Chapter 1: A Crowded Head

I’m not a very good lover. For that matter, I’m not a very good boyfriend. Or brother. The only thing I seem to be good at is painting. That might even be the reason I’m not very good at anything else.

I’m Art. Arthur. Pen to my lovers—short for Pendragon. It’s our own little fantasy.

Lovers. Annette is simply the sweetest, most caring, most loving person in the universe. She taught me the difference between a wet dream and a wet reality. We call her Lady Annette of the Lake—my Lady for short. I’m so in love with her that it makes my eyes water. And Morgan. We were born exactly a year apart. My dad has a strange sense of humor and slipped the names Morgan and Arthur in on my mom without her realizing what he’d done. My Lady and I call her Fay, short for Morgan Le Fay. Fay has always been beside me from the time I was born. She always knew when to comfort me, crawl in bed with me, tell my stories that I couldn’t put in words. On some level, I think we always knew—that our parents always knew—that we would be lovers. But we needed Annette as a sort of catalyst to tie our dreams to reality.

Of course, we have parents and grandparents who are all involved in our lives. The families have been close for many years. Apparently, there was some question years ago as to which grandfather was going to end up with which grandmother. I bet that’s quite a story. My mother and her mother have a strange ability. They can see auras. And it’s not just like some psychic metaphysics. The light from people affects their eyes to the extent that they both wear dark glasses most of the time. Mom’s gotten to the point that she can look at Fay, Lady, and me without turning her head, but she still squints her eyes. Gramma warned her that she’d have trouble with Fay and me when we hit puberty. I guess our auras kind of went wild.

Annette’s Grandma told her she didn’t need to read auras to see the special bond among the three of us. It was right out there in the open.

That bond. I don’t know what I’d do without Annette and Morgan. They get me through each day. You see, I don’t talk much. Never have. Words ... I know words! They just get all clogged up in my throat when I want to say them. That’s why I paint. And draw. I can’t put my dreams in words, but I can put them in colors. Fay and Annette are working with me so that I can function more normally in public because we just started college together. I’m trying. Honestly.

I guess I’m a real project.

“Is it done?” Fay asked. I stepped back away from the easel and looked critically at my newest painting. I nodded.

“Think so.”

Fay padded around the easel and leaned against me as she looked at what I’d painted. She’d been studying business psychology at her little desk in our studio. When we opened up the wall between what was Fay’s room and what was my room, we ended up with much more space, even with Annette moving in with us. We had the big bed, closets, dressing table for the girls, and dressers in what used to be my room. We were cozy, but not uncomfortable. What used to be Fay’s room had plenty of space for my painting, two desks for studying, and a small but comfy sofa the three of us could cuddle on while we read our assignments.

Or just made out.

Having a big bed that we all crawled into naked at night didn’t mean we spent all our time there. I guess we kind of did at first. Annette moved in with Fay and me as soon as the wall was opened at New Years’. We almost didn’t make it to school the first day. It was just so ... How could I get out of bed with Fay and my Lady taking turns sucking on my cock? And we couldn’t leave either of them hanging. It was overwhelming.

And then I had to draw.

I had to. I tried to tell them how much I loved them, but I got so frustrated with the words that the only thing I could do was draw a picture. I used colored pencils and drew a sunrise over the desert. My life, without them, was a desert. They brought the sun. Only when you looked carefully, you could see that the sand dunes of the desert weren’t really sand, but formed my lovers’ bodies intertwined.

I had to take the sketch to school to show Ms. Clayborn. This was what I had to paint next. Annette kissed me lovingly in the school parking lot and gently took my sketchbook from me.

“I’ll bring it to the studio after last period. I think we’re still on detention,” she said. “Don’t get distracted in class, sweetheart. I know you can focus. I’ll be waiting for you in the studio.”

That pretty much set the pattern for the rest of our senior year. Fay was in college, but living at home with Annette and me. We have awesome parents! We got through it and I added another painting to my collection.

The process added discipline to my painting, as well. I painted seriously for two hours every day in the art studio at school. Having that time set aside and always there made it possible for me focus on other things during the day. As soon as class was out, I could focus on painting. If it weren’t for Annette and Morgan—and Ms. Clayborn—I would probably have failed my last semester of high school because I would have spent all my time drawing and painting.

Eventually, though, high school ended and it seemed like no time at all before I had to face my first week at Dryden University of Art and Design.

