Tae laughed. “Come on, Cora. That’s not true. You’re a decent business manager. And you’ve made a fine nanny for our son.” Then she tilted Cora’s head up to look at her. “But there is something else that I do need from you, bitch.”
Cora’s brows furrowed; what else could she take? Tae had her husband. She had her child. She had her devotion and her submission. My wife was broken; but just because something’s broken doesn’t mean it can’t be crushed just a little more. Break them enough, and some things can never be made whole again.
She knelt next to my spouse, then took Cora’s hand in hers and kissed the fingertips gently. Another mocking gesture of faux kindness. “I think you know what, Cora.”
“N- no, Mistress. I’m sorry. I don’t.”
“Tch.” She looked back at me. “She really is quite dumb, isn’t she?” I nodded, but I was looking straight at Cora; she withered under my impassive gaze. Turning back, Tae said, “If he’s my husband, what does that mean? What does a wife need from her husband?”
Cora’s eyes darted frantically, trying to decipher the intent. Tae already slept in my bed. She went on dates with me, made love to me, had a child with me and would soon have another. What was left? What could she possibly–?
And then it dawned on her. Cora looked queasy, almost starting to shake her head and mouthing, ’No.’ But something in Tae’s face said, ‘Don’t. It can always get worse.’
Meekly, Cora raised her left hand. With trembling fingers, she began to tug at the two loops on its fourth finger, the two rings that I’d put there to signify my commitment to her, first as a promise to marry her and later as a promise to be with her for the rest of my life. They were symbols of my fidelity to her. And, as with many symbols, they no longer meant what they once had.
They were an empty gesture, but they had still been hers. And, as she dropped them into Tae’s outstretched palm, as her usurper put the too-large bands on her too-small finger, she no longer even had that.
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When we learned that Tae was pregnant, we all celebrated. Nothing was said to the girls at the office at first, because we were afraid to jinx it. They knew Tae was our surrogate, but none of the more intimate details. Our employees just assumed that we were using the services of another clinic for ethical reasons.
But some of them, I’m sure, suspected that Tae and I were lovers. There was a closeness there that was hard to hide. Cora might have been embarrassed by their whispers, but she also didn’t say anything; whether because of embarrassment or because it only made the shame more thrilling for her, I don’t think even she knew.
Cora and Tae were closer now, though, closer than they’d ever been. Tae shared our bed many nights, and something about her presence there energized Cora. It wasn’t about a woman’s touch; on the nights when Tae would only watch and I’d make love to Cora–or as more frequently happened as time went on, as I’d fuck her–she still reacted in ways she never had before. It was Tae’s presence, the other woman’s threateningly seductive allure, that seemed to inflame her passions.
And when I looked at my lover as I fucked my wife, when I murmured, “I love you,” and neither could be sure who it was directed at? That was when Cora came hardest, as her barren womb was filled with spend that could never find purchase, put there by a man whose allegiances she was no longer entirely certain of.
As the pregnancy went on, our roles shifted even further from what they had been. I still acted as the doting and devoted husband in public, as she was the adoring wife. Tae was the wonderful young woman that had fulfilled our dreams, a dear friend that had given of herself for us. Cora behaved deferentially to her, purportedly out of gratitude for this sacrifice. My wife ran errands for her, helped her around the office, even gave her foot massages during her breaks if no one else was around.
At home, she was even more servile. Cora cooked and cleaned. She waited on Tae hand and foot. In bed, she would patiently sit to one side until after Tae was satisfied before even thinking to ask for relief. Some nights she went without entirely. On other nights, my wife would crawl between her legs and eat my cum from my lover’s well-used cunt, face burning with shame at her submission while her traitorous pussy dripped with arousal. When she did this, submitting to both of us, I would take her as I pleased; that always seemed to please her best, as well.
