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Layne gazed at me, her dark eyes flashing a delicate brown against the light. “Would you like more wine?”

  I was already buzzed, though I told her I wanted another glass. She poured. It was the only time she granted me more than one drink.

  “Taryn?”

  I sipped. “Yes?”

  “Will you dance with me?”

  I giggled. “Sure.”

  She stood up and reached for my hand. She pulled my body to hers and placed her other hand at the small of my back. I inhaled quickly. She was so close. She was so warm. I was so intoxicated by both her and the libations.

  “There’s no music,” I pointed out.

  “We don’t need any. Just move with me,” she instructed. Layne moved slowly, her linen pants pressed against my cotton summer dress. We fell into a silent groove. Her thighs guided my thighs left and right, ever so gently. I closed my eyes, laid my cheek on her shoulder, and rocked with her sway. Her grip tightened.

  No one had ever held me so affectionately. Or held me so tenderly. Not my mother or father, and not even Grandma. Jenna clung to me like a child did to a mother. I was her security. I was her protector. I was her warrior. The kids at the center hugged me every day; I was their support when no one else was there for them. But Layne’s embrace was different. Layne held me like she loved me. I didn’t know what that love and affection felt like until that very moment. It was surreal. I almost started to cry. But then I laughed.

  “Layne! Layne . . .” I said, slurring. Then I laughed. “Ms. Sheila said you were one of the homosexuals!”

  Layne chuckled and pulled me into a tight hug until both our giggles subsided. Slowly, she released me and planted a kiss on my forehead. Another, then another on my nose. And a fourth on my lips. She pulled away to look at me. In my flats, we were the same height.

  “Does that prove Ms. Sheila right?” she asked.

  I didn’t respond, too enamored by the tingles her lips had left on mine.

  “Come inside.”

  Layne led me to her oversize sectional and laid me down. I melted into its comfort.

  “Taryn . . . ?”

  “Hmm?”

  She straddled my hips and bent to kiss me again. “You know I really like you.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  I stared into her yearning eyes. “Why?”

  “Because I do,” she stated firmly and then kissed my neck.

  “Okay.”

  I closed my eyes again as she devoured my skin with her lips. My body responded instantly. I was aching, like an adult woman being made love to for the first time. Layne sampled every angle of my body with her mouth, and when she lifted my dress to touch me where no one else had since I was a teenager, I nearly passed out. The feeling was foreign. It was neither my own hushed middle-of-the-night fingertip exploration nor streams of warm water from the detachable showerhead nozzle while I sat on the edge of the tub. It was real. It was fascinating. It was dizzying. And the deeper she went and the faster she moved, the more I knew she liked me. Just because she said she did.

  That was ten years ago, and over the years, when Layne told me she loved me and I asked her why, she never gave me a different answer. She simply repeated, “Because I do.” I accepted that because I wanted to believe her. I went along with it because I didn’t know better. I surrendered to it because I had never known what real love was supposed to feel like.

  “Mom?” Jenna said now, pressing.

  I grabbed a wooden serving tray, placed the mugs on it, and poured my and Nina’s coffee. “I’m here.”

  Jenna sighed. She was concerned.

  “Don’t give yourself a headache worrying about me. If it comes down to it, I’ll book a flight and come see you in a few weeks.” I hoped to pacify her.

  She laughed lightly. “I’m not eight anymore. You can’t appease me so easily.”

  I laughed in return. “I wouldn’t lie to you. If I need to get away, you’ll be the first and only person I go to, okay?”

  “Okay. Hey, maybe we can catch a new movie while you’re here. Or go shopping, hint, hint,” she teased. Only, I didn’t laugh with her. From the kitchen window I saw a black car winding its way slowly up our curved driveway. She was here.

  I rushed Jenna off the phone. “Jenna, honey, I have to go. I’ll call you later.”

  “Are you okay?” Her tone exhibited worry again.

  “I am. Don’t worry. Talk to you later.” I hung up before she could reply.

