Лорел Гамильтон - Jason

J.J. found her voice first, though she was a little hoarse from screaming. “You both should come on one of Jason’s visits to New York. We could have so much fun.”

“How would you introduce Anita and Nathaniel to Freda?” Jason asked.

She rubbed her face against my thigh and said, “Anita as our lover, and Nathaniel as mine, and your best friend.”

“Freda would go apeshit,” Jason said, snuggling in against me a little more.

“She would,” J.J. said.

I looked down at her blond hair, which was all I could see of her face. “Are you trying to use us as an excuse for the big fight?” I asked.

“Maybe,” she said, and rolled her head enough to look up at me.

“Just break up with her,” Nathaniel said, and he moved his face enough so I had a glimpse of his eyes through his hair.

“We share an apartment; do you know how hard it is to get a nice place at a reasonable rent in New York?”

“Are you saying that you’ll try to make her move out in a huff, so you don’t have to move?” I asked.

“It’s a thought,” she said.

I laughed. “That is cold, J.J.”

“Mercenary, even,” Jason said, reaching his arm down enough to stroke her hair.

“You’ve never tried to get an apartment in the city,” she said.

“It can’t be that bad,” I said.

She gave me a look out of her blue eyes that was scathing and totally didn’t match the warm, nefarious puppy pile we were in.

“Okay, maybe it is that bad,” I said.

“Sorry to leave the cuddling, but I’ve got to get the condom off,” Nathaniel said. He kissed J.J. on the cheek, which made her smile, and extracted himself from her and my legs. He crawled up and kissed me on the mouth, softly, thoroughly, and drew back with both of us smiling. The smile changed to something less tender and more boy as he looked at Jason. He held out his fist, and Jason fist-bumped him, grinning.

“Fist bump, really,” J.J. said.

“We could high-five,” Jason said.

“Shaking hands, maybe,” Nathaniel suggested.

I laughed. “Go clean up, before the condom glues itself to you.”

He started to crawl off the bed, and then said, “Damn, I got stuff in my hair. I’m going to have to wash it.”

“That’ll take forever,” I said.

“Not if I don’t blow-dry it, and just braid it wet.”

“Okay, but then come back and cuddle,” I said.

“I think we’re all going to need to clean up,” Nathaniel said as he got off the bed.

“Eventually,” J.J. said, and crawled up so that she was on the other side of me. She lay down, propping herself up on her elbow. She touched her fingertip to my skin where Jason had missed a cleanup spot. “It was so fucking hot to watch Jason go all over you like that.”

Jason started tracing the edges where his pleasure was just beginning to dry on my skin. “Wet wipes just don’t clean this up, do they?”

“I’ll hurry,” Nathaniel said, and went for the bathroom.

J.J. looked very serious as she said, “You know, Anita, you don’t have a problem with Jade being a girl, you have a problem with Jade.”

I’d thought similar things in the last few hours, but I wanted to hear J.J.’s reasoning, not mine. “What do you mean?”

“She doesn’t match up with you.”

“I prefer women who are smaller than me, or at least not much bigger, and that’s hard to find.”

“But you like a woman who responds with fire, not hesitation. It seemed like every time we built up speed in the bed, Jade would do something to slow or stop the enthusiasm; that would be hard on a hard-core lesbian, let alone for your first female lover.”

“Thanks for that,” I said, and smiled, and then the smile vanished, “but I can’t punish her for the issues her master gave her; that would be like punishing her for being a victim.”

“But Anita, you don’t have to have sex with someone if you don’t want to, not even out of guilt.”

“I’m drawn to her,” I said.

“Through the metaphysical ties, I get that, but you find her a burden, not a pleasure, and that’s not about her being a woman, that’s about you and her not being compatible.”

“How can I just kick her out of my bed? I’m the first kindness she’s had in centuries.”

“So it’s pity sex,” J.J. said.

I opened my mouth, closed it, and then tried to think instead of just denying it. I did feel sorry for Jade; who wouldn’t?

Jason snuggled me closer. “I’m sorry, Anita.”

I turned so that I was spooning against his body and could look at J.J. more. “Are you saying that my issue isn’t having sex with a girl, but that Jade just doesn’t match up with me in the bedroom?”

“If Jade were a boy, would you still be having sex with her, or would you have gotten frustrated and moved on?”

I tried to think that one through and finally said, “I don’t know.”

“I do,” Jason said.

J.J. looked at him, and he put his arm tighter around me, as if afraid I’d move away.

“And?” I asked, and even to me it sounded grumpy.

“Don’t sound so hostile, Anita.”

I think I frowned harder. “Just talk to me, Jason.”

He moved his face enough so I could see him smile at me. “I’ve seen you kick men out of your bed that were great lovers, men you enjoyed having sex with, because some other part of their personality didn’t match up with yours. I’ve never seen you be this patient or try this hard with any of the guys. I didn’t realize how hard you’ve been working with Jade until today. I’m sorry that I thought it was just a sort of homophobia.”

“I thought it was, too,” I said.

“You’ll never like women as much as you like men,” J.J. said. “You like dick too much.”

I half laughed. “J.J.”

“It’s so cute that you blush like that, but you don’t need to be embarrassed that you like dick better than pussy. I love Jason, and Nathaniel is amazing, but I’ll always love the girl parts better than the boy ones, and you’ll always be the opposite; no harm in that.”

I grinned at her and thought how perfect she was for Jason. I was so glad they’d found each other.

“You need to break up with Jade,” she said.

The grin faded. “I’m all she’s got.”

“You’re all she’s got because you haven’t made her find anyone else,” Jason said.

“I don’t know if she can take any more rejection.”

Jason turned me in his arms, so I was looking up into his sincere and strangely serious eyes. “Are you really willing to spend the rest of your life trying to date someone you not only don’t love, but that you actually don’t enjoy having sex with? Come on, Anita, everyone else that you’ve passed over for regular lovers has found other people to date, or at least fuck.”

“I feel guilty about them, too,” I said.

“I know you do,” he said, eyes still serious, but with a gentle smile to soften the edge of it.

“But why does she feel guilty?” J.J. asked.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Why do you feel guilty that you can’t be in love with all of them, or fuck all of them? Why does that make you feel guilty?”

“They’re tied to me metaphysically, some of them forever. They didn’t ask to be tied to me, and I don’t love them. I mean this really is until death do us part, and I don’t love them.”

“But you’re tied to them until death do you part, too, trapped with a whole bunch of people you don’t love. I’m not even sure you like all of them.”

“I don’t dislike any of them,” I said.

She smiled and patted my arm. “It’s okay, Anita, it’s okay that you don’t like everyone the ardeur has found for you.”