James Gang Ch. 02: The James Girls

"Hey Dad," I said. "What are you still doing awake?"

"Nothing," he said. "Just lookin' outside."

Through the window, I could see the tree stump in our backyard where Dwight's treehouse used to be. Dad had cut it down after his death, and that stump served as a painful reminder of a horrible tragedy. More than that, it served as the focal point for when everything in our family went to hell. When Dad started drinking, when we kids started drifting apart . . .

. . . When Dad's marriage began to fail.

I walked behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. "You can't keep doing this to yourself, Dad. Please, for me . . . you have to move on. Stop thinking about what's not there and focus on what is."

"Yeah," he said in a somber tone, never taking his eyes of the tree, even once.

'Yeah'. That was all he ever said.

'Yeah'. I'll work on patching things up with your mother.

'Yeah'. I'll start eating and exercising proper to get my strength back.

'Yeah'. I know the only woman I've ever loved just left me for a man she loves better.

'Yeah'. I'll stop looking at my medicine bottle with serious thoughts about killing myself.

If I had grown to love hearing 'Little C', then I had just as surely grown to HATE that word.

I started to help him stand. "Come on, Dad. If you haven't eaten yet, let's go and fix you something. Leave the chair, though. You really do need the exercise."

"Yeah."

******

The next day, I really needed some cheering up, so I decided to stop by Ken and Darbie's place. When I got there, I could smell the scent of a fresh-cooked breakfast and the sounds of little feet moving around the house. Kenny was probably out to work, so I knew it would just be me and my big sis.

"Hey, CJ!" Darbie said with brightest smile I had seen in a long while. It really did help break me out of my funk to see at least somebody in this family being so happy.

"Hey Darb," I said, trying my best to fake a smile of my own. Darbie instantly took my hand and yanked me inside.

"Please come in and have a sit. If you haven't eaten yet . . . or, hell, even if you have . . . take some bites out of this big ol' breakfast. I overdid it a bit, and that Kenneth didn't oblige me by filling himself. Your timely arrival is undoubtedly the Lord's assistance."

How could I refuse a request like that? "Um . . . sure. Can I get a plate?"

"Of course, darlin'," Darbie fetched on from the cupboard and placed it in front of me. I admired the girlish flower patterns on it, noting that there was no way in hell that this had belonged to Kenny before he and Darbie started living together. So much of the house was different now. It didn't have that cold, wooden décor of a home with only a lonely, single man inside. It was a filled with lots of furnishings, pictures, chandeliers . . . it was a home that had slowly come to life at the prospect of a new family. Filled with endless possibilities for an optimistic future.

Really, it was the complete inverse of the house I now lived in:

Once alive, but slowly dying.

I put on a good show for Darbie, but I really wasn't all that hungry. I was more invested in just watching her work, as well as keeping an eye on the kids I saw playing in the room a few yards away. They were my nieces and nephews: Donald, Lucy and Trevor.

Like Darb and Kenny, Lucy and Trevor were twins. We sometimes teased our brother and sister about 'history repeating itself'. Though we joked about it, we always said that we'd just keep an eye on things for now and see how they developed. We didn't want to get in their way or anything, but we'd have to make sure they knew what they were getting themselves into.

But that's if that bridge needed to be crossed, of course. Really, it could happen with ANY of our kids. Kenny and Darb had really set a standard that changed the way this family acted around each other.

But I had never seen Darbie so happy in all her life. In fact, way back when Ken had gone to college, Darb seemed to become downright miserable, and her disposition didn't improve much over the next fifteen years. She withdrew from the rest of us, and just liked to keep to herself while rarely ever discussing her personal life. She lived in her pet shop and became more and more distant as time went on. Even after Kenneth came back from school, she hardly made any effort to see any of us.

The theory I like to believe is that Darbie never thought that she had a chance with Kenneth. I mean, they were twins and the idea was so ludicrous that most wouldn't even take it seriously. So, she did her best to stay away from him. Like she said in Kenny's story, she tried to make Kenny 'hate her so he wouldn't want to be near her'. As much as Darbie said she was willing to pine for our brother afar, I think she was slowly starting to lose herself to heartache. Like Kenny said, it was a good thing God sent that tree through her building. He had really saved her in the nick of time.

