Ablutions, Inc.

Kim was laughing, "Thirty kids?"

"Dunno. I might have been a schoolteacher? It didn't feel like it. It was ... more like they were my family, extended family or whatever."

She looked over at Dana. "You had a dream, you said."

"Yeah, told Kevin about it. So, I'm in this kitchen, and I'm pregnant. I just know it's Kevin's. The kitchen isn't familiar, though, it's nice, and big, but... it's mine, but I don't know how it could be, it's strange. Talia is sitting at the table, and I'm holding an infant, and I just know that's Kevin's and Talia's child. I hand it to Talia, and she takes it and puts it on her breast to nurse. I got filled with a sense of love, watching that, just... total love."

Kim looked at Talia, who immediately held up her hands, "Don't ask me! It's her dream. The only dreams I have that are recurring are about some college in the mountains - pine forests - and I'm riding a bike there, but I get going too fast down a hill until I get to the bottom and go up again, and it's really scary but it's the only way to get where I'm going. Except, I'm riding on the opposite side of the road, like Britain, but somehow that's normal."

Kim sat down. "What are you wearing, on the bike? Jeans?"

"Jeans? Ha! No... definitely not, a dress? A short skirt? And, it's nice out, and the sun is shining."

"Very specific."

Dana said clearly (to them), "I love Kevin Cooper. I feel like I've loved him a long time, but I know intellectually that the realization only came to me recently. I'd say - if you would have asked me last year, seeing him with Boon? I could have figured it out then, maybe. I would have said, this is The One. No real debate. Certainty. But I guess I didn't ask myself, so it took a while."

Talia was interested. "But... Why now? What's the trigger?"

Dana thought about it. "Last week, last saturday, I saw him with the dogs, and he just suddenly seemed more confident, more... more of a man? Definitely more assertive. He has helped Boon soooo much, he obeys commands now better, he doesn't jump on us... Kevin's just... Older, all of a sudden."

Talia was nodding. "I'd seen him in chorus, a lot, and always had this vibe about him, like, Wholesome with a capital Whole. But, then, in the kitchen helping out with the kitchen prep?" She chuffed a laugh, "Kevin's body language is, ooof. Yeah. Got Me Going."

The girls laughed like this meant something. I had something to learn about what girls think about because their language choice was confusing.

"Kim?"

"Monday? He was running, and he came back and I saw his legs again, and... like you said, Talia, 'Ooof!'" She smiled. "But, it wasn't that. That's eye candy. That's... soft chocolate liquid hotness, Hmmmm... But the thing was, then, I was sitting there as he ran up, and I looked in his eyes. I looked, and he looked at me, and I saw how he was treating me, and he's concerned about things, and people, around him - he helped his teammate while I was there - and I just kind of knew. Plus, with the dogs? It's like I know he's going to be perfect with kids."

She inhaled a minute, calming herself, and said, "And as much as it's like Totally Odd to think about it, I'm thinking about... MY kids? Eventually? What my kids will be like. And if they're like Kevin, and he's holding them and being there for me? I'm ... Right there. Yes. There was some kind of rush, in that. I was awake all night on Tuesday night, just with the echoes of it, and wondering, and... frankly, I was impatient, I wanted to... get on with my life."

I asked, "And, in the cafeteria?"

She looked at me and hesitated, looked away, upwards, searching, then bowed her head with an acceptance.

We waited.

She took a deep breath, deliberate and then her smile returned as she looked up to me again. Her eyes had tears. "You... called me a name - a Totally Accurate name, by the way, I deserve it, 'Kim TooBusy'."

The girls laughed quietly; she was vulnerable, but at the same time, they could see it was really true.

"It made me think, and you were insightful, but... then, so gentle, and accepting, and confident, and Right? You were just that. Calm, accepting... smack dab RIGHT." She chuckled again, shaking her head with the obviousness of it to her.

Lisa spoke up. "Mr. Right. My - Mister - Right. I loved you sophomore year, Kev. I wrote you cards and dropped them in your locker. I found out later that I'd been putting them in Danielle Stephenson's locker, not yours, and she was a real Huge Dick for throwing them out. I put 'Kevin' on the front, for God's sake."

I shrugged. "Nope. No clue."

"You never responded, I figured you weren't interested, but every time I saw you when I picked up Schwet? You were so nice and patient, and you looked me in the eyes and I melted, but I was seriously afraid so I had to not show anything."

Kim asked, "Why now?"

