4TH MONTHLY PENTHOUSE EXTRAVAGANZA
by RILAYAWRITERabout 1 hour ago
•long read•intense intensityThe sun was fully up now, and the penthouse looked like a crime scene designed by someone with excellent taste. Champagne glasses were scattered across every surface, the bar still had a visible wet spot from Riley's performance, and someone had left a bra hanging from the ceiling fan. Maya didn't remember how it got there. She didn't remember a lot of things from the last eight hours, but she remembered Riley's voice saying Aubrey's name into the mic like it was the only word left in the English language.
As the Clean Up Crew Arrived, Aubrey, tall and golden in the morning light, her hair wrecked, her green eyes doing that thing where they tracked Riley like Riley was the only signal worth receiving. Maya looked at the two of them. She looked at the open guest room door. She looked at the mark on Riley's neck. "So," Maya said. "The cabin." Riley's face did something that looked complicated. It started as a smile and then folded inward, became something more private, more uncertain. She turned on her stool to face Maya, and Aubrey's hand slid off her knee. "Can I talk to you?" Riley said. "Just you. For a second." Aubrey stood. "I'll be in the kitchen."
"No," Riley said. "Stay. I just need to say this to Maya, and I need you to hear it too." Aubrey sat back down. The penthouse was very quiet. The city was waking up outside the windows, cabs honking, garbage trucks grinding, the whole machinery of Manhattan cranking into motion, and inside the three of them were naked on bar stools with empty champagne glasses and what was the residue of everything that had happened still sitting in the air like smoke. "When I said that thing on the bar," Riley said, "about the cabin, about someone coming with me. I meant it. But I need you to know something, Maya." Maya's chest tightened. She knew what was coming, or she thought she did, and she was already building the wall, the one she always built, the one that looked like a smirk and sounded like a joke and kept everything on the other side.
"The fascination with Aubrey," Riley said. "It was real. It is real. She's look at her, she's objectively stunning, and she's brilliant, and what happened in the guest room was" Riley's eyes went somewhere far away for a second and then came back. "It was a lot. But it's not the thing. It's not the main thing." Maya swallowed. "The main thing," Riley said, "is you. It's always been you. Since we were kids. Since before I knew what wanting someone meant. Since before I had the words for it. You're the person I want to be with forever. Not because of the parties, not because of the games, not because you're the most exciting person I've ever met, although you are but because when I wake up and you're there, the day makes sense. The day has a shape. Without you it's just hours."
Maya's wall didn't go up. It couldn't. Riley was looking at her with those brown eyes and they were wet and honest and completely unguarded, and Maya felt something crack in her chest that she'd been holding together for what felt like her entire life. "You're telling me this now," Maya said, and her voice came out rough. "Naked. On a bar stool. At five in the morning."
"There's no good time to say it. There's just now." Maya looked at her hands. They were shaking. She curled them into fists and then uncurled them because hiding didn't work with Riley, had never worked with Riley, would never work with Riley.
"I know," Maya said. "I've known. I just didn't think you'd say it out loud." "I said a lot of things out loud tonight." "You did." They looked at each other. The silence was different now. It wasn't the silence of anticipation or performance or a crowd holding its breath. It was the silence of two people who had finally stopped running from the same thing. Aubrey had been watching. Not interrupting, not fidgeting, just sitting there with her green eyes moving between them like she was reading a text she'd been studying for years and had only now understood. When Maya glanced at her, Aubrey's expression was open in a way that Maya had never seen on her face before. No strategy. No composure. Just a woman sitting naked on a bar stool at dawn, watching two people she cared about finally say the thing.
"The cabin," Aubrey said. "It's still available. If you want it." Riley turned. "We just said—" "I heard what you said." Aubrey's voice was steady. "I heard all of it. And I'm not trying to be the thing that comes between you. I'm not trying to be anything you don't want me to be. But I've been daydreaming too, and my daydream wasn't about replacing anyone. It was about being there. With both of you. The three of us, in a cabin in Connecticut, with no phones and no crowd and no wheel and no timer. Just this. Whatever this is." Maya stared at her. "You want to be the third." "I want to be the third. I want to be the one who's there when you two wake up and make breakfast and argue about whose turn it is to shower. I want to be the one who's in the bed with you when the lights go out. Not because I'm trying to insert myself into something that isn't mine. Because it feels like it could be mine. Like there's room."
