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All Right Ch. 01

By: Eastmountain



This is the first of six chapters. Developments take time. Thanks to GrandTeton for editorial assistance.

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All right, all right, it's a strange marriage or relationship or whatever you think it is. You think I don't know that? You want to talk strange, though, you want to know how it got that way.

I married my wife, Stacey, five years ago. It had been one of those forever things. We'd been going out since we were fourteen, all through high school and then through university together. Neither of us had ever been with anyone else. It had been expected that we'd get married after graduation, and we did.

Were we in love? I don't know. Her happiness was important to me. The sex was good, maybe not earth-shattering, but enjoyable for both of us, and frequent. We had two girls to prove it. We enjoyed each other's company. Maybe we were in love.

Then it all fell apart. Sort of. I think it would have been easier if it had gone all the way blooey, but I wouldn't be as happy today if it had.

Stacey discovered that, after all, she really loved women more than men, or at least one woman better than the man she had. You can imagine how I felt. We'd been sexually active with each other for eight years, three years before we got married (neither of us could put up with waiting for marriage, though like good little Presbyterians we probably should have) and all five years since. We pushed the limits when Stacey was pregnant and it wasn't just me.

Barbara came into our lives after Stacey's class had a reunion party that had migrated from the downtown hotel where it had started to somebody's lakefront home - it was far too grand to be called a cottage. The lake had once been part of the city's water supply before the metropolitan area outgrew it. Somehow, Stacey and Barbara had ended up together in one of the guest bedrooms and nature had run its course. Both of them tried to explain how it had happened, but I guess it was just one of those things. Neither of them was too clear on how they had got together or started to experiment and then found themselves flat out in love with each other. They were trying so hard to explain to me what had happened that I really don't think they know exactly how it happened. It was earth shattering for both of them. For me, too, though in a very different way.

Stacey was really quite broken up about it. She didn't want to lose me. A lesbian relationship wouldn't do her any good in a custody battle, either, especially if we came up against one of the crusty older generation family court judges, and she was devoted to the girls. Most of the judiciary accepted same-sex relationships as at least as good a bond for children as more conventional relationships. It didn't really matter. I loved my girls and I wouldn't deprive them of their mother whatever hell she was putting me through.

My problem was trying to understand what was going on. I suppose it was more difficult simply because Stacey didn't know what was happening inside her or to her, either. Barbara seemed to have a better idea, but better wasn't good. I simply had no understanding at all, though I really tried hard to sort out what was happening to my family - our family.

"Robert, I think I don't know what's going on in my head at all. I don't want to lose you. I don't want to lose Barbara. I don't want to lose the girls. I can't decide who comes first. Do I really need to sacrifice anything?"

The way it seemed to be working out was that Stacey had determined that she really did love me, just not in that way, anymore. For that, she had Barbara, whom she loved pretty much as much as she loved me, only they could get physical. She loved the girls, too. What made it quite difficult to sort out was that Barbara clearly loved Stacey, and the girls, and loved me, too, in a non-physical way. I found Barbara to be quite loveable myself, and that surprised the hell out of me considering what she'd done to my marriage.

We actually tried a threesome once, which might have resolved the upset even if it resulted in a strange kind of ménage à trois, but it didn't work. None of us really thought it would, but it was worth a shot since all three of us wanted to stay together. Barbara couldn't hide her distaste when I touched her in a sexual way, even accidentally. Stacey couldn't hide that she preferred Barbara's touch to my own, even when I did the same things to her as Barbara did. Neither of them really wanted to touch me though Stacey tried. Even what we'd done with each other to our mutual joy six months ago was only endured.

I couldn't understand it, and neither could Stacey and Barbara, since we readily shared hugs, comforted each other when we needed it, kissed in greeting, shared a limited kind of love among ourselves. When the love shifted to sexuality, what used to be the fullest expression of our love for each other, everything shut down except between the two of them. 

As it worked out when we tried the threesome, I was the spectator at a lesbian love fest. It probably was pretty hot, and both women were clearly satiated when it was done. However, I didn't get off on being a voyeur and intensely satisfying as watching the same sex on a porn site might have been, all I could see was an attractive woman taking my wife away from me. Actually, it was quite clear that she'd already done that. I couldn't even hate her. She'd had no intention of doing that at all. It had just happened.

A night of a little fun between one woman somewhat inclined to be gay, Barbara, who nevertheless had enjoyed a couple of heterosexual relationships, and one woman determinedly heterosexual, Stacey, who might even have been a touch homophobic, had laid the foundations of what might as well have been one of the great loves of our times. No one had tried for it, no one had expected it, no one really wanted it, and no one could do anything about it. Apart from the sexual side of it, I wasn't even shut out of the love we all shared. I'd never heard of a relationship developing in that way, and neither had the others.

Barbara had been terribly apologetic. She had been the catalyst, I suppose you could call it, for a change that might have ruined my marriage. On the other hand, she was too nice a woman to blame for something that just struck out of the blue. I suppose I could have hated her. It wouldn't have done any good. The damage was done. It would just have hurt Stacey, and through her our daughters. I'm not that great a person, but I did leave the hatred out of what was going on in my head. I knew neither of the others hated, either.

I couldn't even say that my marriage was ruined. Being loved by both Stacey and Barbara was very comforting. Not having sex was horribly frustrating. It would have been easier to deal with if they'd just excluded me. Then it would have been clear that I had to go. Not far enough so I couldn't see the girls, but away. But they didn't. Except for sex, I was included in everything, even their love.

How do you deal with a change like that? Stacey and I had been still very active sexually with each other. Now, for me, all of a sudden there was nothing. I'd only ever been with Stacey in my life. To be truthful, I never really wanted to be with anyone else, though like any male I'd had fantasies. I suppose it was time to act out my fantasies. I didn't want to. Really, I just wanted Stacey back, but I knew that wasn't going to happen. Stacey's and Barbara's love for each other was a far cry from a temporary infatuation, though I tried to fool myself into believing that for a while. It was strong enough to let me into it. I suppose that should have told me that it wasn't going to go away. Since I was a part of it, I wasn't going to go away, either. The girls needed a father, too.

I moved into the spare room; Stacey and Barbara shared the master bedroom and the girls continued to share their room.

Stacey swore she still loved me. If you discount the sex side of it, she probably did. She was certainly as caring as she'd ever been, as comfortable, as loving. So was Barbara after she'd worked through the initial discomfort. It didn't feel as if I was being cuckolded under my own roof. It was more like Stacey had gone through a sea change that took the physical out of our love and our marriage, but had only strengthened our other ties. I guess if I stayed around I was going to learn all about platonic love. Whatever physical love Stacey had in her went to Barbara.

Barbara was actually a loving soul. She was almost as easy to be around as Stacey was. She clearly cared for me as much as Stacey did, and I found myself caring for her, too. More of that goddamned platonic love.

Maybe I can work up a really good hate on Plato. It wouldn't do as much totally unfair damage to Stacey or Barbara, or my daughters, as any other hate I could work up, but it would be just as useless, I think. Who really gives a good goddamn what I think about some dead Greek?

A big part of my problem in resolving a situation where I supposed that otherwise I'd just leave was that I still loved Stacey and I couldn't reject the love she still held out to me. Then I came to love Barbara, too. But no sex. What a cockeyed mess.

"So how do we sort out what's going on for us all?" Barbara asked one night after the girls were in bed.

"It's not fair that Robert has to go without sex," Stacey added. "We can't give it to him. Robert, do you think you could go with a guy, so it would look like there's two standard couples in the household?"

"Not unless I have an epiphany that would rival St. Paul's, love. It's not the way I'm wired."

"Well," Barbara put in, "that leaves us all trying to find you a woman who could put up with this mess."

"We'll need to change our living arrangements, then, or daddy trying out a potential housemate will confuse the daylights out of the girls."

"I think we're all agreed that we want Robert to stay? And that if he can resolve his problem he wants to stay?"

Not surprisingly, since we'd put up with this screwy mess for a couple of months already, we were all agreed. The next step, apparently, was to go house hunting. The three of us each made enough that based on our combined earnings we could easily carry a hefty mortgage. We agreed that we wouldn't put our own house up for sale until we were certain that we'd managed to resolve the problem with some degree of permanency. It was possible that we wouldn't be able to resolve our issues, and I'd leave. The house would give me somewhere to go. I suppose in theory Barbara might leave, in which case we'd let her use the house, but that didn't seem too likely given how close she and Stacey were to each other. Stacey would never leave the girls and no one would ever ask her to. The girls needed a mother even more than they needed a father, though I'd never go far enough away to make that an issue. They'd always have a father, too.

Saturday morning we bundled the girls into the car. Their car seats took up a lot of space in back, but there was just enough room between them for Barbara, who was the smallest of us, to squeeze in and get the seatbelt fastened. Stacey and I were in front. I think we were both happy Barbara was there to keep a close eye on each of the girls. At four and two the girls were just starting to be exploratory. Frances could undo some of the restraints if she worked at it, though Cynthia was unlikely to create problems until she was let loose.

Both sets of parents - all three, if you counted Barbara's - lived too far away to be convenient child care, though close enough we could visit easily. We hadn't gone to Barbara's parents yet. I think we were kind of hoping we could have things sorted out better before we did. They were aware that Barbara had moved in with a woman who had a couple of young children. They were, if not comfortable with Barbara's inclination, at least accepting of it. They didn't know about me, the leftover husband who was hanging around in some vague position in the relationship. Stacey had let her parents know that she was seeing someone, a woman, and that I was still very much in the picture as well. I'm sure they had lurid visions when we went to see them, but Barbara is a very pleasant and visibly conformist person, so by the time we left they were just confused. Welcome to the club.

I had no idea what to tell my parents, so Barbara just came along when we took the kids to visit them. I didn't try to explain her presence. I don't know what they thought of her, beyond the fact that she was a nice young woman who got along well with the girls. Maybe that's all they really wanted to know.

Stacey had gone to the realtors the day before to make a connection and set up some appointments to view available properties. She'd passed on what we'd decided we needed: four bedrooms in the main house, a two-bedroom apartment (at least) by way of a separate rental unit or an suite, easy access between the two that could be shut off, a decent yard, preferably fenced, no pool (too dangerous for the girls) and parking for at least three vehicles. We hadn't specified a price range. The realtors had come up with a half dozen options that met the criteria and another couple that they said were close. We had arranged to meet them at the first appointment at ten. The girls had us up at six, as usual, so we hadn't been pressed for time.

The first house looked to be just about exactly what we'd asked for. There was a large main house with five bedrooms. There were extensive grounds. The apartment over the three-car garage had two large bedrooms. You had to go outside to get into the main house, but it was an easy walk. There was a pool, but it was well-fenced, so there really wouldn't be a problem apart from the maintenance. There was a separate play area. I wasn't that stuck on how far the apartment was from the main house. I'd kind of hoped for something meshed a little more tightly with the main living area so the girls could sort of flow between the two living areas as their inclinations took them, but there were a lot of advantages, even luxuries, in both living areas.

The realtors, two women in their early thirties who had the look of sisters, explained all the special features of the property. There were a great many of them. They did admit the apartment was not quite as close in as we'd specified. They also admitted it was a tad pricey. At eight million dollars, just a tad, I thought. Barbara smiled happily at the realtors and suggested that we could move on and see the rest of what they had set up before committing to any one of them. I guess she figured if I didn't get out of there soon I'd just keel over and die of apoplexy. Bless them, neither Stacey nor Barbara wanted that.

Number two was a near duplicate of the first, with an equally appalling price tag. It seemed that failure to meet our standards only applied to meeting most of them, as neither of the first two properties we were shown were considered by the realtors to be deficient. I suppose we still had to look forward to the two that were so far off what we'd asked for that they actually admitted it.

The third property we were shown was a three bedroom bungalow with a granny flat in the basement, one bedroom. Not nearly enough room for the girls. Stacey told the realtors no as soon as she saw it. The next one was a big old house that had five bedrooms but no separation, and no easy way to create one. It was better than what we had, but not nearly what we had decided we needed. That was a no, too.

I wonder whether realtors operate on the theory of bait and switch, showing us the glamorous properties first, knowing they are so far out of any reasonable person's price range that we'll accept anything that has a more reasonable price tag. Maybe they work on the theory of exhaustion. By the time we get through looking at all the properties they've set us up for we'll be so zombified that we'll sign anything they put in front of us. Maybe I'm just so tired of looking at properties for sale that I'm inventing conspiracy theories to keep my mind going.

House number five, out of the six "compliant ones", was four bedrooms with a modular unit dropped in for use as a granny flat. Not quite perfect, but getting there. I remembered reading that our city's zoning required granny flats to be removed when granny left, for a home or for the Elysian Fields. The City didn't much care which. I asked the realtors and they promised to check. That meant it wouldn't work, which was too bad. I probably couldn't rely on a denial, but when they didn't even bother to deny my objection I knew it was a genuine and unsolvable problem. Zoning and parking were the twin pillars of municipal government policy where we lived. The council didn't even pay attention to barking dogs.

The last of the compliant houses didn't have a pretense of a separate apartment. It was a three-bedroom split level that was smaller than the house we had. The realtors did apologize for having misread the listing, which would have been pretty hard to do. I think they wanted to wear us down with six before scaring us with the non-compliant ones. Maybe we'd actually be able to scare up eight million. Worth a shot given the size of the commission involved.

The seventh, first of the two that didn't meet our standards, was actually closer to what we wanted than any before. It was a six-unit apartment building. We could have turned the two-bedroom apartment on the second floor into a four-bedroom unit with a little renovation, just by merging the two apartments on that floor. I could take the larger unit on the ground floor, and that would leave three more units to rent out to help cover the mortgage. The yard was all paved, for parking, and apart from the little front lawn there really wasn't any yard for the girls. It had promise, though, and I left it as an option if there wasn't anything else. We might be able to pick up a little extra land.

The final viewing for the day was one that seemed to embarrass the realtors, which was a surprise since I didn't think it was possible to embarrass them after what they'd been showing us all day as meeting our specifications, when not one had. The realtors worked well together, sometimes playing us off against each other (harder when there were three of us, rather than the couple they usually dealt with), sometimes playing good cop bad cop, sometimes playing crooked realtor/straight realtor. They were all techniques designed to get us to make up our minds and buy something. After all, we'd already told them we wanted to buy something.

What they had for us was a side-by-side duplex, called semi-detached in some areas. It was not what we'd specified at all, but it was at least as suitable for our purposes. Unlike many, both sides were being sold as a unit. It had a fair-sized lot with a lot of room for the girls once I got a fence up. That was within my capabilities. There was a single front door so it actually looked like a large house. Once inside, there were side by side doors to the two units. That would work perfectly for the degree of separation we'd decided was required. Full connection when we were all home en famille, but fully separated when I was, uh, interviewing. A door in the party wall would make us even more connected.

Each side had three bedrooms up and a fourth bedroom or study on the main floor, which extended out behind for an extra room, providing a very nice outdoor sitting area on the second floor. The two units each had an attic and a dry if unfinished basement. The price was quite low, the neighbourhood was acceptable, travel time to our various jobs was reasonable. It looked to be time to sign papers. We'd better have a quick look.

Oh boy.

The story that came out was that the property had been tied up in an estate for four years. The two units had been rented but the executors hadn't paid much attention to their tenants, and the tenants had done damage beyond belief. The floor coverings would all have to be replaced, wall-to-wall carpet and linoleum alike. There was significant damage to the plasterboard on the walls. The ceilings were in generally good shape but there were a couple of holes, and the mounting brackets for the ceiling mirror in the master bedroom on what would have been my side had just been ripped out. Several of the electrical fixtures appeared to have been pulled out of the walls. Lots and lots of cosmetic defects but no apparent structural damage.


