Chapter 84: Honeymoon, Part II

December, 1985, Stockholm, Sweden

On Sunday morning, we slept late and ate a light breakfast at the hotel before heading to the Andersson's apartment to meet Kristian and Karin. We had a good time together, and my first impressions about Kristian were confirmed — he was a really great guy, was very much in love with Karin, and would be a wonderful boyfriend. I hoped that they could make it work just as Jessica, Kara, and I had made it work.

After dinner, we went for drinks at a small neighborhood bar that Kristian liked. They had a dancing license, so there was a small dance floor, and he and I took turns dancing with the three girls. Jessica and Kara also danced with each other a few times. I chuckled when one of the times they were dancing together, a couple of guys tried to chat them up and they displayed their wedding bands and pointed at me. The guys looked at me in disbelief, and I just smiled and shrugged.

"You know, if you want to go with those guys, I'm sure I could find some company," I teased.

"Oh, I'm sure you could!" Jessica laughed. "I don't think that's EVER been a problem with you. And in a country full of smoking-hot blondes, where you speak the language, I suspect it wouldn't take any time at all!"

"I'm quite satisfied with what I have, thank you very much!" I said with a grin.

Jessica leaned close to me.

"Is that really true? You're satisfied with me?" she whispered.

"Yes, Babe, I am. Sex with you is wonderful. I love making love with you and I'm glad I'll get to do it for the rest of my life!"

"Me too, Tiger!" she whispered. "I had no idea what I was missing!"

I slid my finger along her thigh, then along the seam of her jeans between her legs.

"Stop!" she giggled. "I'll attack you right here on this bar stool!"

"Go for it, Jess!" Kara teased.

Around 11:00pm, we said 'goodbye' to Kristian and Karin with a promise to keep in touch and joint invitations to visit. Karin and I exchanged a long hug, but our parting kiss was on each other's cheeks. Kristian and I shook hands, and the girls hugged each other and him, and then we headed for the «Tunnelbana», Karin and Kristian for Brommaplan and me and my wives for Kungsträdgården.

"They're really nice," Jessica said as the three of us walked arm-in-arm from the «Tunnelbana» to the hotel. "I can see why you were attracted to Karin, and I'm not just talking about her looks. She's a very sweet girl."

"And I screwed that one up as badly as I screwed up with Bethany."

"And yet, both of those girls love you dearly," Jessica said.

"And I love them, too. But sometimes that's just not enough," I sighed, then realized how that might hurt my wives, and added, "But for us, it is."

"You've had more than your fair share of heartbreak along the way."

I nodded, "I have. But I've ended up in a very good place! I'm a very lucky man!"

"What's the plan for tomorrow?" Kara asked.

"I booked a bus tour for us. I took a short one six years ago, but this one is most of the day. It includes short tours of the palace, City Hall, and the Riksdag building."

"Cool. What are we doing Tuesday?"

"I arranged with the hotel for a small Christmas tree. And I have small gifts for both of you we can exchange on Christmas Eve."

Kara smiled, "I have something special, but I can't show it to you until tomorrow. Jess, I hope you don't mind if Steve and I keep a Christmas tradition that we started years ago."

"What's that?" Jessica asked.

"Making love under the tree! We planned to do that every Christmas Eve for the rest of our lives!"

"And when we have kids?" Jessica said with an arched eyebrow.

Kara laughed, "I once told Steve that the kids would know that Mommy and Daddy loved each other and it was just something that Mommy and Daddy did!"

"Interesting," Jessica replied. "May I add a new tradition, then?"

"Sure! What did you have in mind?" Kara asked.

"That Steve and I make love on Christmas Morning the same way — under the tree."

"Sounds perfect!" Kara said.

Back at the hotel, we opted to simply cuddle naked, rather than make love, and fell asleep spooned together — Kara, then me, then Jessica.

On Monday, we had our bus tour and all of us enjoyed the building tours, even though I'd seen all the sights six years before. Lunch was a traditional Swedish smörgåsbord, and I convinced the girls to try reindeer meat on «knäckebröd». Even with jokes about Rudolph, neither of them objected and thought it tasted pretty good. We filled up on Swedish meatballs and other traditional food, washed down with Falcon Class III Öl (beer). When the tour ended, we went to the same Greek restaurant that Lars and Annika had taken me to many years before, and then went back to the hotel to make love.

