The Ark

Copyright © 2020 by VeryWellAged

What was and what will be...9

Author's note: These chapters are NOT stand-alones...The story starts here.

What was and what will be...10

There’s the inevitable consequence of fucking eight females. They get pregnant. I now have just come to the conclusion that I’ll have to keep a formal calendar of birthdates.¹

Valentine’s Day a seriously observed holiday here, maybe one of the very most important. It’s focusing my mind on the intricacies of having so many gals here. It was bad enough with eight loves, but now Nelia is due to give birth to her child next month. Cincer’s is due in June and Ann’s in August.

Reyna tells me she is carrying. I got the word just last week. I gather she is two months along and will not be showing until long after she graduates.

Today, Bim tells me that she is carrying. Well, that’s not exactly right. Niana sat down on my lap and tells me,

Uncle, I hope it a boy.

Who?

My brother! I want a baby brother.

Oh. Did your mother tell you that you will have a baby brother or sister?

Oo, Uncle, but we not know yet, of course. I not complain if I have a sister, but a brother is better.

I see. It will be exciting to have a little one. You will be the Ate!

Yes! Really true, Uncle.

After Niana leaves to pursue other matters, I find Bim chopping carrots in the dirty kitchen².

Niana wants a brother. Do you have a preference?

She tell you? Ha! I tell her, it secret!

A secret from me? Why?

No need. You busy. I tell you later. I not need to see a doctor. It too soon.

I’m not sure I really understand the logic of all that, but there’s no reason to fight her about it. There’s no harm done. It was an odd choice, but maybe I just don’t understand the culture enough.

One incredibly difficult issue with eight loves is, who do I take to my bed on Valentine’s Day evening?

The Valentine’s Day dinner is easier. I take them all out to Guiseppe's³, which may be the best place in all of Tacloban. I have to make reservations a couple of weeks in advance. There are ten of us at the table, as it includes Niana as my step-daughter.

But what happens later? The fact that I bed all of my gals is not secret to Niana, so I’m not breaking any barrier when, in the middle of our meal at Guiseppe’s, I open the matter up for discussion.

I have a problem.

That gets some surprised looks, but now that I’ve their attention, I continue.

Who do I take to bed tonight without hurting the feelings of the rest of you?

There are a few guffaws and rolled eyes, but Cincer intercedes.

Why you laugh? He right. He take one and other think, ‘oh, she the special one.’ He say to you, there no special one. We all special, so what he do? He being good. Help him. … No need for me, I know you love me, and I carry a child. So no need. OK for me.

Bim decides, if there’s no need for Cincer, then there’s no need for her. And in that way, though the others had not been told yet, she informs the table that she is also carrying, and so clearly she has no need for my bed tonight.

That causes, or forces, Reyna, Nelia and Ann to all follow suit as each is carrying a child. From eight, we are down to three possible contenders.

Someone mentions Rock, Paper and Scissors, but as Ann points out, with three of them it does not work. Assuming each chooses a different one, rock beats scissors, but scissors beats paper, and paper covers rock. All lose.

Cincer asks a waiter for three fresh drinking straws, and all immediately understand what is to follow. The straws arrive a few minutes later. The articulated end is removed from one. Cincer, with her hands under the table and surrounded by table cloth, arranges the straws, bottom end up.

Now, holding her fist up containing the three straws, each with the same visible length, Cincer offers the first pull to Lorie. It’s a long straw.

Next, her fist is presented to Jessa. There will be no need for Eva to select. Jessa has the short straw and she will be with me tonight.

Well, that solves it for tonight, but I decide I need to resolve what happens for the next two nights.

OK, Eva, Ri… Rock / Paper / Scissors next. Winner will be tomorrow and the loser the next night. And so all a winner. And, the one who is with me on the sixteenth is with me on the seventeenth. Then, the one from the fifteenth is back on the eighteenth. Finally, Jessa is back on the nineteenth. I love you all and for me there must not be winners or losers.

Eva throws paper. Lorie throws scissors. The order is settled for the next six days. Reyna is giggling. Looking at my youngest one, I ask, What?

Reyna isn’t answering, Cincer is. She wonder, who is pregnant next. Each have two chances in one week. Maybe none, maybe all?

Reyna, is that really why you are giggling?

Two eyebrows go up.

Jessa has every intention of making tonight special. And I? I’ve every intention of telling her to knock it off. I don’t need drama and artifice. I just want to be with her as she really is.

Maybe this is the best time to explain it, as I guess I’ve avoided it up to now. There’s no secret to the fact that sex is a wonderful thing. There’s no secret that the act of seduction and the first few sexual encounters have a heightened level of passion attached to the act.

