Shared Love

Author's note: This is not a typical romance between one man and one woman, but a romance none the less. If you don't want to read about a three-way-relationship (two women - one man), please stop reading now because otherwise, you'll get disappointed. With the focus of the story being on the relationships, I decided to nevertheless put in the Romance category.

It's a stand-alone with about 14k words, a bit longer than three lit-pages. Of course, all people and events are purely fictional.

I hope you enjoy it and please leave a vote or a comment.

My thanks, as always, go to my editors: Anon and Joffa. I can't stress enough how important their contributions are.

+++

"Sweetheart, can you get the door? I'm not presentable," my girlfriend shouted unnecessarily from the master bathroom on the upper floor.

Not presentable? At twenty-seven, compared to my twenty-nine, she was more beautiful than ever. With her long, dark blonde hair, symmetrical face, those expressive light blue eyes, her cute button nose, and this sensual mouth begging to be kissed, she was the epitome of the desirable girl next door. She was slim, sixty kilos on a one-metre seventy-two frame, had a behind I couldn't stop admiring, and groping, and had a good handful on her chest, also the frequent target of both my eyes and my hands. Her friendly and inclusive character completed her to what I regarded as a perfect woman.

Since we've moved in together, we usually didn't go out on Friday evenings anymore, so this had become her so-called makeover day. I had stopped wondering what she was doing in there for hours as to me she looked as striking coming out as she did going in. She wanted to be left alone while she did it, so I usually occupied myself on my own.

This habitual behaviour was the reason why I regarded her asking me to open the door as superfluous. I wasn't sure what it would take for Eileen to leave the bathroom prematurely but she wouldn't do it voluntarily.

"Yep," I replied as I had already risen from the couch.

I walked over to the door and opened it. I didn't even bother to check the spyhole. It was Friday evening, eight thirty, and we weren't expecting anyone. Who could it possibly be if not an annoying salesman or a religious fanatic? Consequentially, I was stunned when I saw who was there and the state she was in.

"Debbie! What the... Come in. EILEEN! Get down here NOW!"

As an afterthought, I added, "Bring the first aid kit and some ice!"

Debbie Marshall has been my girlfriend's best friend since like forever. They had met the first day in preschool and somehow got through their teenage years without becoming enemies over some triviality or another. For the first time since they were four years old, they went separate ways when they started at different universities and during this period Eileen and I met.

That was, in fact, an exceptionally unspectacular story. We happened to study at the same table at the library one day. We small talked a little, went for a coffee, then a couple dinners. We hit it off fast and quickly became exclusive. When she was two years into her Master's in Finance and Accounting and I was about to start on my doctorate in mathematics, I went with her to meet her parents and during this visit, I met Debbie for the first time.

I had heard a lot about her. We had even talked on the phone on occasion when Eileen happened to be in the shower or otherwise unavailable, but so far, we had never seen each other face to face. At first, she barely spoke to me and acted very stand-offish. She never made eye-contact and generally avoided looking at me. This went on for two or maybe three days. Then our relationship, if you wanted to call it that, rapidly deteriorated. I never understood what had happened, but nothing I ever did from then on was met with anything but a scowl. If she stooped to talk to me, it was an insult.

Because my PhD and Eileen's Master's degree were only a year apart, I tried and managed to haggle a short time appointment as a data analyst to a research project out of my doctoral advisor. This allowed us to stay together at the university before we moved to her hometown, much to the dismay of my own parents who would have preferred me a little closer.

In the two years since, my girlfriend has been doing a careful balancing act trying to keep Debbie and me apart while at the same time regularly seeing her best friend. At first, I took a new effort to be friendly whenever we met but after a while, I lost my patience with her. She was just so incomprehensively irrational and irritating. Soon it became obvious that Debbie despised me with all her heart. I fully understood how this put Eileen in a horrible situation. I never asked her to stop meeting Debbie, but instead tried to be as far away as possible whenever she came around. Usually, this meant working longer hours or an extended session at the fitness studio if I knew of a visit in advance. The emergency plan was a hasty retreat into my man-cave where I maintained an electric railway.

