“You know, when you said you were connected to seven other people, I didn’t think it meant you loved one of them.”
Kala looked over at Rajan who had just come out of the house to sit next to her. He didn’t sound angry, just tired and maybe a little sad? Kala couldn’t read this man in the same way she thought she could before they got married, both of them changed during that time and now she felt ready to admit some things to herself that she wouldn’t have admitted a year before. However, she felt more confused than she ever did. Sure, Rajan lied to her about things, but he also risked everything to save a man he didn’t know after discovering that it was Kala the one with the big secrets.
“I love all of them, Rajan,” she replied, unwilling to let go of the nice feeling she got during lunch when they were together, enjoying each other’s company, before Bodhi showed up. It was futile, the nice sensation was slipping through her fingers with every passing second. She once asked her father if it was possible that she could never be truly happy and this is what she meant: to have something so close you could touch it, then feel it vanish in the blink of an eye.
“But it’s different with him. Wolfgang, I mean,” he pushed.
Kala felt like she owed him the truth, especially after everything that happened the night before with the rescue.
“It is. It’s more… intense. Physical.” God, why did it have to sound so sexual? Kala’s ears were burning, but she wanted Rajan to understand where Kala was coming from, as much as it was possible without the connection.
“I get it,” Rajan replied, his gaze focused on a point far away on the horizon. “Kala, I love you and I want you to be happy, even if it means stepping aside so you have another chance at love.”
Kala frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m trying to say that I’m letting you go if that’s what you want.” His voice didn’t crack, but he was clearly holding back. Kala felt terrible knowing she was responsible for Rajan’s pain. It felt as if she was hurting herself..
Her stomach tightened, tendrils of panic extending from deep within her. This was not how it was supposed to go. She had no idea how it was supposed to go, but this was not it. It didn’t matter if it made her a bad person, the idea of losing Rajan now felt too big to comprehend. At the same time the idea of losing Wolfgang had been unbearable —she didn’t have to wonder how that would feel anymore.
“Rajan—”
“Kala, please. You guys can stay here as long as you need to, I’ll deal with the cleanup. I’ll get started on the divorce proceedings when I get back home.”
It was a punch directly to her core. Kala couldn’t believe it was happening right before her eyes: the man she’d married and grown to love was acting as if this was their last moment together.
With courage she didn’t know she had, she asked, “what if I don’t want that?”
Rajan finally tore his eyes away from where he was staring and turned to Kala. “What do you mean?”
“What if I don’t want you to go?”
“Kala, you know I would do anything for you, but don’t ask me to hold you back because of whatever preconceived ideas of marital duty you’re thinking about.”
“I’m not doing this out of a sense of duty. I want you to stay.” She took his hand and brought it to her lips, kissing his knuckles gently.
“But Wolfgang?” he asked, looking at Kala as if he can’t believe he’s still allowed to have this.
“We can talk. We can make this work,” she said. “You’ve seen Dani, Hernando and Lito. What they have is not traditional, but not less valid.”
Kala reached with her mind until she found Wolfgang, who’d chosen a room to sleep in, but was currently sitting next to the window smoking a cigarette as he watched the sun set in the distance.
“We need to talk,” Kala said.
“Ah, the dreaded four words,” Wolfgang answered, his tone flat.
“Do you mind if Rajan and I drop by your room? It can be tomorrow if you need to sleep.”
Wolfgang turned to her and said, “I’d rather get this over with now.”
Kala returned to herself, and, leading Rajan by the hand she had not let go of yet, she said, “he’s probably going to be difficult about this.”
“I noticed when you weren’t here,” said Rajan, proud of himself.
“That does not bode well for the many times I have visited while in public,” Kala mumbles.
They made it to Wolfgang’s room just as the man put out his cigarette on the window sill, turning to them. His eyes immediately zeroed in on Kala’s hand holding Rajan’s, then he averted his eyes.
Rajan closed the door behind them and Kala got two blockers from the small bottle they’d all been carrying since the moment their plan was set into motion back in Paris. She offered one to Wolfgang, “we need some privacy.”
Wolfgang raised his eyebrow, the corners of his mouth turning up into a smile, “you can’t have a sensorgy with blockers.”
Kala looked between Wolfgang and Rajan and felt her cheeks heat up. Ducking her head, she said, “come on, Wolfgang.”
