Chapter 8: The Reunion

Kelly, Cindy, Katie and Kate had been extremely close friends since the first years of elementary school - one guy (Kelly) and three girls, with the exception of Kate whom Kelly had known since the first day of kindergarten and actually lived on the same block. All four attended the same elementary, junior high and high schools and even college. Ever since childhood, the four always preferred being together and doing things together the majority of time rather than with others despite their popularity and many friends. As seniors in high school, Katie was the head cheerleader and all three women were listed in the yearbook as "Most Beautiful". The girl's popularity did not diminish during their college years, as they were all outgoing and very actively involved in campus activities. The three women had experimented with their sexuality with each other off and on as they grew up, this continued into college especially during some of the wilder moments from heavy partying as a means of achieving a sexual release during these peak hormone years. Even years after college it had still continued...

After graduate school for all of them, three of them moved from their hometown and all embarked on highly successful but stressful careers - especially Kelly.

The four best friends did not see each other as often as they liked due to their careers but stayed in frequent telephone contact and occasional visits several times during the year when one or more of them were in the same area or in Kelly's case, country. Rarely could everyone be together at the same time.

KELLY got married to BECKY, a therapist and marriage counselor, a specialist in psychopharmacology and they settled in the Western Texas Hill Country on a large working ranch on the headwaters of the Guadalupe River. Becky had met Kelly and the other three women while they were at the same university during graduate school and had become close friends with the three women as well. Since college, Becky had become their best friend and a sister as well, who excelled at listening, understanding, comforting and counseling due to her education and profession. Becky is open, non-judgmental, loving with an instant keen intuition of people, knowing if they were good and then easily accepting of them.

Kelly was more often gone than at the ranch due to his work around the world responding to natural and man-made disasters. After a short few years Becky had a thriving highly referred practice with a partnership in another office in New Mexico were she went one week out of every month. Couples that needed intense therapy she brought to the ranch. This became so lucrative with the patients coming to the ranch that they built a large open space concept guest house with floor to ceiling glass walls to take advantage of the scenery, a hot tub setup on a secluded patio and a huge indoor fireplace and outdoor fireplace. The guesthouse was set far apart and out of sight of the main ranch house to give patients the idea they were on the ranch alone. It was paid for within two years just with the patients that came to the ranch.

KATE had stayed in the hometown, got married, and then divorced within a few years. Kate had realized even before her marriage that she had missed out on marrying her real love – someone that she already known and had been extremely close with since kindergarten ... Even now as the years had passed, a deep heart tug of intense regret and longing frequently resurfaced. There were two times of particular intensity when this happened - just before her wedding day and then during her divorce. Kate remained single all this time without even the semblance of a steady boyfriend but was highly respective of the marriage of others and had come to accept she would only be able to have a very close mutual supportive relationship with the married couple.

KATIE had gotten married and moved to the Del Rio area, however, there was discord in the marriage as her husband started doing more year-round "guy" things with his hunting and fishing buddies soon after they got married and had remained this way for years - and it was clearly stated this was "guys time" and no wives were preferred. As a result both had grown distant and a permanent separation was ahead.

CINDY also had moved from the hometown and lived in a lake house who had stayed single for a number of years and now was on a five year going on six years on again/off again engagement that she was growing weary of. Cindy is one of the most vibrant and exuberant people you had ever met with the energy of three people.

Subconsciously, over the years, Kate, Katie and Cindy had compared each guy they ever met against Kelly and all of them found their measure seriously lacking when compared to Kelly. Even when they got married or engaged, their subconscious would not let them forget that their "significant" other did not measure up to the most dearest friend they had known for years and deeply cared for and loved, which, over the years, continuously led to failed relationships for the three women.

As if Fate had decreed "it is not time yet"...

Partly due to the high stress of their very successful careers, the four women each participated in a strenuous exercise program that was a continuation of what they started in high school and modified over the years to include yoga, martial arts, weight training as well as jogging. As a result, all had lean hard bodies and tanned skin tones that were better than what they had back in college and could proudly wear with confidence the barest of bikinis that women twenty years their junior envied and men of all ages gave appreciative looks. The four women looked like they were swimsuit/lingerie models! All four were blessed with great genes with statuesque physiques - they all were tall, ranging from 5'7 to 5'10, with firm and full medium large to large perky breasts that very well complimented their lingerie model appearances and bodies. Nor were they averse to having "enhancements or corrections" done if they were ever needed! Tired of shaving and waxing, they all had undergone laser hair removal that included their entire pubic areas except for a very small fanciful design just above their pussy.

