Chapter 10

“Probably by reading about sheep that had been caught in snow drifts the same way. Some out in the open froze to death, but those that huddled together behind a stone wall had enough insulation with their wool and sheltered together by the wall, that they survived until dug out by the farmer.”

“Practical lessons, eh, Jimmy?” quipped Charlotte.

“Very much so. It boiled down to noting and remembering what had happened to sheep in a snow drift, and applying it successfully to a man snowed under in an automobile.”

The other girls took this in and began applying the same thoughts to the lessons that I was giving them. They saw that many incidents where people who acted carelessly and died or were injured, need never have occurred at all. Most of them were due to folk drinking alcohol, which reduced your ability to think clearly. There was nothing wrong with the alcohol itself; it was the misuse of alcohol that was the problem.

I laughed as I told them an observation that I had made many years ago. “I was puzzled by references in newspapers and the media to ‘killer roads’. I wondered what the roads had done to kill people, then it struck me: it was people who were killing themselves on the roads, and as the so-called accidents happened at sharp bends and corners, the poor innocent road was being blamed for stupid people taking the bend at excessive speed. If you look at the road usage, and the number of fatalities, the safe drivers make up 99.9 per cent of the usage, and the bad drivers make up or cause almost all the fatalities.”

Cherry said, “That sounds similar to the story of teenagers killing themselves at the end of a long straight.”

“It is much the same story in principle, Cherry my dear. Stupid people cause accidents. The trouble is that sometimes the stupid people collide with other cars and kill innocent drivers.”

With our sheet insulation episode over, bar reinstating the sheets to their normal purpose, Sharl needed a pee and was interested in taking her first pregnancy test.

When she said so, the other two declared a sudden interest in such a result, and all three scampered off to the kitchen to fetch their test kits and embark on the process. Half an hour later, they were all back, hugging each other and giggling.

Sharl came up to me and kissed me soundly, saying, “Congratulations, Daddy-to-be.”

Cherry was next to come and hug me, grabbing my pecker and saying, “This boy has done his job. No excuses for me now. I am pregnant with your son or daughter, Jimmy.”

Charlotte hung back till they were finished, and said softly in my direction, “Jimmy, I am going to become a mother!”

I opened my arms and she rushed into them, tears in her eyes. I said, “Well done, Charlotte, and well done, all three of you. That was quick work on your part, to catch so quickly.”

Sharl was quick to tell me, “ We have to repeat the test, Jimmy, to be certain it is not a false positive, but the odds are that it it true. You are going to be a father three times over, and we are all going to be mothers, dammit to hell.”

I ignored her swearwords as I felt tears come to my own eyes, and I went around hugging and kissing them one by one.

“This is wonderful news, ladies. I could not be more delighted.”

Sharl took Cherry’s hand and brought her over to stand before me, both of them together.

“Jimmy, we did not at first welcome this plan, but now I want you to know that I am yours and Cherry is yours, for as long as you want us. Correct, Cherry?”

“Yes Jimmy, it is true. Just like Ch – Charlotte is yours for ever, you can have me as well for the same period. I will have your babies. I love your fucking, you bastard.”

“My babies as well, Jimmy,” Sharl confessed. “This one is just a start. We are willing and able to be a family, your family.”

Charlotte came over to join us and chipped in to say to all of us, “Jimmy told me that when I was pregnant I had to stay off the booze to avoid damaging the baby, but we have drunk so little in the past few weeks that going completely off the alcohol shouldn’t be any trouble.”

“Right. In that case, I will go on the wagon as well, so none of us will have temptations. Any alcohol in the apartment gets locked away for the duration, or poured down the sink. My girls deserve to be treated well, and get my full respect.”

That started off another round of hugs and kisses, and fondling of my women and I remarked, “I could get used to this pleasuring of you...”

Sharl made a pronoucement, “You had better get used to it, if you want to father some more babies, Jimmy.”

I laughed and laughed until the girls wondered why I was laughing so much.

“Sorry, ladies. I was just thinking. I was put here with you to punish you for your bad behaviour and change you for the better, with a possibility of getting a wife out of the exercise. It turns out I am getting three wives! I never expected such good fortune.”

Charlotte raised a new question.

“What are we going to tell Daddy when we next phone him? Do we mention being pregnant?”

I rapidly told her, “No way! It is too early. You can go on about how well you are getting on with me. You can act enthusiastic about interacting with me and how much you are getting out of the process, but no mention of nudity, sex, pregnancy, or even love!”

