Serendipity - Version Alpha
by Lubrican
Chapters : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Epilogue
Chapter Nine
Some
of you no doubt believe our relationship was doomed
to failure, either because of the age difference, or because society
would
hound me for what some would consider molesting my niece, or maybe
because
you're convinced she would be seduced by some young stud.
But the thing that worried me the most with
our relationship was that her parents weren't aware of it.
Oh, my sister knew her daughter liked me a
lot. She might even have suspected
Caitlin had a schoolgirl crush on her Uncle Bob. She didn't know my
penis had
plumbed her little girl's sex, long, deep and continuous.
Nor did she have any idea that Kat wanted
that relationship to continue for a lifetime.
And, to be honest, neither Kat nor I were ready for my sister
and her
husband to find out about any of this.
That's
one reason we didn't Skype constantly. Caitlin
tried to behave like any other girl
her age. She went out on dates, for
example. She didn't torture me with this
knowledge, thank goodness, nor the knowledge that she wasn't an ice
queen while
she explored what other guys were like to be with.
She didn't let any of them fuck her, but she
later confessed there were some pretty heavy make out sessions with a
couple of
the guys she liked a lot. Still, the
vision
she had of her future with me was stronger than her libido, which no
doubt wanted to give in to getting laid herself.
And
pursuing the normal things a girl does at that
age kept her parents in the dark about us.
But
my sister wasn't stupid, and when I suddenly
pulled up stakes and moved to Lubbock, Texas, where her little girl had
also
just moved to go to school, she was going to start putting two and two
together.
Caitlin's
attitude was, "She'll get used to it
sooner or later." Kat was one of
those
kids who, when she graduated high school, left home to make her own way
and, in
the process, left her parents behind.
She didn't forget them, or disregard them, but if there
was a conflict
about which route to travel, she had faith in herself that she'd
choose what
was right for her.
In
any event, the train continued down the
tracks. All we could hope for was that
nothing would derail it.
Ashley
and Emma had their own after-high-school
plans, though they never discussed them with me. Unconsciously
I think we all knew that a lot
of intimate pillow talk, and the sharing of their dreams and plans with
me,
would make what we did a lot more intimate than would have been good
for any of
us. I know that sounds silly.
What could be more intimate than two naked
people having great sex?
Well,
I'll tell you.
Falling in love can be a lot more intimate than just having sex.
And when people share everything between
themselves, they often fall in love.
So
the two musketeers who lived in town with me made
their plans, and went on dates and did all the things their friends
were doing,
which included talking to high school counselors about college, and
applying to
schools and so on and so forth.
And
every once in a while, they came over to my
house and fucked my socks off.
Several
things happened that affected the
relationship I had with Ashley and Emma.
I wasn't aware of any of them at the time, though I should
have intuited
them. One was that Caitlin shared the
fact with them that the train was picking up speed, concerning her own
plans. Another was that, suddenly, there
was only a month of school left before graduation.
A third was that Emma and Ashley got acceptance letters
to colleges.
In other words, their own trains sped up, and they
could see that, up ahead, the tracks diverged, splitting into three
sets. And it seemed inevitable that, sooner or
later, those tracks would
be out of sight of each other.
What happened was that, relatively suddenly, there was a lot of instability in their lives. Mine too, for that matter. And that led to a kind of low level of tension that humans don't like. We like predictability. And all this affected, I think, the move to Texas.
The
logistics of it weren't the hard part. Not
at all.
I dealt with a realtor, who found me a great place to do a long
term
lease for. I chose to lease instead of
buy, of course. I didn't have the
same
courage of convictions that Caitlin did.
Her plan was to live in Texas forever, because that way she
could marry
me. I wasn't sure that would
actually
work out. We adults get jaded by life,
and it saps our self will sometimes.
And
planning the move wasn't difficult. The
new place would be available to me before
Caitlin even got there. The moving
company was easy to work with, though to save money I chose to pack
everything
myself. Then they'd send a team to
load
all the boxes and furniture up and whisk it away to Texas.
No,
the hard part was actually packing the
boxes.
And
it wasn't because I had a hard time deciding
what to take and what not to.
The
hard part was that I had 'help'.
That's
because, after graduation, Ashley and Emma
ran all over the place, doing the things all girls do before they go
off to
college in the fall, which includes spending time with friends, and
shopping,
cramming as much into their last few weeks with the world they know,
before
they have to immerse themselves in a totally new, unknown world that,
at that
time, seems scary and dangerous.
