Chapter 26

I made an enquiry through reception and they passed it on to the departments of Copies. The reply was quick in coming, in the negative, which I half expected. I had to ring Mr Emerson and ask him the same relevant question. He thought we had a website manager as a consultant outwith the group, and promised to discuss it with him and also suggest our staff did the inputting of data into his database.

By this time the afternoon was about over, so I phoned reception to ask when Marjory was due to end her day. She told me, “Whenever Mr Hargreaves says it is time, sir,” and I told her that if she wanted a ride home, that time was in five minutes.

That produced the necessary fire under her, and five minutes later I was at reception to collect her. She told her colleague who was still on duty, “I have to go with Mr Hargreaves, Carol, so I’ll be off now. I think he wants to fuck me.”

With that cheeky farewell, we left for my car. Once we were aboard, she giggled uncontrollably.

“Sorry, Jimmy, I had to say that just to see the look on her face. No-one else was around, so I will deny saying it if she tells anyone else!”

“Marjory, you are a bit of a devil when you get the chance,” I complained. “Quite a change from the very correct Madge. I hoped you would be a little more circumspect, but I loved that quip! Make it a one-time event, though, for the benefit of my poor heart.”

“Sure, Jimmy. Whatever my husband wants ... in the future.”

On the ride home, I asked her, “What do you know about the various warehouses we use for our stock?”

She pursed her lips, saying, “I know they exist, but nothing more of consequence. I have nothing to do with them, same as with the other departments, Jimmy. It is not my job, to coin a phrase.”

I laughed at that age-old excuse, and continued, “So how do we deal with incoming requests for parts?”

“Someone consults the microfiche, to see if it is in our inventory, and passes the request to the pickers with the location.”

“Does that not mean an updated microfiche every time we add to our inventory or run out of stock?” I asked.

“No. We circumvent that problem by giving the location as a bin group. That means that all similar parts are in the one bin group, so the picker goes to that location and looks for the part asked for, if it is there. Where we run out, we sometimes manufacture more, in short runs.”

“But if there a lot of parts in that group, such as screws, nuts and bolts, it will take him a deal of time to find the specific part, assuming there are some left. What if we are out of stock for that part at the time? The microfiche won’t say so.”

“The looking time is less expensive than getting the microfiche updated regularly. The boxes of parts will all be labelled, speeding up the searching. If the part is out of stock, and it is not too complicated, we manufacture new ones, telling the client that there is a minimum order for that product and when it could be available. The minimum figure is to cover the cost of manufacturing.”

“Sensible in the context, but you would have to have a minimum of one in stock to act as a template for making new ones. So, one left would be equated to out of stock.”

“I expect so. We don’t normally make new ones without having a reasonable order from a customer, unless it is a standard item that keeps being asked for; but then we normally make ten times the size of the order, and the surplus goes into stock. The cost of making the extra is minimal, you see.”

“Uh-huh. If we compiled the stock list into a database, it could be easily updated so that at any moment we can say how many of an item we have in stock and relate that to the customer’s request. We can also give the item a specific placement in the warehouse, using a barcode, making it quicker to locate for packing.”

“Yes, Jimmy. As you know about computers, I am sure you are right.”

“We should be able to computerise the stock into a database without very much expense, as the cost is mostly the time to enter the data. One man could identify the exact bin for the item and barcode it to add to the stock list, then it is just a matter of converting the microfiche data into the database, add the exact location and number of copies of that item, and thus make the file complete for that item and its barcode.”

“Yes, dear,” Marjory agreed unthinkingly. She was not really interested in the technicalities. She wanted to get home and get naked for me, or get fed if the other girls had our meal ready to eat.

I dropped the subject and mentally shelved it for tomorrow at work. The traffic was getting worse, so I concentrated on getting home safely. Once home, we were welcomed just inside the front door

as soon as it was closed behind us. Noting that we were not being asked to go to the dining table immediately, Marjory rushed to her room to get her clothes off and join the others in that state, while I had to kiss all my nude wives before getting a chance to get naked.

The minute she returned, naked as the others, Marjory begged the others to allowed her to fuck me right away.

“I have been on edge all day, girls, without being able to get Jimmy’s prick inside me. I need it.”

Sharl told her, quite severely, “You must get over this stubborn need, Marjory. Think of the rest of us, waiting for Jimmy to come home. You surely realise we need him just as much as you do, but we are more rational about Jimmy’s capacity. Today, you can have him fuck you for five minutes or so, then life returns to normal, or rather, normal for this family. Understand that, Marjory?”

