The Rock
Part I: A Red Thread
1 Clan
I FINALLY HUNG UP the phone with Hannah’s words echoing in my ears. “Now you understand what it means. It isn’t a choice. It changes us forever. We can never be innocent again. We’re different from other people, Brian. None of them truly understand what it means to do whatever is necessary. I’m still doing what is necessary. God bless you, Brian. I love you.”
I set the bread to rise and went to the horses. They were a little surprised to see me so early but they were happy to have hay and have me brush them. I wanted to disappear into their shiny coats. Just brush until there was nothing left of me.
Hannah knew. At least she believed that I killed Lester Hawkins. I’d confessed to her in my morning thoughts. She believed I understood what it really meant to do whatever is necessary. That’s what I’d done. It was vile. I was a monster and should turn myself in to the police.
Maybe that was the message she was giving me. The call was so brief. I didn’t even get a chance to say ‘happy birthday.’ Had I said, ‘I love you?’ She said it. It sounded so final.
My thoughts were so disjointed that I lost track of time and what I was doing. I found myself sitting on the hay bale in the aisle staring straight ahead when Sam slid the barn door open.
“Hey,” she said softly. “Did you already brush the girls?” I looked up at her wondering what she was doing here so early in the morning.
“Um…” I looked at the brush in my hands. “I think so. I don’t remember.” Sam sat beside me as if she was concerned about my health.
“How long have you been out here?” she asked.
“I don’t know. A little while. Since five, I guess.”
“Three hours?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Brian, it’s after eight.”
“Fuck. Bread.” I stood up.
“Brian, what happened?” I stared at Samantha as she stood to face me. Of all people, she deserved to know.
“She called.”
“She heard and she called to be with us!”
“Yeah. I guess. It was brief. She said that she’s doing what’s necessary. And I love you. I know she meant it for all of us.” Sam gripped me in a hug with her face against my shoulder. I could feel her shake as she fought not to cry. All I could do was pet her long black hair. She finally pushed me away.
“You’d better go bake the bread. Jen and Court will be out soon. The three of us are going riding. Give me the brush. I’ll make sure they’re ready.” She pushed me to the door and went immediately into Rika’s stall. I understood. She needed time to soothe and be soothed
“Mom? Did you put the bread in the oven?”
“Yes, honeybunch. Was it Hannah who called?”
“Yes, Mom. I’m sorry I didn’t finish my job. I just thought I’d go brush the horses for a while and lost track of time.”
“I understand. When I got up and saw the bread overflowing its bowl I figured it out. It should be fine. Everyone is stirring. Jennifer and Courtney are showering upstairs. Dad and Anna have been out and got coffee. I think Anna’s in the shower.” Mom paused. She was just washing some things up at the sink but she turned to look at me. “I won’t pry, Brian, but talk to me. About anything. This whole thing is a shock to us all and none of us expect you to endure the fresh wounds alone. I wasn’t here when you found out in May, but I’m here now and I love you, my son.”
I hugged her and we both cried.
“He should have suffered,” I said. “He should have cried for mercy. He should have had to relive her death a thousand times and know that was only the beginning.”
“And none of that would bring her back,” Mom whispered. “It’s over now, Brian. What is it that Whitney says to you? Be a rock. Let the waters of grief pass over you.”
The summer seemed to slow down. With the big catharsis of Friday, it seemed like we all stopped to take a breath. Sam and I didn’t get our date to talk Sunday, though we spent time in bed with Jennifer and Courtney. We all got naked and teased a lot, but we all shied away from that last step. I didn’t realize what was going on, but we were building an air of expectancy and the three girls were bonding like never before.
