Prick Van Winkle

by Lubrican

Chapters : 1-2 | 3-4 | 5-6 | 7-8 | 9-10 | 11-12 | 13-14 | 15-16 | 17-18
19-20 | 21-22 | 23-24 | 25-26 | 27-28 | 29-30 | 31-32 | 33-Epilogue

Chapter 31

That night Gidget got a call from her mother, who playfully accused her of hogging Bob.

"I know why you want him at your house." grumped Gidget. "He hasn't even been here a whole week."

In the end, she agreed to send Bob to June's house the next day. That night she was especially ardent in her lovemaking with Bob. She thought it was because she would have to do without him for a while. That wasn't the real reason she felt the way she did, though. It had been too many years for her to remember she got especially horny when she was ovulating.

The next day Bob went back to the winery by himself. He found Annie in one of the barns, trying to get a big barrel up onto a rack. As he helped her move it into place she snarled about how machinery that was properly maintained would have done the job in less than a minute. That machinery was down at the moment and the owner wouldn't spend any money on it since he was selling the place.

"If you treat all potential buyers like you treated me yesterday," Bob said, dusting off his hands, "it probably won't sell right away."

Annie shot him a look, but just said "Thanks." for his help.

"Do you have time to talk?" he asked.

"No." she said bluntly.

"Look, I like this place." said Bob. "I don't know anything about wine, but you do, right?" he asked.

She nodded, fiddling with some tubes of some kind. "Yes."

"Then why can't I buy the winery, and you run it, and I'll build my house and we'll both be happy?"

"I told you, it's not a good investment right now." she said, looking up at him from her bent over position. "It will be at least two years and probably three before we get a money making crop in the bottle and ready to sell."

"I'm not looking for an investment." said Bob.

Annie stood up and turned to face him, her hands on her hips.

"You're willing to borrow seven point five mil... just to have a place to build your house?" she was obviously skeptical. "And that's if you can find a bank that will go for it."

"I don't need a bank." said Bob. "I have the cash."

Annie rocked back on her heels. This guy was just full of surprises. "And you'd trust me to run the operation... hands off?"

"I'm willing to gamble with that." said Bob.

"Without even knowing me?" she asked, incredulous.

"With your attitude, you wouldn't have a job if you didn't know what you were doing." said Bob.

Annie smiled for the first time since Bob had met her. She had a nice smile. "You call them pretty plainly too, don't you mister..."

"Winkle." said Bob.

"Mr. Winkle." she repeated. Her eyes narrowed. "If you're playing with me I'm gonna make it real uncomfortable for you." she warned.

Bob leaned forward. "Do you want to run a world class winery... or not?" he asked.

Annie felt a glimmer of hope for the first time in three years. "Yes, I do." she said finally.

"Then do you have time to talk?" asked Bob.

"I guess I do at that, Mr. Winkle." she said.

"Bob." he said.

"Okay, Bob. You aren't the boss yet, but let's just sit a spell and see if maybe you have what it takes to be one." Annie led him to the porch of the big stone house and indicated a chair.

They talked for three hours. Two employees came to ask her questions, which she dealt with rapidly and then returned to listing the needs of the business and peppering Bob with questions about what he'd be willing to spend to get the place back on its feet. Along the way he mentioned that just his name might have quite a bit of marketing value to their future product.

"Why's that?" asked Annie. "I've never heard of you before."

Bob laughed. "You have to be the only person in California who hasn't heard of me then." He chuckled. "It's kind of nice, actually. But don't worry about that. That's years in the future anyway, according to you. Maybe by then people will have forgotten who I am. So what do you think? Can we do this together?"

That got her back on the subject she loved most - growing good grapes and making better wine. It wasn't until he was driving off down the lane that she remembered he hadn't said anything about why he was famous. That seemed odd. Most famous people wouldn't shut up about how important they were. She had seen hundreds of them come and go from the tasting rooms of the winery. Most of them felt like they deserved a discount on wine, since they would, naturally, mention it to their friends, or serve it at their fancy parties.

Curious now, she turned and went into the house. She lived on the upper floor. The owner hadn't wanted to live on site. That was the only good thing about him. She sat down at the computer in her office and Googled "Bob Winkle"

Five minutes later she gasped. "Well color me brown and call me shit faced!"

It took another five minutes for her to remember that she hadn't gotten the phone number of her knight in shining armor. She cursed for another five minutes and, sighing, went back to work. She had some things to do to make sure nobody else bought the winery.

Bob waited until he got to June's house and then called Gus Gunderson. He got a recorded message that the phone number had changed and directing him to a web site for more information.

Gus' part of the insurance company settlement, fifteen percent of fifty million dollars, had changed his whole life, making him an instant millionaire. Most people would have chucked everything except spending money. But Gus was a lawyer and he knew he could be a good one. He loved justice as a concept and now that he didn't have to take anything that came his way just to pay rent, he was able to take on cases wherein he saw the actual possibility that he could help justice get done.

