Storiesonline.net ------- Prick Van Winkle by Lubrican Copyright© 2006 by Lubrican ------- Description: Rip Van Winkle slept for 20 years, according to legend. He had a son, and his son had sons, and those sons had sons. What if, what had caused Rip to sleep was something genetic. that could be inherited? Bob Winkle took a nap one day, but his nap wasn't ANYTHING like Rip's. Codes: MF Mf fant slow harem humor cons inc fath dau grand het oral mastrb pett preg ------- ------- Chapter 1 It all happened very innocently, but also very mysteriously. It happened on a spring day in 1950, when Bob Winkle took a nap. It was a Saturday, and he and his wife had already celebrated their third wedding anniversary by a long, sweet lovemaking session when they first woke up. They pretty much had to do it then, since the children would prohibit both opportunity and mood later in the day. As he sat, he had a glass with him, an anniversary present from his older brother, who lived in Kentucky, back in the hills, where no one bothered him. His brother had a taste for homemade whiskey, and a talent for producing it as well. The recipe for that moonshine was a closely guarded secret that his brother claimed to have inherited from their grandfather, and which produced the best amber-colored bottled lightning around. That golden fluid was aged for years in gallon sized oaken casks, and slid down the throat smoothly. His brother knew that Bob appreciated a good toddy too, and sent him a bottle from time to time. A note had come with this gift, saying that this batch was made with the last of his special European ingredients, was "almost magical", and that Bob now owned the last bottle of it. Being in a good mood, and having completed all his chores for the day, Bob had poured himself four fingers of his brother's "magical" whiskey, and sipped at it happily as he sat in his brand new Barca Lounger. That chair was another anniversary present, this one from his wife, Valerie, who decided on that gift because it had leather upholstery. He smiled to himself, feeling the whiskey seeping into his veins. Who had decided that leather was the right gift for a third anniversary? How silly was that anyway? He felt his eyes begin to droop, and decided he had time for a short nap before Valerie called him to dinner. She had said she was making meatloaf to celebrate. That was his favorite dish. She made it every anniversary as a tradition. Valerie was very traditional about things like that, and, as it turned out, about other things too ... like taking care of her family. Valerie Winkle was extraordinarily happy with her life up to that point in time. Bob was an energetic and cheerful home-bringer of the bacon, so to speak, not to mention his energy in the bedroom. He had kept her pregnant, if not barefoot, ever since slightly before they got married and she now had three beautiful girls to remind her to pay that special little attention to him when he came home at night. She really wanted a boy or two. She had a wonderful home, nice neighbors, pleasant, if distant in-laws and all the sex she could ever hope for. Bob was as highly sexed as she was. The first clue she had that her life might change was when, after making her traditional meatloaf dinner for her loving husband, and getting the three girls fed, the youngest of which eased the slight pain and pressure in her swollen breasts by sucking lustily at both of them, she went to wake up the love of her life. Except that he didn't wake up. It was only puzzling at first. He was warm to the touch, and breathing ... snoring softly, in fact ... but he wouldn't wake up. Puzzlement led to discomfort as she spoke to him in increasingly louder and louder tones and shook him until the new chair began to creep across the floor. Discomfort morphed into real fear as, in desperation, she upended a pitcher of water on his face and chest. Nothing worked. He slept on. Eventually she called her Father-in-law, Percy, who appeared and was just as puzzled, uncomfortable and then afraid as she had been. In the end they called an ambulance, not knowing exactly what to tell the attentive attendants when they arrived. There were no wounds, and no known drugs involved, other than an empty glass on the end table, and a bottle that was missing only a few ounces. He was carried off to the hospital on a gurney. A sobbing Valerie rode with him, while Percy arranged for his wife to come watch the children. There was no fear at the hospital, much to Valerie's astonishment. Vital signs were taken by a young resident, who pulled the stethoscope from his ears and addressed the crying woman. "He's fine," said the young doctor in that voice that young doctors cultivate to get people to believe they're actually older and more experienced than the two or three years of actual medicine they've practiced might suggest. "What do you mean, he's fine?" asked Valerie. "If he's so fine why won't he wake up?" "Well ... er ... I don't know exactly," admitted the twenty-three year old young man who was supposed to know everything. "But he's fine." His face got earnest. "I mean there's no indication that he's in any pain, or has anything wrong with him. His respiration and heartbeat are completely normal for a sleeping man. I don't think he's in a coma, because his reactions are all wrong for that. I'll talk to the attending physician and see if we can do some tests." There were, in fact, tests done. Then there were more tests done. Pretty soon there were eight full fledged doctors examining Bob. They poked and prodded and drew blood and made x-ray images until they had no more tests to do. Then they sat around and were ... puzzled. Three of them wanted to say he was in a coma, since that was a quick and easy solution to the problem, and would result in fewer people questioning their expertise, something they were now worried about. That suggestion went down the tubes when another doctor, idly flipping through the chart said "Can't be a coma. He got an erection while the nurse was giving him a sponge bath." "Well we could CALL it a coma," said one frustrated physician. "No we can't, because it's not a coma," insisted another. To avoid making a decision, they put him in a room and had nurses take care of him as if he WERE in a coma. Then they forgot about him ... or tried to. The next crisis concerning Bob was the first clue that something exceedingly strange was going on. The doctors, in their haste to distance themselves from a man they couldn't cure ... couldn't even diagnose, for that matter, neglected to order the kinds of things that people in comas routinely get ordered to undergo. Such as a feeding tube and a catheter. The nurses, not having an order to do these things ... didn't. They knew it would be a problem eventually, but nobody was telling them anything about their patient. When the head nurse finally corralled the Internal Medicine doctor who was listed on Bob's chart, and informed him that the patient wasn't being fed or evacuated, there was panic. That's because an entire week had gone by. That crisis was un-resolved in much the same way as his initial appearance and problem was ... un-resolved. When the doctor examined him, there was no sign of dehydration, and his bladder was completely normal, except that it was empty. The doctor, knowing that no one would believe him, elected to simply tell the nurse to continue monitoring the patient, and to notify him immediately if there was any change. The nurses shook their heads, as nurses often do when communicating with doctors, and did the things they didn't have to have a doctor's order to do. Namely, they moved him around in his bed, gave him sponge baths, and ... monitored him. By the time the Internal Medicine Doctor realized he had something of significant scientific importance on his hands ... mainly that a man who wouldn't wake up somehow needed neither food or water to survive ... he was in the prickly position of having to admit that he had denied the patient both of those commodities. And he couldn't do that ... now could he? So, the timid doctor gave a pass to something that, had he pursued it, might have made both Bob and himself famous beyond measure. He did share this information with Valerie, who was properly astounded, but cautioned her not to tell anyone, lest they want to do an autopsy to find out what was going on. "But he's not dead!" squeaked Valerie. "Exactly," said the doctor darkly. It didn't take long for Valerie, eyeing mounting hospital bills, to ascertain that soon she would be a pauper. Bob had always handled the finances in the family. He had a den, and an old roll top desk that had been his great grandfather's, given to him, oddly enough, in 1935, when Bob was only fifteen years old. The old gentleman had been over a hundred at the time, and insisted that the heirloom be passed down to Bob. His actions had been tossed off as those of a senile, but friendly old fellow, who died not long afterward. Bob's parents used it until Bob got married and moved out, at which time he took it with him. That old desk had so many nooks an crannies in it that it took Valerie two weeks to go through everything, trying to get a handle on what she needed to do ... or even COULD do. The last cranny she inspected, as is quite often the case, turned out to be the most important one in the desk. It contained an insurance policy, in the name of Bob Winkle, and insured him against the loss of income due to "accident, injury or infirmity" which caused him to be unable to continue working. Unknown to anyone currently alive, with the possible exception of Bob, who was ... and was not, exactly ... alive, he had taken out this policy on the insistent advice of the very same great grandfather who had bestowed that roll top desk on him when he got married. "You get yourself one of them insurance policies that pays if you can't work," the old man had said in his raspy old voice. "It's important." "But Gramps, I'm in the best shape I've ever been in in my life," objected Bob, who, at fifteen was sure nothing could ever happen to him. Besides, he had only been working for a month, and had much better uses for his money than giving it to some insurance company. "You listen to me, boy," said the old man imperatively. "There's things you don't know about ... things we'll talk of later maybe ... but you GET one of them policies. They didn't have that sort of thing when I was growin' up and I sure could have used it." "I didn't know you were ever out of work," said Bob, who, like many grandchildren, never learn much at all about their ancestors or how they grew up. "There's a lot you don't know," said the old man in a crotchety voice. "You just do as I say and do it quick. You unnerstand? Now, I'm tired and I want to rest. You run along now and take good care of that desk. It's been in the family a long time." Bob had not, in fact, bought the policy right away. But, when the old man suddenly died, only a few months later, his last command niggled at Bob's conscience and he then purchased the policy. He was surprised to find that, since he was so young and fit, that it wasn't nearly as expensive as he expected it to be. But, as I said, nobody knew that. And, in the grand scheme of things, it didn't really matter. Had Bob and his great grandfather been able to talk more, it might have made a HUGE difference in the way things went. But the old man died, and so what he might have told Bob was lost ... until Bob figured it out for himself. That would take a shade more than fifty years. In fact, three other people would figure out what had happened to Bob before he did. They were quite sure no one would believe them at first, so they kept it a secret, but that will be discussed later. What was important then was that Valerie, Bob's loving wife, had him sent home, to rest in his own bed, in his own room, and collected on the insurance policy. The insurance company tried to weasel out of it, naturally. They pronounced that he hadn't had an accident, and that he wasn't injured. It was the "infirm" part they couldn't find a way around. Bob was the very definition of "infirm". So they had to pay off. And, there was no clause in the policy that said how LONG they had to pay off. That would cause problems later on, but Valerie had plenty of time to research laws and contracts and every time she threatened to take them to court they caved. She had help, from a number of researchers who found Bob's condition irresistible. So by now you're wondering where this is all going, no doubt. The fact is that you needed to know every bit of information I've already told you ... and more ... but you'll learn that in a bit ... assuming I don't kick off like Bob's great grandfather did. If that happens this will be one of those annoying stories that got started, and then languishes, with the notation of "incomplete and inactive". We don't want that, so I'll forge on ahead and tell the rest of the story. There are lots of details, but we'll skip by some of them and just say that Valerie, who still loved her unresponsive husband, provided him with the care, little though it was that was needed ... and the years went by. Valerie was aware that he needed neither food nor water, though she did have to shave him occasionally to keep his face clean. She eventually had to give him a haircut too, but that wasn't needed all that often. But she knew that if anyone else found out that he stayed alive and healthy without eating or drinking, things would become ... difficult. so she made sure that it looked like he had an IV tube firmly in place, and ran a tube out from under the sheet to a collection bag that always had a yellowish liquid in it, though it wasn't urine. For the first two or three years lots of people wanted to study Bob. But after everybody looked at him and measured him and asked their endless questions, they all shook their heads and went away. She wouldn't let them use shock therapy on him, and limited the number of times he was hooked up to an EEG or EKG, all of which indicated he was completely normal and should be awake. Eventually, Valerie was left alone with her husband. Now, you have to understand that Valerie Winkle was quite normal, even though her husband was not. She was, at the time he took his ... nap ... all of twenty-one years old, two years younger than Bob. They had married when she was eighteen and, during those three glorious years she had become accustomed to not only pleasing her husband after a long day's work, but to being pleased herself. While she didn't know it, Bob was, as the saying goes, hung like a horse. He had even, in Junior High School, endured the nickname "Donkey Dick", which name was given to him in the locker room during gym class. He endured it, that is, until his father sent him to Karate lessons. His Sensei strongly preached non-violence and self defense only. But his Sensei didn't have to listen to boys (and some giggling girls) calling him "Donkey Dick", and since his feelings were hurt, Bob felt no compunction about defending that hurt. It was semantics, a word he didn't even know at the time, but he was justified in defending his feelings at the time. He parlayed the reputation he got from THAT into a football career in High School, earning the new nickname "Grinder" for his ... enthusiastic ... tackles. The only reason all this matters is that Valerie, who had never had a man other than her football star husband, was used to a donkey dick on a regular basis. Now, not only did she not get to talk to the love of her life, she didn't get reamed good and proper, in the manner to which she had become accustomed. Valerie was a chaste woman, and she took her wedding vows seriously. People, as time went by, probably would have looked the other way if she'd have decided to dally while her husband lay unresponsive in her house. One of her friends, a woman of somewhat less than sterling repute, even provided her with a "life-size" rubber replica of the very organ she no longer had access to. She blushed for days afterwards, and for months every time she saw the woman. But she tried it. There came a night, when she had sat and talked to Bob, like the doctors had suggested, even reading to him from his favorite books, and had reached the end of her emotional rope. She retired to her own room, pulled out the dildo and managed to get it inserted, almost crying from the shame of it all. It wasn't, shall we say, a thing that took her to the heights of passion. After fifteen or twenty minutes, she threw the thing in a drawer of her nightstand where it never saw the light of day again until a daughter found it while they were cleaning out her things after she died. It was when she talked to Bob about THAT fiasco, that things improved, at least to some degree, and at least for Valerie. It happened while she was giving him his sponge bath, and when she got to the part of him she had been trying to replace, she told him about the abortive attempt to satisfy herself. "Bob, it was just horrible!" she exclaimed, moving the sponge over his abdomen and across his pubic hair. "It wasn't warm, like you, and it was so SMALL! I could hardly FEEL the stupid thing. It wasn't like you, my darling. Oh, I miss you so much. I miss what we used to do in bed." By now she had his penis in her hand. No one had told her that he had become erect during a sponge bath. The nurse who reported that little detail neglected to mention that she had done just a tad more than wash the massive thing she had found under the hospital sheet. And Valerie had always been prim and proper while she bathed him. This time, however, she took just a little longer, holding that part of him that had so pleased her in the past. She rambled on until she suddenly stopped, shocked to find that what was in her hand was a completely serviceable erection, of the proportions to which she was accustomed. AND ... it was nice and warm. Valerie looked at Bob, expecting to see his eyes open and a smile on his face as he yelled "SURPRISE!" But he slumbered on, just as before. Then she looked around, as if she expected to find someone else in the room. The girls were in bed, and of course no one was there. She looked back at the penis her hand was suddenly sliding up and down and licked her lips. It wasn't as if he were dead or anything. He was still her husband. And she needed him so badly. It took her only seconds to drop the robe she had been wearing and, blushing like a virgin bride, she climbed up on the bed, straddled her husband and... Well, THIS time, those heights of passion were reached, and in a LOT less than fifteen minutes. She talked to him as she rocked back and forth, full to the brim of warm, thick, firm and living cock. She told him how wonderful he felt, and how much she loved him and, then she realized that the heights of passion were clearly in view AGAIN, and she moaned for a while. She stopped eventually, panting. "You never went this long with me before this," she said, her voice amazed. "I so wish you were awake to enjoy this with me." Then she went again. He was still hard, and she was still horny, and it was during her fourth orgasm that she felt the wet heat deep inside her that rang the clarion gong in her mind that he had just completed his passion with her. She rose off of him, staring as his thick white spend dripped out of her gaping pussy and fell back onto his now softening prick. "Ohhh BOB!" she squealed, throwing herself down on top of him and kissing his face over and over. Alas, his lips were not as responsive as his lower body had been. Valerie was still euphoric, though. So much had happened in so little time that had made her life SO much better that she couldn't be sad about his lack of returning her kisses. Instead, she promptly began cleaning him up again, this time without the sponge, like she had so many times before they had gotten married. She smacked her lips when she was done, no longer ashamed to be naked with her unconscious husband, and kissed him lightly on the lips. "Good night, my darling," she said softly. "You made me very happy tonight. Please wake up." She stood, looking down at his limp body. In the morning she thought it was a dream. She worried about it because she KNEW it wasn't a dream, but somehow wanted it to BE a dream. Her embarrassment was back. She was distracted and put coffee in June's cereal. June was only three, but she knew the difference between coffee and milk immediately and cried. That upset Valerie more and she put her husband out of her mind to take care of her children. When they went down for a nap, however, she couldn't put him out of her mind any longer. She returned to his bed and, filled with trepidation, lifted the sheet from his nude body. More to prove that it wasn't true than anything else, she manipulated the object of her desire. "Bob, something happened last night and I don't know if it was real or not." she said. "Are you IN there Bob?" His staff rose like a young bamboo shoot, growing visibly in her hand. She stepped back from the bed, her mouth open, her breath frozen in her lungs. That lasted about fifteen seconds. It's truly amazing how much can race through a human brain in a mere fifteen seconds. Valerie reached "acceptance" of the situation in only nine seconds. The other six were spent on seeing just how fast she could slip out of her dress, and bra and panties. Then, like Annie Oakley, she rode, yipping and hooting until five year old Martha, holding her three year old sister's hand, stepped into the room to find out what was wrong with Mommy. "What are you doing Mommy?" whined Martha, watching as her mother's breasts bounced up and down while she sat on top of Daddy, who didn't talk to anybody any more. "I'm taking care of Daddy sweetheart." was her reply. At this point she wasn't concerned about appearances. How much would a five year old remember in a year anyway? Well, the fact is that a five year old can remember an awful lot ... especially if she continues to see something happen year after year after year, which is exactly what Martha, June and Betty all did as they grew up. Quite frequently they got to see Mamma ... taking care of Daddy ... who one day would wake up and thank her profusely, Valerie was quite sure. The fact that the three girls were rather routinely presented with new siblings ... all boys, interestingly enough ... made an impact on them too. Even back in those days girls, when they got around twelve or thirteen, were able to figure out what sex was all about. By then, Valerie was so used to making love to her almost-but-not-quite-non-responsive husband, that she didn't even try to hide it from the girls any more. Instead, she taught them everything that was needed to run the house and take care of their father, with the exception of that one thing she reserved for herself. She told all her girls that, some day, they'd get to do this. She didn't mean with Bob, but the way she said it was interpreted by all three girls as exactly that. Some day they would do with their father what their mother did with their father. Thus it was that, when Betty was thirteen, and Martha was fifteen, and their mother contracted one of the diseases that we laugh at nowadays, but which killed people quite frequently back then, Martha just naturally assume the matriarchal role in the household. It would astonish us now, but back then, if you were well behaved, and showed an ability to cook, clean and wash the clothes, the relative who came to stay with you while your mother's body was laid to rest might actually go back home and leave you to raise yourself. It all depended on the relative. Both Bob's and Valerie's parents had passed on, and there were no really close relatives living nearby. The girls had access to the bank account, because while she was ill Valerie had instructed Martha in those matters and gotten her signature registered at the bank. They had an income, and went to school, and knew how to get medical care. So the distant cousin who stayed with them for three weeks went back home and the girls and their brothers faded from the radar of their relatives. Everyone was busy and had lots of other things to think about. So Martha took care of her sisters and brothers. It just seemed natural to continue taking care of her father too. And since Valerie wasn't there to try to wake him up by jumping up and down on his penis ... Martha decided that "some day" had arrived. She hadn't been much impressed with things the first time she sank down on her father's stiff prick, like she had seen her mother do so many times before. Whenever her mother did it, the penis looked wet and slippery. But when she tried it, it wasn't that way at all. In fact, it wouldn't even go inside her. She knew to play with it to get it hard, but once it was hard it just bent as she tried to sit on it. It was June who came up with the solution. She got a stick of butter and rubbed it all over their father's penis. This time, when Martha notched it in the opening of her fifteen year old pussy and sat down, the donkey dick seemed to stab upward and she was impaled. It is probable that, had she been able to climb right back off, it all would have ended there. But her legs were more or less paralyzed by the pain of losing her maidenhead and, by the time she got her legs under her, her vaginal canal had already adapted to the point that, when she leaned forward to get her feet under her to stand up, and her little unused clitty pressed deliciously against Daddy's rock hard prick, she decided that maybe ... just maybe ... she'd stay there for another minute or so ... just to see if it got any better. It did, of course, and her two sisters watched in awe as Martha began jumping up and down excitedly, eventually getting her own belly stuffed just as full of Daddy's virile spunk as Mommy ever did. And, since Martha was now the "woman of the house", she made it known in no uncertain terms that the other two girls were too young to ... take care of Daddy. That lasted all of ten months, after which Martha wasn't as comfortable with a thick prick stuffed up inside her, since there was a baby taking up most of the room that prick used to fill. On a sunny day in 1962 Martha gave a last convulsive push, and had her father's daughter. It had been a long, hard labor for a sixteen year old girl, and Martha was a bit peeved at her father and the baby for causing her all that agony. On top of that, she couldn't think of a name for the baby. She, being tired, and it being a sunny day, she just named the girl ... Sunny. It was while Martha was in the hospital that June, now fifteen herself, usurped the duties of ... taking care of Daddy. She had been jealous of Martha for months and months, even when Martha's belly swelled like she'd swallowed a basketball. Now that Martha couldn't do anything about it, June commenced to lose her own virginity. She remembered the scream, followed by the sobs, followed by the moans, finally followed by the joyous bouncing around Martha had done and, not being stupid, June eased herself onto her father's prod with much more care. June had also shoved several things up inside her during the last year, since mean old Martha wouldn't let her use the real thing. So her defloration was, for the most part, only slightly painful, mostly because of the stretching. She sat quietly for a few minutes and began to rock like both her mother and Martha had. She had a good time from the very beginning. She had such a good time that, when Betty wandered in to watch, she insisted that Betty try taking care of daddy too. She wasn't stingy like her big sister. Betty, always having been the youngest, and always feeling left out when her sisters got to do things before she did, was quite happy to join her sisters. She had to wait until the next day though. June's pussy was dripping with great globs of thick white stuff that Daddy had shot off inside her, but no matter how much they played with the penis that had just put it there, it wouldn't get hard again. They had to wait until the next day, at which time whatever had been broken had repaired itself. Betty had a much rougher time of it. She was only fourteen and Bob really was a big man. Betty worked hard to get a little more in, and then a little more after that, and a little more after that. When she felt the head of his penis pushing at something up inside her that just wouldn't move, there was still an inch of him left outside of her. But that meant there were six or seven inches INside her, and as she began raising and lowering her tightly stuffed pussy up and down, it began to feel better and better and better. She was able to feel better for a long time until she suddenly felt something happen up inside her that was warm and felt wet too. Then her father's penis softened and, as she stood up, she too had long strings of white goo dripping out of her pussy. It was delicious for her to be like her older sisters. So, by the time Martha got out of the hospital and back home, the cat ... or pussy, as it were ... was firmly out of the bag and firmly impaled by something long and strong that spurted regularly enough that it could have been called "Old Faithful". After that all three girls took turns taking care of Daddy. As things go, it was June who delivered her own sister next, in the summer of 1963. She went into labor while she was at a movie theater, which could be why she named her daughter Gidget. Betty wasn't far behind, giving birth to her daughter before she reached her sweet sixteenth birthday. Her water broke while she was curled up in a chair reading Pollyanna to her father. Being as unimaginative as her sisters, she named the girl Polly. ------- What with the insurance from dear old Daddy, and the life insurance from their mother's untimely death, the girls did fine, even though every time they got pregnant from taking care of Daddy again ... they had boys. It sounds like the girls had no thought for anything other than riding their father's boner. But that's not true. They did become a bit more circumspect about their daily ... and nightly ... attempts to make sure their sleeping Daddy was happy and would be happy when he finally woke up. The fact that they were getting all the stiff prick they wanted ... WHEN they wanted it ... and that the man giving them all that stiff prick didn't argue, or fart, or snore or tell them they were stupid, made them treasure all that quality time with their father. They also learned in school that incest was frowned upon by the community at large, so they kept their activities quiet, both from the community, and their brothers, who grew up, moved out and started families of their own. As such, they made sure their own children ... who, like their mothers, were also Bob's children ... were not aware of what went on in the room where Grandpa was sleeping. By the time Bob's granddaughters, Sunny, Gidget and Polly, got to be to the age where it was more or less natural for them to ask their mothers who daddy was, and why nobody had ever seen daddy, the three women simply explained that, during the sexual revolution of the sixties, things like that happened. To divert attention away from fathers, the girls were encouraged to read stories to their grandfather so that, when he finally woke up, he'd be happy. The girls, however, could think of a lot of things to do that were more interesting than reading to a sleeping man, things that didn't involve the sleeping man at all, and they usually did those things. Thus it was that after the "grandchildren" were all in bed, their mothers went the extra mile to ensure Bob's happiness themselves. They had, by now, learned to use birth control, else Bob's "grandchildren" number in the teens. Eventually, first Sunny, then Gidget and finally young Polly went away to college. Their mothers, who had raised their children in the big old house - sort of a mini village kind of concept - finally had a chance to find a place of their own. June and Betty found cheap houses not far from the homestead and Martha stayed with Daddy. All three, however, kept taking care of Daddy, who slept on. Almost everyone in town was impressed with how Bob's daughters had all forgone a lot what most women wanted - a husband - in the pursuit of taking care of the old man, who somehow didn't look old enough to be a grandfather. But then again, everyone knew that sleeping kept you young, and that's all he ever did. Besides, while the women didn't have husbands, they obviously had round heels, as evidenced by all those babies they'd had without all those husbands. Many a man in Circleton wished he could have been one of the fathers of some of those children ... or the next one. But their advances were rebuffed, and in a nice way that didn't make the men feel dirty. Basically, Martha, June and Betty were well liked by everyone in the neighborhood. Sunny, Gidget and Polly did all the things girls everywhere do. They met boys, loved them, hated them, and met more. They studied, had sleepovers, went to parties and lost their virginities in ways completely different than their mothers had. Though, not to put too fine a point on it, Gidget lost her virginity to a professor who actually looked older than her grandfather did, so one could suppose her experience was close to that of her mother's. The man "prepped" Gidget during several of their heavy petting sessions, making sure that she could take two fingers before he skewered her with his academic member. Sunny succumbed to a smooth talking assistant football coach when she was a 19 year old cheerleader at Crampton University. She was quite sure she could marry him and live happily ever after. When she told him about the happy news that they were going to be parents, he was less than enthusiastic about it, but agreed to "do the right thing." She named the little girl she bore him Valerie, in honor of her grandmother, the baby's great grandmother. She found out fairly soon that despite "doing the right thing" her husband was a louse and divorced him when little Valerie was only five. Having graduated and being employed, she went on with life. She never remarried, having decided that men were more trouble than they were worth. Gidget managed to parallel her cousin's story remarkably closely. She went to a different university where she became the victim of another educator, as mentioned before. He swore he was going to divorce his wife, as he was spurting deep inside Gidget's unprotected pussy, and it only took her two or three months to figure out what kind of asshole he was. She broke it off, changed colleges, and had the asshole's daughter in 1982. She was named Rebecca, primarily because the professor who had knocked her up was also a closet anti-Semitic and she knew that giving his daughter a good Hebrew name would hurt him more than anything else she could do. Polly, determined not to make the same mistake as her two cousins, shopped around until she found a man who was sensitive, caring and polite in the extreme. He also didn't push her into anything, which made her feel better, if not a little superior to her cousins. In fact, she managed to remain a virgin until 1983, when she was every bit of twenty. She was both amazed and delighted that, when she proposed, to the man who she finally awarded her virginity to, he not only accepted ... he helped her plan the most beautiful wedding she could have imagined. He also helped decorate the house and made baby clothes for their daughter, named Francine, born in 1984. He was better with a sewing machine than she was. Her only complaint was that her perfect husband didn't seem to have much of a sex drive. That was because, as she found out in the nineties, when it was OK to admit these things, that her husband was, and always would be, a flaming homosexual. He had married her in an attempt to "fit in". Still, he was as much fun to be around as any of her girlfriends, and they stayed together ... as friends. As fate would decree, all three cousins ended up right back in Circleton, so named, supposedly, because a group of settlers who made it all the way across the prairie and the mountains without incident, had to circle the wagons to fight off a band of roving Paiute Indians when they finally got to the West coast. The settlers had actually won the day. They stayed there and built a town, figuring that if the Indians wanted it enough to fight for it, there must be some reason. No gold was ever found in those parts, but by then everyone was pretty much tired of moving. At any rate, there they were, in sleepy, backwater Circleton, leading their separate lives, while their mothers took care of Grandfather, who slept on, just as he always had. There was a natural inclination for their daughters to band together. While their ages were disparate, they were cousins, and that counted for quite a lot. It didn't hurt that their mothers, who were technically cousins, had been raised in the same house and thought of themselves as sisters. The younger cousins played together, went to school together, got in trouble together and basically acted like sisters themselves, even though they lived in separate houses. They also spent what some folks might call an inordinate amount of time standing beside their great grandfather's bed, staring at him. Their young, fertile minds and young fertile imaginations came up with scenario after scenario of what was wrong with Great Grandpa Winkle, what he was thinking as he lay there, and what would happen when he woke up (they all just KNEW he'd wake up). While their mothers had little interest in the old man ... who didn't look at all old to the girls ... his great granddaughters learned from their grandmothers that he enjoyed being read to, and liked for people to tell him stories, and describe their day to him and all that sort of thing. No one ever told them how it was actually known that Bob liked that, but then kids will believe most anything a trusted adult tells them. So they did that. And, at the odd moment when the other two weren't there, each young girl talked to the only man they felt like they could confide practically anything to without worrying about what he'd say back, or who he would share those secrets with. They talked about all kinds of things they'd never have talked about with a man who was awake, including, as they grew older, how they felt about certain boys, and what their bodies felt like sometimes when they touched themselves certain places ... or when a boy touched them in those places ... things like that. In short, he got told a lot of these kinds of secrets. Great Grandpa Winkle was a very good listener. Of course it wasn't all sugar and spice for Bob's descendents. There came a time, in 1970, for instance, when a man from the insurance company came, saying that the company had been paying disability for too long, and demanding to see the beneficiary. He was duly taken into the room where Bob Winkle lay. He didn't believe it was Bob, since the man in his files would have to have been at least fifty-five years old. This man was obviously only in his early to mid twenties. A court case ensued, which was resolved by the taking of Bob's fingerprints, which proved that he was, indeed, the same Bob Winkle that the insurance company was indebted to. Heads were shaken, but a court ruling is a court ruling and all the people involved were too busy with making money to seek further into Bob's condition. Once again, he was forgotten by all except his daughters, and their granddaughters. And so, life went on. Martha, June and Betty had settled into a rotating schedule in which they cared for their father, who was still ensconced in the family home which Martha lived in, even though the papers on the deed still listed her father and mother as owners. Each of the women, now in her early fifties, mounted his sleeping form with great regularity, sighing and moaning as they gently rocked themselves to sweet orgasms, and welcoming into their bellies the warm spurts of his not so sleeping issue. He had given each of them a beautiful daughter, and several sons. His sons ... or grandsons, depending on how you look at it, had all become successful at various pursuits and were pillars of their respective communities. While his other daughters, or granddaughters, again depending on how you look at it, had been somewhat less successful in their pursuit of true love, they were, for the most part, well adjusted and carried on with little more pain in their lives than anyone else would experience. ------- It was a sunny morning in May, 2000, when Betty shuddered, her pussy clasping her sleeping father's prick tightly as waves of pleasure swept over her naked body. At fifty-two, Betty was still a healthy and well preserved woman. She would like to have lost fifteen pounds, and she mourned the loosening of the muscles that had held her generous breasts up for so many years. She observed this as she held up those breasts, one in each hand, squeezing the fat brown nipples that perched on their tips. She had to hurry. Her granddaughter, Francine was due to arrive in half an hour for a birthday shopping trip. Betty had already had one orgasm, and was tempted to go for another one. She decided she didn't have time though. Over the years she had learned that she could make her father's long hard prick spurt whenever she wanted it to by using her pussy muscles just so ... by rocking just this way ... and making him cum was a habit by now. She and her sisters had decided long ago that Daddy deserved to cum as part of his "care". She began to do what she knew would get his prick to spurt. Her father, as usual, made no sign or movement, but she felt his wonderful long penis swell a bit and then the warm wetness she loved so much filled her deep inside. She leaned over, as she had done so many times in the past, kissing his slack lips softly. "I love you Daddy." she said softly. It was something she had been saying for so long that it was a routine statement. It was the same general routine that she had carried out, as had her sisters, for almost forty years. It should not be hard, therefore, to imagine the level of her surprise when her father's eyes opened and stared up into hers. Betty's first reaction, the most normal of reactions, was shock. Part of that shock was because his eyes were brilliant sky blue. She had never seen her father's eyes, or at least couldn't remember seeing them. He had, after all, gone to sleep when she was still suckling her mother's breasts. Part of that shock was because, while she "knew" that this man was her father, his youthful appearance belied that fact. He looked like a man in his early to mid twenties. While she had been young, that hadn't seemed notable. But as she aged, and he stayed the same, her mind had begun to rebel at the notion that this handsome young man could be anything other than what he appeared to be ... just a handsome young man. It was very conflicting, because she loved the concept that he was her father, and while she had only nice memories of the man who had impregnated her four times, it was still difficult for her to fully grasp the idea that he really was her father. Maybe that was one reason why it was so easy for her to have let herself be impregnated by him. Who knows? It was, after all, an unusual situation. Another part of her shock was because he took a deep breath and let out a long sigh, part of which was probably due to the fact that his prick was right in the middle of spurting her full of semen. She had neither seen nor heard him do anything other than lie there quietly. And, of course, part of the shock was because while her sisters had always stubbornly claimed he would wake up some day ... she secretly didn't believe it. But, her sisters were right. Today was that day. He had awakened. Betty's next reaction followed closely. She was suddenly intimately aware of how she was dressed ... or rather not dressed ... and, despite the fact that she had done this very same thing with this very same man, literally thousands of times, she was acutely aware that she was engaged in having sex with a stranger. Her face was only inches from his, her body frozen as if she were made of stone. She stared into those endlessly deep blue eyes. His penis gave two more convulsive spurts and stopped. You could literally have heard a pin drop. ------- Chapter 2 Bob Winkle returned to consciousness in much the same manner as a man who has been sleeping through a thunder storm, and suddenly awakes to find a tornado is in the process of ripping his house to shreds. There was a lot going on, and his mind couldn't seem to center on any one thing. Among the various different stimuli vying for his primary attention were thoughts, some unconscious, such as the fact that he was twenty-three years old, that Valerie had said she was going to fix meatloaf tonight, and that his Barca Lounger was so comfortable that it felt like he was actually lying in bed. He was also aware, on some level, that he was in the act of making love, though the circumstances were strange. He felt his penis shooting, which was something that couldn't be mistaken for anything else. But the woman on top of him - that, in itself was strange... no woman had ever been on top of him before - was a complete stranger. That didn't bode well for him at all. No wife has the capacity to understand why, on her third wedding anniversary, her husband has sex with a complete stranger. He remembered hearing the word "Daddy" as his consciousness returned, and he knew he was a father, with three children, but the voice hadn't sounded like that of a child. He was also hungry. Famished, in fact. And thirsty too, so much so that his mouth felt like cotton. As his mind began to disregard some things and tune in to others, the woman sitting on top of his just-finished-spurting prick got top priority. Not unusual, under the circumstances. "Hello." said Bob thickly. To be honest, he couldn't think of anything else to say. "Daddy!" squeaked Betty. To continue being honest, she couldn't think of anything else to say either. "Daddy?" rasped Bob. "Daddy!" Betty repeated. Her mind still hadn't adapted to the situation. Her statement was both a simple repeat of what she'd said, in answer to his question, and a shout to herself that this really WAS Daddy... HER Daddy... her AWAKE Daddy. At the same time, while part of her mind was telling her to DO SOMETHING!, another part of her mind simply said: "OK, we have an emergency here. We're not trained for this kind of emergency. Shut down all systems and restart to see if that does anything." Bob was still trying to figure out what "Daddy!" meant, coming from this woman's mouth, when her quite lovely blue eyes rolled up in her head and she flopped limply down on top of him. He had fleeting thoughts that her breasts were warm and soft on his chest, and that her hair smelled good, and that she was heavy. He had another fleeting thought that Valerie might walk in at any moment, and that she would NOT understand or appreciate what was going on here. Then his mind screamed "What IS going on here!?" He pushed the woman off of him and she flopped bonelessly beside him on the bed. On the bed. He was in a bed... not in his Barca Lounger. His head swiveled as he sat up. The woman's right leg was still lying across his thighs and they acted as ballast to help him sit up in the soft bed. Yet another part of his mind whispered that he needed to get a little more exercise, since it shouldn't be that hard just to sit up. His muscles felt slightly weak for some reason. He could tell he was in his bedroom. Or at least it was very LIKE his bedroom. The bed was the same... his bed... and some of the furniture was exactly the same, though it had been moved from where it had been when he'd decided to take a nap... fully dressed... in the living room... in his Barca Lounger... Bob looked at the woman curiously. He moved her leg and it plopped down as she rolled the rest of the way onto her back. She looked to be about his mother's age and there was something eerily familiar about her. He examined her face, and was sure he must know her from somewhere, though he couldn't for the life of him remember seeing her anywhere. Women her age didn't travel in his circles all that much. His eyes strayed to her breasts, which were trying to fall off her chest, but were held there by tightly stretched skin. They had more the appearance that they were slightly drunk, leaning, but not quite falling to her sides. The nipples stuck up as if they were erect. He had the sudden urge to pinch one, to see if it was as hard as it looked, but didn't. His eyes went naturally downward to a smooth patch of brown pubic hair that lay flat on her mons above full sperm-covered labia. Sperm-covered labia. His mind remembered the feeling of orgasm as he awoke and he looked in his own lap at his shrunken, messy penis. It was sperm covered too. He had just had sex with this woman. It was obvious, but crazy too, in that insane way that jars the mind and makes the world twist suddenly ninety degrees off true. He couldn't remember getting into bed with her, much less having sex with her. It was like a dream. Like his mind was playing some trick on him. His mind began to play more tricks on him. He had vague, gauzy memories of this happening before... many times before... of orgasms while he slept... of voices speaking to him... telling him things. As the memories swirled in his brain he tried to pin them down and examine them. He had fleeting images of stories being read to him, of people asking him questions... and telling him that they loved him. The only thing he could center on was that all the voices were female. One memory popped in his mind like a soap bubble and the suddenly remembered voice of a woman saying "June! Again?! You're insatiable!" and another female voice responding "I can't help it. He's so hard and it feels soooo good. Oooooo he's cumming Martha! He's shooting in me Martha!" Then that memory vanished and he was left to wonder who June and Martha were. He had children named June and Martha, but these had been the voices of women, not toddlers. His eyes returned to the naked woman's face. She looked vaguely like Valerie, his wife. He looked longer. Yes, the jaw, the eyebrows and the cheekbones! They were what his wife might look like if she were older than she was. He stared, seeing his wife's face suddenly aged twenty or thirty years. He shook his head. This was insane. Something was wrong. He had to find Valerie and find out what was happening to him. Leaving the unconscious woman on the bed - he was so distracted that he didn't even cover her up - he swung his legs down off the edge of the bed. He felt weak and staggered as he stood, having to help himself up by pushing on the bed with his hands. He stood, weaving drunkenly as he got his bearings, and looked around for his clothing. Not seeing anything in plain sight, he stumbled over to the dresser and opened his underwear drawer. It was full of T shirts. He held one up. It was obviously too small to fit him. He opened other drawers, finding all kinds of women's clothing, but nothing of his. His brain was beginning to hurt from the strangeness he was experiencing. He'd find Valerie. She'd know what was happening. He began stepping toward the bedroom door. ------- Francine breezed through her great aunt's front door as if she lived in the house. She'd spent enough time in this house that she knew it up and down. Sideways too, for that matter. It had developed as a hangout for her and her cousins, when they wanted to get together, but not under the eyes of their parents. Great Aunt Martha (sometimes just Aunt Martha) was pretty cool for somebody her age, and left them alone, for the most part. Fran and her cousins, Becca and Val, had spent hours and hours together in this house. When they were younger they had played, sometimes with dolls, sometimes board games, sometimes other more active games, like hide and seek. As they grew older they spent more time talking. They talked about everything from their favorite TV shows to fashion, to why the man called their great grandfather, but who looked about twenty, slept in that bed in the other room for all these years. At first they hadn't believed that the man had slept for years. But as their own years piled up, and they never saw him wake, he became another fixture in the house. They watched their grandmothers read to the man, sitting beside the bed with their reading glasses on, reading a chapter or two from some book to the sleeping man. Eventually they took turns reading to him too, the only difference being they read things they thought were good, rather than things they thought their sleeping great grandfather might like. It was difficult for them to believe that he would ever awaken, or that he could hear them. Still, there was something calming and nice about reading to him. That led eventually to saying other things to him, and asking him questions. All three girls began to think of him as some mysterious power who heard their complaints, and dreams, and wishes and somehow could do something about them. After a camping trip all three young girls would troop in and tell him all about what had happened, and what was fun, and what was not. Individually, as they grew into adolescence, they told him other things, secret things, things they didn't even tell each other. Then one day, while Val was fourteen, Becca was twelve and Fran was ten, they were playing hide and seek in the house where their great grandfather lay sleeping, something happened that changed their lives. They didn't think about it that way, but it changed the way they thought about things... so it changed their lives. As the youngest, Fran was "it" first, of course, and had to hide her eyes in a corner and count to a hundred slowly while Val and Becca hid somewhere in the house. It was a big house, with both a basement and an attic, so their games were both long and instructive. On this day, Val, whose grandmother owned the house, decided to hide in the attic. She had hidden there before, and there was one place she'd eyed for a long time, but had never used. There was an old roll top desk against one wall. It was rumored to have belonged to the very first Winkle who came to America way back in 1899 or some such thing. It was made of some dark, almost black wood which was very hard, and beautiful in a dusty sort of way. The girls didn't know it, but this had been Bob's favorite piece of furniture, the very same one in which Valerie had found the insurance policy... the desk that was a gift from Bob's aged great grandfather. Bob had used it as a home office, with its myriad of cubby holes and little drawers and slots in which a whole life's worth of bills, correspondence and important papers had been stored. It was his very attachment to it that caused it to end up in the attic. Valerie, when her husband refused to wake, went through several phases of grief. During one of them, she moved everything that reminded her of her sleeping husband's normal life to the attic. Some of it had come back out again, over the years, but the desk, weighing hundreds of pounds, sat there, still full of papers that were now thirty or forty years old. There was a hole under the desk, for a person's knees, and a bulky old wooden desk chair that filled that hole. It was Val's opinion that, if she removed the chair, got in the hole and then pulled the chair back in behind her, no one would think to look for her there. She was right in that. She was so right that she sat in the hole, under the desk, for almost forty-five minutes, once seeing Fran's skinny legs walking right by where she was hiding. The stakes in this game were high, since whoever stayed hidden the longest would be exempt from the next session of helping Great Grandma Martha, or Great Aunt Martha, depending on who you were, wash dishes. The admittedly sweet, but also slightly odd old woman seemed to have this equally odd idea that washing dishes together by hand was a bonding experience that all young girls should participate in frequently. So Val sat patiently, waiting for Fran to come around and announce defeat to the room in general, before going on to announce it all over the house. And, as she sat, trying to get out of more "bonding" with her great grandmother, Val got bored. And, as she got more and more bored, she did the only thing she could. She examined her surroundings closely. And, as she examined things around her closely, she observed something singularly odd. She knew there was a drawer in the desk that was right above a person's lap when they sat there. She had been in that drawer numerous times, looking for treasure, and at the odd things that were in there. For instance, there was an odd silver thing that looked like pliers, but was used to punch a single hole in a piece of paper. She and her cousins had figured out that much, but couldn't figure out why anyone would want to do that in the first place. There were other interesting and strange things in that drawer too, but that wasn't what got her attention. What got her attention was the fact that that drawer was only about a foot deep. Yet, as she looked at the underside of the hole, she could see that the drawer could be... should be... twice that long. And... there was a square of wood visible, with four edges, in the space that wasn't being used by the drawer. It looked a little like a trap door, with a slot in it, and a little metal bulge in the middle of the slot. She reached up and fingered the little metal bulge, more out of idle curiosity than actually trying to make anything happen, but the results were both interesting and surprising. There was a squeak and the bulge moved. One edge of the square dropped down slightly, like a trap door trying to open, and then stopped. Val reached for that edge and pulled gently. The little door opened wider, until it hung down at a forty-five degree angle. She couldn't see into whatever was exposed, because it faced the chair. She pushed the door back up and pushed the chair out, scooting out after it. She wriggled around, her fourteen year old body being cramped in the small space, until she could reach and pull the door down again. What was revealed to her was a compartment, about a foot square, and perhaps four inches deep. In it rested a dusty book about an inch thick. Holding her breath for some reason she wasn't thinking about (and couldn't have identified if she had been thinking about it), she reached gingerly for the book. When she pulled it down she saw it was leather bound, the surface smooth and deep brown under the dust covering it. She brushed at the surface of the cover with her hand and blew away a cloud of dust. Dim gold colored letters in a line across the surface were revealed. Backing out now, because it was too dark under the desk, her desire to hide had vanished. She sat on the floor, the chair pushed back further, examining the letters. They looked gold, or what had once been gold colored, and were impressed into the surface of the leather somehow. She recognized it as Old English lettering, which was hard for her to make out, both because of its faintness, but also because the letters were so embellished, with extra whorls and lines in them. The first letter evaded her completely, it was so ornate. The second was an "a" and the third looked like a lower case "n". Then there was a short space and another outrageously ornate capital letter, followed by what was obviously an "i", another "n" and possibly an "h". "GOTCHA!" shouted Fran, who had Becca with her. Val was so startled that she dropped the book when she jumped. She felt a flash of anger at having been found by the younger girl, and her adolescent mind snapped to that problem. "I wasn't hiding any more!" she announced. "You took too long to find me and I came out." "Oh horse puckey." snorted Fran. "That's not the rule and you know it. I got you fair and square." Becca, less intent on ending the game or winning, which she already hadn't done, was the first to notice the odd posture that Val was in. The fact that she was sitting on the floor wasn't so odd. It was WHERE on the floor she was sitting that seemed strange. It was almost like she had pulled out the desk chair and then sat down on the floor instead. Becca saw the book lying in Val's lap. "What's that?" she asked, pointing. "OH!" squealed Val, remembering the book and forgetting to continue arguing that she hadn't lost the game after all. "I found it while I was hiding. It was in a secret compartment of the desk!" This was an announcement of great import to her cousins. They had all examined the desk and its contents in the past, as they dreamed and imagined of finding treasure or secrets. All they had found were old papers and things, some of which they still hadn't figured out what were for. they had gone back again and again, searching for just such a secret compartment, sure that it existed, and sure that it contained something of great value. They had eventually given up on that dream. Now it was suddenly reawakened, and visions of secret bank accounts, or maps to buried treasure leapt into the girl's minds. "It looks like a book." said Becca, her fingers itching to touch it. "Of course it's a book." muttered Val disgustedly, brushing her lap off and standing up. "What's in it?" asked Becca eagerly. "I don't know yet." said Val, clutching the find to her burgeoning breasts. "I was looking at it when you two scared me half to death." "Well OPEN IT!" shouted the excited girl. "I will." said Val, suddenly sensing the power she held in her hands. Her cousins wanted to see what was in the book, and she controlled that right now. She wanted to see what was in it too, of course, but one woman's power over another cannot be easily dismissed. "I was trying to figure out what's on the front of it. I'll open it in a minute." she said. She watched her cousins to see if her power had been recognized. She was gratified to see both girls tense and squirm. Power is so delicious to wield. "Hurry UP!" squealed Fran, young enough that she didn't realize she was playing right into Val's self satisfied little power trip. Then, in a flash, Val's appetite for being in control was satisfied and her own eagerness took the fore. "Look at the letters!" she said, thrusting the book out, the cover facing the other two girls. "I can't read them." complained Fran, still bouncing around, wanting to open the book and be stunned by what was revealed inside. Little did she know how stunning the contents of that small book would be. The girls tried to puzzle out the letters for a minute or so, but the suspense was too much, and finally Val turned the cover, lying it flat on the old desk's surface. Spidery script was revealed. Long lines of it, closely spaced, covered the first page. It, too, was difficult to read, being both tiny and faded. More pages were turned, looking for anything that they could easily recognize. But the whole book was the same. They turned at last to the last page, where a signature flowed almost halfway across the bottom. It was that signature that caused them to take the time to figure out what was in the book in later days. It was that signature that made their hearts burst with curiosity, and awakening as to how special their family was... how exceptionally special their great grandfather was. It was that signature that changed their lives forever. In flowing script, in letters large enough for them to easily read, was the signature that they knew could completely overturn their lives, and the lives of all those around them. That signature exploded in their minds with the effect of a nuclear explosion. Just twelve little letters turned their game into something that would affect them both immediately, and for the rest of their lives. Those twelve little letters were: Rip Van Winkle. ------- Every child in 1970 had heard the fairy tale of Rip Van Winkle, the man of Dutch extraction, the man of no account who had gotten drunk on magical liquor one day and then fallen asleep, to awake twenty years later. The tale was originally told to encourage sobriety and a good work ethic in youngsters of the early nineteen hundreds. But it was only an old fairy tale. Everyone knew that. Now, to these young girls, however, there were some obvious questions, and some equally obvious indications that no one in their family had ever mentioned. The name of the man sleeping just downstairs... Winkle... for instance. And the fact that he had been asleep for as long as anyone could remember. As unlikely as it was that no one in the family had ever considered those two clues together, it was just as unlikely that three intelligent girls could fail to notice those clues, with that book, and its mysterious signature in their possession. After their intuitive leap that somehow their great grandfather was related to Rip Van Winkle, the next thing that burst upon their new consciousness was that everyone else in the family obviously knew about this... and had kept it secret from them. They didn't stop to think how hard that would have been for anyone who knew the "truth". They didn't think about the fact that, had anyone known, money could have been made off that fact, or that doctors would be constantly in attendance of the man, or even that he probably wouldn't even be in the bed downstairs if the family, or the public at large knew he was associated with, or related to the fabled Rip Van Winkle. Instead, all they thought of was that they had discovered secret, hidden knowledge, which they obviously were not supposed to have, and which they would make a blood oath never to reveal. They even cut their fingers to exchange blood in the old Indian way as they made the solemn pact. It was something that came to adolescent girls easily, and the romanticism of what they had found, and the secret they... secretly shared... kept their bond for them, even up until the day he awakened. To be fair, as the girls got older and older, they came to the understanding that the secret knowledge they had probably was NOT known to the adults in their lives. By then, though, it was too late to proudly produce the amazing little journal and chirp "See what I found Mommy? Isn't it interesting? See the old English letters on the front that say Van Winkle?" No, by then their secret was so dark and so buried that they still could not bring themselves to tell anyone about it. Besides, by then, they were jaded enough by the world to assume that no one would believe them OR the journal either, even if they brought it out into the light of day. But THEY believed it was true. Much time was spent poring over the spidery writing, which detailed the account of what happened to Rip, their great great great great grandfather. They eventually all became expert at deciphering his cramped writing in the thin book, and all three of them read the account of his life, as recorded in the journal. For that is what they had found. They had found the journal he had kept after awakening in the Catskills, where almost none recognized him, nor believed he was who he claimed to be. Rip had been lucky enough that old Peter Vanderdonk had recognized him and supported his story, describing a supernatural group of boatmen who were rumored to return to the mountains every so often to play ninepins. He himself had heard their thunder in the past. At last Rip was allowed to be who he was, though few actually believed it. Rip had moved in with his daughter and resumed his old lifestyle, living to a ripe old age, again a normal man. Still, the story of the crazy old man who claimed to have slept for so long skittered around in the dark of night in towns and villages not so far away, who had heard the legend. They used it to frighten children into behaving themselves, and to turn drunkards away from the thing they loved so much. He told how he was found, years after he woke, by a man named Diedrich Knickerbocker, from New York City, a man who was researching old Dutch customs, and he told Knickerbocker his story, loaning him the journal for a span of weeks, so that the lessons he had learned by his harrowing experience could be passed on to others. At the time, his tale had been all but forgotten as succeeding generations put less and less credence into the truth of his ramblings. He mourned, in the journal, how his grandchildren, proud to be a part of the new America, changed their names, dropping the Dutch "Van" so that they would no longer be associated with the doddering old drunk who told the crazy tale of little people and magical drink and a long long nap. He mourned the fact that even HE had to use the name Winkle in his new life, for his old name was too well known after Knickerbocker wrote his tale and he was harassed by sensation seekers. He told of how his new life was much more successful than his last, and how he had given up strong drink. He talked of new children, though he never listed a new wife, and it was unclear who the mother of his new children was. His last entry told how he had adjusted to his new life, and that he was putting his old one away. He wrote how he planned to secret the journal in the desk he had brought with him from England when he crossed the big ocean on a sailing ship so long ago. Then he said his will would demand that the desk, with its secret contents, be passed down to the elder males of the line. He was worried that what had happened to him might happen in some way to others of his line in the future, and he wanted to warn them. No hand had touched that journal since then, until Val pulled it from its hiding place. Oddly, while they talked with each other frequently about the information in the journal, the level of secrecy that surrounded the journal prevented them from telling even their sleeping great grandfather what they had found. ------- Chapter 3 Over the next six years, the girls matured and their relationship with their great grandfather deepened in a way that, to an outsider would have been fascinating and strange. It would have been strange to their mothers too, who had basically ignored the sleeping man in the bed, since THEIR mothers did all the taking care of him... in more ways than one. Martha, June and Betty, knew that the day would come when they could no longer care for their father, and they knew that their daughters had no real connection to the man. They also knew that, had Sunny, Gidget and Polly known the facts, they might have felt a LOT more connection to their grandfather... who was actually their father... AND the father of all their brothers too. But that was a family secret, and though telling Sunny, Gidget and Polly the actual identity of their father was discussed on more than a few occasions, it was always agreed that no good could come of that. Their daughters had enough problems with men as it was, and didn't need anything else to upset their worlds. But, some day, someone would have to take over the care of Bob Winkle. And so the grandmothers chose their granddaughters as the persons to eventually pass that particular torch to. They planned on waiting until the girls had finished college. Then, perhaps, they would be mature enough to take over. There were hot debates between Martha and her sisters about just how much would be told to the three young women. Those debates had never resulted in a clear decision as to exactly what... care... would be described... and prescribed. They all knew that if the man didn't wake up soon, it would be taken out of their hands. Once he went over a hundred, someone would take notice of his history, and they would no longer be able to keep a lid on things. Val, Becca and Fran had no grandfathers, in the normal sense of the word. Only Fran had a father she knew and talked to, but his dad was dead. Sunny had no contact with her ex-husband's family. It would have been confusing to an outsider, or even an insider who hadn't grown up knowing the situation. Bob, on the surface, was their great grandfather, when in reality he WAS their grandfather. Or maybe he was both. It was easy to get confused. But it was also easy to encourage everyone in the family to just call him Grandpa. Everyone knew exactly who you were referring to if you just said "Grandpa". So they taught the girls to read to him, and encouraged them to talk to him as if he could hear them, like any grandpa would listen. It was a mission of mercy and love, which was easy for the girls to understand when they were under ten years of age, if a bit harder to believe as they grew older and began to doubt. But the finding of Rip's journal changed all of that. Now the girls KNEW that he would wake up some day... just like Rip had. And, since Rip had slept only twenty years, it stood to reason that Bob would wake up soon. He was, at the time of the finding of the journal, already twenty-four years overdue to come out of his slumber. Rip had talked at some length about his theory of why things had happened to him the way they had. His level of scientific knowledge was severely limited, and a lot of his rambling had to do with overtones of divine punishment, or the winds of fate, or maybe even witchcraft... all unscientific explanations for what had happened to him. But he also predicted that, whatever it was that had happened to him, it might happen to another member in the family. It was for this reason, he said, that he wrote the journal. The girls, as they decoded and read about his life, had the benefit of a good American education, though, and as time went on they postulated a genetic flaw, or capability, depending on how you looked at it, that was recessive, and so didn't repeat itself very often, and which caused the sleeping "sickness" they witnessed. They had no idea how close to the truth they were in that hypothesis. It was the deepening of this bond between three young girls and a man who had never said a word to them that caused them to begin to confide in him their most secret feelings. He suddenly had a magical quality about him, and being with him made them feel like some of that magic might just rub off. In a strangely familiar way - one could argue about their genetics - they reacted to him in much the same way as their great grandmother had when she gave him that sponge bath that had such a profound impact on her and her daughter's lives. Not that they were taught to give him sponge baths. Their grandmothers still reserved that right for themselves. But they were growing adolescent girls... And they were curious about men. As such, when they were alone with him, they had an opportunity that few girls have to assuage that curiosity. They explored. All of them lifted the sheet and stared for long minutes at his manly equipment. And all of them eventually touched that wrinkled worm that they had been told - at least so far as the ones on boys - would get long and hard and was supposed to go in a girl's vagina. Val and Becca touched it longer than little Fran did, and discovered, almost as their great grandmother did, that there was life in that odd looking lump of flesh. As she began to date Val... practiced... on the sleeping man the things she felt the urge, or was requested to do with the boys she went out with. This, she kept secret, even from her cousins, but as she tried each new thing, she talked to her sleeping relative, telling him what she wanted to do... asking him if it would be OK for her to try it on him... telling him she hoped it was as much fun for him as it was for her, and wondering why his penis seemed to be so much longer and larger than any of the ones she saw on boys her own age. Her specialty, as it turned out, was masturbation. She soon learned that it was messy, but a girl at school told her the solution was to catch it in a towel or washcloth. You could then fold it up and the mess was controlled. It also kept you from having to fight the boy off in case he wanted to do other things with his penis. Val perfected it on great grandpa who produced LOTS more sperm than the boys on her dates. That, for the most part, was all she ever did, either in the bedroom with the sleeping man, or on those dates. Becca did virtually the same thing, also keeping it secret, except that the girl she talked to said to take it in your mouth. Then you could either swallow or spit to control the mess, and the boys just LOVED it. The first time she tried it, she handled Bob's cock until it was long and hard and then tentatively put her lips over the sheath-covered head. She pulled off quickly, making a face and trying to taste something that, it turned out, just wasn't there. It felt strange in her mouth, but there was no bad taste, like she had expected. She skinned the foreskin down and tried it again. This time everything that touched her mouth was smooth and hard, and she liked it much better. So she kept licking and sucking the thing, finding that it was very exciting to do so. She was only sixteen at the time, and the sudden rush of salty/sweet fluid in her mouth not only surprised her, but it completely unnerved her as well. While she knew that something came out of that amazing thing, she hadn't ever been able to tell when it was going to happen. Usually it happened after she stroked it a lot, maybe fifteen minutes. When she put her mouth on it, it exploded in less than five. Then her mouth was full of something she suddenly didn't want to taste. But, by the time she got to the bathroom, her stomach heaving and her hand keeping her mouth closed, the emergency seemed to have passed. She did spit, but she didn't upchuck, and the lingering taste of his spunk didn't seem so bad as it first had. By the time she got back to clean him up, she decided it hadn't been bad at all. The next time she got some time alone with him, she repeated her experiment and this time she savored his offering, swirling it in her mouth and swallowing it down. She had done so countless times since, making that a special little ceremony she did with him. She learned the hard way that the spunk of different men has different tastes, some of it not so good, and while she eagerly drank her great grandfather's spend, most of the other, when she was aware it was about to come out, she let fly into the air, watching in glee as the boy groaned and cried out and promised her anything at all if she'd just leave her mouth on him. For Fran, the discovery that Great Grandpa Winkle had what she secretly called... his winkle... was a thing of more innocence. Curiosity led her to look, and touch, and look a lot of times in the future. She had no idea how that was supposed to go inside a girl. It just lay there like an old, soft banana. But she knew WHERE it was supposed to go. And she played with that part of herself while she stared at his winkle, squeezing an amazing number of orgasms out of her young clitty as she told her ancestor what she was doing. In her mind, the thing she stared at, and which gave her so much pleasure, would someday go inside of her and she would magically understand all the things she wasn't sure about now. Well, perhaps not THIS winkle, but one like it, most certainly. She found that highly erotic and immensely satisfying, and couldn't wait for her sixteenth birthday, when she would be able to go on dates and explore men, like the stories she heard from her cousins. Until then, she'd just have to make do with Great Grandpa Winkle while he slept. She had only recently tried what she had heard all boys liked a girl to do, stroking her hand up and down the sleeping man's penis until, just like she had heard, it stiffened and lengthened and then erupted in streams of thick silvery stuff that made a horrible mess. She'd had to run and get a washcloth to clean him up, terrified that someone would come in and find out what she'd done. Though she didn't yet know it, she had done something that came as naturally to her, if a bit later in life, as it had come to her two older cousins. Which was why, on that lovely morning in the spring of 2000, when Fran walked into her Great Aunt Martha's house to collect her Grandmother Betty, so they could go shopping for her sixteenth birthday present, she was, shall we say, overcome by the sight of the man she KNEW to be Great Grandfather Winkle, walking upright, stark naked, down the hallway directly toward her. She knew it was him, because she had gazed at his face for hours on end. She knew it was him because of the thing dangling between his legs. It was as recognizable to her as her own hand, because she had gazed at IT for hours on end as well. But she had never seen him either awake or walking, and because he was both of those things at the present, her brain, being suddenly under great pressure, instructed her vocal chords to relieve the pressure instantly. She screamed. Then, perhaps because of another genetic similarity between her and her grandmother, she fainted. ------- Bob was having a rough day, and that day, at least the part he was awake for, had only been five or six minutes long. First he had awakened from his nap, in his Barca Lounger, to find himself in bed instead, with a woman who reminded him of what his lovely wife Valerie might look like at some point in the future. Not only that, but this lovely woman had just ridden him to ejaculation. Then, before he could ask her who the hell she was, and what the hell she was doing, she promptly fainted on him. Now, when faced with a much younger woman who was the spitting image of his lovely wife Valerie when they had first met, she had screamed and fainted as well. He hadn't even had time to draw breath to ask her who the hell SHE was, and what the hell she was doing in his house. He stood, looking down at the girl on the floor. She was a cute little thing. He noticed that she was wearing an oddly designed top that, while it covered her breasts, had no shoulders, and didn't cover anything else. It had a strap that went from one side of the front up and around her neck to the other side. As he moved her from her crumpled and uncomfortable looking position, he saw that there were buttons on the front, like a shirt might have. It was as if someone had taken a shirt, cut most of it off, added the neck strap, and called it... something. The girl moaned softly and Bob looked at her face. The resemblance between her and Valerie was astonishing. But this girl was only in her mid teens, and his wife was twenty-one. He felt sudden pain in his bladder, the insistent kind that suggests that if you don't find a urinal or handy bush, you'd better plan on changing your pants. Since he wasn't wearing any pants, he stood up and turned for the bathroom. It was right where it was supposed to be, and it was exactly as he remembered it... except it was totally different. The walls had wallpaper on them, whereas when he'd gone to sleep there was only white paint. The stool was exactly the same, but the bathtub, with its clawed feet was gone completely. In its place was a gleaming white thing that formed not only a tub, but ran up the walls as high as he was tall. There was a nozzle sticking out of the wall, about the height of his head, obviously a shower head, but it was like no shower head he'd ever seen. It was a monstrosity of plastic and metal, with images on it of different kinds of water drops. He felt his penis leaking as his bladder screamed and found that he had to go so badly that he was erect. He sat down on the toilet and, when he finally got a stream going, held his cock down so he wouldn't pee between the seat and the porcelain of the toilet. He looked around. Gone was the white metal cabinet that had been on the wall where he had stared into the mirror while shaving. It had been mysteriously replaced with something made of beautiful wood, with a line of large round light bulbs projecting from the wall above it. It had two doors on it, rather than the one on the old cabinet, and each door had a mirror. There were cubby holes on either side of it that had all manner of things sticking out from them. He noticed something that looked like a gun lying on the counter, which was also new, along with the sink installed in it. The gun was made of plastic, and had a muzzle as big as a golf ball. It also had a cord coming out of the handle. He blinked, trying to figure out what such a gun would shoot, and how it could be powered by electricity. There were tubes, and bottles of all sorts sitting on the counter top. He reached to pick one up and read the label: "Vaseline Ultimate Care". Vaseline he was acquainted with, but it came in a glass jar, not a plastic bottle. It took him two full minutes to figure out how to get anything out of the bottle. There was a cunningly hidden cap that flipped up, revealing a small hole in the top. How was someone supposed to scoop out any Vaseline through such a small hole? He tipped the bottle and a greenish fluid squirted out of the hole as his fingers accidentally squeezed to hold the bottle up. The stuff went everywhere and he dropped the bottle in his attempt to stop it. His head hurt. Everything was so similar, but so completely strange. He got up and opened the door of the new cabinet. He saw what he recognized as pill bottles, brown, but not the right color of brown, and made of plastic, and not glass. He sifted through them, reading words he'd never heard of before, with directions on how to take the medicine inside. Aspirin! Bayer Aspirin! He knew that name. He took the bottle down and stared at it. Plastic. Everything seemed to be made of plastic! He turned the cap, but nothing happened. He turned it again, and again, unconsciously growling. He could see it turning, but it wasn't coming off. Where was he? This was his house... but it wasn't his house! Everything looked different. He felt fear for the first time. ------- Betty came to, her mind swimming and off balance, but it cleared quickly. She raised her head to find herself lying on the bed. Her father was nowhere to be seen. She experienced panic, and then blinked. Why was she so upset that her father had awakened? Wasn't that what all of them had dreamed about all these years? She sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, having to scoot to reach it. She left a trail of Bob's semen as she did so and remembered why she was so embarrassed. While she was quite used to having sex with her father, she doubted that it would make a positive impression on him. She jumped up off the bed, ambivalent about what to do. She spied her clothing lying on the floor where she'd abandoned it in her haste to get her father's long, thick prick in her pussy. Bending she quickly dressed and then went looking for the man she didn't know if she could face or not. Half of her was overjoyed that he was awake. The other half was terrified of what he'd say when he saw her again. ------- Francine's eyes popped open and intelligence flooded her mind at once. She sat up and was dizzy for a moment as her heart tried to compensate for her sudden consciousness and the blood it seemed to demand. Her great grandfather was gone. She looked behind her and saw the door still open, the beautiful day drifting inside on the air. She had a sudden vision of the man stumbling down the street, stark naked, while neighbors called 911 to report the "crazy naked man" on the sidewalk, or in the street. She giggled, but then sobered quickly. "Grandma?" she called. ------- Bob raised his head at the sound of a girl's voice calling "Grandma?" That didn't make any sense. Where was he? It had to be the girl who'd come crashing through the front door... HIS front door... though, now that he thought about it, it had looked different somehow. Glass. The door had glass in it... about three quarters of it was glass, with some kind of pattern on it. And to one side there was another long and narrow section that had glass in it too, with the same pattern. It was not the door to his house. He took a long breath, trying to get his heart to slow. It was thudding in his chest. His head still ached horribly. He stood up and looked around. Seeing a bath towel hanging on a towel holder he didn't recognize, he pulled at it and wrapped it around his loins. He turned to the bathroom door, but couldn't make himself leave this little room. Suddenly, so suddenly that it seemed like magic of some sort, the woman who had been riding him naked appeared in the doorway. She wasn't naked any longer, but was wearing shorts and a blouse. "Daddy?" the woman said, question in her voice. "Daddy!?" he croaked. He cleared his voice. Ignoring the woman he turned to the sink and tried to turn the water on. There was only one protrusion from the top, a large plastic (EVERY damn thing around him was plastic!) knob. He turned it, but nothing happened. He swayed, and the knob took part of his weight and moved away from him, toward the wall. Water gushed from the tap and he jerked his hand away from the knob. Feeling thirst he knew would never be slaked, he leaned over and slurped at the running water with his lips, drinking as deeply as he could, for as long as he could hold his breath. Remembering the woman he stopped and stood, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Daddy!" the woman said, this time with conviction in her voice. "What's happening to me?" he asked, his voice clearer. "It's all right." said the woman, her voice taking on a soothing tone you often hear when a young child is hurt, and his mother is reassuring him. "You've been sleeping." she said. Now her voice sounded uncertain, as if she might be telling him something not entirely true. "I took a nap." he said, remembering. "You took a LONG nap Daddy." said the woman. "Who are you?" asked Bob. Betty didn't know what to do. While all of them had talked about him waking up, no one had thought to have a plan of action for when he did. She knew he was confused and probably scared, and that somehow disturbed her. She had dreamed of what her father would be like, but that dream had only included smiles and hugs, and trips to places she wanted to go with him and... him making love to her with his eyes open. Betty had pursued a career as a Psychologist, and her training and routine empathy with her patients broke through her panic. She realized that right now, her father was simply a scared naked man who she suddenly realized had no idea who he was talking to. She had a sudden fear that he might go insane if she just blurted out who she really was. "Come out of here." she said, her voice soothing again. "Come sit down. I have a lot to tell you. It's going to sound strange, but everything will be all right. I promise you everything will be all right. Now... please... come sit down." "You called me Daddy." said Bob, frowning. His head still hurt. "My head hurts." he said. The girl he'd seen appeared in the doorway beside the woman. "It IS him!" she squealed. "Grandma it's really HIM!" "Hush Frannie!" barked Betty. "He just woke up. He's confused. Don't scare him!" Bob felt as weak as a kitten. Part of his mind rebelled at the thought that he was afraid of these people. Wasn't he a man? Wasn't he in his own house? Well, it looked a lot like his house... but then again it didn't look like his house at all. Bob had never heard of alternate realities, though while he was sleeping numerous science fiction authors had written stories about them. Still, the concept came full blown into his mind as he stared at the two women. He could have written a book about parallel universes himself at that moment. "Please." begged the woman. She held her hand out to him. Bob looked at the hand... the same hand that had been on his chest when he woke. He didn't know what was going on, but he knew suddenly that he had nothing to fear from this woman. She had, after all, been having sex with him only a short time ago. That made his head hurt again and, in self defense, he looked at her as a woman instead of the stranger she was. He also looked at the Bayer asprin bottle. He picked it up again, and again turned the cap endlessly. The woman took it from his hand and with half a turn the top came off smoothly. He goggled. She shook two out into her hand and offered them to him. He took them and tried to swallow them, but his throat was dry. The water was still running in the sink and he bent over to get a mouthful of water to swallow the pills. When he was done she touched the knob and it moved forward. The water stopped. Bob looked at her. She was probably in her mid to late forties, still shapely and beautiful in a mature way. She looked like she hiked a lot or did something to stay in shape. Her hair was brown and lustrous. She seemed to have on makeup, but not much. She was barefoot, and wore no visible jewelry. All in all, he had no trouble thinking that men might find her desirable. That led him to his last look at her, sitting atop him, her breasts swaying thick nippled above his face. He pushed that out of his mind and looked at the young woman. A teenager, no doubt, with that youthful bouncy look that was so attractive to all men. Her hair was in a pony tail, and was long and dark, but somehow had golden highlights or streaks in in it too, as if her head grew two completely different colors of hair. She still looked like Valerie, but now he could see differences. His wife, when they'd met, wasn't flat chested, but she wasn't big either. This girl's breasts strained the strange garment she was wearing, and he could see a lot of the dark crease between her breasts, exposed as it was by her top. It would be scandalously revealing if she were outside the house. He thought back to seeing her come through the front door. She had BEEN outside. Her bare midriff exposed her belly button and flat stomach. Her jeans were well filled with wide hips. She had the body of a woman in her mid twenties, but her face and demeanor were those of a much younger woman. His groin ached as he looked at her, remembering the first time he'd coaxed Valerie into taking her shirt off. They were already engaged, and he had begged and pleaded for months during their long heated petting sessions to let him see her. She had refused over and over again, letting his hands wander, but not letting him see her charms. Then one moonlit night, she had broken from a long hot kiss during which his hand had moved all over her breasts, her bra having been pushed up long ago. "You're going to pop a button." she scolded him. "You could take it off." he'd said hopefully, like he had a hundred times before. "You're really going to marry me... aren't you?" Her voice had held a pleading note. "Of course I am." he said firmly, taking his hand out of her blouse. "I love you. If I have to never touch you again before we're married to prove it to you I will!" He had pulled away from her. "Wait!" she yelped. She stared at him in the dark, her eyes wide and white. "I know." she said. She reached for him. "I know you love me." she'd said. And then, before his shocked eyes she'd taken off not only her blouse, but her Capris as well, and then her underwear until she was like something mythical that had pale skin that almost glowed in the dark. Valerie didn't do things by halves. The first time he got to see her naked, she stripped him silently and then, without a word, pulled him down on top of her to surrender her virginity to him. It had been glorious. It had been stupendous. There weren't enough superlatives in the dictionary to describe how perfect it had been. And now, his wife's reincarnation, or whatever she was, stood before him, showing him more skin than he'd seen on his own wife in all the years before that night. "Yes." he said suddenly. "I need to sit down." Betty backed up and looked down the hall. The bedroom was closest, but she couldn't take him back there. She shepherded him to the living room, to the couch and patted the cushion. He sat, staring up at her as Fran came to stand beside her. For once the girl wasn't blathering. Then Betty had to decide where to sit. She chose an easy chair that sat perpendicular to him. She sat, leaving Fran standing, staring at her great grandfather. "Sit down Fran." said Betty. Fran had other ideas. The most momentous thing in her whole life had happened, and she was bursting to tell someone about it. "I have to go." she blurted. "No... you don't." said Betty firmly. She intuitively knew what her granddaughter intended to do, and she needed time to prepare... Daddy... for the storm that was about to break. "Sit down, young lady." she ordered. "There will be time to blab about this later." Bob stared as the girl named Fran scrunched up her face in exactly the same way Valerie had used to pout. His jaw dropped at the eerie similarity. She went to the other end of the couch and plopped down. The couch shuddered and Bob unconsciously raised her estimated weight up ten pounds. Betty fumbled mentally to decide what to say first. "What do you remember about being asleep?" she asked, instead of telling him anything. Bob, despite having been given no information that would explain what was going on, somehow felt relieved to be able to concentrate on something besides his strange surroundings. It made him quite willing to think about that. "I had strange dreams." he said slowly, remembering hazy voices. "I heard voices." He looked up at the woman. "I couldn't see anything. It was like I was in a cloud." "What do you remember about the voices?" asked Betty, her psychologist training automatically keeping him talking. She suddenly felt more relaxed. She could do this. She was sure now. Bob thought. He closed his eyes. That helped. "They were almost all women's voices." he started. "It's mostly bits and snatches that I can remember." He paused and was silent for a long time as memories began to flit around in his mind. "I remember someone, a male voice I think, saying I was sick. But most of what I remember are the women's voices." He opened his eyes and looked at the woman. "Stories. Women told me stories." he said. Betty nodded and smiled. "Good. That's good." she said. Bob was suddenly uncomfortable. This woman was examining him. She seemed almost distant, and that didn't make any sense, based on what she'd been doing with him earlier. "Who are you?" he asked. "I'll tell you who I am, but let's wait just a little bit longer." said Betty, smiling again. "I want to give this to you in bite sized pieces. I know you must feel very strange right now." She floundered, unwilling to start the process of telling him all that had happened. She was still wary of what effect that might have on him. "I promise you, though, all your questions will be answered and everything will be all right." Bob frowned. He wanted to trust this woman for some reason. He realized that his heart rate had slowed. He wasn't feeling so panicky any more. "All right." he said. "Can you remember what the stories were about?" the woman asked him. Bob leaned back and relaxed, closing his eyes again. "It's all sorts of things." he said. "There was a lot. It's all jumbled up in my mind." He thought for a while. "Some of it was stories, like from a book I think. And some of it was people telling me things. I remember them saying I'd wake up." His eyes snapped open and he stared at the woman. "And that everything would be all right." he said, tightly. He sat forward, tense again. "Your voice." he said, staring at Betty. "Your voice was one of the voices I heard." He looked confused. Betty leaned forward to indicate she was paying close attention. "Yes, I spoke to you often while you slept." "But why?" asked Bob. "Where's my wife? Where's Valerie?" He started to get up and Betty leaned forward to put her hand on his chest. The feel of her hand was almost shocking and it took him back to what she was doing when he woke up. "In the bedroom." he said, his chest pushing against her hand. "You were..." "Please." she interrupted him, glancing meaningfully at the girl he had completely forgotten about. She lowered her voice. "Not now. She doesn't know." Bob rocked back and bounced off the back of the couch. SHE didn't know? What about Valerie? What would Valerie say when she found out he'd had sex with this woman?! "Please." begged the woman. "I'll explain... but later... please?" "You mean you CAN explain... that?" Bob asked, dumfounded. Betty blushed bright red, but nodded. Bob turned his head toward the girl. "Say something." he said. "What?" asked Fran, suddenly uncomfortable that the man she'd never seen awake was paying attention to her. Bob looked around. There was a magazine lying on an end table next to him. He picked it up. "Vogue" was the title. He'd never heard of that. The woman on the cover was both gorgeous and scantily clad to the point that he wondered what kind of pictures would be inside. He leafed through it, seeing women in scanty panties and bras, like in the Sears catalog. He saw a story with a picture of food and thrust the magazine toward the girl. "Read that." he said. Fran took the magazine gingerly, in two fingers, like she was afraid it would bite her. She looked at the article, and then back at her great grandfather. Slowly, she began to read. With the resilience of youth she was soon reading faster. She stopped half way through. "This sounds pretty good!" she said brightly. Bob was staring at her. "Your voice too. I remember your voice in my dreams." he said. "That's because I read you things all the time." she chirped. Betty looked pained. Bob paled. "That's not what I remember your voice doing." he said, thinking of the last time he'd heard that young voice. It was a recent dream, and he could remember it better. That voice had been talking about how, when she began to date, she hoped it would be a boy named Randy. She had said she was going to do something with the boy. His pale visage turned deep maroon as he remembered the rest of it. In his dream he had felt a cool hand on his prick, and then it had rubbed him most deliciously until he had been satisfied. He remembered another time she talked about a boy. "Who's Thomas?" he blurted. Now it was Fran who flamed bright red, right after her mouth opened and shut and she darted a look at her grandmother. Her hands went to cover her face. Thomas was a boy she hoped would ask her to dance at a school dance. She fantasized about touching him... down there... and she'd practiced on Bob while he was asleep, telling her sleeping great grandfather why she was doing it. She'd never actually touched Thomas that way, but had "practiced" several times after that anyway. "You remember THAT?" she squeaked. Bob frowned. It had been a most wonderful dream. Remembering that dream, he began to remember more like it... but with different voices. He ignored the embarrassed girl next to him as he concentrated. He realized that he had heard the voice of the woman sitting next to him a lot of times... a LOT of times... and that during many of those times she had been doing the same thing to him that she had been doing when he woke up. Then his mind was flooded with sounds of other female voices, and the feelings that went along with those voices as they told him intimate things, and did intimate things with him. There were a lot of voices... more than five that he could suddenly remember clearly. Valerie's voice was one of them. He remembered HER voice in his dreams. He had a sudden memory of a small, piping voice saying "What are you doing, Mommy?" and his wife's voice saying "I'm taking care of Daddy, sweetheart." He reeled, actually swaying back and forth on the couch and moaned as the sounds filled his head. Betty didn't know what was happening to him, but it was obviously traumatic. She tried to think what her sister had around the house that might calm him. She was both shocked and astonished when the man suddenly pulled at the towel wrapped around his waist, baring his groin, at which he stared in horrified fascination. Bob's mind teetered right there, for just a few seconds, on the edge of insanity, as the images his brain had supplied while he heard all those voices surged through his brain. He knew he was on the brink of a bottomless pit and tried to find something to help him lean back from it. The images didn't go with the voices he now heard, which might be the small thing that preserved his sanity. He grasped that mentally and his brain denied that either of these women were actually the voices that went with his dreams. To admit that would BE insanity. He looked up to see the two women staring at his lap, and whipped the towel back over his privates. "This is insane." he mumbled. "You're not insane." blurted Betty, a little too loudly. She was still recovering from his actions. He looked up. He felt tears in his eyes. The question his dreams forced upon him came bubbling out of his mouth. "How long?" The woman blanched. Her eyes darted to the girl and back to him. "Fifty years." she said softly, her voice making it clear she didn't want to say it. Perhaps the physical reaction to the stress of his awakening wasn't just a female trait after all. As Bob's mind tried to grasp the concept that her answer forced on him, his overstressed mind rebelled and shut down. His eyes went out of focus and drifted closed, as he slowly leaned and toppled, his head bouncing off the couch cushion right beside Fran's hip. Again he appeared to sleep. ------- Chapter 4 "SHIT!" yelled Betty. Her father appeared to have fainted... or gone back to sleep. "GRANDMA!" squealed Fran, wriggling to try to get away from her great grandfather's head, and pressing up against the end of the couch. Things just weren't meeting her expectations at all here. She had believed that, when Great Grandfather Bob woke up, he'd remember everything, and know who he was, and what had happened. Her fantasy hadn't included, however, him remembering what she'd done to him as he lay sleeping. Somehow that part of it he wouldn't remember. And he didn't' know who she was either! It was all too creepy for her suddenly and her mind couldn't cope. So she seized on her grandmother's epithet, which was something she knew what to think about. "GRANDMA!" she squealed again, horrified at the first vulgar word she had ever heard her grandmother speak. "OH HUSH!" ordered Betty sternly. "Take care of him. I've got to get some help!" She practically leapt out of the chair and tried to remember where she'd left her purse. Her cell phone was in it. It was a brand new model, that allowed her to actually store phone numbers in it. She'd only had it a few months, but already phone numbers she'd known by memory for years had fled her mind. She had to call Martha and June immediately. She suddenly realized that she didn't know where Martha was... and that it wouldn't matter anyway, since Martha didn't have a cell phone. She dashed to the bedroom and saw her purse on the chair that sat beside her father's bed. She clutched at it and dug frantically for the phone. Finding it, she punched the numbers that would get her June's home phone. ------- Fran stood up. She stared at her great grandfather. Oddly the fact that he looked like he was sleeping again initially made her feel better. She naturally fell into her habit of talking to him as he slept, reaching to move him to what looked like a more comfortable position. "It's OK, Great Grandpa." she murmured. "You just woke up, that's all. We were all surprised." Quite suddenly she didn't want him to be asleep again, like he had been in the past. She hadn't gotten to say much to him, but he seemed like a nice man all the same. "Don't go back to sleep." she implored him, running her hands over his chest in little fluttery movements. "We want you to stay awake." She froze as the blue eyes opened and stared up at her again, like her hopes had suddenly come true. She dropped to her knees beside him and leaned closer to his face. She could hear her grandmother screaming dimly in another part of the house. It unnerved her and she clamped down on her own emotions. "Don't be afraid." she said softly, staring into his eyes. Then, like her grandmother had said, "It's going to be OK." ------- "HE'S AWAKE!" screamed Betty into the phone as soon as it stopped ringing, and before anyone could announce the ubiquitous "Hello?" "What?" came the tinny voice of her sister. "HE'S AWAKE!" screamed Betty again, her emotions crashing. She began to sob. "Betty?" came June's voice. "Betty what's wrong? Who's awake?" There was a split second of a split second of silence as June's mind caught up. "HE'S AWAKE?!" June shouted at Betty through the phone. "YES!" moaned Betty. "And I don't know what to DO!" "I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!" shouted June. "DON'T DO ANYTHING!" "WHAT DO YOU MEAN DON'T DO ANYTHING?!" shouted Betty at her older sister. "HE JUST FAINTED!" She took a breath. "I think..." she added. "WHAT?!" shouted June. "WHAT HAPPENED?" then, her voice dropped from a scream. "Never mind. I'll be right there. Did you call an ambulance?" Her sister's modulated voice brought some control back to Betty and she dropped her voice too. "No, I didn't call an ambulance. Do you think I'm CRAZY?" her voice rose. She clenched her teeth and took a breath. "He just fainted when I told him how long he's been sleeping. I have to get back to him. Frannie's with him. He may wake up any second. Bring some clothes with you. AND HURRY!" she finished, viciously punching at the button that cut the call off. June stared at the phone in her hand, now dead. Clothes? Bring some clothes? It clicked in her mind. Clothes for their father! She didn't have anything for a man. She'd have to stop somewhere and get something. The idea of doing that was just unbearable. He was awake! She had to see him now! She ran for the sideboard where she knew her keys were lying, and then out the door, not stopping to lock it. The first moment June realized something was wrong was when she felt the heat on the soles of her feet. She had been sunbathing on the patio out back, where she could wear the bikini that she wouldn't have even thought about wearing in public. She had bought it on impulse, one day when she was feeling like she was getting old. She sagged a little these days, despite the fact that she still ran a mile every day and did forty sit-ups every night, not counting Jazzercise classes she went to religiously. She wore spandex to those classes, and men looked at her as she walked to and from the parking lot. That made her feel good, but looking at her aging body in the mirror once she got home had made her feel ambivalent. She stood in front of the mirror, in the impossibly small "swim suit" she'd brought home. It was clearly incapable of supporting her breasts if she actually went into the water in the thing. The narrow strip of bright orange cloth that covered her pubis didn't cover the fluff of dark brown hair that sprouted from the sides. Still, as she stretched and turned, she didn't look anything like her fifty plus years. She had decided she didn't look a day over forty-five. But she wouldn't wear something like this in public. Oh no. Never. Still, she kept it, carefully shaving her mons so that she didn't look ridiculous. She loved wearing it on the patio, with its high, cedar privacy fence. Her daughter, Gidget, had reacted like any daughter would the first time she saw her mother in the bikini. "MOTHER!" she had snorted. "What in the WORLD were you thinking?" June had bristled. Gidget could wear something like this at the pool with no problem, and it rankled her. "I was THINKING," she said to her daughter, "that I might get a little sun in the back yard! But don't worry your pretty little head... dear... I won't go out in public and embarrass you!" The hurt had been obvious in her voice, and Gidget had been contrite. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm just old fashioned or something." she said, trying to undo the hurt. Her own life was messed up enough that she had no call to criticize others. "Or something." June had grumped. On the other hand her granddaughter, Rebecca, had been like a bright light in a dark room when she saw June in the bikini. "Wow Grandma, you look HOT!" she had said. "Thank you dear." said June. "Though you'd look much better in it than me." "Well, I'm not bringing my boyfriend over here if you're going to be wearing that!" said the girl, who had just graduated High School and was spending her last summer at home before going to college. "Oh?" asked June sweetly. "You have a boyfriend now? Tell me all about him." Becca laughed. "Well if I DID have a boyfriend, I sure wouldn't let him see you in that suit. He'd dump me in an instant!" "You're sweet." said her grandmother, beaming. "I'm going to have to get you another graduation present." Becca had laughed and then gone on about her business, which was to lie out in the sun with her grandmother, in a swimsuit that was remarkably similar. Now, as June hopped across the hot concrete sidewalk toward her car, she realized she was wearing that very suit, and she was out in public... barefoot! She came to a jarring halt and, in a half second of indecision, almost turned to go back into the house. But the idea of waiting even a few more minutes to see her father... awake! She couldn't stand that thought, and darted for the car. She'd borrow something from Martha to put on. ------- Betty went back to the bathroom and opened doors and drawers, looking for something like smelling salts, or even something strong smelling that wasn't intended for her purpose. There was some Vicks Vapo Rub around somewhere. Maybe that would do. What if he didn't wake up again!? What if the stress had put him back into whatever kind of sleep he had been in all these years? She had to settle for a bottle of Listerine. That would knock somebody out from three feet. Maybe it would wake him up. She heard her granddaughter's soprano voice speaking rapidly and intently, though she couldn't make out what she was saying. She hurried out of the bathroom and down the stairs. "And you kept sleeping all the time, and Grandma and Great Aunt Martha - that's whose house this is - and Great Aunt June took care of you, and Becca and Val and I helped sometimes, and we read to you and told you stories and talked to you and stuff..." She broke off as Betty came into the room. Bob was awake again, staring at the girl, rapt with attention, his mouth open, his head now lying on the couch arm as Fran has obviously been telling him all about his life as a terminally sleeping man. Fran took a deep rasping breath. She had talked so much she was panting. Bob's eyes broke away from the youthful face who had, in the space of perhaps five minutes, told him a significant portion of what had been going on for as long as she could remember. Those eyes went to Betty, who froze in mid step, the bottle of Listerine held helplessly in her hand. "Frannie?" she gasped, wondering how much damage the girl had done with her outburst. Then her brain realized he was awake again. "Daddy?" she gasped again, switching her attention to Bob. Bob blinked. Contrary to Betty's fears, the machinegun delivery by this young woman next to him had so captivated his attention, as she rattled off her description of his physical condition for... apparently... fifty years, that he just listened, fascinated by the story. His mind grappled with the details, but the girl's delivery was so matter-of-fact that he couldn't doubt that she believed what she was telling him. His brain cramped a little at the concept that what she said was true, especially since that meant the woman standing across the room must be... Betty... his two year old daughter. "Betty?" he whined. Betty unfroze. Whatever the damage, she had to take action. "Daddy?" she said soothingly. "I know this is hard for you to understand, but I can explain everything. You've been asleep for a long time Daddy." Bob swallowed. This was too bizarre to contemplate. The analytical part of his mind nudged his consciousness and wanted to be heard. If true, what they were telling him would account for the changes he had seen. Things would change in the house over fifty years. Strangely, that comforted him. While the idea of sleeping for fifty years was pure insanity, it DID explain some of the equally insane things he had seen, like the changes in his house. His house. His and Valerie's house. "Where's Valerie?" he croaked, wishing he could drink something. His mouth was suddenly cotton dry. Fran misunderstood. "Val? She's probably still in bed. She likes to sleep in on Saturdays and..." "FRANNIE!" barked her grandmother. Both of the other people in the room stared at her. "He's not talking about your cousin." said Betty, again fearful that what she was going to have to tell her father would damage him terribly. Fran still didn't understand. She wasn't used to thinking about her great grandmother, since she had never met the woman. "Frannie," said Betty. "Go get your... go get him something to drink. Hurry up now!" she said urgently. Fran bounced up like she had springs in her legs and loped off toward the kitchen, obeying her elder as she had been taught to. It was while she was pouring a glass of Coke that she puzzled out who he had been asking for. She almost dropped the glass as it hit her that his wife was gone. Back in the living room Betty sat down next to her father. She put her free hand on his arm. "Daddy, you were asleep for fifty years." She swallowed. "Mom... wasn't." Sorrow crashed down on Bob. Her meaning was clear. His beautiful Valerie was gone... dead while he slept for some reason. His heart swelled to a throbbing lump in his throat and tears filled his eyes. Suddenly he was sobbing and grasped at the woman next to him... the woman who claimed to be his baby girl... the woman who had aged fifty years since he had last held her in his arms. She hugged him fiercely, putting little moaning kisses on the top of his head and murmuring sounds of sorrow along with him. He couldn't get the image of his young wife out of his mind. He remembered her telling him to sit in his new chair while she fixed his favorite dinner, her smiling face bright in his mind. The thought that he'd never see that face again was agony and it struck deep in his heart. He slumped against his... daughter. She WAS his daughter... wasn't she? Her warm body pressed against him, her hands fluttering up and down his back and one arm as she made little sounds of consolation for his loss. It was her loss too, and they grieved together. Eventually the pain diminished slightly, and his mind came back to the present. Having his daughter's arms around him... despite the oddity that it was... was comforting. His mind suddenly returned to his awakening moment, with this woman in his arms sitting naked on top of him. He jerked away from her, astonishment on his face. "Betty?" he rasped. Her smile was wry. "I know... it's hard to believe. I wanted to wait and give this to you in little bites, but Frannie let her mouth run as usual." "You're my daughter?!" he moaned. She nodded, smiling wider now, glad that he seemed to be coping with the idea. "But in there..." he waved a hand toward the upstairs, "when I woke up..." Betty blanched and then flushed furiously as she realized he was remembering what they had been doing when he woke. "We've... uh... well you see..." she stuttered. "Martha and June and I... we had to take care of you when Momma... went." She stopped, her throat tightening. "Momma took care of you that way." she finished in a blurt. Bob closed his eyes, searching back in his memory for Valerie's voice, yearning for those memories to surface. Betty stayed still, unsure of whether to say anything or not. Fran walked into the room and Betty put one finger to her closed lips. Fran stopped where she was, uncertain what to do. Bob's face took on a smile as the memories he searched for trickled into his mind at first, then surged as his wife's voice whispered in his mind. He DID remember her voice. She had talked with him and he couldn't answer her for some reason. She had begged him to wake up. He remembered feeling her body against his in his dream... not a dream, he realized now, but a strange reality that he still didn't understand. But that meant that his dream had been real. She had stayed with him... all those years... loving him and talking to him. He remembered her hands on him... all over him... lovingly stroking his body. He remembered her picking up his hands and pressing them to her breasts as she rode him, like his daughter had been riding him when he woke. That snapped him back to the present like a splash of cold water, and his eyes opened. He looked at this strange, but now familiar woman. He didn't have to close his eyes to remember her voice. This time hadn't been the first time she'd mounted him. Not by a long stretch. And there had been others too. Martha and June. She had said THEY took care of him when Valerie died. Some of those other voices he remembered must be theirs. They had done the same things with him that their mother had, lovingly, and for year after year after year as he was helplessly asleep. Part of his mind rebelled at the taboo acts they had performed. But another part realized that they had saved the spark of consciousness that had remained in his sleeping body. Their love and attention had kept him alive... sustained him like food and water would have. Food and water. He hadn't eaten in fifty years. "I'm starving." he announced suddenly. Betty looked shocked for a second. "Yes! Of course! Why didn't I think of that?" She frowned. "We can't take you out like that." she said, glancing at the loose towel in his lap. "I called June and gave her the... um... news. I told her to bring some clothes for you." "I don't have any clothes?" asked Bob, raising an eyebrow. "Come on Daddy." said Betty. "You didn't wake up and didn't wake up and didn't wake up and you didn't need any clothes. Come to think of it I don't know what Mamma did with your clothes. Maybe they're in the attic." "Nope." chimed Fran. "We've been through everything up there and I don't remember any clothes." "You've what?" asked Betty, looking concerned. "What were you girls doing up there?" Fran wished she'd kept her mouth shut. She was the only person in the room who had a good idea of why Great Grandfather Bob had been sleeping all this time. But even at sixteen she couldn't break her vow of silence without talking to her cousins. It had been a serious vow, with bloodletting and everything. "We used to play up there." she said defensively. "You know... hide and seek? Stuff like that." "Well you never told me about that." said her grandmother. "Why would I Grandma? We were just playing." said the girl, her ponytail bobbing. Bob felt suddenly woozy as the terms Mamma and Daddy and Grandma were thrown around. He looked at Fran. "So you're related to me?" he asked. "I'm your great granddaughter!" Fran said proudly, and too fast for her grandmother to shush her. "You have a whole bunch of other great grandchildren too!" Bob's jaw sagged and his head swiveled towards Betty. "You got married? Had children?" Betty flushed. How did you tell your father that all your children... and those of his other two daughters for that matter... were sired by him? It would put him back to sleep for sure. "We'll talk about that later, Daddy." she said standing up. "Right now we have to get you something to eat!" She said that excitedly, in an effort to get his mind off his unanswered question. "Come on." she urged. "I'm sure there's something in the fridge." Both women herded him into the kitchen as he tried to re-fasten the towel around his waist. He felt distinctly odd about that. The memories, now that his mind wasn't completely taken up with trying to figure out what was going on, were coming back stronger and more clearly. He was uncomfortably aware that, had he dropped the towel completely, both of these women would only be seeing something they had been intimately in contact with... for years. Still, the inhibitions he'd had in 1950 were still in play. For that matter he still felt a little naked because his chest and legs were bare. He put that out of his mind when they entered what he remembered as his kitchen. It wasn't anything like what he remembered, though. First off, the floor was different. Instead of individual checkered tiles, there was a vast sheet of something that the bones in his feet told him was soft, and gave just a little. There was some kind of stone counter top, gleaming and slick in the late morning light. He looked up and saw that light coming through a large window in the ceiling. Next his attention was drawn to a huge thing that sat where the Frigidare used to be. He watched as Betty pulled the door open and saw that it was, indeed, an ice box. It was twice the size of the appliance he remembered buying his new wife on a proud day back in 1948. Betty pulled something out of the top portion of the big box. "I'll just heat you up a Danish. You can eat that while I fix something else." The package in her hand was frosted and obviously frozen and Bob watched as she went to a smaller box on the counter that looked like it might be a toaster oven perhaps. While she pushed buttons that made beeping noises, he examined the refrigerator. There were two depressions in the door, each of which had a little lever of some sort in them. He experimentally pushed one with a finger and ice cubes tumbled out, scattering all over the floor. He stepped on one as he danced to get away from them and ended up sitting on the floor on top of several more. Fran was laughing as he scowled, but helped him up. There was a long beep from the toaster oven thing and Betty opened the door to pull a steaming pastry of some kind out of it. While Fran got him to the table and sat him down, Betty placed the plate in front of him. He touched the gooey looking thing. It had gone from frozen to steaming in the time it had taken him to spill the ice and get up off the floor. He was amazed. "I'll make some coffee." said Fran brightly. She went to the counter and got a glass carafe from its storage place in some kind of plastic holder and filled it with water. Bob watched intently as she pulled a paper packet from a box and put it in a little drawer of the storage thing and then she poured the water in another opening. Flicking a switch that caused a little red light to go on, she put the empty carafe back in its storage place and came to sit down. Nothing happened. "I thought you said you were going to make coffee." Bob said hopefully. It didn't feel like he hadn't had a cup of coffee in fifty years, but his mind knew it, and he was already salivating, thinking about having a cup. "I am." said Fran. "It'll be ready in a few minutes." It was then that Bob saw brown liquid begin to drip magically into the empty carafe. He watched in awe as the pot filled up and the smell of fresh coffee assailed his nose. Betty was at the ice box again. This time she got in the bottom and pulled out a can of some sort. It was long and thinner than usual. "How about biscuits and gravy?" she asked. Bob nodded and watched as she peeled the paper off the outside of the can. He was trying to figure out why she would want to do that when she apparently got frustrated and banged the can on the edge of the stone counter top. The can burst, making a popping sound and Bob jumped. She was side-on to him, and his eyes grew round as he realized that she suddenly had biscuit dough in her hands... biscuits already formed... that she was laying out on a pan. Fifteen seconds later she put that pan in an oven that was mounted in the wall of the room. "So," said Fran, sitting across from him. "What was it like? Being asleep all that time I mean." Bob looked at the young woman who looked achingly like his wife... his dead wife... and tears welled up in his eyes. He blinked and rubbed them. As he tried to frame an answer she reached over the table and touched his arm. "Don't cry." she wheedled. "Everything's going to be fine." He wanted to smile at her innocence, and her optimism. He realized he felt better. "Well," he started. "I couldn't see anything. It was like I was inside a big cloud or something." She smiled, nodding, urging him to go on. She had a beautiful smile. "I could hear things. The voices, of course." he felt a slow blush making his upper chest and neck hot. "But now I remember hearing other things too. I think there was a radio on sometimes." Betty looked over from the counter. She was behind Fran, so he could watch her at the same time he looked at the girl. He had been watching, as Betty reached into a cupboard and took out a paper packet of something. Betty raised her head momentarily. "Mamma used to put the ball game on in your room. She said you loved baseball." She frowned. "And there were radio programs she said you liked. One of them was about some kind of crime fighter who nobody could see or something like that. It was scary to listen to when we were little." "The Shadow." sighed Bob. He remembered hearing the episodes in his dreams... that weren't dreams. Betty tore the paper packet open and dumped it into a bowl (plastic yet AGAIN!) and added water at the sink, which looked for all the world like it was made of steel. That was crazy, since steel rusted whenever it got wet. She stirred it and put the bowl into the toaster oven, punching more buttons and making more beeping noises. He heard a whir and noticed that a light went on inside the box. He could see the bowl turning inside. He started to warn her that a plastic bowl would melt inside a toaster oven, but was distracted by Fran, who reached out and touched his arm again. "What should I call you?" she asked. "Great Grandfather Bob is awful complicated to say, don't you think? I don't have a grandpa. Sometimes we just call you Grandpa. Could I still call you Grandpa?" Bob looked at her hand touching his arm. His arm was not that of an old man. He realized with a start that, technically, he was in his seventies. His eyes widened as he remember looking into the mirror in the bathroom. He didn't look any different than when he'd sat down to take a nap. "Why didn't I age?" he asked helplessly. Betty looked up again. "We don't know. Doctors looked at you and said you weren't in a coma, but they couldn't say what was wrong with you. I suppose that, after a while, we kind of got used to everything. We did have to shave you. You needed a haircut maybe twice a year." The memory of feeling hands and lather and a razor on his face leapt into Bob's mind. Those hands that smoothed over his chin after a shave had almost invariably smoothed over other places on his body too. Then there had been the heat and wet surrounding his penis and the incredible orgasms he had thought were dreams. He flushed, remembering them. He remembered them with Betty's voice... many times. The hand touching his arm made him want to remember the same thing happening with this beautiful girl across from him, but he stopped thinking of that with shame. Instead he tried to answer her question. "I think people would look at you funny if you called me Grandpaw." he said. "I look a little young to be a Grandpaw." "Oh." said the girl. "Yeah, I forgot that." She frowned and her face was beautiful that way too. "How about Uncle Bob?" he suggested. "I already have six uncles." said the girl dismissively. "Well, they're actually great uncles, but I call them all Uncle." She smiled and Bob's heart ached for his lost wife. "I think it would be weird to call you Uncle Bob, even if I don't have an Uncle Bob yet." The toaster oven gave out a long beep and Bob winced. He'd forgotten to tell his... daughter... that the bowl would melt. He was astonished when she casually opened the door of the oven and took the bowl out with her bare hand. It was steaming and she stirred the contents with a wooden spoon. A series of beeps came from the oven in the wall and Betty opened the door. "Perfect." she announced in a satisfied voice. Bob noticed that this time she used an oven mitt to handle the tray, which had twelve beautiful brown biscuits on it. His stomach growled. Abandoning the mitt, Betty snatched at biscuits with her bare fingers and let them fall on a plate. She used a fork to tear them open and then a coffee cup to dip into the obviously un-melted bowl that had been in the toaster oven. Bob stared as a plate of biscuits and gravy was placed in front of him. They had been in the kitchen less than fifteen minutes. A fork appeared beside the plate as he stared. "Juice?" asked Betty. She pulled open the door to the big ice box again and leaned inside. Bob couldn't help but stare at her well shaped bottom. "We've got grape juice, tomato juice... um, there's some cranapple in here too." "Cranapple?" asked Bob. "A mixture of cranberry and apple juice." said Betty looking at him oddly. "Hmmm, never heard of that one." he commented. "Sounds good, though." "Cranapple it is." said the woman, pulling a container from the box. He almost winced as he saw it was made of plastic. But what she brought to the table was a glass (real glass!) of wine colored fluid. She set it on the table by his place and sat down between him and Fran. She looked at the now cooled Danish and the untouched biscuits and gravy. "I thought you said you were hungry." she said. Bob blinked. His stomach had been growling since the coffee smells. He picked up the fork and dug in. While he destroyed the biscuits and gravy Fran got up and poured him coffee. He waved away an offer of sugar and cream, his mouth full with deliciousness. He saved the pastry for last, and when he bit into it a heavy sweet taste exploded in his mouth. A door he hadn't seen in one wall, and which hadn't been there when he took his nap in 1950, suddenly crashed open and a statuesque brunet burst into the room. She had a wild-eyed look to her, and her hair was flying loose all over the place in errant wisps. Bob almost choked as he saw she was almost naked, her body covered - if you could use that word - only with a few strips of bright orange cloth that did more to emphasize her large breasts than cover them, and which drew a man's eyes directly to the juncture of her legs. Her breasts were heaving as she panted. It was the smallest, oddest bra and panty set he had ever seen. Things sure must have changed in fifty years if a woman could run around outside in her underwear. "WHERE IS HE?" she gasped. Then her eyes fell on the apparently naked man sitting at the table, a fork suspended halfway between the plate and his mouth, which was chewing slowly. She froze. "DADDY?" she screamed. "JUNE WINKLE!" shouted Betty a split second later. "CALM DOWN! And WHAT do you think you're doing going out dressed like THAT?!" Fran put in her two cents. "Gee Auntie June, you look great in that suit!" "doohne?" gasped Bob around a mouthful of Danish. He swallowed. "June?" he repeated. "DADDY!" the almost naked woman screamed again, and she rushed to his seat. Rather than wait for him to stand, she more or less pushed the table out of the way and straddled him, sitting on his lap. Then she basically smothered him with warm brown flesh. Bob found his face crushed between her bounteous breasts and felt the insane urge to lick her skin there, which he somehow knew would taste salty since there was a sheen of sweat in the valley between her breasts. She pulled away to shower kisses on Bob's cheeks and lips. "JUNE WINKLE YOU STOP THAT THIS INSTANT!" screeched Betty, standing up and waving her hands in the air. Bob felt soft lips leave his and was confronted with deep green eyes staring into his. He saw adoration there, but his eyes slid down to the breasts that were now hanging, supported only by those few wisps of orange cloth. He could see clear through her cleavage to her slightly round belly below. He forced his eyes back up to find she had dipped her head to see what he was looking at. Her eyes returned to his wide and alarmed. "Oh my GOSH!" she yelped, standing up and trying to cover her breasts with her arms and hands. "I was sunbathing when you called and I was so excited I just couldn't wait to come over here!" That voice hummed in Bob's memory. It went with a hot, wet mouth that had made love to his stiff prick on many occasions, and an even hotter, wetter pussy that she had sheathed his prick in, once it was "hard enough to do me some good, Daddy", as his memory recalled. He felt his prick lurch under the towel in his lap at the memories. "His clothes, June. I asked you to bring clothes." said Betty steadily. "Where would I get clothes for a grown man?" asked June, looking delicious in her shiny brown skin and almost nothing else. "Robby's been married for years, and I pitched the clothes he didn't take with him long ago. Sam went down to Arizona for a construction job and he's smaller than Daddy anyway." Sam was her other son, who had moved back in with her after a messy divorce. He kept kept making forays out into the real world, but couldn't seem to actually untie the apron strings. Betty sat back down and dropped her head into her hands with a groan. Bob wanted to smile. June had been a rampaging vessel of emotions when he last saw her. At three she was into everything, running around, talking a mile a minute and exhausting both her mother and father. It didn't look like fifty years had changed all that much in her. Except for her body, of course. Bob felt shame as his prick stiffened even more under the towel. Then the universe warped a little bit as memories of what this woman had done with him in bed over fifty years rushed back to the front of his conscious mind. He still didn't understand what was going on, but it was clear that, after he went to sleep, the mores of society had changed, allowing daughters to have sex with their sleeping father. His shame at lustful thoughts were a bit outdated, apparently. Still, now was not the time to have an erection, especially with her sitting right there on it. She didn't stay seated though. She hopped up and stood back. "Stand UP!" squealed June. "Let me SEE you!" She danced, her hands falling from covering her almost-nakedness in her excitement. Her breasts wobbled and jiggled deliciously as she moved. "Maybe there's something around here you could... put on?" he directed toward his middle daughter. June blushed. "Yes, of course. Martha will have something that would fit me." Mention of his oldest daughter caused Bob to think of another voice from his dreams... a mature voice that went along with the same kinds of memories that June's and Betty's voices made race through his brain and blood. That other voice must be Martha's. His wife... and all three of his daughters... had made love to him repeatedly... almost regularly... while he slept. His erection was complete. There wasn't anything he could do about it. He decided that he was very glad he was sitting down. He decided to stay that way. ------- Chapter 5 Thankfully, by the time Betty had decided that there might still be some clothes left in a box that her son had left behind, and that they might fit Bob, and June had found a blouse and a pair of jeans that fit her, and Bob had managed to drink two more cups of coffee, his penis was behaving itself again. With a stern warning directed at June not to "do something stupid" Betty marched out the door. She left Fran there saying, oddly enough, "Watch your Auntie June." and disappeared. June had many of the same questions for him that Betty and Fran had, and he was content to let Fran answer some of them while he examined this new woman in his life. She was healthy and what, fifty years ago, he would have called "well preserved". He had never found himself attracted to older women, his young wife giving him all the loving and more that he could have desired. But his memories of this woman's alto voice, and what went along with that voice, caused him to look at her much more frankly than he might have otherwise. Her animated personality, and vivaciousness made her seem much younger than the fifty-three years of age he knew she had to be. He was startled to realize that her birthday was only two days away. He resolved to get her something. While they talked Fran went to the phone and made two calls. Her voice was excited, but muffled. She was grinning when she hung up the phone and returned to the kitchen, where Bob had decided to stay, just in case something happened "down there" again. He felt refreshed, though even so small a breakfast had filled him to the point that he felt slightly bloated. He figured that his stomach must have shrunk during fifty years of being empty. A car door slammed outside. Soon after Betty opened the door, her arms loaded with clothing. As she reached to shut the door there was the screech of tires and two more car doors slammed shut. There was the sound of excited voices... young female voices... as Betty turned, her face agitated. "It's the girls." she announced. "I called them." said Fran smugly. "You shouldn't have!" barked Betty. "It's too soon for him to have so much excitement!" She was almost bowled over, as she tried to block the doorway. She was pushed into the room by a tall black-haired girl and a shorter girl with dark red hair. "WHERE IS HE?" they chorused together. Their eyes found him, still sitting at the kitchen table, bare chested, his level gaze examining them. Bob was pretty well in control of himself. The food had helped, and his mind was clearer now than it had been since he awoke. There were only three female voices he'd heard while he slept that hadn't been matched up with women. One, he knew was Martha's voice, which was older. The other two had to be the voices that had announced themselves to the sleeping man... on many occasions... as Becca and Val. He now remembered two voices saying they were Val. His mind had separated them simply as his wife, and the other Val. He now suspected, based on what he had already learned, that one of these two young women was that other Val. The two women skidded to a stop as they saw the man at the table. For all their excitement as they had entered, they were now frozen and mute. Betty shook her head and closed the door behind them. His initial impressions of the girls were based mostly on appearance. The taller of the two had jet black hair that was long and straight, falling well past her shoulders, and held back with something. She was thin in the waist, and was wearing a pair of pants that flared outward at her ankles, like the bell bottoms sailors wore when he was a young man. But the resemblence ended there. The ones worn by this woman were so tight that if she had a wart on her ass it would show through. They were also low slung to the point that he wondered how she kept them up. Her shirt looked like a T shirt that the lower half had been cut off of. Her breasts pushed that shirt out so that it would have been easy to reach up under it and grab handfuls of... what was pushing them out. He could see skin from just below those thrusting breasts all the way to where he would have expected to see the start of pubic hair. He couldn't tell how old she was, but she was obviously older than the red head and Fran. Her high cheekbones and the lack of anything resembling fat on her face gave her a mature worldly look. The red head had on loose shorts and what looked like a man's shirt. The tails had been tied in a knot between and below her breasts. The shirt was too big for her and was loose, but he could tell that she was well developed for a girl in her mid to late teens. Her hair was in a loose braid, but a lot of it had fallen out, giving her a wild windblown appearance. She looked like she spent a lot of time outdoors because her skin had a nut brown color, like June's and was darker than that of the others. Bob felt a need to take some kind of control over his life. He started by hazarding an educated guess. "Well, one of you must be Becca, and the other is probably Val." Five sets of female eyes all locked on him. No one said anything at all. Their mouths were open and it was clear to him that he had scored a hit. Feeling a little giddy, he made his face remain calm and pushed a little further. "I remember you two reading to me... and other things." Both girls' faces went ashen white. The red head moaned and looked down. The raven-haired one covered her mouth and her eyes went large and round. Betty frowned, and was the first to move. "Other things? What other things?" She looked around, her frown deepening as she saw the embarrassed looks on their faces. She looked back at Bob, who was smiling, completely unaware that he was perilously close to opening a can of worms. None of the grandmothers who had been so familiar with him were aware that their granddaughters had also become... familiar with him as well, if a little less so. That the girls hadn't told each other about their private activities only made them a fragmented force, that couldn't work together to defuse the situation. The only thing that kept all those worms in that can was the fact that Bob was able to recognize that something was wrong. Betty's face was taking on classical look of suspicion, which signaled to Bob that all these women didn't necessarily know about each other's activities. He felt the little bit of control he'd tried to grab for slipping away. "Um... you know..." he caged. "They told me things... private things I suppose. They probably didn't' think I'd ever wake up and remember them." Betty looked at him, three small lines creasing her brow. It was obvious she was evaluating his statement. Bob realized she was a very intelligent woman, something that made him both proud and a little nervous at the same time. "What kind of private things?" asked Betty suspiciously. Bob smiled widely. "Now I wouldn't be much of a gentleman if I blabbed things spoken to me in confidence... would I?" He stared intently at Betty. "I mean isn't it true that women should be allowed to have certain... secrets?" Betty flushed. This was dangerous territory. She and her sisters had adjusted to the fact that they all loved their father in ways that society wouldn't understand. They had kept very secret who the father of their children were. That had been no small feat, seeing as how each had had her first child at age fifteen. There had been some fancy footwork as the girls visited the doctor alone for their prenatal checkups. More than once Martha had called the doctor's office pretending to be her mother and explaining that she had to work, and could the doctor please give her his report over the phone? The fact that the sexual revolution was in full swing had helped a little. There had been other children too, a pair of boys for each of Bob's daughters, all sired by the sleeping man. But by then they were older, and no one asked them any questions. Bob's daughters knew that things couldn't go on like that, and that their children should be raised in as normal a fashion as possible. So a pact was made that none of the children would be told who their father was. It had been difficult. Any woman who has three children by an unknown father is odd in modern society. To have three sisters all do that was a powder keg. That they had been able to pull it off in a small town was a miracle. While they worried about the neighbors, they did not worry about their father. None of his daughters had thought he'd remember anything if, and when, he woke. Right now Betty was the only person in the room who knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that her father knew at least what she had been doing. She was, in fact, doing it when he woke up. June was thinking along the same lines. She didn't know what her father remembered about his time asleep, but if he remembered anything at all, she didn't want him talking about it in front of the girls. "Yes!" barked June, making everyone in the room jump. She shot a conspirator's look at Betty. "Of course a girl sometimes has secrets. It's nice to know my father is a gentleman." she added. The two new arrivals didn't relax so much as wilt while standing there, darting looks around as if to see if they were really safe. None of them seemed to catch on to the fact that all five women in the room were uncomfortable... and that all of them thought they had something to hide. Just as the grandmothers didn't know about the erotic activities of their granddaughters with Bob, they were firmly convinced that their granddaughters didn't know about how intimately their grandmothers had cared for Bob over the years, and would be horrified if they did. The uncomfortable silence went on so long that it was Bob who felt the need to break it. "So which one is Becca?" he asked. The redhead came alive and smiled timidly. "That's me." she said shyly. She had told this man all sorts of secret intimate details about herself, and spent enough hours with him that they now added up to a couple of months. But to her he seemed like a completely different man as his blue eyes stared at her. She felt a tingle in her belly at that level gaze. He was much more handsome awake than he had been asleep. Bob looked at the tall thin beauty. She looked like a fashion model. "So that means you're Val... Valerie?" He glanced at Betty. "Named after my wife?" Betty nodded, smiling. Val had a little more self possession, being the oldest of the cousins. She smiled and said in a formal voice. "It's wonderful to finally meet you Great Grandfather Bob." Fran waved her hand in the air, like she was waiting to be called on in school. Everyone looked at her. "Um... we were just talking about that. He says we can call him Uncle Bob... if we want to..." She suddenly looked uncomfortable in the spotlight. "I mean so he doesn't sound so old..." It still felt stilted and uncomfortable in the room, and Bob didn't want things that way. He waved a hand in the air. "I don't really care what you call me. I'm just glad to be awake and get to meet all of you. At least I THINK I'm glad to be awake. I have a feeling all of this is going to take some getting used to." He pointed toward the counter. "Take for instance the obvious improvements they've made in toaster ovens. That one got my breakfast ready much faster than they would have... back in my day." All the women looked at the counter where he was pointing. Becca was the first to speak. "Toaster oven? What's that?" June laughed. "He's talking about the microwave." She turned back to her father. "You're right. A lot has changed since you went to sleep. You're going to see some amazing things. I can't wait to show them to you." she finished excitedly. Betty came alive too. She held out the clothing in her arms. "I brought some of my son's things. Your grandson. He's off doing something somewhere, trying to make money. I think they'll fit you." Bob's first instinct was to go somewhere private and get dressed. But as he reflected on the uncomfortable reactions of the women, based on his comment that he remembered "other things" he suddenly felt wicked. After all, every woman in this room had either handled his stiff prick, or taken it into her pussy. He had a glimmer of a suspicion that not all of them knew that, and another glimmer of a way to find out. He casually spread the clothing out on the table in front of him. He picked up a pair of shorts made of some soft material. They had the regular pockets, but in addition had an extra set of big pockets on the thighs, with a flap that kept them closed. He pulled at the flap, but it didn't seem to want to move. He thought that was odd and pulled harder. There was a ripping/tearing sound as the flap came up and he stopped. "I didn't mean to tear them." he said helplessly. June laughed again. "You didn't tear them. That's Velcro. It keeps things closed when you want them closed, but lets you open them when you want them open." She reached for the shorts and closed and then reopened the pocket flap several times. "See?" "Wow" said Bob, examining the hook and loop system with fascination. He picked up a T shirt that had the words "No Fear" on it and put that back down. "Can't wear that one. I'm terrified." He grinned to show he wasn't serious. The fact was that his stomach was in knots, based on what he was about to do. He picked up another shirt that had buttons down the front and a floral pattern on it. It reminded him of those kids who rode long boards, standing on them in the surf. Then, like it was the most normal thing in the world to do, he stood up and dropped the towel on his chair. All five women stood and stared at the naked man as he picked up the shorts with trembling fingers and stepped into them. They were too big and he had to hold them up with his hands. "Got a belt?" he asked, looking over at Betty. Her eyes were large and her mouth was in the shape she could use to whistle. "I... I didn't think." she croaked. He glanced at each of the other women, trying to make it look casual, as if he thought one of them might, for some strange reason, be in possession of a man's belt. His purpose was to gauge the look on their faces at seeing him naked. He felt satisfaction when all of them looked surprised, but none of them displayed the outrage he would have expected had they never seen him naked before. Psychologically, they were used to seeing him that way, and none of them thought fast enough to act as if they hadn't. And... none of them objected to what he had done. He thought to keep them off balance. "Unless you don't mind me walking around nude, somebody needs to find me something to keep these pants up." Nobody said anything and he almost grinned. Then Betty jerked and spoke. "Frannie, honey, go out to the garage and see if there's a piece of rope or something out there." Bob saw something white peeking out from under the shirt he was going to wear and pulled it out. It was a pair of briefs, and was the first thing he'd seen that looked like the clothing he remembered. Feeling naughty somehow, he let the shorts drop and stepped out of them. He took his time stepping into the briefs and pulled them up. In contrast to the shorts, they fit him perfectly. His penis made a distinct bulge in them. He was having fun now and just stood there. All five women were still watching him. "Go on Fran!" barked Betty, and Fran jumped and then went out of the room. She was looking over her shoulder as she did so. Bob picked up the shirt and slid his arms into it, shrugging it up onto his shoulders. He left it open. He knew he'd feel silly if he was wearing only a properly buttoned shirt... and underwear. He looked around. It was awkward and uncomfortable again. He looked at the two newest arrivals. "Well, sit down or something. You don't have to stand just for me. I'm sure, if you're like the others, that you have some questions for me, and I'd like to find out a little about everybody too. It looks like I'm going to have to live the rest of my life in a future world, so we may as well get on with it." His matter-of-fact approach to the situation had a remarkable effect. Val and Becca went immediately to empty chairs at the table and sat, as if they were afraid they'd be shot if they didn't. June went to the sink and poured herself a glass of water. Betty picked up the dishes she had served Bob on and took them to the sink, butting her sister hip-to-hip to get her to move over so she could put the dishes in the sink. Bob watched with half an eye as she ran some water over the plate and then opened a metal cabinet door under the counter and put the plate in a rack inside, still dirty. She dropped his silverware in a basket mounted on the open door. Looking over her shoulder at Bob she asked if he wanted more coffee. When he shook his head she came, got his cup, and put it in another rack that slid out above the one that held the plate. Then she closed the door and reached up to a long white tube on the wall. Bob saw her pull and tear off a square shaped towel looking thing, which she ran quickly under the tap, getting it partially wet. She came to the table and started wiping it down. As she started to leave he reached out and grasped her wrist, peering at the towel. It was paper! Betty smiled. "Paper towel. Use it once and throw it away. Cuts down on the laundry." "How about that." said Bob, amazed. "They should come up with something like that for diapers too. Talk about laundry!" There were feminine giggles all the way around. "They did that already Daddy." said June. "They have diapers that come in packages and when you take it off the baby you just fold it up and toss it in the trash. I didn't get to use them until my I had my last child. They're expensive, but it was worth it, believe me!" Fran bounded back into the room with a six foot piece of rope in her hands. "I found this!" she announced proudly. Betty took it from her and went to a drawer. She looked inside and moved some things around and then went to another drawer, pulling out a knife. Bob stood up as she approached him and raised his arms in the air. She knelt in front of him, her face only a foot from the bulge in his briefs, and reached behind him to pull the rope around his waist. That brought her face only inches from his groin and Bob had the insane urge to lean forwards and make her lips bump his... bump. He stopped himself, and was distracted by thoughts whirling in his brain. He was, physically, a young man. His wife was gone, and had been gone for some time. He still had his whole life ahead of him, apparently, assuming he didn't go back to sleep like he had before. His brain wrestled with the morals he had gone to sleep with, and the knowledge that the five women in this room had been intimate with him repeatedly and willingly. True, they thought he was unconscious, but their participation had been both willing and happily consummated. He was sure of that. There was a whisper from somewhere in his brain that it was normal to want that to continue, while another voice whispered just as urgently that it was perverted and wrong. The first voice notified him that his penis was currently filling with blood and that he really should lean forward just a couple of inches. The second voice insisted that he stop thinking that way completely. Before he could make a real decision, Betty stood up and cut the rope with the knife, handing him the piece she thought would fit. Relieved that the temptation was gone he fumbled with the rope, sliding it through the belt loops of the shorts. His bulge had grown to perhaps twice its original size. He missed the fact that all five women were staring at it while he prepared the shorts. He also missed the fact that Val and June licked their lips as they noticed. He bent over and pulled up the shorts, knotting the rope tightly. He didn't miss the chorus of sighs as his bulging prick was concealed from view. He looked up and smiled. "All better?" he asked. He almost laughed when no one answered for a space of five seconds, and then Betty blurted "Yes." ------- To prove that morals in 2000 weren't gone... only twisted a little in the Winkle family... the mood was much lighter and happier once Bob was clothed. Conversation flowed more easily, at least until Becca asked the question: "So what was it like? How much do you remember?" Taking a chance, Bob just told the truth, though a very synopsized version for the present. "I remember everything that anyone said to me, and everything that happened to me." That tensed things up again pretty much instantly. "Everything?" squeaked Val. "Yup" said Bob. He wasn't sure how to go about having a waking relationship with all these women, but if he was going to have any kind of relationship at all, it didn't need to be clouded up by a bunch of guilt. On impulse he added. "I had a good sleep, all things considered. I'm sure that all this will have its difficulties... but, I have to say nothing happened to me while I slept that I'll ever be sorry for." The relaxation that flowed through the room was palpable. Bob frowned. "Maybe I spoke too quickly." he said. The tension returned just as palpably. "I'll always be sorry at the time I lost with Val... my wife. And I'll always be sad I wasn't there for you girls as you grew up." He looked at Betty and June. There were tears in Betty's eyes. "It's OK, Daddy. We did fine. Mamma missed you so much. But we made do. I mean you were still here, and we got to see you. We did OK, honest." "I'm glad you feel that way." Bob said honestly. "I'm awfully proud of you two... and Martha too, even though I haven't met her yet. As hard as it is to think about what I missed... what I deprived you of... it's nice to know you're not bitter about it." "We could never be bitter about you Daddy." said June softly. "We loved you all those years, and we knew you loved us too." Bob's mind flitted to memories of just HOW they had loved him, but he ignored those. He knew she wasn't talking about physical love, and he had heard their emotional love in their voices. The younger girls too, though not as deeply. To them he had been more of a secret pal, a guy they could talk to, and experiment with, he now realized. But they had been tender and loving towards him too, even when they didn't have to be. "Tell me about your families." he ordered. He was the patriarch of the family again, and he wanted to start acting like it. He had just been brought up to date on the dates everyone was born, and the names of the children, where they all were and what they were doing these days, when the back door opened and another woman walked in. "What in the world is going on in here?" she asked, authority in her strong voice. That voice was familiar to Bob instantly, and he knew this was Martha. That she was older than Betty and June was evident, though not in obvious ways. Her skin was a little darker and showed more effect of sun and weather, almost as if Becca were her granddaughter, rather than Val. But she was tall and slim, like Val. She had on a dress and had two plastic sacks (was EVERYTHING made of plastic these days?!") hanging from each hand. The sacks were full of little boxes and Bob could see tomatoes through the thin walls of one. "I go out to get a few things and there's a party going on at my house when I get back?" she said in a falsely grumpy voice. "Am I even invited?" she drove on. Then she saw Bob. Her face scrunched up and then smoothed as her eyes went wide and her mouth fell open. Plastic sacks thumped to the floor beside her feet. "Hi, pumpkin." said Bob calmly. "It's good to see you again." He had always called her pumpkin. At age five, when he had gone to sleep, he had loved telling her that they had found her in a pumpkin patch, and she was so cute that they took her home to keep forever. "Daddy?" she whimpered, her strong voice vanished. "Daddy?" she whined again. Her strong voice came back loudly. "DADDY! OH DADDY, DADDY, DADDY!" She almost tackled him, but he was ready for her, his arms spread wide and a grin on his face. She felt good in his arms as she was suddenly sobbing and babbling into his neck, crushing him with her hug. All she could say was "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy" over and over again. Just as suddenly she pushed back away from him, rubbing at her face with her hands. "WHEN did you wake up?! WHY didn't somebody TELL me you woke up?! Oh I can't BELIEVE you're awake!? Where did you get those clothes?! Oh, I feel faint. I have to sit down." Hands reached for her and she plopped into a chair, only hitting half the seat and leaning dangerously to one side before helping hands moved her over. She looked up through shining eyes and then jumped up out of the chair to hug her father again. This time she planted a completely unabashed kiss on his lips, crushing them against his, before sobbing some more. "OH Daddy I'm SO glad you woke up. I've been waiting for you SO long. I love you SO much!" She kissed him again and then moved to his cheeks, kissing his face all over. She stopped abruptly and her face fell. "Mommy died Daddy. She's gone." She fell against him sobbing and clutching at him, her grief overflowing. Other eyes in the room got wet with tears of grief too as Bob stroked her back, murmuring to her that it was all right, and that everything was OK. Martha pushed away, gently this time. "I don't know what to say." she whined. Bob grinned. "For somebody who doesn't know what to say, you've been doing pretty well. As I recall I couldn't get you to shut up the last time I saw you." Martha looked shocked and slapped at his shoulder. Of all his daughters, she was the only one who had already had a firm relationship with him... one that she could remember vividly... when he went to sleep. "Don't be mean to me Daddy." she scolded, sounding five years old somehow. Bob laughed and pulled her back. This time he kissed her, and he told his morals to go away and bother somebody else. Her willingness to kiss him as she had gave him the permission he needed to kiss her back, and he did so happily, making a long grinding kiss. He felt her sag in his arms, as though her knees had gone weak. He helped her sit down again, sitting beside her. "You sure have grown up a lot." he said, smiling at her. "I HAD to!" she barked, her tears stopping. "Mamma said we had to take care of you!" Another thing about Martha that was different from her sisters was her attitude about what "taking care of Daddy" had meant. When she was five, and before he had gone to sleep, Martha had announced that, when she grew up, she was going to marry him. Bob and Valerie had smiled at that, and Bob had said that he'd be proud for her to marry him some day. Her parents both assumed that such a common phase would pass. But the events surrounding her family had affected her in ways that most little girls are never affected. When she began "taking care of Daddy" she still thought of him as HER man, whom she inherited from her now departed mother. And, as the years went on and she became more mother than daughter, Martha thought of him as her husband. He gave her children, and she loved him both emotionally and physically. In a way, her five year old fantasy was lived out. In a strange way. As a result, while she agreed that his grandchildren would not be exposed to all that caring for Grandpa entailed, she never felt the least bit guilty about loving him, or having those grandchildren. Her lifelong love affair with her father made it much easier for her to be more open about it than her sisters had been, at least in front of the GREAT grandchildren. Even now, kissing him... and being kissed by him in front of the girls didn't bother Martha. She was just too happy that her father was awake and in her arms. To prove that her sisters were less comfortable with their erotic roles in his life, June spoke. "Martha, he remembers everything that happened while he was asleep." Martha didn't break her eye contact with her father. "Everything?" she asked. "Everything." he stated. Martha felt flurries in her stomach, but that was all. They were only a result of the girls being present. "Mamma said we could take care of you." she said carefully. "She even showed us how." More memories of young voices, in concert with Valerie's voice, surfaced in his mind, like an audio diary unfolding. "Are you taking care of Daddy AGAIN? Mommy?" "Yes dear, this makes us both feel happy." "I'd like to feel happy." said a young voice. "Some day you'll get to do this." said Valerie. "You just be patient and wait for some day to get here." "I can't wait." came the young voice. "You have plenty of time Martha." echoed his wife's voice in his memory. "It's worth waiting for, because it's the most lovely feeling in the whole world." Then there was the same voice, but older now. "It's my turn now Daddy... my turn to take care of you." And "Here's the butter, try that!" from another voice. He remembered the sensation of intense pressure surrounding his penis, and of moans of pain and whimpering and then joyous laughter as his prick spurted in the body attached to that young voice. "I remember your laughter." he said, amazed that the memory had surfaced so clearly. Now Martha blushed. But she smiled too. "It was wonderful Daddy. It made me feel so close to you." Her eyes darted to the young girls in the room. "We'll talk about that later." Bob wanted to smile. He was pretty sure now that the older women didn't know about the younger women, and that they had been doing almost the same things with him. Still, he didn't want to push things. "We have a lot to talk about, I imagine." he said. ------- Chapter 6 It was a fascinating afternoon, let me tell you that. Bob was mildly interested in seeing what changes had come to the world while he slept, but the memories of what had happened kept rising, and becoming more clear as he talked to the six women who had been so much a part of his affliction... if that was the right word. He felt like he knew them better than was possible. All of them had talked to him, at one time or another, about things they were worried about, or what their hopes were, and even about other people in their lives. In a strange way (if this situation wasn't strange enough!) it was as if he had been awake the whole time, and was just an exceptionally good listener. So, in once sense, he knew these women very well. Of course that didn't go the other way. The women had gotten nothing from him other than sexual satisfaction for most of their lives, older or younger. Becca, it turned out, had an interest in history, and she asked him question after question about what life had been like in the thirties and forties, during which time he had grown up. Val, on the other hand, was practically giddy with laughter as first she brought him things to look at, and then took him by the hand and dragged him throughout the house, showing him normal every day things that were taken for granted by everyone alive today... except Bob. They were almost all brand new to him. Even something so mundane as a Bic lighter was a thing of fascination as he tried to figure out how the girl had gotten flame out of a plastic (!) tube that he couldn't seem to make work to save his life. When she laughingly showed him the safety feature that controlled the gas, he grinned sheepishly. But being around her - all the women, really - was so satisfying, on so many levels, that Bob didn't mind being made fun of occasionally, and being pretty much unable to do anything for himself, because he couldn't figure out how to make many things operate. The women were so taken with him, and he with them, that they never left the house the rest of the day. One of the pinnacles of his update was a truly astonishing session in front of a television that was physically smaller than anything he had ever seen before, but which had a screen larger than many TV cabinets he had seen (but had not been able to afford to buy). Bob explained that, when he had gone to sleep, he had been trying to figure out a way to scrape together the $95 necessary to buy the latest television set on the market... with its three inch screen. Finally Martha chased the other women out, telling them her father was exhausted by their nattering. That, in itself, took an hour, as each woman came up with yet another thing to talk about or ask about that just couldn't wait until the next day. June was the last to go. Bob had received only four goodbye hugs and kisses by that time, but he was already in a state of high arousal from having three young, tight bodies plastered to his, whose lips were anything but tight, and who brought back memories of ecstasy. Now June molded her lush body against his and kissed him long and deep. "Welcome back Daddy." she whispered, licking his ear and making him shudder. "It's good to be back." he said, resisting the urge to let his hands drop from her lower back to her firm buttocks. His mind was awhirl with the conundrum of a past in which touching his daughters - or any woman other than Valerie, for that matter - was considered WRONG!, and his current desire to repeat with all of them what had happened while he slept. That part of him seeped out as he whispered back. "I liked your... bathing suit." She reluctantly pushed away from him as she blushed, and then frowned and turned to Martha. "What if he goes back to sleep... like last time?" she asked. Martha pushed her toward the door. "That's the last thing you need to put on the poor man's mind. He's been through enough without having to worry about resting after a long day. You'll be here for breakfast, along with the rest of them, I imagine. He'll either be awake by then, or not. Now leave him be." Martha's practical attitude changed radically once the door closed, however, and she was left alone with her father. She had a look of almost panic on her face when she turned to him. "What if she's right, Daddy? What if you DO go back to sleep?" Bob thought about that for a few seconds. With his memories fully exposed, he'd have precious little to complain about if he DID go back into the long sleep. So much had happened in this one day of being conscious again that he felt like he'd lived several years in just this single day. In another way he felt like he might be asleep right now, and dreaming this whole crazy thing. Still, the look of panic and concern on Martha's face was real. Bob smiled. "I don't think I'd have waked up if whatever was keeping me asleep wasn't done with me." Martha smiled tentatively. "Really? I don't know what I'd do if you went back to sleep... like that I mean. We have so much to catch up on. There's so much I never got to tell you." "I remember everything you said to me." he said, hugging his daughter. Martha's eyes were startled as she tried to remember the myriad things she'd said to her sleeping father over the years. While he could remember them all, she couldn't. "I'm still nervous." she said, holding both his hands. "I'm afraid to go to sleep myself." "Then we won't." he said. He wasn't really sleepy, after all. It's pretty hard to wake up from a fifty year long nap and be sleepy right away, after all. He was tired, but it was that good kind of tired where sitting just feels wonderful. So they sat and talked, and Bob reminded her of some of the things she'd said to him that she'd forgotten about. Some memories brought laughter, and some embarrassment, while others made other emotions surge in them both. It was difficult for Bob to broach the sexual activities that had gone on - they seemed so bizarre and strange to a man whose mindset was still in the late nineteen forties. But both of them knew that some of the things they talked about this night had been said in the heat of passion, while daughter impregnated herself on her father's rampant prick. "Do you really remember us making love to you?" Martha finally asked, her face darkening a little. "Oh yes." he said, blushing himself. "I can remember each and every time if I try." "Did you... like it?" asked the woman. Bob's forehead wrinkled as he pondered how to answer that question. "For me it was just a haze of white. I knew people... you girls... were there, but I didn't realize it was you. I mean I recognized Valerie's voice, and yours when they were younger, but it was all just a cloud I was in. I don't remember feeling anything exactly. I remember each orgasm I had, but not how I felt about it." He looked at her. "Isn't that strange? Now that I'm awake I can close my eyes and play back each time it happened, with whatever woman or girl was with me, but I can't remember how I felt about it." "We tried to hard to wake you up." said Martha, leaning toward him. "Mamma said she was doing that because it would make you happy when you woke up. I think us girls might have misunderstood that at the time. We thought that was what was SUPPOSED to wake you up. We thought she meant you'd wake up because you loved us. Later we thought out she was trying to shock you into waking up, but by then we were hooked. We couldn't quit. Looking back at it now, of course, Mamma just loved doing it with you. And we did too, later. And then you got me pregnant, and June and Betty couldn't stand it until they got pregnant too." "I got YOU pregnant?!" laughed Bob. "I think it was the other way around, little missy." Martha's eyes glistened as tears filled them. "You haven't called me little missy for fifty YEARS Daddy!" she bawled. A hug was called for, and given. That hug somehow turned into a nuzzle, which turned into a kiss, which turned into more kisses which had both of them panting within the space of just a few minutes. Martha pushed him back, her chest heaving. "I'm tired after all, Daddy." she said, looking at him through thick long lashes. "I want to go to bed now." She stood, and had his hand in hers. "I'm still worried that you might go back to sleep. I think you need to sleep with me tonight... so I can keep an eye on you..." After what they had just talked about, and what they had just been doing, her meaning was clear. Bob felt himself being pulled in two directions. He stood while his mind warred in his skull. Her hand was warm in his, and, small as that was, it made the difference. All he could remember was a cloudy haze... and voices. He wanted to put sight into that equation. "OK." he whispered. ------- Martha made no bones about it. When they got to the bedroom she unashamedly stripped off her clothing as if he weren't even there. He stared at the woman whose voice he knew so well, but whose body didn't match anything in his memory. Her full breasts sagged a bit, but the dark areolas perched on top of each one, with a firm nipple on each one that pointed more up than out. Her stomach had a middle aged pooch to it, a roll that was the perfect size to fit into a hand, and her hips were fleshy too. Still, she looked more in her mid forties than the over fifty years she actually was. "I loved being able to... take care of you." she said softly, almost shyly as she waited for him to remove his clothing. He stood there, all his muscles locked except the one in the pants he was wearing. It was almost as if that one took all his newly-awakened brain's power to manage as it swelled. She drifted, at least to his eyes, toward him and he felt her hand flicker across the front of his pants. "I looked forward to it every day." she murmured, looking straight into his eyes. "Every day?" he choked. "Well, almost every day." she corrected herself. "I just knew that someday you'd wake up because of what I was doing with you." "Well," he sighed, letting out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding, "I guess that sort of happened. When I woke up Betty was on top of me." Martha's eyes twinkled as she smiled. "I'm not surprised. Betty loved taking care of you as much as I did." Her brow furrowed a little. "Please hurry up Daddy. I need to take care of you again. I can't wait to see your eyes this time. I've dreamed of looking into your eyes while I..." Now she blushed, and her eyes darted to his ear, but then came back immediately. "While I feel you spurting inside me Daddy." That galvanized him, and it seemed like only a few blinks of the eye had taken place - the most time was getting the rope around his waist un-knotted - before he stood naked in front of her, his penis jutting almost obscenely toward her naked mons. Her fingers casually grasped it and squeezed gently as she leaned in for a long kiss. Her tongue probed... just the tip... and he opened his lips in surprise. He had never kissed anyone like this except Valerie. Then, suddenly, they were on the bed and he was above her as her hands pulled at his hips and he was surrounded by heat. "Ohhhh yessss Daddy." moaned the woman under him. His release was both unanticipated and shockingly powerful as he suddenly spurted helplessly. "Ohhhhh baby." he moaned. "DADDY!" squealed Martha, laughing. "You always lasted MUCH longer than THAT!" He took a breath, not knowing what to say, but her finger came up to his lips and sealed them. "Don't you worry about it. You make me feel special, cumming that quickly. We have all night. We can't go to sleep... remember? Now, suck my nipples please? I've always wanted you to suck my nipples." Bob looked down at the nipples under discussion and his head dropped. They were larger, and softer than the nipples he had sucked the last time he'd been awake. To his astonishment, he felt something happening in his groin and felt himself becoming erect again. Martha cooed and giggled, stroking his back and shoulders, urging him on, calling him her Daddy Bull. This time he wasn't so rock hard, but he was able to probe her deeply for much longer. He found himself in that nebulous place inside his mind that said what he was doing was forbidden... that Valerie wouldn't be pleased... and then remembered that she was the one who had taught this woman how to love him physically. He let go of his inhibitions and surrendered to her loving embrace. She brought him back twice again and they made love well into the wee hours of the morning. They talked at length about all the children he'd created in his daughters, and that none of them were aware of who their biological father was. For some reason he kept quiet about what the great granddaughters had done with him. None of them had actually had intercourse with him, and the secretiveness of his daughters about doing that themselves led him to believe they would not approve of what their granddaughters had done. Discussion about that could come later. But exhaustion claimed them, as hard as they fought it, and eventually, in a tangle of naked arms and legs, they couldn't stay awake any longer. Again, Bob slept. ------- Author's Comment: What do you do when the story you're telling is as confusing as this one can be? We have women who, officially are granddaughters, but biologically are daughters. We have great granddaughters, officially, who are in fact granddaughters biologically. That confusion is compounded when the various relationships between the women are addressed. I'm fond enough of all you folks out there who read my stories to want to tell a story without making you cry with frustration while you're reading, so here's the deal: From this point on, I'm just going to use official titles for each of the women - not biological ones. At least most of the time. It's kind of like a contract between you and me. I'll try not to confuse you... and you try to keep up. Sound like a plan? ------- Bob was awakened by a racket and violent motion in the bed. What happened was that both he and Martha, exhausted after their extended lovemaking session the night before, had slept late. Or at least it was late by virtue of the fact that there were three more women in Bob's life he hadn't met yet, and they now knew he was awake. Becca, Fran and Val had all gone home after leaving Martha's and had excitedly babbled about how Great Grandfather Bob had awakened. Their mothers were caught up in the excitement. They had not been even remotely as involved in his care as their daughters, but still were part of the mystery of his long sleep, and they were obviously excited to go and meet him. It was too late that night to do so then, but all three called each other to spread news that everybody already knew. In the process they all agreed to meet at Martha's the next morning. No time was agreed upon, primarily because each of Bob's granddaughters wanted to be the first to get there. June and Betty, though they weren't part of that conversation, had already decided to come back early the next morning too. It might have evolved quietly... peacefully... sanely... instead of the landslide that happened. The first trickle of sand that started rocks rolling was when Gidget, driving rapidly down the street, was blocked by her sister Sunny, who backed out into the street from her driveway like she was in labor and heading to the hospital. Becca and Val were in the cars with their mothers, of course, and immediately set up a chant urging their mothers to drive faster and "beat" the other to Martha's house. That madcap race was observed by Polly and Val, who only lived a few blocks from Martha's and were walking. They both broke into a sprint, not wanting to be last to arrive. Betty and June both drove up a split second apart, and just long enough before all the others to be standing outside their cars as screeching tires morphed into slamming doors. Polly and Val came hammering up the street, yelling "WAIT FOR US" between gasps for breath. So it was that eight excited women descended on Martha's peaceful house around six in the morning. To be truthful, none of them intended to disturb anyone, but their angst about whether Bob had gone back to sleep... and would wake up again like a normal man... resulted in each of them deciding to arrive early. They didn't have any actual plans to DO anything in particular, but they all wanted to be there. It was chaos, though chaos with attempts from various directions to inflict order. June and Betty tried to establish matriarchal control in the yard. They were ignored by their daughters, who raced for the back door and burst into the kitchen much like a S.W.A.T. team might have. Nobody yelled "CLEAR" though. Still, Martha awoke in her father's arms to what sounded like a home invasion. She was terrified on several levels. There was the "What in the nine hells is going on?" kind of terror, followed quickly by the "On SHIT! That's Sunny's voice I hear and I'm in bed naked with her grandfather!" kind of terror, which was compounded when she also heard the voices of her nieces, Polly and Gidget. There were other voices too, a babble that made it difficult to figure out just how many people were out there as she bolted up out of bed and searched frantically for her robe. This led to the "What if there's a TV camera crew in my kitchen!?" kind of terror. What gave her the time to make it trembling to the door of her room, and into the hall where she could repel boarders, was the fact that all of the women in the mob went to the room where they thought they'd find Bob... the room he'd been in for fifty years. That room, or bed, to be more precise, was empty, of course, and like a tsunami that has hit a cliff, the wave of women rebounded out of the door and flowed aimlessly around looking for the object of their search. It was Betty who figured it out first, and she turned toward her sister's bedroom. There, in the hall, holding her hands out like a traffic cop facing angry motorists, stood a disheveled Martha, her hair flying in all directions, her robe tied haphazardly around her waist, her eyes open wide in... well... terror. Martha started to relax a little when all she saw in the hallway was Betty, but like in a bad disaster movie, the hallway behind Betty was suddenly roiling with women acting like they were at a Christmas sale at Macy's and were all going for the very last Tickle Me Elmo doll on the shelf. The cacophony was horrendous as all the women demanded to know where their Daddy, or Grandfather or Great Grandfather was and whether he was awake or asleep. Martha, when she didn't see any TV cameras, set her feet and put on her most ferocious frown. Holding her arms out like she was going to hold them all back by pure force of her will, she planted one palm on each wall of the hallway and yelled "STOP!" On the other side of the bedroom door, Bob's eyes popped open as that bedroom door was slammed shut. He lifted his head, while his arm moved to where Martha had been the last time he'd been awake. His mind cleared surprisingly fast as the sounds of mayhem came through the door. After what he'd gone through the day before, the noise of babbling voices didn't phase him, and he sat up and looked around for something to put on. All there was were the clothes he had been given the day before and he calmly pulled them on while he listened to the mayhem slowly quiet after someone screamed "STOP!" at the top of her lungs. He stood and went to the door, listening. The voices were somewhat muffled, but he could discern them without too much trouble. First there was a trio of "Is he awake?" followed by a duet of "He's not in his bed!" Martha had not had time to properly think or prepare for this. "He's in my bed!" she blurted. "Oh IS he now?" crowed Betty. "Why is he in YOUR bed?" asked Sunny who, as a little girl, had spent many happy moments climbing into bed with her mother on cold winter mornings. "Well... um... you see... I wanted him to be comfortable." Martha came up with. "So..." said June, her voice tight, "Where did YOU sleep? Sunny chimed right in "Yes mother, where did you sleep. Grandpa's bed hasn't been used." "Well, uh, I slept on the couch!" said Martha weakly. "I just bet you did." growled June. "Well, it just seemed wrong, sleeping in his bed and all." went on Martha. Kind of creepy, you know?" She was trying hard, but was behind the power curve. She had a stroke of what she thought was genius. "He fell asleep and I sat there, with him for a long time, watching him. Finally I took a nap on the couch. I just got up to go in and check on him when you all barged into my house." Gidget missed the undercurrent that was threatening to sweep Martha away. "So is he AWAKE?" she asked excitedly. "Um... I THINK so." said Martha, grasping. "I mean I was just about to shake him when you all stormed in here." "I just bet you were." growled June again. "June!" said Martha with warning in her voice. "Well it's not FAIR!" yelled June. "JUNE!" shouted Martha. "LOOK AROUND YOU JUNE!" "Oh shut UP!" yelled June. "I want to see my Pappa!" "I just BET you do!" crowed Betty, laughing. "What's going on here?" asked Sunny, her voice taking on a note of suspicion. Bob decided that things were crazy enough out there and pulled the door open quickly. He stepped out into the hallway to see Martha still holding up the walls and eight feminine faces peering past her shoulders with various moods painted on their faces. For Gidget, Sunny and Polly, those moods were of astonishment... a fairy tale come true right before their eyes. Their mouths dropped open and all three took in deep breaths. Bob looked at them interestedly. These were the three voices that weren't so familiar... the three women he didn't really know in any real sense. While he had managed to wrap his mind around the fact that the other six women had been intimate with him, and while he now knew that these women were his biological daughters, he was suddenly at a loss for words. "Hello." he said. "Grandpa?" came the cracked voice of one of them. "I guess so." he said smiling. "And you are?" There was a surge of bodies and Martha was brushed aside as if she weighed nothing more than a piece of paper. "SUNNY!" squealed the woman. "I'm Sunny, and this is Polly over here, and this is Gidget, and that's my daughter Val and..." "He met us already!" cried the three youngest women, laughing. "Oh! Yes! Of course." Sunny blushed and grinned. "This is SO ex-CITING!" she squealed. Both Polly and Gidget had to do the same "Grandpa?" routine, reaching out to touch him to make sure he was real. Martha, feeling disgruntled and neglected, not to mention upset that her lovely interlude with her father had been all but destroyed, reasserted her matriarchal position in the family and started yelling to give the man some room to breathe, and about why was everyone standing in her hallway when she had a perfectly good living room. The girls asked about breakfast, of course, and that set in motion another wave of women who were hell bent for leather to fix something to eat for the exciting man who was being swept along with the tide, grinning and laughing at the antics of all those women. It took half an hour before anyone was able to speak without interruption, and for questions to be answered. Bob sat in an easy chair while the women flitted about, changing seats for no reason, or going to the kitchen only to be chased out by Martha, who couldn't stay there because she couldn't stand the suspense of wondering if her father was saying something that would give away the fact that they had made wild glorious love all night long. So she kept drifting back into the living room, only to have to go back into the kitchen when one of the others got up and invaded her space. But, eventually, things did settle down after that. There was still the occasional awed comment, like "This is just so STRANGE!" and "I just can't believe you're really AWAKE!" It was Sunny who asked the question - or more correctly, string of questions - that made everything go quiet. At that point all the women happened to be in the room. "So, what are you going to do now? Where will you live? What will you do?" Bob blinked. He hadn't actually thought about that. He did so, realizing instantly that he was on a very slippery slope. Martha had obviously wanted to continue her former relationship with him. It was just as likely that Betty did too, based on her actions. He looked at June, remembering the sound of jealousy in her voice and added her to the list of women who would want some intimate time with him. Then there were the three younger women, all of whom had done things with him. Would they too want to keep doing things now that he was awake? Part of him hoped so, because they were all cute and beautiful and interesting. It was the three middle aged women who were the unknown variables in the equation. "This is his home." stated Martha firmly. "Technically he still owns it." Bob saw the faces of both Betty and June begin to harden and held up his hands. "All of you are my family. I'll want to get to know all of you, and spend time with each of you. I have a lot of catching up to do, and lots of questions about your lives that I'd like to find out about." He looked around the room. "How about if I live with each of you for a while? I wouldn't stay too long or anything - you all have your own lives to live and all that - but that would give me a chance to spend some time with each of you and catch up until I can figure out what else to do." June, Martha and Betty traded glances with each other. There was no blushing or prevarication. All of them knew what the other was thinking about. Martha knew her sisters were upset with her for trying to preempt time with their father... and lover... so she offered the first olive branch. "I think that sounds like a perfectly wonderful and workable idea." she said. Gidget looked at her sister, Polly. "What about Roger? What will he think? Do you even have room?" Polly snorted. Roger was her husband, but in name only. After Francine had been born he'd come out of the closet and announced that he was gay. For Polly, the devastation that could have caused was blunted by the fact that Roger still loved her and he loved his daughter. He had told her he just wanted to be honest with her. As a result, they decided to stay together, living as husband and wife. But they slept in separate bedrooms. They were closer to loving roommates. "Roger won't care at all." She looked critically at her grandfather. "On the other hand, Grandpa is kind of a hunk, you know? Roger may hit on him. And all the bedrooms are full." "He can stay in my room when he comes to visit." offered Fran, her voice innocent. While most of the women in the room didn't realize the import of that "kind offer", a lot of them felt the tug of suspicion. Bob had the appearance of a twenty-something year old man, who was quite fit and handsome. It was hard to think of him as being their seventy-something year old grandfather or great grandfather, not only for themselves, but as they saw him with the others too. Betty was one of the women who felt suspicion in the otherwise innocent remark of her granddaughter. "Of course, when he's staying at my house, you all are welcome to visit as much as you like. I wouldn't want you to be uncomfortable at home." "Oh, it wouldn't be any trouble at all!" piped Fran. "I have mamma and daddy's old bed and it's huge! There's plenty of room for two people in it." Her comment was, at the same time, based on the pure logic of a mostly innocent girl of tender years, and the hormones flowing through that mostly innocent girl's bloodstream. "I don't know about that." said Polly doubtfully, suddenly seeing the youth and virility that was obvious in her grandfather... now that she thought about it. "I'm not sure that would be proper dear. You know no boys are allowed in your bedroom." "Maaahm" moaned Fran. "He's my great GRANDfather, not some boy who wants to get in my panties." It took every muscle in her body to keep Fran from clapping a hand over her mouth. She couldn't believe she'd said that. "Francine Elizabeth Anderson! That was uncalled for!" said Polly, exasperated and embarrassed. Sunny laughed at her cousin's discomfiture. "We can worry about that later. It's a good plan. But what about the other? What are you going to do? You're still a young man, for all intents and purposes. I feel more like I'm talking to someone my son's age than my grandfather." "I have no idea." Bob admitted. "I was an accountant when I went to sleep. Does the world still have accountants? How have you all taken care of me all this time, for that matter? I must have been a real burden." Martha waved her hand. "There was an insurance policy that paid out... is still paying out... and... oh MY. What will happen now? You're not asleep any more! The insurance company will have a fit! They'll probably say you've been faking it all this time or something!" Becca sat up straight all of a sudden. "THE JOURNAL!" she gasped. "We forgot about the JOURNAL!" "What journal?" asked her mother. Now there were two young faces that went tight. The most closely guarded secret of their youth... well ALMOST the most closely guarded secret anyway... had now been blurted in front of a whole BUNCH of adults who would be VERY upset about it once they found out what had been kept secret from them. Val, the eldest of the younger generation, tried to pawn if off. "Oh, it's just a diary. Our diary. We sort of... um... kept it... together." she said airily. She was trying to give the impression that it was a meaningless little thing. Becca, though, was worried about her Aunt Martha's comment that the insurance company would think it was all some kind of fraud. "We HAVE to tell them, Val!" she insisted. "If the insurance people start making trouble it's going to be important!" "Tell us what?" asked Martha, looking at her granddaughter with a piercing look. "What have you been keeping secret?" Val may have been a self possessed nineteen year old young woman, but under the intense gaze of her grandmother, and the questioning looks of her mother and other older female relatives, she all but wilted. "Well?" asked Martha, her voice dark. "We were playing." Val started weakly. "Hide and seek." She trailed off. "And?" prodded Martha. "I was hiding up in the attic. We were very young Grandma." She looked around. Neither of her cousins would meet her eyes, but every other eye in the room was nailing her to her seat. She swallowed. "I was hiding under that old desk up there. You know the one that has a lot of Great Grandfather Bob's papers in it?" She waited for a nod, but didn't get one, so she went on. "And I found a book... a diary sort of... in a secret compartment of the desk." "A roll top desk?" asked Bob, leaning forward. "My great grandfather's roll top desk?" Val looked at him, a tentative smile on her face, and nodded. "Yes, that desk. And anyway we looked at this old diary and it sort of was signed." "Sort of signed?" asked Betty, leaning forward herself now. "Yes." said Val. "And it talked about a man who slept for a long long time... like Great Grandfather Bob was sleeping." "Sort of signed?!" prodded Betty again. "Yes." said Val miserably. "It was signed... Rip Van Winkle." ------- Chapter 7 There had been one of those moments we authors call a "pregnant moment", where everybody knows something of great import has just happened, or is about to happen, and that lives will be changed as a result. That pregnant moment gave birth rather more quickly than anything living that gets pregnant. But, like most births, this one was loud and full of angst, if not a little fear and pain. The three girls found themselves somehow transported to the couch, where they were suddenly sitting side by side, staring up at the faces of six women and one man. The telling of that conversation, if that's the right word for what happened for the next fifteen or twenty minutes, would be long and tedious, so let me just summarize the main points, or comments that were... discussed. "How on EARTH could you... forget... that you had found something like this?" asked Martha. "We didn't exactly forget... whined Becca. We decided not to tell anyone about it." "YOU WHAT!?" gasped four or five adults. Val, the oldest, and the one who already lived away from home, where she could go again once the dorm opened back up, held up her hand. "At first we thought everyone but us knew about who Great Grandfather Bob was. We thought it was a secret, and that we weren't supposed to know yet." She held up her hand again when four or five adults tried to interrupt her. When it quieted down (and it did - isn't THAT interesting?) she went on. "Then, when we read the journal, we knew that telling anyone wouldn't do anybody any good. Rip Van Winkle didn't really understand why what happened to him... and he didn't know why he woke up, or what it was that woke him up. All that would have happened if people found out was that Grandpa would be taken away from us and dissected or something." "And we knew he'd wake up." chimed in Fran. "And how, exactly, did you know your great grandfather would wake up?" asked her grandmother. "Well..." said the girl uncomfortably, "Rip woke up. So we figured Grandpa would wake up too." Becca got her two cents in. "And we knew that when he DID wake up, THEN we could tell our secret." "That would be the secret that all of us already knew about... right?" asked Gidget acidly. "Well," whined her daughter, "After a while we couldn't tell anybody because we were too old to play hide and seek and that's how we found it - playing hide and seek - and if we said we found it that way people would have laughed at us and... and... and..." She burst into tears, so frustrated was she under the intense scrutiny of all those hostile adults. Bob was on his knees in front of her instantly. "Hey, don't cry." he said soothingly. "We're not mad at you. It's just a surprise, that's all. Come on now. It's all right." He held her hands, leaning against her knees, which were tightly closed as her body had taken on a defensive posture. His touch, and his youthful face so close to hers, electrified her and memories of what she had done with this man... to this man... as he lay sleeping added to her emotional burden. She blushed beet red as she felt tingles in various places around her body, and leaned back. She pulled her hands from his, more from self defense against the emotions racing through her, than because she didn't want to touch him. Then she balled up her fists and wiped her eyes, sniffling. Bob stood up and faced the other adults. "They did the best they knew how. And she's probably right. It probably wouldn't have made any difference. All it would have done was upset everyone. I'm awake now, I'm fine, I remember everything that happened while I was asleep, and we're going to be a family again. That's all that really matters." "Where IS this journal?" asked Martha, ignoring his heartfelt speech. "It's in the desk." said Val. "We put it back in there for safe keeping." "In the desk." said Martha woodenly. "You know, about five years ago I almost donated that desk to the local Public Television Station for their fundraising auction. The only reason I didn't was because I didn't think we could get it down out of the attic without it falling apart." She looked decidedly grumpy and that made her look older than usual. So then ten people tried to cram themselves into the attic to retrieve Rip's diary. None wanted to be left out of the adventure, and all insisted on climbing the steep steps and packing themselves into the dusty, hot room. Fran was the smallest, and she ducked under the desk and fiddled. There was a creak and a snap and her hand came out from under the desk with the book in it. It was snatched from her hand by Martha and there was the beginnings of a tussle when all three of Bob's daughters tried to take possession. Bob had to raise his voice to restore order, and pointedly said "May I have my Great Great Grandfather's journal... please?" His daughters had the sense to look abashed, and the book went to him. ------- Again, I must beg the gentle reader's indulgence as I tell this tale. The following weeks and months were a veritable whirlwind of activity, examination and discovery, and all the Winkles - the Van Winkles as they now privately called themselves - were neck deep in that physical and emotional turmoil. As such, to tell their story demands that many different kinds of activities be described and some of that turmoil will inevitably seep into the narrative. So if I bounce around a little, have patience. All will, sooner or later, be revealed. Bob read the journal out loud to his "new" family. Because of the length, it was decided to break it up into many small segments. It became an evening ritual for Bob to read a few pages each night, as they began to adjust to the fact that he was really awake, and was not, apparently, going to go back into his mystical slumber. With the exception of Martha, who had somehow convinced the others that he should stay in his old house "for a few weeks... to fully adjust..." the other women went on with their lives in a more or less usual fashion. The one difference was that only Martha still got to have sex with her father. In fact, as Bob got used to the idea, Martha got to have a lot MORE sex with her father than she had in the recent past. That didn't mean the other women who had been engaged with him in the past forgot about it. Not at all. In fact, as they all gathered each night to listen to Bob read from Rip's journal, something began to happen that some of the women had not anticipated. As he read to them, his baritone voice had an almost hypnotic quality, and the smooth planes of his face moved and twisted as he unconsciously used skills he had learned in High School speech class and musicals. His voice was that of an old time storyteller, mesmerizing the nine women. He always seemed to know just where to stop, when something was about to be revealed, and inevitably the women moaned as he closed the old journal, begging him to read more. Rip told, in his spidery, tiny writing, talked about his termagant wife who, along with all the other women of the town he lived in, made his life miserable for such common things as tippling a mug of ale now and then, and for enjoying a beautiful spring day by not wasting it on manual labor. He was overjoyed at being unemployed, as that gave him time to play with the village children and make their toys and go hunting with his faithful dog, Wolf. He wrote at some length about the virtues of home gardening and of fowling, a pursuit which he didn't feel was real labor. Both, he felt, fed his family, which was, after all, a father's role, yes? That his wife disagreed with him, and wished to be wealthy enough to never have to raise a finger around the house, made him sad beyond his ability to describe in the journal. That was a theme he went back to over and over again. Sunny, Gidget and Polly, none of whom had ever been intimate with this man, and had, for the most part forgotten him most of the time, began to become infatuated. Each of them had tried to find the man of their dreams, and somehow each had found something much less. They loved their children, but the fathers of those children had been found wanting, much as Rip claimed to have been found wanting by his shrewish wife. And yet, rather than identifying with the wife, they chose to believe the description Rip made of himself, as an easygoing, happy-go-lucky loving man who wanted nothing more than to have enough to eat, to enjoy a beautiful day and to be able to play with children and make them happy. In their minds, had his wife been less of a bitch, he would have been loving and considerate of her too... of course. And the man who read all this to them was, as they believed, the direct descendant of old Rip. He had even MET the man when he was a child... had actually SPOKEN with old Rip. The old roll top desk and the journal in it were gifts to Bob by the legend himself! And Bob was handsome, and polite in a way that men had forgotten how to be, it seemed. Whenever he accompanied one of them on a trip somewhere he was most solicitous, opening doors for them, taking their hand to help them in or out of the car, and generally paying them the kind of honest compliments that twenty-something men just didn't do these days. And it wasn't just the women in his family who noticed these things. Saleswomen all over town fawned on him, giving him the kind of service that, in New York City, would have demanded a tip. He didn't tip them. Instead, they gave him their phone numbers. And at night the women listened avidly as Rip told of how his wife's razor sharp tongue beat down all happiness in the house, even to that of Wolf, rip's faithful old hunting dog. His description of how Wolf's tail crept between his legs and his ears laid back even before they went into the cottage each day, successful hunting or not, made them all sigh. Polly and Sunny both had dogs in the house, and Gidget was still getting over the death of her own. Again, their heartstrings were plucked by the old man's words. All the women delighted in taking Bob places. His ever present amazement at the advances of technology were a source of constant laughter. It usually took Becca, Val or Fran to give him explanations of how things worked, but Sunny, Polly and Gidget almost always had a better sense of the timeline of when things had appeared on the market. There were constant references such as "I remember when that first came out. I was ten or eleven at the time and we couldn't afford one until they'd been in stores for several years." Computers seemed like magic to Bob. Conversely, the manual can opener in June's kitchen drawer was completely familiar to him. While its overall appearance was different than what he remembered, it was instantly recognizable to him, being practically unchanged in fifty years. Automobiles, as Bob referred to them, also left his mouth hanging open. Air conditioning was something he neither understood, nor thought necessary. At the same time, news reports about concern over this or that country's nuclear ambitions produced discussion in which were voiced many of the same concerns that people in his day had worried about. The first time he saw Val get a call on her cell phone left him laughing helplessly as he later described how she suddenly decided to talk to a noisy piece of plastic she pulled out of her purse. It was only after her actual conversation that he recognized the same language people had used fifty years ago to answer the phone. He was fascinated by the radio, and spent literally hours sitting hunched by one, hopping from station to station as he explored what to him was the amazing variety of sounds the little box would produce. Conversely, television didn't much interest him. The programs his great granddaughters watched horrified him. The ones their mothers liked seemed empty and vulgar. It wasn't until someone tuned the television to programs in black and white that his interest perked up. Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke were his favorites, and he'd stop doing almost anything to see the Honeymooners or Jack Benny. Even though most of them had been produced after he went to sleep, they were much closer to the world he remembered than anything else on the tube. And every two or three nights, the clan would gather, and more of Rip's journal would be revealed. And on each of those occasions the bond between the women and Bob would be deepened. June, rather than Betty, was the next after Martha to resume her previous activities with her father. For a month she sat and wiggled excitedly as she sat with him, or went places with him, or had him over for dinner. Then one day he showed up unexpectedly, sent to her house by Martha to borrow something. She was in her bikini again that day, lying out in the sun. The first she knew of his presence was when his shadow fell over her face. She flinched, not expecting anyone to see her, and opened her eyes. "Daddy!" she said, relieved that it wasn't a stranger. "I was hoping I'd get to see you in that getup again someday." he chuckled. There had been much discussion about many things between Bob and the various women in his life now, but talk about sex had been avoided. There were too many secrets trying still to be kept. Even though Martha dragged him into bed almost every day she still tried to keep that a secret from the others. But all of the women who had been intimate with him were fully aware that he retained memories of what they had done. It made for some emotionally charged interaction sometimes. June sat up. "Daddy, can I ask you a question?" she asked. Bob stared down at the vast expanse of sweat-dotted skin on her body. Having gotten used to making love with Martha, his prick was almost always interested in a beautiful woman. It reacted to June. "Of course." he said, wishing he could adjust his thickening penis. "You remember how you said that you can remember... everything?" She got flustered. "I mean about what happened while you were asleep?" That didn't help Bob's condition at all. Her voice was tied to some really great "dreams." "Yes, dear." he said. He couldn't help but treat his daughters as daughters, even though he appeared younger than them. "How did you feel about that?" she asked, looking away. "I thought they were dreams." he said. "I mean now." she corrected herself. "What do you think about... what we did?" "Let's go inside." said Bob, feeling his own skin beginning to produce sweat. "I'm supposed to borrow a weed whacker, whatever in the world that is." "I'm sorry, Daddy." said the woman getting up. "I didn't mean to bring back bad memories." He held out his hand to pull her up. "Who said anything about bad memories? I'll be happy to answer your question. I just want to do it in the shade." "Oh." she said, her voice small. When they got inside June offered him something to drink. "The weed whacker is out in the garage." she said. "I'll get it." "That can wait." he responded. "How would you feel if I said I wanted to kiss you?" he asked. June's eyes went round. She wasn't prepared for that. "I'd love for you to kiss me." she finally said. "And what if I said I wanted to take that little bitty bathing suit off of you and look at you naked?" he asked. "Ohhh Daddy." she whimpered. "I miss what we did so much." "Then let's do it again, sweetheart." he said. It was hot, sweaty, frenzied lovemaking. They didn't even make it to the bedroom. He got his kiss and while he did his hands went to unfamiliar ties and hooks. She helped him and then her fingers frantically tore at his own buttons and hooks until he stood naked, his shorts in a pool around his ankles. His prick was rock hard and reaching for her. Her routine was to mount him in bed, and that memory caused her to grab a nearby kitchen chair. She pushed him into it, his ankles still encumbered and then swung one long leg over his lap. Fisting his prick she kissed him again as she notched it and then sank down on it. "Mmmmmm" she moaned into his mouth, her hips jerking spasmodically as her pussy was filled with hard dick. She jerked and bounced and cried out, having an orgasm within the first twenty seconds of their tryst. "Ohhh Daddy I love you so much." she moaned, her green eyes staring into his. "I love THIS sooo much." "I know, baby," he grunted, trying to force his hips up off the chair. "You told me so lots of times." "I loved it when you made me pregnant." she moaned. Martha had informed her sisters that she had spilled the beans about all Bob's children. There had not been any direct conversation about that between Betty and June and Bob. There had never been an appropriate time. Now she felt free to talk about it. "I still can't believe you three did that." he said, unconsciously yielding up to the desire to make her pregnant again. "There was nothing as good as carrying your baby around inside me." she sighed. "It made me feel so close to you. It made all of us feel so close to you. I think that's why none of us ever got married. We couldn't imagine being able to feel that close to any other man." "But you could have had so much more in life." he objected. "We were happy, Daddy." she smiled, jerking her hips toward another orgasm. "We never regretted what we did for a minute." She leaned back and stared into his. "Like I'm happy now." she husked. "Spurt in me Daddy. I want to feel that again and see your eyes." It wasn't hard at all for Bob to let loose. "Yes, baby," he moaned. "I want to do that again too. Here it is sweet June... Uhhhhhh." His prick bulged and spat as his daughter's smile widened, her eyes never leaving his. When his penis had coughed its last, she gave him a tender kiss on the lips. "Thank you Daddy. Thank you so much. I love you so much. I can't believe how much I love you." "I'll always love you too, sweet pea." he panted. It was after that that June insisted it was her turn to host her father. All he owned were a surprising array of clothing, but it only took one carload to get that transferred. Martha groused about it, but June only smiled and said "You had your turn. Now it's mine." She had a harder time with Betty, who groused too. Finally the three women agreed that Bob would be invited to make the rounds, whenever he felt like it. They got together to tell him about that decision. He laughed. "You all are acting like a harem." he said. "And you're treating me like some sultan or something." "You ARE our sultan, Daddy, said Betty. "And we feel... we've always felt... like we were your wives. When momma left us we just took over for her." Bob was surprised to find how easy it was to agree to their crazy plan. ------- It was strange to hear Rip talk, through Bob's voice, about sitting in the shade of the tree outside the small inn that had a big painted portrait of King George III on the facade. He told of how they got news from passing travelers, or when an old newspaper happened to come their way and was read out loud to them all by Derrick Van Bummel, the schoolmaster. His description of the people, the food, the basic feel of the village itself were all fascinating to the modern Van Winkles. "It was my hunting that was also my escape from the dagger tongue of Dame Van Winkle, who, with the other women in the village set upon we peaceful men as we discussed politics. They haled us wastrels, vagabonds and tools of the devil. And so, one lovely autumn day I went for squirrel, to get some peace." Bob closed the book with a sharp snap, and there were sighs all around. "Can't you read just a little more?" wheedled Gidget. She had never married, like her mother before her. The difference was that the man she'd lain with, and who had given her Rebecca, had been her professor at the time. She'd fallen prey to his attentions, but he wouldn't leave his wife. It had soured her on men. Still, she had no experience with having a man around underfoot who was not being productive. So her sigh of "He sounds like such a nice man." was met with a snort from Sunny. Sunny HAD been married, and was now divorced from the man who sired Val. She was only too familiar with the downside of a man who had no ambition, and who paid way too much attention to himself, neglecting both his young wife and their new daughter while he worked as what he called a portrait painter. Sunny compared his portraits to what she saw on the covers of science fiction books about aliens. "He was a man who could have made a good living for his family." she said. "But he chose to go off and do what he liked. Don did that. That's why I divorced the bum." Val frowned. "Mom, you know I love Daddy. I don't like it when you call him a bum. He's an artist." "Well, if you call a man who hasn't sold more than two paintings in his whole life an artist, then I agree, he's an artist. He could have gone into graphic arts and made a good living though, and we wouldn't have had to scrimp and save for your college." It was obviously an argument they'd had before, and Bob tried to lighten the mood. "You know, I used to be quite a hand with a bit of charcoal and paper." Sunny made a face. "Don't even go there." she said, holding up a hand, the palm facing him. "I'm beginning to get to know you and I like you a lot so far. Don't ruin it for me." she teased. Actually she DID like her grandfather a lot. She appreciated the little things he did for her when they were together, and whenever he visited their house he was always the perfect guest. He was everything in a man she liked, without all the things she didn't. More than once she'd glanced at him and wished that he weren't her grandfather. She'd have liked to feel again what she hadn't felt for years with a man. She wasn't too keen on men by the time her divorce was finalized and since then she'd been too busy making ends meet to have a social life anyway. Still, at thirty-eight, there was a lot of life left in her. She was perky and interested in life and hadn't come even close to using up all her passion. Bob also reawakened something deep inside Sunny that she had kept secret and buried for a long time. The last person she had told about it had been here ex-husband and he had used it against her. Among the people in the room, only Sunny knew that she had had a fantasy lover in her life for decades. He didn't have a face, because she didn't know what he looked like. She didn't know where he was, or what he was doing. All she knew was that he was her father... and in her mind they did wonderful sweet passionate things together. ------- The group broke up and most of them left. Bob was still staying with June, and Becca hung back, telling her mother she'd be home in a while. She said she wanted to talk to her grandmother. In fact, it was her great grandfather she wanted to talk to. She waited until her grandmother went to the kitchen to clean up the dishes they'd used. Bob looked at her questioningly. He hadn't had much time alone with his great granddaughters. It wasn't that he wanted to - or not - it was just that one of the adults was always around. The girls had plenty of input, but usually only when another adult was in earshot. He also hadn't pushed it because he had no idea how they felt about the things they'd done with him while he slept. His daughters had made it clear that they loved being his lovers, and wanted to continue in that role. But the girls, while they certainly didn't shy away from him, didn't send him any clues either. Becca was the first to approach him privately. "What's up beautiful?" he asked. He flirted with all the women in the sense that he paid them all compliments as often as he could do so honestly. Because he was honest in these things, he was also naturally charming. Becca smiled. She wasn't immune from his charm at all. "I wanted to talk to you." she said hesitantly. "To ask you something." "Shoot." he said, leaning back in his chair. "Except that I don't know if I should or not." she added. "Well, I don't know if you should or not either." he said amiably. "I guess you'll have to be the one to make that decision." Becca frowned. "It's just that I used to talk to you all the time." she said. "I remember." he said simply. "But, as you might recall, I never talked back." "I know, but somehow it always worked out that I knew what to do if I talked about it with you first." she said. "Oh, so this is about a boy, huh?" he guessed. "Yeah... Phillip Hampstead. I have a date with him Friday night." "That's not a name I remember." said Bob. "I never talked to you about him, exactly." she said. "I mean I've sort of been doing the same things with him that I did with... some others..." "And with me?" Bob couldn't resist asking. His memories of her hot mouth sucking down his spunk were bright in his mind. She colored, her cheeks turning pink. "Um... yes... you really remember that?" she asked nervously. "Oh yes." he said, smiling. "You're very good at it, you know." "Really?" she asked, her voice high. "Have you had any complaints?" he asked. She blushed more. "Well, no... but... I mean... most of them never had it done before I did it." Bob didn't want her getting even more nervous. "So what's your question?" he asked. "About this Phillip boy." Becca darted a look toward the kitchen to make sure June wasn't in earshot. "Well, I've never let any of the boys do anything... you know... down there?" She was beet red now, almost like she had a sunburn. "And anyway Phillip wants to put his hands in my pants while I... um... you know. He swears it will feel good and that he'll stop if I tell him to and... I just don't know if I should let him." Bob didn't say anything for a few seconds. "He swears he'll stop if you want him to, huh?" he said. Becca nodded. "Have you ever... hmmm... touched yourself... down there?" he asked. She looked away and down at the floor, but nodded. "And that feels pretty good, doesn't it?" he prodded. She nodded again, ducking her head so her dark red hair covered her face. "Hey, it's nothing to be ashamed of." he said softly. She looked up, looking through her hair. "I mean we're on pretty familiar terms... you and I. I don't want you to feel embarrassed about asking me these things. I don't know for sure, but I suspect most girls do it at one time or another." She smiled a thin smile and he went on. "The point is that when a boy does it, it might feel even better and... well, you might NOT want him to stop. And that can lead to other things that you might not want to do... but by the time you have to make a decision, you're not thinking clearly. Do you understand what I mean?" he asked. She shook her head and he sighed. "When a man and a woman do these things, it's just natural to want to do other things, and pretty soon you're making love with the guy. But if you had the chance to stop and think about it, you might not want to go that far." Her head came up and her eyes were wide. "I don't want to do THAT with him!" she said, her voice a loud whisper. "That's what I mean. If you start letting him play, you might let him do that anyway." "I would not!" she said, her voice firm now. Bob knew better, but he also knew that young people think they know things that they just don't know. "I have a proposal for you." he said. "What?" she asked. "How about you and I go somewhere tomorrow... or at least before Friday. I think I can show you what I'm talking about. We'll need to be someplace private. If it's all right with you I'll touch you the way Phillip wants to touch you and you can find out for yourself what it's like." Becca's smile widened. THIS was something that felt natural to her... something that matched her prior experience with this man. Being intimate with him was something that did not worry her in the least. "OK!" she said, smiling. "That's a good idea! I LIKE that idea." she said, getting excited. "Where should we go?" Bob was at a loss to answer that one. Back in the day there had been a local makeout spot that all the kids went to, but he had no idea if it still existed, or had been covered by houses, like so many other places had while he slept. "We'll find something." he said. "Why don't you give me a driving lesson? Martha tried a few days ago, but it was a disaster. I was afraid she'd have a heart attack." "Deal!" yipped Becca. "I'll pick you up around ten, OK?" "Deal." said Bob, mimicking her speech. Becca skipped off out of the house and Bob went to find June. He came up behind her and reached around to fondle her breasts. He was already erect. Just thinking about playing with Becca the next day had gotten him that way. Now he had a chance to deal with the problem. "You're horrible." said June, leaning back against him. She reached for a dish towel while he mauled her heavy globes. "You taught me to be that way." he said into her hair. When her hands were dry she turned in his arms and kissed him. Then, giggling like a school girl, she took his hand and led him to the bedroom where they had spent the last several nights entwined in each other's arms as he prodded her deeply. This night was no different and she arched her naked body under his as he shoved deep and his extraordinary semen flowed into her belly in long, strong streams. He watched her face as he came, staring into her grateful eyes as she accepted his offering... staring at what Becca would look like when she was older. Whatever lucky man snagged that girl was going to be happy for a long, long time. ------- Chapter 8 The next morning Bob announced that Becca was going to give him a driving lesson. "Do you really think that's wise?" asked June, still happy and sated from their early morning repeat of the night before. She almost wished that she were younger and not on the pill. Her father was an ardent and enthusiastic partner in bed. "You know Martha talked to me after she drove with you." "I did just fine." said Bob waving a hand. "The car just has a lot more power than I'm used to." he said dismissively. "It was Martha that was the problem. She just got way too excited, that's all. And besides, Becca just had that, what do you call it? - drivers training? - not long ago. Sometimes I think you girls have forgotten most of the rules." He grinned as he said it. He loved being a backseat driver in a strange twist of tradition. "Well for pity's sake don't try driving anywhere there is a lot of traffic. The last thing we need is for you to get arrested for driving without a license. Can you imagine what trying to explain to the Police about you would be like?" "I promise." he said blithely. Two hours later Becca showed up, excited enough that her grandmother thought it was odd. Why would the girl be so tickled at getting to give a driving lesson? She dismissed it though. All the women liked to spend time with Bob. Bob never got to drive. Instead he gave instructions to Becca to go places he remembered that might be remote and private. All of them now had housing developments or strip malls on the property. So they decided to go up into the mountains to the east. A State forest provided the perfect place to get off the road and go for a little hike. Becca, thinking ahead, got a blanket out of the trunk and they set off into the woods. They found a spot that had not only a little meadow of thick grass, but a truly amazing view of the valley below and spread the blanket out. Both were a little nervous as they sat, side by side, initially just looking out at the lovely vista below. "Are you all right?" asked Bob finally. "Uh huh." said Becca, dipping her head and not looking at him. "We don't have to do this if you don't want to." he offered. She looked at him. "I do want to." she said firmly. "I kind of miss..." her voice trailed off and she blushed. She tried to explain. "With boys I go out with it always seems tense, like something could go wrong any second. But with you it's just fun." "Hey, I kind of miss it too." he said, more to make her feel less nervous than anything else. He decided to adopt what he perceived as a fatherly approach. He had, after all, had all the fears that any man has when a daughter is born to him. Even when they were babies Bob had dreaded the day they would come home and announce that they liked a boy, or wanted to go on a date. That's probably harder on a father before it happens than after it happens... depending on the boy. So he began telling her what boys wanted. Well... what boys wanted when he was growing up. It turned out things hadn't changed all that much. She agreed that boys wanted to kiss, and to touch her breasts and to see her breasts. She knew well that their hands would wander downward to her buttocks and hip and try to get between her legs. She had always resisted that, for no other reason than she knew she was supposed to. But everything else felt so good she just knew that that would feel good too, which was why she was now having second thoughts about keeping those hands away. She told him as much as they talked. "Yes, sweetheart," he said patiently, "but what I'm trying to tell you is that the feelings get very intense." She looked doubtful still, so he asked her. "Haven't you ever felt like if a boy stopped doing something you'd just die?" She thought about that for a few seconds and shook her head. "No." she said simply. He looked at her, astonished. "You mean it's always been easy to stop?" he asked to confirm. She looked at him and nodded. "Sure. I mean it feels nice and all that, and I like doing that, but I always tell them when it's time to stop and take me home." She frowned. "THEY don't want to stop, but I don't have any problem at all." Maybe boys hadn't changed much, but it sure sounded to Bob like girls had changed. In his day when it was time to stop and take the girl home she loudly proclaimed that she didn't want to stop at all... and that was WHY it was time to stop and go home. Then again, this beautiful young thing was only eighteen. Bob clearly remembered what he had been like only five years ago... sort of... and he knew full well that what he had learned between being eighteen and being married for a couple of years had taught him an astonishing amount about how to really please a woman. And what he lacked then, Martha and now June were making up for by coaching him on how to make them virtually sing in bed. The only thing he had brought into the bedroom that they had never experienced was what he did with his mouth and tongue between their legs. That, oddly enough, they had never experienced. Well, maybe not so oddly, considering that their sole lover had been unconscious for the entire time they'd been making love with him, not counting the last month. At any rate, Bob decided that he'd have to try a few things with this delightful young thing to see for himself if girls had changed so much as her comments indicated. "Let's... reenact some of the things you've done," he suggested, "and I'll do what Phillip wants to do with you, and then you can see how you feel about it. How's that?" Becca nodded, almost violently. She wanted to know what it was like. "How should we start?" he asked. His new moral attitude still wasn't settled in, and he felt strange making advances toward this young girl. "Well," she said gazing into his eyes. "Most of the time the guys just start grabbing at my boobs. But I like to kiss for a while first." Bob made an internal grimace. Boys were always pushing the envelope. That hadn't changed either. They started sitting up, and just leaning into each other for light, soft kisses. He gave her several and pulled back to see what she thought. Her eyes were round. "That's really different now that you're awake." she said. She came back for more and soon they were lying on the blanket, their bodies pressed together as the kisses got longer and wetter and hotter. He put one hand on her hip and slid it up her side, stroking her side gently. When he thought the time was about right, he let his fingers drift to her breast and she kissed him harder. They broke again. "Is that about right?" he asked. She nodded. "They want to feel them under your shirt, don't they?" he asked. "Yes." she was breathing deeper now. "Will you take your shirt off?" he asked. She smiled. "Not for them, but for you I will." She sat up and unashamedly unbuttoned her shirt and shrugged out of it. Her utilitarian white bra bulged with soft skin. She reached behind her and undid the clip, shrugging her shoulders to let the cups fall and the straps slide down her arms. The bra ended up in her hand and she froze as he stared. These were young, vibrant breasts. It wasn't that Martha and June and Betty were old and baggy or anything. Quite the opposite, actually. All three women had taken pretty good care of themselves, but their breasts were heavy and gravity wins in the end. Their nipples were more well formed than Becca's, primarily because their nipples had been sucked into shape by numerous infant mouths during innumerable sessions of breast feeding. In his memory, his wife's breasts were more like these, except that they weren't as large, or heavy. Three babies had made Valerie's nipples almost constantly prominent. She bought hard, cone shaped bras that made hard perfect points in her blouses just because of those nipples. A bra looked like what it was - a bra. Anything else would have telegraphed those nipples to the world, and she didn't want to do that. Becca's, though, had never been sucked. Her breasts were firm and round, with no hint of sag to them. They looked hard as rocks, with pink upturned nipples on them that were flat looking, like small coral-colored buttons. Bob stared at them so intently that she actually leaned back a little, anxiously. "Are they OK?" she asked. "They're beautiful, Becca." he said. He said it in that voice that all the women had learned was an honest compliment. It made her tingle to hear that voice. "Are you going to touch them?" she asked. The men in her experience had to be fought off, rather than encouraged, and this was a strange situation for her. "Oh, yes, I'm going to touch them." he said. "I'm going to touch them like the boys will want to touch them." He lay her back down and leaned over her to take one nipple in his mouth. She wasn't prepared for the action, or the feeling, and gasped. There was a kind of almost pain, so exquisite that she couldn't breathe for a few seconds. Then as he suckled and played with the nipple she dragged in a ragged breath and let it out in a long, long sigh. He moved to the other one and began pinching the first, rolling it between his fingers, never letting up, pulling at it and then pressing it into her flesh. That flesh looked hard as a rock, but was as soft as a baby's butt. Bob realized he was the one that was rock hard. He pulled back to find that Becca's mouth was open wide and her eyes closed tight. "You ready for me to stop yet?" he asked. She opened her eyes. "No! It feels better than I thought, but I'm fine. Aren't you going to do it some more?" "I'll do some more later. Right now I want to kiss you some more." "OK" she agreed readily. This time, as they kissed, he pressed for and got entry with his tongue. He slid his hand to her bare midriff and stroked her skin just above where her ovaries were, almost like he was trying to coax them into dropping an egg for him. Becca wiggled and her leg went over his. She pressed her pussy against his leg and ground it against him. Bob pushed her away and his fingers went to the button of her shorts. He fumbled, not able to get it because it buttoned backwards from how men's pants buttoned. Her hand brushed his out of the way, her lips still locked on his, and suddenly her shorts were open and unzipped. Bob didn't wait. He slid his hand into the front of her panties. Instead of easing things along, his fingers pressed for entry and her legs parted as she lifted one knee. Bob felt sparse hair and then the beginning of her slippery slit. He pushed, forcing his hand between the cloth and her skin and slid a finger right into her pussy. Becca was enjoying herself immensely. She was making out with a man she felt very close to, even though she'd only been able to actually have a conversation with him for just a few weeks. His kisses were much nicer than those she'd gotten from her dates, and what he'd done to her breasts was just flat fabulous. She was beginning to think she should have let her dates do more with her breasts after all when he sought entry into her pants. This was what she came here for, and she impatiently helped him get access to her pussy. Then things happened that she hadn't planned on. She'd had her own finger in her pussy on numerous occasions. But it didn't feel like this! Bob's finger was longer and bigger around, and when he fucked her virgin pussy with it he mashed her clit at the same time, digging deep inside her. She felt his finger touch something way up inside that felt tingly pain and tingly pleasure all at the same time. Suddenly his lips were gone from hers. She wanted to complain, but they went back to her nipples and what felt like electricity seemed to suddenly be shooting all through her body. Bob sped up with his hand, adding another finger and massaging her pussy lips rapidly as his finger flashed in and out of her pussy. Her nipples had spiked up now, and were long enough he could chew on them in between sucks. She lay back, her arms making vague motions as she flopped on the blanket. Then she went rigid and made a keening noise that Bob had no trouble interpreting at all. Becca couldn't breathe again. Everything felt so fabulous... so wonderful... not at all like it was with the boys on her dates. Well, maybe a little like that, but WAY more intense. She closed her eyes tightly, just concentrating on the feelings that coursed through her young body. She felt the orgasm coming, knew what it was, even welcomed it. But, just as it hit, he stopped thrusting his finger into her and, instead, put three fingers on her clitty and dragged them up and then back down rapidly, causing all three fingers to squeeze and maul her clit and then do it again and again and again. Her shorts, still on, pressed his fingers tightly against her body. Her orgasm, rather than being the sweet gentle ecstasy she was used to, exploded upon her consciousness like fireworks. She went rigid all over, paralyzed temporarily and then her buttocks bounced off the blanket thrusting her hips up into the air enough that it hurt her tender buttocks when they fell back to the ground. She heard the sound of a puppy being beaten, yipping and whining and suddenly realized the sounds were coming from her own throat. Becca relaxed limply on the blanket. Bob was suddenly gone and she felt her hips being lifted. She raised her head to see him taking her shorts and panties off. She was suddenly stark naked, lying on a blanket in the sunshine, surrounded by woods. Bob stood up and dropped his own clothing. She eyed his long, hard prick, comforted that it looked so familiar, but distinctly uncomfortable because he was awake and she was naked. "What are you going to do?" she asked breathlessly. She still felt almost groggy from her orgasm. "What you do on your dates." he smiled. "With a little twist." He lay down beside her, except the wrong way, with his head at her hips. She rolled her head to stare right at his rigid prick. Then his hands were on her hip, pulling, rolling her onto her side. He put a hand under her as she rolled and, by force of muscle alone, lifted her until she rolled up onto his body, his face between legs. Her legs automatically spread and her knees hit the ground on either side of him. She squawked and then caught her breath in a gasp as he fastened his lips against her pussy and sucked her loose pussy lips into his mouth. "Awwwww" she moaned, opening her mouth just as her face ended up above his jutting prick. She hesitated a few seconds, only because the feel of his tongue penetrating her sex was so overpowering, and then dropped her mouth over his cock. This was something she knew how to do very well, had learned how to do on this very penis in fact. But somehow she couldn't concentrate on sucking and licking and kissing like she was used to doing. His lips found, sucked, and squeezed her clit and when he nibbled it with his teeth another of those devastating orgasms washed over her and she gagged on his prick as she jerked and it went clear to the back of her throat. She pushed up and off of it, grinding her pussy into his face and rubbing her hips back and forth, mashing her sex against his mouth until she almost smothered him and he had to grab her hips and move her to get a breath. Then her world turned up side down again as he rolled her off of him and scrambled between her legs. The iron hard thing she had just had in the back of her throat was suddenly lodged firmly between the pussy lips he had just sucked and licked and he hovered over her, the tip of his prick stretching her cruelly. His panting face swayed above her own and she held her breath. "You see?" he panted, leaning down to kiss her lips gently. "Things can happen so fast that you have no control over them." His prick didn't budge, but Becca could feel a pulsing down there, almost like a heartbeat, where his hard skin was pressed firmly against her clit. "If I were a boy on a date, it would be inside you already." he said heavily. "You'd have lost your virginity and wouldn't have been able to do a thing about it." The thought of that long hard thing ripping her open horrified Becca. She was intimately aware of how big and long that thing was, poised at her pussy's gates. She had had to stretch to get her mouth over it when she was younger. And now, the pressure she felt suddenly was tinged with pain. But at the same time, his body over hers, and the ecstasy she had just gone through screamed at her that if all those things had been SO wonderful, surely having him inside her would be even better. She lay there panting, trying to get control of her own emotions, and her hips thrust up against the pressure of their own accord. "You want it in you?" he