New Family Rules Ch. 05

Reluctantly, Mrs. Cohen followed her daughter to the door. Meryl opened the door. Herbie, the pizza driver, had seen Meryl and Amanda nude several times before. I could see from his face that Mrs. Cohen standing there naked caught him by surprise. Mrs. Cohen handed over the money and took the pizza box. Instead of closing the door, Meryl started engaging Herbie in conversation. Meryl was standing beside her mother. I was further inside the room. Looking at Sarah and Meryl Cohen standing together naked was a lovely sight from behind. I knew that Herbie was getting a beautiful eye full from the front.

When Herbie finally tore himself away and walked back to his car, Amanda called out "Eight minutes. Not a record."

Meryl responded, "Full frontal, but nothing else."

Mrs. Cohen had a perplexed look, so Meryl explained their game with the pizza drivers. "You should have told me," Mrs. Cohen said. "I could have dropped some of the money, brushed it behind me with my foot, and turned around and bent over to pick it up."

Amanda and Meryl both laughed. "Mom, you're starting to get it," Meryl said.

After dinner, the four of us watched a little TV. Around 9:00 p.m., Mrs. Cohen stood up (she had stayed naked) and said, "I have to be in early tomorrow."

Amanda, Meryl, and I slept together every night that summer. Where we slept depended on whose house we were in at bedtime. No one minded that arrangement because all of our parents knew that, if we were not at their house, all three of us were at one of the other two.

Meryl stood up after her mother. Looking at Amanda and me, Meryl said, "Yeah. I'm pretty beat too." Meryl turned towards her mother. "Mom," she said softly, "you can sleep with us if you want to."

Sleeping with one of our parents would have been something new for us, but, if we were going to do it, Mrs. Cohen was the parent I would choose. Mrs. Cohen seemed to actually think about it for a moment. However, she just smiled and said, "Thank you, but no. That's going a bit too far."

I have to back up because we did something for July 4 that is worth telling. We were at Amanda's house in mid-June when Joan from the tennis team dropped by. She explained that her father was in the VFW, which always had a float in our town's July 4 parade. We were aware of the parade but always ignored it.

"Well," Joan said, "Dad told me that the VFW decided to 'sex up' their float this year. They want three girls on the float wearing this." Joan pulled a swimsuit out of her purse and held it up. It was an American flag design. The top was blue with some white stars. Just below the wearer's breasts, red and white vertical stripes ran down in a right-to-left curve as you looked at it.

"I told Dad that I'd do it if the two of you did," Joan said. "Then, I had an idea." Joan gave a slightly wicked smile. "I have a cousin who lives about two hours from here. He does bodypainting. He's really good."

Amanda asked, "Has he painted you?"

Joan looked shocked. "Of course not. He's my cousin. When he paints somebody, he paints their bare skin. Anyway, I was thinking that Jeff, my cousin, could probably paint the design of this suit on the two of you well enough that no one would notice. You could ride in the parade naked and no one would know. If you're up for it, that is."

Amanda looked at Meryl and grinned. There was no doubt in my mind that they were up for it. Amanda asked, "What about Harry?"

"Well," Joan replied, "it is pretty tough to paint a swimsuit onto a naked man and have it look like he's actually wearing one. I'd say that is particularly true in Harry's case. Harry, if you don't mind being clothed, they want about three guys on the float dressed up to represent some of our foreign wars."

After talking it through, we realized that Amanda and Meryl couldn't be painted one place and then taken to the parade assembly point because the bodypaint would smear or rub off. We needed an inside accomplice. That accomplice came in the form of Joan's dad, who was pretty cool and who thought what we were doing was funny, so long as his daughter wasn't naked.

The VFW planned to assemble its float at its lodge building because the parade assembly point was only a block and a half away. All of us, including Joan's cousin, showed up at the lodge early on July 4. With Joan wearing the suit, Jeff painted virtually identical replicas onto Amanda and Meryl. The only catch was that they couldn't sit down. As the other VFW guys showed up to prepare the float, I think that they all figured out that Amanda and Meryl were really naked, but they were all cool about it. At a distance, they looked dressed. However, up close, it was pretty obvious that they were naked and painted.

I was handed an old helmet, flak jacket, fatigue trousers, and a toy M-16 and told that I was representing Vietnam. I stripped off on the spot and changed into my costume. I did that in front of Amanda, Meryl, Joan, and Joan's dad. Joan apologized, "Harry, I'm sorry, but we couldn't figure away to get you on the float naked without getting into trouble."

When it came time to join the parade, we all mounted the float. In addition to Joan, Amanda, Meryl, and me, there were two young guys whom I didn't know supposedly representing Iraq and Afghanistan. They could tell that Amanda and Meryl were really naked, and were perfectly happy with that.

The parade went through our town's small business district. Our town was a pretty patriotic place, so the sidewalks on both sides of the street were jammed with people. We also had a reputation for having a good parade. None was ever more beautiful than this one, I thought.

As they confirmed later, Amanda and Meryl had a blast riding through the center of town wearing nothing but paint. I saw a few people point and gesture, but the parade went off without a hitch. Someone sent a letter to the editor of our local weekly paper, which ran a couple of weeks later, complaining about the naked girls on the VFW float. A week after that, the paper printed an emphatic, categorical, and completely false denial that there were naked women on the float from the local VFW commander.

