Author's note: This chapter is mostly a montage, but there are two longer scenes to help the story move along (but only the second one is sexually explicit). You need to have read chapters 1 -2 and 4-5 or this chapter won't make much sense. Chapter 3 is optional, as it is a flashback and contains a major spoiler (although the spoiler is revealed at the end of this chapter as well in order to set up the finale to this saga in the next chapter).
Standard disclaimer: All explicit sexual activity described in this story is between consenting adults 18 and older.
Enjoy!
CHAPTER 6
June - October 2019, with bits in 2020-2024
Once the school year was completed, the boys and I did the hard work of moving our stuff into Melissa's house. They were thrilled to each be getting their own room instead of having to share a space as they had since Justin was born. Aside from the kids' beds, most of our furniture got sold on e-bay or donated to thrift stores.
The first thing we did when we moved in was to take obedience classes so that Avon—Melissa's German shepherd—would obey me and the boys as much just as much as he did Melissa, and we could enter the house by ourselves without getting attacked.
The next few months Melissa and I got to know each other the way you can only do if you live under the same roof. I had to get used to the fact that Melissa was a habitual early riser who got up at 5:30 on weekdays in order to do morning yoga and walk around the block before showering, eating breakfast and going to work. And because her getting up woke me up so that I couldn't fall back asleep again, I eventually relented and started doing her morning exercise routine with her. Her typical breakfast was whole grain cereal with fresh fruit and a cup of English breakfast blend tea, which I came to love. Prior to moving in with her, I typically woke up after 6:00, had a quick shower and wolfed down either something microwaved or an energy bar with a mug of (cheap) coffee while driving the kids to school.
In addition to changing my breakfast routine, Melissa also changed what I ate for dinner. She was on the Mediterranean diet, which meant that the whole family was now on the Mediterranean diet. I have to say that I quickly learned to love the way olive oil and balsamic vinegar brought out the flavors of fresh vegetables, especially green bell peppers. And I learned that real balsamic vinegar is hard to find, and that most of what you find in grocery stores is balsamic vinegar of Modena, which is just white vinegar with added sugar or high fructose corn syrup, flavoring and caramel color (basically soda made with vinegar instead of carbonated water). My burger-loving sons, though, resented this new diet, so we made a compromise that they got to eat whatever they wanted at the school cafeteria and once a month as a family, we would have a supreme pizza delivered to us.
With the new diet and exercise routine, my body started to change for the better. My face still showed that I was over 40, my hair still had little flecks of gray and my tits still sagged. But my arms, legs and butt were all now much more toned and muscular. And although I was still thicker around the middle than I was before my first pregnancy, the roll of fat around my middle shrunk so that it was no longer hiding my belly button. Melissa teased me about it once during lovemaking, saying she missed being able to play with it during sex. But I got my revenge. Based on my memories of that night, and with help from my ex-husband Dave, I recreated the look I had on the night of Melissa's 21
st
birthday, when she nearly seduced me, but I wound up with Dave instead. I trimmed my eyebrows for the first time in 15 years, got some contact lenses in my prescription, and bought a form-fitting light-beige wife-beater that nearly matched the color of my skin with a pair of hip-hugging jeans that showed off my ass. When Melissa came home from work to find me dressed like that, she gave me her trademark arched eyebrow and lopsided smirk before she instantly mashed her mouth against mine, not caring that the boys could see, and pushed me up the stairs to the bedroom and gave me so many orgasms that I couldn't walk properly for the rest of the day. After we finished, I told her that she finally got her random hookup with me. And from that day on, I continued plucking my eyebrows and wearing contacts, just to keep my lover aroused.
And it wasn't just at home that my life changed. It was one thing to hide my sexuality from my students when I was single because it was really nobody's business, but I was damned if I would hide my family as if I was ashamed of them. Melissa had recently started airing ads for her car dealership where she outed herself to everyone who lived within our local area, so why shouldn't my students know about our relationship? There were now pictures of Melissa included with my family photos on my desk, including one with all the blended family that included me, the boys, Melissa, Melissa's daughter Angie, Dave, Dave's new girlfriend Betsy, Betsy's daughter Maria, and Maria's girlfriend Christi. If one of my students asked, I would tell them point blank that Melissa was my partner. And I even started wearing sleeveless and cap-sleeved tops to work, so all the kids could see my tattoo of two interlinked rainbow-striped female symbols on my right shoulder. As I had predicted, this brought a little friction with some of the more conservative parents, but for the most part, I got support from the students, faculty, staff and even the school board in the form of Cameron McBain, Melissa's former sorority sister and the mother of my son Justin's best friend. And I was naturally chosen as the faculty sponsor of the school GSA, which Melissa's "niece" Ryan (technically first cousin once removed) joined as a straight ally.
