This is a work of erotic fantasy, so there’s quite a lot of sex. However, there isn’t sex happening in every chapter. There are many passages that include setup, character development, and all that boring stuff which makes the sex that much more meaningful when it finally happens. I know not everyone cares about backstory or getting to know the characters, so each chapter which does have sex in it also has a heart following its title: ♥

The sex is not intended to be pornographic or paraphilic. It’s just the kind of stuff that happens between people, though sometimes in somewhat unusual situations. This includes threesomes and groups, intimacy taking place among people under the age of eighteen (with no one over eighteen present), same-sex partners, and scenes involving brother-sister incest. If you live in the kind of world where you believe those sorts of things never happen, or should never happen, you’re both (1) welcome to stop reading now; and (2) not even remotely in touch with reality in any way at all.

There is cover art for Book 2! It’s non-nude. If you’d like to see it, it’s here on imgbox.com.

Finally, Nifty has been providing some primo material for years now, and can always use a helping hand. Websites aren’t free to operate or maintain, and no one’s getting paid to do any of this. Donate what you can, as you’re able!

Enjoy!

— Harmony Brücke, fricfic at gmail | Twitter @BruckeHarmony | patreon.com/harmonybrucke

Kaeleigh Goes All the Way

Book 2: 2024 • Part III: Brushes with Divinity

1. Not So Vanilla

Lana attended, as Luke’s guest, an awards function for women in the Chamber of Commerce who were making positive strides in female empowerment and visibility. PGP was a Chamber member, which was something she already knew; but it still seemed a little surprising to her that she — Marta — would be recognized as legitimate by so many other businesswomen, including café owners, florists, bakers, beauticians, clothiers … and women who ran IT and tech companies, Realtors, several prominent Ob/Gyn’s, at least two psychologists … and practitioners of Reiki, a woman who offered palm reading and chakra balancing, several aromatherapists … well, okay, so maybe it was a mixed bag. Still, it somehow felt incongruous, as though a Kindergartener had shown up at show-and-tell with a stripper.

Clothes were quite classy and kept sedately on (she felt a little downscale, actually, in a slit-skirt backless one-piece of purple velvet as deep and lush as the midnight sky, but at least it clung closely enough to her that her attributes were seen to be competitive with the stars around her), and two of the people Marta brought with her were the young women who’d been with PGP the longest, whose faces and bodies were well known to millions of followers worldwide. It was networking, to some extent, since these women also intended to move into the mundane world once they left erotica, and they were extremely financially well-situated to do so.

Luke was one of the few men in the room that evening, and his other guest was his wife, whom Lana had not yet met in person. An authentic stretch limo pulled up in front of Lana’s apartment a little before six, and she was collected by Luke (who was quite dashing in a tux and real bow tie), escorted to the vehicle, and settled in among four women, two of whom she’d interviewed for her article, and one of whom she was terrified of meeting. But Kaeleigh had been all smiles and good cheer and a warm, two-cheek-kiss greeting, which only made Lana more nervous.

Marta, Rachael, and Nadia (she was also new to Lana) were just as friendly, and kept the banter light as the car rolled downtown. Rachael and Nadia had both been at PGP for more than seven years, and both were planning to move out of erotica and into more conventional work soon. Rachael’s forthcoming doctorate in molecular biology with a focus on stem cells and genetic engineering already had the interest of several potential employers, among them Nordolex, back in Luke and Kaeleigh’s neck of the woods (or thereabouts within a couple hundred miles); and Nadia’s master’s in economics was drawing her toward New York. Luke, though his tenure with Pretty Good Privates was just over two years thus far, was their most popular male star.

Before the banquet there was a good deal of mixing, and apparently word had spread that Marta and her leading ensemble would be there. There was a crowd of a hundred or so outside the Chamber’s entrance, roughly two-thirds women, who wanted to see and be near the people they’d watched perform deeply personal acts for their titillation. Both men and women wanted to get selfies with Marta, the other actresses, Kaeleigh, and Luke, of course. Lana was anonymous enough that she could slip past them all and watch from inside the building as her lover, his wife, and the others were gently and rather respectfully mobbed for half an hour or so.

My lover, she thought, watching him smile and nod at a woman in her forties who seemed to be relating some ribald story to him. Is he? What’s really happening here? What’s going on between us, how do I feel, and when is his wife going to murder me? Will it be after the cocktails, or before dessert? Why am I having a midlife crisis at the age of twenty-four? He laughed with the woman, hugged her and kissed her cheek, and continued making his way, one anecdote at a time, closer to the building’s entrance. He was eventually flanked by Kaeleigh and Marta, who swept with him and the other women into the main entrance.

Luke and Kaeleigh extricated themselves and came over to her. “Sorry about that,” Luke said. “It kind of happens … oh … pretty much anywhere we go, it seems like sometimes.”

“I suppose it comes with the job,” Lana said. “But … I, uh, I, really, it’s no … I mean, I’m your guest, and, and…”

Kaeleigh was breathtaking in a very close-fitting purple sequined dress, and had commented that she and Lana could almost have been sisters, given their color choice for wardrobe. Her unironic effusion was one of the many things that made Lana nervous, and Kaeleigh seemed to sense that about her now. She took Lana’s arm, smiling up at her — Lana was several inches taller, even without the heels — and leaned in. “I can’t legally drink yet, and I don’t much at home either, but I love iced tea. Let’s escape the madding crowd for a few minutes, okay?”

“Uh,” Lana said. “Sure.” She flashed a smile at Luke, hoping it didn’t contain too much panic or wordless plea to, after her body was not found, notify her next of kin. He, the clueless male, smiled brightly back at her and went with Marta and the rest toward the main dining hall, where there was a large and well-dressed gathering already filling in.

“I’ve been waiting forever to talk to you,” Kaeleigh said, leading Lana toward a small dry bar that offered sodas and other innocuous beverages. “Don’t worry. I promise not to poison your drink.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t think you—” She stopped when she saw the look on Kaeleigh’s face, and giggled, mostly with nerves. “Well, I … I did kind of wonder if…”

“If I was going to bury a fork in your temple during the shrimp cocktail appetizer? No. Look, Lana, Luke’s told me a lot about you, and I know you’ve had some … experiences, and not just with him, so you must have some idea what I mean when I say…” She leaned in close and murmured. “Sex isn’t ownership. Not for me, or for him, ever. It’s just a good thing to do with your body, something you can use to show someone you like them. Right?”

“Well,” Lana said. “Sex may not be ownership, but a marriage license is kind of a different thing.”

