| 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 5
 Thankfully, by the time Betty had decided that there might still be
some clothes left in a box that her son had left behind, and that they
might fit Bob, and June had found a blouse and a pair of jeans that fit
her, and Bob had managed to drink two more cups of coffee, his penis
was behaving itself again.
 
 With a stern warning directed at June not to
"do something stupid" Betty marched out the door, presumably to go get the clothes she hoped would fit her father. She left Fran there
saying, oddly enough, "Watch your Auntie June." and disappeared.
 
 June had many of the same questions for him that Betty and Fran had,
and he was content to let Fran answer some of them while he examined
this new woman in his life. She was healthy and what, fifty years ago,
he would have called "well preserved". He had never found himself
attracted to older women, his young wife giving him all the loving and
more that he could have desired. But his memories of this woman's alto
voice, and what went along with that voice, caused him to look at her
much more frankly than he might have otherwise. Her animated
personality, and vivaciousness made her seem much younger than the
fifty-three years of age he knew she had to be. He was startled to
realize that her birthday was only two days away. He resolved to get
her a present of some kind.
 
 While they talked Fran went to the phone and made two calls. Her voice
was excited, but muffled. She was grinning when she hung up the phone
and returned to the kitchen, where Bob had decided to stay, just in
case something happened "down there" again. He felt refreshed, though
even so small a breakfast had filled him to the point that he felt
slightly bloated. He figured that his stomach must have shrunk during
fifty years of being empty.
 
 A car door slammed outside. Soon after Betty opened the door, her arms
loaded with clothing. As she reached to shut the door there was the
screech of tires and two more car doors slammed shut. There was the
sound of excited voices... young female voices... as Betty turned, her
face agitated.
 
 "It's the girls." she announced.
 
 "I called them." said Fran smugly.
 
 "You shouldn't have!" barked Betty. "It's too soon for him to have so
much excitement!"
 
 She was almost bowled over, as she tried to block the doorway. She was
pushed into the room by a tall black-haired girl and a shorter girl
with dark red hair.
 
 "Where is he?" they chorused together. Their eyes found him, still sitting at the
kitchen table, bare chested, his level gaze examining them.
 
 Bob was pretty well in control of himself. The food had helped, and his
mind was clearer now than it had been since he awoke. There were only
three female voices he'd heard while he slept that hadn't been matched
up with women. One, he knew was Martha's voice, which was older. The
other two had to be the voices that had announced themselves to the
sleeping man... on many occasions... as Becca and Val. He now
remembered two voices saying they were Val. His mind had separated them
simply as his wife, and the other Val. He now suspected, based on what
he had already learned, that one of these two young women was that
other Val.
 
 The two young women skidded to a stop as they saw the man at the table. For
all their excitement as they had entered, they were now frozen and
mute. Betty shook her head and closed the door behind them.
 
 His initial impressions of the girls were based mostly on appearance.
The taller of the two had jet black hair that was long and straight,
falling well past her shoulders, and held back with something. She was
thin in the waist, and was wearing a pair of pants that flared outward
at her ankles, like the bell bottoms sailors wore when he was a young
man. But the resemblance ended there. The ones worn by this woman were
so tight that if she had a bee sting on her ass, the swelling would show through. They
were also low slung to the point that he wondered how she kept them up.
Her shirt looked like a T shirt that the lower half had been cut off
of. Her breasts pushed that shirt out so that it would have been easy
to reach up under it and grab handfuls of... what was pushing them out.
He could see skin from just below those thrusting breasts all the way
to where he would have expected to see the start of pubic hair. He
couldn't tell how old she was, but she was obviously older than the red
head and Fran. Her high cheekbones and the lack of anything resembling
fat on her face gave her a mature worldly look.
 
 The red head had on loose shorts and what looked like a man's shirt.
The tails had been tied in a knot between and below her breasts. The
shirt was too big for her and was loose, but he could tell that she was
well developed for a girl in her mid to late teens. Her hair was in a
loose braid, but a lot of it had fallen out, giving her a wild
windblown appearance. She looked like she spent a lot of time outdoors
because her skin had a nut brown color, like June's and was darker than
that of the others.
 
 Bob felt a need to take some kind of control over his life. He started
by hazarding an educated guess.
 
 "Well, one of you must be Becca, and the other is probably Val."
 
 Five sets of female eyes all locked on him. No one said anything at
all. Their mouths were open and it was clear to him that he had scored
a hit.
 
 Feeling a little giddy, he made his face remain calm and pushed a
little further.
 
 "I remember you two reading to me... and other things."
 
 Both girls' faces went ashen white. The red head moaned and looked
down. The raven-haired one covered her mouth and her eyes went large
and round.
 
 Betty frowned, and was the first to move.
 
 "Other things? What other things?"
 
 She looked around, her frown deepening as she saw the embarrassed looks
on their faces. She looked back at Bob, who was smiling, completely
unaware that he was perilously close to opening a can of worms. None of
the grandmothers who had been so familiar with him were aware that
their granddaughters had also become... familiar with him as well, if a
little less so. That the girls hadn't told each other about their
private activities only made them a fragmented force, that couldn't
work together to defuse the situation.
 
 The only thing that kept all those worms in that can was the fact that
Bob was able to recognize that something was wrong. Betty's face was
taking on classical look of suspicion, which signaled to Bob that all
these women didn't necessarily know about each other's activities. He
felt the little bit of control he'd tried to grab for slipping away.
 
 "Um... you know..." he caged. "They told me things... private things I
suppose. They probably didn't' think I'd ever wake up and remember
them."
 
 Betty looked at him, three small lines creasing her brow. It was
obvious she was evaluating his statement. Bob realized she was a very
intelligent woman, something that made him both proud and a little
nervous at the same time.
 
 "What kind of private things?" asked Betty suspiciously.
 
 Bob smiled widely. "Now I wouldn't be much of a gentleman if I blabbed
things spoken to me in confidence... would I?" He stared intently at
Betty. "I mean isn't it true that women should be allowed to have
certain... secrets?"
 
 Betty flushed. This was dangerous territory. She and her sisters had
adjusted to the fact that they all loved their father in ways that
society wouldn't understand. They had kept very secret who the fathers
of their children were. That had been no small feat, seeing as how each
had had her first child at age fifteen. There had been some fancy
footwork as the girls visited the doctor alone for their prenatal
checkups. More than once Martha had called the doctor's office
pretending to be her mother and explaining that she had to work, and
could the doctor please give her his report over the phone? The fact
that the sexual revolution was in full swing had helped a little. There
had been other children too, a pair of boys for each of Bob's
daughters, all sired by the sleeping man. But by then they were older,
and no one asked them any questions. Bob's daughters knew that things
couldn't go on like that, and that their children should be raised in
as normal a fashion as possible. So a pact was made that none of the
children would be told who their biological father was.
 