"I saw him with you, in the hallway, after school. Then, I saw him with you at lunch, and, well... that's all-she-wrote. I had to DO something. Act or be lost forever."

They were silent for maybe two whole empty minutes, just sitting there.

Plus, they were all dropping tears... And, I was, too.

I had to ask. "Does this mean I have to flip coins, or be the referee in some Giant Cage Match of Death!!??!?" My voice was silly but my heart wasn't in it, and nobody laughed.

Dana sound resigned. "We... all get you. I don't have dibs any more than anyone here. Dibs doesn't matter. Love matters. We're... constrained. Equal or not. If you choose, that one will be wondering why forever, and the rest of us will be crushed. Besides..."

Talia waited but then asked, "What?"

Dana looked over at her, shifted to face her full on. "I love you, too, Talia. You're my Sister, for God's sake. I can't hurt you! And, Kim? I can see what he means to you, and to you, Lisa. It's... all of us. We have to figure out some better thing."

Lisa asked, her voice clouded by a sob, "And, if we all decide we don't like him later, the four of us elope together and move to Indonesia without him?"

They half-laughed.

Talia said, "It's 11. We need to call it a night pretty soon, I didn't get much sleep last night. Up a long time... filled with... emotions, mostly. Hope. Some... fear of loss, of something precious." She winced and looked at me.

Dana said, clearly asserting a hope and not a demand, "I get him for tonight? I had my heart set on it. Can it be... someone else tomorrow, and Sunday?"

I chimed in, "I have clients tomorrow. Dogs will not clean themselves." This wasn't true - they would, but not the way we wanted them to, and it might involve mud.

Lisa asked, "Want help?"

I considered it. "I suppose we could. I have patterns? If you can... learn that, maybe? There's reasons for the patterns. Mrs. Boyle's Chihuahua PEYDROH gets nervous and starts peeing on everything, so I do him in the shower and give him some fish guts. He gets fat and happy and then he doesn't pee anymore. But, still, at the start it gets wet in there, my wet and his wet..."

Lisa was nodding like she understood it could be hard and messy work.

Dana saw this and confirmed, "So, you're tomorrow, and tomorrow night. Sunday, Kim?"

"I can work with that. Where? I'm... not sure. I can talk with my Dad, he's... I'm not sure. Maybe your place? Kevin, can I sleep over?"

I was on the spot. "Uh, yeah. Tentatively. My mom's gonna freak if your name isn't Dana or Talia, maybe. I'm worried about that part."

Kim smiled and said, "Which should it be? I can call myself anything."

I filled in that blank, "Won't work. She knows them, saw them as kids."

"Ah, too bad. I guess, eventually we're going to be in the same place and she would have figured out that Clark Kent was Superman anyway."

I laughed and looked over to Dana, "I told her, both of you, and it's complicated, and she asked me some good questions. She didn't tell me to do anything specific, though? I think she knows, no easy answers. She said, 'Only love matters.'"

They nodded.

I looked over. "I think it'd be ... better if we spent some time together? Like, Dana and me in one bed, and then, maybe, Lisa, Kim - Talia has a king bed, big enough for three?"

Dana smiled. "I'm in this for YOU, Kevin Cooper. I'm not aiming to go full Lesbo on day one." she smiled at Kim and chuckled, "Though, Kim... if you whisper nicely and bring me a slice of kuchen?!?!?"

They all laughed.

Talia came over and held out her hand. "Follow me, Kev... and, yeah, Kim, Lisa. I'll show you where Dana's room is - a tour - so you can trash it while she's brushing her teeth."

"Hey!"

They went ahead of me and we all went upstairs together, then over and downstairs to Dana's bedroom (queen bed, a relief for me it wasn't a single), then upstairs to Talia's.

Talia experimented by having Kim and Lisa lie next to her on her king mattress and they decided they would be fine like that overnight. I looked at them and I think my eyes flashed with want because Talia laughed, "Settle, Kevin." They laughed at me, and I laughed, too, but I was still super nervous. This could go sideways, and my heart was in it already.

Lisa got up and used the bathroom; Dana and I went downstairs to the second bathroom.

I poked my head in the other bedroom. It had a giant formal wood desk, three huge big-screen monitors as a workstation, whiteboards, papers, etc. There was obviously nowhere to sleep. It had to be their dad's home office.

I hadn't looked in the other bedroom upstairs, the door had been shut. Dana had said earlier it was her mom's study for when she worked from home (she was a 'consultant').

