It had seemed such a good idea at first. I’d been out of work for nearly a year at the time, and Jilly, my wife, had been out of work for three years. Our eighteen year old daughter worked part time in the local news agents, but that was Sunday mornings only and what with the ‘dole’ rules, it meant that in effect she actually only earned a few quid for a whole mornings work. Our sixteen year old son had decided that he would go on the dole rather than go to college, as at least it meant that there would be an extra forty pounds a week coming in. The job centre hadn’t liked that, but there wasn’t really a lot they could do about it.

We worked in the garden and down the allotment. In the garden we had a cooking apple tree, over two dozen raspberry canes, a couple of rhubarb roots, seven gooseberry bushes, a red-currant and three black-currant bushes. We’d recently put in some tayberry and strawberry plants and I had just been given some small blackberry plants. We also grew lettuce, tomato, radish and a multitude of herbs.

Down the allotment we had squashes, cabbages, brussels sprouts, carrots, parsnips, beans, peas, and leeks. We’d tried beetroot and onions, but for some reason we couldn’t get them to grow, though other allotment holders seemed to cope. We deliberately didn’t grow potatoes, instead we swapped some of our produce for potatoes from other growers who were in a similar position to us.

Between us we just about fed the family. We still had to buy our bread, milk, cheese and the occasional scrag end of beef or lamb from the butcher, but we rarely needed to buy much in the way of vegetables or fruit. Jilly stewed the meat we did buy slowly with herbs and vegetables to make the most delicious stews imaginable. We didn’t go hungry and it wasn’t always the most exciting food, but it was tasty and it did generally fill us. We didn’t starve and in reality we’d all lost a lot of unnecessary weight. We’d all given up sugar in our tea and Jilly and I had started taking our coffee black to save on milk.

No one went to the pub, we couldn’t afford it. Nor did we get newspapers, but we were all members of the local library, so we borrowed books and we read the newspapers there.

We got rid of the television and the cost of the TV licence. That did annoy the TV licensing people as they kept sending us letters asking why we didn’t have a licence. We ignored them; if they wanted to come and investigate, they were more than welcome. We got rid of all but one of our mobile phones and got a cheaper deal for that, but we kept our landline and our broadband. That only cost us a fiver a month, but it was too useful as a job hunting tool, as well as to get gardening advice from, so for the time being we hadn’t got rid of it. But still we were short.

When I had been made redundant, Jilly and I had sat down and spent well over an hour going through all our finances, looking at my redundancy payout, to try and work out the best thing to do with it. We both wanted to do much the same thing, it was just the details that differed. I had wanted to pay off the mortgage first and then use whatever was left to do as much decorating and repairs as we could then afford. Jilly wanted to do all the repairs and decorating first, then pay off as much of the mortgage as we could afford.

We compromised. We planned to do the repairs, all of them, then the mortgage, and whatever was left we would do the decorating with. The repairs were four times what we expected, as it turned out the roof needed a lot more work than we had realised, so we were just short to pay off the entire mortgage, but only by a couple of thousand quid. No matter what we did, we couldn’t find that money anywhere. We decided to do the decorating after all, so when we came to the mortgage, we were just over nine grand short. With sixteen years still to run on the mortgage our monthly payments were down to a little over fifty quid a month and this was always the first bill we paid.

About every two or three months we went to the local cash and carry and bought some staples: rice, tinned beans, pasta, washing powder, etc., and because it was all at wholesale price, we probably saved about twenty percent overall, even if we did spend two hundred pounds at a time. The membership card I should have given back when I was made redundant, but my manager, ex-manager, was a human being and let me keep it.

“Don’t go too often,” he had told me, “the office staff might notice if you do. All they can do is cancel the card, it’s not like you’re stealing off us and it’s not actually illegal, but you don’t want to lose it. When you get a new job, just drop it back in here.” It had been a godsend. But still we couldn’t make ends meet.

I was down at the allotment one Thursday afternoon. There wasn’t a great deal to do now, Toby and I had weeded earlier in the week, which hadn’t taken long then, so today it was just a matter of making sure everything was okay and pulling a few young carrots for the next few days. The red-currants were just about ready to be picked, so that was my next job when I got home.

“Dennis,” I heard.

