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A rectangular cake tin of brownies sits daintily on the dining table. Gabrielle is positioned behind it, hands covered with oven gloves. Her apron is on tight around her waist, her smile even tighter, as she looks up at Charles expectantly.
It’s been two years since he’s had his mouth sealed over Erik’s.
But it was only yesterday that Erik had reminded him, as he had snaked his hand from one shoulder to the other. Slowly – like he was giving a show.
“Sit down,” she says.
Charles swallows and pulls a chair out to sit on. His immediate slip into obsequiousness may have something to do with the memory of that heated touch and those whispered words, but Charles is beginning to get dizzy on his feet, when he thinks about how Gabrielle may have acknowledged both. He pulls himself close towards the table, keeping his arms and hands down on his lap.
“One slice or two? —Ah, actually,” she says, voice enthusiastic as she scoops up two pieces onto a plate. “I think you deserve extra. You’ve been working hard.”
Charles looks down at the plate pushed towards him. It’s soon accompanied by a spoon and a dollop of ice cream. He’s lost his hunger all of a sudden. It’s his favourite thing to eat, and yet—
“So,” she begins, gracefully seating herself down opposite him. “Eat.”
He gives his wife a weak nod and brings a hand up when it’s steady enough to be seen. As always, he cuts off a morsel and feeds Gabrielle first. She shakes her head when it’s offered. Charles thinks he might be sick.
“There’s something I want to talk about.”
Of course there is. Charles gives her a weaker nod as he props the spoon in his mouth. It tastes brilliant and bitter at once, but his wife’s unflinching gaze is the addition that makes it even harder to swallow. He knows she’s closely watching his mouth, as though she knows exactly what those lips have done in lonely nights, under thin white sheets.
He tugs both lips into his mouth, pretending to lick the ice cream. She grins.
“Erik’s… a good guy, isn’t he.”
She says it so mundanely, like an offhand comment in reference to someone of no significance. Yet Erik has been coming over nearly every week with Lorna, and now, he’s no longer a stranger to their family. He’d thought Gabrielle has become accustomed to seeing Erik frequently enough to not talk about him like they’re about to exclude him from their child’s life. Which, may be a conclusion that’s jumped too far, but Charles has to prepare himself for the worst. It’s been going too well for too long.
But the best he can say in reply is, “Yes.”
“He’s very handsome.”
Charles quickly gets a grip on his spoon and breaks off another piece. He offers it to her again and gets denied, again. He stuffs it promptly into his mouth before he can make a joke about his slight problem with her comment – as her husband. Though he knows he’s in no place to make even the lightest remark.
But to agree would be worse, so he continues to chew down the blend of searing hot and freezing cold in his mouth.
“And a great father. I don’t blame you, you know.”
He stops and swallows it all at once. The spoon drops and clutters onto his plate.
“Gabrielle—”
“I need you to tell me everything, Charles. Everything you cared to hide from me.”
He looks up and she’s right in front of him, leaning over to pin him with her light green eyes, almost glassy in this light. Charles frowns and moves his hand towards hers. She pulls hers away, though not angrily.
After a long pause of silence, his fingertips begin to brush patterns over the wood of the table. He realises, after a while, that he’s tracing the word sorry.
“Don’t you think I deserve to know? I was brain-dead for a year, don’t you think I ought to know what my husband got up to while I laid lifelessly on a bed?”
She speaks so gently, with such a painfully unnecessary amount of understanding, which both puzzles Charles and dismays him.
“I don’t want you to be upset,” he says at last, eyeing her easy, laidback posture like it’s incongruous to the nature of their conversation.
“I’m not upset,” she replies, flimsily waving a hand. “Tell me. Come on.”
“I don’t know…”
“From the beginning. How it all started.”
He sighs, trying to dismiss her request by making noises that don’t represent words. She rolls her eyes at his stubbornness and pointedly looks at the clock on her watch.
“Come on, I have to go collect David in an hour.”
“Okay. Fine.”
Then he stops, pulling the brakes all of a sudden, because he can’t. Not in front of his wife, whom he loves with the brightest colours and loudest words – not her, anyone but her. He and Erik on the other hand aren’t supposed to be talked about aloud. They’ve been the suppressed thoughts for the past succession of months, and there’s no ease in digging them back up to the surface.
“Well? How did it start? The first day you met him? The second?”
“No, Gabrielle. We were friends for a long time. Months.”
“Okay,” she prompts, eyes wide.
“While you were… gone, I was extremely lonely. I was devastated. And you know I don’t have many friends.”
She nods once and looks down at his hand.
“Some people even told me I should give up waiting and remarry.”
Now she places her hand on top of his, smoothing over the bumps of his knuckles.
“I know... Thank you.”
“Don’t be silly. I’d never.”
“Now continue, please.”
He sighs.
“Right. Well… eventually, Erik and I became very close. We supported each other and helped each other with the kids. If I managed that year, Gabrielle, it was because of him. He was… so selfless, so generous. I was constantly thanking him, and yet – it was never enough.”
“I see.”
“For a long time, we were just great friends. And I was so grateful for him. You see yourself, how much he does for the children, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. He’s very good with David.”
“He really is. He loves him so much.”
“Not just him.”
Charles peers up at her hesitantly. He suddenly hates himself for thinking he could do this.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers to her, voice cracking in the middle. She shakes her head.
“Then what happened.”
He looks back down at the melting ice cream.
“We became… closer. We started spending all of our time together. Started finding each other… attractive.”
He grits his teeth when he hears her laugh and say, “I’d never have guessed why.”
“I’m sorry, Gabrielle. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry you found each other attractive?”
“I’m sorry that this happened. It was… wrong, and—”
“In hindsight, yes. But at the time you thought I was going to die. Remember what you told me? There was a high chance that I’d never wake up. Sixty percent, was it?”
