Chapter 1

I had just graduated from the 10th grade. I hadn’t really hit my growth spurt and was still a shy, scrawny nerd who had never even kissed a girl.

I wasn’t really looking forward to Summer vacation. I was supposed to spend it with my Uncle Bob and Aunt Pat, and I hadn’t seen them since I was really little.

My parents had saved all year for a romantic vacation to Sicily – and that did not include me. I didn’t take offense to being left behind. We usually took a family vacation, and they needed time to recharge and be together without me. I could understand and accept that, and I didn’t mind.

My Uncle Bob’s house was in Huntsville, Alabama. It was a boring three-hour drive to his house. Shania Twain’s “Any Man of Mine” was playing on the radio. My Mom turned to me in the back seat and said I would enjoy myself this summer.

“Your Uncle Bob is kind of a character. He’s a little bit opinionated,” my Mom said.

“He’s a racist jerk,” My dad informed me.

“Just don’t bring up racism, and you’ll be fine,” Mom advised. “My sister Patty was always a bit of a wild child when we were younger. She’s a lot of fun, and you will like her. She has three daughters. I do not know much about your cousins, but they are all about your age. I am sure you will have something in common.”

I doubted that very much. I was into video games and barely talked to girls in school. The few that I knew were stuck up and always on their cell phones.

“Your Uncle Bob has a great collection of civil war memorabilia. He’ll probably take you to some interesting civil war re-enactments this summer,” Mom said.

“Yeah, be prepared to give a rebel yell for the South,” Dad joked sarcastically. He clearly didn’t like Uncle Bob, and that probably explained why we seldom visited them, even though they only lived a few hours away.

We arrived just before sunset. The house was a little dumpy and badly needed repairs and a fresh coat of paint. The lawn hadn’t been mowed in weeks. There was an old beat-up Winnebago in the driveway. There was a for sale sign on the lawn – something clearly wasn’t right.

We rang the bell, and my Aunt came to the door. She was pretty, and looked a little like my mother in the face. She wore her hair cut short, and she looked a little hungover. “Ann?” she seemed surprised to see us. I was starting to get nervous.

“We’re here!” my Mom warmly hugged my Aunt at the door. My Aunt hugged her back, and then it dawned on her why we were there.

“Oh God, I totally forgot about this. I do not think it’s such a good idea after all,” she told my Mom. There I was, holding my luggage and preparing to spend a summer with relatives that I barely knew, and they didn’t even want me to be there. Things were not getting off to a very good start.

“We don’t have an option. We have NON-refundable tickets to SICILY, Patty. We can’t take Hunter with us, and we really need you to watch him for us.”

“Come on inside,” my Aunt invited us. She yelled out that they had company and for her girls to come out of their rooms. “Be decent! It’s your Aunt and Uncle,” she warned them.

“Where is Bob?” Dad asked. He looked around the unkempt house as if he smelled a fart. It smelled deeply like garlic and was clearly well-lived in. There was clutter everywhere, and dirty laundry had just been tossed around on the couch.

“Bob left about three weeks ago,” Pat said without further explanation. My Mom offered her condolences, but Aunt Patty seemed neither happy nor angry about it. “It was for the best, but we have a trip to South Dakota planned, and I do not think we are coming back.”

“What is in South Dakota?” My Mom asked.

“Yeah, what is in South Dakota, Mom?” a pretty blonde a year or two older than me appeared in the doorway and challenged her Mom to explain.

“A new life and an opportunity, but I do not know how long it will take, and I can’t promise to bring Hunter back. I think it best if you take him home. He is old enough to spend the summer on his own. That might be fun,” she looked at me with a smile and tussled my hair. That was fine with me. I’d just play video games until I fell asleep or got hungry – and then play more video games. it would actually be perfect.

