There was an eerie wrongness about the house from the moment I arrived home. Nothing was out of place—all the right coats on their pegs, all the same shoes against the door, the living room tossed with stray beer cans and scattered magazines swept from the coffee table in one or another eager moment of passion—but something was different.

There was a familiar sound coming from elsewhere in the house—the unmistakable joys of Mack getting railed. It was the low thump of Kyle’s hips against her ass, the way they ploughed slowly when it was neither of their first go-arounds for the day. Our months of relationship had attuned me to their moods and sounds. The sound of it and the discordant normalcy was enough to ease my suspicion.

I shrugged off my unease and went to the kitchen for a beer, drinking it slowly and listening to the muffled sounds through the wall.

It was good to hear them fucking again and, perhaps, the sudden return to normalcy was what had aroused my fear. Ever since the night Kyle had found out about McKenzi’s secret swinging, they’d been distant. Mack crept around the house as though hiding from him. Kyle stormed about as though looking for her and, somehow, they never seemed to meet.

It had meant that they only found me instead and invariably pulled me into the living room or the second bedroom—swiftly becoming the hookup room—to pound or get pounded by me. Kyle was working out his frustrations. Mack was exercising her fantasies or making her other boyfriend jealous. I’d made attempts. Taken them out individually, together. Spent late hours wearing Kyle down. He just needed time, he said.

Mack had made up her mind. She wasn’t going to change. She only wanted more.

In our times together in the hookup room, in the shower, on the living room couch when Kyle was out of earshot, she told me that she had never stopped swinging with Ash and Liam. She was with them now as regularly as Kyle used to visit me in my apartment, always with a different excuse. The movies with a friend. Her mother’s birthday. The gyno. Always, there was a hint of truth, she told me once. She’d made out with Ashley at the movies. She stopped by Liam’s work on her way to visit her mom. Someone really was checking out her pussy.

But even while she rode me and whispered to me about her exploits, I felt her slipping away from me, from us. We’d all started down this polyamorous road together, but somewhere along the line she had chosen a new path, one that part of me wanted to follow her on.

Not Kyle.

He felt betrayed, cheated on. No amount of reminders that he and I had started it all on our European tour could bring him to acknowledge any part in it. He didn’t want her sleeping around and he didn’t want, despite her pleadings and my gentles nudges, to be brought in to it.

 My heart stopped in its tracks, then got up and ran 100 meters. McKenzi was prone on the bed, naked, her face turned to the wall. Another man was behind her—larger than Kyle, less muscular, with dirty-blonde hair. He was slowly pulsing into her and, with every stroke, Mack let out a low moan.

All at once, the sense of wrongness made sense to me. Kyle’s car wasn’t in the driveway. I’d come home early. No one should have been home. No one should have been fucking. Here she was, not in the hookup room but in the bedroom the three of us often shared, banging Liam.

“Mack,” I said, almost stuttering from excitement and anger. “What are you doing?”

Liam leapt away from her as though he’d been electrocuted, his cock bouncing and feebly covered by his embarrassed hands.

“Bro,” he said. “I’m sorry. She said—”

“I didn’t think you’d be home yet,” Mack said, rolling over lazily. There was no look of surprise or shame in her eyes.

“I told you I’d be home early.”

She was already sliding off the bed. Liam looked between us, still covering his softening penis. I knew immediately what she wanted. My cock gave a silent answer to her unspoken proposal.

“We can’t, Mack,” I said. “I can’t believe you brought him here.”

Her naked body, slim and slick with sweat, folded into my arms with a kiss. And she had me.

I let her slink down to her knees and roll down my pants, let her slip it into her mouth and swallow it to the hilt. Without speaking, I shrugged out of my shirt and placed a hand on the top of her head. Liam watched us, hands falling away from his privates. I watched him slowly regain his erection.

“He’ll be home soon,” I told her.

“We’ll deal with him then,” she said.

Kyle and I had talked about this. In the throws of our own lust, he had said that he wanted to try it—but his vision had included Ashley and it had not been meant as a surprise. What’s more, he had never spoken of it with McKenzi and, since that day of certainty nearly a week ago, I had begun to worry that it was a passing fancy.

I wanted to protest. I knew that I should stop her—and myself—before we started something that would end in disaster. But her words and nakedness instilled a silence. I felt events propelling themselves along a track. I could not, nor had I the will, to stop them.

