Marissa and I arrived late, just as we always did. To my regular annoyance, and despite my best efforts, Mari couldn't seem to get anywhere on schedule. I thought even our wedding day would be delayed until she showed up right on time with a smile that gently mocked, “told you I’d make it.”

This wasn’t our wedding, though; this was a vacation. Specifically, a Labor Day weekend spent at our friend’s lake house, or, more accurately, his family’s lake house. And since it was a vacation, and since only our friends awaited us, and since they’d long since grown resigned to Mari’s lack of punctuality, she didn’t feel anything like the urgency she had five years before on the day we said, “I do.”

Our friends from our college days loitered on the dock, each whiling away the time in their preferred manner. Kyle and Heather, inseparable high school sweethearts still together almost fifteen years after they met, laughed at something as they watched together on a single tablet. Tyler, a former college athlete but eternal jock, argued heatedly with his girlfriend of the moment, although I couldn’t make out the bone of contention between them. Lakshmi, the brains of our college circle and a literal nuclear physicist, frowned at her phone, body language radiating misery as she jabbed at the touchscreen rapid-fire.

Rounding out the group were two faces, one familiar and one new. The handsome couple leaned in close and smiled as they engaged in quiet conversation, before Blake turned to greet our approach. “Dale! Mari! So glad you could make it!” Mari hugged Blake. “And this…” He gestured, “... is my fiancée, Gina. We’re going to announce on Insta this week.” The newcomer gave a shy wave.

“Fiancée?” Mari gushed, bringing the dark-haired beauty into a bear hug. “Oh, my God! That’s wonderful! I can’t believe it!”

That made two of us. The last time we’d gotten together there, three years prior, Blake was just pulling himself out of the wreckage of his disastrous divorce. I couldn’t believe that, either. Yeah, he and Jen had partied like mad in college, but we all thought they’d both settled down. She sure as hell had plenty of good reasons to, given her rich, handsome, charming, and funny husband; who would cheat on a guy like Blake? His ex had, though, and it completely shattered the guy.

We all missed the next two theoretically annual trips for unrelated reasons. The first year, Kyle and Heather got COVID. Then, the onset of the war in Ukraine kept Lakshmi from attending; her wife, Olivia, worked in some nebulous department at the Pentagon, and it was all hands on deck. While Liv wasn’t part of our core group, Lakshmi was, and she wanted to stay in D.C., too. It sucked, but we all knew the weekend wouldn’t be the same without Shmi, so everyone penciled it in for the following year.

Truth be told, I had doubted that we’d all make it this time, either, and I suspected this trip might be our last hurrah. After college, we’d all scattered to the winds. Blake took a cushy position at his father’s firm in L.A. and brought Tyler along for the ride, as he had since they were kids. Shmi finished her master's, then moved to D.C. and met her wife. Mari and I migrated to Dallas, where she worked as a nurse, while I found employment at a telecom company. Kyle, after finishing up his J.D., moved back to the Midwest with Heather, where the two of them settled in quite nicely as a lawyer and a stay-at-home wife.

Adult responsibilities had crowded out free time for all of us, and Kyle and Heather had two young kids on top of that. Add in the kind of drift that almost always occurs after college as people grow into their adult selves, and I’d seen the cracks starting to form when we’d last met three years previous. Shmi and I had shared similar thoughts on late-night Discord chats, although Mari told me we were being too pessimistic.

Still, if this would likely be our last weekend together, I wanted to make the most of it. Grabbing Blake’s hand in a firm handshake and slapping him on the back, I gave my congratulations. 

They certainly were in order, if looks were anything to go by. Gina worked as a model, and she looked it: long legs, slim, great tits, a ready smile, and stunning green eyes. Mari, with her athletic body, red hair, and pale blue eyes, had been one of the hottest girls on campus when she and I started dating, and my wife still turned heads. Gina, though? Gina was sex on a stick.

“I’m the lucky one,” she enthused, “and I’m so glad to meet all of you. Blake keeps telling me about his wonderful college friends and how he misses them so much. We’re going to have so much fun together this weekend!” For just a moment, while looking at me, I would have sworn she licked her lips as she said this last bit. Then, however, her gaze returned to him, and I chalked it up to my imagination.