  The Mercedes parked outside the front door, and through the tinted windows I could not see her. The car idled for minutes. I wondered if she was contemplating leaving. Perhaps she felt just as crazy as I did at the prospect of meeting the wife of her dead lover. What was the point? What did we have to gain?

  I turned my back to the window. If she left, maybe it was for the best. She could be saving us from sharing mournful sob stories about Layne. Two strangers united to grieve the death of the woman they both loved. How pathetic.

  I was almost expecting to hear the tires squeal as the Mercedes drove off in the opposite direction when, instead, the doorbell rang. It was a light chime, pleasant and welcoming. At that moment, though, it sounded more like a strike of lightning had pierced the home, cleaving it in two. My heart jolted. I smoothed my hands over my jeans and then my hair. I exhaled deeply before walking through the family room to open the front door.

  When I looked at Nina for the first time, I knew why Layne had loved her. She smiled weakly. I softened. It seemed Layne had been right all along.

  Attraction really could be instantaneous.

  Chapter Two

  Her name is Nina. We met today through the dean of science and mathematics. When I looked into her eyes, it was like I took my very first breath....

  Nina and I stood for a moment, I, uneasy and suddenly awkward.

  “May I come in?” she finally asked.

  “Yes.” I stood aside, and Nina walked in.

  She wore a lightweight, classic black trench coat, which was buckled tightly around her waist. I wondered if she, too, felt the same solemn chill I did. She looked about the foyer and toward each room connected to it. Her eyes seemed to take in all that was familiar, including the photos on the mantel in the living room to the left, and the crystals in the curio cabinet to the right. She peered toward the family room, down the hall, and finally at the looming staircase behind me, which led to the master suite. It seemed that Layne had intentionally barred Nina from the upstairs master suite. I had found no evidence in Layne’s writings that suggested Nina had been in the most personal haven of our home. Was that some form of respect? With all the lies Layne had told—with the lie she had lived with me every day—did it even matter that they hadn’t slept in our bed?

  Nina gazed back at me.

  “Let me take your coat,” I offered.

  Nina removed the trench coat to reveal a solid black, fitted dress with a plunging neckline. Her breasts, round and small, were braless; her nipples, pronounced through the fabric that clung to her skin. I imagined them, brown, firm, and erect, pinched between Layne’s clenched teeth and fingertips, or squeezed by metal clamps, as she had described in the journals. On Nina’s feet were recognizable black stilettos, an obvious gift from Layne, as I had the exact same pair in my closet. It was like a long-distance slap from the grave. The first of many, I guessed, though I had willingly invited the assault.

  I hung Nina’s coat in the foyer closet. “I made coffee,” I told her.

  She took a step forward toward the kitchen before I could, and then stopped, realizing the inappropriateness of her action. I moved in front of her. She paused while I retrieved the tray from the counter, and walked behind me to the table. We each took a warm mug before we sat next to one another, I at the head of the table, she at my right. She stared into her coffee without moving.

  “Cream and sugar, yes?” I murmured and went to the cabinet. We remained silent while I scooped spoonfuls of sugar and poured creamer
into the set. Now that she was here and now that I had seen her, I tried to calm the complicated feelings that swirled within.

  I brought the small porcelain set back to the table and placed it in front of her. Though I usually preferred condiments as well, at the moment black coffee seemed most fitting. A few more moments passed before I spoke.

  “Layne kept journals. Years of journals.” I looked out the window and then back at Nina. “That’s how I learned about you.”

  She acknowledged my statement with a slow nod and looked out the window herself. “I didn’t know about you,” she confessed.

  My eyebrows rose, and my breath stopped. I had received another sharp slap from the dead. Layne had cheated on me for seven years, and as absurd as it might sound, I hadn’t even been given the honor of being mentioned?

  “She waited,” Nina continued, her words accelerated, her thoughts conjoined into long run-on sentences. “She waited until I began to question why she couldn’t stay the night and why she didn’t accept my calls during late hours and why she seemed to disappear for extended periods at a time. Then she told me she had you, a wife.” Her expression dimmed.

