After Wednesday classes, Will, Alex and I hit the supermarket. We got all the stuff I needed for Thanksgiving dinner, plenty of beer. The guy at the liquor store even let us buy a nice bottle of wine. He knows us pretty well by now.
We stopped for supper at the Union. No point in paying extra or trying to make supper in an unfamiliar kitchen. And the weather was cold enough so nothing would spoil in the car.
At Henry´s house, we put stuff away, looked around. Two big bedrooms with big beds, great master bath. Wonderful kitchen. Living room with a fireplace.
We opened some beer, started a fire, put some music on the stereo and settled down, the guys in armchairs. I sat on the big couch, watching the fire. Very cozy.
“Will,” I asked, “how´d you get started drawing?”
“I don´t think I ever started, really. I´ve always drawn. I´m the only one in the family who does, except for Mom, of course.”
“I thought both your folks were artists,” Alex said. “You said they both teach art.”
“Dad teaches Art History. He doesn´t draw or paint. Anyway, I started real early, and Mom always encouraged me, helped me.”
I asked, “What did you do for models?”
“I´ve done a lot of still life, a lot of landscape. There was a time when I only drew sports cars. If I wanted to do life studies, I had to put up with my friends – they usually had something better to do – or my two older sisters. And they found out fast that posing is a bore. I had to learn how to catch figures in a hurry, on the fly.”
“That´s how you work so fast,” Alex said.
“Did your sisters pose nude for you?” I wondered.
“Hell, no. Not a chance. Nudity is not big in our family. All my figure work of my sisters and mother is clothed. Clothes are a lot harder to draw than bodies, sometimes.”
The fire was nice and warm. I got up and took my dress off, sat back down in my panties. The table in front of the couch was the right height, so I put my feet up.
Alex asked, “Where did you learn to do figures, then?”
“Well, there was a girl my age down the street. When we were about ten she´d pose for me with her clothes on. After a while, she´d take her panties off and let me draw her from the waist down. She´d let me draw her pussy, too. That´s how I first learned to draw genitals. But she never would take her dress off or let me draw her fully nude. At least not then.”
“When, then?” I asked.
“That was strange. I dated her for a while when we were older, but I couldn´t get to first base with her. Then, one day, she called me up and asked me if I would do a drawing of her. We must have been fifteen.
“I went over to her place, and she was there with her brother. We talked a while, and she reminded me of how she used to let me draw her, but wouldn´t take off all her clothes. She said she wanted me to do a full nude of her, right then. Of course, I said okay.
“Well, she took off her clothes. But her brother stripped, too. It ended up, I drew my first erotic drawing that day, of her and her brother fucking like rabbits.”
“Wow! What a kick.” I said.
“Oh, let me tell you, it was. But, that was the last I saw of her. She kept the sketches and the final drawing. They moved away a month later.”
“What about you, Alex?” I said. I got up from the couch and stood in front of the fire, feeling the heat on my skin. It felt good on my back.
“Well, what about me? I´m just a kid who went crazy over computers. I had girl friends, got laid now and then. My family´s pretty much like the rest of your families. We don´t do anything really unusual…. The day Anne took me to your room and we made love was wonderful for me. I thought she was the greatest. The next thing I knew, I was in bed with Mary and Anne and Tom. This has been a very unusual few months for me.”
“You holding up all right, Alex?” Will asked.
“I´ll say. I´ve never been happier. Mary, you two have changed my life.”
Alex came and stood beside me. He put his arm around me, slipped his hand into the front of my panties. “Have you ever made love in front of a fire?”
I reached into his shorts. “It´s great. Do we want company?”
“Sure.”
.oOo.
We slept late Thanksgiving morning. And when we woke up, it was hard to get out of a bed where there were two warm, loving men and one willing woman. But we worked hard at it and finally had a late breakfast. When that was done, I put the guys to work on dinner.
We had a medium-size fresh turkey, stuffed, and I made lots of other things I used to make at Aunt Bessie´s ranch. I made an apple pie for dessert. We worked for a while, took frequent breaks, and lay about the living room smelling the stuff cooking and enjoying each other.
By the time it was all ready, we were really hungry. We ate a lot, drank the wine. Then we did the dishes, cleaned everything up. The whole day was, somehow, lazy, loving. Eventually we went back to bed.
When we finally put the light out, I had Will on one side, Alex on the other, hands all over me. I had my hands well occupied, as well.
“Another first,” said Alex, when we were too tired to make love any more.
“What?” I asked.
