Third Year After Ch. 01

"You never really got over Tom, did you, sis?" Mom asked.

Maria teared up, and took a deep breath, before saying, "No. I think he was maybe my soulmate, the love of my life. Nobody since has measured up to him."

"Then why did you let him go? Not that I'm not grateful, but I never understood why."

"Because... because you had his heart already," Maria answered. "Maybe he wouldn't have admitted it to me, maybe not even to himself, but I could see you both falling more in love with each other every time you were together. So, what could I do? Try to hold on to him tighter, and lose him altogether, try to keep the two of you apart and lose you both, or put his happiness first and let him go to you?"

"So why are you afraid of me, Maria?" I asked.

"Because of how much you remind me of your Dad, Drew," she replied. "I know it's not fair to treat you that way, and I know in my head that you're different people, but I'm not sure my heart can tell the two of you apart, and I can't afford to have it go through that, not again."

"And if your heart doesn't let you choose? If it decides Drew is your second soulmate?" Mom asked.

"I don't know," Maria answered. "I just don't know."

I tried to wrap my mind around the idea of someone being afraid to love me, and realized that I was probably the exact opposite, so open to love that I fell in love too easily, quickly and completely. I was, after all, married to four women, one of them my mother, and seemingly always looking to draw in more. Jean, Sophia, Sandy, even Maria. I'd thought of all of them as potential wives. I loved them all, even if I'd never said the words. How could I possibly manage that many lovers? If they were all as willing to marry me as I was to marry them, I'd truly have a harem soon.

We all chatted for a little longer, then Sandy and Mom both got up and said good night, leaving me with Maria. When I turned to talk to her some more, she was already fast asleep, so I pulled the covers over us, and went to sleep by her side.

~~~~~

Christmas Day, 2014

I woke with Aunt Maria snuggled into my arms. At first, I thought it was Mom, but my memories of the night before came back to me as sleep fled.

I was just watching her face, as her eyes fluttered open, and a smile spread across her face. "Merry Christmas, Aunt Maria," I said.

"Merry Christmas, Drew," she answered. She paused, before saying, "I owe you an apology, that I didn't get to make last night."

"Not as far as I'm concerned," I said. "Last night was lovely."

"I mean about calling you a prize, and acting like you were one," she insisted.

"Do you intend to do it again?" I asked.

"No, never. You and Sandy were both right, I was treating you as a substitute for Tom, even while I was saying that I knew you were different people, and I'm sorry. Whether or not my heart can tell you apart, my mind knows the difference, and that drives my words, and the words were wrong."

"Apology accepted, then," I said, before hugging her to me. "So, where do we go from here? Are you still determined that this be a one time thing? You might be hesitating because you're afraid of falling in love with me, but I have to tell you that it's already too late for me. I love you, Maria. As deep as with any of my other lovers. Maybe I shouldn't fall for women so quickly, but like Mom said, sometimes the heart doesn't let you choose, and mine is saying yes."

"I... I... Damn it, Drew. You make this impossible."

"Sorry," I said. "I don't want to make you unhappy, the exact opposite, I want you in my life as much as you can let yourself be in it."

"I can't be moving in, that would be entirely too suspicious. How do we work it out any other way?" she asked.

"I have a suggestion," I answered. "How about we commit to making this at least a Christmas gift to each other?" I almost added, 'and if you can't wait in between, that would be nice, too,' but knew I was already pushing my luck with the 'at least'.

She mulled that over, and smiled once more, saying, "It's a date. Just don't be tying any bows around that dick of yours, okay?"

~~~~~

We went over to Center House, and had breakfast with the family, and everyone approved of my giving her the last necklace, which looked lovely around her neck. Maria said her goodbyes, before the Barnes relatives arrived for gifts and an early dinner.

After the reaction of Jack and Carrie Taylor, I really dreaded having to reveal Kyra as my child to them.

The only one who made a fuss, at all, was Uncle Dave. "Another couple of bisexual women in your orbit, Drew? Really? Are you slipping them something in their water? Next you're going to tell me your Mom and Toni are lovers, too!" It was nearly impossible not to laugh in his face. I managed, though.

