Cate's Struggles

"You know, we had the impression that you preferred to stay alone if possible," Eleanore said.

"That used to be true, and was at first, but you all are a very interesting group, so you have to have noticed too that I've honestly enjoyed being among you. Forgive me if I was slow, or if I still seem that way, but yes, I do like to be alone, and yes, I do like being with all of you. Sometimes I think it's hard for anyone to get anything said, but it all works out okay, everyone is so in tune with everyone else."

"We sure enjoyed having you with us all last night," Eleanore said.

"We did. Absolutely," Paula said emphatically, a huge, sweet smile on her face. "We hope to have you with us more often too."

"You fix a fine plate," I said, also smiling.

"Very fine," Haley said with light laughter.

We talked more after dinner, but it finally ended. To be sure, I was a bit sorry it did.

"What do you think?" I asked Haley as I washed the dishes and she dried them.

"About what Jabs and Paula suggested?" I nodded. "Sounds dangerous, and for Paula too."

"That's what I thought too, but I'm sure they've thought of it too."

We took our shower, but Haley snuck in and went down on me to her great pleasure, at least by all of the sounds she made as she licked me and lightly sucked my clit. It was great, but I didn't want to be on my knees in the shower just now; what I wanted was Haley to sit on my face and enjoy her sexy pussy. She didn't object when we were in bed and I pulled her up to me, but she did love the way I loved her.

When I wore her out properly, she smiled through all of her efforts to catch her breath. She loved how she felt.

"Cate, as much as you love eating my pussy, how is it that you resisted doing so before?"

"With great difficulty," I answered with a smile that was very wide.

"You do love it, don't you?"

"From what I can tell, I love it almost as much as you love me loving you," I shot back at her.

"Yeah, I do love it. God, I love you, and I love how we make love. I feel as if I want to be making love to you all the time."

"All the time?" I asked.

"Yeah, all the time, as in now too," she said, spun about, and started licking my pussy with hers in my face again.

She loved us both loving together at the same time. It was one of my favorites too, among the many other favorites I had.

Chapter 26

With the week gone by, and Haley registered for her history class, we went to the club as usual.

"All packed up?" I asked Mary when we were alone a minute.

"Yes, and thanks again. Anise is excited."

"Please keep this to yourselves, okay? Not that I mind the other's knowing about the cabin, but for now, I'd rather keep it just between us."

"Yes, we will. Anise understands that you have your reasons, and is good with it—and real happy too. It's something we've really needed, and maybe this will do the trick for her. Our meeting last Saturday has her mind burning with questions."

"Maybe that's real good for her. It was with me, and it was with Haley too."

"It looks like it will be that way for Anise too, at least I hope so."

Haley and I danced for a while, talked with the group, enjoyed them as always, but then it had to end. Mary knew where we lived so it was no problem if I didn't see her in the rearview mirror. When we arrived I left the garage door open for them. They were right behind us, and pulled into the garage as I told her to do.

"I can't wait," Anise said, giving credence to how excited Mary said she was.

"I think you'll like it," I said.

"Uh-uh, you'll love it, and if you're careful, you can skinny dip in the lake, especially at night," Haley added to her excitement.

To say that Anise blushed is to say that fire burns hot. Her face was in flames, but it made her even more excited, if speechless.

"That might be nice," Mary said.

We showed them to their bedroom, and said good night, with hugs and kisses, naturally. I was getting the hang of doing that real good.

* * * *

We had breakfast very early, then we left. Driving carefully so Mary wouldn't get lost following me, we made great time.

"Oh, Wow! This is super," was Mary's take on it as we entered.

"It's more than super," Anise said, awed, but I couldn't see why.

The cabin was more than nice for a cabin, but it was a cabin. Still, I was glad they liked it, especially Anise.

"If you'll all change into your swim suits, we'll do the same. If you don't mind, Haley and I would like to have one dip before we leave you two alone. You can skinny dip when you're alone if you wish," I said.