Riley looked at Maya. Maya looked at Riley. Something passed between them that was faster than language, the kind of communication that happens when two people have known each other so long that words are almost unnecessary. Riley's eyebrow went up a fraction of an inch. Maya's mouth twitched at the corner. "You're talking about a threesome," Maya said. "Not just a weekend. Not just a party. An actual—" "I'm talking about whatever you want it to be," Aubrey said. "If that's a weekend, it's a weekend. If that's more, it's more. I'm not asking you to define it. I'm asking you to consider it."
The sun was hitting the bar now, and the wet spot was glistening, and the bra on the ceiling fan was casting a shadow that looked like a small, exhausted bat. Maya started laughing. It came out of nowhere, or maybe it came from the same place Riley's confession had come from, that underground river that had been flowing beneath all of them for weeks. "Consider it," Maya said. "She wants us to consider it. While we're naked on bar stools." "I'm naked too," Aubrey pointed out. "I'm not asking from a position of advantage." "You're six feet tall with green eyes and perfect tits. You're always in a position of advantage." Aubrey smiled. It was a real smile, not the strategic one, and it changed her whole face.
Maya looked at Riley. Riley was looking at Aubrey. Then Riley looked at Maya, and her eyes were doing the thing they did when she'd made a decision, the thing where they went very still and very focused and you could see the gears stop turning because the answer had already arrived.
"The cabin," Riley said. "This weekend. The three of us." "Yes," Aubrey said. "But first," Riley said, and she turned to Maya with an expression that was half excitement and half something else, something that looked like it was already planning. "We throw one more party." Maya narrowed her eyes. "What kind of party?" "The kind we're good at. Strip games. Sexual fun. The whole building. Everyone in this MI Condo, all our friends, the whole thing. One last blowout before we disappear into the Connecticut woods and become cabin people."
"Cabin people," Maya repeated. "Cabin people who have threesomes," Riley clarified. "You're already planning the party. I can see it in your face." "I've been planning it since she said the word cabin." Riley stood up from the bar stool, naked, and walked to the kitchen island where a legal pad and pen were sitting next to a half-empty bottle of tequila. She started writing. Maya watched her handwriting move across the page, fast and messy, the way it always went when Riley's brain was outrunning her hand. "Invitations," Riley said, still writing. "We need new invitations. Not the cards from last time, something different. Something that says 'come to our penthouse, get naked, lose at cards, have sex with your neighbors, bring a dish to share.'"
"That's a lot for one card." "We'll use both sides." Riley looked up. "Maya. We're inviting the whole building." "I heard you." "Every floor. Every unit. Even the couple on 14 who never come to anything." "The ones with the ferret?" "The ones with the ferret." Maya stood up from her bar stool and walked to the kitchen island. She stood behind Riley and looked over her shoulder at the list, which was already half a page long and included categories like "strip games," "free use zones," "lube stations," and, written in all caps and underlined twice, "NEW BAR." "You're really doing this," Maya said. "I'm really doing this."
Maya put her hand on Riley's back. Riley leaned into the touch without looking up, the way she always did, the way a plant leans toward light. Aubrey was still at the bar, watching them, and Maya caught her eye over Riley's shoulder. You're helping," Maya said. "If you're going to be cabin people, you're party people first." Aubrey stood and walked to the kitchen island. She stood on Riley's other side, tall and naked and reading the list with the focus of someone reviewing a contract. "Lube stations," Aubrey said. "Plural." "Three. One per zone. Living room, bedroom, terrace."
"It's November." "Space heaters." "You've thought about this." "I've been thinking about this since the last party," Riley said. "I just didn't know it was going to be the last one." Maya picked up the pen and added a line to the list: "Topanga — mandatory attendance." She underlined it three times. "She'll never come," Aubrey said. "She'll come. She'll wear a silk blouse and she'll win every hand and she'll leave fully dressed and somehow more satisfied than anyone else in the building." "That's... accurate," Aubrey admitted.
They stood at the kitchen island, three naked women in a wrecked penthouse at dawn, planning a party that would probably require a permit, a therapist, and a more professional cleaning crew with security clearance. Riley was writing furiously. Maya was adding annotations. Aubrey was flagging logistical concerns, because she was Topanga's Paralegal and couldn't help it. "The terrace," Aubrey said. "You want a free use zone on the terrace. In November. In Manhattan."