“Gabrielle. I don’t need you to justify what I did. Just love me back and believe that I’ll never leave you for anyone. Ever.”
He stands up from his seat, pressing a hand over his chest, futilely calming his heart.
“And even though I could’ve, back then, I didn’t. No matter how tempted I was. No matter what your chances of living were. I didn’t. And won’t.”
:::
When the door to their flat opens and Gabrielle is there, Erik thinks he may have to pretend to go back to his apartment for something or the other.
“Is Charles not at home?” he ventures, craning his neck to look above her shoulder, praying for the sight of those blue eyes. He searches eagerly until the realisation dawns, that it’s only Gabrielle’s heated gaze destined for him here.
“Not yet. He’ll be home in twenty minutes.”
He used to be told when Charles would be late. But now…
“Oh, okay. Thank you,” he replies, avoiding the manner with which Charles’s wife is staring at him. They’ve barely been in the same room as each other, Charles always the arbitrator between them, but he’s starting to settle with her when the children are present too. Since none of the others are here, Erik begins to step away from the door, tipping his head down. “I’ll just – come back another time. Goodbye.”
But she calls his name out and tells him, “Come back in! He’ll be here in no time. I’ll make you coffee.”
Erik reflexively shakes his head and squeezes the toy in his jacket pocket, clutching onto it like he’s in physical pain. He could do with a coffee. It’s the silence he could do without.
“You’ve come all the way, I’m not going to let you go home. Just come in, Charles will be glad to see you.”
She then turns around on her heels and ambles into her house, the door left wide open for Erik to step past. He hasn’t even entered yet and he’s dreading every moment that will pass until the moment Charles reaches home and saves him from his too-kind wife, who’s always insisting he eat her cakes and leave Lorna with her while he’s busy – “It’ll be nice for her to have a girly influence, don’t you think?” – and he always concedes, when he sees Lorna’s eyes sparkle at the sight of her pretty dress or glittery nail polish.
With the topic of Lorna’s suspiciously orange-painted toenails in mind, he lopes into his best friend’s house and turns around to shut the door. Eye contact needs to be averted at any and every cost, he thinks.
He goes to sit on the couch, fingering a green-coloured ink blotch and smiling at the memory of Charles marking with half-lidded eyes. The smile fades when he hears a clang from the kitchen.
The coffee is made silently and quickly – so quick that when he’s offered cookies he takes one just to increase the time for him to finish drinking. He practically nibbles on it, taking the tiniest bites.
Then Gabrielle sits next to him, and she has neither coffee nor cookie in hand. He wants to edge away from the whiff of lavender and carton-juice that emanates from her, but he doesn’t want the hot liquid to tip over either. So he sits determinedly still, sipping on the coffee, ruminating over the taste, and listening to the tick of the clock.
The sight of Charles will probably be the sky cracking open to reveal heaven itself. He’ll have to refrain with every muscle comprising his body from kissing the man to tears. God, how he yearns to.
He can’t tell if he’s relieved when Gabrielle attempts to fill the silence.
“Erik, I hope you know how grateful I am for how much help you’ve been,” she says, eerily quiet, so that Erik has to strain to listen.
He swallows down the last drop of coffee, keeping the rim around his mouth for as long as possible. He brings it back down for only a moment before Gabrielle takes it from him, smiling sweetly as she walks over to the kitchen. When she’s out of sight is when she says,
“Charles never actually told me how close the two of you were.”
He almost feels everything rise back up, including breakfast, including his heart – the pieces of it he’s been trying to recombine.
When she walks back over to him, it’s with a slow, deliberate sway of her hips.
“But,” she smiles, stopping to stand directly in front of him. A woman hasn’t loomed over him quite this way in years. “He told me everything yesterday.”
“I should go.” And he leaps to his feet, sidestepping cautiously, though not successfully.
“Where are you going?”
“Away.”
She places a hand over his chest.
“Already? After waiting all this time? Not going to get what you came for?”
Erik flinches away and tries to depart, but that would require Gabrielle to move away first. It could otherwise mean pushing her away, and he doesn’t think it’s owed, after hearing the implications of her words.
“I—um, please just… I need to go, I really really need to go.”
“No you don’t, you want to see Charles. So do I. We can wait for him together.”
“It’s fine, I’ll leave—”
“Not so soon. Just five minutes now.”
“Please?” he urges, nervously holding the armrest behind him to lean away from her.
“Charles would quite like to see you, too. You can’t disappoint him, now. Though I heard you don’t…”
Erik whips his head away, looking down at the carpeted ground and praying for Charles. As much as he doesn’t want to prove her point – he prays. Prays even more, when he feels her hands on his shoulders – of all places – and pull him up towards her.
“Relax,” she purrs, tugging his coat down. “Get comfortable.”
If she pulls down any more layers, he fears she might be able to see every jump of his heart and every way it beats for her husband, only her husband. Not her.
The coat falls.
“You and I have something interesting in common, you know?” she says lowly, her touches not ceasing, as they roam over the fabric of his shirt sleeves, flecking off imaginary dirt. She tilts her head, her hands skimming up to his biceps, squeezing. “We both really love Charles.”
He wants to shake his head in disagreement, but he knows he can never deny his love for Charles.
“Oh, you’re blushing,” she laughs, stepping closer to him. He can’t decide if he should be fearful of what she’s saying or what she’s doing; her arms are now around his neck, lightly pulling. “You know what he’s like. Irresistible, isn’t he?”
Yes. Completely. There isn’t another way to put it. Years ago, he wouldn’t have minded her strangling him. But now he has Lorna, and there’s no way he’s going to leave her fatherless.
Before he can struggle and extricate himself from her, and tell Charles that his wife is absolutely crazy, she speaks on, face brought next to his,
“Don’t you think I have the right to know, what the fuss is about? Why he couldn’t resist you?”
Then he understands. When her red-coloured lips press onto his, he understands better. That she literally wants to know.
