yes, that’s it. That’s how she licked me.” I moaned and thrust my hips up against Sergio’s flexing tongue. I continued narrating. It never failed to get my lover so hot that he would fuck me as soon as I came. “We were in the greenroom of the auditorium after her rehearsal, bra straps slipping off our shoulders before the door could even close behind us.”
He slipped two fingers, then three, inside me. I was wet, ready.
Nostalgic, though that was new. Something about the impending ten-year college reunion made all those long-ago memories more poignant. Sharper, cutting against the edges of my current life. Sergio curled his fingers against my G-spot, the hot spot that Ekaterina had introduced me to over and over again in our thousand days together. “Harder, deeper.” Ekaterina’s fingers had been long and slim, perfect for violin, so perfect she’d left everything in New York right after graduation for the chance to play with the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra in Saint Petersburg.
I looked down my body, noting the stretch marks and softness that hadn’t lingered on my frame as a coed. But Sergio, his muscled, tawny shoulders spreading my pale thighs, loved every inch. “You are so beautiful, amore,” he whispered, like he did every chance he got. Like I was Christmas and birthdays and summer vacation wrapped up, with an extra thirty pounds for good measure.
Despite my initial fears, it never got old to hear. Especially now that we were solid, strong. Those first years had been hell, when you are so beautiful was as close to an apology as he ever got.
While his fingers undulated in time with his tongue, Sergio crawled his other hand up my body to lay over my heart. “Mine, my Katie,” he uttered, before returning to my pleasure.
“Yours.”
When he slowed, I took the unspoken cue and continued the story, not that he hadn’t heard some version of it a hundred times in the years since he’d discovered my Sapphic past. “We were stark naked and she had me on the vanity counter, ready and waiting when the door opened”—I gasped as Sergio danced his tongue over a particularly sensitive spot—“and the first chair trombonist stood in the doorway, gaping at us.”
I twined my fingers with Sergio’s where they lay on my chest. The memory pushed me closer to the edge. “He’d left his sweatshirt in there, swear to god, like it was straight out of Penthouse.”
He knew this part well by now. “Lucky boy.”
The dark pleasure crawled up from the past and I shuddered. “Oh hell, lucky me. Do you have any idea how talented brass players are with their mouths? What four hands can do?”
“Total overload.” He thrust three fingers in my pussy, suctioned his mouth on my clit, and drew circles around my anus with his pinky, blowing me past all recollections of other lovers. Shocks exploded from my core out to the top of my head and tips of my fingers and soles of my feet.
He drew out the pleasure, gliding his fingers through the wetness between my legs, before he thrust into me. “If we had a woman here, now,” he said, “you’d let her lick your pussy, wouldn’t you? Dirty girl.”
“Yes,” I hissed, writhing against his penetration. Even after all this time, his size still jolted me. So much bigger than the toys Ekaterina and I played with. So hot and alive.
But his filthy words did me in every time. He told me all the ways he’d take me and another woman, never specifically Trina but we both knew who we were picturing. I came again and he followed me, panting and gasping as the phantom third partner faded away.
In the bright morning light, as the minutes counted down before we really—truly this time—had to get ready for work, Sergio pulled me flush against his body. Despite the long hours he worked as a translator for the UN, he’d maintained the fit, athletic body that had originally caught my eye at an unofficial holiday work party. His voice, that syrupy Italian accent, was second.
His passion for life hooked me, though. Pulled me out of the timid shell I had crawled into after graduation. After heartbreak.
“You still love her, don’t you?”
I could never lie to him. And what was the point? He understood love wasn’t some finite resource. Hell, he’d taught me that. “Of course I do. Just as I’ll always love you.”
Dashing as ever in his charcoal-gray suit and olive-green tie, Sergio looked every inch the European playboy. One hand tangled with mine as we walked while the other threaded through his hair.
