Chapter 67: Happy Birthday, Kara!

March 28, 1997, Chicago, Illinois

“You must be beat!” Sam declared when Kara, Jessica, Maria Cristina, and I walked into Bucktown Bistro just after 7:00pm on Friday evening.

“I slept in this morning,” I replied.

Which was true. After Karla and I had made love until the wee hours of the morning, we’d slept spooned together until just before I had to leave for the airport. We’d showered, skipped breakfast, and headed for Schiphol, arriving just in time for me to clear security and board the plane.

“But that long flight! Did you sleep?”

“No. I almost never sleep on airplanes. How are things with you?”

“Good. Having a toddler keeps me hopping both here and at home.”

“Who’s watching the little tyke?”

“My niece. Who’s the zookeeper at your house?”

“Ringmaster, Sam! NIKA is a zoo, home is Cirque du Steve! Summer, who used to watch the kids after school before we hired Winter.”

“Summer? Winter? Really?”

“They aren’t related. Winter, on the other hand, has sisters named Autumn and Summer.”

“Her parents ought to be shot!”

“That’s what she said about it! And her parents’ names are Dale and Meadow.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Sam laughed. “That’s nuts!”

“But wait! There’s more! Summer and Autumn have a housemate named Brooke, and a brook could be called a spring!”

“Stop!”

“Too much pun-ish-ment?” I grinned. “How about my friend April who named her kids May, June, and Juli, with an ‘i’.”

“Oh she did not!” Sam protested.

“She did!” Kara interjected. “Triplets!”

“Yikes! Anyway, we have you in the small private room tonight.”

“Thanks,” I replied, deciding to spare her any more puns or silly names.

She showed us to the smallest of their private rooms which could seat eight comfortably, so was more than sufficient for the four of us. A waiter brought drinks, and a moment later, Alex appeared.

“I assume everything is satisfactory?” he asked.

“When has it ever been anything but Michelin Guide service and food?” I asked.

“I’d KILL for a star, but they don’t rate US restaurants. I do have four stars from Mobil.”

“As you should. Have you been to The Maisonette in Cincinnati?”

“You mean the highest-rated restaurant in all of North America? Of course!”

“My dad is friends with Mike Comisar. I took Bethany there for dinner right before I moved to Chicago for college.”

“You must have had WAY more disposable income than I did when I graduated High School!” Alex laughed.

“I was running my first computer software company at the time.”

“That explains everything. I have a special menu for you tonight, as usual, taking into account your dietary restrictions.”

“No dessert for him,” Jessica said.

“Spoilsport,” I groused.

“I actually have something made with berries, cream, and cocoa for Steve; I cleared it with Doctor Al.”

“Thank you!” I replied. “It’s nice to know SOMEBODY loves me!”

“If you complain about going home with these three beautiful women, I’ll put arsenic in your dessert!”

“You’re a real pal!” I chuckled.

Alex left and a waiter brought in our first course, a mixed-greens salad, followed by consommé, and then the main course which was medallions of veal, with asparagus, and garlic mashed potatoes, though I had mashed cauliflower instead. Dessert was a small cake, which the girls split, while I had a VERY tasty concoction of blueberries, cream, and cocoa.

“Can we have a taste?” Kara asked.

“If I can have a taste of cake,” I grinned.

“Tiger...” Jessica warned.

“I guess that means you have to take up the issue with your wife,” I said smugly to Kara.

“Steve?” Maria Cristina said, getting my attention.

“Yes?”

“You’re being mean. It’s not Kara or Jessica’s fault what you can and can’t eat.”

I nodded, “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Not to me, them,” she replied.

“That’s what I meant,” I replied. “But I’ll say it to them; Kara, Jess, I’m sorry. Would you like a taste?”

“Are you really struggling that much with these restrictions?” Jessica asked.

“Only in that now they feel like a straitjacket, rather than guidelines. I’m going to fall back on my holistic approach to life - I drink bourbon; I smoke a few cigars and a few bowls of pipe tobacco every year; I have, on a few occasions, sparred when I felt it absolutely necessary. Those things help make me happy and fulfilled. Obviously, the kids, the three of you, my friends, and work do as well. I know we disagree on this, but I’d rather live 65 happy, fulfilled, productive years than be miserable and live to 100.