McKenzi crooked a finger and dragged the other man towards our embrace as though by rails. He stopped next to me with a bemused grin.

“Your girl is a freak,” he said.

I felt a pang of jealousy and anger at his words, at the knowledge that he had had her for almost as long as I had. But Mack placed a hand on his thigh.

“No,” she said. “Down here.”

His look changed from smug satisfaction to something else. I let Mack pull him down with her. She made out with him until I placed my cock between them and she drew in his lips.

It was the first time any man besides Kyle had touched me there, and it was a moment I’d been hoping for with some dread. Until that moment, I could still convince myself it was only Kyle that I craved. But even with Liam’s inexpert and reluctant licking of my shaft, I knew that I only wanted more.

Gently, I pressed my hand to the back of his head. His mouth opened and I was in him. Mack wound back up to kiss me.

“I know what you want, Justin,” she whispered as Liam’s mouth closed around the head of my cock. “But we have to save something for your boyfriend.”

I smiled and kissed her back, feeling the unfamiliar tongue on the head of my cock. I pressed him down until Liam coughed and spat me out.

“How do you like that?” Mack said, her body against mine.

Liam shrugged. His eyes were watery. I knew that this had been part of the transaction Mack had asked of him. Still, I took pity.

“Get on the bed,” I told them.

Giggling, Mack splayed herself out on her back, wriggling on the already-damp covers in anticipation. Two fingers slipped between her legs. I held Liam back to feel my hands across his back, his ass. I was surprised at the sensation of him yielding to me.

“I don’t want to kiss you,” he said with some bluntness.

“This is your first time?”

I inhaled his scent, nibbling along the ridge of his neck and feeling the inadvertent shiver of pleasure from him. His hand touched my lower back.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll show you.”

I directed him to the bed, his head into Mack’s waiting crotch. She welcomed him with a satisfied sigh and twined her fingers through his hair. For a moment, I watched them both. His soft ass gently raising into the air has his tongue worked greedily in her, his cock, hardening with every breath hanging between his legs. Then, I climbed in behind and took him in my hands.

Liam’s penis was as different from Kyle’s as Kyle’s was from mine, a unique member that somehow fit just as well in my hand as the other. He leapt a little at my touch, but did not pull away. I began softly to stroke, kissing the great globes of his ass and working my way slowly to the hollow between them. When I found it with my tongue, it was sweet with sweat but clean as though McKenzi had prepared him.

I licked at the taut hole until I felt it flex, open, let me in bit by bit. His hips were rocking into me, gently urging me onwards. I looked up over the humps of Liam’s back and saw Mack against the pillows, smiling out at me.

Slowly, I sank the tip of a finger into Liam’s ass. He responded with a small jolt, but leaned back into me. I pushed farther, burying a knuckle. I stroked his cock harder with my other hand, spat lubricant into his ass. Another knuckle. His back arched. He hissed and looked back.

“Fuck,” he said softly. “You.”

“You like it?”

With gritted teeth, he nodded. Mack was a wild grin.

We flipped him on his back and she descended on his cock, swallowing it with a sudden abandon. My finger worked slowly in and out of Liam’s ass while he shook and grabbed the blankets, cursing and grunting with pleasure. Mack and I kissed around his cock, fighting over the privilege with dueling tongues until my pulsing finger found him loose.

I slipped in beside him on the bed, still working with the tip of my finger and kissed his belly, his chest.

I looked up at him and wrapped an arm around his neck. I’d never found him to be particularly good looking, but in the glow of sex and the thrill of penetrating the man for the first time, I wanted him. He must have felt something of the same because he allowed a soft, tongue-less kiss.

“I’m not gay,” he said. “But damn.”

“I said the same thing once.”

He let a hand fall across my chest and ran it along my body. I smiled.

“Do you want to try cock?” I said to him.

He made a noncommittal twitch and Mack decided for him. My turn was over.

She slipped between us and took our cocks one in each hand. A strand of saliva still connected her to Liam as she wrapped her lips around mine. Her eyes, brown and deep, were burning.

I knew that this was what she wanted. And so I gave it to her.

