Erasure and Affirmation (Hypernaturals 11)

Engine of Change

I related the conversation with Lori privately to Helen. I thought she would be interested. I found her standing by herself under a tree, sipping on some wine, and enjoying a quiet moment. I decided to take advantage of her moment to make it our moment instead.

"Lori and Danny, eh?" Helen commented.

"I kind of think it is inevitable, don't you? You do want to have sex with Lori though, right? I did not misread that? I know I am crap at reading some of those signs." I asked.

"You are crap at reading the signs when a woman wants YOU. Why Lori is being overt about the Ice Cream, I think. However, you are correct: I have been attracted to her since the moment I met her." Helen agreed.

"OK. Whew." I said. I know Morgan and Jessica agreed with me on the signs, so I was pretty sure I was on safe ground there, but always nice to confirm.

"I think it is interesting that as described, it is you and I with the two of them."

"It makes sense to me." I said.

"Why? Curious." Helen said.

"From my point of view, you and Lori have been eye-fucking since forever. So now you get together. Danny has lived in terror of you since that same forever, so this gets him past his fear of you. You and I both exposed Lori to our pheromones a long time ago, and while she is not Siren, it's a powerful memory for her. A Siren may have trouble getting past a pheromone exposure, but I think for Lori it probably underscored other things. Besides: you know Lori. Free spirit if there ever was one."

Helen nodded her agreement with my assessment. "You and Danny will do nothing, of course. But Lori is getting piled on. Danny. Me. You. Danny and I. You and I. Lori gets all sorts of combinations. Smart woman."

"Why I think Lori likes that it is you and I. Kind of like, whenever we get around to it, Simi and Tobey, but taken up a notch because Danny and Lori are already family. Not that Simi and Tobey won't be eventually. Hard to avoid once we have a child together. Another reason I am glad they are waiting. Let them build on them together first. Danny and Lori already have a strong 'them'. Worth noting? You get Danny and I. Same time. Yep. We'll go there. Lori and I. Lori and Danny. Plus Lori solo and Danny solo. You come out OK too. Also, you missed Lori getting Danny and me at the same time."

"Good points. Morgan and Jessica will enjoy being with Danny someday." Helen said.

"Yeah, but I think those two will prefer double-teaming Danny to doing things with Lori. At least for a few decades. No matter how much they are into each other, they are still Hetero. They are like Denise that way. She is as hetero as the day is long, but down the centuries, she learned to be open to other options. For Jessica and Morgan, it's going to be a while before they want to do anything with women other than the ones they are married to."

"True. Very true. Jessica was always reticent about her and me together before you." Helen said. "Morgan even more so. I wanted her long before she wanted me. Lori wanted me right away. Lori is like me when it comes to genders in lovers, however."

"Lucky as hell." I said.

"Gender preference like ours is something you are born with. Being serious for a moment before we return to our usual ways. You are like our wives, Adrian. You are heterosexual. You are also like them, or Vera for that matter: You can learn to be more open to other things, but it is not your inborn orientation. When we walk along a nude beach in France, you are going to look at the women. You just will: It is how you are wired. I will see all the delights. It is how I am wired. How Lori is wired. For a man to be your lover, you will have to love them first. Same way as Jessica was to me. She learned. Same way Vera is for Angel: she learned. Vera, when she was Siren, had an Astral assist to start, so that is an unfair advantage. We both well know Vera still wants men. Not only you, either. Vera understands that you are her gentle lover, and that like heterosexuality, your natural inclinations are love. Which I personally love, but while you can learn to be other ways sexually, it is not your inclination. You nailed me to the wall of the shower pretty nicely, but that is rare. Keeping it rare makes it fun. Vera knows that for things other than sweet loving to go elsewhere most of the time, and now she understands if she wants it from you to straight up ask for it." Helen is being remarkably frank, and I appreciated that. I love these moments when we can be completely open with each other. I have them with Morgan, Jessica, and even Denise more often than Helen, so these are precious.

Helen then grinned and brought in a flavor of our normal relationship. "Besides all that: you have enough women around you, I am not sure why you would be in a big hurry to add men."

Ouch.

"You are not wrong." I had to admit. "You know something though? I think about that all the time. Not from the gender balance perspective, because I think, as Angel does with Vera and Kevin, that DeWayne and Danny and possibly others are going to solve the needs of our spouses for gender balance in our polycule marriage. I talk about this all the time with people. If I was still human, I would be happy not being polyamorous."

"I am glad you are a Vampire and that you learned to accept the Vampire Poly love-style, even if you adapted it to marriage rather than merely a more normal poly relationship. I do not think in your human world I would have fit into your life." Helen said.

"You don't think so?" I asked."

"No. Even when I was human, back in England, I was wired this way. I did not become Bi when I became a Vampire. I was always Bi. I would never be happy with only a man. Or only a woman. The same way in which Lori is, for all her joy in Danny, missing women. The difference is that Lori would settle for it. Lori would commit. I would not. That is also not who I am. When I see what I want, I try to get it. My ambition, which turned into competitiveness in our daughter, I think, means I am never satisfied with the status quo. I want more."

I held my tongue. It was hard when she leaves herself wide open like that, but we are being serious now.

"I wanted Jessica, so I pursued her for years before she took me to bed. Lest you forget, she was a middle-aged human woman at the time. I looked like this. It was no simple thing to overcome. Both Jessica's innate heterosexuality and the fact that she thought she was robbing the cradle. If she never took me to bed, I would have been happy being with her. She never really understood at that point in her young life her specialness. She was too damaged by that backward family and being given away as a bride with a dowry to a man that hated her."

"Mind-boggling." I commented.

"It really is. They said they loved their children, but that? Bloody damn fools. They lost their daughter over that bullshit." Helen agreed. "It is why I was there not only in her bed, but after she turned was there through all her changes. Not merely her Vampire ones. Her finding herself free to fuck when and who she wanted. It was fucking, let there be no doubt. Letting off a human lifetime of steam and anger. Then, after wild adventures and sex clubs and all of that, Jessica getting serious and locking and loading, to use the expression on being a pilot and a Doctor, among so many other things. Living up to what I saw from the moment I laid eyes on her. So special."

"As a fellow member of the Jessica fan club, I agree. Well, going another way with the commitment topic then, if you all decided that you were done with outside the family romances, and wanted to keep it all among the six of us I would not be looking to roam. I include Rachel. I do not say that because that ratio suits me. I say that only because the outside relationships, while enjoyable, are things I would give up. Vera and Angel even, though that would be hard. I know that is not realistic because our marriage is balanced well for you and me, even Rachel since it has you, but not Denise, Jessica, and Morgan." I said.

"Yes: Isn't that odd? You and I have the perfect setup for us. We could be utterly content for a millennium. You include Denise? She has not married us yet."

"She will. You were not close to us on the beach when I was talking to DeWayne and Carol, and Denise was lying on my lap. Her scents not only of desire but other things that add up to joy in my head. She was content and happy and... things like that. We were not having sex. Denise may not be ready, but she is also very much ready. I know you will not mind having her in your arms either." It was not a poke, and Helen understood that. It was an honest opinion.

"Oh, no. I shall enjoy her immensely." Helen agreed. "I love to love women of accomplishment. Denise is all of that and more. She also looks very nice naked." Helen paused and looked away. Turned out it is into the future. "I cannot see us closing our marriage off. Away from our larger world. It is our bedrock. We are the heart of the engine of change. Victoria calls us the 'First family of Vampiredom' and we are. It fits into every ambition that I have for us. Everything that I want to change about our world. I love that we are at the center of it, and I love that I can come home to us. You and my wives and our children. You not only in my bed. In my life."