Their stressful careers also induced in all of them to completely unwind and let their selves be carefree and welcomed any alcoholic or pharmaceutical assistance they could get. This would only occur when they got together and they would throw care to the wind fully turning loose; having loving and trusted each other for years knowing they will take full care of each other no matter what.

This included the available access they had to Ecstasy and high-grade marijuana extracts. All the women were not in anyway averse to taking Ecstasy when available when they were staying in – loving the way it revved up their feelings, sensitivities, emotions, released their inhibitions and especially increased their desires. Plus, Becky was an expert in psychotropic drugs and closely watched their administration.

Katie living near Del Rio had extensive friends and business associates on both sides of the border, with easy access to pharmaceuticals that were either not commonly available or easily accessible in the U.S. Becky, being a prescribing psychopharmacologist in New Mexico had plenty of free drug samples that the drug sales representatives were generous with as they pushed their products.

Cindy's brother lived in California and actually had a very prosperous legal cannabis nursery farm that specialized in the raising of Indica and Sativa as well as a very successful chain of upscale holistic marijuana boutiques for prescription users, since 14 states now allowed prescription marijuana usage with California the longest at 15 years. Being a trained chemist by education and profession, he had become quite adept in developing proprietary processes for dehydrating, grinding and compressing marijuana into concentrated pill form as well as the extraction, distillation, purification and concentration of the cannabis compounds of THC & CBD into a liquid oral administration which he supplied to pharmaceutical companies for further processing and distribution in Canada and Europe, in the process becoming quite wealthy. Cindy received a generous supply from her brother for their get-togethers.

Friends and acquaintances over the years and during the reunions had asked Kelly what he did for a living and Kelly would give a general non-specific response about doing emergency response and relief work for various governments around the world. He never, nor would he ever, reveal it was the US and foreign governments that sought him out for the worst disasters and he was on the "First Call" list of many emergency management government agencies and relief agencies around the world. It was routine that he had to jump from one crisis to another. While he retained a life long shyness around women, even around his best friends Kate, Cindy and Katie, in his career he was known for his outstanding leadership, drive and bravery. Kelly was the type of person who gave everything and expected nothing back except loyalty.

The lost of his sister ten years ago just before the fifteen-year high school reunion along with passing away of several classmates began the first crack in Kelly's stalwart fortitude. With the passing of so many classmates - quite a few of them good friends, and in Kate, Katie and Cindy's cases of not having a loving spouse or an indifferent spouse, it instilled and fortified the desire in all five of them, including Kelly's wife Becky - who had grown just as close to the other three women, to retain and hold on to old dear friendships. During this reunion Kelly and the girls had decided to firmly renew a close loving friendship they all previously had and vowed to all get together once a quarter in addition to when one or more of them were in the same area when traveling or just to came up for a visit.

Soon all became like family instead of best friends...

It was the second time after the regular quarterly get-togethers started when Katie's husband and Cindy's on again/off again fiancé' started declining invitations to attend so they could have a guy's get together with their respective friends and similar interests. Selfishly, both had their own interests that over the years seemed to become more important than a good marriage or in Cindy's case, engagement. They did not mind Kelly attending as the only male; they all got along great and acknowledged that Kelly and the girls have been lifelong friends since childhood. But the fact was that while the guys got along well with Kelly and vice versa, it was an instinctive sense that most men have about other men and knew that Kelly had selfishly done and accomplished more in his life at his age than they ever would or anyone else they knew - the two guys alone once privately remarked he was like a quiet, reserved John Wayne.

Then came back-to-back long deployment disasters around the world for Kelly - the biggest being the December 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake/Tsunami, then Kelly had to respond to Hurricane Katrina, then two months later the 2005 Kashmir Earthquake.

These back-to-back episodes exhausted Kelly's great well of fortitude and mental reserves. Still only in his mid-thirties, Kelly was mentally and physically worn having responded to all of the world's biggest natural and man-made crises that had occurred in recent history. After he got back from the months-long response to the 2006 Indonesian earthquake, Kelly took early retirement to the ranch on the banks of the Upper Guadalupe River to be a full time rancher and cowboy and just did occasional consulting work. But Becky could clearly tell, he was not quite the same personable person nor could he talk about his feelings having spent a lifetime of being a reserved person and containing his emotions, partly which his job demanded him to do in order to effectively carryout out what was needed to help others. As a mental health professional and therapist, Becky knew and could recognize an acute case of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and knew he needed treatment and even if a person was far removed in place and time from the cause of the stress, that it would linger and fester. But Kelly was one of those intently private persons who could never open up to a stranger and discuss his issues, not even with Becky. Kelly had for a long time laboriously built up strong invisible emotional walls, which he had started at an early age with the passing of his parents when he was young that imparted an early sense of abandonment, then almost the rest of the his immediate family passing by the time he was in his early twenties. His shyness even with his best friends was due to this as well.

