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Joe hasn’t gone this many dates before having sex since high school.
There were kisses, wonderful kisses — Cameron almost as a reflex after lunch, Donna at the corner booth in a bar, Gordon against a parked car before heading home. But, collectively, they have been on five, five, dates and Joe is starting to go a little crazy.
It’s his fault, as most things are. He’s the one who made the mistake — a silly, foolhardy mistake, the kind of thing his head comes up with when a particular combination of wine and romance makes its way up there — of saying, during that first lunch, between bites of overpriced and overcooked pasta, that they should wait to consummate the relationship until all four of them could be present. He just hadn’t realized it would take this long.
But, after many, many, scheduling conflicts, the time is finally here. The girls are sleeping over at a friend’s, Cameron promised to free up her entire night, and they all agreed to not work the next day. It’s a Friday night, they’re on their sixth date, and Joe absolutely cannot sit still.
“If you don’t stop jiggling your leg, I’m gonna stab it,” Cameron exclaims, cutting him off mid sentence, with a menacing shake of her knife.
They’re at a diner-slash-bar, a place Joe picked because a guy he knows said it was cool. And it is, he guesses, cool. The music’s good, the food isn’t half bad, the beer is cold, and the crowd is — so, so young. It makes Joe feel ancient.
“Don’t you feel—,” Gordon starts, picking at the label of his beer, shredding it to bits.
“Old?,” Donna offers, raising an eyebrow.
“So old, Jesus Christ,” Gordon agrees, looking around.
“Oh, please,” Cameron scoffs. “We’re not old.”
“You’re not old,” Gordon counters. “You’re still young, and hip—“
“Hip,” Cameron echoes, choking on a laugh.
“Case in point,” Donna says, nodding towards Gordon.
"Shh, no one’s old,” Joe interrupts, even though he was thinking the same thing mere seconds before. “We’re all young and hip,” he declares, but the word feels silly even to his own ears. “Hip,” he repeats, swallowing a laugh.
Cameron starts laughing again, and then Joe can’t hold back, and the laughter moves through them like dominoes, Donna covering her mouth so they don’t hear her snort, Gordon shaking his head like he knows the joke’s on him.
They laugh for a solid minute, two, maybe more, until the song changes, and a waiter collects their empty bottles, giving Gordon the stink eye because of the tiny little pieces of wet paper strewn on the table, and a girl with blue hair and piercings in places Joe didn’t know could be pierced bumps into his shoulder and makes him spill beer on his shirt.
When the laughter dies down, Joe is buzzing, this low thrum of excitement all through his body. It’s a warmth, a glow, a radiance—it’s love, spreading from his heart through the length of his limbs, making him dizzy with it, his throat hoarse and his cheeks hurting, all of him melting. It’s the feeling ecstasy tries to mimic, the high he only gets from the best pills, and not even from it, maybe. For a fleeting second, Joe thinks he has never felt like this before, even though he knows that can’t be right, that he’s lived some full, delicious, crazy years, that he’s been in love his fair share.
But still.
This. This is something else.
Or maybe he just really, really, really needs to get laid.
Joe slaps a hand on the table, a little too hard, making the little cup of peanuts jump. He’s grinning, wide and stupid, but it’s okay, because, across from him, Donna’s smiling, her face flushed, and Gordon, too, head in his hands like he’s still embarrassed to smile around them. And, out of the corner of his eye, Joe sees Cameron’s smile, that sly little grin tugging at her mouth, like she’s just thinking of the next thing to say and make him laugh.
“Let’s get out of here,” he says, slaps the table again, raises a hand to wave over their waiter.
They leave the bar in a hurry, giddy, giggling, but the logistics of the drive kills the mood a little — they had all driven to the bar separately, so they must leave separately as well, unless they’d rather take just one car and come back the next day to get their cars back, but then someone would have to drive them back all at the same time, so it’s best if they leave separately already, and then reconvene at Gordon’s, if it is Gordon’s they’re going, because it’s closer, but maybe Joe’s place is more comfortable, or Donna’s, or they can go to Cameron’s hotel to luxuriate in the fun of room service, or—
So they park on the street in front of Gordon’s house, one car after the other like a goddamn parade, and race to the door, wait for him to fumble with his keys. They go in, close the door, and then—
Silence, awkwardness, everyone a little stunned to be there, really there, all four of them together in that empty silent house, the night stretching ahead of them.