Cora had always been willing to give me almost anything I had ever wanted sexually; there was little territory left unexplored there. But now, it wasn’t a question of what she would give. It was a matter of what I would take, and when. Her ass became a new favorite of mine, the little pained sounds she made as I ravaged it like music to my ears. I had always been somewhat dominant with her; it had been a game we’d enjoyed many times before. But now, as our time with Tae changed her more and more, I found myself drawn even more to that role. It was less and less a game, instead becoming our new normal.
That didn’t apply only to Cora. As the new order of our household established itself, it became clear that while Tae and I were closer to equals than she and Cora, she was still subservient to me. It wasn’t only my younger lover's sexuality that was fluid, although she clearly loved being with both me and Cora; the bisexuality she’d been forced to suppress came into full bloom as she partook of both our bodies. Her attitude towards power and its eroticism also evolved as she shared and exchanged it in different measures and manners.
Tae grew to thoroughly enjoy the way Cora was submissive to her, becoming ever so slightly more cruel, albeit in a mostly playful way. But my pretty Asian bedmate also enjoyed the way I would use and abuse her body. I always took care to never do anything that could harm the child that was growing inside of her, but otherwise I extracted pleasure from her as I wished, from ass or cunt or mouth, or from watching her and my wife together before choosing one or the other or both to fill with my cock and my cum.
It was a strange dynamic, and one that I certainly had never dreamed I’d ever be part of. But Cora seemed happier than she’d been in a long time: our son was on the way; she had new facets of her sexuality to explore; and she two people truly loved her, even if it sometimes came out in strange ways. It was, in a lot of ways, a golden age for us.
It couldn’t last.
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Cora’s Mistress beamed, “Good bitch! You figured it out!” Tae leaned in to kiss her; the older woman flinched away, but that didn’t matter. She couldn’t stop Tae. She’d never been able to stop her. These days, she barely even tried.
My lover came to me proudly holding her hand out. “What do you think, Daddy?”
“Hrm. They’re a little big.”
She regarded them again. “Yeah, I suppose so. We could get them resized.” Cora frowned deeply.
“No, I don’t think so.” A slightly brighter expression on my wife’s face as I took the rings from Tae’s finger and dropped them onto the side table. Then, as I pulled Tae onto my lap and kissed her, Cora’s expression froze. “You deserve better.”
Tae grinned like a shark as she half-turned towards Cora. “Better?”
“Better rings for a better woman.” She laughed happily at my cruel words. Viciously. It was the sound of a faerie queen tormenting the foolish supplicant that had bargained poorly. Then the sound changed to a gasp as I pulled her onto my cock, turned to face Cora as my wife's Mistress rode my lap.
“Aaah- oh! Oh, Daddy! Thank you, Daddy!” She squealed with delight as I hilted in her, velvet heat encasing my shaft, then giggled, “B- Better, hmm?”
I sucked at her neck, and she melted against my chest. As my hands found her tits and began to pinch and tug her nipples, I said, loud enough for both women to hear, “Yes, baby girl. Much better.”
I heard a little pout in her soft, breathy voice as her hips started to move back and forth. “Better how, Daddy?”
“Greedy little thing. You know how.”
Tae whined, “But, Daaaaaddy, Cora needs to hear it again, I think. Look what a sourpuss she’s being.”
My wife's tears had started to slowly roll again. We saw less rage in her eyes these days, but the shame burned brighter than ever. The lust did, too. Cora’s fingers flexed, making and unmaking fists, but not because she wanted to do violence. Because we hadn’t restrained her, but we also hadn’t given her permission to touch herself.
The fear that Tae would lock her back up without release was stronger than any chain we could bind Cora with.
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Our son came. A healthy seven pounds and two ounces, Gavin was born early on a Friday afternoon. We had named him after Cora’s dear, departed father. She cried and cried as she held her son for the first time, as I held the two of them in my arms, both of us weeping tears of joy at the son that she had given me.
Then, when I handed Tae the baby to nurse, Cora excused herself to find a quiet place she could cry by herself and for herself.