And because these are the lips that Charles kisses every day, and has left him in love and alone for, and has gone down on his knees to claim – he kisses back, opening her lips in no time to delve inwards.
He doesn’t know why he expects to taste some semblance of Charles’s mouth on her tongue, because they taste nothing alike – she’s sweet, too sweet, and it’s not at all as heady as kissing Charles but it does come close in thrill – being kissed so surprisingly passionately by a woman’s shapely lips is definitely something he’s missed and craved. She moans loudly when his kiss gets deeper and messier, prompting their hands to move and explore. His hands find the dip of her waist while hers fist in his hair.
When their lips part, he takes in a long breath.
When the lock of the door audibly turns, his breath catches in his throat.
“No,” he gasps, gently pushing her back by her waist as he tries to get her away from him, as far as he possibly can. “No, no, no, why did you do that?”
But she only laughs in response, licking her thumb and bringing it to the bright red lipstick stain across the corner of his mouth. He moves away from the contact too late, and her attempt is purposely weak.
And what else? Charles opens the door and sees it. The contact, the smudge, and the smirk on his wife’s swollen lips.
Erik wants to bolt to the door and take Charles far away. However, his feet are rooted to the spot.
Charles looks slightly torn.
“Erik?” he says, looking from his wife to the other man. His mouth works as he swallows.
“Yes, Erik,” Gabrielle confirms, strutting towards her husband and swinging her hands around him, grasping him in a hug. Charles hugs back as much as he can with the bag in his hand and his keys in the other.
“Um – the kids?”
“At Raven’s.” She pulls away from him and takes both objects from his hands, placing them back on the table nearby. “Had a good day?”
Charles nods faintly. His eyes haven’t left Erik’s, even though he’s sure the blue eyes have been flitting down to his mouth. Then Charles turns his attention to his wife, cupping the bottom of her face with a hand to bring it close to him.
“What happened to you?” he questions, looking at the mess of her lipstick. Charles can probably see by now, how their mouths match. If he wanted to, he could taste his wife in him and taste his best friend in her.
Gabrielle has the gall to smile widely.
“Hmm. You forgot to add he’s a good kisser.”
Erik drops his head in his hands, itching to claw at his hair and tug. Yet he knows, that if there’s anything at all that he can do to help himself, it doesn’t include standing inert and mute.
“Charles,” he says, walking towards the couple with eyes only for the man, as much as her sharp, verdant eyes stand out. “Charles I didn’t do anything, I swear. Ask her!”
Instead of insisting that he did, in fact, hungrily kiss back, she simply shrugs. He turns to her with a scowl.
“What’s wrong with you? You have Charles and you kiss me? Are you crazy?”
He thinks he might shout, if she doesn’t stop smiling so smugly. “You are, aren’t you? Christ, if I had Charles I’d—”
Oh dear.
“You’d what?” she snaps, brows raised, smile still not gone. “Do what? This?”
And then she turns towards her beautiful husband and kisses him, with the same mouth that had been on him.
Erik swallows his dry throat and can only watch jealously, as Gabrielle pushes her lips against his and draws out sound after sound, until Charles is gently pushing her away.
“Gab-Gabrielle,” he stammers, holding his wife delicately by her shoulders. “Not… in front of Erik, please.”
Inwardly, he’s grateful for that request. He’s happy Charles won’t let him see this.
“No? What have we got to hide from Erik? Besides, I’d let you kiss him in front of me.”
Then, their eyes meet.
Charles bites his lip. His eyes waver away gradually, until he’s staring down at the ground, blushing to the roots of his hair, and all the other places Erik can’t see, but regularly thinks about. Erik turns to move for his coat.
Gabrielle holds him by the arm.
“Go on,” she inclines her head towards the Englishman. “Kiss him.”
Oh, how he wants to. He’d beg for it – and who is he kidding? He has, plenty of times, to no avail, but still, this isn’t the moment in his dreams. This isn’t what he had envisioned. He still can’t believe she hasn’t patronised him yet, hasn’t even kicked him out of their house.
Maybe, it’s just too good to be true. How can anyone give such explicit approval? Who would want to share Charles?
“What did you say?” she taps her chin in thought. “Two years, was it? That certainly is a long time. One year alone was a long enough ordeal for me. I know how you feel.”
“No, you don’t know how I feel,” he retorts, finding his voice and finding it brimming with emotion.
“Why don’t you show me, then?” she demands, narrowing her eyes challengingly. “You really think you can resist, Erik?” Gabrielle turns to look at Charles. He meets her eyes only for a second before looking back down, ashamed. She grins at him when he tugs his bottom lip into his mouth again, and extends her hand out to smooth her finger over the captured lip. “Don’t do that,” she whispers. And he obeys, letting go of it from between his teeth. She hums in approval, pressing her finger over the pad of his lip, where teeth marks begin to slowly fade. Erik’s eyes are glued on the scene. It’s terrible, that she’s doing this – that she’s allowing this – unless she’s going to make a point about how Charles doesn’t want him back, when he’ll flinch away and chide him.
But will he? How can he, with everything that’s happened between them? All those tender moments of kissing those lips and having them kiss him back – they were all embodiments of perfection. He could tell by the way he’d hug Erik tight at the end of each, or hold his hand, or quiver bodily into orgasm, because with their lips they could express exactly what went untold between them. God, how much they loved each other. It poured into the upbringing of their children, claimed their lonely lives – reinvented them, even. And now this woman has returned, taken Charles back, and Erik can’t pretend he’s happy for Charles when he aches to take her place every second of every day.
He aches to take her place now, where she stands so close to him.
So he does. Nobody’s stopping him. And nobody does.
Nobody does, when he seizes Charles abruptly and swallows the man’s gasp with his mouth.