“Do you guys, huh, want something to drink?,” Gordon offers, moving towards the kitchen and turning on every single light on the way, like a kid terrified of the dark. “There’s beer, and soda, and wine, and all this crap in the bar, and maybe I can fix us up something to eat. Is anyone still hungry?,” he babbles, his voice growing more distant, muffled by the noise of the refrigerator, of cabinet doors, of glasses and bottle openers.
Joe feels the night slipping from his grasp, the certainty he had felt at the bar dissipating in the quiet stale air. Those in-betweens always catch him off-guard, the pockets of time between what he’s done and what he wants to do, that can’t simply be bridged by the sheer power of fantasy.
Cameron, after a beat, has followed Gordon to the kitchen, is saying something Joe can’t quite make out, but he hears the crinkle of plastic, the crunch of chips. Donna, meanwhile, looks even more lost than Joe feels, standing next to him on the foyer, crossing her arms over her chest a little defensively.
He touches her back, a soft, warm touch, open palm between her shoulder blades. It’s meant to be comforting, but she startles at first, before relaxing slightly. He moves his hand up, rubbing the top of her spine, and he feels her give in a little more. Donna shoots him a smile, tight but grateful, and Joe is struck once again by how unbelievably beautiful she is, feels his heart skip a beat like it did when he first saw her, Gordon’s genius of a wife, all those years ago.
Joe takes a step towards her, brings his other hand to her back, rubs her shoulders more purposefully, draws her closer against his chest. She sighs, slowly unfolds her arms, lets her hands fall against her sides, stretches her neck a little, rolling it towards one side, and then the other. Joe feels her skin warm against his hands, rubs harder against the sides of her neck, behind her ears, which earns him a small shudder.
He holds himself back from shuddering as well, his own body quickly shedding the awkwardness and going straight back to the jitters of pent-up desire.
Joe wants to lift Donna in his arms, press her up against the wall, kiss her senseless. But Cameron and Gordon are still in the kitchen, voices and laughter spilling through the hallway, and they’re supposed to do this thing together. There will be time, he hopes; time for pushing Donna agains the wall, other nights of coming home — home — buzzed and, frankly, horny, other walls to kiss her against. There will be time, and just thinking that, believing that, makes him want to laugh again, hope bubbling up his chest like champagne.
So he kisses the top of her head instead, soft, caresses her cheek for a second, says, “Let’s see what they’re up to, huh?,” voice low and light.
Donna nods, heads towards the kitchen with renewed purpose, head held high and firm steps, a hint of her boardroom posturing; in this way, her and Joe were always so similar — this performance of their bodies, knowing how to wield them to garner power, attention, results, how to pretend they aren’t so brittle, always about to break. Cameron and Gordon aren’t like that, he thinks, as he follows close behind and finds them in the kitchen, bent close together over a pack of chips, giggling like stoned high schoolers. They’re both so earnest, hearts on their sleeve and the kind of face that betrays their every thought.
“There you are!,” Cameron exclaims as she sees Joe and Donna arrive, face split into a lopsided smile.
“We were starting to worry you’d forgotten all about us,” Gordon says, deceptively light, through a smile.
“We would never,” Joe says, injecting all the charm he can muster into those two words, eyes going from Gordon to Cameron, to the way they’re leaning on each other, sitting on the counter, his hand on her knee.
“Chips?,” Gordon offers, holding out the plastic bag.
Joe swallows down a string of expletives, tries to come up with a way to say No, forget about the chips, let’s please move this along that won’t sound rude, or whiny.
Donna beats him to it. She strides towards them, two purposeful steps, heels clicking on the floor, and takes the pack of chips from Gordon’s outstretched hand, drops it onto the counter.
“Bedroom. Now,” she says, low and clear, an order if there ever was one.
Gordon fully gulps, like a cartoon character, and Cameron jumps from the counter, looking down, face flushed. Donna turns around, walks right out of the kitchen and down the hall, knowing full well they won’t argue, won’t ever do anything other than exactly what she says.
