Joe watched his wife pace back and forth in front of their bed, shaking her hands out in nervousness. He'd never seen her like this before, and it unnerved him. "Are you sure you still want to go through with this?" he asked.
She stopped and glanced at him briefly before pacing again. "Yeah, I'm just a little nervous, that's all."
A little? "Maybe you're cold, too? It is January, and you're only wearing your kimono."
It was the little red kimono he loved, because she usually wore it right when she was about to take it off, revealing her in all her glory before she climbed on top of him. The only thing different about tonight was that she wasn't going to be taking it off for him, at least not at first.
She shrugged as she continued pacing. "What's the point of wearing more? It'll be coming off soon enough anyway."
He watched her pace a little longer before she turned to him again and asked, "How are you not nervous? I at least have Rachel teaming up with me tonight. I wonder how she's doing." Suddenly she made for their bedroom door.
"Leave them be, we'll be seeing them all soon." He patted the bed beside him. "Sit. Let me hold you a while."
She sighed in resignation and sat on the bed, sinking into him. "You didn't want to just wear your robe?" she asked. "Wouldn't it be more comfortable?"
"Ah, I don't know. I feel like, if she's going to arrive dressed, I should at least meet her dressed. I don't want to be too presumptuous."
"You're giving her an opportunity to back out at the last minute."
"We can all back out."
"You're not, though."
"Do you want me to?"
She didn't answer his question, but said, "I'm starting to understand the whole sociology of the crowd thing. You want to go along because everyone else is. You don't want to back out and disappoint anyone."
"This isn't about the crowd. This is about consent. Were you this nervous when you first..." He stopped himself before he went on.
She turned and looked at him. "First what?"
He cleared his throat. "You know... with Al."
"Oh." She shrugged sheepishly. "Not really, but by the time it happened, we'd already all seen each other naked; you remember our shows?" When he nodded, she went on. "I wasn't exactly going in cold. Not like with... I mean, I haven't even seen his hair down."
"I have to agree this isn't the conventional way of getting to know someone."
"Again, how aren't you nervous?"
He shrugged. "I might have imbibed a beer or two earlier."
She stared at him and said, "Please tell me you're not drunk."
"No, just a little to take the edge off."
"I can't do that. I've been off booze since that Jack and Jill party at Rachel's. I don't ever want to lose control again."
"If you mean self-control, then none of us have ever needed alcohol to lose it before."
She barked a laugh, then snuggled into him and said, "We're going to be okay after this, right? This isn't going to be like it was with Al, right?"
"It won't be, because I've guaranteed it won't. You can hang Tej over me just as well as I can hang Sunny over you." He sighed. "Look, over these past two months Al and I have come to an understanding. We may not exactly be friends, but then we've never been friends like you and Rachel have been friends. The point is, I no longer want to do him physical harm."
A lot had happened over two months, in fact, to change his attitude. The party they'd held to welcome Al home from the hospital had been like a gala for a changed paradigm. Everybody who attended seemed to have altered from their normal courses after the party ended. A lot of it had to do with the man for whom he'd held so much rancour in the previous few months, and the people hovering in his atmosphere.
The reappearance in Al's life of the woman who'd once been his entire world seemed to have shaken the foundations of everyone's relationships. It had to be partly the reason why Rachel had reached for Joe that day they moved their stuff into her and Al's new townhouse, because she felt threatened by that woman and wanted to preemptively get back at Al for anything he might do, even though Al, for his part, appeared to be behaving. Sure, most of it had to be because he was still recovering and had to get his strength back, but he certainly acted more devoted to Rachel than he ever had before, not that Joe had taken the time to notice Al's devotion in the past; he'd never had reason to, at least not before he first began to suspect him and Lauren.
Al's attention nowadays appeared to be focused more on reconnecting with his cousins, who were apparently his half-siblings. After he'd brought Rachel and Lauren to see Daphne two months ago, he and Daphne had kept in contact and were regularly updating each other on their lives. She'd arranged casual meetups with his other cousins Marie and Jason, with mixed results. Marie was pleased to meet him, while Jason appeared indifferent and annoyed; apparently he was in the middle of a divorce and had bigger things on his mind than reconnecting with long-lost relatives. Daphne and her wife Tatiana had even visited them on Boxing Day, after they'd all had a surprisingly joyful Christmas with a full house, and she'd gotten to meet Emma and Logan, her niece and nephew, though she didn't know it yet, and had been charmed by both of them. Joe had found himself liking her a lot; she and her wife were genuinely good people, and they'd seemed completely at ease with their unorthodox domicile, two families sharing the same house, and from the way they'd talked, they'd seemed to imply that they also knew about their unorthodox marital relations, and Joe wondered what the hell Al, Rachel and Lauren had told Daphne when they'd first met her.
There was still Richard Junior to meet, but he lived in the Okanagan. Daphne had snagged an invitation for Al and his family to attend the Ice Wine Harvest Gala he was hosting at his winery, happening next weekend, so they'd meet then.
Joe didn't think Rachel had anything to fear from Agnes. Al didn't see much of Agnes except at work, and maybe the occasional time she dropped by when she was on her own, when her ex-husband had the kids for the day and she felt lonely staying at the townhouse where Joe and Rachel had that wonderful encounter in the shower.
It made him uncomfortable remembering it now, while his wife was in his arms, because he couldn't tell if his arousal was for his wife or for the Rachel who'd devoured him that day, who'd made him throw his back out just as she'd climaxed. One thing he was sure it wasn't: pre-arousal for the woman who'd soon be in his bed, because he couldn't predict how that would go and didn't want to waste energy in nervous anticipation like Lauren did. Maybe for her it was different. Maybe the dynamic was different because she'd be on the receiving end, opening herself up, figuratively and literally, to another man. He didn't want to think too hard about what she might get up to with Sunny, not if he was going to stay friends with the man. Unlike with Al, he didn't want to lose Sunny; they had a lot of fun together going to Canucks games, even if the ones they'd attended in the last two months were awkward, for the very reason that both of them purposefully didn't talk about what they might be doing with the other's wife soon.
