Chapter 4

I showered in the garage, and then I straightened a few things on my workbench while I air-dried. If I wanted to get husband points for doing the towels, I couldn't dirty another one. I walked naked into the bedroom and flopped across the bed. I set the alarm on my watch then almost forced myself into a light sleep to avoid thinking about what might happen at dinner.

When my watch went off, I threw on a clean pair of shorts and a polo shirt. It was never fancy when we got together with the Lowells. I pulled a bottle of wine out of the cabinet to take with me. At six o'clock, with a mild case of butterflies in my stomach, I crossed over to the Lowell's back door, gave a double tap, and stuck my head in and said, "Anybody home?" Shit, how cliche could you get?

Peg yelled, "Come on in, John," as she walked into the kitchen from their living room. I almost dropped the bottle of wine. Peg was wearing a short blue skirt with a pale pink blouse. The blouse was every bit as transparent as the white one she was wearing this afternoon. It did absolutely nothing to hide her big boobs from my gaze. She stopped inside the kitchen door and struck a pose, then she shook her shoulders to make her boobs bounce back and forth. "You like?" she queried.

"Wow! What's not to like?" I replied. I sat the bottle on the kitchen table and crossed to her. We hugged, a little longer than usual, and I gave her boobs a squeeze as we parted. She pulled my hands back to her boobs before I could drop them to my side.

"Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. Why don't you go on in and see if you can start prying Greg away from the TV?" She squeezed my hands against her big tits one last time as she stepped around me to the oven.

I walked into their living room to see Greg sprawled in his recliner, hid eyes glued to the talking head on the news channel. Peg should have let me know what I was about to see. Maybe she'd been so close to him that she hadn't noticed the change. Greg was a porker! He'd put on at least thirty pounds and he just looked... 'soft' was all I could think of. I tried to think when we had got together with them last. We'd had a cookout, so it had to be last October. He had done this to himself in about six months!

"Hi, Greg," I forced the joviality, "Peg said for me to haul your lazy butt into the kitchen for dinner."

"John... , " was his only reply. His eyes never left the TV. Something about a famine in Africa. The story wrapped and they broke for commercials, then Greg came to life. "How have you been, John? You're looking good. It seems like forever since we've had a get-together with your family."

"Yea... Yeah, Greg," I stammered. "I was trying to remember myself when I came in. I think it was that last barbecue of the season on that real warm day in October. I did the chicken and Peg brought that big bowl of potato salad."

"I think you're right," Greg replied. "Weather turned to shit right after that. How's Joan and the kids? Peg said they were out of..." It was like flipping a switch. The talking head was back on the tube. God, it's a wonder Peg hadn't strangled the guy by now!

Peg came in and grinned at me. "Hey, stud, dinner's ready. I hope you like meatloaf," she said softly. I raised my eyebrows at her remark and nodded toward Greg. "Don't worry. He can't hear a thing right now," she shrugged as she glanced toward the TV. "He's several thousand miles away right now. Kuwait, by the looks of it."

She went to Greg's side and bent to lift his arm, careful not to step between him and the TV set. I was treated to the sight of her bare breasts hanging down as her low-cut blouse gaped open. Greg's eyes never left the tube. As she led him to his chair, he continued to watch the news. I realized that Greg's chair let him watch TV from the kitchen table. I just shook my head as I followed them into the kitchen. Sad.

"Margaret! Dinner's ready!" Peg yelled toward the kitchen door. A few seconds later, I was treated to another dazzling site as Meg came into the kitchen.

She was wearing the same short, yellow skirt from yesterday, but today, she was wearing a matching yellow, midriff baring top. Her braless tits were clearly visible through the sheer top. She grinned and said, "Hi, John." Greg cleared his throat in warning. "Er... hi, Mister B.," she amended. Greg's sense of propriety was mollified. He continued to stare at the TV. He never noticed that Meg directed that last greeting right at the bulge in my shorts.

I noticed Meg didn't have a wine glass. With a look at Peg, I picked up the bottle and tipped it slightly towards Meg's seat. Her eyebrows went up, but she went and got Meg a wine glass. Meg smiled in wide-eyed wonder as I put the glass of wine in front of her. Greg was still somewhere in the middle east.

A commercial came on and the serving dishes started around the table. Suddenly, there was a crash as Greg dropped the serving bowl of green beans on his plate. He was staring with wide eyes at his wife's clearly visible boobs. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times, but no sound came out. Finally, he managed to get his vocal cords in gear. "Peg, what the hell do you think you're doing. I can't believe you'd wear something like that in front of guests." He started to get wound up. "I thing you should excuse yourself from the table and put something else on RIGHT NOW!" he finished with a shout.