“College has you really upset,” Fay said as she examined my new painting. I was just glad it was Friday and I’d only had one class. I could come home and paint. It was different when Fay looked at a painting than when Lady did. Annette attacked it from different angles, looking at it fresh each time her eyes came to rest. Morgan simply stood in one place and let it wash over her as she immersed herself in the story. They were both enthusiastic, but different in their appreciation.

“No. Yes. Maybe. It’s just ... I ... different from high school. When does Annette get home?” I stuttered.

“I see,” Fay said holding me. “She’ll be home soon. You thought we’d all be together and here we have different class schedules and you don’t know anyone.” I nodded my head. Being with all those strangers without anyone I knew was stressful. “At least you have that required English writing course together. And you really don’t have to do anything in the Liberal Arts seminar but show up and listen. But we have different majors and there will always be different schedules to deal with. We need to make friends with classmates like you did with Rob last year.”

“Wish he was here,” I said. Rob had become a good friend in high school and helped keep me focused. We even double dated after his girlfriend got comfortable with both Morgan and Annette being my date. Fay chuckled.

“Can you blame him? If Annette and I had decided to go to school in Timbuktu, where would you have gone?”

“Timbuktu.”

“So, when Karen decided to go halfway across the country to college, where would Rob decide to go?”

“Timbuktu.” We laughed. “It’s okay here, when we’re home. I ... hurts ... there.” Fucking words!

“We’ll have to give you as much loving here at home as we can so it will carry you through at school,” Fay said. She kissed me and in that moment, everything else faded away. One of my hands cupped her butt cheek and the other crept up to touch her breast. Our kiss deepened and I fell under my sister’s spell. “I need a break from psychology,” she sighed. “Can you think of anything we could do for half an hour or an hour together?”

She didn’t wait for a reply, but led me to our bed and quietly undressed me as I pulled her clothes off. In a few seconds, we lay stretched out on the bed, continuing our kissing.

Everything I know about sex, I learned from Fay and Lady. I know how to use a computer. I type papers and I have email. But poking around on the Internet just never appealed to me enough to learn how to do more than basic searches. I tried to look at porn once and it was gross. It wasn’t anything like what my girlfriends told me they liked. So, I just try to do what they enjoy.

I’m not very good at it. In fact, I’m pretty much panicked about sex whenever we have it. Which, I guess, is quite a lot compared to most of the guys I know. I mean, we’ve all lived together and slept in the same bed since January of my senior year in high school. We’ve had sex together in some combination most of the 240 days since then. And each time I think of either of these most incredible women in the world wanting to make love with me, my heart starts at such a rate that I can hardly breathe. It’s almost like trying to talk. Why do they even want me?

When Fay pulled me into bed my heart started racing and I cursed my cock for getting hard before we’d even settled down. There were so many things she liked and I wanted so desperately to please her. Fay loves to kiss. Maybe not quite as much as Lady, but a lot. That’s fine with me. I treat her mouth like a delicate wine that you are supposed to sip and not guzzle. I roll her flavors around on my tongue, trying to identify everything I can about her. Did you know that a lover’s mouth tastes differently depending on what part of your tongue is in contact with hers?

Lady loves to just play with the tips of our tongues touching. Sometimes we dive in and out of the other’s mouth, but we spend a lot of time just playing with our tongues touching the tips and the lips. It’s sweet. Not just like a nice thing... damn words! ... I mean she tastes sweet. Like honey. Only not that sweet. Isn’t there a word for this? She likes to kiss like that, so I make sure I spend a lot of time kissing her softly and not trying to probe deeply inside. Not like with Fay. Morgan likes to have as much of our tongues in contact with each other as possible. Her kisses are a little saltier and that expression that says ‘pucker up’ could be what happens when we’re really deep in each other’s mouth and get a little sourness on our tongues.

I don’t care. A kiss is a kiss is a kiss. Except they’re all different. If I didn’t have to paint, I’d kiss all day. Maybe I’ll just paint the color of our kisses. I’ll kiss the tip of Lady’s tongue and the depths of Fay’s mouth. I just try to kiss the way they enjoy.

And then there are their nipples. They’re very sensitive. But they like different things. I remember the first time Annette pulled my hand under her sweater and let me touch her breast while we kissed. She likes to have her whole breast held and her nipples harden against the palm of my hand as I gently rub. I was lucky the first time. I didn’t know what she liked and was so caught up in my own sensations that I didn’t pay much attention to what she wanted. But her breast fits so perfectly in the palm of my hand that it was natural to do what she liked. Fay is different. She likes to have her nipples attacked, sucked on, and even pinched. She had to show me exactly how she liked to play with them or I’d never have guessed. My quiet gentle sister screamed when I bit lightly on her sensitive points.