The relationship I had with Debbie was the main reason why I hadn't yet proposed to Eileen. I was seriously wondering whether her best friend might cause us to break up in the end. My being Eileen's husband and simultaneously her best friend's preferred subject of hate had the potential to cause manifold problems. I was afraid that if she was forced to choose between us, it would create a rift in our relationship which might prove impossible to mend, even if she chose me.

But now Debbie was standing on our doorstep. One eye was swollen shut, the other discoloured. She had multiple bruises on her face, her nose was possibly broken, and her lower lip was split. No matter how much we detested each other, this was not the time to hold a grudge. I put my hand on her shoulder to guide her to the couch, immediately regretting it when she winced from the pain that gentle touch caused.

"Please. Sit down," I said quietly. "I'll just go and see what's taking Eileen so long."

I barely managed to turn around when my girlfriend came down the stairs, the medkit in her hands. It was obvious that she had not yet properly finished her weekly restoration project as there were still remnants of some cream under her ears and her hair was completely dishevelled.

"What's ..."

She didn't get any further as she discovered Debbie on the sofa. Tears appeared in her eyes as she approached her friend with a distraught 'oh my god' and pulled her into a careful hug.

While she embraced her BFF, I did what needed to be done. Using the freezer's built-in function, I produced some crushed ice and wrapped it in a kitchen towel. I brought it back to the living room where Eileen was still holding Debbie in a hug, crying with her instead of doing something useful. Women! I made sure to appear calm and non-threatening as I approached the pair and wordlessly urged Eileen to take the ice. This finally sparked her into action. Meanwhile, I took the first aid kit from the coffee table and pulled out the disinfectant.

After inspecting the worst of the abrasions, I knew my efforts would be insufficient. "I think you should go to the hospital. Some of these injuries look really serious."

"Samuel! You can't send her away!" my girlfriend lectured me, shooting daggers through her eyes.

"That's not what I meant. I'd come with you and wait to bring you back here. But some of these bruises look really nasty," I said, looking at my partner's friend.

"I can't go to a hospital. I'd have to explain what happened."

I was just about to lecture Debbie on the causes, victims, and offenders of domestic violence when a subtle headshake from Eileen stopped me. Maybe she was right. This wasn't the moment to criticise so I just, as carefully as possible, administered the antiseptic and tried to treat the worst of her injuries. Neither of us talked until I was done with her face.

When I remembered the wince from touching her shoulder, I said something I would have bet my life on never saying until just a few minutes ago.

"Take off your blouse."

This wasn't a sexual approach but the absurdity of me asking Debbie to undress almost made me laugh.

"I need to look at your other injuries," I added to clarify my intentions.

Without hesitation, Debbie started unbuttoning her shirt and when she pulled the garment off her shoulders, my girlfriend almost stopped breathing. Debbie was covered with bruises, most of them fresh, some still blood-encrusted, but there were also older, fading signs of the abuse she had suffered.

Gingerly, I started to examine her injuries when Eileen suddenly jumped up and ran to the bathroom. A moment later, I heard her vomit.

"Please let me take you to the hospital. I'm really not qualified to tend to this kind of damage."

Yes, she hated my guts. Yes, we had been arguing almost since the first day we met. But no, that didn't mean I found it acceptable to beat her up. More than once, I had felt the urge to slap her silly but I would never have acted on that impulse. Also, I hoped, once she was at the hospital, either a doctor, a nurse or a psychologist would be able to convince her to talk to the police.

She again denied my request, so I did the best I could to ease her pain. I even managed to not look at her barely concealed chest overly obviously. Scolding myself for being a pig, checking out her bra-covered breasts while she was in this vulnerable state, I had to admit they were a nice pair, a bit bigger than Eileen's handfuls and the nipples that shone through the semi-transparent material seemed to be a shade or two brighter. A few minutes after her sudden disappearance, my girlfriend came back from the bathroom.

"I'm sorry."

