I grew up in a small town, with a nice quiet life—or at least, as quiet as one can get when you have eight siblings. I was the fifth of nine; along with my twin sister Darbie, I was the ultimate middle child. All of us were born no more than a year apart from each other, since Mom and Dad wanted to have a lot of kids, but didn't like the idea of spreading our ages too thin. That would ruin the joy of one or more of the kids having siblings their own age to play with, or some shit like that, they said. Maybe they just liked fucking, and nine stair-steppers was the natural consequence of that. I dunno.
Anyway, like I said—I was the middle child, but that wasn't the only thing that made me unique. I was also the only one of us, aside Darbie of course, that had a twin. Darb and I used to argue over which of us was "really" the middle child, although I had a leg up on her because I was actually born first. You know, stupid little kid shit. It seemed so relevant at the time.
And then there was one last thing that made me unique: I was the only boy. Or, at least, I was the only one that survived to middle school age. My big brother, Dwight, the second-born, died when he was only nine. I was five at the time, so I remember very little about him. From what my oldest sister Grace tells me, Dwight's death was a radical turning point for our family. Mom and Dad split up and got back together within a year and Dad started drinking around then. From what I've heard my sisters whispering from time to time, Mom never stopped seeing the guy she dated during her and Dad's separation, but that's whole 'nother story.
Eventually, we grew up and all of us kids eventually moved out of Mom and Dad's house, except for Caroline, the youngest, who stayed mostly to help deal with Dad's declining health. Like I said, Dad hit the booze pretty hard after Dwight's death, and he eventually developed liver problems that I had to donate a chunk of mine to stabilize. Even afterwards, he had certain complications, and Mom needed help taking care of him in addition to maintaining her salon business. So that task fell to Caroline.
I never moved far—I went to college just a few towns upstate and wound up back in town after I graduated. Most of the girls left, though. Grace moved to France and married some doctor there. Sarah met some negro football player and ran off with him, despite Mom and Dad's protests. I haven't heard much from her, but I did hear they'd started a litter of their own since. Rachelle moved to New York, but I heard she was struggling to make it as a chef and considering a move back to our town. Chloe moved to Idaho and became a family rights attorney; I heard she married and divorced about a year ago. And Barbara joined and left the Army; she and her husband decided to do a lot of globe-trotting before they'd eventually settle down and have kids.
Well, if you were doing some counting during that list, you may have noticed I missed one name. That's because, like Caroline and I, Darbie never left our hometown, either. She moved out of the house and opened her own pet shop, but that was basically it. She said she didn't want to move away from our quaint little burb, but she couldn't stay at home either with it feeling so empty. I understood.
I started a small contractor unit in town because I wanted to stick around and make myself useful. I loved that town, and as far I was concerned, I was going to live my whole life there.
Myself, Caroline and Darbie were the only three that never married or had kids of our own. Caroline often complained that it was hard to date when she lived home with Mom and Dad, but she loved them too much to leave. It was Caroline who began to suspect that Mom was still having an affair with the guy she dated years back, but she didn't pry because as long as it wasn't affecting their home lives or Dad's condition, she didn't want to rock the boat. She just noted that Mom did a lot of 'personal styling' house calls, only for her to observe that the same customer's hair looked exactly the same a couple days later.
In any case, my contracting business was doing pretty well. There weren't any competitors in our region, and the advantage of living in a small town is that people are always loyal to their own first and foremost. Me and my people did almost all the building for everybody in town, and it was a pretty nice feeling to watch the backwater little placeI grew up in become slowly updated and modernized with my help. It was like I was leaving my mark; one that my kids would eventually be able to appreciate.
Whenever I decided to have any.
That was another thing: my sex life, or lack thereof. I'd had my pick of girls when I was younger, and Dad used to encourage me to 'break some hearts' when I was old enough to date and fuck. Unfortunately, I did just that a little too often. I let some good ones go in my youth, and although many of them forgave me over the years, they moved on and married. Before I knew it, I was about ten-plus years older than most single bachelorettes in town, and I ain't no cradle-robber, so my only two hopes were to cross my fingers and wait until one of the gals my age became a widow, or to wait for her to get plain old bored with her hubby. But, I wasn't enough of a rat to do either of those. In the end, I settled into a house way too large for a single man to be living in, and just made the best of being a bachelor.
One day, I got a call from Darbie. A tree had fallen on the side of her pet shop and she needed someone to remove it and repair the damage. I promised I'd come and take a look at it, so I put some time aside to swing by and check it out that same day. It was a right mess: a big, two-yards thick trunk just leaning right through the side of the shack like it'd been invited in. It seemed that the roots had rotted out of the old thing, and some strong wind must have pushed it against poor Darb's building.
I surveyed the damage and let out a low whistle. "This is one fine mess you're in, Darb."
"Gee, Captain Obvious. You think? You wanna tell me that the Alps are cold, next?"
I just shook my head and smirked. "Still a firecracker. How do you always do these things?"
"Don't be an idiot. You can't blame ME for the wind, 'big brother'," she said, folding her arms, "I ain't Mother Nature."
"Nah, but you got a mean temper like her." She proved my point by smacking me upside my head.
Darbie was always the 'spitfire' of the family, kinda. In reality, there were two sides to her—one second, she was sweet and shy, and the next, she was the meanest handful you ever seen. I usually had the misfortune of being around during the latter moments, so I was usually her primary target . . . or, should I say, 'victim'. Since Darb and I were twins, we saw a lot more of each other than the other kids. She and I were usually in the same classes and age groupings, and in our early years, we were known as the 'terrible twosome', because got into all the trouble. Then, as time went along, and we entered middle chool, I saw a lot less of 'Sweet Darbie' and at lot more of 'Mean Darbie'.
Guess which one I was dealing with now.
"So are we gonna stand out here in the damn cold, or are you going to tell me if you can fix it or not?" she demanded.
"Of course I can fix it," I said with a chortle. "I can fix damn well anything I set a mind to. 'Cept your attitude. I don't know if the Almighty himself could contract that job."
She shook her head. "I don't know what's worse—your petty insults or your blasphemy."
"Aw, hush, little sister. The Lord knows I ain't mean it." Then, I whispered, "Mostly." Before she could ready her next quip, I tipped my hat and said, "this looks like a pretty big job. You'll probably have to move your stock somewhere until we can finish. Depending on how extensive the damage is, that could take weeks or months."
Darbie winced at that estimate. "My poor babies," she said, talking about all those damn critters she kept in her shop. "Where are they supposed to go?"
I shrugged. "Beats me. They're damn lucky to survive having a tree fallin' on 'em for one thing. Maybe you should let 'em loose and see if they can make the best of that luck."
Her lips twisted angrily. "They're domesticated animals, dummy, not bred for the wild."
I shook my head and sighed. "Then what's the point of bein' an animal if you can't even survive like one? Critters like that, they're more like imitation PEOPLE than what God intended them as."
That set her off. Raising her arms in agitation, she stormed back to her building, her short little legs pacing quickly as she hurried along. I watched her leave with a smirk on my face, always happy to get the final word against Darb.
It felt good to watch her storming off like that, although watching the way her tight little ass bounced back and forth as she walked in those tight jeans made me wonder why the hell she was the only single gal in town our own age. There may have been a shortage of single middle-age women, but the market was cornered on bachelors my age. I knew this, because I hung out with most of them.
But whatever, it wasn't my problem. Between the thick glasses, flannel shirt, jeans and boots she always wore, I could sooner assume Darbie was a dyke and leave it at that. I didn't approve of dykin', but that was a problem between them and the Big G. Were it up to me, I'd just throw some jello on 'em and pull up a chair.
