Third Wheel

Jana and I broke up two weeks before all of this happened. You don't have to feel bad for me. It was for the best--and I really do mean that. We had been drifting apart anyway, I was letting myself get wrapped up in work, and then one day she bought a plane ticket to Europe, and I sort of knew she wasn't coming back. Sure, I felt a bit rough about it, but the only reason I'm telling you this is because it left me in a bit of a bind.

I called Chris--we're the kind of friends who still just call each other without texting first--but Lily picked up instead.

"Christopher Watts' offices, this is Lily speaking," she answered gaily.

I told her what was up, and she made the sympathetic noises of a friend who has been waiting for this breakup for a while and is pretending to be surprised.

"Maybe we should just cancel the cabin," I said. "Or you and Chris could just go. I don't want to be a third wheel."

"Nah," she said. Then, away from the phone. "Chris, he should just come, right? It's going to be great--Yeah, Chris says it will be great."

I wasn't totally convinced that Chris was even in the room with her, but I said OK. This was the sort of decision that Chris and Lily would just make for each other--an easy confidence in the relationship that I had never experienced, and that I envied in them. Maybe it's because they had been together for twelve years, whereas my girlfriends had never lasted past two. Or maybe that's the reason they had stuck together so long. Chicken and the egg.

Maybe because I've almost only known them together--Chris and I met in school a year before he met Lily--the two of them also just seem to fit together like puzzle pieces. She has a big laugh, a small, delicate nose, and wears dark, high-contrast lipstick and a once-stylish wide brimmed felt hat over her long, silky-straight black hair. He's quiet and understated, sandy blonde, and wears flannel shirts and jeans, but just smartly enough that he doesn't look like a schlub next to her. It helps that he's got the poised build of an athlete. Lily likes to jump into his arms and wrap her legs around his waist, and he handles her with a kind of masterful ease that feels almost too intimate to watch.

Anyway, Lily was right, everything was fine. On the drive over, she and Chris went out of their way to make me feel like we were just three friends out for a weekend, and not a couple and some single guy who was just along for the ride. Lily flirts a little with everyone all the time, but she pulled out the stops. On the ferry, Chris and I leaned on the railing, watching the islands drift by, and she dramatically threw her arms over both our shoulders--despite being a good six inches shorter than either of us. "Boys," she said simply, and lay her head on Chris's shoulder. Then, not to seem unfair, she put her head on my shoulder. Her hair smelled like rosemary and citrus, and something musky I couldn't place.

The cabin overlooked the ocean, and was built in an arch of thick cedar logs that glowed orange in the sunset. There was a bedroom (for Chris and Lily) in the front, with a loft for me (and my absent ex-girlfriend), and a long hallway that led back to a big indoor hot tub, which filled through a pipe from a natural spring somewhere in the hills behind us. Lily made a guttural noise of desire when she saw it.

After dinner, Chris and Lily went to soak, and I went to my loft to read and mope. I didn't make it very long, though, before Lily's face, her hair wet and sticking to her collarbones, appeared up the ladder.

"Come join us," she said. "Please?"

I attempted a genuine smile, to make it seem like I wasn't moping. "I'm OK."

"I know you're OK," she said, exasperated. "Now come join us. We have wine."

"I actually forgot to bring a bathing suit." This was true, and also an excuse.

"That's OK, we'll make you comfortable," she said, and looked down to balance precariously on the ladder while one hand busied itself with what must be her bikini top. Her work complete, she looked up at me again with a devilish grin. "Now join us."

It seemed impolite to refuse after that, so I showed up to the hot tub in a towel, and dropped it just in time to slip into the water. Chris looked bemused, and Lily balanced a wine glass elegantly between her fingers, the water lapping over the tops of her small, round breasts. As soon as I was in, Lily poured me a glass of Pinot Noir, stood up, and swished her way through the water to bring it to me--while I played the game of trying very hard to look in her eyes and not at the curves of her body, while also trying not to make an uncomfortable amount of eye contact. Then she swished her way back to Chris, straddled him, took a sip of wine, and kissed him long and slowly.

Again, Lily was right, and wine and a long soak were what I needed. Two hours later, we were all showered and in our underwear--Lily pulling on a loose tank top--and lying pleasantly wine-buzzed in their bed, while she asked us questions like "What animal would you want to be if you were reincarnated," and "Would you rather be able to see a minute into the future or be able to teleport twenty feet in any direction" with endearing genuity. Sometime after the late summer night had finally gone dark, we fell into an easy silence. "I should go to bed," I mumbled.