Never having had much money, and being married to Margie, who was even more fiscally conservative, he banked his windfall and then made a few changes that he knew he could justify. He relocated his office to a new building, got new furniture and hired a researcher. He had given two interviews to the media and they had generated more work for him in a week than he'd had in the previous six months. He didn't know if it was going to last, but if it did he'd need a partner pretty soon. He'd offered to let Margie stay home if she wanted, but she didn't. She was used to being his secretary and liked being able to be with him most of the time. He was as busy as a one-legged man in a jump rope contest, but he liked it that way. He'd lost six pounds, partially because he was on the go a lot more, but also because there was no Dippy Doo Donut shop right next door. There was a Starbucks, and what passed for a bakery, but you couldn't go in either place with a ten dollar bill and come out with enough to call a cab. He had money... but he didn't spend it wastefully.

He found out that having money meant you had lots of new best friends, or at least people who told you you were their best friend. Suddenly all manner of hoity toity organizations, some based in the legal profession, but most not, invited him to be a member. He must have thrown out ten or fifteen people who had the secret stock tip that would turn his 7.5 million into a hundred and ten million overnight. He was suddenly a lot more attractive to women too, mostly good looking high maintenance women who came in with some trifling legal problem and tried to seduce him right in front of his wife. They got told he was just too busy to take their case.

He looked up from a brief he was preparing to see Margie signaling him frantically. She still wasn't used to an actual intercom. The phone she had looked like one of those remote controls that handled the TV, VCR, DVD player, Stereo and probably the electric can opener too for all he knew.

"It's Bob." she mouthed in an exaggerated and silent over-pronunciation.

Gus looked at his phone, which was simpler than Margie's, but still lit up like a Christmas tree from time to time. Thankfully only one line was lit. He picked up the phone.

"Bob!" he said jovially. He listened for a second. "Bob? Can you hear me Bob?" He remembered that Margie had to put a caller on hold before he could answer. He started to yell at her, but then thought she might hang up on Bob in the process of transferring the call. It had happened before. He got up and went to her, taking the phone from her and scowling. Margie shrugged and stuck out her tongue at him.

"Bob!" he said into the phone. "How's my favorite client?" He listened for a few minutes and then signaled for paper and pen. He scribbled on the paper. Even Margie couldn't read it. "What's the address?... Who's the broker?... No problem Bob. I've got your back... okay... And Bob? Thanks." He handed the phone back to his wife. He looked at her.

"Is your Real Estate license still current?" he asked.

She blinked and nodded. "I think so." she said. Margie had gone to night school while Gus was still working his former job, to get her Realtor's license. It had been something she liked, but actually getting into an agency without most of your commission going to the broker was difficult, especially in California. The field was overstocked with eager young people who would do anything to make a sale, including cheat, lie and steal if that helped. She had given it up after six months, disgusted with the morals of the people she had to work with. Her one sale had netted her a whopping $350.00 after the broker took out his commission and "employment costs" since she was a new hire. The overall commission had been over eight grand.

"Bob wants to buy a vineyard." said Gus. "He wants us to represent him and make sure he's not doing anything stupid."

Gus gave Margie the information and told her to go do her thing. She'd only been gone ten minutes before he was pulling his hair out due to the phone and a walk-in who wanted to know if Gus could catch a wife having adultery. He called a temp service, who sent over a bright young college girl. She played the phone like it was a concert piano. Within an hour he had decided to hire her permanently. Margie would just have to get used to being the Real Estate branch of Gus Gunderson, Attorney At Law.

Margie knew all the steps to take to evaluate and appraise the property in question. It took her four hours, but she got all the information she felt was needed. The property was overpriced, based on the quantity of wine it was permitted to produce, the acres of planted land and their comparison to other vineyards in the area. Public records didn't have actual numbers on the profits being generated by a private business, but there were lots of indicators, and this outfit didn't look like it was making much money. Two of the licenses needed had expired, and had not been renewed since. Technically, they shouldn't be doing any business at all. The last fire inspection had been passed, but was marginal with "concern with reference to inoperable electric equipment and questionable maintenance on electrical systems" being noted in the explanation block. The Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms inspection, which included comments by a health inspector, was pristine with all blocks marked "exceeds standards". She closed the book she was examining in the county tax office and checked her notes. Next would be a site visit.

When she got back to the office there was a marital tiff, as some people call it. Margie didn't much care to see a sweet young thing sitting in her chair, hands flashing, cheery voice talking to people on the phone and electronic messages being routed all over the place.

When Gus explained his plan to have her more or less establish a Real Estate law arm in the company, she felt better, and then felt panic. She knew Gus didn't understand much about real estate law, and she had only the most basic of grasps. She could do the paperwork for transactions, but there was much more to doing real estate law than just transactions. Gus agreed to make some calls and see if there was a promising young real estate attorney coming out of any of the law schools in the area.

The next morning Margie drove up to the winery. She met Annie, who was ecstatic to find out she represented Bob. They sat on the porch and without any shame whatsoever, Annie detailed the minor sabotage she had performed on the property. She didn't admit that she had done the things that had been done. She just listed the reasons that the business wasn't worth the money being asked. Then Margie got the tour.

