Shake That Tree Read online

  “Oh OK, go on then,” she said, now watching the screen intently. The news was replaced by a directory listing and he clicked on a file. An image appeared almost full screen.

  “Oh. My fucking. God!” gushed Lydia, kneeling beside him, breathing deep and hard. “She is totally fucking perfect! Look at those little boobs, and not a trace of makeup. That skin! Oh christ I could lick her all over!”

  “Sounds like you approve?” he said, pleased with his effort and again stunned by the sudden change in her language as well as her openness.

  “Oh god yeah. Come on babe, bed and sleep. Put her away for another day before I drown myself.”

  Thirty minutes later the house was quiet, orderly and content as the four drifted off to sleep and into their own little dream worlds, charging themselves up for the following evening.

  Chapter 24 – Stay with Me

  Harry arrived back from work just after six o’clock and went upstairs immediately to shower and change. The ladies of the house were already dressed, ready to go out and huddled in the lounge, watching the news on the TV.

  He came back downstairs after twenty minutes in a semi-formal shirt and dark trousers.

  “Oh look at you Daddy!” said Holly, grinning up her handsome father. He nodded slightly at her and offered her his arm which she willingly took as they walked out to the car. He was hard, as he had been in the shower and as he had been all afternoon.

  The trip to the restaurant, Alice’s, was on the other side of the Woods and somewhere that they had not visited before but had been raved about by neighbours they had met over Christmas. As expected, Tuesday night wasn’t busy by any means and they were guided to their table quickly and efficiently by the young girl at the hostess desk.

  They ordered wine, again selected by Jules and after the waiter had filled four glasses they raised them together, smiling as one big happy family.

  It was Lydia who proposed the first toast “Here’s to this family, the four of us!” she said and she was about to clink her glass when Harry took his away.

  “Wait. Also, here’s to speaking the truth to those you love.”

  “Ah, Daddy!” said Holly with delight as all eyes turned to her. “Oh. So, here’s to, um.” She thought for a moment then smiled at the glasses hovering in front of her. “Here’s to waking up next to the person you love,” she said, looking at Jules sitting beside her.

  Jules took a deep breath and said “May all of our journeys find the end of the rainbow.”

  Lydia gasped and smiled at Jules then around the table. They clinked glasses and fell into silence, contemplating the sincere wishes that had been expressed, without rehearsal, at their family dinner. Jules had set this whole thing in motion with her tales of hardship, her violent upbringing, the abuse and finally her journey to their back door. She was the catalyst who brought about the change in communication and honesty using her wit, her love and her instincts. Lydia’s heart went out to the girl opposite her and when Jules looked up, Lydia held her gaze and smiled at her with admiration and the warmth of the feelings that had been developing over the past few days. She smiled even more when Jules nodded at her, almost imperceptibly before sipping her wine again.

  As the meal progressed with the second bottle of wine the laughter became louder and reminded Harry of the table they had overheard last Saturday. He thought back to the meal and glanced over at Jules who was chatting away happily with Holly and Lydia. So much had happened since then but he felt at ease with everything they had done and all his decisions. He glanced at Holly, grown up in her new blouse and the tight skirt that seemed to be almost identical to the one Jules was wearing. His cock stirred as he thought about the fact that little Billy had shaved her and wondered whether that happened in the days when he was at school.

  “Wait, wait, I’ll show you what happened!” squealed Jules, bringing him back to the present. “Daddy?”

  He recognized the tone but forgot the implication it brought. Jules reached down under the table and began to squirm exaggeratedly, generating hoots of laughter from everyone except Harry. She uttered a couple of ‘ooh’s and ‘ahh’s for good measure as Harry looked around the restaurant to determine if they were likely to be removed. Jules smiled directly at Harry and reached out to him. “Here are my knickers Daddy!” she cooed as she dropped a yellow crumpled up ball into his lap.

  The girls howled with laughter with Lydia putting her hands to her face as she slumped back against the booth seat, shaking. He hadn’t seen her laugh and look so happy for years. Holly had her head on Jules’ shoulder, gripping her as she too laughed with utter delight from the one-liner and her father’s embarrassment.