All Right Ch. 01



None of the appliances worked properly, but they seemed to be minor faults. I knew something about that sort of thing, but I had a buddy who knew that stuff backwards. I thought that with his help they might be salvageable, at least most of them. I wouldn't be averse to new appliances, anyway. What was there was basic landlord blah, anyway, near enough to antiques. We didn't need the cash flow problem having to replace everything at once would create so it would be nice if we could fix most of it. It would be pretty simple to share laundry facilities if the second washer was as dead as it looked.

Both sides did have separate electrical and water meters. We weren't worried about that, but it could be a useful feature on resale.

I grinned a little. Stacey looked flummoxed, but Barbara grinned back at me. She called a friend and he dropped over in five minutes while we were asking why the bathrooms hadn't been condemned. They were in terrible shape. The tenants hadn't minded where the water went or how long it stayed there. It makes you wonder, sometimes, how people can live in such conditions when it just takes a little care and a few extra minutes to avoid them.

Outside the yard was overgrown, but there were remnants of flower beds and roses. The back yard, which had once been divided by a fence along the line of the party wall, would give the girls lots of places to play. There were even a couple of trees. Parking for four vehicles, two for each side, was already in place. That would accommodate our three cars.

Barbara and her friend dropped out of our little group unbeknownst to the realtors while we were all agreeing that bad tenants could ruin a property. Good tenants could improve one beyond belief, too, though that wasn't the situation we faced. By the time we'd finished the tour and completed our list of defects, Barbara's friend had gone. She caught my eye and flashed me the okay sign, which probably meant that her friend thought the bones were good. We all knew the cosmetics were awful, but that was curable. If the house had a broken back, with the main bearing beam gone, rotten sills or a cracked foundation, the problems weren't curable in the same way, though I'd seen it done.

It looked like a good dose of tender loving care, paint and drywall might get us what we were looking for at an almost bargain price. It would involve a lot of sweat equity. Stacey and I had done that before, with excellent results. Barbara seemed willing to try.

I attached myself to the realtor with the papers and instructed her to draw up an offer to the estate for two thirds of the asking price. I knew from the listing cut that the property had been vacant, both units, for at least fifteen months. It was just sucking money out of the estate, and they hadn't made any effort to clean it up, let alone fix anything. If it had been pros managing the place I would have offered even less, but these people were such amateurs they'd probably reject any offer so far out of their asking zone, even if nobody had made any offer at all in the last six months. They wouldn't be aware that the only value to the property was what someone would pay for it, not some arbitrary value put on it by the real estate listing agent or the property tax assessor.

I made a note to have the property tax assessor inspect the place before we did any work, even cleaning up. That would probably have our taxes in the low to too low range for maybe ten years. The inspection cycle was almost non-existent.

While the agent filled in the paperwork, I checked with Barbara.

"My friend is a structural engineer specializing in residential real estate. He confirmed what we thought, that while it's ugly as sin, the bones are good. It'll take more than paint and paper, but not much more," she told me. "Can you do plasterboard repairs?"

"I didn't see too much that the three of us couldn't handle. If they accept the offer, we can bring it into shape within a month, at most two."

"I hadn't realized that a two-unit property like this one works better for us than a house cum apartment. It should be ideal once it's cleaned up."

We took the girls home. Later that evening the agent called in a tizzy.

"They've offered to drop their asking price by ten per cent! Isn't that marvellous! I'll bring you over an amendment tonight."

"Tell them I've dropped my offer to sixty per cent of list."

"You can't go lower!"

"Check with your boss. I just did. I'm not bound by my earlier offer once they counter. That's a rejection. Either offer them sixty per cent or just reject their counteroffer and we'll see what else is out there. That way we can forget about fixing that place up and go find something similar in top end shape, now we have some additional options. I'm not interested in spending the next three months renovating unless there's a financial benefit."

Stacey was horrified. She actually liked redoing a place, and was damned good at it. Barbara thought I was maybe pushing the envelope.

The realtor called back in twenty minutes to confirm that we had a deal, on my terms, subject to financing, insurability and the rest of it. We could sign the papers tomorrow. I dug out a bottle of wine and we toasted each other and our new home.

*****

To be continued.



All Right Ch. 02



Chapter two of six. Thanks to GrandTeton for editorial assistance.

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About three weeks after we'd looked at all those properties we signed off and became the owners of 14 Orchard Drive. I supposed there'd been an orchard somewhere in that vicinity once upon a time. The realtors told me that there was still an apple tree on one of the properties that the bulldozer had missed. It wasn't on ours.

Getting the mortgage had been a real problem. We were turned down twice, once by the place where we used to bank, not because we couldn't carry the mortgage - that was no problem after I'd driven the price down so far - and not because we couldn't drop in a big enough down payment. Barbara had significant savings we hadn't known about that she was prepared to put at our disposal and Stacey and I each had a reasonable nest egg set aside. No, finally the bank's appraiser had decided the place needed to be condemned and was worthless as security. Took her long enough.

Eventually we got fed up and simply maxed out our available lines of credit and a new one we were able to get over and above the mortgage on the old house. Adding the closing costs meant we'd be cash-strapped for a while, but we could get part of the cleanup done and some paint splashed on and the sheetrock repaired over the next few weeks and would be back on track within a couple of months. It was a good thing we had somewhere to live in the meantime.

As it turned out, Stacey was as good at renovations as had been promised. Of course, I knew that already. I put in a lot of grunt work, but I have to admit the other two worked just as hard. My hidden talent - one always comes out when you do renovations, it seems - actually turned out to be two. The one I would never have expected is that while Stacey had a great eye for what a room should look like at the end, and generally what colours would work, my eye was a little better in picking the exact shades. We worked really well together. That talent hadn't shown up when we fixed up our own place for some reason. The other, less desirable (to me, at least) talent was that I did an excellent job crack filling. I really wish I didn't. Even with a respirator I got plaster dust in my mouth and everywhere. The sander was connected to the vacuum which had the heavy plaster dust filter and there was still dust everywhere. I've got to admit that when I was sanding plaster I chased everybody out of the house. The girls enjoyed being taken to the park. It was a lot more interesting than watching Mommy and Daddy and Barbara painting.

Barbara put in as much time as the rest of us, of course, having committed to our family unit, and having been accepted into it by all of us. She was the purchasing agent. Barbara could make a nickel squeal though she was generous with her time and her assets. Everything we needed came a lot cheaper than I had expected, or even than Stacey the optimist had thought. It took a little extra time, but time's free when you're having fun, and Barbara was having fun.

One of Barbara's innovations was to make me buy a pickup truck. I couldn't believe that it was necessary or even efficient until I heard the quoted delivery charge for a couple of sheets of gypsum board. Then I got looking.

I paid more for the truck than I'd hoped, but then used trucks don't fall off in value the way cars do. I got more truck than I'd been looking for, too. Frankly, a three-quarter ton is a lot more workhorse than a half-ton, and not just half again, either. With that kind of ability I supposed I might have to go into renovations full time to justify the expense of the truck. I wrote half the cost off in my mind as worth paying to simply have a truck. Every guy ought to have a truck. It's part of being a guy. For some reason banks will lend you the full price of a vehicle no matter how stressed out your credit is. Maybe it's because they figure a guy will do anything to save his truck from repossession. I wasn't originally a truck kind of guy, but I knew I'd do whatever it took to save mine.

Barbara said that when she took the truck to a building supply place it was usually worth an extra three to five per cent off on the order, an advantage even she hadn't seen. A guy with a truck had to be a lot more serious customer than one in a family sedan, I suppose. Stacey put her foot down and told me that if I wanted to continue to live in the family I could not grow a walrus mustache to go with the truck. She didn't mind the cowboy hat as long as I left it in the truck. There are some things a guy's got to do.

It seemed strange to be browbeaten by my wife who saved her sexual favours for her girlfriend, but it was nice that we were so comfortable with each other now that she felt she could nag me a little and that I'd take it, too. I was conflicted, but I didn't try to grow the mustache.

About six weeks after we'd taken possession of the house we had made a lot of progress. The three of us were painting, finishing up, really, the master bedroom on "my" side of the house. The girls were sleeping in the finished guest room down the hall. We were maybe three weeks from occupancy.

"So," Stacey said. "What kind of a woman are we going to find for Robert?"

"Are you really able to do that, love?" Barbara asked.

"No, I don't want some other woman to have Robert. I have to share him with another woman, one I approve of, only because I can't give him everything I promised in my wedding vows and I'm not prepared to release him, or myself, from the other vows we made."

"I suppose we could hire out the position," Barbara drawled. She seemed very unhappy at the idea.

"No!" - Stacey - "No!" - me.

"Didn't really think that was an option, but we had to reject it out loud, guys."

"Look, Stacey," I asked, "are you serious about it having to be someone you approve of?"

"Of course!" Stacey and Barbara chorussed.

"We want to keep this as a family unit if we can," Barbara explained. "To do that we have to be happy with the person you bring into our midst. It can't just be someone you think of as the sex machine. She'll have regular contact with our daughters. Sex without love isn't going to last, anyway, and it wouldn't be fair to the other woman, either. It's not going to be easy for her, having to love three people and the girls, not just the one guy, loveable as he is." She laughed.

Stacey laughed, too. "I don't think Robert has figured out yet that this will work best if we pick out his next wife for him."

I must have blanched or something. I was certainly startled.

"No," Barbara said. "I don't think he has. So, Robert, what physical type are you looking for?"

"Someone who's a duplicate of Stacey, or maybe I'll take someone who looks just like you."

"It really doesn't matter, does it, Robert, if she's the right one?"

"No, no it doesn't. I didn't think you were my type, Stace, but you are. Now you define my type. It'll have to be someone with the capacity for a lot of love, and if we can find that I suppose what she looks like or does is secondary. Do you think statuesque blonde sex goddesses are capable of a lot of love? Perhaps we should start with them?"

"Don't be an idiot, Robert," Barbara chastised. "We have absolutely no idea how to go about this. I thought I was free of the whole dating game, and then I ran into Stacey and the rest is history. I was certainly not looking for someone."

"If we don't know how to do this, are you sure we shouldn't start with blonde sex goddesses?"

"Be serious," Stacey said. "Maybe we don't know how to do this, but we do know some of the ways not to do this. Chasing after blonde sex goddesses is for sure not the way to do this."

"Do I get any choice in the matter?"

"Certainly. All three of us have to have an absolute veto."

That was it for that night, but all of us were thinking about how to find the soulmate we all wanted, though no one had as much need as I did. Actually, Stacey and Barbara both wanted to find someone who could take them off the hook for having stolen away my marital rights. That's a lot more cynical that their thoughts warranted. In the first place, they hadn't stolen them. That would take volition. They never wanted to do me harm. They wanted to find someone for me, not to get them off a guilt trip. At least, that wasn't all of it.

The next morning none of us was prepared to go into the subject further, and certainly not while the girls were around. Me finding someone else, or someone additional, actually, was going to be hard enough on them. Stacey and Barbara had a little conflab while I was finishing the breakfast dishes.

"We've decided to introduce you to some of our friends, see who you might like and who you can't stand."

"Are you matchmaking?"

"Sure."

I supposed that if they were friends of the two of them, at least they were starting with someone who they, at least, would get along with, so I didn't need to wonder about that part of the equation. I hadn't done this before. I felt extremely uneasy and wondered if either Stacey or Barbara would let the intended victim know that all I was really looking for was a source of sex. I already knew that I had what I wanted from the rest of what a marriage brings: friendship, support, love, even children.

I wasn't going cruising bars, but I wasn't too sure of where else I might come across a congenial woman to share a part of my life. As I said, I'd dealt with that back in high school and had never looked back. Why should you, when you've already found your soulmate? In a sense I still had her. Stacey wasn't any more experienced than I was, really. She'd been hooked up with me from age fourteen, not physically, perhaps, except for some kissing. We'd just fit. We'd started university before we got into the explorations some of the other kids tried years earlier. I was a little lost in this new world.

Barbara had been single before she met Stacey again at the reunion. She'd had a couple of hetero relationships and a couple with women. None had lasted more than six months. She hadn't found her soulmate, not until recently, so she had at least some advice on the dating scene. She'd found most of the men and women she'd hooked up with at parties, though she wasn't all that keen on party-going as a way to find congenial mates since it seemed to her to be an artificial atmosphere where people generally weren't the same as they were at home. She'd done better in everyday contexts such as shopping, concerts and coffee shops. One guy she'd lived with for six months she'd just run into on the street when she wasn't looking.

Stacey and I laughed at that. We hooted when she told us about the woman she'd shared a life with for four months who she'd first met on a blind double date some friends had arranged. She'd been the other guy's date.

"Did the guys get together, too?"

"No, I'm sorry I can't produce that degree of symmetry for you." We all laughed again.

I thought that I should at least try a party, now that we had the new house almost ready for occupancy. It was like a house anywhere. It would never be finished, or at least it would always have things that needed doing. We'd got both dishwashers working, though we'd had to replace one. Only one clothes washer worked, but both dryers had been repaired and the refrigerators and kitchen ranges were fully functional. The cosmetic work was nearly complete and we were finally mostly free of plaster dust. I only had two of the bedrooms on my side to finish painting. We were going to move the furniture that weekend.

***

I was over in the laundromat where we washed drop cloths and other heavily encrusted items, on the theory that the big commercial washers could do a better job of cleaning them than our domestic appliances. I'd bring them home to dry. There was a small woman there, maybe five two, small breasted, brown hair, sort of cute but rundown, looking plainer than she had to, I thought, likely about my age. Not my type, certainly. I still had tall blonde goddesses running through my mind, and even if there weren't any of them out there she had nowhere near the presence Stacey had, or Barbara. She had been preparing to wash baby clothes, though I hadn't noticed a wedding ring. Happens a lot these days, of course. No reason to think she was unattached.

"Oh shit," she exclaimed.

"Sorry?" I replied, even though the remark hadn't been addressed to me.

"Excuse me. I shouldn't have said that. I've forgotten my laundry soap. The stuff they have in here will make a mess of the baby's things."

"I've got kids and there's a corner store at the end of the block. If you'll keep an eye on my wash I'll run get you some while you sort."

"I can't ask you to do that!"

"I offered. Besides, you've got the baby to look after as well as your things. Back in a flash."

Being a knight errant, even if it was only getting laundry soap for delicates, was definitely not my style. I'm not morose, of course, but I didn't usually offer to help strangers, either. On the other hand, the poor soul had the baby and the laundry. The least I could do was spend a couple of the minutes I had to wait for my wash anyway helping her out. The store had what I needed, perhaps surprisingly, as many smaller stores didn't carry it. I figured a big box was better than a small one. Babies the size of the one she'd been tending were going to make lots of laundry for the weeks ahead.

"I can't pay you for that," she said the minute I came back through the door. She'd managed to sort her laundry into the correct piles while I'd been gone, and to reserve the washer she needed. "I only have the change I need to do my things."

"No problem. Another time."

"No, I'm sorry, I mean ever."

"Still no problem. I'm Robert, by the way."

"Amber. I can't accept charity." She looked to be about ready to cry.

"It's not for you, sweetheart, it's for the baby, my damsel in distress. She is a she, I hope. Otherwise I'll have to turn in my knight errant card."

She laughed, even though it was a poor attempt at humour.

"Yes, meet Deirdre. Deirdre, meet Sir Robert, your latest admirer."

