Rhine Maiden Ch. 01: Swiss Watch

As she swept her arm from right to left across the lined up girls, Trang introduced them, "Nanine and Nadine Corbin and Dagmar Bjerke, this is my uncle, who as you noticed, I call 'Popo' because he is so dear!" She laughed, hugged herself up against Philippe's right hip, then amended, "But, of course, he is more politely known as Monsieur Philippe Pique." Pulling herself even tighter against his suit coat, she teased, "N'est-ce pas, Popo?"

Flummoxed by the overt familiarity, Philippe was abruptly reminded of the womanly form behind Trang's modest peacock-blue ruffle-necked crêpe party dress. He feigned a cough and raised his right hand to cover his mouth while a hot flush smoked his newly shaved cheeks. As he recovered himself, the teens in the hall chorused, "Bon soir, Monsieur Pique!"

Hoping to lighten the oppressive weight in the center of his chest, Philippe replied, "Enchanté demoiselles, you are most welcome. And, if it makes the party any more gay for you, you may feel free to call me Oncle Philippe, or even 'Popo' if you like. I will not mind, I promise."

While the chums thanked him for his cordiality and Trang grinned up at him adoringly, Philippe scanned the new arrivals. From the navy-and-white mixed yarn topknots on their maroon felted wool tams to the gleaming gold-tone simple buckles on their low-heeled black patent leather Mary Janes, they were three peas in a pod. In fact, Nadine and Nanine were so much identical, right down to their gold wire-rimmed round eyeglasses, that he already had forgotten which twin was which.

Trang gently jabbed her uncle in the ribs and urged, "Come on, Popo! Let's hang up their coats!"

Philippe blinked and properly assumed his role as host. "Yes, of course," he answered. Then, noticing the two identically monogrammed portmanteaus on the floor beside the twins, he joked, "Are you planning to spend the whole night?" Turning to Dagmar, he asked, "And what about you? I do not see any luggage at your feet." He made sure to smile throughout so that his meaning could not be mistaken.

The teenagers looked among themselves wondering which should answer first, then all three spoke at once and immediately laughed before falling quiet in their embarrassment at the confusion. Philippe chuckled, then pointed to the left-most twin and said, "You tell me."

"Non, Monsieur Pique, don't worry for us," Nadine replied, shaking the shoulder-length teak brown hair beneath her maroon tam. "We only are here for Trang's birthday party. Nanine and I must be at the bahnhof by eleven this evening to catch the night train home to Paris."

Dagmar undid her long navy serge overcoat's gold buttons while she watched Nanine nod agreement as Nadine explained the sisters' itinerary. Then she said, "And I have a ticket for the morning DNL flight to Gressholmen Airport in Oslo. My father will meet me when I land, but for tonight he arranged a room for me at the Hotel Krafft. My things are already there."

"Oh, well the evening is young but it won't stay that way," Philippe observed blandly with no idea of his peril. "Hang your coats and tuck your valises under the stair here, then step into the dining room across the way. The table is set and ready." Stepping out of the way, but not far away, he studied the students while they hovered around the closet and put away their outer things.

Dagmar was the first to shuck her overcoat. Philippe very much appreciated the way her buxom bust elevated behind her white linen shirt. Her chest's rising mass lifted her knit wool school tie to nearly horizontal from its knot to its midpoint before the maroon-navy-and-white stripes broke at her shelf's edge and then paraded in a normal vertical drop to its squared end. As he surveilled the cinnamon-haired Norwegian, he noted how her maroon felted wool blazer's lapels spread naturally to accommodate her bulk and how the gold-black-and-white embroidered coat-of-arms patch on its breast pocket was necessarily pushed entirely askew.

The twins, by contrast, were both a little taller and somewhat less sturdily built than Dagmar. Nonetheless, when they had reduced to their pleated navy wool A-line skirts and crisp long-sleeved shirts, Philippe readily appraised their figures, which were even more developed than Trang's earlier discovered comely curves. Anxious to delay the young ladies' departure to the dining room, he opined, "It is certainly nice of you not to rush home to your families, but to want to be with my niece for her birthday party. I'm not sure any of the lads would have done the same for me way back when I was at school."

Nanine laughed a small laugh and said, "We remember when we had our eighteenth birthday..."

"Oui," butted in Nadine. "Except it was in the middle of last August and we already were home..."

Finishing her sister's thought, Nanine continued, "... and there were no girls that we knew who could come and sing songs with us!"

Dagmar stepped forward and draped her right arm around the twins backs as she chimed in, "And this past September, when I became eighteen, it was my first term in the school and I had not yet made new friends because I was shy."

"So, you see, Popo," concluded Trang, as she hugged her friends from the twins' other side. "It's like a big birthday party for all of us! Tout le monde peut fêter ça!"

Philippe used the happy moment to gawp at the lined up misses with their sweet figures on modest, but full, display. Chuckling through his grin, he said, "Then I am doubly pleased that you will each find small gifts waiting for you in the dining room. They are trifles, it is true, but Trang and I are sincerely glad that you are here."

In unison, the guests squealed their delight, then flooded Philippe with shouted gratitude as they bounced excitedly on the their shoes' low heels. Trang grabbed Nadine's hand and cried, "Allons-y! Let's open them up!"