She hid it from us at first, that deep well of sadness. She had gotten good at hiding how she felt: the way she had started to feel like the third wheel in her own marriage; the shame of hearing the girls at the clinic whispering her name and abruptly ending conversations when she entered the room; the growing fear that I’d toss her away once I realized I already had a superior woman in our house, one whose love for me was the equal of hers.
Tae changed, too, but more visibly. Physically, her body had changed, of course, with thin stretch marks adorning her skin, with a little additional weight that was mostly reduced as she got back to working out, with breasts that swelled with milk for my son and, at times, for me. But emotionally, she became more volatile. Not notably so towards me or Gavin; she doted on both of us. But there were times I’d find her crying in her room, and she couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me why, pretending it was only stress or tiredness.
But towards Cora, her behavior shifted more and more from playful cruelty to actual cruelty. She became outright demanding at home, and Cora took it as she had trained herself to do during the pregnancy. I tried to intervene, but it became apparent very quickly that this was between the two of them; my attempts to bridge the divide only made things worse.
Then, after dinner one night, Tae did something I never could have anticipated: she sent Cora to go sleep in the guest room by herself. And Cora, after the slightest of frowns, put on a fake smile and did so. I started to object, but the look on my wife’s face stopped me. She wasn’t just accepting of this dismissal; she was eager for it. This was how things needed to be. Not for me, and not for Tae, but for her. She needed this humiliation, even if she didn’t understand why.
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As Tae slid up and down my cock, her lithe, light body rubbing against mine, I smiled sweetly at Cora. “I’m a little busy, dear. Why don’t you tell her?” Tae shivered; I’d definitely said the right thing.
Cora’s eyes went wide. “I, ah, she…” She sighed, “Smarter. Tae’s smarter.”
Tae growled, “More, bitch.”
“Prettier. Younger. Sexier.”
My hips began to move of their own volition, changing the rhythm of our coupling. Tae’s body responded to my aggression, pussy fluttering around my dick as she approached orgasm. She gasped, “What else?”
Cora mewled, “A b- better lover.”
I slammed up into Tae, grunting, “Tighter pussy.”
Tae laughed, an unkind, manic sound. “More!” She might have been talking to either of us.
“She’s… Tae’s…”
My wife’s replacement started to go rigid, climax coming on like a freight train. “More!” cried her voice. I did what I could, punishing her greedy cunt with hard, fast strokes. Tae loved that–she always did–but she desired something else even more.
Her voice almost a whisper, my wife said, “Fertile. She can give you children.” Cora’s head hung low, the tears dripping down onto her naked thighs as I came inside my lover, filling her womb with my seed. I gave her everything I had, so that she could give me something Cora couldn’t.
Tae howled, “Fuck, fuck, breed me Daddy! Fucking knock me up!” as she came, her voice as jubilant as Cora’s was mournful. My lover had gotten everything she wanted, and she had taken it all from my wife.
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Cora’s mood improved at first. Tae’s show of dominance had removed some doubt from Cora’s mind, I think. It clarified how things were going to be in the house. Cora wasn’t banished from my bed every night, nor was Tae a permanent resident of it. But Tae could and did send her away when she chose, and Cora would simply put her head down and take it.
We still showed her affection. She was still my wife. But she wasn’t number one in the pecking order, nor even number two. She ranked a distant third, and somehow this seemed to make her happier. It even seemed to improve their friendship, which surprised me at first. When the two of them were out and about, they acted like a pair of old friends that had known each other since childhood. When all three of us were out together socially, Tae was propriety incarnate; there was never any doubt that Cora was my wife and Tae our friend. And the gossiping at work stopped, too; I’m certain Tae had a hand in that.
But at home, things changed immediately when we crossed the threshold. To say that Tae bossed Cora around would be inaccurate; it was more that Cora came to anticipate Tae’s needs and wants, perhaps as well as she could mine. There was a connection there that I didn’t entirely understand, but I knew that, even if it might look sadistic to outsiders, it was instead symbiotic. Submission to Tae helped Cora cope with the feelings she had, the feelings of inferiority and unworthiness, better than any therapist we could find for her.
