Mai-Ling & Su-Lee
© 2004 by (the) Night Hawk
(With help from, and thanks to, Russell Hoisington for his
technical help and expertise!)

Mai-Ling & Su-Lee
_________________

(For Denny Wheeler)

Knowing the time of your impending demise does nothing to
reduce the pain.  It does give you time to get your house in
order though, and that’s what the doctor told me to do last
month.

Dividing my less than worldly assets was an easy job.  I had
more than enough displaced relatives willing to take everything
of any value, but none wanted to take on the responsibility of
the girls.

Mai-Ling and Su-Lee were not my natural children.  I had
adopted them as orphans when they were barely old enough to
talk.  I had found them after American troops drove back the
invading Iraqis from Kuwait in Gulf War 1.

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

I had been a Captain with the Army Nurse Corps (Reserves) at
the time.  As a full time Nurse Practitioner, specializing in
trauma care in civilian life, I was an ideal candidate to set up
a civilian trauma unit close to the Iraqi border.  I was one of
the last to get called in, but because of my age, my experience,
and with 11 years as a reservist, when the dust had cleared from
Kuwait, I was there.

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

I had been at work in the ER when the news broke into every
local TV broadcast.  Our forces began striking Baghdad on
January 17, 1991.  For five days we watched the fireworks light
up the night skies, and then on February 23, our tanks,
supported by Apaches and A10 Warthogs, pushed the ground
attack.  I got the call that night.

Canada was sending over doctors and nurses to fill US hospital
personnel shortages.  I was assigned a detachment of American
and Canadian nurses, orderlies, and support troops, given a
location, and told to set up the clinic for the civilians caught
in the crossfire.

I arrived in Kuwait on the 24th, and after a three-hour drive
over non-existent roads, crawling along at a speed barely faster
than walking, I found myself at what had been some sort of
central village.  Some block mortar buildings with glass still
intact and large storage buildings.  It was here we set up our
base of operations.  The main building became the primary care
center. 

The clinic consisted of twenty medical personnel, some
administrative support troops, and a dozen security personnel. 
The officers set up quarters in the converted storage building. 
We had eight female nurses, barely out of their twenties, two
young male doctors, barely out of medical school, and myself,
"the old man."  The nurses shared a common room, the doctors
another, while as the detachment commander I had my own area.

The soldiers were quick to clean up the other buildings and
establish the clinic and support areas.  We were ready to accept
patients in less than four hours.

For two days we sat around doing absolutely nothing.  The
fighting was north of us.  The Iraqis had cleared this village
during the first assault into Kuwait, and it was one of the
first ones reclaimed by the coalition.

We had a few stragglers the third day, but mostly all they
wanted was food and water.  They were heading back to their own
homes.  That evening it became official.  The fighting was over
and a cease-fire had been called.  “Desert Storm” had ended.

The next morning, with nothing better to do, I strolled around
the village peeking into the hovels that the locals had lived
in.  One of the orderlies had discovered the name of the town. 
El Qasim.

Whatever el Qasim had been before “Desert Storm,” it was
nothing but skeletal remains now.  Everything of value had been
scavenged.  I was just leaving my third rock and stone shelter
when I thought I heard feeble cries.  I investigated a dark
corner and found two babies.  Both female, dark haired, blue
eyed little beauties.  They looked so sad, so pathetic.  Ethnic
cleansing might have missed them, but I knew that if I left
them, they would be dead by nightfall.  God only knew how many
days they had been lying there in their own filth!  I quickly
wrapped them in the jute bag they were covered with and raced
back to my quarters.

Maybe it was just premonition.  I could have, should have taken
them directly to the clinic, but some primal, instinctual urge
demanded I be the one to take care of them.

One of the cooks had just finished making a batch of cream of
mushroom soup.  It wasn't perfect, but we had no real milk on
hand and at least I knew the mix was pure, based on powdered
milk, and made with fresh water.

They weren't old enough to understand fear, but I saw it in
their eyes anyways.  I had to wait for the soup to cool down
before I could feed them, but they could smell food and their
cries intensified.  Their hunger overcame their fear and they
allowed me to feed them.  My spoon was too big, so in
frustration, I tore open a sterile pad and dipped the cotton
bandage into the soup and let them suckle it.  It took a long
time for the girls to fill their bellies, and I was worried that
one of the nurses would discover us.  I wasn’t ready to deal
with that yet.  Nothing had prepared me for this tragedy of war.

