Chapter 37
Daniel
“So by ‘kidnapped’ you mean you spent a few weeks drinking tea, going to the gym and getting spit-roasted by three insanely hot guys?” Iris said, eyebrows raised.
“Hey! There was coercion and guns and stuff,” Daniel said.
“But…?”
“Essentially yes.”
They were in Iris’ bedroom. Her friend was sitting at her desk rolling her a large reunion joint while Daniel sprawled out on her bed in an oversized t-shirt and Uggs.
“This kind of thing could only happen to you,” Iris said, licking the rolling papers and teasing them together. “If I got kidnapped I’d be in a box somewhere with no fingernails.”
Daniel faked a smile. “Trust me, if I could feel pain Middlebend would have sashimi’d me instead. But they went for the honeypot.”
“And you fell for it.” Iris gave her a sly smile. “Can’t say I blame you, even if you are letting the side down, what with them being a trio of hardcore military bros and all.”
“Can’t say I blame you, even if you are letting the side down, what with them being a trio of hardcore military bros and all.”
Daniel threw a pillow at her. “Oh fuck you. I know you screwed that sailor during fleet week in 2009.”
Iris waggled two fingers in the air. “Twice.”
She opened her Maya Angelou pencil box and the warm-sweetish smell of mix filled the air. “Don’t listen to me, everyone knows the best way to get men on side is to fuck some sense into them. Besides, I’m just jealous. It’s been three months since I’ve kissed another human.”
“Jesus, what happened?”
“Eric moved back to Colorado,” Iris said sprinkling the brownish green blend across the papers. “This place is like family central now.”
“I noticed all the new houses. What’s the population these days?”
“Three hundred.”
Daniel almost fell off the bed. “Fuck me.”
“Yeah it’s great, except none of them are single men of legal boning age.”
“Bummer. You can have one of my guys if you like.”
Iris’s brows drew together. “Seriously?”
Actually the mere thought made Daniel want to spew all over the bed.
“I’ll take your puckered lemon face as a ‘no.’” Iris laughed. “What the fuck is going on with you and those guys?”
“I don’t know,” Daniel said, eyeing the nearly completed joint with a craving that bordered on painful. For the past two hours she’d been grilling Iris about her life, her research, her family, their mutual friends, anything to put off the minutia of her story. Anything to avoid talking about John and Colt and Seb.
“Don’t give me that shit,” Iris said, entirely unconvinced. “What’s wrong?
“I can’t begin to speculate until I’m at least halfway blazed.”
“Fine, hang on a sec.” Iris finished rolling and tossed Daniel the joint and a lighter. “Welcome back, Kiwi bird.”
“Glad to be back,” Daniel mumbled around the joint. The first snap of the lighter was like an old lover calling out her name. She inhaled deeply and sighed. “God that’s amazing. I love you, Iris. And weed.”
Iris began rolling a joint for herself; tactfully letting Daniel wallow in the buzzy deliciousness of her high. For a few seconds she enjoyed it, but just as she’d felt every time their conversations lapsed into even partial silence her brain filled itself with thoughts of the boys. She wanted to believe they were sitting up furiously debating what to do with the rest of their lives and hugging but in all likelihood, they’d probably fallen asleep. In the car, while John’s eyes were on the road and Seb and Colt were distracted by their injuries she’d given into the instinct to research them, telling herself it was for her own safety. It didn’t make her feel any safer, it made her feel sick. Online they became three hundred and eighty-degree humans, with families and long, well-documented pasts.
She’d seen Colt sitting around a dining table for Thanksgiving with his beaming Leave It to Beaver family, she saw him arm in arm with an endless stream of beautiful women, read comments begging him for dates. He’d responded to some of them in the time she’d known him.
“Not in NY right now, look you up when I get back.”
She checked out Seb’s family, infinitely less wholesome than Colt’s. His mother and sisters were prone to posting shit about ‘reverse racism’ and ‘the Jews who run this country.’ Daniel was sure she’d be as welcome in their house as flesh eating termites. She’d looked up Seb’s ex-girlfriend too, a sleek Swiftian blond who’d posted a poem about broken hearts and how when ‘he’ came crawling back it would already be too late.
