Chapter 7

There were other glens, falls, groves and ridges stocked with girls who wanted to have his baby. He stayed on at a few places, notably Shady Glen, even after he had impregnated the vast majority of the fertile females. The guest rooms at Shady Glen helped alleviate his restlessness to a considerable degree, and when no further offers came in for a full year, he got to actually meet some of his children as tiny infants. But when an invitation for a new opportunity came his way, he was off.

His first choice for a place to return to was the Hardwicks, whenever they decided they wanted him. The word came back that Mrs. Hardwick was still there but gravely ill, and it would be better to visit after she had passed away. Replicating the original arrangement was not an option, as Mr. Johnson’s cabin was not free, being occupied frequently by others he lent the cabin to.

The first community he returned to was Birch Falls. As James approached, the first to spot him was Helen, carrying a boy of age two.

“Look, Adam, it’s daddy!” she shrieked, and ran to embrace him, jolting the confused boy along and making it a three-way hug. He had six children here in Birch Falls -- Mary had had twins. He lay on the living room floor as the six of them climbed all over him. They were quite a good-looking and alert bunch of kids. He was proud of them -- and not surprised if their moms each wanted him to father a younger sibling for them.

There was no shortage of babysitters in such a household, making it easy for him to disappear into a bedroom alone with a mother, trying his best to make that eager woman a mother two times over.

Esther had discovered she was a lesbian, though this fact was tightly held, and her sex life was very spotty. She was still eager to have James penetrate her from the rear in a dark room to make her a mother twice over. It was fine being a lesbian, but even if they hooked up at exactly the right time, her preferred lovers could not help make her a mother.

This time he succeeded in making Grace pregnant.

Ruth had just turned 14. She confessed that her brain had changed and she now understood about sex and found the idea exciting, and minutes after that conversation lost her virginity as James penetrated her and she received for the first time an ejaculation in her vagina. And although she was just 14, she became pregnant after only three months of trying.

As the years rolled by, he was an honored house guest at a handful of homesteads, where among the entertainments available was sex with many of the girls. The critical shortage in the hill country was for sperm donors, but the women also felt the natural urge to have sex, whatever their fertility status, and were mostly delighted if James would volunteer to do it to them.

After Mrs. Hardwick died, he returned to the Hardwick household -- actually seeing it and going inside for the first time. There were three two-year-olds -- all girls, as it turned out. He promptly impregnated the three mothers again. He put off a couple households’ invitations once, because he wanted to spend more time with the Hardwicks, but before long the lure of starting yet more babies drew him away.

He found Anne, Kate, and Jenny’s place the most restful stop when he had down time. There was potential jealousy or actual jealousy in the five other places that looked to be part of his regular rotation. One reason the Hardwick household was restful was that there were only three eligible girls, and Kate and Jenny were happy getting sex now and then without emotional baggage. But more important than anything else was that he was in love with Anne. Their relationship had considerable resemblance to a marriage, though his long absences might put it in the category of marriages where the husbands were sailors, especially in earlier days when they would be away for vast stretches at a time. It was also unlike a marriage in that James’s main activity during those absences was being untrue to Anne on an industrial scale, including the fathering of a great many children.