m and headed over to the main lobby building. The night was hot, especially with my heavy costume, but it seemed to be getting cooler as the sun sank down. We saw a few other people on the way, also in costume, clearly heading to the same place we were.
Cassie held me close the entire walk over. I’d thought the beautiful blonde woman had been kidding before in the room. After all, we’d already figured out our assigned partners for the trip. They weren’t our spouses, of course, that would be silly.
To this point, I was able to rationalize how we’d recombined. Mike had a crush on Cassie since high school. Emily was enamored with Jack. I’d always been attracted to Allison. Our pairings seemed almost predestined in that context.
That night, however, we’d matched in much less expected ways. It made everything feel novel all over again. Like we were starting over from scratch. It was strange to see each of these new couples.
Mike practically towered over Emily. By size, the both of them looked more like Chewbacca and R2D2 than Luke and Leia. Personality-wise, they were equally mismatched. Mike liked to joke around and was easily outgoing, while Emily was quiet and shy.
To be fair, I’d noticed moments before where Emily and Mike seemed to be noticing each other. But they were both so into other people (Jack and Cassie, respectively), I couldn’t imagine them doing more.
Jack and Allison were equally as odd, but only because they were so similar. They both were strong willed; they seemed destined to butt heads against each other all night. Though, the two of them seemed to be enjoying taking little verbal jabs at each other.
I suppose some part of me expected to feel possessive of Allison. Once again, the woman I was having sex with had gone over to Jack. But I felt strangely cool about it all. That afternoon had made things clear to me: Allison was just a friend. A hot friend that I was happy to fuck, but still.
As for Cassie and I, well, we literally were beauty and the beast. Cassie was so gorgeous, everyone stared at us as we walked down the paths. In comparison I felt like a stain on her dress, an accidental blemish that was destined to be photoshopped out of pictures later.
In other words, as much as I thought it was fun for us to mix things up once again, I didn’t think anything would come of it. I assumed we’d play around a bit before going back to our usual (non-spouse) partners. Nothing more.
Rather than ride the monorail — again, it was an evening of changing things up — we decided to take a boat across the lake to the Magic Kingdom. So, we walked past Cassie’s fated bungalow and went down the nearby dock to wait for our ride. The wooden planks rolled lightly with the little waves of the lake.
Mike and Emily were locked in conversation, clearly enjoying being with someone who could speak their geeky language.
“I think you’ll find my stick is better than bacon,” Mike said with a wink.
We all looked at him, confused by a sentence that was clearly nonsense. But Emily picked it right up.
“That’s good,” she said, “Since we all have a chicken duck woman thing waiting for us.”
“As long as we can both agree that seagulls are the worst,” Mike replied.
The two of them broke into peals of laughter. The rest of us all shared worried glances; had our partners actually gone insane?
“It’s a Bad Lip-Reading Star Wars thing,” Mike said, as if that wasn’t more nonsense. Nerdy flirting — who knew?
Allison and Jack ignored them and went back to arguing, playfully, about anything and everything.
“I’d kick your ass in hoops,” Allison said.
“I don’t think so, beanpole,” Jack said, “Wisdom will beat youth, every time.”
“Just because you were there when they invented basketball doesn’t make you good at it,” Allison said.
“Well, you better watch your backdoor if we ever go one-on-one,” Jack said.
“Please, you don’t have the length to penetrate on me,” Allison replied, coolly.
Cassie, locked at my elbow, saw me staring at both couples and pulled me off to the side.
“You spend so much time paying attention to everyone else,” she said, “Do you ever think of yourself?”
I shrugged, dismissively. Cassie raised an eyebrow. She put her hands on my shoulders, giving me a probing look.
“You don’t think you’re handsome, do you?” she asked.
I stared back at her, dubious. I didn’t know how she’d reached that conclusion, but it’s not like I could argue she was wrong.
“You’re so down on yourself, Paul,” Cassie said, “But you shouldn’t be. You’ve got this whole dark, mysterious stranger vibe that makes women wet themselves. And you’re a good guy. Like, not the creepy Internet ‘good guy’ but the actual kind who cares about other people and wants them to be happy.”
Again, I didn’t know how to respond to that. So, I let Cassie continue.
“Maybe some other people…” and here Cassie looked pointedly over at my wife “… don’t appreciate what they have. But you should know, I’m not spending tonight with you because our costumes match. That’s only a side benefit.”
I gave Cassie a confused look. That whole paragraph was loaded with so many twists and turns, I couldn’t find my way out of it.
The beautiful blonde woman kissed my cheek. Then she whispered in my ear, “Just remember, you’re with Cassie fucking Summers. I could be out with anyone. But I chose you.”
I stepped back and stared at her, shocked. Cassie gave me a big grin, then pulled me close to her again. Her lovely red lips tickled at my earlobes. “And someday? Soon? My prince is going to cum. Hard.”
Remember what I said about nothing happening? I may have been wrong about that.