Heavy by Cate C. Wells

7

DINA

I’m not a morning person, and it doesn’t matter what time I actually wake up. Until I have my coffee and stare into the middle distance for a while, I’m no good. And my “good” is not great. Especially with strangers.

So when the door flies open and I’m jerked awake, I scream and leap onto the back of the sofa. I press my back to the wall and tuck tight. Fight and flight aren’t an option, so my body goes for armadillo.

Five men spill into the room and then freeze mid-motion. They’re the world’s burliest, grizzliest, shaggiest superhero squad. Heavy’s front and center, red-eyed, hair more tangled and wilder than I’ve seen it yet. There’s a young guy. An old man in a wheelchair. Two other grandpas in leather vests, faded jeans, and shitkickers. They’re all kind of listing to one side or the other as if their ships are sinking.

They’re drunk.

And I’m not wearing pants. My T-shirt is bunched at my waist, and I’m showing my bare ass. If I unfold myself, I’m gonna show them all my bare front.

I need coffee.

“Why you up on the back of the sofa, girl?” the man in the wheelchair asks. He’s the first to move, rolling forward. He’s smiling. Duchenne. Very Duchenne.

“I got startled.”

“Fell asleep on the sofa?” He stops by the coffee table.

“Yeah.” It felt weird in the bed. I didn’t know when Heavy was coming back or where he was going to sleep or what he expected to happen. I don’t like uncertainty, so I got the spare blanket from the closet and slept in the living area.

“You’re John’s sister,” he says, still smiling. He looks happy. The other men fall out. The older guys slump into chairs. The young guy staggers to the kitchenette and opens the fridge. Heavy stays where he is. I can’t look at his face, but for some reason, I’m okay making eye contact with the guy in the wheelchair.

“I’m Boots,” he says.

“Dina.”

“I don’t mean no disrespect, Dina, but I can see your ass.”

“I know.”

From behind, Heavy growls and stomps forward. He grabs the blanket and tosses it over me before lowering himself to the sofa. My gaze slides to him. It’s easier to look at him in profile.

“So what you doin’ up there?” Boots asks.

“I was startled.”

He nods. “You’re a little slip of a thing, ain’t you?”

I hop down to sit on a cushion. I drape the blanket over my lap and sit cross-legged. “I need coffee.”

“Right. Prospect!” he hollers over his shoulder. “Coffee!”

“Ahead of you, boss,” the young guy says. He’s rummaging in the cabinets now.

“You should know, before you get mad, we kept him out,” the guy with the big gut says. “He didn’t even go into the titty bar. He was passed out by that point.”

“Why would I be mad?”

The older guys exchange a look I can’t read.

“All right, girl,” Boots says. “All right.”

I don’t get it. “Why would I be mad if Heavy went to a titty bar?”

“You shouldn’t,” the guy with the gut says with emphasis. “Ain’t no reason to be difficult if he’s comin’ home to you.”

Now I’m really confused. “I’m not difficult. I just need some coffee. I’ll make it myself.” I don’t know what the guy in the kitchen is doing, but I don’t hear anything percolating. I stand, and the blanket falls, I guess a few seconds quicker than my shirt.

Boots sucks in a breath, and the two other guys make strange noises.

“Did she just flash her pussy?” Heavy grumbles. His head is in his hand, propped on the sofa arm.

“Ayup,” Boots says. “I like her.”

There’s a general hum of agreement.

“Don’t look at my old lady’s pussy,” Heavy says, and the others rush to assure him they didn’t, they didn’t mean to, they hardly saw anything.

I can’t even. I need coffee, and I need no one to say anything for a good half hour.

I elbow past the dude still pawing through the kitchen cabinets and make myself a cup using the single serve machine. The others can fend for themselves.

When my mug is filled, I take it into the bedroom. It’s almost noon. Neither Rory nor I ended up able to fall asleep, so we met up in Elfin Quest with this centaur we hook up with sometimes. We finally got to the Silver City before the centaur had to go to work. He lives in the Philippines.

I plop on the side of the bed, sip my weak brew, and stare out the window at the city. The sky is bright, bright blue, not a single cloud. Between where I sit and the low, brown mountains in the distance are a cacophony of buildings—gold windows, black pyramids, red and blue turrets, fountains spraying plumes from the middle of sapphire blue fountains.

It’s busy and bold, but the room is cool and quiet, so I can let it all slowly sift in.

I’m not in Stonecut County anymore. I left all on my own. I got myself to Petty’s Mill, and I snuck into an MC clubhouse and blackmailed the president. I got locked in a closet, and afterward, I let a man finger me, and I came for the first time from someone else’s touch. I liked it. More than liked it. Now I’m in Las Vegas, and I’m okay.

Not great. My tummy is tender from whatever the stress is doing to my guts, and my mind’s not the clearest. But I’m fine.

I’ve always known that if I have to, I can do anything. But there’s a difference between knowing you can and actually doing it.

I’m doing it.

The door creaks open. I hope it’s Heavy. I want to ask him if we can ride the roller coaster I can see a few blocks away before we get married. Or after. Whichever. I love rides. I made my parents take me to the carnival every year even though I’d inevitably have a meltdown from the crowds.

Heavy sits beside me and the mattress dips. He has two steaming white cups in his hands. It smells hella better than mine, but I still drain my paper cup before I take what he’s offering.

“You got real coffee?”

“We sent the prospect downstairs for it.”

“Is that the young guy?”

“Yeah, Bush.”

“Who are the other ones? Besides Boots?”

“Grinder is the talker. Gus is the silent one.”

“I didn’t know they were coming.”

“Me neither.”

“They don’t know about the plan, do they?” I’m sure they don’t. Heavy’s not foolish.

“No. They think we’re getting married for real.”

“They really believe that?”

“They figure you’re knocked up.”

“I’m on the pill.”

There’s a beat before Heavy replies. “And why’s that?”

“To regulate my period. It used to come whenever. I hate inconsistency.”

He makes a chuffing sound. “I can see how that’d be bothersome.”

“If we were to have sex, we should also use a condom.” I don’t think I’d like latex inside me. I hate plastic cleaning gloves, the powdery sweaty feel and then the grossness when you peel them off. But condoms are smart. I can deal. I could pretend his dick is a dildo. Which is weird, but—

“Baby, you’re gonna love my cum in your pussy.” He makes an effort to give me a look, but with his bleary red eyes, it’s less than convincing.

But it’s an interesting question. Would I like the feel of cum inside me? Can you really even feel it? Is it warm? I guess it drips out. Maybe you feel it then.

“TBD.” A thought occurs to me. “Do you have an STI?”

“Pardon?”

“You know. HPV, chlamydia, etcetera—”

“—Nope.”

“How do you know?”

“No symptoms. Clean bill of health the last time I got tested.”

“When was that?”

He sighs and shifts. “I’ve got the hangover from hell, baby. If we don’t get rollin’, we’re gonna miss our appointment at the Office of Civil Marriages. Maybe we talk about this after?”

“So we don’t have time to ride that roller coaster before we get married?” I point to the red single track that makes a full loop-de-loop.

He exhales, and then, out of nowhere, he laughs. It’s deep and booming, and I can’t help but peek at his face out of the corner of my eye. He looks a little pale under his beard, but he’s smiling, and it has the look of a surprise about it.

“We can go after.”

“Sweet.” I hop up. “Dibs on the first shower.”

I’m mid-step when he grabs my wrist. I glance down. His huge hand goes nearly halfway up my forearm.

“You weren’t mad I stayed out all night?” he asks.

“No.” Grinder said something about that, too. “Am I supposed to be?”

He slowly shakes his head. “No. I guess my ego’s strong enough to recover from the blow.”

That doesn’t make any sense at all. I tug my arm. He doesn’t let go.

“When we fuck, I ain’t gonna hurt you. You can trust me on that.”

“I think pain is unavoidable. I’m a virgin, and you’re really big.”

He chuckles. “See? Just like that, my ego’s fine again.” He tugs me back between his thick thighs and runs a rough palm over my bare hips. Shivers race through me, zinging up my spine and down to my toes. “You need to be sure.”