Kaeleigh requested tea; Lana had a Dr. Pepper. They sipped as Kaeleigh led them off a little way from everyone else. “Marriage … there are different kinds. The standard marriage, the one most people take on, is almost a business transaction. It’s an agreement to maintain a household and family together, to combine property, and … yes, to maintain monogamy. That’s not Luke and me at all. Then there’s the occasional religious group that has plural marriage, and in a lot of ways it’s the same, though the man isn’t expected to be monogamous. And from what I understand, the various wives sleep in separate rooms. How boring is that?”

“Religious people can be fairly conservative,” Lana said absently, then realized the absurdity of it in context. Sure, the man catted around with his stable of fillies — she grimaced at herself over the mix of metaphors — but the women? How was that being fair or faithful, when it was so one-sided? “I imagine it looks great, from the man’s point of view.”

“Yup,” Kaeleigh nodded. “Traditional — that is to say officially endorsed — marriage is about ownership, for a lot of guys, and I suppose for their wives too. It’s probably a lot less patriarchal now than it used to be, but in a lot of cases it’s still about the man sticking his dick in something and declaring it his territory until the end of time, or until she catches him once too often sticking his dick in something else. But Luke and I aren’t traditional, and … okay. This is confidential.”

“Of course,” Lana said. “Unless I have a recorder out, I’m just a regular human being like everyone else.”

“That’s not … I wasn’t even thinking of that, but thanks.” Kaeleigh sipped her tea and chewed her lip. “Okay. Luke and I started having sex because we were both playing a game called All The Way. Has he mentioned it?”

“No, but it sounds like some kind of party game.”

“It is, sort of. You have the right idea, anyway. There are eight people that get together and play, four girls and four boys. There’s a playing board, you move from square to square, and some squares have penalties that require you to remove something you’re wearing.”

“Okay,” Lana nodded.

“And each time a player moves, they draw a card, ask the question that’s on the card, and then the player, and all the other players, answer the question. Each card has a question about sexual experience, boundaries, limits, what you have done, what you don’t want to do again, what you’re willing to try.”

“Sexually?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Sounds … interesting.”

“It is. It’s actually a hell of a lot of fun, because as everyone loosens up you start hearing the most hilarious and wonderful stories. And when the game ends — it ends when a male and female player move into the final winner’s circle together — there are several prizes the winners can choose, all of them sexual, and one of those prizes is group sex with all the players together. That’s almost always what the winners decide on.”

“Okay, so the game is the party. And you and Luke were players?”

“Mmm-hmm. And things developed, and we became lovers, and … we never stopped playing, Lana. Even after he moved here, he kept playing. I did too, back home. We still play, every Friday. On Saturdays, there are women’s-only groups, and I play in those, too.”

“So you already had, what, four or five regular sex partners when you and he first started dating?”

“More than that,” Kaeleigh said. “Back home there were a couple hundred kids playing. They move you around each week, so at first you’re always playing with new people, until you’ve been in it long enough that you start getting to know everyone.”

“Ah.” Light broke across Lana’s mind. “He said he’d been with somewhere between eight hundred and a thousand girls. I wondered how he got that big a score.”

“Yeah. There’s a lot more people playing here than there were in Cliveston, so his numbers went way up as soon as he moved. I’m still catching up, but I’ll shoot right past him because I’m bi. It’s around three hundred girls for me, and about three hundred guys too, so far. That’s the point of the game. To have a lot of sex with a lot of different people, and the cards are so you’ll get to know each other better, and have a better idea what everyone’s into.”

“Before the orgy.”

“Right. That way, everyone’s already friendly, and you know what not to try with someone.”

“I imagine pretty much everyone’s into pretty much everything. I mean, you couldn’t be too inhibited if you wanted to play at all, and I’d imagine after a few months you wouldn’t have any inhibitions left.”

“Not many,” Kaeleigh said. “You definitely learn to push your limits. What you end up with is a pretty expansive view of things, and a few genuine preferences. I like cum from men or women, for instance, and I know it because of the game. And I’m not super heavily into anal, and I know it the same way. And one of the things Luke and I both agree on is that we love each other completely and we’re going to be together for the rest of our lives … but we both like variety. I like having sex with other men and women, and he likes having sex with other women too. And we have, and we still do, and we know from experience that it doesn’t have to interfere with who we are as a couple, unless we let it.”

“Which is why you’re comfortable with him working at PGP, and why he’s okay with you doing the same.”

“Yeah. It’s also why I don’t go after his balls with a pair of meat shears whenever he’s getting with Marta, or when he’s with you. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair. I go after Marta myself pretty regularly, Meilin and I have a definite thang goin’ on, he and I both fuck other people almost every Friday, and on your Saturdays with him, I’m in a big happy wet pile with seven other women. And I’m a lot happier for knowing he’s being well looked after, by you.”

Lana sighed. “I guess I’m still getting used to the idea of how an open relationship really is. There are times when I’m with him that I think about you, and wonder … if you’re bored or lonely or you miss him, or if you’re … uh … at a pawn shop picking up a Saturday night special, or…” She sipped her soda.

“Don’t,” Kaeleigh said. “There are different kinds of open relationships, with all kinds of limits. Some, the partners are only okay with threesomes. Some only with strangers, some only with friends, and some only when the other partner is there too. Ours is totally open. Either one of us can have sex with anyone else, any time.”

“That must take a … just a huge amount of trust, from both of you.”

“I guess it does, but … well, with us, that trust has always been there. We’re okay, Luke and I. We’re rock-solid together. And you and I are okay, too. He loves you, you love him, and you enjoy spending time together and sharing each other. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m not losing anything when he’s having sex with you, any more than you’re losing when he’s with me. Because however much he loves you, he doesn’t love me any less, any more than his love for me takes away any of his feelings for you. See?”

“He did tell me it wasn’t a competition.”

“He’s right. It’s not. We’re not rivals. We have more in common than our picks for dress color, Lana. We both love the same man, and there’s literally nothing stopping us from being with him, or from being friends.”

“Most people in the world would disagree with that, though.”

“Most people aren’t us,” Kaeleigh said. “What they think has nothing to do with it. It’s none of their business. I’ve seen you with him, remember? I know how good he makes you feel. And I’ve seen how much he enjoys being with you. I love him. Why would I want to take that away from him? And I don’t know you, so I can’t hate you, and why would I want to try to hurt you?”

“Because I’m the other woman?”