They hold each other for a while, lips not moving, until Erik presses him closer and grabs hold of his face with his hands. Erik could cry, right now, over the sheer feel of having Charles’s body warm the front of his own, of having his hands explore his back all over again. He tilts his head and kisses him painfully slow, building up to a larger, more desperate journey into every thoroughly missed corner of his mouth. Over rows of teeth his tongue slides, licking up the saliva pooling under his tongue, biting the bruised bottom lip, smoothing over the softness insides of his cheek, and all the while – making Charles moan more obscenely than he had made his wife. Louder then, when he pulls his mouth away and licks his tongue without meeting their lips. The satisfaction is indescribable. The inhibitions vanish. His doubts of Charles’s willingness disintegrate. It’s clear by the way he leans up for more, that Charles wants this. Wants him, even after all this time.
“I love you,” he whispers, when their mouths come apart, and he doesn’t care about the ramifications. It’s something he’ll never deny. Something he doesn’t need to be ashamed of. And he doesn’t need Charles to ruin it by responding. So the silence is solace. The weight of those words is suddenly taken off his heart, and placed on Charles’s.
They breathe what seems like the same air for ages, until Charles’s eyes snap open. Erik feels the brush of his eyelashes against his cheek, lightly tickling. The room seems much darker when he opens his eyes as well.
He sees Gabrielle though, clear as day with her tight red dress and bright eyes, as she comes up behind Charles and wraps her arms around him. She starts kissing his neck and Erik watches. She starts unbuttoning his shirt, and Erik—
Erik places his mouth over Charles’s again and kisses him to the point of imbalance, till Gabrielle has to keep a hold of him just so he doesn’t sway back and hit the ground from the pressure of Erik’s kiss. He distantly hears her gleeful laugh as she pulls Charles’s hands down from Erik’s chest and tugs his shirt off his arms hastily. It almost rips but Charles doesn’t seem to mind, and clearly not when she thrusts it down on the floor to run her hands all over him and resume the trail of kisses down his neck. He’s even more responsive to Erik’s kiss, leaving him unable to object to Gabrielle’s intrusion.
When the dim light she’s blocking comes shining through his eyelids again, he thinks she may have had enough, but then he feels her hands on his own shirt.
This time Charles pulls out of the kiss and helps.
Their hands meet somewhere at the middle button and Erik watches, dumbstruck, as both husband and wife pull his shirt off him.
He thinks to question: is this really happening?
But the less words spoken the better. If it’s a dream, it’s a good one, and very, very effective at making him sweaty and hard, agonisingly.
It’s warmer in the house now than it had been when he’d entered. Yet there are still tracks of goosebumps shooting up every surface of skin touched lazily by reverent fingers. Erik closes his eyes and lets himself be touched, in that intoxicating moment, not uttering a word of protest or query. It doesn’t require a lot of concentration for him to comprehend whose hand is where. The foreignness of Gabrielle’s hands are indulgent, groping every muscle she can reach, and Charles’s hands are wondrous as always, taking care where he knows Erik’s sensitive.
“Anything else you failed to mention, Charles?” Gabrielle delightedly drones, breath hot against Erik’s ear. Her teeth catch on his lobe and bite – almost spitefully hard – as her hands slither over the bump of his crotch. The noise she makes in response to what she feels under his belt makes him shiver and grow, under her hand. “You forgot the best part, I see.”
Erik turns to look at her over his shoulder and turns back to Charles, uncertain of whether he should feel humiliated or flattered. Inside him, it’s a blistering miasma of both.
She uses the tip of her finger to push the zipper of his trousers down. He breathes a gasp onto Charles’s hair and the blue eyes watch, amazed, as his own wife dips a finger into the opened gap and rubs a long line up and down.
Her brashness doesn’t go unnoticed; Charles looks up at Erik and he’s equally surprised. Erik doesn’t even know if Charles wants to see this happen: Gabrielle stroking Erik’s torso with one hand and feeling the clothed length of his dick with the other, like she’s completely entitled to. Just because Charles has gone to all these places, has savoured all this skin and more, does it mean she can too? If Charles or Erik thought so, she’d be stopped in the next heartbeat – but every time Charles glances up at Erik’s eyes, he has to look away – ashamed by how much he’s enjoying his wife’s touch. When she withdraws her hand, it’s even more difficult to remain calm about it with harshly pursed lips stifling expletives.
Gabrielle inserts her body between his and Charles’s, deliberate, and gives him the same, eager attention. And it’s not fair. He should hate Charles. His sister has his daughter, his wife has him, and all while Charles himself has his heart. Erik can sulk and pity himself as he stands half-clothed, mostly exposed and tented by his hard-on—
or
—he could watch the way Charles presses his mouth against his wife’s cleavage and pulls her dress down the curves of her body, until he’s sunk to his knees and helping her climb out of it.
Maybe he should exclude himself now. Maybe this is the part where the husband and wife make love on the soft carpet and make Erik watch with a prominent ache sticking out of his trousers, unattended. Maybe they’ll slap his hand away when he tries to touch himself and laugh, in that synchronised way couples do, at thinking that Erik will ever be able to feel Charles ever again—
“Erik…” Charles says dazedly, as his open mouth delicately licks the surgery scar on Gabrielle’s hip. He thinks he may have misheard the address, but Charles sighs his name again over the tanned skin of his wife’s pelvis. “Come here, Erik. Undress her please.”
“No.” –Is what he should say, now that they all know where this is heading. It’s not hard to imagine that this will culminate into something that will only bring them all apart, when someone gets hurt. And someone will.
Erik is pretty sure it’ll be him, because he’s the one who doesn’t belong here – doesn’t have a place in their bed, a toothbrush in their bathroom, a key to their door. He only has the impulse to comply to both, as they supposedly punish him for falling in love with Charles and reminding him every single day, with his eyes and sighs. How else did Gabrielle find out? Charles would never deliberately tell.
So where does he fit amongst this couple, when the kids are away? Where does he come in?