I wasn't sure what Eileen was apologising for but hoped that Debbie's stance had been further weakened by my girlfriend's response to seeing the extent of the injuries. I again tried to persuade her to let me take her to the hospital and this time I received support from my partner. Finally, after ten more minutes of tending to her injuries and me complaining about my inadequacy as a nurse, she finally agreed.

Eileen rushed to the bedroom to dress in something more appropriate. While she was upstairs, I removed my sweater, carefully helped Debbie into it, and closed the zip. My girlfriend was back in record time and we set off to the hospital.

The visit there was unpretentious. They took a couple of x-rays to look for internal injuries but fortunately, they all turned out negative. It was quickly clear that I wasn't the one who had hurt her when I kept trying to convince her to press charges against her boyfriend but neither I nor Eileen or the hospital staff succeeded. From the doctor, I received a polite compliment for my first-aid-efforts but it was easy to see the new bandages and plasters were administered far more professionally.

We didn't talk much on the way home. I assumed Debbie would be staying with us for at least a couple of days and tried to figure out what needed to happen to make that go smoothly. Eileen's parents were well off and when she had announced we would come back to live and work in her hometown, they had bought her a nice house in one of the better suburbs. With me working in a junior management function in product development for an insurance company and Eileen just having started in the finance department of the local bank, we could possibly have afforded our own but neither in the size we now had nor in such a nice neighbourhood.

It was a two-story home. After you entered, you stood in a spacious entry hall. On your right, there was a rather ample study. Straight ahead, directly next to the stairs leading up to the second floor, you found the kitchen with the annexed laundry and utility room. On the left was the living room which had a part sectioned off for dining. It was connected to the kitchen, the entrance, and a small lavatory. The upper floor consisted of four bedrooms, one full and one-half bathroom, and a storage room, all arranged circularly around the central stairway. It also featured a small terrace which was accessible from the largest bedroom. Around the house, there was a nice garden, not extraordinarily big, but large enough for two or three kids to play in.

Debbie dozed off in the back seat, most likely because the adrenaline finally left her bloodstream and the painkillers had taken over. After I parked in the driveway, I gently tried to wake her up but didn't succeed.

"Can you carry her to the guest bedroom?" my girlfriend suggested before stalling for a second as she probably remembered how much Debbie and I disliked each other. "Please. Don't send her away. Just a couple of days."

I tried to look annoyed as I answered my girlfriend but I don't think I succeeded very well in that.

"Don't be ridiculous. No matter how much she hates me and how badly she's behaved in the past, she's still your best friend. Whatever happened, nobody deserves that kind of abuse. She needs help and I'd be disappointed if you didn't provide it. Just make sure the doors are open when I come with her."

I'd really like to paint a picture of Superman effortlessly carrying Lois Lane into the house but with me being one metre eighty and Debbie only five or so centimetres shorter, it took quite an effort to get her upstairs and onto the bed. It didn't even matter that I outweighed her by fifteen or so kilos. Knocked out by the pain killers as she was, Debbie barely stirred. I, on the other side, was exhausted once I had placed her on the bed.

I left the room while my girlfriend undressed her and prepared her for the night. When I came out of the shower, Eileen was waiting for me on our bed. She lay on her side, her head supported by her hand, the lower leg straight, the upper leg cocked, leaving her privates open and inviting my gaze. I broke into a wide grin and shed my towel on the way to join my girlfriend.

I glided over the bed, trying to get her nipple in my mouth but she had different plans. As soon as I was on the bed, she pushed me on my back and straddled me.

"You've done enough for today. Relax and enjoy," she said with a loving smile.

She slid downwards and bent forward. My penis had already started to inflate when I came out of the shower to find her wantonly displaying herself on the bed and now, with her obvious intentions, it quickly grew to full size. I knew my girlfriend well enough to hold still and not mess up a blowjob by trying to face-fuck her and was abundantly rewarded. She started by softly stroking my shaft, throwing in soft kisses and occasional licks along the underside and around the helmet while tenderly fondling my balls.

