Chapter 24

Gidget sat in front of the mirror and stared at her reflection. This was crazy. She was crazy to have agreed to it. Going on a date with your own grandfather! Whoever heard of something like that? The excitement of doing something crazy and shaking up her boring life was gone. She was putting on makeup to go out with her own grandfather. It was insane.

But at the same time it was intriguing.

Her fingers did what they did by rote, having done it thousands of times before. A tiny part of her mind dealt with that while the rest of it wondered what the evening would be like. In a surreal kind of way, she was going out with a stranger. She'd known him all her life, but he'd been more of a fixture in Aunt Martha's house than a real person. Even since he'd awakened, she had never been with him alone, or talked with him at any length. She liked him, based on the little bit of information she actually had about him. He was interesting and exotic and all that. She loved listening to his voice as he read from Rip's journal.

But she knew who he was, and she couldn't get past that.

In a sense, for Gidget, it was like suddenly going out with a famous movie star and nobody knew about it except the two of you. A lot of people dream about somehow becoming a good friend to a movie star ... the person that star wants to be with away from the crush of fame ... the secret best friend who gets told all the juicy details and never ever betrays that trust. But when that happens for real ... how do you act? It was all just too strange.

He picked her up in the convertible and held the door for her. That in itself was strange. Men hadn't done that when she was dating. It was kind of nice to be pampered in that tiny way.

Though neither of them knew it, their conversation started out just like inexperienced teenagers talk on first dates ... sometimes on much later dates.

"Where do you want to go?"

"I don't know ... where do you want to go?"

"I don't care. What do you want to do?"

"I don't know, what do you want to do?"

"It doesn't matter to me. I'm sure whatever we do will be fine."

"Are you hungry?"

"A little, but we don't have to eat now."

"Okay ... so what should we do?"

"I don't know ... what do you think we should do?"

In the worst of circumstances, it can go on like that all night. Both people are so insecure that they're afraid to actually give an opinion, or make a decision for fear that the other one won't like it. In better circumstances, a decision is made just to get them away from the curb.

"Why don't we get something to eat?"

"Okay, that sounds good. I'm starving."

"Okay, so what do you want to eat?"

"Oh anything is fine."

"How about Mexican?"

"No, that gives me gas."

"Okay, how about Chinese?"

"No, they use too much salt."

"Italian?"

"I'd get sauce on my blouse/shirt."

"Burgers?"

"Too greasy. They'll give you a heart attack."

"Steak?"

"I try to stay away from too much red meat."

When all the possibilities have been run through and discarded for one reason or another, someone usually says.

"We can wait a while. I'm not actually all that hungry."

Thus begin many dates when both parties are nervous and hesitant for any of a variety of reasons. And thus began Bob's date with Gidget. Or Gidget's date with Bob. It all depends on how you look at it.

In better circumstances, driving around aimlessly in virtual silence for a while eventually gets conversation going. In the best of circumstances, that conversation blossoms into an actual relationship.

It started with Gidget sighing.

"This is so weird."

"Why's that?" asked Bob.

"Because you're my grandfather."

"Oh." He drove on for a while. "You know, I have lots of memories, but not very many of you. Your voice I mean. You and Sunny and Polly."

She looked at him. He was handsome with the wind blowing in his hair. "I guess because you were sleeping we didn't pay much attention to you."

"That's understandable." he said.

"I always wondered why Becca liked to go over there and read to you and tell you stories and things."

"At the time, I didn't actually think about what I was hearing. It's hard to describe. It was like a dream, but you're not really interested in getting into the dream, and you don't want to wake up, so you just sort of go back to sleep. Then somebody says something or does something and you're aware of it, but..."

"I can't imagine what it must have been like." said Gidget, empathizing with him for the first time in her life.

"It wasn't bad exactly. It wasn't anything. I wasn't lying there aware of everything and screaming inside to wake up. And the funny thing is that, when I did wake up, I remembered almost everything everybody said to me, or did to me. It took a while, but now I feel like I have part of that time back because I have memories of it."