But as time went on, simple submission wasn’t enough. Cora needed something more extreme.
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Tae shuddered in ecstasy, held close in my arms. Cora shuddered as she wept, alone in her chair.
“Sooo fucking good.” My lover stood when she regained control of her body, slipping off my softening dick. “Bitch! Get over here and get my man hard again.” My wife started to stand, but then Tae hissed, “On your knees!”
My wife did as instructed, sliding off the chair and onto the floor. Cora crawled the short distance to us, eyes on my cock the whole way. As she reached me, kneeling between my legs, her hand reached up for it. Tae’s voice sounded like a whipcrack. “No hands!”
Cora’s arms went behind her back. With a small, hesitant smile, she looked up at me; it went away as soon as she saw the scowl on my face and her the imperious tone of my voice. “Well?” Her head went down, mouth enveloping me in moist warmth. Those luscious red lips slid up and down the shaft as her tongue tickled at the underside, and I began to grow hard again. It was a great blowjob; she’d always had a talented mouth. But it wasn’t good enough. Nothing she did could have been.
Tae grabbed Cora’s short hair and forced her face down. My pubic hair tickled Cora’s nose as she gagged, struggling to take the full length, but Tae simply held her there. Her bitch tried to adjust, swallowing as best she could, and the panicked efforts felt amazing. When she could take no more, Tae pulled her off, gave her time for a quick breath, then forced her back on. She repeated this treatment over and over until Cora’s mascara ran down her face in black streaks, then laughed and pushed her aside. “Jesus, Cora. What was that?”
Coughing and choking, Cora rasped, “I’m sorry, Mistress.”
Tae rolled her eyes. “Whatever.” She sat on the bed, back to the headboard, and spread her legs. “Shut up and do something useful with your mouth.”
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She was Tae’s friend from college, the first woman she brought for me to play with. Cora knew it was going to happen; the pain of foreknowledge was part of the game that they played. Her Mistress had surprised Cora before, as when she slapped her the first time, but that didn’t let Cora really dwell on the pain. Little unexpected abuses were just something that happened and could happen again. They had dividends in the future, the knowledge that this was a barrier Tae was willing to cross and that I wouldn’t stop her, but they weren’t what Cora needed.
The anticipation turned out to be the key. The feeling of being trapped, of knowing the torment was coming and that begging would only make it worse. If Cora had tried to stand up to Tae on this, who knew what my lover would have done? This was only an incremental change, after all. It was “just” another woman, and Cora had been watching me fuck Tae for over a year at that point, sometimes joining in and sometimes not.
But it was a little dig at Cora, too, another way Tae could show her superiority. Cora had brought Tae to this room so that she could bear me a child. Tae was bringing a new sexually uninhibited young woman to show that she loved me and wanted me to enjoy whatever I desired, as long as it was just for pleasure. Tae gained nothing from it except to the pleasure of watching me enjoy another woman and later joining me in exploring our new shared slut's body. She had no ulterior motives except our carnal delights and the eager gleam in my eye.
Well, one other motive: to watch Cora squirm. To see her reduced just a little bit more. Just like my wife wanted; no, like she needed. When Tae’s friend joined us, Cora didn’t. She wasn’t invited, wasn't even allowed in the room, instead being told to wait outside the door and listen as two young, beautiful, energetic women fucked her husband in ways that Cora would find almost impossible to manage. It drove Tae wild, knowing her bitch was out there, listening and crying and furiously masturbating as she’d been permitted on this occasion.
The circle was complete; Cora had brought Tae to this room after hours, hiding from the world the fact that my wife was letting her husband breed another woman while she watched. No one else had been allowed into that secret world she had made for us. And now, the mother of my child had brought another woman here for me to enjoy, and Cora wasn’t even allowed to watch. She was on the outside, and it wasn’t up to her if she’d ever be let back in. My lover had supplanted my wife in almost every way.
