Afterward, we lay on the blanket in a sweaty pile. Jessica on me, Morgan flipped around and re-intertwined arm between us, and legs around ours. A great big possessive pile of limbs.
"That is more like it." Morgan finally said.
"So much better. So, so much." Jessica agreed. I felt a warm tear. "So much." she said again.
Later, when we had air-dried, Jessica said, "Hey! Morgan! I thought I am supposed to be the Heart. When did you take over my job?"
"You were on medical leave, having gone temporarily insane." Morgan said, "I subbed in."
We dressed. The sex part of our healing moment over for now.
"You know, it seemed like a splendid idea at the time. Fucking hell was I wrong." Jessica said, starting to fold the blanket.
"I have never seen someone having sex look more miserable in my life. Someday, we do need to get a better male balance. Someday. It has to be the right guy. It has to be someone we ALL love. Or at least LIKE."
"You don't like Alexander?" Jessica asked.
"No. He is pretty enough I suppose, and I did not originally hate him. Not before last night. If I was going to fuck him, I would use someone else's... Oh. Wait. I did. With yours. After watching that? I am so glad it was not mine. I have had bad sex before, but never that bad. I kicked the guy's ass when it looked like it was headed that way a few times though. They kept trying to fuck after I said fuck off."
"Morgan Laura Olsen Sagan! I have never heard you talk like that!" Jessica said. Nice to hear her being silly.
I know the stories behind a few of those guys too.
"Yes, well. It is true. At least he didn't try to fuck you in the ass, although that might have been better, because then you would have done the right thing and kicked his butt." Morgan said. "I think I am going to use 'Guadalupe' as your middle name when I am chewing you out. As in 'Jessica Guadalupe Sagan, you are a fucking idiot.' Like that."
"I am that. Might as well use 'dumbass'. Be more fitting." The two of them are walking ahead, Jessica looked back. "You're being quiet. Now I get why that always bothers Helen."
Thumb over shoulder, I said, "I just got screwed into the ground by two Vampires. Last night I made love for literally the entire night in a hot truck. I can barely walk, more or less walk AND talk."
"Ah." Jessica said, then asked Morgan "Have you ever faked an orgasm?"
"Not with someone I liked. Only to make it all stop when it got started and I realized it was not working. Not disaster not working, like last night. Your sex last night, not mine. Mine was excellent. Just no chemistry kind of not working. I did not make that mistake often, but you cannot date as much as I did back then and not get a few like that." Morgan said. "Why? How could you fake one with a Vampire lover?"
"You can't, but gods I wished I could have just to make it stop." Jessica said.
"I would not give him the satisfaction." Morgan said.
"No. Good point. It didn't matter in this case." Jessica said grimly.
"Please tell me you left him hanging?" Morgan asked. She sounded as if she really enjoyed that idea. Morgan is being weird. But then: her wife just cheated on her.
"I wish, but no. Not exactly. He came all right. That was his goal. Not worried about me getting mine like you just were. Only concerned with his. The good news is it was not IN me, thank all the gods. It got it in my hair. Part of why I had to get a shower and why my hair looks like this. I washed it numerous times and by myself, which sucks, by the way. Although better alone than him helping. It took a long time and a lot of soap to see if I could wash the shame off. You can't but at least I got him all off. I mean ALL of him off. Every damn atom. I made sure. It turns out that to get the shame off your heart has to take you to the woods and love it off you."
Morgan stopped. Pulled Jessica to face her. She looked her face over and caressed her cheek. "NO! You didn't. You let him... Not on your... Oh gods. I am sorry. You royally, colossally, massively fucked up, but you did not deserve THAT." Morgan hugged her.
"Yes. Well. He liked it. Dominance bullshit. It made it stop. Horrible, but better on me than in me. It is not like it is ever happening again. It pissed him off a little, I think, when he realized ALL was on, none was in, and I scrubbed it off. Nothing to remember him by! I wish. Still have that stupid shit in my head that I refused to respond to."
"I heard some of that. If you had answered truthfully, it might have spurred him on."
"No shit!" Jessica said. "Why, No, Alexander. Thank you for asking. You are in fact not as good as my husband. Why no Alexander; I am not enjoying being used like this. Not any part of me thinks you are great. Etc."
Ready to pound me some Alexander now.
"Next time, just say "Ok, dude, I am done and out of here." Morgan advised.
"You faked an orgasm to make it stop." Jessica reminded her.
"I was young, stupid, and human. You are older, experienced, and in case you forgot, a badass." Morgan said.
She caressed Jessica's face tenderly. "Jessica?"
"Yes?" Jessica answered, afraid of what Morgan is about to say.
"When Vera left with Kevin, she had permission from the person who owns her heart to leave. I am sure they had a lovely time. You did not have permission. You had an affair. You cheated on me. You do not feel the way only because you let a pagan defile your body. MY body. You need to understand something. Your heart is mine. My heart is yours. You cannot do things like that on a whim because you hurt me. I am yours, but I am saying this very possessively and you need to hear it all the way to your core: You are mine. Mine, Jessica. Never, ever do that to me again. Promise me right now. Never again. You divorce me first if you need some rude boy so bad. I let that happen when I could have stopped it because you needed to learn this. DO you understand?"
Jessica's head dropped lower and lower as Morgan reiterated Jessica's ownership.
"I understand. What about him? That guy?" Jessica indicated me, head still bowed.
"He and I are a package deal." Morgan said. "Deal with it. You are jointly owned"
"OK." Jessica said.
"I am being serious Jessica. Mine."
"I understand." Jessica said.
