Chapter 21: Dinner party. Reassurances. Sex party

I was up early, as usual, and had completed my exercises before Ashley appeared. She was naked and came directly to me, gave me a huge kiss, and then retrieved the t-shirt that she’d been wearing the night before from the living room floor and slipped it over her head. She was sexy as all hell, doubly so because I’d watched her with Dave and Jeremy. She came and sat at the kitchen counter with a lot of leg and bare hip showing right up to her waist.

“Breakfast?” I offered in a cheery tone.

She nodded. “Chris was just getting up too. She’ll be here in a minute and be hungry too.” We often teased Marcia because she could sleep though a major war and was usually the last one out of bed.

I put on a triple order of scrambled eggs in one pan, and started to reheat some bacon in another. Our large toaster popped up four slices of wheat bread seconds later. Soon I put three full plates on the counter just as Chris joined us. I got another kiss and hug from her too; she was already wearing one of my t-shirts from my bedroom drawer.

I resisted the urge to ask any of about nine dozen questions I had for the girls about the prior evening’s escapades. Marcia and I had watched and participated in part of it with them, yet there were lots of questions remaining, even with their reassurances at the end of the evening.

I got us all coffee. The girls liked coffee, but I recalled my own teenage years, and I was well into my twenties before I acquired a taste for the beverage. They were mature beyond their years.

I didn’t detect any awkwardness between us, and I was going out of my way to be sure I wasn’t generating any. We talked about what we’d do the rest of that Sunday: studying for various courses, reviewing my lesson plans, working on the book the three of us were writing on artificial intelligence, preparing a nice dinner, and making various telephone calls to family.

I suggested that Lisa, Margaret, and Lenz come for an early dinner, and they liked that idea. I knew Marcia would be fine with that; she liked all of them, especially Lisa who she’d had a growing number of sexual encounters with, along with the rest of us. Her parents didn’t visit as often because they lived down on Cape Cod, but were always welcome. They were highly averse to the traffic on the southeast expressway.

Ash and Chris both got their iPhones and called their parents, and got positive replies. After the calls we made a grocery list and I volunteered to do the shopping after lunch in case we thought of some other things before I left.

After Marcia arose, she agreed to the idea of a family dinner and coaxed her mom and dad to drive up from near Hyannis to join us for dinner. Since it was a Sunday, if they came up early the traffic heading home would not be heavy – an expectation that weighed heavy in their decision to join us.

I suggested to Ash and Chris that they could invite David and Jeremy if they thought the two young men could behave themselves and not make suggestive looks, comments, or gestures through the evening. After a couple of long phone calls they announced that they too would be part of our dinner. The grocery list got adjusted accordingly, and right after lunch I drove to the nearest Stop & Shop and bought almost $300 worth of food, about half of it related to our imminent dinner party.

While the three women in my life started preparing for the late afternoon-early evening meal, I pieced together our regular dining room table with a foldout picnic table and some duct tape to hold it to the modern glass table we usually used. After adding a couple of folding chairs, I had a table that could easily seat the eleven of us.

Predictably, Margaret and Lenz were the first to arrive. Margaret seemed driven to help with the meal or set-up or something to make herself useful. I finally got her to accept a glass of white wine and after a few sips her OCD seemed to calm slightly. Lenz helped me prepare drinks for the others. Lisa arrived next; we’d invited her to stay over and go to work from our home instead of driving back to Westborough, sleeping, and then driving to the university the next morning. She’d left enough clothes with us to make that a possibility.

Michael and Grace came followed by David and Jeremy. The boys got reintroduced to most of the folks as classmates and study partners of Ashley and Christy. Thankfully, they behaved and talked into that role the entire evening, sharing their own thoughts about grad school and their ongoing search for summer jobs. I made note to talk to them further about what they were looking for.

We had good conversation and I felt I made some strides with the Czernys and Calassios in building our friendships. I had feared that each of them felt I was something of a lecher, building a harem of young women and a susceptible artist. I thought especially after our dinner conversation that they were starting to more accurately see me as a bit of nerd who happened to fall in love with multiple women.

Ash and Christy had gone out of their way months earlier with their parents to be sure they knew that THEY had approached ME, rather than me seducing two innocent and virginal young teenage girls. Whenever I thought about it, I could still call forth the amazing feelings I had the night Ash and Chris had come into my bed, or weeks later the night Marcia had joined us to make love. There were treasured moments I’d never forget.

I just hoped – no, I prayed, that the relationships I had would hold together and not fracture in some way as my marriage to Meghan had. Even now, years later, I thought of Meghan almost every day. Our spark had burned bright and then died, at least for her. She saw marriage as a disposable item; I saw it as a lifetime commitment that required a lot of work.