  “So?” asked Lydia as she calmed a little, hugging her husband and taking the scrunched up napkin from his lap.

  Jules chimed in before he could speak. “I made him put them on!”

  “Oh my god, Harry, did you?”

  Harry shrugged good naturedly, pleased that the story was about him and the way Jules had forced him into something new, as well as being funny. “Yeah, in the toilets though.”

  Holly giggled and touched his hand with a gleam in her eye. “I bet you sniffed them!” she said, far too loudly.

  More raucous laughter followed as Harry spluttered, “Don’t be so dumb.”

  “You did! You admitted you did Daddy!” cried Jules, ending his protests but starting up another round of laughter and delight for the ladies, including a special glance from his daughter which he failed to notice as he stared red-faced at the ceiling.

  The remainder of the meal had a similar theme, with truths being told and increasingly loud laughter coming from their table. After a two deserts that were shared by each of them Harry paid the bill and they left, Jules and Lydia arm in arm and Holly again hanging onto her father. Back home the tension built slowly as each of the family sized up the mood and body language of the others in a careful selection process where the same answer was already known by each of the players. It was Lydia who broke the ice by touching Jules on the arm.

  “Sweetie, I was wondering if we should discuss what’s going to happen when we get to your Mum’s on Friday?”

  Jules picked up the cue immediately and said “Yeah, I would like her to meet you but we should think about what would happen if my Dad’s around.”

  “Right, good point. I’ve got a map upstairs, shall we take a look?”

  Even before Jules was nodding her assent, Holly had put her arms around her father and was leaning on his chest, looking out the kitchen window. He was hard and he didn’t care that Holly almost certainly feel him against her stomach. He kissed her hair, smelling the shampoo again that he would always associate with her.

  “Thank you for dinner Daddy, it looked like it was very expensive,” said Holly.

  “Shh, that’s fine. It was a great meal and so good to have us all together.”

  “I’ll miss her, you know, when she’s gone.”

  “Yeah, we all will. She’s a very special girl”

  “Even more when I’m at university, then I won’t see you and Mum, nor Billy or Jules.”

  “We should talk sometime about where you want to go and what you want to study.”

  “I have a list of places, a long list which needs to be gone through.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got one too, maybe we should make a start?” he said. He put his finger under her chin and pulled her up to look into her eyes then kissed her forehead.

  “Shall we use my PC?”

  “Sounds good, Hol. I’ll get my papers and join you in a minute after I’ve been to the bathroom.”

  To his delight she was still dressed in the new blouse and skirt when he poked his head into her room, respecting her privacy although he had been invited. Her printer was chattering away, an old inkjet device which consumed five times its retail value in ink cartridges each year. With the papers in hand, she kicked off her shoes and sat on the bed. Harry joined her, leaning against the picture wall as she lay against
the pillows. He pulled her legs over his own and settled down, stroking her shins gently, reassuring her as they each gazed at their printouts while thinking only about the night.

  Chapter 25 – Down Home Girl

  “Mrs C, it’s very good of you to take me home, I know it’s a long way” said Jules, sitting on the bed where Lydia had indicated.

  “Jules, call me Lydia please.”

  “OK, I will. That sounds so nice too.”

  “I looked at the map earlier actually. That’s a very long way to have walked.”

  “Yeah, I thought about it so many times before I set off, you know, wondering if I would make it OK. But then things were so bad that it didn’t really matter, the risk was worth it.”

  “But I don’t understand how you found us to start with? I thought adoptions were sort of secret.”

  Jules leaned back on the pillow, feeling the softness of the linen. She smiled up at Lydia, proud of her detective work and feeling so relaxed after the wonderful meal and the company who continued to love her and look after her every hour of the day.

  “It’s a long story, but I need to tell someone.”

  “We have all night.”

  “Oh wow, I was hoping that you’d say that. Is Daddy staying with Holly tonight?”

  “Yes, most likely. He won’t come in here.”

  “He’s so wonderful, you’re all so lucky.”

