Chapter 95: Emily’s Joining

About a week after the large graduation party at the house, I had just closed down working for the day when Derek appeared. He still had a lanyard around his neck with his badge and credentials from the City of Sarasota Inspection Department – his new job. He came around the side of the house and made a beeline for my table.

“Jim, I came to see you. Do you have a minute?

“I have many minutes since I’m through authoring for the day. I have a good guess about the subject, however.” Derek looked serious and I was teasing.

“My mother?”

“That would be my guess.” I was chuckling. Emily Hunt had seemed so eager that I wasn’t surprised that she’d gotten her son to come to convince me that she should become a member of the Family.

Derek was also chuckling, “Right on. Since the party, mom and I have had some really dense conversations, including some that should have happened years ago. She was embarrassing at first, since we’d never talked about her love life or her sexuality before, but then I applied some of the skills that I’ve learned in the Family and helped her get it all out, at least I think it was ‘all’ of it.”

I chuckled, “And the bottomline?”

“She wants to belong to the Extended Family and I’m willing to support her in that goal. I won’t freak out or be embarrassed by her; in fact, I think it will be cool having my mom here.

“There are precedents that I considered and even discussed with her – other ‘mom-or-dad--and-child’ combinations in the Family: Lynn and Mel, Bev and Rachel and Karen, Janice and Amber, Val and Tracy, and, you with your daughters Cindy and Jean when they visit, at least.

“Since I got through puberty, I’ve had a crush on my mother – a sexual crush. I confess to having lusted after her for a long time. Some of my masturbation fantasies involved the two of us doing sexy things together, especially after I joined the Family and saw so many new avenues of sex being explored by everyone.”

Derek paused. He was torn between secrecy and confession. He went for the latter.

“I made love with my mother.”

Derek waited for some hammer to drop or some siren to wail. I looked at him and nodded, trying to adopt a ‘So what?’ attitude about his secret.

Derek said, “You don’t care, do you?”

“I only care that you and Emily had a good experience during the event that that you’ll continue to look upon your new relationship with positive thoughts and no regrets.

“I happen to think that the incest laws in this country are outdated and immoral. Just who decided that two consenting adults couldn’t make love together. No one was being pressured into doing the sex act, nothing was being withheld unless you submitted, and there were no penalties for saying ‘no’ by either of you; am I wrong?”

Derek shook his head. “No, we just felt loving. We started to kiss and then things happened. We both wanted what happened.:

“Knowing the two of you, I’m surprised that you actually went through with it. You’re both kind of on the submissive side, even though Emily kind of came onto me to ask for membership in the Extended Family.”

He said, “I’d be glad if she belonged to the Family. She’s been without any man in her life for ten years, since she divorced my dad.”

“Reason, if I may pry?”

“He cheated multiple times. Mom finally got tired of it. She gave him an ultimatum, and the divorce was the result. He was supposed to see me on weekends and a couple of weeks over each summer, but I think of him as an acquaintance that I see occasionally. The last time was three years ago.”

I nodded. I said to Derek, “I think you know the drill. I am not the gatekeeper for the Extended Family, although people treat me that way. If Emily wants to belong, she needs to hang around here almost every day after work, join us for cocktails and dinner, and as much of the later evening doings as she is up for. People need to meet and come to know her, and she needs to meet the people in the Family. The decision will be obvious to everyone and to her if she’s compatible with all of us.”

Derek was nodding. He said, “That’s what I told her. The way I put it was, ‘If this is going to be your new Intentional Family, then you should want to spend as much time as you can with them. Being with us shouldn’t be a chore, but part of a life choice for how you want to live.”

I asked, “So, what does Emily plan to do?”

“I think that you’ll see her at your front door any minute, but I also told her that she could always just walk around the house through the side gate.”

Emily did appear at my front door exactly at five-thirty. I was putting together some plates of cheese and crackers and answered the door. She looked ready to leap off my front stoop into the bushes if I said the wrong thing.

“Emily! How nice. Come in. I’m just getting some things together for the cocktail hour and dinner. Welcome.”

She relaxed a little and gave me a timorous smile that didn’t go away after it appeared. “Thank you. Derek said this is kind of an open house time for family and friends. If it’s not a good time, I can...”

“It is. It is. Stay. Come in. Set your purse down over there on the sideboard. No one will touch it, I assure you.”

I enlisted Emily to help array the crackers and cheese, and she looked pleased that she’d been given a task to carry out. We took the various platters outside. As we were setting out the hors d’oeuvres, Sky and Molliana appeared from upstairs and also started to prepare things such as a large salad. They had both become addicted to a late-afternoon nap. Being pregnant was tiring.