It was as if gasoline had been poured onto flames, Anise's face burned so much. They changed, and so did we. Leading them to the lake, I listened as I'd told Mary to do if they wanted to try skinny dipping. Only the critters and birds were making noise.

"I get the idea," Mary said.

It was a good swim for all of us, particularly Haley and Anise. They both enjoyed swimming, as well as splashing at each other like little girls. When I saw that, I felt pangs of regret in my heart, wishing I'd had some fun as those two were having. It was something that was missing in my earlier life, but then I did have Lanie, and now Haley, so maybe it wasn't so bad for me after all.

After a healthy swim, we plopped onto the pier, side-by-side, our feet hanging over one of the edges with Haley and Anise next to each other. We were all so peaceful that we fell asleep for a short time.

"Boy, that was a great swim to make us fall asleep like that," Mary commented.

"It was nice, but now we better have you try to reach our answering machine to make sure your cell gets through to us okay. If it does, we'll see you on Friday afternoon to make sure you don't get lost. It is kind of tricky until you've done it a few times."

Gratefully, neither of them asked how I came to have the cabin; I didn't want to go into Lanie again. Somehow I had a need to keep her to myself, or with Haley only.

* * * *

There were no calls from either of them. The only thing we did was to talk with Eleanore when she wanted me to proof some of what she had. I had sort of stumbled on a couple of things.

"Hey, let's hear it," she said, sounding a little excited'

"I became interested in it, and dug some," I started as Paula came close to hear too.

"Three of the gospels, with little difference in phrasing, have Jesus telling his disciples that some wouldn't wouldn't taste death until till they saw the kingdom come with power. Well, I don't think that happened; none lived on that anyone knows of.

"They also quote Jesus to say that the end will be known when they see the abomination of desolation as spoken of by the prophet Daniel in the holy place, the temple it has to be that place as in the Book of Maccabees. That couldn't be possible: this was supposed to have been said in the time of the second temple--that temple was destroyed by the Romans about four decades after Jesus died, and has never been rebuilt and it's now nearly two thousand years later!

"The end times are when Jesus and the kingdom of god comes into being and especially some of the disciples I suppose, will still be alive. Oh. and the book of Daniel is fraught with historical errors, and seems to have been written by several different people. Many, I presume, have never really seen the fractured ay the book is written.

"Frankly, it looks as is if Liv was very much on the mark when she labeled it the truth of the lies. Heck of a thing; they seemed to have pushed it on us for nearly two thousand years. There's more if you wish to go into it now.

"Other than that, it looks fine to me, and you're good with words, so no problems," I ended it.

"I believe you, Cate, and I thank you. That's more than interesting. I'm also having Penny, Caryn, Sally and Ariel looking at them too, especially Ariel. Kind of like you that girl spots stuff like you wouldn't believe."

* * * *

On Friday, we called Mary and told her we were on our way. When we arrived, I was shocked. We were given the biggest hugs and kisses by both of them.

"I can't thank you enough," Mary said. "It was great. Want to have another swim before going back?" she suggested.

Since we had our swim suits there, we thought it a good idea, and jumped in as fast as we could change.

"I hate to leave," Anise said.

"I've always felt that way," I said.

"Me too," Haley added. "It's always been so magical to me."

"Yeah, that's how I think of it," Anise said.

"Maybe you can come back some time when you can arrange time off," I offered.

"Really? I mean, I wouldn't want to take advantage," Mary said.

"And we'd have a hard time being allowed to have more time off," Anise said in sorrow, "but it's a nice thought. Thank you, and no, we won't say a word to anyone. I'm very grateful to you both."

We all made sure everything was ship-shape, and bade a most fond farewell to the cabin.

Epilogue

A few months later, Mary and Anise were fine in every respect, so they told us, and we believed them.

Haley had signed up for yet another class, but wasn't sure she wanted to go full time, at least not yet, if ever. She did superbly on every test, but wasn't sure if it was for her or not.