I wondered when MY sign would come. When was He going to do something save ME? True, I hadn't secretly pined for my brother for 20 years or anything . . . but when would I be free of watching my Dad slowly fade away in front of my eyes? Where was the magic tree that fixed MY problem? Hell, I would even settle for a small miracle—like some quack doctor with a miracle drug getting a flat tire in front of our house. Or a random fall down the stairs for Mr. Hines that let Mom and Dad get back together.

I slapped myself for that one. That sort of wishing wasn't right to do at all, and the Lord was right for ignoring me.

"So any news on number five?" I asked Darb.

"Not yet, but I think the next few nights are good ones to try again," she answered with an excited grin. "Not that it matters, anyway. Kenny and I well, we tend to do it, um, pretty often."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, you lucky bitch," I teased her. "You don't need to brag."

"Oh, but I WANT to," she teased me back. "But what about you, little sis? You're about the same age Kenny and I were when we got hitched. Where's YOUR Prince Charming?"

"Don't remind me. Me, Chelle and Clo just had a conversation about that very thing last night."

"Oh? And how did that go?" she asked, sitting in the seat across from me.

"Miserable. Chloe and I got into it and almost tore each other apart."

Her eyes went wide. "YOU and Chloe? But, she and Chelle were always the ones that—"

"I know, I know. Like I said, it's not my proudest moment." I took a swig of nice cold milk. "She really pissed me off, though. She said that taking care of Dad 'wasn't a real job'."

Darbie merely sighed. "She's just thinking of things like people with big fancy educations usually do. She didn't mean anything by it." Just the answer I expected, of coure—Darbie always WAS the one who saw the bright side to everybody.

Except Kenny for a good while. For years, she wouldn't let him get away with ANYTHING.

However, after I mentioned our father, Darbie began to feel a bit dejected. "So how is he? Dad, I mean?"

"He's getting worse, Darb," I answered with a sigh. "I don't know what to do. It's like he's given up on life. I think the faint hope that he wouldn't die alone is the only thing that kept him going all this time. But now that Mom's left, he just don't care anymore."

"I see," Darbie said her eyes staring downward. Like everybody else, we had hoped that Mom and Dad would work things out between them after Mom came clean, but she was too far in love with Mr. Hines. The guilt had to be especially hard for Darbie because it was her marriage which kicked off the whole disaster—if she and Kenny hadn't gotten together, Mom might have stayed with Dad until the end.

"Don't blame yourself," I said, reaching out and grasping my sister's hand. "Mom and Dad were miserable for a long time. Now she's happy, you're happy, and Kenny's happy."

"Yeah, but that doesn't make me feel none better," Darbie answered, leaving the table to start cleaning the dishes in her sink. "I mean, I wouldn't trade these last three years for anything in the world. But, when you talk about Dad . . . it makes feel a mite guilty."

"Well, shoot, sis . . . as long as you and Kenny are happy, that's really all that matters."

Darbie stopped and her head seemed to disappear in the clouds. "Yes we are. I still can't believe it. Here I am, standing in his kitchen—OUR kitchen—while Kenneth, the only husband I've dreamed of all these years, is off at work, soon to come back home to our family. I have four beautiful children, and the promise of more to come. CJ, I dreamed of my life being EXACTLY like this for over twenty years. I saw this exact scene in my dreams almost every night. And, I'm still afraid that somebody's gonna walk up and pinch me."

I laughed, "Well that somebody ain't gonna be me. I like seein' you so happy. It's a much better sight than watching Dad wait to die alone. It's just . . . All I ask is that a little of your dreamin' spill over my way."

Darbie stopped at what I said and turned. "Wait, CJ. Dad CAN'T die alone."

I sat back in my chair with a dumbfounded gaze. "Huh?"

"You're there with him, aintcha? So then he ain't alone."

"Aw, you know what I meant, Darb. Dad wants to be with someone who loves him as a man, not just as family."

"Well . . ." Darb began, leaning back on the sink. "Maybe you could help with that."

I went bug-eyed. "Darbie James! Are you suggesting that I—"

"Before you get upset, hear me out. I had a very similar reaction when I first realized that I was in love with Kenny. I mean, Kenny and I had been thicker than water ever since we were infants. Hell, we even climbed out of the womb at nearly the same time. Because we were the same age, me and Kenny were always in the same classes together, sharing the same activities and holding the same groups of friends. After a while, it just felt right for us to always be together.

