Chapter 24

Posted: May 16, 2006 - 12:32:17 am

The Monday following my weekend with the twins and Cindi started a stretch of halcyon days for me. A life sweeter than the one I was living was beyond my comprehension. Guys, I'll tell you another benefit of hanging out with smart women; they are low maintenance and you don't have to spend all your time entertaining them. Now for some guys having a woman up your butt all the time is a good thing. If that's your bag, good for you. But me, I like a minute or two on my own every once and a while. So our relationship was pretty near perfect, we loved every minute we spent together, but we didn't have to spend every minute together. Hence I had time to study, lift weights, play ball and hang out with my father and grandfather.

The girls had interests of their own as well; for instance, Cindi was heavily involved in the National Honor Society and she did her thing down at her parents' funeral home a few days a week. Both of those activities, hanging around all those brainiacs (especially the math guys, they intimidate the hell out of me) and painting smiley faces on dead people, held about the same charm for me as jacking off a wildcat in a telephone booth.

All three girls were also excellent musicians. I think that being good at music, you know, sight-reading music, learning different instruments and such, is a true sign of intelligence. Not being able to do those things doesn't necessarily make you dumb; at least that was my defense since the only thing I could play was the radio.

On Wednesday evening I had an opportunity to see the twins pursuing one of their other interests when I was invited to watch them compete in a doubles tennis tournament at the country club. The twins' final match was scheduled for five-thirty; I picked up Cindi and had us sitting beside Mr. and Mrs. Cavanaugh, Shelia, and Alan Jerdan by five-twenty.

I thought my Sweeties looked fantastic in their matching white tennis togs and flame red ponytails. Those short flouncy little skirts were designed with Elaine and Ellen in mind. The twins were about five foot eight and weighed one-fifteen or so; they were slender but not angular. According to Ellen, their doctor said bone measurement tests indicated that they'd top out at about five ten. They were going to be the tallest Buckley women of all time. The bone growth tests were deemed necessary because they were diagnosed with precocious puberty when they hit five feet tall before they were eight years old. You know what else? They had big old feet, and it tickled the hell out of them when I teased them about the size of those gunboats. Bozo the clown wore smaller shoes than they.

It was weird sitting there politely clapping instead of hooting and hollering, but country club tennis had its own protocol. It turned out that the twins didn't need a lot of support from my big dumb Polack ass anyway, because they dominated their opponents. It was actually a little scary watching them in action. They were so perfectly in tune with each other it was almost impossible for their opponents to find an open area of the court at which to aim. And, Jesus, they were competitive; they went after every shot with a vengeance, even when they were winning handily. I looked at Mr. Cavanaugh when Elaine scrapped her elbow pretty good diving to return a base line bullet. He just looked at me and shrugged.

"Don't challenge them to something that means a lot to you, Johnny, cause they hate to lose."

"No shit Sherlock!" I thought as I nodded my understanding.

And my honey Elaine? She jumped up, spit on her elbow and rubbed the blood off on her pristine white top. That had to have done more to demoralize her opponents than her successfully returning the shot would have. Damn, she was a scrappy woman! I actually got a hard on watching her do that.

We all walked around the edge of the courtside netting to congratulate the twins. I gave both girls a hug and smooch and so did Cindi. I checked out the scrape on Elaine's elbow, it was fairly well skinned up; I kissed it and told her she'd live. She pulled my head down and whispered in my ear, "I have another boo-boo for you to kiss." I turned pink at her boldness in front of her parents, but no one seemed to notice. I took Cindi home right after we congratulated the twins, it was a school night and we still had homework to face. Cindi was all over me when I parked in her driveway. She extracted a promise from me that we'd get together the next evening after my baseball game. Tomorrow's game started at four because we were playing a Daytona team and it was only a twenty-minute trip for them.