growled. "yes." she panted. "No!... Ohhh I don't know." Bob let his weight down and pushed a little harder. He felt flesh give way, fighting him all the way and suddenly his glans popped inside her tightly stretched pussy lips. "AHHHHHH" she whined. Now there WAS pain... real pain. Then it was gone, like magic and she realized he was getting to his knees. She lifted her head and saw his bobbing penis moving away from where that pain had been. She stared at her own pussy, expecting to see torn flesh and blood. But there were only her pink labia, gaping open just a little... and a feeling of emptiness in her loins. Bob sat down on the blanket and leaned on one arm. "That's what I was talking about." he said softly. "When you let things go too far, not only is it hard to stop, sometimes you can't stop even if you want to. A lot of girls get hurt that way." She stared at the man she knew so well, but hardly knew at all. "You put it in me!" she squeaked. "A little." he said. "Not nearly as much as one of your dates would have." She panted. "You took it out!" "Of course." he smiled. "That wasn't part of the deal... was it?" She stared at him, her mouth open. She couldn't believe how the pain had flashed to a feeling of profound emptiness. She wanted to shove her own fingers inside her to ease that feeling of emptiness. "I don't want it out." she whined. "Becca, sweetheart, it would have hurt you." he said. "It DID hurt me!" she said. "See what I mean?" he grinned. "And that was only a little bit. If I'd have kept going you'd be crying right now." Becca thought about that. Her hand slid unconsciously to her pussy and she put a finger in it, pulling it up against her clit. "Maybe." she said, drawing out the Maaaaayyyyyy as she pulled hard. That felt good. But it didn't feel as good as she somehow knew that long hard prick three feet away from her would feel. Bob laughed. "See what I mean? I TOLD you things change when you play that way. You don't want to stop right now... do you?" She knew he was right and didn't like it. She had always been in control on her dates. She played with the boys and let them give her tingles, but she always felt in control. Until now. "I don't like you any more." she pouted. "Need to have just one more little orgasm?" he grinned. He moved so suddenly that she had hardly jerked before his hand pulled her fingers out of her and his mouth fastened back on her clit, his tongue licking it just before he sucked it into his mouth. "OHHHHHHHHHHHH SSSSHHHIT!" she groaned, letting her head flop back down on the blanket as her knees flexed, pushing against his face. He was relentless, sucking and licking and biting at her until she shuddered and went rigid one more time. His hands went under her buttocks and welded his mouth to her sex as she came so hard she got light headed and flopped on the blanket again. Then, as she lay limp, he pushed himself up and jacked furiously on his cock until long ropes of semen arced out and landed on her from breast to crotch. The old Becca would have been incensed at this, but the new Becca felt the heat of that issue, landing in long stripes across her naked body and her hands went to it, rubbing it all over her skin. One messy hand slid down and rubbed at her pussy mouth and she jerked as her overly sensitive clit objected to the touch. That hand came back up and settled on one breast, slowly rubbing his spunk into the skin. The other scooped up a glob on her abdomen and brought it to her lips. She sucked her fingers clean and put her hand down for more. Bob sat back down, gasping for breath, and looked at the naked girl spread out before him. He'd had to beat off. The urge to stick it back in her had been almost overpowering. He felt much better for not having done so, even though he'd made a terrible mess. Watching her scoop up that mess and put it in her mouth made his balls lurch one more time and a single droplet of sperm oozed out of the tip of his prick and collected in the bunched foreskin there. Neither said anything as they caught their breath. For having shared something so intimate both felt a little odd, and unwilling to talk. Becca eventually sat up and used one corner of the blanket to clean herself up before getting back into her clothes. Bob, when he saw her reach for her bra, got dressed too. Neither of them said anything as he picked up the blanket and walked with her to the car. Only after it was started and moving did she turn and speak to him. "I see what you mean." she said, smiling. "You were right. You could have done anything you wanted with me." "I just don't want you to get hurt. Sex can be a beautiful thing, but not when someone isn't fully committed to it." he said. She stopped the car suddenly and turned to him. "You never got to practice driving." she said, opening the door. "No, really, that's all right." he said. She insisted though, and he drove from there to the entrance to the park. The only problem he had was that he kept feeling the urge to shift, and that wasn't required with this car. Twice he reached for the shifter lever on the column, to have his hand slapped each time by a giggling girl. She told him to make a turn onto a gravel road and, as the car weaved somewhat erratically from side to side... she gave him a blowjob and got a mouthful of the spunk she'd been intending to get all along. ------- Chapter 9 The following Tuesday, Bob enlisted the aid of Val to drive him to Sacramento, some sixty miles west of Circleton. He wanted to do something about the insurance payments before anyone could accuse him of hanky panky. He and Val talked about many things on that drive, but in the interests of brevity (hah!) we'll skip most of those. Suffice it to say that Val was excited, not only because it gave her time with what was now her favorite man, but because she'd get to go to a real boutique to shop for a new bikini. She dropped her great grandfather off at an imposing glass fronted building and drove off toward the shopping district with a promise to return in an hour. A more sophisticated author would say "the storm broke" when Bob walked into the Amalgamated Indemnity of America's corporate offices and calmly announced that he was no longer "infirm", and that as such, they no longer were required to make the monthly payments to him that they had been making for fifty years. But I'm not that sophisticated. What actually happened was that the shit hit the fan. Priscilla Hardy happened to be the adjustor who was approached by a very timid young man named Paul, who was an intern with the company that summer and who had been asked to take over the front desk by Missy Walker, the receptionist, so she could go get a cup of coffee. Most people just sent Paul to get them things, but Missy had been there ... had that T shirt ... and was almost militant about not making the interns "step and fetch" things. So she smiled sweetly and asked Paul to watch her desk for a few minutes. When a few minutes later, a man walked in off the street and explained what he wanted, Paul had no idea what to do. So he took the man to Priscilla. Priscilla was a hard driving young woman, who took control of things by telling the man to sit down while she reviewed his file. She asked for a doctor's release while she tapped keys on a computer keyboard. "I don't have one." said Bob calmly. "I didn't see the need to go to a doctor. I'm not infirm any more and I just thought you folks should be told that." "This is highly irregular." she muttered as his file came up. She blinked when she saw the date of the original claim and the dates of the list of payouts. The file was for a seventy-five year old man. She looked at Bob, who was obviously in his mid twenties. "Mr ... Winkle ... is it?" she asked. He nodded. "May I see some identification please?" she said, her voice level. There was all kinds of fraud in the insurance business. This man was trying to get them to stop making payments to a man he claimed to be, but obviously wasn't, which didn't quite fit the usual fraud pattern, but she intended to get to the bottom of this. She picked up the phone and dialed security - just in case - while Bob got his wallet out. Bob's wallet, it turned out, had been put in the roll top desk that Rip's diary had been found in. It still contained all the usual documents - driver's license, social security card, pictures of his three baby girls, and, scraps of paper with long defunct phone numbers on them and, hidden in a hard to find slot, a single folded five dollar bill. That bill was unusual because the seal was in blue, not green, and along the bottom were printed the words "Silver Certificate". Val, Fran and Becca had found the wallet, of course, when they went through the desk looking for treasure. They hadn't discovered the money, but after Bob woke up they remembered the wallet and retrieved it from the desk, handing it to him like the treasure it really was. In 1950, a driver's license was an un-laminated card, with typewriting on it and no photograph. Bob's had been issued to him only a few weeks before he went into his long nap, and was in pristine condition. When he handed it to Priscilla, and she examined it (both front and back) her suspicions gelled. Still, security wasn't there yet, so she put on a smile. "I'm afraid I'll need a picture ID Mr. Winkle." "And I'm afraid that's the only identification I have." said Bob calmly. He hadn't thought it would be this difficult to get an insurance company to stop giving him money. Priscilla sighed with relief as she saw Chuck, the security guard she had ignored for more than a year, approach. Chuck was a beefy young man who had failed the Police Academy entrance exam because he was basically stupid. He seemed to inflate as he approached her desk. Chuck was a surfer when he wasn't being a security guard, and he was good at posturing. "What seems to be the problem here?" he asked, importantly. His hand went to the can of pepper spray he kept at his belt. There wasn't actually any money in the building, so they wouldn't let him carry a gun. He had adopted the pepper spray instead and carried it in a pouch where he thought a pistol should be. Bob looked up at the towering ... and glowering man. "There's no problem." he said. "I was receiving payments for being infirm, and I'm not infirm any more." Priscilla handed Chuck Bob's driver's license. "This is the ID he provided." she said, as if that explained everything. Chuck frowned at the card, peering closely at it and holding it up to the light, as if he could see through it. "What's this?" he asked. "It's my driver's license." said Bob patiently. "I know it's expired, but it's all I have." Chuck searched until he found the expiration date. It was May 15, 1952. He frowned. "What are you trying to pull here?" he asked, trying to make his voice sound low and grave. Bob felt the first tingles of frustration as he realized he was dealing with something he obviously wasn't prepared for. He had thought it would be simple. He'd walk in, say "Thanks for all the help" and walk out. He looked at Priscilla. "Are we done here? Is there anything else I need to do?" Priscilla was at a complete loss as to what to do. She'd called security not because she wanted them to do anything in particular, but because it made her feel powerful. This couldn't be the man listed as the beneficiary in the file she was looking at, so something had to be wrong, but she couldn't figure out what that was. She made a decision. This man was obviously NOT Robert Winkle, and he was trying to get the company into some kind of trouble so there would be litigation and they'd have to pay out even MORE money. Yes, that just had to be the scheme here. "I can't just stop the payments on your say-so." she said to Bob, explaining it as if he were simple minded. "Mr. Winkle is over seventy years old. I don't understand why you want us to stop paying him, but he probably needs this money and I think you're not a very nice person to pretend to be him." Now Bob knew that this wasn't working. He didn't want to argue about it, but he also knew that the money should stop being paid and that someone would try to make trouble if he kept taking the money. "Look," he said patiently. "I took a nap in 1950 and didn't wake up until just a month ago. Your company's insurance policy has been paying out all this time. But I'm awake now. You understand? I'm awake now. I don't want to cause any trouble. I'm just here to inform you that I'm awake." He stood up to leave and Chuck went into action. The story he'd just heard made it clear to him that he had a wacko on his hands. He grabbed for the pepper spray and gave Bob what was supposed to be a two second burst in his face. Chuck, however, had been carrying his cartridge of pepper spray for a year and a half, and enough dust and grime had collected around the trigger mechanism that it stuck. As Bob howled and went down, his hands scrabbling at his eyes, Chuck dropped the canister and grabbed the handcuffs from the back of his belt. He yanked Bob's right arm, twisting it behind his back yelling "You have the right to remain silent!" He said that three more times, unable in his excitement to remember the rest of the phrase he'd practiced over and over in the mirror in his mother's basement, where he lived. By the time he got Bob's left arm cranked back and had closed the cuffs as tightly as they'd go, he was panting and jubilant. He'd just made his first "collar"! In the meantime, his canister of pepper spray bounced and rolled, merrily spraying a stream of its contents up into the air and all over generally. It rolled to a stop spraying directly into the air return vent next to Priscilla's desk. The mist formed by this process drifted in the excellently conditioned air. Only the best had gone into the structure of the corporate HQ at Amalgamated. The air in the whole building was reputed to be recycled every three minutes. Priscilla freaked out. She, too, assumed Bob was a wacko, but he didn't seem violent - merely deluded - and when Chuck "went into action" and some of the over spray of Chuck's pepper spray came her way, making her eyes water and making her sneeze, she panicked. She screamed and tried to run from her desk, and tripped over a wastebasket, sprawling on the floor. People at desks nearby had been watching as the incident progressed. No one had ever had to call Chuck before, so when he showed up and began his "investigation" there were a lot of interested people watching. None of them had seen what the man did to cause Chuck to spring into action, but there was obviously a struggle going on, and Priscilla was running screaming from her desk, so that suggested the man might have a gun. 911 was called by three different people. Rodney Jackson, who had a crush on Priscilla, jumped up from his desk to go and render aide. He was elated to find that, in the fall, Priscilla's skirt had whipped up, exposing the peach colored thong she had worn under it that day. Her bare buttocks were exposed to his delighted, if somewhat misty gaze. He was torn between trying to get away from what was making his eyes tear up and hurt, and getting a better look at something he thought he'd never get to see in his whole life. He intended to roll her over, primarily so he could see the front of those panties, when a cloud of pepper spray enveloped his head. His eyes squeezed shut and he gave a massive sneeze. Instead of gripping her waist to turn her, as he intended, one hand went squarely between her naked buttocks and he fell on top of her, incapacitated. Priscilla, her vision still blurred by tears, felt a man's hands being forced between her soft buttocks and, now in a complete panic, screamed "RAPE!' at the top of her healthy young lungs. She kicked with her legs and one foot impacted a decorative floor lamp that happened to have halogen bulbs in it. It tipped, and two of the bulbs shattered with an explosive pop. By now, others in the big room had gotten a sniff of Chuck's pepper spray and were in the process of fleeing in panic. As they streamed out of the room, pushing and shoving, Henry Stevens was slammed into the edge of a doorway. His forehead hit the sharp molding and split open. He staggered back, bleeding like a stuck pig and, tried to run. Unable to see because of the blood in his eyes, he slammed into another wall and flopped senseless to the floor. Mildred Hopkins, a matronly woman of about forty five years, if you took her word for it, came out of the ladies room to a scene of pure chaos. People were screaming various things, one of which was "He's got a GUN!" Many more were coughing their lungs out and staggering around with streaming eyes. It was about then the halogen lamps burst and Mildred swung her gaze to see Henry reeling, his face bleeding, fall to the floor limply. Being a woman of iron disposition, and having watched every police show that ever aired on television, she calmly reached over and pulled the fire alarm, and then sank down behind a desk and pulled the phone to her heaving chest. She was the fourth person to call 911. "SHOTS FIRED!" she screamed into the phone. "ONE MAN DOWN! THE PLACE IS ON FIRE! WE NEED HELP AND WE NEED IT NOW!" she screamed into the phone. It didn't help that Alice Trumble, unable to see where she was going, tripped over the phone cord and jerked it out of the wall, cutting Mildred's running commentary to the 911 operator off mid stream. Police radio bands everywhere are constantly monitored by the news media, not to mention a crowd of ambulance chasing lawyers. The arrival of Sacramento's finest was, therefore, recorded by no less than four camera crews and three lawyers, all of whom had a fist full of business cards they were handing out to fleeing people as fast as they could. The police had to fight for parking spaces with a ladder truck and two pumpers as the SFD blazed onto the scene. Within minutes the scene was crisscrossed with three inch hoses. By now, the entire four story building was being evacuated by panicked and screaming "survivors." And, even though no flames or smoke were seen, water flowed through those hoses as each fireman attempted to be the first one to put water on the fire, wherever it was. Try to imagine three hundred people, eyes streaming from drifting pepper spray, trying to negotiate their way to safety amidst a maze of hoses and those streams of water. Within minutes there were bodies all over the sidewalk and street, moaning victims of falls, with various cuts, bruises and contusions. It looked like a war zone. It took the fire scene commander five minutes of screaming into his radio and a bull horn to get the water stopped. And the media got it all in full, living color. The crowning moment though, was while the cops were barricaded behind their cars, pistols and rifles aimed intently at nothing in particular in the building. They were waiting for the hostage negotiator and the S.W.A.T team to arrive and darting out from cover occasionally just long enough to pull another moaning survivor through a puddle of dirty water to safety, making sure that a cameraman noticed while they did this. Suddenly Chuck appeared in the now empty double glass doors of the building, the chain connecting the handcuffs to Bob's wrists firmly clamped in his right hand. Bob, being semi-conscious and completely out of it, wasn't helping any, which meant Chuck had to drag him along, Bob's arms lifted high up behind his back and stretched to the breaking point. Had Bob been conscious, the pain in his stretched shoulders would have had him screaming. The number of hammers cocked and slides jacked back sounded like a truckload of crickets had been spilled in the street. Chuck, wiping his own eyes with one hand, staggered out onto the sidewalk, stopping only because there were two moaning bodies lying there blocking his way, too far from safety to be "saved" by anybody. "I GOT HIM!" he yelled to half a million viewers of the breaking news as they watched the live video feeds. He grinned and looked blearily around, waiting for adulation and interviews. What he got instead was rushed by the S.W.A.T team, which had just arrived and knew that sometimes, the hostage taker comes out pretending to be someone else. Amid screams of "I GOT HIM MOTHERFUCKER" and "HE'S MY COLLAR YOU FUCK!" Chuck went down in the melee as the butt of an M-16 connected solidly with his head. And it was all on live feed, in living color. We've all seen the local news "break a story", usually involving someone saying something like "I heard him [bleep]slapping the [bleep] out of her and she was screaming and then the cops busted down the door. Man, they beat the living [bleep] out of that guy. But I feel safer now, that's a fact." Well this sentence didn't turn out to read very well, but you get the idea. Anyway, the media, as everyone knows, is addicted to drama and violence and being the first to announce anything. Having video of the violence is even better. So, while Detective Sergeant Zack Simpson, the unlucky investigator assigned to "sort things out down there" figured out what actually happened, the media reported, variously: "BRENDA ROGERS, CHANNEL FIVE EYEWITNESS NEWS, LIVE AT THE SCENE. TODAY A MAN TRIED TO ROB THE AMALGAMATED INSURANCE BUILDING, RESULTING IN CHAOS! DETAILS AT ELEVEN. BRENDA ROGERS, LIVE IN DOWNTOWN SACRAMENTO!" "FRED COMPTON, WZTF FIRST WITH THE NEWS. A TERRORIST PLOT WAS FOILED WHEN THE TERRORISTS BOMB APPARENTLY FIZZLED. THE LIVES OF HUNDREDS WERE SAVED BY THE QUICK ACTION OF AN UNIDENTIFIED AMALGAMATED SECURITY GUARD! (flash to tape of Chuck dragging Bob out of the building) WE'LL TRY TO GET YOU MORE FOR AN UPDATE LATER. FRED COMPTON, WZTF FIRST WITH THE NEWS, SACRAMENTO!" "THANK YOU GEORGE, I'M JULIE DENMAN. TODAY IN SACRAMENTO A MAN WAS SHOT WHILE HE TRIED TO DEFEND AN UNIDENTIFIED CO-WORKER FROM A RAPIST! IN THE ENSUING STRUGGLE UNIDENTIFIED CHEMICALS WERE RELEASED INTO THE AIR DUCTS AND HUNDREDS SUFFERED. WE'RE WORKING ON THE STORY. BACK TO YOU GEORGE!" and "KIP JACKSON HERE WITH KZWT ACTION NEWS! I'M AT THE OFFICES OF THE AMALGAMATED INSURANCE COMPANY IN FRESNO, WHERE POLICE JUST CAPTURED A MAN WHO TOOK AT LEAST TWENTY PEOPLE HOSTAGE BECAUSE AMALGAMATED REFUSED TO GIVE HIM MONEY. GUNSHOTS WERE FIRED AND AT LEAST FIFTY PEOPLE ARE BEING TREATED AT THE SCENE, SOME OF THEM FOR LIFE THREATENING INJURIES! ... What? I didn't say Fresno. No way I said Fresno. Are we on the AIR?! YOU STUPID [BLEEP] WE'RE STILL ON THE AIR..." Meanwhile, inside, Detective Simpson walked around, a handkerchief over his nose, looking at the destruction caused by the stampede. While the state-of-the-art air handling system recycled the air in the building every three minutes, it didn't have filters that would remove pepper spray, so the air was faintly tinged with the stuff, making Zack's eyes water. The perp was in custody, in bad enough shape they were taking him to the hospital. He could be interviewed later. Zack was trying to figure out something ... anything that would give him a clue as to exactly why he was here, and exactly what kind of evidence he should be looking for. The employees he had spoken quickly with, for the most part, didn't know a thing about any hostages, or any robbery, or any gunshots. The vast majority of them left the building because they started sneezing and their eyes burned. A patrolman stuck his head in the door. "Hey Detective? There's a guy out here I think you should talk to." "Yeah, right." said Zack heavily. This had all the earmarks of a situation it would take him a double shift to figure out. He went outside where another burly patrolman had a firm grip on the collar of one Rodney Jackson, who couldn't see much because his glasses had been knocked off by a flailing Priscilla when she tried to beat off her attacker. He was moaning something and looking dejected. As Zack got closer he heard the repeated litany of moans: "I didn't try to rape her ... I didn't try to rape her ... I didn't try to rape her..." "Rape who?" asked Zack as he walked up to the mousy looking man. Rodney's head jerked up. "I swear on my mother's GRAVE officer I didn't try to rape her!" He started shaking and looked pleadingly, if a bit myopically, at Zack. His clothes were wet from the water a paramedic had splashed in his face to clear his eyes of pepper spray. Zack nodded to the patrolman, who let go of Rodney, who almost collapsed. He coughed dryly and rubbed at his eyes. "Don't rub them." said Zack. "Blink them. When you rub them you just push more pepper spray into them. If you have to, put your hands in your pockets. Blink as much as you can. Now ... who was it you didn't rape?" His manner, more than anything else soothed Rodney a little. He jammed his hands in his pockets and looked hopeful. "Priscilla." he said. "I tried to save her and that stuff got in my eyes and we fell down and my hand sort of went between her legs and she yelled rape but I didn't try to rape her, honest I swear all I tried to do was help get her away from that man." He finally had to stop to take a breath and Zack held up his hand, expecting another barrage of words to come rushing out of the man's mouth. "Just breathe and blink for now." said Zack. "You and I are going to find a nice quiet place to have a nice little chat and you can tell me all about it. Rodney blinked and looked startled. He looked around and squinted. "My glasses are around here somewhere." he said, peering at the floor. Zack saw a pair of glasses lying next to a desk. They were a little twisted. As he approached them he had to step over a fallen lamp. He saw the pepper spray canister lying against the wall by the air return vent. He smiled. It was the first thing he'd seen since he got there that made any sense at all. He bent over and got the glasses, handing them to Rodney, who peered at them and lit up like he'd won the lottery. "Is there a coffee shop around here someplace?" asked Zack, leading Rodney out of the office. ------- Rodney, as it turned out, was a goldmine of information. He knew all the names of the major players except Bob, if not the circumstances of what exactly had set off the whole debacle. But he was quite sure there had been no gun, and that the man who had been talking to Priscilla had not done anything strange or threatening except stand up quickly. He had seen Priscilla fall and used that as an excuse to be her savior. When Zack wanted to know why Chuck had used the pepper spray, Rodney frowned and answered: "You know ... I have no idea." Zack's next stop was at the hospital. He intended to talk to Chuck next, but found out he had been taken into surgery to repair a cracked skull. He asked for the man who had been brought in by the police, got the information and turned to find a tallish and gorgeous young woman facing him. "Did you just ask about my great grandfather?" she asked. There was worry in her eyes, which were the most fascinating shade of lavender Zack had ever seen in his life. Her long, straight black hair framed her face, and those eyes and her earnest expression made his heart start beating more strongly in his chest. Zack was forty-two, and had worked his way up from the streets. It had taken enough time and effort that he'd lost his wife in the process. She wanted a husband, not someone who occasionally slept over and made her pregnant once in a while. She had taken the kids with her and now lived in Portland. That was just far enough away that he couldn't run up to see them without taking some vacation to make it worth the trip. He did that occasionally, which used up his vacation. Zack knew he was a good detective, and he could question or interrogate anyone under almost any circumstances. On the purely social scene, though, he was all thumbs. He'd met, wooed and married Rosie when he was young, and when she left he didn't have the heart to try the dating thing. Worse, the few times he DID go out with a woman, he invariably got into a situation where he had to arrest someone, or bring his official presence to bear. That tended to put a damper on further dates. He worked long, hard hours, and the kind of women he usually met on the job weren't the kind of women he wanted to spend time with off the job. In short, Zack Simpson didn't have much of a social life outside some time spent with other cops off duty. Now, with this heart-stoppingly beautiful woman standing so close to him that he could smell the peppermint on her breath, her bulging breasts only a hair's breadth from touching his chest, all he could do was switch between looking at her eyes, and her impossibly white teeth which peeked out between lush red lips. He swallowed. "Your grandfather?" he asked, not understanding. "No, my great grandfather, Bob Winkle. I know he doesn't look that old, but I can explain that." she said. "The police took him away and they had handcuffs on him and he looked all beaten up and terrible and they won't let me see him and I can't go home until I find out what's happening." She stopped to take a breath. Unlike Rodney, though, when she took that breath, Zack felt his knees go a little weak. "Won't you help me? Please?" she begged. Zack forced some control back into his legs. He hadn't had a good look at the perp in the first place, but if all this was over some poor old geezer then somebody's head was going to roll. "Come along, miss... ?" he paused significantly. She actually blushed and his knees got wobbly again. "Valerie..." she said softly. "Valerie Johnson." "Well, then Valerie Johnson, let's just go find your ... great grandfather did you say?" "Yes, I dropped him at the insurance building to go in and get a policy cancelled or something like that and I went shopping and when I came back there were fire trucks and all these people were hurt and they had my great grandfather and were putting him in an ambulance, except that he had handcuffs on and I'm so worried and nobody will tell me anything and..." Again she stopped to take a big breath and Zack felt his prick begin to stiffen. With a sigh at how unfair the world was he held up his hand. "Just come with me Valerie, and we'll figure out what's going on." Bob, however, was under heavy guard. Two policemen stood outside his room, glaring at anyone who came anywhere near the door. He didn't know either of them and stopped to produce his badge. One of them snatched it out of his hand and examined it closely before handing it back. "No weapons inside the room." he said, his voice short. He looked at Valerie. "And she can't go inside." Zack looked at him. "You know what, friend? When your mother sucks my dick ... that's the day I'll let you tell me where I can and cannot take my weapon. And when your sister lets me do her in the ass, that's the day I'll let you tell me who I can and cannot take into an interrogation." The patrolman was so surprised that he couldn't react before Zack walked by him and into the room, pulling Val by her hand. He turned to her briefly. "Sorry. I need to work on my patience a little." Val smiled at him and he thought he might actually fall on the floor. "I thought you were wonderful." she said. Then her eyes went to the man in the bed. Bob was lying on his back on the bed, his arms at his side. His face was swollen and red and he had a bandage over his eyes. His head turned toward the sound of their voices. "Val?" he croaked. "Is that you Val?" Zack watched the girl run to the bed and throw herself onto the man. He winced as she showered the visible parts of his irritated face with kisses. Then again, if that's what it took to get this girl to kiss you, he'd think seriously about lining up to be sprayed. There were, of course, the "Are you OK?"s and the "What happened?" kind of questions. Zack cleared his throat. "Who's with you?" asked Bob. "Oh!" yipped Val. "I forgot. He's a detective. He helped me get in here. Nobody would tell me anything and they wouldn't let me see you and I was so worried and I didn't know what to do and I couldn't go home without you and..." This time Zack was ready for her deep indrawn breath. He shamelessly got into position to watch as the tips of her fabulous breasts appeared to inflate. With a groan he realized she wasn't wearing a bra under that T shirt, and her nipples were plainly visible. He introduced himself to the man in the bed to get his mind ... and eyes ... off those nipples. "Detective Sergeant Zack Simpson, mister ... Winkle is it?" "Yes." said Bob, his face staring straight up in that way blind people do when they talk to someone, but don't look at him. "Bob Winkle. Val and I live in Circleton. We're ... related." he said. "Yes," said Zack, examining the man. He looked to be about twenty-two to twenty-eight. It was hard to tell because of the bandages. But he obviously was not a geezer. Zack sighed again. Such a shame. He finally finds a beautiful girl he can legitimately spend some time with - interviewing her, of course - and she turns out to be simple-minded. It was just his luck. "Valerie told me you're her ... uh ... great grandfather, I believe it was." To his amazement Bob nodded. "Yes. It's a very strange story, but what she told you is true." "Well, I'd like to hear that story some day." said Zack. "But first I need to ask you a few questions about what happened today." "I have a few questions about that myself." said Bob. "First," said Zack, "Why don't you tell me why you went there in the first place." "That's easy." said Bob. "Except that it has to do with that strange story you'd like to hear some day." Then Bob absolutely made Zack Simpson's day. In twenty years of law enforcement, Zack had heard them all, or thought he had, until Bob Winkle told him the whopper to end all whoppers. Except that, as Bob talked, and Valerie added in details, Zack had the strangest feeling that both of them actually believed the story they were telling. When Bob said that he provided his driver's license to the woman at the insurance company Zack stopped him. "Do you still have that license?" he asked. Bob felt around his body. "They took my clothes when I got here. And anyway, the last time I saw it that security guard had it. I was going to ask for it back when I stood up and I got run over by a Sherman tank." "Figures." thought Zack to himself "The one piece of evidence that would support his crazy story and it's conveniently left behind." He pulled out his cell phone and punched a number. "Harry? You wouldn't by chance be over at the Amalgamated building right now would you?" Harry was a crime scene processor. "You are? I want you to look for something for me. It's described as a California Driver's license issued on or before 1950 ... that's right ... you heard me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It should be in the vicinity of the desk where all this started. There's a pepper spray can against the wall, and a lamp lying on its side ... Yeah, you see where I'm talking about? ... OK, look around there on the floor ... That's right, a driver's license ... You're kidding! ... really? ... does it look legit? ... Harry I owe you a beer. Hold on to that for me. Yes it's evidence. Just take good care of it, and collect the pepper spray cannister too. OK. Later." He looked up to see Val looking at him, a frown on her face. The fact that Zack was beginning to think there might be the slimmest possibility that she wasn't simple minded after all, and that he had stumbled across the most amazing story of the century, made him miss the import of that frown. "Evidence?" she asked, her voice flat. "Why would my great grandfather's license be evidence. He didn't do anything wrong! You just heard him. All he tried to do was the right thing, and LOOK AT HIM!" Her voice was getting louder and louder. Now her face was positively livid. "I WANT TO TAKE HIM HOME AND I WANT TO TAKE HIM RIGHT NOW!" she yelled. Zack held up his hands. "Look Miss Johnson ... Valerie ... I know he didn't do anything wrong." He winced. "OK, I believe he didn't do anything wrong. But we need to get all the answers to the questions that a lot of people are going to be asking. People got hurt today, and your ... great grandfather is one of them. Property was destroyed. Somebody is going to want to lay blame for all of that, and if I know big corporations, they're going to want to blame it on Bob here. If he's innocent, I need to prove that with evidence, so that the facts are clear. My job is to prove ... or DIS-prove that a crime was committed, and to prove or DIS-prove who committed it." "Oh." said Val, a little overwhelmed by his smooth demeanor. It was hard to stay mad at him. He had helped her. And he was cute too, in a homely sort of way. "If you're going to help Grandpa then I guess it's OK." Zack got Val's phone number - both home and cell - and convinced her to go on home. Bob was being kept overnight for observation, and technically he was still under arrest, though Zack hadn't seen what for yet. The doctor came in and explained that Bob didn't actually need the bandage on his eyes, but they put one there just so the light wouldn't be painful. His eyes had been mostly closed when the pepper spray hit his face. By morning it wouldn't be necessary. They had cleansed the eyes and there would be no permanent damage, though the burns to the skin on his face would take several days to fade away. One shoulder had been dislocated when he was brought in, and the other strained badly. That was actually the worst injury he had suffered. The cuffs had been applied so tightly they had cut his wrists, but those lacerations were shallow and would heal with little or no scarring. Before Val left Zack gave her his card and wrote his home number on the back. "I don't give that to just anybody." he said. "If I find out you gave those numbers to anybody else I'll have to come get you and work you over." He smiled to show he wasn't all that serious. Val, feeling much better now that she had some idea of what had happened, and what to tell her grandmother about Bob's injuries, was feeling light hearted. "Oooooo" she said in a little girl voice. "I've never been worked over by a big bad policeman before." She laughed, kissed her great grandfather on the lips and hurried out of the room. "Man!" said Zack under his breath. "I know what you mean." said Bob from the bed. "Beg your pardon?" asked Zack, astonished. "Hey, I may have been asleep for fifty years, but it didn't have any affect on being able to recognize a gorgeous woman when I see one." Bob smiled. "And I FEEL twenty-five. Unfortunately, she's got two more cousins who are just as good looking." Zack looked after the receding young woman. "I'm going to have to come out there to hear the rest of that story, mister Winkle. I'd appreciate it if all those cousins you mentioned were there so I can question them too." He chuckled. Bob laughed with him and then winced as his burned face hurt. ------- Chapter 10 The next morning, as it happened, two new police guards were on duty outside Bob's door. Brian Spruell was a rookie, and thoroughly unhappy that he had been given this duty. Denny Smith was a Corporal and had a thing for nurses, so he wasn't quite so dour about it. It was quiet, and boring, but then police work seemed to be broken into two parts: 98% quiet and boring, and 2% "excitement", where somebody was likely to be killed. A lot of guys joined the force for the 2%, thinking it would be fun, but Denny had been around long enough to know that "excitement" actually translated to "stark terror". Then, about nine in the morning, the peace and tranquility Denny had been enjoying vanished as they were inundated by nine women who showed up like a tidal wave and demanded entry into the room where Bob was being kept. It took both men to bar the door, their hands up and a multitude of threats spilling out of somewhat panicked mouths. The noise and bustle caused two nurses and a doctor to stop what they were doing and yell for quiet. Bob was actually feeling pretty good by then. The doctor had removed the bandages over his eyes during the hours of darkness, when he could try opening them without the glare of mid-day light coming through the windows. His vision had been blurred at first, but had cleared during the night. There was some residual pain in his shoulders, and his face still felt raw, but it was livable. He came to the door and opened it behind the two officers. It got quiet almost instantly as the women peered past the police. Denny turned his head to see what they were looking at and felt a chill run up his spine. The man standing right behind him could have taken his pistol easily before anyone could stop him. But he hadn't. "Good morning ladies." said Bob over the Denny's right, and Brian's left shoulders. "DADDY!" squealed Martha. She was already in the front of the crowd and pushed forward, pressing her breasts against Denny's chest. "Are you OK?" She pressed against Denny harder. "We were so worried about you." Denny resisted the urge to push the woman back. He didn't know too much about what was going on. His instructions were to keep the man in the room until Detective Sergeant Simpson said otherwise. Denny had worked with Zack before and knew that the mere fact that the man in the room wasn't restrained to the bed meant that Zack didn't consider him a flight risk. Still, he had gone into the room several times, to make sure nothing dangerous was going on in there. The prisoner had been sleeping two of those times, and there had been a moment Denny's heart had stopped when he saw the bed - and room - was empty. Then the toilet had flushed and Bob had stepped out, moving back to the bed. Bob had been nothing but polite. Even so, standard procedure was to keep unauthorized persons out of a prisoner's room. "I'm really sorry ladies," said Denny. "But I can't let you go in there." Martha moved sideways suddenly and was replaced by Sunny. "That's my grandfather, buster." she growled. "And he got beat up by the cops, and I want to see him, and if you don't let me I'm going to have your badge!" she snarled. Denny smiled. This woman was younger than the first, but bore a remarkable resemblance to the older woman. Her breasts in his chest felt a little firmer too. Then "father" and "grandfather" tripped over each other in his brain. He turned to look at Bob. "Grandfather?" he said, his voice skeptical. "It's a long story." sighed Bob. Denny turned back to Sunny, whose jaw was jutted out. She was a good looking woman, even mad. "Miss... ?" he waited. "Johnson." she finally admitted. "Well, Miss Johnson, I guess you're going to add to your collection of badges then, because you're not going in there with your... grandfather. I hope you're not going to hold this against me." he said smoothly. "You could have weapons. We wouldn't want that, now would we?" Sunny looked startled. No one had ever accused her of anything even remotely criminal in nature and she was shocked to her core that this man might think she'd do something underhanded like that. "Search us then!" called out an even younger girl behind Sunny. "Come on, we're not criminals. We just want to see Grandpa." Denny kept his cool. The nurses and doctor were still hanging around, not quite in the group, but not far away either. The doctor looked at his watch and frowned. Denny didn't want the situation to get back to its former noisy condition. "Look, we're guys, and you all are obviously ladies. Department policy frowns on men doing searches of women. I'd like to, but I don't think that's a good idea." From the crowd of women came a voice that couldn't be identified: "I just bet he'd like to search us." "That's not what I meant." said Denny defensively. Val pushed her way to the front. She smiled sweetly at Denny. "Last night I got to see Grandpa when I was with Detective Simpson. HE didn't search me. Not that I would have minded. He's kind of cute." Denny looked down at the girl. She made his nut sack get tight. He grinned, thinking that he'd be able to needle Zack about this girl thinking he was "cute." Val mistook his grin for a salacious one and held her arms out away from her sides. "Search me, then. I don't have... anything... under my clothes." Her tone of voice was dripping with the insinuation that she didn't have on underwear. In fact, she was braless again today, and though it wasn't quite as obvious as it had been to Zack, it was clear to Denny. "I'll have to touch you some pretty private places." warned Denny, his fingers curling unconsciously. "I can take it, big boy." oozed Val. The older woman who had first gotten into Denny's face slapped the girl on her shoulder. "Val!" she said. "You're acting like a tramp!" Val didn't turn her eyes away from Denny's. "I know, but he's kind of cute too." Brian snickered and Denny tore his eyes away from the lavender ones in that gorgeous face and glared at him. Brian grinned and then looked away. "I could do her... um I mean search her... if there's a problem..." he offered. Denny looked back at Val. He frowned. "All right, I'll search you... but remember, you ASKED for this." he said darkly. His hands went to Val's underarms, his thumbs against the sides of her breasts. He slid them slowly down to her hips and knelt. He patted her front and rear pockets and then moved his left hand between her thighs, high up, pressing against her crotch. Her right foot shifted to widen her stance and she went up on tiptoes as her cheeks turned pink. Squeezing her thighs, Denny worked his hands down to the bare skin where her shorts stopped. She was wearing sandals, so he went no further. Then he replaced his left hand with his right and did her right leg, again pressing upwards firmly into the juncture of her legs. He came back up, patting her pockets again and ended up hefting her breasts through her shirt as he pressed his thumbs into her cleavage. He came back to a standing stance and looked at her blushing cheeks. Her eyes darted everywhere except his. "OK, you can go in." he said. "Hair, Denny." said Brian, reminding his superior of protocol. Denny suppressed a groan and brought his hands to Val's head, running his fingers through her long black hair, feeling behind her ears and almost massaging her scalp. "OK... now you can go in." he said heavily. Val pushed by him and grabbed Bob in a bear hug. Denny looked to find that the other women had taken a step backwards, their eyes all wide and staring. "Anybody else want to go in?" he asked. He looked at Martha. That ought to cool them down. She didn't quite glare at him, but stepped forward, holding her arms out like Val had. "I want to see my father." she said firmly. She had a fuller figure than Val had, being more than twice as old, but as Denny slid his hands all over her body she still felt remarkably good for an older woman. she was wearing a bra, and his fingers traced along the edges, feeling for anything tucked inside. She blushed too, but every time he looked at her face she was staring right back at him. He messed her hair up as he searched it, and muttered "Sorry.", getting a small smile. He stood to one side as she brushed past him, almost attacking Bob. Next was Becca. "How old are you Miss?" he asked. "I'm eighteen." she said. "OK. Well, as long as you're eighteen." he said. She also had on a bra. She wiggled like it was tickling her when he ran his fingers along her ribs and around her breasts. When he searched between her legs she actually leaned forward, toward him. She was grinning when he came up to do her hair. It was in a pony tail and she dipped her head like she was looking at the floor. "You want me to take my scrunchy off?" she asked. Denny sighed and just pressed the hair against her head, flipping the pony tail to one side and then up on top of her head to look under it. "Go on," he said. Fran went and stood in front of Brian, holding her arms out wide. "I'm eighteen too." she lied. "You are NOT eighteen!" sputtered her mother. Polly stepped up and pushed Fran to one side. "She's SIXteen, young man, and if you're going to search anybody it will be ME!" Brian was only too happy to get his hands on one of these women. This was more like it! This was what he had hoped he might get to do occasionally. And this woman was lush under his hands as he pressed and squeezed and rubbed. At one point Polly breathed "I'll give you just ten minutes to stop touching me like that!" She was breathing hard when it was finished. "There is no way in hell I'm going to let you do that to my little girl." she panted. "You'll just have to take my word for it that she's not smuggling in any guns or knives or whatever." Brian grinned. "I'm sure I can take your word for it Ma'am. I feel like we know each other pretty well." He leaned closer to her and whispered in her ear. "Tell your husband he's a lucky man, Ma'am." He leaned back to find Polly's eyes staring into his. "My husband is a flaming queer, young man." she said softly. "I haven't had a man touch me like that in years." "Let's keep things professional over there." commented Denny, who was in the process of squeezing Gidget's breasts. Her hands came up to cup his elbows as she closed her eyes. "I'm not married." she sighed. There were several titters. June took her place while Polly dragged Fran through the door. "I never get to have ANY fun." complained Fran. Betty was last, and she was clearly uncomfortable. All the other women were in the room with Bob as she faced Denny and Brian alone. Denny just stood there, waiting. Betty flushed. "I just threw on this dress because it was light and I knew it would be a hot day." she said miserably. When Denny didn't say anything she lowered her voice to a whisper. "I didn't put on anything under it." She closed her eyes and balled her fists. Actually, Denny was about to tell her to go on in. Both he and Brian were sweating, and their uniform pants were a little tight in the front. He took a breath to give the poor woman a break when she stepped forward, her eyes still screwed tightly shut and lifted her arms. "Oh, hell, go ahead. I want to see my Daddy too." Denny still almost told her to go ahead, but Brian stepped behind her and reached for her hair. She took a deep breath when she felt his fingers and her breasts strained at the thin dress she was wearing. Her nipples were prominent and obviously hard. Unfettered under the dress, her breasts were heavy and soft in Denny's hands as he lifted them. He had the insane urge to run his thumbs over those nipples, but controlled it. He knelt and started at her bare knees, slowly sliding his hands upwards. She stepped sideways with her left leg and held the breath she'd taken. When Denny felt her pubic hairs against his finger he stopped with that hand, but slid his other hand up over her hip and around to cup her bare buttock. He resisted the urge to squeeze that too. She let her breath out explosively as he did her other leg, unable to hold it any longer and her knees relaxed a little, pushing her pussy down onto his right hand. He jerked it out as she made a little sound and ended up holding her thigh with one hand and her right buttock with the other. When he stood up they were both panting. "Thank you Ma'am." he said, meaning it. Denny didn't date a lot. While women flirted with him when he was in uniform, he couldn't ask those women out. He didn't go to bars when he was off duty, and didn't actually meet many available women during off time. His last serious relationship had been two years ago and he was feeling it now. He was more than a little amazed that he could find these older women so attractive, but they were. "My pleasure." panted Betty, looking at Denny instead of into the room behind him. "You can go in now." he said. "Oh!" she jumped a little. "Yes... of course." There was enough of a hubbub in the room that Denny went in and warned them all to keep it down. He told Brian to stay in the doorway and he stayed to watch the women. Denny had seen a lot of families together in situations like this, but the amount of love and care displayed by all those women toward this strange man was noteworthy. The family resemblance between the women wasn't hard to see, and Denny could see some resemblance between the prisoner, as he thought of him, and the older women. This father and grandfather business was obviously screwy, but these women loved this man, that much was also obvious. He gave them twenty minutes and then demanded they leave. There was a chorus of complaining feminine voices, but he was firm. "I broke the rules to let you in here." he said. "Now don't give me a hard time." The first one who had gone in... the one who had flirted so shamelessly with him... looked over and said "You can give me a hard time if you want." "Valerie Gail Johnson!" yelped Sunny, blushing furiously. "I can NOT believe you said that!" Becca laughed out loud and walked over to Denny. She was a full head shorter than he was. "You probably need to search us again when we leave, huh? I mean we might have stolen hospital property or something... right?" Her voice was remarkably like Val's had been when she first demanded to be searched. Denny felt the thrill of being flirted with by a good looking woman, and grinned sheepishly. "I'd like nothing better, Ma'am, but I think we've all broken enough rules for today. Now... you REALLY need to get out of here. I wouldn't want to lose my badge over this or anything." He looked pointedly at Sunny. Becca laughed again and smiled brilliantly. "Oh well, we'll be back to see him tomorrow. Will you be on duty then too?" she asked sweetly. "He'll be gone tomorrow." said Denny, feeling another shot of pleasure at the young woman's forward behavior. "He'll either be in jail or turned loose. You'd have to talk to Zack... Detective Simpson I mean, to find out about that." That led to another round of outbursts and questions as Denny patiently herded the women out of the room. Again, Betty was last and Denny couldn't help himself as he pushed her gently out of the room with one hand on her back, his fingertips partially on one almost naked buttock. Becca turned and came back to Denny. "Do you have a card or anything? I mean I might see something I need to report to the police or something." Denny looked at Brian, who was grinning. "Sorry, Ma'am" said Denny sadly. "I'm fresh out of business cards." Gidget grabbed her daughter by the elbow. "We're going home! Leave the poor man alone. He probably has a girlfriend anyway." "Sorry, Ma'am," said Denny smoothly. "I'm fresh out of them too." Denny helplessly shooed the women down the hall. They chattered and waved, some of them blowing kisses as they trooped by the nurse's station. He sighed and turned to find the prisoner standing in the doorway waving. "I can't WAIT to hear this story... Grandpa." he said, pushing Bob back into the room gently. ------- When Zack got to the hospital his heart jerked when he saw Bob's door was unguarded. He found Denny and Brian sitting in chairs, chatting with Bob inside the room and felt the opposing emotions of joy and displeasure. "What's up gentlemen?" he asked walking in. Both patrolmen jumped to their feet. Denny looked abashed. "We were just asking the prisoner a few questions." he said lamely. "I see." said Zack, his face straight. "And did you get any answers?" "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." said Denny. "You might be wrong about that." said Zack. He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. He handed it to Bob. "Here's your license back, Mr. Winkle. I had it verified with the State Department of Motor Vehicles. It is a hundred percent genuine, though expired, and was in fact issued by the great state of California on May the fifteenth, nineteen-fifty, at which point you were verified to be twenty-three years old." His statement hung in the air for a few seconds. "I also matched your fingerprints to those in a file at the Amalgamated insurance company." Zack said. "You, mister Winkle, are about to be a very famous seventy-five year old man." "I'll be damned." said Denny, his jaw slack. "You mean it's all true?" "Every word of it." said Zack, smiling. "By the way, no charges have been pressed against you." he said. "I need to find out, however, if YOU wish to press any charges against any employee of the company. My investigation has determined that you were unlawfully assaulted while pursuing lawful business in the company headquarters." "I'll have to think about that." said Bob. "I mean they didn't mean any harm..." "No, but there is a hospital bill to pay. Since you're no longer under arrest, the city will try to get out of that. I assume you don't have any health insurance." Bob blinked. "I suppose I don't." he said. "Things have changed since you went to sleep Mr. Winkle. I'm not a lawyer, but I think you have an opportunity here to obtain some funds to compensate you for your... trouble." "When do I need to give you an answer?" asked Bob. "I can give you a couple of days at most." said Zack. "Do you have transportation home?" Bob blinked again. "The girls were all just here a couple of hours ago, but Denny here chased them all out." Zack closed his eyes. "You let a bunch of family members visit a prisoner?" he asked the ceiling. "We searched them first Sarge." blurted Brian. Denny glared at him. "I see." said Zack. "Was one of them, by chance, named Valerie Johnson?" Brian hadn't seen his senior partner's glare and dug the hole he was in deeper. "Yes sir, I think Denny searched her. Why? She said you let her in here last night." "How many complaints is the department going to get as a result of these... searches?" asked Zack. "Shut up Brian." said Denny immediately. He looked at the Sergeant. "None, sir. I don't think any of them will make a complaint." "Well, that's good at least." said Zack. "Actually," said Bob, interrupting, "I'm afraid you may have a flurry of women coming forward to report suspicious behavior. I suspect most of them will want to make these reports to one of these two fine officers here." "That's all I need." groaned Zack. "Mr. Winkle, I'm about to go off shift. I can write your report later. How about I drive you home. I have a few more questions I'd like to ask if you don't mind. You are an interesting guy and after the folks at the DMV get finished leaking to the media about who you are, I imagine you'll be too busy to answer them later." "He's really seventy-five years old and slept for fifty of it?" asked Brian incredulously. "I thought he told you to shut up." said Zack, smiling. "You should listen to your partner more often." "I don't want to be famous." said Bob. "I don't think you have a choice about that." said Zack. "We'll do what we can to protect your privacy, but I won't promise you anything. This has Rip Van Winkle written all over it." "Actually," Bob said, "He was my great great grandfather." Zack stared at him. "You know, if you'd have told me that last night, I think I might have asked them to put you in a straight jacket. Today I'm not all that surprised. Yes, I think I need to drive you home." Bob laughed. "Are you sure you don't just want to see Val again?" Zack drew himself up. "You have wounded my professional pride, sir!" he remarked gravely. "Do you think she'll be there?" Bob laughed again. ------- Chapter 11 Zack wasn't wrong. When they pulled up to Bob's house in Circleton in Zack's 1995 Blazer, there was a satellite van parked on the street with people milling around outside of it. The side of the van was emblazoned with "KZWT ACTION NEWS - FIRST ON THE SCENE" There was a huge numeral "7" between the phrases. It looked a little like a used car lot with two cars in the driveway and another on the street in front of the van. A man was standing at the closed front door shouting something as they parked, blocking the driveway. The man turned and shaded is eyes, peering at them as they got out. His face lit up when he saw Zack, who he knew, and the man with him, whose identity he guessed, correctly for once. He hurried over to them waving to his camera crew. They lumbered across the yard, trashing Martha's carefully tended flower garden in the process. "MISTER WINKLE ... MISTER WINKLE ... KIP JACKSON, ACTION NEWS ... MISTER WINKLE HOW DOES IT FEEL TO WAKE UP FROM A FIFTY YEAR LONG NAP ONLY TO BE BEATEN UP BY THE POLICE?" he shouted, trying to run and shout into his microphone at the same time. One of the camera crew tore off his headphones with a yelp. Zack stepped in front of Bob and held up his hand and spoke in his most officious voice. "Mister Winkle was NOT beaten up by the police and is NOT under arrest. He is a victim, not a subject, and is being sequestered from the press until he can make a full and complete statement. Leave him alone Kip." "Come ON, Detective!" whined Kip. "I HAVE to get this story! I fucked up on live feed yesterday and they'll can my ASS if I come back empty-handed." "KIP!" yelled one of the technicians. "We're on live feed now!" Kip's eyes opened wide and his face went blotchy red. He threw down the microphone, which is why half a million viewers of breaking news had to lean forward to hear Kip Jackson, Action News, scream "MOTHERFUCKER!! YOU SAID WE'D BE ON FIFTEEN SECOND DELAY!" The cameraman, who had been trained never ever to break a live feed without being told to, held his camera on the scene. Kip Baldwin gave the viewers what they wanted as he had his breakdown, falling to the ground, kicking and screaming like a five year old. Zack couldn't resist yelling at the camera "BACK TO YOU JACK." Martha met them at the door, a sea of feminine faces behind her. As she let Bob and Zack in the door she explained that, after a nice lunch in Sacramento, they came home and had just parked the three cars they'd driven to see Bob in when the Action News van screeched to a stop at the curb. Kip had erupted out of the car, peppering them with questions about where Bob Winkle was, and how did they know him, and why were they there, interspersed with verbal abuse directed at the other men lugging equipment out of the van, screaming at them to "HURRY THE FUCK UP!". Martha, who occasionally watched channel seven news, waited until Kip took a breath and said "I don't like you. I've never liked you. Go away!" As the women tried to get in the house and away from Kip, he tried to force his way in with them. Becca foiled his plan by the simple expedient of jerking the microphone out of his hand and throwing it out into the front yard. While he scrambled, cursing after it, they got inside and locked the door. Kip was desperate and begged for entry outside the front door, occasionally going to peer into the windows before going back to bang and beg some more. That had been going on for half an hour when Bob got home. When she finished with her account, Martha looked at Zack, who had stood quietly by. "Who's this?" she asked. "What happened? They said you were under arrest! OHHH DADDY!" She ended up bawling as her emotions let down and she wrapped her arms around him. "Detective Simpson!" said Val, stepping forward. "How delightful to see you again." she purred. "Are there ANY policemen you don't flirt with?" moaned her mother. Introductions were made and there was a flurry of activity making places for everyone to be able to sit down so they could ask all the innumerable questions, most aimed at Zack. Bob had already told them his version of events, while they visited, but didn't know, at the time, what Zack's investigation had uncovered. When it finally got to the part about whether or not Bob wanted to press charges, with the implication that the company would probably make a monetary offer to avoid going to court, Val yipped. "I completely forgot!" She jumped up and ran to get her purse. Bringing it back she dug through it and came out with a card in her hand. "When I went back to pick Grandpa up and all the fire trucks and police were there and everything, a man gave me this." She handed the card to Bob. "Gus Gunderson, Attorney At Law" was emblazoned across the top in red letters. Under that was a laundry list of things that Gus Gunderson did to make a living. The list included "litigation for unlawful injury". There was a phone number, a fax number and a cell phone number listed at the bottom. Under that a website was listed: geteventoday.com. Penciled in behind that were the words "(under construction)" Zack peered over Bob's shoulder. "Haven't heard of this one before. Must be new in town. It couldn't hurt to give him a call. You didn't hear me say that, by the way." ------- Zack stayed for supper. Martha had six pizza's delivered and Val ended up sitting beside Zack on the couch while they ate. Zack was one of those people who had a knack for getting others to talk about themselves. It was part of what made him a good detective. He used his skills on Val, enjoying just sitting and watching her as she talked. At one point she turned to him. "Now that Grandpa isn't under arrest any more we could have dinner or something ... couldn't we?" Zack would have loved nothing more than to spend time with this ravishing creature. "Aren't I a little old for you?" he suggested. "How old are you?" she asked. Zack was surprised at how hard it was to answer. "Forty-two." he said. "Old enough to be your father, probably." She wasn't fazed. "I already have a father. I don't need another one. But I'm not dating anybody right now. She glanced at Bob, who was talking to June, and remembered thinking of him as an "older man" for as long as she could remember. "I like older men." she said softly. "At least I think I do. You're the first one I've ever asked out." "Aren't I the one who's supposed to be asking YOU out?" he grinned. "I accept!" she said promptly. "I like movies and hiking and candle lit dinners - even though I've never actually been to one - and I like the zoo and swimming and..." Zack held up his hand. "I don't think your mother would appreciate a man like me taking her virginal young daughter out on the town." "Who said I'm a virgin?" asked Val, leaning her breast against his arm. Women who have young daughters also seem to have exceptional hearing. Sunny's keen ears heard the word "virgin" over on the couch and she went on full alert. "What, exactly, are you being interrogated about over there?" she asked. Val looked at her mother. "Zack was just telling me about a recipe he likes. We were debating about sautéing mushrooms. He thinks butter is fine. I say you must always use extra virgin olive oil. What do you think Mom?" She said it with a completely straight face, in a completely normal tone of voice, so much so that she got away with it. "Oh," said Sunny. "My ears must have been playing a trick on me. You know I never use butter any more dear." She went back to her conversation with Becca. "Remind me," said Zack softly, "that if I ever DO have to interrogate you, that a polygraph needs to be involved." Val smiled and Zack's prick began to stiffen as she said "You won't need that. I'll tell YOU anything you want to know." In the end, when Zack left, he had a date with a beautiful young woman. He shook his head as he drove off, wondering if he was crazy or not. ------- Since everyone was together already, they all agreed to go over to June's house, where Bob was currently staying, and where Rip's journal was, to hear another page or two. Sunny and Gidget expressed the most concern, saying how tired they were, and what a harrowing day it had been, and how they had to go to work the next morning. All the working women had called in sick to go rescue Bob. But, when it was suggested that they could wimp out and go home if they wanted, while the others listened to Bob read, they caved and went with them. This was the part of the journal where Rip described going up into the mountains for squirrel, with Wolf, and how he heard a voice, and saw a little stocky man toiling up the mountain with a keg on his shoulder. Somehow the man knew his name, and called it out, asking Rip to help him with his burden. Then, alternating carrying the keg, which was heavy and sloshed, the little man led him to a deep ravine that, when the snows were melting, would have been running with water. Now, however, it was dry, and there was a game of ninepins going on, conducted by more little squarely built men dressed in old timey clothing from the old country, where Rip's forefathers had lived. All of this was described in page after page of tiny, cramped writing, down to the number of buttons that ran down the leg of the little man carrying the keg, and the fact that trees overhung the little amphitheater in which the game was going on. He described the noise of the game as sounding like thunder, and said several times that he had a strange feeling that something wasn't right, but was just too interested in the goings on to abandon them. Bob closed the book with a thump that made three of the women jump. "You CAN'T stop there!" wailed Fran, who had leaned forward so much she was almost on her hands and knees. "Sunny and Gidget are right." he pronounced solemnly. "They have to go to work and I need to talk to my daughters about what to do with this lawyer thing." Moans of despair persisted, but Bob was adamant and finally they all left except Martha, June and Betty. Becca asked to stay the night, and her mother nodded after looking at June, who also nodded. It wasn't unusual for Becca to want to spend the night at her grandmother's. There was a guest bedroom. It just so happened that nobody thought about the fact that there was only ONE guest bedroom. Well, not until Martha and Betty left. THEN June remembered she only had one guest bedroom, and she was forced to let Becca assume that Bob was already staying in that room, rather than sleeping with his daughter. "You can sleep on the couch, dear." she said to her granddaughter. "OK Grandma," said Becca dutifully. "I need a shower," said Bob. He liked showers a lot. All they'd had when he went to sleep was a tub, and he liked them too, but showers were even better. "Well, you know where it is," said June, tiredly. "I have a headache. Today was just too much for my old bones. I'm going to take a sleeping pill. You two are on your own for breakfast." "Night Grandma," said Becca. "Sleep tight," said Bob. ------- Bob stood under the shower head leaning against the wall. His face was still raw and blotchy red from the direct spray it had gotten. The doctor had told him how lucky he was that his eyes had been partially closed when the spray hit. Pepper spray wasn't supposed to blind you, but it burned, and it burned eye tissues just like it burned skin. It hurt if the water hit his face directly, so he let it hit the top of his head and cascade down over his face. He had the water pretty cool, and it felt good. The shower door opened and Becca stood there jaybird naked. "Is there room for me?" she whispered. Bob groaned. "Your grandmother is in the next room, young lady." he said softly. "I know," said Becca, stepping into the shower stall. "But she took a sleeping pill and I know my grandmother. She'll sleep like a log for hours." Belying her teenaged sure-fire wisdom, the bathroom door opened and June's voice drifted over the top of the shower door. "I washed the towels Daddy. I just got them out of the dryer. I'll put them out here. You want me to scrub your back?" she asked. Becca crowded between Bob and the wall away from the shower door as Bob felt a tinge of panic. "Thanks sweetheart," he said standing full on to the door to try to help hide the girl. "But I'm bushed. I'm almost done. You go on to bed. You need your sleep." "I know," said June. "I just thought I'd offer. It looks like you could use a good scrubbing." Bob looked down at his jutting prick, which was pointed directly toward his daughter. The wavy opacity of the glass kept her from seeing clearly enough to tell that there were two people in the shower, but she could see the shadowy shape of his erection. "Uh ... I'll be fine." he said, not knowing what else to do. June lowered her voice, to something louder than a whisper, but intended not to carry to the living room. "You just save that beautiful thing for me. When Becca leaves in the morning I'm going to be horny as a goat." Bob sighed. "Yes dear." he said, as Becca's fingernails bit into his hips where she was holding on tightly. The door closed with a faint "Night Daddy." and Bob turned to face his great granddaughter. She was wet and bedraggled, but the astonishment on her face was plain. She looked down at his hard prick. "You ... and Grandma?" she said, her voice hushed with disbelief. "You two ... do it?!" "It's a long story," said Bob, wondering how he was going to deal with this little problem. He hit upon an idea. He thought it was a brilliant idea. "Remember what you used to do when I was asleep?" Becca was no longer embarrassed by that. Too much had changed. That day on the blanket had changed the way she thought about a lot of things. She nodded. "Well you weren't the only one who ... experimented." Becca's mouth dropped open and then snapped shut. "Oh my GOSH" she whispered loudly. Bob put a finger up to her mouth to warn her she was getting too loud. "While you were sleeping?" she gasped. "Grandma ... did it with you? While you were sleeping? She's your DAUGHTER!" "You did things with me while I was sleeping." he pointed out. "Well yes, I know but ... Grandma?" It was impossible, as it is with most young people, to visualize older people having sex, especially if it was older family members. Her face suddenly flexed and assumed a crafty visage. She wasn't a stupid girl. "Who else?" she demanded. Her hand reached down and grasped Bob's prick and she jacked it slowly. Bob had thought he'd have to think of a clever way to get her to ask that question. But he wanted things to be less secretive in his new family. He didn't want to have to skulk around. And since all but three of them were guilty of the same basic thing, only those three needed to be kept in the dark. "Everybody except your mothers." he said. Becca jerked hard on his cock. "Val and Fran?!" she squeaked. "Even FRAN?!" "Ow" said Bob calmly. Her hand relaxed, but didn't leave his penis. "And keep your voice down." He thought about it. "On the other hand, yell if you want. You know about June. Why shouldn't she know about you?" Becca's reaction was just like he expected. Her hand left his prick and both hands went to his chest. "No way!" she whispered loudly. "Don't you DARE tell anybody about us." She blinked. "Aunt Martha and Aunt Betty too?" "All six of you," said Bob, smiling. "But not my mom," said Becca, looking faintly horrified. "Not yet," said Bob, grinning. Becca looked outraged. "Don't you dare..." she had spoken aloud and Bob hushed her by kissing her. He expected her to push him away, but her reaction was completely different. She melted against him, pushing his penis down between her legs and she humped it as she kissed him back with all the fervor she had in her. Her hands went to his back and slid all over it. She kissed him so hard it hurt his face and he pulled back. "Ow." he said again, but he smiled as she looked at him and realized what she had done. "You have to do it with me." she moaned, wanting to kiss him again, but stopping because of his face. "I thought we had this discussion." he said softly. "If you did it with my grandmother you have to do it with me." she said firmly. She reached down and grasped his cock, digging the tip into her sex. She raised one leg, trying to impale herself on him. "Who made that rule?" he asked, delighting in her passion. "I did." she said. "You have to do it with me ... please?" "You're crazy." he said. "I'm horny and I want to be a woman." she said back. "I want YOU to make me a woman." "You're already a woman." he said. What she was doing to him ... with him ... had gotten him going and his resolve was slipping. "I'll scream if you don't." she threatened. "Go ahead. I thought you didn't want your grandmother to know about us." he grinned. "Oh pleeease?" she whined. She had managed to get the tip lodged in her pussy mouth and was squirming against it. It was too low for her to get any further in, though. Bob had never done it standing up, or in a shower for that matter, but it didn't seem like it would be that hard. He bent his knees and Becca beamed at him as he jutted his hips forward and stood up. The smile on Becca's face vanished as his aching prong slid all the way up inside her. Only the soap that was on his prick saved her from real pain. Still, she was split wide by his thick rod. She went up on her tip toes and let out an agonized "Awwwww" before Bob kissed her again to shut her up again. He pressed her against the shower wall and she dangled there like a finger puppet with just one, long, hard finger up inside her. Her hands batted at his waist, but his hands, one under each armpit kept her from moving sideways. There was nothing she could do to escape the cruel shaft that was stretching her so much. The water beat off of them, splashing the sides of their faces as Bob went up on his tiptoes. Becca felt the sharp pain of being spread apart for the first time, and then a generalized ache in her loins pushed that sharp pain away. She felt like she had eaten too much, except not in her stomach. His lips on hers felt foreign and harsh and she had a moment of panic as she tried to move but found herself helpless. Then her clit, which was trying to be pushed up inside her body by the base of his cock began to get its signals through to her brain. There was a small jab of sweet pleasure, and then another longer one and she raised her legs up and spread them apart to ease the pressure. All her weight was jamming her pussy down onto his prick and she wrapped her legs around his hips, hooking her ankles to ease the strain of holding them up. The ache lessened, and the streaks of exquisite pleasure began to come more often as she pushed against the shower wall, flexing her abdominal muscles in the process. Bob's hands slid down her sides and cupped her buttocks, lifting her just enough to ease the pressure a little more. He pulled and pushed on his penis, getting enough slack to move it an inch out and then back in, in rabbit -like jerks of his own abs. Bob felt stronger than he ever had in his life. The girl in his arms seemed weightless as he fucked into her eagerly. He couldn't breathe and broke the kiss, panting. "Is this what you wanted?" he gasped, jabbing into her several more times. "Didn't ... think ... it ... would ... be ... like ... this." she panted as he jabbed into her. She didn't know what to think. There were equal parts pain and pleasure now, and she thought that if she could just get a little more comfortable, the pain would go away. Bob saw in her eyes that it wasn't the way he wanted it to be for her, and that robbed him of his desire to make frenzied thrusts. He reached behind him and broke her ankles loose. As they fell he lifted her by the strength in his arms alone and pulled her off of him. "Nooo don't stop." moaned Becca. The feeling of the pressure going away was good, but the feeling of emptiness left behind was horrible in a way she couldn't begin to describe. Bob shut off the water and, holding one finger to his lips he opened the door and pulled her out. She stood dripping as he grabbed one of the towels June had left for him and hastily moved it over her body. She continued to make little sounds of unhappiness but stopped as he picked up the other towel and pulled her towards the bathroom door. Opening it carefully, Bob looked out into the hallway and then pulled Becca through the door. Stark naked, they both tiptoed away from June's bedroom door, toward the living room. The only light was from the streetlights coming through the windows, but it was enough Bob could navigate. He spread a towel on the couch and positioned Becca to sit on it. When she did his long, hard prick was at her face level and she automatically leaned forward to slide it into her mouth. The little his prick had softened vanished instantly and he came back to full vibrating hard. When she pulled off he knelt between her knees and leaned forward to suck at her nipples. She leaned back and his head followed her as her own head hit the back of the couch, making it look like she was looking at the ceiling. Her hands came to the back of his still wet head as he licked and suckled. He leaned back, on his knees, and pulled her hips until her wide open pussy was at the edge of the seat. Then he grabbed his prick to settle it between her pussy lips again. She raised her head, her eyes glinting in the light. Slowly, this time, he pushed forward into velvety soft heat. In this position she was tight, but not as tight as before. She held her breath as he kept pushing, slowly, and let it out as he pulled back. "Better?" he whispered. She nodded and put her hands beside her hips. When he pushed in this time her hands pushed and she managed to push her pussy toward him. Bob realized that he wasn't getting all the way into her and, as he continued to push and pull slowly, he dropped one hand to lay it on her abdomen. His thumb dipped, found her clit, and massaged it gently. Becca went rigid, and then her hips began bucking spasmodically as she tried to push against his prick and make his thumb go where she wanted it all at the same time. It didn't work, but she had fun trying. Bob could feel her pussy begin to relax. It was getting easier to push into her. The light coming through the windows spilled across her naked chest and belly and Bob felt his nuts begin to tighten. He pushed her sideways, rising on his toes with her until she was lying on the cushions, one leg up on the back of the couch, and the other foot on the floor. He lay on top of her and pushed hard, feeling his balls bounce off her buttocks. "Mmmmm" she moaned. Now her clitty was getting what it wanted, and that awful emptiness was a thing of the past. How long he lasted Bob couldn't have said. It felt like a long time as he moved in and out, sometimes slowly, sometimes faster and sometimes not at all as he pushed and stayed deep. Her whispers in his ear began to take on a chanting quality as she said "Oh yes" in a soft whisper over and over again, getting a little louder until he had to kiss her to keep her quiet again. She bucked under him and her pussy squeezed him so tightly that his foreskin hurt as he pushed into her. Her feet moved, the upper one pounding the back of the couch and the one on the floor sliding back and forth until it stuck in one place and she shoved her hips up so hard it lifted Bob's body. Knowing she was having an orgasm, Bob surrendered to his aching balls and groaned as his prick began belching streams of thick, rich and potent semen into his great granddaughter's belly. He sagged on her, pinning her to the couch as he filled her to overflowing. Both panted to catch their breath and her arms went around him tightly. "That, " she whispered, panting, "was ... what ... I had ... in ... mind." He was heavy on her which she loved, but which made him uncomfortable. He pulled out of her and sat on the floor. Becca stayed right where she was, lying limply. The light from the lamps outside almost glowed as it hit the puddle of semen that collected in her now gaping pussy mouth and began to drip down onto the towel. She put one hand to her crotch and dipped a finger into the mess, pulling that back up and sucking it clean. "I love your taste." she sighed. "But I think I love having your taste down there even more." "We can't do this again." whispered Bob. "You could get pregnant." Becca said nothing, getting another finger-ful of spunk and licking that off. "Thank you." she said, her voice normal, but soft. "Believe me, it was my pleasure." he smiled in the dark. "What was it like?" she asked. "When you were sleeping, I mean. What was it like to do what we just did?" "It wasn't like that." he said. "I was on my back, of course. It was like having a dream that was very nice. I could hear what you all said and some part of my mind made sense of that so that the dream made sense, but I always thought it was just a dream." "Did you ... do in them what you just did inside of me?" she asked. "Many times." he admitted. "With Val?" she asked. "No," he said. "Val only did what you did. And Fran didn't even do that much. I get the feeling she was about to start doing more, but then I woke up." "I thought we talked about everything, but I guess I was wrong." She sounded sad. "Did you ever want to tell them what you did with me." "Well ... no. I guess I thought they'd think I was a sicko or something." "Do you feel like a sicko now?" "No." Her voice was firm. "I feel wonderful. I've never felt as wonderful as I feel right now." "I'm very happy to hear that Becca." he said. "How soon before you can go again?" she asked in the dark. "Melissa told me a man can go in about fifteen minutes but I didn't really believe her." "It differs from man to man, I imagine." he said. "That's not something that men talked about with each other when I was ... before I went to sleep. I think some of it depends on what is happening. Just now ... when you said you were happy and felt wonderful? That made me hard again." "You're hard again now?" her voice rose. "Yes." he said. She sat up and scooted back to her original position, pussy on the edge of the seat, head back against the couch, legs spread wide. Her arms reached out in the dark. "Again." she said, packing more into that one word that most people could put in a whole book. He did take her again. This time after he'd rodded her for a while she pushed him off, down on the carpet on his back. "I want to do it like they did." she said, climbing up over him. When she settled down onto him it was with a groan as he went even deeper up inside her than he had before. Her young breasts jiggled and danced in the light as her hips went crazy and she gasped for air. Bob liked it, but he couldn't cum, so lubricated was she. She had three orgasms, almost in a row before Bob rolled her over and lay on top of her again. In this position he could move his penis so that the foreskin caressed his knob. That led him to pumping his balls dry inside her again as she mewled and accepted his dangerous gift. Eventually, Bob limped to the guest bedroom and lay on the bed exhausted. He had no idea what Becca was going to do. Since she had appeared naked in the bathroom, he didn't know where her clothing was for sure, but she knew, of course. He was pleasantly surprised the next morning when he woke up refreshed and full of energy. He pulled on a pair of shorts and walked out into the living room where his astonished eyes took in Becca, still gloriously naked, her pubic hair matted with his spend, lying on the couch and breathing deeply in sleep with one arm over her eyes. His prick gave a little lurch at the sight of her nudity and her spread legs, but he pushed his desire down. The last thing either of them needed was her grandmother walking in and seeing her this way. He woke her up and she smiled at him. She was completely unashamed about her nakedness and held up her arms for a kiss. "You get your butt in to the shower." he said smiling. "I'll give you a kiss when you're presentable." Becca stretched, watching through her lashes as his eyes went to her breasts. "I'm not presentable?" she teased. "You're beautiful. I assume you've decided to tell your grandmother that you've started having wild passionate sex with me?" Becca bounced up off the couch and grabbed the soiled towels. She leaned towards him and kissed him before he could back up. "Not just yet." she smiled. "Wise move." he said, swatting at her butt as she danced toward the bathroom. ------- Chapter 12 When he woke June, she was true to her word. "Where's Becca?" she asked, yawning and stretching. "She's taking a shower," said Bob pulling the sheet off of her. She was naked under the sheet. "Good, we have time for you to wake me up right." she said, reaching for him and spreading her legs. "What in the world did my wife think she was doing?" said Bob, shaking his head. She turned you into sex machines." "YOU turned us into sex machines, Daddy." she corrected. We all loved taking care of you and when you made Martha pregnant, both Betty and I were so jealous that we had to have you as often as we possibly could. Old habits die hard, they say." "Well that habit is going to have to wait," said Bob firmly. "The last thing we need is for your granddaughter to come in here to wake you up and find me lying on top of you, grunting and groaning. June pouted. "I suppose you're right. But you're a MEAN Daddy! I want you to know that!" ------- But Becca was in a hurry to leave after she took her shower to wash away the evidence of the loss of her virginity. Just to make sure she took the towels into the shower with her, washing the spunk out of them and wringing them as dry as she could with her hands. She acted completely normal at breakfast, chatting about this and that and then ran out the door as if she had things to do. She did. She had news for her cousins ... BIG news. She had not been gone for more than ten minutes before Bob was hunched over June, ringing her bell quite nicely and giving her a newly made batch of Daddy cum. ------- The phone calls started about nine, and they happened in every house in which a Winkle, or a former Winkle lived. The media can dig up fascinating information on the average citizen when they put their minds to it, and all of Bob's immediate offspring, and grandchildren were identified and contacted for "comment". It would be too complicated to go into the story of each of the males his sleeping body produced in his wife and daughters. Suffice it to say there were seven, and that they had all moved away from Circleton, making lives much like their sisters had, except that those lives didn't involve Bob. They came to visit infrequently, and most of them had no real interest in Bob, save his 'biological' son, who considered himself a step-son, since he was born after Bob went to sleep. They had all been notified that Bob had awakened, and all were interested in an academic sort of way, but they were also busy with their own lives. They didn't plan to make a special trip to see him, sad as that sounds. But they got calls from the media, just like the women did. Lots of calls. It took a few days, but eventually it was impossible to contact a Winkle, by virtue of the fact that all of them now had unlisted numbers. Even that didn't protect Martha, whose new number was weaseled out of an employee of the phone company for the tidy sum of two thousand dollars. That two grand got the enterprising reporter an air horn in his ear and a burst ear drum, but nothing else. As far as the Winkles were concerned, Bob's story was their business, and no one else's. ------- The feds learned about Bob when a reporter, desperate to get access to Bob, contacted the Social Security Administration suggesting that Bob might have received benefits illegally. He offered the information about Bob on condition that he be allowed to tag along when any interviews took place. The Feds looked into Bob's situation only long enough to document that no one had thought to collect Social Security benefits on his behalf. It would have technically been legal while he slept, but Federal investigators are always looking for those cases where benefits should have stopped, and didn't. In this case they didn't even send anybody to interview him since there was no claim to interview him about. The reporter was left in the dust. ------- Almost the only news that got out was about the debacle at the Amalgamated Insurance company's headquarters. Employees there sold the information shamelessly, reaping the benefit while the company's reputation suffered. There were about four photographs of Bob, being dragged out of the building by Chuck, or being strapped to the gurney to be taken to the hospital. All of them made him look like he'd been beaten within an inch of his life and they were dynamite. It was verified that the man had slept for fifty years, and that the company had paid his claim the whole time. Employees whose names were withheld swore that he appeared to be in his mid twenties and looked like anybody else on the street. The supervisor at the DMV was interviewed, and confirmed that she had examined Bob's fifty year old license and found it to be valid. Everyone in California and a lot of other places knew the name of Bob Winkle, and that he had been assaulted inside the headquarters. But no one knew much else. The police investigation was still "ongoing" and wasn't a public record yet. The department was leak-proof, thanks to the dedication of the people working there. About the only thing the Media got right (without knowing it) was that Bob was dubbed "The 20th Century Rip Van Winkle." The public was starved for information, and the media was stumped. Camera crews camped outside various houses for a few weeks before it got too expensive to keep them there for no gain. There was no gain because Betty had a friend who had a cabin up in the mountains, and he offered her the use of the place "for the duration". She had another friend who owned a plumbing and heating shop. He showed up to "repair a leaky faucet" one day, wearing a ball cap and sunglasses. The news crew couldn't get to him before he was in the house. When he came out an hour later they were ready. When the news crew descended on him, asking why he was there, and if he had seen Bob, and trying to get him to report everything he saw while he was in the house, he held up his hand and asked for a purchase order to charge his time against. If they were going to take his time, somebody was going to pay for it. The negotiations resulted in a verbal contract and the man was paid three thousand dollars in cash, hastily retrieved by the producer from a teller machine six blocks away. It didn't occur to any of the news people that this man's time seemed to be worth a heck of a lot of money. He deflected every question until the producer got back, saying "No cash, no answers." The cameras were turned on and the interviewer began firing questions off. "Mr ... uh Richardson ... Did you see Bob Winkle while you were in the house?" "No, I didn't," said the man. "Was he in the house?" "I believe so, yes." "What was it like in there?" "I guess I'd have to say it was just a normal house. They had a leaky faucet and I fixed it. Nice folks. That's about it I guess." "But what is Bob Winkle like?" asked the frustrated interviewer. "I really couldn't say. Like I said I never saw the guy." The interviewer turned to his producer. "Why did we pay this guy anyway?" The man answered for him. "Because you're taking my time. Time is money. You want to poke into people's business, you got to pay. We done here?" They tried to think up more questions, but got nothing further from the man, who waved at the camera and said "Hi, Honey.", got in the van and drove away. He drove somewhat erratically, with a few stops and starts and a little screeching of tires. The cameraman joked that he was laughing so hard he couldn't drive. Actually, Bob had never driven anything as big as the van. For it was, in fact Bob, wearing Ted Richardson's shirt, hat and sunglasses who was driving the van. Martha had put makeup on his face to hide the redness left over from the pepper spray. He went three blocks and parked it behind a Kwik Stop, where Betty was waiting for him. She took him to the cabin and he gave her the three thousand dollars to give to Ted for his time, trouble and help. Meanwhile, Ted walked out of the house and into the arms of a very unhappy news crew. "Who are you?" asked the interviewer. "I'm Ted Richardson." he said. "But we just talked to Ted Richardson," said the confused reporter. "No, you just talked to Bob Winkle. You folks have a nice day. I gotta run. I got a toilet to replace over on Elm street." He calmly walked off down the street to retrieve his van. ------- Once ensconced in the cabin, Bob had nothing to do. There were some old magazines around, so he read them. Betty was going to bring him clothes and books later. The cabin had electricity, but no TV. He remembered the card Val had given him and pulled it out of his wallet. Using Fran's cell phone, which had been donated to the cause, he called one of the numbers at the bottom of the card. "Gunderson, Attorney at Law," said a mellow female voice into his ear. "Yes, I'd like to speak to Gus Gunderson about a litigation problem," said Bob. "And what is the nature of the problem?" "I went into a company building to do some business and got assaulted." "That would be more of a police kind of thing," said the woman on the other end. "My name is Bob Winkle," said Bob, to test the waters. There was silence long enough that Bob said "Hello?". Then he heard a muffled shout, as if a hand was being held over the mouthpiece: "Gus, quit looking at porn and get your lazy ass on the phone. That Rip Van Winkle guy is on the line!" Then, in a calmer voice she spoke to Bob. "He's on his way, sir, please hold." "Gus Gunderson." came a gruff voice into Bob's ear. "Mr. Gunderson, my name is Bob Winkle and I'd like to ask you about possible litigation against an insurance company." "This had better not be a joke," said Gus. "I'm a busy man. I'm litigating hundreds of cases." "It's no joke," said Bob. "If you're that busy then perhaps I should contact someone else." "NO!" shouted Gus. "I mean I always have time for a fam ... I mean worthy man like yourself. How do I know it's really you?" he asked. Bob thought for a minute. "I'm in hiding from the media right now, and I don't want to come to your office. How about this. Call up Detective Sergeant Zack Simpson at the Sacramento Police Department. Tell him you talked to me and that you're trying to confirm my identity. Tell him I said I hope he and Val have an exciting date." "Val? Who's Val?" asked Gunderson. "That doesn't matter. He'll tell you whether he thinks it's really me or not. I'll call you back in half an hour." Bob hung up and went outside to explore. The cabin was in a cluster of other structures. Owners had banded together to buy the property so they could share the cost of infrastructure. Only two other cabins seemed to have anyone in them, and Bob hadn't seen anyone yet. He walked around and met Sally, a woman of young, but indeterminate age who was on her porch typing furiously on a laptop. She waved and Bob stopped. It turned out that she and her husband owned the cabin and that she was an aspiring author. "I'm trying to write the Great American Novel." she laughed. "So far I'm doing a lot of writing, but it isn't all that great. I've wanted to do this since I was a little girl and Jerry - he's my husband - has been really supportive of me. It probably won't amount to much, but I sure am having fun writing." "What's it about?" asked Bob. "Oh, I suppose it's a romance novel." she said. "It's supposed to be about high drama in a wealthy family, with deep dark secrets and all that. You wouldn't be interested in it." she said. "I'm borrowing a cabin over there," Bob pointed "kind of relaxing and getting away from things. I don't have all that much to keep me busy. I'd love to read what you've got. I never met a real author before." "What happened to your face?" asked the curious woman. She put a hand over her mouth. "Oh, I'm so sorry. It's none of my business. My mouth always runs away with itself. Never mind. I shouldn't have asked." "Don't feel bad," said Bob smiling. "I know I look pretty rough. Actually, I got a close up dose of pepper spray." Sally's eyes narrowed. "You're not a rapist or anything are you? My brother is a policeman." She closed her laptop and stood up, ready to flee. Bob held up a hand. "No, no, it wasn't anything like that. I'm surprised there are any rapists left on the planet if that's what they came up with for women to defend themselves with. No, it was a misunderstanding with a security guard. He thought I was trying to make trouble and squirted the stuff in my face. You have nothing whatsoever to fear from me." Sally looked at him for a few seconds and then sat back down. She didn't open the laptop again though. "Oh." she said. "I'm sorry. A woman can't be too careful these days." "Bob nodded. "I can't believe how much violence there is in America. When I was a little boy nobody ever even locked their house. If you found money lying on the street, you took it to the Police station to turn it in. It's a different world now." he said sadly. "Well, I've taken enough of your time. I won't keep you from your writing. I have to make a phone call anyway. See you later." Bob waved and walked back toward his cabin. Sally stared after him, thinking about what she'd just heard. She frowned. Then, under her breath she said "No ... it couldn't be. That would be just too weird. He's got to be somebody else." She opened up her laptop and her fingers hovered over the keys. But she was thinking too furiously to be able to write. ------- Back in the cabin Bob called Gunderson's office again. It was thirty-six minutes since he had hung up. The phone was answered halfway through the first ring.' "HELLO!" shouted Gus' voice. Bob held the phone away from his ear. "This is Bob Winkle again." he said. "WHERE WERE YOU? I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU'D CALL IN HALF AN HOUR." "It HAS been half an hour," said Bob. "And you don't have to shout, I hear you perfectly fine." "OK!" said Gus. He sounded like he'd just run half a mile. "I was just worried that you wouldn't call back ... you know ... that you'd called someone else." "So you can help me?" asked Bob. "Yes sir!" barked Gus. "I'm your man Mr. Van Winkle. I'm a shark in bloody water. I'm a bear on the rampage. I'll take them for every penny they have. You just leave everything up to me Mr. Van Winkle and I'll make you a very rich man." "It's Winkle ... Bob Winkle," said Bob, wondering if he had the right man after all. "What do I need to do?" "OH!" shouted Gus. "Well ... lets see. We need to meet. I need to talk to you. Yes. I need to get your deposition. I need to know everything! Yes. When can we meet?" Bob wasn't sure this was a good idea at all. "Well, meeting with you is no problem. I can get away most any time. But I'm not sure I actually want to take them for every penny they have." "Mr. Van Winkle ... uh Mr. Winkle ... Can I call you Bob? That would be easier. Bob, you're a very famous man, and you have been savagely treated. Those people assaulted you in a most horrible fashion. I saw the pictures. We can get ten million out of them easy." "Ten million ... dollars?!" asked Bob incredulously. "Isn't that a bit ... excessive?" "Not in this case Bob. No siree. That's not excessive at all for a famous man like yourself. I mean they might have even made you sterile or something. You never know. We need a doctors' report! YES! We have to get a good doctor!" said the man excitedly. "You haven't done too much of this ... have you?" said Bob. "What do you mean?" asked Gus, panic creeping into his voice. "Of course I have. I've done hundreds of cases ... THOUSANDS of cases ... Bob trust me ... I can DO this!" said the man. "If we're going to work together I have to know the truth," said Bob. "If you lie to me even once, we're through, understand?" "Sure Bob ... no problem Bob. Give me a chance to show you what I can do." Gus pleaded. There was a knock on the front door of the cabin. Bob looked up. He wasn't expecting anyone who would think they had to knock. "Hang on Mr. Gunderson. Something's going on. Somebody's at the door and I don't know who." "DON'T ANSWER IT!" screamed Gus, knowing in his heart that some other lawyer had found Bob and was about to snatch the sweetest deal he'd ever seen in his life away from him. Bob looked at the phone and frowned. This guy was nuts. He went to the door and opened it. Sally Smith was standing there. "You're Bob Winkle ... aren't you." she said. It wasn't a question. "You're that guy they call Rip Van Winkle." Bob sighed. "Come on in Sally. Be with you in a minute." He put the phone back up to his ear. Gus was still pleading with him not to open the door, saying something about assassins. "GUS!" shouted Bob into the phone. It went quiet. "OK, Gus, I'm back. It's only a neighbor. Now ... how many of these kinds of cases have you done before?" "I told you! Lots." started Gus. "Gus, don't lie to me." warned Bob. "If you lie to me I'm hanging up and never calling again." "OK, OK, don't hang up. OK, lets see ... OK maybe I've only done ten or twelve, but I WON eight of them! I'm just getting started, you see, and I've learned a lot from my mistakes. I mostly do divorces and stuff like that, but I KNOW I can get you a lot of money on this Bob. You HAVE to let me give it a shot." Bob thought about it. He felt like the truth barrier might actually have been broken. "OK, Gus, how much is this going to cost me?" "Well ... um ... the going rate is thirty percent," said Gus. "I'll give you fifteen Gus. Take it or leave it," said Bob. "SOLD!" yelled Gus excitedly. "I mean DEAL! Bob, you're not going to regret this. I PROMISE you Bob, we'll wring them dry and hang them out on the line. You'll be a rich man Bob ... TRUST ME!" "All right," said Bob, sighing. "I'll call you back in a few minutes. I need to take care of something here." Bob started to flip the phone closed as Gus screamed at him not to hang up. "Who in the world was that?" asked Sally, looking at Bob interestedly. "Lawyer." he said shortly. "I'm thinking of suing the insurance company." "You probably don't even need a lawyer." she said. If you just threaten to sue they'll cave and make you an offer. You're famous. "Yeah, well, I'm not so familiar with the way things work these days," said Bob. "How'd you figure it out?" "My brother is Denny Smith." she said simply. Bob looked confused. "The cop who was guarding your door when your whole family descended on the place and threatened to have his badge?" she prompted. "Denny? THAT Denny?" Bob laughed out loud. "Man, it's a small world. How about that! Come on in. Sit down. I can't offer you anything. We haven't stocked the place yet. Please don't tell anyone I'm here. I'm hiding out." "Oh, your secret's safe with me. Denny's got it bad for one of your daughters, or granddaughters or something like that ... somebody named Becca?" Bob felt a twinge of jealousy. But he realized that his relationship with Becca couldn't last much longer. It would cause too many problems. She needed a good man, and Denny seemed to be one - at least from the little conversation they'd had. Of course he had no idea if Becca was attracted to Denny or not, but at least he could support Denny's interests. "I hope he's as healthy as he looks," said Bob, grinning. "Becca's going to be a handful for any man." "Well, if I screwed things up for you he'd kill me. He's still trying to figure out how to get in contact with her without crossing departmental ethics lines. "No problem. I'll just tell her to go see him the next time I see her," said Bob. Sally laughed. "Boy, oh boy would that frost his cake if she walked into the precinct house looking for him. Some of the guys think he's gay because he doesn't date much." "Gay?" asked Bob frowning. "Why would they think he was happy because he wasn't dating?" Sally stared at him and then let out an explosive laugh. "I forgot, you're still in 1950 for the most part, aren't you?" She sat down. "Today, the word 'gay' is a noun that means a homosexual male. Well, it still can still be used as an adverb or adjective too, but no one uses it that way any more." "You're kidding," said Bob, sitting across from her. "How in the world did that happen?" "Words change meaning ... evolve ... like animals do." she said. As a writer this was one of her favorite subjects. "I don't know for sure, but I think it started because gays ... homosexual men ... were seen as effeminate ... you know, tiptoeing through the tulips and being all happy and gay?" Bob shook his head. "I don't know if I'll ever catch up." "You want to come over to my place? Get something to eat? I'll try to bring you up to date. Besides, I have a lot of questions for you." "Everybody does these days." sighed Bob. ------- Chapter 13 Since Betty was gone taking Bob up into the mountains, Becca told her cousins to meet her in Betty's kitchen. She was sitting there waiting for them when Val arrived. "What's up?" she asked. "We have to wait for Fran," said Becca mysteriously. Fran arrived ten minutes later. "You're not going to BELIEVE what I'm going to tell you!" Becca started excitedly. ------- Bob called Gus back from Sally's cabin. The man was pathetically thankful. Bob arranged to meet with him the next day, after he was supposed to be back at the hospital for a follow-up exam. Then he called Zack and told him that he had an appointment with a lawyer and would make his decision about pressing charges or not after that. Then he put the phone away and talked to Sally as she made sandwiches at the kitchen counter. They talked until Sally lifted her head at the sound of tires on gravel. She went to the window and looked out. "There's a silver car at your cabin." she announced. "That's Betty, my youngest daughter." he said. "She went to town to get food and things like that. I should go help her." "I'll come too," said Sally. "I can't wait to meet more of your family." Betty was suspicious at first and then horrified as Bob introduced the sister of the man who had put his hands all over her naked thighs and almost naked breasts. She turned beet red when Sally asked if she remembered Denny. Bob chuckled and said "I think she'll remember Denny for a long time." "OH!" yipped Sally. "He SEARCHED you! Oh, Betty, I'm so sorry. You must be embarrassed. But don't worry about it. I'll tell you a secret. He used to practice on me when he first got out of the academy. He's got really good hands." "You can say that again." muttered Betty. "Well, he was very enthusiastic about it when he practiced on me. I didn't find out until two years later that he wasn't even supposed to search a female. He was using it as an excuse to cop a feel! I was so mad at him. You know, he told me about what happened at the hospital. He thinks a lot of all of you women." "Really?" asked Betty. This woman was so engaging it was hard to stay upset around her. "Really!" One of you, I don't know which, wasn't wearing any undergarments, and Denny said she took it like a trooper. He said he hadn't seen such a brave woman in years." Betty flushed deeper red and turned around. "Oh! It was YOU!" said Sally. "Oh boy, I've gone and stuck my foot in my mouth again. I'm sorry." Betty waved her hand but didn't turn around. She was embarrassed primarily because she was remembering the feel of Denny's hands on her thighs. When he'd done with the search she'd been horrified to feel a drip of liquid run down her inner thigh. She'd gotten turned on by the whole thing. She began digging things out of sacks as she tried to calm down. "He also said she was one of the best looking mature women he'd seen in years too," said Sally hopefully, trying to lessen Betty's embarrassment. "Oh, that helps a LOT." groaned Betty. But she did feel better for some reason. Then Sally began asking Betty all kinds of questions about what it was like to have a sleeping father, and what kind of problems it caused. She didn't pry, but seemed genuinely interested in what life had been like for Betty and the others who were associated with Bob. Soon Betty was chatting away as the two women worked together to put things on shelves and neaten up the cabin. Bob tried to help, but was ignored for the most part, and sat down to start one of the books Betty had picked up on her trip. ------- "You're lying!" accused Val when Becca finally stopped talking. Becca had told them everything, including that she knew they had "done things with Grandpa" and that he had full sexual intercourse with their grandmothers. Then she announced that she was no longer a virgin, because Grandpa had taught her how to be a woman. She had thought that the other girls would squeal and giggle and maybe tell jokes and even be happy for her. She hadn't thought it through very well. All the cousins had grown up doing everything together. They played together, went to school together, got in trouble together, even found and explored Rip's diary together. True, Val had gone off to college without the other two, but she came back home the next summer and everything was like it had been. But now, it seemed like Becca had gone off and done something all by herself. She had broken the tradition. And Val was upset about that. She got so mad that, after calling her cousin a liar, which she knew wasn't factual - Becca had never lied to her in her life - she then yelled at her for doing what she had just accused her of lying about. Becca looked at her stunned until, as she wound down, the words "what about us?" came out of her mouth. She was referring, of course, to herself and Fran, who sat wide eyed through the whole thing. Becca blinked. "You're mad because I didn't take you along to get deflowered WITH me?" Becca was slow to anger, but when it got there it was impressive. "YOU started ... doing things ... with Grandpa before WE did. Did you tell US about that? No, you did not! And you went off to college and probably got your cherry popped there, but did you tell us about it? NO! Who in their RIGHT MIND would invite their cousins along to watch ... or take TURNS or whatever when they're being made into a WOMAN!?" "I'M STILL A VIRGIN YOU SLUT!" screamed Val, her face almost purple. Her purple face suddenly looked stricken as she realized exactly what she had shouted. Becca looked like she'd been kicked in the stomach by a mule. "Ohhh Becca honey I'm sorry ... I didn't mean it ... you KNOW I didn't mean it. I'm just so jealous. Oh Becca please forgive me. You know I love you." Becca, who had lived in Val's shadow all her life, and who, to tell the truth, looked up to her cousin as the pinnacle of femininity, was both crushed by Val's outburst and hurtful epithet, and strangely relieved to see that Val wasn't perfect. And, as girls do, they crashed together bawling, telling each other they were sorry and pledging never to do it again. Fran sat quietly and watched. All she had done was touch Bob's penis a few times and play with it hard twice. She couldn't figure out what all the hoopla was all about. "What kind of things did you do with Grandpa?" she asked when it got quiet. Both girls looked at her. They wiped their eyes. "You know," said Becca. "No, I do NOT know," said Fran. I peeked under the sheet and played with his penis a few times. It got hard twice and it squirted once. Is that what you did?" Playing with herself didn't count, as far as Fran was concerned. She did that with herself, not Bob. Val said "Yes." at the same time Becca said "No." They looked at each other. "So you both had sex with our great grandfather?" asked Fran. "NO!" said Val heatedly. "I did the same things you did ... I think. You said it spurted once. Did you taste it?" "Eeewwww" said Fran. She'd heard of that, but thought it was gross and maybe even that girls were lying when they said they did that. Well, neither cousin would stand for that attitude, and their confab resulted in sharing ALL the details that they had never shared before. It was during that conversation that Val admitted she had been tempted to try sitting on that long hard thing, but hadn't. She hadn't met any boys at college she was tempted to do that with either, and had been content to wait. But now that Becca HAD sat on that long hard prick, Val was suddenly horny in a way she had never been horny before. "Do you think he'd do it with me?" she asked Becca. "I don't know. He tried and tried to keep from doing it with me. And then, when he did it the first time it hurt so much I wished I'd listened to him." Becca frowned. "But then it stopped hurting and it was so cool I almost couldn't stand it. I want to do it again right now." "What about me?" asked Fran. "Aren't you a little young?" said Val. "I don't know a single girl my age who says she's still a virgin," said Fran firmly. Of course some of them may be lying, because I say the same thing ... I mean that I've done it and everything. It's so confusing to decide what to do." "I know what you mean," said Becca. "Except that I'm not confused any more. I'll do it with Grandpa any time he lets me." "How 'bout with other men?" asked Fran. Becca frowned. "I don't know. If I really liked one I might. It's too special to just do with anybody. It's hard to explain." Val looked at her watch. "I have to go. I have a date with Zack tonight. I want to look beautiful." "You always look beautiful," said Becca. "I know" said Val, taking her cousin's statement for granted. "But I want to look especially beautiful tonight. He's so interesting and he makes me feel all tingly." "Like playing with Grandpa made me feel tingly?" asked Fran. "I don't know. Maybe. Yes, I think maybe so. I know I used to get so horny playing with him that I had to go rub off." "ME TOO!" said Fran, happy that her experience was like that of her older cousin. "Me too," said Becca. "But not any more. The real thing is WAY better than doing it yourself." With that the meeting broke up and the girls went their separate ways. ------- Betty and Sally, it turned out, were both quilters, and when THAT discussion got going, it was obvious that it would keep going for hours. Not only did they discuss techniques, but they talked about and compared various quilting shops that were scattered all over central and northern California. After a light supper, further talk was interrupted by the sound of more tires on gravel. It was Sally's husband. She was taking vacation to work on her book, but he was still working. He came up to the cabin at nights to be with her. She excused herself to go meet him, saying it was late enough that she'd resist the urge to bring him over to meet them. "Maybe this weekend we can get together." she said. Betty waved goodbye and started unbuttoning her dress. "It's bedtime." she said through lowered lashes. Bob laughed. "It looked to me like sex was the last thing on your mind for the last three hours." "I was saving up." she said, baring her breasts to him. "Are you coming to bed old man or not? You geezers need extra sleep, you know." "So all I'm going to do is sleep?" he teased. "Eventually," said his daughter. ------- The next day Betty drove Bob to meet Gus Gunderson. Bob didn't call ahead, figuring, correctly, that Gus would be in the office rather than out making cases, or whatever lawyers did. Betty dropped him off, saying she wanted to check out a sale at a quilting shop Sally had told her about the evening before. When Bob walked into the offices, to put it euphemistically, of Gus Gunderson, Attorney at law, he was a little disappointed. It was basically one room in a row of tired looking businesses making up what had been, at one time, a strip mall. Commerce had left this little backwater behind, chasing the newer and flashier malls that had sprung up. Other than Gus, there was a donut shop, a liquor store, two empty storefronts with 'For Lease' signs in their windows, and the Guiding Light Rescue Mission. Even that looked deserted from the outside. Maybe no one needed rescuing at the moment. There were two desks in Gus' office. A woman in her thirties was sitting at one desk staring with great concentration at a tiny television set on one corner of her desk. As Bob opened the door and walked in she said to the TV set "Don't do it Vanessa! He's a snake!" The sound of the door opening dragged her eyes to Bob. They widened and she looked shocked. "Um hello." she said uncertainly. "Can I help you?" "Hi, I'm Bob Winkle." If her eyes had been wide before, they were saucers now. "Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, it's really YOU!" she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Well," said Bob smiling, "When I woke up this morning it was. I never know if I'm going to wake up when I go to bed. You know how it is." "Gus said you were our client, but I didn't believe him. Good things just don't happen to us." she said helplessly. "Oh! Please come in. Gus isn't here. He went down to get ... lunch." Bob glanced at his watch. It was nine-thirty. "COFFEE!" the woman blurted. "Do you want coffee?" she asked hopefully. "That would be nice," said Bob. One thing he liked about the year 2000 was that coffee making had come a long long way. He almost always got pretty good coffee these days. She bounded up out of her chair, Vanessa and the villain on TV forgotten. Their tinny voices were audible to Bob as Vanessa found out that "he", whoever he was, was in fact a snake. He had gotten some woman pregnant and Vanessa was crying because she'd begged him for a child but he wouldn't give her one. The door opened behind Bob and had turned to see a thin balding man about the same age as the un-introduced woman. She looked over her shoulder. "GUS!" she said excitedly. "This is mister Winkle!" Gus, who was in the act of chewing about half a donut, waved his right hand, which held the other half of the donut, and then waved his left hand, which had a greasy stained bag in it that said "Dippy Doo Donuts" on it. He chewed frantically and Bob was afraid he was going to inhale the half-chewed donut in his attempts to say something. "Bahn I'n gwad tu thee youff" said the man, spewing fragments of glaze and mashed dough for two feet. He pointed to a chair and then looked at the half donut he was pointing with. He looked around for some place to set it down and, apparently not finding a suitable place, crammed the rest of it into his mouth while he waved and made incomprehensible noises. He scurried to his desk and set the bag down, brushing flakes of glaze off his Hawaiian shirt and tan slacks. Pointing at the chair beside his desk with his now empty hand, he sat and gave a convulsive and obviously painful swallow. Luckily, the woman appeared with two cups of coffee, setting one in front of Bob, and the other in front of Gus. Gus gratefully picked his up and took a goodly mouthful, almost spitting it back into the cup due to the steaming heat. After another painful swallow that caused him to have to put his hand on the desk like a fifteen year old kid taking his first shot of rotgut whiskey, Gus Gunderson, Attorney at law, fell back in his desk chair and stared at Bob. "I didn't know you were coming this early." he rasped, his vocal chords still burning from the coffee. He cleared his throat painfully. "I thought I'd just drop in and see if you had time to see me," said Bob. "Thank you," said Gus, standing up and thrusting his hand at Bob. Bob took it, feeling the sticky residue of sugar transfer to