It was Thanksgiving, and I was at the big family get-together. Not MY family; mine are a pretty independent bunch and scattered all over the place and it takes a major effort to gather the majority. No, the family in question was my girlfriend, Jean’s. Jean had a mother and two married sisters — her dad was long gone — various brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews, and a layer below that. Most of them lived within a thirty mile radius, so holiday parties saw a pretty good crowd and the site rotated among the sisters according to an annual schedule. Thanksgiving was traditionally the province of Jean’s middle sister May and her husband Ed — and they were our hosts for the current shindig. The big tying on the feedbag piece was over; Ed, Mike (Jean’s oldest sister Marie’s husband) and I were kicked back in the living room watching football. A couple of the nieces and the vast majority of the under ten set had just headed out the door, and we were digesting a lot of turkey and some pretty good wine and trying to find room for dessert and Ed had just come downstairs from showing off his gun collection when the doorbell rang.

Ed went over and opened the door — and I’ll admit it — I wasn’t alert. I’d had just a bit more wine than the amount that would keep me grounded, so I was in that state where I hoped I wasn’t making an ass of myself. I looked up to see Ed backing up before a couple of BIG motherfuckers in body armor. “We haven’t been THAT loud...” I grunted.

“No, sir,” one of them replied. “We’re doing low-profile pickups, sweeping the neighborhood collecting family groups.”

“Oh,” I replied. I needed to get my brain in gear before anything intelligent was going to surface. “Who are you looking for?”

“Well, there’s YOU, Mr. Miller,” the Confederacy corporal shot back, “and Edward Ghatti...” He turned his attention to Ed. “That would be you, I believe?”

Ed sucked his teeth and nodded. “Come on in - you boys eaten?”

The Lance Corporal who was the second trooper grunted, “No...”

Ed nodded. “The women are screwing with the leftovers - why don’t you come in and help yourselves. I’m thinking this little deal you’re working has probably been pretty quiet thus far...”

The Corporal sucked in a breath. “Are we gonna have trouble here?”

Ed flicked a glance at me, then at Mike - we both shook our heads no. All three of us were vets - each in a different service. “May!” Ed yelled, “Hold up on the packing up - you got more mouths to feed!”

May was already standing in the kitchen door with her head cocked and her hands on her hips. “What’s this?”

“It’s a pickup, Ma’am,” the Lance replied.

“Oh!” May pursed her lips and popped her eyes - and I could see her trying to work her way through the whole thing. She was arguably the brightest of the sisters, but she was a little high-strung and could be a nag. After a moment of being totally unable to put together the implications, she fell back upon Ed’s original instructions, “Come on in and I’ll get you some plates...” She headed back into the kitchen and started opening freezer containers.

The kitchen was in full view of the living room and vice-versa - but the dining room was off to the left - which meant that the other women present really didn’t have any idea what was going on until Ed, Mike and I re-entered the room, followed by the two Marines. Eyes widened all around the big dining room table.

Now, in a dream world, maybe, the table would have been surrounded by some hot stuff - but the reality was, well, somewhat different. Take Jean, for instance. Jean was my woman because she was sweet and submissive and tolerant of my ways - and if she wasn’t the brightest bulb in the circuit, it was because I’d learned after a couple of failed marriages that someone had to be in charge and it was by God going to be ME! - but she weighed more than I did. With two exceptions, there wasn’t a woman in the room who wasn’t at least plump - and there was one who had glandular problems and was seriously obese.

