Chapter 2: Detour - Washout Ahead

I was hoping that by Monday morning when we went to school all the nonsense about the party would have died down. Fat chance of that though! Instead things soon became even stranger and much more outrageous.

I didn’t even get to the school door before Corinna had shoved Tom aside and was walking next to me saying, ‘Good morning! Do you feel okay? You were sure a lot of fun at the party, but I was hoping you’d call me and we could... ‘ Then somehow George was was no longer walking on my other side, instead Carissa was walking there and she was yammering just as much as her sister, but she was holding onto one of my arms as well. For some reason that made me feel really uncomfortable. Only it got worse, because when we went inside Debbie was waiting to talk to me too. I was feeling surrounded, almost under attack and was looking for a way to escape their attention, but none seemed handy.

However, my little sister came to my rescue. Beth had ridden on the bus and had left while I was still doing my chores, so she’d gotten to school before me and she’d seen what was developing. She cut me out of that crowd of girls like a well trained quarter horse cutting a lone steer out of a herd of heifers.

“Chris, please, can I talk to you? Chris please, please? Sorry girls, I gotta talk to my brother in private, it’s important family stuff,” then she dragged me off to a corner where we could be relatively alone, leaving the three girls to fume, impatiently waiting for me to get free of my ‘nasty’ little sister. Only I decided that right then I’d rather be with Beth than with them.

“I don’t know what you really did, but the rumour going around the school is that you not only left Debbie delirious with delight on Friday night, but that you got into both of the ‘Ice Cube’s panties. I don’t care if you did or not, but having all three of them chasing after you like this the very next day of school is so much of an admission of guilt on their parts that no matter what they say, everyone is going to believe the rumour, dear Brother. So WAY TO FUCKING GO!” she was trying to look like she was frowning and she was whispering, but she was so excited she was almost bouncing. “Now, what do you have to say for yourself?”

“Nothing much, but thank you for the rescue. Now, how the hell am I going to stay away from them for the rest of the school year, Miss Genius? Even you can’t rescue me all the time!”

“Easy, you take them aside one at a time. Then you tell each one that you’re so desperately worried about your finals and about making a good grade for a scholarship, so you’d really look at it as a great favour if they would wait until after school was done, then you can think about dating.”

“But Dad and I have arranged that I’ll go to the city to work right after ... OH!”

“Bingo!” she grinned. “For once in my life I am going to get to see the ‘Ice Cubes’ get frozen out.”

“Little sister, you aren’t careful you’re going to become a cast-iron, ball-busting, bitch.”

“Make that a bitch busting witch and I’ll agree,” she giggled, just as the class warning bell rang and she had to run off.

So I put on a worried frown and let that tenacious trio escort me to home room and my first class of the day. By the end of the day, I had managed to get each of them aside and alone for a few minutes. With my knees quaking in fear at even being alone with a girl to talk to her, I told each one that I really couldn’t afford to even think about going out with anyone right then. I found myself telling each one that I absolutely had to do well on my finals and that I definitely had to concentrate on school work, but if she were a real doll ... Well, you get the picture, I was trying my best to let each of them down easily and not tell too big a whopper while I was doing it.

And I thought the whole thing would just fade away after that. Only it didn’t, because ... do you remember that camera I mentioned seeing in their folks bedroom? Uh huh, well when I opened my locker the next morning there was a picture lying there, staring me in the eye! It had obviously been slid under the door of the locker for me to find and it must have been taken shortly before I woke up. It was certainly me and it was definitely the twins. The only thing different from when I had woken up was that both of them had their legs together then, but in the picture their legs were open a bit and I even had one hand resting on each girl’s butt. Not just that, but from the angle the picture was taken it almost looked like both of the girls were trying to hold ‘Mr. Happy’ through my shorts. I just stared at that damn picture, but I didn’t have any idea what to do. Then the first bell rang to call everyone to their classrooms, so stupid me did nothing. I just went off to class. Oh, I intended to talk to the Coulter girls, but I didn’t know what to say, so I put it off for the time being while I tried to think of a way to tell them that someone had taken a picture of us while we’d been asleep.

