Chapter 68: Déjà Vu

November 18, 2000, Chicago, Illinois

“Hi!” Winter’s sisters, Summer and Autumn, and their friend Brooke exclaimed when they saw me.

“Well, if it isn’t three members of «Le Quattro Stagioni»!” I grinned.

“All of whom are married or engaged!” Vickie said from behind me.

“I wonder if I could get a hall pass...” Brooke said, winking.

“You go ask Bob if he’s Ok with THAT!” Vickie snickered.

“Maybe not the best idea I’ve had today,” Brooke agreed. “Dance later, Steve?”

“Of course!”

“Do you EVER stop?” Jesse asked with a smirk, but also shaking his head.

“I didn’t DO anything!” I protested.

“He doesn’t HAVE to, Little Duck!” Jennifer said. “It’s been like this since he was your age. And I might remind you that you have your own gaggle of girls after you!”

“What-ever!” Jesse replied, feigning annoyance.

Jennifer and I exchanged a look, which communicated everything we weren’t saying to Jesse.

We made our way to a row of seats which had been reserved for us. I was VERY happy Jessica had found someone to take her afternoon shift, but it had meant trading for a morning shift on Thanksgiving day. That wasn’t terrible, as she’d be home long before we had dinner. Maria Cristina and Mike were in our row, and Eduardo, Elyse, and our two boys were in the row right behind us, with Jennifer, Josie, Jesse, and Libby next to them. The only one missing, besides Albert, who had elected not to come to the wedding, was Birgit; she’d come sit with us once she’d strewn the rose petals in front of the bridesmaids.

It was about fifteen minutes before Kendall and his groomsmen took their places, and another five minutes before the ceremony began with Birgit strewing rose petals, then Kendall’s nephew bringing the ring to him, and finally the bridesmaids leading Winter to the front of the hall. It wasn’t traditional, but I was certainly not one to object to a non-traditional wedding ceremony. The rest of the ceremony was a mix of traditional and non-traditional elements, and ended as nearly every wedding did with the first official kiss and an introduction of the couple.

All of the guests were asked to move to the dining room next door where the reception was being held. The wedding party, which included Birgit, stayed for pictures, while the rest of the family moved to the dining room, which also had a dance floor. The bar was open, so I got drinks for everyone, though Jess elected to have Sprite along with the girls. Eduardo, Mike, and I all got bourbon, and the women, beside Jess, all had wine.

Dinner was served about an hour later, and was typical wedding fare. Winter and Kendall went for the traditional cake cutting, and the traditional first dance, and father-daughter dance, and then the dance floor was opened. Before I could move, I was accosted by three daughters demanding dances, so I accommodated them before dancing with Kara and Jessica. After that, I had a rare slow dance with Jennifer.

“You didn’t have to ask Josie’s permission to dance with me, you big lug!” she said.

“I did, if I want to dance like this!” I grinned pulling her very tightly against me.

Jennifer laughed softly and put her head on my chest.

“Good memories?” she asked.

“Yes. And you feel just as good in my arms as you did in High School!”

“You’re a hell of a liar, Mr. Adams!”

“I respectfully disagree, Jen.”

“Now you’re not playing ... never mind!”

I chuckled, “The dreaded ‘f’ word! And all I did was call you ‘Jen’.”

“Which you know I hear as ‘my Jen’.”

“And your point is?” I chuckled.

“You are a real nut!”

“I know. You love me anyway.”

“I do,” she said.

When the song ended, Jennifer winked, kissed me on the cheek, and went back to Josie. Before I could get back to my wives, I was intercepted by Birgit for another dance.

“Are you needy today, Pumpkin?” I asked.

“You mean extra cuddles and two dances?”

“Yes.”

“I just love you, Dad,” she said. “I like spending time with you.”

“Have I been neglecting you?”

“No, not really. I know you have to travel and do stuff with my moms and my brothers and sisters and work.”

“Would you like a daddy-daughter day?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “When?”

“Let’s plan during Christmas break. There’s no karate, and I don’t work. A full day together, just us.”

“OK!”

We finished the dance and I picked her up to carry her back to where my wives were sitting. When I sat down, I held Birgit in my lap and she put her head on my shoulder and sighed deeply. We sat for about ten minutes before I explained I needed to dance with Winter before she and Kendall left. Birgit reluctantly got out of my lap and I went to the head table where Winter was sitting and asked Kendall for permission to dance with her.