As for Agnes, her use of the townhouse necessitated Al, Rachel and the kids staying longer at their house than everyone predicted, and he was happy he'd decided to renovate the basement with Logan's help. The boy was even more happy to have his own room again, with a real bed Rachel bought for him as soon as the room was finished. He was also thrilled to work for Joe's company over the winter break, gaining more experience and a little bit of income he could put away for post-secondary. The boy was going to graduate high school in June, and he needed to start saving.
Agnes' divorce was proceeding with a surprising lack of acrimony, she'd confessed to them whenever she came by. She and Sunny had met with Patrick and his lawyer, and Patrick had never put two and two together and realized Agnes' lawyer was the husband of his real estate agent. As for real estate, the sale of Patrick's house in Kelowna had gone through, and he'd even agreed to a fair division of the revenue generated, so that Agnes might soon be able to afford to rent a place of her own soon, especially if she was successful in getting a full-time position for which she'd applied and interviewed; Al and Rachel didn't ask her for rent because she still mainly stayed with her parents. They weren't collecting rent from Al and Rachel either, even if, legally, they could; the suite was illegal, and any rental agreement would bring scrutiny from the government that Joe just didn't want, so it was best to just continue being generous, if only to allow them to pay their hospital bills without breaking the bank.
There had only been one snag in the sale of the house: the Kelowna RCMP had held it briefly while executing a search warrant, preventing the emptying of the house by movers and delaying the moving in of the new owners. It had caused Agnes a week of gut-wrenching anxiety, though she'd never tell them why they were there, only that it had to do with why she wanted to have a safe place from Patrick in the first place.
What Joe couldn't understand was why Joanie was dating him. Agnes had confessed this was part of the reason the divorce was going so smoothly, that Patrick wanted the freedom to progress with his new love. For Joe, though, it wasn't just jealousy. How could Joanie continue seeing this man if the police were interested in him? She had to have known the details by now, hadn't she? Unless Patrick was a skilled enough liar to make everything just hazy enough for Joanie to choose to believe he wasn't a threat. Of course, there was no way for him to ask Joanie about it, because she wasn't speaking to him.
Lauren, for her part, was surprisingly sympathetic to him. Joanie wasn't speaking to her either. She'd also lost a good friend, her sister in arms, and it saddened her, even though she had better friends to lean on for support.
Now Lauren said, "And Sunny? The two of you are much better friends than you and Al are. Do you think your friendship will survive this?"
"I hope so. What about you and Tej?"
"We're different. We were lovers once, so having each other's husbands is a little easier to swallow when we've had each other."
The doorbell rang.
Lauren took a deep breath and said, "It's go time."
She stood, and Joe got up and followed her out of their room and down the stairs. The kids were at Lauren's parents' for a visit, even Emma, who liked them a lot. Naomi, inspired by that visit to the Nikkei Centre a couple of months ago, was doing a project for her Socials Studies Class about World War II and the Internment of Japanese Canadians, and she was using her time there to interview her grandfather and get his story on paper. Logan was out with his friends, of course, and wouldn't be back until late at night, long after they'd be done here. They were guaranteed privacy for at least an hour.
Al and Rachel already stood at the top of the basement stairs, Al dressed and Rachel in her own fetching robe. Joe felt he should answer, since he was the only owner of the house who was decent.
Sunny and Tej were both dressed as if going out on the town, Sunny in his full suit with a pink turban, Tej in the clingy black dress he'd seen her wear before; it had inspired many impure thoughts in Joe's mind over the years, and now here she was, her doe eyes wide and her chest rising and falling rapidly. She was nervous, too, and he badly wanted to put her at ease, but to his surprise she said, "Big night, everyone."
Lauren and Rachel looked at each other, then at Sunny. "Yes," Rachel said.
"Would anyone like a drink before we get started?" Joe asked, then shook his head and said, "I mean, I know you two don't drink, but maybe--"
"I think I'm ready to get to it," Tej said with a dazzling smile. She turned to Sunny and said, "How about you?"
Sunny opened and closed his mouth, but seemed unable to form words. The poor guy was more nervous than his wife. He cleared his throat. "Sorry, yes, I mean, if you all are--"
Lauren stepped toward him, her own breath shaky, and took his hand. "Come on," she said gently. "Rachel and I won't bite. Much."
Rachel smiled and took his other hand. "We'll take the bathroom," she said to them. "We want to wash Sunny's hair."
Sunny patted his turban as they led him up the stairs. "I'd better untie this for you, it's a little tricky."
Joe was left with Tej and, to his dismay, Al. Al cleared his throat and announced for everyone to hear, "I'll be downstairs when anyone wants me."
He went back down the stairs alone, and for the first time Joe felt a little sorry for him. The man who, for so long, had been the one Joe envied as much as hated for being lucky enough to have both Rachel and Lauren together, now was left with nobody, at least at the start. They'd all agreed everyone would be able to be with at least one partner tonight, as long as the time allowed. The clock was running, though, and they all knew that too.
Joe turned back to Tej, who was so beautiful in her state of heightened awareness that he was a little afraid he might not last as long with her as either of them hoped. "Well," he said, suddenly feeling tight in the chest himself; those beers from before were wearing off.
Her face softened and she took his hand. "Come on," she said. "I guess it's your bedroom for us."
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To see how Sunny and Tej experience getting in on what their friends have been doing for some time, click on "Continue reading."