"Would you please get Anne out of my house!?"

Rather uncharitable of my mother-in-law, I thought, but a perfectly understandable remark given the context. The whole of the afternoon, and all through dinner, Anne had been a total bitch to her mother.

Barbara rolled her eyes. Time for my wife to play Ms. Mediator again. I could see her irritation level was up. When Barbara got angry, she flushed from the neck down. Even with the top several buttons on her blouse undone, there was no end in sight. The warm red of the rash was heightened by the cool light blues and greens of the cloth.

I felt trapped there in the kitchen while all the pots came to a boil. It was like I wasn't supposed to be there, as though I was eavesdropping. But at least I had a sense of being part of the proceedings.

"Do something, anything! Say it's time for me to get some quality bonding time with my granddaughter! Tell her you want to keep your mother off Death Row for premeditated murder!" She moved her hand a little too close to the knife block.

Barbara looked to me. "Care to hang out with me and my sister over at her place for awhile?"

I turned to my mother-in-law. "Am I correct in assuming that bonding will involve you and Stephie and Barney?"

"And don't forget Baby Bop," she gave a dangerous grimace.

That question answered, I answered Barb's. "Sure. Great. Sounds like fun to me."

I did make note to know what the topic was if I was ever not a part of a whispered kitchen conversation. But Anne hadn't married into this. It seemed impossible that she could be unaware of the same. But when we all went back into the livingroom, she looked up from the floor with a bright oblivious smile. Maybe she was too caught up in play to have considered the huddle in the kitchen.

I was surprised that Anne still had some patience left in the reservoir. While being a cute, quick and generally agreeable kid, Stephie was still at the age where she was convinced that the whole of the universe existed solely for her own personal satisfaction. They had all those goddamn plastic horses out, which, I supposed, held Anne in the trance of a flashback. It almost made me queasy, how clear an image I had of Anne-the-little-girl cantering her herd of yore around.

I'd probably stolen the image from an old photo album. The only real difference was that age had filled out the knobby bare legs of her corral, and now they were sheathed in thin black cotton pants. The pants played nicely against her pull-over top, which I'd been admiring all day. It was a deep raspberry color I found intensely appealing. I would have killed for that shirt but for the feminine piping at the seams. Nor was the scalloped neck really my style.

The question I dreaded the most: "Daddy, will you play horsies with me?"

Think of Wayne-the-little-boy, surreptitiously biting the hooves off all his sisters' horsies. Given my lifelong love of horses, I really was the worst companion for such play. Of course Stephie would consign me the mangiest of the lot, and then get furious when I didn't play the way she wanted me to play. My horsies never wanted to go galloping across the plains performing dangerous deeds and heroic tasks. My sad lot were resigned to trudging slowly off to the dogfood factory.

Evil of me, true, but it had earned me last-resort status. Whereas Anne was ready to romp for hours. She looked around wildly after Barb informed her the three of us were going over to her place. "What? Why? But I'm having fun!"

"The ghouls from the glue factory are out on the loose, hunting in packs," I chirped in, ignoring the glowering glances I gathered. "Time for all good horsies to be back in the stable, fast asleep." Shameless!

Shameless as well, Barbara and her mother were furiously whispering while the pair of them looked askant down at Anne. Judgment pronounced, they traded big smug smiles.

Anne still looked a bit lost. Lacking the blood ties, I wasn't lacking patience with her petulance. Not quite yet, anyway. I leaned down and intoned in her ear, "It's time for the arrival of the fat friendly dinosaur and all his evil friends."

I quickly straightened up, trying to keep the surprise off my face. If she hadn't been sitting on the floor bent at the waist... and I hadn't been leaning from behind to whisper... I certainly never would have called the neckline of her shirt immodest. But there, in that brief flash, I clearly saw that Anne, like Barbara, didn't favor wearing a bra in an informal setting.

"Not the Barney tapes!" she gave a mock shudder. Anne was immediately on her feet. "Stephie, thanks for letting me play horsies with you!"

I glanced around to see if anyone had seen me seeing what I had seen. Several of the horses seemed to be grinning at me, but otherwise the indiscretion appeared to have gone unnoticed.

