Out of the Burlap Ch. 04 & Conclusion

Annie grinned, loving to say, "Well fucked." She got more serious. "Joe looks different too, kind of like you do."

Consuela nodded and smiled though her eyes shimmered with unshed tears. "I'll tell you later," she said.

"Okay," Annie said submissively.

"I should work on teaching Joe bass before Barb gets here."

"But I thought..." Annie grinned shyly. "Never mind."

"Yeah, lessons got interrupted." Walking back to the kitchen, the more casual and usual place to eat in the house, Consuela said to Joe, "Time for more chalk squealing before Barb gets here and we rehearse."

Both she and Joe shivered and chuckled. Getting up from the table and hugging her, he said, "It's your ears being tortured. I barely notice." Hand in hand they left the kitchen and went downstairs.

"What's going on?' asked Steve.

"We're now a quartet," Carol explained to her brother.

"Hunh?"

"Connie's joining us in our bed from now on," said Maya definitively.

"Oh. Barb's not going to like that."

"She'll get over it," said Maya. "What about you?"

"She's lovely, but I don't think she was ever interested. I thought she was gay."

"Nope," said Maya and Annie simultaneously.

"Definitely not," Carol smiled.

Conclusion

Two decades passed. Additions and subtractions happened to the foursome. The major subtraction occurred a little over a year after Consuela joined the others in their bed and their hearts. Three definitely proved to be stronger than four as Consuela had predicted.

During Carol's first business trip, the beginning of her peripatetic life that followed in her father's footsteps, she fell in love with a charming Spaniard with a thick body and cock. The others got to know that cock, albeit briefly, when it fucked Consuela ("I need one last cock I can trust to sweep away the rest of that rape," Consuela admitted. "We understand," said Joe, though Maya was more reluctant to accept it.) and it joined in double penetrating Carol, Joe fucking her ass. A one time thing because Consuela only needed it once and Joe ended up getting tight and uncomfortable during the double penetration.

But that burlap tightening ended up being a revelation. His cock remained stiff as he brought his two lovers to the shower, leaving Carol alone being fucked by her new husband. Also Joe's arms remained loving when they embraced Consuela as Maya knelt at their feet cleaning the dirt off his cock. Neither the embrace nor the cock remaining stiff had happened before. "And those burlap moments have gotten rare as well," said Consuela.

"Thanks to you, my love," Joe said, his grin much less tight.

"My pleasure," said Consuela proudly.

"Hey, it's my turn to be pleasured," said Maya, as usual getting the last word in. Her lovers abided her needs most intensely on the bed in Joe's office, Carol tearfully watching the final straw of her loss of them from the doorway to the bathroom; her sweet new man, her brand new husband, comforting her.

Additions included three daughters and a son. One daughter, her only child, came from Maya's womb, while the son and twin daughters emerged from Consuela.

Plans for these children entering their lives occurred at the aftermath of the wedding of Carol and her Spaniard (only a month engagement because both gaining dual citizenship from it, both involved in international commerce, rushed it) which occurred in the romantic setting of a small Mediterranean coastal town near Barcelona. The newly reduced threesome discussed the future of their relationship in the privacy of their lovely Barcelona hotel room. That discussion surprised Joe, but pleasantly.

"I marry you first," said Maya while Joe fucked Consuela the morning after the wedding. "We conceive on our honeymoon like a good bride and groom. Nine months later: a baby."

"A couple years later," Consuela muttered, barely able to talk as she gently rode her lover, "you divorce Maya and marry me. Honeymoon. Conception. Baby nine months later. All legitimate."

The idea thrilled Joe more than he would have thought, and the fuck became hard and intense resulting in an earth shaking climax that followed Consuela's by seconds.

"You want just one baby?" he asked Maya once his breath had recovered.

"I figure with you conceiving it, the fetus will be a monster and they'll probably have to rip me open to get it out what with your big head and everything."

"Ew," said Consuela.

"So?" asked Maya.

"I'd love to get you two fat with babies," Joe grinned. "I can't imagine anything more beautiful. I just hope they're daughters because I want them as beautiful as you two and sons aren't supposed to be."

"Your sons would be," said Consuela before kissing him softly but deeply.

