Chapter 17: Rock

-- SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2008 --

“Holy shit,” Emma exclaimed first.

“Holy SHIT!” Eden exclaimed second.

Dawn and Sasha, on the other hand, remained dead silent.

As did I.

My mouth was open. I only figured that out like ... a minute later. I think I must’ve been in shock for a while, because I had enough time to watch Adrienne’s expression go from loving adoration, to slightly nervous worry at my lack of immediate response, to genuine concern as she read whatever expression I happened to have on MY face, to a little bit of fear.

“I know this is really sudden,” she began almost hesitantly, “and I’m not saying you have to answer right away. That’s a really big and blunt question to drop on you out of the blue, but I wanted you to understand that I’m dead serious about this.” So often she was Adrienne Fucking Dennis: world-famous supermodel and Golden Goddess of the Universe, or something. She always carried herself with poise and charisma, dominating every room she was in through sheer force of personality (plus a generous helping of blonde bombshell beauty). But I felt like I could see her shrinking before my very eyes as my lack of immediate positive response started to nibble at her self-confidence.

Still, I remained silent.

“It’s just that ... I know you want this. I know you’ve wanted this for a long time. You asked me for a second chance. You held yourself back from contemplating any other relationships holding out a sliver of hope that I’d take you back. Well I made my decision.” Adrienne gestured over at Sasha and then back to herself, finishing, “We made our decision. We want you back. Together. The three of us, the way things used to be, only better. We made our mistakes. You’d convinced yourself I was never going to marry you, never be everything you wanted me to be. You didn’t do it on purpose; it just sort of happened. Me spending all my time with Sasha, falling more and more in love with her, didn’t help matters. I know that. I took you for granted. I assumed you’d wait for me forever. I assumed you’d always be there even if I didn’t put in the effort to maintain our relationship. That’s on me. We made our mistakes. We realized – too late – those mistakes. The damage was already done. You walked away, numb. In my grief I avoided you rather than fight for you. Maybe we could’ve fixed it then, but we didn’t, and I’m not going to dwell on the past any more than that. We lost something truly special, but I want to focus on how special we can be in the future.”

There was hope in Adrienne’s voice again, energy and light that grew and grew as she got on a roll and kept talking. I saw that golden glow in her hazel eyes as she smiled down at me, and by the time she said the words “in the future”, she was almost giddy with excitement. Her nipples were hard and her skin was flushed. And despite everything we’d already done and how completely and utterly exhausted I felt, she looked ready to pounce on my still-tied-up body and start another round.

“I’m not saying we’re going to run off and get married tomorrow morning or anything, but let’s be honest: When you and I get back together it’ll only be a matter of time. I’m ready to walk this road with you again. I’m ready now to become everything you ever wanted me to be,” Adrienne continued with a broad smile. “Wife... mother ... partner. I still have my fears, but I believe in us, and I believe in our family. They say sometimes it takes a village to raise a child. Fact is: we HAVE a village. I’m not alone. I’ll never be alone again. You have no idea how much joy that idea brings me. And even though I already told you I wanted this before, you truly have no IDEA how much it would mean to me to carry your last name.”

That last part broke the spell of my silence. I had been lying there in a stunned stupor ... and still had my hands and feet tied to the bed, by the way. But the mention of Adrienne taking my family’s name made me start yanking on the silk sashes around my wrists to the point where the fabric started to tear. Dawn on one side and Sasha on the other both gestured for me to stop as they began to undo the knots as I glared back at Adrienne and growled rather accusingly, “You said you wanted to marry Sasha. Like... yesterday.”

Adrienne sighed. “Sasha doesn’t want to get married.”

“Tell me something I don’t already know.”

“Like ... EVER. She doesn’t want to be chained down like that.”

I frowned. “That’s funny, given that she wanted me to consider marrying her as recently as yesterday as well.” I looked up at the girl in question, who had just set my hand free.

Sasha blushed and stared down at the mattress rather than meet my gaze. But she mumbled, “I was considering it as a possible solution to all our problems. If Adrienne was dead set against marrying you, I wanted to consider the option of marrying you myself. I told you from the beginning that I wanted us to go back to being a triple. Turns out, she’s not quite as dead set against the idea as I thought she was.”

