Chapter 56: Education and Testing

When I got back from the beach and my morning meditation session on Saturday morning, Jake was sitting alone in the kitchen nursing a cup of coffee and reading things on his cellphone. I’d gotten the coffee urn working before I left for my prayers and ruminations.

After greeting him, I asked, “You all right now? I mean with Chris?” He was wearing his swimsuit and nothing else. I observed that his muscles had muscles. I had never been in the great shape that Jake was.

He nodded, “I think so. We talked a little last night and did make love. When she started with Stone, I kind of lost ‘it’, and I didn’t have a lot of ‘it’ to start with because I’d already seen her flirting with a couple of other men.

“You were right, by the way. She was testing me and also giving me some immersive education about your Extended Family and, I guess, what I should expect in the future if I hang around her.”

I chuckled, “Everybody thinks that it’s ‘mine’, but the Family is really ‘ours’. I don’t take sole ownership, and we all make it what it is. Changes happen, and they’re not always my design or any other one person. I know people think that an Extended Family means aunts and cousins and uncles and grandparents and blood relatives, but not for us. For us, it’s our Intentional Family – the Family we really want. We also do things a regular family doesn’t do.” I paused and then asked, “Now, what did you learn?”

Jake smiled, “Well, the big lesson that Chris emphasized last night when we talked was that a person can love more than one person at a time. I also got some other ... errr, teachings. One doesn’t need to be exclusive with another person unless they specifically choose that boundary. Possessiveness is a no-no around here. Compersion is better than jealousy. Polyamory is the resident meme and not monogamy, at least in what I learned is called the Extended Family. A person can have many soul mates, and they do here – intentional ones. Boundaries, if there are any, should be explicit and flexible, and be examined or disposed of frequently. I observed that there are few boundaries around here. Pejorative judgments should be avoided, and going with that, there is nothing either good or bad, except how we choose to interpret some situation.”

I smiled, “So, did you see any good or bad situations last night?” I could tell that he was trying to recall points that Chris must have raised with him.

Jake shook his head. “My mind has been blown away from the moment I arrived here from the airport. For starters, everyone was so affectionate, but then I find that the affection runs right into sexual interactions mostly, I guess, under the cloak of darkness on your patio. Chris said I should expect to see couples making love even in the daytime around the house.

“Is that good or bad? My answer is yes and no – even for the same situation that I viewed. Chris had told me the Family was affectionate and sexually liberated and I know she used the term ‘played together’, but I had no idea. Moreover, everyone was so loving and caring. I have to say, I’ve felt so welcomed. I certainly didn’t expect to make love with other women when I came here. Fuck, I didn’t expect my potential girlfriend to be fucking other men, including being DPed by two of them.”

Jake elaborated, “Going further, watching Chris have sex with another man, blew my mind to start with, and then she had two men fucking her at the same time. My head was all jumbled. I didn’t know what to think. I had fallen in love with Chris, but then this. I equate sex and love, love and sex.

“Then she did a sixty-nine and fucked with a woman, and that was hotter than the sun, especially since they were cleaning the ... stuff that guys had injected into them. I never thought of Chris with a woman, except for a brief interaction or two I’d seen before then.

“Then, it dawned on me that Chris was showing me how she lived and loved. It was like my head suddenly cleared and the fog lifted. I realized I was kind of angry. I looked at her differently, for sure. She knows that I’m a person that has to experience things in order to internalize them. We’ve talked about that almost since we met, and that point comes out in my book on Self-Renewal.

“I guessed that I was getting several lessons about things like tolerance, anger management, awareness, sharing, and forgiveness, too. I realized that I couldn’t monopolize Chris. She wouldn’t let me, and I would have tried, too. I can be a control freak.

“I didn’t think that I had to compete for Chris’ affection, but last night after her interactions with some of the men, I did, and especially after she and Penny were together. But then, I realized that I didn’t see anybody else competing for anybody. The love and affection were given freely. There was no game playing, but I thought I was being played ... at least until we talked late last night. I forgive her for the immersive lessons.”

I said, “She was giving you a rather vivid look at her lifestyle – really the lifestyle that all of us lead. We are part of a way of living that is not only unconventional, but is seen by others as illegal, immoral, and totally unacceptable. If you want to be with Chris – and be with us – you’re going to struggle to adapt from the more conventional relationship models to this new paradigm. You do seem to at least be tolerant of what has been happening, even with her.”

“My brain has raised more questions than there are answers. Chris asked me straight out whether I could live this way. I’m thinking.”

I asked, “How did you leave it with her?”

Jake gave me a sheepish grin. “Even though my brain was on fire, we fell asleep. I guess that I’ll find out this morning when she wakes up. I can’t even remember all that we talked about and I know I haven’t finished processing all that I saw – about Chris and about the Extended Family and the lifestyle. That may take weeks – months or even years.”

“Did you talk about how you responded to the situations that she put you in or that she showed you, especially those involving her?”

“Briefly,” he replied. “She wanted to know how I felt about several women from last night; specifically, Lynn, Ally, and the two teenagers that I fucked before we went off to bed.”

“And?”

“Well, I guess it had something to do with how I was raised, but I tend to fall in love with the women that I have sex with. I don’t want to hurt any of them or see them hurt, especially because of something I do. I ended up feeling enamored by each of the women, protective even, and loving. If the relationship lasts, then I’m sure that I’ll commit more and more to it.”

I speculated, “Multiple relationships at the same time?”