From his years of working in most of the world's worst war-torn and natural disaster conditions and his work ethic, Kelly stood a lean and rangy six foot four, broad shoulders with hardened ropy muscles and a corded stomach, with bright sparkling blue eyes and mirth lines around his eyes. His face had a deep permanent tan and his hair was brownish blonde. With his rugged good looks, he would have made a most excellent Marlboro Man except he did not smoke. Kelly is an accomplished 12 string guitar player with a gifted voice and the girls always pestered him to play his guitar, serenading them with old cowboy and western songs plus a few funny ones he liked to pen. On the ranch, he was a borderline workaholic, driving himself in an effort to forget the ghosts. But more and more frequently Becky observed the cracks appearing and her concern grew exponentially.

The women all usually showed up on Thursday evenings and it was now just the girls at Kelly's and Becky's large ranch near Hunt which had the shallow and clear Guadalupe River flowing across the exposed limestone bed through the secluded property. By now, Katie had gotten a divorce and Cindy had permanently broken off the engagement. Even though Cindy lived in a lake house and Kate had a vacation beach house, the three women preferred going out to Kelly and Becky's beautiful multi-thousand acre ranch set in the rolling scrub-oak hills with abundant wildlife, horses and cattle. There were numerous springs on the property with large hidden shaded grottos where springs flowed over in small waterfalls into clear shallow pools that then flowed into the river, the grottos covered with moss and hanging fern with the scent of wild mint growing leading a faint fragrance in the more sheltered grottos. A set of large springs is situated on the bank of the river near the very large rambling one story rock ranch house with the house situated on a sloping terraced bluff with flagstone steps cut down to the riverbed. The 7000 square foot house was a combination of that unique Texas Hill Country architecture that combined native limestone and timber materials, German stone construction and large modern floor to ceiling vast expanses of glass windows, even in all the bedrooms and bathrooms, to overlook the river and surrounding hills. Even the large bathrooms had clear glass walk-in showers so you could see out while taking a shower. The back of the house was the main focal and gathering point with a large covered flagstone veranda, 72 inch outdoor LCD HD television, outdoor speakers and outdoor kitchen area with a large hot tub built into one of the step down terraces toward the river for the cooler months. All three women found it very difficult to leave when the times came, as if the ranch and especially the two owners were subliminally telling them this was home...

Besides cattle, Kelly and Becky raised and bred a few prize Arabian stallions as well as three prize miniature horses and collected semen for sale for artificial insemination, which was fairly lucrative for them considering the bloodlines they had.

Becky and Kelly also had their beloved Enno, an extremely large Rottweiller that they had purchased from a specialty breeder back East who raised a champion strain of Rottweillers for competition weight sled pulling. While most Rotty's stood 27 to 30 inches at the shoulder, Enno was 35 inches and was a firm muscular 190 pounds and was outstanding in looks and conformation. He went everywhere with Kelly and still retained his herding instincts to help Kelly work cattle. When Kelly was not around, he was always with Becky. Enno also commanded top stud fees. As protective and loving as Enno was for Becky and Kelly, this also extended to Kate, Cindy and Katie - instinctively recognizing these women were part of his family as well.

After lunch the plan was to ride horses that afternoon then come back and jump in the river and cool off. The Upper Guadalupe River flowed over a wide limestone bed and most places just a foot to a few feet deep with an occasional narrow cut or deep hole in the riverbed. There was a narrow cut in the stream bed that the water rushed through that led into a series of wide shallow clear pools of about 5 feet depth right below the house, almost like a water chute from where it started and ended in the pools.

Kelly had gone down to the horse barn to call the horses in so they all could go for an afternoon ride: two Arabian studs for Becky and he, an Arabian mare and two Paint geldings.

Becky and the girls had stayed behind to change and get beer for the ride. Becky had come to a conclusion that she needed help to keep from what she feared of Kelly further withdrawing into himself and/or have an actual breakdown due to what she knew as years of an acute case of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. In addition, she had uncovered some very unsettling and heart breaking information while moving some file boxes to storage - that Kelly's work involved quite more than what he publicly and privately let on, even to her, not to even mention the physical and mental scars that had resulted from this work. To protect Kelly and his distressed emotions and his increasing desire for his oldest and closest friends to remain close, Becky took the opportunity to quietly reveal the details of Kelly's career to Kate, Cindy and Katie.