John didn’t have his own social media accounts but he was present in Colt and Seb’s; smoking cigarettes and scowling, often the most handsome and well-dressed man in the room. He was the spitting image of his investment banker father, who was, she’d realized with a lurching gut, called John Blackwood Senior. John was a junior like Donald Trump’s kid. His ex-wife, Anthea Lord was stunning, a journalist for The New York Times. John was even upper crustier than she’d realized, his mother had been a semi-famous socialite and his sister was a congresswoman, their family had more money than New Zealand’s entire GDP.
The takeaway message from Daniel’s research, aside from infinite despair, was that these were three normal men who ran in normal human circles and the prospect of them having a four-way relationship together was ridiculous. They could stagger on for a while maybe, sleeping together and going on bizarre multi-dates but it wouldn’t come to anything. How could it?
“So,” Iris said gesturing for the lighter. “These guys, you’re in love with them, right?”
That was the thing about scientists. They didn’t mince words, particularly where feelings were concerned.
“I don’t know,” Daniel said. “What even is love?”
Iris rolled her eyes. “Don’t give me that shit.”
“Hey!” Daniel tapped her temple. “I have a brain thing. You know that.”
“Fine I’ll give you an assist. When you guys hang out do you have fun?”
“Yes,” Daniel admitted.
“When they’re unhappy does it hurt you too?”
Daniel recalled Seb taking his beating and shuddered. “Yes. So much.”
“You like fucking them?”
“I don’t know, Iris? Do birds shit on trees? Does a one-legged duck swim in circles? Does the sun rise in the morning?”
Her friend laughed. “Well then congratulations. You’re in love with three former soldiers. Americans no less. Never thought I’d see the day.”
“What?” Daniel coughed out a mouthful of smoke. “You can’t…that’s not…Surely there’s more to it than that?”
Iris shrugged. “Not really. If the good times outweigh the bad and you care about each other, it’s love as far as I’m concerned.”
“But what about…” Daniel racked her brain for loved up memories. “Wanting to write poetry or bluebirds coming in through your window and doing your hair?”
“Sentimental bullshit. From what I saw those dudes are in love with you. You should have seen the way they were gaping at you across the table. It was pathetic.”
Daniel pressed her face into Iris’s blanket. This was exactly what she wanted to hear and also her worst nightmare come to life. “I can’t be in love with three men. That’s too fucked up, even for me.”
Iris shrugged again. “Stranger things have happened.”
“Have they?” Daniel asked. “Because this is the strangest thing that’s ever happened to me and I once saw a homeless guy bite into a live rat.”
“Gross. Also, you’re burning a hole in my comforter.”
“Fuck!” Daniel raised the joint to see that she had in fact singed a circle into Iris’s purple blanket. “I’ll buy you a new one.”
“It’s okay.” Iris flapped a hand. “Gives it character. Let’s focus on this three-man love situation. Is there one guy you like more than the others?”
Daniel flipped through their faces and traits like a scrapbook; weighing John’s eyes against Colt’s arms, Seb’s sweetness against Colt’s laugh and gave up. “No. They’re all unique and amazing, like snowflakes.”
“Who’s got the biggest dick?”
“Colt. But Seb’s is so thick and John’s has this curve…What I’m trying to say is they’re all good.”
“Hmm.” Iris exhaled a cloud of purple smoke. “Who’s the funniest?”
“Objectively Colt again,” Daniel said. “But Seb tells these stories that just kill me and John makes faces when he’s annoyed and they’re hilarious because—”
Iris held up a hand. “Enough. Please. Now, looks-wise they’re all pretty, at least I assume Blondie is when he’s not all beat up?”
“So pretty,” Daniel sighed. “I hope he’s icing his face.”
“Who’s the most cut?”
“They’re all ripped,” Daniel said miserably. “All of them. It’s ridiculous.”