I'm looking over what I've written, and I see I've put down how Melissa changed me, but not how I changed her. I guess the major change is that I reintroduced her to reading for pleasure. Before, all her books were about business and economics and were used for running her family business. But seeing how much I enjoyed reading, she started picking up my fiction, history and true crime books and got hooked. And now she also enjoys watching the same kind of movies I like which are the films from the 1950s, 1970s and 1990s that were made with little to no studio interference, often from foreign countries, where the strength of the scripts and the vision of the directors were more important than the special effects, the budget and the actors' egos.
There are also differences between us where we have agreed to disagree. For instance, my taste in music leans toward punk, new wave and new romantic music from the 1970s and 1980s. My favorites include The Cure, The Smiths and The Talking Heads. She thinks those groups are tuneless and pretentious. She prefers classical music, jazz, blues and R&B that predates the disco era. That kind of music puts me to sleep. However, we both enjoy classic rock from the mid-1960s through the mid-1990s. Our mutual likes include The Beatles, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Pearl Jam and Foo Fighters. But even within the classic rock spectrum, she knows I'll never warm up to Joni Mitchell or The Grateful Dead, and I know she'll never warm up to Blondie or The Clash. But of course, in a house full of kids, most of the music we're exposed to is hip hop and top 40, and we had both stopped enjoying the new stuff around the time Kanye West started dating Kim Kardashian and Anna Louisiana started performing as Riley May [author's note: If you want to know about Riley, see my debut story "Anna Louisiana"].
Another area where we respect each other's differences is politics. Although I've never been part of the Jerry Brown/Ralph Nader/Bernie Sanders/AOC crowd, I've never been ashamed to call myself a liberal and a feminist, even during the late 1980s through the mid-2000s when even the most progressive Democrats feared being labeled with these terms. I believe Barack Obama was the best president of the past half-century. Melissa has similar views to mine on certain social issues—particularly women's and LGBTQ+ issues—but had been a Republican up until 2016. Since 2016, she has called herself a pro-democracy, anti-Trump, independent libertarian conservative. Her favorite president is Ronald Reagan. I believe when the market is under-regulated, it does more harm than good. She believes in the old saw that "a rising tide lifts all boats" and that markets should be left alone. I believe the Iraq War was a tragic mistake. She believes history will eventually look kindly upon America for bringing democracy to the Muslim world. I think the death penalty is barbaric and ineffective. She believes it should be expanded from just murderers and terrorists to rapists, child abusers, and drivers who suddenly jerk in front of our car without signaling and then slam on the brakes. (You may think she's joking about that last one. But as someone who has shared a car with her multiple times as both driver and passenger, I can assure you she is not). But we agree that Trump is a fascist thug, Biden is passive and weak, and both are too old and incompetent to be president. I reluctantly voted for Biden in 2020 and will do so again in 2024. She cast a write-in vote for Meghan McCain in 2020 and says she will write in Liz Cheney in 2024.
And lastly, you would think with our insane sexual chemistry that I would be up for whatever Melissa wanted in bed, but it's not true. Shortly after I moved in, she asked me if I would stop shaving as she'd had a fetish for women with body hair ever since the time she had sex with Layla, who let everything grow out. I think armpit hair is gross, and since divorcing Dave, I have been glad not to have to be near it anymore. Even before Melissa, when most of my girlfriends had been more butch than me, I refused to date a woman who didn't have regular grooming habits. Plus, with me going back to wearing sleeveless tops at work, I didn't want to be showing off my body hair to my students and colleagues. So, Melissa and I made a compromise where I continued to shave my armpits and legs, but let my pubes grow wild. These days, when I go to the swimming pool or the beach, I wear trunks over my swimsuit so I'm not giving anyone a show.
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One major piece in both our lives that changed us for the better was figuring out how to co-parent little Angie together. William and Justin were both old enough to mostly take care of themselves and had their dad still active in their lives. But Angie was only four and Melissa had a restraining order taken out against Angie's father, so I became her de facto second parent, even though she always just called me by my name, and never "Mommy." We taught her to count and read as a team and sang her to sleep together because I could carry a tune but never had the time or discipline to learn an instrument, while Melissa could play the guitar but sounded like a dying cat when she tried to sing.