My eyes narrowed at Adrienne. “So what, I’m your second pick? Sasha turned you down so you’re settling for the next best thing? Pass.” Dawn had gotten my other hand free, and now I sat up to reach for the knots around my feet.

“Please don’t make a snap-decision like that, Tiger. I know how it looks on the surface, but really it’s not that simple.”

“Then simplify it for me, huh?”

“I love you. I’ve always loved you. I’ve never STOPPED loving you.”

“But you just love her more. That hasn’t changed, has it?”

“Well...”

I shook my head, got my right leg free, and then started working on the left. “I told Sasha flat out yesterday that while I’m a very understanding and accepting man, I’ve got enough self-respect to know I deserve to be my wife’s Number One.”

“You ARE.”

“Do you love Sasha more or me more?”

“It’s not that simple. I love you BOTH. I need you BOTH. This isn’t a Number One versus Number Two. Weren’t you the one who always said the circumstances change but the love is the same? You’re 1 and 1A to me.”

I shook my head. “Last night she was your clear Number One, wasn’t she? You don’t go from that to ‘Will you marry me?’ in a single day.”

“We WILL get there. Once you’re my husband, you know I can make you feel like you’re my Number One. I love you, Tiger. Forever and Always.”

“Don’t ‘Forever and Always’ me right now, Adrienne. You know what? Don’t even call me ‘Tiger’ right now. I hear the word and the first phrase I think of is ‘Trust Me, Tiger’. And the fact of the matter is that no, I don’t trust you right now.”

“Please, Ti-- uhhh, Ben. Just calm down a minute and think about this for a second. I’m serious.”

“I know you’re serious.”

“I LOVE you.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it’s true!”

“I LOVE YOU TOO, ALRIGHT?!?” I barked, so abruptly and so loudly that Adrienne immediately recoiled in defensive surprise. Taking a deep breath so hard that my nostrils flared, I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth to help ensure I didn’t completely lose my temper. After I let out a long exhalation, I opened my eyes and stared straight into Adrienne’s. I then said much more calmly, “I love you too, alright? Forever and Always. But I’m really, really mad at you right now. The question you just asked me is ridiculously unfair, and you really should know better.”

Adrienne stared at me like I was an alien from another planet who simply didn’t understand her language. “I don’t see how it’s unfair. I meant every word. I love you. I want to marry you. I didn’t think I’d come back to this point, but I have. I want to have children with you, Ben. I want to raise a family with you. Yes, I want to keep Sasha with us – with US, not just with me - because I love her and I think you love her too. This isn’t settling for second-best. This is the result of Open Communication. This is me and Sasha going for a long walk around the motu, not to have fun or go parasailing or do a hundred other touristy things to do here. We went for a walk to talk about our relationship, to talk about our relationships with you, to come to an understanding of what we both want in our futures, and on that we’re agreed. There’s no future for her with me if you’re not in it as well. She’d be incomplete. I’d be incomplete. Neither of us can live without you, alright? We need YOU to make our relationship work, Tiger!” Adrienne winced and closed her eyes momentarily. “Sorry, habit. But the point remains. The three of us can make this work together. Only with all three of us do we each get what we truly want.”

I shook my head slowly. “No. You get what YOU want. Sasha gets what SHE wants. But neither of you took ME out for a long afternoon walk around the motu to have Open Communication and figure out what -I- want. I know it sometimes seems like I’m some classic hopeless romantic who wants nothing more than to settle down with a wife and 2.5 kids in a suburban house with a white picket fence, and that I want those things so badly I don’t care which woman is standing by my side as long as she lets me fertilize her unprotected womb. But it’s not that simple. You want to know what I REALLY want? I want to NOT be here right now, alright? I need to take a walk.”

I suited action to my words by swinging my legs off the edge of the bed and sliding down to the floor.

“Ben, please,” Sasha whimpered.

“I’m sorry, but not right now.”

“Tiger...” Adrienne took a deep breath. “Ben...”

“Let him go,” Dawn said softly. “You know his mind is closed off right now. Let him go for a walk and calm down. He still loves you. He still loves you both, and he’ll love you both forever.”

