Chapter 72

"Aren't you hungry?"

Marcus lifted the egg-filled plate from the table, carrying it to the bin.

"I wasn't," Hope said leaning against the counter. "You?"

"I took sandwiches to eat between lectures," he pointed out, lifting the empty sandwich box out of his bag.

"Guys," Shawna said as she dashed in, smiling broadly, "I've got to go. My lecture starts in like ten minutes."

"Did you want a lift?" Marcus asked, hanging his bag over the back of the chair.

"On the bike?" She shook her head, wrapping a hand round the back of his neck to draw him in and kiss him deeply. "I trust you, but that thing scares the shit out of me."

"I like it," Hope said smiling.

Shawna turned to face her, kissing her just as intensely.

"Well, you take him up on the offer, then. I'll see you guys at about three-thirty. The film starts at five."

Shawna ran off just as quickly as she'd arrived, and Marcus turned back to his bag, lifting the last of his books from it.

"Don't get settled," Hope said and leant forward, snatching a book away from him as he arranged the pile. "Go get your bike ready."

"Where are we going?"

"Nowhere," she said with a smile and shrug. "Just out. Take a ride out of the city, see some countryside."

"Oh, alright."

The smile she gave him was reward enough, and a few minutes later they were both astride the bike and making their way slowly down the hill towards the main road. Riding gave him time to think, and, with the comfortable pressure of Hope's small form against his back, he let his mind wander a little.

Despite the various assurances, and the undeniably pleasant sensations it caused, he couldn't help feeling that the arrangement was wrong, and by the time Hope tapped his stomach and pointed off to one side at a stopping place he had resolved to say something.

"Are you alright?" Hope asked, shaking her hair out as she slid down off the bike. "You started to tense up there."

"I'm not sure I can do this," he admitted, looking out over the reservoir rather than looking at her.

"You're not talking about taking a ride in the country, are you?" Hope stepped round in front of the bike, leaning on the handlebars as she stared at him. "Will you talk about it?"

"I can't give you any explanations that I've not already worked over myself. It just doesn't feel right. I said to your dad that we didn't have to conform to his ideas of one man, one woman, but I still can't get past the idea that the three of us is one too many people."

"I get a little of that myself."

"Shawna's got a low opinion of herself. You said that. I can imagine her in a relationship with two men, perhaps — though I couldn't do that. But in competition? With you? That's going to get to her."

"Shouldn't you say something to her about it? I don't see her and me as a competition, and I don't think she does, either. I mean, it's not like we're both vying for your attention in a vacuum. We have each other, too."

"You know her though. What'll go through her head first time I turn to you for something and she feels like you've replaced her?"

"We'll just have to watch out for her. That's what people in relationships do, Marcus. It's not likely to happen though, is it?"

"You don't think? What are we doing here?"

"We're talking, which Shawna values but isn't going to freak about. The only time Shawna would feel abandoned would be if you turned away from her in the bedroom, and that's not on the cards at all."

"You sound... What is that?"

"What?"

"I don't know. You don't sound like that normally. It's like... like someone's stolen something from you?"

"I'm... Alright, I'm a little bitter," she admitted, candidly. "You look at Shawna — I do it, too — and she's gorgeous. That figure, the hair, the eyes. No-one's going to turn away from that for me, are they?"

"They aren't?"

"You wouldn't."

"I... See this is another thing. Where the hell do I start?"

"I'll take note that that isn't a denial."

"It is. I don't know what to do with the pair of you."

"Have we become a burden already?" Hope laughed and Marcus found himself wondering if it weren't a little forced. "I don't know what you're getting at, Marcus."

"You're... How can you think, after everything this week, that I'd think of Shawna more than you? I don't make my decisions based on how you look. I make them based on how you make me feel, and I couldn't choose between you. If I had to make a decision based purely on appearance, I still don't think I could make that call.

"You're different, but you're both beautiful."

"I look like a boy, Marcus." Hope held her arms out, turning a slow circle. "You'll find more curves on a Roman road."

"You have curves, but they're subtle. You're dainty and petite, but you're definitely not a boy."

"Shawna smiles, and the world comes running, Marcus. I don't have that."

"You don't need that. If you smiled like Shawna smiled, the world would come running for you, too, I suppose. I'd... I'd come running."

"Then what's the problem?" Hope smiled, coming round the handlebars to lean against him, holding there even when he tensed.

"I don't know."

"Is it just that it's a change?"

"What?"

