Chapter 18: Use Extreme Caution - Congested Traffic

For several seconds, Carissa, Corinna and I simply stood there, staring at the group standing by the car in frustrated surprise.

“Party time? In the middle of the week?” I finally questioned Beth.

“Yeah, party time,” Tom hollered loudly. “My birthday party. I’m sixteen and I got my driver’s license today.”

“I thought your birthday was in August?”

“No, Chris, but then you’ve always mixed my birthday up with Dad’s,” he laughed. “I’ve learned to expect my present from you to be a month late. Except this year, George and I consider the car our birthday gift from you, so we got our birthday present early.”

“You guys are going to have to go easy on Grampa Bender’s hard stuff to celebrate though, Tom’s got to be sober enough to drive us home,” Beth laughed. “Didn’t you warn Chris that we’d be coming Corinna?”

“I forgot,” Corinna sighed. “There were other things that sort of occupied my mind.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. Sorry,” Beth shrugged that off as if it wasn’t important, but I knew that she was doing that intentionally. “We’ve been talking about this for days. That’s one of the reasons Jean and Jess are here. They’re staying with me for a while and they like Tom.”

“Hey! Not fair,” Jean squealed, blushing a bright pink.

“Everyone likes Tom,” Jess added, her face just as flushed as her twin’s.

“It’s okay, you two,” Tom laughed. “I like you both just as much. At least I like you when you aren’t driving me nuts by tearing a sentence apart and taking turns to speak, but only two words at a time.”

“These two used to do that,” I laughed.

“They sure did,” Beth giggled. “I have too many friends who are identical twins and they all do that. I’ve learned to expect it though, so it doesn’t bother me.”

“We don’t do it any more,” Carissa said firmly. “Chris didn’t like it much, so we stopped.”

“Hey, don’t just blame me,” I protested. “I think it was driving everyone nuts.”

“Yeah, you told us that,” Corinna snapped as she went down the steps toward the car.

I glanced at Beth who was unloading things out of the back of the car and saw her roll her eyes, then Carissa leaned close to my side.

“Corinna is going to be darn touchy for a while,” she whispered.

“I know,” I nodded. “We’ll have to work on that, but I guess we’ll have to watch what we say too.”

So we had a party with all the fixings. Beth and the McAdam twins had baked a cake and brought a few other goodies. I think both Beth and I would have been just as happy to have had no alcohol involved and George didn’t seem to care, but Tom and both sets of twins seemed set on tasting Grampa Bender’s hooch. Finally, I went down into the cellar under the cabin and brought up a small jug of his latest brew, just large enough so everyone had a decent taste. I really didn’t want to have everyone drunk enough that they’d have to spend the night.

It was shortly after I’d given everyone a small glass of hooch that Beth and I had a chance to talk for a few minutes. I congratulated her on winning the barrel race, but that wasn’t what seemed to be exciting her. Once I mentioned horses she was off, telling me about the man who wanted to buy her Appaloosa herd and started asking me about Quarter Horses. Since she wanted to know so much, I suggested that she and Mom have a look in my room for the papers I had for my stallion. That, along with the other pamphlets and letters I had about Quarter Horses, would give her a good idea of which animals and which breeders she should keep an eye out for, if she was going to buy any of them. That seemed to make her almost delirious and I got a big hug, which suited me just fine.

Other than Corinna everyone soon appeared to have a lot of fun, but no matter what we did she seemed to be right on the edge of losing her temper during the party. Actually once the cake was cut the party broke into groups. Beth and George sat slightly away from everyone else. Tom was sitting between Jess and Jean while Carissa and I sat on either side of Corinna, trying our best to draw her into a party mood.

Tom seemed to enjoy being pampered by Jess and Jean, but I think they managed to sneak the majority of their share of the ‘fixins’ into his glass. However it happened he was feeling quite high when they went to leave a couple of hours later. Beth and I managed to talk Tom into getting into the back seat of the car between the McAdam twins and George got behind the wheel. I felt that was the safest option since George had his learner’s permit and hadn’t had much to drink, but as well as that they were driving on back roads for most of the way home.

