Living Two Lives - Book 24

Chapter 1

Andrew’s body remembered how to breathe but that was about all. Pick your cliché for the rest of him, stunned, frozen, petrified, you get the idea. He just had no idea what to think, never mind what to say. And he felt sick. He had an overwhelming sense of loss, those two wonderful women were going to shout at him, probably slap him across the face and walk out of his life forever. So when the two of them stood up with smiles on their faces and came and walked him over to the armchair, Andrew thought he was hallucinating. He hadn’t even managed an ‘Er’ yet. He dropped into the chair, glad that his legs had held out for so long. The two of them sat back down on the sofa and looked over at him.

“We should have taken a picture of your face. You could not have looked anymore paler or more frightened if you had seen a ghost. Relax Andrew.”

Andrew’s ears were working fine but they didn’t appear connected to any of his motor functions. Relaxing would take a while. Ara turned to Suzanne.

“Who knew we were so good at keeping secrets? I thought that was his specialty.”

The two of them had a good chuckle which finally broke through the trance. They were happy. What the fuck was going on.

“Andrew. Andrew.”

Suzanne gave up on the verbal communication, came over and kissed him. When she finished Ara was right behind her and kissed him too. Whilst nice and all that, it wasn’t really helping his cognitive functions. Suzanne looked at Ara.

“Not yet. His head will explode.”

They sat back down and this time just waited. After tennis matching for a few seconds Andrew’s brain got control of parts of his body again and he closed his eyes for five seconds. When he re-opened them Suzanne and Ara were still there. Ara reached over and gently pinched the skin on the back of his hand. It was definitely real, he had no idea what was going on, but it was definitely real.

“I presume the two of you have some sort of explanation, because if you are expecting me to talk any sense it may take a while.”

“There was no way that we could think of broaching this with you before now. We talked about waiting until later in the spring but we couldn’t wait to talk to you.”

Ara seemed very calm.

“Andrew, when you were in Martinique I went round to the house. I was pretty sure that you were not back until the weekend but I was missing you and so I went round on the Thursday evening. When I rang the doorbell I was excited when lights came on but then surprised and disappointed when a woman asked who was there. I was truthful and said I was Arabella, a friend of yours. After Suzanne checked at the peephole she opened the door.”

“I had borrowed the key from Leslie and was down finishing my Christmas shopping. Originally I was hoping to wait for you at the house but then realised you were likely to go straight to Edinburgh. Anyway I let Ara in and we went down to the kitchen for some tea. As you can imagine the first five minutes were more than a little awkward as we sized each other up. I had remembered my manners and introduced myself as a friend of yours as well. Making the tea gave us both a few minutes to think about each other. We knew about each other, our existence I mean, but your years of discretion paid off all in one evening. Once I had stalled enough, making the world’s slowest cup of tea, we sat at the dining table and sort of looked at each other, unsure who was going to start and with what.”

“The first little while was slow going but we talked about why we were there, Suzanne told me you were not back until the weekend, which I knew deep down but it hadn’t stopped me from ringing the bell. But it was Suzanne who broke the ice, remember?”

“I asked Ara if you knew what you were doing. We both looked at each other and just started giggling. We weren’t even mad at you. It was hilarious, a scene from a bad movie where the two girlfriends meet. And so we started talking, first about you but then about ourselves. The tea was long since drunk so we started on your wine, sorry. But when I shared out the last of the first bottle, so a nice buzz, just enough to be too honest, not enough to be stupid, I asked Ara if she loved you.”

Andrew’s motor functions were on the blink again.

“And I said yes and asked Suzanne the same question.”

“And I said yes. So we realised we were both in love with the same man.”

“Five seconds later the follow up came to me. Is Andrew in love with you or me?”

“After the way we had talked, what we had shared, I didn’t know. So I said I don’t know, I don’t think Andrew knows. Knowing Andrew he is probably in love with both of us.”

“That moment of brilliance could only be celebrated with more wine which meant that it was the last moment of brilliance either of us had all night. We woke up in your bed half-dressed and totally hungover.”

“The morning started slowly but eventually we walked over to Hyde Park to get some fresh air and kept talking. Our problem was we liked each other. We didn’t hate each other, we knew of each other’s existence but very little else.”

“Before we go on what was your plan? That is the part that we haven’t been able to figure out at all. The way you were acting with both of us it seems inconceivable that you were just going to up and dump one of us in three months.”

Andrew hung his head in shame.

“There was no plan.”

“What! The most organised man on the planet, the man with the plan, was just blithely sleepwalking to a dramatic confrontation. Were you planning to do the same thing to us? Have a meeting like this?”

“No. I have been tormented by it for months. I wasn’t sure that either of you would still want to be with me in June.”

“We will come back to that, you are not off the hook yet, but we will carry on.”

Suzanne accepted the baton and moved them forward.

“We walked and talked in Hyde Park for hours. We were cold and hungry when we found a little place to have a late lunch, up by Marble Arch. We took turns talking about ourselves and then listening to the other person talk about you with them. It was tough at times but neither of us stepped back, we ploughed on.”

“It was Suzanne that was the more honest of us, at the beginning. I didn’t know that she stayed with your lesbian friends when she was at university. We were talking about that and Suzanne told me that she had played around with women, as much if not more than men. She wasn’t ashamed, she wasn’t boasting, she was just telling me who she was. So I confessed about me and Gwen and how my sex life was basically the two of you.”

“We talked about women versus men, why we were not just attracted to women but why we had taken that a step further and acted on our desires. We talked about how you were so understanding, almost too understanding. That was the love part, the desire for commitment, we wanted you to be more upset at us fooling around with women. Of course this is before I found out from Ara all the pillow talks from this term. I can’t believe that you have not told me about the threesomes.”

Andrew was back to watching a tennis match.

“Yes, Andrew. We have had long conversations pretty well every weekend this term. Ara has been up here twice and I have been down to London once.”

Andrew was not sure he could have remembered how to count to ten at that moment.

“When we got back to the house we decided to hold off on the wine, at least until later but instead carried on chatting away. The only time I got jealous was when Suzanne told me about your sex life. Period sex Andrew. And when Suzanne explained how good it felt, how it made her body feel during and afterwards, well talk about adding another naughty taboo to my wish list.”

“Up to this point the one thing I had not talked about was my submissive nature, what I like you to do to me in bed, what I need you to do to me.”

“I asked Suzanne, after I had calmed down about the period sex, if that was all. I was quite intimidated by her sexual experience.”

“I decided to be honest. We were 24 hours into this conversation and there had been a lot of honest moments. I also had no idea where this was all going, between the two of us and then with you. So I explained, haltingly at first, about my journey, from the embryonic stages in 5^th and 6^th year at school, through Rome, all the stuff we did on the breaks during 1^st year and then when you brought me the corset back from Hamburg. And the high point, when the two of us went to Amsterdam.”

“Suzanne told me about her time with Phil and what it did to the two of you, we both had a good cry at that, but you are an amazing man Andrew McLeod. Suzanne told me what she said to you that Easter and how the two of you repaired your relationship over the next 18 months. Culminating in another trip to Amsterdam. We had gone upstairs to your living room, and Suzanne was lying on the sofa thinking back over all the things that you had done to her. She called you the devil Andrew, and she is not wrong. What you did to her, what you did for her is amazing.”

There was silence and Suzanne sat calmly waiting for Ara to continue.

“Suzanne was so brave, so honest. She must have talked for 40 minutes, maybe more, talking about how you dominated her, how she felt. And so I had to decide if I was going to be as brave as Suzanne.”

Ara stopped looking down and stared Andrew straight in the eye.

“That night was the first time I ever admitted to anyone that the thought of dominating someone turned me on. It turned me on a lot.”

Suddenly all the butch and bitch comments about her and Gwen suddenly made a lot more sense. What had she called it, she was demanding.

“I had been acting that way to Gwen more and more. I was being awful to Gwen sort of trying out being a dominant with her, without even admitting it to myself. You remember when I first fooled around with her, I was horribly conflicted. Well it was nothing like the internal conflict I was suffering thinking I was the kind of person who got excited about smacking another person, another woman.”

“So as you can imagine that exploded our Friday night. I had confessed to Ara that I like to be dominated in the bedroom. I had also been very clear that it was only sexually where this manifested itself.”

“And I had confessed to Suzanne that I liked to dominate in the bedroom.”

“So of course I was intrigued by this and asked Ara if she had or tried to dominate you in or out of the bedroom.”

“Just talking about you that way did not make any sense to me. I love the power that you have, you know what I am like, the whole idea of being ‘taken’ is still deeply ingrained in me from those books at school. I had no interest in dominating you, it was women that I wanted to dominate.”

“Ara broke down in tears at that point, and I was unsure what had caused it. She had gone from having this look of revelation on her face to suddenly being quite distraught.”

“I figured that the reason I was into dominating women was latent issues with my mother. It didn’t make me feel good about myself and it rather burst out. It was necessary and cathartic but there are years of therapy if I open that psychological box.”

