Chapter 103

December 8, 2017

Dear Ms. Diary,

[Written December 10]

I woke to Gracey snuggling into me. I cracked open my eyes to look at her, then put my arm around her. She looked up at me.

“Isn’t this just wonderful? When I was a young girl, I dreamed of a Prince Charming capturing my heart – because, of course, that’s what princes do, and taking me off into the sunset. I had no clue about what we’d do closer to that sunset, but I knew it must be at least somewhat fun, as that’s what princesses and princes do. I just cannot imagine that any of those princesses have anything like the wonderful sex life I have, nor even the even-more-wonderful outside-of-sex life I have, and there’s nary a prince in sight. Unless you count Dad, who is certainly a prince, emotionally and in every other way.”

I chuckled and squeezed her ... then inhaled.

“I have to tell all of you something. I had planned to do it last night, but ... with everything ... Let’s join the others in the Monstrosity so I can tell my tale from yesterday.”

“Meka?”

I nodded a nod that she returned. We slipped to the bathroom, released some fluids our bodies were done using, brushed our teeth, then headed downstairs. Heather’s sparkling blue eyes were waiting for us, then they and the rest of her scooted a bit farther into the Monstrosity to allow us room to climb in.

The five of us shared morning salutations before I said, “I have a tale that I was going to tell last night, but events conspired to prohibit it. The main point of the tale is that Meka told me that I could tell you that she was serious about her comment on Tuesday, that she was considering joining the family.”

There was much – quiet – rejoicing.

“While she didn’t specifically say so, she’s obviously delaying her final decision until after... [I sighed].”

“You need not say it,” Rhee stated. “We understand.”

“She told me that I could tell as little or as much as I wanted, but that she’d prefer me speaking in generalities. I will ... mostly ... respect her wish. She wanted to see if it was just Heather that got her ... excited, so she washed my backside ... with her hands.” There was a chorus of “Oh, god” and similar, until I said, “And I washed hers with my hands.”

Heather exclaimed, “Oh, frickin’ wow! Last night was the first time I really got to touch her ass, and you got to wash it! Lucky Beth!”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Rhee retorted.

Before anyone else could climb on that bandwagon, I said, “And she kissed me.”

Heather had to slap her hands over her mouth to keep her exclamation behind her teeth.

“Essentially, she said those various things got her excited. You also probably noticed that she pulled me up onto her lap in the hot tub when Liya was being a brazen hussy with my dad!”

There was much chuckling.

“Finally, and less physically exciting than those bits with her, but more interesting and ... satisfying, she said that she, and I quote, ‘felt very strongly about... us.”

“Ohhh, fuck!”

We all looked at Liya, who said, “I’m not sorry ‘bout that. Though Celeste is gorgeous, there is no woman with whom I am more interested in making love, other than my sister-friend-lovers, than Meka.”

“Ditto.”

“Me, too.”

“Me, three.”

I replied, “And I’m in that boat with my sister-friend-lovers. Oh, I forgot a really important bit. She said that Heather had gotten her thinking about girls... again, which I took to mean that she had probably been sexually interested in her small, blonde friend near her previous house.”

I looked around to see that bit of information had impacted my sisters.

Gracey inhaled deeply and sighed as she let it go saying, “Oh, jeez. Please let that all be true.”

“You know, I think Sandy was right,” said Liya, seemingly apropos of nothing. When we glanced oddly at her, she added, “She said that if Meka were our age and had gone to the middle school that we did, she would probably be our gang leader. Do you remember that?” When we all nodded, she added, “We all want her, and, like Beth, she’s smart, strong, and a natural leader. I sort of wondered back then if she and Beth would have gotten along, but Beth does not have a need to lead, and she’s more than willing to follow others ... so long as they lead well. Meka can certainly lead well. Finally, while she took advantage of an opportunity, she also chose to pass that information on through Beth.