Going clockwise from the top right corner of the table, there was Jean, a big brunette pushing forty, then May’s girlfriend Tracy’s daughter Anita, who was in her mid-twenties, and while she had that ducky look with the rack and the ass exacerbated by a pantsuit and jacket, she was one of the top choices in the room. Next was Tracy herself, late forties, narrow, with that high-strung, nervous look to her and some early wrinkles, probably brought on by smoking. Next was Allison, Ed’s daughter from a previous marriage - olive- skinned and kind of tall and beautiful above the waist, but she had a humongous ass - all out of proportion to her build. Next was the matriarch of the family, Alice - who was pushing seventy, and while I’d been told she was once big, she was shrinking the way older women do. Beyond her was Katherine, Mike and Marie’s second daughter. The older girl, Eileen, had gotten the looks and the fashion sense - and a husband - even though she was a bit plus- size; Kate got dick. She inherited a glandular problem from Mike and the genetic mix with her mother didn’t help; basically, she was a collection of jiggly rolls. She wouldn’t have been pretty anyway, but it was just one more strike against her. Was she nice? Well, as nice as anybody who had been screwed over her entire life could be, anyway. She would move Heaven and Earth for you, but that didn’t mean her outlook on life wasn’t somewhat soured. Next, was her mother, Marie, Jean’s oldest sister, a nice woman, but big - the type that had a huge rack and a huge ass and walked bent over to balance them.

So we had eight women - and eight slots, since I had a CAP score of eight point five and Ed had a six point six. But Alice wasn’t going anywhere...

In fact, that was the first announcement, and she made it. “I’m not going. It’s a waste of time for me.”

The Marines merely nodded. Alice flat wasn’t eligible under the current rules.

There were two people in the room who knew my CAP score besides the Marines - myself, and Jean. She just looked at me; she’d resigned herself to the idea that I would be picked up - and she wouldn’t be going. For her, it was a given. What she didn’t understand was that it was one of the things I loved about her. Her sisters didn’t know it, but behind closed doors, Jean and I had an ‘alternate’ relationship. We’d met online, both of us looking to fulfill certain fantasies. I wasn’t particularly hard, but I WAS in charge, and I would spank her or otherwise punish her as necessary to keep her from getting too feisty (and she challenged me regularly, purely to ensure that she got attention) and for fun. She hadn’t been terribly trusting because her ex had slept around on her, and she had low self-esteem; a few trips to the local swing club had gone some distance to fix the first problem by showing her that love and sex were two different things, but the second remained.

What this made her was a jewel beyond price - not that she knew that. I had no earthly idea why she put up with my tired ass, but as long as she did, I was golden ... I went over to stand behind her, rubbing her shoulders. She pulled my head down and whispered, “Are they taking you somewhere?”

“For what?”

“You know, concubines.”

“Doesn’t look like it. I think we’re gonna keep it in the family,” I replied.

“That’s not real fair to you,” Jean opined, her voice low enough to keep things private.

“I’m good with it,” I replied softly. “Your family is good people.”

“You were never taking me.”

“I was ALWAYS taking you!”

Jean burst into tears and hid her face in my midsection.

That triggered Marie. “What’s wrong?” she asked, concerned. Obviously, she hadn’t put two and two together. No one else in the room had, either, for that matter, except Alice - everyone else was pooh-poohing the idea that they were involved in a pickup. Pickups happened at malls and restaurants and were meat market affairs...

“Things have just gotten complicated,” I explained. “But she’s happy, I hope...” Jean nodded without removing her face from my shirt.

Marie shrugged. “I don’t get it.”

I sighed. “I’m thinking that all will become clear, in time.” I turned to the Marines. “Do we have time for dessert?”

The Lance Corporal - Sparks, per his nametag - nodded. “Things are real quiet. We’re in no hurry. None of the teams has hit anything too serious to deal with. Some households are being consolidated...” He eyed me and I knew the question he wasn’t asking.

I sidestepped it. “So, how about dessert?” I asked. “I’d like some coffee...”

“Sure...” May KNEW something was up, but she wasn’t seeing the obvious, either. The Marines were neither confirming nor denying and Kate was arguing with her grandmother about how silly she was to think that just because a couple of Marines showed up at a private home, it meant there was a pickup going on. “Grandma, there’s just no way,” Kate disparaged. May, listening, nodded to herself and turned to the coffee pot.

Tracy hopped up to cut pie and Anita followed. Allison hit the refrigerator for ice cream. I waved Ed over. “How many?”

“Two. You?”

“Six.”

“There aren’t that many,” Ed observed, after nodding poker-faced for a moment, obviously impressed.

“There are solutions,” I replied.

“I guess,” he replied, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked around.

“Why don’t you get yours out of the way,” I offered. I found myself wondering if he would take May. Ed was a womanizer; everybody was pretty sure he was fooling around on May - and that made her disposable.