Tae came over and over again, almost endlessly, watching me with her friend while Cora’s piteous wailing and ashamed sobs of ecstasy echoed in the empty halls of the clinic. But what it did for Cora, afterwards, was even more remarkable: it freed her.
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The light in Cora’s eyes was almost frightening. She climbed into bed without hesitation. This was her path to relief, if only she would do what Tae said. If only she would give what she was told to. If only she’d let us take what we wanted without complaint.
She almost dove between Tae’s legs, licking and sucking at her well-used cunt as it oozed with my jism. Her enthusiasm was almost inspirational. It was part of the game, the humiliation and the heartlessness, but my wife's hunger both for Tae's well-used cunt and the sperm oozing from it was utterly real and all-consuming. Our young lover murmured and moaned as she pressed Cora’s face into place, feeding my eager wife the thick, white spend she so desired.
Cora moaned, too, and moaned all the louder as I pulled the plug achingly slowly out of her ass. I let it slip back in when it was almost out, and she groaned in frustration. I could have chided her, but we were past that now. With a sudden yank, I removed it, and she yipped, the high-pitched noise muffled by her Mistress’s pussy.
From the side table, I pulled a small bottle and lubed my throbbing, steel-hard dick. Cora’s ass was more than ready; Tae had seen to that. When the head of my cock sat at her wrinkled hole, I stopped, teasing her with little nudges; not enough to enter her, but enough to show that I soon would, and nothing she could do would stop me. First, though, she needed to do one more thing for me.
“What do you want, Cora?”
She groaned, raising her head just slightly. “You- your cock! Please, Andrew. Please!”
More teasing pressure on that tight hole. “Where?”
“My ass! God, please, Andrew! Fuck it, fuck my aaaah-!” I pushed in, hard, taking her ass the way that she needed me to. The elastic ring gave way to my glans, then to the full length of my shaft. She gasped in pain and pleasure as I impaled her, then moaned, “Oooh, ffffuck!”
Tae’s hand pushed her head back into place. “You better not fucking cum until we both get off, bitch.” Then she watched me, Cheshire cat grin on her flushed face. She had told me before that this was her favorite part, the way I’d fuck Cora with abandon, the way I used her body for my own needs. The way I still needed her, even as we all pretended it wasn’t so.
My wife lapped and sucked desperately at Tae’s cunt, trying her best to bring her Mistress to orgasm. At the same time, Cora’s ass slammed backwards as my hips thrust forward. She finally had me in her ass, and she was so, so painfully close to getting what we’d denied her for over a week. She would have done anything then. But she’d done enough, and we’d done enough to her.
Tae came first, a soft, low sound of contented pleasure shifting and changing into loud, plaintive cries as her fingers tangled into Cora’s hair. “Oh, oh God, Cora! Oh, fuck, baby, your mouth, it’s so good! Oh, baby, touch yourself! I love you, Cora! Cum! Please, baby, please cum with us!” Watching her get off, and more, watching the way her face shifted from being my wife’s ruthless tormentor to her adoring lover, drove me towards my own orgasm. Cora’s hand flew between her legs, fingers pinching and stroking her engorged clit now that she had permission from her Mistress.
My strokes had become urgently, almost punishingly, forceful as I neared my own finish. “Fuck, Cora, fuck! Cumming, baby, I’m cumming, cum with me, cum with us! Love you, Cora, love you so much– Fuck! Fuck, I– !” I lost the use of words as I emptied myself into her guts, and as her tight, hot ass clamped down on me, as she loudly wailed, as she finally had the release she had craved for too long, I lost even the ability to move. This moment was so perfect. She was perfect. We, all of us together, were perfect.