Panting with desire, Marjory swiftly agreed. I could see that Sharl would have her work cut out to restrain Marjory’s urge for frequent fucking, after so many years of self-imposed abstinence. She was worse than Cherry. I hurriedly undressed in my bedroom as Marjory watched with impatience. We got down to the sex, and she swiftly began crying out her response. I accepted the time limit, so made no attempt to come in her. She would get her dose of sperm later if she was lucky.

Lily appeared and warned us to hurry as the dinner was almost ready to serve. I was becoming very domesticated, I thought, then reversed that: the girls were getting very domesticated around me, and I merely fitted in!

Either way, the results were admirable from my point of view.

The presence of Marjory in the household had altered things slightly as well. Her praise for their actions as experience wives had encouraged them to go further than before, and I was being treated as a deserving husband instead of the tutor and advisor I started from. Impending motherhood might have also have had a hand in their considerable change of attitude.

Whichever it was, I was pleased at how we were all progressing. Marjory was utterly delighted by her new status as a wife to me, albeit with no formal recognition by the world. Sex was a revelation to her, and she couldn’t get enough of it, right from the start.

She was thoroughly enamoured by being loved both emotionally and physically, despite being part of a group marriage. She had nothing else to compare it with, so accepted it as her new norm within her now wider family. After years of despairing of ever finding any man she could love with all her heart, having me in her arms and her in my arms was heaven for her. She did not look on me as a younger partner, rather as a more experienced partner, and that was more important to her. It allowed her to accept my being in charge at home, as her husband.

The only drawback she found was not being able to sleep with me every night, but as long as she got her lovemaking sex during the evening, she could wait her turn at spending a full night with me. She recognised this was the family sleeping pattern and she would fit right in with it.

The girls explained that as they got bigger bellies the pattern might alter a little, as the way they could fuck became more awkward and might take longer and thus push the less pregnant women down the queue a bit, such as missing a shot at me some days. Spending a night cuddled with me remained an important requirement for everyone, so that would not change in their planning, just the frequency.

The girls reminded Marjory that if and when she got pregnant, the same would happen with her and she would slowly move up the priority scale as she got closer to birthing her child.

I was just amazed that I was able to keep up with making love to six women each day. How long I could keep up with this energetic activity, I wondered, but I also recognised that regular physical activity tended to improve your stamina. Perhaps I would be able to live with it in the long term. I hoped so. I was glad though that my wives had promised not to add more women to our family, purely for my own health and lovemaking ability.

Sharl decided it was time for Marjory to make the break with her old apartment.

“Marjory, my dear, as you are becoming one with us, we are prepared to buy out your mortgage so that you can sell your apartment, now that you are here permanently. Between us, we can afford it, provided you pay us back when the apartment is sold.”

Marjory’s reaction was not what was expected.

“Oh, I don’t want to sell the apartment, Sharl. I can rent it out, and keep paying the mortgage. It is more tax-efficient that way.”

“Eh?” exclaimed Sharlene. “Tax-efficient? Where does that come in, on your salary?”

“No, you don’t know, do you? My grandfather left me something in his will, so I get income from that, and the mortgage interest gets set against what I earn from grandpa’s money.”

Sharl was mollified.

“That’s fine then, Marjory. I am glad you have a nest egg available to you. Why not buy an auto then, if you could afford it?”

“My lifestyle doesn’t need me to have a vehicle, and thereby be alone again, Sharl. That was the case up till now. I always liked my bus trip to work, where I could chat with other passengers. That can be fun, so I kept on with that until now when I have Jimmy for company going to and from work.”

“You poor girl, always afraid of being alone. Us three sisters were never in that position. Treat us as your new sisters, Marjory, and we’ll get along fine.”

During the evening, when I was taking a break from lovemaking, Flora and Lily came to tell me of a call they had received from their father within the last hour.

He had consulted with Maeve and wanted the twins to know what conclusion they had come to. That decision was that Jess should live with them for a while, as Maeve’s teenagers needed the continued familiarity of the family home. This arrangement would prevent Jess having an opportunity to slip into alcohol addiction again, they felt.

“Oh, Daddy, that’s great!” Flora told him. “That was the answer we came to as well. Mum needs someone with her all the time for a while, and we didn’t think she would be comfortable in our clothing optional family, either in this house or our family home. We were going to suggest you take her on, so you chose the best option for us all, Daddy. Thank you from us all. We can come visit you as often as you think is best, transport permitting.”

“Oh, yes. You can’t drive Jimmy’s car during the day, as he needs it for work. How about I get you a car to use for visiting your mum?”

“Oh, great, Dad!” exclaimed Lily. “It doesn’t have to be a new car, for the limited amount of mileage it will get. Sharlene, Cherry and Charlotte share a car, as they are always together. They gave up having a car each, as it was a waste.”