“One’s down,” he shrugged, answering my question. “Allison...” he grimaced.

I got it. Taking his daughter was incest; the Confederacy might be cool with that, but Ed wasn’t. “She’s covered,” I confirmed, “if you - and she - want it that way.”

Ed nodded. “Think we’re going to get any more announcements?”

I shrugged. “We won’t know until they figure it out, I guess.”

Ed turned and eyed Anita - but shook his head. I knew why; Anita outpaced Allison as the hottest thing in the room - but she had a history. She was in her mid twenties, and had two little girls - that she didn’t have custody of. She’d been a nurse - but she’d gotten hooked on prescription drugs. That had led to other things ... She was theoretically clean and trying to turn it around, but a few months before, she’d had a setback. I’d met the girls, but not their father; they apparently favored him, being blonde, blue eyed and rail-thin - but they had the personality of a pair of ghosts. I suspected that either Anita or her husband abused them - and nobody knew which. Ed didn’t want that pair - but he didn’t want to be responsible for leaving them — and she would get them after a pickup if her sponsor allowed it, no matter what an Earth-bound court said.

Ed stared at the group in the kitchen for a bit longer and said, “Tracy.” That sort of made sense to me - Tracy was May’s friend - and probably Ed’s, as well. They would get along.

“Come on, Babe, get some ice cream,” I told Jean.

“I can’t believe we’re just sitting here, having pie...” Jean husked.

I shrugged. Marie eyed her sister and said, “Why not?”

“Sissy,” Jean asked, eyeing Marie like she had two heads, “Don’t you realize that this is a pickup?”

“Oh, it is not!” Marie waved it off, “You sound like Mom! Just because...”

“Actually,” Sparks interrupted, “It is.”

“Wh-what?” Marie gasped, “But who?”

May dropped a cup of coffee at that point. While the other three women in the kitchen danced out of the way of the hot brew, May looked at Ed, white-faced. “Really?”

Ed nodded, his lips pursed. “Really. Clean that up and get another cup - I know Ben wants some.”

“Okay.” May went to the sink and got a towel and a sponge; it was clear that she was handling the issue she could deal with and avoiding the one she couldn’t.

Tracy poured another cup of coffee and handed it to Ed. “You’re not serious.”

“They are,” Ed replied, pointing to the Marines.

“So, should we...?” Tracy asked.

“I think it’s handled already,” Ed replied. “Want to go with May and I?” He turned and handed me the coffee cup.

The other Marine, Corporal Johnson, cleared his throat. “Usually, we recommend a test drive.”

“Usually,” Ed retorted, eyeing him, “the people you’re putting together don’t know one another. I think I can take my chances, here.”

Tracy stood looking at Ed, obviously trying to decide whether she should strip down or not, anyway. She turned to look at May, who was still busy cleaning. Squatting, she took over mopping with the towel, “May?”

“I guess it’s okay,” May said tonelessly.

“Daddy?” Allison yelped at Ed.

“Go with Ben, Honey,” Ed directed gently. Allison eyed me as if she’d never seen me before, despite the fact that we’d both been appearing at family functions for years. Of course, from her perspective, I was STILL a perfect stranger...

I beckoned Allison and she shuffled past her father to me, giving him a look in passing that accused him of disowning her. “Tell me about you and sex,” I said quietly. “Do you like it?”

“Well...” she flicked a glance at Ed, “yes.”

“Getting any?”

Allison snorted and waved at herself, “What do YOU think?”

“Such questions!” Marie erupted to my right.

“You’ll get your turn,” I replied. Marie got bug-eyed and covered her mouth.

Johnson was looking to his right, so I glanced over the bar into the kitchen. Ed had stepped over there while Allison sidled past him, coming to me. Tracy and May were still on the floor even though the cleanup was probably over; May was looking nervously up at Ed while Tracy dug in his Dockers; apparently, neither of them felt that they were on stable ground. Anita stood there, poker-faced, watching as her mother freed Ed’s cock and engulfed it. May moved up on her right and Tracy surrendered it to her for a suck while she pulled her blouse over her head; I got the distinct impression that May was deriving some comfort from it.