Orchard Flower (Version Charlie) by Lubrican

   Chapter One

   Coincidence is an astonishing thing if you take the time to stop and
think about it.  Most of us don't.  Oh, we think about it fleetingly, as it
touches our lives now and then, but we don't actually give it the honor it
is due.  Some people think there isn't any such thing as coincidence, and
that everything is preordained.  They would call coincidence fate.  I'm not
one of those people.

   Coincidence is neither good nor bad, in and of itself.  The results can
be either, of course, but you can't blame that on coincidence.

   Take, for example the coincidence of my fiancé being involved in a
fender bender with an up an rising NFL football star.  Having been to a
party and had a few drinks, he poured on the charm to talk her out of
calling the police.  She, it turns out, is susceptible to charm laid on by
a jock.

   Everybody said it was good I found out before the wedding ...  like that
would make me feel better or something.

   Or, there is the coincidence that, when I left Chicago to get away from
my ex and her new boyfriend, and was playing that game where you open an
atlas and just put your finger down someplace, my finger landed on Hot
Springs South Dakota.

   Hot springs seemed like as good a place as any to just start over.  It
was close to things like Mount Rushmore and Sturgis.  I'd never seen Mount
Rushmore and, while I didn't own a bike, I might some day, and Sturgis
would be right there, up the road.  I'd never even ridden a bike, but I was
feeling a little crazy-brash, so who knew what might happen.  That gives
you some idea of the mood I was in.

   A little research told me there were about as many people in the
national cemetery located in Hot Springs as there were walking the streets.
That was fine with me because it meant having to get to know fewer people
than had attended my high school.  Its economic basis was tourism, and that
was fine too, because all those people would show up once and never come
back.  That also tells you a bit about the mood I was in.

   I was just looking for someplace to hide for a while, where nobody would
know me and I could be something other than a certified public accountant.
Tourist traps are always looking for workers, and being dirt poor fit with
the way I was feeling just about then.  There was also a big wild mustang
ranch located there, and I had fantasies of magically becoming a cowboy,
riding the range and living clean.

   Hmmm ...  shouldn't they be called horseboys on a horse ranch?  Who
knows?  Like most men who go off half cocked in pursuit of healing a broken
heart I was a dreadfully uneducated and unprepared man.

   Of course I have to mention another man named Paul who was living my
fantasy, working with horses every day, and who was sitting on top of one
which made him the highest point around during a thunder storm.  It was
coincidence that put him right there, where the lightning bolt would
strike, killing both him and his horse.

   The string of coincidences wasn't over yet, though.  It was coincidence
that my radiator lasted precisely long enough to get me just twenty miles
short of Hot Springs, and that the first people to drive by were Paul's
widow and daughter.

   Up in that part of the world, people stop for folks in trouble.  It's as
unlike Chicago as it's possible to be.  And it wasn't just because they had
their dog with them, which might have made them feel safer.

   Lynne Simmons and her daughter Jill were something of a shock to my
system.  Lynne was one of those women who looks a little older than she
really is, because she spends so much time outdoors.  She had a windblown
kind of look to her.  But at the same time, her body just didn't match the
impression of being older.  Her face made her look like she might be in her
forties, like me, but her body said she was Jill's big sister.  It was the
kind of body that draws a man's eyes like a magnet.  She was wearing tight
jeans that were faded almost white in places, and a checkered shirt that
was packed full of femininity.  Wisps of sun bleached hair fell from under
a cowboy hat that sat over pale blue eyes that didn't look at me
suspiciously at all.  She later told me that was because their dog, Buster,
had given me his seal of approval.  She trusted that dog's judgment.

   Jill, on the other hand, was thirteen and looked exactly like
thirteen-year-old girls do everywhere.  She was kind of lanky and gawky,
with a pony tail.  She was slim, but had fresh young curves that were well
on the way to becoming lush, like her mother's, some day.  Jill was one of
those girls who promised to be a looker in a few years.  What made her a
shock to me was how willing she was to talk to me as Lynne drove me to
Bud's Auto Repair, in Hot Springs.

   A lot of thirteen-year-old girls are uninterested in strangers, and in
strange men in particular.  Not Jill.  She practically interrogated me,
asking dozens of questions about where I was from, and what Chicago was
like, and why I left.  Her mother finally barked at her to stop being a
"nosey ninny." I swear that's that she said.

   Jill was undeterred.

   "I'm just trying to learn something, mom.  Aren't you always harping on
that ...  telling me to read books and all that?"

   "There's a difference between learning things and snooping into other
people's business," said Lynne.

   "I don't mind," I said.  "Back in Chicago a girl like Jill wouldn't even
talk to me."

   Lynne darted me a look as she steered the pickup down the road.  Jill
was sandwiched between us.  Buster was happily letting the wind rush by in
the bed of the truck.  It was fairly close quarters in the cab.  But it was
Jill who spoke.

   "Why's that?" she asked.  "Are you some kind of sex offender?"

   I was impressed with Lynne's ability to recover her equilibrium and get
the truck back on the highway so quickly.

   "What?" asked Jill, sounding injured.  "I've heard about registered sex
offenders.  There's even a place you can go on the Internet to see where
they live and stuff.  We don't have any in Hot Springs, though."

   That was Jill.  She was - and I say it fondly - a motor mouth who saw no
problem with saying exactly what was on her mind, whatever that might be.
She wasn't trying to push anybody's buttons.  She was just honest and
curious.

   Her curiosity (and probably my desire for somebody to feel sorry for me)
was how my situation came out.  I told them I had set off into the big wide
world to find my fortune, just like some boy in a fairy tale.  Jill thought
it sounded cool.  Lynne thought I was crazy.

   "You were a CPA making good money and you threw all that away because a
woman broke your heart?" she asked, shaking her head.  "There are more
women in the world, you know."

   "I can't believe you said that!" said Jill.

   And THAT is how I found out that Lynne's husband, who was Jill's father,
had died when he was struck by lightning when Jill was six.  Jill had been
trying to get her mother to go on dates in the last couple of years,
probably because Jill was at the age to think about boys, and dates, and
all that sort of thing.  Lynne was resisting.

   "Let's not go into this again," she sighed, as her daughter ratted her
out to a complete stranger.  "I told you, I still have feelings for your
father."

   Jill turned her curious face towards me.  "Do you still have feelings
for your girlfriend?"

   I felt my heart wrench in my chest.  I was really feeling sorry for
myself.

   "I guess I do," I said.  "I don't want to, but I do." Lynne had helped
me out, picking me up like that, so I tried to help her out by passing
along some of my wisdom to her daughter.  "So I guess I know how your
mother feels."

   It backfired on me.  Maybe on Lynne too, because Jill slumped.

   "I hope I never fall in love, then."

   ================================

   At Bud's Auto Repair there was actually nobody named Bud.  I found this
out when I tried to be friendly and asked jovially if Bud was around.  I
later found out there had been no Bud since 1953, when Bud retired and sold
his business.  There had been four owners since then, none of whom felt the
need to rename the business.  The current owner was named Randy, and he
said he'd have my car towed to his shop.

   "It'll take me about a week to get a radiator and get it installed. 
Cost you somewhere in the neighborhood of eight hundred dollars," he said,
wiping his hands on a rag.

   I had about fifteen hundred in my bank account.  More Americans live
paycheck to paycheck than you would believe.  Most Americans really ARE
three paychecks from being homeless.  But that wasn't my primary problem.
My problem was that staying someplace at tourist rates for that week would
eat up the rest.

   "Know anybody who's hiring?" I asked Randy hopefully.

   "Nope." He was a man of few words.  "So you want me to fix your car or
not?" He also got right to the point.

   "Yeah," I sighed.  "I guess so.  Where's the cheapest place to stay. 
And where do you recommend I start looking for a job?"

   "Beats me," said Randy.  "I got a place to stay, and I ain't looked for
a job since I bought this place."

   I could tell I was going to like the people around here a lot.

   I turned to find Lynne still standing there.  Her hands were on her hips
and her head was tilted slightly, like she was looking at a picture in an
art gallery, trying to figure out what it meant.  Jill was peering into the
open hood of a car that had been left for Bud - who didn't exist - to
repair.  Buster was sitting on the ground between Lynne and me.

   When she spoke, Lynne's voice sounded distinctly wary.  "I could use
some temporary help at my place," she said.

   Randy's head whipped around and he stared at her.  You'd have thought I
was a known serial killer or something.  I later found out that he was
among the dozen or so men who had tried to get her to go out on a date with
him in the time that had passed since Paul died.  She had turned them all
down, and had never had a hired man.

   Jill thought that was a capital idea, and bounced around like a
basketball being played with by the Harlem Globetrotters.

   All that to explain the string of coincidences by which I landed on
Lynne Simmons' horse ranch and apple orchard, forty miles east of Hot
Springs, South Dakota.  ===================================

   Lynne was in the unhappy situation where she had a ranch that could
produce a good living, except that she didn't have enough help to make that
happen.  And hiring full time people would eat up the added income, so
there had never been a strong drive to do that.  Agriculture is one of
those occupations that requires you to borrow a hell of a lot of money on
the faith that the crop will come in, or the herd will sell later, and you
can repay the loan.  If you can't repay that loan, you can lose the farm,
literally.

   Instead of taking that chance, Lynne took what she knew about horses,
quarter horses in this instance, and what she knew about running an
orchard, and eked out a living for herself and her daughter.  The land had
belonged to her father and grandfather before him.  When she married Paul,
the plan was to have a son to carry on the tradition.  Jill had come along
and they were working on having that son when Paul got killed.

   It was just a fluke - or coincidence - that Lynne's parents had planted
the apple orchard at all.  If you talked to commercial growers, they'd say
South Dakota was all wrong for apples.  Lynne would have told them to tell
it to the apples that rotted on the ground each year because she couldn't
harvest the entire thirty acres and get them to market.

   And while she knew a lot about horses and apples, there are things to do
on a ranch that take a man's hand.  I'm not being sexist.  There are
differences between women and men, and some of those differences are
physical.

   I know what you're thinking, but that's not what I'm talking about. 
Sure, a woman might be able to lift as much as a man - a few times.  But
it's going to wear harder on her body than on the man's.  That's just a
fact.  And another fact is that a woman who is five-eight and weighs a
hundred and twenty, just isn't likely to be able to perform the same
physical feats as a man who is almost six feet tall and weighs two hundred
pounds.  It's not gender bias.  It's simply physics.  Give me a two hundred
pound six-foot female body builder and she'll probably be able to work me
into the ground.

   But neither Lynne nor Jill were that woman.

   As a result, there was about seven years of semi-neglect all around the
ranch.  It wasn't all because they were women.  A lot of it was because
there were only two of them, and they were both busy putting out this fire
or that one, trying to make a living.  And when the tractor stopped
running, and it cost too much to have somebody come out and fix it, and
neither woman had time to learn how to trouble shoot and repair a tractor
...  well it just sat there and they improvised.

   Of course I didn't know how to repair a tractor.  Not when I first got
there.  But I could do many of the hundred other things that needed doing,
as long as I was supervised by somebody who could tell me what the heck to
do.

   That turned out to be Jill, mostly.

   Which is how coincidence led me to have, as one of my best friends, a
thirteen-year-old girl.

   =============================

   There was a bunkhouse on the ranch.  It hadn't been USED as a bunkhouse
for sixty years, but it was there.  It was full of junk, having been turned
into storage when America no longer needed horses in quantity to pull
freight, or act as primary transportation for people.

   So my first job was to clear me a place to stay.  It was June which, in
Southwestern South Dakota, is like the fall weather I loved so much back in
Illinois.  That night Lynne gave me some blankets and a pillow, and I was
as happy as a pig in shit.

   Or whatever pigs love to be in.  You know what I mean.

   For two days I worked around the house and barns, cleaning stuff up, and
hauling trash off.  The stables were clean, but the manure pile was about
ten feet tall.  The tractor had a bucket on the front, but the tractor
didn't run.  I wasn't a mechanic, but I had two arms, which is all that's
required to use a shovel.  I can't complain, because Jill was right there
with me, shoveling it in the back of the truck and then back out of the
truck a mile away into a draw that was the equivalent of their land fill. I
thought I might actually die.

   It wasn't because it was back-breaking work.

   OK, maybe it was.

   But it wasn't because the manure pile was wet in the middle, and greasy
and smelly and soaked through my shoes within an hour while Jill's boots
repelled it like Rain-X on a windshield.

   OK, maybe it was that too.

   But it was honest work and I got to talk to Jill all day while I did it,
and she didn't mock me when I had to sit down and rest my back.  She did
that too, but not every ten minutes, like me.

   And I felt pretty proud when that fricking pile of fricking horse shit
was gone.  I mean I'd helped make it be gone, and from now on whenever I
uttered the term "Horse shit!" it would have a hell of a lot more emotion
behind it than it ever had before.

   Then I fixed fences for three days, and I was SURE I was going to die.
Again, it wasn't because it was back breaking work.

   OK, maybe it was.

   But it wasn't because it was dangerous, pulling wire with the pickup,
and then getting it even tighter with a come-along until the wire was taut
as a guitar string.  And if it snapped, it could wrap you up in barbed wire
like a birthday present for a cannibal.

   OK, maybe it was that too.

   All I know is that each night, when I got back to the bunkhouse and fell
into bed, I felt like it would be easier to just expire and get it over
with than get up and take a (cold) shower in the bunkhouse bathroom (and I
use that term with tongue planted FIRMLY in cheek), so I could get up at
five the next morning and start all over again.

   Chapter Two

   One of the things I learned, being on the farm was how valuable the
friendship of a dog can be.  Buster was always there to greet me when I
stepped out of the bunkhouse.  He was always glad to see me any time of the
day, no matter what I smelled like.  And he was happy in an obvious way
about the attention I gave him.  He was glad I was in his life, and I was
glad he had come into mine.  Of course if given a choice to get attention
from me or Jill, he'd go to Jill in a heartbeat, but I didn't mind.  I had
to admit I'd like her petting me too.

   That would be worth staying alive for, even if it made me feel faintly
perverted.

   To be honest there was another thing worth staying alive for.  That was
Lynne's cooking.

   Actually, eating was the high point of each day all week long.  Lynne
could cook, and she cooked what the pundits call "comfort food." I could
have gotten three dollars apiece for her hot rolls back in Chicago.  And
her pies?  I could eat an entire pie at one sitting, even if I had to use a
broomstick to cram it down my throat.  I would have been entirely happy
looking like Jabba the Hutt if I had been able to eat her pies all day
long.

   Except that I worked so hard I COULD have eaten a pie a day and never
gained a fricking ounce.

   Jill always rode out with me, telling me where to drive the
four-wheel-drive truck to do the next job.  Then, when it was time for
lunch, she'd drive the truck back to the house, get food, and bring it back
out to where I was still working.  If we needed anything, she'd go back and
get it.  I worked.  That's all I did.

   Except for when we got to break for lunch.  Even Lynne's cold comfort
food was delicious.  And in the evening, after I'd stopped shivering from
the ice cold water in the bunkhouse shower, I'd go up to the farmhouse
where there would be beef and mashed potatoes, with green beans, or
black-eyed peas, or corn, and fresh baked hot rolls and butter.  And pie
for dessert.

   Actually, the work wasn't so bad either, all things considered.  It got
my mind off of cheating almost-spouses and jocks with cocks that probably
hang halfway to their knees, and who drive BMWs instead of a six-year-old
Chevy.  And there was something that stirred my heart when I looked down a
stretch of fence and saw nothing but shiny barbs on tight wire, stapled to
posts that, if not perfectly perpendicular to the ground, at least all
tilted the same direction at the same angle.

   And then it was Saturday, and Randy called to tell Lynne my car was
ready.  I found out about it when she rode out on one of her horses, to
bring us lunch.  It was roast beef sandwiches and potato salad and celery
sticks with peanut butter spread on them.  She had a jug of tea too.  She
spread it out on the tailgate of the truck and ate with us.

   "You should probably wrap things up after lunch and come on in," she
said.  "We need to get you to town before he closes for the day."

   "Yeah," I said, suddenly wondering what I was going to do that night.  I
had been working for my room and board, so I hadn't spent anything. 
Suddenly my dark and dusty room, and that cold water in the bunkhouse
shower didn't seem all that much to put up with, considering it was free
and I got to eat like I was eating right then.

   "I don't want you to go!" wailed Jill.

   "Stop that!" barked her mother.  "Bob has his own life to get on with."

   "Not really," I said, without even thinking about it first.  It just
came gushing out of my mouth.

   "Why can't he stay?" whined Jill.  "He's actually pretty good at doing
stuff."

   "Jill, we can't afford to pay him, and this isn't the kind of job he's
looking for anyway," said Lynne.

   "Well, maybe," I blurted.

   Which is how coincidence led me to extend my stay at the Simmons horse
ranch and apple orchard for a month ...  and then another month, during
which I found out what harvesting apples was like, and then two more
months, at which point I had to ask for some more blankets.  I was used to
the cold showers by now, but I liked to sleep warm.  Lynne looked at me
over the rim of her coffee cup.  It was late, and Jill had been sent to
bed.

   "How long are you going to stay?" she asked, suddenly.

   "Is that your way of saying I need to move on?"

   We'd gotten to know each other pretty well in the almost six months I'd
been there.  There was little formality between us any longer.  I had
settled into what now felt like a reasonable existence.  I liked Lynne a
lot.  I adored Jill.  I had a place to stay and the best food I'd ever
eaten.  I watched a little TV with them some nights, but mostly I read
books in the bunkhouse.  I had gotten special dispensation from Janet
Biggs, the town librarian, to exceed the five-book limit because we only
went to the library once a month, and I could usually go through ten books
a month easily if they were any good.

   "Of course not," she said.  "I'm just wondering how much longer you're
going to enjoy this cave man routine you're in."

   "Cave man?" I could feel my eyebrows rise.

   "Bob, no man I ever met enjoyed sleeping in an old bunkhouse by himself,
taking cold showers, and working his ass off every day for nothing." She
looked almost irritated.

   I thought about it.  She was right.  Before I had gotten there, if
somebody would have described it all and said "Want to do that for six
months?" I'd have laughed and suggested they were crazy to even ask.

   "I guess I feel like I'm actually doing something worthwhile," I said,
realizing that was exactly how I felt.

   She thought about that for a half minute.  "Well ...  you ARE doing
something worthwhile," she said slowly.  "You're making Jill's and my lives
a lot easier.  I just don't see what you're getting out of it." She
frowned. "At first I thought you were angling for sex ..." She obviously
hadn't meant to say that out loud, and her hand came to slap over her
mouth.

   I blinked.  "Sex?"

   Her cheeks got pink.  "At first, when you wanted to stay ...  I thought
you were trying to wiggle your way close to me ...  that you had some kind
of nefarious plan."

   I laughed.  I laughed out loud.  The first thing that popped into my
head was that any man who attempted to pull something over on Lynne Simmons
was looking for trouble.  She was a smart, tough woman.  I'd been there
long enough by now to know she could work me into the ground.  I'd thought
more than once that it wasn't fair that she was having to scrape along,
because she deserved to be a LOT better off than she was, both financially
and in the comfort department.

   She looked like I'd slapped her and I realized she had interpreted my
laughter as an indication of what I thought of her as a woman ...  a sexual
being ...  that I was rejecting her outright.

   "It's not what you think!" I said, holding up a hand.  "You're a babe.
But you're also a man-eater, and I knew better than to ..."

   Her face got dark red.  You know how sometimes they say that
thunderclouds come onto someone's face?  It was like that.  I knew I had
made things worse.

   "Wait!" I gasped.  "Let me explain!"

   "You've explained enough, thank you," she said darkly.  It's bedtime. 
Hank Thompson is coming over tomorrow to bale our hay and it's going to
take all day to get it put up." She stood up.

   "Lynne," I moaned.  "Don't be mad.  I just said it wrong."

   "Yes, you did," she agreed.

   Then she turned and stomped out of the room.

   ============================

   The next morning I was sitting at the table when Jill came in.  She was
dressed and ready to go to work too.  Lynne had said she had to move things
from the washer to the dryer.  The griddle was heating for waffles.

   "What did you do?" asked Jill, as she poured herself a glass of orange
juice.

   "What do you mean?" I asked.

   "Yesterday Mom said she was going to tell you you could sleep in the
spare bedroom from now on.  But when I got up to go to the bathroom the
bedroom was empty and the light was still on in the bunkhouse.  You
obviously stayed out there last night.  Nobody in his right mind would do
that if he could stay in here.  Ergo you did something to make her mad.  So
what did you do?"

   She was a smart girl, just like her mother.

   "I'm in my right mind!" I said, sounding wounded.

   "Yeah, right," she said.

   We had gotten to be even better friends than Lynne and I.  I now
preferred Jill's company over that of anybody I could remember back in
Chicago.  Lynne's too, for that matter.

   "I just said I wasn't trying to hit on her," I said, "and she took it
the wrong way." I frowned.  "She said I could stay in here?"

   "She asked me if I thought it was a good idea," said Jill, sitting down.
She shrugged.  "I told her I didn't know why you ever stayed in the
bunkhouse at all."

