Christmas With Cassandra

“Fucking hell,” he tackled her to the other side of the bed, her squeals of delight almost enough to arouse him again. “I love you.”

This was exactly what they both wanted on a drizzly December day up in the mountains. It was also one of their last times together before New Year’s, for Judith was already packing her bags to go join her other boyfriend Miguel in Monaco for Christmas. She was doomed to meet his parents and to be formally introduced as his girlfriend. (Although they were leaving out Seth. Miguel’s parents were Catholic and not likely to appreciate their oldest son being in a ménage relationship that included another man.) Judith needed all the fun she could get with Seth.

“You’re not getting much work done, doctor,” she teased. “I’m starting to think you didn’t come here to get any work done. You just wanted to fuck me.”

“Shit, what gave it away?” The fact that he never bothered to remove his painting materials from their bags? The fact that they were having sex within fifteen minutes of his arrival? The fact he straight up said “Honestly, I would like to fuck you right now?” “Although if it makes you feel better, I need to rest before tonight. I’m assuming you want more sex before going to sleep.”

“Duh!” What was the point of having her boyfriend stay the night if they weren’t boning as much as possible? Hadn’t Judith claimed to be insatiable? “But you can give me kisses in the interim, I’m sure.”

Seth was more than willing to provide kisses. Especially the long, intimate kind that made a man feel like he completely owned – and was owned by – a woman. In fact, Seth would have been perfectly content to lie there and kiss Judith until dinnertime if it wasn’t for the brusque knock at his girlfriend’s door.

That’s what sucked about meeting up at the Château. There were always people coming and going (but mostly coming,) and Judith’s personal time could be interrupted at any moment. But she had served drinks at a party the night before, and had asked her boyfriend to come meet her there so she could get some sleep for once.

Judith roused herself from bed. She grabbed a robe off the back of a chair and had herself presentable by the time she cracked open the doorframe and saw one of many maids that kept the Château running when nobody was looking.

“Sorry for the interruption,” the meek woman said, “but Lady Warren wishes to speak with you urgently.” The maid glanced beyond Judith and witnessed Seth covering himself up in the messy bed. Judith had half a mind to open her door wider.

“Tell Lady Warren that I’ll be there in a jiff.” Judith closed the door in the woman’s face. When she turned back to her boyfriend, Seth had already kicked back the covers again.

“Leaving so soon?”

He dared to display his post-coital nudity like that to her? Oh, he knew what he was doing. He knew what a naughty woman Judith could be when tested. All Seth had to do was give her a hot naked body and she would be all over it like cheese on pizza.

“I’ll be back.” She bent down and kissed him. “And when I get back, you better still be naked.”

“God help me, I will be.”

Judith left her room with a twiddle of her fingers. The moment the door closed, Seth’s phone rang. Somewhere. In the room.

Somewhere.

The sound was muffled enough that Seth feared it was in his jeans, which were somehow trapped beneath Judith’s bed. How much of a hurry had they been in to get naked earlier? Too hurried, if there was such a thing.

Seth would’ve answered it regardless of who it was by the time he finally found the stupid thing. But when he saw his best friend Zack’s name flashing on the screen, he groaned. The man only called when he was drunk or plotting something diabolical.

“Hey,” Seth greeted. “What’s up?”

He crawled back into Judith’s bed. Her scent was all over it, and he intended to share some of his by the time she got back from the boss’s office.

“Shit, man, you ain’t gonna believe it!” Zack’s candor should’ve been a huge red flag that mischief was about to set off. “Where are you? Are you sitting down?”

“I’m lying down. Good enough.” Seth cleared his throat. “And what is it? You finally getting married?”

“Huh? I need a girlfriend first to even think about that.”

“Was simply teasing.”

“Anyway! Hold on to your horses, brother, because your craziest ex is back in town.”