his hand. Gus sat back down. "I mean it. Thanks for giving me this chance. I know this place doesn't look like much and all, but I know the law. It's pretty hard getting started if you don't go with one of the big houses." "How long have you been practicing?" asked Bob, more out of curiosity than to gauge Gus' expertise. "Six months." came the voice of the woman. She was sitting in her chair again, which had been swiveled to face Gus' desk. She was sitting on the edge of her seat, a slight look of worry on her face. "He had a good job, with regular pay and all, and like an idiot I let him talk me into letting him go to law school. Now we're in debt up to our eyeballs. You're the first person to walk in that door in three weeks." she said heavily. "Margie, hush up now," said Gus mildly. "Mister Winkle has problems of his own. He doesn't want to hear about ours." Oddly enough, they chatted about things in general instead of immediately diving into the "facts of the case". Gus had been a delivery driver for a uniform company, making stops in various places to deliver clean uniforms and pick up soiled ones. In the process he heard lots people complain about a variety of legal problems they had, and complain that they either couldn't find a lawyer, or couldn't afford one. When Gus had suggested the phone book for the first problem, several people said they tried calling lawyers cold, but were told that that office didn't practice that kind of law, or that an initial consultation would require four or five hundred dollars. Most people gave up, frustrated. So Gus had decided to become what he called a "people's lawyer". He went to school while Margie supported them both, working two jobs. When he got his diploma and passed the bar, he set up shop after announcing everywhere on his delivery route that he was going to be in business. He was sure that all those people would call him. But they didn't. Basically he and Margie weren't starving, but if business didn't pick up soon, they wouldn't be able to afford the rent on the office, cheap as it was. Margie had quit her other jobs to work for her husband, since that would hold down overhead. She was thinking of going back out into the work force soon if things didn't improve. "Well," said Bob. "From what I understand, it shouldn't be too hard to get some kind of settlement from the company. I just have no idea how to go about that. My great granddaughter had your card from the day of the incident, so I figured I'd see what it took to get things done through a lawyer." "I can do this," said Gus earnestly. "You leave everything to me. There could be a lot of money in this." "We'll see," said Bob. "This company has been pretty good to me for the last fifty years," said Bob. "If you'd call trying to get the policy declared non-binding when they initially had to pay off "pretty good", then I suppose you're right," said Gus. He opened a file. "And then, in 1959 they tried it again, this time dragging one Valerie E. Winkle, guardian of the defendant, into court." Gus grinned. "It seems that your fingerprints confirmed that Valerie E. Winkle was not, in fact, lying, as the company claimed, and that you were, in fact, who she claimed you were. Yeah, I'd say they've been saints about the whole thing," said Gus. "According to the records I got from the California Insurance Commission - on your behalf, of course - it turns out that what the company has been paying to you for fifty years was short by what amounts to thirty percent because they never adjusted the payout for inflation. That company already owes you three hundred and thirty thousand dollars by my count. Did they mention that to you when you were there?" "Really?" asked Bob. "Yeah," said Gus. "And the most interesting thing of all is that when I called their legal department and asked for detailed records of the payments to you - on your behalf as your lawyer, of course - I got the runaround. Now I may not have been in business for years and years, but I know they have to report that to the Insurance Commission, which is a State agency - the records are public - which means they have no reason whatsoever to withhold them from us." "So what does that mean?" asked Bob. "They're lying about something," said Gus firmly. "They've reported to the commission that they paid you X amount. I'll need to see your banking records to track the deposits. They didn't adjust for inflation. So where did that three hundred and thirty thousand dollars go? They had to account for it somehow. I mean the tables are adjusted for inflation automatically. Computers do that nowadays. So that money went somewhere. What I want to find out is where. Somebody in that company got over a quarter million dollars that belongs to you. This company has not been as nice to you as you think." "But they paid all that time," said Bob. "They're in the risk business. You were an odd case, no doubt. But when they couldn't just dump their risk, I think somebody set things up so that they could profit personally off of your tragic circumstances. I think that's why they quit trying to get the claim thrown out. There's somebody at that company who doesn't want all this brought out in the open. Maybe they even set that security guard on you on purpose!" Gus shrugged. "All right," said Bob. "Do whatever you think needs to be done. Tell me what you need from me and I'll get it for you. Here's the number of the phone I'm using. I'm staying in a cabin up in the mountains where nobody can find me." "I'd like to get you in front of their legal department as soon as possible," said Gus. "Your face looks positively horrible." he said, unaware of how strange that sounded to a complete stranger. "I want them to see what the pictures will look like if they let this go to court. Have you filed charges with the police yet?" "No, I told them I was going to wait until I talked to you." "I'll take care of that. It happens all the time. I know the cops hate it, but we'll have more leverage if there are criminal charges pending. There's no way in the world they'll want this to go into criminal court. Even if they deny any culpability in their employee's actions, he was on duty, on the payroll and doing his job at the time of the assault. They'll know they're toast." They went over everything Bob could remember. Gus had already gathered news reports and talked to people named in the papers as witnesses. He had Bob sign a release for medical records, and some other documents confirming they had a business relationship. When Bob asked how much he had to pay up front, Gus waved his hand and said "You raise your offer to me to twenty percent of what we recover and all I want right now is one dollar." Margie groaned, but didn't say anything. She happened to know that was something Gus had been wanting to do for six months. He read about it in a John Grisham book, and had wanted to get a one dollar retainer from somebody ever since. Betty arrived a little later. Margie promptly took her deposition. Then they all went out for supper ... Bob's treat. Gus said he needed to do a little more research and then he'd arrange a meeting with Amalgamated to start negotiations. Before he left, Bob whispered in Betty's ear. She dug in her purse and brought out a wrinkled one dollar bill. Bob took it and handed it to Gus, who beamed. ------- Chapter 14 Forty-five minutes later Betty dropped Bob off at the entrance to the hospital and said she'd be in after she parked. He walked up to the doors, looking for a handle, when the door suddenly moved by itself, sliding aside for him. He looked at it curiously and it started to close while he was still in the doorway. He jumped inside and stared as the door opened again. Shaking his head he went to the information desk, where he explained that the doctor who had treated him had asked him to come back for a follow-up examination. She took his name and her fingers flickered across her computer keyboard. "We don't do that here," said the woman smugly. "I don't understand," said Bob. "You had routine emergency room treatment. Follow-ups are supposed to be done by your own doctor." she said firmly. "But he told me to come back," said Bob helplessly. "I don't know about that," said the woman, making it obvious she doubted the doctor had actually said that, "but Doctor Adams is a very busy man. You need to go see your regular doctor." "I don't have a regular doctor," said Bob. "Doctor Adams is the first doctor I've had in fifty years." The woman looked at him strangely. "Am I being punked?" she asked, beginning to get excited. "That's IT, isn't it?" She looked around wildly. "Where are the cameras? I'm being punked aren't I?!" She began patting her hairdo." "Ma'am," said Bob, confused, "I certainly didn't call you a punk. I'm just here to see the doctor, because he told me to come back." When the woman realized she wasn't going to be on television, her mood changed back to that of a dour bureaucrat. "I already told you that's impossible. Do I need to call security?" Bob's hands were out palms toward her instantly. "NO!" he almost shouted. "You do NOT need security. I'll leave!" He turned about and fled as the woman picked up her phone anyway. As he ran toward the door he heard her say "Security?" Remembering that the door would open for him, he didn't slow. Except that the door didn't exactly open for him. He was looking over his shoulder and, in fact, it started to open, but he was moving much too fast. Just as he faced front again, he slammed into the door, hitting the edge of it with his face and sternum. Bob bounced off and sat down hard, his chest muscles paralyzed by the blow to his xiphoid process. The door, designed to be pushed open in emergencies or power failures, attempted to swing out, but it was a foot along on its sliding track and jammed instead. An alarm went off. Bob, unable to breathe, looked around frantically. Two people outside were standing and staring at him as if he were some madman. He saw Betty's shocked face behind them as she ran toward him. He got in a little piece of breath, that just taunted him, letting him know there was a world full of oxygen out there, but he could only access the barest sniff of it. He wavered drunkenly as he tried to get to his knees and a hand clamped down on his shoulder. He looked up to see a security guard and immediately crumpled into a fetal position, his hands covering his face. Bob was in a dreamland for a few seconds. His hands had covered his face automatically, thanks to the last incident he'd had with a security guard. While he couldn't see anything, he could hear Betty's frantic screams, which set off a couple of other women who screamed in sympathy with her, apparently. The security guard was shouting too, attempting to restore order, and the door alarm beeped insistently. The babble of voices and sounds overwhelmed Bob and his hands moved from his eyes to his ears as his lungs were finally able to drag in a complete breath. He concentrated on breathing for five more breaths until he was convinced he could breathe again without thinking about it. "HE'S BLEEDING YOU BASTARD!" Betty's voice broke through to his conscious mind and he opened his eyes. Through one of them the world looked fuzzy and red. He looked at his hands and saw they were bloody. He tried to wipe his bloody eye and hands stopped him. "Relax sir." came a deep male voice. "Help is on the way." "I don't need help." he croaked. "I just need to get out of here." "You're not going anywhere, sir," said the voice. "You people back off. Give this man room to breathe. Ma'am, calm down, he'll be taken care of in a few minutes." "Let me THROUGH, dammit!" screeched Betty. "That's my father!" By now a crowd had gathered, mostly gawkers, trying to see what the fuss was about. Comments began to fly ... things like "Did she say FATHER?" ... and "Sounds like SHE's the one who needs treatment." Then one enterprising person said "Hey, he looks like that guy they've had on TV ... you know, the one who slept for fifty years ... that Rip Van Winkle guy?" That, plus Betty's rash statement about Bob being her father broke the dam and soon there was almost a riot as people babbled and pushed to get a better look at Bob. The security guard tried to push them back and then grabbed for the radio at his waist, talking into it urgently. It took only four and a half more minutes and five more security guards to get Bob out of the foyer of the hospital and into a room they could secure. It seemed to Bob like it was an hour. Everyone else, including Betty, was denied entry. Tearfully she tried to explain, but she was mobbed by the ... well ... mob. Bob found himself facing three security guards, while the other two stood outside the door trying to restore order. "My daughter's out there," said Bob, holding a hand to his bleeding forehead. "Would somebody get her please?" It took him two more minutes to convince the three men that he was telling the truth. Since they didn't know what else to do anyway, they left one man with Bob and the other two went outside. A few more minutes passed in tense silence until Betty was brought through the door. Her dress was torn halfway open, three buttons missing, and her ample breasts were almost on full display. Her hair was a mess and she was still crying. When she saw Bob she almost attacked him and two security guards started to pull her off of him when he batted at their hands and said it was all right. Bureaucracy being what it is, it took another half hour before things got straightened out. Doctor Adams appeared and began barking orders as if he were a king, rather than one of a hundred doctors at the hospital. His word appeared to be law, though, and soon Bob was in a treatment room. "I'm SO sorry about this," said Adams, as he cleaned Bob's split forehead. Bob explained what had happened and Adams growled. "All she had to do was call me and I'd have explained." he said. "I just didn't want any trouble," said Bob. "I'd hate to see what happened if you DID want trouble." snorted Adams. "I'm going to put a couple of staples in this." he said, inspecting the wound. "Staples?" responded Bob incredulously. "Doc, I'm REALLY sorry I caused so much trouble, but come ON ... STAPLES?" Doctor Adams looked confused and then stepped back and chuckled. "Mr. Winkle, these are medical staples. They've replaced sutures in certain situations. It makes the wound heal with less scarring and they're a snap to take out once healing is well along. I'm not torturing you. Bob sighed and relaxed. "Staples!" he muttered. "Maybe I should have just stayed asleep." Doctor Adams looked thoughtful for a few seconds. "Look, I know this is the wrong time to talk about this, but the reason I wanted to see you again wasn't actually about the pepper spray. I mean I'm interested in that too, but the real reason is that you need to be studied." Bob held up his hands. "No." he said firmly. "I do NOT need to be studied. I know what happened to me is strange and all that, but I'll not become some guinea pig for the medical establishment." Adams crossed his arms. Then he unfolded them and ticked off his fingers as he talked. "First, you slept longer than any human known to science. Second, it wasn't a coma - your initial examinations showed that. I looked them up. Third, you suffered no ill effects to your musculature, which EVERY bedridden patient in ALL of history has suffered. Fourth, you did not age, mister Winkle. You didn't age one minute. All your tests, your appearance, your biology - all those things suggest you are exactly what you appear to be, a twenty-five year old male. But you're not, mister Winkle. You're a SEVENTY-five year old male in a twenty-five year old body. Mister Winkle, this is bigger than penicillin. This is bigger than the polio vaccine. Mr. Winkle, you very well could be the eighth wonder of the fricking WORLD!" He stopped for a dramatic pause, and then went on. "You don't have to let anybody do anything, but I wouldn't be surprised if the fricking GOVERNMENT decides you're a matter of national fricking SECURITY and locks you up if you don't! PLEASE! I'm NOT trying to threaten you. All I want you to do is enter into a formal agreement with me to let me do some research. We'll listen to your demands, and try to do this with as little upset to your life as possible. But you HAVE to understand that somebody is going to look into this. Wouldn't you rather it be someone you already know? Please?" Bob stared at the man. "Could the Government really lock me up?" he asked. "This is America," sighed the doctor. "The Government seems to do pretty much whatever it feels is necessary, whether people get hurt or not." "That's not the Government I remember," said Bob. "Well, except for World War two ... and Korea. But that was different. We needed to do those things." "I haven't the faintest idea whether studying you will result in new cures to old problems or not," said Adams. "But I know that SOMEBODY will think that you have the answer to aging, or some other problem we've been trying to deal with, and they'll do whatever it takes to get access to you. I mean look at the mob we just got you out of, and all THEY were, were curiosity seekers. Look what they did to your daughter, for pity's sake." "And if I sign some kind of agreement with you then the rest will leave me alone?" asked Bob. Doctor Adams' face went tight. "I won't lie to you. I can't promise that. But if you enter into an agreement with me, then at least we can fight in court to keep others away from you. And that I CAN promise. This is a teaching hospital, and you, sir, are a coup - I won't lie to you about that either. Our lawyers will defy hell itself to keep you for themselves. "What would I have to do?" asked Bob. Adams relaxed. After he stapled Bob's forehead, they talked for another hour, as Adams described the kinds of examinations and tests that would be needed. In the end, Bob agreed. Adams had already gotten a contract drawn up by the hospital legal staff and it took another hour to go through that while Betty leaned over his shoulder, asking questions and suggesting that they wait and talk it over with the family. By then, though, Bob wanted something on paper. His memories convinced him that the American courts were his best defense against abuse, either private or Governmental. It didn't occur to him that they weren't the same courts he remembered. ------- The first thing the hospital had to do for Bob was when he tried to leave. Word had spread that the modern day Rip Van Winkle was at the hospital. Descriptions of the incident had, as these things will, been blown completely out of context. Part of the crowd waiting outside for Bob were the same four news teams that had waited for him at the incident at Amalgamated. They were already reporting that hospital personnel had attacked Bob, preventing him from leaving the hospital so they could do mad scientist experiments on him, perhaps even dissecting his living body to see what made him tick. About the time Bob walked out of the examination room with Doctor Adams, the police were arriving to quell the riot at the front of the hospital. Hospital security and a staff lawyer were waiting for them, having been told not to interrupt the "examination" on pain of dismissal. The hospital administrator came huffing up to the group as plans were being made to try to get Bob out of the hospital through a side entrance. "Helicopter!" panted the top doc of the whole place. He was as out of shape as all the patients he continuously told to get IN shape. The first thing he did, between gasps was to ask Bob if he had an attorney named Gunderson. When Bob nodded he looked relieved and said that Gus had been in contact with the hospital demanding they protect Bob. Then he explained, pausing for breath every once in a while, that there was a life flight coming in with an accident patient. When it left, Bob was to be on it. There was a hurried consultation as Bob demanded that Betty go with him. Then there was a short delay as telephone numbers were exchanged. Doctor Adams didn't want to know where Bob was staying. "Somebody on the staff might leak it." he said. "I'll call you when we have something set up. Maybe we can use the chopper for that too." Then Bob and Betty were on the roof of the hospital as the helicopter landed and the victim was whisked to the elevator on a gurney. The pilot, an old Viet Nam vet, grinned as things were explained to him and yelled "Hop in, strap in, let's go for a ride." It was the first time either of them had been in a helicopter, and Bob himself had never been off the ground. He was fascinated by the whole experience. The nurse thrust a helmet at him and when he put it on, showed him how to press a button to speak. The pilot informed him that a news chopper was shadowing their flight. "I think they suspect something," said the pilot. "So we're going to go back to the barn like normal. From there we'll figure out how to get you home. It's an honor to meet you." "The honor's all mine." shouted Bob. He lowered his voice when the pilot winced. By the time they got to the hanger Bob had a new friend. He was told to wait in the plane as everybody else got out and it was pushed into the hanger. The news chopper was still circling above them. Once the helicopter was inside, though, the other one peeled off and flew back toward the hospital. Half an hour later Bob had six new friends. Betty gave her car keys to one of them, who went and got the car, driving it off right under the noses of the news crews that were still at the hospital waiting to get a statement from the hospital staff. Traffic was snarled for miles, the police completely overwhelmed by the situation. It wasn't under control until after Bob and Betty got back to the cabin. ------- Bob refused to let the public control his life. When he got back to the cabin he called Gus, who was completely incoherent for the first couple of minutes. He didn't know what to believe about the stories he'd heard on the news and his repeated attempts to convince the hospital legal staff that he really WAS Bob's attorney had only yielded their promise to "do the best we can under the circumstances." Not wanting to give him any fodder for a future lawsuit, they had decided only to call him back saying that Bob was off the hospital premises and safe, for now. Once Gus settled down, Bob told him he wasn't about to let the public, the Government or anybody else make all the decisions about what his life would be like in the future. He needed money to insulate himself, and he asked Gus to move forward with Amalgamated as soon as possible. Gus rang off and then called back in an two hours. He'd had to go to Amalgamated himself, in person, to serve them with the papers before they'd believe he was who he claimed to be - Bob's attorney. He described how he'd informed them that, until the debacle at their headquarters, Bob's life had been more or less normal, and that now he was being hounded like an Oscar-winning starlet who was pregnant with an unknown father's baby. He threatened dire consequences unless they agreed to a meeting with Bob. Their lawyers had been less than helpful, but finally agreed to a "non-binding exploration of options" the next day. Now Gus, instead of being nervous, was eager to proceed. "I've been waiting all my life to do something like this." he said excitedly. "I won't let you down." ------- Val almost didn't keep her date with Zack that night. That was because the women, like several million other people not only saw the news, but now had more news crews camped out in their yards as they tried, once again, to get an exclusive interview with some member of Bob's family about "the tragedy at the hospital", whatever that meant. Betty had been out of contact with them for the duration of the helicopter flight and wasn't able to call until they got back to the cabin. By then, the home phones were off the hook again and Betty had to call Fran's cell phone to get a hold of anybody. After that the word was spread by Fran, who simply got on her mother's mountain bike and pedaled over to each house. When news crews asked her who she was, she said she was collecting for the newspaper. She almost got caught when one reporter then asked her "What newspaper does Bob Winkle read?" She'd read things from the newspaper to Bob for years while he slept, but for the life of her couldn't remember the name of the paper. The reporter, from out of town though, bought it when she said "The Circleton newspaper, of course." She walked into the house as the excited reporter yelled "Did you get that?" to the crew. As such, when Zack drove up to Sunny's house, he groaned as he saw the Channel Five van sitting on the street. They'd know who he was, and start asking questions. When he had "No commented his way inside, Val stood looking at him still dressed in shorts and a halter top. "What do we do now?" she asked. Sunny stood uncertainly in the doorway to the kitchen." "I could arrest you for suspicion of harboring a known subject of interest in an ongoing investigation." he joked. "But then you'd be world famous in about half an hour." He grinned. "If you're not already world famous." "This is NOT funny." moaned Val. "I know." he said, serious now. "You want a rain check?" Val had been looking forward to this date for a number of reasons. In the first place she was attracted to Zack. In the second, she was an emotional whirlwind inside. The knowledge that Bob had slept with her grandmother and great aunts, and that her cousins had also been sexual with him in one way or another had resulted in a long session of introspection. She had decided that the reason she never could seem to find a boyfriend was because none of the men she'd met were as interesting as her great grandfather. Now, she realized, she HAD met a man almost as interesting. Her partially-explored sexuality was bursting at the seams, and she couldn't wait to find out what it was like to be out with an interesting man she was actually attracted to. "No." she said. "I do NOT want a rain check." "Be right back," said Zack and he walked out the front door. Sunny and Val peeked out the windows and saw him go over to the news crew. He did most of the talking and eventually the cameraman got into the van and slid the door closed. Zack came back to the door and let himself in. "I'm taking you into protective custody." he said, his voice serious. "There have been threats against you." "There have?" gasped Sunny. Zack rolled his eyes. "That's what I told them." he said patiently. "Oh," said Sunny. She smiled tentatively. "But there haven't been threats, right?" "Only aimed at her virtue," said Zack. "I'm one of the worst of those." he grinned. Sunny didn't smile. Instead she walked up to Zack and said "She's my baby girl. You hurt her and I'll tear your throat out." "Mother!" squealed Val. "I'm a grown woman. You're embarrassing me!" "Ma'am," said Zack gravely. "I promise you I won't lay a finger on her unless she asks me to." "This is a first date, young man," said Sunny, talking to a man only two years younger than herself. "You don't need to lay a finger on her no matter WHAT she says." "I understand perfectly," said Zack, his face straight. "Let's go, please?" moaned Val. "You'll need a bag," said Zack, smiling. "They think you're not coming back tonight." He nodded toward the front yard. "When WILL you bring me back?" asked Val. "If that van is gone, any time you want," said Zack. Val exploded into action, running from the room. Sunny advanced on Zack again. "Are you SURE she needs to be gone a whole night?" she asked suspiciously. "It was all I could think of off the top of my head," said Zack. "I'll be good, I promise." "Men are never good," said Sunny grumpily. Then her eyes took on a pleading look. "She IS my baby." she said. "And she doesn't have much experience with men. Please be good to her." Looking her straight in the eye - and meaning it - Zack said "I promise. Your daughter will come back here happy with me, one way or the other." "Thank you," said Sunny, her eyes wet. ------- Zack actually had good intentions as they left and got in his car. He had gotten them tickets to the symphony, not really knowing what a young woman liked to do these days. Most of the women he dealt with that were Val's age were hookers, or dope addicts, or on one end or another of a knife or gun. Quite a few were beaten with fists. While he knew that Val wouldn't be like those women, he didn't really know what she would want to do. The symphony seemed safe. Of course that was before she left the house in shorts and a halter top, with a small suitcase in her hand containing who knew what. He had second thoughts. He might not be a high brow kind of guy, but he knew you didn't go to the symphony dressed like that. Even if she didn't care, he knew how the other patrons would act toward her, and the last thing he wanted was for her to be embarrassed, or to draw undue attention. Thankfully, the deal he'd made with the news crew to leave her alone as she left and not follow them, made their exit quick and easy. He'd have to come up with some juicy bit of info to give them later, but that was never hard. Val turned in the bucket seat to face him. She leaned toward him and her cleavage screamed for his eyes to look there, but he kept them on her face. "So," she said excitedly. "I've never been in protective custody before. Where are you taking me?" "This is a date, remember?" he smiled. "I have tickets to the symphony." "I LOVE the symphony!" she squealed. Then she looked at the cleavage he had been so careful not to look at. "But I can't go like this." she moaned. "Why didn't you tell me before?" she said archly. "I'd have packed a nice outfit." "I guess I had other things on my mind." he said. As he said it he looked her way and despite his attempt at self control, looked directly at the soft, dark split between her breasts. His eyes took in bumps at the tips where the cloth of the halter top was too thin to mask her nipples. Val felt a thrill as she saw where he was looking. He really was handsome in a craggy, weather beaten sort of way. He was a real MAN, and being with him was exciting. That he noticed her as a woman was just icing on the cake. Still, she had to play hard to get. It was a rule. "I guess you did!" she said bringing her hands up to cover her breasts. "And I thought you were a gentleman." She smiled a tiny smile. "Oh, Valerie, I'm sorry." he felt heat on his face. "I'm not used to being around a beautiful ... I mean I didn't mean to look at ... Oh crap ... I'm just sorry." Val giggled and took her hands down. "Don't be silly. I knew you'd look. All men look. It's nice to know I'm attractive." she said. She turned and faced the front, leaning back. "Oh, you're attractive, all right." Zack said half under his breath. "Why did you want to go out with an old goat like me anyway?" Val ticked the reasons off on her fingertips. "I've never been out with a detective; I've never been out with a real man; I think you're handsome; I think you're interesting; and I think I'll have fun." "Well, I hope I don't let you down," said Zack. "You won't. I can tell," said Val. "Now stop someplace so I can get a dress and some shoes. Target will do, or any place like that." Zack pulled into the first mall they saw on the outskirts of Sacramento and let himself be dragged in by the hand. Her hand felt so small and cool and firm in his. He felt out of place immediately as she selected a store and pulled him in. Then she expertly reviewed the racks of clothing. "Black would be good for the symphony." she said and pulled something from the rack. "Ooo and it's on sale too! Wait here." she said. She took the dress into the dressing room and Zack waited. When the door opened and she stepped out she was barefoot. The dress had a modest scooped neckline. But that was the only modest thing about it. It clung to her like a second skin. He could count her ribs through it, so tightly did it hug her upper body. She was obviously braless, those nipples poking through the tight black cloth clearly. The waistline was tight too, but then the skirt flowed outward over her hips and ducked back in to form a tight black sheath in which her legs were wrapped. It looked like one of those dresses that would cause a woman to have to take smaller than usual steps. She whirled and he saw a slit along one hip that revealed her leg clear up to where he should have seen panties. Zack swallowed convulsively. With her raven black hair, the dress made her skin almost glow. "Well?" she said, putting her hands on her hips. "It's fu..." he stared to use the language he was used to around the station house. "I'm astonished." he corrected himself. Her smile made him realize that his prick was already half hard and was frantically sending signals for the heart to pump faster. She ducked back into the booth and came out with her clothes folded up. She shoved them at him. "Hold these." she ordered. "I need shoes." The saleswoman looked at Zack and then Val. Val smiled. "We're going to the symphony. I'll just wear it out." The woman shrugged and clipped off the tag, fastening it to ticket. She handed that to Zack and told him to give it to the cashier up front. Zack followed Val, shifting things from one hand to another. A wisp of blue cloth peeked out between the folded halter top and the shorts underneath. He lifted the halter top and saw panties. Slapping the halter top down to cover them he swallowed and realized there were beads of sweat on his brow. He turned a corner just in time to see Val bent over, facing away from him, stepping into low heeled black shoes. She used her finger to lever her heels into them, making her butt seem to wag at him. It was so tight across her slim buttocks that Zack could see the small depression just above where her cheeks started. She stood up and whirled, putting one foot forward and brushing her long straight hair out of her eyes. "They'll do." she said simply. Her hand was still holding her hair back. "Now, for the hair." she said. She went towards another part of the store and when Zack caught up with her she was deep in conversation with a sales girl. The girl reached for something and showed an open box to Val. Val nodded and said something, turning around. The sales girl gathered her hair behind her and took a silver half round piece of metal out of the box. She laid that over the hank of Val's hair and brought a long, slim silver shaft out of the box. She slid that into one side of the clip, under the hair and then through the other side. Standing back she looked at it. "Wait a minute," said the girl. "I think we can do better than that. Your hair is so straight and thick." She pulled the clip off and with deft hand movements plaited Val's hair into a loose French braid, replacing the clip. Handing Val a mirror and holding another one for her to look in, the girl said "How's that?" Val looked critically into the mirror, turning this way and moving the mirror that way. "It's beautiful." she smiled. "One more thing," said the sales girl. She hurried off around a corner and came back with a tube of lipstick. "Chantilly Lace" she announced, handing the tube to Val. "Trust me." she said. Val opened the tube and applied some lipstick, moving her lips in ways that astounded Zack. She looked in the mirror again and smiled. She turned to look at Zack. Somehow the lipstick made her lips look pink, but not pink, and red, but not red, and they sparkled somehow. Zack wanted nothing more than to kiss those full soft lips at that instant. "Well?" asked Val. "We have to leave," said Zack, moving the clothing in his hands down to cover his bulging cock. The sales girl laughed. "Good to go sister." she said. She waved her hand at the lipstick. "It's a trial sample." and handed Val the box that her hair clip had come in. "Have fun." she smiled. Zack was reaching for his wallet when they got to the checkout, but Val put her hand on his arm. "I have a credit card." she said, reaching for her shorts. "I'll pay!" said Zack in a half strangled voice. If she took those clothes her panties would show and the tent in the front of his pants would show too. He clutched her covering clothing to his groin with one hand and fumbled out his billfold. "You're so sweet," said Val. By the time they got to the car he was in better control of himself. He even remembered to let her into her side of the car. When he got seated he fumbled with the keys. "Thank you," said Val. "Oh no," said Zack staring at the fuel gauge. "Thank YOU. You're just flat gorgeous Val." he said. He handed her her clothes and the halter top fell off in her lap to reveal her blue panties. "Oops" she said lightly. Then she glanced sideways at him and smiled. "This dress is a little snug. I didn't want a panty line to show." "A little snug," said Zack, starting the car. "I'm in big trouble here." Val laughed. "You are the sweetest man!" she giggled. They didn't have time to eat before the symphony, so they took the scenic route, arriving twenty minutes early. Zack felt rumpled and wrinkled as he escorted Val into the hall. She drew stares from all the men and not a few women as she walked quietly beside him. Once they were in the semi dark Zack relaxed a little. Then she put her hand on his arm and talked to him. Just that little touch fired him up again. He made a firm promise to himself that he'd keep her in only public places. He didn't know how he was going to manage that, but that was his plan. ------- Chapter 15 The symphony was wonderful, as was the late evening dinner they had at a little Italian restaurant Zack knew about. It was past eleven when they finally got back to Zack's car. Val leaned back in her seat and sighed. "I ate too much. I'm just stuffed. I bet I look fat." Zack glanced at her lithe form in the clinging dress. "You're fishing for a compliment." he said. Her smile was only white teeth reflected in the light from the street light. "You caught me mister detective. I can't help it. You make me feel beautiful." "You ARE beautiful." he said firmly. "I know, but you make me FEEL beautiful." she said. "So, where are you taking me now?" "It's probably time to take you home." he said reluctantly. He figured the news van was probably gone by now. "Oh goody!" she chirped. "I've never been in a detective's house." "YOUR home, girl." he corrected. "But I'm in protective custody!" she pouted. "In the movies the detective always takes the girl in protective custody to a nice hotel, or to his house to keep her safe." "Believe me Val, if I took you to my house, safe is the LAST thing you'd be." "Mmmmm sounds interesting." she purred. "I've never done THAT with a detective either." "Girl, you're killing me." he said, fiddling with the keys. Suddenly she was up off her seat and on her knees, leaning over him. She fell sideways and he caught her automatically as her back hit the steering wheel. Those sparkling strawberry lips crushed against his as he pulled in air reflexively and her arms went around his neck, crushing her braless breasts to his chest. Her kiss was warm, soft and ardent all at the same time. He was surprised at the insistent attempts her tongue made to get between his lips and he opened them instinctively. Then he was lost in that kiss, and returned it hungrily. He hadn't kissed a woman like this in a long time. His hands went to her back and crushed her against him. She hummed through her nose as the kiss went on and on and she worked her lips and tongue against his. Finally she lessened the pressure, signaling that she wanted to break and he let her pull back. "Am I killing you now?" she whispered. "Or is it all better?" "I have to take you home." he whispered. "I can sleep on the couch." she whispered back. "I brought my jammies." "Your mother..." he protested. "I'm a big girl." she kissed him softly. "And you're not out with my mother. Besides, I can handle my mother." "I might do something stupid." he groaned. "I can handle you too." she said. "That's what I'm afraid of." he moaned. His imagination had her ... handling him ... quite nicely. "I thought that all men wanted was to jump a girl's bones," she pouted. Zack pushed her back against the wheel. It didn't do much good because her breasts were still pressing against his chest. But it got those lush lips far enough away from his that he could get a breath. "I LIKE you Val." he said. "I think I like you a lot. I don't want us to do something you'll be sorry for tomorrow. I don't think I'd like it if you were unhappy with me." "Then take me home ... YOUR home..." she said, her voice low, "or you'll find out what it's like when I'm unhappy." She waited a split second and added: "If it will make you feel better, nothing has to happen. I'm having such a good time. I just don't want to go back to Circleton right now." She got off of him then, going back to her seat and sitting primly, pulling her dress down from where it had crept up almost to her hips. Knowing what someone looking in the window might have seen only made it harder for Zack. She sat, looking forward silently. Zack got the feeling that they were at a break point. She had stated her mind. She looked tense, almost as if she were afraid of something. Rejection? She had come on pretty strongly. Maybe she was having second thoughts. Zack didn't know what to do. He started the car and pulled out, darting quick glances at her. She seemed to relax a little when they didn't head toward the edge of town. He tried to remember what his apartment looked like. He hadn't planned on bringing anybody home. He wasn't a slob, but then he didn't pick everything up all the time either. He worried about that for ten blocks and then gave up. She still hadn't said a word, and was looking out the side window as they sped by the night-lighted city. The first thing she said was when he opened her door after he parked. "Thank you." she said, almost formally. She had to remind him about her bag in the trunk. "My jammies." she said, turning to look at the facade of the apartment building. He got the bag and ushered her up the stairs. It was a walkup. He suddenly felt old beside her light youthful step as her short heels clacked on the steps. She took her bag from him and stood patiently as he unlocked his door. "I wasn't planning on bringing anybody home." he made the excuse as he reached in to flip on the light. "It might be a little messy." She ignored the clutter as he snatched up some clothing draped on the couch. She looked around, dropping her bag on the couch. "So this is what a detective's apartment looks like." she said to the room in general. She zeroed in on his collection of African art, consisting of paintings and wood carvings. One of his partners had been black and had introduced him to the exquisite carvings, most of which had something to do with fertility. In the same little shops where he'd found those, he'd seen paintings that were so lifelike they made the breath catch in his chest. They were of fierce warriors, or bare breasted maidens mostly, but there was also one of a lion that looked almost like a photograph, so detailed was it. The lion's eyes nailed the viewer to the floor, and you got the feeling that if you moved, he'd leap right at you. She stood and stared at everything. Once she reached out and traced a finger across the cheek of a long wooden mask with staring circular eyes and inlays of mother of pearl in designs Zack now knew marked the mask as a man's wedding mask. "They're beautiful." she breathed. "Thank you." he said. "I like them too." She turned and went back to the couch, picking up her bag. She looked around and headed for the short hallway that led to his bedroom and the bathroom. "It's bedtime." she said not looking back. "I'm going to change into my jammies." Zack stood there helplessly. He hoped for a long flannel nightgown. If not that at least a thick flannel top and bottom. What did young women wear for pajamas these days? The last thing he remembered was something called Baby Dolls. Baby Dolls would be dangerous. Just thinking about that made him stiffen again. He felt like he'd been stiff all night long and his balls ached. This was a mistake. Bringing her here was a mistake. He'd never get to sleep with her on the couch, only twenty feet away from his bed. In the other room Val was nervous. She hadn't shown it, but she'd been excited and nervous all night long. The shopping trip had started it. The symphony had melted her as she leaned against his strong arm, smelling the faint scent of some after shave he wore. The meal had filled part of her. She knew she was being silly, and that it probably wouldn't go well at all when she went back out there. She had dreamed and planned this night for years, not knowing what man she would be with. She knew her dream probably would fall apart, but it had gone amazingly well thus far. He was so cute when he was trying to be good. It made her want him even more. His kisses had been electric and his hands on her had made her whole body tremble. When she'd gotten off of him and sat back down, waiting to see what he would do, she was wet down there. She was afraid he'd smell her arousal. She was even more afraid he'd take her back to her mother, a little girl after all, being taken back home to mommy. Her relief when he'd headed back into town had been so strong she'd had to stifle a sob. She was proud of the role she'd played thus far, proud that she'd been able to pull it off with what she hoped was flair. She didn't want this man to see her as a girl. No, she wanted him to look at her like a woman. She knew he wanted her. She also knew he was trying not to. She put on the garment she'd brought for this part of the dream. She stood up, took in a great breath and tried to relax. She WAS a big girl now. She could do this. She reached for the doorknob. ------- Zack was picking up books from where he'd dropped them. He read three or four novels at the same time, unable to stay interested in only one. He'd picked up a beer bottle and thrown it in the trash. He picked up a glass and an empty Styrofoam soup container from the end table, where he'd left them after eating last night. He was trying to think of what he could cover the couch with when she came down the hallway. It wasn't a flannel nightgown. It wasn't any kind of flannel. He gaped. What he saw was a thin string crossing high over each hip, connected to a roughly triangular patch of lavender cloth that tried to cover her pussy. Nothing else. His professional mind noticed she had used the lipstick on her nipples, and they now matched her lips. Those nipples perched on paler areolas that were only a shade darker than the breasts they lay against. She had left her hair in the braid and her neck looked impossibly long and thin as she stepped out of the darkness of the hallway and into the light of the living room. "I like to sleep cool." she said, her voice low. "Do you like my jammies?" The glass dropped to the floor with a thud from Zack's nerveless fingers. He felt his knees going and sat on the couch heavily. "That's not fair." he rasped. He could feel his heart thudding insistently in his chest. There was a roaring in his ears that he knew from his job was a result of blood rushing to his brain. It was common in people who were experiencing overwhelming emotion, such as someone about to commit murder in a fit of passion. Sometimes they couldn't hear what was being said to them at that moment because of the rushing noise in the ears. She stood and looked at him, her head tilted slightly, like she was examining something on a shelf. His hands fluttered to his lap, to cover his complete, iron hard, ready-to-go, very insistent erection. Her breasts thrust from her chest and looked rock hard, like they had been chiseled from fine granite. They didn't move as she bent over and picked up a throw pillow from the end of the couch Zack wasn't sitting on. Instead of tossing the pillow to the chair across the way, she turned and walked to it. It was a thong. That slim cord of purple went around her back, just above the split of her buttocks and another slim cord slid down into that crack, disappearing completely. She didn't drop the pillow in the chair, she bent over, her left foot taking a small step to the side. The shape of her pussy lips, cupped lovingly in soft purple cloth became visible. She looked over her shoulder at him as her braid slid off her back and dropped in front of her. "Should I put this here?" she asked, her voice completely innocent. Zack was a hard bitten detective. He knew people and he knew manipulation. He used it all the time. He hadn't manipulated this girl ... no this woman. He hadn't had to. He knew he was being played. She had obviously studied how to do these things to a man ... had practiced. She was rock steady, a vamp in action, a slut begging for it. But Zack also knew that this woman was no vamp ... no slut. She was acting like one, but he knew better. He'd spent a little time with some of her family members, and THIS was not what that family had taught her. His brain responded to the seduction she was obviously trying to pull off, and he actually regained some control he had lost as his mind whirred. Why was she doing this? What did she hope to gain? What was her angle? She was legal. He knew that. He'd run her name through the system. She hadn't gotten so much as a parking ticket in either Sacramento or Circleton. She was in college, studying interior design - he knew that from their talk at dinner. She was acting like an extremely high class hooker. But she wasn't a high class hooker. He knew that. It was an act. That gave him more control. He still wanted her. He'd be crazy not to want her. But he was no longer helpless. "There is fine." he said, proud that his voice was steady. "I have an extra pillow in my bedroom." He wanted to grin, but kept his face blank. "You want a sheet to cover the couch?" THAT got her. He saw her tense up. It made her lovely buttocks jump. She stood up and turned around, her cheeks pink and a frown on her lovely face. Man! She was gorgeous. Her facade cracked. "Zack Simpson," she said, her voice strong. "I'm NOT sleeping on that couch and you KNOW it." Zack felt his balls tighten and his prick leak. He forced a tight smile. "I thought we agreed you were going to sleep on the couch." he said smoothly. She had teased him. Now it was his turn. Her face fell and she actually looked hurt. He could see her eyes glisten suddenly, and knew that they were about to overflow. He realized on the instant that she was serious about her seduction. She was no longer acting the role. She was suddenly vulnerable. That made his heart thump again. This girl wasn't a pro ... an actress. She was sending too many conflicting signals. He suddenly realized she WANTED to do this, but was on the verge of being terrified. He had to do something, but he was still worried. He stood up, his knees working again. "Come here." he said. She looked startled, but took a timid step toward him. He kept his eyes on her face, hard as that was. He didn't try to cover his erection, but she was looking at his face. When she took only a baby step more he stepped toward her and reached up to slide his hands along each jaw. She tensed. "Why are you doing this?" he asked gently. Feeling silly he leaned forward to kiss her on the tip of her nose, and then on her forehead. Her eyes widened and her hands went to his waist. She didn't push. He had reversed roles on her. She had been in control, but suddenly wasn't any more. She also didn't say anything. Zack let his hands slide down each side of her throat to her shoulders, and then smoothed his rough hands down to her elbows. He moved them to her thin waist and had to slid them between her arms and where he wanted to touch her. Her eyes, staring into his, still glistened, but no longer threatened to overflow. He slid his hands up, his thumbs feeling the ribs he'd been able to count while she wore the dress. They ran into the outside swells of her breasts and he stopped, his thumbs pressing gently there. She took a deep breath, but still didn't say anything. Zack didn't either, just staring into her eyes. He could get lost in those eyes. His thumbs moved on their own, making tiny back and forth movements, stroking the sides of her breasts. The tip of her tongue flicked out, wetting her still shiny lips. For a split second Zack thought she was acting like a virgin, but he knew she wasn't. She was too practiced to be that. Why she'd picked him, he didn't know, and she wouldn't say, but her smell was making him crazy. He leaned forward to kiss her, this time on the lips, but was just as gentle. She almost surged against him, her hands sliding to his back and then up as she kissed him back hungrily. Then his control fled as his body responded to hers. They tried to eat each other's lips, their tongues clashing and licking. Her hands came around to his shirt and fumbled with the buttons. He broke the kiss, biting her lower lip and sucking on it before letting go and leaning back. He pushed her hands away from the second button. "Bedroom." he ordered. She jumped at the tone of his voice, but obeyed instantly, turning and actually running to the room she'd seen when she went into the bathroom. He followed, shedding the shirt and his belt, kicking off his shoes in the hallway while trying to watch her bouncing buttocks as she ran. His pants were undone and unzipped when he turned the corner to see her lying on the bed, flat on her back, legs straight and arms at her sides. Gone was the vamp, just as suddenly as she had appeared and something jarred in his mind again. He pushed that away as her hands came up to arrange the pillow under her head. She stared at him and her hands went to lie gently on her stomach. His training told him it was a defensive posture, but almost naked like she was he ignored that. He pushed his pants down, afraid of tripping on them if he just dropped them. Stepping out he then reached for his boxers and pushed them down too. Standing up he exposed what she had done to him. All she did was wet her lips again. He stopped to remove his socks and then kneed onto the bed, expecting her to either move over or spread her legs. She did neither, lying almost stiffly, though her hands moved to her sides again. He had to straddle one of her legs, getting one knee between hers and leaving the other outside as he loomed over her. She was breathing heavily now, her breasts heaving as if she'd run some distance. Again he saw something like fear in her eyes, but ignored it. She couldn't be afraid. It didn't fit with her other actions. On all fours he went for more kisses. Her response was gratifying as her hands came up and slid through his hair, pulling his face against her. When he kissed across her cheek and down to her throat she moaned softly and arched her neck to give his lips room to explore. He kept going, down to her shoulder and then lower to the swell of her left breast. Now her legs opened for him, as his lips neared that pale and pink nipple. It was stiff, hard, rubbery between his lips as he sucked it in and her chest heaved upwards off the bed. Her hands still entwined in his hair pulled hard again as he sucked, and lightly nibbled the little nubbin. He paid some attention to the other breast before going between them to start lower. He found he was actually shaking as his lips got to her belly button and he stopped to probe it with his tongue. She wiggled under him and her hands suddenly left his hair and slammed down on each side of her body. Her legs were spread enough now that he could crawl between them and he did so, kissing down over her flat belly to where there should have been hair. It was bare and the next thing he felt under his lips was the little slip of purple that covered where he wanted to kiss and lick and suck next. Making himself wait, he nuzzled through the fabric with his nose, digging it in, pressing it between her lips as his fingers found the strings on her hips and began inching them downward agonizingly slowly. Her moans and other sounds came more raggedly now and her hips moved jerkily, sometimes down, or to the side, almost as if she were trying to get away from him. He leaned backward and up, still pulling on her panties. They stretched to the breaking point on her still spread legs and her knees finally came up and together in front of him, like she was going to deny him after all. Her feet were an inch from his chest. That let him pull the garment up to her knees, though, and she pulled one leg away from the others, pulling her foot out of the panties. That leg dropped like a stone, spread wide, while the other stayed in front of him, the panties just below her knee. She didn't pull that leg up and he let go, letting the panties hang there. She flopped that leg back down and raised her head, looking at her now wide open pussy below him. His prick jutted out, a foot above her sex. But he wasn't ready for that yet. Well, he was, but again he wanted something else first. He wanted to see what an orgasm looked like and sounded like with this gorgeous woman. He ducked his head suddenly and drove his tongue between her pussy lips, pressing with his nose where he thought her clit might be. Val was in complete overload. She had never been naked with a boy before, much less a man. She had bared her breasts before, and they had been played with and sucked at, but not like this man did it. Always before she had been rushed ... had to push them away ... didn't want to go as far and as fast as they wanted to go. Her decision to give herself to this man ... to become a woman with this man ... robbed her of her normal reactions to what he was doing. And what he was doing was driving her absolutely crazy. When his tongue left her nipples and reached her navel and pressing inside, she felt a massive cramp in her internal muscles under and slightly lower than where his tongue was. She felt a gurgling rumbling feeling in her pussy, like her stomach was growling, and felt moisture seeping down between her ass cheeks. It would have been embarrassing, except that she was in so much ecstasy that she couldn't take time to be embarrassed. Then, when he took her panties off, she had to do something she'd never done before. She had to spread herself open to a man. Part of her was impatient to be rid of the barrier to what she wanted. Part of her was scared to death. Then his face had gone between her legs and another new thing burst upon her already saturated emotions like a bomb that was all light, and no sound. Zack wasn't ready when her hips slammed up mashing her pussy into his face and she let out an agonizing long groan. She had already been soaking wet, and now his face slid back and forth in a spurt of juice that almost got in his eyes as it shot out of her pussy. He sucked and swallowed her nectar, amazed that she was having an orgasm already. He couldn't see anything except her shaved mons, but her body was rigid, and he could feel as her fists rose and fell, hammering the bed beside her hips, almost hitting his spread fingers. He solved that problem by sliding them under her butt, resting his weight on his elbows, and pulling her pussy against his mouth as he found her clit and sucked hard at it. He had a fleeting fear that the neighbors would call the police because of her wail as she strained up against him, and then suddenly she went totally limp. It was time. Zack lifted his dripping face and took the time to push it into the bedclothes between her legs. It didn't help much - she had soaked the bedspread under her buttocks. Then, in one continuous movement, he crawled forward, fisted his prick and slid it all the way into her in one long, smooth lunge. Zack's brain registered the sudden fleeting resistance to his entry, that vanished so soon his brain wondered for a split second if it had really been there. She was so tight as he slid in, and so hot and wet that he almost lost it on that first lunge. He hadn't been with a woman in several years, and had never been with a woman like this. Then his brain registered her anguished cry of pain as what was had obviously been her hymen was ripped to shreds and she was fully impaled. He looked at her face, which was a grimace of pain. Her hips writhed beneath him and this time it was obviously an attempt to get away from the thing skewering her. Zack pulled out instantly, and looked down. His cock dripped onto lips that were pink in a way that wasn't just the color of flesh. His prick too had a pinkish tinge. "You said you weren't a virgin!" he said in shock. He started to get to his knees and her hands gripped the flesh and hair on his chest. She panted back at him. "As I recall, ... what I said was... 'who says I'm a virgin?' ... I didn't actually TELL you I wasn't a virgin." she got in a deeper breath. "You should have told me." he moaned. "I did it all wrong." "You did exactly what I wanted you to do." she breathed, gripping his chest so hard it hurt. He leaned down a little and she relaxed her grip a little. "I wouldn't have done this if I'd known." he accused. "I know." she said. "But I'm not a virgin any more, so would you PLEASE put it back in? I want to do this." "Are you sure?" he asked. For answer she reached for him and aimed him back into her pussy, pulling until the tip touched. "Maybe just a little slower." she said. This time he played, sliding in and pulling out, going a little deeper once in a while, sometimes leaving it there and sometimes pulling it out again. He never pulled completely out, watching her face to learn how deep to go. Soon her hands were on his hips, trying to pull him farther than he wanted to go. "You're teasing me." she panted. "You want more?" he asked. "Yesssss" she hissed. He gave her what she thought she wanted and her eyes opened wide again at the pain. As he tried to pull back her nails gripped his hips. "NO!" she barked. "Leave it there ... let me get used to it." He let it soak, leaning down to kiss her and then remembered her nipples. He sucked at them until her hips began jumping. He pushed harder, grinding the base of his cock against her clit and she started making noises again. He started slowly, but soon it was apparent that she had adjusted to his size, and that the pleasure was overriding the pain. He moved faster then, trying to pound her clit with each trip into her velvety depths. He felt himself running into the back of her channel and each time she yipped. She had not done this before, and her hips didn't work in concert with his until he'd been feeding her passion for five or ten minutes. He was fascinated to watch her face, the face of a woman having her first man, and that was what kept him from blowing his balls to pieces. But when her jerking got in time with his, and when her vocalizations started sliding back up the scale on the way to a full fledged scream, and her pussy began nipping and milking his prick as she tumbled into another loud orgasm, he gave up. He sank down onto her, pinning her to the bed with his weight and covered her mouth with his own as she screamed into it. His hips gave four or five rabbit-like thrusts that punished her clit, and he felt the sweet release of semen rushing through his prick and into her belly. He froze, feeling each of five or six strong jets his balls offered her. He kept the muscles of his upper body rigid, knowing that if he relaxed he'd crush her. Her acceptance of his gift was transmitted when her legs came up and slammed down on his buttocks as she squeezed him deep into her. It was the best thing either of them had ever done with a member of the opposite sex. Twenty minutes later they still hadn't said anything. They had touched, and kissed and kissed some more, communicating only with gestures and touches. Finally Zack broke the silence. "I've always wanted to know something, and I've never had the opportunity to ask anybody." "What's that?" asked Val. "When, exactly, does a virgin decide to go on the pill?" "Beats me." she said, rolling away from him to stretch. "I mean when did YOU decide to go on the pill?" "I didn't." she said rolling over and playing with the hair on his chest. "You didn't." he said. "That's right." she said. She said it as if she had said she decided not to buy a particular pair of shoes or something. Zack stared at her. "Diaphragm?" She stared back. "Uh uh." Zack felt something between a chill and a thrill course through his body. "Are you telling me we just had completely unprotected sex?" "Well, you could say that," she said. "But I prefer to think of it as completely amazing, knock your socks off, hit it out of the ballpark lovemaking that might just put a bun in my oven." "Why would you do that?" he asked, quite seriously. This girl practically owned him at this point, and he was man enough to admit it to himself. But there had been no talk of commitment, or responsibility or even a second date, for that matter. He knew quite well that he'd try to see her again, and would be devastated if she refused, but what she had just let him do to her was something incredible, to his mind. She smiled. "I told you I never did that with a detective." He rolled to face her, his face serious. "I mean it." he said. "What if I made you pregnant?" "Well, in the first place I'd prefer to say WE made me pregnant." When he frowned and took a breath to complain she put a finger to his lips. "OK, I'll explain." His frown vanished and was replaced by a look of intense interest. As she talked she played again with the hair on his chest. He'd almost shaved that off, thinking it made him look like a bear. He was glad now he hadn't. "OK, it's like this." she started. "Almost all of my friends - girl friends - are not virgins. They talk about how they lost their virginity like it was some trial, some strange rite of passage in which nothing much is expected and it doesn't mean anything. They sort of got rid of something they didn't want, if you know what I mean. They threw away something that was a hassle for them. It just seemed to me that it could be better than that. I mean you can only do it once in your whole life, right? So I decided not to let that happen to me. I decided that, when it happened, it would be with the right guy, at the right time, under the right circumstances and that, no matter what it was like I was going to make it as good as possible. I wanted to remember it for the rest of my life as something precious and special." Zack smiled. "A lot of girls used to think that way, but they planned to have that experience with their husband, on their wedding night." She looked at him quite seriously. "That was then. Nowadays, people don't get married for the right reasons. And marriage doesn't mean what it used to. Now marriage is like a contract, or the thing to do to get a tax break, or to be with the right person to put you on top or something." "You've lived in California too long," said Zack. "But we digress. We were talking about you, and why you decided that I was the man to divest you of your troublesome maidenhead." "No we weren't." she said. "I was telling you how I felt about losing my virginity. I didn't say a word about why I picked you to do it." "Quite the contrary," said Zack, dropping into interrogator mode. "You said you'd only do it under the right circumstances, with the right man. Ergo, I am the right man, because, as you may remember, I just plucked your flower." Val rolled on top of him and gave him a long, wet kiss. Her breasts on his chest felt like velvet. He hoped she'd stay right there for years. But she didn't. She rolled back and began playing with his hair again. "I was kind of in love with a man." she said. "I can't tell you too much about it because then you'd have to go arrest him and that would make me very unhappy." "He abused you as a child?" asked Zack, his voice heavy. "No." she said firmly. "He never touched me. He didn't even know I was interested in him. At least I didn't think he knew. As it turns out, maybe he did. But that's not the point. The point is that he was kind of the man of my dreams, you know? But I couldn't have him. I knew that the whole time. I wanted him to be the knight in shining armor who carried me away and on whom I bestowed my precious gift. But I knew he couldn't be that man. And when I was in High School and later college, every boy I went out with got compared to him. They didn't do so well. So I just waited. I wasn't in a hurry. If I got too horny I could rub my troubles away. One of my friends said I didn't know what I was missing. She was right. So I didn't miss it." She stopped to run one fingernail around his nipple. He squirmed as it tickled. "You were about to explain why I suddenly seemed to appear to be a knight in shining armor?" he prompted. "It wasn't like that at all," said Val. "I looked at you, and for the first time I saw a man who was AS interesting, and AS sexy, and AS disturbing to be around as the other man was. Then I found out that other man had taken a lover. He hadn't betrayed me, exactly, but he bruised my dream. That tipped the scales toward you." "But you hardly even spoke to me before we went out." he said. "I can't explain that." she said. "I looked at you and I knew." "You knew before we went out that we were going to make love on our first date?" he asked incredulously. "No, silly. I just knew it would be you. Remember? With the right guy, under the right circumstances? Well, when you've found the right guy, a smart girl plans ahead so that if those circumstances pop up she's prepared." "Yes, that was my reference to the pill." he said. "A smart girl would have been prepared ahead of time, or at least demanded the man use a condom." "You still don't get it." she sighed. "This was a special time, involving a special man and a special gift to that man. I didn't want anything artificial to be involved. I didn't want to think about anything but the emotion of the moment. I guess you could say that this was SO special to me that if it meant I got pregnant ... that was part of the experience. And if I didn't, then fine ... even better, but only maybe. After all, the Making of a child is something pretty special too." "Most people save that for marriage too." pointed out Zack. "OK, if it makes you feel any better, we'll get to know each other better, and then when you think YOU have fallen in love, let me know and we'll get married and have a baby." "You're being silly now." he chastised. "You can't talk about marriage on a first date and expect to be taken seriously." "I'm going to try to explain this one last time." she said patiently. "I chose you, tonight, to do something special with me that we can only do once in our whole lives. If that's not the kind of commitment that makes a marriage strong, I don't know what is. I admit I haven't had any good role models when it comes to marriage, but I'm not stupid either. So, if you're good enough to be the man to have my virginity ... you're good enough to be the man who fathers a child on me. It's simple really. I had to love you enough to let you have my flower. That means I automatically love you enough to let you make a baby in me ... under these particular circumstances, on this particular night." "So this was a one night stand?" he frowned. "You try to make it one and I'll hunt you down like the dog you are." she said. "OK, so let me get this straight. You like me. And you picked me to give your virginity to and because I'm special enough to get that gift, I'm special enough that you'll have unprotected sex at the same time. But only tonight." He looked hopeful. "Close enough for Government work." she said, shaking her head. "What about tomorrow night?" he asked. "I'd be happy to go out with you again tomorrow night." she smiled. "But would we have sex?" he asked. "I have no idea. Maybe. I like having sex with you." she said. "Would it be unprotected sex?" he asked. "Not if it's going to freak you out." she laughed. "I'm trying hard to get this." he said. "Work with me a little longer." "A little longer. I'm feeling horny again, so hurry." she smiled. "You'd let me have unprotected sex with you ... if I wanted to." "Yes." she said. "And that's because you have strong feelings for me." "It's because I love you enough to let you get that close. If I'm not willing to have a baby, why would I even want to have sex?" "Because it's fun?" he tried. "But if you only do it for fun, and don't care about each other, then it doesn't mean anything." she said. "Look at it this way. If I don't like a man enough to have his baby, he's not getting between my legs. Period. Ever. I don't do it for fun. I do it to share something special." Zack's eyes widened as he got it. He was suddenly awed at the gift he had been given. For in fact, she had actually bestowed on him her most cherished gift. He had been found worthy, and it shocked him to the core. "I understand." he said. "And if I love you enough to want you to finish college, then I'll use something to keep you from getting pregnant." "Exactly." she said. "Or you'll let me go on the pill or whatever. But it will be a decision made for a reason based on love, and not just because that makes sex easier. Sex should never be easy. If it's too easy it gets taken for granted and then doesn't mean anything." "I can't believe I'm talking about being in love on a first date," said Zack. "There are lots of kinds of love," said Val. "Maybe someday we'll feel some of the others. I hope so. I really REALLY like you Zack." "Do you like me enough to transfer to a college in Sacramento?" he asked. "Yes." she said. "Do you like me enough to keep seeing me ... like this?" "Oh yes." she said. "Your mother is going to be really REALLY mad at me." he said. "My mother could have gotten you first. You snooze, you lose. She's too late." "You know what I mean. Your mother's worried about you. She made me promise to take good care of you." "You did take good care of me. Except for the one little time when it hurt a lot. But before that and then after that you were VERY nice to me." Zack knew when he was beaten. Instead of arguing about her mother, he started kissing her again. Within minutes he was teaching her how to be on top. Her braid had come mostly loose, so she took the clip out and leaned over to let her hair slide all over his chest and face. He, in turn, pinched, rolled and pulled her nipples until she exploded. She wasn't as loud when she was on top, which was good, because he couldn't reach her mouth with his. As she wiggled and lurched through her orgasm she moaned. "Make it spurt. I like it when it spurts." Zack didn't even try to tell her you didn't spurt on command. Instead he thought about what she was offering him again. That ... made him spurt. ------- Chapter 16 The next day, when Betty dropped Bob off at Gus' office, they took Sally along. She and Betty were going to go what they called "quilting" while Gus and Bob did their thing. After the women left, Bob got in Gus' car, a ten year old Buick. It was about three different colors, but ran well. Amalgamated had a parking garage in the basement of the headquarters building and the attendant was recalcitrant initially. Gus had foreseen this possibility and handed the attendant a piece of paper with an internal company phone number on it. "Call that number." he said calmly. "Tell them Mr. Gunderson and his client are here." This was a different Gus Gunderson than Bob had ever seen before. Not only did he have a fresh haircut, he was wearing a clean, pressed suit. It wasn't expensive, but it certainly wasn't a Hawaiian shirt either. Bob had decided to appear as he now dressed routinely. He wore something called a Guayabera shirt, which he liked because it had a multitude of pockets on it, and loose tan slacks. He wore sandals. He'd examined what he called "Keds" with a detailed fascination but wouldn't buy any. He said they looked like monster feet, with their garish colors and clear impact absorbing heel sections, to say nothing of the ones with lights on them. He joked that it took a size twelve shoe to fit a size ten foot, what with all the added things that had happened to "Keds". So he wore sandals instead. The cut on his face from hitting the hospital door had healed to a scabby line. He still looked like he'd been beaten half to death. Gus' appearance wasn't all that was new. His whole attitude seemed to have undergone some kind of metamorphosis, from a nervous, panicky loser to a calm, suave businessman. Bob liked the sunglasses Gus was wearing because they made him look mysterious. For the first time, Bob felt a little better about his choice of attorneys. An hour and fifteen minutes later, Gus led Bob out of the building into the parking garage with his hand on his elbow. It was needed, because Bob could hardly walk. Bob kept saying "But ... but ... but..." and Gus kept saying "Walk Bob, act normal Bob ... just walk ... there you go ... good." Gus Gunderson had indeed been waiting his whole life for this case, and he had practiced arguing it so many times that he could do it in his sleep. He'd never known what the details would be, but he phrased his argument in broad terms. "The damage you've done my client is inestimable!" he'd barked. "My client's life has been catastrophically ruined!" He'd bored in while the opposing lawyers had hemmed and hawed. "You saw the news yesterday about what happened at the hospital ... don't tell me you didn't. You saw what the media is doing to my client, and all he did was go in for a simple checkup to see if the physical damage YOU people did to him was healing. Just look at him. He's a broken man, who woke up in a strange world and tried to do the RIGHT THING!" Gus stood up. "And what did it get him? A faceful of mace, almost blind for life and wrenched shoulders that may NEVER heal properly!" "It was pepper spray, not mace." mumbled one of the opposing team. "Well, whatever it was, it was totally unprovoked and it got my client into the public eye in such a way that his WHOLE FAMILY is hounded by the media daily, and has been ever since you assaulted him!" A small man with slicked back hair had been sitting at the end of the table since the "conference" started. He had not been introduced. He suddenly raised his hand and spoke. The Amalgamated lawyers went silent and looked at him as one. "We'll offer him a hundred thousand dollars. He drops all charges and signs a waiver for future interest." Gus smiled, a thin smile and sat back down. "Mr. Henderson, I believe?" he addressed the man, who blinked at being recognized. Gus turned to Bob. "This is Riley Henderson, CEO of Amalgamated Indemnity of America." "CEO?" hazarded Bob. "Chief Executive Officer," said Gus. "He's the boss." "Oh," said Bob. "How do you do." he said automatically. Gus put a hand on Bob's elbow and took a deep breath. "Mr. Henderson, I appreciate that you have a responsibility to your stockholders. I even appreciate that you took the time to attend this meeting. I'm sorry to find that your time was wasted, though. I can see that our time was wasted as well. We'll see you in court - both criminal AND civil. Come on Bob, we're leaving." Gus stood up and Bob looked up at him. Henderson raised his hand again. "How much?" he said, his face calm. Gus sat back down as if the only reason he'd stood up was to stretch, or smooth his pants. "Well, let's see. Amalgamated made a profit of thirteen point four billion dollars last year. Your stock price is up fifty cents after dropping thirty cents the day after Bob was assaulted in your building. I personally think that was a result of speculators who thought that Bob's fame would bring value to your stock. On the other hand, when word gets out that we have filed a hundred million dollar suit against this fine company, those speculators might just want to dump their stock in what stock traders call a "precipitous manner." Bob almost leapt out of his chair and Gus' hand on his elbow clenched hard, keeping him in his seat. He went on like nothing had happened. "Now you know, and I know that a measly hundred million is pocket change for a company like this. You probably have twice that much in your various petty cash accounts. I also personally take umbrage at your previous offer. I thought that with you here, we were at least speaking frankly. I see I was wrong. Gus stopped talking. Bob looked around. His mind was still reeling. A hundred MILLION dollars? What in the world was Gus thinking? Then he remembered Gus saying something about billions in profits. Bob's mind went numb as he remembered how, in High School math class, the teacher had tried to help the students understand how much a million was. He still remembered her nasal twang as she said "If you had a million dollars, and you bought a brand new Chevrolet Fleetmaster coupe every day, at eight hundred and forty-five dollars, it would take you three and a quarter years to spend that million dollars." The whole class had gasped. The teacher smiled. "And, if you put it in the bank and drew interest on it, you could buy a new Fleetmaster convertible every week, and never ... NEVER run out of money before you died." In Bob's mind ... THAT was how much a million dollars was. And Gus had asked for a hundred times that much. Bob heard a voice and tried to concentrate. Henderson was talking again. "Mr. Gunderson, I appreciate your zeal to protect the interests of your client. But no jury in the world is going to award you a hundred million for a face full of pepper spray and I think you know that. I think you're grandstanding, mister Gunderson, and I'm going to call your bluff. We have the assets to drag this out in court for as long as we want to." He waited, but Gus didn't say anything at all. He just sat there. Finally Henderson went on. "Now I realize that our first offer was, perhaps, a little disingenuous of me. I apologize for that. I have certain doubts as to the veracity of mister Winkle's status over the last fifty years in the first place, but that's another issue. Perhaps I let those doubts influence my judgment. Mister Winkle, regardless of who he really is, and what has happened, was still involved in an unfortunate incident on our property. Let's just cut to the chase, what do you say? Ten million. Take it or leave it," he sneered. "You should be happy with thirty percent of ten million ... mister Gunderson." Bob's breath stuck in his chest. It was just as if another door had slammed him in the solar plexus. He felt Gus' hand squeezing his elbow again, but it didn't matter. He couldn't have said anything anyway. Gus said "I'll need a few minutes with my client alone. That's considerably less than what I think a jury WOULD award in a case like this. But Bob is the injured party here." The other men had filed out and Gus had looked at Bob. "I can get at least triple that in court." he said. "You're insane!" gasped Bob. "I got you an offer of ten million dollars," said Gus calmly. "Does that sound insane to you?" "YES!" said Bob. His mouth was suddenly dry. "I told you Bob, you're a famous man. You're worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and that's just for movie and book rights. This thing that happened to you here could hurt this company and they know it. They're short changing you because they think you're a country bumpkin. Me too, for that matter. But if you want me to, I'll go all the way and we'll crush them. Bob thought about it. Then he thought a little longer. There was a discreet tap at the door, that Gus told him to ignore and didn't answer himself. Finally he looked at Gus. "If we take the ten million, will you still be my lawyer for other things?" Gus smiled. "You bet your sweet ass I will mister Winkle." Then it hit Bob that, if he said so, he would walk out of this room a millionaire ten times over. He felt his heart thrusting inside his chest, and his knees went weak. He felt faint. "I don't feel very good." he gasped, trying to get control of himself. Gus had opened the conference room door and walked out with Bob then and there. Bob's knees were genuinely weak, and Gus played on that. "He's having a relapse, so we need to go. I'll have to get back to you on your offer. I need to get him to the doctor." By the time they got to the elevator, the offer had doubled, with the proviso that it had to be accepted within twenty-four hours or it would be withdrawn. Gus just waved and grumbled that the elevator was too slow. Thus is was that Gus helped Bob out of the building and into the parking garage. Bob could almost walk normally by then, though his head was spinning. "Did I just hear that man say twenty million?" asked Bob. "You did indeed," said Gus, steering him to the car. "I might be able to buy me a new car." he said. His reference to trying to spend millions on cars brought back the teacher's example again and Bob started laughing, almost hysterically. Gus jerked him. "Don't laugh here. We're probably on tape. They think you've suffered a relapse, so act like it." Bob giggled under his breath, and was finally able to say "I AM suffering some kind of relapse, and it was THEM who made me this way. Twenty ... million ... dollars! And then he giggled some more. ------- Back at the office, Margie was on pins and needles. She loved her husband, but she'd never actually seen him in action. She saw him there in the office, and he talked to people in a reasonably professional way. Whenever he was in court she had to watch the office, though. And he'd never had a conference with the kind of sharks she knew just populate that insurance company. She had visions of him coming back a broken man, and her having to take two jobs again to take care of him in a nursing home while he constantly popped some high priced drug for slobbering basket cases. She was surprised, therefore, when he and Bob came into the office with a bottle of wine. She looked at him. "It went fine." he said calmly. "We thought we'd celebrate." He handed her the wine. "They negotiated?" she asked breathlessly. "Not very much," said Bob. "They were pretty adamant about ... what did you call it Gus? ... ripping me off?" "Yeah, they tried to slam him all over again. I thought I was going to have to call 911 or something," said Gus, sitting down in his chair and leaning back. "But you said it went fine," said Margie. Her hands were shaking. "Well, we settled for a lot less than we could have gotten in court, or I should say we WILL settle for a lot less in..." He looked at his watch. "about eighteen hours from now." "What do you mean?" begged Margie. "Why eighteen hours?" "They gave us twenty four hours to give them our answer." he said. "I kind of want to wait until the last minute, just in case they decide to raise the ante." "HOW MUCH!" screeched Margie. "Only twenty million," said Bob, trying to be off hand about it. He was still shaking too. "Twenty..." Margie's eyes rolled up in her head and a thirty dollar bottle of wine crashed onto the floor as she fainted. Both men jumped to help her as the wine soaked into her pants and blouse. "I'm going to have to put this on my expense account Bob," said Gus. "You should have let me tell her. I'd have known to tell her to put the bottle down first." "Buy her TWO new outfits," said Bob, grinning. "I was talking about the wine," said Gus, laughing. ------- Bob decided to wait to tell Betty about the settlement. He wanted to be able to tell all the women about it at the same time. So, when she and Sally showed up at Gus' office to pick him up, and asked how things went, he just said "Fine. I think it's all going to work out." Margie would have given it away, had she been there, but once she'd regained consciousness from her faint and settled down after almost attacking Gus with kisses and hugs, she'd scurried off to go home and change clothes. Gus played along with Bob. "Yeah, it could have gone better, but it was just a first time meeting. I'm pretty confident that it will turn out in our favor." Betty might have realized something was up by how almost fanatical Bob was about making love to her that night in the cabin. He was practically insatiable, taking her three times in the space of two hours, but she was so happy with her own feelings that she just savored them, bucking up against her father as his prick spewed deep inside her again and again. Finally she pushed at him. "We'll never be able to get up in the morning if you keep this up." she sighed. "So ... who needs to get up in the morning?" he responded, tweaking one of her nipples gently. They did sleep late, and were roused by a knock on the door. Betty lifted her head off her father's shoulder and looked blearily at the door. The layout of the cabin was pretty much one room, except for the bathroom and some storage spaces. Then her eyes widened and she rolled frantically out of the bed, shaking Bob and telling him in a hushed whisper to get up and lie down on the couch. When he did she threw a sheet over him and pulled on a dressing gown before going to the door. "Who is it?" she called. "It's June." called her sister. Betty threw open the door in surprise. "What are you doing here?" she asked in surprise. "You've been up here alone with Daddy for almost a week," said June, barging into the cabin. "All by yourselves." she added with a dark look. "I'm here so you can go home and mow your lawn." Betty grinned. "My lawn doesn't need mowing." she said, closing the door. "Yeah, well, you've been getting your ashes hauled up here in the mountains for a week, and I mowed MY lawn, so I think it's time we switched." she blurted. Her cheeks darkened a little. But Betty just laughed. "OK, OK, I get it." She leaned in close. "He was an animal last night. He might not have anything left." Bob had sat up when he heard June's voice and the sheet had fallen to his lap. "What's he doing on the couch?" asked June, a note of disbelief in her voice. "We thought you might be one of the neighbors," said Betty. "There's a positively delightful young woman named Sally who's been coming over here. And you won't believe who she's related to! Remember Denny? That nice boy who searched us at the hospital?" "You're kidding!" squealed June. "Which one? The tall one or the short one?" "The tall one," said Betty. Then they were chattering like sisters always chatter when they get together and haven't seen each other for a while. June said that Martha was having trouble with Sunny after Val had gone out with "that nice detective". Sunny had suddenly become very conservative in her views on sexuality and was convinced that the older man had taken advantage of her daughter. Then the details were discussed of why Sunny was so convinced. Bob stared as he heard the way Val walked the next day mentioned, and her bouncy happy attitude. The kicker was when June said "You know what it was like when one of us had been with Daddy. We could always tell, even if we weren't in the house when it happened." Unlike Sunny, however, both great aunts approved heartily of the alleged union between Zack and Val, despite the difference in their ages. Their past might have accounted for that, since they had had an "older lover" all their lives. Martha, said June, was also happy about it, figuring it was high time that some great grandchildren came along - Martha's, not Bob's. Bob just sat and listened as the social byplay of the late 20th century was displayed for him in ways most people wouldn't have thought was odd at all. But listening to these older women calmly discuss the sexual activities of their younger relatives was something that would never have happened like that when Bob went to sleep. That Sunny seemed to display more conservatism about all this just jarred him more. And the thought of Val, beautiful, slim Val, being made love to by Zack, reminded Bob of what it had been like to make love to Becca. In short, their chatter turned him on and made him stiff. He had to go to the bathroom, and since these two women had seen him this way innumerable times before anyway, he stood up and walked to the bathroom, his stiff cock like some kind of leash, leading the way. June and Betty looked over at him. June said. "That lawn of yours needs mowing pretty badly little sister. You need to get to it." Betty just laughed and began to get dressed. ------- Bob thought about the possibility that Sally might wander over in their direction that morning, but June was hot to trot and pointed out that there was a lock on the door. He spent two hours making her wiggle and sigh and buck her hips up against his as she moaned through her orgasms. She told him how much she loved him and what they were doing over and over. It would be impossible for a man not to feel proud under the circumstances, odd thought they might be to an outsider. Finally she lay napping, splayed naked on the bed as Bob stood over her and gazed at her. She was beautiful. He almost wished that all that spermy mess around her pubes might make another baby in her. But he knew it was unlikely at her age, and probably wouldn't work out for the best anyway. Looking at her naked form though, even after coming in her twice, made him want to climb aboard for another trip down passion lane. He smiled at the thought. It was truly a different world than he'd gone to sleep in. He left her there to sleep while he got dressed and went to Sally's to beg some breakfast. He explained that his middle daughter had showed up after a long drive, to relieve Betty, and that she was taking a nap. "What, you can't cook for yourself?" asked Sally laughing. "Men didn't do that when I lay down to take that nap." he said defensively. "Oh yes they did," said Sally laughing. "That's a myth. Men have always cooked." "Well, what can I say?" he grinned. "Any man would much rather have a beautiful woman making him breakfast than do it himself." "Oh, so now you're flirting with married women!" crowed Sally. "You know, my little brother is coming up here later today. I might just have to tell him there's a masher in the community. I could have you arrested, you know." she laughed. "Well, he's searched all my female relatives." noted Bob. "I suppose that would mean his female relatives would have to search me." He leered at her. "You're horrible, Bob Winkle," said the woman, but there was a twinkle in her eye. "You'd better be careful about coming on to women. You're not a bad looking guy ... for your age!" She giggled. "And there are probably a whole lot of women ... married or not ... who would love to hop in the sack with a famous guy like you." Bob sighed and sat down. "Well, we all have our problems in life." he said. "I don't know if I have it in me to take care of more than ... oh, I don't know ... a couple of hundred?" Sally laughed again. "You just behave yourself around me. I love my husband too much to cheat on him, even if you are cute ... for a geezer." Her laughter tinkled as she started banging around pots and pans. Bob watched her move. She was a nice woman. He'd read a little of her book, and she knew how to write, despite her poor self opinion. That she struggled with it only meant that she wanted everything to come out just so. He thought about what Gus had said the day before. "You know, somebody told me that there could be a lot of money in a book about me." he said. Sally cracked an egg into the frying pan and nodded without looking at him. "That's probably true." "Somebody would have to write it. I'm not an author. I can't even read my own writing," said Bob. Sally looked over her shoulder. "Nobody writes by hand any more, Bob. That's what computers are for." "Yes, but I don't know HOW to write a story. I mean I know a good one when I read it, but I couldn't write anything like that." "You might be surprised," said Sally, reaching for another egg. "I bet you could write a book like that," said Bob in an offhanded tone of voice. "You're a pretty good author." Sally went stiff. Then she turned around, the egg still in her hand. "Don't tease me about that Bob. It made me feel good when you flirted with me, but don't tease me about my writing." Bob looked at her. "I wasn't teasing." Her mouth opened and her eyes went wide. Then her mouth snapped shut. Neither of them said anything and she turned back around. When she cracked the egg it almost exploded, splattering outside the skillet. "Damn!" she said, stepping back. Her right hand was slimy with egg. She reached for a towel, wiped her hands methodically, and turned to face him. "Are you actually asking me to write your story?" There was something like fear in her eyes. "I don't know any other authors." he said. "I've read some of your book. You're good." "But I've never been published." she said. "I can't do something like that." "Every author had never been published before they got their first book in print." pointed out Bob. "And that will give me a chance to flirt with you even more." He grinned. "I told you not to tease me Bob." she said, her voice firm. "Sally, just think about it, all right?" he said. "I have a job. Writing a book like that would take almost a full time commitment. No. You need a real author Bob, somebody who can tell your story in a way that grips people's hearts. You're unique, and interesting, and sexy and ... you're all kinds of things, and all those things need to be communicated onto the page. There will be a hundred famous authors begging for the chance to write that book Bob." "I can pay you," said Bob. "You're not LISTENING to me Bob," said Sally, frustration tingeing her voice. You need a REAL author." "So, let me get this straight," said Bob. "You're not up here writing a book like you say you are. You're actually just getting away from your job, and your husband, and pretending to be an author because it's more fun than all those other things. Right?" "That's not fair!" said Sally heatedly. "I know I can write a good book ... but not THAT book. Bob, listen to me, you're an important guy. What if I write a bunch of drivel and all the critics hate it, and nobody buys it, and the world forgets all about you?" "I can think of worse things than the world forgetting all about me." grinned Bob. "But I wouldn't want your first book to bomb just because it's about some guy who took a really long nap. Maybe you're right. A book about me would be boring." Sally's eyes got huge. "You're an IDIOT!" she shouted. "You haven't got a single brain cell in that thick head of yours! You're the most interesting man I've ever MET! EVERYBODY in the whole WORLD wants to know about you! Why do you think the media is hounding you like a preacher caught with a hooker?!" She started to splutter, making incoherent sounds and waving the spatula in her hand like she was leading the Philadelphia Orchestra. It was at that moment that Denny banged through the door and shouted "Where's my big sister? I'm STARVING here!" Sally's face turned toward him and her mouth opened and closed several times. Finally with an explosive "MEN!" she threw down the spatula and ran crying for the bedroom. Denny looked at Bob, puzzled. "What'd I say? All I said was that I was hungry. Hi mister Winkle. What's up?" Bob grinned. "I just asked her to write a book about me. And to make me breakfast." he added. Denny's face split into a smile. "Really? Hey that'd be a GREAT idea. She's a good author. I've read most of her book and it's really good." "She doesn't seem to agree with you," said Bob. "She kept telling me she can't do that." Denny straightened up, almost like he was coming to the position of attention. He suddenly looked all cop. "We'll just see about that." he said, stalking toward the bedroom. He turned the knob and pushed the door open. "Sis?" he yelled. "Don't come in here..." came Sally's strident voice, "I'm changing clothes!" "So? I've seen you naked before," said Denny, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. There was some yelling. What Bob could hear was mostly "Get OUT!" and things like that, but Denny did not reappear and eventually the voices subsided to a low rumble. Bob got up, retrieved the spatula and flipped the eggs, adding two more for Denny and scrambling them in with his, which were a little overdone by now. He saw a loaf of bread and a toaster and dropped two slices in. Toasters hadn't changed all that much while he slept. There was already a pot of coffee brewed, in one of those delightful glass holders, and he poured two cups, topping off the one that Sally had been drinking from when he arrived. He wandered over to the open laptop, where Sally had been working on her book. He'd taken typing in school, the only male in the class. It had been either that or chorus, and he couldn't carry a tune to save his life. The layout of the computer keyboard wasn't all that odd to him. There were a number of keys that didn't mean anything to him, but with two fingers he was able to skip down a couple of lines and begin typing. "All he wantred to do was tak a map. Just to lier down for a bitr. But when he woke up the woprld had gon away and everythng waxs differnt." Bob sighed. His fingers were too big and hit two keys at once. He couldn't figure out how to make the little flat line on the screen go backwards. Well, actually, he could make it go backwards with a little arrow key, but it didn't change anything. All his errors were there, apparently permanently. And some of the words didn't look right. Spelling had never been his strong point. He was still poking at keys when the bedroom door opened and Sally came out. "What are you doing?" she said, her voice almost snarling. "Trying to write." he said. "Breakfast is ready." He bit the tip of his tongue in concentration as each index finger stabbed at keys. Sally walked behind him, lifting her coffee cup for a sip. Then she looked over his shoulder. "That's awful." she said flatly. "I'm not an author." he said, still stabbing keys. "How do you make this stupid thing back up and erase things?" "You get up and let somebody do it who has a brain in their head and simple coordination." she growled. He stopped and looked up over his shoulder at her. His eyes lit on her breasts, which were at eye level, and then slid up to her face. It was obvious that she saw where his eyes had been. "Flirting with me right now won't get you much." she groused. "But you'll do it?" he asked, hopeful. "To get you two off my back I'll say this." she said firmly. "I'll give it a whirl. I'll start out and see how it goes. If I don't like it, you get yourself another author." "Deal," said Bob, smiling. "No, that's the way it's going to be," said Sally firmly. "Now get away from my computer before you break something." Once she had resigned herself to starting the project, Sally closed the notebook and sat down with pen and paper. Bob decided not to mention that no one wrote with pen and paper any more. She started firing off questions to Bob about his life. Initially it was biographical stuff, where he was born, when, what his family was like, what the town was like. She took copious notes, asking for odd details, such as his first kiss, and the first money he made doing anything outside the home. Denny sat and ate at first, and then just sat, listening, as the interview went on for three hours. Finally Sally dropped the pen and rubbed her face with her hands. "Now, get out." she said calmly. "Both of you." she added. "I have work to do." Denny, though he had come up to the cabin specifically to see his sister, stood up and offered to show Bob where some good hiking trails were. When he found out all Bob owned were sandals, he put hiking on hold. As they walked towards Bob's cabin, he told Denny that June might have "gotten comfortable" to take her nap, and that he should check before they went in. June woke up upon Bob's entry, and then fussed when he told her there was a visitor and that she needed to get dressed. She wailed about her hair being mussed, and that she needed a shower. Bob wouldn't tell her who it was, since he was sure she'd freak out, but he got her presentable and then invited Denny in. June did get pretty excited when she recognized the man who had searched her so intimately at the hospital. Then, when she demanded to know why he was there, Bob had to explain about Sally. The men joked about how they had gotten Sally to agree to write Bob's life story. June was aghast that Bob would have "browbeaten the poor woman" into something she didn't feel capable of doing. That led to June demanding to meet Sally, but neither man wanted to disturb her after their abrupt dismissal. In the end, Denny drove Bob and June down the mountain to get Bob some hiking footwear. In the car, as they chatted, June began to gossip a little. "You know you made a big impression on my granddaughter." she said to Denny. "Oh really?" he smiled. "I can understand that. Which one is that?" "Becca," said June. "Her mother is scandalized." She smiled smugly. "Gidget called me on my cell phone while I was driving up here. She was all upset. Apparently Becca can't stop talking about you." "Well, most young women don't go through that kind of experience," said Denny diplomatically. He remembered the girl clearly ... had even mentioned her specifically to his sister when he spun the tale for her about the hospital incident. She looked to be in her late teens or early twenties. He had enjoyed running his hands over her hard body. He had enjoyed the fantasy of taking her out too, but that was unlikely to happen. There had been something gripping about her smile ... her attitude in circumstances that would have made most women either uncomfortable or angry. "I know I won't forget it for a while," said June. "And now that Val has gone out with that detective, Becca thinks she should be able to go out with you. That's why her mother is scandalized." Denny thought about the idea of being out on the town with the auburn haired beauty. It looked good in his imagination. "Why would her mother be so against it?" he asked, taking a hairpin turn carefully. "She thinks you're an ... older man," said June giggling. "I'm every bit of twenty-six." he said, peering ahead. "That's the whole thing," said June. "Becca is only eighteen and Gidget seems to think she should live at home like a nun until she's your age. She's having fits just about Becca going off to college. She's afraid Becca will do just what she did when she left home." "And what was that?" asked Denny, paying attention mostly to the road, which switched back several times rapidly in this section. "She hopped in bed with every man she could find, that's what," said June. "Your daughter?" asked Denny, his attention diverted from the road. "She was a classic round heels," said June. "She doesn't know that I know, but when she couldn't tell me who Becca's father was I knew it then. She was in college when she got pregnant. You know how those college boys are." "Yes, Ma'am," said Denny. "I went to college myself." June spluttered. "I didn't mean to say ALL of them are sex fiends ... but ... oh anyway, Gidget is afraid the same thing will happen to Becca." It was quiet for a while. Then June said "But if she had a nice boyfriend back home..." Denny laughed. "Are you trying to set me up with your granddaughter? Me? An old college sex fiend who hasn't had a steady girlfriend in four years?" "Why ever in the world has that happened?" asked June, her busybody nature coming to the front. "You're a perfectly nice boy, nice looking. I should think the girls would be crawling all over you." "Well thanks," said Denny dryly. "When you're a cop, trying to make rank and stay alive, you sort of leave some things behind I guess." "You should ask Becca out," said June firmly. "She's a delightful young woman and cute as a bug in a rug. I think you two would be perfect together." "June," said Bob heavily. "Leave the man alone." June blushed and leaned back from where she had thrust face up between them. "I was just trying to help." "I thought you said Gidget didn't want to encourage her." reminded Bob. "Oh pooh!" said June. "Gidget doesn't have the sense of a field mouse. She could have had any man she wanted, still could, for that matter. But after she got pregnant with Becca she just gave up. What kind of woman does that? If she had her way Becca would end up an old maid!" Denny frowned. "Sounds to me like she was in love with Becca's father, and he wouldn't do the right thing. That might explain it." "In love?" laughed June. "She was too young to know what love was." "Oh, I see," said Denny smiling. "And how would your husband feel about his granddaughter dating a twenty-six year old man?" "Oh, I'm not married. Never have been," said June before she thought. "Oh, I see. So you managed to get knocked up as a single woman, and then your daughter went off to college and got knocked up as a single woman too, and now Becca wants to go to college. Hmmm, I'm not sure it would be safe to take her out on a date. The women in your family seem to have a tendency to end up ... in the family way." He grinned into the rear view mirror at a distinctly uncomfortable June. "I think you need to pay more attention to the road young man." came the reply from the back seat. "Are you going a little too fast?" Bob laughed. ------- Chapter 17 During the rest of the shopping trip June didn't say anything more about Becca. She did ask a lot of questions about Denny, thinking she was prying subtly. It didn't occur to her that she was talking to a trained interrogator, and that he could see right through her. He started returning the favor, asking her personal questions. It was when he found out she had more children than Gidget and asked who their fathers were that she told him he was being nosey and settled into an uncomfortable silence in the back seat. Bob shook his head as Denny and June outfitted him with walking shoes, complaining that they looked huge on his feet. But when he took a few steps he was amazed at how resilient the soles were, and how comfortable they were to wear right out of the box. In his day each pair of new shoes had to be "broken in" before they were comfortable at all, or before you could wear them without getting blisters. When they got back to the cabin June insisted on meeting Sally. Bob said he was going to fix something to eat and Denny took June to the other cabin. An hour later June came back by herself. She started taking her clothes off as soon as she closed the door. "Again?" asked Bob, smiling. "Of course." she said, unashamed. "Talking about Becca made me horny." Ten minutes later Bob suckled at a stiff nipple as he gently slid his rampant member into June's pussy and she gave a moan of relief. "Is this what you want Denny to do to Becca?" he asked, pushing hard and mashing her cervix with the tip of his prick. "We're not here to talk about what he does with Becca." she moaned. "You pay attention to what you're doing with me." Bob paid attention, having a blast watching as June reached her pinnacle twice in five minutes. "Ohhh I love doing this with you Daddy." she moaned as she relaxed after her second orgasm. "Do this with me forever, pleeaase?" she whined. "What if I knock you up again?" he asked, feeling his own orgasm approaching. "Then I'll have another beautiful baby of yours." she beamed. "But I wouldn't count on it. My periods are getting pretty spotty these days." "So, should I find myself a younger woman?" asked Bob, thrusting harder. "No!" she barked. "You're mine ... ours ... Ohhhh Daddy, I love it so much when I feel that up inside me." She cooed as his prick belched ropes of hot spunk into her pussy and he sagged down onto her ample breasts. She stroked his back with her fingertips and kissed his cheek several times. When he rolled off of her she rolled up onto her side and looked at him, putting her hand on his chest as he caught his breath. "You make beautiful babies, you know." she said softly. "We shouldn't hog you. You should be able to make more beautiful babies with some lucky woman." "Whenever one of you girls is around," Bob panted, "There wouldn't be anything left to make any beautiful babies with." Her laughter tinkled. "You know how to make an old woman feel good, I'll say that for you." "You're still just a girl to me, sweetheart." he said. "I have a feeling you always will be." "Even when I'm gray and baggy?" she teased. "Even then." he said seriously. "Then I suppose we can share you with some fertile young woman." she said. Becca's announcement that she wanted to go out with Denny had gone pretty much as June had described it, though not exactly. "Mom, I'm eighteen," said Becca firmly. "I'm an adult. I can go out with whoever I want to." "You may be recognized as an adult by the State of California," countered Gidget, "but you're still an inexperienced girl. That man is too old for you. You have no idea what men are like." Becca, who remembered the delicious feeling of her great grandfather's prick sliding in and out of her delighted pussy, thought she knew EXACTLY what men were like, but she couldn't tell her mother that. Instead she tried to downplay the sexual aspects of the date she wanted to go on. "Mom, it would just be a first date. He's a policeman, for pity's sake. If you can't trust a policeman, who CAN you trust?" "He's a man." her mother said stubbornly. "They all want the same thing. They want to lie and make a baby in you and then leave you defenseless to raise it." "I can't believe you really believe that," said Becca. Her mother had never talked about Becca's father, except to say that she was madly in love with him when he made her pregnant, and that she was never sorry she'd had Becca. Now, in the heat of argument between two women, new information, slim though it was, had come out. "Sweetheart," said Gidget. "Relationships are hard even for adults. You need to take it slow and be around boys your own age. They want the same thing, but at least they don't lie about it. I'm sure Denny is a nice man, but he's a MAN, Becca, not a boy. While they all want the same thing from a woman, Men know how to push a girl's buttons so she can't think." "Is that what happened to you?" asked Becca, sure that it was. She remembered her lesson with Bob quite well. Gidget looked at the light of her life. She didn't want to confess to her stupidity as a girl in college, to the fact that she had been played by her suave college professor, that he had crushed her heart so badly that she hated all men for a long time after that. She saw herself back then as a weakling girl who had been cast adrift in the big, bad world. She'd fought tooth and nail to make her own way, embracing the women's lib movement, sure that she didn't need a man for anything. Still, there had been long, lonely nights when all she could think about was what it would be like to have one of the brutes in her bed, pressing her to the mattress, making her feel that lovely zing she missed so much. It came to her suddenly that she didn't know all that much about men, and that embarrassed her too. She'd worked with them, socialized with them, and turned probably a hundred down when they made the inevitable move that showed they were all pigs who just wanted sex. The trouble was, she wanted sex too, all those years, just like they did, and that confused her. "Something like that." she answered belatedly, as she saw Becca waiting for an answer. "I don't know what to tell you any more. I thought my life was ruined, but obviously it wasn't. You're perfect, and I have a good life. Part of it was that I didn't want to turn out like my mother." "Why?" asked Becca. "Grandma is a wonderful woman." "I know. She's so happy all the time it makes me sick," said Gidget sourly. "But she had three of us, and none of us know who our father is, and that just convinced me that men only want one thing and never take responsibility for the wreckage they create." "So I'm wreckage?" asked Becca just as sourly. "Of course not." barked Gidget. "I couldn't imagine the world without you in it. "It's just so confusing when you bring men into the picture." "You know what I think?" asked Becca. She knew her mother hadn't gone out with a single man all the time she was growing up. "I think you need to get laid." Gidget's reaction was satisfyingly explosive. She was so aghast she was speechless. Becca put up a hand, smiling. "See Mom? Women know how to push buttons too. It's not just men. We all do it to each other. The trick is knowing what to do when your buttons are pushed." Gidget was thinking of something appropriately harsh to set her daughter straight with when she had the epiphany that her little girl wasn't so clueless after all. The harsh words died in her throat. "And you think you can control it when your buttons get pushed?" she asked. "Probably not." admitted Becca, thinking back to how she felt when she seduced her great grandfather. He had even resisted and she couldn't wait to go forward. "But I can at least choose what kind of man I want to be with when all those buttons get pressed. And I think Denny is a nice man. I'd like to get to know him better to find out for sure, but I'm pretty sure he's a good guy." She kept going. "You told me once that you loved my father. I don't know what happened, because you won't talk about it, but if you loved him, and you love me, then maybe what happened wasn't so terrible after all." Gidget was stunned. Becca had noticed something she had known down inside, but never admitted. Her life HAD been pretty good, all things considered. Other than all those lonely nights, she really couldn't complain about how things had turned out. She tried to imagine what life would have been like if her professor HAD gotten a divorce and married her. Now that she was older, she knew in her heart of hearts that he would have had affairs with other coeds. He'd had two affairs while she was pregnant with his child. She had just chosen the wrong man, that's all. Her dreams of love and happiness had overshadowed her common sense. And there HAD been men in her life who HADN'T hit on her. She had seen appreciation for her in their eyes, but they had been polite enough to mask that interest because she didn't return it. She was still convinced that most of them wanted to bed her ... but some of them hadn't acted on that urge. "I suppose it wasn't at that." she admitted. "So I can ask him out?" asked Becca eagerly. Gidget felt herself stiffen and relaxed intentionally. "I'm still worried. He's so much older than you. And regardless of how strong you think you are, a man has a way of getting under your skin ... if not your blouse." Gidget blushed. Becca felt the crack in her mother's obstinacy weakening. "What if somebody else went with us?" Would that help you not to worry so much?" "A double date?" asked Gidget, suddenly interested. That might actually be a good idea. Becca grinned. "Mom, people don't 'double date' any more. That's called hanging out. You're showing your age." Gidget, sensitive to her age and the fact that while men still looked at her hungrily, it wouldn't be all that long before she was sure they'd stop, felt a surge of recalcitrance toward her daughter. Then she smiled. "OK, hanging out then. You can go if one of your aunts hangs out with you." "MOM!" Becca was horrified. "You want me to take Aunt Polly or Aunt Sunny on a DATE with me?" Gidget smiled a satisfied little smile. She had unwittingly hit on the very thing that would cancel the date. "That's right, young lady. One of them has to go with you. Then and ONLY then will I approve." "I'm an adult, mother," said Becca acidly. "I don't have to HAVE your approval." "Yes dear," said Gidget sweetly, "but you're my baby too, and I know you won't do anything that would hurt your poor old mother." She was remarkably chipper as her mood improved. She was just sure the date would never happen now. "Now, I have to go do some shopping. We'll talk about this later." Gidget hummed to herself as she drove off. She might be getting up there, but she still had it when it came to dealing with her daughter. Back at the house, Becca picked up the phone. Her mother might not have felt nearly so chipper if she'd have seen the smile on Becca's face. ------- Becca knew instinctively that her Aunt Sunny was out of the picture. That left Polly. She figured that her first hurdle was getting Aunt Polly to agree to go with her under any circumstances. Once that was accomplished, and she had no idea yet whether she could pull it off, then the next step was to ensure that someone else came along to occupy Polly's time so she'd be too busy to keep a close eye on Becca. It was a somewhat nebulous kind of plan, without any firm foundation. For that matter, she didn't even know if Denny would consent to a date. But, as young girls do, she proceeded with step one of what could result in a complete train wreck, and did it with both enthusiasm and the conviction that everything would work out perfectly. "Your mother said what?" asked Polly when Becca had explained. "She says I can go on a date with this guy, but somebody ... either you or Aunt Sunny has to go with me." "Why on earth would she say that? Who IS this man you want to go out with?" "You remember at the hospital? When we got searched? You remember the tall one named Denny?" Becca tossed out offhandedly. Polly laughed out loud. "You can't be serious! Why Becca, he's got to be in his mid twenties." "Yes, but he's cute, and he wasn't wearing a wedding ring or anything, and he was polite, even though we really were a handful." pointed out Becca. Polly laughed again. "You can say THAT again. In fact, I was SEVERAL handfuls for that other young man." Her laughter turned into a giggle. "I haven't had that much fun in years! I'd almost forgotten how exciting it was to have a man's hands on me." "As I recall you were complaining pretty loudly," said Becca. "Of course I was. A woman has to keep up appearances. But never mind. I shouldn't be talking this way around you." "Aunt Polly," moaned Becca. "I'm eighteen. I can go out and do whatever I want. I'm an adult now. Why won't anybody treat me like an adult?" "You're right dear. So why don't you just go out with him anyway? Your mother can't do anything about it. You don't need me along." "Aunt Polly, you know I love my mother. She'd have kittens if I did that and it would be tense in the house for the rest of the summer. I don't want to go off to college in the fall with her still mad at me. Come on. It would be fun." "Oh yeah what a lot of fun, watching you two neck or something from the back seat." snorted Polly. "I could find someone else to go along ... you know ... kind of like a double date?" Polly laughed again. "Becca, I'm thirty-nine years old. I'm married, though Roger wouldn't care. Who would want to take an old woman like me out on a date? Besides, I wouldn't know what to do. It would be very uncomfortable." "Not if you just talked and got to know each other. Who knows? You might find a new friend," said Becca. "Don't you know somebody who's interesting that you'd like to get to know a little better?" "No I don't," said Polly. "I'm busy with my career and taking care of Frannie to let my eyes wander to things I shouldn't think about anyway. You'll just have to see if Sunny will go with you. She's not married." "That won't work." sighed Becca. "She about had a conniption fit when Val said she wanted to go out with that detective guy. She'd never agree to go along with it." "Well, sugar, that's the biz," said Polly. "Pick a younger guy and tell your mother to butt out. I gotta go honey, sorry." The connection went dead. Becca wasn't about to give up though. Denny was about the same biological age as Bob, and after what she'd experienced with Bob, she had no interest in trying that with some fumbling teenager. Next she called Val. First she asked Val how her date with the detective had gone. The cousins hadn't been able to get together since then and she was burning with curiosity. "I can't talk about it right now." whispered Val. "My mother's in the next room." "Oh! It was THAT good?" squealed Becca. "Ohhh Becca, you have NO idea." "I bet I do," said Becca defensively. "That reminds me," said Val, still whispering. "I'm not mad at you any more." "You were mad at me?" asked Becca. "Yes, about Grandpa ... what you did with him." "Oh," said Becca. "Why didn't you say anything? I thought you'd be happy for me." "I was, but I was jealous too. But not any more. If you hadn't done that I probably wouldn't have gone out with Zack and I'm REALLY glad I went out with Zack." "Wow Val, this sounds serious." breathed Becca. "It IS serious," said Val. "I can't believe it myself. Everything just clicked or something. I've never had an experience anything like it." That reminded Becca of why she'd called. She explained the situation to Val and asked if maybe Zack could get her Denny's number. "If Aunt Polly won't go along with it why bother?" asked Val. "I have an idea," said Becca. "I don't know if it will work, but I at least want to try it. I really want to ask Denny to take me out." "What if he says no?" asked Val. "I don't want you to get hurt." "You asked Zack out didn't you? Were you worried about him saying no?" "Yes," said Val. "I was scared half to death." "Well that's you. I'm not too worried about it. Besides, if he says no then he's not the kind of guy I think he is and I won't want to go out with him any more anyway." "You're too much," said Val. "Hold on a minute." Becca heard the line go on hold and waited. After what seemed like a long time she came back on. "I got it." she said. "But Zack says you can't tell anybody how you got his number. He said he only broke department rules because he's helpless when I ask him for anything. Isn't that sweet?" "I have GOT to hear about that date," said Becca. Val giggled and gave Becca the number. "It's his cell phone. Zack says he carries it on duty, but won't answer it if he's busy. You can leave him a message on it too. Good luck." ------- Denny had just parked the car and Bob was putting on his new walking shoes when Denny's cell phone rang. His ring tone was "Another one bites the dust". He flipped it open. "Yeah?" he said. He looked startled as he listened. "How did you get this number?" he asked. He listened and then said "No, I'm not mad ... just surprised, that's all. Believe it or not we were just talking about you." He grinned and waved at Bob and June. "I'm up in the mountains visiting my sister and I ran into your great grandfather. Your grandmother is here too." He listened for a few seconds, and his smile got bigger. "Well, we were talking about you because your Grandmother said your mom is close to having a stroke ... what about? ... I think you know what about." Both June and Bob were standing alertly near Denny now. They had both figured out who he was talking to and were amazed. "What?... " Denny looked stricken. "You're kidding me, right? ... Oh good grief! ... I haven't even heard anybody use the term 'double date' since I was in Junior High School." Denny's gaze went unfocused. "Brian? ... Which one is she? ... Oh, THAT one. I have a feeling Brian will cooperate. But hey, Internal Affairs would probably frown on all this ... it needs to be outside of Sacramento ... Sure, I think it would be fun ... OK ... talk to you later." He flipped the phone closed and scratched his head. "That was Becca." he said. June gave an explosive "Hah! I KNEW it! What did she say?" "She said that her mother forbade her to go out with me unless it was on a double date with one of her aunts," said Denny, grinning. Bob laughed out loud as June looked shocked. "Which one?" gasped June. "She says she's going to get Polly to go with us. She wants me to set her up with Brian, my partner." June looked even more shocked. "But she's MARRIED! And she's twice his age!" "I remember her," said Denny. "She was the one who said she was married to a gay man, right?" "Yes, that's right." agreed June. "But..." "And, as I recall, I had to scold them both during that search about getting a little raunchy," said Denny. June's eyes popped. "You're RIGHT! she said. I remember now." "So, what do you think?" asked Denny. "I can't believe you'd seriously consider having Polly along," said June. Becca's an adult, like I said. Why would you want to make this into a dog and pony show?" "I'm a peace officer, Ma'am," said Denny grinning. "We try to promote domestic tranquility. Becca's mother couldn't really complain if we did it that way, now could she?" June laughed. "It would serve her right too!" she hooted. "But now that I think about it, who would chaperone Polly and your partner?" She grinned. "How serious could things get if her niece was right there with her?" asked Denny. "My intentions, of course, are strictly honorable, and I'd be protecting her virtue too." June wrinkled up her eyes and squinted at Denny. "You, young man, are a dangerous ... young man. Maybe I should ride along for the fun too." "Sorry Ma'am," said Denny, trying to look contrite. "As you well know, my car only seats four." "Not if I sat between whoever's in the back seat," said June, leering. "June, leave the man alone," said Bob. ------- After a two hour hike, during which both June and Bob kept up remarkably well, Denny retired to his sister's cabin. June was sore and asked Bob for a rubdown. That, of course, turned into him rubbing her in places that weren't sore, including the inside of her vaginal canal. They lay together, spent, and cuddled until both realized how hungry they were. They fixed supper together and then talked for hours as June described her life while Bob slept. It was the first time the two of them had really had time enough to talk about things in detail, and both enjoyed it immensely. Then, of course, they got hot and sweaty in bed, falling asleep together after rolling apart, but still holding hands. ------- Chapter 18 The next morning June took Bob to see Doctor Adams. This time Bob knew where he was going and nobody noticed them in the building at all. Dr. Adams had already had some tests run on Bob's blood, and on this day he had a long list of various scans and other tests that they went through. Adams accompanied June and Bob to lunch, asking detailed questions about everything Bob could remember about the day he had gone to sleep. When they got back to the hospital Adams did a DNA test on Bob. Some of the test results were back already, but none showed anything of interest, except that Bob appeared to be a perfectly healthy twenty-five year old male. Even the scarring on his leg where a dog had bitten him as a young boy appeared to be scar tissue that was no more than ten or fifteen years old. The x-ray of his teeth showed two small cavities, neither of which could possibly have been there for more than a year and, according to the oral surgeon Adams called in to consult, probably wouldn't even have been noticed by an exam in 1950 due to the technology available at that time. It was clear to everyone who examined him that Bob had just stopped aging for fifty years. To see if being awake again had changed whatever that amazing phenomenon was they took all kinds of measurements, even down to the length of the hairs on Bob's arms. Everyone was extremely excited. ------- Becca went to see her aunt this time, instead of calling her on the phone. She picked a time when Fran would be there, expecting her cousin to bolster her cause. She took Fran outside, as if she had come only to see her, and explained everything to her. Fran listened, her face neutral. Finally Becca was done. "So," said Fran. "You want to hook my mom up with that young guy who searched her." She didn't look happy. "Yes, isn't it cool?" gushed Becca. Fran didn't think it was cool at all. It wasn't that she was disgusted about her mother going out with a younger man. She couldn't really conceive of her mother on a date of any kind. Living in a house with a straight mother and a gay father had exposed Fran to a large number of things. Seeing her father with another man didn't shock her. Her relationship with him was, oddly, just about like any girl's relationship with her father. He loved her, and set rules for her, helped her with her homework when he could and taught her how to play baseball and ride a bike. He was, in her opinion, just like any other man, except that he got his emotional kicks with men instead of her mother. Her mother, on the other hand, had not exhibited any sort of sexual drive for as long as Becca had known her. The first time she'd seen her mother acting sexual in any way, shape or form was during the search that had brought this whole thing on. On top of that, like Val, she was jealous of Becca's experience with Grandpa. That Val had been out on a date with an older man too just made it worse. Val hadn't told her anything about what went on, on that date, telling her she was too young to understand. That was the REAL problem. Everybody around her thought she was too young to do ANYTHING! Yet she was curious too. She got horny just like her older cousins did. She had dreams like they did. And, in the same odd quirk that seemed to affect all the Winkle women, she didn't have much interest in men her own age. So, at this point in time, when Becca was trying to enlist her to help get her mother to go on a date, Fran was a very frustrated young woman. "What's wrong?" asked Becca. She knew her cousin intimately, and saw the consternation on Fran's face. "I'll tell you what's wrong," said Fran heavily. "Everybody else gets to do fun things with men except me." "But you're just..." Fran cut her off with a shout. "DON'T YOU TELL ME I'M ONLY SIXTEEN." She lowered her voice when Becca shot a look at the front door. "I know how old I am. Did you know my grandmother had Mom when she was only fifteen?" Becca looked confused. "And Aunt Martha had Aunt Sunny when SHE was fifteen. AND ... YOUR grandmother had YOUR mother when SHE was fifteen too! None of THEM were too young to have fun with men!" Becca was shocked. "Yes ... OK ... but that was way back then. None of OUR mothers had us until after they were out of High School." "I know that too," said Fran. "But it's still not fair! You and Val get to have all the fun. When will it be MY turn?" Becca may have only been two years older than her cousin, but two years ... and the experience Becca had with Bob ... made a pretty big difference in how she looked at things. "You have plenty of time to catch up." she said, reaching out to touch Fran's arm. "Come on, I know you want to be all grown up, but don't try to grow up too fast. And don't be mad at us. We can't help it if we're older than you." "I'm not mad at you," said Fran dejectedly. "I'm just jealous. And now you want my mom to go out and have fun too. It just doesn't seem fair at all, that's all." "So? Go on some dates, silly." chided Becca. "You're a good looking girl. I know boys are trying to chase you." "Are YOU going out with a boy your age?" asked Fran acidly. "Did Val go out with a man her age? Are you trying to get my MOTHER to go out with a man her age?" Becca blinked. "Oh." was all she said. "Yeah ... Oh!" said Fran meaningfully. "OK, here's the deal. You help me and I'll help you." "What do you mean?" asked Becca hesitantly. "Who do you want to go out with?" "I want to have some fun with Grandpa ... like you did," said Fran. "No way!" squeaked Becca. "He tried not to do anything with ME. He'd NEVER agree to do anything with YOU." "But if he would ... you'd help me?" asked Fran. Becca didn't see any likelihood of that happening, so it didn't seem at all dangerous to say "OK." Little could she know how momentous that simple "OK" would turn out. ------- Inside, Polly had no idea that she was about to be blindsided. Her niece's attempt to get her to chaperone while double dating had been something so far out that it had stuck in her mind. Polly's life with men hadn't been quite so tumultuous as her sisters' lives had been. She loved Roger when she married him, and still loved him, though probably in a different way. She was ... comfortable with him. She'd had several experiences with men before Roger, and he seemed no different from them. If anything, Roger had spent more time - back when they still made love - paying attention to her needs during intercourse than the others had. It had been complicated. He had actually been trying to "go straight" by marrying her. What she found out later was that whenever he was fucking her, he was thinking about a man he liked. When he'd finally confessed everything out of shame that he was mistreating her, he hadn't even been able to get an erection with her after that. She'd been mad as hell initially, but because of Frannie, both of them thought better of breaking up. Since then she hadn't thought much about men. The men Roger hung out with, of course, weren't attractive to her because she assumed (incorrectly) they were all gay too. She had looked at other men occasionally, and had spent many a night with her hands between her legs for a while as she dreamed of being with some of them. But she never had the courage to make an overture, partly because it would look like she was cheating, and partly because she was sure in the back of her mind that the man she picked would probably turn out to be gay too. Eventually she left "men" behind in a way, convincing herself that sex was way overrated anyway. Instead, she poured her energy into her career and her daughter. But that young policeman, sliding his hands all over her body at the hospital, and his attention to her as a woman had reawakened something deep inside Polly ... a tiny little itch that kept wanting to be touched or scratched. Now Becca's suggestion to double date had dangled hope like a carrot in front of a donkey. It had made something in Polly want to say "YES!", if only the part of her that was bored to tears with work and the world in general. The idea of going out and having some fun in the company of a man was attractive. A bigger part of her was afraid to take the risk. It had made her moody, and she was still moody when Becca showed up to see Fran. She was baking cookies. She always did that when she was moody. It cheered her up. She was thankful that Becca hadn't come in trying to revive the idea. It would have been much harder to say no again, for some strange reason. She was therefore unprepared when Becca and her daughter came in from outside and plunked themselves down at the kitchen table. "Uh oh," said Fran suddenly. "What?" asked Becca. "She's making cookies. That means she's in a funk." "You shouldn't talk about people behind their back," said Polly smiling a little. "I have to," said Fran airily. "Your back is turned to us. What's wrong?" "Nothing," said Polly. She didn't want to bring anything up with Becca sitting right there. "You yell at me when I say that," said Fran. Polly turned to frown at her daughter. Raising a teenager was frightening sometimes. "This is different." she said stubbornly. "Oh, OK," said Fran. "Can we have a cookie?" "No," said Polly shortly. "It will ruin your dinner." "Dinner's not for hours." moaned Fran theatrically. Polly ignored her, putting another tray of cookies in the oven. Becca wasn't so sure things were going well enough to put her plan into action. Still, like most young women, she was too impatient to wait. "I called Denny." she said into the silence. Polly stiffened and then tried to relax. She pushed away at the fluttery feeling in her stomach. "That's nice. So you're going to go in spite of your mother?" she said. "He won't go out with me," said Becca. Polly felt her heart lurch with empathy and turned around. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm so sorry." "He won't go out with me unless I find a date for Brian too," said Becca, watching Polly closely. "You remember Brian?" Polly felt her breath catch in her chest and put one hand there. For SURE she remembered Brian. His whisper in her ear after his hands had slid all over her body had made her nipples tingle. She had had to manufacture the outrage she tried to display, when what she wanted to do was tell the man he might have missed something and should probably search her again ... more thoroughly. "Yes." came out of her mouth while she was preparing to say "Who?" "Denny says that he and Brian are partners, and they like to do things together, even off duty. He said it's kind of like being brothers. And he said he couldn't go off and leave Brian all alone some night while he went out and had fun with me." Becca darted a look at Fran, who winked and nodded slightly. "It's too bad you don't want to go with me. Would it be OK if Fran went along? She could be Brian's date. My mother might agree to that." Polly felt faint and leaned against the stove with one hand. It was hot and she jerked her hand away. "Absolutely not!" she said. "Frannie's too young to go out with an older man like that. You are too, young lady." "Mom" moaned Fran. "Come on, Becca would be there to take care of me. Nothing would happen. Didn't you say he wanted to go miniature golfing Becca? What could possibly happen playing miniature golf Mom?" "You girls are in this way over your heads," said Polly earnestly. Those are older men. They've been with lots of women. They're adults and they'd want to treat you like adults. But you're NOT adults. No. I can't allow this." "Well then," said Becca sadly, "Maybe I can get one of my friends to go with him. Mom won't like it, but that's just too bad. I want to go on a real date with a real man. If mom kicks me out can I at least stay here until school starts?" If Polly would have had the control to look at Becca closely, she would have seen that Becca's expression just didn't quite match her sad comments. She might also have noticed that her own little girl had a small smile on her face, after being denied the chance to do something she apparently wanted to do. But Polly wasn't looking at the girls. What Polly was looking at in her mind's eye was two young girls out with two experienced men. What that looked like in her mind's eye was two sets of naked male buttocks bounding up and down between two sets of slim teenaged legs. "No!" gasped Polly. Then her mind caught up to the last thing Becca had said. Her motherly instincts kicked in on top of her own desire to do something crazy and she blurted "I'll do it! I'll go with you." Becca was out of her chair in an instant and she smothered her aunt with hugs and kisses, thanking her profusely. It wasn't until Polly shoved her away laughing that Fran remembered the role she was still supposed to be playing. "Damn!" she said, not too loudly. "I never get to do ANYTHING!" Polly's eyes flashed as she lit into her daughter for cursing. Fran was so pleased with her acting that she had to put her hands in her face to keep her mother from seeing her grin. Polly, of course, thought she was crying and dropped into the role of consoling mom. "Don't cry honey ... you'll get your chance. I promise. Tell you what ... if this date with Becca works out, and I go on any more, maybe you and I can double date." Fran didn't have to act to put horror on her face as she raised it. "MOM!" she gasped. Polly looked shocked and then unaccountably she felt giddy. She was going on a date with a handsome man, and her very own niece was going to be there to make sure it was only a date. She wasn't even incensed at her daughters obvious repulsion at the idea of going out to have fun with her mother. "Never mind. You'll have hundreds of dates soon ... THOUSANDS of dates!" said Polly. She skipped and did a twirl as she swung the oven open and grabbed a pot holder to pull out the cookies. "Would you girls like a cookie?" she asked gaily. ------- As it became clear to the media that they weren't going to get the front page story they were all hoping for, Bob's case faded into the background. Negotiations with Amalgamated were done with an almost fanatical attitude of secrecy, in which Bob was required to keep the settlement secret. Bob insisted that, since no one knew why he had gone to sleep, and that it might happen again, and that no insurance company in the world would insure him at this point in time, Amalgamated would have to leave his policy in place. Those negotiations were rocky until Bob agreed that the policy would only cover him until the year 2040, at which point he would be sixty-five ... sort of. When it came to the twenty million, the company wanted to pay the settlement as an annuity, saying that any family could easily live on twenty-thousand dollars a month. They would, of course, invest the remainder. Gus pointed out that they might actually make money on that deal, especially if Bob died for some reason. He also pointed out that the company had, on more than twenty occasions in the past, paid insurance claims in cash that were even larger than the settlement, and that the company would not suffer if they paid a lump sum. The most humorous part of the whole deal was when someone asked Bob what account the money should be transferred into. He'd expected a check, and everybody in the room laughed when he asked about that. Electronic transfers were explained and Bob thought, for the first time since awakening, about bank accounts. He knew that his account with Valerie had been closed before her death. She had transferred the money in it to an account with only her name on it because that was easier. But Bob, when he'd gone to sleep, had a Christmas account at a different local bank, which was still in business. Inquiries revealed it was still active. It was in both his and Martha's names and had been completely forgotten by Valerie. There had been $15.25 in the account when Bob went to sleep. The bank, as banks do, watched over the money faithfully and the account now had $174.13 in it, fifty years later. Since that was the only account Bob had, and since it was easier to use that instead of opening a new account and having to explain the situation, Bob simply gave them that number. On a Thursday afternoon, in high summer, Bob had Betty take him back to Circleton. She had some things to do at home. He walked to the Circleton Savings and Loan ... just to check and make sure he was, in fact, a millionaire. He didn't want a fuss, and knew the chances were there would be, so he asked to speak to the president of the bank. That personage, he was told, was not available. He was home, recuperating from an illness. Bob was questioned closely when he asked for whoever was in charge, but refused to say anything except "I am a customer of the bank." He was shown into Tiffany McFleur's office by a nervous employee, who kept glancing at an unusually alert security guard. Bob had had enough experiences with security guards, and the first thing he did was hand his 1950's era driver's license to Tiffany. She stared at it, went pale, and sat down. The security guard was at the door instantly, his hand on his pistol and Bob, ready this time, put both arms up in the air. Tiffany gasped and waved frantically at the guard. "You will NOT be needed Frank." she managed. Frank looked worried and his glance went from Bob, with his hands still in the air, to Tiffany, who was standing again. When the wire had come in making the deposit that quintupled the bank's assets, the place had gone crazy. Her boss, Myron, had "an episode of unusual excitement" as they were calling it, and was sent home. Tiffany had done her research and knew all about Bob. "Frank, come in here and sit down." she said firmly. She knew Frank well enough to know that he suspected she had just been handed some kind of threatening note. She thrust the license at him. "Look at this." she ordered. Bob let out a soft sigh and straightened his arms even more stiffly above his head. Frank edged into the room, keeping his eyes on Bob, and tried to keep doing that while he tried to read the license. Bob looked to see who was watching, and sighed with relief that the blinds were drawn. "Shit!" said Frank as it finally sank in. He'd been involved in getting Myron out of the building when he had his breakdown, and had been clued in to the events that precipitated it. "Can I put my hands down now?" asked Bob. "Yes SIR!" said Frank, jerking his hand away from his sidearm. "I'm REALLY sorry Sir, he said, sidling toward the door. "It was just a little mistake, Sir." he gasped. "I'll just go on about my business now Sir." He fled, pulling the door closed firmly behind him. "Thank you," said Bob. "Security guards and I seem to affect each other like cats and dogs." "PLEASE sit down," said Tiffany weakly. "I'm pleased to meet you." she said helplessly. In her memory, the biggest depositor in the Circleton Savings and Loan had just over seven hundred thousand dollars in the bank. "I don't want to be a pest," he said, "but I got a settlement from an insurance company recently and just wanted to check and make sure it got here." "Oh, it got here," said Tiffany, able to breathe again. "Good, said Bob. Do you suppose I could get some checks or something?" Tiffany let out an emotional explosive laugh that threatened to turn into a full fledged boo hooing jag. The thought of what Myron had looked like as he was dragged babbling from the bank sobered her. "Mister Winkle, believe me when I tell you, you can have anything you want." she said. "I'm kind of famous," said Bob, glancing at her hand and seeing a ring indicating that she was married. He felt bad about assuming she had meant he could have her too if he wanted. "I'd sort of like to avoid problems with the public." "I'll take care of everything myself," said Tiffany. "Would you like some coffee or something while you wait?" "I'm fine," said Bob. "Thanks." Tiffany scuttled out of the door, closing it behind her. There was a discreet knock and Frank stuck his head hesitantly in the door when it opened. "Uh ... I sort of forgot this." he said, handing Bob's license back. "No problem," said Bob, smiling. "Uh ... I've got a kid at home ... do you suppose I could get your autograph for him?" asked Frank, blushing. "Sure," said Bob grinning. He got up and went to Tiffany's desk where he'd seen a pad of note paper. He took a pen from an ornate holder and signed his name with a flourish. He handed it to Frank and said "Tell him to take care of it. That's the very first autograph I ever signed." "Wow," said Frank in awe. "Thanks!" Bob only had time to look at some of the motivational posters on Tiffany's wall before she was back with a leather checkbook cover in her hand. "These will get you started." she said breathlessly. "We have your address and you'll get several more boxes of checks in the mail. Feel free to have your accountant contact me to make arrangements for business checks or whatever you need." "Thank you," said Bob, smiling. She handed him a small rectangular card in a little paper sleeve. "I went ahead and opened a credit card account for you. It's our bank card." Bob pulled the card out of the sleeve and looked at it. "What do I do with this?" he asked. Tiffany swallowed as she realized they hadn't had credit cards when this man went to sleep. "You present it for purchase and the vendor takes it as if it were money. Then they charge the bank directly for the purchase, and you pay us back later." "So I can only use it once?" asked Bob. Tiffany stared at him. "You said they take it from me like it was money," said Bob. Tiffany blushed. "No, that's not what I meant. There's a machine that can read the card and it takes the information and charges it to your account. Then they give the card back." "Oh," said Bob, "So I don't want to leave this lying around." "Oh no!" said Tiffany, beginning to think she was talking to a seven year old. "You need to be very careful who you give this to. It should only be someone you trust." "I think I'll just write checks," said Bob trying to hand the card back to Tiffany. Tiffany grunted in frustration. "Look, hold on to it for a while. Some vendors don't like to take a check and you might need it. Just be careful with it and don't lose it. If you do lose it please call us right away. OK?" she asked hopefully. Bob looked at the card doubtfully, but then slid it in his pocket. "OK." he said. "Is there anything else?" she asked anxiously. "I could introduce you to Bob Pryor, he's our investment counselor." "I don't know too much about all this banking stuff," said Bob. "He could help you set up investments so you could make more money," said Tiffany helpfully. "I think I HAVE enough money," said Bob wryly. Tiffany was shocked. You could NEVER ... EVER ... have enough money. Everybody knew that. The shine on her view of Bob was dimmed a little more. "Well, have your money manager contact us then. I'm sure we can work with him to your satisfaction on CDs, IRAs, mutual funds, money markets or anything else you might be interested in." Tiffany put on her best completely fake smile. Bob nodded, noticing that the smile did not go to her eyes. "Sure thing." he said. "Thanks again." "Thank YOU, mister Winkle," said Tiffany again. Bob decided to get out of the bank before anybody else fell all over themselves to thank him for something. He'd have to ask Martha what the hell a money manager was. Why would someone need to manage money? You either had it, or you didn't. He knew all about paying bills at the end of the month, but that didn't take anything special. You had a budget and you tried to stay within it. He was an accountant, and knew about stocks and bonds, but what was a money market? Was that someplace you went to buy money? Why would anybody want to do that? He had a sinking feeling that being rich wasn't going to be as easy as he'd thought it would be. He went back to Betty's house and browbeat her into taking him to the DMV so he could take the test and get a new driver's license. He was tired of having to be taken everywhere. He was also thinking about buying a car of his own. His '38 Desoto, a hand-me-down from his father when he got married, was long gone. When Betty saw the line at the DMV she said she was going to walk back home. She had laundry to do and didn't want to wait. "If you flunk the test, call me and I'll come get you." She grinned, but wasn't worried. Oddly enough, the only trouble he had at the DMV was from the overly chipper lady who asked for his old driver's license. When he presented it, she got suspicious, then surly. Bob didn't want to make a scene, but when he found out she intended to keep the license - "Old licenses are forfeit to the State upon renewal" she quoted from the law - he snatched it out of her hand. It was one of the few things he had from the days he remembered best. The no longer chipper lady got demanding and then downright intractable when Bob refused to surrender the license. Finally a supervisor came over to see what the hubbub was about. Miss Chipper, who Bob now thought of as "The old battle axe" started quoting rules and regulations right and left. Her crowing blow was supposed to be that, according to his "previously issued license" his date of birth put him at seventy-five years old, which, of course, required a doctor's release for him to continue driving ... which, she pointed out ... he did NOT have. The supervisor looked at Bob and said "Hey, I know you." The supervisor, an old broken down CHiPs officer waiting for retirement took Bob out himself. He basically had Bob drive around for half an hour while they talked. For the first time, being famous worked out for Bob. He left with his old license AND his new one after enduring a lecture from Miss Chipper, who had now been renamed Miss Pouter, on how he must never ever present the old license as identification from this point on. ------- Chapter 19 When he got back to Betty's there was a note on the refrigerator saying she had gone over to Martha's to borrow something and would "be back soon." He thought back to a place he had driven by on the way home. It wasn't too far. He'd just walk up there and see what he could do about having his own car. He left Betty a note saying he'd gone on his own errand and might have a surprise for her when he got back. The place he'd seen was the car lot in Circleton owned by "Rascal Rick", whose name was proudly displayed on a sign big enough to park a bus on, along with the emblazoned motto "Rascally Good Deals" in big red letters. Bob chose it because they sold Chevrolet's. In fact, he was met when he walked in by Rascal Rick himself. Rascal Rick looked the part. He had a big belly that hung out over his belt and made him look startlingly pregnant. His snow white handlebar moustache hung down clear past his chin and, with the white cowboy hat on his head, framed his rose tinted glasses. Rick used to chew tobacco, but it stained the tips of his facial hair, so he'd given that up and chewed gum now. He had a bulbous red nose that suggested, based on the tiny blue lines that seemed to criss cross it, that he knew good bourbon and rarely said no to an ounce or two ... or ten. Rick was a hearty, friendly fellow, one of those back slapping, loud talking, draw-attention-to-himself sorts of guys. He was that way naturally, which was good, because he didn't make diddly on cars these days. All that crap that the Great State of California made them put on the cars he sold made them three or four thousand more to buy than in neighboring Nevada. You could breathe the air in California, which was good if you didn't have major moolah, because you were walking in all that fresh air on account of how you couldn't afford to buy a car. Besides, neither movie stars or wannabe movie stars bought Chevies. No, in fact, if Rascally Rick made five or six hundred dollars clear on a new Chevy, he called that a good sale. If he got the buyer to finance it through any of his several financial partners, it was a GREAT sale. That was because Rascally Rick got a kick back on each car that was financed with them because THEY made a killing by lending money to buy a new car. Take, for instance, the average $35,000 loaded mini van. With no money down, which sounded like a great deal, but wasn't, you could hop in your brand spanking new Rascally Rick minivan and drive away happily, knowing you could afford your payment. Of course nobody ever actually added it all up. If they had, at the end of those five years, which also sounded like a good deal, but wasn't, they'd have found out they actually paid closer to $43,000 for that car, which was worth, at the end of five years, about seven or eight thousand bucks, depending on how many miles were on it. So the thousand dollars he got for every sucker he conned into financing a new car was actually more than he made on the car itself. Rascally Rick was, in fact a rascal. He'd most lately figured out that, if you got a down payment of a couple grand, and then sort of forgot to actually add that into the calculations mathematically, most people just didn't notice. You had a line on the finance paperwork that clearly said "Down Payment : $3,000.00" But that three big ones wasn't actually deducted anywhere from the price of the car. If there were factory rebates in the deal, that messed up the accounting even more. Making sure that dealer prep and transportation costs and every possible thing was listed in the contract also helped. And, if you got caught, you loudly cursed the computer for letting you put things in the wrong box, moved it to where you should have put it in the first place, and smiled your great big whiskery Rascal Rick smile. If it was a woman who had caught you, you called her "little lady", regardless of her age. If it was a man, you called him "Stud" if he was under about forty and "Compadre" if he was over that. This was the lion-occupied den that Bob sauntered into that afternoon. "Welcome to Rascal Rick's, home of rascally good deals." boomed Rick effusively. "I'm Rick. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking here?" Bob, raised to be polite, stuck out his hand. "Bob." he said. He had adopted an aversion to using his last name lately. "Well now Bob, what kind of beautiful new car can I put you in today?" "What have they done with the Chevy Styleline lately?" asked Bob. "I've always wanted a Styleline Deluxe two door convertible." Rick had no idea that a Chevrolet Styleline Deluxe was a model of car produced by Chevrolet in the forties, or that there had been the whopping (for that day) sum of 32,392 made in 1949, the year model Bob had seen last. He didn't know that the car Bob was asking about had a selling price brand new of $2,297.00, which is why Bob wanted one. He had money now. He wanted an expensive car. In 1949 you could buy any number of brand new cars for less than a thousand dollars. But Rascal Rick was a pro. He heard the words "two door convertible", which to him meant Camaro, since Bob didn't quite look like the Corvette type to Rick. And, it being California and all, Rick had three Camaro rag tops on his lot. Smiling his rascally smile, he waved his hand toward the side door and said "Stud, this is your lucky day! I have exactly the car you're looking for!" Bob had seen modern automobiles, of course. He was aware that they looked much different than they had back in 1950. In fact, the sheer quantity of different brands, styles, and colors made them all turn in to a blur for the most part. Once in a while one stuck out and Bob would examine it, but for the most part, after his initial gaping, he ignored them. He didn't ignore the Camaro Rick showed him, though. He fell in love with it instantly. He almost salivated as Rick showed him all the features, putting the top down and then back up and then down again. "Sit in it!" urged Rick. "Try her on for size." Bob sat. He put his hands on the wheel. Rick showed him how to push a little lever that let the steering wheel go up or down so that it was most comfortable. It had electric seats too, something Bob would never have thought about. "If you have a suitable deposit I can let you take her for a spin." teased Rick. Bob looked up at him, squinting in the sun. "Why don't I just buy it. Then I can drive it all I want." "A man after my own heart." gushed Rick. "Come on inside stud. I have a financing deal that's going to make you piss your pants with joy. I can put you in that sweet baby for less than five hundred a month!" Bob got out and walked back to the sales room with Rick. "Can't I just pay for it and be done with it?" asked Bob. "Sure can stud!" snickered Rick. "Let me get the card on that car and I'll see what the damage is." Rick sat down and dug through a box, pulling out a card. He got out a form and began filing in blanks on it. With the base price and the options that were already on the car, the price came to a little over thirty thousand. Rick looked at the sucker and put a "1" in front of the figure for dealer prep. People hardly understood that. If they asked questions Rick just said it was part of getting a car ready to drive in California. Everybody knew how California screwed the owners of cars. He wrote the total at the bottom with a flourish and turned the form towards Bob. There's the cost on that one. You picked a good one ... lots of popular options for this part of the country and with the financing deal I can offer you I can..." Bob held up his hand. He looked at Rick and then back at the paper. "I only wanted one car." he said. "Not the whole lot full." Rick's eyes went narrow. "Son, I'm making you a hell of a deal on that car. There's no need to be sarcastic. As you can clearly see here," he pointed to boxes on the form. "that is the base price right there, and these are the options on the car. Then there's the shipping and handling from the factory. I may be getting on in years, but my math is fine. That car costs exactly thirty-two thousand seven hundred eighteen dollars and seventy-three cents. Now that doesn't include sales tax, of course, but you can't finance the sales tax. I have to have the sales tax up front. Bob blinked. "May I borrow your phone?" he asked. Rick frowned and nodded toward the phone. Bob called Betty. "Hi honey" he said into the phone. "Is it possible for a car to cost as much as thirty thousand dollars these days?" He waited as Rick gaped. "Really? ... THAT much? Who in the world would spend that much for a car? ... OK ... no, everything's fine. I'm just looking at a car and it seemed to cost an awful lot ... OK, I'll see you later. Bye." He handed the phone back to Rick, who was looking at him oddly. "OK," said Bob. "I'll take it." "Well, that's right nice," said Rick carefully. "Now, about the financing..." "Can I just write you a check?" asked Bob, pulling out his brand new checkbook. "For thirty some-odd thousand dollars?" asked Rick. For the first time he got the feeling he was missing something important here, and that it was quite possible he wasn't going to be happy when he found out about it. If this guy was an escapee from some mental institution, there could be trouble. "Of course I'll have to check with the bank to make sure everything's OK." he said smoothly. "Sure," said Bob. The idea that anybody could sit down and actually write a check for that much money had him a little numb. He carefully printed where he had been taught to print, and put numbers where he had been taught to put numbers. Then he signed his name in his usual illegible scrawl. It didn't occur to him that his name and address were not printed anywhere on the check. He looked up. "What should I put here?" he asked, putting his pen on the payee line. "Ah ... I have a stamp," said Rick. He accepted the check and peered at it closely. In her excitement, Tiffany had grabbed the usual starter kit, which started with check number 0001. Rick now was convinced that something flaky was going on. He picked up the phone, trying to remember where that damned .25 automatic was that his wife had insisted he keep in the store for protection. He hadn't even seen the damn thing in months. "Hello, yes, this is Rick, down at Rascal Rick's. Do you suppose I could have a teeny little word with Tiffany?" Rick had done business with the Circleton Savings and Loan for years. Their kickback for financing transactions was lower than some of the others, which was why they got less of his business. Still, he knew Tiffany. She came on the line and he explained that he needed to verify funds for a starter check. She said he could already have done that if he hadn't bothered her and made her stop doing something important. He explained it was a starter check for over thirty grand, and there was silence. Then she asked him if the account number on the check was 15668-23390 and he said it was, in fact. Tiffany had been raised in a Navy family, and she used every curse word and epithet she had ever heard in informing Rascal Rick that if he caused their client ANY discomfort in ANY way whatsoever, or overcharged him even ONE penny, that the bank's relationship with Rascal Rick's would be terminated faster than he could say "Rascally Rick". Nor would funds ever be available to him for credit again. In fact, she threatened to buy the mortgage on his home loan personally and foreclose if he made the man sitting in his office unhappy. Rick tried his always winning style. "Come on Tiffy, all I wanted to do was verify funds. You're getting all excited over nothing. If he's got the funds, he's got the funds, right?" "You lame brained swindler!" shouted Tiffany. "That man could buy and sell you and me and the whole bank. You send ME the bill for whatever car he wants and I'll pay it. And I'm going to have the contract gone over with a fine tooth comb Rick, so don't try any of your normal crap! I'm not fucking around with this Rick. You give the man the keys and kiss his ass goodbye. And fill it up for him before he takes it anywhere, do you hear me Rick?" Shaken by her vehemence, Rick did exactly as she told him to do. He walked out of his office and handed the keys and the check to Bob. "Uh, your bank will take care of everything. You don't have to write the check after all." Then he handed him a card that was good for one fillup at a gas station down the street. "Just give that to the guy in the window and that will take care of your first tank of gas." Bob smiled and got up. "Thanks." he said, heading for the lot, and his new car. Rick was so upset that he forgot to put a temporary plate on the Camaro. Oh well, the guy would be back sooner or later to get it. California's finest would be quick to convince him of that. Bob had driven before, of course. But what he'd driven most recently had been either four cylinder sedans, or six cylinder minivans. His own Desoto had been powered by a flathead six cylinder motor with 82 horsepower. His new Camaro was supercharged, and developed 253 horsepower. It was a four speed automatic. It had Goodyear Eagles on it when he bought it, with a total tread depth of eleven thirty-seconds inches. When he pulled out of the lot and stepped on the gas, he left a cloud of white smoke and about four seconds-seconds of an inch of rubber in pretty wavy lines for about half a block. He was trembling when he finally got the car stopped. On the way home, he figured out how to keep the car from making those wavy black lines on the road. Now he could make them straight. Rascal Rick watched the news that night, and finally found out the identity of the man he'd sold the Camaro to. The man was on the news. In fact, he was on the news twice. The lead story involved the interview of a former security guard of the Amalgamated Indemnity of America company who complained that he got fired for doing his job, while "that Rip Van Winkle creep" got twenty million dollars for making threatening movements. There was a picture of Bob, the same one that was on his new driver's license, and the "breaking news" of a settlement between "Rip Van Winkle" and Amalgamated Indemnity of America. The announcer took great glee in winking and telling the audience that the deal between Amalgamated and Bob Winkle was "secret". The second story was about how California's finest had, indeed, pulled "California's newest multimillionaire" over. The same photograph was flashed on Rick's screen again. They wrote him a ticket for not having a license tag, and being unable to provide proper registration and proof of insurance. But mostly it was for driving a hundred and twenty in a fifty-five zone. The car had been seized, but later released, according to the State Trooper who was interviewed on camera and said "He's a nice guy. He just wasn't used to the car." Then it was back to the anchor woman who flashed a smile and a little innuendo about the privileges of being wealthy. Smiling the whole time, she ruined Rick's day. He had four Corvettes on his lot too. ------- Bob had, in fact, been escorted back to Betty's house by a trooper earlier in the evening. He got a good natured lecture from the young woman, in the driveway while Betty came out to see what was wrong. Bob told her to call her sisters and have them come over because he had something important to tell them. Betty made the calls while Bob chatted with the trooper, who asked for his autograph before she left and waved at him as she drove away. In Martha's case, Sunny was there when Betty called, so she naturally called her cousins. The younger cousins found out from their mothers that something was up, and as it turned out, all nine of the women were together when Bob informed them that his estate had grown considerably. Since Bob's former "estate" had consisted mostly of stuff up in Martha's attic, the change affected the women rather dramatically. "We're millionaires?" asked Sunny weakly. "Your GRANDFATHER is a millionaire." corrected her mother. Bob held up his hands. "Look, I don't want there to be any fussing about this. You all took care of me for fifty years. Now I can return the favor. I don't want you to all go out and go on a spending spree, but at the same time I don't want any of you to have to scrimp and save to get something you need." He frowned. "I already went out and bought a car, and I probably shouldn't have. I should have consulted with you all first. I don't know anything about cars and I probably got the wrong one. That lovely young State Trooper thinks so. The woman at the bank said something too that I didn't understand ... something about money markets and accountants and all that, and I don't know anything about that. What I know is that, if we treat this money like a limited resource, it will last all of us for a long long time, and that's what I'd like to happen." "So," said Martha, "No mansions, no sports cars, no movie star lifestyle" She looked around at everyone. "We go on like we were, with some improvements and maybe a little redecorating." June spoke. "This would be a good chance to start a family business." she offered. "I'd love to quit my job," said Gidget. "To have my own business, I mean ... or a family business, like you said Mom. If I'm going to control inventory, I'd like it to be ours, instead of my boss's." Sunny, who was a bookkeeper for an industrial plant outside of town nodded. "I've been thinking about taking some night classes, to get my accounting degree. Why should we hire an accountant if one of us can do that?" "I was an accountant." commented Bob. "I can't imagine that much has changed, but if it has maybe we could go to school together ... you know, help each other with our homework." There was talk of investments. No one in the family owned any stocks or bonds but Fran was in the investment club at school. Their investments, though only on paper, had been in the black for two years and Fran knew that the teacher who was the club sponsor had contacts in the investment world. The odd thing was that none of them, including Bob, could think of anything that they were just dying to run out and buy. Things were mentioned, to be sure, but other than "a pair of shoes to go with that dress I bought last month and haven't worn yet" and "Maybe I can fix that running toilet now" and "It's time for tires for the Bronco" everything somebody brought up was then tossed aside as something "I don't really need anyway." Nothing was decided, except to all go out for ice cream together. They went to a neighboring tourist area on the Indian reservation, where no one knew them and sat around at tables pulled together, having frozen desserts of one kind or another and talking more about different ideas for a family owned business. They spent two hours in animated discussions before deciding to head back to Circleton for a celebratory meat loaf dinner at Martha's. The news vans were back when they got back home. Bob had taken his daughters for ice cream in his new car, with the top down and a lot of giggling going on. On the way back, Fran claimed the front seat, and Val and Becca climbed in the back, having just as much fun as their grandmothers had. It was dark by the time they got back home and that was probably why Bob had a chance to get away. When he saw the van sitting in front of Betty's house, where they had all left from, he turned into an alley. Like a well rehearsed maneuver, the van with the older women in it went on to Betty's, where they got out and hurried inside. Sunny, driving her Bronco, drove slowly by and went to her mother's house, where another news van was camped out. She didn't stop, but went on to her own house. It was being surveilled too. It didn't take long to figure out that all six houses were being watched, waiting for the big break that each eager news crew hoped to be able to capitalize on. They arrived at Gidget's house last, and decided to run the gauntlet there. Once inside they called Betty, unsure of what to do. Martha answered the phone. "Just stay there," said Martha. June and Betty and I are going to stay here." "What about Grandpa?" asked Sunny. "And the girls?" "They can take care of themselves. Betty thinks he'll just take them to the cabin, since nobody seems to know about that yet." "OK," said Sunny doubtfully. It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall in either of those two houses ... or in the cabin later, where Bob was indeed headed. With the women all grouped in their own generational age groups, the talk about the family's sudden access to wealth took on a slightly different tone. Each generation had their own interests, and they had now had time to contemplate that sudden access to wealth. The differences between the discussions that went on that night could also be viewed as generational. Betty, June and Martha had been thinking about trying to live on Social Security for some time. The worries associated with that prospect suddenly vanished, or at least became much less intimidating. For their daughters, money meant an opportunity to live free from the strictures of having to report to a job where they made money for somebody else. It represented freedom from having to kowtow to the boss. But only if it was managed into a situation where whatever business they entered into was a success. For the younger cousins, it meant access to educational opportunities that had not been an option before this. They didn't quite have the foresight to envision being part and parcel of a family owned business, or what their roles in such an endeavor might be. But the worn out phrase "You can be anything you really want to be in America." seemed a lot more realistic to them now that they could go to any institute of higher learning they wanted to. The most interesting aspect of all this was that the attitude, despite their difference in age, was remarkably similar. All of them, at one time or another, had been in a financial crunch, or in an immediate family that was in the midst of a financial crunch. All of them viewed Bob's sudden wealth as something that could do them all a lot of good, but which could also be soaked up like rain into the desert if it wasn't protected. For that reason, the urge to go out and spend money like it grew on trees just didn't surface in any of them. ------- Only Becca had been to the cabin thus far, and the other two girls were excited at the adventure they found themselves on when Bob announced that was where he was taking them. Val, perhaps because she thought a LOT about her date with Zack, was the one who pointed out that they didn't have any clothes with them for an overnight stay. It was the lack of greed and avarice in the younger girls that prompted them to do just what they'd have done before Bob had big bucks. None of them thought of living high on the hog at a fancy hotel. "Stop at that Wal-Mart!" shouted Val, pointing. Twenty minutes later the trunk of the Camaro was stuffed with white bags that held clothing, toothbrushes and various other health and beauty items, and groceries to make the girls' favorite dinners. There was a good natured argument about which favorite dinner would be prepared that night when Bob reminded them that they'd probably only spend one night in the cabin, and might not even be there for more than dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow. They resolved the argument by seniority. Bob told Val to choose the main dish and she picked Lasagna hamburger helper. Becca got to choose the green beans as the vegetable and Fran insisted on making a tossed salad. When they actually began preparing the meal, the table ended up loaded with those items, plus carrots, garlic bread, cottage cheese, black olives and a two bottles of wine that Bob produced. They had been buy one - get one free. "Can I have some too?" asked Fran. "One glass," said Bob sternly. Fran promptly went through all the cupboards to find the biggest glass she could and turned around to present it to Bob. "Here." she said smiling. "That's a little big for a little girl," said Bob, teasing. "I'm NOT a little girl!" said Fran, her face darkening. "WHEN will people stop calling me a little girl?!" she said, her voice getting louder. Bob held up both hands. "OK, OK," he said, using the new term he'd learned from hearing all the women use it. "I was just teasing." "Well don't!" said Fran. "I'm almost a woman and I'm tired of it." Val rolled her eyes at Becca, who rolled hers back theatrically. Both put on a straight face when Fran shot dark looks at them. Fran drank the wine Bob poured her like it was water, mostly because she was still mad. It hit her empty stomach like a time bomb with an extremely quick timer, and by the time dinner was ready she was giggling and having to concentrate to walk straight. Thankfully, getting some food in her helped and soon she was just extra mellow. Still, her inhibitions were lowered. "So," she asked through a mouthful of hamburger helper, "What are we going to do after supper?" "Is there a TV?" asked Becca. "No TV," said Bob. The meal was delicious. This hamburger helper stuff was addictive. He kept eating. "No TV?" whined Becca. "Who has no TV in their house these days?" "Whoever owns this place," said Bob, taking another slice of garlic bread. "So, what are we going to do?" she asked. Bob swallowed, looked at his new watch, and sighed. "It's late. It's bedtime." Fran, who had managed somehow to get her glass re-filled with wine while nobody was looking, and who had slurped the stuff happily, was leaning sideways just a hair off center. She had a really, really good buzz on now. "Where are we all going to sleep?" she asked, leaning so far to the left that she corrected with a jerk. Everybody looked around. There was one bed, a mattress on steel springs hung from an old iron bedstead. It was a double size. It had been ornate when new, but had so many coats of paint on it that the detail had softened to mere bumps now. There was another bed that folded up into the wall, also a double. Bob got up and went over to it, pulling it down with a thump. Dust flew up into the air and Val wrinkled her nose. Then there was the couch. "Pick a place," said Bob, yawning. Val and Becca traded looks. They were both thinking the same thing. Fran's eyes had gone a little glazed and she was leaning again. "I'll sleep with Grandpa," said Becca suddenly. "No you won't," said Val firmly. "Well then ... you can't either!" said Becca petulantly. "What's going on here?" asked Bob, hearing the heat in their voices. "I told them what we did," said Becca, still petulant. "Ohhh boy," said Bob, his shoulders slumping. "Why did you do that Becca?" he asked. "We tell each other everything." she said defensively. "That's a habit you need to break," said Bob. He looked at Val, who was looking at him. "I was mad at you when I found out." she said. She looked at Becca. "I was mad at her too." "I know," said Bob sadly. "We shouldn't have done it." "I should have been first," said Val, sounding petulant herself. "I'm the oldest." Bob rocked back on his heels. "You're joshing me." he said. "So I went out with Zack and gave HIM my virginity!" she said, sticking her jaw out. Bob didn't have the faintest idea what to say. He thought back to Val's voice, and the things he remembered her doing in his dreams. She'd never gone farther than using her mouth on him. The other two girls in the room had done things too, but he'd gone a lot farther with Becca since then. A LOT farther. He looked at Fran, to see what she was thinking, but she was nodding, falling asleep in her chair. "I wanted you to do it," said Val. Bob sighed. "Val, honey ... I..." "It's OK really." Val interrupted him. "I'm not mad any more ... really. I had SUCH a good time with Zack. It was really wonderful." "Well... ," said Bob. "That's good, I guess. I didn't know." "I know. I was too chicken to tell you, and things were all riled up anyway. I think I'm still a little jealous of Becca though. That's why I said she couldn't sleep with you. But I won't sleep with you either. I belong to Zack now. I think I love him." "After just one date?" asked Bob. He looked at Becca, who was sitting quietly just listening. "It's hard to explain," said Val. "I don't think I've ever been in love before. Maybe with you ... or what I thought you'd be like if you were awake. And I DO love you ... and I DID want you to be my first. But when I was with him it was so amazing, and so unbelievable, and he made me feel so special. The way he looked at me. He got embarrassed when I teased him and was so cute. It made me want to give it to him too. And he was there ... and you had done it with Becca..." She trailed off. "So you're not sorry?" asked Bob. "Oh no!" she said smiling. "It was beautiful. I'll never forget it ever." "Good," said Bob smiling. "So now can I sleep with him?" asked Becca. Val took a breath to say something but Bob beat her to it. "Maybe it would be better if I didn't sleep with anybody." he said. "We're all tired and we're all here together." He nodded meaningfully at Fran, who was leaning again, her head down on her chest. "She wants to sleep with you too," said Becca. Her petulance was back. "I told her she was too young." "She is too young," said Bob. "I know that, but she's so stubborn. She babbled on about how all our grandmothers had our mothers when they were fifteen and stuff like that. She made me agree to help her." "Oh really?" asked Bob. He could just imagine the fiery Fran, eyes flashing, demanding that her cousin help her seduce him. It was comical and not a little erotic too. "Did you tell her I think you're too young too?" "Yes," said Becca disgustedly. "It didn't do any good. And I'm NOT too young. I'm old enough that I'm horny all the time thinking about it. Can't I please sleep with you tonight? It's the perfect chance." she said hopefully. "It wouldn't be fair to Val," said Bob. "She said she wouldn't do it with you," said Becca stubbornly. "Yes, but you know how she felt. She'd see us ... hear us. It would hurt her feelings." He looked at Val. "Wouldn't it?" Val frowned and nodded. "I still want to. But I don't want to. It doesn't make any sense." "It makes perfect sense," said Bob. "I loved my wife more than anything in the world. I still felt things for other women. I just didn't act on them. It wouldn't have been the right thing to do. But I still wanted to sometimes." "You never cheated on her?" asked Val. That appealed to her sense of romance. "I got drunk at a party one night and kissed another woman. Valerie never knew. I felt bad for months. Then the same woman tried to get me in bed. When I refused she went and told Valerie that we'd already done it. She actually tried to break us up out of spite." "So what did she do?" asked Val. "Valerie? She asked me about it. I told her the truth. She was mad at me for a while, but she got over it. She decided it was just a kiss. I didn't drink any more after that. It was too dangerous. I do strange things when I drink. "I do too," said Val quietly. "When Zack took me out to dinner we had wine. I turned into a slut when we got to his apartment." Bob laughed. "That probably wasn't the wine." he said smiling. "I think it was. We had wine tonight and I want to..." She bit her lip. "Maybe that's why I'm so horny I can hardly stand it," said Becca suddenly. "I want to rub my pussy right now ... I'm actually wiggling in my chair." "Well then, maybe that would solve the problem. Let's put Frannie on the couch and you two can have one of the beds and I'll take the other. Once the lights are out you two can rub to your heart's delight." "In the same bed?" asked Becca. She looked at Val shocked. "I need to do something," said Val shrugging. "Me too ... but ... Hey! I have an idea!" "What?" asked Val warily. Becca darted a look at Bob. "You remember when we were practicing? For what I do on dates? With my mouth ... and your mouth ... on each other? The only thing better than that was what we did after that." Val leaned forward. "Zack did that too! It was ... it was ... Ohhh I want to do that!" "Wouldn't that be cheating on Zack?" asked Becca slyly. Val shook her head. "I can't get pregnant that way. That's different. It's not sex. President Clinton said so." She grinned to show she was making fun. Bob groaned. "Don't tell me you're trying to get pregnant." Val arched her right eyebrow. "No ... it's complicated. When I explained it to Zack it took half an hour. But the point is that I don't feel like oral sex would be cheating on him. Not with you, anyway. And I'm so wound up..." Bob was pretty wound up too. It's pretty hard for a guy to have two women he loves tell him they want him sexually and not react to it. "I'll take care of you two, and then you can take care of me." he offered. "But it will be in front of each other." he warned. Becca waved her hand. "We've seen each other naked all our lives. And it's not the same as if we were actually DOING it in front of each other. She's right. It's different." They carried Fran to the couch, the girls getting her legs and Bob getting her upper torso. She mumbled, but didn't wake up. Then the girls started undressing, unashamed. They both looked at Bob and he started getting out of his clothes too. He was erect when he dropped his pants. "Mmmm that looks so good." moaned Becca. "This might not be a good idea after all." breathed Val. "I'll behave. You two behave too. Now, on the bed. I'm ready for dessert ... again." He grinned. It was a little awkward at first. Bob started on Becca and Val lifted her head to watch. Becca moaned and lay her head down, her hand reaching for her cousin's. Bob reached up and twiddled her nipples as he sucked her clit and fucked his tongue in and out of her pussy. The leg next to Val bounced off of Val's thigh as she opened and closed her legs, alternately trapping Bob's head and releasing it. Her hips began to thrust and Bob had to move his hands under her buttocks to pull her pussy firmly against his face. What brought her over the edge was taking a big bite of her clit and then flicking it repeatedly with the tip of his tongue. She cursed softly and then morphed into a chant of "Oh yes ... oh yes ... oh YES ... OH YES! ... OHHHHHHHHHHHH." Her head flopped back and forth on the bed as she came. Bob stopped biting her and gave her a few licks, but she pushed his head away, sobbing for breath and saying "No more." He lifted his head and looked at Val hungrily. She had been lying on her side, watching in wonder at what it looked like. She rolled to her back and brought her knees up, holding them with her hands as she let them pull apart, opening herself for him. He was tempted to stick his prick in that lovely pussy, but he had promised to be good. So he feasted on her sex, almost in the identical way he had feasted on Becca's. And she came almost as quickly with him as she had with Zack. Her squirting pussy surprised him, but like Zack he sucked and slurped as much as he could. Still his face was thoroughly wet when she went limp and he pulled away. He had been leaning on the bed, standing on the floor and he stood up, his prick wobbling. Becca had recovered and bounced up, pushing him down where she had been. His knees hung off the bed, but it wasn't uncomfortable. Her mouth swooped down to take his prick in and he groaned as she sucked. Val rolled over and put her face beside Becca's. "Share." she pleaded. Becca pulled off, her hand holding the base. She pointed it at Val and smiled. Val pursed her lips, giving the tip a wet kiss and then her lips flowed over the head, pushing the foreskin back. She sucked the knob, rather than taking the whole thing in like Becca liked to do. It was amazingly different. They both did it exactly like they had done it when he was sleeping. Both girls had masturbated him to completion, and had brought him to completion with their mouths, and both girls were experts at it ... at least with Bob. They both knew the signs as his body began to get ready for that completion. They traded off, bringing him so close that he leaked. Each sucked up his precum and swallowed. as they gave the other girl her turn. After being brought to the edge three or four times Bob moaned: "You're killing me." Becca grinned at him. "It's just because I'm so young. You know how you keep telling me I'm too young. Maybe you're right." Val sucked hard and pulled off with a popping wet sound. "It's too much fun to rush." "My balls are starting to hurt." he groaned. Val's hand had begun stroking him slowly when she pulled off. She sped up. "Shall we take pity on him?" she asked Becca. "I suppose so." sighed Becca theatrically. Val sped up. "You got first suck. I get first taste." she said. Becca made a face. "As long as you leave some for me." "Here it comes," said Val knowingly. She leaned over, her mouth an open circle above his dick. Just as the first soothing shot blasted out of the end of his prick she sealed her lips around the head. She let go of his prick and jerked her lips off, sucking to keep his cum in her mouth. Becca almost made it, but his second shot landed partly on her cheek before she could get her mouth over his cock. She went deep again as his third salvo rocketed out and sucked on the way back up as number four was added to it. She pulled off and waved at Val to finish up while she sat back and rolled his stuff around in her mouth, tasting it and swallowing it a little at a time. Val sucked and swallowed too until he was almost limp before she finally sat back smiling. "That was fun. I feel lots better. I still wish Zack was here though." Bob groaned again and panted to catch his breath. "I can't move." he moaned. The two girls giggled and played at arranging him on the bed, pulling at his legs until he was bent in an "L" shape and then trying to push his upper torso so he was straight again. He was too heavy, though, and had to help. Finally he lay straight on the bed. "Night night," said Val sweetly. Becca got a washcloth and handed it to Bob, who wiped his face. She took it from him and started wiping his prick too, holding it and pulling at it. He batted her hands away as she laughed. She leaned over to kiss him and whispered. "I'm still horny. Don't be surprised if I climb in bed with you later." She grinned a conspiratorial grin and went to turn out the light. Bob fell asleep listening to the two girls talk softly as they lay in bed together. He fell asleep smiling. ------- Chapter 20 Fran woke up in the dark and felt the strangeness of not knowing where you are. Her head was still fuzzy and she felt pain. She lifted her head and saw the interior of the cabin in the moonlight coming through the windows. "Oh yeah." she thought to herself. The pain localized just above her groin and she realized she had to pee badly. Still woozy from the wine, she felt dizzy when she stood up and sat back down making the frame of the couch creak. She finally decided to crawl to the bathroom and that was better. She was sweaty and didn't like that. While she sat down on the toilet she took off her shirt and bra and kicked off her shorts. Then she spread her legs and bore down as her bladder began to cooperate. ------- Bob was wakened by the creaking thump of Fran plopping back down on the couch. He didn't know what it was, but it woke him up. He listened and heard a rustling as she crawled to the bathroom, and then nothing, and finally the tell-tale splash of urine hitting water hard. It was just one of the girls going to the bathroom. He closed his eyes and began to drift back to sleep. ------- Fran felt so good after her bladder emptied that she just sat there for a while. She tried standing up and it wasn't so bad now. She swayed a little, but if she used her hands on the wall she could navigate relatively well. She was thirsty, and not knowing any better, leaned over the sink and drank straight from the tap. The wine still in her stomach began to seep into her bloodstream again almost immediately. She stepped out into the main room, her eyes accustomed to the dim light that penetrated the windows. She saw Bob lying on the bed naked. She giggled, and then put her finger up to her lips to quiet herself. She swayed and almost fell and to save herself she dropped one knee to the floor and caught herself with her fingertips. Then she crawled again, this time to the edge of Bob's bed. She held her breath and lifted her head little by little, pretending she was an Indian, spying on the Cavalry. As her eyes rose high enough they saw the landscape of Bob's body, pale in the moonlight. There, lying on his brown bush was his penis. "The soldier is asleep when he's supposed to be alert and standing at attention!" she giggled to herself. "I can ambush him! He hasn't got a chance." She got to her knees and ever so slowly reached her hand out. She couldn't seem to make it stay still, and it went from side to side. She concentrated until her hand was right over his cock and then touched it with one fingertip. She jerked her hand back and covered her mouth with both hands as she giggled. She put her index and next fingertips on the bedclothes at the edge of the bed and walked them toward Bob's hip, making them go fast at a diagonal, and then very slowly toward his skin, like a guerilla sneaking up on an enemy position. She knew better than to crawl her fingers up his hip, so she "jumped" her make believe attacker and her hand landed on his prick. Her fingers went around it and she marveled at how warm it felt. Bob's breathing changed and she froze. He seemed to sigh and didn't move any further. She squeezed gently, sliding her hand down toward his balls like she had when he was sleeping in Aunt Martha's house. He was sleeping now, and it suddenly seemed normal to be doing what she was doing. Her alcohol fogged mind made the transference complete as her hand moved faster and harder, no longer worried about waking him up. He never woke up, right? Or did he. Yes, he DID wake up. But he wasn't waking up now. She began to feel the tingles around her body that she had felt when doing this before, and her other hand went to stroke her pussy lips. She loved to pull at them, stretching one of them as far as she could and letting it snap back. When she had done that a few times, she would burrow her fingers between her stretched lips to find her bud and squeeze it. She couldn't pull it, because by now she was wet and slippery and she couldn't get a grip on it. One hand stroked the penis, which was getting hard, just like it always did, while the other hand pinched as she spread her legs wide while she squatted beside the bed. Then it was time to straighten three fingers and rub them back and forth over her clit as the streaks of pleasure began to suffuse her belly. Her nipples tingled and she started breathing faster. ------- Bob was having a great dream in which Becca was playing with him, getting ready to swallow his cock. He rose toward wakefulness and fought it. He didn't want to wake up and make the dream stop. But her hand moving on him got faster and harder and it brought him awake with the dream lingering in his mind. She WAS there. She'd said she might do this. "Suck it." he whispered. ------- Fran felt him move and heard his whisper. She froze. "Suck it baby." he whispered again. Fran's befuddled mind knew what he meant. She'd thought about doing that before, but hadn't had the nerve to do it. Now, his invitation helped her knock down the last wall of inhibition she had. She stood, and leaned over the bed, his prick still in her hand. In her mind, he knew who she was and accepted her as a woman. She stuck out her tongue and touched the tip of it to the tip of his cock. His hips flexed and he pushed it against her lips. She backed up enough to lick her lips, tasting. Nothing. Not good ... not bad ... just nothing. She touched it with her tongue again, feeling the surface. The foreskin was up, and her tongue pushed at it, moving it. She moved her hand to pull it back and her tongue felt a different surface, tight and smooth and slick. Her lips were right there and she tentatively nipped at the tip with them, like she was taking the tip off an ice cream cone. His skin felt smooth and warm. She liked it. That led to taking a little more and a little more until the knobby head was in her mouth. It felt good to try and squash it with her lips and cheeks, but she was careful not to bite. His hips flexed again and shoved another inch in her mouth. Now her lips were down on the shaft, and that felt different too. That skin moved a little, and was bumpier. She had to open her mouth wider because he was thicker down there. She played by sliding her lips up and down the long shaft like she had seen a woman do in a porno flick one of her friends had shown her. Bob sighed as Becca worked on his prick. She was being much more gentle than she had been in the past. Before she was almost violent, taking as much into her mouth as she could without choking, and moving her head fast. Tonight she was slower, more tender. Both ways were nice. The fast way made him want to cum in her mouth. But this way made him want to wait and cum in her pussy. He thought about eating her pussy first, but he'd already done that tonight, and he wanted the real deal now. He moved his hand to her hip. She was still naked. He slid his hand up to fondle a breast. Becca and Fran were alike in odd ways. Becca was short for her age, and modestly developed. She had shoulder length auburn hair that usually hung loose. Fran was tall for her age, and ahead of most of the other girls in terms of her shape. Her dark brown hair was also shoulder length, though she usually had it in a pony tail. Tonight it was loose. They swapped clothing all the time and it fit them both perfectly. The result was that, in the dark, Bob couldn't see her well enough to see the darker hair, and her breasts were about the same size as Becca's. So Bob still thought it was Becca. And Fran still thought he knew who she was. When he ran his hand over her breast and felt for a nipple, Fran shivered. She'd never let a boy touch her naked breast before. A couple had copped feels through her clothing at dances, but that was it. The feel of his flesh on her nipples was almost astonishingly wonderful and she leaned closer to him. His hand went to her back and he pulled her toward him. She crawled up onto the bed. Since he was lying right in the middle, there was no room for her to lie down on either side. Instead, she stayed on all fours, straddling his knees, with her hands on either side of his hips. This was better. His prick was at full stiffness now, and she didn't need her hand to stand it up to lick and suck. Whenever she let it fall out of her mouth, though, it leaned to one side - her left - and she had to move her upper body to recapture it. She played, licking and sucking for five more minutes, unhappy because she couldn't reach her pussy because she had both hands planted on the bed. Then his hands pulled her face up toward his and she had to crawl up his body. He was pulling her up for a kiss, and that put her pussy lips right on the bottom of his prick as her body forced it down onto his abdomen. Her natural inclination to press her pussy against something hard brought almost electric shocks that shot out from her pussy and up into her belly. They raced under her skin somehow and into her nipples, which spiked and stuck out more than they ever had before. Fran couldn't decide what to concentrate on. She'd kissed boys too, but not like this. Bob's mouth was alive and moving under her lips, and she wanted to move hers like that too. His tongue flicked into her mouth and then back out. She'd heard of this, but thought it would be nasty. It wasn't. But her pussy was rubbing that long hard thing down there, and that felt amazing too. She dragged her pussy along his prick and the pushed it back down again. The slightly bumpy skin on the bottom of his cock pushed her labia aside and let her clit ride directly on the hard surface. She knew instantly she could cum this way, if she had enough time to rub. Bob's hands slid all over her back, her waist and her buttocks, grabbing them to help her slid back and forth. Again, she let it all happen, just experiencing all the new feelings and things. And again, Bob was the one who pushed it further. Becca had wanted his prick in her earlier, and he knew she wanted it now. He pushed her to a sitting position and reached down to fist his cock. He pushed it at her belly, expecting her to raise up so he could get it started into her pussy. For some reason she didn't raise up, but scooted back. He had to bend his prick almost painfully to make it point toward his feet, but he felt the tip nudge into her opening. She gasped and he knew she was excited. ------- When Fran finally realized what he was trying to do her mind exploded. In her dreams she had done this before. Philosophically she wanted to feel what it was like. She still had, though, the natural desire to protect herself from harm, and the nervousness about letting her cherry get picked. Her emotions were at a peak, and her body was screaming to let that prick up inside her. She wanted to ... but she didn't at the same time. She decided that she would "try it a little bit" to see what that was like. Then she'd make up her mind about more. She shoved her pussy forward and the tip of his prick burrowed happily between her pussy lips. The pressure felt good to both of them as his broad knob spread her opening apart more than it had ever spread before. But the knob was still outside of her. Her weight was on her knees, with her shins lying flat on the bed beside his legs. By leaning forward with her hands on his stomach, she could control how far her hips moved. It felt good to push. The more she pushed, the better if felt. There came a point where pushing too hard was painful, but if she backed off from that point just a tiny bit, it was perfect. She couldn't hold it there, because she began to go numb, but if she backed off and then pushed, and backed off and pushed, it was fabulous. Basically she was fucking the tip of his cock with just her pussy lips. Bob thought she was teasing him ... playing with him ... trying to drive him wild. It was working. There came a point where Bob leaned up, tightening his abs and reached for her waist. He grabbed it as she slid forward, her hands on his lower rib cage. He wanted it in her and he pulled her onto it. Fran had excelled in gymnastics and in the process had destroyed her hymen. She was also more flexible than most girls her age, which is why, when she was forced down onto her great grandfather's rampant rod, it only hurt a lot, instead of tearing her apart. "Ohhh oowwwwww" she complained as she was stuffed. Her thighs automatically flexed and pulled her up off the invader. But her upper legs were too short to pull completely off of him. The head was still inside her. She wanted to move her legs so she could get off, but when she tried, she slid back down. The tip of his cock felt like it was in her stomach and she tried to get off again, leaning forward and putting pressure on the tops of her feet. She was strong enough to lift her whole body that way, but Bob still hadn't figured out who she was, so his hands went back to her waist and pulled her back down onto his prick. In her leaned forward position, when Bob impaled her again, the top of his cock scraped along her clit. Those electric tingles, combined with the fact that her pussy was beginning to adjust to his girth, gave her the first real information that there might be something more than pain. She tried the same maneuver again, with better results. By the time she'd done it two more times, there was more pleasure than pain, and the pain wasn't bad at all. She couldn't make it move too much though, and she just knew that if she could get more travel along that nice hard thing, it would feel even better. She sat up, letting her whole weight drive her down onto his cock and leaned to her left to unfold her right leg and put her foot flat on the bed. Then she leaned the other way to do the same thing. With her feet now beside his ribs she leaned forward again and put her hands on his chest. She had to move around, but she finally found a squatting position that put her thighs in control. She started bouncing, hearing wet sounds as she pulled her pussy almost off of his standing prick, and then let her pussy fall back to slam down against him, driving him deep. That was the feeling she had been looking for, and it was even better than she had hoped. She set up a smooth repetitive tempo, fucking his cock with her pussy and making the bed springs squeak in a rhythmic tempo. ------- Val's sleep was disturbed by Fran's moan of pain, but she didn't wake up. Further noises brought her closer and closer to full consciousness, though, and she woke to the singing of the bed springs which were loud in the small room. As her mind cleared and she came more fully awake, she heard the breathing next, a regularly spaced panting, like a runner who is breathing in a certain number of breaths per minute. She had almost figured out what the noises meant when she moved her hand and felt Becca's body where she didn't expect it to be. If Becca was with her ... who was making all that noise in Bob's bed? Then Fran gave out with her first moan. What she was now doing had brought her to the edge of orgasm much more quickly than she'd have thought possible, and the feeling was beginning to build in her like hot air in a balloon. Her speed and breathing rate both increased as she pounded her pussy down onto the prod that was serving her so well. Bob, for his part, didn't have to do anything at all but lie there and enjoy the feeling of his prick being jacked off, for all intents and purposes, by a soft, tight pussy. He was within a couple of hairs of busting a nut. Like Fran's moan made things click in Val's mind about what was going on, it also made things click in Bob's mind. While she looked like Becca in the dark, and while she felt like Becca in the dark ... she didn't sound anything like Becca, dark or otherwise. "Frannie?" Bob gasped. "Uhhh ... uhhh ... uhhh ... uhhh..." Fran grunted as the wave inside her began to break. "Frannie?" Bob gasped again. The thought that her beautiful young pussy was wrapped around his prick made him light headed. THERE it was, thought Fran in her mind. It was here and she was having her first orgasm as a woman. She slammed her pussy down onto his prick, letting her whole weight swallow as much of the hard thing that was making her feel so wonderful into her. Her pussy spasmed and she wiggled all over Bob's abdomen as she shook and vibrated. Bob knew in that instant why this was sometimes called screwing. The rippling in her pussy and her movements made if feel like she was trying to screw herself down onto his prick. "Ohhhh Frannie" groaned Bob as he realized he was going to cum and that there was nothing he could do about it." Val sat up in bed, her eyes wide open. "FRANNIE?" she yipped. Becca woke up. "Whatzz?" she mumbled. The full force of her orgasm washed over Fran and she let out an agonized groan of appreciation that sounded like she was being tortured on the rack. Bob spurted at the same time, his cock sending thick jets of spunk to the tip of his cock. That tip was buried in Fran's cervix and as she wiggled, the spurts either painted that little doorway, or streaked through it into her womb. In both cases she felt it as a glowing ball of heat, and her mind characterized it as a candle that had been shoved deep inside her, with the flame at the tip. Fran didn't get to enjoy any romantic afterglow. That's because Val jumped out of bed and reached for the light switch. In the dark of night it was blinding and everyone covered their eyes. Becca sat up in bed and looked around to see a very naked Fran still sitting on Bob's lap. It was instantly apparent what was happening. Val, standing frozen like a naked statue by the light switch, saw the same thing. ------- In the next fifteen minutes every emotion known to man flew from wall to wall in that cabin. There were recriminations, joy, anger, the flush of love, arguing, thankfulness, embarrassment, and a complete lack of repentance on Fran's part. She had done exactly what she wanted to do, and it had gone, if not like her dreams, very very well in her opinion. To give you some clue as to just how upset everyone was, no one got dressed. It wasn't that they wanted to be naked around each other ... they were just too busy yelling at each other to think about what the rest of us would call propriety. Bob got blamed until he said he thought it was Becca. Becca got yelled at for planning to sneak into bed with him. Fran got yelled at by everybody, but didn't care. Her pussy was full of wet, warm sperm and she loved every second of feeling it in her. When they ganged up on her, Fran disarmed them all by asking why it was that everybody was naked. "Why were YOU naked?" asked Val, avoiding the answer. "I had to go to the bathroom and it was hot," said Fran simply. "Why were you and Becca naked?" Bob knew he had to get things under control. The damage was done, and couldn't be UNdone. "Last night, after you fell asleep ... they sort of did some things too." he said. Fran's mouth dropped open and she whirled to face Becca. "You KNEW I wanted to do this!" she said accusingly. "You PROMISED to help me! But as soon as I fall asleep you jump his bones?" Val sat up straight. "What's she talking about Becca?" she asked, here voice stern. "What did you promise to help her do?" Becca was suddenly the center of attention. She looked from Fran to Val and back again. "She was bugging me about wanting to get her cherry popped. She just HAD to do it with Grandpa. I TOLD her he wouldn't do it, but she made me promise to help her get him to." Becca shrugged and Bob noticed that her breasts wobbled delightfully as a result. "Oh ... so she MADE you!" snorted Val. Then the yelling started all over again, except this time it was just between the girls. Bob, knowing that it would calm down eventually, just watched all the naked teenaged flesh around him. He was mildly surprised to feel his prick move in his lap, and looked down to see it was about half hard. He smiled and wondered if he should point out to the arguing cousins that, while they were yelling at each other, he was thinking about how much fun it would be to fuck one of them. He decided they might not see the humor in that. It took them another fifteen minutes to air all their grievances, but in the end they were all buddies again. Then Val began to deliver a lecture to Fran about safe sex and the perils of pregnancy. "Did you have safe sex with ... what's his name? ... Zack?" Val looked startled. Before she could answer Fran turned to Becca. "And when you told us about you and Grandpa, you didn't mention anything about condoms. Did you make Grandpa wear a condom when he popped your cherry?" Becca just grinned. "Nope. I didn't even think about it. I was so horny that getting my pussy stuffed was all I could think about." Fran turned back to Val. "You were saying?" she said, her voice heavy with sarcasm. Val bristled. "That's not fair. If I get pregnant, at least I'm old enough to keep the baby and raise it and provide for it. Becca is too, for that matter. But you're not even out of school yet. Don't be stupid, Frannie." Fran nodded. "Somebody should have told our grandmothers that." She looked at Bob. "Did they even have condoms back in those days Grandpa?" Bob laughed. "Yes, but only married men would buy them back then. You had to get them from the Pharmacist, and he knew everybody in town. He knew if you were married or not too. Teenagers for SURE couldn't just waltz in and buy them. Instead they tried to find some adult who would get them for them. It was the same way with booze." "Maybe that's why our grandmothers all got pregnant at fifteen." theorized Fran. "They weren't married, so they couldn't get condoms, so they had sex without them and got pregnant." Bob's memory, after the first rush of restocking his mind with things to think about, now supplied odd bits and pieces of information, sometimes out of the blue. If he tried to remember things, he could, but it was usually something he'd already remembered that claimed his thoughts. A sound would trigger "new" memories and several times an odor had done that. Fran's talk of Bob's daughters being pregnant so young did it now. In his mind Bob heard first Martha, and then June and Betty telling him that he had made babies in them. All three told him while they were riding his thick prick, and almost in the same way. Martha had been ecstatic that she had her Daddy's baby growing inside her belly. She had talked about names, and what he was going to look like (she was sure it was a boy, but Sunny had popped out instead), and what being pregnant felt like. He remembered her telling him she was putting his hand on her belly to feel the baby kick. He couldn't remember that sensation, but he remembered the words. June had worried incessantly that she wouldn't be a good mother ... that she didn't know how to be a good mother. She worried about her ankles swelling. She worried about what people thought about her being pregnant so young. She worried about something happening to the baby, both before and after it was born. That changed when her baby began moving around inside her. Before then it had been an idea. When it moved, it became a little person inside her and she was too much in love with it to worry about anything any more. She had shared the whole experience with the sleeping man who had impregnated her. Betty, being the youngest, was jealous of her sisters and every time she made love to her father she begged him to make a baby in her. When she finally missed a period, she stayed home from school and refused to go outside, afraid that something might make her have a miscarriage. Valerie couldn't even make her leave the house. She had spend most of each day with Bob for a week before she got bored and went back to school. She hadn't talked about being pregnant much at all. But every time she made love to him after that, she said "Thank you Daddy for letting me have a baby." Their second children had been more routine. They were still excited, more so when they came back from the hospital to tell Bob he had sons now. After that, though, talk of pregnancies waned and Bob wouldn't know until he woke up that he had even more children. "What's the matter Grandpa?" asked Becca, staring at Bob's slack face. He couldn't very well tell them that their grandmothers wouldn't have used condoms even if they had them. None of his biological offspring other than his original three daughters called him "Daddy", so it was likely that they didn't even know. His daughters' reluctance to talk about fathers of children suddenly made a lot of sense. No, if these girls were to find out that their mothers were actually his biological daughters, it was going to have to be from the mothers of their mothers, and not him. Bob smiled. "I was just thinking how lucky I am. I was asleep for fifty years, and lost almost everything that meant anything to me. Now, here I am, with three very lovely naked women who I love with all my heart, and I've been lucky enough to make love with two of them. I have money, and family ... I don't think my life could be any better. "Two of them," said Fran suddenly. "You just said 'two of them'." "What?" asked Bob. "You said you made love with TWO of the lovely naked women in the room. That's me and Becca. But you said a minute ago that THEY did things after I went to sleep." "Oh," said Bob smiling. "Val didn't want to have intercourse." Fran looked interested. "Why not? What did you do?" By now things had gone on long enough that the fact that they were all naked just seemed natural. Neither did talking about the things they did. Val explained it to Fran and described what she and Becca had done. "Oooo I did that a little and it was fun, but then he made me stop to kiss me. Then things happened really fast. I don't know if I did it right. Teach me?!" she said to Val. "But Fran you're too..." "DO NOT SAY IT!" shouted Fran. "I've had sex! I'm a woman now! Admit it!" Val slumped and then grinned. "OK, you're a woman. But when you turn up with a big fat belly, don't say I didn't warn you." "You can't get pregnant from THAT!" said Fran firmly. "No, but DOING that makes you want to do what you just did, and that WILL get your belly big and fat." "I'm kind of sore down there," said Fran. "I don't think I'll want to do that again for a while. I mean it was really fun and I'm glad I did it, and I love you very much Grandpa ... but for now I think I'd just like to learn how to give a good blow job." The girls made a party of it, putting the two mattresses on the floor side by side so they could put Bob in the middle and have room to gather around him on their hands and knees. He propped up his head to watch as blow job 101 was put into session. He was amazed at how much thought Val and Becca put into performing fellatio as they very clinically explained what they did, and why, and how it felt, and how to tell when Bob was about to spurt. Fran wasn't happy about the idea of getting a mouthful, but both Val and Becca insisted that, once she'd done it with Bob, she'd be addicted. Both also said that that wasn't necessarily true about other men. Then the demonstrations and practicing started and it wasn't clinical any more. Fran learned fast and adopted Val's technique of concentrating on the head while she stroked the shaft. That was because she gagged when she tried to take it down her throat like Becca could do. To their credit, when Bob was close, the older girls sat back and coached Fran while she brought him off. When he came, she jerked upright, her hand over her mouth and her eyes wild as the rest of his cum shot up into the air and then onto his chest as his prick leaned drunkenly. Val and Becca didn't laugh. "Just swallow, Frannie," said Val. "Just DO it." Her eyes rolling Fran looked toward the toilet, but then gave a convulsive gulp and opened her mouth. Her eyes went unfocused as her taste buds reported and her mouth closed. She swallowed again and put her hand on her bare stomach. Then she licked her lips and swallowed a third time. Finally, she smiled. ------- Chapter 21 By the time they curled up like puppies together, it was five in the morning. As a result they slept late, or would have except the phone rang, waking Bob and Val up. Becca rolled away from Bob as he got up, but didn't wake up. It was Sunny letting him know where everyone was and wanting to know if everything was all right, and why her daughter hadn't called her the night before. "We got in pretty late," said Bob, "and we were all so tired we pretty much just went right to bed." Sunny said she understood. Then: "I went out this morning and gave the news people coffee and told them you were in hiding and wouldn't be coming back for days. Actually I told them I didn't know when you'd be coming back. They didn't even try to interview me! Anyway, they left. I called Mom and she said she'd do the same thing. I think she's about ready to call a news conference or something just to get the media off our backs." "I haven't been awake long," said Bob, "but I've been awake long enough to doubt that that will work." "Well, you can bring them back," said Sunny. "I imagine you're probably tired of being around a bunch of teenaged girls." "I love my great granddaughters," said Bob. "I don't think I'd ever get tired of being around them. Besides, they're fun to look at too." Val came over and took the phone from Bob. "Mom? Hi Mom. We're fine. We're not little girls any more Mom. You don't have to check up on us ... What? ... Of course we're being nice to him ... Yeah, we stopped at Wal-Mart and got some things. It's really beautiful up here in the mountains." They talked on for a while and Val made it quite clear that they would be home when they got around to it, but that they weren't in a hurry. Finally she hung up. "Why do parents worry so much?" she groused. Bob walked up to her, took her in his arms, and kissed her soundly, thrusting his soft prick into the juncture of her legs. He cupped a breast and tweaked a nipple. Then he finally pulled back. "I can't imagine." he said, smiling. They got dressed and made breakfast and then the girls wanted to explore. Bob was still tired, having gotten only a couple of hours of sleep, so they accused him of being old and told him to take a nap while they went to see the sights. Bob was asleep within minutes of them leaving. Within an hour the girls had run into Sally. Bob had told them about her and the book, and within minutes of meeting her they were all sitting around on the porch as Sally added to her store of knowledge about Bob's life, and how it had affected his family members. ------- The main reason they went back home that day was because Becca's date with Denny was that night. As soon as she got home she called her aunt to make sure she'd be ready on time too. Polly made a weak attempt to try to renege, but Becca wasn't having any of that. Finally Polly said she'd be ready. Denny and Brian were supposed to pick Becca up first, and then go get Polly. As it turned out, Polly was so nervous that she got ready two hours early and then paced up and down and moaned about how stupid this all was until Francine chased her out of the house and told her to go be with Becca. Gidget didn't help things any. When Polly showed up, Gidget took one look at her and snorted, saying that outfit would never do. "You look like a frumpy old lady." she said to her sister. "I AM a frumpy old lady." moaned Polly. "No you're not. Come on!" Gidget took Polly's hand and dragged her toward her bedroom. "Now, I think I have an outfit that will be just perfect..." Becca grinned as the voices faded. She was a little worried herself. Now that the date was imminent, her self confidence was suffering a little. She had chosen a man's western style shirt that she'd gotten for a costume party the year before. She tied the tail in a knot under her breasts, leaving her midriff bare and put on a pair of tight short shorts. Her mother said she looked like a prostitute, but didn't try to make her change. She was fiddling with the buttons on the shirt, trying to figure out how many to leave undone. She was going braless tonight because it made her feel sexy. She went to her bedroom and opened her jewelry box. It had her fake ID in it and she picked it up. "What am I thinking!" she thought. "I'm going out with a cop and my aunt, neither of whom is likely to let me drink anyway." She dropped the ID back in they box and turned to dab on some perfume behind her ears. She put a dab between her breasts too. She looked in the mirror and pulled the shirt tight across her breasts to see if her nipples showed through. They didn't, and she felt vaguely disappointed. She checked her watch ... fifteen minutes to go. The doorbell rang. Becca's head jerked up and she heard loud complaining voices from down the hall in her mother's room. "I'll get it!" she yelled down the hallway and trotted to the door. It was Denny. He stared at her. "You're early!" she said, smiling. Her stomach was already doing flip flops. "I guess I was excited." he said. "I haven't been on a date in a while." "Where's Brian?" she asked. "He's in the car," said Denny. "Well tell him to come on in. Aunt Polly is here - plan B - and she's still getting ready." Denny turned and waved, making hand signals. Becca heard a car door slam. She realized Denny was still standing on the porch. "Come on in." she said, standing back. "You look fabulous." he said as he passed her. "Thank you sir." she said feeling more of those flip flops. Brian bounded up the steps wanting to know what was going on. When he was told, he simply went in and sat down on the couch. Denny stood, looking around. Becca suddenly couldn't think of anything to say. She went to the hallway and bellowed "THEY'RE HERE!" A door opened and Gidget's voice called out. "Almost done." Gidget showed up first, walking down the stairs like the advance guard of a diplomat. "She's just touching up her lipstick." she said. No one believed her. "I thought, since you all are going miniature golfing tonight, that she might look good with a retro look. She's worried you'll think she looks silly." "Even if I did, Ma'am, it would be unprofessional to mention it," said Brian. "Nice to see you again Ma'am." Gidget blushed. "If you're dating my sister you have to call me Gidget. It's a rule." she said, smiling. "Yes Ma'am, Gidget Ma'am." teased Brian. There was a noise behind Gidget and she turned around. "Come on." she urged. Gidget stepped out of the way as Polly came into view. Gidget had put her in Capri pants, that came to the middle of her calves. They were tight, with a wide shiny belt. Tucked into that was a blood red silk blouse that had a wide collar with long pointed ends. Her hair was up on top of her head, held together in some mysterious manner and she had long dangly earrings on that swayed as she stepped down. She was wearing high heels. "I feel stupid." she said. Brian stood up. "Gidget?" he said. Both Polly and Gidget looked at him. "I know about Becca, but you didn't tell me you had another teenaged daughter." Gidget giggled and Polly frowned. "If you're going to make fun of me then this date is already over." "You're gorgeous," said Brian seriously. "If you don't go out with me tonight I might do something rash and self destructive." Polly looked startled. Her cheeks went pink. Gidget pushed her toward Brian. "Are we ready to go?" asked Denny. "Yes!" said Becca. "Do I need a purse?" she asked. "I'm driving," said Denny. "And us manly types are paying tonight. You're both gorgeous just like you are. I don't think so." The miniature golf course was mixed in with a number of other entertainment and tourist places along US 50 outside of Placerville. It took an hour to get there, which gave them all time to relax and talk. Both Denny and Brian were attentive listeners and it wasn't too hard to get Polly started talking. She relaxed too as Brian began coaxing information out of her. In the front seat Becca flirted with Denny, reaching out to touch his thigh when she asked him a question and turning in her seat to face him so he could see down the gap in her shirt. She felt excited being on a date with a grown man. Polly claimed not to know anything at all about golf, and her first few strokes suggested she was telling the truth. By the time they'd gotten to the 10th hole, Brian had used every opportunity to end up behind Polly, his arms around her, helping her stroke the ball, while his groin pressed into the tight fabric of the back of her Capris. Becca noticed that her aunt didn't make any real effort to get away from the pressure and spent a lot of time blushing and watching Brian as he played his own game. At the end of the game there were celebratory hugs and each man got a quick kiss on the lips. Then they were off to find a drive in where they could get chocolate shakes. The smells reminded them they were hungry, and it turned into burgers and fries and onion rings ... and chocolate shakes. The girls were able to begin dragging information out of the men ... about their lives and their jobs ... what it was like being a cop. Brian claimed to have learned more working the first week as Denny's partner than he did in the whole police academy class he attended. Denny said that, for a wet-behind-the-ears rookie, Brian wasn't half bad. All in all there was no pressure, and no pain, and all of them had a pretty great time. On the way back there was a little hand holding in both the front and back seats, and Polly sat a lot closer to Brian than on the trip up, but other than that there was no hanky panky. Polly's car was at Becca's, so they ended up there, standing on the porch. Becca set the stage by putting her arms around Denny's neck and pulling his face down for a kiss. "That was fun." she said, when the kiss was over. "Tonight, I mean." "The kiss wasn't bad either," said Denny, his hands sliding up Becca's back. Four feet away Polly was anxious again. She wanted to kiss Brian, but felt silly. Brian pulled her up against him, but didn't try to kiss her. "I had a good time tonight too." he said softly. "Really?" asked Polly. "I want to see you again." he said. "Really?" she repeated herself. Then he kissed her, long and hard, sliding his right hand to the tight pants and cupping one firm buttock. He squeezed it and she wiggled against him. She was breathing hard when it was over. "Really." he said. "OK." she said softly. They stared at each other for a few seconds and were suddenly kissing again. Like teenagers they made out in the dark of the front porch. Brian's hands roamed all over her back, but he restricted them to that area. She felt good in his hands. He hadn't been sure that dating an older woman would be a good idea, but her attitude at the hospital had twanged a string in him. He was very glad he'd decided to do this now. Becca and Denny didn't stand and watch the other two. They did a little making out of their own. Denny's hands confirmed what he'd suspected all night long ... that she wasn't wearing a bra. He crushed her against him as her tongue began flicking against his. Ten minutes later the men left. Both women stood and watched them drive away. "Thank you baby," said Polly. "What for?" asked Becca. "For making me do this tonight." "Had fun huh?" "I haven't had fun like that for a long time. It's a good thing you were here." she said to her niece. "Why's that?" asked Becca. "Because that boy would have had me naked and screaming for more if you hadn't been here." She giggled conspiratorially. "So ... we going to double date again next time?" asked Becca. "We'd sure better." sighed Polly. "I haven't been this horny in as long as I can remember. I don't think it would be a good idea to go out with him alone." ------- Dr. Adams called and told Bob his test results were all in and asked him to come in. Bob returned to the hospital and went to Dr. Adams' office. Adams looked up tiredly from the piles of papers he was going over. "This is as puzzling as anything I've ever seen." he sighed. "It's pretty puzzling to me too," said Bob. "You didn't age while you slept. All the tests show normal indications for a man in good health in his mid twenties," said the doctor. "Your daughters tell me they didn't feed you. I don't think they're lying, but I can't see any way that this happened unless you were in suspended animation. Since there is no documented case of suspended animation in a human being, that doesn't make any sense either. But they couldn't have fed you without a feeding tube and, of course, there's no evidence they used that technology either. You didn't eliminate, but all that suggests is that you weren't fed. If you'd have been out for a week or two, all this would make perfect sense. But you weren't." He blinked. "It's almost like hibernation, except that you didn't use up your fat reserves." The doctor stretched, yawning, and went on. "That drops this whole thing into the realm of genetics. Genetic research has made amazing strides, but the human genome still hasn't been mapped completely, so the answer to this lies in one of several million genes that we don't understand yet." "So," said Bob. "What do we do now?" The doctor looked at him and frowned. "I'm convinced that you have a gene that reacted to the alcohol you drank just before you fell asleep. You said it was home brew ... moonshine, I believe they used to call it." Bob nodded. "You know, the legend of Rip Van Winkle? Interesting similarity in names ... don't you think?..." The doctor stopped, like he was waiting for Bob to say something. Bob hadn't told Doctor Adams about the diary, or the fact that the man of legend was Bob's great great grandfather. He had enough problems trying to have a private life as it was, and if it got out that the man the media was calling Rip Van Winkle was, in fact, the direct descendent of that legend ... Well, who knew what would happen then? When Bob didn't say anything Dr. Adams finally went on. "Well, anyway, in that legend, Mr. Van Winkle also drank from a keg of home brew. It was alleged that this home brew was made by fairies or something..." "Little People." Bob interrupted. "Kind of like leprechauns." "So you DO know the story," said Adams looking piercingly at Bob. "Please go on," said Bob, ducking the issue. Adams stared at him a little longer and then spoke. "Yes, well anyway, he drank home brew and slept for twenty years. Of course no one examined him because he was a fictional character." "What makes you think that?" asked Bob. "That he was fictional?" asked Adams, his eyebrows rising. "Surely you don't think that story is true." Bob thought about the thing that kept bugging him ... what if he fell asleep again? He needed to find out why it had happened. If there was a trigger he could avoid, he might be able to live a normal life. While he had adjusted, for the most part, to the age he was now in, if it happened again he might not be so lucky. "What if..." he said slowly. "Just for the sake of argument ... what if that story were real ... and I was a direct descendant of that man? A hypothetical situation, of course ... but how would that affect the way you look at my case?" Adams smiled a small tight smile. "It would convince me completely that the answer is in your genes. That there is a gene you have that nobody else has, except perhaps your offspring, and it could be recessive in them, but a gene that, when affected, puts you into what could only be called a kind of hibernation or suspended animation. Except that this hibernation doesn't use any resources from your body. It would mean your heart beat only once every five minutes or so, if not in longer stretches. It would mean you took a breath only every half hour or so. And even then, it wouldn't explain where the energy came from to do even those functions. You're a modern miracle, Bob, and even the gene theory doesn't answer all the questions." The doctor stood up. "If that gene could be identified and used in therapies, it would change the entire world. It would revolutionize medicine completely." Bob held up a hand. "How exactly would that help anybody?" he asked. "Inoperable cancer, untreatable diseases, un-diagnosable afflictions, massive trauma victims ... the list would go on and on. What we don't have with those patients is time. Time can cure almost any disease. Treatments take time that we often don't have and in many cases we don't even have the treatment. But, given time, science always comes up with the answer to a given problem. If these people could be put into suspended animation, they would live until an answer for their condition was found. Look at Walt Disney. He had his body cryogenically frozen, waiting for science to come up with a way to reanimate his body. It's in a vault right here in California. "You mean the Mickey Mouse guy?" asked Bob, amazed. "The same one," said the doctor. "So it wouldn't be used just to extend people's youth?" asked Bob. "If it's what I think it is, that wouldn't even work," said Adams. You are aging normally again. In this situation, if you're asleep, you don't age. If you're awake, you do. It wouldn't do anybody any good to stay young while everybody else they knew aged normally. It just wouldn't have any application in those terms." "But whatever it is ... it could save lives," said Bob. "Definitely," said Adams. "Probably millions of lives eventually. "So, what do you want to do to me?" asked Bob. "That's the problem," said Adams heavily. Science hasn't yet progressed to the point that we can identify the gene that's at work here. It could happen next year, or it could take another couple of decades. Once the whole human genome is mapped, then we can find the one we're looking for, because it will be the only gene like it in existence." The doctor looked startled. "Well I THINK it's the only one. Who knows? Others could have this gene too, and we just don't know it. History is full of stories of people being found dead, and then buried, and then somebody digs up the coffin and there are obvious indications that the corpse tried to get out after it was buried." "So we have no idea whether I'll go back to sleep or not," said Bob. "We don't know what triggers the gene ... turns it on. Or off, for that matter," said the doctor. "But you mentioned Rip Van Winkle," said Bob "And moonshine." "Oh, that," said the doctor looking at him closely again. "It was just that the two stories so closely parallel each other. Your hypothetical situation would strengthen the hypothesis that the home brew was the trigger ... if it weren't hypothetical." There was a brief pause. "It IS hypothetical isn't it Bob?" "Not nearly as hypothetical as I wish it were," said Bob softly. Adams' mouth dropped open and his face went ashen. "But how?..." he gasped. "There is a journal," said Bob. "It was found in a desk given to me as a wedding present by my great grandfather. I didn't know about the journal then. He gave me a warning too." "What?" asked Adams. "He said to get an insurance policy that would provide for my family if I were indisposed for a long time. They had just started marketing those policies a few years before that and he said he wished he'd have had something like that available when he was younger. That's all he said. He was very insistent about it." "And the journal?" asked Adams, so excited he could barely sit still. "If I tell you about the journal, and you tell others, it could turn my life completely upside down in a way that I might never be able to live a normal life. I need you to promise me that this will stay between you and me," said Bob. Adams thought. He thought hard. Finally he said this: "Bob, at the point in time when the human genome is mapped fully, It will be horrendously expensive to find the gene I believe is there. I may need some ammunition to get the funding to do that. At that point, if you are actually related to a real person who ... slept for twenty years ... like you did ... I may have to divulge that information. It will be too important to medicine to keep secret." "I have twenty million dollars," said Bob simply. "Would it take more than that?" "Quite possibly," said Adams seriously. "But the holder of a patent on therapy using that gene would soon be the richest man on the planet. Trust me on that." "But if I funded the research, you wouldn't have to tell anybody about Rip?" asked Bob. "No," said Adams. "I mean yes ... I mean I would be able to sit on that information as part of doctor/patient privilege." "Rip left his journal in the desk, in a secret compartment," said Bob quietly. "It has the whole story in it in his own handwriting. The family changed their name, dropping the "Van" to avoid the notoriety after he woke up. They didn't want anything to do with him. He moved on, started a new family, and wrote it all down. It's signed with his original Dutch name." Adams swallowed twice before he could make his mouth work. "Is there any chance ... any way in the whole world that I could get a peek at this journal?" "I read from it occasionally to the women - my descendents - who live in Circleton. You could come over the next time we bring it out and look at it there. I can't let it out of my possession, of course." "Of course," said Adams. "I'd give anything to see it." "You can see it for free," said Bob. ------- Several of the women, when they learned what Adams had told Bob, were unhappy that their relationship to Rip had been let outside the family. It took some doing, but Bob said they had to trust the doctor, and could, at least for the present, because there was no application for the knowledge they had thus far. In short, Dr. Adams didn't have a motive to "spill the beans" as Bob put it. It had been a couple of weeks since they had gathered for a reading. That, and the fact that Martha, Sunny and Polly wanted to meet the doctor to evaluate him for themselves, resulted in a date being set for another reading. Two nights later the clan gathered. They ate dinner together and waited for Adams to arrive. When he did he was a little overawed by the women. It is difficult for any man to enter the world of nine women who establish the ambiance of a given encounter. When he was grilled by Martha and Sunny, he tried to help them understand that he couldn't tell anyone about Bob and Rip without Bob's approval or he'd lose his license to practice medicine. "You could get a lot of money for this story from any number of media representatives." suggested Sunny. "I don't think they would pay me enough to make up for the ten or twenty years I have left before I think about retirement," said Adams. "Besides, if I get my license pulled, I would not be eligible to work with Bob when we DO get the chance to use his genes ... YOUR genes, actually ... to revolutionize medicine. Think about it." he said. "There's the immortality of being the doctor who eventually brings this miracle to the world ... or twenty thousand quick ones for appearing on Oprah. Which would you choose if you were me?" That pretty much ended the interrogation, and Adams was finally showed the journal. He held it reverently, glancing through it and going to the end, where he saw the same signature that had awed the others before him. He handed it back to Bob, who sat down and opened it to where he had left off. Everyone else rustled around, finding just the right position to be comfortable in while they listened. Adams was sandwiched between Betty and Becca, and looked happy. "I entered the clearing," Bob read, "and was amazed that, despite all the activity I could see as these wee folk played their game of ninepins, that the only noise I could hear was the noise of the