I looked up to see a guy from one of the other allotments, an almost bald headed bloke in his sixties. I’d spoken to him a few times and he’d always come across as friendly and helpful. I was a bit envious of him because he could make his onions grow, that aside I liked the guy.

“‘Allo Tom.” I stood up, stretching my back where it had kinked a bit.

“Look. Den. I may be able to offer you some work.”

“Oh?”

“Mmm. It’ll be on the sly though.”

“Oh. If the jobcentre find out I’ll be for the high jump.”

“They won’t find out. Believe me they won’t find out. Thing is, it wouldn’t look like work, but it is a bit noncy.” Noncy was the local slang for illegal.

I shook my head. “Don’t do drugs. Won’t grow ‘em if that’s what you’re after, won’t sell ‘em. ‘Aven’t got a computer, so can’t do piracy,”

He interrupted me, shaking his head and grinning. “Nothin’ like that me ol’ son.”

“What and how much?” I asked after a few moments.

“Erm, well it’ll be a half days work, but only now and again. You won’t even have to go very far. From here it’s about a ten minute walk. I dunno where you are from here, but given that I see you walk in here, I guess it can’t be too far.”

I shook my head. “About the same. About ten minutes.”

He named a road and I nodded. “Oh I know where that is. That’s only about two or three minutes walk from home. But if it’s only half a days work, it’s gonna be hardly worth the effort surely?”

He grinned. “It’s a job for the whole family. You’ll all be able to do it, but whether you’ll want to is another matter.”

I supposed that might be worth the effort. The minimum hourly wage was five pounds seventy three for Jilly and myself. Briony, at eighteen, would get four seventy seven, and Toby three fifty three. And that was the legal minimum. A half day was usually meant as four hours, so a quick bit of mental arithmetic told me that at the minimum we would get seventy plus pounds. I was about to try and work out what the tax on that might be when I remembered he’d said ‘on the sly’. No tax, but that also meant he didn’t have to pay us even minimum wage. I frowned. “For the four of us?”

He nodded. “Yep. All at the same time. Oh and it has to be all four of you, can’t just do two or three of you. All four, or nothing at all.”

I frowned, I didn’t ever remember telling him I had a wife and two kids. “Uh. How much? And is it each, or between us?”

“Ah well. That’s the thing you see. If you do what we want, and we think it’s okay, then about five grand between you.”

I gasped. “Five grand? What do you want us to do? And how soon?” I really couldn’t think what he might want four of us to do, in about four hours, that could possibly be worth five thousand pounds. But I wanted to do it as soon as possible.

He nodded, frowning slightly, and gesturing to me to keep it down. “Keep this on the quiet though. It’s very, very, illegal. Hopefully you’ll all enjoy it. And you may even enjoy it enough to come back and do it again sometime.”

“Oh.” I said heavily. “Doing what?”

He ignored me. “You wouldn’t want to do it too often, maybe twice a year or so, and probably for no more than a few years. Three, four at the most. We simply wouldn’t be able to use you more than that. But think what you could do with five grand. As for when, as soon as you say yes.”

With that amount of money to hand we could pay off over half the balance of the existing mortgage, certainly enough to make the monthly repayments not enough to worry us. Or we could pay off other debts instead. “Shit. What’ve we got to do.”

He smiled. “Don’t worry about that just yet. Talk it over with the missus and the rugrats. Remind them it is very easy, very safe, but also very illegal.”

“Immoral?” I asked with a half smile. Supposedly anything fun was either illegal, immoral or fattening.

“Oh very” Tom laughed.

I smiled, assuming he was just teasing. But in any case, I suppose anything illegal is by its very definition also immoral. “Okay. I’ll talk it over. If we want more info, how do we get in touch?”

He though for a moment. “Look. I know you or your lad are down here most days. How about,” he paused and took his tie off from around his neck. “Tie this on my shed door handle,” he pointed it to me, reminding me which one was his, “and when I see it I’ll make a special effort to come and find you here.”

“Okay,” I nodded slowly. This did sound a bit cloak and dagger. “In that case wouldn’t it be better to tie it to my shed door handle?”

He smiled. “Mmm, there’s reasons.”

“Oh. Okay.” I took the tie and rolled it up to put in my pocket. “I’ll ask ‘em, but I can’t see that they’ll go for it without wanting more information.”

He nodded, smiled at me and walked back to his allotment. I watched him walk away. He locked his shed door, picked up a bag and walked off.

