Chapter 2

I pulled Sally to me and wrapped her in my arms. “It feels so good to be able to officially call you my girlfriend, even though you’ve unofficially been my girlfriend for as long as I can remember. I get the feeling that everyone expects us to make our relationship more permanent soon.”

“How do you feel about that?” she asked nervously.

I gave her the only possible answer I could think of. Dropping to one knee, I asked, “Sally Anne Phillips, will you marry me in the not-too-distant future?”

She didn’t say yes, but I think the excited squeal as she jumped on me, knocking me on my butt, was an affirmative response. After an emotional tongue duel, she sat up straddling my hips.

“Most of us girls wanted Jim for our husband,” Wendy confessed to Sally after kissing her.

“We also realized that we didn’t have a snowflake’s chance in hell of getting him away from you,” she continued after a second kiss.

“We wouldn’t date the other guys who asked us out. Not one of them could compare to Jim. I didn’t know about what he did for Kristen until tonight, but I always felt safer when he was around. When he still behaved after we teased him by giving him the glimpses as we ran back to our room after showering, we knew he wouldn’t force us to do anything because he never even tried to touch us.

“He’s smart enough that he’s already finished everything he needs to graduate high school even though he just turned sixteen. Everyone in town knows he’s the best hunter in the Parish, and possibly in the state. Even the Sheriff refers people to him when they have a renegade alligator or other dangerous animal in their yard. Unless they specifically want beef or chicken, which they get at the grocery store, most of the people in town come to us if they need to buy or barter for meat. In addition, Peggy and Belle donate lots of meat to the VFW in town for the veterans, families of current servicemen, and war widows who don’t have enough food.

“That’s why we all hope to convince you to accept us as sister wives,” she admitted after their third kiss.

“I think Jim may have something to say about that,” Sally chuckled, “but I’m definitely interested in several sister wives. I know that I get along with all you girls here.”

Our first “official” coupling was emotional. The second one was more for fun. Wendy got her turn after that. “Have you got enough energy for two more times?” Wendy asked me.

“Maybe more if you two keep me wound up like this,” I replied, smiling. Wendy looked questioningly at Sally who nodded, grinning. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she said as she climbed out of bed. She opened the bedroom door and looked outside before tiptoeing out of the room, bare-ass naked. Watching the muscles flex and relax in her legs and butt as she moved was an incredible sight.

“She wants to get something from her room,” Sally said in answer to the unasked question on my face.

The “something” turned out to be “someone,” or more correctly, two someones! Kristin and Ashley were giggling as Wendy herded them into the room.

“God but you two were noisy. I’m glad the boys’ rooms are at the other end of the hall,” Wendy scolded the two, although all three were still laughing. “If you’d made much more noise, at least one of them would have come out to investigate and seen me.”

Kristen turned serious and crawled over to me after kissing Sally. “Did you really save me and do what Dad said you did to that guy for me?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “Nobody hurts someone in my family and gets away with it, least of all a girl that I love.”

Kristen buried her face against my shoulder and cried. Even with her on top of me, my ardor subsided while she cried herself out. I guessed that she hadn’t been able to put the event behind her before this, not that the bastard had done anything but give her a bad scare.

Several minutes later she sat up and declared, “You’re my hero.” Then she caught me in a lip lock tighter than the seal around an airlock. Kristen turned to Sally when she came up for air. “I want to have his next baby after you get pregnant,” she said to Sally, who was then the recipient of the next lip lock.

“You are going to get sooooo lucky,” Ashley commented to me.

“Luck has nothing to do with it,” Wendy riposted. “He’s tall, handsome, his muscles have muscles, he’s a nice guy, he helps other people, and he’s a great hunter.”

When Kristen and Sally finally came up for air, Sally said, “I don’t have a problem with it, but you should check with Jim, and you’ll have to let your parents know. Your father specifically commented tonight that he’d be upset if anyone got pregnant before they were married,” Sally warned.

Sally cuddled up to my side and stroked my face lovingly.

Friday

Imagine my surprise this morning to find that one of the two girls sprawled across half my body was my sister Lacey. “Not that I’m complaining, but what are you doing here?” I asked after kissing her nose.

“I’ve missed sleeping with you,” she replied with a yawn. “I always felt so safe and loved in your arms. I couldn’t really join you in bed while you shared a room with Jack.”

“I seem to remember that you wore your pajamas when you snuck into my bed before,” I chided teasingly.

“Nobody else is wearing pajamas,” she protested.

