
THE MEASURE OF MAN

An Epic by Gil Gamesh

Chapter Sixty-Eight


As for you, Gilgamesh, fill your belly with good things; day and night, night and day, dance and be merry, feast and rejoice. Let your clothes be fresh, bathe yourself in water, cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace; for this too is the measure of man.


CAST OF CHARACTERS:
Kieran Connor Stuart, 49; Siobhan (Kelly) Stuart, 48; Alannah Niamh Stuart, 4

Kavan Kelly Stuart, 22; Kathryn (Jenssen) Stuart, 23

Brad Alan Weaver, 22; Arial Erin (Stuart) Weaver, 21

Kerry Lee Stuart, 17; Tara Wingard, 17

Stuart Andersen, 31; Joanne Andersen, 29; Paul Andersen, 9; Kieran Lee Andersen, 5 

Luke Bridges, 30; Rachael Bridges, 31; Adrianna Bridges, 8; James Connor Bridges, 5 


TELLING THE STORY

Siobhan Stuart, Kerry Stuart, Kieran Stuart

<><><>

(KERRY)

“Why, Kerry?” Kieran asked. “Why did it mean so much?”

I got up, walked around the bed, sat down on his side, and nudged him. He nudged Siobhan and they both moved to the other side so that I could get back in bed beside Kieran. Maybe they understood what I wanted. Siobhan was on her right side propped up on one arm. Kieran was in the middle, flat on his back, dick waving around over his stomach. I was on my side, close to Kieran, propped up on my left arm.

“Do you remember?” I asked, looking at Kieran. “It was like this except that I was in the middle instead of you.”

“Yeah, I remember,” he said. “I don’t want either one of you to jack me off though. When I come, I know where I want my dick to be and it’s not in anybody’s hand.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I want the same thing you do.”

I put my hand on his dick and slid it up and down a couple of times.

“Siobhan had her hand on my dick and was sort of jacking me, not really doing it, just playing with it and sliding the skin up and down real easy,” I said and looked up at her. She understood. When I took my hand off his dick, she put hers on it and started doing him the same way she’d done me. I reached over and put my hand on hers and we both did it together. Then she slid her hand down and around his balls and I kept doing it real slow.

Kieran reached down, grabbed my wrist, and held my arm still.

“You’ve got to stop, Kerry,” he said. “I’m too close to coming already.”

I stopped and wrapped my fingers around my own dick. Siobhan kept her hand on him, not moving, just holding his dick.

“Why did that mean so much to you, Kerry?” she asked.

“Because of the way both of you did it,” I said. “I’d just started high school that year and the guys would act like they didn’t jack off and would ridicule anybody who might be doing it. It just didn’t make sense to me after they way I’d been raised.”

“How did we do it?” Kieran asked. “What do you mean?”

“Well, Mom…I mean Siobhan…shit, I forget sometimes...anyway, Mom…that’s what she was then…she had her hand on my dick and was jacking me. You put your hand on hers and you both did it. When I came, I squirted on both your hands. Dad…Kieran got up and got a wash cloth and a towel and cleaned me up.”

“I enjoyed playing with you, Kerry,” Siobhan said. “Kieran did too. He talked to me for a long time after that about how proud he was of you and what sort of man you were going to be.”

“I guess it was just the dichotomy between what I heard from all the kids at school and what I was learning at home,” I said. “Puberty was kicking the shit of me about then - still is - and I wasn’t sure what to think. I’d watched Kavan do it and I knew he wasn’t ashamed to do it. I guess what you two did that night finally convinced me that I didn’t need to be ashamed of jacking off. I knew Dad was right and I couldn’t understand why all parents didn’t teach their kids what you two taught me.”

I put my hand back on Kieran’s dick, slid the skin up and down a couple of times, and then put my hand back on my own dick.

“Thanks, Dad, for teaching me,” I said. “Thanks, Mom, for loving me.”

“You’re welcome, Son,” Kieran said. “Now would you like to switch back to Kieran and Siobhan before we do anything else?”

“Yeah, but we’ve got to change positions again,” I said. “Siobhan’s got to be in the middle.”