“Wow,” I said softly.

I didn’t even bother with any more gardening. I needed to get home and see what Jilly might say. I tidied up and locked up, before walking slowly back home, deep in thought.

Jilly acknowledged my arrival home with a slightly distracted smile and carried on with her washing. Most of the washing we now did by hand, it was cheaper, even if it did take longer. It wasn’t as if we didn’t have the time.

“How would you like to make five grand?” I eventually asked.

“Legally?”

“No.”

“I wouldn’t”

“That’s what I thought.”

She turned to look at me as I picked up the mornings post.

“Well come on then,” she sounded exasperated, “you can’t leave it like that, what’s this all about?”

“Oh, Tom, one of the guys at the allotment. He reckons he can give us half a days work and we’d get five grand for it. He said it was very illegal, but would be fun and no one would get hurt.”

“What about no ‘thing’, not just no ‘one’?”

I looked at her for a moment before realising she was talking about animals. “I never thought of that. Sorry. All he said was it had to be the four of us, for half a day, it would be very illegal, but we should all enjoy it, and no one would get hurt. He also said there was no drugs involved.” I shook my head. “I couldn’t think what else it could be. Still can’t.”

Jilly frowned. “No. I can’t. You sure he said five grand?”

“Definitely. Between us though. Not each.”

“Hm. Well. That’ll pay off all but about thirty-five hundred of the mortgage. Or it’ll pay off the credit card, plus what we owe on the gas and leccy and still leave a bit over I think.”

“We’re maxed out on the card, but that’s only two grand. The PPI insurance is covering the interest. We owe just over five hundred on the gas and about two hundred on the electric I seem to remember. Pay both those off, plus the credit card, an’ we’d still be able to pay twelve hundred or so on the mortgage.”

“Tch, I wonder what the hell it could be. He didn’t give any other hints?”

“Beyond saying it would be over on Rose Street, no. He told me to talk to you and the kids, not just you.”

“What would happen then?”

I shook my head. frowning in puzzlement. “Very odd. Very secretive.” I reached into my pocket to pull out the dark red tie he’d given me. “I have to tie this around the handle of his allotment shed door and he’d find me the next time I was down.”

Jilly nodded, and went to the kitchen door. “BRIONY?, TOBY?” she yelled up the stairs.

“Coming,” we both heard, and moments later we heard Briony come out of her room and down the stairs. There was no sound of Toby. “Hi,” she said cheerfully on entering the room.

I always smiled when I saw my daughter. She had long dirty blonde hair that reached to her knees when she left it unfastened. Normally she tied it in a loose but complicated knot at the back of her head, but today it was mostly loose. It looked slightly damp so I guessed she’d been washing it.

“Any idea where your brother is?” I asked.

She nodded. “He’s mowing Mrs Grayson’s lawn. Left about twenty minutes ago.”

“Oh. Yes. That’s okay then.”

Mrs. Grayson was a frail and partially disabled old lady that the kids had become friendly with as youngsters. She couldn’t afford much, but once a fortnight Toby went over and mowed her lawn, or did a bit of weeding, spending anywhere between sixty and ninety minutes with her and getting a tenner each time. The work needed doing, but we all knew it was as much for the company for her as anything else, her only daughter having moved far enough away to make it awkward to come and see her mother regularly, but close enough that she would come about half a dozen times a year.

“In that case I’ll tell you now, him later and we’ll all talk it out afterwards.”

She frowned. “Talk out what.”

“Sit down,” I waved at the kitchen table.

The three of us sat. “What’s going on?”

I took a deep sigh. “Okay, what it is, is that we, as a family, have been offered some work. It’s going to be very well paid work. But it sounds like it’ll be a one off, or at least irregular and infrequent.”

“How much, when, where and doing what?”

“The how much I can tell you. The where only sort of, the when seems to be up to us and the what I’ve no idea.”

“You don’t know what the work is?”

I shook my head.

“Okay. How much?”

“Five grand.”

She gasped. “How much? Five grand? Each?”

I smiled and shook my head. “Between us. For half a days work. And it’s about five minutes walk from here.” I went on to explain everything I knew. Fun. Illegal. Two or three times a year at most, for no more than four years. Very illegal. Payment under the table.

