Chpater 9

Richard – Nineteen Weeks

James stretches out on a lounger close by, a tall glass and a taller jug of something colourful, floating with ice and fruit, on a side table. The beating sun might fry some of us, but his semi-Mediterranean skin seems able to handle it as he bakes to golden rather than red.

The hat over his face suggests he is dozing in the heat, but a swaying hand shifts with soft music rippling over the terrace, tapping fingers saying he is awake.

Charlotte sits on the pool edge, a light robe protecting her from the sun, dangling her feet in the water. The filmy fabric, a shade of green that complements her eyes and her pale skin, flutters in the lightest of breezes. She watches from under a floppy, broad-brimmed hat as Michael and Elizabeth frolic in the pool.

I sit down beside her, dabbling my feet too. It’s pleasant under the hot sun; heated skin in the coolth of the water.

“How are you now, Charlotte? Enjoying yourself? Looking forward to the great event?” I nod down to the slight swelling of her belly where it protrudes from the filmy wrap.

Charlotte gives me a 'Princess Di' smile, looking at me from under her lashes. It's an unusual expression for her; much more something I would expect to see from my Elizabeth. Charlotte normally looks you in the eye. She may be a sub for James, but for the rest of humanity, you have to take her on her own terms.

“I'm fine.”

Fine?

It's a word the entire male sex should be wary of.

Is she upset about something?

Have I upset her somehow?

Elizabeth's position as Michael's ‘second wife' is settling in. The pair seem entirely relaxed with each other and both James and Charlotte seem comfortable with that.

My own position in the group is a little more ambiguous.

What am I in this?

The ‘Five-Some’. This Quintet.

Or is it a Four-Some plus me?

Am I simply James' occasional sidekick?

Is Charlotte worrying about my coming close to her?

For that matter, is James?

I dart a look to my lounging friend, but his fingers still tap the beat to sixties’ pop: the Monkees believe their daydreams and James taps on.

Perhaps I should have thought things through more thoroughly before I offered Elizabeth to Michael, but his depression after Ben’s death… Ben’s execution… by Klempner… seemed to make the suggestion and the timing perfectly sensible.

I watch the pair in the water. We’re private here, so none of us bothers with costumes for swimming, and it’s clear that the games the pair are playing not just about romping in the sunshine. He’s moving ever closer to her and she’s encouraging him, yelling and splashing water.

Elizabeth bursts out laughing, and Michael is on her. Whatever he's doing under the surface, she likes it.

As Charlotte and I watch, he's steering her to the edge, wrapping her fingers around the sidebar, then murmuring something soft close by her face.

Elizabeth’s eyes widen, flicking to me, but I simply smile as she steadies herself against the pool wall, shoulders supported and allowing the rest of her body to float. Michael moves closer, running hands over her, thighs, breasts, the curve of her swelling stomach.

Charlotte leaning back on her hands, smiles too, from under her hat.

Yes, she’s perfectly happy with them…

What then?

Charlotte, a few weeks further into her pregnancy, is somewhat larger than Elizabeth, not that it's obvious under the loose sun-robe.

“How are you feeling now? Still getting the nausea at all?”

“No, that's gone now.” She smiles, but the smile is wistful. “I've not felt any sickness for at least a month now.”

So, something else is upsetting you?

Is it me?

Take the bull by the horns.

“Charlotte, is something bothering you? Is it me? Have I done something to annoy you?”

Her glance jolts my way. “Oh, no. No, not at all. It’s great having you…” She stumbles on her words, then sweeps a look by James, then Michael. “… having you as part of us.”

And now she smiles properly at me, with that alike-but-not-alike smile that I know from my own Elizabeth, but which in Charlotte, is uniquely hers.

From the pool, Elizabeth squeals.

Inside, I grow warm. I take her hand, kiss the fingers. “Something is bothering you, Charlotte. What is it? Can I help?”

She flushes. “I… I wanted to get pregnant. To have the baby…” Her gaze flashes to James, still under his hat. “It’s just… It would be nice if I could be pregnant without getting so fat.”

And I burst out laughing.

