Double Twist
Chapter 189
“The truly gifted negotiator, then, is one whose initial position is exaggerated enough to allow for a series of concessions that will yield a desirable final offer from the opponent, yet is not so outlandish as to be seen as illegitimate from the start.”
—Robert Cialdini, Influence
2 FEBRUARY 2022
Groundhog’s Day. What a stupid concept. Some rodent in Pennsylvania is supposed to tell us how long winter will be based on whether he sees his shadow. Yeah, I know there are more traditions that surround this date that for all their paganism are far less superstitious. Supposedly, we can start to feel the days grow longer from this point. What I’m feeling are the days growing shorter. Fewer and fewer days until we—my eleven girlfriends and I—stand before a judge and swear to join with each other as partners in a domestic relationship. It could be twelve girlfriends, but I really don’t think Remas will be ready to join us.
So, fifty-nine days and we’ll be joined together. Let no man put us asunder. No wonder I can’t concentrate on school.
But I have to tell you: I love every one of those girls to the bottom of my heart. How could I not? They are the reality I found when I entered this world and are the truth that grounds me every day.
Cindy is worried about taking her NSRE test next week. I can’t imagine how it could show anything but what an incredible music aptitude she has. And this will let us determine if she should take training on the test before we enlist. I personally don’t think she’ll need any coaching but we’ll wait and see. I’ll just love her and care for her and support her when she’s down. It’s kind of what I promised to do for her career. I’m still committed to that. I still feel very protective of Cindy—almost like a guardian—despite our being lovers now. That just increases things.
And then there is the upcoming Valentine’s Dance in ten days. One of the things that has happened as a result of eight of us virtually living together now is the ladies have more opportunity to plan things. Somehow, I have a feeling my feet will be danced right off me on the twelfth. They are planning a bold move. I wonder how the school will accept this one.
“I think I’m going to be sick tomorrow,” Cindy said as she sagged against me at lunch on Tuesday. “Did I ever tell you how much I hate tests? I hate tests. I really hate this test.” She’d just come from her first morning of the National Service Readiness Exam. We all agreed the NSRE was a harder test than the PNSAT or the NSAT. The aptitude tests asked random questions and you zipped through them and took what was good with what was bad. There was no such thing as a perfect score because it wasn’t a test to measure knowledge. On the other hand, the NSRE was designed to measure what you knew, what you did well in, and how well you understood the basic curriculum of high school. It was much closer to the old ISTEP exam that determined if you knew enough to graduate. Day one of the exam was language and history. Wednesday, Cindy would have to sit the math and science portion.
I seriously considered taking her home to the farm and just making love to her for the next twenty-four hours. Just so she wouldn’t need to face the math and science exam tomorrow. You know. To help. Her.
After our patron concert posted Saturday night and we’d had a very laid-back chat with patrons, Cindy had gone a little wild, demanding attention from all our girlfriends before wearing my cock to a stub up her ass. I’d been sore on Sunday, but for some reason, every time she pushed her tush up against me now, I hardened.
We got through the day and Wednesday she survived the second half of the test. We’d find out the results in a few weeks when they expected Cindy to register for classes. The test was supposed to show where a student should focus in order to round out her education before graduation. My first NSRE convinced Mr. Gieseke I should be taking calculus regardless of what my interest was.
We got through the rest of the day and Cindy and I went to our practice room to work on our spring program. The pieces for the hourlong concert were coming along well. The April concert would be a live stream to our patrons from wherever the location was for the intimate concert. No one had told us the venue yet but I assumed it was a private party for the OCS. It made sense that after three months they’d be ready for a little celebration. I’d ask Rachel about it this weekend.
We all gathered at the farm Wednesday night for what had started once as our weekly study night. That was when eight of us were high school students. Now only four of us sat with open text books or computers working on classroom assignments. Donna sat with us and worked on her classroom plan and grading. Em was reading papers for her as she often helped with grading. Nanette and Sophie were in the sunroom exercising. They said it was called Pilates.