   "Well," I said.  "Back then I was a strange man, and she was smart
enough to keep me at arms length."

   "You're still a strange man," she said, deadpan.

   ================================

   Long story short, I did get invited to live in the house with the women.
Now I know what you're thinking.  Single guy, living in house with a woman
and her blossoming daughter.  Well get your mind out of the gutter, because
it wasn't like that at all.

   Oh sure, I notice them as females.  Lynne had a long flannel nightgown
that she wore that first winter.  It had been around a while, though, and
it wasn't loose, so I got to see plenty in terms of her shape.  And Jill
wore actual footy pajamas, made out of some kind of stretchy yellow and
white striped material.  She had just turned fourteen, and she was all girl
under that stretchy material.  It clung to her right between her legs where
...  well ...  not to be indelicate about it but it was very clear she was
no male.  She looked vaguely like some kind of modern art tigress.

   But even though I noticed them as women, I didn't have thoughts and
fantasies about them.  Not really.  Since then I've talked to several old
geezers who thoroughly enjoy looking at women and who WISH their dicks
would get hard, but they know their days of rutting like a bull are over,
so they just kind of have happy, horny thoughts about what it was like back
in the day, and how much fun it would be to make this or that young thing
squeal ...  if you could ...  which you can't ...  so oh well.

   I wasn't old.  I could still get a rock-hard boner ...  and did, too. 
And I beat it into submission pretty much every day too.  But not because I
was thinking about Lynne and Jill.  They were more like my sisters or
roommates or something.  They just weren't on that page of the program, you
know?

   I still tortured myself over Tiffany, imagining her spreading her long,
slim, tanned thighs for Bubba the running back.  She was actually chapter
two in a book that I wasn't all that excited about being a character in. 
It was complicated, and nobody around me would have understood why I felt
like I did about it, because how I felt wasn't how most people would feel.
It's not like I got off on thinking about her with him.  But she couldn't
handle having feelings for both of us, even though I was convinced her
feelings for him were just physical.  I guess I kept trying to win her back
in my mind or something.  I was a sad case back then.

   Anyway, that first winter was amazingly happy.  I studied up on things
mechanical and made friends with the blacksmith in town.  He taught me
things and I started checking over the tractor, which was an old John Deere
40/20.  The battery was stone dead, but when I charged that back up it
still wouldn't crank.  I found a bunch of corrosion where the ground wire
attached to the frame and then the engine would turn over, but not start. I
went through the lists one by one and by the time March rolled around
nobody was more surprised than I was when the stack belched black smoke and
the thing started clattering along.  It smoothed out and ran pretty good. I
felt like I had just built the pyramids of Egypt or something.

   Of course I had no idea how to drive the thing.  Jill climbed up, leaned
back and stretched out her left foot pushing the clutch, popped it in gear,
moved the throttle lever and away she went.  She'd been able to drive it
when she was ten.  I know I was grinning like an idiot.

   My newfound mechanical skills did not, as it turned out, transfer to the
pickup.  When the dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree I had no clue. 
Randy had a thing that could talk to the computer and he blithely informed
us that five hundred dollars would fix it up just fine.  He kept looking at
me like I was some kind of monster.  It might have been because Jill,
wanting a piece of gum, just got in my pocket for it instead of asking.  He
thought I had a thing going with Jill, or her mother, and I think it still
stung him a little that he'd gotten shut down.

   That was when I found out what kind of straits Lynne was in financially.
When Paul died, there was some insurance money, but it hadn't lasted all
that long and she was running things on a shoestring.  She'd put a bunch of
money into a college fund for Jill, and had managed not to touch it since
the.  Now, though, she had to get into that for the money to fix the truck.

   I didn't think that was fair.  Jill was a smart girl, and would do well
in college.  She deserved to go.  So I hung out my shingle as a CPA again
and started doing taxes for people because it was that time of year.  I put
the money back into Jill's college fund.  It's amazing that you can walk
into a bank and, if you know somebody's name, you can put money in their
account.  You can't take any out, but anybody in the world can make a
deposit.

   Of course Lynne said I didn't have to do that, but she had taken me in
when I was in need, and had let me stay, and fed me and all that, so I just
thought I should contribute something towards my upkeep.

   Chapter Three

   That winter Buster died.  He was curled up in his dog bed, and looked
like he was still sleeping, but he was gone.  He was old.  They'd gotten
him for Jill when she was four so he was old, but everybody kind of
expected he had a couple more years left in him.

   I was the one who noticed, because he always lifted his head and wagged
his tail when I walked into the mud room, where his bed was.  When he
didn't, I investigated.  I admit I freaked out a little bit.  I'd never had
a pet, and I'd never lost one.

   But my freak-out was as nothing compared to Jill, who sobbed.  I ended
up holding her AND Lynne, who was also crying.  We had a group hug for a
good half hour.  Then I disengaged myself and went about getting a grave
dug.  We had a little impromptu memorial service, where the women
remembered things he'd done and talked about it and cried some more, but
those were slightly happier tears.  He'd been a good dog.

   I lost it when I covered him up with dirt, and then it was the women
holding me.

   =================================

   By this time I was a fairly accomplished mechanic, electrician and
plumber.  My tax business had expanded significantly.  Agricultural
operations are quite complicated when it comes to the tax code, and there
weren't all that many people who wanted to specialize in that kind of
service.  The way I did things, I had my forty-seven agricultural clients
give all their receipts and records to me and I kept them up to snuff so
that when tax season got there the next year filing the return would be a
piece of cake.  I only had to spend maybe an hour a night keeping things up
to date in the books I kept for them.

   It was because of my contacts through taxes that I happened upon what I
thought was the perfect birthday present for Jill.  Her birthday fell right
in the middle of apple harvest, which made it hard to give her a special
day.  Harvest took all our resources and we still had tons - literally - of
waste.  I kept thinking I should do some research into marketing the apples
further out than we were, but I'd never gotten around to it.

   Anyway, I was picking up receipts from one of my tax customers when I
was almost bowled over by a very friendly black Labrador, who jumped up on
me and left three bright red stripes of blood on my left arm, like I'd been
attacked by that comic book character Wolverine.

   "Damn dog!" yelled Don Rigsby, who ran the local co-op feed store.  "I
can't get him to settle down for shit!  Everybody told me he'd be fine in a
couple of years, but he's three now and I swear he acts more like a puppy
every day.  I can't spend the time with him it would take to train him up
right." He looked at my arm, concerned.  "Let me get you something to clean
that up."

   "It will stop eventually," I said.  I'd been cut, scraped, nicked and
bruised countless times by now.  I rarely put anything on an injury.  I
might wash it off, but that was about it.  The dog sat, tongue lolling from
his mouth, bright eyes on me.  Then he started jumping up on me again.  It
was almost like he had waited for me to pet him, but I took too long, so he
reminded me again.

   "I'm really sorry," said Don.  "If he keeps that up I'm gonna have to
put him down.  I can't have him hurting customers."

   "You can't kill him just because he wants attention," I objected.

   "I can't leave him alive if he's going to get me sued," he said.  "He
needs to be out somewhere where he can run some of that energy off."

   And that comment was what got me thinking about Jill, and her birthday,
which was about two months away.

   Which is how coincidence brought me to end up with a black Lab named
Duke in the back seat of my car when I left the feed store.  Once Don got
the chance to get rid of a problem dog, he wouldn't wait for her birthday
to get closer.  He even threw in a hundred pounds of dog food in the
bargain.  Duke the black Lab would end up being an important mover and
shaker in our lives, but I'll go into that later.

   =============================

   By this time I was making what for me was a comfortable living on my tax
business.

   Which is why, after the apple harvest was over that year and things
settled down, I tried to pay Lynne rent one day.  It happened to be just
before breakfast.  Why that was important will be explained later.

   "You don't owe me rent," said Lynne.

   "But I live here," I said, needlessly.

   "For which you pay me by working," she said.  "If anything, I should be
paying YOU.  Your labor is worth a lot more than just room and board."

   "Nonsense," I snorted.  "I'm homeless, and you're being kind."

   She snorted.  "If I didn't know better I'd SWEAR you were trying to get
me in bed, Bob MacAllister."

   That was out of the blue, until I remembered another time when she'd
said something like that.  That time I had stuck my foot in my mouth and
she hadn't talked to me for a couple of days.  Jill had patched things
over, though.  So I probably should have just smiled mysteriously or
something and left it at that.  But oh no ...  I just had to try to tease
her.

   "You sure do talk about sex a lot," I said.

   "I do not!" she snapped.

   "This isn't the first time you've accused me of trying to get in your
jeans," I said confidently.  I thought we had the kind of friendship by now
that could sustain this kind of give and take.  Guys do it all the time,
and I felt like one of the guys, you know?

   "That's not what I meant and you know it!" she said, her voice rising.
"Besides, that was ...  FOREVER ago!"

   "It was just last year if I recall," I said, smiling.

   ==================================

   This, gentlemen, is where a lot of men go wrong.  They think they're
being clever and witty and, if they actually WERE talking to another man,
they might BE clever and witty.  But I wasn't talking to a man, no matter
how much I thought of her as one of the guys.  And what a WOMAN hears in
that situation is: "I remember you talking about having sex with me, and it
sticks out in my mind enough that I think of it often.  That should be
obvious since I just brought it up."

   And yes, I know she brought it up.  But there's no traction in pointing
that out, boys.  Believe me.  I know.

   In other words, her comment, which was designed (by a woman) to put me
in my place, was responded to by my comment (designed to put her in her
place) which meant I was interested in having sex with her.

   ===================================

   She blinked at me and her cheeks got darker.  Her mouth opened and then
closed, and then she licked her lips like they were dry or something.  I
remember all this now, but it didn't mean anything to me then.

   "I see," she said.  Her voice was kind of flat, without any emotion.

   Just so you know, I didn't pick up on that either.

   "Yeah," I said gleefully, digging my hole even deeper.  "Sometimes I
worry about you, cause you're obviously frustrated.  Maybe you should think
about getting laid."

   I grinned widely with that guy-to-guy grin that is sometimes augmented
with a wink.

   Which is when Jill walked into the kitchen, it being breakfast time. 
She obviously heard the words "getting laid" because she gaily asked "Who's
getting laid?"

   We both turned to stare at her.  Mine was a guilty stare, of course. 
Lynne's was astonished.  I knew Jill had a generic sexual nature. 
Everybody does.  But I don't think Lynne had really thought about it all
that much, probably because Jill hadn't expressed any real interest in
dating yet.  Whenever she went out, it was always with a crowd of her
friends from school.  There were boys in the crowd, but there was no boy's
name that came up in Jill's conversation other than as an identifier.

   But the way she tossed off that question made it crystal clear that Jill
not only had a sexual nature ...  she was both knowledgeable AND
comfortable about the vernacular used to refer to it.  The word "laid" just
sounded so bizarre rolling off her lips like that.

   We stood staring so long that she finally realized there was something
wrong.  She didn't know she had simply shocked us.

   "Well it's not me," she said, holding up both hands as if to ward us
off. "I'm a virgin!"

   That pretty much blew our minds too.  Not that she was a virgin, but
that she would just come right out with that information so blithely.  I
was one of the guys, but the guys don't talk about who is and isn't a
virgin.  Not unless they're trying to mess with somebody.  Her mother and I
kept staring.  Our mouths were probably open.

   "Honest!" said Jill, her voice rising.  "I swear!"

   Lynne recovered first.

   "We weren't talking about you, dear," she said.

   With typical teenage adaptation, Jill relaxed.  The danger was gone and
she was bullet proof again.

   "Well that's good," she said, moving forward again and pulling out a
chair.  "So who WERE you talking about?"

   The ease with which she asked the question was what gave me the hard-on.
I swear it was.  She was SO willing to engage in frank conversation about
sex, even if it was gossip, that she just suddenly exploded into my head as
a sexual being.  She was a virgin, who was saying "Hey, I'm interested in
sex!  Let's talk about sex!" I was glad I was already sitting down.  I
favored loose trousers, rather than the tough (and tight) jeans the women
usually wore, and that meant that my sudden boner would have announced
itself rather obviously had I been standing.

   Lynne and I were the only other ones there, so Jill just looked from one
to the other of us, obviously interested to see which of us was "getting
laid."

   "Never mind," said Lynne, almost gasping.  I think she, like me, was
still grappling with how much Jill had grown up while neither of us were
watching.

   Jill sat down and leaned back, folding her arms under her breasts.  I
stared at them.  When had they gotten that full?  My eyes went to Lynne's,
which were only a little larger, maybe.

   "Are you and Bob having sex?" she asked, her voice completely serious.

   ==================================

   Well there you go.  That's a question that just isn't welcome in the
circle of guys.  Which is about the time I realized we weren't all guys. 
Which sounds stupid, except it really was a paradigm shift in the way I
looked at both of them.  You can't sit there with a boner and perceive them
as "one of the guys" any longer.  Not unless you want to contemplate
whether or not you're gay, and that wasn't even a flicker in my mind.

   =================================

   "Of course not!" gasped Lynne.

   For once I sat, silent.

   Lynne looked over at me as if she expected me to back her up or
something.  My mouth finally came unglued, but I still have no idea why I
said what I said, which was: "This is SO weird!"

   "Oh," said Jill.  It could have been my imagination, but she sounded
vaguely disappointed.  "Well who ARE you having sex with then?"

   Man!  This girl was just chock FULL of surprises that day.

   Lynne just spluttered, and I thought she was going to have a stroke or
something, so I tried to help.

   "Jill, you're too young to be asking about this kind of stuff."

   "No I'm not," she said firmly.  "I'm at the perfect age for concerned
adults in my life to guide my curiosity and urge to explore sex."

   Now I was the one spluttering.  I didn't feel any chest pains, but I
knew something was seriously wrong with me.  There had to be.  This girl
sounded so mature it was scary.

   I'm not sure whether it was just Lynne's inner strength that finally
burst up to the surface to take in a deep breath of air, or whether Jill's
comments were like a slap in the face that woke her up, but she finally
started communicating on a level that was more efficient.

   "Honey," she said suddenly.  "I'm perfectly happy to talk with you about
your feelings, but it's really none of your business who I'm sleeping
with."

   "So you ARE sleeping with somebody," said Jill.

   "No," said Lynne with a heck of a lot more patience than I would have
believed she could have.  "But even if I was, it's none of your business.
And it's none of your business who Bob is sleeping with either.  You can't
go around asking people who they're sleeping with."

   "You're not people," said Jill calmly.  "You're my mother." She looked
over at me and apparently thought I felt left out.  "And Bob is ...  " she
looked confused for just a second or two, and then finished "Bob."

   I wondered what that meant.

   "Where did all this come from?" asked Lynne, who realized she was
holding a half crushed box of Cheerios and set it down on the table.

   "Where did what come from?" asked Jill.

   "This talk about sex," said her mother.

   Jill rolled her eyes and threw one hand out away from her body.

   "I just came here for breakfast.  YOU two were the ones talking about
sex!"

   Chapter Four

   The little scene at the breakfast table that morning was even more
important than either Lynne or I realized.  We reflected on how unexpected,
and bizarre it was, and it showed us a side of Jill we hadn't paid any
attention to yet ...  but neither of us realized how important it was.

   From Jill's point of view, "sex" had been brought out into the open. 
Never mind that her mother immediately tried to quell the frank and open
discussion that Jill had in mind.  Lynne had said she would be willing to
talk about it, and Jill remembered that.

   And, while she had been interested in sex for several years, that
interest had been a somewhat vague and misty thing, a little like wondering
what Sasquatch looks like.  You've heard a lot of rumors about it, but
you'd sort of like to see the real deal for yourself, even if it would be
scary.  Now, at least in theory, Sasquatch could be called into the room on
demand, and under complete control.  Jill was suddenly quite interested in
seeing the beast.

   Another problem is that Lynne and I were laboring under an illusion. 
It's understandable, as you'll see.  The illusion was that we assumed Jill
was like most other young people and had no interest in the details of her
mother's sex life.  All adolescents believe that all adults have sex. 
They're wrong, of course, but they believe it.  And while they can be very
interested in the sex lives of most adults, the average adolescent doesn't
want to think about her parents having sex.  Lynne and I knew that.

   But Jill wasn't average.  She didn't see me as a parent, and her father
was gone before the age at which the taboo of thinking about her mother as
a sexual being developed.  She perceived her mother as both "Mom" and an
adult woman.

   In other words, Jill assumed that both her mother and I were having sex.
Not with each other, necessarily, but if we were, then that was acceptable.
And THAT was because sex, as far as Jill was concerned, was a good thing.
She'd never been taught to think it was nasty, or perverted, or dangerous.
She was aware that some people felt that way.  She just didn't feel that
way herself.  To Jill, sex was an unknown, one of those exciting adventures
she'd get to go on some day.  It was like being at a theme park and not
being able to ride because you weren't tall enough.  You knew that someday
you WOULD be tall enough.

   And finally, Lynne and I were oblivious to the fact that I held a
special place in Jill's heart.  I was a friend and confidant who was an
adult male.  Those are rare in most young women's lives.  We had worked
together, played together and even cried together when her dog died.  We
were best friends, and had the kind of easy comfort in each other's
presence that allowed her to run around in a lot less than she would have
otherwise.  It wasn't like we were nudists or anything.  But if she went to
the bathroom in her bra and panties and if I saw her, well ...  it wasn't
the end of the world.

   So, at that point in her life, sex became something even more
interesting than it had been.  She was sixteen and curious.  She had
questions, and a pledge to answer them, at least from her mother.  I'm
pretty sure she expected she could ask me anything under the sun and it
would be fine.  She just hadn't thought to ask me about things sexual
before.

   That was to change.  And all because of the coincidence that she
happened to be in the right place, at the right time, to hear just two
little words: "getting laid."

   ===================================

   What actually precipitated the beginning of the actual questions was
that Duke found himself a girlfriend.  She was a stray, and wandered into
the yard one day.  She was a short-haired mutt of some kind, that looked
like a dozen types of dog all put together haphazardly.  Most people would
have yelled at her and maybe chunked a rock her way to run her off.

   Jill, of course, fed her.  Jill was just like that.

   She turned out to be a well mannered and sweet dog.  She was also in
heat, which Duke noticed right away.  I came out of the shed, where I'd
been sharpening the blades of the riding mower, and saw Jill squatting on
her haunches, watching Duke licking his new friend's rear end.  Her vaginal
opening was black and swollen.  About the time I got there he hopped up and
his sharp, pink penis slid unerringly into her.  He began to hump
immediately and vigorously.  Jill looked up at me as I walked up to her.

   "Doesn't that hurt?" she asked.

   "Doesn't what hurt?" I looked at my hands, expecting to see blood.  I
was always hurting myself, and Jill called me a klutz quite often.

   "What he's doing to her," she said, looking back at Duke.  The female
was just standing there.  She looked bored, but her back legs were spread
slightly and her tail was out of the way.  I could see the flash of pink as
Duke frantically fucked the bitch.

   "Naw," I said.  "It's made to fit."

   "I remember the first time I saw horses doing it," she said, watching
the dogs intently.  "I got scared.  I just knew he was hurting her."

   Duke went still for a few seconds and hopped down happily.  His pointed
penis was still out of its sheath and had a drip of clear liquid on the
tip. The female looked around at him, as if to say "That's it?" I guess
males are pretty much the same across the species.

   "Mom said the same thing," she went on.  "But I don't see how it can not
hurt.  She wasn't aware of it, but she had lifted one hand and was looking
at her index finger.  She might as well have said "It's bigger than my
finger, and I can barely get that inside me."

   The way she was squatting, her jeans-clad legs were apart and I could
see the tight fabric that covered her crotch.  I thought about her finger,
sliding into what was behind that denim, and felt heat suffuse my body.  I
also felt blood finding its way into my dick.

   "All part of nature," I said hastily and moved on, lest she see
something she didn't need to see down around my zipper.

   ============================

   The next question was a couple of days later.

   Because we didn't have the equipment to handle big bales of hay, Lynne
had Hank Thompson bale our hay with an old-fashioned small square bailer.
It produced bales that weighed between fifty and eighty or so pounds,
depending on what kind of hay they were made of.  We could handle those
during the winter by putting them in the pickup and taking them wherever
they were needed.  Jill and I were getting twenty-five or thirty bales down
from the loft in the big barn, to put in the stables.  It was hot, sweaty
work but it was the dust that made it itch uncomfortably.e Jill was wearing
a too-large T shirt with the sleeves cut off and she might as well have
taken it off for all that it covered her bra.  I could even see the little
pink bow on the bra between her breasts when she bent over.

   "So how many times have you done it?" she asked suddenly.

   "Done what?" I asked.  The "what" came out in a grunt as I bucked a bale
up onto the others in the back of the truck.

   "Had sex," she said.

   You could have knocked me over with a feather.  I froze and stared at
her.  She was waiting for an answer.

   "You can't ask people that kind of thing," I croaked.

   "That's what Mom said too," she said.  "I thought you might tell me,
though."

   "Most people don't keep count," I said reflexively.

   She looked interested.  "You mean because they have it so much?"