“No, you’re an other woman, not the other woman. So’s every woman he has sex with. Luke and I feel the same way about sex. When we’re doing it, we’re in love with the person we’re doing it with, no matter who it is. We might love them for different reasons, but you expect that, because everyone’s different. They all have different personalities. They all laugh at different things, cry over different things, like and hate different things. So the love is different too. But it’s all love. It doesn’t get more real because someone puts a ring on it, and it isn’t less legitimate because there’s no signature on a piece of paper. The love we make is real, every time we make it, with anyone.”

“Including each other.”

“Especially each other. We knew each other ever since we were little kids, and we used to pick on each other a lot. Well, you know what they say that means. In our case, it turned out to be true, is all.”

Lana sighed. “I don’t suppose you’ve needed to have this conversation with Marta or anyone else, have you?”

“No,” Kaeleigh said. “Because they’ve been around and a lot of them are players, like us, so … yeah, they have a different point of view. It’s a different culture in All The Way, and in the industry. The rules for sex and relationships … they can be a lot more flexible. What I mean is, if you’re gonna have a relationship and play ATW or do porn, you have to be flexible, or something will break. So most of the people we hook up with already know how it is.”

“But you knew you needed to talk to me?”

“I thought I probably should. There’s a word we use, vanilla, to describe … oh, people who don’t work in erotica, basically. Some people have a problem with the word because it can come off insulting. It can suggest a ‘vanilla’ person is naïve or timid or sexually boring. I don’t think you’re any of those things, and definitely not naïve. That’s not it. I just thought you might … I know Luke’s talked to you about some of it, too, but what’s he gonna do? He’s the man, getting himself a piece of the strange. Of course he’s gonna put a pro-freedom slant on it. Or that’s how I’d probably see it, if I were you. I just thought you’d want to hear it from me, too.”

“I think I needed to, actually,” Lana said. “It is a different culture from the one I was raised in, very different, and over the last couple months I’ve begun to realize how completely different it really is. The black community can be … pretty conservative, especially about sex. Some of the most homophobic things I’ve ever heard come from the mouths of brothers and sisters, and we’re fairly big on monogamy, too, at least officially. And I’ve been aware of those voices in my head for years, and worked against them, sometimes publicly. I went to school one time in eighth grade wearing a halter, and got called a skank to my face, because I had visible cleavage and a bare midriff. Do you know what I did?”

“Beat the big-mouth out of the bitch?”

“How’d you know it was a girl?”

“What boy would object?”

“Good point,” Lana nodded. “No, I didn’t skin her where she stood. What I did was wear halters as much as I could for the rest of the school year. Couple or three days a week. Pretty soon, a few other girls were doing it too, and the slut-shamers couldn’t do a damn thing about it, but they tried anyhow, shooting off their mouths like Yosemite Sam. Until the boys started telling them to back off.”

“Hey, right on.”

“Well, the boys had ulterior motives. They wanted to see the titties.”

“Of course they did, but it still counts.”

“I suppose it does, doesn’t it? Allies have all kinds of motivations, but the enemy of my enemy is still my friend. Anyway … to be totally honest, Kaeleigh, I have been feeling guilty. Even with all of Luke’s assurances, I felt guilty. Because you’re right. I feel like I know him fairly well, and believe he’s a fundamentally decent and honest man. But he’s still a man, and yeah, of course he’s going to say sure, it’s okay with my wife if I fuck you, whether or not it actually is.”

“It is,” Kaeleigh said. “And I know it’s more, for both of you, than him just fucking you. If that was all it was, either one of you could get it anywhere. And that’s okay, too.”

Lana drew a deep breath. “Thank you.”

“Don’t feel bad, Lana. I know why you love him, because I love him too, for a lot of the same reasons. I like you, and I’d like us to be friends, really I would, because we have something pretty big in common.”

“I … I suppose we do, don’t we?”

“Yeah, we do, and I’m not just talking about eight inches of hot pogo stick.”

Lana giggled. “And I have been terrified most of the last few days, too, knowing I was going to meet you face to face, and that if he was wrong in any way at all, I’d probably be leaving one face lighter than when I came.”

“Hiss, rowr,” Kaeleigh said. “Satisfied?”

Lana laughed. “It’s no wonder he loves you.”

Kaeleigh sipped her tea. “I was thinking the same thing. It’s too bad you don’t swing, because a threesome with you and him would be totally hotpants.”

“I can’t help it,” Lana said. “You’re a beautiful woman, and I like you, but I just … I’m sorry.”

“No. No. Never apologize for being straight. You didn’t choose it, any more than I chose being bi. It’s just the way things are. Like Gaga says, we were born this way.” She shrugged. “Or near enough, anyhow.”

“Well, if it helps any, if I ever did decide to give it a try, it would probably be with you.”

“Well, you know where to find me,” Kaeleigh smiled. “Let’s get refills. I think they’re gonna be starting the banquet soon.”

Luke apparated himself nearby right after they’d topped off their beverages, offering each an arm. “Ladies?”

Lana and Kaeleigh traded a blank look, looked around just as blankly. “Oh,” Kaeleigh said. “I think he means us.”

“He probably does,” Luke nodded, accepting a gorgeous woman for each elbow.

“Probably?” Lana said. He smiled at her and winked, and she realized it was the same smile he’d flashed at her earlier, when she was sending her distress signals to him as he was allowing her to be led away to what had turned out not to be a catfight. So … not so clueless as all that, maybe.

* * *

They settled in at Marta’s table for the evening’s events. They began with the typical I don’t want to run too long opening speech, which actually didn’t run too long, welcoming all the Chamber members, recognizing several new women in the crowd that night, and acknowledging how they were all changing the landscape for business ownership, ethical practice, and general decency. Lana looked around at the assembled faces in the crowd, some of which were self-satisfied, others genuinely moved. This didn’t surprise her. You might change the title from businessman to businessperson, but doing business often meant to as much as with. Women could be every bit as cutthroat, heartless, petty, and greedy as anyone who carried a penis (and not just in a purse), and you didn’t join the local Chamber of Commerce if you weren’t interested in climbing, in one way or another, and by one means or another. She knew that as well as she knew many of these women would probably be Republicans, and unapologetically so.

It took privilege to be able to shrug and say, well, different strokes for different folks, and Lana didn’t have that kind of privilege, so instead she compartmentalized the thought for later venting in the shower, where she did all her best monologues. She joined everyone in the polite applause.

Dinner then began to descend, announcing its advent with a clatter of salad bowls. “How’s the article coming along?” Marta said, over greens doused in a raspberry vinaigrette, with toasted pecans and crumbled bleu cheese sprinkled liberally over all.

“Very well, thank you,” Lana nodded. “I was able to get hold of the producers you pointed me to and had great interviews with all three of them. I’m just roughing the draft now. There’s a slant, but since I tell what it is in the lede, that shouldn’t be too surprising.”

