Chapter 6

When I woke up the next morning, I could feel warmth all around me. I let myself drift, savoring that feeling between awake and asleep, not wanting to give up the feeling of contentment that had surrounded me this morning. It was peaceful here like this.

I felt a hand covering mine and pressing it more firmly holding it against what I was holding. Wait ... What WAS I holding?

That question popped the bubble and I slowly started to move toward consciousness, stirring and becoming more aware of what was going on around me. I opened my eyes and blinked a few times to focus them. Christina was looking at me over her shoulder with a small smile on her face. I returned it and she squeezed my hand, causing it to squeeze her breast. Sometime in the night, my hand had found it’s way under her shirt and was softly massaging her breast while we slept. She was obviously okay with that, from the smile on her face and the fact that her hand was pressing me more firmly against her.

I pulled her back against me more and slipped my other arm under her to hold her, settling back down and making a soft contented sound. She curled up with me and guided my other hand to her neglected breast. Who was I to argue. We drifted in contentment for a while until she sighed and whispered that she had to go to the bathroom. I gave her neck a kiss and let her breasts go so she could sneak off to answer the call of nature.

“You looked very comfortable,” Jennifer whispered in my ear, making me start. I hadn’t known she was awake. That made her giggle a little and she wrapped her arms around me from behind. “I told you she’d move in here.”

I smiled over my shoulder at her. “Any more predictions?” I asked softly.

“I think you’re in for a very interesting week ahead,” she said and leaned over to give me a quick peck on the lips. “I love you, Adam. I’m sorry I hurt you and I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.” She said it without anguish, without distress. It was whispered with affection and regret, but also with determination to see it through. “We still have to have a long talk about the things John used to say to make me say yes when I should have said no. I want you to have the keys to those locks. You deserve them.”

I nodded. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what John could say that would melt her resolve like that, but she wanted to share that with me. I supposed I agreed when she said I deserved them.

I heard Mona yawn and stretch behind her and I knew that we were probably not going back to sleep. I didn’t want to get out of bed though. When Christina came out of the bathroom, scratching her neck lazily, I held my hand out to her, inviting her back to bed. She grinned at me and stripped off her shirt before burrowing back under the covers with us. She turned and planted her sexy little butt on my crotch before deliberately putting my hands back on her breasts.

“So what are your plans for me now that you’ve lured me to your bed?” she asked sweetly, wriggling against me.

“I think that staying here like this until we get hungry, restless or curious about the rest of the world sounds like a good idea,” I said softly.

“Oh no!” she scolded me. “We are NOT waiting until YOU get hungry to move. Your stomach is the size of a walnut now.”

That got some giggles from behind me.

“You should fuck her,” Jennifer whispered in my ear. I knew Christina could hear, but I don’t think Jennifer was trying to keep it a secret, just trying not to break the mood.

I looked over my shoulder at her. “Why are you pushing that?” I asked her. Like her previous words to me, I was calm, but this was troubling.

“Because you both want it,” she said and then bit her lip and shrugged. “To give you a little sense of revenge for what I did. You’d have to live a long life to make us even, but you can take little bits of revenge here and there without making either of us miserable.”

“It would hurt you to see me and Christina have sex?” I asked. “You gave me the impression that it would excite you when you brought it up, that you’d crawl into bed with us.”

“That’s true and we ARE in bed together,” she pointed out. “I ... I want this,” she said. “It’s not about hurting me or even really about the two of you wanting each other. I know you, Adam. What I did ... I tried to tell myself that it was no different than playing a sport with other people or going to the gym. It was physical and fun, but there was no feeling behind it. When you died inside last week ... I realized there WAS feeling behind what we were doing: YOUR feelings, not mine. For me, it was just physical. To you, it broke your heart. I looked at the pictures Mona sent me and I was frantic. I knew that you were telling us the truth when you said we’d destroyed your will to live. If you don’t find it again, you WILL end up killing yourself. Not all at once, but you’ll bury yourself in work and each deadline will consume a little more of you until malnutrition and hypertension give you a massive heart attack at forty.”