Sorry.
I got
distracted.
After
graduation, Ashley and Emma went wherever they
wanted and their parents stopped keeping quite such close tabs on them.
Which
meant that part of all that cramming they were
doing, included cramming my penis into their vaginas as much as they
could,
before it was taken away from them forever.
Nobody pretended any more that the only reason for doing this
was to
keep me away from other women for Kat.
Their relationship with me was unique, when it came to having
relationships with men. I still
don't
understand why, but for some reason, the fact that they spread their
thighs for
me did not translate into them spreading their thighs for other men.
They would later, of course, but before they
went to college, I was the only man they had sex with.
Like Kat, they went out with guys and made
out with guys, but they did not play fast and loose with guys.
So
when they came to "help" me pack every day, they
inevitably got a little weepy about things and wanted to be consoled.
In
bed, of course.
And
I think things did go a little too far, in that
last week before I got in the car and waved goodbye to two crying girls.
That's
because the last night I was in town, when
the girls spent that last night with me in my motel room, because my house
was now
empty, I learned they hadn't brought any condoms with them this
time.
"We
want you like Kat gets you ... just this once,"
said Ashley, as she calmly took her clothes off. They
hadn't been there more than ten minutes
at that time. Emma was already
working on the buttons of her blouse too.
"Are
you sure that's a good idea?" I asked.
"Neither
of us is ovulating," said Emma, who was no
longer the shy girl next door.
"I
was thinking about Kat," I said.
"We
did everything she asked us to," said
Ashley. "We get this one thing, this
one
time. And she doesn't have to find
out."
"All
grown up and keeping secrets," I sighed. "Welcome
to the adult world, ladies."
"But
you'll do it ... right?" The
hint of doubt in Ashley's voice notified
me that there were still some insecurities in this young woman, and
reminded me
of how young she was. When you're
having
sex with a woman regularly, you tend not to concentrate on her age all
that
much.
"Once,"
I said, giving in to my own base, male urge
to mate.
And,
of course, that was about as stupid as anything
I could have said, because they had brought no condoms, and there was
no chance
that both girls, as emotional as they were that night, would stop at
"once."
I'll
spare you the details, but for a couple of
examples of what that night was like.
I
believe it was her second time, sometime just
after midnight, when Emma said, "It's a good thing Kat claimed you,"
thrusting her pussy up as I drove into her and ground against her clit.
"If she hadn't, I'd have gone after you
myself."
"No
you wouldn't have," I said, watching
with delight as her eyes rolled in their sockets. That
meant she was beginning to cum. "You were
too shy."
"Shut
up!" she gasped. "Oh, Uncle Bob, I'm
cumming. I'm going to just die without
this."
And
then she cried while she came, and went ape shit
just like the first time we did this.
And
that pulled the semen from my balls like a high
pressure water pump tries to empty a swimming pool.
Ashley's
response was less verbal and more physical.
She talked less, but the things she said were just as driven.
The
time I'll use as an example was the last time
she pulled me on top of her. It was
probably four in the morning, and we'd all been asleep for a
while. But she woke up for whatever reason
and woke
me up for a specific reason. After just
one orgasm, she locked her legs around me and whispered in my ear.
"Cum
in me, Bob.
You're going to leave in a few hours, and the only thing
I'm going to
have left of you is what you leave inside me right now.
Cream me, Uncle Bob. Give me some
of that yummy spunk in your
balls."
Which
is why, when I got up and got dressed the next
morning, there were two naked, worn out girls still in the king bed,
their
pussies still weeping my thick, sperm-laced semen.
I
was actually happy to be on the road, and not
because I was heading for my own new life.
I was worn out. I needed some
alone time, to recuperate.
I
had the new house set up when Kat parked the new
(for her) car her step-dad had gotten her as a graduation present.
She'd driven it all the way from
California,
driving more or less nonstop, as young people can often do.
She had a lot of motivation, of course.
There was school, which was new and
exciting. But there was also me.
I was old and exciting, I suppose.
She
came to my house first. She didn't
knock, which is why I was so glad
she got the right address. It might have
been a bit awkward had she barged in some stranger's house,
pulling her T shirt
up and off her body to expose bare breasts.
But
it was the right house and, by the time she
called out for me and I got there, she was in the process of pushing
her shorts
down over smooth hips that had somehow widened as her waist narrowed,
since I
saw her last.