“Don’t be nervous. It’s just dinner.” We passed one of the college’s scattered campus buildings, heading for a restaurant-slash-bar-slash-club we used to crash at during late nights studying or, more often, partying. Our alma mater had to rent the place out to hold all the nostalgia that would accompany the gathered alums.
“I never understood class reunions.” His shiny dress shoes clipped against the brick sidewalk. If I were any shorter, I’d have to jog to match his pace.
“And your family reunion? You think that was a bundle of laughs, only understanding a fraction of what they were saying?”
He paused and turned me in his arms, then dipped me back in the fading sunlight. “You loved it, amore. Two weeks in Italy? All that home-cooked food? And my family adored you.” His brow wrinkled, and he swooped in for a kiss. “Especially Dominic. He adored you too much.”
I laughed, remembering the teasing flirtation I’d gotten from one of Sergio’s cousins. “Well maybe you’ll snag a dance with the former Pi Beta Phi president.”
Once inside, the voices of all my former classmates echoed off the walls. We signed in with minimal fuss, and headed to the name badge desk.
I froze. There, spotlit under the angry fluorescent lighting, was The Name.
Ekaterina Dobrev.
Like it was the same as the hundred other tags. Like it didn’t just wreck my fucking world.
Sergio sensed it. One look at my face, then at my line of vision, and I didn’t have to say a word. No, my lover swept an arm around my back, supportive and supporting as my knees wobbled. He nuzzled against my neck. “It’s okay ciccina. Would you like to leave?”
“I need a drink.” His kiss against my temple fortified. “Hopefully the liquor is better than it was in college. I’m about ten years too old for rail vodka.”
Three screwdrivers, some close dancing and the throbbing light show let me drift away from the badge. I had even caught up with a dozen former classmates in the packed restaurant, watching Sergio try not to smirk as they all talked a big game about how successful they had become. I did my usual, asking questions and listening as people talked in circles.
Finally, as a lull hit the crowd, Sergio returned with a bottle of water. Good thing, because the room was getting a little blurry around the edges. I gulped down half the bottle before a Nineties throwback came on and Sergio pulled me again to my feet. “One more dance.”
There wasn’t space for a tango or cha-cha or any of the ballroom dances he’d taught me, but swaying against his lithe, muscled body infused me with all his warmth. His hands stroked up and down my back. I caught sight of the class president dancing with the former Goth queen, and the champion lacrosse player exchanging terse words with his trophy wife. Past and present overlaid until déjà vu hit me like vertigo.
And then, like I had summoned her from memory, Ekaterina stood backlit in the doorway. I knew it in my gut, didn’t need to see her face or read her name badge.
Buzzing kicked up in my ears and I clutched Sergio. “She’s here.” My voice sounded more like our ancient pack-a-day neighbor’s than my own. “I…I’ve got to…”
Though I caught the tail end of Sergio’s warning that he would give me a five-minute head start before coming to find me, I didn’t reply. We’d done this before, knew the routine. I got some time alone to get my head on straight and figure out whether I needed to rant or breakdown or cuddle or fuck it away, and Sergio didn’t have to deal with the crazy headspace I was in. He would show up soon and put the pieces of me back together.
I pushed through the side door off the dance floor that opened into a small walkway at the side of the building. Heat leached off my skin and the faint smell of Saucer Magnolias and cab exhaust gave me something else to focus on.
I had done what I set out to do: make an appearance. Part masochism, part voyeurism…like everyone else who attended their reunions. Watching the past from a safe distance was one thing; letting it sucker punch you, another entirely.
The door behind me slammed open. “Took you long enough. Ready to go?” I turned and swallowed thickly. It wasn’t Sergio.
“I thought I saw you leave, kotonok.”
I was sucked into the past, kicking and screaming. Ekaterina hadn’t aged, aside from elegant laugh lines around her eyes. Same tall, whip-thin frame, white-blonde hair, and eyes so blue they almost burned. Words stuck to the roof of my mouth, part vodka-thick tongue, part shock. How many dirty conversations with Sergio had me reliving this very reunion? Dammit, she even smelled the same. A whiff of Love’s Baby Soft reached my nose and I wanted to bury my face against Trina’s neck.