"Most of this would be relatively easy to put right, wouldn't it?" she asked after a time.

"Yes, it would require some investment, but I'd estimate that it could be repaired or brought up to speed for severnty-five to a hundred thousand dollars." said Annie.

"And you'd be staying on to run the operation?" asked Margie.

"Yes, if Bob buys it, and does what he said he'd do I'll stay. I'd need to rehire my full crew though." said Annie. "I already told him that."

They sat back down and went through the numbers again as Margie took notes. When it was all done the bottom line for doing everything it would take over a two year period to get the winery producing again, came out to a little more than two million dollars.

Margie shook hands with Annie, packed up her notes and left.

It took two weeks, but Gus found middle aged woman named Tammy who was about to graduate from the same law school he had gotten his degree from. Her passion was real estate law. He actually interviewed three other prospects too, but when he talked to Tammy he felt a kindred spirit. She was a single mother, of African descent, and had three teenagers still at home. She had managed to go to school and work two jobs and her kids still didn't get into trouble. He had her look over Margie's prospectus on the vineyard. She immediately started asking questions and Gus called Margie in to answer them. Twenty minutes later Tammy said that it looked very well done, and looked like a realistic offer, as long as the buyer had the capital to make the improvements and wait out the two year dead time.

Tammy's first job as a new employee of the office was to negotiate the purchase of the winery.

Bob just happened to be in the process of stuffing Betty full of hard prick when his cell phone went off on the night stand next to them. He ignored it. Betty and what they were doing was more important than any phone call he could think of. The device would take a message anyway.

When Betty lay limp, a silly smile on her face, her pussy oozing thick white cum, Bob sat up and listened to the voice mail. When it was done he turned to Betty.

"We need to have another family meeting." he said.

They got everyone together the next night, which was Friday. Val, Polly and Becca all complained that they had dates and wanted to miss the meeting. Bob insisted they all be there and said it wouldn't take long to decide the issue. They came dressed to thrill, almost sparkling next to the other women who were dressed in shorts and T shirts or whatever. Fran was with them.

Fran sidled up to Bob and whispered in his ear.

"Mom put me on the pill."

He swatted her butt and she danced back giggling.

Bob got right to it. He talked about the winery and the three younger women chimed in occasionally with comments. One of them was about the "surly woman" they had met. Bob explained that had been dealt with, and she would be surly no more.

Tammy had gotten the asking price down to five million, using the data that Margie had gathered, with the exception of the fact that they knew the winery could not actually produce anything at present. That bit of information was held back in case the owner wanted to play hardball. He didn't. He was strapped for cash and was eager to sell. He'd take a loss on the investment, but he could write that off, and he had plans for the five million that he was convinced would make him a lot more. He had a hot tip on a group that guaranteed they would have the secret to fusion power within eighteen months, and he was going to make a killing by investing all five mil.

"So," Bob said when he was finished describing the deal. "Does this sound like something you all could get excited about?"

There was low key chatter as people talked to other people. Love being what it is, Val, Polly and Becca were all enthusiastic for two or three minutes. "Can I go now?" they asked almost as one.

Martha snorted. "You all go off and play with your little boys or whatever. Just remember you're going to have to live with what we decide."

Val kissed her mother on the cheek and then kissed Bob too. "I trust you." she said.

The end result was that all the women agreed to try the wine business.

Bob called Tammy and told her to go ahead. She made arrangements with him to set up an escrow account. After that she and Margie would handle everything.

"I want to tell people we're getting married." said Val as she walked along with Zack. They had just been to a play and were enjoying the fresh night air. Her slim hand rested on the inside of his elbow as they walked along.

"You mean you haven't already?" he asked.

Val held up her left hand, wagging her ring finger back and forth silently.

Zack flushed. "Oh yeah. I guess a ring would be appropriate, huh."

Val elbowed him. "I can't believe you didn't think about that." she pouted.

Zack stuffed his hand in his pocket and kept walking.

"Hey, this is me. I'm a guy. Take me or leave me." he said.

She elbowed him again, leaning into him with her shoulder.

"Oh, I'm going to take you all right." she said. "Are you trying to weasel out on me?"

Zack pulled his hand out of his pocket. A small black velvet covered box was in it.

"No." he said calmly. "And I didn't forget. I just had to save up." He waved the box in front of her eyes. "Bet you can't guess what's in here." he taunted.

Val squealed and grabbed for the box. Zack whipped his hand to the side and stepped back from her, shifting the box from one hand to the other. At one point she was all over him and he simply held the box in the small of her back with his hand over it as she struggled with him.

"Oh please, Zack, honey, I'm sorry. I should have known you wouldn't forget. Show me... please?" Her please was punctuated by cupping his groin and squeezing his balls gently. He was only too aware she could squeeze a lot harder and he immediately brought the box around and between them. She grabbed it and stepped back. Her other hand went to the cover... and stopped. She looked at him and then at the box.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "Open it."

"It's been a dream... up until now." she said softly. "You asked me to marry you, but I think I didn't really believe it. But if there's a ring in here that's going to make it real. I'm scared Zack."

