Chapter 19

The meeting of brother and sister might have turned the whole thing into a fiasco. To be completely honest, it was the shock of that meeting that gave them time to make the adjustments necessary to prevent that.

Bobby looked up his mouth fell open. Tiffany happened to be talking at the time, so he didn’t stop in mid sentence. Part of Suzie’s reaction, when she saw Bobby sitting on the couch, was a tightening of her fingers, which kept her from dropping both glasses. Her mouth also sagged, and her breath caught in her chest. Tiffany looked to see what Bobby was looking at.

“Suzie!” she said, somewhat breathlessly. “This is Bobby. He’s ... Paula’s friend,” she finished, somewhat weakly.

“Oh!” said Bobby and Suzie, together. It was just like the twins might have spoken.

The minds of both Daltons whirled furiously. Bobby felt like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, except it was much more serious than that. He expected her to blow sky high, which would require his immediate and final embarrassed withdrawal. He wasn’t sure whether he would be more embarrassed, or Suzie would. He was sure that this couldn’t possibly end well.

Suzie had an instant vision of him saying something like “What are you doing here?” and her roommates finding out that her brother was a gigolo. She didn’t have all that many friends. She spent all her time studying and working. And she had the rest of the semester to finish so she could graduate early and move on to med school. The thought of how she was sure her roommates would treat her during that time made her want to curl up and cry. She thought frantically, and knew that her only chance to avoid complete embarrassment was to speak first, before he opened his big mouth.

“How nice to meet you!” she blurted. Her eyes pled with him.

Bobby was completely unprepared for that response, but he grasped the out she had, for some reason, given him.

“Um ... likewise,” he said weakly.

They stared at each other for what seemed like ten minutes, to both of them.

“Do you two know each other?” asked Tiffany, looking back and forth at two suddenly pale faces, staring at each other.

“No!“ said Suzie, breaking her gaze away from Bobby’s face. “He just reminds me of somebody,” she added.

“Yeah,” said Bobby. “You do look familiar.” He couldn’t believe it, but it looked like she wasn’t going to bust his chops. He reached for the first thing that came to mind. “Were you ever in 4-H?” He remembered she’d joined the organization for a year. She hadn’t been as interested in it as she’d thought she would be, and had dropped out.

“Yes!” she said. “Maybe we saw each other then.” She thought furiously as she looked back at her brother. “At the State Fair, maybe!”

“Yeah,” he said. “That must have been it.”

“I’ve heard of that,” said Tiffany. “I don’t know anything about it, though. You never mentioned it before, Suzie.”

“Oh!” said Suzie, looking back at Tiffany. “I was only in for a year. I couldn’t afford to raise a sheep or a cow, so I dropped out.”

“Oh,” said Tiffany, who was out of things to talk about, but didn’t want to stop talking to this interesting man. “Well you have to tell us all about it,” she said, shifting her gaze from her roommate to the man who was there to bed them all.

“Mel said I should take over for you, while you go get changed,” said Suzie, suddenly very interested in being alone with Bobby.

“Oh, okay,” said Tiffany. Part of her didn’t want to leave. Another part of her suddenly wanted to look nicer for this man. She bounced up, reached for the wine glass Suzie was still holding, and took a gulp. Her right nipple, which she was amazed to find was erect, caught in the hole in her sweat shirt. She looked down to see the pink nubbin peeking out. Her hand flashed to cover it, automatically, and she blushed. “I’ll just ... um ... go do that.” she stammered.

“What are you doing here?” hissed Suzie, leaning down to whisper harshly into her brother’s face.

Bobby had adjusted much more quickly to the situation than Suzie had. She hadn’t blown his cover. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was pretty sure she wouldn’t do that in the immediate future. The more interesting thing was that she lived with these women. Even if she hadn’t known it would be him ... she obviously knew what he was there for. And her roommates said that the third girl he was there to ... service ... was out jogging. It suddenly struck him that his little sister had intended to get her ashes hauled, just like the other two.

“What are you doing here?” he shot back. “I’m here to relieve a bunch of women of their virginities! Are you one of them?”

Suzie leaned back, both because of the look on his face, which was one of disturbing intensity ... almost interest ... and because of the bald-faced way he admitted it. She suddenly felt defensive. She looked at the beer glass in her hand and gulped half of it.

“What if I am?” she said, still trying to whisper. “That’s none of your business!”

“Apparently it is,” he said softly.

Her eyes widened. “No way, Bobby!” she yipped.

He relaxed. He’d been pushing her, and that wasn’t the right way to do things, in this particular situation.

“I know,” he said softly. “This is crazy. Just don’t blow my cover, okay?”

“But why are you doing something like this?” she moaned.

“I need the money to finish the barn,” he said.

“Oh,” she said. Their mother had told her about the barn project. It had sounded interesting. She was also glad that the B&B was doing well enough that they needed to do something like that with the barn. Her values argued with her, though.

“This is still wrong!” she hissed.

“I know,” he said. He sounded unhappy, and that, along with his admission, disarmed her a little. “I just couldn’t think of anything else to do,” he went on. “And when Paula begged me to come up here ... I just did it.”

