Chapter 53: Seeking Forgiveness

Jared, Janice, Valerie, Chris, and I stood on the patio deck watching Amber and Tracy swimming in my pool. Everyone but the teens were dressed in casual clothes. The teens were nude, having stripped off their clothing so they could swim without being encumbered by heavily restrictive clothing, such as a bikini. The rest of us were laughing at their antics.

Janice spoke. “Even though you may think of them as young adults, and even though you will fuck the stuffing out them, they are still teenagers. They will say strange and insulting things, and do things to test their limits. If they get to be too much, don’t be afraid to let us know. We can move them into an off-campus apartment in a day or so.

I shook my head. “I raised two girls, and have suffered through some of Mel’s growing up. We’ll do all right. I have help, too, with Chris, Lynn, and Karen. I also remember how to take corrective action with people I love that are that age. Logan will also help blunt some of the drama that could happen around here, and his caretaker can consult, too. She’s raised six kids – three of each variety.”

Jared shrugged, “I guess we’ll start driving then. I’d like to get into Tennessee by dinnertime.”

Valerie added, “It’s almost 1,100 miles. We’ll get home tomorrow afternoon. At least we don’t have to pull a trailer back home.”

The teens joined us and dried off wrapping the towels around them so that they weren’t so glaringly naked. We hugged and kissed, and then the three adults from St. Louis got into Jared’s Subaru and departed for home. The teens looked a little forlorn, but then perked up when I suggested they go an arrange their room with the things from the two-dozen large cardboard boxes and wardrobe cases that had come out of the rental trailer with their ‘stuff’ in it. They disappeared.

Chris, who was twenty-seven sighed as they disappeared. “I can’t believe I was that young only nine years ago. I’ve done a lot of growing up in those years, especially thanks to you.” We chuckled and went about the rest of our day.

Rosa arrived and we handed off Logan to her. He was delighted to see his motherly friend. They would start their day with him in a stroller walking around the quiet neighborhood. Occasionally, he would get out and walk holding her hand.

Chris went off to work on editing a book on Self-Renewal for a new author that Paul at the publishing house had assigned her. She’d told me that the book had promise but needed a lot of work. I read part of the author’s draft and liked the thesis and content, but the writing style was convolved and made it hard to read. She certainly had her hands full.

I went off to work on chapter three of my Others book. I was getting into writing about the criteria for choosing someone or someones to be in relationship with you – when ‘you’ was also more than one. I felt this was the place to address the concept of loving more than one person, and how that would play out. An important element was the full knowledge and consent of all the parties involved. That seemed easy to say in a sentence, but I needed to expand on each of those ideas.

A few days later, the two teens started freshman orientation on campus. Even though they were living off-campus, they went to every event that even included an evening ‘meet and greet’ with everyone in their entering college class. They had fun at the event. I was letting the two of them drive my car since after I got home from my beach meditation, I seldom used it – working at home. I guessed that sooner or later, one of them would buy their own transportation. I did raise the issue with them, but not with any urgency. Janice had told me that there was a car budgeted into Amber’s freshman year.

A week later, Chris announced that she was going to fly to Austin, Texas, to work with Jake Walters, the first-time author of the Self-Renewal book she’d been trying to edit. She’d depart on Saturday so she’d have a day to prep before work with him started on Monday.

Lynn, Karen, Amber, Tracy, and I all urged her to follow her bliss if she liked the author. Chris thanked us, but assured us this was an ‘all business, all the time’ trip. I rolled my eyes. I knew enough about her and the odds for male-female chemistry to think that something might happen with some degree of certainty. Besides, Chris was as hypersexual as the rest of us and that demanded some kind of attention on a daily basis.

During the week Chris was away, Lynn, Karen, Amber, and Tracy apparently had some sort of pow-wow about sleeping and fucking arrangements. I asked whether I should be involved and there was laughter. I was told flatly, “No” by the four women.

The result was that I had a rotating pair of women next to me each night. The first night, I had Karen and Tracy. Tracy told me the group had done Rochambeau to determine order – rock, paper, scissors. Tracy had won, Karen came in second, then Amber, and left last was Lynn. Chris by her absence would be the very last when she returned. Beyond that, guests got special privileges, and our weekend orgies or my choice overrode everything else.

I made love to Karen and Tracy. During that tryst, Karen taught Tracy etiquette and behavior when she was in a F-F-M threesome. Tracy had been there with Amber, but Karen knew what she was doing and she was also especially creative, as she’d shown when Lynn was with us.

Accordingly, Tracy was soon eating my cum from Karen’s pussy, and then Karen returned the favor after the teen and I made love. Tracy eventually slept with my cock still in her pussy. She was super content. We also made love in the middle of the night, but Karen left us alone.