I stuffed my finished wash in the laundry bag and waved goodbye. I'd do the drying at home.

"Bye Amber, Lady Deirdre."

"Goodbye."

***

"All right," Stacey said, "it's time to get the word out that you're in the market, Robert. I have no idea what kind of response there will be to someone with a couple of kids. I think it's simpler for a guy, since nobody expects him to be the responsible one. You'll surprise some of them, though I don't think it will put off anyone we want to share our home with. I doubt you need to mention the situation up front."

"Just be you," Barbara added. " We'll see what we can do to generate an invitation or two, and if you don't put on some weird persona you should find women you can talk to and see how much farther it gets. A goodly number of the people we know are married or in relationships, but by no means all."

"Are you planning on giving me scouting reports?"

"No. If we know someone who is going to be there we'll tell you if she's a no go from our viewpoint. Otherwise you have to make up your own mind."

"Oh," Barbara added, "try and get past the just sex approach. We aren't going to have sex with her, I know, but we do hope she's someone we could love as we love you."

"Can you really go out looking for someone to love?" I asked.

"No other way to start," Stacey replied.

"Once you start you have to get past the idea that you can only love Stacey," Barbara tossed in. "You can love more than one woman at a time. You love Stacey, you love me, too, I know, and you love your - our - girls. Sexually, you're the monogamous type. Most women will appreciate that. Many should be able to share your other forms of love with us and with the girls. It's not like the well runs dry."

The first party was one Barbara connected me to. It was somehow put on by or for her office, and was for the single staff and a few chosen outsiders. They had a different gathering for couples. Stacey and Barbara had gone to that one the month before. They'd turned a few heads, but it had gone well on the whole.

Barbara had said she couldn't be sure of everyone who was going to the party I was going to, but there were a couple of women she rather liked and no one I had to strike off my list. She refused to tell me who the nice ladies were.

"You'll have to find out, won't you?"

It was a party for singles, so there wasn't any issue about going by myself and showing up alone. I quickly discovered that out of the twenty or so people there, there were no real couples, though there were a couple of pairings already and one of them was fighting right off the bat. The rest of us sort of circulated quietly, looking more than talking. The hostess, someone from the PR side of the company, I gathered, decided we had to do mixers. She didn't quite get out the labels - "Hi, I'm Sam" "Hi, I'm Celia" "Hi, I'm Horny". A friend of mine and I had actually done that once at Stacey's office party. Since there were two of us neither of us quite got blamed enough for consequences. I found it got more women talking to me than "Hi, I'm Robert."

"Hi, Horny. I'm Wet."

I think my friend scored and I had a certain amount of difficulty defending my own chastity. Don't let anyone tell you it's only the guys who are out to add to the notches on the headboard. Tonight I was more open to advances, but I wasn't quite ready to declare open season on Robert.

Our hostess was, fortunately, a little more reasonable. All she really wanted was to get us to know each other and loosen up a bit.

"All right, everybody. I'm Connie, and I'm your hostess for tonight. This party is for people who are essentially unattached, so everybody you meet should be fair game. You shouldn't feel you have to go home alone at the end, but don't feel you can't, either.

"All the guys line up to my left. All the women to my right. Number 1, introduce yourself. First woman, introduce yourself. Now, I want to see the two number ones shake hands." It went on like that until we were all done. I was about number six, and I was paired off with a blue-eyed blonde sex goddess with rather exceptional mammary development.

"How are you, Sarah?" was all I could think of to say when it was our turn to shake hands. She had a rather delicate soft little hand.

"Fine, and you, Robert?" I liked her voice, the way it could form words and things. Just at that moment I can't say I was running my brain at all. All my thinking was being done elsewhere. It was obviously a busy thinking session, since it developed an expansion quite quickly. Needed more room for what was on my little mind, I guess.

"I'm good. What do you like to do?" Please, please, tell me you love to take innocent nerds to bed.

"I like to take innocent nerds to bed. Did you know there was a spare room upstairs that only I know about?"

"No, really?"

"No, really there isn't. Had you going, didn't I?"

"Yeah, you're very clever." Maybe I should have worn the "Hi, I'm Horny" nametag. Couldn't be doing worse.

Sarah and I chatted a bit. I actually got her to laugh at something, and she was pretty entertaining as well, more than just being a tall, blue-eyed blonde sex goddess with very exceptional breasts. Well, all right, I wasn't paying a lot of attention to what she said. I think I laughed in the right places.

Our hostess apparently didn't like the results of her first shot at a mixer, or maybe it had worked a little but not enough, so she started setting up something else to get us into a different set of couples. I ended up with a sweet little brunette about five four, Julie something or other.

"So what's Julie short for, or was that what you were christened?"




All Right Ch. 02



"Juliet, actually," she grimaced. "Dad was a Shakespeare nut. My sisters are Rosalind - she goes by Rose - and Viola."

"I hope your brother's not Romeo!"

"No, no brothers. If there had been a boy I suspect he would have been Hamlet."

"So, your Dad liked Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It and Twelfth Night?"

"Hey, not everyone can name the plays. Not bad. No, Dad liked anything Shakespeare, pretty much."

"Your Mom have any say?"

"No, well it was her idea, too. Especially since she taught English literature and was as bad as he was. She'd have gone for John for a boy, which would have made life easier for him, at least until people found out that John was for Sir John Falstaff." 

We chatted on while our hostess made sure everyone was connected with someone else. I caught Sarah's eye. She nodded at Julie and gave me an okay sign, quite subtly, approving of my current companion. I was sorry I couldn't do the same for her. I didn't know the guy but he seemed to be oozing insincerity out of his pores. Must have been in sales. I returned my attention to Julie.

"I didn't have nearly as interesting a family," I told her. "Dad's a mechanic, can fix anything. He got our appliances working with almost no trouble. Mom was mostly stay-at-home, but got into retail after we left. Had to do something when Dad was at the garage."

Julie turned out to be quite charming. Our hostess wasn't going to mess with success, but she broke up a few of the most inappropriate pairings. I noticed Sarah managed to get a soft spoken but good-looking guy. It occurred to me as I escorted Julie about the room that our hostess was really quite clever. Out of ten potential pairings, seven, maybe eight, were working quite well. Everyone seemed to be having a good time.

About eleven the party started to break up. For people who essentially didn't know one another in any social sense, though the people who worked for Barbara's company all had at least a passing acquaintance with each other, our hostess had done very well. She seemed to want to allow some time for further feelings to develop later that night, if they were going to, and gently pushed us out the doors. Julie and I were among the first to leave.

"I walked over," she told me. "My apartment's not that far, just a few blocks."

"Let me escort you home."

Julie had told me that she'd been married for a couple of years, but was now divorced, no children. Her ex had been a bit of a stalker, so she was a little afraid of the night. It had still been light when she'd walked over. I wasn't about to let any woman walk home alone in the dark, afraid or not. It was just far enough to justify taking the car. Barbara had told me that taking the truck to the kind of party I'd been invited to was not the done thing. Maybe later I'd be prepared to flout the customs, but not at the start. I kind of thought I was getting to be a truck kind of guy, and she had actually told me to just be myself. I caved in when she said there was no point in scaring off the woman I was with simply because of a vehicle.

Stacey just smiled at it all, a touch confused by everything that went into the dating game. She'd never had to play it, and I'm sure thought some of the rules were insane.

Julie was a sweet little handful, quite attractive in a slightly understated way. I stopped by her apartment and got out to open her door, a little courtesy my dad had hammered into me when I was young. I bowed her to the walk.

"That's sweet, Rob," she murmured, and caught my hand as I closed the car door.

"Come in for a moment?"

"Sure." It wasn't like I had a curfew.

We went hand in hand up to the security door. Julie pulled out a ring of keys and opened the outer door. There was an inner door, as well, that opened with a different key. We walked up to her apartment on the second floor. Julie said there was no point waiting for the elevator when it was such a short climb.

We opened the door from the stairwell into a well-lit hall. Julie's apartment was about three doors away. I stayed close by her shoulder when she unlocked the door, simply because one night her ex-husband had actually found a way into her apartment and had been waiting for her. He scared her badly, but didn't do anything to her. It was after that that she arranged for the peace bond. That was the most that could be done if you didn't have mob contacts.

There wasn't anyone in the apartment, though I noticed Julie had a quick look in all the rooms. It was a standard one-bedroom: sitting room, dining nook, kitchen, bedroom and bath. There must have been a thousand like it. There was a small dining table. Half the table was loaded with books and papers; an eating area was clear on the other side. Obviously there weren't many shared meals. The sitting room had an armchair and a three-place couch, matching but not expensive. There was a coffee table and a set of end tables for the couch. I hated coffee tables, though Stacey had insisted on one.

"Robert, were you raised by wolves that you refuse to have a coffee table?"

"No, I break my shins on them, every time."

"Well, learn to look where you're going."

So I learned to get along with coffee tables. It was sort of an armed truce. Every now and again one would get me.

Julie came up to me, quite close, and offered coffee.

"I haven't anything alcoholic, I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about that. I'm driving and I don't think the police need my help making quota."

I sat on one end of the couch while Julie went into the kitchen. After a couple of minutes she came back and I could hear the coffee machine starting its burbling. She sat down in the middle of the couch, next to me. She leaned a little my way. I leaned over towards the arm of the couch to give her room.

Julie started to talk.

"So, Robert, what don't you find attractive about me?"

"Excuse me? You are very attractive, Julie."

"I've invited you into my home. I gave you an opportunity to kiss me. I tried to get close to you and you scurried away. What don't you like about me?"

"There's nothing to dislike. You're quite an attractive woman and we seem to get along. If you think I'm cold to you, maybe it's because I'm not up on the signals. I'm sorry."

"What do you mean you're not up on the signals? You're an attractive man. You're warm and breathing, which makes you attractive to most women our age. You must have been hit on dozens of times. So what makes you afraid of me?"

"Actually, I don't think I've ever been hit on. Look, let me lay it out for you. I've just been ditched by my wife of five years for a woman. A sweet, loving woman, which makes life really hard. I can't get mad at my wife or the other woman. Hard to work off your resentment without a little hate. Tonight is the first time I've ever been out in a mixed social scene without my wife. I've never tried to hook up with a woman since high school. It was always just us. If a woman is telling me she's interested without coming right out and saying so, well, I probably won't catch on."

"Really? Seems the sort of thing guys know by instinct."

"Not me, sorry. Though I'm interested if you are. You look good. You smell good, though maybe I shouldn't say so, and so far you've been very comfortable to be around."

"Comfortable doesn't sound very exciting, Rob."

"I don't know. Comfortable is good for long term. A mad passion is just that, runs as long as the hormones hold up, dies pretty fast, I think. You're comfortable to be with. I can't see anyone ever getting tired of you. I think that's something to be proud of, Julie. Not many women can be as attractive as you are and still be comfortable to be with. There don't seem to be too many sharp edges."

"Would have been an uncomfortable birth for my mother if there were, I suppose."

"No, lots of women pick them up, the sharp edges, I mean. Men are likely even worse. There's too much ego tied up in how you look and who you go home with, or even if you go home with anyone at all."

"Let me give you a little roadmap, Rob, a hint or two. I'm very definitely interested."

"Funny, so am I."

To be continued.



All Right Ch. 03



Chapter three of six. Thanks to GrandTeton for editorial assistance.

##########

I leaned back in Julie's direction, my face turned toward hers, and she was moving at me, too. I put my arms around her, taking in her slender softness, and lowered my face to hers, touching her lips gently. They were warm and soft. They weren't Stacey's lips. I had a sense of cheating on my wife. I had never been unfaithful. Stacey had sent me out looking, I reminded myself. Kissing Julie was not being unfaithful. I was following orders. It took a few minutes to convince myself.

Kissing Julie was quite an experience. I probably moved too fast into opening my lips and sending my tongue exploring. Julie opened readily, welcoming me in. Our tongues wrapped about each other, gently investigating. She was a little more forceful than I was. Her mouth was warm and sweet and inviting. My pants tightened. She ran her hands over my back and down to my bum, little flickers more than stroking. We separated a moment to catch our breaths, and her hands dropped to find me ready.

"I'm not really good at this," she confessed. "I've only been with a couple of guys since asshole left. He always said I was no good in bed."

"Can't possibly be true." It was the sort of thing you'd tell a woman you were hoping to lure into bed, even when the achievement was pretty much a dead certainty. I meant it, though. Julie kissed like she meant it. It wasn't some kind of fake passion, 'oh you're so sexy screw me blind' kiss. There was passion in there, and interest and a kind of loving. Not love at first sight 'I'll never let you go stuff'. More like 'I love people and you're a pretty good person so let's make love'. I liked it.

Julie's hands started wandering again and my hands were beginning to slip under Julie's clothes to see what was there.

"Let's go into the bedroom and get rid of these clothes."

"An absolutely brilliant suggestion, my sweet."

I followed Julie into her bedroom. She had a double bed with a feather duvet piled on its end and a long nine-drawer dresser. The taller man's dresser was dusty. It was part of the same set.

Julie tugged me after her, her hand holding me as if I might try to get away. There was no need of that, though I liked the continuing physical contact with her. She moved not fast but steadily. When she came to the bed she stopped dead. I could almost hear her mind working.

She wasn't sure she wanted to go ahead with this. I wasn't sure, either. I pulled her to me and kissed her again, holding her in my arms, my hands splayed across her back. It was a calming kind of kiss, I guess, no tongue, just lips on lips and a little movement. She responded in kind.

"Another time, dear, might be better for us both."

"I can't lead you on like that and then bail at the last minute, Rob, it's not fair."

"To me or to you? Let's get to know each other better. Call you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, that would be good. I'm sorry, it was just going too fast."

"I can see that."

I kissed her again, this time with tongue and some passion and my hands roaming. Her hands roamed too. It was hard to break away.

"A little something to look forward to," I joked.

"Yeah, now I won't sleep."

We exchanged numbers. I started to let myself out and she moved in for another kiss, just as wonderful as the one before, just as passionate, just as sweet.

"Now you've got something to look forward to, as well," she said. A little impish grin sneaked onto her face.

"That I do." I left, hoping that my call tomorrow would yield results. I wasn't in love, but she was a nice person and we seemed to click. Something might grow out of it.

When I got home Stacey and Barbara were both up, ensconced in "my" living room, waiting to grill me. All of us used the whole house quite freely and wandered into any part of it. I knew to stay away from their bedroom and not to open a locked door. They did the same. It was all of the house rules we needed, so far.

The later I stayed out the more likely they'd stay up to question me, I was sure. Barbara knew it was a serious search for me, but she could have vicarious fun. Stacey was fascinated and wanted to hear every detail. I was a little put off by their nosiness, but soon realized that it was acceptable, a mix of caring for me and my happiness and interest in a woman who potentially would share their lives as well as mine. Really, the woman I eventually chose, if she accepted me, would have as great an impact on their lives, and our daughters', as on mine.

"So," Barbara was saying, "inside the door your first night out. Good work, Robert, nicely done."

"I like it that you gave her room and didn't push," Stacey said. "She's probably never had a one night stand."

"She's slept with a couple guys since her divorce," I reported, "or so she said. She was too nervous for that to have been much of a lie. I like her, though."

"Yeah," Barb added, "she works in purchasing, and is pretty good at it. I don't know her well, but I like what I do know of her."

"What about Sarah, the blonde bombshell?" I asked.

"Oh, was she there? She's a pretty good soul, actually. She gets a little defensive because of her looks. Every male around seems to be hitting on her. I think you can keep her on your A list. I imagine she'll get the story from Julie. Your restraint will please her, too."

