CONRADS QUEST FOR RUBBER - Leo Frankowski

No sooner was my short double marriage ceremony completed, with Maude as my first wife and Booboo as my second, than the whole thing was repeated for Captain Zbigniew, since he had not yet had proper Christian wedding ceremonies with either of his wives. This time, I was his best man.

After mass, there was a feast with all of the usual fooling around that is traditional at such events, and then the two trios of young newlyweds were whisked off to our respective rooms.

My whole family was there, including my in-laws and my father. Everything was so rushed that I didn't get a chance to talk with any of them, but in the reception line my father shook my hand!

That night in bed I made love with Maude first, and then Booboo. While I was patting myself on the back and telling myself that at thirty I still wasn't over the hill, that I could still make love with two women in less than an hour, Megan came into the room and said that she wanted to love me. Maude and Booboo took this as a perfectly reasonable request and made room for her in the oversized bed. And what's a man to do?

Maude had said that her daughters would look different from her, but except for hair color, I could hardly tell them apart. Had one of them come to me first, on the dock that afternoon, rather than staying a bit behind their mother, I could easily have embraced her rather than Maude. They had all looked at me wistfully as we were introduced, and the way they kissed, well, it wasn't what the usual girl will do with a stepfather.

So I made love with the girl. As she was leaving, Molly came in, to be followed in turn by Mary and then Melinda. It was long after midnight before I could get to sleep.

I think that the Cure must do other wonderful things for a man besides wiping out his germs.

The next morning, my father came up to my table in the hotel's restaurant and said, "Son, I have given this matter much thought, and I forgive you."

I looked at him calmly and said, "Father, I, too, have given this matter much thought. For fifteen years you have done everything in your power to make my life as unpleasant as possible. When I was a young boy of fifteen, I loved you and I needed you. Your senseless rejection of me hurt me very badly, when I had done nothing to harm you or yours, except to try to live my own life. I still don't understand why you were so angry with me, but I do know this:

"Now I am a man, and I say that any man who would so hurt someone who loved him, and who continued hurting that person for so many years for no other reason than stupid pride, I say that such a man is an unspeakable asshole, and one with whom I will not associate.

"Father, I do not forgive you!"

And with that, I collected up my wives and daughters, we mounted our Big People, and we rode home.

I never spoke to my father again.

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ADel Rey® Book

Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

Copyright © 1998 by Leo A. Frankowski

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The BallantinePublishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York,and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98-93199

ISBN 0-345-36850-9

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition: December 1998

ebook by MOS1, accept no butchered substitutes.