My book bag had my toothbrush and toothpaste, and my mini-shampoo bottle from when I normally stayed overnight as part of the D-and-D campaign parties.

Taking some time to pee (again)(the wine, maybe) with the door shut, but then opened it to brush my teeth. Dana came in wearing a thick bathrobe similar to what I'd seen Talia have. We shared the sink for a minute and I decided to splash my face with water because I'd been kind of drunk earlier.

"Trying to wake up from the dream?"

I shook my head slowly with a shrug, smiling and confused. "Life is really weird right now. Way past the 100% Great, but also confusing... and hopeful. Nervous, I'm going to mess up? So, yeah, that. You? This? Talia, Kim, Lisa?"

Between the toothbrush and paste in her mouth, I had to wait for Dana to respond. She spat and said, "Surreal, is my sense? Like, this thing that I've wanted, back of mind, not possible, was to have... a conversation, with you, like this, in a bathroom brushing teeth and comfortable, knowing my life is good, doing human things with a Very Good human." She grinned but with eyebrows raised, trying to be understood.

I cocked my head to the side to be honest with a wince. "I'm not always a good human. I don't go out of my way to not step on insects. I really hate ticks. And, spiders when they're, like, upstairs? Basements, fine, bedrooms? NO. ... Sorta that thing. On the plus side, I've never declared a land war in Asia."

She laughed and I left so she could finish up.

I came back to her bedroom and hung out, trying to decide what to change into. I elected to pull off my underwear and just wear a clean pair of running shorts, loose fit, and a clean t-shirt, just in case that was the idea for the night. I had no idea what Dana would want.

I had hopes, but no expectations.

That said, my horny-anticipation level was Quite High, from seeing her in the bathrobe and imagining what was under it.

Dana came back in, shut the door behind her, and picked up her clothes from her bed, dropping them into a hamper.

The bathrobe looked pretty warm.

She walked over and turned out the room light.

We were in darkness. Her night light was the red light on her outlet strip, which was almost nothing.

Looking at the window, I was surprised to see some moonlight coming in, moderately unusual in our winter rainy-season. Every one of my senses was on high alert - this was high-risk time but also high-reward, I just had to not fuck it up.

What had mom said? Miriam? Only love matters? Honesty and caring?

I could do that...?

Dana handed me the bathrobe and asked me to hang it on the back of the door, and I saw her bend over and pull down her underwear, laying it on her desk probably for emergency overnight running-somewhere or something. I didn't know.

I ditched my running shorts and t-shirt, putting them on my bag, then reconsidered and moved them to be folded up on the desk chair in case I needed it in the middle of the night. I was staying over. Mom was right - always be slightly more formal when you're staying over.

I had to smile at that one. I was being MORE formal by getting naked and folding my clothes!

Deciding that it would be okay to talk about, I described it and laughed, and Dana laughed, too, I think happy to have any insight about what my mother was like. In retrospect, my telling her that story - getting the 'be formal lecture' from my mother - was necessary and beautiful to Dana in a way I didn't immediately connect to, but had its own emotional logic to it?

I was so clueless about girls. At least, I felt that way.

Once I'd crawled in, Dana lifted up her phone and did something, and I heard a 'bing' in the hallway. The door opened, and in walked Talia from a very much darkened hallway.

The first thing I saw was what looked like a pyrex pie plate with a tea-light candle in it.

As Talia brought it closer, YES, that's what it was, and the light it cast lit up her gorgeous Naked (!!!) body in a way that put a big smile on my face. "Here." She put it on the upper part of the desktop, well away from the edge since BOON was the person in the room behind her.

Talia finished with the tea-light plate and came over. She bent over me deliberately and almost formally, but didn't come in for the hug. Instead, she folded down the sheet and blanket covering me down at an angle, even reaching over to get the covers down from over Dana.

Dana allowed this, folding it further so her breasts were uncovered.

Once Talia had the covers down far enough to only be over my thighs and lower, she said, "Got it. Kev, if peeks only go one way, it's not fair."

"Okay?" I shrugged, sure, why not.

She bent over and kissed my chest, leaning over far enough that her boobs trailed over my stomach in delightful little pointed tickle-fashion.

Kissing my far-side chest, then near my neck, she inhaled (to sweep in a scent I think) and then came up to my face and gave me a relaxed, hot, languid kiss, some tongue but a hand on the side of my face to tell me what she really thought.

Pulling up, she stepped back against the wall.

Behind her, slowly walking up, was Lisa.