“Hunter would sit in the house all day and play video games, and he really needs to get OUT of the house,” my Mom embarrassed me by saying exactly what I would do. I felt embarrassed that my Aunt and cousins heard that I was an introverted geek. I am not sure why, but I felt they would laugh at me. It wasn’t until my Mom said this next part that they laughed. “He doesn’t know how to do laundry or work an oven. He’d probably run out of clothes in the first week or burn down the house trying to cook his dinner.”

Ugh.

The girls chuckled, but my Aunt wasn’t convinced.

“Let the boy run around naked in his own house, and there are plenty of microwave dinners or delivery pizza,” she shrugged off my mother’s excuses as immaterial. “I really don’t think this is the trip for him. I promised my girls we’d have fun along the way.”

I really didn’t want to go on a vacation where I’d be unwelcome, and I didn’t want to intrude on their family.

“Patty, you ALWAYS do this. You promise something, and then you back out at the last minute. This vacation is important to me. We’ve got reservations at Le Sabbie Nere in Catania! It’s a very exclusive club next to the VOLCANO in Sicily.”

“Ooh la-la-la,” Patty feigned, being impressed and clearly unmoved by my mother’s suggestion. “Take him with you,” she suggested.

“It’s a very exclusive club, and kids are not allowed,” Mom explained.

Patty seemed to understand and had a change of heart. “I can’t promise that I can bring him back,” she reminded my mother.

“We’ll be back in three weeks. We’ll call you, and you can put him on a bus home, or we’ll come get him. Is that cool?” Mom negotiated. I hated feeling like a burden to either of them.

“Yeah, we can probably do something with him until then,” she smiled at me and welcomed me to the Ruest family.”

Ruest is my mother’s maiden name.

“You got divorced?” my Mom asked.

“Not legally, but in everything that matters,” Patty said. She changed the subject and introduced her daughters to me.

“The loudmouth is Jen,” she pointed to the older blonde that spoke earlier. She had an attractive face, wore only limited makeup, and seemed a little snarky and mature.

“This fart-face is Misty,” she pointed to a tall brunette that was about my age. Misty also didn’t wear a lot of make-up and looked a little more plain compared to her older sister. She protested when her Mom called her fart-face, but it was obviously intended as a term of endearment.

“I do not think you met my youngest,” she said to my Mom. “This is Hope,” she introduced a pretty girl with short light brown hair cut similar to her mother.

“Hope was in diapers when we saw you last,” Mom reached out to shake her hand as she had the other two girls.

Hope barked at her abruptly, just like a real dog might snap at a stranger. My Mom withdrew her hand.

“Don’t mind, Hope. She likes to act like a weirdo when she meets people for the first time,” Patty glared at her youngest daughter and then introduced me.

“Hunter, I hope you can put up with our chaos and don’t regret this trip,” she said. I politely told her that I was thankful to be here.

“Give it time, and you may feel differently. You are going to be the only male in a van full of girls and outnumbered four to one. I hope you can handle us in close quarters for the next couple of weeks.”

I didn’t know what else to say.

My Mom said she wanted to catch up, but they had to get back because they had a plane to catch.

“I totally understand. I wouldn’t have visited if you had married Bob either,” Patty looked right at my dad with understanding eyes. “The short version is that I sold the house. I didn’t get jack shit for it because, according to the inspector, it’s made of wet cardboard, the roof is falling in, and the next strong breeze, this shit box is going to collapse in on itself,” she said of the old house. I knew she was being facetious.

It was a little surreal hearing my Aunt speak so coarsely. She looked a lot like my mother, and their voices and accents were similar. My Mom almost never cussed, and Patty cussed all the time.

“I bought the Winnebago with the money. It may break down, but we are going to hustle our way through one last hurrah and adventure across the country. I plan to have a road trip with my girls and have some laughs along the way. Any other questions?” she asked.

My Mom noticed a tattoo on Patty’s thigh. She was wearing some shorts. It was the Ace of Spades and the letters BBC which I assumed had some significance to her. “You got a tattoo?” my Mom asked.