Mona and Christina were both listening, but weren’t adding to the conversation beyond their presence. Christina was stroking my arm while I gently cupped her breasts, looking up at me with an unreadable look as we talked.

“You need a little reminder that sex can be beautiful and clean and mean something again,” she said sadly. “I broke that and I’ll be ashamed of that for the rest of my life. I need to help fix it. I can’t be the one to do it though. I’m just a slut. I’m YOUR slut for the rest of my life, but still a slut. She’s not though. She cares about you and you care about her. Make love to her.”

Christina gripped my arm to get my attention and smiled at me. “Listen to your wife, Adam. Don’t do it to punish her though. Do it because you need the ego boost, because it’s a thrill, because I want it, because you want it and because it’s probably the kinkiest thing you’ve ever done.”

I looked at her skeptically. “You think I’ve never done anything kinky before?”

She shrugged. “Have you ever done anything as kinky as fucking your intern while your wife whispers in your ear?” she asked with a chuckle.

“No,” I admitted. “This is a new plateau.”

“And it’s only the beginning,” she promised with Jennifer and Mona offering their agreement.

I nodded a little and started kissing Christina’s neck, making her sigh contentedly and move against me, making me remember a little what it was like to feel the touch of a woman. Her bare back against my chest was driving me to thoughts I’d never thought I’d have again and I was starting to feel more alive, more like myself.

I massaged her tits more firmly, feeling her nipples against my palms as I nibbled on her neck and her ear. She cooed agreeably and I knew that she was up for whatever was coming. I felt the bed shift and then saw Jennifer’s t-shirt fly across the room before she pressed her naked breasts against my back, taking the opportunity to kiss my neck and whisper encouragement in my ear.

I suddenly felt hands against my back, cupping Jennifer’s breasts even as she was rubbing them against me and I knew they belonged to Mona. This was a kinky turn of events. I had my hands all over my extremely sexy co-worker and my wife was whispering to her while my former friend’s wife felt her up, the four of us layered together in bed. I wish Mitch could see us. His head would explode.

I left them to their fun and leaned over Christina’s shoulder, kissing along her cheek, seeking out her mouth. She got the hint and turned her head, kissing me deeply while I kneaded her perfect tits in my hands. I started plucking at the nipples, pinching and tugging them while we kissed. Her tongue and mine dueled while my wife licked at my ear, telling me that she wanted to watch me take her and then she was whispering some of the things she wanted me to do to her.

“Grab me by the hair and push my face into her pussy,” she told me. “You don’t have to force me, but I want you to. I want you to make me eat your cum out of her.”

My cock was lurching against Christina’s ass and the combination of her body, my wife’s words and the power rush that I’d had since Wednesday was starting to awaken that part of my identity. I moaned into Christina’s mouth and she moaned into mine. She plucked my hand off her breast and then pushed it between her thighs, letting me feel the incredible heat from her pussy as she ground her sex against my fingers. I stroked her through her panties and loved the way her hips rolled, grinding her ass against my cock as she writhed from my fingers playing with her pussy.

I felt hands pushing my shorts down, careful about slipping them over my erection and then I was naked, sandwiched between my wife and this beautiful girl that I was just getting to know. She was stroking my arm while I played with her lips and then she was pushing her panties down. I pulled my fingers away long enough for her to get them down her legs and then she pulled up her knees so she could get them completely off. She tossed them onto the floor and when she put her legs down, I found my cock pressed against her taut ass.

She made an approving sound and wriggled against me, shifting a little and lifting her leg. Suddenly I felt hands on my length as Christina reached down to reposition me between her legs and met Jennifer’s hands moving to do the same thing. I chuckled as they both stiffened at the unexpected surprise and went back to playing with Christina’s tits while she shook hands with my wife.

Between the two of them, they got me where they wanted me to be and Christina looked up at me. “Push,” she said softly. “I’m safe and on the needle still.”

