Chapter 3

"So, let me get this straight. You and your girlfriend ... Jenny, you break up for a period of time and she sleeps with a married man, no less. So, because he won't man up and claim the child, pay child support, etc., you're going to leave school and not only get back with Jenny, but marry her and raise the baby as your own. Why in the world would you want to do this?" my father all but screamed at me.

"Because she realized that she loves and needs me, and I miss her ... I want to share a life with her. I want to grow old with her. It might not make sense to you, but it makes all of the sense in the world to me. I'm dropping out of college and getting a job. Then I'm going to get a place with Jenny and raise the kid. Pretty soon, we'll get married, too, as I said. We might get a roommate at first. We'll see. It will work out just fine. Look on the bright side, Dad. You'll be a grandfather," I observed.

"And I'll be a grandmother. Look, son, I think that this is a mistake, but I'll welcome your wife into the family, anyway. I don't approve of her not being a Christian, of course, but at least a Jew has a promising start. Given enough exposure to the Gospel, she might repent," my mother tried to convince herself...

I was merciful enough not to tell Mom right then that there was no way that Jenny would ever convert to Christianity of any stripe. She was a Jew and I accepted and loved her as that. I had no plans to try to convert her. If she wanted to remain Jewish and had no desire to convert me, why should I worry about her faith? Maybe that made me a rotten Christian, but I long ago stopped believing that you had to believe that Jesus followed a checklist of miracles borrowed from Mithras in order to be saved from a fiery Sulphur pit for eternity. Any just God would love His children unconditionally, not judging them based on the accidental religions of their birth. Blind faith was overrated in my worldview.

"Well, congratulations, big brother. I'm happy for you and for Jenny," Samantha dared to say.

"Me, too, bro. Wooohooo, my brother's getting married! I'm gonna be an aunt!" Bethany high-fived Sam.

"Well, I do hope and pray that this turns out okay, but I still believe that you shouldn't do this. Still, it's in God's hands," Dad shrugged and closed the topic.

"By the way, I'm still not sure why Sam and you didn't go to Bible camp this year," Mom asked them as they set up the breakfast table.

"Well, we didn't want to miss Jake. Turns out that didn't end up being the worry that we thought it was. Still, we love him and are glad to have time with our only brother in the world," Bethany laid it on rather thick, but she seemed to have convinced my folks, judging from their reaction.

Mom laughed in spite of herself, while Dad gave me a rather stern and annoyed look. While she could pay lip service to strictness and certainly believed everything that Dad and she taught us, Mom had a bit of a sense of humor that at times could be shockingly inappropriate for a Baptist minister's wife. I certainly didn't expect anything more from her than that, of course. She was still, for all of her good humor, very much a "proper Christian lady," to use Dad's words.

"Seeing Jake ruin his life, I can't quite keep up an upbeat mood. I gotta go do some visitation, anyway. Anyone care to tag along?" he invited us.

"I will, of course, if the girls don't mind cleaning up in the kitchen. Oh, and Jake, your Uncle Steve says that he's looking for help at the stables. He didn't say what kind, so it could be cleaning the stalls. Still, if you need work to provide for a wife and child... ," Mom noted that her brother had an opening.

"Beggars can't be choosers, Mom. I'll do it if it pays enough to cover the bills, though I hope for more pleasant work," I shrugged.

"See, more sensible than you thought, Larry. Cut the boy some slack. He's stepping up when another man won't and showing compassion and forgiveness for others. I don't agree with being unequally yoked with an unbeliever, of course. Just saying that while he's doing wrong, it's for the right reasons," Mom observed.

"Alright, Hannah, you win. Sermon finished? Let's go," Dad urged Mom to join him.

"Can I at least get an amen?" Mom needled him a bit.

"Amen and praise be! Now, come on, honey," Dad acted more impatient than he really was.

"Wow, you really must love Jenny if you'll shovel shit for her," Sam teased me before yanking down Bethany's bottoms.

Bethany swiftly took her revenge and then they began cleaning up the kitchen without fanfare ... and without pants, or panties, for that matter. When I tried to help them out a bit, they pushed me back onto my chair. Bethany kissed me and Sam wagged her finger in my face.

"No, big brother! Stay put! This is our job! Mom told us to do it. Your job is to keep us updated with any messages from Jen," Sam insisted, while Bethany handed me my phone.

Just then, in fact, Jenny called as if she planned it with them. Her voice was a bit goofy, as if she were high or something. Then again, she had told me in the past that she didn't believe that pot harmed the unborn, so perhaps she was. She was also very mushy, especially when she made kissing sounds over the speaker phone.

