Page 5

CHAPTER 5

OSCAR

I ’ve finished packing my satchel and dropped it on the floor by the door when there’s a knock. Glancing at the clock, I surmise that breakfast is here.

The man at the door greets me with a smile. “Good morning, Mr. Lennon.”

“Hello.” I take a step back to let him in. “Would you bring it to the deck where my husband is, please?”

“Of course.” I wait by the door as he delivers our food. It’s unnecessary, but when we’re here, I like to see them out.

He returns a minute later, and I thank him, shutting the door once he’s stepped outside again. A surge of salty sea air rushes through the bungalow, and I take a deep breath. There are days when I think living somewhere like this is in my future. I love island life. I love shutting out the ugliness of the world and existing in peace.

I head for the deck and pause in the open door. Alka is sitting in one of the chairs at the table. He has a leg pulled up, bent at the knee, as he stares down the beach at the water crashing on the shore. There’s already a couple of guys wandering around. I think I hear faint laughter as they pass.

Alka is almost always a happy, positive man. He’s quick to smile, ready to laugh, and loves to have a good time. It’s rare that I ever see him not smiling. That’s just not in his personality.

But something’s shifted in the last year and a half.

For as long as I’ve known my husband, he’s wanted to be a throuple. He’s always made an effort to keep an eye out for that perfect man his heart is waiting for. He’s dated a handful of guys since we’ve been together. Once, I even thought that he’d found the right one.

Over the last eighteen months, however, he’s stopped looking. He’s stopped commenting on people, which is something we’ve always enjoyed doing together—not in judgment but admiration. We love to look at beautiful people.

I think he’s given up looking for his second person, and it breaks my heart. Ever since the new guy at work chose someone else. That moment seemed to mark an end for him, as if that was his last chance and it didn’t go the way he wanted.

I don’t think it was the man himself since he and Declan are good friends. They hang out all the time. I know what my husband looks like when he pines. He pined after this guy when he initially met Declan Whitaker, a new athletic trainer on campus almost two years ago. I remember he was a little heartbroken that Declan didn’t return his feelings and a little irritated, frustrated, and hurt that Declan chose someone else on campus.

But Alka’s a good guy. I was unsurprised that he chose to remain friends with a man that he’d wanted to be with. They’re good friends now, and part of me thinks that Alka recognizes that this is always how their relationship was supposed to be.

That doesn’t change that it’s done something to my husband. He’s never said as much, but I think that might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. He’s done looking.

It hurts because I think he hurts. He’s a man filled with love, and since he was a kid, he’s known what he wanted and where he belonged. The kind of love and life he wanted to live. I hate that I can’t give that to him.

Sighing, I step out onto the deck. Alka shifts to look up at me with a smile. I examine his eyes, not for the first time, for signs of what I suspect. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, so maybe I see it and can’t recognize it.

“You ready to go?” Alka asks.

I lean down and kiss him, letting my lips linger on his for a minute. “Yes. After we eat.”

We scheduled a late breakfast. More of a brunch, really.

“Where you going?” Alka asks as I take a seat beside him.

“I guess there’s another island an hour northeast from Kala. It’s semi-private, and Ono has friends who own one of the houses and a small cove. We’re going to the cove,” I answer.

“Ah. So you’re leaving the island entirely.”

I lean closer to him and kiss his cheek. “I’d have to if I want to film.”

Alka tilts his head then grins. “Right. Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” I remove the cover off one of the trays and set it in front of him. “What’re your plans for the day?”

He shakes his head and reaches for his fork. “Nothing. Might go to the library on Bane and see what they have.”

“These islands are filled with hundreds, maybe thousands, of hot men. You’re going to go to a library to read?”

“Maybe I have a library kink,” he suggests, giving me an amused look.

I sigh. For a minute, I take a few bites of this quiche. It’s really good. Then I take his hand, and Alka looks at me.

“I’m worried about you.”

He gives me another amused look. “Why?”

“You can’t meet someone if you don’t look for them.”

His amusement fades. Yep. There it is. A hint of sadness. He shakes his head and looks back at his food. I watch as he pops a strawberry in his mouth .