There should also be no secret that sex between stable couples, unless one of the two has a power or domination issue, is more quiet and gentle. It’s the love shared, not a love just discovered. In it, there’s room for playfulness, silliness, timeouts, and communication. In it we can say, ‘would you try this?’ ‘too rough my love,’ ‘ah, that’s better,’ ‘oh! that’s nice!’ Things that don’t really happen until we know our partner and trust that our words will not cause problems, when we have had enough time with the other to make and suggest adjustments.

I’ve been with Jessa many times. In that way, we will break no new ground tonight, nor do I want to. What I want is to share the truth of our real connection.

I know her body, small that it is. She knows mine. No surprises there. I know her nipples are small dark brown pebbles and her breasts are barely A cups. She uses a very well-padded bra to give definition to her form when wearing a dress. Of course, it’s the same for Reyna. Their bodies are pretty much the same, other than Jessa has more in the hip department.

She is short. No more than maybe four foot nine. But she does not look like a child. Her face is that of an adult, as is her way of behaving. There’s not a damned thing childlike about her, with the exception of her foot size.

We playfully undress each other, pretty much at the same time. It’s a way of announcing, we are a couple. There’s banter between us. She tells me, You know, I see which is short straw, my love. That why I here now.

How?

The way CiCi hold them. The short one not as round on the bottom by her hand.

Then you were lucky Ri didn’t pick that one.

True. But I think she picks the one in front and she do that. So I not really worried.

Jessa’s blouse and bra are off. She has my shirt off and has unbuttoned my jeans. I’m working on her super-skinny jeans, but am not having a great deal of success.

Let me, sweetheart. And I do; as she wriggles out of them and her panties, I take the opportunity to finish removing my jeans and briefs.

She poses in a position like a weightlifter and tries to flex muscles she honestly doesn’t have. All I can do is laugh, lift her up with one arm and carry her to the bed.

Not fair!

Why?

You too big!

And you are so small that I think maybe I should just eat you.

You like the taste? OK for me. I just relax and you work!

And so it goes. I go down on Jessa’s smooth, hairless cunt. She always keeps it shaved as do all of the gals, but she clearly has just shaved it smooth again this evening. There’s a hint of baby oil having been applied.

I shaved the stubble off my face an hour ago. If I don’t, the sandpaper-like result will leave a rash on her.

So, now it’s smooth skin against smooth skin, as I lick and finger Jessa to her first orgasm of the night. By the time she has had her second, she decides I need to stop.

OK, my turn, my love. On your back!

We pretty much have swapped positions, as Jessa begins a slow, oh so slow, session of head on my cock. She is not, in any way, trying to get me off. Her idea is to keep me hard for as long as she can, until I decide that if I don’t fuck her hard I’ll get blue balls.

Jessa is a tease tonight. She alternately is licking my cock like a lollipop, then stroking while looking up and smiling, before returning to licking, sucking and licking.

The smiles are the tease. By it, she is saying, see, I can keep you going, but I’m not really trying.

And she is right, she can. She can at least for a while. During that ‘while’ I am exclaiming, You are evil! … Oh, that’s good… Nah, nah, don’t stop… Oh, so unfair! … Shit! … Damnit Jessa! … Oh, fuck!

But I’ve reached the limit and pull her up, flip her over on to her back and mount the gal, bareback as usual.

We have fucked this way many times and there has been no pregnancy. But it has never been the ‘first time’ with any of the gals. If Jessa can carry, she eventually will. I doubt this time will be the magic moment. But, you never know. Maybe it will. Each time I send cum into a cunt, there’s this question, unvocalized, Is this the time?

This time I’m not quick to cum and we pound the mattress for a goodly length of time, soaking the fitted sheet below us before the final moment arrives and cum enters my love’s sacred place. What happens now is hidden and, at least for a time, unknowable. Still each time, we both see it as mating; it’s another attempt and our earnest desire.

We are too warm to hug, but we lie there, with the wet spot between us, arms outstretched and holding hands. I love you, Ira.

I know, Jessa, and I love you. Very much.

I want, you know?

I know. It’ll happen. Maybe now. Maybe soon. Maybe later. But it’ll happen.

Our house… there enough room for all our children?

I think so. We are adding a fifth pod.

She laughs. Maybe not enough!

She may be right. One of our neighbors, a woman of forty-three years, has twelve children. If each of my eight have only three each, that means twenty-four kids. I’m too old to be able to father twelve with one woman, but if I were, that number would be ninety-six kids. Can you imagine?

I guess, in a way, my age is a form of birth control. Let’s hope that I don’t have to die soon and enforce an extremely low limit! Lorie and Eva are just as desirous of the same result as is Jessa. It becomes like a competition. No one wants to be left out.

