I want to be upfront with Everyone: I have switched from an editor program to an AI program. I will be creating through collaboration between human creativity and AI assistance. Every single idea, concepts, characters, and narrative decision in any story is my creation. AI tools assisted with editing and text refinement. The AI does not write my stories.

Deniece walked through the Portal Booth into Queen Nontslah’s bedroom. It’s been about a week since Nontslah took on the seven men in her suite on the SSG1.

She saw Nontslah sitting at her makeup table, applying a little makeup. She asked, “Are you feeling better, now that you have had a little time to recover.”

Nontslah turned to her smiling and said, “Yes, the best part, my daughters are wondering what happened to change my mood.”

The Portal Booth pinged again, and Jaann stepped into Nontslah’s bedroom. Both Deniece and Nontslah stared at her.

Jaann looked directly at the Queen, her expression determined despite the nervousness in her eyes.

“I need to know if something is true,” Jaann said without preamble.

Nontslah gestured to the chair by the window. “Sit. Tell me what you’ve heard.”

Jaann sat, her hands folded tightly in her lap. Deniece remained standing, curious.

“My husband,” Jaann began carefully. “Mayor Gusha. He’s been attending Tim’s poker games.”

Nontslah’s expression didn’t change. “He has.”

“And at those games...” Jaann’s voice was steady but quiet. “He’s been with women. Fucking them. Eating them out.”

Deniece raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

Nontslah nodded slowly. “That’s true. Tim’s poker games are ... open. Consensual. Adults exploring what they want.”

Jaann leaned forward. “For twenty-five years, I’ve been his wife. Twenty-five years. And in our bedroom?” She laughed bitterly. “Nothing. Barely anything. Routine. Quick. Like a duty he’s fulfilling.”

She looked between the two women.

“But he has this whole other side. This sexual side he’s been hiding from me. Giving to other women.”

Nontslah’s tail moved thoughtfully. “What do you want, Jaann?”

“What I want?” Jaann’s voice cracked. “I know I can’t have it. That’s what makes me so angry.”

She stood abruptly, pacing to the window, her back to them.

“It’s the one-sided rule that’s killing me,” she said, her hands gripping the windowsill. “The male gets to do this. Goes to poker games. Fucks other women. Explores. Enjoys himself. And the female?” She turned, tears threatening at the corners of her eyes. “The female gets nothing. Sits at home. Waits. Pretends she doesn’t know.”

Deniece moved closer but didn’t touch her.

“Twenty-five years,” Jaann whispered. “I’ve been faithful. Dutiful. Perfect. And what do I have to show for it? A husband who saves his passion for strangers at card games while I get five minutes of obligatory sex twice a month.”

She wiped at her eyes angrily.

“I’m forty-seven years old. I’ve spent my entire adult life as Mayor Gusha’s wife. And I just realized—” her voice broke completely. “I’ve never had what he’s been having. Never felt what those women feel. Never been wanted like that. Desired like that.”

She looked at Nontslah with pure desperation.

“And I never will.”

Deniece stepped forward. “Jaann,” she said carefully. “Do you know who’s been at those poker games? Who the women are?”

Jaann looked at her, confused by the question.

“Does it matter?” she asked bitterly. “Whoever they are, they’re getting what I’m not.”

“It matters,” Deniece said. “Because the women at Tim’s poker games—” she gestured to Nontslah, then to herself. “They’re us. The naked beach group. The six of us who have access to the Portal Booth.”

Jaann’s eyes widened.

“We’re not strangers your husband is sneaking around with,” Deniece continued. “We’re a group. We all know each other. We all participate together. With consent. With communication.”

Nontslah stood and walked over to Jaann.

“Your husband isn’t cheating, Jaann,” she said gently. “He’s part of something we all chose. Something open.”

Jaann looked between them, processing.

“Then why,” she whispered, “didn’t he ever invite me?”

Deniece’s expression softened completely. She moved closer to Jaann, her voice gentle.

“I never asked him that,” she admitted honestly. “About you. About whether you knew. Whether you wanted to be part of it.” She shook her head. “That’s on us. On all of us. We should have asked.”

Jaann looked down at her hands.

“But Jaann,” Deniece continued, reaching out to touch her arm lightly. “You are welcome to join. Anytime. You always were. We just ... we didn’t think. We assumed your husband had talked to you. That you’d made a choice together, one way or another.”