The three women were his closest and longest friends and Becky had professionally concluded that these three would be the only ones to be able to help her break through his shell. Becky had thought long and hard on what to do. On a personal and professional level she had gauged their three friends and their ability to help, more so, she had been doing it for years now - never having seen or read in her professional journals and her research about such a tight loving bonded friendship as these three women and Kelly exhibited with each other, even being out of contact with each other for extended periods. The only analogy she could think of - it was like twins that had a physic and physical bond to each other. That Kate, Cindy and Katie had included her as well shortly after they all meet back in college - as if some unseen and unspoken group judgment and acceptance had occurred, that realized the five of them had a group synergy benefit of being together.

Becky's realization over the years that she, as a spouse, had never once been jealous of their close relationships despite how extremely beautiful and engaging all three women were, even when they outrageously flirted with Kelly and their actual lack of immodesty around him. Kelly had even told her of the numerous times they all crashed in his king-sized bed during college after heavy partying with nary a stitch on! Back when they all first met in college, Becky quickly accepted the girl's nonchalant behavior walking around or sitting in just skimpy lounging attire, even in bras and panties/thongs with Kelly and her present, even strolling from room to room topless that continued to this day. But they only did this around Kelly and not when other guys were present. She even enjoyed Kelly's reaction, startled and embarrassed each time one of them did this, plus Becky herself enjoyed and appreciated seeing them like this with their lingerie model appearance especially since she herself did not have any outdated sexual more hang-ups! Endlessly teasing Kelly that one of these days, all of them were going to jump him with her participating as well!

For years she had known the three women deeply loved each other and also were very highly sexed and it had not dimensioned. But curiously it only appeared when they were together, in fact, they always had been extremely selective in their dating of men and she recalled each of them only had two or at the most three boyfriends during college including graduate school despite being extremely popular in college, and that with long periods in-between of not having a boyfriend. Becky knew they had on/off again sexual relations with each other during college and after college, they made no secrets about it, even witnessing them teasing Kelly about it. Shortly after she was accepted into their tight knit group, there were thinly veiled open suggestions that she could be included as well...

In fact one night during college after all five of them had come back to Kelly's off-campus house all very drunk and high, they were lounging around on the thick carpet with throw pillows watching a funny XXX cartoon parody. They had really embarrassed Kelly by talking about it openly in front of him – explaining that is was just a sexual release and then asked if he wanted to watch as they started in on each other! All five of them were close to each other, then Kate reached over and pulled Becky to her, leaning her over Kelly and toward her as she caressed Kelly's arm lightly, asking if it would upset him if she kissed Becky! Kelly with a blushing face said in a quiet voice Nooo, but only if Becky wanted to ... In response, it was Becky that leaned in and started French kissing Kate deeply and long as each other's hands sensuously caressed the swells of each other's breasts as fingers undid buttons to gain unfettered access. This went on for several minutes as both women continued leaning over Kelly as they continued kissing that included ears, napes and hands that were busy completely undoing blouses and releasing the front-clasp bras both wore and hands roaming freely. Respirations and arousals increasing with both women as two sets of firm, very large and perfect hard nippled bare breasts danced and were fondled directly over Kelly, Kelly becoming more unsure how far this would go and his shyness of two gorgeous half-naked women heavily making out while leaning over him dangling their large perfect bare breasts as they caressed each other and tweaked the other's nipples and alternately sucking on them was clearly evident. Kate slowly pulled away from Becky, breathing heavily, and trailed a hand slowly down Kelly's broad chiseled and sculpted chest and in a sexy husky voice said to Becky

"You better go take care of him before I or one of the others do!"

Becky started laughing as did the others, then Becky, topless, stood up and pulled Kelly up and lead him into the bedroom. Just before Becky closed the door, she turned around and gave a long slow whimsical smile to Kate and then fucked Kelly silly half the night!

. While not fully participating in a full sexual relationship with any of the three since that night in college, she did participate in deep intimate kisses and caressing with each of them individually and as a group that still continues to this day...