“You brought her to Chicago,” he said. “I think the least I can do for you is a dance!”

Winter got up and I led her to the dance floor. We didn’t dance anywhere near as close as Jennifer and I had, but it was still a close dance.

“I’m happy for you,” I said.

“And I am VERY happy you walked into Lou’s that day! My life changed completely, and I’m very happy!”

“And I very much enjoyed my time in Rutherford!”

Winter laughed softly, “Deflowering virgins and giving sex lessons! Sounds like a perfect vacation for you!”

“Brooke said she thought about asking for a ‘hall pass’.”

Winter laughed, “All three of them were totally jealous of Vickie and me, but there is no way on this earth Bob is going to let her have sex with another guy!”

“No kidding! She did say that thought might not have been the best idea she’d had today! By the way, you neglected to tell me that Vickie was pregnant!”

“Oops! I’ve had a few other things on my mind the past two months.”

“I think I can forgive the oversight!”

When the song finished, I reached into the inside pocket of my suit coat and removed an envelope which I handed to Winter.

“Do I open this now?” she asked.

I shook my head, “No. It can wait until you open the other gifts.”

“Thanks, Steve.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I see Brooke hovering. I’ll dance with Bob to distract him so she can have her dance!”

Winter kissed me on the cheek and went over to Bob and moved to the far part of the dance floor. I walked over to Brooke, took her hand and moved to the opposite corner from where Winter and Bob were dancing. I held out my arms and Brooke melted into them as Faithfully by Journey began playing. She felt REALLY good and I felt just a tinge of longing for her to have had her test when I’d visited Rutherford three years previously.

“Imagining what this would be like lying down?” she whispered into my ear as she pushed her hips forward just enough to express the true intent of her words.

“That thought might have crossed my mind,” I replied.

“Mine, too!”

“How have things been?”

“Good. Despite my inappropriate desire, I’m happy to be married to Bob and things are going really well.”

“Just remember, fantasies are good, so long as they don’t interfere with your relationships.”

“Does that include «Le Quattro Stagioni»?” she teased.

“Absolutely! I wrote out an imaginary version in my journal.”

“I’d pay to read that!” she laughed. “How did I do?”

I decided to have a bit of fun teasing her, as she’d been teasing me.

“You were,” I whispered in her ear, “one of the most amazing fucks I’ve ever had in my entire life.”

She sucked in her breath and her heart beat faster, demonstrating that I’d had the very effect I’d intended. She was still breathing a bit raggedly when the song ended. I squeezed her tightly to me, then released her, and went back to sit with my wives.

“She looks stunned, Tiger,” Jessica observed. “What did you do?”

“Nothing except mention that I wrote about a fantasy in my journal in which she played a starring role.”

My wives laughed.

“Her husband is going to get the fucking of his life tonight!” Kara said mirthfully.

“What about YOUR husband? I asked.

“What do you say, Jess?” Kara asked.

“I think we can accommodate!”

November 23, 2000, Chicago, Illinois

The family began gathering at the house early on Thanksgiving morning, with Elyse and Eduardo arriving just after breakfast.

“What do you think? Elyse asked.

“I think Bush is ahead by about 1000 votes after they counted the overseas absentee ballots, and I think all the court cases are bullshit. The legislature is going to appoint Bush Electors and nobody except Congress can prevent that, no matter what Gore and his lawyers and activists say. The Republicans have a majority in more than 25 delegations, so the House will, if Florida’s votes are discounted, elect Bush. There is not a damned thing any court can do about that, either. This is all just a waste of time and energy.”

“What if Gore actually has more votes?”

“What if I got a vote for President?”

Elyse laughed, “Right!”

“I did!” I chuckled. “Well, sort of. Penny wrote in my name for President and Al’s name for Vice President.”

“Oh, man, could you imagine?”

“My worst nightmare! Now, if Jesse or Birgit got votes...”

“Loki help us all!” Elyse laughed. “But seriously?”

