Rag Doll Ch. 08.1 - Sherry Baby

This is the first part of the absolute finale of the entire 'Rag Doll' saga; this segment ties together the 'Rag Doll' and 'Nia' universes through Cherie Morrison, the daughter of Barbara's younger sister, Rosa. The second part (currently in prep) connects Bobby and Ricky to Nia, their 1st cousin through Barbara's older brother, Nia's father.

Huge thanks to BlackrandI1958 for her meticulous editing and willingness to ask me WTF I'm talking about, then putting me straight, plus her lack of hesitation in curbing my wild, punctuation scattering excesses, somewhat elastic approach to tenses, and huge, oxygen-sucking sentences. Any mistakes that crop up are post-edit and entirely my fault.

As always, if you liked the story please comment or vote, and if you didn't please tell me why. I reply to all emails, just please don't forget to add a return address so I can reply if that's what you want. All comments are welcome, if you want to insult me be my guest, if it's funny enough I'll treasure it, otherwise I'll delete the insane, psychotic, unhinged, medically unfeasible, or just plain scary ones.

This is a work of fiction, in places that only have a vague connection to reality, and things happen the way they do because I want them to. Please read and enjoy, and remember, it's only a story.

BB1958

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I stood in the saloon bar of "The Old Compass" pub in Hamble-le-Rice, Southampton, trying to finish my beer, but Sam, my best friend and usual wingman wouldn't let me alone on the subject of Sherry, the gorgeous blue-eyed, black-haired barmaid.

"Dan, she's fucking hot, she makes those munters you grope in the Student's Union on Saturday nights look like blow-up dolls; she's practically panting over you!"

He slapped me gently on the back of the head, a "wake-up and get with-it!" kind of slap.

"Everyone here, shit, everyone in Hamble knows she fancies the fuck out of you; what is wrong with you? Why not just go with the zeitgeist, mate, take her home and fuck her properly; that way she'll have had what she wants, and she'll be back in circulation, and we can all take a crack at her. You owe it to the men of Hamble, Danny-boy. It's your duty; you have to fuck that girl. It's the only way to cure the epidemic of Blue-Balls she's causing up and down the coast!"

Sam was right about Sherry; she'd made it obvious from day one she wanted nothing more than an extended sweaty-session with me and ordinarily I'd have been up for it like a rat up a drainpipe, as my poor old dad would have said, and with good reason: Sherry was everything a man could have asked for in a girl: slightly over medium height, with a slender, shapely figure, beautiful heart shaped face with big, sexy cornflower-blue eyes under a glossy quiff of short, sculpted jet-black hair, clear pale skin with a spray of pale freckles dusting her cheeks and cute snub nose, and beautiful coral-pink lips, full and succulent; the kind made to form a seal around the head of a man's cock.

That night she was wearing a striped boat-necked top with nothing underneath, to judge by the lack of bra strap on her exposed shoulders and the tantalising jiggle coming from inside that top, and Jeggings: leggings printed to look like jeans, which showed every curve and ripple of her supple thighs and fabulous round little bubble-butt, and no VPL, which was causing no end of speculation and wistful staring in the crowded pub.

As I said, she was everything a guy could want, but for some reason she had made it clear she wanted me, and that was where it became a problem, a big one; one that prevented me from moving in for the kill, no matter how delectable I thought she was. I couldn't make that move on her, much as I might have wanted to, dreamed of doing, had to restrain myself from doing, because Sherry was my aunt: Cherie Morrison Young, to use her proper name, my mum's baby half-sister.

I didn't know she worked there when I first went to the University of Southampton, where Sherry had also attended. She'd dropped out after the end of her second year, and I'd lost contact with her, presumably because she wanted it that way, as she had all my contact numbers and email addresses. For reasons of her own she'd decided to disappear, so imagine my shock when Sam and I'd wandered into the remote pub a few weeks previously to get away from the waterfront pubs and bars crowded with middle-aged rich yacht owners and their hot trophy wives talking about how much their yacht cost, how big their place in "Sandbanks" was, money, money blah, blah, blah and there she was, my hot young aunt, after almost two years with no sign or word of her, a former medical student, pulling pints and serving sandwiches.

