Sexcathalon and Erototoxins [1/2]

The bell above The Coffee Barn door dinged as someone walked in. It was a slow morning, so I was excited a customer had finally come in, but when I lifted my head and saw Seth striding up to the counter my heart sank. I wasn't ready yet for this confrontation, I thought as flashbacks of last night made me swallow the lump in my throat.

"Hey," I called to him.

"Hey, where'd you go last night?" Seth asked

I shrugged. "I had to work early."

"You could've just stayed with us."

"I'll stay next time. I had laundry to do too," I said, giving him a small, timid smile.

He frowned and started drumming his fingers against the counter. "Are you okay?"

I widened my smile. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"I don't know. You just seem..." he trailed off.

"I get off in an hour. This day has just been dragging."

He nodded and licked his lips glancing at me. "Are you gonna be ready tonight?"

"For what?" I asked.

"For our sexcathalon," he said, cupping his hand over his mouth to keep it between the two of us.

I gave him a dull, unimpressed look at his attempt to be quiet. "There's nobody here, Seth."

He shrugged, shooting me a boyish grin. "Yeah, I noticed. I thought people loved coffee."

"Apparently not on Saturdays, of course, it's only one o'clock. The drunkards don't usually get up until two or three. Then we'll get busy... right when I get off!"

"Drunkards. Who even says that anymore?"

I lifted my hand and pointed a finger at my nose, touching the tip and tilting my head, making a funny, cross-eyed face at him. "Me!"

His smile was slow as it spread across his face. "So will you be? Ready?"

"Well, if I can get another show like last night, I should be... thanks to erototoxin."

I could've smacked myself in the face. Did I have to blurt out everything I thought?

"What the hell is that?"

Breathing an internal sigh of relief that it was the strange word he noticed instead of my other voyeuristic slip. "It's an addictive chemical that releases when watching porn."

"You were watching porn last night?" he asked sounding impressed, but there was a hint of excitement in his voice, enough of it that it made my face hot.

I nodded as the bell above The Coffee Barn door dinged again. Giving a glance, I saw Ethan juggling his books and stray papers in his arms. I smirked and tilted my head, waiting for half a minute so when I answered Seth, Ethan would hear it too. The urge to embarrass Ethan far outweighed my own. "I was watching blow job porn, male on male deep throating... in a hot steamy shower, specifically."

Seth's belt of laughter startled a surprised look from Ethan as he came in on the butt end of the conversation. Ethan's dark blond eyebrows snapped together as he settled his book load on a squared, mahogany table next to the counter.

"Hey," he said, stopping next to Seth and giving him a quick kiss on the lips.

He hadn't heard it and I had no intention of saying it again. "You look tired," I mumbled.

Ethan's hair was rumpled and his eyes were red and drooping like he'd been awake all night studying, but I knew otherwise. Seth and Ethan must've stayed up well into the morning with each other.

I wonder what they did... or what they talked about.

"Yeah, I am. Finals are coming up—I hope neither of you forgot—and I'm studying like crazy," Ethan said. "After you put the groceries away and left without saying a word, Seth and I stayed up talking when we should've been studying."

"Aw, there's my bookworm coming out to play," Seth said, biting his lip and raising a suggestive eyebrow. "Ever play Librarian, Cassie?"

I frowned. "Um, not really. Why Librarian?"

Seth's eyes partially closed to slits as grinned at me. "We'll make Ethan dress up after you get off work. The earlier we start the longer we can play," he said with eyes twinkling in anticipation.

"Actually, I—" I started, but stopped, remembering Seth's dismissive reaction to my eventual summer surrogacy. "I mean, I have a doctor's appointment. You guys can come if you want, it's just a physical and vitamin follow up... you know how it is. They gotta make sure I'm healthy enough to carry the baby."

Seth's smile wiped off his face, but Ethan didn't seem to notice as he nodded his head. "We'll go."

"Um—" Seth started. "I'll pass."

"Seth—"

Seth shrugged and interrupted Ethan. "You know doctors make me twitchy."

Ethan frowned. "Yeah, okay."

Seth cleared his throat and licked his bottom lip. The atmosphere between the three of us felt suddenly awkward like we were all dancing around cracked shells trying not to piss anyone off. I bit my lip, waiting for someone else to talk.

"So, Cassie, that shower scene..." Seth said. "How would you rate it?"

With a quick smile, I breathed a sigh of relief, as that building tension stopped, and teeter-totted my hand in the air, "Eh, five out of ten."

Ethan's eyebrow rose. "Our shower scene?" He turned to look at Seth and then frowned when what I'd said registered. "Five? What do you mean five?"

---

"Are you sexually active?"

My eyes widened and I glanced over at Ethan, "Um, not yet!"

The nurse's hands paused over the keyboard and she glanced up. "Have you ever been sexually active?"

It was one thing talking about my virginity with Ethan and Seth; it was another talking about it with a stranger... even if that stranger was a nurse. I could be as dirty as I wanted with Seth and Ethan, but here in the doctor's office, it all felt so stiff and clinical-like. Joking an answer was out of the question.

Swallowing, I shook my head. "No. I haven't."

"Um-" I know these people have money, but...

I held my hand up, cutting her off. "I'm making arrangements."

Removing her hands from the keyboard, the nurse turned in her wheeling chair and rolled closer to us. "Are you sure this is something you want to do?"

"I mean, yes—definitely."

The nurse nodded. "Okay," she said, offering a warm smile. "By the end of this process, you'll probably be tired of that question."