I took Haley to visit Lanie's grave site. She stood while I talked quietly to Lanie, but before we left, she knelt on one knee and said good bye to her too. We both left with tears in our eyes. Not long after that, Haley and I were married just as Lanie had married me. Soon after, I had everything put in both of our names. Once that was all finished, I took her to meet Lanie's parents.

"Dear God, but you're so beautiful," Mrs. Collins said as she looked at Haley.

"Thank you, but not nearly as beautiful as Lanie," Haley said the right thing, and her sincerity was known by Mrs. Collins.

"She took the name of Collins," I told her.

"That's nice. Lanie would have liked that," she said, and again; she said it with meaning.

We were invited to visit often, but Mr. Collins was as always, still not satisfied with how anything worked out. There was no way I could fault him.

We also took a trip to see how Haley's mother was, and I was properly forewarned to expect her to be very naked, but I expected that might be the case. When we arrived, I heard Haley's sudden gasp.

"Something's not right," she said.

Indeed, something wasn't right. We knocked, and were answered by a woman that was strange to Haley. What she told us wasn't anything either of us wanted to hear. One of her mother's Masters had killed her not too long after Haley had left; she wasn't sure of his name, not that it mattered. He'd been sentenced to life in prison. Haley took it hard, her tears coming instantly, though quietly, down her cheeks.

We found where her mother was buried. She knelt there and cried more. Her mother was the only real influence in her early life, and always meant well.

"Do you want her moved to somewhere else, and maybe a proper stone for her?" I asked.

"No, I don't think so. If we have a spirit after this life, I'm sure it wouldn't be comfortable anywhere else," Haley said. "I'm not sure why, but she loved this whole place. This is where she needs to be, how she would want to be."

It looked as if the cemetery was well cared for, so I didn't push anything.

The only other concern we had was that Eleanore and Paula started the bible classes as Liv had done. This time Paula went to all of them with Eleanore—which she never did with Liv, I was told—but it was Eleanore who did most, if not all, of the teaching.

"It's all just as Liv did," Paula said, pride in her voice, as well as some sorrow, and yes, much love for Liv whom they both honestly had adored in every way.

Haley and I? We were fine. I was giving thought to buying up more land that surrounded our cabin, but in a fictitious name so as to not arouse any one's imagination. In time I told the others about the cabin, working out in my mind that it was good to do so for our wonderful group that might have occasional use for it. Other than that, we met at the club, and occasionally at someone's house for our round-robin conversations which covered everything under the sun, including the bible classes. So far the classes were going good, and were well attended.

An attorney had sued the preacher and the church which had inflamed the idiot who shot Liv. There wasn't much in the way of proceeds, if any, but Paula did an odd thing. Somehow she met up with a preacher who, it turned out, was a fair person of faith, and leased the church to him and his congregation for a dollar a year with them taking it on as if they owned it in every respect but clear title—that remained with Paula.

"Liv never wanted to destroy anyone's faith, or their belief in their god. She only wanted other lesbians not to be persecuted, or made to feel as if they would go to the flaming fires of hell because they felt they loved women. Though not all churches believed that, too many did and were publicly making it an issue, and a very political one. That might not be so bad, but they keep pushing that it's against God's word in such a vile way. That she couldn't abide, nor that they might be swaying the public to their lies against us as lesbians. That aside, she had no quarrel with anyone's faith," was what Paula said.

If I was a praying person, if I had prayed, it would have been that Fortune's capricious wiles not visit any of us again, and definitely that none decide to do as the nuts had to Liv and Lanie. It was also my hope that we not be so swayed by lies, and that intolerance end. Perhaps Fortune would put aside its caprice for a long time to come insofar as Eleanore and Paula were concerned. Actually, I wished that for all of our group, and hoped it would be so for it was a group that Lanie would have loved as Haley and I did. They weren't just people seeking what truth they could find. They were just plain good people that could do without Fortune's wiles playing with their lives so capriciously.

~end~

This is an original story by wistfall1 who holds the copyright to it in its entirety. No copying in whole or in part without the specific written permission from wistfall1.