"I
need a shower!" she gasped. "I've
been driving for the last ..." She
checked her watch, which was the only
thing she was wearing. "Seventeen hours," she said.
She was talking fast, like people do when
they're on speed, and I wondered if she'd found somebody to
sell her a little
help for the drive. Then she crushed her
naked body against me. "But I want
you
in bed," she moaned. "But
I must stink,
so I need a shower first!"
I
disengaged and gave her an almost chaste peck on
the lips.
"You
go take a shower and I'll get your suitcase out
of the car," I said, gently. "There's
plenty of time for getting frisky later."
"But
it's been so long!" she whined. "And
I want you right now! It's so good to see you, to finally be here. I almost can't stand it."
"Patience,
patience," I said. "Where is
the suitcase?"
"Which
suitcase?" she asked.
"The
one with your clothes in it," I prompted.
"There
are four of them," she said. "I
don't know which one to have you get. I
wasn't thinking about clothes. I was
thinking about bed!"
"Go
take a shower.
I'll go bring them all in. We
can
take them back later."
"One
of them is for here," she said, suddenly no
longer manic. "It has the clothes in
it
I'm going to leave here."
"I
see," I said.
"I
can't believe I'm finally here," she sighed.
"Oh, Uncle Bob, I'm so
horny." Her hand went to stroke her
clit.
"Shower!"
I barked, just to get her moving.
When
I got back in with the last two suitcases, one
of which had been buried under a clothes hamper full of books and about
six
boxes crammed with all the other indispensables a girl has to take to
college
with her, I stuck my head in the bathroom.
I heard the shower going and humming.
So
I got naked and joined her.
I
suppose you could say the first socially
acceptable time I slid my prick into Caitlin's hot sheath, was
that day in
Texas. At least it was socially
acceptable in Texas.
Those
college years were rough in some ways, and
glorious in others. Her parents did, in
fact, figure things out pretty quickly.
But by the time my sister actually got on a plane to go visit
her
daughter at college, she'd had some long distance conversations
with Kat, and
had figured out, as parents are wont to do, that she could talk herself
blue in
the face and it wouldn't make any difference to her offspring.
There had only been one phone call to me,
where the term "bastard" was tossed around freely, but by
the time she got
there she'd calmed down a little bit.
She wasn't calm, by any stretch of the
imagination, but she
wasn't raging at me either. I think
it
helped that Kat picked her up at the airport and they spent several
hours
together, talking.
Kat
wanted to stay when she dropped her mother off
at my house, but Hannah was having none of that.
"Go
away," she said, to Catlin, steel in her voice.
"Promise
me you won't fight," she said, looking
first at her mother and then at me.
"Go
away!" growled Hannah. "I have
things to discuss with my
brother. You may be able to wind him
around your little finger, but not me.
Go away and let us talk."
"Promise
me!" said Caitlin, stubbornly.
"I
promise you your father will fly down here
himself, and take you back to California if I don't call him
within about
..." She paused to look at her
watch,
and I was reminded of that day Kat had arrived and looked at her watch,
exactly the same way. "About an
hour,"
she went on.
"He
can't do that!" yelled Caitlin. "I'm
an adult!"
"Then
start acting like one and leave, so Bob and I
can talk and maybe I can call your father and tell him everything is
all
right."
"Mommy,"
wailed the grown up college girl in the
room. "Don't ruin this for
us."
Hannah
simply looked at her watch again. "You
can come back in an hour. Or I can call
him right now and tell him I
don't think things are going to work out.
Take your pick."
I
winced. I
knew Hannah could be hard hearted. I'd
grown up with her and seen her cow the school bully one time, in front
of a
crowd. But I'd never seen her use
that
steel with her daughter.
Caitlin
caved, holding up both hands, palms toward
her mother. "I'm going.
I'm going.
Just remember what I told you, okay?"
"I'll
remember," said Hannah. "Now
go!
There's less than an hour left before I have to call your
father."
Caitlin
scooted, closing the door firmly behind
her. Neither of us would know until
later that she sat down on the steps and stayed there the whole time
her mother
and I talked.
And
talk is all we did. By then Hannah already
knew she couldn't
change Caitlin's mind, and she was smart enough to know that if
she changed
mine, her daughter would never forgive her.
Still, that didn't mean she was happy about things.
"Bastard,"
was her opening to me.
I
didn't say anything, because I could think of
nothing to say.
She
looked around.