Christmas Eve, 1985, Stockholm, Sweden

Our day began with breakfast and a quiet walk around Skansen, where we were admitted for free because it was Christmas Eve, ate lunch at a small café, and then an afternoon strolling through the «Kungliga Djurgården», the Royal Game Preserve. We walked past Gröna Lund, which was closed, and Jessica remarked that it seemed quite small for an amusement park. We weren't able to go into the «Nordiska Museet», as it was closed as well. Mid-afternoon, we went back to the hotel and had a nice meal, and then went up to our room.

The hotel staff had set up a small tree on a table in the corner of the room. It wasn't as big as the artificial tree I had at home, but it would do. Kara went to the dresser and took out a small box and handed it to me. I opened it and found our 'year' ornament, though this one had an addition. Instead of 'Kara & Steve' it said 'Kara & Steve & Jessica' with 'First Christmas Together' under it and 'Christmas 1985' under that. The front side contained a single bear in a Santa suit.

"They didn't have any with three bears, so I went with just one," Kara said.

She went back to the drawer and produced the previous four ornaments.

"I hope you don't mind, Jess. These are the ones we started in 1981, just the two of us."

"It's OK, Kara," Jessica replied with a smile. "He did have a life before me!"

Kara smiled and hung the other ornaments on the tree, though she had to remove two of the shiny red ball ornaments that the hotel staff had used to make room for them. When she finished, she took a blanket from the closet and a pillow from the bed and put them on the floor next to the tree. We undressed and made love under the tree while Jessica watched. It was slow, sensual, and loving, and brought back memories of the previous Christmases when things had gone horribly wrong — Kara walking out on me, and Bethany being severely injured in her accident. But it also brought back good memories of Kara returning to me, which led directly to the act of love in which we were engaged.

"That was beautiful," Jessica said softly as Kara and I cuddled together, savoring the pleasure we'd just shared.

"Jess, our family tradition is to open gifts on Christmas Eve," I said. "I'd like to keep that going."

"Sure, that's OK with me," she said.

Kara and I got up and took quick showers, but put on our robes rather than get dressed. Jessica undressed and put on her robe as well. I'd been very happy when Nancy had found one identical to Kara's at Pogue's. Seeing the two girls in short purple silk robes was quite the sight, and the purple matched the cuffs and lapels of my otherwise black silk robe.

"I'm not sure this is quite fair!" Jessica said. "My butt is basically on display, and so is even my small cleavage! Our husband's robe covers him neck to ankles and wrists!"

Kara laughed, "You have to admit it's distinguished, even if it's not revealing!"

The three of us exchanged our gifts. We'd agreed to keep them relatively small and personal, as we had to bring them to Sweden and we'd have to take them home. Kara had bought me a pouch of my favorite pipe tobacco and I'd bought her several flavors of lip gloss that she loved to wear. Jessica bought me a nice set of cufflinks to go with the tailored shirts that Don Joseph had bought for me for Alan Blanchard's funeral, and I gave her a radar detector, as she'd already received a ticket driving between Indianapolis and Chicago. Kara and Jessica exchanged charm bracelets that each had two bears, a penguin, and an 'S', a 'J', and a 'K'.

"I have one more thing for both of you, I said."

I handed each girl a slim box that they opened to reveal a credit card in their names — Jessica L Adams and Kara A Adams.

"Those are linked to my account, so I'll pay the bills. The credit limit isn't super high, so please use it only for emergencies unless you ask first. I applied for a credit limit increase, but they asked for some proof of income for the business before they'll do that. I sent it to them, but it will take some time. I also applied for American Express cards for all of us."

"I know that I need to file my name change paperwork and get a judge to sign off," Kara said. "What does Jessica have to do?"

"Just show our marriage certificate," I said. "I'll get a copy for each of us when we get back. Jess, I have two more things for you. Kara already has hers."

I handed her a key to our house, as well as a key to our room.

"All that's left is to add you to our household bank account, which I can do easily now that we're married. Do you mind if I keep Elyse on it for a while longer?"

"Whatever you need to do is OK with me," Jessica said.

"Me too," Kara said. "She's managed the household budget for you for four years. I trust her completely!"

We had a light meal of sandwiches that I'd had the forethought to order earlier in the day, and shared a bottle of champagne. When we finished, we snuggled into bed together and fell asleep.

