. Jenny doesn't." She looked at each of our friends in turn. "You know that I'm not jealous. You all have shared your joys with me, and I'm so grateful. Many of our so-called friends from back then couldn't hack it, and they're gone. You guys, Lizzie, Rachel, a few others, you are the ones who could. Now we have today. Its Danny's fantasy, and a desire I found in myself, but Jenny is always there, somehow. Does today make up for all the love I missed from her dying so young? Am I having the sex that she never got to have? Am I fulfilling Danny's Oedipal longings? Too much thinking is guaranteed to drive you crazy. So I trusted my body today, and it delivered. I loved making love with each of you." She turned to me. "Danny, I don't know where this is going, but thank you for an amazing day."

I rejoiced at her joy and despaired at her tone. Something irrevocable had happened; the train I had set in motion had changed drivers. After dinner I saw Joy go separately to each person, have a conversation, exchange hugs and kisses, gropes, gentle and kind... I wondered what she was sharing with each lover. I imagined her kneeling at the door, sucking each man goodbye, and hated myself for it. Who was I to believe I could tame Eros? Instead, at my invitation, Eros took my wife and left me addled and racing to keep up.

But all that actually happened as the two local couples left was giving each person a quick hug and kiss. Just like normal. Tal and Lea said goodnight too and withdrew to the den. Joy went right upstairs and I finished cleaning up the kitchen.

When I joined her she was staring at herself in the full-length mirror.

"Hey, beautiful girl." The black marks of the scorecard mocked me from her torso.

"No girl here. It took a woman to do that," she said. "Did you get what you wanted?"

"Yes, I did." That was true, at least.

"How do you feel?" She seemed to be talking to me from a great distance.

"Good. Happy. Satisfied."

"Bullshit."

"Terrified. Awestruck." The little boy screamed in my head.

"Sure, Danny. Okay." She turned away. "Did you ever want to stop it?"

"Every second, but never in a million years. I felt powerless."

"Well, you are. Any fantasy of exclusivity is gone. Tonight you gave sex back to me. Now I decide."

The waves crashed down on my head. I desperately swam toward a surface that seemed to be receding with each stroke. "Haven't you always decided? Do you feel I forced you into things?"

"Yes, sure. Women make a surprising number of decisions based on culture and habit. Fortunately I love you, but society was still in our bed." Joy picked up her phone and stood in front of the mirror. "Come here, Danny." When I got close enough she wrapped her arm around my waist and pulled me next to her, to take a picture in the mirror. I looked huge and stupid in my fleece sweatsuit nex to my trim, bare wife.

"Are you mad at me?"

Yeah, in a way. I'm trying hard to own it completely. I liked fucking them but I hated that it was your fantasy; you got the benefit and I did the work." I was full of words, but she stopped me with a gesture. "Maybe I'm not ready to talk yet--I need some time to sort through it all." She raised her arms and undulated, leaned over, a big stretch. "I'm going to do a little yoga," she said, "in the office."

I spent the next hour laying on our bed watching obscure YouTube videos with one hand and holding my soft dick with the other. After a while Joy came back, having traded her pareo for pajama bottoms, the scorecard till visible.

I didn't like it. So I changed the subject. "Get out the kinks?"

"There's a couple places," she said, "that are going to need a bit of time."

"I apologize for losing my cool."

"Accepted. I don't think it will be productive," she said, "to talk about this anymore tonight." We got into bed, only ours once again. I went to put my arm around her. "Nope. I need the opposite of holding." She couldn't even be under the covers.

"I love you," I said, forlornly.

"Yes. Well. I hope so."

She fell out right away. I carefully placed the duvet over her, but she didn't move. I kept replaying moments from the day in my consciousness, but my cock just wouldn't get hard. Then I dreamed that I was standing on a pier watching an ocean liner come toward me, and it just kept coming, somehow missing me but demolishing the pier and carving an impassable gorge in its wake as it continued on toward parts unknown.

Chapter 24

When I woke up the week already had us in its hold. The four of us had breakfast early, fully clothed, then Tal flew back to Portland for his workweek and Joy and Lea, as previously planned, went off to Calistoga until Friday. I went to the office and sleepwalked through my day. When she called me that night, Joy told me she was thinking of leaving the scorecard on while she lounged around the pool, but let Lea clean her off. It was not erotic at all.

She didn't call me again all week. I noticed, but I didn't call her either. Midweek Lea texted me and Tal a photo of the two of them at the pool, laying on adjoining chaises, comfortable in their bikinis, casually holding each other's hand as they posed for the shot. Left unsaid was who took the picture. I checked the credit card account daily to see what they did--meals, shopping, massages--but it couldn't tell me how much sex they were having.

