Chapter 7: Double Cunnilingus
The affidavit, now signed by all four of them, lay on the heavy library desk like a landmine. It was a single page of laser-printed clarity in a house suddenly brimming with shadowy, unspoken complexities. The words “multi-faceted…committed familial union” seemed to pulse under the morning sun streaming through the glass walls.
Kate stared at the endless savanna, a cup of coffee cooling in her hand. The golden dunes shimmered, indifferent. The legal language felt insufficient, a dry husk trying to contain the feverish reality of the night. Her body ached in specific, remembered ways.
“It reads like a corporate merger,” Rick said, coming up behind her. He placed his hands on her shoulders, his thumbs kneading the tension at the base of her neck. “Not a love story.”
“It’s not supposed to be a love story,” she replied, leaning into his touch. “It’s supposed to keep two people from being deported.”
“Semantics.”
She turned, catching the playful glint in his eye, the one that had always disarmed her. Here, in this sunlit room full of books on colonial anthropology, it felt like a lifeline. “Where are they?”
“Hakeem’s on a call with his cousin back home. Something about a land dispute. Shazia’s… I don’t know. Exploring the stacks, I think.”
As if summoned, Shazia appeared from between two towering shelves laden with leather-bound volumes on tribal customs. She held a thick tome entitled “Myth and Matriarchy in Pre-Colonial Africa.” She looked vibrant, rested, her eyes bright with curiosity. The night’s exertions seemed to have energized her.
“Your people wrote many words about mine,” she said, tapping the book’s cover. “So many words to say simple things. ‘The community is the family. The family is the blood and the chosen.’”
“Sometimes the chosen part gets complicated,” Rick said, gesturing to the affidavit.
Shazia put the book down on the desk, next to the damning document. She looked at it, then at Kate, then at Rick. “Complication is a white word. It means you have too many choices and no clear path. We had one path. Now we have another.” She walked to the large leather couch positioned to face the breathtaking view. She ran a hand over the butter-soft brown leather. “This is nice. It smells expensive.”
“It was,” Rick admitted, joining her. He sank into the cushions. “Bought it for a writing nook in the Hamptons. Never used it much. Too stiff.”
Shazia smiled, a slow, spreading thing. “Not stiff.” She pushed him back, playfully, until he was reclining. Then, with a dancer’s grace, she swung one leg over him, straddling his hips—not his lap, but his chest. She settled her weight on his ribcage, looking down at his surprised face. “See? It is soft for sitting.”
Kate watched from the desk, her coffee forgotten. Her pulse, which had been a steady, administrative thrum, kicked up a notch.
Shazia leaned forward, bracing her hands on the couch back behind Rick’s head. Her face was inches from his. “Last night, you had a taste. In the kitchen. A small taste.”
“I remember,” Rick said, his voice already thickening.
“A good host shares,” Shazia whispered, her eyes flicking to Kate. “Do you not share your things, Kate? Your home? Your husband?” The question wasn’t barbed. It was genuine, inquisitive.
Kate said nothing. She set her cup down. The quiet click on the wood was loud.
Shazia didn’t wait for an answer. She shifted back, her hands going to the waistband of her loose linen trousers. She loosened the tie, shimmied them down over her hips, and kicked them off. She wore nothing underneath. The afternoon sun gilded her smooth skin, the dark triangle of curls at the junction of her thighs.
Rick’s breath caught. He was pinned beneath her, utterly at her mercy.
With a deliberate, unhurried movement, Shazia lifted herself slightly and then settled back, not on his chest, but lower. She guided his head with her hands, positioning him. Then she lowered her cunt onto his face.
The first contact was electric. Heat and softness and the clean, musky scent of her. Her outer lips parted against his mouth. Rick’s arms, which had been at his sides, came up instinctively, his hands gripping her thighs, holding her in place. He didn’t need encouragement. His tongue lashed out, finding her center in a broad, wet stroke.
Shazia gasped, her head dropping back. “Yes. Like that. Use your tongue like you used your cock.”
