Just before eleven a familiar pair came into the club, dressed to the nines. James might have been the only guy in the place with a suit as sharp as mine, and Imogen’s cream-colored dress was as classy as you could get.

They glanced around, looking for friends in the crowd. James and Imogen made the circuit, saying hello at a couple of tables before joining Angela and me.

“You brought Angela!” Imogen exclaimed as she leaned in for a cheek kiss, then settled down next to my girlfriend.

“I was hoping we would find you here,” James said as we shook hands.

“I didn’t know that you guys had met,” I said, indicating Angela to James.

“In New York last week,” Imogen explained. “We just had to get away from my parents, so we went to Manhattan for the day and saw your townhouse. I absolutely love what you’ve done with it!”

“Too few people recognize the beauty of the classic New York Pre-War style,” James agreed. “Most remodels these days graft strange contemporary chic into the older, stately homes and it just doesn’t work.”

As James and I talked about the work that had been done at the place in New York, Imogen and Angela chatted away like old friends, which surprised me. Sure, I could easily believe that the Athertons had popped in to visit Emmy, since we’d been talking about the townhouse and they knew Emmy was in New York, but I wouldn’t have thought that Imogen and Angela would have enough in common to form a friendship.

Still, there it was, the two of them leaning in to talk to each other like it was something they’d been doing for years.

James noticed me looking over at the two ladies and said, “Angela is always a looker, but tonight? Wow!”

“James, in New York, did Emmy explain…?”

“She did,” he said. “I don’t know how you’re getting away with it, but the three of you seem to have it worked out, and everybody seems happy.”

“We are,” I confirmed. “It’s not like there was something missing before Angela joined Emmy and me, but her being with us has added something… something unexpected. Something good.”

“From my perspective?” James said. “From what I can tell, she brings a sort of… lightheartedness to you two. Maybe a reminder to not take things so seriously, I guess?”

“Yeah, she does that,” I agreed. Then, changing the subject, I said, “You missed a great track day down in the desert. I got to put in a lot of laps in the BMW, and it finally clicked with me.”

“How many locals did you terrify?” James asked with a laugh.

“A few,” I admitted. “One in particular kept complaining to the officials about me blowing his doors off.”

"Let me guess- a Porsche driver,” James said, smiling.

“Audi R8,” I replied. “But close enough.”

We stayed and talked with Imogen and James until well past midnight, just being friends, talking about friend stuff.

Angela and I got back to the condo tired from a long day, but in a good mood. It had been nice to spend time with James and Imogen, and honestly, a relief that another set of our friends now knew about Angela’s position in our lives and was accepting of the unorthodox situation without judgement.

“Hey, baby?” Angela asked as she undid my tie. “I know I promised you something special tonight, but do you mind if we just sleep? I’m really a lot more tired than I thought.”

“I’m O.K. with that,” I said. "Just holding you in my arms while you sleep is special enough.”

“How do you know what to say to perfectly make me love you?” Angela mock-demanded.

I spun her around so she was facing away, then slipped the spaghetti straps of her dress off her shoulders, letting it slide down and pool around her feet. As I’d suspected, this left her wearing nothing but her high heels. I leaned down and kissed the side of her neck as my hands roamed up her sides to cup her breasts.

“And you know what to wear to make me perfectly love you, too,” I said as I nibbled on her earlobe.

“Emmy is right,” Angela sighed, melting under my kisses. “You are a beast.”

Angela and I had a great time in San Francisco the next day, doing all the typical tourist stuff. We rode the cable cars, spent money at Fisherman’s Wharf, had an amazing lunch in Chinatown, and finished off the clear but cool day at a bar at the top of the Hilton at Union Square. The sunset view from forty-six stories up wasn’t as impressive as the sunset we’d seen in Chicago, but it was beautiful nonetheless.

As Angela and I snuggled up to each other on the banquette facing the windows to the west, Angela said something I couldn’t quite hear.

“Sorry, babe, I didn’t catch that,” I said, kissing the side of her head.

“I was talking to myself,” Angela murmured. “I just said that if I was any happier I’d probably die.”

“I don’t want you to do that,” I joked. “Maybe you shouldn't be quite so happy?”

Angela turned to me and gave me a smile, but there were tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “I still haven’t told my family back home,” she said. “I know I need to, but I…”

“Baby,” I said, holding her a little closer. “No rush. Tell them when you’re good and ready. Until then, just be here with Emmy and me. That’s all I ask.”

Angela didn’t say anything in reply, just cuddled up and buried her face in my sweater. I stroked her hair, pondering how lucky I’d been with a family that was accepting of me being gay, and how it only mattered to Emmy’s parents because of the need for an heir, but otherwise no objections.

That led me to thinking about Stephanie, and how different things might have been if she hadn’t felt the need to stay firmly in the closet.

Could Stephanie and I have made it work? I didn’t know, and speculation was a waste of time, but I still couldn’t help but wonder.

Hoping that Angela’s closet wasn’t going to cause problems down the line, I kissed her again and said, “You know we both love you. We’ll get through this. All of us together, Ange.”