My bosses were concerned when I showed up for work at the station Monday morning. They offered everything from sympathy to congratulations. No one knew exactly how to take the news. I forged ahead, assisting Miss Polly. If I wasn’t a bright and cheerful boy off-set, they never knew it when I was on. Friday, Sora joined me and we all had fun creating homemade corndogs. Sora hung around Friday afternoon until I was finished and we went straight home and fucked for about two hours. It was the first sex that I’d engaged in since before the previous Friday’s newscast. She seemed to know that we both needed something other than gentle lovemaking and we threw ourselves at each other with such fierceness that I was afraid our genitals would be bruised.
“Take me!” she exclaimed as she posed on her hands and knees at the edge of the bed when I came out of the bathroom. We’d already had two rounds but seeing that little Asian butt wagging in the air and her moist slit on display brought me back to attention again. I grabbed a rubber and as soon as it was on I slammed into her hard. “Yes!” she screamed. “Fuck my little cunt!” Her hand was going a mile a minute on her own clit while I reamed her. That was what we were doing when Jennifer, Courtney, and Sam ran upstairs after their ride.
“Holy shit!” Jen exclaimed. I was reaching my climax and didn’t slow down just because my other girlfriends had entered the room. Sora screeched out an orgasm that pierced all our ears and I bellowed back my response. We collapsed forward on the bed with me sprawled on top of her. She nudged me to ease the weight on her back and I rolled off grabbing the rubber before it came loose. I stripped it off and dropped it in my wastebasket. Sora rolled as well and lay with her back leaning on my chest and one leg sprawled across mine. The girls hadn’t moved from the top of the stairs.
“Go ahead and look, ladies,” Sora said. “What you see is a really well-fucked pussy and a very satisfied woman.”
“That was… kinda scary,” Sam said.
“Honey, come here. All three of you,” Sora said. “You all know I’m not into girls, but I want a hug from my girlfriends and I know you all want a hug from our boyfriend. We need you.” That was all it took. All three surrounded us on the bed and we each got hugs and kisses from the other three.
“Is it always like that?” Sam asked. I hardly knew what to say. Sam sort of flinched away from me when I reached for her.
“No,” Sora answered. “Don’t be scared, Samantha. Brian was giving me exactly what I wanted—needed. That wasn’t making love. It was pure, raw fucking with no other purpose than to drown out all the emotional stress and misery we’ve been through this week. We both needed it, even though I had to sort of encourage Brian to let go. He’s been so strong for all of us this week, he needed to release something, too. And even though my pussy is going to be sore for a week, it was great. God, it was great.”
“Honey, please don’t be afraid of me,” I said. Sam moved into my arms and cuddled up to me. None of the three girls had removed their riding clothes but neither Sora nor I tried to cover ourselves up. “It was just a crazy release that we both needed. You know I’d never hurt any of you, don’t you?”
“It was hard not to feel our pussies tingling when you slammed into her,” Jen giggled. “That wasn’t gentle.”
“No. But it was still loving,” Sora said. “I’d never trust any other man to pound me like that. Three times.”
“Three times?” Courtney exclaimed. “Shit!”
“Yeah. You know what, though? Now I’m ready to just curl up and snuggle in the arms of my lover. I wouldn’t mind if you three snuggled with us if you want. It would make me feel even more loved.” Sora’s words were apparently all that was needed. Clothes started flying and before long all five of us were cuddled naked in bed. And before long, we were asleep.
That’s where Anna found us.
Saturday afternoon I was shooting baskets. Once the girls went out riding, I did my forms, concentrating on speed and accuracy. Whitney had shown me something before she left for UConn that I’d been working on almost every day. I’d managed to keep my hands hidden during the television filming. The only time the cameras were ever focused on my hands was when I was cooking on Fridays and I wore latex gloves for food prep. They hadn’t seemed to notice that I didn’t take them off when we were eating.
‘Why?’ you ask. Whitney had shown me two wooden support posts in the barn and had me start hitting them. It’s not as bad as you might think once callouses start to form. Those first two weeks were hell. Without Whitney there to beat on, I beat on the wooden posts. After I was finished with my workout and before I took a shower, I shot baskets. Yeah. Even with like thirteen or fourteen girlfriends, I was alone to shoot baskets on Saturday afternoon. There was no way I was going to make the varsity team this year unless I could nail every three-pointer and every foul shot I took. I’d never be first string even then.