Behind Gabrielle, apparently, unclasping the hook of her bra like it’s the most unfamiliar piece of cloth he’s ever seen. Hooking a finger into her underwear, pulling it down her hips, until Charles takes over from his position on the floor. Responding to her kiss, as she turns around and sucks his bottom lip like she doesn’t actually have the most stunning man at her feet. Erik wants to dispel the fluttering sensation in his chest, so he doesn’t reciprocate and touch her back, even as she does. He keeps his eyes open throughout the kiss – open and held on Charles, the only person who should be and will be and can only be responsible for the uneven jitters of his caged, broken heart. Charles ogles back, eyes smouldering like he’s never seen them before, as he sits back on his heels and unbuckles his belt. Erik still doesn’t touch her as she fiddles with his own belt, clumsily, learning its intricacies all over again, yet still coordinated with the man she has her back to. Erik meets her kiss for kiss, hoping she doesn’t see the way his eyes are wide open and gazing at her husband over the curve of her shoulder. When Charles’s trousers come off – Erik sees, because he’s never stopped looking, even when she pleads and moans for his large hands – his own have pooled at his ankles. He kicks them away swiftly, along with his shoes, when he remembers he’s still wearing them at the sight of Charles undoing his own. Gabrielle can probably tell by now, that his eyes are doing better at undressing Charles than his mouth is doing at kissing her lips, so she fumbles for the waistband of his briefs. It’s been years – he remembers all over again – since he’s been touched there by anyone, let alone a woman. If she’s trying to get him to close his eyes and rock his hips into her hands and hiss, instinctively, she’s successful at it – precisely because it’s been years. Charles goes out of sight for a moment as he drops his head back and grits his teeth.
Even if this does end badly, he thinks, at least it’ll feel good, and he’ll feel the way Charles is made to feel by her hands and mouth and chest, as it touches his.
Is he laughable, a pitiable fool, for still being in love with a happily married man? Isn’t that all he was, yesterday? How is he now getting to have a warm body to sag against, as he moves his hips into the heat of a deft hand, squeezing and pressing forward with a palm—
“Not yet,” she tells him, sliding her hand away, and letting her nails skitter over sweaty skin as she does so.
This is probably the most opportune time to mention what they’re doing out loud, to remind them and get them to double think – that they’re about to bring sex with an outsider into their marriage. That it will fix no fracture and soothe nobody’s pain.
Even still – contradiction after contradiction; Erik is a deceiver of his thoughts – when Gabrielle walks away and it’s only Charles, pale and gorgeous on his knees, he finds the need to solely remind himself of how much he loves him. It’s all he can muster.
And if Charles could glance into his mind the way he does his eyes, he’d see that love is the only thing he’s sure about in this state, where he’s bared and open and vulnerable.
Regardless of whether or not his wife is in the room, he ought to tell him again, that he’ll always be there with that love on offer, just in case one woman and one child isn’t enough.
But of course it is.
“Stop thinking,” Charles says, looking up at him earnestly – as earnest as one can be, with a kiss-dampened mouth and a naked, kneeling body. But his body takes charge, as he lifts his hands to tug down the tightening material of his briefs.
His cock is too close to Charles’s lips when it grows to full length, so Erik takes a step forward. Then another, until Charles’s breath fans the slit. Gabrielle has probably never seen her husband like this. She probably wants to. But she shouldn’t need to, hasn’t asked to, so he takes a step back and holds the tip of his cock with his hand.
He still doesn’t know if she’s present in the room. He doesn’t care, when he’s pulled into Charles’s arms and down onto the ground for a furious kiss on top of the carpet, bodies stuck together and laying parallel, rolling until he’s aligned himself perfectly along the length of Charles’s body. It’s no longer sweet and comforting between them, when they kiss that night, chest pressing on chest and hands interlocking. He’d be thrusting his cock against Charles if he isn’t so grateful to have his lips, momentarily, under his own. They kiss until he bruises Charles, re-marking his bottom lip with small indents of teeth. He has Gabrielle’s sultry voice in his head saying, don’t do that.
He pulls away and lets Charles move his hair out of his eyes. He stretches his neck to try and get a kiss on his hand, but he only reaches his wrist. Pulling back, he realises how musky he smells – a long way from squashed bananas – and waits for Charles to bring his hand down for it to be kissed. Gabrielle walks in to the sight of Erik’s gentle kiss on his palm.
He thinks this is the part where he’ll be made to realise who he is in their relationship. This is the part where Gabrielle will tell him that she is the one with the privilege to romance him, not Erik. This is the part where he’ll be put back into place.
But she says nothing. She’s holding baby oil against her hip and lopes over with it still in hand as she comes to sit next to them. She raises her brow expectantly, attempting to be nonchalant, but Erik sees the way her pale green eyes have softened just a little. Erik drops Charles’s hand as he sits back on his legs, still astride the other man.
“Why did you stop?” – And even her voice has softened, Erik notices.
Charles is looking up at him now, but Erik can’t seem to take his eyes off of Gabrielle. How has he not noticed before, how much their affair might have hurt her?
She doesn’t get an answer for another minute, until she lets the question slide in favour of asking Erik,
“Have you fucked him before?”
Charles covers his face with his hands. Perhaps he doesn’t like her language either. At least not the way she refers to it, that particular night when Erik had attempted to finger Charles open but could only get the head of his cock inside, because Charles had gone hysterical. They never really did try again.
When Erik again, fails to speak, Charles helpfully informs,
“Not exactly.”
“I thought we could try,” she says, shaking the bottle in her hand and offering it to Erik.
Feeling as though he’s a few decades behind, he absently takes it from her. He’d thought the husband and wife had discussed this beforehand, had choreographed every step of this purposeful butchery of Erik’s pride on the dinner table. Apparently not.
Charles is shaking, underneath him.
