Part 1: The Restaurant

A dinner party at a downtown steakhouse in a private room. Planned for weeks. The one shining thing for all of us to look towards. The idea of it cut through the stress, the routine. A promise that, at least for one night, we’d relax. Unwind. Decompress and laugh and talk with one another. Forget the rest of the world and just be.

Four couples: Myself and Carrie, together for a couple of years. In love, but trying to find ways to stay connected to stop the retreating into our own minds and our own distractions. We’d been doing well. Discussing fantasies, re-telling our story. How we’d met. How we’d started dating. The best sex either of us had ever had, tearing into each other at that cheap seaside motel on the way to an impromptu trip to Savannah. We were working on us.

Erin and Gary, Gerin as a pair, married for three years, together for four before that. Things were stale with them. We all knew it. Because they both talked about it. There was vague talk of having kids, but no one, not even the two of them actually thought that was a good idea. Erin was Carrie’s best friend since college. They adored one another. And I adored both of them. I always thought Kai was a bit of a dick. Self-centered in an aloof and unfocused way. Evidently he’d been a lot more fun and loose in his younger days. But I hadn’t ever known him to be anything approaching fun.

Maggie and Kai, she, reserved and careful. She’d grown up religious and still hand’t been able to shake those deep puritanical roots. The one in the group most likely to frown amidst everyone’s laughter when I told a dirty joke. Him, calm and doting, clearly madly in love with her. The kind of man who didn’t care if people caught him admiring his wife when she spoke.

And Ali and Paul. Not a couple. Two single friends, both occasionally weaving in and out of our circle. Paul, a friend from Kai’s work and Ali, a colleague of Carrie’s.

It had been a good night.

The dessert forks had stopped their gentle scraping against plates not long before. But the conversations continued.

“…so I told her she could email me when I wasn’t at a goddamn softball game…”

“…no, it was so late and I knew I was barely going to be able to wake up in the morning as it was…”

“…I swear, he had a nail in the sole of his boot to open beer bottles, real cowboy shit….”

“…What do you mean? How could you NOT be afraid of clowns?!?…”

It echoed. Bounced around the table in our little room, half a dozen conversations. Comfortable, but only just. I could feel the tension in the room growing. No one wanted it to end. No one wanted to think about tomorrow or the next day or all of the rest of our lives. We wanted to make the night last forever. To live in it. Get lost in it. Being there with each other.

And I decided to get lost in it. To lose myself to every impulse inside of me to chase this feeling of being alive and see how far I could push it. How long I could stretch this night. This feeling.

I slid my hand under the tablecloth and onto Carrie’s knee. She didn’t break her tone or her laugh or her eye contact with Paul, but I felt her body straighten a bit. I felt that slight shift in her weight the barely-there parting of her legs. Inviting me. And I took that invitation. My fingers tracing up the inside of her thigh. Her stockings slick and soft under my fingertips. And then not just fingertips, but my palm. Squeezing the inside of her thigh. She spread her legs wider for me. I knew she wanted this. We’d talked about it before, when we’d talked about how to reconnect, to keep our spark bright. We’d joked about it, really. But it was the kind of joke that was also a dare. The kind of joke you laugh it in theory and find it much less funny and much more intense in practice.

She’d worn her thigh highs at my request that night and when I felt her skin just above the top of them, I leaned in. I smiled around the table. Nodding at Paul’s story and whispered into her ear soft and low. My mouth close so she could feel my beard tickling her cheek. “I’m going to touch you, pretty girl. I’m going to tease you and rub you, and you can try and stay as composed as you want but you’re going to fucking cum for me right here in front of all your friends, aren’t you?”

She threw her head back and laughed like I’d just told her a dirty joke. “Of course! You know me so well.” But her eyes weren’t laughing. They were dark, pleading hungry.

Her hips moved forward as she turned back to Paul and Ali, as I pressed my hand firmly between her legs. To her credit, she didn’t gasp. Though she did bite her lip. A quick bite. Something fleeting if you weren’t looking for it. But I knew how to break her. I knew how to touch her. My fingers together, flat, rubbing deep down the front of her panties. Already soaked. With my free hand I took a drink of my beer, laughing, a bit delayed at some joke Eric was telling. I had no idea what he’d said. I was focused.

I felt her hand on my knee. Her nails digging in as I teased my fingertips inside of her panties. Pulling them aside and tracing a finger between her lips. Slow and careful. Brushing. Glancing at her face, I saw the glazed look. The strain to keep up with the conversation. She moaned when my fingers, now slick with her, found her clit. I watched Paul and Ali. The slight lift in his eyebrows, the narrowing of her eyes. Carrie took a quick drink of wine. A flush creeping up her neck. She was embarrassed a bit. But that’s not why she was flushed. We both knew it. And everyone else would soon, too.

She squeezed my thigh hard. Reflexive as my fingers worked. Teasing soft slow touches at first then deep pressing above her clit then around. Circling.

She dropped her head, her hair falling into her face the wine glass still raised in her free hand. Like she was halfway to making a toast. She was gasping now, shuddering, her wine dancing in her glass.

That’s when I felt the hand on my other thigh. More delicate. Sharper nails, and I felt lips brushing my ear. “You have a free hand. Use it.”

It was Erin. On my other side in her short white cocktail dress, white heels, no stockings.

She knew.

