Why was Dom nervous? He’d had sex hundreds of times. On top of that, he juggled millions of other people’s dollars for a living. He drove expensive cars around sharp bends at dangerous speeds. His appetite for risk, as the business books put it, was high. He and Felicity had that in common. She’d tell new jokes on stage, knowing half of them would bomb. When Dom took her out for dinner, she always ordered something she’d never tried. If they were alone on a beach, she would strip naked and dive right in.
But this was different.
They’d all discussed the logistics of the partner swapping—or, as Felicity insisted on calling it, the Secret Santa Sex. The lights would be switched off. The men would spend five minutes on the deck while the three women—Felicity referred to them as Ho, Ho and Ho—each chose a bedroom to wait in. The men would come back inside, select a room and enter. Each man would sleep with whoever he found, even if he suspected she was his wife. No one had come up with a good way to avoid that possibility, and no one had dared try too hard in front of their partners.
Afterwards they would take turns in the shower, in a complicated schedule based not on name but on gender and room: East Downstairs Bedroom Man, followed by West Downstairs Bedroom Man, and so on. There would be no talking, either during the act or in the years to come—what happened on the mountain would stay on the mountain.
It was an exciting plan. But as Dom sat on the dining chair in the downstairs bathroom, letting Felicity cut his hair short to match Cole’s and Oscar’s, he couldn’t shake off his sense of unease. ‘Are you sure you’re okay with this?’ he asked her.
He thought he felt the clippers hesitate for just a moment before they continued buzzing up the nape of his neck. ‘I think it’ll be fun,’ Felicity said. ‘Why?’
‘It could also ruin the weekend,’ Dom said. ‘Make everything weird and awkward.’
‘That’s true. But you only live once.’
He was acutely aware of this. His father died last year after taking too much warfarin. His colleague had been felled by a stroke. A neighbour had recently been killed in a hit-and-run. It felt like death was circling him.
‘In one of my business books, there’s a chapter about the explore–exploit trade-off,’ he said. ‘Apparently you should explore when you’re young and exploit when you’re old.’
‘Those aren’t business books—they’re just self-help books that happen to be written by men.’ She massaged his shoulders. ‘Are you thinking you’re too old for sexcapades?’
Dom smiled. ‘Never. I’ll still be trying new things with you when we’re in aged care.’
‘Just think how many new positions could be opened up by a walking frame,’ she mused. ‘Or one of those beds that tilts up and down.’
He laughed and closed his eyes, his muscles turning to butter under her fingertips.
‘Is it the thought of me with someone else?’ she asked, a little nervously.
Dom wanted to be the sort of man who didn’t care about that. Everyone had consented. Condoms would be used. But love was indifferent to logic. He was uncomfortable—not that he’d ever admit it.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I can be the bigger man.’ He added a wink for good measure.
Felicity picked up a makeup brush and swept the hair off the back of his neck, then examined the results. ‘Not bad. If my career as a stand-up comic slash trophy wife doesn’t work out, I could do this professionally. Would I need a formal qualification?’
Dom checked the mirror. He looked good—and young. Ready to explore. ‘You have the knack. But I think you’d miss comedy.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t give it up. Running a barbershop would be a great opportunity to try out new material. What man would dare heckle me if I had a razor to his throat?’
Dom chuckled. ‘Not me, for sure.’
Squinting at his sideburns, she picked up the blade again. ‘It’s not too late to back out, you know. You don’t have to do this just because the opportunity has come up.’
He forced a smile. ‘It’s like you don’t even know me.’
Felicity scraped some stubble off his cheek. ‘I do, though. You’d always wonder.’
She’d touched on one of his deepest fears. Dom had always worried more about regret than remorse. Missed opportunities haunted him, particularly sexual ones. When he was nineteen, two women approached him at a bar: they seemed to want him to take both of them home. He demurred, not wanting them to see his crappy little apartment. He’d thought about those women every day since, cursing himself.
‘Will you still love me?’ he asked.
‘You weren’t a virgin when we met.’ She sounded amused. ‘I know there have been other girls.’
He cleared his throat. ‘That was before, though. I … I just don’t want to lose you.’
Dom would never have had a conversation like this with anyone else. He spent his whole life being strong. But Felicity always made him melt, in a way that he both loved and feared.
She circled around the chair and straddled him, sitting on his thighs and draping her arms over his shoulders, then rested her forehead against his. ‘I will always love you,’ she said. ‘No matter what happens tonight, or any other night, for the rest of our lives. You’re mine, and I’m yours.’
Dom looked into her eyes. ‘Forever?’
‘Till death do us part,’ she said, and kissed him.