Chapter 50: Marionette

“And you said, ‘yes’.”

It was a statement, not a question. Lying flat on her belly across a lounge chair in the backyard with her feet up in the air and ankles crossed, Alice set her chin down on her interlaced fingers. It was officially “Belle and Mari Thursday”, but the girls had invited Alice to join us. Given the tenor of the situation, sex did not seem to be planned anyway.

Reclining back against Matty’s Chair, I shrugged. “Of course I said yes. No way in hell was I gonna say ‘no’.”

Alice narrowed her eyes as she scrutinized me.

Mari smiled merrily from the lounge chair on the other side of me, seated sideways, and commented, “I still think it’s sweet.”

Belle sat beside Mari, her elbows on her knees with her hands clasped together, lost in thought. Mari tapped her shoulder and asked, “How did Sam react when he said yes? Did she swoon into his arms? Did she get filled with so much love and passion that it swelled inside her like too much air and start bursting throughout her entire body?”

Belle blinked and regarded Mari in confusion for a second. But she sat up straight, nodded, and said, “Basically, yeah. I mean, you saw the way she was at school today. Have you ever seen Sam so bubbly and excited on campus? She normally walks around all, ‘I’m the Queen. Bow before me or get outta my way.’”

“And today she was like a six-year-old whose parents told her she was going to Disney World,” Alice drawled. With eyes narrowed, she then gestured to me. “Matty, on the other hand...”

All three girls now scrutinized me, and I raised both eyebrows questioningly. “What?”

Mari made a face. “You’re right.”

“I know I’m right,” Alice muttered dispiritedly.

“Someone’s gotta tell her,” Mari sighed, her shoulders sagging.

“Yeah. Matty’s gotta tell her,” Alice pronounced. “It can’t come from one of us.”

I arched an eyebrow and sighed. Looking at Belle, I gestured at the other two and asked, “Can you translate?”

Belle pursed her lips and tilted her head to the side. “You gotta tell Sam you don’t want to be her boyfriend.”

I frowned. “Why in the world would I ever do that?”

Belle’s eyes sharpened. “Because you don’t want to be her boyfriend.”

I shook my head. “That’s not true. I love her. She loves me. The three of you basically gave us your blessing yesterday afternoon, and now you’re taking it back? Are you jealous or something? Didn’t you insist you’d be happy if Sam became my girlfriend so you wouldn’t have to worry about other greedy bitches?”

“I would be happy if Sam became your girlfriend, but that’s not the point.” Belle frowned and leaned forward with her elbows on her knees again. “It’s pretty obvious you don’t really want to be her boyfriend. You said just yesterday you weren’t going to start dating. And you just admitted a minute ago that you only said ‘yes’ because ‘no way in hell was I gonna say no’. That’s not a reason for a couple to get together.”

“I assumed she wouldn’t want to date ME. I never said I’d have a problem dating her.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Alice chimed in. “Your current behavior speaks for itself.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I was there when you and Neevie agreed to start dating,” Belle explained. “Your excitement was palpable. You couldn’t stop grinning for DAYS. This morning? You were just stunned. You sorta lay there like a lump on a log while Sam went into a frenzy on top of you. She got so absorbed in her own outrageous orgasm that she didn’t notice, but I noticed. And even now? Look at you.”

I blinked. “What about me?”

“You’re just ... there.” Belle sat up again and gestured at me with one hand in a flat line, palm up. “I think you’re still stunned and unsure of how to react.”

“Give him SOME credit,” Mari interjected. “He was just as lovey-dovey as Sam was at school.”

“Yeah, because Sam was all over him,” Belle pointed out. “If you crawled into his lap and started making out with him right now, he’d totally get into it and be all happy.”

Alice mused on that and started pushing herself off the lounge chair.

“Don’t even,” I warned, palm out.

Alice made a face and dropped her chin back onto her folded hands.

“It was easy for Matty to feel in love and be all lovey-dovey while Sam was wrapped around his arm 24/7 or dragging him out into the parking lot for a minivan nooner,” Belle continued before looking straight at me. “But now that she’s not here - standing in front of him all scantily-clad gorgeous platinum-blonde goddess with tits out to here – you’ve defaulted back to ‘regular Matty’.”

I scowled. “It’s like you’re trying to imply that I don’t really love her or something.”

