Jane falls in love with Philip and her brother Bob, both
Jane grew up in a slum, just outside a college town, in upstate New York. Her father had died long ago in an overseas war, and her mother cleaned the homes of professors in the neighboring college town. Her mother's income, plus some benefits given to the family of a fallen soldier, enabled the family to survive, but only barely.
One of her friends in high school was Martha. Martha's parents were both professors at the local college, and their home was filled with books. It had four bookcases, floor to ceiling, and they were all full. Jane would look at all the books, and sometimes they'd make her head swim, there were so many, and they were dazzling.
Jane had seen, actually, the homes of quite a few different professors, as she was a much sought-after babysitter during her high school years. Jane loved children, and children loved Jane. She was also an observant lass, and she remembered everything about the homes she saw, including the furniture in them (especially the tables, because of her brother, Bob).
Jane's older brother Bob was talented with wood. He enjoyed making tables, with inlaid wooden designs. They were beautiful. Jane convinced him, after many long, and heated discussions, that he should make bookcases, on speculation. Anything Bob made, anything at all, was always attractive, and often people would describe what he did as gorgeous.
Bob was sad, however. His true love was a lovely girl, named Helen, and everyone liked her, including Jane. Helen was almost like an older sister for Jane. Something happened, however, between Bob and Helen; Jane never learned what it was, but they split up, and Bob had an air of sadness, of loss, about him, that Jane could not dispel, no matter how hard she tried. She often wondered how Helen was doing. Jane missed Helen, and the closeness they had shared.
Bob had changed a bit, perhaps due to the split with Helen? The point is, that for once in his life he decided to listen to his little sister. After all, his little sister was now eighteen and an adult. If her age didn't convince Bob that Jane was an adult, her body sure did. And her rack! Jane's rack was to die for. What a sexpot his little sister, his cute little Jane, had become, right before his eyes.
Bob made a bookcase, and he made one with adjustable shelves. It was easy enough to do, for someone as experienced with woodworking as Bob was. He sold it instantly for more money that he thought it was worth.
Bob got busy making more and more bookcases, and the college professors bought them as fast as he could make them, as word got out about the great bargains to be had for beautiful hand-made bookcases. How many books could those guys actually have, anyway? Had they really read all of those books? Professors were such weird people, but they were his customers, and as such, he loved them.
At Jane's suggestion, Bob would vary the woods he would use. Sometimes it would be mahogany, and sometimes bird's eye maple, always a favorite. For those people who didn't want to spend so much on a bookcase, he used pine, but with plywood shelves, to hold the weight of the books and not sag. Pine is a soft wood, but Bob's intuitive understanding of engineering allowed him to make bookcases that would stand the test of time, even when weighted down with books.
At the beginning he stained the bookcases, but he quickly learned the professors like the "natural" look, so he merely coated them with a wash to make them resistant to damage.
Bob got bored making only serviceable bookcases. He began to make them with inlaid wooden mosaics crowning the bookcases. Suddenly people were offering him ridiculous amounts of money for his bookcases. One woman, who apparently had some artistic talent, asked Bob if he could make the inlay according to the design she had drawn? Bob quoted a ridiculously high price to do that for her, and she didn't blink, she just said, "Great," and asked when it would be ready?
This gave Bob ideas, and he began decorating the bookcases with crowns that had bas relief sculptures in them, often with naked women. These bookcases practically leapt from his shop.
Bob and Jane had money issues, now that their Mom was gone. She died in that horrible car accident over by the river that everyone was still talking about. Their father had long ago died in Iraq, when they were both little, and Mom had kept the family going by cleaning houses of the professors in the college town. Rumors were rife that she provided other services to the men of those houses, too, and every so often she would come home with a 'bonus,' and they would have steak for dinner. Those times, however, were rare.
Bob was now 21 and Jane was 18, and Bob convinced the local authorities that with their mother having gone to the beyond, he could take care of Jane, who -- at 18 -- was still, technically, a minor. This meant Bob and Jane were on their own, and they were surviving on Bob's craftmanship, and also his handyman services. Bob could fix anything, quickly and cheaply, and most professors just could not, or would not, do it for themselves. Bob's talents were in constant demand.
Even so, Bob's income was too little to pay the taxes and utilities for their home, to clothe both of them, to replace the refrigerator which dated from the stone age, and to put food on the table. That's why Jane joined the labor force. She had been a babysitter in high demand, but waitresses earned more money. She got a job at the local Mexican food cantina. They also gave her free dinner, and that helped. Nevertheless, Jane and Bob were always short of money.
With Jane's boobs and cute figure, when waitressing she got many the proposition from men who had drunk a few too many margaritas. Jane would brush them off with a smile. Sometimes, it would make her think of her mother who probably felt that she had to accept such debasing offers. She suppressed tears, at those times.
She knew about the gossip from the accident where her mother died. The authorities had extricated her mother, who died naked, from the car. The driver, who had been drunk, had his pants down around his knees. Nobody knew, of course, what had been going on just before the crash, but none of the theories were flattering to the memory of her Mom. Both Bob and Jane took the death of her mother hard.
Jane was a poor student in high school, mostly due to her trouble reading. Anyway, it didn't matter: She couldn't afford to go to college. She did, however, want to read, despite her trouble with the printed word, and the headaches reading seemed to give her. She haunted the county library, armed with Tylenol and Aspirin. She checked out lots of books, and always returned them in time to avoid the fines. It was in the county library that Jane, just by chance, discovered a book devoted to the English and French furniture handcrafted centuries ago. Jane took the book home and showed it to Bob.
It took some doing to get him interested, but once Bob began to read the book, he couldn't put it down. He still made the bookcases, since the demand for them seemed to be bottomless, but he also found the old furniture intriguing. He was fascinated by the huge amount of skill it must have required for these long ago workmen to make such beautiful objects. He wanted to see more such books, but the county library had no others. The county librarian, always helpful, told Jane to try the college library. She had assumed Jane was a college student. Everyone seemed to assume that. More's the pity, that it wasn't true.
Jane had to be a college student to get into the library. The college was one of those fancy private schools, and they were not generous with their valuable assets, such as access to the library, and especially to their collection of rare books. Jane needed a student ID.
The easiest way to get a student ID would be to steal one, but Jane was no thief, and besides, the student from whom she stole the ID would simply cancel the card and just get a new one. The card would therefore not work, and Jane could get caught trying to use it. No, theft wouldn't work. Instead, she had to convince a student to lend her one. How to do that? How, indeed?
Jane knew she was pretty, with a body that boys (and men) found appealing, even sexy. The number of times men had hit on her while waitressing at the Cantina averaged around one a night. She invariably turned the men down, but always graciously, and with a smile. To her surprise, she got a bigger tip when she would turn the men down. The tips were to absolve themselves of the guilt they felt by crudely propositioning such a delightful, cute, and downright pretty waitress, or at least that's what Jane reasoned.
Jane compared the results with Kitty, another waitress whom she liked quite a bit. Kitty was older, in her twenties. Kitty said she was hit on around twice a week, focusing on the weekends. Kitty confessed that sometimes she would go out with a guy who hit on her, once her shift was done, around midnight.
"You have to be prepared for what's going to happen if you go out with one of those guys," Kitty had warned.
"You mean, sex?" Jane nervously asked.
"You betcha. In spades," Kitty said.
"Is it fun?" Jane the naïve innocent asked.
