Exploring the Edge

Thanks again for your many comments on previous chapters. I love reading them! And don't forget to read Edgings chapters one through 26 before starting in here. Happy Edgings!

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 “Not today, Dean,” I said. I’d been laying here under his hands for about six minutes or so, and his fingers were already teasing my hole during our usual lunch massage. After a week without Jake, I was grieving over the separation with my husband Jake. I wasn’t feeling the least bit sexy.

I am ashamed to admit I was only lying here, naked as usual, with Dean standing naked beside me out of habit. Habit! Dean and I had made a habit of this lunch time massage, fuck.

 Sex with Dean every day, twice a day had actually become a habit. Initially, after that party, sex with him had been almost feverish, a distraction from grief. Normally, I craved it. Today… today there was just too much to absorb. Today, for some reason, my heart was hurting. Today, I just needed to relax. Today, I just couldn’t do it. And yes, I was missing Jake, dammit, and it hurt.

 I rolled over on the massage table and looked at him. “You are the sweetest man, and I love you. But just for this one lunch I think I need to be alone. I have been putting off thinking things out. I need to do that without you with me, love.” I reached out and caressed his jaw, admiring his handsome face. “I am going to shower, change and hit the Grill. I will see you later, ok, love.”

Dean hid his disappointment well, but I could tell he both understood, and was more than a little hurt. Like Jake, Dean was handsome, composed, confident in himself, but unlike Jake, Dean’s state of mind and emotions were worn on his sleeve. I didn’t have to guess what he was thinking, and to me that was like a breath of fresh air.

I kissed him again, more lingeringly, and he gave back.

“You sure you want to be alone?” Dean asked, his hands slowing to a stop on my back. We could just go for coffee and actually get some lunch.”

“Not this time, Dean. I have a lot to think about. I’ll see you later tonight. I promise.”

Dean looked at me with those beautiful brown eyes “I know your still conflicted about Jake. He was your husband…”

“Still is,” I cut in.

“Still is,” Dean echoed, “and you have to be wondering if you can save that marriage with him. And you have to think about me and that’s why you don’t want me there. So, I am going to make this easy and yet, maybe harder, but I have to this for me, too.” He paused, and me being me, I pushed. “And?”

“And I won’t be seeing you later. I’ve been watching you fall apart this week, little by little. You’re going to need more than a day to think things over. And I don’t want to date you, or try to make love to you, not if your still undecided about Jake. I love you, but I am not going to sit around hoping, either.”

And I knew from his eyes, that he did love me, in his way, a way I was still learning about, and that that was why he was making his own stance in this.

He took me by my upper arms and leaning in kissed me. The kiss was tender yet had held pent up passion within it.

“When you know what you want and who you want, call me. Until then, boss, I am taking a little vacation. I haven’t seen the rents for a while, and they have been asking me to visit. Call me if or when you want me back.”

He gave me a little hug and released me.

“Dean, I love you.”

“Yeah, but your confused. I’m not. Anyway, my dad needs help with his store. He lost his main staff foreman last week. All you have to do to have me back is call me and let me know what you’ve decided. You have my number.”

Dean stepped into me and kissed me, long, lovingly, and tenderly, and for a moment I let myself love him.

“I love you, Dan. I hope you figure it out.”

He turned then, and without a backward look, left me to duck back into the spa.

I stood there, naked. I never bothered to wear anything when going from my office to get a massage anymore, not in the courtyard around the pool of my own gay guest house hotel, anyway.

Men around the courtyard pool waved or said hi to me, eyes looking down to my package. I stopped to greet this guy or that one, but the greetings were short, if pleasant, I guess, because I don’t recall anyone in particular. My mind was too full of all the tangles I was in.

In the penthouse suite I had taken over a week ago, I pulled on some stretch cotton grey shorts and a blue jersey, tucked my feet into canvas deck shoes, and headed out. The Grill kept a tab on me I paid each month, by agreement with the owners, so I didn’t need my wallet. Hated wearing a money belt and it was a hot day, and I didn’t feel like jeans.

Heading out of the hotel, I called Alex, who agreed to meet me.

Yes, I know what you're thinking. I couldn’t talk to Dean, but I could talk with Alex. Too much of what I had to say might be about Dean, but I still trusted my bestie and after a week, I really needed to get stuff off my chest.

The Grill had a rooftop cabana and tables. I was given my usual corner table, sort of obscured behind a potted Japanese Maple, and Alex, my bestie, knew where to find me.