ball hitting the pins. That noise was explicitly tied to the pins. I heard it only when the pins were hit, or hit each other, but what it sounded like was thunder. Between peals, they didn't seem to speak, and wore looks of soberness that made my spirit quail. They were playing at the game, but looked as serious as if it were important work." Rip's account went on to say how, when the players saw him they stopped and stared at him, as if he shouldn't be there. Then the man with the keg opened it and poured it into large flagons as the bowlers approached. He did not offer one to Rip, though Rip saw there were more flagons filled than there were men in the clearing. They quaffed the drink thirstily, and Rip told of how dry his tongue felt, and how golden the liquid was that spilled down the cheeks and beards of the little men as they tipped their flagons upward recklessly. Then they went back to their game, leaving him alone. As they played Rip looked at the stump where there sat three bronze flagons, brimming with the golden nectar that had come from the keg. He couldn't resist, and tasted just a little from one. He recognized instantly that it tasted like the brews made from old family recipes that came from the old country, where crops raised below sea level and protected by dikes tasted different than those grown elsewhere. And the brews made from those crops tasted different too. "I sampled the brew again when I thought they didn't see," wrote Rip. "and yet again until that flagon had suddenly gone dry. Still the thunder rolled as the pins were knocked down and the little men pursued their serious game. I had a thirst such as I'd never had in my life, and there were two more flagons sitting there, going to waste. I confess that I drank them too, and my head swam and the world began to buck and roll all around me, as if the earth shifted, though my feet were firmly planted on solid unmoving ground." Bob paused dramatically. "It was then that a nap appealed to me, and I lay down to take one. My last thought was that Wolf had deserted me, and that his back would have made a wonderful pillow, as it had so many times before." Bob closed the book with a slap of pages and grinned. "You know, I had some of my cousin's home brew, made with special ingredients from an old family recipe. I drank it as I lay there in my Barca Lounger, getting ready for a nap." He looked around seriously. "We might, as a family, want to pay particular attention to what kind of distilled spirits we drink from now on." Oddly, that night, for the first time, no one begged for him to read more. They all knew what came next ... the long sleep, and the waking that would completely undo Rip's life. Only Doctor Adams was immune from the melancholy that set in. He was invited to stay the night, so he could examine the journal. When Martha got up the next morning, he was bent over the table, snoring softly where he had fallen asleep poring over the diary. She had the sudden fear that he had entered the same kind of sleep Rip and Bob had, just by touching the book. She sighed with relief when he snorted and jerked at her touch. ------- Chapter 22 As time went on and Bob was slowly forgotten by the world again, the need for him to stay at the cabin waned. Still, it had been such a peaceful place that he had Sally make inquiries about buying either a cabin or a lot for the family to build one on to use as a get-away place. One of the original cabins, larger than most, had fallen into disrepair over the years as the owner aged and spent less and less time there. Bob was able to purchase it and had contractors go through it, updating the electrical and plumbing systems and putting a new roof on it. It was a log cabin, and the exterior needed professional work too. Being frugal, Bob identified things that the family members could do, mostly interior work, and rather than paying a contractor to do them, and enlisted the aid of the women to do those things. That was how Becca and Polly ended up deciding to invite Denny and Brian to the cabin for a working date. Both men agreed. ------- On a Saturday morning, the clan descended on the new cabin early, to get as much done as possible before the sun was high. While it didn't get nearly as hot up in the mountains as it did down in Sacramento, you could still work up quite a sweat once noon approached. Denny and Brian showed up around nine and stood in the doorway staring around at the women. Four of them were putting up sheetrock, while two more followed with strips of cedar that they nailed to the wall in a diagonal pattern that made diamond shapes. Bob and the remaining two women were tearing apart a big feather bed frame to sand the rust off of it in preparation for repainting it. The huge, thick mattress lay in a heap, moth-eaten and filthy. Sunny saw the newcomers first and called out a greeting. Polly, who had been helping Bob with the bed, smiled shyly and went to meet them. Becca was holding a piece of sheet rock to the wall while Fran drove screws with a cordless drill, so she couldn't stop what she was doing. She sang out "Hi Denny" with so much joy in her voice that some of the others stopped and looked at her. "What?" she said, looking around. "You sure sound glad to see him," said her mother. Gidget had waited up for her daughter, as if Becca were sixteen instead of eighteen, and had demanded a blow by blow account of the date she had gone on with Polly and the men. Polly had warned her it would probably happen, so she kept her temper and answered all her mother's questions. Still, she had been so bubbly and happy that Gidget was still anxious. "Look at him!" said Becca smiling. "He's gorgeous!" Gidget muttered something under her breath that no one could understand and pointed at the mattress. "We have a new cover. The feathers need to be transferred to the new bag. You boys think you can handle being covered with goose feathers?" Denny walked over to her and stood close enough to invade her personal space. She leaned away from him by habit. "For you?" he said, his voice mellow. "I'd stand for the tar AND the feathers." Gidget blinked and then snorted. "You're a silver tongued little man. In case you were wondering that does NOT make a mother feel better." She smiled a hesitant smile, though. "Mom," complained Becca, drawing the sound out. "You're embarrassing me. I'm not a little girl any more." "That's the problem." muttered Gidget, going back to her cedar strips. The men were intelligent enough to go outside to try to deal with the feathers. At first they tried stuffing the new mattress cover with double handfuls of feathers, but they soon found that they were, indeed, covered with the fluffy uncontrollable things. It was Brian who got the idea to stuff the whole old bag down inside the new one and then pull it out a little at a time, allowing the feathers to spill into the new cover. Still, when they triumphantly brought the new mattress back into the house they looked like they HAD been tarred and feathered, with bits of white fluff clinging to every exposed surface. "Just like little boys!" muttered June, who loudly announced she had just swept the cabin for the third time that morning and now it was being covered in bits of white fluff. "I swear my boys could bring half of the outside in with them when they came in from playing." "We weren't playing," said Brian, his voice overfilled with injury. "We were working HARD! Those feathers must weigh ... I don't know ... ounces and ounces and ounces!" He grinned. "Just what we need in this family," joked Martha, "a comedian." Polly blushed and stammered. "Aunt Martha! We've only been on one date!" "Well," drawled Martha, "I 'spect he was a lot more lively on that date than Roger would have been." She smiled sweetly. "He was NOT!" squealed Polly, blushing harder. "He didn't do a SINGLE THING!" Brian covered his face with his hands and moaned. "My reputation is ruined! I bragged to the whole force what a sweet kisser you were and now I am uncovered." "You better NOT have!" squealed Polly, actually dancing with tension. Laughter, combined with Brian uncovering a grinning face finally got through to Polly that he had been joking and her face flamed so hard she looked suddenly sunburned. "OH! You ... you..." she shouted and turned around to face the wall. She almost hit her fingers with the first hammer blow she tried and jumped. There was more laughter as Brian went to her and put his arms around her to "help" her hammer in the nail. She wiggled against him, pushing with her buttocks. "You get away from me you horrible man." she said, and then giggled. "I'm just trying to help." he whined. "I know what you're trying to do." muttered Gidget. Bob laughed. "I think YOU need to go on a couple of dates too Gidget. You sure seem to know what to expect from a man." Now it was Gidget whose face went red and she frowned as hard as she could. She pointed at Brian, whose crotch was firmly planted against Polly's buttocks as she pushed back against him. "Just LOOK at them! Why they're ... they're ... they're almost doing it right here in front of EVERYBODY!" Polly gave an extra hard push, laughing now and knocked Brian off center so he had to take a step back. Polly faced her cousin grinning. "You're just jealous." she taunted. Bob held up his hands as Gidget took in an angry breath. "You two girls stop that. You're acting like teenagers." Neither woman had had much of a father figure in their lives, and you'd have thought that Bob barking at them would have slid right off, but both women looked contrite and went back to their work. Polly took time on the way to push Brian towards the door. "Go outside and get those feathers off of you. Then find something to do instead of tormenting us." she said, but there was no anger in her voice. Again, her smile was shy, almost girlish. By noon everyone was ready to take a break. They had covered all but about six feet of the walls with the new sheetrock and the bed frame was outside leaning against various trees and the porch, its new coat of spray paint glistening in the dappled sunlight coming through the trees. Bob broke out beers from a cooler full of ice. He handed out pop to those who didn't want beer. "Lunch!" he announced. "I'm famished." Betty had made sandwiches, and had little baggies with carrot sticks and celery sticks in them. There was a big tray of deviled eggs and several containers of potato salad. She unpacked everything on a beaten up old dining room table in the middle of the room. Her specialty was called ants on a log, and consisted of celery sticks, filled with peanut butter, and topped with a line of raisons. "I want to go on a picnic." announced Becca. "I'm supposed to be on a date, you know." "I want to go!" chimed Fran. "This is a DATE!" said Becca firmly. "Aunt Polly and Brian and Denny and I are the only ones going on THIS picnic." "I never get to have ANY fun!" pouted Fran. "Not true," said Bob with a gleam in his eye. Fran looked at him, and at the tight grin his lips were trying not to expose and blushed. She suddenly had great interest in the pattern of the cedar on the wall next to her. Bob waved his hand. "Denny showed me a lovely hiking trail the other day with a little waterfall and everything. Why don't you kids take your lunch up there and have your picnic." While food was being separated out and repackaged for the picnickers Bob slipped down to Sally's and borrowed a backpack and two blankets. He stuffed the blankets into the bottom of the pack and took it back. The food was put in on top, with cans of soda and the two couples left. "I still don't think this is a good idea." muttered Gidget. Val talked around a bite of sandwich. "I think you ARE jealous Aunt Gidget. Zack has a lot of nice friends at the station house. I bet I could get you a date with one of them." Gidget turned on her niece. "And YOU, young lady ... you aren't setting much of an example either ... going out with a man old enough to be your father." Val didn't flinch. She swallowed carefully and then replied. "I'll tell you the same thing I told him. I HAVE a father. Even if I don't know much about him, I don't need another one. Zack is just a man, and I like him a lot. He's fun and witty and very much a gentleman. He hasn't done a single thing I didn't want him to do. If you weren't so dried up and bitter you could be having fun like me and your daughter and Aunt Polly!" "That's enough of that," said Martha firmly before Gidget could make her angry retort. "You apologize to your aunt, Valerie. That was uncalled for." Val held her head high. "I'm sorry. I think it's true, but I shouldn't have said it." Gidget's face went through a series of looks that made it twist with what almost looked like frustration. "Is that really what you think I am? Dried up and bitter?" she asked. "I said that's enough," said Martha again. "I'm not." Gidget said, ignoring her aunt. "I have feelings. I get lonely. I just know how men are. They take from you and leave you on your own. If I met a man I thought I could trust I'd love to have dates and ... and ... and ... Oh, never mind." she said dejectedly. June went to her daughter and took her chin in her hand. "You think all men are pigs?" she asked softly, staring into Gidget's eyes. They were brimming with tears. "How about your grandfather? Do you think my father is a pig too?" Gidget flinched and her eyes darted to Bob, who was standing nearby, just looking at her. "That's not what I meant." she said, her voice a little whiny. "Of course not. I love Grandpa." "So is he the only man in the world who's not a pig?" asked June. "He's rich now. He could go anywhere he wanted to ... live any kind of life he chose." "But that's different." whined Gidget. "He loves us. I trust him. He would never toss a woman out like she was a dirty rag." "You had a bad experience with a man who took advantage of you," said June soothingly. "But he was just one man among millions. And you were young. Daddy's not the only good man in the world. I think Denny and Brian are both pretty good men. Why would they come up here and do what they did today if all they wanted was ... well, if all they wanted was what you seem to think is all any man wants?" "Ohhhh, I don't know." whined Gidget. "I don't know WHAT to think." She pushed her mother back and wiped her eyes. "Besides, I haven't been on a date in almost twenty years. I wouldn't even know how to behave!" "Maybe Polly could give you a few pointers," said June. "She seems to be having a pretty good time with that young man." Gidget barked a forced laugh. "Right! That's all I need, is for my younger cousin to tell me how to handle a man." "Well," said Bob suddenly. "I'm in the same pickle. Look at me. Here I am, looking like I'm twenty five, an eligible widower, and I have no earthly idea how to treat a woman on a date these days. Don't feel so bad." June turned to look at Bob and a gleam came into her eye. "There's your answer darling." she said to Gidget. "You and Daddy can go on some dates and practice on each other." Gidget blinked and then looked shocked and finally laughed. "Me and my grandpa, out on a date!" She laughed again. "You might actually have something there Mom. I can't think of anybody I'd rather go out with on my first date in twenty years than a man who hasn't had a date in over fifty!" She began to laugh hysterically, dragging in great gasps of air as the tension and emotion fled her body through the guffaws. She had to sit down on the floor as she grew too weak to stand. "Should I be offended?" asked Bob striking a dignified pose. Gidget waved at him repeatedly as she continued to laugh. "No..." she gasped. "I'm sorry ... I didn't ... mean it ... that way." "All right then," said Bob, his voice serious. "What say we go for a moonlight drive tonight. It can be our first ... date." Gidget went into another paroxysm of laughter at that, waving her hands in the air breathlessly as she lay down on the floor and rolled. The others just stared at her. Finally she stopped laughing and just giggled as she got some air into her lungs.' "You're ... on!" she giggled. ------- The trail that led to the waterfall wasn't all that long, maybe half a mile, and it was easy going as the path was well worn, except for a couple of steep places. Denny and Becca pulled ahead, as it was a little rougher for Polly, who wasn't quite as used to walking that fast. She turned around to apologize to Brian. "I'm sorry, but that's what you get for going out with an old woman." Brian, who had been mesmerized by the shifting buttocks underneath Polly's terrycloth short shorts, looked up, grinning at being caught ogling her butt. "I'm enjoying the view immensely." he said. "I'm not in a hurry." Polly pinked up, but felt a glow in her chest at being ogled. "Just because I pushed it at you doesn't mean you can stare at it." she chided. "I can't decide if I like looking at it more ... or feeling it against me." he said candidly. "Besides, you're perfectly safe. I heard you myself. I don't do ANYTHING." He grinned. "You didn't really tell anybody I'm a ... what did you say? ... sweet kisser?" she asked, forging ahead. "Just Denny. He said the same thing about Becca. We think it runs in the family." Polly looked over her shoulder at him, through her lashes. He was making her feel pretty good. She came to a steep place and began to take longer strides, climbing. Her foot slipped on the gravel and she started sliding backwards. She suddenly felt his hands on her buttocks as he pushed, stabilizing her. She stopped, on all fours now and looked back over her shoulder. "I'm just trying to help." he whined, repeating his earlier statement. Polly felt a deeper flush at the feel of his hands. When he had squeezed her butt on that first date she had felt like a teenager again. She knew she should tell him to stop, but all of a sudden she just didn't want to. "Well push then." she said, her voice low and filled with emotion. He kept his hands firmly planted on her buttocks until he slipped himself. By then she was able to grab a sapling and turned around to giggle as he labored up the steep slope. She held the small tree with both hands behind her, making her breasts jut out. When he got to her he pinned her against the tree by putting his arms around her to hold it. "We're still not a hundred percent sure about that kissing thing." he said, his lips inches from hers. "We only got a couple of kisses last time." "You're terrible." she breathed into his mouth. "You must have kissed me ten times." "I lost count." he said. "Have to start over, I guess." He leaned forward and she met his lips with hers. She let go of the sapling to put her hands around his waist and kissed him back hungrily. He pulled on the tree, crushing his chest to her breasts. He pulled back and licked his lips as she stared into his eyes. "That's one." he said. They were up to four when they heard shouting up the trail, Denny yelling to find out where they were. "We have to go." Polly said breathlessly. "I don't want to," said Brian. "We have to." she insisted gently. "I might lose count again." he threatened. "We can start over at the waterfall." she smiled. As she scrambled on up the trail yelling that they were coming. She had to half run as Brian kept reaching out to pat her butt, whining that he was just trying to help. She giggled and slapped at his hands ineffectually and twice ran ahead and then stopped to wag her butt at him, laughing as he leered and growled, chasing her. She was running full tilt when she turned a bend and ran into Denny and Becca, who were engaged in a hot kiss of their own, their hands running all over each other's backs and buttocks. "Here now!" she laughed, pulling Denny's hands away from her niece. "Stop molesting my niece." Brian came around the same corner, bent over low, hands in claws reaching out and grabbed her butt. "GOTCHA!" he growled. Polly squealed and jumped as Becca laughed. "Stop that!" she said in an imitation of Polly's voice. "Stop molesting my auntie!" Brian stood up and put his hands behind him, moving his loins forward and back as he looked up into the treetops. "Who ... me?" he said in a little boy voice. "I not doin' nuthin'." There was laughter all around. They were in a clearing of sorts, except that there was a huge pine tree in the middle of it, with thick branches low to the ground. Becca insisted that they put a blanket on each side of the tree, so "they could have a little privacy" as they ate. She was surprised when Polly didn't object. Once the blankets were settled and the food unpacked each couple sat down on their own blanket. Brian started to take a bite of his sandwich and then stopped. "Wait! We can't eat yet." he said. "Why not?" asked Polly, sitting demurely with her legs folded and out to one side. "I'm all sweaty from the climb." he said, whipping off his shirt. He was well muscled and in shape. "And everybody knows you can't go swimming after you eat. You'll get cramps." Polly's eyes went wide at his smooth muscled chest. "But we didn't bring suits." she said. "Who needs a suit?" he tossed off carelessly. "We're all grown up boys and girls here. Let's go skinny dipping." "You're insane!" Polly's voice was high and squeaked. On the other side of the tree Denny looked at Becca and raised an eyebrow in question. She looked at him and lowered her eyes. "I ... think I'd like that." she said softly. She looked at him and saw hunger in his eyes. A warm bubble began building in her belly. "I know I'd like that." he said, just as softly. Becca repacked their food and they stood, facing each other, eyes glued to the other as he removed his shirt and she unbuttoned hers. She had on a plain white bra that day, and plain white cotton panties under her cargo shorts. She watched as Denny's fingers went to his belt and undid it, and then undid the button of his shorts. Her fingers went to her own fastenings and they pushed their shorts down together. His briefs were tented when he stood up, and Becca felt her pussy clench. She reached behind her and undid her bra and he watched as she let it slide down almost, but not quite off her breasts. She held it there with one hand, some inner instinct making her feel shy. He just stood and looked, his thumbs hooked in his underwear. Finally she bit her lip and let the bra fall. "Ohhhh Becca," he said softly, his voice barely a whisper. "You're so beautiful." Her pussy spritzed again and she reached for her panties. Again, they pushed their last garment down at the same time, their eyes locked. When they stood his prick shot out from his groin, rock hard. He didn't apologize and watched as her eyes dropped to it and fastened on it. He held out his hand to her and she reached for it slowly. On the other side of the tree Brian was teasing Polly by unsnapping and unzipping his shorts with agonizing slowness. The whole time she was telling him he was crazy, and that she wasn't about to get naked in the middle of a forest with her niece "right over there." Brian let the closure of his pants come open, exposing dark brown hair. He wasn't wearing any underwear. "I guess I'll just have to go all by myself." he said. He pushed gently on the waistband of his pants, exposing more of his groin. Polly's hands came up and covered her eyes. Brian wanted to laugh as she peeked through fingers that were not closed tightly against each other. He liked this woman's innocence and decorum. It turned him on something fierce. Her willingness to let him fondle her buttocks, and her passionate kisses told him more than her hands covering her face - insubstantially - did. He pushed harder and exposed what she had done to him. Polly stared between her fingers at the first adult male penis she had paid any attention to in a long time. Roger walked around the house naked sometimes, but she paid him no mind any more. She tried not to think what he did with his penis when it got hard. But this penis wasn't intended for another man. This penis was hard for ... her. She felt a shudder course through her body and her nipples suddenly tingled in a way she'd almost forgotten. He was magnificent, standing there in the dappled sunlight. He looked like some Greek statue. There was a shriek from Becca and she jumped, her hands coming down from her eyes as she and Brian saw Becca and Denny's naked bouncing butts running toward the pool of water that was fed by the small waterfall. They ran splashing and laughing into the water and Becca stopped like a statue, almost overbalancing until Denny's hand stopped her. "IT'S FREEZING!" she screamed. "It comes from snowmelt, silly!" crowed Denny, and he let go and pushed her. Becca's arms windmilled as she fell splashing. She screamed again and scrambled back to her feet, hugging her chest under her breasts. Her nipples were suddenly tight and crinkled and about half an inch long. She looked outraged and then grinned and leaned over to start throwing handfuls of water at Denny, who was standing and laughing. He danced, trying to get out of the way and his stiff prong bobbed in the sunlight. "We need to cool THAT off!" squealed Becca, throwing a double handful of water at his groin. He covered his penis and then jumped, rushing toward her. They grappled and he took them both sideways, back down into the freezing water as Becca screeched and laughed. Polly looked up at Brian, who stood watching and smiling. Her pussy clenched at the sight of that marvelous stiff prick that was hard because of ... her! "We need to cool that off too." she said, pointing at his cock. Suddenly she wanted to be naked too ... to romp and play ... to be naughty ... to have an excuse to keep him naked so she could drink in his beauty. She stood and feverishly started tearing at her clothing. She had a sudden attack of doubt as she dropped her bra, and felt her age. She knew her stomach wasn't as flat as it had been ten years ago when she was this boy's age. She knew her breasts didn't stand as tall and firm as Becca's did. She covered them with an arm, standing in only her panties and looked at the ground, no longer sure she should do this. Brian appeared where she was looking, down on one knee, his hands on her hips. His fingers gripped the waistline of her panties and he looked up into her face. "Becca's not the only beautiful woman in this clearing." he said softly, his eyes telling her he meant that. His fingers pulled at her panties and he smiled. "I'm just trying to help." he said. Polly felt a rush of gratitude. She didn't believe him, but his effort to make her feel special and beautiful made her insides melt. She let her arm fall slowly as she felt her panties being dragged to her knees. She reached out and put her hand on his head to steady herself as she lifted one foot, exposing her most secret place. Still, though, he looked at her eyes. Somehow that felt even more erotic than if he'd have looked at what he was uncovering. "I feel so old." she moaned. He stood up and put his open palm under his erection. "Does it look to you like I think you're old." he asked. "I can't believe I'm standing here naked with a strange man." she breathed. "Who has an erection!" she moaned. "If you don't go swimming I'm going to have to kiss you again." he said. Polly flinched at the image of them clasping, naked, his lips against hers. If he did that now she'd lie down and spread her legs like a slut. She just knew she'd beg him to take her right then and there. She was frozen by indecision. She wanted that right this instant, but she knew it was crazy. "Come on." he said, holding his hand out. "Let's go cool off." Thankfully she took his hand. How could it be that a strong, healthy young man had more self control than she did? She let herself be pulled along, her mind warring with itself. The water stopped all that. It WAS freezing. She danced, lifting one foot and then the other out of the water as he pulled her along, acting like it was nothing. "Take a deep breath." he warned, grasping her shoulders. "No!" she gasped, seeing his intent to pull her sideways, like Denny had done to Becca." "Yes!" he laughed as they toppled. Polly got a ragged breath in, but it blew right back out as the icy water inundated her body. They both scrambled right back up as she gasped and spluttered. She felt exhilarated as the warm sunlight hit her goose-pimpled skin and looked down to see her own thick brown nipples sticking up from her areolas like thimbles. She shook her body like a dog and saw her breasts wobble. Her head turned to see Becca and Denny in a hot embrace, standing thigh deep in the water, their arms around each other as they kissed long and deep. She turned to see Brian's grinning face and lunged for him. His arms enfolded her and his prick slapped up against her naked and cold pussy lips as she sought his lips. She was lost, and she knew it, but it was the feeling of what freefall in a parachute jump must be like as she crushed his body to hers with amazing force. As the kiss went on Polly realized her hips were moving, back and forth, his prick sliding along her pussy lips as she dryfucked him. His hands on her back felt like fire and her tongue drove into his mouth seeking his. He pulled his lips from hers to move his across her cheek to her throat and she let her head hang back, her wet hair hanging in strings as he kept going to her shoulder and then down her left breast. She wanted to wail as his prick was pulled from her tightly clasping thighs, but then his mouth sucked in the thimble-sized nipple and she whined with pleasure as he suckled it. He stopped and his eyes fixed on hers. "It's really too cold to swim." he said. He pulled her toward the shore. She went with him, helpless and eager at the same time. She knew he would take her to the blanket ... would lie her down. She knew she would spread her legs wantonly for him. She knew he would hulk over her and that she would reach for the thing she needed so badly ... wanted more than anything else in the world right now. She tore her eyes away from his and pulled him, running, her bare feet pricked by gravel and pine needles until they were to the blanket. She dropped to her hands and knees, sweeping the food aside and rolling. He was right there, on top of her as soon as she rolled to her back, his knees not waiting, forcing her thighs open as he got into position. Then he stopped. She lay panting under him, her legs spread as she knew they would be, her hands on his waist. He loomed over her face and kissed her gently on the lips. "Do you want this?" he asked softly. "Ohhhh YES!" she moaned, reaching for him. He felt huge in her hand, strong and hard and she pulled. Her groan as he slotted the head and it began to press apart her tight flesh sounded like she was being tortured. He kept up slow, steady pressure, impaling her slowly until his wet pubes meshed with hers and his hips gave a little wiggle. Polly felt shame at the sound she made in her throat, and the adult woman in her ... the aunt in her, couldn't help but roll her head to see if Becca was watching her debauchery. She saw Denny standing, now calf deep in the water, leaning back, his hands on Becca's waist. She had climbed up on him and hung, impaled herself, legs wrapped around his buttocks, her eyes staring into Denny's face as he bunched thick muscles in his thighs and bounced her on his prod. Polly felt sweet release from shame and turned back to Brian. "Take me." she said hoarsely. "With pleasure." he grunted. Then he began fucking her. Polly had forgotten what it was like to be filled like this. She must have, because if she had remembered she would have found some man to do this with long before now. Her body screamed its satisfaction with being made love to. It didn't matter that it was in view of her niece. It didn't matter that it was in the open air. It didn't matter that the prick inside her was ten years or more younger than she was. Her body craved that thick rod ... its movement in her tight sheath ... the prodding of the mouth to her womb. She felt like a woman again for the first time in years. It didn't even matter that the wonderful hard thing that was making her crazy was naked ... that it would soon spurt dangerous sperm into her unprotected womb. Something in her craved that too, and she yearned for the hot, wet bath that would come from that rutting prick. She encouraged him, telling him to keep going ... to never stop. Then, before she was ready, her orgasm burst upon her consciousness and she writhed under him, the feelings more intense than anything she could remember. Her pussy spasmed and he groaned as it tightened and loosened around him. "Ohhhh Polly," he sighed as he drove in and stopped. She felt that warm bath and thrust her hips up to greet it. He started rutting again, and the warmth spread all over her pussy as his ejaculation coated her whole length. She pulled at his head, wanting to kiss him as he gave her his gift. They panted through their noses, not wanting to break the kisses they traded to breath. He gave a few convulsive thrusts more as the last of his sperm entered her body, and sagged down onto her. She even welcomed his weight pinning her to the blanket, and didn't care that she had to labor for breath. But he rolled quickly, pulling her with him to their sides, still kissing, his prick still firmly in her pussy. With mixed feelings of remorse and joy, she admitted to herself that she was his ... she'd do this again and again and again ... if he would. Visions of him crooking his finger at her, and her running into his arms naked filled her mind as she licked at his lips and their kisses became shorter, more frequent, and then nibbles at each other's lips and tongues. His head fell onto his shoulder and his eyes closed.' "It's never been like that before." he panted. His statement made her bold. "Not bad for an old woman, huh?" His eyes snapped open and he kissed her hungrily again. When he pulled back he said "This absolutely cannot be our last date." She smiled tiredly, feeling the overwhelming pleasure of knowing a man wanted her at her age. "Oh it won't be." she sighed. "You can just bet on that. You're going to do that to me again, mister nice policeman." She kissed him briefly. "Only longer." "Good." he sighed back. "I brought my handcuffs along, just in case, but I didn't really want to have to use them." They looked up to see Denny and Becca walking out of the pool, hand in hand. Their bodies sparkled with drops of water in the sun. Even from fifteen feet away Polly could see the stream of thick white that drooled down one of Becca's inner thighs. Polly wondered briefly if Becca was on the pill. She doubted it, not with Gidget as her mother. She felt a tweak of danger for her niece, and then wanted to laugh. She, herself, was years away from menopause, and had just taken what felt like a quart of hot spunk deep inside her. She thought briefly about the possibility that she might be pregnant, and looked at Brian. "You know, I didn't plan on doing this." she said. "Why do you think I brought the handcuffs?" he smiled. "I'm not on the pill Brian." she said. "I quit taking them when I found out my husband was gay. I don't DO this sort of thing any more." "Oh yes you do," said Brian, pushing his wilted prick against her. It had slipped out as they kissed. He looked at her. "Why did you stay married?" She rolled to her back, no longer worried about being naked in public. Her breasts slid gently apart, but not too much. "Oh, I don't know. I was depressed, and there was Fran to think about. I couldn't face trying to meet another man as a single mother I suppose. I certainly wouldn't have expected to meet a man like you." she said, gazing up into the treetops. "Why?" he asked. "You're beautiful, intelligent. I know a hundred men who would kill to be where I am right now." "You're so young ... and I'm so old." she said, rolling her head to look at him. He frowned a tiny frown. "I meet all kinds of people. Some of them look like Hells Angels, but have hearts of gold. Some of them look perfectly respectable and pander their eight year old daughters for money. I learned a long time ago not to judge a book by its cover and I'm still a rookie." He stared at her. "I'm interested in you for who you are, not your age, or even how good looking you are ... though I'm pretty happy about that, I have to admit." "So running your naughty hands all over my body when you searched me didn't have anything to do with ... this?" she asked. He grinned. "I liked your spunk. I liked your outrage. You were ... you ARE ... a decent woman. I just got you in a situation where I could take advantage of the fact that you haven't had a man in a long time." He leaned over to kiss one nipple, not so hard now as it was before. "But I wouldn't have done that if I wasn't interested in you as a person." "How ... deeply are you interested in me?" she asked, nervously. "As a person." she added. "I like you more than any woman I've been exposed to since High School." he said, his face straight. "I don't know if I've ever been in love or not, but I've never felt like this about a woman." "You hardly know me." she objected. "That's what the hundred other dates we're going to go on are for." he said. "Hundred?" she asked, thrilled. "For starters." he said. "I guess I'd better get an appointment with my doctor." she said. "Unless you want more children, that might be a good idea." "What about you? Have you ever wanted children?" She was nervous to ask that question too for some reason. "Constantly." he said. "I've always wanted my own baseball team." Polly laughed. "I don't think I have a baseball team left in me young man." "Time marches on." he admitted. "I suppose we'd better get started." he grinned, leaning over to suckle at her nipple. There were moans of happiness coming from the other blanket now, loud moans from Becca and huffing grunts from Denny that said all too clearly what they were doing over there. Polly was delighted to find that Brian was hard again and she gladly pulled him up on top of her again, already reaching for the orgasm she knew he would give her. He did ride her longer this time, and she had three glorious climaxes before he warned her. "Go ahead." she sighed. He did, grunting almost as loud as Denny, as they both spewed hot spunk in their chosen women. Somehow it just felt right to them all. ------- Chapter 23 They did eventually eat, still naked, sitting in the cool mountain breeze. And, before they left the glen they made love a third time, finally able to take the time to pay attention to each other's special likes and turn-ons. It was actually Becca who called out that it was time to be heading back. They'd been gone hours and she was afraid that Fran or Val would come looking for them and find them at the wrong time. She and Denny hadn't talked of long term relationships on their side of the tree. She had been insatiable, wanting him in her all the time and taking him in her mouth when he wasn't hard for her. It was too perfect for them both, sharing a closeness that neither of them felt could be any more real. Denny, in his own mind, was already thinking of how soon he could suggest that they "wander by a jewelry store ... you know ... just for fun." Both women walked a little gingerly on the way back, sore from too much of a good thing, but the kinks were pretty well worked out and they could force themselves to try to walk more normally after a quarter mile. Polly lengthened her steps to come up even with Becca, who was following Denny. "Your mother is going to skin me alive if your belly swells." she said, not trying to keep the men from hearing her. "How old was Aunt Betty when she had you?" asked Becca slyly. She already knew the answer. Fran had pointed it out several times. Polly looked sideways at her niece. "Fifteen, but apparently you already know that." "Yes, I do," said Becca. "But you're going to college in a month or so. You have your whole life ahead of you." objected Polly. "And how old were you when you had Fran?" asked Becca, ignoring the argument. "Twenty-two ... and ready to graduate from college, I might add," said Polly smugly. "And when did you meet Roger and fall in love with him?" asked Becca, undeterred. "I was a sophomore ... nineteen," said Polly. "What does that have to do with anything? Are you telling me you think you're in love with this man?" She pointed at Denny, who kept walking and did not turn around, even though it was obvious he had heard her. "And why did it take you three years to have Frannie?" asked Becca. "Was it because you were on the pill?" "No," said Polly doubtfully. "Roger and I didn't ... I didn't know then that he was ... we just didn't DO that while we were going out. In fact the night I let him for the first time was the night I proposed to him. I wasn't planning on that. It just ... happened. In fact it happened a lot like today." she said, looking over her shoulder at Brian. He had fallen back a ways, as if he were giving them some privacy. "But you didn't get pregnant right away," said Becca. "No, Roger said we shouldn't ... he didn't want to... " She went quiet as, for the first time she processed his behavior during their engagement with new eyes. He had expressed his desire that they not do anything stupid. He had not encouraged her to go on the pill, and had not suggested that he use rubbers. He had suggested that they not make love until they were actually married. He couched it in terms of something so special that he wanted to save it for special occasions. She had thought he was romantic, and only rarely did she get so horny for him that she demanded he make love to her. It was one of those times that she got pregnant. She wondered now if he had ever felt any sexual passion for her at all. It was just as likely that he was passing as a straight man by being engaged. They liked each other and liked spending time together. Love making just wasn't the center of their relationship. She looked over her shoulder again at Brian. Even though she was sore she wanted to be with him again, already. And she knew that if she stopped and put the blanket down, he'd take her again, right there on the trail. She knew she liked him as a person, even though she didn't know that much about him, and she was sure they would have fun doing things other than making love together, even if she didn't know what those things were. In a sense, it didn't matter what they were. She just knew it would be fun doing almost anything with him. His humor made any situation fun. His seriousness made him seem dependable. Her relationship with him, after two dates, was unbelievably richer than anything she had ever had with Roger. She looked back at Becca, who was walking along silently. "So doesn't he have anything to say about this?" she asked, nodding at Denny. "Hey, Corporal!" said Becca loudly. "What are you gonna do if you knock me up?" He stopped and turned. His face was quite serious. "Will you marry me?" he asked. "What?" Becca stopped so quickly she stumbled. "I asked you if you would marry me. Right now. Today." he said. "I can't do that," said Becca, horrified. "Denny I hardly know you. You can't ask a girl a question like that without at least talking about it first! That's silly!" She looked confused. "You asked me a pretty silly question." he said, his voice level. "I was joking." she said, her voice going higher. "You haven't knocked me up." "How do you know that?" he asked, still serious. "Because it's the wrong time of the month for anybody to knock me up," said Becca. "Famous last words," said Polly. "You're serious!" said Becca to Denny, not sounding too happy. "If you're serious enough to let me do what we just did, unprotected - I should have asked you first and didn't ... that's my fault - but if you're serious enough to let me do that with you, then I HAVE to be serious about what will happen to you, and my roll in that." "I was just having fun." objected Becca. "I take that very seriously," said Denny. "I could be a father right now because you didn't think seriously about the consequences of what we just did. I can't believe you would do that Becca." Becca stopped. He was angry and she was hurt. Her eyes filled with tears. "But... " She was at a loss for words. "Please don't be mad at me." she finally finished. Denny walked up to her. He seemed to tower over her. "If I've made you pregnant I'm going to want to marry you. That will be OUR child, and I'll not want to be left out of it. If you don't think you could be happy that way, then we shouldn't see each other again." "Hey, Denny, cool down buddy," said Brian, stepping forward. "How can I cool down?" he asked. "You know how I feel about children. I want to make children with the woman I love and who loves me ... who will stand beside me and stay with me as those children grow up. I want to choose the woman who bears my sons and I want her to choose me." "Did you tell her that Denny?" asked Brian patiently. "No," said Denny. His face screwed up and then it looked like HE might cry. "I think we let things get out of hand." Becca's mind was whirling. She knew she liked Denny. She knew she liked being around him, and the way his mind worked. He was exciting and interesting ... a man. She thought about him leaving and never calling her again and something twisted up inside her. Like Brian, she had never really been in love with anyone ... didn't know what it felt like. But now, the idea that he might go away mad made her want to die. The only thing she could think of to do was what she did when her cousins were mad at her. "Can we talk about this?" she asked. Denny looked down at her. She couldn't decipher what was in his eyes. "Please?" she asked. "I don't want you to be mad at me. I understand what you said, and I'm not pregnant, but that's not the point. I don't want to be without you. Please don't just go off and leave me and never come back. I'm sorry." "Was it just ... fun ... for you today Becca?" he asked. "I've never done this with anyone before." she said, meaning a romantic walk in the woods that turned into a sex fest of astonishing dimensions. "You were a virgin?" asked Denny incredulously. She was too accomplished a lover to have never had a man before. "No, that's not what I meant." she said. She was frustrated now. "Only one other man has ever touched me. He was more of my teacher than anything else. And I love him, but not in the way you're talking about. All I know is that I never wanted to do what we did today with any other man ... not like it was today. Does that make any sense?" "I don't understand," said Denny mournfully. "Have you ever been in love with a girl?" asked Becca. He nodded. "And why aren't you with her now?" "It didn't work out." he said. "But what does that..." "Does that mean your love wasn't real?" she asked. "No." he said shortly. "I don't know if I love you." she said. "I'm not sure what love is, except that I felt it for that one man. He's not available to me and never will be, but I love him just the same. I feel something different for you, just as strong ... but different. The point is that I don't just go out and do this with anybody. You're special somehow. I don't know if that means I love you or not, but I do know this. If you leave here and don't ever see me again I'll just curl up and die Denny. I can't imagine dating other men, or letting them do to me what you did today." "You're in love sweetness," said Polly reaching out to touch her. "You have all the signs." Part of her mind was whirling, trying to figure out who Becca's "teacher" was. Her niece's situation was more important though, and she shoved those thoughts aside. "But how CAN I be?" moaned Becca. "I hardly KNOW him!" Polly turned to Brian. "Does this conversation sound familiar?" He grinned. "Yup, you're in love Becca. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I mean Denny's surely no catch, but I think you have it bad for him." His attempt at humor didn't go over very well. Becca shot him a murderous look and then she looked surprised and then she looked shocked. She turned to Denny. "What if they're right?" she asked, panic in her voice. "What if I really DO love you?" Denny rolled his eyes. If this was what dating a younger woman was like he wasn't sure it was a good idea any more. "You're asking ME?" he grumped. "I don't even know how to feel about it if you're pregnant." "I'M NOT PREGNANT!" shouted Becca. "WON'T ANYBODY LISTEN TO ME?" "You sure better not be," said Polly under her breath. "AND WHAT ABOUT YOU?!" Becca turned on her aunt. "You were doing the SAME THING. Are YOU on the pill Aunt Polly? Is Val? Is ANYBODY?" Before Polly could even answer she turned on Brian. "Are YOU going to marry HER if you knocked her up?!" It was a rhetorical question, but Brian thought things had gone way too far already. "Yes." he said firmly. Becca had taken another breath to say ... she didn't know what she was going to say ... but she was going to say ... something ... and his answer took her breath away. He looked dead serious. "Really?" she squeaked. "Yup," said Brian. Polly was looking at him as if she didn't believe what she was hearing either. "We're gonna have a whole baseball team." he said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to say. "That's NOT what I said," said Polly. "As I recall, I told you I didn't think I had a whole ball team left in me." Brian waved. "I have faith in you." he said airily. Polly put her hands on her hips. "If you think I'm going to be barefoot and pregnant for the next nine years you got another think coming, buster!" she said hotly. "OK, OK, just two or three then," said Brian, giving up way too easily. "Can we start now?" He reached for his zipper. Polly blushed at being teased so blatantly. "I thought you were being serious with me back there." "I was." he said, pulling her to him. He gave her a serious kiss. When he was done Polly pushed him away. "I thought you said you didn't know." she accused him. "Where did all this come from?" "Watching her," said Brian, nodding toward Becca. "She's like a young colt, frisky and not caring about anything, just loving life and everything in it. You're more like a thoroughbred race horse, full of passion, with a love to run the race. It just occurred to me that you make me feel like a stallion. I like that feeling. So, if I have to knock you up to get to see more of you, I'm game." "You do NOT have to knock me up to see more of me," said Polly, disgusted. "Well, it was getting too serious around here. We're a fun bunch, us four. And if it stops being fun then ... well, it won't be any fun. So everybody lighten up. Becca's not pregnant, and Polly's not pregnant, and we'll be more careful in the future and everybody will be all happy." He was the only one who was completely upbeat about it, but he did lighten the mood. As they walked the rest of the way Becca took Denny's hand, and he squeezed hers. "I'm really sorry." she said. "Never mind." he said. "We'll have a nice long talk about it next time we go out. For now, just try to act normal. Your mother is like a polygraph. She'll be asking all kinds of questions and I don't want either of us cracking under the stress." "So you don't hate me?" asked Becca in a little girl voice. "I don't do that with women I hate." he growled. Then he leaned over, put his shoulder in her stomach and lifted her like she was weightless. As she squealed and giggled and fought he carried her back to the cabin. Behind them Polly gave Brian a searching look. "You better watch what you say there, little boy." she smiled a grim smile. "What would you do if I accepted your erstwhile proposal?" "Hmmmm." he said, gripping his chin with his thumb and forefinger. "Knowing women, and knowing your situation, I'd have to say I'd do my best to get you showing nice and public like before you could get loose from Roger and get a wedding planned. I've always had a yen to watch my pregnant fiancé walk down the aisle toward me." He grinned. "That could be why you haven't had any fiancés," said Polly. But she smiled. Other than remarking on the fact that they'd been gone for a long time, no one seemed to notice anything odd about the two couples. Even if they would have, it probably wouldn't have been discussed. Fran was bubbling over with the news when Becca was carried into the cabin. "Guess what!?" She waited a split second and went on. "Aunt Gidget is going on a DATE with Grandpa!" Of course Polly and Becca hadn't been there, or heard what had happened. All Becca could think about was how grandpa had told her about how only the girls' mothers hadn't done anything with him ... yet. Her recent induction into the joys ... and perils ... of being a fully sexual woman hadn't yet settled into something she could fully wrap her mind around. And now ... her mother was going to go on a date with the man who had taken her own virginity!? Her joy at Denny's apparent willingness to forgive her selfishness ... her casual attitude about something that meant so much to him ... was suddenly assailed by a mental image of her mother's kicking legs, and Bob's bouncing buttocks between them. At the same time, she was aware on a completely different level that her Aunt Polly had, just that afternoon, found something joyous and exciting, something she deserved ... that every woman deserved to have in her life. In short, she had no idea how to feel about that statement. She sat down suddenly, unable to keep her knees stiff enough to stand on them. If Polly would have had a chance to reflect on her own life and actions this past couple of weeks, she would probably have raised an eyebrow and said "Good move sis. You need to get out and do things." But her recent exploits hadn't had time to sink in, and her reaction was typical for the woman she had been these past few years instead. "That's insane!" she barked. "Why on earth would she do that? Why on earth would Grandpa do that?" It was about then that Becca more or less collapsed into her seat and everything got kind of crazy. It got sorted out eventually, and when it was explained that neither Bob nor Gidget had any recent experience with dating, and that both deserved to update their social lives, and that both could do a sort of trial run to see where the perils and problems lay in pursuing that path, it didn't seem quite so outlandish any more. "What about Sunny?" asked Polly when everything had calmed down. Sunny put her hands up in the air, palms out. "Leave me out of this. I'm perfectly happy with no men in my life." "So is Gidget," said Polly. "So was I until I met Brian. Now I know what I've been missing, and I'm telling you, I'm not going to keep missing it." There were ooos and ahhhs and all kinds of innuendo as cousins needled her, asking just what had happened on that little hike they took. "What could happen?" she said, her face straight. "Becca was right there with me." "Yeah." sighed Denny. "This double dating business can sure cramp a guy's style." He grinned. "I'm just saying we need to find somebody for Sunny to be friends with too," said Polly. Sunny snorted. "Tell you what. When Gidget gets done with Grandpa, then I'll take lessons with him too. OK? Now will everybody leave me alone?" She had no intention of going on a date with her own grandfather, no matter how young and handsome he was. She liked him, but he was still a stranger to her in many ways. She was a little like Becca in the sense that she sometimes thought of something she wanted and just went after it, not worrying about side effects. She also wasn't above making promises she didn't intend to keep. But she had no idea where that blithe promise would take her as the future unfolded. ------- Val was bored. She didn't mind going up to the cabin to work, but listening to the wrangling of the women was tiring. She wanted to tell them all to just go find a man like Zack. She couldn't help but look at her grandmother and great aunts differently now that she knew they'd had sex with Bob. That she had practically had sex with him too didn't change her outlook. They were older women, and she just couldn't imagine them in the throes of passion. Her mother now, that was different. Her mother was full of passion and emotion. She used it in her job and thrived on it. If there had been a man in her life he would have walked around slumped over all the time from being bedded half to death. Val was sure of that because she was a lot like her mother and she thought about seeing Zack again ... and fucking Zack again ... ten or twelve times a day. She noted her mother's blatant attempt to get attention away from her by making that silly promise that she'd go on dates with grandpa too. Like that would ever happen. Then again, she'd seen Bob in action, and he might just be able to give her mother what would calm her down a whole lot. But now she was tired of listening to chatter. She wandered over to the knapsack Denny had dumped on the floor. It had blankets in it borrowed from that nice Sally woman. They should be washed before they were returned. Bob had had a washer and dryer delivered, and they had hooked them up this morning. The blankets would be a good trial run to see if everything was working well. No one paid any attention as she picked up the pack and carried it to the little utility room off of the kitchen. She opened the lid of the washer and shook out the first blanket so she could pack it in around the agitator. Her nose caught a musky odor that was tantalizingly familiar. She was stuffing the blanket into the washer when she realized what that smell was. She pulled the blanket out and spread it out again. There, almost in the middle! It was darker there, like it was wet. She felt the spot. It WAS wet. It had been folded up wet and hadn't dried. She pulled it up and sniffed at the spot. Semen. It was unmistakable. It was an odor she had known from her play with grandpa for years, and she had found that Zack's smelled very similar. Who had been on this blanket? Becca? That was likely. Val knew how hot to trot Becca was. But where had Aunt Polly been while Becca was getting her pussy stuffed? On impulse she shook out the other blanket. There was a wet spot in the middle of THAT one too! Both of them?! Aunt Polly too?! Now there was something to think about. She thought back to the hospital, when Brian had searched Polly. Polly had been obviously affected by the search. She had even said some raunchy things. But doing it on a blanket, obviously in the open? And right next to each other!? She went into the kitchen and called out into the living room for Polly to come help her. Polly had been holding Brian's hand and she dropped it to come toward Val, a smile on her face. "What's up?" she asked. "I need to know what something is," said Val, leading Polly into the utility room. She picked up one of the blankets and put her hand under it, her fingers pushing the wet spot into prominence. "What do you suppose made that wet spot right there?" she asked, keeping her face straight. Polly peered at it and jumped. She blanched. "I don't know dear. That was the blanket Denny and Becca sat on to eat lunch." Val had a pretty good idea what they ate, but she played it straight. She picked up the other blanket. "You used this one?" she asked innocently. Polly nodded, worriedly. "That's funny, because it has a wet spot just like the other one ... in almost the same place." She tented that spot out too. "See there? It's kind of slick and sticky and it smells like..." She stopped talking as Polly snatched the blanket out of her hands and stuffed it into the washer. Then she picked up the other blanket and did the same thing. Val started giggling and Polly shot her a look. "Where's the soap?" asked Polly. "Wasn't that soap that was staining the blankets?" asked Val, snickering. "It looked kind of white and soapy to me." Polly closed the lid and turned on the water. She looked at Val. "What do you want Valerie?" she asked. Val reached out to hold both her aunt's hands. "Nothing. Except to tell you how happy I am for you. You should have done this a long time ago." Polly relaxed. It felt good that somebody besides Becca knew too. "I don't think I'd have found the right guy a long time ago. I'd never have gone for a man ten years younger than me." Val's brow creased a little. "Maybe. Anyway, things turned out pretty well according to the blanket." She grinned. "Now if we can just get Aunt Gidget and my mother hooked up with some men to ease their fussiness, this whole family might be a pretty fun bunch of folks to hang out with." ------- Becca, not wanting to have a confrontation with her mother, simply started seeing Denny alone secretly. She drove to his little three room bungalow, but they didn't stay there. Their first date alone was tense in the beginning. There was no necking or petting on this date and, oddly enough, that was fine with both of them. They had something to eat and sat in the car on a bluff overlooking a scenic view and just talked. Becca talked about her life, growing up in a strange family, though she left out the sexual parts. Denny talked about his own upbringing in a family where his single mother had too many children and neglected them. It had been rough. One of his brothers was in prison and one of his sisters had been a hooker until he'd arrested her himself, finding her on the street. She hadn't believed he'd do it, but he did. He got her into a program and she was doing much better these days. Two of his siblings were still living at home, jobless, with no prospects. That was part of why he was so intensive about children and there being a loving set of parents to raise them. Becca, had never wanted for anything, and her family gave her so much love and encouragement that she had never really missed having a father. She had Bob to talk to and even though he never talked back - at least not until recently - that filled what little need she had for a male in her younger life. As they talked, and she had a serious conversation with an adult male for the first time in her life, she began to realize how she had treated sex like a new toy, being obsessed with it in a way, but not respecting all the different aspects of such a relationship. When they got back and she stood by her car, getting ready to go home, Denny finally gave her a kiss. Becca was shocked to find that that kiss was sweet and caring and, for once, didn't make her pussy ache, or her nipples tingle. It was just a really nice kiss from a really nice man who she began to suspect she was falling in love with. They had two more dates of a very similar nature, spending time together and growing even closer before disaster struck. ------- Becca paced in the bathroom. She checked her watch again. She'd looked at it five times already. Usually the second hand hadn't made it around the face since the last time she'd looked. She'd waited a week, hoping that she was just late, even though she'd been as regular as clockwork since she was twelve. This couldn't be happening to her. Not now. Not since she found the man she thought she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Everything he'd said about the rashness of having unprotected sex battered the defenses in her mind as she waited for the test to be done. They'd even abstained from sex for the last couple of dates! This couldn't be happening. The next time she checked her watch it was time. Now, though, she couldn't bear to look and see what she had been so impatient to have available. She closed her eyes. Finally she couldn't stand it any longer. She opened them and looked at the little strip of material that would define her happiness for the foreseeable future. It was positive. ------- Becca called a meeting of the cousins. She had to because she was going crazy trying to figure out what to do by herself. She couldn't talk to her mother, and none of her aunts would be sympathetic either, with the possible exception of Aunt Polly. Even then she had joked and talked about getting pregnant, and Polly would think she had done it on purpose, which was not the case. Becca had always been pro choice on the few occasions she had thought about such things. It was easy to talk about a woman's choice when you weren't the woman involved. There had been enough turbulence in the family in the last few months that her frantic summons didn't make either Fran or Val particularly nervous. Becca was an emotional girl in the first place, and often got more excited about something than anyone else did. So the two girls were less than prepared when they arrived and before they could even get in the house Becca came storming out. "I'm pregnant." she hissed in a whisper that was close to a shout. Both girls stared at their cousin. "What do I do?" Becca asked urgently. "I don't know what to do!" They went for a drive. This was NOT something they could discuss under circumstances that an adult might show up and want to join whatever discussion they were having. The first thing Val thought about was how relieved she had been when her own period had come along a few days back. Then she felt guilty that she was thinking of herself instead of Becca. "It's Denny's ... right?" she said, not thinking how that could be interpreted. "I don't KNOW!" cried Becca. "It could be grandpa's!" Fran felt a shock course through her as she remembered the warm wet feeling of Bob's spunk inundating her pussy at the cabin. She wasn't due to bleed for another week. She hadn't thought a thing about it until now. Her mind went a little numb at the implications. "Oh boy." signed Val. Then, the inevitable question, born of female desperation: "Are you sure?" Now, if you're a man, you're probably thinking "Sure it could be Bob's?" If that's the case, go find a woman to talk to. She'll explain all about how that question, at that time, means "Are you sure you're pregnant?" Becca, being a woman, understood perfectly. "The test was positive. My period's a week late ... eight days now." "Oh boy." sighed Val again. "What should I do?" asked Becca miserably. "Denny will hate me." Val can't be blamed, if that's the right word, for seeing this from the perspective of what she'd do if SHE were pregnant. In her case, there would be no doubt as to the paternity of the baby. She had grappled with the possibility not all that far in the past, and her sense of relief when her period started had been palpable. Her mother had even noticed her upbeat mood after she had to slide that first tampon in. "What are you so bubbly about?" Sunny had asked. "Oh ... nothing. I just love life I guess." Val had responded. Now she could think about what it might have been like if she hadn't had to use that tampon. Women are a little strange sometimes, from a man's perspective. While Val had been worried about being pregnant a week or two ago, now that she wasn't, and one of her best friends was ... she had pangs of something that came perilously close to jealousy. As she thought about it now ... it was almost sad that Zack HADN'T put life in her womb. Fran can't be blamed, again, if that's the right word, for being a teenager who had never seriously contemplated the prospect that she might get pregnant. Girls her age think they're immune to a man's seed just like boys that age think nothing can really hurt them. Her inability to grapple with the serious aspects of the situation caused her mind to go off on a tangent. "Hey!" she said suddenly. "If it's grandpa's, you would be having a great great grandbaby!" She frowned and her eyes went glazed. "Or your own cousin four times removed?" "It's not funny." moaned Becca. "No, that wouldn't work," said Fran, trying to unravel the tangle of relationships such a child would have. If it was a boy it would be a son and great great grandson to the same man, and a son for Becca, but a cousin however many times removed from the OTHER girls. She gave up as Becca started crying. "Hey, I'm sorry," said Fran automatically. Her cousins then dragged poor Fran further into the world of adult women and the decisions and challenges they have to deal with. They didn't exactly drag her in that direction kicking and screaming either. She couldn't get the feel of her great grandfather's sperm soaking her womb out of her mind. The interesting thing was that, in the next two and a half hours, during which Fran admitted she might be in the same situation and wouldn't know for another week, while emotions raged and tears fell from all of their eyes at one time or another, the "solution" of seeking an abortion was only brought up once. "Denny would never forgive me," said Becca shortly. "Neither would grandpa." She put her hand on her flat abdomen. "I don't think I could do it anyway." That was that, as far as abandoning responsibility for her actions. A guy along on that trip would have been unbelievably frustrated at the end of it. He would have wanted to take the starting question "What do I do?" seriously and come up with a plan of action. But that's not what happened. They talked and cried and talked and discussed but never made any solid decisions about just what Becca would do next. I'm glad I wasn't there. It would have driven me nuts. ------- Chapter 24 Gidget sat in front of the mirror and stared at her reflection. This was crazy. She was crazy to have agreed to it. Going on a date with your own grandfather! Whoever heard of something like that? The excitement of doing something crazy and shaking up her boring life was gone. She was putting on makeup to go out with her own grandfather. It was insane. But at the same time it was intriguing. Her fingers did what they did by rote, having done it thousands of times before. A tiny part of her mind dealt with that while the rest of it wondered what the evening would be like. In a surreal kind of way, she was going out with a stranger. She'd known him all her life, but he'd been more of a fixture in Aunt Martha's house than a real person. Even since he'd waked up she had never been with him alone, or talked with him at any length. She liked him, based on the little bit of information she actually had about him. He was interesting and exotic and all that. She loved listening to his voice as he read from Rip's journal. But she knew who he was, and she couldn't get past that. In a sense, for Gidget, it was like suddenly going out with a famous movie star and nobody knew about it except the two of you. A lot of people dream about somehow becoming a good friend to a movie star ... the person that star wants to be with away from the crush of fame ... the secret best friend who gets told all the juicy details and never ever betrays that trust. But when that happens for real ... how do you act? It was all just too strange. He picked her up in the convertible and held the door for her. That in itself was strange. Men hadn't done that when she was dating. It was kind of nice to be pampered in tiny ways. Though neither of them knew it, their conversation started out just like inexperienced teenagers talk on first dates ... sometimes on much later dates. "Where do you want to go?" "I don't know ... where do YOU want to go?" "I don't care. What do you want to do?" "I don't know, what do YOU want to do?" "It doesn't matter to me. I'm sure whatever we do will be fine." "Are you hungry?" "A little, but we don't have to eat now." "OK ... so what should we do?" "I don't know ... what do YOU think we should do?" In the worst of circumstances, it can go on like that all night. Both people are so insecure that they're afraid to actually give an opinion, or make a decision for fear that the other one won't like it. In better circumstances, a decision is made just to get them away from the curb. "Why don't we get something to eat?" "OK, that sounds good. I'm starving." "OK, so what do you want to eat?" "Oh anything is fine." "How about Mexican?" "No, that gives me gas." "OK, how about Chinese?" "No, they use too much salt." "Italian?" "I'd get sauce on my blouse/shirt." "Burgers?" "Too greasy. They'll give you a heart attack." "Steak?" "I try to stay away from too much red meat." When all the possibilities have been run through and discarded for one reason or another, someone usually says. "We can wait a while. I'm not actually all that hungry." Thus begin many dates when both parties are nervous and hesitant for any of a variety of reasons. And thus began Bob's date with Gidget. Or Gidget's date with Bob. It all depends on how you look at it. In better circumstances, driving around aimlessly in virtual silence for a while eventually gets conversation going. In the best of circumstances, that conversation blossoms into an actual relationship. It started with Gidget sighing. "This is so weird." "Why's that?" asked Bob. "Because you're my grandfather." "Oh." He drove on for a while. "You know, I have lots of memories, but not very many of you. Your voice I mean. You and Sunny and Polly." She looked at him. He was handsome with the wind blowing in his hair. "I guess because you were sleeping we didn't pay much attention to you." "That's understandable." he said. "I always wondered why Becca liked to go over there and read to you and tell you stories and things." "At the time, I didn't actually think about what I was hearing. It's hard to describe. It was like a dream, but you're not really interested in getting into the dream, and you don't want to wake up, so you just sort of go back to sleep. then somebody says something or does something and you're aware of it, but..." "I can't imagine what it must have been like." said Gidget, empathizing with him for the first time in her life. "It wasn't bad exactly. It wasn't anything. I wasn't lying there aware of everything and screaming inside to wake up. And the funny thing is that, when I DID wake up, I remembered almost everything everybody said to me, or did to me. It took a while, but now I feel like I have part of that time back because I have memories of it." That led to Bob asking her to bring him up to date on HER life while he slept. He was a good listener and the family relationship between them actually fostered her telling him things. She started with her secret dislike for her own name. Everyone treated her like she was an empty-headed bimbo as a girl and she blamed it on her name. She found it was easy to talk to him about her teenage years, when she was so frantic to find love. The more she talked, the more she felt a burden lift from her shoulders. She'd never told anyone in the family about the professor who had misused her so badly and become Becca's absent father. As it tumbled out of her mouth she couldn't believe she was vomiting it all up. His hand came and lay on top of hers, which was on her leg. It felt good to feel that human touch. She actually slumped when that part of her story was done, feeling drained. "I wish I could have been there to help you." he said. "I shouldn't have told you all that. I never told anybody else about that." "I feel honored you would confide in me." he said. "This isn't like a real date." she said suddenly. "Why not?" he asked. "I would NEVER talk about all that stuff with a man on our first date. He'd never ask me out again." "Well, you don't have to worry about that with me. I'm having a good time. I like you. I'll take you out any time you want." Gidget smiled. "You have to like me. We're related." "Not true." he said "About the having to like you part, I mean. I don't have to like anybody. I'm just lucky that all of you I've been around for a while impress me." "Now THIS is sounding more like a real date." she chuckled.' "What?" "You sound like you're buttering me up. Next you'll say how beautiful I am and how I drive you wild and then your hands will be all over me." She giggled. "Or you would if you weren't my grandfather." "You ARE beautiful." he said. "You may be my granddaughter biologically, but we don't really know each other that well yet. For all intents and purposes I'm just a twenty-five year old guy out with a babe." She laughed. "A babe who's ten years older than you, bub. I just renewed my driver's license and the picture makes me look like a used up old biddy." "I like my women a little on the mature side." said Bob airily. "They have more experience." "And when, since you woke up remembering your twenty something year old wife, have you gotten all this experience with older women?" she asked archly. "Have you been leading a secret life chasing around girls my age?" She laughed again. Bob wished he could tell her about the experience of sharing something so wonderful with a woman who knows herself and what she wants. But he couldn't. She was too wrapped up with their relationship anyway. He looked at her and appreciated her firm breasts and round hips. She wore her hair short, almost in what used to be called a Pageboy and the wind flipped it around. She preferred arched brows and highlighted her own with eyeliner, making her look vaguely surprised most of the time. She had chosen a dark red lipstick that went well with her dark hair. She looked healthy and sexy and Bob, having come to terms with the incest he'd been involved in for fifty-years and a few months, felt his prick stir in his pants. "It doesn't take long," he said carefully, "if a man is in my situation, for him to become aware of women in ways that, a short time ago, I wouldn't have contemplated." He took a risk. "In this case, while I am related to all of you, I am also capable of seeing you as females of the species. What's a man supposed to do when he's surrounded by a whole passel of beautiful women who are, for all intents and purposes, strangers to him?" Gidget blinked. "Are you FLIRTING with me?" she gasped. "Maybe a little." he smiled. "You're a beautiful woman, Gidget. Your head is not empty, nor is your blouse. A lot of men have probably noticed that about you." Gidget was stunned. He was right in a way. They really WERE strangers. He was acting like other men had acted, or tried to act. She ignored them all. All they wanted was what they wanted. They didn't care about her. At the same time, here was a man who she wasn't afraid of ... who she didn't mistrust automatically ... and who had just paid her a very nice compliment that made her feel things she hadn't felt in years and years. Her usual response to that would have been to ignore him and move on out of dangerous waters. But she couldn't do that with Bob. "Can I ask you a question?" she said. "Sure." "Why do men do that?" she asked. "Why do men do what?" he asked back. Instead of actually asking a question, Gidget made a comment. "You just called me sexy and beautiful and mentioned my breasts. In my experience that means a man wants to drag you into bed." "OK.' said Bob. Based on her previous comments, both before and on this date, he had some idea of where this was going. Then she asked her question. "Why is it that men can't think about anything but sex? I mean you're my grandfather, for pity's sakes and you STILL notice my sexuality." "I'm a man." said Bob. "For millions of years men have been scoping out women. There is a biological urge to mate and it's strong. In my day, people tried to ignore that and pretend that it could be turned on and off with a switch or something." Gidget thought immediately of a boy in High School who had used the popular term that decade when he said "You turn me on." Bob went on. "From what I can see since I woke up, the only thing that's changed is that sex kept going on its natural course, and people just came up with more and more complicated ways to try to deny sexual attraction, even though it's advertised in everything and everywhere. It's one of the most puzzling things I've experienced since I woke up." He looked over at her and found her staring back at him, so he went on. "To answer your question, I'm a stranger in a strange land - kind of like that book that guy wrote while I was sleeping. It was lying on the dresser and it's one of the first things I read after I woke up. Except not EVERYTHING is strange. There are a few things that are familiar and comfortable, but most of it is odd and jarring. I'm stupid in a way, because I'm behind the times fifty years. But sex comes naturally, and that hasn't changed. I see a beautiful woman and something in me wants to do what nature has intended for men to do for a million years. The only difference is that I'm honest about it. I see potential sexual partners and I don't feel bad about calling them potential sexual partners." Gidget's mouth dropped open. "You mean ... are you saying ... do you see ME as a potential sexual partner?" "Yes," he said calmly. "But you don't have to worry about it. It's just the biology inside me reacting to the biology on the outside of you ... plus a dose of admiration for who you are. I'm not going to hit you on the head with a club and drag you off to a cave somewhere to ravish you." He grinned. Gidget's mind was whirling. In all her life, every single time she'd had sex, it had been something of a chase and conquest situation. She had been told all her life that her sex was something to barter with, or that it shouldn't be used at all until certain social prerequisites were met. And yet, under certain circumstances she wasn't able to control her urges. She knew now that her professor had never loved her, even though he said it all the time. He had pushed her buttons and she had resisted, like she was supposed to, until all the right buttons had been pushed. Then she "gave in". As she remembered those times, so long ago, she now realized that she had never actually WANTED to have sex with the man, but gave in because that's what the script said she was supposed to do. But he hadn't gone by the script when she got pregnant. And that had soured her on all scripts from that point on. Now, this man, a man she wasn't automatically suspicious of, and who she liked, not because of her biological relationship required it, but because he was just a nice guy, was acting like other men. Except that he wasn't acting from a script. He was just being honest about how he felt. She thought back to several men who she suddenly realized might have been doing the same thing. And she had pushed them away. No wonder she was alone and lonely. "Wow" she said. "Practicing" for dates with other men had suddenly taken on some meaning. "Are you outraged?" he asked. She thought about it. Bob was more real to her as a stranger than he was as her grandfather. She'd never been able to view him as most children would view a grandfather. "No." she said, surprised. "I'm actually not. All you did was tell the truth ... right?" "Yes. But I didn't want you to be uncomfortable." "Do you always tell the truth?" she asked, interested now. She unconsciously leaned toward him as she turned in the seat to face him. "No." he smiled. "Sometimes the truth can cause hurt feelings." "So how do you decide when to tell the truth and not?" she asked. "I tell the truth if I don't think it will hurt anybody, and will make things better." "And you lie the rest of the time?" she asked. "It's not that black and white. I try not to lie at all. Sometimes I just don't say anything. If the truth isn't actually necessary, and might hurt somebody's feelings, why say it?" Gidget felt a longing in her that she hadn't known was there. To find a man who didn't play games ... who was honest ... who would listen to her. She could get used to being around a man like that. There had been times when she had been a little jealous of Polly for having Roger to be friends with, even though there was obviously nothing sexual going on there. Maybe this dating thing had possibilities after all. Bob couldn't be the only man like himself in the world ... right? "There's a radio at the cabin ... isn't there?" she asked. "Yes, Fran insisted she had to have Rock 102 or some such thing up there." He was confused at the turn of conversation. "Take me up there. I want to dance." "Aren't there places in town that have dancing?" he asked. "I'm not about to do that in public." she laughed. "Not until I've had some practice. I haven't been dancing since college." Bob thought about it. He knew the Charleston and a couple of other dances, but he hadn't heard any music since he woke up to that would work with those dances. "Good idea." he said. That also solved the eating problem for them, since they felt comfortable opening a few cans and heating them in the microwave. Bob told her the story about the first time he saw a microwave in Martha's kitchen and thought it was a toaster oven. She laughed and they talked about other new things he'd experienced. Then she went to the radio and bent over to fiddle with it, looking for music to dance to. Rock and roll worked for her, to a degree, but Bob had no idea how to move to that music. She taught him a few basic movements and told him to concentrate on the beat of the music. They gyrated and Bob watched her breasts bounce inside her blouse. She caught him looking, but wasn't threatened and teased him. "You're being naughty. You're staring at my boobs." Bob scratched his head. "I would have sworn I gave you the caveman speech. Besides, this music makes me think of mating dances I heard about in my college sociology class." "When my mother was growing up they called this Devil music." she panted, gyrating a little more. It was fun being watched by a man you liked. "They used to do a dance called the Shimmy or something like that. I saw her doing it once when I was growing up. It looked like this." She stood still and then twisted her shoulders and upper torso back and forth violently. Her breasts went wild, jumping back and forth. She felt her nipples stiffen and tingle as she watched, his mouth open. "Good grief" he sighed. "It's a wonder all the women didn't get raped." "Girls teased a lot back then." she said, settling back into a more relaxed movement. "They still do." "You can say that again." he said. "I saw a girl the other day in a swim suit, I guess you'd call it. It didn't cover as much as my wife's bra and panties used to cover." "Isn't it horrible?" she asked, dropping back into her habitual conservative persona. "No, actually, I loved it." said Bob grinning. "It reminded me of the one June was wearing the day I woke up." Her eyes arched. "Your kidding! The orange one? She never lets anybody see her in that." "I think she was so excited that she forgot she was wearing it. I was glad. I was so frazzled by trying to figure out what was going on that it was kind of nice to be distracted by all that flesh, even though I knew she was my daughter." Gidget laughed. "You don't know how odd it is to be around a man who's honest." "You'd look good in something like that." he said, leering. "Yeah, right, with all my flab hanging out all over the place." she grimaced. "I don't see all that much flab." he said. "It's there." she said. They took a break and Gidget found a station with slow music. "Now THAT's more like it." said Bob. "I can waltz with the best of them." He took her into the formal embrace of ballroom dancers, his left hand holding her right one out and his right hand on the small of her back. "They don't dance like this any more." she said as he twirled her, firmly in control. "Oh really?" he asked. "How do they dance nowadays?" She pulled his left hand to her back and put her arms around him, pulling him close. Her breasts pushed against his chest and her cheek was suddenly close to his. They didn't so much dance as stand and sway to the music, taking tiny steps. It was immensely more intimate than what they had been doing, and Bob felt himself react. "This may not be such a good way to dance." he murmured in her ear. His breath in her ear made her shiver. She suddenly felt the pressure of something pushing against her pubis. "Oh my." she breathed. "Does this make you uncomfortable?" he asked. Gidget didn't know quite how to answer that question. She was relaxed and comfortable with this man. She didn't feel threatened at all. And dancing like this felt wonderful, after all those years of going without. In fact, she was a little horny. She hadn't felt that way in so long that it was almost like welcoming back a long lost friend. "You don't have a club lying around here anywhere do you?" she asked, hugging him a little closer. "No." he said, unable to keep his hands from sliding up and down on her back. "No cave either." "Then I don't feel uncomfortable." she said. "Good, because I want to keep doing this for a while. This feels really good." He pushed his erection against her just a little. Gidget felt heat suffuse her face. Part of her insisted this was crazy and wrong. But something else in her admitted that this felt good. It was all innocent anyway. "You know what you are?" she said into his shoulder. "You're a dirty old ... young man." "No I'm not." he said softly. "A dirty old man would do this." He slid his hands down to cup her buttocks and squeezed them gently, pulling her against him. "You shouldn't be doing that." she murmured, but her arms stayed around his neck. "I thought we were practicing." he said back. "You mean all those other men I go out with will want to do that too?" she asked dreamily. "That and more." he said, his hands still on her ass. "More?" she asked. She felt a tingle start somewhere behind her navel. "But we can't do those things." "Why not?" he asked. "It's just practice, right?" "I don't think you're being completely truthful with me right now." she chided. "You're right." he said. He kissed her throat. "I haven't felt like this since I can remember." she sighed, rubbing her body against him. Her hips betrayed her and she ground her mons against his lump. "I feel so ... naughty." "What you feel is the same attraction I feel." he countered. "That's all it is. Animal attraction. We can stop any time you want to." She didn't pull away. "You're an amazing man Bob Winkle. Are you sure you're not Rip himself? I feel you ripping apart my defenses." "Your defenses are there for good reason." he said. "They're to keep you from getting hurt." "But you won't hurt me." she argued. "If this goes much further you might get hurt." he said, pushing his erection against her. "Are you really ... hard?" she asked. "That's not a handkerchief down there." he quipped. She shuddered at the mental image that popped into her brain of a hard penis. The only one she'd really had time to look at in any detail was the one that got her pregnant. She closed her eyes tightly. She didn't want to see that image. "Grandpa?" she said, her voice high and young. "Yes sweetie." "Could I ask you a favor ... a really BIG favor ... something you might think was terrible?" "Whatever you need sweetheart." he said. Had he said it any differently than that, things might have gone differently. But to her ears that was exactly the right way to put it. She needed ... really NEEDED to replace that distasteful image in her mind. She tried to explain it to him. "Right now I feel good ... safe ... happy. Except that when you press against me all I can think of is ... him ... his ... his penis." He didn't say anything and she felt better. "I don't want to think of that ... see that in my mind. I need to see another one ... a different one." "You want me to show you mine?" he asked calmly. "Would you?" she asked tentatively. "Could you?" "If that's what you want, then yes." She felt the nervousness of near panic, and acted before she could chicken out. She dropped to her knees. That had been the script with the professor and she did it unconsciously. Her hands went to his belt and the button of his Dockers as he stood passively. That was in the script too, as was her pulling at his clothing to bare his prod. She felt a familiarity that was horrible ... and then, he was exposed, and she almost laughed as the script flew out the window. Professor Lipscomb had been forty-two years old when he seduced Gidget Winkle. He had not been in the best of shape, but was an important man on campus. He had a little pot belly and a slight overbite that made him unattractive to most women. Gidget, thinking of the status of being a professor's wife, bought his line and he was elated when she fell to what he thought of as his masculinity. He was average in every way, with the possible exception of his ... masculinity. He was circumcised and, when erect, would have measured exactly three point seven eight inches. His stubby little penis didn't care how less than average it was, though, and performed well, at least to his own satisfaction. Since he was her first ... only, in fact ... she didn't know the difference. Things were normal, as far as she knew. That penis also delivered sperm flawlessly, which is what had gotten Gidget into trouble. Bob, however, was uncut and had none of the smooth blunted appearance that she had seen the last time she looked at a penis. The first thing she thought about as it bobbed into sight was that it wouldn't fit into her mouth, like Professor Lipscomb's had so easily. Her delighted eyes took in it's rough look, with it's softened tip and the little hood that looked like a turtle neck that had been pulled up over a bald man's head. It was longer. Much longer. She didn't make measurements in her head. She just noticed it was much longer. The only similarity was that it was about the same diameter as the other one she had seen. She liked this one better, though that may have just been raw bias. She was in the peculiar position of preferring her grandfather's naked penis over that of one that had actually made her pregnant. The script came back long enough to make her lean forward and kiss the tip, without thinking. She was immediately cognizant of the turtle neck around the tip of this amazing thing, kissing her back. She jerked back and looked up at Bob with fear in her eyes. "I shouldn't have done that." she said. "I don't mind." he said. "It felt nice." She relaxed and looked at it again. Now that this image was fresh in her mind, she wondered what it would feel like to wrap her hand around something that would still stick out. Her hand had completely covered the other one. "Can I touch it?" she asked. "Well, since you already did and the world didn't end ... please." he said. The act of gripping him, and leaning forward at the same time resulted in something she wasn't prepared for. Her hand kept moving! The turtle neck thinned and popped backwards, exposing something that looked a lot more like Professor Lipscomb's. It was different though, because it was narrower, more pointed. It looked like it would slide into her with much less stretching and pain. She shook her head, trying to banish the idea of this sliding into her at all. She concentrated on the feel of the long hard tube in her hand. That was completely different and she liked that too. she slid the sheath back over the head experimentally and smiled. Then she slid it back again, playing with it, watching fascinated as the skin turned from bunched up and wrinkled, to thin and smooth. "That feels really good." Bob sighed. "But if you keep doing it I may start looking for something to make a club out of." She looked up an smiled. "There's still no cave." "No, but there's a bed right over there." He nodded at the newly covered feather bed. She felt a tremor in her belly. "Would you really do that with me ... if you could?" she asked. "Yes." was all he said. She looked back at the shockingly sexual thing in her hand. and her pussy clenched. "But you can't ... can you." It wasn't really a question. "That depends on you darling." he said. "We couldn't." she shook her head firmly. "If that's what you feel, then you're right." he agreed. Her body screamed at her. "It's been so long." she said. "It would be wrong." "Then we won't." "But part of me WANTS to." she complained. "Then we might." he smiled. "You make it sound so simple." she said. "It is simple. Either you want to, or you don't." "It's not that simple for me." she sighed. "You're my grandfather." "Right here ... right now ... I'm just your practice date. Just a man." he suggested. She stood up, flustered. "It can't be that simple." she argued. "I wouldn't be doing this with some man I was out on a date with." Bob leaned over and pulled up his pants. He buttoned the button as she watched, her eyes wide. Then he refastened his belt. "So we won't do this any more." said Bob. It was hard, but he knew it was the right thing to do. Gidget threw up her hands. "But I WANT to!" she said exasperatedly. "With you anyway." "You know what you remind me of?" Bob asked, taking her to the bed and sitting her down on the edge of it. He sat beside her. It was almost uncomfortable because the mattress crushed beneath them and tended to tip them toward the center of the bed because of the hard side rail of the frame underneath. They perched on the edge. "You remind me of a girl I used to know named Ruth. We went out a few times when I was in High School. She was what we called back then "hot as a pistol." She loved to kiss and pet, but if you tried to touch her skin ... you know, reach inside her clothes ... she'd push you away. Then she was right back wanting more. She always wanted more, but she wouldn't let you DO more. At first I thought she was just using her defenses, to keep things from going too far. But after a while I decided she didn't know WHAT she wanted. She wanted more, but was scared, and couldn't make up her mind about what to do about it." Gidget nodded. "That's really close to what I'm feeling right now." "For men it's a little different." He went on. "I look at a woman and I'm either interested in making love to her ... or I'm not. It's an almost unconscious kind of decision. For us, there's no decision to make on how far to go. We either want to go all the way, or not at all." Gidget nodded. "I get that. But for women it's not that way. Like now, for instance. I want to touch you and kiss you and things like that. But I'm not sure I'd want to do more, even though I'm horny as can be. But the thing is that if I do all those things, I know I'll want to go farther later, even though I don't want to now." She looked startled. "Actually, it's not that I don't WANT to now ... I just can't get past thinking it would be wrong to DO that." "You want to be seduced." said Bob, understanding. Gidget started to shake her head. Seduction was part of the script ... wasn't it? But Bob was obviously interested in her, except that he wasn't trying to seduce her. Not in any way that matched any script she'd ever thought of. She'd always let Lipscomb have her because he seduced her. "I DON'T want to be seduced." she decided out loud. "That's what he always did to me. I only let things happen because HE was in charge ... made things happen in me I couldn't control." "But you don't know how to go about all this without being seduced." suggested Bob. "EXACTLY!" she said excitedly. "And if YOU were in control, then it wouldn't feel so dangerous?" he asked. "Dangerous isn't the word I'd use. Helpless is the word I'd use." "Then, in that case, I place myself completely under your control." said Bob. "I won't do a thing or make a move unless I have your specific permission." Gidget grinned. "I want you to be naked ... RIGHT NOW!" she barked. Bob stood up and in seconds dropped his pants and got out of his shirt. He kicked off his sandals and pulled his pants off. He stood, hands on hips. He was soft. "What happened?" she asked, staring at his shriveled appendage. "I thought we were done." he said. "You can DO that?" she asked, amazed. "You can just make it go down?" "Well, no ... not all the time. But if you're pretty sure nothing's going to happen it pretty well does it all by itself." "What if I said something IS going to happen?" she said. Bob looked down and used his abs to make his dick move a little. "You're the boss." he said. Gidget laughed and clapped her hands. "I want to be naked too." she announced. Bob stood there. "I can't do anything about that." he reminded her. "OK, then, I want you to make me naked ... slowly ... and I want you to be hard when you get done." Bob grinned and pulled her up. His fingers went to her blouse buttons and undid them, revealing a pink bra. He slid his fingers over the tips. "Naughty naughty!" she said. "No touching unless I say you can!" "Yes ma'am." said Bob. He took his time, pulling one shoulder off, and down her arm. He intended to do that with the other one, but it actually just fell down all by itself. Her eyes looked uncertain as she stood before him in her bra and slacks. "Am I allowed to say things?" he asked. "OK, yes." she said. "You have luscious breasts." he said, staring at her cleavage. "I can't wait to see them. I bet you have long, stiff nipples." "Wrong!" she said with glee. "My nipples just lay there, flat and uninteresting. The last time they stuck out was when I was feeding Becca. Nice try buster. And my boobs are fat, not luscious." "You have to turn around." said Bob. "Oh!" she said. She turned and he unclipped the bra. He pushed it forward, off her shoulders, sliding his hands down her arms. Then he turned her around to face him. Her arms were under her breasts, holding them up and the bra cups on them. "You touched me." she accused. "Sorry." he said. "I'm kind of excited." He looked down at his prick which was already stiff again. "See?" "Already?" she said. "I told you you were beautiful." "We'll see about that. Continue." she ordered. He tugged at her bra, and she lowered her arms, which had been pressing the bottoms of the cups up against her breasts. She tensed as the cups slid free and her breasts were exposed. They were heavy and needed the support she usually gave them. She still ran, though not nearly as often as she needed to, and they hurt if she didn't support them. Her areolas were wide and deep pink, rather than brown and sat high on each breast, almost as if they were on top of the breasts, rather than at the tips. When she bent over though, they formed tips where tips should be. With her dark hair it looked almost odd. Her nipples were just a shade darker and were, indeed, flat, almost invisible, just dots of darker color on her areolas. Her breasts swung apart a little, forced to the sides by the bulk of flesh that made her cleavage, and that made her areolas look like two large eyes peering up and to the sides. They looked soft and warm and just begged for hands to hold them. "May I touch them?" asked Bob. "You still want to?" she asked. "Most definitely. That's not all I want to do with them." "Masher." she accused. "Not yet. I want to be naked." she said imperiously. Bob knelt and tried to find the closure of her slacks. Her hips were round and firm. He already knew what her buttocks felt like and they were also firm and tight. She turned, giggling to expose the rear zipper and hook. He undid them both to reveal matching pink panties and pushed the slacks to the front and down. He slid them down her hips, brushing his hands against her panties. "Careful." she warned. "That's perilously close to touching." He ignored her, sliding his hands all the way down her outer thighs. She tried to balance on one foot, lifting the other, and waved her arms in the air. Bob wished he was facing her. He'd like to have seen what her breasts were doing as she waved her arms. He pulled one leg off her foot as she hopped and giggled. Then she changed feet. He got up and went around to the front. "What are you doing?" she asked. "I want to be in front of you for the other leg." he said. He leered at her chest as she raised her leg, using his hands to feel for the pants leg and pull at it. It caused her to hop longer and she laughed as he stared. "You ARE a dirty old man." she said. "They're so wobbly." she complained, looking down at her bouncing breasts." "They're gorgeous." he said. "I can't wait to taste them." "And who said you GET to taste them?" she teased. "Why else are you getting naked?" he asked. "To torment you!" she giggled. She stood before him in just her panties. He reached for them. He pulled at them slowly, tugging at different places to make them come down without rolling up or getting too tight. Her pubis was therefore exposed very slowly. He heard her gasp and looked up to see her lower lip caught between her teeth. Her pubic hair was short and lay flat on her mons. It wasn't trimmed in any way, but it hid little, letting her white skin show through the thin strands. Bob licked his lips as he got the panties lower and lower, anticipating being able to see her labia clearly. He wasn't disappointed. Her scent drifted into his nose and he knew she was aroused. As he pulled the bottom of the panty legs to her thighs he saw her split, comprised of thick outer labia that completely hid her pussy lips. It looked like you could press a pencil between them and it would stay there until she spread her legs. Professor Lipscomb had been a meat and potatoes sort of lover. He got them going, got them spread for him, and dumped his load. If they came, so much the better, since that might keep them coming back longer. They eventually figured out that he was lying to them, and wandered away. But there were always more young innocent things to seduce. He had never, therefore, engaged in cunnilingus. There wasn't anything in it for him, after all. So much for the "educated" mind. Bob looked at the split peach in front of his eyes and, without permission, leaned forward to jam his face between her thighs, reaching around to grab those firm buttocks and pull her toward him. He stuck out his tongue to lick up any nectar that might be there. Before she could react, the tip of his tongue had found her clit, hidden between those thick folds of flesh, and flicked it twice. Gidget's reaction was both explosive and violent. No one had ever done this to her. She knew about it, of course, but that was something foreign that happened to other women ... not her. AND he had touched her without permission. She batted at his head, pushing him back and danced away from him as he fell forward on his hands and knees. About then her brain got the message his tongue had been sending via her clit. "BAD!" she yelped. "I'm sorry." He put some whine in his voice. He shouldn't have done that. "I couldn't help it. It looked so delicious." He tried to look meek. "I won't do it again ... I promise." "I should hope NOT!" she said indignantly. "That's nasty!" "It's delicious." he countered. "You taste tangy and luscious." "Really?" she was in territory she'd never been in before and didn't know what to think. "Really." he confirmed. He pointed to his cock, which was so hard it was bent a little. "See what you do to me?" Gidget looked at the long hard thing and felt that feeling in her pussy that meant she was losing control. It didn't seem so bad right now, though. All things considered he really was trying to do things her way. She realized her panties were still stretched between her thighs and bent over to remove them, stepping gracefully out of them. She stood in front of this naked man, naked herself. His prick jutted at her. She knew what he wanted to do with that long firm thing. But he was over there ... and she was over here ... and it just didn't seem so dangerous this way. She suddenly didn't know what to do. In the past, by this time, Professor Lipscomb was all over her and she was fighting just to try to find a comfortable position to be ravished in. "Could we dance some more?" she asked. "Ooooo I'd love to see you do that Shimmy thing." he sighed. She laughed and shimmied for him, feeling her breasts wiggle and shake. He grasped his penis, squeezing it as she did so. She felt elated that she had the power to make this man so horny that he'd touch himself. The slow music was still on and she waited for him. "You know ... it will be different ... dancing like this." he said. "I know. You just behave yourself." she said. As they came together he quickly reached for his prick and bent it to slide it between her thighs. He had her in his embrace before she could object, but then, feeling it there ... not IN her ... but just next TO her, it felt good. She relaxed and let herself be held. It was like a body massage, where skin was touched by skin everywhere. It was much more erotic than she'd imagined it even could be, and she knew she was in trouble within a minute. His prick sawed back and forth, pushing up against her, making her wetter than she had been. Her breasts felt so good against his chest that she wanted to crush him against her. She hadn't even felt his hands on her bare buttocks until she forced herself to take inventory, in an attempt to calm down. "You seduced me after all." she sighed into his ear. "Who? Me?" "I want to be ravished, and that means you seduced me." "So ... it's all my fault?" he said, kissing her throat. "See? You're kissing my neck and I didn't say you could. That beautiful penis is pressing against me, wanting inside me, making it impossible to resist you. You're seducing me!" she whined. "I can stop." he said. "Could you REALLY stop?" she asked, leaning back to look in his face. "If I knew it would hurt you to go further I would stop." he said firmly. "What would you do then?" she asked, bumping her mons against him. "I'd masturbate like a chimpanzee on amphetamines." he admitted. "Well I can't stop now." she moaned. "Of course you can. You can masturbate too." he said. "It's not the same." she whined. "No, but that's what we can do if that's what you want." "I want YOU." she said grumpily. "I want something inside me ... not my finger." "You want to be seduced." he said gently. "I don't like you very much right now." she moaned. "You want me to seduce you right now?" he asked. "Nooooo ... yes ... I don't KNOW!" She humped him vigorously. He pushed her back from him and she whined. He went to the bed and flopped in the middle on his back. He started masturbating, looking at her. "I'm going to do this now unless you come and stop me." he said. Gidget's own hand had replaced his prick, rubbing her lips, digging at her clit. She shot a look of almost anger at him. Suddenly she stalked to the bed and climbed up on it, her arms waving as the mattress collapsed under her feet and she swayed. She straddled his hips, looking down at him. "I can't be on top." she said pouting. "Why not?" he asked. "That's not how it's done." she said. "You have too many rules." he muttered. He kept stroking. "OH!" she shouted in frustration. Angrily she squatted, putting her hands on his chest. He held his prick up for her as she tried to look between her hanging breasts. "Go ahead." he said, wanting to lift his hips. "Ravish me." With a little whine of frustration she lowered her hips and he suddenly felt heat around the tip of his cock. She wasn't thinking about the fact that she hadn't done this in sixteen years. She was so frustrated that she just let her weight down on him all at once. His pointy long prick sliced up into her like a hot knife into warm butter. What made her wilt wasn't the feel of a prick in her again. She wasn't ultra tight, despite the lack of ... exercise ... she'd had in that region. In fact, they were a perfect fit for each other. What she wasn't prepared for was that his penis went twice as far up inside her as Lipscomb's had. It went all the way to her cervix and, at the angle she was at, the head lodged firmly in those lips. There was at once an aching pain she had never felt, and a feeling of overpowering satisfaction at being full. The combination caused her to fall forward onto Bob's chest and lay limply. "Ohhhh baby, don't just lie there." he gasped, grabbing her butt and pushing and pulling. "I'm dying here. I have to have you." Her frustration gone, her next feeling was that she was doing something wrong. The feeling in her pussy was so delicious, though, she decided to worry about that later and pushed her worry back somewhere quiet. Her inhibitions went with her worry. He undoubtedly wanted her ... had to have her ... was crazy for her. And that made her crazy for him. She pushed up and started moving around, almost like she was trying to find a comfortable position. But it wasn't that at all. This was so new, and everything felt so different, she wanted to experience every possible pressure. She found that she could move just a little bit, but it made a huge difference in how he felt up inside her. She could get almost to that dull pain deep inside and then ease back. It was that that developed into a natural rocking motion, her hands on his chest. His prick poked and prodded her in ways she'd never felt in her life and she was amazed and delighted. The tip of his cock fucked her cervix ever so gently and she found that pain addictive. she let her belly sag forward and arched her back to scrape and mash her clit. She'd had orgasms before, sometimes even with the professor. Not every time, but sometimes. She felt one looming now and welcomed it with open arms, eager for it to wash all over her. "Ohhhh Grandpa." Her mind reverted to her usual name for him. "I'm gonna cum Grandpa." she moaned. "Do it baby." he urged her. "Get that good feeling." She gave him the play by play as she got closer and closer until she couldn't talk any more as the sensations flooded her senses. She was blind, and deaf for a few seconds as her body experienced an earthquake of emotion. All she could feel was that beautiful prick up in her belly and the devastating things it was doing to her. She regained sight and sound to find her upper torso being held up by virtue of Bob's hands on her full breasts. Her arms had gone limp. She regained her perch, but Bob pulled at her, lifting his head to reach for a nipple. That nipple, both of them in fact, weren't so flat any more. They stood proud of her areolas enough to bump a finger sliding over them. When she realized what he wanted, she leaned down and he suckled. Sweet pain shot from her nipple to her pussy and she started rocking again. It had never lasted this long with Lipscomb. The first time she'd heard the term "Wham, bam, thank you ma'am" was when Becca was two years old. She'd thought of Lipscomb then. If you looked up the term in a dictionary, his picture should be there. Bob changed nipples and that breast got to take part in the sensation fest too. He went back and forth as she rocked gently. She had found a place where if she moved just a little, the tip of his prick massaged something way up inside her that made little electric pulses go through her belly and meet up with the electric pulses he was causing in her nipples. "I knew I was right." panted Bob. Gidget looked down to see that her nipples were almost an inch long. They looked completely foreign on her breasts, like they'd been glued there when she wasn't looking. As she continued rocking he played with those nipples, squeezing them, rolling them in his fingers, pulling them until she thought her head would explode. Her next orgasm was completely different than the first one. That little massaging motion deep inside her caused the sensation to creep over her, like sunlight that was warm, and then warmer and then suddenly hot as fire. Her skin felt like it was going to burst into flames for a few seconds as she held her breath, but she never stopped that tiny rocking. Bob was saying something, but she concentrated on the ripples of heat that played across her body like wind in a wheat field. What Bob was saying was that he was about to cum. Her dreamy gaze and unresponsiveness didn't tell him anything, but it was out of his hands now. Her cervix had been rubbing the tip of his prick for five minutes now and the irritation brought his semen bubbling and rushing out to sooth that irritation. Gidget's eyes were closed when she felt the little ball of heat at the tip of his prick. It immediately expanded into a larger ball of heat and she felt his prick pulse inside her. Languidly she welcomed the inner heat that complimented the heat that was now fading from her skin until what she was actually feeling penetrated her brain. It screamed at her that the last time she had felt that ... OK, one of the last times ... it was making her pregnant. Her eyes flew open and her hair flicked as she looked down at Bob with wide eyes. "You're making me pregnant!" she gasped. "Uuuugh" grunted Bob as another geyser of sperm lashed into her womb. The mix of emotions in Gidget was chaotic. She couldn't believe she hadn't thought about the logical conclusion to what they were doing. It had completely slipped her mind in the ecstasy of once again feeling the things she was feeling. Her former pregnancy with Becca had been a mix of anguish and pride, of terror and anticipation, of alone-ness and the incredibly comforting coming together that her mother and aunts had, for some reason done. All of them had welcomed her bulging belly into their ranks with more love than anyone could expect or even hope for. Their support had turned her pregnancy from a terrible mistake into a celebration of new life. She'd never understood it, but it had saved her sanity, so she didn't question it either. She remembered the shame and pain and rejection of the relationship that got her pregnant, but the pregnancy itself was a thing of fairy tale dreams come true. Her assumption that she was suddenly pregnant again made all those remembered emotions boil in her brain like the bubbles in boiling water for ten long, painful seconds. By the time her common sense told her to calm down, and that there was little likelihood that this single infusion of sperm had done anything other than feel warm and lovely, she was limp and shaking. She looked down at Bob who wore a look of concern on his face. "Are you all right?" he asked. "Do you care?" asked something ugly from down inside her, before she could stop it from coming out of her mouth. "Of course I do." he said. "What's wrong?" She sagged, still plugged with his penis, and leaned on his chest. "I don't know. I have bad thoughts sometimes. I think maybe I should have had counseling or something. It's hard for me to believe that a man could care." "I love you." he said. "You're my flesh and blood, and you're all those things I told you you were. I HAVE to care about you. I couldn't keep from caring if I tried." "I want to believe you." she sighed. "It's just hard for me." He pulled her down to kiss her. It was strange for her because of two things. First, it was the first time they'd done that. It was a warm sweet kiss, not demanding, but giving. She couldn't remember the last one of those she'd gotten. But of even more impact was the fact that he kissed her AFTER sex. Lipscomb had never done that. ------- Chapter 25 Two hours later they finally got out of bed. The whole time after he "got her pregnant" as she later described it to him, they talked. She told him more about what she had thought of and remembered while they were making love. It was a cathartic kind of confession for her because they lay there naked and cuddling, but no sex was going on. She included that as something new and wonderful, a gift he had given her. She told him about how she had been sure at that instant that he was impregnating her, and about how her mother and aunts had been so good about it when she came crying home, sure she'd be thrown out. "I hope I didn't make you pregnant, then." he said at that point. "Could you ever hope you DID make me pregnant?" she asked amazed. "Of course." he said. "You're a wonderful mother who has raised a fabulous daughter. More children deserve to have you as a mother." "I've been a horrible mother." she sighed. "All Becca wanted to do was date that nice young Denny and look what I did." "Didn't it work out all right?" he asked. "Yes, but I'm surprised she doesn't hate me." said Gidget. "You're pretty hard to hate." he commented. "And you're sweet." she said, kissing him. "And you taste tangy." he reminded her. "Are you trying to seduce me again?" she challenged. "You bet I am." he grinned. "Well, you can't." she said firmly. "This is just practice. I'm going to find some nice rich man who can't live without me, and seduce HIM." "You already did that." he smiled. Her eyes widened. "I guess maybe I did at that." she said. "But it wouldn't work. I can't marry you, and you can't marry me." "I don't think marriage is the glue that is needed to hold this relationship together." he said. "I've been thinking about buying a big house, one of those monstrous things with twenty-seven rooms, and inviting all you girls to live with me." "You want your own harem, do you?" she asked grinning. "Well sure I do. If they're anything like you, I want them all." he said. He didn't think it politically correct to tell her he already had more than half of them already. "Why that's ... that's ... that's polygamy or something!" she said leaning back from him. "You can't do that! It's just ... wrong!" "Let me ask you this. Would you do this with me again some day?" he asked. He cupped a breast and squeezed it. "Yes." she said immediately. "I loved what we did today." "What if you got married?" "That would be different." she said. "I might still want to, but I wouldn't." "Good for you." he said. "What if you don't get married?" "I already told you." she said. "What if I get married?" he asked. "No go." she said firmly. "What if I have a girlfriend, or several girlfriends?" "Now you're trying to trap me. One girlfriend ... no. More than one girlfriend and all's fair in love and war." she said. "You have the strangest rules." he laughed. "Wasn't it that way back in 1950?" she asked. "Yes, I suppose it was, but I'm not in 1950 any more. This is a whole new world and I've broken a lot of rules already." he said. "Could you make love to more than one woman and feel good about it?" asked Gidget. Her whole life had been steeped in the supposed virtues of monogamy. "Only if it they were the right women, and it didn't hurt them." he said. "Good luck." she said. "Women just don't want to share like that. Most women anyway." she said. "Let me ask YOU a question." he said. "What if the women I wanted to make love to were you and ... say Sunny, or even June?" She started to answer and he put his finger to her lips. "Before you answer that, think about it. When you came here today, did you intend to end up like this?" "Of course not." she said "Are you unhappy that you did?" "No!" she was frustrated. "But..." she stopped. She suddenly understood what he was getting at. She had done something crazy and wild and against the rules ... something completely unscripted and it had been wild and wonderful and full of ecstasy. There had been pain and fear in it too, but they had been washed away on a sea of trust and faith that she wouldn't be abandoned. she was even more convinced, if anything, that this man would never abandon her. "That's pretty weird to think about." she said finally. "So, if I told you I'd made love to Sunny, would you be mad at