Oil of Roses Ch. 22

* * * * *

"Alright, Carol, let's try this again," Karen said, yelling up the stairs.

The "Dies Irae" of Mozart's "Requiem in D Minor" filled the room, surrounding them in beautiful sound. They stood, silent, throughout the movement. When it finished, silence returned to the house.

"Whoa, gawddamn that sounded good," Eddy whispered. "Alright, switch it over to 'Input B' and we'll try the CD deck down here," he bellowed upstairs.

Ella Fitzgerald's rendition of "Begin the Beguine" poured from the speakers.

Eddy slumped onto a pile of cushions. "Well kids, looks like we done it right. Somebody, somewhere, please tell me there's a beer in this house?"

Carol came downstairs, hugged and kissed Karen, then Harry and finally Eddy.

"Thank you all for your hard work. It sounds wonderful, everything works... thank you so much." She plopped down next to Eddy and hugged him again. "Especially you, Eddy, for the multiple trips to RadioShack... I know we were driving you crazy."

"Oh, don't let him fool you, sweetie," Karen said. "That's a short trip on a well-traveled road."

"Love you too, Dyke-asaurus," Eddy shot back, grinning.

"Well damn it, Neanderthal, we all know dinosaurs and man didn't live at the same time so one of us is gonna have to die," she replied, smiling evilly, "or at least, one of us is gonna have his ass whupped in a tickle fight."

Carol barely managed to scramble out of the way before the clash of the titans began.

"Do you ever get the feeling the two of them are still in grade school?" Patricia asked Tamara.

"DON'T YOU DARE PUT YOUR HAND THERE, YOU REDNECK BABOON!"

"GET YOUR CUNT-STROKIN' PAWS OFF MY NUTS, DYKE!"

"All the time, Patricia, all the time," the tiny woman sighed.

* * * * *

Finally, after everything had settled down, and a little straightening up of the house had taken place with everyone pitching in, the household's guests started making their goodbyes.

"If everything goes well and Nicki doesn't disown me or shoot me, I'm thinking of having a get-together next Friday night. I'd love for y'all to be there," Harry said, hugging Karen and Patricia goodbye. "See you at the office Tuesday, Sappho. Take care on the drive home.

"The same of course for you and Eddy, Tamara... besides, Eddy and Nicki actually got along fairly well towards the end of our high school years. I know she'd like to see him... if she doesn't run screaming from the city as soon as I start filling her in on everything."

"You know we'll be there," Eddy replied as he and his beloved made their good-byes. "And Margo, I owe you for the recommendation. I'll let you know how that turns out."

"I'll be waiting to hear," Margo replied, smiling.

As they drove away Harry hugged his wife. "What was that about?"

"Oh, Eddy wanted the name of an OB/GYN that I thought highly of for Tamara."

"Interesting."

"Interesting indeed. Now then, you need to hop in the shower, oh man of mine, and I and our beloved pet will be waiting for you when you get out."

"Going to help me get all dirty again?" Harry asked with a leer.

"No, going to work on loosening up your back and neck. When I hugged you it felt like steel cords back there. I want you to try and relax a little before you go pick up Nicki."

* * * * *

Nicole Grimes was high in the air over Louisiana; inbound for her home town and a long-needed reunion with her brother. She'd put the final touches on her last story and put it on her boss's desk earlier that afternoon in a flurry of last minute work. "Southern Outlook" magazine would just have to live without her for awhile. Two badly needed weeks of vacation stretched before her. Time to mend some fences with her brother, time get to know the woman in his life, time to say a lot of things to Harry that she'd wanted to say for a long time.

* * * * *

When Harry got out of the shower and walked into the master bedroom his heart almost stopped at the sight before his eyes.

To almost anyone else, it would have been two pretty women in robes sitting on a huge bed, sipping their iced teas and talking.

To him it was the glorious miracles of his life made manifest, the radiant proof of the Divine, gathered into one spot all that his heart could desire.

"Carol, my love, have you had church today?"

"Uh, no, haven't found a quiet moment."

"We have a quiet moment now. Care to join us in a little silent communion with the Great Whatever, beloved wife?"