I looked up from my newest English assignment. We were in our last discussion of Hamlet and were to cite and analyze a passage of the play in which what was really meant was different than what was stated or said by the characters. Emily was looking right at me and smiled. She glanced down and drew a checkmark on the journal she was reading, then closed it and set it aside. She looked up at the kitchen clock. It was a quarter till ten. Everyone was beginning to put their assignments away. I closed my laptop. Em caught my hand as I stood up, and led me toward the stairs. I didn’t know where anyone else was sleeping tonight, but I’d have my beloved sister in my arms.
It had been three and a half years since I woke up in a new, if damaged, body. My first conscious thoughts that got through the haze of pain were of what an exquisite angel this young woman who held my hand was. I fell in love in that instant. I didn’t recognize her as my sister. She was simply the angel who wouldn’t let go.
When she’d offered to provide some relief for me while my arms and one leg were locked in casts and I was unable to even piss without help, I could tell she had feelings for me that surpassed sibling bonds, as well. It took the rest of my freshman and her senior year in high school for us to allow that bond to take us into the relationship we had now. We were lovers. She was my girlfriend, just like Rachel was. We hardly remembered being siblings.
“Have you been completely overwhelmed by women?” she whispered as we held and kissed each other. I petted her breasts and kissed down the curve of her neck from her jaw to her shoulder. She leaned her head into mine, moaning softly.
“There are moments when I have to check to make sure my pantyliner is fresh,” I chuckled. “I haven’t borrowed any clothes from you lately.”
“No one is ever going to mistake you for one of the girls,” Em said as she stroked my cock up to full stiffness and pointed it at her creamy center. “Ah, that feels so good. I love you, J.”
“I love you, Em.”
“What amazes me is that you have enough masculine energy to balance a houseful of women and still not lord it over us. You have room in your heart for our feminine energy. All of it.”
“Em, I’m… How can I analyze any of that with my masculine energy being stroked by your feminine pussy? I just want to be buried here and come in you. I want exactly what we have at this moment. I’m really shallower than you think. Maybe I don’t lord it over you, like you say, but if I had my choice, I would spend my entire day and night fucking the women of my household. I would die with my cock buried in your pussy.”
“You don’t need to die to have this, lover. Go ahead and come in my pussy. Let me milk the essence from your balls. Fill me up and think about the day in two years or so when you’ll be firing live ammo and making me pregnant.”
What?! My sister wants to think about getting pregnant? From me?
I think there is something hardwired in a man that trips the trigger whenever the possibility of getting a woman pregnant is involved. I hugged Em down on me with my cock buried as far in her as I could put it and started shooting my blanks on rapid fire. Milking my essence? Yes. She pulled everything I could give her through the tip of my dick into her warm waiting channel. And she joined me.
Em picked Rachel up about mid-day at the airport. Cindy and I didn’t bother with rehearsal after school. There was no school on Friday because of teacher conference day and Cindy was psyched about spending the rest of the week with the pod. The new rules at her house were that she could spend Wednesday night and any non-school night at the farm. Usually, that meant she was out on Friday, Saturday, and Wednesday nights. She had to be home on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. With no school on Friday, she was spending Wednesday through Saturday night with her pod.
Rachel was waiting for us with open arms, standing naked in the middle of the sunroom. Em was out making her afternoon bus run and no one else had made it home yet. I don’t know which of Cindy or me got naked first, but it was a near thing and we were all three wrapped up on the sofa together.
“Ahh. I love staff meetings,” Rachel sighed as I sank into her. We all started giggling. As of two weeks ago when we were in DC, Rachel was officially our manager at the OCS.
“I hope Forsythe didn’t plan to enforce any non-fraternization rules,” I said as I slowly worked my way in and out of her vagina. Rachel pulled Cindy over her face and began licking, to the delight of my partner. We didn’t get down to a business meeting for half an hour.
“Do we all get licked into submission by our manager?” Beca asked.
“Eventually,” Rachel laughed. “We need to cover a few things first, though.”