There was a roar of engines and crunching of gravel. I turned to see two motorcycles spinning tires and throwing gravel as they came racing toward me down our driveway. Shit! Who the fuck wants me now? I dropped the ball and prepared to jump whatever way the motorcycles allowed me. Both riders were dressed in black leather with black helmets and face bubbles. It looked like they were racing down the drive toward me. Just before the cement pad in front of the garage they slammed on the brakes and did a 360 degree turn, ending up facing me. They killed the engines and got off the bikes. They walked around to the front of their bikes and gave each other a high five. What the fuck?
Then they took off their helmets. Nikki and Liz? Fuckin’ A!
“We’ve been practicing that all week!” Liz said as she approached me and gave me a friendly kiss. “Now that’s over can I have a real kiss?” she asked. I wrapped her in my arms and kissed her with unintended intensity. She’d scared me half to death. I thought Hell’s Angels had come to claim me.
“I’d like one of those,” Nikki said swaggering up to me. Oh yeah? Well, take this! I left Nikki breathless when Liz tapped us on the shoulder and suggested we break it up. “Shit!”
“Get in the shower and clean yourself up, boyfriend,” Liz said. “Put on long pants and a long-sleeved shirt. We’ve got a helmet for you. Today’s our day to ride.”
“What the fuck are you doing on motorcycles?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve been saving for two years for this beauty. I have eleven older brothers and sisters and when I told them all what I wanted for my birthday, they each gave me a hundred dollars. Nikki and I have been hanging out a lot this summer and when I told her what I was going to do, she decided to get one, too. Now go get clean and ready to ride,” Liz commanded.
I took a fast shower and then put on my heaviest jeans and shirt and my work boots. Fifteen minutes from when they arrived, I was hanging onto Liz’s waist as we raced up Cedar and out onto Highway 20. We headed north from there and hit the toll road where we collected our tickets. Liz and Nikki headed east and in an hour we were getting off at the last exit before Ohio. Crap! They were flying. I paid the toll for both bikes and they pulled to a stop at the foot of the exit.
“Nikki’s turn,” Liz said, nudging me off her bike. I got on behind Nikki.
“Bet I can do it faster!” Nikki yelled at Liz. We picked up tickets westbound and for the next hour I hugged myself against Nikki while she flattened out along the tank. Hell! It was almost eighty miles from point to point and not much more than two hours had passed when we exited (and I paid the toll) where we first entered the toll road. We slid to a stop in Nikki’s driveway.
“You guys are going to get a ticket!” I exclaimed.
“No cops saw us,” Liz said calmly.
“They don’t have to. The toll tickets are time stamped.” Nikki and Liz looked at each other and shrugged.
“Oops!”
“What has gotten into you two?” My heart was still racing and my butt was still vibrating from the thunder of their engines. The bikes weren’t all that big. Once I had a chance to actually look at them, I realized they were Hondas. For small bikes, they sure carried us fast as far as I was concerned.
“Aren’t they great? And I got a riding partner out of the deal, too!” Nikki said as I finally let go of her waist.
“Partners in crime! I’ve officially become an anarchist,” Liz said. They grabbed my arms and led me into the house and up to Nikki’s room.
“You know what that means?” Nikki asked. She started stripping off her leathers and Liz was right in sync. “You’ve got two girlfriends who need rose tattoos.”
“And if she’s anything like me, you’ve got two girlfriends with dripping pussies after holding that big engine between our thighs,” Liz joined.
“Well, yeah. That, too,” Nikki said. She was blushing, but still stripping. Both girls were naked and flopped on the bed.
“Come on, Brian. I give you explicit permission to use my body in any way that makes me come after you put a rose tattoo on my breast,” Liz said.
