Chapter 3

Jody stayed home for a couple of days to make sure Carly was settling in. But her project at the Institute was approaching a critical point and she couldn't stay away too long. I do contract software development from my home office, so I was home during the day to watch my sister-in-law.

We quickly settled into a routine. I discovered Carly liked to watch cartoons — as long as they weren't too mature. Ren and Stimpy lost her completely and she didn't really get the idea behind Pepe le Pew. Even Bugs Bunny seemed a little challenging sometimes. But she loved Daffy Duck and the Roadrunner.

Mostly what she did was housework. That woman was a dynamo, cleaning, vacuuming and dusting everything, not to mention mopping, scrubbing the bathrooms, doing laundry and making beds. Since Jody and I were both housework challenged, the place had never looked so clean.

Carly's cooking was basically limited to nuking stuff in the microwave. It wasn't that she couldn't handle the stove, but recipes confused her and with her short attention span she was likely to wander off and leave something to burn.

If it had been me, I think I would have been frustrated as hell by my inability to function. But Carly just shrugged it off and never seemed to let it dampen her naturally buoyant spirits.

Other things weren't so easy. For the first couple of nights Carly woke up every night with screaming nightmares — begging someone not to do 'it' to her. After the first night Jody slept in the guest room with her to comfort her — which meant she wasn't comforting me. Jody tried to make it up to me in the mornings and evenings while Carly was watching cartoons or something, but I discovered I really hated sleeping alone.

As soon as we could we found and obstetrician for our new houseguest. The doctor pronounced Carly healthy and her pregnancy normal. Given Carly's mental state he expressed some reservations about her having a child. Which gave Dr. Jolene Wilson-Jordan an opportunity to launch into an involved technical explanation of her sister's condition. I understood about as much of that as I had when Jody had explained it to me the first time. The one thing I did grasp was that Carly's retardation was not genetic, but the result of some kind of environmental toxin while Carly's mother was pregnant. Which is why Jody had become a biochemist specializing in the effects of toxins on humans — and why I was always a tad nervous when Jody made the occasional crack about poisoning someone.

It took Carly a few days to stop flinching when I touched her. It hurt every time she pulled away, but I made an effort not to show it. Finally after about a week her growing sense of security and her basically loving nature overcame the fear that bastard had beaten into her and she became first willing, and then eager to accept a hug from me.

I knew we'd broken through the barrier the day Carly came into my office, leaned over my chair and gave me a big hug.

"I like you," she said simply with that complete, utter sincerity that only small children — and Carly — have.

I patted her hand where it was clasped across my chest. "And I like you too Carly. I think you're a really nice person."

As her bruises healed, Carly Jody introduced her to the complex's swimming pool. She loved swimming, but getting her ready to go was a bit of a production. First there was the matter of a bathing suit. She could more-or-less fit into one of Jody's -- the 'less' being the top, since Carly's tits were bigger than Jody's even before she became pregnant. But Jody's taste in suits ran to bikinis, Sports Illustrated skimpy or less — sometimes a lot less. We had to search Jody's wardrobe to find something 'modest' enough for Carly to wear, then convince her she didn't want to wear one of the others.

Since Carly shared Jody's fair skin, she had to be protected against the fierce Arizona sun with a liberal slathering of sunblock. Jody could take care of that detail for herself by herself, unless she wanted to turn me on. Carly couldn't and Jody or I had to spread lotion on every square inch of her exposed body. Getting Carly ready to go swimming the first time I did it without Jody's help was — ah, 'interesting'. Fortunately I had the foresight to put on a jock strap with a cup under my suit, so it wasn't obvious the effect on me.

The first time I took her swimming it was the middle of the afternoon. It was warm, but not blazing, baking, hot the way it would be in another month or so, so the pool was crowded with kids with a few mothers riding herd on them. Carly knew a lot of the kids, so she headed to join her playmates in the shallow end, while I took an unoccupied lounger and watched.

"Is that your wife?" one of the young mothers asked me. She was a slender brunette with the olive skin, long dark hair and Mayan Princess features of her Hispanic heritage. Pre-Jody I would have been very attracted to her.