“Vaughn is a switch and so was Corrine. I’m a Dominant. So, we do play with Dominance and submission.”
She cocks her head to the side, gazes to the ceiling like she’s trying to do the math on that, and nods. “Yeah, I can see how that works.”
“We also participate in rope bondage. I can take it or leave it, but Vaughn and Corrine really enjoyed it and Vaughn’s pretty good with knots. I’m even better.”
“Of course you are. You almost joined the Navy. I’m pretty vanilla, I guess?”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I’m trying to picture… Corrine,” Brook says, like it’s a struggle to mention her name. “It’s hard to imagine participating in all of those fun activities with the two of you and then having the energy to take on a whole other relationship on the side.”
“To her credit, Corrine was one of the more insatiable people I’ve ever been with. She wore Vaughn and I both out routinely. I shouldn’t have been shocked that she had energy for more partners.”
“I like to get down, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know that my sex drive is that high.”
“It wasn’t a judgement.”
“I didn’t think it was. I was just thinking out loud. Maybe—” She cuts herself off as our food arrives. The pancakes are bigger than I expected, but I’ll make short work of them. I get the butter situated just the way I like it, then drown my plate in syrup.
“Maybe what?” I ask before I take a big bite. Breakers may have a weak hot sauce selection, but their pancakes are pretty good.
“Nothing.” She sighs, sitting back from the table like she’s just lost her appetite. “I keep thinking the same shit over and over, and at some point I have to understand that it’s getting me nowhere. Josh cheated and Josh is gone. Both of those things are true and I have to accept them and let the feelings that come with these true facts roll over me like a dump truck. Truck. Truck.” I almost choke on my food and that wins me a slight smile from her. I swallow and successfully clear my throat with a sip of juice.
“You mentioned last night. About not feeling like enough,” I say.
“Yeah?”
“I’m still turning that around in my mind. Me and Vaughn not being enough.Andthe two of us being too much for her.”
“I mean, it’s like I said last night. It’s the wanting it all. Josh and I were happy. Or I thought we were, so the idea of wanting itall, or even a little more than what we had, seems excessive. It’s crazy to me that I was so happy and thought I was so lucky to have finally found someone I actually wanted to marry and the whole time Josh was just doing all this other shit. We were never on the same page. Did you have even the slightest hint that she was unhappy?”
“Real talk? I don’t know. I try not to look back, but I think that’s why I wanted to say this to you.”
“Say what?”
“I’m being hypocritical as fuck, but whatever. Josh was an idiot. He should have been straight up with you or cut you loose. I try to put myself in Corrine’s shoes and she probably didn’t want to break two hearts, but no combination of our situation was about to walk down the aisle. Josh asked you to marry him. He made the decision to honor you and only you. In a very specific way.”
“I mean, the three of you were monogamous right?”
“We were. We all took our agreement very seriously, but we hadn’t had a commitment ceremony or even a talk about locking it down on a permanent basis. Cor and Vaughn lived together, and sometimes I think that was just so they could keep each other company. We were rolling with a good thing. Being honest and open. That’s why what Corrine did was fucked up. She didn’t have to lie.”
We both clam up then and focus on our food. The waitress comes back and I order another juice and more water for the table. Brook orders some coffee. She finishes her special, leaving a piece of overly fatty bacon to fend for itself.
“I think about him all the time,” she says suddenly, like she’s confessing to an awful crime. “I have these weird dreams about him where I’m trying to yell at him.”
“Is he smiling at you in them?”
“Yes! How did you know?”
“I have the same kind of dreams about Corrine. I’m watching Vaughn, he’s trying to talk to her and she just blows him off and smiles. I ask her over and over why she’s lying. She just keeps on smiling.” I haven’t told Vaughn about these dreams because I know they would just make him feel guilty. “I feel like I saw something. I know I saw something. She wasn’t unhappy, but she was—there was something. I can’t put my finger on it. I saw it, but I trusted her to tell us. And then I convinced myself it was something else.”
“Do you think she was going to leave you two?”
“Eventually, yeah. I think she wanted another life. Her mom definitely wanted her to have another life. I’m not sure what other life Corrine wanted, but it was something that ain’t have shit to do with us.”
“You know what’s sad? I know I would have left Josh if I found out he was cheating, but this part of me that thinks about him all the time? I look at her and wonder if I would have let that shit slide just so I could keep him.”
“The what-ifs are going to really fuck us up, huh?”