Excusing myself as Mari and Gina got to know each other, I made my way to Kyle and Heather. We repeated a variation of the hug/handshake/good-to-see-you dance one performs on reuniting with old friends. The pair could have almost passed for brother and sister, both blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and pale-skinned, and both epitomizing “young Midwestern mom and dad.” Heather played further into that stereotype when she immediately opened up the photo app on her tablet to show me page after page of her kids’ pics. I oohed and ahhed as appropriate, before extricating myself a few minutes later.

I don’t mean to sell them short; I was very fond of Kyle and Heather, both individually and as a couple. However, I also had little in common with them other than our shared pasts, and I didn’t want to exhaust my small talk options in the first half hour. I moved on, and they headed towards Mari, Gina, and Blake, all of us promising to catch up more once we reached the lake house.

Tyler and… I’m just going to call her Candy. I know I heard her name, but I can’t remember it. She was almost certainly a Candy or a Traci or a Topaz or some such; while Tyler didn’t have a physical type, he sure as hell had one when it came to their personality, and that type was “bold Comic Sans.” Their heated discussion had turned nasty, and I wanted nothing to do with it. 

Of all our group, Tyler had changed the least. That’s not a compliment; the former linebacker had helped Blake get through middle school intact, back when his family’s wealth only invited scorn and wedgies, before he’d come into his good looks and charm. The lunk had earned himself a friend for life, whether he deserved it or not, and he’d been coasting on that association for years.

Tyler and Candy’s animated discussion gave me the perfect excuse to slip past them and on toward the main reason–other than Mari’s insistence–that I’d agreed to one more year at the lake house. “Hey, nerd.”

My adorably tiny friend craned her neck to look up at me, her furrowed brow relaxing as she realized backup had arrived. “Hey, dork.” Her arms encircled me in a tight, heartfelt hug. “I would have killed you if you hadn’t made it.”

“Such love!” Pulling away and looking down, I asked, “Everything okay, Shmi? Where’s Liv?”

She tried to smile, but her heart wasn’t in it. “Work. Again. I flew in last night, and she was supposed to get here this morning. But with everything going on in the world…” Lakshmi shrugged and waved her phone. 

Shmi had a gift for understatement. Every major geopolitical hotspot seemed like it had heated up in the previous few months. With the election only a couple of months away, even North Korea had reentered the conversation, rattling its saber with new ballistic missile tests that lobbed a dummy warhead far enough to upset the talking heads.

“Anyways,” she continued, in the clipped Indian accent she’d inherited from her parents, “She’s not going to make it but told me to go ahead without her.” With a snort, Shmi groused, “Just like her. I’m sure she’d already decided to… Eh, whatever. I’m here now; you’re here now. Let’s try to have fun.”

“Sorry, hon. C’mon, let’s go–”

“Dale! Bro!” Fuck. It had spotted me, and here it came. “I want to introduce you to–”

“Why does she have a phone?” Candy squawked. “You said I couldn’t have one! Why does she get to have hers and I don’t?”

One of the original rules at the lake house was that we were supposed to disconnect: no TVs in the bedrooms, no phones, no laptops. Kyle and Heather would have to leave their tablet in their car before we embarked, too. The lake house had a radio for emergencies, a TV with a Blu-ray player in the living room, and an expensive sound system complete with an impressive vinyl collection, but the point was for us to hang out together without the distractions of the outside world. That had shifted slightly since college–no way would Kyle and Heather have joined us if they couldn’t be reached once they had kids–but the spirit of the agreement remained intact. 

“Babe, I told you. Shmi does government shit, so she has to have her phone if there’s, like, an emergency or something.” Candy rolled her eyes and stalked off in a huff. “Sorry, bro. She gets like that sometimes. Eh, whatever. It’s awesome you could make it!” The big lug dragged me into a crushing bear hug. That’s a pretty impressive feat; I’m not a small guy at just over six feet and around 200 pounds, but he picked me up like I weighed nothing at all. I’d asked him not to, but he never listened. He pretty much never listened to anyone except Blake.

“Put him down, Ty.” His best friend’s tone sounded a little different than it had back in the day. Before, I remembered a certain resigned amusement, a ‘boys will be boys’ spirit behind the chiding. Now, though, I heard a bit of an edge there, a tiredness, maybe. 