“Oh, Charlotte. You're not fat. You're the size you should be.” I pat her stomach. “And you’d better get used to the idea that you’re going to get a lot larger than this.”

“I know.” Her voice falls and she looks down at her dangling toes, swishing them through the water.

“Charlotte?”

She isn’t vain. The primping and preening so many women devote so much time to, has never been her style. Most of the time she seems perfectly content with jeans, tee-shirts and her hair in a plain ponytail.

And I have seen for myself that James’ occasional attempts to spend money on her for clothes seem to fall into some abyss.

But that's when she takes her good looks for granted…

Now...

“Charlotte, you're not worrying about your appearance, are you? Trust me, you look wonderful.”

Spots of red pinch at her cheeks. “I feel so fat and clumsy. I try to walk past things and keep bumping into them, ‘cos there's more of me than I think there is. And it’s in different places. And if I stand up for too long, I get tired. And…” Her voice rasps, “And I need to pee all the time.”

The Monkees have stopped believing and instead, Dionne Warwick is walking by, but James' hand has stopped tapping.

“Charlotte, you surely can't believe that because you’re pregnant, somehow, you're suddenly unattractive?”

She says nothing, face low, sucking at her lips.

Laying a palm on either shoulder, I twist her to face me. “Charlotte...” Her head hangs and she's gulping. “Charlotte, look at me when I speak to you.”

Her faces rises a little and I tip up her chin to help it the rest of the way.

“Sir?”

“Charlotte, you and that lovely woman over there…” I jab a finger towards the pool… “Yes, that one. The red-haired water-nymph with the handsome blond man working his way between her thighs... The pair of you are the most beautiful women I have ever known. Being pregnant is irrelevant. Men would lie at your feet if you let them.”

“Really?” Her voice has a rushy undertone.

“Yes, really. Both of you, you and Elizabeth.”

She smiles a little, sighs and looks out to sea. Gulls swoop, haunting the blue with their cries. A slight breeze ripples dancing water.

“It's a magical place this, isn't it,” she says.

“It is indeed.”

Is this a change of subject?

I'm not sure.

She looks up and down the beach. “You're very lucky, having something like this; the beach house.”

“Very little luck in it. I bought the land and built the house myself, so I had just what I wanted.”

Her mouth makes a little ‘O’ of surprise. “I'm surprised you got permission to build it here.”

I rub the side of my nose. “Being wealthy has its advantages. There was a quid pro quo, but on that basis, I got my beach house.”

Humour twitches at her lips. “What was the pro quo?”

“The mayor wanted to build an extension to the university campus in the City. After he argued me down for a while, I agreed.”

She eyes me, raising a brow.

No fooling you…

I lean in. “The truth is, I'd planned to do it anyway, as part of the City renovation project, but of course, he didn't know that.”

She bursts out laughing, then turns sober again. “It was here you know, that first summer when you let us stay here, that the three of us first really became Three: our Triad.”

“Let you stay?” Pulling on my chin, I chuckle. “In truth, it was more of a bribe to keep James on hand when I was in a tight spot.”

She arches her brows, looking over her shoulder to where James lies under his hat, quite still.

Too still.

“He never told me that.”

“Perhaps he never realised himself how much of a bribe it was.”

James doesn't move.

“Whatever the reason, it made us. The three of us.” She looks to her Master again, then to where her Lover still frolics with Elizabeth in the pool.

My gaze drifts to the blond man, currently ‘servicing’ my giggling wife.

“Enjoying that, Beth?” he says. “Want more?”

Her head lolling back, eyes squeezed closed, “Oh, God, yes.”

His hands under her hips, she’s supported by the water too. Her legs are wrapped tightly around his waist, her arms around his neck and, his face buried in the crook of her neck, Michael slow-fucks her. Elizabeth’s face, then eyes, rise to meet mine over his shoulder, her face pink with sexual heat, green eyes bright in the sunshine.

My cock twitches.

Charlotte watches them for a few moments. “We had some ups-and-downs, but we came out of that summer as our ‘Triad’.”

“And what are we now? I nod towards the pair.

Her brow creases. “How do you mean? What are we?”

“You were a Triad. Now Michael has Elizabeth. Soon both you and she will have your first child. The first offspring of our... Our what? Our family? Are we a single family now?”