"Heated blankets. The ones from the guest room. And the awning." "The awning is broken."
"Then we fix the awning." "When?" "Thursday. The party is Saturday."
Maya looked at Riley. Riley looked at Aubrey. Aubrey looked at the list. "Saturday," Aubrey said. "That gives us four days." "Three days to plan, one day to panic, and then the party." "That's not enough time." "It's plenty of time. We planned the last one in two days and that one had the wheel and a mic and a tie-down system." "The tie-down system took six hours to install." "Then we start today."
Riley put the pen down and picked up her phone. She opened the building's resident app, the group chat that connected all 42 units of MI Condos and typed a message. Maya watched over her shoulder. **MATTHEWS-HUNTER PENTHOUSE — SATURDAY 9 PM. STRIP GAMES AND OTHER ACTIVITIES. CLOTHING OPTIONAL UPON ENTRY. BRING YOUR OWN LUBE IF YOU'RE PICKY. FULL DETAILS TO FOLLOW. She hit send. The message went to 84 people.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the responses started. Not trickling in, but flooding, one after another, the building's group chat lighting up like a pinball machine. Maya watched the notifications stack up. Someone sent a fire emoji. Someone sent a champagne bottle. Someone from the 14th floor sent a ferret emoji. The woman from 7 sent a message that was just the word "finally" followed by three exclamation points.
"That's seventeen yeses in forty seconds," Aubrey said, reading the screen. "The building has been waiting for this," Riley said. "The building has been waiting for us to get our act together," Maya said. Riley put the phone down and turned to face them both. She was standing naked in her kitchen with the sun coming through the windows and the list of party logistics on the legal pad and the building group chat exploding behind her, and she looked, Maya thought, like someone who had finally stopped holding something in. "Okay," Riley said. "Here's what happens. We plan the party. We throw the party. We survive the party. And then Sunday morning, the three of us get in Aubrey's car and drive to Connecticut and we don't come back until we've figured out what this is."
"What what is?" Maya asked. "This." Riley gestured between the three of them. "Whatever this is. The three of us. The cabin. The thing we're all pretending we're not already doing." "We're not pretending," Aubrey said quietly. "No," Riley said. "We're not. Not anymore." Maya looked at Aubrey. Aubrey looked at Maya. There was a moment, a very specific moment, where the dynamic between the two of them shifted. They'd been orbiting each other for months, not as rivals exactly, but as two forces pulling on the same object, and now the object had said: stop pulling. Come closer. There's room.
Maya reached out and took Aubrey's hand. It was the first time she'd touched her all night that wasn't part of a game. Aubrey's fingers were long and warm and they closed around Maya's with a certainty that felt like an answer to a question Maya hadn't known she was asking. Riley put her hands on top of theirs. Three hands stacked in a kitchen at dawn. "Saturday," Riley said.
"Saturday," Maya said. "Saturday," Aubrey said. They stood there for a long moment, and then Maya pulled her hand back because she was Maya and she had limits, and said, "If we're doing this, I need coffee."
"I need a shower," Riley said. "I need to call my contractor about that awning," Aubrey said.
"You have a contractor?" "I have a cabin. The cabin has an awning. The awning has a contractor." Riley laughed. It was the kind of laugh that comes out when everything is ridiculous and everything is real and you can't separate the two anymore. Maya laughed too. Aubrey didn't laugh, but she smiled, and the smile was enough.
The next four days were a blur of planning, logistics, and arguments about lube stations. Maya handled the invitations, which she designed as playing cards, each one a different suit, each one with a different instruction on the back. Hearts: strip poker. Diamonds: strip blackjack. Spades: truth or strip. Clubs: free use rules, printed in small type, with a disclaimer at the bottom that said "participation is voluntary, enthusiasm is encouraged, and the safe word is 'Topanga' because she will never say it."
Riley handled the bar, which she replaced with a wider, sturdier model that she described as "performance-grade." She also installed new silk ties at the corners, because she said, "I'm not making predictions, I'm just being prepared." Aubrey handled the legal side, which meant she drafted a liability waiver that was somehow both legally binding and erotic. "The undersigned acknowledges that attendance at the Matthews-Hunter penthouse on the specified date may result in the removal of clothing, the engagement of sexual activity with one or more persons, and the potential loss of dignity, and agrees that such outcomes are the natural consequence of saying yes to a really good party."