"Hey slut, give me some of that sugar." As usual, the old joke remained and Maya kissed Consuela first, thoroughly, before thoroughly kissing her man, the future collaborator for her baby's creation.

The Barcelona wedding also brought, through Carol's daddy's deep pockets, exposure to Europe of both EQ, Consuela's quartet, and Mad Jest, Joe and Maya's band (the band name coming from riffing on the two song collaborator's initials). Connections through Carol's new in laws and through Carol's insistence had wedding guests able to create European tours for both groups even with the caveat Joe insisted on that a mini tour be created with both bands and Randy's Nordeast Dance Company combined. This odd combination had already been tested quite successfully in the Midwest, including Chicago and, most conspicuously at the famed First Avenue in Minneapolis where a rave review appeared in avant garde British music magazine, Wire.

Joe's negotiating and promotional skills had proven remarkable several times and only improved. While considering himself only a high school graduate and a lowly record store clerk who somehow managed to fool two incredible ladies into falling in love with him and even marrying him, his ladies knew better. Randy actually did as well, since Joe had been the one to insist he start the dance company and essentially wrote the grants to cover costs as well as coming up with promotional strategies that ended up bringing the small dance troupe into cultural consciousness. And the weird juxtaposition of art rock band and string quartet (actually more than strings since all members could play various instruments, including Consuela playing a virtuoso tenor saxophone) and modern dance enhanced all three groups' fan base immeasurably. And Joe had actually gotten Consuela and another of her quartet genius grants (or, as Consuela often remarked with awe, "A fucking genius grant!"). He got both groups decent label contracts that led to fair profits, actually substantial compared to others at their levels of fame again thanks to him and his brilliant promotional schemes. His connections via the record store to get great distribution helped immensely as well. It didn't hurt the profit that they turned the basement practice space into a recording studio through Annie's expert knowledge of electronics and acoustics and software.

The success of the groups sustained over the long haul. Their unprecedented longevity made them all legendary. Joe added to their resilience as far as Mad Jest went a few years into their longevity by encouraging the others of the group to compose their own songs making them feel less like underlings to Maya. She actually resisted losing leadership until she could see the excitement in both Barb's and Annie's eyes when they brought forth their first composition. Not surprising, Annie's music was brilliant. Barb's lyrics were far less. She had an interesting, sort of vulnerable voice. Maya liked it and wanted it as part of the group. But the lyrics...

"Don't take this the wrong way, Barb," Maya told her, "but I think you need Joe to help you with the words."

"That bad, hunh?" Barb moaned.

"Just a nudge here and there," Joe smiled. "Not enough to lose writing credit."

"I'll share the credit," Barb said.

Maya sensed her reluctance, and Joe nodded his own awareness of it. "These are yours and Annie's songs no matter what," she told the cute blonde drummer and smiled at the sigh of relief.

Both Joe and Maya encouraged Consuela to try writing rock as well.

"Okay," she said and bounced out of bed, hiding nakedness with a long terrycloth robe she'd stolen from one of the fancier hotels they'd stayed at, and ran out of the room. A minute later she bounced on the bed between them with pages of music paper in her hand. What surprised Maya and Joe were the lyrics written below the musical notations, even more when they heard them from Consuela's mouth, sung weakly but in perfect pitch. Dark and rich imagery resonated from those words. Lovely dark images.

The surprise from her two lovers came from Consuela having always used Joe's words exclusively in vocal pieces and especially the oratorio gleaned from the piece that Joe had originally shown Maya with the long Doors like spiritual poem embedded in it. Maya had rejected it. But Consuela, when Joe showed it to her, the first lyrics he had shown her directly, loved it. While she read it, Joe could swear he could see her mind working, the sinuous shifting strings already accompanying the words in her imagination, and it thrilled him. The result ended up being the key piece that brought her the genius grant.

"Why have you always used my words?" Joe asked her when she'd finished. "Yours are better."

"Not better, Joe," Maya insisted. "Just different."

"They're beautiful," Joe emphasized. "So why?"

Consuela blushed. "I can't sing worth shit. I...I knew I'd have to sing them to get the tune right...to present them right. It's hard for me to sing. I had to at MacPhail several times and it just made me want to disappear."