She turns to me, a hand to her forehead against the sun, forehead crinkling. “Richard, what are you asking me? We've always been family. Ever since that first time you saw my birth certificate and knew that Beth and I are related.”

“So… is that how you think of me? A kind of brother in law?”

“Aaahhh...” She lets out air, staring vacantly out over the sea.

James voice rumbles from under the hat. “Richard asked you a question, Charlotte. Are you going to reply? Or do I come and school you in good manners?”

Her gaze slanting his way… “Um, yes, Master. I’ll answer.”

“Go on then.”

Her gaze turns vacant again. “No, I don’t think of you as a brother-in-law. Not now. I did at first, but not now.”

“So… now…?”

James stirs, replacing the hat with mirrored sunglasses as he sits up on his lounger, arms loosely locked around his knees and now clearly listening in.

Charlotte swings back, looking around to him. But he doesn't speak, simply tilting his head. Behind the sunglasses, it's hard to read his expression, but his lips curve.

She swings her legs from the water to lie back, stretching out on her towel. Looking to me, then to James and back to me, her eyes lock with mine. Arms stretched out over her head, she raises her knees, a little akimbo.

My cock jerks and my balls heat.

The thin wrap hides nothing: the convex mound of her belly, the rise of her breasts - always large but now, with her advancing pregnancy, even more so.

James…

Do I ask his permission?

He watches, eyes hidden behind the blue-green reflection of his lenses, but doesn’t react.

I glide my hand over her. Warm flesh, firm but yielding, and now her rising perfume: the scent of desire and sex.

From the water, Elizabeth is watching. Over Michael's shoulder her jewelled eyes follow my hand as I stroke Charlotte. Slipping a hand between her knees, I ease her a little further open. In the pool, lower down as she is, Elizabeth shifts and cranes, trying to see what I am doing, Michael becoming aware that something is happening behind him.

He turns, bringing her with him then, when he sees us, disentangles Elizabeth from his waist and neck, rolling her to float belly down in the water, hitching her hands onto the sidebar. Then scissoring in between her legs again, he re-enters her, now with both of them facing us.

“Beth…” Michael slightly disengages from her for a moment, stepping back. His voice is low but clear, intended to be heard by all. “What would you like? Tell me.” He moves in the water, to float a little over her.

Elizabeth’s eyes flick between Michael and me, then to Charlotte, to James and back again. James straightens up, his head tilting. Charlotte also sits up, her grin morphing from enthusiasm to cheek.

“I…” Elizabeth begins, then stutters to a halt.

Michael stands between her splayed legs, holding her with a hand at each knee and buried inside her, “Yes? Beth…? C’mon, talk to me. What do you want?”

“I…” She colours up. Gulps…

Shaking his head slightly, nonetheless, from his place behind her, the blond man is smiling. “Beth, if you knew nothing else about me, surely you must realise that there’s nothing you could want to ask that is going to offend me. What would you like?”

Her voice is quiet yet, somehow, carries. “I’d like to watch.”

“Okay. Sure.” He withdraws, then pulls her upright to stand in the water facing him. “Watch what?”

Her eyes dart to Charlotte, then to me and she bites her lip.

Michael’s gaze follows hers. “You want to watch Richard on Charlotte?”

She nods, slowly. “Yes... But...” And she stops, looking to James. He sits up straighter, sucking in his cheeks, lips twitching.

“Yes...”

She's still holding back...

Behind Michael’s face, the penny drops. “Me too? You want to see the three of us on Charlotte?”

Elizabeth bites at that bottom lip, eyes wide, flushed, slowly nodding.

James sweeps off his sunglasses, no smile on his lips. But nonetheless, it lurks at the corners of his eyes. “Have you considered keeping your sub in order, Richard?”

My voice bland, poker-faced, “It’s so hard to find the good ones these days.”

Michael's eyes dart between me, James and Charlotte. “Y'know, Beth, you’re breaking new ground here. We've never been in a four-way. Charlotte... How do you feel about that?”

She grins.

How many has she handled at once? When James first had her…

A lot more than three…

My groin jolts and my cock rises.

*****