90: Understanding

I was surprised that it didn't make headlines. There hadn't even been a mention of it in the news until Tuesday. I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been hanging around the break area when the local news writers came in.

"Why aren't they giving us more information about this?"

"They say it relates to an on-going investigation and that the facts are just too bizarre to report at the moment."

"How do you get an accidental suicide?"

"Do you think we should put our own investigative crew on it?"

"We'd have to get independent sources. The police haven't even released the identity of the body yet."

"We'll report it the way they've given it, then. But let's keep an open file on this one. Sounds like it could be more than they've let on."

That was all of the conversation I caught. It sent shivers down my spine. The news blurb was repeated almost verbatim in the two local newspapers the next day.

Police are investigating what they refer to as the accidental suicide of a Mishawaka man this weekend. Details and the identity of the victim have not been released pending notification of the man's relatives. Police say the body was discovered in Grasslawn Cemetery on Saturday. We'll let you know the details as they are released.

We didn't hear anything else about it that week. It was like there was an event that was lost in the universe somewhere and would never be heard of again. Accidental suicide. So that's what they call it when you choke to death on your own prick.

Miss Polly: Good morning, Rose. It's so nice to have you back with Brian this morning.

Rose: Thank you, Miss Polly. It's always nice to be with Brian. She smiled a megawatt smile at me and I was pretty sure the cameras were zoomed in on her.

Miss P: We celebrated your seventeenth birthday on our Christmas special. What are we celebrating this week?

Me: We're celebrating the best foods of summer, Miss Polly. [I'd donned my chef's hat and jacket complete with the neckerchief.]

Rose: Did you know that Brian and I had our first date at the St. Joseph County 4-H Fair the week that you met him?

Miss P: And you got to be girlfriend number... ?

Rose: We've decided that I was officially number one that week. I was there on Sunday and he didn't have all five until after the 4-H rodeo on Thursday.

Miss P: Well, what are we fixing?

Rose: My favorite fair-food as of that day. It was the first time Brian fed me an elephant ear.

Miss P: Brian, we've all seen elephant ears at the fair. I thought you needed special equipment.

Me: Well, for the traditional huge ears that you get at the fair, you need a pretty big deep fat fryer. But you can make miniature fried dough in your own kitchen with a minimum of effort. And I guarantee they are just as good.

Miss Polly remembered to let me do my traditional sign-off after the segment. Harvey had emphasized that the 'Young Cooking' should look as much like what we'd established during the first half of the year as possible. He even paid Rose her fifty dollars, even though my participation was included in my contract as Miss Polly's assistant for the summer. I found out, though, that Harvey was planning a compilation of 'Young Cooking' video tapes on which I would receive a royalty. That was cool.

It was even better when Miss Polly left at noon and Harvey came by and told me to take the rest of the weekend off because I'd have to work a half day on the Holiday next week. Rose was thrilled that I'd have the rest of the day to spend with her and she didn't have to wait until three o'clock for me to get off work.

"What would you like to do, sweetheart?" I asked as we left the studio.

"I'm getting awfully close to calling your house and telling those Kokomo girls to vacate the premises because I'm going to make love to my man," she sighed. "But I know you have already had one new experience this week and I'm not going to be second." How did she know I'd had a new experience? Oh yeah. She was a girl. They talk. All the time. "I want to run away with you and cuddle. Take me to my house and we'll get the boat."

Hmm. I'd written her a story about that once, but she'd already told me today wasn't the day. And the boat was nothing like I'd written about in my story.

"You made it sound like a luxury yacht," she laughed when I actually saw the little pontoon boat. It only had one fixed seat at the wheel and a little canopy over the back to keep the driver out of the sun. It was an open railing around an aluminum deck with a few folding lawn chairs.

"It doesn't quite look like the nice comfortable and private deck that I'd imagined," I said. "But you never actually showed it to me before. All I had to go on was other people's descriptions."

"Well, it is fun. Mostly, we girls just take it out and sunbathe when we find a nice spot. We can only go down river about half a mile before we hit the dam area that you can't go into. We can go almost all the way to Elkhart upstream, though."

"It's too bad we can't go into Mishawaka to watch the fireworks on the Fourth." The pontoon boat offered absolutely no privacy, but Rose anchored in a little cove at about the county line and wiggled herself into my lap on one of the reclining lawn chairs. Apparently that was where all the girls laid out since the deck was both hard and got hot in the sun. With Rose in her bikini and me in shorts, we had a lot of very sweaty, slippery skin touching each other. Tomorrow was the first of July and the weather was heating up like it would be a scorcher of a summer. Rose gave me a long and easy kiss as I held her in my lap.