"Jessica. Promise me." Morgan said. "'I understand' is not a promise."
"I promise you." Jessica said and wiped at her face.
We started walking again. Morgan and Jessica with an arm around each other.
"I thought the lists were kind of a joke. I always treated them lightly. I thought it was funny to laminate them, for example." Morgan commented. "Now I see that they have a serious underpinning. We are Poly. I have learned how to be that. We are not an open marriage. We are not swingers. 'Approved' has meaning. Even if it sometimes is hurtful meaning, as with Vera and Helen. Helen has not forgiven Vera, but it also makes sense. It would hurt Helen for Adrian to be with her now. Helen has to forgive Vera for her sins of the past before that can be OK. Vera hurt Adrian. Helen does not tolerate people hurting her family."
"You forgave me." Jessica said.
"Naturally. Going to be a long time before you forgive yourself."
We re-entered the village near the truck.
At the truck, I pulled Jessica to me and I looked her in the eyes. Morgan has been doing all the heavy lifting here. I need to say something too. "I was going to tell you not to do it, Jessica. I felt all kinds of wrong about it, but I felt like I had to let you make your own mistake. In retrospect, that was probably wrong. I am sorry. I should have gotten in your face about it. Next time I am saying something if it does not feel right. I am glad you are OK. I love you with all my heart. I always have. Look into my eyes. Here. What do you see?"
"Love..." Jessica said.
"Right. You immediately thought 'Love I don't deserve'. Right?"
"Yes." Jessica admitted
"If I had any energy left, I would take you back in the woods. How many times have I fucked up, and you or Morgan or Helen loved me back from it? How many times did I think while you were loving me that I did not deserve my life? My loves? Actually, I hope you have not been counting."
Morgan made it a triangle. "We are not done. Hell: We broke new ground, you and I. Adrian and I are going to love the living hell out of you until you realize all you did is make a gigantic mistake. You cheated on us, Jessica. You fucked up. You are only Vampire. We still love you. Here is the thing YOU need to fear. When you tell Helen, and it WILL be you, my darling, she is going to hit the roof. Possibly with your body. We will try to catch you as you fall back to earth."
"Yeah. She is going to be pissed." Jessica agreed. "The last time she and I did something this stupid, we took on a motorcycle gang."
"I assume you mean that in the 'gangbang' sense of 'took on'?" Morgan said.
"Of course. It was the 20's. We did a lot of weird shit back then. I never felt as bad about any of that as I do this." Jessica said.
We walked arm in arm up to the community hall, walking past Alexander's place. He came out.
"Good afternoon." He greeted, wearing a warm smile and aiming it at Jessica.
Jessica looked up at the sky, verified the position of the sun. "Yep. It is the Afternoon." Jessica returned, and we kept walking.
"See you this evening, at the song-fest." Alexander called to our backs to no acknoledgement
"He is going to ask you for a repeat." Morgan said when we were out of Vampire earshot.
"Oh, I know, my sweet, sweet love. Gods, you were sweet..." Jessica shook that off. "Sorry. Got distracted. Alexander, who is kind of proud of his conquests, if you did not get that, and of which I am now one of them, knows I didn't come or enjoy myself in any way. It's bugging him."
"He is afraid you'll tell people it was awful?" Morgan asked.
"Oh, hell yes. Maybe I might let out his secret and tell them they have been getting lazy, self-involved, substandard love for centuries." Jessica said. She glanced at Morgan. "Gods I fucked up. Have I mentioned that lately?"
"Been a minute." Morgan replied. "We have a lot of work to do on you..."
I looked back at Alexander's place. "Did you tell him you did not like it? I never heard you say anything. He seems to think you did from that cheery little greeting."
"Not directly. Not yet. He knows." Jessica said. "I did not come or even move or moan. Just mental moans of anguish for it to stop. I obviously, even to a prick like him, did not enjoy any of it, but that is part of how I talked him into the ending. That kind of dominance ending is his thing. At that point, I didn't care. I am sure my grimace was a clue though. After that, I went to take a shower. Alexander, the famous Ninovan Vampire lover, followed me and was being all smooth and suave and telling me we can go again, slow it down, use some lube since I was not sexually excited. I said nothing. The idea of it made me want to pound his pretty face in. Instead, I got my shower ready and made sure there was a lot of detergent. I needed about a gallon. When I was not responding to that line, Alexander pivoted to telling me he could help me shower if I wanted. Again I said nothing. I was done being touched by him. I pulled the curtain shut behind me as abruptly as I could as my answer to that offer. Sent a message, I am quite sure. He kind of gasped in shock. I pulled it closed hard. Luckily it did not come down. I was done with him looking at me. Done all the way around. One way or the other, at some level, he knows I thought he sucked ass in bed."
"I tell you stuff like that all the time." I said.
"I know. It's different when you love someone, and they want to recycle fast for another go. Speaking of that, Morgan: after our shower, we need to get him fueled up and rested because, after the singing thing, it's on again. Agreed?"
"We need to re-wash your hair. Condition it. Brush it out this time. Lather, Rinse, Repeat." Morgan said, "Stupid shampoo instructions, but great love ones. I am going to kiss you in the shower all over. You need a lot of love."
"I do..." Jessica got a haunted look. "Your lips of love work far better than detergent."
"Did I get the tongue part right? I know what I like..." Morgan asked.
"Gods yes, did you ever!" Jessica enthused.
"I'll work on it... I think I can do better." Morgan said as if Jessica did not just agree that what she did worked fine. What Morgan is really saying is that they have passed that Rubicon and are going to retain that new level of intimacy. That the sexual healing shall continue.