Vigilante Shit

"Yeah, well, put that big brain to work and figure out how you can take me to a party tonight without telling Nasha," I told him. "Can you take pictures and video on your phone? I mean, you know how?"

He looked offended. "Umm, duh? I'm a gamer, remember? I know all kinds of tech stuff."

I snorted. "Right. This the man who doesn't even have TikTok or Insta on his phone."

He laughed. "I know how to use the camera."

"Good man." I admired him, and had to taste him. I kissed his huge hand I'd been holding. He looked extremely uncomfortable and I had to laugh. "Don't worry, it was just a little taste, Big Boy. So, can you get out the house?"

"Yes. Nasha is going to a book reading with my sister. I'll just tell her I'm going to game with a friend. I just won't tell her it's you or what kind of game. I do sense the game is afoot, right?"

"You do. Kaplan, I am going to be shady tonight. Not with you. More like for you. For Nasha, really. You may not like what you see. Remember, this is something I'll never play on you and Nasha. I want you to tell me you believe me, and I'm going to want you to tell me again when it's over. I'm showing you something about me that I'm ashamed of, but I'm very, very good at."

He enveloped my little hand in both his huge ones. "I trust you, Stamp. I... we, both love you. We have talked about you, so much. You are such a different experience for us. Neither of us have ever met anyone like you. I don't think there is anyone else like you. I don't have to "see" anything to know, Stamp. Anyone who knows you can see, but I don't think you let anyone else know you, do you? Everyone sees what you want them to see. We, you, me, Nasha, we don't talk too much about it, but she tells me everything you tell her, and she and I have talked about you."

Uh-oh. This didn't sound good. Had I fucked up? "What you mean?" I asked.

"We both know you're like, controlled chaos, Stamp, and the only thing that keeps you from burning down the world is something you don't show anyone."

Damn. The man was deep, for sure. "You have a very honest face," I said.

He nearly choked on his Coke. "How should I dress?" he asked.

"Like you're still in college," I said. "You can pull it off, babyface."

"So can you," he said. He was right. I absolutely could. People tended to underestimate my age because I'm petite. I had used that to my advantage many times.

*****

We met outside the place they were having the party. Kaplan escorted me in, got us drinks and he moved away to do his thing. "What's my thing?" he'd asked outside.

"Talk to young women, drink something, SLOWLY, mingle, but most of all, don't lose sight of me. I'm counting on you, Kaplan. Don't lose sight of me."

"This is terrifying," he said. "Okay, I know what to do."

Professor Adam Tracy was already there, and he was doing lines, and in the course of the evening, crossing all of mine. It ended when Kaplan stepped into the room where we'd gone for "a little privacy."

"Time to go," he said, holding out his hand for me. I pulled my dress back up where it belonged, chopped the good professor in the throat with the edge of my hands, slipped on my shoes, took Kaplan's arm, and we were gone while he gagged around, holding this throat.

When we got in the Uber, Kaplan finally relaxed. "Did you get the footage?" I asked.

He patted his pocket. "Here and on the cloud. Are... are you okay, Stamp?"

I smiled. "I am. I'm high as fuck, though. Can I come home with you? I kinda feel like you hate me now."

He pulled me up against him on the seat and squeezed me. "I don't hate you," he said. "I had no idea you could get anyone that fascinated, though. He thought he was going to be the luckiest man on the planet."

"Yeah. His luck just ran out," I said.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"Talk to his wife," I said. "Send a little footage to the university, law enforcement, make it go viral at school."

Nasha was home when we got there, and was confused about why we were together. They sat on either side of me on the sofa and Kaplan told her the story.

I could see the shock on her face, but there was something else, too. When she looked at me, she glowed different. Her huge tilted-up exotic brown eyes got all soft and warm, she moved closer to me and pressed against me more. Then she would get distracted by what Kaplan was saying for a minute before giving me that look again.

When he wound down from the big adventure story, she took my face between those long elegant fingers and kissed me. It was fire, everything I had imagined and it went on a while.

I glanced at Kaplan and he was like mesmerized, watching us. I winked at him, and he sort of blinked, then wrapped us both in those huge arms.

"I can't believe it," Nasha kept saying.

"I don't think his academic reputation will survive," I told her. "Soon, we're gonna start calling you Doctor Nasha."

The coke was wearing off and I felt a huge crash coming. It had been a while for me, and although I'd felt pretty sparkly there for a while, I was now beginning to remember why I no longer did shit like that. Nasha drove me home.