her, or jealous?" "Did you?" she asked. "No, but use your imagination." he said. He was suddenly glad he hadn't used her mother's name. She was quiet for a long time. "You know, I think you're turning me into some kind of kinky freak." she said finally. "What I'm trying to do is free you from some of those rules that have choked you half to death." he said. "OK, so no, I don't guess I'd be all jealous if I knew you were making love with both Sunny and me, but that's Sunny, not some strange woman." "You want to know something?" he asked. She nodded. "If I'm lucky enough to get to experience what happened here, with you, or Sunny, or any of the beautiful women in my life right now ... I don't need any strange women." The image of one of Bob's readings from Rip's journal popped into Gidget's mind. She envisioned them all sitting around in the semi dark as Bob sat alone, reading. Her imagination stripped all the women naked, and made Bob's penis jut a foot into the air. She laughed, thinking about it and he looked at her quizzically. She didn't tell him about it though. "You'd better eat a lot of oysters if you plan to keep nine women happy." she laughed. "You and I both know I won't be keeping nine women happy. I wouldn't even try." "What if we all demanded it?" she asked impishly. "Then I'd have to set up a schedule." he said grinning. "That wouldn't work." she said. "I'd want you every night myself." She was at once shocked that she'd said it, and amazingly happy that she felt free to say what she felt. "Then some of you are just going to have to find your own man." he said. Finally they got out of bed and dressed. They cleaned up the cabin and got back in the car to head back home. As they rode along Gidget played with the wind with her hand, making it plane up and then down as the wind pushed against it. She felt relaxed, and peaceful ... sedate in a way she hadn't felt in a long time. Could mere sex do that? "Grandpa?" she said. "Bob! I'm going to call you Bob from now on. I can't call you grandpa after today." "Bob's fine." he said. "I'm glad this happened, but I don't think it's going to help me with dates. I don't want to be seduced ... well by anybody besides you ... and most men don't want to be chased by a woman. Besides, I wouldn't do what we did with a man until ... I don't know WHEN I'd do that." "That's probably a good plan, if the man has enough control to wait for you to be ready." he said. They rode on a while. "Bob?" "Hmm?" "What if you did make me pregnant?" "You want the truth?" he asked. She nodded, frowning. "I'd be a very happy man." he said. She looked surprised. "But you know we couldn't get married." she said. "Big house." he said. "Lots of room." He looked at her. "Big family house." He drove on a little further. "How would you feel about it?" "I don't know." she admitted. "My brain tells me it would be terrible." She turned toward him. "But my heart tells me it would be wonderful." He just reached over and squeezed her hand. They went the rest of the way in an easy silence. When they were almost to the house, she spoke again. "Bob?" "Yes?" "I don't think one date is going to be enough." He was grinning like a madman as he pulled up to her house. ------- In Sacramento, at the North substation, there was a desk in a corner that was used by detectives whenever they were up that direction on a case. Zack liked to hang out there both because the personnel were friendly, and because he could get more done there than at the main station, where everything was crazy all the time. He had mentioned this to Val, but didn't think anything of it. The desk was behind a partition for privacy during interviews and there was a computer terminal that accessed the same information he could access at his real desk down town. He was reading through a witness statement and thinking about calling it a day when he heard a female voice ask for him at the booking desk. "I'm looking for Detective Simpson." The Booking sergeant's rough voice came next. "And the nature of your business with Detective Simpson?" "I want to see him." said the voice, which Zack now recognized as Val's. He grinned. He'd see how fast on her feet she was. The men she'd have to get through were trained to weed out superfluous complaints and domestic arguments that didn't amount to enough to be worth a detective's time. "And what, exactly do you want to see him about?" asked Sergeant Rollins. "I just want to talk to him for a minute." she said, her voice rising. "If you tell him my name he'll want to talk to me." "I'm sure he will." said Rollins, sarcasm in his voice. "Now, are you going to tell me what you want to see him about or not? I'm a busy man here." Zack almost laughed. Rollins hadn't booked anybody into jail in two days. The North substation was a quiet place. That's why Zack hung out there. "Look, don't be a jerk, just tell him I'm here. He'll want to see me." she said. "Ma'am", he heard the booking sergeant's voice rise. "I told you already that you have to tell me what you want to see him about!" "He's not going to like it if I tell you why I want to see him." she warned. There was something in her voice that made Zack sit up and take notice. He started to close out the file he was reading in preparation for getting up. "You just let ME be the judge of that." said Rollins' heavy voice. Zack could see that four or five other personnel had drifted into position, both in case something got ugly, and just to watch. "OK," she said sweetly, but loudly. "I haven't had hot, sweaty sex in over a week, I'm as horny as a three antlered goat, and he's got the stick to SCRATCH MY ITCH!" she finished loudly. There was an instant of complete silence. "Now, may I please see him?" Val asked politely. It was pandemonium as all the personnel within earshot started laughing, hooting and generally making fools of themselves. Zack stood up sighing, and as his head popped up over the partition Val waved gaily at him. "Hi honey." she said over the hubbub. "Better get going sweetie" said a patrolman to Zack in a high falsetto voice. "Don't want to keep the little missus waiting any more than you already have" whined another in an equally bad falsetto. Rollins looked over at Zack and grinned. "Zack, I believe this young woman, I repeat YOUNG woman has some business with you. Maybe I should ask for some ID? Wouldn't want you to get in trouble for robbing the cradle!" He burst into laughter as there were more hoots and hollers. Through it all Val stood, tall, slim and beautiful, holding her purse in front of her with both hands, looking as unruffled as if she were alone at a bus stop. Val pulled up her purse and pretended to look through it. "My fake ID is in here somewhere" she said earnestly. "I'm eighteen." Her clear soprano voice went throughout the station. "Sure you are sweetheart." guffawed Rollins. "She's almost twenty." snarled Zack as he threaded his way through laughing cops. He walked up to Val, who leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek, smiling. "You're gonna pay for this." he growled to Val. More laughter. "Oooo" she said in her little girl voice. "I sure hope so." The place went wild as Zack, red faced, pulled her toward the door. As she went through she waved at all the laughing cops and sang out "Bye fellas." As the door closed it sounded like a convention of comics was there, all of them telling their best gags. ------- "You just had to do that to me, did you?" he said as he drove her to dinner. "There's a door back in the corner." said Val. "Yeah, it goes to the property room." said Zack, wondering where she was going with this. "It has a window in it. I saw your reflection in the window when I asked for you. I couldn't tell for sure, but it looked like you were smiling." she said matter-of-factly. "Oh." he said glumly. "Oh, come on, it's not THAT bad." she said smiling. "Have you looked in a mirror lately?" he asked. When she looked confused he said "Look at me. I'm a broken down old gumshoe who, alongside an astonishingly gorgeous woman like you, looks like a '57 Chevy beside a Corvette." Her laughter tinkled in his ears and she slapped at his thigh. "I happen to think '57 Chevies are sexy." she said smiling. "Those guys will NEVER let me forget this." he moaned. "It will be all over the whole department by the time we're finished with dinner." "Are you ashamed of me?" There was a dangerous note in her voice. "Oh HELL no Val, but they're going to rib me about this for months!" She sniffed. "Well, then, you just remind them that they got to look, but YOU get to touch." "Oh THAT will work." sighed Zack, shaking his head. He was in a better mood by the time they got to the restaurant. It was a tiny Italian place that served his favorite Lasagna. There were only four other customers, since it was still early. He ordered Cokes for them both while they waited for the food. "Zack?" she said. He looked at her. "I want to keep dating you." He smiled. "A broken down old gumshoe like me?" She didn't smile. "I want to keep dating you." she said again. This time he was serious. "That makes me happier than you can even imagine." "If I changed schools ... I'm thinking of Cal State ... would you keep seeing me?" "Of course I would." he said. "Would you see ... only me?" she sounded nervous. "Do remember asking you if you've looked in a mirror lately?" he tried to joke. When she didn't smile he nodded. "I can't even think of another woman right now. You're affecting my work." "I'm going to ask you this question and I want you to tell me the honest truth. Don't sugar coat it or tell me what you think I want to hear, OK?" She definitely looked nervous now. Her body language was talking to him loud and clear. "Shoot." he said, leaning back. "If I got pregnant ... if you got me pregnant ... what would you do?" "Boy, do you know how to get a guy's attention." he said. When she frowned he held up his hand. "Calm down, it's just an odd question in this setting." He looked at her, his gaze level. "Are you pregnant?" "I asked you first." she said, looking achingly beautiful. Zack remembered someone saying that being pregnant made a woman glow. He wondered if her beauty was from that glow. "Are you pregnant, Val?" he asked. "No." she said. She looked down. "Not yet." "Then why in the world are you asking me that question?" he asked. "Because when we get finished here I'm going to take you home and have hot sweaty sex with you and I might GET pregnant." she said. "Val, we can do something about that." he said. "You don't understand." she said, looking disappointed. "Nothing works a hundred percent except not doing it. I am NOT interested in dating you and not doing it." "Oh." he said. He wasn't used to a woman being quite this forthcoming. "Well," he went on. "If I got you pregnant I would feel compelled to do the right thing." he said. "What does that mean exactly?" she asked. The waiter brought them their food and Zack felt irritated at the intrusion. When the waiter left she was still sitting and looking at him. "It means I'd marry you." he said. "I wouldn't want you to marry me unless you wanted to marry me." she said. Zack almost groaned. "Val, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me. I can't stop thinking about you. It's been what, a week since I saw you?" "Eight days exactly." she said primly. "Well, anyway, what I'm telling you is that there is nothing I want more in this world than for you to be my girl. If you had my baby inside of you I don't think I could let you out of my sight. I'd be crazy to do anything BUT marry you." He looked at his plate. "But sweetheart, you don't want to marry an old guy like me." "Don't you think I should be the one to decide that?" she asked archly. "I know your family would give you just as hard a time as those boys are going to give me the next time I show my face at the North substation. Everybody and their mother is going to be pestering you with advice and questions about why in the world you want to marry an older man." "If I was pregnant I'd have a pretty good excuse to marry the man who made me that way, even if he was an older man." she argued. "You don't want to get married for that reason, Val. You know that. You need to be with a man you love, and are comfortable with." "That's not what I'm saying." she objected. "What I'm saying is that, if I were pregnant, nobody would be able to object to my marrying you just because you were an older man. It's one thing to marry an older man and have a baby. It's another to have a baby and then marry his father, who just happens to be an older man." She smiled. "You're a devious woman, Val." said Zack. "Wouldn't it just be easier to keep dating and not have any babies at all? "So you're not interested in marrying me ... unless I'm pregnant with your baby. Is that about it?" she asked. There was no rancor in her voice and Zack noticed that. "I'm not saying that at all." he said. "A month ago there was no woman of any kind in my life and I haven't really had time to sit down and think about getting married ... to you or anybody else." "But you just said there isn't anybody else." she pointed out. "Val, what do you want from me?" he asked, frustration in his voice. "I just want to know if there might be a time in the not terribly distant future, when you might feel the urge to marry me, even if I'm not pregnant." she said. "That's pretty vague." he said. She frowned and he held up his hand. "Let's get down to brass tacks here. What do you mean by the 'not too distant future'?" She wrinkled her nose. "Two years?" Zack's deductive oriented mind wondered why two years. She'd be in college for three more at least. He ignored that for now. "Would you be willing, during these two years, to go on the pill?" "No." she said. "Can I use condoms?" he asked. "No." "And I can't ask why because you already explained it to me the last time we were together." he said. "Correct." she said with a cute little nod of her beautiful head. "Well then, I have to marry you." he said, picking up his fork. "Cause in the next two years I'm probably gonna knock you up twice." "Not if we're careful." she countered. "I don't want to be ... careful ... do you?" he asked around a mouthful of lasagna. "No." she said. "Then why are we having this conversation?" he asked. "Because..." she let it hang in the air and picked up a piece of garlic bread. "Because I think I'm in love with you, but I can't say that because this is only our second date and you'll think I'm childish, and I'm ovulating right now and Becca's pregnant and all I can think about is how wonderful it would be to have your baby growing inside of me, but it's too soon and I'm afraid I'll chase you away and I'd just die..." She had to stop to take a breath. "if that happened." she finished. She stuffed the bread in her mouth, tore a piece off viciously and looked down, her jaw working furiously. Zack sat and stared. Then he put his fork down and carefully wiped his mouth with his napkin. Val peeked up at him for an instant and looked back down. She swallowed convulsively. "You know," he said conversationally, "I never used to believe in love at first sight and all that stuff." He waited until she peeked up at him again. This time she kept her eyes on his for a few seconds. "Becca's pregnant?" he asked suddenly. "I wasn't supposed to tell you that." she said miserably. "She's terrified, and I'm terrified for her." "And for yourself," said Zack. Her head moved in a tiny nod. Zack asked himself two questions. The first was: "Can I live with this tumultuous, passionate, go-off-on-a-tangent, gorgeous woman?" The second was: "Can I live WITHOUT this tumultuous, passionate, go-off-on-a-tangent, gorgeous woman?" "Yes." he said. He picked up his fork and started eating again. Val's head rose and she looked at him carefully. "Yes ... what?" she asked. He had to swallow before he could answer. "Yes, I might, in the next two years, feel the urge to marry you, regardless of your maternal status." He watched as she flushed bright pink. "Really?" she said in a tiny voice. "Oh for pity's sake!" he growled. "Val would you PLEASE marry me so we can get on with our lives? I'm starving here!" He sounded gruff, but his face was soft and smooth, his eyes steady, and it was obvious he was neither frustrated or angry. Val pounced on his question with a shrieked "YES!" and actually clapped her hands. Everyone else in the restaurant looked over to see what her shout was about. She blushed and looked down again, picking up her fork. They ate in silence for a few minutes, but Val was practically wiggling in her seat. Zack looked up between bites. "Didn't I hear something about Becca and her ... aunt ... going out with Brian Spruell?" Val nodded, chewing. "He's been walking around on cloud nine with a grin on his face that scares people," said Zack. "I don't think Becca has anything to be scared about ... unless she doesn't like him." "Oh, she likes him. She's just scared he won't want anything to do with her now that she's pregnant. She's afraid to tell him." Zack frowned. "That's not fair to him. And, like I said, he's smitten with her, or at least somebody. There are a several things that will get a cop killed. One is carelessness, and another big one is being in love. He needs to know the state of affairs so he can make plans and keep his head in the game when he's on duty." Val's smile was brilliant. "I'll tell her as soon as I get home." Zack thought about his impulsive proposal during the rest of dinner. When Val looked at him, it was with puppy dog eyes. He suddenly realized he might just have made the most important decision in a life that didn't hold tremendous number of really good ones. By the time dinner was over, he was sure this decision was one of the best he'd ever made. They left the restaurant and before they even got out of the parking lot Val's hand was in his lap, feeling and squeezing. "What are you doing?" he asked, laughing. "I want to play." she said. "I can't wait." "I'm driving." he said. "You keep your eyes on the road then." she said, trying to unzip his pants. "They're not what I want to play with anyway." She tugged and got the zipper halfway down. "Lift your hips." she ordered, using both hands now and leaning over across the console between the bucket seats. "No." he laughed. "I told you I'm driving." She had just gotten her hand inside his mostly open zipper and was feeling for a way to get through his underwear when he said "SHIT!" "What's wrong?" she giggled. "We're being pulled over ... that's what's wrong." he growled. "Uh oh," said Val, sitting back up and twisting to look out the rear window. There were flashing lights behind them. ------- Chapter 26 Zack pulled to the right and put the car in park. He twisted the key viciously and sighed. Then he tried to put the window down, but with the key off the button did nothing. He was reaching for the key when there was a knock on the window. He turned the key and the window slid down. A flashlight shone into the back from the passenger's side and then played over Val as the second man in the patrol car inspected the interior of the car for danger. "Good evening sir," came the deep voice of the policeman standing beside the car. "Oh!" said the voice in what sounded like surprise. "It's you Sarge." Zack looked up and out, shading his eyes from the light of the flashlight that was shining into the car. "That you Paul?" he asked. "Yeah, Ricky and I have the lower east side tonight," said Paul. "So ... what's up?" asked Zack. The voice returned to its professional deep tone. "License and registration please." Zack sighed and fumbled for his billfold. He reached across Val, who was sitting back, feeling bad for having distracted him. He flipped open the glove box and pulled out the registration. Then he handed that and his license out the window. "Sir, the reason I stopped you is because you were weaving and almost crossed the center line. I thought there might be some problem in the car. Have you been drinking sir?" "Of course not Paul," sighed Zack. "You know me better than that. I was just ... distracted for a minute." "Step out of the car please sir," ordered the grim voice. "Come on Paul, you know I haven't been drinking. Give me a break here." "Step out of the car Sir!" came the command. Zack snarled and pushed the door open to get out. "What the hell is going on officer Jackson?" he said, his voice rising. "Gee Sarge," came the voice, "You sure look all ... HOT and SWEATY. Are you sure you're OK? You want me to call you an ambulance or something? I wouldn't want you to have a heart attack or anything." Zack fumed as Paul's partner Ricky called over the car. "Paul, I don't see a goat in there anywhere." There was a burst of laughter as Zack got back in the car and slammed the door much harder than he needed to. He started the car and a hand was thrust through the window holding his license and registration. "Here you are Sir," said the laughing officer. "Oh, and you might want to zip up so you don't get distracted again." There was maniacal laughter as Zack took off so fast that his tires spun, screeching. Before Zack got a block there was a line of at least ten police cars following him, their lights flashing and the occasional siren bleeping. Zack didn't stop this time, but no matter which way he turned they followed, sometimes honking. The only way he could get away from them was to head out of town. "I'm sorry," said Val, her voice high and contrite. She giggled. "I just bet you are." Zack growled. When they left the city limits the last squad car finally peeled off with a triple warble of its siren. "Well I said you'd pay, and you're paying now. No way we can go back to my apartment. They'll be waiting to ambush me there too, knowing those guys." "We could go to our family cabin." she suggested. "Up in the mountains. I'd rather pay up there." Zack laughed. This would make a good story to tell someday. If it wasn't already a legend by then. When they got to the cabin and got inside, Val attacked him. She stripped him efficiently and took him into her mouth hungrily. Then he pushed her off and stripped her. They tumbled onto the feather bed, bouncing as she crawled onto him, eager and anxious. "Are you like this every time you're ovulating?" gasped Zack. "I've never done this while I was ovulating." she panted, finding what she wanted and putting it where she wanted it. "Besides, you just asked me to marry you. A girl gets excited when that happens." There was a point, about ten minutes later, as the pressure increased in his body, that Zack wondered if he might have a heart attack after all. His balls solved the problem by emptying themselves in the woman who would have his children ... starting tonight, if possible. ------- The clan was together at June's house on a Saturday afternoon for another reading of Rip's journal. Bob had just closed the book after reading Rip's description of waking up, and how the world had changed. He had peppered this reading with his own observations about how HIS world had changed in many of the same ways, and pointing out how important it was that his experience was MUCH better than Rip's. "Ohhh what happens next?" moaned Polly. "You always stop too soon." "WE know what happens next!" called out Fran laughing and referring to her cousins. Everyone knew they had already read the journal front to back. Still they listened just as carefully whenever Bob read from it. "You won't believe how close it is to what happened to Grandpa." she teased. "You're being impertinent, young lady," said her grandmother. "It isn't nice to tease your elders." Fran laughed. "OK, OK, he moves in with his DAUGHTER!" she squealed. "Oh my!" sighed Betty. "I don't remember that part of the story I heard when I was a little girl." "Well he does," said Fran. "And he lives with her the rest of his life. At least for the rest of her life. It wasn't too clear." "Speaking of which, there's something I need to talk to you all about," said Bob. He looked around and went on. "I'm thinking that this moving around and living in different places is a difficult way to live. So I've decided to buy a house." Only Gidget knew the details of his vision. The rest displayed varying attitudes about it. His daughters objected that it was no imposition on them to have live with them. Others wanted to know where it would be, and if it would be too far away for them to visit him. Sunny wanted to know why he wanted to live alone. He waited until they ran down. "Actually, I was thinking of more of a family home." He looked around. "Something big enough that all of you ... at least all of you who wanted to ... could live there too." That shut them up ... for all of fifteen seconds. Then it was a jumble of voices, some doubtful, some excited, and some with questions. It went back and forth as he said that since he had the money, and since living together would be both more efficient, and more luxurious, and would give them a base for whatever family business they ended up pursuing, it just made sense. "You all would be able to come and go as you liked, of course, and could still have your own lives. Your part of the house could be as private as you want it to be. We could hire a cook and some maids and things like that. It would free you up to do the things you want to do, but don't have time for now." he argued. Then there was another hour of arguing about how such a house should be laid out, and whether it should be custom built, or whether they should move outside of Circleton, which didn't have anything remotely like what Bob was describing available. Little by little they came on board, as the possibilities expanded and the problems were given solutions. Gidget finally stood up. "Well I'm all for it." she said. "I need to remodel my house anyway, and this way I won't have to worry about it. Besides, if I'm going to start dating, I'd much rather have a man pick me up someplace nicer than my poor old house." Sunny snorted. "Are you really going to start going out?" she asked, clearly unbelieving. "I had fun with Bob." Gidget said with dignity, though her cheeks pinked up a little. "And I intend to have more fun. You should try it yourself!" she said with a little heat. Sunny rolled her eyes and June spoke. "Sunny, dear, I haven't seen Gidget as happy and carefree as she was after her date with Daddy in just years and years. Don't make fun of her for trying to find some happiness." "That must have been some date," said Sunny, still unconvinced. "I try to show a girl a good time," said Bob, smiling. "And I learned a few things from Gidget too. I'm sure it will make my own future dating experiences much more positive than if I'd have tried to just go out and try it on my own." "Me too," said Gidget. "If I'd have tried to go out on a regular date it would have been disastrous. He helped me understand things about men that I didn't know. I was afraid of men. But Bob put me at ease and I ended up having a wonderful time. In fact, we're going to do it again." She started to blush. "Just to brush up on things." she said weakly, and turned away, going to the kitchen. Sunny watched her younger cousin walk away. Her eyes narrowed. Gidget's whole attitude had changed. Sunny held some of the same opinions about men and dating ... or they had held them ... and both had agreed that men were more trouble than they were worth. If Gidget had changed this much after being with grandpa just once, he must be a VERY interesting man. Sunny looked at Bob, who was in conversation with Martha about whether the new house should be a condo style kind of structure, or something with radiating wings where each wing would be a more or less separate residence connected in the middle by a common area for family gatherings like meals, parties and such. She looked at his hair, and the shape of his face and his shoulders. She'd always thought he was a nice looking man, but he still seemed strange and exotic to her, more so now that he had worked some kind of magic on Gidget. He piqued her curiosity in a way that men just didn't. Her divorce had been painful, and her former husband's disinterest in both her and their daughter had been painful too. Yet, here was a man, a stranger for all intents and purposes, who cared enough about women he hardly knew to offer to give them a luxurious lifestyle and pursue whatever interests they wanted to. And there didn't appear to be anything in it for him other than the company of those women. She frowned. She "knew" men better than that. There HAD to be something in it for him. She thought about Val and her new detective boyfriend. Val was acting like she was in love, and that worried Sunny. The man seemed nice, but he was old enough to be Val's father. After their latest date Val had been on cloud nine, humming and dancing around the house. Sunny had asked her about it and learned that Val was transferring to Cal State to be near the man. She had gone into "mother mode" then, warning Val about men and how they manipulated women. "Mom, he hasn't asked me for anything," said Val. "In fact he keeps trying to tell me I should find a younger man." "Good advice? And from a man?" Sunny had quipped. "I don't want a younger man," said Val firmly. "I want him. And I'm going to get him. You just wait and see." There was a gleam in her eye that suggested there was more to this story than Val was telling, but she wouldn't talk about it any more, other than to say "He's a good man, Mom, and he cares about what I think." Sunny wavered for a moment, watching Bob talking to Martha and then as June joined the conversation. Both of them obviously loved him. You could see it in their eyes, and in the way they touched him. Sunny felt a pang of loss that she had never had a father to love like that, and that the man she had chosen to be her mate had turned out to be such a rat. Maybe if she'd have had a father ... She shoved thoughts of her father out of her head. She tried not to think about that any more. What seemed amazing to her was how much her mother and aunts loved their father even though he slept through their whole childhood. If she'd have had a father like Bob, she wondered, how much different might her life have been. Being around him, even for just one night had certainly affected Gidget. She got up and went to find her cousin. Gidget was making up a new pitcher of iced tea and humming to herself. Sunny thought about Val humming. What was going on around here? "Hi," said Sunny. Gidget turned around. "Oh ... hi." she said flatly. "Don't be mad at me." chided Sunny. "What happened to 'men are all evil and you can't trust any of them'?" Gidget went to the fridge and got ice to put in the pitcher. "I was wrong. WE were wrong." she said. "How can you know that after being with grandpa for just one evening?" asked Sunny. Gidget seemed to think about it, almost like she didn't want to talk about it. "He explained some things to me ... about men." she said. "Things I didn't understand before." "What kind of things." asked Sunny. "About why men do some of the things they do ... and how they think about things ... you know, why they act like they do sometimes." "And you just believed him? Just like that?" asked Sunny. "No! It wasn't like that! Sunny I said hateful things to him and he just sat there and talked to me about it. I accused him of things, but he was patient and kind to me. He didn't ACT like what I thought he would act like. He acted like a nice guy, a guy I liked being around. He WAS a nice guy. He made me feel good inside." "So why do men do what they do?" asked Sunny. Gidget threw up her hands. "It took me six HOURS to understand what he was telling me. I can't explain it in five minutes." "Did he admit that men want sex?" asked Sunny. Gidget flushed and turned away. "Of course." she said. She fiddled with the tea, stirring it, even though it didn't need stirring. Sunny's suspicions flared. Gidget was acting guilty. But before she could grill her cousin further Fran came in and asked if there was more tea yet. Gidget smiled at her and ignored Sunny, taking the tea out into the living room. Sunny followed them into the living room. Betty and Martha were getting ready to leave. Bob was staying with June this week. Gidget poured tea for those who wanted more. Now Val and Becca were huddled with Bob drawing pictures on pieces of paper. They looked like floor plans. June saw her sisters to the door and closed it. "Mom?" Gidget said. "I was thinking, Bob and I had such a nice talk the other night. I've missed so much not knowing much about him. Couldn't he stay at my house for a few days? I have plenty of room, and he wouldn't be bothering you." June, who had been looking forward to spending the night in bed with her father waved her hand. "Oh, he's no problem. I'm getting to know him better too darling. But you're right. You girls need to catch up. You neglected him when you were growing up. I'm glad to see you taking an interest now. How about if I send him over there tomorrow?" Sunny's eyes narrowed as she looked at Gidget, who looked ... hopeful and even happy. Sunny looked at Bob, who was looking up from the drawings. He was smiling, but didn't look strange in any way. He also didn't say a word. They were talking about sending him here and there like he wasn't even in the room and he didn't object in the slightest. Curiosity ate at Sunny. She wandered over beside Gidget and leaned toward her. "You're not telling me everything. What else happened?" Gidget looked at her nervously. "You just go out and spend some time with him. Then maybe you'll understand." She wouldn't talk about it any further. ------- Polly was too preoccupied with her own situation to pay attention to the byplay with her cousins. Brian had called her and wanted to go out with her again. He had promised to behave himself this time. The problem was that Polly didn't want him to behave himself. He had reawakened something he her she hadn't realized was so important and she wanted it again. She knew she was being foolish, and that she hardly knew him. What had happened up in the mountains seemed to be the product of some kind of magic. If so, she now believed in magic thoroughly. Thinking about Bob's idea of a family home had her torn. Brian could come see her any time at her house, at least as long as Fran was not around to see her mother drag him to the bedroom, as she already knew she would do. Could she still do that if they all lived together? And yet, the togetherness that had increased since Bob woke up was also something she hadn't realized she had missed. She liked being around her cousins and her aunts like they had been doing. She'd think about it on the drive. She got up to go tell Fran that she would be going to Sacramento and would be late getting home. ------- Polly sat in the car and read a book, waiting for Brian to get home from work. When he drove up he smiled and waved. "You're early." he said, getting out of his car. He looked so handsome in his dark blue uniform. He looked ... dangerous. "Oh, I didn't have anything else to do." she said, blushing at how her belly felt just looking at him. "Well, come on in. I need a shower and then we can go." He took her in and she walked around the living room, looking at family pictures, and sports trophies and things displayed that told a little of his life. There was a picture of him in his uniform with a big German Shepherd. "I didn't know you had a dog." she yelled down the hallway. He appeared with a towel wrapped around his waist and nothing else on. Polly felt her stomach flutter at seeing his broad chest. "I started out to be a dog handler." he said. "On our first call we went to a burglary in progress. The perp shot her and killed her when we sent her in after him. I couldn't go through that again, so I switched to patrol duty." "Oh, I'm so sorry." she said, her voice sad. "Hey, stuff happens." he said, his face not in tune with his words. "Be right out." She heard the shower go on and imagined him dropping the towel and stepping into the water. That made her think of the waterfall and she was suddenly even hornier. She tiptoed to the bathroom door and eased it open. She could see his vague image through the glass as he rubbed at his chest. Feeling wild and silly she dropped her clothes and went to the door. She opened it and stepped in with him. It was a tight fit and her body slid against his. "It's not skinny dipping" she said as water ruined her hairdo. "But it will have to do." He laughed and his arms encircled her. She was pushed against the wall and lifted a leg to hook it on his hip. He got in her, and it felt good, but it wasn't what either of them wanted right then. They settled for him being inside her as they kissed under the running water. "You're clean." she announced. "I want to see your bedroom." She felt giddy at being able to be so free with him ... telling him what she wanted. He turned the water off and they dabbed at each other with towels. They ran to his bedroom, still wet, but they didn't care. Then he was on her like a wolf and she spread her legs joyfully anticipating the feeling of that wonderful fullness. Then it was there and she was off to the races, having an orgasm almost immediately. He was rough with her this time, pounding her into the bed and groaning at how good she felt. He stopped suddenly and his head drooped. "Did you go to the doctor?" he asked. "No." she whined. "I want to cum inside you." he moaned. "I want to feel it." she cried. Then he pounded her again until he spurted her full of his silvery semen and they collapsed in a heap. Fifteen minutes later they did it again. After that time he licked her shoulder as he lay beside her. "I thought we were going out." he said. "Me too." she said. "I promised to be good." he said, his voice a little whiny. "You were." she breathed. "You still want to go out?" he asked. "No." she said. "Maybe next time." This time she rode him on top and he played with her breasts, describing them as succulent fruit and pretending to eat them. "I can't believe this." she moaned as her orgasm washed over her, sweet and hot. "Where have you been all my life?" "I had to grow up to find you." he huffed. He grunted and she felt his warm bath inside her again. She sagged down on top of him. "You don't know how glad I am you did find me." she sighed. They got up then, and got dressed and he fixed her something to eat. They watched TV together, sitting on his couch, holding hands. When she said she had to leave he pouted and begged as she laughed. She made the mistake of kissing him good night, and that led to feeling his hands on her again, and feeling his hard prick pressing against her. They made love on the couch as he sat back and she straddled him again, hunching forward and kissing him as he gave her yet another load of hot spunk. She made him stay on the couch, naked while she got dressed. Each time he tried to move she barked at him to stay still. "Don't I get a goodnight kiss?" he whined. "You already DID!" she giggled. "I'm off Monday" he said hopefully. "I get off work at five." she said. "But THIS time we're meeting somewhere where there isn't a bed." she giggled. "Or a waterfall or a blanket." she added. "Or a shower either!" "You drive a hard bargain." he said. "But OK. How about I come up there?" "Meet me at the Wagon wheel on fourth street at Six." she said. "Just one more kiss?" He stood up. She fled, laughing. ------- Chapter 27 Sunny thought she was being slick and clever. She casually mentioned to Val that, since Bob was going to be staying at Gidget's for a day or two, and since they were "practicing dating" it was too bad that Becca would be in the way, or ignored by the adults. Val did exactly as Sunny thought she would, and invited her cousin to come over to spend the night. Sunny had been thinking more and more since the night before about how Gidget was acting. She remembered a day or two ago when, at work, one of the interns, a girl named Molly, was running around so perky that Sunny just wanted to strangle her. "What in the world are you so excited about?" Sunny had asked her. Molly had smiled a toothy smile. "I met a man!" she had said. "He's scrumptious!" The more Sunny thought about it, the more she saw the same behavior and attitude in Gidget. It was almost like a woman acted when she had been well and truly laid! And THAT brought up the most troubling thoughts of all. Surely they weren't taking "dating practice" to its obvious and logical conclusion! They were related, for Pete's sake! It was just too strange to think about. But think about it she did, and her plan was to spy on them. With Becca out of the house, the couple would be alone. If they were doing anything they'd just stay there and do ... whatever it was they were doing. Sunny planned to "run get some milk" or something. She had a key to Gidget's house - they all had keys to each other's houses - and she planned to get to the bottom of whatever it was that was going on over there. She even dressed for the occasion, putting on black slacks and a dark maroon blouse before she sailed through the living room, where Val and Becca were watching a rental movie. "Be back in a while - we need milk." she called out, her keys jangling in her hand. "Pick me up some birth control pills while you're out." called Val, without looking up. Becca's gasp was clear even across the room. Sunny's hand was in a claw, ready to open the door when it registered. She screeched to a halt and whirled. "WHAT!?" she rasped hoarsely. Val looked over the back of the couch and smiled. "Have a cow, Mom, I was just kidding." Becca didn't seem to think it was that funny either. She was pounding on Val's arm with her fist. Sunny was in no mood for it and she scowled at her daughter. "We're going to have a nice long talk when I get back." she said. "We already had it Mom." sighed Val as she realized her joke had fallen exceptionally flat. Sunny stormed out and slammed the door. She was driving recklessly when she realized she might draw attention to herself. She slowed down and decided to park several houses down the street from Gidget's house. She walked down the street like she knew where she was going, with a confident stride. Somebody had told her once that no one paid attention to people who walked like that. When she got to the property line she left the sidewalk and crept stealthily through the yard, catching the attention of Mrs. Henderson, the neighborhood busybody, who was looking out her windows like she did every night before she went to bed. Mrs. Henderson immediately grabbed her binoculars and put them up to her eyes. She couldn't see the woman's face, but she looked familiar somehow. Still, the 'intruder', as Mrs. Henderson thought of it, was acting suspicious. She watched as the woman went to several windows of her neighbor's house and tried to peek in. Finally the intruder went to the kitchen window, which had a light on inside. There she stopped, ducking up and down and then finally up to stay, peering in the window. When it became obvious that the intruder intended to stay there and peep, Mrs. Henderson knew what to do. Sunny looked in the bedroom window first. It was dark, outside and in, and she couldn't see anything. She tried the living room next. She could see the light from the kitchen coming through the doorway, so that's where she went next. Bob and Gidget were sitting at the kitchen table, across from each other. They were holding hands. She could hear the mumble of their voices, and see their mouths moving, but she couldn't understand what they were saying. They looked like any normal man and woman sitting and talking. ------- "Circleton 911, what is your emergency please?" came a mellow voice on the phone. "Cassy? Is that you?" Mrs. Henderson knew all the members of the police department by name. She knew their voices too. She called them, on average, about three times a week." "Mrs. Henderson, how NICE to hear from you again." sighed the voice. The sarcasm in it was lost on Mrs. Henderson. "Cassy there's an intruder, one of those peeping Toms, and she's peeping into Gidget Winkle's house next door." "SHE is peeping? Wouldn't that be a peeping Tomasina?" asked Cassy. "Don't you sass me Cassy. This is serious. Who knows what that intruder will do over there. She may be planning on murder!" "Mrs. Henderson, it's probably just another member of the press, trying to get something about Ms Winkle's father, or grandfather or whatever he is. I'm sure there's nothing wrong." "You just get a squad car over here!" said Mrs. Henderson hotly. "If you don't you'll be hauling bodies out of there right and left, mark my words!" "All right, I'll send somebody over," said Cassy. ------- In the kitchen Gidget was staring at the man who made her feel woozy inside. "I think Sunny suspects something." she said. "Why's that?" "She was grilling me in the kitchen last night, wanting to know why I was acting goofy." "You were acting goofy?" he smiled. "When a woman has something like we had the other night, it MEANS something to her," said Gidget sternly. "It meant something to me too." he assured her. "Well, women can tell," said Gidget. "Tell what?" asked Bob. "You can tell when a woman has had good sex," said Gidget. "Oh really?" asked Bob laughing. "Yes!" Gidget tried to pull her hands away, but he wouldn't let her. "She acts different. You told me about men. Let me tell you something about women. When a woman is happy ... deep down inside happy ... another woman can tell." "And making love with me made you happy?" asked Bob. "I thought you resisted an awful lot." "Of course I did." she said. "What we did was wrong ... unthinkable ... I had to resist." "So that's not why I'm here tonight." he said. Gidget blushed. "No, that's exactly why you're here. It was wonderful and I haven't felt that good in as long as I can remember." "But it was wrong and unthinkable." Bob reminded her. "I know THAT." she huffed. Then she sagged. "But that doesn't mean it wasn't wonderful, or that I don't ever want to do it again. I thought we agreed on that." Bob knew he was in a no-win situation. "About Sunny?" he reminded her. "Well, I think Sunny could see how happy I was. She's suspicious. She's asking a lot of questions." "So tell her," said Bob. "I can't do THAT." yipped Gidget. "We committed incest!" "We didn't commit anything. We were two people who were attracted to each other and let that go where we both wanted it to go. We were practicing, for being with others as I recall." "That's fine for you to say. I even want to agree with you, but Sunny won't see it that way. Don't you think it's kind of strange that Val suddenly called Becca to ask her over for the night? On the very first night you were going to stay with us?" "From what I've seen, those girls are pretty close," said Bob. "Well, maybe we shouldn't ... you know ... tonight," said Gidget. "OK, let's do something else. What would you like to do?" Gidget leaned forward. "How do you DO that?!" she practically gasped. "All I could think of all day long was what I was going to do to you tonight ... what I was going to get to feel again. How do you just turn it on and off like that?" "I can't turn it on and off. I was looking forward to this too, but if it's not a good idea then that's more important than letting my lust control me." He smiled. "I'm hard right now just sitting across from you." "Ohhh MEN!" said Gidget stridently, finally getting her hand free.' "So, what do you want to do?" asked Bob. "I want you to make me scream," said Gidget standing up, a smoky look in her eyes. "What about Sunny?" he asked. "Screw Sunny," said Gidget. "That hardon is for ME!" Bob thought about teasing her about the term 'screw Sunny' but decided not to. He reached out his hand instead. There was a repeated thumping on the back door. A muffled male voice came through it. "POLICE" There was more thumping. Gidget looked at Bob and went pale. She went to the door. As she opened it a woman's voice ... a familiar voice ... shouted "Let GO of me!" The door opened and a disheveled Sunny stood there, her face smudged with dirt, her hair in disarray. Her elbow was in the grip of a tall man in a police uniform. "Mrs. Winkle?" he addressed Gidget. "This woman claims to be your cousin, and that she's welcome on your property. Is that true?" Gidget's hand flew to her mouth and she nodded. "Yes, that's all true. What's going on?" Sunny scowled and jerked her arm. The man's grip didn't slacken a bit. "We got a prowler call, Ma'am, and I found ... your cousin ... um ... peeking into that window over there." He pointed to the kitchen window in the north wall. "He threw me on the GROUND!" wailed Sunny. The cop didn't flinch. "She gave me a little trouble when I approached her. She tried to run. I had to tackle her." "BEAST!" howled Sunny. "You can leave her here with us if that's all right," said Bob. The policeman peered at him. "Are you Mr. Winkle? Bob Winkle?" he asked. "Yes," said Bob. The cop shoved Sunny into the room and let her go. He held out a hand to Bob. "Glad to meet you sir. You've caused quite a stir around here." "Sorry," said Bob with irony in his voice. "All I did was wake up." "Well, what with all the tickets we wrote all those news people and gawkers, you've kind of helped with the budget crunch we were going through." The cop grinned. "Do you suppose I could maybe get your autograph?" Bob chuckled as Gidget ran to get paper and pen. Bob scrawled his name under the inscription "Thanks for your service," and handed it to the officer. He read it and beamed. He turned to Gidget. "So, I assume you don't want to press charges." he said. "If I did would you have to put her in a jail cell?" asked Gidget. "GIDGET!" squealed Sunny. "Never mind," said Gidget. "We'll take it from here." "Night folks," said the cop and he backed out of the door." ------- Sunny stood there, looking down at the floor. Things just hadn't quite gone the way she had anticipated. "You want to tell me what's going on?" asked Gidget, her voice low and full of tension. "Nothing's going on," said Sunny, her voice surly. "Can't a woman go out for a nice evening walk without being molested?" Gidget looked at her watch. It was nine-thirty. "A nice evening walk." she said. "And you just happened to walk by my house, and instead of coming on in, like you ALWAYS do, you peek in the windows?" Sunny didn't say anything. "She thought we were having sex," said Bob. Both women's heads swiveled to look at him. Gidget's held controlled fear. Sunny's looked pale and panicky. She was so surprised at being caught, both by the cop and by Bob that she couldn't marshal her thoughts. Gidget turned back to her sister. "What, you're so starved for sex that you have to watch other people having it?" Her voice was ugly. Sunny's face flared red. "You know better than that!" she said indignantly. "I thought I knew you better than I apparently do too," said Gidget. "Go home. Get out of my house." Her voice was flat, still ugly. "Now hold on a minute," said Bob. "Getting mad and kicking at each other isn't going to solve anything. You two are like sisters. Sit down and talk." "I don't want to talk to her," said Gidget, turning away. "She SPIED on me!" "I had to!" barked Sunny. "You were acting so strange and you were acting like you were in LOVE or something and I had to make sure he wasn't taking advantage of you!" "And what if I AM in love?" said Gidget, her voice rising. "Is that any of YOUR BUSINESS? CAN'T I FIND A LITTLE HAPPINESS WITHOUT YOU TRYING TO STOP ME?" "With HIM?!" Sunny's voice was incredulous. "WHY NOT WITH HIM?" shouted Gidget angrily. She calmed down, realizing she had admitted something she didn't want to. It was too late now, though. She went on the defensive. "He's sweet and caring and he loves me. I'm comfortable with him. He doesn't scare me. He doesn't force me. He lets me be who I WANT to be." "He's your grandfather, Gidget!" said Sunny sternly. "He's a stranger!" said Gidget just as sternly. "We never paid any attention to him. We don't know him. What color are his eyes Sunny? Do you know? What's his favorite breakfast? What colors does he like? Does he put his left shoe on first, or his right? What's his MIDDLE NAME SUNNY?" Sunny blinked and took a breath, but Gidget wasn't finished. "If he'd have walked in off the street and we didn't know who he was we'd both be thrilled to spend time with him. Yes, he IS my grandfather, but he's also a wonderful, interesting man who helped me understand some things about myself that were holding me back. I'm not trying to marry him, Sunny ... I'm just finding out who I am and who he is and I'm having the best time of my life doing it." "But it's wrong." whined Sunny. "Who says it's wrong?" asked Gidget. "A whole bunch of people who haven't ever done anything for us and never will. Strangers who don't care what our lives are like as long as we live them the same way they do. I thought it was wrong too. But what happened between us was NOT a bad thing Sunny. I feel more like a woman today than I think I ever felt like in my whole life! I can think more clearly. I'm not anxious or nervous. I trust a man ... trust a MAN Sunny! ... for the first time since I can remember. I know this very instant that if I say I don't want to do anything else with him that it will be fine. He won't take off and leave just because I stop doing things with him. What he is offering me isn't tied to sex or compliments or anything. All he wants is for me to be happy, and that makes me want to make HIM happy, and I AM happy, and YOU want me to feel guilty about all that." She took a step toward her sister. "Well I'm NOT going to feel guilty Sunny. I love you, you know that, and I'd never do anything to hurt you, but don't make me choose between being who I want to be ... need to be ... and living my life by your rules. I've done that for the last twenty years and I was miserable. I'm tired of being miserable." She slumped. Then she looked nervous. Then she went and sat down at the table. She looked at Bob and then at Sunny, who was staring at her. Sunny looked nervous too. Bob just stood there, waiting to see what would happen next. The silence was, as usual, so uncomfortable that Sunny finally filled it. "I've never heard you talk that way." she said. "I don't think I'm the same woman you knew last week," said Gidget. "That's for sure!" said Sunny. "I'm not sorry about this Sunny." insisted Gidget. "You have made that abundantly clear," said Sunny, relaxing. "Can I sit down?" "Of course," said Gidget. "Can I ask questions?" she glanced at Bob and then back to Gidget. Gidget waved a hand. "As long as you're interested in a frank and open discussion, where nobody has to win and nobody has to lose ... go ahead." "How did this happen?" Gidget laughed. "I wish I could tell you. If I could bottle what happened I'd have more money than he does." She sat for a minute. "The more I think about it, the more I think it was because he was truthful with me." "What do you mean?" asked Sunny. "We were trying to dance ... you know, like you might on a date. We tried rock first, but we didn't have any common experience. So we changed to slow dancing and I felt him ... you know ... pressing against me." Sunny shot a look at Bob. "All men do it Sunny!" said Gidget. Just because he's our grandfather doesn't mean he stops being a man." Sunny turned to Bob. "But why did you react that way towards HER?" she asked. Bob didn't' mind answering. "Because she's a beautiful and interesting woman. My body reacted to a beautiful woman, and my mind reacted to the fact that she was interesting." He expanded on that, much like he had with Gidget, explaining that men didn't always think about everything, and that their bodies reacted automatically. "But you should have controlled your urges." insisted Sunny. Bob nodded. "That's fine if you do it for the right reasons. Let me ask you a question." Sunny nodded. "Has there ever been a time, say in the last five or ten years, when you saw a sixteen or seventeen year old boy you were attracted to?" The first thing that leapt into Sunny's mind was her paper boy. He was about that age now, and he had huge brown eyes, and a forelock that lay just so on his forehead, and his smile was wide and open. He made her wet. She shook her head, though. "No." she said. "Come on Sunny," said Gidget. "We've been like sisters. I know you well enough to see that you're lying through your teeth. If we're going to have a conversation that means anything, at least tell the truth." "It would be wrong to lust after a boy that young," said Sunny. "That's the point I want to make," said Bob. "Why is it wrong?" "Because he's too young," said Sunny. "Too young for what?" asked Bob. "Too young for anything!" said Sunny. "He's just a boy." "When I was growing up," said Bob, "a sixteen year old ... boy ... got a job, or did that for a year and joined the service. A few of them went to college. A boy that age got married, had kids and made a family. He was a man back then ... if he wanted to be." "But things have changed," said Sunny. "The world is different. It's not appropriate for an older woman to be with a boy that young." "Things haven't changed biologically," said Bob. "At sixteen, every male alive is biologically ready to become a father. He reacts to women exactly the same way he would have fifty, or seventy, or a thousand years ago. And women react to him the same way too. Your attraction to a young man is as normal as it is possible to be. Your attraction to ANY man is normal. There is something in your brain that identifies potential sexual partners. There is something ELSE in your brain that tells you whether or not it is "proper" to pursue that attraction. Can we agree on that?" Sunny nodded hesitantly. "So, who is the young man you thought about when I asked the question?" Sunny looked uncomfortable. "I feel weird." she said. "Remember, we're just talking about a normal attraction. You have nothing to be ashamed of for being normal." "It's my paper boy," said Sunny, her eyes darting back and forth between them. "Jack?" asked Gidget. "I'm with you there, sister. He's gorgeous!" Sunny looked shocked, and then puzzled. "Why didn't you ever say anything about that?" she asked Gidget. "Probably for the same reason you didn't say anything about it to me." grinned her cousin. "Now," said Bob. "Why is it so horribly wrong for you to pursue your attraction to your paper boy?" "It wouldn't work out," said Sunny. "He's too young. We wouldn't have anything in common. His parents would object. He wouldn't be interested in me anyway." she said. "There are a lot of reasons not to go after him." "Those are good reasons," said Bob. "You are aware that there would be problems if you pursued that relationship. What if he was an orphan, and was so smart that he finished High School early? Would that make a difference?" Sunny smiled. "Yes, but he would still not have anything in common with me. We'd be interested in different things." "But you could have sex with him if you wanted to, right?" "Well ... sure ... but I wouldn't want to do that. Not just for sex. I want more than sex from a relationship. That's why I divorced my husband. He was great in bed, but that was all he was great at." "OK, but in the case of your paper boy, it isn't really that he's too young. It's that you have nothing in common, and nothing upon which to build a decent relationship that is wider than just sex. Right?" "Well, when you put it THAT way, I suppose so," said Sunny. "What I'm trying to say is that decisions should be made on reasonable facts and circumstances, rather than just on some random rule about the ages of the participants," said Bob. Sunny nodded, but argued. "But the rule is probably based on those circumstances. The rule is that older women and young boys won't work BECAUSE of all those problems." "And yet it worked just fine for centuries," said Bob. "Older women and young boys?" asked Sunny. "What makes you think that?" "In the American West, there were times when a woman's husband died. Maybe it was from illness, or fighting Indians or whatever. The only mates around were the sons of other settlers. It happened all the time. A woman might marry a boy younger than her own children if that's what she had to do to survive." "But that was just to survive!" complained Sunny. "It still worked," said Bob. "They didn't pay attention to the "rules". Instead, they made something work so their lives would be better." Sunny frowned. "I never thought about it like that before." she said. "That's the problem. We don't think about things enough. We just react to the rules," said Bob. "But what does this have to do with you and Gidget?" asked Sunny. "We are both in a situation where there are all these rules. I'm a man out of my time, an oddity, a great grandfather at age twenty-five. I'm expected to act like a great grandfather, but I have no idea how to do that. Gidget had all these rules about what men were like, and that kept her from finding out what men are actually like ... or can be, at least. Together, we decided that we were going to disregard some of the rules to find out some things about each other and ourselves. I told her how I felt about her ... despite the rules ... and she gave up some of her rules to find out if that would make her happier." "You make it sound so simple," said Sunny. "It is. Really all you do is decide that you're going to look at a rule, and decide whether it makes any sense in your situation. It's kind of like being on the highway in the middle of the night and there's a stop light. There's nobody around. Why does it make sense that you would have to sit there?" "But if the police see you run the light, you still get a ticket," said Sunny. "And if the judge were operating on the wavelength I'm talking about, he would let you go," said Bob. There wouldn't be any real justice in punishing you in that situation. "That's right," said Sunny. "I agree with you a hundred percent ... but he'd probably still fine you." "Maybe so," said Bob. "So you have to make a decision about whether or not, if you break society's rules, you are willing to pay the price if you get caught." He grinned. "Like you got caught tonight." Sunny winced. Then she jerked upright. "Oh my gosh! I told Becca and Val I was just going out to get milk! They'll think something happened to me!" "Call home," said Gidget. "Can't you stay?" Sunny looked at them both. "From what I'm hearing, you two had something planned tonight..." Gidget blushed. "Actually, we did. But this is more important. You don't have to agree with us, but before you leave here I at least want you to understand how I feel ... and why I seduced him." Sunny rocked back in her chair. 'You ... seduced HIM?!" "Sort of." Gidget looked embarrassed. "It's complicated." "Will you tell me about it?" asked Sunny. "Do you really want to know?" Sunny blushed. "I'm curious ... that's all." "Well, you need to understand that that's what got me in trouble in the first place then. I was just curious ... about him." "Wow," said Sunny. "I have to hear that story." Sunny got up and went to the phone. Gidget looked at Bob. "Did I do the right thing? Admitting it I mean?" she looked anguished. They both knew that Sunny could rock the boat. "I think that your relationship with your cousin is more important than our curiosity with each other, as you put it." he said. "I knew what we were doing might blow up in our faces. I think you did too. Now we just have to play it out and see what happens." She nodded. "I'm not sorry." she said. "It sounds like you're trying to convince yourself." he commented. "No, that's not it at all. I'm just not going to cave in to the rule that says what we did was wrong." Sunny came back and sat down. She began peppering her sister with questions of what had happened, and why she had felt this attraction to Bob, and what he had done. As they talked Bob sat quietly for the most part. Gidget was doing fine. After a while, Gidget's descriptions got more and more detailed as she got excited, remembering the feelings and trying to describe them to Sunny. "And then he stuck his tongue in my belly button. It was so strange. Nobody had ever done that before and it was soft and sensual and not hurried, you know? Sunny nodded. Gidget stopped. "Sunny, there's something I never told you ... but I told him ... about Becca's father." Then she told Sunny about the professor, and what that relationship had been like, and now she could just tell that Bob cared more about her emotional situation than the father of her daughter ever had. She got to the part of the story where Bob had leaned forward and licked her pussy. She covered her face in embarrassment when she described it, adding that she had pushed him away. Sunny reacted not, like Gidget expected, but in a completely different way.' "THAT's about the only thing my worthless ex husband was good for." she blurted. "He was a bastard, but he sure could lick pussy." She looked surprised that she had actually said that. "You LET HIM?!" gasped Gidget. "THAT'S TERRIBLE!" Sunny looked stunned. "You're describing having incest with our grandfather ... and you call getting my pussy licked terrible?" She looked at Bob. "Girl, you've got your priorities REALLY screwed up." "I could never let a man do that," said Gidget. "Any man!" "Why in the world not?" asked Sunny. "It's incredible! It's the thing I miss the most!" "You're KIDDING!" squealed Gidget. "I am NOT kidding," said Sunny, animated. "I' bet I've had more orgasms that way than from ... the other." she said looking uncomfortable. "I can NOT believe I'm talking about this in front of this man!" she said, looking up at the ceiling. "I'm on your side," said Bob. "I used to love Valerie's taste, and the little I got from Gidget was really nice too." "But when I ... when professor Lipscomb made me ... put his penis in my mouth..." Gidget hid her face again. "It tasted AWFUL!" she said, her voice muffled in her hands. "I don't know about that," said Bob. Valerie never complained. But I know I loved her taste, and I loved the way it made her feel when I did it to her." Gidget, rather than talk about that, pushed on, describing more of the evening and how it had come to the point where Bob had offered to just stop and masturbate or get dressed, and how that made her feel. She described how she had taken control of what happened from that point on, and how overpowering it was to be with a man who cared more about how she felt than about how he felt. "That's not true, precisely." commented Bob at that point. "I was having a heck of a good time. There's not just one way to get satisfaction during sex." "See what I mean?" said Gidget. "Have you ever been with a man like that?" "No." admitted Sunny. "I can't believe I'm going to say this, but it really sounds sweet and sexy and ... nice!" "That's how I felt!" said Gidget. "And I decided I liked it, and I wasn't going to quit just because of some stupid rule!" "But wasn't it weird?" asked Sunny, looking at Bob out of the side of her eyes. "Yes, at first it was, but ... I don't know how to explain it ... I didn't know him well enough to think of him as my grandfather or something. He was just a man I liked ... the first man I liked in a long time." "I can understand that part," said Sunny. "That part, when you asked about his eyes and all that ... that part made sense. She hesitated. "In fact, I have to confess that there have been several times I felt like that too. I mean that I just liked him, but didn't know him very well." "He thinks you're attractive too." blurted Gidget. She put her hand over her mouth. "I shouldn't have said that!" "You talked about me?" asked Sunny. "Well, let's just say your name came up," said Bob. "I think she used you as an example." "I don't know whether to feel creeped out about that or not," said Sunny. "What kind of example?" Gidget waved her hands nervously. "I told him I wanted to keep ... to keep practicing, sort of, and we got in a discussion of whether that meant I wanted a kind of monogamous relationship." "OK," said Sunny. "Well I told him I wouldn't keep doing it if he had a girlfriend, or if I had a boyfriend ... but then it got complicated, because if he was dating a LOT of women and I was dating a bunch of men too, then that would be different, you know?" "Yes," said Sunny impatiently. "Should I tell her the next part?" Gidget asked Bob. He held up his hand. "We've been pretty truthful and it hasn't hurt anybody so far." Sunny looked at them both intently. "Well, he asked about what if he had a relationship with any of the rest of us ... like you or my mother or something like that." Sunny looked startled. She looked at Bob. "You're attracted to more of us than just Gidget?" "I'm attracted to all of you." he said. "Don't hate me. You're all wonderful beautiful women. It may change as I hang around longer and get to know you. But you're all amazing women and any guy would be interested." "You'd have sex with me?" she asked. "If I let you?" "Yes," said Bob. He held his breath, waiting to see what her reaction would be. When she didn't say anything he ventured a little further. "But Sunny, that's just an impulse inside me. I couldn't do that if you objected, or if you felt guilty about it, or anything like that. It would have to be the right thing to do for both of us." "Like it was with Gidget," said Sunny. He nodded. "It doesn't mean you have to be afraid of me. I'd never touch you against your will." "I have to tell you something," said Sunny suddenly. "I probably should have told you before, but I was ashamed. But after this ... I'm just going to say it, OK?" Both Bob and Gidget nodded. "When we first got married, Don and I played a game. I know this is going to sound stupid and creepy, but I always wanted to know about my father, and mother never would tell me anything about him. She just said he was a nice man but they couldn't get married and his life kept him from ever seeing me. She wasn't bitter about him at all. I never could get her to tell me if he was the same man who got her pregnant with my brothers or not. Anyway, I made up a fantasy Daddy in my head, and I wanted him to hold me and love me and stuff. And the first few times I played with a boy on a date and it was horrible ... when I got home and into bed I dreamed about how it would have been wonderful with my Daddy." She stopped and looked at them, waiting for them to frown, or look disgusted. Of course, neither did. She went on. "Anyway, when I got married I told Don about it and he pretended to be my father sometimes. I loved it." she said, looking down. "But you felt guilty," said Bob. "No, not really," said Sunny. "He WASN'T my father. It was just a game. But he told his friends about it. He thought ... THEY thought I wanted to have sex with strange men because I didn't know who my father was or something crazy like that. They started making jokes about how THEY might be my father. Don tried to get me to have sex with them while he watched. I wouldn't do it and he stared calling me a pervert and all kinds of horrible things. It was one of the main reasons I threw him out." "You never told me," said Gidget, her eyes wide. "You never told me about that professor," said Sunny. "So why were you so indignant about me and Bob?" asked Gidget. Sunny threw up her hands. "Because everybody says it's wrong!" "But you wanted to do it," said Gidget. "I don't know WHAT I wanted to do. It was just sexy and fun and in my mind I made Don into somebody else who was my fantasy lover. It isn't the same ... is it? But now I wonder, because it's so close to what YOU did with Grandpa!" She looked at Bob. "And there's something else." she said. They just looked at her, waiting. "I read an article about this study they did where they captured the body odors of family members. They mixed them up with the odors of non-family members and had each person say which scent they liked or didn't like the most. The way the study came out was that most of the time brothers and sisters didn't like each other's scents, and mothers didn't like their son's scents and daughters didn't like their father's scents. They said that was nature's way of preventing incest." "Sounds reasonable, I guess," said Bob. "But don't you see?" Sunny said, anguish in her voice... "It was only MOST of the time. There were cases where that didn't happen ... where people WERE attracted to each other's scents. And the study said that it was estimated that fifteen to twenty percent of households DID engage in incest." "I don't understand your point," said Gidget. "I started thinking that maybe, when I was little and my father was there, even though I can't remember him, my brain remembers his scent and that's why I'm attracted to the thought of having sex with him." "I think that's a pretty far stretch," said Bob. "I've felt guilty for years because it broke up my marriage," said Sunny. "I think what broke up your marriage was that Don didn't care how you felt. He was centered on his own desires," said Bob. "That's for sure," said Sunny. "But I still felt guilty because I thought I was abnormal or something." She perked up. "But you see, knowing that Gidget and you did what you did actually makes me feel better somehow ... like there really IS some kind of genetic attraction between members of our family. "I thought you were disgusted with us," said Gidget. "I tried to be." admitted Sunny. "But, like you said, I think that's because I've heard all my life that incest was wrong." "So... , " said Gidget, "What are you going to do now?" What Gidget meant was, what was Sunny going to do about her knowledge that her sister and grandfather had had sex? Was she going to tell anyone? Was she going to try to stop them from doing anything further? How would this affect their relationship in the future? Sunny's response was completely unforeseen. "I'm going to try to find my father." she said suddenly. "I have to find him. I have to see what he's like. I have to find out if ... if ... if I'm really attracted to him." Bob felt a twinge of both trepidation and empathy for Sunny. While he and his first three daughters had never actually discussed the parentage of his second three daughters, his memories of things they had said to him were clear. He knew that Gidget, Polly and Sunny were his offspring. How this would play out, he had no idea, but it could go a number of different ways, and some of them were not positive. "A long time has passed." he ventured. "You might not like what you find." Sunny suddenly had tears in her eyes. "Maybe." she admitted. "But I have to find out. This will drive me crazy if I don't." "What about us?" asked Gidget, recovering from the surprise of Sunny's previous answer. "What about Bob and me?" Sunny sighed. "What do you want me to say? You want me to say it's all fine and wonderful and to go ahead and let him fuck your socks off?" Gidget blushed. "It IS fine and wonderful ... at least between us. And it won't last forever. He and I will both meet other people. Knowing there really are sweet and caring men out there makes me want to find another one. I'm tired of being alone Sunny. I didn't even realize it, but now I know I'm lonely." "You think you're the only one?" asked Sunny. "Just the thought of you two thrashing around in bed makes me crazy to have something like that! Here I thought I had put men away in the little tightly closed box they belong in and now you've poked all kinds of holes in the box." "You were the one who snooped," said Gidget, a tiny smile on her face. Sunny shot her a glare. "After what you've been doing, don't even TRY to make me feel guilty." She stood up. "I need to get back to the girls." She had no purse to pick up and she headed to the same door she had been brought in through by the policeman. "I suppose you two will thrash around in bed after I leave." she said, a trace of something like defeat in her voice." "Would it make you feel better if I said we wouldn't?" asked Gidget. Sunny looked at her, and then at Bob and then all around the kitchen. "To be honest, yes, it would. I wouldn't have to lie in bed alone tonight and think about it. I'll already be thinking about Daddy, whoever and wherever he is, and thinking about you two would just make it worse." "OK, then, we won't thrash around in bed, as you put it." She hugged Sunny, who hugged her back fiercely. "You can go out the front door, you know," said Gidget. That might cause less furor than being seen sneaking around in the dark." She grinned. Sunny sighed. But she went out the front door. ------- Chapter 28 Gidget turned to Bob. "Well, that went a lot better than I would ever have hoped it would, if I'd have thought that might happen." "You were right that she had suspicions," said Bob. "You seem to have very good instincts. It was nice of you to agree not to make love with me tonight." Gidget came and embraced him, shoving her mons against the front of his pants. "Who said we weren't going to make love?" she said, her voice low. She rubbed her breasts against his chest. "You did. I just heard you." he said. His hands went to her hips automatically. "I believe what I said was that we weren't going to thrash around in bed. I've never done it on a couch before. I didn't say anything about the couch." She smiled and rubbed her pussy against him in little sideways motions. "Your a bad woman," said Bob, leaning forward to kiss her. "Yes, I am." she said as the kiss finished. "I feel like being bad and I feel like being bad on the couch." Remembering Sunny's peeking, Gidget left the lights off. There was plenty of light coming through the thin curtains of the living room as she undressed. She was completely unselfconscious about it, folding her things neatly and then sitting on the couch to lean back and open her legs. She scooted forward until her buttocks were on the edge of the seat. "Can you do it this way?" she asked, looking at his pale body as it was exposed. "I think we can manage." he said. His light colored prick jutted strongly from his darker pubic hair. "I want you to let me use my mouth," said Bob. Gidget's legs went closed in an automatic reaction. "Please?" he asked. "I know you'll like it." He knelt in front of her knees, which were together and put his hands on them. He exerted the slightest of pressure to spread them. "I don't know." she said. "Just a little?" he asked. "If you don't like it I'll stop. Sunny said she loved it ... remember?" Her legs relaxed and the slight pressure he put on them spread them a few inches. He kept it up, overcoming the little pressure she kept on her knees until he could move forward on his knees to get between them. Her hands came to her stomach and fluttered restlessly. Instead of going straight to her pussy, though, he waded in and kissed her first, with long, tongue-swapping passion. She was soon pushing her pussy up at his stomach and, when he moved downward to her breasts and sucked her nipples, she moaned and wiggled against him. Her hands came to his head and played with his hair as she cooed her approval of what he was doing. Then he went to her navel, and tongued it, like he had before. He took his time, drifting lower with little kisses and licking her abdomen. When he got to her flat sparse hair he moved it around with his nose. He pushed her thighs wide and sought her puffy big outer labia with his thumbs, spreading them to reveal her inner lips and spread them too. Her clit stood tall and stiff, like a little penis with its sensitive inner head peeking out of the sheath that normally covered it. He flicked that with the tip of his tongue, circling it and moving it back and forth. "UUHHHH" grunted Gidget explosively, as something she had never felt sent streaks of almost painful sensations through her loins. Her hands went to the couch and her legs stiffened as she shoved her butt up off the couch. Bob was ready. He sealed his lips over her clit and sucked hard, wagging his head back and forth in tiny rapid movements. "AAAAHHHHHHHEEEEEEE" she screamed as the sensations overpowered her. Her hands left the couch and grabbed a double handful of his hair. Thinking he had done too much, Bob spit her clit out and licked it and the lips beside it in long tongue lapping motions. He stuck his tongue up inside her as her butt came back down on the couch. He leaned back to admire her pussy in the almost dark. "OHhhh don't stop." she cried. Her hips bounced upward again. Grinning into her pussy he found and sucked her clit again until she vibrated into an orgasm that made her hands go from his head to the couch to her breasts and then over her head as she stretched out, her legs now straight and stiff. Then her legs wrapped over his back and she sobbed, pushing at his head. He backed off as much as he could and looked up, his face shining in the light with its wet coating of her juices. "You all right?" he asked as she made noises that sounded like she had lost her last friend. "I've... sniff ... wasted... sob, sob ... so much sniff ... tiiiiiiiime" she sobbed. She covered her face with her hands. "I've ... been so sniff STUPID." She relaxed a little, getting her breath and wiping her eyes with both hands. "I could have had sniff a man in my life sniff all these years. I could have had THAAAAAAAAT..." She launched into another crying jag. Bob didn't know what to do. Since he was stiff as an iron rod, he wiggled his way upward, kissing her belly and sucking her nipples as her arms fell limp beside her. She calmed down just enough that, when he got his prick next to her pussy, had felt for it with his hand and swabbed it in her slot. Then he lunged forward and seated himself in her as far as he could. "Ohhhhhhhh" she moaned. "I could have had this too." There is a term, called "fucking her to tears". It's a good term, and is very descriptive, but in this case, Bob fucked her tears away. Once he started sawing in and out of her, her passion left room for no tears at all. If anything, her joy made her want to laugh out loud. She didn't though. Instead she urged him on in terms both vigorous and slightly salty, saying things that no one in the family would ever have imagined coming from her lips. She alternated between "FUCK ME ... FUCK ME" and "Yes, ohhh yes" and then threw in a "POUND MY PUSSY YOU BASTARD" and then "I'm sorry (for calling him a bastard) ... FUCKE MEEEEEEE". Bob, for his part, went up on his toes, with his hands on the couch beside her butt, and then rocked his pelvis back and forth, battering her clit and reaming her out. Her orgasm was obvious, and Bob was glad, because his back hurt and his balls hurt. He had been trying not to spew in her for several minutes, and when her legs came back up onto his back he slumped, lunging forward to bury himself as far in her as he could. There he froze as the only muscles in his body that moved sent semen and sperm through his prick and into her womb. He soaked her, and she loved every spurt. It was uncomfortable on the couch. They couldn't really cuddle. Both said they were tired, so they went to bed, falling into it naked, and not caring. Later that night, Gidget broke her promise to her sister. Twice. ------- At ten the next morning, Sunny showed up at her mother's house. Val was still asleep from having come in late from a date with Zack. Martha was making potato salad for lunch later. "Hi, Honey, this is a nice surprise." she looked up as Sunny came into the room. Sunny looked nervous and was about to speak when the phone rang. Martha picked it up and listened. Her half of the conversation went something like this: "What? Why? ... What do you mean you can't tell me? ... She's here now, she just got here ... What's going on? ... I can't do that ... You don't understand ... WHAT?! ... YOU KNEW?! ... Ohhhh I don't know what to do ... OK ... Bye." The other half of the conversation was Bob, calling her while Gidget was in the shower. He warned her that Sunny was going to try to find out who her father was, and, that while he couldn't tell her WHY it was so important to Sunny to know, he knew who her father was because he remembered Martha telling him about it while he slept. Sunny hung up the phone and turned around to look at Sunny. Sunny was so distracted thinking of something that she didn't even ask who had been on the phone. Martha had a pretty good idea what distracting thoughts she was having. "I'll be right back dear," said Martha. "I have to go ... do something." "I have to ask you a question," said Sunny suddenly. "It's important." "I won't be a minute," said Martha. She hurried out of the kitchen to her bedroom, which had another phone in it. She called June first. After a hurried and frantic conversation, she called Betty. That conversation was just as frantic. An immediate plan was made to meet and discuss the situation. Martha made herself go face her daughter. Sunny was still sitting where she had been, biting a fingernail. That, if anything showed how upset she was. She spent hours on her fingernails every week. Martha sat down, but didn't say anything. Sunny looked up. "Mom, I have to know who my father is." "Honey," started Martha, "we've had this conversation before, a long time ago, when you were younger." "I remember that," said Sunny heatedly. "You said it was the sixties, and talked about all that free love stuff. But I have to know Mom." "Why is this so important to you all of a sudden?" asked Martha. "I can't tell you that," said Sunny. She looked away. "It's something personal. Just believe me that it's very important to me to know." "What would knowing do?" asked Martha. "Even if you knew, how could that possibly make any difference?" "I want to FIND him, mother," said Sunny, her voice urgent. "I need to see him ... to talk to him ... to find out what he's like." "That's ridiculous, darling." tried Martha. "It's been decades since you were born, and it's never been a problem before. I loved you and took care of you and you grew up to be a strong beautiful woman with a good job. And look at Val, she's the same way. We've done just fine without your father being here." "I need to know," said Sunny, her voice sullen. "I'm not saying anything about how you raised me. You did wonderfully. But it's different now. I need to see him, even if it's only to look into his eyes and ask him why he was never there for me when I was little. I need to know if he's a good man or not." "He was ... he is, I'm sure ... a wonderful man. But there are things you wouldn't understand. This ... this wanting to know could cause real problems in your life, honey." "Why?" came Sunny's anguished cry. "Why could just knowing who my father is hurt ANYTHING?" Martha needed time. "Let me think about this. I need to think about this. Go home ... or go out and do something fun. Come back tonight and we can talk some more." Sunny stood up. She was tense, but she said very calmly: "I'm going to find out, Mother. I'll do whatever I have to, to find out who he was. I'm going to find him and see him. Even if I can't talk to him I'm going to find out what he's like." "Please," begged Martha. "Wait until tonight." Sunny left, walking out the door as June walked in, looking harried. They exchanged equally tense greetings. Betty was only five minutes behind June. ------- "What are we going to do?" asked Betty, when Martha had described Sunny's drive to find not only who her father was, but where he was as well ... AND to go see him. "We've talked about this a hundred times," said June. Why don't we just tell them and be done with it?" "Because Bob was asleep the last time any of them seemed interested. Now he's awake, and they've all talked to him and eaten dinner with him and listened to him read. He's a real person now." Martha looked at them both. "It could ruin him." They argued for another hour until somebody Martha finally remembered Bob's statement that he knew who Sunny's father was. It wasn't much of a jump from there to think of bringing Bob into the conversation. June called her daughter's house and Gidget answered. "Morning sweetheart," said June, like she had a thousand times before. "Is Bob still there?" When Gidget answered in the affirmative June asked to "borrow" him for a little project at Martha's house. Gidget said she's send him right over. When Bob arrived and saw the three women sitting around the kitchen table with coffee, he simply sat down with them. "So what are you going to tell them?" he asked. All three women stared at him. "That's what we're trying to determine," said Martha. "But since it affects you too, we thought we should hear your opinion." Bob had already thought about this a lot. Of the nine women in his life, six had been having some kind of sexual relationship with him for years. Of the other three, one now accepted his incestuous attentions gladly, and one confessed to having incestuous fantasies for most of her life ... about him ... except that she didn't know that. Only Polly was really an unknown in terms of how she might react to finding out she was a product of incest. "There are some things you need to know." he said. Then he began telling them about ALL his memories. The only thing he left out was his activities with Val, Becca and Fran since he woke up. When he was finished all three sat slumped, their mouths open, shocked. To be truthful they were less shocked at the details of the knowledge than they were that this was the first they knew of it. June had suspected about Gidget, but only in a "that would explain her behavior" kind of way. What got to them was that their granddaughters had carried on with their lover right under their noses and they never knew it. "Those little scamps!" said Martha under her breath. "That's not all," said Bob. Then he told them about his date with Gidget, and how it somehow turned into something cathartic for her. Then he described how Sunny had "caught" them, and what she had said as they talked. "So THAT's why she is so intent to find her father," said Martha. She looked at Bob. "She wants to find ... you ... but she doesn't know it." She looked around. It would be hilarious if it were in a movie plot but ... this is real." "There seems to be something about our family that makes the men attractive to the women in it," said Bob, shrugging. "And of course, the men ... or maybe I should say man ... is attracted to the women too." He smiled. "This is so hard," said June. "If we could just tell them all, it would make things so much simpler." "All?" asked Betty. "The grandkids too?" "Well ... I wasn't thinking of them exactly," said June, looking doubtful. But if they've been carrying on with him all these years, they're part of the big picture too!" She looked at Bob. "I think it's going to be enough of a shock just to find out who their grandfather is," said Bob." "The kids might not be able to handle it," said Martha. Bob hadn't told them what he and the "kids" as she called them, had done since he woke up. They had enough to deal with already. Things would probably come out in the end, but it should probably fed to the participants in small bites. "So we should tell the girls," said Betty, meaning their daughters. "Sunny's going to raise a ruckus if we don't," said Martha. "I put her off until tonight, but I'm going to have to tell her something then." "Why don't you get all three of them together tonight?" suggested Bob. "Tell them all at the same time." "Should you be there too?" asked Betty. "I have no idea," said Bob. He was pretty sure that things would be all right with Gidget and Sunny, once the shock was dealt with. Polly was the wild card. She might not be able to handle it. Bit by bit the women decided to get it over with. Martha called Sunny, who wanted to come over right then, but Martha convinced her to wait until that evening. June and Betty each called her daughter and asked if she could come to Martha's that night too. It was arranged. The question each woman had asked as a girl would finally get answered. No one knew how it would turn out, but the train had been started. Whether it would end up in a wreck or not ... well, now ... THAT was the real question. ------- Sunny was early, of course, eager for some kind of information. When she pounded through the door she saw Bob sitting on the couch reading a book. "What are you doing here?" she asked, impatient. Her mother might not want to talk with him there. Was this another attempt to put her off? Bob looked up and smiled. "Reading. You didn't do all that well in school ... did you." He smiled to show he was kidding. "I have to talk to my mother." she said. "It's about my father. I think she's going to tell me who he is. But she might not if you're here." she said. "Don't worry about it." Bob said. "I'll just stay in here and you can talk in the kitchen." "OK, but if it's a problem you have to go somewhere, OK? You know how important this is to me." "I know," said Bob. "I hope you aren't unhappy with what she tells you." Polly came in the door. Betty was right behind her. "What are YOU two doing here?" moaned Sunny. "We're here for the same reason you are, dear," said Betty. "Mom's going to tell you who my father is too?" Sunny asked, frowning. June walked in from the kitchen. "We already know, darling." she said. "Martha needs a little moral support." "You know who my father is?" asked Sunny excitedly. "Why didn't you SAY something?" June looked uncomfortable. "Why, you never asked dear." Sunny started to object when Gidget strolled through the door. "Not you too!" moaned Sunny. "YOU don't know who my father is! I know that! You'd have told me!" "What are you talking about?" asked Gidget, waving to Bob. "I'm here for the meeting." "What meeting?" cried Sunny. "I don't know," said Gidget, staring at her sister. "Mom just called me and told me to be here at eight." "All this?!" cried Sunny. "A whole family MEETING ... just to tell me who my father is?" "WHAT?" gasped Gidget. "Mom said she'd tell me who my father was tonight," said Sunny. "Well, she said we'd talk about it, anyway, but I'm going to find out." Martha came out of the kitchen. Her arrival distracted everyone enough that they all went quiet. "Well," said Martha. "You're all here. Come into the kitchen." Bob stayed where he was. They had decided that he would be available for them to talk to if they wanted to, but that he wouldn't be in the room when they found out about him. Still, nothing short of professional ear muffs could have stopped Bob from hearing at least some of what was said. There was a soft murmur of voices, mostly Martha's, for about five minutes. Then there was an uproar as the three younger women said things like "YOU DID WHAT?!" "GRANDMA TOLD YOU WHAT?!" There was another minute of murmuring and then a babble of shouts and near screams as six women came close to panic and only three of them tried to make that panic go away. Finally it settled down and there was more murmuring that went on for ten or fifteen minutes longer. Betty came into the living room. "They're about to come in here and see you." she said. "Well, I guess that's why I'm, here." Betty shrugged. "They're acting all froggy, of course. Who wouldn't? Gidget and Sunny are especially weirded out by all this. Polly actually took it pretty well. I told her I only did it because my two big sisters did it first." She grinned. "I think it went pretty well, all things considered." She looked over her shoulder. ------- Martha and June came in first. They didn't look behind them to see that no one was following them. They took up seats around the living room. None sat on the couch with Bob, though. Polly was the next one through the door. She had a tremulous smile on her face. Gidget followed her and then Sunny was last. All three women stared at him, but there were different looks on their faces. Gidget was the first to speak. "You should have told me." she said, her voice completely normal. "I couldn't do that, under the circumstances." he said. "It would have been too much truth for the situation." She put her hands on her hips, but then nodded slowly. She looked around for a chair and sat down. Polly came and sat on the couch, but not close to him. She seemed to just be thinking. Sunny came and paced in front of him. She started to say something several times, but didn't. Finally: "You knew all along." He just nodded. "I understand why you didn't say anything." she said. "I acted like a fool last night." "No, you didn't," said Bob. "You simply said what you felt. That's not foolish." "But all the time I was talking about my father ... he was right there in the room." she said heatedly. "Yes, but remember what we said about the truth? How it can free you ... or hurt you? How would you have felt last night if I'd have said I was your father?" "I would have freaked out," said Sunny. "I'm not sure I would have believed you. I'd have thought you were trying to get me to..." She looked over her shoulder at the older women. She didn't go on. Instead she sat at in another chair. "What should we call you?" asked Polly. "So what do you think about all this?" asked Bob, ignoring her question. "You can't grow up in our family and not know there was something strange about it." she said, her voice bland. "First of all there was this sleeping man in Aunt Martha's bedroom who never moved, never woke up and yet, was part of the family. At various times I thought our mothers murdered their husbands and got rid of the bodies. Then there was all that stuff in the news about UFOs and such, and I thought maybe they all got abducted and our mothers couldn't admit it. I never believed that all three of them got knocked up by free love at some party, like they wanted us to believe." She tilted her head, like she was examining him for the first time. "But I believe them now. There isn't any way in the world that they'd come up with this story just to keep us from the truth. This is so strange it HAS to be true." "That's all very interesting," said Bob. "But you didn't answer the question. How do you feel about it?" Polly leaned back. "I think I could have done a lot worse for a father." she said. She looked around. "I'm just curious about some things." she said. "Like what?" asked Bob. "Like why Gidget is as pale as she is, and what Sunny was talking about ... something about last night? There's more going on than I know about. Gidget I can understand. She's been out on a date with her own father ... at age thirty-nine ... and that just HAS to be something that would make anybody pale. But it isn't that much different from being on a date with your grandfather, which is what we thought you were yesterday. Both of my cousins have tried to keep secrets from me before and I get the feeling it's happening again right now." Suddenly she stood up. "But, I have been out on a date too, with a man even younger, and I have decided that I like this man a lot. So I'm not going to worry about my weird and strange family any more. I like my family, I like my grandfather, who is now my father. I'd like to talk to him some more and I know I will, but for now I'm going to go call my boyfriend." She smiled a wide goofy kind of smile. "Imagine that! Me, this old and I have a boyfriend!" She leaned over and kissed Bob on the cheek. "But he's pretty normal, so I'm going to go spend some time with him being normal, I think. I have the rest of my life to hang around my crazy, weird family. I'd better go be normal while I can." She went to her mother and kissed her on the cheek. Betty kissed her back, but held onto her hand. "Did you honestly think I murdered your father?" she asked Polly. "It was one theory we girls tossed around for a few minutes." she grinned. "You can bet your ass we never thought about the possibility of you all having sex with the sleeping man in Aunt Martha's house." Bob stood up and she gave him a hug and another kiss on the cheek. "Nite, Daddy." she said. She leaned back like she was tasting the words. "Sounds strange ... but kind of nice too." "Good night sweetheart," said Bob. Polly left. "At least she's got a normal life," said Gidget, her voice flat. "There's no reason you can't have a life just as normal as hers," said Bob. "Yes there is and you know what that reason is," said Gidget. "I suppose they know about that too." she said, nodding at her mother. "Know about what dear?" asked June. Gidget looked at Bob. He shook his head. "Some truths are left unsaid until the right time." "What are you two talking about?" asked June. "Don't tell me there are still more secrets in this family." "There will always be secrets in a family," said Bob. "That's not a bad thing necessarily." Gidget, perhaps because there was already so much shock going around that night that a little more couldn't hurt that much, simply said "Bob and I had sex on our date." June's eyes went as round as saucers. Her intake of breath was loud in the complete silence that followed Gidget's announcement. Gidget held up her hand to forestall any comment from her mother. "I believe it was YOU who suggested we practice with each other on a date. "And even though you didn't say anything about it in the kitchen, if you three have been making love with him for the last thirty odd years, I sort of doubt you stopped just because he woke up." She looked at her mother intently. "Especially since he says he remembers ... everything." June had thought it would be difficult to tell her daughter how she was conceived. It HAD been difficult. But her throat tightened up and she flushed pink and couldn't say a word now. "I thought so," said Gidget. She turned to Sunny. "And I bet your mother has been romping with him in bed too, Sunny, so there is no reason in the world why you can't find out about that fantasy of yours." She didn't even look at Martha, who was fiddling with her apron. Sunny looked at her mother, who looked up. "I didn't know about your fantasy, honey. We didn't teach you how to take care of Daddy because we wanted your lives to be normal. If I'd have known ... if you'd have told me ... things might have been different." "Sure," said Sunny. "Little girls everywhere have no problem telling their Mommies that they want to hop in bed with their Daddy ... WHOEVER he is..." She sighed. "This is SUCH a fucked up family." Martha stood up. "You think what you like." she said, her voice stern. "We had an odd upbringing, I'll admit it. But we loved your father, and we loved having you because of him. We loved him so much we never needed other men in our lives. Maybe we were strange. Maybe we were perverted. But everything we did was out of love. Nobody says you have to do anything. You can go find yourself a man like millions of other women find a man, by the luck of the draw. You fucked up the first time, but that doesn't mean squat. If you're too chicken to try again, then deal with it. But don't call this family fucked up when it has been founded all these years on love." She was almost, but not quite shouting when she finished. Sunny's head was down. She didn't say anything. Gidget stood up. "I'm going home." she said. Bob had sat back down after Polly left and he stood again. "What do you want me to do tonight?" he asked. Gidget looked around the room. "You're staying with me for a few days, just like you stayed with them for a few days. I'm tired, though, so don't be too long or you'll sleep on the couch." Bob nodded. "I just don't want you to be uncomfortable." Gidget laughed. "Let's see. I just found out that the man I was having incest with wasn't my grandfather, like I thought, but was my father instead. He's been having sex with his daughter, who happens to be my mother, but is also my sister, because we have the same father. Anyway, she's been doing that for years, even though he was asleep. That's OK, though, because he has probably porked her a dozen times since he woke up. My cousin, who I've thought of as a sister all my life, has a fantasy about having sex with her father, who is actually my father too." She looked at Bob. "Why ever would I be uncomfortable?" Bob sighed. Gidget, though smiled and grasped his head with both hands. She kissed him on the lips, a soft kiss, and let go. "You're the same guy you were yesterday, and I liked that guy. I suppose I'll have to like this guy too." After she left everyone just sat quietly. Sunny showed no inclination to say anything or leave. The older women had had enough excitement that just sitting and doing nothing was easy. Finally Sunny lifted her head. "Considering that I had no idea who my father was, and was prepared for him to be in prison, or married to some other woman, or have half brothers or half sisters I knew nothing about ... I guess the truth isn't so terrible. At least I don't have to get to know a complete stranger." Bob nodded. "I wanted to say something to you ... to ease your mind ... but it just wasn't the right time." "I know." she sighed. "I just wish I hadn't spouted all that stuff about wanting to have sex with my father." "In a way, that was the thing that brought all this about tonight," said Bob. "You've wanted to know all these years, and now you do. I just hope you're not too disappointed." "No, not disappointed. I don't know what I DO feel right now, but I know it's not disappointment. You're not in prison, after all." She smiled a tired smile. "You want to get together and talk?" asked Bob. Sunny arched an eyebrow. "With your history with the women in this family, I'm not sure that would be safe. Polly didn't say anything. You haven't ... rocked her world too, have you?" Bob smiled and shook his head. "I would like to talk ... but for now that's all I think." she said. She didn't look at her mother. "I felt pretty comfortable talking with you and Gidget last night. Maybe we could do that again?" "That's a fine idea," said Bob. "OK, then, I'll drop by tomorrow night after work or something," said Sunny getting up. She went to her mother and hugged her. "I can't believe you did that." she said, shaking her head. Martha shrugged. "It seemed like the right thing to do at the time." Sunny went to Bob. She didn't hug him, but just stood in front of him, looking at his face. "So you're my Daddy." she said. "I guess so," said Bob. "See you tomorrow night." she said. ------- Chapter 29 Bob stayed for another half hour as his daughters talked about how they thought things went. It was fairly easy to agree that, since no one had run screaming from the house, things might not blow up completely. It would just take time to find out if the news had changed relationships to the point that they would suffer or die. Bob wasn't sure how he would be received at Gidget's, though she had made it plain she expected him to stay there, at least that night. When he got there she was sitting on the couch, with the TV on. "What are you watching?" asked Bob. "I don't know." she said. "I wasn't paying attention." "Want to talk?" he asked. "Yes." she said. "Can I sit beside you?" he asked. She looked up at him in disgust. "Of course. I already told you there's not much difference between making it with your grandfather and your father. That's not what I've been thinking about." "OK, so tell me." he said. "It's going to sound really stupid, but tonight is the first time I thought of you as a father." she said. "As your father." he confirmed. "No ... as A father." She looked at him. "I mean I knew at some level that you were my mother's father, but it was very academic. You didn't get to see her grow up. She grew up without a father, for all intents and purposes. Or at least that's what I thought. Now I understand that she DID have a relationship with you, strange though it may have been. She talked to you and, as it turns out, you remember that, even though you couldn't say anything to her at the time." "OK," said Bob. "But don't you see? I really had the relationship with you that I thought SHE had. You weren't real to me. I never got to know you. When we made love that first time I really was making love with a man I didn't know very well. It didn't FEEL like incest, because I didn't have any real feeling that you were my grandfather. Now I find out you're actually my father! It's just so strange, but the thing is that I've gotten to know you a little bit and somehow it's easier for me to think of you as my father than it was to think of you as my grandfather." "OK," said Bob again. "And that makes it seem more like incest." "It IS incest, Gidget." he said. "Yes, but before it didn't FEEL like incest." she said. "Do you want to stop?" he asked. "NO!" she almost shouted. "That's the problem! I love what we do. I had no idea how much I was missing until you came along and ... seduced me." She smiled to show she didn't mean it. "Can we talk about this in bed?" Bob asked suddenly. Gidget looked at him with a calculating stare. "You want to get in my panties, don't you?" she accused. "By the time we get to bed I hope there are no panties to get into." he said. "But we can just talk." "Sure." she said. "I bet a million girls have heard that line." But she got up and took his hand and they went to the bedroom. With no fanfare they stripped and climbed into the bed. She snuggled up to him. "There is something else." she said. "That I was thinking about, I mean." "What's that?" he asked, kissing the upper swell of her breast. "Remember the first time, up at the cabin? When you had your orgasm and I felt you spurting in me all I could think about was that that was how he made me pregnant." "I remember," said Bob. "You said I was making you pregnant." "Yes. I worried about that. But the second time we made love, I had already decided that I loved what we did so much that I didn't think about it that way any more. Actually, I didn't think about it at all, because I had a period and I knew you hadn't made me pregnant." "I'm glad you didn't have to worry," said Bob. He was kissing closer and closer to her nipple and she was playing with his hair with two fingers, swirling his hair around one and clipping it with the other. "What I found out tonight is that I should have worried." she said. Bob lifted his head, question in his eyes. "What?" he asked. "Bob, you've sired nine children on three women. Every one of your daughters had her own daughter and two sons, and you fathered them all. While you were sleeping." "Well, yes." admitted Bob. "I wasn't really thinking about you as being ... virile." she said. "But you obviously are. If we keep doing this you're going to knock me up but good." "And that would be bad." he said. She raised up and turned, pressing her breasts against his chest as he put an arm under her. She rested her head on an elbow. "A month ago ... maybe even two weeks ago ... I'd have shouted ... screamed how bad that would be. But I'm the result of what you did that was ... bad?" She stared at him. "I can't say it was bad that I'm alive ... that I have Becca ... that despite all the pain in the past, I'm glad to be alive. I can't say it was bad, and that just bends my mind all around. My brain tells me I should run screaming from here right now. But my heart says I don't want this to ever end." "So ... there are ways to do this and not have children," said Bob. She stared at him a little longer. Then she leaned down and kissed him. When she pulled back she said "Professor Lipscomb never mentioned that." she said. "He wanted to make me pregnant and he said when I was pregnant he'd divorce his wife and we'd get married." "We already agreed that he didn't love you," said Bob. "Yes, but you DID mention it. You're willing to do whatever I want. You ... love me I think." "Yes," said Bob simply. She kissed him again and rolled on top of him. She reached for him. "You're soft." she said. "We've been talking." he said. "We're finished talking." she said, kissing him again. She scooted down and this time, when she took a man into her mouth, it was because she wanted to. She was thrilled to feel him begin to harden almost instantly. He tried to pull her hips up to his mouth, but she was impatient, and as soon as he was hard she scrambled back up and sheathed him in her. Then she rocked and kissed him until she felt the sweet release and her pussy clenched him. When he felt and heard her passion he pinched her nipples and pulled on them and she whined at the mingled pleasure and pain of it. She finished by supporting herself with her hands on his chest, her head drooping, her short hair framing her face as she looked down at him. "You didn't cum." she said. "No." "Get on top of me." she ordered. She lay under him and, for the first time submitted gladly to a man as he powered into her. She didn't try for another orgasm. Instead she reveled in the movement of his muscles, and the way his face looked, and at his increased breathing. She concentrated on how he moved his hips, and where his legs were, and the sounds he made. She watched him and was thrilled that she could make him do all these little things. His face twisted and she intuitively knew he was about to spew. His eyes locked on hers. "Go ahead." she whispered, stroking his arms and shoulders. With a half sob Bob slammed into her deep and she felt the wet heat that she now welcomed. It was as if his love for her was flowing from his body to hers in a tactile way. "No" she thought to herself as his face scrunched up and she felt another dangerous jet. "There is no way in the world that this is a bad thing." It took Sunny three days to come to terms with how she felt about things. She was able, at work, to think about other things, at least most of the time. But when she was home, every time she walked by the guest bedroom, she thought of Bob staying there. That led her to thinking that, if she wanted it, he wouldn't sleep in that room at all. By the time she got into bed, she thought about where he was - at Gidget's - and where he was probably sleeping there. It wasn't difficult at all to imagine his body, on top of her cousin ... her sister! ... doing to her what Sunny had spent years fantasizing about what her father would do to her, if she ever met him. And, of course, now she had met him. She had met him long ago. She just didn't know it then. Bob didn't fit the vague image she had built of her father in those fantasies. He was smaller in stature - her fantasy father was tall - and he was more soft spoken - her fantasy father thundered when he spoke. Her fantasy father had a huge, almost club-like prick, that was always erect and usually dripping. She wondered now what that meant. She had never actually had sex in her fantasies. It always got close, with him looming over her, his prick dripping on her skin ... but it never actually happened. Like Gidget, the only memory she had of a man making love to her was one man, Don in her case, and that had ended badly. She didn't want her fantasy father to do things the way Don had done them. She realized now that Don had had a mean streak in him. He liked to spank her when he pretended to be her father, and take her from behind roughly. He had almost always dominated her during sex, demanding this of her, making her do that, bending her almost double as he pounded her. She had always thought that was the way it was supposed to be. Part of what tipped her into filing for divorce was a co-worker's description of what her husband had done for her on Valentines Day. She had gone into explicit detail, talking about how he pampered her, catering to her every sexual whim that night. Sunny had quipped "Too bad it can't be like that more often." assuming that her co-worker had been treated to something unique and odd. But the woman had looked at her with a smile. "Actually, the only thing different was the whipped cream and strawberries. I'd always wanted to do that but was afraid he'd think I was silly." That was when Sunny found out some men treated their wives with tenderness and concern for their desires during sex. Even the way Don had gone down on her had been almost violent. She had loved that part, but it had still been almost like wrestling. The reason Sunny didn't let her fantasy father actually have sex with her was because she didn't want him to do it like Don had. But the only style she was familiar with was Don's. It was a vicious circle. She couldn't have sex with another man, because he might be like Don. She couldn't imagine another way to do it because she couldn't have sex with another man to learn another way to do it. But Bob was nothing like Don. He wasn't angry all the time. He wasn't loud. He wasn't abusive in his language, or behavior. He was, as she had noticed back when she first 'met' him ... a nice guy. Like Gidget, she had never been able to form any coherent thoughts of him as her actual, real, genuine relative. Now, her brain almost cramped when she tried to overlay Bob on the image of her fantasy father. It just didn't work. For whatever reason, though, Sunny had no trouble at all imagining what it looked like when Gidget and Bob made the beast with two backs. She saw the passion on Gidget's face, and she heard the smacking noises of their kisses. She heard their panting and the grunting noise she was sure Bob made when he reached his release. She saw the thrashing Gidget had promised her they wouldn't do when she left. She knew that promise was only for that night, and Bob had stayed with her three more nights since then. It made her horny ... so horny that she couldn't get to sleep until she rubbed her pussy for almost half an hour. She could get close, but not there. It was actually the exhaustion caused by her frustration that put her to sleep. The next day she called Gidget and asked if she could come over that night. ------- Sunny had no idea what they would talk about when she knocked on the door and then opened it to go in. She found Gidget in the kitchen. Val was out with her new boyfriend. Gidget rolled her eyes saying it looked serious, but Val wouldn't say. Bob was gone somewhere - Gidget didn't say where - and they settled into their normal sisterly chatter while Sunny helped get dinner ready. By the time Bob came in the door with two bottles of wine and a bottle of brandy, Sunny was relaxed enough that just the sight of him didn't tense her up. Then they sat and ate dinner like normal people, talking about normal things. Nothing was said about Bob being their father, or his money or anything at all except little things, like who his old and new favorite sports teams were. The wine flowed freely and at one point Sunny accused Bob of trying to get her drunk. His response was to reach for her glass and take it away from her, refusing to give it back even when she demanded, and then pleaded and then asked nicely. She finally had to get up and take it back by force as he smiled and Gidget laughed. "You have to be careful of what you say around this guy," said Gidget. "He takes you pretty much at your word most of the time, whether you mean it or not. Political correctness is not his forte." "That must be refreshing," said Sunny, thinking about the games she had to play at work. After dinner they moved to the living room with the brandy. Gidget put a CD on low. It was slow dancing music, something they played each evening while they danced. It was Gidget's way of re-creating the ambiance of that first night they spent together, and never failed to get him stone hard for her. It was suddenly awkward, the barely audible music the only sound in the room. "I've been having trouble getting to sleep at night." Sunny finally said. "That's understandable," said Bob. "You've received some pretty shocking news." "That's not it." she said. "I can't seem to actually THINK of you as my father, even though I know you are." "So what's the problem?" asked Gidget. "I keep imagining him ... and you ... together ... here," said Sunny. "Like this?" asked Gidget, a teasing smile on her face. Sunny threw her a dirty look. "Of course not like this." Gidget must have felt some inner sense that Sunny was capable of talking frankly. "You know, I took your advice." she said. "What about?" asked Sunny. "About letting him ... use his mouth ... down there." Sunny blinked. That hadn't been in her image of them together. Now suddenly ... it was. "Great." she said, frustrated. Gidget heard the frustration. "So, have you figured out what you want to do?" "About what?" asked Sunny, trying to dodge the issue. "You wanted to meet your father. You have. Now, what are you going to do about it?" Gidget wasn't letting her off the hook. "I don't know what to do," said Sunny, still frustrated. "What do you WANT to do?" asked Gidget. "I don't know that either," said Sunny. "You used to," said Gidget. "You said so the other night." "That was when I didn't know who he was," said Sunny. Gidget rolled her eyes. "My advice is to go on a date with him." Sunny took a stiff drink of brandy. "I don't think I should be alone with him." "Why not, for goodness sake?" "Because I'll want to do what you do with him," said Sunny. "So ... do it," said Gidget. "But he's yours!" said Sunny. Gidget laughed. "No he's not, silly. I'm doing the same thing with him that my mother did, as it turned out. Is he hers? Does he belong to any of the women who had his children? He's just a man, Sunny. He's a man I love to be with, but he's just a man. I can't imagine meeting another one like him, but he swears it will happen some day and I'll forget all about him." Sunny looked at Bob for the first time since she had started talking. He was sipping brandy and being quiet. "I'm afraid." she said. "I'm afraid that it's wrong, but I want to do it. I'm afraid that you'll treat me like Don did. I'm afraid I won't like it. I'm afraid I'll like it too much. See? I can't do this." "You don't have to do anything," said Bob. "It doesn't matter what your fantasies were, or any of that. Just do what you think is best for you right now." "I can't get to SLEEP at night. I can't even masturbate successfully!" She blushed. Gidget sat up. "Hey! Remember when I got my first kiss?" she asked. Sunny looked confused. Gidget leaned forward. "It was when I was in sixth grade. You were in Junior High School and I was so jealous. You had kissed that boy ... what was his name? ... Dennis?" Sunny smiled. "No, it was Billy Walker. You were so jealous I let him kiss you just to shut you up." She laughed. "I'd forgotten all about that." "Well," said Gidget, "That was the only way I could have done it ... with you there. I'd have been way too nervous to do it alone. I still didn't kiss a guy after that until two years later. But you were there with me and I wasn't scared." Sunny blinked as Gidget's meaning sunk in. "You're joking." she said. "Why not?" said Gidget. "You don't have to do anything weird, but if you DO want to do something you can because I'll be there. We'll ... share ... kind of." "That's outrageous," said Sunny