Chapter 20

Haley’s turn:

Poor Deena. Nose broken twice.

Poor Carlita. Killer. Or rescuer.

“I have been rescued myself. It is correct that I should rescue another.” I have to look at the forest pixie differently now. Dave once described her as sometimes moving like a forest cat. Make that a jaguar. You don’t want to see the lethal side of one of those, no matter how beautiful she might be.

Or cute. Carlita and me, we do ‘cute’.

Fallout. Carlita quite literally KILLED Abby’s brother. Abby came and talked with Deena. I offered to give them privacy.

“No. Stay with us,” she stated, her face rather inscrutable.

I saw fit to put my hand on her arm. She patted it.

“It’s all a big mess, y’all,” she said softly. “He just kept on shitting on people, right up to the very end.” She let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know what made us so different. I mean, same parents. But...”

“Somebody told us ‘people are messy’, Abby,” Deena said softly. “None of this is your fault. You and I, we made the mistake of being female to a guy who wasn’t going to process that in human terms.”

She nodded. “I just wanted him to CHANGE. Some remorse, an apology, that would’ve been nice, but what he took from me wasn’t his to take. And he tried to do that to you...”

“It’s over, Abby,” Deena soothed. “I’m sorry he’s gone, but...”

“Who’d’ve thought ... Carlita...”

“You know her story. She’s got ‘tough’ underneath that ‘pixy’ thing...” I inserted.

“I’m sorry she got mixed up in this...” Abby said, then she looked to Deena, “Except I’m glad she stopped him.” Heavy sigh. “I was dreading the trial, all the court stuff, the questions ... That’s all gone, though.”

Deena just hugged her, letting Abby cry a bit, what I was hoping were cleansing tears. I have no idea what to do. This stuff isn’t in the manual.

“You know we’re your family,” I said softly. “Family is forever. We’re here...”

“Y’all’ve made me feel like that from the beginning. Dan and Nina, they just sort of absorbed me into their home and you all wrapped me up here in this community. It’s alien to what I had before. Nobody’s being fake or devious. Y’all just LOVE people.”

“Oh, we’re just plain people,” Deena said. “Haley’ll tell you what a little shit I tried to be when we first met, but Dad sort of guided me out of it. Now Haley and I are inseparable. Sisters. So are you.”

Abby left us when she saw Nina heading home.

“Poor kid,” Deena said.

“Kid?” I snorted. “She’s a year older than you.”

“You know what I mean. We’re so darned lucky. Rich! Got everything. Love...” she eased up towards me. “Be careful of my nose...” And kissed me.

“Yeah, I know ... Past kind words ... You know that you can crawl up next to me or Bill and...”

“That means a lot, you know. Girls with stickers on their noses need love...”

“Love?” I asked. “Or luuuvvvvv...”

“A good licking does wonders for me,” she giggled. This little blue dress she was wearing made that operation entirely too convenient, but dammit! It makes her look delicious.

I mentioned that.

Giggle. “Both of you! I’m gonna leave it on so when Bill gets here, I can...” she looked at me with those big liquid blue eyes, “If I can get the first one...”

I stood up, started undoing my jeans. “If you pay for it...”

Now we’re lounging on the sofa. I have my panties back on, concession to the remaining moisture, my fingers idly stroking that blonde hair.

“Soooo good,” she sighed. “Poor Abby ... You and I will never know what bad sex is like...”

“She’s kinda broken,” I returned.

“We shoulda moved ‘er in with us...”

“Deena, my crazy sister, exactly HOW would that have worked, me and you and Bill humpin’ like crazed monkeys in our bedroom every night, her over there in the spare bedroom...”

She got a mischievous glint in her eye... “we might’ve fixed ‘er.”

“Huh?!?”

“Dave handles three of ‘em. I think OUR Bill’s healthy enough. I mean, she’s not bad looking, or anything. Just an idle thought...”

“Uh, poor Bill,” I said. “We keep ‘im almost dehydrated as it is...” I puzzled. “Has she said something?”

“Not about Bill. Just that she thinks things at the Johnson household are a lot more blurry than the idea of two married couples...”

“Well, you KNOW she has to know that if that second couple is two females, then there’s some...”

“Yeah, we sort of talked about that. I said that some females who’ve done both say that a woman is gentler and more responsive...” Another one of those giggles. “I dunno if that’s true. You CAN be ... gentler, I mean. But responsive? Bill responds...”

“Mmmmm-hmmmm,” I replied. “I love you and I love what you do to me, but Bill gets to my center...”

“And it’s always good. Poor Abby...”

“Should she seduce Bill?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“If we were to bring her in, how would we do it?”

“She hasn’t ASKED...” Deena hissed.

“Just hypothetically speaking. Assuming she wanted...”

“She’d have to get past us. I think that Bill would be impervious unless we were involved.”

My turn to giggle. “He’s talked about Dave and his harem.”

“Yeah. Like ‘where do you put the FOURTH one?’ Maybe I should ask Brindy...”

