“Hi Jo,” Geoff said with an uncertain look towards Ben, “I didn’t know Ben had arranged to meet you here too.”

“Hello Geoff, hello Ben,” she said, before pushing herself forward to put her lips very deliberately to Ben’s cheek first, then Geoff’s, letting her hand touch Geoff’s shoulder as if for balance, though it seemed to linger there a moment longer than necessary. Then she said loudly, with a piqued tone, “No, Ben hadn’t arranged to meet here. I rather thought he was ill, and unable to come out.”

“No, they only kept me in one night. Erm, Jo, I’d like you to meet Marcie,” Ben said anxiously, tapping her arm to interrupt her intense confab with Sofie. He leaned in close to Marcie’s ear, “Marcie, this is Jo, who I told you about.” Then, turning back to Jo, feeling his heart thumping with anxiety, he came out and admitted, “Marcie’s my new girlfriend.”

“Oh, well I’m pleased to meet you, Marcie,” Jo said formally as she took Marcie’s hand and shook it politely. Ben realised then that Jo was not going cause a scene or start an argument with him about why he’d blown her out for their date when he was now out with someone else, but he did hear her catty remarks to Marcie, “Ben didn’t mention little you, waiting in the wings. Did he know you when you were younger?”

The way that Jo had emphasised the word “know” made Ben think she was insinuating they’d had sex sometime in the past, perhaps trying to make Marcie give herself away with a blush or a guilty look. He’d also noticed that she’d managed to imply that Marcie was both old and short. But Marcie was clearly able to play it just as coolly as her, as she fixed Jo in the eye and said, “No, Ben and I only met on Monday actually, when he needed some emergency care in the hospital. I was there for him, we quickly became good friends, and now we’re a couple.”

Jo didn’t seem to have a response to that, so Geoff filled the awkward silence, saying loudly, “Actually Ben was just telling me about his knackered lungs, Jo. It sounds like it was quite bad.”

“Well, you still seem well enough to enjoy a homely little night out, my love,” Jo said, turning to Ben with a smile that seemed cruelly patronising, “I’ll head back over to my girlfriends now. I won’t disturb your cosy foursome any longer. I just wanted to say hi. So, ‘Hi,’ and now, ‘Bye.’”

Jo gave Geoff what seemed to be a sly caress as she carelessly brushed his neck, from behind his ear to his shoulder, making it seem almost accidental as she turned away. Then she twisted back towards Ben, and even though she was still close enough to lean forwards and peck his cheek if she’d wanted, she put her fingers to her lips and blew him a pouting kiss. “Maybe later, my love,” she said seductively, pushing her chin forward provocatively. Before he could respond, she’d turned away for the final time, making a slinking walk away through the crowd toward a group of three other glamorous young women who were surreptitiously looking their way.

Ben leant in close to hug Marcie around her shoulders as she smiled anxiously up at him. He pressed his lips to her cheek, then said close by her ear, “I’m sorry about that. I had no idea she’d be here. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she reassured him, carefully planting a delicate kiss on his lips, “But are you? No second thoughts?”

“Hell, no!” Ben said emphatically, “We’re together now, you and me. We’re solid.”

“Good,” she said, smiling broadly now, “We can get on with enjoying our evening out then.”

She turned back to Sofie to say something to her that Ben couldn’t hear, touching her shoulder as she leant in close, and Sofie replied earnestly, gripping Marcie’s hand. So Ben turned back to Geoff, who asked if everything was alright. He’d known Jo for longer than Ben, though as Ben understood it, they weren’t close friends. Of course he’d known that Jo and Ben had been seeing each other recently, but he must have realised that it was over when Ben had told him about Marcie. Ben thought he ought to fill in the details though, so he explained that he and Jo had called it off when he’d phoned her from the hospital. He also said that he’d thought at the time that Jo would be the one to move straight on to a fresh relationship after that, but it seemed he’d beaten her to it.

Geoff went on to ask Ben about his plans with Marcie now, and they got into talking about the practicalities of moving in with someone else. Geoff came up with things like claiming a TV license refund and checking his updated credit rating, which made Ben realise just how much there was to think about, and just what a big step he was taking with Marcie.