Nontslah moved to Jaann’s other side.

“We didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” Nontslah said quietly. “Or make you feel excluded. Or less than. That was never the intention.”

“We’re not a secret club trying to keep wives out,” Deniece added. “We’re just ... women who wanted more. Who asked for it. Who found a space where we could explore without judgment.”

Jaann’s tears spilled over then—not angry tears anymore, but something else. Relief, maybe. Or grief for all the years she’d spent thinking she was alone in wanting something different.

“I don’t even know what I want,” she whispered.

Jaann’s sadness shifted suddenly to something sharper. She looked up at them both.

“Is it true he sat there and watched?” she asked. “Watched the other women being fucked? And enjoyed it?”

Deniece nodded slowly. “Yes. That’s part of what happens at the games. Some people participate. Some watch. Some do both.”

“The bastard,” Jaann said, her voice tight. “He watched. He enjoyed it. Other women.”

She stood, pacing again, her hands shaking.

“I wonder,” she said, almost to herself, “how he would feel watching someone fucking me.”

The words hung in the air.

Nontslah and Deniece exchanged a glance.

Jaann stopped pacing, realizing what she’d just said out loud. Her face flushed.

“I don’t know if I...” she started, then stopped. “I mean, I’ve thought about it. Fantasized about it, even. But actually doing it?” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t know if I could. If I’m brave enough. Or if I even really want that, or if I just want to hurt him the way he’s hurt me.”

She looked at them helplessly.

“I don’t know what I want,” she repeated. “I just know I can’t keep living like this.”

Deniece held up her hand, her voice firm.

“Jaann, please,” she said. “Don’t do something foolish. I can see it in your eyes—you’re thinking about revenge. About hurting him back. That’s not what you want.”

Jaann started to protest but Deniece continued.

“Listen to me. You can come to the next poker game without him knowing. Show up. Surprise him.” She paused, letting that sink in. “Offer yourself as his chips.”

Jaann’s eyes widened.

“Think about it,” Deniece said, her tone softening slightly but still protective. “You walk in. He sees you there. You tell him you’re playing. That you’re putting yourself on the table just like he’s been doing with other women all this time.”

Nontslah nodded slowly. “It gives you power, not revenge.”

“But don’t go into this angry,” Deniece warned. “Don’t do it to punish him. Because once you’re there, once you’re in that room with those people—” She looked Jaann directly in the eyes. “—you need to know what you actually want. For yourself. Not because of him.”

Jaann stood very still, processing.

“When is the next game?” she asked quietly.

“The last game was two nights ago,” Deniece said carefully. “But your husband wasn’t there.”

Jaann’s face fell, then hardened again. “Two nights ago? The next one won’t be for weeks, then.” She shook her head sharply. “That’s too long. I need to do something before I leave him.”

“Leave him?” Nontslah said, alarmed.

“Jaann,” Deniece moved closer, her voice urgent now, worried. “You really need to think about this. Really think. You’re talking about ending a twenty-five-year marriage. You’re hurt. You’re angry. I understand that. But—”

“But what?” Jaann’s voice rose. “But I should just accept it? Go home and pretend I don’t know? Smile at dinner parties while he goes off and fucks other women?”

“No,” Deniece said firmly. “But you shouldn’t blow up your entire life in one night either.” She gripped Jaann’s shoulders gently. “Talk to him. Tell him what you know. Tell him what you want. Give him a chance to—”

“A chance to what?” Jaann interrupted, tears streaming now. “To lie? To tell me I’m overreacting. To make me feel crazy for wanting what he’s been having all along?”

She pulled away from Deniece’s hands.

“I can’t go home like this.”

Jaann turned and walked toward the Portal Booth, her movements jerky with barely controlled emotion.

“Jaann, wait—” Deniece started.

“I’ll fix him,” Jaann said, her voice cracking with anguish. “I’ll go pick up some guy. Some stranger. Bring him home.” She punched in coordinates on the booth’s panel, her hands shaking. “And I’ll have him fuck me right there. Right in front of my husband. In our bed. Let him see what it feels like.”

“Jaann, no—” Nontslah moved toward her.

“Let him watch someone else touching me,” Jaann continued, tears streaming down her face. “Let him see me enjoying it. Really enjoying it. Not just lying there like I do for him.” Her voice was breaking apart completely now. “Let him feel what I’ve been feeling. The betrayal. The—”

She stopped, her hand on the portal activation.

