Chapter 111

“I am the current curator of the black trunk and the stories it holds within.”
—Hope Barrett, Discovering Oscar

THE WEEKEND WENT WELL and we even improvised on my scenario a bit as we played during the festival. It was a real treat to be ‘called before the king’ to perform at the Royal Feast Saturday evening. And we got a free meal. And tips. One thing about having the whole pod surrounding us when we performed was they all had a little sign that said ‘Tips for Marvel and Hopkins’ and a hat they collected money in. We might not be making as much as we did in Kansas, but we were definitely raking in some bucks.

Of course, every silver lining has its cloud. Nanette had to leave Sunday night to go to work Monday and no one else wanted to go. That included Cindy. There were a lot of tears being shed around the campfire.

“I’m going back with you,” Rachel said firmly. “This is why we have a pod. No one should need to be alone if she doesn’t want to be. I plan to have a nice domestic week with my lover, Nanette. We’ll come back Friday night.”

“I should go, too,” Donna said, “but I want to be here to help with the production.”

“And you should be,” Desi said. “We can come up with all kinds of ideas but we can’t see what it looks like. We need your eyes.”

“I want to stay and work on our act,” Cindy said, stomping her foot. Her mother folded her arms and stared at her daughter.

“I have a house and home to take care of as well as you, Cynthia. We spent two ten-day stretches on the road this summer. I don’t think we need another.”

“You don’t have to stay. I have lots of big sisters here. And Jacob. I promise not to cause anyone trouble,” Cindy insisted.

“Stay? Without a parent? Are you... ?”

“Riko and I will be camped with the crew this week,” Riley said. “We can probably even find work for all of them if they get too rowdy. We’ll be happy to watch out for Cindy. She’s part of the ... company.” For a second, I was afraid he’d say part of the pod. Not only had none of us agreed on that, it would probably cause Betty to snatch her back to Fort Wayne and not let us play together again.

“That seems like a lot of work to foist onto you,” Betty said.

“Mom, are you saying I’m a lot of work? I hardly ever ask for anything. I just stand in front of my music and blow. Do you think I won’t do that if you aren’t there to make me?” Cindy asked.

“It’s never been a problem of having you practice, baby,” Betty said, softening. “I just want ... to protect you.”

“Mrs. Marvel,” I said softly. “If it will do any good, I promise on behalf of myself and the pod that we’ll protect Cindy, from anyone and anything, including each other if that was ever necessary. This is the last week before we need to be back for school. We’ve all worked hard this summer. Please let Cindy join us for the week.”

“I’ll ride back with you,” Livy said, “so you don’t have to drive alone. I don’t really have anything to rehearse and should be doing a few long runs this week before cross country season begins.” She looked pointedly at me. I wasn’t out of shape but I hadn’t worked nearly hard enough to improve my time this summer.

Betty sighed.

“I expect a report every evening,” she said. “I don’t know why I’m doing this. Practice hard.” She turned to Livy. “Gather your things. It seems I have a different daughter tonight.”

Kudos to Cindy. She ran and hugged her Mom and helped get the car packed. I thought perhaps one of the girls would move into her tent with her. Or, we might still be sleeping on the ground under the stars. We’d see.

I hated to see them take off so late. It was already ten and a five-hour drive back to Fort Wayne. I said a little prayer for their safe travels and watched the two cars pull away.

There wasn’t a chance in the world that we were going to sleep under the stars. I was back with Desi, Brittany, and Sophie, only this time we added Beca into the mix. Donna volunteered to share the tent with Cindy and left the five of us to our own devices. It took about ten minutes for us to get ready for bed, get in the tent, and get naked.

“The four of you have been playing together all summer,” Beca moaned. “Take care of me. I’ve hardly seen you all summer.” Desi, Brittany, and Sophie were all over our littlest lover while I rolled aside and just enjoyed their lesbian lovefest. Every few seconds, a hand or mouth would find its way to me and I made sure to help a lover when she rolled off the pile into my arms.