“My first naked Thanksgiving. ´Night.”
.oOo.
Friday, we got going early so we could meet Sarah. We drove to the stables, changed to her car. The competition was at a fair grounds an hour or so away.
We got there in time to look around before things got started. A number of stalls sold western-style clothes and knick-knacks, more stalls offered riding accessories. Most of it wasn´t too good quality, but I saw a shirt I liked and bought it.
Will was looking at everything. Now that he had decided to learn to ride, he wanted to have the right look, too. I showed him a couple of shirts, a jacket. He ended up buying an inexpensive hat that would probably last him until he decided whether he was serious. I made him promise to wait on boots until we could find some really good ones. They´re too important to make compromises on.
Alex just wandered around, looking at the girls and the horses. I watched the horses, too. Some of the riders were warming up a bit in the cold air. There were several horses that looked as good as Hero. Their riders really knew their stuff.
Pretty soon, the show got under way. Sarah, the guys and I sat in the stands and watched. I had the program and made a list of the things I saw that weren´t actually written down in the schedule. Before long, it was clear who was good and who wasn´t, and I could concentrate on the good riders.
Sarah pointed out the critical things: what the judges were focusing on, how they were going to make their choices. Not all of them were directly related to the riding. They seemed to care a lot more about appearance, in some cases, than performance. She said that was natural, especially at a small, non-accredited show.
The show took all afternoon, and finally, the results were announced. We had been making notes, keeping our own score based on Sarah´s estimate of the riders´ performances. She was very close. The winner was our second choice. Our pick for winner came up third. Sarah said she thought politics had something to do with that. Too bad, but nothing new.
Will, of course, was sketching like mad. I looked over his shoulder, and he seemed to be concentrating on the riders, more than on the horses. Several sketches only showed parts of the horse, a foot, the head.
“What are you up to? You usually draw the horse. Today you´re drawing the riders.”
“It´s like when I see you ride, Mary. There´s something very subtle going on there, and I want to try to catch it.… See how he´s making his horse move? I want to make you see how he´s doing it, and what´s the horse´s response. This is really fun.”
He really did catch a lot of the feeling for how riders cue the horse, and he sketched them with tremendous reality.
A woman sitting next to Will was also watching him work. He was furiously sketching a rider performing in the ring.
“What are you going to do with your sketches?” she asked.
Will kept right on working as he answered. “I´ll probably work them up into a pen and ink drawing once I get home and have a little more time. There´s so much going on right now, I can only do snapshots.”
“If you do one of that fellow, would you let me see it? That´s my husband, and if it looks anything like what I think it will, I´d like to give it to him.”
“Of course. I do quite a few horses and riders. I´d be glad to send you a sketch, and if you like the idea, I´ll do a finished pen and ink drawing. They usually run about one fifty. If you keep the sketch, it´s another fifty.”
The lady didn´t bat an eyelash at the price, so I took her name and address while Will kept on sketching. After her husband left the ring, we made a point of going by where he had his horse tethered and doing more detail sketches. “To fill in the blank spots,” Will said.
On the way home, Sarah asked, “What do you think about this Western Pleasure Riding thing, Mary?”
“I´ve never seen it done like this, Sarah. They ride the way I do; I didn´t really see anything new. I think I could learn those routines and I´m sure Hero would be a good horse in competition, if you´ll let me use him.”
“If you should win anything on his back, Mary, it makes him worth more money to me. Not that I want to sell him. I mean that it´s in my interest for you to use him for competition.”
“Well, then, I´m going to start to structure my classes and my workouts toward these competitions. But I´m not going to let competition get in the way of teaching and training for useful work and comfortable riding.”
“Will, how about starting out tomorrow with me?” Sarah asked. “I´ll show you the basics..."
“...How to muck out a stall,” I said.
“...like how to saddle up, and then later how to groom after you´ve ridden. You need to learn what we call ‘basic horsemanship´ – including mucking out.” she said.
Alex put in, “Sounds like there´s a lot more to this than just turning on the key and driving off.”
“Sure is,” I said. “The horse is a sentient creature. He knows a lot, and you need to get his help and keep him in condition so he can be your friend as well as your helper. Takes work.”
That night we had Thanksgiving leftovers, but I made a sort of chili out of some of the turkey. Since there were still lots of sweet potatoes, I put it all together as a tostada. Alex asked for seconds.
When supper was finished, I took a bath. I was grimy as well as a little tired. When I had soaked out the kinks, I asked who wanted to share a shower. I got a 100 percent response.