When I returned home, my grandfather was there talking with my dad. Papa filled me in as well. Seems like Jethro had enjoyed the snacks he'd received and so Papa was going to let him be in the commercial. A crew from Orlando was scheduled to start filming the thing next week. They were going to use the park as the location; Jethro and Emma were going to interact as they usually did and the product, Liver Biscotti, was going to be featured prominently in their play. Later the raw footage would be edited and dubbed into a final product. Papa said the production company was even bringing an animal trainer. I had to chuckle when Papa said he doubted if there was much a trainer could teach Jethro the Polish Wonder Dog.

Thursday, we won our baseball game and clinched second place in our division. We made the playoffs with a record that made us fourth seed in the eight-team field. Not a bad place to be, considering it was Palmdale's first baseball tournament appearance in ten years. After the game, Cindi took the twins home and then came to my house. Papa was there having a brewski with Dad. Papa liked Cindi a whole lot, he said she reminded him of the girls he knew and loved in Indochina way back when. Cindi knew enough about her heritage to know she was from the Central highlands of Vietnam; she had been born in a city named Pleiku.

Papa had been stationed around her place of birth while he was a Legionnaire so Cindi listen raptly as he recounted his adventures there. Papa called Cindi 'co dep lam', which supposedly meant pretty girl in Vietnamese. Papa said he could ask for a beer or a pretty girl in over forty languages. Of course, Papa was a stercoration artist, so could be he was yanking Cindi's chain. (Papa once told me he met a girl in Algeria that was so sexy he would have crawled across a four-lane highway at rush hour, just to sniff the tires of the laundry truck carrying her dirty underwear to the cleaners.)

Cindi and I settled in to do our homework at the dining room table. Dad and Papa decided that we were boring and headed off to the Moose Lodge to swap lies with their buds. At seven-thirty, Cindi closed her history book with a thud then flipped the Cliff Notes I was reading out of my hand. She slid out of her chair into my lap, locked her lips to mine and sent her tongue down my throat. I swear, there are aardvarks with shorter tongues than Cindi Frazier. When she had swabbed my tonsils thoroughly she broke the kiss and leaned back.

"Take me upstairs, Big Daddy," she said, "cause your woman needs some lovin'."

It's always the shy, quiet ones that turn into the worst horndogs, isn't it?

I picked her up and hustled up to my bedroom; she held on tight to my neck as I almost sprinted up the stairs. I tossed her onto my bed and started ripping off my clothes. As fast as I was going she was still naked on the bed first. I flung my boxer-briefs onto my computer monitor and pounced on her. She squealed when I flipped her over onto her stomach. I reached into my nightstand and grabbed a Trojan and my handy-dandy tube of Astro-Glide as I sat lightly on her back.

"Now you've done it you little minx. You've got me all horny and I'm fixing to go caveman on you, ' I growled.

She didn't look the slightest bit frightened as she gazed hotly at me over her shoulder.

"You don't need that lube, Big Daddy, if I was any wetter you'd slide off the bed."

I ignored her and slipped on the condom then squeezed a big glob of lube on to it.

"Up on you knees, Little One, and who said the lube was for your pussy?"

"Oh," was all she said as she scrambled up onto her hands and knees. I sure loved that view of her spheropygian caboose.

She was as wet as she claimed; yet even with the lube it was tough sledding getting into her. She became more vocal as we pushed and pulled. When I finally sank in the last inch she keened a high note that Jethro probably heard two miles away then dropped her head and attached her teeth to my pillow. I started stroking her with short little jabs as I lubed up my middle finger. I no sooner placed the greasy digit against her rosebud than she started cumming. I was enjoying the hell out of myself and hardly had to move at all as she bucked her booty like that paint shaker down at the Home Depot.

Cindi could come more than singletons doing things this way, she was on her second before the noise from her first stopped echoing through the room. I held Kong still in her and uncorked her butt. She whined about that until I replace one finger with two. She took a raged breath and bumped back against me.

"You are so nasty, Big Daddy," she cooed as she started towards another climax.

