"What's the consensus on roleplay?" Micah asked over Wednesday brunch. It was an inevitable question given that Micah had woken up with morning wood three days in a row with vague recollections of dreams where he ravages Alistair in varying degrees of fantasy. In a gym locker room, on the floor behind a bar at a party, the back of a taxi.

None of these were new fantasies to him. He often wondered what he could get away with in public (not that he'd ever found a partner to engage with such ideas), but public sex wasn't roleplaying.

It was only roleplaying because in Micah's dreams, they were strangers. Alistair was his trainer at the gym. Alistair was the bartender making eyes at Micah all night. Alistair was the Wall Street business man intruding on Micah's Uber and telling the driver to step on it.

But roleplaying fantasies weren't exactly a common topic for their Wednesday brunches in between 8AM and afternoon classes. Kennedy choked on her croissant.

"What do you mean?" Benny asked to fill in the not-quite-silence of Kennedy coughing into her napkin and rousing suspicion from the table over.

Micah realized now why he'd never thought about roleplaying or domming. He didn't know how to talk about it without sounding inexperienced, and he quite liked showing his experience.

"I just—I mean, have you ever roleplayed before?"

"Yeah," Benny said, and then looked to Kennedy.

Rather than answer, Kennedy, now recovered, turned to Micah and said, "Are you telling us you've never roleplayed?"

"What!" Benny cried. "Dude, that's, like, basics. I thought you were past basics."

Irritation itched at Micah's brow. He scratched it and, scowling at his coffee, said, "Yeah, me too. Now I know why I don't fuck older guys."

Benny opened his mouth as if to scream, but merely stared at Micah.

Kennedy snorted. "And why's that."

"I prefer being the more experienced one."

Benny shut his mouth. "This is about Alistair."

Kennedy's sharp laugh called Micah into question. "Yeah, right," she said, but one look at Micah confirmed Benny's suspicions. "Wait, what. Your first time ever roleplaying was with that guy?"

"'That guy'? I thought we liked him," Benny said.

Micah rolled his eyes. "I didn't roleplay with him. He just told me about the play he did before the Halloween party. Anyway, none of you are answering my question: what's the consensus?"

"Yes. Immediate yes," Benny said in lieu of Kennedy's silence on the matter. Before Micah could cross his arms and properly laugh, Benny went on. "I'm serious. Dude, roleplaying is essential."

"Yeah, and lemme guess. Your favorite role to play is the doting husband saying, 'Honey, I'm home!' and your wife's in, like, a maid costume with bread in the oven—no pun intended."

Benny's puffed-out cheeks turned pink with indignation. "So what if it is! What's your role, then?"

"I don't know, because I've never fucking done it apparently."

"Kennedy, what about that scene you did last week with the sex goddess?"

Despite the gender being flipped, alarm bells were ringing. He stared at Kennedy, her blush and tightly cinched lips, and tried to remember what lipstick color Daphne wore.

She was staring at him.

"The sex what," Micah said.

It took a second for any of them to speak. Micah, speechless; Kennedy, embarrassed; and Benny, oblivious.

When Kennedy caved, she did so with a rage and a fit. She threw her napkin down and said, "Well, I dunno!"

"Kennedy, I thought you were a lesbian."

"I mean, I fucked you two, didn't I?"

Micah's throat was tight as he barely contained a scream. "Yeah, and the next morning you said, and I quote, 'Yeah, I think I like girls more.'"

"More. I didn't say only."

Micah gestured to Benny, who was staring between them in a complete tizzy. "You told him about the roleplay sex god? Why would you switch the gender?!"

"B-Because, I mean, I haven't slept with a guy since our threesome!" she said.

Micah put his head in his hands and groaned. The tension headache was coming on. His foot tapped irritably on the ground as Kennedy turned to Benny.

With a dejected sigh, she slumped in her chair, flopped an arm down, and said, "It's Alistair. Alistair's the sex god I told you about."

Benny's entire face turned the distinct color of a tomato within seconds. "Foul! And I even told you the whole thing sounded hot as fuck!"

"I know. I deceived you..."

