Chapter 5

“I didn’t mean to upset you but speaking personally, no I don’t think we are. I have known you for nearly eight years and Ara for nearly seven. I had managed to get myself into a hopeless muddle where I was in love with two women and didn’t know what to do. Since Ara came up to Edinburgh I feel different, I feel better, and things have changed for me. I have been rootless and adrift since before I went to university and definitely for the last couple of years. This feels like home now. This house with both of you in it. Ara talked about her grandparents dealing with love at first sight and how it must have been a struggle in the 1930s. It wasn’t love at first sight with each of you but when you talked about the three of us, I don’t know, something clicked. I want to spend the rest of my life with the two of you. I want to have children with both of you and I don’t mind admitting it. I don’t want to freak you out, or put pressure on you but I am going to try and always be honest with you.”

Suzanne started crying quietly but having made numerous women cry over the years Andrew waited for confirmation as to whether they were tears of happiness or sadness. He thought, and definitely hoped, that it was the former.

“Ara, do you feel the same way?”

Ara smiled and nodded.

“I thought it was just me.”

The last said through serious sobs. Okay good, happiness. Suzanne’s crying jag was over quickly and she looked a bit sheepish.

“I thought it was just me that felt that way.”

“What we are going to do is only going to work for a tiny fraction of people. But for us it is the perfect solution and I am looking forward to being sickeningly happy for the rest of my life.”

Ara made it sound like there was no other possibility.

“Why are we so confident? Doesn’t it seem too easy?”

“Too easy? All of us have spent months, years, worrying about this.”

“No I mean the three people thing. Yes I worried about love and Andrew and my life after university but I didn’t once imagine myself as part of a threesome. Did you?”

“No, but I worried that I would never be complete, be happy, be satisfied. What we are doing is greedy, but it is what I need.”

Andrew lay there listening to the two of them.

“You are quiet. What are you thinking?”

“I was thinking why I have jumped into this without reservation. I think one of the key things for the two of you is that you came up with this all on your own. Sure there was happenstance at the start but this is only working because the two of you want it to work. You thought it through, you had counters to all my concerns ready when I raised them. And I think the whole idea of wanting it all, not wanting to have parts of your personality unfulfilled is very important.

“You have both listened to me talk about being attracted to intelligent women, wanting and expecting my wife to have a career. You talked about it, you wanted someone who didn’t just talk a good game but that you could trust to mean it. Then there is the whole how do you be a woman in a man’s world without having to be like a man. I want you to have long and impressive careers but I want you to be attractive women. You are not the only one who wants it all. I like the way you look, the way you dress, I love the way your legs look when in heels. I could be talking about the models I work with but I am talking about the two of you.”

Andrew had hardened as he talked about them and Ara took advantage of the opportunity. He didn’t even get the chance to come as Suzanne just latched onto Ara’s right nipple and drove her quickly to an orgasm.

“She’ll never be able to nurse.”

Suzanne comment made them all laugh. Hunger drove them from the bed and they stopped at the first restaurant that could seat them without delay. The weekend? Revelling in spending time together. Suzanne had a notebook full of the ideas they had come up with. It went quicker than anticipated as he didn’t care in half the house. The wanted to freshen up the three top floor bedrooms and all Andrew did was shrug. Other than one minor change in the dining room both it and the kitchen were fine. The fifth small bedroom had been ignored until then.

“There is not much light in that basement bedroom is there?”

“Not really.”

“Would it be easy to convert into a dark room Andrew?”

The way Suzanne was looking at Andrew left him in no doubt as to her motives. Ara though looked confused.

“Why a dark room Suze?”

Suzanne explained about modelling for him, in any and every way possible.

“So we could develop our own pictures?”

You can imagine how Andrew’s body reacted to ‘we’ and ‘our’.

“Look at Andrew’s face Ara. I have got turned on just thinking about it. To do something for Andrew, to let him explore his sexuality that way. To dress up, to strip, to lose control completely. To have the two of you dominate me and have a picture to see after. Can you imagine?”

Ara pushed Suzanne up against the wall and kissed her aggressively. They could safely say Ara’s imagination was working fine.