 It had been difficult. Any woman who has three children by an unknown
father is odd in modern society. To have three sisters all do that was
a powder keg. That they had been able to pull it off in a small town
was a miracle. While they worried about the neighbors, they did not
worry about their father. None of his daughters had thought he'd
remember anything if, and when, he woke. Right now Betty was the only
person in the room who knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that her
father knew at least what she had been doing. She was, in fact, doing
it when he woke up.
 
 June was thinking along the same lines. She didn't know what her father
remembered about his time asleep, but if he remembered anything at all,
she didn't want him talking about it in front of the girls.
 
 "Yes!" barked June, making everyone in the room jump. She shot a
conspirator's look at Betty. "Of course a girl sometimes has secrets.
It's nice to know my father is a gentleman." she added.
 
 The two new arrivals didn't relax so much as wilt while standing there,
darting looks around as if to see if they were really safe. None of
them seemed to catch on to the fact that all five women in the room
were uncomfortable... and that all of them thought they had something
to hide.
 
 Just as the grandmothers didn't know about the erotic activities of
their granddaughters with Bob, they were firmly convinced that their
granddaughters didn't know about how intimately their grandmothers had
cared for Bob over the years, and would be horrified if they did.
 
 The uncomfortable silence went on so long that it was Bob who felt the
need to break it.
 
 "So which one is Becca?" he asked.
 
 The redhead came alive and smiled timidly.
 
 "That's me." she said shyly. She had told this man all sorts of secret
intimate details about herself, and spent enough hours with him that
they now added up to several months. But to her he seemed like a
completely different man as his blue eyes stared at her. She felt a
tingle in her belly at that level gaze. He was much more handsome awake
than he had been asleep.
 
 Bob looked at the tall thin beauty. She looked like a fashion model.
 
 "So that means you're Val... Valerie?" He glanced at Betty. "Named
after my wife?"
 
 Betty nodded, smiling.
 
 Val had a little more self possession, being the oldest of the cousins.
She smiled and said in a formal voice. "It's wonderful to finally meet
you Great Grandfather Bob."
 
 Fran waved her hand in the air, like she was waiting to be called on in
school. Everyone looked at her.
 
 "Um... we were just talking about that. He says we can call him Uncle
Bob... if we want to..." She suddenly looked uncomfortable in the
spotlight. "I mean so he doesn't sound so old..."
 
 It still felt stilted and uncomfortable in the room, and Bob didn't
want things that way. He waved a hand in the air.
 
 "I don't really care what you call me. I'm just glad to be awake and
get to meet all of you. At least I think I'm glad to be awake. I have a
feeling all of this is going to take some getting used to." He pointed
toward the counter. "Take for instance the obvious improvements they've
made in toaster ovens. That one got my breakfast ready much faster than
they would have... back in my day."
 
 All the women looked at the counter where he was pointing. Becca was
the first to speak.
 
 "Toaster oven? What's that?"
 
 June laughed.
 
 "He's talking about the microwave." She turned back to her father.
"You're right. A lot has changed since you went to sleep. You're going
to see some amazing things. I can't wait to show them to you," she
finished excitedly.
 
 Betty came alive too. She held out the clothing in her arms.
 
 "I brought some of my son's things. Your grandson. He's off doing
something somewhere, trying to make money. I think they'll fit you."
 
 Bob's first instinct was to go somewhere private and get dressed. But
as he reflected on the uncomfortable reactions of the women, based on
his comment that he remembered "other things" he suddenly felt wicked.
After all, every woman in this room had either handled his stiff prick,
or taken it into her pussy. He had a glimmer of a suspicion that not
all of them knew that, and another glimmer of a way to find out. He
casually spread the clothing out on the table in front of him. He
picked up a pair of shorts made of some soft material. They had the
regular pockets, but in addition had an extra set of big pockets on the
thighs, with a flap that kept them closed. He pulled at the flap, but
it didn't seem to want to move. He thought that was odd and pulled
harder. There was a ripping/tearing sound as the flap came up and he
stopped.
 
 "I didn't mean to tear them." he said helplessly.
 
 June laughed again. "You didn't tear them. That's Velcro. It keeps
things closed when you want them closed, but lets you open them when
you want them open."
 
 She reached for the shorts and closed and then reopened the pocket flap
several times.
 
 "See?"
 
 "Wow" said Bob, examining the hook and loop system with fascination.
 
 He picked up a T shirt that had the words "No Fear" on it and put that
back down.
 
 "Can't wear that one. I'm terrified." He grinned to show he wasn't
serious. The fact was that his stomach was in knots, based on what he
was about to do. He picked up another shirt that had buttons down the
front and a floral pattern on it. It reminded him of those kids who
rode long boards, standing on them in the surf.
 
 Then, like it was the most normal thing in the world to do, he stood up
and dropped the towel on his chair. All five women stood and stared at
the naked man as he picked up the shorts with trembling fingers and
stepped into them. They were too big and he had to hold them up with
his hands.
 
 "Got a belt?" he asked, looking over at Betty.
 
 Her eyes were large and her mouth was in the shape she could use to
whistle.
 
 "I... I didn't think." she croaked.
 
 He glanced at each of the other women, trying to make it look casual,
as if he thought one of them might, for some strange reason, be in
possession of a man's belt. His purpose was to gauge the look on their
faces at seeing him naked. He felt satisfaction when all of them looked
surprised, but none of them displayed the outrage he would have
expected had they never seen him naked before. Psychologically, they
were used to seeing him that way, and none of them thought fast enough
to act as if they hadn't.
 
 And... none of them objected to what he had done. He thought to keep
them off balance.
 
 "Unless you don't mind me walking around nude, somebody needs to find
me something to keep these pants up."
 
 Nobody said anything and he almost grinned. Then Betty jerked and spoke.
 
 "Frannie, honey, go out to the garage and see if there's a piece of
rope or something out there."
 
 Bob saw something white peeking out from under the shirt he was going
to wear and pulled it out. It was a pair of briefs, and was the first
thing he'd seen that looked like the clothing he remembered. Feeling
naughty somehow, he let the shorts drop and stepped out of them. He
took his time stepping into the briefs and pulled them up. In contrast
to the shorts, they fit him perfectly. His penis made a distinct bulge
in them. He was having fun now and just stood there. All five women
were still watching him.
 
 "Go on Fran!" barked Betty, and Fran jumped and then went out of the
room. She was looking over her shoulder as she did so.
 