"How'd you guess, Dave?" Mom answered, making his jaw drop. I would have expected insults from him, but all he did was shake his head. Grandpa was watching him every minute, so I think he'd warned both Dave and Grandma in advance not to make trouble, with Toni being present. What would get said between them once they left could be very different, but I didn't let it worry me. I'd already proved that I could distance myself from them once, I could do it again.

My cousins Carrie and Angie cooed over all four of the babies, and my Uncle Tony finally had to say, "You're both too young to be mothers, yet." They were 17 and 16, getting more beautiful every year, and in a hurry to be 25, it seemed. I was kind of amazed that neither one seemed to have boyfriends at the moment, but figured Tony was being overly protective. Imagining having to say yes to Sharon and Kyra dating gave me a shiver.

Grandma Marion and Grandpa Dave's focus was on the two babies they now knew to be their great-granddaughters, so they barely looked at Gavin and KJ. If they noticed any Barnes features in Gavin, they didn't say anything.

Still, when dinner and gifts were done, and they all left for home, I breathed a sigh of relief.

~~~~~

After the events of the night before, I asked Sandy to spend the night with me, to thank her for helping Mom and Maria reach their resolution about Dad, and to let her know how much she meant to me, wife or not.

As we walked over to East House, she said, "Do you realize this is going to be only the second time we've made love, just the two of us? All of the other times, there's been at least someone else in the bed with us."

I responded, "Really? I would have thought it was more than that. Let me make tonight extra special, then."

I started out by taking a shower with her, washing her from head to toe, caressing every inch, letting her know I intended to focus on her pleasure tonight.

She returned the favor, washing me thoroughly, lightly stroking my cock, but not looking to get me off, not yet. We both wanted the night to last. We stepped out of the shower, and dried each other off, then moved to her bedroom, reminiscent of the bedroom in West that was now that house's nursery, but also more grown-up in a lot of ways, all of the teen crush posters gone forever.

Gone too was the hesitant girl I'd first come to know. She might not have been sexually active during her first semester away from us, but she had clearly gained more confidence, pushing me onto my back on her bed, and crawling across my body, kissing me here and there, until she came to a stop at my mouth, while her labia were splitting around my cock, sliding along it. I knew she was also stimulating her clit at the same time.

She wanted to be in charge, so I let her at first, kissing her back as she darted her tongue in and out, caressing her back and tight tush with my hands. Eventually, I became more active, pulling on her hips, grinding her pussy onto my cock, and moved my hands to her front, squeezing her breasts, and pushing her into more of an upright position, causing her pelvis to rise over my erection, and with one small adjustment by her hand, she dropped onto me.

"Gawd, you seem tighter than ever, sweetie," I gasped, as I barely slipped a couple of inches into her at first.

Between strokes up and down, Sandy said, "There are a bunch... ungh... of exercises... ummm... you can do... mmmm... while studying... yes! ...and kegels is one..." By the time she finished saying that, she had me fully inside, and started to rotate her hips, as I started small, slow, upward thrusts into her.

We were taking it slow, but still I could feel my orgasm creeping closer. I was trying to decide whether to slow down further, or just treat this as round one, when Sandy had her first small orgasm, spasming around me, nearly locking me in place. When she released the clench, I thrust up into her hard, then followed it up with a withdrawal almost to my glans, then pulled her hips back down on me, and repeated that a dozen times, starting to cum just as she started another orgasm, both of us screaming the other's name.

Sandy collapsed onto my chest, panting, before saying, "Oh, I've missed that, Drew. I've missed you."

"We've all missed you, hon." Tears came to her eyes, and I asked, "What's wrong?"

