Page 109 of Burning Both Ends

Amy and Luisa lay together while they watched Bel slip her clothes back on, somehow managing to look elegant even putting on a creased dress after several hours of energetic sex.

She came back over and leaned across the bed. “Amy, it’s been a genuine pleasure.” The smile told Amy she very much intended the double meaning. Then she leaned across and kissed Luisa on the cheek. “Until our next photoshoot?”

Luisa glanced at Amy for confirmation, and she nodded. “Next time.”

Bel walked to the door, paused with her hand on the handle, and looked back at them. “The chair is on me. I’ll tell reception it was the wind.” And then she was gone.

***

It was just Amy and Luisa left, curled into each other in a sweaty, happy heap.

“Open together,” Amy whispered.

“Open together.”

They lay there for a while, the night sounds of the coast drifting in through the balcony door. Amy felt Luisa’s breathing slow as she drifted towards sleep.

Amy lay awake a little longer, thinking. Bel had been amazing… funny, passionate, surprising. The evening had been everything that open together promised it could be.

But as she lay there, Luisa warm against her, the woman she loved, she found her mind drifting forward. There was Luisa, and there was Sarah.

And open together let her dare to dream… she’d thought until now that she had to choose, ultimately, between Luisa and Sarah.

Maybe, just maybe, there was another way, a way that was the best of all possible worlds, a way that meant not having to choose.

She smiled to herself, imagining what they’d just done but with Sarah instead of Bel. It should be impossible, but then that was true for everything else that had happened to Amy in the last few months.

Luisa and Sarah… that would be some night.

Amy turned her head and planted a gentle kiss on Luisa’s forehead. “Te amo,” she murmured, and Luisa cuddled up closer, weary, safe, content.

Epilogue

West Country

That night, once the twins were in bed and asleep, they’d lit the fire against the autumn evening chill. Sarah and Hugo were sat on the sofa in front of it, drinks in hand, the Saturday night they’d had countless times over the years repeated one more time.

Them, wine, music.

Hugo was scrolling through his phone, choosing what to play over the speakers. “Any preference?”

Sarah shook her head. “No, your choice.”

She was trying to keep the tension out of her voice, but inside she was a mess, her heart hammering against her ribcage.

“Did I tell you about the two sixth formers from Wednesday?”

Sarah shook her head. “No.”

Hugo smiled, and launched into the tale of the two pupils at his school caught doing the sort of thing together that their parents presumably wouldn’t have approved of, and certainly weren’t paying their fees for.

Sarah listened, and asked questions, and smiled at the right moments just like she always did. Performing the role.

When he finished they sat in silence for a few moments. The only noise was the pop of a log on the fire.

It’s time, she realised, her mouth going dry.Now or never.

She looked across at Hugo. He was a good man. He deserved better than a wife who couldn’t love him like he deserved to be loved. She knew it, but it didn’t make it any easier.

“Hugo,” she tried to say, but it came out as a whisper.

He looked back and smiled. “Yes?”

His smile… she very nearly lost her nerve.How can I do this to him? But she knew she had to, she knew she must.

Sarah took a deep breath and sat up straighter in her chair.

“There’s something I need to tell you.”