“No, we don’t doubt that, actually,” Alice chimed in.

“We know you love her,” Belle added. “The angst you were going through yesterday and the way you gasped her name when I started blowing you this morning prove that enough to me. But you’re REALLY torn about this whole ‘girlfriend’ thing.”

My shoulders slumped. “Sam told me she’s in love with me. I really DO love her and care about her a ton. She’s truly special to me, and I can’t let her down.”

Alice frowned. “I’m far from an expert on romantic relationships, but even I know that ‘fear of letting someone down’ is NOT a good basis for one.”

“I think you’re blowing the fear bit out of proportion.” I sat up straighter. “I may not have gone to bed last night ever expecting Sam to walk up and ask to be my girlfriend, but that doesn’t mean I’m opposed to the idea now that it’s been presented. It’s not like I’m flying blind into uncharted territory, either. I know what it’s like to have a girlfriend within the BTC. My relationship with Neevie set a precedent, one in which there isn’t a whole lot that changes. I’ll still spend quality time with each and every one of you. Sam will get some level of priority, the way Neevie did, but we all know she won’t cut any of you off.”

“She’d better not,” Alice drawled. “I got PLANS for you this summer.”

Belle and Mari laughed. But Belle raised her eyebrows and asked, “Are you SURE Sam will follow Neevie’s blueprint? What if she wants more than a relationship based on casual sex? What if she wants time and mindspace and half of your closet? What if she wants quality time and intimate conversations?”

I leveled her with a look. “You mean: What if Sam wants everything YOU’VE wanted from me for the past few months?”

Belle blushed and looked away.

“It’s a fair question,” Alice added. “And what does having Sam as your official girlfriend mean to YOU? In the end, you weren’t happy with the shallowness of your relationship with Neevie. Would YOU want quality time and mindspace from her? Would it bother you if Miss Hundred-Miles-an-Hour-Multitasker doesn’t dedicate a significant enough percentage of herself to you?”

I thought about that. “I don’t know yet. Having Sam for an official girlfriend had never entered my head as an option before. Now yes, I’d like to spend a little more quality time together with Sam than I did with Neevie, having intimate conversations that in the past she would never make time to have. I mean, we did talk a little about this stuff today. With school winding down and her statement that she’s gonna let go of some of these extracurricular activities and other time-sucks in order to be a good girlfriend instead of always being absent, I think the two of us have a legitimate shot at finding happiness. Or are the three of you really such jealous selfish bitches that you don’t want that for us?”

“Of course we do,” Mari insisted. Belle and Alice nodded their agreement.

“And even if we realized that being ‘official’ isn’t what we really want and we default back to being ‘just friends’, our feelings for each other are already out there. I love her. She loves me. Even among six equals, I’m going to naturally gravitate to her a little more from now until we all leave for college. Functionally, there’s really not a big difference between whether or not we’re ‘official’. I’m not gonna turn into some clingy needy whiner begging her for attention, and neither is she. So really, what’s the big deal whether we’re official or not? Might as well be official.”

Belle frowned. “Do you even hear yourself?”

“‘Might as well be official’?” Mari quoted with obvious concern on her face. And in an unusually sarcastic voice she added, “How romantic.”

“Functionally, nothing changed when you and Neevie became official,” Belle pointed out. “But emotionally, everything changed. You were already fucking each other’s brains out. But once she got the girlfriend title, you both got SUPER excited and could barely contain yourselves for WEEKS. Sam’s like that right now, too. But you?”

“Ehhh ... not so much,” Alice drawled, answering Belle’s rhetorical question.

I pursed my lips, sighed, and said. “I’m not opposed to being in a relationship with Sam.”

“My heart goes pitter-patter with the intensity of your emotions,” Alice deadpanned.

“Shut it.” I exhaled slowly. “Okay fine, fine, I’m not sold on the idea of being Sam’s boyfriend. I really WAS quite happy to be the BTC’s boyfriend – collectively – and while that little epiphany about how much Sam means to me and how much I’d hate losing her from my life knocked me for quite a loop, I really never intended to start dating her. Having her show up and ask me to become her boyfriend really did shock the hell out of me.”

“So circling back to the beginning: you need to tell her you don’t want to be her boyfriend,” Belle advised.