I’d hidden the picture, but I soon realized it wasn’t the only copy around. When I saw Debbie, she just stuck her nose in the air, then turned around and walked away. I was hoping she was just reacting to the fact that she had seen me talking with Carissa the day before. Neither of the twins could have seen the picture yet though, since they were being perfect angels, smiling in my direction, but not bothering me so I could ‘concentrate.’ Only during lunch break the shit hit the fan! I watched in helpless horror as a younger kid ran up to the twins with an envelope for each of them, saying that some guy had sent them. When the girls asked who it was, the kid didn’t know the guy’s name, just that he was a grade twelve student who’d said he had to leave for the day and couldn’t deliver the envelopes himself.

I knew what was in those envelopes, but I still didn’t have a clue what to do about it, so I just stared in horrified fascination. Both of the girls opened the envelopes, glanced inside, then screamed and ran. I guess they were headed for home, but at that point I saw red and I lost my temper. I headed straight for the principal’s office, well almost straight, I stopped at my locker first. If I had wanted revenge I don’t suppose I would have done that, but damn it I felt that no girls deserved to be treated like that, not even the ‘Ice Cubes.’ Just as I turned into the office door, I saw my little sister come charging down the hall, waving her hand and calling my name. I assumed that she must have seen one of those damn pictures, but I wasn’t in the mood to discuss anything like that with her right then.

So I ignored her and stomped straight up to the school secretary, demanding to see Mr. Gable, the school principal. When the secretary asked what it was about, I slapped the photo on the desk and told her someone was out to ruin my reputation and that of two Coulter girls at the same time. It’s surprising how much cooperation the reaction to a shock will get you. In a minute or two I was in the principal’s office.

I’m not sure exactly what I said, but in only a few minutes both my home-room teacher and one of my other teachers were standing there, telling the principal that the photo had to be a fake, that it was completely out of character for me and for the girls. Then the phone rang and when the principal answered I could tell it was my father. I could hear him clearly and since I was standing at least ten feet away from the phone, I knew he was MAD! Beth must have called him, because he said he was on his way into town. Dad said his first stop was going to be the police station and his second stop was going to be to pick up Carissa and Corinna’s father, then they were coming to the school. He told Mr. Gable that he wanted every student who had been at the party assembled in one room when they got there “because one way or another, we are going to get to the bottom of this BULLSHIT!“

I was glad Dad was angry because I was pretty well wound up myself. None of this was my fault, maybe part of it was the girl’s fault, but I was willing to bet that one of their ex-’boyfriends’ who had struck out was actually at the bottom of this. An hour later, we had a confession, actually we had five of them. Two guys and three girls admitted that they had played drunk while getting me and the girls hammered by spiking our drinks. When we thought we were drinking beer or wine, what we were actually drinking was mostly vodka. Considering the amount they admitted that they had fed us, it was a bloody wonder we woke up at all and hadn’t all died of alcohol poisoning.

Both of the guys had not only struck out with either one or the other of the twins in the past, but they had also tangled with me, trying to beat a little ‘respect’ into the ‘little pipsqueak farm boy’ who acted so smart. However, both of them had discovered that I was tougher than they were. In fact it seemed that they had a lot of respect for how tough I was. When I had fallen asleep at the party, they had managed to take of my shirt and pants, but they said I had been ready to fight each time they had tried to take off my shorts. Finally, they’d decided they didn’t want to risk having a real fight with me, even if I was almost passed out from the booze they’d fed me. If I hadn’t fought I imagine I would have been just as nude as the girls. The twins hadn’t been anywhere near as much trouble for the girls to strip; they’d been far too drunk to cause any problems. They admitted that the picture was posed and they’d left us in the pose afterward, probably hoping that the twins would waken first and accuse me of rape.

That did it, I was screaming mad again so Dad had to hold me back. Meanwhile Mom was busy holding back Mr. Coulter, the twin’s father. But no one was holding back either of the twins, they headed for those five creeps with revenge in their eyes. The guys were certain that the twins were after them and jumped up, trying to run away. Unfortunately, when they leaped toward the door, it was also toward my little sister. Beth swore afterward that she thought the two guys were attacking her, which was a bad move on their part!