Joe smirks, feeling a childish kind of glee, like seeing a classmate get scolded for passing notes, but getting away scot-free. As Gordon and Cameron walk past him, he can’t resist adding “You heard the lady.” His bossiness, however, is much less well-received. Cameron snorts and gives him the finger, and Gordon rolls his eyes, calls“Don’t think we won’t start without you” over his shoulder.
“You wouldn’t,” Joe says, mock-offended, but he follows them anyway.
“Oh, we most definitely—,” Gordon starts, and stops abruptly, frozen just inside the doorway of the bedroom.
Joe bumps into him, about to say something, but the words die on the way to his mouth, burnt to a crisp by his brain short-circuiting. If Joe didn’t know Cameron was the smartest of all of them from the moment he first saw her at the back of his class, he would know it then: while him and Gordon bickered, she had been the first to walk into the bedroom, and was duly rewarded.
Cameron and Donna kiss like they have hard-earned practice learning each other’s rhythms, but also like they spent years yearning for it. Both things, Joe realizes, might be true.
Donna has one shoe off, the other still on, and stumbles backwards towards the bed, Cameron holding her upright, one hand on the back of her head, the other on her waist, pushing their bodies flush together. It’s a messy kiss, desperate, but each step, each gesture, is answered in kind, Donna stretching her neck when Cameron pulls back a little, Cameron melting forward when Donna pulls her down with a deft hand to her upper arm.
Joe has never once seen anything as beautiful. And judging by the way Gordon’s voice sounds when he speaks, reverential and full of awe, neither has he.
“Do you think they’ve, you know—” Gordon starts asking, a whisper, as if he doesn’t want to disturb the moment.
“Done this before?,” Joe says. “Yeah. Definitely.”
“Should I be jealous?,” Gordon asks, a distant thread of panic finding its way into his whisper. “It feels like maybe I should worry. I mean, when did—“
And Joe doesn’t mind Gordon’s tendency to overthink things, mostly. He even respects it, sometimes. It’s often useful. But if it ruins this moment, if it holds any of them back, Joe will never, ever, forgive him for it.
So he does the one thing he truly believes can stop a meltdown before it happens: he pushes Gordon forward, turns him around with a hand to his shoulder, and kisses him square on the mouth.
It earns him a sound between a gasp, a yelp and a grunt, like all the words Gordon was about to say crashed and shattered on the back of his throat. For a moment, Gordon flexes his hands at his sides, as if unsure what to do with them, but when Joe deepens the kiss, pushing him forward, he makes up his mind, lifts both hands at once and grabs at Joe’s arms, holding on and pulling him closer.
They have kissed before, but it was quieter, tentative. Now, they kiss fully, not holding back; it’s graceless, unpracticed, all bumping noses and clashing teeth, and as they stumble towards the bed Joe is sure they must look ridiculous. Still, he’s elated, every touch searing, Gordon grabbing hard enough to bruise. At the back of his mind, the part that’s always thinking ahead, escaping the present for the thrill of expectation, he starts a list of things he want to do to Gordon, places he wants to touch. He moves the kiss lower, sloppier, mouthing at Gordon’s jaw, nipping at his neck, and tries to quiet his thoughts, once again reminding himself: There will be time.
Something shifts, blink and you’ll miss it, and he finds himself kissing Cameron, her mouth soft and swollen, her hands frantic in his hair. One more beat, and it’s Donna he’s kissing, at an odd, uncomfortable angle, stretching his neck to reach her, but pinned him place by Gordon on his lap, Cameron’s hand still in his hair.