“Don’t worry about it,” Geoff reassured him, with a light laugh as he bumped his fist against Ben’s shoulder, “I’m a project manager. It’s my job to be thinking of a thousand and one things that need to be done in a certain order. You’ve got loads of time and things will all get sorted out in the end. Just enjoy yourselves, enjoy making your new home together.” Ben thanked him, feeling genuinely reassured, impulsively demonstrating that by briefly gripping Geoff’s shoulder.

Sofie broke off from Marcie briefly to say something in Geoff’s ear, so Ben asked Marcie how she was doing. She assured him that she and Sofie were getting on very well, with Jo already forgotten it seemed, then Sofie was herself congratulating Ben on moving in with Marcie, even though she was sorry to hear about his chest. Ben couldn’t help his thoughts from once again running in a wildly inappropriate direction as he leaned forwards, putting his ear close to Sofie’s mouth, inadvertently looking at the wide expanse of pale skin across her own flat chest. Even as he politely replied, he knew he’d noticed how small her breasts seemed compared to Marcie’s, the low bumps below the straight top of her dress contrasting dramatically with the pillowy cleavage that Marcie was showing.

“You must both come over for dinner some time,” Sofie told him, gripping Geoff’s arm to pull him in close too, “You can sleep over so you can both have a drink. We can all get to know each other better.” Ben and Geoff both agreed, then they leant back to let Sofie speak to Marcie again, who’d seemed to be having a rather stilted exchange with Geoff before Sofie had grabbed him.

The girls had already finished their drinks, so the boys quickly drained theirs and offered to go to the bar again. Marcie quickly fumbled in her bag, then pushed a folded twenty pound note into Ben’s hand as he left, insisting it was her round. Ben promised to bring back her change as he left with Geoff into the thickening crowd.

“She’s an interesting woman,” Geoff said in his ear as they waited in the crush by the bar again, and Ben wondered what he meant by that, if they’d actually had a brief intellectual conversation, or if Geoff was just looking for a polite way to say he liked the look of her, or even if he thought she seemed a bit of odd match for Ben. When Ben asked him directly if he thought she was a good catch, Geoff agreed emphatically. “She seems very kind, and has other lovely features, ahem, lovely qualities too,” he remarked with an anxious laugh, and with that Ben was sure that his friend had noticed Marcie’s cleavage too.

Ben had a bit of a surprise when they got back with the drinks though, seeing Sofie and Marcie with two strange lads, leaning their elbows on the small table where they’d put their own pints of lager. The pair were a bit younger than the four of them, with tight t-shirts stretched over well-developed muscles, both sporting hairstyles they’d shaved at the back and sides, and both of them also exhibiting heavily tattooed arms.

The lads beamed friendly smiles to Ben and Geoff as they approached, one raising his hand in a wave with a cigarette clamped between his fingers. Marcie grabbed Ben’s hand as he put their drinks down, leaning forwards to shout, “Ben, this is Jack, and this is his friend Patch. I was just telling him about you.”

Patch stuck his hand out, after swapping his cigarette to his other hand, and Ben shook it, then slipped into the grip and fist bump that Ben was familiar with from meeting strangers at raves. He noticed Patch was considerably shorter than he was, but very broad-shouldered. The young man bumped his friend on the arm, and Jack turned briefly from Geoff and Sofie to grip Ben’s hand and bump fists in the same way.

Ben and Marcie fell into a slightly voice-straining conversation with Patch. It turned out he and Jack were out from South Shields for the night, and that both of them worked as scaffolders. He seemed interested that Ben was a tree surgeon, but when Ben asked him about harnesses and rope safety on scaffolding, he got the impression that Patch was reluctant to talk about it, perhaps because he knew that he took risks.

He seemed genuinely sympathetic to hear that Ben had got his lungs shot by the work though. He seemed quite open to sharing with Ben and Marcie as he told them about his grandad’s emphysema. He explained that his mother’s family had moved away from County Durham when his grandad had got ill, and that was why they were by the coast now. It sounded as if the National Coal Board had been quite generous with their compensation, but Patch remembered the toll it had taken on his grandad in his last years. Perhaps he realised his words may have depressed Ben a little as he tried to reassure both him and Marcie that things were different now, and they were still young. He made a wild guess at their ages, giving them both nearly ten more years. When Marcie corrected him, he apologised with embarrassment, but they all laughed about it.

