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'Your mother was right,' I said. 'You grew up modest and well adjusted. Now, instead of being burnt out and screwed up, you've got a brilliant career ahead of you.'

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. 'If I'm lucky.'

'Luck!' I shook his shoulder. 'Sweetie, talent like yours makes its own luck.'

I could see he doubted my claim. Pride swelled in my heart, and resignation. Joe might not know it yet but he was going places, big places. Captain Blood was just the start of it.

As for me, unlike my busy housemates, I had far too much time on my hands. Keith proved an efficient manager, eager to assume any responsibility I'd allow him. My overtime shrank to nothing, but now there was no one to greet me at the end of the day. Joe had rehearsals and Sean worked evenings.

Only bed remained sacred. Even if they stumbled home at
midnight
, the men would climb the final flight to my room. We were, however, sleeping a lot more than we used to.

I began to think more seriously about opening a second shop. Marianne, who did our books, said I couldn't afford to tie up our capital, but I didn't see the good in letting it stagnate. Our financial position was sound. We weren't in debt. Interest rates were low. It seemed to me that now was an ideal time to expand.

Of course, feeling neglected by my lovers probably was a lousy reason to do so. The problem was I'd become spoilt. I'd lost my knack for entertaining myself, by myself. Rather than
recultivate
my self-sufficiency, I moped.

Sean and Joe may have been busy, but not too busy to notice my gloom. They spoke to me in kinder, gentler tones. They made me breakfast and let me read the paper first. Eventually, shame for my
behaviour
jarred me from my sulks.

'I'm going to enjoy whatever time I have left,' I announced one night as we all lay in bed.

Snow fell outside the dormer window, like feather pillows bursting beneath the street lamps. In the pearly glow, my lovers struggled from their half-slumber to blink at me.

'What are you talking about?' Sean asked, his hair mashed to his head by the pillow. 'You contracted a fatal disease or something?'

That's when I
realised
only I could read the writing on the wall. Only I knew our days together were numbered.

Joe slung his arm across my belly. 'Don't worry, Kate. We'll have more time for love-making once these rehearsals are over.'

'I could use some more action myself,' Sean grumbled. He squirmed closer. He liked sleeping in the nude. His smoothly muscled chest warmed my side and, when he hitched one hairy leg over mine, his cock and balls warmed my hip. Voicing his complaint seemed to have broken his inertia. His penis twitched, slowly but surely assuming its full girth and
vigour
.

'Man, oh, man.' He insinuated his erection beneath the hem of my T-shirt so he could rub it skin-to-skin. 'How tired are you, Kate?'

I grinned. 'Not that tired.'

'Hey, Joe, toss me a condom,' he said, but Joe was snoring and I had to dig the prophylactic out myself.

That taken care of, Sean pushed me on to my side and entered me from behind. His cock slid into my sheath as if it were buttered, ecstasy after days of doing without. I arched back for more. When he gave it to me, I heaved a grateful sigh.

'Me, too,’ he said.

He slipped his arm around my front to caress my sex, then gripped the headboard for leverage. Soon his hips buffeted my backside. Every thrust pushed his warmth deeper, filling me with rich, animal sensation. I reached behind me to hold his flank. His breath rushed beside my ear, catching each time he struck home. I loved the simplicity of this act, the directness, the way his withdrawals grew shorter as his climax approached - as if he couldn't bear to leave his snug, warm mooring. Neither of us took long to come, but I still couldn't believe Joe slept through the whole thing.

'I'm still hard,' Sean griped, pulling reluctantly out.

'Pull the other leg, why don't you?' I pushed him on to his back and straddled him - and saw he wasn't kidding. He'd come long and hard, but his cock jutted upward along my belly, nearly as thick as when we'd started. I stripped off my T-shirt and used it to blot the remains of our exertions. When I threw it aside, his hands went straight for my breasts. He kneaded their soft weight with a gentleness I found as relaxing as it was arousing. Happy as a cat, I rolled my head luxuriously around my shoulders.

