“She’s infatuated.” She said breathing a little heavy as though she had been running, “You’re the first man she’s ever had. She had been sleeping with only women until you came along. She’ll get over it.”

“She said she’s going to quit stripping.” “She didn’t!” Amber turned her head to face me with a doubtful but surprised expression.

“Yes.” I swallowed feeling a lump swell in my throat, “That was sort of my fault though.”

“Why? What did you say to her?” she smiled, intrigued.

“I told her that I was the jealous type.” Amber laughed out loud,

“What?” I smiled, “I am. Besides, I thought it would make her back off a little.” “Don’t be funny lover. I go home to my husband for a week at a time and see you only on the weekends. Are you jealous of my husband?”

“A little.” I said with indignation.

“You know what the solution is, don’t you?”

“What’s that?”

“We’ll get Melanie to join us. It’ll be a ball. The three of us! The things we could do to each other.” She grinned and her eyes grew a little distant as if she were visualizing the three of us together.

I gave her a disbelieving frown. “Why not?”

“She’s infatuated. She’s in love. She said she’s been hoping that we’d sleep together since I moved in with her. I mean she wants me to dump you to be with her. I don’t think she’d be willing to share me, especially if as you say I’m the first man she’s been with.”

“You won’t know unless you ask.”

“If I ask her she’ll be insulted. She wanted me to break it off with you tonight.”

“Well we just tore one off…that’s not quite the same thing, is it?” she smiled her Beautiful playful full-tooth smile.

At that moment guilt overcame me. I had agreed to fight for my freedom, and for Melanie, and yet I had folded like a monopoly- board at Amber’s first intimidation. I felt ashamed of myself for letting myself be bullied and for failing to defend the position of Melanie.

“She’s a sweet kid. I don’t want to hurt her.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means…” I was trying to be delicate,

“It means that maybe we shouldn’t see each other…intimately anymore.” I cringed in anticipation to her response.

“Well that’s not your choice to make, now is it?” She reached down and cupped my genitals in her open hand and squeezed until I gasped.

“Okay…I get it…I get it…let up already.” She loosed her grip, “I only meant that you’re not going to leave your husband for me.” She rolled her eyes. “And our relationship has become purely sexual. I need something more fulfilling. I want someone who is going to be there in the morning. I want someone who is going to be there for me…all the time.”

“It seems to me that you have it pretty good. You have every man’s dream. You get your brains fucked out every weekend, no strings attached.” She squeezed me and played with me as she spoke. “Most men would kill for what you have.”

“Well it’s not enough for me anymore.” I made my voice sound firm pretending not to take notice of her reference to my precarious position. “What I mean is…”

“What you mean is you don’t want to stop fucking Melanie.” Her voice was playful now, trying to steer our conversation in a more mischievous direction to avoid the impending confrontation and to get on with her weekend copulation. “I bet she was tight huh?” she grinned.

“I was drunk.” I didn’t feel comfortable talking about Melanie and I hoped my curt answer would convey this message. I felt as though I were violating Melanie’s trust. Melanie wasn’t dirty like Amber; dirty like I felt that I was. I felt as though I had symbolically taken Melanie’s virginity and I saw symmetry with her and Catherine, I having literally taken Catherine’s virginity.

“That’s not something you’d forget even if you were drunk. Was she tight, lover?” Her grin grew into a demanding sneer.

“Yes.”

“Like fucking a little girl?”

“I wouldn’t know!” I said crossly as I turned and looked up at the crack in the ceiling. “Sorry! Did I touch a nerve?”

“It’s all right.” I sighed.

She propped herself up on her elbow. “Are you ready to go again? I have to leave early tonight.” She sounded so practical; so antiseptic; like the time when Catherine and I were trying to make a baby and we had to screw on a schedule to increase our odds of impregnation. It took the intimacy out of sex, not that there was any intimacy anymore in the acts that Amber and I performed. Where at first she came to me at night to sleep with me, and at least in my mind to make love to me, she now came to fuck me; to get her rocks off; to take her orgasm as from a restaurant menu, to choose her desired positions: appetizer, entrée and dessert.

I answered with my silence. I didn’t want to have sex with Amber anymore. I felt vile for having given in to her pressure and at having included Melanie in our dirty sexual banter. I was also disgusted with myself for being the passive submissive. I was the blackmailed man-whore serving the satanic bitch who held my life in her hands. I wondered how I could ever have taken Amber for the sweet misunderstood housewife. She was cheating on her husband just as Catherine had cheated on me. She was no good, but she had a hold over me and for the first time since I had come to Kansas she had clarified our roles; had all but stated her position of power over me. For the first time since I had slept with her I felt cornered…like a mouse.

“Well lover, are we gonna fuck or what?”

* * *

I changed the bed sheets and sprayed air freshener in my bedroom before I climbed into the tiny tub and tried to wash Amber’s musky balm from my body as I bathed in the stubby tub filled with scalding hot water. I may have been paranoid but I couldn’t seem to escape Amber’s tincture and I new that Melanie would be stopping by to see how Amber had taken the news. I was such a coward. I wanted my freedom but I was willing to settle for tranquility. Not that I necessarily felt that I was ready to commit to Melanie; but I felt trapped, like a ping-pong ball being batted in an unending volley.

I heard the kitchen door open and close followed by soft footfalls and then the bathroom door opened.

“Can I join you?” Melanie said with a teasing tone.

“Sure there’s room on the spigot.”

She kneeled down next to the tub and then reached into the water. “Yes, there is room on the spigot.” She leaned into me and kissed me prying my lips apart with her tongue. Our kiss lingered for a moment before she released my lips.

“You’re going to get wet.”

“I hope so.” She stood up and grabbed a towel from the chrome-plated towel rack that was slowly pulling away from the yellow plastic wall tiles and she held it open for me as I stood.

“How did Amber take the news?”

I drew a breath and toweled myself dry, “She didn’t take it at all.” I said dejectedly.

“What do you mean?” Melanie’s voice carried a mixture of agitation and deflation.

“I mean she refuses to give me up.” I looked Melanie in the eyes so that she could see in my eyes that I felt helpless.

“It isn’t her decision. It’s yours.” She crossed her arms.

“If you’ll remember, she has something on me.” I draped the towel around my waist and tied it at the side, “I’m not saying that she would turn me in, but the truth is she might. She made it quite clear that it was not my decision to make. I can’t be with anyone if I’m in jail. I can’t take care of Sarah if I’m in jail.” My voice was as of a child pleading for mercy.

“What did she say about us?”

“She was happy for us. She wished us much sex and happiness. She wants us to have a little orgy with her.”

“That cunt!”

“Well you did sleep with her before didn’t you?” I knew it was a low dig but I wanted to put things into perspective.

Her eyes widened in surprise. I could tell that she felt betrayed by Amber for revealing such a private tidbit; and she felt stung by me for saying it.