Chapter One

Timeline - 2059 June 9, Wednesday

After the “Accident of 2029”, most social, and some related moral, rules, or norms, changed dramatically. With the advent of the birth defects, or effects, as most would say, involving the alteration of sexual orientation, physically and emotionally, things pretty much had to change. If not, there would have been one hell of a lot of unhappy and very lonely people out in the world.

Over the years, people continued to mate, and have children. Once the kids reached the age of puberty the differences were more than obvious. Boys were still stronger and faster, becoming men as adults. Girls were still softer and prettier and became women as the world has always known. Hermies were softer and prettier and had a little extra downstairs, and Tirls were softer and cuter and incapable of doing much more than making other people happy.

Tirls were the hardest hit, the most put out, the most affected, by the genetic changes brought about by the accident. They were robbed of any capability of reproduction. They had no spermatozoa in their semen, no testicles to provide testosterone, and only the prostate to help provide them the ability achieve any sexual pleasure at all. Many in the genetic research science fields thought that after several hundred years, they would probably become extinct as the offspring of the women, and the Hermies capable of bearing children, would more and more produce children more similar to pre-accident human forms with the standard genetic chromosomal markers, namely pure men, XY, or pure women, XX.

Hermies were normally able to carry children to term, most of their offspring being normal males and females, occasionally being born Hermies, and even less often being born as Tirls. Traditional genetically constructed women, for the most part, gave birth to almost the same ratio, mostly traditional, some Hermies, and a few Tirls here and there.

Hermies were not true Hermaphrodites, in that they did not possess a normal, full-sized penis, but had a small penis capable of equally small erections and passing semen on ejaculation, but not sperm, much like the Tirls did. Average penis sizes ranged from one to two inches flaccid, and two to three inches erect, normally less than an inch in diameter. They did however have fully functioning female reproductive organs as mentioned previously.

Just like in the good old days, though, the only providers of the sperm able to create life were the men. There were men who had been altered, and men who had somehow been passed over and not been altered, or affected, by The Accident. Being one of those unaffected, and thirty-five years old, living through the accident at the age of five, and like about two hundred thousand other men, worldwide, protected somehow from the effects of the accident, I was able to provide XX and XY chromosome pairing only. My chances of successfully inseminating eggs in women or Hermies, either one, creating a traditional child, was about ninety-nine-point-nine percent. There was still the possibility, one that scientists could not ascertain or predict, that copulating with a Hermie could, or a better term would be ‘might’, create a Hermie or a Tirl. In this case, it was more often a Tirl, but the numbers were fairly minute, at less than tenth of a percentile.

Oh, as I was saying… Being one of those normal men, I was, under the new rules, able to have more than one spouse, or mate, legally. It was even recommended. Only women or hermies were considered to be spousal material or counted as mates for those legal purposes. Tirls were treated more like pets, a fact that drove me nuts and made me ill at times, but I was only one man and couldn’t do much about the rest of the world’s failings. One could keep as many Tirls as they wished, with no moral or legal consequence, unless they were neglected or abused. See? Just like pets.

Thankfully, I could provide a good home for whoever I was with, and however many I chose to maintain, having been born into a very wealthy family. My great grandfather was on the ground floor of the solid-state electronics industry, my grandfather in computers, my father in advanced optics, and me, taking over from them, I was keeping all those genres together and working on some experimental matter transport methods. I’ve killed two rats and a rabbit so far, but I have also moved one rat and one rabbit across a relatively small distance without the use of physical transport. Think, ‘Beam me over there, Scotty’, and you’ll be close.

I hadn’t been looking to settle down anytime soon, but I did have a couple of girlfriends and thought that might change at some point. Amy, a woman of means, if you will, has been my girlfriend since we were in grammar school. Always off and on, we were friends with benefits, but she traveled a lot, and I was always working too much. We never parted on purpose, and never broke up. I’d spend the night at her place, or she’d spend a weekend at my house. It was convenient. We just spent a lot of time together and then a lot of time apart. That had been going on for about twelve years when I finally decided I might want to ask her to stop running around.

“Amy,” I said, holding her in my arms in the hot tub, “what would you do if I asked you to marry me and give up that sales job? You could come to work for me instead.” She looked at me with a doubtful smirk. “I’ll give you a raise. How much are you making now?”

“Well over two hundred, but I don’t try very hard, really, since I don’t have to. Charlie, I need to let you know something up front. There’s something I need to tell you.”

I must have gotten a terribly fearful look on my face.

