The next day it rained even harder. The girls decided to stay home with the kids and dye Alice's hair and put in highlights. Josie wanted hers done too so Corrine made a quick trip to town and came back with enough to do her own hair as well as Josie's. Bobby went over to Joe's.
"Well, sport, today is one of those days when we men have to find guy things to do because the women want to do girl things. Bobby followed Joe around all day, doing repairs in the main house and staging electrical work for the next day. The more Joe loaded the boy up the more Bobby liked it. Twice Bobby said, "We are doing men things."
The girls were making equally good progress. Corrine and Alice were in bra and panties and Josie was in panties. Alice and Josie had pieces of tinfoil in their hair and Alice was decorating Corrine the same way. In pure innocence, Josie reached out and rubbed Corrine's belly and up to her bra and then said, "Your skin is so soft and smooth, I hope I am pretty like you and Alice, when I grow up."
At first, Corrine started to pull away from another female's touch and verbal compliment but then she saw it in the light of reality. One human was touching another and saying, "I like how you feel;" "It pleases me to touch you;" "You are beautiful to me;" "I like being with you." For the first time the many fragile elements of a relationship seemed to be clear: there was love, sex, caring, belonging, safety, contentment, giving, dreams and sharing. There were an impossible number of combinations where she had always found some tiny thing that was not good enough and used it to keep a relationship at bay. She understood that Tyler felt all these things with his mother but that they would keep changing from his infancy, until someday when he would be a man like Joe. She could feel how Josie's hand said, "I love you." She remembered the guiding touches of her sister, they said, "I love you." She remembered a hundred looks, kisses, touches and caresses from Joe that said, "I love you." Not one of those things demanded that she respond, she was just being told, "I love you." They were giving themselves to her in the moment, hoping she would understand and accept their gift.
Corrine's mind was still racing as she took the silver papers out of her sister's hair and idly stroked her shoulders, neck and back. Alice's hand came up to hold her sister's hand to her cheek. "Thank you for doing all this for me today. Having an all girl day is fun once in a while. I like your touch on my skin."
This time Corrine was not offended. There was no overt demand for performance. Her sister's comment was like Josie's had been. It said, "I love you. I like your touch." She realized under certain conditions the touches could go on or she could stop them. In either case, she would still be loved and could still love. Joe loved her, if she stayed with him or went home. He loved her, even if she went on a date with another man. Sure, he hoped for more but his love was not conditional on her performance. He just loved her. He did not judge her. She imagined some of the responses he could give to her negative thoughts about him. Things like: You are old -- yea, you are short and have small boobs. You are boring -- yea, you are uneducated and broke. You are not hip -- yea, you don't know what you want and won't risk loving. Each of her thoughts now sounded harsh, immature and less important. Never had she heard any negative responses from him. He may have thought all that and more but instead of dwelling on them he touched, gave and loved.
"I like touching you Alice. I love you. You are beautiful and I depend on you and admire you."
Alice was not into Corrine's deep mood, "Well thank you, little sister. That is nice to hear."
"No, I mean it. You have worked through so much, are on your own, have two kids and see the beauty in the world."
"Corrine, I am hardly on my own now. I have you, Joe, three kids and lots of life to look forward to. I can even hope to influence some of it, belong, build something good, be happy and maybe make someone else's life better too."
Corrine remembered an old black and white movie she watched about two in the morning once, when she could not sleep. A beautiful woman kept using men and leaving one for a more successful one or one with more power. Each time she got what she wanted until she realized all her trades had not brought her any happiness. She wanted to love and be loved. She did not know how to give, only trade up, take and never be content.
For two hours, she thought and was not part of any conversation. When Alice got Josie ready to take to Joe, Corrine asked, "Can I run her home tonight and see Joe for a while."
Alice's eyes teared up because her heart understood that her little sister had made a great leap of faith toward risking, giving and being a woman. She reached out and kissed Corrine passionately and Corrine returned her lip-to-lip kiss. Their hug was more than two women hugging, more than two sisters hugging. Now was not the time to analyze such things. Her mind was tired. She wanted to see Joe.
Joe's entire face lit up when he saw the two of them. He could not quit bragging on their new hair-dos and how beautiful they were. Josie twirled and modeled until Bobby called her and she quickly dismissed the adults.
Joe had been busy, "Corrine, I have been looking at the map of the property. Without permits or much expense, we can bring in a travel trailer and set it up on the opposite side of the house from the new mobile home. We can leave four rows of almonds for privacy and you could live there, find a job, be independent, date and not be bogged down by us old fogies and all the kids."
He had drawings with dimensions, details on water lines, septic hookup, electric lines and even a new pattern for his tractors to go through the orchard. He had done this for her. He wanted her but he was letting her go. He was helping her be free, even giving her space to find another lover.
She was standing away from the table filled with his drawings. Again he urged her, "Come on look at this, before you leave. I think you will really like this idea. You can think about it for a while. We can get it done pretty quickly."
"Joe, I want to stay with you tonight. I'm not very big. Do you have room in your bed for me?"
He was motionless, looking stupid, standing half bent over with a pencil held backwards in his hand. His heart had his mind stalemated. Together they were trying to decide what her words meant, how much to let his heart feel and how to respond.
Her body was instantly full of life, her face brightened the room, she smiled and laughed at him. "That has to be the dumbest expression you have come up with yet. You've known for a long time that I love you. I was the one who had to learn. I'm yours forever, if you want me. I love you, Joe."
