The Quiet Pools

A three-way kiss dissolved as the two women’s mouths sought his nipples, their hands working in partnership to free him from his jeans and briefs. Loi went to her knees and briefly took his arching erection into an embrace of soft lips and swirling tongue. Then she sat back on her heels and pulled both Jessie and him down to the floor with her, seeking a larger canvas for what she was creating.

Without ever seeming to give direction, Loi orchestrated the rising crescendo. Sitting cross-legged with her back to the couch, Loi cradled Jessie’s head in her lap while Christopher lay between Jessie’s thighs, happily tasting her sweet slickness. From above, Loi caressed Jessie’s full breasts, tugged and teased her nipples, stroked her hair and her cheeks, bent forward to cap a moan of pleasure with a kiss.

But when Jessie reached up for Loi’s body, Loi captured her hands and forced them down, pinning them to the carpet. A gasp escaped Jessie’s lips, and her eyes closed. His mouth melded to Jessie’s sensitive center, Christopher rode with her on the rising curve, answering her excitement with a feverish intensity.

Then, as Jessie writhed and mewled under their combined attentions, Loi called Christopher forward with her eyes. He rose up and crawled toward her, their mouths meeting in a fragrant kiss as his cock entered Jessie. She moaned, a deep guttural animal sound, her body drawing him in, hips rising to meet his thrusts.

Finally, Loi, too, surrendered to no-mind, rocking forward to her knees and lowering her sparsely furred patch over Jessie’s eager tongue. The trio soared together, reaching, the energy spinning through them, Jessie to Loi to Christopher to Jessie and around the other way as well. They flew faster and faster, pushing against the barrier, then suddenly broke through, one after another.

Jessie was first, her body seized by a fierce, twisting orgasm that triggered Christopher’s own furious release. Not long after, the double charge and Jessie’s flicking tongue lifted Loi to her own arching, blissful break. Christopher’s body tingled, jangled, in sympathy.

They fell apart like toppled rag dolls, drained, bodies limp. In their breathless haze, they shared smiles of shy delight, of childlike giddy joy. They held hands, laughed, questioned each other with eyes that asked amazedly, needlessly, Did you feel that?

And as breath and strength returned, they began to look at each other with hope and hunger, for the pleasure, the moment, had been so exquisite that they could not help but try to touch it again. They adjourned gleefully to Loi’s big bed and soon began again.

It was long after midnight before the edge of longing at last gave way to happy fatigue, and they fell asleep entangled in each other’s arms.

For a long time, Christopher was unable to name the warm feeling that he woke with that next morning. It was as though there were a happy little spark lighting him from within. He didn’t mind being the only one of the three who was expected elsewhere early. He kissed them good-bye as though they were sleepy children and found himself smiling as he went out the door.

Neither the police checklane on the U.S. 75 en route to Allied nor the endless section conference once he got there tested Christopher’s patience that day. The smile came back at intervals, and with it crystal-clear sense-rich memories.

But he was scarcely aware of his own state until lunch, when one of the other archaeolibrarians wryly announced to the whole table, “I don’t know what stack Christopher’s been working in lately, but I wish he’d stop grinning like a contented idiot over it. I’m starting to feel left out.”

That was the word. That was the feeling—contented. “Sorry, Angela,” he said, the smile embarrassed this time. “Didn’t know I was broadcasting.”

“That’s all right,” she said with a wink. “It’s good to see you happy.”

But the spark was blown out almost the moment he got home. He found Loi and Jessie in the family room, and it was obvious at once that they had been talking about something serious, and equally obvious that they were waiting for him.

“Hi,” he said tentatively. “What’s up?”

“Jessie and I have been talking about the family,” Loi said. “About what we want and where we’re going. We were hoping you’d join us.”

“Can I hit the bathroom first?”

“Of course.”

Scrubbing his face, Christopher scrambled for emotionally secure ground, trying to anticipate the blow before it came. What could be wrong? What could have happened since last night? Jessie had been crying, and Loi was in her mother-therapist mode. He did not want to rejoin them scared, but scared he was. There was a tremor of change in their faces, and change was the enemy of the contentment he had enjoyed all day.

But he could not hide. Summoning a calm he did not feel, he rejoined them, settling by himself in a chair across the pit from them. “That feels better,” he said with a false smile. “Who’s going to bring me up to speed?”

Loi looked expectantly at Jessie, who ducked her head, frowned uncomfortably, then looked up into Christopher’s eyes. “We were talking about what rights I have here.”

Surprise registered on Christopher’s face. “The same as any of us.”

“I mean, how far does it go?”

Oh, God, she’s talking about the baby. “How far do you want it to go? It isn’t just rights for any of us. It’s rights and responsibilities.”

“Don’t lecture, Christopher,” Loi said quietly. “Listen.”

I’m waiting for her to say what she means,” Christopher said edgily.

“I have the privacy you promised, and the freedom,” Jessie said. “I like making a home for you two. You’ve been more than generous with my family share—I feel guilty sometimes because I don’t think I give enough back to deserve it.”

“You do,” Christopher said.

“But you’re both so busy. I’m here alone more than not.” She smiled shyly. “Last night was wonderful. But it made me sad, too, because it made me realize what I was missing.”

Christopher silently waited for her to continue. He could not make himself ask the polite question.

“I just feel like I need somebody for me,” she said.

“Don’t you feel like Christopher is yours?” asked Loi.

“Oh, I don’t mean you don’t share him, like last night. But when you’re here, he belongs to you. He only ever wants me when you’re away.”

“That’s not true,” Christopher said reflexively.

“Look at the way you got jealous about Loi and me making love,” Jessie answered. “You got angry at her for being with me. You didn’t get angry at me for being with her.”

“That’s not what that was about.”

“It’s okay,” Jessie said. “I understand. You two have the most history together. It’s natural. And I’m not saying I don’t think you both love me. But I need more if I’m going to be happy. I need someone who belongs to me the way you two belong to each other.”

“I spend a lot of time with you,” he protested. “This last month I know I’ve seen you more than I’ve seen Loi. I even think we’ve made love more often than Loi and I have.”

“When it suits you,” Jessie said with a sudden chill. “When it suits you, you’re more than ready.”

“Be fair, Jessie—”

“There’s a perspective problem,” Loi was saying. “Christopher, you have a full-time job and a time-consuming hobby. You spend a lot of what’s left over with Jessie. But that’s a much smaller part of her life than it is of yours.”

“Am I supposed to not work?” he asked indignantly. “Are you saying you feel neglected, too?”

“Jessie and I have different needs,” Loi said. “You know that I’ve never expected you to fill all of mine. I don’t feel neglected. You’ve always been just what I wanted you to be. But I’m not the one who’s unhappy.”

Christopher could not keep his expression from souring as he looked to Jessie. “I think this is really low, for you to lobby Loi behind my back. We talked about this once already.”

“No, we didn’t.”

He snapped, “We did, too, when Loi was in Geneva. Did she tell you about that?” The last was aimed at Loi.