“Stop. It’s not bad. I’ll never take another man, Charlie. I do love you. I think I always have, and I know I always will. We’ve just… We’ve always moved around too much and have been too busy, or at least way too occupied, to settle down. I’m going to consider your offer.”

“What is it you need to tell me?”

“I met a Tirl in San Diego a few months ago. She’s a doll. You’d love her if you met her. I’m trying to arrange for her to come live with me, but you need to know that, just in case. Does that cause you a problem, Charlie?”

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t think you could be completely monogamous anyway, could you?”

“Yes! Definitely, as far as men go, anyway. Like I said, you are it, but you’re right. I’m not a one girl girl. I be lovin’ me some cuddles and such when you’re not around. That one time out here with Wendy was pretty hot, though, and you WERE around. Do you think you can let me play around like that? Seriously?”

“Kind of depends. Wendy was here with both of us. Is that still OK with you? Us sharing? If that kind of thing happens with either or both of us?” I asked her.

“Yes, I’m more than OK with it. Is that what you wanted to hear?” I nodded. “Wendy was a doll, too. Maybe you can get her out here again someday.” She giggled when I gave her one of those shit eating grins. “OK, then, we’ve set some ground rules. Are you going to ask?”

“Ask what?”

“Good God, Charlie, you just asked me what I’d do if you asked me to marry you? If you don’t ask me, you’ll never find out.” She started giggling and buried her head in my neck. When she started rubbing my chest, spending time with her fingers on my nipple, I got it.

“Amelia Canton, will you marry me?”

“Yes. I will most certainly marry you, Charles Carswell. I most certainly will.” She kissed me soundly and made sure we played tonsil hockey for several minutes, getting me going, and in a pretty hot state of mind, as well as body. “My mother is going to be so happy.”

“Your mother? Why’s that, Amy?”

“I keep talking about you and telling her I wish you’d ask me to marry you. I can stop bugging her now.”

I started laughing and hugged her to me as firmly as I could without breaking her. “What a mess! You’ve been wanting me to ask, and I was afraid you’d say ‘no’, so I kept putting it off.”

“I have another reason for accepting your proposal, Charlie.” I raised my chin in question. “If it’s you I marry, I don’t have to change my initials.” She started giggling, but I put paid to that when I turned her around, pulled her over my lap, and spanked her. We both laughed so loud the alarm went off in the back yard. Not a normal event if we kept our sessions in the hot tub area low keyed. She finally got me to quit spanking her by wiggling around and turning over, pulling my face down to kiss her. “I’ve been wanting to quit that job with Pfizer/Merck anyway. Too much travel, and they wanted me to do even more. I do better working part time than most of my counterparts do full time, and the managers know it. If I went full time, I might be first in outside sales, but I don’t care about that stuff. I just wanted to travel and make it on my own. Mom says I’m nuts. Just like her. You know Daddy left us enough money that we don’t have to work, yet I’m out selling drugs and she’s still counting beans.”

“You’d really give that job up and come to work for me, then?”

“Yes, I’ll quit, and I’ll marry you, and I’ll come to work for you, if you want, and I’ll do anything else you want, IF, and only IF…” I interrupted her.

“If I let you bring your little girlfriend with you, right?” She nodded. “What’s this girl’s name, anyway, hon?”

“Tiffany. She’s asked me to call her Tiffy, though. Supposedly I’m the only one that does.”

“I have no problems with that, Amy. I hope she likes me.”

“She will, Charlie. I know she will. She’s seen a picture. She thinks you’re a hunk.”

“Alrighty then. Let’s make this happen. When do you think…” She interrupted me this time.

“Let Mom and me, and probably Tiffy, take care of everything. Do you have any druthers?”

“No. I’m flexible.”

“I know, Charlie. Most of you, anyway. The part that isn’t is one of the many things I love so much about you!” Her giggle got her spanked again then we settled into a make out session that lasted until she started complaining about getting pruny. “Take me inside and make love to me, Charlie. Please love on me.”

I picked her diminutive, little form up in my arms and easily carried her into my bedroom. I stood her on the bed, dried her off, then laid her back and stopped at nothing to make her orgasm four times before I finally entered her and ‘screwed the snot out’ of her, as she so ardently described what I did before we fell asleep.

Making love to her that evening as my fiancée and not my girlfriend was different. There was more of a connection. More than before. Deeper. Emotionally stronger. Maybe physically, but you’d have to ask her about that. I felt a bit bigger, for sure, but it might have been psychological or just my imagination. Who knows?