“She begged you?” asked Suzie. Melanie had tried to regale her with Paula’s descriptions of what it was like to be with ‘this’ man, even though she had never given him an actual name.

“She made it sound like you guys were desperate,” said Bobby.

“I’m not desperate!” objected Suzie. “Melanie is, but not me. She begged me to go along with this farce!”

“Well at least one of you is desperate,” he sighed.

“What are we going to do?” she whispered urgently. He understood her question was about her and him, and not her friends and him.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “When the time comes, we’ll just go into your room and talk or something. They’ll never know the difference.”

That made her feel better. “You sure?” she asked, wanting to be convinced it could be that easy.

“What?” he asked, looking at her strangely. “Do you want me to do something with you?”

“No!” she yipped. “Of course not.” She saw something come into his eyes that almost looked like regret, but ignored it. “Do you think that will work?”

“Sure,” he said. “I’m not going to do it in front of anybody. I hope you guys didn’t plan an orgy or something.” He looked nervous, suddenly.

“We didn’t plan anything!” she snapped. “This is the stupidest thing I ever heard of!”

“Hey,” he said. “I’m with you. It was just a chance to get things done. Mamma rented out the whole bed and breakfast for all summer. The twins and I have to have someplace to live.”

“Oh, I’ll just bet that’s the only reason you’re so hot to get the barn finished,” said Suzie, her whisper infused with scathing scorn. “You just want to get the twins out there where you can fuck them any time you want!”

“I already do that,” he said. She was shocked again by his bluntness.

She was saved from having to think up something to say when Tiffany bounced back into the room. She had put on a tank top, like Suzie was wearing. It was blatantly obvious she had no bra on under it, because her breasts wobbled and shook as she came towards them. Tight shorts went with the outfit. She’d combed her hair and put on some lipstick too.

“Done,” she said. “You want to go get changed?” she asked Suzie.

“No,” said Suzie, trying not to frown. “I’m fine. Bobby here seems to like athletic girls,” she said, remembering what Melanie had suggested.

“I do,” he said, not quite leering at her. He turned to Tiffany. “You look good,” he said smoothly. “But you didn’t really need to change. You already looked good.”

She blushed, remembering the nipple. She almost looked down at them now. She knew they were poking through the tank top. She’d left her bra off on purpose, feeling deliciously naughty.

“I smell lunch,” she said. “I’ll go let Mel have a chance to freshen up. You two are obviously getting along okay,” she said brightly. She almost skipped into the kitchen.

“You already looked good!” said Suzie, her voice in falsetto, and full of scorn. “I can’t believe my own brother says crap like that.”

“You’d look good without that bra on,” said Bobby calmly.

She paled when she saw he meant it. Her old fear of him bubbled up. She’d always been afraid he’d rape her. She knew, on a cerebral level, that was nonsense. She knew her sisters hadn’t objected at all to his attentions. She knew he was probably telling the truth about sleeping with the twins whenever he felt like it. But her stomach still clenched, even though she knew he would never do anything to her that she objected to.

“You just pay attention to them,” she said stiffly.

“That’s what I’m here for,” he said.

Melanie went not quite running past them, since it was hard to run in bunny slippers.

“Be right back,” she said, waving her wine glass at them.

Suzie looked at the beer glass in her hand and drank the rest of the wine in it.

“Go easy on that stuff,” said Bobby. “I don’t need anybody getting drunk or throwing up,” he said, remembering Paula.

“Maybe if I pass out, this will all go away,” she said.

“Don’t be that way,” said Bobby, standing and taking the glass from her hand. “We’ll get through this. Just follow my lead.”

“Okay,” she said softly. “But you’re going to owe me big time for this.”

He didn’t respond, so she pointed to the kitchen. Tiffany was stirring the chili-mac when they got there. She told them to sit, and started dishing out the meal. She was just filling the wine glasses again when Melanie returned.

Melanie didn’t have a lot of experience at trying to be sexy. She was basically what most mothers would have called a “nice girl” whose hormones had built up pressure inside her that demanded an outlet. She’d had boyfriends, and had kissed and petted a little, but whenever anything got halfway serious, she pulled back. One of her most vivid memories was of an ex-boyfriend she saw with another girl. That girl had been basking in his attention, which had been avid.

She had, whether consciously or not, chosen an outfit to wear for this occasion, that was remarkably like the one that girl had been wearing. She had on short shorts that clung to her like a second skin. She’d put on a tube top that was striped with rainbow colors and covered her breasts, but that’s all. Her nipples were erect too, and prominent. She’d combed her hair, but then pulled the auburn tresses back into a ponytail, leaving her shoulders bare. If she hadn’t chugged a glass of wine, she might have had a hard time actually walking into the kitchen dressed that way.

Suzie stared.

Bobby said “Wow,” softly.

Melanie, flushed and preened under the attention. “Is it too much?” she asked, striking an awkward pose.

“Yes,” said Suzie. “You look like a slut.”

Melanie looked hurt.