Chapter 3

I stopped at the mansion to pick up my other two wives. Actually my mother stopped, since she drove her car. It filled with bags, going beyond the capacity of the trunk, and the backseat became a snug place. Neither Eva nor Zhenzhen minded. They had obviously enjoyed their intimacy the night before and the feeling lingered, with Zhenzhen happily occupying Eva's lap. My lap had a happy occupant as well, Helena.

"You sure you don't want to sit on my lap?" she asked.

"With my bony ass?"

"Lots of padding on mine," she frowned.

"Helena," my other two wives and I growled.

"You have the sexiest ass in all creation," Eva once more reminded Helena. "I just wish I had half the ass you have."

"Me too," chirped Zhenzhen.

"You do have half my ass, and Zhenzhen maybe a third," Helena responded, but before we could object, she burst into laughter, which we joined.

Just as we readied to leave the mansion, I saw Lindy and Miwa rush out with their baggage, a Buzz clone carrying other bags following them, and headed to a limousine we parked behind.

"Wait," I said to my mother. Helena opened the passenger door and hopped off my lap. I hurried to a smiling Lindy, who hugged me. "They're coming?" I asked.

"Yep. Helen got a private jet through Nick. We're meeting them at some fancy private airport northwest of here."

"You know it's only been a couple days, and you'd have seen Angelique fairly soon."

"And if it had been Helena?"

"Good point. Soulmates then?"

"I think so. But we both need cock. Your cock."

"If I must," I sighed.

"Fuck you."

"Like I said."

"Joe," she smirked and kissed me quickly. "Gotta go if we want to get there when they arrive."

"See you," I said.

"Soon," she grinned her wonderful, tilted grin before hopping into the limo.

An hour and a half trip went smoothly, with easy conversation from all of us. We stopped once to gas up, get snacks and urinate. Helena on my lap never bothered me. She seemed to shift her lovely ass at the perfect moment before it might.

Helena shared talking about our time in Greece and meeting my friends in Germany, topics we hadn't shared with the others.

Eva talked about her school days, her major in business and minors in dance, of course, and administrative psychology. I realized Helena and I had never really delved into her past perhaps because Simon had been such a huge presence in it. My mother brought it out of her.

"You know what my husband does?" my mom asked her.

"Not really. Psychiatry isn't it?"

"Administrative Psychiatry is his specialty."

"No shit?"

"No shit. He discovered some important stuff regarding leadership and the led, of the number of PTSD victims, battle fatigue they called it back then, in relationship to platoon leaders during his service during the Vietnam War. It got him a congressional medal."

"Cool. The whole boss thing got me interested in the psychology. Father had me working at various things, waitressing, secretarial, purchasing agents, assistants to VPs. And aside from the pretty much ubiquitous sexual harassment, which I won't go into, the diversity of jobs really revealed how few of these bosses were any good at being a boss. The ones that did well stood out."

"And what did you find?"

"Communication pretty much, but more subtly how much trust they gave their workers and how quickly they reacted to any breach of trust or disappointment. And how smoothly and carefully they reacted. Their hands-off style once the training had set in could make them look lazy, but I saw what a truly lazy, crappy leader looks like, and they didn't look like that at all. I'm saying they, but of all my bosses, only one stood out."

"It's that bad?"

"Yep," both Eva and I said.

"Do you guys plan to head back to Boston?"

"We will," I said. "Nick's already booked the performance space for Lindy's showcase, and he thinks it's best to be in her hometown."

"When?"

"Late September/early October."

"So you'd probably need to be there by September."

"You want Dad to bring Eva to the Levinson seminar?"

"He has plenty of clout."

"And who would object to Eva's presence?" Helena pointed out.

"Wives?" I offered.

"Won't be many there."

"Sounds like a convention of intellectuals," Eva purred.

"Pretty much."

"You want Eva to watch him?"

"Distract him more likely, but no. Who am I to talk?"

"You've had one lover and he's had dozens," I argued.

"Wouldn't you say the one trumps the dozens?"

"Probably."

"And he never loved any of them."

"No love affairs?"

"None."

"You sure?"

"Absolutely. You know, all those years of studwork, he never once fucked anyone but me where we lived. Like shitting where you sleep I guess. I think this may be the first time in decades that I was the one who left him alone. But I know he won't fuck around. It's like our love has a territory."