"Nice place," she said. "How
you
been?" Her voice was casual, and
held no
heat in it.
"I
wish I could explain," I said.
"I
just bet you do," she said. "You
got anything to eat? I'm starving.
You know what they want for a sandwich on an airplane these
days?"
I
was off balance.
Her first comment had been expected.
But now she was acting like she'd just dropped by for a
routine visit.
"A
lot?" I said.
"A
fucking king's ransom," she said. "Where's the
kitchen? Through there?
This really is a nice place, Bob. You've
always had good taste when it came to
houses."
"I'm
an architect," I said.
"Yes,
which is why my daughter wants to become an
architect. Or at least that's what
we
thought. And we figured that you had
something to do with that. But we had no
idea that she came to Texas so she could marry my fucking
brother!"
She
stopped and there were half a dozen visual cues
that she was trying to control her emotions.
"Please,"
she said.
"I really am starving. You
need
to feed me. It's the least you can
do."
"Of
course," I said.
Then, without thinking about it, I added, "It's
really good to see you."
She
gave me a long, slow look. Her face was
unreadable.
"I'm
told my daughter and I could be twins," she
said. "I'm not sure I'm happy
that
you're glad to see me."
It
was a rocky conversation. I'll just
leave it at that. But it wasn't an
angry one. She was already adapting to the
situation, though she was really wound up about having, some day, to introduce me as her brother ... or son-in-law ... or both. But she knew she couldn't alter Caitlin's plans.
The alternative was to cut us off from inclusion in the family,
and she
couldn't do that to her only daughter.
Plus, I think she was a little stunned that Caitlin had actually
been planning
all this for years, and constantly doing things to move toward the
fulfillment
of those plans.
Not
that Kat had planned to marry her Uncle for
years. It was much more subtle than
that. But her desire to come back to my
house for a month each summer had more to do with being around me than
seeing
her two, distant best friends, that she only got to see once a year.
In those early years, when she was thirteen,
fourteen and fifteen, her attraction to me was a mixture of her
conscious
recognition that I was a man she liked and trusted, and the unconscious
desires
nature built into her to explore things sexual.
That she eventually decided to do that exploration with a man
she liked
and trusted wasn't so odd. The
fantasies
she and the other two musketeers shared were added into the mix and
presto, her
dream of finding a man she liked and trusted, and who turned her on,
and who
she might even be able to stay with ... were eventually made
real.
She
just chose an unconventional man to do it all
with.
And
she had explained all this to her mother, face
to face, which was really the best way, since seventy percent of all
communication is non-verbal.
So
Hannah was already moving from the combative
stance she'd left California in, and was slowly moving toward
acceptance of a
sort. She's always been a big
believer
in the Serenity Prayer.
But
I don't think Caitlin, when she came back
through that door at the stroke of five o'clock, expected to see
her mother and
me sitting at the kitchen table, talking quietly. There
were two empty beer bottles apiece on
the table between us, and we were nursing our third.
The plate I'd heated up lasagna on for Hannah
was still on the table too.
"Did
you call him, yet?" asked Caitlin as she
entered the room.
"Call
who?" asked Hannah, turning her head.
"Daddy!"
moaned Caitlin.
"Oh,"
said Hannah.
"That. No.
I was lying about that. He's
not expecting me to call. He says my whole side of the family is insane, which is the reason he divorced me. Which is a crock, because the reason he divorced me is because Tammy is half my age. And your step-father already said he's staying out of this. He's not expecting a call. At least not on
any timetable."
"Mom!"
wailed my lover.
"Well?
You
wouldn't leave. What else was I
supposed
to do?"
The
rest of Hannah's visit was a mixture of calm,
warm catching up on things, and talking about Caitlin, and me, and us.
Hannah and I had always had the capability to
spend years apart, and then act like it had only been a day or two,
catching up
easily and enjoying being able to see each other again.
There
were times when it was awkward, though. She
stayed for a week, with me of course,
which meant that things were a bit odd for Kat when she came over.
Kat was strong willed, but she wasn't
ready
to flaunt the fact that she sometimes slept over in my bedroom.
She was living in the dorm her first
year. Part of that was because she'd had to pretend I wouldn't be there. Plus she thought it would be a valuable social experience.
And her fees were non-refundable, unless she had to leave school through no fault of her own.
So
she was at the house most evenings, spending time
with her mother and I. But she
couldn't
do the things she normally did when she was at my house in the evening.