And, here I was in a relationship with three – maybe four – women that I loved and who loved me in return. And, we’d evolved into some kind of ill-defined open relationship. I resolved to solidify things in the coming week or two.

I wanted to blame the girls for the lack of definition, but in reality I brought it on myself. I manned up to that fact, and found that made me feel better about what was going on about the openness of our sexual relationships. I felt some semblance of being in control of the runaway train.

I sat at the dining room table sipping coffee as the discussion went on around me. Despite being present, my mind continued its ruminations about the relationships.

Yes, I thought, this poly family had started when I accepted Deb’s request to mentor two unusually bright teens that wanted to study artificial intelligence, and then grew because of the blind date dinner at Deb and Doug’s house and Marcia was there. I know she felt sorry for me. Deb had teased me about being the most eligible bachelor in the state, but I still hurt from Meghan’s departure so I didn’t date. She didn’t know about the teens at that stage, and at that time I thought they were a fluke that would disappear at any moment despite the words of love we often said to each other.

The initial and subsequent couple of dates with Marcia were a guise to cover my feelings and interactions with Ashley and Christy, but then I really did like being with Marcia – so whom was I kidding? We figured if I was seen as dating someone near my own age then I couldn’t possibly be interested in a couple of fifteen-year-old brainiacs.

I was dumb. I thought we were fooling everybody. Wrong! Marcia was the first to figure out that I was in love with Ash and Chris, and that we’d been sleeping together. Deb also deduced what was going on. Marcia and I involved the girls in our lovemaking, and because of her sapphic relationship with Deb we soon ended up involving Deb and Doug in our sexual romps as well. I trusted Doug; he wasn’t about to run off with a fifteen year old.

Then Jeremy and David showed up my life. Oh, I knew them before they asked the girls out. They were in several of my classes before that event, and both were good ‘A’ students. They didn’t even know I was involved in any way with the girls other than as their advisor and assigned mentor. There was some casual dating and a lot of teasing, and then, unexpectedly, I found them having sex with Ash and Chris in my living room after a dinner and movie date. Marcia and I had watched, and then even joined in.

I had kicked myself a bit for opening myself to the young men. I made myself vulnerable and in a risky situation with them. The one thing we shared in common was that all three of us had fucked underage girls. I guess the best protection is to have something of equal importance on each other. We did with our felonious behavior, but I had far more to lose from a career viewpoint.

Lastly, there was Lisa – Ashley’s mother. At first she’d been repulsive, brash, and a trollop wearing too much makeup and acting childish and aggressive. She’d gone on the run for three months and had a cathartic experience, turning into a lovely, demure, and pretty adult that I’d come to love. We would have added her to our poly family except she held off, struggling with being a one-man woman that I couldn’t become if I continued to love Ash, Chris, and Marcia.

I reengaged in the dinner table conversation, chatting about what was becoming known as Universal Basic Income, a system of unconditional income for each citizen. The concept was receiving increasing scrutiny because of the trends in robotics and artificial intelligence that suggested a large percentage of the Euro-American population being put out of work by automation by the year 2050. I thought that there would be other needs that would arise before any unemployment crisis arose. In either case, I also believed that our federal government would be so far behind the times that decades might pass before any real need got addressed substantially by either congress or the executive branch. What a bunch of do-nothing losers!

The dinner we’d hosted broke up just before nine o’clock. Michael and Grace wanted to head home, and that started the exodus for the Czernys as well. Jeremy and David also left with everybody else, leaving me with Ash, Chris, Marcia, and Lisa.

We tidied up and then I thought I’d see about having the discussion I wanted with the teens.

Before I could even formulate my first question to Ash or Chris, Ash wrapped her arms around me. “Jim, I love you. Thank you for being so understanding about what happened last night with Jeremy and David.”

Ah, time for my question but not the one I’d been trying to put words to. “What did happen?” I asked.

“We had sex with two guys nearer our age, and then so did Marcia. I’m guessing you’re not worried about Marcia, but you are worried about Chris and me, and what we’re thinking.”

I nodded in agreement.

Ash pulled me to the living room sofa. Chris joined us. Marcia and Lisa were cleaning up the kitchen, but I suspected they were listening with more than half an ear.

“Jim, we love you,” Chris said. “You’ve shown us a part of the world and a part of our sexuality that we never knew was there except in a minor segment of society – even more minor than how we’ve been living.”

Ash picked up the thread; “We’re savvy enough despite our age to know that our group living situation is unique. I looked it up to see how different we were and happily discovered that between three and five percent of living situations involve multiple partners – meaning more than two. That’s like millions of Americans, before I even get to some other more liberated countries like in Scandanavia. I liked that; there is comfort in the statistics.