The sound of Dawn’s voice alone made me calm down quite a bit, and for a moment, I stopped my forward progress out of the room. With a sigh, I glanced back at Sasha, who was crying softly with her eyes closed rather than watch me walk away, and said gently, “I do love you, Sasha. I always will.”

She opened her eyes and gave me a hopeful smile.

I then turned to look at Adrienne.

I didn’t tell her that I loved her. I was too mad at her to want to say the words right now. Instead, I exhaled heavily and said merely, “I’ll see you in the morning.”

And then I walked out the door.

After leaving the master bedroom, I headed straight for the back patio. But halfway out, I realized I was naked and pivoted quickly to return to my room and grab a fresh pair of swim trunks, a tank top, and Teva sandals.

As I put on my clothing, I realized that miracle of miracles, my erection had gone away, chemical assistance or not. Guess it just took an impromptu and unwanted marriage proposal to make the damn thing go away. Shaking my head, I headed back outside, walked all the way down to our private beach, and then turned left to follow the shoreline northward.

I walked on the moonlit beach for twenty minutes grumbling about selfish girls who couldn’t make up their fucking minds about what they wanted and waffled back and forth every other day it seemed. I had no MPD conversations with myself. I wasn’t in the kind of contemplative “leaf on the wind” mental state that would make me ruminate on my numerous quasi-romantic relationships and make up metaphors to describe the various twists and turns over their courses of development both sexual and emotional.

I was just ... mad.

And I wasn’t exactly sure why.

I mean, I felt betrayed a little.

I felt misled.

And I felt ... used.

Despite her protestations to the contrary, I really did feel like Adrienne asked Sasha to marry her, got a negative answer, and so turned to me as the next best thing.

Like... What the fuck?!?

On the one hand, she was offering me what I really wanted. I mean yeah, I had complained about her not going on a long walk to talk to me about what I really wanted, but at the end of the day, being married to Adrienne and having Sasha as our girlfriend was ... well ... yeah, didn’t I want that?

Didn’t I?

Wasn’t she actually offering me the Happily Ever After I so desperately craved?

All I had to fucking do was say ‘yes’ and I could be fertilizing Adrienne’s welcoming womb, wallowing in a sea of Tri-Delts while Sasha cheered me on, and spend my days getting well-fucked and well-loved for the rest of my life.

So why the fuck did I say ‘no’?

Why the fuck was I out here feeling betrayed, misled, and used?

Why the fuck was I holding my head – no squeezing my head – unable to think straight or organize my thoughts or <AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!>

The next thing I knew I was soaking wet. No, a rogue wave hadn’t broken through the barrier reef to swamp me or anything like that. At some point I must’ve just charged out into the water until I was chest deep and then dunked myself.

Good thing I didn’t have my phone this time.

It felt like a splash of cold water, which ... well ... it kinda was. As I started walking out of the water, the trade wind breeze picked up and immediately started to chill my wet tank top. As my physical body temperature cooled off, so did my temper. And by the time I reached shore I didn’t feel quite so angry anymore.

Turning around, I sat down in the sand and folded my arms across my upraised knees. Sighing heavily, I let my head hang forward and closed my eyes, willing myself to let my mind go blank. I consciously slowed down my breathing, elongating both my inhalations and exhalations. I let the tension in my shoulders go slack. And I let my forehead lower down until it came to rest atop my forearms.

Breathe in...

Breathe out...

Breathe in...

Breathe out...

Breathe in...

Breathe out...

The breeze ruffled my hair. The waves here on the lagoon side of the motu were never rough, but there was still some movement. And the gentle lapping of the water filled my ears. And when I raised my head and set my chin down atop my forearms, I looked out across the picturesque view of paradise by moonlight.

I was so wrapped up in staring out across the lagoon that I didn’t realize Dawn had come to sit down beside me until she set her head down on my shoulder. At first, it felt like a dream. I thought I was imagining her arrival, and didn’t react in surprise or anything like that. I simply reached up to gently caress her head and then set my own head down against hers, sighing a pleasant little sigh to have her reassuring presence beside me.

It wasn’t until she spoke that I realized she was real.

“You alright?”

I sat up straight, only now surprised by her unexpected arrival. I blinked in shock, she gave me a knowing smirk, and I shook my head briefly just to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. Sure enough, it was my Dawn: live and in the flesh.