“Well, you don’t need to tell her you don’t want to be her boyfriend,” Mari clarified. “But yeah, you need to tell her that you weren’t expecting it, you’re not sure about it, and that the two of you should work through that stuff together.”

Alice made a face. “Pretty girl like Sam asks Matty to be her boyfriend and if he says anything other than ‘Yes, absolutely!’, she’s gonna feel hurt and rejected.” Alice then mimed air quotes as she added, “‘Isn’t Aphrodite good enough for you?’”

Belle frowned. “Maybe initially, but this is Sam.”

“Exactly. ‘Isn’t Aphrodite good enough for you?’” Alice repeated, again with the air quotes.

Belle and Mari exchanged glances. Belle reasoned, “She’s emotional and she can suffer bouts of extreme self-doubt, but she’s also super-smart and logical. As long as Matty doesn’t abandon her, she’ll get over it. I have faith he can make her see that his present uncertainty is perfectly understandable based on everything they’ve been through together and her plainly stated insistence on not dating him. Seriously, back when we got over the Neevie Sex Boycott and Sam and I went off to talk by ourselves, she was adamant about not dating him, and I think we’ve ALL been taken by surprise by her abrupt one-eighty.”

“Because she’s in love,” Mari sighed.

“Apparently so is he.” Alice got her elbows underneath her and now propped up her chin in her palms as she asked, “Do you really love her?”

“Yeah, I love her.” I nodded and glanced at Mari for a moment before returning to Alice. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, either of you, because I will miss your friendship. But had Sam gone to Stanford and I didn’t get to consistently see her anymore ... it would’ve REALLY hurt. And while you say ‘fear of letting someone down’ is not a good basis for being in a relationship, I am terrified of letting her down.”

“Then I propose a two-step plan,” Alice announced with a broad smile.

“What’s that?”

“Step One: lead with that,” Alice advised. “Assure her you love her. Assure her you’re committed to doing whatever it takes. But be honest that you said ‘yes’ to her boyfriend request because you were afraid of saying ‘no’ to her shocking and unexpected change of heart. Tell her you’re willing to continue being her boyfriend if that’s what makes sense for both of you, but let her know it’s not so cut and dry at the moment and you need to work it out together.”

I shrugged and nodded. “And Step Two?”

Alice sat up and grinned. Reaching down to the hem of her t-shirt with a cross-armed grip, she ripped it over her head and reached back to start working at her bra. “Step Two: the three of us fuck your brains out. We missed out yesterday.”

I grimaced. “But what if Sam comes home and finds us all like that?”

Belle’s eyes glittered. “Did you not learn anything this morning? She’d just join in.” Her fingers started unbuttoning her blouse.

Mari grinned and reached for the hem of her sweater. “I LOVE this club.”

“Wait-wait-wait,” I stammered, holding up both hands as a topless Alice got off her lounge chair. “Girls, seriously. I am NOT in the right headspace for an orgy. Sam’s out there somewhere doing whatever it is she’s doing while I’m here going into vapor-lock thinking about my feelings for her.”

“All the more reason for us to distract you,” Alice remarked with a shrug as she sank down to her knees in front of me and reached for the zipper of my shorts. “Worrying won’t do you any good.”

“Alice, I’m NOT in the mood,” I complained.

My best friend slid her hand through the flap of my boxers and started scratching my limp prick. “You’ve NEVER refused me before. Not in our entire lives. Are you really gonna start now?”

I narrowed my eyes and muttered, “I told you ‘don’t even’ like five minutes ago.”

“That was different. You didn’t want me to start making out with you and therefore prevent you from carrying out this conversation.” Alice smirked. “And you’re not taking my hand out of your shorts.”

I sighed. “I’m not gonna refuse you, but I’m really not in the mood.”

Alice glanced back at the others. “Hey B, strip down Mari, suck on her hooters a bit, and then turn her over to start giving that bubble butt a rimjob. I’ll blow Mr. Grumpy-Pants here a bit while moaning shit about slamming his big dick into Mari’s bodacious butthole.”

Mari blinked. “You’re being awfully free with MY asshole.”

Alice shrugged. “Fine. YOU come give him a blowjob while Belle gives ME a rimjob in preparation for slamming his big dick into MY bodacious butthole.”

“Hey, hey, let’s not get crazy here.” Mari laughed. “I’m always happy to let Matty up my ass. I just want him to fuck my pussy first.”