That led to Bob asking her to bring him up to date on her life while he slept. He was a good listener and the family relationship between them actually fostered her telling him things. She started with her secret dislike for her own name. Everyone treated her like she was an empty-headed bimbo as a girl and she blamed it on her name. She found it was easy to talk to him about her teenage years, when she was so frantic to find love. The more she talked, the more she felt a burden lift from her shoulders. She'd never told anyone in the family about the professor who had misused her so badly and become Becca's absent father. As it tumbled out of her mouth she couldn't believe she was vomiting it all up. His hand came and lay on top of hers, which was on her leg. It felt good to feel that human touch.

She actually slumped when that part of her story was done, feeling drained.

"I wish I could have been there to help you." he said.

"I shouldn't have told you all that. I never told anybody else about that."

"I feel honored you would confide in me." he said.

"This isn't like a real date." she said suddenly.

"Why not?" he asked.

"I would never talk about all that stuff with a man on our first date. He'd never ask me out again."

"Well, you don't have to worry about that with me. I'm having a good time. I like you. I'll take you out any time you want."

Gidget smiled. "You have to like me. We're related."

"Not true." he said "About the having to like you part, I mean. I don't have to like anybody. I'm just lucky that all of you I've been around for a while impress me."

"Now this is sounding more like a real date." she chuckled.

"What?"

"You sound like you're buttering me up. Next you'll say how beautiful I am and how I drive you wild and then your hands will be all over me." She giggled. "Or you would if you weren't my grandfather."

"You are beautiful." he said. "You may be my granddaughter biologically, but we don't really know each other that well yet. For all intents and purposes I'm just a twenty-five year old guy out with a babe."

She laughed. "A babe who's ten years older than you, bub. I just renewed my driver's license and the picture makes me look like a used up old biddy."

"I like my women a little on the mature side." said Bob airily. "They have more experience."

"And when, since you woke up remembering your twenty something year old wife, have you gotten all this experience with older women?" she asked archly. "Have you been leading a secret life chasing around girls my age?" She laughed again.

Bob wished he could tell her about the experience of sharing something so wonderful with a woman who knows herself and what she wants. But he couldn't. She was too wrapped up with their relationship. He looked at her and appreciated her firm breasts and round hips. She wore her hair short, almost in what used to be called a Pageboy and the wind flipped it around. She preferred arched brows and highlighted her own with eyeliner, making her look vaguely surprised most of the time. She had chosen a dark red lipstick that went well with her dark hair. She looked healthy and sexy and Bob, having come to terms with the incest he'd been involved in for fifty-years and a few months, felt his prick stir in his pants.

"It doesn't take long," he said carefully, "if a man is in my situation, for him to become aware of women in ways that, a short time ago, I wouldn't have contemplated." He took a risk. "In this case, while I am related to all of you, I am also capable of seeing you as females of the species. What's a man supposed to do when he's surrounded by a whole passel of beautiful women who are, for all intents and purposes, strangers to him?"

Gidget blinked. "Are you flirting with me?" she gasped.

"Maybe a little." he smiled. "You're a beautiful woman, Gidget. Your head is not empty, nor is your blouse. A lot of men have probably noticed that about you."

Gidget was stunned. He was right in a way. They really were strangers. He was acting like other men had acted, or tried to act. She ignored them all. All they wanted was what they wanted. They didn't care about her. At the same time, here was a man who she wasn't afraid of ... who she didn't mistrust automatically ... and who had just paid her a very nice compliment that made her feel things she hadn't felt in years and years. Her usual response to that would have been to ignore him and move on out of dangerous waters.

But she couldn't do that with Bob.

"Can I ask you a question?" she said.

"Sure."

"Why do men do that?" she asked.

"Why do men do what?" he asked back.