“We both talked for another hour but the following morning neither of us could remember a damn thing we said in that hour. We were sitting there looking at our sexual opposites, and being far too British to say or do anything about it. So in good old British traditions we swept it under the carpet and decided to go to bed.”

“The previous evening our memories of getting to bed were vague at best. That night we were faced with where we were going to sleep. We both had only ever slept in your bed and since going up to separate bedrooms on the top floor, since if one of us was not going to sleep in your bed then neither of us were, just seemed stupid, so common sense prevailed and we both used your bed.”

“We are in the ensuite cleaning our teeth but I am sure you could see the speech bubbles above our heads. What were we wearing, or not, to bed? Was something going to happen? Did I want something to happen? What if she doesn’t want it? Everything.”

“I think I peed first so I had to make the first move. What was I going to wear in bed? I had no idea what was going to happen, if anything, but I did want to signal that I was very keen for something to happen so I waited until I heard the toilet flush and the tap running before finishing taking off my clothes. As Suzanne came out of the bathroom I was just taking my knickers off. She stood there at the door watching me as I walked round to the other side of the bed and climbed in.”

“I was sure I had licked my lips. There was no way I could not stare. So having had the gauntlet thrown at my feet it was time to respond. Now old Suzanne would have wanted to strip quickly and slink under the covers hiding herself from view. But new Suzanne wanted to show herself off and she won.”

“Suzanne stretched at one point, taking her shirt off or something and just for a second the muscles in her stomach tightened. Just as Suzanne said she was sure she licked her lips. I am sure my hand reached out to touch them.”

“So the two of us are lying naked in bed. We have spent all day talking about how we like women as well as men, and then that evening confessing to being submissive and dominant. All we needed was that first domino to fall.”

“We must have lain there for, it felt like hours. It was maybe 20 minutes. But then I just couldn’t keep my hands off Suzanne.”

They both smiled and for the first time in front of Andrew they kissed. Not a gentle peck on the cheek, they kissed.

“It was wonderful, simply wonderful. It was gentle and exploring at first but then I saw the look in Suzanne’s eye. ‘What are you waiting for? Stop teasing me.’ We were reckless that first night, no discussion of ‘Paula’, boundaries anything like that, but everything worked out fine. I sat on the chair in the bedroom with Suzanne across my knees and spanked her. I spanked her until her cheeks were red and sore, heat radiating off them, I spanked her until my hand ached. And when I stopped I dragged Suzanne over to the bed, and we ate each other for. Actually I don’t know how long. We were in the ‘69’ position and we just went crazy. We took it turns to make the other scream for mercy. God, it was wonderful.”

They kissed again, longer that time.

“Ara has that last 5% that was missing Andrew, it excites her to dominate me, just as it is more and more exciting for you to dominate me. But she gets off on it all.”

Andrew tried to keep an impassive face but he had no idea if he was successful.

“The next day I was due to take the train north to see Grandfather and Suzanne was returning here. So despite the temptations of the bed we tidied up, got dressed and sat downstairs looking at each other going ‘now what?’.”

“I saw your face just now Andrew. You really can be very slow on the uptake. We were tidying up in the kitchen, just killing time until we had to head over to King’s Cross. We were filling in bits of info that had been missed in the previous two days.”

“Suzanne said something like ‘we need to talk to Leslie’. We joked about how you had always talked to Leslie about everything growing up. But it triggered something. Suzanne suddenly said.”

Ara stopped to let Suzanne to say the phrase that would change their lives.

“Faith asked Andrew to live two lives.”

Suddenly Andrew was standing in a forest and both of them, at the same time, hit him with a stick.

He couldn’t really comprehend it, what they were suggesting. He needed to move. Andrew stood up and walked through to the kitchen, just for something to do. He paced back and forth in the dining room for, who knows how long, before finally returning to the living room. Everything was unchanged. Ara and Suzanne were patiently waiting for him to calm down.

“Do you know what you are suggesting?”

“Yes, we do.”

“Why?”

“Well other than the small matter of us both loving you? And you loving both of us?”

Andrew swallowed.

“Yes.”

Suzanne smirked, he was going to pay for that later.

“We want it all.”

Ara pronounced the four words as if they settled the matter right there.

“Can you explain please? I need more.”

“We want to have professionally and personally successful lives.”

“Ara, help me understand. I am lost here.”

“Suzanne and I want the same thing. We want to be taken seriously in our careers, be successful in our chosen profession, we want a partner who supports that and that we can trust he means it. We want a family. We want to be loved, to be adored, to be spoiled. And in turn we want to love and support and spoil our partner. And we both also have unconventional sexual needs and we need a partner who understands, respects and supports that as well. We want you.”

Andrew closed his eyes as he unpacked all that. He understood everything that Ara said, he recognised himself in most of what she said.

“But you can’t have it all. We cannot get married. And we are hardly hippies living in a commune in the West Country. If we have children what do we tell them?”

Ara nodded, his points obviously having been considered. Suzanne responded.

“Andrew, answer this question. Would you let me cheat on you in our marriage? Would you let me go off and sleep with a woman when I needed to? Would you let me go and see a dominant, potentially a man?”

Andrew looked shocked at the suggestion and didn’t even need to say anything.

“Then I wouldn’t be happy in our marriage. Would you break Ara’s heart to marry me?”

Again all he had was silence.

“I have exactly the same questions for you Andrew. Suzanne and I have spoken for four hours a week minimum all term, often more. We have talked all this through, gone over all the different issues. We have dropped this on you I know, although you can be remarkably obtuse about hints. We have been trying to prep you since you returned to Edinburgh from Martinique.”

“I mentioned the living two lives before we left in December but that was only the first moment. When Ara described the threesomes to me it suddenly became real.”

“Do you not remember how rabidly turned on I was? I was listening to the future, our future, that was going to be our life.”

“That was my moment of jealousy. But Ara is right, that is what our sex life is going to be for the rest of our lives. Or it could be, depending on your answer.”

Andrew sat there in a daze. There have been many moments when he had felt he was not in control of his own life but this was at another level. Suzanne smiled and left the room, returning a minute later with his swimming bag, his still damp suit and a clean dry towel.

“You know you need this. We will come over in 30 minutes and swim for half an hour with you. That way we can make sure you get out.”

Andrew was still dressed for church with his Grandma so changed into jeans and a shirt for the walk across the road. Suzanne was right. He needed to swim, and he needed someone to stop him otherwise he would be there until he cramped. The problem was that it all seemed to make sense. But it made sense right now with love and romance and sex and passion infusing everything. He had been mockingly accused many times of having the soul of an engineer. But now he needed to channel that soul and think about this rationally. But for once swimming wasn’t working. It had to be iterative and he needed to talk to Suzanne and Ara, it couldn’t be a monologue in his head, it had to be a dialogue. So he left the pool and was back in the flat before either of them had gone to change.

“What is wrong?”

“Nothing, but I need to talk to you not think on my own. There might be moments when I ramble on but I want you there as I think all this through. Get bundled up, I would like to walk and talk.”

Andrew didn’t say anything as they headed down to the Meadows, goodness only knows how many laps this was going to take.

“The two of you have had three months to think about this, to lie in bed at night, on your own, and question this decision. Why are you okay, seemingly happy, to share me? Does it not go against what you want from life?”

As Ara started to speak she took his hand, Suzanne following suit.

“You have heard me talk about rebelling against my mother’s machinations. I know that this is a giant step beyond that. Do you know what a large part of the genesis of this is? Suzanne, and me for her I suppose. We got on. All the stuff about liking women and the whole kinky sex stuff is in many ways superficial. If we didn’t like each other then none of this would work. Suzanne came down to London, the weekend you were away at your Briefing. She brought the keys to the house and we lived there for the weekend. She came down on the Thursday night and so we spent all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday there. We played house, imagined ourselves living there, what it would be like. And that weekend was when the final barriers came down, at least for me. We had talked about our dreams, what we wanted to do with our lives, but we spent hours, talking and listening to each other, thinking through all the different scenarios. An hour ago I said we wanted it all and it is true. I think, we think, that our lives will be much better if we are a three then as any combination of two.”

“I need to talk with the soul of an engineer for a bit so don’t be upset, okay?”

Two hand squeezes.

“Does it not seem wrong that in 1987 the two of you think that to be professionally and personally happy that you need to share a man? That was always my challenge with the two of you. The last two and a half years have been wonderful, frustrating in how little time I got to spend with you but wonderful. You are different people but I find myself drawn to you both. And there is no excuse for my behaviour and anything I say is pathetic rationalising but I couldn’t walk away from either of you. When I am conflicted I tend to find refuge in my studies, and the last 18 months I have been studying like a demon. You asked me what my plan was, and I had no clue.”

Andrew squeezed Suzanne’s hand.

“I was always worried that Suzanne was going to find someone that could give her everything. And I know that thinking that was stupid but I could tell that Suzanne had met you when I returned from Martinique.”

“Really? How? Why did you not say anything?”

