Road Trip

June added as an afterthought, "So we like to give our love away to everyone willing to receive it. When you adopt that viewpoint, you look for ways to do it and people to do it for – that's partly why I greeted you the way we did when you arrived – and Jan and Trish did too. We want everything we do to say 'I love you.' We know it'll come back to us."

The dryer gave a loud buzz we could hear through the window of the laundry room to indicate the completion of the dry cycle on what had been my smoky clothes. June went inside and came out a minute later and presented me with a nicely folded pile of my limited wardrobe.

When I went inside and got dressed again, Bob and Trish had come back from some afternoon errands and started the cocktail hour. They'd picked up Benjamin from his playgroup, and coddled the toddler as they brought him behind the house to his sandbox and swing set.

No sooner had Bob, Trish, June, and I sat down in the back yard to watch Benjamin with our glasses of wine, than Jan and Jim raced around the side of the house. Jan came right up to me and looked me in the eye without much warning. In a near confrontational tone, she asked, "James, what's your last name? Is it Mellon? Are you James Mellon – Jim Mellon?"

I looked surprised at her excitement, and said, "Yes, that's me. Why?"

She turned to the others in the circle, "Come. All of you; follow me; and hurry. There's something about to start on TV. Jim and I each heard it on the radio on the way home. Hurry, the news is about to start." On the way into the house, Jan scooped up Benjamin, gave the tot a kiss, and led the Circle into the family room. Jim already had turned on the television and dialed in the local news channel.

I guessed what would come next; it must have something to do with the fire – my fifteen minutes of fame. I hadn't said anything except to apologize to June for the odor and briefly explain that I'd been near a barn fire. I'd said nothing about any rescue.

The evening news started with several commercials and a news item about the Middle East. The commentator then said, "Now, shifting to a local calamity, this afternoon police and fire equipment were summoned to Deer Park Road in Camp Forge, where a fire broke out in the upper level of Justin Shubert's barn. Smoke from the blaze could be seen over twenty miles away."

The screen showed a view of the barn with smoke billowing into the sky from the upper level, and then suddenly through a fiery hole as part of the roof collapsed in a shower of sparks. The pops of random bullets ignited by the heat could be heard over the reporter's voice; "Mr. Shubert had apparently passed out on the barn's upper story, probably from smoke while trying to fight what might have started as a small fire. In the lower part of the barn were several horses and other farm animals."

The TV video then shifted to a man – me! – bent over Shubert's body frantically giving artificial respiration. My circle of friends looked at me in disbelief then jerked their eyes back to the TV.

The reporter continued, "This man, James Mellon of Dillon, Massachusetts, just happened to be riding his motorcycle by the scene when he saw the fire. Arriving about the same time as the fire crew, he raced into the rear of the barn, freed all the farm animals, and then mounted a ladder to the barn's loft where he found the owner, Justin Shubert, passed out in heavy smoke and advancing fire. Ammunition that Shubert kept in the barn had already started to detonate about that time, creating a huge risk to Mellon as well as the fire crew working outside on the blaze."

The video being shown then shifted to me being interviewed by the reporter, although the sound had been cut in favor of the voice over in the studio. "This ex-Green Beret carried Shubert to safety, and administered CPR until the ambulance crew arrived. Shubert regained consciousness at the site of the fire thanks to Mellon's efforts; Shubert will remain overnight at County Hospital for observation, and he should be released tomorrow. Without doubt, Mellon saved Shubert's life. Local police and fire officials said that Mellon surely deserves a commendation for his bravery in saving Shubert's life in extremely dangerous circumstances."

The video again shifted to show the entire barn engulfed in flame. The video showed an enlarged fire crew pouring water on the remnants of the barn from behind the protective shield of two fire trucks. In a cut, they showed me standing beside the fire engine watching the scene, and then they showed me slowly riding away on my Harley.

Jan muted the television as the next news item came on. All five heads turned and looked at me in awe without a word being spoken.

I just shrugged and said, "You would have done the same thing ... I just happened along at the right time. I was really safe the whole time ... well, except for the exploding bullets and shot gun shells. I've faced lots worse ... I mean ... when I was in the service." I stopped realizing the futility of my protests and modesty. A long quiet filled the room.