Instead of actually asking a question, Gidget made a comment. "You just called me sexy and beautiful and mentioned my breasts. In my experience that means a man wants to drag you into bed."

"Okay." said Bob. Based on her previous comments, both before and on this date, he had some idea of where this was going.

Then she asked her question. "Why is it that men can't think about anything but sex? I mean you're my grandfather, for pity's sakes and you still notice my sexuality."

"I'm a man." said Bob. "For millions of years men have been scoping out women. There is a biological urge to mate and it's strong. In my day, people tried to ignore that and pretend that it could be turned on and off with a switch or something."

Gidget thought immediately of a boy in High School who had used the popular term that decade when he said "You turn me on."

Bob went on. "From what I can see since I woke up, the only thing that's changed is that sex kept going on its natural course, and people just came up with more and more complicated ways to try to deny sexual attraction, even though it's advertised in everything and everywhere. It's one of the most puzzling things I've experienced since I woke up."

He looked over at her and found her staring back at him, so he went on.

"To answer your question, I'm a stranger in a strange land - kind of like that book that guy wrote while I was sleeping. It was lying on the dresser and it's one of the first things I read after I woke up. Except not everything is strange. There are a few things that are familiar and comfortable, but most of it is odd and jarring. I'm stupid in a way, because I'm behind the times fifty years. But sex comes naturally, and that hasn't changed. I see a beautiful woman and something in me wants to do what nature has intended for men to do for a million years. The only difference is that I'm honest about it. I see potential sexual partners and I don't feel bad about calling them potential sexual partners."

Gidget's mouth dropped open. "You mean ... are you saying ... do you see me as a potential sexual partner?"

"Yes," he said calmly. "But you don't have to worry about it. It's just the biology inside me reacting to the biology on the outside of you ... plus a dose of admiration for who you are. I'm not going to hit you on the head with a club and drag you off to a cave somewhere to ravish you." He grinned.

Gidget's mind was whirling. In all her life, every single time she'd had sex, it had been something of a chase and conquest situation. She had been told all her life that her sex was something to barter with, or that it shouldn't be used at all until certain social prerequisites were met. And yet, under certain circumstances she wasn't able to control her urges. She knew now that her professor had never loved her, even though he said it all the time. He had pushed her buttons and she had resisted, like she was supposed to, until all the right buttons had been pushed. Then she "gave in".

As she remembered those times, so long ago, she now realized that she had never actually wanted to have sex with the man, but gave in because that's what the script said she was supposed to do. But he hadn't gone by the script when she got pregnant. And that had soured her on all scripts from that point on.

Now, this man, a man she wasn't automatically suspicious of, and who she liked, not because of her biological relationship required it, but because he was just a nice guy, was acting like other men. Except that he wasn't acting from a script. He was just being honest about how he felt. She thought back to several men who she suddenly realized might have been doing the same thing. And she had pushed them away. No wonder she was alone and lonely.

"Wow" she said. "Practicing" for dates with other men had suddenly taken on some meaning.

"Are you outraged?" he asked.

She thought about it. Bob was more real to her as a stranger than he was as her grandfather. She'd never been able to view him as most children would view a grandfather.

"No." she said, surprised. "I'm actually not. All you did was tell the truth ... right?"

"Yes. But I didn't want you to be uncomfortable."

"Do you always tell the truth?" she asked, interested now. She unconsciously leaned toward him as she turned in the seat to face him.

"No." he smiled. "Sometimes the truth can cause hurt feelings."

"So how do you decide when to tell the truth and not?" she asked.

"I tell the truth if I don't think it will hurt anybody, and will make things better."

"And you lie the rest of the time?" she asked.

"It's not that black and white. I try not to lie at all. Sometimes I just don't say anything. If the truth isn't actually necessary, and might hurt somebody's feelings, why say it?"