Tyler set me back down with a mumbled, unhappy, “Sorry.” That was new, too. The Ty from college, or even the one from three years before, would have obeyed, but his manner would have been, at most, that of a slightly chagrined schoolboy who’d gotten his knuckles rapped with a ruler. This Tyler seemed more like a whipped dog.

Blake slapped him on the shoulder and turned his charm towards me. “No harm done, right?” Tyler seemed mollified when I shrugged, and that was enough for Blake to turn his back on both of us. With his shout of, “Come on, everyone! Time to go!” the assembled throng began moving our luggage to the pontoon boat docked nearest the parking lot.

Blake’s grandparents had built the lake house back in the early 70s, the first of a planned luxury resort development. His family had made their money in timber, and the land had originally been slated for harvesting, but the gorgeous clear blue water of the lake and the temperate summer weather made the switch a no-brainer. 

Unfortunately for them, the Endangered Species Act passed just after the first spacious house went up, and three nearly extinct birds were found to live in the surrounding forest, putting an end to the planned development. Since then, one had come off the endangered species list, and another had gone extinct, but the third stayed firmly in limbo.

The town we parked at, founded decades before the EPA and with a population in the hundreds, had a little more leeway in their observance of the act. Its inhabitants could still fish and boat to a limited extent, and a few of the folks who lived in the town had cabins lining the banks of the lake, but they all reached them by water. The forest had largely reclaimed the logging road that had brought the materials for the first-and-only luxury lake resort home, so Blake’s family followed suit, contracting with a local man to ferry their family back and forth to the house, as well as keeping it stocked in the summer months and checking on it during the offseason.

Once we’d stowed everything we’d brought for the weekend, the captain cast off from the dock and began the twenty-minute journey to our destination at the far side of the lake. Most of us socialized, catching up on the events in our lives that hadn’t made it onto social media, with two exceptions. Lakshmi kept looking at her phone, occasionally poking at it or angrily scrolling, and Candy, arms crossed, glared in turns at her and at Tyler.

I felt a bit bad for Candy, honestly. It sucks to be the odd man out, and I tried to bring her into the conversation. After she answered in monosyllables the first two times, though, I gave up. I think my attempts might have made her angrier, especially since Tyler didn’t bother at all. Instead, he focused on the reunion and–less subtly than he believed–Blake’s hot fiancée. 

To be fair, he was not alone in that; I stole a glance now and again, as did Kyle, Shmi, and, surprisingly to me, Heather. This apparently pissed Candy off even more; she seemed like the type of girl used to being the center of attention. By the time we reached our destination, she looked ready to explode, and, as the group disembarked with our luggage, a spark caught.

“Mom says Dylan and Thea are fine,” Heather remarked, looking up from the phone she’d pulled out of her purse. “They miss us, but–”

“What the fuck?” We all turned to look at Candy, who launched into a tirade. “She gets to bring her phone, too? I swear to God, you son of a—”

“Babe–” Tyler began, but she cut him short.

“No, fuck you! I didn’t want to come here in the first place, hanging out with your stupid friends at some stupid lake! You’ve spent the whole trip here staring at her tits, and I’m supposed to want to do this all weekend? Without TikTok? No. No. Not just hell no, but fuck no!” Candy turned to the local that had brought us across. “Can I go back with you?”

“Babe! Come on!”

The helmsman looked at Blake; he was paying, after all. Blake just shrugged. It’s not like this was the first time one of Ty’s girlfriends left in a huff, although it was the first time she required a watercraft to do so. The local, taking that as assent, helped Candy load her bags back into the boat, all while Tyler fumed. 

The rest of us, Gina excepted, shared a concerned look; we’d been here plenty of times, but only once when Tyler didn’t have a girl to keep him happy, and that trip had been miserable. He acted like a spoiled brat the whole time, growing increasingly unpleasant until we left at the end of the weekend. I sure as hell didn’t look forward to a repeat.

Blake tried to console his friend as the boat pulled away, but I could see his heart wasn’t really in it, that same tiredness I’d noticed in town returning in new form. I understood, having tired of Ty’s antics years ago. Looking around at the group, I think we all had. With a collective shrug, we grabbed our luggage and headed to our rooms.