For our grand finale I squeezed a little lube on Cindi's finger and let her go to town on her clit as I doubled up on her from the rear. As she started her final orgasm of the evening I even gave her a couple of swats on the butt cheek as I came too. I sure am glad we were using water-soluble lube because we made a big old mess. We were all back together and sitting at the dining room table when Dad came in at nine.

"Still doing homework?" he asked.

Cindi gave him a sweet innocent smile.

"Yes, Mr. Pulaski, we've been hard at it since you left."

Friday we took the Florida Comprehensive Achievement Tests, the FCAT. For us juniors, it was our first crack at the test that had to be passed before we could graduate. The tests weren't that hard so I figured unless I really screwed up next year I had a good shot at graduating. We were dismissed for the weekend as soon as we finished the tests, so I was lounging around the Cavanaughs' pool by one in the afternoon. Elaine and Ellen were finishing up a music lesson so it was just Shelia and me sitting under a large umbrella.

"Johnny, I never have apologized to you for all that happened. Worse yet, I've never told you how much I appreciate all you did for me. You took care of me even when I was treating you badly." She looked out at the crystal clear water of the pool and sighed. "I often wonder what would have happened if you and I had continued to date."

"I've thought about that myself, Shelia. I guess I have accepted that we were just never meant to be. I mean everything seemed to conspire against us, didn't it. I think maybe fate just stepped in and pushed us toward where we really should be. I know I am seriously in love with your sisters and you seem to be crazy about Al."

Shelia smiled and ducked her head cutely when I mentioned Alan Jerdin. "He's such a wonderful man! Did you know he is going to go back to college with me?"

That was news to me. "What's he going to take?"

"He's leaning toward Chemistry and Pharmacology. You know my Alan," she laughed.

I did indeed. "Have you guys decided on a school?"

"Pretty much, the University of Hawaii has a good pre law program for me and big waves for Alan." She leaned towards me conspiratorially. "We've been talking about getting engaged even. Alan's just one more reason I'm thankful to you."

"Wow, congratulations!" was all I could think to say.

She nodded and beamed. "Thanks." Then she threw me a curve that embarrassed the hell out of me. "So, you unleashed the beasts, huh? Ellen told me all about your weekend at Nina's. We had been dreading them becoming sexually active since they were eleven and reached puberty. What you've accomplished with those two is nothing short of miraculous. Their behavior is so much better now; they haven't had a cross word for anyone in weeks. Mom and Dad think you walk on water."

I protested that I hadn't done anything; they had just grown up. Elaine spared me from any further embarrassment when she trotted out of the house and fell heavily into my lap. She was wearing a small bikini that barely hid the good stuff. She kissed me thoroughly and snuggled against me. Ellen came out shortly after and gave me the same treatment. Shelia told us she had things to do and split, so the twins and I hit the pool and splashed around for a while playing some serious grab ass. When things started heating up we retired to the twins playroom. And play we did. It was a tough job taking care of both of them but we managed as Ellen rode my face and Elaine rode Kong. I was finding out more of what my honeys enjoyed every time we were together. Ellen liked a lot of oral, Cindi liked me in her and Elaine, well Elaine loved it all.

Saturday, my grandfather, my dad and I went fishing. We had an early breakfast at Mama's Diner then we went out to Lake Asbury and fished off the boardwalk the state had built as part of the park. We had a cooler full of beer and soda, lunches Nana had made and a bucket of worms. But most important, we had each other's company. Papa brought Jethro along and the doofus found himself a shady spot where he snoozed peacefully as we drowned worms. We caught a few small crappies and one good-sized mud cat but that was about it. What we caught was immaterial anyway, what counted was us hanging out together. I loved it that Papa talked about his childhood in Poland. And Dad cracked me up describing some of his customers. Dad and Papa teased me about Cindi and the twins. Papa even offered to front me some Viagra if things got too tough for me. It was a sublimely perfect day.