Amy was a small girl. She was three months younger than me and twelve inches shorter in bare feet. I was six one and she was five one. She weighed about half of what I did, coming in at around a hundred pounds. She was more than beautiful, shaped like a little hourglass, with fiery red hair, a tanned complexion, as odd as that is, and just as cute as a button with her little pixie nose and cute lips. Her breasts were large for her form, her butt a perfect pair of bubbles, and was more than half legs. Her green eyes rounded out her features and were most notable. They were bright, and in a certain mood she could use them to pierce your soul. I left her alone at a party once, just for a couple of minutes mind you, but a slug tried to talk her up when he saw me walk away. As soon as I returned, she used those eyes, and that mood, on me. I haven’t left her unattended at a party since. She’s walked away from me to speak to a friend or something, but never the other way around. That look is not comfortable for the target of her ire.

We made some plans, and she gave her notice, but she agreed to spend the next month visiting her accounts with her replacement. That next weekend she told me he wouldn’t last half a year. She said he was stoic and all business. Not at all outgoing or flirtatious, so in other words ‘a failure on her route’. She admitted that most of her sales and business were gained by her outgoing personality, flirty and friendly behavior, and knowledge of the drugs she was pushing. He didn’t have any of that. Amy’s background was in Chemistry and Pharmacology. She went to school for eight years trying to decide what she wanted to do, then didn’t do any of it. Being in sales and public relations was much less boring, she said, and as long as she was only out there to have fun, she did something fun. She felt that meant she had to deal with people. Hence, sales.

Her plan to bring Tiffy home went quicker than we thought. Amy was on the road, somewhere in the vicinity of Des Moines, the one in Iowa, not the one in Washington State, when there was a late afternoon knock on the door. I opened it.

“Hi! Ames was right. You ARE all that. I was right, too. You ARE a hunk. I’m Tiffany Van Houten. Ames’ friend. Ames’ girlfriend? Are you OK? You are Charlie Carswell, right? Hello?” She waved her hand in front of me.

“Yes. Yes. Certainly. I’m Charlie. Come in. I didn’t expect... I never… I didn’t…”

“Relax, Charlie. We’re all gonna be friends here, right?” I nodded. “Relax. What about me weren’t you quite prepared for?”

“All of you. Not many women are smaller than my Amy, and even if only an inch or so, you are, yet you are so damned gorgeous. Jesus, Tiffy… Can I call you Tiffy?”

“You’d better, else I’ll have to call you Charles, and that would be a bit stuffy, wouldn’t it?”

“Tiffy, you’re a doll. How can you possibly be…” She interrupted me.

“A Tirl? T-girl? Half girl? Call it what you want. I don’t know. My mother was Miss California back in the day, and my father was a soap actor. I have good genes, I guess. I know Amy had a hard time letting go of my hand when we met, over breakfast no less, and I knew then, I just had to get to know her. She’s special, that one.”

“I know. I finally worked up the courage to ask her to marry me. I was afraid, needlessly I might add, that she’d say ‘no’. She was afraid I wouldn’t ask. We’re a mess, aren’t we?”

“Yes. A good mess. She told me all about it. Up until then, all I heard about was you, the two of you, and how cute my weenie was. In any case, I’m here.”

“I’m not going to jail if I invite you in, am I?”

“Not for being around me. I’m eighteen. Almost nineteen. Old enough to leave the People’s Republic of Californication on my own.”

“Jeez, honey, you’d pass for fifteen, or even less, if you wanted to. You are…”

“Stop already and either invite me in or tell me to bail out and go back from whence I came.”

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry. In. In, please. Come in. I didn’t mean to make you feel unwelcome. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, Charlie. I feel welcome, and a lot prettier than I did ten minutes ago, trust me. So, if this works out, I get to tag along, I take it?”

“I hope so. I want Amelia in my life, and it sounds like you two are a package deal now. How long have you known Amy, Tiffy?”

“Only a few months, actually. We met at a little diner downtown near the medical center. I went in for breakfast and bumped into her, literally. She was in line waiting to be seated. We chatted a bit, and she asked if I minded if we were seated together. I had absolutely no thought of, ‘Sure, it won’t take as long to get a seat.’ My only thought was, ‘Yes, that would be nice, thank you. I think you’re special. I want to get to know you better.’ Tiffy ain’t all that bright. I said all that out loud.” Tiffany giggled at the story she was telling me. “That must’ve cemented whatever the gods had in mind, because we sparked and started a relationship right there at the table. She’s incredible. To me, anyway.”