Then Patch suggested he get vodka shots for all of them. Ben and Marcie both tried to persuade him that wasn’t necessary, but he absolutely insisted on it once he’d got a hold of the idea. He grabbed Jack for a brief conflab, Jack explaining the plan to Geoff and Sofie too. It seemed the three of them had also been getting on well. Ben’s friends went through the same routine of politely declining the offered round, but Patch seemed to have had enough and dragged Jack away toward the bar.

The four of them leant their heads together to find out what each other thought of the two boys. They all agreed they seemed friendly enough. Sofie wondered aloud if they had more tattoos, and whether they’d let her and Marcie see them, making Marcie snigger. Geoff wondered if they’d even come back at all, or if they’d find someone more interesting to make friends with, maybe working their way into a group of girls their own age. But he was proved wrong as they saw Patch coming back, leading the way for Jack, who was carrying a small tray with six shot glasses on.

He put it down on the table, then he and Patch started arguing in a good-natured way about the flavours, trying to sort out who wanted what. Marcie ended up with watermelon, whilst Ben got what might have been cherry. They tried to raise their glasses together to say cheers, then Ben knocked his back in one, though others just took sips.

Sofie seemed to already be asking the boys about their tattoos though, pointing and then touching their arms flirtatiously as they took turns to push up their sleeves and display their artwork. They proudly showed them off to Geoff and Ben as well as the girls, and Ben admired Jack’s snaking dragon and Patch’s wolf’s head. This genuinely seemed to be good work, the artist having done well with the latter’s piercing eyes and detailed surrounding scrollwork. Then he heard Sofie shriek as Jack pulled up his t-shirt to reveal another huge dragon coiling across his very well-defined abs and pectoral muscles. Perhaps not wanting to be outdone, Patch pulled up his own t-shirt to show a scene of running horses that stretched right across his back. He twisted his head over his shoulder toward Marcie, saying she could touch them if she wanted, and to Ben’s slight surprise, she did, just laying her fingertips on one of Patch’s shoulder blades.

Sofie wanted to see too, then, having got her way, she seemed to help them all calm down a little. But then she called out loudly to the whole group that they should get one more round of shots before moving on somewhere else. Ben glanced at Marcie, and she confirmed what was on her mind with a tiny shake of her head. So he leant forwards to Geoff and Sofie to explain that he and Marcie ought to be getting home really.

Sofie grabbed his hand to shout, “I understand, you want an early night. I remember how it is when you have just started. Well, you stay for one more quickly. We all go to the bar together and toast the new couple.”

Patch must have overheard, despite the noise, as he asked Ben what she meant. He explained that he and Marcie had just moved in together, and Patch immediately congratulated him. He said they’d have to raise a glass to that. He tugged on Jack’s arm, presumably to pass the news on, then he turned back to Ben and Marcie. He admitted that he’d assumed they’d been together for years, the way they were with each other, so trusting and so close. He said it was like they knew each other’s thoughts, and Ben thanked him for saying that, genuinely gratified.

Ben found himself following the group as Sofie led the way to the bar. While they shuffled through the crowd, Patch drew him close to say something else just to Ben. “Are ye sure yous cannot stay?” he asked, “Four and two works better than three and one.” Ben smiled as he politely declined, thanking him. He assured Patch that he and Jack would find plenty of other company if they moved onto a nightclub with Geoff and Sofie, deliberately avoiding the possible hint that the lads may have been looking for something more intimate.

Sofie had managed to get a line of shot glasses served up on the bar for them already. As they pushed through the scrum to each pick up a glass, she called out in a loud voice, “To the happy couple!” She raised her glass as Ben drew Marcie to him, feeling deeply satisfied as she cuddled up against him, both raising their own glass in acknowledgement. He heard a stranger behind him ask if they’d just got married, then Patch shouted back, “Nah, they’ve moved in together.”

Seemed to satisfy the unseen voice, which called out “Nice work!” as Ben felt a firm pat on his back. Ben was aware of a few other cheers and shouts of congratulations from the press of bodies as he and Marcie both drained their glasses of citrus-flavoured vodka. Then, as they pulled away from the bar with the others, things seemed to go very quickly back to normal as people returned to the urgent business of trying to get served or get their drinks away from the bar to their mates.

