EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER: SADIE
Today is an important day. Dom is driving us through the city traffic as Jerome and Zach sit next to me in the back bench seat. My right hand is gripping onto theirs like they’re holding me together, and right now they are.
I’m finally tackling a task that’s long overdue.
“It’s here on the right,” I say, even though I’m sure the GPS is showing him the same thing. Dom has the voice feature turned off or the volume so low none of us can hear it. My directions are unnecessary, but I need to keep my mind active and engaged.
Because the area we’re aiming for is along one edge of the property, we’re able to park right alongside it. I’m able to make out the twin stones from where I’m sitting already. The curved tops of the granite. My breath stutters out, disappears.
“Breathe,” Jerome murmurs to me. “We’re here. We got you.”
Blinking, I do as he says, forcing myself back into my body, back into this present moment. I feel my guys next to me, the warmth of them feeding into the coldness that’s settled over me, and I know I can do this. I can face this.
Even if I’ve had the opportunity to do this before. Both Maxine and Winter offered to help me with this a long time ago. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready. Wasn’t capable of making such a monumental effort with a heart that had been thoroughly ripped apart.
Yet since then, my heart has healed. Has been healed by these three crucial individuals with me today. It’s been a long road getting here, literally and figuratively, but with them at my back, with them here to support me, I know I can be strong enough.
It’s Dom who catches my eye in the rearview. “Wanna get out?”
I nod.
Zach slides out and offers to help me down, but I wave him off. I need to do as much of this as I can on my own. Jerome appears from the other side of the Sequoia, and Dom from the driver’s side. They stay nearby.
I’m ready.
Slowly, I raise my eyes to the headstones. The granite is polished to a fine shine along the front, and although there are two separate oval monoliths, they’re connected at the bottom to create a single whole. They honestly look more united in death than they did in life. Than they did in their marriage.
But I don’t want to think about all that. Not now. Now is about celebrating their lives. The lives I once shared with them.
On the left are the engraved words of Craig Andrew and on the right Bridget Samantha Keaton with our family name of Vincent in bold along the bottom. Silk flowers sit in two bursts of color in front of each, probably something Maxine arranged. The flowers are high-end, expensive, and so well formed that from a distance they look real. It’s only as I stand over them that I can tell that they’re not.
My guys stay back because even with them here, I need to do this part alone.
“Mom,” I begin with her. It feels like the best way to go. “You were a difficult person sometimes, but you taught me so many valuable lessons about tenacity. About resilience. About giving a goal hell until you achieved it. I certainly never wished you gone. And I know in your own way, you loved me. Thank you for that. Thank you for my life.”
My vision has blurred, and it’s only then that I recognize how full of unshed tears my eyes have become. One blink has them rolling free. Then, as I face my dad, the tears flow faster.
“Dad...” But I break off. This is so hard. Because as imperfect as I am, as imperfect as each of my parents were, I always felt closer to my father than my mother. That’s just how it was. There’s a crunch of dried winter grass under someone’s foot behind me, but I shake my head. I’m all right. “You might’ve had a big ego, but you knew how to show me you cared. And you did, again and again. Thank you for that. For loving me. For also giving me life.”
I twist in place to take the wreath we special ordered from the local florists. It’s covered in tiger lilies, stargazer lilies, and easter lilies, yet the last flower species was the most difficult to procure. I had to have them, though. Despite lotuses or water lilies not being traditional in wreaths, I wanted them included because of what they symbolize.
And what they symbolize is resurrection.
I place it right in the center of their headstone. I’ve never been overly religious. None of my family members were. Yet not only do I want to believe that my parents will have a peaceful afterlife, I also have experienced my own resurrection over this past year.
I’ve come back to life.
When my sobs overwhelm me and I fall on my knees to the ground, it’s not only grief that I’m feeling. A lot of it is joy and gratitude for the journey I’ve taken. For the journey I’m still on.
And as my guys surround me, huddling around as my personal support system, I smile.
