Victory Lap

Marin was in love with Teddy, madly so. And yet. As Chappell Roan topped the charts, princess of her queer Midwestern heart, she felt a longing she couldn’t shake. Marin and Teddy lived in Manhattan, in an expensive high-rise that made her feel like a princess in a tower, but she knew, across the bridge, in ever-growing sapphic bars and clubs, that chaos was afoot. A would-you-rather question her sister Violet posed to her as a child, when their shared favorite food was hot dogs—sloppy, sauced, like the ones Teddy ordered at Envy Bar: Would you rather only eat hot dogs for the rest of your life? Or — here Violet would laugh – you can eat anything on God’s green earth, but never hot dogs again? This question tormented her as a child, the pressure to choose. Now, past thirty, she saw the beauty of her bisexuality: she didn’t have to.

It took several years to raise the desire to Teddy. She’d wanted to settle into the relationship after the rollercoaster that brought them there. How long she’d waited for this: the stability of waking up in his arms, his devotion unceasing, like the sun. She would be greedy, she feared, to ask for more. But Teddy’s love was ever-growing. He always had more to give. 

“I’ve never been in love with a woman,” she told him one day. “I mean, I’ve never been in love with anyone, besides you. But still.” 

Teddy was hesitant whenever Marin brought up her bisexuality. She didn’t blame him. He was an Iowa boy, corn-fed and straight as a picket fence post. She’d slept with and kissed women goodbye, sure, and tried to stay involved in the queer community: posting selfies on Bisexual Day of Visibility, donating to the Go Fund Me’s for gender-affirming surgeries that cross her feed. (It was the least she could do, she’d suspected, working in VC, and buoyed by two corporate salaries.) She and Teddy listened to Kehlani and Kali Uchis when they made love, sapphic voices the soundtrack of her sensual life. She felt secure in her sexuality, but sometimes she felt melancholy, as if looking at a subway she had missed. 

“What are you proposing,” Teddy said. “To open our relationship?”

“No, no,” said Marin. What she wanted: a threesome. She kissed him in reassurance. Teddy said, “Are you sure you want me there?” And she loved him then, how deeply he cared for her, that he’d willingly step aside to let her have her moment. She meant it when she told him, “Every experience I have, I want to have with you.”

She didn’t mention the threesome for a while. She wanted Teddy to grow accustomed to the idea. But then Gabby, her old on-and-off lover, whose embrace had warmed her through lonely years, quite literally filling Teddy’s space in her heart, texted. Gabby had since moved to Los Angeles, where she’d successfully managed the campaign of the most socialist mayoral candidate the city had seen. Marin had watched proudly from afar as Gabby’s profile rose. She imagined all the orgasms she’d given Gabby powering her, like caffeine, through the career trenches of their twenties. Gabby had written: “Back in the city for a week. Just a little victory lap, but would love to see you. Rooting for you and Teddy!”

“You’d have to be intentional with it,” her therapist, Jessica, told her. “There are two hearts to protect. Three, including yours.” Jessica was the one to talk it out with her, to process how she would protect Teddy’s heart (by reassuring him he wasn’t an intruder) as well as honor Gabby’s (by centering her pleasure.) There was a fetishizing trope, Marin knew, of women with boyfriends seeking a female third for the novelty. But she had years of trust built up with Gabby, who was single, and importantly, hot as hell. Long ago, she knew, Teddy had viewed Gabby as the second-hottest woman in the room. This intimacy, she suspected, would help whip up the perfect storm. “And my heart?” Marin said, and Jessica said, “I think yours will only grow.” 

“Let us take you out for dinner,” Marin texted Gabby back, after consulting Teddy. “Let us celebrate your win.” And they sent Gabby a voice memo so that she’d understand exactly how they meant. 