"So ... you might have to clean stables? And to think that I was considering marriage to Manny! Ha! He would never have done that for me. And before you ask, no, I wasn't going to ask him for fidelity, either. For that matter, if you had ever slipped while we dated before and I caught you ... just as with him, I would have just joined in it. I even prepared myself to possibly stay with him and his wife as a second spouse. You know, in a ... polygamy type of arrangement. It's marriage that I want, not monogamy.

"I only asked for the hiatus because he's the jealous type, not me. I know that you're not, either. I wanted to see if there was a future with Dr. Manuel Gomes, the man who took my virginity when I was 17 ... yeah, that's something that you didn't know. Manny is even older than I let you believe. He was also my teacher back at prep school. Please, no lectures. I know that it's unprofessional, but I had a crush with him back in the day ... You know, the wedding, reception, all that jazz. Some kind of public declaration of love. That's what matters to me, baby," Jen swore to me, making me feel even more confident in her, knowing that she never intended monogamy for us all along.

"And despite this, you still want to be fuckbuddies with him," I probed.

"Well, I have kind of a kink about married men fooling around on their wives. Plus, I'm still very much attracted to him. It's an itch that I have to scratch now and then, that's all. We just both realized, even beyond the whole mess with his marriage and the baby, that we don't have the kind of love that he has for his wife and I have for you. Yes, I really do love you, more than ever, Jake, and yes, he loves Lucinda, strange as that might seem.

"It was a strange, long, and wild summer, but it taught me what I needed to know about myself and you ... and us. I learned that you and me ... we're the real deal. I don't need to look anymore for love. I've found it, honey. I'm yours, I swear it," Jen promised me.

"Oh, I believe you, baby. I very much believe you, to the point that I'm willing to drop out of college and clean stables, just so we can raise a child. Hopefully, I won't have to do that for very long, of course," I noted, while Bethany and Sam teased me with their lovely buns as they finished the clean-up duty in the kitchen.

"Honey, I'll see to that you won't, if all else fails. I know that you don't want to depend on my parents any more than you do on yours, but in the worst-case scenario, I'll see if we find you a job doing something else. Can't have you smelling of dung for your ladies. If it's up to me, we live somewhere between your hometown and mine, so we can have family visit from both directions, but I'd really like for at least Stephanie to move in with us in the future, at the bare minimum," Jen surprised me with the desire to have another woman share our future house and bed.

"You would like that?" I sounded as astonished as I felt, since it was one thing to be willing to share my sexual favors, quite another to grow old with her husband AND his cousin, possibly his sisters as well.

"Here I thought that I might have to coax or convince you to agree to that," I grinned as I replied to Jen.

"None of that necessary, hon. I want you and whatever comes with the territory. That includes your ... family traditions, to put it one way. You're mine and I'm yours. They're a part of you, so I love you and want them to stay with us ... preferably all of your sisters and your cousin. It will be hard to explain to our folks, yours as well as mine, but they will just have to deal with it. I'm going to be your wife, and I will proudly have your babies. I will work when necessary and stay home when necessary ... or perhaps Stephanie can stay home for me.

"The point is that I'm your woman and will do whatever it takes to please you. I've been selfish enough with my 'hiatus.' Enough of that BS. No more hiatus or break or whatever. I'm yours for life. I'll marry you tomorrow if you wish it. That's how strongly I feel about this. And, yes, Stephanie is yours, too, but she's your girl. I'm your woman. There's a difference. Sam and Bethany, being sisters, don't need any further definition, I would think," Jenny observed.

"And I'm your man," I smiled, while my sisters leaned over to kiss me.

"Our man, too," Sam asserted.

"What she said," Bethany spoke.

"Yes, you're their man, too. I fully accept that. You're Steph's man as well. You're just going to have to get used to at least four ladies bedding you whenever they get the chance and draining your balls of every last drop of your cum, milking you dry," Jenny snickered.

"And get used to breeding four women regularly, I might add," Bethany suggested, "assuming that Emily doesn't feel some envy and decide to join us."

"Oh, yes ... Emily," Sam coughed, thinking of my half-sister.

Emily was Dad's daughter from his first marriage years ago, whom he brought up when her mother, Julie, took off and never sent so much as a postcard back. Dad had met Mom at a church function when Emily was just two and Mom had basically raised her as if she were her own flesh and blood. Perhaps that was why Mom was so comfortable with the whole idea, whereas Dad felt ill at ease, seeing me stuck with the same burden that Mom had carried. For Mom, however, it had never been any difficulty, as she went out of her way to prove, treating Emily as just like the rest of us. I think that Mom understood better than Dad that this was no imposition, but a willing labor of love, as she was not blinded by his guilt ... I just hoped that someday she would set him straight about how little of a sacrifice it was for her ... and it would be for me, to raise someone else's child.