Chapter 212

Van and Adriana's Farm

Van had halved the area of the living room floor he was working on. With the belt sander on the first section, he started with the coarse grits and worked his way to the finer ones, the women vacuuming as he finished each grit. As he moved onto the other half of the floor to start over, Jeremy began going through the fine grits with the orbital sander on the section Van had just finished. Jeremy's sanding would bring the floor to the perfectly smooth and scratch-free surface they would eventually put the high gloss poly on. They had decided that halving the work area and keeping both machines running as much as possible would speed things up.

The intense vacuuming between grits seemed to take almost as much time as the sanding itself, but any of the bigger grit left on the floor would leave a scratch when the finer belt or pad was used in the next step, so the floor had to be super clean before the next grit change.

"What're you smiling at?" Lillian asked her sister-wife as the women waited while the men worked through another sanding grit.

Adriana let out a soft chuckle. "If you accused either of them of being perfectionists, they would vehemently deny it – yet they both are. Nothing they do is ever just 'good enough' for them, it must be perfect, or 'right' as Van calls it."

"Which is the reason my tractor will run as good as a new one when Van's done with it," Lillian said. "And yeah, I've noticed him doing that for years."

"You don't know the half of it," Adriana proudly said, bragging on her husband. "On a rebuild, Van even weighs each piston and connecting rod on a very sensitive scale. If any of the parts are even slightly heavy, he grinds a little of the metal off in a place designed for that, until all the parts are identically the same weight – not just within specs, but precisely to specs. He calls it part of the 'balancing process.' He's just as precise with a torque wrench. When he's done with your engine, it will run almost totally vibration free. He says the vibration resulting from unequally balanced parts causes an engine to wear out much quicker, but balancing an engine takes time, so the manufacturer only gets things 'in the ballpark.'

"But in the long run," Adriana continued, "he winds up spending less time, because whatever he does doesn't have to be redone for a long time. That perfect tractor engine will run longer before it has to be rebuilt again. Sometimes, he frustrates me with his thoroughness, but I usually wind up realizing he's right."

"Jeremy was the same way at the steel company," Denise said. "Even though he was just a laborer like me, the bosses soon learned to depend on him. If they sent him to do something, it was done, and done properly. Anything he worked on was perfect when the job was over."

"He's always been that way; his father taught him," Adriana proudly said. Then after a moment, "It's going to be a few minutes before they need us again. Let's all sit in the kitchen where we can chat. I have an idea about some things, and I want to make sure we all agree."

A few moments later, with soft drinks Paulette had earlier brought back from next door, the women sat at Connie, Denise and Paulette's kitchen table. Ben had left the table and chairs for them, saying the table was just too big to fool with taking with him, and was more than he needed, anyway. Adriana took a sip of her drink, put it down, leaned back, and looked at the other women. "We've talked a little about how all the wives get along at the Retreat." When everyone nodded, she went on, "Even though we were new to them, they treated us as family. But there was more than that. There was a ... casualness about, uh, various aspects of sex..."

"No bras," Paulette offered.

"A lot of kissing, hugging, and even a little, mostly-hidden groping," Lillian offered. "Is that what you mean?"

"Yeah, all of that," Adriana agreed, "and ... more. Diana must have noticed an expression on my face, because she invited me to go for a stroll down the hall. We sat in one of those beautiful alcoves looking out at the mountains and had a chat. The bottom line, as my husband would say, is that we, to some extent like them, are a group of adult women with only two men. Each of our two groups has only one man, of course."

The women were staring at her. "Do you suggest we share the men?" Denise wanted to know, doubt prominent in her voice.

"Goodness, no," Adriana quickly responded. "But then again, that's not too far from my point. Look, it's like this. When Van and I were first married, we screwed like rabbits, all over the house. Heck, he's bent me over a feeding trough in the barn more than once, but ... when Jeremy was born, we had to curb a lot of the spontaneity, and after you came along, Paulette," she said, smiling at her daughter, "we had to cut back even more with two kids in the house.

"After our children were in school, it got better," she continued, talking to all of them now, "but we were both working our butts off on the farm, so even with them out of the house for several hours, we still didn't do it much in the daytime, except for a quickie at lunch, occasionally. By the time we were ready for bed at night, we were frequently exhausted and had little energy left for lovemaking."

"But..." Paulette started before Adriana raised a hand a little to forestall her comment.

"Now, we're faced with a bit of that problem again. Oh, we don't have kids to hide our love life from, but there are two groups of us that will be very closely associated for ... well, forever. And ... since we're going to do the floors in both houses, we'll be in even closer contact for the next week or two ... while we are all essentially on our honeymoons."

There was silence as they digested her comments. "And ... there's more. We've all been enhanced by Little One. That means a lot of different things, I suppose, but to keep to the subject, it means that all of us women are going to be super horny, and waiting for bedtime – bedtime with everyone in the same house. We don't have the sound insulation in either of these houses that the Retreat does, but I for one don't want to make love while biting on a pillow to keep the noise down. Besides, with a pillow over my face, I can't see my husband as we make love, and I love to watch his face when he comes, not to even mention kissing him."

There were giggles and chuckles from the others as she went on. "Van and I have always had wonderful sex, but after the enhancement, sex – making love – whatever you want to call it, is different. About a thousand times different. Be damned if I'm going to try to curb my feelings for my man – for our man," she finished as she reached to take Lillian's hand for a moment.

"So we need to rethink all of us staying in the same house while we work on the other one?" Connie broke in to ask.

