Chapter 156

“The besom of reform hath swept him out of office, and a worthier successor wears his dignity and pockets his emoluments.”
—Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

THE FIRST TWO WEEKS of August went by in too much of a hurry, partly because I was running and working out either with Nanette or with the team about five or six hours a day. Don’t think that was all running. With the new facilities at the school, we had weight machines we all had to work out on. And cycling close to two hundred runners through any kind of sensible training routine meant some had to be outside running and working on strategy while others were inside working on weight training and agility. We had hot tubs and ice baths in the new training rooms as well. If I was really nice at night and offered to exchange services, I could often get a massage before bed from Nanette. That was enjoyable for both of us. Emily and Donna both decided they needed to learn and we had massage round robins on a nightly basis.

The full pod—those of us in town—gathered on Wednesdays and Saturdays and we always had a few extra bodies to rub down. It was a delight to have my girlfriends stretched out naked in front of me while I oiled my hands and let them walk across the girls’ naked flesh. I used a lot of oil on Desi’s boobs Wednesday night. On Friday, though, Desi, Brittany, Sophie, and Cindy left for Kentucky. I passed on working the Ren Faire this year because I had cross country practice every day. So, once again, we were spread out. They’d spend ten days down there and be back in time for school to start on the sixteenth.

That left just Donna, Beca, Emily, Nanette, and me in town. Beca moved in with us. Her mom had decided not to return to Thailand for the summer session this year but was talking about moving there long-term when Beca started her service.

It seemed like if I wasn’t running, I was practicing. I had a lesson each week with Vinnie, two lessons with Herr Richter, and a lesson with Sarah Stonebraker, a sweet older woman who taught mandolin. She was in her mid-fifties, a little plump, and performed in Renaissance ensembles around the area, especially for the winter madrigals and revels. Learning the different fingering for the three instruments I was working on required hours of practice.

“What are you writing, love?” Donna asked as she placed a hand on my shoulder Sunday night. I leaned back against her caress. She let it deepen and leaned in to give me a kiss. I could feel her soft breasts pressed into my shoulder. As was usually the case in the evening, we were all naked and I loved the feel of her caressing me.

“A short story about making love to you,” I sighed. “Only I can’t make it short. It seems to go on forever.”

“Liar,” she giggled. “Though maybe I should take you to bed for some more primary research.”

“Mmm. I could stop work on this essay for now.”

“Essay?”

“Yeah. It seems really unfair that we have an assignment due the first day of school. Of course, Beca has hers all wrapped up and Britt and Desi promised they’d work on theirs this week. We have a list of topics to choose from and need to hand the essay in for Senior English on day one,” I explained.

“I don’t envy the teachers for that class. Do you know who you’ll have?”

“Ms. Pixler. I’ve met her a couple of times and she seems nice. After I met with her, I decided not to take the advanced composition class. I love the writing but too much is too much. I can’t imagine how she manages to read all the essays that are on the syllabus.”

“I found her to be very knowledgeable and a good presenter when I sat in on one of her classes. She even gave me some helpful teaching hints when I first started. She’s been at Mad Anthony for years,” Donna said.

“I think she might still be struggling to adjust to the new world order,” I said. “The instructions for this essay are focused on college applications. I suppose a few years ago, that was the right place to focus. Now, when pretty much no one goes to college right out of high school, it seems that the essay could be a little more focused on the National Service or on life lessons or something.”

“I know she intended to have options for that but I can see how difficult it would be to judge an essay’s appropriateness in that context when we don’t or didn’t know anything about what was expected,” Donna said.

“Well, I have a first draft, though it still needs a stronger conclusion. I just used the idea that there were things the National School of the Arts needed to know about me before I show up next summer. That was pretty close to the topic for admission to Rutgers. I think I’m ready to quit for the evening and focus on my research for the short story on making love to you.” I twisted in my seat and caught Donna’s right nipple between my lips, bathing it with my tongue. She sighed and pressed forward.

“I think my bed is available for exploratory research,” she said. “Let’s start with a shower.”

I lay with Donna in the afterglow of fantastic sex, my cock still lightly pulsing in her welcoming pussy. We each sprinkled kisses on the other’s face, occasionally touching lips, perhaps the tips of our tongues as we did our best to tell the other how much in love we were. Two years ago, making love to Donna Levy was a schoolboy’s dream—an infatuation with his teacher. But we had long since abandoned the roles of teacher and student. We were lovers. We were mates.

“Donna, my love, I’ve lived with you for four months,” I began.

“Beautiful months,” she sighed. “There’s never been a time in my life when I had so much welcome loving. Not just from you, but from all our girlfriends, too.”

“I feel the same way. But I’m also concerned that I don’t contribute enough. I realized as I was running this morning that I didn’t pay you rent. I’m sure I don’t contribute enough for food. And with Em living here, too, I feel like we’re freeloading.”

“What a sweet and considerate lover you are. But it’s not something you need to worry about yet.”

“Why not?”

“You are still a dependent of your parents and they are providing your housing, just like they would be if you were living in the same house. The insurance has to cover housing costs while your home is being rebuilt and they’ve been dragging their feet to approve plans. So, the process is behind,” Donna said. “They’ve been paying me a monthly stipend for housing you, just as they are paying Nanette rent on her house. Nanette is, in turn, also contributing a monthly amount, equal to yours. Emily agreed to the rate before you even moved her here from Kansas. And, by the way, when Beca and any of the other girlfriends stay here, I don’t charge them anything because they aren’t living here. But each of our loving girlfriends always brings plenty to help with groceries and everyone chips in with cleaning and maintenance. It’s all good.”

“Whew! I’m glad to hear that. But I’ll be eighteen in two months and will need to make my own contribution. And I’m worried about Em not having a job.”

“As far as you are concerned, your parents are supporting you through high school. You can talk to Emily, but she doesn’t seem to be worried and already has a feeler out for driving locally. She just wants to take a little time off after her two years of service.”

“I love you, Donna. I never want to become a financial burden on you or anyone in our pod. I understand you and Nanette and Sophie are ahead of the rest of us in terms of income and stability, but you aren’t responsible for supporting our whole family. We should have a pod meeting so that we’re all on the same page. It’s like we’ve taken over your home.”

“Yes, we should all meet, but it’s our home, Jacob. I’ve never been so happy here in my life. I’d be even happier, though, if you moved a little and hardened so we can do this again.”

“You guys, we need to tune in the TV,” Beca said as she came into the kitchen Wednesday evening. “Joan just called and said they are putting up notices of a special presidential address tonight. It comes on at nine Eastern so everyone can tune in no earlier than six across the country.”

“What’s the president got to say tonight?” I asked. “She’s been pretty quiet since the inauguration. Six months and everyone is wondering what the heck she’s been up to.”

“Well, we know she renewed diplomatic relations with Mexico and the border is now open to limited traffic. She’s still working on trade relations. China and Europe jumped all over Mexico’s sudden surplus of food for trade and now there isn’t much left to trade with the US,” Em said. “Did Joan say what the topic of the speech was tonight?”

“Duh! If you’d give me a chance to finish ... She’s talking about the National Service. There were three things she emphasized during her inaugural address: normalize relations with Mexico, renew leases and our military presence worldwide, and straighten out the National Service laws so we don’t have another fiasco like the so-called national emergency. She talked about opening the border on Memorial Day,” Beca said.

“She can’t just, like, unilaterally end it, can she?” I suggested wistfully. That would ease so much of our concerns about next year that we could start planning our lives effectively.