Out of the Burlap Ch. 03

"I can't stand in the way of your career," Joe objected.

"You're not, Joe," Carol's smile continued. "Not exactly anyway, I mean as far as the career goes. When Maya told me about the inheritance kind of fearfully actually because she...she envisioned this actually with me living here with her and you and was afraid of rejection, something sort of happened in my brain, an epiphany I suppose you could call it. I realized I wanted exactly the same thing. I've never been happier than I've been with the two of you, with both of you. Thus began what you call the conspiracy.

"Coincidently, or maybe the gods conspired, I had been talking to Steve again. And Steve wanted to come home. He had already contacted Hazelden. I told him about our experience sharing and rejecting his drug of choice and that got us into a really intimate dialogue much deeper than we had ever gone before. So, having discovered a new friend in my brother, I immediately contacted him about my planned living with you two and getting a house and all that. It brought forth his passion for restoring houses and his wish to join in the house hunt. I didn't even know about his interest and schooling in architecture. He immediately contacted MCAD pleading for mid year entrance and faxing his amazing interior plans and his hope to actually have a plan come to fruition."

"They were cool about it because I already attended the first semester a couple years ago," Steve added.

"And of course you blew them away with your awesome designs," said Carol getting a humble shrug in return. Carol continued, "Anyway, with Steve joining us while getting straight and everything we started house hunting. We realized a couple things. Maya could probably buy a fairly small and crappy house without worrying about credit, and she wouldn't have much money left over for fixing it up, or we bring Daddy into the situation as cosigner."

"Which suggested a long term stay in the Twin Cities and no graduate school in DC, disappointing him," Joe guessed.

"Exactly what I expected," Carol nodded, "and I came at him with a brave front which I honestly had to hold up with a great deal of effort because I really did not want to see that disappointment in him. I'd rarely seen it to tell you the truth. Only when I came home stoned and drunk a couple times when still in high school did I ever really see that and it literally sobered me up. It did get him talking about my mother, stories of things that happened before I had any real memories. I barely remember her. Anyway I actually saw a brief expression of disappointment on his face when he realized the implication. He asked me if it meant I planned on staying here instead of heading to graduate school like we planned.

"What followed surprised the shit out of me. He actually grinned, disappointment nowhere to be seen, and he embraced me. He told me he had never seen me so happy. And he told me he actually really liked both of you which continued the surprise. Don't take this the wrong way Joe or Maya, but I couldn't help reminding him that neither of you had jobs that could be called ambitious, a record store manager and a stripper, and you hadn't even gone to college, Joe, never mind getting a degree. He laughed and said I'd just have to be the breadwinner in the family. Again I felt I had to remind him I wouldn't be getting a prestigious degree from Georgetown. He told me it wasn't necessary because such prestige was used as a way to get a foot in the door and I was already well inside. For the first time he admitted he fully intended to groom me as his replacement, although it would be several years before he intended retiring. He did want me to get that piece of paper that declared me an MBA only because being a woman, especially a young woman, would hinder some clients from taking me seriously and any proof of my substance as an advisor could only bridge that bias. He suggested I look into the Humphrey Institute at the U of M which had its own prestige and he would use his network of professor friends, including a couple at Georgetown, to add to my pool of advisors and possible short internships for summer projects or whatever.

"Then he looked at my brother equally surprised at his acceptance of my decision and asked if it would be possible for him to move into the house as well."

"He wanted to be sure I got the support I needed," Steve explained, "telling me I shouldn't be alone during my recovery."

Carol chuckled. "I immediately said yes without consulting you, Maya."

"You knew I'd say yes," Maya grinned back. "I like Steve. But of course that meant a bigger house."

"And Daddy actually offered to buy one for us and pay for Steve's interior reconstruction. He's selling our house on Minnetonka, one of the reasons he asked about Steve moving in with us, so he can share a condo with his new girlfriend."

"Not his fiancé?" asked Maya.

"Not likely," Carol smiled. "He said he's smart except for women and wives in particular, but with age comes wisdom. She's actually sweet and old enough for him for once and an empty nester like him with two kids off in college. She calls herself a bought woman, his mistress, since he's paying for the condo, but she actually needs the relief since school for her kids has strained her finances even with her ex helping. I guess both attend expensive east coast universities without scholarships and the woman wants them to be as free from loans as much as possible. Ironically she's the one woman I would love him to marry, and maybe if they stay together and get old together they'll tie the knot, but both have been through unhappy marriages and even unhappier divorces, so..."

