Spilling the Beans to Dayana

Cassidy hadn’t told Dayana much of anything. On the one hand, I was almost a little relieved - my friend and coworker wasn’t operating on any dubious knowledge or judgments based on what Cassidy had said versus how I might have told her things. I’d given Cass permission to say what she felt she wanted to over the last day, but I hadn’t told her to say anything specific.

The logical answer, at least in my mind, was that the only thing Cass had done ‘wrong’ here was that she’d teased she’d said anything at all and made a game out of something that very much wasn’t a game. And I knew that would be her leaning towards teasing and comedy because she would be feeling uncomfortable about the whole thing.

But fuck did it also piss me off a bit that she’d done that.

“So that’s basically it,” Dayana said, still frowning. She’d run through the events of last week pretty well - it had just lacked a lot of the important details. Cass and I driving out, the people we’d met and friends we’d made, several of the events like the party at the Strip Club and the almost-fight at the Gas Bar. The devil, of course, was in the details. “And Cattie seemed great when I met her. Cass has been mentioning her for years now so I felt like I kind of already knew her a bit, and hearing about everything that happened with her ex was wild. And I’m not really shocked at all that you two would have her come stay a few days to take care of her because that’s so you. None of that sounds… Look, I’m not trying to judge or anything, but you've handled harder shit here at work; none of it sounds like it would shake you, let alone lead to panic attacks.”

“Right,” I sighed, leaning forward and burying my face in my hands, trying not to think about how close I was to Dayana’s sleek, thin legs. God, I needed to double-check with Cass that there wasn’t anything in the App that was making me think more sexually about people.

“So she didn’t tell me everything,” Dayana said, her voice a little more flat as she put together some pieces.

“No, she didn’t,” I mumbled into my hands.

“And you expected that she was,” Dayana guessed, and I nodded. “Cass-i-dy,” she sighed and hissed scornfully.

I let out my breath and leaned back in the seat, shaking my head. “Miscommunication,” I said, downplaying it. Not wanting to build up even more animosity between them because, while I had a chance to maybe bury the whole thing for a bit longer, doing that would just lead to more problems down the road and I needed to start fixing shit not just pushing it along to be handled later.

“So what did happen?” Dayana asked me quietly. “Or… what did she do?”

I grimaced, giving her enough of an answer that she grimaced back, confirming her guess. “At the start of the week Cass admitted that- actually, I didn’t tell you this before because it wasn’t- Well, I didn’t tell you this before. You know how Cass could get a little bad at communicating for a few days, and not want to go out for like a week every few months?”

“I always assumed it was just a particularly bad period or something,” Dayana said, narrowing her eyes.

“Well, it was her dealing with mental health stuff,” I said. “Every four or five months it would start to hit her, since we were both in college, but it wouldn’t last for more than a week and usually only a few days, so I kind of let it slide that she didn’t want to go to a doctor or psychologist or anything. It was just sort of part of who she was, and I loved her through it. Well, on our way to the lake, Cassidy admitted to me that it wasn’t just a depression cycle, it had a lot to do with shame and guilt over things she’d done back when we first got together.”

Dayana’s eyes remained narrowed and she pursed her lips slightly, guessing where I was going with this but letting me take my time to find the right words.

“Cassidy… Well, early in our relationship and for a few different personal reasons that she’ll be working on in therapy soon, she started to cheat on me. With… fuck, with an astounding number of other girls and older women, and it lasted for a few years. While she kept it all hidden, and her being bisexual at all, hidden from me. She might have been dealing with some sort of mania or addiction, from the way she describes it. Not that it’s an excuse. Then she had a rock-bottom sort of emotional awakening, which was when she first had a depressive episode that ended up with her dropping out of college and trying to figure out how to move on and be better, and since then she’s been trying to figure out how to express how awful she feels about it, and that she’s repentant, but was also scared shitless about telling me. And with the wedding plans getting started in earnest…”

“She felt the pressure,” Dayana nodded in understanding but then shook her head and rolled her eyes. “She told you at the start of a vacation surrounded by her coworkers and friends? God, Cassidy, you stupid puta. That’s-”

“A bad idea, I know,” I grimaced. “So I found out about that, we had an initial - I don’t know, it wasn’t an argument per se, but it was a big… something. Heavy conversation. Then later that day, when we were there, I had my first panic attack. This I think you’ll appreciate; Cattie full-on slapped Cassidy across the face when she found out.”

