Tuesdays with jay and ot.., p.1
Tuesdays with Jay and Other Stories, page 1
Tuesdays with Jay and Other Stories
A Neighborly Affection Companion
M.Q. Barber
Contents
About Tuesdays with Jay and Other Stories
Books by M.Q. Barber
Preface
Introduction
Tuesdays with Jay
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
19. Interlude
Tuesdays with Jay
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
41. Family Man
42. Three-Way Tie
Acknowledgments
About M.Q. Barber
About Tuesdays with Jay and Other Stories
Finally, readers of the Neighborly Affection series get the other side of the story...
Jay Kress knows his lover is into the girl next door. As a polyamorous bisexual guy, he's cool with that. And he's pretty sure the gal is into Henry, too, if their explosive dinner party is any clue.
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But now he'll have to tackle a submissive's toughest job: getting his lovers to make the leap from occasional sex to the permanent triad relationship he knows they deserve. Their hearts are made for each other--and the sexual perks ain't bad, either.
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With an overcautious dominant on one side and a newcomer to the lifestyle on the other, Jay knows he has to tread lightly, but he can't help pushing for more. Can he bring Henry and Alice together before their fear of losing each other dooms them all?
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Read Tuesdays with Jay and Other Stories side by side with Playing the Game and Crossing the Lines to see the bigger picture of how Henry, Alice, and Jay found their forever love.
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Content warning: The Neighborly Affection series contains polyamory and light to moderate BDSM play. The featured characters form a closed MMF triad/ménage/threesome with elements of male bisexuality and Dominance/submission (D/s). They’ve also been known to swear and use big words: Damn their expansive vocabularies! As in any healthy relationship, sometimes their hearts get bruised—but they face their difficulties together. To all readers in the lifestyle: have fun, express yourself, and stay safe.
Books by M.Q. Barber
Neighborly Affection series
D/s ménage, best read in order
Playing the Game
Crossing the Lines
Healing the Wounds
Becoming His Master
Finding Their Balance
Minding Their Manners (forthcoming)
Tuesdays with Jay and Other Stories: A Neighborly Affection Companion
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Gentleman series
Steamy small-town standalone romances
Her Shirtless Gentleman
An Accidental Gentleman
This is a work of fiction. The characters are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Although it’s fair to say that anyone enjoying a life so full of love is lucky indeed.
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Tuesdays with Jay and Other Stories (A Neighborly Affection Companion)
Published by M.Q. Barber
c/o Whiskey Jack Editing
204 St. Charles Way 179-E
York, PA 17402
Copyright © 2020 by M.Q. Barber
Cover design copyright © 2020 by Angela Waters Art LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, excepting brief quotes used in reviews. Please purchase only authorized editions and do not encourage piracy of copyrighted materials, which hurts authors.
Published 2020.
First digital edition published 2020.
First paperback edition published 2020.
Printed in the United States of America
Digital eISBN-13: 978-1-952297-14-4
Print ISBN-13: 978-1-952297-15-1
For the readers who kept listening even when the silence between stories grew long. Your support, encouragement, and patience are gifts beyond measure.
Preface
I once thought Jay would be the silent partner in the Henry/Alice/Jay triad.
I should have known better.
Alice guides readers through several Neighborly Affection novels, and Henry took control for the prequel, Becoming His Master. But poor Jay, the chatterbox of the three, had gotten only a tiny slice of the short story “Three-Way Tie” to introduce his perspective.
Tuesdays with Jay was born out of Jay’s desire to speak up—incessantly. That boy wouldn’t leave me alone in the shower, in the car, or at the dinner table. Any time, any place, he relentlessly reminded me that he too had a story to tell.
So I gave in and wrote “Rush Job,” the first Tuesdays with Jay story. This might be an occasional series, I thought. A handful of 1,000-word flash fiction pieces.
Like a dam breaking, Jay refused to be contained. He confided his feelings for thirty-nine stories, covering the first thirty-nine weeks of his and Henry’s triad relationship with Alice. All the things that he needed to keep quiet about came spilling out.
The last story, he said, would be called “No Rush,” bringing us full circle to “Rush Job” and setting up the naming convention for the series.
When I imagined Jay’s first story, I couldn’t foresee how his thoughts would grow into a 39,000-word string of stories—much less how they would eventually morph into more than 93,000 words, a full-length novel in stories.
But Jay found a way. He speaks with his heart, and I’d be a fool not to listen.