I nodded and moved my hips forward, gasping as I felt the head of my cock pushing into her folds for the first time. To reiterate, this was my first sex in the past two months and more. With the hours I’d been working, I came home too tired for sex. It was like tasting something I hadn’t eaten since childhood, the reality of it being good enough, but the awakened memories enhancing it tenfold. I’d pushed sex out of my life for work and then out of despair when I found out the truth. Now I was remembering all the joy that it brought as I experienced it again for the first time.

It took me several thrusts to get all the way into her as we coupled gently, me spooned against her back. I was touching her everywhere, kissing every inch of her that I could reach as I whispered to her how much I wanted her and how good this felt.

She groaned and rocked back against me, telling me that it was as good for her as it was for me. I reached down and played with her clit while we fucked ... no, we weren’t fucking. We were making love. She looked up at me and when our eyes met, I knew she felt it too. She pursed her lips and I gave her the deepest, most loving kiss I could. She moaned into my mouth and we joined completely.

Jennifer was still whispering encouragement to both of us and running her hands all over the two of us. I noticed one of Mona’s hands had moved south and she’d started her own commentary on our love-making, telling us how hot we looked as she slowly played with Jennifer’s pussy. Jennifer wasn’t being shy about touching us and Christina didn’t seem to mind it when she reached over me to take one of her breasts in her hand, playing with the nipple while my hand was busy stroking her clit.

“Take my place,” she said suddenly and sat up, pushing the covers down. She moved out from behind me and I felt Mona pressing up against me from behind. Her bare breasts were pressed into my back and hands started to move over my shoulders and sides, stroking my skin softly.

“You remember when I told John that I’d wait until the divorce was final before we started to fuck?” she said loud enough for both Christina and I to hear her. “I lied,” she purred. “It only seems fair that you get to fuck his wife behind his back.”

That got a chuckle out of all of us. Meanwhile, Jennifer had moved down the bed and gotten between our legs, starting to lick and suck on my balls and Christina’s pussy while we moved together, making both of us shudder in pleasure.

“I’m not gonna last much longer!” I warned Christina softly. It had been too long and I was holding out as long as I could, but I was running out of road before I reached my orgasm.

“Cum for me, Adam!” she whispered, her own voice sounding strained as she felt my cock inside her and Jennifer’s tongue whipping over her pearl, trying to get us to cum together.

I groaned and clutched her close as I came and came and it felt like it went on forever, pumping months of frustration and suppressed urges into her tight pussy. I held her close as I started to tremble. I could feel Jennifer licking my shaft clean even as I was starting to shrivel and withdraw from Christina’s folds. Jennifer licked us both clean, her tongue greedily lapping up any trace of our union like it was ambrosia.

She was enjoying her task and from Christina’s moans, she was enjoying it too. I closed my eyes and it suddenly hit me in the moment of post-coital introspection. This was what my life was reduced to now. My wife was a self-professed slut, possessed by everyone I knew except me, my friends and relationships were destroyed, I needed guns just to feel safe in my house and all I could do was hurt the people that had done this to me. It crashed in on me and the trembling that had started after my orgasm had past intensified as I skidded into the wall emotionally.

“Adam?” Mona’s voice said with some concern. Christina and Jennifer were both too distracted to notice me at the moment. She pulled me into her arms and I didn’t have the strength left to fight her even if I’d wanted to. I’d never been particularly athletic and working in an office hadn’t helped. This past week had robbed me of a lot of that even and now, she pulled me from Christina’s back and turned me into her embrace while sobs wracked me. I could feel her arms around me and it felt ... safe, like when I was a child and my mother hugged me after I skinned my knee.

My head spun, the events of this past week dragging me under, now that the dam had broken. I’d held myself together with the purpose of punishing everyone for hurting me. Jobs were lost, marriages ended, Mitch’s political career was in ruins, Jennifer would carry the shame to her dying day. They were punished. Everyone got their measure of suffering for it. Why didn’t I feel better? Why did it still feel so awful? Wasn’t there anything I could do to make this pain go away?

I sobbed and cried, my head awash in the awful things I’d seen and heard and done and was held in comforting arms while I screamed out my loss. It seemed to go on forever, but slowly, I calmed. I was still trembling in Mona’s arms, but I could feel someone else holding me from behind.

