Starting from Scratch Ch. 14

"I--I think so. Yes. I think I can love them forever," Scot replied more confidently.

Thomas grinned then nodded. He looked back at the door leading into the office but pointedly said nothing. Instead, he turned back to Scot, and said, "Good! Keep that resolve. You will need it. Because, as young as you all are, it will feel like forever if you don't get along."

Scot hiccuped a nervous laugh then smiled sheepishly.

"So," Thomas said as he leaned forward signaling he was ready to get down to business, "Here's what I am going to do. For now you and your--harem--will remain with us. I will help you and the girls get enough education that you will be able to support yourselves. I will also set you up in a house. However, once you and they are educated and able to move out, I will help you get started but I will not support you. You, Scot, will have to learn what it is to be a man, a husband, and a father. I will help get you where you can support your family, but then, you will have to support them yourself. Understand?"

Scot nodded.

"Good!" Thomas chirped happily, "Then I guess we are done then."

Thomas stood.

Scot stood and with a grin turned to leave. He was halfway across the room when he looked back at Thomas and said, "Thank you, Thomas, for everything."

Thomas smiled, their eyes met and an understanding passed silently between them before Scot turned and left. Cheryline was standing there with one hand on her three-month-pregnant belly. It really wasn't a belly yet. It was more of a very large bulge. Down the hallway, Scot found little Ingrid staring at him and Cheryline with her hand on her belly. Scot took Cheryline's hand and then walked over and took Ingrid's and together they went back to his room.

Just then, Scot remembered all of the arguments he had so carefully thought over in preparation for meeting with his brother. Arguments on how yes Jamin, Jasper, and Raegan had been free from the consequences of their actions on Christmas Eve, but now, after having been given their choices back, each of them had chosen to love Scot. To love him, and he in return would love them with all his heart. There was more, but really, it didn't matter anymore, and so, he continued to his room. Jamin, Jasper, and Raegan were waiting for him. He told them what he and Thomas had said. There were many relieved sighs.

With everyone reassured Scot moved onto his bed and laid back so that he could look out the window at the splendid view of the mountains. Soon after, Cheryline then Jasper came to lay beside him with their heads on his shoulders. After that, the others joined him as well, each one finding a way to snuggle in and touch some part of his body. Jet lagged as they were, the girls fell asleep while Scot thought about his mother, his brother, their incestuous relationship, and now, his relationship with his five cousins. Finally, at some point during his contemplations, he too fell asleep.

----(!)----

Margaret was the first of Thomas's harem. She was the first to find him after his breakup with Heather, his first wife, and a prolific cheater. Margaret was his salvation and the first to establish a new relationship with him over the course of three summer months, from June to August, as she gently ministered to his injured soul. She was forty-eight years old, twice Thomas's age, and yet, she was as youthful as a woman appearing to be in her early to mid-thirties.

Widowed for several years by this time, she enjoyed admiring younger men and women, but now, with a young virile man living in her house, she was keenly reminded of her femininity. She didn't think of her waning fertility. It was something long past. After all, if she were fertile ground, wouldn't her long-dead husband have been able to plant his seed in her so that she could grow children for them both as a legacy of their love? No. Her garden was sterile. It always had been and always would be.

Still, she treated Thomas like she was his naughty older step-sister. She just couldn't help herself. After all, it had been so long since she had felt her dead husband's love surrounding and penetrating her in ways that only a wife could understand. She had sex with men and women both before meeting her husband and after. George had encouraged her to experiment, and she had.

She was still skeptical about George's reasons for pushing her to experiment, but the experience was educational. She had good times and it was fun, but what she learned was that sex for its own sake was very much like working out, going drinking, or playing games with friends. It was fun. A lot of fun sometimes, but when it was over it was done. There was nothing afterward. As a matter of fact, more often than not, there was a sharp sense of loss, pain, shame, or just emptiness. She felt all of these feelings throughout her experimentation and combated them by taking long baths where she spent a long time cleaning herself inside and out, then applying scented oils to her skin and hair, and then seducing George, her husband, into making love to her for hours.