* * *
M.Q. Barber
January 2020
Introduction
Tuesdays with Jay and Other Stories: A Neighborly Affection Companion is a book of forty-two stories—thirty-nine Tuesdays with Jay stories, one Christmas musing from Henry, a peek into the Neighborly Affection trio’s future in Jay’s “Family Man,” and an outing with the trio in “Three-Way Tie.” The pieces are primarily arranged in chronological order, but each also begins with a note about its placement in the main series.
In Chapter 5 of Neighborly Affection Book 1: Playing the Game, Alice tells us that she and Jay are sharing weekly lunches. She’s not quite forthcoming with the details:
Jay seemed to be making some extra effort to maintain their friendship, and he provided comical entertainment at its finest. Every week, not just every other week, his delivery route brought him out near her office complex. Somehow, he always had time to stop for lunch, texting to say he’d be down the street in five and did she want to join him?
So every Tuesday for six weeks, she’d eaten lunch with Jay. During which he talked about anything and everything except the fact that he was fucking her on alternate Fridays. He flirted, though. At least until he’d get a half-panicked look on his face and change the subject.
Maybe Henry had given him a list of acceptable topics.
With the exception of “What Henry Wants for Christmas” and “Three-Way Tie,” all of the stories in Tuesdays with Jay are narrated by Jay himself as he fills in the male side of the story Alice tells in Playing the Game and Neighborly Affection Book 2: Crossing the Lines. The final numbered story, No. 39: “No Rush,” carries over into the opening of Neighborly Affection Book 3: Healing the Wounds.
It’s your choice whether you want to read Jay’s stories straight through by themselves or put them into context by reading them alongside the main novels in the Neighborly Affection series. The guide notes at the opening of each story are there to give a quick recap of when in the trio’s relationship the story is taking place.
Let’s get to it before Jay drops another story in our laps.
Tuesdays with Jay
Nos. 1-18
Chapter One
Rush Job
In “Rush Job,” set the week after Henry crafts a concert in the park for Alice during Chapter 5 of Playing the Game, Jay arrives early for lunch to take care of a not-so-little problem.
Jay hit Send and waited.
Nerves didn’t even cover it. If he fucked this up, it might not be fixable. And if it wasn’t fixable, Henry would never recover from it. And if Henry never recovered, he sure as hell wouldn’t, either.
Ping.
Sure, somewhere close? Oscar’s? Meet you in 10?
He let out the breath he’d been holding and sent a Y in return. Lunch was on. Operation Get Henry’s Girl was a go. Now he just had to be charming, funny, and encouraging without mentioning the sex.
While he was practically sporting wood on the street corner thinking about Alice’s little hitching breaths and the moans she’d made Friday night. The way Henry had held her open for Jay’s cock to slip inside. Watching her body seal around him. That tight squeeze when she got close. Henry’s fingers zipping across Jay’s cock at lightning speed as he stimulated Alice’s clit.
Shit, was that woman across the street staring? He was so fucked.
Ten minutes. Oscar’s was a diner two blocks west. Pedal hard, don’t sit down, lock it up—yeah, that was doable. He made it with seven minutes to spare and breezed straight back to the restroom, single stall, locking, thank Christ. The last thing he needed was to be calling Henry for bail money and explaining how he’d gotten arrested for public masturbation and dragged out of Oscar’s in handcuffs past Alice.
Even if it turned out handcuffs were a turn-on for her, public humiliation wasn’t the way to introduce them. The only thing he wouldn’t have to explain to Henry was why the idea of lunch with Alice had gotten him so hard so fast.
He reached in and cupped his balls with one hand, shoving his shorts down with the other. This was gonna be quick and dirty. Rub one out, wash up, meet Alice at the table with the hope of making it through an entire meal without getting another boner.
He bit down hard on his tongue to stifle a groan. Henry liked him vocal. Liked to hear how much Jay enjoyed his attention. But loud would fuck him over here if anyone walked past the door.
Quick and quiet. Fast strokes. Staring at the mirror over the sink without seeing, his memory much more enticing. Alice held in Henry’s arms. Music in his ears and red flowers in front of his eyes. All over her dress. Covering her tits, which he still hadn’t seen, could only imagine, only lust for. To have her nipples stiffening in his mouth.
His mouth. The taste of her, that first night. She’d been drenched. Overflowing with sweetness and squirming in Henry’s lap, and he’d sworn to drain every last drop from her until Henry ordered him to stop. Fuck, yeah, he was so goddamn close now he heard her voice in his ears.
