Chapter 39

When Emily and I got to the airport at around four thirty, both Cindy and her mother were waiting for us. Mama had apparently told Laura that she would be sending Hans out with the limo to pick all of us up at the hanger, in Bolling.

Cindy didn't seem very pleased to find out that her mother was going to be a guest of my mother. She was also surprised to learn that I was planning on piloting the plane we were to fly in. I took a minute to let her know that I was fully trained, licensed and qualified to fly the plane. Finally, I ended up telling her that my wives had enough confidence in my piloting skills that they allowed me to pilot the plane with all my children on board. It was the last part that convinced her.

Emily spent most of the flight entertaining Cindy and Laura in the passenger compartment. I heard laughter coming from the other side of the curtain we had hanging up behind the cockpit. It wasn't too long of a flight, and the take off and landing were routine and unremarkable. I taxied over to the hanger of our maintenance contractor, spotting Hans and the limo standing by. Mama and Joyce were there as well, standing next to the open passenger door of the limo.

It took us just half an hour for Hans to drive us from the airport over to my house. Most of that time was spent listening to Laura and Mama working through their list of possible mutual acquaintances. It was a long list from each. Although Mama was several years older than Laura, they ended up knowing many of the same people. Cindy seemed quieter, more reserved even than usual, with her mother sitting beside her on the limo's back seat. She and Joyce spoke some, but most of the conversation, other than from the older women, was between Joyce and Emily. Emily was asking about the children, and Joyce was wanting to know about the house, and Birmingham.

All of that changed instantly, when I mentioned to Joyce that Kyle, Cindy's brother, had sold almost every box of vending product that Tom had driven over for me.

"He opened nine new accounts in about four hours. You should have seen it. In one store, he sold one box each of all eighteen products. It was a sale of about one hundred and eighty dollars, and it took him less than fifteen minutes, from start to finish. We were putting product in the display racks and people were reaching over our shoulders to get some of them to buy."

"Your father is going to be pleased, Kenny. He's already talked about converting the Consolidated plant in Tennessee over to producing vending products. If you can find us enough new outlets down there, it could make it a lot easier for him to justify the conversion costs. Your father is already at the top end of the new credit facility. He's talking to some man in New York about us issuing some new kind of debt instrument, one that doesn't need any security, other than depreciated plant equipment, and some of the accounts receivable we'd be generating."

"How much is the conversion going to cost us?" It seemed like a lot of trouble and expense to go through just to raise the kind of money he'd need to convert a baking plant.

"Fifteen to twenty million. We're building a whole new warehouse facility to take advantage of the Nashville rail hub. You dad wants to put in a big packaging plant there too. He wants to private label some of the vending products. This was even before I told him what you were trying."

"Mama, we should put a partnership together, just the two of us, and lend Dad the money at prime. I've got some extra from the trading account, enough to cover half of it. He just got done with that new credit facility. I think he should stay here and worry about how we're going to use what we'll learn at Macklinson's to expand in all of our other areas. The wholesale route driver idea might not work for small grocers all over the country, but the convenience store sales probably would. With the numbers that Joyce worked up for me, Kyle said his drivers would make about twice what they take home now. That's probably enough to entice people to buy themselves a delivery van and buy the vending product from us. If not, we'll hire our own team of salespeople to go out and open accounts, then hire our own drivers to service them."

"Kenny, whatever you think is best. I hear you talking about how much the drivers will make, are we making some money too? It doesn't seem like we could be making very much when you sell things for twenty five or thirty cents."

"Tell her, Joyce." I knew that Joyce had all the costs for every product we made, carried in her head. Not just the product costs, but packaging, freight, distribution, and allowing for product returns.

"We used vending products that we already make, Mama. Instead of retailing them for fifty five or sixty cents, like in a machine, we made them all seventy nine cents each. The retailer pays us forty, and we pay the distributor ten cents out of that. That leaves us with thirty cents. On average, counting all our costs, we spend sixteen cents per item, and this allows for everything. Some are a penny or two more, but others cost us less. Sixteen is the average. If we can keep that mark up, the convenience stores will be more lucrative than the vending machines, on an item by item basis. It all depends on sales volume. If product sells faster, or about the same in the convenience stores, Kenny has found us a real winner."

"Brenda has, you mean. This whole thing came from something she told me. I think she should be given the credit for it. Maybe Dad can name the plant in Nashville after her, or put her picture up on the side of the building. She'd like that." All of us laughed, but it was true. It was her idea, and she really would love getting the recognition for it.