I knew the VFW commander, who was a pretty good guy. When I asked him about his denial, he laughed and said, "Hell, Harry, we had to deny most of our best ops over in Nam. People died in those. This was just showing off some nice bare tits and pussy."

I ran into Joan again a few days after the parade. "I did it again, Harry."

"Did what?"

"I missed another opportunity to get naked in public with you guys."

"Shit, Joan, your dad would have killed at least us if you had gone nude on that float."

"Dad's bark is worse than his bite. He'd have forgiven us when he saw how much fun I was having. Damn! Once I'm off at school, I'm definitely going to find ways to go naked in public. Maybe we can all do it together when we're home next summer."

Meryl's departure for college came much more quickly than we wanted. It was really bittersweet because going to that university was a major accomplishment for anyone and would give Meryl a leg up for life.

Amanda and I helped Meryl pack the night before she and Sarah were to leave on the drive to New Haven. When we were done, we all sat crossed-legged on Meryl's bed. Meryl said, "This is odd. I feel excited to start a new part of my life, but I'm really sad to be leaving you guys." She started to tear up a little. "Promise me one thing: whatever you two do and wherever you go, you two will always stay together."

Amanda and I had never talked about the real long term future for our relationship. My mood improved greatly when I heard Amanda say, "Meryl, I'm never letting go of him. We'll still be banging each other when we have to do it with walkers. I'm not predicting the future, but I have a feeling that you won't be too far away."

We went to bed. Meryl and I made love, that's what it was, very slowly for a long time that night.

The next morning, we helped Sarah and Meryl load their car. Sarah was going to visit relatives in Syracuse for a few days after taking Meryl to school. Amanda and I had volunteered to housesit, watering plants and feeding the cat, while she was gone. Meryl hugged Amanda and then hugged me. Then she got into the car and was gone.

Amanda and I went back into the Cohen house to check on the cat. "Meryl will be fine," Amanda said.

"One thing that I've wanted to ask," I started, "is how it worked out that we had a three-way relationship and everyone was ok with it? I understand why it worked for me. I got to spend time with, and make love to, the two greatest women alive."

Amanda sat down. "Like most great things, it took work, Harry. I worked hard to persuade Meryl into the relationship. Don't get me wrong. She was very strongly attracted to you. She had figured out that she intimidated you some, so she was going to make the opening when school started last fall. When you and I hooked up last summer that screwed Meryl's plans."

"I suspected that Meryl was into you. However, she wasn't going to do anything because she didn't want to hurt me. This is a little tough to explain, but, I wanted you, I still do by the way. I wanted sex to be a part of our relationship. But Meryl is, along with Gwen, my dearest friend. I didn't want to spend our last year all together with a major part of your and my life together walled off from Meryl. It took me a long time to convince her that I really wanted her to be a complete part of our relationship. I'm sorry that I didn't convince her earlier. These last few months worked out exactly like I wanted them to. It was great wasn't it?"

"Yes dear, it was very great."

Amanda looked into my eyes. "Harry, you don't have to be afraid to say that you love Meryl. I love her too. Loving Meryl isn't at all a rejection of me. She has been a huge part of my life. By taking her into your life, you are just sharing something else that I hold dear." Yes, I did love Meryl. However, I really loved Amanda and the longer I knew her the stronger that became.

That night, we were lying naked in Meryl's bed. Amanda was messing around with her Ipad. "Oh, remember Monica from Florida?"

"The number one singles for HGA? Good player, good personality, lovely face, no body?"

"Well, I'm not so sure that she doesn't have a body, but that's the girl. She had e-mailed me a couple of days ago. I didn't mention it because we were so wrapped up in Meryl leaving. She had wanted to know whether I had any connection to W. Turner Construction, Inc. I e-mailed her back that it's my Dad's company. Look what she just sent."

Amanda handed me her Ipad. The e-mail was open. "Then it is your Dad and some others who are coming here next week to finalize the contract to build something for my Dad's company. Dad says they'll be in meetings from Tuesday through Friday. If you, and hopefully your friends, can come down too, I'll take you to the resort and we can have some naked time."

"When does Sarah get back?" I asked.

Amanda was smiling. "Sunday. Want to go?"

"Amanda, with you I'd go to Syria."

"Let me call Dad and see if it will work."

I could hear Amanda's half of the conversation with her father. I figured that we were going when she ended the conversation with "Great! Thank you so much."

Amanda turned to me. "We're leaving Tuesday morning and coming back Saturday morning. Dad decided to rent a private jet so we'll be leaving from Wright Field instead of the big airport. Dad is going along with four of his executives. Dad is fine if we fly down with them and stay with Monica. He just said that he'd be very busy and we shouldn't be offended if he doesn't have any time for us."

I smiled. "With all due respect to your father, I'd much rather spend time with you than him. Let me call my folks and clear it. There shouldn't be any problem." I called. There was no problem. We were off for a nude vacation in Florida the following Tuesday.

Amanda and I made love that night in Meryl's bed several times. We both knew that Meryl would approve.