“But we can talk about him and his lady friend Jenny? Encourage him to do her if he gets the chance?”

I frowned. “That is a little strong, particularly coming from his newly mature daughters, Charlotte. There are ways of saying such things without being explicit. Demand to know more about her and her life. Suggest he could have a closer involvement with her, and ask if she stays the night at your house. Question if she has children of her own, and does she have a job. Query him as to whether she is a gold-digger or has enough to live on without leeching off his finances.

Get him to remind her he has three grown-up daughters. She might in response suggest encouraging his daughters to get married and leave the nest. If he mentions that idea in any conversation with you, that is a chance to say that you are thinking of moving out from home, but keep it vague for now.”

That was what happened, more or less as I had talked about it. The calls revealed that Jenny was becoming a fixture in Daddy’s life, and he was much more relaxed about his daughters and what they wanted to do with their lives, as long as it was not as before. I assured him that they had become almost new personalities and were much more sociable in many ways. He even hinted again to me that one of them might now make a wife for me. I retorted that all three were becoming part of my life because of the propinquity imposed by the apartment, making a choice difficult, but he persisted in telling me to persevere. He even hinted at a promotion to help me look after his daughter properly.

I let that pass for now, for I was not so sure it would ever come to pass in the new circumstances we would present him with. He asked about timing and I suggested that the required changes were ocurring faster than expected. I gave no end date, just a signal that it would be earlier rather than later than six months, and he was happy with that.

Progress indeed continued, for pregnancy gave them an incentive to improve their abilities as mature members of society. They wanted to be able to present themselves in future as competent, witty and engaging mothers in the community.

This required continued work on automatic responses to questions and events. There should be no more ‘No shit!’ responses, replacing it with ‘my goodness!’ or similar innocuous phrases. Introductions to new persons were also regularly practiced, so that initial impressions for newcomers they met would be good.

This respectful attitude was also to be extended to staff of companies or organisations, so that my girls would employ common courtesies to anyone they met in business or socially, or even tradesmen doing work for us. I clarified that a tradesman who is treated as a responsible human being does better work than a man who is looked down on as if he is a mere menial, a worker, nothing more.

“Do not assume the worst of human beings, until you have evidence to base it on, as a general rule. If it is simply that you do not trust a man on sight, because of his behaviour or attitude, just avoid him; have no business dealings with him. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you have other choices. For that final one, shift it to me to deal with, for I never want my women to be upset when they don’t have to be.

Local and national authorities, be it civilian or military, have rules they have to abide by; so almost always you can get the required action by talking to civic leaders, political figures, or the press. Criminal activities most definitely need me to get involved. A criminal almost always has other criminals as enemies, so it is possible to set one against the other, especially if the criminal is a politician. Politicians have a dog-eat-dog mentality.”

Sharl was getting more and more attuned as to how people behaved.

“Jimmy? You think that some of our former associates were not as clean as we had assumed?”

“That is about right, Sharl. Men and women who are drones in their teenage years and early twenties are susceptible to adopting a life of ignoring the basic tenets of society. They aim at what is good for them, instead of what is best for society. These are the people who cheat on their business expenses, look for backhanders on deals, go in for embezzlement, and any other scam that they think they can get away with. They often are searching for more ways to access cash assets.

They end up with a bad reputation among those who know them, but may get away with their criminal activities for years among people who have no personal experience of their crooked ways. That is often the case with politicians who move away from local politics to a higher level in the pecking order. There they are less exposed to close scrutiny, and evidence of their past criminality is harder to obtain, as it is easier for them to cover it up.”

Cherry wanted to know, “What about you, Jimmy? Think of it: kidnapping women, keeping them incarcerated, making use of them sexually; the accusations are endless.”

I smiled sweetly at her.

“Cherry, I am acting on behalf of your real abductor, mostly following his general instructions. The sex was not instigated by me at the start, remember, so that charge falls immediately. As to being incarcerated, look around you. Have you lacked for any real need? You have been accomodated in a luxury apartment, fed well, even given a free education and a personal advisory service provided while here; what is there to complain about?”

“You are a slippery customer, Jimmy. Your boss chose you well, whoever he is. Why he would want us to be forcibly taught to be better women, I can’t fathom. The only man I can imagine wanting that to happen is Daddy, but he cares little for what we do, and is always too busy with his work and now he has a girlfriend ... Oh, God! Surely it can’t be Daddy?”