Ben still felt quite elated as they pushed themselves out into the cool night air, gripping Marcie’s hand firmly. He saw she was grinning too as he risked a small peck on her lips. Though it had hardly been a marriage ceremony, it had felt as if Sofie had helped them through a rite of passage, publicly declaring their commitment to their new relationship in front of witnesses.

Sofie was rubbing her arms as she stood with Geoff and the two lads in the milling babel outside the bar. “We’ll make another date soon, right?” she asked with a kind of sincere longing. Marcie assured her that they would, then the two of them were kissing each other’s cheeks, clasping each other’s arms firmly. Then Marcie seemed to work down the line, quickly repeating the farewell with each of the three lads. Ben went to give Sofie a peck on the cheek, but she reached up to give him a big hug, saying into his ear, “Well done,” as Ben awkwardly put his arms around her skinny frame to pat her bare shoulder with his big hand, before she let him go. Geoff gave Ben a quick hug too, thanking him for suggesting the night out and saying they’d talk soon. Then Ben just waved to Patch and Jack as Marcie pulled him towards Monument Station, leaving them to scan the bars and clubs, finding a way to carry on their own night’s adventures.

Ben asked if Marcie wanted to get a taxi back, but she declined. “Are you in such a rush?” she asked with a cheeky twinkle as she gripped his hand and leant in close. Ben was pretty sure what she had in mind when she added, “I think we can wait long enough if we take the Metro, if we keep our legs crossed.”

Ben chuckled along with her, then asked, “Anyway, did you enjoy the evening? Did you enjoy meeting Geoff and Sofie? You seemed to get on okay, with Sofie I mean.”

“I got on okay with everyone, I think, didn’t I?” Marcie replied, still smiling as if she were pleased with herself, then a frown crossed her brow as she remembered, “Except Jo, I guess.”

“I’m so sorry. I had no idea she’d be there,” Ben said earnestly as they walked.

“Well, I got a good look at her at least,” Marcie said, gripping his hand firmly, “She fitted my mental picture of your past conquests pretty well - tall, blonde, legs like a model’s, complete with showgirl nails and makeup, hair cascading down over her flawless skin, perky boobs boosted up under an insubstantial dress, if you’d even call it that. And a jealous little minx too, if I’m any judge.”

“I’m sorry,” Ben said again.

“Don’t be!” Marcie insisted, pausing in the street to turn towards him, gripping both his hands, “You’re not responsible for her behaviour. Unless you two were playing games. You weren’t flirting and dallying with her, were you? You’re not keeping your finger in another pie, just in case?”

“No!” Ben said urgently, “Absolutely not, I’ve no regrets, not a moment’s doubt. We’re honest, you and I, right? And honestly, I’m so happy with you, so happy to have come out, telling folk we’re living together now. We’re a couple, a proper couple, not like it was with Jo, or others like her from before. She didn’t cover herself in glory either, I didn’t think. Like you say, she did seem jealous and spiteful, not kind and generous. She could have been happy for us.”

“She came back over, just briefly, when you and Geoff went to the bar, just before Jack and Parch turned up,” Marcie admitted, dropping her eyes, “Did you know?”

“No, I didn’t know. What did she say? Was she mean to you? Were you okay?” Ben asked anxiously.

“I was fine, and Sofie had my back,” she said thoughtfully, stopping in a doorway to pull him in for a cuddle, wrapping her arms around his waist before going on, “I maybe shouldn’t say, but to the Devil with it! She was trying to be all friendly, like we were girls together who could share our secrets and have a giggle, but it was a pretty shallow pretence. Then she said, ‘Has he tried putting it in behind yet?’ I pretended that I was vague about what she meant, so she went on, ‘I think Ben likes to imagine he’s doing it to a boy. He was always trying to turn me over to slip his wiener up my back passage.’”

Ben felt shocked as he looked down at Marcie, but she’d raised her eyes with a cheekily expectant smile. He said, “Well, you know that’s bollocks, right? After what we said, with our questions and answers, about being sure I’m straight, and what you said too, well, about that not being a place for a penis. I know it’s nice to make spoons, you know, lying together in bed, but that’s not what’s on my mind at all.”

