I didn’t know how to respond to that. None of us did. Even if Jack had cheated on his first wife, it wasn’t like any of us was in a position to judge. We’d all had sex with someone other than our spouses, and right in front of each other besides. That wasn’t just serving poison, it was straight up telling the person you were doing it. and watching them eagerly gulp it down anyway.
Yet, I think we felt superior in some way because we were all still together. No huge, blowout fights or tight, whispered arguments. We were fine. If anything, it seemed to have made our relationships stronger. The hardest lies to spot are the ones we tell ourselves, after all.
“Denise wanted Jack to be responsible,” Cassie said.
“What does that mean?” Mike asked.
“Be an adult,” Cassie said, “To her, that meant getting a corporate job and taking the kids to the park on weekends. Grilling with the neighbors in the backyard. That wasn’t Jack’s thing. He felt like she was trying to domesticate him.”
“Makes sense,” Emily said, “I wouldn’t want to feel that way. Forced to act like someone you’re not. It’d be like slowly getting smothered.”
“And Jack resents her for it,” Cassie said, “They married young, had kids right after, and he felt like he traded away his youth in the process. So now he’s trying to make up for lost time.”
“Deep,” Allison said.
“Dark,” Mike said.
“That’s my take, anyway,” Cassie said with a shrug, “It’s not like I was there to see it all happen.”
Despite the blonde’s disclaimer though, I believed her. As I’ve said, Cassie had shown she was smart about people. And her instincts made sense based on what I’d seen of Jack.
“In any case, Emily, I wouldn’t feel bad in the least,” Cassie said, “Jack’s a big boy and he makes his own choices.”
For a second, I sensed a little bitterness in Cassie’s usually bubbly tone. But I dismissed it. I didn’t know that woman or her relationship, reading into it at all was like trying to guess at the plot twists in a movie I’d never seen. Any intuition I had was almost certainly off.
We reached Everest and split up. No one even bothered to suggest that Emily would enjoy this one. However, the big shock was that Mike also begged out of it.
“I can’t do rides that go backwards,” he said, “Something about it breaks me.”
So, the tall blond man and my petite brunette wife found a large rock across from the ride and sat down to wait for us. For a moment, I wondered if the two of them might start up something while we were gone. But I shook it out of my head. Both of them were too obsessed with the other members of our group to care one bit about each other.
Cassie, Allison, and I were early enough that the ‘line’ was just us walking through the themed areas for the ride until we got to the front. The queue led us through a staged yeti museum, but I was only able to glance as we raced past
We were all held back from the platform when we got to the front, as cast members prepped for the morning.
“First ride of the day,” Allison said. When you’re competitive about everything, anything can be a victory, I suppose.
Finally, all of us were released to get on the train. The cars held two people each, and Cassie bravely volunteered to sit by herself so Allison and I could pair. They put the beautiful blonde woman right in front of us, then sent a twenty-something bro with carefully coiffed bedhead and a scruff beard to sit next to her.
“Whoa,” he said, as soon as he saw her. I couldn’t see his face, but I assumed he was goggling at her. “I mean, um, hi.”
“Hey,” Cassie said casually, not even turning to look his way.
“Are you here by yourself?” he asked her.
“No, I’m actually in a dedicated throuple with those two hotties sitting behind us,” Cassie said.
Allison and I, already snickering uncontrollably, burst out into giggles.
“Holy fuck,” the guy said, processing what Cassie had told him. “I mean, uh, good for you. I support nontraditional relationships. Or whatever.”
“I bet you do,” Cassie said.
Fortunately, the train took off, sparing that poor fellow any additional misery. Allison reached over and gripped my hand. I turned and she flashed me that wicked grin I liked so much.
“Let’s go!” she said, her brown eyes flashing wild.
*
After the ride, we made our way through the gift shop and out to the park. Emily and Mike were sitting on the same rock where we’d left them, but I noticed the two of them were holding hands. They quickly separated as soon as they saw us. It made their contact seem even more questionable.
With our group gathered, we headed back through Asia. Allison had a FastPass for the water ride, so we turned to the right of the monkey tower. It turned out to be one of those orange-tube-on-the-rapids things that almost every park seems to have some version of. We managed to stay mostly dry (Cassie got the worst of it), but you could tell that they were running the water lower than usual because it was early in the morning.
After that, we walked out of Asia and over to the Africa section. The transformation was immediate. Again, I had to appreciate the attention to detail as we turned to get on line for the Safari.
By now, the park had started to fill up more evenly and the wait to see the animals was about forty minutes. While we stood in line, despite the fact that she was still dripping, Mike hugged Cassie from behind, kissing the back of her neck.
Since her husband had started it, Allison took the opportunity to do the same to me.
“It’s not fair,” Emily said, pouty, “I don’t have anyone to hug me.”
“I’ve got you, sweetie,” Cassie said. She stepped out of Mike’s grasp, then squeezed Emily the same way, kissing her neck. I know the whole ‘girls making out’ thing is cliche, but my rapidly stiffening cock didn’t care.
However, Emily’s complaint made it clear: so long as there was an imbalance in the group, we had to limit the playing around. So, we all pretended to be actual adults instead of the wild, horny animals we usually acted like.
We saw actual horny animals (well, horned, anyway) on the safari, then did a nearby walking tour on a path through lush jungle. There were a bunch of exhibits on the walk, including a family of gorillas. Allison actually allowed us to stop and look at them, so you know they were pretty impressive.