Chapter 23

Bobby flopped on his back on the bed, sighing. He had removed his clothing, which was in a pile on the floor. He intended to take a shower, but couldn’t resist lying back on the bed to relax, his arms thrown wide.

It had been a long day. Part of his mind tried to think about how the only thing left was installation of the carpeting, but all he could think about was what had happened with Jennifer ... and the repercussions when, somehow, Mindy had just known what had happened. He stared at the ceiling, trying to imagine how his life had come to be so different than what he still remembered his life to be like. His life had been one of solitude, and communion with nature. Suddenly he equated that kind of life with that of a monk of some kind. He grinned. He’d never thought of his reclusive behavior as monkish before.

Some of the individual events that had changed things were easy to recall. The tree falling on him ... the kids all over his property, partying like they had been invited ... seeing Jennifer’s shifting, insubstantial form through the surface of the water as he realized he was drowning, and couldn’t do anything about it.

But there were other things he knew were just as important, or had just as big an impact, and he could remember only bits and pieces. Seeing the burned out pile of ashes that had been his home was like that. It flickered in his mind like a picture someone was trying to project on a screen, but there were technical difficulties. Oddly, it was like that with the first time Mindy had made love with him. He remembered the darkness, and her sweet scent. He saw in his mind’s eye one pale breast, with its dark nipple. The incredible ecstasy of that first orgasm with his manhood buried in hot flesh still had the capacity to stiffen him almost instantly, and did so now.

But the rest of that night was only a blur.

Of course there had been other nights, and he could remember them quite well, whether they were in Mindy’s bed, or her daughter’s. And what had happened only hours before was still bright in his mind, and only served to stiffen him even more as he remembered Jennifer’s arms and voice, begging him to continue loving her.

But those memories just didn’t jive with his self-image, which was still that lonely man, who walked the woods, ever vigilant, ready to defend against...

What? What had he been protecting himself from?

It wasn’t high school kids who wanted to have a sex, drugs and rock and roll party. And he hadn’t imagined anyone burning him out. He hadn’t even expected anyone to confront him in an almost xenophobic attitude, proclaiming him to be a homeless vagrant.

So what had he been trying to avoid? What had he been hiding from?

He remembered his family and friends, back “home.” He remembered the uncomfortable and wary looks. He had known, even then, that those people just didn’t know what to say ... how to act. He had thought they were stupid for thinking they had to act any different than they ever had.

Mindy walked into the bedroom, and he rolled his head to look at her. She smiled. It wasn’t a special smile. She just smiled at him, like she was glad to see him. It was the same smile he saw on her face half a dozen times a day. It was just like Jennifer’s smile, when she saw him during the day.

And in that instant, the epiphany that burst into his mind stunned him so much that he almost had an episode. He could feel his body begin to move toward that catatonic state it retreated to, thinking that gave him protection.

But for the first time, he used a mental hand to push that away, somehow, dragging in a deep, ragged breath.

He hadn’t been running away from anything by moving to Scarecrow Valley.

He’d been seeking something ... something that would help him make sense of the insanity the world had pummeled him with.

The woman pregnant with his baby casually removed her shirt, exposing her full, firm, milk-filled breasts, and the smooth, impossibly stretched skin that protected the baby inside. She looked at his astonished face, and tilted her head, quizzically. At that instant, a foot, or perhaps an elbow, moved across her belly, pushing outwards, suggesting the baby was cramped, and trying to get comfortable. The smooth skin was disrupted, but only for a few seconds. Then her belly went back to simply being the promise of new, innocent life.

He felt the tears gathering in his eyes as he realized all that had happened to him in the war was simply the distortion of the goodness in life ... just a temporary twisting of the path his particular life was laying out for him. Even now, though, that path was leveling a bit, straightening a little.

His eyes closed, as if he were blinking slowly, but then they stayed closed as his mind served him up an image of trail’s end ... or at least an oasis on the journey ... where there stood two women, waiting for him.

The energy that had gathered to seize his muscles, and lock him away from the world was redirected, somehow, and just as suddenly as one of his seizures would have gripped him, all that energy was released in a sob of joy as Bobby Higginbotham realized his journey through the Valley of the Shadow of Death was finally at an end.

Mindy had seen Bobby’s penis, rigid and leaning drunkenly, as she entered the room. Like any woman, she assumed that erection was in anticipation of her arrival ... and for her. It had thrilled her like it always thrilled her when Bobby wanted her like that. Some part of her mind saw it as tribute to her ... and rightly so.

But then she saw the signs as Bobby’s body started to seize. She had no idea what had tripped the episode, but she could worry about that later.

“Jennifer!” she yelled, calling for the other person who could help calm Bobby in this situation.