“Me, too. Looks like we have a lot in common that way.”

Her smile was captivating. She really was a gorgeous creature. Blonde hair, bright blue eyes, curves in all the right places, and her smile… I already mentioned that didn’t I? It was worth repeating. She was a doll. Amy was right.

“Well, Amy said it was all right with you for me to stay here with you all. Can you show me to someplace I can freshen up, then we can chat some more?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure. Sorry. Again.” I showed her to the guest room, with me packing her two suitcases following her down the hallway. That was a nice view, too. She was wearing a pair of pastel blue short shorts, obviously more spandex than cotton, but enough of both to wrap her cute little butt up like a gift from the goddesses. Her tight little T-top molded to every bit of her, showing her little, tiny waist and how it flared out to her bottom. Her legs, tanned and toned, were just like the rest of her. Exquisite. I noticed she was wearing these darling little high heeled sandals. They were strappy stilettos making her look even slimmer. A walking wet dream for a guy who likes his girls small and pretty. Boy, did I luck out with this set up.

After her ‘freshen up’ break, she came out to the kitchen and looking out the sliding glass doors, seeing the pool, asked if she could go swimming. We weren’t expecting Amy for a couple of days, so she’d need something to keep herself busy.

“Of course, Tiffy. Please. You need to consider this your home. Seriously. Anything. Anytime. I’ll show you around, but if you want to just rifle through everything and find your way, or ask, that will be fine. You are Amy’s, if you don’t mind me saying that, so, you are home. OK?”

“No problem with saying that, or thinking that, by the way. I consider myself hers. Not much doubt about it. I’m not the most controlling, self-assured person in the world, you know.”

“You seem to be doing all right from where I sit. I didn’t mean to qualify a status or anything, just an alignment, if you will. I didn’t mean to offend.”

“Stop. No offense taken. Not at all. Charlie, I’m a bit… A little… I’m kind of…” I interrupted her at that point, thinking I knew what she was trying to tell me.

“Submissive, Tiffy? I think that may be the word you’re looking for. Are you? Are you a bit submissive?” She nodded, gently, afraid of what she may have seen on my face when she did so.

“No problem. I’m a bit domineering. We’ll get along fine. Do understand, though, I said ‘a bit’. I can be there for you, just like I am for Amy. I won’t, however, do anything to hurt you, ever. Ask her.”

“I already did, Charlie. She said you’d be careful with me. As much as I want you to be, anyway.”

We smiled at each other when she said it. I grinned. She blushed. She was cuter than a kitten.

“Amy, do you have a suit? I can try to find one of Amy’s if you need me to.”

“No need, Charlie. I have one in my things. I’ll be right back.” She left the room only to return a couple of minutes later in a marvelous set of small of patches tied together with thin string. At least that’s the way it seemed at first. It was a triangle bikini, but there wasn’t much to it. Her breasts extended beyond the sides of the top triangles, full and round, and the lower triangle did nothing to indicate she had anything in it. I would have guessed it was tucked back a bit.

“Very attractive young lady there, Tiffy. May I ask?”

“About my clittie? My boobs? I was blessed, Charlie. I have almost none of the former and a nice amount of the latter. I was in a program as a child. They were experimenting with some hormones and such on kids born after The Accident. When I was fourteen, I had a minimization procedure done on my clittie, and my tits are all natural. One hundred percent hormones and body acceptance. No surgery at all. My clittie, not so much. They minimized it to where it’s exactly what I want. A big clit with all the feeling and none of the baggage.”

“Gorgeous. Come on, let’s swim, before I start to drool all over you.” She giggled, and once again blushed a bright red. I ran into my room, grabbed a speedo, stripped, got it on, tucked my not quite soft pecker off to the side and ran outside to the pool with a couple of towels. She was already in the water, with her hair up in a loose bun. If anyone had told me, genetic alterations caused by The Accident or not, that she was born with any male particles in her body, I would have thought them a liar. There was no male in that woman. At all. None.

Since The Accident, there were considered to be five different chromosome matches to dictate sex outcome of a child, or gender if you prefer the term. XX, we know to create a female, adding some hefty man juice to get an XY gives us a male, and there were still the XYY that happens very rarely, creating an intersex anomaly, then things get flaky. Since the genetic disturbances of The Accident were caused, there is now an XYX, which gives you a Hermie, and an XXY which creates an embryo that matures into a Tirl, or a very effeminate sterile boy with the potential to become a very fine, yet still completely sterile, woman if they don’t just decide to stay sissy. They never become a man, and when psychologically or physically forced into trying to do so, and if the law doesn’t step in, they generally perish, usually by their own hand due to their lack of ability to control the depression involved with the turmoil.