“I’m so glad you’re here. I…” Ekaterina tugged at a lock of hair, just like she had when cramming for a test in calculus— not her forte. “I’m sorry, Katie. So fucking sorry.” She closed the distance and before I could process, Ekaterina had me wrapped in her long, muscled violinist arms, like she’d read my mind.
Tears burned my eyes, but I waited for Ekaterina to finish. I could feel the rest of what my ex wanted to say, like a word caught on the tip of my tongue.
“Leaving you was a mistake.”
And my world crumbled, unraveled back to that moment of divergence. Nothing is more important than my career, not even you. The words hurt as much now as they did when Ekaterina had hurled them during our last big fight. “Don’t say that.” I hissed the words out and my breath raised more of Ekaterina’s scent, potent as airborne fentanyl.
I saw hair prickle up on Ekaterina’s neck and braced myself. In an instant, I was back against the brick wall with Trina looming over me. Our hands were twined and locked above my head against the side of the building. “Not married?”
I shook my head, unable to explain that what I had with Sergio didn’t need the blessing of church or government.
Ekaterina’s little sigh-growl vibrated through my body, then her lips covered mine.
Bliss. Softer than Sergio’s, Trina’s kiss was like sinking into a familiar mattress. Comforting, like home. Then her tongue darted out and the familiar taste of orange Tic Tacs invaded. I needed her more than my next breath, like I’d spent the past ten years doing nothing but waiting for her to return.
But I hadn’t. I was turned on and so furious that she’d waltz back in and pick up like she hadn’t eviscerated me. I’d prepared to push her away when the heavy metal door popped open once more, letting the raucous party music trickle out.
“ Amore?”
Shame curdled my stomach. Or maybe that was the vodka. With lust-fuzzy vision, I saw Sergio standing to our right, hands on his hips. The sides of his gray suit jacket pulled back to expose his lean torso and his crisp white shirt covered the muscles I knew by touch.
Tears burned the rims of my eyes as I waited for his anger, his jealousy. As open-minded as he was, Sergio was also deliciously possessive. His hand shot out and I grasped it like a lifeline. He pulled me against his body. The door slammed closed behind him. While I shivered, I watched Trina blanch.
“I thought…shit.” Her fingers clenched on empty air. The hollow laugh that followed almost made me want to hug her. “Add that to the list of apologies.” She turned to go, her bony shoulders hunched under the thin sky-blue sweater she wore.
“Ekaterina, wait.” Sergio’s deep, lyrical voice startled us both. He left my side and Trina’s eyes widened as he walked to her, arm outstretched. “Have lunch with us tomorrow.” We both gaped at him, but Trina moved before I did, snatching at the business card he offered.
“Why?” Her voice was strained, her eyes watery.
An elegant shrug was her reply. “You are important to my Katie.”
She transferred her attention to me. “Kotonok?” The hope in her voice tightened my throat until I could only nod in reply. With three deep breaths, I reminded myself how deeply I trusted Sergio. I could follow his lead. Maybe this would offer some kind of cathartic resolution with Trina, considering our last words to each other had been ugly and cruel.
Like that had buoyed her, Trina stood tall and looked at the card. “I have rehearsal all day. Could we do dinner? I can take a cab over.”
“Is the orchestra visiting New York?” The question was out of my mouth before I could think twice.
She ignored me, instead waiting for Sergio’s answer. “Of course, bella. Does six work?”
Trina nodded, then turned to go. “I’m with the New York Philharmonic now,” she tossed out before retreating into the night.
We made sweet, frantic love that night after Sergio reassured me he wasn’t angry. No, he understood.
“You still want her, amore. I see why.” Staccato thrusts pierced his statement. “I would be so hard, watching you together. Watching you kiss her. Watching you make love. Tasting you on her lips.”