“I don’t mind you sleeping in here, but you need to talk to Mom about it,” I insisted. “If Mom agrees that you can sneak in here to sleep, I’ll even buy you a sexy nightie you can wear.”

“Really?” she asked excitedly.

“If you don’t get permission, we can’t do anything more than cuddle and sleep. I promised that everyone between fourteen and sixteen would have to get permission first,” I explained.

“I love you, Jim,” she sighed as she reached her face up and kissed me on the lips.

The last time we had been able to sleep together was the night before Mom and Uncle Don were married, and Lacey hadn’t begun developing yet. She was going to be as good looking in a couple of years as Mom is.

“You’re such a good brother,” Sally sighed from my right side once Lacey dressed and scampered from the room.

I insisted that the girls keep teaching me new things, especially their favorite things. I practiced on each of the four girls. Fortunately, Sally had already taught me a lot. Some things, we had learned together. She was almost always at our house after school, frequently staying until dinner. After school and before I returned from hunting and working out each day, several of the girls would crowd into the bedroom of the seventeen-year-old girls. Sally had been an eager participant and an apt pupil. My stepsisters had been eager to get on her good side.

Our parents were completely aware of their activities and even encouraged it since it helped the girls alleviate their near-constant state of horniness without the assistance of a male. With the current state of affairs in the country, the number of families with multiple wives was nearly the same as the number with one husband and one wife, or two same-sex spouses. Our parents felt that having multiple wives comfortable with enjoying each other as well as their husband helped reduce incidents of jealousy. And the wives felt that it also made the sex much better.

The girls’ little afternoon parties were held behind a locked bedroom door. Any of their brothers caught within three meters of said bedroom door would find themselves with so many extra chores to do that anything they heard would be long forgotten before they had enough energy to think about what they’d heard.

We finally crawled out of bed rather than face the wrath of our parents for being late to do our chores. Well, the girls had chores. I was usually out of the house by now, hunting. Of the six oldest girls, three were seventeen, one sixteen, and two fifteen. They were responsible for milking our twelve dairy cows, pasteurizing the milk, and then cleaning and sterilizing everything so it was ready for the next time.

Two of the four older boys get the shit job, literally. The boys clean the milking parlor and then muck out the stalls in the barn. They alternate jobs with the third and fourth brothers.

The third brother has the job of guarding the produce garden, using a crossbow to wage war against the pestiferous rabbits intent on eating everything we grow. He watches the garden near sunrise, and again at sunset.

The fourth brother is usually with me, hunting. I’m repaying Uncle Don’s investment of time by teaching the boys to hunt. When they are with me, they listen carefully. Uncle Don had told me, in front of the boys, not to waste time teaching them if they aren’t really interested. To the boys, it means they will be mucking out stalls more often if I feel they aren’t being attentive or taking what I teach them seriously.

The fourteen-year-olds, Lacey, Katrina, and Tiffany, have the job of collecting and washing eggs. Once the eggs are washed, they are candled and packaged. The girls also feed the chickens, turning them loose for the day in one of the runs.

One of the wives or concubines supervises the kids each morning while the rest start breakfast for everyone. After breakfast on weekdays, two of the mothers drive their routes with the methane clathrate powered school buses that Uncle Don bought when he first returned. Without the buses, most of the kids in town and on the neighboring farms would have to walk or ride a bike or horse to school. Only two other families in town can afford the fuel to operate their older car or pickup truck, although a few families have purchased tiny, one or two-person electric cars or motorcycles in the last few years.

One bus heads a little farther south from our house to pick up the kids living farthest from school. Then, it makes its way north on Blanc Bayou Road West, so called because it runs along the west side of Blanc Bayou. The bus crosses the single bridge in town over Blanc Bayou, although the bayou here looks more like a wide canal. It drops off those kids at the school, which is a block east of the bayou. Then it picks up the kids on both ends of Blanc Bayou Road East. That bus picks up two thirds of the kids in town.

The routes are simple because every house and business in town is within a short block of East or West Blanc Bayou Road.

The second bus stops at the local VFW office, located on the north part of Blanc Bayou Road West. There, it delivers fresh eggs, milk, butter, meat, and vegetables that are in season for them to share with the needy families of local veterans, including veterans, war widows, and the families of deployed troops. Then it picks up kids along the northern part of Blanc Bayou Road West, dropping them off at school. After school, one bus takes kids home to the east side and one to the west side since there’s no food delivery.