Topanga, when she received her invitation delivered by hand, because Riley insisted read it twice, shuffled it into her marked deck without comment, and said, "I'll bring the cards." Saturday arrived the way Saturdays do when you've been building toward them for four days: suddenly, and with a sound system that needed to be tested. The penthouse was transformed. The living room had been cleared of furniture and replaced with cushions, rugs, and low tables arranged in zones. Zone One: card games. Zone Two: the bar. Zone Three: the terrace, now covered by a repaired awning and heated by four space heaters that Aubrey had sourced from a hardware store in Connecticut and driven into the city in her car, which turned out to be a black Range Rover with leather seats and a first aid kit in the glove compartment.
"This is a lot of space heaters," Maya said, looking at the terrace. "It's a lot of terrace." "We're going to have naked people on this terrace in November." "That's what the space heaters are for." "And the heated blankets?" "Four. Two per lounge chair." "You're very thorough." "I'm a Paralegal." The first guests arrived at 8:47, thirteen minutes early, because the couple from 7 had been waiting by their door since 8:30. The woman was wearing a coat with nothing underneath it. Her husband was wearing pants and a smile that suggested he'd already accepted his fate.
By 9:15, the penthouse was full. Not crowded, not yet, but full in the way that a room gets when the energy starts compressing, when people are still dressed but the dressing feels temporary, like everyone is wearing their clothes on a timer. Maya stood at the bar with a microphone that Riley had installed specifically for the occasion. She tapped it once. The room went quiet.
"Welcome to MI Condo first annual — and possibly only — building-wide strip and free use party," Maya said. "The rules are on your invitation cards. The safe word is Topanga. The lube stations are in the living room, the bedroom, and the terrace. The bar is new and I will personally hurt anyone who damages it. The wheel is in the corner and will be spun at midnight. Until then, find a table, find a game, find someone you want to lose to."
The room moved. Cards came out. Drinks were poured. The sound system played something low and rhythmic that Riley had curated, a playlist that started with jazz and would, by design, end with something that had no genre, just bass. Topanga was at the card table, shuffling her marked deck with the serenity of a woman who had come to win. Three people sat down across from her. They would not remain clothed for long. The first hand of strip poker was dealt at 9:22. By 9:45, the woman from 7 was down to her coat, which she was holding closed with one hand while evaluating her cards with the other. Her husband had lost his pants and was sitting in his boxers with the expression of a man who had made peace with the situation.
By 10:00, the first free use zone was active. A couple from the 12th floor who had been circling each other all week finally collided on the living room cushions, and the sound of it, the sharp intake of breath, the rustle of fabric being pulled aside, the first wet contact rippled through the room like a signal. Maya watched from the bar. Riley was beside her, pouring tequila. Aubrey was on the terrace, adjusting a space heater, her tall frame silhouetted against the Manhattan skyline. "You're staring at her," Riley said. "I'm not staring. I'm observing." "You're staring with intent." "Maybe." Riley handed Maya a glass. "She's going to be good at this." "At what?" "At being one of us."
Maya drank the tequila. It burned in a way that felt like confirmation. The room was heating up, clothes were coming off, the party was doing what parties do when you design them with precision and a complete disregard for conventional social norms. And Maya was standing at the bar with Riley's shoulder pressed against hers, watching Aubrey on the terrace, and thinking about a cabin in Connecticut where the three of them would go after this was over and figure out what came next.
The wheel spun at midnight. It landed on Free Use. The room shifted. And Maya, for the first time all night, walked toward the terrace where Aubrey was standing, and Riley followed, and the three of them stood under the awning with the space heaters blowing warm air against their bare skin and the city glittering below them. "So," Maya said. "Connecticut." "Connecticut," Aubrey said. "Connecticut," Riley said. The party raged behind them. Someone was screaming in a good way. Someone was losing at cards. Topanga was winning. The ferret couple from 14 had made it to the bedroom. The woman from 7 had lost her coat.