“I was writing in my journal on the flight home, and I was trying to work out how to understand «lagom» in light of recent developments. I have to adapt it to current circumstances, whatever they are. But in the end, it’s about mental, emotional, and physical health, and all three of those are so tightly intertwined, that they have to inform each other. And that means, at times, one or two of them have to give some ground to the third.

“I also don’t have to remind you that I exercise regularly - I run five days a week, and I go to karate four or five days a week, and if I have to miss, I practice my kata. I’ve eaten right for a long, long time, even before the issue with carbs. I ensure I do the things I need for mental health, and I’m not talking DSM diagnosis there, but keeping my mind sharp and clear, which is why I’ve never been interested in drugs of any kind, legal or otherwise. And you know I work hard to keep up my emotional health, though the ways and means have changed over the years, with the exception of how I balance my ‘extracurricular activities’.”

Maria Cristina laughed softly, “I think at this point you can just say ‘dalliances’, or maybe ‘dall-yances’!”

“A certain child of mine needs to keep her opinions to herself!” I grinned.

“Good luck with THAT!” Kara said with a laugh. “You encourage your kids to speak their mind!”

“It doesn’t offend you?” I asked Maria Cristina.

She smiled, “It did, but then I realized that as a young woman who was sleeping with a married man, I didn’t have any room to judge.”

“I don’t think ‘sleeping’ is the issue!” Kara teased.

“You’ll just have to guess what else we do,” Maria Cristina replied with a smirk.

My wives and I laughed.

“Where I was going with that,” I continued, “was something that Jennifer and I discussed a long, long time ago - the difference between a ‘dalliance’ and a ‘random deflowering’, and how I reacted to those kinds of things. There’s a third class of relationships, and that’s the long-term ones - our trio, which is permanent, and our arrangement with Maria Cristina, which has no time limit beyond any desire on her part to have a boyfriend or marry.”

“Those don’t bother you?” Maria Cristina asked.

“Well, unless you’re signing up for not procreating the usual way, and for a, well, wilder sexual experience, then those things have to happen at some point.”

“Wilder sexual experience?”

Kara giggled, which she no longer did very often, “He means joining us in bed.”

“Oh!” Maria Cristina said, blushing and covering her mouth.

“So, given THAT isn’t going to happen, obviously, at some point, yes, you’ll meet a guy you want to date, and eventually you’ll most likely marry and have kids. To me, those were givens when you came to live with us, and are part of what I was expecting in the long run. And by ‘long run’ I mean at any point, including starting tomorrow.”

Maria Cristina nodded, “Which fits with what you kept telling me about our intimate relationship.”

“Try again,” I replied gently.

“Sorry, about our sexual relationship. We’ll be intimate no matter what.”

“Ah, Grasshopper, you have learned!” I grinned.

“That was a pretty long argument about a bite of cake,” Jessica observed.

“But, Doctor Jessica, it wasn’t about the cake,” Maria Cristina replied, “it was about the principle.”

“She’s right, Jess,” Kara said. “The bite of cake is a symbol standing in for everything that Steve sees as infringing on his ability to be happy and control his own life. That bite of cake might as well be his mom.”

“You’re comparing ME to HER?!” Jessica asked in outrage.

Kara shook her head, “No. I’m trying to point out why he reacts the way he does to people trying to control him. He wants to live his own life, and when he has to compromise, it has to be a willing and informed compromise, not something imposed on him. Think about how he handles the kids in that regard?”

“I know I’m outvoted at least two-to-one,” Jessica replied. “But I just can’t agree to risk his health that way.”

“Think about what happens to Steve when people try to impose on him things which go against his nature.”

“Michelle?”

“That’s the main person I was thinking of, but also Jamie with regard to how our husband runs his company. Or, and I don’t want to get into this in detail, the government.”

“He reacts badly, often viscerally, in large part because of his mom.”

“I know a bit about work because he’s told me,” Maria Cristina said, “and I’ve heard lots of stories about his mom from his friends, but I don’t know anything about Michelle.”