"Well done," Stacey congratulated me, "you have a couple of prospects already. I'm not really surprised. You're a pretty good guy. I married you, didn't I? I thought I'd be horribly jealous, but actually I'm happy for you."

"The first time I kissed her, it did feel a little like I was cheating on you Stace, and, strangely enough, on Barbara, too. My mind had to work through that I had your permission and encouragement, and if I had that I couldn't be unfaithful. Really, I need to find someone compatible who walks my side of the street or our loving little family here could come apart."

"Good work, Robert. Good night." I kissed them each good night and went up to my bedroom. I expected to lie awake all night, regretting that I'd let Julie go when I was sure she wanted me as much as I wanted her. Maybe it's the purpose of a good conscience to let you sleep. I know I did until the girls awakened me the next morning looking to play. There were times I wished they were TV-bound morons watching cartoons all morning, but they weren't and none of us would ever let them be.

Later that afternoon I invited Julie to join me and the girls for a walk in the park the next day. It was another kind of playtime, feeding the pigeons and the ducks. Frances, of course, wanted to feed them "all by herself", and Cynthia tended to drop all her food for one bird so I had to dole out the bread we would bring.

Julie agreed to meet us at the park the next afternoon.

"I mean, it's not much of a romantic date, sweetheart, but I have the girls tomorrow afternoon and I don't know if you like children, but I thought maybe if you did you'd like to come with us."

"That would be fun. I like children. The only thing about my marriage that I regret was not having children, though it would have been hard on a child when we broke up."

"Yeah, children are always hostages when that happens. We tried to avoid that, and it seems to have worked."

"See you at the park gates at 2:00?"

"See you then."

We were maybe a couple of minutes early, but Julie was already there. She had a bag of something, probably bread for the ducks and pigeons. The pigeons, at least, were already interested. Julie looked good in white shorts that displayed a very fine leg, lightly tanned, and a firm ass, enough size to be interesting but not flamboyant. I already knew it felt good. Really good. Not the sort of thoughts to be thinking around two little girls. She had on a sleeveless red blouse and a sunhat. Her arms were firm, slim and rounded. I already knew they were strong, loving and comfortable.

I introduced the girls.

"You're pretty," Frances stated.

"Thank you, Frances. You're a pretty gorgeous girl yourself." I don't know; four-year-olds are not really gorgeous, I think, but I thought Frances was, and Julie went up even higher in my opinion since she obviously shared some of my thoughts and had excellent taste. I thought Frances was bloody gorgeous, one of the lights of my life. Julie was good with Cynthia, too, letting her take her hand in the speechless way she often had.

"You are quite wonderful, too, Cynthia," Julie told her. Julie was quite wonderful - another home run. This woman was really getting to me.

We had a great time together. Julie was good with the girls, attentive and respectful of their individuality, easy to please, interested in their discoveries, firm when she needed to be, without rancour. She'd make a wonderful mother.

We fed the pigeons, laughing at their antics as they struggled to be in the forefront of the crowd. Julie liked to help out the ones in the back, the ones too weak or diffident to push forward. She managed to get one to sit on her finger, much to the awe and astonishment of Frances. Cynthia likely thought Julie could walk on water by then and wasn't at all surprised.

Ducks weren't into sitting on fingers, and might bite, so we were a lot more careful around them. I pointed out the mother duck with her little trail of ducklings. Julie was as fascinated as the girls.

"They come out of eggs, you know," Frances asserted gravely. That was the beginning of a brief biology lesson, Julie carefully inserting facts as Frances explained the facts of life, or at least duck life, to her.

We'd eaten at the concession stand, decent hamburgers that managed to get juice, mustard and ketchup all over the girls. They were sloppy eaters. I had no idea how the same things got all over Julie until I saw certain grubby paws reaching out for her. Obviously my mine canaries had given her an approval rating that was way up in the stratosphere and climbing. Julie had no issues with the mess. It was all part of our outing. She was the one who took the girls into the washroom to clean up as much as was feasible without a bath and a change of clothes. I'd deal with that when we got home.

Eventually, of course, it had to end.

"Thank you, Julie, for a lovely day. I promised to have the girls home by six, and I guess it's time to leave."

"Thank you, Julie," Frances nodded gravely, "having you here was fun. Can you come again?"

"If that's what your dad wants, Frances."

"Can we? Can we, Daddy?"

"We'll see."

Julie went her way and I got the girls home and into the bath. Stacey tossed me their clothes and asked me to take them down to the laundry while she finished cleaning the girls. By that time, her job was easier, but it hadn't started out that way.

"Have you eaten?" Barbara asked as I passed through the kitchen on the way to the laundry room in the basement.

"Yeah, thanks, the girls are fed and so are their clothes."

When I got down into the laundry room I discovered I didn't have it to myself. A smallish woman, not too striking, but not really plain, was there with her baby. She had several loads of clean that seemed to need the dryer. It was Amber, my acquaintance from the laundromat.

"Amber," I greeted her. "Lady Deirdre."

"Sir Robert. How funny that it's your home I'm invading." She gave a curtsey, or I think that's what it's called when a woman bobs a bit and holds out her arms. Probably easier in a dress than shorts. "Lady Stacey said I could come over and use the dryer since the one at the laundromat isn't working today."

"Glad to hear it. I'll watch Deirdre if you want to shoot a load in the dryer on the other side. Barbara can point if you get lost."

"Thank you." She set off with another load to dry. I sorted the girls' clothes, not too sure anything qualified as white any more, and dumped the clothes that were once white into the washer with detergent and bleach. We always used a very mild detergent for the girls' clothes, and there were a few diapers to add. Cynthia was doing well, but the occasional accident had to be expected. Kind of like life that way, I think. Sometimes I wish we had diapers that would minimize the effects of life's accidents.

"Just leave my wash," I told Amber when she came back, "I'll get it later. You can let yourself out the back if it's easier." I showed her where the door was. We were built into the side of a hill so the basements had simple ground-level access to the outdoors.

"Even if we're none of us home, feel free to use the solar-powered clothes dryer." I pointed at the clotheslines out back and she laughed.

"Maybe I will on a sunny day. The dryers at the laundromat eat money."

"See you later."

"Bye."

So, Stacey had taken on my little waif, too? I wasn't surprised. Stacey had a pretty big heart, and Amber was struggling. She hadn't laid down and screamed out life was unfair so she wasn't going to join it. She'd just noted in passing that life wasn't fair, that was the way it was, and you had to make do with what you had to work with, unfair or not. You could help people like that without thinking you were just adding sludge to the gene pool.

I told Stacey that I'd invited Amber to use the clothelines whenever.

"Thank you, Robert. I completely forgot. She's trying so hard, it just seems that whatever we can do for her is so appreciated and so, I don't know... useful, maybe. It's as if you gave her five dollars and she bought good healthy food instead of a box of chocolates."

"Yeah, worth helping, that kind."

I helped get the girls dressed for bed. It was my turn to read, so we settled in together on Cynthia's bed while both girls hugged into me and the book. Stacey curled up at my feet, and Barbara snuggled in next to Cynthia. We were doing Green Eggs and Ham again.

"I do not like them, Sam I am," Frances shouted out when it was time.

It was a good evening, as usual. Cynthia dropped off. Barbara pulled the covers up while I took Frances over to her bed.

"Nice day, Daddy. Nice lady," Frances explained.

"You're right. Good night, little love."

Frances got her kisses from us all.

We dug out a bottle of pop and shared a glass. None of us drank at home. I reported that the day had gone well. Julie liked the kids and was good with them. They liked her quite a bit. Julie had gone up a few more points on my scale. We'd enjoyed each other's company.

"Don't commit for Wednesday night, will you? I've invited Clara, from work, to dinner. I set it up before you connected to Julie, a second string to our bow. You might like her. She's a touch thin but is quite intelligent and knowledgeable," Barbara told me.

"Please treat her seriously, Robert. We can't know that Julie will be interested."

"Okay."

Tuesday was a day for Julie. We were going to the early show, so I had to make my excuses to the girls.

"Are you going to see the nice lady again, Daddy?" Frances asked.

"Yes, sweetheart. We spend some time together, get to know each other, decide if we want to spend even more time together. That's how it's done."

"Don't you know already? She's very nice."

"I know enough to know I want to get to know her better. I'll tell you how it goes tomorrow."

"Oh, I hope it goes well."

I picked Julie up at her apartment. We were going to the theatre out at the mall. I didn't really care what the movie was, so I'd given her carte blanche. It seemed to me we were going to some romantic comedy. Anything she wanted would be fine with me.

The movie started off all right, lots of snide little jokes, but it bogged down quite quickly. The director hadn't managed to maintain the mood and was abusing a quite competent cast with his stupid little camera tricks, breaking the atmosphere almost as soon as it was created, switching to a high level aerial view of the wedding where the hero and heroine were supposed to meet and fall in love, all flashing eyes and heaving bosoms seen from a couple of thousand feet up. I kind of thought it would work better with one of those markers they use to describe football plays, with the colour commentator telling us who was who. Julie didn't seem any more interested than I was.

I'd slung my arm comfortably around her shoulders when we sat down, and left it there. She'd slipped her hand over my thigh. About the time the movie lost its way she started rubbing up and down my thigh, putting some real muscle into it. A neighbouring part of me was reacting just as expected, but considerably earlier in the evening than I'd intended. I turned my head to whisper into her ear, but she was facing me and we kissed, sort of a mutual decision. It was long, slow, exciting and passionately comforting, if you can figure out what I mean by that. I'm not exactly sure myself, but it's the way it was with Julie. I was really interested, and very comfortable being that interested.

"Let's get out of here," she told me when the kiss ended, for lack of breath rather than any saner reason.

"You got it. Try to act nonchalant."

She laughed. "I can do that because I don't show. What about you?"

I shrugged and carried my jacket from a hand held just about belly button level. Walking was difficult with an extra leg, but I wasn't displaying the goods for the public. Julie slid a hand under my jacket and laughed a slow sultry laugh.

"All for me?"

"Only if we can get to your place before it decides to go off by itself." She giggled. That was so sexy. But I wasn't kidding, either.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for our first sexual experience together, Junior did go off by himself. I think he had help. Julie was forever touching him just to make sure that this tangible evidence of my attraction to her was still there. Of course, after he exploded, making a very messy situation in my jeans, he wasn't quite so evident. That didn't mean he wasn't there, so Julie kept checking. He came back for her. He liked her. He really did.

When we got up to Julie's apartment she headed straight for the bedroom. I had a stop to make in the bathroom. I cleaned up as much as I could with a washcloth and stripped off. I was happier taking my clothes off in the privacy of the bathroom. It had just occurred to me that I'd never been naked with a woman other than Stacey, not counting that abortive threesome with Barbara, since my mother had given up bathing me. I did get a quick shower. That wash cloth had been useless. I was a mess!

I walked shyly into the bedroom, lit only by a dim nightlight. Julie was lying on the bed, flat on her back, arms down by her sides. She was stiff as a board. She did look wonderful, though. She had very nice breasts, full and firm even if not very big. Lovely rose nipples with matching areolae. Her stomach was smooth and tight, with just the hint of a womanly curve to it. Stacey had a little more curve, but not too much, even after two kids. Julie had trimmed her pubic hair but there was still a solid patch, darkly inviting, masking her inner secrets.

"God, you're beautiful."

"Thank you." A little shy whisper.

"What's with the virgin sacrifice pose?"

"I thought that's the way men liked their women."

"Overgrown boys, maybe. Men like their women to be responsive. They like to give pleasure as well as receive. Makes them proud of their prowess as great lovers."

"Oh, Robert, I can't be like that. I've never done it any other way."

"Well, I guess I'll have to teach you."

I'd done all right, so far, I supposed. My lover hadn't exactly been abused. She'd suffered from the ignorance of her partners, though. They didn't know any better. God, what a ringing endorsement of those fools: "they didn't know any better." Lovely.

Here I was stuck with a lovely woman who I was coming to love more and more, and I find she's never had any pleasure out of sex. There are ways to change that, I was sure. I didn't happen to know what they were. I didn't know how I could be expected to be some grand sexual therapist. I'd only ever been with one woman in my life before. How was I supposed to handle it? All I really knew was that I had to do something. I couldn't say you've been so badly treated I have to get a book or take lessons on how to fix you before we make love. What kind of a blow to her confidence would that be? She didn't have much to begin with. I think getting undressed for me took all the nerve she had.




All Right Ch. 03



Stacey and I had never had any problems to match these. Our sex had always been enjoyable, fun, loving, intensely satisfying. I decided I'd just go with what worked for us, be gentle and hope.

"Tell you what. You've got the first part right. Getting naked definitely makes for better sex. You do it quite well, too. You look very good naked. For the rest of it we need to cuddle and cherish and you tell me what feels best and I'll tell you what feels best and we'll just do what feels good at the time. Want to try?"

"It sounds unusual. Asshole used to tell me the problem with our sex was that I moved."

"Asshole's a descriptive word. It sounds like a very accurate description. Both people have to have a good time or it's not worth doing. Let's just snuggle up for a while. I want to put my hands all over that gorgeous body of yours. I want to kiss it everywhere. I want to feel your hands all over me."

Words can be an important part of love-making. Like any other technique, it works some of the time and not others, on some partners and not others. Tossing out genuine compliments never hurts. Everyone wants to feel better about themselves.

I climbed onto the bed beside her. She hadn't pulled down the cover and the sheet. She just lay on top in the dim light of the nightlight. I started sliding my hands over her stiff body, feeling and enjoying the smoothness of her, from her shoulders, down her arms, back and down her sides. I pulled her up on her side so I could feel the strong curve of her backside, about as erotic as I'd let myself get to that point. I trailed my hands over her stomach. The gentle smoothness of her felt very sweet. My fingers tangled briefly in her pubic hair and she tensed even more. I slipped away, down her thighs, her calves. I bent over to reach her feet, massaging her soles gently while I kissed the sides of her thigh, slipping out my tongue to lick and kiss back up to the outside of her hips. She relaxed slightly.

I brought her in to my body, then, a simple hug - what hug is ever simple? I tried to show her I cared, that she was special to me, that I would protect her. It was easy to do. I cared for this special, scared woman. I simply held her in my arms for a while, her breasts tight against my chest, my hands still, her head nestled into my shoulder.

Her face turned up to look into my eyes, surprise showing in the depths of her eyes as she felt caring around her. I kissed her gently. She snuggled in to me and we dozed off, comfortable with each other.

About an hour later by the bedroom alarm clock I awoke to find her cautiously exploring my body, using mostly the tips of her fingers. It was like it was all new to her despite her ex-husband and her previous bedmates - lovers was for sure inaccurate. I left her to her explorations and recommenced mine, using my fingers and palms, seeking to know her rather than to inflame her.

"You know, you really feel quite wonderful, love."

"You too, so hard with a little softness over it all."

She began kissing me, little darting kisses on whatever part of my body she happened to be exploring. I followed her lead, kissing softly any part of her within reach. We kissed each other's lips, slipping our tongues into the other's mouth, sliding our tongues together, caressing our mouths and tongues, exploring. I broke off to trail a line of kisses and licks from her earlobe down her neck onto the slopes of her breast, stopping at the top and returning to repeat down the other side. Julie tucked into the kissing, her head lolling a little, her arms wrapped around me and her hands stroking with more pressure now.

Perhaps it was time to increase the heat. I let my mouth float lower, onto the slope of her breast. Her breathing quickened. She was afraid and anticipating. I kissed and licked. My tongue encountered her nipple, stiffening with her arousal. I licked it fully erect and gave it a quick suck before moving on to her other breast. She moaned quietly, so faintly I almost missed it. My hands caressed her buttocks. I was fully erect, longing to become a part of this woman.

