Chapter 2

And so, that was that. Jessica’s mom had been telling fibs back home at the family estate, somewhere in some snooty enclave of Coconut Grove, that her once wayward daughter (allegedly a legendary trollop of Miami’s South Beach) had settled down with an entirely respectable husband and a loveable brace of flame-head twin crotch fruit. All ripened then for embracing by an estranged elderly aunt with entirely too much free time and an absurd excess of ready cash ... assuming that I was willing to pretend to play the part of the stolid husband – and loan out my nieces for a likely excess of familial embraces, hugs, and kisses by an ‘aunt’ that would be a complete stranger to them!

Ridiculous.

The more I thought about Jessica’s so-called cunning plan to extricate herself from impending bankruptcy, the less I liked it. Discussing the details with the twins over the next two hours while eating a pair of large pizzas didn’t improve the merits of the scheme much, if any, in anyone’s view. The more I reflected upon her plan, the more uncertainties grew upon me as we noted a near limitless number of potential things that could, and most likely would, go wrong. Frankly, the entire scheme had certain disaster written all over it ... but even the Machiavellian twins couldn’t figure out any other reasonable alternatives.

“Ok then,” Reba decided in near exasperation, “just go ahead and pump and dump the bitch. I bet that she’s even sluttier in bed than our mom!” Actually, I really had no firsthand knowledge of the twin’s mother to base any comparison. Erin actually had made a pretty hard pass at me when I was just barely sixteen, but somehow, I was more scared of the wrath of my big brother than aroused by the early opportunity for some sex education. They weren’t married yet, just dating, but I skedaddled before I’d become mesmerized by the sight of her pale bare breasts dangling in my face tempting me to do something crazily stupid!

“Yeah, do it!” Scarlet agreed, “It’s all going to end in tears anyway, no matter what ends up happening, so you might as well enjoy fucking her while she’s living with us, so it can all later go entirely, comedically, and disastrously wrong, and then you can kick her skanky ass out of the house while we laugh at you.”

“And then we get to say, ‘we told you so!’ Reba unnecessarily added, with an entirely too smug grin on her face. The twins enthusiastically enjoyed everything about life ... but nothing beat their zeal at discovering that ‘adults’ were often stupid and frequently wrong or misguided. Especially, if they could find some fault with me, their poor loving uncle!

“I doubt it will be worth the aggravation,” I truthfully replied, “besides, when she leaves in tears, flat broke and the company bankrupt, this poor heartbroken lump you see before you now will be entirely unemployed. That means no mortgage payments and definitely no Friday night pizzas and grilled steaks for growing teenaged girls on Saturday night either, so don’t be too hasty about wishing to see the queen-bitch’s ass crying like a baby while sitting on the curb. If karma isn’t very, very kind to us ... we’re all going to be camping out homeless in my truck and living in a tent under some highway overpass in a few short months. Oh, and they’re already predicting snow for Christmas, so remember that also, when deciding if you’d like to be homeless and without central heating for the New Year’s. Oh ... and stop saying ‘Fuck’ in public conversation, it’s unsuitable for proper and dignified young ladies.”

“Fuck that... “ the twins replied in concert, and stuck out their tongues at me. The girls created their own unique sort of dignity and pandering to the unwashed (or highbrow) masses wasn’t remotely in their nature.

Actually, things weren’t quite that grim. I had some savings for a few months of scrimping, if I unexpectedly did had trouble finding a new job, but the monthly mortgage payment did eat over half of my monthly salary and that money would go fast. It would be an interesting sort of karmatic payback if Mitch had to put me up for a while, for a change in his house. His smaller house was a month-to-month rental though ... and odds were that he was going to be unemployed in January also as well.

Now that was another depressing thought and collectively, we finished up chewing the last of the discarded pizza crusts and finished our drinks in relative silence before heading home. We’d all had quite enough diversion for one Friday evening.

I’m sure I mentioned it earlier, but I really hate working on Saturdays! It’s for religious reasons, but we’re not Jewish or orthodox anything, but in my house, we try keep the Sabbath day holy, as the good book suggests ... but not entirely (truth be told) for the correct doctrinal reasons. From sundown Friday night to sunset on Saturday, it’s ‘cheat day’, the one day of the week that I’m off my diet and can eat whatever I want, and even more importantly ... enjoy a few beers! During our omnivore’s sabbath - If it’s food, anything goes! The twins used claim that they were vegetarians, or even worse during the first summer they lived with me full time – vegans, but they’ve thankfully lapsed a bit over the years. Mostly after discovering the then forbidden pleasures of bacon cheeseburgers.