It seemed to her that lovemaking was casual sex's antithesis which was ironic since the core of each was sex. However, where casual sex left her feeling empty, making love to her husband filled her with such a sense of love and of being loved, of appreciation and of being appreciated, and a sense of self-worth that, after a while, she just quit experimenting. She never told George and he had never mentioned it.

Years later, she couldn't help but prance around her house naked, teasing Thomas in a good-natured way. It was fun. Like playing Spin the Bottle, or Truth or Dare. It was so brazen, and it excited her to the point where her skin goosed, her nipples were aroused, and her pussy was wet all the time. Then, Thomas started ogling her more and more. He was interested, but he wasn't making any moves. At that point, it became a competition of whether she could get Thomas to make a move on her or not. She could have gone completely naked all the time, but then it would have been obvious that she was trying to seduce him. So, despite her desires, she dressed before completing the house and farm chores with him for the next three months. In that time they spent almost every waking hour together. Shoulder to shoulder. Hip to hip. Then, in August, it happened.

They were skinny dipping in a cold Montana river. Cold and hungry after playing they got out and dried off on a large rock and ate the picnic lunch she prepared for them. Afterward, they lay down and admired the clouds in the sky. Margaret was wanting and willing. Thomas was hesitant. It was while Margaret was talking, sharing her life experiences, that Thomas was overwhelmed with compassion and desire. For a long time, they lay on that rock and made love. It was something Margaret hadn't felt in a long time, a lover's longing, a man's strength, a man's body on top of her, surrounding her, penetrating her, filling her up physically and spiritually. They made love many times after that. In her mind, if not the reality, when she left that rock that day with her womb filled with Thomas's seed, that day when she left she was already impregnated with Thomas's babies.

On May 1st she gave birth to fraternal twins, Georgia and Timothy Goodspeed.

Margaret said that since Thomas was giving her children his last name she should get to give them their first names. Georgia was named after her first husband, George, who she was never able to bear a child for. Timothy was named after Margaret's father.

----(!)----

It took nearly the rest of Leslie's pregnancy for her to recover from Larry's attack, and during that time she had plenty of time to think. She thought about her life, about Larry, about her children, about Margaret, and finally about Thomas. She knew she loved him. She was timid at first, not wanting to trust her heart to another man, to another potential abuser, and then against her instincts she gave her heart to Thomas. Then, the very next day, she and Margaret found him in bed with Cheyenne and Lauren!

She knew it wasn't his fault. She knew it! And yet, it scared her. It scared her away from Thomas, and then later it scared her that her daughters could do such a thing. Afterward, she had spent a lot of time talking and reconnecting with Cheyenne and Lauren, and after a lot of poking and prodding they finally told her of what Larry had been doing to them, what they had been doing to keep him from Hannah and Gwyn, and it horrified her. Not as much as what they had done, but rather, what Larry had done and what they had thought they had to do to keep him from hurting her, them, and Hannah and Gwyn. It left Leslie feeling hollow. There was so much work for her to do to help Cheyenne and Lauren, and to reconcile with Thomas.

Over the weeks after Larry's assault, Thomas's return was heavenly. He didn't mention the past and, indeed, he even reconciled with Cheyenne and Lauren. It was true that he had always been nice to them even before they betrayed his trust. It would have been expected, and was expected by Leslie, that there would be some sort of residual resentment and backlash, but there wasn't. Instead, Thomas was more calm and loving than ever before. He was more sure of himself and took quiet but firm command almost from the start.

For Leslie, the way he reconciled with Cheyenne and Lauren right away was such a wonderful relief it would have been nearly orgasmic if she were not in so much pain. Then, he spent a lot of quiet time with her, holding her hand, talking with her and to her, and reassuring her of his love. Leslie never realized the weight of her burdens and responsibilities until that moment when Thomas reassured her that he was there, that everything was handled, everything would be okay, and that he was with her. Afterward, it seemed that a mountain had lifted off of her shoulders and she found that she slept better than she ever had before. She also recuperated faster than expected.

Two and a half months later on June 23rd, Leslie, Cheyenne, and Lauren gave birth to healthy baby girls. Leslie named her daughter Rebecca, Cheyenne named her daughter Bethany, and Lauren named her daughter Katelyn. Following Margaret's lead they all gave their children Thomas's surname.