Not This Time
19
The Mill
IT WAS LIKE LILY, Bruce, and I were on a honeymoon. Not that we had sex all the time. But we had good sex. Satisfying. Sometimes dreamy. Yeah. But not all the time.
The thing was that we were good with each other. Once I got my head out of my ass and wasn’t obsessing about selling condos or school or childrearing, I allowed myself to become fully a member of our family. We still had little arguments. Every family has its little ups and downs, as they say. But we worked it out. It became more and more obvious every day that we loved each other.
And I stopped obsessing over whether I was the one who was giving the most support to Emily. In my first life, my Willa had one loving parent and two possessive grandmothers who mostly tried to keep her away from me. Until Mom died. Somehow, Jesse’s mom seemed to back off then, too. Maybe it was my mother she was competing with and not me. Regardless, Emily had three loving, doting parents.
By her third birthday, Emily was calling both Lily and me ‘mommy’ and Bruce ‘daddy.’
“Why don’t you join us?” Carla asked Lily at our annual holiday party. It was big enough now that I actually hired a caterer to serve the food so I could just enjoy the party. When Carla had broached the subject of her women’s retreat to discuss making Minneapolis more friendly toward women in business, I shrugged. I’d never thought of myself as a woman in business. I had a project and I went out and sold it. I’d joined the National Realtor’s Association, but that was the only organization I belonged to, even now that I had my broker’s license. “Certainly, with as much time as you spend guiding students, you’ve heard some things and come up with some ideas,” Carla pressed. “I could really use you.”
“What do you think?” Lily asked as we snuggled in bed after the party.
“I think Carla could really use you,” Bruce laughed. “And if you played your cards right you could use her, too.” Lily moaned. I had to laugh. I wasn’t interested in playing, but there was certainly an undertone of Carla wanting to play with Lily. She’d accepted my excuse with no attempt to convince me otherwise.
“Three days at a resort in Brainerd with a roomful of pussy,” I whispered in Lily’s ear. “How can you say no?”
“I can say no because I have two wonderful lovers cuddling naked against me who I love more than life itself. I can say no… if I don’t go. I don’t know that I could say no if Carla happened to wander into my room late one night after I’d had a couple of drinks.”
“So don’t,” I said. “I doubt if Bruce could say no if she wandered into his room late one night after he’d had a couple of drinks.”
“I’d try,” he said, “but… damn!”
“Are you two giving me permission to mess around with Carla if the opportunity presented herself on this retreat?” Lily asked.
“Only if you describe what happens in lurid detail when you come home,” Bruce said. “I might have to have a smoke afterward.”
“You smoke and you’ll be living in your office,” I said. Bruce didn’t smoke, but I didn’t get that he was making a joke until after I’d sounded like a cat.
“You’d rather have me smelling of someone else’s pussy than Bruce smelling of smoke?” Lily asked.
“I think I’d wash your face before I kissed you,” I said. “Tell you what, Bruce. If the story is that good, I’ll join you for the smoke. And in your office afterward.” Eventually, Lily agreed to go, with our blessing.
The infrastructure in the Mill was all in by the first of the year. I left all the details of our current condo sales in Renata’s capable hands and turned all my efforts to the Mill. I hired a staff for the sales office and we started tours and presales. My goal was to have a hundred solid prospects in the pipeline before we actually opened sales with the first unit in June. In the meantime, we also had to line up tenants for the first floor businesses.
I was in sales again, but in a completely different venue.
“I just don’t think there is a large enough market for a Byerly’s on Main Street,” their development vice president said after I’d made my presentation. He’d jumped to the conclusion I predicted before I even finished the presentation.
“I completely agree,” I said.
“Then why are we meeting?”
“With its acquisition of Lund’s, Byerly’s has a corner on the high-end market. But your current stores, aside from the original Lund’s in Uptown, are playing to middle class suburbia. You are talking about—I’m sorry to use the stereotype—hockey moms who have to rush home and feed the family. Your stock in your suburban markets has an 80% overlap with Rainbow Foods. An article in the Star-Trib last year suggested that there was really no difference between your fresh produce, butcher shop, and delicatessen and that of your cheaper competitor. What we have at the Mill is a real opportunity for you to grab the top-end market again,” I said.