Maya looked at Aubrey. Aubrey looked at Riley. Riley looked at Maya. And then they went inside, because it was November, and even with four space heaters and an awning, Connecticut was still a week away and the penthouse was right there, and the bedroom door was open this time, because whatever was about to happen was no longer the kind of thing that needed a closed door. The party lasted until 4 AM. The guest room door was open. The terrace was occupied. Topanga won every hand. The bar survived unscathed. The new silk ties were used once, briefly, by someone from the 11th floor who would later describe the experience as "educational."
As the Clean Up Crew Arrived, Aubrey, tall and golden in the morning light, her hair wrecked, her green eyes doing that thing where they tracked Riley like Riley was the only signal worth receiving. Maya looked at the two of them. She looked at the open guest room door. She looked at the mark on Riley's neck. "So," Maya said. "The cabin." Riley's face did something that looked complicated. It started as a smile and then folded inward, became something more private, more uncertain. She turned on her stool to face Maya, and Aubrey's hand slid off her knee. "Can I talk to you?" Riley said. "Just you. For a second." Aubrey stood. "I'll be in the kitchen."
"No," Riley said. "Stay. I just need to say this to Maya, and I need you to hear it too." Aubrey sat back down. The penthouse was very quiet. The city was waking up outside the windows, cabs honking, garbage trucks grinding, the whole machinery of Manhattan cranking into motion, and inside the three of them were naked on bar stools with empty champagne glasses and what was the residue of everything that had happened still sitting in the air like smoke. "When I said that thing on the bar," Riley said, "about the cabin, about someone coming with me. I meant it. But I need you to know something, Maya." Maya's chest tightened. She knew what was coming, or she thought she did, and she was already building the wall, the one she always built, the one that looked like a smirk and sounded like a joke and kept everything on the other side.
"The fascination with Aubrey," Riley said. "It was real. It is real. She's look at her, she's objectively stunning, and she's brilliant, and what happened in the guest room was" Riley's eyes went somewhere far away for a second and then came back. "It was a lot. But it's not the thing. It's not the main thing." Maya swallowed. "The main thing," Riley said, "is you. It's always been you. Since we were kids. Since before I knew what wanting someone meant. Since before I had the words for it. You're the person I want to be with forever. Not because of the parties, not because of the games, not because you're the most exciting person I've ever met, although you are but because when I wake up and you're there, the day makes sense. The day has a shape. Without you it's just hours."
Maya's wall didn't go up. It couldn't. Riley was looking at her with those brown eyes and they were wet and honest and completely unguarded, and Maya felt something crack in her chest that she'd been holding together for what felt like her entire life. "You're telling me this now," Maya said, and her voice came out rough. "Naked. On a bar stool. At five in the morning."
"There's no good time to say it. There's just now." Maya looked at her hands. They were shaking. She curled them into fists and then uncurled them because hiding didn't work with Riley, had never worked with Riley, would never work with Riley.
"I know," Maya said. "I've known. I just didn't think you'd say it out loud." "I said a lot of things out loud tonight." "You did." They looked at each other. The silence was different now. It wasn't the silence of anticipation or performance or a crowd holding its breath. It was the silence of two people who had finally stopped running from the same thing. Aubrey had been watching. Not interrupting, not fidgeting, just sitting there with her green eyes moving between them like she was reading a text she'd been studying for years and had only now understood. When Maya glanced at her, Aubrey's expression was open in a way that Maya had never seen on her face before. No strategy. No composure. Just a woman sitting naked on a bar stool at dawn, watching two people she cared about finally say the thing.
"The cabin," Aubrey said. "It's still available. If you want it." Riley turned. "We just said—" "I heard what you said." Aubrey's voice was steady. "I heard all of it. And I'm not trying to be the thing that comes between you. I'm not trying to be anything you don't want me to be. But I've been daydreaming too, and my daydream wasn't about replacing anyone. It was about being there. With both of you. The three of us, in a cabin in Connecticut, with no phones and no crowd and no wheel and no timer. Just this. Whatever this is." Maya stared at her. "You want to be the third." "I want to be the third. I want to be the one who's there when you two wake up and make breakfast and argue about whose turn it is to shower. I want to be the one who's in the bed with you when the lights go out. Not because I'm trying to insert myself into something that isn't mine. Because it feels like it could be mine. Like there's room."