“I didn’t know that it was you Ara, but I could tell from how she was with me. She was calmer, there was a lot less submission. It was the same last week. It was all very conventional sex, although now I realise that she was waiting for you. So I had this worry that Suzanne would leave me. And for the last three months it has been a dread within me. Whether it was rational or not, it was there. It is the legacy of her time with Phil.”

He shrugged.

“And with you Ara, it was two-fold. First there was the whole thing with your family. We will come back to that one in a moment. But then there were your own words to me in Istanbul, and that was not even five months ago. You were having doubts about men generally, you talked about wanting to focus on your career, even if it meant putting marriage and a family on hold.”

“I can see why you had doubts about both of us. I can tell you they were silly, as you said not rational, but both circumstances are valid. From my perspective I was worried you would find someone like Ara, one day you would leave me, move on. For a long time the thought of that scared me. The last three months have been both mentally challenging and liberating at the same time. Four years ago my dream was Leslie’s life. 100%. Big house here in Edinburgh, good job, loving husband, close but not too close to my parents, all of our many children going to Heriot’s.

“But dreams change, just as your understanding of the world changes, not always for the better. In the last four years I have seen a lot of behaviour, my own parents, fellow workers at the Forestry Commission, faculty and students at university. And that is before all the general news from the papers and on television. The world is a horribly sexist place. It can be a dangerous place for women and it is a tough place for them to succeed in business. I don’t know how you turned out the way you are, whether it is innate, whether your parents had something to do with it, or as I think most likely, it is through all of the mentoring from Leslie, but you are not like that. Even though it was right before my stupidity with Phil the day of Jim and Freya’s wedding was the key. You stood up there in front of a lot of very important people and you were angry at men for sexist behaviour. Only for a second or two but that was all it took.”

“Remember what I said about trusting a man that he means it, supporting his wife, or in your case wives.”

Andrew closed his eyes as the two of them giggled at Ara’s joke.

“For both of us it was more important, it is more important, to live our lives the way we want, with a man who treats us the right way. And who will raise our children to think the same way he does. So yes, we have both had to put the teenage fantasies of a white wedding dress aside but I would rather do that if it meant my son or daughter had a good role model as a father.”

“So you are okay with not getting married, having our children out of wedlock?”

They both nodded. The three of them carried on walking for several hundred metres as he processed everything.

“I don’t mean this to sound as negative as it is going to, but do you think we have a chance with this?”

Again they both squeezed his hands.

“We asked ourselves the same question, many, many times. The way you talked about the threesome with. We guessed one of the women was Helena, who was the other?”

“Meredith.”

“Okay. So when you talked about the threesomes with Helena and Meredith you talked about the way they were together, how they were different than with you. It was the moment that made us talk as to whether this really could work. The key thing to making this work is Suzanne and I. As couples you and I and you and Suzanne, we know they work. So it comes back to that first Thursday night. It wasn’t love at first sight but it was friendship within an hour. We already feel differently about each other than three months ago.”

Before Andrew could ask any follow up questions Suzanne changed tack completely.

“What does Leslie always worry about with you and women?”

Andrew thought for a second.

“She always worries that I will be taken in by a gold-digger.”

“Do you think we are gold-diggers?”

Andrew abruptly stopped he was so taken aback.

“And don’t just say of course not. Think about it? You are a millionaire, have a house in Mayfair, are well connected both socially and politically. You don’t think that if Ara’s mother knew all the facts that you might be acceptable?”

The fact that they asked him to consider this was an overwhelming mark in their favour.

“No I don’t think that about the two of you. But thank you for raising it.”

“Why do you not think that? You can’t just say that you don’t think we are gold-diggers. Why not?”

He stopped and tried to organise his thoughts.

“Because I think I understand your character, your motivations. You had severe qualms about accepting the small share in the property fund. If you wanted to stay home and buy new hats or some such thing then I could see me being more suspicious, and Leslie interrogating you harshly. But I have seen both of you light up when you talk about your dreams, the chance to do something important professionally. I find the idea of helping you with that very inspiring. Yes I have money, and yes it will allow all three of us freedom to work where we want, for who we want, without having to worry about what the salary is. The money has allowed me to do things, now it will allow us to do things.”

Andrew was pulled down and kissed from both sides. He really was the luckiest bastard on the whole planet. Finally they started walking again.

“How do we live our lives? How do we define ourselves to other people?”

“We wanted to hear your thoughts on that. We have some thoughts but wanted to get your perspective.”

“It is tabloid fodder. Just as with the degree while I was at school and the money from the companies, it will be news. ‘Daughter of Baron in threesome love-shack shock’, or some such pathetic nonsense. My initial thoughts are it is similar to Nikki and Fran, discreet and low-key. The people that we trust will know, to everyone else it just three flatmates, well housemates. We will never be able to marry.”

“We know, I checked. Seven years in prison for bigamy.”

“Wow. The issues will be around our children if and when we have them, how to tell them, what they tell their friends, how we deal with friend’s parents, how we deal with the school. I have no idea about all that but my overarching sense is that we don’t talk about it. In every situation less is more. I don’t think that we want our personal lives to get in the way of professional achievement. It is always going to be something that we will have to consider. What do we tell our families?”

“We had not got as far as thinking about the press but the way you conjured that headline was far too close for comfort. Knowing you, we had come to the same conclusions and like the idea of a just living a quiet, private life. This is not a statement about how they should abolish the bigamy laws. In many ways it is Suzanne and I being selfish.”

“As for our families, I think mine will be the easiest. Now I have no idea how they will react but I have the best relationship with my parents of any of us. Mum and Dad know you, Mum thinks we should get married so at least we are moving in the right direction. But she also knows about the real me, and I think she will be supportive, astonished and confused but supportive. Dad, well who knows. But I think they will be the easiest.”

Ara suddenly stopped and looked at Suzanne.

“Are you Jewish?”

“What?”

“Are you Jewish?”

“No, why on earth did you ask that now?”

“As I was listening to you I was imagining myself meeting your parents for the first time, saying ‘nice to meet you Mr. and Mrs. Jenner’ in my head. There is an MP with the surname Janner who is Jewish and it just struck me. Sorry to blurt it out like that.”

“No I am not Jewish. As Andrew is fond of saying I am a dour, Scottish Presbyterian. Well I would be if I was a believer. I have hardly been to church in more than 10 years.”

“Okay, sorry to have derailed us there. I would like the three of us to go and see Grandfather. I am his only granddaughter, and he tends to spoil me more than the boys. Given his own unconventional marriage I am hoping that he will be supportive. But he is the easy one. I don’t know what to do about Mum, well Dad too, but Mum is going to be the one that is going to go off the deep end. Any thoughts?”

Silence reigned.

“How stubborn will she be?”

“I don’t know. Words will be said, voices raised.”

“Will she acknowledge her bastard grandchildren?”

Ara flinched at the words.

“Wow, way to make that real for me. I don’t know.”

“It is an interesting thought. How do each of your parents deal with the children of the other person. The children of Ara and I are not your parent’s grandchildren. We turn up as a big chaotic family and only two of the kids are seeing their grandparents. Bloody hell this is complicated.”

Suzanne pulled them to a stop.

“There are going to be lots of things like this that we are going to have to deal with. Let’s not borrow problems forward. Ara, what do you want to do with your parents? Do like we did with Andrew today, all three of us turn up and ‘surprise!’ or do you want to do it more gradually?”

“I think I will go and see her on her own, tell her and ask her to meet both of you. I know she will not be happy but hopefully she will invite the three of us to the house. The rest is up to her.”

The two of them looked at Andrew as they walked along.

“I will be like Ara, we will go and see Grandma. I think she will cope with it. Shocked I am sure but just as Ara is the only granddaughter I am her favourite grandson. And sadly, because of the problems with my parents she will be accepting to my face even if she struggles with it.”

“What about your parents Andrew?”

“No. When they reach out to me then I will think about it. Until then it is just one more part of my life that they don’t know and I am sure won’t understand.”

Ara addressed Suzanne.

“Have you ever met Andrew’s parents?”

“I had seen them when they dropped Andrew off occasionally. In fact now that I think about it, it was always his father. I don’t think I have met Andrew’s mother. But I didn’t really speak to him very much, a wave, an acknowledgment. So yes, I have met him but no I don’t know either of them. Andrew has met my parents eight or ten times.”

There had been a lot of stopping as they had walked and talked so surprisingly this had only taken one circuit of the Meadows. Andrew finally started to get the big old brain working and started a second lap.

“Half a lap ago you talked about how you feel about each other, but then Suzanne brought up the idea of you being gold-diggers and we got sidetracked. I understand the strength of the relationship on two sides of the triangle, between me and each of you. But this is not Andrew and his harem, what about the third side of the triangle, the two of you?”

Ara and Suzanne looked at each other and Ara started.

“Once the initial thrill of that first couple of days passed and after you had returned to Cambridge that was our concern as well. Without talking to each other we both started to mentally think that we had got caught up in the moment and that real life didn’t work out so tidily. But the weekend you were in Paris Suzanne agreed to come down and stay with me. You have seen my room, the bed is not that big, I wanted us to be forced together, literally.”