Benny dragged his hands down the sides of his face and let out a, "Hooo boy... Now that's even hotter."

"You—! Animal! Animal!" Kennedy started swatting him with her napkin.

Benny caught the napkin and tore it out of her range. "Why would you lie about that?"

"More importantly: Why would you even want to have sex with Alistair?" Micah said.

"I felt like the odd man out! I needed to see it for myself."

Before Micah could react, Benny was shrieking, "Odd man out! That's my brother! I've never slept with him!"

Kennedy shushed him, waving her hand for them all to lower the volume.

"Wait," Micah said. They both turned to him as he jabbed his thumb over his shoulder as if Alistair was sitting behind him and said to Kennedy, "So before the party you got fucking railed by Alistair and then wore platform gogo boots? Are you kidding me?"

At this, she snickered. "Yeah, and?"

Benny gave her a discrete high-five under the table.

Kennedy crossed her arms, leant back in her chair, and said, "I'm surprised he told you about it. I get the impression he's a pretty sexually private person."

"Well, it's like HIPPA. I didn't know it was you he was talking about."

"How did this even happen?" Benny asked. "Did you just, like, call him up and say, 'Hey, you up?'"

"No. Nothing like that," she said. She paused to sip her coffee as he and Benny waited, patiently for her to find her words. She pursed her lips, crossed her arms, and said, "I... sort of have a membership. To this club we both go to."

The puzzle pieces were clicking together. "Holy shit," Micah said, "you meant him at a munch."

"Whoa, hey, isn't that offensive? That sounds offensive," Benny said.

"It's not offensive!" Kennedy seethed, mockingly. "It's like what we're doing now, but with a bunch of people from a BDSM club."

"Whoa, cool! Can you get me a membership?" Benny said.

Kennedy deadpanned. "Benny, you aren't into BDSM. You're into vanilla roleplay."

"So you two are, like, in the same club?"

"Don't make it sound like an extracurricular activity, alright? This isn't yearbook."

"I don't know how else to say it."

Kennedy massaged her temples and sighed. "Yes. We're in the same club as the swingers who hosted the Halloween party. Alistair's, like, their shiny new toy. New people who are already experienced are kind of a hot commodity versus... people who are still in etiquette classes and putting 'choke me daddy winky-face' on their Tinder profile."

"Etiquette classes," Micah repeated. "As in...?"

"Most reputable clubs have them and half the time, you can't get into their parties without having passed their classes."

They paused to study one another—Benny and Micah staring at Kennedy, and Kennedy appraising them and lingering heavily on Micah. She clicked her tongue against the back of her teeth and set her glass down.

"Since you're both so interested, now's the time to start attending classes if you wanna get into the New Years party. I figured it was too much effort, but this whole Alistair thing threw me for a loop. So are you gonna, like, be his dom or something?"

"No. What? No."

Benny grinned. "Holy shit. You're so gonna dom my brother."

"I'm not."

"But this is—What, the third time you've fucked him?" Kennedy said.

Micah's heart lurched the moment Benny jumped in his seat. "Third?! When was the second?!"

Kennedy put her fingers over her mouth, appalled at her own faux pas, and took another drink.

"Doesn't matter," Micah said as Benny erupted, "Yes it does!" Micah looked out the window and said, "So Kennedy, are you gonna answer my initial question now that that's all out in the open?"

Kennedy cleared her throat. "Yes, absolutely. Big fan of roleplay. Honestly, I require a lot of foreplay and roleplay does that for me most of the time."

"Really? I'm surprised."

"Why are you surprised."

Benny shrugged.

Kennedy put out her arms in an offended, "What were you gonna say to me?" manner.

Benny shrugged again. "It feels wrong to say it, but you were... you know. Whenever we did it back then."

"Yeah, because newsflash, I'm a self-proclaimed fujoshi so a threesome was, like, a dream of mine. And when it was just you and me, you had this weird habit of giving oral for, like, half an hour straight before doing anything else. Of course I'm gonna be a slip 'n' slide."

"Seriously?" Micah said. "Dude, you can breathe down there for that long?"