"You want me to put it back in my pocket?" he asked, smiling.

"No!" she took another step back.

"I love you." said Zack. "I still have no idea what you see in me, but I don't think I can live without you."

Val felt her whole body flush with warmth. She opened the box.

It had cost Zack almost two months salary. He'd had to dip into his savings to cover it. But the look on her face was worth every penny. Her mouth opened and closed and then opened and closed again as her eyes got to be the size of half dollars.

She stuttered, and then stammered and then burst into tears, trying to wipe them away with the back of her hand and get the ring out at the same time. She was blubbering so hard she couldn't get the ring to go on and he had to step in and grab her hands. He guided her hand and the ring slipped onto her ring finger. He'd guessed right and it slid over her knuckle and seated perfectly on the flesh at the base of her finger. He reached for a handkerchief and silently thanked his mother for training him to carry one. She wiped her nose with one hand, waving the hand with the ring on it in front of her face the whole time.

"It's... b-b-b-beautiful." she wailed, tears streaming down her face. "I... [sob] love it... [hic]" she bawled.

Then she tried to tackle him. He got her calmed down enough to get her in the car.

"Your house?" he asked, assuming she'd want to show off the rock.

"Uh, uh" she said, shaking her head and holding her hand at arm's length. "Your house."

She admired the ring all the way home, paying him no attention at all. She waited for him to let her out of the car, and then took his arm, exactly like she had before he gave her the ring, and walked up to the front door with him.

When they were inside, she pulled him directly to the bedroom. There, she went wild again, tearing at his clothes and popping buttons until she got him naked, and then slipping out of her clothes even more quickly. She rode him mercilessly, concentrating on using her muscles and not even trying for her own orgasm, until he gave her the other thing she wanted to go along with the ring - a pussy full of hot spunk.

Becca got out of the shower and toweled off. She looked critically in the mirror. She tried to suck in her stomach, but she couldn't make the gentle swell go away any more. She was going to have to tell Denny... and the world at large, soon. She was terrified. She was terrified that Denny would dump her. She was terrified that her mother would yell at her, both because she got pregnant in the first place and because she hadn't been to the doctor yet. She was terrified that the only people who would still love her were her cousins.

She knew which adult she would tell first though. Polly would understand. Polly would be upset, but she would understand. She had been on the same dates that had led to the wild sex that everyone would think was responsible for the baby in her belly. Polly had also lost control and rutted like an animal on a blanket in the woods. Polly would understand.

Polly got out of the shower and toweled off. She looked critically in the mirror. She had a little pooch just below her navel since Fran was born. No matter how she tried she couldn't get that area to flatten back out. Brian loved to play with it, running his hand over it. He hadn't said anything about noticing it was larger. He'd notice pretty soon. Everybody would.

When she'd missed her first period she had just chalked it up to aging, though in her heart she knew she was too young for the change to be taking place, even precursors of the change. She was thirty-nine, and well within the window of her upper childbearing years. She ran her hand over the swell and wondered already what the baby would be like. Fran had been the joy of her life, and had taken her through the tough years when Roger had come out of the closet and she'd lost her only lover. Would she lose her new lover over this? She didn't think so. She hadn't intentionally not thought about divorce and moving, and trying to negotiate her own emotional minefield about remarriage, much less talking about it with Brian. He was so young and fresh. She could understand perfectly why he might be less than thrilled at the idea of being tied down to a woman, child or not. Then again, she'd never had a relationship with a complete man... so in a way, she had no idea what a complete man might think or do.

One thing was clear though. Brian was a complete man.

She'd have to tell him soon. She'd have to tell Fran too, and that would be hard. She had been irresponsible and that would set a bad example for Fran. The family would give her fits too. Her mother would probably have a heart attack. She knew who she'd tell first, though. She and Becca had a special relationship now. Double dating had brought this all about, and regardless of what Brian might do, she couldn't be unhappy about the outcome. Fran had been precious. This baby would be precious too.

She padded to the bedroom and picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

"Becca?"

"Aunt Polly. I was just going to call you."

"I need to talk to you."

"Me too. I need to talk to you too."

"Go get some ice cream with me?"

"Sure. I just got out of the shower. I'll get dressed."

"How about that? I just got out of the shower too. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

Thirty minutes later, inside the local Dairy Queen, patrons were startled by two screams. A banana split slid off the table from between the two women who had screamed, as they lurched up out of their seats and tried to hug each other across the table. A teenage boy was dispatched to clean up the spill, and a new banana split was prepared for the younger woman, who was crying and smiling at the same time while the older woman patted her hand and cried right along with her.

Chapter 32

It was complicated crying that Polly and Becca shared. The emotions that raced through them in little bits and pieces, from different directions, were a little like being in a bumper car at the fair. You got hit from a lot of different directions at the same time. It was partly release of the stress of keeping something secret, part acceptance from each other, part fear of the future and there was a little bit of happiness thrown in too. Neither woman was actually unhappy about the fact that any of the potential fathers had made a baby. Neither woman would have ever thought of doing anything to become "un" pregnant, not counting delivering the child. For Polly, who had gone through this before, and knew more or less what to expect, the thought that a man she loved had created life in her was thrilling. Becca, less sure about her relationship, none the less couldn't help but be excited that her potential as a woman was being fully realized.

