Chapter 98 – Secret
She stopped for a moment before talking.
"It is about me and my friends. The truth is, the four of us are... in a relationship."
That was really unexpected! As far as he knew, lesbian relationships were still not so well accepted in this world. No wonder she asked him to keep it a secret. What's more, it wasn't just two people but four of them together. If reversing the situation to his previous world, it would be the equivalent of four gay men being in a relationship together. He wouldn't have anything against it but he knew that not everyone thought like him.
Of course, in this world, and from his point of view, it was four women having sex together, and couldn't be anything else than being extremely sexy and arousing. His grandmother monitored his expression and gave him time to process the information. When he returned from his fantasies of lesbian group sex, he asked the most obvious question.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"You are not repulsed by it? Do Grandma and her friends not seem repulsive now?"
"Not at all. If anything, this is quite erotic in my opinion, ahah."
She seemed startled but soon gave a big grin. She took his head in her hands and gave him a big sonorous kiss on the lips.
"That's my darling. I was really hoping you would react like this and I am glad I was not wrong. Please don't ever lose your open-mindedness because it will allow you to see the world without prejudices. Remember, there is always a reason for everything in this world."
Benjamin nodded and she resumed her talk.
"To answer your question, I would need to start telling you this story from the beginning. After my husband, your grandfather, passed away and I recovered from the shock of his death, I became extremely lonely without him in my life. Your grandfather was a good man who had always supported me and we loved each other a lot. I was eaten from the insides by a big feeling of emptiness and I didn't know how to handle it. I still had to work and provide for Clare and I didn't have the time nor the will to find someone else to help me raise your mother. One day, one of my co-workers talked about one of her acquaintances who had just lost her husband, as I did. I thought about what I had gone through all by myself and decided to go meet with that person and help her in any way I could."
She took a break at this point, seemingly getting lost in her memories for a few seconds. Benjamin thought about his situation. His father had also been an extremely kind and gentle person. For a long time after the accident, he often decided about things based on what he thought his father would have done in a similar situation. Even though he was still young when he passed away, he definitely had a large influence on his current personality and way of thinking. He would never dare to think he was anywhere close to what his father had been but he wanted to believe that he had inherited at least a part of his father's nature.
His grandmother shook her head, as if to stop recollecting the past, and continued her story.
"That woman was Angel. When I met her for the first time, she was completely devastated by the death of her husband, just like I had been. I strongly saw myself in her. I started to discuss with her and we shared stories of our situations, thoughts, and misfortune. She soon recognized that we were the same and she completely opened up to me. She began to strongly rely on me as emotional support. But the truth was that I was using her in the same way. By sharing our misfortune, we started to rely more and more on each other until we became inseparable. We slowly started to get better over time and that was when we heard about another woman in the circle of our acquaintances that was the same as us. That was Vera. I and Angel decided that we wanted to include her in our group and we went to see her. She was reluctant at first but after we kept coming to her and sharing our own stories, her pride finally broke apart and she burst into tears one evening, crying for hours."
She took another break after talking so much, using it to pet Benjamin's hair idly. Finally, she resumed her story one more time.
"After that, she fully became part of the group. And, as you can expect, the same process repeated itself for Lauren. She was an even tougher nut to crack but our strong persistence eventually got the better of her reservations. That's how we formed the group of four that you know. We became extremely close to each other and we would do everything together. However, one evening when we were indulging in our sadness by talking about our late husbands while drinking, one of us drunkenly started kissing the closest person to her and the situation soon degenerated into the four of us having sex. The next morning, we were extremely ashamed of what we had done but simultaneously, it had been the first time in a long while for all of us to feel someone else's warmth and relieve our sexual frustrations. We had a hard time admitting to it because none of us were lesbian but it had felt good and we were feeling much better after it happened, as if a big weight had fallen from our shoulders. So, even though we were ashamed of it, we still decided to keep our relationship. We wouldn't have been able to separate from each other by that point anyway and, instead, we chose to continue relieving our sexual needs within our group by having sex from time to time. And that's how it has been, even to this day."
She concluded her talk with a small grin, indicating that her story was done. Benjamin took a moment to assimilate everything and said.
"I understand. Thank you for sharing your story with me, Grandma, it makes me happy to learn more about you. In conclusion, it is not that the four of you have lesbian inclinations and it is just that you are all too close to each other."
"Exactly. It was awkward at first to do it while being sober but, as with everything, we got used to the situation after some time and now it is something very natural for us."
"I see. But you still didn't tell me why you wanted me to learn about this."