strong, nimble, elegant.

So they took the pictures. Even from the way George smiled Lily knew he wasn’t as into the joke as Alex was, but wanted to be a good sport about it, especially since Carmen seemed enthusiastic about it. Lily convinced them to post, and Carmen always agreed with whatever she wanted, an eagerness that made Lily feel, meanly, like she was the hot cheerleader with a jock boyfriend she was trying to impress. Alex was enjoying it. Made so many bros before hoes jokes, it all got old at one point.

“What’s the girl version?” George asked.

“Chicks before cocks?” Lily said, and Carmen laughed wildly like she always did whenever Lily said a vulgar thing. Alex laughed along with his whole body. He was so lovely.

“Didn’t even rhyme,” he said. “Should be dicks, no?”

“You guys are sooo bad,” Carmen giggled. “We can’t post it like that!”

Alex swiped between the pictures Lily airdropped him. “What, can’t post it like this?” he showed her the screen, a carousel of two pictures – one where they were both looking at each other, and another where Alex had his eyes closed, head thrown back in laughter.

“That’s gonna fan the rumors,” Carmen said.

George blanched. “What rumors?”

Alex waved his hand dismissively, other hand flying across his keyboard. Bros before hoes. Lily squinted at him. “No, that’s not – “ she took his phone from him, editing the caption.

“What rumors?” George demanded, sitting so upright the tiny jet looked like it squished him.

“Oh my God, calm your tits,” Alex said, not even looking at him. Busy looking over Lily, where she had his phone balanced on his thighs. “Just some weirdos who ship us. It’s like, a fan thing.”

“Ship, like relationship,” Carmen murmured helpfully.

“They… believe we’re in a relationship?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Alex said. “Why do you think Mercedes pulled me in for content when they think you’re being too annoying?”

That last part, he said while looking at George. If Lily was any other person, she would think Alex was being too mean. She knew better now.

“It’s no big deal, don’t worry about it,” Carmen said, all the air of someone calming down a spooked horse. “They also think you and Max make a great couple.”

Alex blew a raspberry.

“But how – why – “

“It’s an internet thing, darling,” Carmen said patiently. Then, to Lily, “should you add a picture of us?”

Lily raised an eyebrow. “You want to no homo it?” Carmen, who didn’t realize she was asking Alex, sputtered and shook her head.

“No, I just meant – well, the visibility's gonna be good for us, isn’t it?”

Ah. She exchanged another look with Alex, brief. A look that said once in the privacy of their own room, there would be so much to unpack. “Sure, pick one,” Lily said instead, passing Alex’s phone to her. When she looked up at George, he still looked horrified. “George. Relax. It’s not like anyone’s gonna know.”

Carmen paused. Looked between her, Alex, then George. Her scrolling momentarily forgotten. “Know what?”

“Uh, well – “

Shit. Alex shot her a look, notoriously bad at keeping a straight face. Lily was stone-faced, refusing to look at Carmen. George, for his part, was keeping his face neutral, until the moment Carmen sought his eyes and well – he crumbled. He groaned, long-sufferingly, and hid his head in his hands. Carmen dropped Alex’s phone on her lap. Suddenly, all Lily heard was the roaring of the jet engine.

Alex was the one on a Spanish kick, but anyone could surmise what dios mio meant. Carmen’s mouth hung open, and she covered it with both hands, like a Polly Pocket. “You mean – ?”

“We were 19,” George mumbled, looking humiliated. Which. You know. Lily was so used to her LA friends being biblical whores with no shame around their desire, and Alex who fit right in, that it rankled her a little bit. Alex had always explained it like a fun experience. A bit scandalous, just enough to be sexy, even though at nineteen, they were anything but. She’d shuddered at the old chopped haircuts.

Alex made a profoundly Alex noise.

Carmen stared at him.

Immediately, she wanted details. Lily supposed it was the same morbid curiosity that made her demand Alex to tell her, even though she’d been quite vague with her own past in return. There was nothing to write home about. Alex explained it with the same fondness Lily had heard it described. He stayed over all the time. It was small, the bed at my old house – Mum just got out of prison, you know this. We shared the bed a lot. We watched a lot of porn together, too. And one day, I just reached out and –

Champagne down her throat. “Oh,” she said, staring resolutely at anything but George. Her eyes landed on Lily. “You knew?”

