Page 13

NSFW

Marsh comes back out of the bathroom. Dylan, Ren, and the redheaded woman all look up at the sound, unsure of whether they should be excited or apologetic. Dylan is perched on the edge of the bed, fiddling with the belt of her robe that got left behind when she bolted, and the woman is still standing near the door of the bedroom, twirling a ringlet of her fiery hair. Ren is beside her, his arms crossed awkwardly.

“Sorry about that,” Marsh says. “I’m just nervous.”

“Nervous... but in?” Dylan asks.

Marsh allows a tiny nod.

The change in the room is immediate. Both Dylan and Ren relax, hands unclenching and legs loosening, like big cats preparing for a hunt. The woman comes over to stand next to Marsh, and Marsh exchanges a shy glance with her.

“Just relax.” She winks at Marsh.

Does she look familiar?

But the room is dark enough that Marsh can’t be sure. It doesn’t matter, really. She’s beautiful, from what Marsh can see. And confident. She’s wearing a slinky dress and heels, but whatever she’s got on underneath is very strappy.

What are the rules of an orgy? Marsh blushes. She obviously knows Dylan’s name, and also happens to accidentally know Ren’s, although it seems that no one else but Marsh realizes that—but is she supposed to exchange names with the woman before they all do this? Would that be polite or super weird?

The woman seems to sense Marsh’s hesitation. “We’ll let them take the lead tonight,” she tells her.

Okay, then.

Dylan and Ren look at each other, then look at the two women flirtatiously. Hungrily. Marsh suddenly understands what a gazelle must feel like.

She might kind of like it.

Dylan goes to her and kisses her first. Hesitantly to start, almost like they’re dating again, and everything is new. His hands stutter across her waist, exploring shyly. Then there’s another hand on her shoulder, and Marsh and Dylan both turn to see Ren standing on her other side, his fingers trailing slowly down her arm.

Dylan gives Marsh a gentle nudge toward Ren, and then sidles over to the other woman.

YanYan242: Omg, this is actually happening!!!!

LunaMágica: Marsh’s greatest fantasy come to life!

Ren starts slow, touching Marsh’s hair first. He brushes a silky lock from her eyes and tucks it behind her ear as she bends gently into the caress, and his gaze roams her body. Nervously, he opens her robe to reveal Le Fascination, and his eyes smolder. He leans in as his hand trails down her stomach, inch by inch—and then just as his fingers slip beneath her lacy underwear out of the camera frame, Marsh and Ren’s lips touch.

Marsh gasps, her body shuddering with surprise and pleasure. Ren’s touch is electric, lighting her up and then shocking her with every motion. Her cheeks burn hotter with every moan, until she’s sure she’s glowing crimson.

Next to Marsh, Dylan is all over the other woman. Shirts are being thrown to the ground, trousers are being peeled off. Then they’re all on the bed, a writhing, shuddering mass barely discernable in the semidarkness. Lace rips as Ren plunges into Marsh, over and over, or maybe it’s Dylan now, but none of them care, and none of them stop.

Everything is happening too fast. She wants to analyze this, to pause the scene and play it back over and over from every angle, but her brain is no longer processing. All her thoughts are turgid, stagnating, turning to a white-hot mass sinking lower and lower in her abdomen, until it gathers like a fine point of light ready to explode.

Just as a low, guttural moan escapes her lips, the door to their bedroom creaks open.

“Mommy?” a tiny, frightened voice whimpers.

Oh no.

The whole world freezes.

Harper was always a scarily deep sleeper—but that had been in Marsh’s original life. In this reality, it turns out that maybe she isn’t. Maybe the sounds of two couples fucking are enough to stir her from her slumber, and to frighten her enough that she would run from her bedroom to her parents’ to see what was wrong.

“Harp,” Dylan starts to say, hoarse from exertion.

But the room is dark, she’s groggy, and all she can discern in the moment are shapes. Her mother pinned down on the bed, crying out, and strangers hovering over her.

“Honey,” Marsh whispers.

Harper turns and runs, sobbing in terror.

“Shit!” Marsh curses, scrambling up in a panic. “Shit, shit, shit !”

“Fuck, I’m so sorry!” Ren lurches off the bed with his partner.

“There’s a kid here?” the woman asks, mortified.

“I thought it would be fine!” Dylan says, diving for his slacks on the floor as Ren also does the same for his jeans. Harper’s cries echo as she runs, and now Pickle is awake and barking in the living room because she’s upset, forcing Dylan to shout to be heard. “I thought she’d just call out for us if she woke up, not come in!”

“ What? ” Marsh shouts back, incredulous. Everything is chaos—she doesn’t even have clothes, she was already in lingerie when Ren and his partner arrived. “Where the fuck is my robe?” she yells.

“She’s always too scared to leave her bed at night whenever she has a nightmare!” Dylan cries. “I figured this would be the same!”

Marsh tries to say something, but it just comes out as a string of foul sounds. She doesn’t know who to be angrier at, Dylan or herself. Why the hell wouldn’t he have pushed for a hotel if he knew Harper doesn’t sleep deeply in this reality? Why did she assume everything about this life would be the same if the whole point of All This and More is to make things different?