Andrew slipped out of bed the following morning and went for a longer, but slower, run. Green Park is not that big, depending on the paths he used the circuit was about a mile. Normally Andrew ran for 30 minutes and coasted up to the northeast corner and then walked home, cooling off. That morning he was jogging as much as running, the equivalent of swimming in the slow lane at the pool. There were so many times, so many visuals, where he had to shake his head, like that morning when he got out of bed. Just seeing Suzanne and Ara in bed together. Andrew found himself shaking his head again, just randomly on his run. He was never going to be grumpy first thing in the morning ever again. Horny for sure, but not grumpy. He really must have looked deranged that morning with random smiles, and head shakes and big grins. He managed not to scare anyone but must have been some sight. When he got back the three of them walked over to Marshall Street, just about a kilometre away. That was one of the parts of living in the house that was amazing, being able to walk to the pool, being able to walk to work if he got the job with the Defence Intelligence Staff. They got back to the flat and Andrew made coffee while Suzanne and Ara pottered about upstairs. They were checking out the house, hanging clothes, just chatting away, it was good to see them so happy. When they came down for their coffee he discovered what they had been talking about.

“When are we going to Amsterdam?”

Suzanne looked guilelessly at him. He raised an eyebrow.

“Ara told me she had confessed to you. So when are we going to Amsterdam?”

“How about we all go as a graduation present to ourselves. Are you going to your graduation?”

“Yes, I think I will. It is important to Mum and Dad so I will go.”

“When is it?”

“Start of the last week of June, Monday the 22^nd. When is yours?”

“Three days later, 25^th.”

Ara would not attend a graduation ceremony until December as her PhD would not be awarded in time for any of the summer ceremonies.

“Why don’t we go the weekend after, the 27^th and stay for two or three days.”

Andrew turned to Ara.

“Can you wait that long?”

“I am tempted to say no, but it is only a few weeks.”

“What did you think when Ara told you Andrew?”

“I was surprised at first but when I thought it through it seemed to make sense. I have learned to listen and not judge. The way Ara talked about it struck a chord with me. The thing that ties it all together is the way we talk, during sex but particularly before it. I loved the idea of you being naughty, we know that is a core part of your sexual identity. But the thought of you being naughty, of corrupting you, of getting you into trouble knowing that you would suffer the consequences at Ara’s hand later.”

Andrew smiled.

“It seemed devilish, even to me.”

Suzanne gulped. He stood in front of Ara smiling at her.

“Close your eyes and think about what you told me. Suzanne come and stand behind Ara, take off her blouse and bra, hands caressing her stomach, no higher.”

When Ara’s bra came off her nipples were as inflated and erect as he had ever seen them.

“Ara you talked to me about the sex shop in Amsterdam, how you could picture all the whips and crops and floggers, the heavy paddles, you could picture the lot. When you feel Suzanne’s hands move I want you to reach out and grasp something. Picture it in your eye so that when we visit you can walk right up to it and just take it straight to the counter. But what Suzanne does to you will determine your choice.”

Andrew unbuttoned Ara’s jeans and had her naked before him, Ara stepping out of them carefully, her eyes still closed. He stood back up and went and stood behind Suzanne, fully clothed, her hands resting nervously on Ara’s taut stomach.

“So Suzanne what you do right here in the next minute, it determines your punishment in Amsterdam. Are you going to gently caress her stomach and kiss Ara’s neck? Maybe she will go easy on you and get something gentle. But maybe she will be annoyed at you and get the scariest looking thing there. But remember this, Ara right now is a complete mess inside. Every time we do this to her both sides of her nature will be fighting inside. Even as she submits to you and me, her body an endless cascade of orgasms, deep inside part of her she will see that shelf and she will picture you. Every time she submits to me, to us, we both know who will pay the price, don’t we?”

Maybe the years of misdirection had impacted on Suzanne because she amazed both Ara and Andrew. She slowly rubbed Ara’s abs, caressing her torso and just kissing her neck and below the ear. Andrew could feel Ara deflate.

“He is the devil.”

The only word Andrew could use was pounce. Suzanne pounced on Ara’s nipples and Ara’s scream of ‘Suuuuuze’ reverberated around the kitchen. Kneeling before Ara, he slipped two fingers into her slick and spasming pussy and pushed her over the top. She never even got the chance to call ‘Paula’, she just slumped and the two of them took her up to the bed, lying on either side of her, smirking at each other waiting for Ara to rejoin them. Her eyes popped open. Turning to Suzanne she kissed her gently before turning back to Andrew.

“You really are the devil. And oh my goodness do you amplify everything. Suze talked about how you were always using misdirection on her and she never knew what was coming next. And then she did it to me. I thought she was worried about being punished or something, I was so disappointed and then suddenly the whole world exploded.”

Ara kissed Suzanne and looked at her.

“You have been so naughty.”

Suzanne could not have looked any more radiant. Ara didn’t need to say anything else, not right then.

