Their Wonder Years: Season 1: Fall 1998
Copyright© 2025 by Tantrayaan
68: Treading Water
Coming of Age Sex Story: 68: Treading Water - Bharath always thought going to America would mean fast love, wild parties, and maybe a stewardess or two. What he got instead? A busted duffel bag, a crying baby on the plane, and dormmates he never thought could exist in real life. Thrown into the chaos of Georgia Tech’s freshman year, Bharath begins an unforgettable journey of awkward first crushes and culture shocks. A slow-burn, emotionally rich harem romance set in the nostalgic 90s - full of laughter, lust, and longing.
Caution: This Coming of Age Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa mt/ft mt/Fa Consensual Fiction Humor School Sharing Group Sex Harem Orgy Polygamy/Polyamory White Female Hispanic Female Indian Female
After the commotion at the hospital, the taxi ride home felt surreal. The silence in the taxi was not because of tension, but due to how exhausted everyone felt. Bharath sat in the back, sandwiched between Sarah and Zara who were nestled under his arms. His head leaned back on the comfortable car seat as he tried to make sense of everything that had happened.
The chill of the air outside felt good, as his head was throbbing with a dull, persistent ache. Ayesha sat in the front, turning every thirty seconds to check on him, her dark eyes wide with a worry she couldn’t voice. The cabbie kept trying to pull her into a conversation, but the beautiful girl just wouldn’t engage with him. After a while he gave up with a sigh. It wasn’t often that he had someone as gorgeous as Ayesha as a passenger. But she seemed to be more interested in the boy in the back seat. Some guys seemed to have all the luck!
When they finally pulled up to Sarah’s house, the familiar sight of the two-story home with its slightly overgrown hedges should have been a comfort. Instead, it just looked like a building. The front door seemed too far away.
Sarah paid the driver while Zara and Ayesha helped Bharath out of the car. He tried to wave them off, muttering, “I can walk, I’m fine,” but his legs felt unsteady, as if the ground wasn’t entirely solid. Zara simply slid her arm more firmly around his waist, taking his weight without a word as Ayesha held his hands.
The inside of the house was still. The air was stale, carrying the faint, sweet scent of yesterday’s memories. The events before Maria had caught him kissing Mia in her garden already felt like it belonged to another lifetime.
Bharath didn’t make it to the bedroom. He sank onto the large living room couch, the plush cushions groaning softly under his weight. He let his head fall back and closed his eyes. The bandage on his forearm was stark white against his skin. The scratches on his face and neck had darkened into ugly, purpling lines. He looked young, and terribly worn out.
The house was too quiet. It wasn’t just the lack of noise; it was the absence of them. Of Mia’s effervescent laughter bubbling through their home. Of Marisol’s steady, grounding presence. The space felt hollowed out, incomplete without them.
He felt the couch dip beside him before he heard her. A gentle hand brushed the hair from his forehead.
“You alright, my love?” Sarah’s voice was soft, stripped of its usual playful energy.
He opened his eyes. Her blonde hair was messy, falling from a loose ponytail, and she still wore the same clothes from the day before. There were ugly shadows under her beautiful green eyes.
He managed a faint smile. “I’m fine, chellam.”
It was a reflex, a habit of not wanting to be a burden. But as he shifted, a sharp twinge shot from his ribs, and he couldn’t suppress a quick, sharp intake of breath.
“You’re a terrible liar,” Zara said, her voice low. She was kneeling on the floor in front of him, her chin resting on her arms on the couch cushion. She looked up at him, her gaze direct and unwavering. “You don’t have to be fine for us.”
Ayesha came and sat on his other side, taking his uninjured hand in both of hers. Her touch was cool and calming. “We know you miss them,” she whispered. “We do too. It feels ... wrong, without them here.”
He looked at their faces - Sarah’s tender concern, Zara’s fierce protectiveness, Ayesha’s serene empathy. The lump that had been lodged in his throat since the hospital finally began to dissolve. He wasn’t alone in this. The weight wasn’t his alone to carry.
“I just...” His voice cracked. “I keep seeing her face. Maria’s. Not when she was ... angry. But after. In the hospital. She looked so lost.”
“She was,” Sarah said, her hand now stroking his back in slow, steady circles. “She is.”
“And I put that look there,” he said, the guilt he had been suppressing finally breaking through. “I tore her family apart.”
“No.” Zara’s voice was firm, brooking no argument. She reached up and cupped his cheek, forcing him to meet her eyes. “Listen to me, jaanu. That woman made her own choices. She chose to pick up a knife. She chose to try and kill the boy her daughters love. She deserved worse than she got, you know that, right? The police wanted to take her in. They tried. But you ... you stood there, bleeding, and you fought for her. You didn’t even fight back when she was trying to stab you. When the police came for her - you didn’t even tell them that she was trying to kill you. You told them she was family.”
Her eyes, usually so full of fiery confidence, now glistened with angry, frustrated tears. “After what she did to you, you forgave her completely. Instantly. Don’t you dare take her guilt onto your shoulders. We won’t let you.”
