El Rancho del Corazón
67 Graduation
THREE WEEKS LATER, the whole clan was back at UIndy to celebrate Elaine’s graduation. We stood outside the gymnasium and watched the double line of caps and gowns process from the auditorium across the promenade to the gym for the commencement exercise. Senator Remington was the speaker for the commencement and spent too much time extolling the virtues of the president and the quick end to the Gulf War. ‘You, too, could be a great man, graduates.’ I looked over and Hannah was taking notes on what he said. I wondered what was going through her head.
If we thought getting 350 graduates through commencement at St. Joe Valley High took a long time, there were three times that many at UIndy. Almost half of them were from the School of Nursing. We caught up with Elaine after the ceremony for photos on the steps of the theater. It was nice to see her parents, of course, but it was Cam and Patsy that kept us all laughing. Patsy had the gently rounded tummy of a pregnant woman. She told us all she was due on Labor Day, which launched Cam on a whole diatribe about how appropriate it was to go into labor on Labor Day and his son would be told that the day was named for his emergence into the world.
“I’m giving you the week to get through finals,” Elaine said kissing our hearthmates one after another. “Then I’m moving in full time.” She glanced over at her family and whispered to me, “I’d move down today, but I really need to spend some time with the parentals. You understand, don’t you, honey?”
“Of course I do, sweetheart. And you are right. It wouldn’t be much fun to be there during finals week. The other casas already left and our hearthmates are getting anxious to get home and study,” I said. “I can’t wait for you to be with us full time.”
“There are things I’m looking forward to,” she grinned at me. “Better get your cónyuge home and study. I’ll see you Sunday.”
The week was stressful, but we supported each other. Hannah and Liz pulled double duty in the kitchen to keep us in food and snacks. We’d added another huge recliner and I noticed that Rose was usually in it with girlfriends piled on top of her while they studied, just the way they snuggled into my chair with me. I was startled when Tuesday night, a very naked Dawn settled into my lap in the chair and opened her anatomy book. I was a little distracted by her anatomy as I reviewed chemistry notes.
“I know I’m not really one of yours,” Dawn said. “It’s just so noisy at the chapter house. Half our house is just blowing off steam and I really want to do well on my finals.”
“Do you want to become a part of our clan?” I asked softly. She nodded her head.
“It’s not just you,” she quickly added. “If I’d been part of this when I came to IU, I’d never have joined a sorority. I feel like I’ve found my real sisters. And I think the same goes for Cathy. We came over together tonight, but she’s studying with Brenda, Louise, and Carl. At least I think they’re studying,” she giggled. “I never thought Cathy was even bi-curious. I never made a pass at her.”
“And you are?” I asked.
“A little more than curious. Definitely bi. It’s not just you that turns me on when I stay over.”
“I didn’t know you were getting turned on,” I said. “I’m sorry. We don’t mean to tease you.”
“You could… a little,” she whispered. “Brian, when I’m sitting naked in your lap, I give you explicit permission to touch me.” She took a deep breath. “Anywhere.”
Her anatomy suddenly became even more interesting.
“Don’t worry,” Rose whispered. Dawn was on the other side of the room sandwiched between Jennifer and Courtney. Those two! “She knows that being invited to join the clan is not the same as being invited to join our casa, even if she is allowed to sleep with us occasionally.”
“I’m relieved. Rose, I like her, but I really don’t want to make her part of our inner circle.”
“Angela, on the other hand…” Rose began. I groaned. “You know very well that she wants to be part of the casa as well as the clan. And you can groan all you want to. The twitch I just felt told me everything I need to know about how you vote. She’s already your compañera, but I doubt very much that she will ever be cónyuge. You know she is just waiting for the right time to find out what she missed all those years ago.”
“I have an idea, Rose. Why don’t you and I make a run for it? We could be in Kentucky or maybe Tennessee before anyone knows we’re missing,” I sighed. Rose looked at me with an eyebrow raised. She looked like… “And Hannah. And Elaine. And Liz. And Samantha. And Whitney. And Courtney and Jennifer. Just the…” I counted on my fingers. “…nine of us.” Rose kept her eyebrow raised and didn’t say anything. “And Doreen and our baby. And… everybody else,” I sighed. “I couldn’t leave any of you. I could never leave any of you.”
“I know, cónyuge. Nor could any of us leave you. We made this mess. I guess we’ll have to live with it,” Rose giggled. I drew her close to me and we went to sleep.