Riley looked at Maya. Maya looked at Riley. Something passed between them that was faster than language, the kind of communication that happens when two people have known each other so long that words are almost unnecessary. Riley's eyebrow went up a fraction of an inch. Maya's mouth twitched at the corner. "You're talking about a threesome," Maya said. "Not just a weekend. Not just a party. An actual—" "I'm talking about whatever you want it to be," Aubrey said. "If that's a weekend, it's a weekend. If that's more, it's more. I'm not asking you to define it. I'm asking you to consider it."
The sun was hitting the bar now, and the wet spot was glistening, and the bra on the ceiling fan was casting a shadow that looked like a small, exhausted bat. Maya started laughing. It came out of nowhere, or maybe it came from the same place Riley's confession had come from, that underground river that had been flowing beneath all of them for weeks. "Consider it," Maya said. "She wants us to consider it. While we're naked on bar stools." "I'm naked too," Aubrey pointed out. "I'm not asking from a position of advantage." "You're six feet tall with green eyes and perfect tits. You're always in a position of advantage." Aubrey smiled. It was a real smile, not the strategic one, and it changed her whole face.
Maya looked at Riley. Riley was looking at Aubrey. Then Riley looked at Maya, and her eyes were doing the thing they did when she'd made a decision, the thing where they went very still and very focused and you could see the gears stop turning because the answer had already arrived.
"The cabin," Riley said. "This weekend. The three of us." "Yes," Aubrey said. "But first," Riley said, and she turned to Maya with an expression that was half excitement and half something else, something that looked like it was already planning. "We throw one more party." Maya narrowed her eyes. "What kind of party?" "The kind we're good at. Strip games. Sexual fun. The whole building. Everyone in this MI Condo, all our friends, the whole thing. One last blowout before we disappear into the Connecticut woods and become cabin people."
"Cabin people," Maya repeated. "Cabin people who have threesomes," Riley clarified. "You're already planning the party. I can see it in your face." "I've been planning it since she said the word cabin." Riley stood up from the bar stool, naked, and walked to the kitchen island where a legal pad and pen were sitting next to a half-empty bottle of tequila. She started writing. Maya watched her handwriting move across the page, fast and messy, the way it always went when Riley's brain was outrunning her hand. "Invitations," Riley said, still writing. "We need new invitations. Not the cards from last time, something different. Something that says 'come to our penthouse, get naked, lose at cards, have sex with your neighbors, bring a dish to share.'"
"That's a lot for one card." "We'll use both sides." Riley looked up. "Maya. We're inviting the whole building." "I heard you." "Every floor. Every unit. Even the couple on 14 who never come to anything." "The ones with the ferret?" "The ones with the ferret." Maya stood up from her bar stool and walked to the kitchen island. She stood behind Riley and looked over her shoulder at the list, which was already half a page long and included categories like "strip games," "free use zones," "lube stations," and, written in all caps and underlined twice, "NEW BAR." "You're really doing this," Maya said. "I'm really doing this."
Maya put her hand on Riley's back. Riley leaned into the touch without looking up, the way she always did, the way a plant leans toward light. Aubrey was still at the bar, watching them, and Maya caught her eye over Riley's shoulder. You're helping," Maya said. "If you're going to be cabin people, you're party people first." Aubrey stood and walked to the kitchen island. She stood on Riley's other side, tall and naked and reading the list with the focus of someone reviewing a contract. "Lube stations," Aubrey said. "Plural." "Three. One per zone. Living room, bedroom, terrace."
"It's November." "Space heaters." "You've thought about this." "I've been thinking about this since the last party," Riley said. "I just didn't know it was going to be the last one." Maya picked up the pen and added a line to the list: "Topanga — mandatory attendance." She underlined it three times. "She'll never come," Aubrey said. "She'll come. She'll wear a silk blouse and she'll win every hand and she'll leave fully dressed and somehow more satisfied than anyone else in the building." "That's... accurate," Aubrey admitted.
They stood at the kitchen island, three naked women in a wrecked penthouse at dawn, planning a party that would probably require a permit, a therapist, and a more professional cleaning crew with security clearance. Riley was writing furiously. Maya was adding annotations. Aubrey was flagging logistical concerns, because she was Topanga's Paralegal and couldn't help it. "The terrace," Aubrey said. "You want a free use zone on the terrace. In November. In Manhattan."
"Heated blankets. The ones from the guest room. And the awning." "The awning is broken."
"Then we fix the awning." "When?" "Thursday. The party is Saturday."