On Christmas morning, Jessica and I made love under the Christmas tree, starting a new tradition that we planned to repeat each year in the future. Kara watched us and nodded her approval when we'd finished and were cuddling naked on the blanket on the floor. Jessica put her head on my chest and traced small circles on my stomach with her finger.

"This is like a dream," she said. "Everything is just perfect."

"What shall we do for the rest of the day?" I asked. "Pretty much everything will be closed."

"Then we can spend the day in bed!" Kara giggled. "Well, after breakfast. We have to go to the main dining room; I saw a notice about there being no Room Service until late this afternoon."

We all showered and dressed and went to the dining room for a breakfast of bagels, cereal, and juice, as the kitchen wouldn't open until noon. There was plenty of strong, hot coffee, though, and I drank several cups, as did Kara, while Jessica drank hot chocolate. When we finished, we took a walk in the heavy snow that had begun to fall on the Swedish capital.

"It's not as cold as I thought it would be here," Jessica said.

"You don't have to go too far north for it to get really cold. We can put on the news tonight at 6:00pm and I suspect you'll see at least -25°C in Östersund!"

"Isn't that where your friend Tina is now?" Kara asked.

"Yes. Her family moved there. She was kind of bummed because her boyfriend is in Alingsås, and she was really bummed that she couldn't get to Stockholm to see us. She tried, but it just didn't work out with school, family, Christmas, and the distance."

"Who all are we seeing when we get to Gothenburg on Friday?"

"Katt and Mikael on Friday, and we'll spend the entire day with them. Most likely, we'll go see Katt's parents at some point, which should be good for a laugh; our unique arrangement will certainly amuse them. They are totally cool. On Saturday, we're having lunch at Sofia's house with her parents, which will be a bit awkward because her dad had expected me to marry her. We'll have dinner with my friends Torbjörn and Elizabeth and then go for drinks with some of my former classmates. We come back to Stockholm on Sunday morning, and then we head home late on Monday morning."

"I can't believe how fast this honeymoon has gone!" Jessica sighed. "We go home, and there're only five days before my next Clerkship starts!"

"Are you staying in Chicago until Sunday?" I asked.

"Absolutely! I want every second with you two that I can get before I get buried in an avalanche of medical training."

"How are we going to handle things?" Kara asked.

"Well, it kind of depends which surgical service I was assigned to. If it's one that does mostly scheduled procedures, then I'll have fairly regular hours. If I get trauma, which is what I want, then who knows. I'll know when I get home and we can sort it out then."

After about thirty minutes of walking in the snow, we headed back to the hotel and had hot chocolate to warm us up, and then went up to our room to relax until lunch. We decided to wait until after lunch to get into bed, but when we did, we stayed there until room service brought our dinner, and then went right back to bed after we ate. We spent most of the time kissing and touching, though we did make love together, and I made love to each of the girls.

On Thursday we went to the «Nordiska Museet» that we'd been unable to get into on Christmas Eve and paid admission to wander around Skansen. We drank «glögg» once before and once after lunch, and went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. After dinner, we went back to the hotel, and changed into more formal clothes and went to the symphony, which was playing an eclectic collection of music from several different composers.

"It was really nice of Doctor Barton to arrange this for us," Kara said as we left «Konserthuset».

"This whole honeymoon has been amazing!" Jessica said. "I had my doubts, but you made a really good choice, Steve. There's enough to do, but it's quiet and peaceful and we can focus on each other. Thanks for not arranging too many things with friends so we could spend time together, just the three of us."

"You're OK with this trip to Göteborg?"

"Yes, of course!" Jessica replied. "We've had so much time together. And we're spending the nights together, just the three of us."

"Then let's get back to the hotel and spend some time together, just the three of us!" I said with a grin.

"I could certainly use some quality time with you!" Jessica giggled.

"Me too!" Kara added gleefully.

The three of us practically ran back to the hotel, and we tore our clothes off as soon as the door to the room shut. We fell into bed naked and by time I fell asleep, I was sweaty, sticky, and satisfied.

We ate an early breakfast on Friday morning and took a cab to Stockholm's «Centralstationen» to catch the first train to Göteborg, which would get us there in time for a late lunch. We sat facing each other such that the girls each had a window seat and I sat next to Jessica. My wives enjoyed the scenery as the train moved through the snowy countryside. I relaxed and simply contemplated how wonderful the last ten days had been, and how wonderful my life was going to be.