Session two.
"I'd like to make a complaint," Joe said. "My wife is now asking my lover to have a three-way with me, and I'd like her to cease and desist."
"Oh, God," Lauren groaned, hiding her face in her hands. "I told her not to tell you, I was just throwing out ideas for how we could get close again."
"I'm not interested," Joe said, "so get that out of your head. You know what my condition is for us getting close again."
"Time out!" Penny Watson shouted, making the T with her hands. "What the hell are you both talking about?"
"On Monday, I called Joanie to check into something for me as a police officer," Lauren said, peeking out between her hands. "Joanie asked how the house hunting with Rachel and Al was going. That got us on to you and me," she said, turning to Joe. "I was trying to even the score, you know, with our relationships."
"This isn't a f... this isn't a game," he said, catching himself before using profanity, remembering Penny's admonition from last time. "I don't care about how many you've had or I've had. This is about trust, and my issue with Al isn't that you've had him and that I haven't had another woman in compensation." He shook his head in disgust. "Jesus, both you and Rachel now have offered this--"
"Rachel?" Lauren asked, surprised. "When did she offer this?" She really didn't want to talk about her ill-fated conversation with Joanie on Monday, but this revelation made her curious. Rachel had never told her she'd offered Joe anything.
He grunted in frustration. "Oh, you know, back in August, before I moved out. We were driving together to Barnet Marine Park to meet the police and get Logan back. She'd just confessed to me that the three of you had been together, and thought I might feel better if I did something similar, even offering herself to me in whatever way I wanted, either threesome or one on one. This is how much she loves you, Lauren, that she's willing to offer herself to me to keep me with you, as f... as screwed up as that logic is."
Lauren felt sick to her stomach. This was not how she'd envisioned starting this session today, which she'd booked earlier in the week to keep the momentum going, because she'd thought the last one had gone so well. "I never asked her to do anything of the sort," she said. "I wouldn't even want that."
"Oh, you don't want her being with me?" Joe asked, with a kind of triumphant smugness that made Lauren hate him a little. "Maybe that'd be wrong? Like you being with him?"
"No, it's just... okay, maybe it's a little like that... but what I really wouldn't want is her offering herself to you out of some duty to me. Good Lord, that's about the very last reason she should be having sex with you."
Joe harrumphed and said, "The way she framed it, I don't think she would have considered it a terrible imposition. Our time together out there in the wilderness still resonated with her, as evidenced by that and other conversations we've had out of your hearing."
Lauren felt gut punched. It was hard for her to breathe at the moment. "Why are you saying these things?" she asked, feeling tears in her eyes. "Is it your intention to hurt me?"
"You're asking that as if it was a picnic listening to you last week, talking about how you suddenly couldn't keep your hands off Al, and discovering I was an unwitting participant in those shows. Did you think I wasn't hurt?"
"I don't know..." she said weakly. "I was just explaining how it all came about. You asked me why I could do what I did when I was supposed to love you. I was honest. I'm sorry I hurt you, that wasn't my intention."
"No, of course it wasn't," Joe growled. "That's what's so infuriating about all of this. You never mean to hurt anybody, because you don't think of anybody when you go after what you want. You just think that, because you're so damned cute, no one will deny you anything, no matter the pain it causes them."
Lauren's mouth opened and closed, but she couldn't form words.
Penny chose that moment to get a word in. "Let's both step back from the ledge here, because I have a feeling you're perilously close to falling over. When we use phrases like 'you always,' and, 'you never,' it's like offering a bald cliff face to climb. Our partner can't find a handhold, making it impossible to scale."
Joe sighed in frustration and sat back in the couch they shared, crossing his arms. Lauren grabbed a tissue and dabbed at her eyes.
"I want to try to unpack everything that's been said so far," Penny said. "First of all, Joe, you opened by complaining to me as if I have any power to enforce rules in your relationship. I'm just a facilitator for the work the two of you are doing. It's up to the two of you to make and enforce your own rules. You seemed to be doing a pretty good job until recently."
"Until Al," Joe said. "We always come back to Al."
"We'll get back to that. I want to talk now about the solution you proposed to Joanie, Lauren. You proposed a threesome with Joe and Joanie?"
"I know, it sounds so stupid now," Lauren groaned.