Her own flute was half-drunk. She shrugged. “There was a truth or dare.”

“Would tell even if I wasn’t forced under oath, by the way,” Alex winked, badly. The other eye also closed. He looked like an unsexy dweeb. And there it was, the levity with which he treated everything about George.

“Can we stop talking about this?” George’s voice was high, strained. Lily had been watching him squirm for the whole narration. He’d twisted his legs, crossed one over the other. Not unusual for George. But he’d kept that same position stubbornly, like he would do anything to keep it hidden that he was in any way affected. He was certainly embarrassed, that he couldn’t hide. But at any point in Alex’s story, he could’ve told Alex to stop, lunge over the handrest and stuff Alex’s mouth full of napkins, threatening him to shut up. He hadn’t. He’d let Alex finish, let Carmen listen to every word, and process this new information like she’d never be able to look at George the same.

Lily licked her lips.

Her Alex wasn’t a predator. The sweetness he held wasn’t an act.

He could be one, though, if Lily just pushed him right. Could snarl and choke her and put a finger up her ass as he spat on her pussy, like he hated it. He could pounce when triggered. Lily loved pulling at it.

She pressed the button that let the privacy screen down.

Then, drunk on how hedonistic this all felt, she sipped at her champagne, and extended her bare foot, her kitten heels forgotten on the carpeted floor — just so, so that her painted toes pressed ever so slightly against Alex’s crotch. He was hard. He barely broke eye contact with her. She found that extremely dizzying.

“Why?” she murmured, peered at George through the rim of her glass. She knocked it back, felt bubbles burst on the back of her throat. “He’s hard.”

Carmen averted her eyes, looking like she was about to bolt. “Lily, oh my gosh – “

“Touch him,” Lily said to Carmen.

Carmen gaped at her. “What?”

“Touch him,” she repeated, nodding her head at George. His eyes were bulging out of his head. He looked at Carmen helplessly. But see: Lily also could be the predator. They were bugs under her microscope. There was nowhere they could go. “Or do you want Alex to?”

And like her strings had been cut, Carmen surged forward, palmed at George’s knees to pry them open. “Oh,” she said, in awe at the way George’s trousers tented. Like she’d never seen it bulge that big. “George, gosh.” She cupped him through the trousers, cheeks red. “You – you are horny? Because of – “

“He’s always fucking horny,” Alex cut in. “One night I caught him touching himself – “

“Alex,” George said, but it didn’t sound like a warning. He had his eyes squeezed shut, like closing them made him invisible to the world. “Alex, please.”

Lily retracted her leg. Somehow, she had a feeling that it would always end like this. Alex’s eyes burned when she tipped his chin to look at her. She understood the request before it was even said. She arranged herself languidly on her seat, leaning the back as far as it could go. Got comfortable to watch.

“Well, he asked so nicely, Alex.”

*

She felt hot flashes across her body, like something lit up inside her. She was so horny she couldn’t think. Perhaps it was the absurd setting: a private jet, flying across Europe, cramped space for two six-foot men, champagne flutes scattered. It was the fact that only a mere screen separated them and the pilots, and the flower bouquets still laid on the table. Alex had asked to make a sex tape once, but they’d skipped over the kissing part and jumped straight to fucking, Lily arching her back in a way that she knew made her A-cups look perky. She regretted not recording the kiss. When she missed Alex, she fantasized about how much he liked to kiss the most.

She wondered if it looked like this, when Alex kissed her; George’s head tilted back, neck exposed so he could press his hand on his Adam's apple. He kissed him for a long time. There was no awkwardness in it, like the last time they kissed wasn’t years ago, when they were barely adults. George’s body was so stiff, only his mouth responsive, like he couldn’t bring other parts of himself to reciprocate. It couldn’t be because he didn’t like it. When Alex let go, he chased after Alex with a pitiful whine, a sound so breathy like it had been trapped behind his ribs all this time.