To my surprise, she'd shown no trace of recognition, instead serving Sam and me, flashing Sam her professional smile, but then she'd reached out and stroked my face as she grinned at me.

"What's your name, handsome?" she purred, kissing her fingertip and pressing it to my lips before winking, raking my hair back of my forehead with her fingertips and going off to serve some other customers at the bar.

"Well fuck me, that's a first, innit!" said a voice behind me, and I turned to see one of the locals standing behind me. "Sherry don't usually say nothing to no-one 'ceptin' what a barmaid should. You lucky barstard, oi think she loikes you!"

Sam was looking at me in open-mouthed astonishment.

"You lucky, jammy fucker, how the fuck did you do that? She took one look and practically asked to have your babies! I'm definitely sticking with you; maybe some of it'll rub off on me!"

At this point, I think a little background is necessary. Sherry was my mother's young half-sister. Mum's parents had split-up when she was in her early teens, and my grandfather had played the field for years, before finally settling down again with a new, much younger, as in younger than Mum, if you can believe it, partner. In the meantime, Mum and Dad had met and eventually married in their early twenties, at just about the time Sherry, Mum's half-sister, was born. Two years after Sherry was born, Mum had me. Predictably enough, my deadbeat grandfather got the wanderlust again just before Sherry was born and disappeared, leaving Sherry's mother, Rosa Morrison, literally holding the baby.

Rosa was killed when a car skidded and rolled into the bus queue she was waiting in with two year-old Sherry. It was a freak accident; Sherry in her stroller was miraculously unharmed, the car missing her completely, but Rosa and the two other people at that bus-stop were killed. Mum was Sherry's only known living relative (although Mum knew Rosa had had an older sister, Barbara, who'd dropped out of sight after Sherry was born, and an older brother, John or maybe James, but she didn't really know where he was, and Mum and Rosa had never really talked about her family) so she took her and brought her up with me. I grew up thinking Sherry was my sister, and Mum and Dad, bless them, never treated her any differently to me. I think for a long time Sherry was convinced my parents were her parents as well.

To me, though, she was always just Sherry, my big sister; I never knew she was my aunt until Mum told us, after Dad had passed away, what had happened, and who Sherry really was. I was in my teens by then, so it didn't make a lot of difference to me, and it didn't seem to make any difference to Sherry; she was still my beautiful big sister, still just "Sherry", Mum was still just "Mum", always and everywhere, for both of us, and Sherry's real relationship to me, whether sister or aunt, made no difference, for reasons that will become obvious.

Back to the present day. I was at a loss to explain why she hadn't just greeted me as her younger brother, as had always been the case before, but I had to admit, the envious looks I was getting from the other occupants of the pub were really quite gratifying.

The rest of that evening was a haze of Sherry brushing past me, stroking my face, flicking my hair back out of my eyes, telling me how gorgeous I was, and at least twice brushing her fingers over my crotch. I decided I'd wait until closing time and ask her where she'd been, and just what the hell she thought she was doing, but try as I might, I wasn't able to catch her that night, or any other night that week; either I missed her, or she was staying behind to stock-take, or any one of a dozen assorted reasons, but the end result was the same.

I'd spend the evening being flirted with by my big sister/aunt, brushed up against by her, teased and touched by her, and on several occasion being lightly kissed by her, but I was never able to get her alone and ask her why; why the hell she'd disappeared on me, to suddenly re-surface like some lovesick teenager obsessed with me, and why she was making it so obvious to every half-awake customer that she was ready, willing and eager to jump in the sack with me.

I couldn't even understand why she'd singled me out for this whole "throwing herself at a guy" pantomime she seemed bent on playing out; I was no great shakes as a male specimen, tall, well-muscled, but not heavily built, from four years of Taekwondo and working at the speed bag, and playing rugby at school and now uni.

I had nondescript unruly brown hair that seemed to be forever falling into my eyes, pale-grey eyes, regular, forgettable features, what my dad used to call a "crowd face" and certainly not one to set a girl's heart a-flutter.

Sam of course didn't get it; night after night he'd come back to the pub with me, and stand in a puddle of his own drool, stripping Sherry bare with his eyes; she never said a word to him other than to be professionally polite and friendly, and that was all, but she rolled innuendo-loaded comments around me, doing the touching thing again and again, and making me feel very singled-out.