In the living room, in front of the fire, we had beer and just talked about the day for a while.
Then Will said, “You know, it´s funny.”
“What?”
“Oh, we have two lives, at least, all six of us. Saul and Anne and Alex and I are really into this art stuff and we´re really thinking of making a business out of it. And you and I are into the horses, as well as the art business. I´m not quite sure yet where Tom is, but then, he isn´t either.”
Alex chimed in. “Tom´ll be all right. The way I see it, we each have a sort of role. Saul organizes everything – everything he sees. And then Anne manages it. She´s a great manager, and Saul, for all his organization can´t manage his way across the room some days. Me, I´m lazy, but I´m good at layout and stuff, and you and Anne kind of sweep me along, help me – and Tom – stay focused...”
Will resumed. “You, Mary, you´re dedicated. You get going on something and you don´t let go until it´s done, or you know it won´t work. But, you know how to let go, too... I miss them.”
“Do you miss all of them, Will, or just Anne?”
“All of them, Mary. I love Anne, yes. And I love you, too, but it´s a little different, you know that. And the guys, too. We all have a good time together.”
“Mary,” Alex put in, “what is it? I know Anne and Will and Saul say they´re in love with each other. They say they love all of us, too. I don´t understand that, exactly. And I don´t really understand how you feel about all of us.”
“Big order, Alex, for a little girl from Colorado. I´ll give it a try. Will, you help me out.”
“If I can. Sometimes I wonder myself.”
“I think Anne and Saul and Will really do love each other in a serious, special way. It feels that way when they´re together. But I never feel from Will or Saul that they don´t genuinely love me, too. There´s just this special thing they have together.”
“Does that bother you?” Alex asked.
“If you mean am I jealous? No, I´m not. I´m glad Anne has someone she loves. And she needs more than one guy to love, to be really serious about. I don´t know how she manages it, but she does. And I am very happy she lets me share her men.”
Will interrupted. “I´ve never felt like I´m ‘Anne´s man´ and I don´t think Saul does. I know for certain that each of us is still his own person, and so is Anne. And we don´t share, Mary. You´re a part of us. Anyway, I´m certain Anne´s having a great time with that old study group of hers this vacation, if they´re home. And I´ll bet Saul is giving one or more of his old girlfriends a good time, too.
“What we have is... well, I guess somehow the three of us just love each other. We have sex together, and with the rest of you, but the sex we all have is part of our friendship. And that doesn´t get in the way of the special love the three of us have. Sounds kind of weird.”
“Weird or not,” said Alex, “I think you´re right. I never feel like the rest of you are shutting me out, and when I make love with Anne, it´s just as swell as it is with Mary. I never feel a difference. Maybe you´re saying that friendship and sex and love and sex aren´t the same thing, but they go together.”
Will wrestled with that, and gave up. He turned to me. “Mary, what´s your situation? You´re sort of saying, ‘It´s okay if they´re in love, I´m not.´”
“I´m not, Will. I´m not in love with anyone right now. That is, there´s no one in the group – or out of it – I love to the point that I want to live with them forever and bear their children. That´s what love means for me.
“At the same time, my feelings for all of you are a lot different from how I feel about most people. I love you in a way that means I look forward to being with you, to going to bed with you and sharing all the things we share. But I don´t call it love, exactly. Someday I´ll meet someone I´ll fall in L-O-V-E with. And when I do, it will be someone who can love all the other people I love, the way I do now.” I got a sort of a shiver down my back. “God, I hope it works out like that. Will, would you get me another beer? I´m dry as a bone.”
Will brought me the beer and sat down beside me. I cuddled up to him, put my head on his shoulder. He felt good.
“Stripped of the sentiment, Mary, I think you are saying that having four lovers, more or less, is just what you like right now, and someday you´ll fall in love and then you´ll have five lovers, more or less.”
“Umm,” I said, “More, not less.”
.oOo.
Saul´s phone call got us out of bed on Saturday. He said he and Anne would be here in time for supper.
All three of us spent the day at the stables.
I talked with Sarah about my training plan, and we worked out a pattern that would give me what I needed and that my class would benefit from as well. Hero and I and the class, up to my limit of eight now, worked hard for an hour and a half in the November cold, then went for a fast ride.
While I worked with The Bay, Sarah took Will and started him on the basics. Alex had brought his camera with him and took pictures of me and of Will and Sarah.
When we got home, I stripped for the shower and was wandering kind of aimlessly through the living room when the doorbell rang. The peephole said it was Saul and Anne, so I let them in.