I got up, walked around the bed again, and waited for them to get settled. They both moved so that Siobhan was in the center of the bed, on her side, and Kieran was on his side facing her. I crawled in behind her and spooned up to her.

She lifted her leg, reached down and arranged my dick so it was between her legs, up against her pussy. I waited to see if she would do me like she’d done Kieran. She did. She reached back toward my balls, her thumb on the top of my shaft, a couple of fingers underneath, and milked my dick down a couple of times. I suppose it drooled out enough to satisfy her. She rubbed it around on the head, milked me down again, rubbed, stuck her finger in her pussy, rubbed that around, and stopped.

I was about to do what I wanted to do when she did it for me. She put a couple of fingers under the head of my dick, and pressed it against her, pushed her butt back against me and wiggled around, and the head of my dick suddenly slid into her pussy. I pushed once and it slid in about halfway. I pushed a few more times but I couldn’t get it in any deeper from behind.

For the first time, I had my dick in her, where I had dreamed and fantasized and thought about putting it for years. I knew her pussy was about the same as all the others I had shoved my dick in but it was different because it was hers and I wasn’t supposed to have my dick in her and I had wanted to have it in her since I had helped Kieran make love to her when I was twelve. I lay there unmoving for a while, enjoying the feeling of half my dick being in her. When my dick insisted and my hips began to move, I tried to be as slow and easy as could. I didn’t want to be in a hurry doing it from behind. I knew the position I wanted to get her in before I came and it wasn’t from behind.

“Kieran, would you like to help me?” I asked, after a couple of minutes.

“Sure, Kerry, whattaya want me to do?”

“Siobhan likes to have her breasts sucked on while I’m making love to her. Could you do that for me?”

“Yeah, I’d like that,” he whispered.”

“I think I’ve heard those words once before, Kerry,” Siobhan whispered. “Isn’t that what Kieran said to you that night?”

“Yeah,” I managed to whisper in her hair.

“Damn, he is an elephant,” Kieran said. “Never forgets anything.”

He moved down on the bed and I suppose he had his mouth and hands on her breasts. I shut my eyes and let go of everything except what I felt with my dick slowly sliding in and out of her cunt. After a minute or so, I felt Kieran’s fingers moving around between her legs, rubbing the lips of her pussy where they encircled my dick, then moving toward her clit, back again until a couple of fingers were rubbing against the shaft of my dick, and then back toward her clit again. I knew he was getting his fingers wet with her secretions before he rubbed her clitoris.

“Be slow, both of you,” Siobhan whispered. “This is too good to stop. Don’t make me come yet.”

I slowed down until I was barely moving and I suppose Kieran did too. I didn’t want to come yet and I didn’t want her to come yet either. I wanted to be on top of her, all wrapped up in her arms and legs, when I came.

“Siobhan, is it OK if we try something?” Kieran asked. “Kerry can just keep on doing what he’s doing and I’ll see if I can help him with a tongue instead of a finger.”

“Yeah, it’s OK,” she whispered. “Just don’t stop.”

I followed his instructions and managed to keep my dick in her while we moved around. I propped up on my left arm, pulled Siobhan’s shoulder back and put her right arm around my neck, then lifted her right leg and pulled it back over my right leg. When he used the word tongue, I understood what he wanted to do. I was still on my side, behind Siobhan, and, with her arm around my neck and her leg thrown back over mine, Kieran could get his tongue to either her breasts or her pussy.

He started with her breasts and alternated between her nipples, while I slowly slid my dick back and forth in her pussy. After a few minutes, he moved down on the bed until I could see just the top of his head near her lower abdomen. He wiggled around, moved closer, and then I felt his tongue slide up the shaft of my dick. He licked up my dick a few more times and I knew he was really licking the lips of her pussy upward, around my dick, up toward her clit. It was a new position, on our sides, for eating stuffed pussy. I’d never thought of it but I liked it.

Siobhan pulled my head down toward hers and I looked into her eyes. She was looking at me with an intensity I’d never seen before. I stared into them for a minute or so, still slowly moving my dick in and out, while Kieran licked between her legs. I blinked first. She pulled my face down to hers and I found her lips with mine. Her lips were closed but every few seconds her tongue flicked out and was quickly retracted. I pushed my tongue into her mouth and coordinated what I was doing with my tongue with what I was doing with my dick. After a minute or so, she pulled back from me, her eyes shut, breathing through her mouth. My breathing was as labored as hers.