“I have several. Would you like me to show you?” Patty joked by implying she’d remove her top right there in the living room in front of everyone. I immediately looked down just in case she actually did. It wasn’t that my Aunt wasn’t attractive – I just didn’t want everyone to think that I was a pervert.

“Relax, Hunter,” my Aunt chided me. When I looked up, I saw that she and her girls were snickering. I suppose I overreacted by putting my head down. “These puppies don’t bite,” she pointed to her boobs under her tank top. “You ARE going to be on an RV that sleeps six with four girls. I hope you are ready for that, though? Has your Mom prepared you to go on vacation with three girls? Or are you going to freak out the moment you see pantyhose hanging from the shower or a tampon?”

I blushed. I knew what tampons were, but my Mom had never had a discussion with me about anything related to women’s hygiene. I shook my head no and said that I would be fine.

Mom and Dad shared that my father had been promoted at his job and that things were going fine for them. I do not think Patty cared to hear about their lives. They hugged me before they left and told me to just have fun with it.

“Obey your Aunt Patty, don’t talk back, clean up ANY mess you make, make your bed, clean your plate, and offer to help out. If I find out you caused your Aunt Patty any trouble, then we’ll have a discussion when we get back,” Mom warned me sternly.

She hugged my Aunt and cousins, and then they left.

“Obey ME!” Patty laughed haughtily after my mother shut the door and left. Her daughters did as well. “I may enjoy having a servant at my beck and call,” she said sadistically. Her daughters joked a little about all of the tedious chores that I could do for them.

She sounded rather serious, and I probably went a little pale. I mentally prepared myself for three weeks of menial labor and chores.

“I could probably use someone to rub my feet. Do you give good feet massages?” my Aunt Patty leered at me with a lusty expression. I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. I told her that I had never given one before.

“There are men who would pay a great deal of money to rub my feet,” she wasn’t wearing shoes in the house. Her toenails weren’t painted and looked a little jagged, almost like talons. Her feet looked a little dirty and wrinkled.

“A great deal is probably a stretch,” Jen showed me her feet. I never thought feet could be “pretty” until she lifted her leg, arched her foot and pointed it in my direction. All of her toenails were evenly manicured and painted with a light gloss. Her skin was smooth and supple and almost radiant.

Misty showed me her feet. They were pretty as well, but not as special looking as Jen. She had a few wrinkles and a little bruise on her ankle. She had a couple bruises down her thighs as well. I noticed that when she lifted her leg, I could see the hint of her pubic hair through the leg of her shorts. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was.

I’d seen pubic hair in pornography, and of course, I’d seen my own. However, I wanted to see what girls had, and even though she was my cousin – I felt a vicarious thrill that when she casually lifted her leg, I might catch a glimpse of something she didn’t intend to show me.

I glanced over at Hope. Hope growled at me and snarled.

“You really want me to rub your feet?” I asked nervously.

“Hunter might actually come in handy in the camper,” my Aunt smiled. Her facial expression suggested she had been kidding about the foot massage. “I am not a hard-ass like your mother. I am the fun Aunt, and we are going to have fun. Are you up for having fun, Hunter?”

I wasn’t sure what she was really asking me. There was nothing odd about an adult asking me if I wanted to have fun, but her tone suggested she was really asking me if I wanted to get into trouble. I didn’t.

“You’re scaring him, Mom,” Misty seemed to take pity on me because I looked like a lost puppy.

“Are we still going to do the stuff?” Jen asked. I wasn’t sure what she meant by her question.

“The stuff?” her Mom feigned confusion and told her to relax. “You’ll get to play and have fun just like we discussed. Misty is worried I’ll corrupt the boy, so we’ll chill out, ride around, have a few final laughs before we head to South Dakota.”

Jen looked confused, disappointed, or perhaps reluctant to ask more. I was too shy to interject into their conversation. It was probably really none of my business anyway.

After the initial conversation, the girls headed back to their rooms. It was a small house, and everything creaked when you walked on the old, faded wooded floors.