When it ended and we were all spent, I fell to one side and pulled my wife with me, spooned behind the woman I’d always loved and would always love. Kissing her neck and shoulders and whispering words of adoration in her ear, I did everything I could to put my devotion to her on full display. She fearfully cried and whimpered, “Please, please don’t ever leave me, please, I’ll be whatever you need me to, I can’t lose you!”
Tae slid down the bed and took Cora’s face in her hands, quick, delicate kisses wiping away the tears. “Shh, baby, shh. He loves you. We both do. He’s yours. He’ll always be yours. I could never take him away from you, and I’d never try.” She kissed Tae softly and lovingly, all thoughts of hurting her gone then. That wasn’t what the woman we loved needed. She needed reassurance. She needed to know she was important to us. Vital. Irreplaceable.
Cora half-turned her head to me, and I kissed her as Tae had, with the same love and gentleness. In Cora’s eyes were why we did all of this. Beneath the submission, beneath the need for humiliation, beneath the fear of losing me to Tae, it was there: that deep need to feel the terror and push through it. To have us tell her it wasn’t real, that none of it was real, that her nightmarish dark fantasies were just that: fantasies.
That was what this room was now, more than anything else. It was a place where she was free to indulge, to truly immerse herself in this fear. It was a place where we were free to embrace all of our dark fantasies together.
In this room, Cora became the worthless, useless, redundant spouse she was terrified she might become, the other woman to the other woman. She took her punishments and her pain, her humiliation and her degradation, and she wallowed in them. And she did that because she knew it wasn’t real; or rather, it was, but only here. Only ever here.
Tae could be the sadistic bitch that she was afraid she truly was, the sexual deviant that her family condemned her as. She could punish this evil fairytale queen that had stolen her child, taking the king from her in return. She could let out the frustration and anger at the parents that had put her in this situation, both her own and the couple that took her in and used her body for their needs. She could cruelly shame the wife and arrogantly claim the husband, even if only here and now.
And I was free to take out my frustration on Cora: at her lunacy that brought us to this; at her need for submission and humiliation that this madness had allowed into our life; at the tiny part of me that whispered that I could take Tae and turn my back on Cora as the larger part screamed at me that I was a monster for even the hint of that awful, intrusive, untrue thought. I could use Tae as my fantasy lover, fucking her tight little pussy and filling it full of cum, inseminating her regardless of any consequences, giving into the breeding kink that Tae and I shared, the one that my wife could never truly fulfill, through no fault of her own.
They were all nightmares in their own way; small parts of who we are, but not the sum total. The time in the back room let us hold these illusions up to the light and burn the falsehoods away until the truth was revealed: that we weren’t just these things, even as we acknowledged they were part of us.
Then, we would leave them behind until it was time to indulge again, with only the smallest hints of them in our everyday lives: Cora’s mild and happy subservience at home; Tae’s occasional playful teasing of Cora when we were all alone together; my gentle domination in the bedroom of the two women I adored.
When we left this room, we would be who we really were, the greatest and brightest parts of us. Cora was a devoted and loving wife, a doting mother, a dear friend and lover to Tae. Tae was a grateful young woman who had been given a chance at the education she’d always wanted, and found something else as well: a pair of people that loved her and accepted her for who she was and would support her in all the endeavors of her life, far past the deal that had initially drawn us together. And I was a husband that loved his wife, that would do anything for her, including letting her completely change the dynamics of our home life and our relationship; a change that brought a new love to me as well.
We had all gotten everything that we knew we wanted, and some things we didn’t even have an inkling of before this started. It was a strange life, and a circuitous route to get here, but we were all content with it.
Almost.
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“What do you think about her suggestion?” It was a rare weekend when Tae hadn’t joined us for inventory, instead spending time at home studying and watching our son.
I chuckled, “We did want two kids.”
Cora grinned. “At least.” Then her smile turned to a slight frown. “But she seemed… I don't know, almost sad when she offered. Not exactly, but something like it.”
