Chapter 22

She went on, “Jimmy, there is more to us than you imagine as a mere man. We can examine her problem and analyse what’s wrong. A girl can do all the right things, technically, to attract a man’s attention, but put off a man by minor errors, such as not showering frequently enough, or ignoring the man when he needs his ego boosted, or expecting a little too much in the way of attention. A busy man needs space to be busy, not continually bothered by a needy woman at the wrong time. Persistent phone calls to him at work is not a good plan, for example.”

“I see. I can’t envisage Madge being like that, Charlotte. Perhaps you girls can ask her the right questions.”

“Okay, Jimmy. I would make a wild guess that she sets her standards for an acceptable man too high; doesn’t allow for men having faults. Some women are innocent that way, not understanding men. All men have faults, even you, my darling.”

“Charlotte, I have always been aware of my faults; at least some of them. I set myself a game plan for life, and you three changed it drastically for me. My game plan had me searching out a nice girl when I was educated, had a good job, well settled and was earning enough to support a wife and family.

Saddling myself with three wives ahead of schedule was a break to my planning, but your Daddy promoted me and kept your allowances going, so our finances remained viable. Adding Lily and Flora was another unexpected and surprising addition to the family, but again I got promoted to be capable of doing my job at Copies, and my finances improved once more. It is astonishing how my life game plan is still more or less on track, just not in the order I planned for it.”

“Well, dear, we all have changed, one way and another, but none of us are unhappy with the result, including you I think. Now go and work in your study until you get called for dinner. Leave Marjory with us as well. We’ll sort things out with her.”

I relaxed in my study for a while, catching up on my emails, most of which were not worth the effort, and some were positively menacing with their claims and promises of riches that were impossible. Another was a DNA family historian looking for matches with any possible relative, based on the same surname. That was of no interest, as my father had researched his family back enough to know where we started from in the late 1700s: Lancashire, England, before moving to the U.S.A.

One message was a fellow student from years back in Saint Andrews, looking to set up a class reunion to catch up with where each of us now was. That was also a no-no.

“Jimmy?” came a call from my doorway. “Dinner is ready, if you can drag yourself away from your computer.”

“I’m glad to be rescued, Cherry. Email has been hijacked by crooks and idiots, it seems.”

I followed her attractive pert ass to the dining room. The table was laid, but none of the chairs occupied, so I sat myself in my usual place, and found a small sherry glass sitting waiting to be emptied. I assisted it to that state using my parched throat.

In moments, Marjory was escorted in and shown to a chair by Sharl.

“Sit yourself there, Marjory. You can talk to Jimmy while we serve dinner.”

“Hello, Marjory; we meet again.”

I smiled to her, and she smiled back.

“Your wives have been most accommodating, Jimmy.They even allowed me to help preparing dinner, so I didn’t feel like a spare wheel.”

“They don’t let me get near their food preparation as a rule, Madge. They don’t trust me, probably quite rightly. Do you normally cook your own meals?”

“I do, as I live alone.”

“Do you visit your parents much?”

“Never. We are not on speaking terms.”

“Brothers or sisters?”

“One much older half-sister, who works in another state. She was from my mother’s first marriage. I almost never see her, as she has a husband and family, and works as well. My father is dead, so that’s it for family.”

That pretty well ended the discussion, for the food started arriving from the kitchen, as a procession of wives brought all the vegetables to the table in serving dishes, followed by the Virginia Ham which smelled delicious. Someone brought the main course plates which had been warmed in the oven. I was ostentatiously invited by Sharl to carve the ham with the sharp carving knife, and Sharl was my self-appointed assistant who produced each plate and once it had several slices placed on it, passed it to Cherry who placed the plate in front of each diner, where they could help themselves to their vegetables of choice.

The serving process went smoothly, and the efficient family operation was not lost on Marjory, who stared wide-eyed at the team effort throughout. Charlotte noticed Marjory’s wide-eyed reaction and explained, “We were taught by Jimmy, or rather trained, to respect each other, Marjory, and that leads to good team work.”

“What? Jimmy trained you? How?”

Charlotte avoided the minefield. “It is a long story, Marjory. Let’s say that Daddy got Jimmy to help us to be better women, and it worked, so much so that we fell for his charms.”

“It certainly did you no harm, I can see that,” Marjory declared. “You have treated me with the utmost respect from the moment I entered your door, yet I am a complete stranger.”

“Jimmy invited you, Marjory, so from that point on, you were no stranger. He also told us you wanted help or advice, so that made you a person needing respect, and you got it. Now you have dinner, so get to it, girl!”

Marjory was grateful to be called a girl despite her being much older than the teenage Charlotte. She really was just a girl in other ways, she thought to herself.

