Funeral with a View Read Free

morning.
    “What the hell?” I sat up.
The sudden change in elevation sent waves of pain through my head. “Ow.”
    I squinted my eyes in
defense against the sunlight trickling in through the blinds and surveyed the
room.
    Catherine was curled up
in a compact, sexy ball next to me, completely naked. Her hair was a mess of
tangled gold.
    On the nightstand, next
to an empty box of Kleenex, sat a box of Trojans, torn open as if by a wild
boar in the night. Condom wrappers, lots of condom wrappers, littered
the floor like XXX confetti after an AVN ticker tape parade. They were on the
floor, the foot of the bed, the nightstand. One even found its way into the
blinds, wedged between a pair of slats.
    Catherine continued to
snore as I made my way out of the bed.
    I padded my way into the
kitchen and fired up a pot of coffee. With the machine bubbling away, I walked
out into the living room, determined to plop on the couch, when I noticed my
boxers draped over the edge of the coffee table. On top of them was a note.
    “Hey guys. Thanks for
the poker game and the free booze. It was ... something else. Sorry I couldn’t
stay. I thought it would be best if I wasn’t there when you woke up. Don’t
worry, I didn’t drive home drunk. Stay good. XOXO, Bill. P.S.—The XOXO wasn’t
for you, Rick. You homo. P.S.S.—Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
    I sunk into the couch and
pinched the bridge of my nose.
    Drinking. Bill
visiting. Strip poker. Then …
    “Oh, my head. Do I smell
coffee?” Catherine walked over, hand on her head. “What time is it?” She
pointed at the note and sat down next to me. “Whatcha reading?”
    “Yes, you smell coffee.
It’s about seven-thirty, and this,” I handed her the note, “is from Bill.”
    “Bill?”
    I nodded. “Bill.”
    Catherine rubbed at her
eyes, blinked, then read to herself.
    I watched as recollection
pierced the veil of her hangover. Other than a chirping bird and bubbling
coffee maker, the room was silent.
    She set the note down.
    “Shit.” She chewed her
bottom lip. Enter buyer’s remorse. “I’m sorry, Ricky.”
    “Sorry? For what?”
    “For forcing you into an
all-night three-way with your best friend. I feel like such a slut.”
    “Hey, come here.” I
pulled her head to my shoulder. “We were drunk, but we weren’t that drunk.
Okay, maybe I was that drunk, but I knew what was going on. Nobody forced
anybody to do anything.”
    “But it was all my idea.”
    “Doesn’t matter. We all
agreed to it, and that’s that.”
    After a period of
silence, she nodded. “So we’re okay?”
    “Okay? Of course. Absolutely.
Better than okay. We’re going to be A-okay. Totally okay. Off the charts okay.”
    Things were sure to be
weird for a while, but I liked her too much to let something as insignificant
as having shared her with my best friend for what amounted to an entire night’s
rendition of Caligula be our ruination.
    Catherine let out a
breath. “Good. I’m glad.”
    “Um, what happened last
night isn’t something you’d like to, you know, repeat, is it?”
    “No. Once was enough.”
    “Me either. I don’t think
I have it in me to live the swinger lifestyle. The drinking to get over the
shyness would kill me. And I’d have to buy a bunch of robes. Swingers always
have a ton of robes. There’s no way I could afford it.”
    She swatted me on the
shoulder. “You’re nuts, you know that?”
    “I’m nuts about you is
what I am.” She cuddled even closer. “And …” The sentence hung in the air,
unfinished. My fragile male ego had made its presence known and I was suddenly
overcome with a feeling of doubt.
    “And what?”
    “Nothing. It’s silly.”
    She sat up and eyed me
curiously. “I can tell it’s not ‘nothing’. Come on. Tell me.”
    I took a deep breath. “Well,
I just had doubts in the back of my mind that, you know …” I trailed off for a
moment. “You know. Maybe you liked Bill more than me. That maybe you liked