"Hmmph," said Lily, half asleep wrapped up in Chris's arms. I thought about getting up, and very nearly made myself do it, but I let myself rest a minute instead, and the next thing I knew it was morning.

***

It must have been before five, because the pink glow of the sky through the gauze curtains spoke to a sun not yet risen. I had woken to a soft rustling, and as my eyes regained focus I saw Lily's body moving slowly and sinuously. She was facing away from me, and she had pulled her tank top off. Too drowsy to be self-conscious, I admired her shoulder blades gently moving, shifting the black-line tattoo of a peony covering one shoulder and curling onto the golden skin of her back. Lying on her side, the crease of her waist leapt sharply into the round, inviting curve of her hip.

Then down the side of her back, I saw Chris's hand slide slowly to rest on her hip bone, and I realized what I was looking at. I could hear the soft sounds of their lips separating, and the shuffle of skin on skin. Lily leaned in a little, and Chris's hand slid down to cup her ass, his fingers dimpling her smooth skin. As I fully returned to consciousness, I became aware that this wasn't something I was supposed to be witnessing--a private little moment, going on in the very early hours, maybe heightened by the illicit feeling of my sleeping presence nearby.

I couldn't look away though, and I followed Chris's fingers with my eyes as they hooked into Lily's underwear and began to lower them slowly over her ass. Lily reached down to help, and she wriggled them down over her legs and feet. I took in the full sweep of her naked body, and realized for the first time that I was in a state of growing arousal underneath the sheets loosely covering me.

Then, with a luxurious sigh, Lily turned around to face me, Chris's arm still wrapped around her torso, her hips tucked back against him. If I had more presence of mind, I might have closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. But I didn't. Our eyes locked. She didn't flinch or start, but held steady eye contact with me and slowly smiled. Behind her, somewhere hidden behind her curves, I could hear Chris's slow breathing, and I held Lily's eyes as his hand traced from her neck over her breasts and down to rest on her belly. I could tell from the delicate arch of her shoulders that his lips were buried somewhere in the back of her neck. She held my eyes steadily as she picked up Chris's hand, brought it to her mouth, and softly sucked the end of his finger.

Then Lily's eyes half-closed with some sudden sensation, and I instinctively looked down her body. There, where her neatly trimmed glossy black pubic hair pointed a beckoning line between her legs, there was movement. I recognized after a moment that it was the head of Chris's cock, sliding between her thighs, and emerging wet and slick as it slid out from underneath her. Lily lay still, breathing deeply in enjoyment for a few more strokes, and then opened her eyes again and looked back at me. With a theatrical bite of her lip, she reached down and her long fingers traced over the curve of her lower belly, hesitated a moment at her clit, and then cupped underneath her to guide his cock inside her.

Lily and I watched each other silently while he fucked her slowly, and she lazily pushed her ass back into him. All I could see of Chris was his arm wrapped around her torso, and a hint of his leg where it tangled with hers near the foot of the bed. I was rooted to where I lay, head still resting on the pillow, and she seemed to be biding her time, savouring our stalemate with unhurried enjoyment.

Then, finally, she raised her hand to her mouth, making a hush sign against her lips, and then beckoning to me with a growing grin. I could feel my eyes widen. She nodded almost imperceptibly, and repeated her beckon. I was suddenly even more conscious of my cock straining against my boxer shorts, and the thin sheet that hid me from her. But her soft insistence was beyond my capacity to deny, and I slowly shifted out from under the sheet to lie next to her, close enough to feel her breath against my face.

Lily looked me up and down, and then her finger was under my chin and gently guiding me towards her. Our lips met, and I once again smelled rosemary, and her tongue tasted sharp and sweet with arousal. As I was caught up in the softness of her mouth, I felt her other hand hook over the band of my boxers and pull down, and then before I could react her fingers were around my cock, holding me with a firmness out of place for her small hand.

I could feel the smile in her lips as she guided me towards her, at turns pulling me in, and then playfully stroking me to the base of my cock before resuming her insistent tug. Absurdly, I wondered if I was somehow cheating with my friend's girlfriend while he was fucking her, but the thought floated away as easily as it had come, soothed by the relaxed confidence of her hands, and her dark-lashed eyes that held me reassuringly even as her lips circled mine. I felt the soft tickle of her pubic hair, and then the soft, wet kiss of my foreskin on her warm body. She was using the tip of my cock to circle her clit, her eyes fluttering slightly as her attention turned inwards. My attention followed hers, and I felt myself throb against her palm with anticipation and desire at the little taste of herself she was giving me.

