Chapter 19: It's Nice To Have a Friend
My cheeks stung as I stared unblinking at Hera. What the hell had just happened? Did Megan just tell us we were out of shape?
"Megan sure has a sweet way of telling me I'm flabby," Hera said with a rather forced smile.
"Is that what she said?" I asked, still unsure about what had transpired.
"Weren't you there?" she sounded a little on edge. "Of course that's what she said. It's not the first time. She's been trying to get me to work out with her ever since she moved in."
"That must be annoying," I commiserated.
"Well, yeah. The worst part is that she's right. I
am
flabby."
"Fuck no, you're not flabby!" I raised my voice as if to frighten off unfriendly ideas. "You're perfect, you're beautiful, you're sexy, you're..."
"Letting myself go." She sighed. "I'm twenty four, I know that's young, especially compared to you..." she looked up at me and smirked, "...but it's not
that
young. I've been coasting on my youth, and I know that won't last forever. Ok, I don't want to end up looking like my mom. I love her to death, and she's incredibly sexy, but she really looks matronly, and too old for her age. I know she's not happy with her body, and she's actually started doing something about it. She's working out with Joe and Jo and Angela."
"I think Henri's working out with them too," I added.
"Sometimes he works out there, sometimes he's at Carl's. I don't think he's settled on a good routine yet. But yeah, he's trying. And I'm not. Megan noticed. I'd always thought that maybe I'd go running with you and Tethys after I met you guys, but you haven't been running as much as you used to, and I haven't even asked yet to go along."
I'd read the prase before: "the thrill of shame." It's what I felt at that moment. I had indeed cut back on my running. It hadn't been a conscious decision, but ever since meeting Megan and Hera, and getting involved with the others in The Tribe, I'd spent so much more time socializing and sexualizing than exercising. People will claim that fucking is excellent exercise, and it is to a certain extent, especially the way WE do it, but not nearly to the extent of running five to ten miles. It was a fact that I was coasting too, and I had ten more years of age viscosity to resist my coasting than Hera.
Tethys had cut back on her running as well, but while maybe not the same from a cardio standpoint, she had in exchange increased the duration and intensity of her weight lifting, now that she was helping to train Megan and Rena, and whoever else might want to join in. I had never had the urge to compete with Carl physically, he was simply an extraordinary specimen, but now I had met, and Tethys was currently visiting, Ray and Mimi from San Diego. At sixty-two, he could give Carl a run for his money, and I was reasonably sure that if he wanted, he could lift me vertically overhead and toss me across a room. It wasn't just strength, either, he had the lean, slender build of a muscular Adonis half his age. Tethys was completely taken by him, and Mimi was encouraging her to seduce him.
Joe, Henri, Herakles and Rick had all started hitting the gym as well, I was the only male holdout. And why? Was it arrogance? Stubbornness? Pride? Laziness? Philosophical reluctance?
Maybe I was too busy with work. Yeah, that could be it. Except I was no busier than Henri, or Carl, or Rick. Joe and Jo, maybe, since they were prematurely retired. But the other women in the group also had their jobs and classes to go to, except for Phoebe, and she was now exercising rather than making excuses. No, for me, there was only one thing it could be, and that was old-fashioned everyday conservative inertia. I was simply averse to change. I'd grown up thinking that lifting weights was for blockheads, and I hadn't allowed my contrary experience with weight lifters to change my deep-set attitude.
I looked back at Hera. "So what are you going to do?"
"Now, or for the rest of my life?"
"Um, either, I guess."
She sighed heavily. "Megan has gone into my mom's Goddess cult even more than my mom has, and way more than me. Shit, even Rena seems to have bought into it. And they're saying that if you want to live a fully erotic and sensual, happily sexual life, then you need to develop the whole person, intellectually, morally, and physically. Being fit and strong physically allows your senses to be sharper, your responses to be more powerful, and of course your sexual capacity to be greater."
"Tethys would agree with all that, I added.
"For the intellectual stuff, she likes for me to make love to her while she's studying. It's kind of distracting to be licking her pussy while she's writing an essay or reading a paper, but I do it. She says having an orgasm while reading helps her remember it better. For the moral aspect, it's all about developing her sexual philosophy, along with a general concept of empathy, she says. So anyway, in the long run, I'm going to follow the Goddess' inspiration, and among other things, start a workout program. I'll talk to her about it this evening.
"And what about now?"
"For now, I'm going to fuck you until your cock breaks."