“This is just too good,” she whispered. “I’m going to come again if you two don’t stop.”

I stopped moving. I suppose Kieran heard what she said. He stopped licking. I slowly pulled my hips back, my dick slid out of her, and I positioned it between my stomach and her butt. My heart was about to pound out of my chest and I could hardly catch my breath. I had to stop before I squirted into her from behind and I didn’t want that.

“Kieran, would you like to fill in for me for a few minutes?” I asked. That is, if you’re up to it.”

Siobhan rolled over, facing me, with Kieran pressed up against her back. He pulled her arm back and around his neck, pulled her leg back over his, and she reached down and guided his dick into her pussy, all in just a few seconds.

“Would you help him, Kerry?” she asked. “I liked what you two were doing.”

I helped him, even more than I had almost six years earlier. I slid down until my face was at her breasts and licked and sucked her strawberries while Kieran slowly fucked her from behind. After a couple of minutes, she put her hand on the top of my head, pushed me down, and I slid down until my face was between her legs. I squirmed around until I could get my mouth to her pussy and then started licking while Kieran kept slowly fucking her.

“This is so fucking good,” she whispered.

I pulled my head back and looked up. She was looking down at me. “Would you like to come?” I asked.

She nodded.

“When you do, I want to get on top of you so I can come too,” I whispered. “Is that OK?”

She nodded again.

“Is that OK with you, Kieran?” I whispered.

“Yeah, but as soon as you pull out, I’m going in,” he said. “My balls feel like they’re about to explode.”

I put my mouth back to her pussy and concentrated on the spot where her little lips came together.  I licked her nubbin, sucked on it, licked it some more, and sucked it some more, all while Kieran kept slowly sliding his dick in and out of her. She put her hands on my head and I knew what I was about to get. She started wiggling back and forth and pulling my head against her. I fastened my mouth on her clitoris and sucked it and very quickly she started moaning and pulling my hair. I kept sucking. Kieran kept fucking. She started moaning louder and pulled my head against her so tightly I couldn’t breathe.

When I thought she was finished, I moved away from her, pulled and pushed her down on her back, straddled her, kneed her legs apart, leaned over supporting myself on one arm, held my dick with one hand, and pushed it against her vulva, all in about two seconds. She lifted her legs and spread them, held my dick with both hands, and guided the head to the right spot, all in a couple of seconds more. I pushed a couple of times and my dick slid in all the way to my balls. She wrapped her legs around mine, wrapped her arms around me with one hand on my ass and the other behind my head, and pulled my face down to hers. I shut my eyes, found her mouth, and pushed my tongue in. I pulled my hips back, gave her one full-length thrust, gave her another, felt her fingernails on my ass, gave her a third long thrust, then one more, and stopped, because everything in me was gushing out of me and into her, back where I came from.

<><><>

(KIERAN)

While Kerry and Siobhan were getting in the missionary position, I reversed my position so my head was at the foot of the bed. We’d agreed we were going to watch each other making love to her and I wanted a close-up view of the action. His legs were spread a little and hers were splayed out and locked around his thighs. The light from the lamp on the chest opposite the bed was enough to see between their bodies. I got in place just in time to see her hands guide the head of his dick to her vagina. He slid his dick into her in a couple of quick pushes until his balls blocked the view and then he stopped.

We’d kidded him all his life about having a beautiful little butt and I suppose it still was. Even while he was unmoving on top of her, the muscles in it were tight and his buttocks pulled in on each side. Siobhan put one hand on his ass and I saw indentations form where her fingertips dug in.

Very quickly, Kerry pulled back until his dick was almost out of her.  I could see the underside of his shaft and the head of his dick just inside the lips to her pussy. Just as quickly, he pushed his dick back in until his balls blocked the view again. He pulled almost all the way out, shoved it back in again, and I settled down to watch him get his rhythm established. He quickly pulled back out again, pushed it back in, and froze, unmoving, with the muscles in his ass taut and hard.