Ara looked over at Suzanne and she took over the thread of the conversation.

“When Ara met me at King’s Cross it was.”

Suzanne stopped and thought of the word.

“I don’t know what the word was at the time. It wasn’t as strong as thrilling but it was much more than just nice. Now all I can think of is that it was loving, beyond friendship. When we got to her room we just sat and talked. We had talked for hours on the phone but sometimes it had felt like we were carefully avoiding the elephant in the room. When we were together it was both easier and more difficult to talk through the key issue. Our feelings for each other. But over those three days we came to an amazing discovery. Despite all our differences we were actually very similar in the way we lived our lives. When we thought about it later some of it made perfect sense, we just didn’t recognise it. You talked about being attracted to intelligent women, you expected your wife to have a career. We had discussed all that. But you like quiet women Andrew. Think about it. No smoking, no drugs, moderate and careful with booze; not wanting to be out at a club every week; fit and studious. We were very different but were also very similar in our way of living our lives. We studied part of that weekend, we both had to. So there was a realisation that we were different but at the same time very complementary.”

Ara jumped back in.

“I don’t have a lot of experience but often it is the things that annoy you, grate within you, that make you drop a relationship. So we had been friendly from almost the first hour, had had a wonderful 36 hours of sexual excess, but had then been apart for a month. But as soon as we were back together it felt very comfortable, very relaxed. Now it was more than that, but again, we got on. We didn’t annoy each other, and that key weekend neither of us pushed the other person away, accidently. We laughed about it at the time but our periods are already in alignment. We were both out of commission that weekend. And looking back on it, it was probably a good thing. We didn’t let sex confuse us.”

“I have a confession. When I said I was too busy with my project, it was a lie. Ara came up to Edinburgh and we spent the weekend together at the flat. That was the next step for us. Because after a weekend together in London, lots of talking, a fair bit of kissing but nothing else, that weekend we spent a lot of it in bed. We talked earlier about that second night, the crazy night of binging that we did. Well that weekend in February we explored a whole bunch of things. Key amongst them was gentle dominance. In the last year you have been quietly but consistently dominant for me. I come into the bedroom and you guide me. We have talked about it occasionally and I have given you a few nudges but you are very consistent in your treatment of me. You throw me around, pull me down the bed, fuck me in your arms as you press me against the wall. All things that are core and fundamental to my sexuality. But even quiet romantic nights or nights when we just snuggle, you don’t ask anymore, you just do what you want, and I love it. And the freaky thing is way more than three quarters of the time you are completely in tune with my own desires. If you wanted to fuck me hard at the end of the bed I would be thrilled but the nights when I want closeness, reassurance, love, you seem to sense it. But that is all background to the weekend that Ara and I had at the flat. I had to explain to her about gentle dominance. I had broken you of the habit of asking what I wanted to do, or if I was okay. It took us to the end of the weekend to realise that constant gentle dominance, at least to me, is love. We waited until the Sunday night before we ‘played’. We both wanted it, both needed it, I could tell Ara wanted me across her lap. But we were very disciplined and didn’t let ourselves get sidetracked. We spent hours in bed just talking it was very odd but it felt like I was teaching Ara how to be gently dominant. She instinctively knew about the other end of the spectrum but I taught her, let her constantly practice.”

They both giggled.

“Exactly. It was such a sacrifice.”

More giggles. It was Ara’s turn.

“Suzanne shared so many of your conversations with her. The incredible trust, the responsibility you have to the other person. And it was the revelation that it was incredibly loving. So I spent the weekend learning about gentle dominance, just the automatic taking of control in the bedroom. Even if it was only to kiss and cuddle. It was amazing. But it was also key. We had a wonderful time, it was romantic and sexual without being over the top. Well until the last night.”

More giggles.

“I don’t know that all dominants feel this way, it doesn’t really matter because it is the way that I feel. To dominate someone you have to love them. And it was the weekend when friendship, attraction, and shared sexual secrets turned to love.”

They stopped and Ara kissed Suzanne. It wasn’t long but it was passionate. It was back to Suzanne.

“And the thing that underlies everything is we both like women. Because of all the conversations over the last two years with Nikki and Fran I have an understanding about being a lesbian. Not their day to day life but the history, the moment when they realised that they had no biological or emotional urges towards men. And why they were in turn attracted to women. Neither of us are lesbians, we have repeatedly demonstrated our love of sex with men, with you, for years. But there is an attraction to women as well. For both of us. We will have lots of talks over the years about it, thinking about why we are the way we are. And maybe we will never get to a root cause, an understanding of what triggered it. It doesn’t really matter. As we said we want it all. I don’t just want Ara because she can dominate me that last 5% that I need. I want Ara because I want Ara. Just as I have accepted my submissive nature I am now accepting that I like both men and women. Sorry, that is wrong. I love a man and a woman.”

Ara and Suzanne’s second kiss was much longer and much more passionate. They parted and Ara was smiling.

“Suzanne has said all the key things. I feel the same way. All I would add is that as I have matured, gotten older, started to understand myself, I have come to understand and realise that I need both. We have talked about societal programming but there is a large piece of that in my journey. As a 17 and 18 year old I was attracted to women, particularly Gwen, but I was terribly afraid of those feelings. And thinking about it now I had a lot of those feelings when I was at school. Even when I first gave into them I was tormented by it. But I came to realise that I enjoyed the closeness, the feelings, the sex. Even six months ago I was quite upset that you were not more jealous. Looking back now I am incredibly grateful that you were not. It has allowed me to come to terms with my nature, what I want from life. And it is the love of both a man and a woman. You and Suzanne.”

This time they all kissed. There had been only a couple of brief stops on the second lap and so they were back to their starting point. Suzanne pulled them to a stop.

“I don’t know about you Ara but I am disappointed in Andrew.”

Ara started smirking. Andrew, he just looked confused, again.

“We have spent all day telling Andrew about his future life. The man is going to be having threesome sex for the rest of his life. I thought I would have been face down, arse up at least twice already. But nothing. How about you and I go to bed and see if Andrew figures out what he wants to do?”

Andrew smiled and started to chase them up the street but suddenly stopped and thought about what Suzanne had jokingly said.

He was going to have threesome sex for the rest of his life.

 

Chapter 2

Andrew stopped when Suzanne and Ara entered their bedroom. Just thinking that was mind-blowing. Their bedroom.

They all quickly undressed and Ara and Suzanne knelt at Andrew’s feet. There was no need for cushions this wasn’t going to take long. Ara got the first suck before passing his dick over to Suzanne. But the combination of Suzanne smiling up at him, Ara’s fingers tickling the boys, and the fact that both of them winked at him, well there was going to be only one outcome. Suzanne swallowed most of it but saved a last mouthful for Ara. That alone defeated his refractory period. Andrew sat leaning against the headboard and Ara got the first ride. But just as with Helena and Meredith, Suzanne sat on Andrew’s thighs, right behind Ara and the two of them made love to her. It was a moment that should have been captured on film and framed for the mantelpiece. It was utterly magical. Ara swayed back and forth. She would kiss Andrew with a hunger that was breathtaking but would then lean back into Suzanne’s arms, twist her head and kiss her with the same passion and hunger. Suzanne’s hands cuddled round Ara and started teasing her nipples. The emotion of the moment together with the physical sensations were Ara’s undoing. She came in their arms.

After she recovered her wits she and Suzanne swapped. The positions were identical, the movements were identical, the passion was identical. All that changed was Ara caressed Suzanne’s clit. As Suzanne started coming Ara’s other hand moved to Andrew’s scrotum and once again her fingers were his undoing. Despite both Ara and Suzanne being in his lap Andrew’s hips were off the bed. The three of them slumped over, all caught up in the significance and passion of the moment, not just physically drained but emotionally as well. They arranged themselves so that Ara and Suzanne were lying on either side of him. Words weren’t immediately necessary, it was contact, closeness that they all needed. Once they had all settled down Andrew looked over at Ara and winked before turning to Suzanne.

“You talked about your dreams. How you wanted it all. Did it include all your dark desires?”

The mood had changed. Andrew pulled them both up and off the bed. He opened the ‘play’ drawer in the dresser and took out the handcuffs, the playsuit and the blindfold and put them on the bed. He showed Ara where the paddles, floggers and crop were kept and she laid all three out on top of the dresser. Without saying another word he helped Suzanne into the playsuit and buckled the two straps at the back. Indicating to Ara they each took a handcuff and buckled it onto her wrist. Suzanne almost instinctively folded her arms behind her back and Andrew let Ara figure out how to clip them in place. Ara’s eyes were even more dilated than Suzanne’s. With Suzanne standing there Ara’s hand and tongue got him hard again. Andrew helped Suzanne up onto the bed and then lay flat and Ara balanced her as she mounted him, his achingly hard dick slipping into the swampy furnace that was Suzanne’s pussy. They were both extremely turned on. His final act was to pull the blindfold down across her eyes.

“You know what is going to happen now don’t you Suzanne?”

A gulp and a quick nod.

“It isn’t enough to be tied up and fucked is it?”

