Here it is, the long-delayed sixth and final part of "Love Among the Stacks." I jumped us quite a few years into the future - I wanted to wrap the story up for those of you who've been sticking with it (and giving it such high ratings - Thank You!), but the key parts of the story were done, and there's other ones in my head.
As always, feedback is most welcome. All sexually-active characters are over 18.
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November 27, 2003
1.
"We have to be super quiet in case Daddy's still sleepin'."
"Okay. Shhhhh. Let's go on our tippie-toes."
A thunk. A giggle. Another giggle.
I fought to keep from smiling as I felt them approach me. I'd been up for a good half-hour but hadn't gotten out of bed yet. Today would be a busy day - our guests would arrive around lunchtime, but I'd be busy in the kitchen well before then - and I saw no reason to rush into it.
Besides, I knew if I stayed in bed, eventually the cutest alarm clocks ever would come looking for me.
I waited until they were standing right in front of me and then reached out to grab them to pull them up on the bed with me.
"Daddy, Daddy! You're awake!" They laughed and I gave each of them a big kiss.
"I am! And what day is it?"
"Thanksgiving!"
"That's right! And I've got to get up so I can get you two turkeys into the oven!"
"Daddy! You don't cook us! You cook the birdy dat's in the fridge."
"Oh, silly Daddy. That's right." I gave them each another kiss. "Alright you monsters. Let me get up and get dressed and we can start all the fun."
Miles and Jacqueline grabbed each other's hand and ran out of the room, calling out for their mom. I made my way to the bathroom, knowing that I'd better get out there quickly before Kellie came to get me. As I turned on the shower, I smiled at memories of Kellie joining me in the shower, going back to the first time I saw her naked. She'd been gorgeous then at 19 and she was more gorgeous today at 32.
I showered and got dressed in my cookin' clothes - the ones I didn't mind (much) if they got stained. I'd put on my "guests are comin' over" clothes by noon.
By the time I left our bedroom, I could smell the pumpkin pies Kellie was cooking. She knew that the oven would be mine most of the day and got up early to get the desserts going. It was a small price to pay, she'd told me back when we first hosted Thanksgiving, to not have to spend the day cooking.
Kellie happened to be leaning over the oven to check on the status of the pies when I reached the kitchen.
"Mmmm. Looks good."
She turned to me, a smirk on her face. She knew what I was talking about, and it sure wasn't the pies. Her ass gave a little shimmy, then she pushed the pies back into the oven and stepped into my arms. I gave her a quick smooch and she gave me a longer one.
"When these are done, I'll go take my shower and get ready for your parents to come over."
We'd long since moved away from Chicago, but my parents hadn't wanted to only see their grandchildren on special occasions, so they moved out to the Pacific Northwest with us. They were more than happy to let us host big events, spoil the twins, and leave us to clean up the mess. This year, they'd be joined by Kellie's Aunt Jenny and her husband Luis. We hadn't seen them since their wedding, since they lived down in Miami. How Kellie convinced them to come hang out in the drizzle when they could have been on the beach was beyond me.
In due course, the pies were ready and I took over the kitchen. I was glad the kids could now entertain themselves a bit so I could cook without running back and forth from the kitchen to wherever they'd wandered off to or to handle a diaper blowout. Sometimes it was hard to believe they were almost five, other times it seemed like they'd been part of our lives forever. Miles had been named after Kellie's dad, of course, and Jackie after my grandmothers (Jacqueline Elise, if you must know), and they were currently cutting a swath a mile wide through their kindergarten.
I was getting elbows-deep in chopping various vegetables and potatoes and...when Kellie came back out after her shower. She was wearing a green sweater and blue jeans - simple clothes, but the kind that always made my heart jump when I saw her. Her hips were a little wider and her breasts a little fuller than they were the day we first bumped into each other in the library - the result of carrying a couple of kids and not, y'know, basically still being kids ourselves - but she was always my Kellie. We hugged and exchanged another kiss. From the spark in her eyes, I knew I wasn't the only one whose engine just started up. I knew that someday our bodies probably wouldn't respond quite like this anymore, but that wasn't going to come anytime soon.
Kellie reached between us and cupped me through my jeans. "Later," she mouthed, and left me alone with my knives and veggies.
2.
One of the things about life in the Pacific Time Zone is that the football games start mid-morning and end by dinnertime on Thanksgiving. I could see our living room from the kitchen and I watched the chaos out there while I cooked. Two grandparents, a great aunt and uncle, and two five year olds played with trains, Legos, and coloring books while dozens of grown men got paid millions of dollars to play their own game and my beautiful wife sat in her corner chair with a book and a glass of wine. Every so often someone would come in the kitchen to visit me, get a drink or a snack, and I couldn't keep the smile off my face most of the day. My life might not have been for everyone, but I couldn't have drawn it up any better.