“Deal.” Alice smirked and turned back to me. “Now where were we?”

We were rock hard is where we were, my dick having sprouted through my boxers like a flower on steroids, and Alice was pumping both of her hands up and down my full length.

And yet, something still didn’t feel right.

I grabbed both sides of my head, clenched my eyes shut, and groaned. Alice stopped stroking, and the moment she did, I shook my head, took her hands off my dick, and kicked my left leg over her head as I dismounted Matty’s Chair. Yanking my shorts up, I turned and stalked back into the house, leaving three very confused girls out in my backyard.

“Matty? Hey! Uh, Sam’s not here,” Zofi exclaimed in surprise when she opened her front door.

I waved her off, saying, “I’m not looking for Sam. I know she’s got stuff to do and obligations to people in her clubs. I’m actually here to talk to you.”

Blinking, Zofi said, “Oh, sure. Come on in.” She took a step back to let me in through the door, and as soon as she closed it behind me, the exquisitely beautiful brunette gave me a warm smile and extended her arms outward in an obvious invitation.

I stepped into her hug and she squeezed me tight. A moment later, she tilted her head and her lips found mine. I hummed quite happily and pressed closer into Zofi’s embrace. And after what felt like five minutes of making out, we finally broke for air.

“Ahhh, I needed that.” Her big blue eyes sparkled at me from inches away. “I missed out on ‘Zofi Wednesday’.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you,” I promised.

Zofi’s eyebrows waggled mischievously. “Is that what you’re here for now?”

I blinked. “Uh, well, no, not exactly.”

“Aww...” She pouted cutely.

I blinked again. “I mean, if you need me to take the edge off I’d be happy to pull your panties down and take care of you.”

Zofi rolled her eyes and chuckled. “I only want you if you want to have me too. It’s the way it goes.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that I don’t want--”

“Relax,” she interrupted. “I get that you’re a little distracted today. It’s not every day that Sam decides she finally wants her first boyfriend out of the blue. Plus, it’s ‘Belle and Mari Thursday’ and yet you’re here. So something’s obviously gone wrong.”

Tilting her head, the lissome brunette led me down the hallway into her family room while I watched her tight hips sway from side to side. She definitely had the model’s walk down cold. Even fully clothed, she was alluring enough to make me reconsider my current lack of interest in getting laid.

Zofi sat on the loveseat, just barely to one side of the centerline, and patted the cushion next to her. I sat down, she set her hand on my leg, and she gave me her complete and undivided attention.

I found myself just staring at her for a minute. She was truly a work of art, and I knew I was going to really miss her. I couldn’t help but trace her cheek with just my right index fingertip, unwilling to touch her any more firmly than that for fear of marring her perfect complexion. “My apologies, mój skarbie.”

Even a frown couldn’t mar Zofi’s beauty. “Apologies for what?”

“I feel like I’ve been neglecting you lately. First I was so focused on discovering Alice’s sexuality, then this whole jealousy thing with Belle, Neevie’s Sex Boycott and then reconciling, the Girlfriend of the Week stuff, Holly joining for a few weeks, and now this thing with Sam ... I’m afraid you must feel like I took your virginity just to mark you off my checklist and then moved on.”

“Silly Matty. We had sex only three days ago with Neevie. And that was FUN, by the way.”

I shook my head. “I don’t mean sex. I mean ... headspace. Quality focus. Emotional ... attentiveness. I feel like I took for granted that you’d always be there.”

“Fine by me. Relax. If I wanted your attention I would’ve gotten it.” She gave me a reassuring look. “As you pointed out, you’ve had enough drama circling around you lately without me adding more. Besides, I told you I was gay immediately after losing said virginity, so not getting a significant share of your emotional headspace sorta makes sense given all the other romantic turmoil that’s been going on. Really, I’ve been just fine.”

I sighed. “I’m glad.”

“Now, what actually brings you out here on a ‘Belle and Mari Thursday’? Did you get into some argument with them about this new relationship with Sam?”

“Ah, no, not exactly. They’re all pretty supportive of Sam and me dating, IF that’s what we both want.”

Zofi’s eyes narrowed. “Is that NOT what you want? Because you kinda made it seem like you were all aboard with a dating relationship today at school.”