“I am afraid so, Cherry. You finally stepped over the line of bad behaviour, and that made him snap. He inveigled me to act for him; to attempt to change his daughters from careless sluts into women he could be proud of. He saw there was no normal way to get you three to drop your casual, slutty and lackadaisical ways and rejoin the real world.

He had been watching my progress in his company and decided I was the kind of example that you could emulate, and asked me if I had any ideas on how the change might be effected. He knew I had avoided female entanglement until I was better placed to be a good husband, so he dangled a carrot in front of me: If I achieved the seemingly impossible and got you three to become women of decent quality, he would raise no objection if I got one of you to agree to become my spouse.

So, in a way, I was entrapped just as you were. I was presented with a task that looked like a labour of Hercules, but with a prize dangled if I succeeded.

I had to devise some means of achieving the impossible. I decided that the only way you would pay attention to a program of massive personal improvement was if you had no alternative. Admit it, Cherry. You wouldn’t have come and listened to hundreds of lessons and really learned them, if you hadn’t been forced to, right?”

Her face said it all. My claim was true. She propounded,”So, our nakedness and loss of our means of speaking to friends was part of your plans to give us no option but to listen to you?”

“Yes. It worked, didn’t it? You listened, and learned, and improved yourselves week by week in a way you never imagined you could?”

“And losing our contraceptive pills? Was that part of it?”

“That was caused by yourselves, Cherry. You kept them in your purses, and by sheer bad or good luck the purses remained in the transportation when you were brought here in a drugged state.”

“And the phones were in our purses as well, so we couldn’t be traced by the phone location?”

“That is a fact that I did plan for. I intended to gather your phones and post them to your house, so that it would appear you were at home if anyone tried to find the phone location. As it happened, they went home anyway. That is where your purses are.”

“Whoever brought us here delivered them home?” Sharl twigged. I agreed.

“Yes. The vehicle was hired, and your Daddy drove, while I kept an eye on you so that you wouldn’t choke or otherwise hurt yourselves while you were out of it. I cared for you right from the start, but I didn’t lay a hand on you at that time, except to protect you from harm. I gave you respect even then.”

Charlotte had been listening, and now interrupted, “That means we can’t be that far from home; only as far as Daddy could drive us and still get home in time for work the next day.”

“IF he was going back to work the next day, Charlotte. He could have taken a day or two off if he wished, yes?”

“Hmm ... I suppose so. You keep having answers for everything we query, Jimmy my love. I hope you always stay that way.”

“My employment required rational thinking, Charlotte, and I hope I still have a job afterwards. Your Daddy is not getting exactly what he wanted when we started.”

“I hope you didn’t promise him anything specific, Jimmy.”

“All I promised was to try, and do my best to succeed, but I probably bragged about my prowess a little.”

She giggled. “I could brag on your prowess, my man; and the results.”

I snorted, but was pleased at the quip.

“Okay, now that the backstory is clear, we still have some weeks of work to get through, so forget about your fetuses for the present, and concentrate on your future behaviour. I want Daddy to find he has three daughters he can be proud to introduce to his friends, and hopefully to Jenny.”

The mention of Jenny brought a few smiles, so I decided this episode was over.

“Now, what are doing about meals today? A good wife and mother should be able to concoct a meal out of whatever is in the freezer and her store cupboards. You have done me proud so far, ladies, but our supplies are low, so let’s see what you can do with what is available. We can prepare our next order for the groceries in plenty of time, so that we can all go through it to see what was missed, what I ordered too much of last time, and what we could try to work on, being adventurous. I want my women to be able to produce any sort of meal; from a simple omelette, Welsh rarebit, or pain perdue (what you probably call French toast, but the French words mean: lost/stale bread, which is what is used for the snack); to a full roast beef dinner with all the trimmings, or a Greek roast leg of lamb, or a gammon joint, most of them with roast potatoes and whichever gravy is best for the dish. Coming up with tasty roast potatoes, duchesse potatoes or melt-in-your-mouth potatoes is an art in itself, girls.

See, I know a little about good food and how to appreciate it. I just don’t have the expertise to cook it. Some men do, and I admire them, but this man of yours is an idiot at the kitchen cooker apart from breakfasts. I can do breakfasts, and I do them well. Beyond that, nix.”

“At least we get a long lie-in while you do breakfast, Jimmy. We appreciate that, my man,” asserted Sharlene. “We know how to appreciate you, we do.”