“Maybe I’ve been looking too hard,” he says, shrugging.

“Looking too hard to not looking at all,” I correct.

Alka sighs. “I’m happy.” He looks at me and shifts, leaning forward to press his face into mine. “I love you. You’re the absolute best husband I could ever want. I’m not… dissatisfied. You know that, right?”

“I’ve always known that.”

“Maybe what I’ve always said I wanted just isn’t going to happen. Maybe it was never meant to.”

“Maybe you just haven’t been in the right place when he has. Maybe you’ve crossed paths a dozen times.”

He smiles. “Why are we really talking about this?”

“Because I’m worried about you. You’ve stopped chasing love since Declan, and that breaks my heart.”

“Declan,” he says, chuckling. “Fucker was perfect.”

“He’s not,” I argue, “or he’d be yours.”

He hums, but I’m not sure he agrees with me.

“Do you think there’s a subconscious reason you’ve stopped looking?”

Alka sits up and turns back to the food. I do the same, so it gets eaten while it’s still warm. We’re quiet for a few minutes as he considers the question.

“I don’t know. I can’t think of one, but if it’s an unconscious thought, then I wouldn’t think of it anyway.”

I grin into my plate as I take another bite.

“Do you have a reason I might be self-sabotaging my attempts to find someone to love in addition to you, something that you’re attempting to get me to recognize on my own?”

Do I? I don’t answer as it’s my turn to think about his question. Do I suspect something? “If there’s something specific, then it’s also in my unconscious thoughts. What I do think is that you’ve been discouraged so many times that you’ve given up and you’re allowing yourself to settle on just one romantic partner because you have one you love. Yes, we are happy. Yes, we have a very good life together. No, I don’t think we’re missing anything or that we’re incomplete. But I do think that you still have a lot of love to give someone.”

“Maybe you’re just going to have to accept having all my love,” he muses.

“I have all your love. No one will ever have the love you give me. But I know you’re capable of so much more than loving just me, and that’s what you long for.”

“There are people in the world that would tell us we’re obviously unsatisfied.”

“I’d wager a bet that those idiots love more than one person too. They can deny polyamory all they want, but they love more than one parent, more than one child, more than one friend. It’s not a competition to love one person at a time. You don’t take away the love you have for one child in order to give love to the other. Your heart expands to love both children equally—differently, uniquely, but equally all the same.”

“Poetry right there.”

“We could talk about this all day, but we’re on the same side of a heated debate and it’s a waste of our time. The bottom line is our life choices, and our lifestyle, are none of anyone else’s business, and I’m happy to remind them of that in the same tone with which they offer their unsolicited opinions. However, this is neither here nor there. Alka, I don’t want you to give up on looking for the second half of your love. That’s why I brought this up. I’ve watched you give up for the last year and a half, and I hate that I can’t give this to you. But I can’t. This one you’re going to need to do on your own.”

Alka watches me for a few minutes before he nods. A gentle, subtle bob of his head. “Okay.”

“I don’t care what you do today, including visiting the nunnery that is the library.” He snorts. “But please, go out and be amongst people. Talk to people. Meet people. Promise me.”

He playfully rolls his eyes. “Fine. I promise.”

“Put some effort in, like more than five minutes. ”

He snorts. “Yes. I got it. Anything else?”

“Tell me you’re okay and mean it.”

Alka puts his fork down and turns his chair to face me. He wraps his arms around my shoulders and rests his head on mine. “I’m okay. Yes, I’m sad that I don’t have the… love that I always imagined I’d have by now. But I have you, and I’m not at all sad if it’s just you and me for the rest of our lives, even as contradictory as that sounds. You are my world, and I’m ridiculously happy that you stalked me at a gas station like a creeper.”

I laugh and pull him into my lap. “You want me to cancel with Ono today?”

“Not at all.”

“You want to come with? You can watch or participate or swim in the cove while we do our thing. I’ll even let you be the director.”

Alka huffs. “Thanks, but not this time. Go. Make porn. I’ll be fine, and I promise to meet some people.”

“I love you,” I say.

“I love you,” he repeats. “I’ll be right here when you get home, and you can tell me about your romp.”

