Authors note:
Thanks to ChiefHal for his proofreading assistance.
I crept down the stairs in the near total darkness, just enough light, from the few lights in the air B&B, to let me find Jen's room. She was supposed to sneak up to my room almost half an hour ago, after my best friend and best man had snuck out to keep her sister busy. We'd barely had time to see each other all week, her parents keeping her busy and away from me. Her mom still thought that we weren't having sex, but the reality was, we slept together more nights than not. We had different apartments, and she kept a few things at mine, but not much.
It had been a difficult two years since a rough breakup and then my accidental trip over Jennifer in a store. Since that day the two of us had grown to love each other, more than I could ever put to words, and tomorrow we would share words that would cement that for the rest of our lives. I padded barefoot to the door of her room and reached for the knob. I heard moaning inside, and then a very distinct female gasp. There was no mistaking that type of gasp. I'd heard it almost every time I pushed into Jen's hot, wet pussy. The rhythmic slapping that began as I stood and listened, that I could just make out through the closed door, was also unmistakable.
I pushed the door open quickly and fumbled for the light switch. When the lights came on, we were all temporarily blinded, but me a little less so, since I closed my eyes just as I flipped the switch on. I shaded my eyes and opened them, seeing what I expected and what I hoped I wouldn't see. "JEN! WHAT THE FUCK!?" I shouted, as I stared at my bride to be, laying on the bed nude, my best man on his hands and knees between her legs. Alex's head jerked around and he looked at me through slitted eyes. "Jen!? Fuck no. Julie!"
I stared at him for several seconds and then stepped toward the bed. I reached for Jen's hand and jerked it up and held it between us. "NO! Jen. See the ring mark?" I snapped at him. I jerked her arm harder, rolling her slightly under him. "And her tattoo?" I asked, looking at the small three dots tattooed on her shoulder that her dad had put on her, shortly after she was born, so he could tell his twins apart.
"Shit! I didn't know. I thought it was Julie. She said to meet her here!" He said, pushing himself away from my wife-to-be, his dick glistening with her juices.
I looked down at Jen and shook my head. "How the fuck could you do this? I thought you loved me! That you wanted to marry me! Now I find you cheating on me, with my best friend of all people? How the fuck could you?" I snapped angrily at her, before turning and walking out of the room. Lights all over the house were turning on as I half ran, half stomped up the stairs to my bedroom. I only had on a pair of shorts, but that wasn't going to matter. I found my shoes and pulled them on and began throwing my stuff into my suitcase haphazardly. No way I was staying here another minute.
"Hey man! I didn't know!" Alex said, as he walked into the room. "Julie said to meet her down there, so Jen could come up and be with you."
"Yeah, right!" I snapped. "I really believe that!"
"You should! It's true." Julie said from the doorway. I turned to look at my bride's identical twin, anger still roiling hotly inside me.
"Yeah, and what? Somehow, Jen just accidently ended up with in bed with my best friend?"
"Accidentally? Not even. It was completely planned. She was going to fuck Alex and I was going to come to your room and fuck you. Only thing was, I fell asleep."
"You think I wouldn't figure out it wasn't her?" I snapped.
She held her hand up and wiggled her fingers, showing me that she had on the engagement ring. "You'd have never known."
"Right. You think I don't know my own fiancé?"
She laughed. "You haven't before."
I stopped what I was doing and stared at her. "What the fuck do you mean I haven't before? Before what?"
"You think this is the first time we've swapped partners? Not hardly. We've been swapping boyfriends since high school."
"Julie! NO!" I heard Jen snap from the hallway. Then she was pulled back and Jen stepped into the doorway. I just stood and stared at her, waiting for her to speak. "This was going to be the last time," she whispered.
"The last time? How many times were there?"
"With you? A few."
I stood there and nodded. "A few? HOW MANY?"
"Fifteen," she whispered.
"What the hell? Tell me you're joking. You really did this other times? Why the hell would you do that? Why would you even think about doing that?"
"It's not you. We never meant to hurt anyone."
"Well, you sure as hell did!"
She stepped to me and laid a hand on my arm and I shrugged it off, still staring at her angrily. "We started it as a joke. We'd swap boyfriends on dates and see if they could tell. They never could. After high school we just kept doing it. It was kind of a challenge."
"To what? Humiliate your boyfriends?"
"NO! At first it was to see if they could tell. Then it turned into something else. To see whose boyfriend fucked better. We compared how they were in bed."
"Oh great. Now I'm being compared against your other boyfriends? Well, I hope the hell I stacked up, because there won't be another chance." I said turning back to throwing stuff in my suitcase. "Because I'm gone."
"NO! Stop! PLEASE!" She said, reaching out to grab my arm and pull me to face her again.
