Three Women

"She is your type, isn't she?"

"Is this a set-up?" I blushed.

"Sort of. She's a childhood friend. We'd introduce you anyway."

"Why haven't I met her yet?"

"She lived in Toronto for twenty years. Moved back fairly recently. I'll let her tell you that story. She is quite the skier, by the way," Ann said.

I guess my eyes hadn't moved, because Grace said. "I think Stephen likes your backside, Momma."

Georgia gave a wiggle. "Fortunately, big butts are back in style."

I couldn't leave it there. "Not so big. Besides, the whole package works great," I said.

Georgia's laugh evoked a cascade of lovely bells. "Thank you, Stephen." I liked the way she said my name.

"You'll see more in the hot tub later," Grace said with a twinkle. Hot tubbing under the stars always was a part of the country. The tub Peter had built for them was luxuriously large but guilt-free, relying as it did solely on water from the stream and heat from the deadwood the property generated in copious amounts.

"Tonight, I need to go home," Georgia said. "Big workday tomorrow, a breakfast, then dinner here. Another time."

"I look forward to it," I said, not knowing whether to try and suppress or just yield to the silly grin I felt spreading over my face.

Grace headed back to the cottage with Georgia. Peter stayed to help me with the rest of the cleanup. We made a plan to go hiking the next day, and I asked him to invite his mother-in-law. When I got out to the pool Ann and Gary were cuddled together, lit gently by the moonlight.

"That looks nice," I said, dropping my towel and slipping into the water. I was naked and warm with people who loved me. Everything released and I let out a great sigh.

"It's really nice to have you here again, Stephen."

"It's really nice to be here. With people who love each other."

"I know," Gary said. "We're just too cute."

"Next up, middle age couple's recipe for marital happiness. Film at 11."

"This is one," Gary said. The had he had draped casually over Ann's shoulder dropped down to cup her breast. She grabbed his arm, but didn't really push it away, and he kept it there. "I don't think we'd pass the censors."

"I hope this is okay, Steve," Ann said. "You've known us an awful long time."

"Go for it, guys. Happy to take care of myself over here. Although I would like to have someone to go to bed with tonight."

"Great to hear you say that," Ann said. "I hope you're done feeling sorry for yourself."

"Oh no," I said, "that still has measurable benefits at times, but I'm going to go on anyway." Everybody laughed. "I asked Peter to invite Georgia on our hike tomorrow, so you'll get your wish."

"We only wanted to introduce you." Gary leapt to his wife's defense.

"Relax," I said. "I forgive you. Plus, I like her. Just be extra nice to your wife tonight."

"That sound promising," she laughed. Her hand seemed to be moving under the water.

I mean, sure, we're good friends and all, and sure, there had been plenty of ribald jokes about sex in school, thirty-plus years ago. But then all four of us jumped deeply into family life, where the long investment in monogamy pays its dividend in the success of the children. On the other hand, we were sitting naked in a hot tub with her husband's hand on her tit and I still had sex on the brain.

"I wasn't going to tell anyone," I said, "but I saw Grace and Peter today, having sex on their deck. I was watching them and remembering Sheila and it was a bit too much." If my face hadn't already been reddened by the tub, it would have been red now. "I was watching them and touching myself and I thought okay, this has to be over now. So then Georgia shows up and now you guys are..." Gary was lightly tweaking Ann's nipple and her hand definitely was busy under the water. Mine, too--my cock was at full attention.

"This isn't fair, Gary." She moved his hand away. "We should say goodnight. Sorry, Steve."

"It's okay. I know you guys love me. And each other. Enjoy yourselves."

Ann stood up. The water washed off her smallish breasts with their hardened nipples and down her hips and off the lean runner's legs I had spent all these years following. Gary twisted away from me as he got up, but his cock was at full attention. Ann's body gleamed in the moonlight as they retreated to their bedroom. I was torn between memories of Sheila, visions of Grace, and fantasies about what Ann and Gary were doing right now, but the heat was seductive and stars were twinkling and I floated in the water and in my inner space, simple breathing detumescing my actual and mental dicks, until all that was left was the peace of the nighttime.

I had just laid down in my bed, naked, anticipating a nice session of self-pleasure, when I heard footsteps on the stairs. My door opened. Ann was there. Also naked. "Hi," she said.

"Hi," I said. "What's this?" She blushed.