Did I mention that Beth played center on the girl’s soccer team? So while the twins went after the three girls who’d been involved, Beth tried to score a couple of goals, only she didn’t have any soccer balls to kick. Instead her first kick was aimed somewhere between the ring leader’s belt buckle and his knees, well they weren’t soccer balls, but ... Anyway, since he was a lot more solid than a soccer ball, kicking him threw her off balance, but she managed to regain her balance in time to try a left footed corner kick on his buddy. In about ten seconds both guys were falling to the floor, but it happened so fast that the cops didn’t even have a chance to react. By the time they did react Beth was already scrambling to her feet, backing away and acting scared. Since the two guys were crumpled into writhing heaps on the floor, the cops went after the Coulter Twins, quickly pinning their arms and pulling them away from the three girls who were cowering on the floor and bawling like babies.

For me, seeing all of the guilty parties lying on the floor, moaning, and begging for mercy, my anger faded into the background. All that was left was a feeling of sheer disgust. I really couldn’t understand how five kids could be so screwed up. The cops and the teachers finally got smart and the rest of us were separated from the culprits. In fact I think they may have had to call an ambulance since Beth had kicked that one guy so hard and I think one of the girls had a bloody nose or something.

The rest of us got taken back to the principal’s office and stuck in a waiting room of sorts. It wasn’t long before one of the cops took me into the office and asked me to tell my version of the story. The cop and the principal tried to get me to talk quietly, but I let on I was still mad, so I was bellowing loudly. I’ll admit that was intentional. I was hoping I was loud enough that the twins could hear me next door, that way they would tell pretty much the same story. It really didn’t take that long before I was led back out of the office. I was separated from everyone else then, and the principal told me to go home for the rest of the day. They must have told Mom about that though, because she caught up to me before I got to the car and asked me to drive her home.

Once we were on the road, she was really quiet for a moment or two and then said “So, do you want to tell me the real story now?”

“Mom, I don’t think I know the real story. What I told you and Dad on Sunday morning was the real story as far as I was concerned. I just left out that I woke up in Mr. and Mrs. Coulter’s bed with both of the twins draped over top of me and that they were totally nude. After the rumours of what Mr. Coulter would do to anyone who screwed around with his daughters, the idea of being found there like that terrified me and I panicked. Somehow I managed to slip out of bed without waking them, then I grabbed my clothes and ran. I sure as heck wasn’t going to tell anyone about that, okay?”

“So you woke up with two beautiful and willing young women, yet you didn’t do anything?” she sounded astounded.

“I don’t know if they were willing or not. I didn’t wait to find out,” I snorted. “I may kick myself for the rest of my life, but right now I’m glad that I ran off when I did.”

“Well, I am too,” she laughed, and it sounded almost like a laugh of relief. “For a few minutes there, I was actually worried that you might be gay. I mean, a healthy teenaged boy who found himself in bed with two nude girls and you didn’t do anything?”

I almost drove off the road in surprise. Then I laughed and decided to pull over for a minute. Let’s face it, we were on a winding country road and I wanted to talk. I couldn’t look at her face and drive too, so I pulled into a field approach and I shut off the car. We must have talked for close to half an hour as I explained how shy I was around girls. In fact we might have talked for even longer, but Dad and Beth came driving up and pulled in behind us.

“Have you guys got car trouble?” Dad leaned out his window and called.

“Nope, we were just talking, Dad,” I turned and called back.

“I think I’ll ride back home with your father,” Mom smiled. “I see Beth is there, would you mind giving her a ride home. I think your Father and I need to discuss a few things.”

“Sure I can give Beth a ride, but am I in trouble?” I asked.

“No,” she laughed, “But, your father might be. Could you find some way to take at least an hour or two to get home? He and I need to talk about this and a few other things, so we need a little time when we won’t be disturbed.”