  “I know, I feel like that’s been reconfirmed over the past few days,” she said, brushing the hair back over Jules’ ear, making the young girl smile as she reached out to her. Lydia leaned down over her and gently brushed her lips in a delicate kiss. She looked into Jules’ eyes with increasing lust as though her alter ego had been triggered. She laid her head on the pillow and pulled Jules closer before encouraging her to start her story.

  “My mum says I was adopted when I was three months. That would be the same time when my Dad started telling me that I wasn’t welcome. I don’t really remember much about those years of course. I do remember going to girl scouts and meeting other people. They were all so normal and happy but I could never invite anyone back to our house in case my Dad hit me or shouted at me in front of them. Then when I was ten he became really nasty towards me. The shouting became physical and he would slap me when I wasn’t looking and send me flying across the room. I started to always keep my back to the wall and would walk around the house in a weird way. He’d clap his hands behind me sometimes and I’d scream with fright, thinking he was about to hit me, but he’d just laugh.”

  “Where was your Mum?” asked Lydia, kissing her hair.

  “In the background, mainly at work. I’d suppose I’d say she did her best but she couldn’t do much. I had such hopes that someone at school, one of the teachers, would find out what was going on. Sometimes I’d come in with a big bruise and when they asked me what happened I’d say that I had walked into a door knob or something. But you’d think that after four or five bruises that someone would have realised that something wasn’t right, eh? How can someone keep walking into the same door knob?”

  “Then the physical stuff died away, maybe as I got bigger, I don’t know. I told Daddy over the weekend that he used to sit in the lounge watching the TV and call me to sit next to him. I can still remember the first time when he told me to move the blanket on his lap and his fucking cock was there, right in front of me. I was crying so much as I knew it was wrong, but he said he would hit me if I didn’t do as he said. I held it and after a while he told me to go away and gave me some money. It became regular, sometimes he would slap my face if I didn’t do it right or if it made a mess. He used to say I was turning tricks at ten and thought he was funny.”

  Jules shook her head and the first sob came from deep within. Lydia smoothed her hair as her crying intensified. “You don’t have to go on love,” said Lydia.

  Jules shook her head. “I told Daddy. I really think it did me some good for someone to know.” She sniffed and laughed a little at the sound and her unladylike manners. “Six thirty is when my Mum gets back from work, and I used to dread the time between the end of school and her return, that’s when he expected me to do stuff for him.”

  “One day I was looking around my Mum’s stuff, just being nosey and I found some papers about me. They didn’t make too much sense but I understood they were about adoption and they had my real mother’s name on them, Lauren Dalton and what I know now to be Daddy’s parent’s names, Craig. I got mixed up for a while as to who was who but it didn’t matter too much, I had those names in my head forever. But I did nothing about it for years. I’m not sure if it got worse or I got used to it, but I kept those names in my head and just tried to exist. Then I started to develop and his hands were all over me, the little shit. I started doing really badly in school, which meant he could say I was worthless and not going anywhere. He used to say that they should have got their money back from the adoption agency.”

  Jules breathed but it was no use and she burst into tears again, pausing her story for several minutes as Lydia consoled her, upset for the girl and her miserable life story but feeling a strong sense of altruism for the present period in time, the beginning of the girl’s recovery.

  “I got a job as a waitress in town and worked for this guy who turned out to be just as disgusting. Sometimes I think my Dad called him and told him shit about me that made the guy treat me like dirt. One time I was in the cellar with him which was always a bad sign and he put his hand down the back of my knickers and put his finger in my bum. You know, right up inside. He pulled it out and sniffed it, then stuffed it right up my nose, saying something like “You’ll never make any money if you stink like shit.” I thought I’d throw up and froze to the spot. But he just left me there and I came out later and carried on serving, shaking like crazy. It all seemed to be similar, my Dad thought I was useless and so did my boss and they kept drumming it into me.”

  “When I was seventeen I had to drop out from school as I just couldn’t concentrate, I wasn’t eating and I slept maybe two or three hours a night. By then my father was sneaking into my room while I was in bed and I was petrified to go to sleep. I had the usual interviews with counselors and I suppose I should have said something them, but I didn’t. They sent me to a local college and I took classes in photography and composition. It was great and I met so many older kids and made loads of friends. Two girls became best friends and showed me how sex can be wonderful, not something to be paid for on an hourly basis.”