"I don't make value judgements about one course of action or another," Penny said. "If it works for the both of you, I don't rule anything out. What I'd like to know is why you thought it might have been a desirable option for them."
Lauren shrugged. "I guess I thought by showing him I could cooperate with him and his lover, I could open a path for him to cooperate with me and my lover."
"And that lover is Rachel, not Al," Joe said. "And like I said, I wasn't interested."
"Regardless," Lauren went on, "what I wanted to do was invite you in. I never intended for you to be left out."
"Why didn't you invite me in at the start, then?"
"Frankly? Because I knew this was how you'd be. You know what I'd like to try sometime, but I know you'd never go for? You on one end, Al on the other."
Penny blushed and pulled at her collar; it looked like Lauren was turning her on again. Joe just threw his hands up in frustration. "Do you even hear yourself? I don't even recognize you anymore! And you're still fantasizing about Al!"
"I noticed that too," Penny said. "I thought we agreed last time that if Joe came back, he had to be the only man in your life."
Lauren closed her eyes and put her face in her hands. "I'm sorry," she whined. "I can't just turn it off! I can't go from wanting him to not wanting him in the time it takes for them to move out. And why do you get to be the only man in my life when I'm not the only woman in yours?"
"It's what we agreed on," Joe said. "You let me have Joanie because you had Rachel."
"The gender balance is out of whack," Lauren grumbled. "If I were to just have Rachel, then you'd have to have another man, not another woman."
"I don't swing that way," Joe said.
"A lover is a lover," Penny said. "I think I have to side with Joe, here. Unless you want to renegotiate it the way you see it balancing out, and drop Rachel in favour of Al..."
"No!" they both said at the same time.
Penny blinked in surprise and smiled. "Well, well, well, something both of you agree on, at last."
"I don't want to lose Rachel," Lauren said, "and there's no way she'd ever let me have her husband without her having me too. It only worked up to now because she had me way more often than Al did."
"And I bet you wanted him more because you couldn't have him as much," Joe grumbled.
Lauren bowed her head. She didn't want to lie anymore, but she didn't want to keep hurting him, either.
"Why does it have to be him?!" Joe asked.
Lauren looked up at him and asked, "Would you have been less offended if it was a different man?"
"No, of course not! I'd want to kill any man who lays his hands on you. But why him?" Now he just sounded petulant. "He's so... unworthy of you!"
"Can you explain that, Joe?" Penny asked.
Joe shrugged sullenly. "Lauren, you're just... so fierce, so strong, so smart; I've known this since we were kids. Al is just... a wimp. He's soft. What Rachel sees in him I don't know, but at least she was free to be with him. You weren't."
Lauren felt a warmth bloom in her chest, and she let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. Joe still felt highly about her. That was something, wasn't it? Maybe esteem could lead him back to love?
"Joe..." she began, and took his hands again. They were like paws, but she enfolded them as best she could. "I don't know where this disdain for your friend came from. He might not be as physically strong as you are, but he's brave in his own way. We talked about how it all started last week, right? I'm as surprised as you are that I became drawn to him. Maybe it was because he was safe."
"Safe how?" Penny asked.
"He was already married, and he won't ever leave Rachel, and I don't ever want him to. We're not in love; I mean, we love each other as good friends do, but we never say I love you, not like Rachel and I say I love you. You're the only man I would ever say I love you to." She said this last looking up at Joe.
Joe breathed hard, like a bull getting ready to charge. "Well, good for you," he said, "because I've already told Joanie I love her."
Lauren gasped and pulled her hands away. She leaped off the couch and put her hands over her mouth to stop herself from screaming.
"Lauren?" Penny asked, getting up from her chair and putting a hand on her arm. "Are you okay?"
She shook her head over and over again. She couldn't look at Joe. Sometimes her eyes landed on him when they flitted around the room, and when they did they saw him looking miserably down at the floor, but she couldn't rest her eyes on him for long, because it was like looking at the sun.
"Would you like a glass of water?" Penny asked. She was trying, at least.
Lauren shook her head. "You want to know why I also like fucking Al?" she spat. "Because when he's on top of me he doesn't smother me like you would. I bet you never have that problem with Joanie, since she's more your size. Is that why you fell for her the first time you met her?"
Joe said nothing, and Penny said, "Why don't we all calm down, maybe you can sit in this chair over here if you don't want to sit together."
