93: All's Fair

I woke up at four-thirty with a tear trickling from my eye. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, I love you still, Rhonda. Rose kissed the tear and whispered, "I know, love." She held me tightly and we went back to sleep. Did I say that out loud?

Seven naked girls served Rose and me breakfast in bed. We were surrounded by love. Each of our girlfriends stretched out beside us and kissed us. I took one last opportunity to fondle Cassie and hear her sigh before she gave way to Nicki. Nicki wanted my fingers in her pussy, but I whispered to her that this was my time with Rose. She pouted a little, but then gave a warm kiss to Rose. I wondered if she had poisoned her lips. You just never knew with Nicki.

"You know I'm not leaving you this week," Rose said as she turned to kiss me. A couple of the girls were in the bathroom. Most had gotten dressed and cleaned up the kitchen and back yard. Sam, Jennifer, and Courtney were getting the horses ready for trail rides. Nicki and Liz came to the bed dressed in their leathers.

"It's a gorgeous day," Liz said. "Are you two sure you don't want to come for a ride?"

"Liz, if it was you lying naked beside me and Sam came in and invited us to go out on horseback, what would you want to do?" I laughed. "And what do you think I'd want to do?"

"Well, when you put it that way, I guess there's a lot of difference between hooking up on horseback at say zero-to-five miles an hour and hooking up on a motorcycle at zero-to-seventy. We might want to try it sometime, though." Liz and Nicki laughed, kissed us both goodbye, and ran down the stairs. A few moments later I heard their bikes start up. Cassie and Sora came out of the bathroom in jeans and tennis shoes.

"We're riding double with the girls over to my house," Cassie said. "Sora's going to spend the afternoon with me. Her car's still here, so we might call you up to come and walk us through the dark spooky woods when we come back this evening."

"You might have to hold our hands," Sora said. "I'm scared of dark spooky woods."

"Okay. Let me know. Of course, if Rose and I are busy, we might send the caballeros after you. How's that? Can we have caballeros in our clan to indicate the horse people?" I got hit three times and then got a loving kiss from each of them. We were alone in bed at last. I didn't know for sure when Mom, Dad, and Anna would be back, but I guessed they were enjoying their time without kids around as much as we were enjoying ours without parents. Rose rolled toward me.

"My cónyuge," Rose murmured. "Was it worth the wait, Brian?"

"Rose, my love, how can you even ask? It was sweet torture, but worth every minute, every word, and every phone call."

"And now we know that if we ever have to be apart for some reason, like business or travel with a different hearthmate, we can still have sex by long distance," she laughed.

"How about now? Would you like me to tell you about how I'm going to make love to you, or would you like me to do it?"

Rose spent the night. The girls stayed in their room downstairs. Mom and Dad and Anna gave Rose a hug and just sighed when we went to bed. They didn't check our sleepwear. Which was a good thing since we didn't have any.

In the morning after Rose and I showered together, I went to work and was in a lot better mood than I'd been in the week before. We worked long and hard on the plans for fair week. We had our line-up of guests, including Bill and Crystal coming down for an interview during one of the morning broadcasts. I'd be taking a cameraman named Jess with me to interview the various food vendors. We'd worked on my segment several times since he was kind of a roving cameraman and was often called in on Saturdays to do our filming. When we looked at the exhibitors and vendors lists, we identified nine different booths that would be selling elephant ears. Sunday, I was going to have to acquire a sample from each vendor and decide which one would make the best interview candidate. In a way it would be an endorsement, so I wanted both a good elephant ear and nice people. In addition to that, I wanted to see the girls ride in their events. The Senior Western Pleasure class would be on Thursday and I was hoping to have my interview in the can and be able to get to the arena to see my girls.

When I got home from work, Rose was in the kitchen preparing dinner for the eight of us.

"What are you doing, sweetheart?" I asked as I gave her a kiss.

"You really aren't the only one in the casa who can cook," Rose laughed. "I thought it would help smooth the way for us sleeping together. I invited the other girls to be upstairs with us tonight, by the way."