Except study, of course. She
did a lot of that. But I think it
was just an attempt to
impress her mother.
In
any case, when Hannah left, she gave me a hug,
and whispered "You'd better be good to her, you
bastard," and things got back
to what were passing for normal.
In
her second year of college she started living
with me. Because she didn't want to
use
birth control, we got married. Her mother and step-father flew out for the small, quiet ceremony. Her biological father wasn't there, but she didn't consider that much of a loss because she'd always believed he was a jerk, and that her mother was better off without him. Of course Ashley and Emma showed up and, ignoring me except for quick hugs and very proper kisses on the cheek, whisked her away to prepare her for
the
ceremony. It was beautiful.
They were beautiful.
Afterwards,
Ashley said, "You hear all the
time about guys getting to kiss the bride. So do we get to kiss the
groom?"
Emma
said, "Of course," and promptly took me in an
embrace and gave me a kiss that had my sister's jaw dropping.
When I got the same thing from Ashley, I
think she might have put two and two together again.
I saw her look at her daughter, who was
beaming as her friends molested me. She
saw me looking at her and mouthed, "Have you no shame?" at
me, but that was all
that happened.
Caitlin
didn't get pregnant until she was a junior,
which was pretty astonishing, considering that we used no birth control
whatsoever. Well, at least I
didn't. There were times when she
was
insatiable, and that might have had something to do with her cycle.
I don't know.
We were like most married couples.
There were times when we were amorous, and times when other
things took
our concentration.
The
baby was born in June, which gave her time to be
a mommy full time, and breast feed and all that before she had to go
back and
complete her degree. I learned a lot of
things that summer. I learned that
babies are a ton of work. I learned that
sleep is a precious commodity when there's a baby in the house.
But I also learned there is nothing more
satisfying than having your son fall asleep on your chest, and relax so
completely in the safe embrace of his father.
Oh yes ... I also learned that breast milk is sweet.
Making
love was different that summer too. The
first time we made love after Stephen was
born, it was pretty intense. We had
avoided the usual sexual play we indulged in, to avoid getting all
fired up and
not being able to do much about it. And
that included satisfying me, because when she put her mouth on me, it
got her
excited too.
So
I had gone back to masturbation for six weeks,
and when we finally got naked together again, it was really the first
time I'd
had a chance to see what birthing a baby had done to her.
I'd seen her feeding Stephen, of course, but
those fairly brief glimpses of her nipples hadn't been enough to
prepare me for
what they had become. Her breasts were
larger, of course, which made her look out of proportion.
Her abdomen had bounced back. She
was active and went to the university gym
on a regular basis. So the extra swell
in her hips seemed more pronounced as they rose up and down as she
approached
me, naked.
"You're
in big trouble," she purred.
"Why?"
I asked, drinking her in.
"Because
it's going to take a lot to make me
satisfied," she said.
"Good
thing I have a lot," I quipped.
She
wanted to be on top, because she knew she could
cum two or three times before I got excited enough to lose control that
way. When she settled down onto my spike
with a happy sigh, I stared at those swollen breasts.
Her nipples had morphed from stiff, pencil
eraser sized pebbles, to fat, swollen protrusions from her breast flesh
that
were maroon in color. They were
huge. I reached to fondle her extra big
breasts and, feeling like a school boy who gets his first feel of
breast flesh,
said, "You have big boobies!"
I
pinched the nipples gently and she stopped,
impaled on my prick.
"Uh
oh," she said.
"What?"
I asked.
I moved my fingers away from her swollen nubs.
"Did I hurt you?"
"No,"
she said.
"But you're about to get wet."
"Why?"
"Because my milk is letting down, and I'm not planning on moving any time soon."
I
watched, fascinated as big, fat drops of white
dotted the surface of both nipples and then, suddenly thin streams of
that
white shot off in all directions. It was
like two little fire suppression sprinklers, except there wasn't
enough to put
out much of a fire.
That's
when I learned that breast milk is
sweet. She simply leaned over to let all
that milk go in my mouth, while she rubbed her clitty on the base of my
cock
and had a couple of orgasms.
And
then, just as I was about to blow ... Stephen
woke up and started crying.
Later
that night, while she was feeding Stephen, she
had me stand in front of them and she sucked me to a screaming orgasm.
If
you think having a baby won't change your sex
life, then you're wrong. That last
example of how things changed wasn't the end of it.