I had come so hard stars danced behind my eyes. Until tonight, it had all been pretend, keeping things exciting in the bedroom. Now it was real. Possibilities ringed rosy in my dreams until I woke, chest tight with anxious hope.
The whole day I struggled to focus on my work. The only highlight was grabbing a quick lunch with Sergio—there were benefits to working in the same building, even if we were floors apart. Normally, our quick lunch bolstered me through the day, but today’s was fraught with tense undertones. Regardless, I loved knowing he was nearby, especially when tensions in Africa had our whole political affairs office in a frenzy.
It seemed like I’d be able to escape on time, until a last-minute emergency crossed my inbox right before 6:00 p.m. Damn, I hated being late. Especially since I’d wanted a couple minutes alone with Sergio.
No dice. When I stepped off the elevator at 6:12, his laughter caught my attention, quickly followed by a familiar giggle.
They hadn’t caught sight of me, so I paused to watch my past and present lovers sitting next to each other on a couch in the lobby with their shoulders turned inward so they were almost facing each other.
I waited for the pang of jealousy that usually gripped me when a beautiful woman set her sights on Sergio, but none came. They looked good together. Relaxed, natural. Instead of what I used to call her “plastic public smirk,” the guise Trina donned when performing on stage, she graced him with her true smile.
They both caught sight of me at the same time and my body burned with need as I walked to them. Sergio ducked his head and whispered into Trina’s ear. Two hungry looks were leveled on me. I had never felt sexier in my life.
Damn, he worked fast. To be fair, it had been the same with him and me.
My panties fucking melted along with coherence. “Hi.” Lame. Well done, Katie. I capped it off with a little wave, even though they were both within touching distance.
Sergio pulled me into a hug, planted a kiss on my forehead, then gestured to the door. I wanted a kiss from Trina, too.
Walking the blocks between the office and one of our favorite dive restaurants did nothing to dissipate the building need in me. The little Mediterranean diner, run by three generations of a Lebanese family, had become an easy default meal when neither Sergio nor I felt like cooking. As a bonus, it was dimly lit and crowded, which provided a sense of privacy.
Sergio gestured for me to take the inside of the booth, then maneuvered Ekaterina to follow. She scooted closer than was strictly necessary while he took the seat opposite me.
Aban, the owner’s grandson, took our order, which Sergio rattled off: Massaya Classic wine and batata harra to start, followed by kofta kebabs and the delicious vegetarian stew with rice, bazella.
“I’ll have the kofta kebabs too,” Trina added.
“Really?” I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. She’d been a painfully picky eater in college, sticking with bland basics. “That’s lamb, you know.”
I caught her rolling her eyes, then she elbowed me. “Ten years is a long time.”
Understatement of the year.
Sergio pulled us back from the lull in conversation and soon we were all chatting and laughing like three old friends, filling in the gaps of the past decade. She might have become a more adventurous eater, but Trina was the same bubbly, flirtatious bitch I’d fallen in love with. She scooted closer under the guise of getting to the batata harra, until her slim hip cozied up to my rounder one. She didn’t move even when the entrees were set down. My right side tingled from her body heat.
We’d had enough wine that my defenses were down, and I had seen Ekaterina’s drunk-lazy smile enough through the meal to know she was probably buzzed too. While the conversation flowed and I heard tales of her time in Saint Petersburg’s famous orchestra, Trina’s hand settled on my thigh. I jumped, and got a popped eyebrow from Sergio. My skin flushed—he knew.
Sergio maintained the dialogue while I closed my eyes and imagined her fingerprints searing into my skin so she would always be with me.
“You are beautiful, kotonok. Soft.” Trina ran a finger up my thigh. “I want to touch you everywhere.”
I gasped and tensed in the seat. Sergio leaned across the table until it seemed the world was just us three. “I had an enlightening conversation with the lovely Ekaterina while we waited for you.”