“The fundamental problem is Gore wants to ONLY count the areas he would do well in. That’s so transparent that the courts aren’t buying it. But let’s say he comes out ahead by a few votes. The problem THERE is that there are no standards on how to count votes and the courts can’t rewrite them after the fact. And if we want to start playing those kinds of games, then there’s the whole issue of the network calling Florida for Bush before the polls in his strongest areas closed because the morons at CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS didn’t realize Florida is in two time zones. That probably cost Bush several thousand votes from people who otherwise would have gone to the polls.”

“Sure, but you can’t go on crazy theories like that which can’t be proved!”

“There’s more evidence for my theory than for the whole bit about trying to guess a vote on a butterfly ballot when people were dumb enough to vote TWICE for President. If Gore gets to play games with ‘overvotes’, ‘undervotes’, ‘hanging chads’, and ‘dimpled chads’, then Bush could make claims about purposeful voter suppression by the networks. If the courts had just stayed the fuck out of this and let the Constitution operate, there wouldn’t BE a problem. Well, except for all the idiots who think there is actually such a thing as voting for President or a ‘popular vote’, neither of which exist under the Constitution.”

“Enough on that!” Elyse declared, shaking her head. “What can we do to help?”

“Right now? You’ll have to ask Kara, Birgit, Stephie, and Ashley. They’re making the pies. I’ll start on the turkey and everything else in a few hours.”

“Anybody home?” Stephanie called out from the foyer.

“Nobody but us chickens!” I called back.

“Hi, Uncle Steve!” Davey called out as he came into the great room.

“Hi, Davey! Hi, Patty!”

I got hugs from both of them, then from my sister.

“What can I do to help?” she asked.

“The girls are baking pies; we’ll start on dinner once they’re finished. Matthew is going to help, along with Birgit. I’ll need to duck out to get Jess at 1:00pm; she traded so she could be at Winter’s wedding.”

“You and Penny are alternating working from here next week like you did this week, right?”

“Yes. If Birgit were 14 or 15, I’d say we wouldn’t need to, but you know the idiots at DCFS.”

“TELL me about it. That was one of the reasons I simply paid Ed to go away. The last thing I needed was an ad litem for the kids and involvement of DCFS!”

“I’m with you on that. Is everything settled?”

“The escrow will be released on Monday and that’s the end of it. I’m free to go to Saint Martin! You’re going tomorrow, right?”

“Yes, and I’m back on Monday evening.”

“I’m curious who you’re taking.”

“Nobody. I’m going to see someone.”

Stephanie laughed, “Still up to your old hijinks?”

“As the song says, ‘I gotta be me’!”

“I’d be surprised if that wasn’t the case. Who else will be here this year?”

“Samantha, Brian, and Benjamin. Maria Cristina and Mike are going to her mom’s place and Winter is on her honeymoon.”

“So the turkey isn’t the ONLY thing being stuffed today!”

I laughed, “Nice, Squirt.”

“Dad?” Birgit called out, coming into the room.

“Yes?”

“The kitchen is free. The pies are in the oven.”

“Then we can get started. Find Matthew, please.”

The rest of the morning was spent with prep and a light lunch, and about 12:45pm, Kara and I walked to the hospital to get Jessica, and then Birgit, Matthew, Stephanie, and I continued working on dinner. Samantha, Brian, and Benjamin arrived mid-afternoon, and our four Navy recruits arrived at 4:45, as scheduled. We had an awesome meal and everyone was disappointed when the van arrived at 7:15pm to pick up the recruits and return them to Great Lakes.

November 24, 2000, Saint Martin, Leeward Islands, Lesser Antilles

I had, after a lengthy debate with myself, accepted Samantha’s offer of the use of the Spurgeon Gulfstream, though I had insisted on paying for the use of the plane. We’d gone back and forth over the cost, and finally reached an agreement. The key to my accepting her offer was a desire to depart very early on Friday and to not have to deal with O’Hare on the day after Thanksgiving, as well as being able to avoid changing planes in Dallas or Miami.

“Hi!” Annette exclaimed when I walked into the house on the French side of the island on Friday afternoon.

She was wearing her usual attire - tight white short-shorts with a tight-fitting t-shirt, this one purple.

“Hi!” I said, dropping my bag and taking her into my arms for a hug and kiss.

“I didn’t expect you to be here,” I said.

“Your friend who owns the house arranged with her caretaker to let me in.”