“I know, I know.”

Zofi wrinkled her nose. “I smell a ‘but’ coming.”

“That’s my line.”

“It’s still accurate.”

“Yes it is.” I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, finishing, “But ... I’m not a hundred percent sure it’s what I want.”

“So I gathered. The question is: Why aren’t you a hundred percent sure?”

I pursed my lips. “I don’t know exactly; I’m still working that out. But that’s not actually why I came here.”

“Why did you?”

I gave Zofi a serious look. “Sam spent last night here with you. And as much as I want to fantasize about your nubile bodies writhing together to explore the highest levels of ecstasy all night, I’m pretty sure you spent most of the night talking about her and me.”

Zofi’s eyes narrowed again. “She’s my best friend. I’m not going to reveal her secrets or anything.”

“As of this moment, she’s my girlfriend,” I reminded her. “And I need to know what’s going on in her head if I’m going to successfully keep her happy. Can you please help me with that part? Help me keep Sam happy?”

Zofi pursed her lips and looked over at the TV for a moment, even though it wasn’t turned on. She stared off into space for just a minute before turning back to me. “What do you want to know?”

“Help me work out the timeline here. Yesterday morning I told her I loved her, insisted that I didn’t want to change the nature of our relationship, but that I had to admit what was in my heart because it was tearing me up inside. She ditched school, and you and I talked about letting me know if she showed up here, but you never called. I finally got a hold of you later at night, and thank you for letting me know she was safe and sound. But you also told me Sam didn’t want to talk to me. You had to have been able to imagine what was going through my head at that point.”

Zofi gave me an apologetic look. “She wasn’t ready to talk to you yet. She was still weighing the options and trying to decide what was best not only for her, but also for you and your feelings for her.”

“It still felt like a rejection to me. I tell a girl I love her, she runs away, doesn’t show up to school, and when I finally track her down, her best friend says, ‘She doesn’t want to talk to you.’” I popped my eyebrows. “I was a MESS last night.”

“But it all worked out in the end, right? She told you she loved you. She asked you to be her boyfriend. You two were soooo adorable together all day--”

“And then she left to do her own thing like she usually does most afternoons and I went home more confused than ever.”

Zofi frowned. “Is that it? You feeling abandoned because your brand-new girlfriend is spending the afternoon taking care of business instead of falling into your bed to fuck like bunnies? One would’ve thought that nooner in the minivan would’ve taken the edge off enough.”

I shook my head. “Please don’t think so crassly of me. The reality is that I get laid plenty often enough with all six of you to ever worry about where my next orgasm is coming from. No, I have absolutely no problem with Sam spending the afternoon away from me. Actually, come to think of it, I rather like that she has a life full of other things that don’t involve me. It means she’s far less likely to ever become a clingy, needy girlfriend. I love the idea of her being low-maintenance in that sense.”

“Lucky you. Five other hot babes willing to bend over for you at the snap of your fingers whenever your actual girlfriend is busy.”

I blinked, smirked, and snapped my fingers.

It took Zofi a second, but she grinned, stood up from the loveseat, and promptly bent over at the waist. Her ballerina flexibility made it look so gracefully effortless as her legs were ramrod straight although her feet had been split shoulder-width apart, allowing her to smile back at me between her calves.

I mused aloud, “You know, I don’t think we’ve ever actually had sex in this position before.”

Still upside-down, Zofi thought about that. “Most of the time I enjoy the intimacy of cuddling with you while we make love. That said, if you ever want to just bend me into various pretzel shapes and have your way with me, I wouldn’t mind letting you do that on occasion.”

“I definitely want,” I stated a little too eagerly. “But we’re getting sidetracked.”

I snapped my fingers again, and as if I’d hit an “off” switch, the flexibly slender brunette stood back up and returned to sit beside me. She giggled and put her hand on my thigh, gently stroking it.

“What I don’t understand,” I prefaced, “is how Sam got from ‘I don’t want to talk to him’ last night to ‘I want him to be my boyfriend’ this morning.”

Zofi shrugged. “Simple. She already wanted you to be her boyfriend from the minute she showed up at my house. Floating on Cloud 9, idly dreaming up children’s names, crazy stuff like that. Now she waffled on that off and on all evening, and didn’t want to talk to you last night because she was afraid that as soon as she heard your voice her love for you would burst forth and she’d rush back home to promise you every ounce of her being even thought she was terrified of surrendering that kind of ... power ... to you, for lack of a better term.”

