“I strip on stage, Anita. I get customers talking about my body in person and online; it’s hard not to be self-conscious.”

“So, me pointing out you’re beautiful doesn’t really help you work the issue,” I said.

“No, because the issue isn’t about logic, or even reality; it’s an issue that’s about illogic, and emotions, and the negative voices in everyone’s head.”

“Everyone has their issues, I guess.”

He nodded, and then smiled. “But tonight, we get to have sex in the same room as Jason and J.J., and that totally rocks.”

I turned and patted his shoulder. “You are my little voyeur.”

“No, I’m your great big voyeur; it is one of my major kinks.”

“You’re a pretty big exhibitionist, too,” I said.

“Yep, and tonight we get to do both. Let me change, and let’s go do this.”

“You have no qualms about this, do you?”

“If anyone can help J.J. feel comfortable with all this, it’s us.”

I nodded, because it was reasonable, even logical, but . . . “I’m not a voyeur, or an exhibitionist.”

“Not really, but you are two things that will make this work.”

“What two things?”

“Jason’s friend and lover.”

“You got me there,” I said.

He started taking off his clothes, and I turned around so I wouldn’t be distracted as he stripped. Him undressing always seemed to make me want to touch him, and tonight we needed to save the distracting touching for group activity. Just thinking that in my head was a little weird. My life; sometimes it amazed me, sometimes it just made me go Huh?

4

BUT INSTEAD OF hot monkey sex, we ended up talking. J.J. didn’t know me well enough not to ask one question too many. She asked, “What bothers you most about dating Jade?”

It was a list, and the itemized list changed order from day to day. I lay propped up on my side in my see-through black teddy and fuck-me heels talking very seriously. J.J. lay on her back in her blue silk nightie, face intent on mine, listening, nodding, adding a comment here and there.

“So without the ardeur binding you to her, you’d never have been attracted to women¸ at all?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“That would be hard, and the memories you have of Jean-Claude and others being with women are all guy memories, so you don’t have the equipment to do what you remember.”

“Yeah.”

Her pretty face was very serious, and watching the intelligence behind her blue eyes made me understand even more why Jason had decided this was the one. Smart is sexy.

“Too much talking, not enough sex,” Jason said, from where he was propped beside J.J.

From behind me Nathaniel said, “Agreed.”

“How do we stop all the talking and get to the sex?” Jason asked.

I lay back on the bed so I could see them both. J.J. and I watched them go back and forth like a sexy tennis match.

“Pounce,” Nathaniel said.

“Pounce?” Jason made it a question with a lift of his voice.

Nathaniel nodded solemnly. “Pounce.”

“Cats”—he rolled his eyes—“but it works for me.”

They pounced.

5

MUCH LAUGHTER AND giggling later, the boys convinced us both that words were extras we didn’t need. I lay on my back, looking down the line of my body at Nathaniel’s face as he licked between my legs with long, sweeping strokes of his tongue. He’d unfastened the hidden snap on the teddy to reach me, pushing the cloth up to my waist. J.J. lay beside me with her blue silk pushed up as far, and Jason’s face mostly hidden against her body.

I was already making small, eager noises when J.J.’s body spasmed up from the bed as if a string had pulled her upward and held her for a long, impossible moment, her face slack, eyes wide, and then her body began to shake with the force of her orgasm.

Nathaniel hesitated a second, as we both watched her writhe and almost dance over the bed, as Jason kissed and sucked her. Nathaniel brought his longer strokes quicker and more often over that one sweet spot. J.J.’s hand reached out and I found myself holding her hand as that warmth built low in my body, and Nathaniel began to swirl his tongue in nearly circular motions, quick, but pressing a little more firmly over that one spot, each time he licked over it. The pressure and warmth built inside me, low and growing between my legs, until one last lick pushed me over the edge and the orgasm rolled up and over me. My head went back, my spine bowed, and I screamed my pleasure to the headboard.

I felt J.J.’s hand spasm in mine, but it was a distant thing. I clung to her hand as my body bucked and writhed, and Nathaniel kept licking and sucking, helping the orgasm last longer, so that it was wave after wave of pleasure, until my eyes fluttered closed and I was blind from the pleasure of it.

I felt the bed move, a second before I heard, “Trade me.” I knew it was Jason’s voice. I might have asked what he meant, but I was still quivering on the bed with happy aftershocks.

I felt him lick me, and knew it was him, or rather that it wasn’t Nathaniel, before I managed to open my eyes enough to be absolutely sure. He looked up at me with that happy darkness in his eyes, and blue eyes held that dark, just as good as any other color. It wasn’t a darkness of hue, but of intention. It was a possessive, a surety, a “This is mine.”