Chapter 33: Happy New Year

Meri

New Year’s eve in Germany was wild. At point zero hours they started wild fireworks all over the town and it lasted for over 2 hours.

We went outside to watch it for a few minutes, but didn’t take part in it ourselves. Lydia, Bea and Regina were unanimous in their opinion that this amounted to literally burning money, and was therefore pointless. Not to mention that many of the people handling that stuff were not exactly sober at that point. In fact, none of us was entirely sober either.

We had inordinate amounts of fun, waiting how long it would take a more than just a little tipsy Regina to register that she was standing out on the street, stark naked. It took her quite a while to realize it was a bit cold, and we all had a giggle when she staggered back into the house.

Except for Bea, and Jenny who had slept through all of this, we were all quite buzzed, so once the ruckus outside had died down a bit, we all staggered to bed.

Regina

I trundled out of our bedroom in the morning and had a good idea what mornings must be like for Mark. My brain was foggy, and the light coming through the windows was quite loud.

To my surprise I found Mark of all people already up and he had already cleaned up the table, with the wine and beer bottles neatly collected in a corner next to the sink – and more importantly – he had made coffee.

“Sit down, gloriously naked woman,” he cooed and pulled out a chair for me. “You look like me in the morning.”

“Thanks,” I said and took the pot from him. “How come you’re so chipper today?”

“Nothing special,” he said with a chuckle. “I was just the only one who didn’t have a glass too many yesterday, which means I don’t have hair tip Catarrh on top of my usual grumpiness.”

“Good for you,” I groaned. “I hope I didn’t do anything stupid?”

“That bad?” he asked me and looked a bit concerned. “You were quite buzzed, but it didn’t look like you had a complete blackout.”

“I don’t need much,” I explained. “I can drink a few glasses of wine and all is okay, but just a single one too many and I’m an amnesiac the next morning. That’s why I rarely drink much. In fact, yesterday was the first time in three years.”

“That explains a few things,” he mused and sat down with a pot of his own.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re extremely smart,” Mark explained. “That would explain why your brain is so susceptible to alcohol. For lesser geniuses like me, the memory degradation is a gradual process.”

Then he chuckled and continued.

“A single glass of wine knocking your brains out would explain why you were the only one who didn’t quite grasp the concept of grabbing a coat before going outside to watch the fireworks.”

I gasped. “Did Jenny...”

He held up his hand to stop my beginning panic attack.

“Jenny slept through the night. She missed all of it. But your better half had a right ol’ ball with you standing there not understanding why we were all cackling.”

“Figures,” I said with relief and rolled my eyes.

“In fact she had so much fun she didn’t notice herself that she had grabbed a jacket instead of a coat.”

“Don’t make me laugh,” I groaned. “So Meri was laughing at me while she was showing her pussy to everyone?”

He nodded, still amused. “But before you panic, none of the neighbors noticed.”

Mark

Lydia and Meri staggered out of their rooms a little later and they were in no better condition than Regina, although they had retained most of their memories.

Although rather chilly outside, it was sunny, so after lunch, when all of the ladies had mostly recovered, we all engaged in another German tradition – taking a walk on the first day of the new year.

Walking through the town would not have been the most pleasant experience. After all the excessive fire works, German towns and cities look like war zones on Jan 1st, as the town council won’t start the clean up before the first working day.

Since ours were the last houses on the street, we simply had to walk out through the backyard to step into the countryside surrounding the town. Jenny, who had spent most of her short life in a city, clearly had a ball. And so did we, watching the youngster in her slightly over-sized bobble hat enjoying life.

Lydia

The rest of the day went relatively low-energy. When we came back home from the walk we felt all a bit beat, at least we girls. Mark seemed to do fine. He had played tag and hide-and-seek with Jenny throughout the walk. This had surely been the first ever day when he had had the better of me in terms of stamina.

We hadn’t even bothered to undress again after the walk, well except for the coats that is. The rest of the day was spent just sitting around, chatting or watching TV.

Mark was the only one who felt like having a beer in the evening. The rest of us had had their fill the night before.

Meri

With the remnants of our hangovers slept off, it was time to get into a normal rhythm again. It was badly needed in fact. Due to the reduced training and the excellent food of the last week I had grown nearly ten pounds over my fighting weight.

Lydia had only three days left before leaving for South Africa, and we spent most of those three days putting in long stints on the roll, trying to work off some of the weight we had gained.