And so, eventually, the emotions of the moment abated to a more manageable level, and the crying stopped.

"You have to tell your mother." said Polly. "You need prenatal care. We'll go get that started together."

Becca nodded. Her eyes still glistened, but she felt better already just with Polly knowing and being in the same situation.

"And you have to tell Denny. I have to tell Brian. We can do that together too."

"But..." whined Becca.

"No buts. You should have told him as soon as you knew. He deserves that. I'm going to tell Brian as soon as I can."

"That's easy for you." said Becca. "He already said he'd marry you if you got pregnant."

"I'm already married and those were the words of a man in the throes of lust." said Polly. "I've already raised a girl alone. I know that's not fair to Roger, but I felt alone. Anyway, the point is I'm not worried about it." She patted Becca's hand again. "You, on the other hand, could make a life with Denny, but it must be a life based on honesty. I know only too well how being dishonest can screw things up. Besides, as I recall, Denny said he'd marry you too if you got pregnant."

"No, he got mad at me for not taking things seriously. He said he'd want to be in the baby's life, but he didn't say he'd marry me. I think he's going to be mad at me for not taking precautions."

"Precautions are the responsibility of both partners." said Polly, "Though the consequences weigh far more heavily on the woman. In that sense, she has more responsibility. Even so, you have to tell him."

"Okay." said Becca finally. She felt better about that too. At least it would be over with and she'd know what was going to happen. "First thing tomorrow morning I'll tell Mom. I can't go home right now and ruin her whole night."

"You want me to be there with you for that too?"

"No. I'll do it. She'd just yell at you. You were supposed to keep me out of trouble, remember?" She didn't say it in an accusatory manner. It was just a fact.

Polly snorted. "Who'd have thought that a double date would lead to a double pregnancy?" She grinned.

Gidget woke up feeling out of sorts. She had been tired the night before and, since Becca was off with Polly doing something, she had gone to bed early. She got up and wished she hadn't. She must be coming down with something. She decided to take a shower. That always made her feel better. She got out of the shower and dried off, examining herself critically in the mirror. Of the three women her age, she ran the most, played basketball at the YWCA one night a week and was more vain about her body than either of her cousins.

She looked in the mirror as she ruffled her hair. Her hair was straight and short and all she had to do was partially dry it and then comb it straight down and let it dry naturally. She turned sideways to see if her breasts were sagging. She had looked at her breasts thousands of times. Nowadays, though, they looked different to her for some reason. They had returned to being a source of sexual pleasure now that Bob played with them and sucked at their tips. She smiled, suddenly glad she had them, and that he loved them. Her eyes dropped lower. Her belly was hanging out a little. She straightened her back to correct the bad posture that caused that little problem... but she still had a slight bulge.

The sensation in her stomach drove her to the toilet about the same time her brain woke up and said "HE-LLO!" She didn't throw up, but she could see her face reflected in the water of the commode. It was wavery. When the urge to toss her cookies passed, she stood back up and looked in the mirror again.

When was her last period? She tried to think. She didn't pay much attention to them, being lucky that they were always easy. It was just another thing she had to do four or five days out of the month... nothing special... nothing even interesting.

She opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out the box from the place she always kept it. She and Becca used out of the same box. The last time she'd had a period it had ended on the day she used the last tampon in one box. She had put the new box in its place, but hadn't opened it. She remembered that inane fact as she pulled the box down from the shelf.

The cellophane wrapping the box glinted in the light. It was untouched.

For the life of her she could not remember when her last period was. She didn't mark them on the calendar any more. In the past she didn't care. She didn't plan anything around her periods. When they came... they came. She dealt with them and moved on. After a while another one would come along. It had been that way for years and years and years. She put on a pair of panties and went out into the house, trying to find some way to figure out when her last period was. There was nothing. She stood in the living room, topless, just thinking. When was her first date with Bob? That had been a Friday night. She replayed the night in her head. She had just renewed her driver's license earlier in the day.

She went to her purse and dug out her billfold. She pulled the license out and looked at the date of issue. Her jaw dropped. It was three months in the past.

She thought about that. She hadn't had a period the whole time she and Bob had been... practicing to date. To put it another way... she hadn't had a period in three months!

Feeling sick at her stomach again, she went back to the bathroom. She ran her hand over the swell of her abdomen. She had known it would be possible, but she hadn't believed it could happen to her. The first thing she thought of was that she was a product of the same sperm that had impregnated her. If she hadn't known that, she would have been unable to face her mother and aunts. But they would understand. They had done exactly the same thing.

Ever pragmatic, Gidget didn't spend time worrying about what could not be undone. Her mind was already at work rationalizing what she had done. In one sense, she was carrying on a time honored, though secret, family tradition. Even her cousins might be able to handle it. Sunny would freak and count the days until her next period, but when it came she'd relax. Polly hadn't seemed all that upset about being the product of incest, so maybe she'd take it okay too.