After the Thursday biology exam, I was done. The Public Speaking exam was on Friday and we were ‘encouraged to attend’, but I’d given my speech two weeks ago and had evaluated the first twenty-five that were given. I listened to the last eight speakers on Friday afternoon, but I didn’t even take paper and pen.
Then it was time for our two IU seniors to graduate.
We all had to get up at an insane hour on Saturday to get seats at the commencement. It was held in Memorial Stadium and close to 30,000 people attended. The procession started at 8:45. As big as Elaine’s graduation ceremony was, this was ten times bigger. Each school was seated together on the field. Since Lamar and Renee were both in the College of Arts and Sciences, they were able to go in together, but that’s the largest school at the University. Even with our field glasses trained on the procession and seating, we caught sight of the two as they entered and immediately lost track of them in the melee. There were rituals and ceremonies and speakers and recognition. But there were so many grads that at least we didn’t have to wait through the reading of all the names. Each school stood and its graduates and degrees were all recognized at once. We managed to get out after two hours.
Renee and Lamar were meeting their mothers and hearthmates to go out to eat after the ceremony. We invited all our clan graduates to the ranch for a huge dinner on Sunday. Elaine was back to be honored by our clan. We even managed to get the younger clan down for the celebration and recognized George and Mary, as well.
I was blown away when Geoff, Kevin, and Robyn walked in. Kevin’s last final had been Wednesday and the three had driven from Washington to get here for the graduation celebration. I just grabbed Geoff around the waist and swung him around in circles. I hadn’t seen him since our graduation day a year ago.
“Patrón,” Geoff laughed, “my compañera will get jealous.” I looked quickly at Kevin and then at Robyn. They were both grinning.
“Both?”
“Yeah. Cool, huh?” I grabbed both Robyn and Kevin into a hug as well.
We’d invited our initiates to be with us as well. What a strange word to use. Dawn, Cathy, Adam, Warren, Angela, and Tim were all at the table. It was the first time that we’d had all forty-six of our clan together. I should say ‘tables’ since we didn’t even bother to try to put them together to seat so many. But with all of us there, we still had plenty of food and I’d never heard the barn as noisy as when we were all talking together. I looked over at Whitney and she beamed at me. I couldn’t have asked anyone better to organize the graduation party. And I knew we had a special treat for Elaine planned tonight. First, though, we had clan business to take care of, and we all headed out for the fire pit. We’d had a lot of early fog, but it cleared by noon when everyone got there. At two o’clock, the temperature was near eighty and we were comfortable in our clan gis at the fire.
“I hope you all called or kissed your moms for Mothers’ Day this morning,” Rose started. “Look at us. We are all here! And we have new members to recognize and announcements to be made.” She looked over at Carl, Brenda, and Louise. “You guys are just dancing over there. Why don’t you start?”
“Hi, cousins!” Brenda shouted.
“Brenda, it’s a clan meeting. You don’t need to use your cheerleader voice,” Louise admonished. She kissed Brenda and Carl stepped into the breach.
“We’d like to introduce someone who has come to mean a lot to us this year. And to thank Brian for bringing her into our lives. Please welcome our new hearthmate, Cathy, to the Clan of the Heart and Casa de la Tierra,” he said. He pulled Cathy forward and gave her a big kiss as we applauded. Brenda and Louise kissed her just as soundly. Judy, Lexi, Ross, and Monte each came up to hug her and were smiling broadly.
“There is another casa adoption to be made,” Rose said. “Brian, you get to do this one.”
“Thanks, Rose.” I kissed her. I had a feeling there was going to be a lot of kissing going on today. “You all have heard the story at one time or another about how a twelve-year-old got educated about sex through an analogy of how corn reproduces. When I saw the words ‘corn silk’ scrawled across the last page of my midterm last October, I immediately realized that my tutor had come back into my life. Clan of the Heart and Casa del Fuego, please welcome my compañera and our new hearthmate, Angela. Who happens to be dressed today. At the moment.” We all laughed and Josh came up to do the honors of tying a red belt around Angela’s white gi.
“Okay,” Rose said as she called everyone’s attention back. “They’ve been gone for a year and Kevin never got a chance to sign the clan charter, even though we’ve considered him a member all that time. Geoff, welcome home. Do you want to do this presentation?”
