Chapter 3

Glen finished sanding the walls. He wiped them down with a damp cloth to remove the dust. It was going to take a long time to get rid of all the dust. When he finished with that, the walls would be ready to be painted. He would have to wait for a day when the weather would be warm so that he could open the doors without freezing to death. Until then, he would start to work on installing the bathroom fixtures.

Cliff, on his knees, vacuumed the floor with the wet/dry vac. He worked slowly and methodically. He had discovered that he enjoyed this kind of repetitive work. It gave him a chance to escape into his own head. He had a lot to think about as he tried to come to grips with his rape. He also realized that he could earn a living doing this kind of work in a bigger town. He wouldn’t become rich from it, but he could earn a descent living. That was getting tougher to do these days, for a person without an education.

The twins sat on the old used couch they had found on a curb one night when they had gone to the diner. They watched Glen work with mixed emotions. Most of the time he was not very nice. He growled at them, stomped around, and was just generally a bastard. He had actually yelled at them when he had found that all of the toilet paper was gone at the outhouse.

About the time they would decide that he hated them, they would catch him doing something nice for them. The other night Sandra had woken up screaming from a nightmare. He had held her, rocking gently and talking softly, until she returned to sleep. Wanda had been so groggy from a sleeping pill that she had been unable to help her sister. He denied that he had done that the next morning, but both of them remembered it.

Wanda broke the silence when she said, “I found a dirty magazine under the recliner this morning.”

Sandra, sensing an opportunity to tease him, asked, “Grump, do you read that and masturbate?”

Glen snarled, “What I do is none of your business. What you do is none of mine. Let’s keep it that way.”

Wanda, feeling a little mean, stated, “It was open to a story about a threesome. Do you fantasize about that?”

Glen ignored the question and continued to work. Sandra took his silence as an admission of guilt. She answered, “I bet he does. I bet he sits over in that recliner at night rubbing his dick and thinking about two women just lusting after his body.”

Wanda tittered and added, “Yeah, you have to wonder what women he thinks about. There are lots of pictures of nasty girls in that magazine. They pose with their legs spread open and tongue stretched out like they are trying to lick their own nipples. As if any woman would really sit there like that.”

Glen hated it when they started speculating about what he liked and didn’t like. Most of the time, they made him out to be some sort of monster. That was better than when they made him out to be a clown. He looked over his shoulder and growled, “Shut up, you two.”

The discussion was interrupted by a knock on the door. His normal inclination would be to ignore it, but he took advantage of the distraction to change the subject of discussion. Glen answered the door to find the postman standing there with a box in his hands. He stated, “Glen, got you another box of books here.”

“Thanks.” Glen accepted the box from the postman. He set it on the floor by the door and then moved to close the door.

The postman looked at Glen for a moment and asked, “Every four months you get another box of books from the same publisher. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m kind of curious why.”

Glen didn’t notice Sandra pick up the box and open it. She looked inside while he told the mailman, “I guess you’ll just have to remain curious.”

Wanda burst out laughing when she saw the contents of the box. In a delighted voice, she screamed, “Romance novels?”

Sandra, rummaging through the box, stated, “This is weird. The box is filled with the same novel. Must be twenty of them in here.”

Glen spun around to face the twins. His face was red. He shouted, “Get out of that.”

Sandra, reading the bill of lading included in the box, stated, “Hey, these are author copies.”

The mailman looked at Glen in surprise and stated, “You write romance novels?”

Angrily, Glen stated, “Hey, it’s a living. Okay? You have a problem with that?”

The mailman stepped back in surprise at Glen’s anger. He replied, “Hell no. I’ve never met a real author before. Jeez, you must be pretty good to have gotten so many of them published.”

Glen, embarrassed and angry, growled, “Don’t tell anyone.”

A light went off in the mailman’s head as he added two and two together and got four. He stated, “You must be the person that’s been sending books to the nursing home and the hospital.”

Glen frowned as another of his secrets was about to be exposed. He stated, “It’s not me.”