What
happened, basically, is that we had to
compartmentalize our satisfaction. Gone
were the days when we could spend an hour or two making leisurely love,
with
her cumming a number of times and then me fertilizing her.
Now, when we got together, it was either for
her to cum, or for me to. Rarely did we
both get to have orgasms at the same time.
If she was horny, which was impossible for me to miss,
we'd hurriedly
couple until she had an orgasm. By then
Stephen would need something, or she'd have to go to class or
whatever. Then there were the times when
she'd see I
was frazzled, and say something like, "Daddy needs to relax.
Mommy knows how to make that happen."
Then there would be another quick coupling,
while she urged me to make a little sister for Stephen, and I'd
blow my brains
through my dick. Or she'd give me
one of
her signature blow jobs and suck me dry.
But
there was a lot less sex than there had been in
the past, during our pre-baby days.
Which
might explain why Stephen was two years old,
and she'd completed her degree and we were working together on
projects, before
her belly swelled again and Miranda came along with the promise of
spicing up
our lives even more.
But
that wasn't the half of it.
When
Kat was about six months pregnant with Miranda,
more tumult came into our lives. The
doorbell rang. Kat was resting on the
couch, so I told her I'd get it. Stephen
tried to beat me to it, but he wasn't tall enough to reach the
door handle.
We
opened it together.
To
find Ashley and Emma standing there, grinning
like they'd just won the Power Ball.
We
were all sitting around in the living room. Stephen
was already in love with his two new
"aunts". He couldn't say
Ashley, but did
manage "Ash", which was fine with her.
And "Em" sounded normal on his lips too.
We
had been talking about their trip to get to
Lubbock, and that sort of thing, when my wife finally got around to
what she
knew was the purpose of their visit.
I did not know why they were there.
At least not beyond just seeing old friends.
But my wife did. Because they were still
involved in
machinations.
"So
... tell him!" she yipped.
"Tell
me what?" I asked. Emma spoke first.
"I
got my degree in interior design," she said.
"Yeah,"
I said. I'd been aware of that. At the wedding I'd learned she had gone to school in Ohio, and
that Ashley had decided on a Missouri college.
Kat had stayed in contact with them, but I got very little news
about
that.
"And
I got mine in plant and soil sciences," said
Ashley.
"Interesting,"
I said.
My
wife spoke next.
"We were thinking that their fields of study, and ours,
could be melded
together to form a company where there would be one stop shopping, more
or
less. We can design the structure.
Ashley can do the landscape plan, and Em can
do the interior design."
I
blinked. I
had a sneaking feeling this had been in the works for a while.
Still, it wasn't a horrible idea.
Except
for the fact that, when I saw the girls, and
how they had grown into the mature beauty that makes men look not
twice, but
three or four times, my prick had remembered my last months with them.
And
that part wasn't such a good idea at all.
"There's
something else," said Ashley.
"What?"
I asked. For some reason I looked at Kat,
instead of
Ashley. My wife was biting her lower
lip. She looked nervous.
"My
grandma passed on while I was in
college," said Ashley.
"I'm
sorry," I said.
"She
had cancer and was in a lot of pain at the
end," said Ashley. "If it had
been up to her, she'd have ended it sooner."
"It's
still sad she's gone," I said.
"Yeah.
But she left me some money."
She frowned. "A lot of
money, actually."
"Okay."
"Enough
that if you design a house for us, I
can fund it," she said.
"For
us?"
"All
of us.
You and Kat ... Em ... and me."
I
stood, paralyzed.
My eyes moved to Kat. She looked
composed, but maybe that's because Stephen was getting a hug from
her at the moment. Maybe he felt the
tension in the room.
"What
does that mean?" I finally croaked.
"I
went out with dozens of guys in
college," said Ashley. "Never
for long, though, because every time I was with one I compared him to
you. Kat's not the only one who fell
in love with
you, as it turned out."
"Me
too," piped Emma.
"But
you weren't supposed to fall in love with me,"
I said. "It was a rule.
Remember?"
I
turned to Kat, who nodded, and then blew me away
by saying, "You can't choose who you fall in love with.
Sometimes it just happens."
"But
we're married!" I moaned.
"I
don't want to marry you," said
Ashley. "Not officially,
anyway. But I do want you in my
life. And I need a place to live."
"Me
too," said Emma.
"Plus
I'm pregnant," said Ashley, softly.