“I’m sure.” I want to know what it feels like, how good it can get. I’ve never been curious before, but he’s—different. Here is different. I’m different.

He doesn’t like my answer. His grip firms on my hips. “You need to think about it.”

“I know what I want.”

“You think you do.”

He makes no sense. I gently but firmly peel his fingers away. “Heavy, you can’t possibly know another person’s mind better than they do.”

He seizes my waist again. “I know the real world a far sight better than you do, little girl.”

I pat his knee and tug myself loose again. “There’s only one world. And we both live in it.”

I leave him on the bed, staring at the city skyline I was just admiring. Bigger than life. All alone. A shadow in his eyes.

A feeling rises in my chest. I don’t recognize it. It’s warm, but barbed. Achy and a touch wild, but also full and sinking. I can’t describe it, but when I turn my back to Heavy and close the bathroom door, it’s still there, and it’s still connected to him, a kind of emotional echolocation.

Strange.

This whole adventure is so very strange.

And I’m about to get married.

* * *

A limo dropsus all off in front of a liver brown and glass windowed municipal building. I’m the first out.

The ride was only fifteen minutes, but the reek—sweet Lord. The guys are sweating last night’s liquor out of their pores, and they’ve all got their distinctive scents as well. Gus has an eau de wet ashtray. Boots reeks of weed. Bush has doused himself in body spray, the kind that has no corollary in nature and has a name like “Epic Chill.”

What does epic chill smell like? Sure as hell not the back of this limo. Cash used to wear that shit in high school. I wouldn’t get in the car with him.

Grinder smells like hotel hand soap. But a lot.

Heavy smells fine. He had three breakfast burritos before we left, so there’s a hint of bacon and jalapeno about his beard, but the leather of his SBMC vest overpowers it. All the men are wearing their cuts. I’ve seen John in his cut plenty of times, but it’s different when there’s a group, and it’s a uniform. People gawk. They make way.

Heavy holds the door for me, and as we head for the elevator—the civil marriage office is on the sixth floor—the men surround me. Bush rolls Boots along by my side. Heavy leads. Grinder and Gus follow behind me. I feel short, but also almost like I’m floating in a lazy river. All I need to do is follow the current. The bombardment doesn’t bother me so much—the fluorescent lights, the echoey hallway, the muffled voices behind doors, glimpses of cubicles behind glass, people brushing past, trailing perfume and coffee, corridors leading left and right—because I can let it wash through me. I don’t have to do anything else, so it’s tolerable.

We don’t have to wait long when we get to the office. We stand in a cordoned line for maybe five minutes before they escort us into a room with a low tiled ceiling and beige carpet. There’s a white picket arch and a mirror along one wall. The officiant, a woman in a navy pantsuit, asks the spouses to take their places.

I don’t know what to do.

Grinder kind of pushes me forward, and Heavy takes my hand. We stand toe-to-toe in front of the arch.

I’ve got my arms crossed tight. They have the air conditioning blasting, and I’ve got goosebumps all over. I threw on an outfit we bought yesterday without a lot of thought. It’s a red jersey wrap dress with short sleeves and a sash belt. It’s soft, no tag, and no annoying seams. It’s also really thin. My stiff nipples are totally visible through the fabric.

I shiver. Heavy grunts. Then he’s shrugging off his cut.

“Here. Arms up.”

I raise them, and he slides his soft leather biker vest onto my shoulders. In terms of size, it’s ridiculous. It’s like when I was a kid in scouts, and we had to make ponchos out of black trash bags. My arms are still bare and freezing, but my torso’s warming up.

Heavy keeps a grip onto the lapels and sort of holds me to him. He leans over and says low so only I can hear, “We don’t have to do this.”

I tilt my head back and stand on tiptoes. He bends his shaggy head.

“We’re already here,” I whisper back. “And we paid the seventy bucks.”

I figure that’ll be it, but he tightens his grip on the vest, tugging me even closer. “We can walk out now,” he says.

I don’t get it. This was his idea. Spousal privilege and everything.

He’s staring down at me intently. My eyes are glued on the collar of his faded black T-shirt. It says Spank the Devil ’11, and there’s a graphic of a blonde pinup with a skeleton over her knee.

“It’s no big deal,” I say to the skeleton.

“It isn’t,” he answers, and I can’t tell if it’s a statement or a question. There’s too much going on. Everything was fine, but now there’s zipping and zooming inside me. Freezing air gusts from an overhead vent. Gus coughs.

On instinct, I rest my fingertips on Heavy’s solid pecs. I’m not steadying myself. I’m not pushing him away. This isn’t a big deal. We’re not getting married for real. I’ve never even thought about getting married for real. That’s for the far distant future. Or never.

I wish the officiant would just get on with it, but she’s backed off a few steps, giving us space. I bet people chicken out all the time at the Office of Civil Marriage in Las Vegas.

Almost by accident, I look up and meet Heavy’s eyes. They’re dark and deep—like staring into a starless night in summer when the air’s dense with humidity, thick and impenetrable.

His eyes don’t bother me anymore. It doesn’t scramble my signal. I can look my fill the same way I do with Rory and Cash and the rest of my family. But it’s not at all the same. It’s not comfortable. The contact is giving me a thrill, nimble fingers tripping up the keys on a piano, playing the scales up my spine. My breath shallows.

Why aren’t we getting on with it? Is he having second thoughts?

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” I tell him.

His lip quirks. “I know.”

“It was your idea,” I remind him.

“I suppose it was.” His mouth curves into a bemused smile.

“We don’t have to do this,” I repeat.

I have no intention of going to the cops. Why would I? I’d implicate myself and set my brother up for a conspiracy charge. Maybe he thinks my conscience would bother me, or the guilt would drive me to confess a la “Tell-Tale Heart,” but that’s not how I’m made. My frequency is sensation, not emotion. I don’t operate on feelings.

“We did pay that seventy bucks, didn’t we?” he says.

“Yeah.”

His eyes crinkle at the corners. And he leans closer and kisses me.

It’s not quick. Not long. Firm. Prickly from his beard. It feels like a drop of dye in a glass of water, a burst of bright color and then a slow, mellow diffusion down my limbs to the tips of my toes and my fingers, still bracing against his chest.

He doesn’t back up right away. He lingers, nose brushing my cheek to nestle behind my ear. Like he’s smelling me.

“Why are you sniffing me?”

His laugh vibrates against my neck, and then he stands. “You smell good.”

I do? I crane my neck, try to catch a whiff, but I don’t smell anything. I guess in comparison to the other guys, “recently bathed” smells pretty damn good.

“Are we ready?” the officiant asks, taking her place.

“As ready as we’ll ever be,” Heavy answers.

She smiles and clears her throat. Grinder—who’d been rambling about something—pipes down.

“Robert, do you take Dina as your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, as long as you both shall live?”

His real name is Robert?

“I do.”

My hands are still on his chest, so I feel the words rumble through his shirt.

“Dina, do you take Robert as your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, as long as you both shall live?”

“I do.”

When I say it, he smiles. Duchenne.

“Then by the power vested in me by the State of Nevada, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

Whooping and hollering fill the room.

And then Heavy seizes my waist and lifts me up. My legs wrap around his waist of their own volition. A hand cradles one of my ass cheeks. A forearm against my back presses me to his chest, and he takes my mouth. This kiss is different than the last one. So different.

There’s tongue. His tongue. In my mouth. Slicking against mine. Plunging and twining. And it’s not gross. Well, it’s objectively gross, but I don’t mind it. He tastes like mellow spices and late nights and the salty German licorice I love.

I suck his tongue the next time he plunges it deep, swallowing his ragged groan. He likes it, too. My dress has ridden up, and I can feel his hard belly through my panties. He’s panting, and I’m doing it to him. He’s so big, and I’m so small in comparison, and his body is dancing my tune. I don’t even know the song, and he’s winded.

And then—plink—a radio dial twists off, my incessantly noisy brain goes silent, and there’s only him.

Heavy.