Looking hurriedly around the table, I saw that they all knew. Not only did they know, but they were ready for it. Eager for it. Erin’s other hand was under the table, too. And Gary, next to her, his eyes half-closed was squirming a bit. Next to them, Kai and Maggie were staring at each other. Both hands in full view. Maggie was the wild card, I knew. If anyone here was going to react poorly, make a scene, or just walk out, it would be her. Dragging Kai along with her. But there was something in her expression. A kind of desperate struggle on her face, like she wanted to be disgusted, wanted to be above all of this, but that she also wanted to know to give in. Kai looked concerned, whispering to her. Trying to read her. I watched her hand, red lacquered nails, grab his, hairy and strong, and pull it into her lap. She let her head fall back. Her mouth open.

Next to them, Paul and Ali, who had met only a few times before, were kissing, both of their hands under the table not shy. Up for it. Just like the rest of us.

I felt Carrie shifting against my fingers next to me. Her hips working back as I rubbed deeper and harder. And I let my other hand fall between Erin’s thighs. She spread them wider for me eager. She wasn’t wearing panties. And I could feel her pussy smooth, already wet. Leaning back, I let my fingers work. Carrie leaned further back in her seat spreading her legs wider for me. Erin clamped hers tight around my hand as I teased her clit.

Gary groaned. Looking over, I could see Erin’s hand disappearing under the waistband of his boxers, his belt open, pants unbuttoned.

“Don’t fucking stop.” It was Carrie, a breathless moan now as I slid her clit between my fingers. My hand moving hard and fast.

“Mmm fuck, just like that. Rub that fucking clit, Nathan.” Erin, writhing now, her arm trembling as she stroked Gary faster.

“Fuck, ohmygod, Kai. Keep doing that.” A whisper. Maggie’s eyes were shut tight, like she couldn’t look at anyone. Kai only had eyes for her. But I could see that he had one hand between her legs and one hand between his own.

Ali and Paul weren’t talking. Their mouths were locked together, breaking apart only to gasp and moan into each other. One of his hands was down the top of her dress the other under the tablecloth, out of my view. Both of hers were under the table and I felt her fingers on Carrie’s thigh, grasping, bumping against mine as I rubbed.

Where there had been six different conversations now there was one moaning writhing mass of people touching caressing. Lost to passion. Carrie tensed. Erin’s hips jerked.

“Fuck! Daddy, I’m close. I’m so fucking close.” Carrie wasn’t quiet. And then, neither was anyone else.

“Fuck yes, make her cum. Make me cum!”

“Don’t stop, keep stroking my cock. Just like that. Oh fuck yeah! Fuck! Unnnhhh.” Gary grunted, both of his hands grasping the table as he came. Erin’s hand working fast. Stroking him through it.

“Kai, yes, yes. Oh god. That feels so good. Don’t stop, baby!”

“Do you like that, babe?”

“Mmmmh. Fuck Ali! God Damn. You’re so fucking good.”

“Ohh I know I am, honey. Keep your fingers right there. Perfect!”

Two sets of nails dug into my leg. Carrie turned sharply towards me. “Yes! Yes! I’m fucking cumming.”

Carrie’s loud whining moans set Erin off. Her eyes were wide. Locked on Carrie.“I’m cumming!” Her’s was a gasp, almost a squeal. Her legs clamped around my hand so tightly I could feel her muscles straining. Her body trembled and shook.

“Good fucking girls. Show me how fucking good you cum for me.” I growled. Low and deep. I didn’t even know I was saying it. Throbbing, hard, I could feel precum in my boxers. I don’t know that I’d ever been so turned on in my life.

“It feels so good, baby, but I don’t think I can like this. Can you? I want you to. I want you to.” Maggie still whispering, begging.

“I am! I am! Ohh god.” Mark shuddered, the table shaking as his long legs half lifted it off the ground.

Ali and Paul, forehead to forehead, gasped as they grasped and writhed tougher. No words, but they shook and moaned, faces contorted. Straining against one another. Slowing as they looked around and saw everyone coming watching, eager. They lifted their hands from between each other’s legs. Paul sliding his back out of the top of her dress. I could see her nipples, hard, pressing against the thin fabric.

Carrie and Erin sat in opposite poses now. Erin’s legs wide, Carrie’s closed tight around my fingers. I eased them both down. Gently massaging between their legs, as they tried to catch their breath. As everyone tried to catch their breath.

“What…what the fuck just happened?” Gary said, half-gasping. Finally opening his eyes.

“Baby…” Maggie purred, Petting Kai’s back as he leaned back in his chair.

Carrie put her head on my shoulder. Ali sank into Paul, half lying on him. Erin entwined her fingers through mine for just a moment, before grabbing a dinner napkin and wiping her other hand clean.

Maggie still hadn’t taken her eyes of Kai. He still looked stunned.

There was a new tension in the room. An almost nervous sheepishness. Everyone wiping their hands. Adjusting their clothes. I could see it, their worry. What if the waiter comes back? What if we can’t look at each other the same again? We if we broke something? It was new, that fear, a new presence in the room, where before there had only been passion. A shared lucid kind of abandon.

That wouldn’t do. It couldn’t be over. Not yet. Sliding my hands back from Carrie and Erin, I pulled out my phone. They all watched me.

“Ok, I have two rooms at the hotel next door. I’ll make sure they’re adjoining. Would anyone like to join?”

A collective exhale. A shared nervous laugh. Maggie surprised us all by being the first to answer.

“Fuck…yes!”