Chapter 155

“Run. Run as fast and as hard as you can back to your dorm.”
—Richelle Mead, Shadow Kiss (Vampire Academy 3)

IT WAS SERIOUSLY A PROBLEM to take my hands off the two round butts cuddled up to me in the morning. I lay there with that soft smooth flesh in my hands and a rising erection as Nanette paused in the doorway of our bedroom.

“Come on, Jacob. I have to go to work this morning. We need a hard run. I think you’re getting flabby.”

Right. I hadn’t run in Washington, though I was told there were some great parks to run in not far from campus. I’d been getting regular runs in most of the summer. Except while I was in Kansas with Emily. And while I was at the Ren Faire. But until the middle of June, I was getting regular runs in. That’s only been ... a month ago. Shit! Cross country practice starts in ten days.

I reluctantly let go of the booties and pushed myself up in bed. I got a cheek kiss from Beca and Cindy and then they collapsed back on the mattress and cuddled together. I sighed and grabbed my running gear. If we didn’t get outside soon, the temps would make it hard to run.

“Jacob! Three-count your run. You’re coming down hard on your right leg. Is it giving you pain?” Nanette shouted from right behind me. My leg? Damn it! It didn’t feel sore but now that Nan had pointed it out, I could feel the limp creeping in. Am I going to fight this my whole life? I started humming a three-count music piece and then started laughing when I realized it was Beethoven’s Minuet in G major, the cornerstone of Professor Harold Hill’s Think System in The Music Man.

It served to even out my step. When the downbeat continues to switch from left to right, it’s really hard to have a limp beat competing with it.

“Faster!” Nanette hollered. I picked up the pace while I contemplated whether my musical career was as fraudulent as the professor’s. I practiced hard and had accomplished a lot in the two years I’d been playing guitar. I was learning the viola da gamba and the mandolin. But the hard work—training my fingers and developing muscle memory—had been done before I inhabited this body. I felt bad about that. And angry. That stupid kid should have been happy with what he had. He was talented. He had potential. Hell, he’d already contracted with Desi for her virginity. And he just threw it all away.

Because of some nightmares and an unnatural lust for his big sister. I remembered the nightmares. I remembered how many times I thought I was dying and was brought back only by the touch of my sister. It was brutal. And even though Em and I had found our way together, I knew that she would never have done that if she believed I was really her brother. And I’d torn down the barrier from my side because I couldn’t recognize her as the sister I’d known in V1.

And that was enough.

“Now sprint!” Nanette yelled, still right behind me. We were still at least two hundred yards from the driveway and it was two hundred yards long. I wondered if I had it in me to push for a quarter mile after however long we’d been running. I hadn’t kept track.

We pelted down the driveway, Nanette pulling even with me. I wasn’t about to let her pass and ran harder. We cut into the yard and stumbled to a walk.

“Every morning,” she panted. “We’re going to do this every morning. And this year you are going to run the half at Noblesville and again in Bloomington. That means we’ll start running halfs on Mondays to get in shape.”

“I’m going to have cross country practice on Mondays. And meets on Saturday!”

“You get an easy loosening up run on Sundays. You’ll be fine.”

I groaned but I was thankful for the training Nan encouraged me to do and her company on the trails. I missed having Livy with us but Em said she’d run with us at least some of the time. I had a feeling, though, that Em was going to start working with Desi, Beca, Brittany, and Cindy now that we all figured we were a year away from basic training.

Nan and I stretched. I didn’t usually fall between her legs anymore. But when I pushed forward it wasn’t unusual for us to make light contact between my erection and her soft center. When we touched, I looked into her eyes and was overwhelmed by the amount of affection I saw there. I let her legs stretch and laid down beside her.

“Nanette, if we do this thing and start service together and all get to serve in Washington DC, will you join us?”

“What?”

“I know you have a career. I worry about you and Donna and Sophie. You’ve put down some roots. You own a house. I worry about Em and Joan, too. They need to have jobs. But I don’t want to leave you behind.”

“Oh.” She sighed and then leaned close to kiss me lightly. “Do you know how hard divorce is?” she asked. I shrugged. V1 had been near divorce after my affair with Sharon Long but it never was completed. “Of course not. Divorce, even if you are on amicable terms, is like having your body split down the middle and everything that makes you who you are scooped out of the cavity. Then you get sewed up and walk around pretending that everything is the same with you as it was. But it isn’t. It never is. If you are really fortunate, you find someone who fills that cavity with their love and you find a reason for being again. If I didn’t come with you, it would be like being divorced eleven times at once. Do you think I could survive that? No. I’ll tell you. I couldn’t. I know it’s old-fashioned and that it was never meant to apply to a group marriage, but whither thou goest, I will go. Your people will be my people and your God my God.”

“Oh, Nanette! I love you so much! We need to keep in mind how all these plans affect us, though. I don’t want to cause you pain in the guise of preventing pain. We need to know you will be happy.”

“Jacob, I love you. I love all ten of our girlfriends. When we first started getting together—Rachel and Beca—maybe they weren’t planning far ahead for the future we face now. But as the rest of us clustered around you—Emily, Desi, Brittany, Livy, Joan, me—we knew we were building something specifically to protect and unify us during the times of service, whether it was for two years or a career. We would all be there to fall back on when needed. I would no more think of leaving our pod than fly. I’ll find something to do in DC. Think of all the tight-asses there who need a massage.”

We had a little laugh and helped each other off the ground and into the house for breakfast. I didn’t even ask how far we’d run.

1 August 2021

We’ve been going over the proposal and alternatives presented by the National School of the Arts all week. Ray has analyzed it and is excited that there are options opening up in service that he’d not seen before. We’ve put together a packet on our pod with profiles on each member and where they are expected to be on July 15, 2022, the day Cindy turns seventeen. The biggest unknowns as of that date are Rachel and Livy, who will still have a year of service left. No one knows for sure where they will be serving or even what they’ll be doing. We won’t even hear from Rachel for a week yet. And Livy will be home that weekend transferring between basic training and NSO training.

The release of our Jefferson Memorial video last night went pretty well, I guess. Cindy and I answered a good half-hour of questions and Sophie even got asked a few questions. We told everyone we’ll be releasing an hour-long special Labor Day weekend and our patrons were enthused about it. We’re using that to launch our fall season of monthly performances.

One thing these post-program discussions have revealed is that Cindy needs to get more confident in her presentation. I guess I’m just too easy to hide behind. But if she doesn’t start taking a lead in the conversations, she’ll be seen as second in the performances, too. That’s not what I want. We want. I need to talk to Donna about what we can do to help her.

Sometime along the line, Cindy is going to want to go all the way. We approach that point and then back away and I know she does the same thing with Beca and with Donna, and maybe others. But she’s not going to get what she wants unless she learns to ask for it. I guess it’s the same as the conversations. I don’t want to make Cindy into something she isn’t, but she needs the self-confidence to be what she is.

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