~~~ Part 6 ~~~
"Wait," he said, breaking off their series of kisses. "You knew that I wasn't at the archives? Did you think I was having an affair? Is that what this was all about? Why couldn't you just ask me? Do you not trust me?" Henry fired off questions as quickly as they occurred to him.
"I..." Elizabeth opened her mouth to explain, then shut it. She needed to think before she spoke. "I didn't believe you were having an affair. But what if you were? I couldn't risk forcing you into an ultimatum where one of the options was divorce. I'd rather be in an open relationship." She had to go with full honesty. "At first I thought of it as being willing to settle for an open relationship, but then the more I thought about it, the more I thought maybe it wouldn't be settling. Having an open relationship doesn't mean we have to see other people. It just means we can see other people. That we don't want to limit each other. And that we talk to each other, and don't doubt that we can talk to each other about our sexual activities and desires."
Henry mulled it over. Finally, he nodded. Elizabeth's proposition had challenged his world view, taken something he thought he knew and turned it on its head. He didn't know how he'd keep his jealousy in check if she did start seeing someone else, but he understood her train of logic. It was much the same as his thinking last night, at least the part about an open relationship being better than risking no relationship. Perhaps they weren't so far out of sync after all. He rested his hand lightly on her thigh.
"Is there someone else you'd like to ... be with?" he inquired tentatively. Despite having spent half the night reading about open relationships and having convinced himself that he was at least theoretically okay with having an open relationships, asking Elizabeth still made him uncomfortable.
"No," said Elizabeth easily.
"But if you knew you could?" Henry asked, genuinely curious. "With no repercussions?"
"I... I don't know," she said. "I haven't really thought about it. Maybe? If I really believed there would be no repercussions. How about you?"
"I don't think I would want to have that kind of intimacy without you." Henry turned bright red.
"Henry?" she nudged him after a moment, sensing that he was holding something back.
Why was this so hard to talk about? He fiddled with the lace edge of Elizabeth's royal blue slip while looking for the words. "I thought about a lot of things last night and... if somehow I could be certain they wouldn't drive a wedge between us, I could imagine being with someone else if you were also there. If we were both..."
Elizabeth felt her own cheeks turning warm. "Wow... um... logistics, hypothetical logistics... If fantasy us were with fantasy someone else, what gender would they be?"
"Is it cliché to say I picture a woman?" he replied rhetorically, with a slight chuckle. "Because... If you wanted to be with a woman, well, the closest I could get to that would be being with you - either or both of you, I guess - while you were with fantasy woman." Elizabeth touched him reassuringly. "But if there was someone we both really liked... and it's hard for me to imagine liking someone else enough to bring them into our bed... I don't think gender would matter. To put it another way, if fantasy me is secure enough to have a threesome, fantasy me is secure enough to have a threesome with someone of any gender," he added.
Elizabeth pondered the possibility. "Can I say, without diminishing our relationship in any way, that fantasy me thinks that sounds kinda hot?" she admitted.
Henry chuckled. "You can. Can I say, without detracting from fantasizing, that actual me thinks our actual relationship is kinda hot? More than kinda hot. That you are incredibly hot." He took ahold of her hand. "That I want you. That I do not want for anything or anyone else, and that I will try to provide everything you want in a relationship."
"You can definitely say that," Elizabeth smiled, giving him a quick kiss. "Our reality is pretty great. We don't have to have an open relationship if you don't want. I know I'm pushing the boundaries of the more traditional notions of marriage."
"Babe, you've been pushing the boundaries of my 'traditional' notions since day one. I don't expect you to stop expanding my mind now, Henry smirked. "But let's hold off on amending our marriage until we have a chance to really think and talk it over when neither of us is hedging our bets in case the other one is keeping secrets. An open relationship isn't something to enter into lightly, and if we are going to have an open relationship, there are a lot of parameters we need to work out first."
"Deal," agreed Elizabeth happily, turning away from Henry while pulling his arm around her so that he is spooning her. She backed up against his chest, and he draped a bent leg over hers and held her hand, putting more of their bodies into contact. She felt protected in Henry's embrace and savored the physical and emotional closeness it provided.
Besides the relationship question, there were plenty of other things to worry about: how to keep Henry's op from being jeopardized or from jeopardizing her own work, what they were going to tell Stevie, how they were going to find time for each other and the kids with her already busy schedule and Henry's additional work. But that could all wait too. Especially as he was now nibbling on her ear.
"Hey... Um... Are you tired?" Elizabeth asked.
"Yes." Of course he was. He'd been up all night trying to understand why Elizabeth had asked for an open relationship and learning as much as he could to figure out how they could make such a relationship work.
Without warning, she turned around and used the momentum to push him onto his back, straddling him. "You are?" she asked again, before biting her lower lip.
"No," he answered this time, running his fingertips along her legs. "Why? Got any ideas?"
"Yeah, I'm working on a few," she said suggestively...