“What?” Rachael said. “You mean you’re not going to pretend to be fair and balanced?”

“I really didn’t know where I was going to go with it when I started,” Lana chuckled. “But I wasn’t going to take the Fox road, no mater what. I believe in ethics. Wow, this is a pretty good dressing.”

“Almost as good as yours, babe,” Kaeleigh said to Luke. She was sitting on the other side of him from Lana.

“All I knew was my experience on the Café was not even close to what I thought it would be, and I wanted to get a better insight as to why.”

“Oh hell,” said Nadia — a dark-eyed Mediterranean-looking woman who spoke with a light accent, rolling her r’s — “we’re doomed.”

“Hey,” said Luke.

Lana laughed. “No, the Café … what I meant was, I was very nervous going in, I wasn’t sure if it would live up to my … well, my fantasies, and … it turned out to be one of the pivotal moments of my life, and easily one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. Most of that was Luke, but the rest of it was … everyone else. Marta was great, Corey was great, Jill was great. Bev and Rachael were great talking to me before and after, helping me get perspective after it was done, and helping me not throw up with nerves before I even got as far as meeting Luke in person.”

“We’ve all been there,” Rachael said. “Even Jill, though she hasn’t done a scene in five years.” Jill, Kaeleigh now knew, was the woman who’d recorded the sound that morning. “So we know how the nerves can get you.”

“But you took the time to help me, and that was sweet of you. I’ve always liked PGP’s work, I’ve liked the respect and attention given to the women, and I had a feeling it would be reflected behind the scenes. I just didn’t realize how deep in the culture of the studio it ran, or how against the current PGP is, compared to other places. I’m a fan of mature and sophisticated erotica, sites like yours, or I Feel Myself or Beads of Joy, or even some of the stuff on Sex Art and X-Art, but I also know they’re the outliers. Most of what’s produced is still pretty depressingly fly-by-night, and most of that is what dominates the mass-upload sites like Pornhub and Xvideos. And I know sites like that aren’t at the bottom of the barrel. They’re mainstream, and the mainstream … could maybe use some cleanup. Well, not the sites. The attitudes of the visitors.”

“The visitors?” said Rachael. “You mean the comments?”

“The comments, yeah, but even more the overall attitude, I think. You see it in the movie titles there, and in their subjects. Words like slut and whore and bitch. Heavy focus on facials and anal. Gangbangs where the woman ends up looking like she’s been frosted. A lot of domination and humiliation scenarios. Voyeurism and upskirts. Bondage and mock rape and ‘accidental’ cream pies, gosh, I hope that’s not a problem, lady. Or deliberate cream pies where no one gives a shit how the woman’s life might just have been fucked up. It’s a little chilling to see the total lack of empathy or connection, to see that there really are men who want to … to just stick it in a girl somewhere, it doesn’t matter what orifice, and use her for their own gratification, and that judging by the user feedback, there are a lot of men who get off on seeing it.

“And even the videos that try to get past the basic tropes, the ones where there’s a couple minutes of conversation with the cameraman before he starts the POV ballin’, always seem to end up hitting the same checklist. Vaginal, oral, anal, cumshot on her tits or face while she pretends it’s exactly what she wanted. The subtle misogyny of it all is … it’s bleak, and that’s what I want to convey, without using too many ‘offensive’ words, and then contrast that with how things are at the more enlightened studios like yours.”

“Sounds like you’ve bitten off a pretty big chunk,” Rachael said.

“I have, yeah, but I’ve got the thread now. It’ll be that contrast, along with stories like yours and Luke’s, and Marta’s too, and … well, and my own. The originally uninvolved outsider, the … the vanilla one who really doesn’t know the way the business runs, learning and finding out and … not calling for change, not directly, so much as celebrating the improvements, recognizing the advances, while at the same time acknowledging there’s still a lot of room for the industry to get better.”

“Heh,” Rachael said. “A big feminist chunk.”

“Strongly feminist, yeah, but not combatively so. You know there are a lot of women who object to porn on principle, who insist it’s always exploitation. After talking to you and a few others, I don’t agree. I think we as a culture, women and men, can eat our cake and have it, too, with a little shift in consciousness from both men and women. There are men out there who like your kind of work, and I think they’re a growing minority. And some women need to understand that just because a girl is having sex on camera doesn’t mean she’s desperate, or misguided, or a slave to the patriarchy. It’s actually rather offensive to be patronized by the alleged sisterhood.”

“Preach it,” Rachael nodded.

“I encountered that when I first came here, as a young girl,” Nadia said. “I’m Muslim, and when I came of age, I wore a hijab for a few years. The boys in my school didn’t seem to care much either way, though some were curious, some even politely so. The girls … some of them saw it as oppression, as my religion controlling my identity as a girl, and believed that I was being subjugated. What they didn’t see was that my religion was, and is, a part of my identity also. I saw the hijab as a mark of my selfhood as a Muslim, not something that reflected on my sex. It was actually quite offensive to see them taking offense on my behalf while denigrating something that meant a great deal to me, as though I was too foolish to understand anything. It was all quite condescending, and for my own good, of course. I told them, after a while, that I respected their opinions, but I didn’t want help from those who refused to respect mine.”

“Fuckin’ A,” Kaeleigh said. “I don’t care if it’s a man or a woman, no one has the right to tell me how I should dress or behave just because it makes them uncomfortable.”

“I get that too,” Lana nodded. “White boys wanting to defend the helpless black girl from The Man. I’m pretty sure I have a voice, and can speak for myself. Why, if you don’t mind me asking … I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a hijab.”

“I don’t normally wear one any more,” Nadia said. “College, as some very conservative imams fear, had an effect on me. It broadened my horizons somewhat, as did study of the Koran. I believe God can see into my heart and know me, and I only really need the external trappings of my faith as a way to distinguish myself from … heh … the infidels, forgive me. But when in Rome, one does as the Romans, I believe the god of Rome and Jerusalem is also the god of Mecca, and … I feel less need, now, to assert my identity in one aspect of many. I’m more than my religion, more than my body, and more than a woman. I display different characteristics in different ways and at different times, so my identity is a spectrum, not a single monolithic idea.” She shrugged. “Of course, I still cover up at the mosque.”

Lana nodded. “‘I am vast, I contain multitudes.’”

“Several hundred million after a scene, in fact, yes.” Everyone giggled.

“But,” Luke said. “Uh, I mean, if it’s not … if I’m not being nosy, doesn’t the Koran say women should remain, uh, chaste?”