“But if you had to choose? If you could only have one?”
“I can’t only have one!” Daniel leapt to her feet, the mattress creaking beneath her. “Choosing one of those guys would be like choosing one Lord of The Rings movie and never getting to watch the others again. You’re not meant to do that! That’s not what Peter Jackson intended! They’re a trilogy. You’re supposed to experience all three of them or it’s just a waste of everybody’s time.”
“Okay, I get it, crazy bitch!” Iris said sending laughing. “Everyone’s asleep.”
Daniel dropped her ass back onto the mattress. “Sorry. Not sure what came over me there.”
“Humph, well I think I do.” Iris pointed her joint accusingly at her. “Also for someone who claims to hate Lord of The Rings for ensuring your country will be called Middle Earth forever, you bring up those movies a lot.”
“Yeah,” Daniel mumbled. “Well, anyway, what do you think?”
“I think you’re in love with three dudes,” Iris said. “Which I told you before.”
“Fuck.”
“Indeed.” Iris sent another cloud of indigo smoke billowing through the air. “Out of idle curiosity, do they all have sex with you at the same time?”
“Never all three of them together. Just ones and twos but they watched each other a lot.”
Iris shot her a look a pure green envy. “Do they ever do stuff to each other?”
Daniel laughed, imagining the look on Colt’s face if he heard that question. “I wish. They’re all super straight. They have a weird power dynamic though, they definitely like having sex with me at the same time. And watching. And making each other do stuff to me. John likes it more than the other two. He’s kind of a sadist with some hot-wifey control stuff thrown in.”
“Really?” Iris asked, looking both interested and resentful.
“Yeah but he’s completely on the rack about it. It makes him feel guilty.”
“Guys are weird about that kind of thing. Remember how Kyle wouldn’t let me touch his nipples because he thought it made him gay?”
“I do remember. I wonder what he’d have done if you touched his butt?”
“Cried probably.”
“Instant trauma.” Daniel grinned. She’d forgotten how nice it was to discuss sex with someone who understood the clusterfuck it was to want and pursue and be pursued by men. “Anyway this sex is just…insane.”
She launched into the story of the night John and Colt had come home and busted her on top of Seb but halfway through it Iris held up a hand. “Don’t take this the wrong way but if you keep going I’ll get so jealous I’ll have to slap you.”
“Yeah, I get it.”
They sat in silence for a while, smoking and thinking.
“Daniel,” Iris announced. “Don’t take this the wrong way either but why are you talking to me when you could be with them?”
Daniel stared up at the vine leaves she’d once painted on Iris’ ceiling. “They need their own space right now.”
“You’re being a chickenshit?”
“Pretty much.”
Iris sighed. “You know girl, it’s a brave new world. Polyamory isn’t unheard of. Maybe you can be a…what’s the name for a couple with four people in it?”
“Who the fuck cares? I don’t want to be polyamorous.”
“Why?”
Daniel rolled onto her belly and stared Iris in the face. “You know how polyamorous people are always waist-deep in never ending discussions about their feelings and their partners’ feelings and their partner’s partner’s feelings and their partner’s partner’s dog’s feelings?”
“Yeah.”
“Well I would literally rather stab out my own eyes than go through that.”
Iris smirked. “Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic?”
“I don’t think I’m being a little dramatic enough.” She took a big drag on her joint, making it blaze brightly in the smoky darkness. “I don’t understand feelings. My best friend killed herself while I was out buying a baguette. I don’t have the emotional intelligence to keep a pot plant alive.”
Iris nodded consolingly. “Still, if you care about each other maybe you should just try?”
“Why do people always say that? What’s so good about trying anyway?”
“I suppose it means you’re open to the possibility of success?” Iris ventured.
“Possibility of success?” Daniel jumped to her feet again, too full of energy to remain lying down. “Woman there is no chance of success here. I’ve never even had one boyfriend, and now I’m supposed to be the arsehole that makes the long term polyamorous relationship work?”