In the next instant the three of us were crunching down the gravel walk to the driveway. I was left to provide the applause for my own genius since no one else would. Not only had I gotten us out the door and on our way in a flash, but it'd been accomplished before Stephie had had time to react.

For the drive over I sat in the backseat alone. It was like some sort of futuristic mode of entertainment. There was the drone of the chatter in the frontseat, the syllables of which never quite made it intact to my domain. The red and amber flashing of taillights in front of us, white headlights darting at us from the front and sides, the blues and oranges of the sodium- and mercury-vapor street lights, and the whole rainbow of lights from the stretches of businesses and institutions along the way; all these amazing lights distorted by the traveling fishbowl effect of the car windows. I particularly enjoyed the stroboscopic effect of watching Barb and Anne as they turned their heads to each other during the conversation, that low level hummy sort of buzz us backseaters overhear and call language.

Once we got to the apartment, I quickly claimed the only real chair in the room, a modern ergonomic thing by the computer. It was a sensitive piece of machinery. In flopping myself down, I nearly wound up zipping across the room and crashing through the wall. Barbara and Anne were quite content to flop down on opposite ends of the collection of covered floor cushions that served as a sofa.

I carefully scooted my wheeled seat closer but to no avail. Barbara and Anne continued their conversation, old family stuff in such a code I might as well have been in the backseat. I sat there smiling, listening vaguely, reminding myself that I was having a better time than if I'd stayed behind. Though if I had I would have retreated to the guest room with a book. Strictly to avoid interfering with the quality time, of course.

Major on my mind was what a grand time I'd be having if I'd just stayed home. These weekend trips to the City of In-Laws were no nightmares, but still, given my druthers... much much grander still if we'd run Stephie over, the two of us returning home for a weekend alone!

From my vantage I realized I'd taken the wrong seat. I would've fit nice and snug between them on the ersatz sofa, or cuddled up against Barbara if she'd been in the middle. There she was, my lovely wife, slumped down in the cushions. The slope displayed her draped breasts to a fine advantage, and gravity had her legs casually splayed. Even encased in a somewhat dowdy blouse and relaxed-fit jeans, this was not a sight I needed to be seeing in the company of others. We were passing through a very busy month or so, and my affair with my own hand had grown rather tiresome. The more I stared at Barbara the more the stash of cash in my wallet was burning a hole in my pocket. It was surely enough for a bed in a room at a low-budget chain. My wife, without child by her side! Break her out of this maternal mode she kept getting stuck in. A few hours of good clean fun. And hey, the night's paid for. We'd be partners in crime again. Old reliable car trouble. Nothing like an overnight miracle to recharge a few batteries! Let's ditch Anne and go fuck like crazy!

My telepathic powers, per usual, were malfunctioning.

I shifted my attentions to Anne to calm down. She was, when she was calm, a genuinely likable person. But she was currently trying to fast- track a PhD program. Student-teaching, taking classes, roughing out her dissertation, plus odd-jobbing the freelance stuff that paid the bills. No wonder she was nearly crazy. I pitied my mother-in-law for living in the same town, and thus becoming the sounding board for all of Anne's bitchy frustrations. Besides her mother, Anne's social life was her cat, a rather psychotic thing I'd seen once in a darting flash. As well, in my diagnoses--which I kept strictly to myself--I imagined that her sexual life didn't stray too far from the familiarity of her own friendly fingers. Which, as I well knew, could get to be quite a bore.

I had to turn my attentions away from her! She lay there sprawled in nearly an identical position as Barbara. Anne was a slightly different flavor, but she was still basically the same genetic milkshake. I was ready to go back and comfort myself by slurping up the infantile images on the television screen!

Right then the phone rang somewhere behind me.

Both sets of eyes turned in my direction. Not looking at me, but there I sat in the line of vision. I sort of crossed my arms in my lap. I didn't have a raging erection, but there was definitely less blood available to my brain than usual.

Anne got up to get it, passing directly by me to where it sat next to the computer. I swiveled and scooted in my wonderchair to give her less of a detour. In my sensitized state I could smell her as she swished by. It wasn't an ornate or complicated odor, nothing innately sexual, just the good clean scent of a woman. Enough to nearly throw me from the chair. Down boy, down!