“I’ll be home by dinner,” I promise.

“No problem.”

I hold him for a while longer before letting him get up. We finish eating, and I still feel reluctant to leave. I’m glad we had this conversation since it needed to be had, but I wonder if I opened a wound and am now leaving him to close it again on his own.

“Go,” Alka insists, getting to his feet. “I swear to you, I’m perfectly okay.”

With a heavy exhale, I nod. I sling my satchel over my shoulder and wrap my arms around my husband again. “I’ll be back in a bit. Please have fun today.”

“You’re the one having orgasms. You have fun today.”

“You can have all the orgasms you want,” I assure him. “With or without a person. Then we can trade stories when I get home.”

“Uh huh. I’ll keep it in mind. Now, go. Don’t be late.”

I kiss his cheek and head out the door. He’s not going to have an orgasm at all while I’m gone, not even of his own making. I know my husband.

But I have to trust that he’s good when he tells me he is. We’ve always had a very open and honest relationship, which is something I greatly treasure. It’s important to both of us that there aren’t any secrets, and we’ve found that while having an open relationship, sharing exactly what we do with other people and how it makes us feel is a way of wiping the slate clean each time. It leaves no questions. No unease. If something makes us uncomfortable about what the other’s done, we talk about it and set a boundary if necessary.

That’s how all healthy relationships should work—talk and compromise. No disregarding the other person’s feelings because you don’t understand them or don’t share them.

I find Ono right where I said I’d meet him. He grins, hugging me before taking his seat on the stool again. “You get in all right?” I ask as I take a seat with him.

He nods. “Yep. Those blond twins are here. We were on the same flight. I’m not sure they recognized me, but they were friendly. I forget their names but the adult creators who push the lines between teasing and taboo.”

“Jack and Jamie, and I’m sure they recognized you,” I say, chuckling. “Have you worked with them before?”

Ono shakes his head. “Have you?”

“I have. Their first question every time we collab—we have three times, I believe—is how do I feel about twins touching. Like you, I’m not sure if it’s for their audience or because it’s their relationship, to be honest.”

“Huh,” he answers. “Curious.”

I shrug. “They have cultivated a fanbase around their hints. Every time I get into their comment section, I see a lot of ‘yes, more. Where are the twin videos?’ Of course, there’s also the Bible thumpers telling them to pray for their souls. Oddly enough, that’s just for the sodomy, most of the time. Not the twincest.”

Ono laughs. “Good to know.”

“You don’t read comments?”

“Nope. I learned a long time ago that to keep my sanity, I don’t read comments. If I see one more vomit face or someone telling me that my sexuality is sick or that I need to pray to their god for forgiveness for my sins, I’m going to go on a rampage. So, unless it’s someone in my industry or someone I know and trust in my DMs, I keep the comment section on for the algorithm alone.”

“That’s a good rule of thumb,” I say. “When I first started out, I’d respond with something just as scathing as their comment. My goal was to make them regret their decision to comment. I moved on to pointing out that they’re clearly doing something online that has the algorithm suggesting gay shit to them so maybe they need to re-examine their bigotry for what is really going on internally. Years ago, I began blocking them. Now, I simply ignore them. A comment is a comment as far as the algorithm is concerned.” I shrug.

“I wish I’d thought of half that stuff. I guess I’m a little more sensitive to their comments than I’d like to be. When my skin is a little thicker, maybe I’ll become more of a voice in my comments.”

“No. Don’t do that. As your fanbase grows, they’ll become your defending voice. I understand that, as the saying goes, ‘with great power comes great responsibility,’ but you need to keep your business in mind. Your audience is there for sex. That’s where you’re making your money. I know that sounds shitty, but if you want to make a difference, you can advocate in different ways like supporting charities that need more funding. You can be their voice and spokesperson without being controversial in your feed. ”

Ono grins. “We have an hour boat ride to the island. That’s lots of time for you to impart your wisdom to me, Honey.”

I get to my feet and clap his arm. “Gladly. There are a ton of different ways we can collaborate. For instance, let me tell you about my husband’s place of employment.”