"Go on, ask her!" he'd hiss, nudging me as Sherry rubbed herself against me and grinned seductively, or put her arm around my waist and asked me if I was enjoying my evening as she rubbed her hip against mine, or backed into me with a handful of empty beer pots and wriggled slightly, just for a second, racking my internal temperature and pressure up several notches.

"She's practically handing you the key to her bedroom, Danny, what are you waiting for, boyo?" he'd moan in frustration-by-proxy, and look sideways at me when I looked away and gave him my stock answer; "I have my reasons, Sam, let it go!"

Sam would then respond with his stock rejoinder.

"Danny, she's a stunner; what's not to like? I mean, really? Look, I know you're not gay, not after what I saw you doing with Michaela McGrath at the Fresher's Ball, so why so reluctant to knock-over Sherry? She's gagging for you, boyo! Look Danny-boy, all she wants to do is wrap those lovely long legs around you and crush the life out of you; there are worse fucking ways to go, believe me! You're turning my street-cred into thin runny shit here, boyo; go get her, Danny, for my sake!"

This went on for days; I finally knew where Sherry was, and I wanted to talk to her, I wanted to know why she just dropped-out of uni and off my radar, where she'd been since, why she'd left me alone, but every night she managed to avoid me, while simultaneously flirting outrageously with me in public, until I began to think seriously about finding another pub; Sherry was too busy playing mind-games for me to take her seriously any more, and my studies were beginning to suffer.

After another week of fruitlessly trying to intercept her, I decided to forego any further visits to "The Old Compass" the following week and catch up instead on some required reading, and so for the rest of that week, I immersed myself deeply in Essentials of Anatomy & Physiology. By Friday evening, I was, however, missing seeing her, so I thought "why not?" and before I knew it, I was once again standing at the bar, ordering a drink from my game-playing aunt-slash-sister. She tried her usual flirting gambits on me, but I just took my drink and my change and retreated to a corner, wondering why the hell I'd come; nothing had changed in the last few days, and it looked like nothing was going to change, either.

I put down my beer and turned to leave, and suddenly she was there in front of me, her professional face gone, her flirty, come-hither expression gone; finally, it was just Sherry, my big sister.

I think I should come clean about something. Since I was 10 years old, and Sherry was 12, I'd been in love with her; to me, she was always the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen, and I would have waded through molten lava for her. As we got older, my feelings intensified; she occupied my every waking thought, even as another part of me entirely kept telling me how wrong those feelings were. When I grew older still, I used to masturbate thinking of her, images of her dancing and cavorting naked through my mind feeding my feverish fantasies.

When she went away to university I was crushed; suddenly all the beauty in my life was gone, the light that lit my days was extinguished. I knew she wouldn't come back, not for me, not for anything, so I made sure I was accepted at Southampton Medical School, just as she was, so I could be near her again, to learn as I arrived that she'd withdrawn from her third year and requested her transcript; she'd gone. After two years I'd banked heavily on seeing her again, but she was gone and I was devastated.

"Where've you been, Danny, I watched out for you all week, I missed you!" she smiled, a normal, sisterly smile. "I wanted to talk to you, baby-boy!"

I looked back at her warily.

"I've been trying to talk to you for days, Sherry, I waited for you outside night after night, but you always dodged me; you knew I was there but you just left me there, and you refused to talk to me inside this place; what could you possibly want to talk to me about now, after two years' silence, Sherry?"

"Not here, Danny, later, I promise!" She smiled, but I wasn't satisfied.

"No, Sherry, I'm sick to the back teeth with standing around like a lemon while you play mind-games. I'm staying in the student Halls of Residence on Bailey Street, Building A, Room 212; come and see me there if and when you decide to stop playing silly buggers. I don't have time to waste chasing around after you. Be there or not, I don't care anymore; after two years I'm used to not seeing or hearing from you!"

Sherry looked shocked at my rejection of her, but I didn't care; she'd been bouncing me around like a kid's ball for weeks now and I'd had enough.

"Danny, I'm..." she began, but I cut her short.

