Making Up (2 page)

Holly came
over.
We had a bit of wine, then Erica
kissed me, and then she kissed Holly.

That was new
for me.
I hadn’t quite thought of that
side of it.

Erica came
over and kissed me, and started getting undressed, and Holly sat
there, watching.
She seemed interested
too.

“
Hey,” I said
to Holly quietly.
“Did you talk to
Holly?”

“What?”

“
Did you talk
to Holly about how far you were going?
Were you and her going to…”

“What are you to whispering about?” Holly
said.

“
You,” Erica
told her.
To me, “Yeah.”

“
Go kiss
her.
Include her.”

Erica looked at me a moment, then rolled over
towards Holly.

“
What you
whispering about me?”
Holly
said.

“This,” Erica said, and kissed her.

They seemed
familiar to each other.
You can just
tell, watching people kiss. No tooth and nose banging, they kind of
slid into one another, arms around waists.

“Been a while,” Erica said, “And you used to
wear more clothes.”

“Shut up,” Holly said.

They kissed and I watched.

“Hey,” Erica said to me, after a while, “You
going to help me here?”

“If you like,” I said, glanced at Holly to
give her a chance to say no.

“Get over here,” Erica said.

I went over
and kissed her, then, turned on by the whole idea, kissed
Holly.
Erica went somewhere down at waist
level, made Holly gasp.

Erica sat
Holly up, started fiddling with her bra.
I got one of Holly’s breasts out and sucked it while she
did. It occurred to me these were the first breasts other than
Erica’s I’d seen in five years. The first not on a computer screen.
That was a long time. We all kissed some more. It seemed to be
working out okay, everyone was relaxed and comfortable and
apparently happy. I kissed Holly some more, put my hand in her
undies. She didn’t seem to mind, was wet and kind of lifted herself
onto my finger. Erica watched and seemed turned on too, kept on
kissing both of us, now and then sucking me. Holly held my cock in
her hand at one point, but didn’t go further. She was underneath
Erica a lot of the time, and probably couldn’t.

When Erica
and I were with Gareth it had seemed like he and I took turns with
Erica.
With Holly it seemed more even.
Two people took turns for the third, but the third rotated, wasn’t
always the same one. Erica and I kissed Holly, then I went down on
Holly while Erica kept kissing. I tasted how Holly was different to
Erica, sweeter, smoother, more sparkly. Her skin smelled different
as well, more than just different moisturizer. Her mouth tasted
alien, strange but wonderful for that. I moved and went down on
Erica, made her gasp and moan, and Holly watched, stroked Erica’s
breasts, kissed her some more.

Holly blew me, and I thought about Holly
being the first woman besides Erica who’d had my cock in her mouth
in five years.

“
How does she
feel,” Erica asked me.
It seemed the
wrong question to ask in the circumstances. “Does she feel
different to me?”

“Did Gareth feel different to me?”

“Yeah.”

So maybe not.

“
She feels
different to you,” I said.
“But I’m not
sure how, exactly.”

Holly slid
over and went down on Erica, quite suddenly.
Erica lay there and stroked Holly’s hair. I hadn’t expected
that.

We’d talked
about it months ago, we were having straight threesomes, not bi
ones.
I liked the idea of getting head
and pussy at the same time, but I wasn’t comfortable returning the
favor, didn’t want my face that close to another guy’s cock, even
if it was to please Erica. All the same, Erica had seemed curious.
She’d always been both fascinated and repelled by the close-up
shots in porn, said they were gross but that also she couldn’t see
what was going on when she was getting fucked, unlike me, because
she didn’t stick out the front. I don’t know if Holly was bi and
that was why she agreed to this. I don’t know if she’d had a secret
longing for Erica for years, and it all just came together then
because we were all turned on, or what. Holly was eating Erica out
like she’d die of not having it, and Erica was looking turned on
and nervous and a little panic-stricken. She looked at me and I
grinned, then Erica turned away from me and grabbed Holly’s head
and started grinding against her, fucking her like she would a
pillow. Erica came and Holly didn’t stop, moved her face back a
bit, maybe so she could breathe, but kept on licking.

Then Holly pulled Erica around and they
started sixty-nining and I was suddenly unnecessary.

I stroked
Erica’s back, for something to do, thinking it might be
reassuring.
She didn’t seem to care, was
ignoring me and concentrating on Holly.

I was a little surprised how willingly Erica
was doing this.

Holly came, and then suddenly looked
nervous.

“
Shit,” Holly
said suddenly, and sat up.
“Oh fuck, I’m
sorry, but I don’t think I can do this.”

Erica sat up
too, and looked at Holly.
“Hey,” Erica
said, “It’s okay.” She didn’t seem pissed off. You’d think you
would be, someone comes in your mouth and then won’t reciprocate,
but maybe not.

Holly kissed her shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Erica said.

Holly nodded, but Erica kept looking at
her.

“Could you get some water, babe,” Erica said
to me, “I’m a bit thirsty.”

I went to the
fridge and could hear them talking while I was out the room, low
and soft and sexy, but what was said I couldn’t pick out.
If it was serious, and it had sounded serious,
it wasn’t by the time I got back. Erica was teasing Holly about her
orgasm face, and Holly was Erica about Erica’s grunting and gasping
when she got turned on.

Holly didn’t
go straight away.
She offered, but Erica
said no, we shouldn’t spoil the night over it. Stay, Erica said,
have a drink, just hang. I wasn’t sure if Erica wanted to try
again, or if she was just being friendly, or if she just knew and
liked Holly better than Gareth. Erica put on her underwear because
she always did after sex, which made Holly look at me and get
dressed, so I dressed too, and we went back downstairs. After an
hour or so Holly said she supposed she should be going and Erica
said, yeah, she supposed that was best. Holly kissed me, kissed
Erica for longer, and said it was fun, and left.

