Fourth Year After Ch 01

Author's note: This is Chapter 1 of "Fourth Year After", the last book in my series that began with "First Year After". Then Second, Third, you get the picture. If you have not read the earlier books in the series, I recommend you do, so you'll know who the characters are, how they relate to each other, and how they got to where they are now, three years after the death of Tom Barnes.

As always, all sexual acts described here involve fictional characters over the age of 18.

~~~~~

December 20, 2015

I joined Mom at Center House for a breakfast for just the two of us, to observe the anniversary of Dad's death. Mom said, "I dreamt of your dad last night. An actual conversation. I asked him if he was okay with how our lives have changed. He said he only ever wished for me to be happy and the how wasn't as important."

I responded, "I was thinking of him early this morning, wondering the same thing. I hope your dream was true, because that's the answer I hope for."

When we were done eating, she pulled me into a hug.

"I've loved you since the day I knew I was pregnant with you, Drew," Mom said. "Yet, I am amazed every day at how that love has grown and morphed over the last three years, starting from that first night we shared your bed."

I replied, "Each little change between loving you as my mom, being attracted to you, and becoming your lover felt so gradual, but so natural, too. I think we were fated to wind up here, don't you?"

Mom's kiss started out soft, then gradually got more intense. I took her hand, and walked her upstairs into the master bedroom, and we undressed each other, silently, knowing what we needed wasn't more words. Mom walked backwards to the bed, and lay back, saying only, "Love me, baby."

I knelt in front of her, kissed my way along her thighs, then ran my tongue the length of her slit, finding her quite aroused already. After another couple of minutes of tasting and teasing her, I climbed between her thighs. I slowly entered her, holding her gaze the whole time. When I was as deep as I could go, her muscles clenched me and her smile grew.

Mom pulled my head down and kissed me again, as I began pulling back and thrusting in again. We started out slowly, reaffirming our love for each other, gradually working into a slamming fuck that left us both exploding at the same time. We cuddled for another 20 minutes, before getting up and taking a shower together, then getting redressed.

~~~~~

Henry had been called to the hospital for a birth before breakfast, and when he got back, around lunch-time, he said, "Ginger was at the hospital, too, for one of our other patients. She said her kids are flying down on Christmas Eve morning, but aren't going to be ready to meet with us until New Year's Eve. I figured inviting them to our New Year's Party would be the easiest way to keep it just social."

"Is it still okay if Duke and Jean Anderson attend?" I asked.