"No," Adriana objected, "absolutely not. What I'm suggesting is to have something similar to what I suspect is going on at the Retreat. The Alphas don't share their women, but there's a more relaxed atmosphere where sex is concerned. Diana said that she and Jeff made love in the living room once while Dave and Evie did the same thing a few feet away. They weren't staring at each other, and were certainly not touching, or anything like that. It was something that just happened, but a little discreet making out, a hand under a top playing with a boob, or the man circumspectly sucking a titty as the couple lies together on a couch while others are in the room, or might walk into the room, is okay with the Matthews.

"I propose that we adopt the same ... uh, relaxed strategy, if that's the term I'm looking for. It's not as if this is totally foreign to us. There are four in your family," she said, nodding to Connie, Denise and Paulette. "And Lillian and I love watching each other as we make love to our husband. I'm not suggesting that we all gather in the living room and start having sex, just that we get a bit more practical about certain things. One of those things will be sound, especially for the next week or two while we all live in the same house.

"Another is the way I suspect we all feel right now. I would love to grab my husband and drag him out the door for a little catch-up next door, and I'm sure Lillian would like to go with me, right?" she said as she grinned at her sister-wife.

"You know it," Lillian said with a chuckle. "My panties are wet just talking about sex."

"But none of us would dare do something like that right now, would we? And..." Adriana continued, "On the other hand, I don't want it to be considered a major catastrophe if someone walks in and catches me bent over the couch, or I walk in on someone else. Not even an 'oops, sorry, ' is necessary as far as I'm concerned. Heck, if you want to chuckle or giggle – go for it. Sex is just something that Alphas and their mates do a lot of, and I for one, want to do it a lot, and... I don't want to worry about my extended family catching me or worrying about catching me. Diana and her sister-wives seem to think it's just part of life. I'm certainly not suggesting a commune, but I do want us to relax around each other. Jeff and Diana say we're different – Alphas and their wives are different, that is. I agree with them. I'm beginning to feel all of you, and particularly my sister-wife and our husband, just like Diana said I would.

"Around outsiders, we'll wear conservative clothing and bras. Around our family or other Alpha families, we'll be more relaxed. And if my son gets a kick out of looking at my boobs or ass through my clothing, well, he's welcome to do it. And if he walks in and occasionally catches me without a top on, or sees my boobs bouncing around when Van is fucking me, well, it won't kill either of us. Heck, he has an ass worth checking out, too," she giggled.

"He surely does," Connie laughed.

After the laughter died down, "Are you sure our men will go for this, Mom? How are we going to persuade them if they don't?" Paulette asked, worry in her voice.

Adriana looked over at her daughter and sniggered. "You're sitting on the persuader, Sweetie." As Paulette blushed, her mother went on, "Let me pass on some advice that I learned from a lady I used to know when I was not much older than you. Use what's between your legs, not only to make love with your husband, but to reward him from time to time, even though he might not realize exactly why you're rewarding him, but never withhold it to punish him – ever. He'll resent it, and that resentment can grow, and then your resentment will grow because of the way he begins to treat you. Now you're not getting any, and you become cross. He's not getting any, and he becomes even more cross. It quickly turns into a vicious cycle. If you're aggravated at him, make love to him, anyway. It's a bit difficult to stay mad while you're coming ... well, make that darn near impossible," she finished with a giggle.

There was silence as Adriana picked up her drink and took a sip, waiting. Then, "So what do you think of my idea, ladies?"

The women looked at each other for a moment, all waiting for someone else to speak first. Paulette, looking embarrassed, said, "I think I would just about die if Daddy walked in with me bent over the couch and Jeremy, uh..."

"Fucking you," her mother supplied.

"Uh, yeah," Paulette said, now blushing furiously.

"It's not something that's going to happen every day, Sweetie. Might never happen to you, but with our more relaxed atmosphere, if it eventually does happen, you shouldn't be embarrassed at all. It's just an Alpha making love to his wife."

Connie let out a giggle. "Well, when I get going with Jeremy, I wouldn't notice if the roof blew off. So, it's all right with me."

"Me, too," Denise agreed.

"Lillian?"

"Oh, I'll be embarrassed, I suppose, but I think you're right. Something has to change if our polygamist relationships work out. We're going to be living close and working even closer. If I decide to caress my husband while he's standing beside the tractor with others of us not far away, well ... we're all adults here."

Paulette blushed at being included as an adult, but smiled at the compliment.

"So, Paulette, are you on board, too?" Adriana asked her daughter.

"Yeah," she said, but grinned as she continued, "but don't get pissed if I walk in on you and Dad."

"Just don't do it on purpose," Adriana admonished, but she knew that Paulette was likely to do just that to tease her.

"So, when do we tell them?" Lillian wondered aloud.

The women all looked at each other, then coming to a silent agreement, began to laugh. "Tonight, when we're making love," Adriana said. "I'm going to relax and scream my head off when I come. Van will figure it out soon enough."

"Adriana," Van called from the living room, "we need a vacuum in here."

"Be there in a sec, Darling," a laughing Adriana called out as she pushed her chair back and stood with the others.

The Retreat

Jeff stripped his clothes off and stepped into the shower. Kayla, leaning forward, was in the process of rubbing shampoo into her hair. Tilting her head to glance sideways at him, she smiled, then nodded at Arlene. As Kayla stood, she put a soapy hand behind his neck, pulled his head close to her lips and whispered into his ear, "She's in worse shape than I am."