With one motion, I swept her off the bed and rose to my feet, pressing her down to her knees and my cock down her throat. Liam, understanding at once, followed me. We stood side by side, gripping Mack’s head and forcing our cocks down her willing throat one after the other until she gagged and gasped and begged for air. By then, the sweat and saliva of our shared efforts were running in rivulets over her tits. The air in the room was thick and damp. There would be no hiding our lovemaking.

Twice, I felt myself ready to cum and, each time, passed her to Liam. I knew that I was waiting for something.

We hoisted her back onto the bed and I entered her from behind. Her mouth, as though directed by some other force, found Liam’s cock and then she was between us. The wet joy of her pussy was like a balm against the guilt. I fucked her hard, pushing her into the mattress and slapping angry red handprints into her ass. I let Liam have his turn. I took mine again. We lay unmoving together, heaving in exhaustion. Still, I would not let myself cum.

When the other shoe dropped, I was inside Mack again and Liam was taking his pleasure by her mouth.

Kyle came into the room in his work clothes, doubtlessly drawn by McKenzi’s unrestrained cries of joy and pain. His look was not betrayal but rage.

Again, Liam pulled away from Mack. I slipped out of her and stood. She rolled from the bed to her knees before he could speak.

“Fuck me, baby,” she said. “All I want is more. All I want is more. Fuck me.”

As she begged him in her breathless voice, I realized that my heart begged with her. I was hard, never softening. I was enthralled by the passion. Even now, I wanted to reach for Liam and bend him over before me rather than take this pause in the act.

“You’re a fucking whore,” Kyle said to her, but he was looking at me.

“Let me be your whore, baby,” she said, crawling hand over fist up his pantleg, fishing for his waistband.

He didn’t resist her and, in that moment, I knew what he wanted. I knew what was going to happen.

I reached for Liam and, to my surprise, he followed my gesture. He crawled over the bed to where I was standing and waited for my dick. As Liam began to suck, I felt the thick atmosphere shift. It was as though the four of us had suddenly fallen into the same mind. Kyle began to undress his shirt. McKenzi eagerly helped him out of his pants. But as Kyle freed his hard cock and Mack moved to draw him to the bed, he stopped her.

“I’m not going to give you what you want yet, whore,” he said. “Sit there.”

Properly downcast, Mack moved to the chair in the corner of the room and crossed her legs. Kyle put his hands on Liam’s ass.

Liam stopped sucking my dick and turned to face him.

“Wait,” he said.

“I’m going to fuck you like you’ve been fucking my girlfriend,” Kyle said.

Liam was hesitant. He looked to Mack, who only stared back.

“You liked my finger well enough,” I said. Kyle grinned at me.

“Okay.” Liam gritted his teeth. One hand was still curled around my dick as though for comfort.

I watched eagerly as Kyle drew the lube out from the night stand and drizzled it over himself. He pressed Liam’s back down as he had mine so many times and circled his slick thumb around Liam’s tightness three times. Then, Kyle pressed his cock into him slowly.

I watched Liam’s face. It went from grim to pained to compliant in a matter of moments and, as Kyle burrowed deeper into him, shifted to a surprised sort of joy. His hand began to go back and forth on my cock.

“There you go,” Kyle said. “There you go.”

I pushed my hips at Liam’s face, prompting him without words to take me back into his mouth. Then, he was like a toddler with a pacifier, drawing me into him for comfort against the pain wracking him, clinging to my hips for protection. Thrust after thrust, Liam’s pained grunts eased into muffled yelps and surprised yips.

I locked eyes with my boyfriend over the man caught between us. They were alight with malice, but it was not for me.

“He feels good,” Kyle said to Mack. “Do you like watching me play with your toy?”

Mack held her naked legs tight together. I could feel her radiating an anxious desire to touch herself, to join us, to yell or scream. She bit her lip and nodded her head. Kyle slapped Liam’s ass and his whole body jerked. My cock popped out of Liam’s mouth. He was gasping.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” he said through tears.

I pulled him up and pressed his face close to mine.

“You like it, don’t you?” I whispered.

He only nodded, lips curling as Kyle fucked him. I kissed him and joined them on the bed, lowering my body prone and guiding Liam back to his place with my cock.

Kyle was going slow. Liam’s tongue was going fast. Mack’s eyes were locked jealously on the three of us. I watched the motion of Kyle’s hips and the bobbing of Liam’s still-hard cock. Slowly, Liam joined in the rocking motion, throwing his ass back against Kyle’s, speeding up. Kyle responded in kind.

