One Prince The Future

One Prince The Future

Life beyond that incredible Summer of '71

Author's note: This is my submission for the 2023 Summer Lovin' contest, a continuation of the relationships detailed in the previous "One Prince" series, as requested by several commentators. You may want to read those first. Or not. I find the contest a convenient touchpoint for Mark and company's exploits. As before, regardless of inspiration, this story is fiction, and if you think you recognize yourself in it, don't worry about it... no one else should. Again, I'm putting this in Erotic Couplings, although I often have a hard time deciding between that and Romance. If I've picked the wrong category, please don't let it affect your enjoyment. Some advance warning: this segment contains some more sibling / first cousin incest, in case you want to skip over that. Also, it's a long one, since it recaps several months. And of course, any person(s) actually having sex are over eighteen. Thanks for reading, and I particularly appreciate voting and constructive comments, regardless of any contest. That's how I know how well I am pleasing you, the reader. Cheers!

*~*~*~*~*

Sharing horizons that are new to us

Watchin' the signs along the way

Talkin' it over, just the two* of us

Workin' together day to day

Together

We've Only Just Begun - The Carpenters (1970)

(*two, three, four... who's counting?)

* * * * *

Hi. It's me again, the guy who still thinks he was the luckiest person on the planet that summer. Marsha, Kate and I had had some time to grow, living together at college, before our "anniversary" Memorial Day weekend and the following summer. We spent Spring semester at school and then decided to stay for Summer semester, mainly because it was both easier for all of us, plus my cousin Mike would be joining us. We did plan to take the couple of weeks between end of term and Fall Semester going back up to The Thumb. Weirdly, for the Fourth of July, we ended up hosting.

So to tell this right, I'm going back to right when we moved in, back in January, and do a hop, skip and a jump coming forward.

The journey started with Marsha, Kate and I settling in to a three-bedroom house our parents had bought down at school. It was the most amazing surprise solution to a problem I'd ever seen, before or since. Don and Natalie Terney -- the girls' parents -- had gone in with Hank and Janice Engle -- my parents -- to buy the just-off-campus house so the three of us could live there while attending college and also get a return on their money when we were done with it.

Our tenancy started inauspiciously when the girls got their periods the day after we moved in. So the whole first week we were there and I was trying to play campus guru and get them oriented to their new lives, we were at minimum on edge. Wanting to strangle each other comes to mind. But our summer experiences had taught us how to live together and still give each other room under that kind of stress.

One of the first things we did was divvy up territory. There was no way we were going to be able to concentrate on our studies without private space. Even with it, we blew it a couple of times because of late night shenanigans. We each took a bedroom and agreed that we needed to build a play space, probably in the basement, and that sleeping arrangements would have to be fluid. Don and my Dad had provided Full sized beds for each of us, which would be plenty when there was only one or two of us in the bed, but a bit tight for three of us on a regular basis. When we hadn't been with each other, all three of us were used to sleeping alone. We figured we'd work it out, somehow.

I guess you could categorize all three of us as Rugged Individualists... we were used to being competent and independent in our daily lives, especially when out from under parental structures. So the next thing we did was divvy up chores on a rotating basis. We really didn't want any one of us feeling like they were getting taken advantage of. So we identified general jobs like cooking, cleaning, shopping, snow removal (that's one I had to point out), laundry (the girls had definite opinions about that) and so forth. Some stuff was rotated daily, some weekly.

I had my Corvair, of course, and Don had left an old -- well, 1965 anyway -- Buick Electra 225 4-door for the girls. We worked out getting them a parking sticker, and who was riding with who, and when, was worked out when we finalized our class schedules. The pressure hit about a week after classes started.

We'd been sleeping together, all three of us, in one of the beds after having fucked our brains out in one of the others. We rotated so the laundry chores weren't too onerous. When the need to actually study came home to roost, there was a lot of squawking. The girls were over their periods by then, but there was still a lot of crabbing, complaining, bitching and moaning about 'not tonight, dear, I have this headache called homework'. Plus, early mornings.