He answered, "I don't see why not. If anything, it reinforces the social aspect of it, and takes the pressure off the Carpenters."

~~~~~

December 24, 2015

I spent almost the whole day at work watching the clock, knowing that Christmas Eve meant my "date" with my Aunt Maria. It had been nine months since the brief foursome with Maria, Mom and Henry at Maria's place, when I had needed to scurry back home after just one round with each woman because Jody had been staying with us. It felt like longer, but also was a bright memory like it had just happened.

I felt a longing to make love to Maria more than just once or twice a year, but knew she had reasons to limit me. Or more precisely to limit herself. Would I be able to overcome them at some point?

How would she fit into our marriage, even if I could get her more involved with us? We were hiding the incest among the six of us by having two triads publicly, but Maria couldn't join either one, any more than Sandy could, before getting involved with Amanda and Aaron. A third family member just didn't work unless we defined a third grouping somehow.

Thinking about that led me to thoughts of how we would face a similar problem with the Carpenters. Sure, Ginger could easily become another poly-wife to Henry, Mom and Toni, but Toby and Wendy couldn't both join Patti, Amber and me in a public grouping. I imagined Toby and Sandy paired somehow to make a third grouping, but she was pregnant with Aaron's child, and would probably be marrying him and Amanda.

The company shut the offices down early, sending us home around 3 PM, so I was the first one home from work, sent a text to Patti and Amber that I was going over to West to help Toni with dinner before Patti's family and my Mom's side of the family arrived.

I winced inwardly, remembering how badly things had gone with Patti's family the year before, when they weren't accepting the polyamory we revealed. Things were better with them now, so I hoped for better. Ending the night with Maria was still going to be the highlight.

I was surprised, when I came in, and saw Ginger at the kitchen table, sharing coffee with Toni. "Merry Christmas, Ginger! I thought we weren't going to see you until New Year's?"

Ginger smiled, brightly. "Hi, Drew! It's my kids who don't want to come over here until then. I wanted to come over and wish you all a Merry Christmas, before I join them back at my condo for Christmas Eve dinner. Wendy insisted on cooking." Ginger's chuckle told me she didn't have high expectations.

"Well, tell them we all wish them a Merry Christmas, too, okay?" I poured myself a cup, and joined them at the table.

Henry and Mom were the next home, and both hugged Ginger warmly. Henry asked Toni, "Sandy still visiting her friends from high school?"

Toni nodded, saying, "She texted me half an hour ago, saying she'd be home around 4:30. It's 4:15 now."

Patti and Amber walked in together with Sandy, and Sandy was delighted to see Ginger, who got up from the table for more hugs. "I hear two of you are pregnant?" Ginger asked. "Congratulations!"

Amber pointed at Patti and Sandy, and said, "Not me. Twins are quite enough for me, right now."

Sandy hugged Ginger tight, and in an almost childish voice asked, "Are you going to marry Daddy?"

"I'm still trying to figure that out, honey. Your dad's marital status is a complicated thing, y'know?"

"Well, yeah, I get that," Sandy responded. "But it's the love that matters."

Henry spoke up, "We're not going to put pressure on Ginger, okay? This is her decision, not yours, especially since you've stayed outside of the very marriage that you're pushing her to join."

"It would still make her my step-mom, of sorts, Dad. So, I'm still entitled to an opinion, and I'm for it," Sandy said. She turned to Ginger, "Those are my two cents, that's all. I'm going to still love you, regardless."

Ginger glanced at the clock, and said, "I love you too, sweetie. I should get going, to see how Wendy's doing in my kitchen. Merry Christmas, everyone."

As Ginger was headed to the door, the doorbell rang. It was Maria, the first of the family guests to arrive. "Oh, hi, Ginger!" Maria said. "Merry Christmas! I didn't expect to see you here."

Ginger smiled. "Merry Christmas to you, Maria. I'm actually headed home. My kids are in town, and my daughter's making us dinner, or I'd stay to chat. Can I call you this weekend, instead?"

"Of course," Maria said. She searched in her purse for a business card, and gave it to Ginger. "I don't have much of an agenda Sunday, if that's good for you?"

"Maybe around noontime. Bye again, all!" Ginger said, before exiting the front door.

Maria looked confused. "Is it just me, or did that feel a bit strange? I know we clicked at your Labor Day party, but she made no attempt to call me after that, and now she wants to call me? Any idea what about?"

I said, "Maybe to talk about our family structure here?"

Maria paled. "What? Do you mean about the incest? Or about the polyamory? Why would she think I knew anything about that? Drew, what's going on?"

I took a deep breath. "She knows about the incest. She figured it out during that same party, partly because of Gavin's eyes. She's considering joining our group marriage, but is hesitating because she's got two kids of her own, and isn't sure of their acceptance or even interest."

"Why would she think I knew about the incest, though?" Maria asked.

"Because I told her I'd been intimate with you, too," I admitted.

"Why would you say that?"

I said, "I've only been intimate with Ginger one night, near the beginning of November. During some pillow talk, I got talking about all the women I had ever fallen in love with, and included your name on the list. She asked me about you being my aunt, and I admitted you'd been with me twice, Mom and Henry a few more times. She's probably just looking for your perspective on our family."

The doorbell rang again, and we had to cut the conversation short. It was Grandma and Grandpa Cooper, and before I'd even let them into the house, I could see the Taylors pull up.

Patti had already told her parents about her pregnancy, as well as Sandy's, so there wasn't any blockbuster news to cause much in the way of drama, compared to the year before.

We had our dinner, and exchanged our gifts, let the grandparents and Jody play with the kids, and eventually everyone but Maria went home. We settled the kids into the nursery, and eight of us sat around the West living room, Christmas carols playing in the background.

Maria said, "I want to get back to the conversation that got cut off when my parents and Patti's family arrived. So, Ginger knows that I've had sex with my sister and my nephew? Why would you reveal that without letting me make that decision?"

"It was a mistake, Aunt Maria," I said. "I wasn't thinking in terms of protecting a secret, when Ginger already knew the big ones. I'm sorry."

"And this was a list of women you're in love with?" she asked. "You really feel that way about me?"

"Of course," I answered. "Every woman in this room right now is on that list, and a few others besides, including you and Ginger. I don't say it unless I mean it, and you know I've told you that many times."

Maria sighed. "So, to keep me a secret, you would have needed to keep me off of that list? I guess I'll have to forgive you, if I'm going to show you how much I love you, too, sweetie. Just you and me, alright?"

"Whatever you want, Maria," I said, getting up to take her hand, and say good night to everyone else. We walked to Center House, and Maria laughed out loud when she saw the double-queen bed in its master bedroom.

"This is the bed you use when you all want to make love together?" she asked.