Maya looked at Riley. Riley looked at Aubrey. Aubrey looked at the list. "Saturday," Aubrey said. "That gives us four days." "Three days to plan, one day to panic, and then the party." "That's not enough time." "It's plenty of time. We planned the last one in two days and that one had the wheel and a mic and a tie-down system." "The tie-down system took six hours to install." "Then we start today."
Riley put the pen down and picked up her phone. She opened the building's resident app, the group chat that connected all 42 units of MI Condos and typed a message. Maya watched over her shoulder. **MATTHEWS-HUNTER PENTHOUSE — SATURDAY 9 PM. STRIP GAMES AND OTHER ACTIVITIES. CLOTHING OPTIONAL UPON ENTRY. BRING YOUR OWN LUBE IF YOU'RE PICKY. FULL DETAILS TO FOLLOW. She hit send. The message went to 84 people.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the responses started. Not trickling in, but flooding, one after another, the building's group chat lighting up like a pinball machine. Maya watched the notifications stack up. Someone sent a fire emoji. Someone sent a champagne bottle. Someone from the 14th floor sent a ferret emoji. The woman from 7 sent a message that was just the word "finally" followed by three exclamation points.
"That's seventeen yeses in forty seconds," Aubrey said, reading the screen. "The building has been waiting for this," Riley said. "The building has been waiting for us to get our act together," Maya said. Riley put the phone down and turned to face them both. She was standing naked in her kitchen with the sun coming through the windows and the list of party logistics on the legal pad and the building group chat exploding behind her, and she looked, Maya thought, like someone who had finally stopped holding something in. "Okay," Riley said. "Here's what happens. We plan the party. We throw the party. We survive the party. And then Sunday morning, the three of us get in Aubrey's car and drive to Connecticut and we don't come back until we've figured out what this is."
"What what is?" Maya asked. "This." Riley gestured between the three of them. "Whatever this is. The three of us. The cabin. The thing we're all pretending we're not already doing." "We're not pretending," Aubrey said quietly. "No," Riley said. "We're not. Not anymore." Maya looked at Aubrey. Aubrey looked at Maya. There was a moment, a very specific moment, where the dynamic between the two of them shifted. They'd been orbiting each other for months, not as rivals exactly, but as two forces pulling on the same object, and now the object had said: stop pulling. Come closer. There's room.
Maya reached out and took Aubrey's hand. It was the first time she'd touched her all night that wasn't part of a game. Aubrey's fingers were long and warm and they closed around Maya's with a certainty that felt like an answer to a question Maya hadn't known she was asking. Riley put her hands on top of theirs. Three hands stacked in a kitchen at dawn. "Saturday," Riley said.
"Saturday," Maya said. "Saturday," Aubrey said. They stood there for a long moment, and then Maya pulled her hand back because she was Maya and she had limits, and said, "If we're doing this, I need coffee."
"I need a shower," Riley said. "I need to call my contractor about that awning," Aubrey said.
"You have a contractor?" "I have a cabin. The cabin has an awning. The awning has a contractor." Riley laughed. It was the kind of laugh that comes out when everything is ridiculous and everything is real and you can't separate the two anymore. Maya laughed too. Aubrey didn't laugh, but she smiled, and the smile was enough.
The next four days were a blur of planning, logistics, and arguments about lube stations. Maya handled the invitations, which she designed as playing cards, each one a different suit, each one with a different instruction on the back. Hearts: strip poker. Diamonds: strip blackjack. Spades: truth or strip. Clubs: free use rules, printed in small type, with a disclaimer at the bottom that said "participation is voluntary, enthusiasm is encouraged, and the safe word is 'Topanga' because she will never say it."
Riley handled the bar, which she replaced with a wider, sturdier model that she described as "performance-grade." She also installed new silk ties at the corners, because she said, "I'm not making predictions, I'm just being prepared." Aubrey handled the legal side, which meant she drafted a liability waiver that was somehow both legally binding and erotic. "The undersigned acknowledges that attendance at the Matthews-Hunter penthouse on the specified date may result in the removal of clothing, the engagement of sexual activity with one or more persons, and the potential loss of dignity, and agrees that such outcomes are the natural consequence of saying yes to a really good party."