“How do you propose we do that?”
“The Mill will attract young upwardly mobile professionals,” I said. “Yuppies. They have good money and know they need to invest it soundly, so they are looking for a home they can buy without having to spend every weekend cutting the grass. But added to that, we have the newer class, Dinks—Dual Income, No Kids. Yuppies fall in love and get married. The average age for having children, though, is going up. They still want their freedom and their lifestyle. Those people don’t want to stop at 7-Eleven and pick up a can of Campbell’s soup for seventy-nine cents. They want to stop at the Byerly Deli and pay six dollars for a container of their favorite, fresh, hot minestrone. When they cook, they don’t even want to compare the meats to see which is the grass-fed Black Angus. They want to assume that the vegetables they buy are organic. They want the best that Byerly’s and Lunds can offer without sorting through coupons to see which tampons are on sale.”
“You make that sound so exclusionary and classist.”
“It’s the way we are selling the condos. Our buyers very much are classist.”
I left Byerly’s Corporate with another appointment and the assignment of bringing back a concept drawing of what I envisioned the shopping area to look like.
“Bruce? Honey?” I said, sidling up to him after dinner. I liked the fact that unless it was tech week or production, he didn’t have to be at the theater in the evenings. I perched in his lap in front of the TV while Lily played with Emily. He turned the TV off. Smart boy.
“Mmm. What is it, lover? Do I smell the fresh scent of an aroused woman in my lap?” he asked, taking a deep breath.
“I think that’s my soap. But I’m a clean woman sitting in your lap.” We kissed. Mmm. I almost forgot what I wanted. “Could you do a couple quick little drawings for me? Well, maybe more like renderings? As if you were designing a stage set?”
“Ah, so you do want something besides sex.”
“No. I want something in addition to sex. I don’t want a substitute.”
“If you can describe to me what kind of pretty picture you want while I’m kissing you and licking your nipples, and chewing on your clit, I’ll try to draw it for you.”
“Will you draw it while I’m kissing you and licking your nipples, and sucking on your cock?”
“Oh. Uh… Let’s see how it goes.”
My darling Bruce was wonderful! He kissed me and caressed me and carried me to bed. He slowly pulled the bathrobe off my shoulders as I tried desperately to keep his lips locked to mine while I explored his mouth with my tongue. His right hand cupped my left breast as his left hand slid the sleeves down my arms and off.
My breasts were nowhere near as sensitive as they had been before having Emily suck on them for two years, but I loved the fact that he still liked them and spent time just petting and holding them. He didn’t try to pinch or even focus on the nipples. I just felt so secure with his hands supporting their heavy weight.
“I love your breasts,” he whispered in my ear. “They are beautiful. I love the softness and the weight. I love to have them pressed against my bare chest.”
“Then let’s get your chest bare.”
Even though my nipples weren’t as sensitive as they’d once been, Bruce’s were. I chased a couple hairs on his mostly smooth chest out of the way with my tongue and sucked on his right nipple. He moaned and I felt his cock harden beneath my hand. No matter how often we made love, I still disbelieved in my power to arouse him. It always surprised me when he hardened so quickly as I touched him. I pushed his jeans off his hips and he kicked them to the floor.
“I think I said something about nibbling on your clit,” he whispered as he pushed me back from his chest.
“I think you said chewing,” I giggled as my legs fell open before him. He moved down.
“Don’t eat it all,” Lily said from the foot of the bed. “I think I might want a midnight snack myself. Even if I can’t draw a picture.”
“Is our girl asleep already?” I asked.
“She had a very busy day today. She’s out like a light.”
“Then get naked with us, lover,” I said.