"Nope, sorry, not interested, I'm done."
"Oh, you're done?!" Joe suddenly roared, standing from the couch so fast that Penny leapt back in alarm.
"Yeah, Joe, I'm done!" Lauren shouted back, refusing to be intimidated. "As soon as you said you loved her that was it! That was never part of our arrangement!"
"Neither was Al!"
"Have fun living at Joanie's forever!" Lauren shouted, and stormed out of the room.
She stumbled blindly to the parking lot, her vision blurred by tears as she sobbed uncontrollably. She unlocked the Highlander and climbed inside. She pulled out her phone and looked at her contacts, unable to decide whom she wanted to call. She needed to talk to someone.
Before she could decide, her phone rang in her hand. It was Sunny. Shit. He was not on the list of people she wanted to talk to right now, but his name on her screen was like a bucket of cold water in her face, snapping her out of her spiral of grief and shame, and she got herself together, sniffed loudly, wiped her eyes, and answered. "Hello?"
"Hey, Lauren, it's Sunny."
"Hey, Sunny!" she said a bit too brightly. "What's up?"
"Are you okay? You sound like you have a cold."
"I'm fine. Maybe just allergies."
"Oh, wait, you weren't in the middle of something, were you? At the marriage counsellor?"
"Nope! I'm free, what's up?"
"Well, I wanted to let you know we're going to Birinder's house tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? Oh, shit, I'm working. Hm. What time?"
"Dinner. Are you working all day?"
"Well, you never know what might come up. I might have to run out to cover someone on surveillance. I'll try to get back in time."
"It's okay if you can't get out there, but I was hoping you might have time today to coach me like you said you wanted to, because I'm starting to feel a bit nervous about this now."
To Lauren's surprise, she found herself chuckling, the sound of it wet through her runny nose. "Aw, do you need me to hold your hand?" she asked.
"Maybe, yeah." She could hear the smile in his voice, and it cheered her up.
"Okay, how about I come by for a meeting later today, we can go over our files and I can give you some pointers for tomorrow, just in case I can't be there. But we'll make sure someone from the LSDC is there, okay? Even just to keep an eye on the house while you're inside."
"What about the kids?"
"They can look after themselves for a couple of hours. Maybe Logan can delay going out with his friends and babysit until we come back."
"Thanks, Lauren, that does make me feel better. Oh, by the way, Jordan got back to me, and he gave me his address and phone number."
"Fantastic, you can give me that when I come by."
"Great. See you soon. After lunch? I'm pretty clear then."
"Yes. See you then."
Just as Lauren hung up, she was startled by a tapping on the driver's side window. She gasped and nearly dropped her phone, then looked and saw Joe standing there, his shoulders slumped, his cheeks wet with tears.
She stared at him through the window, and he stared back, neither of them saying anything, Joe looking as desolate as she felt.
Finally, she sighed, opened the door and stepped out of the car. "What is it?" she asked.
"Penny said there was still time left in our session," he said. "She asked me to go see if you left yet, and if you hadn't, to ask you to come back."
"I haven't left yet," she said, "because I was on the phone."
"Yeah, I watched you through the window."
"I didn't call Al, if you were wondering. Sunny called."
She could tell he did think she called Al, because he blinked in surprise. "Oh! What did he want?"
"You know how I told you on Sunday that we went to that Open House while you took the kids to church?" she asked. Joe nodded. "So, the husband, Birinder, talked to Sunny on Wednesday while Sunny was campaigning, and invited him to dinner tomorrow."
Joe's brow furrowed. "Really?"
"Yeah, so he's taking Tej and the kids over, and he's going to have a snoop."
Joe grimaced and said, "What does he think he's going to find? A body in the basement?"
"Who knows?" Lauren said, shrugging. "I'm sure he won't find anything like that, but maybe he'll find some other clue that'll give us some insights into this whole situation."
"If there's even a situation," Joe said. "There could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this."
"Well, in case there isn't, at least one of us will be down there too, to check out the neighbourhood and make sure there are no surprises."
Joe stared at her open-mouthed. "You're serious, aren't you."
"Yeah. A friend of ours is going into an uncertain situation. A stranger's house, and possible foul play in relation to a woman's disappearance. At the very least someone should be outside the house ready to call the cops."
Joe stared at her a moment longer and then nodded. "You're right. That makes perfect sense."