“This gang has been good to each of us in different ways. Rhee is the most ... affable of us and probably gets along most readily with a variety of personalities. Those of us that aren’t Beth haven’t seen all the changes in Rhee’s personality and psyche, since she went through a lot of those either before any of the rest of us were friends with them or when only Gracey was. This gang got Gracey, Heather, and me out of mostly self-imposed shells, although those shells were as individual as the personal situations that created them. While we are still five individuals, each with her own strengths and weaknesses, we have become more similar than we had been, such as Gracey becoming more certain and assertive.

“Although I might seem to have lost it, my point is that I fee-e-el that Meka could be a sister-friend-lover, which makes me wonder how much stronger we might be with her. We -- all of us, certainly feel a strong attraction to her. Is hers as strong an attraction, or will it be as strong? If so ... Wow.”

At least four of us pondered what Liya had brought to our attention.

That is until she said, “We might need to get Dad and the Moms to invest in bigger beds for us. We certainly have the space in our rooms.”

The laughter, the loud laughter Liya’s offhand comment engendered got us fully awake and ready for breakfast.

It also got, “What’s so funny in there,” from Carol in the kitchen.

Meka dropped us as close to the back door as she could get the Suburban as a cold rain was coming down on our way home from school. Although I came home with homework, I spent most of the evening trying to get caught up in writing about the relatively momentous events of the past few days. Despite that it was hours of work, I did not finish even the 5^th.

December 9, 2017

Last night’s rain had turned to snow sometime, and we woke to a white landscape. While it does snow here, we generally get only three or four snows a winter. This one would have been massive had the temperature gone below freezing a few hours earlier. The weather folks said that the three inches we got could have been 10-15 inches. Of course, with the rain beforehand, that meant that the secondary roads would be sheets of ice under the snow. The family settled in, not planning to go anywhere. That settling-in included a big brunch on which Inez, Dad, and I coordinated while the other girls did homework.

With a big forkful ready to go into her mouth, Liya said, “I love huevos rancheros. I particularly love your salsa verde, Inez-Mom. This is so good!”

“It is,” agreed Carol, “and I’m leaning in this direction for the decision about how to have Inez help us if or when we buy the house next door.” She turned to Inez and added, “We know you’ll be working at the university most days you’re here, but we don’t get anywhere near enough Mexican food here. It’s just not something we’ve tackled very often. By the way, I don’t know that I’ve ever known from what part of Mexico your family hails.”

“Guadalajara. That’s in west Mexico and the food is quite different from other parts, particularly relative to the Yucatán and the high Central Mexican plateau, which are both very different from each other. I’d be happy to be the primary cook, and I should have plenty of time to do that, as when I’m traveling, I put in long, long days. I balance that with short days in the office when I’m here, and that should be true for the next few months.”

Inez told us more details about her project and what she was doing, and that got us to a bit after 11.

I said, “Since we’re going nowhere, doing nothing much important, I’m going to get my homework done and get into, hopefully, a second draft of a paper due next Thursday. I just wanted to let you parents know so that you don’t get concerned that the little people stole me. And I don’t mean Liya and Heather. They can steal me whenever they want.”

I got smiles and a few chuckles out of that then stood from the table and headed upstairs. I had been working for at least four hours, most of which had been on this diary, when Rhee stole up behind me at my desk under the window and ran her hands across my shoulders and then down over my breasts.

“Ohhhh,” I sighed, then leaned my head back against her, saying, “you’re causing me to lose focus.”

“I know you can multitask well, so don’t mind me.”

“I can multitask, but not when the love of my life does things like that to me.”

“You probably say that to all the girls.”

My eyes were closed, but I could feel her mouth spread wide into a grin, and then she lost it, cracking up.

She laughed for a bit, after which I said, “You know, that’s sort of true for us. Isn’t it?”

“Yeah. You and I love each other like ... Well, we’re the respective loves of our lives for each other, but then Heather’s right there, too. Not quite as close, but not at all far away are Gracey and Liya. It would greatly hurt to lose either of them. Sweetie, how do we do this? Liya mentioned this the other day. What do we do about college? About ... life? How would it be possible for each of us to have a fulfilling job in which she’s very interested and still keep us all together? I worry about this every so often.”

“I don’t know, Love. I ponder that occasionally, too, but then tell myself that it’s useless to worry about now, as that time is well off into the future and we have little control now over that in-the-future crux point. We need to enjoy each other, enjoy our family, every day that we can, and meet that day when it comes.”