The chair was nearly brand new and ridiculously well-lubricated. My tiny twist and push sent me almost to the sofa, twirling a full 180 degrees. I watched Anne on her trip across the room. My god! They can observe others, they can see themselves in fitting mirrors, but no woman can ever know how truly delicious she is to watch walking away.

Quickly I caught myself and turned back to Barbara. A little smile was playing across her face.

"I uh, wow, these damn chairs, they oughta put brakes on 'em!"

Barb laughed. "I think you're supposed to put the brakes on yourself."

I just stared. It seemed like a good time to keep my mouth shut.

She leaned up and lowered her voice. "Hadn't you noticed before? You're hardly the first guy to realize what a cute ass she has. Don't worry! I'd think there was something wrong with you if you didn't appreciate the view."

Actually I happened to be appreciating a different view at the moment. Barb guessed this without looking down; keeping her eyes on me she reached and tugged the neckline of her shirt out and down even further. Nipple alert!

"Stop it!" I hissed.

She snickered and gave me a playful swat that sent me, literally, spinning in circles.

After answering the phone, Anne's tone had quickly lost its brightness. She held the receiver out towards us, "It's Mom--something about Stephie?"

Barbara and I exchanged high-browed looks of surprise. I was scared to try and get out of the chair; before I could, Barb was on her feet and walking across the room. There went another fine sight! But I couldn't really follow it. The air was fairly crackling with concern. And the way Anne was turned, she would have seen the smoke pouring out my ears.

Barbara wasn't doing much talking, but her expression grew grave. Anne's arms started an agitated flapping, as though she couldn't stand not being on the phone herself hearing the whole story. The whole story seemed to take forever to tell. Barb backed up and settled her bottom against the desk while Anne took to canting back and forth on her hips. Eventually, Anne shrugged and walked across the room. She sank down in front of me, sitting on her heels and resting her hands on her knees.

Her look was so serious as she whispered, "I wonder what's wrong?"

I shrugged and dropped my eyes just long enough to see the danger of the situation. I didn't want to be rude and look at the top of her head, but her gaze was too intense for me to comfortably hold. Which didn't leave me many options. That damn shirt! I caught a glimpse of the formative swells of her breast, rapidly rising and falling with the excited pace of her breath. I settled instead on looking past Anne, around her, letting my gaze come to rest on Barb. I'd get to the bottom of this mystery using my profound supernatural powers

"Oh," I finally hazarded a guess to give myself something else to do, "Stephie probably spilled a nearly invisible drop of grape juice on her very favorite nightgown."

If it wasn't that, it was probably something just like that. Whatever it was, I was glad for the excuse to get out of there. This dwelling on the physical attributes of the opposite sex was going to get me in trouble. My mind had many more than just the one track, but it wasn't willing to concede the fact when stuck in a room with two gorgeous examples of the gender in question.

Anne looked stunned by my response.

"It happens!" I asserted. "Sure, I thought trial-and-error was a tried- and-true form of learning but this'll make the third time this week. She insists on using a grown-up glass too wide for her hand, she insists on pouring it so full the meniscus is floating above the actual rim, she insists on not sitting at a table, she insists on holding the glass in one hand while she uses the other for play. And she insistently--I mean consistently--spills on herself. But only when she's wearing the only nightgown she'll wear. And it's always one drop so small you wouldn't even see it if she didn't point it out. Lucky for your mom she has that washer and dryer--the crisis will be over within an hour without leaving the house."

How much more of a monster could I make myself appear? Why stop with one foot--hell, let me cram the entire leg in my mouth.

Fortunately Barbara saved me from further embarrassment by coming away from the phone wearing a very grim expression.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Your daughter."

"What's wrong?" Anne demanded, getting to her feet.

"A little girl wants her Mommy," came her curt reply.

"What is it? what is it?" Anne wouldn't let off.

"Stephie fell asleep in front of the tube, and then slipped into an intensely frightening nightmare."

"Yea, Barney does that to me all the time," I quipped.

"It was an epic horror involving the slaughter of horses," she glared at me.