Then she winked at me and I had an idea that she might be planning on doing more than talking, but I definitely didn’t ask. Instead I think I blushed as she gave me a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek, then slipped out of the car, but left the door open for Beth. Beth looked like she was on top of the world when she jumped into the car. At least she was grinning from ear to ear.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“You and me and the Coulter twins are suspended for the rest of the week for trying to start a riot,” she grinned, then as Dad’s truck pulled out and raced down the road, she broke into a giggle. “I’m not supposed to let you go home until chore time,” she crowed. “I think that picture got Mom a bit aroused, so I suspect that she wants to go home and play with Daddy.”

I just stared at her. I didn’t really care about Mom and Dad at the moment. I was wondering just what the hell was going on otherwise.

“Why are you suspended?” I finally asked.

“Oh Principal Gable thinks I kicked Slimy Sid and Rotten Raymond in the nuts,” she giggled. “It looked worse than it was, I mostly hit one of the muscles in Sid’s leg, so he’s gonna limp for a while and I actually hit Raymond flat footed, across his thigh. I didn’t do as much damage as people think. The two of them are just wimps and can’t take a licking.”

“Okay, and the twins are suspended because they attacked the girls I guess, but why am I suspended?”

“I think just on general principles. You were involved so you must be guilty, that sort of thing. Oh, by the way, the five idiots got expelled. A week’s classes and two weeks of tests before they finish high school, but they can’t come back to school, ever!”

“What?” I stared at her.

“Yep, and Mr. Coulter is thinking of taking them to civil court.”

“That would not be a good idea. His girls aren’t totally innocent.”

“I know,” she giggled, “and neither are you, you bugger.”

“Huh?”

“Well, I was pretty sure who had taken those pictures, so right after I called Daddy I ran down and broke into Sid’s locker. Well, I picked the lock on the door and I found more pictures, the negatives too – I guess he didn’t dare keep them at home or something. Did you think they’d only take one picture? He was planning a real smear campaign on you guys,” she said quietly. “I’m almost sorry I didn’t kick him square in the balls.”

“Oh, my gosh! You did take the pictures out of his locker though, didn’t you?”

“Unh huh, of course! Now, Mom says we can’t go home and we’re kicked out of school; it’s a nice day though and we have a whole bunch of pictures to look over and maybe destroy. Where do you think we should go?”

“You’ve got the pictures?”

“Unh huh, in a safe place, but before you get all mad and want to burn them, you should look at them and we should show them to the twins too.”

“WHAT?” I literally screamed.

“Oh come on,” she grinned. “Please, I want to see their faces when they see these pictures. I want to see yours too for that matter. Besides, doesn’t every guy want a set of porn pictures of himself in bed with two gorgeous blondes, twin blondes who are totally nude?”

“I think you’d better just give them here and I’ll...”

“Oh no,” she interrupted. “I’m not giving them to you without the Coulter girls being right there with us. They need to know what they do when they get too drunk to know better and I want to put an end to that stupid ‘ice cube’ act of theirs.”

“Have you looked at them all?”

“Nope, just the first one, and only long enough to see that it was different from the one you had. After that I crammed them back in the envelope, tucked it under my shirt, closed up Sid’s locker and ran like hell to be at the door to meet Mom and Dad. Now, are you going to phone the Coulter girls or am I going to have to do that too?”

I hemmed and hawwed, but in the long run she got her way, as usual. We went back to town, then I phoned the Coulter house. Only it was Mr. Coulter who answered my call.

“Hi Mr. Coulter, it’s Chris. I was just calling to make sure that the girls were okay,” I spoke quickly, wishing that he hadn’t been the person who had picked up the phone.

“Oh hello, Chris. You’re just the young man I wanted to speak to,” he said loudly and I thought I heard one or the other of the twins say something in the background. “The girls are okay, thanks to you. Although after hearing what they actually admitted to doing...” he paused. “Chris, do you think you could drop around the house as soon as possible, I believe my daughters have a confession to make to you.”

“If you mean that they were involved in the original plan to get me drunk and embarrass me, I’d already come to that conclusion, Mr. Coulter.”

“And you still wanted to protect them? My goodness, you really are a gentleman, aren’t you?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I laughed uneasily. “But, if you want me to drop around the house, do you mind if my little sister comes along? She and I are both in town and we were thinking of heading down to the river, just to get completely away from this stupid mess. I guess we could drop by for a few minutes.”