 Bob picked up the shirt and slid his arms into it, shrugging it up onto
his shoulders. He left it open. He knew he'd feel silly if he was
wearing only a properly buttoned shirt... and underwear. He looked
around. It was awkward and uncomfortable again. He looked at the two
newest arrivals.
 
 "Well, sit down or something. You don't have to stand just for me. I'm
sure, if you're like the others, that you have some questions for me,
and I'd like to find out a little about everybody too. It looks like
I'm going to have to live the rest of my life in a future world, so we
may as well get on with it."
 
 His matter-of-fact approach to the situation had a remarkable effect.
Val and Becca went immediately to empty chairs at the table and sat, as
if they were afraid they'd be shot if they didn't. June went to the
sink and poured herself a glass of water. Betty picked up the dishes
she had served Bob on and took them to the sink, butting her sister
hip-to-hip to get her to move over so she could put the dishes in the
sink. Bob watched with half an eye as she ran some water over the plate
and then opened a metal cabinet door under the counter and put the
plate in a rack inside, still dirty. She dropped his silverware in a
basket mounted on the open door. Looking over her shoulder at Bob she
asked if he wanted more coffee. When he shook his head she came, got
his cup, and put it in another rack that slid out above the one that
held the plate. Then she closed the door and reached up to a long white
tube on the wall. Bob saw her pull and tear off a square shaped towel
looking thing, which she ran quickly under the tap, getting it
partially wet. She came to the table and started wiping it down. As she
started to leave he reached out and grasped her wrist, peering at the
towel. It was paper!
 
 Betty smiled. "Paper towel. Use it once and throw it away. Cuts down on
the laundry."
 
 "How about that." said Bob, amazed. "They should come up with something
like that for diapers too. Talk about laundry!"
 
 There were feminine giggles all the way around.
 
 "They did that already Daddy." said June. "They have diapers that come
in packages and when you take it off the baby you just fold it up and
toss it in the trash. I didn't get to use them until I had my last
child. They're expensive, but it was worth it, believe me!"
 
 Fran bounded back into the room with a six foot piece of rope in her
hands.
 
 "I found this!" she announced proudly.
 
 Betty took it from her and went to a drawer. She looked inside and
moved some things around and then went to another drawer, pulling out a
knife. Bob stood up as she approached him and raised his arms in the
air. She knelt in front of him, her face only a foot from the bulge in
his briefs, and reached behind him to pull the rope around his waist.
That brought her face only inches from his groin and Bob had the insane
urge to lean forwards and make her lips bump his... bump. He stopped
himself, and was distracted by thoughts whirling in his brain.
 
 He was,
physically, a young man. His wife was gone, and had been gone for some
time. He still had his whole life ahead of him, apparently, assuming he
didn't go back to sleep like he had before. His brain wrestled with the
morals he had gone to sleep with, and the knowledge that the five women
in this room had been intimate with him repeatedly and willingly. True,
they thought he was unconscious, but their participation had been both
willing and happily consummated. He was sure of that.
 
 There was a
whisper from somewhere in his brain that it was normal to want that to
continue, while another voice whispered just as urgently that it was
perverted and wrong. The first voice notified him that his penis was
currently filling with blood and that he really should lean forward
just a couple of inches. The second voice insisted that he stop
thinking that way completely. Before he could make a real decision,
Betty stood up and cut the rope with the knife, handing him the piece
she thought would fit.
 
 Relieved that the temptation was gone he fumbled with the rope, sliding
it through the belt loops of the shorts. His bulge had grown to perhaps
twice its original size. He missed the fact that all five women were
staring at it while he prepared the shorts.
 
 He also missed the fact that Val and June licked their lips as they
noticed.
 
 He bent over and pulled up the shorts, knotting the rope tightly. He
didn't miss the chorus of sighs as his bulging prick was concealed from
view. He looked up and smiled.
 
 "All better?" he asked.
 
 He almost laughed when no one answered for a space of five seconds, and
then Betty blurted "Yes."
 
 To prove that morals in 2000 weren't gone... only twisted a little in
the Winkle family... the mood was much lighter and happier once Bob was
clothed. Conversation flowed more easily, at least until Becca asked
the question: "So what was it like? How much do you remember?"
 
 Taking a chance, Bob just told the truth, though a very synopsized
version for the present.
 
 "I remember everything that anyone said to me, and everything that
happened to me."
 
 That tensed things up again pretty much instantly.
 
 "Everything?" squeaked Val.
 
 "Yup" said Bob. He wasn't sure how to go about having a waking
relationship with all these women, but if he was going to have any kind
of relationship at all, it didn't need to be clouded up by a bunch of
guilt. On impulse he added.
 
 "I had a good sleep, all things considered. I'm sure that all this will
have its difficulties... but, I have to say nothing happened to me
while I slept that I'll ever be sorry for."
 
 The relaxation that flowed through the room was palpable.
 
 Bob frowned. "Maybe I spoke too quickly." he said.
 
 The tension returned just as palpably.
 
 "I'll always be sorry at the time I lost with Val... my wife. And I'll
always be sad I wasn't there for you girls as you grew up." He looked
at Betty and June.
 
 There were tears in Betty's eyes.
 
 "It's okay, Daddy. We did fine. Mamma missed you so much. But we made
do. I mean you were still here, and we got to see you. We did okay,
honest."
 
 "I'm glad you feel that way." Bob said honestly. "I'm awfully proud of
you two... and Martha too, even though I haven't met her yet. As hard
as it is to think about what I missed... what I deprived you of... it's
nice to know you're not bitter about it."
 
 "We could never be bitter about you Daddy." said June softly. "We loved
you all those years, and we knew you loved us too."
 
 Bob's mind flitted to memories of just how they had loved him, but he
ignored those. He knew she wasn't talking about physical love, and he
had heard their emotional love in their voices. The younger girls too,
though not as deeply. To them he had been more of a secret pal, a guy
they could talk to, and experiment with, he now realized. But they had
been tender and loving towards him too, even when they didn't have to
be.
 
 "Tell me about your families." he ordered. He was the patriarch of the
family again, and he wanted to start acting like it.
 
 He had just been brought up to date on the dates everyone was born, and
the names of the children, where they all were and what they were doing
these days, when the back door opened and another woman walked in.
 
 "What in the world is going on in here?" she asked, authority in her
strong voice.
 
 That voice was familiar to Bob instantly, and he knew this was Martha.
That she was older than Betty and June was evident, though not in
obvious ways. Her skin was a little darker and showed more effect of
sun and weather, almost as if Becca were her granddaughter, rather than
Val. But she was tall and slim, like Val. She had on a dress and had
two plastic sacks (was everything made of plastic these days?!) hanging
from each hand. The sacks were full of little boxes and Bob could see
tomatoes through the thin walls of one.
 
