Page 104 of The Holy Grail
He shrugged. “You might have thought it wouldn’t bother you intheory, only to have it bother you when faced with the reality.”
“It doesn’t. It changes nothing for me.” Jules paused before asking, “How strong were your feelings for Evan?”
“Too strong.” He reached for the Maker’s Mark and poured some more into his glass.
“What do you mean?”
“It was very early into the ‘relationship’ when I realized I didn’t really like watching him fuck Gwen because it actually made me jealous. I wasn’t jealous Gwen was fucking him, which didn’t make sense, since she was my wife, but it’s how I felt. I think that’s why, when he asked me to join in, it made me feel better. Especially the way he always looked at me, giving me his full attention.”
“So, you liked the attention from him?”
Malcom nodded.
“Did you ever want to touch him, or … engage with him sexually?”
He nodded again. “I never did, though. I didn’t know what Gwen would do—”
“But you said she played around with the women you were with.”
“Yeah, but it seemed like she did it more for me than for her, if that makes any sense, and I knew if I were to put my hands on Evan, it would have been for me, not her. And since my being attracted to Evan—or men in general—had never come up, it probably would have made things really weird. Plus, I was afraid to.” He took another drink of bourbon.
“Did you ever suspect Evan was attracted to you, on a deeper level?”
“Honestly, not really. Not anything beyond enjoying what the three of us were doing. He was always easy-going. Of course, I wasn’t looking very closely, either. But, now I know he had feelings for me, some things make more sense.”
“Like what?”
“Like him always including me. Watching me.” Malcom met her eyes. “One time—this was toward the end—Gwen switched things up by having Evan be the observer and watch her and I have sex, and she, uh, told him he could jerk off if he wanted to, and he did. However, she ended up not liking it, and that was the one and only time she had him watch us.”
“She probably didn’t like it because she knew he was getting off on you, not her.”
“Maybe. He was mostly focused on me the entire time, so, it’s possible.”
Jules didn’t know what Gwen looked like (naked or otherwise), but she knew what Malcom looked like in his bare skin, and couldn’t blame Evan one bit for watching Malcom in action.
“Do you still have feelings for Evan?” she asked softly. When his expression became slightly guarded, she assured him, “This isn’t a trick question and there is no wrong answer. I only want honesty.”
He sighed. “Yes, I still have feelings for him.”
Jules gave him a rewarding smile. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”
“Yes, it was, actually.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this the other night?” she wanted to know.
“Well, it was partly because I didn’t think I’d ever run into him again, so I told myself there was no point, but it was mostly because I was still being a coward. That was something I was going to talk about with you today, though.”
“Does that mean you were able to work through what you needed to?”
“Sort of. Seeing Evan after all these years brought a lot of things to the surface and really threw me for a loop, especially when confronted with you knowing him. It added a bizarre layer, you know?”
“I know. It did for me, too, putting a name and a face to ‘the bartender’.”
“I did a lot of thinking, about my past relationship with Evan, and also yourongoingrelationship with him. I thought about you saying you would have gone out with him, that you were sexually attracted to him, and what that might mean for you and me. Would it threaten what we have? I didn’t know.” He took a deep breath. “I’m still not sure, actually.”
Jules gave a little shake of her head. “It’s not going to threaten what we have, because what we have is strong.”
“How strong?”
