Chapter 48

"You know Beth would be right in here between us if you had acted the least bit interested, Carl," Colleen was right. We were sweaty, winded, sated, and sleepy. Our wedding night was a non-stop love in, full of moans, groans, whines, and screams. Regina and Colleen seemed to throw all modesty, inhibitions, and personal filters out the window with I-Do, and went at it like wild women.

We stayed at the reception until nearly midnight. The Oak Ridge Boys were incredible. Our guests had the time of their lives and our entertainers found the reception to be so much fun that they played far later than our contract required. When they played one of their signature songs, "If It Weren't For Kids..." I suddenly missed Millie J. and James B. The separation was painful for few minutes and I wondered if I was going to break down and cry, before I convinced myself to buck up and soldier on. Rather than dwell on it to the point of depression I swept Millie into my arms, and carried her to the dance floor, where we rocked out to, "Elvira." When the music ended, Millie gave me one of her effervescent smiles and scampered off to dance one more time with Jim.

At an appropriate time we quietly slipped away to the hacienda, where I had hired an interior designer to come in and remake the master wing into a set right out of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. When Colleen saw what I'd done, she screamed, kissed me with her entire body, and did the same to Regina, and the next thing I knew, clothes were flying everywhere. The next five hours were among the most memorable of my life, as the two girls sought to make my every fantasy come to life.

It didn't really work out that way, because my every fantasy was sweating beside me in bed. My ladies were my fantasy. Marriage to a woman that loved me for me was my fantasy, and I got two!

For just a moment I thought about Colleen's pronouncement, then rejected the idea. "I know you're right, my Darling, but Beth Ann made her decision and that freed us up to make ours.

Don't you agree?"

As I immersed myself in Nauru, Beth Ann decided she might be missing out on something important, and began a fling with her current husband, behind my back. It wasn't that I had a claim on her, but I would have felt far better about her choice had Beth Ann had enough respect for me and our relationship to inform me that she was playing the field a little.

After her disastrous marriage to Bruce, who never consulted her on anything, I was surprised that she chose secrecy above honesty. Before she screwed up enough courage to tell me what was going on, she had crossed the barrier that took her away permanently, as far as I was concerned. In one respect, having once held her as my One True Love, her loss hurt, but I could still give her my blessing, hold no grudges, and go on with my life.

Winnie and Jack were a different story. To start – Winnie was open with her feelings. She was all in on me, and claimed to be fine with sharing, but after spending all that time with me in Monaco – just the two of us – she wanted that for a lifestyle. Having Colleen, Rebecca, Regina, and Beth Ann suddenly sharing time with me, she soon longed for monogamy.

That was totally understandable, and it was a bonus that we talked it over at some length before she initiated anything with Jack. They seemed very happy, and Winnie made a wonderful mother. It was sweet watching her breast feed the babies, not minding that I was present, because of our history, and me not interested in starting anything with her, even though she looked sexy with her breasts on display.

We still had love, just not passion, and that confirmed that we both were in the right place with things, and that made it wonderful to continue to co-exist on the island.

Winnie wore off white to the wedding, and she shot me one of her secret smiles when Colleen and Regina arrived at the altar for our vows. That smile was part love, part joy, and the rest of it was pure goodbye. We both knew in that instant, that things would never be like they were before, and that we were both just all right about it.

Rebecca came to the wedding but stayed aloof from me, so I wasn't sure how it was with her. I knew she was struggling with her bi-polar condition, but there was little I could do except hire good people to look after her, and be there when the bottom dropped out, someday. She was haunted from inside, and the ghosts that tormented her never came out into the light so we could do battle with them.

It hurt to see the hurt in her and know I was powerless to help, but I'd been through that once before, even if Rebecca didn't know it, and it ended very painfully. There was no way I wanted to go back and do that again.

Island life became something of an intoxicant. We luxuriated in the consistent warmth. Nauru, at forty-two miles south of the equator, had a consistent year around high of around eighty-six degrees, with a few rainy months in the winter that did not get cold, or even cool, for that matter. Our forays into the ocean were frequent and pleasant. We enjoyed jet skiing, parasailing, learning to surf – badly – and snorkeling.

The equatorial sun slowly tanned us all, with Regina darkening the most. Her skin glowed in a light mahogany that looked marvelously sexy and healthy at the same time. Colleen tended to burn, and to avoid burning and peeling, she tended to use the late afternoon sun for her ocean frolicking.

Jack and his crew were constant companions, as were Edward and his crew. Once Winnie had babies, Jack became a bit more intense about island security. At his passionate insistence, we doubled our home guard and initiated roving patrols that worked the island twenty-four seven. Edward consulted with Jack and the Judge to design an island defense system that included RPG's, GPS guided torpedoes, four anti-aircraft batteries, and some very sneaky, hidden defenses that would result in tremendous discouragement to anyone that attempted to take us on.