A tiny shake.

“That perfect, pale arse is positioned perfectly. I wish you could have seen the look in Ara’s eyes when she clipped the cuffs into place. Her heart is racing more than yours, her target bared before her. And this is having it all isn’t it? Being fucked by me while Arabella punishes you. But you know she is not doing it for you, she is doing it because it excites her. I can see her fist opening and closing, she can’t wait to grab something to stand behind her opposite half and for the two of you to become one. Every stroke will be a torment and a joy. Do you think that Arabella will come just from dominating you? Wouldn’t that be the ultimate switch of power. Tied up, being fucked, being punished and it is her that comes.”

Ara was staring at Andrew wide-eyed.

“What do you think she is going to select. This is our first time, so do you think it will be the flogger, gentle, almost a caress, it warms you up. Maybe she smacks you with her hand again, she needs to feel the transfer of pain. But the paddle will do a much better job, maybe she uses both paddles, for both cheeks.”

Andrew let the silence drag out.

“But we all know that is not what she is going to pick don’t we? You can hear the noise, feel that intense searing pain slash across that beautiful bottom. A bright red vivid.”

Andrew never finished the sentence as Ara brought the crop down and everything exploded and stood still at the same time. Suzanne screamed and came, he was holding her and cradling her arms in case she dislocated a shoulder, the kinetic energy of her orgasm resulting in a shaking core and twitching legs. The violence of Suzanne’s orgasm startling Ara, the crop poised above Suzanne’s arse but not falling. Andrew looked at her and winked. Shaking her head he saw Ara mouth ‘wow’. He unclipped Suzanne’s wrists and let her arms fall normally before raising the blindfold. He motioned for Ara to move round to the other side of Suzanne and they surrounded her, hugged her, held her tight. The tears came, as Andrew knew they would. It was too soon for her mouth to work properly so first Andrew was kissed and cuddled and then she flipped over and kissed and cuddled Ara. The two of them sandwiched Suzanne, letting the emotions and endorphins purge from her system.

“Will it always be like that?”

An interesting first question.

“No, I don’t think so. Some of the time, but not all the time. Ara only got to do one swipe. She might be a very good dominant but I think she is a frustrated one.”

Andrew guessed Ara was feeling better if still frustrated by the time Suzanne stopped kissing her.

“I knew it was coming, and soon, but when the I felt the slash it was still unexpected. I thought the two of you were working in concert.”

“I think Andrew was building everything up but he had done too good a job of turning me on. I couldn’t wait. I don’t even think he saw me grab the crop he was focusing so much on you. He has talked to me a couple of times where it has gone right through me, and you talked repeatedly about how his words command you. I saw it there. You are right, he is the devil. It must have been very intense when you were starting out.”

Suzanne nodded and kissed Ara again.

“I am sorry I came so quickly. It was very naughty of me.”

She was truly wonderful. Ara helped Suzanne to her feet and re-clipped her arms behind her back. Ara then knelt at the end of the bed and had Andrew position Suzanne on her back where Ara could lean down and kiss her. She handed him the crop and asked for one of the floggers instead. So on that early spring evening Andrew fucked Ara while she alternated between kissing and gently flogging Suzanne, sometimes doing both at the same time. There was no force in the strokes it was an assertion of control, an assertion of dominance. She also spoke to Suzanne.

“I do like a helpless little subbie lying there for me to play with. So desperate to please, willing to do anything for me. Lying there watching and listening to me being fucked by our husband.”

Suzanne’s sharp intake of breath at the word was matched by Andrew’s own.

“You should have felt how excited our husband was at these words. Yes we will never marry him but he is still our husband. I can feel him swelling up, just saying that is making him come.”

Ara’s nipples were always the failsafe when faced with coming too quickly. Andrew unloaded pulse after pulse into Ara, the whole day culminating in a pop of epic proportions.

“Unclip her please Andrew and then lay her back down.”

Ara slid on top of Suzanne, in the 69 position.

“Clip her hands on my bum, while for the first time I share our husband’s load.”

Well that did wonders for his refractory period. Suzanne dove in with gusto, there was no hesitation, and Andrew watched, who? Ara had called him their husband. Was he watching his wives? That seemed a little too Mormon for him. HIs two girlfriends? That seemed a little too high school. His two partners? Too impersonal. Andrew was watching the two women he loved. Perfect. It wasn’t just Suzanne eating Ara, Ara was also reciprocating. When they both came he stepped over and unclipped Suzanne. Andrew got into bed and the two of them arranged themselves either side of him. Words almost weren’t necessary.

“I will ask the same question but in a different context. Will it always be like that?”

He looked at Ara but all she did was shrug.

“Once the three of us are living together than I think we try different things. There is definitely not going to be the theatre of today every time. I think that we have to figure out how two of us make love.”

They all stopped at the significance of that phrase.

“Exactly. I think there will be a lot of times where it is two of us and the third person is kissing both of the others, caressing back, bums, boobs, I don’t know. Every sexual act between us does not need to be elaborately choreographed. Whenever I have been with either of you for a week or two then we have fucked all the time. During these illicit weekends last term did you have sex every day?”

They nodded.

“A mixture of plain and spicy. More plain than spicy.”

“All these things will need to be worked out. Sex every day? The frequency of playing? We will need to think about playing as a two rather than a three.”

“How do you mean?”

“If one person is out regularly on a certain night. Me for instance with the Territorial Army. Say it is a Tuesday, then is that the night that the two of you play together, where the two of you can find your boundaries.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I see what you are saying. We shouldn’t try and shoehorn everything into the context of threesome. It is okay to do things if there are just two of us. Your example is a good one.”

Andrew’s stomach growled loudly at that point and they realised how late it was. It was the first day of their relationship and they were all trying too hard but getting dinner organised was easy. One of the reasons that he had struggled to choose between Ara and Suzanne was that they were similar people. In the way that they treated people, willingness to help out, all the little things in life. Dinner was nothing fancy but it was accomplished without awkwardness at their new situation. After dinner they were back in the living room.

“Does it feel different?”

Andrew wasn’t sure which one of them Suzanne was asking.

“I don’t know that it feels different but it didn’t go the way we had talked about it. Could you not tell I was different with you in London?”

“I thought you were really kind and supportive. My project had been stressing me all term and that week was a needed reset. We also don’t have that much time together. So no.”

“What about last week with me?”

“The only thing I noticed was that you were very calm, and there was no playing. But other than that I wasn’t aware of anything being different. Were you being different?”

The two of them looked at each other and laughed ruefully.

“I don’t know what I was trying to be with you. I wanted to get through the week without screwing something up.”

“I was pretty much the same. I was so nervous and Saturday I was a wreck. When I went and collected Ara from the station I was still nervous but at least now there were two of us.”

“Why did you decide to tell me now?”

“It was important to be truthful. What had seemed like a crazy idea at first suddenly was all we could think about. We love you, we thought we should tell you. When you know something like that then it is important to tell the person and as soon as possible. There is one thing that we hope you will agree on.”

“Why do I have the feeling that sentence is going to feature prominently in the rest of my life?”

“It is good that you recognise it so soon then.”

They all laughed at the truth of the two statements.

“Sure, what is your hope.”

“We really like the house Andrew. Really like it.”

“We want to live there Andrew.”

“You don’t think it is too big?”

“Well until we fill the top floor with children probably.”

They laughed at his face.

“The living room and our bedroom are a good size as are the kitchen and dining room. You are going to have two wives, we have a lot of stuff.”

Andrew laughed with them.

“I presume that is shorthand for around the house?”

“Yes, why?”

“I worry that if we get two comfortable with it then we will use it somewhere that ends up calling attention to us.”

They pondered this.

“Damn it, Andrew is right. Okay, birthdays, Christmas and today, April 5^th our anniversary, okay?”

“Okay. What about the room with no purpose, the reception room?”

“Oh, that is easy.”

“Really?”

“Computers are becoming more common, and I figured that we would all have one for our work. I just assumed we would turn the room into a big study. We all have a lot of books as well, we can put up some shelves, it will be the library as well. It is still too big but the three of us will have space to spread out. I would like to get a big map table for instance.”

And so it was decided. They were going to live in the house. After clean-up they were all getting ready for bed. Ara knew she wasn’t the best first thing in the morning so Andrew was relegated to the outside of the three of them.

“We will alternate being the one in the middle but we all know you are going to be up long before the rest of us. You sleeping in the middle makes no sense.”

Andrew fell asleep on the night of Sunday April 5^th, 1987 cuddling up to Ara who in turn was cuddling Suzanne. Other than the two of them swapping places that was going to be the rest of his life.

He wouldn’t be him if he didn’t wake up plagued with doubts. After exercising he went down to the Meadows for his run. But it was a slow jog that morning. He had been swept along the previous day, everything seemed to make sense to him at the time, walking there in the Meadows holding each of their hands.