The next night, Tracy departed and Amber took her slot. Karen repeated her education about fitting into the Extended Family, and there was more of my cum to suck down. Karen felt like snowballing that night, so there was a special lesson about that. I also wanted to watch more of a sapphic interaction, so I stroked myself back to hardness after one orgasm while the two women brought each other to orgasm.

The next night, Karen departed and Lynn joined us with similar activities and results. This was a lot of fun, and I was getting a lot of pussy, some of it still freshly teenage legal. The rotation continued until Chris got home.

Chris sent me a text or two every day. They were bland, but I didn’t mind or pick up on that fact until later.

I picked up Chris at the local airport on Sunday afternoon. She’d been away eight days. She was quiet and I felt as though she were studying me as I drove us home. She allowed as how she and the author – Jake Walters – had accomplished a lot with his manuscript, including a complete rewrite of the first quarter of the book into more intelligible English.

Chris could be a grammar Nazi, so I knew that Walters probably had his hands full of her comments. She said that part of the time was spent educating him about syntax and other standards for publishing and writing. He had to change the entire book. The content was rich and good, but the writing was terrible.

We got home right at cocktail time. The teens were finished with studying for the day, and joined the rest of us on the patio. I got wine for everyone, even the teens and we sat down. Chris, I noticed, was sitting on the edge of her seat looking worried and morose.

“Chris, what’s wrong?” I asked softly.

Chris burst into tears and started sobbing almost uncontrollably. She couldn’t even speak for five minutes although she tried a few times. I guessed what the problem might be, but didn’t say anything preemptive.

When she could finally speak, although she was still crying constantly, she said, “I cheated on you. I cheated on everybody.”

Given our open relationships and family philosophy, I felt badly because I found humor in her discomfort. Further, we’d all had a premonition and told her to follow her bliss, and quite explicitly told her to ‘go for it’ if her author turned out to be a hot guy.

I said, “You made love with Jake Walters?”

After blubbering for thirty seconds, Chris got out the word, “Yes.”

Lynn and Karen were both ready to give the speech, but I held up my hand. I rushed into my den and picked up a somewhat tattered copy of my book on Polyamory and brought it back to where we were all sitting. Chris was still crying, only Lynn was coddling the younger woman and uttering reassuring words.

I opened up to a page towards the middle of the book. I did a loud, “Ahem!” to get everyone’s attention. I said in a raised voice to override Chris’ crying, “I need to read something to all of you. I started reading: ‘One area that can cause much strife in a polyamorous relationship concerns the group’s definition of cheating and how to deal with it. The easiest way to prevent such conflict is for the group to agree that there are no situations where cheating could occur.’”

I paused and then re-read the same sentences for emphasis. I then said, “CHRIS! Pay attention. You did NOT cheat. People in this family can’t do anything with another person that will classify as cheating, be it sex, emotional involvement, a love affair, marriage, and anything else you can think of. Do you hear me?”

Chris looked at me through her teary eyes and said, “But ... I did all those things – well, most of them.”

I shrugged.

I turned to Lynn, “Do you think she cheated?”

“No, definitely not. Everybody in the Extended Family can create any kind of a relationship with anybody else, even non-Family members, as they see fit. We hope it will be loving and supportive, but doing so is not cheating.”

I turned to Karen, “Karen, what do you think?”

“I agree with Lynn. Any of us could run off with anybody else for whatever reason and the rest of us wouldn’t get angry or even feel taken advantage of. We could even do a one-night stand with a stranger. We would hope they wouldn’t lie to us about it, but a cheater – definitely not.”

I looked at the teens but they both held their hands up to indicate they had nothing to contribute beyond what had been said.

I turned back, “Chris, you can stop crying; please. You did nothing wrong. If you want to share with us, we’d love to hear about your week, but you do not need to feel defensive with us. You don’t even have to share, but at this point we’d love to be able to support you so you don’t feel bad about whatever happened. Please remember that we sent you off with us urging you to follow your bliss.”

Chris looked from person to person to test the veracity of what I’d said. She still had tears streaming down her face. We were all nodding encouragingly to her, and all of us were beaming love in her direction. The teens were especially observant about what was going on. Lynn was stroking her arm.

I held my arms out. We’d hugged at curbside when I picked her up at the airport, but this was different. I was accepting her after she’d ‘confessed’ that she’d done a ‘bad’ thing. It was only bad in her eyes, apparently.

Chris leapt across the short distance into my arms and allowed me to kiss her and tell her that I loved her. I hadn’t said much at the airport, what with other people around. This time, I confirmed my love for her and also that she could do no wrong in my eyes or in the eyes of the Extended Family.

Lynn whispered to me, “Take her to our bed and make love to her.” Of course, Chris heard every word.

I am not as young as I used to be, otherwise I would have lifted Chris up and carried into the house. Instead, I rose and with an arm around her led her into the house and to our bedroom. I left the door open, but no one had followed us.