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IT’S SEVERAL DAYS LATERthat I sit at my laptop editing and revising this upcoming contract. Or rather, the end of it. After a year of being united as closely as we have been, when we sat down to discuss it together, we decided our relationship no longer needs the formality of legalese. We’re solid without it.
Regardless, I shift wretchedly in my seat leaning this way and that. I’m uncomfortable for a good cause, though. I’m wearing a plug in a very distinct region of my anatomy, and my backside is protesting. It’s making it hard to concentrate, but after taking a breath, I refocus. I’ve been training myself to cope because I know it’ll be worth it.
Besides, I’m the one who requested this of my guys.
My men.
While the formal contract is about to expire, one thing that won’t are the funds I’ve set up to be directly deposited into various accounts. There’s one designated for the Serenity Adult Care Home, one for the healthcare expenses of Heidi Neihaus, and one for the counseling of Malcolm Oakley as he attempts to quit drinking.
Financially supporting the loved ones of those I love is the least I can do.
Not that the guys aren’t contributing, as well. With the payments I’ve made to them, they’ve each pursued their own interests. Dom is using his carpentry skills to design wood furniture, something he’s discovered himself to have a remarkable talent in. And I’m delighted to see each new piece he comes up with.
Jerome has become a director of one of the theaters here in the city, and no, nothing about these plays are X-rated. All his experience in front of the camera, even if it was for a very specific kind of film, gave him the rudimentary background he needed to handle live plays. He does a great job, and more importantly, he’s enjoying it.
Zach, too, is utilizing his past strengths.
Like his parents, he’s teaching, and now conducts pole dancing classes at one of the local rec centers five days a week. The fascinating thing is that he instructs various age groups—all adults—and one of them is for those sixty-five and older. It’s his favorite because they’re so willing to try anything he shows them. As always, Zach’s main focus is having fun, something I hope he never changes.
I’m so proud of them all.
We’ve each met each other’s nearest and dearest now, too.
Paisley is a bundle of joy, and Dom is different with her than with anyone else. Watching him sign to his sister and laugh with her is a perfect example of what unconditional love should look like.
After struggling for the last several years, Heidi—Zach’s mom—at last went into remission three months ago. She still has some trouble getting around at times, but her condition has stabilized for now. It’s all her son and husband could’ve asked for.
Malcolm is so much like his son that meeting him made me understand Jerome better. He has the same mannerisms, the same Zen-like demeanor, even a similar tone of voice. It’s uncanny.
Because I’ve bonded so closely with Dom, Jerome, and Zach, I now have a much larger extended family, and it’s wonderful. Even if many of these family members think the four of us are nothing but roommates.
But you can’t have everything.
Overall, this first year has gone exceptionally well. We’ve even taken a trip back to the chalet where Zach and I indulged in a bit of one-on-one at the waterfall this past July. I owed it to him.
Later, maybe we’ll return there as a foursome.
One thing we’ve been working toward is increased intimacy, and not just emotional intimacy—although we’ve been working on that just as much—but the physical kind.
It’s been my fantasy for quite a while to take the three of them in a specialized way we haven’t tried before, and it’s proven to be a challenge.
Yet we think we’ve figured it out.
Tonight is our trial run.
I beam at Zach as he twists and turns around his pole, demonstrating his athleticism and grace. He’s taught me how to swirl around that pole, too, and I’m thrilled at the fitness it’s provided me, toning my body more than ever before.
I admire him as he swings from a back arch to a back bend, switching into a carousel spin that increases his speed. After that, he touches down on the floor and finishes with a big fan kick—one leg extending out in an arc followed by the other—that displays how far he can stretch the length of his legs. Observing him doing this is like experiencing art in motion.
But it’s the fact that Dom and Jerome have also learned how to dance on their individual poles that has me so keen for what’s about to transpire. Because we’ve all been practicing, and this’ll be our grand opening show, even if we won’t have an audience.
I watch as the guys warm up by doing various spins and shoulder mounts. Once their blood is pumping, I join Zach by spinning close to the ground. I can accomplish some of these moves even though I have more limitations than anyone else. But since they’ll be the ones supporting me, my focus has mostly been my dexterity.