It was late by the time we got home to the condo in Los Angeles and Angela still hadn’t gotten over her melancholy mood, so we just went to bed right away and soon we were both asleep.

Working out with Jody the next morning, my mind wasn’t really in it, and that got me in a heap of trouble.

“The world doesn’t give a shit if you’re not in the mood, or too tired, or any of that bullshit,” Jody declared after roundly trouncing me in our warm-up spar. “In fact, it’s when you’re too fucking tired to go on that you need to rise the fuck up the hardest. When the bad guys think they have you on the ropes, that’s when you need to show them they have it all wrong, and you’re just getting started.”

I was going to snap back at him, but he was right, so I swallowed my words, took a deep breath, and relaxed my shoulders. “I know,” I said.

“Whatever emotional baggage you got, forget about it for right now. After we’re done here, then you can dwell on whatever it is. Right now, all you need to think about is kicking my ass.”

“Alright,” I said. “One ass-kicking coming up,” I said as I resumed my stance. Jody was one hundred per cent correct- I needed to compartmentalize. In a fight, there’s no room for worry about my girlfriend’s emotional state. There’s kick ass, or have your ass kicked.

Jody and I were going at it hard when Eddie came over to the mats where we were wrestling.

“I gotta open in about five minutes,” he said, checking the time on his phone. “You two wanna keep going, I don’t care, but remember- sanctioned moves only when we got other people in the gym working out. None of that shit I seen you guys doing.”

We both stood up off the mat and bumped fists. “Thanks for getting me moving today, Jody,” I said, wiping my forehead with my gym towel.

“Remember- it’s when you feel the shittiest that you gotta harden up the most.”

“Yeah, I know you’re right,” I agreed.

With that in mind, even though I was feeling pretty beat up from the session with Jody, I stuck around the gym to work out for another couple of hours. I pushed myself hard, thinking about how I’d been slacking off for a while.

I noted a few curious eyes on me as I trained, but I just ignored the stares I was getting and didn’t engage with anyone. My ‘not interested in talking’ vibe must have worked, because nobody approached me.

When I got home from work that night, Angela was in a much better mood. After I changed out of my work clothes she patted the couch for me to come sit down next to her and look at her laptop.

“My clicks are going crazy!” she said, excited. “See? Look!” she insisted, showing me the traffic data from her various social media accounts. “And look how many followers I have on Instagram! I’m blowing up!”

“That’s great!” I said. “How does that translate to income? I know you said that more followers means more money from your sponsors, right?”

Angela went on to explain the financials and how it meant an immediate increase in her income, bringing it back higher than it had been before she got dumped by her energy drink sponsor.

About them, she said, “I know they still follow me, so it must hurt them to see that I’m doing so well now and they aren’t getting any return on it. I should ask around and see if any of their competitors need a new influencer.”

Angela showed me her top posts, and unsurprisingly, her two most liked, favorited, commented on, and so on were one of the implied nudes in the shower and another from the few we’d taken in Catalina’s botanical gardens. Interestingly, the next most popular were her posts on her new watch and her new car. Apparently the whole ‘aspirational lifestyle’ thing was real, and Angela’s fans were excited to somehow partake in her success.

Although I knew Angela had taken plenty of selfies with Emmy and me, scrolling through her feeds I saw none of those pictures. A few with Andy and Jenna and a couple with my driving crew, but none with either me or Emmy in it.

I made the mistake of asking her why, since we’d expressly given her our permission.

Angela set the laptop on the coffee table and flopped over onto me, leaning me back to the side of the couch. She buried her face in my tummy and said something too muffled to hear. I repositioned myself, laying back against the armrest and putting my feet up on the sofa. I pulled Angela up on top of me, and she rested her head on my shoulder.

“What is it, babe?” I asked softly, stroking her long black hair.

“I’m scared,” Angela said, her voice tremulous. “If I post a lot of pictures with you and Emmy, people will start to think things.”

“People will start to think correct things,” I said, unhelpfully.

“I know…” Angela said, starting to sniffle.

“Baby, look at me,” I said, and she lifted her head to do so. “I’m O.K. with you keeping everybody in the dark, if that’s what you want. If you’re worried about your family’s reaction and want to wait, that’s fine. I’m not offended you don’t have any pictures of Emmy or me in your feed. Seriously. I just want you to be happy, that’s all.”

“I have to tell my mamá and papá sooner or later, Leah,” Angela said, dropping her head back onto my shoulder. “I can’t keep lying to them for the rest of my life.”

“No, you can’t,” I agreed. “But you can break the news softly.”

Angela had no reply to that, so I just kept stroking her back, trying to comfort her as best I could. I could tell this was going to become more and more of an issue the longer it went on, but I saw no way I could help besides offer my support.

Eventually Angela stopped crying and readjusted her position so that she was on her side, slipped down between me and the sofa’s backrest. Her right leg was draped across mine and her shoulder was tucked up under my arm, her head on my shoulder.

“Leah,” she said as she slipped her hand up under the front of my shirt to stroke my abs. “Leah, I don’t want you to think I don’t want to tell mis papís about us. I really do. I just… I don’t want them to be disappointed. When I was with Antonio, they kept asking me when we were going to get married and give them grandchildren. They want that so bad, Leah, and now… I can never give them those things.”