“Zara’s right,” Ayesha said, her thumbs tracing slow, hypnotic circles on his palm. “This isn’t something you did to anyone. It’s something we’re all building with you. It’s messy. And it’s hard. And it frightens people who don’t understand. But it’s ours. We chose this. We choose you. Every day.”
He let their words sink in, feeling the truth of them settle in his bones. He leaned into Sarah’s touch and closed his eyes again, the exhaustion pulling at him.
“You need to rest, jaanu,” Ayesha murmured. “Not just pass out from exhaustion. Let your mind switch off for a while. We can talk later. Not now.”
He nodded, too tired to argue. “Okay. I will. I’ll just stay here for a bit.”
After a long moment, a practical thought surfaced through the fog of his fatigue. “You all ... you should go shower. Get into some clean clothes. You’ve been in those since yesterday. You must be just as exhausted as I am. Thank you for...”
“If you complete that line you are going to be in real trouble mister,” said Zara hotly. Seeing the same look mirrored on Ayesha and Sarah’s faces, he chose to keep quiet.
They exchanged a look, that silent, complex language they had developed that he still couldn’t fully decipher.
Sarah sighed first. “Okay. We let it slide ... this time. But only because you promise you won’t move.”
“I promise,” he said.
Zara leaned in and pressed a firm, lingering kiss to his forehead, a brand of possession and care. “Don’t you dare get up. I’ll know.”
Ayesha gave his hand one final, reassuring squeeze before letting go. “Five minutes. We’ll be quick.”
He listened as their footsteps faded up the stairs, followed by the soft click of a bedroom door closing. The silence descended again, but this time it felt different. It was a waiting silence, filled with the promise of their return. He let his body go limp against the cushions, his breathing slowly beginning to even out. The faint, familiar sounds of the house - the hum of the refrigerator, the creak of a floorboard upstairs were a lullaby. For the first time since he had walked into Maria’s living room the night before, the tight coil of anxiety in his chest began to unspool, just a little.
He must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, the quality of light in the room had changed, and a new, gentle sound was pulling him back to consciousness. Soft footsteps on the carpet.
He opened his eyes slowly.
They stood there, just inside the living room doorway. Sarah, Zara, and Ayesha. They had showered. Their hair was damp, clinging to their necks and shoulders. They wore no makeup. And they were dressed, not in lingerie or anything meant to be seductive, but in the soft, worn-in clothes they wore around the house - his old t-shirts and soft cotton shorts. They looked divine, his apsaras, and so beautiful it made his heart ache.
They didn’t say a word. They just came to him.
Sarah sat on the edge of the couch near his hips, her hand finding its way back to his hair, her fingers combing through it with a soothing rhythm. Zara lay down on the couch behind him, curling her body around his, her front to his back. He could feel the warmth of her through his shirt, the steady beat of her heart against his shoulder blade. Ayesha settled on the floor, leaning her head against his leg, her hand resting on his ankle.
They enveloped him. Not with dramatic declarations or performative passion, but with a quiet, steadfast presence. They were his fortress in this time of distress, a living blanket.
He felt a tear escape and roll down his temple into his hairline. He didn’t try to stop it.
Sarah leaned down and kissed the tear away. “It’s okay,” she whispered, her breath warm against his skin. “Just let it go. We’ve got you.”
Zara tightened her arm around his waist. “We’re not going anywhere.”
Ayesha began to hum, just a simple, wordless melody. It wasn’t mystical or magical. It was just a sound, a vibration of comfort, like a mother humming to a child.
He turned his face into the cushion, and the dam finally broke. Silent sobs shook his shoulders. He cried for the terror in Maria’s eyes, for the pain he had caused her, for the fear his own parents would one day feel, for the sheer, overwhelming impossibility of it all. He cried for the boy he used to be, who had no idea his life would become this complicated, this painful, and this profoundly beautiful.
And they held him through it. Sarah kept stroking his hair. Zara held him tight, her body a solid anchor. Ayesha kept humming, her hand a steady weight on his leg. They didn’t try to shush him or tell him it would be alright. They just let him fall apart, and they proved, without a single word, that they were strong enough to hold the pieces.
When the storm passed, he was hollowed out and utterly spent. His breathing hitched, then slowly evened out. The weight of their bodies, the rhythm of their breathing, the simple reality of them - it was the only medicine that could have reached him.
He felt Zara’s lips press against the back of his neck. “Sleep, jaan,” she murmured.
He didn’t have the strength to resist. His eyelids fluttered shut. The last thing he was aware of was Sarah pulling a soft, knitted blanket over them, tucking it around his shoulders, and the three of them settling in around him, keeping watch as he finally, finally slipped into a deep and dreamless sleep.
The only sound in the room for a long time was the deep, even rhythm of Bharath’s breathing. It was a sound they all clung to, a proof of life and temporary peace after the chaos. Sarah, curled on the couch with her head near his hip, was the first to speak, her voice hushed.
“He’s out. Finally! Look at his face. All the lines are gone.”
Zara, pressed against his back like a protective shell, let out a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the entire, terrible night. “Good. I could literally hear the gears grinding in his head. Just going over and over it. I was worried he would never switch off.”