 "I go out to get a few things and there's a party going on at my house
when I get back?" she said in a falsely grumpy voice. "Am I even
invited?" she drove on.
 
 Then she saw Bob.
 
 Her face scrunched up and then smoothed as her eyes went wide and her
mouth fell open. Plastic sacks thumped to the floor beside her feet.
 
 "Hi, pumpkin." said Bob calmly. "It's good to see you again."
 
 He had always called her pumpkin. At age five, when he had gone to
sleep, he had loved telling her that they had found her in a pumpkin
patch, and she was so cute that they took her home to keep forever.
 
 "Daddy?" she whimpered, her strong voice vanished. "Daddy?" she whined
again. Her strong voice came back loudly. "Daddy? Oh Daddy,
Daddy, Daddy!"
 
 She almost tackled him, but he was ready for her, his arms spread wide
and a grin on his face. She felt good in his arms as she was suddenly
sobbing and babbling into his neck, crushing him with her hug. All she
could say was "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy" over and over again.
 
 Just as suddenly she pushed back away from him, rubbing at her face
with her hands.
 
 "When did you wake up?! Why didn't somebody tell me you woke up?! Oh I can't believe you're awake!? Where did you get those clothes?! Oh, I feel faint. I have to sit down."
 
 Hands reached for her and she plopped into a chair, only hitting half
the seat and leaning dangerously to one side before helping hands moved
her over. She looked up through shining eyes and then jumped up out of
the chair to hug her father again. This time she planted a completely
unabashed kiss on his lips, crushing them against his, before sobbing
some more.
 
 "Oh Daddy I'm so glad you woke up. I've been waiting for you so long. I love you so much!"
 
 She kissed him again and then moved to his cheeks, kissing his face all
over. She stopped abruptly and her face fell.
 
 "Mommy died Daddy. She's gone."
 
 She fell against him sobbing and clutching at him, her grief
overflowing. Other eyes in the room got wet with tears of grief too as
Bob stroked her back, murmuring to her that it was all right, and that
everything was okay.
 
 Martha pushed away, gently this time.
 
 "I don't know what to say." she whined.
 
 Bob grinned. "For somebody who doesn't know what to say, you've been
doing pretty well. As I recall I couldn't get you to shut up the last
time I saw you."
 
 Martha looked shocked and slapped at his shoulder. Of all his
daughters, she was the only one who had already had a firm relationship
with him... one that she could remember vividly... when he went to
sleep.
 
 "Don't be mean to me Daddy." she scolded, sounding five years old
somehow.
 
 Bob laughed and pulled her back. This time he kissed her, and he told
his morals to go away and bother somebody else. Her willingness to kiss
him as she had gave him the permission he needed to kiss her back, and
he did so happily, making a long grinding kiss. He felt her sag in his
arms, as though her knees had gone weak.
 
 He helped her sit down again, sitting beside her.
 
 "You sure have grown up a lot." he said, smiling at her.
 
 "I had to!" she barked, her tears stopping. "Mamma said we had to take care of you!"
 
 Another thing about Martha that was different from her sisters was her
attitude about what "taking care of Daddy" had meant. When she was
five, and before he had gone to sleep, Martha had announced that, when
she grew up, she was going to marry him. Bob and Valerie had smiled at
that, and Bob had said that he'd be proud for her to marry him some
day. Her parents both assumed that such a common faze would pass. But
the events surrounding her family had affected her in ways that most
little girls are never affected. When she began "taking care of Daddy"
she still thought of him as her man, whom she inherited from her now
departed mother. And, as the years went on and she became more mother
than daughter, Martha thought of him as her husband. He gave her
children, and she loved him both emotionally and physically. In a way,
her five year old fantasy was lived out. In a strange way.
 
 As a result, while she agreed that his grandchildren would not be
exposed to all that caring for Grandpa entailed, she never felt the
least bit guilty about loving him, or having those grandchildren. Her
lifelong love affair with her father made it much easier for her to be
more open about it than her sisters had been, at least in front of the great
grandchildren. Even now, kissing him... and being kissed by him in
front of the girls didn't bother Martha. She was just too happy that
her father was awake and in her arms.
 
 To prove that her sisters were less comfortable with their erotic roles
in his life, June spoke.
 
 "Martha, he remembers everything that happened while he was asleep."
 
 Martha didn't break her eye contact with her father.
 
 "Everything?" she asked.
 
 "Everything." he stated.
 
 Martha felt flurries in her stomach, but that was all. They were only a
result of the girls being present.
 
 "Mamma said we could take care of you." she said carefully. "She even
showed us how."
 
 More memories of young voices, in concert with Valerie's voice,
surfaced in his mind, like an audio diary unfolding.
 
 "Are you taking care of Daddy again? Mommy?"
 
 "Yes dear, this makes us both feel happy."
 
 "I'd like to feel happy." said a young voice.
 
 "Some day you'll get to do this." said Valerie. "You just be patient
and wait for some day to get here."
 
 "I can't wait." came the young voice.
 
 "You have plenty of time Martha." echoed his wife's voice in his
memory. "It's worth waiting for, because it's the most lovely feeling
in the whole world."
 
 Then there was the same voice, but older now.
 
 "It's my turn now Daddy... my turn to take care of you." And "Here's
the butter, try that!" from another voice. He remembered the sensation
of intense pressure surrounding his penis, and of moans of pain and
whimpering and then joyous laughter as his prick spurted in the body
attached to that young voice.
 
 "I remember your laughter." he said, amazed that the memory had
surfaced so clearly.
 
 Now Martha blushed. But she smiled too. "It was wonderful Daddy. It
made me feel so close to you." Her eyes darted to the young girls in
the room. "We'll talk about that later."
 
 Bob wanted to smile. He was pretty sure now that the older women didn't
know about the younger women, and that they had been doing almost the
same things with him. Still, he didn't want to push things.
 
 "We have a lot to talk about, I imagine." he said.
 Chapter 6
 It was a fascinating afternoon. That might seem obvious to many, but it was also fascinating in ways it would e hard for many to understand. Bob was mildly
interested in seeing what changes had come to the world while he slept,
but the memories of what had happened kept rising, and becoming more
clear as he talked to the six women who had been so much a part of his
affliction... if that was the right word. He felt like he knew them
better than should be possible. All of them had talked to him, at one time or
another, about things they were worried about, or what their hopes
were, and even about other people in their lives. In a strange way (if
this situation wasn't strange enough!) it was as if he had been awake
the whole time, and was just an exceptionally good listener. So, in
that sense, he knew these women very well.
 
 Of course that didn't go the other way. The women had gotten nothing
from him other than sexual satisfaction for most of their lives, older
or younger. Becca, it turned out, had an interest in history, and she
asked him question after question about what life had been like in the
thirties and forties, during which time he had grown up.
 