"Is that wise?"

"The truth is that I'm just a little sore. My pussy has had a lot of use in the past thirty-six hours. I love it, but I'm not really used to it. I just don't want to let my lover out of my sight."

We had dinner and all played a game in the family room before we got ready for bed. Everyone was pretty much on my schedule these days. I was always awake by four-thirty and had to leave for work by six-thirty. Dad left about the same time and Mom was gone by seven. The other women in the house didn't have to leave until late morning for their jobs. Rose said she was running home for some fresh supplies—whatever that meant.

There was no pretense that Sam, Jen, and Court would sleep on the floor. They were all three naked and piled in with us. The hug Sam gave me in bed was almost a death-grip. She held me so tightly that I turned to her and found her sniffling against me.

"Are you okay, Cutie?"

"Do you still love me, Brian? I'm sorry. I'm not jealous, Rose. Honest. I just. You're so beautiful and you've loved Brian for so long and I'm so scared that he won't love me because we haven't made love yet and I got scared and..." I kissed her. Rose reached across me to hug Sam closer to me and Courtney scampered around the bed to sandwich her between us.

"I love you, Samantha. I will always love you."

"When I was with Rhonda, I knew that you would love us both, but I feel so alone sometimes," Sam sobbed.

"Hey, what are we? Chopped liver?" Courtney said, hugging Samantha.

"You and Jennifer are wonderful and I love you," Sam said. "But I'm like a third wheel. You've loved each other forever and I'm just tagging along." Jennifer scrambled over Rose to lie on top of Sam and me so we had her pinned from all sides and the top.

"Samantha! I would never let a third wheel lick my pussy!" Jennifer exclaimed. Well, that was information I didn't have before. My cock sprang up against Samantha of its own accord. She felt it and rubbed against it. "I mean..." Jennifer backpedaled.

"Cat's out of the bag now," Courtney laughed.

"Sounds more like the pussy's out," Rose giggled against my back. She started rubbing against me, too. Jennifer squeaked and I realized that she had a boob right on top of Rose's hand and just got her nipple tweaked.

"I thought I'd be like the first or second to make love to Brian, but then everything fell apart in May and there was Donna and Liz. And then, where did Sora come from? And Brenda? And now Rose and next week is Jennifer and Courtney's turn and by Labor Day Whitney will be back and Elaine wants you. The only ones who aren't likely to make love to you before me are Cassie and Nicolette. And the way Cassie was humping you Saturday night, I'm not so sure about her."

"I know what our novia Samantha needs," Rose said. I wiggled around a bit so I was more on my back. Jennifer was still on top, but more on Sam and Courtney than on me. Rose cuddled against me. She still had a hand trapped between Sam and Jen.

"What does novia Samantha need?" I asked. Somehow, Rose had become the first among equals. I'd noticed it Saturday night and as soon as Samantha, Jen, and Courtney came home on Sunday.

"Novia Samantha needs a wedding." We all caught our breath. A wedding?

"I can't just marry Samantha!" I had a hundred reasons. I'd marry her if we weren't all in this relationship together and if I wasn't hung up on believing Rhonda would one day come back to me and that I wouldn't hurt any of my girlfriends like that, even with Rhonda, and...

"Of course you can't," Rose continued. "Not in the traditional sense. But think about Saturday night, lover. I don't think we realized what was going on exactly, but we had a wedding. And it was so beautiful. All our hearthmates were with us to celebrate becoming a family and every single one of them kissed me and wished me love and joy with you. We didn't get married, but we sure had a wedding."

"Can we?" Samantha whispered.

"I think it's a great idea," Jen said. "We've got our whole thing planned for at the fair. I don't think we'll have a ritual or ceremony, but we're sure going to shack up. We've been planning this for too long to even think about delaying any longer. But think about it, Samantha. You could actually set a date, pick who you want to attend, wear something special, or anything you want, or nothing at all like Rose did. We, your hearthmates, would all be your bridesmaids. I'm getting wet thinking about it."