She was quiet for quite a while, as she rubbed my chest and shoulders with little focus, until she said, “You’re right. You know I’m not one to worry frequently, but I’m just so happy, and occasionally I worry that I’m going to have to pay for that happiness.”

“Hey, hey,” I responded quietly. “Of the two of us, you were the one with the less-than-stellar childhood. You’ve already paid at least some of that.”

“True, but I was never as unhappy as Liya apparently was.”

“That’s her payment, not yours. Remember, too, that the high she has now is correspondingly much greater than her low than is yours. And, of course, none of us believe in predestination and various life-balancing mumbo-jumbo. So, what’s gotten my wonderful lover worried?”

“I don’t know. I got to thinking about what Liya said about college and then about various aspects of our lives in the here and now and...”

I could feel her shrug and that she was going to say something, but then she tittered, and she only rarely titters.

“All right. Spill. What are you holding in?”

I rolled my head farther back on my shoulders so I could look up at her. She was grinning.

“Come on. Give. Now.”

She reduced the wattage of her grin, but it was still a good smile when she said, “I have just three letters for you: T. O. C.”

“No way,” I exclaimed. “Tonight?”

“Yup! Inez flies out tomorrow afternoon, so it’s got to be tonight or wait until nearly Christmas, and, obviously, things will get crazy then.”

“Does Inez...”

She cut me off, saying, “The Moms told her the rules and gave her an outline, but didn’t provide much in the way of crazy examples, so I’m not sure she fully gets it. But, hey, last night she told us that she loved the ... openness and the frequent sex, so...”

I looked back down at my screen and thought carefully, then replied, “Despite working on this for a few hours, I’m still not done with yesterday.” I sighed, then added, “I’ll need to write a lot tomorrow, too. It’s times like now that I seriously consider either scrapping the whole thing or greatly reducing detail. You and Heather have both said that you really like the detail, as it gives you more insight into some things you’ve experienced. This week has been full of detail and, obviously, tonight will be. I’m already having trouble remembering some of the things that, when they happened, I thought that I really must put down in detail.” I sighed again. “I hope we don’t get much homework next week.”

As I joined the family in the living room, I said to all and sundry, “Are we going to invite Celeste...” I paused for a long time and watched for one of the parents to object, then cut Dad off with the end of my query, “to bring us pizza?”

Dad rolled his eyes while Sandy cackled, and Carol laughed.

“She got you but good, Dear.”

Dad wrapped his arms around Mom and replied, “That she did, but I think she might take just a little too much after you in her sense of humor.”

Carol said, “Pizza sounds good, though we should make it on the early side, as I’m sure that the breakfast or brunch or whatever we had will be wearing off soon.”

When Celeste arrived shortly after 5, the family was lounging in the living room in skimpy attire, although all the naughty bits were covered.

“Come in, get out of the cold, Celeste.”

“Thanks, Carol. I will. And don’t all of you look ... delectable.” As Gracey took the boxes from her, she said, “That’s one of the reasons I like it here: you’re all so comfortable with each other. I step inside the door and my blood pressure drops as some of my cares melt away.”

“How are the roads,” asked Dad.

“Most are not bad. The city’s obviously been working at it. Of course, I’m taking more care driving, too. It certainly helps that the temp has gotten above freezing, if only by a little. Fortunately, Andressa flew out yesterday morning. I don’t know what she’d have done had she been flying today.”

“How did it go working with Olanma,” Heather asked.

“Ohh. It was long and tedious, although she’s fun, so that made it more than bearable. Just so you know, I’ve got delivery shifts every day next week except Thursday. The boss really wanted me to work Thursday, but I told him that I had ... family things then so just couldn’t do it.” She grinned at us, then added, “I find myself thinking of you as family, but a family larger and more fun than my ... genetic family. It’ll be good to see them when I go home for Christmas, but,” her voice trailed off as she shrugged.

Rhee took the opportunity to hug her and said, “Welcome to our world. That is, the world of the non-Williamses. We all find this family to be larger and more fun than our respective genetic families, even though some whole families are represented here.”

