Confronting William

I found them in their normal hangout spot. I was glad I remembered my sister mentioning her group of friends hung out by the band room after school. None of them were in band, but most of their lockers were around the area.

Out of sight, I took a few deep breaths to collect myself. My mind raced with how to best approach this. Casually? Friendly? Maybe the tough guy would be best. Two minutes wasted trying to decide, I figured I'd wing it. Over-thinking it was going to get me nowhere. Stepping out from around the corner, I headed to the group of people.

It was a surprisingly unbalanced group. Most of the time, there were more girls than guys. This was the opposite. I recognized Paige and Faith immediately. There was another girl that I was sure I’d seen before, but her name escaped me. With the three girls were five guys. I’d seen them all before multiple times. Paige had been rotating through them ever since she started dating William.

My eyes found William near Paige. Here at school, things seemed so normal. One of the guys said something that had the group laughing. It masked my approach. Paige didn’t see me until I was right next to the group. Her eyes went wide as I pushed my way between two of the guys. My hands resting on their shoulders so I could slide in between them.

“Hey, everyone!” I said happily. The two guys immediately next to me seemed ready to shove me off before recognizing me. Paige looked like she was going to have a heart attack. Faith was in a similar position, though she had a dreamy look about her that made me uncomfortable. I needed to act fast before my sister got involved. Surprise was on my side, and I needed to push my advantage. “William! Just the man I was looking for,” I said as I stepped into the middle of the group. I didn’t stop as I slung my arm around him and pulled him out of the circle with me. We were about the same size, but he wasn’t expecting it. Stumbling, he managed to get his feet under him as I pulled him along with me. “We’re going to have a little chat. Won’t take long!” I called back over my shoulder.

“Scott? Scott!” my sister called from behind me. Turning I found her moving to follow but a stern look from me froze her in place. I was surprised that actually worked, and wondered if it was because she wasn’t used to me pushing back.

I managed to get him outside without too much effort. It was cold out, but we both had coats on. Even with school over, this area didn’t have much traffic so I wasn’t too worried about people listening in.

“Uh…” William looked confused and maybe a little scared. That last one surprised me. I think it had to do with my forcefully dragging him out here rather than my imposing presence. Now that I had him out here, I hadn’t the slightest idea of what to say. This was probably the closest I’d ever had a one-on-one conversation with him. I’d met him plenty of times of course, but only in passing. Examining him, I got a better idea of my sister’s taste in men. He was handsome, but in a different way than someone like Sean. Sean had the body of a Greek myth turned flesh. A paragon of masculinity. William was on the other side of the spectrum. There was a boyish quality to him that only enhanced his attractive qualities. There was perfection I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was like someone airbrushed away any imperfection. His face wouldn’t have been out of place on a magazine cover. That’s what he reminded me of. A member of a boy band my sister loved to listen to.

I was staring at him and it was getting more awkward with each second. Shoving my hands in my coat pockets, I took a deep breath. “We haven’t really talked, have we?”

“No?” He glanced towards the door behind me.

“Yeah, that’s my bad. It might have made this conversation a bit less awkward but… here we are.”

He frowned. “And um… Why are we here?”

I tried to think of a diplomatic way to put things, but I was flying by the seat of my pants. Improvisation had never been my strong suit. “My sister likes you a lot.”

Stunned, he gaped at me. “Um… Thanks?”

“It’s the only reason why I’m out here getting involved in this. She’s probably going to kill me, but I’m not going to let her make the same mistake I did.” The poor guy looked confused. Even I knew this was going poorly. “Do you care about my sister?”

“Of course I do.” Even if he was confused, he hadn’t even hesitated answering that. A good sign.

“Look, there isn’t an easy way for me to say it, so I’m just going to lay it all out there. Last week, I might have inadvertently witnessed some things involving you, Paige, and two…unique… gentlemen.” I waited until his eyes widened in recognition.

“T-that was—”

“Look, William, I don’t care about that. If watching Paige with other guys makes you happy, good for you.”

He practically shoved his hands in my face, looking around desperately as I tried to back out of his reach. He hissed. “Not so loud!”

Free of his hands, I frowned at him. The red on his cheeks could easily be mistaken for the cold, but I knew he was embarrassed. “I’m not here to kink shame you, but you have to start thinking of Paige here.”

“You have no idea what you are talking about,” he said in a harsh whisper. “She—”

“You pick the guys, right?”

He hesitated. “Sometimes.”

I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “The other guys in the group. I’ve seen them from time to time around the house.”

William was wiggling like a hooked worm. “We have a free use agreement.” I crossed my arm and waited for him to elaborate. “We have a deal. Any of them are allowed to fuck her whenever they want, but they can’t tell me about it and have to do their best to hide it from me. Paige agreed that she wouldn’t deny them if they asked. O-of course she can say no whenever she wants. This is all consensual,” he added quickly when my eyes narrowed. His face was red now. There was something different about this though. Was he… was he enjoying this? I think Paige mentioned something about him being a masochist, but wasn’t that for the bedroom? “Paige tells me about it later, making sure to tell me every little detail of what they did to her.”

