Rounding The Bases: An Erotic Baseball Romance

Rounding The Bases: Episode 44

Claire needed a shoulder to cry on. The trying time between filing for a divorce and when it was actually official had proven even more stressful than she had anticipated. With Thanksgiving on the horizon, she just wanted it to be over. Unfortunately, the process was going drone on well into December and possibly into the new year.

This Thanksgiving was going to be unlike any she had ever experienced. Her son, Zach, would be spending the week leading up to Thanksgiving with her soon-to-be-ex-husband, Rick, getting his first taste of deer hunting in Wisconsin. The weekend before Thanksgiving was the traditional start to gun deer season in the neighboring state. Rick never missed it, hunting with his dad, brother and uncles. Zach had passed the requisite hunters' safety training in October and would be taking to the woods for the first time. That would leave Claire alone on Thanksgiving for the first time since Zach was a baby.

She had spent plenty of time on her own since she filed for divorce and the subsequent separation, but the thought of being alone for the lead-up to such a family-focused holiday was almost unbearable. She took some solace knowing that the holiday itself would be spent with family, back in her hometown, but was dreading it at the same time, expecting to be peppered with questions about the divorce and her personal life. The details surrounding her separation and impending divorce were fairly straightforward, with only a few custody and property issues still unclear.

The questions about her personal life, moving forward, were decidedly undecided at the moment. Ever since her unexpected reunion with Jack over the summer, her life had been turned completely upside down. The feelings she had been harboring for Jack over the years had been laid bare, brought to the forefront by, of all people, Jack's stunning girlfriend, Bethany.

Over the course of two weekends in late summer, three things had become apparent: Claire, who had been denying her feelings for Jack for decades, was clearly in love with him; Jack, despite his new and passionate relationship with Bethany, was still very much in love with Claire even as he loved Bethany; and Bethany had strong feelings for both Jack and Claire, having only explored her attraction to women for the first time earlier in the year.

Despite what appeared to be a glaring conflict of interest, Bethany had become a stalwart friend to Claire. What could have easily become a fractious and toxic relationship between the two women in Jack's life had become just the opposite. Bethany clearly adored Claire just as Jack had for so many years. Claire, having never felt the draw to another woman despite her intimate relationship with Jack and his girlfriend, Riley, back in college, was conflicted about her feelings for Bethany. The friendship they had forged so quickly and their shared love for Jack united them in ways Claire never imagined. Whether that ultimately led to her becoming Bethany's lover, as well as Jack's, she was still uncertain.

Bethany had introduced Claire to the idea of ethical non-monogamy and the possibility of the three of them becoming a committed, exclusive triad-a throuple, as some called it. Bethany's willingness to share Jack with her had been a stunning revelation for Claire. The caveat that Bethany was also developing feelings for Claire, emotionally and sexually, was a gray area that Claire had been mulling over as she imagined what her life might look like post-divorce.

The three of them had enjoyed varying degrees of intimacy together over the summer, the exceptions being that Claire had not been directly intimate with Jack and that she had not physically reciprocated Bethany's sexual advances. Not being with Jack was nothing new to Claire. In all the years that they had been friends, Jack and Claire had never dated, never kissed, and never been together sexually despite their mutual attraction. While Claire found Bethany attractive and had definitely enjoyed the pleasure Bethany had given her, her uncertainty regarding her own sexuality remained something of a wildcard in this proposed non-traditional relationship among the three of them.