Wolfgang took the pill from her hand, his fingers lingering for a second, making Kala’s heart skip a beat. She still wasn’t used to the feeling of being so close to him. Maybe she’d never get used to it.
Rajan sat down on the bed and Kala started pacing. The memory of Sun pacing inside a prison cell made her shudder. She felt as trapped as Sun had felt back then.
“Here’s the thing,” she started, “the truth is, I’ve never felt what I’m feeling now for anyone, so I have no frame of reference to compare this to —not that it matters, because I’m fairly sure not many people have been in this specific situation—, but I do know this: my life, as I knew it before, was forever changed by the two of you in different ways. Wolfgang, loving you has opened my eyes to a world that I didn’t think existed outside of the movies.” She noticed Wolfgang’s amused smile. The blockers kicked in already and she couldn’t connect with his feelings, but Kala believed she didn’t need that connection to know exactly what he was thinking. “Which isn’t inherently a good thing either, so don’t get too cocky.
“And Rajan, loving you has been like an awakening: it was slow at first, then I felt it all at once.” Rajan was looking at her with the same look he gave her the day they got married, as if she’d hung the stars in the sky.
“But here’s where I am extremely conflicted, because what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to choose when all I can think is that choosing either of you would mean losing the other one forever? What’s the proper thing to do? To stay with my husband when the other man I love is on the other side of the world but still has a direct way to my thoughts and feelings? And what does it say about me that I am seriously considering a solution where no one has to go?”
When Kala finished speaking, neither of the men in her life spoke up. She stopped pacing and glanced at them. They were looking at each other cautiously.
“What would this… solution look like?” Rajan asked, keeping his eyes on Wolfgang.
Wolfgang’s smile grew as he said, “I’m in. It’s not like it would be my first threesome.”
“Wolfgang!” Kala admonished, but he just laughed.
“Isn’t that what you’re asking for? If not in so many words?”
Rajan, for his part, looked at the two of them and shook his head. “What did I marry into?”
Warmth spread through Kala’s chest. They could do it. Whatever it was, they still had a chance. Together.
That night they slept in the same room but Rajan didn’t truly sleep. He laid down staring at the ceiling and wondering how he would explain to his parents that his wife now lived in another continent with another man half of the year. Or how he would explain the handsome foreigner that would go back with them to Mumbai. Both scenarios seemed equally frightening and made him feel fifteen all over again, trying to tell his father he didn’t want to go to college to study economics, but that he wanted to study architecture instead. He never told his father that, but he couldn’t imagine not talking about his new living arrangements at some point or another.
He was turning his thoughts around his head until they no longer held any shape, when Wolfgang spoke up from Kala’s other side, “I can hear you thinking over here.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. I don’t need a connection to know that you are worried.”
“Wouldn’t you be? There’s an evil organization trying to lobotomize my wife and the people she cares about— no, the people she’s connected to, people whose only crime is to be different. Let me remind you, I’ve only had a few days to get used to this new reality.”
“You could go back,” Wolfgang suggested.
“Kala’s in danger now. I would cross oceans to prevent any harm from coming to her.”
Rajan knew he sounded cheesy, like one of Kala’s movies, but it must have done something to Wolfgang because he felt him standing up and walking towards the door. Rajan followed him with his eyes but didn't move until the man tilted his head in invitation.
Once out of the room, Rajan followed Wolfgang all the way to the backyard. On the way, he heard fast typing coming from Bug’s direction and wondered if that was important, but didn’t have time to linger on it as they were outside before he knew it. Wolfgang lit up a cigarette and offered one to Rajan.
“I don’t smoke,” he found himself saying awkwardly.
“I don’t think I smoked this much before, you know, getting kidnapped and tortured. I really missed cigarettes back there.”
“I’m pretty sure there were other things you were worried about,” Rajan said.
“Sure.” He took a particularly long drag of his cigarette. “But Whispers wanted me to think about them, so I tried my best to make it hard for him.” He blew a few ringlets of smoke before letting it all out in a big puff. “Besides, there were some weeks between the time they stopped torturing me and the exchange. I was really fucking bored.”
Rajan laughed at that and Wolfgang smiled. Not for the first time, Rajan noticed that he was handsome in a way that would’ve made fifteen-year-old-Rajan say a prayer that his father never noticed. The good thing about growing up though, was that he didn’t care about his father's opinions on that matter anymore. Or at least, Wolfgang’s smile made him think that.