Dayana covered her mouth as she snorted hard, trying not to grin. “OK, I knew I liked that girl,” she said.

“Yeah, well, Cass agreed she deserved it,” I said wryly. Then I took a long breath and let it out, shaking my head and not looking forward to the next bit because it wasn’t as explosively hurtful to relive, but it was scandalous as fuck.

“So you two haven’t actually been alone to handle this for… a week and a half?” Dayana asked, doing the mental math.

“No,” I frowned. “But we have therapy booked already. Both of us solo tonight, and Couples starting next week.”

Dayana muttered something in Spanish under her breath, quiet and fast enough that I couldn’t catch it. Then she huffed softly. “So what else is there?” she asked. “I know that look on your face, Robbie. You’re currently clenching your butthole so tight you could probably snap a pencil.”

That made me snort and smirk a little, which helped to lighten the pit of dread in my gut.

“Well, Cassidy sort of… had more of a plan in mind as part of her admission and repentance and penance,” I said.

Dayana closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. “Robbie, I love your fiancee but holy fuck.”

“I know,” I said.

“OK, what was her plan?”

I let myself put it off for one more long breath, then just blurted it out. “She wanted me to have more experiences like she’d had when we were younger, so she sort of pushed for my end of the relationship to be… actively open. And a vacation with a bunch of internet models was her idea of a good kickstart to that.”

Dayana’s jaw dropped open and her eyes went wide. Obviously, of all the things that she thought could add to the situation, that wasn’t one of them. Her jaw worked a couple of times as half-formed thoughts almost leaked out, but she remained silent and eventually snapped her mouth shut as she glared at me.

“I know,” I said, shaking my head. “It was, and probably still is, a bad idea. But, full disclosure…”

“Oh my God, you’re fucking Cattie,” Dayana said, eyebrows shooting up as she leaned back in her seat on the edge of her desk.

I let out my breath and nodded. “Technically we’re officially dating now. Girlfriend-boyfriend.”

“And you’re still with Cassidy?”

I nodded.

“And the whole thing with her girlfriend?”

“All true,” I said. “Heather kind of started to show her true colours close to the start of the trip, but seriously, Dayana, I never wanted to influence someone else to break up.”

“Me estas cargando,” she said, almost **** on the mild cursing. “Robbie, what the fuck? Actually?”

“I know, I know,” I grimaced, holding up my hands defensively.

She looked at me for a long moment before throwing her hands up in the air. “Hijo de mil puta, Robbie, she’s not the only one, is she?”

“No,” I admitted. “I’m also officially dating Becca. She lives out in Seattle, so it’s long distance for now, just like it will be with Cattie.”

“No, you motherfucker,” she shook her finger at me. “That’s not the only relationship you broke up, is it? You fucking flinched.”

Maybe Dayana knew me too well. But then… Cassidy flew out tomorrow to help Terra move to us. Dayana was going to hear about her soon enough.

“So… yeah,” I said. “It was kind of a fucked up week, OK? And I know Cass and I didn’t expect all of this at all. Terra was having issues with her boyfriend while they were both on the trip, and even though she knew stuff was going on with Cass and I because she also walked in on one of my panic attacks, she kind of had a ‘fuck, I want that’ moment while her boyfriend also had a major fuck-up. They broke up basically as soon as they landed back in Louisiana, and Cass is going to fly out tomorrow to help her get her life together. And Wanda is out in Seattle-” Dayana rolled her eyes at a third relationship getting mixed in. “-and she already had an open relationship, but she found some stuff out about her husband and it was… Well, it was a dealbreaker for her, but he was on a trip in Europe while she was with us, so she’s waiting for him to come home so she can break up with him in person and start their divorce before we decide anything about us.”