I nodded. “It seems an apt term. Mother kept using it last night as well.”

Zofi shrugged again. “I’m sorry that you had such a rough night last night, but I think you can understand why she didn’t want to make promises to you she wasn’t yet ready to keep.”

“But she’s ready to keep them now?”

Zofi smiled. “She said she wanted to sleep on her decision, so we quietly got each other off, fell asleep in each other’s arms, and she woke up pretty early this morning feeling positively effervescent. She hurried over to your house, found you with Belle, and the rest is history.”

I nodded slowly, still processing all that. “Can you tell me what her concerns were? Why she wasn’t yet ready to keep those kinds of promises?”

Zofi shrugged. “The usual: focused on her career, focused on school, worried you might become clingy or needy or demand certain ‘boyfriend rights’ that would force her to choose between you and her goals. Stuff we all knew about for a long time that made her so certain she’d never date you for real until after college.”

“But she’s ready to risk all that now?”

“Obviously.”

I shook my head slowly. “Why?”

“Because she’s terrified of losing you.”

I frowned. “What?”

“What was that phrase she used?” Zofi screwed up her face and looked up to the right, as if scanning through her memory banks. “Oh, it was about Belle. Sam said something along the lines of, ‘He told me he’s in love with me. If I reject him now, it’s gonna undermine his faith in me to the point that if we go to Berkeley as ‘just friends’, he’s gonna end up meeting some greedy bitch who’s gonna take him away from me just like Belle’s afraid of.”

My frown deepened. “Wait, so Sam doesn’t actually want to date me, and in fact would be happier with the status quo. But she’s afraid that if she doesn’t lock me down as her official boyfriend then that leaves open the door for someone else to come and take me away?”

Zofi eyes got big, a bit of a deer-in-the-headlights expression on her face. “Uh ... well...”

“So it’s not that she’s super in love with me and can’t stand the idea of not letting our love bloom,” I reasoned. “But rather, this is a calculated chess move to take me off the market.”

Zofi blanched, now wincing as if realizing she’d unwittingly betrayed her bestie’s secrets. “Uh, well ... I don’t really think you’re seeing it the same way that Sam--”

“No, no, don’t get me wrong,” I cut her off. “I’m not upset at Sam for this. I mean, this course of action actually makes more logical sense than my declaration of love suddenly washing away everything Sam had been saying for months now about how important her goals were to her and that she wouldn’t be ready to date me until after college.”

Zofi’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not upset?”

“I don’t think Sam and I are ready to be a couple. If we continue on this track, I WILL want to be a primary priority in her life and have certain expectations of her time commitment to me. I wouldn’t even do it intentionally, but I’d want that from a committed girlfriend, and I seriously don’t want to do that to her right now.”

“But you love her. And she loves you.”

“I know, I know. But I think things would be better if she and I had the space to continue growing closer without the expectations of a committed relationship. As you would say, ‘We’re not there yet, darling.’”

Zofi blushed momentarily, but she raised her eyebrows and pointed out, “You’ve already agreed to become her boyfriend.”

“I’m not going to reject her if she wants to stay this course. But I want us to be on the same page, that’s all. If she’s looking for Prince Charming to come sweep her off her feet and carry her away to a castle in the sky where she can be pampered for the rest of her life - unlikely as that may be - I need to know. If she wants me to suddenly become her committed monogamous partner in life – hopefully not – I need to know that too. If she actually wants to keep the status quo, albeit with a ceremonial boyfriend title to keep the greedy bitches away, I think THAT’S more what I’m leaning towards if she’s like-minded.”

“She is. That last option,” Zofi confirmed.

I sighed with obvious relief.

“Or at least, that’s what her head wants,” Zofi hedged.

I frowned and my eyes narrowed. “You’re implying that her heart wants something different. Something more.”

“Isn’t in obvious?”

I sighed. “How MUCH more does she want?”

Zofi mimed zipping her lip. “For that, you’ll need to talk to Sam.”

I went back home to find that Sam had not returned but that Alice, Belle, and Mari had all vacated the premises on their own. I found three panties atop my bed along with a note, reading: You should have been here. It was SPECTACULAR.