By the time Mari and I unpacked and freshened up, the sun had started to dip below the horizon, and my stomach was rumbling. We made our way downstairs, ready to help cook, but Heather had beaten us to it, already wearing an apron and puttering about the kitchen. She’d always acted as the mom of the group, even when we were just a bunch of drunken idiots; it was nice to know some things hadn’t changed. Since she clearly wasn’t going to let us help cook, we instead set the table. 

The meal, as always, was delicious. Heather and Kyle had always had a plan for their lives, and her choice of majoring in home economics was part of that plan. Blake, Tyler, and Mari all gave them a bit of ribbing from time to time back in the day, but deep down, I think we all respected the dedication they had to building a future together.

At a lull in the conversation, Gina asked, “So, Blake has told me his story about how he met all of you, but I want to hear it direct from y’all.”

“Checking up on me?” Blake asked.

“No! No, I just…” She shrugged. “People have different recollections, you know? Like, I’ve talked with Tyler already, so I know that story, but…” She smiled at Kyle, “I know you were one of the first of the ‘inner circle.’ How did that happen?”

Kyle chuckled. “Well, Blake and I got into an argument in philosophy class. Don’t remember what about now, but I know he was wrong.” Blake snorted. “We ended up clicking. Him and me and Tyler all hung out, and Heather wanted to meet them. Then there were four.” He put his hand on his wife’s, and they shared a smile.

Gina shifted her focus. “Heather, did you ever feel like the odd woman out, because it was the three of them and you?”

Heather thought about it for a moment. “Maybe every once in a while. I know I mothered them, which was what Blake and Ty needed in their lives; Kyle and I are only a year older than them, but…” She shrugged. We all knew who the most mature ones in the room were. “Besides, it wasn’t too long before Lakshmi and Mari were hanging out with us, too.”

Blake’s fiancée turned her face towards Shmi, who was still fiddling with her phone at the dinner table. “You tutored Blake?” She paused, waiting for a response. “Lakshmi?”

Our friend, startled, almost shouted, “What?” Noticing we were all looking at her, she apologized. “Sorry. Sorry. What was the question?”

“You tutored Blake?”

“Uh. Um, yeah. Him, then Tyler.” With a self-deprecating laugh, she continued, “Blake always said he kept me around because they needed a smart person in the room. I don’t know about that, but–”

Mari chided, “Oh, hush. God knows half of us wouldn’t have made it through school without you. We partied way too hard.” She turned to Gina. “That’s how I met Blake. Partying, that is. Well, Tyler first, then Blake, at a frat party. Like Kyle said, we just clicked. All of us, I mean. That was… mmm, end of sophomore year.”

Gina grinned conspiratorially at my wife. “You’re gorgeous, and Tyler told me Blake used to be a bit of a player. Did you and he ever hook up?” Mari’s jaw dropped. “Hey, I’m not– No jealousy or anything. But looking at you, if he didn’t at least try…” She winked at her fiancé.

With a shake of her head and a rueful grin, Mari laughed. “No. I mean, yes, Blake did get around a bit, but no.”

“He didn’t try, or you didn’t say yes?” 

Marissa laughed again, louder this time. “He tried, once, but that was early. I had a boyfriend then, and once I told him that, he backed off. That’s probably why we were able to stay friends, honestly, the fact that we never hooked up.” 

She ran her fingers through my hair, smiling at me as she said, “And then Shmi brought Dale to that party junior year, and that was that.” She giggled at me, “I still can’t believe you thought the two of you were on a date. How did you not figure out Shmi was gay?” Returning her gaze to Gina, she concluded, “Anyways, that was that. Completely love-at-first-sight smitten with this guy, and no looking back.”

I took Mari’s hand and kissed it, and she beamed. Gina giggled, “Yeah, I can see why you wouldn’t want to take a chance messing things up with Dale. You two look really happy together, and he’s…” She laughed, “Well, would it offend you if I said your husband’s hot?”

“As long as talking’s all you do, sure. Don’t make me cut you, bitch!” The two girls shared a laugh, and the whole table joined in. In that moment, it almost felt like old times. I remembered the playful flirtations amongst the seven of us, backed up by the fierce loyalty we had for each other. None of us ever crossed the line, partly because we cared for each other but also because we knew the others did, too, and they wouldn’t hesitate to let one of us know if our significant other cheated. 