“The short version is she felt Steve should be monogamous, with her,” Kara said.

“What?! That’s crazy!”

“It’s not as crazy as it seems,” Jessica replied. “All of this came about when I had moved out of the house because I felt I didn’t need Steve or Kara in my life.”

“What?!” Maria Cristina gasped. “Why?”

Jessica smiled ruefully, “It’s a long story, and I promise to tell you so that you don’t make the same mistakes I did. But at the time, Steve was listening to Michelle about dalliances and she was systematically trying to rein him in, with the goal of being his sole wife. The only flaw was that he couldn’t give her a baby. She was going to try to eventually displace Kara, and in the end, her vision of the future was so mismatched with Steve’s that they had to part ways.”

“No disrespect to you two, but when I marry, I want my husband to be exclusively mine.”

“Which is perfectly reasonable,” I replied. “And that is the situation most people want. I believe I mentioned several times that I never found girls, besides Kara and Jessica, who could share the way I needed them to in order to create a «lagom» way forward. Michelle wanted to impose external moral and ethical principles with which I disagreed.”

Maria Cristina nodded, “Something you are very sensitive about, especially when society tries to make you conform when what you’re doing isn’t actually hurting anyone.”

“Three-to-one?” Jessica asked.

Maria Cristina smiled, “You told me I could learn a lot from Steve about my approach to life. Don’t you think the patient’s overall well-being is just as important as treating the specific complaint? I’ve heard a lot about his friend Stephie, and I think I agree that at some point, it might be best to suspend treatment of the ailment, and treat the person.”

“Now THERE is an oncologist I’d listen to if I ever needed one!” I grinned.

“I think part of the issue,” Jessica replied, “and I’ve talked with Steve about this quite a bit, is that my specialty is trauma, and mostly our focus in truly emergent cases is making sure the person lives long enough for other doctors to treat.”

“Truly emergent?” Maria Cristina asked.

“Jellybean up the nose is not a trauma case!”

“Ah, OK. So the things people used to go to their family doctor for but now go to the ER to have treated?”

“Yes. We treat lots of things which really aren’t emergencies, and ought to be treated by family physicians or at a walk-in medical service, what they’re calling ‘urgent care’. So you three all think a bite of cake is acceptable?”

“I think Steve has to make up his own mind,” Maria Cristina said. “It’s not as if he doesn’t know the potential consequences. It’s like his nasty smoking habit.”

“You and Birgit really need to stop talking,” I chuckled, because Maria Cristina used the words Birgit had picked up at school.

“I agree with Maria Cristina,” Kara said. “Steve has to be the one who decides. And she’s right - he knows the risks. It’s like anything else he does - he assesses the risks and decides what to do.”

“I guess I don’t see a difference here in ‘doctor’ and ‘wife’ - I want him healthy and to live a long time!”

“And if he’s physically healthy and seriously depressed?” Kara asked gently.

The conversation was interrupted when Alex came in to check on us. We raved about how good everything was, and I handed him my Amex card to settle the bill, which we’d agreed beforehand, and which would include a service charge to cover the generous tips I liked to leave.

“How about a sauna at home, and we can continue the conversation?” Jessica asked when Alex left.

Everyone agreed, we finished our desserts without me getting a bite of cake, and after Alex brought me the credit card slip to sign, we thanked him and the four of us headed home, and immediately went to the sauna.

“I have a question, if it’s OK to ask,” Maria Cristina said as the steam hissed up from the heated rocks.

I smiled, “Generally speaking, when you’re lounging naked in the sauna, it’s a strong indication you can ask anything you want!”

“What is a ‘random deflowering’?”

Kara laughed softly, “That was Jennifer’s way of referring to situations where girls sought out Steve for their first time. He had quite the reputation in High School of being THE guy to go to for a mind-blowing first time. He still has girls asking him for that all these years later.”

“You make me sound OLD, Honey,” I grinned.

“You’ll be thirty-four, Snuggle Bear! You were fourteen when the thrill ride began!”

“It has pretty much been an ‘E ticket ride’ for twenty years,” I agreed.

“That really happens? Girls just come to you and say they want to have sex?”