The tealight flame didn't give much light, but it was plenty enough to see what Lisa looked like, and WOW that was nice! She walked up and I was almost nervous at her seeing me, but the barest smile crossed her face and I knew I wasn't going to be made fun of.

My hardness wasn't so hard, a quarter to half-full and rising, but I'd been walking around and I was tired and I guess that wasn't enough for full-up yet.

Honestly, I was nervous about being seen, but at the same time, I didn't know what aspect of me I should be nervous about. I could tell she was nervous, too, so it was shared, and just that aspect let me relax somewhat.

Lisa took her time moving. She knelt onto the side of the bed, then leaning in kind of near my stomach, bending and shifting up to drag her hand, then her boobs, over my side and stomach. She kissed my chest over my heart (sorta), and then came up, sniffed in my neck, and kissed me.

I hadn't ever kissed Lisa.

Earlier at school, she'd invited me to a 'party'. She'd mentioned earlier in the evening that there was no party, it was an excuse. She'd told it kind of in private, but as an embarrassed joke, almost. She had a lot riding on this, on me, emotionally. I could read that, and I both worried about and cared about her, too.

It was worth the wait to kiss her, she made a funny mewling noise and I just echoed that with a yummy-noise, "mmmMMMmmm"; her kiss promised things that I was looking forwards to, but it was also an emotional connection with her that I felt rising but I didn't know why.

It was a long kiss, but I wasn't in any hurry.

Our lips caressed, and I got a sense of deep emotional content to the touch.

Finally she broke it and stood, letting me see her full height. I realized I could look down her body but all I could do was let my eyes stay locked on hers, the connection definite.

She turned and left, and Talia left behind her, clearing room for Kim.

Walking towards me, Kim's body was pretty well lit (given the shadows that had bathed Lisa comparatively) and I got another eyeful of gorgeous.

I saw her eyes dance down my body, pausing at my package.

The sensuality of the kisses had been pretty fast, but my rise had proceeded with the kisses. I wasn't stridently away from my body but with more of a full-but-resting thing against the side of my hip, not quite to my abdomen but not down between my legs, either.

My intellectual awareness of what she was looking at was a flash of thought compared to looking down Kim's front. Her patch was a wide but well-trimmed landing strip that Almost looked red/orange to match her hair, but the light wasn't quite good enough.

Some freckles topped her chest but mostly they were on her arms and some on her thighs below where a skirt would go. I got all that in a quick look, but mostly my eyes went to her breasts, shifting, then as she leaned down I could only look up at her eyes.

There are times when you focus on eyes because you aren't supposed to look elsewhere, there's times when you have to, to understand their mood, and there's times when you want to because WOW those eyes.

Kim didn't always draw me in with her eyes. The way they were looking at me then? Her eyebrows were raised and hopeful, her lips drawn in a half smile full of vulnerability? Yeah, that beat out the boobs, for sure and a half.

Her drag of nipple-tips across my chest was deliberate. My stomach delighted yet again, kisses up my chest over my heart, up to my neck and inhale, and then to my lips.

The kiss we shared was just as long as the others but lighter and more glancing and dragging, with some inhales and closed-lips than before. I got the feeling it was an, 'I want to remember this' kiss, not a 'this is how much I'm thinking about you' kiss.

At least, that's what crossed my mind. I was an idiot in a meat suit, I didn't know squat about what was motivating these girls, or why this was happening to me. Any guesses were Only Guesses, but since my confusion was big I had to try to suss out what kinds of patterns I could find even if they were spurious ideas.

This was soooo definitely an arranged thing, a pattern of kiss-heart, sniff neck, kiss lips, that they'd agreed to. I wondered what drove that decision - some 'can't get in Dana's way' thing, maybe.

Kim pulled up while still leaning on me, far enough to look right at Dana's face next to me, and almost certainly to ensure her chest was right in front of my face at that moment. My hands had been on her shoulder and arm, but I let my right hand cross back to run down her back, firm on her ultra-soft skin to find the curves of ribs and body-side wholeness underneath.

My arm kept sweeping downwards, I didn't stop it, and it rested on her hip. Hips: a reassurance of femininity that was kind of a center and kind of not? There was something I loved about touching her hip like that, it said something to me, and I think to her, too.

She spoke, asking Dana, "Breakfast at 7:30? He has dog stuff at 8:30, right?"

"That's the plan."

Dana was being patient, I think, and knew exactly what Kim was up to. I kept my head up to have plausible deniability about what I was looking at, a totally silly move as she pulled away since I knew her goal was to give me a close up anyway.