My Best Beta Life #2
My mom married a great man when Derrick and I were eight.
Our stepfather’s also a beta from a majority-beta family—in his case creole up from the Louisianas.
Over the subsequent years, she popped out four more babies, who will probably also prove to be betas; though they range in age from twelve to sixteen, and thus haven’t reached their presentation years.
Instead of comparing me to my father, why couldn’t she say I’m like her?
After all, both Derrick and I look as much or more like her.
We got our height from our father—meaning we’re both average beta height for men—and some of our features.
Our deep black hair with a slight wave could’ve come from either or both.
While Dad keeps his now-silver hair short, Derrick and I—like Mom—prefer to let ours grow long, down to our waists.
I generally braid it in a single, thick plait.
Still, our coloration and body types come from Mom.
We have the same tawny skin with ochre undertones and deep brown eyes.
She also passed down her curves to us; I got the generous breasts and grabbable hips, while Derrick ended up with her shoulders and beautiful, bitable, bubble butt—according to all my high school friends, and college friends, and half the other teachers in the school, since we teach at the same elementary school.
Doesn’t matter how many times I tell my friends that they’re not allowed to salivate over my brother around me, they don’t listen.
I’d love to be like Mom. Granted, I’d rather be her minus the ‘one night stand with an alpha producing twins.’ I’d prefer to skip right to finding a great beta match and having kids, while holding down a good job and being an all-around great person.
Because I’m trying. I picked my new, first-time-exclusive boyfriend because he reminded me of Papa—my stepfather is ‘Papa,’ while my biological father is ‘Dad’ to me, my twin, and all my siblings since he lives next door to them, or used to, and they think of him as a second father or favorite uncle.
My new boyfriend, Warren, is wonderful in so many ways.
He shares my dreams, working with me over detailed spreadsheets projecting our possible joined income to ensure we’re on target to support our future family.
We’re on the same page about where to live and how to raise our eventual children, and we both enjoy spending most evenings keeping the home fires warm, apart from occasional ventures to galleries and concerts.
True, Warren’s got some weird ideas about beta chivalry. He pulls chairs out for me at restaurants, no matter how often I assure him I’m capable of doing that myself—and, in truth, he never settles me quite right at the table, so I always have to adjust my seat after he’s pushed me in.
On the plus side, he thinks it’s sexy when I boss him around in bed to make sure that we both have a good time.
This happens because, despite knowing what I need to get full measure of pleasure, he sometimes gets so caught up in coming himself that he goes right from kissing to fucking without sufficient time spent on other critical body parts.
It’s simpler if I take control and tell him what to do.
That way, we both enjoy the ride and the destination.
We’re on the same track, heading for the kind of life I’ve always wanted, with kids nipping at my heels. Come summer, when my lease is up, we’re looking at moving in together, and, maybe next winter, trying for a baby.
Granted, we’re not living together yet, and therefore, not sleeping together as often as I’d like, but I know my body well enough to stay satisfied, even though I miss cuddling up with someone afterward.
So, it’s all good. Wheels are turning, my goals in sight.
Except that, just around the time I decided to turn toward monogamy, picking one guy to stick with, my father, who’s had such a snoozing sex life that my twin and I can count—on only one of the four hands between us—the number of sexual partners we suspect he’s had, all of a sudden does a 180 and packs up with two other male alphas and a female beta. In his fifties!
Mind, they seem like nice people—we’ve sort-of decided to call them uncles and aunt out of respect.
This also, because both new ‘uncles’ have three grown children, so Derrick and I now have five stepsisters and a stepbrother.
If one drops the halfs and steps, and just lumps all our siblings of any kind together, that means I now have four brothers and seven sisters—and one of the new sisters is in a pack with a toddler and another on the way.
Dad’s pack got us all together—including Mom, Papa, and all my siblings—for the winter solstice celebration and then the spring equinox. All on our best behavior, still figuring out how to deal with each other.
Now, when Mom tells me I’m like my father, she nods at the pictures of him and his pack that she and I both keep on our refrigerators—and then gives a meaningful glance at any images of my boyfriend hanging around.
She’s no longer pushing the idea that I might be an alpha, but hints regularly that “some people are suited for monogamy and others need a pack, so stop pretending which you are.” This, although she likes my boyfriend.
I think. At least she’s never said anything against him, though she does ask, in a myriad of ways, if he’s enough for me.
While she’s still wrong-wrong-wrong about me being a secret alpha, I’m starting to wonder if she might not have a point about the advantages of pack life.
Wonderful as Warren is—with the above caveats—Dad seems really happy in his new pack, and equally important, so does the sole female in his pack, a beta.
It doesn’t hurt that a hot guy moved into the apartment next door a month or two ago.
Beta probably, at least I haven’t heard anything to indicate otherwise.
His appearance hits all the right buttons—not that I’ve got a type, but who wouldn’t admire a man with the lean muscles and grace that come from regular physical labor?
He’s kind and courteous, having been caught multiple times helping more frail neighbors carry heavy items upstairs, and once rescued a kitten from a tree—appropriate enough since he’s a firefighter and emergency medical tech.
In fact, he’s October in this year’s Cleaveland Emergency Services’ beefcake calendar, which I happen to have hanging in my kitchen.
I’ve learned all this despite avoiding him like the plague. I don’t need temptation on the other side of the thin wall between our apartments.
Then, shortly after the spring equinox holidays, he shows up on a chilly, gray morning at my school, accompanying one of my students.
“This is my Unca Jake, John Masey the third.” Nellie Camden tilts her head back with a serious expression in her dark gold-brown eyes, her peach-and-beige oval face surrounded by thick ruddy-brown curls. “Unca Jake, Ms. D. is my abso-posi favorite teacher.”
Each element of her face—down to the straight nose with a tiny uptilt at the end—has an older, masculine mirror in the man standing next to her.
They’re even dressed basically the same: gray pants, white collared shirts, and thick bright blue sweaters.
Smart move, too; that will make it easier for her to locate him in a crowd.
I’m in a blazing pink dress over paler leggings, plus big pink feather earrings that brush my shoulders, for much the same reason. Even wearing a heavy gray cardigan, there’s no missing me.
Jake smiles at me as Nellie hands over the required paperwork signed by her parents, substituting her uncle for her mother as a parent-chaperone for the trip.
I should just check him and Nellie off on the list and welcome them to the hilarity that is three third-grade classes going on a field trip in a multi-carriage off-rail tram hired for the purpose, then direct him to the teacher in charge of getting everyone on the tram and seated.
Yet I can’t resist taking a moment to stare into the overlapping circles, from light gold to deepest brown, that form his irises. Take advantage of his outstretched hand to touch his warm skin, even as another part of my brain is calculating just how many children and parents have yet to arrive.
Nor, I must admit, am I able to refrain from positioning myself so that, even as I collect another belatedly signed permission slip and welcome an unexpected additional parent-chaperone, I can watch those wonderfully broad shoulders and that facile backside walk away from me.
Maybe my mother’s right about me being better suited to pack life.
Dammit.