When she was happy with the hardness of my erection, she proceeded to slide most of it into her mouth while slowly masturbating the lower part. As usual, it didn't take her long to have me on the brink. I wasn't sure what she was intending, whether she wanted to finish me off with her mouth or not, but she could read me well enough to know when she had to back off.

Her plan revealed itself after she moved up in a fluid motion and took me in her pussy in one go. I was surprised at how wet she was as I hadn't spent any time on foreplay but she didn't let me dwell on the question long. She pulled my hands to her breasts and leaned on them, letting her blonde hair fall forward around my face. Supporting herself on my hands holding her breasts, she started to move with a clear intention. This wasn't about getting each other off. She wanted me to cum as soon as possible. She used her intimate knowledge of my body and added a slight circle to her up-down-movement. The intended effect was almost instantaneous. She had already brought me to the brink with the blowjob and within less than a minute I willingly succumbed to her onslaught and shot several spurts of cum into her.

Feeling the need to hold her, I slid my hands out from under her and wrapped her in a hug, pulling her down on me. Covering her neck and shoulders in kisses as I tried to recover. After a minute or so, she climbed off me and the bed and disappeared in the bathroom. When she returned, she held a washcloth between her legs and had another one in her hand which she used to clean up my cock.

Pleased with her work, she laid down beside me, my arm under her neck, her head resting on my shoulder.

"Thank you for putting my friend first and your quarrels with her second."

"I'm not complaining, but you know there was really no other possible choice."

I felt her smile before she pressed a kiss on my chest.

"Yes, I know but still. You were great and deserved a treat."

I pulled her against me a little stronger than just holding her and returned the kiss with one on top of her head, ignoring the mouthful of hair I got from it.

"As I said, I'm not complaining."

"Can she stay for a few days? She can't go back to Jonas."

If I didn't know her the way I did, it might have felt like she was trying to soften me up by using sex but it wasn't the case. She knew my standpoint on domestic violence and that I would not let somebody suffer from abuse if I could avoid it.

"Of course. I'll be nice to her. Try to get her to press charges against him. We can't let that bastard get away with it or he'll do it again. Either to her or somebody else."

She squeezed me some more.

"You know, you're just the greatest guy around. I'd make you cum again if you had it in you right now."

I didn't think that taking a stand against abuse was worth the label 'greatest guy around' but why argue a moot point? Instead, I replied chuckling, "It's just a question of how hard you're willing to try."

That was met with a giggle and a soft slap on my chest.

"Let's get some sleep and talk to Debbie tomorrow on how to proceed. You have my full support on whatever you decide."

+++

I woke the next morning to noises coming up from the kitchen. That confused me as Eileen was still lying beside me until I remembered the events of the previous evening. Debbie. I wondered how she would react to me now in the light of the day when she was out of the immediate danger. I got up and dressed in enough clothes to be presentable to our guest. I made sure to walk down the stairs in a manner so she could hear me approach.

"Good morning, Debbie. How are you? Feeling better? Anything I can do to help? Replace a plaster or a bandage?"

I greeted her with the best of intentions, an upbeat tone to my voice, trying to be friendly, helpful, and non-threatening. On my way down, I had thought about possible ways for this to play out but I wasn't prepared for what actually happened. She turned around and looked at me with widened eyes. For a fleeting moment, she reminded me of an animal cornered by a predator.

It took her a few seconds to come to a decision but suddenly she dashed out of the kitchen to the living room, sprinted through the entrance hall towards the stairs. She was almost there by the time I called after her.

"Wait!"

She skidded to a stop, still looking like a deer caught in headlights. She slowly turned towards me, ready to dash for the slightest reason.

"I don't know why we don't get along, but we must ignore that as you have other, more pressing, matters to worry about right now. Let's call a truce. You're welcome to stay with us until you've found your feet footing again."

That sounded like a sensible, friendly offer which I expected her to at the very least consider. What I didn't anticipate was that she would sob loudly and hurry up the stairs into the guest bedroom in which she had stayed overnight. I stood at the passage between the living room and the kitchen and didn't understand anything. That was just another example of Debbie acting irrationally towards me. I simply didn't comprehend what I had done wrong this time.