The next day wasn't as good. The day started just fine as I sat with the twins during mass; it went sour when I returned from church and Rachael Scofield called me. You remember Rachael, right? You know, the "Ciao Johnny" woman. It was the friendly, bubbly Rachael calling. She wanted to get together for a week after school let out for us both. She said she had already reserved a room at this quaint little inn on the beach up in St. Augustine. Three months ago I would have done back flips at her invitation, but this wasn't three months ago. I politely thanked her for the invitation but told her I was going steady now and I wasn't seeing other women. I stuck to that even when she said, "No problem Johnny, there would be no strings attached and no one has to know but us."

The whole conversation with Rachael made me sad. Not sad because I regretted not getting to go with her, but sad that she knew me so little, she thought I would even consider sneaking off with her. She actually turned angry and nasty before we hung up. When I tallied up my relationship scorecard Rachael was going to be in the L column, along with Shelia Cavanaugh.

After school on Monday I hustled over to the Elk's Club Park to watch Jethro and Emma's acting debut. It was a good thing I went that day because the commercial was almost a wrap even though they hadn't started until noon. Papa told me that Jethro and Emma ignored the three cameras and played all afternoon. As a result the director had some impressive quality footage. Emma looked angelic as always. Jethro was as handsome as he was ever going to be, he was freshly bathed and had on his American Flag bandana. Papa said that what made the director the happiest was when Emma did her stick baton trick and Jethro danced. Only this time Emma said, "sing Jeffrow, sing" and Jethro turned his head up and gave a good old hound dog howl. That right there was going to sell some doggy treats.

When I got there Emma was holding a bag of Liver Biscotti. Jethro was sitting attentively in front of her. She'd take one treat out of the bag and put it on Jethro's nose. The trainer was trying to get Jethro to flip the little treat up in the air and catch it. Jethro wasn't buying any of that, instead, when Emma said, "get it" his Brobdingnagian tongue would slurp out, slice across his face like a windshield wiper, and 'presto' the snack would be gone. Papa turned to me when the trainer went for another bag of treats.

"That's how you can tell Jethro is truly intelligent, because he can improvise and accomplish the task more efficiently."

I looked at Papa to make sure he wasn't putting me on. When I saw how awed he was by Jethro's antics I just nodded my head.

The trainer next tried to get Jethro to catch one of the snacks when Emma tossed it. That didn't work so well either. Because when Emma tossed it, Jethro would pounce on it then take it back to Emma and gently spit it back into her hand. I thought that was kinda cool of the big goof, if the director could tie the product in with Jethro's obvious adoration for Emma, they were going to sell a lot of those treats.

I watched for another minute or two then wandered over to talk to Emma's mom, Kayla. Kayla smiled at me and kissed my cheek but she didn't look all that happy.

"What's up?" I asked.

She sighed and her shoulders slumped. "I was going to call you later and talk to you about it. But I guess I might as well tell you now. My ex and his parents are suing me for custody of Emma. They are claiming I'm an unfit mother. A deputy served me with court papers this morning."

Jesus, I was expecting something like she needed a new car battery or something; I was stunned.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"I don't know, Johnny. I have a few hundred dollars in the bank and we are getting a few hundred for this commercial, but I can't really afford a lawyer. I thought maybe legal aide would help me."

Lawyer? I just happened to know one, and I was willing to bet that he'd kick some ass over a custody case this unfair. The problem as I saw it was to get Kayla Thorpe to accept my help. She wasn't suspicious of my intentions as much now but she was still a proud, independent woman.

"Uh, Kay, I don't know if you are going to like me suggesting this but I think I can fix the lawyer thing for you. No strings attached of course."

I didn't know what her reaction to my suggestion would be, but none of the responses I considered included what happened next. The words were barely out of my mouth before Kayla jumped on me and almost cracked my ribs squeezing me.