Gidget felt a longing in her that she hadn't known was there. To find a man who didn't play games ... who was honest ... who would listen to her. She could get used to being around a man like that. There had been times when she had been a little jealous of Polly for having Roger to be friends with, even though there was obviously nothing sexual going on there. Maybe this dating thing had possibilities after all. Bob couldn't be the only man like himself in the world ... right?

"There's a radio at the cabin ... isn't there?" she asked.

"Yes, Fran insisted she had to have Rock 102 or some such thing up there." He was confused at the turn of conversation.

"Take me up there. I want to dance."

"Aren't there places in town that have dancing?" he asked.

"I'm not about to do that in public." she laughed. "Not until I've had some practice. I haven't been dancing since college."

Bob thought about it. He knew the Charleston and a couple of other dances, but he hadn't heard any music since he woke up to that would work with those dances.

"Good idea." he said.

That also solved the eating problem for them, since they felt comfortable opening a few cans and heating them in the microwave. Bob told her the story about the first time he saw a microwave in Martha's kitchen and thought it was a toaster oven. She laughed and they talked about other new things he'd experienced.

Then she went to the radio and bent over to fiddle with it, looking for music to dance to. Rock and roll worked for her, to a degree, but Bob had no idea how to move to that music. She taught him a few basic movements and told him to concentrate on the beat of the music. They gyrated and Bob watched her breasts bounce inside her blouse. She caught him looking, but wasn't threatened and teased him.

"You're being naughty. You're staring at my boobs."

Bob scratched his head. "I would have sworn I gave you the caveman speech. Besides, this music makes me think of mating dances I heard about in my college sociology class."

"When my mother was growing up they called this Devil music." she panted, gyrating a little more. It was fun being watched by a man you liked. "They used to do a dance called the Shimmy or something like that. I saw her doing it once when I was growing up. It looked like this."

She stood still and then twisted her shoulders and upper torso back and forth violently. Her breasts went wild, jumping back and forth. She felt her nipples stiffen and tingle as she watched, his mouth open.

"Good grief" he sighed. "It's a wonder all the women didn't get raped."

"Girls teased a lot back then." she said, settling back into a more relaxed movement. "They still do."

"You can say that again." he said. "I saw a girl the other day in a swim suit, I guess you'd call it. It didn't cover as much as my wife's bra and panties used to cover."

"Isn't it horrible?" she asked, dropping back into her habitual conservative persona.

"No, actually, I loved it." said Bob grinning. "It reminded me of the one June was wearing the day I woke up."

Her eyes arched. "Your kidding! The orange one? She never lets anybody see her in that."

"I think she was so excited that she forgot she was wearing it. I was glad. I was so frazzled by trying to figure out what was going on that it was kind of nice to be distracted by all that flesh, even though I knew she was my daughter."

Gidget laughed. "You don't know how odd it is to be around a man who's honest."

"You'd look good in something like that." he said, leering.

"Yeah, right, with all my flab hanging out all over the place." she grimaced.

"I don't see all that much flab." he said.

"It's there." she said.

They took a break and Gidget found a station with slow music.

"Now thats more like it." said Bob. "I can waltz with the best of them."

He took her into the formal embrace of ballroom dancers, his left hand holding her right one out and his right hand on the small of her back.

"They don't dance like this any more." she said as he twirled her, firmly in control.

"Oh really?" he asked. "How do they dance nowadays?"

She pulled his left hand to her back and put her arms around him, pulling him close. Her breasts pushed against his chest and her cheek was suddenly close to his. They didn't so much dance as stand and sway to the music, taking tiny steps. It was immensely more intimate than what they had been doing, and Bob felt himself react.

"This may not be such a good way to dance." he murmured in her ear.

His breath in her ear made her shiver. She suddenly felt the pressure of something pushing against her pubis.

"Oh my." she breathed.

"Does this make you uncomfortable?" he asked.

Gidget didn't know quite how to answer that question. She was relaxed and comfortable with this man. She didn't feel threatened at all. And dancing like this felt wonderful, after all those years of going without. In fact, she was a little horny. She hadn't felt that way in so long that it was almost like welcoming back a long lost friend.