“Brian, please put a rose tattoo on my breast and lick me to an orgasm,” Nikki said. She’d learned about being explicit. “And please get naked and let us touch you.” I was a goner.
I’d never have guessed that Liz and Nikki would become bosom buddies but I guess in a perverse way it made sense. Finding them both on motorcycles made me smile. As long as they were safe. I wasn’t going to think about that anymore.
It took a couple minutes to all get naked, fondle and kiss a little, and get the henna mixed to the right consistency. Then both girls lay down on the bed face up. Nikki handed me the stencil and pointed at her left breast. With both girls lying on the bed, there wasn’t a lot of room to position myself beside them, so I nudged Nikki’s knees apart and crawled between them. Of course, that meant that at various times as I was painting the henna rose on her breast, I’d flop against her tummy or even against her hairy mound. Each time my cock touched her she tensed a little and caught her breath. I wasn’t trying to get my cock into her. She’d been explicit about what she wanted me to do. But I could see and smell that it was getting her excited just to have me that close. When I dripped a glob of pre-come on her belly, she moaned.
“May I have that?” Liz asked just before she wiped the little gob off Nikki’s belly and popped it in her mouth. I leaned over and kissed each of Nikki’s nipples and edged downward dragging my cock across her belly and her mound. I kissed my way down to the inside of her thighs and she started thrusting up toward me.
“Remember now, you have to lie still so you don’t mess up the henna, sweetheart,” I whispered.
“Nikki, is he going to lick you now?” Liz asked.
“I hope so,” she gasped. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“No. I’m just a little jealous. You won’t mind if he… you know… does more than lick me, will you?” Nikki’s head shook back and forth but the words were garbled as I fastened my mouth around her clit and began lashing it with my tongue. I think having a spectator moved Nikki up a notch and she started coming almost as soon as I started sucking. When her body quit shaking, I pushed at Liz and she flopped back next to Nikki. I grabbed a condom and rolled it on. Liz brought her knees up and spread her legs waiting for me. I positioned myself at her opening and began to slowly push in.
“Are you going to fuck her before you do her rose?” Nikki asked. Her eyes were glued to my cock parting Liz’s lips.
“No,” I answered. “I’m going to softly make love with her as I paint a rose on this beautiful little breast.” Liz moaned. “I love you, Liz,” I whispered.
“Mmmhmm. You feel so good. My pussy is really vibrating after that ride.”
“Yeah, my butt’s still tingling. Now hold still,” I said as I positioned the stencil on her breast and kissed her nipple. Liz kept her left hand above her head like Nikki had, but her right hand lightly stroked my side down to my hip.
“How am I going to move against you while you’re doing this?”
“Oh, you can’t. You have to lie still and just hug my cock in you. I can’t be humping while I’m painting.”
“You can’t? God, it feels so good!” I kept painting her breast, occasionally pulling back to look at what I had done which dragged my cock out and then back in. It was pretty much the same thing I’d done with Nikki except that I was actually in Liz. Nikki watched and moved closer to the edge of the bed.
“How are you doing, Nikki?” I asked softly.
“Um… I don’t know.”
“What are you feeling, honey?”
“Jealous. And scared. And a little mad.” I finished the tattoo and stroked Liz a little as I reached for Nikki.
“Kiss me, Nikki.”
“But you’re… in her.”
“And I’m not getting out,” I said, pulling back and pushing forward again. Liz brought a hand up to stroke my chest and play with my nipple. Nikki sat up with one leg off the bed and the other tucked under her as she leaned in to kiss me. Once our lips made contact I pulled her to me and began playing with her breasts. Nikki got into the kiss pretty quickly.
“You taste like… me.”
“That’s because I had my face buried between your legs while Liz watched me eat you and you came all over me.” I moved my hand down across her belly and into the thatch that was still wet between her legs. Whatever she thought she was feeling, Nikki was still very turned on by watching Liz and me. I started playing with her clit and Nikki started humping my hand. Suddenly, Liz’s hips started to get into the action a little more. She still held her left hand over her head on the bed to keep the tattoo from smearing, but her right hand was pulling at my hip to set the pace for our loving.
