Two Pizzas

“What happens when people open their hearts?”

“They get better.”

Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

~

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about threesomes over the last few years, it’s that getting started is the most awkward bit – even when you have it all figured out beforehand. I knew what I wanted to do a couple of Fridays ago. I wanted to fuck Jenny’s throat till my cock was coated in her spit. I wanted to leave her naked and trembling on the floor beside my bed while I went downstairs to fetch Livvy. I wanted to push Livvy up against the wall and kiss her hard, then find her bare cunt with my fingers and stroke her clit.

I wanted to lead her upstairs and open the bedroom door. To show her Jenny, kneeling like the good girl she tries so hard to be – still ready and eager for cock. I had this crystal-clear mental image of Livvy scrambling up onto the mattress, dress already hitched around her waist; of sliding one hand around the back of Jenny’s head, fingers twisting up into her long blonde hair, and using the other to unbuckle my jeans…

From there the plan got kinda hazy, which is exactly how I like it. Sex is a bit like going on holiday – it’s good to be prepared, and to have a basic idea of what you want to do when you get there, but if you map everything out to the nth degree you’re not really going to experience it. Spontaneity FTW, in other words, which is why I’d kept things broad.

I thought I’d fuck Jenny’s mouth like that for a bit while Livvy watched and wanked. I thought I’d take one of them from behind, bent over the mattress.

I thought I knew how things would get going. I thought I’d nailed it.

I was wrong.

Not that wrong, not really – but wrong enough to lend even greater weight to that first principle of threesomes. Getting started is hard.

~

If that’s the first rule, here’s the second: only have threesomes with awesome people. That’s true of sex generally, of course, but with threesomes it means that when things don’t go quite as smoothly as you’d intended, you bounce back pretty quickly – any intimidation factor just melts away, because you know that whatever happens the two people you’re in bed with are going to be brilliant.

I did leave Jenny naked on my floor that night, but seconds beforehand I also managed to give her the kind of coughing fit that requires gulps of water and deep breaths, rather than another round of rough oral sex. And once she’d recovered I did bring Liv upstairs and sit her on the bed, where she watched as I took out my cock and pressed it against Jenny’s lips…

All of which was absolutely fine – until the point where I didn’t get hard. Everything about the whole situation was really fucking hot. Two stunning women – one my primary partner, one a dating blogger (and more importantly a good friend) who I’d slept with several times before – and a whole night ahead of us to enjoy together. They only knew each other online, but both of them were happy to follow my lead, and while we hadn’t established any formal boundaries or limits there was enough mutual trust to make the communication feel really easy. So what was the problem?

In a word: vulnerability. Right at the point of maximum hotness, where everything should have just gone supernova, I suddenly felt overwhelmed by the whole thing. I was the one calling the shots, I was the one with the previous threesome experience, and I was the one getting naked with two people I already knew very intimately – but instead of putting me at ease, all of those things just kinda hit me at once. More than anything, I felt responsible: responsible for their enjoyment and comfort, responsible for making the evening memorable rather than anticlimactic…responsible for things that I should have realised were actually up to all three of us. Things that my inner control freak temporarily refused to let go.

So I panicked – mentally, at least. With Jenny’s mouth around my cock and Livvy pressing her fingers against her clit, I looked down and willed my body to respond, only to be met by stubborn silence. And in another scenario – one where I was younger and less confident, or one where I didn’t already know and love the two women naked either side of me – that might have been the end of it. Time to pack up and go home.

But vulnerability is a funny thing, especially when it comes to sex. The more you embrace it, the more exhilarating it can be, which I’m ashamed to say I’ve only really taken on board over the last couple of years. I’ve learned to see it as an act of strength not weakness; when you put yourself in that position with someone you’re giving them a level of power over you that’s not so easy to claw back – and if you’re in bed with the right person (or people), that’s very much a good thing.

Whether it’s your heart, your soul, or the deep, dark insecurities that keep you up at night, externalising that fear/anxiety/embarrassment is one of the few truly liberating things that most of us will get to do in the course of our daily lives. Like flying a kite, we send it out onto the breeze and see where it takes us. We close our eyes and hope.

~

When I opened mine, I knew exactly what to do. All I really was needed a time-out – a moment to step away from the pressure I’d loaded onto myself – so I jumped up on the bed and pulled Jenny in with me. I kissed Livvy and snuggled against her warm body. I took a moment to breathe, and to remind myself that this was meant to be fun. I let my body relax, instead of trying to force it into on-demand arousal.

And it worked. As Jenny leant back against the wall I kissed my way down Livvy’s tits and stomach to her wet cunt. For a few seconds I narrowed my focus to the familiar, satin-softness of her clit under my tongue. I lost myself in that one simple act, and somehow the mental clarity clicked my body back into gear.

After that, the whole thing was incredible. Seriously. I fucked Livvy while Jenny watched and masturbated. Livvy sucked my cock as Jenny held a Doxy massager on her clit and I filled her cunt with a dildo. Jenny rode me till she came, and right at the moment I felt her squeeze around my cock, I caught Livvy’s eye and saw her laugh with delight. It was almost too much. Jenny’s broad, Cheshire Cat grin when I straddled Livvy’s chest with her fingers in my arse and jizzed all over her face? That was the perfect counterpoint…

By allowing my vulnerability to bubble up to the surface, rather than trying to choke it down, I came out on the right side of a real Sliding Doors moment. I trusted two amazing people to look past what felt like a moment of real personal failure, and they helped me to see that it was, in reality, nothing more than a bump in the road.

~

Perhaps that’s the third rule – don’t have a threesome unless you’re prepared to have it all blow up in your face…and are able to cope if it does. Forget the whole porno fantasy angle for a minute; threesomes are appealing because they’re intense – physically and emotionally. That intensity is thrilling, but it’s also unstable and potentially destructive. While you need the right people around you to cushion any turbulence, it’s also essential to go into the whole thing with eyes wide open.

~

Bobbing out the other side into calm waters brought with it small, unexpected nuggets of joy. I loved listening to Liv and Jenny chat about work, naked and relaxed on my bed. Near-strangers, indirect lovers, and comfortable to an extent I’m not sure even I envisaged beforehand, they probably didn’t see the big, goofy smile on my face as I went off to fetch water and more wine. I was happy – really, really happy – and present enough to enjoy that feeling as it happened, rather than reflecting on it after the event.

In the morning I woke up with Livvy spooned into my body and Jenny stretched out across the bottom of the bed. If there was a moment for things to get awkward again, that was it, but instead I felt Livvy grind back against my hard cock and I knew instantly that we were going to be just fine. Jenny’s eyes flickered open in time to see Liv sliding her lips down over me, slowly and without even a hint of self-consciousness. I watched them both, glancing from one up to the other, and when my cock started to throb in Livvy’s mouth I decided it was time to flip Jenny onto all fours and wake her properly.

~

An hour or so later we sat at the breakfast table and picked at a big plate of pastries. Despite all the sex – and the nervous energy we’d spent – none of us woke up starving. Maybe that’s because at some point during the evening we’d inadvertently stumbled upon the fourth (and most important) rule of threesomes: all you really need to keep you going through a long, hard, super-hot group sex session is trust, communication, openness…and two pizzas.