   I had no idea what to say.  What came out was "People just do it.  They
don't keep records or anything."

   "OK," she said, adapting easily to the situation.  "So how often do you
do it?"

   I didn't want to answer that question.  No man likes to admit he hit a
dry well but has been using the hand pump for years anyway.

   If you don't want to answer a question, ask another one yourself.  It's
a time honored technique.

   "What brought all this on anyway?" I asked.

   "Duke had sex with Snow White four times yesterday," she said.

   "Snow White?" I looked at her like she was crazy.  The stray didn't have
any white on her at all.

   "It was either that or Ariel, from The Little Mermaid," she said.  "She
just doesn't look aquatic to me, though."

   "And she looks like Snow White?" I asked, dumbfounded.

   "No, but Snow White was my favorite princess when I was a little girl."

   "Oh," I laughed.  "It all makes sense now."

   She looked surprised.  "It does?"

   I shook my head sadly.  "No.  Not at all.  I'll never understand women."

   "Well anyway, Show White lets Duke have sex with her whenever he wants
to.  She doesn't try to run away or snap at him or anything.  And he wants
to a lot!  So are guys that way too?"

   For some reason I imagined Jill standing there, naked, hands on her
hips, one foot tapping, saying "Just exactly now many times do you want to
fuck me today, Bob?"

   And THAT was when Jill's image in my mind was irrevocably changed
forever.  She was still my best friend, but she was also a female, and she
had just as much potential to be a sexual partner as any other woman on the
face of the planet had.

   Of course I didn't think that would ever happen.  And I wasn't going to
try to MAKE it happen.  It was just there, like a big fucking rock, so big
you can't move it.  You can work around it.  You can build up against it.
You just can't move it or get rid of it.  It's just there.

   Jill WAS standing there with her hands on her hips.  She wasn't naked,
but she was obviously waiting for me to answer her question.  It took me a
second to remember what the question actually was.

   My voice kind of wheezed a little bit as I finally spoke.

   "Probably not that many times a day," I gasped.

   "So just once or twice?" she asked, sounding interested.

   I just nodded.  I realized I had a hard-on.  It had just exploded into
existence, while I wasn't paying any attention.

   "Gotta go," I rasped.

   I turned and shuffled off toward the house, because it was the only
thing that would keep my back to her as I went towards it.

   And wouldn't you just know it.  With my luck, Lynne was coming out of
the house as I mounted the steps.

   =============================

   Lynne looked at my face, which was flushed.  I was panting too.  She
stopped, still right in the doorway.  She could never explain why, later,
but her eyes dropped and pinned on the jutting bump in the front of my
pants.  Her mouth dropped open.  She was wearing bright red lipstick that
day, and her mouth made a red, round shape that just blew my mind.  I mean
I was thinking of sex already, and there was nothing I could do to control
my thoughts as I looked at that mouth.

   "What happened?" she squeaked.  Her hand went to cover her mouth, as if
she was upset she'd said anything.  Either that or she was a mind reader
and knew what I was thinking about that mouth.

   I started to just say "Jill!" but I knew that would require more, and I
sort of doubted she'd appreciate what that more would end up being.

   "I just get this way sometimes," I said weakly.  "You leaving?" I would
have said anything to divert her attention from my erection.

   "No," she said, looking confused.  "I was just coming to call you two
for lunch."

   "Oh!" I said.

   "So where's Jill?" she asked, looking over and past my shoulder.

   "Stable," I panted.  My brain finally started working.  "I gotta pee," I
said.

   She looked startled, but turned sideways as I tried to push past her. 
My chest scraped right across the tips of her breasts, which were encased,
that day, in a halter top.  We both looked down as it happened.  My bulge
was thrusting out and filled the little triangle of empty space between her
breasts and my chest.  It brushed her thighs.

   This was not turning out to be a good day for me.

   ===============================

   I did, in fact, go into the bathroom.  The only other place I could go
was my bedroom, but I'd already said I had to pee, so the bathroom it was.
I did NOT have to pee, of course, but I took my cock out anyway.  I knew
I'd have to beat off to get it to go down, even though I was embarrassed
half to death.  The memory of those round, bright red lips had me going,
though.  And that's how I found myself thinking about BOTH Simmons WOMEN
for the first time as I masturbated.

   I usually have to get everything just right to cum when I beat off.  I
have to think of the right thing at the right time and get my hand moving
at just the right speed.  It all comes together, but it usually takes a few
minutes.

   On that day I didn't even have to take my pants down.  I just unzipped,
pulled it out, and stroked it while thinking of Lynne's lips and those
pajamas sucking up between Jill's pussy lips and it was over.  I mean stick
a fork in me - I was done.

   Then I had to catch my breath and wash my hands and face, which was red,
and get presentable, so I could go out and eat lunch.

   Chapter Five

   I don't know how often you've had a sexual fantasy about a woman, or a
COUPLE of women, and then masturbated to completion while engaged in those
fantasies ...  and THEN sat down to eat with them.

   It had never happened to me, and I almost couldn't figure out how the
heck to act.  It showed too, because Lynne stared at me, frowning.  She
couldn't look at my lap, because I was sitting down by then, but I got the
distinct impression she would have, if she could have.

   Jill seemed completely unconcerned and wolfed down her grilled cheese
sandwich as if she had places to go and people to meet.  It turned out she
wanted to go for a ride after lunch.  While we were moving the hay, I had
left early because of my boner, so we didn't get it all moved.  Instead of
blaming me for that, she just said she was going to get it done after lunch
so she could go have some fun.

   "That's fine, Dear," said Lynne.

   "Mom?"

   "Yes?"

   "Now that I'm sixteen, I can start going on dates ...  right?"

   Both Lynne and I stared at Jill.  She was nibbling at her grilled cheese
sandwich.  This was the first time a derivative of the word "date" had come
out of her mouth, and it surprised both of us.

   "I suppose so," said Lynne carefully.  "Has a boy asked you out on a
date?"

   "No," she said.  "Not since last year.  Robbie Whitlock asked me out,
but I told him I wasn't allowed to date and nobody's asked me since."

   "Oh," said Lynne.  "So are you going to ask Robby out now?"

   "No," said Jill.  "I don't want to go out with Robby.  He's not my
type."

   "What is your type?" asked Lynne.

   "I'm not sure," she said.  "Except I know it's not Robby."

   "Well before you go out on a date, we have to have a talk about ... 
things," said Lynne, in full mother mode now.

   "I'm not going to have sex with anybody, Mom," said Jill, rolling her
eyes.

   "I know you're not," said Lynne firmly.  "But you need to be aware that
sometimes a boy will try things with you, and you need to know how to
respond when that happens."

   "Oh," said the girl.  "Well ...  OK then."

   "You two can get the rest of the hay moved tomorrow.  You can go for
your ride after lunch.  When you get back Bob and I will be ready to have
that talk."

   "Me?" I asked.  I wished it wouldn't crack like that.

   Lynne looked at her daughter.  "Bob will help with a man's point of
view," she said calmly.

   =================================

   Lynne asked me to help with the dishes when Jill got up to go saddle her
horse.  We stood side by side at the sink, with her washing and me rinsing
and drying.

   "You want to tell me about it?" she asked.

   "Tell you about what?" I asked.

   "About what was going on in your pants ...  before lunch," she said
calmly.

   Busted!  Damn!  I tried to bluff.

   "Oh that," I said, trying to sound like it didn't matter at all. 
"Happens sometimes.  It's a guy thing."

   "I know all about that kind of guy thing," she said.  "I had a husband
who loved showing me his when it got that way."

   "Oh," I said, trying to get past this.  "Well you don't have to worry
about that.  I won't try to show it to you."

   "Thanks," she said, so dryly that I looked at her.  "I don't know why
this keeps coming up," she said.  "I mean I know we've had this
conversation before, but I've never seen you like THAT, Bob."

   "It just kind of happened, and as soon as I realized it, I made an
excuse and left so Jill wouldn't see it," I said.

   "It just kind of happened," she said.  She sounded unconvinced.

   "OK look," I sighed.  "We were moving hay and she started asking me
questions.  She's been watching Duke breed that stupid stray female.  She
wanted to know how often I had sex, and if men could do it as often as Duke
does." I told her.

   "You're kidding!" gasped Lynne.

   "Do I look like I'm kidding?" I shrugged.  "When a pretty girl asks you
how often you have sex ...  well ...  nature kind of kicks in."

   "Was she teasing you?" asked Lynne.

   "No, it was nothing like that.  She was just curious, that's all.  She
sees things and she's trying to make sense of them.  I think that's all it
is."

   "Well I don't want her being curious with boys on dates," said Lynne
sternly.

   "Well then tell her that," I said.

   =================================

   Imagine being a man, being in your forties, and suddenly being cast as
the father figure to a sixteen-year-old girl you've already had fantasies
about.  And you're talking to her in partnership with her mother, who
you've ALSO had fantasies about.  You've had erections caused by both
women.

   Oh yes, and you're trying not to get another erection.

   Actually, I did OK, but it was only thinking about her being groped in
the back seat of a car somewhere by somebody who was definitely not me.  I
didn't find that thought sexy at all.

   Lynne was busy telling her that there would be all these feelings she
hadn't felt yet, but WOULD feel, and they would happen without warning
sometimes, and she'd be confused, at which point she'd be vulnerable to ...


   She turned to me.  "Tell her, Bob."

   "Guys will try to cop a feel," I said, rather bluntly.  "Lots of feels,"
I added.

   Lynne frowned at me.  I think she expected something a little more
academic.  But she adapted and went with it.

   "Yes," she said.  "And sometimes when they touch you, it feels nice, but
if you let them do that they'll try other things, and THOSE things feel
nice too, and it can get out of control very quickly."

   "So don't let them cop feels," said Jill, as if she were taking notes.

   "Right," said her mother.  "And keep kissing to a minimum.  I wouldn't
even let a boy kiss you at all until the third or fourth date."

   "Mom," said Jill, her voice plaintive.  "Most of my girlfriends are
giving blow jobs on the fourth date!"

   "WHAT?!" Lynne's voice made me wince.

   "I'm just telling you what they tell me," said Jill.

   "NO BLOW JOBS!" yelled Lynne.  She turned to me, looking panicked.

   "No blow jobs!" I agreed firmly, though less loudly.

   Lynne looked at me like "That's it?  That's all you got?"

   "And don't let them talk you into jerking them off either," I added,
feeling proud of myself.

   Lynne looked up at the ceiling, but her face jerked back to Jill when
her daughter said "Why not?  My girlfriends all say that's the best way to
control a guy."

   Lynne spluttered for a bit and I realized I was going to have to step
up.

   "OK, look," I said, looking at Jill.  "All guys want to have sex with
you, OK?  It's just the way things are.  And guys will do just about
anything to talk a girl into having sex.  They'll get you to do this little
thing, and then add that little thing, and none of them seem all that bad,
but they all lead further down the road, until the next thing you know
you're in trouble.  And what your mother is trying to say is that the best
way to avoid all that is to just not start any of those things at all."

   "Oh," said Jill, frowning slightly.  "ALL guys want to have sex with
me?"

   "Pretty much," I said.  "It's just the way men are made.  Nature is
responsible, and unfortunately you women have to figure out a way to live
with it.

   "That doesn't sound like much fun," said Jill doubtfully.  "I mean
what's the point of going out with a boy if I have to worry constantly
about him trying to get in my pants?"

   "Well," I said, "the purpose of dating is for you to be exposed to and
get to know lots of boys.  Sooner or later you'll meet one that you like a
lot more than all the others, and eventually you'll fall in love.  And THEN
you can think about having a more serious relationship."

   "Yes!" chirped Lynne, finally able to speak again.  "He's right about
that.  Play the field.  Keep it light."

   That was pretty much it for our first sit-down talk with Jill.  I felt
like it had gone pretty well.  Sure, there were some rough spots, but all
in all I thought she got the message.  And I thought I had made a comeback
with Lynne, in terms of saying things in a way that more closely matched
her own feelings.

   What neither of us realized is that words can be spoken to mean one
thing ...  and heard to mean another.

   ===================================

   Jill did start dating and, like most other things Jill got involved in,
she seemed to put her mind to it.

   She went out with a different boy every weekend for the whole first
semester of her junior year in high school.  Of course there wasn't all
that much to do out in the boonies, where we were, so about half the time
she invited some boy to come to the ranch and go on a trail ride with her.
She loved to ride, and a lot of the boys in the area rode too.  Sometimes
the date just involved going to a game with a boy, football in the fall,
and then basketball later on.

   But the point is that she rarely went out with the same boy more than
twice, and if asked how a date went, her invariable answer was "OK."

   Basically, for all the interest she'd shown in sex and dating ...  it
seemed to fizzle when it came to actually exploring those arenas.

   Of course neither her mother nor I knew what she was actually doing on
those dates.  We would find out about that almost a year later.

   In the meantime, another coincidence, of sorts, happened that would have
a profound impact on our lives.  Of course we didn't know it at the time.
It was a small thing, a thing that happens tens of thousands of times a
year.

   Snow White had her litter of puppies.

   It was the first time any of us had seen puppies being born.  We all
freaked out a little bit, but Snow White was so calm about it that it was
impossible to stay freaked out for long.  Duke was interested too, but only
until he sniffed the first puppy to pop out.  Then he went and laid down. I
guess he figured he'd done his part.

   Anyway, the three of us stood there, like anxious fathers, waiting for
the outcome.  She had seven puppies.  The imagery was unmistakable.  Jill
with an awed voice, named them.  And of course they were named Doc, Dopey,
Sleepy, Sneezy, Grumpy, Happy and Bashful.  Neither Lynne nor I could argue
about it.

   Then Snow White left the script and had another puppy.

   "What are you going to do now?" I asked.  "Is that one the prince?"

   "Of course not," she snorted.  "Duke is the prince."

   "Oh," I said, smiling.  "I always wndered what the prince's name was."

   Jill stared at the newest pup, being cleaned up by its mother.

   "His name is Mortimer," she said firmly.

   "Mortimer?  Why Mortimer?" asked Lynne.

   "Why not?" asked Jill back.

   And that was that, or so we thought.  At least until Snow White let us
handle them.

   "Um ...  Bashful isn't a little boy puppy," I said.

   "Doesn't matter," said Jill, without a pause.  "Bashful can be a girl's
name too."

   We couldn't give them away.  Not once they had been named like that.  I
mean you couldn't break up Snow White and her seven dwarves.  And it seemed
wrong, somehow, to give Mortimer away too.  So we settled in to help Snow
White raise her children.

   That was to have a much stronger impact on Jill and Lynne than any of us
could know then.

   Chapter Six

   In February, Jill stopped flitting around like a butterfly and started
going out with a boy named Langston Carter exclusively.  He was a senior
and they went out somewhere about every other week.  The rest of the time
she'd go to his house, or he'd come to hers.  If there was a dance, they
went together.

   But she never talked about him.  I saw him at the house several times,
and he seemed like a nice kid.  He didn't paw Jill, or act territorial
around her.  I asked Lynne what he was like and she said it was hard to
tell.  She described him as polite, but somewhat distant.  Jill asked if
they could do homework in her room, and then didn't complain at all when
Lynne said the door had to stay open.

   It looked for all the world like they were just friends.

   Of course neither her mother nor I knew what she was actually doing on
the other dates she had with Langston.  We would find out about that almost
a year later, too.

   ====================================

   It was Prom that turned everything upside down.  Prom was special to
Lynne, as I would find out later that night, so she went all out for Jill,
taking her shopping for a new dress and all that kind of thing.  She called
me and asked me to come fix supper, because she was doing Jill's hair.  It
had been a while since I'd smelled that pungent odor that permeates the
whole house when a home permanent is used.  Jill came to the table looking
like some insane artist had used her head to make a sculpture using tin
foil and rollers.  They ate quickly and went back to it.  Lynne said "Don't
leave."

   Two hours later I looked up from watching TV and my breath caught in my
chest.

   They had picked a midnight blue dress that was quite simple, really,
with spaghetti straps.  It fell to just above her knees.  Her hair was all
up on her head, interwoven with ribbon going in and out and some kind of
silver sparkles in it.  She had on eye shadow that was the same shade as
the dress, and lipstick that was pink.  She looked nervous.

   "Wow," I sighed.

   "Is that good?" she asked hesitantly.

   "Oh yeah," I sighed again.  "That's very good."

   Her smile made my heart hurt.  I looked over to see Lynne leaning
against the door frame.  She had that look on her face that only a parent
can get when she is so proud of her child that she can hardly bear it.

   "And look!" said Jill, excitement in her voice.

   She twirled quickly and the skirt flowed out and rose.  I got just a
glimpse of pale blue panties.

   "Stop that!" chided her mother.

   Jill turned until she was facing me again and stopped.  "I got them to
go with the dress," she said.

   "You're not supposed to show them to anybody," said Lynne.

   "Bob can see them," said Jill.  "He's special."

   The doorbell chimed.  Lynne jumped.  "He's here!" she said in what was a
whispered shout.  Jill glanced over at the door, but didn't look excited at
all.

   Lynne was wearing a sweatshirt with the arms cut off.  It was too big
and she'd obviously put it on as something that could get wet, or stained
or whatever while she worked on Jill.  It wasn't something for public
consumption.  Her jeans were old, but still fit her like a glove.

   "I'll get it," I said.

   Langston was all dolled up too, in a tux.  He had a corsage in his
hands. He looked just as calm as Jill did.

   I don't know why, but I watched his face as I led him in.  He looked at
Jill and smiled, but his eyes didn't widen, and he didn't react in the kind
of way I expected him to.  Lynne was darting toward her bedroom, which
wasn't surprising, based on how she was dressed.

   "You look good," he said.

   "Thanks," said Jill, as if what he'd said was perfect.  "You too."

   He handed her the plastic box that held the orchid.  She took it out and
tried to put it on herself, which is when I stepped in.

   "Let me," I said, and took it from her.

   There was then a moment where I was transported decades back to a time
when I pinned my first corsage on a girl's dress.  It was a momentous
experience for me, which might seem strange to most people.  Part of that
was because it was Samantha Cross I was pinning it on, and she was three
inches taller than I was.  We were both seniors and I'd worked on getting
up the courage to ask her to prom for three weeks before I finally did it.
Then I was astounded that she didn't already have a date, and almost lost
my ability to stand when she accepted.  The primary reason that was a
turning point in my life, though, was that as she stood there, waiting for
me to pin it to the strap of her gown, her parents were standing there
beaming ...  watching ...  completely comfortable with the fact that I was
slipping my fingers under that strap, just inches from her breast.

   Sam was a 38D.  She was completely ready to go out into the world, have
triplets and have plenty left over for somebody else's babies.

   And I was sliding the back of my fingers across hot, smooth skin that
was part of one of those breasts.

   And her parents didn't care!

   Of course now I understand that I was virtually miles away from the good
parts of those impressive mountains Sam carried around everywhere she went.
But back then, as she stood patiently, letting me practically feel her up,
as I saw it, and her parents not only LET me practically feel her up, they
took PICTURES of me practically feeling her up.

   I got one of those instant boners that only teenage males are capable of
producing, that go from limp to full hard in ten seconds or so.

   That's where that memory stopped.  If I'd have tried, I'd have easily
remembered that that was as close as I got to the nirvana of Sam's breasts
that night.  Other than pressing my own chest against them, of course.  Sam
didn't fool around.  She was a "good girl." I was a very confused young man
for a while after that.

   Anyway, as I pinned the orchid onto Jill's dress, and looked at sweet,
dark cleavage, and slid the backs of my fingers along Jill's smooth, warm
skin, my prick took notice.  She was looking down, at the flower, until I
was done, and then she looked up and her smile was so beautific that I
almost took her in my arms and kissed her.  It was a moment of deja vu,
except that it hadn't happened before.  I just wished that it had happened
before, and that I HAD kissed her.

   I also wished I was Langston.  I looked over at him, to share one of
those man-to-man looks that says "You lucky son of a bitch!" He was looking
at his watch.

   They'd have left without a picture being taken if Lynne hadn't run back
into the room, holding a camera and yelling at them to wait.  Apparently a
picture of her little girl all dolled up took precedence over being seen
dressed way down by that girl's date.

   The sense that something was off continued, because those two kids acted
for all the world like prom was no big deal, even though each of them had
obviously spent a lot of time getting dolled up for it.

   ==================================

   Lynne and I were having pie and ice cream.  She'd made a pecan pie and
it was perfectly gooey and sticky.  We were taking our time.  It was very
relaxed.  I noticed that Lynne didn't appear to have anything on under the
sweat shirt, but I wasn't sure.  I was trying not to stare too much and, at
the same time, see if I was right.

   "I guess things have changed since I went to Prom," sighed Lynne.

   "How so?" I asked.

   "It was a huge deal for me," she said.  "Of course I had decided that I
was going to let Paul ..." She stopped suddenly and her cheeks got pink.

   I figured I knew what she was talking about.  Prom has been like that
for a long time.  It was even like that for me, though I didn't have sex
after my prom.  A lot of my friends did, but not me.

   "Ooooo.  So you decided to give it up after Prom," I crowed.  "Paul was
a lucky guy."