“Let me take my bag upstairs and then we can decide what to do about lunch.”

“OK.”

I took my bag up to the master bedroom and found a note from Rebekah which said that she and her boyfriends were using the largest guest room, but that they’d mostly be out at the beach or clubs and wouldn’t be at the house for any meals. I quickly unpacked, used the bathroom, and then went back downstairs to where Annette was waiting.

“How do you want to spend your romantic three-day weekend?” I asked.

She smiled, “Making love, talking, dancing, and swimming. Can we make love on the beach every night?”

“Yes, if you want.”

“I do.”

“Did Rebekah or the caretaker tell you that Rebekah and her guys are here for the weekend?”

“Yes, but the house is huge and we have the master bedroom, and as the note said, they’ll mostly be out.”

“What did you end up telling your parents?” I asked.

Annette smiled again, “That I was spending three nights with a man I met in July. My parents have typically French attitudes towards love affairs.”

“That was probably a better choice than what you teased about in July!”

Annette laughed softly, “I did tell my mom that, when she took me aside to make sure my heart wasn’t going to be broken again! She said that if I found a lover who could make me feel the way you make me feel at sixteen, I was very lucky!”

“Then let’s have some lunch and you can experience ‘«la petite mort» at the hands of a wonderful lover!’, as you said!”

An hour later, after a nice lunch, Annette’s firm, young body was squirming under me as I made love to her with long, slow strokes, her plump labia and silky tunnel creating the perfect amount of friction for both of us to have very pleasurable «petite morts».

“«Merveilleux»,” she sighed as her fourth and final orgasm subsided.

«D’accord»,” I replied, kissing her softly.

I gently pulled out and lay next to Annette who immediately snuggled close so we could cuddle. I put my arm around her and she sighed deeply.

“I understand why Maria Cristina chose you as a lover. She’s very lucky.”

“She’s actually dating someone now,” I said. “So we’re no longer lovers.”

“She wrote me that she was seeing a Naval officer, but I assumed from everything you two said about your situation, that you were still lovers.”

“Her Naval officer would not understand,” I replied. “In fact, other than my wives and me, I don’t know anyone who has a situation like mine. I’ve met one family with an open marriage, but that ended in divorce.”

“What about Rebekah?”

“She and her boyfriends are exclusive.”

“Your wives have boyfriends?”

“Jessica was very intimate with one man, but they never made love. He was the one I told you about who was killed by a drunk driver before that happened.”

“You have had many lovers, though, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you are happy with our lovemaking?”

“Very.”

“You don’t prefer older, more experienced women?”

“No, I prefer girls who are fifteen to twenty-two.”

“You like virgins?” she asked.

“Yes, but it’s more than that. It’s a very strong preference, almost a ‘kink’, if you know what that word means.”

Annette laughed softly, “I don’t think French girls are as naïve as American girls! The American teenagers I’ve met are prudish and naïve. Is it true that they don’t really teach about sex in school?”

“It’s true. And a lot of parents refuse to talk to their kids about sex, too. And they do everything they can to prevent kids from having sex, including making the age of consent eighteen in some places.”

“Foolish! Teenagers want to have sex and they will! And there is nothing wrong if both agree!”

“You know that; I know that; my family and closest friends know that. American society does not. In fact, it explicitly rejects the idea that teen sexuality is normal and healthy.”

“That seems foolish. Europe certainly has a different attitude.”

“It does. I lived in Sweden for a year, and I’ve been to Europe many times. I’m doing my best to raise my kids with a more European mindset.”

“So you’d be OK with your daughter taking a lover at sixteen?”

I chuckled, “OK? I expect her to!”

“How old is she now?”

“Twelve-and-half.”

“Is she your oldest?”

“No, she’s third; she has two older brothers, two younger sisters, and a younger brother.”

“How old is your oldest?”

“He’ll be fifteen in February.”

“Wow! You had a child at age twenty-three?”

“Twenty-two; I turned twenty-three after he was born.”

“That’s awfully young to have a child. Were you married?”

“Yes, but not to his mom. As for being young, my fervent desire, from the time I was a teenager, was to marry and have kids.”

“I just can’t imagine having kids before I’m twenty-seven or twenty-eight!”

“And that’s the beauty of letting each person decide for themselves, including teenagers.”