I spent the next day catching up on things on Earth. My house needed to be swept and vacuumed, and I still had some improvements to make. Gems needed to be sold. A few hardware items were needed for the trading post, shims and the like to make minor adjustments. Valeria helped, and kept me company, because she was the most inconspicuous.
It felt weird to be in Abel’s body.
Kathy, meanwhile, took a road trip with Talos, to find a place to sell some of the gold we had stored up in another town. If things worked out the way I hoped, we’d have more incoming in the long run.
I hadn’t been checking my phone as often, and I had a message from Jill asking me if she could come over for the weekend. The flights from Boston were cheap. I hesitated, even though that had always been an automatic yes before. Being away from Amaranth, and being away from Abby, for a whole weekend seemed like a lot. Could I safely show Jill my secret? I thought so, but the cost of being wrong was high. Certainly, I trusted her more than I trusted Kathy, but I hadn’t had any choice with Kathy.
I realized that I’d been neglecting Sandra, too. Earth had been out of sight, out of mind, except as a source of trade goods.
I checked a news site, and regretted it. I texted Sandra, just the usual kind of what’s up thing. Should I offer her a date? My life was really saturated, and while I liked Sandra, I didn’t know where there was room for her in it anymore. Jill, too, maybe, but Jill wasn’t local, and we were both content to keep our relationship low key most of the time and then make up for it on the occasions we got together.
“Call me,” Sandra texted back.
“So,” I said. “Sorry I’ve been so busy.”
“It’s okay. I’ve been busy too. Girlfriends?” she asked. “Or something else?”
“Girlfriends,” I said. It was easier than the other explanation. My deep voice sounded off to me.
“Can I meet them?” Sandra asked.
“Um. Well, I guess, sure. At least one of them.”
She chuckled. “Okay. What’s her name?”
“That’s a neat name. Very unusual. Maybe a double date, with you, Valeria, me, and Bill?”
I’d expected her to want to get me alone. “Um, okay.”
“Can I tell you something? But have you pretend that you’ve heard it for the first time, later?”
“I guess.” I never did like playing games like that.
“I think it’s the best way. I don’t want you to – well, I think you need to know, but Bill wants to be there for the announcement.”
I thought I could see what was coming. “Go ahead.”
“Congratulations.” I hoped Bill was good for her. It had always seemed like a bit of a lukewarm thing to me, but then, maybe that was because Bill wasn’t comfortable with poly. “Does that mean?”
“Yes. I’ve contracted mono.”
“That’s an interesting way to put it.”
“Well, I get the feeling you think it’s some kind of disease. But I think this is what I want, Abel. Can you – can you get that?”
“Totally. Monogamy is probably the best thing for some people. And I’m not shocked if you’re one of them.”
“Thank you, Abel. Silver Diner in Rockville, Seven?”
She chuckled. “Don’t worry, it won’t be catching, Abel. You’re immune. I can’t see you ever settling down and getting married.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said, “See you then.”
Valeria was watching me during the conversation. “She’s coming over? Should I go back to Amaranth this evening? It’s okay if it throws the schedule off.”
She meant the schedule of who I slept with, I figured. It was Gren’s night. “We’re just meeting them for dinner. Them meaning Sandra and her fiancé, Bill. I think – actually, I’ve just been broken up with.” It hit me as a delayed reaction, probably because I’d been wondering how I’d have time to continue the relationship anyway.
“Oh, darling!” Valeria wrapped her arms around me. I’d been sitting, and she’d been standing, so her boobs were at the level of my face. She was wearing a T-shirt, and a bra, so it wasn’t as fun as it could be, but it was still pretty nice. You can do all the things with someone, kinky and sexy things, but a good hug still feels special. After a moment I had to push her away so I could breathe, though.
“I’m alright,” I said. “If she hadn’t, I probably would have had to. And I’ve been seeing this coming for a long time.”
“So we’re meeting her and the man who took her away from you for dinner?” she asked. “Should I bring my sword? Wear my armor?”
I laughed. “Definitely not.”
“There won’t be violence?”
“Well, then, I’ll just have to make sure she knows you traded up. Let me go get dressed! Can we go to that salon, or would that take too long?”
“It would take too long,” I said. “And it’s not necessary.”
“I’ll wear my wedding dress.”
“Please no. Something else.”
“Well,” she said. “The little black dress?”
I wished I could wear a little black dress. Instead, I got dressed in a nice shirt, my least faded jeans, and dress shoes. Nothing over the top, just casually nice.
I hadn’t seen Valeria in her LBD before, although I’d seen a picture of the dress when she ordered it. The picture hadn’t anticipated the effect it would have on Valeria, who had more curves than the model. The square cut revealed the top demi-spheres of her breasts, and hugged Val’s hips before ending around mid-thigh. She wore a dark shade of lipstick with it that nearly matched the color of her auburn hair, and clearly she’d been practicing applying it.
“Better than okay.” Over the top. Almost literally. But I wasn’t going to rein her in, not because I wanted to flaunt her to Sandra, but because I wanted her to be herself. Well, as herself as she could be without bringing a sword and armor.
We got to the restaurant on time, but Sandra and Bill were already there. They both stared at Valeria for just a few extra split seconds. Sandra was wearing a nice blouse and a flowery, flouncy knee-length skirt. Bill wore slacks, a dress shirt, and a tie. I was underdressed, it seemed, but that’s okay, this is what Abel was always comfortable in. This was who I was.
I’d rather be wearing a dress like Val’s.
“Valeria, this is Sandra and Bill. Bill, Sandra, Valeria.”