As Trang led the group across the foyer's checkered tiles to the dark-wood paneled formal dining room, Philippe hung back. His rambunctious prick was swelling in his trousers and he needed to reposition it before the innocents noticed. It did not help that the girls' pleats swished seductively across their bottoms as they ran. Nor, that their white opaque cotton knee-socks clung wonderfully to their departing taut and toned calf muscles.

Finally adjusted for comfort and safety, Philippe followed the troop to the great polished oak dining table. The teens had been too impatient to wait for him, or for each other. Gift wrap and ribbon littered their plates as they yanked the lids from their little boxes. Each contained an identical trinket: A delicate cloisonné chalet pendant on a fine braided gold wire chain.

When the hubbub had died, and the girls were looking around comparing presents with one another, Nanine called out from the far side of the long table, "Monsieur Pique! Please come and help me fasten this around my neck!" Immediately the chaos began anew as Nadine, Dagmar and Trang all clamored their own demands to be the first to wear the new favor.

Philippe waved his hands to quiet the teens and assured them each would get his help as he walked to Nanine and said, "Alright, I will start with you. But, you must tell me: Are you Nadine or Nanine? I cannot tell you two apart!"

Nanine laughed aloud and said with a coy wink, "I am Nanine and when you put on my necklace you will see how I am not the same as ma souer!" As Philippe approached, she removed her school tie and opened the top two buttons at her shirt's throat. Spreading the plackets to her collarbones, she resolved his mystification by pointing to a small dark mole at the apex of her suprasternal notch.

"Maman calls this my beauty mark," Nanine bragged. "Nadine does not have one!"

Nadine hotly exclaimed,"Well, I was born first and will always be that much older and wiser than you!"

Standing behind Nanine's chair, Philippe's view took in more of her chest than she might have wanted. Her buttermilk skin was delightfully smooth and he felt his cock thickening again as he peeped past her beauty mark to the creamy valley between her young breasts. Hoping she would not feel his fingers tremble, he hooked the necklace clasp then let it drop to her spine behind the shirt's collar.

"Moi! Moi!" Nadine chirped and beckoned. Like her twin, and Dagmar, too, she had already stripped her tie and undone her collar in preparation for adornment. Philippe came around to her and Dagmar in turn. Effectively using his increasing experience, he lingered to look upon their exposed bosoms as long as he dared while he added the jewelry to their ensembles.

At last turning to his niece, Philippe asked carefully, "Your dress ruffles are full and high, ma petite. I don't think the chain is long enough for you to wear your necklace on top. Do you want to put it on later?" Sympathetically, he added, "I have another present you can open and wear instead."

Trang could not hide her disappointment and wished now that she had not been so keen to show off her fancy new crêpe frock. She knew that her friends would be wearing their uniforms. If she had done the same, then she could enjoy wearing her petit chalet in their company. In an inspirational burst, she blurted, "No, Popo!"

Reaching behind her nape, Trang uncoupled the hook-and-eye at her ruffles while she exclaimed, "Unzip my dress in the back, Oncle! I want to wear the cloisonné... Maintenant!"

Philippe scarcely had believed what he heard. Not two hours earlier he had spied on his niece in her bath. Now, she was actually inviting him to unzip her gown. With effort he moved without stumbling behind her chair, placed his hands lightly on her shoulder points and then spoke into her left ear, sotto voce, "Are you certain you want to do this? Here? Now?"

"Bien sûr, Oncle," Trang answered in a perplexed tone. "Whatever do you mean? You yourself said the chain is too short to wear over my dress. Please help me, I want to see how it looks!"

Sighing, Philippe slid his hands along Trang's trapeziuses and then tugged the hidden zipper tab down to her mid-back. Once more, but much closer, he saw her spinal column divide the clear ivory flesh between her scapulae before it dove under a silvery satin camisole beneath the bright blue crêpe. Oh, how he had wanted to kiss each bumpy little vertebrae from her scalp to her tailbone! Shaking his head, he cleared the evil thought from his mind and declared, "Voilà, it is done!"

Trang handed her trinket to her uncle and, in the same motion, pulled her bodice midway off her shoulders as she directed, "Bien! Now fix the little clasp, just as you did for Dagmar, so the pendant hugs my throat."

Inadvertently perhaps, when Trang lowered her dress sleeves she took with them her camisole's spaghetti straps. As she spoke, she was blithely unaware how dangerously close her brassiere-less poked-up promontories were to being wholly bared by her drooping lingerie. However the topographical facts were plain to Philippe. Ducking his head, he tucked his chin to his neck and next to her soft cheek as he fumbled blindly with the dainty necklace clasp while his lidded eyes freely roved her torso.

As she felt the tiny weight settle on her upper sternum, Trang twisted her face left and kissed her uncle's smooth jowl. "C'est parfait, Popo," she intoned quietly. "Now, what was it you were saying about another present?"

"Why, yes," Philippe said with a smile. "I have it just here in my coat pocket." He patted his chest and continued, "I was going to give it to you later, but since Desmoiselles Corbin will need information from you if they are not to be late to the bahnhof, perhaps it is well that you get this little gift now."

"Oh, Popo! You are too mysterious," Trang protested. She kissed him again lightly and demanded, "Don't tease me! Give me my present, please!"