Bob stood and looked at me, as did the others; he raised his glass and made a sincere toast, "To our hero. We are blessed to have him in our presence, and I henceforth declare him to be a most welcome member of our intentional family – our Circle." Everyone drank. I blushed and wondered what privileges I might be entitled to as an honorary Circle member.

Back at the picnic table, Jan made me retell every detail of my afternoon at the barn fire for everyone to hear firsthand, and she peppered me with questions as I responded to her urgings. Some of her questions got me talking about the training I'd gone through in Army Special Ops. I explained that my military background represented another time and a much different me, and that my view of the world and the universe had dramatically changed. My circle of friends saw things much the way I did, yet they also understood why I could run into a burning building with live ammunition going off around me to do what needed to be done.

Everyone fawned over me that evening, bringing me drinks and then dessert and coffee. I got excused from KP duty after dinner even when I tried to help. Embarrassment best described how I felt over the events of the afternoon. I appreciated that I'd had been able to rescue Shubert – that I had the skills to help someone whom I didn't even know. This had been one of my goals for this trip, and now I'd had a chance to start working towards it.

Everyone turned in about ten o'clock. I went to sleep immediately ... and I rapidly woke up a few moments later as June's nude body slipped into my bed ... next to my naked body. I felt her wiry pubic hair on my leg; it felt sexy as all hell. She took one of my arms and wrapped it around her, and put my palm squarely on her left breast. This seduction was not subtle.

My brain did a dozen flip-flops and reboots as June stroked my cheek and tenderly kissed me. She said in a husky voice, "I've wanted to do this for two days – ever since you arrived." She kissed me again. "James, you had me at 'Hello' and I haven't felt so turned on or romantic since I met my husband. Now kiss me and never stop."

Worried about how her presence in my bed fit with everything else in their family circle, I stammered out a few words as I came out of the fog of sleep: "June, you don't have to ... should you really be here ... I really like you – a whole lot ... but you're married to Jim ... and there's Bob too ... and the other women, and ... "

June put her finger on my lips to stop my blathering, and then kissed me rather hard this time as she threw leg over mine and seductively slid her body on top of mine. Her tongue slipped into my mouth in a passionate kiss that I took to mean that all the points I'd briefly mentioned had no bearing on this moment or those to follow. I kissed back, my initial reticence quickly forgotten.

June could give graduate-level courses in how to kiss, and I'd sign up for every class. All that, plus she tasted and smelled divine – with a hint of jasmine. As we kissed, I stroked her back and her long hair just for the tactile sensation and to signal my willingness to continue.

My willingness didn't keep my brain from exploding with random thoughts about what June was doing and how it fit into their whole family setting. Was this what polyamory was like? I liked June – a lot; I even had felt guilt for allowing myself a few moments of arousal at her skimpy outfits when she was around me. I'd had to hide my arousal after she flashed her tits at me when her blouse came undone; I hardened instantly. I had to squat and work on some irrelevant part on the motorcycle waiting to deflate before I could stand without a huge lump showing in my pants. Her presence in my bed, as a sudden romantic interest, had given me a shot of adrenalin and excitement – sexual excitement – romantic excitement.

My cock quickly swelled in appreciation of June's gorgeous naked body pressing against my own, and her passionate kisses. I felt her hand reach between us, grasp and massage me, and further excite. With little foreplay, June sank slowly down on my cock until I felt the moist warmth and love of her body envelop me. We both moaned in pleasure.

June leaned forward and used her erect nipples to crisscross my chest before kissing me passionately again. "I love you," she told me in a husky whisper. "Make love to me – now and all night, and all day tomorrow, and the next and the next. I want you. You've won my heart." June ducked down and drove her tongue into my mouth almost to my tonsils.