There was precious little food at the house. My Aunt explained that they were leaving tomorrow and had moved everything into the RV.

“It was lucky that I arrived when I did then,” I said to my Aunt.

“Yeah, I am not sure you’ll say that when you have been on the road with us for a while. My daughters and I can be a real handful. We like to bicker, joke, and goof on each other. We can rub people the wrong way, and we are a little different. We definitely aren’t the perfect family, and I am a lot different than my sister.”

I said that I understood. I do not think Patty believed me, and why should she? I looked wet behind the ears because I was. I had never ridden my bike more than two miles away from my house. My world was anime cartoons, computer games, and graphic novels. I had no idea how women thought or acted, and my Aunt Patty seemed to indicate that even if I did – they were the exception to the rule.

“Different is good,” I said. I am open-minded. I knew kids that were gay or trans at my high school. I didn’t know them as friends because I really didn’t have any close friends. I did know OF them, and I was tolerant of that. I was repeating what I had heard about different ways of life.

“We are a little different, that’s for sure. Do you drink?”

“No,” I thought she would be mad if I said that I did.

She looked disappointed. “Do you smoke pot?”

“No!” I had been taught in school that if you did drugs that your brain would explode (crack like a fried egg).

“Okay, well, we do, so are you going to be cool with that or report me to the cops or something?”

When my Aunt said “We,” I did not think she meant her daughters. I shook my head no. I was surprised that she told me this. My parents occasionally drank wine. I didn’t think that was a big deal.

“I like to party and have fun. This is an adventure trip. The girls have been preparing for it for a long time. They are a little disappointed to have to share it with someone. I hope you do not get pissed off if they give you the cold shoulder for a while? You are family, but they don’t know you.”

I said I understood – whether I did or not, you can be the judge.

“They pull mean pranks on each other. Jen pissed in Misty’s humidifier, and her room smelled like urine for a week,’ my Aunt let that sink in. That sounded HORRIBLE. I don’t know what would have happened to me if I did that – probably reform school. I would never have done something like that, though. It was unconscionable to me, but my Aunt made it seem like typical sibling rivalry.

“You are an only child, so you don’t get it, but that’s how they show love for one another. The girls can have knock down-drag, out scratch your eyes out, pull your hair out, fights with each other because they love one another enough to feel comfortable kicking each other’s asses.”

I had no idea what that meant.

“They tease each other as a sign of love and affection. They MAY and probably WILL pull practical jokes on you. They will be trying to test you at first -see what kind of person you are. If you earn their respect, they will probably continue as a way of showing affection.”

That hardly sounded like affection to me. I nodded as if I agreed with her.

“All I can say is to roll with it and don’t run off the first time we stop at a truck stop. Your Mom will wring my neck if I manage to lose you in the Panhandle on the first day because we scared you shitless,” she smiled warmly.

I had no intention of running away.

“The next thing I am going to ask you, I want you to think about and answer seriously,” she began. “What happens in the Winnie stays in the Winnie, are we clear?”

I had no idea what she was talking about. Winnie meant Winnebago, and after she explained that’s where they would be living, I figured out the context. My Aunt was basically asking me to keep my mouth shut about what she did and not tell anyone else (namely my parents).

This was new to me. I was told to always tell my parents anything. I said that would be no problem because it was what she expected to hear. My Aunt seemed skeptical.

“I told your Mom that she could bring you here this summer before Bob left. I am sorry if I made you feel like I didn’t want you to come here. You are my nephew, and you are family, and I would never turn you away. My plans changed recently, and you didn’t get lucky. You would have got lucky if you arrived after tomorrow morning and found that we hauled ass and skipped town,” she joked and offered me a wintry smile.

“I believe things happen for a reason. It may be your bad luck that you arrived and have to hang out with four crazy bitches from Alabama, or it may be that you are able to loosen up a little and have fun with us for a few weeks.”

I was already calculating in my head how long it might take to get to South Dakota from Alabama. “Why would it take so long to get there?” I asked.