Topanga, when she received her invitation delivered by hand, because Riley insisted read it twice, shuffled it into her marked deck without comment, and said, "I'll bring the cards." Saturday arrived the way Saturdays do when you've been building toward them for four days: suddenly, and with a sound system that needed to be tested. The penthouse was transformed. The living room had been cleared of furniture and replaced with cushions, rugs, and low tables arranged in zones. Zone One: card games. Zone Two: the bar. Zone Three: the terrace, now covered by a repaired awning and heated by four space heaters that Aubrey had sourced from a hardware store in Connecticut and driven into the city in her car, which turned out to be a black Range Rover with leather seats and a first aid kit in the glove compartment.
"This is a lot of space heaters," Maya said, looking at the terrace. "It's a lot of terrace." "We're going to have naked people on this terrace in November." "That's what the space heaters are for." "And the heated blankets?" "Four. Two per lounge chair." "You're very thorough." "I'm a Paralegal." The first guests arrived at 8:47, thirteen minutes early, because the couple from 7 had been waiting by their door since 8:30. The woman was wearing a coat with nothing underneath it. Her husband was wearing pants and a smile that suggested he'd already accepted his fate.
By 9:15, the penthouse was full. Not crowded, not yet, but full in the way that a room gets when the energy starts compressing, when people are still dressed but the dressing feels temporary, like everyone is wearing their clothes on a timer. Maya stood at the bar with a microphone that Riley had installed specifically for the occasion. She tapped it once. The room went quiet.
"Welcome to MI Condo first annual — and possibly only — building-wide strip and free use party," Maya said. "The rules are on your invitation cards. The safe word is Topanga. The lube stations are in the living room, the bedroom, and the terrace. The bar is new and I will personally hurt anyone who damages it. The wheel is in the corner and will be spun at midnight. Until then, find a table, find a game, find someone you want to lose to."
The room moved. Cards came out. Drinks were poured. The sound system played something low and rhythmic that Riley had curated, a playlist that started with jazz and would, by design, end with something that had no genre, just bass. Topanga was at the card table, shuffling her marked deck with the serenity of a woman who had come to win. Three people sat down across from her. They would not remain clothed for long. The first hand of strip poker was dealt at 9:22. By 9:45, the woman from 7 was down to her coat, which she was holding closed with one hand while evaluating her cards with the other. Her husband had lost his pants and was sitting in his boxers with the expression of a man who had made peace with the situation.
By 10:00, the first free use zone was active. A couple from the 12th floor who had been circling each other all week finally collided on the living room cushions, and the sound of it, the sharp intake of breath, the rustle of fabric being pulled aside, the first wet contact rippled through the room like a signal. Maya watched from the bar. Riley was beside her, pouring tequila. Aubrey was on the terrace, adjusting a space heater, her tall frame silhouetted against the Manhattan skyline. "You're staring at her," Riley said. "I'm not staring. I'm observing." "You're staring with intent." "Maybe." Riley handed Maya a glass. "She's going to be good at this." "At what?" "At being one of us."
Maya drank the tequila. It burned in a way that felt like confirmation. The room was heating up, clothes were coming off, the party was doing what parties do when you design them with precision and a complete disregard for conventional social norms. And Maya was standing at the bar with Riley's shoulder pressed against hers, watching Aubrey on the terrace, and thinking about a cabin in Connecticut where the three of them would go after this was over and figure out what came next.
The wheel spun at midnight. It landed on Free Use. The room shifted. And Maya, for the first time all night, walked toward the terrace where Aubrey was standing, and Riley followed, and the three of them stood under the awning with the space heaters blowing warm air against their bare skin and the city glittering below them. "So," Maya said. "Connecticut." "Connecticut," Aubrey said. "Connecticut," Riley said. The party raged behind them. Someone was screaming in a good way. Someone was losing at cards. Topanga was winning. The ferret couple from 14 had made it to the bedroom. The woman from 7 had lost her coat.
Maya looked at Aubrey. Aubrey looked at Riley. Riley looked at Maya. And then they went inside, because it was November, and even with four space heaters and an awning, Connecticut was still a week away and the penthouse was right there, and the bedroom door was open this time, because whatever was about to happen was no longer the kind of thing that needed a closed door. The party lasted until 4 AM. The guest room door was open. The terrace was occupied. Topanga won every hand. The bar survived unscathed. The new silk ties were used once, briefly, by someone from the 11th floor who would later describe the experience as "educational."