I tongued and kissed her lips, then ran my tongue down her neck to her breasts, trying to induce pleasure to her erect nips. As we played 'up top' with our hands and tongues, our bodies independently surged together and apart at our hips, with my shaft plunging deep into her pussy and then pulling out until only the smallest sliver of our genitals touched. At this point, June would slowly lower her body again onto every inch of my shaft until our pubes pushed hard against each other. A lot of moaning and groaning went on to signal the huge satisfaction we were each receiving from the encounter.

I knew that June was aroused beyond belief because her cunt oozed sweet juices and enticing aromas from our union. The more we fucked, the hot kisses she'd started with became even hotter and more arousing. I came to believe I had never embraced or kissed anyone hotter, more aroused, and more sexually excited than June, not even Karen, Lauren, or the women I'd dated before marriage. June writhed and twisted her body on top of me as she journeyed through some landscape of ultimate bliss. She used every muscle in her body to make love to me, and I tried to return the favor.

I felt such passion and raw emotion rising up inside me. I felt unlimited warmth and caring for June – for everyone in this circle of friends. They'd welcomed me as a family member, and then as a hero, and now with June as a lover. I couldn't believe my good fortune to find a lover like June in my arms. I whispered to her, "I feel the same about you – love, want, need. I'm so glad you're here, in my arms ... with me inside you. Do you like that?"

June nodded her head, "Yes. Oh, God yes. I love having you inside me. Why didn't we just start doing this on the front steps when you arrived? Do you think the neighbors would have objected?" She ground herself into my lower body with extra force to reinforce her desire.

June came first. As we kissed, she panted wildly, and then I felt her inhale one immense breath. For many seconds, she held her breath at the peak of her orgasm – a look of bliss on her face in the dim light of the bedroom. The muscles of her vagina clenched my cock in rapid spasms as her orgasm swept over her. I slowed but didn't stop my erotic pistoning into her body. She rejoined our fuck with even more enthusiasm after her orgasm had finished, and then I felt my own orgasm arriving and exploding in a shower of pleasure from deep within. I hung for almost a minute suspended in warm feelings of love and wonder.

My eyes remained closed as June kissed me with renewed passion again, until I realized that the kisses came from another woman beside June and me on the bed. My eyes snapped open and in the dim light I discovered that Jan had joined us. She rose up and kissed June, even seducing her into a French kiss. The two whispered words of love and pleasure to each other, and said the same pleasing things to me, and then words about the sex we'd just shared. Jan came back and kissed me some more, her nakedness pressing against me as she lay down and pulled my arm around her.

Jan rubbed her body against mine; however, she made no overt move to displace June who had remained on top of me. The presence of two nude women made me harden again, but I was reticent to start making love to either one in the presence of the other, especially since June had just been so satisfying and loving – and my cock still happened to reside in her warm sheath.

June pulled her hips up, and uncoupled us, not at all concerned about our leaking fluids. She cuddled in beside me, kissed my lips and neck, and rested her head. She still panted from our lovemaking. The feel of her long blond hair on my shoulder gave me a different kind of arousal; it triggered my responses to be loving and tender. Jan's brunette tresses fell against my other shoulder as she snuggled into my arm, with a hand gently on my chest. I didn't pursue my arousal, and the urge to merge again passed. We kissed, cuddled in the shadows from a yard light on the front lawn, and then we drifted off to sleep. I felt so loved.

In the middle of the night, I felt Jan sneak from my bed; I figured she had to go to the bathroom or back to Jim, but a few minutes later her warm body snuggled back against mine. We went right back to sleep.

When I started to awaken from the haze of sleep, I found myself spooned behind a nude body I took to be June's. My arm was draped over her side, and she'd put my palm over a luscious breast. My eyes flickered open to see June staring lovingly into them – as she stood naked about five feet from the bed about to pull a t-shirt over her head. She paused, obviously so I could take in the sight of her gorgeous body before she covered it. I felt myself start to swell.

I remembered Jan joining us just before we went to sleep, but the warm body next to me was not Jan; the hair color was wrong – it was Trish. June watched my eyes grow to the size of saucers, and she laughed.

Trish rolled over, gave a huge wake up stretch of her nude body next to mine, and then kissed me on the lips in a most passionate manner. She mumbled, "Excuse the morning breath." She reached over to the bedside table and picked up two mints she'd apparently brought; she popped one into her mouth and pushed the other into mine – an easy task because my mouth remained agape from the change of partners.

