Twenty-seven

DINNER WAS A BIG AFFAIR. There were thirteen of us at the table. We joked. We laughed. We talked about how good the food was.

“Kiss the cook!” I yelled, standing up. Melody, Lissa, Kate, and the boys were out of their seats in an instant. When they realized we were attacking Mom, Jack, Bree, Wendy, Lexi, Beth, and Dad all got up to take their turns. When they returned to their seats and found us sitting in them, though, the boys started giggling hysterically. This time we managed to get Drew settled down before he threw up. Damon made a big show of pretending to take Grandpa Saul’s wine and sip it.

“A very good vintage,” he said. “Napa Valley Cabernet, 2007.” We all started laughing again. The thing was, he was right!

I couldn’t really call bedtime an ordeal. After all, I was sleeping in a big bed with six beautiful women. I’d stopped in my room, now Jack’s, after I’d read to the boys and got a pair of pajamas out of my bottom drawer. I’d cleared the top two drawers for Jack and the boys to use. I got them tucked in while Jack had a nightcap with Mom and Dad and Lexi. Us ‘kids’ started getting ready for bed. This was going to be an experience. Six women and a guy sharing a bathroom.

“Um ... ladies?” I ventured at one point. All of them were in some stage of undress and running down the hall in panties and bra or a T-shirt back and forth from the bathroom. “You know this isn’t like home. We’ve got the boys with us. And Jack and Lexi and my folks. Maybe we shouldn’t be running around the house half naked.” I looked at Melody standing in front of me without a stitch of clothing on. “Or all naked,” I concluded lamely.

“What are we going to do?” Lissa asked. “You told us to bring pajamas, but this is what we’ve got.”

“Don’t any of you have robes?”

“You mean like this?” Bree asked. She spun slowly modeling a chemise that barely covered her buns, which didn’t make a difference since it was see-through. Beth wore a slinky nightgown that fell to about mid-thigh. Melody—now that she was putting something on—was pulling on a short Boston Celtics T-shirt that matched the one Lissa was wearing. Kate and Wendy were wearing two of my white painting smock shirts that I’d picked up at the second-hand store. I had a feeling there was nothing on under them. I sighed. I had on a T-shirt and a pair of pajama pants that I’d had in junior high school and they came up to mid-calf. After we’d all taken a moment to look at each other, we all broke out laughing. I went to my room and brought my old bathrobe, careful not to disturb the munchkins who were just off to sleep. I brought it into our room and hung it by the door.

“One at a time until further notice,” I said. Then I broke out laughing and tumbled into bed.

Eventually, we settled in, after sitting around in a circle talking about what had happened in the past few weeks. It really was like a girls’ slumber party. I felt out of place, but with these six sitting around me and abandoning all pretense of modesty, I wouldn’t have traded places for anything. Melody plopped down in the middle, right on the crack between the mattresses, but she didn’t seem to mind as she pulled blankets from both beds over her.

“Someone needs to keep me warm!” she said. I was on her left and Kate was on her right before the lights were out. Wendy was behind Kate as if the two girls were stuck together. Beth held back to give Lissa a chance to get under the covers next to me and then she sandwiched Lissa between us. Bree started to get in bed next to Wendy. I wasn’t sure what happened, but I heard Bree’s whisper.

“Don’t worry, Tiger,” she said. “I’ll be careful not to bump. If you need more room, just give me a shove, okay?”

“Thank you, Bree,” Wendy’s small voice whispered.

Nothing stays the same through a night when you’ve just been reunited with your lovers, no matter how many people are in the bed with you. Sometime during the night, Kate and I traded places. I spooned behind Melody and felt Wendy wrap an arm around me. An hour before dawn, Melody started to feel my presence and managed to swap with Lissa so she was between Kate and Beth.

When I woke up, it was to the delightful and sorely missed feeling of my cock wedged between Lissa’s butt cheeks.