"Rose, honey? I feel bad that you think you are competing with the other girls. I want us to be special. Do you want me to be exclusive with you? I love you like crazy." Rose looked at me with such surprise that she burst out in tears. I wasn't sure how to interpret them—girls cry over almost anything—so I just held her to me until she'd cried herself out.

"You'd do that, wouldn't you?" she whispered at last. "That makes me feel so special, Brian."

"Rose, you are special. Some days I think this group thing—as much as I love all our girlfriends—is too much. We'll never make it work and we should stop before people get hurt."

"And do you think that becoming exclusive with me wouldn't hurt Whitney and Samantha and Jennifer and Courtney and Liz and Sora and Brenda and... ?"

"Okay. I understand. There's no way to change what we have without people getting hurt. Still..."

"Brian do you love all of us?"

"Yes."

"Do you love each of us?"

"Yes, Rose. I love each of our girlfriends."

"Do you love me?"

"There's no question about that in my mind. I love you."

"Then that's all I'm asking. My time is coming. Soon. I know that when we make love, I'll be the only person you are thinking of. You won't be regretting losing someone else in order to be with me. You won't be wishing you were with someone else. I'm absolutely loving being your girlfriend, Brian. Especially since I was the first one."

"As I recall it, you told me that day that you couldn't be my girlfriend."

"I said I couldn't be your exclusive girlfriend. That still goes."

The afternoon got really hot on the water and we decided to take the boat in before we burned to a crisp.

I had to work all morning on the Fourth of July with a parade of guests who all had to say how much they loved America and did their patriotic best to keep a clean house or some such nonsense. I'm patriotic, too, but that doesn't involve being blind and stupid about what is going on in the world. We aren't perfect and keeping a clean house doesn't make the country perfect. I got through the morning, handling all the set clean-up myself as both Miss Polly and Harvey took off as soon as the show was over. Of course, it would be my ass on the line tomorrow morning if everything wasn't ready to set by seven-thirty tomorrow morning.

I got home about one o'clock and just wanted to go take a nap. The girls all wanted to go swimming. Nap? Or play in the water with half a dozen bikini-clad teenagers? I grabbed my trunks and we loaded an ice chest with pop and sandwich makings. We stopped at the IGA to pick up chips and headed to Crystal Lake. It was a holiday and the beach was crowded. We still managed to stake out a small area where our group continued to gather. By four o'clock, nearly everyone was there. I recognized a bunch of kids from our school who had staked out another portion of the beach. The guys were playing Frisbee and the girls just laid in the sun. What a difference from when our crew hit the beach or the pool. Nobody stayed on the sand. We were all in the water and playing all our usual games. Not the least of which was loving all over each other.

"Why do you guys always have so much fun?"

I looked up to find Robyn Koontz in the water next to me. Brenda slid off my back and gave me a kiss.

"Later, baby," she said and winked at Robyn.

"We like to have fun," I said. "Would you like to join us?" She glanced over at the girls on the beach. The guys had disappeared.

"What do I have to do?" she whispered.

"We're playing chicken. You climb up on my shoulders and we attack other couples and try to pull them or push them into the water. If we get dunked, the other pair gets to decide if they want to switch partners."

"So I could end up on any guy's shoulders?"

"Or any girl's. Or if you are bigger than her, a girl might want to ride on your shoulders."

"They won't, like, grab my tits, will they?"

"Not intentionally. We try to keep the games pretty PG when there are others around."

"Okay."

"Climb aboard." In a couple seconds, Robyn was on my shoulders and we were engaging Doug and Cassie. It was a stalemate until Louise came charging in on Lionel's shoulders and all four of us went down. Lionel claimed Cassie. Louise claimed me. Robyn slid away from me, with a worried look on her face.

"Hi. I'm Doug. I've been in your class for about ten years. It's nice to meet you, Robyn."

"Is this okay?" she asked.

"Depends," Doug answered. "You want on my shoulders, or do you want me on yours?"

"Um, I'll ride, thanks." Just that fast, Robyn was on Doug and we were all attacking Sugar and Rose. I kept glancing toward Robyn and she looked like she was really having fun. The next time I looked, Sora was on her shoulders. We'd done a lot of switching around and Sam had her silky legs wrapped around me in her favorite position. Her left leg was down my front, her butt on my shoulders, and her right leg wrapped around my face with my mouth at the back of her knee. Samantha turned me toward deeper water and then slid around to my front and slowly slid down my torso.