'One more as a nightcap?' I suggested, stroking his arms.

He grimaced. 'Why not two?'

'Greedy.'

'But I'm up now, and
ol
' Willy here hasn't got lucky in days.'

'Try a week, mister.'

He wagged his head at the horror of it. 'The working world sucks.'

'What if -' I bent to lick the rim of his ear '-1 suck you instead?'

His shoulders hunched at the tickling caress. 'Later. When I need inspiration.'

'You find my humble skills inspiring?'

'Babe.' He chucked me under the chin. 'Your mouth is one of the seven wonders of the world.'

I was still preening over the compliment when he lifted me on to him.

Joe woke sometime during our third bout, probably when Sean pulled me out of bed and started
rogering
me over the squeaky footboard.

Joe rubbed sleepy eyes, then burrowed one arm beneath the covers. I followed its progress down his chest and between his legs. The sheets rustled. His left leg fell to the side. The hump that was his hand began an unmistakable pumping motion.

Sean laughed in my ear. 'He must be half-asleep. He never jacks off in front of people.' He reached for the rumpled chenille coverlet.

'Don't wake him,’1 whispered. ‘I want to watch.'

But such passivity was foreign to Sean's nature.

'
Yo
, Sleeping Beauty.' He lofted the covers. 'Wake up and join us.'

Joe screwed his eyes more tightly shut. His hand faltered, then resumed its steady masturbatory rhythm. I guess he wanted that release no matter who was watching.

'Too tired to get up,’ he mumbled. 'Besides, it's cold out there.'

Not one to take 'no' for an answer, Sean reached around me, grabbed Joe's ankles and pulled him bodily to the foot of the bed.

'Hey!' Joe's eyes snapped open. 'I need my beauty sleep.'

Sean dragged the scrunched-up covers below Joe's waist. He wasn't fully hard yet and his erection wilted in the snow-chilled air, sagging back over the waist of his grey-plaid boxer shorts.

Joe groaned wretchedly. 'Now, look what you've done.'

Too bad,
pillowhead
.' Sean smoothed my hair back from my face. 'Can you reach him?'

I gauged the height of the footboard and the distance to Joe's softening groin. 'Only with my hands.'

'On your knees then,
Mr
Capriccio.' He shook Joe's calf. 'No point
wanking
off when the mouth of the century can put you to sleep with a smile on your face.'

'Christ,’ said Joe, hardly a flattering response, but he did grab the nearest post and heave himself upright. Sean tugged his boxers further down his hips.

Now that Joe was near enough to see what Sean and I were up to, his flagging erection rose. Encouraged, I cupped the weighty sac in my palm, following its curve back until I could press the firmer pad of his perineum. His involuntary jerk of response sent a thrill through my well-filled sex.

He touched my lips with his finger. 'Do you mind?'

Rather than waste time reassuring him, yet again, I bent forward and kissed him where it counted.

Being somewhat fresher than Sean or I, he came before either of us, then scrambled back under the covers to watch. He wore a contemplative look, his eyes quiet, his mouth softly curved. It made me wonder what he was thinking. Was he happy that Sean was happy? Was he
memorising
my response to Sean's personal repertoire of caresses? Or was he reviewing Captain Blood's last rehearsal?

‘I forgot to tell you,’ he said as Sean began his final ascent. 'My Uncle Joe the cop finally got back to me about the noise complaint.'

'Uh huh,’ said Sean, kneeing my legs apart so he could pump a little deeper. I doubted he had the faintest idea what Joe was talking about. He steadied my hip with one hand. 'Yeah, babe, that's it. Tighten around me. Man, you're good. You feel like you got a fist in there.'

'What did he find out?' I asked, though my concentration wasn't much better than Sean's. The outermost edge of an orgasm flirted around my cunt, there and then not there, there and then, oh, yes, it was definitely circling closer. I tilted back to take more of Sean's wonderfully fat rod. My hand slipped over his where it cupped my
mons
, urging him to work me harder. Our gathered fingertips brushed the place we joined.

'Sweet,’ he gasped.