They must have thought that I’d drifted off to sleep because they started talking in whispers.

“What do we do, Jennie?” Mona asked her, anguished. “I had no idea we’d done this much damage! How could we have fooled ourselves into thinking it was okay?”

“My therapist suggested this might happen,” Jennifer replied sadly. “I talked to her about it yesterday. She said that when he does have sex again, he may break down some. She told me to call her if it was extreme. I think we should talk to her. I have her emergency number. I’ll call her when he wakes up and we can get him in to see her.” I felt her fingers combing through my hair from behind. “Oh, my poor Adam. I wish I’d told you all those years ago. You would have taken me across the country to protect me from Mitch.”

“If I’d known he beat you in college, I’d have gone with you,” Mona said with a shudder. “This past week has been a nightmare!”

“You said it,” Christina said softly. One of them pulled the blanket up over us again. She must have been curled in behind Jennifer. “He went from working himself to death, to getting fired to making Partner in less than a week. He’s dropped like 30 pounds since last week between throwing up, not eating and not sleeping. He went from happily married to completely alone to being in bed with three women. He hasn’t had a lot of time to adjust. Normally I’d be dismayed that a man cried right after sex with me, but ... I guess it shows he still cares. A week like this could easily have made him a Criminal Minds episode.”

The three of them agreed with that thought.

“The only good part of that would have been that he would have gone and put Mitch and a few of the others out of our misery,” Mona said angrily. “I still can’t believe he beat you back in college.”

I felt Jennifer nod. “He had a golf putter with no head on it,” she said quietly. “He tied me to my own bed and used it on me all night after the first time I told him it was over. That was when Adam and I first started dating seriously.”

“That was the only time he did that?” Mona asked.

“No,” Jennifer laughed. “It was the worst, by far, but when I got engaged to Adam and told him I was done, there was another one. I had to tell Adam I’d fallen down some stairs at work. I broke the heel off one of my shoes to show him, so he wouldn’t catch on. Mitch always told me he’d kill Adam if I ever told him what was going on. He didn’t want the party to stop. When we got married, there wasn’t even a beating. He just told me he’d go after Adam if I didn’t. He said that he’d disconnect his brakes or he’d be home some night when someone broke in or something else. I believed him. I still worry about it.”

I listened to them talk and I started to think about John Mitchell and the horror he’d made of all our lives.

I sat up out of their arms and ran my hands through my hair. That startled them a little. “Sorry about that,” I said softly. “I’m feeling a little more solid now. I think ... I think I want to do something about John.”

“What did you have in mind?” Mona asked, sitting up herself and putting an arm around my shoulders.

“I don’t know yet, but I think that we need to think about how far to go. The basement here is mostly empty. It wouldn’t be so hard to build a brig down there and imprison him until he’s declared legally dead while we take our time making him sorry his parents ever met.”

“You want to kidnap him?” Christina asked, surprised.

“My first choice would have been to march into his house last night and shoot everyone that was there waiting for Jennifer to entertain them, but I’ll settle for making him suffer for the seven years that it takes to declare a missing person dead. Then we can decide what to do with the leftovers.”

“Just finish the lawsuit,” Mona suggested. “You’re suing each of us for $5million. As his wife, I’ll settle mine and we’ll have to scramble to cover it even if he fights his suit. The best way to hurt John is financially. So much of his pride is tied up in his wealth that he’d rather die in a lot of ways.”

I nodded and relented. I still wanted to listen to him scream in pain. We got up and got showered and dressed after that. A look through the kitchen revealed the ingredients to make pancakes, but not much else on hand, so that’s what we had. It felt good to have people around. I’d been driving myself mad in the absence of simple human contact. Even though two of the women helping around the kitchen were my cheating wife and the wife of the man that had made her his whore, I felt better than I had in more than a week.

“What do we need to do today?” I asked as we sat down to eat.

“I need clothes,” Mona said. “I don’t want to go back to the house alone, so we could probably call for a police escort to collect things.”

