Chapter 17

Mindy may be forgiven for using pretty poor choice of clich&eacutes, under the circumstances, when she left.

After all, there was pretty much nothing that she wouldn’t have done with Bobby, at that point.

And if Jennifer’s face hadn’t hurt so much, a lot more might have happened than what did. But her face did hurt, and all she wanted was to sleep. This was, however, her chance to sleep ... with Bobby.

“What do you have planned?” she asked.

“I guess I could go do some work over at the place,” he said.

“But you could stay here too and take care of me ... right?”

“Take care of you?”

“I’m hurt,” she said. “Mom hasn’t gotten my glasses fixed yet, and I’m blind as a bat without them.”

“What do you want me to do?” He asked.

“Hold me,” she said.

“You want me to hold you.” He sounded confused. “What does that have to do with your glasses or nose?”

“It would just make me feel better,” she said.

“Okay, then,” he said.

She took his hand and pulled him toward her bedroom.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“To bed,” she said.

He argued, but Lance Corporal (Ret) Robert Higginbotham, USMC, had finally found two situations he was helpless in. One concerned Mindy Franks, and the other, her daughter.

She told him that what he thought she wanted wasn’t what she really wanted. He wasn’t so sure about that, especially when she instructed him to strip naked, while she did the same thing.

Once in bed she knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted to lie on one of his arms, snuggled up against his warm body, under a light blanket, with one of her legs thrown over his thighs, and her arm laying carelessly on his chest. She didn’t want to talk, and she didn’t want to move, once she wiggled into the position she liked.

He lay stiffly on his back next to her, wondering what he should do, until his subconscious alerted him to the fact that she had, in fact, fallen asleep. Her deep, measured breathing let him relax, until finally, he began enjoying what was happening as well.

Eventually, he drifted off ... a smile on his bearded face.

It was quiet when Mindy got back. The brown paper bag in her hand crackled as she lifted it to place it on the table.

“Jenn?” she called out. “Bobby?”

Bobby’s truck was outside, but that didn’t mean anything. He often went out into the woods on foot. So did Jennifer, for that matter. Still, she went to her daughter’s room and pushed open the door. Her breath caught in her throat.

That they were naked was pretty clear. At least neither of them had anything on their upper bodies. Bobby was on his back, as if he had rolled off of the girl, and she was lying half on him, as if she had followed him, not wanting whatever they had been doing to end.

Whatever they had been doing.

She felt heat suffuse her face as she stepped toward the bed. It was impossible for her to resist reaching for the blanket and pulling it toward the foot of the bed.

Their naked bodies were uncovered, inch by inch. Her anger built with each inch. She had told them no sex! They had agreed to that rule! And as soon as her back was turned, he had climbed on her daughter like a cowboy onto a horse and ridden her virginity off into the sunset!

Then, suddenly, his penis was exposed.

It was limp and dry. There was no crust, or residue.

Jennifer’s hand, which had been lying on his chest, moved, swiping at her ribcage, and then hip, obviously searching for the blanket.

“I’m cold,” she complained into Bobby’s shoulder.

His eyes opened, and Mindy could tell he was one hundred percent alert. His foot kicked upward and the blanket rose with it.

“Hey,” he said, looking at Mindy.

“Hey,” she returned, her voice neutral.

“She wanted to cuddle,” he said. “One of us must have kicked off the covers.”

“Yes,” said Mindy, feeling foolish. She despaired. If she kept jumping to the wrong conclusions, this would never work. Now her anger was aimed at herself. Jennifer had even told her she wished she could cuddle with Bobby naked.

She reached for the edge of the blanket and pulled it back up. Bobby gripped it when it came within reach, and helped.

“I’m going to take a nap,” she said.

“I’d take one with you, but I took one while you were gone,” he said. “Besides, I’m kind of trapped here.” He wiggled the fingers of the hand on the arm that was under Jennifer.

Jennifer’s head rolled away from Bobby.

“Hi, Mom,” she said, her voice still full of sleep.

“Hi, honey,” said Mindy. “How you feeling?”

“I see why you like to sleep with him,” said Jennifer. “He’s warm, and he smells good.”

“Yes,” said Mindy, helplessly. She was afraid she might begin crying.

“Did you get the condoms?” asked Jennifer.

“Yes.” Mindy’s voice broke and she held her breath to keep in a sob of shame and despair.

Her daughter raised her upper body on one elbow, leaning to kiss Bobby’s chest.

