Chapter 16

Bob waited until the twins had taken their showers and were in their room. His stuff had been stacked against one wall and neither twin had complained that the room was cramped. When he walked in they were booting up their old video console.

“Got a minute?” he asked.

Both looked at him and then at each other and then back at him.

“I have some advice for you,” he said.

They remained mute.

“If you’ll recall, your mother was taking birth control pills when I got her pregnant.”

They looked very alert. This was something they’d never talked about with Bob.

“Even though she was on the pill, she got pregnant. In our case that was okay, because we loved each other and wanted to get married anyway. Bringing new life into the world was something we could even embrace. But I can see that turning out badly if the girl got pregnant by a couple of horny college boys, who had no interest in marriage. Especially if that girl’s father was a cop and could literally ruin the lives of the boys who knocked up his little girl. And, if that girl wasn’t on birth control, and got a double dose of sperm each time she went out with these hypothetical boys, that makes it a lot more likely that her belly would, in fact, swell up.”

The twins looked worried, now.

“Of course that’s just a hypothetical situation,” said Bob. “I don’t know any guys who are that thoughtless, or that stupid.”

He took his hand from behind his back. In it was a new, unopened box of condoms. He tossed it toward them and Randy caught it.

“Don’t get her pregnant,” said Bob. “Not unless you’re willing to take responsibility for it. Are you willing to marry the girl?”

“Not ... yet,” said Robby.

“Maybe in a couple of years,” said Randy.

“You can’t both marry her,” said Bob, nonplussed by their candor. Neither tried to deny anything.

“It won’t matter which one of us she marries,” said Robby. “It will be like you and Mom and Erica.”

“Assuming she even wants to marry us,” said Randy.

“Maybe, if you’re going to have that kind of relationship with her, that subject could be broached. Condoms can break.”

“We like her,” said Robby. “We like her a lot. I don’t think her parents would let her marry one of us, though.”

“I’m just telling you to be careful. I can’t tell you to back off, because I know you won’t. Just think about all this farther than getting your dicks wet.”

“Got it,” said Randy.

Bob turned to leave.

“Thanks,” came a twin’s voice.

He couldn’t tell which one had said it.

The twins weren’t stupid. They both liked Veronica. They both knew how rare it was to find a girl who would agree to their sexual proclivity of double-teaming a girl. Robby had spent more time with her, the previous summer, and it was his discussion about that that had drawn Randy home this summer. Bob had mentioned marriage thinking they would recoil. But marriage was definitely on the table. At least for them.

Veronica’s opinion about that was yet to be determined.

The next time they took her out, they didn’t rush to get the blanket out. Instead they talked to her about her plans and their plans.

“Can I ask you something?” It was Robby who spoke.

“What?” asked the girl.

“Can you see this relationship lasting ... a while?”

“You mean us?” Veronica glanced at each boy. “All of us?”

“Yes,” said Robby.

“What does a while mean?” she asked. “The rest of the summer?”

“Longer than that,” said Robby. “I like you. We like you ... maybe more than any other girl we’ve been with.”

Veronica sat there. She’d never had a real boyfriend. Before they moved to Holden she’d been too young. She’d only gone out on two dates before they moved, both chaperoned, and once they got to Holden there were no “suitable boys” for her to show interest in. She hadn’t thought about her future, when it came to men. She’d been a virgin up until five days earlier. Trying to imagine anything other than what they’d already done was ... foggy.

“You’re both going back to college,” she said. “And I’m going to the academy. By this time next year I’ll be a state trooper.”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t see you again,” said Randy. “We won’t be in college forever.”

“What then?” asked the girl. “I think we all know this is a strange situation. Not that I’m complaining. I had a really good time last week. But how could this work when we’re all older?”

“I don’t know,” said Robby. “All I know is I don’t want you to find another boyfriend to take our place.”

“You both want to be my boyfriend?” She laughed. “And from that far away?”

“Yeah,” said Randy. “I guess that’s it.”

“Wow,” said Veronica. “I still can’t believe I’m not a virgin anymore. Thinking about next year, or two years from now, is ... impossible.”

“Try,” said Robby. “We’re serious. You’re different than any other girl we’ve known.”

“Gee, I wonder why?” she asked, holding up one dark arm.

“It’s not that,” said Robby. “We don’t care about that. We just like you.”

“Okay,” she said. “Why are you asking me this now? I thought we were going to ... you know ... again.”

“Oh, we want to do that, too,” said Randy, assuming she wanted to have a repeat performance. “It’s just that if there’s a future for us, we need to think about that and plan for that.”

“Plan how?” asked Veronica.

“Well, this, for one thing,” said Robby, extracting a foil packet from his pocket. “We’re sorry we didn’t think about this last week.”

Veronica just stared at them.

“What happened? Did somebody talk to you? Did Erica talk to you?”

“No, she didn’t,” said Robby. “We just got to thinking about how getting you pregnant right now might not be good.”

“Right now?”

“That’s why we need to think about the future,” said Randy.

“You want to get me pregnant some day?” she squealed.

“I told you, it’s different when we think about you,” said Robby.

That date had been all talking and no sex. It was that which convinced Erica that her brothers were serious about Veronica. It convinced Veronica, too, but on a different level. She had never even thought about having a long term relationship. That kind of thing happened to other people. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be in a lasting, committed relationship. She just assumed that was years away.

Now, though, as she thought about the twins, her imagination explored it. Had she (or they) ever been in love before, it might have been very difficult for them to think that a long distance relationship could work, especially since it would also be long distance for at least two years. That assumed Veronica did well at the academy. The boys both knew that their own courses of study were already set, and even though they wished they could live together, they knew it wasn’t going to happen for quite a while.

To the rest of us this looks like a no-win situation. Assuming Veronica did well at the academy, she would have a job and more than a year’s experience at that job before the twins even started working. They would all be hundreds of miles apart. Granted, they could visit each other, but for most of us that would be an untenable situation.

What worked for them, though, was they didn’t know what they were missing. Veronica had never dated, for the most part. Her own sexual needs had always been met by masturbation, prior to being double-teamed by the boys. And even though she now knew what real sex felt like, she hadn’t gotten used to engaging in it at will. For the boys, what made the difference was that they felt like they’d finally found the elusive woman they’d been searching for since they were sixteen. She was worth the wait.

There was a lot to talk about this and a lot of questions that had no answers. Nobody knew where Veronica would be living in two years. Nobody knew if the twins could both get jobs wherever that was, or whether maybe Veronica could use her experience to get a job wherever one (or both) of the boys got a job.

Basically, the three of them took everything on faith, and the feelings that had developed between them.

On the next date, Veronica got naked and learned all manner of new things. She found out that both penises felt good in her mouth, and that if she got on her hands and knees, she could have one in her pussy and the other in her mouth at the same time.

Of course the boys had to change places. It was only fair.

And in the excitement of exploring all this, nobody remembered about the condoms.

“Of course they used condoms,” lied Veronica, when she was questioned by Erica. “But there’s so much more to talk about than that.”

That’s when Erica learned about all the things that had been discussed, and the plans that had been made.

“That’s crazy,” said Erica. “You’re going to the academy and there will be tons of healthy, interesting, hot guys there.”

“That might be true, but I don’t want to get a reputation before I even pin on the badge,” said Veronica. “I think this is what my dad means when he talks about how you shouldn’t shit in your nest.”

“When did he say that?” gasped Erica.

“He was talking about some politician who had sex with one of his interns or something. I wasn’t supposed to be listening.”

“And you think you can wait until they’re out of college before you have sex again?” The skepticism in Erica’s voice was clear.