I waited and watched but they were both still. His face was beside hers, buried in her hair. She had her eyes closed and there was a little bit of a smile on her lips.

I didn’t understand why he stopped thrusting. I didn’t think he’d come because I hadn’t heard him grunt or moan. I hadn’t heard Siobhan either. He was breathing hard like he’d just come but we’d been doing that for a while. I watched and waited. I saw the muscles in his ass gradually relax and his butt got rounder and softer looking. Siobhan had both hands on it and she was just holding it, not digging in with her fingertips like she does me sometimes. After a minute or so, I heard Kerry make a noise. I couldn’t tell whether it was a groan or a whinny or what. A few seconds later, he repeated it. 

“Did you come, Kerry?” I asked. 

“Yeah, but just wait a little bit,” he answered. “Then you can have your turn.”

He groaned again and then a few seconds later, I saw the muscles in his ass quickly harden and relax and Siobhan giggled.

“What the fuck are you two doing?” I asked.

“I’m showing him what Kegel exercises feel like, Kieran,” she whispered.  

Kerry groaned again, or maybe whined, and then I saw his ass tighten and she giggled again.

“She’s trying to squeeze my dick off my body, Kieran,” Kerry said. “What should I do?”

“Well, what are you doing?” I asked. “Why the fuck is she giggling?”

 “Every time I squeeze, he flexes his dick,” Siobhan answered for him. “We’re both just exercising our love muscles.”

“You mean he’s still got a hard-on?” I asked, incredulously. I suppose I was thinking from the perspective of what happened to my dick after I came. Then I remembered what it had been like when I was his age and how I would sometimes come and my dick would stay hard until I came a second time. I’d seen him flex his dick lots of times and it had to be rigid when he did it.

“Yeah, it’s still hard,” Kerry answered. “Just wait a little bit longer, Kieran. I’ll pull it out in a minute. Then you can have your turn.”

“Kieran, let him do what he wants to,” Siobhan said. “Don’t worry. I’ll let you do everything he does.”

I was ready, more than ready, to take my turn with her. But I knew he could be with her only this night and Saturday night. I could be with her for the rest of my life. I didn’t mind waiting a little longer.

Kerry probably hadn’t been on top of Siobhan for a minute before he came. Watching them coupling had been as erotic as anything I’d ever seen and I wanted to see more of them with each other. I wanted to see his dick plunging into her pussy, with the lips to her pussy grasping it so closely, knowing that they probably looked little different from Siobhan and me when we were doing it. It was eerily almost like watching myself as a younger man having sex with her. I decided to encourage him to continue. 

“Kerry, I don’t think you finished your turn,” I said. “If you’ve still got a hard-on, you’re not finished until it’s gone. Isn’t that right, Siobhan?”

She opened her eyes and looked at me and smiled. I smiled back at her and nodded.  She nodded back at me in agreement.

“He’s right, Kerry,” she said. “You don’t have to stop now. You can do what you want to. If you can do it a little big longer, I can probably come too. I’d like that.”

He didn’t say anything. I watched as his ass rose up and he pulled his dick slowly out of her until just the head was still inside the lips to her pussy and then just as slowly slid it back in her. A few seconds later, he pulled it out and slid it back in again.

“I think it’s still working,” he whispered. “I don’t think you broke it.”

That was the last thing anybody said for a while. I moved a little closer so I could see better between their legs. For a while, Kerry kept up his slow movements, pulling out until the head of his dick was almost out of her, pulling the lips to her pussy back as dick slid out, and then pushing back in until his balls blocked the view. It was something I loved to do to her and I knew she liked it too, long slow strokes with the head of my dick rubbing the lips of her pussy. 

After a couple of minutes, he caught one of her legs with his arm and pushed it back toward her shoulder, caught the other one, pushed it back, and bent her almost in half with his arms behind her knees. He brought his legs close together and I couldn’t see so I moved around to a side view. I knew he was getting ready for some serious action. Over the years, I’d done the same thing to her more times than I could count. I knew he wouldn’t stop, probably couldn’t stop, until he came. Sometimes she came with me when I did it to her in their position. I knew she’d probably want to come with him and I hoped she was able to.