The twin’s moods and inclinations were always mercurial, apt to change with the wind direction, but this year, for the most part, they’d sensibly lapsed into being both omnivores like me. Meat and potatoes at nearly every meal ... unless it involves Friday night pizza.

I was up at an indecent hour so that I could down about half a pot of coffee before hitting the road just at about sunrise. I’d be all alone in the office, but I’d found over the years that taking a little extra planning and preparation time before starting on weekend service call visits helped me to focus and get the job done perhaps a little bit faster. This also (over another cup of coffee) allowed me to check the overnight parts restock in my service van. With the company being pretty much broke, we were having real supply issues and almost every day lately I’d found that the van would be missing parts on-hand that I’d be almost certain to need. Another benefit to being first-in and driving off in the morning ... so I could raid the warehouse, and if necessary, the other service trucks, until I had everything I thought I’d need to do my job.

Proper prior preparation (sometimes) prevents piss-poor performance, as my dad would often tell me. He certainly wasn’t wrong!

On today’s emergency weekend service call list, I had three customers to visit and optimistically I hoped that I could be completely done by noon. The girls had a city-league soccer playoff match at 1pm and missing it wasn’t an option. Their father could somewhat get away with never, ever, being there when his daughters needed him, but I was her uncle ... and the dependable one in our family. My first problem of the morning ended up being an easy, quick fix, but the second scheduled trouble call ended up being a head-scratcher. One of those leaky pipe problems that you think originates from one place, but when you cut away the sheetrock to expose the problem area you then find that the leaking pipe you thought was the issue, was something else entirely. In this case, bad grouting around the kid’s bathtub upstairs was causing lots of splashed water on the floor to leak through the floor tiles onto the ceiling above. Troubleshooting this took nearly two hours ... and barely two minutes with tub caulking to fix.

This just left one outstanding service call left to do when I quit for the morning to get back home and pickup the girls for their playoff game. The girls were good at soccer, both being starting players for their 13-16 league team despite their young age. They frankly much rather be playing girls lacrosse and rugby, but those sports were only available to high school aged girls, so they make do with other unfortunately much less violent sports. They started off being strikers, being faster than nearly any of the other girls on their neighborhood team, but they switched to playing a hybrid full-back position because playing defense offered many more opportunities to hamstring, kick, trip, and gleefully elbow their opponents in the face (accidentally on-purpose). Their coach offered them a bounty of $20 for each and every opponent’s nose that they ‘accidentally’ break, and so far, they’ve collected four times this season. Watching the twins play soccer was just as good as watching an NFL game between division rivals that hate each other’s guts!

I’d called Jessica at half-time to let her know my revised afternoon schedule, and to suggest that she just pack whatever she needed from her small townhome and come to our house whenever it was most convenient. That worked out fine for her and I was able then to enjoy the rest of the on-field mayhem without brooding over the fact that my pleasant home was about to be invaded by yet a third insane red-headed female. Are the terms ‘red-headed’ and ‘insane’ redundant? I wasn’t sure ... but I’d be more than willing to bet on that! The game ended in a one-one tie, so it was a shared first-place (and participation trophies) all around. The twins were livid, but since they’d snagged a pair of yellow earning cards each and Scarlet had a more prized red card for sheer viciousness – causing a near-certain knee injury to a foe upon the field of battle, they were both able to hold their heads up high. ‘Good Sportsmanship’, despite years of my effort to moderate their on-field mayhem, was still a very foreign concept to them. A tie for sharing the win was icky ... like having to kiss their uncle, which they only grudgingly did when I dropped my ginger warriors back off at the house.

My lone remaining afternoon service call was a nightmare, and what should have been a simple kitchen sink replacement turned ugly fast, when I realized that none of the existing plumbing under the sink was up to code standards. Doing the job right (the only way I do a job) took hours and it was nearly sunset by the time I drove home. Jessica’s Lexus was in the driveway, so my new faux-wife for the next two weeks was present and hopefully ready to play the game ... after I quickly downed at least one beer and hopefully two (and a small package of chips) before the sun set on another diet cheat sabbath.

Certain that sun had set for certain and that a third quick frosty beer would now be quite against the house rules, but with my belly a bit less empty, I braved going upstairs where I could hear loud-pitched female shrieking. For a brief moment I anticipated trouble; namely that the twins quite limited stock of patience, tolerance and understanding had already been exhausted, and that our new house-guest (their would-be replacement mother) had already incurred their ire, but the cries were of loud amusement instead. The girls were helping Jessica unpack her clothes, which at the moment was the suitcase with all of the lingerie.