“Okay but—
“And even if I did try and take on that steaming pile of fuck, you know what’ll happen when it blows up in my face? People will sneer and say I shouldn’t have tried in the first place. And I’ll be all ‘yeah no shit, but Iris told me trying was better than not trying so here I am, sad and alone and getting shit on by everyone for dreaming an impossible dream.’ Is that what you want, Iris? Is it?”
“No, Jesus.” Iris sat up in her office chair and raised her hand. “Sit down before you hurt yourself.”
Daniel plonked her butt back on the mattress, bouncing slightly as if it was a trampoline. “Sorry.”
“All good, you’re clearly under a lot of stress.”
“Not really.” Daniel examined her joint. “This isn’t working.”
“Yeah I don’t think the weed is the problem here.” Iris leaned forward in her office chair. “I’m almost afraid to ask but if you can’t choose just one guy to be with and you can’t be with them all what are you gonna do?”
“I’m going to set them free like beautiful birds into the sunset,” Daniel said, repeating the manifesto she’d come up with in the car, when, waterlogged with visual information, it became crystal clear she’d dragged three wonderful men into a humiliating experiment in human sexuality.
“Uh-Huh,” Iris said sounded extremely skeptical. “And if they don’t want to be set free?”
“Then I’ll make them be free.”
“That sounds like you’re gonna kill them.”
“I’m not!” Daniel said defensively. “I’m just going to wait until they get sick of me and leave.”
“And you don’t think that’s kind of cowardly and unfair?”
“No, why try and make some doomed relationship work when you can just be content with happy memories?”
Iris sighed. “Kiwi bird, that may be the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
But you don’t know about the end of the world, Daniel thought. Five and a half years isn’t so long to miss people. I’ll just live here, smoke pot, and eat shitloads of chocolate biscuits until the end. It won’t be that bad.
“Hello girls.” Merri stood the doorway holding two chipped ceramic mugs. “I thought you might want some turmeric milk.”
Daniel didn’t know what was wrong with her but at the sight of Merri, plump and friendly, she pressed her face into the bed and gave a great dry sob.
“Darling, what’s wrong?” Merri asked, sounding alarmed.
“She dealing with some polyamorous stuff,” Iris said. “I’ll tell you about it if you give me her milk.”
So Iris explained the situation while Merri sat on the bed and stroked Daniel’s hair like she was a cancer patient. It was very soothing. She decided then and there once John and Colt and Seb were gone she’d pay someone to pet her constantly, like a lonely cat.
“…and so basically Daniel’s going to force them to leave even though she wants them and then she’ll lie around like this for ages being a burden on all of us,” Iris concluded, slurping her turmeric milk.
“I see,” Merri said not sounding at all disturbed that Daniel was screwing three men simultaneously. “Darling?”
“Mmmh?” said Daniel.
“I think I have a story that might make you feel better.”
Daniel squinted up at Merri. “Does it involve fish and there being many more in the sea? Because I don’t think I can handle that talk right now”
Merri laughed. “No darling, it’s about my grandmother being married to four brothers.”
“What?!” She and Iris said simultaneously.
“Yes, in Malang it was quite common,” Merri said, absently stroking Daniel’s ear. “Many women married brothers, sometimes a younger father and son. It kept property within families and it was very effective birth control. Four men with four separate wives might have thirty or even forty children. My grandmother only had eight.”
“Only eight?” Iris raised her hands to the heavens. “Thank you, NuvaRing. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“So she had four husbands,” Daniel said awestruck. “Four actual husbands?”
“Yes,” Merri smiled warmly. “She was well loved by the village and her family and she died a very happy and contented woman.”
“I bet she did,” Iris muttered peeling off fresh rolling papers.
“But how…how did it work having four dudes around?” Daniel asked, amazed.
“As any family works, with love and cooperation.”
“But didn’t everyone call your grandma a skank? Didn’t the guys get jealous? Didn’t they try and fuck other women? Didn’t they fight all the time? Who did she spoon at night? Who got first dibs on her pussy? Wasn’t it all a big nightmare?”