“Thanks, Rose. You guys don’t know what you’ve all meant to us over the past few years. Brian, you have always, unfailingly, been my friend since we were about eight years old. Sora, I will always treasure you as you helped me through the toughest time of my life as I was coming to grips with my sexuality. Even though we are separated by distance, I am proud to still think of you as my compañera. Rose and Samantha, you stepped in to help cover before I was out of the closet. Carl, you gave me the courage to admit who I was. Robyn, even though you’re a girl, I love you. And that’s why we came home. We missed all the excitement here last summer and hope we’ll be able to provide a little this year. I’d like to announce the formation of Casa del Arco Iris and introduce my hearthmates and compañera, Kevin and Robyn.” The three hugged each other and then pulled off their white belts. In their place, they tied on new rainbow striped belts. “I don’t know what we’ll do for a single color for the casa. We’ll probably stick with white gis, but the rainbow is kind of a new symbol of the LGBT community. Thank you for letting us be a part of the Clan of the Heart.”
I noted that Adam and Warren were nearby to talk to Geoff, Kevin, and Robyn. I was a little surprised that Robyn was joining that casa, but she was so closely bonded to the guys, it was sweet.
“We have some more,” Rose said as everyone settled down from welcoming the new casa. “We made it a practice in our first round of adoptions to be clear that you did not have to be part of a specific casa to be part of the clan. I know that some of you only met each other this morning, but I’ve asked our cousin Leonard to do the next adoption.” Leonard had filled out some this year. He’d always been pretty small and protected by the girls in the younger clan. But he was definitely holding his own, now.
“Some of us wear white belts as a symbol that we are part of the clan but not of a casa,” Leonard said. “We’re like the uncasa. Even though I’m younger than all the people we are welcoming today, I’m happy to welcome our new cousins to the Clan of the Heart. Dawn, Tim, Adam, and Warren.” Leonard, Pam, and Nancy tied white belts around the new members’ gis. “We were always told, but found out for sure last summer, that we were as much a part of the clan as those in a casa. Those of us in Mishawaka want you to know that we all plan to be here for the summer. I hope you’ve got jobs for us all.”
Jobs were only part of the next order of business. Where the hell are we going to sleep everyone?
“I need to ask this so we can get some serious planning done,” I said. “Is there anyone here in the clan who does not plan to live with us here at the ranch this summer?” Everyone looked at everyone else, but no one raised a hand. I exhaled loudly. More loudly than I intended. “If someone already has housing figured out and I’m worrying over nothing, please let me know. We did a lot of tents and travel trailers last year and had a couple parents a week to help out. I just want to make sure everyone has a place to sleep at night and a way to get clean after a dirty day of work. You know we are going to be working, right?” Everyone laughed.
“Does the outdoor shower still work?” Susan asked.
“Yes. I tested it a couple weeks ago.”
“That’s good enough for me. If I need to sleep in a tent, I’ll do it just to be here with everyone.” That seemed to be the agreed opinion, though there was a lot of discussion in small groups regarding the cost of travel trailers and motor homes. I let the conversations go. We’d need every idea we could come up with.
About four o’clock, all the high school kids had to pack up and head north. They still had five weeks of school left and next weekend was prom. I managed to get a few minutes alone with Mary and we made out for half of them. Then I had to get things like the color of her dress and preferred flower. I’d already ordered a tux and would pick it up before I went north. I intended to spend a few days.
Lionel, Lamar, Sugar, and Renee went back to their apartment, but Casa del Arco Iris pretty much sacked out on the floor in front of the fireplace. They’d brought sleeping bags and said they were fine. Sora and Tim took my library and Adam and Warren had the guest room. Of course, both Angela and Dawn joined us upstairs.
I was distracted, though, by having Nikki, Sarah, and Elaine piled on top of me all night. I really didn’t mind. I was surprised, though, to wake up at six with Nikki straddling me and pushing down on my cock. I thought she had a crazy look on her face and then realized it was the Nikki version of bliss.
“We collected ideas,” Rose said at the breakfast table. “Sora says she’ll talk to her parents about bringing down the travel trailer again this summer.”
“Unfortunately, with both Monte and me planning to be here for the summer, Mom and Dad were thinking they’d finally get to take a road trip,” Sora said.