Bruce had his face firmly in my crotch when Lily started kissing me. I caressed Lily’s smaller breasts and pinched her nipples lightly the way I knew she liked. I shuddered as my first little orgasm shook my body.
“Come over my face and let me lick you, sweetheart,” I said.
“Really? You don’t have to.”
“I want to taste what Bruce is tasting. And I know you want my little pink tongue running around your clit and pushing into your vagina.”
“Oh… You know what I like.” Lily brought her pussy to my mouth and I began to lick her thoroughly. I really didn’t mind giving her pleasure like this. I liked making her happy. And Bruce was taking care of all the stimulation I needed down below. I stiffened with my tongue in her pussy and grabbed her butt with both hands as I came again. Lily shoved her sopping hole down on my tongue harder and I heard her moan.
Bruce paused and then I felt him lift my legs and roll them back toward Lily as his cock nudged at my pussy. As he sank into me, I latched onto Lily’s clit and began lashing it with my tongue. Lily whined and stiffened then rolled away from my assault.
“Oh! I can never last when you do that. You make me come harder than anything,” Lily moaned as she gasped for breath. Bruce leaned forward and began cleaning my face of Lily’s juices with his tongue as I battled to clean my own from him. I reached between us and stroked his cock as it slid in and out of my opening. I was reassured to feel the condom beneath my fingers. He’d never forgotten, but I always relaxed more once I knew it was there. It was irrational, I knew. I’d been on the pill since Emily stopped nursing. But my head couldn’t help it.
Bruce used his fingers, but Lily shoved them aside so she could rub my clit to another earth-shaking orgasm before Bruce let loose with his.
Eventually, after Lily had also been satisfied, I managed to tell Bruce what I wanted. An area on the main floor of the Mill that was a grocery store, but looked like a village market. It would have a meat market with cuts on display and a huge refrigeration unit that real butchers would pull meat from to make custom cuts. The fish market would be separate. In so many grocery stores, they are located next to each other because of the simple expedient of having all the refrigeration in one place. I didn’t care. I wanted a bakery, a dairy, a fresh produce market. And a delicatessen. And a wine shop.
“What are you going to do with canned goods and packaged food?” Bruce wanted to know.
“Our own version of a convenience store,” I said. “None of this twenty different brands and varieties of toilet paper. One. One brand of soup with the most popular flavors. Organic.”
“I’m glad I don’t have to choose the products,” he laughed. “What about other services?”
“Yes!” I said. I was so excited my boobs were bouncing up and down. Lily tried to catch a nipple and I kept bouncing them off her nose. “Barber shop and beautician. Dry cleaner and laundry. Pharmacy. What else do we need?”
“How about cobblestone streets with a horse and carriage?” Lily asked.
“It has to look like a little village, but everything has to be convenient and modern. People will roll their little carts across it, so no cobblestone. It could be painted to look like it, though. And only pedestrian traffic.”
“You know I’m not an architect,” Bruce said as he puzzled over what I was asking.
“I just want the concept drawings. I’ll give them to the architect.”
“Okay.”
Lily and I were both shocked when Bruce rolled out of bed and headed to his office.
“Where are you going?” Lily asked.
“I’ve got this idea and I want to get a few sketches down before I lose them,” he said. “You go ahead to sleep and I’ll cuddle up quietly when I’m done.”
I felt a little guilty, but eventually, after we’d held each other and kissed for a lovely eternity, Lily and I fell asleep.
Bruce never did get to bed that night.
Byerly’s bought the concept. The architects were doubtful until Jim said, “Like that casino in Las Vegas that looks like Venice.” Then they got excited. I spent the next two months selling the concept of the other services to tenants who eventually agreed. In a stroke of brilliance, the architects carried the theme up into the residential floors, placing units on streets with central courtyards and opening two and three floors up together. One of the big coffee companies decided that they would like to put a little coffee shop on a residential floor with a larger one on the main floor. They were committed to providing the boulangerie that was exclusive to the residents. I supposed that with 187 units in the complex, there might be enough business to support the European style café. They were certain of it.
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