“Fuck, he wanted it so bad,” she said, unbidden. Carmen was frozen next to her. She swallowed, like she was about to cry, be angry, or freak out. She glanced at Lily, like she was expecting comfort. Lily felt, for all of one second, bad for having her hand already inside her panties, and it vanished as Alex pushed George against the window, so his legs hung over the armrest, and pulled his trousers down. His cock, red and straining against his belly, sprung free, and he moaned like it was painful. Alex put it in his fist, tight.

“George,” Carmen whispered in disbelief, and Lily knew the sound of a girl needing distraction from distress. So she reached out, until she could turn Carmen’s face towards her. Her eyes were shiny, but she seemed determined not to let her tears fall.

“Just enjoy it, baby,” Lily told her.

“I don’t – “ she frowned. “But I don’t like gay porn.”

Lily couldn’t help the bark of laughter that escaped her. Alex paused his handjob to shake his head, playful but disapproving. “Be nice, Lil.”

“I’m sorry, I’m just – I’m not – I’m not wet,” Carmen babbled, and Lily just had to shut her up for that.

The armrest dug against her ribs as she lunged for a kiss, but the moan that escaped Carmen’s mouth was real. She had such moisturized lips – and she spared, for one moment, a mean, mean thought about her apparently cum-smelling skincare line, something about letting George come on her face, but. She pushed it down. Carmen shivered as she broke off the kiss, eyes completely closed. That surge of hotness struck her body again, and her impulse drew her to touch her tits, twirl her nipples behind her expensive black t-shirt. “Oh! Oh!” she yelped now, holding onto Lily like she didn’t know whether to push or pull.

“Am I nice enough?” Lily asked Alex.

Alex – god, Alex was matching his pace to hers. George was folded up, shirt rucked up, and Alex was teasing his nipples the same way Carmen was felt up. “What do you think, Georgie?” he asked instead. “Is my fiancée as nice as you?”

“Oh god,” Carmen moaned. Lily pulled away, adored the way she could see her nipples stand out against the fabric. Unconsciously, it seemed, Carmen had started rutting against the seat, seeking friction. Lily smiled.

“Starting to feel good, yeah?” she purred.

“Can you – “ she whispered, clutching at Lily’s armrest. And then, like she just remembered who else was in the room, suddenly cut herself off. And yet, she didn’t stop rutting against the seat.

“Think she wanted you to touch her,” Alex said. “Think you can do that, Georgie?”

George’s answer was a long whine. Alex stopped moving his hand, gave a sudden mean squeeze that made him yelp. “I asked a question, Georgie.”

“Fuck, fuck, Alex – “ George hadn't been able to finish his sentences for a while. Lily wondered how it was possible that he was affected with so little, even when Alex was just kissing him. Like the want had rattled inside of him for longer, locked up behind a dam that broke the moment Alex’s skin touched his. He had his eyes covered with an elbow, the other gripping the headrest, like it didn’t even occur to him he could just touch himself without Alex’s permission.

He lifted his elbow, and Alex must’ve seen something in his eyes. He shifted, smiled.

“Lily, can you help him?” Alex asked.

Carmen, still shivering in her arms, let herself be arranged on the seat. She knelt in front of her, nudging her knees apart with a soft bump of her head. “Up,” she said, so she could sneak a hand under her jeans to pull them down, pooling at her tiny ankles. Her panties were next. There was barely any space between the two seats. George was perpendicular to the seat in front of her, his head laid on the cushion — that way, her pussy, waxed clean, was facing George.

George could reach her this way, but the angle was difficult. Lily sat there and watched, but felt a deep sense of secondhand embarrassment as he tried to futilely flick her clit, while Alex continued to pump him. It was clear which sensation he wanted to lose himself in more. The embarrassment turned into pity, then to indignance, as she imagined what kind of treatment George was giving Carmen. As obnoxious as she secretly found her, she drew the line at bad sex. When Carmen started frowning, inching away from it, it just blurted out of her.

“It doesn’t feel good, does it?”

Carmen didn't answer. Even like this, she was always so conscious of what she was supposed to be; a protector of George's image, the woman shaking her head behind the back of her successful man. It made her irrationally angry. She slid her fingers next to George, and started rubbing the way she liked — the way Alex always did for her.