Hera had made up her mind, and as my broken cock rested inside her warm and suckling mouth for the third time that day, my primary thought (other than wondering whether the enzymes in her saliva could be digesting the skin of my penis with all this exposure to them) was of how I should go about scheduling workouts. Ideally, I'd be sharing the workouts with Tethys, but to do that she'd have to change her schedule. Even if I managed to get a full workout on a weekend, that would still mean at least a couple of evenings during the week after work. Tethys' schedule had mostly revolved around Carl's availability, since it was his home gym she was using, but with his impending departure for the Asian tour with Sonia, that would not be a factor for at least a few months.
When Tethys and I talked that night, I told her what Megan had said, and the conversation with Hera that followed. Of course, she hadn't been missing any workouts herself, Mimi and Ray had a full weight room built into their house, with a separate outdoor entrance, and Tethys reported that it was almost as well-equipped as Carl's.
"Gary and Anna Diwata, and their other spouses come over and use it regularly, so it's occupied a good portion of the time. Mimi says she and Ray used to work out four times a week, but now they're down to three. She says they don't have the endurance for aerobic intensity they had thirty years ago, but as far as raw strength, they're as strong or stronger than they've ever been. And in this San Diego climate they can stay naked most of the year, and... oh, it's just so nice out here, Taylor!"
"That really sounds great," I said, trying not to sound annoyed, "but that still doesn't answer my question. So if you ever decide to come home, I'm wondering what would be the best way for me to arrange a workout schedule around my day job. I have no clue what I'm doing, and I'd need somebody to coach me. I'm not sure if you want to keep the same schedule going after Sonia and Carl leave, or if you're flexible..."
"Oh, Taylor! I work from home, remember? I can make whatever schedule I want. I'd
love
to work out with you, and yes, I want to be your coach! I'll kick your ass in that gym, too!" she giggled over the phone.
"Come up with a schedule that suits you. If you can talk Hera into working out with both of us, that would be really nice. And if it's a schedule that Megan and Rena can accommodate, so much the better. But I'll do whatever days and hours you do. Or, if you want, Joe and Joanne have put together a pretty nice home gym too, for themselves and Angela and Rick and Phoebe and Herakles. It's not as hard core as Carl's, but it would work just fine if you can schedule that instead. It's your program."
"I know you like hard core, and I know you like Carl's gym, and that's what you're used to," I said. "Megan too. So that's fine with me, and there's nobody I'd rather have my ass kicked by."
"You realize I'll be home in one week, right?"
"I can't wait!"
"Mimi is still trying to get me to fuck Ray, or rather, to get Ray to fuck me. I don't know if it's going to happen before I leave, but if it does, you'll get the full video. And that will be my last fuck before I get home to you. You'll be my first fuck when I do get back. Taylor, I miss you so much! I love you... I can't wait to be in your arms again."
I felt much more cheerful after that.
Beth and I were getting along surprisingly well at work lately, since she'd been on the receiving list of all The Tribe's porn videos with me in them, her curiosity about my sex life seemed to have been satisfied, and she rarely felt the need to discuss it any more. When she did, it was with a comfortable casualness that radiated approval and support, without leaving me with the worrisome feeling that she wanted to somehow involve herself. I even felt less squeamish about her sharing her own details with me, although the fact that there was so little to tell made it easy. It also made it easier to focus on the work itself. The database upgrade was going better than I'd expected. PostgreSQL was up and running, and we'd built a skeleton set of tables and relations. We couldn't transfer data directly from the old database into the new one, we'd made too many design changes for such a simple move. Instead, we separated out a subset of our data into JSON files, while Mike built an application to reformat the data as needed into our new table structures. A lot of that was experimental and temporary, as we expected to have to rearrange some of the tables and redo some relationships, but it turned out to have relatively few glitches. Beth was part of the reason for that, I was learning to trust her skills in design as well as coding. Yes, were were finally a real team.
The last week until Tethys was to return passed smoothly, but not quickly. I felt like I was back in school, waiting impatiently for the start of summer vacation. Hera was a help, of course, and Megan also stopped by couple of times. She reminded me of her upcoming nineteenth birthday, which was to happen a few days after Tethys got back. Tethys would turn thirty-four a week later. Sonia's tour date had been delayed by a couple of weeks, allowing Carl to be present for Megan's birthday, but unfortunately he would be gone before Tethys had hers.
"You know what I want," Megan said slyly, turning her head back toward me as I entered her from behind. Hera removed her lips from Megan's clit and dropped it back to the mattress, meaning that with my next thrust my balls missed bouncing on her forehead and nose and flapped forward against Megan's padded mons and hood.
"I know what you want," Hera replied matter-of-factly.