"Then, when we got to middle school and Kenny started making new friends. He started looking throwing himself at other girls. I felt him pulling away from me, and it made me mad. It made me hate him. I started being meaner to him, I think because I just wanted him to react to me . . . to pay attention to me in one way or another. But Kenny was always nice, and he put up with me even when I was unbelievably nasty to him. But just being around him made me feel weak. It made my breath thin and my heart flutter.

"That's when it dawned on me: I was in love with my own twin brother!

"'It isn't right to be thinkin' of my brother this way', I kept saying to myself. I tried to deny it for so long. For years, I used to tell myself that I was just angry at Kenny because he was acting like a charlatan. Treating all those girls like . . . like . . . TOYS. But, really, I think I was equal parts jealous of them.

I knew what Kenny needed. I knew how to make him happy. All I needed him to do was to see it. To want it. Then, after Kenny came back from school and found himself blacklisted as husband material, he always moped about what he didn't have. About the love he'd missed out on. I needed him to stop looking at what wasn't there and start seeing what was."

Those words stopped my breath.

"I'm not suggesting you do anything you feel indecent. I'm just saying that you need to really examine things. Of all of us, why did YOU stay behind, CJ? Why you? Why do yourself back just to look after Dad? Me and Kenneth and Mom were still around, and we could have pulled the weight while you went off and saw the world like Grace or Barb. You could have just put things aside just for a bit until you got to fulfill your dreams. You also didn't owe it to Mom to cover up that horrible affair for all that time. You could have told him the truth at any time and forced the two of them to deal with things. But you didn't. Everything you've done, Caroline, has been for the sake of Dad. To protect him. And now, all I'm saying is that you start thinking about why."

Of course, Darb was right about all of those things . . . I had suffered a whole lot in order to stay behind and take care of Dad. Mom and I barely spoke either; not because I didn't care for her, but because if she wasn't going to help Dad, then who was?

I also realized that, despite everything I'd told myself, I really did hate Mr. Hines. Even if I believe that he loved Mom, Dad was here first, and going out of his way to court a married woman was putting more stress on an unhappy home. If he was really decent, he should have stayed his nose out of their business and let Mom and Dad work things out between them. Then, Dad might have been able to move on while he was still hale and hearty rather than in such poor health.

What Darbie said made me think while I sat in the living room and watched my nieces and nephews play. When Kenny came home, I watched he and Darbie greet each other with a kiss. It still got to me, seeing my older brother and sister kiss each other as lovers, but it didn't weird me out. It never weirded me out. Like I said, I was the one who had been the most supportive of them when they first fell in love. I think it was because, somewhere inside, I thought it was genius of Darbie. Not too many men in town had the qualifications that Kenny had: handsome, successful, kind, and upstanding. Kenny was a diamond in the rough that most women in town had passed on because of his shenanigans in high school. But Darbie had seen through all of that. She saw the great man that was there all along, and she didn't let the fact that they were blood deter her.

As I watched him and Darb together, I remembered when I got a little tipsy at their wedding and told Darbie that I was 'jealous'. And now, looking at them, I still was. Physically, Kenny had everything a woman could desire: a chiseled jaw, a strong nose, broad shoulders, and manly hands. Like I said, handsomeness ran in our family.

Which meant that it all came from Dad.

I went home after a while, even though Darb and Kenny wanted me to stay a bit longer. I just kissed them both on the cheek and told them to 'Have fun with number five'. Darbie gave me the wickest grin I'd ever seen, and Kenny just sat there, confused.

On the walk home, I pondered the lingering feel of Kenny's cheek on my lips. I remembered his scent, savored the texture of his skin. I blocked out thoughts of him as my 'brother' and thought of him just as a man. Then, I thought about what his lips might have felt like if I'd kissed them instead. What if I had explored him with a little tongue? What if I'd let him touch me with those large, strong hands?

I pondered all of these things as I walked back to my home, until I once again I saw the light on in Dad's room.

I went to Dad and we pretty much repeated the exact scene from the night before. I pulled him away from the window, made him dinner, tucked him into bed, and kissed him goodnight. Except his time, instead of kissing him on the cheek or the forehead, I kissed my father on the lips. Not for too long. Just a quick peck.