She picked up the thread of conversation. “I didn’t believe you’d missed me. Sergio let me know he had been helping you remember our time together.”
In the dim corner where we sat, her fingers skimmed across the swell of my breast beneath my staid green cardigan and cream silk shell. Scrabbling for a defense against her witchy touch, I said, “You can’t leave like you did and pick things up a fucking decade later!”
Trina turned to Sergio. “Still has a dirty mouth, hmm?”
He smirked. “Dirtier.”
“Good,” she whispered in my ear. “I love hearing you talk dirty. And I want to apologize. Profusely. With my lips.” She nipped my earlobe and goose bumps exploded down my back. “And my fingers and tongue.”
Lord, I was outnumbered. Hopelessly outmaneuvered. And to be honest…I didn’t want to fight. Why punish myself with more wet dreams, when I could have Trina, in the flesh, one more time?
“Yes,” I said.
* * *
I don’t remember paying the bill or hopping in a cab or traveling across the bridge to the luxurious two-bedroom condo Sergio and I had purchased last year. Aside from Trina’s hands wandering my body, nothing hit my radar. And since this was New York, no one cared about a threesome snuggling in the back of a cab.
Pressed between their bodies, I reclined against Sergio’s reassuring strength while Trina teased. Finally we arrived and poured from the cab, drunk on lust and wine.
We stumbled up four flights of stairs to the top condo. As soon as Sergio unlocked the door, we burst through in a fit of flying clothing and grasping hands. I had peripheral awareness of him moving away to recline on the couch with a small glass of Vin Santo.
Then Trina’s lips found mine and her almost-nude body pressed into my curves and everything winked out of existence. She traced the same paths Sergio would, but the rough calluses on the tips of her left-hand fingers hit nerves his work-soft hands didn’t, from neck to the V between my breasts to the round swell of my stomach to the dip of my waist. Trina clung to the soft flesh of my hips and thrust her knee between my legs.
“I can feel how hot you are. God, I missed this.” Traces of her Russian accent, vestiges of a childhood immigration, lurked in her voice when she was truly aroused. She whispered to me in her native tongue and my stomach flip-flopped at her fluency.
“Picked up more than good eating habits, huh?”
Redundant question. She answered with a deep kiss that left me gasping for Trina-scented air.
A shove to my shoulder, then I was falling back, caught in Sergio’s strong arms. “Hold on, amore.” His thighs spread my own and, like a dream, Trina knelt between them and made good on her promise.
I lost count of how many times she brought me to the edge before backing off, but after each one she kissed me and said, “I’m sorry, dorogaya.” Her endearment—darling—struck my heart.
Then, “Forgive me, lyubov moya.” She chipped away with the next volley—my love.
After I’d lost count of her teasing near-orgasms, she laved my aching nipples and pleaded. “Ty nuzhna mnye.” I need you broke down my walls.
Next time I writhed in pleasure, my knees quaking around her ears, she kissed me and whispered, “Ya ne mogu zhit’ bez tebya.” I can’t live without you.
Ah, god. I caved. It’s not like I had healed after she left; no, that wound was still open and raw because a piece of me had been missing. And if I wanted us to have a shot at any kind of relationship—even friends, since she’d been my best—grudges and resentment and regret had to get the boot. I pulled out the one sentence of Russian I remembered. After all, I’d whispered it into the ether every day. “Ya tozhe tebya lyublyu.” I love you too.
This time, she let me come, her fingers deep inside me and lips swallowing my cries.
From behind me, Sergio shifted. His erection nudging into my back presented a stark reminder of our mixed company. For an ugly moment, I resented him. I’d had my Trina back, all to myself…but that had never been the deal.
Then the moment twisted and Trina kissed him, her lips glossy with my flavor. Jealousy burned away. I whimpered, pressed between their hot, hard bodies, so different from my own.