“More than you might possibly believe!” Jessica smirked. “And a fair number of those are ‘teaching’ moments, if you will.”

“Why would someone do that?” Maria Cristina asked.

“In at least one instance,” I grinned, “it was because they were so attracted to me that their panties got wet just by sitting down next to me in class!”

“Guilty!” Kara exclaimed gleefully. “I wanted to have sex to prove to my dad and church I was in control of my body and my life, and decided the ‘School Stud’ was who I wanted to do it with. It sort of got complicated after Steve realized that he didn’t just want to deflower the leader of the ‘Holy Rollers’; he realized he loved me. So instead of fucking, we made love. And the rest, as they say, is history.”

“With a few bumps in the road along the way,” I replied. “But the true path is narrow, and filled with stones.”

“So Kara is heavenly?” Jessica asked with a smirk.

“Perhaps,” I replied, winking at Kara.

“Perhaps?” Kara asked, trying to sound offended, but failing.

“All three of you are heavenly,” I replied. “Each in your own special way.”

“Nice save, Tiger!”

“Do you really believe I’ve ever thought otherwise?”

“No, I don’t. In the past, I wondered how you could think that about me, but I know you always have.”

“Because he gave his word,” Kara said. “And to Steve, that’s more important than anything else.”

“It’s something Don Joseph, Sensei Jim, and my dad all impressed on me - that in the end, that is all we have. Everything else can be taken from us, but when we keep our word, we show our true character as men. There’s a Latin phrase which I think applies - «falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus», ‘false in one, false in all’. In effect, once you show yourself to be untrustworthy, your word no longer means anything.

“It’s funny, in a sense, because I remember Jennie Saunders saying something similar to me, but in a slightly different context - she told me that most women wouldn’t be able to share their husbands, and that I needed to keep my word in that regard. And thank Loki, I found those two! And, to use another Latin word, «fidelis», I am faithful to my promise to them.”

“Speaking of sharing,” Maria Cristina said quietly, “would you make love to me? Here? Now?”

“Uhm... , “ I hesitated.

“It’s OK. It’s my birthday gift to Kara. It’s one I know she wants. And before you question me, she didn’t pressure me or even ask.”

“Are you sure about this?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Jess?”

“Is it wrong to say I think it would be interesting to watch?”

“No,” I replied. “Kara, what do you want to see?”

“Everything,” she sighed.

March 29, 1997, Chicago, Illinois

On Saturday morning I woke early, despite the very late night and very early morning activities, and thought back to what had happened in the sauna. It had been a bit strange at first, but Maria Cristina hadn’t shied away from giving me a very nice blowjob, and once I had cum, hard, in her mouth, I’d more or less forgotten about our audience. I’d orally pleasured her, then knelt in front of the bench where she was sitting, had her scoot forward, and then slowly penetrated her while my wives looked on.

Maria Cristina and I switched positions several times, with her on top, me on top, me taking her from behind, and then finishing on the floor of the sauna in the missionary position with a good, hard rhythm. Then, to my surprise, Maria Cristina had me take her around the world, something we very rarely did, but which it was clear she felt Kara wanted to see.

Even more surprising, after I’d washed up, Maria Cristina had been invited to stay while Jessica and I made love to Kara to celebrate her birthday, and then the four of us had crowded into the tub, with my wives sitting opposite of Maria Cristina and me. That felt like a sea-change in the relationship between the four of us, and I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

Now, lying in bed, after a few hours sleep, which had followed three very energetic rounds of lovemaking by our trio in bed, I wondered how things might move forward. It was clear from the conversation at dinner that Maria Cristina was now comfortable, and perhaps very comfortable, with how I lived my life, even with regard to other women. That had been something of a concern, but that concern now seemed misplaced.

I carefully slipped out of bed, something made easier by the fact that my wives, as was the case about a third of the time, had snuggled together to fall asleep. I quietly put on my pajamas, donned my robe, then left the bedroom and went down to the kitchen. I turned on the coffee maker, got the Trib from the front porch, and then went back to the kitchen. When the coffee was ready, I poured myself a cup and went to the sunroom to wait for Birgit who arrived a few minutes later.