"But it's us," Joe reminded her.

"I know. It's just hard and we have all those cool songs already."

"So you thought you'd shame me?" Joe asked.

"No. First I don't know if they're all that good. Second I do love your words, Joe. Third, it takes me forever to compose songs like this, in a rock setting, so I could never be prolific enough."

"So why now?" Maya asked her.

"Barb. She's got this vulnerable voice so different than yours, Maya. I know you like it, and I like it too, but she's nearly as self conscious as me. It took all her bravery to sing to you, especially with those shitty lyrics." The three laughed. "So she shamed me into singing for you."

"I'm glad she did," said Joe, kissing his beautiful Indian wife.

"I'll take those," said Maya, saving the pages from being crumpled between the passionate bodies of her lovers.

"Of course," Consuela chuckled between kisses. "They're all yours."

Maya threw on a nightie and dashed out of the room.

"She liked it that much?" asked Consuela between even more passionate kisses. Both knew their lover would be working all night on the arrangement the way Maya always did when a song thrilled her. Both could see the familiar excitement on her face.

"It's absolutely lovely," Joe told his wife. "Just like you."

And they made long, slow, passionate love while their lover spent most of the night arranging the newest Mad Jest song, even calling Annie, used to late night calls from her, to help.

Annie had moved out of the house with Barb and Steve after Consuela gave birth to twin daughters to make room for them. More importantly the Annie/Steve/Barb threesome needed room for their own babies, since both she and Barb had given birth to a son and daughter respectively. But the house they bought—again mostly through Steve's and Carol's father's help in cosigning the loan for the mortgage and the rebuilding of the interior using Steve's design--ended up only a couple blocks away. Another saving of a house devastated by students kept the mortgage low. With Steve moving up in the architecture firm that hired him straight out of MCAD, they could definitely afford it. Like Joe had with his children, Barb's child at least had become legitimate via marriage. Not really a big deal in this day and age, they figured it would be best for the kids. And just like Joe and his lovers, Steve getting married to Barb was an easy decision. He just wished he could marry Annie. Their love had eventually overcome any queasiness Annie had for the opposite sex, though she never could stomach blow jobs. The legit couple adopted Annie's son.

Joe's kids grew up bright and sensitive and gorgeous, especially the identical twins and Consuela's son. Something about the mix of Joe's and her genes just worked. With lots of aunties and at least one extra uncle, they were well loved.

Of all of the adult females, Barb proved to be the most maternal, which surprised her as much as anyone.

"Of course you are," Annie said, embracing her lover. "You've always been sweet and innocent despite everything. You can relate."

"Fuck you," Barb grinned, kissing her lover.

And Joe proved to be a brilliant father even if he didn't see it that way.

"Such incredible young ladies," he sniffled when his sixteen year old daughters walked off stage, viola in one of their lovely naturally tan hands, the other twin holding her violin. They had soared with their instruments earlier, even managing their own mother's difficult music. And when they looked up from their final bow during the standing ovation, they both seemed to zero in on him and his tear covered face and smiled and made kissy faces.

"Of course they are," said Consuela. "They're your daughters."

"It must be because they're yours too. They'd be shy and retiring if they were just mine."

His lovers exchanged looks in front of his still lean torso as they settled into their seats, letting the rest of the audience gather their stuff and leave.

"Joe," said Maya, looking older than her lovers yet still lovely and vibrant. She'd just passed fifty and entered it gracefully. "You're thinking of your burlap condition."

Joe nodded.

Consuela, who had thickened and broadened, most appealingly to her lovers but not to her, Maya having kept all of them in shape insistently enabled the broadening to be much firmer than the usual middle aged matron, told him, "How long since it's affected you?"

"I...I don't remember," he half grinned in surprise.

"And how often did it occur when in your kids' presence?"

"I don't think it ever did since the beginning."

"And why do you suppose that is?" asked Maya.

"I don't know. I thought it would, knowing nothing about fatherhood. It was like taking a big step into an abyss. Such steps had always been tentative to say the least."

"You've been a beautiful father," said Consuela. "Why?"

"Research?"