Kerry’s movements gradually got faster and faster until he was slamming into her. Siobhan had both hands on his ass cheeks and I could see her fingernails dig in. I knew she was pulling him forward harder each time he shoved his seven or so inches into her. I’d had fingernail scratches on my ass more than once when we got carried away doing it this way. He gradually lowered himself on her so that his chest was against her breasts and his face was beside hers, in her hair. I knew it wouldn’t be long before he came again. I stopped stroking my dick so I wouldn’t come until I got my turn with her.

He wasn’t silent this time and neither was Siobhan. He grunted loudly each time he shoved his dick into her and she responded with an echoing grunt. She had her eyes shut and her mouth was fastened on his shoulder. I couldn’t help but smile at the way she was marking him. After a minute or so longer, his grunts suddenly turned into louder groans and he seemed to be shuddering as he thrust. 

“That’s it, Kerry,” Siobhan managed to say. “Give it to me. I’m coming with you, Baby.”

I knew he was coming again and I hoped Siobhan was too. I was so damn close to coming I was afraid I would have a hands-off orgasm, a first if it happened. I didn’t dare touch my dick. Kerry’s thrusts slowed, turned into intermittent movements, and then stopped. For a couple of minutes, neither of them moved. Kerry’s face was beside hers and I could see her lips moving as she whispered something to him. I knew he was saying something to her and I wondered what it was. 

Finally he pulled out, rolled off her, and flopped on the other side of her. She let her legs fall forward and almost come together when he moved away. She laid there, arms at her sides, legs bent, chest heaving, and eyes closed. The way she was laying there made me believe she had orgasmed with him. 

“She’s all yours, Kieran,” he whispered. “It’s your turn.”

I was ready but I had no idea what Siobhan wanted. I wanted to give her some time to recover from the pounding he had given her. She didn’t want to wait. She held out her hand to me and managed to smile.

“Come here, Kieran,” she whispered. “You must be in misery watching us. Let me love you.”

She held her open arms toward me and spread her legs wide. I glanced between them and saw that the lips to her cunt were frothed with the combination of her secretions and Kerry’s semen. I’d caused the same effect many times when I fucked her twice in a short period. The first time I ejaculated was usually deep within her, instinctively deposited at the mouth to her womb. The second time, when my dick was working away like a piston, it churned the previous load of semen into a froth that my dick brought out and smeared around.

I knew this time it was Kerry’s semen that was entangled in the red hair around her cunt. I didn’t care. It was his cream pie and I wanted to add another layer to it. I’d watched little Squirt grow into a young man taller that me. I’d always loved him. I’d always loved all of my children. I knew others would condemn us for letting him make love to Siobhan but I didn’t care. I didn’t think the love that held all of us together and made us family would be hurt by our actions. I thought it would make our love stronger. And it didn’t repel me to stick my dick into his cream pie. It made me want my turn with Siobhan even more.

As I mounted her, she enveloped me in her arms and legs and pulled me down on top of her with no attempt to guide my dick into her. It bumped somewhere, the wrong place, and I pulled back and let it come to rest on her stomach. I knew she’d let me know when she was ready or she’d put it in for me. She put one hand behind my head and pulled my face down into her wild red hair. She put the other hand on one of my buttocks and I mentally got ready to be marked with fingernails again. She locked her ankles together behind my butt, squeezed my waist with her thighs, and pulled me down onto her with her legs. 

I pulled my face out of her hair and held my cheek against hers with my mouth at her ear. I wanted to talk to her before we started. My chest pressed down on the soft mounds of her breasts and I slid my hands under her and curled them around her shoulders, ready to hold her while I plowed her. I was ready and I knew she was too but I wanted to say something to her before I lost myself in her.

“I love you, Siobhan,” I whispered in her ear. “Was it good, making love with our son?”

“Yes, Kieran, it was good,” she whispered in my ear. “It was as good as making love with his father always is. I love you too.”

“No regrets?” I whispered.

“No, no regrets,” she whispered.