Having the two of them standing there in front of me made me feel even smaller in my seat. "Oh boy," I replied, moving to get up, "I guess I better go clean up my mess."

"A little girl wants her Mommy," Barbara stated in her sweetest voice. I knew not to be tempted. The tone was the frosting on a display window cake; one bite would break a tooth on the plaster. "Besides, I can just see you trying to console her. It's okay honey, think how happy it made all the dogs."

"Well, it's the same as that Great Circle of Life crap all those cartoon animals are always spouting off about."

I stood up to go, remembering that it really wasn't a simple matter of one of us going into the other room to play the Comforter.

Barbara looked at me queerly. "Relax. Sit down. I'm going, case closed."

"But, um, I thought, you know... " My hands dipped and twirled and shook in elaborate gestures that, really, clarified nothing. I was quite the master of inarticulation.

"Oh? Oh, no no," she comprehended at last. "I plan to be right back. She'll probably be fast asleep by the time I get there."

That explicated I decided to sit back down. I chose the sofa. I was having no more of that chair!

There was that full minute where Anne and I both stared at the door after it closed. After that we had to turn to each other. And then began the Great Deadly Lull. In departing, Barb had taken the certain dynamic of her presence that generally allowed us to have easy conversations.

Anne slunk over and sat herself in the crazy chair. The damn thing barely budged. She swiveled my way, precisely.

This was not good. I was stuck in the same place, and in the same mindset. The only changes were that the one woman--my wife--had left, and that I'd switched seating with the other woman--my wife's sister. And my mission--should I choose to accept it--was to invent conversation when I was quickly feeling very quiet. Matters were not helped by the fact that I was basically sitting on the floor. With Anne sprawled in the chair in front of me, my level-headed gaze fell right between her open thighs.

"It could've been grape juice," I whined.

"But it wasn't," Anne countered.

True, true.

"Nice weather we're having," I attempted, clasping my hands in my lap.

"For winter," she shrugged.

I gave up and studied my hands. I glanced up at the overhead fixture, then I turned my attention to the window in the adjacent wall. The minutes were gorged as hours. Years later Anne rolled back a bit, then stood up. "I'm going to make a cup of tea. Would you like one?"

"Sure!" I grasped.

And, I admit--secret shameless bastard that I am--I stared at her behind until the turn into the kitchen swallowed the sight. A cute ass indeed.

Calm down! I scolded myself. The potential for big trouble was definitely arising. Barbara might not have minded my helping myself to a little look, but geez! You're in your apartment with your brother- in- law while your sister is off comforting your sweet little niece, and the jerk can't keep his eyes off you. What a creep!

The creak of the old tap, the splatter of water, the rattle of the kettle and the clicking of mugs. Bang on the stove, clunk on the counter, slam goes the cabinet door. A nice long medley of safe unsexy sounds. I was fast back in control, returned to the status quo. I had Anne placed back in the proper compartment.

The kettle gave a scraggly old whistle, and nearly immediately Anne was back in the room. She was carrying the cat, not cups.

"Look who I found." Anne's smile was broad and proud as she brought the cat over to me.

"Well hi, sweetheart." I never could remember its name. I'd known the damn thing since Anne got it as a kitten, so it was years too late to ask. Enna, that was one name I'd given it. Lunatic was another.

The cat was a mutt, but some exotic forebear was definitely trying to show through. It really was a gorgeous creature, a silvery sort of white with smoky hints of markings. The eyes were this amazing iridescent sort of baby-blue with violet undertones.

I reached out to stroke it. "Pretty pretty," I crooned.

As usual, it flinched. "Wah!"

"Oh, you big baby!"

I tried again. I wanted it to cry again. I loved the color of its mouth combined with the blues and greys. Princess Pink Mouth was another name.

Anne knelt down and practically crawled between my outstretched legs, insisting that I hold the cat in my lap. She was beaming. Love me, love my cat. I grinned back, "Gosh, this is more I've seen of it than in all the past two years." The transfer was effected, not that the cat was at all happy about it. The thing was trembling in my arms.

