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“That’s not a bad idea. I can go for some pancakes right about now,” I said.
I didn’t say more in fear that he might’ve heard about Bentley’s morning feast between my thighs and that he might start to pout at the thought of me working up an appetite. I looked at his face trying to read his eyes. Was he upset? Or had Alé kept his mouth shut?
“I’m gonna have to ask him for his recipe so I can start making you some of those pancakes here at home,” Connor said.
Whew, in the clear. Once Connor starts moping around it’s hard to get him to snap out of it. I tried to understand. I couldn’t imagine how difficult it would be sharing one of them with two other women. It would be horrible. And I thanked Venus it was the other way around.
Outside the sun was shining, beating down, painting the grass an almost neon green hue and putting a warm sheet over us to thin out the brisk mountain breeze. Connor put his arm in mine and led the way from our narrow, two-story home through the others that looked almost identical, all painted snow white. Some had wrap-around porches while others had small gazebos out front. It was our own private Mayberry way up in the mountains above Boulder.
Kids ran laughing around us, almost all boys except for a few girls sprinkled in with the crowd.
Alma sat out on her porch supervising them as they played hide and seek. She was the oldest woman at the Dove. Her black hair was always pulled up in a bun, really more grey than black, and she wore an apron all day long even though she rarely cooked. She had only one husband. She was too stubborn in her old-fashioned ways. She was a Dove but appreciated the love of one good man.
She didn’t frown on our ways. She simply relished in hers. She was the mother of the twins, Samantha and Sienna, both members of the Original Seven, so she was allowed to stay within our community and keep up her practices. Her husband, Earl, often teased the other men for having to share their women when he got Alma all to himself.
I waved at Alma and she waved merrily back. She was a good woman no matter what beliefs she held.
“Mornin’ Lauren…Connor,” she called out.
“Good morning, Alma,” I replied.
“You’re looking beautiful as always,” Connor shouted.
“Just don’t be askin’ me to any suitor visits,” Alma joked.
She was the Kathy Bates of our community, an older, sassy lass everyone in the world seemed to love.
“Ready or not, here I come!” came the most adorable voice in town.
Little Clarissa had blonde hair she always wore in a perfect braid down her back. When she spoke she sounded like a cartoon chipmunk and I always wanted to scoop her
up in my arms and squeeze her tight. She was the daughter I hoped to have one day. Her mother, Patricia, was the last woman to have a daughter in the past four years.
“I want one,” I said aloud.
“You want what?” Connor asked. “You want a suitor visit with Alma?”
He laughed out loud. I slapped his shoulder playfully.
“I want a daughter. I want a Clarissa, Connor.”
“I know you do, babe. And I’ll give you one. You’ll see.”
I watched Clarissa a little longer as she giggled and squealed her way across the patch of grass to the right of us. One of the boys ran from her. One day he wouldn’t. He would be begging for her attention. Sometimes I found our world to be so strange no matter how lovely it was.
A short line had formed at Dominic’s cart, what was really a giant gas grill on wheels. He flipped pancakes, scrambled eggs, and diced sausages. He whistled while he cooked. It was a show tune of some sort and I had to second guess my thoughts that he wasn’t gay.
Connor rubbed my back as we stood in line. It didn’t take long for us to make our way to the front and get our food. Then we gobbled it up as we rushed to the church where all meetings were held.
It was a small church with a stained glass window at its steeple. The circle with the Dove symbol at its center glowed blue in the sunlight. The church, which was the only building in the compound painted yellow, was already filling up with the rest of the Doves.
Connor walked me to the door and kissed me on the lips before heading off to kick a soccer ball around with his buddies. Fellows didn’t need to attend the meetings unless they had business that required it. Connor was perfectly happy and had no such business.
Keeping It Together
As I walked through the narrow entryway, I let my fingers run across the grooves of the panel of rules, a long list of the Daughters of Venus regulations, carved in wood. I didn’t need to read them as I knew them all by heart. I helped establish them.
There shall be a panel of seven, known henceforth as the Original Seven. If one member shall pass, either in death or in abandonment of post, their replacement shall become one of the seven.
