Another rambling chapter in the increasingly weird everyday lives of a retired English couple. Despite their entanglements getting ever more complicated, there is some hope of a narrative thread if you read the stories in order. But the choice, dear reader, is always yours.
Although teenagers take speaking parts in the story, sexual encounters involve only adults over the age of eighteen.
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My name is Geoff. You'll probably find out my surname eventually, but not today. My wife and I took early retirement a couple of years ago; me from a ceramics research lab and Marie from the local university's modern languages department. We recently hit a bit of a bump in our marriage, but we survived and now we're closer than ever. The fallout, however, was unexpected; we both now find ourselves in a polyamorous relationship with eight other women. This is the next chapter in our story.
It was Thursday morning and I was having a lie in. Breakfast in bed even seemed to be a possibility. I'll admit to being a tad fatigued after my wife's sexual onslaught last night triggered, if you can believe it, by my offering to take one of her friends to the local adult store for some of their more niche products. To be honest, I'd been in there so many times lately that I was thinking of asking if they had a loyalty card scheme.
After some thought, I decided that breakfast in bed was always more appealing in theory than practice so I hauled my lazy, geriatric arse out of bed and into the bathroom. My wife, Marie, and I had 'entertained' two of her friends the previous evening; Megan, a retired solicitor, like us, in her sixties and Samantha, though she preferred to be called Sam, a paramedic in her early forties. Those two are part of my wife's group of six friends who, for reasons too complicated to repeat here, are invited to have sex with us, as in both of us, in pairs on a rota system every Wednesday evening.
Of course, once Marie opened that particular door, she then appeared to go critical and invited Margie and Sue, two single teachers in their fifties, back to our home from a dance the previous weekend for a quiet little orgy. "Well," she seemed to think, "Geoffrey," that's me, "capitulated eventually when I worked on him to have sex with six lonely women. Another two surely won't hurt." Actually, I was fine with it.
As if that wasn't enough, my wife and I have also developed a particularly deep attachment to one of her dearest friends, Angie. Now don't get me wrong; Angie and I as a couple would be a disaster. But Angie as part of my marriage to Marie is a great example of synergy. The three of us together are much more than the sum of us as individuals. For all she is a brilliant academic in her sixties, Angie is adorable; she has an almost child-like innocence and enthusiasm for life. In fact, we both love her so much that Marie proposed to her in the pub - while we were sober! Or nearly so. What did her proposal involve? Angie would be able to have sex with either me or Marie without the other's permission. She'd be part of our marriage. I'd say we were a throuple but my wife actually threatened me with violence if I ever used the word again in her presence.
Anyway, we all thought it was a great idea but then struggled to decide how to implement it. That was when Adrian, a student eavesdropping at the next table in the pub, suggested that we had a Jedi joining ceremony. Angie and I are Sci-Fi nerds so we were all over it: Marie not so much, but even she couldn't resist Angie's fervent pleas.
Sorry; went off at a bit of a tangent there. So... I decided to get up, showered and fed, before I helped Marie strip and remake the beds in the two rooms we'd used the previous evening, as well as remembering to clean and sanitise the sex toys that the girls had played with that night, before they were locked away until next time. I'd be on laundry duty that morning as my wife was volunteering at a charity shop in town until two.
While I was waiting for the washing machine to finish (I'd chosen a 40°C cycle: sex can be a bit sticky) I did my hunter/gatherer impersonation and rummaged in the fridge for something for our evening meal. Linda, our daughter, her teenage son, Colin and Angie, were eating with us that evening so I needed enough for five. I looked with shame at the piss poor assortment I'd salvaged from the produce shelf. We needed to shop soon, and preferably somewhere that sold vegetables rather than butt plugs!
So; sweet peppers, garlic, chorizo, chicken thighs and tomatoes. I knew that there were potatoes and onions in the larder and we had plenty of different herbs and spices, so tray bake it is. I prepped the veggies (I know: peppers and tomatoes are really fruit. You knew what I meant), trimmed the meat and measured out the paprika, herbs and salt for seasoning. An hour in the oven later that afternoon and no additional work. That's my sort of cooking. Time for a cuppa before the sheets needed to come out of the washer and then I could go for a run.
As I ran, I allowed my mind to wander. Whatever the consequences of our new lifestyle, we were committed now. We couldn't un-fuck the women who'd shared our beds. Megan and Sam were both still married and, though I hadn't yet had penile sex with Lucy, I didn't believe fingering her to one of the sweetest climaxes I'd ever seen was within the terms of most wedding vows. We didn't brag about our adventures, except here, but we hadn't been particularly discreet either.
I decided; our daughter needed to understand our new lifestyle. It was her son that saw Gran and Grandad kissing Aunty Angie. He would never see anything more than that, but Linda had a right to know and we'd have to negotiate an understanding if that was a problem for her. I resolved to speak to Marie about arranging for me to meet Linda after work to discuss it over a meal while my wife had her regular evening out with her pals.
Marie had promised to take the opportunity to ask the girls to allow her to pass on to me some of the more intimate details they had shared amongst themselves if, and only if, she believed that I needed to know. We all had baggage from our long lives. It was harder to respond sensitively to an issue in bed if I only found out about it after we'd already got our kit off.