Kate was frozen, a statue carved from want and shock. She watched as Rick feasted. Watched his jaw work, saw Shazia’s hips begin a slow, undulating grind against his mouth. Heard the wet, obscene sounds of his tongue plunging into her, lapping at her. Shazia moaned, a low, continuous hum of pleasure, her fingers tightening in Rick’s hair.
“He is a good student,” Shazia panted, her eyes slitting open to look at Kate. “He learns the geography quickly.”
Kate’s hand, of its own volition, slipped between her own legs. Over her jeans, she pressed her palm hard against the sudden, aching throb there. It was a reflexive, grounding pressure. It did nothing.
“Don’t just touch yourself through your clothes,” Shazia commanded, her voice ragged. “Watch what he does to me. Learn. Then show me.”
The challenge was unmistakable. Kate’s detective mind, usually so good at assessing risk and motive, short-circuited. It was overridden by a deeper, hungrier instinct. She unsnapped her jeans, pulled down the zipper. She slid her hand inside, under the fabric of her panties. She was already slick. Her fingers found her clit, circling it with a frantic, desperate pressure. Her eyes were glued to the tableau on the couch: her husband’s face buried between another woman’s thighs, that woman riding him with increasing abandon.
“Fuck, Rick, yes… right there,” Shazia groaned, her movements becoming more urgent, less controlled. She was chasing it, using his mouth, her body bowing forward. “Don’t stop… make me come on your fucking tongue.”
Rick’s response was a muffled, hungry sound, a vibration against her that made her cry out. His hands slid from her thighs to grip her ass, pulling her harder against him, his nose buried in her curls.
Kate’s own fingers worked faster, a frantic mimicry of the rhythm Shazia was setting. She was close, teetering on the edge, her breath coming in sharp hitches. She was watching, but she was not part of it. She was a spectator to her own arousal.
Shazia sensed it. In the midst of her own climbing pleasure, she reached out a hand towards Kate, fingers splayed. “No. Not over there. Here.”
She didn’t ask. She grabbed the front of Kate’s shirt and pulled.
Kate stumbled forward, her own hand still trapped in her pants. Shazia’s grip was surprisingly strong. With her other hand, Shazia captured Kate’s wrist and drew it out, bringing Kate’s glistening fingers to her own mouth. She sucked them clean, a quick, lascivious gesture, her eyes locked on Kate’s. Then she pulled again, forcing Kate down onto the couch.
“Share,” Shazia breathed, her body still moving on Rick’s mouth. She maneuvered Kate, clumsy and willing, until Kate was kneeling on the cushions, facing Rick’s head, her own pelvis hovering over his forehead.
“Now,” Shazia said, her voice a ragged imperative. “Sit on his face. Let him taste us both.”
Kate’s mind blanked. There was only the pounding of her blood, the sight of Rick’s mouth frantically working on Shazia, and that single, impossible command. She braced her hands on the back of the couch, mirroring Shazia’s earlier position. She lowered herself.
The first touch of Rick’s forehead against her inner thigh was startling. Then she felt his nose, the scratch of his stubble, and then—oh God—his tongue. It was slick from Shazia, hot, and it found her as if he had been searching for her all along. He licked a hard, flat stripe from her entrance to her clit, and Kate cried out, a sharp, shattered sound.
She was kneeling over him, Shazia was riding his mouth, and they were stacked above him, their bodies separated only by the fevered motion of his head turning from one to the other. His tongue would delve into Shazia, making her shudder and keen, then it would turn upwards, lapping at Kate’s swollen folds, piercing into her with an intensity that stole her breath.
“Yes… switch… like that…” Shazia moaned, her rhythm becoming erratic. She lifted herself slightly, giving him more access to Kate. “Make her come. Let me feel her shake.”
Rick devoted himself to Kate. His hands came up, gripping her ass, holding her in place as his tongue fucked into her, shallow and fast, then broad and slow over her clit. Kate’s vision swam. The vast, untouchable savanna outside the window blurred into a golden haze. Her thighs trembled. The coil in her abdomen tightened to the point of pain.