Now... what to do about telling Becca...

Becca woke up feeling better than she had in a long time. Talking to Polly and setting things in motion had helped her mentally. She might as well get it over with. If her mom kicked her out, she'd need all day to find someplace else to go and get together some things to take wherever that was.

She got up and went to the bathroom to take a shower first. She pushed open the door and found her mother standing there, dressed only in panties, staring in the mirror, her hand on her abdomen, like she had a stomach ache. Gidget's head swiveled and she looked startled.

"Oh." she said. It didn't sound like surprise, exactly. In fact, it had a distinctly odd sound to it.

Mother and daughter looked at each other. As if they'd rehearsed it, they said together: "We have to talk."

There was that tight laughter that goes with such a situation, when something is funny, but neither person is in the mood to appreciate the humor in the situation.

"Take your shower." said Gidget. "I'll get something ready for breakfast. We can talk then."

Becca enjoyed her reprieve and her shower ran over just a little. She brushed her teeth and combed her hair, like her mother did. It was longer, but when it dried it would just hang straight.

When she got to the kitchen Gidget had put on a T shirt, but that was all. Becca had on gym shorts and a T shirt as well. Two bowls of cereal were on the table, along with bananas. Becca looked at the banana. The last time she'd confessed to being pregnant, a banana was involved too. She suddenly thought of Denny's penis, and compared it to the banana lying by her bowl. She couldn't help but smile.

"What did you want to talk about?" asked Gidget.

"No you first." said Becca.

"Sweetheart, after what I tell you, you might not want to talk to me for a while. Let's get whatever is on your mind out of the way first. Then we'll both get to talk."

Becca felt her throat get tight. There was nothing for it but to just get it over with.

"I'm pregnant." she said carefully.

Becca expected any number of things to happen. She had played and replayed them in her mind a hundred times. She mentally steeled herself for anger, shame, embarrassment, a lecture, or any of various kinds of things to happen.

What she was not prepared for, was for her mother's mouth to drop open, and then for her mother to laugh. Becca hadn't been there when Gidget went on her laughing jag at the suggestion that she go on a date with her grandfather. Becca had, not to put too fine a point on it, been out getting pregnant... if she wasn't already pregnant by Bob.

But Becca had seen her mother do this on more than one occasion. Gidget had a finely tuned sense of humor and irony, and when her giggle box was well and truly knocked over, and all those giggles spilled out, she was helpless to stop herself. It was like that now. Gidget held her stomach and laughed great wracking sobs of belly laughs, barely able to get a breath. Part of it was that she was experiencing a sudden release of anxiety, and the emotion flowed out of her body with her laughter. Part of it was because of the irony of the whole situation. Where Polly and Becca had cried the night before, Gidget released the tension by laughing.

Becca sat and waited patiently. You had to just wait for Gidget to run out of steam when she got like this. Her mother got the hiccups as she began to get control of the laughter, and they made her more or less helpless too for a while. The only way to get rid of them was to hold her breath, and she couldn't do that because she was still gasping for air and occasionally trying to laugh again.

Finally Gidget stood up, turned sideways to her daughter, pulled her T shirt tightly across her abdomen and let her bulge show.

"So... [hee hee heehic] ... am I." [hic]

Becca stared at her mother. She wasn't prepared for this either. She looked at the bulge in her mother's abdomen and realized it looked almost exactly like her own. She stood up and pulled her shirt tight across her own abdomen and then went to stand in front of her mother. They stared down at each other's bulges, and then at their own.

It was while they were doing that that it penetrated into Becca's head that the only man her mother had spent any time alone with was... Bob.

"Mom..." she started. "Did you know that grandpa has been having sex with grandma and Aunt Martha and Aunt Betty?"

Gidget sobered. "How did you know that?" she asked.

"He told me so." said Becca.

"What? When?"

"When I made him help me learn about what it was like to have sex." said Becca.

Gidget's eyes went wide. "You can't be serious. He's your great grandfather!"

Becca nodded. "And he's your grandfather." She looked at her mother's belly meaningfully.

Gidget's brain felt like it was being squeezed for a second, and then the pressure was gone. She looked at her daughter, who suddenly looked like an adult, instead of her little girl.

"Yours is Bob's too?" she asked.

"I don't know for sure." said Becca. "I've been with Denny too."

Gidget sighed. "That was the whole idea of having Polly along! She was supposed to keep you from giving in to your hormones."

"Actually, it was too late by then." said Becca. "I gave in to them with Grandpa."

"That bastard." said Gidget heatedly. "He seduced you and then he seduced me too!"

"I don't know about you, but he certainly didn't seduce me. I had to blackmail him into doing anything at all, and then it took me all kinds of work to actually get him to... you know." Becca looked at her mother. "It really wasn't his fault... except that I liked him and I felt safe with him."

Gidget's manufactured anger melted away. "It was the same with me." she said. "If I'd have said no, I wouldn't be pregnant."

Mother and daughter sat down and talked for two hours, sharing things that brought them much closer together. At one point Gidget said that one nice thing about this whole sordid affair was that she and Becca could go to the doctor together. Becca laughed.