It took a little longer. I reached out to pet Liz’s face and breasts while I continued to kiss Nikki. Liz pulled my fingers into her mouth. Pretty soon, Nikki started to rise to another orgasm and from the pace Liz was pushing I could tell she was getting close, too. It was all I could do to keep from going off immediately. Liz wrapped her heels behind my back and used them to pull me into her as far as she could. Nikki started to whine and pant, finally pulling away from my lips so she could throw her head back and scream out her orgasm. Liz’s pussy clamped down on my cock as she went off and that was all it took to send me over the edge. I pushed into her as far as I could get and shot into the condom. Nikki flopped back on the bed next to Liz with my fingers still trapped in her pussy. I leaned forward and kissed Liz long and hard. She clamped down on my cock so hard I thought I might lose the condom. I managed to free myself from both girls and stripped off the condom.
“How do you feel now, Nikki?” I asked softly. I kissed each of her nipples and she shuddered.
“Um… really good.”
“It’s hard to be jealous in the middle of an orgasm.”
“Or scared or mad. I don’t really want to kill you, Liz.”
“If you ever kill me, Nikki, I’ll haunt you for as long as I live.” We all started laughing.
“Can we talk for a while, Bri?” Liz asked as I got off her bike at home.
“Just talk? I have to get dinner started, baby. It’s crazy having six others in the house most of the time to cook for. Would you like to have dinner with us?”
“Thank you, yes. But I really want to talk if you can believe that. And your hair needs trimming. When you get dinner on, I’ll cut it for you. I have my things with me.”
“You planned this?” I laughed.
“Yeah. I guess I did. How long do we have until everyone gets here for dinner?”
“Well, there was a 4-H horsemanship show in Lakeville and everyone went there. They usually run until about five so I expect everyone home by six.”
“Maybe it would be easier to talk with your cock in my pussy.”
“How about if we go cuddle in the big chair? What’s on your mind, Red? You sound a little upset. Was it too much this afternoon?”
“Oh, no!” she hugged me. “It was fine. Once Nikki and I got past the point where we were threatening each other non-stop, we’ve become really good friends. Sharing that little bonding activity this afternoon was great. I’d never touch her, though. She knows that.”
“What is it, then?” I asked as she settled into my lap and buried her face against my chest.
“Don’t hate me, Brian,” she whimpered.
“Liz! Honey, I couldn’t hate you. I love you.”
“But even if I wanted to have sex with someone else?” Oh shit! “Oh shit! I wasn’t going to start like that. I haven’t. You’re the only boy I’ve been with and I’m not interested in girls. It’s just a hypothetical question.” She slammed her lips against mine and dragged my hand to her breast as she tried to crawl inside my mouth. She was panting and in near-panic.
“Honey. Honey!” I said. “Take it easy, love. We can talk about your hypothetical question without panicking.” Yeah, right. The rate my heart was hammering in my chest had nothing at all to do with the passion of that kiss and everything to do with what Liz had just suggested.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” Tears sprang from her eyes. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, sweetheart. Tell me all about it. Do you think… do you think you want to break up with me?”
“Nooo!” The moan was so despairing that it took me completely by surprise. I hugged her to me. “I want… I mean, I was asking about… uh… something like Brenda does—with both Carl and with you.”
Oh. Oh shit! This was a test. Not that Liz was testing me, but for me it was a test. I’d accepted that Brenda wanted to be lovers with both Carl and with me. And with Louise and maybe Rose. But Brenda was Carl’s girlfriend in my mind and he was the one doing the sharing. Liz was my girlfriend. Could I share her with someone else? Of all the girls in the group, Liz was the one I considered most likely to want that kind of relationship. She was a sexually driven girl and we’d already increased our frequency together to about the max that we could make it without infringing on any of the other girls’ time.