Warm in my arms and between my thighs. The rise and fall of his chest are gentle waves lapping against a lake shore, and he’s rich and steady as the forest, mossy green and vivid blue, the deep goodness of dark soil and the anticipation of wind rustling leaves high in the treetops.

He’s synesthesia. He rewires touch to memory, taste to color, sound and smell.

This isn’t too much. It’s a wonderment. I want to hold on tight, so I do. I squeeze my thighs, winding my arms tight around his strong neck. Now I’m lost in him.

I don’t know how much later, the officiant coughs, and Heavy chuckles, brushing a kiss close to the corner of my eye.

“All right, then, wife,” he murmurs and sets me down gently.

The sensation fades, the office building rushes back into my awareness—discordant and unwelcome—but Heavy’s holding my hand. I squeeze, just a little, and he squeezes back.

The men swarm closer, and there’s a lot of back slapping. I stiffen, but no one touches me. Heavy keeps me tucked at his side, so they just grin my way. I stare at the carpet.

Eventually, Grinder barks, “Can we eat now?”

The gang moves out, stomping raucously back through the building and piling into the limo, and a disagreement breaks out about where to have dinner.

Grinder is a big fan of the casino buffet. Boots wants steak. Gus wants sushi. Boots is of the opinion that if God meant Man to eat fish raw, he’d have ‘em grow on trees. Gus is of the opinion that Boots needs to get out more.

The driver suggests a compromise—the Grecian has a buffet known for its steak and sushi.

Everyone’s happy, and when we pull up out front, the prospect let’s out a whoop of full-on delight. “It’s a titty bar!” he crows.

“Well-played, driver.” Grinder gives him a nod.

The man grins back at us. “This all right by you, hoss?” he asks Heavy.

Heavy glances down at me. I meet his gaze, and that chilly delicious feeling prickles across my skin. I love looking into Heavy’s eyes. It kicks like a shot of moonshine. I love just being able to do it.

“I guess you don’t want to go to a strip club for dinner, eh?” he asks.

“It’s fine by me.” I’ve never been to one before, but I’m curious. “Are there going to be other women there?”

“This is the Grecian,” the driver answers, twisting in his seat. “Ladies dance downstairs, men upstairs. Plenty of VIP rooms, too, if y’all want a private party. Very classy. There’s a grotto on the main floor. Working waterfall and everything.”

The prospect is already out and hauling Boots’ wheelchair from the trunk.

“We don’t have to eat here if you don’t want to,” Heavy says again. He fiddles with the lapel of his cut, his fingertips grazing my collarbone. He never took it back after the vows. It hangs off me like saddlebags on a horse. I don’t really mind. It smells like the barn back home. “We could go back and eat somewhere at the casino,” he offers.

“I thought bikers did what they want,” I tease.

“We do.” He leans close so he’s speaking just to me. Behind us, Grinder and Gus are struggling to help Boots out of the limo.

“So what do you want?” I try to murmur back, but I don’t quite nail it. Voice modulation is a crapshoot with me. It was worse before Rory. When we talk, she does this thing where she repeats part of what I say back, but with the right prosody and volume. Initially, she did it because I was older and therefore cooler, and it was a case of imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Now she does it because I told her it helps me.

“Steak. Maybe surf and turf,” Heavy says.

It takes me a second to remember what we were talking about. “So here’s good then, right?”

“Not if it p—, uh, if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“See? You’re really, um—sensitive—for a biker.” It’s not a criticism. Men should be sensitive, right?

One second his face is in neutral, and then he flashes a grin, baring those pointy incisors that I’m obsessed with. His eyes sparkle as they narrow the slightest bit. The smile is not Duchenne. It’s something else. What?

He grabs me by the scruff of my neck. My lungs catch. I couldn’t look away if I wanted to. And I don’t. He’s wolfish. He’s a fairy tale monster, glowing eyes blinking in a dark wood. I squirm, the flood of wetness between my legs tickling my folds.

“I am very sensitive to whether you’re comfortable or not. When we get back to the hotel room, I’m gonna lay you flat on your back, and you’re gonna spread your thighs and hold your knees while I take that virgin pussy. I don’t want to have to calm you down first ‘cause you got mad that I was lookin’ at other women’s titties while I ate my lobster.”

I choke on an inhale.

That’s a lot to process.

And I’m taut now. And achy. In all kinds of places. My nipples. My plump pussy lips.

I gulp and try to sort out a response. “Wouldn’t I be looking at other women’s boobs, too?”

His head cocks slightly. “Yeah,” he says slow. “I guess so.”

“I don’t eat seafood, though. Or meat. Do you think they have pasta?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then can we go?”

His brow furrows for a second, but then he inclines his head, lets go of my neck, and gestures like a gentleman for me to precede him out of the vehicle.

A thrum of excitement pitter pats in my belly. I’ve never been to a strip club before. And then there’s what he said we’re gonna do later—

I can’t really think about that right now. I can imagine it, though. He painted a clear picture. Me, on my back. Legs bent back to my ears. Bared to him. Him rising above me, blocking out everything else. His cock lining up with my slit. Wanting in.

Me letting him in.

Shit. That’s too much for right now. I’m hungry, and this is all too surreal, and I’m really curious about whether the strippers wear pasties or not. I’ve always wondered how they stick on, especially if you’re sweating.

I head toward the white canopy emblazoned with “The Grecian” in a gold geometric font. There are naked marble statues of a man and a woman on either side of the entrance. The woman is hiding her face behind a fan. The man is wearing a fig leaf. Doesn’t that say something about the patriarchy.

There’s a line cordoned off with a velvet rope, but no one’s in it. It’s a little early in the day for the dinner rush, I guess. Heavy has reached my side by the time the doorman sweeps open the tinted glass doors and waves us inside.

“Enjoy yourselves,” he says with a great deal of gusto.

I realize my mistake the instant we cross the threshold. I got cocky. I let curiosity overwhelm caution.

Sensory overload crashes into me.

Dark. Strobe lights. Pounding bass. Food smells, liquor smells, perfume smells, body smells. Air conditioning blasting. Fake marble columns and a water feature, a trickling fountain covered in ivy. Curved stairs and topless women in high heels gingerly teetering down one step at a time.

Bare boobs everywhere.

There’s a main stage with a pole—no three poles—and a wall of mirrors behind the dais and a mirrored ceiling, so if you look at a certain angle, the mirrors reflect each other and a woman’s bare legs crisscrossing like a hundred synchronized swimmers getting smaller and smaller to infinity.

I smell turkey and stuffing. And vanilla. And citrus-scented cleaner.

I dig into my purse for my sunglasses, but somehow Heavy has them, and he’s carefully propping them on my nose. I go back into my purse for my earbuds. Once they’re in, it’s a little better. I venture closer to the stage.

There actually aren’t a lot of people here. It’s mostly men at the tables, but there are a few couples. Topless women in very short white skirts and gladiator sandals deliver drinks and work the room. For some reason, all the women’s boobs are glittery. Gold.

Despite the thumping music, no one’s dancing, and everyone seems very chill. Lots of smiling and low conversation.

And then I see the dancer on the stage.

“Ho-ly shit.” It slips out of my mouth.

She’s writhing in front of the pole in a sparkly pink G-string and matching garter. She undulates and pops her ass, and then she reaches up, grabs the pole, and lifts both her legs straight up until they’re horizontal—no strain on her face, not a quiver in her taut muscles. She slowly and gracefully spreads her legs into a V, and then she flips herself upside down and vertical in a perfectly straight line before lowering her legs into another V with the pole pressed to her crotch.

Like. It’s. Nothing. No wobble. No red face. No grunt.

I slap Heavy’s chest. “Did you see that?”

He lets out a small cough. “Uh, what’s the right answer here, baby?”

Now she’s spinning down, but in slow motion. “I want to try that.”

Who am I kidding? I’d slip right down the pole and bonk my head on the floor. I go riding and hiking a lot, so my thighs and calves are pretty strong, and my core’s okay, but I have no biceps. After all, I spend most of my waking hours coding or gaming.

Now the dancer’s taking a moment to bend over, jiggle her ass, and toss her hair. I bet she’s playing for time to recover her strength.

