Ablutions, Inc.

I did the chin-sticking out and eyebrows-up, but in a hopeful and caring way, getting an idea of holding a baby in my head, too. I said, "Hmmm!" in appreciation. "I'm a sucker for babies. SOOOO cute." I grinned.

She was watching my reaction and grinned back, but was thoughtful, considering something or waiting for something more from me.

I went on, acknowledging truth. "I know Talia pretty well, we were in madrigals together. I could totally fall in love with her, sure. That would be totally amazing. She's great."

I wondered if my words were going to be wrong, but they weren't.

She was hesitating. This wasn't it.

"Something else?"

"Yeah... When ... In the dream, this is all in the dream, I don't control that, you know that."

"Duh. Of course! Fun stuff, though, what happened?"

"I was pregnant, too. My belly was way, way out there." Breaking arm contact, she backed up a little and held her arms out, like she was cradling her belly if she was really pregnant. "Like, this much. And, looking down, my... chest was bigger, too."

She was looking for my reaction. I was thinking, and said, "I hear that happens... But..." I looked her in the eyes, "Whoever you're married to, that's one Freakin' Lucky guy, right there. In the dream, mind you."

Her laugh went sideways, feeling good about what I said. We turned to walk down the sidewalk again, this time, holding hands. I liked it. Her hands were cooler than mine. There was a light drizzle, but not enough to worry about.

Just walking together, I felt good about her, and the chance to hold her hand.

She casually dropped it then, the extra clue. "The embarrassing part was... I just knew... my baby was yours, too."

I coughed, almost laughing, "Woooowwwww. OOhhhh, boy! Okay?" I was grinning my ass off, this was so fun to contemplate.

We kept walking. "So, in this dream-reality, do we have one of those big Kitchenaid mixers in the kitchen?" I was trying to ask an innocent question, to add a topic that wasn't the relationship, to get it to be less oddball.

She thought about it, obviously remembering. "Yes and No... it's not a big one. It's blue, and kind of small, a striped bowl? Next to the fridge? And... above the kitchen table - yellow tablecloth on that - there's a painting of a barn and grain silo, with a purple tractor?"

That made me stop and cough a little, it was surprising. "Huh. Almost all kitchens have mixers, that's normal. The ... wow."

"What?"

I swallowed, "I have a painting of a barn and grain silo, with a purple tractor, in my closet. It's valuable, mom made me put it away when I was bouncing tennis balls everywhere in 7th grade."

Laughing, she said, "I must have been at your house once and saw it."

I laughed with her and said, "Must have."

The thing is, I didn't remember talking with Dana much until freshman year, she couldn't have seen it, and I was also sure she'd never been up to my room, much less in my closet, and looked under the cardboard wrapping.

Something was odd.

Trying to be silly, I replied - casually and with a totally jovial lighthearted tone - "I think it's a little early to tell you that I love you and want you to have my baby. I mean, we haven't even had coffee yet."

She laughed.

The timing was right, we were right in front of the coffee shop, so we went in.

I got a decaf but with cream and sugar and caramel, I didn't want to stay up all night. She got a decaf with a raspberry shot, and we sat at a mostly-quiet table to have our drinks.

Wondering what hers tasted like, I asked if it was good, and she passed it over. When I gave her a raised eyebrow that she'd let me do that, she said quickly, "Oh, it's fine, we've swapped spit already, and you never know about..."

That last part came out of her mouth faster than I thought she meant it to, but I politely ignored that and didn't acknowledge the implication we might kiss again or even do more than that.

We got caught up on what classes we were taking, and I got reminded she was on the math team, something I'd tried for a while freshman year but had to drop because of my Ablutions business.

She had thought that the cybertruck was my parents', but I said I'd bought myself with hard work, she raised an eyebrow and inhaled a little, like that was sexy somehow.

Some things I didn't get about women.

We had finished up and it was well dark by then, so we stood and I offered to take her home if we walked to my place. She countered with the idea that she lived closer, in the other direction, and she could take me home.

Just about then, her phone rang. She wasn't on speakerphone but I could clearly hear the other side.

"Dana, you were supposed to go shopping! I was going to make dinner tomorrow night but I need ingredients tonight, or we can't. Now Mom is out doing some errand and we can't go!"

