Chapter 1

1972 - summer

1972 was a pretty interesting year for Bobby, as the seeds he had sown, and which had taken root in fertile soil, began to be harvested.

In June, Jill gave birth to a bouncing baby boy with coal black hair, whom she named Steven, after her favorite uncle. Had anyone taken the time to notice, or compare, they’d have seen that this baby looked startlingly like another baby named Jordan, who had been born earlier in the Spring, to Bobby’s sister, Mary. To that fictional observer, it would have become more and more apparent that, though the women he impregnated were quite different, Bobby’s genetic make up was dominant, at least when the babies he made were boys.

Christy Brown, was then eight months pregnant herself, also with Bobby’s baby. She spent as much time with her housemate Jill, and the new baby, as possible, to get experience for her own impending adventure in motherhood. It was less time than she wanted to, because her photography studio was doing quite well.

There would be more births of Bobby’s children that summer, but those were buns that were already in the oven. While they matured, Bobby was not idle.

He’d been making love with his second oldest sister, Florence, since December of the previous year. Beverly, his third oldest sister, regularly did everything but let his penis go inside her, as her upcoming marriage to Bill Gregory, scheduled for September, crept ever closer. His fourth oldest sister, Linda, had progressed from watching him pleasure Bev, to lying in bed with him, naked, as his finger taught her pussy how to enjoy something stiff and long in it, and his lips taught her nipples how much joy could be produced from little sucking motions. His lips kissing her lips were something to be taken for granted, these days.

He’d had to suspend, at least temporarily, intercourse with Jill, and Christy, but was providing full service, so to speak, to Rhonda Wilson, who was pregnant, but didn’t know it yet. He was also in routine touch with Sherry Winston, who had his daughter, Jessica, almost two years previously. Sam, her husband, thought Jessica was his. Now that the girl was almost two, Sherry had just informed Bobby that he would think the next one of Bobby’s children was his too. This was because Sam still went off for weeks at a time, selling plumbing supplies and neglected his wife routinely.

The fourth woman Bobby was actively making love to, on an occasional basis, was the woman who had given birth to him, and who was also pregnant. Like Christy, Mirriam was beginning to get so large, though, that lovemaking was difficult for her. Unlike the other women Bobby had impregnated, she did not cotton to the idea of being taken from behind. That all went back to when she saw her other lover, Ted Brandywine, fuck her best friend, Prudence, that way on a blanket, where he later fucked Mirriam too. She had always been a little jealous that he got into Prudence first, even though she hadn’t intended to let him into her at all. At least not that day.

It is important to understand that while Bobby was sexually involved with a variety of women, and had, by the time he was twenty-three, impregnated nine of them, he was not, in the classical sense of the word, a tomcat. He didn’t fuck every woman he met. He didn’t even think about trying to fuck every woman he met. And, though six of those nine women he’d impregnated, were either married, or engaged to be married at the time, he didn’t seek out women and try to get them to cheat on their husbands. Boiled down to its most basic form, all Bobby did was give some women what they needed. In some cases, that was sex. If a woman was neglected, or abandoned by her husband, and she was lonely and horny, Bobby was willing to meet her needs. It was actually the same with the divorced woman he had impregnated, Jill, and the widow he had impregnated, Prudence.

His mother and sister didn’t count in this way. He simply loved them, and wanted them to be happy. It just so happened that he had been making Mary happy for quite some time, in the same ways he was making some of his other sisters happy, when she decided to get married, and wanted to know what was going to happen on her wedding night. The reason she got pregnant, was because learning that was so much fun that she practiced it for a month before she got married.

Bobby was also not, in the classical sense, a gigolo. Not in the Spring of 1972. True, he had been paid ten dollars to make love to Rhonda, but that was more of a joke, than an actual contractual engagement. Her best friend had offered him the money, and, after he rang her bell, Rhonda had insisted that Janet make good on the debt. Bobby didn’t charge anyone to have sex with them, though. He had sex with them because he liked them, and wanted them to be happy.

That, too, would change, in the summer of 1972, as we’ll find out presently.

The fourth of July was a big day in Granger, Kansas. It was a hard-working town of about five or six thousand people. The mainstay of the economy was still farming, though the fertilizer plant on the edge of town was expanding, and hiring more workers every year. Most of the businesses in town, though, generally catered to the farmer, and the opportunity to get together and have some good, old-fashioned fun came rarely. The fourth of July was one of those times.

This year, for the first time, there was a traveling carnival in town, so the annual celebration was a little more frenetic. The youth of the town were extra excited to be able to engage in this kind of fun without having to travel to the State Fair, or one of the larger towns, like Great Bend, or Wichita. Those children mingled freely, regardless of their socio-economic background.

The same was not true of their parents. The picnic area was set up with about forty tables, of the kind with folding legs, that are common in churches, and town halls, and civic clubs. They were equally spaced, and all were full, mostly with adults sitting at them.

But there was an invisible dividing line that shifted a little bit, as people came and went. That line divided the “respectable” people from those who were not to be seen sitting with. People such as divorced women, who had not remarried ... or women who had children while their husbands were off fighting the Korean war. There weren’t that many unmarried women in town who had children, but they were included in that group as well.

Like most social situations, it was somewhat complicated. In day-to-day business dealings, there was no line. Between the children of all these adults, there was no line. And, even though the line was beginning to blur a bit, old habits die hard, so the line still existed in social settings.

Mirriam Dalton, eight months pregnant ... again! ... and still not married after having seven “war babies”, sat uncomfortably on one side of the line. She was uncomfortable because she was eight months pregnant, and not because she was an “outcast”. Her daughter, who could have sat on the other side of the line, because she was properly married, sat next to her with her three month old baby, Jordan. Prudence Harris was also at that table, with her nine month old twins, Katherine and Kyle. Jill, with her one month old son, Steven was there too. Christy, also heavily pregnant, could have sat on the other side of the line too, because her husband, stationed in Viet Nam, had been home on leave, seven months ago. Only her doctor knew she was actually eight months pregnant, like Mirriam.

Two other people were sitting with them. One was Ted Brandywine, who was the lover of both Prudence and Mirriam, who shared him. The other was Florence, Mirriam’s second oldest daughter, and the oldest one living at home. Flo would be twenty in two months, was not dating anyone, and had no intention of dating anyone. Bobby gave her everything she needed, as far as she was concerned. She intended to take over operation of the farm, to allow her mother to “retire” and raise her new baby. She felt too old to run with the younger teens, and so, sat with the adults.

It just so happened that she was sitting next to Ted.

She knew him, of course. She knew he was fucking her mother ... was, in fact, suspected to be the father of the baby that was making Mirriam so uncomfortable right now. She also knew that “things” happened at Prudence’s house, when all three of them were there. She didn’t really think about that all that much. Her mother was her mother, and she loved her. Whatever she did was her business.

While Flo didn’t see that much of Ted, he was invited to supper, occasionally. He had stayed over night twice, but had been gone in the morning, by the time she got up and got to breakfast.

As for Ted, he was pretty well smitten with his two lovers. He had adopted this strange lifestyle after his own divorce, and after moving to Granger to make a new start in life, and teach third grade. He was “Uncle Ted” to Mirriam’s daughters, at least the younger ones, and to Constance, Prudence’s seventeen year old daughter. The year he’d spent with the two women had been precious to him, and he had no desire to change things.

That Mirriam was less than enthusiastic about lovemaking, at this point, he understood. She had been very enthusiastic, up until a month or two ago. And, Prudence was very enthusiastic again, after having her own twins, though she was worried about getting pregnant again. She knew he wanted her to have his children, and part of her wanted to do that too. They had had serious discussions about it. Both of them knew it was both risky and frivolous for her to get pregnant again, though, and it was beginning to be obvious that measures needed to be taken to prevent that. The same would be true of Mirriam, after she had her baby.

Not that Ted couldn’t enjoy making love to them without making them pregnant, but the possibility of pregnancy had added a special spice to their lovemaking, and that would be gone, if protection was used.

It is quite possible that had some effect on Ted, when Florence, out of sheer boredom, started asking him questions about what it was like to be a teacher, and how in the world he was able to keep his patience with children of that age. That led into a deeper discussion about places he’d been, and things he’d done.

As they chatted, he looked at Flo, in one sense, for the first time. He’d seen her, of course, and spoken to her during supper, or when he was coming or going at the farm. She hadn’t paid much attention to him, and he hadn’t paid much attention to her. When he’d met her she was nineteen, and he was in his mid thirties, so that social distance seemed completely normal.

Now, though, as he watched her face, he couldn’t believe how he hadn’t noticed how much she favored her mother. Mirriam kept her waist-long hair in a bun, unless she was making love to Ted. Flo’s shorter hair was, and always had been in a pony tail when he saw her, so that may have accounted for some of his blindness. But her eyes were Mirriam’s eyes, and her mouth was Mirriam’s mouth. Her laughter was like her mother’s too, and her sharp wit, for that matter.

He found himself enjoying their talk very much.

Linda Dalton was standing, looking up at the Ferris Wheel. The hanging gondolas seemed so frail, as they swung to and fro up there. She’d always been a little nervous about heights, but she’d always also had a fascination with Ferris Wheels. She was trying to work up the courage to buy a ticket, when someone bumped into her. She turned to see Paul Engle, a boy in her class at school.

“Oops, sorry,” he said. He had a calculator in his hand, and had been punching numbers on it while he walked.

“That’s okay,” said Linda.

She knew Paul, but had never talked to him. He was a science geek, and hung around with the other geeks. As she looked at him now, she wondered why people called them geeks. She thought of a geek as a skinny kid with glasses, and oily hair. He wasn’t like that at all. He looked like any other boy, except for the calculator in his hand.

“What are you doing?” she asked, looking at the calculator.

He blinked. He wasn’t used to pretty girls talking to him, and Linda was pretty, as far as he was concerned.

“Um ... I was just calculating the g-forces that would come into play on the Tilt-a-whirl,” he said.

“G-forces?” she said, looking doubtful.

“It’s the force that’s caused by acceleration, in combination with gravity,” he said. He stopped. Girls like her didn’t understand this kind of thing.

“Oh, you mean like when they go up in rockets?” she asked.

He blinked again. “Yeah, exactly, or when you’re in a car, and it turns a corner fast.”

“Yes!” she said, smiling. “That’s fun sometimes, but it’s scary too.”

“It’s really only scary if it’s uncontrolled, or if the acceleration involved is too much. It can hurt you if it’s too much.” He couldn’t believe he was having this conversation with this interesting girl.

“Yeah, it’s scary,” she said, looking back at the Ferris Wheel. “It makes my stomach do flip flops. I wish I wasn’t too chicken to ride some of these rides.”

“Which ones?” he asked.

“The Ferris Wheel, for one,” she said.