"Sounds like a lovely idea," she said, smiling.

The three of them ended up, sitting cross-legged on the bed in a triangle. What the women thought or prayed or meditated upon Harry couldn't begin to guess. But for himself, out of his heart poured thankfulness, gratitude, and a song of joy so strong it was wordless, just a great stream of emotion. He sat in a room, in a house, filled with love and loved ones, which had recently held even more of both. He opened his eyes for a moment to marvel at the two remarkable, precious, unique women who blessed his every breath with their love. He thought of his friends, of how special each of them was and how completely unworthy he felt of their slightest regard, yet they'd all become family with one another by choice. The tears rolled down his face in waves as he closed his eyes again and just let go, for a moment, of his worry and stress about Nicki's visit and felt how good it would be to see her again, hold her in his arms and hug her, hear her voice, watch her face as she spoke.

At last, he felt calm, still, at peace. Nothing was so broken that it couldn't be mended. Nothing was so dirty that it couldn't be cleaned. Nothing was so lost that it couldn't be found.

"Harry, are you okay honey?" asked Margo, her voice mirroring her concern.

"Yeah, yeah I am, baby. I'm fine," he said, wiping his eyes on his towel. "Now, I believe you ladies were going to grace me with a massage?"

* * * * *

After Harry left to go to the airport, Margo and Carol did a last minute clean-up in Nicki's old bedroom and then began the nervous fidgeting. The most obvious signs of fetishism and drug use were secreted away, but Margo couldn't help but realize that the living room looked like a giant porn set.

Carol put on a stack of CD's; calm, soothing, romantic music. She held out her hand to Margo.

"May I have this dance, Madam?"

Margo looked at her in wonder. "Why yes, yes you may."

The two nervous women danced together through one song, then two, then three.

Kelly and Jess came downstairs.

"What are you two doing?" Kelly asked, incredulous.

"Dancing our nervousness away," Margo replied. "And having a damn fine time doing so, too, although I'm still a little sore from last night. Come on, join in."

So Kelly and Jessica, arm in arm, swirled around the floor in counterpoint to Margo and Carol, cheek to cheek.

* * * * *

Harry sat in a little airport bar by the security exit Nicki'd be leaving from, sipping an orange juice. He'd made it there early, as he'd planned, and once again he wondered to himself how he was going to explain his relationship with Carol to his sister. Margo was easy, fiancée, going to get married, both waiting for their divorces... but pets, pets weren't really easy to explain... slaves were even harder.

Not that his sister was a prude by any stretch of the imagination, it was just that there were a long list of things he'd never really discussed with her... how open-minded she was about alternate family groups and definitions of marriage were among them.

He was pretty sure he was going to leave explaining Kelly's place in their lives until another day.

* * * * *

"Big Mama, may I have the honor?" Kelly asked in between songs.

As Carol graciously stepped aside, Kelly snuggled in close to Margo, her head nestling between the tall woman's breasts.

"Now see, Big Mama, that's what I like about you, your body makes a girl feel right at home."

Margo laughed. "Kelly, love, is there anything you don't pump sexual vibes into?"

"Oh, lots of things... but damn few of them when I'm around beautiful people that I love. And make no mistake, Margo, I do love you. Carol, too. Jessica, of course. And how I feel about Harry, well, you'd have to be blind and stupid not to know that, and ain't nobody here blind or stupid."

"I love you too, Kelly. Very quickly you've become a member of this family of ours, a cherished member. And not just for the obvious reason that you're one of most erotic women in existence."

Kelly's right hand dropped from Margo's back to her ass, while Kelly's left hand slid down Margo's arm and cupped her breast.

"Only one of the most erotic women in existence? And here I was, shooting for the top slot." The hand that had been caressing Margo's breast slid up, behind her neck and to the back of her head, pulling her down to Kelly's waiting lips.

After the kiss broke, Margo smiled at her. "Alright, you're the second most erotic woman in existence... don't try for the number one spot, it would make Carol very unhappy."