He appeared, wearing old, ripped jeans, a sky-blue t shirt, and a smile that was not quite the usual dimpled brilliant smile I was used to seeing.

He came and bending, kissed me. Our tongues met and tangled, and, despite my mood, my cock stirred in my shorts, reminding me that Alex was now more than just a best friend. He had become a lover, too. My brain might think of him as a best friend, only, though my emotions and my body seemed to think he was much more. I cleared my throat and patted the seat beside me for him to sit.

“Alex, I’ve been wanting to tell you something, since that dinner party a week ago.”

Alex sat down beside me, one hand going right to my thigh, his knee pressing against mine, looking up with a dimpled brilliant Alex smile at a cute new waiter, who seeing Alex arrive, appeared to take our drink orders. Alex and I both ordered iced teas, unsweetened with a lemon slice. Then Alex turned back to me, and his right hand moved up my thigh to press against my cock through my stretch cotton shorts. Light as the material was, it felt good, and my legs parted a bit.

Even though he was stirring me up, I shook my head at him. “Alex, what I wanted to tell you was that I apologize. I am sorry for what I said. Your no homewrecker. You’re my best friend and more, and I was only too ready to do more with you then just meet and talk and maybe cuddle. I wanted what we now have,” I told him. I’ve wanted it for a long time.”

Alex smiled wide, his perfect teeth gleaming in a gorgeous smile that melted my heart. He was my beautiful golden sexy angel, and I wanted him to know he could never do anything wrong in my eyes. “It wasn’t your fault, what is happening with Jake and me.”

Alex hugged me from his seat, and I hugged him back. This ended in a little more kissing, and that ended with me getting harder in shorts that were not the least bit concealing. Then again, this being a mostly gay clientele restaurant, the only patrons around us were men, and no one seemed to mind. Eventually we let go and sat back.

“What of Dean and, and Patrick, and what of Jake?” He asked. “You still love Jake. I know you do.”

I took a sip of my iced tea, thinking. “One thing I value about you, Alex, is that you’re the best listener in the world.”

Alex just smiled, listening, proving my point, right?

I want you to know I love you and always want you in my life. I just have to figure out how all this fits, and I am really tangled up right now.”

Alex nodded after a moment and just smiled, though he rubbed my right thigh slowly, which though it continued to keep me hard, I found the rubbing incredibly comforting at the same time and wasn’t about to stop it.

I drank some iced tea, trying to sort things out. One thing, I was confirming to myself. While I could not spill my guts to Dean, I could with Alex. My love for Dean was different than what I felt for Jake, and very different from what I felt for Alex. As for Patrick, no, I didn’t know him well enough for love, though I did find him incredibly hot. I decided to deal with that first.

“Patrick, I don’t love. He is beautiful, hot, sexy as hell, but he is also way too mysterious. I don’t know who Patrick is, do you? I mean he has been your room mate for a month now, in our house, and I still don’t really know him.”

Alex cocked his head and then nodded. “I don’t really either, but he is really nice, and so fucking hot, and really, really, great in bed.” Alex ended with a lip parted look of remembered lust flushing his gorgeous face.

I had to laugh at Alex’s expression. That’s my Alex. Hold nothing back. “So, tell me. I saw the way you kept staring at Mike. What's going on there?”

Alex blushed. “Oh gawd, is it that noticeable?”

I gave Alex a dry look. “Alex, you’ve always had a thing for big dicks. Jake’s whopper has always had you in lust. You’ve been drooling over him since you met him. Then you saw Mike’s huge cock, and it’s like you can’t get enough of it.”

Alex looked off in the distance and his eyes dilated. I pressed him. “You’re thinking about that foot long sub right now, aren’t you?”

“It's not THAT thick.” Alex said, rolling his eyes, but he couldn’t help giggling.

“Alex, this is a mess, and I have to clean it up. I have to get some order back in my life. I need to know where you sit on this, and not just about you sitting on Mike’s big pole.” We both broke up at that one, and I felt better. It was good to be able to laugh again, even if for the moment.

The waiter was back for our orders. Both of us ordered a cobb salad though I asked for spinach and kale mixed in, while Alex wanted iceberg lettuce for his.

The waiter smiled and took our orders. He was a hot kid, wearing the usual black spandex shorts with mesh crop top that was the Grill’s waiter uniform. He had a great ass, really jutting out and curved like two melons that… STOP LOOKING AND CONCENTRATE!