“Hmm, your sister is with you is she? How long would it take for you to get here?”

“Getting to your house? Just a couple of minutes, we’re only at the drugstore. But as for the river, we have to be home by five at the latest to milk the cows.”

“And a responsible young man like you would always be home to do his chores wouldn’t he?” he chuckled. “I’ll tell you what Chris, I’m supposed to keep a tight rein on these two, but after the responsibility you and your sister displayed at school, and since I have to do some work at the office yet today ... Well, I’m not sure I should let these two out of the house, but it might be easier for them to admit the truth if I’m not with you, so I’m going to release these two to you and your sister’s care until this evening. In fact, I think the two of them owe you two a very large thank-you, so I’m going to suggest that you take them with you and have them help you with your chores this evening, hows that?”

“Unh, okay I guess, but can’t we bring them straight home from the river?”

“You sound as if you’re somewhat afraid of the girls?”

“In a word, yes!”

“Even if you have their parole to behave?”

“Sir, I am very shy, while they are very forward. It’s like oil and water. We’re simply not a good mix.”

“Oh, I disagree! I think you three are an excellent mix,” he laughed loudly. “I’ll see you in a few minutes,” and with that, he hung up the phone.

Beth took one look at my face as I came out of the phone booth and asked, “What’s wrong? Can’t they come with us?”

“That’s the problem, their dad is insisting that they do come with us, then that we take them home with us afterward. He wants to have them help us with the chores tonight.”

“What?” she squeaked. “The ‘Ice Cubes’ milking cows, feeding the pigs, and cleaning the barn? Oh that would be just wonderful!”

Even I could see the humour in it when she put it like that. We were still chuckling when we got to their house and Mr. Coulter met us at the door, then invited us inside.

“The girls will be right down,” he grinned. “I warned them that they should wear clothing that could be worn while working around animals and things that can be washed afterward. I’m not sure they were quite as enthusiastic about going with you after I told them what I had suggested you have them do.”

“I can imagine,” I smiled.

Beth giggled and his grin widened even more.

“I think a little time working on a farm would do them both a lot of good,” he said firmly.

“Do they have a curfew when I need to have them home?”

“Well, since I saw those photos, yet they swear they are still virgins, I’m not really worried,” he looked at me quite seriously.

“Unfortunately, things have changed since then,” I smiled right back.

“Yes, they certainly have,” he sighed deeply. “Just how old are you?”

“I’m sixteen, why?” I stared at him wondering where that had come from.

“Well son, they turned eighteen about a month ago and they just told me this afternoon that I had no legal right to tell them what to do with their bodies. Legally, they are right, but I...” he just let the sentence die.

“Oh, poor you! But, I guess poor me too,” I sighed then.

Beth started to giggle, trying to suppress it, but not managing.

“What is so darn funny?” I demanded.

“You,” she laughed aloud. “Every guy inside of miles and miles has tried to make out with them and they’re handing it to you on a platter, but you’re acting like it was ... well, like it was a worse job than mucking out the pigs.”

“I am not being handed anything,” I growled, but underneath I could see her point and I was fighting a grin myself.

I didn’t dare grin in front of Mr. Coulter. He looked much too serious to see the humour in Beth’s wise crack.

“Beth,” he said quietly, but emphatically. “Firstly, your brother is a gentleman and secondly he is an individual with a strong sense of independence. He feels he has the right of choice and he’s perfectly right. At this moment, I have an extremely high regard for him, a far higher regard than I have felt for any of the other young men that my daughters have paraded through my house over the past few years. Now if the circumstances were different...”

“Daddy, are you pontificating again?” Carissa interrupted from just behind him.

“Isn’t he always?” Corinna asked.

They were dressed in tight shorts and tighter halters, with tennis shoes on their feet and everything they were wearing was white. In other words, not what I would have worn on a farm under any circumstances. Beth and I simply stared at them.

“You aren’t wearing that are you?” Beth said disbelievingly, “not out to the farm? Surely?”