The mailman nodded at the denial. He didn’t believe a word of what Glen was saying. He stated, “No problem.”

The twins were reading passages out of the book aloud and laughing. Wanda, giggling happily, asked, “What does a heaving bosom look like?”

Sandra laughed. She said, “I don’t know. Sounds like something a sailor would say. Heave to with the bosom sail!”

They giggled together as each tried to do an impersonation of what a heaving bosom would look like. Glen looked over at them and stated, “Shut up or I won’t install the toilet until after you two are gone.”

Glen shut the door and picked up the box of books. He angrily set box on the desk. He pulled out books and formed three stacks. He went over to the twins and pulled the books from their hands. He added one to a stack and put one on the shelf next to the other books already there. He turned to the girls and stated, “Not one word out of you about this.”

Glen stomped out of the house to take a walk in the woods. He realized he had been doing that a lot lately. He would get mad and then stomp out of his own house. The twins were driving him crazy. Every time he turned around, they were asking him personal questions. If they weren’t asking personal questions, they were telling personal details about their life. He knew they were trying to get him to like them. Well, he had news for them, it wasn’t going to work. He pictured himself as Ironman Glen, so tough that nobody could get close to him.

Inside, Cliff came out of the bedroom and sat down next to the twins. He looked from one to the other with a sad expression. He felt uncomfortable with what he was about to say. He stated, “I think you guys hurt his feelings.”

Wanda frowned and asked, “Why?”

Cliff replied, “He’s a big manly guy. He doesn’t want people to know that he writes romance books. Still, he must take a certain amount of pride in his work. Then you laugh at the material he did write.”

Wanda nodded in agreement, but argued, “He doesn’t care about what we think.”

Cliff laughed at that statement. He asked, “You know, he does care. He just won’t show it. He’s trying to act all tough and everything. Yet anytime something is really bothering you, he fixes it.”

Wanda, unwilling to accept what Cliff was saying, stated, “He’s a horrible man.”

Cliff shook his head in contradiction. He had been watching Glen’s actions more than what Glen said. He had realized that despite originally disliking the man, he had come to respect and even like him. He stated, “Right. We’ve all had nightmares since we were kidnapped. Who is it that comes to us and holds us until we have control of ourselves?”

Sandra countered, “He doesn’t even know our names. You’re kid, I’m red, and Wanda is blue.”

“Right. And he’s grump,” replied Cliff making the point that they were just as bad at denying his existence. He was quiet for a moment and then asked, “Sandra, how would you feel if he asked you about your masturbation habits?”

“I’d tear his fucking head off.” Sandra retorted with more anger than she could have explained.

“But it’s okay for you to do it to him?” The silence that his question brought over the room was deafening.

Wanda shrugged to deny wrong doing. Glen didn’t deserve to be treated nicely. She answered for her sister. “He’s just so mean.”

Cliff added, “And you just want to piss him off.”

The twins were quiet for a minute at the truth of the statement. Wanda finally said, “I don’t care. He hates us.”

At that moment, Glen returned from his walk interrupting their discussion. He had calmed down significantly. He saw the three of them sitting together looking rather guilty. He asked, “What did you break?”

Cliff answered, “We didn’t break anything.”

Glen frowned and nodded his head. He glanced around the room as he tried to decide what to say next. He was curious why they looked upset at seeing him, but decided not to pursue it. He replied, “Okay.”

Wanda took his moment of hesitation as a sign he didn’t believe Cliff. She charged, “You don’t believe us.”

“Blue, I didn’t say that!”

She countered, “You frowned like you didn’t believe him!”

“Blue, believe what you want. I don’t care”

Sandra stated, “You hate us.”

“Never said that.”

Wanda asked, “So you don’t hate us?”

“I never said that either.”

The twins looked in confusion at each other. Finally, Cliff asked, “So what do you think of us?”

Glen sighed. In a very tired voice, he answered, “I try not to think of you.”

Sandra muttered, “That’s ridiculous.”