"Look, if you want to play more games, find someone else to wrap around your finger; I looked for you for years, Sherry. I thought I'd lost you forever, but you always knew how to reach me; you just never did. You left me behind without a word, and now you want to crawl all over me and play kiss-chase? I don't think so. When you're ready to act like an adult, I'll be there, for you I always was, but if you still want to play games, find someone else, I'm done with all these mind-games."

I brushed past her and left the pub, walking out in the full glare of my burning bridges, yet feeling curiously light inside; I'd finally had my say, even if it wasn't exactly what I thought and rehearsed and wanted to say when I finally found her again. I arrived back at the Halls of Residence feeling calm and self-possessed; I felt I'd handled the thing with Sherry like an adult, and I was sure I'd done the right thing. She had no right to play with my emotions and family connections like that, not after two years silence.

I took a shower, feeling emotionally at ease as well as physically relaxed for the first time in what felt like ages. I pulled on my sleeping t-shirt and sports shorts and settled down to catch-up a little further on the day's lectures. Eventually I looked up at the wall-clock; almost 12:30, so I guessed she wasn't going to show, then or ever, so I switched off my reading light, checked my alarm, as Sam and I were going for a run in the morning, and settled down for the night.

I was just winging through that place between sleep and wakefulness when a tapping at my door dragged me back to full wakefulness again. I checked my clock; just after 1 AM. so I staggered out of bed and slipped the chain on, opening the door a crack to see who it could be. It was Sherry. I actually debated for a second whether or not to open the door, but good manners (and the need to see her, and have her to myself, if I'm honest) won out, so I unchained the door with a sigh more melodramatic than heartfelt, and opened it, gesturing her in and closing the door behind her.

Sherry looked, as always, absolutely stunning; she may have been working as a barmaid, but she carried herself like a top-flight fashion model, and whatever she wore, no matter how simple or cheap and off-the-peg, she always looked like she'd just stepped out of the pages of Vogue, Marie-Claire, Cosmo, or Paris-Match. That night was no exception; she was wearing a simple blue and white striped top with a wide scoop-neck, skin-tight glossy black pedal-pushers paired with black embroidered Harem slippers, and a navy-blue jacket that looked like a cut-down Burberry trench coat, complete with epaulettes, half-cape and belt. Together with her pale flawless complexion, coral-pink lips, and long, sooty eyelashes framing her large expressive eyes, soft and blue, and very beautiful, with her midnight-black hair roached back into a glossy boy-cut quiff, she looked like a sexy chic 1950's Parisian beatnik, and truly, deeply fuckable.

"Danny, I'm sorry it's so late, end of week stock-take and all that I didn't want to wake you...but I owe you an apology...and an explanation."

I looked blearily at her.

"Sherry, it's one in the morning." I yawned involuntarily, "I don't need any explanations, not now, I was angry earlier, and I'm sorry..."

Sherry brushed my cheek lightly with her fingertips, even that light contact sending a quick 'zing' of pleasure rushing through me.

"Sit down, Danny, you look dead on your feet." she said, urging me toward my bed. I sat in the middle and Sherry sat on the end, one leg bent up under her, just as she used to do when we were younger and we'd sit up chatting late at night.

"I'm sorry, Danny, really, I thought you knew what I was doing. I thought you wanted to play, that's why I was playing with you, but I honestly thought that you'd...be into it, play along, the thrill of the chase, that sort of thing!"

I looked at her in puzzlement.

"Sherry, right now I have no bloody clue what you're on about. All I know is, my big sister, the only family I have left, the one person in the entire world who meant everything to me suddenly disappears for years, doesn't even come back for Mum's memorial service, falls back into my life by accident, and all she wants to do is flirt with me. Why, Shel? Why don't you explain, because, like always, you've managed to confuse the fuck out of me! Almost the last thing Mum said to me was that I should look out for you, that I needed to talk to you, but how could I when I didn't know where you were? I had to arrange the memorial service, go there alone, and stand there alone while everyone else had family around them, and I had to settle her estate, and I had to do it all alone. For God's sake, Sherry, I was only eighteen, I was a teenager and I needed you, I needed my big sister, but you weren't there. Where were you?"

Sherry looked at me searchingly, her eyes boring into mine, although I don't know what she expected to see in there other than a complete failure to understand what she was going on about.

"You really don't know, do you, Danny?" she murmured, and I shook my head again; know about what?