 Val, on the other hand, was practically giddy with laughter as first
she brought him things to look at, and then took him by the hand and
dragged him throughout the house, showing him normal every day things
that were taken for granted by everyone alive today... except Bob. They
were almost all brand new to him. Even something so mundane as a Bic
lighter was a thing of fascination as he tried to figure out how the
girl had gotten flame out of a plastic (!) tube that he couldn't seem
to make work to save his life. When she laughingly showed him the
safety feature that controlled the gas, he grinned sheepishly.
 
 But being around her - all the women, really - was so satisfying, on so
many levels, that Bob didn't mind being made fun of occasionally, and
being pretty much unable to do anything for himself, because he
couldn't figure out how to make many things operate.
 
 The women were so taken with him, and he with them, that they never
left the house the rest of the day.
 
 One of the pinnacles of his update was a truly astonishing session in
front of a television that was physically smaller than anything he had
ever seen before, but which had a screen larger than many TV cabinets
he had seen (but had not been able to afford to buy). Bob explained
that, when he had gone to sleep, he had been trying to figure out a way
to scrape together the $95 necessary to buy the latest television set
on the market... with its three inch screen.
 
 Finally Martha chased the other women out, telling them her father was
exhausted by their nattering. That, in itself, took an hour, as each
woman came up with yet another thing to talk about or ask about that
just couldn't wait until the next day.
 
 June was the last to go. Bob had received only four goodbye hugs and
kisses by that time, but he was already in a state of high arousal from
having three young, tight bodies plastered to his, whose lips were
anything but tight, and who brought back memories of ecstasy. Now June
molded her lush body against his and kissed him long and deep.
 
 "Welcome back Daddy." she whispered, licking his ear and making him
shudder.
 
 "It's good to be back." he said, resisting the urge to let his hands
drop from her lower back to her firm buttocks. His mind was awhirl with
the conundrum of a past in which touching his daughters - or any woman
other than Valerie, for that matter - was considered wrong!, and his
current desire to repeat with all of them what had happened while he
slept. That part of him seeped out as he whispered back. "I liked
your... bathing suit."
 
 She reluctantly pushed away from him as she blushed, and then frowned
and turned to Martha.
 
 "What if he goes back to sleep... like last time?" she asked.
 
 Martha pushed her toward the door. "That's the last thing you need to
put on the poor man's mind. He's been through enough without having to
worry about resting after a long day. You'll be here for breakfast,
along with the rest of them, I imagine. He'll either be awake by then,
or not. Now leave him be."
 
 Martha's practical attitude changed radically once the door closed,
however, and she was left alone with her father. She had a look of
almost panic on her face when she turned to him.
 
 "What if she's right, Daddy? What if you do go back to
sleep?"
 
 Bob thought about that for a few seconds. With his memories fully
exposed, he'd have precious little to complain about if he did go back into
the long sleep. So much had happened in this one day of being conscious
again that he felt like he'd lived several years in just this single
day. In another way he felt like he might be asleep right now, and
dreaming this whole crazy thing.
 
 Still, the look of panic and concern on Martha's face was real.
 
 Bob smiled. "I don't think I'd have waked up if whatever was keeping me
asleep wasn't finished with me."
 
 Martha smiled tentatively. "Really? I don't know what I'd do if you
went back to sleep... like that I mean. We have so much to catch up on.
There's so much I never got to tell you."
 
 "I remember everything you said to me." he said, hugging his daughter.
 
 Martha's eyes were startled as she tried to remember the myriad things
she'd said to her sleeping father over the years. While he could
remember them all, she couldn't.
 
 "I'm still nervous." she said, holding both his hands. "I'm afraid to
go to sleep myself."
 
 "Then we won't." he said. He wasn't really sleepy, after all. It's
pretty hard to wake up from a fifty year long nap and be sleepy right
away, after all. He was tired, but it was that good kind of tired where
sitting just feels wonderful.
 
 So they sat and talked, and Bob reminded her of some of the things
she'd said to him that she'd forgotten about. Some memories brought
laughter, and some embarrassment, while others made other emotions
surge in them both. It was difficult for Bob to broach the sexual
activities that had gone on - they seemed so bizarre and strange to a
man whose mindset was still in the late nineteen forties. But both of
them knew that some of the things they talked about this night had been
said in the heat of passion, while daughter impregnated herself on her
father's rampant prick.
 
 "Do you really remember us making love to you?" Martha finally asked,
her face darkening a little.
 
 "Oh yes." he said, blushing himself. "I can remember each and every
time if I try."
 
 "Did you... like it?" asked the woman.
 
 Bob's forehead wrinkled as he pondered how to answer that question.
 
 "For me it was just a haze of white. I knew people... you girls... were
there, but I didn't realize it was you. I mean I recognized Valerie's
voice, and yours when they were younger, but it was all just a cloud I
was in. I don't remember feeling anything exactly. I remember each
orgasm I had, but not how I felt about it." He looked at her. "Isn't
that strange? Now that I'm awake I can close my eyes and play back each
time it happened, with whatever woman or girl was with me, but I can't
remember how I felt about it."
 
 "We tried to hard to wake you up." said Martha, leaning toward him.
"Mamma said she was doing that because it would make you happy when you
woke up. I think us girls might have misunderstood that at the time. We
thought that was what was supposed to wake you up. We thought she meant you'd wake up because you loved
us. Later we thought she was trying to shock you into waking up,
but by then we were hooked. We couldn't quit. Looking back at it now,
of course, Mamma just loved doing it with you. And we did too, later.
And then you got me pregnant, and June and Betty couldn't stand it
until they got pregnant too."
 
 "I got you pregnant?!" laughed Bob. "I think it was the other way around, little
missy."
 
 Martha's eyes glistened as tears filled them.
 
 "You haven't called me little missy for fifty years Daddy!" she
bawled.
 
 A hug was called for, and given. That hug somehow turned into a nuzzle,
which turned into a kiss, which turned into more kisses which had both
of them panting within the space of just a few minutes.
 
 Martha pushed him back, her chest heaving.
 
 "I'm tired after all, Daddy." she said, looking at him through thick
long lashes. "I want to go to bed now."
 
 She stood, and had his hand in hers.
 
 "I'm still worried that you might go back to sleep. I think you need to
sleep with me tonight... so I can keep an eye on you..." After what
they had just talked about, and what they had just been doing, her
meaning was clear.
 
 Bob felt himself being pulled in two directions. He stood while his
mind warred in his skull. Her hand was warm in his, and, small as that
was, it made the difference. All he could remember was a cloudy haze...
and voices. He wanted to put sight into that equation.
 
