The next morning the apartment felt crowded with everything Lin and I were not saying. Dan had already left for work, so it was just the two of us in the kitchen. I moved around her in short, clipped movements, still raw from the lock, the hallway, and the fact that she had chosen him over me for something private.
I could still hear the lock clicking every time the kitchen went quiet.
Lin finally broke the silence.
“About yesterday,” she said quietly, leaning against the counter. “Dan asked me to lock it.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
Lin kept rubbing her thumb along the mug handle instead of looking at me. “He didn’t want you seeing him like that.”
“Like what?”
She looked away again.
“Lin.”
“He was embarrassed.”
I laughed once, sharp and ugly. “So you protected him from me.”
“That’s not—”
“That is exactly what you did.”
Lin looked up then, and this time she looked annoyed.
“Look, Mia… he got a prostate handjob. He was on his knees, ass in the air, with me wearing latex gloves and sliding three fingers into his asshole while I milked his dick. It’s… not exactly a majestic sight.”
My mouth fell open.
“He comes absurdly hard from it, though,” she added. “Cums like a goddamn fire hose.”
I stared at her until the picture formed properly in my head.
Then I laughed. A big, ugly, snorty laugh that burst out before I could stop it.
“God,” I said, wiping at my eye. “I kind of wish I could have seen that.”
Lin laughed with me, and I realized she had been waiting to find out whether I would make this ugly too.
She stepped closer and touched my arm. Her voice softened.
“Look, I’ll make it up to you. I’m going to ask Dan for something special today, and I want you there with me.”
For one stupid second, I thought she meant something for us. Something chosen because it was ours, not because Dan wanted it.
Lin rubbed the back of her neck, looking a little embarrassed but determined.
“I’ve never let him fuck my ass before. After everything I’ve been doing for him… privately… I figured maybe it was only fair. If I’m going to keep asking him to trust me with that, maybe I should trust him with this. I don’t know. Apparently this is where we are now.”
She gave me a small, wicked smile, but it did not quite hide the nerves underneath it.
“I want you there with me. Maybe under me.”
She shifted a little closer.
“You know. Helping me through it. Kissing, touching, licking. Making it feel good while he heroically defiles my poor innocent ass.”
I laughed despite myself.
Lin laughed too, but hers ran out before mine did. She looked down at her mug, turning it slowly between both hands.
Then, quieter, she asked, “What was it like?”
My laugh stopped earlier than I expected, and I noticed the empty space it left behind.
“What?”
“When he did it to you.”
Of course she would ask me that. Of course I would want her to.
I should have told her not to do it.
That would have been the sane thing. The friend thing. Maybe even the loving thing, if I was allowed to call what I felt love.
Instead I sat there with my knee pressed against hers, feeling sickly proud that she was asking me. Like what Dan had done to me had left behind something useful. Some private knowledge of pain, trust, and being opened up that Lin needed before she could cross the same line.
Apparently, I was the apartment’s leading expert on getting fucked in the ass.
It was the first thing I had been good at in months.
“It hurt,” I said. “More than I wanted to admit.”
Lin watched my face like she was trying to decide whether I was warning her or asking to be needed.
“But it got better?” she asked.
“Eventually,” I said. “If you relax. If you trust the person helping you through it.”
I hated how badly I wanted that person to be me. Not because I wanted her hurt. Because I wanted to be the one she trusted when it did.
Lin studied me for a moment. Long enough that I wondered whether she had heard the possessiveness in my voice and decided not to punish me for it.
Then she nodded, drawing out the first word like she was trying not to set anything off.
“Sooo… will you help me?”
I reached out and touched her chin.
“Anything for you, Lin.”
Why couldn’t I ever just say yes like a normal person? Why did everything have to become a confession the second it left my mouth?
Stupid love-hungry cunt.
When Dan showed up, Lin asked before either of us had time to lose our nerve.
She asked him from the couch, one knee tucked under her, trying very hard to sound casual and only mostly succeeding. Dan blinked once. Then his face did that thing I hated, that slow brightening when he realized there was another room in the house he had apparently been invited into.
I watched the idea land. This was serious enough to plan, and I was important enough to be included.
He tried not to look too pleased about that and failed badly.
“Yeah,” he said, too quickly.
Then he cleared his throat and tried again, lower.
“Yeah. If you’re sure.”
Lin looked at me.
Not at him. Me.
I smiled back, stupidly happy that she had looked at me first, as if one glance could settle who this was really for.
We ended up in Lin’s bed, and I slipped under her the way she had asked me to. I lay on my back while Lin knelt over me facing my hips, her pussy and ass hovering over my mouth and chest in a loose kind of sixty-nine.
From there, I could see her thighs trembling while Dan knelt behind her.
Dan reached for the lube. He worked her open slowly, one finger first, then another, his cock hanging close above my face. He looked down at me and smiled, then guided himself into my mouth while he worked Lin open.
Lin stiffened at the first finger. At the second, a small groan slipped out of her. Dan worked her carefully for a while before pulling free from my mouth and slicking himself up with the rest of the lube.
Then he took Lin by the hips and angled her lower over my mouth while he lined himself up behind her.