“Brian?”
“Shh. It’s okay. I just have to think about what you are saying so I don’t just pop off with something I don’t really mean. You really took me by surprise. I was… so afraid you wanted to break up with me and go be with someone else.”
“I never want to break up with you. I know we’re just seventeen, but we’ve been building this… this thing we have for six years. Think about it, Brian. We aren’t just friends. From the moment we all signed the agreement we became like a family. Maybe more like a clan. No boy could get into my panties now unless he got into the clan first. Like Louise and Nikki did. They joined the clan. Once they were part of the clan it was okay for them to be lovers with the members of the clan they chose. If I broke up with you and chose someone outside the clan, I’d have to leave the clan.” Like Hannah. That’s what she did.
“We don’t have many guys in this clan,” I said. “It kind of limits your options.”
“But we have the best guys,” she sighed. “That night before the Halloween party a couple years ago? I wasn’t ready for where my hormones were taking me and I had already established you as my man. But I’ve dreamt of Carl and the way he kissed me that night so many times it isn’t funny.”
“You want to have sex with Carl?” It made sense. After all, I was having sex with his girlfriend.
“Yeah, but not like right away. I was thinking more of Doug.” What!? Shit! I can’t keep track of these things. “I mean, one of the principles of the clan is that we are open and honest with each other. We all knew last summer that Brenda was going to be part of both your… um… family, I guess, and Carl’s. Damn it! We need words for these things. All the girls who considered themselves part of your family had to agree that Brenda could join in. The same thing happened when Rhiannon and Doreen said they wanted to be part of both your family and Doug’s. We all had to agree that we were willing to share you with them. And that got me thinking that when you are with Doreen and Rhiannon—and I think it will be both of them at the same time—that poor Doug would be on his own and maybe I could help take his mind off what the rest of his family was doing by becoming part of his family because I’d rather be with him without anyone else, you know?”
“We’re going to need a scorecard.”
“Probably one of those diagram thingies they use in math with the overlapping circles.”
“A Venn diagram?” Maybe that was a good idea.
“We want to have another bonfire,” Courtney said as she snuggled up to me in bed on Wednesday. She was the first one out of the bathroom and claimed spoons with me. Mmm. Snuggling up against Courtney’s bare backside and cupping her breasts in my hands was one of my favorite positions.
“Do we need another purging? A Camora?”
“What’s a Camora?” Jen asked as she cuddled up in front of Courtney. Sam tentatively approached the bed and crawled in behind me.
“You read Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, didn’t you? It was the ritual the giants used to cleanse themselves of pain and grief in the fire.”
“Oh, yeah. It was kind of like that,” Courtney said. “I was thinking more like a witch’s bonfire that we could dance around. Just the family.”
“Us four and our parents?” I asked.
“No, Brian,” Sam said leaning her face against my back. “Your family. You and your core women. Us. And Liz, Rose, Sora, Nikki, Cassie. If they could get here, Elaine, Whitney, Sarah, and Hannah. Quiet! I won’t accept that she isn’t part of us. I won’t.” I kissed Courtney on the back of the neck and rolled toward Sam. She hugged me and raised her lips to kiss me—the most passionate kiss I’d had from her since she caught Sora and me together.
“We need a bonding ritual,” Jen explained. “We need to all know that we accept each other as equal partners in a family. Granted that not everyone in the core group is as committed as everyone else. You know what you told us. Sex is a promise. Some of your family have made that promise. Some of us are ready to make it. A few aren’t sure yet. That’s okay. They can still be part of the family until they decide. That was one of the rules. No pressure.”
“So, when do we want to have a bonfire? We should still clear it with the parents and probably tell them there will be a mass sleepover that night.”
“Before the end of the month. August is going to be crazy with the fair and getting ready for school,” Sam said.
“That leaves us this weekend or next.”
“Better do it next week so we have time to plan. I’ll talk to Mom,” Jen said.
Comments
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