Mark had been gone throughout those three days, getting his work for the year started in Berlin, visiting his father and his great grandfather Ernst on the way back. Apparently, he and his ancestor had some things to talk about in the aftermath of their visit on Christmas day. Lydia had actually gotten somewhat nervous that he wouldn’t be back in time before she had to leave early next morning.

But at eight in the evening the street barge finally came to a stop in the driveway. He walked in, gave all of us a kiss and disappeared into the bathroom. We soon heard the shower running and glint in developed in Lydia’s eyes. Well, we were all naked already, so she wouldn’t need much preparation.

True to our expectation, he came back out, naked, his hair still damp. He grabbed Lydia’s hand and led her up the stairs to their room.

“I’ll get the laundry,” Regina said with a giggle. “I bet they’ll be a bit busy.”

She stood to collect Mark’s discarded clothes from the bathroom.

Regina

Four their standards the tryst of Lydia and Mark had an almost sedate quality to it. We had heard that he had worked her to at least three orgasms, but other than that it had been a remarkably quiet affair. It was a timely reminder that, when he pounded the raw stuffing out of me, Meri or Femke, he had sex. With Lydia, he was making love.

All of us were more than willing to keep him occupied during the three weeks they would be separated, but it reminded me that none of us could really be an adequate substitute for the real love of his life.

And they had taken their sweet time. When Mark came down the stairs, still naked, it was already a few minutes past ten. They had been at it for over ninety minutes. Since he didn’t disappear into the bathroom, it could only mean Lydia had learned her lesson not to have her rear-end molested before training or a race.

Mark walked straight to the fridge and grabbed himself a beer.

“Is she asleep or unconscious?” Meri asked with a giggle when he sat down across from us.

“A gentleman enjoys, but doesn’t talk,” he teased her.

“Is she going on your plane?” I asked him.

He nodded. “They can make it with a single stop on the Canary Islands. But for the return to Pasadena she’ll fly commercial. It would just take too many stops for the distance.”

“Why didn’t you get one with a longer range?” Meri pointed out.

“Way too expensive, and besides, we’ll use it mostly for flights across the states and flights with a single stop. Lydia has a lot of races in the states this year, and we’ll operate mostly out of Pasadena.”

“Guess we’ll better make the most of the time you’re here then,” Meri said with a glint in her eye. I elbowed her in the ribs, disapproving of such an ill-timed joke after he had just made love to Lydia.

Lydia

“Keep him occupied,” I said with a grin as our street barge stopped on the Apron of the Emden airfield.

“Oh, he seems to be able to do that all by himself,” Meri said with a giggle. “He’ll be off to Berlin as soon as he has dropped us off back home.”

“Looks like Jenny isn’t coming?” I asked Regina when I saw Bea hadn’t followed us to the airport.

She shrugged with a lop-sided grin. “She had the choice to send you off or present her new kart on the first day the track is open again. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision.”

“Make sure you don’t take one of my bags,” Mark warned me. “I’ve loaded my stuff already, too.”

“I thought you’d go in the evening?” I asked him.

“Change of plans,” Mark replied. “John has moved the interview with a Javelin thrower to tomorrow morning. I don’t want to drive all night and then sit there and yawn all the time while trying to convince him to switch to us.”

“I can see where that wouldn’t be the best idea.”

Mark shrugged. “I’m pretty sure he pays me a good deal more than other newbies in the company, and I don’t want to make him regret that decision.”

Mark

We had fished all her bags from the car and hoisted them into the cargo space of the plane. I shook Fred’s hand when he passed us during his obligatory walk-around to do a visual inspection of the plane.

“Make sure the cabin temperature isn’t too low,” I told him and we both had a chuckle before he continued his inspection.

“She didn’t!” Meri gasped and laughed.

“She did what?” Regina asked, who hadn’t overheard our talk with Fred.

“When we came here from Pasadena, Fred came back from the cockpit to get himself and Jack a coffee from the galley. Lydia was sleeping in her seat with not a stitch of clothing on her,” I explained.

“What did he say?” Regina asked, giggling.

“He explained that I better keep the pants on,” my better half said, which obviously confused Regina. “He said, when he’s flying towards turbulence and the seat-belt signs come on, I will always have time to strap in and throw a shirt on, but not to get fully dressed. Unless of course I want to evacuate naked in case of an emergency landing.”