"We went to bed," she said, "I blamed him for teasing you. He said I could have helped you out in the pool. I said maybe it wouldn't have stopped with my hands, and he said up to you. We had a little fight, then, and Gary said I could come, if I wanted to. He's wanted to see me forever."

"See you..."

"With another man. I never thought I could, but tonight I can imagine it. With you. If that's all right."

My cock practically hit the ceiling. "Are you sure?"

"We trust you a lot."

"Where is Gary?"

"He'll be along in a bit. I wanted to talk to you, first. So do you..." and despite her self-assurance, her voice softened and she asked, hesitantly, "Do you... want me?"

"Oh, Ann," I said, "sweet, sweet Annie, yes. Yes, I do."

He sent this to you." It was a Viagra. "Let me..." She crossed the room, sat down right next to me, opened her mouth, put the pill on the tip of her tongue. "Open your mouth, Stevie." Her warm breath caressed my face and whatever was left of my self-pity was shattered not by memory but by a living breathing woman who loved me. She reached behind my head, pulled my mouth to hers, kissed me with abandon, her tongue pushing the pill into my mouth. I swallowed; she ran her tongue around the inside of my mouth, exploring my teeth and gums and tongue and cheeks and the back of my lips, her lips firm but yielding on mine. I hadn't been kissed like that for a long, long time. Maybe even the last time Sheila and I were in that loft. Her hands were busy up and down and around on my cock and balls. I wanted to cry. "It's okay, Stevie. Just relax." I leaned back on the bed and let go of everything. My arms flopped to my sides and my fingers unwound, a flush filled my face and chest and blessed gravity pulled me into the mattress and down toward the center of the earth. "This feels so good."

"I'm so glad," she said, "I can give this to you." She expanded her range of motion, hands sliding over thighs and belly and cock and balls, roaming, caressing.

"This might be the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me," I said. I've loved you for so long, but never thought it could end up here."

"Did you want it to, back then?"

"Abstractly, sure. I guess. Horny college kid, and all. But instead, we began a beautiful friendship that I am grateful for every day."

"And now it's led here anyway," she said.

"To my great joy and utter amazement. Do I have to share you?"

She chuckled, her eyes lit brightly. "That's sweet, but I'm the one doing the sharing." Then Ann lowered her head and I forgot about pretty much everything except the silkiness of her lips and tongue and hands. I opened my eyes and Gary was there by the door, his cock stiff in his moving hand, eyes intensely focused on the thing he wanted to see. I wanted to say something to him. He silenced me with a hand, crossed the room, sat on the end of the bed. Their eyes caught and locked onto each other, and she sucked me in and out, hand moving on my cock, until he said, "Now, Annie, if you're ready."

"I am." Ann straddled me, faced her husband, and her pussy enveloped me in a single movement. She rode me, grinding back and forth, their eyes still locked. He leaned over and kissed her. Her back was fascinating, rippling muscles ever changing under skin striated with intricately interlaced summertime tan lines of sundress, bikini and running shimmel. I traced them with my fingers as she rode. `

"I want to see your face" I said. "Can we do that?"

She rolled off me and onto her back. "This is the exact thing you want, isn't it, honey?"

"Yes," he said, his face full of shame and triumph and lust. "Fuck her, Steve." Ann slipped a pillow under her hips and lifted her legs high and wide open. I threaded my arms behind her knees and drove all the way in single thrust, holding there, an inch from her loving face. She kissed me.

"This feels really, really, good," she said. "Fuck me as much as you want." My dick was huge and I was in deep and she was drawing me farther into herself and I could have gone on forever, but Gary brought me back. "Give me a little room, Steve." I lifted and she shifted.

"My two boys," she said. "All of these years to get here." She pulled Gary to her mouth. He eased in, and kept going until he seemed impossibly deep, pulled back with exquisite slowness. Everything slowed down; he knew her comfort zone, and I matched his rhythm. She was working her clit and each of us took a nipple and soon she came for the first time. What a joyous night! Every move stimulated silly jokes and laughter and lots more kissing and fucking. Ann yielded to her lust, and accommodated ours. When I rolled off her for the third and last time, I felt better than I had in a long, long time.

"How are you feeling?" I asked Ann.

She giggled, a wonderful sound. "Well used! Loved. Happy. Fulfilled. You are wonderful, both of you boys."

Gary got up, looked at his wife. "You coming?"

"Soon," she said. "Just going to close the circle here." He left and Ann snuggled close, a hand on my spent cock, and the last thing I felt while drifting off was the warmth of her body beside me.