Beca was rising to her first orgasm as she pulled Brittany over her mouth. It didn’t take long for me to scramble up and start kissing Britt so she wouldn’t wake the camp with her screams. Her pussy was muffling Beca. I managed to pull her off Beca’s face before she smothered our girlfriend.

“You, too, Jacob,” Beca whispered. “I haven’t been loved by you this summer. Please kiss me.”

She didn’t need to ask twice. I settled next to her as Desi settled between her legs. We kissed and I let myself caress her pretty little titties. I felt her hand circle my cock and stroke it.

“We should always feel comfortable kissing and touching each other with our lovers,” Beca whispered. “I’m not sure I’ll ever want your cock in me, but I love you and I’m not afraid of you, Jacob. Touch me and kiss me and love me.”

I did. There was never room for me to get a hand between her legs as the three girls were taking turns and switching off to love each other, but Beca and I kissed as I muffled her climaxes with my mouth. And eventually, she held my cock against her hip as I spurted my release onto us, still kissing and petting her.

I slipped out before anyone was awake Monday morning and went for a run. I just kept turning to the right at every corner I came to, figuring I’d get back to the entrance before long. As it turned out, I ran about five miles before I came back through town and then to the road where the campsite was. It felt good to just get out and run. My watch said five miles and I’d turned it in about fifty minutes. I needed to get focused. Cross Country practice was to begin today back home and if I wanted to run with the team next week, I needed to show I was ready. I’d sent an email to Jock and he agreed that he’d try me out. I couldn’t believe everything was starting so soon. School would start in nine days with our first meet three days later.

When I got back to camp and got a shower, I started pulling together things for breakfast. We had a propane stove and I made a pile of bacon to start. There were nine of us at the campsite, so I just kept throwing on as much as I could. Donna came out of her tent looking pretty disheveled. She looked around the campsite and then came over to give me a little kiss before she went to the showers. Beca and Sophie had emerged and headed for the showers by the time Donna got back and started mixing up batter for pancakes. We didn’t say much but just worked beside each other and occasionally rubbed shoulders. The rest of the crew dragged themselves out of bed. Riko came directly to the stove and made a big pot of coffee that started perking before she got back from the showers.

When I had about four pounds of bacon cooked, I drained most of the bacon grease out of the cast iron skillet and got ready to cook eggs. Donna put a griddle on the left side of the camp stove and started making pancakes. As we all got moving and I started putting eggs with the pancakes and bacon, things loosened up and we started laughing and talking about what we needed to do. I told people about my run and we decided this afternoon we’d take a walk out to the trail through the woods I found.

As soon as we got breakfast cleaned up, Riko and Riley wanted us to come in to the booth and start working on our costumes. They had all The Masque of Beauty and the Beast costumes but alterations needed to be made in order to make them all work. My outfit was pretty much what I wore during the show last fall. It was a stylized minstrel outfit and didn’t need much adjusting. Cindy’s costume was similar to mine but Riko wanted to make some adjustments to it that would make her look a little more ethereal, like a woodland sprite instead of just another minstrel. Riley went to work making adjustments so Desi could wear the beast mask and costume. Donna and Beca helped Brittany and Sophie select two of the grotesques’ costumes. They ended up using green and blue and there was a lot of giggling coming from the dressing room as they worked on how they should be worn and how to operate the wings of the beast.

Since my costume needed the least amount of work, I headed out around the fairground, checking for possible performance locations with a critical eye. I still didn’t know how we were going to handle recording it, but we certainly needed suitable locations, even if we only performed during the festival. One thing about working in Kentucky was that we had trees. There were several older ones—I mean big ones—in the village and a pretty good woodland surrounded the fairground. Since the association had events all summer long, there was a strong number of local craftsmen who had permanent shops along the main street and even though the festival wasn’t running all week, the village was open for business.