"Why, so you can humiliate me some more? Maybe talk me into walking down that aisle so everyone can laugh at the guy that had his fiancé fuck his best friend the night before his wedding? Not happening. I'm done. Have a good life!" I angrily shouted at her, as I tried to close the suitcase.
"KEN! Please! Let me fix this!"
I turned to stare at her. "Fix this? Fix what? Trust? Fix trust? How do you fix trust? How to you erase the horror of seeing your best friend, fucking your soon-to-be wife? Do you have any idea how that feels?"
"No, I don't." She answered quietly. "But I can guess. This was going to be the last time. She wanted to have sex with you one more time."
"And just how many times did we have sex? Since I have no way to tell you apart. I thought the tattoo was good enough, apparently not."
"Sharpie," Julie said from the bedroom door. "Three dots, with a sharpie is all it takes. We used to fool dad that way too."
"Great! You can masquerade for each other. Nice to know. So just how many times did you fake me out?"
"Once for each time she fucked my boyfriend." Julie said with a smug grin. "And not one of them, boyfriend or you, knew it had happened."
"And how many times is that, really? Fifteen is it? Are you sure? How do I know? It could be twenty or fifty for all I know. Not that it really matters at this point."
"Fifteen, well sixteen would have been tonight." Julie said, with a shrug.
"Fifteen!? You pulled this on me fifteen times? WHY!?" I asked, looking past Jen to her sister.
"Because I wanted to know if my boyfriends stacked up to you." Julie said, as she stepped into the room, still wearing the tiny little nightgown that I'd actually given to Jen, some time back. "Besides, you're a damn good fuck. How could I resist?"
"Stacked up to me? In bed? Seriously? You did this...to see if your boyfriend stacked up to me sexually? That is sooooo fucking screwed up! I hope you have fun doing it to the next guy you date."
"You were always the best to me." Jen said quietly. "It wasn't because I was looking, it was because she was looking for someone like you."
"Well, I hate to say it, but neither of you gets me now." I said, as I turned back to the suitcase and zipped it closed.
"You can't leave. It's the middle of the night." Jen said, in a desperate attempt to get me to stay, her hand reaching out and grabbing my arm.
"I don't care. I'm not about to sleep here, let alone stay here one minute longer than I have to. I loved YOU, Jen. I loved you more than anyone else in the world. You betrayed that, not once, but fifteen, no sixteen times. I don't see any way to go back from that." I snapped, as I picked up my suitcase.
"I want to try! I don't want to lose you!"
"Not lose me? Honey, you lost me the moment I walked into that bedroom and saw him between your legs. There is no way BACK from that! There's no undoing it, no changing it, no erasing how it felt in that moment, to see the person you loved; betraying that love and trust in a way that can never be undone." I pulled her hand off my arm and walked out the door, shoving Julie out of the way, when she tried to step in front of me.
"It wasn't her idea! It was mine!" Julie shouted, as I walked down the stairs.
"Doesn't matter anymore." I called back, without even looking back.
---o---
It was still early morning, when I pulled into the parking lot of my apartment. It was probably the longest walk of my life, up the stairs to my apartment. The last time I made this walk, this long, was after Suzanne broke up with me. I dropped my suitcase on the floor and walked to my bedroom and flopped onto the bed. Then I did something, that I'd only done one other time, since I was as small child. I cried until I was so exhausted, that I couldn't help but fall asleep.
It was mid-morning on Saturday, my supposed wedding day, before I pulled myself out of bed. I ate some toast, before I dropped onto the sofa in the living room, wishing I'd never met Jennifer. I didn't much feel like doing anything. I turned on the TV to some old western and sat staring at it, not really paying attention to it at all. My life was in the dumpster. Nothing could fix what happened, and nothing could change my life from the dumpster fire it had just become. Today, was supposed to be the beginning of the rest of my life. Now, it felt like I'd been thrown into a pit of hopelessness.
The knock on the sliding glass door startled me. I looked over and standing on my balcony was my neighbor, Marsha. She was a pleasant enough person. Surprisingly athletic for her size, which accounted for how she managed to get onto my second-floor balcony from hers, next door. She had a very sweet disposition, and was often flirty and playful, but only if I was alone. She didn't have a lot of male friends, mostly I suppose, because she wasn't playboy material. She was a bit on the heavier side with plenty of curves, sort of plain, short brown hair. Not anything particularly special. She'd lived next to me for three years now, and had been a good friend through the last breakup, and now this. I'd invited her to the wedding, but she had declined, saying that the last thing Jennifer needed was to have her there on her wedding day. I never understood why, and she wouldn't explain more.
"What are you doing home?" She asked, as I opened the sliding glass door for her. "You're supposed to be getting married right about now, aren't you?"
"Was..." I answered sullenly, as she stepped into the kitchen area. I left the door open and walked back to the sofa, flopping down on it where I had been.
"So, wanna share?" She asked, as she walked into the living room.