 "Okay." he whispered.
 
 Martha made no bones about it. When they got to the bedroom she
unashamedly stripped off her clothing as if he weren't even there. He
stared at the woman whose voice he knew so well, but whose body didn't
match anything in his memory. Her full breasts sagged a bit, but the
dark areolas perched on top of each one, with a firm nipple on each one
that pointed more up than out. Her stomach had a middle aged pooch to
it, a roll that was the perfect size to fit into a hand, and her hips
were fleshy too. Still, she looked more in her mid forties than the
over fifty years she actually was.
 
 "I loved being able to... take care of you." she said softly, almost
shyly as she waited for him to remove his clothing.
 
 He stood there, all his muscles locked except the one in the pants he
was wearing. It was almost as if that one took all his newly-awakened
brain's power to manage as it swelled. She drifted, at least to his
eyes, toward him and he felt her hand flicker across the front of his
pants.
 
 "I looked forward to it every day." she murmured, looking straight into
his eyes.
 
 "Every day?" he choked.
 
 "Well, almost every day." she corrected herself. "I just knew that
someday you'd wake up because of what I was doing with you."
 
 "Well," he sighed, letting out the breath he hadn't realized he was
holding, "I guess that sort of happened. When I woke up Betty was on
top of me."
 
 Martha's eyes twinkled as she smiled. "I'm not surprised. Betty loved
taking care of you as much as I did." Her brow furrowed a little.
"Please hurry up Daddy. I need to take care of you again. I can't wait
to see your eyes this time. I've dreamed of looking into your eyes
while I..."
 
 Now she blushed, and her eyes darted to his ear, but then came back
immediately.
 
 "While I feel you spurting inside me Daddy."
 
 That galvanized him, and it seemed like only a few blinks of the eye
had taken place - the most time was getting the rope around his waist
un-knotted - before he stood naked in front of her, his penis jutting
almost obscenely toward her naked mons. Her fingers casually grasped it
and squeezed gently as she leaned in for a long kiss. Her tongue
probed... just the tip... and he opened his lips in surprise. He had
never kissed anyone like this except Valerie.
 
 Then, suddenly, they were on the bed and he was above her as her hands
pulled at his hips and he was surrounded by heat.
 
 "Ohhhh yessss Daddy." moaned the woman under him.
 
 His release was both unanticipated and shockingly powerful as he
suddenly spurted helplessly.
 
 "Ohhhhh baby." he moaned.
 
 "Daddy!" squealed Martha, laughing. "You always lasted much longer than that!"
 
 He took a breath, not knowing what to say, but her finger came up to
his lips and sealed them.
 
 "Don't you worry about it. You make me feel special, cumming that
quickly. We have all night. We can't go to sleep... remember? Now, suck
my nipples please? I've always wanted you to suck my nipples."
 
 Bob looked down at the nipples under discussion and his head dropped.
They were larger, and softer than the nipples he had sucked the last
time he'd been awake. To his astonishment, he felt something happening
in his groin and felt himself becoming erect again.
 
 Martha cooed and giggled, stroking his back and shoulders, urging him
on, calling him her Daddy Bull. This time he wasn't so rock hard, but
he was able to probe her deeply for much longer. He found himself in
that nebulous place inside his mind that said what he was doing was
forbidden... that Valerie wouldn't be pleased... and then remembered
that she was the one who had taught this woman how to love him
physically. He let go of his inhibitions and surrendered to her loving
embrace.
 
 She brought him back twice again and they made love well into the wee
hours of the morning. They talked at length about all the children he'd
created in his daughters, and that none of them were aware of who their
biological father was. For some reason he kept quiet about what the
great granddaughters had done with him. None of them had actually had
intercourse with him, and the secretiveness of his daughters about
doing that themselves led him to believe they would not approve of what
their granddaughters had done. Discussion about that could come later.
 
 But exhaustion claimed them, as hard as they fought it, and eventually,
in a tangle of naked arms and legs, they couldn't stay awake any longer.
 
 Again, Bob slept.
 
Author's Comment: What do you do when the story you're telling is as
confusing as this one can be? We have women who, officially are
granddaughters, but biologically are daughters. We have great
granddaughters, officially, who are in fact granddaughters
biologically. That confusion is compounded when the various
relationships between the women are addressed. No author wants to create frustration in the reader, so here's the plan for the rest of the story: From this point on, each woman will be referred to her her official title rather than her biological one. At least most of the time. Think of it as a contract between the author and the readers. I'll try not to confuse you... and you try to keep up. Sound like a plan? 
Bob was awakened by a racket and violent motion in the bed.
 What happened was that both he and Martha, exhausted after their
extended lovemaking session the night before, had slept late. Or at
least it was late by virtue of the fact that there were three more
women in Bob's life he hadn't met yet, and they now knew he was awake.
 
 Becca, Fran and Val had all gone home after leaving Martha's and had
excitedly babbled about how Great Grandfather Bob had awakened. Their
mothers were caught up in the excitement. They had not been even
remotely as involved in his care as their daughters, but still were
part of the mystery of his long sleep, and they were obviously excited
to go and meet him. It was too late that night to do so then, but all
three called each other to spread news that everybody already knew. In
the process they all agreed to meet at Martha's the next morning. No
time was agreed upon, primarily because each of Bob's granddaughters
wanted to be the first to get there. June and Betty, though they
weren't part of that conversation, had already decided to come back
early the next morning, too.
 
 It might have evolved quietly... peacefully... sanely... instead of the
landslide that happened. The first trickle of sand that started rocks
rolling was when Gidget, driving rapidly down the street, was blocked
by her sister Sunny, who backed out into the street from her driveway
like she was in labor and heading to the hospital. Becca and Val were
in the cars with their mothers, of course, and immediately set up a
chant urging their mothers to drive faster and "beat" the other to
Martha's house. That madcap race was observed by Polly and Fran, who
only lived a few blocks from Martha's and were walking. They both broke
into a sprint, not wanting to be last to arrive. Betty and June both
parked a split second apart, as screeching tires morphed
into slamming doors. Polly and Fran came hammering up the street,
yelling "Wait for us"
between gasps for breath.
 
 So it was that eight excited women descended on Martha's peaceful house
around six in the morning. To be truthful, none of them intended to
disturb anyone, but their angst about whether Bob had gone back to
sleep... and would wake up again like a normal man... resulted in each
of them deciding to arrive early. They didn't have any actual plans to
do anything in particular, but they all wanted to be there. It was
chaos, though chaos with attempts from various directions to inflict
order. June and Betty tried to establish matriarchal control in the
yard. They were ignored by their daughters, who raced for the back door
and burst into the kitchen much like a S.W.A.T. team might have. Nobody
yelled "Clear!" though.
 