“I just want him to hurt,” she whispered. “The way I’m hurting. I want him to know what this feels like.”

Deniece reached the booth just as Jaann’s finger hovered over the button.

“Please,” Deniece said softly. “Don’t do this. Not like this.”

Jaann’s whole body was shaking.

“Jaann, listen to me,” Deniece said urgently. “If you do something like that—pick up a stranger, bring him home—it could backfire completely.”

Jaann’s finger trembled over the activation button but didn’t press it.

“The male you pick up,” Deniece continued, her voice firm but gentle. “You don’t know him. He could use it against you later. Blackmail. Leverage. Or—” she paused. “—your husband could use it against you. Turn it around. Make you the villain. The unfaithful wife who brought a stranger into their home.”

Jaann’s hand dropped slightly.

“You’d lose everything,” Deniece said. “Your reputation. Your standing. And he’d walk away looking like the victim while you’re the one who gets destroyed.”

“I don’t care,” Jaann whispered, but her voice wavered. “I just want—”

“You want him to feel what you feel,” Deniece finished. “I know. But this isn’t the way.”

Jaann’s shoulders shook with silent sobs, her hand still hovering near the portal controls.

“Then what is?” she asked brokenly. “What am I supposed to do? Just go home and pretend? For another twenty-five years?”

Nontslah stepped closer.

“No,” she said quietly. “You don’t pretend. But you don’t destroy yourself either.”

Nontslah moved beside Deniece, her voice careful.

“Jaann,” she said. “Do you really want something like that to happen? A stranger? Revenge sex?”

Jaann’s hand fell away from the portal controls completely. She turned to face them, her face wet with tears, her whole body tight with anxiety.

“What I want,” she said, her voice shaking, “is for my husband to know I am a woman. A woman with wants and needs. Not just the mayor’s wife. Not just the woman who hosts his dinners and smiles at his constituents.”

Her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

“I want him to see me,” she continued, the words tumbling out desperately. “Really see me. The way he sees those other women at the poker games. I want him to want me like that. To desire me. To—”

She broke off, wrapping her arms around herself.

“I don’t even know if that’s possible anymore,” she whispered. “After twenty-five years of being invisible in my own marriage. How do I make him see me now?”

Her breathing was rapid, panicked.

“I’m so afraid,” she admitted. “Afraid nothing will change. Afraid everything will end. Afraid I’ll spend the rest of my life like this.”

“I can’t wait for the next poker game,” Jaann said, her frustration bleeding through every word. “I can’t sit at home for weeks pretending everything is fine while he—”

She turned to Nontslah abruptly.

“Do you know of a guy who would like to fuck me?”

The question hung in the air, stark and desperate.

Nontslah’s tail went still. “Jaann—”

“I’m serious,” Jaann interrupted, her voice tight. “You know people. You’re the Queen. You have access to men who understand this kind of thing. Men who participate in these games.” Her hands gestured frantically. “Someone who would do this the right way. Someone safe. Someone who wouldn’t use it against me later.”

She looked between them both.

“I need this,” she said, her frustration cracking into something rawer. “I need to do something. Anything. I can’t just go home and wait and hope my husband suddenly decides I matter after twenty-five years of not mattering.”

Deniece opened her mouth to speak but Jaann kept going.

“I’m forty-seven years old. I’ve wasted half my life. I don’t want to waste the rest of it waiting for permission to want something.”

Nontslah waited a long moment, choosing her words carefully. Her expression was deeply troubled.

“Yes,” she said finally. “I know men who would be willing. But—” She held up a hand as Jaann started to speak. “I can’t ask someone to go around and rape a woman.”

“Rape?” Jaann looked shocked. “I’m asking for it. I want it. That’s not—”

“You’re asking for it right now, in this moment, while you’re hurt and angry and desperate,” Nontslah interrupted, her voice gentle but firm. “That’s not consent, Jaann. That’s you using sex as a weapon. Against your husband. Against yourself.”

Deniece nodded, equally worried. “If I called someone right now and said ‘come fuck this woman who’s trying to get revenge on her husband’—what kind of man would say yes to that?”

Jaann’s face crumpled.

“I don’t know what else to do,” she whispered.

Nontslah stepped closer, her tail wrapping gently around Jaann’s arm.

“You need to figure out what you actually want,” she said softly. “Not what will hurt him. Not what will prove a point. What you want. For yourself.”