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Travis took the phone from Hank, looked more closely, and his eyebrows did a brief, appreciative jump. “She’s beautiful. Looks familiar, too.” A grin spread across his face, and he glanced at Hank and said, “She have a sister? I’ve got a thing for curvy women.”
“Me, too, man. Yeah, she has one already-married sister. Charity.”
Travis paused and looked closer. “Stuart?”
Hank nodded. “Used to be.”
“She was a shy little thing and Charity was a pistol, as I recall.”
Hank nodded and then chuckled. “Speaking of pistols, they also have a daughter. Little Rose Marie. She’s three. A lot has changed since you last visited Divine. Among our generation, Grace is the center of the first ménage I know of in this area. There are others from our parents’ generation, but they’re all still very much in the closet.”
“You said the first ménage. There are others?”
Hank licked the beer foam from his upper lip and nodded. “Several. Including people you know.”
“I’d like to hear more about that, maybe get caught up with some of them.”
Hank hoped that meant Travis still thought about their discussion years before. One night, when they’d gotten rip-roaring drunk, long before Hank ever conceived the idea of running for sheriff and before Travis had moved on to his first posting away from Divine as a game warden in Wyoming, they’d talked about sharing a woman.
Both of them were so territorial back then, and they’d agreed that the only way either of them could ever share a woman with another man was if it was the two of them…and no others, ever. Their beer- and lust-soaked imaginations had run away with them, and they’d both fantasized about the kind of woman they could love together and what they could do with her if they were ever given the taboo opportunity. That original fantasy had led him to gradually discover other needs he had as a grown man that extended beyond the bedroom. Needs that were left mostly unmet.
Hank settled back in his seat and said, “Tell you what, why don’t you relax for a few days. I’m off on Tuesday and we could go fishing if you’d like. I have an invitation to a wedding next weekend, and it includes a plus-one. Why don’t you come with me? You could get caught up with some more friends.”
“Dude, when I said I was willing to share with you, I didn’t mean I wanted to date you,” Travis said and then barked with laughter, shielding himself when Hank raised a fist.
“The wedding involves a ménage. Remember little Maizy Owen?”
Travis gaped. “Itty-bitty Maizy Owen is old enough to get married?”
Hank burst into laughter, relishing the shock he was about to deliver. “Trav, she’s in her early thirties now, and yes. She’s getting married. Three big dudes.”
“Three? Hell. They’ll break her. Last time I saw her she was nearly small enough to fit in my pocket.”
Hank snickered. “She might be but she’s got all three wrapped around her pinky finger. Her brother Patrick is also part of a ménage.”
“Oh, hell. I bet two of his kids in ménages went over well with Old Man Owen.”
“It wasn’t easy for them. Hasn’t been easy for a lot of them. There’s a faction here that takes delight in pointing them out, trying to shame them, make them feel bad for the way they live their lives, even though they don’t rub anyone’s noses in their private business. Maizy’s even had to contend with her own sister, Roberta.”
“Prissy Owen? She doesn’t have much room to talk if I’m recalling right from her wild child days.”
“That’s the one. But I gotta say…”
“Yeah?”
“Seems to be working for them. Maizy’s a school teacher and she had a hard time with the school board for a while, but it all worked out, at least in the short term. Old Lady Dumphrey was up in arms for a while but wound up being one of her biggest supporters. It was weird.” Hank’s backside still stung every time he thought of the elderly teacher and her oaken paddle. She’d had quite a swing back in the day.
“Dumphrey? You mean from fourth grade, Dumphrey? She’s still alive? Man, I remember when she lit my ass up with that paddle of hers.”