From her place on the floor, her head pillowed on his leg, Ayesha added softly, “He carries it all. Not just his own shock. Our fear. Maria’s rage. His parents’ expectations, even from thousands of miles away. He thinks it’s his job to absorb all the pain so we don’t have to.”
Sarah’s fingers, moving on their own accord, began to gently comb through his dark curls. “But is he wrong, though? About being the cause? We can say Maria made her own choices, and she did. But we’re the reason she felt she had to make them. Our love for him is what broke her world. I can’t stop seeing it from his side. How awful that must feel.”
Zara’s body went rigid against Bharath’s back. “Don’t,” she said, her voice low and sharp. “Don’t you dare start justifying it, Sarah. She didn’t just get angry. She didn’t just yell. She went to her kitchen, picked up a goddamn knife, and tried to carve him up. She could be in a jail cell right now. She should be.” Her hand, which had been resting on his stomach, curled into a fist for a moment before forcing itself to relax. “And he ... he just ... forgave her. Like flipping a switch. ‘It’s a family matter.’ He fought the cops for her. He got the doctors and nurses to let them talk to Mari and Mia. After she put four stitches in his arm. It’s not goodness, it’s ... it’s madness.”
“It’s not madness, it’s mercy,” Sarah shot back, her own exhaustion making her voice thin. “And yes, a part of me wants to scream at her, to shake her. But another part ... Zara, he saw past the knife. He saw the terror in her. He saw a mother who thought she was losing everything. That’s not weakness. That’s a kind of strength I can’t even comprehend.”
“She is a mother,” Ayesha interjected, her tone calm but firm, trying to bridge the gap between Sarah’s empathy and Zara’s fury. “That’s the core of it for him. He doesn’t see an assailant. He sees a woman whose heart is broken. He feels complicit in that breaking. Pressing charges would have been like rejecting Mia and Marisol’s entire childhood. He was shielding them from a permanent, ugly rift.”
“But what about us? Our family almost lost him!” Zara’s voice cracked, thick with unshed tears of frustration and fear. “And what about Mia and Mari? Have you thought about what they went through? Their mother, the woman who raised them alone, on one side. The man they love, bleeding on the floor, on the other. The person they owe their life to, trying to take the life of the person who is their life. What kind of psychological torture is that?”
She let out a shaky breath, the anger subsiding into a profound sadness. “God, Sarah ... sometimes, in the most messed-up way, I look at you and I think ... at least you’re spared that. Your family is right here, in this room. Us. You don’t have to stand in your parents’ living room and try to explain why the man you love has five girlfriends and why that’s okay. You don’t have that hanging over you.”
The words, though not meant cruelly, landed with a quiet thud. Sarah was the orphan. Her family was this tangled mess of love on the couch. She had no one else to lose. “I know,” she whispered, the old loneliness a faint echo in her chest. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry you both have that sword hanging over your heads. I can’t even imagine how heavy that is.”
“It got a lot heavier last night,” Ayesha said, her gaze fixed on some distant, frightening point on the wall. “It was always a theoretical problem. A ‘we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’ But Maria ... she was the bridge. And she showed what it meant to face this in reality. It’s not enough to just dream up castles in the air and hope it’ll all be fine. But it’s real now. The potential for that ... that level of rejection. We know what can happen in reality.”
She turned her head to look at them, her dark eyes serious. “My family ... the Patels of New Jersey ... are not just my parents. It’s aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents. It’s a whole ecosystem. They are traditional Gujarati Hindus. They have a map for my life. A good boy from a good family. A big, fat Indian wedding. A house in the suburbs. At least two children. My children. My husband.” She swallowed, her voice growing smaller.
“They will not see this beautiful, complicated thing we have. They will see a travesty. They will treat him the same way that Maria did. They will see an abomination. They will see their daughter living in sin and call it a cult. My mother will weep. My father will be shamed in his community. My grandfather ... I don’t know if he could ever look at me again. I used to believe love would conquer all, that I could make them see. Now, I’m not so sure. Maria showed us what happens when you threaten a family’s idea of normal.”
Zara let out a short, humorless laugh. “I don’t even know what my parents will think. My mom and dad have always been practical in life - but they will also be traditional. Most of my family lives in India but I am sure they won’t behave too differently. They’ll see a messy, PR-disaster of a relationship with a boy they’ll deem ‘not suitable.’ They were hesitant about me dating in the first place. The concept of me sharing one with four other women? It’s so far outside their reality, they’ll short-circuit.”
“So what’s the plan, then?” Sarah asked, her heart aching for both of them. Her own lack of family suddenly felt like both a freedom and a void. “When you eventually have to tell them? What’s the strategy?”
“Strategy?” Zara snorted. “There is no strategy. I don’t know what to do but I know for sure that there is just a line in the sand. I love my parents. I do. But they do not get a vote on this. Not on him. Bharath isn’t just my boyfriend. He’s my ... he’s my center. He’s my future. There is no ‘or else.’ There is only him. And that means there’s only all of you, too. It’s a package deal.” She leaned forward and pressed a firm, possessive kiss to the back of Bharath’s neck, as if solidifying her vow against his skin.