Marie and Angie were going to meet in town this afternoon after my wife's shift, to look for a ring. I'd made a suggestion of what they should look for and, for once, Marie thought that it was brilliant. I have my moments. Anyway, if they found one, on Friday they were going to announce to their friends our, what? Engagement? I favoured betrothal: that had earned another smile. I thought I'd stop while I was ahead.
The 'wedding' planning was going to be interesting though. I was probably not going to be included, although Angie and I would certainly be the technical advisors on Star Wars lore. Marie was going to ask Lucy, a talented professional artist, if she would collaborate with our student friends on decorating some costume elements. Marie, for example wanted to look exactly like Bo Katan, an armoured female warrior. My wife was also tasked with asking Megan if she could personally, or through her contacts in the legal community, advise us on intellectual property rights. This was after all, intended to be a fun celebration, not an 'up yours', to large, well lawyered media corporations.
Without even realising it, my meditative run had brought me almost full circle, so I stepped up the pace towards my home, a shower and lunch.
I was bringing in the bedsheets from the washing line when my lovelies got home. Colin was inside doing his art homework alone as I'm afraid that art isn't my forté. From the way Angie bounced up the path like a tall, supple Tigger, I assumed that their mission had been successful. Marie followed behind at a more stately pace, but I could tell by her expression that she was pleased.
"Geoff! It's perfect," Angie enthused. "Show him, Marie!"
Marie finally caught up with our friend. "She's not wrong, Geoffrey," she admitted. "The moment we saw it, we knew that was the one." She felt into her handbag and took our a small square box.
"Just like you and me then," I reminded her, kissing the top of her head.
"You'll get anywhere saying things like that, you smooth devil," my wife smiled as she showed me our purchase.
"So what happens now?" I asked. It appeared that they were in the dark too. Did we give her it now, like an engagement ring? Or wait until the ceremony, like a wedding ring?
I decided. I took Angie's left hand and dropped to one knee. "Angela, you have added a new thread to the tapestry of our lives. Will you agree to be my betrothed?"
Marie was quick to respond. She took her friend's hand from me and turned Angie towards her. "Angela, you have been my closest friend for decades, will you now be my betrothed?"
"Oh! God! Yes! Thank you. I love you both so much," wailed Angie, hopping up and down in floods of happy tears.
Marie held out the ring they had chosen and bought together and together my wife and I slipped it onto the fourth finger of Angie's left hand. As I'd suggested, they had chosen something called a Russian Ring, made of of three interwoven strands of different shades of gold. It was perfect. I resolved to get my little Mediterranean goddess a matching necklace.
There was the sound of applause from behind us and we turned, rather startled, truth to be told, to find Colin beaming at us, the drawing in his hand forgotten.
"I think you're supposed to kiss her now, Grandma, Grandad," he observed. We couldn't fault his grasp of etiquette so we did; very chastely and properly with no tongues.
"Mum's gonna go proper monkey poo this time," he predicted, quite astutely. "Glad I'm not the one that has to tell her." He smiled, congratulated us all and then asked for our opinions of his drawing. We were all impressed, both by his artwork and his attitude and told him so. He disappeared happily back inside to put his drawing safely in his bag.
"He's not wrong about Linda," I pointed out. "I was thinking about this while I was running and I think I should take her out for tea tomorrow and tell her about our, er; does 'new situation' sound about right?"
"Thank God!" Marie breathed a sigh of relief. "I don't think she'd accept this updated version of 'the talk' from me. Anyway, I did the one about boys, boobs and periods, now it's your turn."
I went and switched the oven on and chose a bottle of wine as I waited for it to reach 180°C. I'd picked up a bottle of Ribeiro in our local supermarket and a Spanish white seemed to fit nicely with the ingredients so I parked it in the fridge to chill.
I got the tray with the onions, tomatoes, garlic cloves and potatoes and glugged over a little olive oil before putting it all in the oven for twenty minutes and then went off to see my girls. Angie had calmed down and they were trying to decide her outfit for our ceremony.
"What about Padme's rainbow dress?" I suggested. I'd had nothing urgent after lunch and had done some research. Angie gave me a long appraising look and typed 'padme rainbow' into the search engine on her phone. She selected 'images' and then studied the screen intently for longer than I expected. Still silent, she showed Marie the dress. "He's a clever old sod, really, isn't he?" My beloved observed. "That's beautiful, and it's perfect for your body shape."
Angie agreed. "That's it. I was considering Rey's outfit but this is better. This is the one I want."
"You can actually buy these on-line," I offered.
"Not a chance!" Retorted Angie. Marie looked as puzzled as me at how emphatic Angie's response was. "I'm sure that some are okay," Angie conceded. "But I've seen too many instances on Facebook where the seller shows an image of the original but what actually arrives looks like it was sewn in the dark from old curtains by an arthritic chimp. I want it to look just like that picture."
"But at least you'll know how much it is going to cost, dear," Marie said. "Who knows how much your student friends will have to pay to find a fabric like that?"
