“Oh yes, we’re well up in threesome etiquette, Karl-Heinz and I.”
“Threesome etiquette?” Milan frowned down at her, folding his arms across his bare chest. “Will you teach it to me?”
“Don’t you know it?” She sat up, smiling impishly.
“I don’t think so.”
“Okay. Well, there are a few rules to learn, aren’t there, Karl-Heinz? Like, rule number one, never leave one person out of the mix.”
“Or that would be a twosome,” Milan pointed out.
“True.”
“Number two,” said Karl-Heinz, removing his socks. “Each person must come at least once, ja?”
“Ja,” agreed Milan. “At least. Rule number three, Karl-Heinz loves to make rules.”
Lydia laughed and Karl-Heinz put his socks neatly in the laundry hamper and mock-frowned at his teasing lover.
“That is not a rule, it is an observation. But I can make a rule for you. Rule number three, anybody who is rude to Karl-Heinz will be punished.”
“Oops,” said Lydia delightedly.
Milan sat down beside her.
“Rule number four,” he said. “If Milan isn’t in the mood to be punished, Lydia is his proxy.”
“Not fair!” squealed Lydia.
“Rule number five, fairness doesn’t come into it,” said Milan, lunging at her.
She had no room for escape and she found herself rapidly upended over Milan’s lap while he bared her bottom for a vengeful Karl-Heinz, now kneeling on the bed in only his shirt.
* * * *
More than her bottom was sore by the time she lay, sandwiched between her two satiated lovers, drenched in sweat and semen, tingling, emotionally raw and yet with such a feeling of comfort and safety.
“I think this really works,” she said with a yawn.
“It’s not what I ever expected,” said Karl-Heinz, facing her. “But I think you’re right. We seem to know each other on an instinctive level. What do you think, Milan?”
“I think you are both very lovely,” he said, but
he was not far from sleep and neither was Lydia, so she didn’t pursue the conversation.
The three of them drifted into blissful sleep, and the Thomaskirche remained unvisited.
Chapter Seventeen
On the roof garden of the Skinners’ Hall, Lydia took a glass of champagne cocktail for herself and a fruit punch for Milan and went to stand with him by the fountain.
“What a beautiful place to get married,” she said, looking around at the stone towers dedicated to God and the glass towers dedicated to Mammon that surrounded them.
“You are getting ideas,” said Milan, regarding her through hooded eyes.
“No, I’m not. Besides, two grooms and one bride—I’m not sure how many wedding venues offer that kind of service.”
He smiled and looked over at Karl-Heinz, who was chatting with a dark-haired woman in an exquisitely cut violet trouser suit.