We walked down the steps, hand in hand.
Gathered at the bottom of the steps were the three men I had recently made love to, Al who I figured would be next, and I was being escorted by the man who had made me beautiful.
And I felt beautiful.
My head was high, my shoulders back.
As I touched down on the ground floor Al took my hand and did the proposal thing.
"Jean, my love, my life, will you marry me," he said as the others watched.
"Of course, I will," I said and laughed when he moved to kiss me but Steve put a hand out to stop him.
"First," I said doing my best Scarlet O'Hara imitation, "please, dear God, feed me before I perish," finishing with my hand to my breast dramatically.
Laughter went around as we went into the dining room.
The next hour was the most amazing, most exciting, most candid, and in many ways the most flattering conversation I ever had.
I won't try to recreate it here, but I'll try to summarize.
They all agreed that they found me beautiful which I, of course, found flattering.
They all agreed they had a crush which had become love, and I found THAT flattering too.
They understood that this would not be permanent, that it couldn't last of course, which made me cry a little.
Then they promised that as someone graduated they would find a "replacement." That brought about a lot of discussion since I wanted to make sure I had plenty to say about THAT!
We ate and talked and ate and talked until we all sort of wound down.
When we were finished Steve and David quickly cleared the table and started the dishwasher.
When they were done they came back in and we all stood and they led me into the front room.
David was a senior, and senior among this group apparently.
He came and stood with me in the middle of the front room, smiling as he said, "rings."
Four of them pulled a ring out of their pockets.
David pulled two out.
"With these rings," he intoned, and I was surprised to find myself crying again, "we thee wed," he finished and he put a simple gold band on my left hand and one on his own. The others had put their own on.