I care what she thinks, so when she dared me, I knew I was in trouble. A simple bet on a simple game of tall card. I win, I choose. She wins, she chooses.

Sure, we talked about it before. She's done it before, too, after the war: had two lovers at once. She doesn't want both of us, really, in the proper sense. Mainly she just wants me to be there. Everything else we have time to make up as we go along.

Certain things happen when you love a woman as much as I love Zoë, when you know everything about her, when you've studied her like a sacred text. Or to put it better, certain things don't happen. I can't put my finger on what makes a first kiss feel the way it does. But I know it's an entirely different kind of pleasure than dancing a dance where you know all the steps. No one wants a life composed entirely of first kisses. But that doesn't mean a person doesn't sometimes miss that feeling I can't quite put words to.

---

I look down at my cards. I've got a good hand — a great hand, in fact. I'm looking down at this hand, knowing I'm going to win and that means: my choice. It's hard to maintain your tall-card-face when you’ve got such possibilities to consider. Inara? She's certainly the most classically beautiful of those on the ship. But there's something about her that keeps me from seeing her with my Zoë, like maybe she's too delicate, like Zoë would be too much for her. Kaylee? Kaylee exudes sensuality, when she wants to. She's got a body so beautiful even jumpsuits and overalls can't hide it …

I'm snatched from my reverie because Zoë is giving me a look. A 'where are you?' look. I look at her, searching her face, thinking about what I really want, how I really want this to go.

"I fold."

Zoë looks surprised.

"Got nothin'," I add, shrugging my shoulders and laying the cards down flat. I silently ask every spirit I can think of to keep her from checking them.

She doesn't check. Just looks at me with a smirk and gleam in her eye.

"So, I know you're probably going to want to think about this for a few days, mull it over, discuss —"

"Kaylee."

Okay then.

---

Kaylee giggles when we ask her. She gives her best approximation of demure. Which, as you can imagine, is not very demure. "I'm not sure. Gotta think about it." Then she grins and bites her lip in a way that tells me her decision was made before Zoë had even got to the question.

---

Kaylee comes to our bunk like I knew she would. I'm relieved to see that she looks relaxed, confident. We've already talked about rules, boundaries. Now comes the fun part.

The first kiss almost makes me gasp out loud. I'm sitting on the corner of the bed, stripped to my boxers. I'm supposed to hang back at first, that's what we planned. But watching their lips meet, watching them lean into it and snake their arms around each other makes me never ant to interrupt this. Never. There's something so playful and exuberant about Kaylee's sexuality, something so heated and intense about Zoë's, that it's almost overwhelming to watch them collide.

When Kaylee's tongue finds its way into her mouth, I see Zoë's knuckles grip harder. Their hips press together in unison and Kaylee goes for the top button of Zoë's shirt. I didn't expect it happen so quickly, but something about the way they're looking at each other, grasping clothes and struggling to get closer, they've hit on something that they needed more than they knew.

The reverent way Kaylee touches Zoë, the way her eyes sparkle with a kind of joyful curiosity, you'd never believe there are people who say sex is a sin. She reaches out for Zoë's skin, grasping at muscular arms.

Zoë looks at me and guides her to the bed. She seems to want them side by side, but Kaylee has other ideas. Without breaking the kiss, she rolls on top and pins Zoë beneath her. When she slides down, kissing Zoë's neck, and taking a nipple her mouth … Zoë tilts her head up at me and I bend to kiss her. I'm lost in the feel of her mouth on mine when she rocks forward, gasping, because Kaylee is running her tongue up one thigh and down the other. Kaylee winks at me and I smile. One of the things I've always loved most about my wife's body is her strong, muscular legs, and somehow, they look even more beautiful with the young mechanic's small white hands running over them.

I go back to kissing her and when I feel her jump slightly, I look down to see the strokes of Kaylee's tongue inching higher and higher. Pretty soon, Zoë is moaning, biting her lip, and my hands caress her shoulders, her breasts, her belly.

Normally, I can't see her face when I'm doing this: when her back arches and her chin juts up, I miss everything. I feel awkward watching anyhow, so usually my eyes are closed, concentrating on my task, taking in the taste of her, the smell, and the sounds she makes. Now, I can watch every sensation, every emotion play across her face.

Kaylee’s struggling a bit, trying one thing and then another, bringing her close and then missing somehow. If it were me down there, she'd have come by now, but that's the whole the point. This is a new dance and it's going to take longer to figure things out. But all the better to focus on the dancing and not the figuring.

I look into Zoë’s dark brown eyes and kiss her again, wanting to swallow each gasp and feel every hitch of breath on my tongue. When she finely cries out, it's against my mouth. Her hair is on my lap and her head is in my hands.

When Kaylee eases away, she looks up at us with a hungry look and Zoë just says, still breathless, "Tend to Kaylee would you, husband?"

Even though we discussed it, I still look to see if she's absolutely sure. I see her out of the corner of my eye, watching with rapt attention as Kaylee kisses me, open-mouthed, pushing my underwear down impatiently. She's covered in Zoë; it's on her lips, her tongue, her chin. We're kissing open-eyed, now, and there's a conspiratorial gleam in her eye, because now we share a little bit Zoë. She presses me down on the bed and after awhile, when she shudders and brings me over the edge with her, after all this this, my own orgasm almost feels like an afterthought.

We lie there dazed for a few moments, before Zoë rolls over on her side facing me, resting her head in the crook of my arm, her hand splayed across my chest. She makes a move to pull Kaylee in with us but Kaylee seems reluctant.

"'S'alright Zo'. Sleepin' together's for couples." She leans over me, brushing my chest with her nipples as reaches Zoë's lips for a quick kiss.

"Tomorrow," she says, grinning at my wife mischievously, "I'll teach you how to cheat at tall card. Just to be on the safe side."