"Well, Shawna's told me about some of the problems you've had with changes in the past. God knows, Tommy's been a pain with changes, too.

"This is new, and different, and you have to come up with all sorts of new rules and protocols, but we're new to this as well."

"Are we? I mean, I am, and I believe you when you say you are..."

"Have you asked Shawna?"

"No," he admitted. "I wasn't sure I'd like the answer."

"It's new to her, too," Hope told him. "I talked to her, today actually."

"She's — "

"Anything she does with us is new because we're in a new relationship, but she's not tried a threesome before."

"Oh."

"She's seen a few, though."

"Seen them?"

"Yeah, she was showing me the research you've been doing this morning."

Marcus paled and trembled, and Hope reached down to take his hands gently in her own.

"It's OK, Marcus," she assured him quietly. "I understand. It showed me a thing or two as well, and it made me realise just how much more Shawna's seen and done than I have."

"You're — "

"I'm not angry, and I'm not disappointed."

"Really?" he whispered, a little colour returning to his face.

"With someone else I might have been, but this is you, so I know it's not about gratification — at least, not in the usual sense that porn is. You're trying to learn, trying to know what you can about the situation before you go into it, right?"

"Yeah."

"Shawna knew that. She made sure I knew that, and I do. It's fine... but you didn't get what you need, did you?"

"If we were going to do anything, I'd sort of have a few ideas of how to do it," he admitted, the colour returning in full as he blushed. "I don't think anything's going to happen though."

"It's just a change, Marcus. You've had too long to think about it, and you're afraid of it, but you'll come around."

"So where is he?" Shawna asked standing in the middle of the sitting area as Hope emerged from the bedroom.

"He's helping Yvonne lug her stuff back to her room after her field trip."

"But he doesn't like Yvonne."

"No, but I asked him if he'd do it last week, and he said he would."

"But you don't like Yvonne."

"I don't... I recognise that Yvonne has issues," Hope said towelling off her hair and shrugging. "Those issues have influenced how she's behaved, so I'm trying to help her past it. Anyway, you seem to be getting on with her."

"Well, she and I have more in common than she does with you — or Marcus."

"Perhaps," Hope smiled. "But Marcus and I both think a lot of you, so if you've got that much in common..."

Shawna's face tensed slightly, and Hope threw her towel over the back of the nearest chair as she stepped up close, wrapping her arms gently around Shawna's waist.

"Don't worry, she's not stealing us away. Alright?"

"Was it that obvious?"

"Probably not to most people. No more than, say, you noticing Marcus was getting edgy at lunch and suggesting I go talk to him."

"I said no such thing."

"But it's what you meant, right?"

"Well... maybe. What was it about?"

"He's... He's having second thoughts, basically."

"Damn. I knew we'd left it too long."

"Left what?"

"Moving on with things, cementing the relationship, whatever you want to call it. He's had time to think about, to reason his way through things and come up with all the reasons it won't work."

"He has a point."

"And now, of course, so have you." Shawna hunched down on the nearest seat, resting her head in her hands. "I should have seen this coming."

"It's just... I don't..."

"Let me guess." Shawna settled back, resting her head on the back of the seat and staring at the ceiling. "You've been thinking about what your dad said, and you've been thinking about the bible and the church and your vicar and the rest."

"That's some of it," Hope admitted, settling on the sofa, staring across the table at her. "Why did all those people mandate one man one woman lifestyles? All over the world, all those different cultures, it's always boy-girl pairings."

"Well, not really." Shawna sat forward a little, gnawing at her lip. "There were concubines, polygamy, all sorts of ways round it or through it."

"But what won out, in the end? Society doesn't accept polygamy any more, nor concubines or courtesans or any of the rest. Boy-girl became accepted. It's a sort of... social evolution in action."

"Well, look. If this is a social evolution thing then it serves you to be in the minority, right? Gives you a niche environment to flourish in, and all that. And if it's not, it's just a load of old farts trying to throw their weight around, probably because they didn't have the balls to do this when they had the chance."

"I suppose," Hope conceded without a great deal of enthusiasm, and Shawna followed as she started across the room towards their bedroom.

"Hope, honey, what's really bothering you?" Shawna asked. Hope stopped, but didn't turn back towards her. "This is... I think you feel this, but I don't think it's what's really bothering you."

"I'm worried," Hope finally admitted, turning around.

"You were prepared to come out publicly and tell everyone you liked girls. After that, I don't think it really matters what you tell them."