The logistics of the threesome were, bizarrely, part of the eroticism. All three of them were high-powered career people: they loved a group project, moving parts. They did, at this point, each have assistants, but Marin nonetheless sent Gabby a cheeky G-cal dinner appointment, blocked directly onto her personal calendar. Marin and Teddy spent quite a while choosing the restaurant to take Gabby. “What kind of place does she usually like?” Teddy asked sweetly. Marin’s cheeks flushed, realizing she had barely taken Gabby on an actual date. But here was her chance to treat Gabby well. To wine and dine her, without the pressure she’d felt earlier, to be the partner she couldn’t be. “Sushi,” she said, remembering Gabby’s extravagant takeout orders. But life was long — in her third decade on earth, new possibilities unfolded before her. Third time, she suspected, might be the charm.

They’d ordered a car to her hotel. Black, discreet. Gabby was, at this point, too old to be impressed by sheer displays of wealth, particularly from white people and men, but she was amused by it, the effort it showed, the prom-night of it all. She smiled at herself in the car’s mirrored reflection. She knew she looked hot: her black wavy hair pinned back, her brown skin tanner than Marin might remember, thanks to LA, all that sun. She’d always liked Marin, even if Marin hadn’t been a particularly serious lover, and if Marin and Teddy wanted to take her out tonight, show her a good time — well, she would make it worth their while. 

The sushi restaurant they’d picked was cool-hued, pale, like the inside of a pearl. Marin was sitting with Teddy. They waved somewhat formally, like royalty from a balcony. Gabby felt herself stand up straight. “Hi,” she said. She kissed Marin on the cheek. Teddy extended a hand, which she bypassed, kissing his cheek too—she heard Marin gasp. Good. She was used to charming wealthy people; it was part of her job in politics. They sat at a small, round table. Knees touching. 

“What are you drinking,” Marin said. “We were waiting for you to order.” 

“You’re sweet.” Gabby smiled. She took her time with the menu, ordered something with yuzu, light and floral. Marin and Teddy had Jameson on the rocks. They smiled shyly at the matching orders, but Gabby thought it was cute. The alcohol loosened them both, particularly Teddy, who’d been hanging back. When he told Gabby, now, that she looked stunning, she knew that he meant it. They ordered more food than was necessary, or financially reasonable – the pleasure was that they could. Scallops. Salmon sliced paper-thin. Rice fine and soft as sand. 

They talked about their lives. Its possibilities and divergences. Gabby found herself drawn to Teddy, more than she’d anticipated. She wondered if he’d be a drag on the night, but he made Marin more grounded, attentive. She imagined kissing him. Kissing her. In her thirties, her queer principles had made Gabby a relationship anarchist, but Marin and Teddy were a solid case for domesticity. Although that didn’t stop them from having fun: her presence, eating sushi off Marin’s chopsticks while Teddy watched, was proof of it.

Teddy didn’t look at the total when he paid. As if to distract her from his generosity, Marin took her hand. Reparations, Gabby thought, tipsy and glad. They wanted to put her at ease. She knew, as they took a car back to Marin and Teddy’s apartment, that it would be a very good night.  

“This is an upgrade from your old VC cave,” Gabby said, when they arrived. She took in their enormous penthouse; Teddy made her a drink. She sipped it, sitting on the edge of the sofa: the game was now afoot. She remembered Marin’s hands on her body, their certainty. One thing about Marin: that girl could fuck. But would Teddy level up her game? She leaned forward and smiled, waiting to see. 

Marin kissed Gabby first. The softness of Gabby’s mouth so different from Teddy’s roughness, but it held hers, and the familiarity stunned her—Marin was a nostalgic woman, and kissing Gabby felt like re-watching a favorite movie she’d seen before. Except this time Teddy was here. It was Teddy’s hand at the small of her back, like a benevolent angel, watching from above. She didn’t have to look at him to know what he was thinking—that he saw her, fully, in that moment.  

