Lawrence Block - Threesome

“Because I wouldn’t, uh, do it to you, I don’t think,” she said. “I mean, I don’t think I could.”

“Who asked you to?”

“Just to put it on record, I mean. I don’t want to seem uptight or anything but I just-”

“Shhhh.”

She closed her mouth and lay down, still unbelievably tense and nervous about the whole thing. I lay down alongside her and lost myself in her flesh. The boys were there, breathing hard, tuned in with what was going on, but I closed my eyes and they faded from the picture. There was just this fine female body, this equivalent of my own self when Rhoda and I first found each other.

Memory trips.

I tried, God, I tried. And she came so very close, worked up to a feverish pitch, came indeed so close that missing it was frustrating for her in a way that her couplings with the boys had not been. There orgasm had never loomed on her horizon, so not getting there had not diminished her fun. But this time, when she finally and irretrievably missed it, when I looked up at her and read frustration in her eyes, I could see that she could not be left this way, that she had to make it, had to get where she was trying so hard to go.

There was a way.

There’s always a way.

“Your turn,” I said.

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.”

“But I said.”

“I know what you said.”

“But-”

“Fuck what you said.”

The color drained from her lace. She looked at me, trying to see in my face some indication that I was kidding, and she didn’t see anything of the sort. Because I wasn’t. She opened her mouth to say something and had nothing to say, and just went on gaping at me.

To the four of them I said, “Glory is going to do me now. But you’ll have to help her.”

And they did.

She didn’t want to let them. They held her by the arms and positioned her over me, and one of them caught up her hair in his hand and pushed her face into position, and she said “No, no,” in a defeated little voice, and then she did what she was supposed to do.

I didn’t really feel a thing. It wasn’t for me, it was completely selfless, it was for her.

Of course it worked.

She came with a little shrill cry, shook and trembled and sighed. I think she may have lost consciousness for a moment but I can’t be sure. Then she looked up at me, her face one I had not seen before, her expression equal parts of fear and wonder and delight.

The boys did not say a word. They were lost, and were bright enough to know it. I told them to dress and wait for us in the car. They put on their clothes in silence and got out of the room.

She said, “I was afraid, Priss.”

“Of course.”

“I guess that must have been what I was afraid of.”

“I think so, yes.”

“Am I-?”

“Don’t look for labels.”

“But I screw every boy in the world and nothing happens, and now-”

“You’ll come with boys, too. It’s a matter of knowing how. Now you know how, and everything’ll work out.”

“Even if it doesn’t, at least I know something about myself.”

“Yes.”

“Will I see you again?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“Probably not.”

I told her some other things, and stroked her hair, and she put her arms around me and kissed my mouth and told me she loved me, which I guess she did. And I told her I loved her, and I guess I did, too.

The boys were waiting in the car. I dropped them all at a place where they could conveniently hitch a ride. Then I drove home again. I never did stop at a supermarket, but no one seemed to notice.

That was the only time, the only straying from the straight and narrow primrose path. One might say that it was sufficient. But it was the only time.

I would have liked not to have mentioned it. Months have passed, and I have lived perfectly adequately without mentioning it, and would gladly leave it forever unmentioned. I have not seen any of them again, Glory or the four boys. I do not want to see them again. I have no idea what has become of any of them, and while I wish only the best for Glory, it would suit me perfectly well never to hear anything of or from her for the rest of my life.

So why bring this up?

Because.

Oh, shit, let us blurt this out and be done with it. Once upon a fine summer day, a very fine and very summery day, I stood mixing martinis when Rhoda appeared wearing a tentative smile upon her face.

“I have something to tell you,” she said, “and I don’t know how to begin.”

“Just plunge right in,” I said. “Here, have a drink.”

“I think I need one. Yes, indeed I do. All right, all I can do is jump right in and say it.”

“Go ahead.”

“I’m pregnant.”

I looked at her. She looked at me, and away, and at me again.

“Harry’s,” she said.

“Of course.”

“There was no one else.”

“Of course not.”

“I know the two of you wanted to have children and couldn’t, and I don’t know how you’ll feel about this, and I haven’t said anything to Harry about it, and if you want I suppose I could get rid of this baby, if you hate the whole idea of it, I mean I could understand that, Priss, believe me I could-”

I poured myself another drink.

“-but I almost died last time I had an abortion, although of course I would find a better doctor this time around, but I probably never will get a chance to have a kid again, and I was always convinced I didn’t want one but now I think I would, in fact I know I would, and I don’t know what to say or what to do.”

“How long have you known?”

“A week. I’m about two months along. I had a rabbit test and killed the rabbit. There’s no question about it. All the signs, sore breasts, nausea in the mornings, the whole pregnancy trip. I’m enceinte, all right.”

“I thought you were taking pills.”

“I thought there was no need. Harry said-”

“He was convinced he was sterile in spite of the tests because he knew I got knocked up before we met.”

“I’m a damned fool.”

“It’s all right.”

“Priss? How do you feel about it?”

How did I feel about it? An inevitable question. Also an impossible question, for more reasons, Rhoda, than you knew at the time.

And for one more reason than you knew after I answered your question.

“I feel strange,” I said.

“Do you want me to have the abortion?”

“No.”

“If you wanted, I would let you and Harry adopt the child. You could bring it up as your own and I would go away. Or I would leave now and have the baby away from here, and Harry would never have to know about it. Or-”

“You couldn’t leave the baby with us.”

“Not if you don’t want it, but-”

“It’s not that.”

She looked at me. I felt lightheaded and thought I might faint at any moment.

“I couldn’t possibly take care of two of them,” I said.

She stared at me. And I at her.

“You don’t mean-”

“I do mean.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Yes, literally. But I’m telling the truth.”

“You’re pregnant.”

“Quite.”

“How far?”

“About the same as you.”

“God in Heaven.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Harry won’t believe this.”

“Probably not.”

Oh God, Harry, what can I say? I should have gone out without a word and had an abortion. I know that. But something wouldn’t let me, because I couldn’t really be absolutely sure that the cake in my oven was not baked by you. The odds are very strong the other way, certainly. All those years of fruitless effort, and then a tasteless gangbang with four faceless young men, and suddenly Guess Who’s Preggers?

Of course everybody knows couples who tried and tried and nothing happened, and then they adopted a baby and immediately the wife got pregnant. I mean, a change in the emotional climate can have that effect. And God knows that the emotional climate around here has been changing right and left.