Chapter 42

A little after one in the morning, Jeff was relaxing on the couch in the sitting room of Madison's suite. Smiling, he looked around him, thinking, I wasn't for the renovations when Diana first mentioned them. Every suite here that I've seen is beautiful — at least to me. But I guess they were a little generic. I wonder what my women will decide if Bill and Kathy get married? Do we have to redo another suite for the married couple? Hah. That's a foolish thought. At least the women would think it was.

The door opened and Bill Madison walked into his new suite with a smile on his face. Almost freezing for a second when he saw Jeff sitting on the couch, he tried to think of something to say.

Jeff stood, realizing that Madison was a heartbeat away from being irritated. "Please forgive me for intruding on you like this, but I have a problem."

Bill's irritation washed away as he saw the look on Jeff's face. "Sure, Jeff. Anything I can do to help, you know I will. Uh, would you like something to drink?"

Wanting to ease into the conversation, with both of them being a little more relaxed, he responded, "Yeah. I guess a Coke would be nice."

"Ice?" Madison asked as he opened the small refrigerator.

"No thanks," Jeff said.

Madison took out two drinks, handed one to Jeff, then sat across from him in one of the seats. They looked at each other a moment.

Jeff cleared his throat, a little hesitant, then stalling more, he said, "As you know, Frank and Margaret have said that they're going to be visiting on a regular basis, probably about every weekend. We've decided that we're family. Diana — well all my wives and I — have discussed doing what we could to make things easier on Frank and Margaret since they will be traveling so much. And, well, that involves you and Kathy just as much. That's the main reason, or one of the main reasons, we updated your suite..."

"Jeff, I... well both of us really appreciate what you have done. But it wasn't necessary. The other suite was beyond nice."

"Yeah, well, we wanted to do something special for you two, to let you know that we appreciate the both of you, and to welcome you to our home. How, if you don't mind my asking, is this coming down to Boulder every weekend going to affect your personal life? I know that normally you would be home on the weekends, and obviously you could still be. You could just drop Frank and Margaret off, then go back to Saint Louis, but somehow, we've begun to think that you would be here on the weekends — well, with all that's going on." Frustrated, Jeff said, "Ah shit. I'm stumbling around like an idiot."

Grinning, Madison held his hand up slightly, signaling Jeff to wait. "You don't sound like an idiot. You sound like someone who is trying to help me, but doesn't want to say the things that have to be said. I haven't had a chance to sit down and talk with Mr. Wainwright and Margaret, yet."

Jeff interrupted. "We, of course, know some of the things that have happened with your personal life — some you have told us, and some Frank has updated us with a little. But, I wasn't trying to pry into your personal life."

"Heck, Jeff, I really don't have that many close friends to share my personal life with. With the job I have, it's hard to schedule anything, and actually show up. Sometimes I sit around the office or home for the better part of a week, then I have an avalanche of flights. Friends get tired of my calling at the last minute to say that I can't make it. We used to have a cookout with the next-door neighbors, occasionally, but when Jill started acting like the witch from Hell, even that went by the wayside."

Crossing his legs and looking away for a second, he continued, "I still can't believe this is happening to me. I got married for life." Clearing his throat, obviously having a hard time, he took a sip of his drink and continued, "We have a meeting scheduled for Tuesday. My lawyers' investigators have discovered interesting things about Jill's doctor friend. We'll hit her with a proposal that will only last the length of the meeting. Full custody of Linda for me, sell the house and split the proceeds, split our savings, me pay off all the bills — which isn't much since I canceled our credit cards and went through the process of making myself non-responsible for anything she charged. Also, she gets our new car, with me paying it off. A cash incentive, and a few other things.

"The lawyers have already filed a complaint to the medical board on her doctor buddy. If he leaves the state, and as I understand it, he's limited to where he can go to practice when he does, they're not going to push it further. Anyway, if they accept and sign the papers during the meeting, then she gets what I've mentioned, if not, we carry it to court and fight for everything, bringing her abandonment of her daughter into the mix."

"So you're not going to have a place to live, wind up with some bills you have to pay off immediately, but do come out with full custody of your daughter?"