Being Juniors, Marsha and I had managed late morning to afternoon classes. Kate, the Freshman, got the shitty end of the stick -- mornings and weekends, the classes nobody else wanted. But technically, she wasn't supposed to be driving on campus, even with a stickered car. So one of us -- guess which one -- had to make sure she made it in on time. I 'volunteered' because I could swing by the Design Department's Computer Graphics Lab after dropping her off and get time on the machines. The keypunch machines. Believe it or not, all our programming and data entry was being done via punch cards, 1971 style.

In any case, we went from lotsa-nookie to lacka-nookie in very short order. Just to soothe tempers, I spent that following weekend building a play space bed in the basement that could double for sleeping. And that sucker was going to be King Sized, believe me! All three of us agreed that it would be worth dipping into the start up funds as a sanity saver.

It took another week before Kate blew an 8am Monday test because we'd been up fucking around very late Sunday night.

"I hate this!" she informed Marsha and me as we got ready to hustle in and try to salvage the rest of her day. "I know I have to cut back our 'nightly romps' and not blow off classes, but I really hate that I have to cut back, and you two --"

"Also have to," I interrupted. "I said I'd get you to class in the morning and blowing the class was as much my fault as yours. Obviously, Friday and Saturday nights are wide open. Sunday through Thursday we're just going to have to suck it up and be responsible. And believe me, I don't like it any more than you do."

"You know, Sis," Marsha put in thoughtfully, "we got this opportunity because we were responsible. We were both off at college, on our own, and we weren't screwing up. We both kept our heads on pretty straight. We've got pretty much the same situation here. We were able to keep our heads out of our pussies and into our books last Fall. We can do it again."

"But he wasn't there!" Kate came back. "All the guys around me were poor substitutes for him and it was easy to just fantasize and jill off when I needed to... now, I'm living with him!"

I presumed the him she was talking about was me.

"Agreed," Marsha told Kate. "Having him here is a huge distraction. But we do need to get our minds off the awesome sex and into the dull, boring, academics. Regardless of what he's doing."

"People, I am right here!" I protested. I didn't like being talked about in the third person.

"Yeah, and that's the problem," Kate told me. "I'd rather we were in bed."

"Look, grab your shit and let's go," I told her. "You've only missed one class. I'll drop you in front of the Ag building and you'll make your next class. If you want, I'll pick you up right after for lunch. We can go to Mac's or something."

"Fine," Kate grumbled, slinging her backpack. "Let's go..."

I kept my mouth shut and headed out after her, but Marsha held me up for a moment.

"I'll meet you at Mac's," she told me. "About eleven-thirty. We really do need to figure something out."

"Agreed," I told her. "Love you. See you later." She gave me a quick kiss and I was out the door.

I got Kate to her class with about 5 minutes to spare, then headed over to the CGL. My team was working on a scalable digital representation of the human body, from macro level like population densities, to micro like internal organs. Probably a boring project to someone who wasn't a computer geek. Or nerd. Whichever.

Anyway, I got some work in, then picked up Kate and headed for the downtown McDonald's to meet Marsha. She had the Buick and it was easier to just get our food and meet in her cavernous rolling Den of Iniquity. That's what we'd decided to call it after some rather rambunctious and risqué episodes over by Lake on Campus. Marsha had the good graces to wait until we were pretty much done eating before starting the discussion.

"So how do we grow up?" she asked, I think intentionally being obtuse.

"With time and experience," I answered, deciding that being a smartass was perfectly acceptable.

"Will you two knock it off?" Kate demanded. "We're looking at a serious problem here." I decided to switch to Serious mode.

"You're right," I told her. "It is serious. And the solutions I see range from denial to tolerance to acceptance. Denial being a shift in our basic relationship to something platonic, tolerance being some way to acceptably delay gratification and acceptance being to simply give in, go with our basic animal desires and flunk out of college. Neither option 1 nor option 3 appeal to me."

Both of them looked at me for a few moments before Marsha said, "I agree with you. Options 1 and 3 are out. So how do we learn to delay gratification? It sort of isn't in my nature."

"Nor mine," Kate added.