I heard Joe's next words through a fog of gathering need.

'Well, the estate agent is out. It wasn't a man. Uncle Joey couldn't get a name, but the switchboard operator said the caller was definitely an older woman,’ Joe scooted close again and braced my shoulders for Sean's driving thrusts. 'I figure old
Mrs
Perelli
must have had her hearing aid turned up that night.'

'
Mrs
Perelli
. Right.' Sean gritted his teeth, his frantic pumping driving me to the brink. 'Right, right.' Coming hard, I bathed his cock in a hot flood of cream. 'Right, right, right. Ah, God.' He followed me with a groan of. complete sensual exhaustion.

For the first time in a week, we all slept satisfied.

Finally, the day of Captain Blood's opening performance arrived. Nervous as Tennessee Williams' cat, Joe had invited and
disinvited
us a dozen times during the previous week. 'You're going to hate it,' he moaned over the breakfast table, his hands shaking too badly to manage his bagel and coffee.

'We're not going to hate it,' I said. I spooned three teaspoons of honey into his mug. The honey was my attempt to reform Joe's sweet tooth. He permitted the interference, grudgingly, when I told him it was better for his throat than sugar.

'You might hate it,’ he insisted. 'You can't be sure.' 'How could we not be sure?' Sean asked. Knowing Joe's preferences well, he spread a thick swathe of marmalade across a bagel half and tucked it into his friend's frowning mouth. 'We've heard most of it already.'

This was true. In the past two weeks, a parade of panicked cast members had snaked up and down my basement stairs, desperate for a few hours of coaching from their lyricist-composer. Joe
agonised
over the responsibility. He wasn't the musical director. He was still learning himself. What if he steered his fellow actors wrong? But the moment they arrived, he was patient and calm. The women, especially, gazed at him as though he'd hung the moon. Poor heartsick things. All he cared about was their grasp of the three Ps: posture, projection, and phrasing. Despite his worries, they improved under his tutelage. Plus, he spent enough time shoring up their fragile egos for them all to leave smiling. If only he could have done the same for himself. 'Basket case' was not too strong a term for Joe's current state.

'We'll love it.' I rubbed the back of his clammy hand. 'Partly because it's wonderful and partly because we love you. If you want an unbiased opinion, you'll have to ask someone else.'

He dropped his head into his hands. ‘I can't do this. I'm running away to join the circus.'

Sean's palm slammed the table so hard my knife jumped to the floor. His chair scraped loudly as he shoved it back. 'Enough
snivelling
.' He strode around the table to stand beside Joe's chair. He put one hand on its back, one on the table, and stuck his nose in Joe's face. ‘I trained you better than this, boy. Show a little spine.'

Joe sighed. 'Not now, Sean. I'm not in the mood to play drill sergeant.'

'Fuck if I care.' With an ease born of years of competitive wrestling, Sean plucked Joe out of his chair and slammed him, face front, into the refrigerator.

I gripped the table edge in shock, but I could see Joe wasn't hurt, only angry.

'Hey,' he said, trying to break free, an impossible task with his arms bent up between his shoulder blades.

'I can tell I've been neglecting your discipline,' Sean said in his formal master's voice. 'You know that kind of whining demands a good swift kick in the butt.' He planted his knee between Joe's cheeks as if to demonstrate where he'd land it.

'Piss off,’ Joe said, his face plastered sideways against the freezer door. ‘I told you I'm not in the mood.'

'Oh, really?' Quick as a flash, Sean had Joe's zip down and his cock out.

Joe growled in protest, but with two expert strokes his penis stirred, and in six Sean had him as hard as I'd ever seen him.

'Not in the mood, eh?' Sean flicked the underside of the long flushed shaft with his thumbnail. 'I think you're dying to bend over and take me.'

Joe lost his cool at that. Luckily for him, the
labour
he'd been putting in for Sean's uncle had done his muscles some extra good. Gathering himself with a grunt of effort, he not only turned himself around but managed, inch by inch, to back Sean against the refrigerator.