“Emmy and I plan on having children,” I said. “Maybe even soon, after we’re settled into the Wonderland house and everything is sorted out.”

“How would you do that?” Angela asked, although the answer was obvious.

“We’d find a sperm donor, since clearly I can’t get Emmy pregnant. Lord knows I’ve tried plenty…”

“You!” Angela said, giving my tummy a little slap. “I just realized! You’ve been trying to get me pregnant, too!”

“Oh, noes! My secret has been discovered!” I said, laying the back of my free hand on my forehead in dismay.

“I would have your baby,” Angela said, her voice soft. “It would be a very beautiful baby.”

I kissed Angela’s hair and said, “Especially if the baby looked like you.”

Angela smiled a little at that and resumed stroking my belly under my button-front shirt. Her fingers strayed a little bit, causing her to exclaim in surprise. “You are wearing no bra!” she said as her fingertips found their way to my breast. Angela lightly traced the pebbling outline of my areola with her index finger, her touch as light as a soft breeze.

“I never thought that I would like touching another woman,” Angela said after a little while.

“But now you do?” I asked.

“I like touching you, you and Emmy both,” she replied, gently rolling my nipple with her fingertips.

“Even though our bodies are nothing alike?” I asked, curious.

“You want to know something funny?” Angela asked as she palmed my breast. “I have discovered that I love tits. I love your breasts, and I love Emmy’s, too. I just adore holding them, touching them, kissing them… They are the best things ever. That first night we made love, back in Chicago? There was a moment when I was between you and Emmy, and you two were kissing, and I had all four of your breasts pressing into my head, from all sides. It was at that moment that I realized that tits are the greatest thing ever.”

“They are pretty awesome,” I agreed, enjoying her touch. I wasn’t about to try to move things any farther forward, though- this was about Angela, and so I was simply going to let her say and do what she needed.

“And Leah?” Angela said, looking up at me. “I was afraid of pussies at first, you know? That sounds silly to say, but you know what I mean, right?”

I kind of did, so I just gave her a reassuring kiss so she’d continue.

“When I went back to New York the first time alone with Emmy, she was so gentle and understanding, and we made love several times a day. Sometimes two, sometimes three or even more. Maybe just little touches, kisses, you know, that soon escalated into us taking our clothes off and doing more…” she said, trailing off as she remembered back. It had only been a few months, but it might as well have been years for how much had been packed into that short period of time.

“Emmy would touch my pussy, and kiss it, and it was so good. I never had any boyfriend that wanted to do that, you know? They just wanted to stick a finger in, then their dicks as soon as they could. But Emmy, she enjoyed it almost as much as I enjoyed her doing it?” she said, her voice rising as if it were a question. “So I thought that maybe… And her pussy, it’s so pretty, and little… I tried kissing it, and she liked it, and it tasted better than I thought it would, you know?”

All this talk was turning me on, reminding me of my first few times with Emmy and then with Stephanie, discovering what the whole ‘cunnilingus’ thing was all about.

“Soon I found that I liked doing it to Emmy, and as she explained what worked best for her, I got more comfortable, you know?” Angela asked.

“I know.”

“And fingering her, it was so… So when I came back here to Los Angeles with you, I wanted to do the things that Emmy and I had been doing, but sex with you, it’s different,” Angela said.

“How so?” I asked, mostly to keep her talking. I had it in my mind that her saying these things would somehow make them more real for her, and perhaps help crack that closet door open a bit. If she admitted the truth to herself out loud, maybe it would make it easier for her to admit it to others.

“You're so big and strong,” Angela explained. “With Emmy it’s really soft and gentle, but with you, it’s almost like a sort of sexual wrestling match. You, um, manhandle me-”

“I womanhandle you,” I corrected, getting a chuckle from Angela.

“You womanhandle me,” she said. “You move me the way you like me, and do the things you like to me.”

“I didn’t realize-” I apologized, but she cut me off.

“Don’t be sorry,” Angela said. “I love it, and I want you to keep doing it. When Emmy told me that she loved the beast in you, I didn’t understand then, but I do now. You’re so, um, honest and direct- I just love surrendering to you, Leah. Letting you have your way with me is the greatest feeling, because I know that you love me and want to make me understand just how much, and this is your way. And when you turn it around and let me be on top, I know it’s because you want me to feel equal, and not like you’re just dominating me.”

“Do you feel like I dominate you?” I asked, hoping the answer would be no.

“Of course I do!” Angela said. “Everybody feels that way around you, Leah. Everybody.”

I had no answer for that, so I said nothing, just let Angela talk and squeeze my boob.

“But I’m trying to tell you that I like that feeling, and so does Emmy. We feel protected, you know? Protected and comforted by your strength.”

“I guess it’s a good thing I got in an extra hard workout today, then,” I joked.

“I don’t just mean your physical strength, but that is very nice,” Angela countered. “I mean your…” she said, at a loss for words. “You are strong mentally. You overpower people just by being you.”