"Yeah, that's about it. I owe something over fifteen thousand on her car, and a few thousand that she managed to put on the credit cards before I had them canceled. We usually only have whatever we charged throughout the month, mostly just gas for the cars, and whatever's more convenient to charge than to write a check for, or that you can't use a debit card for. I'll do better than you think because I saved a lot more than Jill knew about, so she couldn't grab that before Linda warned me what Jill planned. I'll be okay even with the settlement."

"Are you going to build or buy another house in Saint Louis? You know that you can use this as your home. Frank is going to be here a lot anyway, and we darn sure have enough room," Jeff grinned.

"That's nice to know, Jeff. And I'm really flattered, but I promised Linda that she could pick out the house she wanted — within reason — if it was close enough to the airport. But the rub is, of course, that I don't have anyone to stay with her. Eventually, I'll be able to find someone, I'm sure, but we're already into the school year. Well, you were there when I told Mr. Wainwright what was going on. So some of this you have already heard. But there are other complications."

Madison sighed, and said, "You sure that you want to hear all this? You have troubles of your own..."

"Nonsense," Jeff said. "You know damn well I do."

"Well, we got redistricted as far as schools are concerned. Her school was within walking distance and we live in a good neighborhood. Now, she is bussed quite a distance, and even worse, she's scared to death in the school. With all that's going on, I haven't talked to the principal yet, not that I expect it to do any good, anyway. But Linda is scared that she's going to be raped. She said that the classrooms are war zones, and the teachers are scared to do anything. She said that some of the boys feel her up when she walks down the halls. My daughter has flatly refused to go back there. She's almost hysterical about it. She's said that two of the guys there have told her that the next time they catch her on the way to the cafeteria, they are going to fuck her."

Madison's face was red as he continued. "If I walk into that school, I'll probably go to jail. So I just haven't gone to see the idiot that's running the place. But my daughter isn't going back there. I've gotten permission to keep her out of school next week until something is done about custody. After that, I don't know where I'm going with this. I don't have time to home-school her. I guess I'll wind up with something on the internet, but I don't know what that involves. I could ring my wife's neck for abandoning us," he finished, the frustration showing in his voice.

"So she's left?" Jeff asked.

"She's in and out. If I come in, she's immediately gone. She's moved most of her stuff out. I don't know why she bothers coming back. If she sees me, it's World War III. And she hardly speaks to Linda. This is tearing my child up. She keeps trying to blame herself."

Realizing that his drink was still almost untouched, Bill took a swallow. "We've been, uh Linda, Kathy and I, have been with the Henson's for the last several hours — singing," he laughed. "Well they were. I was doing my usual imitation of a bullfrog. But seriously, Linda had a ball. And Dave gave her a guitar — an expensive guitar — and is teaching her to play. My daughter was acting like her old self, and well, she seems taken with both Dave and Evie. And, I guess, them with her."

Sighing a little, he said, "Obviously, she's developing a crush on Dave, and when I mentioned to Evie that Linda was vulnerable because of her emotions, I guess the implication was that Dave would take advantage of her. Well, let's just say that I'm not going to step into that alligator pit again," he chuckled.

"Linda asked if she could go with them to the music festival. And I said yes, but even though I know that she will have a ball, I'm still leery about her being around Dave so much. I know. I know," Madison said as Jeff started to say something. "He won't take advantage of her, but you should see the look in her eyes when she looks at him. She's going to get hurt in this. I just know she is. And she's been hurt enough with this shit with her mother."

Bill took another sip of his drink, and Jeff saw the slight tremble as he brought the bottle to his mouth.

"There's an alternative," Jeff said quietly. "Oh, I don't mean about Dave. I mean about the school."

Madison chuckled as he shook his head. "I've had little on my mind for the last couple of weeks other than the divorce, the way my wife is acting, and what in the world I'm going to do about Linda. If you can come up with something, I'd be forever grateful. But I can't imagine what it could be. The alternatives are slim, even if the meeting goes the way the lawyers hope it will."

"I'll obviously have to clear it with my wives and their teacher, who falls into the wife category as well," Jeff said, grinning. "But I seriously doubt that any of them will have anything to say against the idea, and probably it will be the exact opposite. They'll be all for it."

At Madison's look, Jeff continued, "We have a school here with a teacher who is eminently qualified."

"Well, I..."

"And Linda would be living in a household where the owner has seven wives," Jeff said, knowing that was basically what had crossed Madison's mind. "And she might be influenced by the association. She's too young to be thinking about sex, certainly far too young to be around someone with such low morals..."