“What’s wrong with this?” Carissa demanded. “We did bring other clothes just in case we get dirty and need to change,” she held up a small bag and pointed to a matching bag that her sister carried.

“We figured that we could wash off and these clothes are old, so if we get them dirty enough that they’d be too tough to get clean, we can just toss them,” Corinna added.

“Oh boy,” I just shook my head. “Mr. Coulter, your daughters are spoiled and they obviously haven’t a clue about farm life or hard work.”

That broke him up. “Oh I wish they could spend a month helping out on your farm,” he chortled.

Beth giggled, then slipped over to him and gesture for him to bend down. She whispered something in his ear and he roared with laughter.

“Oh, that’s a wonderful idea. Thank you, Beth, I think I’ll do that.”

“But, let’s keep it a secret for now, okay?” Beth giggled.

“Absolutely, now you should get going or you’ll have to rush straight home to do your chores,” he hurried us out of the house.

Beth ran ahead and slid into the front passenger seat of my car, making it plain that the twins were going to be relegated to riding in the back seat. Although the twins frowned a bit, they seemed as if they expected that.

As I drove away, one of the twins asked if we were really going to ask them to help with the chores. Since I was concentrating on my driving I didn’t really know which one it was, but before I could answer, Beth did.

“Yep that was the only way your dad would let you come with us at all,” she fibbed. “He said you were to help us by doing exactly the same things we have to do.”

“But how will he know if we just help a little bit.”

“I imagine he’ll ask,” Beth said sharply. “And I’m sure not going to lie about it, not after what you two almost did to my brother.”

There was an edge to her voice that I had never heard before and I risked a glance at her. Her jaw was set and she was staring straight ahead.

“Oh God, we are sorry about that.”

“Yeah, sure. You’re sorry you got caught,” Beth snarled through gritted teeth. “I’ve seen you two frost every guy around you and make some darn nice guys look foolish.”

“Maybe we did, before,” I heard tears in that, or awful close and glanced in the rear view mirror. Carissa, at least, was teary eyed, I couldn’t see Corinna since she was sitting right behind me.

“You saw us on Monday though,” Now there were definitely tears and they started the twin seesaw with their conversation.

“The only trouble is there are two of us...”

“and only one Chris...”

“so dammit, we’ve got to be good...”

“maybe he’ll pick one of us...”

“even if we’d share.”

“Oh quit blubbering,” Beth snapped, turning around in her seat. “And you might as well face it, Chris is shy and he doesn’t seem to think he’s ready for a lover yet, so don’t either one of you get pushy with him. I happen to think he’s swell and since he’s my favourite brother – well for me, his happiness is tops, okay? If either one of you hurts him in any way you’ll answer to me, and you saw what I can do to bullies in the principal’s office.”

“Unh huh ... Okay,” they whispered.

“Good. However, we could use a couple of new friends,” she smiled. “Besides, I think I have something you want, which I’m going to give to you and Chris as a sign of pure friendship, no cost at all and no strings attached in any way.”

“Pardon me?” I could see the frown on Carissa’s tear stained face in the mirror.

“Well, you know that picture you saw?”

“Yes?”

“You didn’t think that Stinky Sid would be satisfied with just one pose did you?”

“OH MY GOD!”

“SHIT, HE HAS MORE PICTURES?”

“Not anymore he doesn’t,” Beth giggled. “But I do and I have the negatives as well. That’s why we’re going to the river. We decided that it was only right that since the pictures were of all three of you, then all you guys should see them and after that, you can burn them, or do whatever you want with them.”

“Why not just destroy them now?” Carissa snapped.

“Yeah, why go through the trouble of...”

“Oh for crying in the bloody sink,” Beth said loudly. “Am I the only person around who would love to have a picture of herself when she gets old and her hair turns grey. A picture that showed just how sexy I was when I was young?”

“But if someone found the pictures and blackmailed...”

“Carissa, that one picture that the cops have is going to guarantee that you and Corinna can’t be blackmailed, at least not for a picture taken when you’re with Chris. However, if you were really worried, what you could do is take out a joint safety deposit box in all three of your names and arrange that Chris has to be with one or the other of you to open it.”