“Did you come with him, there at the last, the second time, when he came? You said you were coming with him. I think he wanted you to, so you’d enjoy it with him as much as you do with me. Did you?’

“Kieran, I came before he did. It was like waves, little ones, big ones, fading away, and then coming back. It felt like I was coming for a long time before he did. You know my orgasms aren’t like yours.” 

“What did he say to you, when you two were whispering to each other? What did you say to him?”

She didn’t answer right away. She just held me tighter and I waited.

“Kieran, your Irish son kissed the blarney stone,” she finally whispered. “I think his words were meant for me alone. Would you mind if I kept something a secret from you?”

“No, I don’t mind. Someday, if you want to, tell me. We’ve never kept secrets from each other but you can have just this little one for yourself.”

“Are you ready for your turn?”

“Yeah, I’ve been ready for too long. I’ll try to last longer than he did the first time but I’m going to come pretty quickly.”

“Well, you can do it twice, like he did. You’ve done it often enough. I’ve come so many times tonight I probably can’t come anymore but I’ll let you have a second time.”

“What if Kerry wants a third time?”

“If he does, he’ll get it. You both can fuck me until you can’t get it up any more. I may not walk tomorrow but I don’t care.”

“I’m just going to do it once.”

“Why? I know you’re still good for two when you really want it.”

“I don’t want him to think I’m competing with him. Tonight was his night. Let him remember it as one of the best of his life. I’ve got every night for the rest of my life to be with you.

“OK. Lift up.”

I lifted my hips up. She took her hand off my ass, guided my dick to her pussy, rubbed the head up and down between her lips, and then set it in the right place. I pushed gently and my dick slid half way into her. I pushed again and it slid in all the way until my pelvis bumped hers and my balls came to rest between her ass cheeks. Inside, she was a boiling cauldron, as hot and as wet as I’d ever felt her. I held still and let myself start to slide away into our joining.

I tried to keep myself at least a little rational so I could last longer and I wouldn’t dissolve too quickly into the fucking of her. Perhaps I did for a brief period. But as quickly as I began to move within her, I knew that I was going to be lost in her. I stopped thinking, stopped being aware of anything else around us, feeling nothing but my body melting into hers and my dick plowing her furrow again. Time ceased and nothing had meaning except the wanting and the need for release inside her. I surrendered and let it happen and once again squirted out my life inside her 

As soon as I stopped moving, Kerry left the bedroom, went in the bathroom, and I heard water running in the sink. He returned in a couple of minutes and I looked up at him. He had a bunch of washcloths and some small towels in a plastic pan. 

He crawled back in the bed near us, picked up one of the small towels, and held it out to Siobhan. She didn’t take it. I rolled off her and she lay there with her legs parted. He didn’t hesitate. He tucked it between her legs and she closed them. We both watched him as he unfolded one of the washcloths, put it over her right breast, another on her left breast, and last one over her lower abdomen. He pointed at the last one and then at me. I understood. He wanted me to wipe up that area.

He handed me a washcloth – they were warm – and then used another on his dick. Siobhan and I watched as he pulled his foreskin back and wiped the head of his dick, then the shaft, and last his balls. His dick was red and still swollen, almost as big as when he had a hard-on, but it was finally hanging down. When he finished, Siobhan turned her head and looked at my dick. I followed Kerry’s example and also wiped up the small puddle of semen that had drooled out on my stomach. When I looked up, Kerry was holding out his hand. I gave him the washcloth and he wadded it up with his and tossed both of them into the bathroom.

We both wiped the sweat and other stuff off Siobhan. He wiped her face as gently as he did Alannah’s and then did her hands and arms. I left her breasts to him and wiped off everything below her naval. I left her pussy to last and, when I removed the towel, she grunted – maybe Kegels again – and squeezed out some of what we’d put in her. I wiped between each squeeze while she grunted and giggled.

I was ready to go to sleep but I was in no hurry and I don’t suppose Kerry or Siobhan were either. She was on her back between the two of us. I was on my right side facing her, with one leg thrown over one of hers and my hand on her breast. Kerry was on the other side, with one of his legs over her other one. He was propped up on one elbow, looking at her. He leaned over her, kissed the nipple on her other breast, sucked on it for a few seconds, and then put his hand over it and looked at me with a big Kerry grin. I couldn’t help it; I grinned back at him. 