On her chair, Mack had given up and was touching herself. Liam’s eyes were closed and any protest had gone from his face. Kyle was fucking as furiously as he dared, the familiar look of orgasm building in him. I let the man keep sucking my cock, watching Mack as he did for signs of envy.

Finally, Kyle pulled out of Liam and crossed the room to lift McKenzi out of her chair by her chin. He whispered something to her. She nodded with rapturous eyes and followed him back to the bedside.

“Give her what she wants, Just,” he said.

I eased Liam off of my cock and stood with them around McKenzi, again knelt to the floor. She was surrounded by our cocks. A smile broke across her face as she took it in. Then, she began to take them in hungrily.

I cupped Kyle’s face and brought him in for a long kiss, putting into it all of my lust and confusion and apologies. I didn’t know what he was feeling, only that there was rage and lust and betrayal. But he responded with abandon.

And Mack was alive as I had never seen her.

She had part of her on part of us at all times—hands, mouth, tongue, anything. She paused in her efforts only to gulp air and gasp happily, looking first at me, then at Kyle, then at Liam. I had the impression that she was sharing a different secret with all three of us, a hidden depth to the sex that only each of us knew.

For me, it was the realization of fantasy. It was every story McKenzi had told me come to life. It was every desire closed in her breast. It was the knowledge that Kyle had been won over, that he was with us, that she and I were out of hiding.

She locked eyes again with Kyle.

“I want your cu—”

He clasped her throat and lifted her away from us, tossing her handily to the bed and descended on her like an animal. She squealed as he entered her. Liam followed her lips. I stood behind Kyle, feeling my cock against his pumping hips.

“My ass,” Mack said around her mouthful. Kyle slapped it. “Please. Fuck my ass.”

We shifted on the bed. I found myself under her, sliding inside of her pussy and Kyle on top of us both. The warm lube spilled down into her. Mack gagged on Liam’s cock.

I fucked into her with everything I had. I fucked her until I felt, for the second time, her hot stream of cum squirting over me and her body writhed. I fucked her until exhaustion. I fucked her until Liam came, splashing across my face and Mack’s and we righted her.

Kyle and I stood shoulder to shoulder, stroking ourselves and each other until we both came on her and our three loads mingled with her sweat on her face and down her nipples.

Mack was radiant in her joy, breasts heaving and face dripping. She looked first to me and then to Kyle in an expression of wordless, unspeakable thanks.

But Kyle wasn’t done. I could see now, could see it as she fucked Liam, that he had found his own joy in McKenzi’s fulfillment, but it came from a far different avenue.

“Clean her up,” he said to Liam, turning to the exhausted figure on the bed. “Show him, Just.”

I sank to my knees beside Mack and kissed her, feeling our mingled cum in our mouths.

“Listen, man,” Liam was saying, “I don’t want to eat your cum.”

Mack and I broke apart, I sank into the hollow of her neck and licked away a droplet of someone’s semen.

“Remember what I told you, baby?” Mack said. Her voice was hoarse and low. “Our house?”

In moments, Liam was beside me, running his tongue along the clean stretches of McKenzi’s arm and face. I took his in my hands and guided him across her breasts, meeting his tongue with mine to ensure he found cum. I kissed him rather than let him spit, felt his lips purse against mine and his throat contract. When we finished, Mack was clean and Liam was quietly gagging.

“Good,” Kyle said. “Now, get out of my house.”

Liam left without fanfare, gathering his clothes and marching down the street to his parked car. Mack left him with a long kiss as if in recompense for the humiliation Kyle had put him through

“Don’t tell Ash about this,” I heard him say as he left.

McKenzi, Kyle and I lay together, napping here and there, snuggling and kissing elsewhere, lapsing from laughter to silence to idle talk until the fever had passed. I got up first to shower and heard them talking softly when I came back. Kyle went next.

“I can’t believe you did that,” I told her in his absence. “Is he mad?”

She smiled.

“He wants to do it again.”

“Me too.”

But I thought about all Kyle and I had talked about in bed the week before, how he had all but resigned from the relationship. I knew that the further we leaned in to Mack’s desires, the further Kyle would lean from her. And I worried that I would be dragged along with one more likely than the other.