"Invoke the spirits of your Father and Mother," I told them. "Imagine the Family Conference a crisis like this would have occasioned last summer. Channel their wisdom. Immerse yourselves in their sage counsel." I thought I was bullshitting. They took me seriously.

"Okay," Kate agreed. "They'll be home tonight after Dad's bowling, so we can call them after ten. It'll screw up their ten o'clock news routine, but I think they'll think we're worth it."

"Sure," Marsha told us. "We've each got extensions in our rooms. We could sort of conference call."

I sat there looking at the two of them and thinking, oh, this is going to get interesting...

"You might want to wait until 10:28," I suggested. "In the commercial break after the news."

"A very wise man," Marsha intoned.

"Agreed," Kate added. "And I've got to get to class."

"So do we," Marsha told her. "Want me to drop you?"

"I've got to be at the Arena," Kate told her. "I've got Phys Ed. Where are you going?"

"Communications," Marsha told her. "I'll drop you." She turned to me. "Kiss me, Mark."

What was my life, but to obey? I leaned over and kissed her. Probably longer and more passionately than would be appropriate in public. But we weren't in public. We broke the kiss and Kate spoke up.

"Kiss me, Mark."

I smiled. This was one of the fun parts of living with these two. When Kate and I broke the kiss, I slid out the door and Kate moved up front. They took off while I went back to my car and headed for class.

* * * * *

The phone call that night was strange. I'd never had that kind of frank, no bullshit, no holds barred discussion with my parents. I pretty much just shut up and listened while Marsha, mostly, aided by Kate explained to Don and Natalie how living with the object of their desires was distracting the hell out of them. And I certainly wasn't expecting the 'suck it up' kind of response we got from Don. That's oversimplifying, but generally it came down to "sleep together and cuddle for comfort, budget play time for sex, and keep your hands to yourselves in the interim. Get used to it... it'll be good practice for married life."

Natalie pointed out that when she and Don were first together, she had to resort to posting a daily schedule -- and weekly, and monthly -- with specific time slots for everything that needed to get done. Otherwise, they'd have been fucking each other's brains out all day long. And night.

Don suggested widening our social circle... finding people we liked to have around as friends and to give us more than just each other to focus on. He said he thought we were solid enough in our commitment to each other that jealousy wouldn't be an issue.

We covered a bunch of other stuff, too, but the take-away was essentially the above: dial back the sex, set and keep a schedule, expand our social circle. Among ourselves, Marsha, Kate and I decided that expanding our circle of friends would be platonic. If anybody wanted to change that, we'd talk about it first. Kind of like Mike and Suzy being on the Pre-approved list.

It wasn't what Kate wanted, but I guess it was what she needed. Some parental structure she could accept and go with. We spent the rest of that night, before hitting the sack, roughing in a daily and weekly schedule. I told them I'd convert it to a wall poster we could put in the kitchen as a constant reminder. We even got into details like taking out the garbage. Weird.

It did help, though. The three of us were committed to making it work and we used the schedule to keep us focused on exactly that.. making it work. We made sure that Sunday night through Thursday night were no-sex zones with our emphasis on classwork. And chores, like shopping, laundry, cooking, garbage and so forth. Friday night through Sunday afternoon was a no holds barred orgy. Unless something really important came up. Like Marsha's dance.

The Southern Repertory Dance Company, under W. Grant Gray, was a touring dance group and they put a lot of time and effort into their shows, starting with writing and choreography, through rehearsals, to the actual tour. Marsha was thrilled to have the opportunity and totally blown away by the commitment. In some ways it made it easier on us because of how much she was away and how tired she was when she got home. But it did mean that when she had the time and wasn't exhausted, she expected a lot of attention... and a lot of it sexual. It slowly evolved that as the term wore on, when she wanted me, she got me and Kate would get scarce. And when Marsha wasn't around, Kate got me.

Although Kate was in the Forestry program, she was still in the first two years of taking basic coursework. Which meant for the most part, she was at school or at home. She wasn't much of a party girl, especially since she was underage for the bars. For my part, I was either at class, at the CGL or at home. It actually turned into a sort of boring routine, so by the time Spring Break rolled around we were acting more like a couple of old fuddy-duddies than a pair of hormone driven lovers.