Since I spend twenty-five to forty hours a week hunting, trapping, and fishing, my other chores are limited. Aside from homework, I keep my room clean and take my dirty laundry to the laundry room every day. Occasionally, I’m asked to help with something that requires more strength than the women or my brothers have. I try and work out first thing in the morning, running and then following the daily workouts that Don set up for me before I start hunting.

Aside from the normal chores and driving the buses, the women care for the farm. Before Dad and Uncle Don were drafted, our families shared a tractor. The tractor originally ran on diesel, but Uncle Don converted it to run on both methane and ethanol, both of which are now more plentiful and far cheaper than diesel. That old tractor still runs like new, and we have a large stockpile of new, used, and rebuilt parts for repairs. Don teases that we could probably build a second tractor from all the parts we have. He might be right.

The lots our houses are situated on are one hundred meters wide along the street. From the street, the slightly fan shaped lots extend back almost three klicks. The back of the lots are two hundred meters wide. The last five hundred meters of the lots are covered in a variety of trees, and we replant new trees every time we cut one down or one dies.

We plant white oak to use for making kegs to age moonshine, hickory trees for the nuts and for smoking meat, and Lignum vitae and mahogany because they have heartwood resistant to termites and wood rot.

The next closer two hundred meters at the rear of each lot is planted with fruit and nut trees. One lot has a one-hectare grove each of mature pecan trees, chestnut trees, almond trees, and black walnut trees.

A house sits in the front part of each lot about ten meters from the street. We farm the rest of each lot, including the front yard.

There are ten lots on our block. Neland Road borders the north end of the block and Stinson Road the south. Both gravel roads extend west about fifteen hundred meters from Blanc Bayou Road West, but don’t lead to anything beyond that. While the two roads don’t lead anywhere, fifteen smaller lots that are only thirty meters wide and sixty meters deep line the north side of Neland Road and the south side of Stinson Road. Those lots are each plenty big for a house, as well as a good-sized garden. To the best of my knowledge, only two of the houses on Neland Road were ever sold. The others, as well as all the houses on Stinson Road, are still vacant fifteen years later.

When Dad was alive, our family owned two lots that he had inherited; the lot our home was on and the lot and house just north of it. Uncle Don also inherited two lots, the one immediately south of our old house, and one south of that. Originally, he lived next door to us in the house north of the new one we currently live in.

All four original houses were well built and well maintained but were built shortly after WWII ended, nearly a century and a half ago. When Uncle Don was discharged, he bought three more lots south of his, which included the rest of the land all the way to Stinson Road. Then he built this house on the lot that had been south of his original home. The two houses on the lots just north of what Dad had owned are currently empty and have been since before I was born.

The Parish keeps begging Uncle Don to buy the two remaining lots, even offering them to him for a hundred dollars each and not having to pay the delinquent property taxes. That way, although the taxes are minimal because it’s classified as agricultural land, they’d get the annual property taxes from now on. They also wouldn’t have to pay someone to cut down the weeds each summer before they become a fire hazard. It’s not as if we don’t have enough money, but we have no use for the extra land. What we have now is as much land as we can use without wearing ourselves out.

The final lot to the north of us. the one bordering Neland Road, is where Sally and her mother live.

The land behind Uncle Don’s original house is now pasture for our cattle and horses. The three southernmost lots are planted in feed corn this year. We use that corn for corn meal and feed for the livestock, as well as for distilling. Most of the alcohol we distill is used to fuel the pickup truck, the tractor, and the fan boat, although some is consumed “for medicinal purposes” as Uncle Don always says with a knowing wink.

We store the fuel alcohol in sixty-gallon composite and carbon fiber drums. We have a hoist that Uncle Don or I use to lift the drums up onto an elevated platform after we connect a fueling hose. The alcohol used for medicinal purposes goes into homemade 40-liter charred white oak barrels that are stored in the cellar for at least three years before we drink it.

One lot is used for growing oats. The slightly swampy back part of three lots is used for growing rice, and right behind the new house is where the barn complex is. Beyond the barn complex is the 10-hectare produce garden. Berries, artichokes, and asparagus are planted in the front yards of all seven houses. A four-meter-high carbon fiber and composite chain link fence surrounds the entire property. A rolling gate provides access to our driveway. Concertina wire tops the fence to deter deer and both two and four-legged varmints.

With no chores to do this morning, I took my crossbow outside to see if I could at least help my brother pick off a few rabbits to help reduce the number gorging themselves in our garden.

As I exited the house, I sensed The Bitch’s presence even before she stepped out from around the corner of the house to confront me. “What the hell was last night all about?” she hissed at me vehemently.