Swinging

One morning when her boyfriend was at work, Felicia unpacked his suitcase for him. He had gotten back from Miami the night before and they’d fucked twice to make up for last time.

While she was tossing his dirty underwear into the washer, she found a pair of pink satin panties. Alone, Felicia had time for her shock to set in. Drew must’ve been packing in a hurry; he’d put in something that wasn’t his.

Felicia dumped the suitcase out, then left it open on the bed, panties the only thing in it.

Then she went over to Peter’s. She didn’t know why or what comfort she expected him to be. He wasn’t that to her, but when she had nothing, he seemed like everything.

Fortunately, Mary Jane was home. Being faced with another woman let Felicia pull herself back from the brink of tears.

“Hey, MJ, let’s go out and do the town.”

“At ten in the morning?” Mary Jane asked her.

“I could use a drink.”

“Maybe we should have one here.”

The story poured out of Felicia in a torrent of accusations and recriminations. “That bastard! He’d be lucky to get me once and I let him have me whenever he wanted, pranced around naked just for him! Now look what he’s done! I knew I shouldn’t have gone all out for him. Men never value something unless they think they’re stealing it…”

“There, there, Felicia. He’s just a piece of shit, that’s all there is to it. At least you found out now instead of later.”

“I wish I’d never found out. Then I’d still have a relationship. How could I ever respect myself if I went back to such a son of a bitch? You don’t know how lucky you are, Mary Jane. You have a man who worships the ground you walk on.”

“This a drowning your sorrows kind of party or a getting revenge party?” Peter asked, coming out of the bedroom in an old bathrobe, his hair disheveled and his face unshaved.

Felicia was surprised to see Peter at home. She managed a smile at him; too vain to want any of his memories of her to be of a sobbing mess.

“Oh, sorry, Spider,” she said brightly. “I didn’t know you were home.”

“I had a late night,” Peter said, going to the kitchen for some coffee. “As long as I’m up, get you girls anything?”

Felicia grinned with relief. “Too early for margaritas?”

“Nah, I slept in,” Peter replied.

Each of them drank a round, then another round, and they were nicely fuzzed when Mary Jane suggested she order lunch for them all.

“Only if you let me pay for it,” Felicia told her.

Peter opened a bottle of Bordeaux.

They ate heartily once the food arrived. Then they lay around the living room with the last of the wine, Felicia on the couch between husband and wife.

Felicia enjoyed the lightness the wine gave her. She felt close to Mary Jane, closer to Peter than she had since he’d gone and gotten married on her. And she was grateful to them for the time they were putting into comforting her.

Spontaneously, she reached over and hugged Peter. She did the same to Mary Jane, only to her she added a kiss on the cheek. Then she looked back at Peter with a smile like she might embrace him again… might do more like she’d done to MJ.

“You two are great, you know that? I really appreciate—” She felt embarrassed. “Well, thanks for everything.”

“Here’s to everything,” Peter said, holding his glass up in a toast, not that it had anymore wine in it.

“There’s no one we’d rather be appreciated by,” Mary Jane said, taking Felicia’s hand and giving it a squeeze.

Peter clasped her other hand. “I’m glad you and MJ are friends now. I think you see Mary Jane is as great as I do,” Peter said, a little haltingly, before he hiccupped.

They sat together and it was too awkward to say anything but too cozy to care.

“I bet you two fucked each other’s brains out,” Mary Jane said at last.

Peter and Felicia looked at her and then at each other. They laughed.

They had.

“Of course, so do we,” Mary Jane continued with a lustful, drunken giggle. “I let Peter do whatever he wants. Have to. I love him so much and all I’ve got to show him that is five foot eight of model thinness.”

“Bullshit,” Felicia said. “You’ve got C-cups.”

“I would get breast implants for my tiger.” MJ laid her head on Felicia’s shoulder. “He doesn’t want me to, but I would. My hubby deserves great big tits to motorboat. Huge ones. Like that comic book chick, Power Girl. If only she were real.”

“We have to train him into being an ass man,” Felicia said. “Even if he is white, he should appreciate you’ve got a Georgia peach for an ass.”

“He does, he does—I let him buttfuck me. To show him how much I care.”