"I'm not supposed to tell you this, but I have to. Do you swear to act surprised when you hear it somewhere else?"

Gidget crossed her heart and then went through remembered motions from her childhood as she hoped to die and stick a thousand needles in her eye if she broke her promise.

"Aunt Polly's pregnant too. She told me the same thing... that we could go to the doctor together."

"Please don't tell me Bob knocked her up too." moaned Gidget.

"I don't think so." said Becca. "I think Brian has that role locked up pretty tight. And she's about as far along as I am, we think, so it might even have happened the first time we... well, you know."

Then Gidget wanted to know when that was, and what the circumstances were. She saw the irony in her daughter getting pregnant while her mother was being talked into going on a date with her grandfather, who would eventually get her pregnant too.

Becca broke her promise to her cousins once she and her mother got going, admitting that both of them had done things while he slept, and then later while he was awake. She was careful to say that Val wouldn't have intercourse with him, because she was being true to Zack, and that, as far as she knew, the only time he'd done it with Fran was when he was ambushed in the middle of the night at the cabin. That led Gidget to confess that she'd gotten Sunny laid by Bob on purpose.

That jarred Gidget's memory and she sat back in the chair.

"I'm not supposed to tell you this either... at least I don't think I am... but the fact is that your grandmother and her sisters were having sex with him the whole time he was asleep."

"I told you, I know that." said Becca.

"Did he tell you they got pregnant?"

Becca didn't understand at first. "Of course they got pregnant. They had you and Polly and Sunny and Uncle Jim and Uncle Frank and..." It clicked. Her eyes went wide. "He's your... father?" Her voice was almost a whimper on the last word.

Gidget just nodded.

For lack of anything else to do, and partly from the shock of it all, they started taking stock of just who all had had sex with Bob.

Together, they figured out that only Val and Polly seemed to be immune to Bob's less than aggressive charms. The 20th Century woman in them both bridled at a man who had what amounted to a harem. At the same time it wasn't a harem, he collected, really. It was a harem that adopted him. And, the pregnant woman in them celebrated their sisterhood, and the thing they shared, that no other women, at least women outside the family, were being offered. Bob Winkle was a special man, and his women were special too.

Becca called Polly and pretended to cry into the phone, begging Polly to come over and talk to her mother, who was going to throw her out. Polly stormed into the house ten minutes later, ready to do battle. What she found was two topless women, standing side by side in profile to her, Gidget slightly in front of Becca, hands behind their backs. Both had the slightest of twin swells that didn't look like belly fat. Polly wasn't stupid. She laughed and sat down to talk.

"If the man said he'd marry you you'd be crazy not to do it." said Gidget to Polly.

"Oh, I'm too set in my ways to divorce Roger and go through all that. What would happen to Fran? Would I have to pay alimony, or would he? It's too much trouble. I can just keep on seeing Brian. He doesn't seem to mind that."

"What about Denny?" Gidget turned to her daughter.

"We're going to tell them on a double date tonight." said Becca.

For their date the men took the women to the Haggin Museum, in Stockton, forty-five miles south of Sacramento. They went there not only to enjoy the art and history in the fabulous museum, but also to experience the myriad of canals and waterways of the state's largest inland seaport.

The women had agreed to seize whatever moment presented itself to deliver their news. It was, despite the women's tension, a relaxing and enjoyable outing. By now all four were friends, in addition to the more passionate pursuits they practiced.

The men couldn't have known they were setting themselves up so perfectly that it would later seem almost spooky. Maybe fate played a part. Who knows? In the museum there was a guest exhibit. It had arrived only recently, and this was the first day it was on display. It was a traveling show of paintings, drawings and photographs of women in the blush of pregnancy.

One of Denny's favorites was a photograph of a woman on a swing. She was at the apex of the forward motion of the swing, leaning back with her legs out straight. The lines of her overall body and the chains that held the swing were straight, while her swollen belly protruded in stark contrast to those straight lines. She was wearing a dress, and it was twirled in the wind around her knees, and stretched tautly across her belly.

Part of the exhibit was a rare collection of historical styles of maternity clothing. There were dresses from the eighteen hundreds, with panels over the abdomen that could be replaced with larger panels as the pregnancy progressed. Placards explained that dresses were expensive in those days, and a woman couldn't afford to simply change her wardrobe when she was with child. The ingenuity of women to make clothing serve double duty was fascinating.

"You'd look good in that one." quipped Brian, pointing to a severe looking dress with a high lacy neckline. It was black and looked like it weighed ten pounds with the full length voluminous skirts.

"Funny you should say that." said Polly, seizing the moment as if it had been planned that way all along. "It turns out I'm pregnant."

Her comment was made in the same tone as the previous conversation, and even Becca almost missed it. There was a three second delay as the information was processed.

"Ha, ha." said Brian finally.

"Me too." blurted Becca. "I'm pregnant too."

