"Are you staying with us?" Jennifer asks and Maggie shakes her head. Fact is, she's still married, and they're not 18 anymore, and this is for Jen and Rust and there's no place for her there.
"Stay with us," Jen insists, reaching out for Maggie's hand, interlacing their fingers, one soft touch to lure her back from the door. "You could watch."
Rust's out on the porch with his cigarettes, under the yellow light and all the night's buzzers.
"Jen made me an offer," is all she gets is so far off her shore.
Maybe he already knows because he nods, face turned towards the corners and shadows like the first time she met him, stumbling drunk and timid into her kitchen. "I can't make that decision on your behalf, Maggie."
"Well, but what about you? Would you want me to? Would you mind?"
He takes a long, last drag, eyes searching the ground as he stubs out the cigarette, and finally answers on an exhale of smoke. "Nah. Feel free to take turns."
Jen comes down the stairs laughing and twirling, letting her skirt fly up high to flash the bright blue dildo she wears underneath.
Maggie laughs too. Though she can already feel the wine, the heat in her cheeks, she takes another sip. The glass between her fingers is what she'll be holding on to, that and only that. Rust insisted they stay here in the living room, which suits her just fine. Curled up in this armchair near the corner, any temptation's safely out of reach.
She tries to imagine what it'd be like, the three of them in Jen's bed, but she's never been upstairs and all she can picture is a teenage girl's room, floral patterns and late afternoon light, the crackling of an LP, their hearts slowing to a lazy, dream heavy rhythm in the summer heat, them lying cheek to cheek, skirts riding up around their thighs.
It's not like that anymore.
"First of all, both of you need to relax." Jen refills Maggie's glass, uninvited, with a smile that's tip-toeing across this bridge of a dozen years. She freshened up her lipstick upstairs.
Voice a little hoarse, Maggie protests, "I am relaxed!" Jen hums and Rust is entirely taken in by the focus on his clothes and every busy move of his hands as he undresses.
"I'll help you with that," Jen decides, already moving over with a swirl of her hair. Rust neither agrees or disagrees, hands lose and jaw working as he stands still, gaze trailing somewhere between them. Once Jen pulls down his pants, he covers himself, fine fingers and skinny wrists crossing before Maggie can make up her mind on appropriateness. Her eyes wander anyway, across toned arms and the twitch of a muscle across his hip, so much leaner than the body she's familiar with. The way he turns his head, opening the long side of his neck towards her, she wonders if he noticed.
"Alright, come on. Over here, you're too tall for me to bend you over the table." Jen is all energy, a spark to her like she's still dancing, color on her cheeks as she ushers him onto the couch. Before she gets in behind him, she holds out her hand. "You too," is what she says and gestures, insistently, until Maggie, with a deep breath, unfolds her legs, puts down the wine glass, and moves across that gap. On the sofa, she seats herself on the very edge.
So maybe she had a little too much wine. It feels unreal, moments going by in a haze. Rust's on his hands and knees, face obscured behind a curl of his hair. The clock on the wall's ticking, the couch under them moans with every shift of their weight. Jen ties her skirt to the side. The sound of lube squelching out of the bottle makes Maggie laugh; she can't help it. Not like the sounds of sex are ever all that pretty, but she's never sat by, fully dressed, to notice them - and whether she should be is not something she's quite so certain on anyway. When Jen starts moving, Maggie keeps her eyes down on Rust's hands, on his fingers spread wide across the cushions, and listens to his ragged breath.
"Don't need to use your fingers first," she hears him mumble.
Jen's eyes open wide. Her smile turns bright up towards Maggie, and like there's too much of her joy, her delight to contain, a spark jump across and Maggie's heart picks up speed. "You got it," she says.
Her hand moves across Rust's back, searching for balance as she gets up on one knee and one foot, until she leans across him and Rust just gives way under her, dropping to his elbows. They must line up just right. There's a hitch to Jen's breath, like it does when she gets all caught up in something, and Rust's exhale, long and deliberate, bites off with a groan.
Maggie finds herself squeezing her thighs tightly. She can see with the force in Jen's posture and the accompanying strain in Rust's. The room feels too hot, heat flushing her chest, and even if it was a wrong decision she took, she admits to herself now: she wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
Rust's hands close into fists and open again, fingers digging into the cushions. Jen drags out her thrusts like she still treasures this slow slipping into a rhythm.
When they were lying side by side once in the dark, each with a boy, together in the one room away from the crowd, she whispered like that, "Take it slow." Maggie doesn't remember much of the party nor of the boy. What she remembers is the secret of Jen's hand in hers and how she whispered, "Slow, slow."
Jen's looking right at her, flushed and bright eyed, but the words she mouths are, "He likes you." Her gaze drops pointedly to Rust's back. They're still trading secrets now, and she feels a little of that teenage haze, the wild dreams, the stubborn determination of that one summer with Jen. Then fall came and the shock of the cold and a hot-headed guy, blond as a bleached field of barley in July.
Jen's settled into her rhythm now, drawn out, deliberate, a counterpoint to Rust's strained groans that get louder, to his gasps for air, desperate like it hurts. The way Jen fucks with a dildo that size, Maggie can't imagine it feels good, and she sits close enough to see every twitch, every tremble in Rust's shoulders, how he flinches forward like he's trying to get away. Every time he skids a little closer towards her. His darkened, damp hair curls behind his ears.
"D'you like it like that?" Jen bites out between her teeth. "D'you like it when it hurts?" Her palm cracks down on his thigh, sudden and loud. Maggie jumps.
She thinks no, thinks it's too rough, but then Jen grabs a fistful of his hair and yanks his head back. For one scared second, she still worries it's pain. The slack mouth, the wide eyes. But lifted up, he can't cover himself and then it slides into place. Without taking her eyes off his face, she speaks to Jen. "Slap him again."
A corner of her skirt got caught in his fist, and she reaches down and covers his knuckles in her hand. Until he lets go. Until he holds on to her instead.
She doesn't carry regrets. Not over who she chose to be nor who she chose to be with. She's still married, and she won't lie to herself: that future's not written in stone.
Rust disappears out the back smoking cigarettes. Jen drops the strap-on on the stained cushions, then sits down beside Maggie at the kitchen table. She picks up a leftover cracker and a green olive from the plate. The oil smears her lip with a bright stain.
"So what do you think about Rust?" Maggie pours them the last of the wine.
"It was nice." Jen swallows, then licks her lips clean. "It'd be nicer, of course, if he could look at me."
"I told you, he's shy."
"There's shy and there's not interested. Or, interested in someone else." Jen pauses for a moment, then adds, "You know, if you wanna come over some time… And you could bring him too, I wouldn't mind."
Maggie turns the glass of wine in her hand, watches the ring on her finger catch the light. The suggestion lingers in the quiet of the room. It's tempting. In the end, she takes a sip of water instead.