Hasn’t she learned anything from the other episodes?!

“We should go,” the redheaded woman says, practically crawling out of her own skin to get to the door. Ren’s got jeans on and nothing else—no shoes, no shirt—and Marsh doesn’t care which neighbors might see a random half-dressed couple leave her house in a beeline for their car, or whose fault any of this is anymore. She just needs to get to Harper.

The four of them dash down the hall, falling over Pickle in the dark. Harper’s sobs are bouncing off every surface in the house, like she’s in all the rooms at the same time. Marsh and Dylan continue to call for her as Ren and the woman break for the front door, but Pickle is all over Ren, barking and nipping at his heels, unsure if he’s supposed to be playing with him or chasing him out. Ren trips, and Pickle dives at him as he goes down with a yelp.

“Pickle! Shit! Leave it!” Dylan orders the dog. “Harper, where are you?”

“Come to Mommy, Harp!” Marsh begs. Finally, she spots her daughter hiding under the dining table between the chairs, and relief washes over her. “Harp!”

She pushes the chairs out of the way and pulls Harper into her arms as Dylan tries to pry Pickle off Ren, who’s still barking wildly, now apparently sure this is all a game.

“It’s okay, honey, it’s okay,” Marsh tells her over and over.

“I’m sorry, he’s still kind of a puppy,” Dylan says to Ren as he continues grappling with Pickle.

“I’ll get the car started,” Ren’s partner says as she whips the door open and practically throws herself out of it. As she goes, the porch light glances off her face, and recognition strikes Marsh.

Was that... was that Alexis Quinn?

Talia’s season one producer?

But that’s impossible.

Why would she be here, in this scene?

But before Marsh can be sure, the woman’s gone, and Ren is still struggling to get himself out from underneath an exuberant Labrador as Dylan grabs ineffectually at the wriggling mass of fur.

“Just get his collar!” Marsh urges impatiently, so Ren can be gone that much sooner. The moment is slowly curdling from frantic into pathetic, and everyone can feel it now. Harper is still clutching onto her mother for dear life, but her sobs have calmed, and she wipes her tears on Marsh’s robe as Dylan peels Pickle off Ren at last.

“I thought a bad guy was trying to hurt you!” She hiccups as Ren struggles to his knees.

“Oh, no, honey, I’m safe, see?” Marsh says, brushing Harper’s hair free of her eyes. “You don’t have to worry. Ren isn’t a bad guy, he’s a friend—”

“Wait,” Dylan says.

The room goes silent, aside from Harper’s sniffles. Even Pickle is frozen, startled to stillness by the sudden shift in mood. Marsh looks up to see Dylan staring at her tensely—and Ren, too.

She’s still so shaken, she doesn’t get it yet.

“What?” she asks.

“You called him Ren,” Dylan finally says. “How do you know that’s his name? We never said them to each other.”

Notamackerel: Oh, shit

Dylan looked concerned before, during the chaos of trying to find Harper, but he’s properly freaked out now. He glares at Ren, and then Marsh, growing more agitated by the second.

“What’s going on? Is that why you panicked when he first came in?” He turns to Ren again, suspicious. “Do you know each other?”

“No!” Ren insists, looking at Marsh. “Not at all!”

And then, finally, despite the darkness and the disorienting circumstances of the night, his eyes widen in shock as he stares at her.

“Oh my God,” he whispers. He peers closer. “Marsh?”

“What the fuck is going on right now?” Dylan shouts, nearly hysterical.

Pickle starts barking again, spooking Ren anew, who bumps into the couch and falls over it as he backs up. Harper returns to sobbing, unsure of why her father is so upset, and why he’s raising his voice to her mother. The roar of a car engine lurching to life thunders in through the still-open door, and the other woman honks the horn outside, but now Dylan is moving to block Ren from leaving until he gets answers.

Marsh hugs Harper closer as she wails, trying to keep her calm, and puts a futile hand up as Dylan and Ren both start screaming at each other, unsure of whether they want to figure out what the hell is going on or to never think about it again.

“Everyone, just...”

She’s about to explain high school, but would that information actually make this better, or would it make things worse? Would it make her seem like some kind of obsessed stalker, and make Ren even more horrified and Dylan even more repelled?

“Tell me what’s going on!” Dylan cries. “Are you cheating on me?”

A laugh bursts out of her at the absurdity of that statement. A dry, exhausted chuckle.

“It doesn’t matter,” Marsh finally says.

It really doesn’t.

Because none of this is real. Not until the finale, anyway.

“What does that mean, ‘it doesn’t matter’?” Dylan asks, staring intensely at Marsh, desperately trying to understand.

She rakes her hands through her hair, frustrated. She’d thought this was going to play out so differently, when she first came back to this moment in her life. She tried her absolute best to salvage things with Dylan, but no matter what she changes, everything still fails. Maybe no matter what she does, she’ll never be able to make the two of them work.

She can imagine what Talia would say. That maybe Marsh isn’t actually supposed to fix her marriage. Maybe Dylan is the very thing that’s been holding her back from the best version of her life.

Maybe, as terrifying as it is, she’s supposed to let him go—for good.