Marcie was still quietly smiling up at him inquisitively, her thick eyebrows arched as she waited expectantly with that cheeky twinkle in her eyes. He felt he knew her well enough now to infer that she wanted some more saucy details from his wayward past. So he took a deep breath, then blew it out, before admitting with some embarrassment and twinges of shame, “Alright, I confess, I did put it up there with her, if you want to know. She said she wanted to go for the triple one night, our first night actually. Do you really want to hear this? Well, we were a bit drunk, and she’d already put me in her mouth, just briefly, like she was forcing herself to do it, to an extreme, trying to swallow me, even making herself gag a bit, if I remember it right. Then we were doing it, you know, penetrative sex, just like normal I guess, missionary position, so I already had a condom on. But then she stopped me, and asked me if I’d do it for her from behind too. I thought she just meant doggy style, but she said, ‘No, stuff it right up my arsehole.’ So I did. Erm, she had a toy too, a dildo, with lube for it, so she used that at the same time, to put up her vagina I mean, lubing me up too. But it was just the once. I didn’t ask her again, to go that way around, up her back passage, you know?”

“I know, I get the picture Ben. And thank you for sharing all that,” Marcie said, grinning widely as she held him close, wriggling against his hips, “I know she was just stirring, trying to plant some seeds of suspicion in my mind, as if I weren’t already absolutely sure of your sexual orientation. But you know me too now, how nosy I am. I’m glad you told me that story. It explains what was behind the malicious rumour she was trying to start, so to speak. Maybe she also wanted to feel superior about having sex with you in a way that I hadn’t, as if that meant she still had a claim on something that I’d not usurped. But it’s also just very interesting for me to hear what you got up to in your past adventures too, even if I’m not at all sure I’d want us to try that together. Maybe we could play more with your spooning though, seeing if you can slip inside my cwm rather than my butthole like that,” Marcie admitted with a shy smile, then she stood on tiptoes to raise her face toward him.

Ben carefully pressed a soft kiss to her lips as her words replaced his anxiety with eager anticipation, their tongues just slipping over each other. Then she rocked back down, grinning now as she added, “Anyway it sounds to me like the backdoor stuff was more Jo’s thing than yours, wanting anal sex as well as everything else. Perhaps it made her feel like she’d really taken you, to an extreme, as you said, or maybe she was trying to play out her own shady unspoken fantasies. Well, we can forget about her for now, but maybe sometime when we’re on our own together I’ll get you to tell me more about these risqué encounters and how they felt. "

“Aye, well, I could try to remember more, if you want,” Ben said sceptically as they started walking again, hand in hand, “But it’s not all that clear, to be honest. Like I said, we’d had a quite bit to drink that night.”

“Hmm, I think I can imagine,” Marcie said happily, “I drank a bit more than I was expecting tonight too. What’s in those alcopops, in terms of alcohol units, do you know?”

“I think they’re like a glass of wine,” Ben tried to reassure her, feeling a bit more at ease now that they’d moved on from talking about Jo, “So I was getting ahead of you, matching pints to your little bottles.”

“Ah, but I started thinking things might get a bit messy when we moved onto shots.”

“Aye, well, maybe we bailed out at the right time.”

“Those lads, though!” Marcie exclaimed as they tripped along the street amongst the other revellers, “They seemed to just appear out of nowhere after Jo had left Sofie and me alone. Did you lay them on especially? Had you made some secret arrangements you’d not told me about? Patch was very generous, buying us all a round.”

“No!” Ben denied, “There was no conspiracy. They were the real deal, a genuine pair of cheeky charvas, turning up out of the blue. They were friendly though, weren’t they? And generous.”

“You didn’t think I was flirting with them, did you? I think Sofie was worse. And going back to your original question, I enjoyed meeting her very much thank you, and I feel I got on with her very well. Did you know she’d made that dress herself? She’s obviously a resourceful woman. But you didn’t tell me she was from Germany, the old GDR, nor that’s she’s really called Zofia. We had a little chat about European roots and feeling a bit different in English society, and a bit of a chat about big strong English boys too. Geoff’s even taller than you, isn’t he?”

“Aye, probably, a bit,” Ben admitted, “But sorry, I’d forgotten where Sofie was from. I admit, I might not have even known. You can’t tell from her accent, can you?”

“Oh, maybe, if you’ve got an ear for languages, and a mind that likes to find categories to put everything into. No, she was lovely. But do you remember why you originally suggested this evening out?”