His thoughts bounced around like a pinball at first before he tried to calm his mind and systematise everything. He loved Suzanne and Ara, there was no doubt about that. He had loved them for a long time. But plenty of men had loved two women and had made a tough choice, picked between two equal partners. Was he just being a chicken and not being ruthless with one of them. But even thinking that, he knew it wasn’t the case. There was not one without the other. Both women were bisexual and loved women almost as much as men. To choose one, going through that emotional pain, would not alter the fact that his wife would want to play with women even after their marriage. And that was before the whole dominance and submission part of their personalities. Suzanne’s needs were well known to Andrew, the missing 5% or 10% endlessly discussed. There had been hints and clues with Ara but he had never seen her round other women. That part was still clouded in uncertainty. She did not come across as dominant when she was with him. Halfway through that first lap he realised that choosing one over the other was not possible. To try and pick one was to pick neither. They were two complex women with specific needs that had found each other. And they loved him.

He ran for a long time thinking about living as a three. They weren’t going to live a normal life. Ever. Dinner parties, meeting other parents if they had children, Christmas parties at work, any kind of social gathering was going to be a challenge, fraught with difficulty, or would require them to live a lie. But then Andrew thought about Nikki and Fran. Two of his oldest and closest friends, never really mentors but pseudo aunts and two people that had showered him with a lot of love over the last 10 years. They lived life in the shadows, but they did live their lives. What was the way they had phrased it? Not acknowledged but understood. There were no well-meaning friends or colleagues trying to set them up on blind dates. And there was a significant gay community in every city, throughout the country. And then even closer to home there were the two women he had photographed the previous week. Even fewer people would understand Elspeth than would understand the three of them, what she was doing would be front page fodder for the tabloids if it was known. But she hid her identity and got to live her life the way she wanted. And Maggie and Tony had been model and photographer for years, and now used Andrew to stoke their memories, their fantasies, again it was part of who they were. And again, not something that most people would understand, a man photographing a woman as she posed in intimate and graphic ways, all the while with her husband watching, egging them on, and generally getting off on the scene. Three separate couples, people that Andrew saw every time he was in Scotland, and yet utterly out of the mainstream. And the contrast to Leslie and Julian was stark in that way. A conventional couple but whose private life was exactly that. Private, at least to Andrew. He didn’t know what they got up to on their own and didn’t want to.

So it was possible to live a life that was significantly out of the mainstream. You picked your friends carefully, were discreet and didn’t court the limelight. It suited all three of their personalities, none of them were like that. Both Ara and Suzanne wanted success but it was professional success, it wasn’t necessarily renown, although that could come. And on top of everything else there was the issue of Andrew applying to work at one of the UK’s intelligence agencies. Secrets piled on top of secrets.

He was half way round the second lap and he took a step back from the details and thought about his life, his goals, the plan. And it was then that the doubts started to recede. Andrew believed in karma, had felt the impact on his psyche of a karmic weight settling on him, and the sensation when a karmic weight lifted. He knew those feelings. But this was different. How Andrew had been carrying on with both Suzanne and Ara, how the lies of omission had continued to pile up, they were a toxin upon his soul. He had felt lost, trapped, confused and hopelessly out of sorts as his feelings for them both increased. He recognised a lot of his behaviours were directly related to being out of sorts, the impact at the subconscious level of that toxin in his soul. And Ara and Suzanne were the antidote to that. Just as venom was used to make anti-venom, the solution to his problems were the same two people.

They made sense as a three, they knew the compromises that there life would entail, and it was the two of them that came to him with the suggested solution, also key in everything that was happening. He thought about living with them in the house. Would they get on, how would they cope with the adjustments. And Andrew thought about the point they had raised the previous afternoon, were they gold-diggers? Living with Andrew let them materially have it all. A five bedroom house in Mayfair, a life of no compromises, as Ara had said, the chance to professionally live a life without worrying about grants, paying the bills, anything like that. But as Andrew thought about that he instinctively knew that it was much more than that. Emotionally, intellectually, physically the three of them all brought something to the relationship. It didn’t matter the proportions, it was them as a three. But materially things were very different. Ara was trying to stand on her own two feet, and she would get a trust fund in 20 months or so, but she was living a very frugal life. Suzanne was comfortable with well-off parents but again, it wasn’t like they were going to buy her a house in central London. But Hay’s Mews was a back street, with no pavements. It was fantastic and central but the difference to Berkeley Square only a block and a half away was profound.

Andrew stopped, literally stopped jogging, and shook his head. He had known them both for seven or eight years. Suzanne had her reaction to squid and this was the same thing writ large. As he started on the last quarter lap back to Spottiswoode Street Andrew realised that the issue was the other way round. Yes, he had all the money, but neither of them wanted to be kept women. He walked back up the street cooling off and when he returned to the flat Ara and Suzanne were still cuddled together, asleep. He collected the car keys and headed back out.

Morag was at the office already and he said hi but didn’t stop. Andrew knew that Creighton also got to work early each day and found him in his office. Other than looking intrigued when Andrew explained what he wanted to do Creighton passed no comment. He would get a separate household account opened for Andrew, and issue three cards for it. He would monitor the expenditure and make sure that there was always a healthy balance. The first person to be told of their new arrangement was not going to Creighton Davies. Andrew left him to his speculation and returned to the flat. After everyone used the toilet there was a round of minty fresh kisses. Just watching Suzanne and Ara kiss each other and in turn kiss him was enough to make Andrew’s head spin. And to ensure that he needed a minute to compose himself before heading to the pool. After breakfast they sat and had a quick chat before the realities of studying took over.

“Are we telling anyone this week?”

Andrew’s question produced pursed lips and quizzical expressions. Everyone looked for someone else to make the first response. Andrew sighed.

“It is family and friends. My Grandma and Suzanne’s parents are here in Edinburgh. And there are two couples that we saw last week that are close friends as well, people that we saw as a couple when we were in Edinburgh, Leslie and Julian, and Maggie and Tony. So it is these seven people.”

There was still silence.

“I think that we spend time together, concentrate on our studying and not deal with the disruption and distraction that it will inevitably cause. Never mind the fact that if we tell two families then we need to see Ara’s family as well. Once this week is over then the issue goes away until. I don’t know, June at the earliest.”

They didn’t need to say anything, the relaxing of their tense postures and the relieved sighs said it all.

“We only told each other yesterday, it feels too soon to be going through a round of endless questions.”

The next five minutes were variations on the same sentiment.

“What about invites to dinner?”

“Go and see your parents one night, Ara and I will be fine. I will go and see Grandma on Thursday and the two of you will be fine. And I might pop down to the office one afternoon and see Julian and Leslie. They know what I am like, if I tell them I am studying they will give me shit but they won’t force the issue.”

The immediate logistics were dealt with and studying could be ignored no more. Suzanne and Andrew still had their finals to study for and Ara had to get ready for her Viva. The three of them were focused and concentrated on their studies that day and every day. They all swam in the morning, although neither Suzanne nor Ara were runners. And they made love every day, multiple times. Most of the time it was exactly that, plain and conventional love making, just with a third person there. But then Suzanne decided to be naughty.

Andrew was leaning against the headboard, Ara straddling him with Suzanne behind her. The three of them were taking turns to kiss and there was always going to be something insanely erotic about having Suzanne kissing Ara with passion at the same time as Andrew fucked her, or the other way round. Suzanne’s kisses were on Ara’s neck, the side of her throat, up and around her ears, all the way up into Ara’s hairline. But then Suzanne’s hands came round Ara’s body and just running her hands from Ara’s waist up towards her breasts had Ara tensing in anticipation of what was to come.

The difference between a man and woman’s touch was evident across many facets of society. And so as Andrew watched Suzanne’s hands head north he was expecting her to gradually bring Ara to the boil. Suzanne’s nipples were just about as different to Ara’s as it is possible to be. Suzanne needed her nipples squeezed really hard, whenever Andrew did it to her it made him uncomfortable the way she kept demanding that he squeeze harder. That day Suzanne attacked Ara’s nipples like a 14 year old boy touching tits for the first time. Come in Tokyo. It had her coming almost immediately, as they all knew, it was too easy. But within seconds Ara was howling and trying to get Suzanne to release her abused little nubs. Suzanne was insincerely apologetic. And Andrew knew why.

“That was very naughty of you Suzanne. Ara has very sensitive nipples. You know you didn’t need to squeeze them so hard to get a wonderful reaction.”

Andrew pulled Ara against his body and gently rubbed his sparse chest hair against them. Suzanne watched as Ara groaned.

“You know that Ara is going to punish you for your mistreatment of her nipples. You deserve that for being naughty don’t you Suzanne?”

The nod of acceptance was ruined by a look that displayed not a jot of contrition.

“So Suzanne, you have been naughty. But have you been scandalously naughty?”

Ara looked confused at the word but Suzanne eyes were sparkling.

“Arabella is going to punish you Suzanne, why don’t you show her how much punishment you want?”

It took Suzanne a second to figure out what Andrew was saying. But then her hands snaked round and gently, almost delicately but utterly relentlessly, Suzanne played with Ara’s nipples. They had their first ‘Paula’, having confirmed it to Ara the previous evening. Ara collapsed in Andrew’s arms, which were holding her chest off of his own. She took a deep breath and pulled Suzanne round for kiss.