“And the other guys?” He was silent. “You damn well know who I’m talking about.”

“Most of them I knew from middle school. We weren’t close or anything, but I had some of their contact information.”

“I get that you like watching, but why them?” He seemed to clam up. Even though it was freezing out, I could see the sweat on his forehead. “William.”

His back stiffened. “It got a bit stale, okay? She was always screwing the same four guys. I wanted to spice things up and she agreed. So… I brought in some outside guys. I wanted them to be complete strangers to her. She knows their names now, but that’s it.”

“I get it.” He looked shocked. As much as I hated to admit, there was undeniably a part of me that was at least intrigued by watching Kaylee with another guy. I wasn’t ready to explore that side of me yet. Perhaps I never would. I could still understand William though. “But dude. Really? Paige is way above their level. You’re telling me those guys were the best you could get?” He fidgeted in front of me, so I pushed him. “I heard a bit of your play together. You know it’s all bullshit right?”

“Of course I know that.”

“She’s fucking miserable. You only need to watch a few seconds to see that.” My frown deepened. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?” He didn’t meet my eyes as he nodded slowly. He didn’t expand on that though, which pissed me off. “Which brings us back to why. Why are you forcing her to do this when you know she hates it?”

“I’m not forcing her.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it. I know my sister and Hell would freeze over before she even gave one of those guys a second glance. You should know better than anyone the only reason she’s doing it is because you want her to.” I took a deep breath and **** myself to calm down. I didn’t expect to get so worked up about this, but I was invested now. Paige would hate me for getting involved, but I guess I recognized a piece of my old self in her. Things working out between Kaylee and me was more because of Kaylee than anything I did. William and Paige would ultimately have to work this out themselves, but maybe I could give the two a nudge in the right direction. At the very least shine a light on the problem.

“Objectively, Paige is an attractive girl. You should have no trouble finding attractive guys willing to be a part of your… uh… thing. I mean, wouldn’t that be even better? You get to watch and Paige has her fun too. Hell, all that stuff she says might actually be—” It was like fumbling around with a puzzle in the dark and sliding the last piece into place. The lights came on and I saw the whole thing for what it was.

William pushed his hands into his pockets. He let out a long breath, a white cloud blowing away from his mouth. “Looks like you figured it out.”

“You’re afraid she would be telling the truth,” I said, giving voice to the thought in my head.

He nodded, kicking at the ground. “I know it’s fucked up. I enjoy having Paige belittle me during sex. Like I’m always doing my best to please her and it always falls far short of some other random guy she hooked up with on a whim. Sometimes she tells me which of our friends she is talking about, other times she pretends it was some random guy off the street. I know it’s all arranged, but we like to pretend. This was an evolution of that. To her, they are random guys. The first few times, I didn’t even introduce them to her.” He shrugged. “I don’t expect you to understand it, but watching her have sex with those guys is in a lot of ways better than the actual act. Listening to how much better they are, seeing how happy she is, I can’t get enough of it. I love it, but I also know it’s all theater. They aren’t better than I am, and she certainly isn’t enjoying it. I can pretend though. I can pretend it’s real for the moment, but once the curtain is closed reality returns. I can go back to being the loving boyfriend who checks all those boxes for her.

“So you’re right. Paige is an amazing woman. I could easily get a line of attractive guys ready and willing to play the role if I tried. I know she would love that. I’ve watched her with Sean and guys like him plenty of times. The difference is night and day. But when she is with someone like Sean, it’s a lot harder to separate fact from fiction. When she is staring into my eyes telling me the guy’s cock is hitting her in places I could only dream about, is she saying that because I want to hear it or because it’s true? When we are having sex and she tells me she wishes she was fucking someone else, is that part of our game, or does she actually feel that way? I can enjoy our game because I know that I can pull the curtain closed at any time and the show ends. What you’re asking me to do is remove the curtains.”

I had nothing. As we both looked at each other, I found myself wishing I never got involved. What the hell was I thinking? I had enough problems on my plate before mucking around in other people’s business. Doubly so for things I had no qualifications to be messing around in. I felt like an idiot. Paige shares some things with me and I fly off trying to pretend to be Big Brother? That was never going to happen again.

We both knew the conversation was over. I said nothing when he walked past me. “Scott?” I turned to see him standing by the door. “I’m not blowing you off. I’ll talk with her tonight. I’m sure Paige is going to be pissed at you, but she’s incredibly lucky to have someone who cares enough to do this knowing that.”

I managed a smile, shrugging. “Since when isn’t she pissed at me?”