I had noticed this as well. “Yeah. I think… I know that she’s grateful that we’re going to pay for her Master’s and doctorate, if she decides to go that route. And I think that part of the offer was because she wanted to thank us, even though we made it clear that it was a gift and nothing more.”
“Yeah. But…” She paused, then pushed forward, a look of resolve on her face. “I love you so much, Andrew. And I know you love me, too.”
I took her hand. “Of course I do.”
Cora slowly asked, “Do you love Tae as much as you love me?”
This wasn’t a part of the game; that had mostly been confined to the back room for a year, other than the necessary run-up like putting Cora in denial as we got closer to playing. Cora had asked a sincere question, and I had to answer honestly. “It’s different, but yes. I do.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Good. I feel the same way.” We smiled broadly at each other; it had been a thing we hadn’t really discussed directly. It wasn’t that we were ashamed or afraid; I had long suspected that Tae had as much a place in Cora’s heart as I did, and that actually made me happy. It was another way that my wife and I were, as usual, so perfectly in sync with each other. Then she said, “Do you think she knows that, though?”
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Tae and I praised and cuddled Cora, kissing her and loving on her. Not in a sexual way, although that would come again later, when we spent the next few nights in bed worshiping her and giving her pleasure in any and all ways she wanted. But for now, we were just letting her know that she was the strong center of our unconventional family, the one that brought us together and kept us together.
We each slid one band onto her finger, Tae the engagement ring and I the wedding ring. Those symbols still meant what they always had, and my commitment to her remained as strong as ever.
It was starting to get late, and we needed to get going soon. Tae slipped out of the bed and stretched, then said, “I’ll go ahead and relieve the babysitter. You guys want to bring some takeout home?” She smiled as she said this, trying to be the sweet, affectionate woman she usually was. But I noticed a little of that unhappiness that we had seen before, and that wouldn’t do. Not anymore.
“Wait.” Cora stood and embraced her, then led Tae to the same chair she had previously consigned my wife to. There was confusion on Tae’s face, and apprehension. Was the game not over? Did Cora or I need to indulge some new fantasy with her?
We did. Of a sort.
I reached into the bedside table and retrieved something that Cora had secreted there earlier in the day, when she had been cleaning the room and preparing it for us. Then, I moved next to her side, and we knelt in front of our lover.
“Tae, we love you. You’re such an important part of our life.” Tae smiled as I spoke, but the sadness seemed somehow even more pronounced.
“Yes! I…” Cora kissed my cheek. “I would have been happy my whole life with Andrew if we had never met you, but I know that I– that we both feel like our life would be emptier without you in it.”
Tae started to say something, but Cora put a finger to her lips. “Shh, love. Wait.” Tae slowly nodded. Then she gasped as I displayed the item that had been hidden behind my back.
“Tae, we want you with us forever. We want you to part of our marriage and our home. We want you to be our wife.”
Tae’s eyes flooded with tears as she silently mouthed ‘Yes,’ then shouted it loudly, “Yes! Yes!” as the ring went on her finger. Her arms encircled our necks, pulling us in closer to her as she sobbed. When we pulled away after a time, I could see that her sadness had been replaced with a transcendent, all-encompassing joy.
There would be details to hash out, wills and insurance and legal documents to amend, but none of that mattered then. She had found her family, now and forever. Not with the parents that had hard-heartedly abandoned her, but with Cora and me, and baby Christopher. Baby Marie, too, although we didn’t know that yet.
When she rode me that night as Cora watched and Tae begged for more, I had given her our second child. Or perhaps it was later, when we were all at home and in bed together, exchanging proclamations of undying love interspersed with tender, languorous displays of it that I impregnated Tae once again.
But I’d like to think it was there, in that room where we let our fantasies loose; mostly dark, but sometimes as bright as the noonday sun. This was Tae’s fantasy, and ours, and we had made it as real as the bands on all of our fingers: symbols of a commitment both old and new, one forged and reforged in the love we had for each other.