“Siobhan, may I sleep with you and Kieran tonight?” he asked.

“Yes, Kerry, if it’s OK with Kieran,” she answered.

“If I wake up in the middle of the night and want to make love to you again, may I do that too?” he asked.

“How about me?” I asked before she could answer him. “If I wake up, may I do it with you again?”

“The answer for both of you is yes,” she said. “But if you do, I’m not going to get up at six o’clock and get you two off to work. You both can fend for yourselves and take care of Alannah too.”

“Do you want to take a quick shower before you go to sleep?” I asked her. “We can pee and shower by ourselves and be back in bed in a few minutes.”

“I was hoping somebody would bathe me,” she said.

“If somebody does, you might get fucked again,” Kerry said.

“Has she been fucked already?” I asked. “I thought we were both just making love to her.”

“I’m too sleepy to shower,” Siobhan said. “I need to pee but I don’t want to get up. Kerry, would you go pee and take mine with you.”

“Yeah,” I said, with a yawn that wasn’t faked. “Take mine too.”

Nobody moved and I suppose we were all waiting to see who would give in to the call of nature first.

“Kerry, when you get up to go pee, would you please turn out all the lights,” Siobhan whispered.

“Why is everybody always picking on me?” he tried to sing as he got up.

As soon as his turned out the first light, Siobhan jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom. I jumped out too and ran after her. She sat down on the throne, closed her eyes, sighed, and let loose. Kerry came in and leaned back against the bathroom counter with me and we both waited for her to finish. She stopped peeing but just sat there, eyes still closed.

“If you don’t hurry up, I’m going to pee in the sink,” I said.

“Yeah, me too,” Kerry said.

“Hush, both of you,” she said. “My pussy runneth over. You can just wait.”

She finally opened her eyes and smiled at us. I wet a washcloth and held it out to her. She wiped between her legs and went back to bed. Kerry and I peed – in the commode, not the sink - at the same time. Guys can do that, you know. We both shook and covered up. When Kerry turned to go back to the bedroom, I grabbed his arm.

“It’s great being a man; isn’t it, Kerry?” I asked him.

“Yes, Kieran, it is,” he said, and punched me lightly on the shoulder. “It’s great being a man and making love to a beautiful woman on a warm spring night like this.”

The nightlight in the bathroom was just enough to see where Siobhan was. She was on her back in the middle of the bed, eyes closed, and hands together on her stomach, legs slightly parted, a small towel between them. I laid down on my back on one side of her, on my back, and put my hands on my stomach and shut my eyes. I heard Kerry get in the bed and raised up just enough to see that he was on his back too, hands on his stomach. We all three lay there for a while, not talking, but my mind was jumping from one thing to another. I suppose Siobhan and Kerry were thinking about what we’d done, just as I was. After a few minutes, Kerry broke the silence.

“Do you ever think how improbable I am?” he whispered. “Here I am with both of you and the odds of it being me, Kerry Lee Stuart, are so remote, I should never have happened. Not me, not Kerry Lee Stuart, maybe somebody else but why me?”

“What do you mean, Kerry Lee Stuart?” I asked. “You’re going to have to expound on that before we know what you’re talking about.”

“Well, I guess we can start a little over eighteen years ago, the fall before I was born in September. Kavan and Arial had a cold that fall and both of you caught it from them. Right?”

“Who told you that, Kerry?” Siobhan asked. “I don’t think I ever did.”

“Grandma Stuart,” he answered. “And you had a secondary bacterial infection after the viral one and the doctor prescribed an antibiotic for you, right?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Siobhan answered. “And I was on birth-control pills after Arial was weaned and we learned later that a rare side-effect of the antibiotic was that it could cause the pill to fail.”

“And that’s the way we think you were conceived,” I said. “But you know we’ve never regretted it, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but just think, one little improbable egg was released from her ovary and you just happened to have sex with her when she was most fertile. You put a few million sperm in her, about half carrying an X chromosome and the other half carrying a Y chromosome. And one of those sperm carrying a Y chromosome just happened to get to her egg first, and, wham, Kerry Lee Stuart. What’s the odds of all that?”

