“We sat down together and created rules of what we could and couldn’t deal with. Those rules aren’t static; they change all the time but we trust each other to follow those rules implicitly and our relationship is more solid now than it’s ever been.”
“This shit is crazy. I find it hard to believe that the average woman would go for that,” Grayson said.
“How many women do you think are okay with sitting at home being blindly faithful to a man that’s fucking over them? No answer for that one huh? You believe most women wouldn’t go for it because you’ve never asked. Like most men your ego is too fragile to put that option out there for a woman to enjoy. You’d rather think of her as a Madonna or as someone whose sexuality is tied inextricably to yours. Because how could she possibly have a fully developed sexual identity that has nothing to do with you? How dare she desire sexual gratifcation from someone other than you?”
“I don’t know,” he said doubtfully.
By now Elisha was fully dressed. “Hey, she said, I’m merely offering food for thought. What have you got to lose when the one who mattered is already gone? In either case, call me. You have good dick and you know how to use it,” Elisha said as she walked out of the hotel room.
**********
“Elisha sounds like something else,” Shanda said.
“She definitely is. I consider her one of my dearest friends. But getting back to your question, after that I started thinking back to previous relationships and realized they had ended similarly. I could be happy and completely fulfilled in a relationship. It didn’t matter how pretty the woman was, how she kept house, how well she cooked, her ability to engage in conversation, or how good in bed she was. At some point, if we were together long enough I would cheat.”
“You don’t know that for certain,” Shanda said.
“No I don’t. What I do know is that I could love, physically desire, and hold a woman in the highest regard and still cheat. My past is proof of that. I want to grow with someone; with you. But I know that the only way to do that is to do it honestly, with all the cards on the table. I won’t expect anything from you that I can’t give myself.”
“Do you still love her? Lucinda?” Shanda asked.
“No, I don’t. Sometimes I question if I even knew the meaning of the word back then. I think I was trying to check off boxes. Is she pretty? Check. Is she educated? Check. Everything checked, but I never honestly asked myself if she was compatible with me. And not in the ways that society or my upbringing might dictate but in the ways I needed.”
“And you and Elisha are still lovers.” Shanda stated succinctly.
Grayson didn’t bother with disassembling. “Yes, we are. Does that bother you?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Shanda answered as she rubbed her thumb across the veins of his hand. Even though Grayson had told her that their situation was about honesty and not fairness, Shanda couldn’t help that she was a fair-minded person. She didn’t know if she would feel territorial knowing Grayson was intimately involved with someone or not but she knew in all fairness she didn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to Cassidy. Grayson wanted the option to be with other women left open while she wanted to be with Cassidy and him everyday if she could be. Ultimately it might be Grayson telling her that he couldn’t handle her desires and not the other way around.
*************
Cassidy was glad that she’d drawn the short straw to attend a legal conference at a women’s college in D.C. It gave her something else to do besides think about Shanda for the entire weekend. Mentally all she could do was shake her head and berate herself for being a damned fool yet again. The shy vixen had completely gotten under her skin and she didn’t have the slightest desire to extricate herself. If anything she wanted nothing more than to immerse herself and integrate herself more completely in Shanda’s life. Cassidy missed her. Forty eight hours hadn’t passed, yet it felt like weeks since she kissed Shanda or cuddled with her in bed. Maybe it was because she was a mom but Shanda gave the best cuddles, Cassidy thought randomly.
Shanda had thrown a monkey wrench in her entire game plan. At this point there was no denying that she had slipped, toppled, plummeted into loving Shanda Carson. Admittedly she had been taken with her before they’d shared a bed. The sex was phenomenal, there was absolutely no denying that, but that was largely superficial. Shanda was sweet, beautiful, and caring. Cassidy had thought she was beyond needing approval or validation but she had found innocently enough that she was not.