Ménage

Really, what did you think she meant in the email that consisted of only three words lower-case and unpunctuated, that baldly confirmed that something‑some 'it'‑was liked, which you decided immediately was a conclusive and unambiguous statement, which you pictured as words whose meaning was quite defined in all the lexicons everywhere (even though the words themselves‑i, and like, and it‑are capable of, respectively: [i] an infinite number of potential meanings, [like] a limited number of potential meanings {see the OED for many pages concerning 'like'}, and [it] an infinite number of potential meanings), which you carried in your head for at least fifteen minutes as you trekked from your cubicle (after having logged out of your secret email account) down to the research kitchen where your recipe for Blueberry Cloudburst was being followed algorithmically by the three male and three female doughnut chefs with their tall white hats who stood side-by-side doing precisely the same acts at precisely the same time, testing not for the value of the results but for the value of the recipe, that is to say looking for any lexical ambiguity in your instructions that would require revision before the recipe was to be promulgated throughout your franchise of formulaic doughnut shops both in North America and England, and did you not see yourself as you were, as a recipe-writer whose enemy was ambiguity who had decided with no clear evidence that those three words‑i, and like, and it, meant precisely what you believed they meant, and not recognize the joke that was then being played upon you by the gods who take a great belly-busting delight when they deliver nemesis to hubris?

And, really, what was going through your head later that same day when after work you were having dinner with your girlfriend Hethe up at the Flying Carpet where you ate a hamburger and fries and she ate a piece of deep-fried halibut when you got onto the subject of your mutual co-worker Trish and asked and asked question after question, stopping only to order another round, getting so close to confessing there was a thing going on, consummated four times, between yourself and Trish that when Hethe appeared to suspect there was something going on (which there was, of course) you changed the subject slightly to see if your girlfriend Hehte was interested in 'experimenting,' in a 'theoretical way,' with 'our sexualities,' until you finally had to get her to understand that you'd heard rumours about this mutual friend Trish (who was as one may well have gathered the person who had emailed you 'i like it' not so many hours before), whom you described then (at the Flying Carpet), as being 'something of a swinger,' as the saying goes, a description you had (fictionally) confirmed, first through an air of innuendo, and then through a (fictional) direct question; and, really, what did you think when Hethe told you that she'd enjoyed some playful times in senior high with two of her friends, and though they had not gone 'all the way' with them they had done everything but, and furthermore that Hethe found herself occasionally fantasizing to peak about that seeming-so long-ago experience?

And really what were you thinking could happen in this world so well-regulated by physics and norms and common sense when, next morning, a Wednesday (as you recalled years later as you stared at the sea on an outbound freighter), you, not precisely deceptively, wrote to Trish as if you had really interpreted correctly what you believed you had interpreted correctly to propose to her that she should make contact with Hethe, all friendly and kissy-kissy-like, and float some idea that the three of you should get together on some pretence for dinner an' drinks on Friday night, because it's been quite some time since the three of you did that, maybe Trish could tell Hethe that it was her birthday, which would not exactly be a miracle but rather unlikely if you take things in a normal way (which was precisely how you were not taking things that Wednesday morning); and what were you doing when you wrote, 'Please write back ASAP because we were talking about you last night and she let slip that she had an affection for you and this sort of ménage we're working on here wasn't something entirely out of her experience --- maybe if we can get her talking about it again it could get her in the mood I'm gerting a litgle wet right now'?

And really what was going on in that unreal head of yours that night as you waited for Hethe to mention the phone call she must have received from Trish while you talked shop in bed about your Blueberry Cloudburst and about how you'd sat in on the taste-testing with the drivers and the interns to watch them bite into the blueberry-filled doughnuts only to find blueberry jelly bursting out of the top of the doughnut and through the whipped cream (through seven small holes on the upper surface of the doughnut) and wind up tipping every single nose with a small dot of blueberry at which they laughed pointing person to person, your boss beside you saying you were onto something interesting if only for a season which hurt your pride but nonetheless it suddenly became almost a sure thing that the doughnut jobbers would take samples all across North America and England, as you waited for Hethe to mention a phone call, with you almost forgetting about the phone call so wrapped up in your plausible success you were, until finally it got mentioned sleepily by Hethe that 'Trish called' and that Trish wanted to get together for her birthday, on Friday night, just the three of you, drinks and dinner, at a place quite near to where you lived, the Flying Carpet actually, really what was in your head when you casually said, 'I think that would be nice, should we all go together right after work?'?

Why, really, did you, on the following morning, after a quick phone call to Trish to say you had a 'few questions' for her, to which she replied 'sure!', hang up the telephone with a deep sigh as if there was a sword hanging over your head that no amount of cunning could push away (or so you thought a long time later as you walked a salty road to a salty breakwater), go down two flights of stairs to the Jelly Department where there she was, Trish herself, dressed in that skirt she'd said you'd practically torn off her pussy once, and a shirt you'd never seen before, and she stood up and went with you down another flight of stairs making small talk and you went way across the whole building to your special place where you asked her if Hethe has said yes to the idea of Friday night and what had she said and how had she seemed, and you weren't really taking in what Trish was saying because your mind wasn't operating correctly because you had your hands on her hips and your eyes on her eyes but you did get the idea that Hethe had said yes to the meeting and maybe the whole danged thing for all anyone knew, for all the Heavens and Hells knew, and Trish wanted something friskier that Thursday morning but you held off, saying 'I want to hold off, till tomorrow;' now really why did you hold off, didn't you understand the meanings of the words carpe diem?