“What a mess that was in my head. I was coming, the sensations were relentless and I couldn’t escape, yet in my mind it wasn’t me that was coming it was Suzanne and it was me tormenting her. And every so often I would feel you fucking me Andrew. Fucking hell I am a mess.”

He found a small tube of a topical salve and they very gently smeared some cream on her abused, but still pert, nipples.

“So what is this scandalously naughty that you talked about.”

Suzanne explained the three stages of naughty. Although stage three was a once a year threat if that. Andrew asked the question.

“So was Suzanne scandalous?”

Ara laughed.

“Definitely. And my punishment will be equally scandalous.”

Suzanne still needed to work on her look of contrition.

“She can think about what I am going to do to her until Thursday. When you head off for dinner with your grandmother Suzanne will be punished for her scandalous behaviour.”

Ara dressed Suzanne in the playsuit, cuffed her arms and then kissed her and caressed her bum before falling asleep. Suzanne’s hunger was palpable but they didn’t relent. The week went by in a blink. There was lots of laughter, lots of talking, lots of lying in a sweaty heap on the bed. Andrew realised that his studying was going well, so left mid-afternoon each day and went down to the shop and worked away in the darkroom on Ursula’s photographs. He had 26 rolls of film to develop and print, close to 1100 pictures, and this time he printed them all at the enlarged size the magazine publishers wanted. He did this after going through and enlarging more than 350 prints from the session at Christmas. Ursula’s pictures had been licensed by the Danish, French and Spanish publishers and he had lots of prints he needed to make for them. By the end of the week he was tired but it was done. Three hours each day was manageable, a day and a half solidly would have driven him mad. But on the Friday afternoon he went down to the office and gave Elspeth a portfolio the size of a volume of an encyclopaedia with all the pictures. The look of happiness on her face as she flicked through the prints made Andrew smile. It had been a chore to do all the enlargements but 10 minutes with Elspeth made it all worthwhile.

Andrew had been in the shop every day that week and had seen an advert for a new VHS camcorder while he was there. Remembering Elspeth’s comment he asked Stacey to purchase one for him. It was expensive but he knew it would be worth it. And it would definitely be used. She didn’t say anything but Tony had had the same cunning plan. Great minds and all that…

They cut it fine but the three of them met Creighton at the bank and completed the paperwork for the new account and signed their cards, although neither Suzanne nor Ara knew what was going on. It was only when they were back in the flat that Andrew explained.

“I was up early on Monday morning and went for a longer but slower run. I thought about everything that had happened the previous day. One of the things that I thought of was money. Both of you are living frugal student lives, and it is not like you have a ton of spare cash. But I am also keenly aware that materially, financially things are very different for me. At some point, probably sooner rather than later, you are going to want to do something, buy something, and you are going to have ask me for the money. And I know that it will not be comfortable for you. Way to many discordant connotations. So I was thinking about how to deal with that. I can’t just put money in your accounts, well I can but I don’t think that would work. So I set up a household account and gave you both cards for it. It is the best way I could think about dealing with this.”

Andrew stopped and sighed.

“Even just explaining that to you makes it seem very paternalistic, like I know best. In hindsight I should have.”

Andrew never got to finish the sentence, as he was smothered in kisses. He guessed they had forgiven him. That Friday night the two of them drained him dry. They were relentless in their loving and the spirit might have been willing but the flesh had nothing left to give. It was only when he was finally down for the count that they talked to him.

“We had talked round the edges of the issue but hadn’t thought it all the way through. Thank you for being sensitive to it, and although you may have thought it seemed paternalistic, it wasn’t really. It was loving and generous.”

The Saturday was like every other day, exercise and studying, with diversions to the bedroom. But suddenly it was the Saturday night and their time was up. There had been some snippets of conversation around the future but now they were facing it.

“Ara, what are the next three months like for you?”

“My dissertation is submitted and I expect to have my Viva in early to mid-May. Assuming that everything is okay, not guaranteed by the way, then I should find out if I get my PhD in the second half of June. So I have Viva prep for the next month or so, the same as this week. I also will start applying for jobs, although it is more a marker of interest right now. The PhD will be critical for all the jobs I am applying for.”

She looked at Andrew.

“We mentioned it last Sunday. Living with you both allows me much more freedom and flexibility. A lot of these Institutes don’t pay very much, relying on people bringing in funding and grants themselves. And the issue of academic independence will also be good. Sometimes funding comes with implicit, or even explicit, areas that are not to be discussed or commented on. The Turks are very explicit in not allowing anyone using the archives to investigate their treatment of the Armenians. I will have a better opportunity to do well, to succeed, if I can concentrate on the research and not worry about raising money, or making rent.”

She hugged Andrew tight and kissed him.

“So the next three months are steady but not nearly as intense as for you two. Suzanne?”

“My project was submitted at the end of last term fortunately. My exams are during the first two weeks of May, I think my last exam is the 15th. So I have three weeks of studying left before then. My results are at the start of June and graduation is the last week of June. Most of the month after my exams I am off. There will be paperwork, and all the details about graduating but academically I will be finished. We will come back to my job in a minute. Andrew?”

“I have two weeks to go until my exams. They are all in the last week of April, ending on May 1^st. I then have three and a half weeks to finish my project. But in that period, I have a week of interviews in London, the second week of May, which is shit timing. I have to get the project in by the 27^th, and then the following week I have a presentation. The week after I have the Main Board of Officer Selection, Tuesday to Friday. Then my last day is the May Ball on the following Monday. Other than graduation on the 25^th I am done.”

“Why are you always the one who is insanely busy?”

“I’m just lucky?”

That got him dual whacks, a new threat.

“The reason I was asking was to see when we could use the house.”

“Why don’t you come and study in London with Ara, live in the house together. You can help her pack up and move her stuff over.”

Andrew wasn’t sure why he was being frantically kissed but wasn’t complaining.

“Just like that?”

“Er, yes? Look, if we are going to do this then we are going to do this. It is not my house anymore, it is our home. So the two of you can work there, think about all the things you want to change, the colours, the curtains, all that stuff. This place was furnished by you Suzanne and Leslie chose most of what is in the house, five years ago. You know I don’t care. I will come down the weekend after my exams, and then will be there during the week of the 11^th. Then I will be back and forth until I do my presentation. After the 15^th I will have left Cambridge. I will move down on the 16^th and that will be it. Graduation will be a day trip.”

“You are really okay with us changing the house?”

“Changing our home, yes. There are only really two things I am going to care about. I will pick my own desk and chair, and that is just because of my height. The other thing is I want to hang the three paintings and show the sculpture that the original Art College students created with me as the model. Other than that I may have the occasional opinion but probably not.”

“You mentioned the art before. Where are they?”

“I have no idea, I will ask Hailey.”

“You mentioned her as well and I got sidetracked and forgot to ask you. Who is Hailey?”

“Hailey Knight, she owns an art gallery that I support, it is down on Victoria Street.”

Guess who had forgotten to mention the art gallery before? Oops. Ara looked startled at this admission but Suzanne just started whacking him.

“I asked you if there were any other random things lurking about and you promised me there were not. I bet Ara doesn’t know about the distillery.”

Five minutes later Andrew had given Ara the gist of the distillery background.

“When did you acquire an art gallery?”

“Okay, calm down. I didn’t acquire an art gallery. We received the investment proposal at CMS and it was going to be declined. While I was modelling the four students told me how tough the art world was and how tough it was to get a break. So I decided to support the gallery myself. It is not very much money. What I did do is buy the shop and Hailey only pays rent if the gallery is doing well. There is a long complicated formula that I leave to Creighton to sort out. So yes, I am the landlord of an art gallery, but I don’t own the gallery itself. It is owned by Hailey.”

Suzanne was sitting listening to him.

“Is that why Doug sometimes refers to you as Solomon?”

He nodded.

“Not as much as he used to, but yes.”

Ara was laughing, he would have to be careful or two somebodies were going to have too much fun with that nickname.

“Is there really nothing else?”

“When I told you the last time there was nothing else I was being honest, forgetful but honest. I don’t have this long list of things that I have invested in, or own. You are better to go and ask Creighton, he is much more likely to know about everything than I am.”

The pair of them were shaking their heads.

“So if I came down to London with you both tomorrow that would be okay?”

“I am going to drop you off and head off to Cambridge. It is up to the two of you. You have the spare keys so go and make two more copies, then the two of you can decide. I would love for Ara to move out of the dorm and move into the house. Obviously the same with you in the middle of May. At some point we need to sit down and figure out what we are doing with our lives.”

“What do you mean?”

“This place. And how much is being moved down to London. I am going to be up here several weekends a year, at least six, seeing Leslie and Julian, Tony and Maggie and Grandma. Your family lives here so I am thinking that we keep the flat, so that we have flexibility, and have somewhere to stay. It is nice and central, close to Grandma and Leslie and not far for your parents. Oh hell, there is one other thing I had forgotten about.”