The oil drips everywhere when he tips it onto his palm. He would’ve been good at getting the viscous liquid out at any other time, any other occasion. Not right now, when his fingers are about to breach Charles’s delicate hole in front of the love of his life, which Erik is not.
Remorseful, he coats his fingers and discards the oil. Droplets land on his cock as it strains upwards, but nobody acts upon it. Gabrielle is probably dripping herself, Charles is too, but all focus is aimed at his long fingers as they penetrate him.
“Be gentle,” Gabrielle feels the need to say, even though Erik is turning his fingers ridiculously slowly. She leans over and kisses him as he whimpers, and thank heavens she does, because not even Erik could bare seeing him gasp in pain without being appeased by gentle lips and humming noises. Erik pushes in deeper, then stops to let Charles catch his breath, and allow himself to revel in the feel of being engulfed his hot, tight inner muscles. “Do you think you’re ready?” she asks him worriedly, skimming her hand over his sweaty forehead and kissing it.
Not according to Erik he isn’t, so he’s glad when he huffs out,
“A little bit longer.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
I love you so much more, he wishes he can say. His third finger spreads him out wider.
Charles arches his back, rakes his teeth over his bottom lip and squeezes his eyes shut. They both know of course, that Charles will take it. Gabrielle is entranced by the way her husband writhes at the feel of Erik’s fingers, and he feels a piece of his pride restored. His cock will produce much more enamouring sights, he wants to say, but he’s been told to be gentle, and he plans to submit.
“Do you want to feel his cock now, sweetheart?” she asks Charles, who blushes furiously in reply. She giggles and hides her face in his neck, kissing his mouth until he gasps out a moan. “Do you? Look at how much he loves you, dear. Do you want to? Say it.”
Erik takes his fingers out and concentrates on the jerk of Charles’s hips as he removes himself. He looks at his creamy, unmarked skin, and focuses on the next sound Charles makes.
“I want to.”
Erik traces a circle on Charles’s hipbone. He kisses the skin he marks and moves upwards until Gabrielle is making way for him to kiss Charles’s mouth. It’s a chaste kiss, considerate of the bruise colouring Charles’s lip and the restlessness emanating from Gabrielle. He moves upwards on Charles’s body, parting his knees even further, so he can be in the right position to enter him again. He grips his thighs and on second thought, lifts a leg over to his waist. He only teases him with the moist head of his cock this time, instead of pushing it all the way in. Erik thinks he could come from the pure sight of Charles’s arched back and hard cock, as it jerks with the quakes of Erik’s short, slow thrusts. Erik thinks that maybe Gabrielle will move her mouth over his cock and suck him off, if just to hear Charles moan even louder, but then she places each hand on Erik’s shoulders and straddles his cock, facing Erik.
“Don’t go any deeper,” she tells Erik, gripping him hard and spreading her legs. Charles’s hands are on her hips, guiding her down on him, and she sits, inch by inch, until he’s fully inside her. So easily, so comfortably, like she assumes this position every night. Erik has to remind himself that if he doesn’t keep a hold on his restrains, he’ll be coming on everybody within the next minute. He shuts his eyes and throbs partly-inside Charles, resting his forehead on Gabrielle’s as they both listen to him gasp, wet and incoherent. Both so in love with the man, both so infatuated and crazed that they kiss each other. Charles’s name is on her tongue, and the same name is on his. And they both have power over him, as they sit there inhibiting his pleasure and marvelling at his patience.
“Move it, both of you,” he then urges, squirming and lifting and dropping his hips, until he can get Gabrielle to shift first. She loops an arm around Erik’s neck and raises her hips, clenching herself around him as she moves up, before sinking back down heavily. Charles’s hands lock with Erik’s around Gabrielle, and Charles squeezes his fist as he yells. He pulls Erik, prompting him to piston his hips forward.
He’s too hypnotised by the scene to move at first, to actually make himself a part of this, to claim a role in this desire-driven act – but then Gabrielle’s hand comes near his groin and wraps round his cock, pulling until he’s further into the sticky heat of his arsehole as it contracts around him.
Erik doesn’t usually scream the loudest – and on this occasion he has two people to beat – but he hears only his own unrestrained panting as she pushes himself in and out of Charles. Gabrielle rides him languidly, mindful of his overstimulation and the complete nonsense that pours from his lips in the form of muffled moans.
“Don’t you just love him when he’s like this?” she pants, breathing heavily across the side of Erik’s face, hips sliding up and down the length of Charles’s cock.
“When don’t I?” he replies, tearing out a loud groan from the other man when he hits a spot deep inside him, pressing his cockhead against it. Charles had been loud; perhaps Gabrielle hasn’t heard his quip. Perhaps she’ll let it pass, blame it on the intensity of the moment and blur of thought.
Her laugh is oddly pleasant. But she doesn’t seem open to a discussion about his feelings for her husband, so he presses his lips together and thrusts in harder, now half-way in.
He wants to know why Charles has gone so quiet.
Another thrust, but Charles is holding it all in, as his body convulses.
“Are you close, sweetheart?”
“Very.”
“Do you want me to ride you till you come, or should I stop and let Erik make you?”
“Both. I want you both.”
Gabrielle is staring at him now, as she grinds down on Charles’s cock. Her pace hasn’t changed, not at all, but Erik has pulled out and slumped against her, doting over the words.
“Come on,” she tells Erik, licking the line of his strong jaw. “You heard him. Keep going.”
Erik looks down at the wetness streaming down her thighs, the underside of Charles’s cock as it disappears between Gabrielle’s lips with her every movement. Charles’s voice has dried out, sounds gravelly when he lets out a low moan.
“Is he tight?” she questions him, prodding a finger curiously into Charles’s hole and twisting it until he bucks his hips upwards and into her – she arches her back in a bow, begging for him to do it again and again.
Gabrielle is pulled forward against Erik, and he holds onto her face to answer her question, voice a low whisper against her cheekbone.