Wanda was curious how a person could answer like that. How could anyone try not to think of someone that lived with them? She asked, “Why?

“Because if I think about you in any way, then I’ll have to care about you.” The bitterness in Glen’s voice was unmistakable. He turned and left the room. He had dropped a bombshell and then walked off. All three of them were dumbstruck. Wanda and Sandra stared at each other as they tried to figure out what he had meant. They were more confused than ever.

Glen went into the bathroom to figure out the next steps in getting it operational. He wanted to paint it before installing the floor tile and fixtures, but knew that he could install the floor tile first. He decided he would install the floor tile tomorrow unless the weather was nice, in which case he would paint. Today, he would install the bathtub.

He went to work wrestling the tub into place. It took him a lot longer than he thought it would take. The damn thing was very heavy. Once it was in place, he connected the plumbing. It always looked easier when a professional did it. He took his time and did the job correctly. Stepping back, he looked at his work with pride.

He returned to the living room and consulted his how-to book on installing a new bathroom. His next step was to install the backer board that would be used in tiling above the tub. He stacked it in the bathroom and then retrieved the tools necessary for installing it. He spent the next two hours installing the backer board. He took his time, following the golden rule of construction, “Measure twice and cut once.”

When he had finished that chore, he went to check on his guests. They were taking a nap. They seemed to sleep fourteen hours a day. He decided the healing process made them sleep so much. Their extended sleeping hours made it tough for him to work, though. At least he had gotten the walls up. He was no longer exposed to the sight of the twins moving around naked. That had nearly driven him to distraction. They still left their doors open.

Sandra had taken all of the covers again, leaving a nude Wanda sleeping exposed. He looked at her body for a moment. He realized that all of the bruising had disappeared and her cuts had healed. He went in and put another sheet on her. He wondered if she ever thought about how they ended up with extra sheets on the bed almost every time they slept. Sandra shifted in her sleep as he left the room.

He went in the second bedroom where Cliff was asleep. He was tossing and turning, trapped in a nightmare. Glen watched for a moment, but left when Cliff settled down again. Of the three, he was the one that seemed to be in the worst shape. Glen couldn’t even imagine what he had gone through.

He went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. He pulled out some lunch meat and made himself a sandwich. He noticed that the trio had already eaten. Sitting at his desk he ate his sandwich and sipped on a Coke. One of the twins passed behind him and went outside. He didn’t even bother to look. She came back in after a few minutes. She stopped behind him. “What are you doing?”

“Eating my lunch.”

“It is almost three.”

“I was busy,” he replied. He looked over his shoulder at her. She was standing there naked. He quickly looked back at his sandwich. His cock reacted to her presence and was causing him significant pain. It was trapped in a down position, when it clearly wanted to be in an up position. He didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of adjusting himself, so he just endured it.

“That’s nice what you’ve been doing for my sister.”

Glen grunted, “I haven’t been doing anything.”

Sandra laughed, “Right. You come in and put a sheet on her after I take all of the covers. The last one who used to do that for her was our mother.”

Glen shrugged it off. He replied, “She’ll get sick. Don’t want to have someone sick here.”

Sandra laughed and returned to the bedroom. She had caught him being nice and he denied it. She wondered how many other little things he was doing that they had not noticed. She had reached the bedroom when she thought about the chamber pot he had set up on the porch so they wouldn’t have to walk into the woods so often. He had even put it inside the cardboard box the refrigerator had come in, so they would have some privacy.

Glen finished his sandwich. He took one last drink of his Coke. For a moment, he just sat there thinking about Sandra. He mentally chastised himself, thinking that he should be calling her red and not Sandra. If he thought about her as Sandra, he would start to care for her. Then a horrible thought came to him! He could tell the twins apart!

He was getting exceptionally horny, not having had a chance to jack-off since they had arrived. This morning he had woken with an erection that could have driven nails. Just the little glimpse of Sandra a minute ago had given him another erection which he now adjusted in his pants. He didn’t want to get involved with them.