“Oh.” She frowned for a moment then shrugged. “In principle, yes. As long as there’s no pain anywhere. Find out some more.” She grinned at me and left the room.

Jilly just raised her eyebrows and gave a soft laugh. “Okay. We’ll see what Toby says when he gets home.”

The discussion that evening ranged far and wide. Touching on animal fighting, sex and porn, drugs, gambling, fraud, but nothing we could come up with was worth that amount of money for that sort of time, though some sort of betting scam was the most popular idea. Eventually it was agreed that I’d try and find out a bit more.

The following morning I’d hardly put the tie on the door when Tom appeared behind me.

“Allo, mate,” he greeted me. “What can I do you for?”

“We want some more information?”

“What sort?”

I told him what we’d talked about and he listened carefully, making non-commital noises as he did.

“All I’ll say is what I told you yesterday. No one, and I do mean no one, will get hurt. There’s no animals involved and fraud is still financial hurt. We’re not going to steal off anyone, nor beat them up. There’s no animals involved.” He frowned. “I’ve already said that. No dodgy meat or empty boxes sold as full. And drugs?” he shrugged. “Drugs kill. It should be fun and enjoyable for all concerned. No pain, financial or physical.”

“Emotional?”

“Well, I did say it’s illegal and immoral, so I suppose that you could come away with a little bit of emotional pain, but since that’s to do with the fact that it’s illegal, not what we’re doing, you shouldn’t really. Make of that what you will.”

“Oh.”

He smiled and looked about to turn away and leave.

“How soon?”

“Well, if you were to decide now, I could get the ball rolling this afternoon and it would be all done and dusted by about Tuesday or Wednesday next week.”

“That fast?” I was a bit surprised. “I still need to check with the rest of the family. It’ll take me ten minutes to get home,” he waved his hand airily at me. “No worries, I’ll be around for a while.”

I hurried home. We hadn’t expected to get an answer quite this quickly, so Briony was just on her way out the door when I got home. “Hold on,” I told her. “I’ve spoken to Tom. Come inside and I’ll tell Toby and your mum at the same time.”

I told the family the little extra I’d been told. We discussed it for another ten minutes, but there was little more to say without knowing the details. I agreed that I’d go and give him a provisional yes.

“There’s no ‘provisional’ about it old chap. You’re either all the way in, or all the way out. If you say no, you won’t be allowed to come in later. If you say yes, you’re committed.”

“Even without,” I started.

“Even without any more information. If you say yes I’ll give you a monkey deposit now, and the rest when,” he paused at my frown. “A monkey?” he asked me, his eyebrows raised in surprise. I shrugged and shook my head. I’d heard the term but didn’t actually know how much that was. He told me. “Five hundred nicker. Okay?”

“Ah. Okay.” Five hundred pounds.

“Right. Five hundred when you say yes. The balance when you finish the work.”

“When do you need an answer?”

He looked at his watch and considered... “I’ll give you sixty seconds,” he said after a while.

I gasped. “Sixty seconds, but.”

“Fifty five”

“Shit.” I looked at him helplessly. He didn’t look at me, just at the watch.

“Fifty seconds.”

I didn’t know what to do. I’d not brought the mobile, so I couldn’t ring home quick.

“forty five.”

“The money is genuine? It’s not forged is it?”

“The money is perfectly genuine, Bank of England tenners. Taken out the hole in the wall last night up the high street.” There was a short pause. “Thirty five seconds.”

“Have you got it with you?”

He put his hand in his trouser pocket and pulled out a huge wad of money.

“Thirty seconds.”

I rubbed my hands over my face, desperate to know what to do.

“Twenty five seconds.”

“Okay. Yes. Alright. We’ll do it.”

“Sure?”

“No, but that’s never stopped me before.”

“Twenty seconds. I’ll let you have the full minute to change your mind again?”

I shook my head, suddenly shaking with tension. He grinned, and counted out fifty ten pound notes into my hand. “The balance will be in twenties and fifties. No cheques. No money trace. Be here, this time Monday morning, just you, and I’ll give you a few more details, like time and place.”

Jilly stared amazed at the pile of money when I handed it to her. She put it reverently onto the table. “You shouldn’t have said yes quite so quick.”

I explained what he’d said and done, how he had forced my hand.

Jilly just shook her head. “What happens next?”