Once we got home and said goodbye to Mama, Laura, and Hans, the four of us went inside the house. Everyone was happy to see us, and all the kids were awake, playing downstairs in the nursery playroom. I introduced Cindy again to all our children, telling her a little about each child. She was fascinated with our two sets of twins. Wherever Cindy went, Joyce hovered around nearby.

My father called me right before our late dinner, to get my report on what Mama had told him about the success of the vending product sales in the convenience stores. When I interrupted my narrative to tell him that Mama and I wanted to loan him the money for the Nashville conversion, he told me that he already had a good solution. He said this other way made more sense, because he needed to raise a lot more money for other things too.

He had his eyes on two new purchases that he had been investigating on his own, even before I was sent to Alabama. He told me about this company that specialized in raising corporate capital. They had assured him that they could put together a bond type of offering that could be privately subscribed, for almost any amount my father needed. All of this was supposedly made possible because of my father's great past business track record.

Supposedly, all he needed to do was provide a guaranteed income stream, and some nominal level of either equipment or property values as security for the money. Pledging a portion of his accounts receivable would provide the necessary income stream to service the loan. The collateral was more for show than for any other purpose. They told him to put together a list of any equipment that wasn't currently necessary for any of his plant operations. They told him no one ever checked on the actual equipment being pledged. All they were concerned with was the income necessary to pay the interest payments.

"Make sure he isn't talking about them taking too much off the top, so that you'll be left paying back a dollar for every seventy cents you'll actually be borrowing." I had heard of various ways unscrupulous people took advantage of unsophisticated borrowers

"Six percent, interest only, for fifteen years, and then you have to give a full return of the initial subscribed principal, at the end of that time. We get ninety two cents of every dollar subscribed. They keep the other eight, to cover their commissions and expenses. It ends up costing us six and a half percent, without affecting our credit facility that is now in place. I checked with the lead bank and they said they had no problem with it, as long as I didn't encumber anything we've got pledged to them."

"Have Frank find some people to look over every line of every contract, Dad. That sounds like it's too good to be true."

"I already have someone. The same lawyer we used in New York for the new bank line. He was the one who recommended that I talk to this guy. He says this is the newest capital formation strategy. All the big players are going this route."

I went up to my bedroom after talking to my father. Something about what he was telling me seemed wrong to me. I knew I'd have some time to think about it while I was at home before heading back to Alabama.

Joyce came into my room when I was putting my clothes away.

"Is Cindy supposed to be my present for being good, Kenny? Is that why you brought her up here with you?"

"I didn't bring her here for anyone to have sex with her, Joyce. I brought her here to let her see how we really live, and so she could get to know us and the kids better. Emily told me something that's been bothering me. It has to do with me only having one wife, you."

"What bothers you about that? Legally, it's the truth."

"I have four wives, each of the women I've had children with. You are all my wives, because I say you are, not because of some legal piece of paper. You've overstepped yourself this time, Joyce. I won't have any of the others reduced in anyway, just because you have the hots for Cindy."

"It wasn't for that. It was to protect Eddie and Dale's feelings."

"Eddie and Dale don't need that kind of protection. They both mean as much to me as Cindy does. More, because we already have a relationship with both of them. I know you want Cindy. Hell, I admit that I want her too, but not if it has to be your way. How hard do you think it would be to get everyone to agree to have her be with us? With us in the same way that Eddie and Dale are. I'm not talking about taking on any new wives. If I was, then Eddie and Dale would be the first ones that I'd ask."

"Cindy is different, Kenny. It isn't the same. There is a lot more at stake for her than there was for Dale and Eddie. The rest of her life kind of depends on something like this happening for her."

"Why is she so different? You can't just make these vague assertions, Joyce. What makes Cindy more special than either Eddie or Dale?"

"I almost never ask you for anything for myself, Kenny. I don't look for any special favors from you, and you know I don't. This one time, I am. I'm asking you to marry Cindy, for me."

Joyce had gotten up on my bed and was sitting there, her feet dangling over the side. She looked a lot like she had the first time I made love to her, in my room, over at Mama's house, all those years ago.

"You have to tell me exactly why it's so important to you. I'm not going to do it just because you asked me to. Tell me why. This is something that is too important just to do it as a favor to you."

"When she was sixteen, she slept with this boy. He hurt her. When she tried to make him stop, he went crazy, and started doing bad things to her. Real bad, until she passed out from the pain. He put things into her pussy, a baseball bat, and other things. She got an infection from what he did, and she later had to have an operation. She never told anyone else about what happened, until she went away to college, a couple years later. She started doing things with other girls, but mostly because she doesn't trust men. She likes men, she just can't bring herself to trust any of them. She says she has a lot of scarring, up inside, between her legs, and she doesn't think its still possible for her to have babies."