“Such a lovely name!” Sandra exclaimed, as if hearing it for the first time.
We all sat down together, and Bill managed to wrest his eyes from Valeria’s cleavage. Sandra was a lovely woman, a real catch in my opinion, tall and willowy, but if Bill was a breast man I saw trouble ahead. But there was no crime in looking, and Sandra looked, too.
We ordered drinks. A cola for Valeria, a beer for me, dirty martinis for Sandra and Bill.
“So,” said Sandra. “We have an announcement to make.”
I smiled. I had told Valeria, and told her to treat it as a surprise. “Oh?”
“We’re engaged!” She said it a little too heartily, as if to sell that it was the first time.
“Congratulations!” I said. I shook Bill's hand.
“Oh, that’s lovely!” Valeria said. “You’ll love being married!”
Sandra looked down, and I realized she was checking out Val’s fingers for rings. “Are you married, Valeria?” she asked.
“Yes,” Valeria said, biting her lip. Valeria was big on not lying, but at least she didn’t provide any extra information.
“It’s okay,” Sandra told her. “As long as your husband knows about Abel. And I know that he wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Oh, her husband knows all about me. We get along great!” I said quickly. That, too, wasn’t a lie.
Valeria shot me an odd look. I smiled at her, in what I hoped would look like a loving away to Sandra and Bill, and simultaneously get Valeria to drop the subject. In other words, I hoped I was telepathic, or that she was.
“So how did you meet?” Sandra asked.
I answered before Val could. “I was sunbathing, and she happened by.”
Sandra stared at me. “You, take time from working to just sit idly? You must have been exhausted.”
“She was – I mean he was – wearing this little skimpy swimsuit,” Val said.
“Speedo?” Bill asked.
“Nothing like checking out the package early in the relationship,” Sandra said. “So it was love at first sight?”
“No, at first I wanted to kill – him.” The hesitation let me know she was still struggling over pronouns. “But he grew on me.”
Sandra blinked. “Literally?”
Valeria blushed. “Well, that too.”
“I meant the growing. Not the killing. I assumed that was figurative. Trust me, everyone who has dated Abel has felt that at some point or another, but it passes. He’s really a sweet guy, just a bit of a workaholic sometimes.”
“Well,” Valeria said, “He’s very handsy.”
“He – what?” Sandra asked. I was surprised, too.
“Good with tools and things. It’s natural for a person to want to do what they are good at.”
Sandra sat back, breathing a sigh of relief. She knew me better than that. I’m only handsy if I’ve gotten enthusiastic consent. “So what are you good at?” Sandra asked. “What’s your passion – outside of Abel?”
I tried to speak, but I wasn’t fast enough.
“I mean, outside of Abel and your husband,” Sandra said, making the logical assumption. Bill started to say something and then didn’t.
“Oh. Well, I’m very good with a sword.”
“Fencing,” I said quickly. “She’s a professional. But enough about us! How about you two? What led to the big announcement? When’s the wedding?”
Thankfully, that worked. Valeria seemed to pick up on the fact that I wanted to head off the discussion. I’d briefed her in the car about things not to say – about Xyla and Gren, about Amaranth, about magic – but I hadn’t been able to cover every topic. But however curious people are, most people would rather talk about themselves. Bill and Sandra couldn’t wait to tell us about their relationship, and how they’d decided they were just right for each other, and didn’t need anyone else.
Especially, I suppose, me. Well, I never wanted to be needed anyway. Just wanted.
So I asked questions, and listened to the answers, and smiled at Bill to let him know I was no threat. And all the while I thought about how I wasn’t doing poly the way I always wanted to. I was being public with Val, but I was keeping the others a secret. That, to my mind, was a way of making them less than, and they weren’t less. They were just different. It didn’t matter right now, with Sandra, because she’d just broken up with me, without saying it in so many words. She didn’t need to make it any more clear than she had.
But Jill was a different story. Even though she only passed through my life now and then, at this point, she was still in a kind of a relationship with me. Either I was going to have to break up with her, or I was going to have to tell her. Those were the only ethical options, and they both kinda sucked.
We smiled, and chatted, and ate, and nothing else came up to make Valeria seem too very strange. Sandra and Bill were too wrapped up in each other, once I’d gotten them started, and we waved to each other and were all friends at the end.
“What’s on your mind, Abby?” Valeria asked me in the car on the way back to the house.
“Well, Jill – I’ve told you about Jill.”
“Yes. She who sends the selfies.”
“Yes. She wants to come for this weekend.”
Valeria nodded. “Everyone wants you.”
“That hasn’t been my experience in the past,” I said. “Not in this body, especially. But a few people want me, and Jill is one of them. Pretty sure there are several billion people on Earth who couldn’t care less.”
“So, it seems to me Jill came before any of us. You don’t have to ask us permission.”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t. It’s not that. It’s that I wouldn’t keep you secret from Gren, or Lesseth from Xyla, or any of you from – and Jill doesn’t know about any of you.”
“Well, Gren and Lesseth and Xyla are kind of hard to explain.”
“Yeah, they are. But that doesn’t mean they should be a dirty little secret.”
Valeria nodded. “I get it. It’s like on Earth, to Sandra right now, I’m your real girlfriend. Or, if she knew, your real wife.”
“Right. And that’s not fair to the others.”
Valeria smiled. “And this is why I love you. I agree. Whatever you decide is fine with me.”
Sometimes, it was annoying that everything was my decision – even if I’d be even more annoyed if someone else got to make decisions for me.