“Many are chased, and some are caught,” Rachael said.

Nadia laughed. “Almost entirely in surah twenty-four, The Light, yes. There are several ways to interpret it, none too different from how the other people of the book, the Jews and the Christians, interpret passages of Leviticus from the Torah. The interpretation I put on it is not literal or fundamentalist. I see that surah as applying to marriage customs, principally, rather than sexual customs — remember, the Arab peoples brought forth not just the Koran, but also hareems, belly dance, and open sexuality at a time when Europe was burning women alive — and those rules apply to marriage, not to other activity. I also believe chastity is a state that exists in the heart, and God gave us hearts and genitals both. They are in different locations for a reason.”

“So I’m living in sin?” Luke said.

“You’re not Muslim,” Nadia said, “so the law doesn’t apply. It’s not my place to dictate to you how to behave. That’s up to God to determine. Another ayat in the Koran tells us that God will guide to Him those whom He will, and it is strictly between God and them. No others need trouble themselves about it. Beyond that, though, whatever sexual activity you may engage in, your heart is joined cleanly only to one other. You share your flesh and your seed as easily as your friendship, and for the same reasons, but your commitment is another matter entirely. So as I see it, you’re as chaste as a monk.”

“Not the medieval kind,” Kaeleigh said.

“Oh?” Nadia said as the salad remains were cleared away.

“Oh, yeah, well, it seems they got around as much as anyone else did, and hid behind the church to get away with it.”

“Wait, what?” said Marta. “Hypocritical priests?”

“I know! I was all shocked and stuff for seconds.”

“And they sometimes blamed the women if they were caught,” Lana nodded. “Then it was accusations of witchery.”

“And, of course, attacking Muslim lands,” Luke said. “It was a great distraction, like today.”

“That was more of a give-and-take situation,” said Nadia.

“Maybe, but it was the Christians that started it all. Love thy neighbor, unless he writes backwards and has a culture you can’t understand.”

“True.” There was silence for a while as the entrée — chicken cordon bleu, a very passable version, along with herbed mashed potatoes in garlic butter and a medley of fire-roasted sweet peppers — arrived, was sampled, and found to be rather devourable.

“Well,” Marta said when several bites had been engulfed by all, “in any case, I’m glad you’re here tonight, Lana, and glad you’re doing your article. I think we’re all in pretty good hands.”

“I hope so,” she said. “My AA is a little … he’s suggesting I should play it down a little as far as my personal involvement with Luke goes. He’s concerned for my reputation, I think. But I’m twenty-four and unmarried, I’m not even out in the world yet, and the way I see it, I don’t currently have a reputation to consider, professional or otherwise.”

“True, if you were Barbara Walters, it might be a shock,” Marta nodded.

“In more ways than one,” said Kaeleigh.

“I can see where you’re coming from,” said Marta. “But if your article gets published, it’ll make a mark and leave an impression on everyone, and there are people out there who’ll see your byline forever after, and think of you as — forgive me for this — that slut who fucked the porn star, then bragged about it.”

“I know,” Lana said. She was quite solemn. “I’ve considered that. I’m pretty sure my parents … hell, all my family … will wonder what the hell I’m thinking, destroying a perfectly good career before I even have one. Even going militant and churning out piece after piece about subjugation and Black Power and endlessly railing against inner cities would be preferable.

“But part of freedom, of bringing change and ending oppression, is being willing to stand up and say what’s really on your mind. The more people who do it, the more will find the courage to proclaim themselves too, and after a while, there’ll just be no more shock value, because it’ll all just be part of the human experience. And I’m pretty sure sex is the human experience. None of us would exist without it. And porn’s a huge part of that experience for a hell of a lot of people, and denying the truth of that … well, it helps keep things the way they were when the Mafia controlled so much of it, the way they still are in a lot of places, the stuff you’re working against every day.

“Back home I had a friend who was gay, and he was terrified of anyone finding out, especially when we were in high school. There were a lot of big and loud homophobes around, and he feared for his safety, which … yeah, he had some reasonable concerns. But he didn’t think he could trust anyone. So he kept it hidden, kept it under wraps, kept it a dirty little secret. And he hung out in bars on weekends and got picked up by men. He was underage, but no one said anything, because that was also part of the dirty little secret. And he got into drugs, and no one said anything about that either, because it was all part of that dirty little secret. Then he got HIV, and suddenly his dirty little secret was out, and so was he.

“He died last year, of a heroin overdose, not AIDS, and he died because he didn’t think he could be honest about himself in his own goddamned home, so he went where he could to find support. And because the support he was finding was shame-based, and he was steeped in shame-based ideas, his shame killed him. He believed gay men were destined to live unhappy lives and get into the drug scene and get AIDS, because that’s all anyone ever said happened to them, so he followed the script. And that wouldn’t have happened at all if the black community didn’t throw around words like queer and faggot, ignoring the fact that they’re just as hateful, just as vicious and soul-destroying, as words like nigger.

“And the more I thought about that, the more I saw him unraveling his own life because he really believed he should be ashamed of himself, the more it pissed me off. There was nothing anyone could do to help him, not me or anyone else, because he’d internalized all the negative stereotypes he heard flying around him every day, from people who goddamn well should’ve known better, should’ve known what it felt like to be on the receiving end of it.

“So yeah, my final piece for school is going to be about the erotic-entertainment industry and the women who are changing it for the better, and about the porn star I fucked in a scene and fell in love with and why, and I intend to submit it for publication somewhere, and I’ll be damned if anyone’s going to get me to tone any of it down.” She took a breath. “Sorry.”

“You’re right,” Rachael said to Marta. “We are in good hands.”

* * *

Mixed berry pie à la mode with real vanilla-bean ice cream was the dessert, during which the Chamber awards were announced. Marta hadn’t been nominated that year, nor in any year prior, and it burned Lana a little to think that the catering — which she’d fully paid for, the announcer told everyone, bringing another round of polite applause — was being snorked down by people who were perfectly content to take her money and eat her food, but couldn’t deign to recognize what she was doing. Marta took it gracefully and applauded lustily as each winner was announced, but Lana was sure she saw a little sorrow in her eyes just the same. All it did was strengthen her own resolve to finish her article and knock it clean into orbit, so everyone would get the message, even these uptight sour-faced biddies, half of whom were probably subscribers to PGP. Not that they’d ever admit it, of course. That wasn’t the sort of thing respectable women did, oh my, clutch the pearls.