And what happened to you that evening, Thursday it was, while Hethe was at her book club allegedly reading something of a novel concerning 1973 or so that had two college girls as central characters, while it was dark outside and you had all the lights up halfway, all of them, and you had the television on loud upstairs, the stereo on loud downstairs, and the radio on loud in the bedroom, while you walked from room to room and up and down stairs muttering to yourself and making sure all the throw pillows were conveniently placed (for women absolutely love throw pillows so you believed), all the clothes were up off the floor and the bathroom was clean enough without being obvious about it, while you were having visions that made you jolt with minute lightning-bolts at decent intervals, really, what was happening to you as the scheme played through your head until finally you turned off the television and the radio and the stereo and nearly all the lights because it was getting to be eleven and Hethe would be home sometime in the next hour and you had to appear to be calm in order for your plan to work, when suddenly you went into the kitchen quickly and opened the fridge door and gasped and cried 'there's no wine!' out loud and sighed so deeply and started to sweat at your temples, for whatever reason did you start to sweat like that?

And really next morning what were you doing all that next morning you must have been at work doing things probably doughnut-related and there may have been emails and I'm only using probabilities to quite literally guess what you were doing all the time while you thought about well nothing has to happen after all It's just getting together for a drink and dinner for a birthday that's not a birthday and It could be completely innocent and who knows what's going to happen tonight Maybe the restaurant will be closed or maybe there will be a streetcar accident and Trish doesn't show up or Maybe our house will burn down or Maybe the Russians will finally attack and even if we all end up at the same place at the same time there's something something something well, maybe I'll call it off at the last minute not by doing anything but by not doing anything geez that streetcar ride this morning she was practically but this is my dream isn't it I should say I say full steam ahead and if something goes wrong we can all laugh about it later like it's just tv or something --- but what were you doing all the time you were thinking hysterical cowardly rot like this, expecting some act of God to make things different from what you had planned it all to me, as if you weren't the agency that had set the whole plan in motion?

What really happened that evening at the Flying Carpet where the three of you went, not all at once, but rather you and Hethe went together after work there, talking of the doughnut business as if there was nothing else in the world to talk about, where inside you found Trish already half-way through a glass of red wine set to be followed by two more for her alongside three pints for you and two glasses of white wine for Hethe, a bit more than usual of course, and at some point during the meal Trish showed that she had two bottles of white wine with her because it was her 'birthday' and someone 'had given them to her,' an old friend she'd lunched with, while looking you eye to eye and touching your foot with hers when not (during a moment when Hethe was in the washroom) slipping off her shoe to roll her sock toes against your ankle, and what happened when you went to the washroom and saw upon your return Trish pushing on her shoe again, with a wink to you as if to say volumes about how the course of their discussion had gone, and what happened when without even talking about what you planned to do you all three got up together somewhat drunk by degrees and went to the door and out on down the street with not a moment during which you were not touching Trish or Trish was not touching Hethe or Hethe was not touching you or all three were not touching, touching, touching?

And when you got to your house, all laughing and giggling together, clumsily opened one bottle of wine and poured out three glasses and toasted and quickly drank and filled the glasses again, fell onto the couch all together with hands on shoulders and necks and breasts and crotches all gently rubbing and gently squeezing, delicately pulled off shirts and blouses and bras and tasted that which was beneath, moved to include the carpeted floor as a cock fell out of its confines and was touched and kissed and as panties were pulled aside to present damp pussies that tasted good, as with much laughter underwear was pulled off with a lift and tossed as far away as possible, when Trish had her tongue flick a clitoris while Hethe's mouth was full and moaning while you had two fingers in a vagina and one finger on an anus, when you pulled yourselves apart to take stock of what was going on and laughed shocked at yourselves and your lusts, when you simply lost track of whose was what as you step-by-step orgied up the stairs stopping halfway to sweatily fuck until Trish cried, 'stop, stop, I'm wide open,' when you got into the big bed for that which lasted for three hours with climaxes and comings every five minutes, when you were doing all this, what did you think was going to happen next, when you had to return to the real world?

And so really what did you expect over the next couple days when as was readily apparent as Trish left that Friday night rather abruptly, not without a note of departure but barely so, that something was amiss, as you noticed (next morning) that Hethe was distant and didn't want to talk and as you noticed (at the same time) that you were distant and you didn't want to talk, and the situation remained thus for the rest of the weekend, and after your single attempt to contact Trish via email (text='Hi, how's it going?') came to nothing and that you kind of didn't want it to come to anything, what did you expect when you did not even try to find her at work on Monday even though you had plenty of time available to think with a kind of revulsion about events that had taken place in the special place when you had been, I don't know, betrayed, as you thought without knowing how?

Do you know anything at all about what you thought over the ensuing weeks and months, such as when you got home to find a note saying Hethe would be staying at a friend's house for an indefinite period and you shrugged and tore up the note, or such as when you went to work to find that Trish's cubicle had been emptied of everything and you shrugged and didn't bother to ask anyone where she'd gone to, or such as when you didn't contact anyone or practically talk to anyone for two weeks, or such as when you sold a lot of your things to be apart from them forever? When you thought about what you had done, thinking and thinking and knowing and knowing, and incapable of acting or caring about anything, with a piece of grit at the tip of your tongue like a speck of sand that you turned and turned again, believing it was something that meant a tiny something more than nothing at all?