“I’m… Rick, I’m gonna…” she choked out.
Shazia, watching Kate’s face contort in ecstasy, reached down. She positioned her own slick folds directly above Rick’s mouth, an inch from Kate’s. Then she lowered herself again, so that Rick’s tongue, as it thrust upwards, was sliding through both of them, connecting their wetness, licking both of their cunts in one impossible, glorious motion.
The sensation was too much. Kate’s orgasm ripped through her, violent and silent, a seismic wave that locked her throat and arched her back. She ground down against his face, her hips stuttering uncontrollably. As she convulsed, Shazia followed, her own climax triggered by the shared friction and the sight of Kate shattering. She cried out, a high, sharp sound that echoed in the high-ceilinged room, her body clamping down on nothing, shuddering wildly.
For a long moment, the only sounds were their ragged breaths and the crackle of the fireplace. Kate collapsed forward onto the back of the couch, spent. Shazia slid off Rick’s face, rolling onto her side on the cushions, a sheen of sweat coating her body.
Rick emerged from between them, gasping for air, his face glistening with their combined release. He looked wrecked, triumphant, utterly debauched. He grinned up at the ceiling, a stupid, happy grin.
Kate, her faculties slowly returning, looked down at him. She saw the physical proof of their union smeared across his chin, his cheeks. Her own slickness, Shazia’s, mixed together. The affidavit on the desk seemed laughably abstract now.
The library door clicked open.
Hakeem stood in the doorway, his phone still in his hand. He had heard everything. He took in the scene: his wife, naked and splayed on the couch, panting. Kate, half-dressed, crumpled against the cushions. Rick, between them, the evidence vivid on his skin. The signed affidavit sat on the desk, a silent, cynical witness.
His face was unreadable. Not angry. Not shocked. It was the closed, resigned expression of a man watching a predicted future unfold.
“The land dispute,” he said, his voice flat, cutting through the heavy silence. “It is settled. My cousin took the money. He took the money and gave the land to the palm oil company.” He paused, his eyes scanning the wreckage of the couch, the interconnected bodies of his wife and these two Americans. “He said it was the only path forward.”
He didn’t enter the room. He didn’t need to. His words were the bucket of cold water.
“Hakeem—” Shazia began, pulling her legs up, a flicker of something like shame crossing her face for the first time.
“It is done,” he interrupted, his tone final. He looked at the affidavit, then back at them. “We have also chosen our path. We have signed the paper.” His gaze rested on Rick’s glistening face. “Now we must live inside the words we have chosen.”
He turned and walked away, the sound of his retreating footsteps on the polished floor a slow, deliberate counterpoint to the rapid, fading beat of their hearts.
The sun continued to blaze outside, bleaching the dunes of all color. Inside, the smell of sex and leather and old books hung in the air, a new scent layered over the history in the room. They had defined their relationship. Now, as Hakeem had pointed out with chilling clarity, they had to inhabit it. The world outside, with its land disputes and palm oil companies and immigration officers, was waiting. It would not be as forgiving as a husband’s tongue.
The echo of Hakeem’s footsteps faded into the hum of the quiet house. On the leather couch, the aftermath lay heavy and wet. Rick wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, the taste of both women lingering, a tart amalgamation of their shared transgression. Kate stared at the empty doorway, her jeans still open, the cold air from the vent raising goosebumps on her exposed skin.
Shazia was the first to move. She sat up, drawing her knees to her chest, a defensive coil. “He is not angry,” she said to the room, not to them. “He is ashamed.”
“Of what?” Rick’s voice was rough from exertion. He sat up, the leather groaning beneath him.
“Of needing this.” Shazia’s gaze swept over the affidavit on the desk. “Of the cost. His cousin trades land for money. We trade… this… for papers.” She stood, her nakedness now seeming vulnerable rather than powerful. She found her linen trousers and stepped into them. “The bargaining is the same. He feels it in his blood.”