Both Suzanne and Ara looked excited and when Andrew smirked he was pummeled into the bed.

“Brat. We should send you to sleep in the front room but we all know that is an idle threat.”

“I should pack, if I am going to be in London for two weeks.”

“Hang on a minute Suzanne, we need to talk about Cambridge.”

Ah.

“Come on Andrew, confession time.”

So Andrew told them about Meredith, the arrangement that they had come up with and then about Catherine. But he also explained how it had ended.

“There is no one else?”

He really did have a reputation as a big old slut.

“No, there is no one else.”

This admission had caught them both by surprise.

“I wanted to say goodbye to the person that has kept me sane this year, Lauren.”

“Lauren?”

“Yes. Ara and I would get worked up when we met and Lauren helped me take the edge off. A lot.”

“Gwen was the same. I felt terrible using her like that and was worrying about going cold turkey. Oh well, she will be happy for me.”

Ara looked over at Andrew.

“So I was the outlet for your urges in the later part of the term?”

He nodded. Ara smiled and Suzanne laughed.

“You look upset.”

Ara leaned over and kissed her.

“He bent me in half and tried to drive me through them bed. It was bloody incredible.”

Suzanne looked over at Andrew and bit her bottom lip. He was helpless to resist. And Ara was right, it was bloody incredible.

The rest of the night Andrew watched television while Suzanne and Ara spent hours in the front room. He went in at one point and was amazed at how much stuff Suzanne had there. When had all this arrived? But the two of them were having fun, Suzanne was constantly trying on clothes, and the pile for the charity shops was growing pretty high. Suzanne really had moved all her clothes over and there were a lot of left over stuff from school that either didn’t fit or she no longer would countenance wearing. Andrew left them to it. He had one bag as usual but packed one small suitcase with all of their play stuff. When Ara saw the dress with the heart shaped hole in the arse Suzanne had her travelling outfit. They hadn’t finished going through everything but had got more than halfway. Their last night in Edinburgh was passionate rather than crazy, straight missionary with the other person kissing and caressing worked really well. There was an intimacy to it that suited their mood.

The journey south was hilarious. Ara and Suzanne switched between the front and back seat but the difference to when Suzanne and Andrew had travelled with her in the dress was that Ara made Suzanne take her coat off. So when it was time to get out of the car and put the coat back on so that they could pee and grab some food, Suzanne scooted out of the car and then pressed herself against the window. With Ara in the back seat all she did was moon Ara. But with that little frisson of excitement, that moment of danger, Suzanne was one excited woman on the road to London. They fought the traffic but eventually got there. They unloaded all the bags and carried them up to their room. Judging by all the bags, he would have no wardrobe space of his own. Andrew put the small suitcase of play things in the bottom of the wardrobe and handed Ara the key.

“For when Suzanne has been naughty.”

He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be in Berkeley Square before the two of them were in bed. But parting was suddenly really tough. It had been a week of such life-altering moments but it had already become normal, this was their new reality. Andrew would see Ara in three weeks but it would be five before he saw Suzanne again. And he also had the visions of the two of them for the next two weeks in his mind as well. As Andrew headed north and then north east heading back to Cambridge, for so long the place he was most at home, most comfortable, it was no longer true.

Home was with Suzanne Jenner and Arabella Lindsay in their mews house in London. Life had changed.

 

Chapter 3

In the past when Andrew had wanted to block something out mentally he studied relentlessly. It had been that way all through Lent Term. But his motivations changed. He returned to Cambridge on the evening of April 12^th and had two full weeks until his first exam. But although the three weeks in London and Edinburgh had been tumultuous, and Edinburgh in particular, he had also studied at least 60 hours each of the first two weeks and more than 50 hours even with Suzanne and Ara in the flat. He felt prepared and so when he called the house he told them he would work all day in Cambridge on Friday but would be down after dinner. And he would stay until Sunday morning. Time off had been beneficial and spending two nights and a day with Ara and Suzanne was his reward.

He hadn’t gone to Addenbrooke’s and didn’t attend OTC. Andrew studied. About two thirds of his time was spent on revision for the exams with the balance keeping his project moving forward. Olivia was not quite as manic as him but she too had a punishing revision schedule. But after dinner in Hall on Friday night he caught one of the last trains down to London. The feeling walking up to the front door of the house was something new and exciting. He was coming home. It was just under 36 hours of love and connection. The week together for Ara and Suzanne had been good for them, there was a closeness to them that augured well. There were no games, lots of sex but no games, just time spent reinforcing their love. And leaving on the Sunday morning wasn’t as hard as he thought. He had already decided he was going to do the same thing the following weekend. He arrived back at Cambridge and just immersed himself right back into his studying.

The next seven days were identical to the previous seven. Andrew ferociously studied for the very last week, kept his project ticking over and shut out the world for 12 hours a day. But he was cheerful, relaxed and had lost the manic edge to his studying, even if the hours were still high. The second weekend was even better than the first, Suzanne and Ara made him laugh and drained him dry. He sat on the train back to Cambridge on the Sunday before his exams tired but emotionally and mentally calm. The week of exams was tough, the toughest yet, unsurprisingly. Andrew still had things to write at the end of each and every one of the exams. He was disappointed at the end of Foundation Engineering, his first exam, only to realise that everyone had struggled with time. It was to be the refrain all week. But on the morning of May 1^st at 11.10 in the morning his university exams were over, Dynamics in Civil Engineering the coda to four years of intense but satisfying work.

He and Olivia walked out the back of the department and up the path at the side of the River Cam. It was the way to Newnham and Andrew would carry on north, past the Library and into Trinity that way.

“Fini.”

She was right, it was over.

“Well the exams.”

“The project can wait until Monday. I am going to take the weekend off. A couple of other women from College and I are going north to the Norfolk coast, get away from this place. One of them finished yesterday and has gone home to get her car today. It will be nice to not think about engineering for a weekend.”

Andrew nodded.

“I know what you mean. I am going to be back on Sunday afternoon though. I am losing four days to bloody job interviews, the week after next. What about you?”

“Mine are all mixed in with the week of presentations. I have to present on the Thursday as I am away for interviews for the first three days of that week. But at least it is after the submission deadline.”

“How do you feel about them? Confident?”

“I am not going to be falsely humble, but at the same time I am not sure I am confident. The career event in France knocked my belief that if I worked hard enough I would do well. I worry that I will always be passed over for a man, or not given a chance, despite the fact that I am trying to be the best civil engineer at Cambridge University. Mind you, some damn man keeps stopping me.”

She smiled and tiredly whacked his arm. Then the smile faded.

“I figured if I could keep up with you then I had a chance when it came to the real world. Hopefully they all go well and my fears are for naught. I will come and get you at 6.30, meet me at the back gate and we can go to the dinner together.”

Andrew napped that afternoon, went for a second swim, called Ara at the house and then Suzanne at Nikki and Fran’s flat. It was good to hear their voices, he would see Ara the next day, and the two of them would phone Suzanne on Sunday to wish her luck before her first final.

Olivia and Andrew did not sneak off early from the course end of term dinner. They did not go as hard as most of the people but were not alone in taking it easy, relaxing and enjoying the end of their exams as opposed to self-medicating for amnesia. It was a fun night, and Andrew made an effort to try and talk to at least half the class. Sometimes he thought he was a cross between a hermit and a misanthrope except with Olivia, but the two of them did talk to lots of people most days in the department. But it was all at the acquaintance level, happy to share a table, moan about a lecture, but it didn’t extend beyond that. So there were plenty of people to chat to that evening. Equally there were plenty to avoid as well, although Engineering’s percentage of hoorays was much lower than the Arts Faculty. Still there were several groups that Andrew never really talked to, the one with ‘Johnno’ most of all. Mind you he also knew he was a bit odd. He studied insanely all the time, he hung out with the French woman, they spoke French two days a week, and they were top of the course. They weren’t invited to hang out with the cool kids. Oh well.

Andrew walked Olivia back to Newnham at the end of the night, told her to enjoy the weekend and would see her in the library on Monday morning. The following morning, after his exercises he grabbed his backpack and ran out to the car, still parked all the way out at the caravan park. He walked the last quarter mile cooling off but was in the car before 7.00. Arriving back at the house he parked the car in the garage and quietly opened the door into the house. Ara must have been still asleep, and with their bedroom at the back of the house she didn’t hear him park in the garage. Of course turning up so early and unannounced even if he was bearing coffee made her scream in fright but after a good telling off she forgave him. She peed, they both cleaned their teeth and climbed into bed.

“I thought you were out at a celebratory dinner last night?”

“I was but I had the choice of getting drunk and not seeing you until later or taking it easy so I could make an early start. It was an easy choice.”

She beamed and kissed him, all minty fresh.

“This place seems so much bigger when it is just one person in it. I can see why you were thinking about not living here if you were on your own. But Suze and I had a great time wandering round the place thinking about all the different rooms. You are right though, that room on the ground floor is bloody enormous. Quite high ceilings as well. Still once we get some bookcases.”

That was a preview of Living Two Lives - Book 24. To read the rest purchase the book.

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