“What?” Maybe Seth’s brain was too sex addled to handle what his friend said. “What are you talking about? I barely have any real exes.” Seth had been in his fair share of relationships, but most of them were so downbeat with amicable breakups (some of which he almost blinked and missed) that the idea of having a “crazy ex” was lost even to him. “You sure you don’t have me mixed up with some other poor fool?”

“Cassandra.”

Seth sat up. “What?”

“Cassandra. Welsh. Is coming. To Town. For Christmas.”

Oh. Oh no. Cassandra was the one woman Seth had tried to forget from his long dating history. They had barely dated. A few hookups that barely felt real because even for a rich doctor like he had been, Cassandra Welsh was out of his league. She was also one of the biggest tigers in the sack next to Judith, which had surprised him, because she projected such reserved warmth when they weren’t having sex.

She had been pleasant to date… while they were actually dating.

Then she showed up one day demanding to talk to Seth. By then, he had retired from medicine and was spending his life on his art. Even so, he was still the man most of his female friends turned to when they had reproductive questions. When Cassandra showed up on his doorstep crying that she thought she was pregnant, Seth’s first fear was that he was the father – because the last time their on again, off again affair occurred was six weeks before.

Seth had heard many rumors after Cassandra suddenly disappeared. He was in a unique position in that he knew more than most people, and had kept every single secret. Not because Cassandra was his patient, but because he was not the kind of man to gossip with his peers in that manner. Particularly about a woman’s best kept secrets.

Still, Seth was not her doctor, and without any equipment or access to labs, he couldn’t tell his ex-lover if she was pregnant or not. He did, however, flat out ask her if she thought he was the father, to which she said, “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.” Seth knew that Cassandra slept with other men. They had never been exclusive, no matter how much Zack teased him that she was his girlfriend. So what if she slept with others? It was never an issue until the pregnancy thing cropped up.

So he had given her a hands-on exam and told her that while it was possible she was pregnant based on what she had told him, it was better for her to go to a practicing doctor to find out for sure. He referred her to the doctor who took over his practice and never heard from her again. Seth had assumed, like so many of the other men Cassandra had slept with, that either it was a false alarm or they were not the father.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Zack laughed. “Why wouldn’t I be? Do you know how much drama she’s going to cause?”

“You need a girlfriend. Seriously. You sound like my grandmother when she plays bingo with her old lady friends.”

“I’ll get a girlfriend when you fuck your girlfriend’s other boyfriend for more than her amusement.”

“Would you fucking stop with that?” Typical. A friend finds out a guy is in a ménage with another man and automatically assumes every threesome is the gayest thing in the world. “You’re telling me you’ve never slept with Cassandra?”

“Hell no. She’s not my type. She is like… the exact opposite of my type. I like my women snarly and loud. You know. Like your girlfriend.”

“You can’t have her. I’m already sharing her with one other man. I can’t imagine sharing her with someone I have to actually pretend to like.”

“You’re savage, man. That’s why I love you.”

“Careful. I’m not the one getting giddy over rumors.”

“How can I not be excited to see this mess go down at the Christmas gala? Dude, you know if she had that baby she’s going to be confronting the baby daddy once and for all. Maybe lots of baby daddies! Paternity tests for everyone!”

“But you.”

“But me!”

Seth genuinely hoped that it did not come to that. Not just for his sake, but because the last thing the city needed was to be rocked with baby daddy drama. A ton of the potential candidates were now either married or in the midst of brand new committed relationships. If cats weren’t already tearing their way out of bags, then, well… they were about to!

“How did you hear about this?” Usually Seth was the first to hear about such things thanks to Judith and her extensive gossip network. “And should I be offended that you called me first?”

Zack didn’t take his time answering. “You know that apartment I rent for my art studio?”

“Yeah?”

“I was working in it earlier today when I heard my neighbor and her boyfriend out in the hall gabbing so loudly about it. Honestly, someone should talk to Ms. Alison about keeping her voice down when it comes to such sensitive information.”