I raised my hand, then made a steering-motion and pointed to myself, which Dana got. "It's good... Sis, tell you what. I'm with Kevin Cooper, we'll get his truck and pick you up for a grocery run?"

"Uh, I suppose...?"

"Good, see you in, uh, soon." She clicked the hang-up, fast. "Let's go."

We walked out and then to my house, about two kilometers away, not too far at all. I didn't drive to school much except when it was pouring sheets of rain or super-cold. It did rain a lot, but didn't really ever get seriously cold since Vancouver is right near the ocean.

Once we got there, we walked in so I could drop my backpack

Mom was watching some show, so we walked in and Dana shook hands and said hello. I said, "We have a project, might go until late. Don't wait up."

This was my normal usual excuse to keep my mom off my back and not asking where I was or when I was getting home.

Usually, the excuse had something to do with my dungeons and dragons group. We had late-nights or overnights every other week. We skipped Saturday days during cross-country and track seasons, both Brian (a fellow runner) and I had to go to meets.

Heading out, Dana asked why I'd said that and I explained Mom was a busybody sometimes and I'd found that when I said that, I didn't get pushback or constant where-are-you texts.

She laughed and said she'd have to think about using the line herself.

We got in my truck and left.

Dana liked it; she'd never ridden in one. I liked it because of the stainless steel body - I had one client who lived on a farm and there were branches that would scrape, but that was an excuse I invented later. Mostly I just thought it was badass and kickass and Kewl.

We drove to her house and picked up Talia, who came right out and climbed in.

Some description is in order here. Dana, being on cross-country with me, was average-height, about 4 cm shorter than me, with a thin build and a tight-in chest. That is, not big, which is actually good if you're a runner. Her past-shoulder-length wavy dirty blonde hair was usually in a bun or pony-tail when she ran but framed a really pretty face, thin features but eyes that lit up when she was excited.

As for Talia, I knew her pretty well from chorus. She was about Dana's height or a little taller, but a lighter blonde and had a bigger D or DD/E chest (my guess, and I paid attention), though she mostly wore sweatshirts during the day to hide it. Knowing her "from chorus" undersells it since she and I were both in an after-school chorus group called Madrigals. That's where we sang small-group classical and medieval music together, and did performances wearing Amazing costumes.

I had Very Good Mental Images of her wearing that costume.

Some parts of the costumes were theatrical, but no two were alike. Each had been hand-sewn by one chorus-mom or another over the years and they had their own personalities, in a sense.

The one I wore had a ballooning upper-ankle length pant with leather accents, plus a leather tied-laces triangular "codpiece" section in the crotch and to one side. I was slightly embarrassed when I first saw it, from over-emphasizing my crotch. The first couple of times I was embarrassed but then it got to be more normal. In the end it was great because sometimes I'd get a boner (the girls' costumes had that effect, and not just on me!) and I could hide it.

Talia's epic madrigal get-up was a German-style dress the girls called a 'dirndl' (oktoberfest dress). An inner white-shirt with big sleeves, it opened for chest-space then was held up by an outer-layer leather lace-up (looking) ribbed/rigid bodice. It gave her a shelf of support (*total cleavage eye candy!*) but held the bottom outwards at the hips so she could take deep breaths for singing.

Not all the time did she leave the 'hint of cleavage' visible. When she wanted, she had a lace-frill front that went over the more open section. I wasn't a fan of that but I knew why she wore it.

Talia also had the kind of super-pretty face that lit a place up, for me at least. She didn't have any of that fashion-model persona either, or cheekbone oddness, it was more of a totally-normal neighbor-girl thing. We sang paired up or in small groups, standing next to one another to blend well.

You really get to know people, standing four-square shoulders touching, sometimes heads down and touching those, too. This was to practice blending, balancing out volume so we were all equal and perfectly in tune. The side effect? I could look down and see... Yeah. Thinking back to her, my warm-fuzzy was getting plenty of close-up like that. I cherished it and remember it vividly, enough that it lives in my visual cortex nicely unchanged.

Unfortunately, she was a year ahead of me and had graduated, so aside from very brief dog interactions we didn't see each other often.

I always figured she'd go off and find some super-tall pre-med student, a high status guy to go with high-status looks. Maybe. Again, my instincts on women were medium-low and I was far too shy to do anything, about anything.