"So she's his age?" asked Maya.

"Finally," Carol replied with a sigh. "He's definitely got a thing for younger bodies, the old goat, but with Janet he gets the best of both worlds. She's the manager and part owner of a successful swim and tennis club in Eden Prairie and uses the facilities religiously. In fact that's how they met; lust at first sight. And being of the same generation, they can actually talk as equals with equal histories. And she's really intelligent and a businesswoman to boot."

"But you refused his offer," Joe reminded her of the pre-tangent conversation.

"I'm not in school anymore, which was the excuse for the apartment, although it continued beyond that. It's time I grew up. But I guess I'm still Daddy's girl because, well, I'm no longer an intern, but a full fledged assistant's assistant. And Daddy compensates at the level appropriate to my position which is actually pretty fucking good for a research assistant and glorified gofer."

"So a fulltime job?" asked Joe.

Carol shook her head. "Not exactly. I do mostly research and I can do it over the internet. The University internet, actually invented at the U of M, is one of the earliest and most abundant sources for interconnection with various scholastic institutions and libraries, and with the World Wide Web blowing up, I've got the world on my keyboard. I'll be meeting with Harold, Daddy's assistant, maybe once a week face to face, but otherwise...It's still probably going to be a good forty hours, maybe more."

"So you have access to the University's computers?" asked Joe.

"What a brilliant question," Carol beamed, tousling his hair. "Tell me why you never went to college?" Joe shrugged. "Daddy got me a sort of independent study with one of his many influential friends, a sort of prequel to matriculating at the Humphrey Institute. That got me a part time job in the inter-library loan department which gives me access to that network on my time off as well as the other computers there."

"I'm sorry," Joe hung his head.

"Sorry? Why?"

"I never asked what you did during the day. It's like I don't care."

"You know I'm interning. We just never discussed the details. It's really no big deal. Joe. You obviously care. Look how you're taking this."

"I don't have a clue. About you and what you do and Maya and this house and the band and..." Joe's body went tight as a hard strung bowstring.

Both his lovers having got used to it met each other's eyes behind his back. Both grinned. Maya nodded when Carol mouthed "massage." "Excuse us," Maya said to the others at the table. "Come on upstairs, Joe."

"Yes boss," Joe muttered.

Sometimes Joe cried when their massages loosened him up. Something in his tightness held deep psychological pain. Since Joe had no clue what that came from, no one did. This time tears gushed from his eyes. Sympathetic tears flowed from the tear ducts of his lovers.

When he finally relaxed and his favorite two people in the world laid their heads on his shoulders, their naked bodies pressing along his sides in his favorite position with them, a position common to blissful post coital calm, he muttered, "Why didn't I have a clue about all this?"

"Because we wanted to surprise you," Maya replied.

"It just shows the depth of our love for you, Joe," Carol added.

"Hunh?"

"There's so much to talk about with you," Carol explained. "You're so interested in everything, at least things not too frivolous. You have an encyclopedic mind."

Joe chuckled. "I actually read Dad's Encyclopedia Britannica from beginning to end."

"I'm not surprised," Carol echoed his chuckle.

"I actually remember a lot of it, especially the more compelling pictures. And I got through most of Webster's three volume dictionary before a girlfriend decided that was too weird for words so to speak. I told you I was crazy, Maya."

"I had an uncle who read a huge dictionary," Maya replied. "A brilliant man. Although actually I'm not sure he finished it either. He had the book on a pedestal with a bookmark about two thirds the way through last time I saw it. Being the top contract lawyer for the largest talent agency in the world made him anything but nerdy as your stupid girlfriend implied. Or crazy."

"So I guess we had better things to talk about than our mundane lives," Carol completed. "At least much more entertaining."

"But..."

"And I really did want to overwhelm you on your birthday," said Maya. "And besides, our band needed the rehearsal before I exposed it to you. And you needed practice as well."

"Not enough I guess."

"We'll talk to Connie about that. You'll like her."

"But not too much," Carol warned, squeezing his erection with a bit too much pressure.

"Ow."

"Sorry," Carol said matter-of-factly.

"Why should you worry, Carol?" Joe asked.

"She's gorgeous."

"No one's as gorgeous as either one of you." That escalated the attention both ladies gave his penis. He felt two sets of lips share it, and two wondrous tongues.

--to be continued--