When I woke up the next morning, I was alone, the night already legend, an impossible memory. Down in the kitchen, Gary was there. "Quite the night," he said. He gave me a quizzical look and handed me a mug of his furiously black coffee.

"I don't quite know what to say to you, Gary. That was the most generous thing anyone has ever done for me."

"I have to confess it wasn't all altruism for me. I've wanted to watch her with someone, and asked her often enough to be annoying. It always seemed extraneous to her, which she never hesitated to point out. When we came in from the pool, I suggested that she could maybe have given you a handjob; she said no, that moment passed. I said 'you could go to him now,' then she said, 'it won't be an handjob. If you send me in to him, he gets it all.'" He shrugged. "If I truly wanted this to happen, she'd do it tonight. So, I took it."

"Are you okay?"

"Yes. The hardest thing about the whole night was giving her that twenty minutes at the start. She left me, for you."

"That would be freaky," I agreed, "even knowing what was to come."

"Jealousy is there, not of you, really, but of that moment of her leaving. Then she came back. Willfully chose me again. Love, Gratitude... She is remarkable."

All I could do was nod. Sheila couldn't do that. She had to leave me. This was better.

"She hadn't gotten back to our bed by the time I fell asleep, but she was there this morning, thank God. Gone to yoga with Grace already. Georgia usually goes, too, but she had work."

The screen door slammed, and Ann walked in with Georgia. "Talking about us, guys?"

"No," I said, blushing with guilt and memory.

"Yes," Gary said. "It's all good. Hey, Georgia. What's up?"

"Work asked Peter to take a shift, so it's just me for hiking today."

Georgia was already dressed in a hiking skort and top, and had her boots on. Ann followed me up the stairs as I went to change. "I was thinking we'd have to talk about last night," I said, "but maybe not, except to say again how incredibly generous you guys are."

"I'm still the same person, Steve." She gave me a quick hug and a little peck on the cheek, just like always. "I'll still kick your ass on the track. I'm glad we did that."

"Anytime, Annie. Anytime." My earnestness precipitated a giggle that could have melted Greenland.

"No, Steve, that's it. You needed it, Gary wanted what he wanted, and I wanted to fulfill you both. But it was a unique response to a unique situation. It would get complicated, fast, and we don't need that. Any of us."

I let that stand. "Fair enough. You didn't say anything to Georgia, I assume."

"About last night? Of course not. But you'll have plenty to talk about anyway."

"I think so. I like her." I paused. "Besides, I've learned a lot about opening up in the last twenty-four hours."

"Okay then. Now go. I need her back for dinner."

Georgia led me up a steep trail that opened onto a soft meadow, then climbed even more steeply to a ridgeline that led to an open shoulder, a break in the trees abutting a rocky overlook staring up into the high mountains. We sat close together on the flat top of a boulder about the size of a love seat.

"Beautiful spot," I said.

"My husband and I would come up here from town, in high school, before Ann ever bought the place."

"You met in high school?"

Georgia laughed a laugh full of fond memory. "Elementary school. Ann was in his grade. We were friends, even though the other boys made fun of him for it. We always just knew... it was peaceful to be with him. I was eighteen when we got married. We had Grace two years later. Then the next year he was gone." Her voice was full of many feelings; I could hear the regret, the loss, but also acceptance, a loving sense of an honored past.

"I'm so sorry. I suppose all love ends in grief, for the survivor." I looked at her, took her hand softly, held it. She squeezed her acknowledgement. Our hands stayed close.

"Yes, but you're supposed to have more time. Jeff was killed in an avalanche, opening the Glacier. It was a bluebird day. Spring. Solid base. No one thought that part would ever slide, but an ice layer had formed underneath, and the sun, and it cracked off right under him. They got to him pretty quickly, just not quickly enough. I've made my peace," she said, "But I still can't understand it. He wouldn't have been the man I loved if he wasn't out there, that day. And this wonderful daughter of mine has so many of his qualities."

"She is a beautiful young woman." Graphic images of Grace contorted in pleasure played in my mind. "I've enjoyed knowing her these past couple of years." I paused. "Thank you for telling me this. You must have really loved him."

"I did. I still do. Sometimes I can feel him. And Grace reminds me of him. I like that."

"One of my sons is named Jeff. More of an intellectual than an athlete."

"Still in school?"

"Twenty-one. He's in Calgary. Graduate school in public policy next year."

