Welcome to the next installment of this ongoing series. I've struggled for a bit over where to take this story next, and I think that the suggestion about flashbacks is the right way to go. As always, any similarities to anything you may have seen or heard before is a complete accident.
We ended up going out to dinner.
A few minutes after Emily's mock outburst she came back to the Jacuzzi. The three of us sat there quietly, soaking in the churning water and lost in our own thoughts.
Eventually Lisa broke the silence. "Okay, I'm really starving," Lisa said, and she rose out of the water, grabbing a nearby towel and drying herself off. Emily and I glanced at each other and followed her. We dried off and dressed and piled into my car to drive to the nearest Italian restaurant, situated in a strip mall on the main road a few blocks away. It wasn't raining anymore, but the air had the cool and humid feel that only comes after a spring storm.
All during the drive I kept glancing at Lisa, who was sitting beside me in the front seat. She was staring out the window. Our neighborhood was only partially built up, and whole blocks were either wooded areas or open fields. I could almost sense what Lisa was thinking. Was there any mud out there? Our flower bed was just a mound of topsoil. After a rain like that there must be a vast expanse of thick, cool mud in one or more of those fields. I knew that my wife was fantasizing about wallowing around in it. I thought about it too from time to time. I started to wonder if we would someday find ourselves wandering out of the privacy of our yard to indulge our muddy fantasies.
We got to the restaurant, which was really just a takeout place with some tables in the back. We plopped down at our usual table. The three of us had gone to eat there together often enough, but since we entered into our crazy threesome being together felt different. I looked at the cashier, the owner, the waitress, and the dudes flipping pizza in the air, wondering if somehow they noticed that there was anything different about us.
We ordered a couple of beers and scarfed down the bread. I got chicken parmesan, Lisa ordered a salad, and Emily ordered a pasta dish. Our food arrived quickly and we ate ravenously. When we were done we sat back in a well-fed stupor, trading knowing glances with one another.
Lisa eventually spoke. "So... what we did before..." Lisa said to Emily, choosing her words carefully as the waitress breezed by, "You've done things like that before?"
"Yeah," Emily replied, "But today was probably better than all of them put together. I don't think I've ever felt so completely fucked before." Unlike Lisa, Emily had no reservations about talking about sex at her normal speaking voice in the middle of a restaurant. I found myself glancing around nervously. Only two of the other tables were occupied, one by an older couple, and the other by a quartet of younger men and women, apparently on a double date. They were all engrossed in their own conversations and ignoring us. I looked into the front room and one of the guys behind the counter was staring in Emily's direction. I wondered how far her voice traveled.
"I was wondering about... those other experiences," Lisa said.
"Do you want to hear about them?" Emily asked.
I felt my head whip around to face Emily. She had never really told me anything about her sexual past. I was always curious about the wild sexual exploits she always hinted at but never came clean about.
"Yes, I think I would," Lisa said, "If you're willing to talk about them."
"Sure, I have nothing to be embarrassed about," Emily replied, "But we should probably pay the bill and go home first. I don't want everybody in the restaurant to get all horny."
One thing about my best friend was that she had no filter, and she enjoyed saying outrageous things to get a reaction out of strangers. Lisa blushed, and I found myself looking around the restaurant again. The older gentleman was looking right at me. I felt the blood drain from my face. He didn't look familiar, but it was a small town and he looked to be around our parents' age. There was always the possibility he knew my parents, or Emily's, or even Lisa's who lived only a few towns over. I was more worried about Lisa than anything. Her conservative Christian parents would lose their minds if they found out anything about what was really going on.
I held his gaze, not wanting to seem embarrassed or apologetic about Emily's outburst. I saw him shake his head slightly, and then he went back to his meal. I was about to snap at Emily, but luckily the waitress came by and dropped off the check. I paid it quickly, ignoring Emily's attempts to pay her share again, and we left.
"You really do have to watch what you say;" I scolded Emily on the ride home.
"Why? Who gives a fuck?" Emily said. I tried to remember how many beers she had. Two? Three? She got even less inhibited as she got drunk.
"That older guy sitting across from us heard you," I said, "What if he belongs to Lisa's parents' church? You don't know what a shit storm you could create if Lisa's parents find out."