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. “Do you?”

“No, but I’ll bet it’s about one quadzillion to one. Odds are I shouldn’t even be here. Who is Kerry Lee Stuart? You could have hung lots of different names on me and I’d be somebody else. One of those other sperm could have got to the egg first and I’d be another guy, maybe looking more like Kavan. Maybe I’d even be a girl, looking like Arial or Alannah. So who am I? I’m just improbable Kerry Lee Stuart.”

“OK, Kerry,” I answered. “You were an accident. You were the result of random chance. We love you anyway. What does it matter?”

“I don’t know,” he said pensively. “I just think about stuff like that sometimes, like who am I, and why I exist, and why am I me and not somebody else, and what I want to do with me.”

“We all think about that, Kerry,” Siobhan said. “I do. I know Kieran does. He’s always thinking about stuff like that. We try to shape ourselves to be what we want to be. We try to shape our children to be the best they can be. Sometimes we succeed. You’re just like we all are.”

“Kerry, do you remember the first book on cosmology I gave you,” I asked. 

“Yeah, it was called A Kid’s Look at the Cosmos. You gave it to me when I was nine. I still have it.”

“Did it have any influence on your life?”

“Yeah, a lot. I’ve read lots of books on cosmology. I guess that’s why I’ve studied physics and math, to try to understand the cosmos. If you hadn’t given me that one book, I might have studied music or accounting or sociology or stuff like that. When I go to graduate school I might even major in that area and become a cosmologist.”

“Kerry, I can’t picture you working in a beauty saloon,” Siobhan said.

She wasn’t that dumb. She knew what a cosmologist was. It was just a standing joke whenever Kerry talked to anybody in the family about cosmology.

“That’s a cosmetician, Siobhan,” Kerry said, for about the thousandth time.

“Whatever,” she said. “I don’t care. I’m going to sleep. You two can ponder this if you want to.”

“Do you remember asking me why the big bang occurred and our universe was created?” I asked. “I said I didn’t know the answer and nobody else did and we never would know why.”

“Yeah, you told me scientists were just learning what happened and how it happened and none of them could tell me why it happened.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t try to understand why you were created and why you exist. There are no answers to questions like that. Religions pretend to have answers. Maybe you should be satisfied that you were created out of the love that Siobhan and I have for each other. Maybe that’s why you’re here with us tonight, because we love each other. Maybe that’s answer enough. Maybe we need an answer to the biggest question we face right now.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Which way do you want to go to sleep?” I said. “Do you want Siobhan to spoon up to you and then I’ll spoon up to her? Or do you want her to hug up to my butt so you can hug up to hers?

“I want to spoon up to Kerry,” Siobhan whispered. “I want to hold his family jewels when I go to sleep.”

“OK,” Kerry mumbled. “Sounds good to me.”

“Kieran likes me to hold his family jewels when I spoon up to him,” she whispered sleepily.

I was just fading into sleep when I heard Kerry whisper, “I love you, Siobhan.”

I thought she was asleep but she wasn’t. I could barely hear her when she whispered back, “I love you too, Kerry.”

A minute or so later, he whispered again, “I love you, Kieran.”

“I love you too, Kerry,” I said, out loud. “Now go to sleep.”

A minute or so later, he whispered again, “I’m glad you’re my parents. I thank you for letting me to share in your love.”

“Hush, Kerry,” Siobhan whispered. “Go to sleep.”

<><><>

I slept through the night. I suppose Siobhan and Kerry did too, unless Kerry made love to her without making any noise or shaking the bed. Alannah came in our bedroom and woke us up a few minutes before the alarm went off at six. She didn’t seem concerned that Kerry was sleeping with us. When he got up, she saw his morning hard-on when he went to the bathroom, even though he tried to hide it from her. I didn’t even try to hide mine. I just let it wave around like a divining rod leading me to water. I wasn’t ashamed of it. I knew she would ask Siobhan why Kerry and I were like that. I was content to let Siobhan try to answer her. As far as I was concerned, it was just another why question for which there is no answer.
   

TO BE CONTINUED:
