Chapter 5

"I think Melinda and Katie are going out shopping again this morning," Leah yawned. The two of us were the only ones still in bed. She rolled into my arms and gave me a good morning kiss. "Do you want to go?"

"Not really," I replied, then cupped a breast in one hand, her ass in the other. "I think we should just lounge around and do a whole lot of nothing."

Leah rolled her eyes. "Is that what the kids are calling it these days?"

The two of us collapsed into a giggling heap on the bed the quickly devolved into a private make out session. Then we just held each other. Katie and Melinda came back after their morning walk and joined us a little while later. We talked for a bit, but mostly just pressed our bodies together.

Holding my best friend in my arms, I watched Melinda and Katie dress. They gave us each a kiss, then left to go back to the outlet mall.

"I guess I should call Mom and Dad and tell them that I have a husband now," Leah said when we were alone. We were laying on our sides. Her shapely backside was pressed against me. My arms wrapped lovingly around her.

"They act like we've been married since you showed up on our doorstep ... what was it? Ten years ago?"

"Something like that." She turned and kissed me gently. "Now they can officially be in-laws."

I laughed. "There's nothing 'official' about our living arrangements and you know it."

"Maybe not, but I went down to HR on Wednesday and changed my life insurance to make the three of you co-beneficiaries. I think Katie went to see her people, too," Leah said. I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was serious about becoming truly married as a foursome. "I wonder if we can change our custody agreement with the kids."

"Probably not," I replied. "It was hard enough getting the paperwork through for you two to adopt ... We had enough headaches trying to get things done for a lesbian couple. Imagine the nightmare for a polyamorous group."

"I don't even want to think about that," Leah laughed.

She leaned back and I kissed her. Harder and deeper this time.

"I love you," I said tenderly.

"I know," my wife said with a smile. "I love you, too. Do you remember the first night we were together?"

"Yup," I replied, patting her on the backside. "You kissed me—"

"I did not! You kissed me!

"—You kissed me at that club and we almost didn't make it back to your place," I said playfully. We both tickled each other and laughed.

This is a running joke between the two of us. In truth, neither of us has the greatest recollection of exactly what happened. I definitely should not have been driving that night, but I was in better shape than she. It's a good thing her apartment was close. For years the issue of who kissed who first has been a point of contention.

I know this isn't an argument I'm ever going to win, but for the record, she made the first pass at me.

"That was our first kiss and our first fuck all in one night." Leah had that dreamy look in her eyes. The one she gets from pleasant memories.

"As I remember, there were three fucks," I said playfully. "And a blowjob or two."

"Yeah, you used to be quite the machine back in the day," she retorted. I tickled her some more. Our horseplay turned into loving kisses. "Why did you never make a pass at me before?"

Leah rolled over into my arms. Her big brown eyes looked deep into mine.

"Because I didn't want to lose my best friend. I didn't want the sex to get in the way," I replied. "Why didn't you ever make a move on me?"

She looked away. Snuggling up to me, she rested her head on my shoulder. I could feel her breath on my skin. When she spoke, her voice was barely audible. "I knew I was going away to college. It was hard enough to leave us just as friends. If we were lovers, I know I couldn't have gone. I thought it was the best thing for both of us."

"You had to go, Leah," I told her reassuringly. "I'd have kicked your butt if you didn't. We both needed to get out of town. You went to Carolina. I went to Jacksonville. It's where we were meant to be."

"I know. It's just..." Her voice trailed off. I could tell she wanted to say more, so I waited. "I was saving myself for you. I knew I would be with you one day. Even if you didn't. You were so dense sometimes, I could have whipped out my tits and you'd have asked about my haircut instead."

Reaching under her chin, I lifted her face so she was looking me in the eyes. "You were what?"

"I wanted you to be my first," she said softly. "That's what I thought when I left for college."

This was the first I had heard of that. This weekend was turning out to be full of surprises.

"You weren't ... I mean, when we..."

"Oh, no," Leah said, looking away again. There was a hint of shame and disappointment in her voice. "My first time was with that guy who lived upstairs in my dorm."

Years ago, the four of us sat up late at night with wine and liquor and shared our loss of virginity stories. As far as I knew, Leah's first was after a night of drunken lust. She said she never spoke to him again after that, and doubts he even remembered their encounter.

"But it should have been you," she whispered.

I was speechless.

We held each other in silence for a long time.

"I don't regret anything in my life," Leah finally broke the silence. "But if I had to do it all over again ... I never would have gone out with those other guys. And that time you came to visit me, the time when we hooked up ... instead of going out and getting hammered so you would make a pass at me, I'd have dressed up, cooked a nice dinner and then given myself to you ... You would have been the only man to have ever had me."

It took me a minute to find my voice to respond.

"If we had gotten together in high school or college, and never had anyone else, I think we'd be just as happy as we are today," I said. "I love you."

"I know. I love you, too." Leah wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me tight. "But I guess everything happens for a reason. If we had been together during college, I don't know that we'd have survived the distance ... And if you hadn't gone to school in Jacksonville, we wouldn't have gotten with Katie and Melinda."

She took a deep breath.

"A long time ago, I used to hate her." There was a dark tone in her voice. As if she were scared to admit the way she felt. "It was before I met her. I was so jealous that she got you first. Sometimes I used to think that it should have been me in your arms, not her."

"Why didn't you say anything?" I asked after a moment.

"Because it wasn't my place to. I left you, not the other way around," she said. "And I know how happy she made you. Hell, she still makes you happy. You deserved someone who could be there with you, not three states away."

"Well I, for one, am very happy that we hooked up," I pulled her close. "Even if it was just for a weekend here or there. Plus that week at Disney World. And I'm glad we're still together. Even if it is with two other wives."

Leah kissed me. I could see the love she has for me in her eyes. For just a second, I could tell there was that flash of "what might have been", and then it was gone. It's the same look Melinda had the other night when she was wondering about the mysterious twists and turns in our lives over the past eleven years.

"I'm happy we have those two other wives." As she spoke, I could tell that she had no doubts about whether our current living arrangements were right or not. "As weird and crazy as our lives are, I can't imagine things being any different than they are right now."

"Even if it means having all those rumours about you circulating around town?"

"You're involved in those rumours, too!"

"Yeah, but I'm not the one people recognise when we go out for dinner!" There was some more tickling.

"I love you," she told me again. We shared another tender kiss. Her body felt so warm next to mine.

Leah's hands caressed my face. I rolled her on to her back and our kisses became longer and deeper.

I stared into her big brown eyes that radiated tenderness. We didn't speak another word. We each knew what the other was thinking.

We made love for a long time that morning. All the while, I fell into her loving gaze only to be caught in her arms.

"Come see what we got you two!" Katie called from the garage.

Leah lifted her head from my shoulder. We were still in bed. I looked over at the clock. It was mid-afternoon.

Melinda and Katie appeared in the doorway. Each had an expression that was part amusement, part envy.

"Jesus Christ!" Melinda rolled her eyes. "You two are like a couple of fucking rabbits."

"You got the 'fucking' part right," Leah snickered.

The other girl reached into a bag and threw a shirt at each of us. Melinda and Katie held theirs up.

All four shirts were grey with the words "I'm with Stupid" emblazoned across the front. On each of the girls's shirts, there was an arrow pointing to the left or the right. On mine, the arrow was pointing straight up.

The three of them shared a hearty laugh.

"You realise that I'm going to make you guys wear these when we go out." I pulled Melinda down onto the bed and planted a wet, sloppy kiss on her lips.

She snorted and kissed me back. I reached for her, but she pulled away. "Down boy! We've got to get cleaned up for your friends tonight, remember?"

"Holy crap!" Leah grinned sheepishly. "I had forgotten about that. I guess we need to call and give them directions."

As she rolled out of bed, I reached over and grabbed a handful of her round ass. Predictably, that brought a quick slap on my wrist.

Leah went hunting for Mimi and Geoff's phone number and I went to start up the shower while Katie and Melinda unloaded the rest of their outlet mall loot.

A few minutes later, Leah and I were scrubbed and clean. We dressed as Melinda modeled some of her new clothes. We "oohed" and "ahhed" at all the appropriate times.

Then I went to help Katie cook and Leah called Mimi.

This was our last night at the cabin and while it seemed a little odd having another couple join us, it did give us cause to dress up. Plus it would be good to visit with some old friends.

Katie was making teriyaki-glazed salmon steaks over angel hair pasta. I put together a simple salad with a ginger dressing, then started melting the dark chocolate for the fondue we didn't have two days ago.

Melinda and Leah sat at the counter and heckled us while we waited for Mimi and Geoff to arrive.

A short time later, there was a call from the gate guard notifying us that we had visitors. We cleared them then got ready for our company. There was a knock on the front door a short time later.

Leah answered the door and led our friends in. She introduced Geoff to our wives. Mimi gave me a big hug and I took their jackets.

I grew up just down the street from Geoff. He and I were buddies from Cub Scouts and youth league soccer. We ran in the same circles (read: the geek clique) and had known each other since about second grade. Like Mimi, he aged well.

If you had known the four of us in high school, the only thing we had in common was that we were all classified as "gifted" but you never would have thought that we were good friends. Leah was athletic and into sports. Geoff was part of the "artsy" crowd that spent the early 90s listening to Bauhaus and being disgusted at the materialism of our classmates (while driving the new Saturn his parents bought him and listening to his Walkman CD player).

I was in the nerd crowd who no one wanted to socialise with because we could name all of the captains of the Starship Enterprise, but everyone wanted to be our lab partner in physics because we were going to get As.

(That's the TOS Enterprise, NCC-1701; there were five, you've got 10 seconds and can't use Wikipedia to look up the answers. Go!)

And then there was Mimi. She seemed to have it all. Not only was she smart (she was the only person I ever copied answers off of in trig), but she was drop-dead gorgeous. More than simply pretty, Yesmine was elegant and glamorous. All the boys in school used to make those "dough eyes" at her. What's more, she was genuinely nice to just about everyone. Where she certainly wasn't going to go out with one of the motorheads or rednecks, she wasn't above talking to anyone who could carry on an intelligent conversation and do more than stare at her boobs.

If anyone had odds on who would hook up with whom after graduation, the person who put money on Mimi and Geoff would have won, hands down. They were polar opposites. She was gregarious and charming. He was introverted and a little standoffish.

What they had in common was art. Geoff was always drawing or making stuff. In the back of geometry class, he used to fold origami animals and then launch them across the room at Mrs. Bannerman. Yesmine was a fabulous painter. They had a mutual respect for each other that quickly blossomed into friendship and more. When they got together right before our junior prom, no one could have seen that they would still be going strong sixteen years later.

"Dinner smells wonderful, what are you making?" Mimi asked Katie and then launched a barrage of insightful questions about the dinner and her cooking techniques, all the while offering to help. The redhead blushed and I knew from that moment on, Mimi would have her eating out of her hand.

I was in the fridge looking for some baby carrots and dip when Mimi brushed my elbow. Her voice was low enough that only I could hear. "The stories are all true, aren't they?"

"Except for the one about Hungarian midget and the three-legged camel," I winked.

Mimi smiled. It was a curious smile. I could tell she wanted to say or ask something more, but she didn't. Instead she went back to asking Katie about dinner.

Geoff and I sat down and tried to stay out of the way. The girls set every thing out on the table.

"Honey, do we have any more Sprite?" I asked.

"It's in the garage," Melinda replied. I got up and came back with a couple of soda bottles for me and Geoff.

"How do you know who is who?" Geoff asked.

I shot him a puzzled look.

"The nicknames," Geoff explained. "Who is who?"

I smiled. "They just kind of evolved that way. Melinda is Honey, Leah is Sweetie and Katie is Baby. To the kids, they're Mom, Mommy and Momma."

"And what's your name?" Geoff asked with a sly smile.

"We call him Tiger," Melinda called from the kitchen. She came over, planted a sloppy kiss on my cheek and then winked at Geoff. "Although sometimes it's Stud when he gets frisky. Come on, guys, dinner is ready."

"Would you like some wine with dinner?" I asked as everyone was sitting down.

"I thought you were allergic to wine." Geoff looked puzzled.

"Some wines," I replied. I'm asthmatic and most wines cause me to break out into hives. For years I avoided the stuff, but now I've learned to check the labels to save myself a whole lot of discomfort. "As long as they don't have sulfites added I'm okay. We've got a wonderful chardonnay from a little vineyard in California or a merlot that's made locally we picked up over at the mall."

"I'll take the chardonnay," Mimi said and Geoff did the same.

I poured three glasses. Yesmine gave me a curious look when I didn't get any wine for my wives, but didn't say anything, probably for fear of being rude.

Dinner was delicious and the six of us were soon in a comfortable place. Mimi and Geoff caught us up on their lives.

"We missed you at the reunion," Mimi said again.

Leah and I shared a look. Melinda and Katie both nodded, giving their silent approval.

"We didn't want to show up and have to explain ourselves," Leah admitted.

"What's to explain? You'd be surprised about who the kinkiest people are," Mimi replied. As she said those words, her eyes dropped. I looked at her curiously, but she wouldn't meet my gaze. I glanced over at Leah; she shrugged, but there was something in the look she returned that suggested she might know more.