But this was not a good situation to be in. I had this squirming weight pressing against my crotch. A pretty face was hovering barely a foot from mine. And our hands, not touching, but so close together, stroking the soft fur. Petting a cat is a very sensuous experience, and sharing it with someone... well, it was like having some sort of unusual sex.

The cat exploded!

I didn't even see where it went. It just flew up in the air, and then Anne tumbled into my lap, the top of her head clipping my cheek. "Ow!" I shouted.

She quickly scrambled up, rubbing her scalp, "Oh what? I'm sorry!"

"Oh no, it's not that." I was staring at my arm. A trio of welts were forming, raising up, blushing, each splitting to bubble up a crimson line.

"Oh no!" she exclaimed. Before I could react she was holding my hand in hers. She used the index finger of her other hand to trace lines parallel to the scratches, stopping to poke at my arm around the welts. Such a simple touch, but it was driving me nuts! "Those look angry," she declared, "we better do something about them."

Uh uh! I was not about to let Anne go into nurse-mode. "Oh, that's nothing, really, it's okay, they don't even hurt. Little soap and water maybe, paper towel or something to blot them with. Hey, what about that tea anyway."

"Oh yea," she brightened.

Excellent diversionary tactic!

I followed Anne into the kitchen. It was a tiny, narrow space. There was barely room for us both to fit, me at the sink and her the counter opposite. Knowing Anne I should have guessed that the tea was a complicated business. The process involved tea-balls and loose leaf, an exact steeping time, then a pinch of another type of tea. A little lemon did not involve a quick squirt from that magic plastic one.

The whole time I was washing my arm, rinsing with peroxide, and drying off, Anne was directly behind me. We were bumping butts every fifteen seconds.

"Oops, excuse me."

"Sorry!"

"This really is an intimate kitchen, isn't it?"

Then she started exaggerating. "Boom-boom," she'd call out, and then boom-boom it would be.

But I was trying to press on the damn cuts. Otherwise they kept trickling. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all!" Boom-boom!

"Come on!" I reached for another paper towel.

"Okay!" Boom-boom!

"Anne! I'm doing that compression thing! Gentle, or I'll bleed to death in your sink."

She answered with a very gentle little boom indeed. Then she made a little sucking sound. "Mmm! Usually I don't indulge but sometimes I need some sweetness."

What? Whatever!

"Would you like a drop of my very special honey?"

I about fell through the floor! "Would you like a taste?" She came around my side with a spoon of something thick and dark and barely liquid, then showed me the jar. Okay, honey to sweeten the tea. But not the runny stuff that comes in a plastic squeeze bear. A raw honey from the nectar of a special flower that grew only in one small patch somewhere on the other side of the world. One drop because one drop would be a full dollop.

"Here," she flicked her tongue out at the spoon, "just the tip of your tongue. It's very strong." I'd been ready to open wide and say ahhh. Bad enough to be fed, but to have to expose my tongue--that implied something too sensual. "Go on, have a taste, it's really good." Eh, get it over with!

Hey, good enough, strong yes, a distinct nearly smoky flavor. Funny honey. Hell yea, stir some in. It was going to be a cup of weird tasting stuff anyway. I rarely drank tea, and when I did it would be three bags of grocery brand garbage and two spoons of sugar let set for about fifteen minutes--ersatz coffee.

I finally managed to staunch the bleeding. We took our cups back into the livingroom. Anne took the psycho chair, leaving me glad to have the faux sofa to myself. We smiled at one another over our cups of tea. The honey did help. The brew smelled sort of like--kindred in taste as well, I guessed--the water in a vase after you've tossed out the cut flowers you kept too long. To my health and my hostess!

"Well?" Anne smiled.

"Well?" I smiled.

"The tea?"

"Great! Really. Truly."

"So?"

"Yea?"

This was awful! Fucking painful. I doubt I was the only one in the room wishing Barbara a swift return.

"Would you like to meet some interesting people?" What? like she had a bunch of them stashed away in the closet?

"Sure, sounds great!" Maybe I should flap my arms and fly home to my town, call up some friends? Maybe she was going to suggest I step out the door and keep walking until I found some? The awkward fault was entirely my own--I was feeling supremely dull.

