Title: An Instant Family Author: MrJenkins Summary: Jeff Wilson was on his way home from an out of town computer job and rescued three girls from a bad situation at a rest stop. The kids elect to move into his life and bed. Keywords: Mggg pedo cons rom slow *************************************************** Introduction Variations on this tale have been running through my head off and on for several years. The key bit being a guy traveling stopping at a rest area and finding abandoned or at least unwanted kids, and winding up with taking them with him. It took a while to figure out a somewhat plausible scenario where he could keep them -- there are more variations on the ways he might acquire a kid or five. One possibility would be someone who was also living rough, and outside the normal scrutiny of neighbors and school authorities. I didn't really want to write that tale, because someone who lived that way isn't plausibly a nice and competent person who would give the girls a chance to have a decent life. Of course, many would say that being beat up and starved would be a better life for them that being lovers with an older guy. I don't -- quite obviously -- agree with them. At any rate, I hope I told it well enough that you enjoy reading. The end isn't good, I sort of ran out of story and quit writing for now. Perhaps more of the story will come to me sometime. ************************************************** An Instant Family Chapter 1 I pulled off the freeway into a rest area about 40 miles from home. It was late November, about 5PM, late dusk and 30F, spitting a little snow. I was driving my house, (a 38 foot motorhome with a 25 ft trailer that served as garage and work shop. A small car and large motorcycle ride in it when I travel, when I need the workshop space, the car lives outside.) I work as a free lance database consultant, and do open source programming between contracts. The work is intermittent but pays very well when I get a contract. I had just finished a six weeks job and was on the last leg of the trip home. I climbed out of the drivers seat, opened the door and looked out. The only other vehicle in the parking area was an older brown stretch van. A small group of people were standing by the van and a man was swearing at a kid in Spanish. Over the years I had learned that being prepared paid off, I stepped back inside for a moment and stuck my pistol into a jacket pocket. I went back outside and headed for the restroom. As I passed the van, the guy took a swing at the kid and knocked him onto his back on the asphalt. I try very hard to avoid trouble, but this seemed a bit much. With my right hand holding the gun in my pocket, I walked over near the group. The guy drew his foot back to kick the kid and I spoke. "If you kick him, I'll have to do something about it.?, I spoke loudly, but calmly. He whirled around, saw me standing there about 15 feet away. "None of your fuckin business, asshole!", he yelled at me with a strong Mexican accent. "You go hitting kids, it becomes my business", I replied, still calmly. He pulled out a switchblade and started for me. I drew the pistol, cycled the slide to load a round and pointed it at his chest with a two handed stance. He froze. "I'd rather not shoot you, but if you don't drop that knife in the next few seconds, I will. If you take another step, or any of them come after me, I'll shoot you first." He looked at me for two seconds, the solid unwavering stance and a still calm face, I gestured with the gun. He dropped the knife on the ground. "Kick it over there", I told him, pointing off to my left. He did. The kid was still on the ground looking with very wide eyes. "You OK kid?", I asked. A several second pause -- "Yeah". "Move away from him please, I'd rather not shoot you by accident.", I said, "Go around behind me and pick up that knife." He scrambled up went around me as instructed and picked up the knife. He looked at it, folded it up and stuck it in a back pocket, then moved somewhat closer to me. There were five adults and six kids of various sizes, all Mexican brown skin and dark hair. One of the women yelled, "Fine, you want the little puta, you take her." I glanced at the kid, dark hair, dark eyes, a thin face, quite a lot lighter skin than the others, maybe a little over four feet tall. She was looking at them with a wary expression. "What do you want to do?" I asked, (her?). "Go with you, I guess", she answered. "Move over here where I can see you", I pointed with my left hand to a spot about 5 feet away from me and 30 degrees to the left of the guy I had the gun on. While she moved, I backed up a few steps to give me a bit more room if he decided to get stupid. "Should I call the cops.", I asked him. "No, No, you can have the fuckin' little cunt he protested. "They legal?", I asked the kid. "Naw, they're fuckin' wetbacks, on their way south for the winter.", was the reply. "Your parents?" Tears, "Mama was with the fucker, but she died a couple a months ago." "You want to go with me then?", I asked once more. "Couldn't be any fuckin worse than them", was the sniffled reply. "OK then, please move away from the van for a moment." I told the group with a gesture with the pistol. "You going to rob us too?", the guy blustered. "No, but the kid needs her stuff.", was my reply. They moved off 30 feet or so from the van, staying in a huddle. I lowered the