Kate finally zipped her jeans, the sound loud in the silence. The detective in her was reassembling, piece by piece, over the raw nerve of the woman who’d just come apart on her husband’s face. “We’re not exploiting you. This was… mutual.”
“Was it?” Shazia tied the drawstring with a sharp jerk. “You tell me, Kate. Was your moan for the papers? Or was it for the feeling?” She didn’t wait for an answer. She walked out, leaving them in the scent of their own musk.
Rick exhaled, a long, shaky breath. He looked at Kate. Her face was a mask of professional detachment, but her eyes were shattered glass. “You okay?”
“No.” She walked to the window, her back to him, arms crossed tight over her chest. The endless savanna offered no counsel. “I don’t know what I am. I wanted… understanding. Connection. This feels like a transaction in a market I don’t know how to navigate.”
He went to her, standing close but not touching. “We can stop. We can tear up that paper right now.”
“And then what?” She turned, her expression fierce. “Watch them get on a plane? After… after everything? That feels worse. That feels like we used them and threw them away.” She pressed her fingers to her temples. “Hakeem’s right. We chose the path. Now we walk it.”
The tension did not dissipate; it curdled. Dinner was a silent affair of reheated stew. Hakeem spoke only to answer direct questions with monosyllabic courtesy. Shazia’s vibrant curiosity was gone, replaced by a watchful reserve. The house, with its open design and glass walls, felt like a museum of their own awkwardness.
Later, in the darkened bedroom, Kate lay stiff beside Rick. The space between them felt vast. The memory of Shazia’s skin against hers, of Rick’s tongue on her, was a live wire in the dark.
“She’s in pain,” Kate whispered into the darkness.
“He’s in pain,” Rick corrected softly.
“It’s the same pain.” Kate rolled onto her side, facing him. The moon lit the planes of his face. “We caused it. We, with our good intentions and our liberal guilt and our… appetites.”
“They have appetites too, Kate.” He traced a finger down her arm. “You felt it. That wasn’t performance.”
“No. It was real. That’s what makes it so goddamn messy.” She caught his hand, held it. “I need to feel something else. Something just us. Make me forget the mess for five minutes.”
He understood. He kissed her, slowly at first, a reclamation. Her mouth opened under his, hungry and seeking. This was familiar ground, a territory they had mapped over twenty years. She pushed his t-shirt up, her nails scraping lightly over his stomach, and he peeled her tank top over her head.
Their lovemaking was different. It was not the voracious, experimental hunger of the night before. It was deliberate, almost mournful. He worshipped her body with his hands and mouth, tracing every familiar curve and scar, as if to remind them both who they were. She guided him inside her with a sigh that was more relief than passion, wrapping her legs around his waist to pull him deeper.
The rhythm they found was slow, a deep, grinding cadence. She clutched his back, her face buried in his shoulder, each measured thrust a silent assertion of here, this, us. It was grounding. It was also, in its pure and private intimacy, a wall. A barrier against the complicated web they had woven with the other couple sleeping just down the hall.
They finished in a quiet, shuddering mutual climax that felt more like solace than ecstasy. Afterward, she traced the lines of his face. “I love you,” she said, the words thick with a fear she couldn’t name.
“I love you, too,” he murmured into her hair. “We’ll figure this out.”
Sleep, when it came, was thin and restless.
Rick woke to an empty bed and the smell of strong coffee. He found Kate on the veranda, already dressed, the affidavit and a stack of immigration guidelines laid out on the wrought-iron table. The savanna was awake, alive with harsh, beautiful light.
“We need a strategy,” she said without looking up. “A narrative. We present a united front, a cohesive family unit. Shared finances, shared social circle, shared… domestic life.” She faltered on the last part, her pen hovering over a bullet point.
“Shared domestic life,” Rick repeated, pouring himself coffee. “That’s one hell of a euphemism.”
“It’s the language they speak.” She finally looked at him, her detective’s armor firmly back in place. “We speak it back to them. We control the story.”