Madison looked shocked, remembering Evie's vehemence when she almost literally attacked him verbally. Before he could say anything in denial, Jeff went on.

"She would have the run of the retreat, because it is our home, and it would be hers as well. So she might walk in when I was kissing one of my wives, or they might be sitting on my lap as I sit in my favorite recliner. They might even have a breast stuck in my mouth."

"Look, Jeff. I didn't..."

"Sure you did. Those things, or a variation, crossed your mind when you thought about bringing her up here. Now living with us would give even more chance of something like that happening. And what if it did? What has she seen and heard at school, or at home when you weren't able to be there, or when she was forced to spend the night with friends? At least here, it is absolutely guaranteed that she won't be raped."

Jeff slipped his shoes off and propped his feet on the coffee table between them. "I won't say that my wives, particularly my younger wives who are only a little older than Linda, won't talk to her about sex. I suspect that Linda will ask. Oh, they're not going to go out of their way to tell her about their sex lives, but they're all smart — and that's an understatement — and they're teenagers. A few months from now, Linda will know a whole lot more about sex than she does now, but she will know the truth, not some kid's version of what is supposed to happen."

"Shit, Jeff, I don't think about you and your wives like that. I..."

"Sure you do," Jeff said again, a little grin on his face. "Oh, I might have been a little blunt, but you know damn well that you were worried about bringing her around four young teenage wives, and trust me, just because the others are grown women, it doesn't mean that they're docile, or prudes. If Linda asked any one of them, they'll tell her — sit her down and explain until she understands, and give examples. Hell, Helen would probably make a school project out of it and have us at the Rocky Mountain National Park. They would have to write an essay with gestation periods for all the animals we saw there and compare them to the human female, or something," he laughed. "And I'm only about half joking."

Jeff's voice changed, becoming more serious as he looked over at the pilot. "If you do get custody, and this thing is over Tuesday, you could just change your home address to the retreat. This could be your home. Frank and Margaret are calling it their home, and I think you should seriously consider what I've just said. My wives were just as taken with Linda as were Dave and Evie. I've only been around Linda for a short period of time, but I like her. She seems far more adult than her age would indicate, just like my daughter, who is only a couple of months older than Linda is, if I understand correctly.

"She could go at a much faster pace than she's used to in a public school system. Soon, we'll have the best classrooms and everything else that money can buy for a school. And, obviously, it will cost you nothing. And I don't mean to insult you there. I know that you make a good salary, and can afford whatever it takes for your daughter. But money isn't the issue. Quality is.

"I suspect that my wives are already ahead of me on this, but let me stumble along and come up with it for myself. Probably when I mention it to them, it will be totally anticlimactic."

Madison set his drink on the table, leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees with his head in his hands. "Shit, Jeff. I don't know. I feel like an ass after you brought up some of the things that I've been thinking. I apologize. Your lifestyle is just so... different. I obviously was trying to protect my daughter."

"If you do decide to let her go to school with my girls, I promise you that she will be taken care off just like any other member of my family. When we go somewhere, she'll be with us. And Evie and Dave are good people. They don't come any better. She'll be protected here, and be a part of us. When you're flying, you will never have to worry about her..."

There was a knock on the door. When Madison got up and opened it, Jeff's wives filed in. Each kissed their husband, then found seats, Diana and Arlene flanking Jeff on the couch, with Laura sitting beside Diana, the others taking seats close by. Diana and Arlene were wearing a slight smirk on their faces that the others mirrored, or had bigger grins to replace the expression.

"As I said," Jeff chuckled, "I suspect that my wives are already ahead of me. And it seems that they were just waiting for me to bring it up."

"But..."

"No. I didn't tell them that I was going to have this conversation with you. My primary mission was something else, entirely. They just... knew," Jeff mysteriously said.

Bill, stunned, managed to ask if the women would like something to drink. A look passed between the wives, and Diana shook her head, then asked something totally different from what Madison was expecting. "Bill, do you see anything wrong with my daughter?" she asked, nodding toward Arlene who sat smiling, leaning her head against Jeff's shoulder.

"Look, Mrs. Matthews..."

"Oh, so I'm suddenly 'Mrs. Matthews' again."

"Uh, Diana, I..."