Jay.
He gasped her name and spattered the sink and mirror with come. Breathed out, hard. The rush of relief hit him like a truck, and he leaned a hand on the sink, its ceramic chilly against his skin. Felt good. A wake-up call to lax muscles.
The paper towel dispenser was in easy reach of his other hand. How much time had he spent? He still needed to clean up and—
“Jay?” Tapping on the door.
Alice. Fuck. Maybe he had heard her voice. Her real voice. Not in his head. Jesus. Had she heard him?
“I saw your bike out front. The guy behind the counter said a messenger rushed past him a few minutes ago. Are you okay?”
He cleared his throat and called out, “Yeah, I’m good.” Real good, now. He forced a laugh. “Just had a little emergency. You know how it is when you’re in a rush. If you grab a table, I’ll be out in a minute. Gotta wash my hands. Proper hygiene and all.”
Her answering laugh didn’t sound fake. Either she didn’t know what he’d been doing, or she covered as well as Henry. “Wash ’em good, then. I know you well enough to know you’ll be stealing food from my plate, and your hands had better be clean when you do.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The affection in her voice warmed him. She cared about him. He knew she did. Maybe her feelings weren’t love yet, but they would be. They had to be. Henry wanted to keep her forever. So Jay would work hard at his lessons. Learn to please her the way he’d learned to please Henry. And they’d be a family. “Order me the double cheeseburger platter? I’m starving.”
“You’re always starving. You eat like a sixteen-year-old linebacker.”
Yeah, every other Friday was game night, and he was on the starting line. At least until Henry decided otherwise. He swiped at the mirror with a handful of paper towels. Ran water in the sink.
“You want a milkshake, too? I’ll go halfsies with you. They bring the whole metal mixing cup to the table.”
“What, and swap spit with a girl?” He hand-washed his cock and balls, trying to eliminate the sex musk clinging to his skin. “I’d totally get cooties.”
“If you were gonna get cooties from me, I think you’d have gotten them at the dinner table the other night.” She giggled, and fuck all if the sound didn’t pulse through his cock. “Or on the picnic blanket.”
Oh Christ, let her fall in love soon. He couldn’t talk about the fucking. Couldn’t talk about the hopes he and Henry shared for her. No pushing allowed. She’d spook, Henry said, and he’d know. He always knew. Understood what people needed, and what they wanted, and what they needed but didn’t know they wanted.
“Milkshake, yeah. Two straws, though.” He hitched his shorts back up. Checked the mirror. All good. “I gotta protect my cootie-free existence.”
He unlocked the door, pulled it open, and palmed the light switch to off.
Alice leaned against the opposite wall. “Ready for lunch?”
“I am now.”
Chapter Two
Job Security
Set during Chapter 5 of Playing the Game, in the week between Alice’s first and second contract nights, “Job Security” finds Jay considering his obligations to Henry and Alice and coming to the right conclusions, with a bit of guidance.
“Caesar salad.” Jay snapped his laminated menu shut and stuffed it into the wire holder. “And a lobster roll.”
Alice nudged her lemon slice into her water. She used her straw like an augur, parting the ice and shoving the lemon underneath. “You sure you wanna do that?”
Henry’d asked him the same thing a half-dozen times in the last three weeks. “Are you certain, my boy? Tell me your reasons.” Two weeks of begging before the brown accordion contract folder made an appearance.
“What, eat lobster?” Jay flashed her a flirty smile. They made a mismatched pair, him in his sweaty riding gear and her in her fancy blouse and dry-clean pants, but she smiled back all the same.
“Salad, goof.” She knocked his foot under the table, her sensible girl shoes no match for his sturdy sneaks. “Is lettuce enough to keep you pedaling if you have to climb Summit Avenue this afternoon?”
“Brookline hasn’t got a hill I can’t climb.” Dogged persistence and strong calves carried him through the wobbles, same way Henry’s finesse carried him to the finish line at the right moment for Alice.
“Braggart.” She thrust her tongue out, pink and pointed.
His cock quivered. Three days till he’d get to please her again. Get her to make those hot fucking moans she tried so hard to hold back. Give Henry enough time, and he’d teach her to relax and open up.
“Not bragging when it’s true.” He puffed out his chest and pulled a Tarzan with his fists. “The streets are my jungle.”
She shook her head, but slow, her mouth curved in a sloppy smile and her hazel gaze sweeping down his chest.