"None of his students seduced him?" Eva asked.

"Would you have?"

"Definitely. He's hot. I bet he was much hotter when I went to school."

"Would he even have been born?" asked Helena.

"I matriculated three different times, sweetheart."

"You're a lot smarter than you look," my mother said.

"Being underestimated is useful should be our credo," said Zhenzhen suggested.

"What would that be in Latin?" I asked.

"Sint minoris aestimanda est utilis," Eva translated.

We laughed.

"And our crest?" asked Helena.

"How about a baby with a sword," Zhenzhen offered.

"Naked," Helena added.

"Female," was my much approved addition.

"Wearing glasses," Eva finished, creating a burst of laughter.

Soon after, Mom got Zhenzhen talking about her childhood, and again I learned a great deal about my cutest wife.

Later, near the end of our trip, the most disturbing conversation began. I suspected Mom of waiting to the last minute for it.

"So these infamous tales," she asked, "is anyone invited?"

"As long as they know about us," my wife responded, once again villainous. When I tightened up beneath her and pinched her delicious butt, she asked, "What?"

"Things happen during the tales," I reminded her quietly.

She smirked. "So?"

"So? She's my mother."

"She's also my father's longtime lover."

"You mean... ?"

"You don't think Father gets as horny as we do? A hand job from an angel helps, but you know he's not that comfortable even with that, and fucking is definitely out."

"Maybe Tash?"

"She's with Naomi now."

"So? They were lovers before."

"Remember what happened to her with Simon. She thought it was a dream, which definitely disturbed her. Now she knows it actually happened. The dream turned her away from desiring my father. Do you think the reality didn't make it worse?"

"What about the Ambassador?"

"Have you seen her yet?"

"No, but..."

I noticed Helena go lax in my lap and waited.

"She won't be with him for at least a couple weeks," Helena informed me.

"Son?" my mother practically begged.

"Do what you want, Mom," I sighed.

Her face transformed into a brilliant grin. "Great!" she exclaimed.

I couldn't help the thought, and I actually mumbled it out loud, hopefully too quietly for her to hear. The word had never entered my mind regarding her before. All my life we got along great. Any time she needed to discipline me, I respected her so much that I felt guilty about disappointing her and always agreed that I did something wrong. My father not so much. Since adolescence I felt tense and rebellious towards him. But never towards her. The word I mumbled? "Bitch."

I felt safe amongst the scantily clad angels and humans. Unfettered by self-consciousness. The sex we had during the Tales and the intensity of the simultaneous climaxes, the sex more often than not experienced subconsciously while being lost in the world of Nick's Tales until the climaxes, and it made for a very excited subconscious, could only happen in that place of utter safety. How could I not be self-conscious with my mother there? And perhaps worse, seeing her being fucked. I didn't know if it even mattered that it wasn't my father doing the fucking. Weirdly, I figured it would be a little less disturbing for some reason, only watching one parent fucking.

"You do realize, Mom, that the idea of you and my father being unfaithful disturbs me?" I finally said.

"It might never have come up except for circumstances," she responded with unsettling matter-of-factness. "I would never have told you about any of our affairs before you became mature, before you became a man. I knew it would have hurt you before then. You are a man now."

Glancing at my amazing lovers, my wives, who seemed to love me and respect me at least as much as I loved and respected them, one of them, my soulmate perched on my lap, actually pronouncing me, without irony, a mensch, I couldn't help but curl at least one half of my lips upwards, and, without a sigh, said, "I guess I am."

"Definitely," my wives agreed.

The theater and environs turned out to be quite lovely. I had never gone to any of the productions there, supposedly quite good, with well-made dinners accompanying them. My mother had gone to a few, mostly with women friends. A couple times with my father, but he enjoyed it less than her, not appreciating the time it took to get there. The productions started earlier during the week and on Sundays, 7 instead of 8, with an hour for dinner beforehand, to accommodate the post show travel time back to the Cities.

What surprised me most was the house separate from the theater building. I thought it had been built for generations of Amundsons, but it had been built obviously far before any of the cabins or the theater. It had the gables and the busy façade of Victorian architecture, a look that can sometimes feel creepy, like a haunted house or something, but this one actually looked somehow graceful within the woods. A path clearly marked the way from the building to the large lake, but measured several yards long as it must have been built safely away from any possible flooding.