"Stamp, I wish to thank you, from the bottom of my heart," she assured me. "I am so grateful. May I be permitted to ask why you did that?"

"Two reasons, I guess," I explained. "The first one is I love you, and that is really the only one that matters. The other one is he was throwing shade on you, you didn't deserve it and I hate that. God, Nasha, how anyone who meets you can do anything but love you is beyond me."

"I love you, too," she said. "So does Kaplan."

"I know, babydoll," I told her. "Right now, Stamp is crashing hard and needs her bed."

She insisted on coming up and tucking me in. I was barely coherent and she got me a bottle of water, kissed me and she was gone.

It took another month for the fallout to settle, then we attended the ceremony to anoint Dr. Nasha as the next wunderkind in economics. She really was brilliant. I took her, Kaplan and her mother, who had flown in from Africa, out to celebrate.

Napita, Nasha's mom, stayed with me and she was an older version of her daughter. She was very much in the tradition of the wise woman, and talking to her was like listening to a thousand years of African history. She was one of the sweetest persons I'd ever met. I wondered what my parents would think of her.

I'd introduced them to Nasha, and she instantly charmed them to such a degree that it became impossible for me to visit them without bringing her if I expected to have any peace. My cute little Mom constantly did things with her, and Dad finally explained how he'd changed his name to "Fairtax" in his rebellious youth, and named me Stamp in honor of his favorite subjects, stamps (he collected) and taxes (he was a protester)."

They discussed arcane economic subjects and Mom and I looked on indulgently.

Nasha and Kaplan finally set a date, and Nasha wanted to come over and talk to me about their wedding. We sparked up, had snacks and she called Kaplan to tell him we were high and needed a ride home. He promised to pick her up after he got off work.

He had gone back to his firm, downtown, and was working as personal assistant to the COO. It would be a few hours. We were lying in my living room floor, listening to "the essential Taylor" on Apple Music, a nest of pillows and blankets formed around us, drinking Sprite and cranberry juice, giggling, snuggling and talking about her wedding arrangements.

"Stamp will be my maid of honor," she promised.

"Stamp is very proud to be Nasha's maid of honor," I said. "She may even be able to refer to herself in first person."

We giggled like banshees, and she collapsed half over me, breathless. I squirmed out from under her. She was heavy! I rolled her over and rested my head on her impressive tiddies, looking up into that gorgeous face. I scooted up so that our faces were on a level. "I'm so happy for you, babe. You deserve only good things, and Kaplan is a good thing."

"He is," she agreed. "You are a good thing, too, Stamp. I am very happy with Kaplan, but I need you, too."

"You got me," I assured her. I moved our faces close together, my nose touching her, our hair mingling in black gold and pale fire, drowning in the dark mysterious pools of her eyes. Our lips touched, and suddenly she was kissing me with all the intensity that burned just below the surface of that delicious beauty.

Her fingers tangled in my hair and she held me fiercely, letting me feel her strength. I felt the fingers of her free hand trailing down my arm, her hand moving over my breast, wringing a moan from me as she firmly squeezed my nipple. I was on fire, and I needed to stop. I broke free from the kiss.

"Noo, babe. We gotta stop," I gasped. "Kaplan..."

She gave me one of her blinding smiles, lighting her face like a flame. "I have permission," she said.

"What? Wait... what?"

She nodded. "You have no idea, Stamp. You are another part of us, a naughty, willful, dangerous part, but I think you are not dangerous to me or Kaplan. We know you, your heart."

That made me blubber around like a baby, and she just held me and told me how much she loved me. "I wish to show you, make love to you," she whispered.

"But... Kaplan," I demurred.

"Yes, Kaplan..." she sighed. "Tell me of him. Do you not love him?"

"I do," I assured her, "but I promised. I would never..."

"Would you kiss him like this?" she asked. "Make love to him?"

I sat up, suddenly quite serious. "Nasha, are you suggesting..."

"I am suggesting nothing," she said. "I am being quite plain. We want you, Stamp. You have no idea how much, do you? You don't know how much we have talked about this, he and I."

Oh, my God. This was the last thing I ever would have expected. I could have imagined getting with either of them, individually, but how the fuck would any of this work?

"Babe, noo, this is a really bad idea, trust me."

She pulled me back down and wrapped me up like a python, nuzzling her face into my hair and whispering in my ear. "Stamp must explain."

God, she made it hard. Almost impossible. "You and Kaplan, you got a thing," I told her. "It's perfect, you are made for each other. I'm something else, Nasha. I love what you two have and I would fuck it up."