 Still, Martha awoke in her father's arms to what sounded like a home
invasion. She was terrified on several levels. There was the "What in
the nine hells is going on?" kind of terror, followed quickly by the
"Oh shit! That's Sunny's voice I hear and I'm in bed naked with her grandfather!"
kind of terror, which was compounded when she also heard the voices of
her nieces, Polly and Gidget. There were other voices too, a babble
that made it difficult to figure out just how many people were out
there as she bolted up out of bed and searched frantically for her
robe. This led to the "What if there's a TV camera crew in my
kitchen!?" kind of terror.
 
 What gave her the time to make it trembling to the door of her room,
and into the hall where she could repel boarders, was the fact that all
of the women in the mob went to the room where they thought they'd find
Bob... the room he'd been in for fifty years.
 
 That room, or bed, to be more precise, was empty, of course, and like a
tsunami that has hit a cliff, the wave of women rebounded out of the
door and flowed aimlessly around looking for the object of their search.
 
 It was Betty who figured it out first, and she turned toward her
sister's bedroom. There, in the hall, holding her hands out like a
traffic cop facing angry motorists, stood a disheveled Martha, her hair
flying in all directions, her robe tied haphazardly around her waist,
her eyes open wide in... well... terror.
 
 Martha started to relax a little when all she saw in the hallway was
Betty, but like in a bad disaster movie, the hallway behind Betty was
suddenly roiling with women acting like they were at a Christmas sale
at Macy's and were all going for the very last Tickle Me Elmo doll on
the shelf. The cacophony was horrendous as all the women demanded to
know where their Daddy, or Grandfather or Great Grandfather was and
whether he was awake or asleep.
 
 Martha, when she didn't see any TV cameras, set her feet and put on her
most ferocious frown. Holding her arms out like she was going to hold
them all back by pure force of her will, she planted one palm on each
wall of the hallway and yelled "stop!"
 
 On the other side of the bedroom door, Bob's eyes popped open as the
bedroom door was slammed shut. He lifted his head, while his arm moved
to where Martha had been the last time he'd been awake. His mind
cleared surprisingly fast as the sounds of mayhem came through the
door. After what he'd gone through the day before, the noise of
babbling voices didn't phase him, and he sat up and looked around for
something to put on. All there was were the clothes he had been given
the day before and he calmly pulled them on while he listened to the
mayhem slowly quiet after someone screamed "Stop!" at the top
of her lungs. He stood and went to the door, listening. The voices were
somewhat muffled, but he could discern them without too much trouble.
 
 First there was a trio of "Is he awake?" followed by a duet of "He's
not in his bed!"
 
 Martha had not had time to properly think or prepare for this.
 
 "He's in my bed!" she blurted.
 
 "Oh is he now?" crowed Betty.
 
 "Why is he in your bed?" asked Sunny who, as a little girl, had spent many happy moments
climbing into bed with her mother on cold winter mornings.
 
 "Well... um... you see... I wanted him to be comfortable." Martha came
up with.
 
 "So..." said June, her voice tight, "Where did you sleep?
 
 Sunny chimed right in "Yes mother, where did you sleep. Grandpa's bed
hasn't been used."
 
 "Well, uh, I slept on the couch!" said Martha weakly.
 
 "I just bet you did." growled June.
 
 "Well, it just seemed wrong, sleeping in his bed and all." went on
Martha. "Kind of creepy, you know?" She was trying hard, but
was behind the power curve. She had a stroke of what she thought was
genius. "He fell asleep and I sat there, with him for a long time,
watching him. Finally I took a nap on the couch. I just got up to go in
and check on him when you all barged into my house."
 
 Gidget missed the undercurrent that was threatening to sweep Martha
away.
 
 "So is he awake?" she asked excitedly.
 
 "Um... I think so." said Martha, grasping. "I mean I was just about to shake him when
you all stormed in here."
 
 "I just bet you were." growled June again.
 
 "June!" said Martha with warning in her voice.
 
 "Well it's not fair!" yelled June.
 
 "June!" shouted Martha. "Look around you, June!"
 
 "Oh shut up!" yelled June. "I want to see my Pappa!"
 
 "I just bet you do!" crowed Betty, laughing.
 
 "What's going on here?" asked Sunny, her voice taking on a note of
suspicion.
 
 Bob decided that things were crazy enough out there and pulled the door
open quickly. He stepped out into the hallway to see Martha still
holding up the walls and eight feminine faces peering past her
shoulders with various moods painted on their faces.
 
 For Gidget, Sunny and Polly, those moods were of astonishment... a
fairy tale come true right before their eyes. Their mouths dropped open
and all three took in deep breaths. Bob looked at them interestedly.
These were the three voices that weren't so familiar... the three women
he didn't really know in any real sense. While he had managed to wrap
his mind around the fact that the other six women had been intimate
with him, and while he now knew that these women were his biological
daughters, he was suddenly at a loss for words.
 
 "Hello." he said.
 
 "Grandpa?" came the cracked voice of one of them.
 
 "I guess so." he said smiling. "And you are?"
 
 There was a surge of bodies and Martha was brushed aside as if she
weighed nothing more than a piece of paper.
 
 "Sunny!" squealed the woman. "I'm Sunny, and this is Polly over here, and this
is Gidget, and that's my daughter Val and..."
 
 "He met us already!" cried the three youngest women, laughing.
 
 "Oh! Yes! Of course." Sunny blushed and grinned. "This is so ex-citing!" she
squealed.
 
 Both Polly and Gidget had to do the same "Grandpa?" routine, reaching
out to touch him to make sure he was real. Martha, feeling disgruntled
and neglected, not to mention upset that her lovely interlude with her
father had been all but destroyed, reasserted her matriarchal position
in the family and started yelling to give the man some room to breathe,
and about why was everyone standing in her hallway when she had a
perfectly good living room. The girls asked about breakfast, of course,
and that set in motion another wave of women who were hell bent for
leather to fix something to eat for the exciting man who was being
swept along with the tide, grinning and laughing at the antics of all
those women.
 
 It took half an hour before anyone was able to speak without
interruption, and for questions to be answered. Bob sat in an easy
chair while the women flitted about, changing seats for no reason, or
going to the kitchen only to be chased out by Martha, who couldn't stay
there because she couldn't stand the suspense of wondering if her
father was saying something that would give away the fact that they had
made wild glorious love all night long. So she kept drifting back into
the living room, only to have to go back into the kitchen when one of
the others got up and invaded her space.
 
 But, eventually, things did settle down after that. There was still the
occasional awed comment, like "This is just so strange!" and "I
just can't believe you're really awake!"
 