“Come here,” she heard Gabby say. Marin opened her eyes —but Gabby was looking, instead, at Teddy. It was Teddy, now, who sat on the couch to kiss her. Teddy kept one hand at Marin’s back as he kissed Gabby, slowly and deeply, introducing himself to her. She’d been surprised, her first time, with how gentle Teddy could be, and Marin saw this same realization wash over Gabby, how she relaxed at his touch. Despite all the therapy beforehand, Marin had worried she’d feel jealous of that first kiss, but she didn’t. It felt like Teddy was affirming her reality: agreeing that Gabby was really hot. There was no closer intimacy than fucking another person — besides fucking the same person, together. 

By the time Marin and Teddy moved to kiss the other, Gabby was blushing: exactly as Marin wanted her. 

“Do you want to lie in our bed?” Teddy asked Gabby, a gentleman to the end. Marin liked feeling like part of a team.  

When Gabby removed her clothes, Marin and Teddy melted. It reminded Teddy, in a way, of their first date at the museum in Copenhagen with Marin, admiring the beauty of art, how it brought them outside of themselves, together. They hadn’t coordinated what to do at this point — they didn’t want it to feel rehearsed to Gabby, putting the moves on her. Let me cook, Marin told Teddy, telepathically, and hearing her, he stood back.  

“Lie down for me, baby,” Marin told Gabby. 

Marin removed her clothes, hearing Teddy sigh behind her. Heard his belt, jeans drop to the floor. She knelt over Gabby, the way she remembered Gabby liked. Kissed her on her mouth, her neck. She liked how Gabby responded to her touch, the way her back arched, despite herself. Gabby’s moans in her ear. Was that how she sounded to Teddy? To be someone for whom Gabby surrendered her softness struck her as an incredible thing. Turning on a man was one thing, but a woman — it made her feel like the baddest bitch on earth. 

Then Teddy was on the bed next to Gabby. Gabby turned to kiss him, and Marin knelt over them both. She kissed Teddy once, twice — he smiled at her like, I’ve got this, and as he covered Gabby with his soft kisses, the kind that drove Marin wild, she focused her attention, now, on Gabby’s body. She placed her hand on Gabby’s breast, its softness — as if summoned by her, Teddy’s touched the other. Looking down, Gabby couldn’t tell whose hand was whose. The pleasure overwhelmed her, feeling held, interwoven arms, the safety of Teddy and Marin’s love.  

Now, the knee thing — how Marin had missed it. Feeling Gabby grind against her, desperate. She could grant her relief. She knelt down to touch Gabby with her mouth. Gently first, then insistently. She wanted Teddy to taste her too – he’d earned it as much as her — but a voice in her head told her, It’s okay to be greedy. She knew there would be plenty to share. Teddy’s eyes went wide, as though Marin had just performed a free-throw, some miraculous physical feat. He hadn’t known the tricks she had up her sleeve. And that was how bisexuality felt to her: like magic. She could pull a rabbit out of a hat. Anything was possible.  

“Fuck,” Gabby said, gasping from all the stimulation. Teddy on her top half, Marin at her bottom, like all the times they’d split up a dessert. Marin was eating like she’d been starving for years. Teddy just looked happy to be there. And Marin was overcome, then, by love for her man, all she could do for him. Still face-deep in Gabby, she reached for Teddy. Took him in her hand. This part she could do by touch alone — how many times had she reached for him, senseless, in the dark? He gasped. Both of them, trembling, for her. Like that old childhood game — can you rub your tummy and pat your head at the same time? Yes, Marin could. And she would still have love to spare. 

“Have you done this before,” Gabby asked afterwards, still gasping. Marin lay between them, catching her breath after making both of them come. Teddy still had the expression of a man who had seen a wonder of the world. Of course, he often looked that way at her. 

“No,” confessed Teddy immediately, and Marin, laughing, said, “Shut up. Don’t spoil it.”

Marin felt Teddy rustle beside her, and she turned her face to receive his kiss, but his lips met above her, with Gabby’s instead. They looked at each other, smiled, then down at her. Marin’s whole body turned liquid with anticipation. Bisexuality was her superpower, her bottomless hunger. To her lovers’ desire, she now surrendered herself — to the restless, frantic beats of three familiar hearts.