Every friend group has its own energy, and Gina seemed like she synced up with ours. In particular, she and Mari got on like a house on fire, but everyone appeared to enjoy her company. Even Tyler and Shmi, each in their doldrums for different reasons, seemed buoyed. Still chuckling, the four guys headed for the living room with Shmi trailing, eyes glued to her phone, while Mari, Heather, and Gina cleared the table.

The good mood didn’t last long. Tyler flopped down on the couch next to Blake and called out, “Nerd! What are you doing on that thing? Got a game of Candy Crush you can’t put down?” The ‘nerd’ comment set my teeth on edge. She and I called each other ‘nerd’ and ‘dork’ as terms of affection; Tyler didn’t. He hadn’t called Shmi ‘nerd’ since the disastrous trip our senior year when he didn’t have a girl along to distract him and decided to take it out on her, at least until Blake and I got him to back off. 

“What?” Shmi looked up for a moment, then back down. “No, it’s… Goddammit, Liv. She says she’s going into a meeting, and she’s not sure when she can talk again.” Thrusting her phone into a pocket, she crossed her arms and hugged herself. “I shouldn’t have come.”

“Hey, now, it’s going to be okay,” Kyle said, trying to soothe her. “She told you to, right? It’s going to be fine. She’s not mad or anything, I’m sure.”

“No! No, it’s…” She shook her head. “I can’t… I just wish... I mean, I’m glad to see you guys, but–”

“C’mon, nerd, stop bringing down the room.”

“Cut it out, Ty.” Blake’s voice didn’t hold the warmth that it had in our younger days when he’d corrected Tyler, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Kyle and I shared a quick look with each other; he barely hid his surprise, too.

Tyler held his hands up in apparent submission. “Fine, fine. Jesus!” A lightbulb went off over his head, and he started digging in his pocket. “Hey, you know what? I’ve got something to help her chill out.” He cast a quick, accusatory glance towards Blake as he fished around. “All of us, actually.” Out came a baggie full of pot and a pair of joints because, of course, he’d brought weed. Before anyone could issue more than a token complaint, he’d already lit up and started puffing. 

Frankly, I was glad; stoned Tyler sucked less than sober, grumpy Tyler and significantly less than drunk, grumpy Tyler. If it could get him into teddy bear mode instead of grizzly bear mode, I was all for it. From their body language, that seemed to be Blake and Kyle’s assessment as well. 

After the first couple hits off the joint, he passed it on to Blake, then held up the unlit one and said, “C’monnn, Shmi. Take the edge off.”

She shook her head. “I can’t. Random drug tests at the DoE.”

The bear rolled his eyes. “Fiiine.” Thankfully, though, he left it at that, instead broing out with Blake and Kyle. They offered me a toke, but I demurred; pot always made me feel sick the next day.

Honestly, seeing him now, I felt sad more than anything else, even beyond the irritation. He and I had never been that close, not compared to the other two guys and him, or even Mari and him. We had been friends, though, at least of a sort. I remembered going out to bars and parties with him, or just chilling in his dorm room now and again. He was a fun guy to be around back then. Most of the time, anyways.

We’d all moved on in our lives, though, and he still seemed like the same guy he was in college, who, I’m fairly certain, bore a striking resemblance to the guy he was in high school. Riding Blake’s coattails may have given him an easy life, but it also meant he stagnated. I couldn’t see a future for him that wasn’t just him trying to hold onto his glory days while living in his friend’s shadow. That was assuming Blake’s new coolness toward him didn’t mean he’d be ejected from that part of his life soon, too.

Lakshmi stood and stretched. “I’m gonna get some fresh air.”

That sounded like a great idea. The other three guys were digging into college football, a topic Tyler would dominate and which I had no interest in. “I’ll join you.”

Out on the porch, she and I leaned against the railing, looking out over the lake. The new moon shed no light, leaving its still surface an inky black mirror speckled with pinpricks of starlight. The sounds of the nighttime forest filled our ears; we’d always been able to sit in an amiable silence together. She frowned, staring into the distance, then swiped one hand across her eyes. “Shmi?”