Their hunger sated, they started to drift off to sleep.  I
waited till they were well and relaxed in my arms before I laid
them on my cot, making sure to roll up extra blankets so they
couldn't fall off.  I wasn't sure how old they were, and I
didn't want to take a chance of them rolling over.

Even though my bunk was sectioned off, I knew that the crying
of the babies would arouse suspicion sooner or later, and cry
they would.  I took the head nurse, one of the Canadians, into
my confidence.

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

Lisa adored the girls.  A Captain and 10-year veteran in the
Canadian Forces and a RNP, she couldn't place an age on them
either.  They were so malnourished and helpless.  While Lisa and
I hadn't really had a chance to get properly acquainted, war
zones encourage quick friendship.  She took care of their
immediate needs, every bit as protective as I was, though by the
time the night was over, the only ones who didn't know of my
discovery were the Kuwaitis.

The doctors checked the girls out and with somber faces advised
me that it would be a miracle if they survived.  They would
require a lot of attention and care.  Lisa offered to help me
provide that.

Lisa was an attractive woman, a fact I noticed when we bathed
the babies.  She offered to help hide them from the civilian
authorities until such time that we could turn the girls over to
the Red Cross or the UN workers.  The last thing we wanted was
for the girls to fall into local authority hands.  Local militia
actually, hired hoodlums with less regard for females than for
animals. 

To this day, I have no idea where Lisa secured a crib, but she
did, and the babies slept in it from that night on, though only
if I was not in the room myself.  Then they wouldn’t settle down
except next to me. 

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

The damn Red Cross wanted nothing to do with them.  Insisting
that they were not in the business of harboring indigenous
personnel, and suggesting I turn them over to the Kuwait
authorities.  Like hell!  I had seen how the Kuwaitis treated
the border people.

The UN overseer was no more helpful, damn near demanding that I
turn them over.  These were innocent babies for fuck’s sake.  I
wasn’t going to turn them over to nobody!

Lisa and I spent every off duty hour feeding and nursing the
babies, and together we managed to get them to eat more solid
food.  They did have teeth, something I discovered the hard
way.  This gave us a better idea of their age, though they were
so undernourished before I had found them that they were still
weak.  Motor function had nearly ceased, something else that
would not endear them to the local authorities.  Thankfully
their eyes were bright and they followed our movements, and
those blue eyes darted quickly from me to Lisa.  Of course my
eyes were on Lisa quite a bit as well!

The action moved even further away from our sector, which meant
I got to spend a lot of time with Lisa and the girls.

It was love at first sight with the girls and we showed them
proudly.  The fear had left their eyes and soon they cried out
when ever I left them.  The girls would not settle down for any
of the younger nurses, so Lisa and I spent more and more time
together.

We didn’t have much in the way of entertainment.  Not that Lisa
and I were complaining.  We had two little darlings who were
growing stronger every day.  The young docs checked them almost
daily, measuring and weighing them.  And almost daily I was told
they would probably suffer from bad bones and posture and other
physical impairments, but I had worked around doctors most of my
life, and I knew where there was hope, there was a chance. 
Either way, I was not going to give up on my girls!

Lisa and I, as the senior officers, soon gave up any pretense
of taking shifts with the girls.  We managed to jury rig a
double bed and five days after the orders from the UN overseer
to turn over the girls to the local militia, we were sleeping
with the girls between us. 

One advantage to this set up was that I got to see Lisa undress
every night.  Those Canadian nurses didn’t seem to have as many
hang-ups about their bodies as their American cousins.  Lisa
would often tease me as she watched my boxers rise up when she
slipped her t-shirt off at night.  She tried to join me on ‘my’
side of the bed several nights, but the girls, as young as they
were, proved to be extremely jealous.  They would rock and roll
and crawl over the blanket till they were cuddled either by my
crotch or next to it.  Lisa found it amusing.  We couldn’t even
get them to settle down in the crib anymore if we were even in
the room!

Damn!  Under any other circumstances, I would never have had a
chance with a beauty like Lisa, but now, the reason for her
affection, my devotion and vow to see the girls get raised in a
free country, was also what was preventing me from joining
‘forces’ with my comrade in arms.

