Eight

THE FOOTBALL GAME WAS FUN. I don’t think I’d ever been to a college football game, and even though SCU is Division III, it was a good game. The fact that we were playing Pacific Lutheran University meant that it was an inter-city rival from down in Tacoma, so there were a couple thousand people at the stadium.

We loaded both our cars and Sandra had her car loaded as well. Since Bree is no longer a cheerleader, she rode with Sandra and Melody surprised me by riding with them. Thor rode on the back of Amy’s bike. By the time we were all together at the stadium, we made a sizable cheering block for SCU and waved at Sonia as we filed in to get seats.

I was hoarse from yelling by the time we ended the afternoon and headed for the Spaghetti Factory for dinner. I barely got home in time to shower and warm up before heading to campus for my overnight shift

Oh, and we lost.

With no sleep during the day, I was nodding off in the chair at the tent by ten-thirty. There was no way I’d be studying. Except I forgot my Anatomy team. They all showed up at midnight and neither Amanda nor Justin was hoarse. They hadn’t gone to the game. Bree looked a little sleepy, but we got down to scoping out our project.

“So, why can’t you just draw the things that we need for the presentation and then we’ll put together the script?” Justin asked.

“I don’t have anything to draw,” I answered.

“There’s tons of pictures,” Amanda argued.

“Why would I draw a picture of a picture?” I asked. “That’s just busy work. Photocopy it and let’s work on the presentation from there.”

“Are you saying you drew all these from dead bodies?” Justin asked, pointing at one of my portfolios. It had about forty anatomical drawings that I’d done last winter.

“Um ... yeah, actually.” There was a lot of emotional impact to what I was about to say and I didn’t know where any of my teammates stood on the issue. “During the holiday break last year, the exhibition called ‘Bodies’ was in St. Louis. I convinced my folks to let me spend two days there. I spent the entire twelve hours each day sketching what I saw. I know a lot of people think it’s disrespectful to the people who died and were preserved, but ... well, I was really interested.”

“I don’t know that I could have done that,” Bree said. “I love the body, but I don’t know if I could detach myself enough to see it as art.”

“It’s not art. It’s science,” Justin said firmly. “Med students have been dissecting human bodies for hundreds of years. If we didn’t, medicine would still be back in the dark ages.”

“Hmm,” Amanda said. “So, are you saying that you could do the drawings for our project if you actually saw a subject? I mean, like if we did an autopsy, for example, you could draw what we saw?”

“Well, yeah. But, don’t go killing anyone for my sake, okay?”

“Of course not,” she snapped. No sense of humor. “But there’s a program that we can participate in that allows us to watch an autopsy at the Med School. First year med students will be dissecting cadavers the middle of November. Would you pass out in the presence of an unpreserved dead body?” she asked.

“Well ... no. Not unless it was fresh.” Amanda rolled her eyes.

“I’ll see if I can get us into it and you can do the sketches of a real body. That will put us way ahead of the rest of the class.”

Amanda and Justin left about two. My eyes were crossing, I was so tired. Bree hung around like she wanted to say something.

“Aren’t you going home to bed, Bree?” I asked.

“I was wondering ... um ... oh god ... if...” Uh-oh, I thought. “I asked Melody and she said if you were willing that it would be okay to just hold me for a while,” Bree managed to get out at last. “No kissing, no making out, no ... um ... fondling. Just ... would you hold me?”

I opened my arms and the little redhead bounced into my lap. The office chair that I had wasn’t that conducive to having two people in it, but I rolled it back so I was against the building and hoped that would keep it from tipping over, at least. For her part, Bree did her best to curl up into the smallest ball possible as I wrapped my arms around her. As soon as she felt me hug her, she relaxed. We just sat there for a while as my eyes got steadily heavier. I couldn’t let it go, though.

“Why are you doing this, Bree? You don’t have to try to be with me. I’m your friend.”

“That’s what I’m trying to learn about,” she said. “I only know two ways to interact with guys. They are either my father or I have sex. Well, used to. I’ve been talking to Melody and Kate a lot lately.”

“That’s an improvement,” I chuckled.