I said, "Yup. Sleeps six pretty easily, seven a bit cramped, but we've done it. We'll probably be using it tomorrow night, in fact."

"So, why did you choose this for just the two of us?"

I shrugged. "I wasn't sure ahead of time whether you'd want Mom and Henry to come along or anyone else, where any of the regular Cal Kings have a hard time sleeping four people. Last year, we used the bedroom we call Sandy's, even if she usually sleeps somewhere else, when she's here. But this year, she's pregnant, so I wasn't sure what she was going to do."

"Not yours, I hear," Maria said, chuckling.

"No, the dad is a guy at college that she and her roommate both love. They're looking to forge a triad of their own."

"Do you wish it were yours?" she asked.

"Not really," I said. "I love Sandy as much as any of the other women in my life, but to be public about it would be a lot, lot harder than explaining being with Amber and Patti. That's the upside of not being the father. The downside is that the roommate and the dad are living in Minneapolis, and want Sandy to join them there."

"You can't be publicly in love with me, either," she said.

"No, but it's not quite the same, either. With Sandy, it would only be difficult, not impossible, so long as we could keep from revealing that Sandy was intimate with Amber and Henry, too. It's just too much of a risk to do it, otherwise. I wish I could stand on a street corner and proclaim I love her and you too, with no consequences, but that's not the world we live in. It means I love you in private, but I do love you."

Maria kissed me in response, and started tugging at my clothes. She whispered, "Let me show you my love, Drew," as she got my shirt off. She dropped to her knees, and undid my belt, and soon had my pants down to my calves, my boxer briefs down to my knees, and her mouth was licking its way along my rapidly stiffening cock.

Her tongue swirled around the crown, and I moaned her name. She sucked the head into her mouth, locking her lips along the ridge, pulling against it as her tongue tickled the tip then slid along the frenulum as she took more of me into her mouth.

We had done a 69 the Christmas Eve before, but this felt more intense, maybe because our attentions weren't divided, maybe because of how long I'd anticipated being with her again. This time, she let my cock slip into her throat on one of her downstrokes, and the moment I realized it, my orgasm burst free, and my first shot went straight down her throat, the others filling her mouth as she pulled back to suck and swallow.

"God, that was amazing, Maria," I said, as she licked the head one more time and sat back. I finished kicking off my pants and underwear, then lifted her up so I could kiss her, only to find that her mouth was still full of my cum, which she shared with me. The kiss turned into its own sex act, as both of our tongues were in battle, seeking every last drop of my essence. I was hard again, when I parted from her and grunted, "My turn."

She was in a knee-length red dress. I kissed the side of her neck as I lowered the zipper down her back, amazed to find that she wasn't wearing a bra underneath. I slipped the sleeves down her arms, and moved my hands to her breasts as the dress fell to her feet, revealing that there were bra cups built into the dress.

I pulled her back into me, and my cock settled at the waistband to her panties, also red. I squeezed her breasts while nibbling on her left earlobe, then whispered, "Lie over the edge of the bed, auntie," walking us to the edge of the King.

Face down on the bed, her legs dangled over the edge, her knees not able to reach the floor. I knelt behind her, spreading her legs, and watched a droplet of her arousal reverse course and slide towards her clit.

I shoved my face between her legs, and snagged that delicious drop with my tongue, then I let my instincts take over, my tongue thrusting into her, running the length of her cleft, slipping around and over her clit.

Eventually, I was supporting her thighs on my shoulders, her knees bent and her feet in the air, my face fully pressed against her cunt, and she started to shudder and I increased my fervor, and her orgasm intensified. "Oh, Tom! That's so good! I want you to fuck me, now!" she cried. I let her using my Dad's name slide, and got up onto my feet, pushed her legs so her knees were on the mattress and her butt was elevated a few inches over the mattress, and I slammed my cock into her wet cunt from behind.

I was so turned on, I couldn't go slow. Gradually, Maria's body was getting more and more pushed onto the bed, and I had to grab her hips to pull her back, and we slammed together. Maria grunted, and began more actively pushing back into me, and even with the earlier orgasm from the blowjob, I had to succumb to another one, just as she squealed, "I'm cummmminggg, cumming, Tom!"

This time, she realized her mistake, and started to cry, even as her body continued to shake. I jumped up onto the bed, and turned her so we were face to face. "It's okay," I said. "It's okay, Maria."

She looked at me, terrified, as her tears eased. "I'm sorry, Drew. You deserve better than to be with someone who can't keep her men straight."

"Mom did it to me too, okay?" I said. "I am neither surprised nor offended to be mistaken for Dad in the middle of sex. It's a compliment, in its own way. It's not like you were looking me in the eyes when you did it. I was behind you."

"You are so good, Drew. Most guys would flip out."

"Most guys don't get mistaken for their own Dad," I said, chuckling. "It's a unique situation. But even if you had called me Henry, I'd be okay with it. It just means I reduced you to instinctual thinking. The crude way of saying it is I fucked your brains out. Only thing better is making you forget your own name."

"You do that, too," Maria sighed. "God, I wish you weren't my nephew. And already married to four other women."

"You could be the fifth, if you wanted to," I said, softly, amazed with myself as I said it.

Wide-eyed, she said, "Oh, my god. You're serious. Aren't you?"

Too late to back away. "Of course. I'm in love with you and, even if the world can't know it, I want the people I

can

trust to know that I consider you an equal with Mom, Toni, Patti and Amber. My love isn't diminished, by loving multiple women. If anything, it gets stronger the more I love. The only limits on me loving multiple people, really, is time enough to spend with them, and a bed big enough to sleep with them. Will you be my wife, even if it's only for this one night out of the year?" I hoped the compromise would help get me a 'yes'.

She stared at me, for a full minute, before saying, "You're crazy, you know that?" She wasn't smiling, so it wasn't a joke.

"I'm sure a shrink would label me 'abnormal', at the least," I replied. "My heart doesn't seem to know how to say 'no' to love, even when it's clearly going to make my life more complicated. I know this already. Asking you to marry me doesn't make sense logically, but my heart doesn't care. Please say 'yes'? Let your heart love me, for me. You can love both me and Dad, separate and equal, on our own individual merits. Please?" I shut up, before I started repeating myself, and waited for an answer.

"No," she whispered. "The answer is no. If you can't tell yourself 'no', I have to. I love you, Drew, I do. But I can't be your wife, you can't be my husband for a long list of reasons I'm sure your brain knows but your heart wants to ignore. I'm sorry, but no. I need to go back to just being your aunt." She got out of bed, pulled her panties and dress back on, and left.

For the first time since the weeks after my Dad's death, I cried. I'd lost her.