Shazia emerged from the house, her hair wrapped in a vibrant yellow fabric. She carried a tray with fresh fruit. “The story,” she said, setting the tray down with a soft clatter. “Let us hear this story you are writing.”
Kate straightened her shoulders. “We present ourselves as a polyamorous family. A committed, multi-partner household. It’s a legitimate relationship model, increasingly recognized.”
“Polyamorous,” Shazia tasted the word, sitting down. “It sounds like a disease. Or a university course.” She sliced a mango with a sharp knife, the juice running over her fingers. “In my village, we do not have such words. We have uncles who live with uncles. We have sisters who share a husband. We call it life. We do not write affidavits about it to white men in offices.”
“This isn’t your village,” Kate said, her tone sharper than intended. “This is a bureaucracy that needs a box to check. We are giving them a box.”
“And what is in this box?” Shazia sucked the mango juice from her thumb, her eyes on Kate. “The things we did in the kitchen? On the couch? Will you describe for them how you screamed when my husband fucked you? How you sucked your husband’s taste from my fingers?” She leaned forward. “Is that the ‘shared domestic life’?”
Kate’s face flushed. “Of course not. We describe the emotional bonds. The mutual care.”
“Ah.” Shazia nodded, a mockery of understanding. “The emotions. Not the fucking.” She stood, leaving the half-sliced mango. “You wish to separate the two. This is your sickness.” She walked back inside.
Rick watched her go, then turned to Kate. “She’s not wrong.”
“I know she’s not wrong!” Kate slammed her pen down. “But what’s the alternative? Sending them back? After we’ve… Christ, Rick, after everything?” She put her head in her hands. “We’re in it. All we can do is move forward with as much honesty as we can manage.”
The day unfolded in a tense pantomime of normalcy. Kate buried herself in research. Hakeem took a long, solitary walk into the dunes. Rick tried to write, the cursor blinking mockingly on a blank page. His characters felt absurd, their motives paltry compared to the real-life tangle in his own house.
He found Shazia in the shaded courtyard, tending to a pot of struggling herbs. She was humming a tune he didn’t recognize, her back to him.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“You talk. I will listen.” She did not turn around.
“Last night… and in the library… it wasn’t just for the papers.”
She snapped a dry leaf from a basil plant. “I know this. My body knows this. My mind is… confused.” She finally faced him. Her eyes were hard. “You look at me and you see adventure. A story to tell your friends in New York one day, maybe. Kate looks at me and sees a project. A beautiful, fascinating project she can save. Hakeem…” her voice cracked. “Hakeem looks at me and sees a wife who is becoming a stranger in a stranger’s bed.”
“That’s not true.”
“Is it false?” She stepped closer, her voice dropping. “You want to know what I see? I see a man who enjoys the taste of his wife and another woman on his tongue. I see a woman who wants to own an experience but not the consequences.” She poked him in the chest. “You are both greedy. You consume. Culture. Food. Bodies. You think because you say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ it is not consumption.”
Her words were a slap. He had no rebuttal. The silence stretched, filled only by the dry wind.
Her expression softened, not into forgiveness, but into a weary kind of resolve. “But I am greedy too. I wanted the world in this house. I wanted to see if I could take something from you, as you take from us.” She sighed, the anger leaving her in a rush. “We are all in the market now. So. We bargain.”
She reached out and took his hand. She placed it firmly on her breast, over the thin cotton of her dress. Her nipple hardened instantly against his palm. Her gaze was challenging. “This is not for the papers. This is for me. You understand? This is mine to give.”
He understood. This was a renegotiation. A claiming of agency within the chaos. He nodded, his throat tight.
She led him by the hand, not to a bedroom, but back into the library. The scene of their last transgression. Sunlight still streamed in, but the mood had shifted. This was not a fever dream. This was daylight, sober and intentional.
She pushed him into the same leather couch. She didn’t mount his face this time. She stood before him and untied the front of her dress, letting it fall open. She was bare underneath. “You will watch,” she commanded. “You will not touch.”