"Will you kiss me, boyfriend?" I was more than happy and Samantha pulled one of my hands down between her legs. "Touch me, lover. I'm ready for you. I mean I'm ready, Brian. Not here in the lake, but I want you. I want you to make love to me. Is that okay? Is it okay to want you to be my lover?"

"Samantha, you know how much I love you. Are you okay with it? I know how much you miss Rhonda."

"As much as you do," she answered. "I'm not going to wait for happiness when it is right here in my hand." She squeezed my cock.

"Let's go out this weekend—just the two of us—and plan when and where we are going to make love, cutie. I want to look into your eyes when you tell me exactly when you want to make love to me and give me your explicit permission to put my Jack in your little Jill."

"Oh yes. I'll miss you tonight, lover."

"Miss me?"

"You're going to be busy. The three of us who basically live at your house are spending the night with Rose. We all have plans to make."

Hmm. I wondered who was going to be at my house.

When the party broke up at the lake, it looked like I was going home alone. Robyn came by to give me a hug and said that she'd caught a ride home with Sora and Geoff. The group she'd come with had just left her when she started playing with us. She didn't care. I picked up my things to go to the car and Brenda linked her arm in mine.

"Brian, I need you. Tonight. Will you make love to me tonight? Please."

"Brenda? Isn't this kind of sudden?"

"Maybe a little. Here come Carl and Louise."

"Hey man. Can we come to your place for a while?" Carl asked.

"You know I'd never keep you away. You guys are all in on this, aren't you?"

"You'd better believe it," Louise said. "Would it be really bad form if we all spent the night?"

"You're part of our ... household," Carl said. "We agreed that we weren't keeping anything from you. We three broke the barrier this weekend."

"You mean you all three had sex?"

"And it was great," Louise said. "Did you know they waited for me? I didn't turn seventeen until the day school got out. Did you know that? Brenda and Carl could have had sex back in November, but they waited for me. Then they spent three beautiful weeks pouring all their affection and love out on me. And then this weekend, they made love—no, we made love together. I love these two people with all my heart."

"I think that's wonderful, Louise. I can't imagine you wanting to be anyplace but with them now. You too, Brenda. Why do you want to be with me tonight?"

"I've always wanted to be with you, Brian. You know that. And Carl and Louise agreed."

"And it's not an agreement that we grudgingly give," Carl added. "This is really who we are. I want Brenda to be happy and she will be happy if you make love to her."

"I'm already happy, lover," Brenda said, kissing Carl. "It's more like it will be complete."

"It makes no difference, darling. We've known all year that it would happen. That's why we're here, Brian."

"We don't want to wait too long. We don't want to get into the feeling that we have what we have and we can't have more," Louise said. "I want my pretty Brenda to love the ones she loves. We have our own unwritten rules."

"Louise has a one-cock rule. The only one she wants is Carl's."

"For the time being, I'm kind of one-pussy, too," Louise laughed. "I only want Brenda's. But I know that could change."

"For me, I want both you and Carl and Louise. And maybe Rose if she's willing. We do so much together. But I want you to be part of us from the beginning. I don't want to establish the three of us and then add you in sometime later. Brian, do you still love me?"

"You know I do, Brenda."

"Then can we three spend the night with you? Understanding that Louise and Carl will be with us, but you and I will be together tonight. Really together," Brenda said.

"Louise, I've really gotten to know you and I like you a lot," I said. "Carl, you've been one of my best friends for years. I'm asking the two of you. May I have your explicit permission to make love to your girlfriend Brenda?"

"Hell, yes. That's what we've been saying!" Carl laughed.

"Make her very happy, okay?" Louise added.

"Brenda, may I make love to you tonight?"

"Yes, Brian. May my girlfriend Louise and my boyfriend Carl stay with us?"

"Anything you want, sweetheart."

Well, it was still awkward. A little. We all took showers to rinse the lake off of us. Brenda and Louise showered together, but Carl and I elected to shower separately. Still, when we were done, none of us was wearing more than a towel and those didn't stay attached for long.

No matter what I thought about Brenda's motives, it was soon apparent that she wasn't there to tease Carl and Louise or to switch back and forth between us. Carl and Louise made love on the bed next to us but Brenda and I were focused on each other, the way lovers should be.