== Chapter: Brisket Prep ==

As Talia climbed in the backseat, she reached around the seat on both sides and pulled me into an almost from-behind mini-hug. "Hmmm!... Thank you SOOO much, Kevin, it's such a help that you're schlepping us around."

I liked the hug. Chorus people did that, and theater folks, too, so I didn't read too much into it. At the same time? Yeah! I smiled, and got a smile back from Dana, too.

Our grocery store trip turned out to be a directed task-checkoff exercise for a specific list of foods, and I'd shopped enough to know where things were and return with my sub-list.

Talia's goal was to try to replicate her mother's recipe for brisket, the same cut that goes into corned beef. It has to be cooked for a long time WITH things that also needed their own prep steps. I hadn't heard of it, but they said it was super-good and Talia wanted to practice once before she tried making it for Passover in the spring.

I hadn't known they were Jewish - not that it was a problem, it just surprised me, and I thought it was kind of cool.

I asked, and Talia laughed and said, she was both Norwegian and Jewish. She said she'd started out Catholic, but when she was in 2nd grade her dad had remarried. Her step-mom's name was "Shosh", short for Shoshanna. Shosh was Jewish, and had insisted they do Hebrew school, so she did Bat Mitzvah.

My questions about that were delayed; we had to shop in a hurry since prep at home was going to take a while. Talia was making complicated food in addition to the brisket and the traditional recipes had lots of steps, so we could talk then.

This was a great background on her family. Dana had never really mentioned any of that part.

On the way home, Dana and Talia both described doing their Bat Mitzvahs at the same time because the party was cheaper for two, and because Talia had started Hebrew school one year late so it matched up. They said Hebrew wasn't easy, so it'd taken a few years to learn enough.

I'd seen Hebrew writing, it was so different that reading seemed like a big deal. I was impressed.

We got back to her house and I greeted BOON again, who was happy to see me. BOON was a happy dog in general, as most goldens are, but he also got the attentiveness of being a shepherd mix, too.

Shosh was home by then so she, Talia, and Dana started in on the kitchen prep.

I managed to do "sous-chef" tasks like washing dishes and putting things away, and whatever else (cutting onions, etc.) they needed. I wasn't well-versed but I could do some things okay.

Shosh was wonderful - helpful and sassy and snarky and I loved the interactions between her and the girls.

I'd met her before plenty of times, she'd picked up BOON and we'd talked. I always tried to stay formal with her, because I knew both Talia and Dana and I was always more formal with clients. She had treated me somewhat formally back, but with caring, like she liked me. I liked her and got a really warm vibe from her, so we were even.

She kept glancing at me, maybe to keep track of what I was doing? I smiled back, self-conscious, but mostly I could ignore that by staying attentive to what Dana and Talia wanted. That kept me busy enough to evade my being-watched worries.

It was past 10 pm when we finally had most of the brisket steps done. After it went into the fridge for two hours of 'resting time' we could handle more side-dish preps.

I knew most of the tasks - cutting potatoes to boil, grating sweet potatoes, slicing cabbage, dough for dumplings, proofing challah, all sorts of things.

I'd kind of been joking when I told my mom I'd be late, but it really was turning out to be late.

Shosh looked at Talia, and by the way she looked I knew that she didn't know if I was Talia's interest or Dana's. It had been kind of nebulous during the evening, since I knew both of them pretty well. I think as the older person she didn't want to butt in, because asking could embarrass one of the girls - but then she looked at me in a kind of meaningful way?

Without saying anything, she got my attention and nodded slightly, smiling, like she was approving of something. I was happily oblivious of specifics on one level, and on another I felt like I'd just been complimented.

I thought that was odd, but, sure, okay.

At that, she walked over to the stairs to head up to bed. She'd mentioned she was tired from a long day at work but then hesitated and stopped. Turning around, she came back to me and gave me a quick hug. She pulled then held my shoulders and looked me in the eyes with a kind of hopeful and kind half-smile, "Glad you're here, Kevin. You bring life to our house. Thank you."

At the second hug, I said thank you, and she broke off to go upstairs again.

Then, she diverted - again - to turn off some lights.

Finally ascending the back stairs, she called back over her shoulder and said, "Make him a nice breakfast, Talia, or I'm going to have to teach you about hospitality."

Talia's eyes got big, but she had to visibly control her voice to be casual and say normally, "Okay, Mom."

She disappeared down the hallway. Dana looked at Talia and they laughed at each other quietly, trying not to make noise that Shosh would hear.