Her seethe became a simmer, then settled back to its more usual mild heat, as the music started and various couples danced. Some were lesbian, which she thought was a damned positive sign. The men in the crowd, few as there were, lent their accompaniment freely, a little like how Luke and his colleagues performed in the videos, being courteous and polite and bringing smiles to every woman they partnered with. Luke himself danced with everyone at their table. He and Nadia cut loose a little during “Bad Girls” by MIA, he and Rachael wowed everyone with fantastically athletic swing dancing during Squirrel Nut Zippers’ “Put a Lid on It”, and he and Kaeleigh moved everyone to near total silence when he danced with her, close and slow, to “Unforgettable”. They were: Young and beautiful and achingly, vibrantly in love.

Lana followed up with him to “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk; then she, Kaeleigh, and everyone else hooted and dissolved into laughter when he and Marta danced to “Eye of the Tiger” — they broke into a step-perfect tango, and damned if it didn’t fit, complete with twirling and dipping; he even boosted a rose from one of the centerpieces and got into a glorious pantomime with her about who would hold it in their teeth. There wasn’t much stem left by the time they were done; he tucked the blossom into her bosom, whereupon she plucked it out and neatly stuffed it into his shirtfront, to resounding laughter and applause.

So there.

He came back to the table, chest heaving, and settled in between his two dates. “Still having fun?”

“You bet I am,” Kaeleigh said.

“Uh-huh,” Lana nodded. “You were great out there. Every time.”

“Thanks. You know … I was thinking about what you said earlier, about your article. It really … it made a lot of sense to me, and it really connected. About how you don’t think porn should be shameful, and about how its being treated like a dirty little secret is what makes it that way, and I think you’re right. And I’m glad you’re doing the whole thing, and not just because I think you’re gonna kick ass with it.”

“Thank you, Luke. I plan to do my best.”

“I don’t think a man could tell it like you’re going to,” he went on, drinking tea from Kaeleigh’s glass. The others were listening too, Marta slugging water, Rachael and Nadia sipping more delicately at coffee. “He’d just be another stud, getting it on with some hot porn actress, and he probably wouldn’t have the … the angle you do. I’ve talked with Marta, and Rachael and Matt, about how it is at other houses, and … yeah, even about what turns us on, and what turns other people on, too. And I really … none of us, we just don’t get the guys who get off on the standard stuff out there. Especially cumshots, even if they’re not facials.”

“I’ve never seen the appeal either. All I think is God, what a mess.”

“Yeah. I think it’s a training thing. I mean … when I was twelve, thirteen, yeah, sure, I liked them, because it was proof to me that the guy came. Woohoo, there was a difficult achievement. But then I got more involved with girls, and it mattered when they came too. It mattered more, to me. And that wasn’t happening in a lot of porn. They’d pretend they were coming, they’d make sounds like they were coming, but I just knew they weren’t. So I poked around, I think I told you this already, and found stuff that was a lot more representative of what I wanted to see.

“And I tried to get my friends into it, but a lot of them were just bored. They wanted to know when they’d get to the fucking, why they couldn’t see all the action happening in every single damn frame, when the girl would open wide, where was the anal, when they’d see the cumshot. Does he come on her tits? Does he come on her ass? Does he come on her face? And I’m just looking at them and thinking, damn, I need better friends.

“That’s the kind of guy who couldn’t write the article how you’re going to do it, and I’m not sure if any other man could, either. And that kind of guy is gonna read it, and he’s not gonna understand what’s wrong with the porn he’s looking at all the time, and he might feel like he’s being judged, even if you put it in the most nonjudgmental language ever written. And some … are gonna take it as a personal attack.

“There are some good studios out there. I think I work for the best. But I also know … I’m not normal, I’ve never had a normal sex life and I don’t look at porn the way most guys do, but I’m pretty sure that’s just because so many of them don’t know any better, or maybe they have skewed ideas about how to relate to women, maybe because of all the crappy porn they’ve watched … and … I’m sure that none of them, me included, no men would be able to tell the story like you’re going to. And I think it’s a story that really needs to be told, and I’m glad you’ve got the … the ovaries to make it happen.”

“Well,” Lana said, “you talked about it. Everyone here did. All I’m doing is adding my part to it. I don’t … I just don’t see it as being especially courageous for me to talk about something you actually do.”

“It’s easy for me to talk about, Lana, it’s easy for everyone at this table, because we do do it, and we’re out there on the intertubes for the whole damn world to see. If we were ashamed, we wouldn’t be working at PGP, Marta would never have started it up at all, none of us would be here. But you’re not in the industry, you’re not a centerfold model or a porn actress or a sex worker, and there will be people who look at you and think some pretty terrible things, and what makes a difference is you might not hear as much positive feedback as we do. We’re expected to be transgressive. You’re not.

“On the way in tonight I talked to three or four people, women, who were telling me how they and their husbands love to watch the scenes we do, the scenes I’m in and others, because it gets them in the mood and it gives their husbands good ideas about what to do, gives them role models to follow and ideas for games to play. They have better intimate lives with their husbands because of our work. I think I told you about some of the letters we get. It’s even better to hear it in person. But we also hear from people about how we’re spreading the seeds of damnation, glorifying immorality and the sins of the flesh, and mostly that just bounces off, because after a while it’s the same old gabble. Yeah, yeah, heard it before, next. Don’t approve? Don’t watch. Simple. But you might not be ready for some of the stuff you might hear. Maybe you are. I’ve never lived in black skin, so I don’t know what it’s like to be a target of prejudice every waking moment of my life. It might just bounce off you, too.

“But there’s a reason I don’t give out my personal email or my private Insta to just anyone. Most of what I get on the public-facing sites … it’s supportive, but not all of it, and there’s guys out there where … it’s a wonder they can even use a computer without electrocuting themselves, for all the drool on the keyboard.

“And I know Kay and Marta and Rach and Nadia and everyone else get even worse, because they’re women, they’re perceived as easy targets, and there are some … profoundly diseased guys out there who really probably should just be euthanized. So if your phone number or home address is listed in any directories, you might want to change that before your article gets published, and maybe think about locking down your online stuff too.”

“He’s got a point,” Rachael said. “When you cross certain lines, some people just lose their shit.”

“Hmm. Maybe I should look at shoring up my privacy a little, yeah. Thanks for bringing it up, Luke.”

“I have a good team in IT,” Marta said. “I can hook you up with them to help you work out the details, if you’d like. They’re great at finding weak spots, and plugging holes.”

“Yeah, thanks. I’ll take any advice I can get.”

“Speaking of plugging holes,” Luke said as another song started and the floor began to fill with women again. He stood and worked his way into the throng once more.

Lana stood too. “I’m thinking it’s time for a refill on the ole Pep. Anyone want anything?”