It was as their car was driving up the hill and Corinna was pouring me another drink that I realized she was pouring it from a second jar of Grampa Bender’s brew. I only noticed that because there was an empty one sitting against the railing on the edge of the front porch.

“Hey, where did that come from?” I demanded.

“I dunno,” Carissa snorted. “I thought you brought it up.”

“I think Tom did,” Corinna chuckled. “He was trying to get Jess and Jean drunk, but they were onto him and it backfired.”

“Well George didn’t drink much, did he?”

“Nah. He was just high on being along with Beth. Neither of them had to drink to start feeling good,” Carissa snuggled against my side. “You’ve been drinking a fair bit though.”

“I’ve been drinking root beer all evening,” I argued. “I only had a small glass of the hard stuff before Tom cut the cake, then I switched.”

“Yeah, but Jess and Jean were serving you and spiking your root beer. I helped,” Corinna giggled, obviously feeling no pain herself.

I was surprised that her mood had changed so much. I looked at Carissa and she winked at me.

“After what happened yesterday and today I thought we needed to relax, so I didn’t say anything either,” she said quietly.

“I sure relaxed,” Corinna offered, then sat on my lap and wrapped an arm around both Carissa’s and my neck. “Their timing sucked. We were almost ready to have some fun ... before they broke it up.”

“Unh, yeah,” I sighed. “Well, I think having them show up right then was probably a good thing.”

“Hey, what do you mean?” Corinna sighed. “We were just going to have some fun.”

“That’s the problem. A little bit of fun like that could have long term complications. What would Wil think?”

“Huh. Beth and the others didn’t tell you about him then?” she sat up and glared at me.

“I didn’t really get a chance to talk to her at all. It was almost like she was avoiding me.”

“Maybe she was,” Carissa frowned. “After all, all three of the McAdam girls came out to stay with her today. I suppose she invited them.”

“Oh shit! It probably wasn’t her; it was probably Mom. She wanted to talk to all of them about guys and things, but do you think Wil and Sandy might get together somehow?”

“Well, they were both there when the others left to come up here and neither of them wanted to come,” she answered. “Besides, Jess told me that Sandy likes Wil a lot and spent as much time as she could with him.”

“You know what’s going to happen if they’re spending time together, don’t you?” Corinna sniffed. “Sandy’s pants are on fire and Wil is on the rebound.”

“Both of them are on the rebound,” Carissa sighed. “I’d say they were both on a hair trigger and I doubt if Sandy will hesitate if Wil wants to do anything.”

“Oh fuck.”

“That’s probably a good description of just what they’re doing right now,” Corinna laughed bitterly as she got to her feet. “I really don’t care. The silly bitch can have him. They deserve each other.”

Carissa and I watched as she flounced down the steps and headed around the cabin, obviously on her way toward the biff. I started to say something, but Carissa touched my lips with a finger, shaking her head.

“Just let it slide,” she whispered. “I think we should let her get drunk, then let her sleep it off.”

“Getting drunk doesn’t help,” I sighed. “I know that much.”

“Hah, you made out okay when you got drunk,” she chortled as she snuggled close again. “It eventually got you into bed with me.”

“Mmm,” I murmured softly and grinned at her. “Then you think that was a good thing?”

“Oh you!” she slapped my shoulder and laughed. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve sure enjoyed it.”

“Okay, I guess it was a good thing,” I hugged her tight to my side and brushed my lips over hers in a light kiss. “But, what do we do about Corinna?”

“Well she seems to want to get drunk, so why don’t we let her? Then we can just put her to bed and let her sleep it off. We could do like last night, slip away and do our thing, then join her in the big bed afterward,” she grinned at me. “If she was drunk enough she’d never know the difference. That way when she wakes up tomorrow morning we can just tell her she fell asleep on us. Hopefully by tomorrow night we might have a better handle on things.”

“Do you think that will work?”

“I don’t see why not,” she shrugged. “Honestly, I’m rather glad everyone showed up when they did.”