"Johnny, if you could come up with one of your miracles now, I'd never, ever forget it."

"I can't promise anything for sure, but give me a few minutes, okay?" I said.

She nodded and I walked over to my truck. I grabbed my cell phone and dug Mr. Cavanaugh's business card out of my wallet. I called the private number he gave me and he answered the phone himself. I identified myself and laughed when he asked if I was in trouble.

"No sir," I said, "but I do need a lawyer."

I quickly ran down Kayla's situation for him. He remembered Kayla and Emma from the news and quickly agreed to represent her. He asked me if I could bring Kayla by his house to see him at six. I asked him to hang on, cleared it with Kayla and then confirmed us being there. When I hung up my phone Kayla gave me another one of those boa constrictor hugs.

"So, how do you know a lawyer that would take my case pro-bono that quickly?" she asked.

"He's the father of two of my girlfriends," I answered truthfully.

"Two of your girlfriends?" she repeated as a question, eyebrows arched.

Rather than try to explain and come off as a bragging asshole, I told her to wait until six and everything would be clearer to her.

I drove Kayla and Emma to the Cavanaughs' house. It was five till six when Elaine answered the door.

"Hi Honey, this is Kayla and Emma; Emma, Kayla, this is my girlfriend Elaine. We are going to watch Emma while Kayla talks to your dad."

Elaine was smiling and shaking Kayla's hand when Ellen arrived at the door also. I repeated the introductions once more. You could almost see the lights come on in Kayla's head.

Elaine, Ellen and I played Old Maid with Emma while Kayla talked with Thomas Cavanaugh, Esquire. Kayla spent an hour with Mr. Cavanaugh and was a much happier woman when I drove her and Emma to their car.

"Thomas says we are going to make Jamie Thorpe and his parents sorry they ever instigated this custody business," she said.

"I'm glad he agreed to help. If Mr. Cavanaugh tells you something, you can pretty much count on it."

"I believe that Johnny. Thomas thinks very highly of you, by the way. He says you saved one of his daughters and changed the lives of his other two. Just who in the hell are you?"

I laughed off her comments and told her I hadn't really done anything for Shelia that any other friend wouldn't have done. And as far as the amazing twins were concerned, I just happened to be around when they decided they were ready to grow up. I changed the subject and asked her how things were going with work and school. She told me both were excellent and that she really enjoyed her college courses. Then she changed the subject back. When a woman wanted to know something they are as relentless as bill collectors.

"So you have two girlfriends, now, and they share you?" I knew she was teasing me.

"Actually I have three, but they are nice young ladies and share their toys."

She laughed at that. I dropped her and Emma off at the park and made sure her car fired up before I headed home.

Jethro and Emma's commercial hit the airwaves about a week later. And, much as I hate to admit it, Jethro, through the magic of editing, looked as if he were all Papa claimed. The commercial landed Jethro one other advertising job. It wasn't a commercial, though; it was a print ad for a local pet cemetery that ran in our newspaper's Sunday Magazine. In the add Jethro was standing on point looking alertly off to the camera's left. The caption read:

This is heroic Jethro Pulaski

Noble Companion

Faithful Friend

Brave Protector

For someone this important

You want the very best

After their death as well as during their life

That is where we at Shady Grove Pet Funeral home can help

Let our fully qualified and certified staff

Handle your bereavement needs

Cremation packages start in the low five hundreds

Pretty tasteful, huh? Shady Grove was the brainchild of Lulu Frazier, Cindi's mom. Lulu hit on the idea when she read in People Magazine about some movie star who spent ten grand on a funeral for her poodle. Papa was able to get Jethro to look so regal by standing off camera waving a stuffed cat with a bag of Liver Biscotti tied around it's neck while chanting, "here, kitty, kitty, kitty."