“I...” I began before letting my voice trail off as I wasn’t totally sure how to answer that question.

Dawn popped her eyebrows and turned to look forward. She had her elbows atop her upraised knees with her forearms draping down over the other side, her right thumb and forefinger circled around her left thumb. The moonlight made her already light-blonde hair appear almost white, and the trade winds blew a gentle breeze through her fine locks. “Soooo...” she began a little hesitantly, “that just happened.”

“Yeah...” I sighed.

“She coulda picked a better time to ask you that sort of question.”

I shook my head. “Knowing Adrienne, that was exactly her style. Guys take their girlfriends out on romantic dates, wait until there’s a setting sun and a picturesque view, and then kneel down to pop the question. It’s all about getting your girlfriend in the right mood to make sure she’s at her absolute happiest to make sure she says ‘yes’.”

“And that was Adrienne trying to get you to your absolute happiest so that you’d say ‘yes’?”

I shrugged. “She’s sex personified. Getting all six of us into an out-of-control orgy. Waiting until after I’ve blasted my load into or on all five of you. Everyone naked and sweaty and orgasmically satiated. In that very moment with my dick in her mouth straight out of your ass she was as happy as she’d ever been in her life, and me too, if I’m being honest. Right after blowing a buttload of sperm into your butt and then having Adrienne sucking me clean? That’s my Happily Ever After right there.”

“I’ll have to remember that.” Dawn giggled for a moment before she gave me a wan look. “But it still didn’t work. You didn’t say ‘yes’.”

I shook my head.

“You didn’t say ‘no’, either.”

I snorted. “C’mon. This is a proposal. If your intended doesn’t say ‘yes’ right away, isn’t it assumed to be a ‘no’?”

“Sure, technically. But if you walk back inside, kiss Adrienne, and tell her you’ll love her Forever and Always, she’ll be perfectly happy to take your verbal ‘yes’ then instead.”

I shook my head. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

I frowned. “Do you WANT me marrying Adrienne?”

“I want you HAPPY.”

“I AM happy.”

“As evidenced by you stalking off into the night by yourself and given the state of your clothes, perhaps attempting to drown yourself.”

“I didn’t attempt to drown myself,” I muttered. “I just needed to cool off.”

“Literally.”

I shrugged. “It worked. I cooled off.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“And now that you’ve cooled off, what do you think?”

“Think about what, Adrienne’s proposal?”

Dawn nodded.

“I can’t marry her.”

“Why not?”

“She’s in love with Sasha, for one.”

“Doesn’t mean she’s not in love with you too.”

“She loves Sasha MORE than me.”

“For today. Feelings change, and if you’re going to be a triple forever, who knows? As life goes on, we all go through peaks and valleys. Just as Adrienne’s feelings for Sasha grew during your engagement, her feelings for you will grow as well.”

“Until they start falling again and Sasha takes the lead once more.”

“Are you really jealous of Sasha?”

“Of course not.”

“Is that an ‘of course not’ or a ‘no’?”

I sighed and shook my head. Then, nodding slowly, I admitted, “No, I’m not jealous of Sasha. I’ve never been jealous of Sasha. I realize I’m coming off at the moment like it’s a competition between me and her for Adrienne’s affections, but it’s not. I wish Sasha nothing but the best for her happiness, and I wish Adrienne the best for hers. They belong together, and the fact of the matter is that they love each other more than me.”

“Aren’t you the one always insisting that love isn’t a graduated cylinder to be measured? That you don’t rank us? I mean, if you really try to put a number on it, don’t you love ME more than either of them?”

“What?”

Dawn arched her eyebrow. “Don’t you?”

“You’re my best friend.”

“And Sasha is Adrienne’s best friend. They’re inseparable at this point, same as you and me. I’m never leaving you. ‘Til death do us part.”

“You do realize that’s what people say to each other during their wedding vows.”

“They’re committing to their lifelong partners, same as I’m committing to you.”

“You said you didn’t want to marry me.”

“I don’t.”

“And yet you’re committing lifelong partnership with me?”

“Isn’t that what ‘til death do us part means?”

I frowned. “At some point you’re going to have to find another man to be your husband.”