   She recovered nicely.  "Yes," she said almost regally.  "He was!"

   "Didn't happen for me," I said, shaking my head.  "I took a girl named
Phyllis, and when the dance was over I had to take her home.  Most of us
had a curfew back then.  We didn't get to stay out all night long like the
kids these days."

   "Poor Bob," she said, in exaggerated sympathy.  She grinned.

   "Was it everything you hoped it would be?" I asked.

   "You mean Prom?"

   "Of course I don't mean Prom.  You know what I meant," I snorted.

   "Why do we always end up talking about sex?" she asked, hedging.

   "Do we?" I asked.

   "Sure seems like it to me," she said.

   "We're secretly hot for each other," I joked.  "Our subconscious minds
are trying to get us together."

   "Is that so," she said.  She smiled gently.

   "Absolutely," I said, pressing on.  "So are you going to answer the
question?"

   I didn't think she was, initially, and I wouldn't have pushed it, but
finally she took a breath and looked right at me.

   "It was awful," she said.  "It hurt horribly, and I bled.  We did it in
the back seat of his car and I got a crick in my back.  I wrinkled up my
dress to the point that I was sure my mother would know exactly what
happened, and I had to throw my panties away because they were stained with
blood."

   "Wow," I said softly.  "Sorry I brought all that back up."

   "It's OK," she said, smiling.  "The second time was wonderful, except
that he didn't have a condom with him and I was so intent on trying it
again that I let him go without one.  So I was scared to death that I was
pregnant for most of a month."

   "And you married this guy?" I grinned.

   "It was when I realized that if I was pregnant with his baby I wouldn't
really be all that devastated, that I knew I loved him," she said.  "Now,
your turn.  What was your first time like?"

   I closed my eyes, like I was trying to remember.  That wasn't the fact,
actually.  I'd never forget my first time.

   "Her name was Sam, and she was four inches taller than me," I said. 
"She had breasts that were just ...  impressive ...  big enough that when
you looked at her you thought 'Amazon.'" I opened my eyes.  "She let me
play with them ...  her breasts, I mean ...  and the next thing I knew I
was on top of her and it was like riding a bull in a rodeo."

   "And how old were you?" asked Lynne.

   "I was a senior and she was a junior."

   "And you didn't stay together?"

   "I went to college and after her senior year she went to her sister's
farm in northern Missouri for the summer.  There was a farm hand there.  He
had all summer with her, and all I could do was send letters.  The next
time we got together she confessed to cheating on me with this guy and we
broke up.  She went on to travel the world with an NGO.  That's not what
they called them back then, but that's what it was.

   "You loved her." Lynne said it softly.

   "Yeah," I sighed.  "I didn't care about the cheating.  I said it was
just her curiosity.  She couldn't understand that, though, and thought I
must not love her if I didn't get raging mad.

   "I'm surprised you weren't mad too," said Lynne.  "Most men would be."

   "I learned a long time ago that you can be in love with more than one
person at the same time," I said.  When I got engaged there were two other
women I could just as easily have married.  I mean I loved both of them
enough to ask them.  I guess I chose the wrong one, though."

   "How can you love more than one woman at the same time?" she asked,
sounding skeptical.

   "Beats me," I said, shrugging.  "I like a woman for who she is.  I don't
compare them, I guess."

   "So what's the difference between that and what your fiance did?" she
asked.  "I mean all she did was fall in love with two men ...  right? 
Let's be fair here."

   "Her new boyfriend didn't see things that way.  Most people don't. 
You're a good example."

   "I just don't get how anybody could have those kind of feelings for two
people at the same time," she said.

   "OK, think about it like this.  Right now, the only women in my life are
you and Jill.  I like you both.  I'd say I love you both, except that's a
sensitive word and can be misunderstood.  I don't want to choose which one
of you I like more.  Why should I have to?  I want to like you both.  I
want you both in my life."

   "OK, I get that," said Lynne.  "But you're not talking about marrying
one of us." She frowned.  "Even if my daughter shows you her panties, we're
just neighbors."

   "OK then," I said, trying to communicate what I was feeling.  "What if
you had two kids.  Would you love one more than the other?"

   "Of course not," she said immediately.

   "Then there you go.  You are capable of loving two people at the same
time, in the same way."

   "That's different," she insisted.

   "How?" I asked.  "The love you feel for Jill is powerful, and will last
forever.  If you had another child you'd feel the same way about him or
her. You CAN love more than one person in a deep and meaningful way, at the
same time."

   She closed her eyes.  "Talking about this makes my head hurt." She
opened them again.  "Do you like brandy?"

   "I don't know," I said.  "I never had any that I know of."

   "I have this bottle that's been sitting in the back of the pantry for
years.  Somebody gave it to us before Paul died and I never opened it.  I
think it's peach flavored."

   "I'm game," I said.

   Which is how I found out that Lynne would do well to stay away from
alcohol in the future ...  FAR away.

   Chapter Seven

   The brandy was good.  It was very sweet, so sweet that a small glass
lasted me half an hour.  Lynne took bigger sips, and took them more often
and by the time I poured my second glass the bottle was a third empty.

   I think she regressed, at least partly.  She was thinking about her own
Prom night, and what happened in the back seat of that car, but it was
being overlaid with later memories of the same activity.  She got horny and
the brandy got her loose.

   "My daughter is probably in the back seat of some car right now," she
slurred blearily, staring at her wrist, where she usually wore a watch. 
She wasn't wearing it that night.  "She's probably having sex with Langston
right this MINUTE!" She got agitated and then relaxed.  "Who names a boy
Langston anyway?  That's a silly name!" She looked at me.  "She showed you
her panties, Bob!  On PURPOSE!"

   I knew she was tipsy, and that it was the alcohol talking, rather than
Lynne.  I mean it was Lynne talking, but the alcohol had something to do
with it.  You know what I mean.

   "I was honored," I said carefully.

   She looked around, somewhat blearily.  "I just hope she hash ash good a
time ash I did." She looked at me and smiled brightly.  "You wanna half a
good time too, Bob?" She leaned dangerously, but recovered.

   "You look tired," I said.  "You want to lie down?"

   "With you?" Her voice went up in concert with her eyebrows.  "Are you
trying to get in my pants, Bob?"

   "No," I laughed.  "Not while you're drunk, anyway."

   "I'm not drunk!" she said, her voice very dignified.  "I'm
in-n-n-nebriated!"

   "Well not while you're in-n-n-nebriated, then," I said smiling.

   "Of coursh not," she said, swaying a little.  She looked at her glass.
It was half full.  She tossed off everything left in it and smacked her
lips.  "You're too much of a genn-a-menn to do that!"

   She looked at me owlishly.  "Dammit!" she said, and then giggled. 
"Oops!" she said, wide eyed, apparently as she thought about the rather
gentle curse word she'd just used.  She stuck her fingers in her ears, then
pulled her hands to her eyes and covered them, and finally covered her
mouth, giggling all the while.

   "Come on," I said, standing up and reaching for her hand.  "Let's get
you to bed."

   "Finally!" she said loudly, standing up and then falling back down.  She
made an obvious effort to stand up again, and then promptly bent over and
peered at my zipper.

   "It dussn't look hard to me, Bobby.  What's wrong with it?" Instead of
standing up and looking at me, she just craned her neck and looked upwards.

   This was a side of her I'd never seen.  Her innuendo, if you wanted to
call it that, was obvious and WAY overboard.  The brandy had affected me
too, though not anywhere as much as Lynne.  Had I been sober I might have
thought more about what she was saying, but in the same way one drunk
thinks another drunk is funny, I just chalked what she was saying up to the
booze.

   What that means is I didn't try to take advantage of her.  I
concentrated on just trying to take care of her.

   I got her to her bedroom by half carrying her.  Her arms were around me
and she was humming, not quite singing.  I didn't undress her or anything
like that.  I just got her on the bed and draped the bedspread over her.  I
stood up and her head rolled to let bleary eyes peer at me.

   "You're not naked."

   "Nope," I said happily.

   She lifted the bedspread and looked under it.

   "I'm not naked either!"

   "Nope," I agreed.

   "How can I show you my panties if I'm not naked?" she asked, sounding
genuinely confused.

   "You can show them to me later," I said.  "Go to sleep.  You're drunk."

   Her head rolled back.  "Not drunk," she said softly.

   "I know."

   "Don't go," she said.

   "You need to sleep," I told her.

   "Not alone," she mumbled.  "Tired of alone."

   Had I not drunk any brandy, I'd have left.  I'm not saying I was drunk,
by any stretch of the imagination, and I'm not blaming it on the booze. 
It's just that the idea of staying was pretty attractive in my current
mental condition.  It would have been attractive anyway, but that brandy
tipped the scales toward me actually staying.

   I kicked off my shoes and laid down on the bed beside her, getting under
the bedspread.  It was uncomfortable with my arm under me, so I wiggled it
under her, which kind of put my shoulder where she could use it for a
pillow.  I didn't hold her or anything like that.  It was really quite
innocent.  I didn't even have a boner, which was surprising.  It just felt
good to be there, because I knew she wanted me to be there.

   And I was tired of alone too, to be honest.

   ======================================

   I woke up, probably because I had to pee.  My left arm was under Lynne,
so I couldn't look at my watch, but was still dark outside.

   I didn't want to get up.  I was sober now ...  fully sober ...  and
though I knew I had ended up where I was honorably, I also knew that if I
woke Lynne up she might not see it that way.  So I didn't want to get up
and disturb her.

   There was the somewhat stale aftertaste of peach brandy in my mouth,
which was dry, which meant I had to pee AND wanted to get a drink.  Lynne
gave out a sigh in her sleep and I got a whiff of basically how my mouth
tasted, which turned out to be better than what I'd have thought it might
be.  I knew I wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep until I eased
the pressure in my bladder and got a drink, so I gave up and wiggled loose
from her.  She lay there like she was dead, except that as I got off the
bed she raised her head and looked around.

   "Where are you going?" she asked.

   "Bathroom," I said.

   "Bring me some water?"

   "Sure."

   In the bathroom I pondered her attitude.  She hadn't screamed or even
gotten upset.  Apparently the foremost thing on her mind was her own dry
mouth.  That was pretty astounding, to me.  I mean we'd gotten close over
the years, but not sleeping-in-the-same-bed close, if you know what I mean.

   Then I realized there was no cup in the bathroom, so I headed for the
kitchen in the dark.  The yard light made the living room seem as bright as
day, and I remembered our brandy glasses, so I picked hers up, took it in
the kitchen and rinsed it out, and filled it with water, all in the dark. I
drank some, and carefully worked my way back to her bedroom.  She was
sitting up in bed, and her hands were moving over her body, like she was
checking to see if all her arms and legs were still there.  I saw her
pulling at the sweatshirt, like it was sticking to her or something.  Our
eyes had adjusted to the dark enough so that when I handed her the glass,
she could see it in my hand.  She took it, drank, and then handed it back.

   "Guess I'll go on back to my room," I said softly.

   "No," she said.  "Stay here."

   I stood there in the dark.  I didn't know what that meant.  "Are you
sure?" I asked, for some reason.

   Her hands went to the bottom of the sweatshirt and she whipped it up and
over her head.  Her bra was starkly white against her skin in the dark. 
She flopped down, wiggled out of her jeans, then sat back up.  Her arms
went behind her and the starkly white bra seemed to float to one side in
the dark as she lay back down.  She kicked the covers off.  Her panties
were also starkly white.

   "Stay here," she said again, softly."

   "Wow," I sighed.  I could see the dark tips of her breasts.  Where,
before, I had crawled into bed with her with a soft penis, that was no
longer the case.  Her invitation was undeniable, and I started shedding
clothing like a tree sheds leaves in a hurricane.  I thought about matching
her, leaving my underwear on, but the urgency that was suddenly in me
decided not to.

   Her arms came up towards me as I got back in bed, and hot breasts were
pressed against my chest.

   "Wow," I sighed again.

   "Shut up and kiss me," she whispered.

   Thirty seconds later I felt like my brain had been sucked out of my
skull through my mouth.

   "I showed you my panties," she panted.  "Now you can take them off."

   I'd love to claim that there was a soft, slow, romantic easing into a
mutually gentle and caring exchange of caresses that led to making love.

   But that's not what happened.

   I pulled her panties off, at which point she spread her legs wide and
reached for me.  I was ready, as rock hard as I'd ever been in my life, and
I fell on top of her as one of her hands darted between us, reaching for my
cock.  She found it, positioned it, and I slammed into a fully ready, fully
aroused, wet pussy that squelched and let out one of those pussy farts that
makes you want to howl, except it would ruin the mood, sort of, or at least
you think it would.  We both ignored it, though, and five seconds after
feeling her tight, hot pussy clenching all around my prick for the first
time, I was pounding her as if I was trying to hurt her.

   I remember there being a lot of grunting going on.  I know I was
grunting "Oh Lynne" a lot, and she was gasping "Oh fuck!" and "Oh yes!" and
I realized I was about to blow, which I knew was TOTALLY wrong, because
we'd been fucking - and that was the only way you could characterize what
we were doing - for less than two minutes, and it was entirely too soon for
it to be over.

   I slammed in, clenching and, by pure force of will, trying not to cum.
Her hips started wriggling and I mashed my abdomen against her, just to
stay on and stay in, which had the effect of grinding my pubic bone hard
against hers.  I felt like I had to be bruising her, but her hands were
gripping my ass cheeks HARD and pulling enough that there was some pain
involved, so I kept grinding.

   She went off with a howl like a banshee.  It was a scream, primal in
every way, though my brain recognized it as good primal, rather than bad
primal, and as a signal that she was cumming, and that I didn't have to
stave off the inevitable any more.

   I took the time to grind just a little longer, loving the wail that I
was wrenching from this woman, and then began fucking her again as I felt
my own release rampaging towards me.

   My orgasm felt just as spectacular for me as hers had sounded.  There
was even the blazing of fireworks, exploding into light.

   Until I realized it was the room lights ...  that somebody had turned
on.

   Lynne and I both squinted toward the door, where stood Jill, still in
her midnight blue prom dress, her hair slightly awry, but still mostly up,
her pupils surrounded by the whites of her eyes, and the fireplace poker in
her upraised right arm.

   Her mother's primal scream had sounded entirely different to Jill, who
was just coming in from prom, than it had to me.

   Chapter Eight

   My prick was still belching into Lynne's pussy, as the tableau froze,
and then began moving again.

   "SHIT!" yelled Jill, as she obviously recognized me and lowered the
poker.

   "SHIT!" yelled Lynne in almost exactly the same tone and volume.

   "AHHHHHH," I groaned as I spurted one last time.

   "MOM!" yelled Jill, in that tone of voice that makes it perfectly clear
that the mother in question has GREATLY disappointed the daughter yelling
the word.

   "JILL!" moaned Lynne, in that voice that makes it perfectly clear that
the speaker is horribly embarrassed, mortified, even.

   Jill stamped one foot.  It would have been funny if she hadn't been so
mad.

   "THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ME!" she yelled.

   Then she whirled, and stormed out of the room.

   =====================================

   In my fantasies about doing what I'd just done with Lynne, I had never
taken them far enough to reflect on the aftermath.  If I had, I doubt it
would have been like what happened.

   I was pushed off the naked woman I had just fucked, and there was
another wet sound as My cock was separated forcibly from her pussy.  She
bounced almost athletically up and stood, poised to go after her daughter.

   "Shit, shit, shit!" she panted.

   "Put something on!" I gasped.

   She looked at me, and then at her clothes, which were on the floor by
her feet, where she'd thrown them.  Then, for whatever reason, she whirled
and went to get her robe, which was hanging on a hook by the door.  She put
it on and was belting it as she went out the door.

   Left in a bright room, naked, in a bed vacated as if she was fleeing
from a bounty hunter, I wondered what I should do.  Getting dressed and
leaving was attractive, but I knew it would be the wrong thing to do.  Just
leaving after what had just happened would say something I didn't want to
say to Lynne.

   I wondered what I SHOULD say to Lynne.  In the end I got up, put my
pants and shirt back on, and went looking for the women.

   I found them sitting on the side of Jill's bed, holding hands, talking
softly.  When I stuck my head in, I got two different looks.  From Lynne
was a look of almost sorrow, or at least what I interpreted that way.  Jill
was ticked off at me.  That much was plain.

   "I'll talk to you later," Lynne said.

   "Got it," I said.  And then, for reasons I still can't explain to this
day, I said "I love you both," and turned around and left.  I got my shoes
and socks and carried them to my room.  What I really wanted was to take a
shower, but I thought that might seem somewhat cavalier, so I turned on my
reading light and got the pencil puzzle book I was currently working on. 
Getting the pillow situated under my chest, and with pencil poised, I
opened the magazine to a random page.

   ======================================

   If you're a guy, you'll understand why, as I was thinking about that
shouted "THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ME!" I was confused as to what it might
mean.  In the years since then I've learned that any woman would have
understood it instantly.  Lynne did.  But us guys are sometimes a bit
dense.

   Obviously it referred to what was going on in Lynne's bed.  And
obviously it meant that Jill thought she should have been one of the people
in that bed, doing what we were doing.  What wasn't so obvious, to me
anyway, was whether she was supposed to be taking Lynne's place ...  or
mine.

   Stop laughing.  I told you men are a little dense.  And the world is
full of girls who like other girls these days.  And there were little clues
that Jill wasn't all that much into boys.  That she got interested in
dating so late was one.  That she didn't seem to get all gooey over any of
the guys she met was another.  And there was just something wrong about the
way she and Langston had looked at each other before prom.  I mean I
developed the beginnings of a nice healthy boner when I saw her all dressed
up to the nines, looking as delicious as a chocolate éclair.  He'd glanced
at her and then looked at me and her mother.  And Jill hadn't seemed all
that excited about prom at all, for as much time and effort as she and
Lynne put into getting her ready.

   There was just something that was off there, and it affected how I
interpreted other cues.

   So my level of angst about all this had twin taproots.  First, while I
could live with the idea that Jill might be a lesbian, I wasn't at all sure
Lynne could.  My heart went out to her.  At the same time, what had
happened between us, as fast and furious and untidy in the end as it had
been, it had affected me down deep.  Of course what she'd said might be the
other thing, which meant she thought it should be her in bed with me.  I
could live with that too - no problem there at all - except that I wasn't
sure Lynne could live with that either, and it would surely mess up what
seemed to be a very promising beginning for Lynne and me.

   In other words, no matter what she had meant, Lynne might have a good
reason to have that look of sorrow on her face.  Jill might be making her
choose between her daughter and me - literally.

   So I was worried for the three hours it took for Lynne to contact me. 
And HOW she contacted me almost blew my mind.

   She sent Jill to get me.

   ===================================

   Jill walked silently in front of me, leading me to the kitchen.  I was
afraid to say a word to her.  She didn't volunteer anything.

   When we walked into the kitchen and I saw three plates of German
chocolate cake set out on the kitchen table, and she started spooning out
ice cream, and Jill sat down, I just followed her lead and sat down too. 
Mind you, it was then close to eight in the morning and none of us, to my
knowledge, had had any breakfast.

   Lynne finished up and sat herself.  She and her daughter took bites
together, as if it was planned that way.

   "Jill has a crush on you," said Lynne, without prelude.

   "I LOVE him," Jill said firmly.

   "You agreed to let ME do the talking," said Lynne.  "It was part of our
deal.  You KNOW how I feel about this, Jill.  Don't give me an excuse to
call it all off."

   Jill turned an imaginary key in the middle of her closed lips, and then
threw the imaginary key away.  The effect was a little spoiled by the fact
that she then produced a yawning cavity in which to push a huge bite of
cake and ice cream.  Lynne turned her attention back to me.

   "Jill has had this crush on you for a long time.  She has compared every
young man she's met or spent time with to you.  Apparently they don't meet
the standard that you have set."

   I blinked.  I was still just holding my fork.

   "Eat," Lynne said.  "Don't let the ice cream melt and get the cake all
soggy."

   I took a bite.

   "What I'm going to tell you now is confidential," said Lynne.  "I trust
you to keep it that way."

   I nodded, taking another bite.  The cake was actually quite delicious.

   "Langston is gay and doesn't want anybody to know about it," said Lynne.
"Jill has been pretending to be his girlfriend until he graduates.  He's
going to a college on the east coast, where he plans to be able to be
himself."

   "Aha!" I said, unable to keep it inside.

   Lynne ignored me.

   "Jill was waiting until this summer to ask you for a special birthday
present."

   I knew Jill would be eighteen this summer.  She had started school late,
and was older than most of her classmates.  "OK," I said.  I wondered
suddenly if I was allowed to talk.

   "She wanted you to be her first lover," said Lynne, her voice tight.

   My head swiveled.  Jill was very interested in what was left of her
cake. She did not look at me.  I looked back at Lynne.

   "A year ago ...  or more," said Lynne, "when she asked us if we were
having sex, and we said we weren't ...  she decided that if I didn't want
you, she did."

   "Mom!" Jill blurted, and then clapped a hand over her mouth.  "I'm
sorry," came her muffled words from behind the hand.