“Brindy?”

Yeah,” Deena said. “She’s a little more talkative about things.”

Okay, dragging Brindy over wasn’t very difficult. She was working her way through some pretty stout math and visiting with us was an excuse for a break.

“Funny you should even broach the subject,” she said.

“Why?” Deena asked.

“Because she sorta asked me stuff...”

“About???” I prodded.

“About the relationship in THIS house. I told her nothing past ... Well, she commented that y’all looked very happy and supremely supportive and she wished that she was part of a family like that and how did Deena react to you being married and ... Well, Abby’s no dummy. She was trying to read my expressions. She said she KNEW how WE were...”

“And you think she suspects that me ‘n’ Bill ‘n’ Deena...”

“Extreme serenity was her comment.”

“Oh, boy...”

“Said she understood how Haley fell ... She kinda has the eye for YOUR husband...”

“Oh, boy,” Deena snickered. She eyed me. “Well, sis, that’s quite a piece of data. Brin, did you comment when she said that?”

“I just said that whatever went on in your house, you’d all settled in as a family and not only were y’all happy, but a good person wouldn’t even THINK about messing with that.”

“Thank you, Brin. We do like our little arrangement.” Deena smiled. “Like y’all’s.”

“I married our fourth,” Brindy said. “After she sort of wiggled her way into the huddle.”

“Yeah, but she was kinda sure how things were arranged in your house from the first day. I don’t think Abby’s...” I started.

“Abby’s not stupid. I think she’s kinda sure what’s going on. Y’all ain’t as subtle as you think...”

Deena and I looked at each other. She smirked. “Toldya!”

“Well YOU called ‘er ‘sister’,” Brindy said. “So when’s your ‘sister’,” she did air quotes with her fingers, “gonna move in with y’all?”

“All this is moot,” I said. “There’s one more vote to be cast. Has to be unanimous.”

“Poor Dad,” Deena tittered.

“Yeah, I can just see him telling you two ‘no’,” Brindy snickered. “And you haven’t addressed another angle...”

“What’s that?” Deena queried.

“Who does what to who? I didn’t get graphic with Abby when she talked with me, but I did mention that all three of us started out together, and now it’s four, and there’s only one outtie and a lot of innies.”

“Good point. Apparently she wasn’t horrified,” I commented.

Poor Bill. We really shouldn’t take advantage of him. First, we brought Abby over, ostensibly for study and dinner, which morphed into lounging around watching a movie.

He only slightly raised an eyebrow when I crawled into his lap. When I got up and went to the bathroom, Deena replaced me. That got a comment from him, and Deena countered with, “You’ve been holding me for scary movies all my life.”

“Yeah, but...” and she kissed him.

Abby saw that. “I never got held during a scary movie...”

“It’s fake dinosaurs, for heaven’s sake,” Bill whined. “And we’ve ALL seen it before...”

Deena stood up, waved, “Well, there has to be a first time, Abby...”

She looked at me, then Deena, and finally Bill. He knows better than to argue.

“Why not?!?”

Abby’s taller than me or Deena, so she’s more of a lap full, but she delicately arranged herself while poor Bill tried NOT to, well, finally he HAD to put his arms around her.

“Don’t wiggle, Abby,” Deena said. “It starts stuff.”

She looked at Bill from a distance of inches. “I’m just getting a good hug, huh, Bill?” and she wiggled.

“Gosh, Abby...”

Giggle. “Is that left over from Deena? Or did I do that?”

“Abby...”

And we slowly let the situation defuse itself.

Abby had no sooner cleared the door than Bill cornered us. “All right, you two. Wanna tell me what THAT was about?”

Deena batted her eyelids. “Mmmm-but Daddy ... We made Abby our new sister...”

“Baby ... Haley?”

I stroked his cheek. “She just wants what we have. She’d give as much as she gets. More. Like we all do...”

“At least she’s seventeen,” Bill sighed.

“We’re not a hundred percent sure it’s gonna happen, anyway,” Deena explained. “She’s a good friend. Sweet girl. Abused, but this is her way of recovering, I think. You think she’s pretty enough, don’t you? I mean, did you REACT?”

“Y’all have that thing trained to react,” Bill said. “So, yes ... but what about y’all and her? I mean, girl-girl ... that’s kind of a stretch to a lot of people.”

“She doesn’t seem to get upset about Brindy and Mila bein’ married, and she knows that goes on there,” I told him.

The next day, Bill had to go do some of his Real Engineering stuff, a project that had him inside an operating steam powerhouse. When he came in, he found the three of us sitting in the living room with books and computers out. I got up to kiss him, got a noseful of real man scent, sweat, said, “Ewww! Shower!”

Deena followed me for the kiss. Now I have to admit, that wasn’t a ‘little girl kissing her daddy’ kiss, and it would have been surprising for her to do that in front of an outsider, but MORE surprising was when Abby nudged Deena aside.