“I believe I’ll join you,” Kaeleigh said, rising and glowing still from her dance with her husband. (They were both wearing their rings tonight, Lana had noticed.) “Someone appears to have polished off all my iced tea.”

“Men,” Lana sighed.

“Right?” They wended their way amid the crowd toward the dry bar. “Did you ever hear about the time when Steeps Hot Leaves was guarding his tribe against attack?”

“Can’t say I have,” Lana said.

“Well, he was famous throughout the five nations because he knew the secret of brewing a magical drink out of local plants, a drink that helped him remain alert, yet calm, at all times.”

“Ah. Hence his name.”

“One assumes, yes. The trouble was that while his beverage did a fine job of keeping him awake, which is important in a sentry, he was a little nearsighted. That wasn’t a big problem most of the time, because he had very sharp hearing, so sharp that even a rabbit’s footstep a quarter of a mile away made him sit up and look around. He was a very popular hunting guide, as long as everyone remembered to steer him away from cliffs.

“This time around, though, Steeps Hot Leaves knew the enemy was particularly stealthy and crafty, able to move in near-total silence, and since the night would be moonless, they’d be all but invisible in the tall grasses. He’d have to be extra alert to guard his village.

“So he gathered an enormous armload of leaves, carried them and his cauldron to the top of the lookout hill, and set to brewing. He brewed all night, and he drank, and he brewed, and he drank. And the enemy scouts, seeing the fire under his cauldron, knew Steeps Hot Leaves was on the job, so they waited and waited, but the fire didn’t go out, and after most of the night passed they stole back to their camp and told everyone to give it up. There was no way they’d make it past his sensitive ears under the best of conditions, and what with all the brewing, they knew he’d be even more alert than he usually was.

“The next morning, the people woke up safe and sound, and knew who they had to thank for it, so they went to the lookout hill to show their gratitude to Steeps Hot Leaves.

“Sadly, they discovered tragedy had struck in the night, because Steeps Hot Leaves had gathered many many leaves, and many of them were the kind he used in his magic drink. But the other kind were the ones the medicine man used as a diuretic. They were nearly impossible to tell apart in broad daylight, and it was obvious that on a dark moonless night, even an expert would be hard pressed to see any difference. Poor Steeps Hot Leaves had no chance at all. And so, alas…”

“Yeah?” said Lana.

“He was found dead, drowned in his tea pee.”

“I damn near was myself,” Lana wheezed after half a minute. She wiped her eyes and obtained her drink, still struggling for breath, and she and Kaeleigh began making their way back to Marta’s table. “Damn, girl, that was maybe a little racist, but it’s worth it.”

“Yeah, well, how about the time Mickey Mouse went to the psychiatrist? Y’see, he and Minnie were having some relationship problems…”

Lana actually had to borrow a chair partway to their table and sit down. It was that or crawl the rest of the way back. She hugged her knees, shaking, fighting to inhale. “Holy Christ,” she gasped. “You’re going to hell, you know that?”

“Nah. They’re afraid I’ll take over.”

“Fucking Goofy,” Lana snickered. She accepted Kaeleigh’s hand and stood, still a little unsteady. “Where the hell are you getting these from?”

“Mom,” Kaeleigh said. “She has this streak in her.”

“Oh God, I’m just so glad you talked to me tonight.”

“So am I,” Kaeleigh said as they took their places once again. Luke was currently cutting up with a woman about twice his age to Madonna’s “Beautiful Stranger”. She crossed her rather show-stopping legs, watching her husband remind someone what it was like to be the sole focus of attention for an extremely handsome young man. “God, I can’t believe I get to go home with that tonight. He’s just so damn gorgeous.”

“You’re doing pretty well yourself,” Lana said. “When you and he were dancing, there was practically a halo.”

“Closest we’ll ever get to one,” Kaeleigh said, and tapped glasses with Lana. “And I think we’re both okay with that.”

Lana sipped and studied her. “So … suppose we did do a threesome sometime. What would that involve, exactly?”

If the question surprised Kaeleigh at all, she didn’t show it in any way. “Well, Luke and I are both totally flexible, so it’d be about you and your limits. Whatever lines you didn’t want crossed wouldn’t be. I’m assuming they’d mostly involve me, not kissing you, touching you, or being otherwise physical toward you.”

“Um,” Lana said, surprised both at her own audacity and how reasonably the conversation was going. “Well … yeah, I mean if … if that … wouldn’t be a problem…”

“Of course it wouldn’t. I don’t think I’d be able to resist watching you with him, though.”

“You’ve seen that already.”

“True,” Kaeleigh nodded. “What about seeing him with me?”

“I’d … actually like to see that. He’s got it goin’ on all over, girl. I love watching him in action.”

“Oh God, do I know what you mean.” They giggled. “So we’d be putting on a show for each other, sort of?”

“I guess we would,” Lana nodded, sipping her soda. “I think … that’d be okay with me. I had sex with him before while you watched. I kinda got off on it.”

“Me too. And I think I can probably handle full contact with him only. What about fluids?”

“Uh … what?”

“We don’t use condoms. He usually comes inside me.”

“I figured he did. Me too.”

“Okay, but … well, after he’s … been with me, would you want him to clean up a little before he approached you?”

“Oh. Oh, I see. You mean swapping … juices?”

“Or at least you in contact with mine, one way or another, on him. Is that a problem? It’s all right if it is. We have wipes.”

“I don’t … no, I don’t think I’d need him to wipe down or anything. I get the feeling it’d break the flow, and he’d probably be cleaning himself off every five minutes.”

“What if he was … oh, giving me a particularly personal kiss, and after he came up for air, he wanted to plant a kiss on you? On your lips, I mean.”

“I, uh … he does that … now.”

“Yeah, okay, but that’s you on his face, not another woman.”

“Hmm,” Lana said. This was, in some ways, as full of unexpected questions as the pre-scene interview she’d done with PGP. “I don’t … think it would throw me off too much. But I don’t know.”

“So that might be a soft boundary for you, something where you’d need to be in the flow of it to know?”

“Yeah,” Lana said, her heart thudding. She’d never been in a threesome, and the times she’d fantasized them had involved two men. It had always been deeply arousing for her to imagine being fucked while someone else watched, looking on as the man’s cock moved steadily in and out of her pussy, looking on as he came in her pussy. Kaeleigh had done exactly that during her Café with Luke, and part of the thrill of doing it with him was having sex while all those other people watched her; but it wasn’t the same, exactly, as the idea of three sex partners playing around freely with each other. There had been times when she’d almost suggested it with former boyfriends, but felt their jealousy might be too much to get past. It was exciting to think she might be changing that soon, even if one of the other players shared some key anatomy points with herself. “It’s not — I mean, I’m sure you’re not … infected with anything, and I’m sure you don’t … uh, smell bad or anything, but—”

“It’s an intimate fluid from an intimate place, on a body you’re just not sexually attracted to,” Kaeleigh said. “You really don’t have to explain.”