"Do I need any protection?" I whispered.

She laughed ruefully. "No, I'm on the pill. Triumph of hope over experience, I guess."

I'd broken the mood a little. I returned to awakening her response while she continued her explorations. My hands wandered off over her thighs again, stroking, now, not merely touching, long, firm caresses as I kissed her. She kept her hands moving, too, lighter than my caresses. She let her hands wander onto my penis, quick, light, almost accidental caresses.

I suckled her nipples again, then my face dropped to rain kisses over her stomach as my hands grasped her buttocks. I trailed my tongue through her pubic hair and onto her labia, swelling as at last she became aroused in herself. I licked up one side and down the other. I was pulling out all the stops, everything Stacey and I had learned together for the benefit of this beloved woman, hurt so much by stupidity. I slipped a finger into her while I continued to lick, to chase after my finger with my tongue. She exhaled sharply, disturbed by my invasion, or perhaps just by the newness of it. I curled my finger to search for her highest sensitivity. My tongue moved out of the sweetness of her and flicked her clitoris, peeking out from under its hood. Julie jumped, then moaned, then breathed, "Oh, so good."

She was starting to bounce a little, just enough to show interest, fighting off her conditioning as she saw her reactions pleased me. She squirmed under my ministrations and I purred my approval. I flicked my tongue over her clitoris again and again, then stopped and suckled gently. Julie came hard and strong, bouncing herself into my head, grabbing me by the ear and pulling me into her one-handed.

"OOOhhh," she moaned. I saw her jam a fist into her mouth to mute her reaction. I pulled a hand out from under her and gently pulled her fist away.

"Show me you loved it, sweet, tell me."

"Oh God it was wonderful. So wonderful."

Julie was recovering, slowly, from her climax. I knew she was enjoying the afterglow. I could see it in her face as I slid up over her body. I kissed her again, firmly. She stuck her tongue in my mouth. I started to slide into her. She was moist, wet, welcoming. I had no need to hold up. One long careful slide and I was fully in. She was wet, warm, tight. She gave me an experimental squeeze with her inside muscles and laughed at my moan of pleasure. She did it again and got another moan.

I withdrew and midway through her gasp of loss thrust in again, commencing a rhythm of long, firm strokes, building up my own need while I pleasured her, I hoped. Her little moans seemed to reflect enjoyment. Her gasps began to come faster as I slowly increased my own speed, firmly intending to come to a massive climax of my own. I was taken completely by surprise - and, from the sound of it, so was she - when she suddenly tightened up and pealed out her pleasure as she came again. Her muscles tightened through her orgasm and brought me over the top. I shot deep into her, bathing her cervix. I continued to stroke, slower now, while she worked her way through the aftershocks, slowly returning to herself.

"Dear God," she asked me when she had recovered, "is that what it's supposed to be like?"

"It can happen when two people care about each other, when it's not just selfishness. I didn't expect it to be so good for both of us. It was quite wonderful, wasn't it?"

"Yes, yes it was."

I wanted to stay there and hold her and perhaps fall asleep with her, but it was a work night and we both had jobs to get to in the morning.

"I've got to go," I told her. "I don't want to, but both of us have to get up at some reasonable hour in the morning. I had a wonderful time. You are beautiful and loving. I'll call you tomorrow."

"Please do, Rob. I've had a great time, all of it." She blushed a bit. Not as much as I expected really, but then we were both naked in each other's arms. We kissed good night.

to be continued



All Right Ch. 04



Chapter four of seven. Thanks to GrandTeton for editorial assistance.

##########

I got dressed in the bathroom after a very quick shower. My pants were a mess but I could live with it. The thought of driving home without pants crossed my mind, but I wondered how Stacey would feel if she had to bail me out and bring pants for me. Barbara would just laugh, but Stacey would tear a strip off me for being so stupid. She'd be right, too.

I stepped back into my love's bedroom to say good night, but Julie was already asleep, a lovely smile on her face. I kissed her on the forehead and told her good night. I got some kind of murmur in reply. I slipped out before I could lose my resolve to go home.

Stacey and Barbara were, of course, waiting up for me. I was surprised it wasn't later given all Julie and I had gone through, but it was still short of midnight.

"Oh oh," Stacey said. "I don't think we need to ask if he had a good time."

"No, that much is pretty obvious," Barbara responded. She looked again. I suppose I had on some sort of stupid grin. I felt poleaxed. "Is she the one?"

"Yeah, maybe, well, yeah." I was very fluent, even loquacious. She was the one, if she'd have me, us. She was the one.

I was likely pretty stupid the next day, or maybe just wrapped up in my memories of Julie's sweet softness, her warmness, her unexpectedly unleashed passion. It had been sex at last, good sex, maybe great sex, likely not the best I'd ever had (Stacey and I had had some quite wonderful times, too), but great sex with a wonderful woman. It had been more than sex, too, the way it had been with Stacey. It had been a sharing. I couldn't wait to see Julie again.

I called her mid-morning. She wanted to see me again. I remembered the dinner guest just in time, when I'd been getting set to invite Julie out to dinner tonight. It would have to be tomorrow. She agreed, even letting a little disappointment show in her voice when she realized we couldn't see each other until then. It matched mine.

When I got home the girls were out in the backyard, playing with Amber and her baby. I guess Amber was using the solar-powered dryer that afternoon. There was a long string of diapers on one of the clotheslines. There were some unmentionables going up on the other.

"Hi," I greeted her.

"Hi. You know that this is going to put the electric company out of business if it catches on?"

"Yah. No tears here, though."

"Me either."

That evening Clara came to dinner. She seemed a little fearful of the girls, who were playing underfoot. Maybe she wasn't used to children. She was attractive enough in a thin sort of way, even though she gave the impression of being big boned, maybe a touch horsey. She was a good conversationalist and had a sardonic sense of humour. Some of her co-workers got quite a going over, though not nastily.

I'm sure Clara might have attracted my attention if Julie and I hadn't connected so deeply. However, it turned out that there were reasons she would never have kept my attention. Clara had muddy waters deeper down. Julie had issues, of course, but we seemed well on the way to working through them. Clara's issues weren't ones I wanted to work with.

They came out over supper. Of course the girls ate with us, even when we had guests. They were part of the family. Maybe they were the reason we were still a family, though I thought there were other reasons as well. Clara reacted badly. Cynthia was still using a high chair, and tended to spread her food around. One gob hit Clara's blouse. She reacted poorly, as if the child had insulted her. I laughed. I told her it was a mark of favour. She sniffed. Yeah, sniffed. I'd never seen it done before. Stacey told me later it was what older ladies tended to do in the romances she sometimes read, though she'd never seen it herself before either.

Frances tried to make some kind of point in the conversation Clara was having with Barbara. Clara ran right over her when Barbara stopped to let Frances complete her thought. When Frances tried again, she interrupted and told her that she would have to let adults have their say.

It wasn't worth correcting her. Anyone who could treat my kids that way wasn't a person I ever intended seeing again. From the looks they exchanged, it was clear that Barbara and Stacey felt the same. Perhaps Clara felt the cool evening more than she let on, but she was excusing herself and leaving long before we'd anticipated. None of us were upset.

"Sorry about that. She told me she loved children," Barbara apologized.

"Baked or fried, maybe. I can't help contrasting her attitude with Julie's."

"Speaking of Julie," Stacey drawled, "when do we get to meet the paragon? Want to invite her over Saturday afternoon?"

"Not yet, I think. The week after, maybe?"

"Yes, that would probably be better. No sense rushing the poor woman off her feet. Saturday week, then?"

"I can do that. I'm taking her to dinner tomorrow. I hope to see her Friday. We have some things planned with the girls this weekend, or at least I do. A week from Saturday should be doable."

"Heavens, Robert, you really have it bad."

"What? I suppose I do. I hope she has it, too."

"I'd say so," Stacey smiled. Barbara smiled, too.

Julie fell in with all my plans, seemingly as happy to be with me as I was with her. We made love - it was more than sex - every time. Friday night she invited me over for dinner. I never did get to eat. It was heavenly. I was falling for her, hard.

On the weekend we took the girls out, to the park again on Saturday, and to the beach on Sunday. Julie was a terrific mother-figure. She kept a hawk's eye on the girls at the beach. She made sure they were covered in sunblock. She made sure I was covered in sunblock. I just about ripped my swimsuit. It wasn't right that only she was caring, so I made sure she was covered in sunblock.

"This isn't a nude beach, Rob," she told me. "I don't need sunblock there."

"You never know if you're going to rip your suit on something."

"Like the something that wants to rip your suit?"

"Yeah, I'd be careful if I was you."

I sat back to watch her as she and the girls built a sandcastle a little ways back from the lapping water. We weren't on tidal waters, so they weren't going to lose it to the forces of nature. Little boys, maybe. A pair of six-year-olds pounded right through it, going without looking, like all six-year-olds. Cynthia started to cry. All her hard work messed up. Julie cuddled her in and explained that now they knew how to do it, the next one would be bigger and better and more elaborate. It was, too. Frances simply adored her. Me too.

I knew what Julie looked like. We'd been naked together. More than once. Again, soon, I hoped. Even so, she was beautiful in the sun, all her attention focussed on the girls and what they were building. Her swimsuit was a middling modest bikini. She filled her top most alluringly but there was no chance she'd spill out. She was fit with lovely legs and arms, not too muscled up, covered with just enough of that little layer women have to make them soft and cuddly and loveable. Her midriff was taut with just enough of that delicate bulge to show she was a woman, no longer a girl. I adored the firm planes of her strong back. Why is it that men often don't recognize the many erotic possibilities of a woman's back? The stretch of smooth skin over hints of muscle, rising from a trim waist to wide shoulders? Julie's back was giving me very improper thoughts in a public venue. Uncomfortable ones, too. I'd have to look up a bigger, or at least looser, swimsuit if I planned another beach outing.

We took the girls home early, conscious that they'd had a lot of sun. They'd played happily with Julie. I'd taken Frances for a float while Julie let Cynthia paddle in the shallows. I was getting ready to start teaching Frances how to swim. The float was the start.

While normally I'd let Julie go when we brought the girls home, this time I went off with her, leaving the girls with Stacey and Barbara. If not planned, it had been intended, so I wasn't imposing. Julie had agreed to come over the next Saturday to meet the girls' mother.

Sunday night was the first night I slept over at Julie's. She'd asked before, but I was still afraid of rushing into this relationship too quickly. We made long, slow, comfortable love. I settled in beside her and curled up with her. We hadn't spoken of it, but simply accepted it. I was there in the morning. Waking up next to Julie in the morning. It was comfortable and enjoyable. We made love again, lazily, and were climaxing together just as the alarm rang. It was an incredible coincidence, but Julie couldn't hold out and confessed that she'd set it off on purpose as she was recovering. I laughed. It had been a good joke.

The girls had missed me in the morning when I hadn't been home to be waked up.

"I missed you, too, sweethearts. Maybe Julie will come for a sleepover and you can wake us both up."

"That would be fun," Frances agreed.

I continued to see Julie every day. We made love each time, once or twice more than once. I didn't sleep over again because it was too hard to leave her. I did have it bad.

A routine swiftly developed. I'd get home for an hour or so after work to spend time with the girls. They were very good about not pushing me for more time. Frances, in particular, was quite aware that I was getting to know the "pretty girl" she liked so much and made Cynthia be reasonable. Amber was usually around using the clothesline or trying to return a favour. She seemed to be a lot happier, and as a result she looked more and more attractive. We always exchanged a few words, and I noticed Barbara was taking her under her wing some, just a little indirect direction. Amber was smart, saw what Barbara was doing and rolled with it, knowing someone was trying to care at least a little about her. She listened and accepted, too. I think she appreciated that Barbara not only tried to help, but tried to make the help unnoticeable, letting Amber protect her rather fragile dignity. I was pleased. I'd come to like Amber. She tried so hard.

After my hour at home, I'd go over to Julie's. Sometimes we'd go out and sometimes we'd eat in - either takeout I ordered or something she whipped up. We didn't miss meals. We knew there was time, and it was embarrassing for our stomachs to be rumbling while we caressed each other. After the meal, and clean up if we were at home, we made love. It was almost always love. I'd be home by midnight. Stacey and Barbara had given up waiting up for me. It was always the same.

It was the middle of the second week when I told Julie. We'd made love again, and were comfortably entwined. It wasn't quite time to get up and go.

"I love you, Julie."

"Me too."

I must have looked too happy.

"I love me, too."

"You are a barbarian!"

"Guilty. One of my ancestors was a Hun."

"It doesn't matter. I love you anyway."

"I love you, too."

Neither of us pushed any farther. There were consequences if we loved each other. Maybe we'd work on those one day. Just not now.

I kissed Julie goodnight. "I love you."

She kissed me back. "I love you."

I don't think there was anyone happier in the world that night than we were.

The next afternoon I was finishing up a presentation, more wasted time, when the phone rang. Julie called me at work sometimes. I was looking forward to seeing her again that evening, the same as I'd been looking forward to seeing her every night that week. I could use a little talking with Julie, too. It wasn't Julie. It was Stacey, in that icy voice that told me she was trying damn hard not to cry. Today was her work from home day.

"Robert? We have a situation. Come home now."

"On my way."

I dropped everything and ran for the door. "Situation" didn't mean a bad report card, not that the girls were in school; it meant "the world is ending and I'd rather not be here just now." Stacey had never been an alarmist, so the nearest I could think of was nuclear attack. I saw Barbara pulling into her driveway just ahead of me, steaming as much as I was. We almost fought over the doorkey.

"We're home, love," we called out together.

"Thank God. Something awful's happened."

"Tell us, love," Barbara encouraged.

"You know I was home today. I get more work done, we save on child care and I get more time with our girls. Amber came over, the way she usually does, with the baby. I made up to the baby as I always do, and the baby had a terrible bruise."

"Do you think Amber is abusing her daughter?"

"Never. The thought crossed my mind, and then I saw Amber. She's been beaten worse than the baby and I think her arm's broken."

"What can we do?"

"I needed bodies. Now you're here, Robert can take Amber and the baby to the hospital. Barbara can help me make up the bed in the downstairs room on our side. I'm not letting her go home to whatever did that."

"Suits."

"Okay."

We swung into action. It wasn't much more than a half hour after Stacey first saw Amber. I hurried into the house, found Amber in the living room with the baby. Amber looked like hell. She was contused in several places, had what looked like severe damage to her right arm, and a pair of raccoon eyes. At a guess someone had planned to half kill her and probably succeeded. I worried about internal bleeding.

"Barb, call 911 for me please. Tell the police what happened, we're going to the hospital, send a car there, send one to her home, send one here if they've got the third one running tonight." I pried Amber's address out of her, this time. She must have been hurt.

"Stacey, can you let Julie know I have to cancel? Tell her I'm sorry, and as much else as you think right. Thanks, love."

I'd wondered a time or two when Amber seemed to be a little stiff just what kind of an abusive relationship she might have been in. She never mentioned a guy in her life, but there obviously was one. Women didn't normally wear jockey shorts or shirts several sizes too big. If there was a guy, I don't think she liked him too much. If he'd done the damage that I saw, he wasn't on her invitation list any more.

I was driving because I had the baby seats in my car: one for a four-year-old and the one for Cynthia that would do for my Lady Deidre. Amber didn't want to let go of her, but the law is the law, and quite unforgiving on child seats. Besides, Amber was in no shape to hold a child. She was going to have trouble holding herself together. I could see the tears starting to track. Given what she seemed to have gone through in her life, I was surprised. It must have hurt like hell.