“He’ll give me a few more details on Monday, until then you know as much as me.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“He said just me.” Jilly frowned. I shook my head, worried. “Come if you want, but he did say just me.”

Briony just shrugged when I told her what had happened and Toby was even less interested. At sixteen he was still very much a teenager and all for the easy life, though give him his due he did pull his weight. That afternoon I walked into the town centre and paid off the electricity bill, plus a chunk of the gas bill, using up the whole of the five hundred pounds. I didn’t see any point in saving it. I was nervous over the weekend, twitchy and uncertain I’d done the right thing. Jilly kept telling me to calm down, but I was worried and scared. It was the ‘very, very, illegal’ bit that kept worrying me. Only the fact that the kids didn’t seem to be affected kept me marginally sane, but even so, come Sunday night I was fidgety and couldn’t get to sleep.

“Bloody hell Den.,” hissed Jilly. “Calm down will you.”

“I can’t. It’s starting to get to me. It’s the not knowing that’s doing it.”

I heard her move, and suddenly she was on top of me, completely naked. She kissed me hard. “Calm down,” she said softly. She slid one of her soft hands into my pyjama trousers and took soft hold of my cock.

Being unemployed is not sexy and we hadn’t made love for some months. In the past it was almost always me that initiated it, so this was a complete surprise. I did love her and I supposed I still even fancied her, she was still as good looking as she’d been when I met her in my first job after leaving college. She’d thickened out a little in the middle and her boobs were no longer quite as firm as they used to be, but that didn’t matter. I put my arms around her and returned her kiss. After a short while my hands grabbed her hips and pulled and lifted. I didn’t know how she did it, I’d never known, but she’d always had this ability to be in exactly the right place for my cock to slide into her first time. This time was no different, and as I released her hips again, she slid down onto my cock, her hot pussy gobbling me up.

We moved slowly together, our hips writhing in almost perfect synchronisation. I rolled us over so that I was on top and started to thrust a little harder, Jilly matched me thrust for thrust, her arms and legs wrapped tightly around me. It was like a bomb, a magnesium flare, going off in my head when I finally came, I thrust hard and wild into her. Suddenly that flare went out and I collapsed on top of her. I started to roll off, but Jilly clung to me tightly.

“Don’t you dare,” she hissed. “Don’t you fucking dare.” Her pussy was still snapping around my prick, hot, wet and very alive. Her hips were still pushing at me. I just held her, and moments later she gave a soft cry, and slowly relaxed.

We kissed for a little while, until her octopus grip on me began to relax. “I love you,” we both said in absolute unison. We both chuckled. I rolled off her but then just cuddled up close to her and held her tight. Jilly didn’t like sleeping in the nude, so I rarely got to hold her naked form. I was going to take any opportunity I could get.

It obviously helped me, because the next thing I remember was the alarm clock going off in the morning. I was still holding her though perhaps not quite so tightly as I had been. We smiled at each other.

“You didn’t let me up to clean myself and get dressed,” she admonished me gently.

“No. I like holding you. I especially like it when you’re naked.” I began to stroke her hips. “I love holding you. I love looking at you. And I definitely love feeling you.”

Her smile got a bit wider. “You should have let me clean myself out though. We can’t afford either my contraceptive pill, or your condom and we definitely can’t afford for me to get pregnant again.”

“Are you fertile right now?”

“Probably not. My period is due to start Tuesday, but that doesn’t mean we can take unnecessary risks.”

“For you darling, any risk is worth it.”

She smiled. “But not that one.”

She wrapped her arms around me neck and we kissed gently, while I used my hands to lightly roam over her body, gently stroking her boobs, her hips, her bottom, down onto her thighs, and eventually onto her pussy. She wouldn’t let me touch her there for long as we needed to get up.

I rolled her onto her back and lay alongside her just admiring her for a few moments. When I heard movement outside the bedroom door, I gave her one final gentle kiss, and rolled out of bed.

By ten I was back at the allotment, without Jilly, and a few minutes later Tom pitched up. He nodded to me genially. “Okay?”

“I guess. What’s news?”

“Right. The four of you need to be at number twenty nine. That’s the big white painted building set a bit back. The one that’s a bit older than the others.”

“I think I know the one you mean.”

“Good. Now. You all sign on don’t you.”

“That’s right, yeah.”

“All at the same time?”

“Sadly no. We did try to see if they would do that but they wouldn’t.”