“Huh?” She shook her head. “Oh, it’s… I’m just tired.”

“Bullshit, hon. What’s going on?”

My friend–the first friend I had in this group and still one of my closest–opened her mouth and closed it a couple of times, clearly miserable, then asked, “Can… Can we not? Just tonight. I know you want to help, but I just… I need–” I slid closer and gave her a side hug; she rested her head against me and quietly said, “Thank you.”

“Any time.” I thought about making more small talk, but without knowing what exactly was going on, the obvious choices–her wife, her job, world events, our friends–represented a minefield I didn’t want to cross.

She broke the silence after a few minutes. “I don’t know that I can stomach Ty for the whole weekend. He’s just too much right now.”

“Hang out with me and Mari. Maybe we can go for a hike tomorrow. I’m sure he’ll want to go swimming for half the day like he always does, and we’ll all watch a movie that night. Then it’s Sunday, and he’s probably going to sleep until noon. We can chill until lunch, maybe watch another movie or take a walk, then get back, eat dinner, and pack. And besides, it seems like Blake has him on a short leash.”

Lakshmi chuckled. “You noticed that, too?”

“I think everyone did. I wonder what happened there?” 

She laughed, “Pretty sure it’s the new girlfriend. Fiancée. Whatever. She really does not seem to like Tyler at all.” Under her breath, Shmi muttered, “God knows why.”

“I wondered what happened there, too. After what Jen pulled… If you told me Blake would ever seriously date again, much less get engaged within a few years? Man, when he introduced her, you could have knocked me over with a feather.”

“Fuck if I know, man, I–” Uproarious laughter sounded from the door behind us. “Huh. Wonder what that’s about?”

“Wanna find out?”

“Not really, but we have to go in sometime.” She turned to leave, then stopped and said, “Thanks, Dale. For checking on me, I mean.” I ruffled her hair, and she playfully shoved my arm aside with a grin. “Asshole. C’mon.”

Upon opening the door, I heard Heather giddily proclaim, “–So, yeah, opening our marriage just made sense!”

“What?” Shmi and I both cried out at the same time. Heather and Kyle? Milquetoast Midwest mom and pop, nuclear family, ‘you kids play nice now’ Heather and Kyle?

That provoked a moment of awkward silence, then another gale of laughter. Heather, clearly feeling no pain, repeated between titters, “I said, ‘opening our marriage just made sense.’ It did.” Favoring me with a smile as I sat down on the couch next to Mari, she explained, “We were telling everyone, after what Jen did to Blake, Kyle and I had a long discussion about… well, a lot of things. About what we hadn’t done since we’d been together for so long, about what we worried we might miss out on, that kind of stuff.

“We were both honest with each other about things and…” She took her husband’s hand and smiled at him, “Honestly, we both wondered what it would be like to be with other people, but we also knew that we didn’t want to hurt our marriage. So, we set up some rules, tested the waters, and–”

Kyle laughed, “–the waters turned out to be just fine!”

Mari asked, “So, like, what are your rules? Do you just… do ‘whoever, wherever, whatever,’ or do you swap, or–”

“Is she cucking you? You got one of those cock cages on?” Tyler chortled.

Rolling her eyes, Heather said, “No, I am not ‘cucking’ my husband, you oaf. We swap. They both have to be people we like. Each of us has veto power–which we’ve never used because we trust each other–and it has to happen under the same roof. Sometimes it’s in the same room, and sometimes it’s not, but it’s always with each other’s approval.”

My wife leaned forward a little bit. “And you don’t get jealous or mad?”

“We’re human. It happens sometimes, especially the first few times, but we talk it out. We always space out swaps, too, so we don’t forget that the whole point is to make us happier in our marriage. Honestly, the next few weeks after we’re with another couple are…” Her husband leaned down and kissed her neck. “Mmm… Sublime. For us, it’s a bit of shared fun, followed by a wonderful period of, ah, recommitment.”

Kyle chimed in, “These days, we talk more often and more honestly, not just about sex but about everything, than we have since we started dating. I know it’s not for everyone, and I’m not saying we’ll do it forever, but it’s been great for us.”