It was easier to talk to her than I even imagined. She stood up, balanced on the rock, pulled me up toward her. "Out there. You can see the top of Whistler from here."

She fussed a bit with the angle; I laid my head on her arm to follow the sightline. Sunlight glinted off the Peak chair's upper terminal. I left my head on her shoulder much longer than necessary.

She let me, then lowered her arm and sat back down. "When Jeff died, it was just too strange to be here. I was barely twenty-two. Grace was little. Everybody knew us. I felt so exposed. I needed to be anonymous. Even Vancouver was too close. My sister was in Toronto, so I moved in with her, got a job waitressing at Earl's. I ended up owning The Four Star Café."

"I've eaten there more than once. Fun place. Great food."

"Thanks. I was probably in the kitchen."

"Successful restaurants can be a cash machine. Why'd you leave?"

"Lease was up, the market was up; good time to sell. I'd been doing it for eighteen years, and it was time to do something else. I made a nice chunk of change, decided to come home. Missed the skiing. The weather. The water. I'm a private chef now; it's a lot less stress and good enough money. Then Grace met Peter, who's the son of one of Jeff's patrol buddies, and Ann had this gig for them, so she moved here, too. They're working on getting pregnant." I hoped that made my voyeurism more holy than prurient.

"Grandma, eh? Good work. So how is it, being back?"

"I'm very happy to be close to her again. And to Ann. More people remember me than remember him. It's nice when they do. A lot more life has gone by. It would have passed if I had stayed here, but the close friends I had stayed close even when I was back east. It's like I was never gone, almost. I've even started dating."

"You didn't date? In all those years?"

"Work was seven days a week. I had Grace. Café staff was our family. When Gracie got to high school, I went on a few dates. The sex was nice, when it happened, but nothing really sparked. I still see one of those guys occasionally. An FWB, I guess. You?"

"Two dates since my divorce. Good enough sex one time." I told her everything up to the view out my window yesterday afternoon and the encounter in my bedroom last night. "I've been reserved," I told her. "The divorce freaked me out more that I would have suspected; I haven't wanted to inflict my stuff on anyone else."

"Sounds kind of defensive."

"Yeah, the barriers have been up. Ann beats up on me about that attitude, though. I think I'm ready to break out of it."

She smiled. "Are you asking me out?"

I thought about the peace and quiet of my apartment. I thought about the stresses of my marriage. I thought about my parents' regrets about each other. I thought about Sheila, alone. I thought about Ann.

"Yes," I said. "How about tonight?"

"No," she said, "Remember? Dinner for ten."

"Oh, right. I guess it will have to be now, then." I gave her a soft kiss. She let it linger, brought her arms up to my shoulders, face close to mine.

"Why did you do that?" she said it breathily, close.

"I couldn't help myself. I like you a lot." I did it again.

"I like you, too, Stephen." She did the kissing this time.

"I think you're sexy. I like your kids."

"I want to meet yours."

We kissed again, longer. I let one hand wander to her belly. She placed her hand over it, gently encouraging it up. Her breast filled my hand; the nipple hardened under the layers. I guess it bothered her.

Wait," she said. She sat up and took off her shirt. And her bra. "Is this okay?"

"You are asking a man that question?"

"No Stephen, I'm asking you. I'm not making Sheila's mistake." She put both my hands on her breasts. "Maybe not much farther than this today, though."

"No worries," I said. "I'm sort of new to this dating stuff." I took my shirt off, too. She sidled right up next to me and leaned back against my chest; I reached around her with both hands and fondled her breasts. She tilted her head up toward mine and I leaned down to kiss her. Everything was soft, measured. Her hand slipped into my lap, sliding the thin nylon of my pants along my rapidly stiffening member.

"I'm turning you on." She smiled up at me.

I smiled back. "Damn straight. Can I open my pants?"

"I will." She pulled down my zipper and fished me out; I undid the waist button and slid my pants down enough to reveal myself to her.

"This is nice," I said. "Sheila and I were so intense when we met."

"You were young, everything was new. Jeff and I were like that, too. We had sex in all kinds of crazy places. Here, in fact." I felt a flash of jealousy--this is Our Spot! I took a breath. Chill out, boy. You are fifty-five years old. He's been dead for twenty-six years.

She felt it anyway. "Don't be jealous. Jeff is always with me; he just appears, whenever. If we get together, you'll just have to deal with it." Sharing her with Jeff didn't seem too bad. For sure a lot better than sharing Sheila with her parents.