“Are you okay with this?” asks Wolfgang.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, truly, are you okay with the idea of your wife being with another man? Isn’t your father some kind of political schmuck who will care about publicity and the like?”
“He’s still my father,” Rajan felt the need to defend him, even though Wolfgang was right.
“So, there'll be no consequences to whatever arrangements you decide to make? What about your company?” Wolfgang took another long drag of his cigarette looking directly at him.
Rajan put some space between them, painfully aware that he was playing with fire by even thinking about the possibility of the three of them. But Kala had already made her choice to love them both, couldn’t Rajan have some thoughts of his own on the matter? (Such as, he may not have known Wolfgang then, but he desperately wanted to).
“My company means nothing without Kala. I told her once: she is my life, everything else is belongings.”
Wolfgang finished his cigarette and put it out on the wall. Rajan would definitely need to talk to someone about the cleanup at Jean-Pierre’s place. Wolfgang chose that moment to stand closer to him.
“You have to mean it, Rajan. Or this is not going to work.”
The air cackled between them. There was something in his stare making Rajan’s thoughts lose all shape and meaning. Rajan wanted to know what it was like to have that intense stare on him always.
“I mean it.”
“Good.” Silence settled comfortably between them. “You can go back if you want. I want to, I don’t know, think?”
Rajan understood a dismissal when he heard one. His arm grazed Wolfgang’s as he made his way back into the house sending a shiver down his spine. Most of the lights were off, but Bug continued tapping away on his computer.
“Everything okay?” Rajan asked.
“Of course. You?”
He thought back to his, Wolfgang, and Kala’s conversation earlier that day. “Yeah. I think it is.”
“It’s complicated,” Wolfgang said to his friend when Kala introduced him. When wasn’t it in this new life of his?
He had been dodging calls from Mumbai all day long, but as the afternoon gave way to the evening and the cluster and their significant others split up to spend the night, he could no longer ignore the calls from his father. He sneaked out when Kala went to take a shower and sat down on the main steps of the house they were renting in Parma —their last stop before heading to Naples. He wished he had a drink to go with this call when his phone rang again.
“Rajan, what is this nonsense that you will be gone for a while? There’s a stakeholders meeting tomorrow,” was the first thing he told Rajan when he answered.
“Father, we talked about this. I am in charge of the company, not you. You are not my boss anymore.”
“You will not throw all the work I did on that company out of the window. You know what they’ll say if you start taking vacations instead of being where you’re supposed to be.”
Rajan thought that he was exactly where he was supposed to be right now. There was no way his father would understand that.
“Once I solve this issue here in Europe, I’ll be back. It’ll be before anyone knows it.”
“You know I won’t accept any less,” his father warned him, serious.
“Understood.”
Rajan hung up and stared up at the sky, where he could see the first twinkles of the night.
“Was that your father?” Wolfgang asked behind him.
“How did you know?”
“You’ve been getting increasingly tense the whole day.”
“Well, tomorrow we’re going against the people who were torturing you and who have the resources to kill us all,” said Rajan. “You can understand this is not easy for me.”
“The first time is never easy,” pondered Wolfgang as he sat down the steps next to him, his faraway stare made him look ethereal, out of this world. Rajan felt the need to reign in his thoughts, even if he didn’t share them with anyone.
“First time?”
“That you have to go against your whole world.” He got a cigarette out but seemed to think better of it and put it back in the box. “You get used to it, though.”
“In over thirty years, I've still not gotten used to my father meddling in my affairs, trying to control my world,” said Rajan. “But I’m not gonna lie, there’s something rather satisfying to the idea of telling my father to fuck off.”
Wolfgang gave him one of those smiles that seemed to be incredibly rare but that always came out in Kala’s presence. It made Rajan want to risk it all, throw caution out of the window and jump into uncharted waters.
“Hey, so, I’m going to sleep in another room tonight. Give you two some space,” Wolfgang said.
“Oh, okay,” he replied, not quite sure about what was happening. “You’re still driving down with us the rest of the way to Naples, right?
Wolfgang seemed to think about it. “It's still six more hours to go. Don’t you wanna have some time alone with Kala?”
“Didn’t you get the news that Kala is never alone?”
“We are, sometimes,” said Wolfgang.