We’d all pulled T-shirts and pants—or at least underwear—on in deference to the fact that we still had some guests with us in the house. It’s funny how we considered Geoff, Kevin, and Robyn guests, but didn’t think twice about parading around in the nude with Tim, Adam, Warren, Angela, or Dawn in the house. And I had to correct my own thinking. Angela was sitting on my knee in a long T-shirt, but I could feel that she didn’t have anything under it. She was no longer a guest. She was a member of Casa del Fuego. I needed to get used to this. I started by slipping my hand under the shirttail and petting her bottom.
“Any other bright ideas?” I asked. “We can certainly make a tent city. Casa del Agua and Casa de la Tierra have both offered their second bathrooms and we have the one down here. I think we might have to accept the fact that there will be some who need to use the bathrooms upstairs. Maybe we can make an incentive for using the outdoor showers.”
“Like that is where Brian showers,” Samantha said. “I know that would attract at least five girls from our high school ranks to shower outside.”
“Oh, please! Five?” I moaned. I stroked Angela’s thigh and she wiggled on my lap. Just the thought of it…
“Oh, hey! I’m sure it would attract a few guys, too,” Kevin said. I gulped. Robyn started laughing. There was something else I needed to get used to. I couldn’t remember hearing Robyn laugh or Kevin make a joke.
“Well, in my own defense, then, I have an idea,” I said. “It might not fly, but it’s mostly work that we could do. We’ve still got over half the loft that hasn’t been finished. We could make another space up there. We sleep fifteen—sixteen—and some—in our bedroom. We could probably do the same on the other side.”
“You know, we talked about the dormer on that side being odd by itself. Putting a second one in would improve the look,” Josh said. “I like the idea.”
“Do we have fifteen or sixteen who can be comfortable living together in an open space? We’re all one casa and some guests up there now. Any others would be… less intimate,” Jennifer said.
“Could it be divided?” Elaine asked. “Make a boys’ dormitory and a girls’ dormitory. Each would have a bath.”
I didn’t know what the final would be, but we were moving the right direction.
Lamar, Lionel, Sugar, and Renee showed up before noon Monday and found all the rest of us in the garden. It had been a foggy morning again, but it was warm and we had a huge garden that needed to be weeded. I was thankful that there were a few people who had really taken to the gardening life, not the least of whom was Angela. She’d worked with Brenda and Liz to plot out how much of each thing to plant and how to organize the garden. It was impressive. It was also going to provide a huge amount of food for us this summer. They were already talking about expanding it for some late season crops.
“Patrón,” Lionel said when he came up to me. “Can we have a conversation?”
“Of course, buddy. What’s up? Why the formality?”
“Clan business,” Lamar said. I saw Renee bringing Rose over to us. The six of us went into the house and I poured coffee.
“Shoot,” Rose said as we sat at the table.
“We came down last summer and moved into the apartment Renee and Lamar had rented,” Lionel said. “It’s not a great place. It’s just two bedrooms and Renee actually went to live at the chapter house. When Rich was with us last summer, he slept on the couch. The thing is, none of us like the place that much.”
“The truth is, the lease is up at the end of June,” Sugar said. “None of us want to renew it.”
“So you want to move out here permanently?” I asked. Great! How can we manage that? I’d love to have them out here, though. Maybe after the summer, we could move them in to the other half of the upstairs.
“We figure we need to talk to Anna,” Lionel said. “But we wanted to find out from you if it was even acceptable first. We were thinking about building another bunkhouse. It would help with some of the living space out here and we’d all be closer together.”
“But the bunkhouse is a duplex. And aren’t you two leaving?” Rose asked Lamar and Renee.
“Not exactly,” Renee said. “I’ve decided to stay on and get my master’s in children’s literature. I’m thinking I might want to go into curriculum development for elementary school.”
“And I’m a little uncertain about the future,” Lamar said. “But I’d like to have a base of operations. The NBA draft is in late June. I’ve talked to a few teams, but I’m not real high on the pick list. If I don’t get drafted, I plan to continue into law school.”
“That would be great, Lamar, but I’m sure you’ll get drafted,” I said. How could they not want him?
“We’ll see. But as to the bunkhouse being a duplex, if we pay for it, we could rent it out to others in the clan. Seems like we’ve grown this year.”
“I’m going up to Mishawaka on Wednesday for the rest of the week,” I said. “We’re going to propose our construction projects to Anna. She approved adding the front porch in our original plans and we’ve got the money in our construction fund to do that. But we want to finish the other half of the loft, too. We might as well present all of the plans at once.”
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