"I still don't see why this is any reason for me to marry her. She should go see a professional and work through her fears. She needs real professional help, not our little group. I don't see where any of us can help her."

"I was getting to that. This got started when Emily told her about us, about you having four wives and twelve children. She also told her how we each have our own bedrooms. That was when she first started thinking that she might fit in with us. It is a pressure problem she has. She has tried sitting and talking with boys, ever since that thing happened, and she can't let herself be alone with any of them. I'm not talking sex, I'm talking about being alone in a room with a boy. Except for you, and her father. No one else, not since it happened. When she was here before, after that first day, she stayed in a room with you, alone, and it didn't bother her very much. That gave her hope, Kenny. That's when she started talking to me about her problem.

"On her first day here, when you ran off to the kitchen to talk to Emily, it had bothered her a lot when Emily had left her alone with you. After you left, she ran off to hide in the restroom. She was panicked, and she didn't know what to do, because her father had asked her to come here to learn about you. She didn't think then that you worked all alone in a little room. She thought it would be a big office like she works for, with a lot of people around you. She knew, just from being alone with you for a few seconds, that she couldn't do what her dad wanted, not if it meant she was going to be alone in the room with you.

"So, when she came back to your office, she was just going to tell you that she needed to go back home. She was going to make up some excuse about why she couldn't stay here. When she came to your office door, she saw me sitting in your lap, crying, and you holding me in your arms, trying your best to comfort me. I was so upset about what Emily had said to me, I was really coming to pieces, but you just held me. She said I looked so small in your lap, she thought I was one of your children at first.

"When she met me, and found out I was your wife, it made a big difference to her. You reminded her of her father. You're the first man, besides him, that she hasn't found too threatening to be alone with."

I thought about what Joyce said, remembering that Cindy had seemed a little scared right after Emily ran off crying. I remembered her being gone for a long time before coming back to see Joyce crying in my arms. She had seemed pretty normal later, in the days when I was showing her my trading techniques. I wondered if I had mistaken her fear at being with me when we first met as some kind of interest in me. I didn't know what to say to Joyce. I wasn't going to marry a girl just because I was the only guy, other than her own father, that she wasn't deathly afraid of.

"I need to think about what you told me. I love you, Joyce, and I'd do almost anything for you, but, this is all pretty bizarre. How much of why you're asking me to do this is because she gets you hot?"

"Less than you probably think. The sex talk I've been doing with you was mostly to try to get you interested, and thinking about her in that way. She needs a whole family, one that won't scare her to be around them. She almost never can be relaxed. She doesn't want to spend the rest of her life, hanging out with girls, and living with her father."

"What happened to the boy who did all this stuff to her?"

"She told me he had died. I think she feels guilty about it, because she believes she wished it on him. It was her senior year in high school and he had some kind of accident with some farm machinery. Before that, she hardly had a life at all, because she only left her house to go to school, and then straight back home. I know a lot about what she went through. Hers was worse than mine. I know how bad it was for me. I want us to help her, like you helped me."

Joyce got up and left me alone in my room. I think she knew me well enough to know I didn't need to have more information or further discussion.

I had to get used to the idea that none of this stuff with Cindy was really about sex. It was all about fear, and her looking for a place where she wouldn't be afraid. She offered sex, but it was really only a payment for her being allowed to enter our small society.

I spent an hour in my room, adjusting to the news from Joyce. When I came downstairs again, I found out that Emily, Brenda and Cindy had taken a ride over to look at a couple of our group homes for little girls that were situated close by.

Earlier in the day, when we first got home, I had spent some of the time before dinner, playing in the nursery with the children. We wrestled on one of the play mats, and we played horsy with the older kids. I always lost when we wrestled, and it was always my turn to be the horsy. By the time the girls took pity and rescued me, I was sweating, and ready to be brushed and curried. I was hungry too, and hoped I wasn't going to be given a bag of oats. I noticed that Cindy was looking at me strangely when they all came in to get me out of the clutches of the little ones.

After dinner, all of us were sitting in the living room. I was repeatedly propositioned by both Brenda and Shirley. For some reason, Joyce wasn't joining in with any of the bantering, or making any bids for my stud services, like Shirley and Brenda were doing.

After a few minutes of this bantering and innuendo, I started talking with Cindy. I asked her what she thought of the group homes. She couldn't believe how many children we had in our group homes. She wanted to know what had given me the idea for having them.

"I lived in an orphanage for over eleven years. After I got adopted, they decided to close the orphanage, and I wanted to help some of the boys being displaced. It kind of just grew from there."

"I didn't know you were adopted." Cindy looked over at Joyce. Joyce just shrugged.