“Robbie,” Dayana said evenly, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees as she looked at me intently. “We’re friends, right?”

“Of course,” I said. “Unless I’m too fucking messy now and you want some distance.”

“No,” she said, waving me off and rolling her eyes. “But, other than me complaining about a few bad dates to you or Cassidy, we’ve never talked about… sex. Or sexual history.”

“We haven’t,” I nodded.

“How many of these fucking models did you have sex with last week!?” she asked.

I gulped. “Um.”

“Oh my God,” she scoffed.

“Including Cass and Cattie? Nine- no, eight.” I had to readjust because I hadn’t actually had sex with Ami. Or not… sex-sex. Though that felt like a semantic at this point. Then I groaned slightly. “Plus, uh, two locals who live in Page, the nearby town.”

“Santa María, Madre de Dios,” Dayana said, literally crossing herself like she was still a Catholic schoolgirl back in Argentina trying to ward off evil with a prayer. “You really took that offer seriously, Robbie. Fuck.”

“I- It was complicated,” I stressed. “I didn’t mean for it to happen with any of them. Though, I mean, by the end of the week I was kind of just rolling with things. And I really didn’t intend to start falling for multiple women while already deciding I wanted to make things work with Cassidy.”

“Wait, how many of them are you… seeing?”

I swallowed. “Seven, but really eight,” I said. “Wanda just doesn’t want to break the explicit agreement she had with her husband about their open marriage, so we’re technically not anything until she can break it off.”

Dayana shook her head at me. “Fuck, you’re falling for each of the models you fucked?”

“No,” I said. “Um, technically I’m in a casual long-distance thing with one model I didn’t have sex with but did fool around with, and I did have sex with one as part of a game but there was definitely no emotional connection.”

“You did sex games?” Dayana asked.

“The end of the week kind of got really wild,” I winced. “And it was all their idea.”

She muttered in Spanish under her breath again, shaking her head, then wiped her face with one hand. “So, since last week, you found out Cassidy was a massive cheater, opened your relationship, became a man-whore and slept with ten-plus women, started multiple relationships who all know about each other, brought one of them home with you, and have been having panic attacks based on all the stress you’ve been under. But you have Therapy already booked so it’s all just fine and you didn’t need to tell me any of this, right?”

“Well, when you put it like that,” I winced again. “It sounds a lot more-”

She hopped down from the desk and punched me in the shoulder. Hard. While glaring at me.

“Yes,” I said. “That about sums it up.”

She scoffed and waved her hands in the air like she was beseeching God, or maybe an entire pantheon, for help with this ridiculousness. Then she looked down at me again, sitting in front of her, and she shook her head while pursing her lips. “Stop hiding things from me. We’re supposed to be a team,” she said.

“I know,” I replied. “I’m sorry.”

She looked like she wanted to say something else, and I expected it to be a scathing remark about how fucking stupid Cass and I were being in how we were handling things. But instead, she just shook her head again and then went around her desk chair, dropping into it and letting out a hard exhale. “Can you talk about work now, or are you still feeling the panic attack stuff? What do I need to do to get you back to normal?”

“I’m good,” I said, sitting forward. “You already helped, and- Well, telling you helped a lot too.”

“I’m going to tear Cassidy a new fucking asshole,” Dayana grumbled. Then sighed. “OK. You want to start with everything for tonight?”

“Yeah, we should,” I said, pulling my phone out of my pocket. “We’ve wasted enough time on my ridiculous bullshit.”

“Robbie,” Dayana said, half reaching across her desk like she wanted to take my hand and squeeze it. “If you need to talk, I might curse you out a bit and call you an idiot, but it will never be a waste of my time.”

I nodded, then focused on my phone because I didn’t want to zero in on that conversation anymore.

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