When he pressed into her, Lin gasped sharply. Her thighs locked around my shoulders, and every muscle I could feel went rigid.
Her weight dropped against me as the stretch hit.
I reached up immediately, wrapping my arms around her hips to steady her. I kissed her inner thighs and put my mouth on her clit, giving her something else to focus on.
“Fuck… it’s a lot,” she breathed, voice tight.
Her hand found mine and squeezed hard.
“It gets easier,” I said. “Breathe. Let me take care of the part I can.”
Then I put my mouth back on her, because my advice had never been worth much, but my tongue apparently was.
I could feel every little reaction through the parts of her touching me: the tremble in her legs, the way her weight shifted when he pulled out, the breath she held before he pushed back in.
I was mesmerized by her, but even more by the fact that she was leaning on me while Dan took something new from her. He was the one inside her, and somehow I was the one she needed.
Dan groaned behind her, moving carefully but getting deeper. Lin kept trying to swallow the sounds he pulled from her, as if being in pain in front of us was more embarrassing than the position itself.
I kept working at her, trying to give the pain less room inside her. Something else to feel. Something that came from me.
She started rocking slightly, chasing my mouth even as Dan moved inside her.
Then Dan pulled back too far and slipped free.
Lin let out a shaky breath of relief.
From underneath her, I had a perfect view of him, slick with lube and Lin, hanging close above my face. Dan paused, breathing hard, already moving his hand to put himself back.
Without thinking, I lifted my head and took him into my mouth.
He groaned loudly, hips jerking forward. His groan gave me the same stupid rush of victory it always had, only now Lin was the taste on his cock.
I tasted her on him, intimate and unmistakable, and the thought of taking her from his cock made me suck him deeper.
Lin shivered above me, getting a moment to breathe while I worked him.
After Lin had caught her breath, Dan pushed back into her. The rhythm had changed. He lasted a little while, then slipped free again.
This time it was not an accident.
He pushed himself toward my lips.
I heard Lin breathing above me, strained and grateful, and opened my mouth.
The three of us disappeared into a messy, intoxicating loop. Dan taking Lin, Lin riding my mouth and fingers, me taking Dan whenever he slipped free.
I could feel Lin getting wetter, her thighs shaking around my head. She looked overwhelmed to me, but she kept pushing back against him, and I could not tell whether that meant she wanted more or simply refused to fail.
Quitting was apparently not included in Lin’s personality package.
Eventually I decided Lin’s ass had taken enough punishment.
The next time Dan slipped out, I took him for myself. One hand closed around his cock. The other slid between his cheeks, still slick with leftover lube.
His whole body jolted, and for a second he instinctively pulled away from the unfamiliar pressure.
No.
Lin had done enough. I wanted him finished before he could ask anything else from her.
I tightened my hand around his cock and pushed my finger deeper.
Lin’s little prostate TED Talk was about to pay dividends.
He forced out the biggest, roughest sound I had ever heard from him, the kind of sound that made victory flare through me before I could ask why winning still mattered.
Lin had not exaggerated about the fire hose.
More than I had ever gotten from him before.
Dan looked down at me for a second, still catching his breath, then gave a helpless little laugh like he could not quite believe what had just happened.
When he pulled away, he left me smeared with cum and lube, my cheek wet and the taste of all three of us still in my mouth.
Dan kissed Lin’s forehead.
“That was amazing, babe,” he said, dazed and pleased with himself.
Then he went to shower, leaving us tangled together on the bed.
Lin was sore, flushed, and smiling in that loose, exhausted way that made me want to gather every part of her closer and keep it there.
She pulled me closer until my face was tucked against her shoulder.
“Okay,” she said, letting out a shaky little laugh. “That was a bit more painful than I expected.”
“No shit.”
She nudged me weakly with her knee.
“But thank you. For the assist. You made it a much more enjoyable experience.”
I dropped my voice as low as I could.
“Nothing to it, babe. Happy to help.”
Lin stared at me for half a second, then burst out laughing.
I laughed too. Not the sharp, ugly kind that escaped when I was cornered. A real one, hard enough to make my stomach hurt and my face feel stupid.
When it faded, she looked suddenly shy.
“Did…” She wrinkled her nose. “Did I taste bad?”
I kissed her before she could retreat into embarrassment. Slow and deep, because apparently I could answer honestly as long as nobody made me use words.
When I pulled back, she was watching me.
“Nah,” I said. “Your ass is tasty.”
Lin groaned, but she was smiling. “You’re disgusting.”
“I call ’em like I taste ’em. Best piece of ass I’ve ever had.”
She kissed me again, soft and lingering. When she pulled back, her thumb brushed my cheek.
“I love…”
Every hopeful little part of me stopped at once and waited.
Lin smiled, either unaware of what she had done or pretending not to notice me hanging from the unfinished word.
“…how happy you are right now,” she said. “Wish I saw that more.”
I smiled because I was happy. A little sad that she had come so close and stopped, but mostly happy.
I curled back into her, warm and stupidly proud of myself, holding the almost-love beside the real happiness and trying not to weigh them against each other.
Dan was in the shower. Lin was in my arms. My face was a mess, my body was buzzing, and for once nobody had closed a door on me or asked me to wait outside.
Today was a good day.