"I was very fortunate. Incredibly fortunate. Just when I had given up all hope of ever having a family, this man came over to Bolling, told me to pack up my stuff, and then took me away with him. I couldn't believe it. I was too stunned to be properly grateful to him. Later, after he had died, the thing I regretted most was never having told him how much I appreciated all he'd done, or how he'd changed my life, forever, by choosing me. Part of the group homes, really, part of everything I try to do, is to show in some positive way, my gratitude for what he made possible."

"How did you get so rich if you were raised as an orphan?"

"Well, I made a lot of money playing golf with my parents, and with Uncle Bunny, plus I always saved all my birthday and Christmas money. You know what a good trader I am."

"Really? You made all that money just from doing that?"

"Well, that, and plus, when he died, he left me about four hundred million dollars. But the rest of it..."

We were all laughing at Cindy's confusion. I wasn't sure if she believed my story or not. It had been awhile since I'd spoken to anyone about Uncle Bunny and my years as an orphan. So many changes. I remembered now, clearly, the difference Uncle Bunny had made for me. I was in serious trouble, emotionally so closed off when he rescued me. I'd made a lot of changes, and gone through some rough emotional upheavals since.

I looked around me at all the people in the room, people that I loved, and who loved me. I could hear some of the children upstairs, either laughing or crying, and from earlier, when they were all down in the playroom. My children. My family. I truly felt fortunate.

Joyce had proposed that I marry Cindy. If I substituted the word rescue for the word marry, I could see the parallels and similarities that Joyce had spoken about.

Joyce wanted to give something back to pay honor to her own rescue. She wanted me to help her with that rescue, just like she'd helped me with the group homes, and so many other things we'd accomplished together She was saying those were for me, to pay honor to Uncle Bunny. Now, she wanted to do this for herself.

She was the one who brought me around to accepting the idea of the workability of having four wives living with me at once. More than anyone else, Joyce had helped me to work through my earlier emotional difficulties. She did what she believed I'd needed.

It didn't matter that she had benefited from having the other wives too, or that she had other motives, ones that, perhaps, weren't so pure or altruistic. In her heart, I knew, primarily, this thing with Cindy was a rescue effort for her. I just couldn't see or understand how it was supposed to work. I hadn't seen that with a lot of things she had proposed, but that hadn't kept them from working.

I could see the advantage to Cindy in all of us providing her with an environment that could come to be a safe haven for her. I also didn't have any problem with knowing that she and my wives probably would enjoy each other sexually. I knew I might end up not being someone Cindy could take any sexual pleasure with. Joyce had asked me to do this for her.

This was Joyce's marriage, not mine. Would I be okay knowing that? I hoped the answer turned out to be yes.

It really came down to me deciding if I'd be okay with assisting Joyce's rescue efforts. All I had to do was accept the situation, then do some talking and explaining to each of my wives, and to Eddie and Dale.

It was something I could do, something I'd be doing mostly for Joyce, but, hopefully, also for Cindy.

It was all a matter of definition anyway. What was a wife? In my world, I already had two kinds, one legal wife, and three wives by my oral declaration.

These were all definitely my wives, and each of them were, in turn, somehow married to each other as well.

Cindy and Joyce would be married, and through them, all the rest of us would then be connected to Cindy by that relationship. Perhaps it would grow, and the connections would be extended, like they were between my current wives.

The same had become true already, for me, with Eddie and Dale. The connection was there, but it was different from that with my other wives. We had love and sex, but, without sharing children with them, they were different from my other wives, less connected to me than those I'd fathered children with. One less connection, but still connected firmly to me all the same.

There were even differing levels within all my currently existing wives.

Joyce was my wife, because I married her, and because we had children together.

Emily, Brenda and Shirley were my wives because I fathered children with them.

Cindy would be connected to me, in the beginning, only through her connection with Joyce.

Eddie and Dale were connected to me because we loved each other, and because we enjoyed each other sexually.

Joyce was a five level wife. (Marriage, children, love, sex, wife to all my other wives)

Emily, Brenda, and Shirley were all four level wives.(Children, love, sex, wife to all my other wives)

Eddie and Dale were two level wives. (Love, sex) Eddie had a stronger connection to my other wives than Dale did, except with Joyce. There, Dale had a strong connection also.

I didn't yet know where Cindy would wind up with me. She might end up being only a one level wife. (Wife of my wife)

Love was a level, connection was a level, sex was a level, children another level, and marriage yet another.

If any one of my other wives ever raised her connection with Eddie or Dale to the level Joyce was wanting to give to Cindy, they would be raised up another level in my eyes too.

I had it all straight in my head. Straight enough to proceed with claiming Cindy, Dale, and Eddie as our wives.