“We could see that you weren’t ready for marriage, and certainly not to one of us as teenagers. Marcia gave you a partner closer to your own age as well as a cloak to your clandestine relationship with us. We love her too.

“Then there’s my mom. She’s done a lot of flaky things, but joining up with us has been great and I’m so glad she’s straightening out her life. We love her too, and I could have kept up the sexual relationship with her if she’d wanted. To tell the truth, I’m hoping she’ll change her mind, at least some of the time.” Ash glanced into the kitchen where her mother stood and gave a warm smile.

Chris stepped in, “And then we had Deb and her husband join us, too. Remember, Marcia and Deb snuck off to our bedroom to make out a little. We went in and found them and told them they had an hour to seriously and sexually play. We watched for a bit and then we thought we’d surprise them and join in. We were eating their pussies when you found us. The die had been cast by then.”

I volunteered, “Yeah, and shortly after that I made love with Lisa and then Deb for the first time.”

Ash said, “And Chris and I fucked Doug; the first man other than you that we’d ever been with.”

I confirmed, “And I was not upset in any way with you.”

Chris said, “But Jeremy and David are different, as you noted when we first dated them. They’re closer to our age, and you thought they’d be more appealing for that reason.”

Ash said firmly, “Well, they’re not. You are the guy we love. They are a ... dalliance.”

I nodded and explained, “I don’t want anybody to be hurt by what goes on with our experiments in sexuality, including me. I’m not sure I’ve been as careful as I should have been with, for instance, your mother, Ash. I love her, but she wants a one-woman man to match up with her one-man woman so she hasn’t achieved the same status in my feelings as you two and Marcia. I worry that she’s going to suffer pain because of my carelessness in managing her expectations.”

Ash said, “But you like to make love with her.”

“I do, and that’s the problem, and the same problem you may have with David and Jeremy. A lot more goes on emotionally when you have sex besides a cock in a pussy. Our brains are wired to make many of us fall in love with those we mate with. I bet if you could sample David and Jeremy, they’re feeling very tender towards you two – in love, maybe, and even probably.

“So, even though they know that we have a relationship, they’re hoping that they can also have a romantic relationship with you and maybe even something more serious – like long-term girlfriend or wife serious.”

Ash said, “We thought of that, and it was one of the reasons why Chris and I did both of them last night. We didn’t want one of them getting possessive of one of us. I know we kind of blew their brains out by the swapping, but I think it worked. Having Marcia involved helped even further. We had talked to them earlier to manage expectations, as you say. We bluntly told them that we were not girlfriend material.”

Chris said more to Ash than me, “But Jim is right. We need to have a talk with the guys and explain that we like them, had fun with them, want to do it again, but we should emphasize again that we are NOT about to leave Jim or have any kind of other relationship with them.”

Ash nodded. “We think of ourselves as married to you and Marcia. I don’t know that we should use that terminology, but maybe we can come up with some way to express that feeling when we talk to them. You’re our husband; they’re our friends, and now friends with benefits. Big difference!”

I suggested, “Just be honest with them. They may not like the answer, but they will respect you for leveling with them and not stringing them along.”

Ash taunted, “You mean being a cock tease?”

I laughed, “Something like that.” After a pause I asked, “What was your thinking about starting and how the evening was over all.”

Chris teased, “You mean did we like doubling the number of guys we’d fucked in one evening?”

I shook my head in dismay at her bluntness; “Yeah, I guess that’s close enough to what I was asking.”

“It was fun. They weren’t virgins, but I think we had more experience, probably thanks to our reading smut and watching porn – things every sixteen year old does, but they haven’t done enough of it. They were pretty much straight arrows until we swapped partners.”

I nodded, “Yes, that would have blown them all to pieces.”

“Yeah, we switched while we were giving them blowjobs.”

“I saw that while I was spying on you. I had very mixed emotions.”

“Mixed? How?”

“On one hand I was jealous and felt threatened that I was going to lose both of you to the two of them, even with the swapping.”

Ash laughed, “I think I saw you start to watch us. That’s what gave me the idea to swap. I started to say something but then decided not to. I wanted you to watch. Go on, you weren’t finished.”

I waggled my eyebrows at her, “On the other hand, I was highly aroused – and I mean HIGHLY. I think some men, and I guess I’m one of them, want to watch their girlfriends or wives have sex with someone else. I guessed that the blowjob would devolve into fucking, and when you swapped partners I was sure of it; that’s when I went and got Marcia. She is like-minded enough to join in, as happened. I bet those guys didn’t think they’d get to fuck three different women on that date.”

Ash was laughing. “They sure didn’t. Each of them had only had one other girlfriend where sexual experiences and intercourse were involved, and that was a far cry from last night. We took them over the top, and we were more experienced, plus I think you’ve been a good teacher; that, plus all the porn we watch and erotica we read.”