Gina glanced over at Blake, and he incrementally nodded. She quietly said, “We do, too. Share, I mean, although not with the exact same rules.”

“What?” The whole room joined in this time, except for Tyler, who instead glowered silently.

Blake, laughing, said, “I know, I know. After what happened with Jennifer, I did some soul-searching. What I ultimately decided was that it wasn’t the cheating that bothered me; it was the lies. And then I met Gina and–” 

He looked at her, and she returned his earlier nod with an encouraging smile, “–well, Gina’s… She likes women, too. Early on, she told me that she felt incomplete if she couldn’t be with both men and women. She was honest with me about what she needed, and we talked about it, about what our boundaries were. 

“We’ve expanded some from those boundaries since then, but the core stuff stays the same. It doesn’t need to be a full swap–we’ve had threesomes with men and women, and we’ve both had no strings attached sex when traveling–but no sneaking around and absolutely no lying.” He leaned over and snuck a kiss in. “And I’m happier than I’ve ever been. Everything in my life has fallen into place, finally.”

During his explanation, Tyler’s frown deepened. Blake and Gina sat facing away from him, but the rest of us could see it. I couldn’t imagine their arrangement would upset Tyler; he’d been a huge party animal back in college, regaling us with tales of bacchanals that we mere mortals, not there on athletic scholarships, could only dream of. 

No, I had a sneaking suspicion that Lakshmi was right: it wasn’t what Gina had introduced into Blake’s life that upset Tyler, but what she had cut out. Or, maybe more accurately, what Tyler had been excluded from. In college, I won’t say he’d never taken ‘no’ for an answer, but that was mostly because the girls he asked weren’t the kind to say ‘no.’ Gina, while clearly sweet with Blake and warm toward the rest of us, struck me as the type of woman who had no trouble saying ‘no,’ especially to a guy like Ty.

Heather asked, “So, you’re into girls, too?”

Gina grinned. “When you say, ‘too,’ are you asking if I like women and men, or are you saying that you also like women?”

“Bit of both?”

Tyler almost shouted, “Holy shit, Heather! Where was this version of you in college?”

She chuckled, “Always there, just… I dunno, hiding? Afraid of what it meant if I liked women, or of what it would mean for me and Kyle if he knew.” Her husband hugged her, and she smiled contentedly. “Sometimes you need to wait a little bit before you’re willing to admit some things about yourself, you know? Even to the ones you love. Especially to them.”

Turning her head towards Gina, she took a hit off the joint and answered, “And, yes, I like women, too. Not as much as guys, but sometimes when we’re with a couple, and we’re waiting for the guys to get ready for a second round, we help them with… mmm, something nice to look at.”

Gina licked her lips, her eyes focused entirely on the young MILF in front of her. “Hey, ah, can I get another hit?”

“Sure.” 

Heather tried to pass the jay to Gina, but she instead leaned in without extending her hand. “Not like that.”

“Oh.” The whole room held their breath. Heather looked back at her husband, then glanced at Blake; both grinned. Gina’s eyes flitted towards Kyle, and, upon seeing the broad smile there, continued forward. Heather took a puff, held it in her mouth, and tilted her face toward Gina’s. As their lips met, I felt Mari’s hand on my leg, squeezing my thigh, then moving up to my rapidly hardening dick.

The kiss didn’t last very long, but it left both women with a satisfied, blissful smile. They leaned back into their partners, who kissed them as well. Lakshmi looked on, openmouthed, from her chair opposite Tyler. His expression rested somewhere between hunger and jealousy. Glancing over at Mari, I saw disbelief and lust; on looking at me, she tempered these with embarrassment.

Heather and Kyle finished their kiss and rose together. “We’re going to bed.” She looked at him; he nodded excitedly. Extending her hand to Gina, Heather asked, “Would you two like to join us?”

Gina took her hand, and Heather pulled her to her feet, ending with another brief kiss. Blake put his hand on the small of his fiancée’s back and guided the foursome towards the stairs with an amused, “Good night!” for the rest of us.

Tyler piped up, “Hey, Heather, you want another dude up in there? You know, in case–”

She turned and grinned a slightly patronizing grin. “Rules are rules, Ty. Sorry. Always with a couple and only with a couple.”