Then she’s back on the pole, climbing upside down, holding herself steady by an ankle as she rises and arches her back, opening her arms with a flourish, almost horizontal in midair.

“She’s so strong,” I murmur.

I could watch her all day, but Heavy’s leading me across the main floor through some fake Greek columns to an annex. There’s another bar here, ladies strutting and dancing the length of it, squatting every so often to let men tuck cash in their garters. There’s a huge buffet along the far wall. Dessert table, salad bar, a carving station with a man in a tall white hat and everything.

Grinder, Boots, and Gus are already bellied up, helping themselves.

Heavy gestures for me to go ahead. The mingled scents hit me, and my stomach clenches. I’ve only had coffee so far today, but with all the weirdness, I’m not exactly hungry. I serve myself some plain noodles and grab a few foil packets of butter. There’s steamed broccoli, the least offensive green vegetable. My hand hovers over the spoon.

At home, I mostly eat on my own at a natural break in my work, but Mom expects all of us to come to Sunday dinner—Jesse, Cash, Kell and his family. Mom always makes broccoli, and whatever she cooks for an entrée, if there’s a sauce, she puts mine on the side. How I like it.

I like routine. The known. Choices that aren’t really choices because I’ve made them a hundred times before.

I should hate this buffet. This club. This loud town.

But this isn’t terrible. Not entirely.

So far, it’s—like Heavy. Booming. Vibrant. Omnipresent. With him, there’s no way to be above it all. He’s too colossal. He makes you aware of yourself because you can’t help but compare your size in relation to his.

He wants to have sex.

But he’s really big.

It might be awful.

But it might not.

I get horny like anyone else. Usually at a certain time in the month, right before my period, I get restless, and my bullet gets a workout. Sometimes I toy with the idea of getting Cash to take me with him to the bars in Shady Gap. Pick up a guy. See if that would be more satisfying than my vibrator.

It’s a nonstarter. Cash would never be cool with me hooking up with a rando. And besides, I know myself well enough that if I wait a few days, the urge will fade, and I’ll be way more into chocolate cake than dick.

I’m not at the horny point in my cycle right now, but my body’s doing some of the same things. My breasts are tender. There’s just more general sensation in my body than usual.

And somehow it’s connected to Heavy. And being out here in the great unknown. There’s a connection between those, too, like I’m an astronaut on a spacewalk, and Heavy is Skylab.

Even now he’s pulling out my seat, tucking me beside him at the far end of the table. I have to crane my neck past all the guys to see the action.

I scrape the butter into my noodles and stir. It’s not quite melting, but it’s viscous enough to spread around.

A waitress comes over and takes our drink order. Grinder asks for a bottle of their oldest whiskey. Bush orders an orange crush.

“What about you, honey?” she purrs, craning her neck to see me past Heavy.

“Whiskey’s fine.” I prefer bourbon, but I’m not particular.

When the butter’s spread as even as I can get it, I dig in. It takes a while for me to notice that the guys are staring at me. Well, Grinder and Boots. The others are watching a woman twerk on the bar. Or the basketball or tennis games on the widescreen TVs hanging above it.

“You got a whole buffet, and you get noodles, no sauce?” Boots asks.

“There was steak up there, girlie,” Grinder says around a mouthful. “And roast beef. Turkey.”

“Bar-b-que. Pit beef. Pit ham,” Boots adds.

“Chicken.” Grinder wrinkles his nose.

“I don’t eat meat.”

Gus and Bush pivot to face me. Grinder’s fork pauses midair. Heavy keeps shoveling food in his mouth, head down.

“What do you mean, you don’t eat meat?” Grinder says.

“I don’t eat meat.” I’m not unfamiliar with this reaction. I get the same thing from Cash’s hunter friends.

“’Cause you don’t like it?” Boots ventures.

“For environmental reasons.”

“En-vi-ro-men-tal reasons,” Grinder repeats. “Heavy, you hearin’ this?”

Heavy doesn’t stop chewing.

“You married a tree hugger?” Grinder pushes.

Heavy takes a minute to swallow. “Seems so,” he says as he chugs half a glass of water.

“You eat fish?” Bush calls from the far end of the table.

“Some.” Atlantic mackerel, Alaskan salmon. A few others. I also eat game that I kill myself, but it’s always a pain in the ass to explain the nuance to folks hostile to the idea of sustainability, so I usually don’t mention it.

“If God didn’t want us to eat meat, why is animals made of it, then? Huh?” Grinder’s poking his fork into the air.

I have nothing to say to that.

“Heavy, what’s the Good Book say?”

Heavy takes a second to swallow, and then he says, “’Every moving thing that lives will be food for you. As the green herb, I have given everything to you.’” He grins down at me and winks.

I sigh. I guess we’re doing this again. “’But food will not commend us to God. For neither, if we don't eat, are we the worse; nor, if we eat, are we the better.’”

Heavy’s smile widens. “’One man has faith to eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables—’”

“’—Don't let him who eats despise him who doesn't eat. Don't let him who doesn't eat judge him who eats, for God has accepted him.’” I finish the quote for him. It’s Romans, and before my grandparents passed, it came in handy at a lot of family dinners.

While Heavy and I are going back and forth, the waitress returns and passes out snifters, leaving a bottle by Gus who fills the glasses. He slides two toward Heavy who nudges one against the side of my hand.

“’Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God,’” Heavy says with a note of finality and raises his glass.

I take the drink, clink it against his, and sip. It’s good stuff. Burns real nice going down.

“Grinder, what the hell did they just say to each other?” Boots asks.

“Couldn’t say. They seemed to come to an accord there at the end, though.”

“Well, then, amen!” Boots declares and toasts us, tossing back two fingers of Glenfiddich with a gusty exhalation. He plunks his empty glass down. “Another round!”

The subject is dropped in favor of reminiscences of strippers the old guys have known—a woman named Plum who ended up with Gus’s son, a rich guy who got his ass beat in a parking lot by a dude named Nickel, another woman named Story who stripped to “Danny Boy” one night and had the whole club singing along in tears, her mother Sunny who’d pop ping pong balls from her coochie, and if a customer caught one in his mouth, he’d get a shot on the house.

“Fine woman,” Grinder sighs, resting back in his chair and folding his arms over his gut. The men have each made at least three trips back to the buffet, and the table is on its fourth bottle of whiskey. We’ve switched to bottom shelf.

“The dentist is a lucky man,” Boots says. I’m fairly sure that makes no sense, but I’m on my second drink, and everything is warm and fuzzy. There are more people now than when we arrived. It must be close to actual dinner time. I’m not terribly bothered, stuck in my corner with Heavy and a table between me and the rest of the room.

And then a bachelor party rolls in. They’re late-twenties, sales bro types. There’s always a guy like them in development meetings, a dude named R.J. or Bryan who says things like “it’ll be a lay-up” and “we need to swing for the fences on this one.”

The ladies have been dropping by and chatting at our table, but when these guys sit down, there seems to be more dancers both up on the bar and circulating. It gets loud with laughter and shrieks, and the scent of conflicting colognes almost overpowers the buffet. I never knew I preferred leather and stale smoke.

Heavy throws his napkin on his plate and pushes back. “Brothers, shall we adjourn to the other room?”

There are grunts of assent, and Grinder re-buttons his pants. We file back to the main room, and it seems like the bros by the buffet were an advance party. There’s a sea of blue button ups and khakis. The guys don’t seem to notice, but to my ears, they add a braying and smarm to the joint that pushes the overstimulation dial closer to the red.

We take a round table in a far corner with a view of the entire floor. Again, Heavy guides me to the seat on the end and sits between me and the rest of the guys and the room. We’re close to the side of the stage, and from this angle, I can watch the dancer from the back. Her trapezius muscles ripple and bunch as she climbs and lowers herself on the pole.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman in real life with such defined back muscles. Does she lift? Dumb question. She lifts herself hand-over-hand and then holds herself still while she defies gravity. That’s her entire body weight plus whatever those crazy light-‘em-up high heels weigh.