Christina and Jennifer nodded at that, both of them needing to pick up changes of clothes. “I’m moving in anyway, so today’s probably a good day to start dragging my stuff over here too,” Christina pointed out.

I noticed that the three of them had decided on their own that they were staying here. I wasn’t objecting, but I still thought I deserved some input. “I guess we’ll have to figure out where to put everything,” I said. “The closet is pretty roomy, but with four people, the bureau isn’t going to be enough for everyone.”

They nodded about that and we talked about solutions. “Well, I could keep some of my bedroom furniture,” Christina offered. “I have a dresser and a bed that we can put in the guestroom.”

“Who said anything about a guest-room?” Jennifer wanted to know, arching an eyebrow.

“We obviously need a guest-room,” Christina explained. “I’m from San Diego. My parents will both want to visit eventually. So will my brother and some of my friends from back home. I’m sure you both know people that don’t live in town.”

Jennifer shrugged weakly. Most of our friends from college would never be back to the house for a very good reason.

“I suppose there are a few reasons to have a spare room,” she allowed. “It never hurts to have the option.”

We were just finishing up out late breakfast when there was a knock at the door. I sent the three of them upstairs both to get the guns and to keep them out of harm’s way in case it was Mitch or Rob.

When I opened the door though, it wasn’t Rob and it wasn’t Mitch. It was Ruth.

“Ruth!” I said, taking the chain off the door. “What brings you by on Saturday morning?” I asked, letting her in.

“Hi, Adam,” she said with a sad smile. “I’m sorry to come by like this out of the blue. I know you were probably busy, but-” she cut off, seeing the table set with the remains of breakfast for four. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had company. Family?” she asked sheepishly.

I shook my head. “It’s okay, Ruth. It’s been a strange few days. Come on in and sit down. What brings you by today? Can I get you anything? The coffee’s still fresh.”

“Coffee sounds nice,” she said and settled herself on the sofa nervously while I went to make it.

When I came bay, I stopped at the base of the stairs and called up them. “It’s okay. It’s Ruth. Come on down if you want to say hi.”

I brought Ruth her coffee and settled into my chair with my own mug. “Thanks,” she said and sipped it before putting it down on the coffee table. “That’s perfect. Listen, Adam. Jamie stopped by this morning. He wanted you to have something, but he wasn’t sure he should come here in person. Bear with me. It’s kind of a long story and I-” she cut off again as she caught sight of Jennifer coming into the room. “YOU!!!” she seethed, jumping to her feet.

I was between them in a flash as soon as I saw the look on her face. I’m not always the most perceptive guy. I never suspected what my friends were doing behind my back, I never suspected that my promotion was a joke and I didn’t think about what would happen with Ruth and Jennifer in the same room. It was a lot harder to hold Ruth back than I’d anticipated. I’d lost weight and wasn’t strong at the best of times. Ruth, on the other hand, had a fury to be reckoned with. I had my arms thrown around her waist as she reached over my shoulders, trying to get her hands on Jennifer, screaming at her all the while.

I struggled to keep her in place, certain that she was going to break free at any second. “RUTH!” I screamed at her, trying to get her to come to her senses. “STOP!”

It seemed life forever before she let me steer her back to the couch and sit her down. “How could you let her back in your life, Adam?!!?” she demanded, when she was rational enough to talk to me again. “After what Jamie admitted to me, how could you even LOOK at her?”

“It’s been a strange few day, Ruth,” I told her tiredly. I was exhausted and sweating a little from the effort of wrestling with her. “Jennifer’s not well. She suffers from Nymphomania. She can’t help it. Mitch found out before she met me and he’s been using her as a sex slave since before she and I even met. She came here last night because Mitch was trying to talk her into going to his place as usual last night and she needed help to tell him ‘no’.” I delivered the news in a soothing voice, trying to get her to calm down.

“You’ve been together for six years, Adam,” she said, revolted. “Are you telling me that in that whole time, she’s been...” she couldn’t even say it.

I put my head down, but I nodded. It was a terrible admission, that I’d been sharing my wife for all our life together. “She can’t stop herself, Ruth. When she tried, Mitch beat her half to death and threatened to tell me what he’d had her doing.”