“I played the field. I’ve never been married. I was out-of-country too much for many years when I was military, and then more recently never felt that I’d found the right person partly because if I found her, I’d then have to abandon her for long period at a time. My life changes and then I find Chris, and get some thoughts that she’s the ‘One’, and then I discover all this about her, even that she’s the ‘One’ for you – and the for other men.

“Here, I have sex with some other women and feel tender toward them as well as Chris. I’m a little confused perhaps. The multiple partner thing on a steady basis would be so new for me. I have limited will power. Chris knows. We talked about that when she was in Austin. I think I’m older and wiser, but I know that I like some diversity in the women I am affectionate with.”

“I wish you well.” I chuckled. I could see that Jake was learning more about himself even as he talked.

Jake continued, “I have no intent to take Chris from you, but I do want to express my love and desire to her – with her. She’s affected me like no other woman, especially after last night – a night that I’ll never forget, by the way.”

I smiled, “I think you’ve touched her in an inspiring way, too, and I urge you to keep doing that. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m about twice her age. She needs somebody like you in her constellation of friends and lovers. I don’t want to lose her, but I want her to feel complete. I think you can offer that to her.”

Jake appeared surprised. He asked, “Do you think she’d really leave you?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m prepared for it if she does. I want her to be happy and only she has the key to that door. If that means she goes off with somebody new – you, then I have to wish her well. It’s like that quote from Richard Bach; ‘If you love someone, set them free. If they come back, they’re yours. If they don’t, they never were.’ Chris, Lynn, Karen, Amber, Tracy, and all the others are all free agents as far as I’m concerned. I don’t possess them or expect exclusivity from them. So far, they have proven that our love is deep and endless.

“If you want to woo Chris or any of the others, I suggest that you give them the same freedom. They’re all used to it. It’s strange because you have to ‘let go’ in order to get what you want.”

Karen arrived in the kitchen carrying Logan on one hip. She was casually dressed and the baby was giggling. I kissed both of them. Logan got plopped into his high chair and took in the landscape, even studying Jake for a moment since he was a new entity. A handful of Cheerios got put on his high-chair tray, and he devoured them like a hungry bear.

Unlike the evening before, when Chris arrived in the kitchen area, she couldn’t keep her hands off of Jake. I watched him blossom with her attention. Any doubts he had about her wanting him were quickly erased by her constant affection, kisses, and her arm around his strong body.

Later, the couple went off in Chris’ car together. I’d heard mention of showing him the beach and having lunch at Patrick’s downtown.

After they were gone, I asked Karen and Lynn, “Are we going to lose a housemate?” Chris did have the kind of job that could be done anywhere there was a strong Internet connection and an airport nearby.

They both shrugged. Lynn said, “We’ll see, but I think she’ll want him to come here and not the other way around. After all, this is where most of her Extended Family is. She’ll want him to take the plunge rather than the other way around.”

Karen nodded in agreement. “Although we never did wedding vows, Chris thinks of herself as being married to all of us. She has ‘virtual vows’ in her head that she always honors, and those include permanent attachment to you and all of us. I wouldn’t worry. What’s that old line, ‘You’re not losing a daughter, you’re gaining a son’.” She laughed.

The two teens appeared, each with a text book and their laptop. Amber and Tracy kissed everyone in sight and then set up their study spaces next to each other on the patio. What made their presence unique was that they were each wearing very short tennis skirts and no undies and no tops. When they moved around, either their pussies or their cute asses showed and their boobs shimmied. I loved my housemates. They each got coffee and went to study.

I worked on my new book the rest of the day. Chris and Jake came back in the mid-afternoon. Chris came to me and after checking in, announced that the two of them were going to take an afternoon ‘nap’ together; an obvious euphemism for going to Jake’s bedroom and fucking the daylights out of each other. I waved at them dismissively, although I was laughing. Chris pecked me on the cheek and left with a smirk on her face.

After a few hours, I had been diligently reading when Amber interrupted me. She said, “There’s a delivery man at the door with a large package. He wants somebody to sign for it.”

I went to the door and signed for the package. There was box over four-feet on a side and over a foot thick. Amber helped me muscle it into the living room.

Just then, Jake appeared. He grinned. “I bought all of you a house gift. I think it’ll be right up your alley, especially after what I saw last night.”

We opened the box and extracted a folding massage table. Jake explained about giving massages to each other, and how erotic and fulfilling it could be. I liked this man more and more.

We took the table out to the patio and adjusted the legs to a good height. Amber hopped up on the table and looked at Jake and me expectantly. She was still wearing her little tennis skirt and nothing else; so, the two of us started to give her a body massage.

Jake and I winked at each other and started to do what we could to turn-on the teen. At her age, a mere illusion to something sexual a mile away was sufficient to get either teen hornier than a Louisiana tree toad in the springtime.

I kissed and mauled Amber’s breasts as Jake went down on her and penetrated beneath her micro-skirt with some fingers in her vagina. He understood a woman’s anatomy. Amber rocketed into space in less than two minutes. She soared into an orgasm that left her limp and very happy atop the new table. Tracy had continued to sit at her study table, but watched us carefully.

I commented, “I like the table. It’ll get a lot of use by this group for just this purpose.”

Saturday evening started much the way that the evening before had, except we had better entrees. We barbecued chicken and steak medallions instead of burgers and hot dogs, and the side dishes seemed more upscale. Even though we were outside again, there were tablecloths on the table and our good cutlery, and cloth napkins. In part, I was sure we were putting on a show for Jake.