~~~~~

December 25, 2015

Nobody said anything in the morning about Maria's absence, but I think they could all see that I was hurting, so I got a lot of loving hugs.

When the seven of us sat down to exchange gifts, before the babies woke, I had a special one for Amber. She was sitting in the love seat, next to Patti, and I knelt before them both, and said, "Amber, last year I asked you to accept a pendant like Mom's and Toni's as a symbol of our marriage, and you chose to have me get you earrings as a symbol of the six of us, instead. What I should have given you was a ring just like Patti's, once we decided that our public image was going to be a triad. Today, I'm rectifying that mistake."

She gasped as I pulled a jewelry box from my pajama pants, and opened it to show a three-part ring, structured like Patti's, but with yellow gold as the center band instead of rose, and an emerald-cut diamond instead of princess-cut. Her left hand was shaking, so I grasped it to hold it still while I slipped the ring onto her ring finger, that had gone unadorned for too long. Patti was holding her right hand, to keep that one from shaking, too.

When I looked up, her eyes were misty, but had not shed a tear. She said, "I love you, Drew. I truly was okay with just the earrings, because the love of all five of you matters more to me than anything material. But I'll happily show off this ring and tell anyone who asks that my poly-husband loves me very much, because I know it in my mind, heart and soul that you do. Just like you've always said the three colors symbolize."