"Why?" Ethan asked.

"We have to be sure that the potential surrogate not only understands the physical aspect of carrying another couple's baby, but also the mental trauma it can cause if the volunteer is not ready for something like this. This too is going to be a heavy screening process and we'll ask that question every chance to assure that this is something you want to do and not something someone is pushing you to do."

She paused as if to say 'let this sink in' before she continued, "The minute you walked into this office, Cassie, you became our patient. Your mental and physical health is our priority, not the couple wanting the baby. Thankfully, you were smart enough to go to a different physician than the one the soon-to-be mother goes to."

I frowned. "That could cause some legal issues and information violations, right? That's what I assumed when I told them I'd get my doctor. I don't want to think the worst, but I figured protecting myself and having a different physician was the best route."

"Well, you were right. Now, since this is such a lengthy process, you might decide to have intercourse with someone before it happens. If that's the case, we'll have to screen you for potential sexual diseases like syphilis and HIV again. Remember, wrap it before you tap it, wrap it twice if you have to," she added, giving a pointed look at Ethan. She turned to me. "And birth control... condoms break. Accidental pregnancy would cause a problem in becoming a surrogate."

I hid my smile underneath my hand as I glanced at Ethan's flushing face. He looked like he was about to have a stroke and the nurse wasn't cracking a smile at all as she eyed him again. Her seriousness made Ethan stiffen in full alert. He gave her a nod and the blush in his cheeks spread to the tips of his ears.

He was just too easy to embarrass.

"I'm on birth control," I said.

"Good."

We spent almost two hours in the office. I had questions that needed to be answered and the medical staff had answers on top of questions for me. When Ethan wasn't in the waiting room, he had questions too. What better time to do it then while they were taking tests and sonograms of my uterus. They were seeing all up in there, so there was really no point in being embarrassed with them. By the time we got out, the sun was low in the salmon and turquoise colored sky. The wind was gently blowing the smell of freshly cut grass, and the growl of a lawnmower turned off.

I inhaled, letting my eyes briefly flutter shut as we walked towards Ethan's car. "Thanks for coming, Ethan. It was a lot easier with you being there."

He cast me a sideways glance and smirked. "No problem. It was definitely a learning experience."

Once we got in the car and put our seatbelts on, I looked over at Ethan as he pushed his key into the ignition. I wanted to ask him about Seth and his reaction to what I was doing. Seth's first dismissive response had been understandable—he'd been turned on—the second time, in the Coffee Barn, he seemed stand-offish.

"So, is Seth okay with this?"

Ethan turned his head towards me as he pulled out of the parking spot. "Why wouldn't he be?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, maybe the way he reacted when I told you guys? That could be it," I said dryly. "It's not exactly something he was asking for either. Will you make sure he knows that just because you're going to be my support system it doesn't mean he has to be if he doesn't want to?"

"Cassie, it's not like you're having this baby to keep it."

"I know, but I'll still be going through all that emotional crap and that might be something he doesn't want to deal with, ya know? I feel like he's not saying something about it."

Ethan nodded with a solemn, knowing look on his face. "I'll talk to him and see where he stands. It's probably just the idea of a living person inside of you that has him acting like that."

"Speaking of talking, what did you and Seth talk about all last night?" I asked, unable to keep the question down any longer.

Ethan switched his turning signal on and changed lanes so he could turn right before casting a glance my way. "You."

"Me? Did you talk about me all last night? Hell, I'm not that interesting."

I let out a nervous laugh and wrapped my hands around the clothed seatbelt tightly. The fabric from the corner of the belt dug into the palms of my hands. "Wow, that wasn't what I wanted to hear. What about me?"

"Nothing bad!" he said. "Seth wants to continue after..."

"After... you pop my cherry?"

He tsked his tongue. "Yes."

"What does he want to continue exactly?"

Ethan sighed, and when he stopped at the red light he turned his upper body towards me, his pine green eyes suddenly serious. "With you and the-um-the sex."

"You mean he wants to have sex with me after you do?" I asked and then shrugged. "I'm okay with that."

"No. Well, yes he does after I'm er--done, but that's not what he meant. He wants you to continue to be involved with us... sexually."

My eyes widened. Now that wasn't what I expected. "Like fuck buddies?"

That was something I wasn't so sure about. If only a few nights of heavy petting led me to the emptiness I experienced last night then how would I be able to handle that.

"Not like fuck buddies," he said, drawing out the 'o' in not.

Oh.

"Oh," I repeated my thought. "Like what then?"

Ethan didn't answer my question until he got to his apartment complex parking lot. He threw his seatbelt off and leaped out of the car, coming around to my side as I sat staring at the windshield, contemplating what he'd said.

There's no way he meant... that.

He pulled my door open and slowly reached over me. His breath mingled with mine and the day-old stubble on his face scratched my cheek. Ethan's gaze shifted to my face as he pushed the button of my seatbelt and carefully pulled it away from me. I started to get out, but Ethan shook his head.

"Stay," he said, leaning against the passenger door.

Settling back into the seat, I finally asked him, "Are you going to answer me now?"

Exhaling, he nodded but didn't say anything right away as he examined me quizzically. "Like a relationship with you," he whispered. "That's what we were talking about all last night."

My lips parted. "What?" I asked, resisting the urge to shake my head and clear it.

"You heard me right," he said. He swallowed and ran a hand through his wind-rumpled hair. "I need to know how you feel about that, Cassie."