As a result of Jethro's sudden (and in Papa's mind, well deserved) stardom, Papa started to fret about someone stealing his dog. So in his typical over the top way, Papa had Jethro fitted out with a collar that had a GPS locator in it. Papa had a hand held GPS device that turned on the locator then displayed within ten meters where the dog was. Papa also sprang for the lifetime subscription to the manufacturer's web site so he could also find Jethro while at home sitting at his computer. My grandfather spent over a thousand dollars to equip his fifty-dollar dog with LOJACK, even though he never took the keys out of the ignition of his fifty thousand dollar truck, go figure.

The merry month of May marched right on by. Our baseball team finished third in the tournament, we won two in a row to make it to the final three then lost one squeaker and got blown out in our last game. Coach thought we made a decent showing and with one more starting pitcher next year, we'd do even better.

My love life was beyond description. And note, I said 'love life', not 'sex life'. Sure the sex was better than outstanding, but it was love that was driving our train. The girls and I became closer every day. I don't know how that worked exactly, but I wasn't complaining. You want to hear something funny? It soon reached the point where it was hard for me to remember a life that didn't include them; and it was even harder to imagine a life without them in it.

The problems of jealousy and hurt feelings never surfaced in our relationship. I think that was because my women were so bright and because of the empathic link we shared. The girls were too smart to let petty things worry them, and our link let everyone know how much we each loved the other. Once we started our relationship our link strengthened until we could actually feel each other's presence from a distance. I don't mean that we could transit our feelings like radio waves or any of that stuff, but when my doorbell rang I knew which of them was ringing it without looking. My link with Elaine continued to be the strongest. We have never figured out why that is, especially in light of the fact that the strongest empath among us was Cindi.

We could project to people we weren't linked to by now, but Cindi had the ability to actually sway someone's actions. The connection was stronger between the four of us, like I said, but the four of us, as a group, couldn't influence anyone any more than Cindi could. In other words, working together didn't increase our abilities.

Kayla's custody case went before a judge the week before school broke for the summer. Since it was family court, we weren't allowed to be there for moral support. However, Kayla told us all about it when she came to pick up Emma, for whom the twins were babysitting. Kayla said that the young attorney, to whom Mr. Cavanaugh had given the case, tore Jamie Thorpe and his parents a new ass. At the end of the three-hour hearing, the judge commended Kayla for her determination and self-reliance. She lectured the senior Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe for bringing such a disingenuous matter before her then ruled in Kayla's favor.

Before he could call for the next case, Gary Wright, Kayla's Attorney, handed the judge a sheet of paper listing how far in arrears Jamie Thorpe was in child support. The Family Court Judge, a woman well known to detest deadbeat dads, looked up sharply.

"Mr. Thorpe, this document affirms that you are twenty-two months behind in paying child support, is that true?"

Jamie hemmed and hawed but eventually admitted it was so. He said he hadn't paid because he thought Kayla was unfit to raise his daughter and would use the money to party. The judge said they all knew that wasn't the case now, so if he wanted to leave the courtroom by the front door someone at his table had better cough up thirty-three hundred bucks. Jamie's parents wrote a check so Jamie didn't go to jail. In addition, the judge increased his child support to three hundred a month and directed that future payments be made to the clerk of the court. Needless to say, Kayla was ecstatic. That should have been that, but of course it wasn't, because Jamie Thorpe was an asshole, pure and simple. I think it was because his parents kept bailing him out of jams as they did by paying his back child support.

The school year finally ended on the last Wednesday in May. I made it through my finals and managed to keep my grade point average hovering near the 4.0 mark. It would have been nice to spend the summer hanging out around the Cavanaughs' swimming pool with my sweethearts, but that's not the Pulaski way. Instead, I started working for my grandfather pretty much full time. Papa's business was a lot more involved than I thought it was and he seemed intent on immersing me in it up to my neck. Everyday we would visit each job site and I would end up working with whatever crew Papa decided need the extra manpower. The good thing about that was having something different to do everyday. The bad thing was that some of it was damned hard work. I sure did learn to appreciate what a man had to do to make a living though.