* * * * *

The three of us were 'home' -- our Carbondale home -- over Spring Break, partly for convenience and partly so we could play host to my cousin Mike. He was flying out to get registered for the Summer Term. Actually, he was flying in to Chicago where I was going to meet him and drive him down to school. The 'I' became 'we', with Marsha and Kate coming along. Then our plans to blow his mind got turned upside down when my Uncle John decided to come out with Mike to get him registered. Which meant Uncle John would rent a car and drive down, and the two of them would stay at a motel while they got Mike and the paperwork sorted.

Which, of course, meant we had to be on our best behavior and I had to be the campus guide.

It didn't turn out too badly. They got into Chicago late Friday and stayed with my folks, then drove down Saturday. I'd panicked a little when it wasn't going to be just Mike, and the girls and I converted our "play space" in the basement to look like guest quarters. We figured we could pass it off that way, and since we each had our own room, I'd just explain to Uncle John that when Mike came to live with us, we could either set it up for him, or we could double up... two guys in one bedroom, the two girls in another, with the third for a common study area. I'd tell him we were basically winging it. Which wouldn't be that far from the truth.

They checked into their motel, then called us around 4pm. We decided they should come to ours and get a tour of the place, and then we could go out for dinner. After that we would come back to our place for the evening, to sit around and B.S., and layout plans for the week. We figured Sunday would be a day to tour the campus and give Mike a general idea where everything was. The girls offered to do Sunday dinner while I took Mike and Uncle John around. Monday, we'd start with the administrivia.

Even though it was Spring Break, the business offices and things like the bookstore were open on limited hours. So I figured I'd get Mike and Uncle John started at the Admissions office, then head on back to the house. If they needed anything from me, they could call or come get me.

As a plan, it worked pretty well. Except for the unexpected emotional response to seeing Mike again after last summer. And not just me. It hit Marsha and Kate pretty hard, too. Staying cool around Uncle John was not easy, especially since all four of us were remembering our good times past. We got in the habit of having dinner ready for the five of us, when Mike's days of battling the bureaucracy were over. Wednesday night is when everything bubbled up.

Mike had successfully gotten through the Admissions tedium, all the right paperwork filed, all the i's dotted and the t's crossed, and had met with a counselor who walked him through course requirements for his desired major, and even had a tentative schedule for summer set up, to pick up coursework he was short, so he wouldn't be too far behind the Junior mark coming into the department. Basically, they'd done all they could do until registration at the start of term. The five of us were gathered together for dinner.

"You know, Mark," Uncle John told us, "I'm very impressed with how you, and Marsha and Kate, have reached out to help Mike hit the deck running. I don't ever remember the academic obstacle course being this easy when I was in college. Your Dad told me about how he and Don decided to go in on this investment and I have to say, it sure looks like it's paying off. The four of you seem to work so well together."

"Thank you, sir," I told him. "It isn't easy, but we're busting butt to make it work and I agree... I think it's paying off."

"It sure is for me," Kate spoke up. "I was floundering at Stevens Point, even with my older brother Tom around. Having Mark and my sister here has sure helped me stay focused."

"And I'm hoping that carries over for Mike," my uncle told her. "He's got a pretty good head on his shoulders... I hope he can stay focused, too." I saw Mike wince a little, but not badly.

"We'll make sure we give him whatever help we can," Marsha told him. "He lives with us, he's part of a team. I know from last summer that he's really good at teamwork." I think Kate, Mike and I managed to suppress our surprised looks at her allusion.

"And speaking of friendships from last summer," Uncle John went on, "you four haven't really had a chance to get reacquainted without me hanging around. Since everything is wrapped up for now, I'd like to get on the road midday tomorrow to get back to your Dad's, Mark. That will give us Friday to hang around with the rest of your family before our Saturday flight home. Consequently, I think I'll head back to our motel and leave Mike with you. If you would be so kind , would you drop him off later tonight, or whenever? There's no curfew or anything involved. I'd only ask that you keep the partying to a minimum, so he's operational tomorrow."