“Me too,” I sighed. “I think things are complicated enough as it is.”

“Not feeling up to handling two Coulter women?” she grinned at me as she plopped herself in my lap.

“Physically, no, not both at once. What one man could?” I grinned and hugged her.

“Oh, I think you could do a pretty fair job, but then we might wear you out a bit. We’d probably have to do all the fencing tomorrow, while you lay in the shade of a tree and told us what to do,” she laughed, then brushed her lips across mine in a quick kiss. “I’m almost sorry in a way that things have come out the way they have.”

“Huh,” I grunted softly. “I think the only way I’d have any chance of making the two of you happy would be if I was sober as a judge and both of you were spiflicated.”

Carissa was laughing gaily as Corinna came back up the steps.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, grabbing up her glass again and having a quick sip.

“Oh, I was just teasing him,” Carissa laughed again. “He’s being shy, as usual.”

“Well that’s why we like him so much, isn’t it?” Corinna snorted. She walked over to us and slapped Carissa’s leg. “He’s got two knees you know.”

“Oh, did you want to sit down on one?” Carissa grinned up at her.

“Now just a minute, one of those legs is still in a cast,” I started to protest, but I shouldn’t have bothered. In seconds I had them both on my lap.

Looking back on that evening I think that was the point where Carissa’s and my plan to get Corinna drunk while staying relatively sober ourselves fell off the rails. I do know that it wasn’t long before I needed both arms to hold them from falling off my lap. Then there was the fact that if either one of them had a drink, they insisted on sharing with me by letting me have a sip from their glass. As we all absorbed more alcohol all of us lost inhibitions and our hands started to wander. Then too as the girls drank more their clothes seemed to evaporate again and they seemed to become even more amorous than ever. It was almost as if the two of them were competing with each other to see who could get the most reaction from me.

At some point things grew fuzzy and I lost track of exactly what happened next. I do remember helping Carissa to guide her very drunk sister to bed at some point. And I do remember slipping into bed and feeling the two of them shift over to snuggle against me. Gosh that felt good.

When I awoke I knew it was very early in the morning because there wasn’t a lot of light coming in the window. I was lying on my back, once again in the big bed. The two of them were again snuggled on each side of me, almost as if I was a book between two bookends. Carissa’s head lay on my right shoulder; my right hand on her butt and her right leg thrown over mine. I could feel the soft down of her pussy on my hip and a sticky moist feeling beneath it, giving me a clue to what had happened between us. Corinna duplicated her position on my left, an almost perfect match in every way, right down to the moist patch on my hip. That sticky moistness was the part that worried me.

Amazingly I didn’t seem to have much of a hangover other than a minor headache. What surprised me was that I wasn’t feeling the immediate need to run to the can. That was probably a good thing, because the way I was pinned down I couldn’t have moved without awakening the twins, but that was a mixed blessing. Since I couldn’t move and because I wasn’t hung over I could think, which meant I could worry.

Had I been involved with both of them as deeply as I suspected. Had I screwed them ... both of them? Or, had I been a real shit and gotten both of them wound up enough that they were extremely wet and ready for sex, then passed out? Or almost as bad, had I had sex with one while the other lay there in frustration? No matter where my mind rambled I couldn’t think of any way that what had happened last night could possibly have left us on the same basis as we had been. Somehow I worried that I was now as deeply involved with Corinna as I was with Carissa.

I suppose I worried myself back to sleep again.

This time my sleep was filled with dreams, or were they nightmares?

No they weren’t really nightmares since they weren’t fearful dreams, instead they were definitely pleasurable.

Perhaps they were memories of the night before, yet if they were memories, what then?