She slipped a hand between her legs, her eyes locked on his. Her fingers moved in slow, deliberate circles over her clit. She was already wet; he could see the slick gleam on her inner thighs. Her breath hitched as she worked herself, her other hand cupping her own breast, pinching the nipple.
“This is what you like,” she whispered, her voice steady. “To watch. To see the pleasure you did not make.”
He was hard instantly, painfully so, confined in his shorts. He ached to reach out, to pull her down, to bury himself in her. But he obeyed. He watched.
She sped up, her fingers a blur, her hips rocking against her own hand. Her head fell back, exposing her throat. A low moan escaped her lips, a private, personal sound. Her knees bent slightly, her body taut as a bowstring. She was putting on a show, but the pleasure was real, searing through her.
“You see?” she panted, her eyes flying open to meet his hungry gaze. “This is mine. I give it to myself. Sometimes…,” she gasped, her movements becoming frantic, jerky, “sometimes I let you watch.”
Her orgasm crashed over her, a silent, violent convulsion. Her whole body stiffened, her mouth opened in a soundless cry, and she rode the waves of her own making, her fingers still pressing, milking the sensation. Finally, she slumped, her hand falling away, breathing heavily.
She looked at him, sweat beading on her upper lip. His cock strained against his zipper. A faint, triumphant smile touched her lips. “Now,” she said, her voice husky with spent pleasure. “You may participate.”
She sank to her knees before him. She undid his shorts, freeing his erection. She did not use her hands. She leaned forward and took him into her mouth in one slow, engulfing motion. The heat was shocking, incredible. Her tongue swirled around the head before she began to move, her head bobbing in a deep, relentless rhythm. She controlled everything—the pace, the depth, the pressure of her teeth.
He groaned, his hands gripping the leather couch. This was not a gift she was giving him. It was a transaction she was directing. He was merely the necessary instrument. The thought, instead of shaming him, ignited him further.
She pulled off with a wet pop, looking up at him. “You want to fuck me,” she stated.
“Yes.” The word was a gasp.
“On the desk,” she said, nodding toward the heavy mahogany table where the affidavit lay. “Next to your words.”
She rose, letting her dress fall to the floor. She walked to the desk, swept the papers and books to the side with a careless arm. They fluttered to the floor. She bent over the polished wood, presenting herself to him, her back arched.
He was behind her in three strides. He guided himself into her with no preamble, no gentleness. She was soaked and tight, her walls clenching around him instantly. He set a punishing pace, each thrust slamming her into the edge of the desk. The sound was brutal, wooden, and carnal.
“Yes,” she hissed, pushing back against him. “Like that. Fuck your story. Fuck your papers. Just fuck me.”
He gripped her hips, his fingers digging into her flesh. The sunlight warmed their skin. The savanna watched, impassive. He lost himself in the raw physicality of it, in the sound of their bodies colliding, in the sheer fucking audacity of it. This was no longer about connection or cultural exchange. This was about power, reclaimed and redistributed in the most primal way possible.
He felt his climax gathering, a coiled spring in his gut. “Shazia,” he warned.
“Where?” she demanded, grinding against him. “Tell me where you want it.”
The crude question, the agency it gave her, tipped him over the edge. “Inside you,” he grunted, the words torn from him. “Goddammit, inside.”
With a final, deep plunge, he came, pulsing into her with a force that shuddered through them both. He stayed there, buried, breathing harshly against her back.
After a moment, she straightened, turning to face him. His semen trickled down her inner thigh. She looked at it, then at him. “Good,” she said, simply. She walked to the scattered papers on the floor, picked up the affidavit, and held it out to him. It was wrinkled, bearing the faint impression of a book’s corner. “Now we are both dirty. Now we are the same.”
She left him there, naked and spent, the formal language of their arrangement crumpled in his hand. The savanna’s heat pressed against the glass, a waiting, patient force. The bargaining was over. The terms, brutal and intimate, were set. There was no going back.