On a Monday night, long after the girls had been fed and
drifted off to sleep, I got up as quietly as I could and took
Lisa’s hand.  The single cot that had been mine was still in the
room and we joined in it!  It was a tight fit, but after I
slipped out of my boxers, we finally made found enough room for
the two of us to consummate our relationship.

Lisa was hot and tight, and my cock, forged out of surgical
steel, sliced into the wet womb lying bare before me.  Her long
blonde hair, that the girls liked to hold on to while we fed
them, spread like a fan around her head as she threw it back in
ecstasy.  I drove my cock into her slowly but with a tempered
force.  I had not had sex since arriving in this sand box, and
Lisa had the most beautiful curves and in all the right places.

Slowly I pounded her hot box, driving her over the edge twice
before I couldn’t hold out any longer, and biting down on her
neck to stifle my cry of pleasure I shot my seed into her womb. 
We laid there covered in passion sweat, softly kissing and
fondling each other till the cry of Mai-Ling forced us to part. 
Su-Lee soon joined in the chorus and I had to hustle before Lisa
and I were charged with a number of military violations from
some sleep-deprived nurse in the main room.

Yes, you are wondering about their names.  From the beginning I
knew better than to refer to them as “baby one” and “baby two.” 
Lisa would never have accepted that and it made them seem
interchangeable.  These two girls had very distinctive
personalities.  Though I had found them abandoned in the Middle
East, they looked much more Oriental in their features.  The
gently sloping blue eyes, their delicate facial features, and
their straight, shiny, ebony hair.  Their individual
personalities earned them their names.  I named them after film
actresses they reminded me of, and then culturally adapted the
names of Mae West and Susan Sarandon.

Two days later our unit was notified we were being sent home. 
This brought to light a whole new set of problems.  How was I
going to get permission to take the two youngsters home?

It was near the end of March.  We hadn’t been in el Qasim four
weeks, and I was giving the orders to take down the tents and
pack the equipment.  During our time, we had only had about a
dozen people come through on that one day, and after providing
them with the food and water they requested, they had moved on. 
The Red Cross had spoken to us only via radio, and the UN
overseer had driven through on his scenic tour.  The prick
hadn’t even gotten out of his chauffeured SUV.

Lisa came through once again.  She had a friend on the embassy
staff that could arrange for temporary papers for the girls to
fly to Canada if I could arrange to fly with them.  If I could
get permission to fly back with the Canadian group, the nurses
would help me smuggle the girls on board and out of the country.

I was grateful for Lisa and her Canadian friends.  I probably
would have stayed with Lisa, and I knew she would miss the
girls, but Lisa had a husband waiting for her.  Officially, we
had become friends and colleagues.  I refused to become a
complication. 

I had worked with the Hospital Commander in the past, and he
owed me a favor for reasons I won't divulge here.  He arranged
for me to fly back with our Canadian partners so that I could
visit family in Newfoundland.

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

Three days later, the girls and I touched down on Canadian
soil.  I knew I couldn’t just board a commercial flight back to
Indiana.  The papers for the girls allowed them entry into
Canada only.  It was going to be a long drive, so I rented a
Safari van, secured the girls in the back seat, and set off for
the long ride from St. John’s Newfoundland to Gary, Indiana.

Over 500 miles of Newfoundland scenery should be enough to last
any man a lifetime!  I’m glad I didn’t have relatives there.  I
might have felt obligated to return one day!  That took one full
day, and allowed me to arrive at the ferry just in time to
discover I could wait till morning for the 105 miles of Atlantic
Ocean I’d get to sail over.  I’ve never been a big fan of ferry
rides, and this one was no better. 

The girls and I slept together in the back of the van.  I
folded down the rear seats and had bought an inflatable mattress
for us to lie on.  Not the most luxurious accommodations, but as
satisfactory as our time in Kuwait.  The girls sensed an
adventure and cuddled close to me through the night.  In the
morning I got us something to eat just before the ferry pulled
out, headed for Sydney, Nova Scotia.

I managed to drive another three hundred and eighty miles after
getting off the ferry before exhaustion forced me to pull over
just outside of Bangor, Maine. 