Carol and Jessica danced closer. "That's right, Princess," Carol purred. "And we wouldn't want your Mistress unhappy, would we?"

Kelly's eyes dropped to the floor. "No, Mistress." She looked up again, smiling as she and Margo returned to dancing. "I'll live with the number two slot if she's number one. But where does that leave you and my sexy angel, Jess?"

"That's for someone else to judge," Margo replied.

Carol said, "Oh, I'd put Margo in a solid fifth place, Jess is in the high twenties but climbing fast under your excellent tutelage."

"Do I want to know who third and fourth are?" Kelly asked.

"No darling, but if you ever meet them, you'll know why they place where they do, probably in the first fifteen minutes," Carol answered. "I can't stand either of them, but they're undeniably creatures of pure unadulterated lust."

Carol tapped Kelly on the shoulder as the song ended. "My turn." As the two of them swayed away, Margo took Jess' hand and slowly danced them towards the opposite end of the living room.

"So, how're you doing, Jess?" she asked when they were as out of earshot as they could get.

"Just fine, everything's great," Jessica said, smiling up at Margo.

"Jessica, I saw your face when Kelly started feeling me up. Everything didn't look fine or great. If you want to talk about it, you know where I am."

"Thanks... I may take you up on that... some time real soon, probably. But I don't think right now's the time, not with Harry and Nicki probably on their way here."

"Understandable and a good point," Margo said, smiling at the young girl.

Margo's phone began to ring. She left Jess in the living room and went to the bedroom to answer it. A few moments later she returned.

"Well, if you want it to be now, we have the time. Harry said he and Nicki will be stopping somewhere to talk before they come back here, so in case there's any problem he can deal with it and get her a hotel room or whatever, not have it blow up here at home. He'll call before he heads home."

"Actually, I wouldn't mind that talk right now at all," Jess said, her distress evident in her voice.

"Kelly, Carol... Jess and I are going to go have a chat. Harry's going to call before he comes home, sounds like he's planning to have a long talk with Nicki before he brings her here. See y'all in a bit."

* * * * *

Harry had finally come to a decision and it was one that alternately comforted him and terrified him.

He was going to tell Nicki everything. Starting from that night in the Pearl up to the present... get it all said and then see where the chips fell. If he was lucky she wouldn't be too freaked and would still want to meet the family.

The speakers blared the announcement of her flight's arrival. He swallowed the lump in his throat, washed it down with the last of his orange juice and stood up to wait nervously, shifting his feet constantly.

* * * * *

"Margo, it's not that I don't like y'all, I do. Y'all were there for me when all the shit went down with my mom and you've been nothing but good to me ever since. No matter what, you're some of the nicest, most giving people I've ever known and I hope some day I can grow up and be as open and caring and loving as y'all are. But I worry about losing Kelly. I worry about it all the time. I worry about losing her to you guys. I mean, she's told me repeatedly she's not interested in being involved in your marriage-thing, but it seems pretty obvious to me that she wouldn't mind that at all and she's just in denial if she thinks any differently."

"You may be right... I don't know that you are, but I certainly don't know that you aren't," Margo responded.

"And it's like this group of you and your friends, it's like you're some kind of alternate family or tribe or something for her. You're a social group and pretty much the only social group she wants to interact with regularly. I don't know, sometimes I almost get a 'cult' feeling off of how she is about it and then I tell myself that I'm just being weird. And then I end up thinking maybe I'm in denial, too."

"And how do you feel about her viewing us as her tribe?" Margo asked, calmly.

"It's something she needs, and it's something she finds here and I love her and I want what's best for her. It's just not something I understand."

"And because you don't understand it, it frightens you?"

"Yeah, yeah it does."

* * * * *

When Harry first saw his sister, coming out of the exit, he would've sworn the intervening three and a half years hadn't happened. She looked exactly as he remembered her from the rehearsal dinner before he'd said so many things he didn't mean and she'd stormed out.

As tall as he himself, dark ash blonde hair, not too many overt curves, she'd always been on the slender side, claiming she was too busy to eat. She moved with confidence, but Harry couldn't help but notice nervousness as well which he attributed to the long-awaited reunion. It was only when she got closer that he noticed the dark circles under her deep green eyes, the general tenseness of her pretty oval face, the tightness of her lips.