And then there’s no thinking anymore, Joe’s mind going miraculously, blissfully blank, for what he guesses might be the first time in years, the first time, full stop, and this, fuck, this is all he wants to do, forever. There’s no thinking, because there is nothing but touch, pushing and pulling from all sides, making him feel feverish, woozy, all his movements simultaneously too heavy and too light. There’s no thinking, because there is nothing but—
—three pairs of hands trying to pull off Gordon’s sweater, and if they were thinking, any of them, they’d realize it’s much harder to do than with a single pair of hands, but they’re not thinking, they’re just
—grabbing at Joe’s arms, scratching at Cameron’s back, biting at Donna’s neck, sucking at Gordon’s chest, and
—nearly tumbling off the bed, pants tangled at his ankles, and legs tangled, and arms tangled, shifting and shifting and shifting so they’ll all fit, all
—naked, suddenly, not half, but fully, entirely, stark naked, so much skin everywhere, soft and smooth and rough and wet, and Joe can’t quite figure out where one of them ends and the other begins, but he touches, and he touches, and he
—licks, and kisses, and mouths, and nibbles, and grasps, and rubs, and gropes, and fondles, and strokes, and
—Cameron giggles beneath Joe, head thrown back, and he feels the breathy laugh vibrate all down her chest as it turns into a moan
—Gordon hides his face in the pillow, in the crook of Donna’s neck, in the space between Cameron’s thighs, and grunts when Joe takes his face in his hands and whispers “Come on, let me see you, let me look”
—Donna sinks her fingers into Joe’s shoulders, nails grasping for purchase as she rides him, rocking slowly, back and forth, kissing Gordon and Cameron in turn, and she is — they are — a goddamned vision, a picture-perfect fantasy come to life, and Joe refuses to close his eyes, lest he miss a single second of this.
Joe is exhausted, there’s a crick in his neck, his hair is plastered with sweat, his left arm is going numb. It’s delightful.
They’re lying in bed, basking in the afterglow, and Joe feels his thoughts trickling back, slow as molasses, dragging themselves to the forefront of his mind. His brain pulls up a list, cataloguing all they’ve done as data points, each action and reaction he can’t wait to analyze, to hypothesize, to test out again, and again, and again. He wants to try doing to Gordon that thing Donna did to him with her tongue. He wants to check if Cameron will gasp as loudly if he touches her the way he saw Gordon doing. He wants to push back against Donna’s bossiness and see if she’ll like it less, or more — he has a feeling it’s more.
“You’re thinking too loud,” Cameron mumbles, head buried in his chest, breaking the silence. “Just drift off to sleep, like the rest of us.”
Gordon, rubbing Donna’s back on the opposite side of the bed, grunts something unintelligible in agreement.
Joe chuckles, kisses the top of Cameron’s head. He hesitates for a second and stretches his neck to kiss Donna’s hair as well, where she’s curled up against Cameron’s back, eyes heavy-lidded. Gordon grunts out something else Joe can’t quite make out.
“What was that?,” he asks.
“He’s feeling left out of the hair kisses,” Donna chimes in, voice raspy and low.
“That is not what I said!,” Gordon argues, a little more clearly, and looks down at Donna, up at Joe again. “It’s not,” he insists.
“It’s what you meant, though,” Donna says, easily, turning back a little so she can look at Gordon, look at Joe. “It is,” she insists.
“Will you all please stop this,” Cameron interjects, holding back a yawn. “Let’s just shut up, go to sleep, and belabor unequal hair-kissing in the morning, when my brain is working again, okay?”
“We’re not belaboring anything! I just—,” Gordon starts, but Cameron cuts him off.
“Shhhhhh,” she says, stretching a hand back, slapping it lightly against his chest, feeling her way up until she’s covering his mouth. “Sleep first. Argue later.”
Gordon grumbles, muffled by Cameron’s hand, but relents. After a second, he kisses Cameron’s palm, and she smiles contentedly against Joe’s chest, brings her hand back to hug him. Donna stretches on her other side, adjusts her position on the bed, lets out a sigh, and stills.
Usually, Joe doesn’t like falling asleep right after sex. He would prefer to wash up, drink some cold water, come back to bed when his skin feels less sticky. But he’s not stupid enough to mess up this arrangement, or to argue with a sleepy Cameron and a sleepy Donna, separately or together. He lifts himself up slightly on his right elbow, stretches across the bed as well as he can without disturbing Cameron too much, and plants a soft kiss to Gordon’s forehead.
“So there’s nothing to belabor in the morning,” he whispers.
The slightly exasperated smile Gordon gives him, shaking his head, is the last thing Joe sees before closing his eyes and letting himself drift off, allowing himself to dream of tomorrow, and all the points they'll still belabor. There will be time.