Now I needed to spend some time alone with each of my first four wives, explaining this new level system I'd worked out. I wanted all of them comfortable with how I was thinking on this subject. I wasn't taking away from anything we shared, merely looking for a way to become more inclusive.

I started with Joyce of course, that Thursday night. I took her hand in the living room, at about ten o'clock, and started pulling her towards the staircase. All of the other wives thought this was my way of making and announcing my choice of that night's bed partner.

It took me only a minute to tell her what was important, that I was ready to give her what she'd asked for. I tried explaining all about the levels to her, but she stopped me with her kisses, before I could get very much of it out. We made love for over an hour. Joyce was all about the results, caring about them, much more than about how they were achieved.

Friday morning, after Joyce, Shirley, Eddie, Dale, and Cindy left to go to Bolling, so that Cindy could see our head office, and the others could get some work done, Emily, Brenda and I spent the morning in bed together. I told them about Joyce's request, filling in some of the background that Cindy had gone through. Next, I explained the intricate level system I'd worked out for all of my wives.

Both of them seemed to like the fact that they were level fours, and that both Eddie and Dale would only be level twos. They even accepted my assertion that it was really Joyce who was marrying Cindy. The only part that didn't go as planned, and which caused me some concern, was when both of them told me that they were going to try Cindy out too.

Friday evening, we went over to Mama's house for dinner. It was good to spend some time with Gerta. I even tried to explain the new level system to Hans and Gerta, but they just laughed, and wanted to know more about this money deal, in New York, that my father was thinking about getting involved with.

Gerta told me that she had gotten two letters from Bea in the past week. Both were postmarked from San Diego, and both had requested that Gerta wire her some money. She wanted to know what I thought she should do.

"I don't know. It's probably for drugs. It isn't really that much money she's asking for. I think, if it was me, I'd send her the money, and tell her she had to phone here if she wanted some more. If she calls you, try to get her to come back here. Tell her no one is angry with her, about anything, and that we just want to know that she's okay."

"You think this is best?" Gerta seemed very uncertain. She had a strong distaste for Bea's drug use.

"I don't know, Gerta. Now that she's writing you, maybe she's trying to reach out for some help."

Mama and Laura were getting along well together, just like I thought they would. They had gone out to the country club, with Georgia Connor, and had themselves a three hour, liquid lunch. Even at the dinner table, the two ladies were still a little bit impaired from their lunch time excesses. That didn't prevent us from having a good time, or from enjoying some of the less inhibited comments they were being made about me, and about Cindy.

Friday night, after we got back, I brought Shirley up to my room. She was ready, and it was definitely one of her good days.

Her screaming still traveled all through the house, and she still liked to come up with some physically impossible or extremely challenging suggestions. All made while she was in the throes of a strong, seemingly continuous, orgasm.

Her reaction to my announcement and attempt at an explanation was to cut me off by saying that she and Joyce had already talked about it, and she didn't have any problems with anything, not as long as she didn't lose any ground to her position within our original group of four.

I told her she hadn't lost any ground with me at all. That was that, as far as she was concerned. She woke me up and took further advantage of me in the middle of the night. I'm pretty sure we woke up anyone in the house who didn't have a set of ear plugs in place.

Saturday, I took Eddie and Dale for a ride in my plane. We went to Oklahoma to see their mother. On the way there, I explained my level system, and tried to make them understand that I loved them both, and was sure that Joyce loved them each as much as I did.

"So, now we're your wives? Where's our ring?" Eddie looked at me. I was pretty sure she was kidding.

"I don't need a ring. Where's my honeymoon?" Dale seemed much more excited by my news than Eddie did. Of the two, I'd have to say that Dale and I had a more serious romantic attachment with each other. Eddie was more casual and relaxed about the time we spent together.

"What do you think this is? I'm flying you home to Chickasaw, so we can tell your mother I'm finally making honest women out of you. Has to be a short honeymoon though, because I told Joyce we'd be back in time for dinner."

"What are you planning to do with Cindy? I hope you aren't planning on fucking her before you satisfy both of us. You're marrying her too, right?"

This was Eddie letting me know that she saw through to what she believed was the real reason for all these new levels I was proposing. To her, it wasn't a question of me declaring my love. It was all about me making Cindy's new status palatable to her and Dale. Joyce had been right to be concerned about their feelings.

"Actually, that's the other part of it. Joyce is marrying her, not me. My connection to her, for right now at least, is only through Joyce. Cindy has some problems relating to men. She had a terrible experience when she was younger, and it causes her some anxiety being around guys. It might turn out that she and I don't get together like I do with the rest of you."