We tried to be very quiet about what was happening, but both of us had our eyes riveted on Kate and Melody as they slowly and quietly moved against each other. Lissa lifted her leg slightly and I felt a hand on my cock, guiding me to her entrance. It took a moment to realize the hand was coming from behind me. I turned my head slightly and Wendy kissed my cheek then settled down behind me with her hand on my hip as I slowly pumped into Lissa. I was going to have to think about that later. Just now, though, I had other things on my mind. Oh, what a wonderful way to wake up the morning before Christmas Eve.

After we’d basked in the afterglow for a while, Lissa turned her head toward me and we kissed.

“Coffee?” she asked.

Wendy bolted upright behind me and was out of the room before I could respond. I turned toward the empty spot and saw Bree just waking up. I crawled out of bed and left the room to find Wendy.

It wasn’t difficult. She was in the kitchen figuring out Mom’s old-fashioned coffee maker.

“Not quite like at home, is it, Tiger?” I asked quietly. I slipped up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist. As long as I kept away from the right side of her face and the outside of her right arm, I wasn’t causing her any pain. I had to be a little careful about the right side of my own face as I leaned into her. My burns were more healed than most of hers, but my ear hurt. Apparently, I managed to break the cartilage in the top of my ear when I smashed my face against her trying to put out the fire. That was more tender than the burned skin.

“I’ll get coffee, Tony,” she said in a breathless voice.

“Wendy, you are part of my family, not a servant,” I said softly.

The dam finally broke. Tears flooded from Wendy’s eyes and she spun in my arms and pressed her face into my chest as she cried.

“I can’t be family,” she said. “I’ll hurt you. I killed them. They took me in and I killed them,” she sobbed. I backed into a kitchen chair and sat down, pulling Wendy down on my lap.

“You didn’t kill anyone, Wendy,” I said slowly and deliberately. “A sick man who hurt you for years decided to hurt other people, too. It’s not your fault, Tiger. You are part of our family now and we will not let you blame yourself for what is not your fault.”

She sobbed some more but held on tighter.

“Listen to me, Wendy,” I said as I turned her to face me. I looked into her eyes. “It was not your fault.”

Tears were running down my cheeks, too. I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see Mom standing over us. She disappeared for a minute and was back before Wendy’s tears had fully run their course. Wendy looked up as Mom pulled up a chair in front of us. Mom had the burn salve.

“You must just be aching to wash your faces, I’ll bet,” Mom chatted softly. “It won’t be long, children.” She smoothed some of the salve on my cheek then started applying it to Wendy’s. She didn’t bother to wipe away anyone’s tears. She just kept talking to us. “My poor babies. Mommy will take care of your hurts. I have some aloe that I’m adding to your salve. It will take away the sting and stop it from scarring.” Once she’d finished Wendy’s face and scalp, she calmly unbuttoned the smock shirt and pulled it off Wendy’s right shoulder and arm. That exposed her right breast, but I just pulled the other side of the shirt over and held it in front of her while Mom worked the salve into her arm. “You’ve such beautiful skin, Wendy-bird. We don’t want it to scar.” She was so soft and gentle as she used the nickname from Peter Pan to comfort Wendy. When she’d finished with the salve, she pulled the shirt back on and buttoned it up.

“Can I be a Tiger and a Wendy-bird at the same time?” Wendy asked so quietly that I almost couldn’t hear her.

“Of course, you can, sweetheart,” Mom whispered. “You are part of our family and you can be anything you want to be. Would you like to learn how to work my old-fashioned coffeepot?”

I love my mom.

The Christmas tree was spectacular. Dad brought in the biggest tree he could fit in the old farmhouse. The downstairs had twelve-foot ceilings, so you can imagine the size of the tree. We spent the entire day decorating it, putting up lights, and making ornaments. Mom and Lexi supervised the boys as they strung popcorn and cranberries with a needle and thread. The strands only ended up being about three feet long, but the boys thought they were the coolest thing in the world. When the tree was decorated and we were all sitting around drinking hot chocolate and listening to Andre Bocelli singing carols on the stereo, Lexi disappeared and a moment later came down with her arms filled with Christmas presents which she put under the tree.