"I don't think so," was my quiet comment.

"WHAT? Peg, RIGHT NOW! Just go..." I interrupted him before his face got any redder.

"Greg, just shut up and listen," I said calmly. He started to sputter again. "Greg, I said BE QUIET!"

Greg's mouth snapped shut and he turned to glare at me. Suddenly, something in his eyes changed. He looked at me quietly for a few seconds, then he simply said, "Yes, sir."

Yes, sir? Jeez, I didn't expect that! A strange feeling washed over me as I stared Greg down. I decided to press my advantage. Our friendship as neighbors was going to change directions here, if I could pull it off. I started in on him. "Peg has stopped wearing her bra because I told her to. Both she and Margaret have been braless since yesterday afternoon." Greg looked at Meg to see for himself. she grinned and shook her shoulders to make her boobs dance for him. He gulped, then returned his gaze to me. I continued, "If you weren't continuously sucking up to that glass teat in there (thanks, Harlan!), you would have noticed. You would have also seen Peg come back in the house, totally topless, to get me a glass of tea this afternoon. You didn't even notice your wife's bare tits when she stood in that doorway and told you I was coming to dinner. Now that's what I call a real dedication to world events!

"Greg, I know you work for some legal firm somewhere. Is that why you spend so much time watching the news? Do you make investment advice based on news indicators? Do the hot trouble spots in the world affect how you do your job? Tell me, Greg, exactly what do you do for a living?"

He seemed to shrink a little under my stare. Once again, his mouth moved for a few seconds without his vocal cords being in sync. Then he stammered out, "I ah... I'm... I'm a clerk in a law library. Law... lawyers--some times their assistants--come in wanting a certain reference from a past case. I... er... I find the book, and make them a copy."

"That's all?" I queried.

"Some... sometimes I check the book out for them if they want to look up other stuff. Then they'll bring the book back with a whole list of pages for me to copy for them," he finished as he stared at the bean bowl on his plate. "I... er... I have to keep records of which pages are copied. Sometimes we have to pay a fee."

"OK, Greg," I said a little louder, causing him to look back up from the beans, "here's the jackpot question. What the hell does this world-wide news gathering have to do with your job?"

Greg stared back at the beans for a few seconds. "Nothing," he muttered, "absolutely nothing at all." He stared back up at me. "It just got to where I had to know what was going on in the world."

I scooted my chair back and crossed my arms. "Greg, old buddy, you're my best friend here on the street, and you're killing yourself. You have become a news junkie. It happened to a lot of people during the Gulf War and after 9/11. They start out just being interested and concerned, but before long, they get used to the constant information flow into their brains and they can't do without it.

"Greg, take a look at yourself. You've turned into a tub of lard! Good god, man, when was the last time you could look down and see your own dick?" Greg turned red as Peg snorted into her wine glass. I pressed on. "You're starting to look like a heart attack waiting to happen. So... I'm going to make some changes in your life."

I stood up, walked into the living room, and turned off the television. The sudden silence was almost deafening. "Starting right now," I continued, "you are totally cut-off from CNN. I will allow you one half hour of any local--I repeat, LOCAL--news show per day. That's it! Do you understand?"

Greg had winced when I turned off the TV, but his response to my question was immediate. "Yes, sir," he replied.

"Every day, you will walk out to the intersection across the railroad tracks and back. That's about one mile, round trip." Then I had an inspiration. "When you take your walk, you will take a plastic grocery bag with you. Whenever you spot a piece of trash, you will bend over and pick it up. When your bag is full, you may stop picking up trash for that day, but you will still walk to the intersection and back. The next day, walk to where you stopped gathering trash and continue picking up trash again until your bag is full. I want you to do this every day. Clear?" (There were eight houses on our dead end street, four on each side, all clustered at the dead end. Before the street intersected with the main road, it crossed a no-mans land consisting of a power-line right of way and a pair of railroad tracks. Trash was always blowing up and down the street from this largely un-maintained area.)

"Yes, sir."

"It rained yesterday, so your car needs washed again. Meg's now officially off the hook; that's your job again. And while you're at it," I smiled, "you can go ahead and wash my pick-up as well. OK?

"Yes, sir."

Another flash of inspiration! "Oh, and you might as well cut the grass in both our yards, too. They're both starting to look a little ragged."

"Yes, sir."