Dad had much of the same texture, the same smell, the same flavor as Kenny. It was different . . . more 'pure' somehow . . . but very similar. I didn't really know how to describe it. Dad was like Kenneth, but more.

I showered, brushed my teeth and went to bed, but as I lay down in my bed, I began to touch myself and think of Dad. I slipped a finger into my pussy and rubbed my clit with the other hand. As I writhed under my sheets, moaning softly, I thought of his face kissing mine . . . his hands all over my body . . . his mouth consuming my tits. I kept these images firmly in my mind, and when I came, cried out, "Daddy! Oh Daddy!" as I gushed all over my linens. It was the strongest orgasm I'd ever had just from touching myself, and it left me breathless.

But being honest with myself, I still wasn't exactly sure what to think of the whole thing. At the very least, though, Darbie's idea didn't seem all that far-fetched any longer.

I needed to think on it a little more, but I knew I couldn't take much time about it.

Dad wouldn't be able to last much longer.

******

I repeated the same pattern a few more nights, laying in my bed, touching myself and thinking of Daddy. My climaxes only grew more and more intense, and the awkwardness I felt quickly faded, replaced only by excitement. I became more sure. I came until I passed out every night, and my dreams were filled with erotic visions of Daddy. When I woke up and saw his face, my heart beat a little faster. I began to study his features in earnest, and I realized that they were beginning to make me wet beyond measure.

Like always, I doted on him hand and foot. I spent every waking moment trying to please him. But this time, my motives were changing. Or maybe, these were my true motives all along. I was helping this wonderful, kind man—one who had slowly had everything that mattered to him in life taken away—and I wanted nothing more to make him happy.

For the first time, instead of leaving the room when my father showered, I offered to help him clean. He looked at me strangely , but I did my best to hide my true intentions. I told him that I was afraid of him falling in the shower. After a little begging, he finally agreed to let me wash him.

It didn't feel awkward to me at all. I had helped bathe Daddy before during some of his 'bad days', but only when Mom had been the one touching him. This time, it was just me. My hands rubbing soap across his mature body. My fingers touching the grooves of his ass and the muscles of his chest. I took my time and savored the feeling, and it was actually torture when I had to take my hands away from his cock and balls. I think I might have felt him stiffen a little, but I didn't want to press it. I think all of that made him feel a little weird. But as for me?

The only thing that felt 'weird' was that I wasn't naked with him.

That's when I knew what I wanted. I wanted Daddy to know that there was still a woman who loved him. A woman who would do anything for him. A woman who desired him body and soul, and would stay with him, cherish him, for the rest of his days.

I would have done anything to see him smile.

But, I wasn't smart enough for this. Like I said, I'd had a little bit of sex here and there, but it was always awkward. I didn't know the first thing about pleasing a man.

I needed help.

******

"Okay, girls," Rachelle said, pouring more coffee. "'James Girls Meeting' Part Two."

Rachelle and Chloe were kindly willing to meet up again after the horrible fiasco that was our first night. Chloe and I promised to behave ourselves, and Rachelle seemed satisfied, although she threatened to throw us out of the kitchen if we started fighting again. Once again, she acted as our hostess for this meeting, since we were still using her restaurant as our little 'clubhouse'.

"Okay, so what do we talk about this time?" Chloe asked.

"Well, I heard you went on a date last week?" Rachelle said excitedly.

"Er, yeah, I did. With Ronald Archer, actually," Chloe said.

"Oh that jerk?" Rachelle snubbed her nose. "How did it go?"

"Not so bad, actually. I'm still not convinced that anything serious is going to happen, but . . . the guy at least knows what he's doing in the sack."

Rachelle's eyes went large. "You DIDN'T!!"

"I did. It was a long time since I had, so I did. Don't regret it either. Like I said, the guy was good."

"Yeah, but Ron Archer . . .? He . . . I just . . . Ugh. I don't think I could stand it."

"Well, who the hell else are we going to start sleeping with? EACH OTHER?"

The two girls coughed uneasily and diverted their gaze. Like I said, the reality of Kenny and Darbie's relationship had made things in our family a lot different.

"Um . . . m-maybe we should avoid any topics about men?"