Thursday of the second week working with my grandfather, we knocked off early because a thunderstorm blew in while we were prepping a concrete slab. I wasn't too unhappy about getting rained out because Papa had me digging footers with a square point shovel. It was tedious work, as I had to make sure the footers were exactly sixteen inches wide and twenty inches deep. Any less than those measurements and the footer wouldn't be to code, any more and I was wasting concrete. Anyway it was about two in the afternoon and we were about three miles from my grandparents' house when Papa's cell phone went off. He answered it normally, became real quiet, and then started speaking in Polish too fast for me to keep up.

Papa closed his phone and tossed it onto the seat. He looked grimly determined as he tromped on the gas.

"Trouble at the house, someone is trying to snatch Emma," he said tersely.

Here's what happened as best I could piece it together:

Jamie Thorpe had followed his ex-wife and daughter to my grandparents' house at ten that morning. He watched Kayla walk Emma to the door and my grandmother let them in. Jamie then went to the Top Hat, a topless bar on the outskirts of Daytona, and proceeded to drink and nurse his anger at Kayla. What really rankled with Jamie was the amended custody order that directed his visits with his daughter be supervised as if he were a potential pedophile. That the amended order was the judge's way of insuring that Jamie continued paying his child support was lost on Jamie; he would much rather blame his bitch of an ex-wife.

Jamie reached the point where his snoot full of loud mouth overruled his common sense. He paid for one last lap dance from Mona Mounds and her incredible 44's and headed to my grandparents' house, drunkenly determined to rescue his child from the clutches of strangers.

Nana opened the door unconcernedly when Jamie rang the bell; after all, this was Palmdale, the town with the lowest crime rate in Florida. Jamie pushed his way into the house.

"I want to see my daughter, where is she?" he demanded.

Before Nana could answer Emma and Jethro came skidding around the corner to see who had rang the doorbell. Jamie took a step toward Emma.

"Come on Emma, you are leaving with Daddy."

Emma didn't want to do anything of the kind so she darted behind Nana. Nana might have been in her sixties but she was still a mother, so no way was Jamie getting to Emma without going through her first. Jamie had figured that out and advanced toward the frightened child and determined grandmother. How hard, he figured, could it be to take one small child away from one small elderly woman? Jamie, in his single minded drunken determination, forgot about the fourth person in the room. Well, Jethro Pulaski had finally met a human he didn't like. He gave a loud growling bark, jumped between Jamie and Nana and turned into the hound dog version of Cujo. Nana grabbed Emma and ran to her bedroom while Jethro had Thorpe's attention.

We roared up to the driveway about two minutes after Nana's call. Papa reached under his truck seat, pulled out a two-foot-long piece of inch and a quarter oak dowel, and we sprinted towards the door. My grandparents' house was a split-level, three-bedroom ranch. The master suite was off the dining room to our left as we came in. When we piled through the front door we turned left and were greeted by the sight of a disheveled cursing man beating on the master bedroom door with a heavy brass bookend shaped like a duck. Jethro was barking furiously and kept lunging at the man's legs. Thorpe would kick or swing at Jethro to ward him off then return to pounding on the door.

Jethro saw Papa just as Jamie was aiming a vicious kick in the dog's direction. With his attention diverted, Jethro didn't dodge quickly enough, Thorpe's shoe caught him in the haunch and Jethro yelped in pain. Uh-oh, if the man ever had a chance of getting out of my Papa's house in one piece, I think he just cancelled it.

"See to my dog, Johnny," Papa said in this flat scary voice, as he advanced on the crazy man at his bedroom door.

"Get back, old man, I won't hurt you if you give me my daughter."