“Yes. He’s so tight for me.”
And nobody else – nobody else has had him like this. Nobody ever will, he wans to make sure of it – he enters Charles again, his muscles readjusting to Erik’s size and slickness, and this time Erik knows exactly where to aim to get Charles moaning wantonly, in that way that even catches his wife off guard—
He finds Erik’s hand to hold as he comes into his wife, moaning raggedly into his lovers’ ears. Erik pounds into him once, twice, before he’s falling limply against Gabrielle’s arched out body, panting against her heaving chest. He strokes Charles’s fingers until he stops shivering, until the warm spurts of his orgasm cease their filling of Charles’s pink, raw insides.
Erik distantly remembers the sensation of hitting a woman in her most sensitive, erogenous spot, and hearing the gasp of their pleasure as they’re taken under the waves of an enveloping orgasm, so near to mind-numbing white-hot bliss—tonight, it’s Charles who has this effect on the woman in between them, and Erik is left awestruck.
The memories of Lorna's mother have been hidden for so long – Erik currently has no clear sense to uncover anything, lest he wants to feel the anger take its toll all over again – so he simply concentrates on breathing, focuses on the warmth of Charles’s hand and the ruddy blush as it begins to fade off of him. Good sense tells him to not feel angry over this, too, because soon it’ll be the memories of this touch he’ll have to fight off the front of his mind, if he wants to sleep ever again.
Gabrielle comes off of Charles’s cock, leaking with ejaculation and spreading the scent of it. She massages his cock for a while, lazily rubbing her palm against it as Charles breathes softly into the carpet, head turned to the side and eyes closed.
Erik tugs at their hands and leans forward, taking his cock out of Charles swiftly until his muscles relax again. Erik wants to kiss the vein along Charles’s throat, wants to capture his lips again in that soft way that makes him murmur, sated. Gabrielle gives him the way, as she leans back, legs straightened out, until her back is pressed against Charles’s front. Erik takes the hint and moves forward until he finds the juncture between his shoulder and neck and kisses up along it, hyperaware of how his own body is pressing against Gabrielle’s plush breasts. It’s not an unwelcome feeling, certainly not when Charles’s lips are moving against his and his hand runs over the muscles of his back. Erik can’t find the will to complain, and he doesn’t think Gabrielle can either, sandwiched between both men.
Maybe this is where it all ends, and Gabrielle will tell him to leave, now that he’s fucked her husband and she’s been the voyeur to get turned on by it. But it doesn’t end just yet, Erik is ambivalent when he realises – Gabrielle’s hand has dipped between their bodies, a finger is jutting into her clit, swirling in a clockwise motion and coming back up to Erik’s lips, where they part from a furious kiss on Charles’s lips. Erik has his weight on his knees, pinned either side of Charles’s hips, and he springs his head back when he sees what she’s doing.
“Don’t you want to lick him off me?” she breathes, still flustered from earlier. Her finger smothers come against his bottom lip – Charles’s come – and after a glance into Charles’s powder-blue eyes, he complies, licking it. When her finger delves into his mouth, past his lips, he sucks it clean dutifully, licking the moisture. “Do you like the way Charles tastes, Erik?”
If he says no he’d be fibbing, if he says yes she’d be doing this anyway—
She’d be pushing his head down between her thighs.
“Lick my cunt, Erik.”
Erik simply gapes for a while, unable to speak or think. She spreads her legs further, right above where Charles’s cock sits soft, and tugs on Erik’s hair to fit his face between her thighs, mouth next to her clitoris.
All he wants right now is to have Charles tell him it’s okay, that he can take his time and doesn’t need to do this if he doesn’t want to. Be gentle, don’t do that…
Instead, Charles’s hand moves out of Erik’s and moves to his wife’s cunt, where he makes a downturned ‘V’ with his index and middle finger, holding her folds back for Erik. His pale, short fingers stand out vividly against her dark pink flesh.
He’d much rather see Charles’s head between her legs, licking himself clean of his wife, knowing exactly where to go deep and where to change direction – but Gabrielle is waiting for him, stained with come, and Charles’s fingers are guiding her open—
He licks a long, wet stripe along her lips, deliberately grazing Charles’s fingers.
He swirls his tongue like she had done to herself, jabs in and out like Charles had fucked her, then laps at her labia until her head drops against Charles’s shoulder.
“Feel good?” Charles asks her, to which she nods her head, rigorously. She can’t speak; Erik smirks inside her. She throbs under his tongue. He plunges in deeper until he can taste Charles again, and that’s when she somehow gathers the ability to grind out,
“If it tastes sweet, it’s him; if it tastes bitter, it’s me.”
But Erik already knows that, as he drink her thirstily and rubs his cheek against her thigh, then against Charles’s.
She reaches out for Charles’s hand, taking it into her own, this time, flashing the gold of her heavy wedding ring as she does so. Erik moves his head back, sitting back on his haunches. Gabrielle puts on a lazy smile as she places Charles’s hand over her stomach, her own above it, stroking.
“Thank you, Erik.”
So this is in fact where it ends. Feeling utterly naked, Erik ducks his head down, swiping a hand across his mouth. He wants to look around for his clothes and put them on, but that would be too telling of his embarrassment. If he’s going to be kicked out of their house, he wants at least a little bit of his dignity, even if he has just pleasured them both submissively.
Her voice is dreamy when she speaks,
“Don’t you want to know, why I’m not even mad?”
It’s not just directed at Erik – she turns in her husband’s arms to look at him. Charles’s eyes flash with something desperate, silently pleading, for Erik to stay silent.
“It’s okay if you are,” Charles insists, hand curling around her midriff, pulling her so she turns around and faces him.
“But I’m not,” she shrugs, keeping her eyes up at Erik. Desperate to know, he blurts,
“Why not?”