I want to just watch her and marvel, but my brain is struggling to sort the stimuli. The bass beat, Boots’ gleeful, drunken commentary. The sticky table.

And Heavy keeps looking at me and looking away. And touching me. He pushes my sunglasses back up when they slip a little down my nose. Wipes a drop of whiskey from my lower lip with his rough thumb.

It’s a lot of touching. It makes my nerves raw, and that’s bad, but also, only in this weird place and time, and only because it’s him—it’s also good?

Even when I’m still shivering inside, I kind of want him to do it again. Like a tickle.

A dancer brings another bottle of whiskey and a round of beers, and she stays to sit in Bush’s lap. She’s doing a thing where she lies flat across Grinder’s lap, nestles a shot glass between her boobs, and encourages him to grab it with his lips.

Do the dancers like their jobs? They’re really good at it.

Who has the power here, the men with the money or the women laying across their laps, letting them touch, but only so much?

What does it feel like to be as physically strong as the woman climbing the pole? What does it feel like to have everyone’s eyes on you, and you don’t mind, it doesn’t shut you down, it doesn’t even seem to register except for a few seconds here and there between acrobatic feats of impossible strength?

And then the dance is over. I clap. Apparently, that’s not what you do. There are some wolf whistles, but mostly the crowd doesn’t react. Then the dancer struts along the edge of the stage, and the mood changes.

She kneels and tosses her hair, and men wave dollars. She crawls to them, making a show of offering herself so they can tuck them in her G-string. It’s playful and vamp-ish, but the men in khaki pants are dumb and vulgar—having a friend take a pic while they mime licking her ass while she’s not watching, taking the dollar away at the last minute and making her crawl closer. They make it gross.

I squirm and stare at the table.

Heavy nudges me. I guess he said something. I pop out an earbud.

“Too much?” Heavy repeats.

“Those guys are assholes.”

“Want me to kick their asses?”

I glance up, and he’s smirking, a thick eyebrow raised. He’s joking. “You could do that, couldn’t you?”

He lifts a shoulder. “Do you mean physically? Or ethically?”

I had been picturing him plowing through them like a one-man stampede, but I’m intrigued. “Ethically?”

“They do have an ass kicking coming to them, but ethically, I do not believe I’m obliged to deal it out in this particular case.”

“But in other cases you would be?”

“Sure. If the place had no bouncers. If it was my club. But—” He nods at two beefy guys in black T-shirts, standing along the wall, hands clasped in front of their barrel chests. “House rules haven’t been broken.”

“Those guys are being douches.”

“So you want me to kick their asses?”

“Would you?”

He smiles. “Now that’s a more interesting question than could I, isn’t it?”

“I don’t see the difference.”

“Could expresses ability. Would expresses willingness. Would I be willing to beat down some jackass in a strip club because his behavior toward a stripper offended my wife’s sensibilities?” His lips soften and his eyes crinkle at the corners.

My wife. A shiver zips down my back. I cock my head and wait for his answer.

“Abso-fuckin’-lutely,” he finally says. He seems delighted by his own answer.

I can tell that he’s delighted. I don’t have to parse the clues—eyes, mouth, posture. I can read it in a glance. Delight.

My chest prickles with warmth. “You don’t have to do it. I think the bouncer’s going to do something.”

One of the guys has stepped forward, and the other is talking into the radio clipped to his shoulder.

“You know, I have an idea,” Heavy says. “You want to go somewhere quieter?”

“Yes.” Always.

He bends closer to my ear. “You see any girls you like?”

“What?”

“Which girl do you like the best?”

It’s a weird question. “They’re all pretty.” Every one of them is built like a Barbie. “Which one do you like the best?”

He kind of blinks at me. He does that a lot when I say things. Like he’s streaming video, and he’s buffering.

“You wanna know my type?”

“Sure.”

He seems to consider a moment, and then he scans the room.

“There,” he says, and nods to a woman chatting up a table of bros. She’s tall, with wavy blonde hair down to her butt and a full sleeve tattoo on her left arm. It’s gorgeous work—hibiscus blossoms and crosses in bright colors. Her boobs are huge, and she’s stunning, but for some reason, the bros don’t seem to be testing her.

“She’s really pretty.” I bet she laughs a lot. She has that generous mouth and ready smile that makes you think she does.

Heavy hums low and leans even closer. His beard rasps my cheek. I inhale, and the vivid green and rich brown, birdsong and dew, warm baking sunshine on a day when it’s bright but breezy, fills my lungs.

Synesthesia.

Why does it happen with him? It usually only happens with numbers, letters, days of the weeks, things like that, and it’s never this intense. Mostly colors, only occasionally a smell.

I’m so distracted, I don’t register what he says. “Come again?”

He kind of frowns at me. “I said yes, she is, but turns out, I got a thing for little short-haired girls in big sunglasses.”

I wiggle in my seat, and my cheeks heat.

I’m nothing like the tattooed woman. For one, I have no ink. No piercings either. I love the look, but my pain threshold is ridiculously low. I don’t have her physical presence. I hunch. Shuffle. Sexy is not my thing. Or I didn’t think it was.

“Why?” I ask.

“Why what?”

“Why do you have a thing for me?”

He licks his full lips. “I have no idea what’s gonna come out of your mouth.”

“And that makes you want to bang me?”

He chuckles. Just once. “Yeah. Actually. It does.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Neither do I.” I want to hear more, but he’s raising his hand, gesturing to the tattooed woman to come over. I thought she was focused on the bro table, but she notices Heavy immediately, excusing herself with an easy assurance, sauntering right over. Sashaying. Whatever it’s called when there is a lot of hips and swaying boobs.

“Hello, gentlemen,” she says with a wide smile, and the guys reply in a babble of welcome and admiration.

“Hello, ma’am,” Bush says with a whistle, and she tussles his hair. Then she poses, long-nailed hand on a gold-glittery cocked hip, one knee bent so her hip pops. She stares directly at Heavy—no hesitation—and she slides her pink tongue slowly along her bottom lip.

“And what can I do for you, sir?”

My stomach tightens. I don’t like how she’s looking at him. Like it’s easy to do.

Without thinking, I put my hand on his forearm. The flannel is soft. I knead it with my fingertips. Heavy leans back and rests an arm along the back of my chair. My stomach muscles unclench.

“My wife and I would like a private dance. Do you think you could arrange that?”

Her smile broadens, and she cranes her neck to check me out. “Hello, there, beautiful. I almost didn’t see you behind that big ol’ man of yours.” She takes a few steps closer and offers me her hand. “Let’s go have some fun, sugar.”

I don’t like touching strangers, but I also don’t like not knowing what to do, so I let her grab my hand and guide me away from the table. Heavy follows close in our footsteps. Behind us, the table erupts in hoots and hollers almost loud enough to drown out the bros.

“I’m Anise,” she says.

“Dina,” I reply.

“Who’s the big guy?”

“Heavy.”

“Yes, he is,” she laughs, warm and husky.

As we move through the floor, clumps of bros shuffle back and divert their paths to give us a wide berth. I noticed this in the airport and at the casino, too. Heavy’s like one of those emergency signs on the back of a truck—he moves and people yield.

When we’ve gotten a few yards, Heavy reaches out, touches Anise’s shoulder, and whispers a good while in her ear. I can’t make out what he’s saying because he’s on the side with the earbud still in.

“Cash up front and the house doesn’t need to know?” she says.

Heavy nods.

“She’s okay with it?” Anise nods at me.

“She will be.”

What are they talking about?

“I think we can make that happen for you,” she says and winds her fingers between mine. I don’t know what’s going on, but for once, the anticipation is stronger than the anxiety.

I have no reason to trust Heavy, but for some reason, I do. I let Anise lead me up the curving stairs into the dark. Heavy’s at my back. I’m not the least bit scared.

* * *

With her heels,Anise is easily eight inches taller than me. She smells like patchouli and sandalwood, but it’s a faint scent, as if it’s coming from her hair and not her skin.

At the top of the stairs, the music changes. Downstairs was rock and hip hop. Up here it’s R & B, mellow with a thick, drowsy beat. The ceiling isn’t so high, and the space is more intimate with smaller tables and votive candles.