Marcie asked this in a lower voice, as they were coming into the station now. “Aye,” he said, leaning in closer so that she could hear him as he spoke softly too, “You were sceptical, you doubted you could attract attention, from lads who might want to make a threesome.” Though it was hardly quiet, Ben guessed she might be right to think people could overhear them as they stood close together on the escalator and then on the platform. He felt unsure himself about discussing this here, despite his earlier confession on the street about what he’d done with Jo.

But Marcie didn’t seem to mind talking about their private plans in her clever round-about way, as she said, “Yes, that’s right. And did you think our little experimental trial gave positive indications to your hypothesis that I could attract that kind of attention?”

“Aye, I reckon so,” smiling at her deliberately pretentious language, “Patch didn’t say it directly, but he did say, what was it? ‘Four and two works better than three and one.’”

“Yes, he said something to me too, just to test the waters I think. Let’s see if I can remember how he said it, ‘Ye man’s a canny lad. Does he mind sharing, like?’”

Ben was impressed at Marcie’s imitation of the accent, but also a little shocked. As their train arrived and they got in, still standing, he asked quietly and urgently, “And what did you say?”

“I played a bit dumb, pretending that I thought he was talking about money or something. I said that it was very sad, but as you might have to stop work, you’d have less to share now. I told him that he should ask you himself, though, so perhaps that’s why he dropped that hint to you.”

Ben straightened up to blow his breath out in a kind of sigh, of both relief and surprise, then asked Marcie, “But you were okay? You didn’t feel threatened? And we’re okay too, right? You weren’t tempted to jump ship?”

“It’s all okay, Ben,” she said calmly, laying a reassuring hand on his chest, “I proved to myself that you were right, and I felt safe while I was at it, with people all around. But I would never have let it get too far. There’s no risk I’ll be ‘at it’ with anyone else in that sense. I know where my heart is. That’s safe too, fixed firmly on you, and only you. And that’s just where Vixen wants to be fixed too.

Ben felt his warmth for her in both his heart and his loins as he pecked her dark lips again, even as she smirked at their shared secret code.

Then the train pulled into West Jesmond, and they stepped out onto the quiet platform and chilly air, striking out briskly for the sanctuary of Marcie’s flat.

“What do think they’re up to now, the four of them? Would Sofie really let all three boys get frisky with her?” Ben asked.

“Oh, I think our cheeky chappies will find a more suitable group to ease their muscly, inked and testosterone saturated shoulders into. Maybe that’s why they’d followed Jo over originally. But I saw plenty of other gangs of women out and about who I’m sure they’d have more luck with. Geoff and Sofie seemed like a solid couple, despite her playfulness.”

“Aye, that playfulness,” Ben said idly, prompting Marcie to ask what he meant. He explained, “I’m sure it’s nothing, it just came to mind because of the other thing, what your experiment was about. But Sofie invited us for dinner, and she said we should sleep over. I’ve slept over at their flat before, stopping on the sofa-bed, right next to their bedroom. Well, we’d probably all had a bit much to drink that time too, more than tonight, maybe making their inhibitions lower.”

“What are trying to tell me, Ben? Is it another of your guilty secrets?” Marcie asked, sounding intrigued but a little concerned.

“Well, I heard them. I heard them having sex. I guess they knew that maybe I could, and maybe they wanted me to. Maybe they were being exhibitionists, a bit like us, but deliberately.”

“So you’re thinking Sofie invited us around to have a bit of a party and then stay over so we could have a kind of cosy foursome, maybe just making love to our own other halves faithfully, but in a way that we could all share?”

“Aye, I guess, maybe I thought something like that,” Ben admitted as they turned into Marcie’s road.

“And what would you say if it did turn out that’s what was on their programme for after-dinner entertainment? Would you agree to go through with it, with me, maybe with Geoff and Sofie too?”

“No,” Ben automatically answered, then after a moment’s honest self-appraisal, admitted, “Maybe. Just with you, mind. I don’t know. What do you think?”

They’d reached Marcie’s front door now. As she used her keys, she smiled cheekily back at him. “No, maybe, just with you, I don’t know,” she repeated by way of answer, smirking. “I guess we’ll just have to make the call on the spot if it comes down to it, maybe just letting our impulses go with the flow. It’s more likely Sofie’s invitation was completely innocent, and they were just being careless when you heard them. But I do know what I want now!”