“Tell you what, girls? How about I buy a new one for Maeve for all her dashing about, and we pass her existing car to you?”

“Sounds great, Dad,” said Lily. “We will have to park it outside, due to limited garage space, but this street seems to get no vandalism at all. Jimmy made a good choice of location when he bought this house. He bought it very cheap as it had been empty for ages, he told us, and he has been upgrading it from time to time as funds allowed. With all of us women at home and taking up his time, his D.I.Y. efforts have halted, but we have taken it on ourselves to redecorate the interior of the house. We accept that as we get to the bedrooms we shall have to shift around, but we can manage that.

It is fun, working with paint rollers and stuff, but it takes several of us to cope with wallpapering, especially ceiling paper; that is a terrible job to work with! We need to have one of us up at height placing the end fold of pasted paper on the ceiling, then one of the girls has to stand and hold it in position with a long brush; then the next fold along is stuck on the ceiling, then another girl with a brush holds that in place, and so on until the whole strip is in place. It tends to stick fully to the ceiling after that.”

“Sounds like you know how to keep busy, girls,” said their father.

“We are just being good wives, Dad,” Flora assured him. “The other girls can’t risk working at height in their condition, but we can do this sort of job for a few months more before our baby bumps appear.”

“Oh, yes. You have confirmed yourselves as pregnant? Both of you?”

“Yes, Daddy. We used the test kit twice each, and both times we got a positive result. Jimmy did his husband’s duty very efficiently.”

“Good grief! That means you are all expecting, then?”

“Not Marjory, Dad. She is too recent an addition to be that way for a while. She is the eldest wife, but a complete beginner at loving, even more than us, though she says she wants a baby too.”

“Good God, girls! In a year that house will be full of babies!”

“Probably so, Dad. We are looking forward to seeing that come about. I am sure you enjoyed it when each of your babies arrived!” Flora prodded with a smile in her voice.

“You are right, Flora. Maeve was so happy with our first that she went on to have two more. Are you thinking of more than one?”

Lily answered, “Not at the moment, Dad. Once we see what we are like with one baby each, we can make up our minds about the future. The same goes for the other girls in the family. I have an idea that Jimmy can be persuaded to have a child minder brought in to help with looking after his brood.”

Their Dad put in, “I hope Jimmy can afford to pay for a child minder as well as feeding, clothing and entertaining all his women!”

“That reminds me, Dad. Jimmy was talking about him setting aside a fund for all the children, to help pay for their schooling as they grow up. He mentioned that if any of the grandparents wanted to chip in, he would not be averse to that idea.”

Bob Yeats was quick off the mark, and said, “I will be happy to contribute my pittance to the fund, once it is established, girls. Tell Jimmy that.”

“Thanks, Dad,” said Flora, and Lily copied her at once.

After some more family chat the call finished, they told me.

“Now, that was interesting, girls. I’ll be glad to take you to your Dad’s place to see your mom again; any evening once she has been discharged. I must also speak to the bank about setting up that account for regular payments into it from my main account where my salary gets paid by the company. We need to sit down as a family and work out how much should go into that account each payday. I don’t want you girls to go without something you need, just to keep that level of paying-in high.”

Next day, Marjory and I arrived at the offices and I kissed her a chaste goodbye in front of her colleague. At least, that was my expectation, but she at once grabbed me close and planted a sexy kiss on my lips, pressing herself hard against me. Stepping back, she turned me round and gave me a push towards the internal door.

“Bye, darling!” she chirped and stepped towards the ladies cloakroom to deposit her coat, ignoring the gaping mouth of the other girl at the reception counter. I said nothing and moved out to my own office. If Marjory wants to gloat, so be it. That affectation will soon wear off, I concluded.

It must have been spotted by someone else, or the girl at reception was a blabbermouth, for I was not at my desk for five minutes before my phone rang. It was Mr French.

“Mr Hargreaves, I think you should know that the staff gossip chain is talking of you and Madge being a pair,” he told me.

“That would be right, Mr French. Madge, or Marjory as she prefers to be called, has decided to join my little family group; you know how that can happen. How are you and Teresa getting on?”

Leonard French paused before saying anything; probably wondering if anyone could hear him. He decided to be circumspect.

“Teresa and I are getting along fine, Mr Hargreaves; you could say, quite well indeed. My wife was pleased to be able to offer her cousin some accommodation with us. Teresa seems to find the arrangement quite acceptable, so I am happy with that plan. If she likes it enough, she might decide to stay with us permanently. We have the space, you see.”