Chapter 4

Six months later...

“Do you, Laura, take this woman, Allison, as your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, to love, cherish, and protect, for better or for worse, for rich or for poor, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?” Molly, as officiator, asked my social secretary, who had recently given birth to my firstborn daughter, Christina.

“I do,” Allison replied with a charming smile.

“Do you, Allison, take this woman, Laura, as your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, to love, cherish, and protect, for better or for worse, for rich or for poor, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”

“Si ... I do,” Laura answered with a wink at me and a grin for Allie.

“Then, by the power vested in me by the State of Nevada, I now pronounce you wife and wife. You may kiss the bride,” Molly beamed as the happy couple locked lips in a steamy Sapphic tongue kiss.

This marriage was a mixture of law and lust, of course. Laura now tied the knot with her sister-wife, Allie, since I couldn’t legally practice polygamy. Having my wives marry each other was very handy indeed, as proven when two former maids of mine said their vows just minutes before. Zoe Nakimoto and Dina Byblos were now wife and wife, too, or whatever one wished to call them. The former was Japanese and the latter an Egyptian of Coptic Christian persuasion, but who was counting?

Yeah, I had five wives, so sue me. One just happened to be a TV actress, but no one in my harem made too much of that ... mostly. They teased her now and then about it and had fun with it, largely to break the ice and cut the tension, but they didn’t act all starstruck most of the time. Well, after a little while living together, the novelty of bedding a celebrity started to wear thin, if only just.

Molly, of course, was Molly Phelps, or to be more formal, Margaret Maureen Maryanne Phelps, yes, two middle names and three Ms, if you counted. I didn’t blame her for answering to “Molly” instead. She was my first and legal wife, even now, though we were briefly estranged. Laura was Laura Rosario Flora Cabral, a Dominican immigrant who was quite pleased to be the mother of my firstborn child.

Yes, in case you overlooked it, Allie happened to be Allison Christin Mack, the actress who was best known for portraying Chloe Sullivan on Smallville. Also yes, we had witnesses from the series, namely Tom Welling, Kristin Kreuk, John Glover, and Michael Rosenbaum. I got the impression that they were still a bit stunned that their co-star was intimate with a relatively obscure head chef from Billings, Montana.

“So, you’re the famous Jack Phelps, illustrious executive chef and lothario par excellence,” Kristin teased me a little now.

“So I’ve been told. I sometimes even believe it,” I chuckled as she burst into laughter in spite of herself.