I closed my eyes, searching for equilibrium. It was getting hard to do with Alex oh so casually, still sliding his free hand up my thigh to my hard on stretched shorts.

Looking up I realized there was a hot young man with three other guys at a table about fifteen feet from us. He was looking at Alex's hand where it teased me. His lips parted and he licked his upper lip before his eyes rose to gaze into mine. Mmm, yummy. I opened my legs and slouched back a little more, inviting him to look and we smiled at each other. His smile back was furtive, so I had a strong feeling one of the three other guys had to be his BF. Mmm, dammit, I needed to concentrate on the conversation. After a moment, of focusing on my salad, I pushed on.“So, first. Patrick is off limits to me.” I said, “but I still have to decide between you and Dean, and Jake. Dean let me know that until I know if I am ending it with Jake, Dean and I won’t romance or date. In fact, he’s decided to take a vacation and go see his parents for a while. That leaves you and Jake, Alex.”

Alex smiled, but then his smile faded. “Why do I get the feeling there is more to this?”

I had to laugh. “Because there is. If you and I are going to be more then besties, I don’t want to find you with Mike every time I turn around, and I am not sure you have the strength to resist that guy.”

Alex flushed, toyed with his salad and then changed the subject. “What about you and Jake?”

I winced. “Ah, and that is number one mess to fix, isn’t it?”

“Pretty much,” Alex said a little dryly.

Well, he had me there. “Touche.”

Alex just looked at me for a minute or two. I could feel him doing that, though I didn’t look back and tried to concentrate on the salad.

Finally, he broke the silence. “Ok, maybe I need to help clear your air for you. Number one, I love you, Dan. I love you a lot more than just being your best friend. I love everything about you.” Alex leaned over and kissed me, and I kissed him back, feeling my lust for him grow. Then he broke our kiss and said, “I could try a monogamous relationship with you, if you decided all you wanted was me, but you know me too well and it wouldn’t be easy for me.”

I sighed at that, and he continued. “But you need to know that if you want Dean or to keep Jake, though I like them both, I really like Jake. Dean is ok, but he doesn’t really get me all excited like Jake does."

We shared a grin, but then he said, "Mike?”

I looked at Alex and noticed his beautiful topaz blue eyes were a little glazed as he looked off into space. I wanted to roll my eyes.

Alex went on. “Well, Mike is a passing fancy. I have a feeling with Mike that I would always be chasing that big dick, never sure he was ready to have a life together, and, somewhere, I guess I really do want to settle down with one man.”

Well, that final admission was pretty astonishing. Alex said that? Wow!

He ignored my reaction and said, "since you're not sure what you want, I will tell you what I want. I want you and Jake and me together. I don’t love him like I love you, but he’s a close second and I want to know him better." He paused. "If you want to be with Dean and not Jake, I want to go with you. But though I like Dean, I don’t love him, so having a smooth running Throuple with him would be awkward at best. I mean, what if he doesn't want me in that picture?" Alex looked at me and then said, "But whatever else, I just want you to be happy.” Alex sighed, and turned to his salad, digging in.

Wow, I was impressed. Alex always hit me as free spirited, completely opposed to long term commitments. But here he was offering a different view of himself. What he said made me think of Jake. Jake and I had always been lovers first, friends as a side thing. Alex and me, friends first, with lovers becoming a new addiction.

Something Jake had said came back to me. Three ways, Throuples, were complicated. God, I just had to look at the dinner to see some of that complication. Of course, we had just jumped from a slightly out of control couple relationship into a six-way dinner party-orgy. We really had skipped right over trying an actual Throuple. What the hell were we thinking? No wonder it had blown up in our faces!

“Jake likes to watch.” I blurted after a few minutes.

“What?”

“I said Jake likes to watch. He said that. He said he likes to be cucked. I didn’t really think about it, but I am wondering if he didn’t quietly sneak up on us and peek through the bath door to watch our massages. You know he can move silently as a cat when he wants too. He said he knew what we were doing before I admitted it to him. But it also made him hot, so I don’t think you sharing in my relationship with Jake would be all that terrible for him. Not now, anyway. Not if we did it right. The key for Jake would be me giving up Dean. So that’s what I have to figure out.”

“All right,” Alex said, with a fork full of salad poised at his sensual mouth. Then he pressed me. “All right, what do you love about Dean?”

