Chapter 14: True Confessions

NONE OF US really knew what to do about our encounter after the assault in the restaurant. We’d gone further than we’d ever allowed ourselves before. We all three lived in the same house, but that didn’t imply that we were freely intimate with each other. We had private spaces and I didn’t think the twins even invaded each other’s room without an invitation. I’d never been in either room.

That night in the reading nook, we’d made out and even brought each other to an incredible climax. I’d fondled the breasts of the two most exquisite angels in the universe! They held my cock as it pulsed out my come! I was still breathless.

The most immediate change was that we all avoided the reading nook. The alcove next to the window above the staircase that had been the center of our shared reading and talking was abandoned.

Occasionally, I caught a glance from one of the girls toward me that caused us both to blush and turn away. If they were experiencing the same things I was, I was pretty sure they were miserable.

The two weeks until the awards banquet seemed to drag on. We’d all read all the finalist manuscripts and cast our votes. Only Sarah, our assistant editor, knew the results. She was keeping that information close to her, though, in accordance with the rules. None of us would know the final results until the awards banquet.

“Are you all okay? The tension in this room is thick enough to cut with a knife. You’d think you were in the competition instead of judging it,” Grandma said.

I was cooking bacon and whipped eggs for breakfast and had automatically invited her to join us. It wasn’t at all uncommon. That thought brought me up short. Maybe one or more of the others at the table also had a hidden identity and had submitted a story for the competition!

“Cora,” Pat said before Ruby, Pearl, or I could embarrass ourselves. “None of us know who won the competition. It’s very important to the publishing company. And we have a very large gathering coming up Saturday night. Over a hundred fifty people have paid to hear Frank Duggin speak.”

“And none of the registered guests are the favorite among us. Jan Winslow might just be someone’s pseudonym,” Pearl sighed.

“Hmm. Then just about anyone could stand up to receive her award,” Grandma said. “Do you have a way to verify if the person who accepts the award is really Jan Winslow? Assuming, of course, that she is the winner.”

“That’s a good point,” Marge said. “You don’t suppose Frank Duggin decided to enter the contest under an assumed name, do you? Jan’s book is certainly good enough to have been written by him.”

“I’ve read all Frank’s books,” Ruby said. “I love them, but I don’t think he could disguise his voice as well as pulling off Jan Winslow would require. There are too many subtle markers I don’t think he’d abandon.”

“Certainly, he never has the degree of romance in his writing that is in this book,” Pearl said.

“Have you noticed we all are assuming To Love and To Kill is going to win the fiction category?” Pat laughed.

“We all voted for it,” Marge said. “I don’t remember a time when we disagreed with the independent judges. It doesn’t mean it’s a lock, though.”

I kept myself busy at the stove and turned out another batch of scrambled eggs onto the serving platter. I hadn’t voted for To Love and To Kill. I just couldn’t vote for myself. It didn’t seem right. I thought my novel was honestly better than the other four in the category, but I considered that to be author prejudice. I’d chosen a science fiction space opera. It was a fun read.