Free Third Girl from the Left by Martha Southgate

player every day. He was rubbing her neck. They weren’t in a hurry. They both knew how this scene would end. Sheila smiled up at him, then back at Angela. “That your friend?” said Rafe.
    â€œYeah. Looks like Wilt’s gonna get lucky tonight,” said Angela.
    â€œWilt? How would you know he’s getting lucky with your friend?”
    Angela smiled mysteriously. “A girl can just tell.” She ground her hips into his a little. “If you play your cards right, you might get lucky too.” She could see he was trying to figure out the deal between her and Sheila. She could tell it turned him on too, which just got her more excited. The song had changed to “Ben.” Angela saw Wilt get up, extend his hand to Sheila. They left the room, he lowering his hand to cup her ass briefly. Rafe looked at them speculatively. “Guess you’re right about Wilt.” He paused. “You know, the playroom—where they’re going—is just down that hall. Wanna go with?” Angela had been running her tongue around and around her teeth. She felt the separation of each one with particular intensity. “Sure. Let’s see what they’re doing.” She looked at him, her eyes challenging.
    They went down the hall, which was dimly lit every few feet with sconces that gave off a warm purple light. Rafe backed Angela up underneath one of them and started kissing her before they even got to the playroom. She couldn’t open her mouth wide enough underneath his. Couldn’t pull him close enough to her. He stopped after a minute and pulled her the rest of the way down the hall.
    The playroom. What to say about the playroom? There wasn’t a pinball machine. The room had five sides, three of them mirrored, and a vast pink circular sofa surrounding a huge open surface that undulated gently from the weight of the bodies already moving on it: the biggest waterbed Angela had ever seen. When she and Rafe entered the room, Sheila and Wilt were already there, had already begun. They stood in the doorway a frozen moment, quiet. Angela’s high fell away just for a second; she remembered what it was like to crouch in her mama’s backyard with her sister, watching a box they had propped up on a stick and waiting for a bird to blunder underneath. They always thought that someday they’d catch a bird that way. But they never did. Where’d that come from? That memory somehow propelled her into the room in front of Rafe, propelled her onto the bed next to her friend. Sheila opened her eyes and looked at Angela steadily. She was so lovely; Angela wanted to kiss her. Wilt was still working away on Sheila’s breasts, but Angela knew in that moment that Sheila was thinking of her. Wilt never looked up. Angela swallowed and sank onto the bed, and Rafe came up behind her on his knees, his hands on her breasts before she could even exhale. She could feel his breath hot on the back of her neck. “You done this before?” she murmured.
    â€œDone what?”
    â€œYou know—more than one person,” she said.
    â€œNo.” He turned her to face him, started unbuttoning her silky blouse. “But I’m always willing to try new things. I think a person ought to be willing.” He had her shirt off now. “To try new things,” he said.
    â€œRight.”
    His mouth closed on her breast. She stopped thinking. Her favorite part was when her mind went off altogether. The bed moved beneath them. She was unbearably excited by Sheila’s moans, by the bed waving and swirling beneath them, by the knowledge that this man was a stranger to her, by the mouth on her breasts, by how far away it was from Tulsa, from anything anybody ever thought of in Tulsa, by knowing that her mother would never understand this in a thousand years. She pulled him—what was his name? oh yeah, Rafe—inside her. She cried out, just after Sheila. Everything seemed very