Papa didn't say a word but he did lash out with the piece of wood he carried. The sound of the round piece of oak hitting Thorpe's wrist sounded like a gunshot. Thorpe screamed and dropped the bookend, his right hand hanging uselessly. Then Papa brought the stick around backhanded and slammed it into Thorpe's right knee. Thorpe dropped to the ground face first and Papa dropped onto the injured mans back. Then he threaded the dowel under Thorpe's neck until he could grab it with his other hand. With his hands about a foot apart on the stick Papa pulled back until Thorpe couldn't breath. Man I was about to crap my pants thinking papa was going to off the guy right there. Then Papa looked at me and winked.

"If you ever set foot in my house again I will kill you — understand?" Papa said in this really thick polish accent.

And that's how the deputies found us about a minute later when they edged in through the open door, guns drawn. The deputies immediately drew down on Papa because he appeared to be the aggressor. It took Nana coming out of the bedroom to put matters right. The deputies placed Jamie Thorpe under arrest then called an ambulance for him. They weren't sure what to do with Papa so they called in a Sergeant to sort it out. The Sergeant listened to Papa's story and directed the deputies to write it up as self defense on Papa's part. In contrast, they threw the book at Jamie Thorpe. Attempted kidnapping of a child, assault on an elderly person, resisting arrest with violence (this was a weak charge based on Papa making a citizen's arrest), and cruelty to animals for kicking Jethro. Jethro was just fine; matter of fact, he came out of the deal the best as his heroics finally made Nana a member of his fan club.

On the second Saturday of June, I attended Jane Pullman's wedding. Yes that's right, big Jane was marrying lucky ass Ralph Dabney, the fellow that worked at her bank. The wedding and reception were both held at the Moose Lodge and my father gave the bride away. Caroline Hernandez and Amanda, Jane's daughter, were the bride's maids. I was sitting in a folding chair on the bride's side of the aisle with Cindi, Elaine and Ellen. Cindi, sitting on my right, whispered something to Ellen, who was sitting to Cindi's right. Ellen tittered which drew Elaine's attention. Of course, Elaine had to get in on the conversation so she leaned across me and Cindi whispered the same thing to her. Elaine giggled too, and shot me a look.

"What?" I whispered.

"Cindi says you've slept with everyone in the bridal party," she whispered back.

"Only the women," I said, "and not since I fell in love with you all; and hardly any sleeping was involved."

Caroline, Amanda and I were still the best of friends even if we were no longer fuck buddies. I was at ease now about the little dom/sub thing going on between them because Amanda said it was mostly just a game they sometimes played.

The following week Cindi and I spent all the time we could with Ellen and Elaine because they were going to Ireland for five weeks on the twentieth of June. Ellen and Cindi were safely on the pill now so we were over messy birth control and worrying about condoms. But it wasn't really all about the sex before they left, as great as that was. It was also about just being together. The twins were stoked about seeing where their mother's family came from and finding out more about their heritage, but they were sad to be leaving Cindi and me. I spent a lot of time with Elaine because she was especially unhappy about the thought of being away from me for so long.

She and I were alone in my bedroom, cuddled naked under the covers. "I am going to miss you way too much, Johnny, I can feel it already starting and we haven't even left yet."

I held her tighter but didn't say anything. With our connection words were superfluous anyway. When we were together like that, both of us sated from making love, our connection felt as if it were as large as those massive cables on the Golden Gate Bridge. Elaine felt it too, I guess, because she rolled on top of me and looked into my eyes.

"Close your eyes, Honey, relax and concentrate on my tingle, I want to try something," she said.

I did as she asked. I felt her connection to me flare even stronger. This time thought, instead of feeling her as a sensation that washed over me, I felt her as a tickle in my mind. When I focused on that tickle, an image started taking shape. When the image swam into soft focus I was so startled I flinched and lost it. But, for a startling heartbeat, floating in my head had been a big red neon heart, and inside the heart were her initials.

When my eyes popped open Elaine smiled. "You saw it didn't you? That was my heart Johnny, it belongs to you now."

Wow!
Joe J
Chapter 25