She looked in my eyes, and whispered, "Why do I keep falling in love with guys who are already taken?"

"You mean, your Dad and me?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"I can't speak for your Dad, but I don't consider myself 'taken', just because I married Patti."

"And Tina and Toni and Amber," she retorted.

"Is that what this is about?" I asked. "Do you want to be a member of our marriage, or are you just jealous of it? You've said several times that you want to see how things develop for you at college."

"I do, I think. I don't know. Maybe I'm more like your friend Jean, wanting my own guy, all to myself. And you're certainly not that guy, with four wives already. Or even if I share, just once to feel like I'm number one in someone's heart. Do you know what I mean?"

"I do, actually," I answered her. "I could look at all four of my wives, and make an argument that each of them loves someone more than they love me. For my mom, I'm always going to be compared to the memory of my Dad, and I could argue that she's more compatible with Henry, because of their ages and both being in health care. For Patti, there are times when her love for Amber feels strongest to me. For Amber, it's both Patti and your Dad. And for Toni, she's actually spent more time with my Mom and Henry over the past year than with me, and I can see how that's drawn them closer. Even you, I think, would put your Dad ahead of me, and that's okay. Do you know why?"

"You're going to have to spell it out, Drew," Sandy said.

I kissed her forehead, before saying, "Because, ranking love, figuring our who my wives love most, who I love most, and who most loves me, just gets in the way of that love. It's not a competition to me, nor am I trying to limit how much I love someone to keep it less than how I love Patti. It only matters to love each of you as much as I can, emotionally and physically. If I let go of needing to be first in someone's heart, I'm open to whatever love they give me, even if it might be physical only one day out of the year, or not at all."

"Like your Aunt Maria," she said.

I smiled. "Yes. She might only be comfortable being intimate with me that often, but if I demand more from her, I would push her away. If I accept her terms for intimacy, and let her know I still love her the other 364 days of the year, that one time can become a truly special expression of that love. In that moment, she's first in my heart, just as you are right now."

"For tonight. I can certainly feel like I'm first, when we're together like this. Just us. Except, it's so infrequent. What happens if I need to be first every night?" she asked.

"Quantifying it blocks you from receiving the love I have for you by calling it 'not enough'. And I do love you, Sandy. Don't ever doubt that. I started loving you from the first night we met, and I told you that you controlled what our relationship would be. Even if you decide to be with someone else, whether for one night or for the rest of your life, I'll still love you, and express that love as a desire for you to be happy, if I can't always express it physically."

"The sex grows out of your love, not the other way around," she realized.

"For the most part, yes. There's also sex as just something fun to do, like Patti and I had with Jean and our roommates at college, but for me, my heart gets involved sooner or later, and it turns around so the sex becomes part of that love."

"You love Jean and Sophia, too?" Sandy asked.

"Yes, I do, no matter how crazy it sounds that I've been intimate with eight women in the past two years, and love them all. But their futures are with Duke and Matt, respectively, so I wish them happiness, without being possessive. Just as I would do for you."

"I don't know what to do," Sandy said.

"You don't need to make a decision about anything tonight, beyond deciding what position we use next."

"You're already hard again?" she asked, sounding surprised, then confirming it by grasping my cock, still a bit slick with her juices.

I smiled, saying, "I'm lying next to a gorgeous young woman who's naked, talking about love and sex. Of course I'm hard again."

She rolled onto her knees, and shook her butt at me. "Take me hard, brother."

And so it went, for another three rounds, before we were both exhausted, and fell asleep, cuddled together.

