Beth had given me many things more precious than good bicycling companionship. Still, I was saddened. I wanted it all.
************
Beth and her Nishiki were waiting inside the gazebo. My Trek and I joined them. We had the whole green to ourselves today. We sat on one of the wooden benches lining the gazebo’s perimeter inside and enjoyed our peanut butter sandwiches and fresh grapes.
Beth had some bad and good news on the bicycle front. The carbon fiber specialist had determined that her Bianchi’s frame was beyond repair. More bad news: the supply of Bianchi bikes and frames–never especially good–had gotten much worse during the pandemic.
The good news was that her dealer had access to a “very slightly used” Bianchi Sprint frameset in Beth’s size. Same color, too: Bianchi’s beautiful “celeste” light blue. Several but not all of the components removed from Beth’s own Bianchi could be reinstalled on the new frame. This project would cost a fistful of dollars but still much less than a new bike would–if you could find one in the first place. Beth told the shop to build her a Bianchi.
“That’s wonderful,” I said. “When will it be ready?”
“Three weeks to three months, depending on parts. These days, you never know when some part will suddenly be unavailable–derailleur cables, chains, spoke nipples, who knows? I’m not giving back the Nishiki yet.”
For some reason Beth looked troubled. Then, unexpectedly:
“Stephen, I do love you. I do. I’m sure you know that. But let’s make it official: I love you. And you love me, right?”
“Of course I do.”
“Please make it official.”
“I love you, Beth.”
At long last we had said it. I glanced about the green, absorbing details. I wanted a vivid memory of this moment. Beth hugged me and kissed my lips. And then continued:
“But love isn’t enough to solve all the problems in a relationship, is it?”
“No.”
Beth continued. “So. When I look at all the possible forms our three-way relationship could grow into–you, me, and Ann–nothing seems to work especially well. In every scenario I can imagine, I end up with no legal rights, no security, no support system… no foundation I can rely on to build a future. Not even a blueprint of whatever structure we need to build.
“All the while, you and Ann maintain a legally binding and legally protected marriage, with all those guaranteed rights and responsibilities. Unless you’d like to divorce so we could have a totally unprotected threesome of equals. I don’t think Ann is crazy enough to go for that. Or you either.
I could feel the glum look that must be on my face. I knew she was right about everything. She continued:
“Look, if I were 25, I might give some radical alternative lifestyle a go, and if it all came crashing down a few years later I’d still be young. And fertile. But now I’m 35…. I don’t know if I even have enough energy now to be a pioneer… to try to build something entirely new from scratch… and to keep working at it, day after day, until we finally get everything working right. And I doubt Ann has enough energy to spare either. Or you.
“Shall I go through all the possible threesome scenarios, one at a time, and show you how every one of them leaves me essentially with no firm structure–regardless of the love we do have for each other?”
I put my arm around her and hugged. “No, Beth. I’ve thought it all through, myself. Over and over. Nothing that’s practical works well for you, long-term. I see that. We’re kind of star-crossed lovers, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” she said. “Star-crossed. But, as of now, still lovers. Carpe diem.”
“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,” I replied.
The two quotations meant about the same thing.
Then she surprised me again. “My rosebud–as you men call it–is the only part of me you haven’t enjoyed yet, Stephen. I want you to have everything… while we’re still together. That’s if you want, too. Please tell me you do.”
That was not much of a choice. Fortunately, I did want. I nodded yes.
“At our next stop,” she said. “I know a place there.”
“Beth, you’ll have to bike about eight miles afterwards.”
“Only for you, Stephen. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may…. There’s that little store on Route 85, somewhere around School Street. Who knows, they may have Astroglide. If not, they probably have K-Y Jelly or Vaseline. If not, they have butter. We can play Last Tango in Paris…. Let’s get rolling.”
The park was only five or six miles south of the town green, down Route 85, and the store was about halfway there. Route 85 was still pretty much a country road–a pleasant ride. The little store–I never was quite sure of its name–was about half grocery store and half convenience store. It was pretty much off by itself in the middle of nowhere. Beth stayed with the bikes outside while I did the shopping.
Astroglide was too much to hope for, but I did snag a tube of K-Y Jelly and a three-pack of latex condoms. The teenaged girl at the register didn’t bat an eye at my purchases or even my bike shorts. Just another pervert, she must have figured.
I didn’t know how Beth would feel about having a latex bag pushed into her rectum, but Ann would appreciate the gesture. We were already stretching our luck a bit with months of unprotected oral and genital contact among the three of us. Fortunately, all six microbiomes seemed to get along fine with one another. These were all nice, well-behaved germs, but perhaps a rougher crowd hung out at the rectum. Discretion is the better part of valor, I figured.
**********
Factory Hollow used to be a tiny village on the outskirts of Hebron. It had long since vanished. The area is now mostly woods, and for some reason it’s now a small state park. It has a swimming pond, a few picnic tables, and some hiking trails–that’s about it. We seemed to be the only people here today.
This was our last stop. From here to home would be an easy jaunt for each of us: maybe ten miles northwest for me, eight miles southeast for Beth.
Factory Hollow State Park seemed an unlikely place for our first anal sex. Of course, it was no weirder than the scene of our first genital sex–a clearing behind a dumpster behind an auto garage–and everything worked out wonderfully that time.
Personally, I would have preferred a bedroom, but by now I understood the principle by which Beth was operating. If you want to do something risky and ill-advised, do it as soon as possible–before logic and good judgment have a chance to intervene and ruin your plans. That’s how we became lovers in the first place, so I wasn’t going to quarrel with the principle.
We rode up to the pond and dismounted. Beth knew the hiking trails here: she thought we could roll the bikes along for a while. The path she wanted started to the right of the pond and went through the woods. We walked, each wheeling our bike, Beth in the lead.
About a quarter mile in, the path got too steep, narrow, and twisty to roll the bikes comfortably. We leaned the bikes against a white birch and secured them and our helmets with my thin cable-lock. “Take everything you need for a good time, Stephen,” Beth advised. “Don’t you dare forget the K-Y Jelly.”