Crossing the border into Maine from New Brunswick prior to
September 11, 2001 was a simple smile and a wave.  The uniform
helped a bit, but it was a strange sensation driving through a
custom’s gate, when all that separated most of the town from
Canada and the US was a painted line down city streets.

It took us another five days to cover the remainder of the
2,500-mile trip back to Gary.  But we were in the US of A!  I
was home and I had my girls with me!

We had grown closer and closer during our time together, and it
got to the point where I could hardly move without one of them
wanting to cling to my neck or be held in my arms.  I knew that
life would never be the same.

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

A month after settling back in at home, I resigned my
commission in the Reserves.  I was getting a bit old for these
war games, and now I had my two new daughters to take care of. 
The one thing I had not counted on was the bigotry the girls and
I would face for the next twelve years.

Being white, middle class myself, I had always thought the
people I knew, to be fairly open-minded.  I was genuinely
surprised by the reactions to my newly adopted daughters. 
Though I did not have a big circle of friends, (actually only a
few co-workers and neighbors), I was shocked by the prejudice
shown towards my Asian daughters.  Yes, they had obvious
features and appearances of their descent and heritage, rich
black shiny hair and eyes that were slightly slanted, but this
was the US of A for God’s sake.  The world’s biggest melting pot!

Some went so far as to suggest that I, as a single male, should
not be allowed to raise two baby girls!  Fuck ‘em!  I was more
than qualified, and if they couldn’t accept Mai-Ling and Su-Lee,
I cut them out of my life.  My girls needed me.  I fed them and
bathed them and took care of them in every possible manner. 

When they were old enough, I avoided any unnecessary questions
and taught them at home.  I didn’t need any nosy teachers asking
what a grown man was doing with two young, beautiful girls, and
as they grew, they grew more beautiful each day.

What family I had was spread across the country, and since I
was never willing to part with my money, either in the way of
loans I knew would never be repaid or to bail another out of
their own stupidity, I rarely heard from them.

I hired a young Latina to watch the girls while I went to
work.  She had a baby girl of her own, and out of the applicants
I had interviewed, Maria was the one the girls seemed to be the
most comfortable with.

Maria was familiar with both the prejudice and the stigma of
raising children out of wedlock.  She cleaned my house for me,
prepared meals and most importantly, she taught my girls how to
become ladies.  Maria moved in full time after six months, and
though she was with us for the next ten years, she never once
questioned the girls and me sharing the same bed.  It was just
never discussed.  I didn’t judge her, and she didn’t judge me.

As I said, Maria stayed with us for ten years, until she
finally met a man who accepted her and her daughter as a package
deal, and with great regret she apologized and said it was time
for her to move on.  She wanted another child before she turned
30, and the man she was seeing was an upstanding one in my eyes.

Okay.  Maybe I could have provided her with another baby.  We
had started to have sex just prior to her moving in with us,
though we never slept together through the night.  My girls were
far too possessive to allow someone else to sleep in our bed.

We would make love through the daytime or just before bedtime
after having watched some silly show.  Her daughter and mine got
along just fine, but when it came time for Maria’s little girl
to go to bed, Mai-Ling and Su-Lee would want to be clutching
onto me.

Maria had been 17 when she applied for the job of watching my
babies.  I was old enough at the time to be her father, but she
was gorgeous.  Long dark hair similar to my girls, an olive
complexion, and the sweetest smile I had ever seen.  She had
been disowned by her family for having sex before marriage, and
it was made worse by the fact she had a child as a result of
it.  She had refused to give her girl up for adoption, which
might have made me hire her over all the others.  We had
something in common.  We both refused to let our daughters be
taken away from us!

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

Maria had been working for me for just four months when I came
home early from work because I thought I was coming down with a
cold.  I found my girls and Maria’s baby in the playpen in front
of the TV, but no sign of Maria.  Not that she was hard to
miss.  At five foot six, she was still a girl child herself. 
Slim with a boyish figure and tiny breasts.  I particularly
noticed her slim, trim figure because since the departure of the
few friends I did have, I had been relegated to my own hand for
satisfaction.  It had been a common practice for me since the
days of my youth when I first discovered the joys of
masturbation.  Sometimes, though, having a partner was something
I really savored.  Much like my experience with Lisa in Kuwait.