There are a lot of men.

The dancer on stage is a man, and both men and women in gold thongs are hanging out at tables, some with groups of women, some with couples. Everyone’s drinking wine. There is chardonnay in the air.

Anise lowers her head and asks me, “Which one do you like?”

I glance back at Heavy. His face is impassive. This has to be his idea, but his beefy arms are folded, and he’s not saying anything. Am I supposed to pick another woman? A man?

My pulse picks up. I can feel it throb in my neck. I’ve never done anything like this before. Never even thought about it. My fantasies aren’t complicated. A hot guy, oral, hands all over me that feel good and aren’t annoying. That and the bullet on my clit are usually enough to get me there.

I mean, I’ve watched about everything that exists on the internet. I’m curious. But most porn does nothing for me, or it makes me worried for the future of humanity.

I never, never, never thought about watching real naked people dance up close. I don’t like getting close to people with their clothes on.

But this—I really want to know what might happen.

“He’s cute. Do you like him?” Anise jerks her chin at a guy who’s flirting with a table of women who look like my middle school teachers. He has dark brown hair styled in an artfully disheveled quiff, a deep tan, sleepy, hooded eyes, and a bright white smile. From here, it looks Duchenne.

I look up at Heavy. He’s still not giving anything away.

“Yeah, okay,” I say. “He’s good.”

Anise gives my hand a squeeze and then drops it to saunter over to the man. She seems to apologize to the women, draws him away to a chorus of protests, and whispers in his ear. His smile grows, one hundred percent Duchenne, and he bumps his forehead lightly to hers. They’re the exact same height.

Anise takes his hand and brings him over.

“This is Gio.” She introduces him to me. “You’re gonna love him.”

It’s weird. Both of the dancers pretty much ignore Heavy even though he’s close to my side. They lead the way down a hall, past a bouncer in a “STAFF” T-shirt, to a room at the end. It’s small. The ceiling is mirrored, and so is a wall. There’s a pole on a square platform in the middle and a sturdy wood chair. The unmirrored walls are lined with tan leather couches. There’s also a small round table for drinks.

“Champagne?” Anise asks, and when Heavy grunts in the affirmative, she uses an intercom on the wall to place an order.

Heavy settles himself in the middle of the couch and slaps his thigh. “Come here.”

For a second, I don’t know if he’s talking to me or her.

“I think your man wants you,” Anise says as she grabs the pole and circles it with a few idle steps.

It’s clear now that Heavy’s looking in my direction. I don’t know what to do with myself, so I shuffle over and perch on his knee. He immediately wraps a thick arm around my middle and pulls me flush to his chest. My legs dangle on the outsides of his meaty thighs.

I’m spread open. And that’s an unsettling sensation. But he surrounds me, and that feels—nice. Enveloping, but in a good way. Like a comforter. I let my head rest on a hard pec.

“How do you want this to go, boss?” Anise asks Heavy.

“He does what you want,” Heavy tells her. “He” means Gio, the male dancer. “My wife says stop, everything stops. Otherwise, everything is a go.”

Anise smiles and licks her cherry red lips. “I like that idea.”

Gio chuckles. “Works for me.”

Anise prods the wood chair with the glittery toe of a high heel. “Sit there, honey.”

Gio obeys, casual, knees spread, grinning. He has an erection. It’s poking through his sparkly gold thong. My face heats. His boner causes a gap, and I can totally see shaved skin. And ball sack.

Gio’s not looking at us, though. He’s intent on Anise as she swings lazily around the pole. They’re making steady eye contact, breaking only for the second when her back is to him. It doesn’t seem to bother either of them in the slightest that we’re watching. I think they might enjoy it. Both of their mouths are softly curved upwards, and their bodies are relaxed.

I’m not. Heavy’s hold on me has loosened, and now his forearm is a bar across my lap, and as the seconds pass, I feel less safe and more—held. My feet don’t reach the floor. I’m not touching the couch. There’s nothing but man under me. Behind me. Around me.

At least it’s more peaceful in this room. The R & B is piped in through a speaker on the wall, but other than that, it’s quiet. The lights are low, and nothing flashes or changes color.

This close to Heavy, all I can smell is him. I close my eyes and inhale. In the best possible way, he smells like the barn back home. Machinery, straw, sunbaked horsehair. Some of the tension leaks from my muscles, and on its own, my body conforms to his, my shoulders to his chest, my bottom to his lap and the pokey hardness popping his zipper.

“There we go,” he murmurs in my ear, gravelly and languid. His beard is bunched against my shoulder and the side of my neck. Raspy and coarse. But I don’t mind. It doesn’t tickle, and if he stays still, it doesn’t abrade.

“What are they going to do?” I whisper. Anise has temporarily abandoned the pole to get a tray from a waitress in the hall.

“Whatever she wants,” he says. “She’s calling the shots.”

Anise sets the tray down on the small table, pops the cork, and pours four glasses. She hands one each to Heavy and I.

I can’t navigate this situation and drinking, so I down mine in three gulps and pass my empty glass to Heavy who sets it back on the table.

I’m definitely a little tipsy. Not enough that anything is spinning, but my insides are swooshy, and the part of my brain that doesn’t overanalyze everything is floating like a balloon.

Anise struts over to Gio with the two remaining glasses. He smiles up at her from the chair, and she slowly lowers herself into his lap, facing him. Her ass flexes, and she arches her back. Then she looks at us over her shoulder and frowns.

“Hold on.” She stands again, backing up. “Turn the chair,” she tells Gio.

He rotates it so that when she sits on him again, Heavy and I have a side view. We can see her breasts brush his sculpted pecs and her pelvis grind against his erection. She hands him champagne.

“Cheers,” she says, and they clink glasses, smiling at each other. Gio sips, sets his glass on the floor, and then rests his hands on her lower back. His touch is so tentative it almost hovers over her sparkly skin.

“Uh, uh,” she tuts, gently slapping his shoulder. “Did I say you could touch?”

He grins and drops his arms to his sides.

“The big man says I’m in charge.” She winks and boops him on the nose.

Underneath me, Heavy shifts. His breath is quickening. I tilt my head back so I can see his face from the corner of my eye.

“Can you tell if they really like each other?” I ask him as quietly as I can. I’m not sure I nailed a whisper, but neither Anise nor Gio glance over at us.

Anise is grinding on Gio’s lap now, tossing her long hair. His eyes are glued on her breasts, and every so often, he licks his lips and swallows.

“I think they do,” Heavy says.

“How can you tell?”

“She pointed him out to you. He’s got a hard on.”

“Why do you think she likes him?”

Heavy shoots a dark, inscrutable glance at me before he goes back to watching the show. “She probably knows he’ll make her feel good.”

“How does she know that?”

Heavy’s hold around my waist tightens the slightest bit. “Maybe they’ve done this before. Maybe she’s got a sense about him. Seen him with other dancers. Maybe they’ve worked together a while.”

I don’t have a sense about people. Not unless they’re grade A, prime assholes like Cash. He might as well have “dickhead” embroidered on his shirts. But most people? I’m flying blind.

I have no idea how Heavy is with other women. And I’ve known him for less than forty-eight hours. He could be the world’s most devious manipulator, and I’d never see it coming.

But here I am. Considering.

What would it be like to have sex with him? I’ve already done some stuff with him, and it was all right. He touched me. I came. It felt good until the sticky wet part at the end. More than good. Amazing.

Would it feel like that with anyone?

Cash has a friend named Darren. He gawks at me when I’m in my bikini beside the pool in the backyard. I always figured if I decided I wanted to have sex, Darren would be up for it. He’s dumb enough not to worry about pissing off Cash.

Darren’s objectively hot. He’s clean. His opinions about virtually everything including desserts are about fifty years out of date—dude loves my mom’s Jell-O molds—but he means no harm, and he’s about the best you can do in Stonecut County.

I don’t think it would feel amazing with Darren. But with Heavy?