“I see,” she said darkly. “I guess that explains why Jamie...” She trailed off and sighed. “Maybe we should all sit down so I can tell you why I’m here,” she suggested.

I nodded and sat with her on the couch while Jennifer took a chair across the coffee table from her wisely. Ruth was surprised to see Mona here and was curious about Christina, but I didn’t give her a chance to ask questions about that. There’d be time for explanations later.

“Alright,” I said, when they were settled. “You said Jamie sent you because he wasn’t sure he should come here in person,” I prompted her.

She tore her eyes from the others and nodded, refocusing on me. “Yes,” she said quietly and gathered herself. “Jamie came to see me early this morning. He woke me up, pounding on the door. It pissed me off until I let him in. He was white as a sheet and looked like he was afraid. When he confessed to what he’d been doing behind my back, he was scared, but this looked like he was afraid for his life,” she told us. Jamie had never been a risk taker. He was a teacher in the public school system, not because he had a passion for it, but because his father had a friend on the school-board and helped get him a job lined up for right after graduation.

“What had him scared?” I asked her, surprised.

“He ... He went to Mitch’s last night,” she told us to varying reactions. Jennifer’s was to click her tongue in a display of disapproval. Mona rolled her eyes and muttered that it was typical. Christina just shook her head ruefully and I started to get angry. I’d been ALMOST proud of Jamie for confessing to Ruth.

Ruth took in our reactions and shook her head. “It wasn’t like that!” she said quickly. “He ... He recorded what they were saying. He said that Mitch had called him and told him that he had something special planned to make up for last week. He got suspicious, so he put his voice recorder in his pocket and went. He said it was a lot worse than he’d thought it would be.”

She spent some time telling us about how Mitch had spent the early part of the night promising that they were all going to get a little payback for what I’d done to their lives with the lawsuits. He’d looked deranged then and he’d had the game room set up with ropes in anticipation of Jennifer’s arrival. He told them that they were gonna spend the weekend beating her until she was ruined.

“He went on like that until it was just after seven and then he went to make a phone call. Jamie said they could hear the screaming from upstairs and when he came down, he’d lost it completely,” Then she played the recording Jamie had made.

After the call we’d answered at the restaurant, his political career and his marriage were over. He came downstairs, ranting about killing all of us and described our deaths in minute detail, Mona’s and Christina’s included. I expected him to want to kill Jennifer. He’d said as much. My death was sort of assumed. He’d told her he was going to make me beg him to kill me instead of her. Mona’s was a surprise and Christina’s made little sense.

There was a surprising number of people that were interested in a piece of what Mitch had to say, but a few that weren’t enthusiastic in their support. I noticed that Rob had been one of the loudest in favor of whatever Mitch said. That gave me pause. He was a cop with weapons training and influence. The rest of the recording was them planning on how they could get away with murdering us and what they could do to make us look bad, from planting drugs in the house, to making it look like I’d killed the others and committed suicide.

I picked up my phone and called Councilwoman Meyer’s campaign headquarters and asked for her specifically, identifying myself. I knew she had a public event in a few hours, so she’d be in the middle of planning details. It took about fifteen minutes, but I was able to get in touch with her.

“Mr. Dean,” she said warmly. “I didn’t expect to hear from you again so soon. What can I do for you?”

“Good morning, Mrs. Meyer,” I said to her just as pleasantly. “I just received a recording of Mr. Mitchell’s social gathering last night. It turned into a planning session for murder.”

“Seriously?” she asked, surprised. “I know he made some heated threats last night, but you have him planning it on tape?”

“We do,” I said. I turned on the recorder to them talking about making it look like I’d murdered the others. “One of the voices you just heard was Officer Robert Gale. He’s getting help in murder planning from one of the Seattle PD. They know where I live and they have access to weapons. John hunts and collects guns. So they’re well-armed. I’m uncertain how to proceed and who I can trust in the police department. I requested police protection yesterday, but beyond a vague promise of increased patrols, they haven’t exactly leaped at the chance to help.”