  “You stayed, anyway,” I stated. I questioned, really.

  Nina sensed my agitation. She warmed. Small red blotches formed just above her breasts and crept like paint splatters up her neck and spilled into the cheeks of her oval face. When she blushes, it’s like a dozen roses blooming....

  “I did,” she acknowledged.

  “How long had it been?”

  “Two years.”

  Two years with no recognition and then only when cornered. Ouch. I was insulted again.

  We stared at one another. Her appearance and demeanor matched that of her voice, gentle but intense. She sat in a professional manner, erect, her bare legs crossed, which, I assumed, was natural for her given her high-powered position as director of the Office of Communications and Marketing. Her wide forehead led to the smooth edges of her black and wavy shoulder-length hair. She wore it in no particular style, though it was wildly in place. Her ebony eyebrows and long dark eyelashes contrasted with her neutral makeup. I was curious if her brown eyes really did darken when she was serious and reveal hazel glints when she was excited, the way Layne had described.

  “I know,” she said in response to my exposed feelings.

  “You know what? What it’s like to be cheated on for seven years? No, you don’t know.”

  “Actually, I do,” she said, disagreeing with me. “I know what your shoes feel like.”

  “So if you’ve walked in my shoes and you know how much it hurts, why would you torment someone in the same manner?”

  “It wasn’t planned,” she told me softly. “Like I said, for two years I didn’t know Layne had you and had a family.”

  “And yet you both betrayed me for five more years.”

  “That’s true,” she admitted. “If it helps, Layne and I weren’t in love. I loved her, yes. I loved the way she made me feel, the energy and excitement we shared, and the sex.” She almost smiled. A dimple on each cheek became imprinted and then quickly vanished, as if she realized her ill-timed flashback of sex with Layne was impolite. “It was you she loved, Taryn,” Nina offered. “I know she did. She talked about you and Jenna all the time.”

  My body flinched at the way Jenna’s name so casually flowed from Nina’s mouth. I was, again, instantly aggravated and next frustrated by the uncontrollable medley of emotions that kept surfacing in her presence. I could imagine that over seven years Layne shared details about our life with Nina, but again I felt slighted. Bitter that I was an invisible shadow to their union, only an attachment that silently loomed behind their every move.

  Nina leaned forward. Our elbows touched briefly before I drew my arm away. The ripples of irritation began to subside due to her nearness. She smelled so good. Like the aroma of the sweet and sweaty deepest sensual part of her had been dabbed behind her ears and between her breasts. With each inhale I took, her scent clouded my thinking. No wonder Layne had been powerless against her.

  “I suppose you don’t want to hear that from me,” Nina stated.

  “Look, Nina, don’t bring Jenna into this. She has no idea about you and Layne. I haven’t the heart to tell her.”

  Nina almost appeared offended, as I had been earlier, when I learned Layne had not mentioned me for two years.

  “I understand.” Nina sat upright once again, resuming a stiff, composed position, though I noticed small beads of sweat glistening around the mound of her cleavage.

  Her body is warm and sweaty, her skin wet and slippery against mine, when I fuck her from behind.

  I saw them in my mind, Nina’s body spread and exposed, her arms bound with rope, her legs wide while Layne thrust a dildo deep into Nina’s ass, satisfying the voyeuristic pleasures of the onlookers they entertained.

  “Is there anything you’d like to know?” she inquired.

  “Yes. I want to know why you couldn’t find someone else to have sex with. Why you continued to choose another woman’s wife.”

  I feared her answer, although I already knew what it was. It was Layne who couldn’t let Nina go, not the other way around. Layne was putty to Nina and to the lifestyle Nina wanted for them. It had taken no coercion or sweet talk; Layne had accepted Nina’s invitation without resistance.

