Threesome - Lawrence Block [31]
I swallowed, and I sighed, and sighed again, and kept his now-softening penis in my mouth, unwilling to let it leave me. I began to be conscious once again of more than his penis and my mouth. I felt the hard earthen floor under my knees, and his hands in my long hair, and the cool air on my face and the backs of my hands.
I sensed something. A presence.
Rather neatly, I thought, without letting the now completely soft penis slip out of my mouth, I tilted my head slightly back and raised my eyes slightly up.
And saw my lover Harry’s handsome face.
Ah, yes. My lover Harry’s handsome face was turned to the side, and my lover Harry’s sensual mouth was fastened to the breast of (surprise!) my lover Priscilla, who had taken off all her clothes, and who was cradling Harry’s head in one hand and had the other hand in my auburn tresses.
I looked at her, too numb to think or feel anything, and she smiled, she beamed, she glowed.
“I knew you would be together,” she said. “I drove a half mile and then came back. I left the car down on the road. I looked in the house, and you weren’t there, and I knew you would be back here.”
I started to say something, God knows what, but there was this cock in my mouth, and it seemed to be hardening again.
“Let’s go inside now,” Priss said. “There’s more room. And we can all be together now. I think that would be very nice, to be all together, all of us.”
PRISS
I saw that cartoon. I knew.
I never told you this, did I? Not wanting to seem too calculating. Better to heed Lady Macbeth’s advice: Look like the innocent serpent, but be the flower under it.
Believe me, I did that one on purpose, Harry. It’s not always stupidity, you see. Sometimes it’s a playful attempt at humor.
I saw that cartoon. I don’t know how Rhoda could have entered the room and almost left it without seeing it, because I noticed it while walking past the room, noticed it from the doorway, and went in at once to have a look at it.
I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.
And another thing I knew was that we all had to be together soon. That Harry and Rhoda had to have each other, and that I had to do what I could to facilitate this. And also that I then had to let them know that I did not object. Because in certain ways I was the crux of this matter. At the present time I was at the whatever-it-is of a triangle. The Ajax? Oh, fuck it. I was at the top of the triangle, the only one involved with both of the others. So it wasn’t really a complete triangle yet, it was like a tent, an Indian teepee, with Harry and Rhoda at either side and lines running from them to me, at the top. But there was no line across the base, no line from Harry to Rhoda, and that line had to be drawn so that the whole mass would have geometric stability.
I find it convenient to think in these symbols, and only hope they are not too much a part of my private vocabulary to make sense to you two. Or to the others, the readers.
Readers?
So I decided to scheme, to put Harry and Rhoda together. I never mentioned this later. Maybe you both already knew. I don’t know. But if I have learned one thing from this book-writing experience it is that we are all of us more calculating than we have willingly let on up to now. Even in our most open moments there are aspects of motivation, thoughts, ideas, privatenesses, that we shield from one another. I don’t doubt that this is emotionally essential. Otherwise one simply gushes and bleeds all over the place. Well, that’s what this is for, isn’t it? Not merely to make us all rich and famous, guest spots on television and our pictures in all the papers, but also and more truly to give us that chance to gush and bleed, but to do it on paper, neatly, antiseptically. Aseptically? I can never remember the difference, and can’t believe it’s too important. To gush and bleed, however. To bleed like the innocent