“Oh, fuck,” Alex said, pumping George faster. A sound escaped Carmen’s throat, startling her like she didn’t even know it belonged to her. George’s hand was still extended, and Lily slapped it away to the sound of George’s weak whimper, so she could get better access. Her fingers splayed wide, she squeezed her clit between thumb and index finger, did that back and forth for a while, until she realized what she was doing and stopped so abruptly Carmen nearly flew off her seat.

“No-ohh,” she moaned, hands fisted at her side.

“Do you want Lily back?” Alex asked, fire in his eyes. Carmen looked between the two of them and looked like it hurt to nod.

“Lily, you wanna fuck Carmen?”

Lily scoffed. “More like you want to see me fuck her.”

“Maybe I just want to relieve poor Georgie here of trying to pleasure his woman. He has never been so good at multitasking, you know,” he said, patting George on the thigh. Then he took out his own cock, not bothering to take off his jeans all the way. “Gotta focus on giving you a good show,” he added, angling his dick right at George’s hole. Lily had never seen an asshole this up close and personal. Alex hated anal play on himself, and Lily never asked. It looked so small, fluttering against nothing. He wondered how Alex was going to fit himself inside, and remembered suddenly that it had happened.

But first —

She looked up at Carmen. “You want me to fuck you?”

“ Lily, please, please, can you just touch me, please – ohhh fuck – “

Two fingers slid in with no resistance. Carmen was so wet that it made her wetter. She fucked her fingers gently at first, like Alex would, and pulled it out just to see how soaked they are. She spread her fingers in front of Carmen, wanting her to see the transparent sheen of liquid, the slick strings that still connected the two. Carmen looked fucked out already just from two fingers. She was shocked, horny out of her mind, and scared. “I’ve never – god, that was – me – ?”

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She suddenly felt it was her responsibility to show her how good sex can be. She crawled closer, even though the floor was surely scuffing her Miumiu, said, “Pay attention,” and dove in. She tasted so clean. Lily ate girls out before, mostly out of curiosity, or to please some men who wanted his lesbian fetish come true, and she’d found it – okay. She couldn’t really lose herself in it. It felt like she was being graded, like if she was terrible at it, then it made her a terrible feminist, even if it didn’t make sense. And it had been so long. The only thing she's been sucking lately was Alex’s cock. But she found that little knob on the top of her pussy, and she ran her tongue up and down, exploratorily.

Carmen wailed. She pushed her tongue harder and felt her clit tighten. On her chin, she felt the way her folds clenched, like it was trying to squeeze something in. Without much thinking, she shoved her thumb up her hole, and all at once she felt her leg spasm. A couple of witnesses hit her square in the chin, and it didn't stop for a long time. When she looked up, all done, she felt like she just dived in the fucking harbor.

Carmen was still catching her breath when she heard the crackle of a condom being ripped open. Oh. The main show was about to start.

With an exaggerated sigh, she dropped herself down back on her own seat and peered down at Carmen through her lashes. “You feel up to return the favor yet?” she said cheekily. Carmen’s chest heaved, hear head clearly still in the clouds. Shy, like Lily didn't just have her tongue all up inside her pussy.

“I don't know how to,” she stammered.

Lily laughed, suddenly so endeared. She spread her legs, patted the space in between. “Don't worry,” she said, “just come here.”

*

A quirk of sex that Lily picked up from fucking Alex for the last six years is: Alex loved watching his dick go in and out of her.

Lily found it weirdly sweet, especially in the rare bouts when all he wanted was to be gentle and take his time with her. They didn’t usually get the luxury; distance made the heart grow fonder and the need to get his dick wet uncontrollable, apparently. She loved the first hours of reunion, where he was clingy and whiny and like all he wanted was to be inescapably joined with her. When they stopped wearing condoms, years ago, the first time he’d slipped inside, he'd whimpered soft and low at the touch of his cock head against her folds, looking like a man undone already, and had full on growled as he pushed himself further, inch by inch. She’d never felt like a man had been so reverent about being inside her like this, so obsessed at feeling the part of her gave, and swallowed him up.