Benny's laugh was comically, drunkenly giddy. "Yeah, and it's fucking fantastic."

The table next to them got up and left, and it was then that Micah realized the people were giving them dirty looks. Micah covered his mouth to hide a snicker as Benny cursed under his breath, ducked for cover, and Kennedy openly cackled.

Once properly alone and with their bloody marys refreshed, Micah asked, "And... you and Erika, then. I take it that's not happening since you, oh, I don't know, fucked Alistair."

"No, it's gonna happen. I weighed my options and I knew I was deadly curious about his dick and now I know and I don't have to feel bad about it because Erika and I aren't back together yet," she said, took a sip of her bloody, and checked her phone. She tapped the screen, nail clicking, and let out a delighted gasp. She held the notification up for Micah and Benny to see: it was, indeed, Erika. "See!"

Micah's eyes were still on Erika's message, which read, "Tell Micah he's a fucking idiot."

Benny's eyes slid up from the screen to meet Kennedy's gaze. "Respectfully, you're insane."

"Why am I an idiot?" Micah asked, which brought all attention back to Erika's text.

Kennedy tapped open the message to see for herself. She read for several seconds and blocked Micah the moment he leant over to read with her. When she burst into laughter, Micah knew it was bad. That was, without a doubt, Kennedy's yeah-he's-an-idiot laugh.

She tucked her phone squarely away in her purse and said, "Nothing."

"Excuse me?"

"You'll find out eventually," she promised, "but it wouldn't be fun for any of us if you knew now."

"Kennedy, you do realize I possess some level of anxiety," he reminded her, mild panic crackling just under the surface. "This is the worst thing you could do to me."

Benny reached across the table to rub Micah's arm comfortingly. "Aw, wee lamb."

Micah swatted Benny off him and brunch commenced with a sharp and intentional left turn toward Benny's corner of the world. Benny's world, these days, consisted of a followup date with his pole dancing queen from the Halloween party where they were both sober and realized three startling facts: she didn't want children, didn't want to get married, and worst yet of all, she hated the suburbs.

Benny slumped back in his chair as if shot, covered his face with one hand, and pretended to sob as Kennedy comforted him in a baby voice and patted his shoulder.

"Where do I find the 'burb girls!" he cried, pathetically, and looked desperately at Micah, of all people, for help.

"I don't think 'burb girls are in Manhattan, Benny," he said, plainly.

"Yeah... Tell ya what!" Kennedy said, recovering her phone once more. Micah leaned over intentionally to see if he could catch a glimpse of context in any new texts, but Kennedy tilted her phone out of his reach with a suspicious glare. "Holidays are coming up... and nothing says the suburbs like a good ol' fashioned Thanksgiving dinner upstate."

"You're taking Benny to Thanksgiving dinner with your grandparents?" Micah said, unimpressed and highly skeptical. "That sounds horrific. And he can't pick up any chicks if he's fake-dating you."

"Yeah, that won't work," Benny agreed. Kennedy pouted, but continued to scrub through her list of events around that holiday.

She gasped and waved her hand frantically in his direction. "Look! Look here, I declined but I can ask if the invite still stands. Friendsgiving with some girls from my Catholic school days."

Benny was fully onboard until 'Catholic school days' joined the party. "Kennedy, all your Catholic school girl friends have girlfriends without the space, so to speak."

Kennedy crinkled her nose at him and went digging again. "Potgiving with the pottery club? Edibles are also involved."

"I feel like pottery is a lesbian thing, too. Do bi girls do pottery?" Benny asked of Micah, who shrugged.

"I don't see why not," Micah said.

"Honestly, I think pottery is a bi thing," Kennedy argued. "Think about it. Hot shirtless men throwing on the wheel versus hot women in ratty, cutoff tees sticking their thumbs in wet clay and—"

"Cool," Micah said, loudly to diffuse the conversation. "So Benny's going to Potgiving and what am I, chopped liver?"

"You could come, too! It's not like we'll actually be throwing clay."

"I hate pottery enough to avoid people who do it. Who has that kind of patience?"

"Micah, I love you, but sometimes you're a major buzzkill."