“Hm. Typical bureaucrats. Are you all free Wednesday afternoon?”

“Yes. We all have morning sign on’s and in any case they were all last week, not this week.”

“Good. In that case, two o’clock Wednesday afternoon, number twenty nine.”

I nodded and he turned to leave. “Hang on. What kind of work is it?”

“You’ll find out when you get there.”

“Yeah, but is it going to be dirty work, are we going to get mucky or cold or hot and sweaty, or what? Do we need to wear protective clothing or anything like that?”

“Oh I see,” he smiled. I wasn’t sure I liked the smile. “No. Nothing like that. Come clean neat and tidy. Smart casual. Okay?”

I nodded. This time he made no bones about that being all he was going to say. He turned abruptly and walked briskly away.

Wednesday afternoon, we were five minutes early. I pressed the door bell, and moments later a scruffy looking kid in his early twenties opened the door and beckoned us in. “In thur,” he grunted pointing at a closed door. He carried on up the short corridor and went through the door at the far end.

I knocked and without waiting for an answer went in. Tom and another guy of about my age, so early forties, were waiting for us.

“Hi,” said Tom. “Sit down while we give you all the details.” He gestured to two settees. I sat next to Jilly and held her hand. “Now you’re comfortable, have you thought about what you might be doing?” He grinned at us. “Any guesses?”

“Well,” I said slowly, “you said no one would get hurt. We weren’t going to defraud or steal, you also said there was no animals, drugs, or pain involved, and that we should all enjoy it. And then on Monday you said, or rather implied, that it wasn’t going to be a mucky job.” I glanced at Jilly, then over at the kids. Turning back to him I shook my head. “We’ve racked our brains, but we couldn’t think what it might be. Some sort of betting scam is our best guess.”

“Okay. Right. Well now’s the moment of truth, but before that I need to warn you that you need to keep quiet about this. You can’t tell anybody. Ever. It’s also for your own protection as well. If you do tell someone, you will get long gaol terms. It might take a little while, but we’ll find you.”

I felt the blood drain out of my face and I’m sure the others were just as scared. He reached into a drawer and pulled out a pistol of some sort and placed it quietly, but firmly, on the desk next to him. My eyes, and I’m sure the others were all drawn to it.

“You said,” I quavered. I cleared my throat and tried again, only a bit more successfully. “You said no one was going to get hurt.”

“And no one will. You will all of you walk out of here in about four hours time, with up to four and a half grand.”

“Up to?” I exclaimed, looking up at him again.

“Depends how good these guys think you are. If you are good enough, they’ll give you four and half. If they don’t think you’re so hot, it’ll be no more than two and a half. Look at it this way, you’re guaranteed three thousand, and I can’t see how you wouldn’t make the full five.”

“What happens if we say no now?” quavered Briony. “We haven’t yet done anything illegal.”

Tom didn’t reply, instead he picked up the pistol, ejected a magazine, looked in the top, and put it back into the gun again. He just looked at her and then put the gun back on the table, raising his eyebrows queryingly at her. She sank down a bit and pressed herself closer to her brother, quite obviously scared. I already regretted saying yes, but from what he’d just said, there was now no way of backing out.

“Right. Well you don’t seem to have guessed, or if you did you either rejected the idea, or couldn’t bear to think about it. We sell sex. Or rather porn. And we are always looking for performers for our films.”

I felt Jilly tense up beside me, her hand gripping mine even tighter. “As long as it’s with Jilly,” I thought, “I could probably cope with it”. My mind just skittered away from what he wanted Briony and Toby for.

He grinned at us, his smile quite cruel now. “And it’s no ordinary porn either. We deal exclusively in incest porn.” Jilly gasped and one hand covered her mouth in horror. I couldn’t imagine what I looked like, but both the kids were tense and shaking. Briony was grey, Toby red. Whether from fury or shock or even embarrassment I couldn’t tell.

“So,” he continued. “We’re going to make up to six fifteen minute films. Up to four twenty minute to half hour films, and one longer one that could last anything from forty minutes to an hour. The shorter ones are going to be one on one, dad and daughter, brother and sister, mother and son,” I could hear Jilly sobbing quietly beside me. “We may do mother and daughter, or father and son. We may even do you two,” he nodded at me and Jilly, who was now holding onto me in desperation.