  Why hadn’t Layne sought those pleasurable intimacies with me? Even before Nina, my and Layne’s lovemaking had been one-sided. She hadn’t allowed me to reciprocate the simple pleasures she delivered to me. From what I had learned over the years, and particularly through reading Layne’s journals, our sex had been tame. It had been mild and inflexible. Though I had hungered for her body and had craved to delight her in any way she wanted, she had seldom requested anything of me. If I asked, I was usually denied. I had begun to feel like her set of encyclopedias. I was there for her to marvel at and to run her fingers across, to open and tour at her leisure, satisfying her thirst to explore, only to be placed back on the shelf to admire until she once again felt the urge. I hadn’t known that for most of our partnership she had been dedicated to Nina, whom she explored freely, fervently, devouring her like a book she never wanted to end.

  “I doubt that any answer I give will suffice as a justifiable explanation. There’s nothing I can say that will make all of it okay. I know that.”

  Internally I agreed. I was disgusted by their deceit, mostly by Layne’s disgraceful behavior. In hindsight, I realized she had told me multiple lies every day.

  “How was lunch with your fellow professors?” I’d ask her. She’d respond with an elaborate tale about how one or the other was doing, when in actuality, she had spent lunch fucking Nina in one of their offices, in a car, or in the bathroom of a restaurant. It seemed they thrived on being watched, and if they were not, they thrilled at the mere possibility that someone might see them.

  “How’s Sandy doing in class?” I would ask her. Layne always had a student who needed her help in the evenings. It could have been Herman, Matt, Melissa, or Jane. It didn’t matter. They all requested her guidance. She was preoccupied a couple of nights per week, returning home only when I was already lying in bed with a book.

  “So-and-so is still struggling,” she’d explain while she undressed in the walk-in closet. I learned that in truth, those were the nights she and Nina went to after-work social and happy hours at swingers clubs. Sometimes they would sit and watch other couples engage in sexual activities, and other times they would strip nude and participate in orgies. When I thought about the level of deception and the length of time it had gone on, I hated Layne, and I wanted to hate Nina, except I didn’t. As she sat before me, I had to admit that Nina was every adjective and metaphor Layne had described. It pissed me off and intrigued me at the same time.

  “No, there’s nothing you can tell me to make this all right,” I told Nina. We fell silent again. I was suddenly uncertain about how to continue the conversation.

  “Well,
I knew you’d find Layne’s journals, and I knew you’d call me. There must be something you’d like to know,” Nina continued.

  “She told you about the journals?”

  Nina stared once again out the window, toward the oak tree on the side of the house. The journals were yet another piece of Layne that Nina had been granted access to and I had not.

  “Yes, I knew. She told me she chronicled almost everything about us.”

  “What else did she tell you? About her, about me, and about our family. I was with Layne for ten years. Why couldn’t she confide in me?” My voice rose and trembled with anger toward Layne. I slammed my palm against the table. “Why didn’t she take me to the fuck fest places she took you?” Finally, I had grown irritated, like any betrayed woman should be from the start. Nina almost appeared satisfied. Her bottom lip suddenly dipped inward, as if to conceal a smile.

  “What exactly do you mean?”

  “I mean, it seems like the two of you weren’t engaged in just sex. It’s like you were her confidante. You, not me, were the one woman she worshipped above anyone else.”

  Nina lowered her gaze. Her long, thick false eyelashes created brief dark halos beneath her eyes.

  “I do believe you’ve misinterpreted what Layne and I had,” she told me.

  “I read the journals. I read every thought she had about you. You . . .” I struggled to come up with the proper comparison. “You were her Aphrodite.”

  She smiled generously. “And you were her beloved Hestia,” she explained, as if we had discovered the answers to my questions about Layne. “We fulfilled two different needs in her. Don’t you see that?”

  “No, I don’t see that. Because in real life she committed herself to me. She committed herself to taking care of me and Jenna.”

  “She did that. Layne was meticulous about ensuring you and Jenna wanted for nothing,” Nina affirmed.

  “She should have been that particular with my heart.” I sipped my now chilled coffee.

  “Taryn, I think you and I both know Layne wasn’t devoted to anyone’s needs more than to her own. Sure, she’d make sure you had the best. She’d always make sure she had better.”