Charles bites his lip, and winces at the inevitable sting. He turns urgently to his wife, cupping her face gently with fingers Erik has licked, brushing a thumb over her lips. Still, she responds to Erik.
“Look at him, Erik,” she whispers, ghosting her lips over Charles’s cheek. “Isn’t he beautiful?”
Erik nods his head, moving to get up – and leave – but Gabrielle wraps her hand around his forearm.
“As are you, Erik. You flatter me, every day.”
Charles is breathing heavily – have they discussed this at the dinner table? Does Charles already know what she’s going to say? – he’s quietly telling Gabrielle, “stop.”
“I still can’t believe Charles let you go, Erik. For me.”
“Gabrielle, stop.”
No, this can’t be premeditated either.
“You’re such a wonderful man, Erik. You gave him so much love while I couldn’t. You gave David so much love while I couldn’t. And still, he came back to me.”
Erik peels her hand off his arm and stands to his feet, turning his back to her, as he boils and roils from the inside out. He can’t figure out what Gabrielle is trying to achieve – is this a test of his endurance, his character? Is she flaunting her fate in his face, waiting for him to break? How much more can he break, when he’s already so, so broken? She won’t win this game; he won’t let her win everything.
“Oh, Erik. I’m sorry. But I’m not mad at either of you. I have my husband with me. He could’ve left me – for you, for anyone – but he stayed with me. And so I have no complaints.”
He hears a long, drawn out sigh, followed by the slow padding of feet. Then Charles’s scent is in his vicinity, and he can feel warm arms looping around his waist, a face pressing against his shoulder blade.
“I’m glad my misfortune makes you happy,” he mutters.
Charles rubs his face against Erik’s skin, holding him tighter. Erik has wanted this touch ever since he can remember seeing Charles covered in his son’s puke, smiling gingerly and making jokes about it. Ever since he saw Charles sitting despondently on the bench, doubting his fatherhood. Ever since Charles has crept into his routine, his daughter’s life, his own life, and has provided Erik with the opportunity to love, all over again.
He’s never wanted anything so urgently – Charles is hugging him close, body still claimed by Erik’s from the inside, from the faint blood trail on his lip, to the saliva glistening on his fingers – and yet, Erik is motionless; he’s left paralysed.
“It’s been two years, Erik,” she continues from afar. Charles shudders and holds him even tighter, as though bracing him. “Will you always be in love with him? I can’t… see this happen to you, I don’t want you to suffer. Can’t you—”
“Move on? Never. I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m in love with your husband.”
If Charles held him any tighter, he’d be choking for air.
“I’m not heartless, Erik. It’s not right, you can’t do this to yourself…”
“Do you have any plans of giving Charles up?”
“Me? Of course not, never—”
“Then there’s no way you can help. But thank you, for being sympathetic.”
This is where it should end, Erik thinks adamantly. This is where he’ll walk away. Where tomorrow will be like every other day – revolving his morning around his daughter, dropping her off to pre-school, avoiding Gabrielle at their evening play date, striving for a glance of Charles in edgeways, only to devolve into a state of wishful thinking.
“You’re a wonderful man, and no matter what I’ve said – I don’t want you to be like this forever. You deserve so much better. You deserve to be happy.”
“I’m happy when I’m with Charles.”
After saying such ardent words, he’s never dreamt of following them up by pushing Charles away, betraying his intimate touch. His try is half-hearted, so he only gets a reluctant inch’s distant between them before he’s pulled back.
“I want you to stay, Erik,” Charles says, voice still overtly rough, like he’s been shouting out of grief as opposed to pleasure. Oh, but the line between the two had been blurred tonight.
“Why? You’ve had what you wanted out of this, haven’t you? Haven’t you both?” he yells, turns around and grips Charles tight by his face, forgets his words when he glances down at wet eyes – but he has to remember what he has to say to this man, to not get lost in his eyes like he has been for so long, “You – you awful man! Don’t ask me to stay. You have her, don’t you? Don’t ask me to—”
“I want you both I love you both!”
Erik lets go of Charles before his tears can reach his sticky skin. He shakes his head – there’s so much whirling around in it; he thinks he might hurl, if his mind doesn’t stop echoing those words – swallows and reaches for his briefs from the ground. He pulls them on hastily over his unclean body, not stopping when Charles tells him to. He takes his trousers away from Charles too, when he holds onto them and hides them behind his back.
“Don’t go,” Charles beseeches, even though his wife is there, has heard his confession – she watches her husband pull Erik away from the door once he’s shrugged his shirt on and reached it, coat and shoes in hand.
But then it’s Gabrielle, who stands in front of the door, blocking it with her body.
“Please don’t go.”
Confused – and entirely unconvinced – he reaches for the doorknob again. She closes her hand around it. Erik stares, aghast. She’s the reason he’s leaving. She’s now the reason he’s not leaving.
“Don’t go. You heard him. Stay.”
“Why.”
“Raven will be dropping Lorna here tomorrow.”
“I’m being serious.”
“Because we both want you to stay.”
She takes his coat out of his fisted hand and places it on the coat hanger. She takes his shoes from him and places them next to Charles’s, despite the fact that they’ve been haphazardly suspended in the middle of the carpet.
He stares at the pairs of shoes for a long while, hardly believing he’s in reality, until he hears Charles’s mirthful laughter right next to his ear, muffled against his neck.
“I need to think about it,” he says vacantly, even though he already has.
“Of course, my love,” Charles replies.
He turns to him and wonders quietly to himself, how painstakingly has Charles managed to keep his feelings inside where Erik has failed? Have the past two years been just as arduous for him? Loving one person, when his heart is big enough to love another – and all while Erik has yearned for it—
Of course Erik is going to stay.
:::
It really is Charles sleeping next to him in bed.
It is, because they’ve recently purchased a king-sized bed that fits three bodies.
He even has a toothbrush in the bathroom across the hall.
He has a key to the front door, too.