“I kind of like them uncovered,” Donna said as she petted our redhead girlfriend.
“Do you know how hard I worked to get Jacob to seduce you so I could feel your naked body pressed up against mine?” Rachel asked our one-time teacher. “You are so sexy I sat in your classes in a puddle of my own juices.”
“Hey. How many of us are in this staff meeting?” Em asked as she came into the room with Sophie in tow.
“If we could get everyone here, we would,” Rachel said. “Let’s just say that the OCS considers our whole pod to be a unit and to be considered jointly whenever possible. That being said, we know that certain members are going to be in service while others are simply employed by or contracted by the service.”
“What’s that mean?” Beca said. “What’s the difference?”
“It depends a lot on how the people who have finished or don’t need to serve want to work. For example, when we all move to DC, Emily has a full-time job waiting for her if she wants it.”
“I do?”
“Yeah. I want you as my logistics manager. That means you’ll also be asked to expand your education where necessary in order to get better at your job. I’m not talking about driving a bus or a truck and I’m not talking about making you a dispatcher. Any time Marvel and Hopkins go on tour, do a broadcast, or have a command performance before the Queen of England, there will be tons of equipment, personnel, and schedules to coordinate. You get the job. If you don’t want that job, I can contract for you to do specific kinds of logistics work just for Jacob and Cindy. Like transporting them and seeing they make their scheduled performances.”
“What’s the catch?”
“We need to have a family meeting and decide our overall level of commitment,” Rachel sighed. “I can get away with hiring you. And I can hire Joan. There’s no problem with me contracting Donna and Sophie and Nanette and I might even have a full-time job for them eventually. But SOMEONE put the bug in the ear of the Review Commission that National Service positions should be filled by National Service Corps members. The OCS is working out a transition plan that will probably take ten years instead of the suggested five to go to an all service-managed corps. But there is already pressure to fill new jobs from inside first. That means Emily and Joan, specifically, will receive renewed offers for them to re-enlist for some period of time. Of course, the suggested period is six years. Not only do Emily and Joan need to decide what they want to do, I’ll be pressed to reup next year, too. You all know Remas is being pressured to reup so she can be placed in an orchestra of their choice. Jacob, Cindy, Desi, Brittany, Beca, will all face the same requests. As a pod… As a family, we should all know where we stand and whether there is any appeal in a career in the National Service.”
“Oh, crap.”
Rachel wasn’t only on a recruiting trip. She had half a dozen appointments at schools, even though there were no classes on Friday. Her purpose was to get concerts set up. We all agreed Cindy and I could do weekend concerts and some weekday concerts in schools. But the National Service was having us do promotional concerts to encourage students who were about to enter service. It was entirely PR to reduce the stress of those about to enter. And it would feature Cindy and me.
I was impressed that the OCS was sending out a representative who was less than a year out of school herself. I was even more impressed with the way Rachel handled the job. I knew she was smart and talented, but her intensive NSO training had truly prepared her for this job. She brought home several tentative booking dates to go over with Cindy and me and Sophie. Since we still weren’t in service, Sophie continued to act as our agent.
Cindy and I sat down to work out what we would do for a lively and entertaining program we could repeat week after week.
Joan took Friday off work and came down to spend the weekend with us. She listened carefully to Rachel’s spiel and nodded but didn’t make any commitments.
And Saturday, we spent the day in the spa. The girls had, indeed, created a plan for the Valentine’s Dance. We were all going, including six out of ten who were not students. I wondered how Donna would be greeted back at Mad Anthony when she showed up as a student’s date rather than as his teacher.
And that was the plan. I had tickets for myself, Donna, and Rachel. Beca was taking Joan. Brittany was taking Sophie and Nanette. And Cindy was dating Em. No matter how you cut it, we were going to make an impression at school.