We all sat down after I decanted the last slices to my own plate and helped myself to as many roast potatoes as I dared, for I love roast potatoes! I added some other vegetables until my plate wanted to tip some off again, so I belatedly decided I had enough, and proceeded to add a touch of gravy from the gravy boat, and then attack my food.

It was a great feed, so I concentrated on eating until my plate was almost empty before I looked at anyone else at the table. I addressed them all.

“That was great, ladies. It is just as well we avoided a starter today; I wouldn’t have had enough room for this feast of a main course. Dare I suggest only a very small portion of dessert for me?”

Flora told me, “The sweet is a frozen fruit yoghurt I make occasionally, but with plenty of sugar so it is soft enough to scoop, so you can have a single scoop, Jimmy. The rest of us will have two scoops each, with possibly enough left for extras for those who want them.”

When the sweets came, Marjory was so taken with it that she had an extra portion, and even asked Flora for the recipe. This delighted Flora, and she preened as she promised Marjory a copy. I also indulged in a second scoop, despite my earlier reservations about my stomach’s capacity. It managed to absorb the extra measure.

We moved to the lounge for our coffees. My girls decided that tonight they would pile up the used dishes and deal with them later when we were alone.

We all chatted with Marjory about minor matters of mutual interest. I asked if she truly preferred Marjory to Madge. She paused a moment, then admitted she preferred Marjory, but her family had always called her Madge from a young age, and it had stuck.

I suggested, “Perhaps your name is part of your problem? You don’t find it attractive as a name, so you act as if you are not attractive – though you are, Marjory.”

That idea got the support of Lily and Flora, but not of my older wives.

Cherry was doubtful. “It can’t be that simple, Jimmy. It is not so much her name, but how she feels about herself. If you are not internally confident, it tends to show outwardly in the way you act as a woman, particularly with men. The name is a minor factor. That is the way I see it.”

Madge/Marjory looked uncomfortable with being talked about as if she was not present. She spoke up.

“I don’t feel it that way. I am comfortable with Jimmy, for example. I feel safe with him. It is just my inability to find a man of my own. That is why I am still a virgin at my age.”

“Being a virgin or not has nothing to do with it, Madge. Me and my sisters were not virgins when we met Jimmy; in fact we were more or less easy marks for men. Jimmy changed us so much, Marjory. We are now his and his only, and happy with it.”

This revelation seemed to hit Marjory much harder. She looked round at all three, and at me, and there was a wild look in her eyes.

“What did he do, to make you change so much?”

Sharl admitted hesitantly, “Mainly stripped us of all our previous assumptions, and our clothes as well. He had us stashed away in a closed flat, with just him for company, and a schedule of lectures for us to pay close attention to; for weeks and weeks. When we ended up being horny as hell for a fuck, he was the only male available, so we had to ask him to fuck us; almost beg him to fuck us, for he was not keen at the time. Then when the contraceptive chemicals in our bodies ran out and we had no chance of replacements, he offered us our personal choices: the opportunity of abstinence, or the possibility of pregnancy if we continued to want to be fucked.

Several weeks later, we had all missed our periods, so were probably pregnant. None of us chose abstinence, you will gather.”

Madge was aghast at the way I had treated them, but Sharl waved her thoughts away.

“No concerns about us, Marjory. Jimmy made it clear to us that our lives were our own choices, and we decided what we wanted to do with our lives, with no pressure from him. By this time, Marjory, we realised we were so much in sync with him that we never wanted him to leave us and take us home to Daddy. Unfortunately for him, he had been affected in much the same way, and wanted us to stay with him for ever. Success all round!

We talked it over with Jimmy, and told him that while we all wanted to marry him, only one could get him legally, and the other two would be furious at missing out, so we agreed that all of us would marry him, but without a legal marriage document. That solution suited Jimmy as well.

When we finally got home, we told our father that we were all pregnant with Jimmy’s babies, and that by choice we were married to him as much as we could be, except legally. Faced with either three pregnant unmarried daughters at home, or three married daughters who were pregnant, Daddy took the line of least resistance and gave in to the latter perception. Jimmy is now his son-in-law as far as he is concerned.”

“Good God! I have never heard a story like it!” exclaimed Marjory. “I suppose I should be horrified, but you are all so happy that I find it impossible to find it objectionable. I only wish I could be so happy.”

I thought Marjory might start to cry again, but she held back determinedly and kept her lips tightly closed. Instead, she turned to me, viewing me in a new light, as a sexual predator.

“Jimmy, do you mean you forced these three to have sex with you until they got pregnant? How could you do such a thing!”

I stopped her immediately and clarified things for her, before she could attack me as a rapist or something of that nature.

“Marjory, you were not paying attention to what you have been told. These three were addicted to sex, to sex with almost any man, before I even met them. When I isolated them with me, it was not with any intention of forcing sex on them; my goal was teaching them to be decent human beings, behaving properly towards other human beings. Fucking a man because he was available was not decent behaviour, so they had to learn that, and be weaned off their regular unregulated sex diet. That was what I wanted to do, but they eventually used me to scratch their itch, so I had to teach them about respect for everyone, including members of the opposite sex, and most importantly, themselves.