“Thank you,” she said to the chest. “I think Mom needs you now. She sounds horny.”

Mindy fled. Bobby extracted his arm and sat up, throwing his legs over the side of the bed. He looked over his shoulder.

“We need to do that again sometime,” he said. “I liked it.”

“I loved it,” she said, pulling the covers up to her neck and reaching for a pillow to replace his body.

“See you in a little while,” he said.

“Okay. Make Mom feel good too.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said softly.

Mindy was lying on her bed, crying softly when he padded in and sat down next to her.

“We didn’t do anything but sleep,” he said.

“I know,” she moaned.

“Then why are you crying?”

“Because I thought terrible things when I first saw you two lying there. I didn’t trust you. I thought you had lied to me. I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve to be happy.”

He sat, and let her cry. Finally she stopped, and looked up at him out of the corner of her eye.

“You have helped me understand something,” he said.

She rose to the bait. “What?”

“Well, when I was in Afghanistan, there were guys there who were on their third and even fourth tour. I asked them how they could stand it, and most of them said they’d rather be there than back home. That didn’t make any sense to me at all. I just couldn’t understand it. But now I get it. They had wives and girlfriends back home. You know what the Taliban wants ... what they’re going to try to do. They’re going to try to kill you. And you know what to do about it. You try to kill them before they can kill you. But at home, when you’re trying to figure out women ... it’s just impossible.”

She sat up, staring at him.

“That’s a terrible thing to say!” she complained.

“I’m just saying,” he said, looking out the window, “it’s just a lot easier to pick up a rifle and shoot at somebody than it is to figure out how to make a woman happy.”

“Well it’s not easy for us either!” she snapped. “I can’t help it that things are this way. I can’t help it that you love two women and both of them love you back, and one of them is my daughter and I want her to be happy and it would be nice if I could be happy too!” She blinked, and looked a little confused.

“Are you mad at me?” He asked, reaching out to lay his hand on her thigh.

“No! Should I be?” She sounded a little miffed.

“Nope. I’m just glad you’re not crying any more. I don’t know what to do when a woman cries.”

She took a breath and held it. Then she let it out in a sigh.

“You did that on purpose ... just to get me to stop crying.”

“It worked.” He grinned. “And before you start in again, feeling all sorry for yourself, just remember that I love you, and Jennifer loves you, and we both want you to be happy and I want both of you to be happy, and I presume you want Jennifer and I to be happy, so it all works out. Now. Could I ask you a question please?”

“What?” she said.

“Sleeping with Jennifer was really nice, and I want to do it again sometime, but it’s completely different than sleeping with you. And I was just wondering if you felt like taking your clothes off, maybe, and lying down on the bed, here.”

His banter finished the job of metaphorically slapping her and getting her to calm down. She felt a wave of passion flow through her body.

“You mean get naked ... while you’re naked ... and lie down on the bed?

“Why yes!” he said. “That’s what I was hoping you might feel like doing.”

“But why?” she asked. “It’s not night. I have things to do.”

“I do too,” he said, crawling up onto the bed and pushing her back down onto her side. “I need to crawl on top of you and hold you down.”

“But why?” she asked, her voice high and girlish, suddenly.

“Because gravity might fail, and I wouldn’t want you floating off into the sky,” he said.

“You’re silly,” she said, her voice adult again.

“I’m horny,” he said. “There’s a difference.”

She stared into his eyes. She knew she’d been wrong, and jealous and petty. And he had forgiven her, without blinking an eye. The passion flared in her again, and she made the mistake of reaching up to kiss him.

It was a mistake because, ten minutes later, after what would have appeared to an uninformed observer to be a wrestling match between opponents who hated each other, but was really just two people in love, making love ... he slammed deep inside her and let his balls pump another dose of rich sperm into her womb.

It took another ten minutes before she wailed:

“We forgot the fucking condom!”

Bobby was working at his house, trying to pull the wood stove up and out of the pit the safe was in. He had rigged a bipod of logs, about six inches in diameter and twelve feet long, with a chain hanging from the apex and going to the stove. The idea was to pull the top of the bipod with the truck, which should lift the stove out. It would fall, once the bipod moved past the balance point, but if his calculations were right, it would be less than a foot off the ground when that happened. He hoped none of the cast iron pieces in the stove broke. It had been a good stove.

He was about ready to give it a shot when he heard a vehicle coming. Thinking it might be Mindy, he waited. If she drove the truck, he could catch the stove when it came out of the pit and maybe guide it down safely.

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