Lana studied her again. “I really don’t, do I?”

“No. In the game, in All The Way, you find out all kinds of people have all kinds of limits. You don’t give anyone grief over them, and you respect them. That’s the only way to make sure everyone’s able to have a good time. It takes trust to have sex at all, with just two people in the room. Adding a third requires more. An orgy needs even more. If everyone isn’t comfortable going in, if they don’t know what the limits are and know those limits will be taken seriously, there’s no way they can really relax and have fun, and there’s a good chance lines will get crossed, even if it’s only accidental, and then someone ends up having a terrible night. I like you, Lana, and Luke loves you, and there’s just no way I’d want anything to happen unless you were sure you wanted it to, and you were sure we wouldn’t do anything that would put you off. No always means no, but a maybe, or even a tentative yes … those are better being treated as no’s too, or at least as not right now’s.”

Lana sipped her soda. Her hand was shaking a little. “I’d … be okay, I think, if he kissed me after he was … with you.”

“Okay. We’ll call that a maybe, with the option for you to change your mind. How’s that? Of course,” Kaeleigh sipped her tea, “the whole thing is a maybe with the option for you to change your mind. Even if you say you definitely want to go through with it, you can still call it off if … when we get started … you decide maybe it’s not what you want after all. I’d rather have that happen and keep you as a friend, than have you grit your teeth and follow through out of some sense of obligation, and have there be a wedge between us forever after that.”

“Thank you,” Lana said.

“Okay. So I don’t touch you deliberately … there may be some brushing up against each other…”

“That … probably happens, yeah. I’d be okay with that. Also, I’m okay with a, a hug, maybe, to celebrate … something … but a lingering embrace … uh…”

“I get it. Happy hugs are okay, as long as I’m not copping a feel.” Lana giggled. “I don’t touch you intimately, anywhere. The bikini zones are totally off limits under all circumstances. No embraces, since even that might be too much, but it’s easy enough to manage that, since Luke would probably be between us when we fell asleep. I don’t kiss you anywhere either. I don’t go down on you. I don’t ask you to do any of those things to me. What I do is unleash the mighty mighty power of the uterus on Luke exclusively. Right?”

“Did you say … when we fell asleep?”

“Oh,” Kaeleigh said. “Were you not planning to spend the night?”

“I … it hadn’t occurred to me.” She shivered. “Would that be all right?”

“Of course it would. We’d love it if you stayed, and odds are we’d be fairly busy most of the night anyhow.” Despite her roiling sensuality and the topic under discussion, Lana noticed, Kaeleigh was maintaining her physical distance. She wasn’t leaning in, she wasn’t putting on any moves, she wasn’t reaching to stroke her knee or put her arm around the back of her chair. They might have been discussing the relative merits of Lego and Tinkertoy.

That made her feel a lot better.

“I suppose … we’d be pretty tired. In a good way.”

“That’s usually how it ends up, yeah,” Kaeleigh said. “You know what Luke’s like one-on-one, sometimes. Even his slow dances can be pretty intense. And when there’s another woman with us, he doesn’t divide his energy. He just has twice as much available. I have no idea how he does it, but he does, and he brings it out of whoever he’s with, too. There’s usually something really close to total and happy physical collapse when it’s all done for the night.”

“Good God.”

“Sometimes he can be, yes. It’s your decision, Lana. There’s absolutely no pressure, but I’m just insanely thrilled you even brought it up, and I know Luke would be into … well, whatever you were okay with. I am too.”

“You know that for sure? Wait. Yeah. Of course you do.”

“He and I know each other well enough to answer for each other in some cases, such as this one, yeah. I don’t let him order Indian or Thai for me, and he doesn’t like when I pick the ice cream, but sex? No problem.”

Lana nodded, absently watching Luke bob around on the floor with various happy women. “So, uh,” she said. “When can we … when would you want to … do it?”

“Are you ready for it to happen tonight?”

And that was really the money question, wasn’t it? Was she, Lana, willing to undertake a course of action that would push her personal boundaries, with a man she loved and a woman she liked and respected? Was she willing to do it tonight? Because if she wasn’t willing to do it with Luke and Kaeleigh, who else might ever fit her ideas of people she would do it with? And assuming these two were it for her, what was the difference between tonight, or next week, or next month or next year, or next day after forever?

Are you ready for it to happen tonight was the same as are you ready for it to ever happen.

She took a deep breath and smoothed her skirt, feeling the way the velvet clung a little to her sweaty palms. “Yes,” she said.

“Okay. Would you prefer your apartment, or our house?”

“Well … from what Luke’s told me, your bed is bigger. Unless it’s imposing…”

“Never. And Lana…” She looked at Kaeleigh. “I know this is a big step for you, a big decision. Your first threesome! And you picked Luke and me, and that’s just … so awesome. It’s so exciting. Thank you.”

Lana shifted a little. Her panties were quite wet now, and her heart was beating a steady thud. This was exciting — as exciting, in its own way, as her first time having sex had been, or as her scene with Luke. “Well, it’s something I’ve always been a little curious to try. I was thinking if, if it ever happened, it’d be two men, but—”

“Luke would be okay with that,” Kaeleigh said. “You could pick someone you were into instead, maybe one of the guys from work, like Matt or Blake, or someone else…”

“No, I … it’s okay. I like you, I like the scenes you’ve done, and … well, I’d like to see you with him. I’d … it’s more important, to me, for it to happen with people I feel comfortable with. People I know.”

“Yeah, I get what you mean. Luke’s been approached by fans before. I have too, men and women. And … yeah, I’m always in a better place if it’s someone I already know and like. You and I won’t be having sex with each other, but it’ll still be good. I think it’ll be great, actually.”

“You’re very sweet. Being so accommodating. I guess I’m vanilla myself, and…”

“You’re not that vanilla,” Kaeleigh said. “You’ve already done something damn few people ever do, getting with Luke for the Café. And you’re still with him. And you’re going to do a three-way tonight. That’s no one’s idea of vanilla.”

“Maybe chocolate would be better,” Lana said, turning her hand over, studying the tone.

“Dark chocolate,” Kaeleigh said. “The best kind, right?”

Lana giggled, and kept giggling, and Kaeleigh joined her.