Becky recognized that this was a coincidental and fortuanate coming together at this point in time for Kate, Katie and Cindy - of their separate personal unattached relationships. Examining her own emotions and acceptance of her own proposal that was to be made to them and the long-term consequences. But the true test would be if the three women would instinctively and intuitively grasp and then embrace what Becky initially would not outright verbally propose but only insinuate with thinly veiled suggestions and physical actions- that would be the true clinical test and only this would the proof of acceptance. That this was the course all of them had decided to undertake as well as leave an outlet if one chose not to take this path. Then Becky could verbally and physically show all four of them her wholehearted approval.

The turning point was recent. Becky silently coming upon Kelly in the darkened study, his back to the door as he gazed out the large window, Becky could see his face reflected in the window - tears streaming down his face as the television, turned down low, broadcasted the latest terrible disaster or the death of another service member. Then there were the times when she had awakened feeling hot tears on her arm from Kelly. Kelly she knew, more than other men, locked away things in a pretense to handle the pain and he had over ten intense years of worldwide pain and suffering, including childhood pain, locked up threatening to burst out and overwhelm him. She recalled his dedication at volunteering at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio with wounded soldiers with very difficult recovery and rehabilitation, helping wounded soldiers who were not as fortunate to have family close, bringing them to the ranch to assist their emotional and physical healing. Becky realized with all her education and training and experience she could not help Kelly by herself and she needed the help of his closest friends.

Becky took the girls into Kelly's study and slid apart a concealing wall panel showing a world map that had over 60 pins in it of places where Kelly had responded. Then she showed them the closet that had several file boxes that were filled with US and International aid agencies and government citations, commendations and awards - none of them ever framed and put up on a "Ego Wall" like most accomplished people do, just tossed into a box and forgotten. She then mentioned the unusual scars on his body that he had accumulated over time, several quite terrible, and how he had casually explained it away with no forthcoming details as a "few too many accidents due to the nature of his work". Becky showed them a file she had found buried deep in one of the boxes she had moved to storage containing a detailed military report that was heavily redacted - of a time when Kelly was out of contact for three weeks and then she was notified he was in a military hospital being treated for unspecified injuries. The report ended with a United Nations War Crimes Investigation Committee commendation for saving people in a remote village. Kelly had come home from that incident very withdrawn and with severe weight loss - with new terrible scars, more horrific than he had ever received, on his chest, back and legs with three round puckered scars on his torso and weeks long physical therapy. Becky revealed the depth and scope of his career, shocking them to their core foundations, then pulled out a photo that Kelly thought that Becky did not know of: - showing him in a setting and a situation that would greatly upset even the most emotionally hardened person, which brought them all to free-flowing streaming tears and heavy sobbing. The most sensitive caring and loving man they knew and would ever know, their life-long childhood friend - had driven himself selfishly to ease the suffering in almost every worst disaster from dangerous war ravaged and war-crime countries to natural disasters the world had ever experienced in recent years and had come close to be killed several times. Years of pent up stress, losing his sister after a seven year fight with cancer and helping wounded soldiers in their recovery efforts. Back to back responses to major disasters were the final emotional breaking point that first started with the loss of his parents and most of his immediate relatives at an early age. Becky explained that even now, she would catch him with glistening eyes at the news of some new tragedy or major world disaster, knowing from past experience the phone would soon ring, and Kelly never said no, could not say no...

Becky elicited, and with an overwhelming show of whole hearted love, received from the three women their affirmation of their deep loving friendship and whole hearted support for Kelly and Becky, all of them saying they knew that the sweet highly intelligent caring boy they knew in school would have a very successful career, but none of them had known all these years that Kelly had selflessly and with outstanding bravery at the risk of his own life, over and over again, quietly done more with his life to help and save people than most anybody. The girls told Becky they too had noticed he was not the same outgoing fun-loving personable boy they knew growing up, who was easily embarrassed by a girls attention, and at one time or the other they all had recurring deep crushes on him that never seem to totally go away but repeatedly resurrected again, even now ... to this day they loved him more dearly than anyone they ever had loved, that started back to when they were all in grade school. Each told Becky they had hoped to marry Kelly but circumstances never seemed to align but all of them were thrilled when they first met her and knew Becky would be the one. They were all so glad to renew their old close friendships and how Becky fit in with them so well when they all first met and how they considered her a best friend and a sister as well and loved her as much as they deeply loved each other. They had also noted that Kelly was withdrawn at times, more reflective and quiet, still retaining his outgoing personality when required but it was obviously forced. Now, he was mostly reserved and they wanted the old Kelly back - at least when he was around them. They swore to each other they would bring back the kid-at-heart they knew was still buried somewhere deep inside, whatever it took.