My relationship with Kellie took a big jump with our trip to the cabin. There was the sex, of course - two 19-year olds with all the privacy in the world can get awfully creative over the course of a week, and we explored each other extensively. But it was more than that. We were living as adults in many ways, no parents or anything in sight, and we just got along so well.
That trip to the cabin changed my life in another way, too. I kept looking at the photos and other memorabilia around the cabin from all the people who'd stayed there over the years, and I just knew there was a story - a history - there that needed someone to tell it. I didn't know how to tell that story at that point in my life, of course, but the spark never went away. Throughout my time in college, I dabbled at finding my way into the story, but it wasn't until Kellie sat me down during winter break of our senior years and told me I wasn't allowed to leave our apartment until I figured it out. I would have been okay staying there except that she'd gone out to stay with my parents while I worked and she hinted that if I took too long, they'd be sharing every embarrassing story all of them could tell about me.
I did, of course, and it formed the basis of my dissertation in grad school. We'd moved downstate by then - Kellie was getting her PhD in biochemistry while I got mine in library studies, specifically focusing on those hidden history records that families everywhere have. Those aren't world-changing stories, but sometimes - as with the cabin - there's a gem of something grand there if someone is willing to spend some time digging it out.
3.
As is probably pretty obvious, my relationship with Kellie kept growing. It had developed when we lived in different states with limited contact, so attending different schools a dozen or so miles apart wasn't much of a challenge. We got our money's worth out of our CTA passes, that's for sure, visiting each other every chance we could. While she grew closer to her aunt over the years, Michigan was never "home" for her, so other than short visits to see Jenny, Kellie and I got to be together.
We each had friends who'd wanted us to play the proverbial field, to sow some oats, to see what was out there, but at least for me, I was never seriously tempted. I mean, sure, our campuses - hell, the whole city of Chicago - were home to many beautiful and interesting and intelligent women, and college life is full of opportunities even for socially-awkward guys like me. But I never stopped being head-over-heels for Kellie, and eventually our friends just accepted what we already knew.
That's not to say everything was always smooth. We fought, just like every couple. It wasn't like either of us had grown up with great role models - Kellie's mom had abandoned her, and my parents fought all the time until we moved to Illinois. She had more money than I did, because she'd done better in school and had better scholarships, but also because of her dad's life insurance. One of our biggest challenges came when I called her spoiled because she could afford to go to a concert and I couldn't. (Of course I apologized. Instantly. But it was a week before I saw her again - the longest week I could remember. And it wasn't until I arranged for us to take a trip to go visit his grave where I could thank him for raising such an incredible woman that I felt like we were okay again.)
There was the time Kellie's period was a few days late and we held each other late at night, knowing that sophomore year was too early for us to become parents. No method of birth control is perfect, kids! We actually went all oral sex for a month after that. Admittedly, that was fun as a change of pace, and we tried out some new games.
My favorite was "how many times can I make Kellie come while only touching her with my mouth?" Six. And a half. Number seven happened when she slipped off my face and came while rubbing her pussy against my chest. I blamed her for soaking everything in sight. She just wanted to try again the next night. (We only got to four that night. Then I started using my fingers...)
Her favorite was "how long can I tease James' cock with my mouth until he can't possibly not come?" According to Kellie's timer, two hours, thirty-seven minutes, and eleven seconds of excruciating bliss. And she was active the whole time, too. She licked and kissed and sucked me everywhere I could have wanted, plus some places I didn't know I wanted but it turned out I did, and I moaned and whimpered and howled and begged. Kellie told me that I leaked so much pre-cum that she thought I'd actually come a couple of times, but when I finally did, shooting pulse after pulse of cum out of my aching cock, she knew the difference.
But most of all, it was life. Classes and laundry and TV and food and the weather and feeling good and feeling sick. Having someone to curl up with when the hawk wind blows cold out of the north and to laugh with when the jokes keep getting stupider and funnier and to know that even when it's not okay, it's okay.
4.
Thanksgiving dinner was wonderful. At the end of the day, it's just a meal, but sitting there with Kellie and our kids, plus my parents and the closest people Kellie had to parents, it's easy to feel gratitude. I'd been a lonely and angry kid with no hope for the future, and if you'd told that kid that one day this would be his life, not only would he not have believed you, it would just not have made sense.