  “Your first lovers.”

  “Yeah, I’ll never forget them.”

  “Me too.”

  “You had lovers? Women?”

  “Well, I suppose they were lovers, yeah, girls about your age. One girl, Becky, was very special. I pretty much lived with her for almost a year while I was at college, so a little older than you were.”

  “I’ll never forget the first time. This girl was in my photography class and we hung out, then I used to stay at her place a few nights a week. My Mum was OK with it as long as she knew where I was and my Dad simply celebrated then cursed when I came back. We shared her bed. It was a small house but her parents were great, let her do what she wanted within reason. Her name was Felicity, but she wanted to be called Lissy, which worked for me. It was so nice to share with her and we had a lot in common. I honestly had never even thought about being with another girl. Well, maybe a bit, but not seriously, right? Then one night in bed she touched my boob really gently and said “I want to kiss you here’ and I thought my heart would explode. Every experience I had had up until then had been horrible and forced. I’d been called worthless, inexperienced, a dummy, you name it so I was sure I’d mess everything up and she’d throw me out.”

  “But you didn’t, did you?” said Lydia, pleased to be able to show she was still listening.

  “I don’t think so. I nodded at her and she undid one of my pyjama buttons and kissed my neck, then another and so on until she had my top off. Even that was new, felt so passion
ate, so loving like she was only doing it with my permission.”

  “Bet it made you wet too.”

  “Oh god yeah. That was a new experience too! She kissed my boobs and I went to heaven. It got serious after and I had my first real orgasm with her. We broke up within about a month though and I went back home.”

  “I remember that moment too, when Becky made me come. It was a million times better than my fingers and I think I cried afterwards, maybe in gratitude,” said Lydia, looking at Jules’ lovely face.

  “Yeah, I remember that too, and showering with her. Anyway, after I got the chance to use the Internet without being supervised by my Dad I researched the Dalton family and the Craigs. It was easy to get a list of those families in the area, and I could begin crossing off people who weren’t the right age. I asked friends back at school about any Craigs and of course everyone seemed to know about you, Daddy and Holly. Billy knew the most and I found out from her which town you had moved to. Then I found the house from listings of properties sold in the last two years. I set off when I heard that Holly was going to be up there for the weekend with you.”

  Lydia reached out to Jules and cupped her breast gently. “Can I kiss you there?” she asked.

  “Yeah” said Jules simply as she pulled Lydia closer. Their lips met as they sank into the soft warmth of the pillow. Lydia touched the girl’s breasts, discovering their firmness, their petite size and the hardness of the nipple which was evident even within her bra. She flicked the top button of Jules’ blouse and traced a finger around her neck before kissing her chin down to the top of her chest. Minutes later they were both topless and Lydia exalted in the feeling of another woman touching her breasts and kissing her stomach. She slid slowly lower, exploring the taut firmness of the girl’s muscled stomach before taking a nipple between her lips and reliving the sensation from years ago which had thrilled her so much.

  She felt Jules’ fingers in her hair and smiled, kissing around her firm breast as she moved across the warmth of her chest to the other nipple. Jules leaned back deeper into the pillow, pushing herself out to the older woman as her nipple hardened and became sensitive. She knew what Lydia wanted and was only too happy to make her feel twenty years younger. She squirmed a little, encouraging her to move lower, giving her permission to feel the tight skirt around her buttocks and the warmth of her thighs. As Lydia hesitated, Jules puller her up to her mouth and kissed her hard, cupping her larger breasts and feeling their weight, size and warmth in her young hands. She pushed between their bodies, quickly cupping the woman’s pussy without any initial exploration. Lydia groaned as she felt the hand slip between her legs and up to her knickers, fingers instantly trailing along the wet length of her slit. She took the hint and after less than a minute absorbing the attention from Jules, she kissed her breasts one more time before settling between her legs, opening her for inspection and loving.