Chapter 1

"... and remember to get the garage cleaned out, dear. I want to be able to park the car inside when we get back," my wife, Joan, threw over her shoulder as she carried her overnight bag to the trunk of the already stuffed car. My 15 year old son, Brad, had one small suitcase in there and a backpack with his CD player, disks, and Gameboy by his feet in the front seat. Joan and my 14 year old daughter, Shelly, managed to fill the rest of the trunk and most of the back seat with their "necessities" for the long week-end visit to Joan's parents.

"Don't worry. It'll get done," I replied to her back as she tried to find a little more space in the back of the 5 year old Toyota. I watched her ass as she wiggled and shoved the recalcitrant bag. She was pushing forty pretty hard, but that ass still looked fine, as did the rest of her.

She slammed the trunk lid and briefly patted my cheek as she headed for the driver's side. "I just don't want to come home to another excuse like I did last time," she said as she buckled her seat belt and pushed a stray strand of dark brown hair behind her ear. "You have a pretty big to-do list for the weekend, so don't put it off. Summer's coming fast, John, and I want to be able to use the back yard this year."

"Hey, it was a legitimate excuse!" I retorted. "I hurt my back trying to get that monster trunk full of your winter clothes up in to the attic." I stood by her window, looking down into the little bit of cleavage that her blouse revealed. Damn! Those tits didn't look 40 years old either!

"Well, if you think anything is too heavy to lift, just repack it into smaller boxes," she mumbled around a tube of lipstick. Why can't women drive without war-paint? "I don't want to come home and find half of your tasks not done. After all, I'm letting you stay home instead of coming with us to see Mom and Dad. The least you can do is get the place ready for summer."

Her lips decorated to her satisfaction, she kissed her finger and touched my cheek. Heaven forbid I muss her makeup with a goodbye kiss! Not waiting for my response, she backed out of the driveway. The kids were already busy with their in-car diversions. Nobody returned my wave.

With a sigh, I headed back into the house to get my list. I laughed out loud as I remembered her last comment. Her parents didn't like me at all. They thought her daughter could have done better than a "common laborer, even if he does have a degree" (their words). They thought that a marriage should be a financial arrangement rather than a commitment between two people in love. They would have been willing to set Joan up for life financially, if she had only married "someone with a better upbringing" (again, their words). Since their lovely daughter insisted on marrying that common laborer, she could just live his common life, without their financial assistance. Her mom had softened toward me a little since I gave her her grandchildren to brag about, but her dad was still as stiff-necked as ever.

"Mummaw" and "Gumpy" did dote on their grandchildren and freely spent on them what they didn't spend on us. After the last time that I visited them with Joan and the kids, Brad complained that Mummaw and Gumpy spent so much time ragging on me that they didn't spend near as much money as they usually did on him and Shelly. Joan quietly observed that, in the interest of keeping the peace, I should probably stay home next time. What Joan remembered as "allowing me to stay home" was actually just another family financial arrangement. Evidently, they spent more on her as well when I wasn't around.

I sat at the kitchen table and popped open a beer as I stared down at the list and tried to sort it into some kind of priority. Damn! I think every time Joan walked through the kitchen she wrote something else down. Well... I might as well tighten the bolts on the picnic table before I cut the grass. That way I wouldn't have grass clippings all over me from crawling under the table. I'd shower when I finished cutting the grass. I still smelled like work. Maybe that's why Joan was in such a big rush to get on the road.

I walked out through the garage and grabbed my toolbox off the bench on my way to the back yard. I also grabbed the key to the shed so I could get the lawnmower when I finished with the picnic table. Adding gasoline fumes to the stench I brought home with me every day would make the garage totally unbearable, so all of the yard tools were kept in a small utility shed at the back corner of the yard. Joan never had occasion to go in there, or it would definitely be at the top of my weekend "honey-do" list.

The rhythmic beat of a rap song drew my attention to my neighbor's yard. Margaret Lowell, Shelly's 15 year-old best friend was washing her dad's car as she bumped to the beat of the radio. She was wearing cut-off denim shorts and a fairly modest bikini top and I stopped to admire the view as she bent to fill her sponge with another load of suds. She was starting to fill out as a young lady, with the angular awkwardness of early adolescence rapidly fading. She was closing in fast on that magic date when she would be eligible for her learner's permit and Greg, her dad, told her that if she expected to drive, she would have to earn the privilege. He hadn't had to wash his car since then.