Anne was busy tapping away at the computer. "Come on," she called. I stood up with a groan, feeling old and weary, and went over. There wasn't a comfortable compromise between standing and squatting. I chose the latter simply because I felt less towering.

She was apparently hooked up into some sort of fancy chat room--she tossed off some acronyms that made me think of dirty cows--that involved a castle setting and everyone parading around in period costumes bearing fake names and unlikely personas.

"This is real time," Anne announced. Hardly the description I would have used.

She led us through a bunch of noisy rooms out into a quiet garden, prattling all the while. Those in the know knew the proper commands. By looking under a forsythia bush she pulled out a hand mirror. Held up at the proper angle one would see a turret window. Look in the window. Then we were in the turret room, which seemed to be as cozy as a mansion. That's where all her friends hung out.

"Oh look, there's Laura." I knew the name from discussions between Barbara and her mother. Laura was an old friend of Anne's from way back. Princess Prescience I believe she was calling herself. Princess Pretentious seemed more appropriate.

They went chattering away. My mind drifted, focusing on nothing specific. Always be polite, I reminded myself, singing the refrain of a childhood admonishment.

Suddenly Anne was poking at my shoulder. "Get on up here! Laura wants to say hello." The chair was not made for two, but she scooted over enough for me to sit down beside her.

>"Hello Shrouded One! How goeth things with thou?"

"Shrouded One? What's that?"

"I had to give you a name."

I was supposed to put my fingers on the keys and type out an answer:

>"Well, here I sit with Anne's thigh pressed against mine

>and it's sort of giving me a hard-on I don't really

>want. And of course I'm allegedly talking to some

>idiot pretending to be Princess Leviathan or whatever."

All I could really think to say was:

>"An old dog sitting here, learning new tricks I suppose."

Short, to-the-point, and not at all encouraging. As well I ceased to exist.

>"Ah, lucky Lady you! I see the Count approaching."

>She slips away discreetly in slippered feet.

Ah, the Count! I felt touched, and intensely saddened. Anne was showing me the extent of her social life. She didn't have one. I didn't have much of one, but at least when I was in a room with some friends the furniture was real. When they talked I saw their mouths move.

>Count Samovar rushes Lady Lida into a darkened alcove.

>She opens the spigot and fills her cup with his tea.

"Lady Lida!" I exclaimed, "as in famed for close encounters of the swan kind?"

Anne blushed, typing furiously.

>"Not now you don't, George. Sorry, but I'm giving a tour

>at the moment."

"This royal Russian tea urn and his spigot--what's he keep talking about anyway?"

"His penis." She didn't bat an eye, or miss a keystroke.

"Oh." Oh. Oh boy. Oh my god. Her faux social life and sexual life were one and the same. Gave a whole new meaning to the phrase digital sex. Granted, I hadn't had an orgasm in over a month that wasn't the product of my five little friends, but geez, at least they could concentrate on the business at hand. They didn't have to go wander away and type descriptions of what they were trying to do. Fer crissakes! A computer as a jack-off prop?

My mind was whirling. I was having to think about all sorts of things I didn't want to think about. The image of Anne sitting in this very chair creaking the casters. Did they concoct an entire torrid encounter, then kick back and get off while proofing it? Or did they really jump back and forth, Anne alternating cunt strokes with keystrokes? Pump pump, tickaticka, pump pump? Wouldn't that gunk up the keyboard?

I was spared further thoughts by the ringing of the phone. Wait a minute--the phone, ringing?

"How does that happen?" I asked.

Anne looked at me as if I was a moron, which, of course, I was. "I have two lines."

The phone was on her side of the computer so she answered it. It was her phone, so she answered.

"Hi! Oh yea? Hold on." Anne handed the phone over to me. "It's Barb." She resumed talking away, typing away.

"Thanks." Two lines and all this technology, but she didn't have a cordless phone. It was a delicate balance I was trying to strike-- keeping the cord out of her way without falling out of my half of the chair. I gave it up and got to my feet.

"Hey Barbara. What's up? How's Stephie? When are you heading back?"

"Sorry, Wayne, I'm not. I won't be able to make it back tonight."