We peeled into emergency pretty fast. There was the usual crew of people who'd been too lazy to get their prescriptions renewed, someone with sniffles wanting to talk to a doctor, anyone, really they were so lonely, a couple of non life-threatening cuts and bruises. There was probably a doctor on duty somewhere. They could hardly be open if there wasn't.

Amber had something social services had given her that would pass for health insurance, so it was easy to get her registered. It covered the child. Sometimes they hadn't caught up. I looked to see that Ted Gilderson was on tonight. That was a bit of luck. He didn't like the stint any more than the next guy, but he was capable and conscientious. Besides, it was only once a month. There were a lot of doctors associated with that hospital.

"Please call Doctor Gilderson. This is an emergency."

"Well, yeah, this is an emergency room ain't it. Dr. G.'s on break."

"Please call him, now." You put the right snap in it and it usually works. It did this time, too. Amber stared at me. She always thought I was a pretty easy-going guy. I was, too, so she wasn't wrong. It's just that you can't be easy-going all the time or people will mistake you for a doormat. Then if it happens that you need something, you'll be overlooked. You need to snap now and then. Make sure you don't waste it, though.

I followed Amber into the examining room as soon as Ted showed up. He was cursing mildly, but unfortunately we were what kept the emergency room open. He showed a fine sense of priorities, since he grabbed the baby first off.

"Okay, Ms., the baby will be all right. No concussion, no fractures, just a nasty bruise. It's in the wrong place to be accidental. We'll need to file a child abuse report."

He went to the door and yelled:

"Mandy, get me a form 57." He glanced over at Amber. "A 59, too."

"Right away, doctor."

"So, what is your relation to the patient?" he asked me, smiling.

"Hus - " Amber started

"Bro - " I answered.

"Husbro. Haven't heard that one before. Haven't got your story straight, huh? I'm not surprised.

"Listen," he turned to Amber. "Your husband or whoever did this to you is going to jail for a very long time. Your husbro, here, might be the one who puts him there. So maybe he'd better be your brother. The different last names are because you married."

"Thank you," she told him.

"Now let's have a look at you. Hey, husbro, get started on that form while I have a look at the lady, will you? Both of them." He chased me out. I held on to Lady Deirdre. Somebody had to. It had to be me. Besides, Lady Deirdre was a sweetheart. She started to make strange noises and get a touch restless.

"Oh, you poor man." A couple of very lovely young nurses were moving my way, smiling happily. "You know she's probably dirty and needs her diaper changed."

They took over. They cleaned up the Lady Deirdre and changed her diaper at warp speed. Then they hung around chatting with me and cooing at the baby. I could have had a couple of numbers to put in my non-existent little black book with no trouble. If I hadn't been connected to Julie I'd have done it, too. They were very nice women. Who'd have thought a messy wet baby would be such a babe magnet?

My Florence Nightingales left a few minutes later to go on shift. We were all sorry. It was another hour before Ted came out.

"You've already figured out she was hammered. It's worse under the clothes. She didn't want to say, fear of reprisals, maybe, but it was the husband - more likely a boyfriend, I think, she said he wasn't the baby's father - and he hit the baby, too. I think she got most of it when she tried to protect the baby from him.

"She's going to get over all of it, not even scars, but it will take a long time. She can't go back there. She thinks she has to. Nowhere else for the baby. If it was just her she'd sleep in the park to be away."

"She's got a place. Stacey and Barbara are just itching to get their hands on her and the baby. She's good for as long as it takes." Ted was a good friend, one of the very few who knew what went on, or in my case didn't go on, in my home.

"Okay, you've got the little one. She can rest easy. Somebody will pick her up tomorrow after lunch?"

"For sure."

"Okay, here's the rundown. Worst problem is the busted arm. It's a bad break and the arm has to be immobile for at least a month. That's going to make it real hard for her to feed and take care of the baby."

"Somebody will be there for her. Worst case is we hire a careworker."

"The rest of it is scrapes and bruises, painful as hell but not disabling. She'll probably be a few weeks getting over those, too."

"Was he trying to kill her? How'd she get away?"

"I'd say attempted murder would be a fair charge. Just lost his temper and flew at her because she wouldn't let him murder her daughter. The neighbour's boy, just sixteen but big as a house, came up when he heard her screaming. I guess something like it happened before, but he'd never tried to take out the woman before, or to actually kill her. The boy took one look at what he was doing and knocked his lights out. He's probably still out from what she said."




All Right Ch. 04



"Thanks, Ted. Oh, here's your goddamned paperwork."

"All right, I'll let her know the baby is fine, that someone will be in tomorrow after lunch to pick her up, and that her boyfriend will probably be dead by noon. No muss, no fuss, no threats and nothing down the road."

"The rest is okay, but I can't promise about the boyfriend."

"I can. I sent the boys in the squad cars a couple of pictures of what had been done to her, especially some of the old marks from way back, like Tuesday. They'll deal with it for me and the woman and, much as I hate to admit it, for you, too."

We punched shoulders like a couple of idiot frat boys and I took the baby home.

Later that evening I curled up in my study and called Julie. She was still up. I filled her in on what had happened and why I'd had to cancel and how sick it made me feel and the rest of it. She commiserated. I guess her asshole ex had done with his tongue what Amber's ex did with his fists.

"See you tomorrow, doll. Love you."

"Love you."

I took the next day off to bring Amber home. Stacey had to go to work, but Barbara promised to come home early to help her settle in. I was pretty sure Amber would be man-shy for a time. Perhaps I shouldn't have worried.

When I showed up at the hospital, Amber was waiting. When I entered, she threw herself at me. She nearly brained me with that bloody cast they'd put on her. I was surprised they let her wander around with her arm so mobile, but then I noticed the sling. It wasn't supposed to be mobile. It was a good hug, though. Amber felt good in my arms, and judging from the strength of her squeeze I must have felt pretty good to her. Probably just a familiar face.

"Go on out to the car, sweetheart," I told her. "Somebody really wants to see her mommy. I'll deal with the paperwork."

to be continued



All Right Ch. 05



Chapter five of six. Thanks to GrandTeton for editorial assistance.

##########

Wonder of wonders, the paperwork was all ready. I had to get Amber's signature on something, probably a promise not to sue the hospital even if God ordered her to (you'd be surprised how often that seems to happen) and not worth the paper it was printed on, especially given the state of her left-handed signature. The rest of it was the insurance claim, which I signed for her, and paying the balance the insurance didn't cover. Isn't there always a balance? You might have thought social services would provide at least hospital insurance that covered it all. Without the insurance it would have been a lot worse. The extra wasn't a lot for me, but it might have been food for a month for Amber. Somebody wasn't thinking. Again. Maybe still.

A rent-a-cop was giving Amber a hard time about getting the car moved in case there was an emergency - emergency receiving was actually around the back, where we'd come in the night before - but I could tell it was his heavy-handed attempt to flirt with her. She was holding her own pretty well. It didn't surprise me that he was coming onto her. She was happy, and Amber happy just lit up. Hey, I hadn't tried to stop her hugging me.

I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing when she gave him her number. Near as I knew she didn't have a number. It was the police station, actually, the chief's private line. I wondered how she got that. My mind wandered to contemplate the guy's reaction when he called Amber for a date and got the chief. I started thinking about the chief's reaction and nearly choked. I thought I'd better get my mind back up into the gutter from where it was going, so I gave Amber a smile, and the same smile painted a little differently for the rent-a-cop and he backed off.

I slung her bag on the floor in the back and Amber put the baby back in Cynthia's child carrier. I had no idea how Amber had picked up luggage.

"Where'd the bag come from, sweetie?" I asked her. Best way to find out, I thought, or maybe it was training. "Looks just like one Stacey has."

"It is Stacey's. She was so nice. When the police took my boyfriend away, she went over to my apartment - it's in his name, so they won't let me stay there; you can't take me home!"

"Don't worry. I'm going to take you home. It's just that home is not in the same place. You and the Lady Deirdre will be all right."

That got me a big grin. Worth doing just for that.

"Anyway, Stacey packed up everything of mine and everything of the baby's. She said she picked up anything else that looked like I might want it, too, down to the vacuum and the toaster. I don't know how she got all that stuff home." I did. Stacey would turn on the wattage and the uniforms in the patrol car would have fallen all over themselves trying to help. Stacey was really well-liked. Of course, it didn't hurt that they all knew she'd do as much for any of them if the situation was reversed, as it had been once or twice.

"She brought me over a few things she thought might be useful when she visited last night" - probably when I was on the phone with Julie - "and best of all was a big plastic bag to put over the cast to keep it dry when I showered."

"Stacey's good about the little things the rest of us might not think of." I was sure the hospital hadn't thought of it, more because they would never have thought Amber was up to getting in the shower by herself than from carelessness or neglect. I was amazed myself.

Barbara was home by the time Amber and I got back. She got one of Amber's special hugs, too. Maybe she'd expected it. She did a great job ducking the cast. Amber was too enthusiastic to remember the heft of that thing. I hauled out the baby and the luggage. I got another hug (Amber was careful around the Lady Deirdre) and a sweet kiss on the cheek. Maybe being the baggage guy wasn't all bad!

"You've been awfully sweet, Robert. You're a good man."

We lugged everything in. Do you know how many pounds of stuff have to accompany every baby on the planet, or at least where we are, for even a forty-minute drive? More, much more, than any infantryman is expected to heft these days.

Stacey and Barbara had set up the stuff in the downstairs bedroom on "their" side of the house, just as I would have. It gave Amber privacy and direct access to Deirdre. Wasn't going to work.

"I'm sorry, Barbara. I'd really like to get Deirdre started on her own room so when I get a place of my own she won't be so upset. If you can do it, I'd like to be with people, too, not off on my own."

"Certainly, dear." Barbara was infinitely accommodating. Easy to do when I'm the guy that's going to do the lugging.

"There are three bedrooms upstairs on Robert's side. We can let you have two of them, and you can use Cynthia's baby monitor to keep an ear out for the little one."

"I can't do that. What if Robert has a guest?"

"She'll probably be sleeping with him. If they have a fight she'll go home. If home's too far, she can sleep downstairs. There's lots of room. Don't worry."

"If you say so."

"In case you're worried," I added, "there is no reason to move out tomorrow or something stupid. Stay as long as you want."

"Absolutely," Barbara confirmed. "Stacey would have a fit if she thought you were already thinking about moving out."

That evening I was preparing for my date with Julie. Amber saw me in the bathroom and gave me the once over, straightening my collar for me.

"Lucky woman, Robert."

"I'm the lucky one, sweetie."

"I hope she appreciates what she's got."

"I think she likes me just fine."

When I got to Julie's for supper, it was another one of those times when supper was delayed. Until tomorrow. After all, we'd been apart for almost forty-eight hours. At one point when I was making an ineffective attempt to raise the troops for a little more action (I'm not as young as I was, and three times in three hours had put a crimp in the action), I thought to use the time to give Julie a preview of what she might expect the next day.

"Thanks for agreeing to come over tomorrow. The household arrangements are somewhat unusual, so I'll tip you off.

"We live in a side by side duplex with a lot of traffic between units. The original deal was that I had the right to shut my side off for privacy, but that's kind of gone by the board.

"You've already met Frances and Cynthia, my daughters."

"Yes, sweet little girls. They live with their mother?"

"Yes, on the other side of the duplex. We're still married and I'm still a lot in love with her and I don't expect any of that to change. I told you all that. We can't have sex, so there's no problem with me having sex with someone else, or even inviting someone else to join the household providing they agree. I can't imagine them not loving you as much as I do, but you have to go into this with your eyes open, if you even want to go into it at all. There's lots of room in the house."

"What happened sexually? Is there some kind of physical problem?"

"Not really. The reason for no sex is Barbara. Stacey met Barbara and something flared between them that shut me out of the physical side of the relationship. I suspect it has a lot more to do with Stacey's natural monogamous side than with whether Stacey's hetero or gay, but that doesn't matter since it doesn't show any sign that it will ever change."

"A little rough on you."

"Yeah, tell me! In addition to being in love with Stacey, still, I'm more than a bit in love with Barbara, who is a really nice, caring person."

"Stacey seems to have a thing for nice, caring persons," Julie giggled.

"Thank you. No sex there, either. So they have their side of the duplex with the girls and I have my side and we all tend to wander back and forth and share our time with each other. We just added an unexpected complication, though."

"Did that have anything to do with last night?"

"Yeah, it did. Amber, the woman I told you had been beat up by her boyfriend, used to hang around our place, at our invitation, mind, so when she showed up bruised and battered we just had to take care of her and her baby. It was the boyfriend's apartment, so she's got nowhere to stay."

"And the three of you took her in?"

"And the baby."

"Was the boyfriend the one I heard about on the news this morning?"

"Yeah, accident or maybe suicide. Jumped out of the car and was killed instantly. They were going at speed on the ring road."

"Sounds suspicious, not that I'm going to lose any sleep over that."

"No, it really was one or the other. The lock on the door couldn't be controlled from up front. That was reported as broken three weeks ago. No one laid a hand on him." Ryan was sitting in the back seat with him, and I'm pretty sure was giving him a detailed account of the torture awaiting him back at the station, and the inevitable rape and subservience once he was sent to prison, likely with many graphic details that lingered on the pain and degradation. Ryan had an active imagination. He also believed that a little mental torture was in order for the worst offenders - wifebeaters were the absolute worst offenders Ryan could think of, likely because of what his dad did to his mother until Ryan put a stop to it when he was fifteen. Suicide was most likely. I'd heard Ryan going at a suspect once (well, we had to call him a suspect even though we had him dead to rights) and I'd been tempted to jump out of the car myself. Fortunately, the other guy jumped first and Ryan shut up.

"Okay, so if I've got this right, your wife and her girlfriend have one unit and the girls are with them; you have the other unit. Where's Amber?"

"My side. Amber wanted a separate room for the baby - Deirdre, you'll have to meet her, she's cute as a button."

Julie looked a tad dazed.

"Yeah, well I suppose I don't really have a problem with two women getting together. I've got gay guy friends. A gay guy is a much better friend than a straight guy, and than most women, too. I've no idea what living with them might be like."

"Not bad. They show their affection for each other, but they're affectionate people. They show affection for me and for the girls, too."

"I guess that would be okay. I'd have a problem with them making love on the kitchen table or something."

"Never happen."

"So what are you hoping for out of tomorrow?"

"I'm hoping you'll charm Stacey and Barbara."

"Not Amber?"

"Well, I'd like to see it, but Amber doesn't have a veto. Stacey and Barbara do. The other thing I'd like to see is for you to decide that we have a stable, loving family group that you'd like to be part of, for a very long time. Right now, and I suspect for a very long time to come, Amber and her child are part of that family group."

"Would I be expected to share sex with anyone but you?"

"No. Stacey and Barbara are very exclusive to each other. I think Amber's sworn off sex for a while."

She lay back to think about it. It wasn't all coming as a surprise. I worked on helping her to think and then we stopped thinking and made love again. It was as fantastic for both of us as it had always been.

When I got home a little after midnight, Stacey and Barbara were both up.

"It's Amber," Barbara explained as I opened my mouth. "She's having terrible nightmares. Both of us have tried hugging and lying down with her. It's not working. Maybe you can try."

"Shouldn't she be afraid of men?"

"Not you, Robert. I'd say she trusted and respected you, and you are very protective and defending, and fierce when there's a threat. She knows that as well as we do."