I walked back to the table and went to Peg. I took her arm, urging her to stand, then walked her to stand in front of her husband. I lifted her arm, then pulled the side of her blouse up, uncovering one succulent boob in the process. I pointed to the still prominent groove in her side and said, "I told Peg she should stop wearing a bra because those industrial strength slings she has were cutting her in half. Feel that," I directed. He hesitantly ran a couple of fingers across the dimpled area. "I told Peg to get some lighter, looser bras to wear to work, but to go braless around here. Besides," I grinned, giving her bare breast a squeeze, "they sure do look better like this than they do encased in plastic and elastic."

I dropped Peg's blouse back over her tit, and motioned to Meg. "I told Margaret she needed to go braless more often, simply because she has nice looking tits. Any questions?" Greg shook his head. "Good, now let's eat." I sat back down and lifted the bean bowl out of Greg's plate.

I had grabbed the bowl of beans to cover my shaking hands. What was going on here? I had just ordered my neighbor around like a judge passing sentence, and then fondled his wife's bare boob right in front of his face and he never blinked an eye. His total demeanor was different. Once I told him he was cut off, he never glanced at the TV again. I had no doubt he would be out bright and early, washing our cars, cutting our grass, then picking up trash. Where did this power come from? Would it work on anybody? It had obviously worked on the entire Lowell family.

I was brought out of my reverie by Peg's voice continuing the discussion. "I bought some new bras for work today, like you said," she said to me. "I think you'll like them."

"Great," I replied enthusiastically, "I'd like to see them. Wouldn't you, Greg?"

"Yeah, sure," he said, almost in a monotone, "whatever you say." He seemed resigned to whatever course I laid out for him.

Peg jumped up. "Be right back," she smiled as she disappeared into the living room. We ate in silence while Peg was gone. Greg kept glancing at his daughter's tits moving under her shirt.

Peg was back in less than a minute with a shopping bag from a downtown department store in her left hand and a flimsy bra in her right. She handed me the bra with a questioning look. "What do you think?" she asked.

I fingered the thin stretchy material like I was a real expert on bras, then I held it up and looked at Greg through the transparent cup. I handed it back to Peg as I said, "That will do just fine, unless it's too tight." I grinned a mischievous grin at her. "Why don't you try it on?" I suggested.

Without hesitation, Peg peeled off her blouse and hung it on the back of her chair. Greg's mouth was moving again. Peg twisted the bra to get it lined up right, then slipped the straps up her arms and nestled her boobs in the transparent cups. Meg stood and stepped behind her to fasten it for her. Peg then struck a modeling pose.

"Taa-daa," she exclaimed with her arms up. "What do you think?"

I ran my fingers under the elastic side and tugged at it a little, then I hefted one of her boobs and bounced it a little. "It feels good," I commented. "It's not too tight, it does give you support, and it's transparent enough that it doesn't hide any of the important details," I grinned as I pinched her nipple. "Shake your shoulders so we can see how they move." They bounded delightfully, as I knew they would. "What do you think, Greg?"

"Yeah, nice," he mumbled around a mouthful of meatloaf. I think he was starting to submit to the inevitable.

Peg reached behind her back to open the catch, then slid the bra straps down her arms. As she reached for her blouse, I said, "Just leave that off. I think I want to look at your bare boobs for awhile." Peg dropped the blouse and sat back down at the table and resumed eating. Her boobs hung down below the table top, so I leaned toward her for a better look. Peg grinned at me, then lifted her big boobs one at a time and rested them on the table to either side of her plate, much the same way she hung them over the fence earlier. "Better?" she asked.

"Much!" Then I pointed to Meg. "You, too." Within seconds, Meg had skinned her skimpy top up and over her head. Now there were four bare boobs to enjoy at the table, only Meg's firm beauties didn't need the support of the table top.

Greg had frozen momentarily with a fork full of food halfway to his mouth as Meg's bare tits popped into view. Then he looked at me, shrugged, and continued eating. "Very nice!" was his only comment after he swallowed. His gaze continued to alternate between Peg's massive mounds perched on the table and Meg's perky tits jiggling as she ate.

Dinner conversation was like any other dinner. We stuck to safe, mundane subjects. The only real difference between this dinner--and countless other dinners at the Lowell's house--was the amount of exposed skin. When dinner was done, we got up to move into the living room.

I sat in the middle of the sofa and Greg plopped back into his recliner. The ladies each took a seat beside, and against me. I sat my wine glass on the coffee table, then put an arm each over the shoulder of Peg and Meg and my hands naturally cupped a boob on each of them.

For the first time since my pronouncement, Greg took a long look at the blank television. Then he shrugged and looked at me. "You know, looking back, I really was hooked on the news. But since you told me so forcefully that I'm... 'cut off, '" he grinned a lopsided grin, "I don't really have the urge to watch right now."