Margaret moved to the other side of the car and spotted me. "Hey, Mister B.," she waved.

"Lookin' good, Meg," I waved back. She gave a little extra shimmy and pantomimed blowing me a kiss, then had to spit out the soapsuds. We both laughed. I was the only one she permitted to call her Meg. Her mom's middle name was Margaret, and she went by Peg. Greg, Peg, and Meg; her parents had a very strange sense of humor. (I kept asking Greg what they do if they had another kid? Name him Leg?) Meg went back to her washing and I headed over to the picnic table.

The redwood table was over ten years old, but still serviceable. The wood weathered well, but the bolts tended to loosen with the seasonal temperature changes. It would only shift a little when you sat on the bench, but Joan didn't trust it. Every spring I tightened the carriage bolts that held it together and checked the edges of the seats for splinters.

I sat my toolbox on the table and grabbed the nine-sixteenths open-end wrench from the top tray. Lying down on my back, I squirmed under the bench to start on the leg braces. The nuts would be easier to reach if I flipped the table, but if I tightened them while the table was upside-down, it would wobble on the uneven ground when I flipped it back over (something else Joan wouldn't tolerate). By tightening the bolts with the table in its usual place, all four legs sat evenly on the ground.

"Hey, Mister B., whacha doin' down there?" I looked up between the bench and table to see Meg bent over peering down at me.

"Just changin' the oil, Meg," I replied. "These classic redwood models require just as much upkeep as your dad's car does."

She looked puzzled for a minute, then laughed and kicked at the sole of my shoe. "How many gallons of potato salad do you get between oil changes?" she quipped.

"You should know," I replied. "You practically live over here during barbecue season. Actually, I'm tightening the bolts, so you don't get your fat potato salad ass dumped on the ground."

"My ass isn't fat!" she yelled as she turned around and shook it at me. That's why she let me call her Meg. I never treated her like a kid and never said anything about her language.

"Then get your skinny ass down here and I'll show you what I'm doing. It'll be good practice for when you dad has you doing his oil changes in exchange for the use of his car keys."

"Hmmm... I don't think so," she said slowly as she bent for a closer look into the shadows of the table. "I don't have a shirt on and there might still be left-over potato salad down there."

I stopped my work to look up at her. Damn! What a sight! She still had that bikini top on. With her bent over like that, I realized how much she had grown up... and out!

"... at home?" Oops! I suddenly realized Meg was talking to me.

"What was that?" I asked dumbly.

Meg grinned at me. "Put your eyes back in your head. I saw where you were staring. You're living proof that a guy's eyes and ears can't both function at the same time," she laughed. "I just asked if Shelly was at home."

"Nope, she and the rest of the gang went to visit Joan's folks for the long weekend. They won't be back until Monday night." I pointed the wrench at her obvious cleavage. "... and it wasn't my fault! You've become quite a distraction in your old age."

Meg glanced down at her chest, then grinned at me as she gave her boobs a little shake. "Why, thank you, kind sir," she simpered. "I'll take that as a compliment." She laughed as she turned to go. "Especially coming from an old fossil like you!" she threw over her shoulder as she left.

I laughed as Meg went around the corner of our common fence. We were always teasing each other like that. Like I said, she and Shelly were best friends, so we had plenty of opportunity to trade the verbal barbs. We knew it was harmless, but Joan always gave me "that look" whenever we traded insults.

I smiled to myself and got back to work. I had finished with the legs and tabletop and had moved back a little to get to the bolts on the bench, when I saw a shadow fall across the edge of the bench. I slid forward a little to see who it was and my mouth fell open. Suddenly the shady area under the table was as hot as a blsast furnace and I had trouble breathing. Meg was back... but this was a Meg I had never seen before!

She had changed clothes. The cut-off shorts were replaced by a pale yellow mini-skirt. I know if she took a deep breath, I'd be able to see her panties. And speaking of deep breasts, er... breaths, the top she was wearing made her a walking wet dream! It was a white peasant top with a low square neckline that was cut off to show her bare belly, but from my vantage point under the table, I could also see the bottom swell of her bare breasts. I was suddenly aware of my pants being too tight.