Neither let me wallow with those dark thoughts. No, their hands, as if choreographed, roamed my body while their tongues made love. I was included, even while on the periphery. Their fingers entered me at the same time and I shook between them.
“Bedroom.” Sergio’s voice cracked through the air.
My mind calculated all the ways the three of us could combine, leaving me to follow mutely behind their sinuous forms. They were almost the same height, my bookend lovers—one as pale and ethereal as the other was dark and commanding.
Sergio wended his hand in Trina’s hair and hauled her against him for a feral kiss. “Unzip me.”
Her pupils were so dilated her eyes looked like the deep, endless middle of the ocean. I drowned in them while she stripped Sergio. We didn’t break eye contact until he was as naked as we were, and only then because he grabbed her arm, spun her to face the bed, and pushed her onto it.
Even from halfway across the room, I could see the shine of wetness on her pussy. She’d always loved it rough; one thing I had never quite been able to offer. Satisfaction slowed my racing heart.
“Lie on the bed, amore. You are going to lick her until she comes, then until I tell you to stop.”
While I rushed to comply, I heard the now-unfamiliar crinkle and rip of a condom. He’d planned for this eventuality.
My friends would have balked, called him a dog. A letch. An opportunist.
I thanked god I found him. Thoughtful, loving, understanding.
And yes…a man who was a wonderful opportunist.
Once I was in position, Trina climbed fully onto the bed, curling over my body to make up for the difference in our heights. I gripped her strong thighs and arched up until my tongue met the clit peeking eagerly out from its hood. She squealed against my touch and bit my hip. I sucked the nub, remembering exactly how she liked to be touched. My thumbs spread her pussy lips and I licked into her, a teasing prelude to the impending penetration. Arching my head back, I saw Sergio at the edge of the bed, waiting. His cock was still, veins throbbing with the surge of blood. I knew if I took him in my mouth, he’d barely fit. I loved when he was this turned on.
I backed off when he stepped closer, positioning himself at her entrance. Enthralled, captivated, I stared as he nudged the head inside.
He cursed. “You are so tight.”
My stomach fluttered. I wanted to finger her, feel the walls of her cunt squeeze around me. In solace, I licked her clit again and continued up to Sergio’s waiting shaft. They both shuddered, and his cock slipped farther inside her.
Trina’s muffled voice reached me. “It’s been awhile.”
Later, when I held her against my breast and combed my fingers through her hair, I’d make her tell me exactly how long. I’d forgotten how much I missed falling asleep like that. Now that it was within reach, I wanted to seize it with both hands.
“Please, please. I need—”
He surged inside her and she cried out. I watched her flutter around him and knew her body was adjusting to his girth. I licked around their joining, sucking at her clit and soothing until her hips canted back, begging for more.
“You must stay very still, bella. Just like this, so Katie can tongue that pretty pussy.”
She whimpered and her hot breath blew against my splayed legs. I’d need them both again, soon. Heat built in my core as I pleasured her in time to Sergio’s slow thrusts.
As we found our rhythm and his hips pistoned into her, I brought her to orgasm once, then again, before Sergio succumbed to her clinging pussy.
Sweaty, exhausted, and just barely sated, I turned on the bed and pulled Trina into my arms. By the time Sergio returned from cleaning up, we were a tangle of limbs in the middle of the mattress.
Undeterred, he crawled in behind me to spoon against my back.
This was bliss.
Until that ugly little voice crept in. Their arms both tensed. Sergio asked the building question. “What is wrong, amore?”
I sighed, resigned to hashing this out. Neither would allow my thoughts to fester for long. They were too clever by half— and here I was, voluntarily putting myself between their all-too-capable hands. “What now?” Even though I knew the answer, felt the inevitability of us, as truly as I knew I loved them both, I had to hear it.
Trina laughed, the purr rumbling through my chest. “I have two guest tickets for Wednesday’s performance. The concert is at seven, but I hope you don’t have plans later that night. There’s this quiet hallway, see, with an old, abandoned dressing room…”