   Lynne sighed.  "What she actually said was that if I was too stupid to
pass you up, she was going to grab you."

   "Oh," I felt like smiling, but knew somebody would kill me if I did, so
I coughed instead, covering my mouth with my fist.

   "When she saw us this morning, she thought we had lied to her," said
Lynne.  "I explained that alcohol was involved and we just got carried
away." She looked at Jill.  "I STILL don't know why I felt obligated to
explain my actions to my daughter!"

   "Because you love me," said Jill, and then covered her mouth again.

   Lynne shot her a frown and then looked back at me.  I was wondering
where the heck this could be going.

   "Because of the misunderstanding," said Lynne, "I have agreed to lobby
on her behalf, to ensure that you will be ...  available ...  when she
turns eighteen in July ...  to ..." She rolled her eyes.  "I cannot do
this."

   "You promised," said Jill.  "You made ME promise too!"

   "All right!" snapped Lynne.  She looked at me and it all came out in a
rush.  "She promised that if you'll be her first lover on her birthday she
won't have sex with anybody else and you and I can still ...  see each
other."

   Talk about getting your world rocked.  At the same time, I recognized
that a mother had been hijacked by her little girl.

   "I'm an adult," I said to Lynne.  "So are you.  We don't have to have
anybody's permission to see each other." I looked at Jill.  "You have no
right to make any demands at all."

   Jill flushed bright red, but stayed mute.  I later found out part of the
agreement was that she wasn't allowed to say anything during the
'negotiations,' either to me or her mother.  And she had to abide by my
decision, regardless of what it was.

   I looked back at Lynne.  "I can't just make a snap decision like this.
We need to talk." I looked at Jill as she leaned forward in her chair. 
"Your mother and I need to talk about this," I said.  She slumped back,
looking dejected.  Lynne's gaze was full of emotion.  I wasn't sure what
kind, but she didn't look unhappy.

   "Want to go for a walk?" I asked her.

   Chapter Nine

   Jill looked so desolate that I finally told her she could come too, but
had to follow us at a distance until we had talked things out.  That meant
she dawdled fifty yards behind us as Lynne and I walked down the driveway
to her house and then along the road.  I mean a decision had to be made,
and Jill would find out about it one way or another, so making her wait
back at the house would have just been mean.

   I was proud of myself for being able to think in a rational manner in
this kind of bizarre, freaky situation.  And believe me, I knew it was
bizarre and freaky.

   "If I didn't know better I'd think this was all some kind of setup," I
said.

   "I did not intend to fall into bed with you, Bob MacAllister!" snapped
Lynne.

   "I believe that," I said.  "Because while I dreamed about it, I didn't
plan to try to GET you in bed."

   "You dreamed about it?" her voice was a lot lighter in tone.  Then she
frowned.  "Jill says that sometimes you looked at her the same way you
looked at me.  It made her feel ...  good."

   It was way past time to try to hide anything any more.  So I got it all
out in one long speech.

   "When I came here," I started, "I was hurting.  You were too.  We helped
each other.  I liked it here.  I liked you and I liked Jill.  I wasn't
looking for anything romantic, and this was the perfect place for me.  I
don't think I could have lucked into a better place to get my head
straight." I took a breath.  She wasn't frowning any more.  "OK, so here I
am ...  on this ranch with two interesting women, who I get closer to than
just about anybody else I ever knew.  We work together and live together
and I see Jill grow up, and I see you every day.  Both of you are beautiful
women, Lynne.  It was inevitable that I'd see that some day ...  pay
ATTENTION to that ...  once I was healed of the hurt.  I didn't PLAN to
start looking at you as women.  It just happened.  And when Jill started
asking questions I thought about things.  It's been a long time for me
since I thought about love, and sex and all those things.  And when I
started thinking about them again ...  I mean you two were right there ...
and I love you both ...  and it was just impossible for me not to think
about you that way.  I'm a MAN, Lynne.  We can't HELP how we think
sometimes!" I shrugged helplessly.  "But I didn't think anything was
actually going to happen."

   "But something DID happen," she said, somewhat needlessly.

   "Yes," I said.  But it wasn't planned.  It was just coincidence that it
was prom night and that you had some brandy and ..."

   "I've had a crush on you for a long time too, Bob," she interrupted. 
"What's coincidence is that last night you were talking about being able to
love two women, and that this morning there are two women who are
interested in being loved by you."

   "Really?" I know I sounded a little breathy.

   "I don't just haul any old man into my bed, Bob," she said.  She
blinked. "I didn't mean that like it sounded," she said.  "I don't think of
you as old.  What I meant was ..."

   "I know what you meant," I said.  "That's one reason I was pretty sure
I'd never be there myself."

   "And," she said softly, "While last night didn't happen the way I might
have envisioned it in a fantasy ...  let's just say I felt very optimistic
...  until she caught us."

   "I didn't have time to do much thinking," I admitted.  "But I know I'm
not sorry.  You might not know it from the way I acted - I mean things were
kind of crazy - but I really do care about you."

   "I know that," she said.  "That's why that happened.  It wasn't the
booze, Bob.  You had a chance to take advantage of me and you didn't.  It
just confirmed in my mind what I've known for years - you're a good man and
I like you a lot, Bob."

   "So what do we do?" I asked.

   She walked on for a few steps, silently.  "What you said the other day
...  about loving more than one person at the same time ...  keeps running
through my mind.  I love my daughter.  And I also know what it feels like
to be in love with a man.  I didn't think I'd ever feel it again, but
you're banging down the door, Bob.  I have VERY strong feelings for you. 
As a woman myself, I fully understand how my daughter can have wants and
needs, but as a mother I care a great deal about who she explores them
with." She stopped.

   "I get all that," I said, not knowing what else to say.

   "Maybe if you gave her a little of what she thinks she wants, she could
work through this crush she has on you."

   I looked at her.  "You know you're completely insane," I said.  "No
mother arranges for her daughter to become sexually involved with the man
her mother is sexually involved with."

   "I know," she sighed.  "But I DO love both of you.  And you already said
you love both of us."

   "That's not quite how I meant it," I said.

   She looked at me.  "You said you've fantasized about me."

   "Yes."

   "Have you fantasized about her too, Bob?"

   How do you answer a question like that?  You try not to, that's how.

   "That's different," I said.

   "Oh?  And how is that different?  Did you ever think about being in bed
with me, naked, before last night?"

   "Yes!" I said.

   "And did you ever think about being in bed with Jill?  Naked?  Doing
what we did?"

   "Damn," I moaned.

   "Just tell the truth, Bob."

   "OK.  You KNOW I did, or you wouldn't be asking the question."

   "So both of us want to make love with you ...  and you want to make love
with both of us."

   "That's just not normal," I said.  "I mean every man, at some time in
his life, would have to say yes to wanting that scenario ...  but it just
doesn't happen!  It's not normal!"

   "I care about my daughter.  I care about who she experiments with.  I
also care about you, and I obviously care about me," said Lynne.  "Believe
me, I've been in agony, because it looked for all the world like I had to
choose between you and Jill.  I don't WANT to choose between you and Jill.
And I don't care if it's normal or not, but this solution means I don't
HAVE to choose between you and Jill."

   "Man!" I said, explosively.  I didn't know how to feel.  Men lust after
multiple women all the time, but nobody ever gives them permission to. 
It's just a weird place to find yourself in.

   "I'm amazed," said Lynne, "that you're so intelligent that you could
reduce the sum of all women's problems to just one word." She smiled wanly
at me, and then turned around.  Cupping her hands around her mouth, she
called to her daughter, who was fifty yards behind us: "He agreed!"

   ==================================

   Jill looked like her favorite football team had just won the Super Bowl
as she ran, jumping and leaping and screaming toward us.  She hopped up on
me, hanging and trying to kiss me.

   "Don't hurt him!" yelled Lynne.

   Jill let herself down and managed to find my lips with hers.  It was a
frenzied and hurried kiss, but she tasted good, like strawberries or
something.

   "Don't get too excited!" snapped Lynne.  "The agreement is that, WHEN
YOU'RE EIGHTEEN, he will do what you ask."

   "But mom!" Jill sounded tragic.  "That's two whole months away!"

   "When you're eighteen!" said Lynne sharply.  "I will not let you put him
in a position where he could get in trouble with the law.  That wouldn't
help anybody."

   "Oh all right!" said Jill, stamping her foot.

   The period of my life that I call "the funhouse years" started then and
there, as we walked back to the house.  I held hands with both women as we
strolled along.  The day before I had no women in my life, sexually.

   Today I had two, at least in theory.

   The male in me wanted to howl to the winds ...  to let all the other
males know that these two were mine ...  that I had the beginnings of my
harem.

   ======================================

   Now, I know what some of you out there are thinking.  That would be the
men, because I rarely, if ever know what a woman is thinking.  Anyway, the
men out there are thinking something like this: "Sweeeeet!  TWO chicks and
ONE guy!  Oh man, it's pussy nirvana.  Things could NOT be better."

   Not even, guys.  I suspect if you could find any Mormons who would admit
to having multiple wives, they'd tell you the same story I'm about to.  And
that is that, no matter how well they get along, two women who share the
same man compete.

   And now I hear some testosterone-soaked guy out there saying "Sweeeet!
They're FIGHTING over him.  He doesn't even have to TRY to get pussy!"

   But that's not the way it was.  Not for me, anyway.

   Of course part of that was because, technically, I wasn't screwing two
women.  I wasn't even screwing one woman.  I HAD screwed one of them, but
as yet there had not been a return engagement with Lynne ...  never mind
her own statement that there were two women who wanted to be loved by me.

   What we had was a weird situation that formerly completely normal people
were trying to adjust to.  Lynne and I had engaged in a torrid, ill-planned
spontaneous coupling that had generated interest for more, but we hadn't
had time to adjust to our new relationship.  Then Jill had inserted herself
into the equation, which was now probably the equivalent of calculus while
I was stuck down in algebra.  And I didn't even need the algebra for my tax
business!

   Jill, on the other hand, was like a colt who's been in the barn for days
and knows there's a lush pasture outside, perfect for frolicking in, if
only somebody would open the damn barn door.

   It was May, and Jill's birthday wasn't until July.  Her birthday came
right in the middle of apple harvest, which normally meant there wasn't
much time to pay attention to it.  Harvest left everybody involved dead on
their feet at the end of each day.

   Jill was well aware of that, so she tried to get as much mileage out of
me as she could without breaking the rules before her birthday.

   What that meant was that within that same week she started wearing less
and less around in the evenings.  As a family we didn't watch a lot of TV,
but there was generally one TV show each night that somebody in the house
wanted to see.  The rest of us usually sat in and watched too.  Jill got
some new sleepwear, which meant she altered her old sleepwear.  Now her
sleep T shirt was cut off right at her belly button.  Her summer time
pajama bottoms, which were old and paper thin anyway, had always revealed
the imprint of panties under them.  Not so any longer.

   She'd come in, plop down next to me on the couch and snuggle up, rubbing
herself all over me.  There was never a bra under that crop top T shirt. 
Her hand invariably landed on my thigh, inches from my penis ...  which
invariably thickened, at a minimum and sometimes swelled to full erection.
She would giggle about the erection and whisper in my ear "Did I do that?"
Once Lynne, who was sitting on the other side of me, also pressing a
braless breast against my arm, heard her and said "No, I did.  If you'll
remember, you're not old enough to yet."

   Meanwhile, during the day, my interaction with Lynne was quite different
than it had been before.  We exchanged hugs now, and they weren't
necessarily little quick "Hi!  I like you!" hugs.  There was some grinding
going on, and some kissing.  And some erections developed then too.

   I quit trying to hide those erections.  I mean ...  what was the point?

   One night Jill and I were the only ones watching TV.  She turned around,
lay across my lap, and promptly kissed me on the lips.  She was fun to
kiss, so I kissed her with gusto.  I'll admit it.  I was ready for her
birthday too.  So sue me.

   When Lynne came into the room I had my hand all over Jill's chest while
we kissed.

   "Knock it off you two!" barked Lynne.  "You know the rules!"

   "It's just kissing," moaned Jill.

   "I saw a lot more than kissing going on," grumbled Lynne.

   "You are no fun!" complained Jill.

   "If I was no fun I wouldn't have agreed to this cockamamie deal in the
first place!" yelled Lynne.

   That cooled our ardor a bit.  At least for a while.

   Jill pushed the limits by trying to twist things.  One night my arm was
draped over Jill's shoulders and she took my hand and just slid it right up
under her shirt, where of course my hand cupped a warm teenage breast and
tweaked a hard teenage nipple.

   "I thought I told you that kind of thing was off limits!" barked Lynne
as she walked into the room carrying a big bowl of popcorn.

   "I just had an itch," said Jill blandly.  "I used Bob's finger to
scratch it, that's all."

   "Well if visitors look through the window and see you using Bob's finger
to scratch your itches, he'll get thrown in jail.  Is that what you want?"

   Apparently seeing her daughter pursuing her desires had some effect on
Lynne.  That night, probably close to midnight, while I was reading, my
bedroom door eased open and Lynne walked in barefoot.  She had on a long T
shirt.

   "I have an itch that needs scratching," she whispered.  She was flushed
and already panting.  When she lifted the shirt over her head, she was
naked.  She stood there, letting me look her over, which I did gladly.  It
was actually the first good look at her naked body I'd gotten.  The only
thing I had on was my boxers, which I pushed down.  I felt like an
exhibitionist as I showed her what she did to me.

   We were like teenagers.  It was wild.  There was all this fumbling and
neither of us seemed to know what to do for the other.  I swear I felt
fifteen.  But we weren't so rushed on this night, and we whispered to each
other a few times, guiding ...  suggesting ...  asking.  I remembered that
a woman on top has mover fun, sometimes, than a woman on the bottom, so I
pulled her over on top of me.  When she slid down on me she closed her eyes
and groaned as if the world was settling on her shoulders.  Then, once
fully impaled, her eyes opened and she stared down at me.

   "I was sure this would never happen," she sighed.  "I'm so glad it has."

   Then she made the bed springs squeak and sing as she rode me to an
orgasm.  She stifled herself by biting the pad of skin below her thumb. 
When she finally relaxed and lay down on my chest she was still gasping for
air.

   "You have no idea how much I loved that," she sighed.

   Then it was my turn.  I rolled us over and began slowly rodding her. 
She whispered little things to me.  "Yes ...  I love that ...  you feel so
good in me ...  oh keep going." They weren't nasty or crude, but they
inflamed me, because she made it clear she loved having my prick in her. 
She WANTED me, and she wanted me THERE.

   Just before I spurted, the errant thought swept through my mind that a
woman who didn't date, and hadn't had sex in years (to my knowledge,) might
not be on the pill.  Then, before I could ask her, the ecstasy was on me
and I was pushing deep while my penis joyously spat jolts of semen into my
lover's depths.

   In the aftermath, amongst kisses and rubbing hands, her teeth caught my
ear lobe and held on until I stopped moving.  She let it go, flicked her
tongue at my ear, and whispered "Don't ever stop doing this to me."

   Jill behaved herself when her mother was around, but if Lynne was off
doing something, like busy in her sewing room, Jill got as much out of her
absence as she could.  Twice she bared a breast to me and once I sucked
quickly at a nipple.  We were both giddy, like kids trying to get away with
sexual behavior without getting caught by the parents.

   Which was true, come to think of it.

   Within a month Jill was an expert French kisser and knew, when she let
her hand drift to the front of my pants, that she'd find a boner there.

   She always giggled proudly about that.

   Chapter Ten

   In the middle of June there was a day that was unseasonably hot.  Lynne
had found a buyer who would take truckloads of apples to make cider out of,
which meant we were going to have to expand the harvest to three times what
we had done in years past.  The cider customer wanted three varieties,
which was no problem except that all three varieties chosen were in
different parts of the orchard.

   About half the trees in the orchard hadn't been pruned in years.  The
fruit on them hadn't been harvested anyway, so they had been let go because
there just wasn't enough time to deal with them.  As a result the apples on
those trees were smaller than optimum.  There was also a lot of dead wood,
and some of the trees were in peril of dying.  If we were going to expand
into those areas, then we needed to start doing something with the pruning
schedule.  It would mean hiring extra help, but the increase in harvest
would more than compensate for that.

   Lynne went along with a can of fluorescent paint and marked the trees
that had dead wood or damage in them that needed immediate care.  Jill and
I got to work, trying to get as much done as possible before the picking
started.  There would be a larger than normal crew of high schoolers this
year, and the most promising of them would be offered part time work
outside picking season.

   We broke for lunch, which was sandwiches, chips and fruit juice.

   "I'm going into town for some things," said Lynne.  "Anybody need
anything?"

   "You could bring me an advance on my birthday," said Jill.

   "Right," said Lynne.  "You can wait another month."

   "It's thirty-eight days," said Jill.

   "You can wait thirty eight more days," said her mother.

   "It's not fair," said Jill.  "You're not waiting." She looked at us
both. "I heard you last night."

   Lynne's cheeks got pink.  "It's not my fault I'm already old enough,"
she said defensively.

   "I'm so horny!" complained Jill.

   "Jill!" moaned Lynne, who still wasn't used to her daughter being so
open about things sexual.  It had been a month, but none of us had really
adjusted completely.  Of course things were still in a state of flux, to
some degree.  I was doing better, though, because I was playing with them
both, sexually.  I went much further with Lynne, of course, but the mood
was there with Jill.

   "You know how to masturbate," I said calmly.  "Isn't that what you did
before we made this deal?"

   "Bob!" moaned both Lynne and Jill together.  In their world people just
didn't talk about masturbation openly.

   Which I thought was a hoot, since these two women had negotiated whether
or not I'd get to pop Jill's cherry when she turned eighteen.

   ====================================

   After lunch Jill said she had something to do, and for me to go on back
to the orchard to continue pruning.

   "I'll be there in a few," she said.

   I went ahead and waved at Lynne as she drove by in a cloud of dust.  I
worked on one tree that I wasn't sure could be saved.  There was a split
down low where two main branches met, and the injury went a good foot down
into the trunk.  Maybe it could be pulled together up above with a cable
and then wrapped to keep insects and water out.  It might grow back
together and we had nothing to lose if it didn't.  I'd need Jill to help
me, though, so I went looking for her.  I called her name and she yelled
back.

   I followed the sound of her voice and found her standing five feet above
me, sawing off a dead branch.  She had changed clothes after lunch, and was
now, for some reason, wearing a denim skirt and a bikini top.  The way she
was standing made it easy to see her white panties.

   "Nice view," I said, smiling.

   "Dirty old man," she said mischievously.

   "All men like to see a girl's panties," I said.

   "My mother would probably not approve," she said.

   "You're probably right," I agreed.

   She held onto a branch with one hand and reached under her skirt to push
the panties off one hip.  Then she changed hands and pushed them off the
other hip.  Once down to her knees, she lifted one foot, pulled it out and
let the panties drop to her ankle.  She used one foot to kick off the
tennis shoe that was on that foot and I jumped out of the way as the shoe
landed right beside me.  The panties floated down and caught on a twig
above my head.  Her other shoe barely missed me too, but I didn't care,
because she held her legs apart.

   "Can't tell Mom you could see my panties any more," she said.

   "Careful, girl," I said, my voice husky.  "You could get yourself into
trouble.

   "Gee," she said brightly.  She climbed down two branches until her feet
were on a branch that was even with my shoulders.  "Ya think so?"

   "Oh Jill," I sighed.  She had such a pretty pussy.  She'd trimmed it at
some point, maybe to go with the bottoms of the bikini top she was wearing.
I knew she'd gone swimming in a lake nearby with some of her friends, but
the water was only warm enough to do that during July, so I didn't see her
in that suit often.

   "I'm SOOOOO horny, Bob," she moaned.

   The hand holding her skirt up slid down and one long, slim finger split
her labia and slid inside her.

   "I don't want to just ...  masturbate," she whined.

   "Oh baby," I groaned.

   "Nobody can see us," she said.  "Mom's gone."

   "We're supposed to wait," I moaned.

   "Do you want to wait?  'Cause I don't."

   "Don't tempt me like this," I groaned.

   "Tiffany Roberts said her boyfriend ...  um ...  went down on her.  She
said it was marvelous.  Can you at least do that for me?"

   Well shit.  Her mother WAS gone, after all.

   =========================================

   I don't know if Jill was wise enough in the ways of men to know how
incapable we are of controlling our urges, or not.  If she wasn't, she
found out ...  the hard way.

   I did dive into that muff and tried to suck the pearl out of her oyster.
She almost fell out of the tree, which was how we ended up on the thick
grass under the tree.  Her bikini top came off, somehow, and I couldn't
make up my mind whether to suck her nipples off, or suck her pussy instead.
I did both ...  extensively.

   And it might have been OK except that she was just as loud and
appreciative of all this as her mother.  They had the same vocal chords,
which just made my whole body glow with sexual heat.

   Which led to me deciding to jack off, which led to me kneeling between
her spread thighs, jerking furiously on my meat, while she came up and
rested on her elbows, staring.  And when she reached and slid a finger in
her pussy again, and I realized that could be my prick instead of her
finger ...  well, there wasn't much she could do once I sank down on top of
her.