“I was going to say sex should not be this intense. Which is nonsense. I never realised that sex could be this intense. Is there anything you are bad at?”

Ara and Andrew kissed for a long time, Suzanne’s arm round them both.

“He is terrible at horse riding. But we can’t do that because the last time was after he had whacked me with the crop right across my arse. There I was in tight jeans, trotting on the back of a horse with this welt on my poor bum.”

Andrew thought Suzanne was being genuine and earnest at the start of her little speech. By the end they were in danger of being blinded she was so incandescently artless.

“You are getting naughtier by the minute. I am going to have to be especially strict with you this week.”

The two of them were in a such a feedback loop of sexual happiness.

The three of them were all domestic for the remainder of the weekend. Andrew called Jim and found out there was a supermarket on the Cromwell Road, not too far from the house and so they finally bought food, a lot of food. The house was perpetually empty and so they stocked up. They dragged chairs up from the dining room and sat in the room of no purpose and talked through the options. With the high ceilings standard bookcases were going to look odd and they didn’t want to consider custom built-ins yet. At one point the three of them sat in different corners, mimicking as if they were using it as a study and the room seem absurdly large. But Ara had a lot of texts open when she was studying or writing, and Suzanne wanted a large map table, so the space would be used up quickly. They decided that the three paintings would be hung in there, but until they brought some furniture in it was difficult to visualise how the room would look.

Andrew headed back to Cambridge on the Sunday afternoon. Suzanne and Ara were going to have a quiet week while Ara prepared for her Viva. Suzanne was going to spend the week thinking about her business, not developing a plan per se but starting to get pieces in place. He left them the car so that they had the option of going and getting some of Ara’s stuff from her parent’s house. The plan seemed to be no more complex than drive out to deepest Surrey, find the nearest phone box to her house, call the house and see if her mother answered. If she was not home then they were going to go to the house. Andrew guessed the two of them would come up with a slightly more cunning plan but left them to their scheming. But it was tough to walk down to the Tube station, leaving his home. Andrew was going to Cambridge to make an effort as time was winding down. Whereas in previous years he was only free for a couple of days before the May Ball, this time he only had to submit his project, and that was now all logistics and administrative details, important but the engineering was complete. Then he had to prepare for his presentation which was the final academic test of his four years there.

Andrew also had a guilty conscience. He had not been at Addenbrooke’s in more than two months. He was down to his final three days as a volunteer. After the next three Mondays he would be done. The final two were taken up with the Main Board and then the May Ball, as usual on the last Monday of the term. As it turned out he did three extras days, one each of his last full weeks. But it was coming to an end, and none too soon. Once he was established at work in London then he would consider what he would do next for volunteering.

That week reminded Andrew of Fresher’s week in a lot of ways. They saw a lot of each other, his friends in 4^th year. Exams were over and they were all at the stage of getting their projects into a fit state to be submitted to their various departments. So people were busy but the frantic stress of the run-up to the exams was missing. Of course all the 1^st and 2^nd years were completely absorbed in exactly that tension and so there was this strange dichotomy to the College. He saw Catherine at dinner one night and wished her good luck, but what they had been, it was with a different person. He could not have carried on the arrangement that term.

A lot of evenings were spent catching up with Justin and Pedro. They gave him a mild dose of shit about not being around much, they admitted to missing the trips to London. Justin was like Ara, writing to as many places as possible enquiring after a job. He was still at the optimistic and enthusiastic stage of the process. Pedro on the other hand was already all set. He had applied to the European Commission and had been interviewed in Britain as well as in Brussels, where the Commission was based. Spain had only joined the European Economic Community the previous year. Cambridge educated economists, fluent in Spanish and English and pretty good in French were in short supply and he had sailed through the interviews. Look out Belgian ladies, Pedro Garcia was on his way. They already knew that Matt and Navya were going to stay in Cambridge and were looking for a flat somewhere on the north side of the town, convenient for both the airport and Trinity.

Andrew stayed for the weekend, despite their best intentions they didn’t get a lot of studying done at the weekends and he wanted Ara to be ready for her Viva. He was collecting the final copies of the project report on the Monday and would submit it no later than the Tuesday. Matt, Navya, Pedro, Justin, Olivia and Andrew all played bridge on Friday and Saturday nights, drank too much wine and solved the problems of the world. Well not really. Just a sense of relief, grateful that they were not in 1^st or 2^nd year and just about to start their exams. They had all worked hard for four years but it was draining. Olivia was getting herself worked up about the interviews, scheduled to start in ten days. She finally talked to Andrew about it on the Sunday afternoon.