“Fine. Whatever.” He grumbled as they ascended, then grinned at Mari. She immediately shook her head in a firm ‘no,’ even before I could, so he leered at Lakshmi instead. “How about you, Shmi? Finally ready to try out some dick?”

She shot to her feet. “Fuck off, Ty.” Turning to us, she said, “Mari, I’m sorry we didn’t get to hang out more. See you tomorrow? And Dale, thanks again. I’m going to my room.” Then, she stomped up after the four soon-to-be lovers.

Not wanting to stay downstairs with Tyler, Mari and I took this as our cue to leave, too, making our way upstairs and into our room. We heard faint giggling coming from Blake and Gina’s room next door, interspersed with some other indeterminate noises, and laughed quietly to ourselves. My wife kissed me, a deep, slow kiss, then purred, “Come on, handsome. I need you,” before stripping out of her clothes. I was only a garment behind.

We’d always had great sex, even from the beginning. Mari had an incredible body and an inventive mind, and I enjoyed both as often and as thoroughly as I could. She said the same of me; while I wasn’t a slab of meat like Tyler, I still kept in shape, and I was more than willing to pick up anything I didn’t know before she and I got together.

That night, though, listening to our friends in the next room in what seemed like a nonstop orgy, we were in rare form. I don’t know how often she came, but her orgasms were loud and frequent. What had started with us tittering at the foursome next door turned into something more akin to a competition; during their quiet moments, we’d hear the odd, muffled catcall aimed at us. 

By the time we were done, I’d filled her twice. Marissa lay in my arms, both of us exhausted and giddy as we listened to what sounded like the crescendo in the adjacent room. She ran her fingers over my chest, stroking the hair on it. “Someone was eager tonight.”

“Yeah, you seemed like you were. New vitamins?”

Mari laughed, “Asshole.” After a moment, she said, “That was so hot. Like, weird hot, but still hot. Seeing the two of them kiss…” She shivered.

“Yeah. With Heather, it was kind of like seeing your mom, though, you know? Man, her and Kyle. That blew my mind.”

“Mine too.” Another pause, then in a more introspective tone, “Would you ever want to do that?”

Without hesitation, I answered, “No. No, not at all. I meant what I said when we made our vows.”

“I’m sure they did, too, but it’s not like they’re cheating. Yeah, it says ‘forsaking all others,’ but they’re–”

I interrupted, “Yeah, and that’s fine for them. More power to them. It wouldn’t be fine for me, though. Are you saying it would be for you? Seeing me with someone else, or you being with someone else?”

Mari shrugged. “Probably not. I know I get jealous, but…” She buried her face in my side and giggled. “The way Gina was looking at you, I think she’d eat you alive if I let her. I dunno. That got me kind of hot, too, knowing I had this guy that she clearly wanted.”

With a snort, I replied, “Yeah, but she wanted Kyle, too.”

“Mmm, no, I don’t think so. I mean, I’m sure she’s fine with–” A loud groan told us she definitely was fine, making Mari giggle. “But she’s not fucking Kyle, or at least that’s not who she’s there to fuck. She’s fucking Heather, and Kyle is along for the ride. If you did get with her, I’m pretty sure I’d be the one along for the ride.”

I didn’t try to keep the frown out of my voice. “No, you wouldn’t. You’d be with Blake. I know you never got to check that box off, but there is no way in hell–”

“Whoa, baby, no. Hold up.” She got up on one elbow and looked into my eyes. “Am I curious what he’d be like in bed? Sure, just like I bet you’re curious about Gina. Or even Heather, for that matter. I love you, though. I married you, and what I said at dinner was the truth: I’ve never looked back.”

“Except for now.”

Mari shook her head. “Just as a hypothetical. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Hell, I want to have kids with you, and soon! There is no way I’d screw that up for a roll in the hay with Blake.”

“If you say so.”

Chuckling, she replied, “I do more than just say so.” My wife slid down the bed and kissed my flaccid cock. “Every day, in every way, I try to show you. I won’t mention this to you again, okay? I was just curious.” 

She licked gently up and down my shaft, coaxing it back to tumescence once more. A wicked grin spread across her face. “I think you’ve got at least one more load for me, yeah?” She took me into her mouth, and I let my concerns roll away. Mostly.