dismissively. "Would it be outrageous for us both to dance with him?" asked Gidget. "No, of course not," said Sunny. Gidget got up and held out her hand to Bob, who put his brandy down and stood up. He took her into a close hug and they danced over to the CD player, where Gidget turned the music up. Bob danced with her the same way he always did, with his hands on her butt, or sliding up and down her back. It took two songs, but finally Sunny was there. "Can I cut in?" she asked. Gidget smiled and stepped back. "He's ... um ... excited. But that's because of me, not you." Gidget giggled. Sunny almost didn't go through with it because of that, though. Bob pulled her into a clasp, but didn't press himself against her. "She does that to me on purpose." he said softly. "What?" asked Sunny, feeling the old habit of moving to a slow dance coming back. "She rubs herself against me to get me excited." he said. "She's horrible." "Most men wouldn't call that horrible," said Sunny, leaning back to look at his face. "Well, actually I like it a lot," said Bob, smiling. "But aren't I supposed to act like I don't?" Sunny couldn't help but smile. "You really don't know how to be politically correct, do you?" "I never even heard that term until I woke up." he said. "I'm still not sure exactly what it means." They talked about terms and other words that were new to Bob, swaying slowly with the music until Gidget was there, tapping Sunny on the shoulder. "You guys have gone three songs. It's my turn again." she said. Sunny felt the let down of leaving him, which was her first clue that she'd been having a nice time without even thinking about it. She sat on the couch and watched. Gidget kissed him and his hands squeezed her butt. Sunny tried to think back on where his hands had been while they danced, but she couldn't remember. She was sure if he'd have put his hands on her ass she would remember that. She watched Gidget press her hips against his, giggling. She was being shameless in front of her ... sister! Sunny felt the amazement of knowing that the woman she had felt was a sister her whole life was, in fact, her sister! They had the same father, at least. She watched her sister rubbing her loins against their father. Sunny felt the same frustration she had in bed alone. She cut in, and this time she pulled him closer, putting her head on his shoulder. He smelled good, and she thought of what she had read about scents and incest. She was suddenly aware of his hand on her lower back, moving slightly, and wished ... She reached behind her and moved his hand down onto her right butt cheek. He didn't tense, but squeezed it gently. She felt the warmth flood her body that was there when she fantasized. Her fantasy father had kissed her in her fantasy and she suddenly had to find out whether Bob's lips felt like that or not. She moved her lips to his cheek ... then to the corner of his lips, but could go no further. He pulled back and looked in her eyes. He saw the fear there, but the desire too. He did the same thing to her, brushing his lips across her cheek and then kissing the corner of her mouth. Then suddenly, somehow, their lips touched. His kiss wasn't urgent or demanding at all. It wasn't like Don's and it wasn't like her fantasy father's either. His lips were soft and warm and ... she liked it. He let her kiss him back and, to her discomfort, she became the aggressor, mashing her lips to his and moving her head. She felt a tap on her shoulder. "Go away." she mumbled into his lips. Gidget laughed. She also sat back down. Sunny's world was hazy and she felt weightless. She suddenly found herself pressing hard against the bulge that was perfectly positioned to push between her legs. Her hands moved all over his back now and she sighed as he moved his other hand to her butt too and he massaged her cheeks. Still, it wasn't an urgent or demanding feeling. It was just soft and warm and nice. "My turn." came Gidget's voice. It WAS demanding. Sunny stepped back and gasped. Gidget had taken her shirt off. She was naked from the waist up. As soon as Sunny was clear, Gidget worked to get Bob's shirt off too. Then they danced topless. It was a clear challenge to Sunny. She watched them for a full five minutes before she made up her mind. She shrugged out of her blouse and reached behind her to unsnap her bra. She expected to feel both foolish and wanton. She felt neither. All she felt was the urge to feel his chest against her own. She stood up and Gidget must have been watching, because she stepped back immediately and let Sunny take her place. It was fabulous. Sunny hadn't felt this in so long she couldn't even think about it. Her gut told her there would be more that she hadn't felt in years ... much more. She felt her pussy cramp in anticipation. As they turned, and as she rubbed her stiffened nipples against his chest, she saw Gidget taking the rest of her clothes off. Her pussy clenched again and she felt a pang of panic, but just then Bob kissed her and cupped her breast, thumbing her nipple gently. Everything he did was gentle and it was making her wild. "Stand still," said Gidget from behind her. Bob was kissing her still, and she felt Gidget's hands on her shorts, unfastening them. She felt oddly relieved that she wouldn't have to do this herself ... that she could just go on kissing Bob and her clothes would fall off. She felt air on her buttocks as Bob's hands slid up onto her back and then they dipped and smoothed over what was now bare. She lifted a foot at a time and felt Gidget help her kick the shorts off. Then the "Stand Still" command was given again as Gidget worked on Bob, making him nude too. They came back together and she felt it immediately. It was hot as it nosed into her pubic hair and poked her. She couldn't bring herself to touch it yet, but went up on her tiptoes in an attempt to get it to go between her legs. Her arms twined around his neck and she pulled him into a savage kiss. His hands never left her buttocks, but he bent his knees until he got it right where she wanted it and then stood back up. She thought she'd faint as it pressed against her dripping pussy. Still, all he did was dance with her. And kiss her, of course. His lack of force made her quiver with desire. The music went off suddenly. "We've danced enough," said Gidget. Panic came back as Bob separated from her and she could see him ... and he could see her ... for the first time. He was rampant, but it was no club. It looked nothing like Dan's either and she was more inclined to compare it to the few she'd seen and touched before she got married. Gidget took her hand and then reached for Bob's hand, pulling them both toward her bedroom. "This is silly." muttered Sunny, feeling suddenly naked as they shuffled along. "You can just watch, if you like," said Gidget. "And you can leave if you don't want to watch, but you have to come with us first. I want you to see what you allowed me to discover." Once they were in the bedroom Gidget got her low-backed chair from her dressing table and put it not far from the bed. She sat Sunny on it and lit several candles before turning off the light. Sunny watched as Gidget laid on the bed and beckoned Bob. Bob stood, looking from Sunny to Gidget, and then went to the bed. He did hunch over Gidget, but to Sunny's eyes it wasn't a hulking kind of thing. It was more like he floated, as his head drifted from place to place on Gidget's body. First he tasted her nipples, licking and sucking. Then he went to her abdomen and kissed all over it until Gidget's hips started making fucking motions. He teased her by going down to her pubes and licking there and then moving quickly back up to her breasts. Gidget moaned her frustration, holding his head to her breast first, and then pushing it down ... down ... down until at last he slipped between her legs. He was noisy, but not violent. He seemed to shake his head back and forth a lot, and Sunny couldn't imagine what he was doing then, but Gidget went wild when he did that. It went on for what seemed like an hour until Gidget's hands gripped the bedspread and pulled it into wrinkles as she gasped and cried out. Sunny suddenly realized her finger was deep in her own pussy. She didn't even remember putting it there. She was gasping too. Gidget went limp and Bob lifted up. His head swiveled toward Sunny. She could see his face glisten in the candlelight as he looked at her. She couldn't move. Bob must have sensed that, because he moved off the bed, standing. He was still firm and jutting. Sunny's mind flitted to what already would have happened by now with Don. He had never stayed hard this long without jamming it in her. She recoiled as he walked toward her. He sank to his knees and walked on them toward her. Her own knees were tightly shut now, her hands on the arms of the little chair. When he got to her he leaned over to kiss her outer thigh and then kissed his way upward. She held her breath as he got to her breasts. She expected him to go for the nipple immediately. That's what he'd done with Gidget. But with her he kissed all over the full globes, moving down into her cleavage and licking there before moving all over. He kissed everywhere except the nipples until her hands moved of their own accord to his head. He was easy to force and she almost had an orgasm when he sucked her left nipple gently, almost like a sleepy baby. He played with that for a while, his hand stroking her flank, her outer knee pressing against his hip. She was intimately aware of the sounds he was making. The only human voices heard since they had come into the bedroom were Gidget's cries of joyous passion. She could hear the sounds as he sucked and licked the nipple. He moved to the other one without her making him and she moaned as the streaks of pleasure he had caused in the first one were reproduced in the new one. He stopped and she moaned again at the loss. He backed up and went to her still closed knees. He grasped a knee in each hand, and kissed the top of each knee. As he moved his lips to the inner knee, he applied pressure. His message was clear. He wanted access to her pussy. At first she resisted, but several long licks up her thighs made her passion overrule her fear and she parted them so he could crawl between them. He kissed and licked his way closer and closer, so slowly that she found herself slumping to inch her pussy closer to him as she leaned back in the chair. The upholstery of the chair was soft, but the top of the low backrest bit into her middle back. Then she felt the first tentative touch of his tongue, as if it were testing for heat, or cold or something that he wanted to be able to jerk his tongue away from instantly. Her frustration was back. She was so close to ... something ... that she wiggled in the chair. He started at the bottom of her slit and licked upward, his tongue wide and flat. It was like nothing she had ever felt before. She ached to have his tongue penetrate her and was shocked that he was being too gentle. Just then he licked her again, this time forcing his tongue between her outer labia. Her legs swung as wide as she could make them go in the chair as she scooted forward even more. She almost slipped off the edge of the chair and he jammed his hands under her butt, palms down. She lifted her butt automatically, pushing her pussy into his face. When she sat back down, it was on his hands, almost on his wrists, as they took the place of the seat of the chair she had now slid completely off of. About then, he found and sucked her clit. Once he had it firmly between his pursed lips, he darted the tip of his tongue at it, stabbing it repeatedly as he sucked. Sunny thought she might actually die from the joy of it. The chair creaked under her. It was wonderful beyond words, but it wasn't working. She was too heavy for his hands and wrists to hold her up comfortably. As hard as it was to do it, she gripped the arms of the chair and scooted back, breaking his lip lock on her bulging clitty. Still without words, she leaned forward and bounded out of the chair, pulling him to the bed. She flung herself down beside Gidget, who scooted over to make room. Copying her own mood, Bob flung himself between her legs and resumed where he had left off. Sunny's legs came up and her heels rested on his back as she felt the orgasm she had abandoned, to move, coming back. It left her breathless, and before she could catch her breath from that one another one rocketed through her body as he continued to lick and suck. She felt light headed and pushed at his head to break contact. She was quite convinced he would continue to pleasure her until she lost consciousness if she didn't make him stop. As soon as he was out from between her legs, Gidget was pulling him between her own, her hand reaching for him ... guiding him. There was a wet sucking sound as he lunged forward and Gidget groaned happily at being filled with that long strange prick. Sunny watched as Bob did things she would never have even imagined. He went in deep and then made his groin do little circles until Gidget screamed. He did long, slow strokes, almost coming out until Gidget reached for his ass and pulled him back in. He teased her with his prick. There was a point when he pounded her, and he did look like Don then, but there was none of the filthy language Don had to use whenever he did that. It was more like a dance of some kind, done in the prone position, and her pussy simply ached to find out what that dance was like. After three orgasms for Gidget, Bob pulled out and rocked back on his knees. His wet prick jutted obscenely from his loins. He looked at Sunny and she stared back. She reached for him with just one hand, and he kneed his way between her legs. She waited, her eyes closed. She felt his mouth on her nipple and her eyes popped open. He was looking up at her while he sucked. He stopped. "You have to do it." he said. "It needs to be you who does this." Her heart felt like it might burst and she grabbed for him, feeling his length and warmth and the wet of her cousin on him. She pulled almost savagely and, like a guided missile, he was suddenly there, and then, just as suddenly, all the way in her. Her groan was a carbon copy of Gidget's. The pain was almost welcome. She had been so aroused that she was jittery, almost incoherent with her need. The pain grounded her. But it vanished as he pulled back out until the tip was all that was in her. His lips returned to her nipple and she almost screamed with frustration, reaching for his hips. He resisted as her nails dug into the skin of his hips, and inched back in with agonizing slowness. Until he was fully seated again, and this time there was no pain. He started those little circles and Sunny's mind gave up. A tiny fraction of her mind sensed that she would go mad if it didn't do something, so that part of her mind went to a quiet place and just watched and listened as the rest of her sought release like a starving man seeks a single bite to eat. She knew she was babbling. She heard her voice cursing. She felt her body jerking and thrashing and wanted to laugh because it was HER who was thrashing around in bed ... not Gidget. Her second orgasm of the night -something that had never happened in her life - wasn't exactly like the first, perhaps because it was a different stimulus that brought it on, but she was more afraid of that than of anything else that had happened that night, because she knew, when it came, that she would never be able to deny Bob her body - ever again. As it washed over her, she felt owned in a way that she had never felt with Don. It was like the most horrible of thunder clouds about to ruin a sunny day. She heard him ask if she was on the pill, and she shook her head violently, unable to speak. He was suddenly out of her and she was weightless as he disappeared, almost like magic. She cried out and looked to see him on top of Gidget again, grunting as he emptied himself in her. Gidget cooed and urged him on with delighted little snippets of lusty talk. Sunny's reaction was cataclysmic. The rain cloud of his domination of her vanished. His question had not been to find out she was fertile and then gloat as he forced his semen into her. Rather he cared enough not to endanger her after their reckless and wild sex. The rain cloud was replaced with a rainbow. There was also a feeling of terrible emptiness. ------- It was probably the combination of the wine and the exertion that caused them to get drowsy and fall asleep together in the big bed, with Bob between the two women, each of whom cuddled up to him as they drifted off. Sunny dreamed. She was empty and sad. Suddenly her fantasy father was there. This time he had a face. It was Bob's face. And this time her fantasy father did more things to her, climbing on top of her and making her dream psychedelic. She woke, breathing hard from the dream. Her arm was lying on top of Bob's stomach. As her mind drifted back to the dream, her hand drifted down to his genitals. His penis lay limply on his nest of pubic hair and she toyed with it gently. He moved in his sleep and his prick rolled, like it was in slow motion as blood entered it due to her manipulation. He snorted and moved his head. She kissed his cheek and he turned his head toward her. There was one candle still burning, but their eyes were so used to the dark that it seemed light in the room. His eyes opened and looked into hers. "I need you to be hard Daddy." she whispered. She kissed the corner of his mouth. He disentangled himself from Gidget and turned to face Sunny, who wiggled into his arms. She pulled and squeezed until he was long and strong again, his prick poking between her legs. She used it to tease her clit with as they kissed. He mounted her again and this time she threw her legs wide in welcome. She grabbed a pillow and put it over her face when she came, wailing into the soft muffler. She threw it aside and her nails dug into his butt, holding him in as her legs wrapped around him tightly. She made it clear what she wanted and he gave a long, low sigh: "Ohhh baby" as she felt the warm glow that was his sperm soaking her channel. "Ohhh Daddy." she sighed back. She slept more easily this time. She didn't feel empty any more. ------- Chapter 30 Polly walked into the Wagon Wheel restaurant at six sharp and she immediately saw Brian sitting in a booth. There was a vase of flowers - red roses - sitting on the table in front of him. He had the menu open and was looking it over. She felt the rush in her belly that she always felt when she saw him now. She walked over and slid into the booth opposite him. She reached for the flowers and smelled them. People were staring at them. If you looked up "Greasy Spoon" in the dictionary, there would probably be a picture of the Wagon Wheel there. It had been a fixture in town ever since Polly could remember. When she was in High School, it was THE place to go to hang out and have fries with cream gravy. It had fallen out of favor with the young crowd, and into favor with migrant workers for several years. The menu shifted to suit them. Then a new manager had been hired who tried to bring in Tofu and salads and healthy food. He was fired after about a month. People made it known that if they wanted healthy food, they'd go to Apple Annie's, down the road. They came to the Wagon Wheel to stock up on cholesterol and taste, which was probably the result of the fat content of the burgers, fries, onion rings and other staples of the current menu. The odd stranger stopped in occasionally and usually left without actually ordering, a horrified look on his or her face. But the locals loved the place and kept it afloat quite nicely. The worn table tops, wiped countless times by countless footsore waitresses were an indeterminate color, but nobody cared. The food was delicious. There was only one table this evening that had flowers on it. That was why people stared. Roses just didn't belong in the Wagon Wheel. Polly couldn't have cared less. After dinner they went to the park and walked, hand in hand, talking about anything and everything. There was an old merry-go-round that had somehow escaped the park board members who were intent on making playgrounds so safe that no one would ever want to play on one any more. They took turns pushing each other as they talked some more. It got dark and they were walking back to Brian's car when a rough looking young man approached them. He whipped out a knife and waved it at them. "You don't need that fancy watch you're wearing." he said to Brian. "And the bitch don't need her purse either." He waved the knife menacingly. Brian stepped between Polly and the robber and held up both hands, palms out. "Hey, take it easy, we don't want any problem here." he said. "Hurry up, man, gimme your wallet too. I'll cut you, man." the punk warned. "OK, OK, just take it easy," said Brian, sounding worried. "You can have it all ... just don't hurt us, OK?" The punk swelled with self importance and waved with the knife. "Hurry UP!" he snapped. Brian reached behind him, like he was going to pull his wallet from his pocket. What appeared in his hand, though, was a .38 Chief's Special, with a two inch barrel. "Oh, man!" Brian said as the punk's eyes widened. "Don't you just hate it when you bring a knife to a gun fight?" Then he calmly said "Halt ... Police." The punk turned to run and Brian shot him in the ass. Polly jumped and screamed at the report of the weapon. The punk flew forward, hitting the ground on his stomach and screaming that he was shot and dying. Brian turned to Polly. "Stay there." he ordered. He went to the punk and stepped on the wrist of the hand that was still holding the knife. He knelt, putting his knee in the perp's back and the screaming intensified as the man complained that it hurt his back. Polly, meanwhile, had dug into her purse and found her cell phone. She punched a nine and two ones and breathlessly spoke into the phone. Brian got the knife away from the perp and tossed it a few feet away. A siren wailed in the distance, getting closer and louder. Then there were headlights and flashing red and blue lights. Brian had put his pistol away again, and was holding up his badge. It didn't go as smoothly as you and I probably think it should have. First there was a jurisdictional issue. Brian wasn't deputized in the county he was in, and a Sacramento PD badge didn't carry any official weight in Circleton. Then there was the issue of the fact that Brian had shot the man. It was pretty obvious that the man was running away when he was shot, which meant he wasn't a danger to either Brian or Polly any more, which meant that Brian was no longer entitled to use deadly force ... assuming he was entitled to use any force at all. What saved the day, in the end, was that when the Circleton officer picked up the knife and examined it, he made a noise in his throat. He got a lot more official with the robber, and a lot less official with Brian. They were all taken down town. It turned out that there had been a stabbing earlier at a bar, and the perpetrator of that incident had gotten away. The victim was still in surgery, and it was touch and go as to whether he would make it. What the Circleton officer had seen on the knife was blood where the blade pivoted once it was unlocked. Brian had apparently caught what might very well be a murder suspect. Murder was a little beyond the daily fare of such a small jurisdiction, and State Troopers were requested. Once a trooper arrived and heard all the information, he dragged a judge out of bed and presented him with the jurisdictional problem. "What's wrong with you people?" snapped the judge. "He's licensed in the State of California. He saw a fleeing felon who was known to be armed and dangerous. His arrest was obviously made based on probable cause. You woke me up for THIS?!" It was after midnight when they were finally allowed to go. Brian had to work the next day, but not until swing shift. Polly had to work too. He took her home. When they got there Fran was already in bed asleep when Polly eased her door open and checked on her. She closed the door and pulled Brian to her bedroom. "Um ... Polly ... there's a bed in here." he said. "It's my bedroom, silly." she said. "I thought you said we weren't going anywhere with a bed on this date." "That was before you saved my life and fought for me." she said, taking her shirt and bra off. "I do not want to be the only naked person in this room." she said, reaching for the fastener of her pants. "You can leave tomorrow morning in plenty of time to do whatever you have to do to get ready for work." she said. The adrenaline rush was long gone, but the feeling of having escaped danger in a close call made their lovemaking something even more precious and special than it had been in the past. It was slower, more measured somehow, and Polly's orgasm allowed her enough control to whisper his name over and over. As he once again gushed his seed she held him tightly and he groaned, celebrating the amazement that he had stumbled across her. ------- Fran woke up and stretched, imagining her body becoming lean and thin as it got longer and longer until she was ten feet tall from toes to fingertips. She relaxed. She didn't remember her mother coming in last night, which was strange. Polly didn't stay out late usually. Fran got up and padded to her mother's bedroom just to check. She pushed the door open on silent hinges and took in a breath when she saw the two naked bodies tangled up on the bed. Both were sleeping soundly. She looked at her watch. It was past time for her mother to be up and getting ready for work. She walked to the nightstand and looked at the alarm clock. The switch was in the off position. Now that she was closer she could smell them ... the odor of what they had obviously done last night. Fran felt a twinge in her loins. Ever since Bob had taken her virginity she had felt conflicting desires. She wanted to do that again, but Bob was always with one of the other women, living here, or there. If he stayed with her grandmother she could probably manage to stay overnight and get him alone, but who knew when that would happen again? She had thought about boys she knew, and about what it might be like with them. She didn't have a boyfriend. She had always been too independent and thought she would feel tied down if she agreed to be some boy's girlfriend. She was also a creature of habit. Whenever she went out to eat, for instance, she always ordered the same thing. She knew she'd like it, so why take a chance on something else she might not like? Now she had a new habit, except that she couldn't indulge in it whenever she felt like it. And thinking about doing it with one of the boys she knew was too much like ordering something different in a restaurant. Feeling disgruntled, she poked her mother in the shoulder with a finger. "Huh?" Polly jerked and opened her eyes, squinting. "You're going to be late for work," said Fran tersely. The situation slammed into Polly's mind all at once ... late for work ... Brian next to her ... naked... "SHIT!" she gasped. "MOTHER!" chided Fran, watching interestedly as her mother moved and Brian's loins were exposed. "What are you doing here?" gasped Polly. "Waking you up ... duh!" giggled Fran. Somehow her mother's embarrassment made her feel better. "We're naked!" moaned Polly. "I can see that," said Fran calmly. "You're not SUPPOSED to see that." whined Polly. "Too late." laughed Fran. "Besides, I'm a big girl now." Brian had begun moving at the sound of voices. He opened his eyes and looked at Fran. "Uh oh." he said. "Morning Brian," said Fran sweetly. "Did you have a good time last night?" "Go away you horrible girl." moaned her mother. "Yes Mommy," said Fran mimicking a little girl. "You can still make it to work on time if you hurry." With a look over her shoulder she walked to the door and left, smiling. ------- At Gidget's house, things were almost as frantic. Sunny was worried that Val and Becca would ask all kinds of questions about why she hadn't come home. She was going to have to wear some of Gidget's clothing to make it to work on time herself. Gidget's job was more flexible, so she could be a little late. Bob got up with them and fixed breakfast for them while they got ready to leave. After perhaps a minute or two of embarrassment, both women adjusted and chatted like the sisters they actually were as they got ready. Both wolfed down breakfast, kissed Bob on the lips, and left, Gidget offering to drop Sunny off at her car. Bob was detailed to call Sunny's house and let the girls know everything was all right. He dialed Polly's number by accident, and Fran answered. "Hi!" she said brightly. "I was just thinking of you." "Oh ... sorry, I was supposed to call Val and let her know that ... never mind. I must have dialed the wrong number. I'm not used to trying to remember so many phone numbers." "You didn't dial the wrong number. Karma made you dial this number," said Fran. "I told you I was just thinking about you. What are you going to do today?" Bob had to think. "I have an appointment to see a builder and I thought I'd talk to a few Realtors to see what kind of land is available," said Bob. "Can I go with you?" asked Fran. "I'm bored." "Sure," said Bob. "Let me call Val and clean up breakfast dishes and I'll pick you up." He pressed the flash hook and the phone immediately rang. He lifted his finger. "Hello?" "Grandpa!" came Val's voice. "Where's my mother?" "She's fine," said Bob. "We stayed up late talking and she decided to just stay here. She went to work from here." "Oh," said Val. "We were worried when we got up and she wasn't here." "Well, don't worry, everything is fine," said Bob. "What are you doing today?" asked Val. That led to an explanation that he and Fran were going places, and Bob ended up picking up all three young women to take with him as he began to plan for his future home. ------- Just being Bob would have been enough to catch the attention of most people. Having three gorgeous young women with him just added to the mystique. He introduced them as his granddaughters as he went from place to place, which was jarring, considering his visual appearance of age. They, of course, giggled and looked fabulous. If somebody ever tells you that having a bunch of good looking women with you doesn't get you special attention, tell them they're crazy. The men Bob dealt with that day fell all over themselves to make sure that Bob Winkle was happy. Of course some of it might have been due to the fact that he was talking about high end purchases, but all that nubile young flesh didn't hurt things. By noon Bob had a list of properties to take a look at and an architect salivating at the prospect of designing what Bob wanted. ------- Just driving around in the Camaro with the girls got Bob a lot of jealous stares. The girls knew the area well enough that the six locations Bob wanted to look at were found with little trouble. Only two of them already had houses on them, but they were on parcels of five and seven acres. Three of the other four were undeveloped land. The last one was low in the foothills, and was a failed Winery. The business was about to declare bankruptcy and the owner was trying to sell the property before that happened, to prevent the land from being taken as an asset. Bob had seen a flier about the property at the Real estate agency and had asked about it on a whim. It was farthest from Circleton, in El Dorado county, and on another whim Bob decided to go there first. The girls ooed and ahed as he drove slowly up a gravel road to the old stone house that contained the show room and winery. Rows and rows of grape vines flowed by, symmetrical in overall appearance, but also obviously plants, which weren't the same. There was a small lake fed by runoff from the mountains. There was a huge old barn, painted red with white trim that would have looked perfectly placed in Wisconsin dairy country, and two cabin style houses, one built of logs, as well as various other outbuildings. There was also a tall stone house. Bob examined a copy of the flier he'd gotten. There were fifty-eight acres of land, seventeen of it planted in Pino Noir, Merlot, Zin and Sauv Blanc grapes. He had no idea what the different varieties meant. There was, apparently in the big stone house, a thousand square foot tasting room, a barrel room and a residence in the upper story. There was a fermentation barn, and equipment barn and a storage building for case goods. The capacity of the winery was currently listed at twelve thousand cases, with a notation that there was room for expansion. In addition there was a special events area with a redwood stage, pavilion, changing suites, pool and rest rooms. A studio guest cottage was included, whatever that was, and there were two apartments for employees listed at 532 square feet apiece. The asking price was seven and a half million. There was a cardboard sign tacked to the entrance of the parking lot that said "CLOSED". A woman dressed in a checkered shirt, faded jeans and cowboy boots was walking toward the steps that led to the wide covered porch of the stone building. She had on a sun-bleached baseball hat with a long pony tail hanging down from the back. She looked over at Bob and the girls as they climbed out of the convertible and walked toward them. She walked with the motions of a strong, confident woman. "We're closed." she said as she approached. All her exposed skin was nut brown, like she spent all day in the sun. "I see that," said Bob. He handed her the flier. "I might be interested in buying the place." She looked at the flier and then back at him. Then she looked at the girls, who were staring around at various things. "I'm Annie Montgomery. I'm the manager here. What do you know about wine?" she asked bluntly. "Nothing," said Bob. Annie looked up at the sky. "Not another one." she said under her breath. "I beg your pardon?" asked Bob. "The last person that bought this operation killed it." she said. It was obvious she was angry about it. "He doesn't know anything about wine either." "Actually, I'm looking for a place to locate my family. We'd like to go into business together. I never thought about a vineyard. I'm more looking for a place to build a family home." "There's lots of places in California to put a building," said Annie. She had a lot of work to do and wanted to blow this guy off, but she clamped down on her temper and stayed. "It's kind of a special family," said Bob. "Large. I need to be able to house fifteen or twenty people." Annie stared at him, and then at the three girls. "I'm Bob Winkle," said Bob. He held out his hand. "These are my granddaughters. Annie worked too hard to sit around and listen to the news, or watch TV, or read the paper. She was a go-getter who had grown up in wine country. She knew her business and had thought she would be happy once she had her own operation to manage. She knew she could produce good wine. The problem was that the man she had hired on for, and who had a good, if newly built operation, had fallen ill with cancer and died. His wife had sold the property, and the new owner had run it into the ground. He refused to listen to Annie, thinking that because he liked to drink wine, he could suddenly and magically be good at running a winery. Now as she was pushing twenty-seven years of age, Annie's dream was fading fast. It didn't make her any happier that another rookie had showed up. And a crazy one at that, if he expected her to believe that the tall dark haired girl was his granddaughter when she was obviously almost the same age as he was. "Well, you're entitled to call them whatever you want," said Annie, nodding to the girls. "Now ... if you don't know anything about wine, you probably don't want to buy this place. It had the potential to be a great vineyard. Right now, though, it would take two or three years to get the product up to standard and repair the damage the current owner has caused through his stupidity." "You don't mind calling them like you see them," said Bob, smiling. "I'm too busy to waste time trying to be polite," said Annie pointedly. "Well, like I said, I'm mostly looking for a place to build a family retreat. I suppose we could do something else with the land." Annie was shocked. This land was perfectly suited for growing grapes. Whenever she looked out over the vineyards and saw the rows and rows of what should have been carefully tended grapes, she wanted to cry. That was one of the things the new owner had screwed up. He was convinced that they had too many hands, and that grapes could grow just fine without all that daily primping and touching and clipping. He made her let go of half her crew, which put the grapes in serious trouble after a few months. That and his other cost-cutting measures had ruined three harvests and what few grapes they gathered were either too young, or too ripe because of the manpower shortages. Now this joker would tear out the plants and completely destroy something that could have been beautiful? "Look, mister," she said, holding her voice in check. "I don't know who you are, or where you came from, but if you try to buy this place just to tear it down, I'll do everything in my power to stop you." Bob felt like taking a step back. She spoke with a normal tone of voice, but he could hear the passion underlying it. "Maybe we got off to a bad start." he said. "Thanks for your time." They got back in the car and drove back down the lane. The girls chattered about what a bitch "that woman" had been until Bob reminded them that talking about her behind her back wasn't making them look much better. They found all the other locations with no trouble. Two were just undeveloped scrub, miles and miles from anywhere. One of the ones with a house on it was right on the highway and just the sound of vehicles whizzing by while they got out and looked around made them abandon it. The other house was on five acres, but was surrounded by developments. That land was four or five times the cost of the other places they had looked at. The owner obviously meant to sell to a developer. The last place had a spectacular view of the mountains, but the terrain was so steep that it would be difficult to build anything that wasn't supported by pylons, and that made Bob nervous. He kept thinking about the wide green valley, with the rows of grapes. They got back to town around four and Bob dropped Val and Becca off at their houses. Fran jumped up into the front seat as he drove toward Polly's house. "I found my mother in bed with that cop this morning." she said. It was the first time she had been alone with Bob. She hadn't wanted to talk about it in front of her cousins. Something in her voice made Bob perk up. "How did you feel about that?" he asked. "Oh, I know she deserves to have happiness and all that," said Fran. "But it made me think about you." Bob looked at her. "You don't say." Fran waved a hand. "I know you don't think I should be doing that, but I only did it with you and I haven't done it with anybody else, and I can't just forget about it." "It's still not a good idea." he said. "Oh, come on, I'm all fidgety inside. I know YOU get all the sex a man could want. It's not fair that I don't get just a little." They pulled up to Polly's house and he parked. "Your mother will be home in a little bit," said Bob. "Not for an hour. Please?" she batted her eyes at him. "We'll just to it a little bit ... just enough to make me feel better. Please?" she dragged out the last word. "I must be crazy." Bob signed, shaking his head. Fran yipped and vaulted over the door without opening it. "Come on" she said impatiently. "We have to hurry." Bob went inside, thinking about the best way to scratch her itch without causing a problem. He was going to have to start carrying a pocket full of rubbers around if these women didn't get on the pill. He decided that sitting in a straight backed chair while she straddled him would be the best way to minimize the sensation for him. Maybe he could get her off without getting off himself. She thought it was a delightfully strange way to make love and was soon hopping around stark naked, waiting for him to get the same way. She was a remarkably good looking girl, for one so young, and Bob had no trouble whatsoever getting erect. He was already hard when he dropped his pants and sat down on the chair. She bounded on top of him, rubbing her pussy against his balls and the base of his prick as she kissed him hungrily. Then she raised up and. already wet and well lubricated, slid down his shaft in a slow, smooth fashion. Her sigh of happiness was music to his ears. He leaned her back to give her tight sheath time to adjust and held her under her armpits while he suckled at her tender puffy nipples. She let her arms hand, and her head fell back as she told him how wonderful it felt. The only problem was that she was young and healthy, and could do things with her abdominal muscles that an older woman might not have been able to do. When she sat back up and grabbed his shoulders, she hunched forward. The tip of his prick drove into her cervix and she groaned. Her abs flexed again and she found that she could perform a rapid thrusting movement that battered the gates of her womb. The sensation was completely different from when she had been on top of him in bed. There, her clit was stimulated constantly. Here it was hardly touched. But the head of his glans, with its repeated assault on her cervix, replaced that sensation very nicely indeed. She all but stood up, taking almost all her weight on her squatting thighs and calves. Then, in a movement remarkably like that of a belly dancer, or hula girl, she flicked her hips forward and backward rapidly, fucking herself while he didn't even move. By the time Bob realized what she was doing was almost exactly like beating off, it was too late. She slammed against him and rubbed, keeping him deep as her orgasm made her knees go weak and she sat down, hugging him and hunching forward with the last of her strength as his prick bulged and a stream of newly made spunk blasted into her teenaged pussy. She wiggled enough that the tip of his cock peeked into her womb and flooded it with slippery white goo. His flicker of remorse was washed away by her happy moans as she thanked him and kissed him and wiggled some more. Yes, he was definitely going to have to stop at a gas station and spend a roll of quarters. They barely made themselves presentable before Polly got home. Bob intercepted her in the kitchen while Fran finished getting dressed. She walked into the kitchen with a bag of groceries in her arms. "Hi Daddy." she smiled. "It still seems so strange to call you that." "I sure like the sound of it better than 'grandpa'." he said. Fran came in, still flushed and looking excited. "Frannie, honey, there are more bags in the car. Would you go get them please?" Fran, happy now, bounced out of the room. Polly turned to Bob immediately. "She came into the bedroom this morning. Brian ... stayed over ... and she found us in bed together." "She told me about that," said Bob. "I don't know what to say to her," said Polly. "I don't think you need to say anything. She mentioned to me that you deserve to have happiness." "She said that?" asked Polly, wanting everything to be all right. "Yes. She's a little jealous though," said Bob. "I don't know why. She's probably got boys chasing her around all over the place." "True," said Bob. "Speaking of which, maybe it would be a good idea if you put her on the pill." Polly grimaced. "I've thought of that, but I don't think she's doing anything yet, and I haven't wanted to broach the subject with her." "You have to. If you wait then it could be too late," said Bob, hoping it wasn't already too late. "You're right." sighed Polly. "Me too, for that matter." She blushed. ------- Chapter 31 That night Gidget got a call from her mother, who playfully accused her of hogging Bob. "I know why you want him at your house." grumped Gidget. "He hasn't even been here a whole week." In the end, she agreed to send Bob to June's house the next day. That night she was especially ardent in her lovemaking with Bob. She thought it was because she would have to do without him for a while. That wasn't the real reason she felt the way she did, though. It had been too many years for her to remember she got especially horny when she was ovulating. ------- The next day Bob went back to the winery by himself. He found Annie in one of the barns, trying to get a big barrel up onto a rack. As he helped her move it into place she snarled about how machinery that was properly maintained would have done the job in less than a minute. That machinery was down at the moment and the owner wouldn't spend any money on it since he was selling the place. "If you treat all potential buyers like you treated me yesterday," Bob said, dusting off his hands, "it probably won't sell right away." Annie shot him a look, but just said "Thanks." for his help. "Do you have time to talk?" he asked. "No." she said bluntly. "Look, I like this place." said Bob. "I don't know anything about wine, but you do, right?" he asked. She nodded, fiddling with some tubes of some kind. "Yes." "Then why can't I buy the winery, and you run it, and I'll build my house and we'll both be happy?" "I told you, it's not a good investment right now." she said, looking up at him from her bent over position. "It will be at least two years and probably three before we get a money making crop in the bottle and ready to sell." "I'm not looking for an investment." said Bob. Annie stood up and turned to face him, her hands on her hips. "You're willing to borrow seven point five mil... just to have a place to build your house?" she was obviously skeptical. "And that's IF you can find a bank that will go for it." "I don't need a bank." said Bob. "I have the cash." Annie rocked back on her heels. This guy was just full of surprises. "And you'd trust me to run the operation... hands off?" "I'm willing to gamble with that." said Bob. "Without even knowing me?" she asked, incredulous. "With your attitude, you wouldn't have a job if you didn't know what you were doing." said Bob. Annie smiled for the first time since Bob had met her. She had a nice smile. "You call them pretty plainly too, don't you mister..." "Winkle." said Bob. "Mr. Winkle." she repeated. Her eyes narrowed. "If you're playing with me I'm gonna make it real uncomfortable for you." she warned. Bob leaned forward. "Do you want to run a world class winery... or not?" he asked. Annie felt a glimmer of hope for the first time in three years. "Yes, I do." she said finally. "Then do you have time to talk?" asked Bob. "I guess I do at that, Mr. Winkle." she said. "Bob." he said. "OK, Bob. You aren't the boss yet, but let's just sit a spell and see if maybe you have what it takes to be one." Annie led him to the porch of the big stone house and indicated a chair. They talked for three hours. Two employees came to ask her questions, which she dealt with rapidly and then returned to listing the needs of the business and peppering Bob with questions about what he'd be willing to spend to get the place back on its feet. Along the way he mentioned that just his name might have quite a bit of marketing value to their future product. "Why's that?" asked Annie. "I've never heard of you before." Bob laughed. "You have to be the only person in California who hasn't heard of me then." He chuckled. "It's kind of nice, actually. But don't worry about that. That's years in the future anyway, according to you. Maybe by then people will have forgotten who I am. So what do you think? Can we do this together?" That got her back on the subject she loved most - growing good grapes and making better wine. It wasn't until he was driving off down the lane that she remembered he hadn't said anything about why he was famous. That seemed odd. Most famous people wouldn't shut up about how important they were. She had seen hundreds of them come and go from the tasting rooms of the winery. Most of them felt like they deserved a discount on wine, since they would, naturally, mention it to their friends, or serve it at their fancy parties. Curious now, she turned and went into the house. She lived on the upper floor. The owner hadn't wanted to live on site. That was the only good thing about him. She sat down at the computer in her office and Googled "Bob Winkle" Five minutes later she gasped. "Well color me brown and call me shit faced!" It took another five minutes for her to remember that she hadn't gotten the phone number of her knight in shining armor. She cursed for another five minutes and, sighing, went back to work. she had some things to do to make sure nobody else bought the winery. ------- Bob waited until he got to June's house and then called Gus Gunderson. He got a recorded message that the phone number had changed and directing him to a web site for more information. Gus' part of the insurance company settlement, fifteen percent of twenty million dollars, had changed his whole life, making him an instant millionaire. Most people would have chucked everything except spending money. But Gus was a lawyer and he knew he could be a good one. He loved justice as a concept and now that he didn't have to take anything that came his way just to pay rent, he was able to take on cases wherein he saw the actual possibility that he could help justice get done. Never having had much money, and being married to Margie, who was even more fiscally conservative, he banked his windfall and then made a few changes that he knew he could justify. He relocated his office to a new building, got new furniture and hired a researcher. He had given two interviews to the media and they had generated more work for him in a week than he'd had in the previous six months. He didn't know if it was going to last, but if it did he'd need a partner pretty soon. He'd offered to let Margie stay home if she wanted, but she didn't. She was used to being his secretary and liked being able to be with him most of the time. He was as busy as a one-legged man in a jump rope contest, but he liked it that way. He'd lost six pounds, partially because he was on the go a lot more, but also because there was no Dippy Doo Donut shop right next door. There was a Starbucks, and what passed for a bakery, but you couldn't go in either place with a ten dollar bill and come out with enough to call a cab. He HAD money... but he didn't spend it wastefully. He found out that having money meant you had lots of new best friends, or at least people who told you you were their best friend. Suddenly all manner of hoity toity organizations, some based in the legal profession, but most not, invited him to be a member. He must have thrown out ten or fifteen people who had the secret stock tip that would turn his three million into a hundred and three million overnight. He was suddenly a lot more attractive to women too, mostly good looking high maintenance women who came in with some trifling legal problem and tried to seduce him right in front of his wife. They got told he was just too busy to take their case. He looked up from a brief he was preparing to see Margie signaling him frantically. She still wasn't used to an actual intercom. The phone she had looked like one of those remote controls that handled the TV, VCR, DVD player, Stereo and probably the electric can opener too for all he knew. "It's Bob." she mouthed in an exaggerated and silent over-pronunciation. Gus looked at his phone, which was simpler than Margie's, but still lit up like a Christmas tree from time to time. Thankfully only one line was lit. He picked up the phone. "Bob!" he said jovially. He listened for a second. "Bob? Can you hear me Bob?" He remembered that Margie had to put a caller on hold before he could answer. He started to yell at her, but then thought she might hang up on Bob in the process of transferring the call. It had happened before. He got up and went to her, taking the phone from her and scowling. Margie shrugged and stuck out her tongue at him. "Bob!" he said into the phone. "How's my favorite client?" He listened for a few minutes and then signaled for paper and pen. He scribbled on the paper. Even Margie couldn't read it. "What's the address?... Who's the broker?... No problem Bob. I've got your back... OK... And Bob? Thanks." He handed the phone back to his wife. He looked at her. "Is your Real Estate license still current?" he asked. She blinked and nodded. "I think so." she said. Margie had gone to night school while Gus was still working his former job, to get her Realtor's license. It had been something she liked, but actually getting into an agency without most of your commission going to the broker was difficult, especially in California. The field was overstocked with eager young people who would do anything to make a sale, including cheat, lie and steal if that helped. She had given it up after six months, disgusted with the morals of the people she had to work with. Her one sale had netted her a whopping $350.00 after the broker took out his commission and "employment costs" since she was a new hire. The overall commission had been over eight grand. "Bob wants to buy a vineyard." said Gus. "He wants us to represent him and make sure he's not doing anything stupid." Gus gave Margie the information and told her to go do her thing. She'd only been gone ten minutes before he was pulling his hair out due to the phone and a walk-in who wanted to know if Gus could catch a wife having adultery. He called a temp service, who sent over a bright young college girl. She played the phone like it was a concert piano. Within an hour he had decided to hire her permanently. Margie would just have to get used to being the Real Estate branch of Gus Gunderson, Attorney At Law. ------- Margie knew all the steps to take to evaluate and appraise the property in question. It took her four hours, but she got all the information she felt was needed. The property was overpriced, based on the quantity of wine it was permitted to produce, the acres of planted land and their comparison to other vineyards in the area. Public records didn't have actual numbers on the profits being generated by a private business, but there were lots of indicators, and this outfit didn't look like it was making much money. Two of the licenses needed had expired, and had not been renewed since. Technically, they shouldn't be doing any business at all. The last fire inspection had been passed, but was marginal with "concern with reference to inoperable electric equipment and questionable maintenance on electrical systems" being noted in the explanation block. The Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms inspection, which included comments by a health inspector, was pristine with all blocks marked "exceeds standards". She closed the book she was examining in the county tax office and checked her notes. Next would be a site visit. ------- When she got back to the office there was a marital tiff, as some people call it. Margie didn't much care to see a sweet young thing sitting in her chair, hands flashing, cheery voice talking to people on the phone and electronic messages being routed all over the place. When Gus explained his plan to have her more or less establish a Real Estate law arm in the company, she felt better, and then felt panic. She knew Gus didn't understand much about real estate law, and she had only the most basic of grasps. She could do the paperwork for transactions, but there was much more to doing real estate law than just transactions. Gus agreed to make some calls and see if there was a promising young real estate attorney coming out of any of the law schools in the area. The next morning Margie drove up to the winery. She met Annie, who was ecstatic to find out she represented Bob. They sat on the porch and without any shame whatsoever, Annie detailed the minor sabotage she had performed on the property. She didn't admit that she had done the things that had been done. She just listed the reasons that the business wasn't worth the money being asked. Then Margie got the tour. "Most of this would be relatively easy to put right, wouldn't it?" she asked after a time. "Yes, it would require some investment, but I'd estimate that it could be repaired or brought up to speed for fifty or sixty thousand dollars." said Annie. "And you'd be staying on to run the operation?" asked Margie. "Yes, if Bob buys it, and does what he said he'd do I'll stay. I'd need to rehire my full crew though." said Annie. "I already told him that." The sat back down and went through the numbers again as Margie took notes. When it was all done the bottom line for doing everything it would take over a two year period to get the winery producing again, came out to a little more than two million dollars. Margie shook hands with Annie, packed up her notes and left. ------- It took two weeks, but Gus found middle aged woman named Tammy who was about to graduate from the same law school he had gotten his degree from. Her passion was real estate law. He actually interviewed three other prospects too, but when he talked to Tammy he felt a kindred spirit. She was a single mother, of African descent, and had three teenagers still at home. She had managed to go to school and work two jobs and her kids still didn't get into trouble. He had her look over Margie's prospectus on the vineyard. She immediately started asking questions and Gus called Margie in to answer them. Twenty minutes later Tammy said that it looked very well done, and looked like a realistic offer, as long as the buyer had the capital to make the improvements and wait out the two year dead time. Tammy's first job as a new employee of the office was to negotiate the purchase of the winery. ------- Bob just happened to be in the process of stuffing Betty full of hard prick when his cell phone went off on the night stand next to them. He ignored it. Betty and what they were doing was more important than any phone call he could think of. The device would take a message anyway. When Betty lay limp, a silly smile on her face, her pussy oozing thick white cum, Bob sat up and listened to the voice mail. When it was done he turned to Betty. "We need to have another family meeting." he said. ------- They got everyone together the next night, which was Friday. Val, Polly and Becca all complained that they had dates and wanted to miss the meeting. Bob insisted they all be there and said it wouldn't take long to decide the issue. They came dressed to thrill, almost sparkling next to the other women who were dressed in shorts and T shirts or whatever. Fran was with them. Fran sidled up to Bob and whispered in his ear. "Mom put me on the pill." He swatted her butt and she danced back giggling. Bob got right to it. He talked about the winery and the three younger women chimed in occasionally with comments. One of them was about the "surly woman" they had met. Bob explained that had been dealt with, and she would be surly no more. Tammy had gotten the asking price down to five million, using the data that Margie had gathered, with the exception of the fact that they knew the winery could not actually produce anything at present. That bit of information was held back in case the owner wanted to play hardball. He didn't. He was strapped for cash and was eager to sell. He'd take a loss on the investment, but he could write that off, and he had plans for the five million that he was convinced would make him a lot more. He had a hot tip on a group that guaranteed they would have the secret to fusion power within eighteen months, and he was going to make a killing by investing all five mil. "So," Bob said when he was finished describing the deal. "Does this sound like something you all could get excited about?" There was low key chatter as people talked to other people. Love being what it is, Val, Polly and Becca were all enthusiastic for two or three minutes. "Can I go now?" they asked almost as one. Martha snorted. "You all go off and play with your little boys or whatever. Just remember you're going to have to live with what we decide. Val kissed her mother on the cheek and then kissed Bob too. "I trust you." she said. The end result was that all the women agreed to try the wine business. Bob called Tammy and told her to go ahead. She made arrangements with him to set up an escrow account. After that she and Margie would handle everything. ------- "I want to tell people we're getting married." said Val as she walked along with Zack. They had just been to a play and were enjoying the fresh night air. Her slim hand rested on the inside of his elbow as they walked along. "You mean you haven't already?" he asked. Val held up her left hand, wagging her ring finger back and forth silently. Zack flushed. "Oh yeah. I guess a ring would be appropriate, huh." Val elbowed him. "I can't believe you didn't think about that." she pouted. Zack stuffed his hand in his pocket and kept walking. "Hey, this is me. I'm a guy. Take me or leave me." he said. She elbowed him again, leaning into him with her shoulder. "Oh, I'm going to take you all right." she said. "are you trying to weasel out on me?" Zack pulled his hand out of his pocket. A small black velvet covered box was in it. "No." he said calmly. "And I didn't forget. I just had to save up." He waved the box in front of her eyes. "Bet you can't guess what's in here." he taunted. Val squealed and grabbed for the box. Zack whipped his hand to the side and stepped back from her, shifting the box from one hand to the other. At one point she was all over him and he simply held the box in the small of her back with his hand over it as she struggled with him. "Oh please, Zack, honey, I'm sorry. I should have known you wouldn't forget. Show me... please?" Her please was punctuated by cupping his groin and squeezing his balls gently. He was only too aware she could squeeze a lot harder and he immediately brought the box around and between them. She grabbed it and stepped back. Her other hand went to the cover... and stopped. She looked at him and then at the box. "What's wrong?" he asked. "Open it." "It's been a dream... up until now." she said softly. "You asked me to marry you, but I think I didn't really believe it. But if there's a ring in here that's going to make it real. I'm scared Zack." "You want me to put it back in my pocket?" he asked, smiling. "NO!" she took another step back. "I love you." said Zack. "I still have no idea what you see in me, but I don't think I can live without you." Val felt her whole body flush with warmth. She opened the box. It had cost Zack almost two months salary. He'd had to dip into his savings to cover it. But the look on her face was worth every penny. Her mouth opened and closed and then opened and closed again as her eyes got to be the size of half dollars. She stuttered, and then stammered and then burst into tears, trying to wipe them away with the back of her hand and get the ring out at the same time. She was blubbering so hard she couldn't get the ring to go on and he had to step in and grab her hands. He guided her hand and the ring slipped onto her ring finger. He'd guessed right and it slid over her knuckle and seated perfectly on the flesh at the base of her finger. He reached for a handkerchief and silently thanked his mother for training him to carry one. She wiped her nose with one hand, waving the hand with the ring on it in front of her face the whole time. "It's... b-b-b-beautiful." she wailed, tears streaming down her face. "I... sob love it... hic" she bawled. Then she tried to tackle him. He got her calmed down enough to get her in the car. "Your house?" he asked, assuming she'd want to show off the rock. "Uh, uh" she said, shaking her head and holding her hand at arm's length. "Your house." She admired the ring all the way home, paying him no attention at all. She waited for him to let her out of the car, and then took his arm, exactly like she had before he gave her the ring, and walked up to the front door with him. When they were inside, she pulled him directly to the bedroom. There, she went wild again, tearing at his clothes and popping buttons until she got him naked, and then slipping out of her clothes even more quickly. She rode him mercilessly, concentrating on using her muscles and not even trying for her own orgasm, until he gave her the other thing she wanted to go along with the ring - a pussy full of hot spunk. ------- Becca got out of the shower and toweled off. She looked critically in the mirror. She tried to suck in her stomach, but she couldn't make the gentle swell go away any more. She was going to have to tell Denny... and the world at large soon. She was terrified. She was terrified that Denny would dump her. She was terrified that her mother would yell at her to both because she got pregnant in the first place and because she hadn't been to the doctor yet. She was terrified that the only people who would still love her were her cousins. She knew which adult she would tell first though. Polly would understand. Polly would be upset, but she would understand. She had been on the same dates that had led to the wild sex that everyone would think was responsible for the baby in her belly. Polly had also lost control and rutted like an animal on a blanket in the woods. Polly would understand. ------- Polly got out of the shower and toweled off. She looked critically in the mirror. She had a little pooch just below her navel since Fran was born. No matter how she tried she couldn't get that area to flatten back out. Brian loved to play with it, running his hand over it. He hadn't said anything about noticing it was larger. He'd notice pretty soon. Everybody would. When she'd missed her first period she had just chalked it up to aging, though in her heart she knew she was too young for the change to be taking place, even precursors of the change. She was thirty-nine, and well within the window of her upper childbearing years. She ran her hand over the swell and wondered already what the baby would be like. Fran had been the joy of her life, and had taken her through the tough years when Roger had come out of the closet and she'd lost her only lover. Would she lose her new lover over this? She didn't think so. She hadn't intentionally not thought about divorce and moving, and trying to negotiate her own emotional minefield about remarriage, much less talking about it with Brian. He was so young and fresh. She could understand perfectly why he might be less than thrilled at the idea of being tied down to a woman, child or not. Then again, she'd never had a relationship with a complete man... so in a way, she had no idea what a complete man might think or do. One thing was clear though. Brian was a complete man. She'd have to tell him soon. She'd have to tell Fran too, and that would be hard. She had been irresponsible and that would set a bad example for Fran. The family would give her fits too. Her mother would probably have a heart attack. She knew who she'd tell first, though. She and Becca had a special relationship now. Double dating had brought this all about, and regardless of what Brian might do, she couldn't be unhappy about the outcome. Fran had been precious. This baby would be precious too. She padded to the bedroom and picked up the phone. ------- "Hello?" "Becca?" "Aunt Polly. I was just going to call you." "I need to talk to you." "Me too. I need to talk to you too." "Go get some ice cream with me?" "Sure. I just got out of the shower. I'll get dressed." "How about that? I just got out of the shower too. I'll be there in twenty minutes." Thirty minutes later, inside the local Dairy Queen, patrons were startled by two screams. A banana split slid off the table from between the two women who had screamed, as they lurched up out of their seats and tried to hug each other across the table. A teenage boy was dispatched to clean up the spill, and a new banana split was prepared for the younger woman, who was crying and smiling at the same time while the older woman patted her hand and cried right along with her. ------- Chapter 32 It was complicated crying that Polly and Becca shared. The emotions that raced through them in little bits and pieces, from different directions, were a little like being in a bumper car at the fair. You got hit from a lot of different directions at the same time. It was partly release of the stress of keeping something secret, part acceptance from each other, part fear of the future and there was a little bit of happiness thrown in too. Neither woman was actually unhappy about the fact that any of the potential fathers had made a baby. Neither woman would have ever thought of doing anything to become "un" pregnant, not counting delivering the child. For Polly, who had gone through this before, and knew more or less what to expect, the thought that a man she loved had created life in her was thrilling. Becca, less sure about her relationship, none the less couldn't help but be excited that her potential as a woman was being fully realized. And so, eventually, the emotions of the moment abated to a more managable level, and the crying stopped. "You have to tell your mother." said Polly. "You need prenatal care. We'll go get that started together." Becca nodded. Her eyes still glistened, but she felt better already just with Polly knowing and being in the same situation. "And you have to tell Denny. I have to tell Brian. We can do that together too." "But..." whined Becca. "No buts. You should have told him as soon as you knew. He deserves that. I'm going to tell Brian as soon as I can." "That's easy for you." said Becca. "He already said he'd marry you if you got pregnant." "I'm already married and those were the words of a man in the throes of lust." said Polly. "I've already raised a girl alone, and I'm not worried about it." She patted Becca's hand again. "You, on the other hand, could make a life with Denny, but it must be a life based on honesty. I know only too well how being dishonest can screw things up. Besides, as I recall, Denny said he'd marry you too if you got pregnant." "No, he got mad at me for not taking things seriously. He said he'd want to be in the baby's life, but he didn't say he'd marry me. I think he's going to be mad at me for not taking precautions." "Precautions are the responsibility of both partners." said Polly, "Though the consequences weigh far more heavily on the woman. In that sense, she has more responsibility. Even so, you have to tell him." "OK." said Becca finally. She felt better about that too. At least it would be over with and she'd know what was going to happen. "First thing tomorrow morning I'll tell Mom. I can't go home right now and ruin her whole night." "You want me to be there with you for that too?" "No. I'll do it. She'd just yell at you. You were supposed to keep me out of trouble, remember?" She didn't say it in an accusatory manner. It was just a fact. Polly snorted. "Who'd have thought that a double date would lead to a double pregnancy?" She grinned. ------- Gidget woke up feeling out of sorts. She had been tired the night before and, since Becca was off with Polly doing something, she had gone to bed early. She got up and wished she hadn't. She must be coming down with something. She decided to take a shower. That always made her feel better. She got out of the shower and dried off, examining herself critically in the mirror. Of the three women her age, she ran the most, played basketball at the YWCA one night a week and was more vain about her body than either of her cousins. She looked in the mirror as she ruffled her hair. Her hair was straight and short and all she had to do was partially dry it and then comb it straight down and let it dry naturally. She turned sideways to see if her breasts were sagging. She had looked at her breasts thousands of times. Nowadays, though, they looked different to her for some reason. They had returned to being a source of sexual pleasure now that Bob played with them and sucked at their tips. She smiled, suddenly glad she had them, and that he loved them. Her eyes dropped lower. Her belly was hanging out a little. She straightened her back to correct the bad posture that caused that little problem... but she still had a slight bulge. The sensation in her stomach drove her to the toilet about the same time her brain woke up and said "HE-LLO!" She didn't throw up, but she could see her face reflected in the water of the commode. It was wavery. When the urge to toss her cookies passed, she stood back up and looked in the mirror again. When was her last period? She tried to think. She didn't pay much attention to them, being lucky that they were always easy. It was just another thing she had to do four or five days out of the month... nothing special... nothing even interesting. She opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out the box from the place she always kept it. She and Becca used out of the same box. The last time she'd had a period it had ended on the day she used the last tampon in one box. She had put the new box in its place, but hadn't opened it. She remembered that inane fact as she pulled the box down from the shelf. The cellophane wrapping the box glinted in the light. It was untouched. For the life of her she could not remember when her last period was. She didn't mark them on the calendar any more. In the past she didn't care. She didn't plan anything around her periods. When they came... they came. She dealt with them and moved on. After a while another one would come along. It had been that way for years and years and years. She put on a pair of panties and went out into the house, trying to find some way to figure out when her last period was. There was nothing. She stood in the living room, topless, just thinking. When was her first date with Bob? That had been a Friday night. She replayed the night in her head. She had just renewed her driver's license earlier in the day. She went to her purse and dug out her billfold. She pulled the license out and looked at the date of issue. Her jaw dropped. It was three months in the past. She thought about that. She hadn't had a period the whole time she and Bob had been... practicing to date. To put it another way... she hadn't had a period in three months! Feeling sick at her stomach again, she went back to the bathroom. She ran her hand over the swell of her abdomen. She had known it would be possible, but she hadn't believed it could happen to her. The first thing she thought of was that she was a product of the same sperm that had impregnated her. If she hadn't known that, she would have been unable to face her mother and aunts. But THEY would understand. THEY had done exactly the same thing. Ever pragmatic, Gidget didn't spend time worrying about what could not be undone. Her mind was already at work rationalizing what she had done. In one sense, she was carrying on a time honored, though secret, family tradition. Even her cousins might be able to handle it. Sunny would freak and count the days until her next period, but when it came she'd relax. Polly hadn't seemed all that upset about being the product of incest, so maybe she'd take it OK too. Now... what to do about telling Becca... ------- Becca woke up feeling better than she had in a long time. Talking to Polly and setting things in motion had helped her mentally. She might as well get it over with. If her mom kicked her out, she'd need all day to find someplace else to go and get together some things to take wherever that was. She got up and went to the bathroom to take a shower first. She pushed open the door and found her mother standing there, dressed only in panties, staring in the mirror, her hand on her abdomen, like she had a stomach ache. Gidget's head swiveled and she looked startled. "Oh." she said. It didn't sound like surprise, exactly. In fact, it had a distinctly odd sound to it. Mother and daughter looked at each other. As if they'd rehearsed it, they said together: "We have to talk." There was that tight laughter that goes with such a situation, when something is funny, but neither person is in the mood to appreciate the humor in the situation. "Take your shower." said Gidget. "I'll get something ready for breakfast. We can talk then." Becca enjoyed her reprieve and her shower ran over just a little. She brushed her teeth and combed her hair, like her mother did. It was longer, but when it dried it would just hang straight. When she got to the kitchen Gidget had put on a T shirt, but that was all. Becca had on gym shorts and a T shirt as well. Two bowls of cereal were on the table, along with bananas. Becca looked at the banana. The last time she'd confessed to being pregnant, a banana was involved too. She suddenly thought of Denny's penis, and compared it to the banana lying by her bowl. She couldn't help but smile. "What did you want to talk about?" asked Gidget. "No you first." said Becca. "Sweetheart, after what I tell you, you might not want to talk to me for a while. Let's get whatever is on your mind out of the way first. Then we'll both get to talk." Becca felt her throat get tight. There was nothing for it but to just get it over with. "I'm pregnant." she said carefully. Becca expected any number of things to happen. She had played and replayed them in her mind a hundred times. She mentally steeled herself for anger, shame, embarrassment, a lecture, or any of various kinds of things to happen. What she was NOT prepared for, was for her mother's mouth to drop open, and then for her mother to laugh. Becca hadn't been there when Gidget went on her laughing jag at the suggestion that she go on a date with her grandfather. Becca had, not to put too fine a point on it, been out getting pregnant... if she wasn't already pregnant by Bob. But Becca HAD seen her mother do this on more than one occasion. Gidget had a finely tuned sense of humor and irony, and when her giggle box was well and truly knocked over, and all those giggles spilled out, she was helpless to stop herself. It was like that now. Gidget held her stomach and laughed great wracking sobs of belly laughs, barely able to get a breath. Part of it was that she was experiencing a sudden release of anxiety, and the emotion flowed out of her body with her laughter. Part of it was because of the irony of the whole situation. Where Polly and Becca had cried the night before, Gidget released the tension by laughing. Becca sat and waited patiently. You had to just wait for Gidget to run out of steam when she got like this. Her mother got the hiccups as she began to get control of the laughter, and they made her more or less helpless too for a while. The only way to get rid of them was to hold her breath, and she couldn't do that because she was still gasping for air and occasionally trying to laugh again. Finally Gidget stood up, turned sideways to her daughter, pulled her T shirt tightly across her abdomen and let her bulge show. "So... hee hee heehic... am I." hic Becca stared at her mother. She wasn't prepared for this either. She looked at the bulge in her mother's abdomen and realized it looked almost exactly like her own. She stood up and pulled her shirt tight across her own abdomen and then went to stand in front of her mother. They stared down at each other's bulges, and then at their own. It was while they were doing that that it penetrated into Becca's head that the only man her mother had spent any time alone with was... Bob. "Mom..." she started. "Did you know that grandpa has been having sex with grandma and Aunt Martha and Aunt Betty?" Gidget sobered. "How did you know that?" she asked. "He told me so." said Becca. "What? When?" "When I made him help me learn about what it was like to have sex." said Becca. Gidget's eyes went wide. "You can't be serious. He's your great grandfather!" Becca nodded. "And he's YOUR grandfather." She looked at her mother's belly meaningfully. Gidget's brain felt like it was being squeezed for a second, and then the pressure was gone. She looked at her daughter, who suddenly looked like an adult, instead of her little girl. "Yours is Bob's too?" she asked. "I don't know for sure." said Becca. "I've been with Denny too." Gidget sighed. "That was the whole idea of having Polly along! She was supposed to keep you from giving in to your hormones." "Actually, it was too late by then." said Becca. "I gave in to them with Grandpa." "That bastard." said Gidget heatedly. "He seduced you and then he seduced me too!" "I don't know about you, but he certainly didn't seduce me. I had to blackmail him into doing anything at all, and then it took me all kinds of work to actually get him to... you know." Becca looked at her mother. "It really wasn't his fault... except that I liked him and I felt safe with him." Gidget's manufactured anger melted away. "It was the same with me." she said. "If I'd have said no, I wouldn't be pregnant." Mother and daughter sat down and talked for two hours, sharing things that brought them much closer together. At one point Gidget said that one nice thing about this whole sordid affair was that she and Becca could go to the doctor together. Becca laughed. "I'm not supposed to tell you this, but I have to. Do you swear to act surprised when you hear it somewhere else?" Gidget crossed her heart and then went through remembered motions from her childhood as she hoped to die and stick a thousand needles in her eye if she broke her promise. "Aunt Polly's pregnant too. She told me the same thing... that we could go to the doctor together." "Please don't tell me Bob knocked her up too." moaned Gidget. "I don't think so." said Becca. "I think Brian has that role locked up pretty tight. And she's about as far along as I am, we think, so it might even have happened the first time we... well, you know." Then Gidget wanted to know when that was, and what the circumstances were. She saw the irony in her daughter getting pregnant while her mother was being talked into going on a date with her grandfather, who would eventually get HER pregnant too. Becca broke her promise to her cousins once she and her mother got going, admitting that both of them had done things while he slept, and then later while he was awake. She was careful to say that Val wouldn't have intercourse with him, because she was being true to Zack, and that, as far as she knew, the only time he'd done it with Fran was when he was ambushed in the middle of the night at the cabin. That led Gidget to confess that she'd gotten Sunny laid by Bob on purpose. That jarred Gidget's memory and she sat back in the chair. "I'm not supposed to tell you this either... at least I don't think I am... but the fact is that your grandmother and her sisters were having sex with him the whole time he was asleep." "I told you, I know that." said Becca. "Did he tell you they got pregnant?" Becca didn't understand at first. "Of course they got pregnant. They had you and Polly and Sunny and Uncle Jim and Uncle Frank and... It clicked. Her eyes went wide. "He's your... father?" Her voice was almost a whimper on the last word. Gidget just nodded. For lack of anything else to do, and partly from the shock of it all, they started taking stock of just who all had had sex with Bob. Together, they figured out that only Val and Polly seemed to be immune from Bob's less than aggressive charms. The 20th Century woman in them both bridled at a man who had what amounted to a harem. At the same time it wasn't a harem, he collected, really. It was a harem that adopted him. And, the pregnant woman in them celebrated their sisterhood, and the thing they shared, that no other women, at least women outside the family, were being offered. Bob Winkle was a special man, and his women were special too. Becca called Polly and pretended to cry into the phone, begging Polly to come over and talk to her mother, who was going to throw her out. Polly stormed into the house ten minutes later, ready to do battle. What she found was two topless women, standing side by side in profile to her, Gidget slightly in front of Becca, hands behind their backs. Both had the slightest of twin swells that didn't look like belly fat. Polly wasn't stupid. She laughed and sat down to talk. ------- "If the man said he'd marry you you'd be crazy not to do it." said Gidget to Polly. "Oh, I'm too set in my ways to divorce Roger and go through all that. What would happen to Fran? Would I have to pay alimony, or would he? It's too much trouble. I can just keep on seeing Brian. He doesn't seem to mind that." "What about Denny?" Gidget turned to her daughter. "We're going to tell them on a double date tonight." said Becca. ------- For their date the men took the women to the Haggin Museum, in Stockton, forty-five miles south of Sacramento. They went there not only to enjoy the art and history in the fabulous museum, but also to experience the myriad of canals and waterways of the state's largest inland seaport. The women had agreed to seize whatever moment presented itself to deliver their news. It was, despite the women's tension, a relaxing and enjoyable outing. By now all four were friends, in addition to the more passionate pursuits they practiced. The men couldn't have known they were setting themselves up so perfectly that it would later seem almost spooky. Maybe fate played a part. Who knows? In the museum there was a guest exhibit. It had arrived only recently, and this was the first day it was on display. It was a traveling show of paintings, drawings and photographs of women in the blush of pregnancy. One of Denny's favorites was a photograph of a woman on a swing. She was at the apex of the forward motion of the swing, leaning back with her legs out straight. The lines of her overall body and the chains that held the swing were straight, while her swollen belly protruded in stark contrast to those straight lines. She was wearing a dress, and it was twirled in the wind around her knees, and stretched tautly across her belly. Part of the exhibit was a rare collection of historical styles of maternity clothing. There were dresses from the eighteen hundreds, with panels over the abdomen that could be replaced bu larger panels as the pregnancy progressed. Placards explained that dresses were expensive in those days, and a woman couldn't afford to simply change her wardrobe when she was with child. The ingenuity of women to make clothing serve double duty was fascinating. "You'd look good in that one." quipped Brian, pointing to a severe looking dress with a high lacy neckline. It was black and looked like it weighed ten pounds with the full length voluminous skirts. "Funny you should say that." said Polly, seizing the moment as if it had been planned that way all along. "It turns out I'm pregnant." Her comment was made in the same tone as the previous conversation, and even Becca almost missed it. There was a three second delay as the information was processed. "Ha, ha." said Brian finally. "Me too." blurted Becca. "I'm pregnant too." It was the king, or possibly the queen of awkward... dare I say... pregnant moments. Standing there in the hushed and reverent atmosphere, both men struggled to determine whether the statements were part of some joke the women were playing on them... or not. The women watched their men closely, trying to determine whether the news was being received with positive or negative emotions. "Pardon me," said Denny, turning to face Becca. "Could you repeat that please?" Becca clasped her hands over her belly, which looked completely normal in the loose Lakers jersey she had worn. "Polly and I are both with child. We're going to have babies." said Becca. "We're both about three months along." said Polly. "We should have told you sooner but... well, to be honest... we were both a little afraid." It was a classic deer-in-the-headlights moment as both men stood rooted to the terrazzo floor, frozen like mannequins. Talking about pregnancy is a whole different animal than being confronted with it in reality. The CONCEPT that a woman has life growing inside her, and that you are half responsible for that life is one that can be viewed philosophically. Being told that that life actually exists inside the woman standing in front of you... that you're going to be a father... that calls for a more pragmatic response. Brian moved first. He also spoke first. "This is a GOOD thing... ," The first part of his comment sounded positive. "... isn't it?" The last part sounded less sure. "That depends on how you feel about it." said Polly. "I feel pretty good about it." "Pretty good? PRETTY GOOD?!" Brian's voice rose to the point that other patrons turned to look at the disturbance. "This isn't pretty good... THIS IS GREAT! I'M GONNA BE A DADDY!" Now everybody in the facility was taking an interest in them, including a security guard who was hurrying toward them to quell the disturbance. Denny's response was more sedate, but just as effusive. He swept a wide-eyed and nervous Becca up in his arms and put a lip lock on her that took her breath away. The security guard, a fifty-two year old man who hadn't moved faster than a snail's pace in fifteen years, approached huffing and puffing. "Here, now!" he said urgently. "You can't do that here." Denny ignored him. He wasn't finished kissing Becca. Brian argued. "This woman is going to have my baby!" he said excitedly. "My first! We're going to have a whole ball team!" he laughed and grabbed Polly in a hug, lifting her off the floor and swinging her around in a circle. Her feet whacked the security guard's shins and she squeaked. Brian set her down and looked concerned. "I'm sorry! Are you OK? I didn't hurt the baby did I?" Denny finally let a faint Becca breathe as he pulled his lips an inch away from hers. She panted from the emotion of the moment. "You should have told me." he whispered. "I've missed out on months of happiness. You will, of course, marry me." He didn't sound like a man resigned to doing the right thing. He sounded like a man saying something like "You say you're starving? I have food. Of course you'll eat it." Becca, flustered beyond measure by his response, felt tears spilling over as her pent up fear and anguish was released. She nodded her head frantically, unable to speak. She got kissed again. The security guard didn't know what to do. This wasn't something he'd ever anticipated as he stood bored to tears, day after day, looking at people, who were looking at the walls. These people, despite being loud, didn't seem to be endangering the art or anything. He turned to look at the small crowd that stood apart, but formed a group with similar intent just by watching the events and smiling. "Um... go on folks. There's no problem here." he said. Polly felt an infusion of something that threatened to overwhelm her. Roger hadn't been this happy when she told him about Fran's impending birth. Brian was like a kid in a candy store. "No, you didn't hurt the baby." she giggled. "What do we do now?" asked Brian anxiously. "We have to get married!" "I'm already married." said Polly. "You know that." "Then we have to get divorced!" said Brian. He blinked. "YOU have to get divorced. I can't marry you until you get divorced. That would be bigamy. They'd put me in jail." He blinked. "No, they'd put YOU in jail! They'd put you and my BABY in jail! You have to get divorced Polly!" he said urgently. Polly's euphoria rose with every silly thing he said. Nobody had ever been so wild about her that he couldn't even talk intelligently. Her impulse not to rock the boat... to stay in the life that was comfortable, if not rewarding... was being rattled. "We'll see." she said. "So you're happy about this?" She laughed at her own silly statement. The rest of the date was more or less a jump from one irrational reaction to another. First the men rushed them out of the museum and to an ice cream shop to celebrate. After all, pregnant women love ice cream, right? Then they stood in front of closed jewelry store fronts, gazing at rings on display. After that they dashed back to Sacramento, trying to make plans all the way, talking about where they would live and when they could get married. Polly kept trying to defuse Brian, knowing that divorce proceedings could be lengthy, especially if Roger didn't want to cooperate. But all in all it was a fairy tale evening, as they assumed impossible things could happen easily, and they made plans as if money were no object, or that jobs and school wouldn't interfere with the happiness they were all feeling. They went back to Denny's apartment, where the men toasted with Scotch, and denied the women anything stronger than ginger ale, which Denny kept around to mix with the Scotch occasionally. Some serious necking developed, which led to clothing getting very loose and then falling off. Their skinny dipping session in the mountains had made them a lot less constrained together than most couples would have been and it wasn't much of a stretch to get them to Denny's bedroom, which had a queen sized bed in it. Becca and Polly lay beside each other, holding hands, as the fathers of their babies made love to them in the culmination of the celebratory night. It was three in the morning before Polly remembered to call Fran, and Becca called her mother. ------- Chapter 33 Bob left Martha's bed, trying not to wake her up. For whatever reason he had been able to go for a long time with her the night before, and their lovemaking had lasted long past her normal bedtime. He loved looking at all his daughters as they lay naked in bed. He wondered if that was how they had felt as they watched him lying naked in bed all those years. He hoped so. It was a good feeling, and the trouble they'd gone to, to care for him all those years needed to be repaid somehow. He drove to the architect's office and told him about the winery. He watched in silent amazement as the man manipulated the computer to produce satellite images of the property. There was a large printer in the office and, when the man was done, they had a bird's eye view of the whole operation. It looked huge on the three foot by five foot print. "This image is three years old," said the Architect. "When you were there did you see any major additions or changes to what's on this print?" They went over each building and Bob was able to state with relative certainty that nothing major had been changed. Then they discussed where to locate a new structure so that it would fit in with the existing buildings and be separate from the primary traffic areas of the winery. "What's this here?" asked the man, pointing. "That's a stage. I guess they have live music once in a while or something ... parties for wine tasting ... that kind of thing," said Bob. "Look at the sweep of the land right there." the man pointed. "It's a natural amphitheater. You have the makings for a bigger concert venue here, possibly even a resort." The man made a copy of the print and started marking squares and lines, creating a complex of buildings that would house paying guests. He mapped trails through the hills for hiking and trail rides. By the time he was done he had created a resort where people could come to listen to music, or submerse themselves in the wine making process, or have a family reunion or even host a small convention. He suggested that it could produce as much or more income than the wine itself would provide. "You're talking a lot of money for a setup like that," said Bob. "You could do it in phases," said the man. "You've already got the pool and the small stage. The complete infrastructure exists for horses and trail rides, except for the trails themselves, and that will take minimal cash outlay. Once a trail is broken, the horses will pack it down. All you'd need initially is some kind of housing for guests. I'd suggest a lodge by the pool, something large enough to take forty or fifty people in semi-private rooms, or maybe private rooms with shared sanitary facilities, and with a central meeting room with food production capability. Or you could just have a catering station, where food is brought in and served. That gives you a venue for family reunions and conferences, church retreats, summer camps, workshops in the arts and things like that. You could put that in for less than a couple of million with competitive bidding. Then, later, you expand the amphitheater and start booking major acts. There aren't that many outdoor venues for concerts, and the ones that exist are constantly booked solid." The man stood back. "Of course it's up to you. I know that there are organizations out there who have a hard time finding venues for their events because of the cost. You'd be providing something more rustic than the glitz and glamour of the Hilton meeting rooms. Make it wheel chair friendly and you're a shoe-in for summer camping experiences for the disabled and things like that. For that matter, you'd probably be booked through the winter too." "I'll talk it over with the girls," said Bob. "For now, we just need a place to live. That's the highest priority." That took another two hours, but by the time they were finished the architect said he could have preliminary drawings ready in two weeks. If those were approved the dirt work could start immediately, with construction to begin in less than a month, assuming final blueprints were in hand. Bob left there with a copy of the satellite picture of the property and drove to the winery. He met with Annie and showed her the photograph. He shared the architect's vision with her. Her initial reaction was not positive. She was a winemaker, and that's where she wanted to center her attention. It was when Bob mentioned camps for the handicapped that she perked up. "I have a nephew with Cerebral Palsy" she said. "He's in a wheel chair. His brother and sister get to go to camp every year, but he's never been able to go because the place they go can't handle wheel chairs." Her eyes went unfocused for a few seconds. "I couldn't take care of that though. I have my hands full with the winery." "I wouldn't ask you to do anything other than make wine," said Bob. "But if we're going to develop this place into something more than just a world class winery, I don't want it to interfere with the winery. Your input will be critical to make sure that things get put where they belong, and where they won't affect your operation. We'd have to hire a manager for the other operations." Annie was a lot more positive about the idea then, her imagination catching fire as she thought of hosting wine tasting competitions and things like that. He showed her the site for the Winkle housing compound, which was going to be made up of Spanish style stucco family units connected to a common living room and dining area by a grid of covered walkways with arbors and gardens. It looked a little like a fan, with the wide curving area behind the living quarters composed of garages. It would be mostly hidden from the big stone house and the amphitheater by a low curving ridge and plantings of trees and shrubs. A separate gated family entrance was sketched into the plan as well. You had to drive past the entrance to the winery to get to that gate. Then they sat and made up a two year budget for operation of the winery. Bob said that as soon as the closing took place, she would have access to funds to execute that budget, and should make plans accordingly. He wanted the winery to be in full forward motion as soon as possible. When he finally drove away, Annie was so euphoric about the future that she realized she was actually sexually excited. She had to retreat to her bedroom and masturbate just to take the edge off enough that she could return to her work. ------- Polly approached the den with no little trepidation. It was more or less Roger's studio, where he created his art works. He made a good living selling paintings and pottery. When she went in he looked up and smiled. "What's up?" he asked. "I need to talk to you," said Polly. "It's important." "Well, if it's important to you, it's important to me." he said smiling. "You know I've been dating a man." she said. "Yes," said Roger. "You seem a lot happier lately. He's pretty cute, by the way. You have good taste in men." Polly wasn't sure how to take that. They had never discussed men before. "I like this man a lot," said Polly. "Enough that I'd like to make the relationship a lot closer." "Well, since you've stayed out several nights already," said Roger, "that would be pretty hard to do." He smiled. "It hasn't been easy for you has it?" asked Polly. "Oh, I don't know. You've been very good about our situation. I'm really glad you have someone to take the place of what I couldn't give you." "What about you?" asked Polly. "Are your needs being filled?" "There's a man I like a lot," said Roger. "It's awkward sometimes. I don't mind the situation here, but some of them are a little nervous about it." He wasn't a stupid man. "What's going on?" he asked. "I'm pregnant," said Polly. This was what she was here to tell him, but she wasn't at all sure about how he would react. Admitting that she was pregnant might blow up in her face. "Wow!" said Roger. "You did this on purpose?" he asked. "No. I think I'd forgotten how dating can lead to things." she said. "What do you want to do?" he asked. "He's asked me to marry him." she said, her heart in her throat. "I see." he said. "I thought that you could stay here, if you like, or we could sell the house and you could go wherever you want to. Fran will want to stay here, to finish school." "You really think so?" he asked. He wasn't giving his emotions away. "I know so," said Polly. "You're her father. She loves you." "But you don't love me any more." he said. "I'll always love you." she said. "You know that. But it's a different kind of love now." "I know." he sighed. "I'm amazed you didn't do this years ago. You gave me the best years of your life, Polly." "It could make your situation better too," said Polly. "You're right about that." he said. He wiped his hands on a rag. "So what do we do now?" "I don't know ... talk to a lawyer?" "I don't want to make this difficult for either of us, and especially not Fran," said Roger. "My grandfather has a lawyer. Maybe he could give us advice on how to do this in the least painful way." "That's a good idea," said Roger. We already have separate checking accounts, and dividing the property shouldn't be that hard." His face was calm. "We've lived separate lives, for the most part, for years now." "You know I'll always be grateful to you for Fran," said Polly. "I know. I love her too, and I'm glad I was able to do that for us. She has made both our worlds a better place." "Thank you Roger." she said. "This means a lot to me." "Hey, it's the least I can do," said her husband. ------- "Gunderson Attorneys at Law, how may I direct your call?" came the bright voice on the phone. "Hi, it's Bob Winkle again." "Good morning Mr. Winkle, it's always a pleasure to talk with you." "Thanks. Who would I talk to about divorce proceedings?" "That would be Gus. Hold please." "BOB! Great to hear from you again. Tammy tells me the closing on the winery is set up for next week." "Yes, she called me. That's not what I need now. I need to know about the most painless way to get a divorce in California." There was a moment of silence. "But you're not married Bob ... are you?" Gus was taken aback. "You didn't run off to Reno or someplace and get hitched while you were drunk did you?" Bob laughed. Then he described Polly's situation. "No problem," said Gus. "Irreconcilable differences. If neither one of them contests it and an equitable property settlement is made, it will slide through with ease." "What will you need to take care of it?" asked Bob. "I can send my paralegal out to interview them and do up the property agreement. Once we get all the information the court will need then I'll file. There will be a hearing, but neither of them needs to be there if it's uncontested." "Do that for me," said Bob. He gave Gus the address and phone numbers of the people involved. ------- Val was in a funk. She had had her ring for almost a week, but hadn't had the opportunity to expose it in just the right situation. Part of that was because she spent almost every evening and some nights with Zack. During the day people were at work, and she wanted to display the ring to everyone at the same time. She heard a noise in the kitchen and got out of bed. She looked at her watch. Her mother should have been gone to work long ago. It must be Bob. He was staying with them again. Dressed in a night shirt and panties she went toward the kitchen, where she heard voices. That was odd. Who could Bob be talking to? Something made her want to be quiet and she tiptoed toward the kitchen. It was Bob's voice ... and Zack's! He hadn't said anything about coming over, especially this early in the morning. She crept closer. "I wanted to talk to you about something important," said Zack. "I thought my case was dropped," said Bob. "It was. This is something different." "OK," said Bob. "You're kind of the head of the family ... sort of ... right?" asked Zack. "I guess so. It's all pretty equal though." "But you're the closest thing Val has to a father, right?" "Yes, you could argue that." "I'd like to ask for her hand in marriage," said Zack. Val felt tears in her eyes and her chest hurt. "Wow," said Bob. "I didn't think that was still the style these days." "It's not, but I'm an old fashioned guy," said Zack. Val backtracked to her room and got her ring out of her jewelry box. She put it on. She would just let someone notice it. Then, changing her mind, she padded back down the hall and went into the kitchen, ignoring both men, who fell silent as she entered. She got a glass of orange juice and went and plopped herself down on Zack's lap. She held out her left hand to Bob. "See what Zack got me?" She kissed Zack. "I have to get dressed, and then we have to go find my mother." "Yes dear." sighed Zack. ------- Bob called another family meeting that night. It was time to clear the air and move forward with whatever plans the family might make. Val wanted to bring Zack, but Bob asked her not to. He knew of a couple of things that were going to be discussed that Zack didn't need to be there for. When everyone was present he let Val go first. Her ring caused the expected sensation and her mother crowed that she "already knew" but kept it a secret. Bob had talked to Polly, who had decided to give her news. She had talked to Fran about the divorce already, before it was filed, and Fran was part of the interview with the paralegal. She had made a few stipulations, all of which had been agreed to readily. She would live with each of her parents in much the same way Bob was living with his female relatives. She'd maintain a room in both residences, wherever they were. Polly had also talked to Becca, who had talked to Gidget. They wanted to get it over with too. Polly stood up. "Since we're talking about marriage, I'd like to announce that Roger and I have filed for divorce. As soon as it's final, I play to remarry. I don't have a ring like that yet, but I'm working on it." She sat down. THAT caused a sensation as people asked for more information and she gave it. When it died down, she said "Oh yes, I almost forgot. I'm pregnant." If her previous announcement had caused a sensation, this one raised the roof. Becca stood up and held up her hands for silence. When she got it she just blurted it out. "Denny has asked me to marry him and I said yes and I'm pregnant too." She sat back down. This time people were so shocked that no one said anything, except for Fran who yelled "YAAAAYYYYY!" Gidget stood up. "To round out the evening, I am last, but not least. I too, am pregnant. The only difference is that I'm not getting married." There was a moment of stunned silence. Then, one by one, nine sets of eyes drifted and fixed on Bob. He smiled weakly. ------- After the meeting Sunny came up to Bob. "You haven't stayed at my house yet." she said. "With Val gone all the time seeing her new beau, it's kind of lonely there in the evenings." Bob stared at her. "After tonight ... you still want me to come stay with you?" Sunny's gaze didn't waver. "Yes." When they actually got to Sunny's house it was fairly late. She picked up the phone and made a call, speaking into the phone as if she were talking to a recording. "I won't be in today. I have a family emergency. It should only take one day to resolve the situation." She hung up and turned to face Bob. She took a step toward him. "For thirty years you lay in that bed over at my mother's house. I grew up in the house with you there. You never moved ... never made a sound. It was like you were a piece of furniture. I knew my mother took care of you and loved you, and that my aunts felt the same way. I never understood that back then. I thought they were crazy for not just putting you in a home someplace. I thought you had nothing to do with our family ... didn't affect us in any real way." She took another step closer. "Then you woke up." She took another step. "Since you woke up, our family has been in complete and utter turmoil. All our lives have changed in ways that are amazing and astounding and ... and ... I can't even think of a word to describe how much things have changed. Val is getting married because you woke up. Becca and Polly are going to have babies because you woke up. Gidget is pregnant ... because you woke up. We have money. We have a future running a winery. Everything has changed. I can only think of one other way you could be more of an impact on our family than you already are." She took the final step and pressed her body against Bob. He waited. She was on a roll. She kissed him, and then leaned back, saying nothing. "Do I need to have a bigger impact on our family?" he asked. "As far as I'm concerned you do." she said. "And you have an idea about what I should do?" asked Bob. She nodded. "Do I have to guess?" he smiled. "You made my mother pregnant," said Sunny. "You made aunt June and Aunt Betty pregnant. You've made Gidget pregnant now. Becca and Polly are pregnant because of you. Val hasn't said anything, but I've noticed she hasn't used any ... supplies in over a month. I don't know if she's thought of that or not, but in any case, Zack won't let any grass grow under his tracks. If she's not pregnant now, she soon will be and I lay that at your feet too. Only Fran is left, and she's too young. "What about you?" asked Bob. Her smile was a feral one. "Oh yes ... me. I had a period two weeks ago. I'm ovulating right now, but I'm not pregnant. Not yet." She kissed him again, this time molding her body to his and wiggling her pussy against his groin. She leaned back. "We have all night tonight and all day tomorrow to rectify that." ------- Epilogue Denny married Becca before the house was finished, but they brought the baby home to the new family compound. There was still interior work being finished up, but that wasn't much to cope with. Denny elected to cut short his police career in favor of joining the family business. Brian and Polly Spruell also moved into the family compound with their new daughter. Brian also elected to quit police work, with the exception that he was an auxiliary deputy in El Dorado County. He was called on rarely, usually for search and rescue duty. Val married Zack Simpson in a ceremony that was half pomp and grandeur and half fraternity party. Among the wedding gifts were over two hundred towels, packaged one per package. The label on each package said "For use after hot and sweaty sex." Sergeant Rollins, the Booking Sergeant at the North Substation, either found or invented (he wouldn't say which) the gift he gave. It was a small jar, about the size of a baby food jar, with a black metal lid on it and a thick waxy substance inside of it. The label said "GOAT HORN POLISH". The couple stayed in Sacramento, where Val continued college while Zack worked on finishing up the last seven years of his career so he could retire. They were in close contact with the rest of the family though. It was anticipated that the concert venue at the estate would be finished, if all went well, about the time Zack retired. The opening of that venue would cause a serious explosion in the number of people who came to the property and a chief of security for the whole enterprise would then be needed. Zack had already put in his bid for that job. Val's first son was born ten months and two days from the date that he took her into "protective custody" at her mother's house. Gidget had her second daughter on her fortieth birthday. Bob was her birth coach and stayed with her throughout her labor and delivery. She named the little girl Destiny. Sunny delivered her second daughter three months later. The nurses gave Bob a cake in the labor room. It said "Welcome back Bob" and "For a Sunny Delivery". The cake was only half right. It was a long labor and the baby seemed to want to stay right where it was, even though Sunny was dilated eight centimeters. Fourteen hours later, when she gave her last convulsive push and the baby lay squalling in the doctor's hands, she lay back sweating as Bob wiped her brow. She smiled tiredly as the baby was laid gently on her chest, still crying and she caressed it, trying unsuccessfully to sooth her. She looked at Bob. "What do you think about naming her Stormy?" Sally finished "The Longest Nap", her memoir of Bob Winkle, AKA Bob Van Winkle in a year. Since Bob's family had been so closed to the press, there was a lot of interest in it to begin with. The marketing campaign was brilliant. It played on the supposition that alcohol put Rip and Bob to sleep, and the irony of the fact that Bob was going to make wine for a living. She had chapters in which Dr. Adams gave his hypothesis about what had happened to Bob, but left out the potential value of Bob's gene structure. That would have caused a riot. She compared Rip's story, as told in his own hand, using excerpts of the journal, to Bob's experience. It was a smash hit, catching the imagination of everyone who read it. The Rip Van Winkle Winery produced its first crop of award winning wines almost three years to the day from the date Bob Winkle closed on the property and gave Annie Montgomery a free hand to operate as she wished. The wine was marketed with the slogan "Wine worth the time". Annie shared a special bottle with her employer after the awards ceremony in which Rip Van Winkle Winery was awarded best in two wines in the American Wine Awards, one in the under $20 field and one in the over $20 field. When the first bottle was gone, another was opened. Annie drank a lot more than Bob did, which is probably why she took off her signature faded checkered shirt to expose perky upturned breasts with nipples that turned out to be a mouthful. The rest of her clothes seemed to fall off of her by magic. The wine is probably also why, as her hymen was pushed aside by Bob's steel hard penis, Annie felt very little discomfort. As she lay spread under the now legendary man in her bed on the upper story of the stone house, she thanked him repeatedly for letting her live her dream. Then she thanked him for giving her what she had missed in her quest for fame in the world of wine as his prick dug deep and she shuddered through an orgasm that laid to waste those she occasionally felt as she diddled herself. Then she thanked him for giving her a second orgasm. He said she was most welcome, stopped her babbling by kissing her soundly, and deposited as much of his potent semen in her womb as he could force out of his body. Getting the winery to that point took a lot of work, and the women of the Winkle clan learned that it was the kind of work they not only enjoyed, but relished. Martha, June and Betty were trained by Annie to participate in and supervise the once a year pruning of the vines, which kept them busy during that time. Then there was pest control to deal with and the harvest after that. They chose to hand harvest the grapes both because they had the casual labor available, and because Annie preferred it that way. It took longer, but only the most perfectly ripe grapes were picked, and at precisely the right time. Gidget had a flair for the distribution portion of the business, both to distributors and direct sales to customers on site or through the mail. That let her stay close to home, where she took care of her daughter and Sunny's daughter during the days. Sunny, Becca and Denny developed and operated the animal portion of the enterprise, spending long hours with trail breaking crews on the mountain sides, establishing camping locations for overnight trail rides and getting stock and handlers in place. The riding operation began shortly after Sunny delivered. Becca preferred to keep her son with her during the day, carrying him papoose style in a rig that could be worn on either her back or front. Denny spent as much time strapped in the carrier as she did. One of the signature programs of the Rip Van Winkle Riding Stables was the twice a year benefit program they had for disabled children and child cancer patients. Denny developed a travois with bicycle wheels that could be hauled by a horse and that would comfortably hold a person who could not mount or sit in a saddle. In this manner, the level of disability was no longer a factor in making the trail ride experience available, primarily to children. Polly and Brian were well suited, due to their difference in ages, to dealing with the public. They did this in the tasting room, and in their role as event coordinators. Initially only a small conference center was built, with a meeting area and suites that housed eight people per room in bunk beds. They were intended to house kids, mostly, for youth camps, as a test to see if there was a market. The response was astonishing. Churches in particular wanted a place to go where they could have one or two day retreats in a rustic setting or a setting close to nature. Within the first three months of putting the building into operation they had four marriage seminars, six silent or meditation retreats, twelve corporate planning sessions, fifteen prayer retreats and a family reunion for a family that had meant to stay in the city, but whose rooms were overbooked. They found the Rip Van Winkle retreat center on the web and piled in their cars to drive out on the spot. It became clear to them that the operation could be expanded, but catering was turning out to be too cumbersome and expensive. The expanded retreat center already on the boards would have a professional kitchen and permanent full and part time kitchen and maid staff. Fran lived with her father, in Circleton during her Junior and Senior years of High School. She lived at the family compound when school wasn't in session. She had an apartment next door to her mother and step-father's house, but it wasn't unusual for her to end up staying with Bob. The only ones who didn't know what was actually going on there were Denny and Brian. When she graduated High School, Fran went to junior college to learn accounting, and then moved to the compound permanently, forgoing further education in favor of taking over the books for the company. Gus provided an accountant to supervise Fran, and do audits. Within six months she was wearing maternity clothing handed down from Val and Becca. Nobody asked any questions. Five years after buying the winery and establishing Rip Van Winkle Enterprises, Bob's bank account was down to a reserve of four million dollars as programs were developed and put into operation. Five years later, the company account held over forty million in fluid assets, and the property was valued at over twenty million. Val had taken over the concert venue which was booked solid for the next three years at six major concerts a year and twelve concerts that were termed "local interest". The retreat center was booked at an eighty percent level for five years out. The remaining twenty percent were reserved for special circumstances. Annie Montgomery waited until after her first baby was born to accept Bob's proposal of marriage. She said she wanted to see "what kind of critter he was able to produce" before she tied herself to him permanently. In reality, she wanted to be sure he hadn't proposed out of a guilty conscience for knocking her up. Her relief, as her daughter was placed at her now swollen breast was palpable as Bob asked her "NOW will you please marry me?" In 2006, the human genome was finally mapped completely. Bob's wealth allowed Dr. Adams to suspend his practice of medicine and spend all his time looking for the gene that would revolutionize medicine. He has a feeling he's close. Time will tell. Martha, June and Betty finally decided to retire. Spending time in the vineyard had been good for them, and all were in wonderful shape. The problem was that by now both Sunny and Gidget had had another baby. Both swore they were done. Polly had had another, devastating Brian by telling him she was done too. Val had had two more and, like it was a contest, Becca had matched her, almost to the month. Fran was about to deliver her second, and showed no signs of being anywhere near done. If you threw in Annie's baby, and she was quite clear that she wanted two more, that put the number of children in the nursery anywhere from six, if school was in session, to fourteen or fifteen, depending on whether Becca's latest was on her or Denny's back, or in the nursery because they were on an overnight trail ride and didn't want to take the baby. And there was the potential for three more in the near future. Of course there was also the potential for the three ten year olds to start working around the place too, at least part time. So it was a fluid situation. It would have been simple to hire professional child care specialists, but the three matriarchs of the family didn't think much of that idea. So they hired a few people to help them, and they quit the fields to raise children during the daytime. They called it "taking care of future Rip Van Winkle employees." ------- On a quiet summer's eve, down the mountain in El Dorado, you can sometimes hear the rolling thunder coming from up above. Townsfolk know that it's only the tympani, practicing for the symphony concert that will be taking place later. But that's not what they tell visitors. What they tell tourists is that it's Rip Van Winkle's children, playing ninepins up at the winery in the mountains. ------- The End ------- Posted: 2006-08-21 Last Modified: 2012-09-24 / 09:03:02 am ------- http://storiesonline.net/ -------