"You would not fuck it up." There was a determination in her voice I hadn't heard before with her very often. She could be fierce, quite different from her usual warm squishy self. "We do know you, Stamp. Yes, you are everything you think you are, but more."

"What you mean?" I asked.

She caught my earlobe between flashing white teeth and nibbled on it, melting me into a puddle. "I mean, you're a bad bitch. I know it, you know it, everyone knows it." She giggled a little.

"How many friends do you have, Stamp?"

"I have no idea," I said. "None like you."

She made a purring sound. "I have none like you, either," she confided. "But that's what I mean. You don't have any friends like me, because you don't care about anyone else. I don't think you ever have."

I nodded. "Yeah, babe, you got me there. I've never met anyone like you before. Well, Kaplan..."

"I know." Her hand cupped my cheek and she turned my face toward her. "I've never felt this way before with anyone besides you and Kaplan."

"Oh, my God, Nasha. You are wicked," I told her.

"Yes, I know." She giggled again. "We are winning the game with you, Stamp. We are making you fall in love with us."

I was struck: She was exactly right. They had flipped the script on me, not in any deliberate way, but they had done it nonetheless. I was the predator, the huntress, the heartbreaker. I took what I wanted, but without even doing anything other than being themselves, they had made me feel ways I didn't even want to feel. I didn't want to fall in love, especially not with beautiful nerds.

I contemplated the future while she petted me. My lot would be living up to their expectation, trying to be a person worthy of being loved by them. I dreamed about them at night and I couldn't imagine my life without them in it any longer.

"Have you two really talked this through?" I asked. "My God, how did you even begin that conversation?"

She laughed, her low throaty chuckle. "It was... quite awkward, I promise."

"I can only imagine."

Her hand snaked its way up inside the back of my top, long cool fingers stroking my spine, the little hollow in the small of my back, making me shiver.

"You were leaving one night, and Kaplan had walked you to the door. You know what you look like, Stamp. I watched the two of you, how you interact. You want each other. Anyone who knows both of you can see it. Then I realized you look at me in exactly the same way, and it's also exactly the same way Kaplan looks at me."

"Like he wants to eat you up?" I played with one of the stray curls dangling across her face.

"Exactly," she said. "When he came back and sat down, I told him, 'I want her.' He didn't get it, at first."

"You gave him all the salacious details of your deepest thoughts?"

She laughed. "I did. I discovered he had some salacious details, as well. Stamp, Kaplan and I are getting married. We would like to have our own ceremony with you, just the three of us, right afterward."

I burst into tears. I had no idea what in the hell was wrong with me, but I was terrified, and as I peered at Nasha through my tears, she had a horrified look on her face. I had to do something.

"Babe, I'm afraid," I told her. "I don't know how to love anyone. I know I'll fuck it up, hurt you, and believe me, that is the last thing on earth I want to do."

"Yes, you will fuck it up," she said. "So will I. So will Kaplan. You enjoy being outrageous, Stamp, and I get that. You are so much braver than I am."

"Bullshit," I said. "I am brave enough in some situations, but you have more in your little finger than I do in my whole body."

"Thank you for saying so, but my point was, I believe with all my heart that you're much different than you think you are. This is going to happen, Stamp. You should accustom yourself to the idea."

I squirmed on top of her, mingling our eyelashes. "Are you sure?" I asked.

Her fingers tangled in my hair and we were kissing. God knows I'd kissed enough princes and frogs in my life, but this was spiritual, a life-changing kiss, I could feel her, and not just in a physical way. Time became a thing without meaning, and I wrapped her in my emotion, as she enveloped me in euphoria.

I seemed to exist only in that universe where Nasha and Stamp were the only beings that existed. I felt an intrusion, heat, firm flesh against my back. "Hello, Kaplan," I murmured.

"She told you."

I nodded. "It's a good thing you got here. We had started without you."

"I noticed. I have some catching up to do. Hey, beautiful." He reached out to stroke Nasha's face.

"I see you wasted no time losing your clothes," she said.

"I didn't want to be the only one dressed," he said.

I was sandwiched between my two lovers. Well, they were going to be. I was kissing the lips, so luscious and juicy, of a dusky goddess, and there was a cock entering me from behind, and what a feeling that was.

The night became a series of strobes, flashes of Kaplan, Nasha, me, all frozen in black and white, and an ecstasy that just went on and on, burning new pathways in my brain, my body, my life. This was a new game, and I was planning to win.