Just then I heard poor Amber scream again. The three of us raced up. I gathered Amber into my arms - not much of a bundle, poor thing - and she started settling down right off.

"Robert," she trembled.

"Right here, sweet."

"Oh good."

She dropped off in another three minutes or so. I tried to put her back in bed but she started to scream again.

"Okay, I guess I'm It."

I carried Amber into my bedroom. Stacey re-rigged the baby monitor.

"I wonder what your girlfriend's going to say about this?" Barbara giggled. Always the helpful one. I stayed awake another half hour trying to figure out how I was going to explain this to Julie. Oh hell!

Amber was quite embarrassed in the morning, but I just shrugged it off.

"Don't worry about it. You needed comfort and I was there. Happens all the time, mostly with four-year-olds. I don't think I've ever had a beautiful woman do it before, but there's always a first time. Whatever you need, dear, whenever you need it. Don't forget."

I really didn't think I could explain it to Julie.

How do you tell your girlfriend, with whom you're sleeping, that there is another woman, not bad looking, who's sleeping with you but you aren't sleeping with her? I think I'll need a blackboard.

Stacey offered to get me the models she used when teaching a sex ed class a few years ago. It didn't seem to me that I was getting the support from my loved ones that I was entitled to. They were laughing too hard. Amber was really sorry, worried that she'd messed up the love of my life and the rest of it, but laughter is contagious and she got over any guilt really fast.

"Look at it this way, Robert. At least I come with my own baby." Then she was off howling and Stacey and Barbara started laughing just when I thought they'd calmed down. At least they weren't going to ruin any impression I was trying to create for Julie. I'd already told her they were all crazy as bedbugs.

Julie came over about two. Amber had invented a feeding for the Lady Deirdre to get herself out of the way. She still regarded herself as a peripheral player. She hadn't learned yet that there were no peripheral players in our home.

I introduced her to Stacey: "Julie, this my wife Stacey; Stacey, this is my girlfriend Julie." Okay, I'm not completely bonkers. It sounded weird to me, too. Then Barbara: "Julie, this is my wife's lover, Barbara; Barbara, this is the woman I'm cheating on your girlfriend with." I swear, that's exactly what I said. Barbara laughed like hell and Julie damned near wet herself. I suppose you had to be there.

Next step was to introduce the girls, but Julie had met them a number of times. She seemed very interested to see that the girls were as precious to Barbara as they were to Stacey and me. Both of them smiled dazzlingly at Julie, evidently pleased that she had come to visit them at their home. We did a quick tour of the house, had a look out back and ended up on the second floor of my half.

Stacey opened Amber's door: "Amber, this is Robert's girlfriend Julie; Julie, this is Amber, the person who sleeps with Robert." She said it with a straight face, too.

Barbara tried to help, I think. "Amber sleeps with Robert, but of course he doesn't sleep with her." I guess Stacey forgot the blackboard.

Amber tried to defuse whatever was going on by introducing the Lady Deirdre, "Of course you know that she's Robert's light of love."

"Of course she is," Julie exclaimed. At least there was one right answer out there. "Now as I understand it, whenever Amber has a need for emotional security she slips in with Robert and actually goes to sleep."

"Couple of minutes, tops."

"I've only ever done it once, you know," Amber tried to minimize her presence.

"You've only been here one night," Barbara clarified.

"One for one, babe, pretty good record." I couldn't even keep my own mouth shut.

"I have an interest in knowing what might happen if Robert is engaging in marital relations when this need arises," Julie asked, almost in spite of herself. It was fascinating to watch the thought take over her mind and operate her mouth.

"I wouldn't expect you to stop," Amber pointed out. "I'd just take whatever bit of him you weren't using at the time."

"That still might be a little inhibiting."

"I promise not to watch."

Julie laughed. "Maybe we'll just have to try it out."

Well, that went better than I thought it would.

We spent the afternoon together, playing with the children rather than anything more defined, getting to know each other, becoming comfortable with each other. Barbara and Stacey were themselves. It was clear they loved each other, but love flowed out to the children, including Amber's Deirdre, to me, and a little bit was tentatively offered to Julie. She accepted and gave back, openly to the children and to me, reservedly to Barbara and Stacey. Amber was not a well-known quantity. She was on the edge of the family, not really ready to accept all of the love she was offered, reserved but clearly longing for the love that was there for her. She'd been hurt by love, or what passed for it, before. She'd been abused by someone she at least thought had some regard for her. She wasn't ready to open up. Stacey and Barbara made it clear that they were ready to love her but didn't push. Julie merged in that sentiment, too. I guess Amber was quite loveable, fierce as she attempted to be sometimes, but it still surprised me that Julie took to her as much as she did, as quickly as she did. It was an enjoyable day.

They hadn't fussed over dinner. It hadn't been that kind of day. The food was simple, good, sufficient for all. Everyone joined in helping to clean up. Even Frances assisted in clearing the table.

After the children were put to bed the five of us sat around in the living room and chatted some more. Julie clearly expected an inquisition of some sort. After all, there was me, my wife, my wife's lover, my lover and Amber. There was a little prying, an attempt to get some feel for how much Julie and I liked/loved each other. Julie tried to get a feel for how Stacey and Barbara felt about me, especially their reaction to someone getting together with me.

"I'm a little surprised you two aren't trying to pry my back history out of me," Julie said at one point. Perhaps she'd given up trying to be subtle.

"You are who you are," Barbara told her. "We'd like to know who you are. Who you were yesterday is not who you are today."

"I suppose. I like who you two are today. I didn't expect to. I expected to be uncomfortable with women who loved women, but you made it clear to me that you are two people who love each other, and others, like Robert and your girls. You happen to be two women. That fact isn't important, or at least I don't think it is.

"I expected to dislike both of you for another reason, too. You hurt Robert. That's something that is very difficult for me to forgive."

"Sometimes we have a problem with that, too," Stacey offered, her voice low.

"As far as I can see you are doing your best under the circumstances not to hurt Robert, and extend to him all the love that you can. You didn't mean to hurt him. I can forgive you, for his sake, and because you haven't abandoned him."

Amber went off to bed first. Stacey and Barbara weren't that long behind her, holding hands. The stresses of the day, even though all had gone well, had tired us all out.

"Coming to bed, love?"

"Yes, I'm tired. Can we just sleep together tonight, Robert?"

"Sure. It's a lot to take in. You've done well. I half expected you to want to go home."

"Tomorrow evening, I think, but for tonight and tomorrow I just want to bask in the family you've created, all of you."

Amber had found a camp cot somewhere and was fast asleep against the wall by the door of my room. The baby minder was next to her. Julie and I slipped out of our clothes and into bed with each other. I held her, taking a lot of peace from her proximity. We both slipped off to dreamland.

Now, if I were telling you a fairytale or something, this would be the place to put in: Julie never left our home again. We went over the next afternoon and packed up everything she wanted, disposed of the rest and she joined our family group. Her love for us all knew no bounds, and we all lived happily ever after.




All Right Ch. 05



Yeah, right.

To be continued



All Right Ch. 06



All Right ch. 06

The final chapter. Thanks to GrandTeton for editorial assistance.

##########

Life isn't happy ever afters, or at least my life isn't. If your life is, I'm happy for you, but I don't think I believe you.

In the morning Amber was up and gone, presumably to take care of milady Deirdre. Julie and I made slow, languorous love, taking the pleasure of the moment and stretching it out. We dressed. We held hands going down to breakfast.

That Sunday was enjoyed by all. Frances and Cynthia were delirious to find Julie there.

"I hope you'll be here every morning," Frances told her. No pressure, of course. Just a statement of fact. Little imp.

We all got along great. Julie dove right in to helping make supper as if she'd always been there. She seemed to really regret leaving when it came time.

Over the course of the next couple of weeks Julie's car was parked at our place more often than not. She became good friends with both Stacey and Barbara. The girls adored her. She looked to be deeply in love with them. Somehow or other she and Amber had become special friends, even closer than she was with the rest of us. She'd found a sub-let for her apartment. Nobody said everything, but everyone assumed that Julie would move in at the end of the month. She'd even mentioned how it would be nice to have children.

She and I became closer, too, starting to share our dreams as well as our realities.

You can imagine how surprised I was to get a call from her a couple of weeks later, cancelling our date for that night. We went out or stayed in together every night.

"I've been thinking over what you all want from me and what I want from all of you and it's really quite marvellous. I want some time to myself to think it through, make sure I don't have any regrets, and I want to do it without feeling overcome by all the love you show me. All right?"

"Not really. I hate to give up any time that I could have with you. If it's what you need, go ahead. Just don't expect me to be happy about it."

"Okay. Be brave."

Julie cancelled again the next night, and the night after.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No, thank you, Robert. There are a lot of conflicting issues tearing around in my head. I'll have them all settled by Monday and you'll know my answer then."

"We miss you."

"I know."

Monday morning I woke early. At last I'd get an answer out of Julie. Maybe she'd let me know what her concerns were. I probably moved faster than I should. I woke Amber, who'd been up in the middle of the night with Deirdre. She may have been teething again. Amber had taken to sleeping with me again when Julie wasn't there, always tastefully clad in the ugliest nightshirt I'd ever seen.

"Sorry, dear. Go back to sleep."

"Ummm."

I was looking forward to Julie's answer. The first thing to do was to plan some kind of special treat for her that evening. We'd have it at the house so the girls could participate. They were going to get a new mommy, after all, to go with the two, three, counting Amber, that they already had. It would be a special day for them. It would be a great day for me, too, and the rest of us. I had the day off, so I took the truck out to be cleaned and serviced. It was in great shape, but we'd need it to move her stuff over. I think her furniture was going to the next tenant.

When I got back I thought to check my emails. Wonderful. There was one from Julie. We didn't use email much, but sometimes. I checked out and answered two or three from work, saving the best for last, of course. I loved the idea that there'd be a record of her answer. Finally I got to it.

"Goodbye, Robert. Your family is a haven of love in a less-feeling world and I appreciate your introduction to it. I can never give enough love to provide my fair share. Rather than bring you all down I'll move on and maybe find an approximation one day. My love to you all. Julie."

What? I tore downstairs and took the truck over to her apartment. The new tenants were moving in.

"Julie? Sorry, she's been gone since Saturday at least. No idea where. Said to mark deceased on any mail."

Lovely. Maybe she was staying with a friend. I could check at her work. They had to have a contact number, at least. Her phone was telling me service had been discontinued.

When I got to her office, all they could tell me was that she didn't work there any more.

"We think she got a decent offer somewhere else, but she didn't say. Friday was her last day. We thought we'd see you at the party."

I didn't break down in front of them. Training will do that for you, sometimes. I managed to make it home before the tears started to flow. Good thing, because the tears made it pretty hard to see.

I just fell into the big chair in Stacey's living room. Amber gave me a big hug. Barbara, too. Stacey curled up with me in the chair.

"How could she get it so wrong?" Amber was asking. "We all felt it. She added more than she took. We all do."

"You left the email up when you took off, Robert," Barbara explained. "What was in her mind, what stupid, ignorant ghost of her past, to convince her she was unworthy, or something. Damn."

Stacey just hugged tight. What else could she do? Julie had gone, wanting to be with us but convinced she couldn't. It hurt. All of us were hurt. Poor stricken Julie. Convinced she didn't deserve to be happy, was what it came down to. If I'd known who had put that foolish notion in her head, or, worse, laid the groundwork for it so she'd build it herself, I'd have beat the silly sod hollow. I'd never have killed him. I'd want to beat him hollow again and again and again. Poor Julie. Poor me - us.

None of us were much good that day. It was a week before we were functional. The girls kept asking where the pretty lady was. "Gone away" wasn't helpful, but it was all we had.

"Did she leave because she didn't like us?"

"No, she loved you. She just had something to do." That kind of reassurance wasn't the best, but it was what we had. I'm sure Frances, at least, felt she'd done something to drive her away. Thankfully, Cynthia and Deirdre were too young to develop guilt over it. I hoped so, anyway.

There weren't going to be any scenes of me pleading with her to change her mind or anything like that. I'd have done it if I could. I wasn't too proud to tell her we all needed her and thought she was the missing link in our family. But she hadn't left us that option. She'd gone. No one knew where.

***

It was just two weeks since Julie had gone, and I still missed her deeply. Everything had been so right for us. She loved the girls and got along well with Stacey and Barbara, and had been especially close with Amber. Yet she had convinced herself that she didn't have enough love to stay in a relationship like ours. That was foolishness, but she hadn't given me a chance to talk her out of it. Then she'd gone off somewhere to make sure I didn't try.

Stacey had told me that I had to try to get over my loss. She called it our loss, which was probably more accurate. Barbara and Stacey both missed her, and Amber was almost as depressed as I was. Frances kept asking after her. I agreed with Stacey, more out of duty than interest. As a result, Barbara procured an invitation to another of her company parties, for singles again.

"I'm not that sure who's going to be there. Probably Clara, but you know enough to keep clear of her, now. Maggie Dickenson from marketing - we call it information services this week - will be there. She's not a bad soul. Sarah, the big blonde you met the last time said she was going. Oh, and Theresa will be there. I'd recommend you stay away from her. She's a backstabber."

That was a little better information than I'd had the last time, but I'd met Julie at one of those company parties, so maybe there were a few more jewels in that temple. Obviously, I'd latched onto the very best, but she'd taken herself out of contention. It wasn't even contention. We'd taken to her big time and she'd run away. It still hurt. What had she been thinking? It had seemed like she could come to love us all very quickly. She hadn't seemed to be bothered by the unconventionality of what we had found for ourselves. What was wrong? What had I done to scare her? I really couldn't stop thinking about it. Maybe seeing other women would help.

When I got to the party, the same woman was trying to get people to mix again. I guess the point was for people in the office to get to know each other socially as well as professionally. The theory was that they would get along better and there would be better cooperation, morale, company spirit, whatever. My own thought was that it would work in the exact opposite way by creating embarrassment, jealousy, envy, other bad stuff. What the hell, it wasn't my company.

Whatever else, she was dedicated to getting mixed up, or at least to getting the people mixed up. She'd make a hell of a cruise director.

Tonight's version was a sort of reverse musical chairs. One guy would get a chair, and the ladies would aim to sit in his lap before the music stopped. Then another guy would be added, with a chair. Not quite contract bridge, I suppose, but there was an emphasis on speed and ruthlessness that might have been good training for the run to the photocopier, or maybe for the last cup of coffee.

I was third in with a chair, two of the faster women having successfully attained their laps, though they were speaking more to each other than to the furniture, guy with chair, or maybe chair with guy. Possibly the combination was sold at one of the discount furniture warehouses on the fringe of the city. Thankfully, one of the successful women had been my old friend Clara. No love lost there, I guess.

Connie, the hostess, started the music again, the old Duran Duran single "Hungry as a Wolf", which seemed to be uncannily descriptive of the crew there that night. The women marched around the collection of chairs. Sarah was there, eyes fastened on mine. I saw a timid brunette who might have been Maggie Dickenson from Barbara's description, though timid didn't seem to be typical of people in marketing.

When the music stopped Sarah was a couple of women away. She straight-armed one onto an occupied chair and delivered a lovely hip check to the other. I wondered if she'd ever played hockey. Then she landed in my lap, greeted by me with a welcoming "Oof". She was a big girl. However, as I mentioned earlier Sarah was also a blue-eyed blonde sex goddess. I made no objection to the manner of her arrival.

"So, Robert, are you glad to see me again?"

"Of course, Sarah."

She squirmed around on my lap a little (or a lot, judging by the reaction of my lower brain).