It was all made possible by a new school rule that allowed students to bring non-student dates to school events. There had been hundreds of exceptions over the past few years. Students dated across years in school. They wanted the right to continue to date after one had graduated. Other students dated kids from different schools and a few dated college students and even dropouts. I knew several people who had dates at the Winter Dance who were in the National Service. But this was certainly pushing it to have nearly all our pod together at an event. It was too bad Livy, Desi, and Remas couldn’t get back for this one.
Word had apparently leaked. We were met at the door by the principal and two security guards.
“We need to talk,” Principal Rice said.
“Are you blocking us from the dance?” I asked.
“Mmm. Let’s discuss that,” he said. “I’m concerned. We’re more aware of you than of any other students and adults in our community. We’ve been cooperating with the National School of the Arts and with the National Service Corps to make special arrangements for members of this pod, even placing one of your number in an exchange program while continuing to be enrolled here. We’ve agreed to give you time off to participate in events for the National Service.”
“I’m sorry we’ve been a hardship,” I said. Donna placed her hand on my shoulder and squeezed lightly.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Principal Rice said. “We’ve received some perks in exchange for your participation. And the administration is pleased with the positive public image we’ve acquired through your performances. It’s been a win-win situation. Which is why we’re having this discussion. I’m not sure attending the dance is a winning situation for either your pod or the school.”
“How so?” Rachel asked.
“It could have the appearance of students being manipulated by older, influential… well, by your teacher, for one. I’m sorry, Donna, but I worry this could have repercussions even in your new school district. Seeing three older women associated with our students highlights it even more. I’m excluding Rachel, Joan, and Emily from that number because you are former students who would still be remembered. If it was only the three of you, we probably wouldn’t have hesitated,” he said. “I am concerned this might come back to bite us all in the backside if you proceed inside.”
“We really just wanted to all celebrate together,” Rachel said. “We weren’t trying to make a statement either on behalf of our pod or the National Service.”
“I want you to be able to do that,” he said. “If we were nearer the end of the school year, I wouldn’t see it as a problem. But having nearly four months for concerned citizens to foment could make this a hotbed of contention that centers on what the school allows between teachers and students.”
“I don’t have to go,” Donna sighed. “We’re just so tired of hiding.”
“No, sweetheart,” I said. “There was never any inappropriate behavior between you and me or any other student while you were teaching here. You shouldn’t be penalized. But I think Principal Rice has a point and I don’t want you to suffer fallout at North Huntington, either. Mr. Rice, if we just slipped away now and maybe went out somewhere else in town that didn’t have anything to do with the school, do you think there would be repercussions?”
“It’s always possible, but anyone who would recognize you would recognize that you often travel as a group on behalf of the service. I don’t think your relationship would be called into question,” he answered. I had to hand it to the guy. He really came off as concerned for our pod, not just the school’s reputation.
“If there was only four weeks of school left instead of four months, do you think it would cause as much problem?”
“No. Even the most rabid conservatives wouldn’t have time to coordinate any kind of problem before school was out. You’d… Wait. Are you…?”
“If we turn around and walk away right now, may we have your assurance that our entire pod, which by that time will be a legal plural domestic partnership, will be welcome to attend our senior prom together without any extra hoops to jump through?”
“You trapped me. I can scarcely say no or that you wouldn’t be welcome without sounding like a hypocrite.” He sighed heavily and I saw a glance pass between the two security guys that let me know this wasn’t unexpected. Damn. Sometimes I get tired of being manipulated around. But he was really good and had just gotten what he wanted all along while making it seem like I’d just won a major victory. I hoped to hell he never ran for president. “Okay,” he said. “I agree.”
I was surprised that it was Cindy who started laughing and pointing at me.
“Got you, didn’t he?” she crowed.
“Uh… No hard feelings, I hope,” he said as he held out a hand to shake. I took it and smiled.
“Not at all,” I agreed. “See you around school.” The principal shook hands with all of us and wished us well then went inside with the security guys. We turned back toward our cars.
It had gone perfectly.
“Great!” Emily said, glancing at her cellphone. “We’ve got plenty of time to make our reservation at Manfred’s. I’m ready for dinner and dancing.”
My logistics manager. She had it all planned.
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