“Thanks, Rhee.” With her arms still around Rhee, Celeste’s tune changed, “As you can imagine with the weather, we’re quite busy, so I’ve got to run.”

“Don’t run without this,” said Sandy as she held out a fistful of twenties.

As Rhee released her, Celeste accepted the proffered money and then shoved it into a pocket. She waved us goodbye, then headed out the door.

We reconvened in the living room at 6, all dressed in ToC clothes.

Inez caught me staring at her crotch and grinned, saying, “Yes, your genetic mother handed me this thong this afternoon. She tells me that I’ll get a family thong, with my name and everything, soon.”

Gracey asked, “Mom, are you really good with this? All of this? That thong she promised will make it very clear that you’re sharing a man, and not with just one other woman. You can read my name on my crotch, as you can read the others’ names on their crotches. You can also see that Dad’s name is not on his crotch. You can blatantly see that you’re sharing Our Man, as his crotch states proudly – and somewhat erectly, with your daughter and others.”

Gracey’s erect quip garnered some chuckles, even from her mom, and Inez nodded.

“I understand, my daughter. Fully. But even having something like one-eighth of a man is more man than I’ve had in quite a while. Having one-eighth of this man is possibly more than I’ve ever had.”

I quickly turned my head to look at Dad, who was a bit red. There was no further discussion in that vein, so Carol took the floor.

“Partly because of the larger family, but mostly due to us now entertaining both more family and larger numbers of guests, we’ll soon be getting a new living-room suite. It will encompass longer couches plus a second loveseat. Until then, ToC will be a little squeezed for seat space, so I’ve made the executive decision to rearrange the order of participants and where they sit. That’s why Charlie, Sandy, and I are sitting on this couch rather than what had been our usual couch, although the three of us are still sitting in our established order. Please rearrange yourselves into, first, the other couch holding four, then the love seat in the following order: Inez, Liya, Gracey, Heather, Rhee, Beth. Oh, we can also dispense with the coffee table or, perhaps, just move it farther into the room to get it out of the way.”

We shuffled as requested, including moving the table, after which Carol continued with, “With the addition of Inez to the family, we have had to make some changes. The first is going to an electronic die, of sorts. Thanks to Liya for creating what we need, which we’ll run on the TV. Also on the TV, you’ll notice a chart providing a synopsis of what the die rolls indicate. I will go through the chart from top to bottom, so please hold any questions until I’ve covered all of it.

“As you can see, we had to add Inez to both the first and second portions of the numbers. That is, in both the small numbers and middle numbers. The small numbers – one through nine, indicate that the Questioner ... No, let’s change the terminology to Commander. The small numbers indicate that the Commander must ask a question of the person whose number came up in the early game but may choose between a question and a command in the late game. The middle numbers always indicate a command given to the person whose number came up. The large numbers are not associated with names, as the Commander may select multiple participants, as indicated.

“Now, a sidebar on commands. Commands are made by the Commander and, for the first 18 numbers, can include only the Commander and the person whose number came up and who was formerly called the Answerer. However, if we’re going to have a Commander rather than a Questioner, perhaps we could consider the receiver of the command to be the Slave. Yes?”

There was some mumbled discussion, and some spoken in the open, but we agreed.

Carol continued with, “The command can be for a number of rounds, limited at three, or for as long as three minutes in one round. While the Slave must be involved, the Commander need not be, at the Commander’s choice. That means that the Commander can order the Slave to do something by or with herself or himself or can order the Slave to do something to or with the Commander. For the numbers 1-18, no other person can be included in the command.

“The ‘no-limits’ rolls indicate almost exactly that. The Commander may choose any or all of the participants to be part of the command and there are no time limits, except that commands cannot cross into a different day and for the need for all to get sufficient sleep that night. The specials indicated in the largest numbers provide the Commander with both a no-limits command right then, but also another no-limits command on some future date at the discretion of the holder of the Special. To activate a future-date Special, all participants of the ToC session in which the Special was won must be present and the Commander must have determined that none of those participants has plans for the portion of the day subsequent to the Commander activating the Special.