I imagined them parading around town bare-assed in those thin cotton sundresses they wore in Hawaii. Picking up groups of boys and having slippery orgies every night. Masturbating in the hot bath and then getting spitroasted by huge hunky masseurs. Lea sitting on her face, eating her out, fucking her repeatedly, with fingers, dildo, her tongue, and Joy cumming through all of it, which I didn't have to imagine because I watched her on video nearly every night. My poor cock took a beating. I missed my wife.

* * *

But just like I had imagined her compliance, I also had imagined her malevolence. When she came home on Friday she was just Joy, daughter of Hiram and Rose, my wife, my friend, the girl I had lived with and lusted after every day for over thirty years. She gave me a big kiss and hug. "I'm happy to be home."

I hugged her back. "I'm so relieved."

"Did you think I wouldn't come back?"

"Not really, but it was a possible outcome."

"It was never a possible outcome. My life is still with you."

"So how was your week?"

"It was easy. We hung out. I rode my bike a lot. We sat in the pools. Read a couple of books. Got spa treatments. Went to the outlet mall. Had dinner. It was normal. Relaxing."

"Sex?" I had to ask.

"A couple times, easy. We were more girlfriends than lovers." She paused. "Tal came back last night to drive home with her today and the three of us did, last night and this morning. How about you?"

I said, "I've watched the video every day. It is such a turn on to see you, and I have to fight the shame I feel every time."

"I hate that. You feel shame and I feel guilt and we get stupid from there. I want to stop getting stupid. Sunday was a gift. When Carly came in at first she asked about doing the thing with her and Jack, and of course I would give her that. It made the whole day giving to the instead of to you.

"I liked fucking our friends, Danny. I liked that everyone desired me. I liked being in my own bed, in our house. I like knowing what I can do for each of them and how to summon it. I like knowing it might happen again, with any of them. I hope you can live with that. I won't hide from you, I want to share, but from here on out it's my business. That's what I'm telling you. Kindly."

My cock was stiff inside my pants. "I guess I get it. I didn't like it here without you."

Joy gave my stiffness a bit of a rub. "It turned you on to hear that?"

"You turn me on. I've been watching you all week. And wanting you all week." I unbuckled my pants, slid them and my underwear down my thighs. I rubbed myself slowly, with both hands. "Feel like helping?"

"Oh Danny, sure. Sure I can." Laughing, she came and sat next to me rubbing my cock with one hand my balls with the other.

"One other thing. I went to see Carly on the way home. Jack was home, and Carly asked, so we did the surrogate thing again. When Carly was done, Jack wasn't. So she watched."

"That happened just now?"

She looked at the clock. "Yeah. It wasn't even an hour ago. Want a taste?" Her hands had kept moving the whole time. She was so matter-of-fact about it.

"So you've already been fucked twice today?"

She stopped moving her hands. "Three times, actually. Tal was stoked. Are you whining?"

I was. But this is the thing I had made happen, the thing she had warned me about.

"I still want our marriage, Danny," Joy said, "but wherever this goes, with our friends,"-- Her hands gestured abundance-- "I want to go there. You can, too."

"Not without you," I said gloriously.

She snorted and sat up. "Oh Danny, give it up, please?" Joy mimed answering a phone and spoke in a midwestern drawl. "Hello Danny? This is Al. Do you think you could find some time to come over and double team Jess with me? She asked for you." She hung up.

"Point taken," I said.

"You've set us both free, Danny, to share as much love as we can however we can in whatever way the moment demands. Trust that it'll be OK. But one request--could you deal with this shame thing? I don't want to feel overlooked in the face of your imagination."

I heard that and something happened inside, a deep burst of compassionate warmth. Hot tears came to my eyes. "You are a gift. Everything you've done with me is a gift. Our children are a gift. Sharing our grief is a gift. Last Sunday was a gift. You choosing me, now, is a gift. Sharing Lea is a gift. And you can kick ass on a bicycle. You are just a remarkable woman in so many ways and it is such a privilege to be the one who gets to see it all up close." I stood, extending my hand. "Come make love with me."

She came right past my hand and wrapped me up in a sweet but passionate hug. "Yes, Danny," she said. "Yes. I will, my sweet, sweet man."

We have been married for twenty-seven years. Passion brews like a pot of tea, steeping. We went upstairs. Our room was warm. I took half a Viagra. We did our teeth. She did her potions. We got naked. We went to bed. I was hard as soon as I held her. I wrapped my arms around her and held her breasts in my hands. She clasped my hands with one arm and reached back to my hip with the other.

"This is nice. I do love you, Daniel Rosenberg, forever and always."

"I'm so happy," I said, "with sloppy thirds."

Her lumbar spine arched away from my belly as she spooned up against me, angling her hips back receptively. Her breasts still in my hands, I shoved my hard dick all the way into the sweet, deep warmth of my amazing bride... "Ohhh!" There was much recent experience in that sound. "Easy--it's actually fourths."