It was the king, or possibly the queen of awkward... dare I say... pregnant moments. Standing there in the hushed and reverent atmosphere, both men struggled to determine whether the statements were part of some joke the women were playing on them... or not. The women watched their men closely, trying to determine whether the news was being received with positive or negative emotions.

"Pardon me," said Denny, turning to face Becca. "Could you repeat that please?"

Becca clasped her hands over her belly, which looked completely normal in the loose Lakers jersey she had worn.

"Polly and I are both with child. We're going to have babies." said Becca.

"We're both about three months along." said Polly. "We should have told you sooner but... well, to be honest... we were both a little afraid."

It was a classic deer-in-the-headlights moment as both men stood rooted to the terrazzo floor, frozen like mannequins.

Talking about pregnancy is a whole different animal than being confronted with it in reality. The concept that a woman has life growing inside her, and that you are half responsible for that life is one that can be viewed philosophically. Being told that that life actually exists inside the woman standing in front of you... that you're going to be a father... that calls for a more pragmatic response.

Brian moved first. He also spoke first.

"This is a good thing... " The first part of his comment sounded positive. "... Isn't it?" The last part sounded less sure.

"That depends on how you feel about it." said Polly. "I feel pretty good about it."

"Pretty good? Pretty good?" Brian's voice rose to the point that other patrons turned to look at the disturbance. "This isn't pretty good... This is great! I'm gonna be a daddy!"

Now everybody in the facility was taking an interest in them, including a security guard who was hurrying toward them to quell the disturbance.

Denny's response was more sedate, but just as effusive. He swept a wide-eyed and nervous Becca up in his arms and put a lip lock on her that took her breath away. The security guard, a fifty-two year old man who hadn't moved faster than a snail's pace in fifteen years, approached huffing and puffing.

"Here, now!" he said urgently. "You can't do that here."

Denny ignored him. He wasn't finished kissing Becca.

Brian argued.

"This woman is going to have my baby!" he said excitedly. "My first! We're going to have a whole ball team!" he laughed and grabbed Polly in a hug, lifting her off the floor and swinging her around in a circle. Her feet whacked the security guard's shins and she squeaked.

Brian set her down and looked concerned.

"I'm sorry! Are you okay? I didn't hurt the baby did I?"

Denny finally let a faint Becca breathe as he pulled his lips an inch away from hers. She panted from the emotion of the moment.

"You should have told me." he whispered. "I've missed out on months of happiness. You will, of course, marry me." He didn't sound like a man resigned to doing the right thing. He sounded like a man saying something like "You say you're starving? I have food. Of course you'll eat it."

Becca, flustered beyond measure by his response, felt tears spilling over as her pent up fear and anguish was released. She nodded her head frantically, unable to speak. She got kissed again.

The security guard didn't know what to do. This wasn't something he'd ever anticipated as he stood bored to tears, day after day, looking at people, who were looking at the walls. These people, despite being loud, didn't seem to be endangering the art or anything. He turned to look at the small crowd that stood apart, but formed a group with similar intent just by watching the events and smiling.

"Um... go on folks. There's no problem here." he said.

Polly felt an infusion of something that threatened to overwhelm her. Roger hadn't been this happy when she told him about Fran's impending birth. Brian was like a kid in a candy store.

"No, you didn't hurt the baby." she giggled.

"What do we do now?" asked Brian anxiously. "We have to get married!"

"I'm already married." said Polly. "You know that."

"Then we have to get divorced!" said Brian. He blinked. "You have to get divorced. I can't marry you until you get divorced. That would be bigamy. They'd put me in jail." He blinked. "No, they'd put you in jail! They'd put you and my baby in jail! You have to get divorced Polly!" he said urgently.

Polly's euphoria rose with every silly thing he said. Nobody had ever been so wild about her that he couldn't even talk intelligently. Her impulse not to rock the boat... to stay in the life that was comfortable, if not rewarding... was being rattled.

"We'll see." she said. "So you're happy about this?" She laughed at her own silly statement.

The rest of the date was more or less a jump from one irrational reaction to another. First the men rushed them out of the museum and to an ice cream shop to celebrate. After all, pregnant women love ice cream, right? Then they stood in front of closed jewelry store fronts, gazing at rings on display. After that they dashed back to Sacramento, trying to make plans all the way, talking about where they would live and when they could get married. Polly kept trying to defuse Brian, knowing that divorce proceedings could be lengthy, especially if Roger didn't want to cooperate.

But all in all it was a fairy tale evening, as they assumed impossible things could happen easily, and they made plans as if money were no object, or that jobs and school wouldn't interfere with the happiness they were all feeling.

They went back to Denny's apartment, where the men toasted with Scotch, and denied the women anything stronger than ginger ale, which Denny kept around to mix with the Scotch occasionally.

Some serious necking developed, which led to clothing getting very loose and then falling off. Their skinny dipping session in the mountains had made them a lot less constrained together than most couples would have been and it wasn't much of a stretch to get them to Denny's bedroom, which had a queen sized bed in it. Becca and Polly lay beside each other, holding hands, as the fathers of their babies made love to them in the culmination of the celebratory night.

It was three in the morning before Polly remembered to call Fran, and Becca called her mother.

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