Tiffy was surely an XXY, but by her own admission had a little help when she was younger. I was eager to find out all about it, but I wasn’t quite rude enough to pursue it. Things happen in their own time.

As I descended the steps into the pool, about five feet from where she was standing, I looked into her eyes. They were NOT looking into mine. They were staring at my midsection. She smiled, let her tongue breach her lips in a gesture of some type, to herself, I’m sure, not to me, then looked up at my face.

“Nice to know I can do that. Oh, shit. That was presumptuous, wasn’t it? Sorry.”

“You did it. Don’t apologize. You’re a beautiful girl, Tiffy. That happens when I see a beautiful girl, a half or more naked beautiful girl, and my eyes follow her out to the pool. You’d make a banana peel hard, woman.”

She giggled. “Thank you. Amy told me I was OK here with you, and if something happened, it happened, and not to worry about it. I’m a slut for her, and since she’s yours, I guess I could carry that out like you do, calling this my home.”

“I’m not going to do anything to frighten you or hurt you. You need to know that. If something happens between us, if you want that, or want me to want that, it’ll happen.”

“Charlie, I don’t want to be too awfully eager, but I want that. I want Amy to feel good about me being here. I want you to feel good about me being here, and I want to feel good while I’m here.” Another giggle. “Come here and let me tell you something.” She held her arms out for me. I approached her, let her wrap her arms around my neck, and kissed her. After we broke the kiss, she whispered, “She doesn’t have a lot of experience with boys, or men, especially, but Amy’s slut wants to suck your cock. You think you can get on board with that?”

I nodded, then backed away from her, pushed myself up so I was sitting on the side of the pool, legs spread a bit, reached out for her hand and pulled her over between my legs. Lying back, I lifted my ass up and pulled my speedos down, hoping none of my neighbors chose today to get stupid and look over my fence. As I sat back up, she took my dick in her mouth and all the way into her throat without stopping. She choked, gagged, then slobbered all over it.

I pulled her face back and away, my hands on her cheeks. I looked into her watering eyes and asked her, “Are you all right, sweetheart? That felt amazing, but I don’t want you to hurt yourself trying to make me happy. OK?”

She nodded. “My first real one, Charlie. I’m… I was… Up to this point, Mr. Carswell, I was a lesbian. I’ve never had a real penis in my mouth, and never anything this big. Even Amy’s little Feeldoe is only half this big.”

“You guys have sex, then?”

“Oh, hell yes. Amy’s a firecracker, but I bet you already know that, though, don’t you?” I nodded. “In any case, I’ve read about lovers doing this. The deep throat thing, but I’ve never done that. Not even with a toy. I just wanted to try it. I want to again, if you’ll let me. I’m doing it for me as much as for you, and not out of any feeling of duty to either of you. I just want to see if I can fuck a cock, your cock, with my throat.”

I nodded and watched as she started again. My head lolled back. It felt so extremely good. So active, so pulsing, so many pressures, feelings, suction, squeezing… Then she swallowed and I came down the throat that I was invading.

I reached down and took her face in my hands again, pulling her back and off my erection as I was spurting. The last one hit her cheek and ran down her jaw. I lifted her carefully up to me by her upper arms, and as her legs went over mine so she could sit, I attacked her mouth with mine. Our kiss was one of eternal lovers, not of newly acquainted friends of friends.

“Jesus Christ, Tiffany, that was wonderful. It was absolutely amazing, but I want you to be careful.” She shook her head, then pulled my face back to hers and attacked my mouth with hers. She bit my lips, licked my teeth, chewed on my tongue, and breathed heavily into my lungs. She quieted.

“No. Not careful. Safe, yes, but I needed that, and it WILL happen again. I feel empowered after that. I’ve never felt this good about sex. Never. I feel like I belong inside you. Fuck!”

She was grinding her crotch on my shrinking dick now, but it wasn’t shrinking very fast.

“Lean back, Charlie.” I did, lying on the concrete deck and letting her have her way. She pulled the strings on her suit bottom and pulled it out from between us. I was still oozing a bit of semen which she used as lubricant and began to slide her taint back and forth on my genitals, between my balls and the base of my member. The feeling was sublime. “I like this. Do you mind?” I barely had the wherewithal to shake my head. I was truly in seventh heaven. “Good. I need to come. Badly.” She pumped away.

