Page 16 of Cuffed to my Roomies
The worst part was how confusing it was for me. Because when I first met them, I liked them, the ease of their friendship, how comfortable we all were together. I was attracted to Derek, unsure that Brett even did more than just tolerate me. Then I kissed Brett. Then Derek put his arm around me at the bar, which turned me on so much I went and masturbated in a bathroom stall. After I was mugged, Derek kissed me until I probably couldn’t have remembered my name.
There was no way it would turn out well to get involved with them. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship and our living arrangements. If I pursued anything romantic with one of them it would mean we couldn’t all live together. It would be too awkward. And it could ruin their friendship as well. They were both protective of me, and loyal to each other. They were best friends. I respected that too much to endanger it. In theory. In reality, I was rubbing one out in a public bathroom because I was so hot for them both. Just thinking of them, either or both, made me remember I needed to stop to get more batteries for my rabbit tomorrow. Because those guys had me putting serious miles on my vibrator.
It wasn’t just the way they looked. True, they both could pass for a fantasy brought to life, all lean muscle and work-roughened hands. But they were protective, caring, funny, sensual. Either one was enough to bring a woman to her knees, but the combination of both men in close proximity was practically a sexual powder keg waiting to explode. Or at least I was a sexual powder keg in their presence.
It was baffling that I could be so strongly attracted to two men at once. I’d always been faithful even when it was just a crush. The summer I liked Ron Winslow, when I was seventeen, I wouldn’t even go out on a date when a guy I worked with asked me out, because even though Ron didn’t seem to know I was alive, in my heart I was ‘with’ him and wouldn’t ‘cheat’ with someone else. Who had I become around these two men?
The rare times I was honest with myself, I’d admit that Brett and Derek were sexy enough to make even the most virtuous woman bite her pearls and think filthy things. They were extraordinary, and I was in a unique situation of being close enough to touch, but not letting myself. It was like staring through the window at the yummiest, most tempting cakes and cookies in the world, but being separated by that cold pane of glass from everything you wanted, everything that you knew was bad for you in the long run.
After a few weeks of trying not to ogle them openly, I was ready to break that imaginary window in frustration and start licking things indiscriminately. It didn’t help, in fact it made it worse, that they started checking in on me every night at the bar. If I was working till closing time, you could bet that one or both of them, usually both, were seated at one end of the bar by the time things were winding down. I wasn’t by myself even to walk to the bus stop.
At first, I was both flattered and annoyed. I even suggested that they didn’t trust me to walk two blocks without doing something stupid. But the truth was, they worried about me. Not because women weren’t smart enough to walk alone at night or because my push up bra meant I was asking for the wrong kind of attention. But because it was demonstrably unsafe for me. I’d been mugged, twice. I would walk alone again, and I’d get comfortable doing so. But I wasn’t ready, and neither were they. So I was grateful, and I gave them space to talk about their cases and they didn’t hover around me if a patron flirted with me or anything. They didn’t act like bodyguards or bouncers or those guys at strip clubs who make sure you don’t grope the dancers. I would catch their eye once or twice on my shift, and when I was ready to go, I’d get my jacket, and they would rise as if by mutual consent and follow me out the staff exit.
We’d pile into the pickup, the three of us crowded together on the bench seat waiting for the heater to warm the cab. Some nights I could see my breath in the cold, and those were the nights I was happy to be squished between the two hunky heartthrobs.
“I can take the bus,” I’d say, but even as I said it, I yawned and let my head tip against Derek’s shoulder, “You two are being so silly picking me up like I’m a kid at school.”