He grabbed her spun her, kissed her, knocked over chairs, the kids came running to see what the commotion was. Joe looked at the little ones and said, "She loves me."
Josie shrugged and said, "Is that all. I knew that."
Bobby probably did not hear the discussion but he copied Josie's shrug and added, "I knew that too."
After the kids went to sleep, Joe took Corrine to the bathroom and they showered together. He bathed her and was nervous, like they had not been together before. He dried her gently, picked her up and carried her to bed. For a few minutes, he kissed and loved her and caressed her. She wiggled under him, spread her legs wide and reached for him to come to her. She kissed him and then licked the side of his face. Her eyes danced and her smile was different than he had seen. He felt her spread herself wider, she licked him again, pulled his ear close to her lips and a long slow hiss escaped. With the last part of her breath she said, "Fuck me, Joe. I want to feel you inside me."
Their bodies had learned the mechanics of bringing pleasure and release to the other. That was building but as good as it felt for his cock to swell and throb in Corrine, Joe's heart was searching inside every part of her for doubts and if she was holding back or not telling him her concerns. Her soft moan of building pleasure brought his eyes to her lovely face. He allowed his heart and mind to see a woman surrendering her body in love to her man. Her face was twisted and her eyes were closed. Her breasts heaved up against him. Her legs wrapped around his hips and her hands clutched the cheeks of his ass. Instead of thrusting, he now had to rock in time with her hips and his cock stayed fully imbedded in her and its tip just slid back and forth across the tiny opening of her cervix. His thoughts were her thoughts. He imagined the puddle of semen, he was going to put in her for her tiny opening to sip. He was about to cum but he needed to be closer to her. His arms slid under her and clasped her to him. His lips closed over hers. Their bodies were as close as they could be. Their releases were building. Most of their breath was shared back and forth into loving lungs. Her body tensed and arched in his arms and he stiffened over her and gave her his weight. Corrine felt his cock lurch and pulse inside her. Her whimper of release was met with his groan of ecstasy. The sounds merged into one. Joe had never heard such a beautiful sound before. His cock jumped again and pumped into her again, just as he realized that wonderful sound was the sound of completeness and oneness between a man and a woman. She was climaxing under him and he was finishing in her. Their hearts beat together, their breaths were timed together, for brief moments their life forces merged and their pleasure was neither hers nor his.
The beauty needed no words. They rolled over together and she slept on top, totally relaxed, totally wanted, totally loved. His cock softened; she felt him covering her with the comforter, protecting her. Just as sleep was closing in on her, she squeezed her muscles letting him know much she liked him inside of her.
Like newlyweds, twice during the night they woke up, made love, just to be close, and then went to sleep, tangled together again. Early in the morning, he rushed to pee. Corrine came up behind him and learned to hold him and make the stream hit the center of the water. After he finished, she sat and he opened her knees, knelt and watched while she added to his offering. For a fleeting moment, he felt like a playful child. It was a wonderful feeling. He hoped, she had it too.
Joe's heart was racing when he ventured his big risking question, "Stay with me; live with me in this house."
"I will. Alice has to live with us too."
Many things began to happen fast after that. Alice and Corrine moved into the new addition in the big house. Joe was never sure how they decided but one or the other was with him every night. Corrine got more time than Alice. He liked that. Jose and his family began to move items into the mobile home each day, when he came to work. His eldest boy wanted to get into the business of bee keeping; there was a fantastic need for that, starting with Joe's eighty acres. Two big surprises came along to keep them occupied.
First a letter arrived from Joe's sister saying that she had gotten into several fights, stabbed another inmate and was caught with drugs in prison. Ten years were tacked on to her sentence. Josie would be with him at least until she graduated high school.
Next, on a bright mid-February day about eleven in the morning a waving Corrine drove the four-wheeler into the orchard to race Joe back to the house. Two stern social workers were visiting at the request of the early learning day-care that Josie and Bobbie attended twice a week. At first everything sounded serious but then all realized that Josie and Bobbie just did not know how to explain things at school when asked about their home situations. Both claimed to have two mothers and one father. Josie even added, that she had a third mother, who is in prison. Joe's explanations appeased the case workers. He showed them where Corrine's and Alice's apartment was. He showed them Bobby's room that he shared with his brother Tyler and he showed them Josie's room.
"Our deal is that Alice and Corrine take care of the house and kids during the day, while I take care of the trees. I provide the room and board and we usually have enjoy quiet evenings together."
There were smiles all around. One of the workers suggested, "Maybe you should sit down and tell Josie and Bobby how to explain things, or this will come up in kindergarten and first grade. Joe, if this is going to be a long term situation, you might want to consider adopting Josie while you sister is willing to sign her rights away. That will stop any questions from busy bodies and keep protective services out of your life."
A few evenings later, Joe was dozing in his recliner during the third repeat of the Fox news on channel 48 when the telephone rang. "Joe this is Mabel Copland, Dan's wife."
"What a pleasant surprise. I don't think we have ever talked and it has been several months since I ran into Dan to talk almonds and have coffee."
"That's sort of what I'm calling you about. Dan has had a mild stroke. He is slowly getting control of his right side and his speech is getting better but his doctors say that at 72, he has to start taking it easy. Dan told me that at one time you were interested in our 80 acres of almonds because it is next to yours. We are considering moving into an assisted living facility and selling the almonds. Are you still interested?"