His lovers laughed. "I remember you reading those books," said Maya. "Proper Raising and all that. You'd practically spit at their ideas when you weren't getting dazed with thought and unable to read. Research? Contemplation I'd call it."

"You're a careful man, Joe," Consuela chimed in. "Careful to the point of fear. But the big steps, becoming our lover, becoming their father, you took more gracefully than any dance step. Careful yes, but thoughtful as well. And thoughtful is your domain. I told you you were the genius in the family."

He snorted. "You got the genius grant."

"No, darling. You got me the grant. I have the talent, yes, but you got me the grant. But the burlap thing that I helped you conquer and Maya and Carol did too, it's what really makes you a beautiful father."

"How so?"

"You completely understand the bedevilment of restraint and how much better it is to crash on through, through missteps and mistakes to proud accomplishments and successes. You dissolved any hint of burlap that might threaten the well being of your daughters or son or even Steve's kids. You worked with them as if they were equals, not children in relationship to your adult."

"The fear was there," Joe spoke quietly and contemplatively, "terror actually. It had a sound, a horrid squeal. When we brought Celeste home from the hospital it was like the walls of the house echoed with those squeals as they closed in on me. You two were focused on our first child in her crib while I escaped to my private room completely encased in burlap. I thought I'd go mad because this was the beginning of many years needing to protect that fragile, beautiful thing. I could barely breathe."

"I never noticed," said a shocked Consuela.

"Me neither," Maya swallowed.

The half smile and the quiet chuckle surprised them. "I got over it," he told them.

"How?" asked Consuela.

"I guess by fixing it. By fixing every threat with a solution. I wanted the best intercom system to hear every breath she would take or if she stopped breathing I would hear that. I envisioned the gate at the top of the stairs that protected her from falling. I saw strong arms carrying her so that she could never fall from them. Arms of all of us, including Annie and Barb and Steve who I could see fell in love with our first little angel almost as much as we had. I even saw us as tasters assuring whatever we fed her wouldn't threaten her health. And then I saw all of us, all of our individual exceptionalness being expressed to her and her gleaning so much from it and becoming so strong mentally. I saw her take her first step, her first bicycle ride, her first kiss, even her first fuck, and saw a wisdom there given to her from all of us who loved her which would make her brave and adventurous and yet with a caution brought forth from precocious wisdom. I saw her eyes full of tears coming to us with her hurt and letting us help her through it, whether patching up a skinned knee or a broken heart. Each problem I envisioned arrived with a pig's squeal. Each solution silenced it. Until squealing ended and I heard the murmurs in our room of you two loving Celeste."

Consuela chuckled, "I remember now. That's when you brought us the 'Laws of Protection'. It amused me until I saw how much those words calmed you. Only then did I realize the significance of protecting a baby, of preventing anything happening to her that happened to Jeffrey and especially if you could ever be the cause of it. I realized how scared you must have been to create those laws, but I didn't see you scared. I didn't know what hell you'd gone through and how much those laws had let you escape it. I'm sorry I wasn't there to help."

"Me too," said Maya. "And I'm afraid I never got the connection. I thought it funny how detailed you were, how Joe it was. And then it ended up being so useful down to the EMT training you insisted on for all of us. Those things made me feel like we'd be so prepared for our little ones that they eased my mind incredibly. But just like Connie, I should have seen your suffering, or at least anticipated it."

Joe shook his head. "No, I had to be alone with the struggle. I had to give it all my concentration. It ended up being the worst of my burlap moments, and the most important. It almost completely freed me of them."

"And that's why you're an exceptional father." said Consuela, accentuating her thought with a kiss, tasting his tears and feeling the emotional heat of his lips, "You had to be for your own soul to heal. More than any other father you had to be."

"So it was selfish," he said, but with a grin.

"We're all selfish," said Maya, getting her own kiss. "No matter how connected we are with others and the world, we're all stuck inside our own consciousness. It's just that your selfishness has a certain large degree of selflessness connected to it. Come on. Let's go dote on our brilliant children."

"Samantha and Phillipa were amazing," said Joe as his ladies held his hands as they walked through the nearly empty auditorium heading backstage.

"They all are, and they're all here congratulating the youngest of our geniuses," Consuela said proudly. "And wondering where their father is."