Lynn and Karen arrived home, followed by Mel and Robbie. Robyn, Martin, and Penny appeared. We heard that Stone and Toni had to work late on a presentation for a new potential customer. Ken and Paula appeared next; they were a surprise since they both usually worked late and often had evening commitments midweek that tied to their jobs.

Next in the door were Amber, Tracy, and some of the other from the youthful segment of the Family. Sven arrived and then Lincoln. June showed up and reminded us that Dean had an evening class, so wouldn’t show up until after nine p.m.

Most of the arrivals and residents were into a dress code that consisted of athletic shorts and a t-shirt for the guys, and a monokini for the women.

Emily was wearing Bermuda shorts and a pretty top, with tennis shoes. She watched most of the other women and then realized that she was overdressed. At one point, I saw her in a corner of the kitchen removing her top and bra. She left them with her purse, and then strolled outside half-naked and blushing.

When I was getting a drink for Emily, I paused as I handed it to her and she had her hand on the glass. I said, “We’re not in the business of embarrassing people. You don’t have to dress like everyone else unless you want to. You also don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do. Don’t let the crazy mores of this group corrupt your thinking.” I chuckled and let go of the drink.

Emily said, “Thank you. I already feel as though I’m growing and expanding my thinking. This is what I wanted for myself. I hope I can contribute something to the others.”

I smiled, “You already have by your presence.”

Emily went off and was talking with Lynn and Karen. She was about the same age as Karen. Karen had Logan on a long lead to keep him out of mischief. He’d been in childcare all day, so was winding down. This was a good day, since he hadn’t had a melt-down, at least so far.

Emily sat nearby at dinner. I asked, “What do you do for work?”

Emily got serious and said, “I work in artificial intelligence. My focus since moving to Florida has been working on a platform that supports human resource managers in the acquisition and interviewing of job candidates, scheduling them for in-person interviews, and evaluating their qualifications against various job openings.”

Martin was nearby, “That is really impressive. I’ve been toying with an online AI app and had some fun with it, but you’re really doing something with the technology. What are you using for your platform?”

“We were using Nia Infosys, but things are changing so fast in the field that we’re likely to change the base platform very soon. We’re in BoundaryServe, adapting their enterprise and supply chain systems to the HR environment. That’s my responsibility. Usually, I’m working in Python although I may have to learn something new to use the Rainbird platform.”

There was a silence at the table. I said, “We have a bunch of computer science students and grad students in the Family. You may want to talk to them about the details.”

I noted that Derek looked especially proud of his mother as she’d quickly taken the rest of us into deep and technically snowy territory in about two sentences and several buzz phrases. I had a hazy idea about AI, only because I’d used computers and communications technology so much in my authoring work. I expected some serious competition in any of my books any day.

Martin, on the other hand, surprised me. He seemed well-informed about the subject of artificial intelligence and its application in business. Further, he held a continuing conversation with Emily about the subject and her work. I resolved to do some further reading on the Internet about the subject since it was so trendy and important to what was happening in society at large.

As dinner ended, I got up and helped clear the tables from the remains of dinner. There were four of us plus the help from the others that helped. I noticed that Emily watched with great interest as she saw the Family’s work and support unfold right in front of her.

While that was going on, Martin put on the ‘After-Dinner Dance Mix’ on the patio’s music system. A further revelation to Emily was how couples and threesomes formed to dance or engage in deeper conversations and some romance. Martin pulled her from her seat and led her a few feet to the dance area on the patio – nothing special, just an open space away from the tables, chairs, and chaises.

So that he could fully enjoy Emily, Martin shed his t-shirt before they started to dance to one of the slow-dance numbers on the playlist. Emily read the situation correction, and allowed her bare breasts to push, edge, and scrape across his chest. Martin didn’t have six-pack abs, but he was in shape and not pasty white and out of shape. He worked out just to keep up with Penny and the other Family women.

Emily quickly got turned on with the superficial sex play between the two of them. Martin had endeared himself to Emily on several counts. For one, he had praised her looks and demeanor, and told her how glad he was that she was considering hanging-out with the Extended Family more and more.

Also, in the discussion about AI, he had told her several times how sharp he thought her mind was to understand and work in such a complex field.

Lastly, Martin had not groped her body at all. The touching of their chests seemed to Emily to have been some kind of mutual endeavor. Besides, she liked to rub her nipples, and against a manly chest was turning her on.

I came out of the house with my cleanup duties completed and watched Emily and the other activity on the patio. Off to the side, Mel and Sven had been dancing, but they broke away from the small group of dancers and lay down on one of the chaises close to the pool. They shed their clothing before lying down in each other’s arms.