Fucking Friends

“I don't believe in fucking my friends,” a friend of mine once proclaimed, in a tone that brooked no argument.

I don't remember what occasioned Erika's statement, or the mini-manifesto on sexual etiquette that followed, but I don't think it was because I'd been coming on to her. I'm basically straight, so I have a lot of friends I don't fuck – but not as a matter of principle, so I was surprised by how emphatically Erika (who identifies as bisexual) defended her position that friends & sex just don't mix.

I do remember wondering what had happened to all that high-flown rhetoric of hers the night I walked into my bedroom and, lo and behold, who should suddenly sit up in my bed but (you guessed it) Erika, wearing precious little. And there was someone else in the bed with her: her friend Parker, a.k.a. my husband.

Here's how it happened.

Parker and I were hosting a party in her honor at our house one night (she'd just passed the qualifying exams for her Ph.D.), and when it got late and the party was winding down, Parker announced that he was heading to bed. He's always been an early bird. So Parker went upstairs, and Erika started drumming her fingers on the table. Less than five minutes later, she went upstairs herself, and she didn't come back down. After half an hour or so, I walked my three remaining guests home. “You can always come crash at our house if your bed is full,” one of them offered. “I think I can handle it,” I said, laughing.

Standing in front of the door to my bedroom, not sure how to proceed, I couldn't help reflecting on the ludicrousness of my predicament: would I be interrupting something? If so, would I be a welcome or an unwelcome intrusion? Unwelcome because they were in the middle of some kind of “just the two of us” sex scene? Welcome because they'd both enjoy it if I were to join in?

Or would my intrusion perhaps be initially resented but appreciated later? Would I be thanked for breaking things up before they went too far, causing Erika to regret the fact that she'd violated her own principles?

I knocked on the door, waited about 30 seconds, then opened it. Erika bolted upright with an alacrity that was comic, clad only in bra and panties, her hair all in disarray. Parker was lying on his stomach next to her, naked, from what I could see. He seemed kind of sleepy.

“Hey,” I said. “So...I'd like to go to bed now.”

“Okay,” said Erika, not budging.

“You're welcome to stay,” I said, “but if you do, we're actually sleeping. Okay?”

“Maybe I should go,” she said, still not budging.

By this time I had gotten into a nightgown, although I normally sleep naked. “Oh, go ahead and stay,” I said, climbing into bed with them. Erika was in the middle.

It turned out that Erika and Parker had not had sex, although they had fooled around enough to get Erika worked up, and she wasn't in the mood to just go to sleep. She and I ended up making out, which piqued Parker's interest, perking him up considerably, and soon all three of us were entangled. Then Erika said she wanted to watch Parker and I have sex, so that's the way our little menage a trois concluded. Then we fell asleep, three friends in bed together.

The fact that Erika has never actually fucked either me or Parker is a mere technicality, as far as I'm concerned. And I'm not 100% convinced that she'll stick to her resolution, anyway: she and Parker have been very close friends for a long time, during which time their relationship has gone through periodic sexual phases, so I wouldn't be surprised if they were to end up having sex with each other at some point.

I haven't asked Erika whether she's changed her mind about whether it's okay for people to fuck their friends, but I suspect that, at the very least, she'd be less vehement about disagreeing with my position on the matter, which is this: why fuck anyone else?