“Now, that is love,” Felicia giggled. “Even I couldn’t take him in the ass… or at least, I never did, before…”

She vaguely gestured at the rings on the couple’s fingers and the home they’d made—framed photographs, his & her towels, Mary Jane’s furniture paid for with Peter’s money—at least in theory. She thought it amounted to a rug that Peter had been able to afford…

“I love Peter more than ever,” Mary Jane declared. “But what can you give a guy, after he’s had your butt? He just keeps saving the world and what do I have for him? The same old butt…”

“At least he’s not getting any longer,” Felicia teased. “It’d come out your mouth…”

“And his birthday’s coming up. What do you get for the man who has everything—or at least me?”

Peter was a quiet drunk. He smiled stonily to himself. “Hey, MJ, I’d take you every year until I was a hundred, if I could.”

“I think that’s what the wedding vows were about,” Mary Jane retorted. “Did we do the part about forsaking all others? They always say that on TV—”

“Think we did,” Peter recalled.

“Well, that’s just tradition. I wouldn’t mind if there were one or two you didn’t forsake.” Mary Jane butted her forehead against Felicia’s jaw. “How about it, ‘Cat’? Just for his birthday, Peter and you get to catch up on old times. You can see what it’s like to have him in your ass. I won’t ask who’s he likes better if you don’t…”

It was a good offer. Felicia couldn’t say she hadn’t thought about it, on the rare occasions she had to take her pleasure into her own hands—after she and Mary Jane became friends and the thought of cucking the redhead didn’t bring her the joy it once had.

But now, in the wake of Drew’s infidelity, it all seemed like a goad. She pulled her hands away from Peter and Mary Jane and came to her feet, however wobbly.

“Oh, that’s all I am to you at the end of the day, isn’t it? A sex object. Just clamoring to get your man back between my legs. But I’m supposed to love being seen that way just because I have your permission to be a slut now, is that it?”

Mary Jane was aghast, her head whirling, stunned that the lazy comfort of the past moments had somehow derailed into this. “No, Felicia, of course not. But it’s just… you always…”

Felicia teetered and came down on the coffee table, which she turned into a sit—pacing didn’t fit with her present capabilities, even if it suited her mood. “I thought you were my friend! That you know I’d never go behind your back with Peter!”

“She does!” Peter tried to calm her, but Felicia swiped his reaching hands away.

“There’s Felicia Hardy, such an oversexed whore that the moment he can, I bet she’ll spread her legs for him! Jesus Christ.” Felicia toppled over again, laying back on the coffee table with her head over the side, sniffling. “All these years and I’m a birthday present, t-that’s what I am. Fuck.”

“Well, I thought you’d enjoy it,” Mary Jane said lamely. “I’m sorry.”

She reached for Felicia’s hand. Felicia snatched it away and managed to roll off the coffee table.

The cat burglar felt like she was getting vertigo from all the moving around, so she decided she’d just stay on the floor—wrapping an arm around the coffee table’s nearest leg for stability.

“You know what I’d enjoy?” she reeled drunkenly. “I’d enjoy having a hall pass for myself. So that when I wanted your ‘tiger’—if I ever did—I could have him then. And you couldn’t say a thing about it.”

“Fine,” Mary Jane said.

“This seems like a bad idea,” Peter said lamely.

“Oh, what’s the difference?” Mary Jane asked. “Instead of doing it on your birthday, we do it when Felicia needs a pick-me-up.”

“Whenever I need a pick-me-up,” Felicia stressed. “Even if he has to skip your, your anniversary dinner!”

“I’m used to missing dinners,” Mary Jane said equitably.

“Hold on a minute,” Peter said, massaging his temples, trying to clear his head. He’d drunk too much, trying to console Felicia, and he wasn’t used to being so tilted in the brain. “If there’s a criminal—a criminal enterprise—or the Avengers—I can’t just—not Avengers…”

Felicia suddenly felt very sober, very smart. “So long as it doesn’t interfere with the red and blue spandex,” she said. “That’s the ground rule?”

“Yeah, that’s good,” Mary Jane agreed.

“Okay then. Okay. One hall pass, all mine.” Felicia mimed tucking something into her cleavage. “I’m going to sleep on your floor now.”