Talia almost mouthed a silent whisper, "You didn't tell her! Did you?!"

Dana whispered back, "I didn't! I thought she knew!"

Talia glanced at me. She was super-amused but also intrigued, it was playing out on her face.

We heard a door shut in the distance - Shosh was safely away.

Dana said, "What? It didn't come up! Maybe she thinks he's the dog groomer."

There was a pause and they weren't saying anything, just looking at each other. Thinking it was safe to add a small thing, I added calmly, "Uh, no? She's seen us together in Madrigals, maybe at meets, too. She knows my mother, no secret."

Talia thought for a minute, but then her expression changed from being briefly scandalized to more like she was getting away with something. She spoke slowly, analyzing. "I'm in college now. Shosh said, earlier this year? 'You're living at home, Talia, think about this as a cheap-dorm, I'm not going to get in your way.' As if!!!"

Dana inhaled and looked at me. "I kissed him first."

She had - under the tree, it was sticking in my mind.

Talia looked at her frankly with a head tilt and a small shoulder move. "He _can_ sleep in my room. He cannot sleep in your room."

"Tal, Kev can sleep in my room if he _wants_ to sleep in my room, you just have to cover."

Talia was firm, she was getting away with something and she wanted full advantage. "Nope. I get him at least some of the night. She's never let me do this before. I'm jumping on this, it's freakin' awesome. Plus, I have to set a precedent, so it's normal or something. I'm not going to steal him from you."

"The hell you aren't!"

I didn't know what to say, so I just stayed Absolutely Still. This was just tooooo amazing.

Talia proposed a compromise, "We alternate?"

"Nights? Tonight, tomorrow night?"

They seemed to agree on that, and both looked at me. Talia asked, "Free tomorrow night?"

It was an off night for DND, but WTF, I liked the guys, but... wow, there's no way I was going to mess this up!

I just said, eyes wide and agreeing, "Sure?"

"Settled. You get him tonight, Talia, I get him tomorrow night, but you've got to help."

"Of course!"

Dana walked up to me and gave me a hug, "You, sir, are helping out a complex situation. Thank you. Now, remember, you can't... Uh... whatever, with Talia, too much, I get you tomorrow night, and... I don't want you sleeping through dinner, we worked so hard on this brisket."

I looked around me, confused, "Uh, I wouldn't think of it!?" I laughed. Like I would do anything to upset this idea.

Dana kissed me, long and occupying my whole being as she did. We broke... and then went back to cooking the potatoes and cabbage?

There was a lot more to do yet.

We cooked for a while and they explained what a Bat Mitzvah was in more detail, with quite a lot of laughter because going to Hebrew school had a lot of work, but also some hijinx with people it turned out I knew from school.

Near the end, I noticed they were talking in whispers and I knew I was in the way, so I went to use the bathroom and took my time, maybe ten minutes. When I got back, they were still at it, whispering back and forth, so I sat at the table across the room and waited for them to finish.

They did, glancing back at me and smiling.

Talia came over and hugged me, tightly. The hug put our heads closer together, and she pulled away to look me in the eyes, smiling and amused at the idea of doing this, and then came in for a kiss. It was brief but really soft and caring. At the start I could tell she was unsure of herself but we relaxed into a good long kiss.

Our lips touched, and I was all into it, yet I had moments of awareness-of-surroundings, and then I got back into the kiss again. The softness, the sensuousness of tongues gliding in her mouth and mine, back and around, lips moving, her body against mine... Yum!

I was kissing Talia! OhmyGod. Talia, gorgeous Talia? Was interested in me? Sure, they were both... beyond, but... Talia was older, she could get college guys, right? I presumed older meant higher status, and I started realizing that for her, it didn't mean that.

We turned and broke apart when a timer beeped and she went to pull the brisket out of the fridge and put it in the oven to cook. It was supposed to be just 115 C, super low, but for lots of hours.

Taking a moment while they were busy, I texted Mom. I went back and forth with her as I helped do the final clean-up.

The exchange was something like, "We have to be up late cooking a big meal for tomorrow. I'll be staying over at the Wilson's."

She replied, "Make sure you're not misunderstanding? She's inviting you? Are you being polite?"

"LOL Mom / Yes very / Cooking Brisket, other stuff / Lots of steps / Happy to help."