other trainers and bodybuilders.”
Oh.
“I see,” I said.
“He’s so good to me. A genuinely nice guy. Slide back a little.” I did. She swiveled her hips and lowered herself onto me. “There,” she said, “that’s better.”
“Does he know?”
“Oh, he knows, all right. But I just can’t get him to make a commitment. At least not the way I want him to.” Her thigh muscles pulsed against my hips.
“So, you’d be willing to be exclusive if he agreed?”
“Sure. I’d be monogamous in a heartbeat with him—and with you and Rachael, of course. Pull my hair. Harder.”
In the midst of having sex with an acquaintance, Mandy was proposing a monogamous relationship involving four people: two couples—one of them married—living in different cities, a union composed of two heterosexual men and a couple of bisexual women.
Then, things got really complicated.
Rachael, Ramon and I walked into the guest bedroom and
found Mandy pancaked between Jason and Ramon’s boyfriend. Ramon played it off as though it didn’t bother him. Rachael was mortified that our guests had appropriated our host’s partner. It did strike me as bad form.
The next evening, we all went over to the neighbor’s pool to watch the sunset. Rachael and I left Jason and Mandy, who gave in to the urging of the crowd and had sex on a lounge chair. The applause carried all the way over to Ramon’s house.
Jason and Mandy had become the show. My crush had been crushed. Rachael’s anger was smoldering. Behind my hurt feel- ings and Rachael’s indignation hid another emotion. We were jealous—and not just of each other. We were used to being the hot straight couple in this scene. After having the spotlight for so long, neither of us was okay with second billing.
What followed next was a naked version of a comedy of man- ners—minus the comedy and the manners. Rachael confronted Mandy in the kitchen. Mandy burst into tears. Jason confronted Rachael in the bedroom about confronting Mandy. Rachael burst into tears. I confronted Jason in the living room about confronting Rachael. Rachael and Mandy burst into tears. When I confronted Rachael about cavorting with Jason, things got personal.
“You’ve got nerve,” she said. “After that late-night stargazing session in the pool?”
“Why don’t you go and snort up a few more lines,” I said. “It brings out such a lovely side of you.”
Our experiment had gone haywire. Someone in charge needed to pull the plug. The problem was that no one was in charge of anything.
Jason and Mandy began staging special command perfor- mances in various venues, including the living room, the pool deck, the second floor balcony, the outdoor shower, the kitchen,
and most recently, the Jacuzzi, where Rachael had just left me— high and dry.
I turned the corner into one of the guest rooms. There was Rachael sitting on the bed with the Porn Boys. She was just about to inhale white smoke from the end of a small, glass water pipe. Privately, Rachael had been deriding the Porn Boys for smoking crystal, which she said hit too close to the utterly un-fabulous act of smoking crack. I had to admit, the distinction was lost on me. Rachael saw me, lowered the pipe a few inches and shrugged. “When on Fire Island…” I sat on the edge of the bed in the Porn Boys’ bedroom and watched Rachael press the glass pipe to her
lips.
Except for the muffled moans coming from the hot tub, the hiss from the small butane lighter was the only sound in the room. A thin tendril of smoke streamed into Rachael’s mouth.
Tweaked said, “Hold it in.” Rachael puffed up her cheeks and waited. “ Now ,” he said. She exhaled a small plume, like breath on a frosty morning.
Chipper pointed the pipe in my direction. “You want?” “Yes, he does,” said Rachael.
“I do?”
Rachael said, “If this is the highway to hell, I’m not riding it alone.”
I tried to think of a reason not to. A good reason wouldn’t be
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