"What?"
asked Caitlin and Emma at the same
time. Finally, somebody else in the room
was astonished.
"I
let Kevin do it one too many times,"
she sighed. "He came to my graduation and we went out to party
afterwards. I might have gotten a little
drunk."
Emma
spoke.
"Well I'm all those other things, but I'm not pregnant."
"You
will be if you live with us," I
said. I don't know where it came
from,
and I didn't consciously plan to say it, but there it was,
hanging out there in
the room. I looked at Kat, who stared
back at me, unblinking.
She
did not look irate.
"That
wouldn't be the end of the world,"
said Emma. I was glad I was sitting
down, because my knees wouldn't have held me up.
"This
is crazy," I said. "Nobody
lives this way."
"The
Mormons do," said Emma, brightly.
"Do
I look Mormon?" I asked.
Emma
was always very literal. "No.
Actually, I don't know what a Mormon looks like.
But that doesn't matter.
I miss Kat.
And I miss you too. Is that such
a horrible thing? It's okay with
Caitlin, after all."
"It
is?" My voice sounded like I was about twelve,
and it was in the middle of changing from soprano to bass.
I looked at Caitlin again. The
tension had Stephen glued to her with his
face buried in her bosom.
She
took half a minute to answer, but when she did,
her voice was level, almost normal.
"I
understand how they feel," she said.
I
looked at Ashley.
She shrugged.
"I'm
already knocked up. What's the
harm?"
"This
is crazy," I said. "You're all crazy."
"Why?"
asked Ashley. "Back in the day we all
dreamed about
you being our man. It was okay
then. And it's not like Kat never
shared
you with us before this. We're not
asking for a lot. We just want to be
around you two, and work together, and maybe play together sometimes. I
don't
think that sounds crazy at all."
"Why
don't you two go freshen up," suggested
Caitlin. "Give him some time to
think
about things. Are you hungry?
I can whip up something in the kitchen. Or
we can go out."
"I've
had enough of restaurant food to last me a
while," said Ashley. "We can
whip
something up together, like in the old days."
"I
was thinking of something more substantial than
chocolate chip cookies," laughed Caitlin.
"Cookies!"
yipped Stephen. "Can I have
some?"
My
wife leaned down to kiss the top of his
head. "We'll make some
especially for
you."
Then
I was left alone with my thoughts.
Now
that I've had time to reflect on things, I
actually think it was the thing about "We'll make some
cookies just for you"
that convinced me Caitlin really did approve of this crazy scheme that
Emma ...
or Ashley ... or all of them, had come up with.
I wasn't to find out for two more years that
this had been the plan all along, hatched by three teenaged musketeers
who had
decided that, no matter what, it was one for all and all for one.
Then they had proceeded to endure the things
that had to be endured so that their insane plan could come to fruition.
Anyway,
something about that conversation seeped
into my bones, and by the time the meal was ready, and we all sat down
at the
table to share that meal, I think I had adjusted somewhat.
I wasn't thinking about the hurdles to making
such a complex relationship work in the long term.
I was just thinking about the parts that
seemed like they'd work.
The
girls didn't chatter like I expected them
to. They'd been doing that in the
kitchen, but not now.
"I
think the idea of working together is a really
good one," I said, breaking the silence.
"What
about the rest of it?" asked Ashley.
I
was thinking about how this had not been a
surprise to my wife. And yet she had
never polled me to see how I might feel about such an arrangement.
Maybe that made me want to mess with them a
little.
"I
can design a house that incorporates separate
residences, with private entrances.
There could be workshops and office areas built, in a sort of common area, assuming we
could
find the right location, zoned in the way needed."
"Separate
residences," said Emma, softly.
"Surely
there may come a time when you wish to
entertain a friend," I paused for
effect
and then went on, "or friends ... privately."
"Actually,
he's right," said Ashley. "We
should have our own personal space."
"We
should?"
Emma frowned.
"Do
you want us ... and all the kids ... right there
with you during your own personal time with him?"
Emma
blinked.
"Oh!" she said. "No.
You're right, of course."
"We're
not going to be married to him, like Kat is,"
said Ashley. "We're just good
friends,
not extra wives, like those Mormons have."
"Exactly,"
said Emma. "Okay, I get it now.
Great.
But that's going to be awfully big, isn't it?
"Yes,"
said Ashley.
"But I have the money."
I
looked at Caitlin.
"Do
we need to talk about this in private?" I asked.
She
reached to put her hand on mine.
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