 It was Sunny who asked the question - or more correctly, string of
questions - that made everything go quiet. At that point all the women
happened to be in the room.
 
 "So, what are you going to do now? Where will you live? What will you
do?"
 
 Bob blinked. He hadn't actually thought about that. He did so,
realizing instantly that he was on a very slippery slope. Martha had
obviously wanted to continue her former relationship with him. It was
just as likely that Betty did too, based on her actions. He looked at
June, remembering the sound of jealousy in her voice and added her to
the list of women who would want some intimate time with him. Then
there were the three younger women, all of whom had done things with
him. Would they too want to keep doing things now that he was awake?
Part of him hoped so, because they were all cute and beautiful and
interesting. It was the three middle aged women who were the unknown
variables in the equation.
 
 "This is his home." stated Martha firmly. "Technically he still owns
it."
 
 Bob saw the faces of both Betty and June begin to harden and held up
his hands.
 
 "All of you are my family. I'll want to get to know all of you, and
spend time with each of you. I have a lot of catching up to do, and
lots of questions about your lives that I'd like to find out about."
 
 He looked around the room.
 
 "How about if I live with each of you for a while? I wouldn't stay too
long or anything - you all have your own lives to live and all that -
but that would give me a chance to spend some time with each of you and
catch up until I can figure out what else to do."
 
 June, Martha and Betty traded glances with each other. There was no
blushing or prevarication. All of them knew what the other was thinking
about. Martha knew her sisters were upset with her for trying to
preempt time with their father... and lover... so she offered the first
olive branch.
 
 "I think that sounds like a perfectly wonderful and workable idea." she
said.
 
 Gidget looked at her sister, Polly. "What about Roger? What will he
think? Do you even have room?"
 
 Polly snorted. Roger was her husband, but in name only. After Francine
had been born he'd come out of the closet and announced that he was
gay. For Polly, the devastation that could have caused was blunted by
the fact that Roger still loved her and he loved his daughter. He had
told her he just wanted to be honest with her. As a result, they
decided to stay together, living as husband and wife. But they slept in
separate bedrooms. They were closer to loving roommates.
 
 "Roger won't care at all." She looked critically at her grandfather.
"On the other hand, Grandpa is kind of a hunk, you know? Roger may hit
on him. And all the bedrooms are full."
 
 "He can stay in my room when he comes to visit." offered Fran, her
voice innocent.
 
 While most of the women in the room didn't realize the import of that
"kind offer", a lot of them felt the tug of suspicion. Bob had the
appearance of a twenty-something year old man, who was quite fit and
handsome. It was hard to think of him as being their seventy-something
year old grandfather or great grandfather, not only for themselves, but
as they saw him with the others too.
 
 Betty was one of the women who felt suspicion in the otherwise innocent
remark of her granddaughter. "Of course, when he's staying at my house,
you all are welcome to visit as much as you like. I wouldn't want you
to be uncomfortable at home."
 
 "Oh, it wouldn't be any trouble at all!" piped Fran. "I have mamma and
daddy's old bed and it's huge! There's plenty of room for two people in
it." Her comment was, at the same time, based on the pure logic of a
mostly innocent girl of tender years, and the hormones flowing through
that mostly innocent girl's bloodstream.
 
 "I don't know about that." said Polly doubtfully, suddenly seeing the
youth and virility that was obvious in her grandfather... now that she
thought about it. "I'm not sure that would be proper dear. You know no
boys are allowed in your bedroom."
 
 "Maaahm" moaned Fran. "He's my great grandfather, not
some boy who wants to get in my panties."
 
 It took every muscle in her body to keep Fran from clapping a hand over
her mouth. She couldn't believe she'd said that.
 
 "Francine Elizabeth Anderson! That was uncalled for!" said Polly,
exasperated and embarrassed.
 
 Sunny laughed at her cousin's discomfiture.
 
 "We can worry about that later. It's a good plan. But what about the
other? What are you going to do? You're still a young man, for all
intents and purposes. I feel more like I'm talking to someone my son's
age than my grandfather."
 
 "I have no idea." Bob admitted. "I was an accountant when I went to
sleep. Does the world still have accountants? How have you all taken
care of me all this time, for that matter? I must have been a real
burden."
 
 Martha waved her hand. "There was an insurance policy that paid out...
is still paying out... and... oh my!. What will happen now? You're not
asleep any more! The insurance company will have a fit! They'll
probably say you've been faking it all this time or something!"
 
 Becca sat up straight all of a sudden.
 
 "The journal!" she gasped. "We forgot about the journal!"
 
 "What journal?" asked her mother.
 
 Now there were two young faces that went tight. The most closely
guarded secret of their youth... well almost the most
closely guarded secret anyway... had now been blurted in front of a
whole bunch of adults who would be very upset about it once they found out what had been kept secret from them.
 
 Val, the eldest of the younger generation, tried to pawn if off.
 
 "Oh, it's just a diary. Our diary. We sort of... um... kept it...
together." she said airily. She was trying to give the impression that
it was a meaningless little thing.
 
 Becca, though, was worried about her Aunt Martha's comment that the
insurance company would think it was all some kind of fraud.
 
 "We have to tell them, Val!" she insisted. "If the insurance people start making
trouble it's going to be important!"
 
 "Tell us what?" asked Martha, looking at her granddaughter with a
piercing look. "What have you been keeping secret?"
 
 Val may have been a self possessed nineteen year old young woman, but
under the intense gaze of her grandmother, and the questioning looks of
her mother and other older female relatives, she all but wilted.
 
 "Well?" asked Martha, her voice dark.
 
 "We were playing." Val started weakly. "Hide and seek." She trailed off.
 
 "And?" prodded Martha.
 
 "I was hiding up in the attic. We were very young Grandma." She looked
around. Neither of her cousins would meet her eyes, but every other eye
in the room was nailing her to her seat. She swallowed.
 
 "I was hiding under that old desk up there. You know the one that has a
lot of Great Grandfather Bob's papers in it?" She waited for a nod, but
didn't get one, so she went on. "And I found a book... a diary sort
of... in a secret compartment of the desk."
 
 "A roll top desk?" asked Bob, leaning forward. "My great grandfather's
roll top desk?"
 
 Val looked at him, a tentative smile on her face, and nodded.
 
 "Yes, that desk. And anyway we looked at this old diary and it sort of
was signed."
 
 "Sort of signed?" asked Betty, leaning forward herself now.
 
 "Yes." said Val. "And it talked about a man who slept for a long long
time... like Great Grandfather Bob was sleeping."
 
 "Sort of signed?!" prodded Betty again.
 
 "Yes." said Val miserably. "It was signed... Rip Van Winkle."
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