Sometimes he'd circle his own fingers around his dick, transfixed at how wet his dick got from her, leaking and pulsing for him. When he wanted to be rough, which was often, it was a heady thing; threw her knees up on his broad shoulders, slow at the entry -- hysterically, like he was keeping up a fucking speed limit -- then hard, agonizing thrusts. Covered her completely, drove in so hard she kept sliding up the bed. Sometimes he'd pause, just to savor the steady piston of his dick, in and out, in and out, until he couldn't take it anymore, and fucked her relentlessly. She could dependably come like that, vaginally, with little clit stimulation – which she always felt Alex was too smug about, but rightly so, considering the sex women around her seemed to have. He loved that he could make her come like that, just with his dick. Athletes are megalomaniac assholes like that.

Secretly, Lily loved how good Alex was at using his dick, at angling up just so, so every thrust felt like electric shocks down her toes, loved how sex with Alex felt satisfying and full of connection and irreplaceable. When her girlfriends joked about faking orgasms, Lily had to hide a smile at the memory of Alex grazing his dick at her folds, teasing her, teasing himself, until the moment she couldn’t take it anymore, took a hold of his dick and shoved it inside her, and came so hard she almost blacked out.

Lily loved how Alex fucked her.

Tonight, she watched as he repeated everything she loved about it beat by beat, on the yielding body of his best friend.

It occurred to her to feel some type of way about it, maybe suspicious about being a copy. But Alex pushed it as slowly; Lily missed him fingering George open while she was busy making his girlfriend come. Wasn’t that the sentence of all time. He held the base of his dick, his breath shallow, and inch by inch, George yielded. And Lily wondered, for the first time, if Alex didn’t get better game from fucking her for years. If he learned it all with George, and Lily was a trial improvement. Not the original.

When the fog in her head cleared, she knew she was going to sit with that thought for a long time. But right now all she could feel was the Carmen’s hot mouth around her mouth, amateur as it was, but so eager to make up for it.

Alex had George bent almost in half, his legs on Alex's shoulders, pushed so far back his knees were almost next to his head. His pace was no longer languid. He was searching for release, and he got more frantic as the second went on. The slap of skin and skin was so intoxicating. George had his eyes completely closed, his mouth half open, but silent like he couldn't find any words to say, all lost inside his throat. The breath punched out of him with every trust of Alex's cock, but suddenly Alex stopped. And with that George's eyes flew open.

“You were close, weren't you sweetheart?” Alex whispered, and for some reason Lily got the sense that it wasn't meant for anyone else to hear. Like for a moment Alex forgot who else was in the room. Carmen sucked at the head of her clit, like a sob, and she felt her breath catch.

George sounded like he wanted to sob, back to covering his eyes again as Alex slowed down instead, like he knew this was exactly what George needed to drive him that much closer to the edge of insanity. “I want you begging like that night, remember?” Alex murmured, and Lily wanted to pull Alex to her and demand, which night? But slow, agonizingly slow, he looked down at his own dick again, surrounded by the tight ring of muscle. It's obscene the way she could feel it stretch and clench again like it didn't quite yet get used to Alex, but so desperately wanted to accommodate all of him. She could see pain reflected across George's face, but it was no different than how he looked when he was lost in pleasure.

And finally like it was dragged out of him, he started begging. “Please, Alex, please — “

“Fuck, yeah,” Alex groaned. “Yeah, I'm there too, sweetheart.”

Lily caught the moment Alex started to come because his butt clenched. It used to be a private thing that only she knew; before today she was the only one close enough to know Alex this way, but she started wondering if maybe George found out first, if she had always been the second to know.

George’s orgasm was more sudden with a shout. His cock started dripping, and then shot up a huge load all over his face. That got her undone; coming into Carmen's mouth, riding the edge on it with her hand clasped at the back of her head until completion.

For a long while there was only the sound of heavy breathing. Then gently, so gently, Alex started lowering George’s legs, rearranged him on the seat so he was sitting with his legs out, stretched to the seat in front of him that belonged to Carmen. He wiped his face clean of his own come with a napkin from a box that had fallen on the ground, pulled off the condom, tied it off, and threw it away.

Carmen collapsed forward, her forehead pressed against Lily’s knee. She caught Alex’s eyes over George’s head, at the moment he leaned down to give the top of his head a kiss. She thought that maybe George had said something, too soft, too vulnerable to parse.

So for a while, they just sat there, stewing in the stench of what had happened.

*