“Alex,” I began to protest. I wasn't quite ready for that yet...

“No really you need to get this organized, Dan. The answer is right here. I am not here to give you my opinion, but what are besties for if not to help their bestie make up their own mind?”

I sighed and chuckled. “That’s why I love you. OK, Dean. Hmm, ok, I love that he is romantic. He has a beautiful singing voice, by the way, I keep telling him he should develop that, but, sorry, anyway, he will light candles by our bed, soft music, and every night after work before I went home to Jake, he would seduce me, almost like new every time. I never got tired of it. And the closer I got to him, the more addicted to those nights I became. We sometimes put on slow ballads and danced, you know, couples dancing. It always ended up in bed, but that was so hot.”

“Which was why you started coming home later and later.”

I felt myself flushing. “Yes. I feel like such a slut.” I couldn’t help but think of how badly I had cheated on Jake.

Alex shook his head. “You weren’t,” he paused and said, “Well not a big slut, just a little one, maybe.”

“Gee thanks.”

Alex waved that away and went on. “But I think Jake saw that, and it was really frustrating that he wouldn’t say a word about it, not couldn’t, but wouldn’t. What held him back?”

I just shook my head, wondering that one, myself.

“Dean is a little possessive. You like that, don’t you?”

I had to think about that for a moment, then shook my head. “Sometimes maybe, but only in the moment, like when someone flirts with me and he puts an arm around me or claims me right then. But I don’t like feeling guilty because someone is jealous or hurt. It's like when I told Jake I loved Dean, I could see it hurt him. Its why I didn’t want to tell him.”

I grunted with frustration and went on. “But I should have from the start. He needed to know, and he deserved the truth. He always told ME the truth, right?”

Alex was silent for a bit, but then he just nodded. But I could tell he was thinking.

So was I. I was thinking hard, as I ate my salad, going over the last week.

That first night away from my husband, I slept in my office in the arms of Dean while Mike and Alex went off to the room, I had reserved for them.

The second night, I took a new suite, number 300, the executive penthouse Suite for myself as my new apartment. I’d always been tempted to do that, anyway, since I bought the hotel. The penthouse suite had its own roof top whirlpool for eight and hot tub for four, and I had had added a vine covered trellis that separated my part of the rooftop from the areas used by residents, so my penthouse rooftop deck had privacy.

The suite was well appointed, so I only had to bring over my clothes from the house I had been sharing with Jake. I had waited till I knew he was at work and cleared that place out. It hadn’t taken long.

That house itself was Jakes, as was most of what was in it. I didn’t mind. I had insisted on paying half the mortgage, and now, I wouldn’t have to, so it was an ok trade off.

Since then, Jake and I hadn’t spoken, not even to text message.

“Do you think you and Jake could go back to a monogamous relationship?” Alex asked me after we’d pretty much demolished our salads and were waiting for the bill.

I thought about that. I thought about Jake and then I said, “I doubt it. And that’s a very good question. Do you think we, meaning you and I, could become just besties again?”

Alex’s brows crooked up at the middle. “I guess. I wouldn’t want to. I love you. I love sex with you, making love to you, Dan. But if that’s what you want…”

“No. That’s not what I want.”

“Well, if Jake would accept us both back in his life, but Dean won’t… Is Dean the monogamous type?” Alex asked back.

I had to gape in surprise. “I haven’t even asked him. I guess, being with Jake and all, and clearly, demonstrably not being monogamous myself, at this point, I didn’t have the standing to even think of asking him,” I said with a snort.

Alex gave me an exasperated look. “Ok, you love three guys, me, Dean and Jake. However, you want monogamy but, you don’t really think you ARE monogamous, or could be, though you've been a bit of a slut, but you want monogamy, or at least, I guess with Jake or Dean, but with me added in for spice.” Alex gave me a saucy smirk and ran his hand over my bulge right there under our table. “Can you really handle that?"

Since by this point my eyes were nearly crossed from confusion, I just looked at him.

"Well, could you handle that, Jake, or Dean with me?"

I asked back, “Can you?”

Alex shot right back, and with a bit more fire than I was used to seeing out of my angel. “Can YOU?”

Shit, he HAD asked first. Oh well, I think I knew the answer, but I would have to talk with someone else, first. "I guess I better call Jake."

Alex gave me a huge smile. "Well, yay!"

In the end I chickened out and texted him.