“No one has a single bruise yet,” Bree responded in kind. “But they are teaching me stuff that I never figured out. I need to learn how to be with a man and not be sexual or be his good little girl. But, god! It gets so lonely sometimes. I just want to have someone who will hold me.”

“Anytime, Bree,” I said. And I meant it. It felt like we’d turned a corner and with that thought, I drifted off to sleep.

On Wednesday, after midterms at PCAD, I kissed Melody goodbye and Lissa took her to the airport. I went through my normal daily routine, including a workout with Lissa at the club when she got back. We got home just in time to meet Molly and the boys. I whipped up a meatloaf and mashed potatoes and while it was cooking, sat to read.

“Is Meddy’s daddy okay?” Damon asked out of the blue.

“Meddy’s daddy is very sick, so she wanted to go visit him. It’s nothing for you guys to worry about. Melody will be back on Sunday.”

“Is Meddy’s daddy our grandpa?” Damon continued.

“Well ... I guess you could say that, but like my mom and dad and Gramma Lexi, they aren’t regular grandparents, they’re special grandparents. You’ll get to meet them at Thanksgiving next month. They are coming here for a visit.”

“And Gramma Lexi,” Drew chimed in. He’d taken an instant liking to Lexi last spring, just as he had to Melody before that.

“That’s right, kiddo. Gramma Lexi will be here and so will Grandpa Saul and Grandma Deb—my mommy and daddy.”

“I like grammas and grampas,” Drew affirmed.

“So do I.”

Lissa and I got the boys to bed, the kitchen cleaned up, and sat to listen to the silence in the house. By some miracle, I’d managed to stay ahead of my homework since we got home from Minneapolis and was feeling pretty good about where I was, so the two of us had a chance to just get to know each other again. We sat in the big chair at first, but Lissa was a little antsy and we agreed a bath was what we needed.

“You know, I love Kate,” Lissa said.

“But?” I asked.

“Don’t even mention butt until mine’s bare,” she giggled. I quickly helped remedy the situation and gave her butt a light pat.

“Butt?” I asked again. We stepped into the tub and decided not to run the jets in case the boys needed us.

“But she completely exhausted me Wednesday. I thought Melody was insatiable, but she was wrung out, too. I don’t know how many times I came after she dragged me to the bedroom, and nothing I could do would get her off. Then that scream when she did go off—and no one even touching her. I nearly went through the ceiling at first, but then when I saw her, I think I came again! What got into her?”

“Were you upset? Unhappy? Unwilling?”

“No. Just surprised. And a little overwhelmed, I guess. It was just so unlike the sweet innocent girl we fell in love with,” Lissa sighed.

“Well, it’s true,” I said. “I mean, I still think she’s sweet, but not so innocent anymore. I mean, let’s face it; she was a virgin who had never had an orgasm until our birthday just over a month ago. None of us came into our relationship that uh ... naïve. Melody and I were virgins, but we’d masturbated. Kate didn’t even really believe it would hurt the first time. So ... that sweet and innocent girl gives up her virginity, not to one person, but to three on the same night. Again, even the way we’ve played in the past few months, none of us had quite an equivalent introduction to sex. I think she feels like she has a lot to catch up on.”

“But she’s still teaching us!” Lissa said. “Now I want to know if I could spend the whole day on edge and then come like that. She took us way beyond teasing before a tournament.”

“What’s worrying you, darling?”

“I’m afraid that ... well, that once she’s tried everything she can think of, she’ll want to try everyone.”

“Yeah. That’s a danger, isn’t it.”

“How can you be so calm about it?”

“Lissa, you were married to Jack and then celibate until you met Melody and me, right?” She nodded her head. “How many people have you made love to this year?”

“Three, but...” I shook my head. “Five,” she sighed.

“And Kate wasn’t with us for Allie or Beth, yet she fully approved, even though I don’t think she’d go to bed with Allie. Maybe with Beth. And she’s played around with Wendy. I don’t think Wendy actually wants to be in our communal bed. I don’t think. But you know what?” Lissa looked at me plaintively. “Kate loves us. She loves us so much she’d do anything for us, but more than that. She loves us so much that she trusts us to let her experiment.”