Even from just a quick glance, I could tell that it was expensive ... and rather skimpy stuff!

“Ooooo,” Scarlet cooed when she saw me at the doorway of the bedroom, “she wears thongs ... silk ones too!

“Feel how nice these are to the touch!” Reba breathlessly added, “Can we buy some too? I’ve just got to wear some of these ... they don’t leave any panty lines at all and they’ll look like you’re not wearing any underwear! I don’t care if they pinch up my ass-crack!”

And speaking of not wearing much ... neither of the twins was, nor was Jessica for that matter either! All three of the girls were wearing old cut-off crop top tank t-shirts and short jean shorts. Comfortable in summer, certainly (and decorative), but it wasn’t at all warm outside, barely a week before Christmas. The heat had been turned up though in the house, and not just visually in the bedroom.

On the twins, wearing a grown (or at least college co-ed sized) woman’s tee that had been trimmed just below where Jessica’s full-sized tits naturally fell about a dozen years ago, wasn’t really that terribly indecent. The girls were budding nicely, maturing already into A-cups with the promise of perky larger grown sizes still to come, so the young boobs were still adequately covered, leaving a wide expanse of athletically flat bare belly on display. Cute ... but the girls were going to get chilly, even with the central heat turned up to broiling.

On Jessica, however, depending on how and where one was standing ... and how my new wife-in-training was leaning, standing or bouncing about, an occasional hint of bare under-boob could be seen, and undoubtedly appreciated.

That all three of the crop-tops said ‘Girls Gone Psycho’, in bright, but faded, lettering. Well that certainly fit! Jessica giggled and then giggled a bit in place just so that I could fully appreciate the full effect before unpacking a handful of thongs into our now shared dresser top drawer.

“Thongs,” I growled at the girls, “it’s not happening, at least anytime soon! We’ve had that talk and you both know the rules. No makeup until fifteen, no dating until sixteen, and no entrancingly soft, delicate, slutty underclothes until you both have jobs and can pay for that stuff yourself. Besides, you’d both better not have secret boyfriends yet to show them off to! Also, I won’t be caught dead at the cashier’s at Wal-Mart paying for that stuff, with the clerk and bagger both smirking at me. You’re on your own!”

“We’ll, in that case,” Reba giggled, “since our new ‘mom’ has offered us a front office job for the holidays, we can then buy some using our own money! There’s a Victoria’s Secret at Riverside Mall and I’m sure that there will be an after-Christmas sale next week!”

“Especially since the older pairs that she gave us, which had shrunk too much in the wash, do seem to fit perfectly!” Scarlet grinned.

Sometimes, it was impossible to tell when the twins were telling the truth or some whopper of a lie, and this was one of those moments. Apparently, their new acting-mother had been letting them try on some of her lingerie, and there wasn’t really that much of a size difference between them. Jessica was a bit taller and had more in the hip and shoulder department, but not enough so for any garment worn by the girls to cause a likely wardrobe malfunction.

“And she has these a bunch of these half-bras, too that you’re going to really love,” Reba leered, “they leave almost the whole tit open above the bra, particular the nipples. Jessica says that they lift your tits and make the nips poke out more, under whatever you’re wearing? Can we get some of those too?”

“And speaking of pokies,” Scarlet added, “did you know that her nips are pierced too? It make them really poke out ... especially under t-shirts!”

“And almost probably against the school dress code ... those prudes, but I think ours need to grow a bit more first, so I guess that can wait until High School.” Reba signed in genuine frustration.”

“Try college,” I glared at them, “and any other bit of body-art that you might now or later take a fancy to, other than maybe the belly-button ring ... again, when you turn sixteen.”

“Speaking of other body-art, I won’t even tell you what’s she’s got in other places! So, just you wait until this evening,” Scarlet giggled, “and see what she’s picked out to wear for you this evening, after dinner, “Reba added, “it’s absolutely something like what our mom used to wear for dad, when she’d been naughty... very skimpy, almost entirely see-through, and easy for a man to remove when in a hurry, so you’ll love it!” Unfortunately, this time I was pretty sure that they weren’t joking.

“Where are mom’s old clothes now?” Reba wondered out loud. I wasn’t so sure myself. “I bet dad has either burned them or given them all to Salvation Army ... but I wouldn’t think that they’d want hers, unless thrift stores have a special ‘hooker’ clothes section,” Scarlet suggested, but she didn’t really know what had happened to them either. The girls had been eight when their mother had died, just old enough to have a general sense and a few semi-clear recollections of their mom’s usual fashion sense ... which was generally to display as much bare flesh as possible.