"I can tell. Your pussy is on my leg. And you can keep sliding up and down like that, love," Samantha giggled. "Brian? Could we have something like a wedding and then I would become your cónyuge? And you would take me to bed after our ceremony and deflower me and make love to me and I would be yours?" I clamped my mouth shut before I responded without thinking. There had been so many little rituals among our group. The whole establishment of the rules and now the casa. Were we putting more meaning on our relationships than they merited? Hell, we were all going to the same college. None of us considered what we had to be temporary. We were in love. I really didn't need Rose to pinch me before I answered.

"Samantha Maria Cortales, will you do me the honor of becoming my cónyuge? Will you set a date and help plan a ceremony that will let all our hearthmates know that you and I are joining together? I love you, Samantha. Please say yes."

"Yes! Rose, I love you! Thank you! I'm so excited. I want to set a date. I love you, Brian. I should have said that first. I love you and I want you. Now I really feel like I'm your novia."

If you want to kill the idea of having sex, start talking about having a wedding. It's not that it's not romantic or a turn-on, but it has a life of its own. It takes all the energy in the room to talk about it, plan it and fantasize about it. We probably talked for a couple hours. Well, they talked and I listened. Occasionally, someone would say "Right, Brian?" and I'd mumble something appropriate. I was getting tired and I had to work in the morning. Even under a pile of naked girls, I finally succumbed and went to sleep.

I woke at my usual time and whispered "I love you" to Rhonda. There was a slight stirring.

"Tell her for me, too," Sam whispered. "She'll hear it if you say it." I hugged her and whispered it again.

Rose had shifted during the night. Jen was on my right and Sam on my left. Courtney was cuddled up against Sam. Rose was lying between my legs. As soon as she knew I was awake, she started moving. She had my morning hard-on trapped between her breasts and proceeded to stroke me until I splattered my seed against her, Samantha and Jennifer. Sam rubbed it into all three of us as Rose slid up my body for a good morning kiss.

"Go get ready for work, honey. I need to snuggle with my hearthmates." I showered and dressed, kissed each of my four lovelies and went downstairs to face the morning, including my parents and Anna.

"I don't like you having to go to work so early in the morning," Anna said. "What happened to fresh bread?"

"It's too hot to turn on the oven, even at this hour of the morning," Mom complained. "I can barely stand to be near the coffeepot."

"Could you stand to be near me, darling?" Anna asked.

"Oh, I'd sweat to be near you," Mom giggled.

"I'm thinking maybe air conditioning before next summer," Dad said. "I'm also thinking I'll have to steal Brian's bread recipe before he leaves for college next year."

"You really want to keep me around?" Anna whimpered.

I'd had a little—well a lot of—experience with kissing two girls at once. I'd never really watched it, though. By the time Dad was finished with Mom and Anna, I was ready to go back upstairs.

I was getting ready for the most stressful week of my life. I don't mean stress like emotional tears. I mean stress like final exams. It was worse than preparing for my night of Chateaubriand at the Tally Ho. Half my time at the studio was being taken up with learning how to work with Jess in the field. Harvey sent us out to a local restaurant to do a report on their Polishfest. Fortunately, the owner was a funny guy who carried the interview. Then we went back to the studio and I learned about cutting and putting the whole three-hour experience into a five-minute clip that would air the next day. I got home at eight-thirty, too tired to eat. I took a shower and Rose joined me to make sure I was really—I mean really!—clean. I flopped into bed and didn't know who slept with us until morning.

And Miss Polly started being a bitch. With Harvey training me to do remote interviews and get the tape cut for segments on the show, I'd let a bunch of things slip on Polly's list. She wanted me on top of what I was supposed to be doing for her, fired, or given my own show, depending on her mood at the moment. I was becoming more and more sure that I didn't want a career in television.

