Thank you to a kind reader, Jennifer, for the idea and inspiration....
*
Jennifer was a precocious 19-year-old girl who was one part smart and 9 parts smart-ass.
Always in trouble in high school, her freshman year of college wasn't much better. She was petulant, challenging, argumentative, a flirt and a tease.
And she was my niece.
We got along okay, mainly because I had stepped in as a bit of a father figure after her dad, my brother-in-law, passed away in a tragic automobile accident when Jennifer was a sophomore in high school.
After that Jennifer went from a quiet, likable girl to a wildcat. She was suspended from school twice, once for a combination of rules violations but the other after being caught "in the act" with a boy. That cost her the captainship of the cheerleading squad, and the surprising thing was she just didn't care.
Her driving habits left something to be desired. She had couple minor accidents and after those and a pair of speeding tickets she lost her license. She had to attend summer school to graduate, and made a spectacle of herself at the prom with her dirty dancing that caused the chaperones to take her aside and read her the riot act.
Jennifer babysat our youngsters several times, getting along okay with them. But not without some pitfalls along the way. Like the time I was cleaning the family room one Saturday morning.
Jennifer had babysat the kids the night before, and when my wife and I arrived home sooner than expected I swear Jennifer had the look of someone being caught doing something they shouldn't have been doing.
I couldn't put my finger on it at the time, but the next morning when something clogged the vacuum cleaner the picture was clearer. The clogging was due to a used condom being stuck inside, and since I hadn't used one in years and unless my wife was banging the mailman it could be traced back to my lovely niece.
Of course, no real proof, except for the rubber and her red face, out of breath, disoriented look the night before. The next week while sitting at the desk at the car dealership where I was general manager, my mind wandered and I thought about my niece. She was always conniving, up to something, and always trying to get something for nothing. She used her teasing to get what she wanted, and I wondered if she'd ever grow up.
I know it sounds crazy, but I think she knew I knew about the condom because she acted somewhat awkward the next few times I saw her. That was made even stranger and embarrassing one afternoon when I walked into the basement and Jennifer was in the process of changing...and I caught her pulling up her flimsy pink panties.
"Oh, Uncle Rob, I didn't hear you come in," shrieked the girl. She wasn't really embarrassed which led me to believe she not only heard me coming but also wanted to get caught in her undies. Why I don't know, but that night I promptly told my wife when we were getting ready for bed.
In case the little vixen was thinking of getting me into trouble figured I'd come clean to ensure she didn't think I was a voyeur or worse. It wasn't the first time I caught her in a suggestive pose, and surely wouldn't be the last I remember surmising at the time
Still, Jennifer somehow graduated and entered the local college where it seemed as if she was maturing and turning things around. The wildcat in her remained a constant, just wasn't as obvious to her mother.
Which brings me to the reason for this story. One needs the background to understand Jennifer and where things would go over the last whirlwind month.
It was the middle of her first semester and I'd only seen her a few times. A couple times at my sister's house and twice at football games where she lead cheers while acrobatically flopping around. Karen had felt her daughter's wild days were behind her, but I had a feeling she was still a wildcat but was careful not to have that fact discovered by her mom.
I do know that I saw her a couple times making out --- with different boys --- near a local coffee house, and once saw her in a lip lock with a guy in the parking garage of a mall. No, Jennifer was still wild, she just wasn't obvious about it with her mother.
My wife and my sister were upstate at a women's retreat one Saturday evening when there was a knock at the door followed by an urgent "Uncle Rob" cry from the doorway. Startled --- I was in the middle of watching an ice hockey game on TV --- I yelled for my niece to come in.
Her face was ashen. She actually was shaking. Asking what was wrong, I pulled her close into a hug. "It's okay, pumpkin, tell me."
