The Lemon Tree

Naomi was already in the pool when Priya came through the side gate with the wine.

Thirty-eight, hair wet, elbows on the tiles, a glass sweating beside her wrist. The Wellington afternoon had that thin bright quality that made everything look honest.

"You're late," Naomi said.

"Tom couldn't find the salad servers."

"Tragic."

Priya was forty-one. She set the bottles down and took off her dress because that was what you did at Naomi and Seth's, and also because the last three months of late-night talk with Tom had led, with almost comic directness, to this particular Saturday.

Seth came out with a bowl of olives and no shirt. Forty. Easy in his body the way men got when they swam every morning and did not make a religion of it. Tom followed, forty-three, holding the servers like evidence.

They ate on the warm concrete. They talked about work and a leak in the spare bathroom and the neighbour's monstrous lemon tree. Priya watched Seth's throat when he drank and then made herself look at the olives instead. Tom's knee touched hers. She left it there.

Three months of talk sat under the afternoon like a second table. Messages after midnight. What if. How. Who first. The night Tom had admitted, staring at their bedroom ceiling, that he wanted to see another man's mouth on her and was afraid that wanting it made him a worse husband. The night she had said the fear was not the same thing as a no.

Nobody mentioned the thing until Naomi floated onto her back and said, mildly,

"So. Are we doing this, or are we going to get drunk and pretend we came for the olives?"

Tom looked at Priya. Priya had imagined this look. In the imagining it had been cinematic. In the yard it was just her husband checking that she was still inside her own yes.

"We're doing this," Priya said.

Seth's mouth tilted. "Rules once more, then nobody has to be brave and stupid at the same time."

They went through them the way they had on the group chat. Names. Condoms in the bathroom basket. Either couple could stop the whole afternoon with one word. No separate rooms unless everybody agreed. No leftover cruelty tomorrow. Naomi joked that she would drown anyone who got sentimental in her pool. Seth said the joke was the rule.

"All right," Naomi said, and reached up with a wet hand. "Priya. Come here."

The water was warmer than the air. Naomi's mouth tasted of wine and chlorine. The kiss was not shy. Tom made a small sound on the tiles that Priya felt in her stomach. When she glanced back he was watching with

his glass forgotten in his hand. Seth was watching Tom watch.

Naomi's thigh slid between Priya's. "Your husband looks like he might expire."

"He wanted to see this more than he wanted to admit it."

"Good. Let him."

Naomi kissed her again, deeper, and put a hand on Priya's breast under the water. Priya's breath left her. She had not kissed a woman in twelve years. Her body remembered faster than her manners.

They got out because the pool was a lovely idea and a terrible place to be precise. Towels on the lounge. Sun on wet skin. Seth knelt by Priya first, looking at Tom until Tom nodded, and then he put his mouth on Priya through the wet fabric of her costume.

Priya's head dropped back. Naomi was kissing Tom by then. Hearing her husband make that helpless noise because another woman had her hand in his trunks did something raw and complicated to Priya's cunt.

"Off," Seth said, tugging at the costume.

Priya lifted her hips. The air hit her. Seth's mouth followed, no performance, just a man who liked going down and had been given permission. His tongue was different from Tom's. Slower. He held her thighs open with his hands and ate her while Naomi got Tom's cock out and stroked it, showing Priya the result.

"Look at him," Naomi murmured. "He's dripping because Seth's got his face in you."

Tom's eyes were dark. "Priya."

"I'm here."

"I know. Fuck. I know."

Seth slid two fingers into her and found the spot that made her hips jump. Priya came with a shocked little cry, one hand in Seth's hair, the other reaching for Tom and not quite reaching.

After that it got less tidy.

They drank water like it was part of the rules. Naomi sat on Tom's face with the unselfconscious greed of someone who had wanted this specific picture. Priya watched her husband's mouth work between another woman's legs and felt a flare of jealousy so clean it circled back into lust. She told him so, out loud, because hiding it would have been a different kind of lie. He groaned into Naomi and held her hips harder.

Naomi looked at Priya while she used him. "You can hate this a little. That's allowed. Just don't leave."

"I'm not leaving."

"Good. Come here and kiss me while he does that."

Priya did. Naomi's mouth was wet and smiling. Tom's hand found Priya's ankle and held on as if the three of them were one piece of rope.

Seth rolled on a condom, checked Priya's face, and waited.

"Yes," she said. "Seth. Yes."

He pushed into her on the lounge while she was still watching Naomi ride Tom's mouth. The double image broke something open. Priya grabbed at Seth's shoulder and swore. He fucked her in a steady, deep rhythm, the sun on his back, olives forgotten, a bee somewhere in the lemon tree making the whole scene ridiculous and perfect.

"Tom," she said. "Watch him fuck me."

Tom watched. His mouth shone. Naomi laughed, delighted and filthy, and shifted down his body to take his cock into her mouth. The sound Tom made then was new. Priya filed it away like a secret.

They changed again because nobody wanted the first shape of it to become the only shape. Priya ended up on her hands and knees on a towel that would never be the same. Tom behind her. Naomi in front, offering her cunt. Priya had a moment of bright panic and then put her mouth on Naomi because the panic was just heat wearing a different jacket. Naomi's hand landed in her hair. Tom pushed into her from behind, familiar cock, unfamiliar afternoon, and started to fuck her with the particular care-and-hunger of a man who could see exactly what his wife was doing.

"That's it," Naomi said, voice fraying. "Good. Just like that. Tom, harder, she can take it, look at her."

He looked. He gave her harder. Priya came with Naomi on her tongue and her husband buried in her, shaking so hard Seth had to steady her elbow.

Later, inside, on the actual bed, Seth finished in Naomi while Tom held Priya and touched her like he was counting her. The four of them ended in a heap that was more laughter than cinema. Somebody's foot hung off the mattress. The pool filter ticked through the open door.

Naomi stared at the ceiling.

"Well," she said. "The olives didn't survive."

Tom's laugh was wrecked. "I'll buy more."

Priya turned her face into his shoulder. She smelled chlorine and him and, faintly, Naomi's oil. The jealousy was still there, smaller, sitting next to a satisfaction she did not have a polite word for.

"Still yes?" Tom asked quietly.

"Still yes." She kissed the nearest bit of him. "Ask me again tomorrow when my brain is back."

Seth, already half asleep, said, "Bring better wine next time."

Naomi kicked him without energy.

They did not last on the bed. Hunger had a second wind. In the kitchen, of all places, Naomi poured water and then set the glass down because Seth had put Priya on the counter and started kissing her breasts with the unhurried attention of a man who had already come once and had nothing to prove.

Tom stood in the doorway and watched his wife hook her ankles at another man's back. When she reached for him he came to her and let her take him into her mouth while Seth pushed into her again, condom new, rhythm lazy and filthy. The counter edge bit her. She did not care. The sound of her own muffled voice around Tom made Naomi lean in the doorframe and touch herself without embarrassment.

"That's the picture," Naomi said. "That's the one you two were afraid of. Look how pretty it is."

Priya came with Tom on her tongue and Seth deep, one hand slapping the cabinet door without meaning to. Tom followed, apologising and then laughing because the apology was stupid. Seth finished a minute later with his face in Priya's neck and Naomi's fingers in his hair.

After that they really were done. Someone found shirts. Someone did not. The pool went on glittering as if it had hosted nothing but lunch.

Priya closed her eyes on the sofa, later, Tom's pulse under her ear.

The lemon tree moved in the breeze. Nobody reached for a moral. The afternoon, having done what it came to do, left them there in the wreck of the towels and let the rest of the day arrive whenever it felt like it.