My active sex life with a partner was further limited by the
fact I was tall, thin and extremely shy.  Being a nurse wasn’t
the best icebreaker, either, with women.  My sex life at the age
of 40 had been a series of one-night stands and the few times I
had indulged myself and gone to a ‘Rub and Tug.’  You know the
places.  Massage parlors that offered hand jobs as part of the
extended service package for a predetermined tip.  I was
single.  I could afford it.  I just didn’t over indulge myself
since it felt like, and I guess it was, paying for sex.

So, I went looking for Maria.  I found her, or most of her, her
usual loose and baggy clothing having been discarded, lying on
my bed after what appeared to be a fresh shower in my private
bathroom.

I walked in, but Maria was too involved trying to bring herself
off manually.  She didn’t appear to be having too much luck,
though, and with her eyes pinched tightly shut, she didn’t
notice me standing in the doorway.

She was moaning in frustration as she fought to bring herself
off, and miraculously all my cold symptoms disappeared as all
the blood in my body headed south to inflate my prick.

I slipped off my shirt and pants and my socks.  I left on my
boxers since I didn’t want Maria to think I was assuming
anything, and then I moved towards the bed.  My bed.

Her head jerked up when she felt mine slide between her legs,
but I gently pushed her hands away and silenced her objections
by sliding my tongue over her hot crease.  In response, I got a
moan and her body slumped back on the bed, with just a slight
arch in her back.

I laved her hot box with my tongue, slipping and dipping in and
around her clit, never quite making full contact with it.  When
her hands reached down again, it was to grasp my hair and guide
me to her clit, which I then willingly sucked with joyful
abandonment, relishing in the delicious nectar that poured out
of her.  Once, twice she peaked until she couldn’t take it any
longer and her thighs slammed together pinning my head in
between.  She rolled to her side sobbing.  I had little choice
but to roll with her.

I blew gently on her vagina till she spread her legs and
released me from a headlock that could put Hulk Hogan to shame! 

Her sobbing subsided a bit and she looked at me with gratitude
and desire.  With a gentle tug she pulled me up beside her and
kissed her juices off my lips and face and then reached down to
tug my boxers off as she spread her legs for me.  I didn’t need
any further invitation and slid my tempered iron rod into her
love furnace.  All too soon the heat became unbearable and my
rod melted in a spasm of sparking flames as I shot my seed into
her triggering yet another climax from her.

For the next hour we just cuddled and kissed and I played with
her teeny tiny titties and very sensitive, large brown nipples. 
The only reason we parted at all was because we could hear one
of my girls starting to fuss.

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

Maria and I continued to have sex on a semi-regular basis. 
Though she proclaimed her love for me, I convinced her to
continue to date and have a social life.  I was too old for her,
and though I did love her, culturally and age-wise we came from,
and lived, in different worlds.

As the girls grew older, they also became more possessive and
inquisitive.  They started to poke around whenever Maria and I
closed the bedroom door.  They started to question the smell
emanating from my face and crotch after Maria and I had finished
a tryst in bed.  This led to the need for a shower every time
directly afterwards.  In some ways it was as much a bother as it
was a pleasure for me.  And I had started to feel tired.  My
energy for sex was dwindling, as was my need.  Maria, however,
was learning to love sex more and more.  She started to get more
demanding of her male friends, as she would tell me after she
had been out on a date.  If they couldn’t get her off first,
before they looked for reciprocation, then that would be the
last time she went out with them.

Maria would tell me these things as she fondled and caressed my
rod trying to make it hard enough for her to suck on.  She said
she wanted a man just like me.  A man who was kind and generous
and a damn good lover as well.  She wanted a younger version of
me.  I still took her to my bed on a monthly basis where I would
spend all my energy bringing her off multiple times with my
tongue teasing and torturing her clit.  We no longer fucked,
both of us content to satisfy the other orally.

When she finally met Drew, I could see she had found the right
man.  He adored Maria and doted on Isabella.  Though she was sad
to go, I was a bit relieved.  I had been getting weaker and
weaker in the last year, and I now stayed at home full time on
extended sick leave.  Thank God we had a strong union at the
hospital or I would have gone bankrupt with the medical bills
and inability to work.

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

At first I was happy to be at home and alone with my girls.  I
missed Maria, but I didn’t like her seeing me deteriorate, and I
still didn’t know what was causing this health failure.