It was dark, so dark I could see nothing. I was in bed, but I wasn’t alone. With me were two women, almost identical bodies, yet subtly different in many ways. My hands wandered, theirs reciprocated. My fingers felt curves, declivities, mounds, clefts and more. My mouth met lips, cheeks, necks, breasts, nipples. My tongue tasted each, delved softly, explored thoroughly. Then I felt their bodies shift. One lifted herself, then shifted over me, suddenly we were connected. I was absorbed, imbibed, then buried deeply. Reason was abandoned, panting with desire, gasping with pleasure, we two achieved release, succumbed to lethargy. Then somehow, astonishingly, involvement changed, bodies switched, minor differences were noted, then forgotten. Once more passion surmounted common sense, our bodies duplicated desires, duplicated pleasures, duplicated satisfaction. I slept once more.

I awakened again, but this time to a gentle touch on my cheek. I opened my eyes to see Corinna’s subdued smile.

“Hi,” she whispered.

“Hi,” I managed to mumble weakly, unsure what to do or say.

“My head hurts,” she moaned. “And my tummy doesn’t feel good either. My cheeks hurt too. You need to shave; your face is like sandpaper.”

“Sorry.”

“Are you okay?”

“Not bad. Where’s Carissa?”

“Gone for a walk,” Corinna moaned. “She says she feels okay.”

“Lucky her.”

“Yeah, that stuff was wicked. I’ve never felt this bad.”

“Sorry, Tom did warn you to go easy.”

“I think you did too. I didn’t listen.”

“I noticed.”

“Why didn’t you stop me?”

“In the mood you were in, I’d have had a fat chance, wouldn’t I?”

“Probably,” she moaned softly. “I didn’t even get a chance to do what I wanted so bad either.”

“What was that?”

“I was going to bounce your bones,” she managed a lopsided grin. “Then I passed out. Thank you for putting me to bed and cuddling me though.”

“Oh, no problem,” I think I managed to sound casual, but inside I was sighing with relief because it had been a dream after all. “I guess I’d better get up.”

“Yeah, go find that crazy sister of mine, would you? She’s been gone a while. I’m just going to lie here for a bit longer. Maybe I can sleep off this headache.”

I slowly sat up and realised that my headache wasn’t that bad. After finding clean clothes and going out in the kitchen, I found Carissa had made coffee, so I grabbed a cup, then went outside. At least I hadn’t slept in as late as the day before. It was just after eight in the morning and there was still dew on the grass, so I should have worn my boot for my trip to the john. Setting the coffee cup on a fence post well away from the ‘fly zone’ near the biffy, I took care of morning essentials and once more made a mental note to pick up a bag of quicklime the next time I was in town.

Outside once more and with my coffee in hand, I walked slowly past the cabin, wondering where Carissa had gone. Since I heard the chickens stirring up a ruckus, I walked toward the barnyard. The door to the coop was open and I could see Carissa gathering eggs.

“Good morning,” I called to let her know I was there.

“Oh. Hi,” she answered quietly, sounding dejected.

“What’s wrong?”

“We have to talk,” she sighed, then came out of the chicken coop carrying a small bucket of eggs. “Let me take these to the cabin and grab a cup of that coffee, then we need to go somewhere and sit down, okay?”

“Sure, whatever you say,” I agreed, wondering what was bothering her. “I’ll go let out the young stock while I’m waiting for you.”

Ten minutes later we were sitting on the creek bank, overlooking the clear water of a small pool. For some reason she was sitting a short distance away from me and I realised that I hadn’t even had a hug from her that morning. Over and above that she’d been practically silent, other than the few words we’d interchanged at the chicken coop. I was slowly getting an idea that perhaps I hadn’t been dreaming last night. Finally with a deep sigh, she looked at me directly.

“You know I fucked up, don’t you?” she sighed.

“No, I don’t know for sure what you mean.”

“Last night, don’t you remember what happened? Didn’t Corinna tell you either?”

“Well, I was pretty drunk myself and really all I’m sure I did was help you and Corinna to bed. All she said this morning was that she had a hangover and that she was sorry she passed out so we had to carry her to bed. Well, she did bitch about not getting to seduce me and she was complaining about her headache.”

“She doesn’t remember what happened and neither do you?”

“I guess she doesn’t. All I remember after we went to bed are some weird dreams.”

“Huh. What sort of dreams?”

“Well, I dreamt that both of you had sex with me.”