That and how to hang on.
Stark naked, we take our final places, Zach climbing further up his pole. Frankly, despite all our planning, this might not be feasible. But we’re going to make the attempt, anyway. What’s life without thinking outside the box?
Besides, my end goal is simple. Sex in midair.
When the moment of truth comes, Jerome and Dom climb off their poles to prepare me, Jerome revving me up with the steamiest of kisses while Dom works lube into my backside. Ever so slowly, these two raise me up so that Zach can insert himself behind me. The head of him is so thick, I still grunt and groan as he slides deeper and deeper inside my ass.
Still, I keep my arm securely up and behind my head around Zach’s shoulders.
“You okay, Sadie?” Jerome asks, ever protective, so I communicate my answer with my eyes as much as my mouth.
“Yeah. Absolutely.”
Once Zach is fully seated at my back, I close my eyes. Even with the plug broadening me out, the fit is still so tight as to push me right up to my limits. But I’m holding my own. Now for the next piece of the puzzle.
Or two pieces.
Dom goes next, moving into the V of my open legs. He nudges my uninjured right one straight up against my torso, kneading into those taut muscles underneath. I breathe out as my hamstrings get used to this position—one I’ve been working to attain—and once I indicate that I’m ready, he pushes forward.
His precum allows his cock to glide effortlessly into my core, and the full sensation increases. But it’s when Jerome slips his shaft in alongside Dom’s—which is what I’ve expressly requested—that I have to pant like a woman in labor.
Having them inside me all at once is overwhelming and intense and exactly what I’ve been yearning for.
In flawless synchronicity, they pull out a couple of inches, then still together, plunge back in.
“Uunnngn... Goddamn, that’s good,” I whimper, and the exquisiteness of being so closely entwined with all of them is beyond description.
They continue, and it really is like a dance, an expression of sensual choreography as our scents and breaths meet and mingle right along with our flesh.
“Chrissakes,” Dom grunts out. “You sure this isn’t too much for you?”
“I’m sure,” I reassure him. Reassure all of them.
From there on, it becomes all about the in and out. The thrusts and retreats. Because we’re up against each other so firmly, we’re literally moving as a single entity, and it’s the most erotic experience ever.
Dom and Jerome are each visibly perspiring now, the stress of restraining their releases while lifting me, holding me so that I line up with Zach evident in their scrunched-up brows and the flat lines of their mouths. So, I kiss each one in turn. And for whatever reason, this kissing proves to be the tipping point.
Jerome drops one of his hands down to my clit at the same time that Dom shifts his to squeeze my left nipple and euphoria rises like a tide inside me, swamping me with pleasure.
“Uh, yes. Yes, yes, yes.”
After coming down from that orgasm—the most powerful one I’ve had thus far—I make my request to them, anxious to see how they’ll respond.
“Will you guys come for me?” I ask.
“Of course,” Jerome says.
“Tell me when,” Zach murmurs into my ear.
Dom simply grunts.
“But I want it to be all at once and at my command. Think you can do that?”
Everyone stills before returning to the rhythm we’ve created.
“We can try,” Zach announces from his spot on the poll, his breath fanning across the back of my neck. One of his hands and his left leg is entwined with it while his other arm is belted around me.
A chin jut from Dom and a nod from Jerome informs me they’re onboard.
“Ready?” I ask them. “On three. One.” Thrust-retreat-thrust. “Two.” Thrust-retreat-thrust. “Three. Now come... Come for me.”
Their muscles lock up with that last move, and I’m delighted to feel not only three men’s erections throbbing within me but to feel the overflow from their climaxes dripping down my ass and thighs. My feet have been off the ground all along, and as they’re pulsing I go off again, this second orgasm milking each of them dry.
There’s gasping, moaning, panting, mewling. That last one is just me. But it’s exactly what I wanted, exactly what I needed.
“God, I love you,” I swear to them, meaning it with everything in me. And as they swear the same declaration back, I’m thankful every day for the road—bumpy as it was—that brought us together.