"You don't have a club lying around here anywhere do you?" she asked, hugging him a little closer.

"No." he said, unable to keep his hands from sliding up and down on her back. "No cave either."

"Then I don't feel uncomfortable." she said.

"Good, because I want to keep doing this for a while. This feels really good."

He pushed his erection against her just a little.

Gidget felt heat suffuse her face. Part of her insisted this was crazy and wrong. But something else in her admitted that this felt good. It was all innocent anyway.

"You know what you are?" she said into his shoulder. "You're a dirty old ... young man."

"No I'm not." he said softly. "A dirty old man would do this." He slid his hands down to cup her buttocks and squeezed them gently, pulling her against him.

"You shouldn't be doing that." she murmured, but her arms stayed around his neck.

"I thought we were practicing." he said back.

"You mean all those other men I go out with will want to do that too?" she asked dreamily.

"That and more." he said, his hands still on her ass.

"More?" she asked. She felt a tingle start somewhere behind her navel. "But we can't do those things."

"Why not?" he asked. "It's just practice, right?"

"I don't think you're being completely truthful with me right now." she chided.

"You're right." he said. He kissed her throat.

"I haven't felt like this since I can remember." she sighed, rubbing her body against him. Her hips betrayed her and she ground her mons against his lump. "I feel so ... naughty."

"What you feel is the same attraction I feel." he countered. "That's all it is. Animal attraction. We can stop any time you want to."

She didn't pull away. "You're an amazing man Bob Winkle. Are you sure you're not Rip himself? I feel you ripping apart my defenses."

"Your defenses are there for good reason." he said. "They're to keep you from getting hurt."

"But you won't hurt me." she argued.

"If this goes much further you might get hurt." he said, pushing his erection against her.

"Are you really ... hard?" she asked.

"That's not a handkerchief down there." he quipped.

She shuddered at the mental image that popped into her brain of a hard penis. The only one she'd really had time to look at in any detail was the one that got her pregnant. She closed her eyes tightly. She didn't want to see that image.

"Grandpa?" she said, her voice high and young.

"Yes sweetie."

"Could I ask you a favor ... a really big favor ... something you might think was terrible?"

"Whatever you need sweetheart." he said.

Had he said it any differently than that, things might have gone differently. But to her ears that was exactly the right way to put it. She needed ... really needed to replace that distasteful image in her mind. She tried to explain it to him.

"Right now I feel good ... safe ... happy. Except that when you press against me all I can think of is ... him ... his ... his penis." He didn't say anything and she felt better. "I don't want to think of that ... see that in my mind. I need to see another one ... a different one."

"You want me to show you mine?" he asked calmly.

"Would you?" she asked tentatively. "Could you?"

"If that's what you want, then yes."

She felt the nervousness of near panic, and acted before she could chicken out. She dropped to her knees. That had been the script with the professor and she did it unconsciously. Her hands went to his belt and the button of his Dockers as he stood passively. That was in the script too, as was her pulling at his clothing to bare his prod.

She felt a familiarity that was horrible ... and then, he was exposed, and she almost laughed as the script flew out the window.

Professor Lipscomb had been forty-two years old when he seduced Gidget Winkle. He had not been in the best of shape, but was an important man on campus. He had a little pot belly and a slight overbite that made him unattractive to most women. Gidget, thinking of the status of being a professor's wife, bought his line and he was elated when she fell to what he thought of as his masculinity. He was average in every way, with the possible exception of his ... masculinity. He was circumcised and, when erect, would have measured exactly three point seven eight inches. His stubby little penis didn't care how less than average it was, though, and performed well, at least to his own satisfaction. Since he was her first ... only, in fact ... she didn't know the difference. Things were normal, as far as she knew. That penis also delivered sperm flawlessly, which is what had gotten Gidget into trouble.