Not knowing why, Rajan asked, “are we alone now?”
“Yes,” he replied, his eyes quickly scanning Rajan’s face.
After a second of uncertainty, Wolfgang leaned closer, as if to share a secret with him the same way one did in kindergarten, with intent and ceremony. Rajan, for his part, was pulled towards Wolfgang by something magnetic bubbling under the surface. They stayed like that for a few seconds, so absorbed in one another that they didn’t hear the door open behind them.
Dani stood there awkwardly for a second, her left hand on her chest as if about to make a comment that would break whatever illusion had fallen in place between them. “Wow,” she said instead. “I promise I haven’t seen anything. I’ll leave now.”
Rajan swallowed, unsure about what this meant. He swore he saw Wolfgang smiling when he stood up, leaving Rajan and the feelings stirring inside him to cool off in the chilly evening air.
“This time, you did not dodge the bullet,” the doctor said, in high spirits as always. Wolfgang looked over at Rajan, but Rajan shook his head. It was for another time. “Mrs. Rasal, you will make a full recovery. You were very lucky that your husband and, uh, your… friend brought you when they did. You will need to take it easy for a few days but after that, you can go back to your lovely holiday.”
When the doctor left, Kala said, “I don’t think we should come to Italy anymore.”
Rajan huffed a laugh and glanced at Wolfgang, whose eyes were fixed on his own hands.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, his voice so small that Rajan would have thought he was imagining it if not for the way Wolfgang’s lips moved when they spoke. Not that Rajan was staring, of course.
“What are you talking about?” asked Rajan at the same time that Kala said “Wolfgang, we’ve been over this. It wasn’t your fault.”
Rajan frowned, “how would it be your fault, Wolfgang? Did you pull the trigger on Kala? Are you some kind of evil mastermind that’s actually trying to kill his cluster but indirectly?” Wolfgang almost smiled at that, a small triumph. “Then we’re not having this discussion. There’s no reason to have it.”
Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed Kala looking at him, dare he say, adoringly? He saw in her eyes the love she has for him. Even if he believed it couldn’t compare to what she felt for Wolfgang, the look in Kala’s eyes gave him hope.
As for Wolfgang, the man was looking at him with the most open expression he’d seen on him —wide blue eyes turned to him, mouth set in a straight line as if suppressing a smile— and Rajan’s resolve crumbled. He reached a hand across the bed, on top of Kala’s legs in invitation.
After a moment that felt eternal, Wolfgang reached and grabbed Rajan’s hand, squeezing hard. Rajan hoped his face didn’t show how fast his heart was beating.
“So, have you talked with Rajan, you know, about the future?”
“No,” Wolgang said, taking another drag of his cigarette.
Sun half-turned in his direction, “do you think it will work out?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed. Wolfgang thought back to the night in Parma and their almost kiss. They hadn’t been that close ever since, but something was simmering under the surface, waiting for the right moment to explode in his face. “I think it might.”
He passed the cigarette back to Sun and walked to a waiter to get himself a glass of sparkling wine. He stood in the crowd taking everything and sighed. How easy it was to be surrounded by everyone he cared about —and then some— and still feel alone.
“Wolfgang!” called Rajan from somewhere to his right. He appeared a few seconds later flanked by Felix. “Our seats are at the front, come on.”
Without waiting for an answer, the man grabbed Wolfgang’s hand and pulled him in the direction of his seat. Felix tried to hide his grin, but wasn’t quick enough. Wolfgang shot him an admonishing look; Felix pretended he didn’t see anything.
Keeping secrets from Kala wasn’t easy, considering she and Wolfgang were psychically connected and able to reach each other’s thoughts and feelings, but it felt particularly difficult now as the three of them danced under the purple lights at the top of the Eiffel tower. Something stirred inside of him at the sight of Kala’s smile when Rajan danced with her, something that felt a lot like looking at Kala for the very first time, except this time she was not entirely responsible for the feeling.
Over the last few days, what he thought would be a very awkward arrangement had fallen into a bit of a routine: Kala would sleep three nights a week with both of them, splitting the other four days equally among Rajan and Wolfgang. It worked well for Wolfgang because over the course of their trip from Paris, he’d seen more and more of Rajan that left him feeling all sorts of ways.