Lauren blinked in surprise. "Thank you."
"And if you need us, we'll be there too."
We. Meaning him and Joanie. Still, it was a nice gesture. "Thank you, Joe, that means a lot to me, and it will mean a lot to Sunny, too, because he's kind of nervous about this, and it always feels good to know you have backup."
They stared at each other for another minute before Lauren asked, "Do you want me to go back?"
He nodded, and Lauren was shocked to see his face crumple. "When you said forever, it scared the hell out of me," he said through gasping sobs. "I had to see if you really meant it."
Now Lauren was crying. "You said you love her," she squeaked. "What am I supposed to do with that?"
"I'm sorry," he blubbered, then took a moment to compose himself. "It was something we swore we'd never say in front of you. We only say it when we're at her place. I only told you because I was so angry about your bloody justification about Al, as if not being in love with him is supposed to make it all okay."
"So, me cheating with my body is equal to you cheating with your heart?"
"I think it is, if you're feeling how I feel now."
"But you have more to fear with Rachel than with Al. Rachel I do love."
"Yeah, yeah, it's fucking love, I've heard it before," Joe said in frustration. "But I can't stop thinking about him being inside you. It's driving me crazy."
"And I'm supposed to be okay with you being inside Joanie?"
Joe sighed in frustration. "I feel like we're going in circles. We're arguing about the same thing over and over again."
She reached out and took his hand. "Would it help if I told you I prefer your cock to his?"
He harrumphed, but he couldn't completely hide the curl of a smile on the edge of his mouth. "If that were all that mattered, though, you wouldn't have given him the time of day."
She sighed in resignation and said, "I guess not. Would it help if I told you I never stopped wanting you, even now? That I want to feel you inside me, right now?"
"Lauren," he groaned. "No. You can't make everything okay with sex. Besides, we're in a parking lot."
Lauren shrugged. "We can put the seats down in the Highlander."
"Babe, you know we've never done it in a car, I'm just too big for that to be comfortable."
"We can go somewhere." Lauren gasped. "We can go home! We're not far away, and the kids are in school."
He threw off her hand. "As much as it kills me, because I still want you too, I can't, not yet. This can't be fixed with frenzied lovemaking, which is what I'm sure it would be if we went back home. We need to go back in that room with Penny and do the work."
Her lip quivered, and she quickly wiped a tear from her eye. "Okay. I just... I feel like if you're not touching me soon, you're just going to be okay with only touching her, and I'm going to lose you forever, since you already love her."
He placed a hand on her cheek and caught another tear on his finger. "When you stormed out of that room, I thought I'd lost you forever, and that scared me worse than anything ever did, worse than Dad getting sick, worse than seeing that bastard spike your drink, worse even than knowing you and Joanie were in the middle of a gun battle and she was shot. You're not going to lose me, babe, but fixing us isn't going to be like flipping a switch. Come on, let's go back."
She placed a hand on the hand on her cheek and kissed it, and he smelled like he always did, fresh cut wood and sweat. She couldn't help it, she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face into his chest, inhaling deeply of him. She didn't know how much she could miss his scent, on the sheets, in the car. This was so hard...
Suddenly she was off the ground, and he was lifting her to him, just like he used to, and she clung to him like a vine, legs locked around his waist, and his mouth was hot on hers, and he stumbled a little as his legs quivered with lust. She ran her hands through his thick auburn hair and grabbed and pulled, making him hiss in pain, and she breathed him in, her tongue trapping his and holding it prisoner.
They stayed like this for a glorious minute before Joe unlocked and said, "Okay. That's enough. That was nice but we need to go back to Penny now. She's going to wonder what happened to us."
Heart pounding in her throat, she grinned at him and said, "Consider that a down payment on what I have in store for you when you finally come home. Now, carry me back to Penny's office."
He did, but first she locked the Highlander with her fob as she hung from him, back in his arms at last, feeling safer than she had in months, since before he left, even, and she was too happy to care how many people in the hallways cast them questioning looks as they passed; he'd told her she wouldn't lose him, and she believed him, and that was her stepping stone to help her see over the wall of betrayal, heartbreak and bitterness that had developed over the past few months, to a brighter future that saw him coming home.
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To see what advice Lauren gives Sunny in his office, hit "Continue reading."
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