“I already promised you: I’m never touching another man’s penis for the rest of my life. Period.” Dawn stared at me steadily, her eyes glowing in the dark bright blue as if she were one of those vampires from the Kate Beckinsale movie.

I stared back at her, my head starting to hurt again. There were just so many ramifications to what Dawn was telling me that I didn’t have the brain power to deal with right then. And after taking a deep breath, I turned to stare back out across the water.

Dawn and I sat together in silence for a while, just listening to the wind and the waves. She seemed perfectly comfortable to wait me out. And I spent that time pondering her question about love.

The answer, in the end, was pretty clear. So I stated out loud, “Yes, I love you more than I love her.”

Dawn smirked. “See? Was that so hard?”

I sighed. “It’s just one more reason I should say ‘no’ to Adrienne. Shouldn’t I love my wife more than I love you?”

“Not necessarily.” Dawn shrugged and went back to looking forward. “Brooke loves DJ more than she’ll ever love Andrew ... or Kenta. DJ feels the same way about Brooke. Brandi loves Dayna more than she’ll ever love Jared, and Dayna likewise will always love Brandi more than anyone else in the whole world. I’ll love you for the rest of my life more than any other human being on the planet. Period. You’re the air I breathe, and vice versa. Your passion for your wife – whoever she may be – may sometimes eclipse your passion for me. But at the end of the day, we’re still soulmates. Brooke and DJ, Brandi and Dayna: they’re soulmates too. The only difference is that our sisters are all female and you’re a guy.”

“Our sisters can all get married to another man and still love their ‘soulmate’ partner.”

“Yes they can.”

“But not you?”

“Brooke, DJ, Brandi, and Dayna can all marry guys and it won’t be a betrayal of their love for each other. But if I married another man, it would be a betrayal. You’re a guy. The rules are different.”

“Different enough for you to never marry your entire life?”

“I’ll be with you. That’s all I ever wanted. Don’t need a marriage certificate to prove it.”

I shrugged. “Maybe I should do the same. Never get married and just live forever with you.”

Dawn snorted. “No. Sorry. You’re not built like that. You NEED to get married. It just won’t be to me. Hence Adrienne’s proposal.”

I frowned. “Are you telling me to say ‘yes’ to Adrienne?”

“I’m telling you not to settle for having me by your side for the rest of your life. Yes, you’ll have me forever. But no, that’s not good enough for your Happily Ever After. It’s not. And after everything you’ve been through together, all the ups and downs and heartache and broken engagements and everything else ... we both know you would LOVE to be married to Adrienne.”

“Even though she loves Sasha more than me.”

“There’s room in her heart for both of you, just like there’s room in your heart for both of us. Adrienne’s ready. She’s finally ready to be the wife you always wanted, to raise the children you always wanted. And on top of that, don’t tell me you don’t like the idea of marrying a bisexual supermodel who will spend the rest of her life bringing other girls into your bed.”

I snorted. “Warning: May fall in love with another woman.”

“Bringing Sasha into your relationship is a bonus.”

I sighed. “On the surface, I can see how you and everyone else would think that. Don’t get me wrong, I love Sasha. She’s amazing. When Adrienne was off in New York, you were on your sabbatical at Morris Camp, Brooke was helping DJ put herself back together after the abortion, and Kim was playing princess in the tower ... Sasha became my ‘constant’ at a time of my greatest need. She talks about owing me so much, but I’ll always be grateful to HER for being there for me when I needed her most.”

Dawn grinned. “You could say that Sasha ‘danced’ her way into your heart. And you helped her explore her sexuality.”

I sighed and muttered ruefully, “And then she ‘stripped’ away my fiancée.”

Dawn smiled momentarily at the pun but then frowned. “You do know your broken engagement wasn’t Sasha’s fault, don’t you?”

“Wasn’t it? I’m just saying: One minute, Adrienne’s my fiancée. Then Sasha goes and spends all that time with Adrienne, Adrienne outright tells me she’s falling in love with Sasha, and the next thing I know I’m on the outside looking in while they’re the romantic couple. In a vacuum, that’s stealing my girlfriend.”

“I think you’re choosing to look at the past through a different lens trying to rationalize why you don’t want to say ‘yes’ to Adrienne’s proposal. Sasha’s not the villain here.”