~~~~~

December 28, 2014

Getting all of the kids covered by health insurance occupied much of our attention in between Christmas and New Year's. The biggest concern was covering KJ. Amber wasn't eligible for health insurance until she'd worked at the gallery for a year. Henry couldn't cover his grandchildren without being named their guardian, which would have been overkill, even if it could be accomplished without taking custody of the kids away from Amber. I couldn't cover KJ, since my legal relationship to him was step-uncle, not step-dad.

Amber was still covered by Henry's policy, since she was still less than 26, but it looked like she was going to have to sign up for an Obamacare policy in order to cover KJ, until she received a terse email from Kenny saying that he'd added KJ to his plan, which operated in multiple states including California and Texas, so KJ's pediatrician would be in-network.

Patti and I both covered Sharon and Kyra, listing Kyra as Patti's step-daughter, and Henry and Mom both covered Gavin.

We also added the kids as beneficiaries to every life insurance policy we had, either privately or through work. Having to list Gavin as my brother and KJ as my nephew bugged me, when I wanted to claim both of them as my sons.

Amber and I also went to the Bureau of Vital Statistics to begin the process of getting Kyra's birth certificate amended to list me as the biological father, and to change her last name to Kilson-Barnes. It did not turn out to be as hard as anticipated, because a backlog of paperwork due to the holiday meant that the original forms that Amber had filled out in the hospital had not been processed yet. We refiled new forms back at the hospital, and that was thankfully all we had to do.

~~~~~

New Year's Eve, 2014

We invited Duke and Jean over for a New Year's Eve party, offering them a guest room at East House so they wouldn't have to worry about driving after drinking. Still, with our three nursing mothers not drinking except for a sip of champagne at midnight, and four babies in the nursery, it was a fairly quiet party, mostly movies and TV, in between taking care of the babies.

Henry got called away for a birth around 10:30, and wound up delivering Dallas' first newborn of 2015. As a result, Duke and I had six women waiting for New Years kisses when midnight rolled around, and they each gave us one. My mind flashed back to the New Year's party right after my dad's death, when Mom had gotten carried away kissing Duke and Kenny, as I watched her lay another deep kiss on Duke, without any alcohol in her system as an excuse. It may have been the only time I ever saw him blush. He looked my way, and I just smiled back at him.

Jean was my next kiss, and she followed my Mom's lead, and planted a deep kiss on me, as well. There was still something about Jean that thrilled me physically, and I'd admitted to myself on Christmas Eve that she still had a place in my heart, but I had to settle for just the kiss and her friendship. She had made her choice, and I respected that. Still, I got a wink from Patti when Jean let me go, just before Patti took her turn kissing Duke. If it could be called a kiss, instead of a make-out session. The two of them got a round of applause when they finally parted, and Jean walked over and put another lip lock on Patti in return. Patti told me later that Duke asked her if she was trying to get him to change his mind about being involved with us, and she responded that she was just thanking him for keeping our family's secrets. I'm not sure Duke quite believed that answer, but he took no action on whatever invitation he thought was being made.

~~~~~

January 1, 2015

The next morning, Jean got the whole family to sit together in our living room, for a family portrait, that she took with a nice digital camera she got from her parents on Christmas. On the couch were Henry and Mom, holding Gavin, and Patti and I holding Sharon, and on the floor in front of us were Toni, Amber holding KJ, and Sandy holding Kyra. She told us she'd get us prints soon.

~~~~~

January 5, 2015

On the Monday after New Years, Jean stopped by after dinner, to deliver the prints. To everyone's surprise, she actually delivered them framed. Three matted 11x14 frames with 8x10 prints inside to display in each house, and seven unmatted 5x7 frames for us to have at our workplaces or school, if we so desired, which we all did. She simply said, "Merry Christmas, guys, even if I am two weeks late."

I looked at the 8x10, and realized that the portrait of Dad from his funeral hung on the wall behind the couch, and was fully included in the picture, too. I asked, "Jean, did you frame this shot to include my Dad's picture?"

She answered, "Absolutely. Who do you think has been keeping you safe the last two years? I've always gotten the feeling when I've been here that he's been watching over all of you, so why not capture that in this portrait? I had it in mind when I suggested the couch in the first place."

Mom and Patti both folded her into a hug, crying at the gesture, and Mom whispered, "Thank you."

The more I looked at the picture, the more it seemed that Dad was indeed looking at us from above, and the more I loved the shot. It melded past with present, beautifully, without being heavy-handed about it.

~~~~~

January 8, 2015

Over dinner, Amber said, "It was great that the gallery let me start my maternity leave early, but they only added two weeks of unpaid leave, partly covered by the bonus they gave me. It's still just 8 weeks of paid leave plus the option for four weeks of unpaid, instead of two. If I go back after just the 8 weeks, that will be the 26th. I just don't think I'll be ready."

Henry said, "We can afford the 4 weeks of unpaid leave, honey."

I asked, "Isn't she entitled to more leave than that? 8 weeks seems pretty short." Patti was getting 12 weeks of paid leave, and Mom 16 weeks, through the hospital. I got six weeks of paid paternity leave, and was due to head back to work on the Tuesday after the Martin Luther King holiday.

Henry answered, "No, Drew. Texas law doesn't mandate any maternity leave, and the federal Family Medical Leave Act only provides for 12 weeks of unpaid leave. There are only a few states that require paid maternity leave, and we're not one of them."

Amber added, "Besides, small companies like the gallery are exempt from the FMLA, and I wouldn't have the minimum 1 year of employment there to be eligible, anyway. I'm lucky that I got the leave I did. I just don't know if I'll be ready to go back even after 12 weeks. I wish I could just be a stay at home mom for a few more months."