   Not that she fought.  Well not at first.  I was a little eager, perhaps.
She was nice and wet, and there was no hymen to break, but having her pussy
channel stuffed with full sized man prick for the first time was still a
shock to her system.

   "OWWWWWW," she complained in my ear as I wiggled my way deep in her teen
pussy.  "It's not supposed to hurt!"

   "Oh shit," I said, as I sobered up instantly.  I pushed up off her and
pulled out.  There was a wet sucking sound as I did that.  She came back up
on her elbows and we both stared at her pussy lips.  They were flushed and
thick, but otherwise looked just like they had.

   "I'm not bleeding," she panted.

   "I'm really sorry," I said.  "I should have taken my time.  It wouldn't
have hurt so much if I'd have been more gentle."

   "Well then be more gentle!" she gasped as her head went back down on the
grass.

   I sucked her nipples for a while, until she relaxed and started
murmuring happily, and then started working it into her again.  She
stiffened, but I just took my time, pushing a little and then letting off.
Finally her hips jerked up.

   "Stop teasing me," she moaned.

   So I fed her a little ...  and then a little more ...  and then a little
more ...  until there was no more to feed her.  I honestly think that the
main difference was that this time she was expecting it.

   "Not so bad this time," she panted.

   Ten minutes later, as I slicked my prick in and out of her hot box, and
she made spastic thrusting motions with her hips, she wailed, and I knew
I'd done my duty.  It was high time too, because I was on a razor's edge.
Once she cried out like that, and her pussy started spasming around my
prick, I let go and hosed her down.  In the middle of that I wondered if
Lynne had put her on the pill yet or not, but I was too busy enjoying
spurting in her to worry about it.

   ====================================

   Jill was almost beside herself once we got ourselves decent again.  It
was half "I KNEW it would be wonderful!" and "Thank you SO much, Bob!" and
half "She'll KNOW we did it!" and "How do I look?  Can you tell we did it?"

   I just stood and looked at her.  I was going to be in trouble and I knew
it.  I think it was the first premonition I had that this having two women
thing might not be as great as I originally thought.

   Jill's prattle got on my nerves and I told her she looked fine, and that
nobody would be able to tell that she was no longer a virgin.  I told her
to calm down, and that we shouldn't have done it.

   "I don't feel bad," she said insistently.

   "Of course you don't," I said.  "But I do.  I agreed to a plan, and I
like to think I keep my word."

   "Well you'd have done it in thirty-eight days anyway," she argued.

   "And we just told your mother we'd wait those thirty-eight days.

   "No we didn't.  She just said we had to.  Neither of us agreed."

   "Do you EVER want to do that again with me?" I asked, getting angry.

   "Of course!" She sounded injured.

   "Well then you'd better start figuring out how to stay on program,
because that's the only way this whole crazy idea is going to work out.  If
your mother gets riled up, she may just kick me out, once and for all."

   "Don't get mad.  I just couldn't wait," whined Jill.

   "You want to be an adult," I sighed.  "I get that.  But you have to ACT
like an adult too."

   "OK," she sighed.  "I will."

   "It's a little late now," I groused.

   "I promise not to ask you to do that again before my birthday," she
said.

   "And quit teasing me at night," I said.

   "All right." She sounded like it would be tragic to be required not to
rest her hand half an inch from my cock while we watched TV.

   "And don't complain when your mother and I make love."

   "How come YOU get to have sex, but I don't?" she asked.  Her hand went
to cover her mouth.  "Sorry," she said.

   "I'll make it worth the wait," I said.

   "How?" she asked, immediately interested.

   "I'll make it better next time," I promised.

   "It can be better than that?" Her eyes went round.

   "Trust me," I said, a lot more confidently than I should have.  "I'll
rock your boat."

   "Oooooo," she sighed.  "I can hardly WAIT!" She looked shocked, and then
contrite.  "I'm sorry," she said.  "I WILL wait ...  but I'm going to be
looking forward to it a lot."

   "Me too," I said.  I wanted to take her in my arms and kiss her.

   I resisted.

   Chapter Eleven

   Jill helped me mend the cracked trunk, and then we worked separately,
but within calling distance of each other.  Lynne didn't suspect a thing
when she got home.  Both Jill and I managed to get through supper without
giving ourselves away.  Jill wore sports shorts and a full T shirt while we
watched TV that night.

   One reason Lynne might not have noticed was that, while she was in town,
she did a little extra shopping ...  for herself.  She'd gotten rid of her
sexy lingerie when her husband died, because it reminded her of wearing it
for him and it was too painful.  While she was shopping, though, she saw
some slinky things and associated them with me, instead of Paul.  That let
her get a few things to wear for me.

   That evening she came to my room wearing one of her new purchases.  That
first night, when she "showed me her panties" seemed to have established
some kind of ritual, because panties was all she wore to my room that
night. They were red, with black bows on them and a little black satin
heart worked into the design right over the top of her pussy lips.

   "I got these today," she said softly.  "Do you think they go with my
hair?"

   "Oh man," I sighed.  "They go with everything."

   "You're just horny," she accused.

   "Uh huh," I said, exposing my erection to her.

   "I suppose you want to put that thing inside me," she sighed.

   "Uh huh," I said again.

   "You know, I didn't plan on all this, when I let you move into the
house."

   "Me either," I said.  She was just standing there, looking beautiful and
delicious.  I had to reach for my bone and squeeze it.

   "What are you doing?" she asked.  "I believe that's my job."

   "You're standing way over there," I explained.

   "If I come over there you're going to try to stick that in me," she
said.

   "Uh huh," I admitted, grinning.

   "And you'll mess up my brand new, special panties," she pouted.

   "Not if you take them off," I said.

   "I thought you liked them." She pouted some more as she took a step
towards me and her thumbs went to the waistband of the panties.

   "I do," I said.  "I'll still like them when they're draped over the back
of that chair right there too."

   "You're just horny," she said, sliding the panties down and stepping out
of them.

   "Oh baby, you have no idea," I sighed.

   This was only the fifth time we'd made love.  Of course I would have
been ready any time, but I waited for her to decide when the time was
right. Part of the excitement, for me, was knowing she wanted me, and
letting her seek me out to set that up.

   But I hadn't forgotten what had happened with her daughter that
afternoon.  It wasn't exactly guilt that made me think of it, but the two
women looked a lot alike.  Both had a spray of freckles that went from
cheek to cheek, across the bridge of the nose.  Both women had that
sun-kissed outdoors look.  Lynne's breasts were larger and heavier than
Jill's and her nipples were more squared off and thicker, but otherwise
their bodies were remarkably similar in shape.

   Because I was thinking about what I'd done with Jill, I took the time to
play for a while first.  Lynne and I had a tendency to get right down to
the main event.  I don't know why.  I certainly didn't THINK about getting
right to the best part.  When we came together there was just an urgency to
mate that drove us both.  But this time I pushed that urgency back.

   I moved over to let her lie down and got to my knees between hers as she
spread them.

   "Hurry," she panted.

   "Not tonight," I said.

   Then I dove my face into her pussy, determined to bring her off the
first time with my lips and tongue.

   ==================================

   We were having a heck of a good time, so much so that neither of us
really paid any attention to the amount of noise we were making.  Jill had
already told us she'd heard us making love before, but that had happened
during an argument, of sorts, which meant we might have discounted the
veracity of her comment.

   We probably shouldn't have.

   Lynne, it turned out, had never had her pussy sucked.  And, like most
women who experience that the first time, she wasn't aware that I wasn't an
expert at it.  Also, like most women, she decided that despite her initial
reservations, she liked it ...  a lot.

   She was very vocal about that, as it turned out.

   Jill, hearing what sounded to her like someone being tortured, got out
of bed, where she had been masturbating, remembering the feeling of my cock
in her pussy and, naked, tiptoed down the hallway to the door of my room.
She figured out along the way that it wasn't torture she was hearing, so
she wasn't scared when she got to my door.

   She was curious.

   So she cracked open the door and peeked inside.  The light was still on,
so she could see very well, and neither Lynne nor I had any attention to
spare to keeping an eye on the door.

   Lynne was currently wailing her way through her third orgasm from my
lips.  It turned out that she could have clitoral orgasms one right after
another, something she had never known.  And, what with her gasping so hard
for air and beating the covers beside her, I decided I'd better give her a
little break.  I got up on my knees and kept things nice and hard by
stroking my prick slowly.

   "I didn't know!" she gasped.  "I never knew!"

   "You like that, huh," I said smugly.  I wiped my face with the back of
my hand.  That wasn't nearly enough to dry it, but at least I didn't feel
like I was dripping any more.

   Lynne lifted her head.  "I want to do you."

   "Really?" I had had exactly one blow job in my entire life, and while it
had felt good, I hadn't cum during it.

   She got up while I lay down.  Neither of us noticed the door still open
a crack.

   "I've never done this," panted Lynne.

   "You don't have to, if you don't want to," I said, trying to sound
sincere.

   "I DO want to," she said.  "I'm nervous, but I want to try it."

   She approached things slowly.  She'd never spent any time actually
examining my penis.  As I said, prior to this we were both pretty much wham
bam thank you sir and ma'am kind of lovers.  Now, though, she spend half a
minute just looking at my prick.  With her thumb and two fingers she griped
the shaft and moved the foreskin off the head, exposing the crown.

   "Yours looks so different," she said softly.

   "You've seen a lot of them then?" I teased.

   She shot me a look.  "Two, thank you," she said firmly.  She played with
the foreskin, sliding it over and off the knob several times.  "So do I
just put it in my mouth?"

   "I've never done it," I said.  She looked at me sharply.  "Well I
haven't!" I said.  "How am I supposed to know what to tell you?"

   "But you've had it done ...  right?"

   "Once," I said.  "And that was a long time ago and I was Jill's age, so
I don't remember all that much about it."

   "OK," she said.

   Without further ado she opened her mouth wide, put it over the top half
of my cock and then closed it.  I felt her teeth immediately and asked her
to be careful about that.  I don't know what the "natural" urge is when you
have something long and with the texture of a male erection in your mouth,
but her instinct was to collapse her cheeks and suck gently.  She also
fluttered her tongue, as if she were trying to move a piece of gum around
in her mouth.

   "Oh yeah!" I gasped.  "I think you got the hang of it already."

   ====================================

   I'm hypothesizing now, but I don't think I could be too far off, in
terms of guessing what happened, based on the few facts that are known.  So
I'll just describe it like I think it happened.

   Duke, having knocked Snow White up good and proper, had swaggered around
the farm ever since.  Snow White knew a good thing when she found it, and
just stayed with us.  She had enough stray in her that she preferred to
sleep in the barn, rather than come in and submit to the requirements of
being an inside dog.  Not so with Duke.  He loved the attention he got when
he was inside, as well as having his own nice soft bed to sleep on.

   That said, he didn't avoid his duties as the Alpha male of the pack,
which is how he thought of himself.  He slept on his nice soft bed, but
made sure he got up two or three times a night to go out the dog door and
do his rounds.  He knew there were raccoons and coyotes and other uninvited
interlopers out there, and he took looking for them seriously.

   And, each time he came back inside the house, he also took doing a quick
check of the house seriously too.

   Which is how he happened upon Jill, bent over ...  naked ...  peering
through the crack in the door of the Beta male of the house, which is how
Duke saw me.  Being a dog, his sense of smell was thousands of times better
than mine, which might be why he felt superior to me, though I sort of
doubt it.  His sense of smell, however, DID pick up the hot and heavy scent
of Jill's dripping pussy and, while it didn't smell like Snow White's
pussy, it WAS an interesting odor ...  and one well worth exploring
further.

   Duke promptly stuck his very cold nose against Jill's very warm and wet
pussy ...  snorted ...  and gave a lick to see what things tasted like.

   ===============================

   The first we knew that Jill was spying on us was when she came lurching
through the door with a rather terrifying scream.  Her hair was flying
wildly, and she was stark naked, which made it all the more interesting. 
At least for me.

   Duke followed her in the door, barking loudly, convinced that he had
just found some new and imminently fun game to play with the humans he took
care of.  Not the least of which was to keep licking Jill between the legs,
because that tasted pretty special to Duke.

   He nosed her again.

   Jill, who had just barely gotten her balance and was in the process of
coming to a stop, suddenly lurched forward again and, with an outraged
squawk climbed up on the bed, bulling past her mother, who with wide eyes
and a mouth to match, was holding onto my rampant prick, which was wet and
shiny ...  and cold ...  now that she was no longer sucking it.

   "BAD DOG!" screeched Jill.

   "What are you doing here?" shouted Lynne.

   I just lay there, admiring both naked women.

   There commenced a wrangling as can only be entered into and fully
participated in by two women.  A man wouldn't stand a chance, but two women
have the capability of twisting things and misdirecting and even ignoring
various indisputable truths while they argue.  Eventually it came out that
Jill had thought her mother was being killed, until it was clear that
wasn't the case, at which point Jill decided to hang around and learn
something, until Duke snuck up on her and tried (as far as she was
concerned,) to have sex with her.

   Lynne actually calmed down until suddenly she said "Ohhh.  Look what you
DID!" We all looked at her.  She was both looking and pointing at my penis,
which lay, flaccid and limp, on my abdomen.

   "I didn't do anything except escape from Duke!" said Jill stoutly.

   "Who would not have been able to bother you if you'd been in your bed,
where you belong!"

   And they were off again.  It was Jill's contention that if her MOTHER
had been in HER bed, where SHE belonged, there would have been no sounds of
murder, and Jill would have slept peacefully on.

   Lynne brought up the fact that Jill was naked, and that she knew Jill
did not SLEEP naked.

   They were on either side of me, arguing across me and, while I had
enjoyed just comparing their naked bodies, the tone and volume were getting
to me.  So I distracted each of them in turn by rolling over and sucking on
a nipple.  I did Jill first, and it got very very quiet, very very quickly.
I looked at Lynne.

   "I know what yours taste like.  I wondered if hers tasted the same. 
Just a sec."

   Then I sucked on Lynne's nipple.  She was nice enough to shudder before
she pushed me away.

   "Bob!" she yelped.

   "What?" I asked innocently.  "I'm not interested in arguing, so I found
something I thought would be fun to do.  I can't quite tell though.  I
think I need to compare again."

   I rolled toward Jill who, to her mother's disgust, did not impede my
progress as I latched onto her nearest nipple.

   "Mmmm I like that," she said."

   "Oh stop it!" snarled Lynne.  "You're just trying to break the rules."

   "I am not!" objected Jill.  "I really thought somebody was in pain.

   Duke jumped and put his front feet on the bed, which put his nose right
behind Lynne's back, right next to her buttocks.  Within about half a
second she was on the other side of me, holding on to her daughter.  Duke
barked happily.

   "See?" Jill sounded like she was completely vindicated.

   Chapter Twelve

   I think the turning point was when ...

   No.  Wait.  This whole story is full of turning points.  The
coincidences in our three lives had brought us to turning points dozens ...
hundreds ...  maybe thousands of times.  So there was no primary turning
point.

   So what I should have said was that one of the turning points I actually
saw and recognized AS a turning point, was when Lynne blinked, and kind of
stuttered: "We're all naked!"
Now I don't know if I, being a man, just got used to nudity a little
quicker than a woman would, or whether I just didn't want either woman to
cover up, seeing as how I was enjoying the view.  So I said "It's all

right. I've been thinking of becoming a nudist anyway."

   Lynne looked confused and her mouth opened and closed.

   "Well," I went on.  "It just seemed as how what with you two being my
women, if I become a nudist, of course you both will too.  So we can just
start practicing now." I smiled widely, as if I were proud of my
creativity.

   "On good grief!" yipped Jill.  "The guys at school are horrible and even
they aren't THAT bad!"

   "The guys at school don't know how to make their women behave," I said
sagely.

   Long story short, thirty seconds later I was being attacked and tickled
by two naked women which, I'm proud to say, was my whole objective in the
first place.

   Maybe I was going to be able to make this work after all.

   ===================================

   If I was one of those perverted horn dogs who writes erotica on the
internet, I'd probably say, right about in here somewhere, that after they
stopped tickling me, (mostly because I fought dirty and started goosing
them and pinching the good parts) that Lynne taught Jill how to give me a
blow job, and then relented and let me fuck Jill's metaphorical socks off.

   But of course that's not what happened.  What actually happened was that
Lynne stopped laughing and got down to negotiating.  Basically she said
that being interrupted was no fun, and that it wasn't polite.  Jill got all
shame-faced and promised not to spy any more.  I tried to get them both to
kiss me good night, so that I could cop some more feels, but they knew what
was up by then.  Jill wagged her naked ass at me and said "You have to wait
to touch this, you dirty old man!" Lynne just wagged her naked ass at me
and mouthed "I'll be back" when Jill wasn't looking.

   She did come back too, and she was a LOT better at this fellatio stuff
than that girl back in high school was, let me tell you.  She wasn't ready
for me to cum in her mouth, though, so when I told her I was about ready,
she just climbed on top of me, slotted my prick in her pussy, and sank down
on it just as I started spurting.

   "Ohhhhh," I groaned.  "I love this as much as you do."

   "No you don't," she said tensely, her eyes staring at my twisting face.

   I didn't understand the entirety of what she meant then ...  but I found
out later.

   ================================

   Things actually calmed down after what I called the 'Duke incident.'
Years later if one of them was complaining about something I'd ask "Is this
as bad as the Duke incident?" They'd usually smile, sigh, and say "I guess
not." Both women had to work together to break Duke of cold nosing them. 
Once he'd gotten a whiff, he seemed to want to get another one every so
often.

   Two weeks later our crew of twenty-five high school kids got together
for training.  They were a mixed lot of boys and girls.  They all went to
school together and knew each other.  Jill asked if she could call herself
the foreman, because she didn't want to compete with kids her age.  With
some trepidation Lynne agreed.  I was appointed the roving trouble shooter
and Lynne was referred to as "The owner."

   Jill actually handled herself very well.  She had graduated, and was no
longer a senior.  About a third of the pickers were in the same category,
but all they really cared about was making some spending money to take to
college with them in the fall, or whatever.  Jill showed them what to do
and then had each one try to pick as many apples as possible in five
minutes - correctly - which opened a lot of eyes when she told them how
many apples this crew would be expected to harvest over the three weeks
that we had arranged for the trucks to be there.  There were some sober
looks passed around, but nobody quit.

   The only glitch came when the first truck showed up and the driver said
his instructions were to collect the trucking fee up front.  Lynne called
the company and the guy she talked to said that was how they did business
unless the contract specified otherwise.  It was a low blow, because they
knew they had her over a barrel.  The problem was that her barrel was too
empty to pay for all the trucks that would be showing up.  Later, when her
customers paid, her cash flow situation would be great, but it was going to
break the bank to get the apples shipped.

   I had some money saved up from my tax business.  Lynne said she couldn't
take it, and when I argued she said it would mess up the relationships in
the house, which were already messed up enough (her words, not mine.)

   "Look at it as a simple short term loan.  I'll even charge you interest
if it will make you feel better."

   "I don't want to deal with this right now!" she moaned.

   "We need to send the trucks.  With my money we can do that.  It's a no
brainer," I said.

   "I don't want to borrow money from you!" she whined.

   "OK, then, sell me part of the business," I said.

   She had no choice, and didn't have either the time or patience to do the
numbers.  I suggested a ten percent stake.  She said that was OK for now,
but she'd have to figure out later what my input was really worth and she
insisted that I share in the profits.  I'd have said anything to get her to
accept, because I knew we were all screwed if that trucker left.

   After that, the actual harvest went fine.  The kids got better as they
got experience, and had no trouble filling the trucks.  When the inevitable
goofing off happened, Jill ruled with an iron fist, snarling when she had
to, but usually just reminding the offenders that they were wasting time.

   Lynne cooked, and meal times were wonderful, because all these kids
loved to eat and all of them knew great food when they got it.  Lynne, an
expert pie maker above all else, made fresh apple pies out of whatever
variety of apple was being picked that day, so that the pickers knew what
their work was going to boil down to, at least in some cases.  And, along
with their pay, the harvesters could take home as many apples as they
wanted for their parents to use fresh, or can or freeze.

   And ...  of course ...  Jill's eighteenth birthday came and went during
harvest.  There was a cake that day, and a lot of whooping and hollering,
but that was it, except that I got a good night kiss from Jill that was a
bell ringer.

   "I'll be SO glad when harvest is over," she murmured into my lips.

   "Me too," I said, squeezing her butt.  "And for the same reason as you."

   She smiled at me coyly, ground her loins against mine, and then said
"I'm going to bed.  I'm bushed."

   "You going to bed alone?" I asked.

   "Yes," she sighed.  "I already told Mom I'm going to wait until harvest
is over.  I want to have time to enjoy it, and be able to wake up with you
in the morning and enjoy it again."

   "If you change your mind, let me know," I said.

   "Mom's scared that once I get you in bed she'll never see you again. 
She won't admit it, but I know that's what she thinks.  So go make her
happy tonight.  Tell her it's my birthday present to her, on my birthday."

