This is the fourth section of a six-part story, so you are advised to start at part 1. Because it was written as one story, rather than written in episodes or chapters, I have made no attempt at recapping previous parts or reintroducing characters at the beginning of later sections.
I am a fan of introducing genuine randomness whenever I write a game of chance, so I rolled an actual die as I was writing this chapter. As you will see, though, this doesn't mean that the characters are obliged to stick to the rules.
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It was Sunday, and I soon learned that John, Annie and Kat were intending to go to church as one of Annie's cousins was having a Commitment Ceremony. John explained that, when at church, they never used the word 'wedding' unless it was a man's first marriage. Since bigamy was technically illegal, they could never be sure that someone from the government wasn't present.
Helen and the others had indeed finished their fieldwork project late the previous evening, but my hopes that they would take it easy were soon dashed. It turned out that they had decided to use their first free day to travel across the island to have a look at another bird colony containing a completely unrelated species of seabird. Since it obviously wasn't appropriate for me to go to church, I was given a pity invitation to go to see the birds. It was with a certain amount of mixed feelings that I agreed to go with them.
During the drive to the other bird colony, the conversation was mostly about Annie's cousin and the church service. Once we arrived at the birds and started walking around, I noticed that the three women seemed to get deep into conversation whenever I was out of earshot, but stopped whenever I was near them. When we sat down to our picnic lunch, there seemed to be a real struggle to get a conversation going. The same pattern continued after lunch. Eventually I said "If you give me the car keys, I could wait in the car and get the air conditioning going. You might like the opportunity to talk among yourselves."
Hilda and Kat both looked awkward, but Helen just gave me a grateful smile. "Thanks, love, that would be great."
I sat in the car for about twenty minutes before the women joined me. Nothing was said about what they had been talking about, so it was only conjecture on my part to assume they were discussing Hilda's birthday. The only real hint came once we got back to the house and everyone went to change into their swimsuits. I was delighted in more ways than one when Kat started changing in the same room as Helen and me. I tried my best to focus my attention on Helen as she started talking to me.
"I may be wrong," she said, "but you didn't seem to react negatively when I went topless in front of John yesterday."
"I didn't see any reason to be jealous," I said.
"And you weren't upset by us seeing John in his underpants?"
"No."
"And you haven't been offended by any of the female skin you have seen?" As Helen asked this, I glanced to my left in time to see Kat pulling up her bikini bottom. Helen waited patiently without any sign of annoyance.
"Why do you ask? Is this connected to Hilda's plans for her birthday? What's going to happen?"
"She's still trying to decide," said Helen, "but it looks like there's a good chance that she will use her powers as the queen for the day to stir things up a bit. I just needed to let you know it's possible we'll get caught in the crossfire."
This conversation had left me fully erect, but I was unsure how this would be perceived given that our conversation had been mostly about Hilda and the others. Thankfully Kat headed into the bathroom, leaving me alone with Helen. I turned away from her to finish changing, hoping that by laying my swimsuit on the bed it might look natural. Helen wasn't fooled however, coming up behind me as I pulled up my swimsuit and rubbing my aching erection through the fabric.
"I see this is still troubling you," she whispered in my ear. "You should ask your wife to look after this for you."
"Please," I whispered back. "We'll be alone once Kat goes out to the pool."
Kat chose that moment to come back into the room. Helen stepped away from me and, in a normal voice, said "I would love to help you, but it's my day off." She left the room, laughing to herself.
"You're killing me here," I called after her. Kat looked at me with a puzzled expression, but I decided it was best not to attempt to explain what we had been talking about. I followed Helen out to the pool.
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Annie was in the kitchen wearing just her bikini when I passed through. I quickly said hello without stopping as I felt an irrational fear that my erection was already too obvious in my swimsuit. When I got outside, I immediately jumped in the pool, joining Ted in swimming some laps. After a while everything subsided enough for me to feel comfortable about climbing out and accepting a beer from John. He had moved the table and chairs to a distant corner of the deck where there was a pizza oven. I could feel the heat radiating off the oven, and John's chest was glistening with sweat. Thankfully the beers were in a cooler filled with ice.
Eventually Annie came out of the house carrying a tray loaded with a huge ball of dough and various pizza toppings, and all the others gathered around too. John demonstrated how to cut a lump of dough off the large ball and stretch it into a pizza base. After a lot of laughter, I eventually had a not-too-badly misshapen pizza topped with some of my favourite toppings. A short time later I was eating it.
Once the excitement of creating our pizzas was over, everyone quietened down. It wasn't surprising now that everyone was together that we caught up with each other about the day's activities. Hilda was particularly keen to hear all about the commitment ceremony for Annie's cousin. The conversation soon turned to a general discussion about weddings on the island and the differences with both American and New Zealand traditions. Kat had asked what Annie's cousin had worn and had been told that she hadn't worn a traditional wedding dress, let alone a veil. John explained that weddings on their island were deliberately non-commercial, with people getting married in clothes that they were sure to wear again.
The comparison to my own wedding couldn't have been more obvious, particularly when Helen started sharing at length about the extensive planning and cost of our special day. While our wedding was modest compared to many, and they all knew examples from relatives who lived on the American mainland who had spent far more, we could only agree with them when they suggested ways in which we could have better spent our money.
After the topic of Helen's wedding to me had been exhausted, Ted turned to Kat. "So, what was your ceremony like?" she asked. Kat was obviously totally unprepared for this question. Her mouth opened, but no words came out. It looked to me that she was trying to think up some suitable story but was failing miserably. After what was in reality only a few seconds, she admitted that there had been no ceremony.
It was Helen who recovered her wits the quickest. I'm not sure when she became so adept at lying. "You must remember that our situation is quite different. As far as our friends and family are concerned, Kat is simply renting our spare room. Even if we had thought about having a ceremony, we wouldn't have been able to invite anyone. It would have been just the three of us."
"That's sad," said Annie quietly. There was a moment of awkwardness before Hilda took the conversation back to safer territory by telling a funny story about an uncle in Utah who had insisted on riding a horse to his wedding and had fallen off when the horse had gone under a low archway. As she told her story, I saw Annie whispering in John's ear. A moment later I watched her stand up and wander away into the surrounding garden picking flowers. When she returned to the table, she started weaving the flowers together. I watched her absentmindedly until I was distracted by John offering me an after-dinner liqueur. The conversation flowed as darkness started to fall.