This is the last part of a series that starts with Monogamish--The Courtship. I hope you will enjoy it. As always, I aspire to make my stories merely plausibly ridiculous, or maybe ridiculously plausible. Either way, this whole, crazy, unworkable tale ain't real life, so please don't lecture me on realism. I just hope that, given these two highly-improbable characters, you will feel like the ride has made some semblance of sense.
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MONOGAMISH -- Oh Boy, Those Girls
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Buying the new house had been a mistake. Not for now, of course. At the moment, it was perfect for the whole family. It was huge. I had an awesome man-cave/bar in the basement. I had years ago gotten bored with the laser engraver, but Amy had taken up the Maker hobby with a passion and had a large workshop for her new, much better laser, and her 3d printers. It was expensive equipment, and used expensive materials, but she made just the coolest shit. The boys had great rooms, and the huge recreation room was filled with games, electronic and physical alike. Amy and I had taught the boys well on the board game front. The house was always full, whether with friends of ours, or more often, with friends of the boys. And their friends' friends or families.
It was idyllic, even with J.R. living at college, he was only an hour's drive away. Mikey, oops, Micheal was a senior in high school.
But I could feel the impending doom of them both leaving the nest. It would not be long before Mikey headed off to college as well, probably farther from home than his brother, and then Amy and I would be left with a mausoleum of a house with a huge tax bill and hours of maintenance every week.
See? Mistake. Amy knew it too.
We had no regrets. We lived in the moment in that beautiful place.
*
As Mikey's senior year ran its course, Amy settled into bed with me late on a Friday night.
"We need to have a talk with the boys," she said. "The Talk."
"We have given them The Talk many times," I said curiously.
"The Lifestyle Talk," she said. "Not the nuts and bolts talks. We need to make sure they are thinking about how they are going to structure their relationships with girls, now and in the future, too--how monogamous or otherwise they want to be, and when they could be ready for what part of that. We've gone over all the safety and planning things about sex with them, they don't need us for any more details there, right? But I think we need to give them more guidance about how to navigate the transition from childhood to permanent relationships, and the fun that can be had in between. And what a permanent relationship means."
"You aren't suggesting we tell them all
our
history, are you?" I asked incredulously. "Talk to them about being full-on monogamish?"
"Fuck no!" Amy laughed. "We are weird, and probably unique. If they want to follow some or all of what we were like when we were that young, or what we do now, they can make that decision all by themselves,
without our example
. And I am pretty sure telling them our life stories would ick them both to death anyway!"
"Okay. And this talk is not a bad idea. But why now, all of a sudden?"
"Come on," Amy said. "Aren't you as sure as I am that Mikey..."
"Michael."
"...that Michael just lost his virginity this evening? The furtive yet festive way he tried to come into the house?" Amy asked seriously.
I shrugged. "I was going to probe some on that subject this weekend," I said, "because, yeah, it did seem that way. Not like we weren't looking for it. It was at the very least his first blowjob."
"I'm pretty sure that came a few months back, maybe even on his birthday--from the redhead."
"Did her parents seriously name that poor girl Ginger?" I asked, still unable to get my mind around that naming choice. We both laughed. "And yeah, you're right. She definitely gobbled his knob. I was always surprised they never sealed the deal."
"Michael could have before now," Amy speculated, "but he keeps moving on. He's more like you and me, I think. He wants very broad horizons." I nodded. J.R. was almost serially monogamous in comparison. But J.R. was not as stupidly handsome as Michael was becoming.
"Great," I said, turning out the lights.
"What?" Amy asked, snuggling in next to me. We had already exhausted our sexual needs earlier, while Michael had still been out, apparently getting laid for the first time.
"Now I am going to have to lie awake all night, figuring out how we do this," I groaned.
"If you come up with the answer, tell me right away, whatever the time," Amy sighed. "I'll probably be lying awake too..."
*
We finally sprung The Talk on both boys together, and each had objected strenuously as the subject of our diner conversation had become clear to them. J.R. had stayed away from the house for a week after, in mortified embarrassment. Mikey... Michael, sorry, had to still live with us.
But after that talk, they both seemed to take what we had said to heart, and we saw signs in both of them of their behavior shifting slightly. At least it seemed that each was being more mindful in the way they interacted with girls.
J.R. got more serious about his current girlfriend. Amy was not sure she liked that, as she did not like the girl that much, and was sure it was just going to make his eventual heartbreak worse. I was sure the girl would dump him too, possibly after already starting up with some other guy or guys without telling him. She seemed a bit of a tramp. But... well, she was hot as hell, and J.R. seemed to be getting his for all he was worth in the meantime, which counted for something.
Mikey... Mikey was going to take after his parents, that was for sure. He wasn't there yet, but he was getting there. And the secret to his social success, incredibly, seemed to be Mathletes. He had a tight group of friends on his Math team at school. One of them was the girl who he seemed to have lost his virginity to. Their ardor for each other had cooled since that night, but they somehow remained friends, which I thought boded well for his chances of living a life in college like I had.
But it all meant he kept meeting a lot of kids, a lot of girls, at other high schools. Math team is not the refuge of helpless nerds and geeky dudes it was in my day. The modern college admissions fiasco makes things like Mathletics actually highly desirable. And a lot more girls are now into the STEM fields that math skills make good use of.