Author's Notes: Gang Aft Agley is a work of fiction, no characters or situations have any basis in known persons. The story continues the theme I generally use, that of a happily married couple wherein the wife attempts to add a lover to the family mix. In this story the couple has a girl child. Let me be very clear, the child is not involved in any way in any sexual activities of her mother or father. She is simply part of the family. A few of the many poems of the great Scots bard Robert Burns are used as a device to carry the plot in this story. They are gathered from an excellent website of the British Broadcasting Corporation dedicated to the work and life of Burns:
here
In addition to the text, Burns poems and songs are available aurally as read by very notable British persons including some by HRH Charles, Prince of Wales. At least two of the poems used in this story are also available by various artists on YouTube.Com, Ae Fond Kiss and My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose. Gang Aft Agley is written in four chapters and each will be submitted simultaneously. Publication schedule, of course, lies with Literotica editors.
CHAPTER TWO - MARRIAGE
By summer's end Nancy had their home livable, in comfortable décor. Her decorating style might best be called thrift store - yard sale eclectic. She was proudest of two decisions. Her first decorating decision was to tie in both Robert and her own familial past to their new home. Nancy contacted both mothers and asked they pick out something from their home that would keep the young couple connected to their families. Robert's mother Carla gifted a Tiffany table lamp that now resided juxtaposed on a yard sale Danish modern end table in their living room. Three weeks after talking with her, Nancy's father and mother arrived Saturday afternoon with the French provincial style love seat that had been Nancy's favorite nap spot when she was a very young child.
Her second decision took her to antique furniture collectors looking for pieces with restoration potential but low initial cost. On a rainy Saturday, Nancy coaxed Robert along and he was the one who spotted two ornate church alter chairs that needed stripping, a new finish to walnut wood hidden by years of grime, and new upholstered seat cushions. Robert took the lead in negotiations with the seller and they eventually bought both chairs for a hundred and fifty dollars. The antique dealer liked their spirit and good judgment. He recommended an artisan to handle the new upholstery and gave tips to Robert on how to do the stripping himself. When the chairs were finished and in place in their living room only two weeks before Thanksgiving the couple had an elegantly furnished room at prices they could afford.
Nancy spent a lot of time browsing sales for home furnishings, but that was mostly weekend duty. She also set a goal to keep her honeymoon sun tan as long and as vibrant as possible. Nancy did her best to get a bikini clad hour at the apartment complex pool at least four days every week. At least one of those hours always managed to be on a weekend day so Robert could rub the lotion on her body and get some sun for himself.
End of summer also brought back to school teaching duties for Nancy. As would happen every year for the coming future, she had a new batch of second graders to learn, love and guide. This part of her school year was the best of times for Nancy. She felt like a parent, well maybe more like an aunt or a big sister, toward her twenty-six new faces. Each child had a unique personality; each child had a background, a future and real potential. Each child also had a set of parents. Nancy mostly dealt with the children's mothers; some would be pleasant and reasonably objective. Some were less of both. Some mothers were just a pain in the ass. Nancy looked over her class of children the first day and wondered what sort of mother she would be when her children went to elementary school.
That evening after first class day of the school year, Nancy shared with Robert her question to herself as to what sort of mother she would be. She got a kiss, a grin and a question from hubby, "Don't you think we better have some children before you try to figure out what sort of mother you will be?"
Nancy laughed at herself and her husband. "Want to start practicing on how we might make me a mother-to-be?" They didn't spend much time in their living room that evening; the bedroom seemed like a better play pen. That night's child-conceiving romp was just pretend play though; she still took her BC pills every morning. Nancy's Motherhood was still in the couple's future.
Robert and Nancy shared a first year of marriage much like most new couples. They expanded the intimacy of dating and learning to love into the daily routine of being a couple. Many of the things they could only do as scheduled over their dating time, especially their sex nights and waking in bed together, they could now do any night, every night if they chose. At first they tried for every night, but they mutually came to understand something each never would have believed. Every night sex subtracts from the special nature of anticipation. How each kept that special anticipation phenomenon alive never did become a rule based affair. Robert and Nancy never got to the sex on Wednesday night, Friday night and Saturday point of marriage, not in their first year and not in their last year. Both relished the role spontaneity played.
Both also relished the poetry from the Bard of Scotland and the place Robert Burns' words fit into the love shared between Robert and Nancy Winthrop. Nancy often asked for her Red, Red Rose and Robert always whispered the rose to her ear:
O my Luve's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune. .
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry:
Grass on lawns became sparse and lost color; leaves turned gold, red, brown, and then became gone. Winter cold and snow were in the Kansas City skies. Their first holiday season as a just-the-two-of-us couple descended upon them with exciting newness together. Nancy never gave thought to cooking a complete Thanksgiving dinner by herself. She helped her mother many times, of course, but Momma always seasoned the dressing as secret recipe, and her cranberry relish always won rave reviews when shared with neighbors and at church.
On a cold dreary Saturday in mid November, Nancy accepted as her wifely duty to prepare all of those dishes for Robert. She burned up the phone lines all weekend asking questions, listening to Carla and her Momma, and jotting suggestions and recipes on one of her school student's wide lined tablets with a dull number two pencil. Nancy was a second grader as wife and holiday cook/mistress-of-house as far as Thanksgiving dinner was concerned. The two mothers dialed their own conversation, laughing at their daughter's questions and excitement. Both recalled their first holiday events as newly married women.
Christmas presented fewer challenges. On return to school after the November holiday, Nancy started her second grade class working on simple Christmas decorations using primitive materials. She worked right along with her children explaining that she was making decorations for her first Christmas tree. Emanuel, one of her most quiet and shy pupils with whom she had worked so hard trying to socialize to his fellow students, stammered a suggestion that made him hero to his classmates. "Can -- can -- could I?"
"Yes Emanuel, tell us all what you want." Nancy hugged her youngster and encouraged him.
Suddenly the words burst from his lips, "I want to make a star for your Christmas tree. Can I make a star? Will you hang it on your tree?"
Others in the class got excited. "Me too!" "I want to make something for your tree." Emanuel beamed. Soon the entire class was working feverishly on decorations for Nancy's first Christmas tree, and she made a personal decoration for each of her children. Her Christmas spirit began with a vibrant, even boisterous, foundation. When she told her husband what she had going on in class, Robert bought into his wife's enthusiasm. He asked for, and received with a kiss, some homemade decorations for his office.
Their Christmas tree had to be a little larger than first intended to hold all of the decorations. It overflowed the modest living room space they allocated. Selecting their first tree turned into a rosy cheeked, laugh filled, Saturday afternoon that the couple planned to duplicate every year as a permanent fixture of their love and togetherness. Nancy made hot chocolate as soon as they returned with Yule tree. Robert included their personal overseer, Robert Burns, in their afternoon fun. He recited, for the first of many a Christmas celebration, Burns' ode to a humble mouse preparing his burrow for winter's weather.
Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty
Wi bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murdering pattle.
Nancy interrupted her husband's recital at the end of the first verse with laughter, tickling and ardent kisses that she wanted to drag on and on. Robert accepted her fun and passion for a while and then eased her away to continue the second verse.
I'm truly sorry man's dominion