On Sunday, we went to the fair. I mean Jennifer, Courtney, Samantha, Rose, Sora, Liz, Nicki, Cassie, and me. For me, it was work. My hearthmates all helped, though. They helped me sample all eleven elephant ears, for example. I had to talk to the vendors, assess which I thought had the best fried dough, and which was the most personable for a television interview without letting them know that was what I was doing. Thank heavens there were nine of us and eleven elephant ears. Unfortunately, I couldn't just send everyone to a different booth and get an ear. I had to actually talk to the vendor. Then the nine of us sampled the dough, rated it, and moved to the next vendor. We rated the quality of the food and the personality of the vendor.

Finally—after two hours—I went back to the top choice and talked to the vendor about doing an interview for the show. He didn't believe me. Curse of being a teenager. Damn, I wished I had some portable video device I could use to show him I was serious. Fortunately, his wife and two daughters thought it was great. Whether they believed me or not, they wanted to be on television. We finally slated an interview that evening when Jess would show up and we'd actually film the segment. It had to be ready for broadcast on the Monday morning segment. In the meantime, we started on the other foods. There was no question in my mind as to the salt water taffy and Mike was happy to entertain us as he fed each of us bits of his specialty. We agreed to meet him at his booth at ten-thirty Monday morning before the midway really got rolling. And on it went.

All nine of us trooped into our house at ten Sunday night, went through the showers and teeth brushing, and flopped on the air mattresses to go to sleep.

Monday live at the fair went fine with the usual glitches of something not having made the setup truck to go to our broadcast booth. The station had half a dozen people in a constant string running back to the studio to get something. At least one thing they didn't have to get was coffee for Miss Polly. As soon as she walked in I handed her the cup and she scowled at me.

"Don't tell me we didn't bring the mugs," she said as she looked at the Styrofoam container.

"Everything's here and I have your regular coffee ready. This is something new I discovered yesterday. Try it." She still scowled at me but took a tentative sip. Her eyes popped open.

"What is this? I can feel my thighs swelling with every sip. It must have a million calories!" She took another drink. "So yummy."

"It's a latte. I had one in Seattle when I went there last Christmas. The vendor says it's a European import and this company Caribou Coffee is moving in to our area in competition with a company called Starbucks. Apparently it's been around Indy and Fort Wayne for a couple years."

"What's in it?"

"The basic recipe is steamed whole milk and espresso. Espresso is a kind of coffee that is pressed through grounds at high heat and pressure. You only get a shot. This size latte has two shots and steamed milk. They added a squirt of vanilla flavoring and sprinkled nutmeg on top. Sorry I had to put a lid on it. It's really pretty when they make it."

"One. No more and no less. Brian, I want one of these every morning. I understand the Styrofoam cup at the fair, but please make them in a mug for me when we are back at the studio."

"Make them?"

"Of course. You can't go running out to some street vendor every morning. Find out how they make this espresso and steamed milk and get it set up in our kitchen. I assume you plan to interview the vendor this week."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good. What's on our schedule today?"

We got right into the thick of things. In addition to the live show, Miss Polly was a very popular guest for various 4H groups and would be a judge for the fashion show. I had to run out right after the show with Jess to film the interview with Mike and Adelaide Burns at the salt water taffy stand. At the pace I was going, Miss Polly's assistant was going to need an assistant.

"By the way, Brian," Miss Polly said as we were parting to go to our separate events. "That latte thing made up for a lot of faults. Good job."

Well, hell! Was that a compliment?

The entourage arrived Tuesday morning. Of course, I didn't see any of them until nearly five after I'd completed my work for the day and checked the editing for the segment on Caribou Coffee. Jess and I were getting along well and he was doing most of the post-recording work. He'd been out of college two years and was determined to land a full-time job with a network eventually. Harvey and I had to go over everything when it was finished as well. It was pretty cool because the cute girl who made the shots—the barista, I was told—let me get behind the machine and showed me exactly how to make espresso. I wondered how big Miss Polly's budget was for new kitchen equipment.