Lily looked back at me now with a kind of playful seriousness, as if asking for my assent. I kissed her gently in reply--I wasn't sure what she wanted, but I felt no choice but to give it to her, entangled as I was in her smell, her eyes, her fingers. She drew me closer, prompting me to slide my hips nearer on the bed, and then she guided my cock from her clit down through the soft, warm folds of her pussy, finally letting me come to rest against Chris's cock, still moving rhythmically in and out of her. I heard the gasp of recognition from Chris at the same moment that I caught my own breath, overwhelmed by the feeling of his firm shaft sliding against my sensitive tip. His arm lifted up from Lily's ribcage and reached towards me, feeling down my shoulder and arm as if taking in a statue by touch. Then he seemed to finish appraising the situation, and with a low groan of approval, his hand gripped my forearm, and he pulled me forwards.

My whole body was against Lily's, and my face was buried in her neck on one side, Chris's on the other. I wrapped my hand around her hip, and felt him give her two firm, deep thrusts from behind. She moaned appreciatively.

Totally overwhelmed physically by the two men on either side of her, Lily was somehow still guiding us--wriggling her body to lure our mouths from her neck to her shoulders to her breasts and back again. She looked over her shoulder to kiss Chris deeply while I nestled in her collarbone, and then she came back for me--her breath carrying a touch of his scent melded with her own. Her hands were on both of us as well, lingering around the base of our cocks, guiding him inside her, and letting me slip up and down over her clit.

Then she skillfully teased him out of her, stroking his cock appreciatively, and let me slide forward into the space he had left. She was warm and soft and aroused as I slipped all the way inside her, and the sudden wave of sensation all around me made me feel like I was almost going to come right then and there. Lily came to the rescue, though, and teased me out of her pussy to once again hover over her clit while Chris fucked her hard from behind.

She continued this rhythm, letting Chris's cock into her, then mine, then his--slowly upping the tempo until we were both hovering against her entrance, waiting with almost-painful anticipation as she let us slide slightly inside her in turn, her hands stroking us against each other. I hungrily waited for her mouth, craving her attention and as much of her body as I could have against me, and she led us teasingly back and forth, until our lips were on either side of hers.

Then I was kissing Chris. His stubble was rough, and his lips firm against me. I had never felt attracted to him before--and I don't think he had felt anything for me either--but both of our arousal and hunger for Lily made anything but the sheer sensation seem irrelevant. From underneath us, Lily gave a deep chuckle of delight. I felt Chris shudder and groan against my mouth as Lily guided his cock inside her, and I ground against her as she pushed her hips back into him. He was moaning against my lips, with an increasing urgency. I didn't realize what was happening, but Lily did, and her face was suddenly beside me, kissing him on one side of his mouth, I on another as he came inside her.

Chris held her tightly from behind for a moment, and then fell back with a satisfied groan onto the bed. Lily gently disentangled herself, and rolled on top of me, straddling me with her legs and easing herself onto my cock. I felt the hot, liquid pool of Chris's orgasm dripping from inside her, and she slid against me with an ease that made both of us gasp a little. She was lost in her own head now, her brows furrowed, lips tense, breathing heavy, as she leaned in and ground her clit against my body. I looked away from the somehow private intimacy of her inward focus, and locked eyes with Chris, lying on the bed next to me. His face was utterly relaxed, the hint of a smile on his lips. I felt him take my hand and give it a firm squeeze, predicting exactly when Lily would cry out and grip her thighs into me as she came.

She rolled off of me, and straddled Chris, leaning down and kissing him while holding his eyes with an intensity I now recognized. For a moment I watched them, letting them have a moment to themselves, but then Lily looked over at me and quirked her hips--an invitation. My desire for her leapt into my chest, and I swung up and behind her, straddling Chris's legs and Lily's ankles, and hooking my fingers into the roundness of her hips. As I slid inside her, she moaned gently into Chris's ear, and he whispered softly into hers--sharing some secret narrative that made her moan and squirm as I pushed deeply into her. The smell of her sweat and perfume, and the soft pressure of her ass against me broke like a wave over my senses, and I felt myself come inside her with a long, growling sigh.

We all collapsed into a pile, the first yellow rays of sun peaking through the curtains and painting the walls gold. Lily was covered in sweat, gloriously relaxed, her hair sticking everywhere, and a big, easy grin spreading over her face. "Boys," she said, kissing us both on the cheek. Then a long, comfortable silence. "Alright," she said, finally. "Who's going to make me breakfast?"

We both did.