   "I don't think that's how it's supposed to work," I said, grinning.

   "She ...  and you ...  are giving me the best present a girl could get,"
said Jill.  "I have very strong feelings for you, Bob, and a girl doesn't
often get to explore sex with the man she adores ...  guilt free ...  with
no worry about consequences.  I know how lucky I am."

   She gave me another quick kiss and then went off to bed.

   I didn't think about the part of her next to last sentence ...  the part
about not worrying about consequences ...  until I was in bed with her
mother, lunging deep and ready to cum.  I suddenly thought of that word:
consequences.

   "Are you on the pill?" I panted.

   Lynne lunged up at me.  She liked it hard.  "Fine time to ask," she
panted back.

   "Are you?" I asked.

   "Don't ruin it for me, Bob," she moaned.  "I'm almost there."

   "I am too," I groaned.

   "Do you hear me yelling at you to pull out?"

   "No."

   "All right then.  Now kiss me while I cum!"

   I kissed her, and jetted her full of another dose of my semen.  I hadn't
counted, but I had to have done this a dozen times by now.  She was right.
I had waited a mite long to ask her a very important question.

   =========================================

   The last truck rolled out of the driveway at five in the evening.  Lynne
gathered everybody together.

   "Great job, guys," she said.  "You didn't just set a new record this
year.  You blew the old one to smithereens.  You picked a heck of a lot of
apples, and I'm proud of you."

   There wasn't as much whooping and hollering as I thought there would be.
Maybe they were as tired as I was.

   Lynne hadn't known whether the last truck would be gone before supper or
not, so she cooked, just to be safe.  The kids all stayed, glad they could
take their time to eat good food for once.  They sat or stood in small
groups around the back porch.  Jill and I sat together.  After Lynne made
sure everybody had what they wanted, she came and sat to eat with us.

   "So what are you two going to do tonight?" she asked, casually.

   Jill stopped eating and stared at her mother.

   "You promised," she said accusingly.

   "I'm not changing my mind," said Lynne, blushing.

   "Then why did you ask?" Jill was still wary.  I just kept my mouth shut.
Well, except for eating.

   Lynne threw up her hands.  "I don't know.  What's a mother SUPPOSED to
do when she know her daughter is going to do something like that?"

   "I don't know," said Jill.  "Go ask somebody whose daughter got married
and went on her honeymoon."

   "You're not marrying Bob," said Lynne.  She suddenly went rigid.  "Are
you?"

   That created an interesting reaction.  Well it WAS an interesting
reaction, but the reaction in Jill was interesting too.

   "I don't think so," said Jill.  It was obvious she'd given this some
thought.  "It all depends."

   "On what?" Lynne and I said it at the same time.  It was almost
humorous."

   "Well he haven't asked me for one thing," she said, obviously to us
both. "And there's still college.  What if I meet some handsome young stud
and fall head over heels for him or something?"

   Lynne's face clouded up.  "Bob's affections are not something to toy
with, young lady!" she snapped.

   "I'm not toying with him," said Jill.  "I just want him to be my first.
That doesn't mean I want to marry him.  It also doesn't mean I DON'T want
to marry him.  Isn't all this a little fast, Mom?  If I said I wanted to
marry him you'd go ballistic.  Am I wrong about that?"

   "Why are we having this conversation?" shouted Lynne.

   "Because you started it!" shouted Jill.  The kids in the yard looked on
interestedly.

   "Quiet down, both of you," I said softly.  "You're making a scene."

   They looked around and both looked abashed.  I decided to put my own
opinion on the table.

   "I haven't asked either of you to marry me because I think you're both
insane, and that some day one or the other of you will come to your senses
and begin acting normally.  That one will probably run as far and as fast
as she can away from me.  Then I'll probably marry the other one."

   They both looked at me with surprise on their faces.

   "You'd marry us?" Jill asked.

   "Not both of you, silly," I said.  "That's illegal."

   "Yes, I know, but if you could ...  would you?"

   "Didn't you hear what I just said?" I'm not going to ask either of you."

   Lynne hopped back in.

   "But if we both wanted to marry you ...  and you COULD marry us both
..." She stopped, but the question was obvious.

   "If you're asking if I could choose between you, I'd have to say no," I
said.  "But just to remind you of what I said earlier, think about the
question you just asked.  I'm telling you, all THREE of us are as nuts as
an almond plantation.

   "Maybe," said Jill, putting her plate down on the porch.  "But a deal is
a deal and suddenly I'm not as hungry as I thought I was.  I need a bath."
She stood up and then looked at me.  "You need a bath too, Bob," she said
pointedly.

   Then she took my hand and pulled me into the house.

   Chapter Thirteen

   Having talked about doing this was one thing.  Making a plan to do this
was one thing.  Cheating on that plan in secret was one thing.

   But going into that bathroom, knowing that Lynne was out there, and that
she knew what was going to happen ...  well it was just about bizarre
enough that I almost couldn't perform.

   Well, maybe saying I "almost couldn't perform" is a bit of an
overstatement.  I stood there in the bathroom thinking about Lynne and
watched Jill get naked.  She ignored me and bent over to turn on and adjust
the water in the tub.  In the process she was required to lift one leg and
"accidentally" show me her pussy.  It was very amateurish, but I didn't
laugh at her.  She finally turned around and looked at me.

   "If I didn't know better I'd think you didn't want to do this," she
said, some pout in her voice.

   "Not at all," I said.  I wasn't hard, and I was afraid to show her I
wasn't hard.  That was the point at which I was worried I might not be able
to do this.

   "Oh," she said, as if she had just thought of something.  "I get it."

   I wondered what she "got" until she stepped up and started undressing
me. I smiled.  She thought I was being coy.

   "I'm going to wear you out tonight," she said softly, almost as if she
were talking to one of the buttons she was undoing.  "I'm going to fuck you
until you can't walk," she added.  She pushed the shirt off my shoulders
and leaned forward to kiss my chest.

   Gone was the amateur.  This was a horny woman who somehow, despite
having no experience, knew exactly what she was doing.

   She sank down to her knees and undid my pants, dragging them down.  I
was surprised to see an almost completely hard penis leap out into the
bathroom air.

   "There he is!" she cooed.  "There's my baby, who I waited so long for
and so almost patiently.  Did you miss me?" She leaned forward to press
soft, warm lips against the tip of my cock.

   "Yes," I whispered.  "I missed you a lot."

   Still looking at my prick she smiled.  "I'm going to suck you dry later.
But I'm going to let you fuck me first.  Would you like that, handsome
boy?"

   "Oh yeah," I sighed.

   She stood up and turned off the water.  The tub was about a third full.
She felt the water with her hand.

   "Too hot," she sighed.  "Oh well, I wasn't going to be able to wait
anyway.  We'll have to let it cool a little bit."

   With that she sat up on the counter by the sink and pulled her heels up
to rest on the edge.  She leaned back against the mirror and shivered as
her back hit the cold glass.  She spread her knees apart in the most erotic
pose I could imagine.

   "I need an orgasm, Bob," she complained.

   ======================================

   It was about two minutes after I had walked up to that counter and slid
my prick into her pussy that I realized I was in deep ...  deep trouble. 
That's because there were some feelings she had to work through associated
with being made to wait for this.

   "Don't you dare cum in me," she panted as I rodded her with long,
delicious strokes.  "You'll go soft, and I want you very, very hard for a
while yet."

   "I'll do my best," I said, my voice tight.  The truth was I was already
thinking about cumming.

   "And besides," she said.  "It just worked out that the end of harvest is
my most fertile time, so if you cum in me I might get all pregnant."

   That stopped me.  "What?" I croaked.  "I thought your mother was going
to put you on the pill."

   "She did, but I keep forgetting to take them.  If I'd have been able to
go to bed with you before this, I might have remembered more often.  It's
not my fault.  This is all new to me."

   "Shit, Jill," I moaned.  "What am I supposed to do?"

   "Just keep going," she said, clasping me with her pussy, using muscles I
didn't think she even knew existed.  "I'm almost there.  Don't stop."

   So I bit my tongue and thought of tigers clawing my balls and kept going
until she had what I would later call a class two orgasm, that is one that
was honest, and happy, but only loud enough to be heard in the next room.
It was full of sounds that weren't quite words, but involved the same
muscles and vocal chords as words did.

   And it was a sound that made me want very badly to inseminate her.

   "Don't cum!" she squealed in the middle of it.

   I actually had to reach down and clamp off my prick to keep it from
spurting, but I was still able to move it in and out of her.  I leaned
forward to suck a nipple too, just to add some stimulation.  She liked
that. I could tell.

   As she calmed down I thought again of Lynne, and imagined her standing
outside the bathroom door, looking worried.  I was able to let go of my
dick then.  Even though I hadn't cum, I was losing the full hard that had
just serviced the birthday girl.  She didn't seem to mind.  In fact, she
pushed me away from her and got down off the counter, rubbing her butt.

   "That's not very comfortable," she commented as she got into the tub. 
"Come one, I want you to wash me."

   Ten minutes later, sitting behind her in the tub, I had another boner,
hot water or no hot water.  She was practically writhing against me.  I had
elected to fingerfuck her under the pretense of washing her pussy and she
liked that too.  Pretty soon she stood up, turned around and, as if she had
practiced it a hundred times, stepped over my shoulder with her right leg,
which basically brought the pussy I had just been probing to my face.  She
held on to the towel bar and started grinding it against my mouth.

   She got nasty.  That's the only way I can describe it.  It was SO far
from what I would have expected from her, and so NEAR to the way her mother
could act, that I just HAD to think of it as a genetic trait.

   "Suck my pussy!" she hissed.  "Get your tongue up in there, Bob.  Come
on.  Suck my clitty and get me off.  Come on, Bob, push it deep, Bob.  Oh
yeah, that's it ...  that's where your prick is going to be in a little
bit. It's going to be fucking me again, Bob.  Your great big grown up prick
is going to be up in there, wanting to spurt and make a baby in me.  Ooooo,
I love this.  SUCK ME!"

   That looks like it was an unbroken report on what she said, but it's
just the highlights, kind of all mooshed together like they do with sports
highlights.  The hand that wasn't holding the towel bar was gripping my
hair, and her hips were moving constantly, shoving forward and pulling
back, as her legs moved her higher and lower.  She basically masturbated on
my face, and there were all these moans and squeaks in between sentences.
I'm telling you I was rock hard and almost worn out when she let loose with
another class two orgasm.

   She finally stepped back and hurriedly ran her hands over me.

   "There!" she said.  "All clean.  Let's dry off and go to the bedroom!"

   But drying off involved sucking my dick, which had now been hard long
enough that it ached a little.  And her hot, sucking mouth was more than
enough to bring the balm from my nuts.

   "Oh shit!" I groaned.  "I'm gonna ..."

   This time it was her fingers that clamped me off at the base of my
prick. She did it hard, too!

   "No, no, no," she scolded my penis, kissing the tip again.  "You need to
stay hard for me.  It's my birthday!"

   "No it's not," I moaned.  "Your birthday was last week.  I need to cum,
Jill."

   "You can cum in a little while," she said, as if I were a complaining
five year old.  "This is MY night, remember?  I had to wait all these
months, remember?"

   "You didn't actually wait," I groaned, remembering blowing a nut in her
hot, sucking pussy.

   "Hush!" she said, squeezing the base of my cock harder until I winced.
"Mom might hear you.  She can never find out we cheated, Bob!"

   "OK, OK," I moaned.  "Can we hurry?  I'm dying here."

   "Now you know how I felt all that time," she said.

   If I'd have been listening better I'd have heard a distinct lack of
passion in her voice.  And I might have asked myself WHY that lack of
passion was there.  I might have realized she WASN'T being swept away,
unable to control herself, and that she had very identifiable goals in mind
for this night.

   But I wasn't listening that closely ...  because I WAS swept away by all
this.

   ==================================

   We hadn't brought clothes to the bathroom with us, but that didn't
bother Jill at all.  Again, taking me by the hand, she opened the bathroom
door and led me naked down the hall to her room.  Lynne was not, as I had
imagined, standing outside the bathroom.  I looked around, but didn't see
her.

   Jill's passion returned as soon as she pushed me into bed.  I don't know
where she learned all this stuff, but she'd been studying, because she
climbed on me, reached for my prick, and the next thing I heard was her
sigh of contentment as she impaled herself on it.

   "Don't you cum in me," she moaned as her pussy muscles began milking me.


   She sat completely still, looking like a statue.  But those muscles were
devastating.

   "Jill!" I panted.  "Honey!"

   "Hmmmm?" her muscles never let up.

   "You have to stop that," I groaned.

   "Stop what?" she asked, dreamily.

   "Squeezing me like that," I whined.  "I'm gonna cum!"

   "Don't!" she said, her eyes clearing as they bored into mine.  "I
already told you you could get me pregnant.  This is my night, Bob, not
yours."

   "But I can't help it!" I gasped.  "If you keep doing that ...  uhhhhh
... oh shit, Jill!"

   "What?" she asked, still staring at me.  She put her hands on my chest,
almost like she was trying to hold me down.

   "Get off!" I was too close.  It was going to happen.

   "I don't want to," she said in almost a little girl pouty voice.  Her
muscles never let up milking me for a second.

   "Get OFF!"

   She leaned over, sliding her hands up to cup my cheeks.

   "No," she whispered into my lips.

   Then, as I spurted her full of a month's worth of pent up sperm, she
kissed my lips tenderly.

   And her pussy muscles never stopped milking me until I had nothing left
to give her.

   ==================================

   I had finally stopped gasping for air when she sighed.  Again I missed
the fact that that sigh was almost theatrical in nature.

   "You are so bad.  I TOLD you I'm right in the middle of my fertile
time!"

   "I tried to warn you," I said, finally feeling like something was wrong
with this picture.

   "So much for getting what I want for my birthday.  I only got to cum
what?" She seemed to count silently, "I only got to cum three or four
times, and then you spurted and you won't be worth anything for a long
time. And you probably got me pregnant too."

   She was trying to make me feel bad.  I knew that much.  But what I
couldn't figure out was ...  why?  I'd done what I was supposed to do,
right?  I mean there was this agreement and yes, I had cheated one time on
it, but if anything she had almost made me cheat.  So she couldn't be mad
about that.  I began to get a glimmer that some of this protestation might
not be completely real.

   "Well, I guess I should go on to my room," I sighed.  "Sorry."

   "What are you talking about?" she asked, suddenly very alert.  "I get
you all night."

   "Like you said," I muttered mournfully, "I'm not going to be good for
quite some time."

   "Yes, but when you are, I want you here!" she said quickly.

   "But I can't control myself," I said sadly.  "Getting you pregnant isn't
part of the deal.  I told your mother I'd get some condoms, but I forgot
to. I don't know if there's any place open this late, but I guess I could
drive to town and look."

   "But I want you here all night!" she complained.  "You can't leave!"

   "It's my fault," I said.  I hoped I wasn't piling it on too much, but
she had been fucking with me - I was sure of that now - and I wanted to
give her back a little bit.  If I really WAS going to be involved with two
women at the same time, I needed to be able to exert some control on the
situation.  "You need to get off me now," I said, lifting my hips a
little."

   "No!" she almost yelled.  "This is MY night, Bob!"

   "This could be the night you get pregnant if I don't get up and do
something about it," I said.

   Damned if she didn't start crying.

   Chapter Fourteen

   It didn't take me long to get her to stop crying, mostly because I caved
completely and assured her I wasn't going anywhere, and would stay there
all night and all the next day if only she'd stop crying.  Then, when she
did subside, almost magically quickly, and I realized I'd been played yet
AGAIN, my finely tuned analytical adult mind finally began using the few
brain cells I had left.

   "You knew I was going to cum and you LET me cum in you," I accused her.

   She lifted her head and, with dry eyes that no longer surprised me,
looked at me like I was a candidate for an old time dunce hat in a one-room
school house.

   "You GOT me to cum in you!" I said heatedly.  "Oh purpose!"

   Her sigh this time was real, and full of resignation.

   "I hope our children get their intelligence from me," she said.

   "You WANT to get pregnant?" I looked at her in disbelief.

   "I've wanted to have your baby since I was fourteen," she said, stroking
my chest.

   "Fourteen?" I was gasping again.

   "Yeah.  Silly, huh."

   "Damn, Jill!" I moaned.  "Why didn't you TELL me?"

   "Because I knew what would happen if I did.  Especially back then.  And
I knew what would happen if I told you or Mom now that I wanted to get
pregnant.  You'd both go into speeches about college and my future and all
that stuff, when all I really want is to raise apples and your babies.  She
closed her eyes for a couple of seconds and opened them again.  "Our
babies," she corrected herself.

   I just stared at her, unable to say much.  I think that's because I was
very conflicted about all this.  Part of me was about to yell "Hell YES you
need to go to college and secure your future, young lady!" At the same time
another part of me was writhing around, slathering like a hungry dragon,
hissing "She wants you to knock her up!  Yesssssssssss, so fuck a baby in
her sweet, flat belly.  Fuck two or THREE babies in her willing womb!"

   She seemed to know what I was thinking.  "Look," she said patiently. 
"My mother has done a wonderful job of developing the orchard, and SHE
never went to college.  It's mostly hard work that is required, and the
things I need to learn I can probably get in online classes.  I don't need
to go off somewhere for four years to learn those things." She ran a finger
down the middle of my chest.  "And I don't want to leave here for any
extended period of time, if it means I can't be in bed with you naked, like
this.

   "Well thought out," I finally said.  "There's only one teensy tiny
problem."

   "What's that?" she asked.

   "Your mother thinks all you have is a crush on me, and that by letting
you play with me you'll get that worked out of your system.  She's not
planning on any babies here."

   "Another reason why I didn't tell her I wanted you to get me pregnant,"
she said.

   "But that's not going to work," I said.  "Here you are, eighteen, and
all excited about being an adult and working in the orchard and starting a
family, but you're hiding things, like a child.  You can't base an adult
life on sneaking around behind people's backs."

   "You know, you're no fun at all," she said, quite seriously.  "So what
you're saying is that you don't want to be a father."

   "I didn't say that at all," I said sternly.  "Don't go off on a tangent,
or pout.  If you want to be an adult, you have to face things in an adult
fashion."

   "DO you want me to have your baby?" she asked.

   "That's not fair," I said.  "ANY man would want to get you pregnant."

   "That's not true," she said.  "Langston doesn't want to get me pregnant.
I made him look at me naked and he didn't even get a boner."

   "You did?" My voice squeaked on the last word.

   "Yes, and I looked at him naked too.  It was interesting ...  but
looking at his penis and chest and all that didn't make me feel all wiggly
like looking at you does."

   "When did all this happen?" I asked.  The image of two teenagers,
playing doctor for all intents and purposes, was kind of erotic.  I decided
I was a dirty old man.

   "Never mind.  You didn't answer my question.  Do you, or do you not want
to get me pregnant?"

   "This is just fucking weird!" I blurted.  "Most women are more
interested in asking if a man wants to be committed to them or get married
or whatever, before they start talking about having children."

   "I don't want to marry you," said Jill firmly.  "My mother might, and
you can only marry one of us, so I'll leave that part to her.  I just want
to live with you here on this farm and have your babies and raise them."

   "That's just crazy!" I sighed.

   "Will you answer the question or not?" she asked.

   I tried to hedge one last time.

   "Whether I want to get you pregnant or not has nothing to do with
anything," I said.  "The FACT is that your mother is part of this crazy,
insane equation, and what SHE thinks about things is important too."

   "So you do," she said, sounding satisfied.

   "I didn't say that!" I insisted.

   "But you do," she insisted back.

   "OK, maybe I kind of get excited about the idea, but I don't want to
hurt you or start an argument with your mother, and I KNOW this will do
that!"

   "You let me worry about my mother," she said softly.

   Then she crawled on top of me and kissed me like she meant it.  We both
ran out of air and broke the kiss, panting slightly.

   "I used to only think about having one," she whispered, rubbing her
slippery pussy against my prick.  To my amazement, that prick was rock hard
again.  "But when I saw Snow White have all those puppies, I knew one
wouldn't be enough." My newly stiff prick was suddenly encased in hot
pussy, already slippery from the last dose of baby makers she'd coaxed out
of it.  "I don't want to have them all at once, of course," she said as she
lifted her hands to maul her nipples.  "And I only want to have half as
many," she went on as she started riding me.

   Men are weak.  Half an hour later I spurted in her again.

   And this time she didn't have to trick me into it.

   =======================================

   I got out of bed first in the morning.  Part of that was because I had
to pee really bad and, once I'd done that, I knew that if I got back in bed
with her we'd end up making love again.  I also knew that Lynne was already
up and moving around, and the thought of us making the bed bounce while
Lynne could be walking by the door was just a little much for me.

   So I got dressed.

   Then I realized I had to go face Lynne.  I mean we all lived in the same
house.  And I had to face her sooner or later.  So I just bit the bullet
and went to the kitchen.

   She was there, sitting over a plate cleaned of the eggs and bacon that
had originally been on it, nursing a cup of coffee she was holding in both
hands.  She looked up at me.

   "Please tell me I'm not that loud," she said.