“No,” Merri said, laughing. “Darling, you know people are capable of a lot more love than our world gives them credit for. You can see it here firsthand; all the families living side by side, sharing meals and childcare and chores.”
“Yeah, but not body fluids,” Daniel said. “At least not body fluids within the context of a polyandrous relationship. I mean you and Winton are only married to each other. Right?”
Merri gave her a mischievous smile. “Yes, but there have been other experiences along the way.”
Iris choked on Daniel’s turmeric milk. “Okay, I cannot be hearing this. I tutor your daughters.”
“Sex is not some sin we need to conceal from the young,” Merri said disapprovingly. “And, Daniel, if you truly care about these men and they care about you that’s all that matters.”
“Yeah but society. I mean people are going to think I’m a freak.”
“Your situation is unique,” Merri agreed. “But it would be presumptuous to assume that you are the only woman who has ever experienced it.”
Daniel hung her head. “I know. I’m sorry. White girls, am I right?”
“It’s not because you’re white,” Merri said, completely ignoring her snark. “You think this way because you’re very young.”
“I’m twenty-seven. I need to wear glasses at night.”
“You’re young at heart. You’ve kept yourself shut off from real love, and real love demands vulnerability. If you attempt to cut it out to spare your feelings you will know pain like you’ve never known it before.”
“But that sounds shit,” Daniel groaned into the bedcovers. “I don’t want to know pain like I’ve never known it before. I liked being a freak who never got attached to anyone.”
“Too bad,” Iris said, tapping the mix across her freshly sealed papers. “You’ve had it way too good, for way too long Kiwi bird. Time to crawl around in the mud with the rest of us mortals.”
Merri shushed her. “Love is its own reward, Daniel. Haven’t you felt that when you’re with your men? Haven’t I just told you my grandmother was happy?”
“My guys aren’t brothers,” she wheedled, still looking for excuses.
“Not in blood, but they love each other. That makes what you have stronger. I think this could be good for you, Daniel. I believe this relationship holds great promise.”
And in spite of all her resolutions Daniel’s chest began to tingle with what she knew was the beginnings of hope. “Really?”
“Really, and if you choose to stay here, all four of you will be very welcome for dinner.”
Daniel hugged Merri around her big squashy middle, loving her warmness, loving everything she’d said. “Thank you.”
“That’s quite alright, darling.”
“So waddaya gonna do now?” Iris asked.
Daniel peered out the window angling to see the guest cottage. “I think the guys are asleep but I’ll go talk to them in the morning. Determine whether they’re still into me.”
Merri cleared her throat delicately. “Um darling, I should say there was another reason why I came to speak with you.”
“What’s up?”
Merri tugged at Iris’ singed comforter, avoiding her gaze. “I don’t mean to upset you darling but Winton showed your men to the cottage and he…might have expressed his feelings toward them in an unfriendly manner.”
Daniel’s stomach dropped. “He put the hard word on them?”
“He didn’t mean to, but you know he cares for you very deeply, and you know how he is about military men, it all comes from his father and…anyway I’m rambling, darling.” Merri glanced up at her. “Your boys said something about…Well they said something—about leaving tomorrow morning. Returning to New York.”
Daniel felt like she’d just gotten the bends, her whole body filled up with dizziness and she staggered sideways, head spinning. “They’re not leaving,” she said. “I’m going to go talk to them right now.”
“Darling…” Merri said cautiously. “You’re all pale and you’re not wearing pants.”
“They’re not leaving,” Daniel repeated. “Iris, I’m taking your jacket.”
“’Kay,” Iris mumbled, sealing off her second joint. “But I thought your blokes were sleeping?”
“They’ll get over it,” Daniel said and she bent over and kissed Iris’ smooth cheek. “Thanks for listening to me.”
“Thanks for being so interesting.” Iris held up the joint and a lighter. “Here. In case you need it.”
Daniel’s throat was tight as she shoved them both into the pocket of Iris’ anorak. “You’re an amazing friend. Both of you are”