We had long talks about behaviour, and they begged to be fucked, so I agreed, but only until their contraceptive chemicals would be drained out of their systems. Beyond that, it was an important choice they had to make about the future; their future in particular. Too late, we all found that being together and naked all the time made us appreciate each other more and more. The rest developed from there, and I am proud of them now.”

“You must be good at the sex act, Jimmy, or they would not have all fallen for you so hard.”

Charlotte chimed in, “He is, Marjory, but that is not the point. You can’t spend all your life having sex. You have to do all the other things that devoted couples do when they marry, apart from having babies. Just living together can be a chore, but thrown together as we were, we found that Jimmy was fun to be with all the time, apart from the educational lectures we had to put up with. We soon found them interesting in themselves, and came to appreciate the social and other learning Jimmy was teaching us. We even learned to behave better towards each other. Sharl is no long a bully to us younger girls, and we in turn see the advantages of having her as our group leader. It works well, now that we view ourselves as a team. We are Team Jimmy: Jimmy’s wives. Jimmy has also learned to put up with us as his wives. Putting up with your spouse is the greatest achievement of all in a marriage.”

“He sounds like the ideal man, ladies; the sort of man I have been seeking for years.”

She gasped as she pulled in her breath, for she had said more than she intended. “I didn’t mean it that way, girls. I just saw him as an ideal for me to aim for.”

Sharl told her, in all seriousness, “Marjory, you will never find a man like him. Most men are like most women, unique people; never the same as someone else. You either find Jimmy, or look for someone similar, but not the same.”

Marjory went silent, and quietly sipped her tea for a while, deep in thought. I could almost hear my own girls thinking, and then Flora of all people, spoke up innocently.

“If Jimmy can take us on, ladies, why can’t he take Marjory on as well?”

This comment led to more silent glances between all the women. Marjory just went rigid, lost for words. I didn’t know what to say either, as I felt the matter was now out of my hands. At last Sharl offered, “Jimmy, you advised Mr French to take on another woman as his wife demanded, and I hear you encouraged the restaurant owner to take on two women, so what’s the problem over Marjory? Is there a problem with her? Too old for you?”

By this time Marjory was swinging her head around to look at each of the females talking around her. I jumped in finally to protect her.

“Ladies, I haven’t asked Marjory anything, and she hasn’t asked me anything. Aren’t you jumping ahead of yourselves? Poor Marjory must be horrified!”

Marjory stared at me with surprise, then turned back to Sharlene with a question, as she saw Sharlene was talking sense.

“You could think of me as possibly joining you? Genuinely? At my age?” she ventured.

“Marjory, we have learned more about you tonight than Jimmy learned in several days at work. We see you as fitting in as the elder woman in this family, more experienced in the business life, though I still see myself as the team leader at home. Could you follow my lead, even though you are years older than me?”

Marjory responded, “Sharlene, I am years older than Jimmy, but I defer to him at work, so I could as easily defer to you here. I am used to a subservient position as a receptionist. You are more experienced at leading, I know.”

“Then you will accept Jimmy’s proposal of marriage, when he gets around to it?”

“Yes, Sharlene. Does that mean I can get fucked by Jimmy occasionally? The number of his wives is a daunting prospect for getting to have sex with him.”

“Marjory, the number of wives does not mean restrictions on his loving. We expect him to make love to each one of us every day, indeed demand it, and he has managed so far. Another matter of importance though: Babies. Have you any objection to babies; either ours or yours? There are going to be a lot of babies in this household before long. It could get noisy!”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. Babies? That could be interesting; new to me in every way. I am enough of a woman to be happy, surrounded by babies. Can I have one? Oh. Do I stop work when I get too pregnant?”

I admitted, “None of my wives have jobs, Marjory, so the subject has not come up, but the company has national legal obligations towards pregnant women.”

“Thank goodness. Does this mean you are asking me to marry you, Jimmy?”

“It would appear so; my wives have decided for me. I have been admiring you since I met you, so you certainly are an attractive woman in my eyes. It is a bit early to expect love, but we could get there, I assume. I managed it with the other girls. They are all lovable, which helps.

Let’s regard today as the first step, for we need to learn much more about each other before fully committing to forever. For example, me and my wives are usually naked when at home by ourselves. Are you okay with that?”

“Walking around the house nude? Nude? All the time? All of you?”

“Yes. For starters, it makes it easy for me to stop and make love to a wife at any time, especially if she asks for it, which they often do. We might just set to, there and then, though often enough we go upstairs to be in a comfy bed. Sometimes a chair or couch gets used when passion overtakes us.”