When Erica
came back to bed she didn’t seem to want to talk. I asked how she’d
found it and she just shrugged, said fun. I asked if that meant
she’d want to again and she said, a little sharply, that I
shouldn’t nag her if she wanted to, then went to have a
shower.

I think I
dozed off while she was in there.
I woke
up the next morning still able to taste Holly in my mouth, to smell
her on my skin. I didn’t want to wash those smells away but Erica
was getting ready for work, was hurrying, so I hurried with her.
Now I wish I’d kept something of that night to remember. A photo,
if they’d let me. A deeper appreciation of their tastes and smells
and textures.

*

It took a
while for the problems to become clear.
Erica didn’t want to kiss me any more. She did, but she
didn’t want to. Not passionately. She stopped enjoying sex so much,
did it out of habit and duty and a mechanical need to get off. She
fantasized more. I think she didn’t realize I knew, but if she was
off somewhere else she always shut her eyes, came with her face
more relaxed. This started happening every time, when it had only
used to be when she was tired or stressed or having trouble
coming.

She started
having an affair.
She’d found a taste for
sleeping with other people, I supposed. The excitement of the new.
I felt it too, had since Holly. I’d considered calling Holly,
asking to see her alone, but knew how stupid that was. Not only was
she probably only interested in me as part of a threesome, she’d be
almost obliged to tell Erica. Erica seemed to have been tempted
more, though. By other men, I assumed. She’d been reminded
strangers were sexy. She started shaving every day. She did her
hair and makeup more carefully now. She’d always just done a
ponytail when she was running late, now I didn’t see a plain
ponytail for a week at a time. I only noticed because I was
wondering if it was a sign of a damaged ego. She started staying
for work drinks, and sometimes didn’t come home until very late. If
I asked she said she’d been working. I half assumed it was Gareth,
but didn’t want to push and find out.

I was surprised when I realized it was
Holly.

I saw them
one evening, when I was supposed to be home.
They were having dinner at a tiny noodle bar, talking
rather than eating, holding hands. It was the way they were holding
hands. Erica wasn’t comforting Holly, or being comforted, or
touching in conversation. She was talking intently, looking into
her lap, holding one of Holly’s hands in both of hers and fiddling
with Holly’s fingers, moving them, twisting Holly’s rings. It was
what she did while she was explaining something difficult,
something she didn’t want to say.

I can’t
explain why, but seeing that made me realize.
I stood across the street and watched them in the window,
and when Holly got up and Erica kissed her goodbye. Kissed for ten
seconds, her eyes closed, her hands Holly’s cheeks. Only lovers
kissed like that.

I suppose
there are worse things than your girlfriend having an affair with
one of her best friends.
I suppose
there’s worse things than having had a blowjob from that friend
yourself. I felt sorry for Erica, and worried about her. I wasn’t
sure what to do.

I’d been
ready to find out she was sleeping with Gareth, which would have
destroyed me.
Jealousy is a strange
thing. Betrayal with Gareth would have been unforgiveable, but
betrayal with Holly was almost hot. I suppose I believed then that
Gareth could give her something Holly couldn’t, that a woman
couldn’t compete. I suppose a lot of men feel like that, when put
on the spot. It’s why we leer at girls making out in bars instead
of seeing it as two potential women off the market.

Erica didn’t
see me and I didn’t say anything.
It had
looked like a goodbye, a break up, so I gave her time to sort
things out in case that was what it was. I could understand if
she’d wanted to try sleeping with Holly again, and finish it off
properly. Closure, to have it done. I didn’t understand why she
hadn’t just tried at home, with me, but perhaps Holly hadn’t want
to. Maybe Erica saw her first effort as some sort of failure and
couldn’t stand to have me see her try again. She sometimes got like
that, had never admitted if she’d failed exams or didn’t win an
auction on ebay, just said she hadn’t liked the course or wanted
the thing after all.

I’d thought
it was over, but it didn’t seem to actually end.
Erica came home with damp hair, and I had no way to tell if
that was because she’d showered at the gym or after a hotel-room
tryst. I’d never taken a big interest in her movements, hadn’t
wanted to be possessive, and now that started making things
difficult. She wasn’t used to casually telling me where she’d be. I
tried to check on her spending, to see if she was staying in
hotels, but if she was, she was paying cash, and I’d never cared
enough before to know where all her money was, or how much there
should be. She’d always gone away for overnight work trips,
sometimes for several days, and she still did. I tried to work out
if it was happening more often, and wasn’t sure. She started
masturbating more. In bed when she thought I was asleep, gently,
sometimes in the shower.

I wanted to
hold onto her.
I wanted to hold onto us.
So I did the only thing I could.

“
I know about
Holly,” I said one morning, while she was doing her hair.
Morning was unfair, when she had to go to work,
but I’d been awake half the night and couldn’t wait any
longer.

She looked at me for a moment, then said, “No
you don’t.”

Not asking me
what about Holly, and not saying there was nothing to know.
I could have called her on this, pointed out her
denial was as good as an admission, but with Erica that would just
lead to an argument.

“
Do you want
to tell me?”
I said.

“Nope.”

“I’m here when you do.”

For a moment
she looked so stricken, so guilty, I wanted to hold her and tell
her it was okay.
I said, “I love you,”
and went to make coffee.

By the time
she was finished in the bathroom she was pretending the
conversation hadn’t happened.
That was
her. With Erica you needed to give her the time to do things her
way, to think about what she wanted to feel.

She didn’t
take as long as she sometimes did to decide.
She brought a bottle of vodka home that night, which meant
she thought I’d be needing it. We usually only kept wine and beer
in the house. I looked at it, wary, suspecting a dumping
gift.