"I mean, are you really glad to see me? Oh yes, you're really glad to see me."

She'd rocked a little more and of course Brainless Robert, who seemed to be doing most of my thinking just then, shot up to show her just how glad I was to see her. I wasn't embarrassed by my reaction, because that would have taken too many brain cells away from their primary purpose of ogling this woman. She was quite gorgeous, but more than that, she had something else I reacted to even more. She was hot as hell, and worse, knew it to the tips of her toes. I suppose I might have got a quick elbow if my reaction hadn't been satisfactory. She was the most beddable woman I have ever encountered.

Sarah squirmed on my lap throughout the rest of the game. The only discomfort was my worry that junior was going to rip through my pants before the game was done. As soon as it was, we headed for a dark corner and started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to get my breathing going again. That worked, especially when her next words were "my place or yours". I doubt she could have said anything else that would have made it through to the brain cell on standby duty. The rest of them were on stress leave.

"Yours," I managed.

"Let's go."

Our hostess saw us getting ready to leave and came over to wish us every happiness. She was really into getting people together. I hoped she had someone, or would find someone herself. Anyone who put that much effort into making other people happy deserved some of her own.

Sarah had come by cab, so there wasn't any problem with vehicles to sort out, not that either of us gave it any thought. I suppose it had never occurred to her that she'd be going home alone. I don't see why it should have. Sarah had probably never gone home alone after a party in her life.

She directed me to her apartment, maybe a mile from where the party had been held. There was parking in front, fortunately. It would likely have been a bad move to just abandon the car in the street, though I'd been prepared to.

I opened Sarah's door and bowed her out, just as if my brain had been working. Those old habits took over in times of stress or complete mental breakdown. Sarah got her keys out and let us in the lobby. We went over to the elevator. Sarah seemed to be panting. Perhaps she was having trouble breathing. I decided to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I didn't want her falling down on me now.

"You know you have to press the button if you want the elevator," an older lady winked at us as she moved to do just that. Another couple of minutes and a little more resuscitation and lo and behold the elevator appeared. The lady pushed us in.

"She's on ten," she chuckled. "You have to push that button when you get in." She settled in to wait for the next one. Either she was a romantic at heart or she just knew Sarah quite well. Likely both.

It wasn't that fast an elevator but we were reasonably alert when it got to her floor. Sarah had her key out and her door open and slammed shut behind us in what felt like no time. I got my hand out from under her blouse and started taking it off. I had her naked in a couple of minutes and discovered that I was naked, too. She'd been a busy little bee herself.

We made love in her living room, on the couch and on the floor, and in her bed, later, and in the shower and another time in her bed. I stumbled out about four. It had been the most magnificent sex I had ever had. Sarah was endlessly inventive and got me up at least twice when I was sure I was out for the count. I had never had as explosive an orgasm before, and not just the one. As near as I could tell Sarah had enjoyed the sex just as much as I had. She came six or eight times that I was reasonably sure of, and maybe a few more. It blew both of us away.

But that's all it was. It was just sex. Mind-blowingly wonderful sex, certainly. She felt it too.

"Robert, you're a wonderful guy and you'll make someone a hell of a partner one day, but not me. Wonderful as tonight has been, the spark's not there. I really hoped we could find it, but it's not there."

"Sarah, you're a fantastic woman. I had a better time in bed tonight than I've ever had. We're good together. But you're right. It's not enough."

It wasn't that there hadn't been love between us. It was that our love was impersonal, part of a reaching out to any reasonable person to share the moment. It wasn't personal to either of us. We could have shared our time and our love with any of a hundred compatible people. It wasn't the kind of love that it had to be me, Robert, and her, Sarah, to be making love. Kind of hard to explain. Love means so many different things that you'd think a language with over two million words in it could come up with something more precise.

Perhaps it's because love means so many different things, each one just a bit different, that we can't be more precise.

It was almost dawn by the time I got home. Not surprisingly, neither Stacey nor Barbara were waiting up for me. Amber was asleep in my bed. She'd left me a little note. "Hope you had a good time." She'd added a postscript when she gave up waiting for me. "P. S. I know you had a good time. A. 12:17 a.m."

I explained to everyone over breakfast that while Sarah and I had incredible sex, just fantastic sex, and that she was a smart person who seemed to be very nice and was incredibly gorgeous, there wasn't anything close to the feeling I had for all of them, and for Julie.

I put off exploring any more possibilities for a while. I've never regretted my night with Sarah. It was really quite wonderful. What I regretted was that it couldn't go any farther. There had been nothing to build on.

***

Three or four weeks after Julie left Amber came to sleep with me, as she continued to do, but left off her nightshirt for the first time. She looked a lot better without it. She crawled in, but instead of snuggling down to sleep, she pulled off my pyjamas.

"You done mooning over Julie, Robert?"

"Not really. I still miss her."

"Didn't that big blonde have anything for you?"

"No, not really. The sex was awesome, I have to say, the best physical sex I've ever had, but there was something missing."

"No love underneath it all?"

"Likely."

"Poor Robert. Our Robert doesn't want sex without love, and all the love he's got comes without sex."

"I suppose so."

"You going to give up, or are you going to try again?"

"Love's not that easy to find."

"Want to try with me? You know I love you, and I know you've got at least a little bit of love for me. I think you know I'm different from Julie. You won't be looking to replace her when you're with me. I'm maybe a supplement. I won't be asking you to forget her, either. I love Julie, too, and it's a damn shame she felt she had to leave."

"You sure, Amber? You know I would hate to have you think you're obligated."

"About as sure as I've ever been about anything. I've been loving you for a while, and I'd like to share that love if you're open to it."

"Yes, love, please."

We made love fiercely that night, pouring our love into each other, back and forth until late. It was as if both of us had suddenly realized what we had stored up behind the floodgates and let it all go. At last, when we were both so exhausted we could barely move, we made slow, languorous love, our peak of perfection no less satisfying than the massive orgasms we had made for each other in our earlier passion.

"Love you, Robert."

"Love you, Amber."

Having Amber fully into our lives filled in some of the hole Julie had left, but we continued to miss her. It really wasn't enough when we'd seen more. Having Amber for a sex partner was good, but it didn't stop Amber wanting Julie back, too. I always knew that it wasn't just the sex with Julie that I missed. It was her. It was the love. I loved her and I was pretty sure she loved me. Our love fit in the greater structure of love that Stacey and Barbara and Amber and I had built. Loving Amber didn't change that. I was surprised that having Amber active in my bed instead of passively didn't decrease my love for Julie, though it made me love Amber all the more.

One morning a couple of months after Julie left Amber and I were lolling around in bed, thinking about getting up but not pushing the idea very hard. Lady Deirdre was still sleeping and the other girls hadn't made it over to our side of the house yet.

"Robert," Amber told me in her serious tone, "for a smart man you can be an awful idiot."

"Well, I do work at it, dear. You can't be really stupid without a lot of hard work."

"I didn't say stupid. I said you were an idiot, and that's what I meant."

"How so this time, love?" I took a moment to suckle her nipple. They were the cutest little nipples, and they got so hard when she was aroused. She was so loving. Maybe we shouldn't get up just yet.

"Stop that - no, I don't mean that - just let me finish what I was going to say. Then we can, you know . . . "

"I promise to be good. Very good."

"You are always very good." She smiled archly. "What I started out to say before I was oh so pleasantly interrupted is that you are an idiot. Put your hands in your lap for a moment and let me explain. You miss Julie, don't you?"




All Right Ch. 06



"Yes, I do. There was a real connection between us, as much as there is between me and you."

"Well, I know I'm not much of a replacement."

"Don't say that. I love you for you, and so do Stacey and Barbara. You're not just the next best woman. You are a different person, maybe even a different kind of love than I had for Julie. I can love Julie, even though she's gone, and at the same time love you. I wouldn't stop loving you even if Julie came back."

"Well, that's nice to hear. It makes what I want to say ever so much easier."

"Thank you. I think."

"If you miss Julie so much - we all do, Robert, she was a wonderful lady - why haven't you done anything about it?"

"Well, she was upset, and needed some time, and I wanted to give her that. Then she disappeared, moved away. That seemed to be a pretty definite answer. Now I don't know where she is."

"Robert, start thinking with your brain, will you? Even I know Julie left because she convinced herself she didn't have enough love in her to share with us."

"Yes, that's what she said. That's what she felt. She didn't feel she was up to us."

"Do you really believe that's true?"

"No, of course not. Julie has as much love in her as any of us. Maybe more."

"Did you ever tell her?"

"I tried. I don't think she was listening. If she was listening she wasn't believing."

"Have you tried telling her again?"

"I can't. She's gone I don't know where."

"Robert, that's what you do. You can find her and tell her."

"And then what? I have my woman, and a fine woman she is."

"Hands off until I finish. Well, maybe a little of that. You tell her she can love, she is loved and she's missed awfully, by all of us. You can put that hand back, you know."

I sat up abruptly. I left one hand on Amber's lovely flank, stroking her buttocks and thigh. I was startled, not demented.

"Are you prepared to share our time?"

"If we get a bigger bed."

"What about the others?"

"They agree with me. I think Stacey was going to mention it to me when I raised it with her. Barbara didn't see any problem if I was happy with it. I'll be happy if you can get her to come home, because it will make you happy, and because I miss her, too. I want you to tell her that, that even though you and I are more than we were when she left, I still want her to come back. I'm not planning on giving you up, though, and she has to know that. I don't mind if we each have you. I'm prepared to give her that much if I get her back."

"Are you serious? Me setting up a harem?"

"Shared love isn't a harem. Just a little lower, love. Look, tell her what I told you and convince her she has enough love to match any of us. After that it's up to her. Maybe she still won't come back, but at least she'll be making an informed choice."

"All right, sweet. I'll take care of it. But I have to do something else, first."

"I should hope so."

***

Amber was right. I knew how to find Julie if I had to. It had finally come down to having to. I used my abilities, my contacts and a few things at work that would have got me fired if they ever found out about them. Using those assets for personal reasons was strictly forbidden. I would have put up with being fired, because they worked.

Three weeks after Amber booted my ass into doing what I should have done a month before, I was nervously waiting outside an apartment door in Cleveland or Cincinnati or Columbus or someplace like that. I stood foursquare in front of the little spy device that let you see if the person at the door was Godzilla or a leprechaun, but didn't give you much better definition than that. I knocked. The downstairs security was as bad as it usually was. I had just followed the last tenant in. He probably thought I lived there. So Julie, if she was home, would have no idea who was at the door.

I could hear someone coming to the door. The soundproofing was none too good. I didn't hear any other voices. I suppose if she were entertaining another guy we could define this as a bad time for me to show up.

The door opened slightly on the chain, for all the good most of them were.

"Robert? Is that you?"

"Yes, love. I have things to tell you and I didn't have your phone number. May I come in?"

"S-sure."

She didn't look all that welcoming. It was more like she'd seen a ghost. At least she got the chain off. It had been one of the good ones, anchored in a steel door frame.

"Are you alone?"

"Sort of. Amber's downstairs. She wouldn't let me come alone, but she doesn't want to push too hard, either."

"Come in, then. Tell me what you have to, then you can go back to Amber."

I didn't know what to say to that. I wasn't too sure what was in her mind. Surely she didn't think our love had been so shallow that I was just going to yell at her or something? Maybe she did. Maybe she even wanted me to.

"Julie, I want to tell you that I still love you. I'm hurt and disappointed by what you've done, but mostly I'm sorry for you. You threw away a chance to be a part of a family who loved you because you thought you were unworthy, and you were wrong, so very wrong."

"It's all over," she replied. "I made my decision and I threw your offer back in your face and I ran away. That should have made it final."

"We want you back, Julie."

"You can't, not any of you, not after what I did."

"Frances told me when I left not to come back without you."

She laughed at the thought.

"Yes, I can see her doing that. Tell me, Robert, what's changed? Did you get together with Amber?"

"Yes, after a while."

"Did you find someone else as well?"

"No, there just wasn't the same fit, the same love."

"Amber won't want me upsetting the apple cart. Maybe you want me back, but I can't see the others agreeing."

"You're wrong. Amber made me find you and come after you. She said she's not prepared to give me up, but that doesn't mean you can't have some, too. Stacey and Barbara both gave me a message they thought the other didn't know about. 'Tell her I love her.' They each said that. They each love you, dear."

"It's too much. I can't love them back. I can't come back."

"Do you want to if you could?"

"Yes, I miss you all terribly. I tried going out a couple of times and I couldn't feel anything. One guy thought I'd been leading him on for the fun of it and got nasty. He shut up when I told him my brother was a cop."

I chuckled. "You don't have a brother."

"No, but I know a cop who'll protect me."

"You got that right, dear."

"So, you'd better get Amber up here."

There was a knock at the door. I laughed.

"Want to bet?"

"No, she knows too much or thinks too much or something."

Julie let Amber in. Julie told me to go hide in the bathroom or the dumpster or somewhere. They were going to work out the rules.

Julie came back with us, which I hadn't really expected. Amber had.

It took us about a week to convince her. It wasn't one of those fall over at first request things. It was keep at it and hammer hard. I'd have given up after the third day, but Amber kept pushing. I think that's what finally convinced Julie, that it was Amber who was pushing so hard. It wasn't that I didn't want her. I made that clear enough. It was that Amber, who had me, wanted her too.

Since then, we've worked things out. It didn't take much. I'd say all it took for Julie to feel right at home was to have Cynthia hurtle up to her the moment she walked through the door.

"Up." That and the arms held high. No better welcome, anywhere.

Julie and Amber did work out some kind of schedule. I don't know how it works. Most of the time Amber sleeps on the cot when it's Julie's night, though she's getting a lot better about being able to sleep on her own. She and Julie are closer friends than ever.

A while ago I was telling one of the guys at work about my screwy love life, and how it had finally (I thought) settled down.

"You think it's going to be happily ever after, then?"

"Well, hardly that. A little less stressful in the future, I hope. No relationship I know of that has any spark in it is free of troubles and disagreements. We ought to be able to work our way through them, though. There's a lot of love to work with."

"Maybe you should write it down. It might entertain a few people."

"Actually, if it does that it would be a bonus. Writing it down will help me sort out what happened and what I did right and what I did wrong."

"Sounds good. But remember, Bob, just the facts, ma'am, just the facts."

So I did. But are facts immutable? Do we know what a fact is? Are feelings facts? I don't know, but I've tried.

Epilogue

Six years after Julie came back to us we've become a pretty settled group. Stacey and Barbara are still madly in love with each other. With all the children starting to accumulate, we moved out to a big old barn of a place in the country. We can use five adult salaries. A couple of them are really good ones, so we're okay. We could use a lottery win, but then can't we all.

Frances is getting on for eleven, and is going to be a stunner. I'd better dust off the shotgun. Cynthia is nine and taller than I'd expected. My Lady Deirdre is seven (and a half). She's going to look a lot like her mother, I think, but taller. Jennifer is five, Karen is three and Felicity is one, all Julie's children. She loves all the children but she's ecstatic to have three of her own. Patricia is two (Amber's second). Felicia and Georgina are four. They aren't twins but might as well be. What happened there is that Stacey and Barbara decided they wanted to give each other a baby, to go with all the other ones, so they were both artificially inseminated the same day from sperm recently donated by an anonymous donor. I'd made my donation the day before with Amber's help. Seems there was a shortage. The babies were born within three days of each other and they both look a little like me. Poor devils. Fortunately it's only a little.

Life has been pretty much a bed of roses for us since things fell back together. Before you get too envious, remember that roses have thorns, too.