The girl, who like her mother, had been undressing, getting ready to get into bed, came running. All she had on was panties.

Bobby was smothered in naked flesh, their hands stroking any part of his body they could reach, by the time he could tell them he was fine.

“What happened?” asked Mindy, whose hand had come to rest on his flat stomach, just where his pubic hairs started to manifest.

“I’m not sure,” he said, blinking away the extra moisture in his eyes. His hand slid along Jennifer’s back, to her smooth bottom. He could feel her hot breath on his ear. “I was thinking about things, and I think I started to have an episode. But this time I was able to push it back. And I realized something, and it made me cry.”

“What?” asked both women, still pressed against him.

“I found you,” he said, looking from one to the other.

“What?” Mindy leaned back.

“You,” he said again, looking back and forth. “Both of you. My life got messed up, and I lost my way. Then I found you. You were what I needed to get back on track.”

“Well duh,” said Jennifer, kissing his jaw. “I knew that.”

Mindy stared at her daughter.

Jennifer raised her eyebrows. “We belong together,” she said. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“All of us,” said Mindy, as the reality of her future - a future the rest of the world would say was insane - finally settled on her like a blanket.

“Of course all of us,” said Jennifer. “Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?”

The mind is an amazing kind of computer, that can crunch a lot of data very quickly. That’s what happened in Mindy’s computer.

That blanket had, for a few instants, had the capacity to become huge, dark, and suffocating. She was well aware of how completely unconventional the relationship being suggested was. She had grappled with jealousy. She knew Jennifer had too. She knew there would be rough times ahead ... arguments ... misunderstandings ... spats. She knew her relationship with Jennifer would be complicated far beyond the kind of complicated relationships most mothers had with their daughters. In short, she knew it wouldn’t be as simple as Jennifer’s comments suggested.

But she also knew that she loved Bobby. That Jennifer loved him too, even though she had no real idea of what love might demand of her. She knew he loved them both, and in a way that was intended to nurture them both, rather than garner special privileges for him. He wasn’t just getting what he could get. He was giving all he could give.

As odd as her whole world had become, Mindy Franks also realized her life was better than it had ever been.

And the future looked even better.

The blanket settled lightly over her, warm and welcome, as her fingers slid slowly through his soft, fluffy pubes, and lightly grasped his tribute to her.

To them.

She was amazed that sharing that stiff column of flesh with her daughter no longer seemed odd at all.

That was the first night they all slept in the same bed.

Mindy would remember that night her entire life. As tumultuous as her life had become, as many odd and even unbelievable changes as she had accepted, none seemed quite as life-changing as lying next to her lover while said lover made love to her daughter. What she saw being shared was so genuine, and so beautiful, all traces of jealousy fled her as if it were smoke pushed by a hurricane. He had turned his face to kiss her as he rocked slowly, bringing both his lovers into the act, and Jennifer cooed, panting about how wonderful it was. She knew how wonderful it was ... and for the first time she was happy Jennifer could feel the same thing.

At some point, as her hand slid over his back and buttocks, as his penis slithered in and out of her daughter’s vagina, Mindy realized that that penis was bare, and would, again, spurt into Jennifer’s unprotected belly. But the purity of what was happening, the incredible astonishment of being able to share in her daughter’s ecstasy, as almost no mother ever got to, was so overpowering that she didn’t say anything, or demand they stop.

It was surreal. It was like some kind of amazing dream she didn’t want to wake up from. The baby moved in her womb, as if it, too, was participating somehow in this exchange of love. When Jennifer’s sweating face turned toward her, and she said “I love you, Mom. Thank you so much for giving me this,” Mindy almost had an orgasm. It seemed so, anyway, as she felt, and resisted, the urge to rub her own itchy pudendum. When Bobby groaned “I love you, Jennifer,” it almost happened again, and the urge was so much that she rolled backwards, in preparation for rubbing herself to get relief.

Then, even as Bobby pulled his white-streaked manhood from Jennifer’s sperm-filled pussy, he moved over between Mindy’s legs and lifted her hips, effortlessly pulling her bottom off the sheet, until he could dip his still stiff organ between her pregnant pussy lips. She groaned as he slid into her and pulled, sitting back on his calves. There, with her belly elevated, and her pussy firmly impaled on the penis that had caused that bulging belly, he reached with one hand and his thumb rubbed her clitty until she squealed and spasmed.

The other hand smoothed over the stretched skin of her abdomen, and their baby moved under it, as if it knew its father was touching it.

It was, in fact, a night none of them would ever forget.

As perfect and intimate as the sharing had been, it was still an enormous change in the status quo of the three people who had been drawn so inexorably together. Change like that is difficult to simply discuss, and when they woke, all three of them felt the need to reflect on things, rather than talk about them.