Trish ground her hips into mine, and we shared a couple of minutes of passionate kisses. Trish pushed her pubes against my swelling cock, blinked her pretty green eyes at me, ran a finger from my lips all the way down my body to the tip of my cock, and then rolled out of bed with a coy smile. Tease! The women left me to my morning rituals.

I stayed three more days in Camp Forge before I reluctantly left to continue my trip. I felt so welcome and so loved in their Circle; I wanted to stay there forever. There was such acceptance, and such sympathy about my ragged emotions around Karen.

As Jan put it during a torrid lovemaking session, I'd become a 'full-fledged member of the Circle' 'with all rights thereto appertaining.' My last night there, as I lay exhausted with June back in my arms, I reflected on how wrong my assumption had been that this would be a chaste trip involving no sex or involvement with pretty women. Soon, I would have to email Lauren about the 'details' of my visit, and how I found three lovely partners in my bed.

June had again insisted that I visit her sister Kim at her home in North Carolina. June's persistence came after an email interchange between the two sisters that involved some photographs June took of me with her iPhone. To seal the deal, June had Kim talk to me on the phone. I could tell I'd be welcomed at her home, and Kim seemed tolerant that I couldn't commit to a specific arrival time.

The next morning I left at dawn after three scantily clad women kissed me goodbye, and two of the nicest guys in the world shook my hand.

Two hours from Camp Forge, I wandered through the small town of Newark, Delaware – home to the University of Delaware. With fond memories of my time with June, Jan, and Trish, as well as Bob and Jim, I scattered a small envelope of Karen's ashes from the top step of the ivy-covered college library on the beautiful campus. I thought of Karen as the ashes floated away in the tree-lined quad. I wondered how she would have reacted to the Circle in Camp Forge. Would she have wanted to be a part of it, or would she have been horrified and run the other way?

Before my visit with Lauren, I would have guessed that Karen would have run the other way, but Lauren had revealed part of my wife I never knew. Maybe she would have stayed and joined in.

The library had Wi-Fi. I retrieved my laptop computer from a saddlebag and sent a vivid description of my past week to Lauren. The email rambled a bit, but positively met her requirement that my emails to her had to be detailed, erotic, sexy, stimulating, and raw. I'd heard of 'phone sex,' but not 'email sex.' I held nothing back. I posed the same questions to her that I'd wondered about Karen and the polyamorous circle. I wanted to see how Lauren would respond – to my descriptive email about the events I'd enjoyed during my stay in Camp Forge, and to the question about participating in such a circle. Lastly, I asked her how she thought Karen would have felt about something like the circle.

From Delaware, I headed west into Maryland on old two-lane roads. I stopped midway across a bridge over the Susquehanna River and scattered another small envelope of Karen's ashes. I stood and talked into the breeze, rambling about the past week as I shared my Camp Forge experience with Karen's spirit as though she wanted to hear every detail. I wished she could have stood there with me and shared her thoughts with me.

Back on the road, I made a planned trip back into Pennsylvania to see the magnificent home Frank Lloyd Wright designed and built there for the Kaufman family – Fallingwater. I sprang for the complete tour of the home and roamed the grounds taking pictures. As I'd planned, I took my envelope of Karen's ashes for Pennsylvania and spread them in the steam that flows under the home and then cascades downstream in a series of small waterfalls. I settled for this peaceful place being her Pennsylvania home. I wished I could have shared seeing it with Karen, and then tears came to my eyes because the thought swept over me that there was so much I had wanted to share with Karen. I sobbed, and my tears fell into the cascade.

I ended the day camping beside a small waterfall off a side road in West Virginia. At twilight, I scattered another envelope of Karen's ashes into the pretty falls. I waded into the rapidly moving stream just below the falls to cool down and share the pretty setting with Karen. That night, I prayed to Karen's spirit, almost the way one would pray to a totem – seeking guidance, insight, and awareness. Just before I fell asleep I felt kissed by her spirit.