Bob, however, was uncut and had none of the smooth blunted appearance that she had seen the last time she looked at a penis. The first thing she thought about as it bobbed into sight was that it wouldn't fit into her mouth, like Professor Lipscomb's had so easily. Her delighted eyes took in it's rough look, with it's softened tip and the little hood that looked like a turtle neck that had been pulled up over a bald man's head. It was longer. Much longer. She didn't make measurements in her head. She just noticed it was much longer. The only similarity was that it was about the same diameter as the other one she had seen.

She liked this one better, though that may have just been raw bias. She was in the peculiar position of preferring her grandfather's naked penis over that of one that had actually made her pregnant.

The script came back long enough to make her lean forward and kiss the tip, without thinking. She was immediately cognizant of the turtle neck around the tip of this amazing thing, kissing her back. She jerked back and looked up at Bob with fear in her eyes.

"I shouldn't have done that." she said.

"I don't mind." he said. "It felt nice."

She relaxed and looked at it again. Now that this image was fresh in her mind, she wondered what it would feel like to wrap her hand around something that would still stick out. Her hand had completely covered the other one.

"Can I touch it?" she asked.

"Well, since you already did and the world didn't end ... please." he said.

The act of gripping him, and leaning forward at the same time resulted in something she wasn't prepared for. Her hand kept moving! The turtle neck thinned and popped backwards, exposing something that looked a lot more like Professor Lipscomb's. It was different though, because it was narrower, more pointed. It looked like it would slide into her with much less stretching and pain.

She shook her head, trying to banish the idea of this sliding into her at all. She concentrated on the feel of the long hard tube in her hand. That was completely different and she liked that too. She slid the sheath back over the head experimentally and smiled. Then she slid it back again, playing with it, watching fascinated as the skin turned from bunched up and wrinkled, to thin and smooth.

"That feels really good." Bob sighed. "But if you keep doing it I may start looking for something to make a club out of."

She looked up an smiled. "There's still no cave."

"No, but there's a bed right over there." He nodded at the newly covered feather bed.

She felt a tremor in her belly. "Would you really do that with me ... if you could?" she asked.

"Yes." was all he said.

She looked back at the shockingly sexual thing in her hand ... and her pussy clenched.

"But you can't ... can you." It wasn't really a question.

"That depends on you darling." he said.

"We couldn't." she shook her head firmly.

"If that's what you feel, then you're right." he agreed.

Her body screamed at her.

"It's been so long." she said. "It would be wrong."

"Then we won't."

"But part of me wants to." she complained.

"Then we might." he smiled.

"You make it sound so simple." she said.

"It is simple. Either you want to, or you don't."

"It's not that simple for me." she sighed. "You're my grandfather."

"Right here ... right now ... I'm just your practice date. Just a man." he suggested.

She stood up, flustered.

"It can't be that simple." she argued. "I wouldn't be doing this with some man I was out on a date with."

Bob leaned over and pulled up his pants. He buttoned the button as she watched, her eyes wide. Then he refastened his belt.

"So we won't do this any more." said Bob. It was hard, but he knew it was the right thing to do.

Gidget threw up her hands. "But I want to!" she said exasperatedly. "With you anyway."

"You know what you remind me of?" Bob asked, taking her to the bed and sitting her down on the edge of it. He sat beside her. It was almost uncomfortable because the mattress crushed beneath them and tended to tip them toward the center of the bed because of the hard side rail of the frame underneath. They perched on the edge.

"You remind me of a girl I used to know named Ruth. We went out a few times when I was in High School. She was what we called back then "hot as a pistol." She loved to kiss and pet, but if you tried to touch her skin ... you know, reach inside her clothes ... she'd push you away. Then she was right back wanting more. She always wanted more, but she wouldn't let you do more. At first I thought she was just using her defenses, to keep things from going too far. But after a while I decided she didn't know what she wanted. She wanted more, but was scared, and couldn't make up her mind about what to do about it."