With home schooling both Mai-Ling and Su-Lee were far advanced
education-wise.  They did their homework and all of the
assignments well before it was due, and the only thing left for
them to really learn was about the world.  I had sheltered them
since that day I first found them in el Qasim.  Their view of
the outside world had been limited to the Discovery and History
channels on TV.  We watched the Biography channel together as
well as all the science channels and of course National
Geographic.

I had taught them all I could, but they needed more.  They
needed someone to take them into the real world and protect
them.  I was considering a chaperone for them to take them out
to discover life when the doctors I used to work with finally
diagnosed my weakening state.

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

I wasn’t really all that surprised when my personal physician
told me I only had a few months left to live.  Perhaps if they
had discovered the problem sooner, something could have been
done, but it was such a rare condition that the available
treatments were all experimental anyway.

Although they cried, I tried to get the girls to understand
that this was exactly the way life was, just like on the
Discovery Channel.

I thought long and hard on whom I could trust with my girls. 
We still had no idea of exactly how old they were, and we
celebrated their birthdays on the day that I had first found
them.  They would turn 13 on their next birthdays.  Too young to
be alone in the world and too old for an orphanage, not even
considering the idea that they were in the US illegally and had
no citizenship standing.

There was only one man I could think of who would take on the
care and training of my girls without asking questions.  One
smart man who would ensure they would never be abused or
neglected, and who would have no reservation about teaching my
babies the facts of life.  He was sufficiently rich enough to be
able to provide and raise my girls.

I did my best to prepare Mai-Ling and Su-Lee for their new
stepfather.  I explained he was a curmudgeon.  Or at least he
liked to think he was.  I knew better though.

“What’s a curmudgeon, Papa?” asked Su-Lee. 

Mai-Ling gave her one of those looks she reserved for the truly
dense.  “It’s a lizard.  One who can change color when
frightened,” she said.

I laughed harder than I had in years.  They say that out of the
mouth of babes come the innocent truths.

“No, sweetheart,” I said.  “Denny likes to think he’s a cranky
old man.  He wants other people to think of him that way as
well.”

“Why, Papa?” asked Su-Lee.

“Well, honey, maybe your sister is right.  By pretending to be
a curmudgeon, he can hide from his fears.”

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

I finally packed the girls off after our last night of sleeping
in the same bed, as we had done for over a dozen years.  I
promised them that Denny would probably let them sleep with him
as well if they behaved themselves.  I reassured them that Denny
would love them just as much as I had, and after arranging for
their transportation to Everett, Washington, I wrote the letter.

I decided to give the last of my money to Maria.  Last month I
had gotten a letter from her that included a picture of her and
Drew.  Isabella was proudly perched on Drew’s lap and Maria was
cradling a baby boy she had named after me.  The tears stung my
eyes as I signed the final papers.  I was going to go to my bed
alone tonight.  With the help of the pills the doctor had given
me, I would sleep peacefully without my babies beside me.  I
would sleep the sleep of the eternal.

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

Everett, WA.

The ringing of the doorbell woke Denny up.  “Fuck,” he said as
he stumbled into his jeans.  “Doesn’t anybody respect the sign?”

“Just answer the door, Denny,” his wife grumbled, turning over
to go back to sleep.

Denny muttered all the way to the door about the sign clearly
stating, “Nightshift worker asleep inside!”

He stopped muttering when he swung the door open to see the two
beautiful girls waiting there for him.  They were both strangely
silent.  He read the letter and his eyes misted over.  Stuffing
the letter into his back pocket he welcomed Mai-Ling and Su-Lee
into his home.  He sat with them for an hour as he fed them and
thought about the strange request.  There was no way he could or
would say no.  He really was an old softie, and he knew that his
friend had pegged him right.  He would take the girls in and
call them and treat them as his own.

Denny fixed up a place for the girls to sleep and after making
sure they were comfortable, hugged them and kissed them
goodnight, promising that when he woke up, he would do as their
father had asked.

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

“So?  Who was at the door?” she asked as he walked back into
his bedroom, “And what was so important that it took so long?”

Denny smiled a sad smile before he answered.  “One of my
friends has passed away,” he said.

She remained silent.  Not sure what to say.

“He bequeathed me two beautiful Siamese cats,” he said as he
shucked his jeans and crawled back into bed.



  
Curmudgeon