“Isn’t she? Without Sasha in the picture, Adrienne doesn’t fall in love with her. Maybe Adrienne and I recognize we’re not on the same page and put in the effort to fix the relationship. Instead, Adrienne has a welcoming shoulder to cry on, a girlfriend to jet off to Hawaii with, and it’s so much easier for her to just run away.”

“Sasha was just there. She wasn’t actively working to undermine your relationship with Adrienne. She was just ... being a good girlfriend ... to both of you, I might add. If a tree falls down across the road and you have to detour to find another way around it, that doesn’t make the tree a villain.”

“I can still be upset at the tree for being an obstacle.”

“Sure, but not for being a villain. Sasha doesn’t have a mean-spirited bone in her body. She wanted to see you and Adrienne succeed as much as anybody. Even now, she wants to fix the triple and set things back to the way they were. And the fact that you’re still talking about her as an obstacle preventing you from being with Adrienne tells me that your end goal is still being with Adrienne. It’s just that you’re trying to figure out a way to get around Sasha the obstacle.”

“I’m not...” I started defensively before sighing and admitting, “Okay maybe I am.”

“You WANT to be with Adrienne, don’t you? Haven’t you been waiting all this time for her to give you a second chance? Isn’t that why you haven’t been willing to give Summer or any other girl even the remotest possibility of developing a romantic relationship with you?” Dawn leaned over and nudged my shoulder with hers. “Isn’t that why you’re willing to let Eden play secret girlfriend for now? Because she fills the void of companionship you want while knowing with absolute certainty you can cut her off without truly hurting her feelings the moment Adrienne takes you back? Any other ‘real’ girlfriend, you’d have to break up with.”

Pursing my lips, I stared out at Mount Otemanu and exhaled slowly through my nose. “I love Adrienne. I did cling to a sliver of hope that she’d take me back. I still feel the regret of fucking up our engagement in the first place, and yes it seems like right now she’s handing me a ‘do-over’ on a silver platter to make everything go back to the way it was. But it’s not that simple.”

“You can make it that simple.”

“No, I can’t. ‘The way it was’ meant that -I- was Adrienne’s Number One. That’s still Sasha right now. And you’re right: I love you more than I love her right now. Maybe for all my regret and all my wishing I could go back in time and give us a second chance, the reality is that I’m not THAT in love with her anymore. Maybe I wanted the idea of reconciliation more than I actually want HER. Because I’m gonna be honest: when we were engaged, I loved Adrienne more than I loved you. She was my Number One.”

“You and I were still finding each other once again.”

“Just one more reason atop a pile of other reasons that we can’t just hit the reset button and go back to the way things were. The situation isn’t the same anymore. The way Adrienne and I love each other isn’t the same anymore.”

Taking a deep breath, I stood up and dusted sand off myself, not easy when my clothes were still quite damp. Scowling in disgust not only at the clinging fabric and itchy sand, but also the fucked-up situation in which I currently found myself, I turned and took several steps away from Dawn before turning around to face her once more.

“How can I possibly consider marrying Adrienne knowing that the name she wants on her emergency medical forms is Sasha’s, not mine? Huh? That’s not a marriage. It’s a sham.”

Dawn’s shoulders slumped.

“Now MAYBE if Adrienne and Sasha went for their little walk, realized Sasha didn’t want to get married, and then spent the next ... six months ... reintegrating me into their relationship and only THEN did Adrienne ask me to marry her, we might be having a different conversation. After six months of convincing me she really DOES love me for me and really DOES want to bear my children and you know what? If she convinces me THEN that I’m her Number One? My answer would probably have been ‘yes’. But this? Out of the blue? Telling me she wants to marry me literally a DAY after telling me she still wanted to marry Sasha?” I shook my head. “I don’t believe her. I don’t believe she’s serious. I think she’s panicking and freaking out over Sasha’s lack of commitment and she’s grasping at the next best thing. Let’s face it: I’m Adrienne’s second choice. I’m her fallback. And nobody likes to be a fallback.”

I gave Dawn a serious look when I said that, and she turned her face away and sighed. We both remembered how she’d reacted after Adrienne broke up with me and I’d told her at least she and I would now be free to get together again. It had been a slap in the face then, and it felt like a slap in the face now.