The construction is now really moving quickly. Just as the engineer said. Once we had the supporting posts and structure all in place, the speed of the shells accelerated significantly. We are still working on the foundation posts for the fifth pod as the order for that steel came later, but the first four are well on their way.

Also well on their way are the pregnancies. In fact, one is already over. On the last day of March, Nelia’s son, Mark James Lopez Courtwright, is born, weighing a healthy 3.8 kilos. They don’t weigh in pounds here, but it’s about eight pounds, I guess. I’m told that makes him a big baby for a Filipina. To my untrained eyes, he just looks like a baby, but the gals tell me that he has my eyes and nose. I gather they see it as a good thing.

Reyna’s child will be next, with an expected date in September. The thought of five infants in this place, along with the ten of us already here, is not making me happy. The faster our new place is ready the better.

I’ve been researching wind turbines. There’s a shrouded micro design that is said to be able to produce 6 kilowatts of power. They are small and don’t need tall posts. Theoretically, a series of the posts for them could be attached to the horizontal I-beams on the edges of the roofs. If I mounted twelve per pod, then, at maximum output, with all turning (highly unlikely) we might see 72KW per pod. I don’t expect anything like that on normal days, but considering I’ve five pods, when there’s wind I’ll have lots of power. Plus there will be solar arrays.

The low-mounted, small turbines will not create a massive wind load on the pods, and it’ll not create the risk a large tower being blown over would create. Even if a number of them are taken out of service in a typhoon, the remaining ones would still provide enough power until the rain ends and the sun shines again.

I decide to send what I have to my engineer. If he is OK with the concept, I think this is the way we will go.

When dealing with huge, weight-bearing steel I-beams, rather than concrete and rebar, structures go up in weeks and not months. We are in the process of putting on roofs, which will be followed by glass. Each pod’s roof is cantilevered well out from the glass walls. I-beams are perfect for that. The extended ceiling at each level is a major part of what provides for shade. It also extends the roof area for the solar panels.

We initially conceived of the outer glass walls being angled with a narrower top and sloping down to the bottom. But we have swapped the design. The glass will tilt out at the top by 1.5 meters. The floor is four meters from the ceiling. It lessens bringing unwanted sunlight into the pods. The glass will not create a lens for the sun.

Each glass panel is 4.27 meters tall. The angle from the top of the glass, as it slopes down to the floor, is just shy of 70 degrees. That gives us just enough to not take on the wind full force, ever. The cantilever extends out one and a half meters from the top of the glass.

The stainless steel louvers, powder coated white, which are being fabricated now, will, when open, be parallel to the ground, but the frame holding them will follow the angle of the glass, and provide additional shade to the rooms. When closed, the louvers will fully seal the glass, edge to edge, with a 15cm gap between shutter and glass. No matter what debris hits the buildings during a typhoon, nothing will reach the glass, even if a shutter is dented a bit.

As there’s no way to mount air conditioners on the exterior walls, we are using ceiling mounted cassette air handlers. The compressors will be mounted on the roof. The idea is to create a vertical space between where the solar panels are mounted and the actual roof. That is so repairs to the roof can be made without removing the panels. The edge of the roof will have an angled false fascia on the eaves that rises up to be higher than level with the solar panels. We will place the compressors and vents in the space between the actual roof and the panels.

The 70 degree angle of the fascia will be a reverse of the angle of the glass below.

We hope that, with this design, we will create a way for air to move across the top without ripping everything off.

The micro wind turbines will therefore look like they are forward from the roof, as the posts will appear to rise up from the outermost portion of the fascia, while actually attached to the I-beam behind the fascia.

To hang the glass panels, we are using more steel, and the panels will sit in steel channels. The interior channel sections will be removable for the installation and removal of glass panel sections.

We have allowed for custom designed sliding glass doors, which are fully vertical and meet the wall glass at the foot. Tall, narrow wedge shaped sections of glass seal the gaps between the doors and the wall on each pod’s cantilevered section. That allows us access to the exterior of the cantilever of the roof below and becomes a wrap-around terrace surrounding each pod level. A few of the window panels on each side and each floor will also slide open, but on that 70 degree angle. If we couldn’t open some windows we would be way too sealed up.

In those sections where there are no louvers because of the sliding doors, there will be a motor operated roll-down steel barrier much like used to protect shop fronts at night. The angle will match that of the shutters. When we are sealed up, the ‘wrapper’ will be a consistent shape around each protected floor.

The gals have been vocal that they are really not happy about the lack of a dirty kitchen. The architect and I have modified the design and, in the pod that houses the kitchen, the interior glass will be moved back in to the building proper. There will be a large area of floor space ‘outside’. They get the dirty kitchen by reducing the space of what is ‘inside.’ The louvers, however, remain where they were and, if we need to seal everything up, the dirty kitchen will be inside the steel envelope.

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What was and what will be...11