“Oh, yeah. Sorry, man. Can’t do much about simple harassment. She change her phone number yet?”
“No, but we know that’s her next move. What we need to know is where the line is where it becomes stalking and we can get an RO.”
“Physical presence. He showing-up on her doorstep? Or workplace?”
“There’s the rub. She’s a server at a restaurant. Public place.”
“Oh, that’s complicated. Which restaurant? Franchise or mom ‘n’ pop?”
“Applebee’s on Dirksen.”
“You know the manager there, if I recall. Popular chain location is going to be that much more complicated.”
“Yeah. Manager is one of our swinger friends.”
“Okay, Steven. I know your tastes in women. The tall blonde, right?”
“Uh huh. Debbie.”
“You fuckin’ dog! No wonder you want to protect her! Gorgeous!”
“She’s special, Nate. We have a bunch in common. Unusual stuff.”
“Never mind the twenty years’ difference.”
“Doesn’t matter. You have a game plan?”
“We’ll have to dig into case law on this. There are probably several relevant cases out of Chicago, so I don’t think we are doing anything new. Tell you what.”
“What’s that?”
“You and Cyan good for Sunday night at your place? I’d like to invite Doris and myself over for some hot tub time with you two.”
“Four.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, it really has been a while since we chatted. We sort of married another couple last July, Nate. Emily and Jackson Foster. We’re committed in spirit, but civil unions don’t cover poly situations.”
“At least not yet, Steve. Congratulations, then. Looking forward to meeting them.”
“Six o’clock for cocktails?”
“Done. See you then.”
“Thanks, Nate.”
=====
In his office and at his desk, Steve is sipping a coffee and idly scratching Solomon’s ear while he grimaces at today’s lousy stock market numbers on his computer. “That’s gonna hurt,” he mumbles to himself. He hears the garage door open and then close, announcing Cyan’s return from her salon appointment.
She steps into the office and pulls on the tie holding her wrap dress together. It drops to the floor.
“What do you think? You like?” she grins.
“Lovely! I like! One question, though.”
“What’s that?”
“Is the swelling and pink from the waxing, or fucking Sergio?”
“You’re so nasty, Steven,” Cy smirks. “Both, actually.”
“Nice to know you had a good time. I do like the results, however.”
“Serge said Emily is probably due for a waxing, too.”
“And fuck.”
“Goes without saying. He said he has a couple of openings on Saturday if she’s interested.”
“Text him and reserve one for her. We’re going to have special company Sunday evening, and she’ll want to look her best.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. Nate and Doris. I made that call we talked about earlier, and he asked if we were free. I mentioned Em and Jax, and he seemed pleased at the idea of meeting them. Six o’clock okay?”
“No problem with me. How long has it been since we saw them?”
“Almost a year.”
“They’re nice to have. Too bad they don’t play with the group.”
“Given his position in the community, it’s very understandable. You know that. We have to keep our relationship with them on the down low.”
“I guess. You have any thoughts about dinner?”
“How about thawing those meatballs and we can do spaghetti. It’s just the four of us tonight.”
“That works. Lemme throw this dress in the hamper and I’ll get things started. How’d it go with the tub? Is it going to be ready when the guys get home?”
“No. Still heating up. It should be ready after dinner. Gawd. Cleaning was not fun. A lot more scrubbing than usual.”
“Jax?”
“No. Some sort of sticky algae. I need to talk to the pool guy.”
“That’s why we pay you the big bucks.”
“Very funny, dear.”
=====
“Honey! We’re home!” is the shout as Emily bursts through the door from the garage.
“You watch too much old TV,” Steve grumbles from his perch in the office.
“Aww. That’s back when TV was fun, Stevie!”
“And socially ignorant. I don’t need to tell you that.”
“What’s with the dour, sweetie?”
“Oh, stock market went to hell today.”
“Is that going to affect us?”
“Not really. It’ll recover. It always does, it’s only a question of how long it takes.”
“Wanna soak your worries away?”
“Can’t. Tub took longer to clean than I planned. Won’t be warm enough until after dinner.”
“We can deal with that. Let me get out of these clothes and I’ll meet you in the big shower.”
Jax is inside after plugging in the car. “I heard. What was the problem with the tub?”
“Algae I’d not seen before. It took a bit of scrubbing.”
“That sticky orange crap?”
“You’ve seen it?”
“Yeah. I thought it was normal. I guess not.”
“I’ll talk to the pool guy tomorrow.”
“Where’s Cy?”
“Dunno. Last I knew she was working on dinner.”
“Steven!” Emily shouts from the other end of the house. “Get your ass in here!”
Jax laughs, “You’ve been summoned.”
“Did she have a rough day or something?”
“I’ll let her fill you in.”
“That’s ominous.”
Jackson laughs as Steve quicksteps to the big shower, throwing his shirt and shorts on the bed as he passes through. Whatever has Em all worked up has to be fun, funny, or weird.
Steve opens the shower door and steps in, only for Emily to immediately grasp his testicles with both hands and squeeze them with all she’s got.
“Ack! Ow! Mygawd, Em! What did I do to deserve this? Hooboy!”
“Nothing, lover. I’m just having to take it out on somebody!”
“You can let go now! Gawd!”
She leans into him and whispers, “(I know you love that, Stevie-pie.)”
Em kisses his cheek and then goes in for a real hug and real kiss. They embrace and relax into each other under the warm rain.
“What happened?”
“Tom. That’s what happened. We almost got caught.”
“How? Who? Where?”
“He insisted on getting naked in that warehouse I normally don’t mess with. We were chasing each other around the stacks playing hide-seek-and-fuck when the big loading doors opened and a crew popped through the office doors to work on a truck that had just backed in.”
“Wasn’t it recoverable like the last time you guys messed around like that?”
“No! They were moving pallets around between us and our clothes!”
“And…?”
“We started desperately checking doors on the utility closets on the backside. I swear one of the warehouse guys saw me for a second. I found one door unlocked and we squeezed in next to a buzzing transformer. Yeah, we had a place to hide, but it was so noisy we couldn’t hear the forklift.”
“What’d you do then?”
“Killed time. I’d crack the door open every so often to check for activity. The crew was obviously in no hurry.”
“In other words, lacking anything else to do and considering you two were naked, you fucked each other silly.”
“Yeah. We must’ve been in there an hour. Ohgawd, Steven. I felt the fear adrenalin like when you and I get crazy in places we shouldn’t, but with you it’s incredibly erotic. The fear for me was real this time. I was really scared. What would happen if we actually were caught?”
“I can somewhat imagine. Tom couldn’t have used his powers to cover things up, that’s for sure. Both of you would lose your jobs. Probably Jackson, too, by association. Maybe even Denise once somebody from the outside started sniffing around.”
“That was going through my mind, too. Didn’t seem to faze Tom. He stayed hard the entire time. Even came in me.”
“People in power in some cases got there by living on the edge. I dunno. You have a chance to talk to Dee about it?”
“Thankfully, yes. Once we were able to get out of there and get dressed, since I was down the hall from HR I stopped by and we had a little private chat. She laughed, Steven. She laughed!”
“Oh?”
Emily sighs and relaxes into Steve, her arms wrapped around his neck and shoulders.
“Turns out she and Tom have had their own near-misses back there.”
“Wasn’t that in the fine print on the employment agreement?”
“Very funny!” She grimaces and goes for his nuts again. One-handed this time.
He chuckles, and squeezes a butt cheek in return. “What did Dee have to say?”
“That she and I need to work on Tom about this. He loves this kind of randy play when the mood strikes, but he knows full well that it needs to be away from the office. That’s why we have the company apartment.”
Steve muses, “But that’s not nearly as much fun. The adrenalin thing.”
“Yeah. A paradox. High risk sex is an incredible feeling, like when you forced me to walk nude through the neighborhood a few weeks ago. Simple fucking in a bedroom, not so much, but a lot safer.”
“Sounds like you, Tom, Dee and me need to have a sit-down meeting about this. We all like the adrenalin play, but have to dial back the risk to tolerable levels.”
“That’s your call, Stevie.”
“Kitchen table discussion over drinks at Friday’s party.”
“I’m good with that. Let’s dry off and cuddle, okay?”
“Lead on.”
=====
Steve, Emily, Jackson and Cyan are gathered in the kitchen, playfully bumping into each other as they spoon tonight’s supper onto their plates. Cy is at the counter next to the fridge, pouring everybody glasses of sweetened iced tea, Southern-style. She passes them across to the table.
Cyan glances to Emily. “Jax tells me you had a little adventure today.”
“Mff. Mmm hmm,” Em acknowledges through a mouthful of noodles. “Tom is a mess. If he can’t get his kinks under control we’re all going to find our butts on the street.”
“So I gather. You really think you were seen?”
“Yeah. The guy smiled at me.”
“You know who he is?”
“No. Just someone I’ve seen in the lunchroom.”
“You think anybody saw Tom?”
“Not that I know of.”
Steve breaks in, “Tom and Claire, and DeeDee, are going to be here Friday. I’m figuring on sitting down with the five of us into this particular kink. This thing with him and Emily today was way too close. Everything could’ve come crashing down.”
“But we’d be okay, right?” Jackson asks.
“Yes, we would. While together we don’t depend on your and Em’s income, it gives us a whole bunch of flexibility with the day-to-day. We’d miss it.”
“What about Tom?” Emily is concerned.
“Oh, he’d be fine. He could have retired five years ago. He and Claire would just as easily be off doing cruises around the world. My worry would be Denise. She’s too young to have much of a nest egg.”
Jackson chuckles, “You and Tom could go in together and hire her to be our house concubine, Steven.”
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