I squirm in his lap, and he nuzzles the crook of my neck. Shivers zing across my skin from nerve ending to nerve ending. Across the room, Anise tugs Gio’s head down, guiding him to her breast. He licks her nipple, and then he pops the whole thing into his mouth and sucks. She grinds harder, losing the rhythm of the song. It’s less of a dance now, although she’s playing with the other boob in kind of a choreographed way. There’s a sheen of sweat on her face.

“He seems to know what she likes,” Heavy murmurs.

I make a noncommittal hum. My body’s demanding a lot of my attention. There’s sorting through how Heavy’s body makes me feel, and then there’s the visual of the couple in the chair. It’s a lot. My gaze slides away, and then it’s drawn back, and I’m overloaded all over again.

Usually this is the point when I meltdown, but it’s like my circuit breaker has already been tripped, so I can let the experience keep flowing over me, tucked against Heavy’s broad chest.

Gio strokes Anise’s back, tracing the notches of her spine. Gentle. Reverent. Anise seems oblivious to him. Her eyes are screwed tight, and she’s biting down hard on her lower lip, panting.

“What do you like?” Heavy asks. There’s a rawness to his voice, a fracture.

“I don’t know yet.”

He makes a weird sound. “Do you like how he’s touching her? Gentle?”

I shrug a shoulder. “She likes that.”

“I’m not gentle. I don’t go slow.”

I know that should be terrifying, but heat blossoms in my lower belly.

“But I’ll be gentle tonight,” he goes on. “I’ll go as slow as you need.”

“Tonight?”

“Oh, yeah. When we get back to the hotel, I’m poppin’ that cherry. It’ll be all about you. Just like this. But once I break you in, baby, it’s gonna be about me. Understand?”

Not at all, but I am turned on. My nipples chafe against my bra. I rock my hips experimentally, and the friction of my pussy against his jeans feels good. Heavy groans.

“I guess you do,” he chuckles.

In the chair, Gio grabs Anise’s ass, and she drops backwards, back curved, so her boobs thrust high in the air and her hair dusts the floor. She’s beautiful, and Gio’s expression is pure appreciation. They don’t seem to notice us at all.

Anise straightens, and she takes one of Gio’s hands, guiding it between her legs. My thighs clench, and my breath shallows.

“What’s she doing?” I know the answer. I don’t know why I’m asking Heavy.

“She wants to be touched.”

I do, too. I squirm, but Heavy doesn’t move.

Gio grins as he slips his fingers in her G-string, but Anise seems to get another idea. She bats his hand away, stands, and then nudges his chair until he rotates it to face us. Then she straddles his lap and looks at Heavy.

Do I like that?

Instinctively, I reach back and clutch his hair. I don’t yank his head down so he can’t see, but I could. If I wanted to. Heavy rumbles. It’s a pleased sound.

“You don’t want me to look?”

I want to look. It wouldn’t be reasonable if I didn’t want him to watch.

He gently disentangles my fingers from his hair. “Or don’t you want her to look at me?”

That’s not reasonable either.

But no.

I don’t like her looking at him.

Now she’s reaching for Gio’s hands, placing them on her round hips. Gio tugs her G-string down and she steps out of it. She’s buck naked except for those high heels. Gio trails his fingertips back up the inside of her leg, and she widens her stance. She’s completely shaved. Her pussy lips are a rosy pink, and her clit peeks out like the tip of a tongue.

She leans over a little, tilting her hips, and Gio cups her between the legs and shakes. She moans.

She’s still looking straight at Heavy.

My stomach clenches.

No, I really don’t like that.

I glance over my shoulder at him. He’s watching Gio touch her. Of course. I was watching that, too. I tense. My hands had been resting on Heavy’s forearms, but I fold them high on my chest. My spine stiffens.

“I don’t want anyone lookin’ at you either,” he breathes in my ear. “You know how many fuckers I almost punched today? Every one of those frat boys who checked you out. The doorman. The dude carving the turkey. The limo driver. The dude behind us in line at the courthouse.”

“He was checking me out?” That marriage isn’t off to an auspicious beginning.

“I don’t want anyone’s eyes on you but mine.”

“That’s nuts.”

He lets out a wry chuckle. “You think I don’t know that?”

We’re silent a moment, and I let myself soften back into his chest. “I don’t want anyone looking at you, either, but you’re so big, there’s no chance of that.”

He tightens his arm and laughs softly.

Anise’s glance drops to my face, and for a second, she frowns. Then she slaps Gio’s hand. He drops it immediately. She struts over to the couch, arms extended, palms open. What does she want?

“Gimme these, honey,” she says, grabbing for my hands. I let her take them and draw me to my feet. She lifts my arms to my side. “You’re such a pretty thing under that big ol’ leather vest,” she says. “So shy.”

Behind me, Heavy snorts.

Then she urges me back to straddle Heavy like she was doing with Gio, but Heavy’s a much bulkier man, so there’s no way.

Heavy widens his legs and Anise guides me to stand between them. Then she drops my hands and grabs his, placing them on the sides of my bare knees. His palms are rough, but his touch is light. He skims upward, under my dress, over my hips. Anise strides gracefully away, returning to Gio.

When she turns, she’s looking at me. We’re mirror images. She’s tall and assured and feminine and muscular. She knows what she’s doing. She can read the room, and somehow, she knows how to orchestrate it all. It’s a feat as mind-blowing as the acrobatics with the pole.

Heavy’s hands cup my hips, and Gio’s rise to massage hers. Gio smiles at me. My dress falls over Heavy’s forearm, so I’m not on display, not really. But they obviously know he’s touching me. I lean back a little, resting my back against Heavy’s chest.

Gio winks. “Now you’re getting’ comfortable,” he says.

“Don’t talk to my wife, friend,” Heavy says, even and calm, his voice vibrating against my shoulder blades.

I tense, but Gio chuckles, no offense apparently taken. “Sure thing, my man.”

He turns his gaze back to Anise who’s dancing, slow and languorous, grazing her fingers over her own taut curves and firm breasts.

Why is it okay for Anise to talk to me but not Gio? Why did a thrill shoot through me when Heavy warned him off?

I don’t understand these dynamics, but they weave a spell, muffling the extraneous stimuli and focusing my mind. It’s a puzzle I don’t have to solve. A maze I can just wander.

Heavy’s touch, his smell, my body’s new reactions, the rising, greedy wanting that makes me press against all the points of contact between us. That’s all I need.

Anise props herself on Gio’s lap, and he plays with her nipples, plucking the buds until they’re stiff peaks. She circles her hips, and it’s a dance, but it’s also not.

Heavy slips his fingers under the elastic of my panties, and with his other hand, he cups my breast. His touch is light. Idle.

The overwhelming sensation is being wrapped in his trunk-like arms. It’s not too much. It’s not enough, either.

I know this is chemicals and hormones, not magic, but there is no meaningful difference, not when my insides are turning into liquid gold. Not when all of this is happening, and I’m not splintering.

I’m sailing. Soaring.

The song changes, and Gio’s mood shifts. He stops lounging and grinning. His muscles tighten, and his eyes glint like diamonds. Anise was in charge, but without warning, the script is flipped. Gio maneuvers her so she’s closer to him and—holy shit—his dick is out of his thong. His balls, too. He definitely shaves.

Instinctively, I back into Heavy. His beard bristles across my bare arm.

“Are they gonna have sex?” I hiss.

“I believe so.”

“Did you ask them to?”

“I didn’t suggest they go this far specifically, no, but I asked for a show. And, I did say anything goes.”

“Anything is definitely going,” I mutter. I’ve never seen people have sex in real life. “Should we be watching this?”

His laugh shakes me. “I don’t think they mind.”

Gio guides Anise up and back until she’s poised on top of him. He fists himself, angles toward her rosy pussy. She’s glistening. Her sparkly body lotion glitters gold in the creases of her slick folds. Her eyes are closed, and there’s a fine vertical line between her perfectly sculpted eyebrows.

Gio whispers to her—I can’t make out the words—and she lowers herself onto his cock. It’s not nearly so long and thick as Heavy’s, but she moans, and she sounds pleased. She rises up, and now he’s shiny with her juices.