“That wasn’t a dream,” she snapped. “And it was all my fault.”

“Oh shit,” I sighed. “But, your fault? Why?”

“Yeah, I fucked up. I didn’t really want Corinna to sleep with you, but when it started I thought I’d be okay with it because she’s my twin and everything,” she burst into tears and began to sob. “But, it isn’t okay. It’s not okay at all.”

I slid over and wrapped an arm around her, not knowing what to say. Instead I just held her gently, wondering what I could do or say, then realizing that anything I said could make things worse. Instead I simply held her gently and tried to think of something that would make her feel better. After a moment I gave up on the idea of talking and simply held her so she could cry on my shoulder and yet feel safe.

This wasn’t something I was ready for. I think I was having almost as much trouble with what had happened as Carissa was. I felt like a real shit. Not only was I feeling that I’d betrayed her, but I’d betrayed Wil as well. Suddenly I felt that I was the rotten prick who’d screwed my brother’s girlfriend. Oh sure, she’d had a huge fight with him and somehow I felt that they weren’t going to get back together, but that still wasn’t a good excuse. Nor was the fact that Carissa said she’d gone along with the idea, perhaps implying that she’d even encouraged the two of us.

The whole episode went against the grain of everything I’d been raised to believe.

As I sat there thinking deeply, I slowly realized that Carissa was now slumping against me, her breathing slow and easy. A quick check showed me that her eyes were closed and it dawned on me that she’d fallen asleep. I thought that was probably a good thing because I was certain that she hadn’t rested well, especially if she’d been thinking about what had happened all night. I slowly eased back until instead of sitting on the bank of the creek, we were lying there. Carissa was still snuggled in my arms, but now I could take the time to really think about things.

Why had I stepped into this trap? What had changed? Where had I gone wrong?

The last few weeks of my life had changed a lot from normal, but was that a cause? Or was this brought on by something deeper, something I hadn’t previously realized about myself?

Oh I could slide the blame onto the alcohol, or I could blame the fact that I was young and easy to influence, but neither of those was a good excuse. Since I liked to understand my reasons for what I did and what I felt I was cudgelling my brain, looking for stronger reasons than the ones I’d already thought about.

Laying there in the bright sunlight an extraneous thought crept into my mind; in the past I’d often put myself to sleep at nights by trying to understand the reasons for other people’s actions. Now I was hunting for changes in my own life that could have brought about this sort of action.

Only a few weeks before I knew I hadn’t felt this way, thinking of Sandy as an example. She’d openly offered me sex, but I’d turned her down. As I thought about that though, I realized there was little comparison in my mind between Sandy and either Carissa or Corinna. Mom had even ... whoa, wait a minute. What had Mom said again?

Mom hadn’t seemed to like Sandy much. Actually, Mom had told me about going out with Sandy’s father and not liking his pushiness or his somewhat rude attentions. Perhaps she’d prejudged Sandy on that basis? But no, she’d been warning me to take my time and get to know Sandy before I got too involved with her. It was only after I’d broken up with Sandy that she’d mentioned Sandy’s father.

Mom had liked Carissa and Corinna though, in fact she’d told me that they were much like she had been when she first met Dad. Was I tying my actions to that thought? Was that the reason I liked Carissa so much and why I’d gone along with the girl’s actions last night? Unfortunately there was a lot more to my feelings than that. After all, I’d known them through most of my school years, although up until recently they’d hardly deigned to admit that I existed.

Now that was another thought! Up until the episode with the pictures neither of the twins had wanted to be anywhere near me, but now they seemed to feel I was a combination of ‘Prince Charming’ and ‘The White Knight.’ They were treating me so much differently it was scarcely believable. That had to be influencing my thoughts about them as well. I had to admit to myself that I was still feeling as if they were doing me a favour by just being around me. After all, they were two years older than I was and on top of that they were beautiful, smart and sexy. In fact I’d started out feeling really uncomfortable when they’d tried to show me any appreciation for anything I’d done for them, almost as if I didn’t deserve their praise.