That’s what felt like a secret: Wolfgang saw Rajan through Kala’s eyes, but he also saw Rajan and Wolfgang was enjoying what he saw. The thought was still too raw to be shared with anyone, but he liked him. He was a good man, he had good intentions. Not to mention, he was nice to look at.
Wolfgang wondered if some of his thoughts showed in his face, but all he saw when he looked over at Rajan and Kala was fondness —and maybe a little of Nomi’s simmering excitement bubbling underneath their skin.
Kala chose that moment to excuse herself for a minute and go sit at a nearby table. Wolfgang thought Rajan would follow her, but instead, he kept dancing, mirroring Wolfgang’s movements in an exaggerated manner until Wolfgang was laughing out loud, dancing silly and freely as he hadn’t done in forever.
He saw Will and Kala talking, looking serious, however Wolfgang didn’t have it in him to hear that things were to go back to normal yet, so he left them alone and focused on Rajan. They danced some more until Rajan brought him in for a hug —a big squeeze that he felt in his bones and he wished no one else in the cluster was paying attention to— then he left to grab more drinks.
“You know, I think that if you just asked for what you want for once, you might get it,” said Riley, visiting next to him and looking in Rajan’s direction.
“You really think so?”
“It never hurts to try,” she added before disappearing.
When Rajan came back with two beers, Wolfgang figured out that it was as good a time as any and said, “hey, Rajan—”
“Come sleep with us tonight,” interrupted Rajan in a rush.
Suddenly, it was as if the noise in the whole party died down and all he could hear were Rajan’s words echoing over and over inside his head. Once again, he wondered how much of his thought process had been plain as day in his face.
“Okay,” he agreed, taking the keycard Rajan offered and putting it in his shirt breast pocket, where he could feel it against his chest as if it weighed far more than it did.
“My God. I didn’t think such things were possible,” Rajan said, his chest slick with sweat, eyes feverish, hair sticking out at odd angles.Wolfgang, however, could barely concentrate when not only he felt Kala’s pleasure between them spike, but the whole cluster was stimulating him from all directions.
Kala shushed Rajan, at the same time Wolfgang brought him closer, dropping a kiss on his shoulder as Kala captured his lips in a deep kiss.
Wolfgang thrusted his hips up, knowing full well how it felt for Kala when he did so. Rajan rearranged himself and thrusted back inside of Kala as well, drawing a long moan from her as she got used to the sensation of having two cocks inside of her.
For a moment, his mind was not fully there, but in Kala’s body, experiencing first hand what it felt like to not have to choose in its highest expression. She felt overjoyed, pleased that it worked out, and incredibly, incredibly horny. Wolfgang felt that he had to take care of it personally. Lucky for him, he wasn’t alone in the task.
His orgasm built as Kala’s pleasure grew inside of her —and Capheus’ and Nomi’s and Will’s and Sun’s, and Riley’s and Lito’s— and it spilled in a wave of white light that blinded him. He was distantly aware of Lito in the middle of Hernando and Dani and smiled to himself. He glanced at Kala lying next to Rajan and felt a pull in his heart that he never believed was possible.
After getting himself a glass of sparkling wine from the nightstand, he settled with his thoughts for a minute and realized that for the first time in who knows how long, he was not thinking about survival. It was a strange feeling.
“What are you thinking about?” Kala asked, nervousness sipping into her voice.
“You said we can’t be together in Mumbai but things are probably not good for me in Berlin either,” Wolfgang replied. “I want to go back, but I would kill for a week of peace where no one tries to kill me. Us.”
“Why does it always have to be about killing?” Kala said, a smile forming on her mouth.
“Can’t we stay here? In Paris, I mean. We have a flat,” suggested Rajan.
Kala looked at him suspiciously. “How long?”
“I told you, until Agent Singh tells us it’s safe and the investigation is over.”
“I have a job, Rajan.”
“That you can do remotely. I will buy you whatever you need. Just please… let’s not go looking for trouble.”
Wolfgang didn’t want to impose, but he still said, “I still haven’t seen much of Paris.”
Rajan smiled at him, all gentleness and sunshine, “so, it’s decided.”
“And this?” asked Wolfgang gesturing between the three of them.
“This was the best idea that’s ever crossed my mind,” Kala said, a smug grin on her face.
“We can talk about us in the morning. Rest now,” added Rajan.
Us.
Wolfgang liked the sound of that.