   I got past my surprise by going to the coffee maker and fiddling with
getting me a cup.  By the time I sat down opposite of her, I felt much
better about facing her.

   "Actually, I think you are," I said.

   "Good grief," she sighed.  "You can never touch me when we have guests
staying with us."

   "Right," I said.  "Other than that you seem to be handling things rather
well."

   "I've had a couple of months to get used to the idea," she said.  "I'm
not handling it all that well, though."

   "Oh," I said softly.  "Sorry."

   "I didn't think I'd be this jealous," she said.

   "Of all the emotions I expected from you, jealousy wasn't one of them,"
I said, surprised.

   "Me either," she said, shrugging.  "I expected to be grossed out, or to
feel like a pervert or something, but none of that happened at all.  All
that happened was that each time she started yelling I knew how she felt
and wished it was me."

   "So you don't hate me?" I asked.

   "No." She blinked her eyes a couple of times.  "I'm not sure how to feel
about most of this, but I know I love you both.  That much I'm sure of."

   This seemed like as good a time to test the waters as any other.

   "What if this turns out not to be a short term crush for Jill?" I asked.

   "Did you get that impression last night?" she asked.

   I could try hedging, but that hadn't worked with Jill, so I just told
the truth."

   "Yeah, I did."

   "Damn."

   "She said she doesn't want to marry me," I blurted, trying to make
things sound better.

   "You talked about MARRIAGE?" squeaked Lynne.

   "Only in the sense that she said that's not what she's looking for from
me," I said quickly.  "She said you could have that part if ..." I realized
how that sounded and jerked to a stop.  Her eyes had gone round and wide.

   "You talked about marrying ME?" she gasped.

   "Not like that," I said anxiously.  "What I mean is that she said that
kind of relationship is something you might be interested in, but that
she's not."

   "Then what DOES she want?" asked Lynne.

   "Shouldn't you ask me that?" asked Jill, stepping into the kitchen.  Her
hair was still tousled and she had sleepy-eyes.  She'd thrown on a long T
shirt, but a lot of her legs were exposed and she looked very interesting.
I pushed those thoughts away.

   "Oh!" yipped Lynne, clearly startled.

   It could have been weird.  Maybe it WAS weird, but it didn't last for
long.

   "Thank you Mom," said Lynne.  "That was the best birthday present ever."
Her voice was so casual about it that it was impossible to think of it as
anything other than that ...  a really good gift.

   "You're welcome," said Lynne automatically.  "I think," she added.

   "Now I know why you look like that in the morning," said Jill.  "I feel
like I've been asleep for a month.  I've never felt this relaxed in the
morning."

   "Look like what?" asked Lynne.

   I held up a hand.  "You two can compare notes later.  This is getting
too strange for me, OK?"

   "Then maybe you should go do some chores," said Jill, quite seriously,
"while we women decide your future."

   "Jill!" snapped Lynne, horrified.

   "Look," said Jill calmly.  "Now that I know what it can be like, I know
you'll never give him up.  And I'll never want to give him up either.  So
we're going to have to either share him, or send him away somewhere where
neither of us can have him.  I vote for keeping him around.

   Lynne's eyes bounced from her daughter to me and back again half a dozen
times.  Finally they landed on me and stayed there.

   "Maybe you should go do some chores after all," she said.

   Chapter Fifteen

   To my knowledge, nobody has ever done a book about the conversations
women in polygamous marriages have when the husband isn't around.  It's
probably fair to say there is a seniority system amongst the wives, whether
it's formal or not.  And the social structure under which polygamy exists
probably doesn't matter all that much.  By that I mean it probably doesn't
matter whether the family is from one of the tribes of deepest Africa, a
Muslim tradition, from the Mormons, or whatever.  It doesn't even matter
whether the polygamy is formal or not either.  The women undoubtedly work
things out between themselves, and I don't know of any study or book that's
been published about how that works.

   I suspect there's a good dose of self interest involved in such
"negotiations." Self interest seems to drive most decisions.  But if the
women involved already love each other, with the kind of bond that Jill and
her mother had, then self interest might not be the primary driving force.

   We don't know the answer to that in this case either, because when I was
finally allowed to learn about the results of the negotiations, I wasn't
given any information about the nuts and bolts of the conversation.

   But I'm telling you, it must have been VERY interesting.

   What happened was that I puttered around outside and then went back into
the house.

   "We're not done yet," said Lynne, so I went back out and did more
chores.

   That happened three more times, consuming an hour and a half before
Lynne came out of the house with the car keys in her hand.  She also had a
sports bag hanging off one shoulder.

   "I'm going to town," she said, as if nothing odd had happened in the
last five years.  "I'd like some company.  Want to go?"

   =================================

   Now I know I haven't exactly described my actions in this story such
that any of you will be led down the garden path about me being a genius,
or anything, but on the other hand I'm not completely stupid.  I knew
enough, for example to answer her question "Yes," and then keep my mouth
shut as we got in the car and drove away.

   The first five miles were very quiet, though she looked over at me a few
times.  I really had no idea what to do and keeping silent just seemed like
as good a plan as any at that point.  As she turned off the blacktop onto a
dirt track I wasn't familiar with, she spoke.

   "What surprises me about this the most is that the only thing I'm
actually really upset about is her not wanting to go to college."

   I didn't know if I was supposed to already know about that part or not.
I decided that I was just going to be me and hope for the best.

   "I can understand that," I said.

   "I told her I wanted her to have a better life than I did, and she
pointed out that there was nothing wrong with my life at all."

   "That might be oversimplifying things a bit," I suggested.

   "Oh her part, yes," said Lynne.  We came to a gate that crossed the road
and she stopped.  "Would you get the gate and close it again after I've
gone through?"

   "Sure."

   I got out.  The gate looked locked, but as soon as I got close enough I
could see the padlock on the chain wasn't actually fastening the chain
together.  I swung the gate back, she drove through, and I pulled the gate
closed again.  I got back in the car.

   "This belongs to Ken Wilkerson," she said, moving forward.  "It leads to
a small hot spring he decided not to develop, like most of the other ones
in town have been."

   "Oh," I said, wondering what was going on.

   "You know the hot springs in these parts are rumored to have very
positive health effects."

   "I'd heard that, but I've never visited any of them," I said.

   "I did," she said, her voice sounding full of emotion.  "This one, in
fact."

   "Really." I still had no earthly clue as to what they had talked about,
or why we were where we were, instead of "going to town" like she had said
we were going to do.

   "I know you're wondering what we talked about," she said.

   "That's fair to assume," I said.  I didn't mean it to come out as dryly
as it did.  She shot me a look.

   "We're going to test your theory," she said.

   "My theory?"

   "The one that says you can love two women at the same time."

   That suggested several things, but I didn't want to assume any of them.
My penis, bless his nasty little heart, wasn't of the same carefulness and
started to stiffen.

   "I don't know quite what to say," I said.

   "You could say thank you," she said, which took me by surprise.

   "Thank you," I said immediately.

   She smiled, and so help me it looked like a grim smile.

   "Not many men get to have two women like this," she said.

   "I'm very aware of that," I said.  "Are you sure this is going to work
out?"

   "Not in the slightest," she said.

   "The last thing I want to do is make trouble between you and Jill."

   She looked over at me and then down at my lap, where what my penis was
doing was quite visible.

   "How noble of you," she said.  I think she DID mean for it to come out
in as dry a tone as it did.

   "I mean it," I said.  "I love you both, and if that means giving both of
you up to keep the peace, I'll do it."

   "We talked about that," she said.  "We decided that is a last resort
kind of thing.  We're going to try some other things first."

   "Am I permitted to know what these things are?" I asked.

   She snorted.  "Of course you are.  You're part of them, silly."

   "It's just that you haven't been all that communicative since your ...
um ...  negotiations ended.

   "What do you think I'm doing now?" she asked.

   I looked around at the rough country outside the bouncing car.

   "I have no earthly idea," I admitted.

   "Oh this," she said casually.  "I'll explain this in just a minute.  But
first I have to ask you a question."

   "Shoot," I said.

   "It's a very serious question," she said.

   "OK," I said.

   "Do you REALLY love both of us?"

   "I do," I said without pause.

   "And does that mean you'll accept whatever rules it takes to live with
both of us?"

   "Of course," I said.

   I asked you a question yesterday that you avoided answering," she said.

   "What was that?" A lot had gone on yesterday and I didn't feel like
trying to sift through all that to try to guess at what she was talking
about.

   "Would you marry both of us?"

   "You know I can't do that," I said.

   "But would you, if you could?"

   "Would the two of you marry me if you could?" I asked in response.

   "Actually - and I can't believe I'm saying this - but yes ...  I think
we both would."

   "Jill said she didn't want to get married," I said.

   "That was just a negotiating position.  It was supposed to be a peace
offering to me, to get me to go along with letting her keep ...  um ... 
seeing you."

   "Oh," I said.  For lack of anything else to say I asked "So did it
work?"

   She shot me a look that had half a frown in it.

   "Men are so amoral sometimes," she sighed, sounding disgusted.

   "Women make us that way," I said, defensively.

   She drove on silently until she turned a corner and a series of small
steaming pools came into view.  It was obvious other cars had been here
before and had created a parking lot of sorts, but nobody else was there
except us.  She parked the car and got out.  She reached in the back and
got the sports bag and started walking away from the car.  Finally she
turned around and stared at me, still sitting in the passenger seat.

   "Are you coming?" she yelled.

   I caught up with her after running maybe fifty yards.

   "You know that communication we were talking about?" I said as I settled
into a walk beside her.  "This might be a good time for some of that."

   "I'll tell you all about it in a few minutes," she said.  "Meanwhile,
all you need to know is that we're going swimming in the hot springs."

   "We are?"

   "Oh yes," she said firmly.  "We definitely are."

   ===================================

   Again, I had enough brain cells left that I used them to assume that no
bathing suits were going to be called for, so when she dropped the sports
bag beside a large, shallow pool of steaming water and pulled out a
blanket, I helped her spread it out and then, as she started disrobing, I
did too.

   It was almost weird.  I mean we'd seen each other naked plenty of times,
and been as intimate as two people can be.  But I had never seen her naked
after spending the night before in bed with her daughter.  It just had an
odd, surreal kind of feel to it.  I don't know if she felt that too, but
when she was naked she just stood and looked at me.  Her eyes dropped to my
boner, but didn't linger.

   "I love you, Bob," she said softly, looking me in the eyes.

   "I love you too, Lynne," I said, avoiding looking at her body.

   She held out her hand and led me into water that took some getting used
to, requiring that we ease into it slowly until it was to our shoulders. 
Then she finally kissed me and tangled her arms and legs with mine.  With
no foreplay at all, she reached for my cock and notched it between pussy
lips that were slippery despite the hot water.  She pulled me into her, and
wrapped her legs around my back, holding me deep.

   "My daughter loves you too," she said, squeezing my prick with her pussy
muscles."

   I let my hands caress her back and sides.  I kissed her with all the
feeling I could put into a soft, not too long kiss.

   "I know," I whispered.  "That doesn't affect how I feel about you."

   She stared into my eyes for long seconds, while her pussy kept milking
my cock.  I realized that it was actually cooler inside her than in the
water around us.  That water had taken some of the steel from my prick when
we were getting in, but it was back now that it was only in 98.6 degree
territory.

   "She told me what she let you do last night," she said, tightening and
loosening her legs, making me move an inch or so in her.

   "I thought you knew what we were doing," I said.

   "I didn't know she was trying to get pregnant," she said, speeding up a
bit.

   "I didn't know either," I said, a little alarmed.  "Not at first,
anyway," I said, honoring my pledge to myself to just tell the truth.

   "I admit I screamed at her about that," panted Lynne.  "That was the
thing that bothered me the most, I think."

   Being a man, I couldn't suppress my next comment.  "I thought you said
her not going to college was what bothered you the most."

   "It is, now," she said.  "We worked out the pregnancy thing."

   "Oh?" I needed to distract myself, because the urge to cum in her was
strong.

   "She made it quite clear that she was going to get pregnant with you,
and that there was nothing I could do about it," she panted.  She was
moving faster now, humping me with short, rapid strokes.

   "How does that amount to working it out?" I gasped, trying hard not to
cum.

   "Because I told her I was going to get pregnant with you first," she
gasped.

   Chapter Sixteen

   "Oh damn!" I groaned.  "Not you too!"

   "The last time I made love in this pool was almost nineteen years ago,
Bob," she huffed in my ear.  "Paul got me pregnant with Jill in this pool."
Her pussy muscles rippled and she sobbed.  "Oh yes!" as she began to cum.
"It was ...  October," she panted.  "It was snowing.  This ...  pool ... 
is famous ...  with the ...  locals ...  for ...  ahhhhhhh ...  this is so
good, Bob ...  people think the pool helps ...  uhhhh ...  women ...  get
...  mmmmmmmm ...  pregnant!"

   Then she couldn't talk any more as the orgasm washed over her in full
and her whole body seemed to vibrate.  And the combination of what she was
doing, and what she'd said just blew away any thought of controlling myself
any longer.  I just let my balls loose and flooded her with a fresh crop of
sperm, made in the short time since I had flooded her daughter with the
last batch.

   ==================================

   After our orgasms she kept me tightly in her, and became much more
talkative.

   "I'm sorry," she said.  "I should have told you what I intended, but I
was just so frustrated.

   "That's what I'm talking about," I murmured into her ear.  "I don't want
to be a source of frustration between you two."

   "I don't think you will be," she said.  She lay back, letting me support
her upper body with my hands.  "I think we've always been a little
competitive, running this place by ourselves," she said.  "Maybe that's
normal between a mother and daughter.  But when she admitted she was
ovulating and had gotten you to fertilize her last night I think I went a
little crazy."

   "I can understand that," I said.  "It was a foolish thing to do."

   "I know that," she sighed.  "But at the same time I knew how she felt.
Ever since we made love the first time, I kept thinking about how I should
try to avoid getting pregnant, but I just couldn't do it." Her eyes glazed
over and then cleared again.  "DIDN'T do anything about it is the more
truthful way of putting it.  I wanted to take the risk.  Being in love
again was so precious.  I never thought it would happen to me again after
Paul."

   I understand that," I said.  "At least I think I do.  I'm not sure I was
really in love before.  Not after what I feel for you."

   "And Jill," she added.

   "OK.  And Jill," I admitted.

   "Still, we should have asked you first," she said.

   "I never expected any woman to ask me to make her pregnant," I said, a
little dazed, suddenly.  "I mean most couples avoid that until the time is
right."

   "That's what I'm talking about," said Lynne.  "We should have discussed
it with you first, instead of just using you like that."

   "Don't feel too badly," I said, smiling.  "I don't actually feel very
used."

   "You don't mind that two women have tried to get pregnant from you
without asking you first?"

   "I love both women," I said, simply.  "Whatever they want, I want to try
to give them."

   "Even if that means you're tied to them by children?"

   "I don't need children to tie me to them," I said.

   "This is all so strange," she sighed.  "I never expected my life to come
anywhere near a situation like this.  It's like a fairy tale or something!"

   I hugged her to me and tried to flex my now soft penis.  Being a man, I
wished I was hard again.

   "Then we just have to make sure that we all live happily ever after," I
whispered.

   ==================================

   I know I've presented this in a way that makes it all look seamless and
simple, but you almost have to do that to tell a story.  Chaos doesn't make
for a good story.  Not that it was always chaos, but ...

   I digress.  Sorry.

   It wasn't all sweetness and light.  I'm just being honest.  But when I
try to remember the part that was chaotic, the examples I come up with seem
trivial.  That's just honesty too.  I mean if the worst thing a man has to
deal with is a couple of crabby, big bellied women, waddling around
complaining that you got them fat and ugly ...  well ...  you've got a
pretty good life, my friend.

   Oh, there were the inevitable arguments that a man has with his wife. 
He has them with the woman he lives with if he isn't married.  Hell, for
that matter he has them with the MAN he lives with, for that matter.  And
I'm not talking about two gay men either.  And there were the inevitable
arguments that two women have, whether they're related or not.

   It was a little stressful for a couple of months, once we all decided to
- and I still can't believe I'm saying this - give plural marriage a shot.

   As in most plural marriages in America these days, it wasn't formal, and
we didn't drive down the highway with tin cans hanging off the bumper of
the car or a sign in the back window saying "JUST MARRIED ...  TWICE!" We
did have a little ceremony, of sorts, in which we made some promises to
each other.  Chief among them was to be open and honest in our
communication with each other.

   Lynne and I were both adult and experienced enough to know that things
can change, even when you don't want them to, so we formed a corporation in
which there were three equal partners, each having a third share of
ownership of the farm and orchard.  It felt a little like signing a
prenupital agreement in a way, except the paperwork didn't get processed
until we had already been living together for a month.  Still, once that
was done, it was mostly forgotten.

   That phrase: living together, might sound goofy to you, since you know
we had already been living together for years.  But it really WAS
different, once I was sharing a bed with both women on a regular basis. 
And, just for you horndogs out there, no, we didn't all sleep in the same
bed.  I know that's what you're imagining, but the girls never got
interested in each other or in having me in that way.

   On the other hand, there WAS a kind of competition they engaged in that
might have made an outside observer think there was some girl on girl thing
going on in the house.  That's because each woman sometimes tried to tease
me into choosing her for the night, which meant there were two extremely
scantily clad women scampering around the house, bending over (sometimes
side by side) and filling the air with the smell of a turned on woman who
wants her man to do something about it.

   And, while we didn't all sleep together, the couch was a different
matter.  If we were watching a movie, or TV or whatever, I might find
myself making out with both wives, or making out with the top of one wife
while the other wife made out with the bottom of me.  We didn't have any
orgies on the couch, but it got close a few times.

   So there WAS the occasional competition between the girls.  I tried to
handle that by lavishing attention on both of them, sometimes together.  I
did lots of things, from making candlelight dinners for them, to buying
them both matching diamond rings.  The thing I remember most was when they
were both six months pregnant, and I got them naked on the couch and did an
inch by inch comparison between their bodies.  I pointed out how everything
was different, and why I loved each different part of them, until I got to
their swollen, rounded bellies.  As I smoothed a hand over each one, I said
that they were exactly the same, and that I loved them both and could never
make a choice between them.

   That was the night we found out it's impossible for one man to make love
to two women at the same time.  He can love them both at the same time.  He
can feed them both at the same time.  He can do almost everything in the
world for two women at the same time.

   But he can't make love to both of them simultaneously.  One of them has
to watch.

   And THAT is a process that, when two women love each other, leads to
LESS competition, because each one gets to see how important the man is to
the other woman.

   After that night they never did that again - watched the other one
making love with me, I mean.  And yet, it led to a situation where, in that
way that only women have of understanding each other, they could tell when
the other one needed some loving, and they worked out who got me on that
basis.  It led to a situation where, when one of my wives got me for sex,
she got all of me, and didn't have to share me again until we were done. 
But whoever needed me the most on a given night, was likely to get me.

   It was true cooperation and love, shared by all three of us, and all
three of us benefited immensely by it.

   ==================================

   Seven kids and fourteen years later I have to say that the humiliation
of losing my fiance to a jock and leaving Chicago in shame is the best
thing that ever happened to me.

   We tend to think of the painful things in our lives as being bad, but
that doesn't mean they ARE bad.  Some of dealing with pain like that is
perspective, but the majority of coping with the coincidence in our lives
is treating each one as an opportunity, instead of something to dread. 
Hell.  Maybe that's just perspective dressed up in other clothes.

   The future of the orchard is pretty well established.  Even when the
kids take over management of the orchard, they'll have to hire forty or
fifty harvesters, and that's even if we open up a "U Pick IT" operation for
the locals, who are upset that almost all of our harvest has been going out
of state for the last few years.  The market for organically grown apples
surprised even us.

   And now I have to go.  Kylie, our youngest (Jill got the four she
wanted) just came to tell me that Madonna is having her puppies.

   Who is Madonna?  Well, Snow white disappeared four years after Jill and
Lynne and I got married.  I think the wanderlust in her overcame the desire
to be surrounded by her pack of puppies once they grew up.  I think she
didn't like being penned up when she went into heat either.

   Bashful, who turned out not to be so bashful after all, at least not
with her brothers, took Snow White's place on the farm as the bitch to be
pursued.  We locked her up too, whenever she was in season, but with six
brothers, not to mention Duke who, even though he was aging, was still
interested, it was inevitable that one of them would get to her.  I
actually felt like we'd done a pretty good job keeping her puppiless for
four years.  I made sure Jill understood we could only keep one of her
puppies, and that the rest would have to be given away this time.  She
chose one female from Bashful's first litter and named her Madonna.

   While I spent years trying to keep my wives pregnant, between Bashful
and Madonna, each of the kids got supplied with a puppy to raise as his or
her own.  Except for Kylie, who wasn't old enough last time there was a
litter, but is now, and is consequently jumping up and down right now,
because one of the puppies THIS time is going to be hers.

   So you'll understand why I have to go.  I have another coincidence to
deal with.

   And sometimes the coincidences in our lives have to take priority over
other things.

   The end


   


  
orchard_flower_charlie-complete