"Hey baby sister... Goddamn it's good to see you," he said as he moved forward to hug her.

Her response surprised him. Her face lit up and the tenseness seemed to melt away. "Big brother!" she cried as she threw herself into his arms. "Damn, Harry, I almost didn't recognize you! You look so much happier than you did last time I saw you!"

"Well, I was angry and hurt the last time you saw me, and I apologize again for the things I said."

"No, not then, I understand the way you looked then," she said, releasing him and stepping back. "Earlier at the rehearsal dinner... you looked less than happy then as well. At least, you did to me."

"Maybe you have the ability to see the future, sis. God knows I didn't think I was unhappy, but I sure as hell ended up that way. Come on, let's go grab your luggage."

"Don't need to. I only brought this carry-on. It's got enough until I can go shopping. I have a lot of money saved up for my vacation and it's been quite awhile since I took the time to shop for myself for anything other than work outfits. And should the absolutely unthinkable happen and I run low on funds, I think I can probably find a very successful big brother to hit up for a loan," she added, smiling impishly.

"Yeah, you're probably right there," he replied, returning her smile. "Now let's go. I've got a lot to tell you in a relatively short amount of time and I need to do it before I take you back to the house. I know this place though, serves a mean basket of fried mushrooms and has a friendly bartender named Ruben."

* * * * *

"I'm not stupid, Margo, I know that if I force Kelly to make a decision, I'm going to lose. She loves me, I don't doubt that, but she needs as well as loves all of you."

"Then why are you worried? We don't want to take her away from you, she doesn't want to be taken away from you, you don't want to lose her... see what I'm getting at? Her love for us doesn't seem to be taking anything away from her love for you. Her 'need' for us doesn't seem to be taking anything away from her 'need' for you. Or am I missing something?"

"No, you're not missing anything. I just feel like... like I'm not enough... like she has to have these other relationships to feel fulfilled, and I thought the whole couple thing was that two people filled that need for each other."

"Alright, that I can empathize with, at least somewhat. But for me it's enough to know that Harry would, to use a grisly analogy, take a bullet for me just like he'd take a bullet for Carol. Torturing myself worrying about which one of us he'd choose to take a bullet for first if we both were getting shot at the same time in the same place is ludicrous... not that I don't sometimes still do it. But then I tell myself, after about a half hour of that, to shut the hell up and quit being foolish. My life is so full of love and wonder that for me to dwell on imagined 'what ifs' is just me searching for things to be unhappy about.

"Jess, the decision to be happy, I recently learned, is up to each of us. I can sit here and dwell and worry and obsess on whether Harry loves Carol more than me, how rotten my marriage to Benjamin was, dig at the scars of my childhood... or I can realize that I'm loved by two extraordinary people, I'm surrounded by some of the most amazing, and loyal, friends a person could ever want... my life is golden. Sometimes I still have my insecurities, but then I talk about them with the people I love, or I talk to myself about them, and I realize that it's my choice whether or not to let them rule my life. Generally, my life's a lot more fun when I don't let them rule it.

"I think, perhaps, that somewhere inside you, you need the same feeling of family that Kelly does, you've just taught yourself to ignore that need or for some reason you feel safer if you don't acknowledge that it's there. Now, if you think real hard on it and decide that I'm wrong, well, it won't be the first time and I'll be shocked if it's the last.

"But if I'm right, and you do want that family or tribe or whatever, we're here, and we'd love to be that for you. We'd love to have you as more than a close friend. We all think the world of you. We all love and care about you.

"So do me a favor, and think about it, and be brutally honest with yourself when you do."

* * * * *

"Where you goin', Jess?" Kelly asked as her lover headed upstairs.

"Got some pondering to do, don't worry, I'll be back down later. Just need to think about some things."

Kelly looked at her, love shining in her eyes. "You need me you call; I'll be up there in a flash."

"I know." And with that Jess finished the climb upstairs and they heard the room door close.