I looked down between us and saw my erection coming back. Just above it was a small bump just below the crest of her pubic bone. Her penis had been cut almost all the way back. Fully erect, it stuck out about a half inch and was cuter than anything I’d ever seen on a human being before.

I couldn’t help it, but when I started to come again, from the sheer emotion we were sharing, I picked her up by her armpits and put her crotch on my face, taking that little nubbin into my mouth and sucking as best I could with her entire pelvis in my mouth. She came then, too, releasing into my mouth. I let it happen. Eagerly. Her trembling body in my hands, I placed her back in my lap and sat up, holding her to me, hugging to calm her.

“What the fuck?” Was all she said for about three minutes. Her breathing started to catch up with her and she calmed a bit. “Charlie, I can’t believe you did that.”

“I can. I was in the moment, and at that moment, I had to have you in my body. Like you said, only I felt like it was YOU that belonged inside of ME. Was it OK with you for me to do that?”

“Yes. You can do whatever you want with me, Charlie. Seriously. I just didn’t expect you to go out of your way to make me happy. I’ve heard men don’t do that with people like me.”

“People like you, huh? I’ll tell you what, people like you! You aren’t people like you. You are you. You are Tiffany Van Houten, Tiffy, Amy’s slut, and now Charlie’s vixen. You declared that, not me…” She interrupted me.

“Yes, I did. I’m Charlie and Amy’s slut now. Anything, Charlie. After that, I mean anything. I’ll do anything you want, short of hurting Amy. Anything. Ever had that huge assed thing in a tight little asshole before?”

I nodded.

“Well, you will again, lemme tell ya. I can’t wait, either. It’s gonna hurt so good. My very first dick, and it’s bigger than my arm.”

“When Amy gets back, OK?” She nodded. “She’ll be back in a couple of days, and I’m sure she’s gonna want to spend some time with her girl.” She nodded again. “Until then, I’m going to feed you and put a roof over your head.”

“Thank you. You’re everything she said, Charlie. All the guys my friends have told me about would have turned me over and been fucking my ass by now, if not my face again.”

“You aren’t other people and I’m not other people. We’re us. Cool?” She nodded. “Thank you for your attention and your affection, though. It was truly amazing. You are a very talented lover.”

“Damn, Charlie, it was the first time.”

“You’ve never sucked on Amy’s strapless thing?”

“Well, yeah, but that’s not real. Yours is real.”

“Yeah, I know, huh? It’s nice having a real one. It’d be weird if it wasn’t real.” I tried to keep a straight face. I failed. She bit my neck. Softly, but I felt it. “You win. I’ll quit making fun. Let’s swim a bit and then we’ll do something about dinner. We should probably call Amy and let her know you’re here, too.” I felt her head nod while lying there in the crook of my neck. Amorous. Beautiful, talented, sexy, and amorous. Jackpot.

I called to have pizza delivered. While we waited, Tiffy called Amy and let her know what was happening. All of it, including the grisly details of how she seduced me. I tried to make it sound like it was all my fault and tried to include the part about her doing it at gunpoint, but that didn’t fly. It was a great conversation, though, as no jealousy was heard, seen, or imagined, indicating our future was looking bright as could be. Amy was to be back in town in just under forty-eight hours whence we would begin plans for our upcoming wedding and the subsequent lives to be lived beyond those nuptials.

While we were on the phone, I remembered what Amy had said the night I proposed, so I made another call from my office phone, trying to make it a surprise for all concerned. Well, except Wendy, I guess. She agreed to come over and meet Tiffany then surprise Amy with an evening of conversation, culinary delights, and debauchery, as appetites for the latter would indicate and allow. Wendy did say she was in the mood for a get together, regardless of the kind, and hadn’t been with anyone since she’d spent the weekend with us. She’d just not had the time, nor the inclination. She asked if she could speak openly.

“Of course, Wendy. We’re friends here, right? At least friends, I hope.”

“That’s what I wanted to mention. That weekend was more than fun, Charlie. It was eye opening, as well as maybe… I think…” I broke in to get her to talk as she hesitated.

“Just say it, Wendy. Nothing you could say would bother either one of us. Please.”

“It may have been heart opening, too, Charlie. I’ve never had the feeling I do with you two. I haven’t seen anyone else since, because I don’t want to. I’ve been asked out a few times, but… They just don’t appeal to me since I spent the time in your arms. Yours and Amy’s, I should say.”