I’m panting. “She likes it,” I manage between shallow breaths.

Heavy hums in agreement. “She’s controlling the pace. She’s focusing on what makes her feel good.”

“That’s why he’s not moving?”

“He’s giving her time to get settled.”

“His face is all scrunched up.” Gio’s brow is knit and under the straight edge of his chin strap, his jaw is clenched so tight it’s blanched white.

“It’s hard for him not to thrust into that sweet pussy.”

“But he’s giving her time,” I say.

“Yeah.” Heavy’s voice becomes impossibly deeper and grittier. “Tonight, I’m gonna give you all the time you need. We’ll get you dripping wet, and I’ll ease inside, inch by inch, and I won’t move at all until you tell me you want more.”

My muscles tense, head to toe. “It’s gonna hurt.”

“Probably. A little. But then it’ll feel real good. I swear.”

Anise’s head tilts back. She’s found a rhythm. Gio’s rocking into her now, watching himself slide in and out of her stretched core. Anise’s nails are digging into his tan thighs, leaving pale half moons.

They both have their eyes closed, and their movements don’t seem at all like performance now, more like they’re working together toward something, wordless and intent, oblivious to the world. It’s not as smooth or rehearsed as before—it’s kind of awkward, actually, and there are squelches—but it’s captivating.

“Why do you want to do this? With me?”

I know why I’m game. Curiosity. Carpe diem. And this feeling I don’t understand, a sensation I can’t untangle from his thick beard and booming voice and how he kind of looks scared when I catch him staring at me from the corner of my eye.

He’s way larger than I’d like to start with, but I’m not going to get this kind of opportunity again once I go back to Stonecut County. No strings sex isn’t really possible in a small town.

Heavy doesn’t answer me right away. I almost forget I asked, distracted by the increasing pace of Gio’s thrusts and the way Anise’s breasts jiggle.

“Maybe I want something for myself,” he finally says.

I don’t understand.

I guess I was expecting him to say I turn him on, or I’m hot, or something like that. I’m not. I’m cute, but I’m built like Gumby, and I know it. I don’t mind. I don’t have to wear a sports bra when I go horseback riding.

I want something for myself.

Yeah, I don’t get it. He’s the president of the club, right? The CEO of the company. Everything is his. Does he mean like in his personal life?

I have everything to myself. Most of the time I might as well be in one of those antique diving suits with the big round heads, floating through the deep, murky sea, trying to make out what’s right in front of my face. Having it all to yourself is overrated.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

Again, he takes his sweet time before he speaks. The whole time, he strokes my sides, gently cupping my breasts or smoothing and squeezing my bottom. It keeps my body at a low boil, the line between stimulated and overstimulated. I rest my cheek on his chest so his beard will tickle my ear lobe when he speaks.

Gio pounds into Anise faster and faster. She’s moaning pretty constantly now. I don’t think they care about us at all anymore.

Heavy coughs to clear his throat. “Well, it’s like—I got a Bobcat. I got a Fat Boy. Got a Road King. At some point, lots of folks have ridden bitch on all three. But I also got a Pacer I restored from parts. It’s too small for my size. I lay her down half the time I take her out. But nobody’s ridden her but me.”

I understand even less now.

“That Pacer is my favorite ride,” he says as if that explains it all.

“Because no one else has ridden it?” I am not down with the idea of virginity being tied to a woman’s worth. Also, is he saying he’s too big for me? I want to get laid, but not “laid down.”

“Yeah, and because I made her. She responds to me.”

“If we go with your analogy, you’re a shit rider, and this is some kind of exclusive ownership thing?” I grimace.

“I guarantee you won’t complain about the ride, but yeah—” He grabs between my legs. “I’m gonna own this pussy.”

“What does that even mean?”

“That means it’s gonna beg me, just like it’s doin’ now, grinding against my hand like a greedy little thing.”

Oh. I am. I’m doing that.

He laughs, and it isn’t mocking. It’s rich like espresso or polished mahogany. The sound seeps into me, and now the liquid gold inside me is bubbling. I think this conversation is turning me on more than his touch, more than the show in the chair across the room.

It’s like he’s whispering secrets to me. People don’t do that. No one’s like “let’s confide in the girl who’s no good at subtlety and can’t control her volume.”

He’s saying things only for my ears. I don’t want him to stop. Any of it.

“So you want to have sex with me because I’m a virgin. That’s disappointing.”

He chuckles and nips at my earlobe. Shivers scramble down my neck. “Oh, yeah. I love expanding your world, blowing your mind. That airplane ride gave me a taste for it.”

I twist my neck to try and see him better. He drops a kiss where my eyebrows knit together. “I love the look on your face when you see something new. Your lips part.” He cradles my jaw for a moment, holding me still, his gaze searching mine. “You tremble like a wet rabbit.”

He lowers his voice. “I can’t wait to see your pussy take my cock for the first time. I want you to freak out until I calm you down. I want you to trust me and get confident, and realize you love it, and lose yourself like you did back at the clubhouse.” As he goes on, his touch firms, his arms flex, holding me tight. So tight.

“Why?”

“Do you need to know?”

“Yes.”

He sighs. “Dina, I don’t have all the answers.”

And then he’s quiet. He holds me as Anise’s moans turn to whimpers, and Gio starts really pumping into her, hard, as she rubs her clit.

“She’s going to come,” I say. Heavy murmurs agreement. I didn’t realize I said it out loud.

Anise lets out a long groan, her thighs shake, and Gio grabs her hips, driving into her. Then he lets out a small shout and a huge smile breaks across his face.

She sinks to his lap, her legs as limp as noodles. She drops her head back to Gio’s shoulder. He nuzzles her neck and murmurs something inaudible in her ear. She smiles drowsily.

After a moment, she draws in a deep breath and moves to straighten herself up.

“No,” Heavy interrupts. “Not yet. I want my wife to see after.”

Anise’s lips curve, and she snuggles back against Gio. He wraps an arm around her waist, and with his other hand, he carefully smooths strands of hair behind her ear. He murmurs more, his nose to her cheek, and she giggles.

“They like each other,” I say. Anise has let herself sag into him until her belly folds. She’s not trying to be sexy. Gio can’t stop touching her, flicking her nails with his fingertips, kissing her shoulder.

“Yeah,” Heavy says. “She let him make her feel good, and now she’s letting him enjoy the moment.”

“I thought women want to cuddle, and men want to fall asleep or eat a sandwich or something.”

“That’s a bunch of bullshit, Dina.” Heavy arches a bushy eyebrow. I think he’s teasing. “A man wants to know he’s robbed his woman of the ability to walk or speak. He doesn’t want her hopping up to make a BLT.”

“What does a woman want?”

“That’s the eternal question, ain’t it?” He shrugs. “Probably a sandwich. Or a nap.”

I like both of those things.

Somewhere along the line, Heavy stopped petting me. My skin is now hypersensitive, and my panties are damp, but the swishing, swirling, bubbling feeling has quieted. It’s still there like glitter at the bottom of a snow globe, and I bet he could stoke it back to life at any second, but for now, we’re just calm and close. In each other’s space. Basking.

I inhale his outdoorsy scent, and we’re all silent for a while. Eventually, there are footsteps in the hall. They don’t stop at our door, but still, it rouses us.

I sling my purse across my chest while Heavy slaps Gio’s back and slips something in his palm. Anise rises on her tip toes and kisses Heavy’s cheek. Then she crosses the room and gives me a hug. Now there’s gold glitter on Heavy’s cut.

“Y’all have a wonderful rest of the evening, now,” she says, tugging her panties back on.

Heavy leads the way out, and I follow, my brain somehow numb and reeling at the same time.

“You wanted me to see that,” I say as we make our way down the stairs.

He grunts.

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to know.”

“Know what?”

“The questions that are in your mind. How you see it.”

He’s talking about sex. “How do I see it?”

“Best I can tell, like a movie in a foreign language without subtitles.”

I laugh. He’s right. That’s how I see most everything.

“Can we go ride that roller coaster now?” It’s late, but this is Vegas. It might still be running.

He busts out laughing, and I have no idea why.