gun, but continued to watch closely. "Get your stuff and bring it here", I told the kid. She went into the van and came back out in a few minutes with two smaller kids, each of them holding a plastic grocery sack. "My sisters", she said at my question. "They go too?", I half asked and half told the guy. "You want young cunt, I'll sell then to you", he blustered. "How much?", I asked him, allowing myself to look interested. "A thousand dollars.", he said. I looked sideways at the kid. "How are they doing, they look pretty broke." She kind of grinned, "We ain't had nuthin to eat since yesterday, and I think he's 'bout out a gas." "Not going to give you a thousand, I have the gun after all. On the other hand, I have $500 cash in my wallet, and fixing things after I shot you would be a pain." A long moment's pause, then "OK, I'll take the $500." from the guy. I called the kid over and had her fish my wallet out of an inside coat pocket. I had her open it up, and take out the $500 under my eyes. She put the wallet back in a coat pocket and I held the money in my left hand. "Now, spread the stuff from those sacks out on the sidewalk over by that light", I told the her, pointing to an area light near the restrooms. She started to protest -- "I need to be sure that what you,re taking is yours. I don't want him coming back because you took something you shouldn't have", I told her. "Come on now, Its cold out here." She shrugged and took her sisters and the bags over by the light. They dumped the sacks. "Spread them out", They did. I looked a bit, keeping a wary eye on my captives. "You", I said, pointing at one of the women. "Come over here and tell me if there's anything that doesn't belong to the kids." I stepped back several paces. She looked a moment, pushing it around with a toe, then shrugged, "Looks OK." "Go over there then please.", pointing at a spot near the group. I moved back to within about 15 feet of the guy with the knife. I stopped her about 5 feet away, between me and him and off to the side a little. "Now hold out your hands, cupped." I gave the money back to the girl. "Go over there and drop it into her hands, slowly, one bill at a time. Stay to the side where I can see, and he can see." She did, and I counted the money out loud as the girl dropped each bill. I looked over at the guy, "You good with that?" He nodded, staring at the money. "I will be calling the sheriff", I told him. If you leave right now I'll give you a 15 minute head start before I make the call. "What about my knife?", he asked. I just looked at him -- 90 seconds later, the van roared out of the parking lot. I looked at my new responsibilities. They looked back at me. The smallest one was crying a bit and the other two looked pretty near. "Pick up your stuff", I told them. "And use the bathroom while we're here. I still need to." I went into the men's side of the restrooms. When they came back out in a few minutes, I was waiting for them with their sacks in my hands. "Come on, let's get out of this wind and into a warm spot." They followed me across the parking lot to the motorhome. I opened the door and turned on the interior lights as I stepped to the side, towards the front. "Come on in and close the door.", I waved towards the kitchen/dining area. I hadn't put down the step, the larger two hopped up fine, but the littlest one sort of crawled onto the bottom step then stood up and took the other two steps to the floor level. I put the pistol away, then went to the kitchen area and got a paper towel and a Ziploc bag. "Come here, kid", I said, indicating the bigger one. I had her turn around, then after seeing how snug the pants fit her, had her partially drop them so I could fish the knife from her hip pocket without rubbing it any harder than I had to. I tried to handle it carefully so as to preserve any finger prints, dropped it in the plastic bag and sealed it. "What'cha gonna do with it?", she asked, craning her neck to watch me. "I was serious about calling the sheriff, having that may help to keep my life simpler", I answered her. "I assume you kids are hungry.", I said. Nods by all three. Now that I had them where there was adequate light, I could see that they were quite thin. Not quite emaciated, but much thinner than was really healthy. Inside I could smell them, unwashed kid and tobacco smoke. I heated up a can of vegetable beef soup, split it three ways and buttered and jammed a slice of bread apiece. They sort of inhaled the food, then looked hopeful. "You kids don't look like you've been eating very regularly, when was the last time you got to eat?", I asked. "Yesterday mornin", from the biggest kid. "In that case, lets let this set for a bit. I'll give you some more in an hour or so. Don't want you to get sick from eating too much too fast." They looked disappointed, but didn't protest. I got the impression that whining had been beaten out of them. "I'm Jeff. What are your names?", I asked. "I'm Lisa, this is Julie, pointing to the middle sized kid, somewhat darker skin and rounder face than her older sister, 3-1/2 feet tall perhaps. "And Vicky", indicating the smallest kid, less than three feet tall, the lightest of the three, blue eyes and sort of blond. "How old are you?", I asked her. "Nine, almost ten.", from Lisa. I looked at Julie with a raised brow. "Seven", The first word I had heard from her. "How about you, Vicky?", I asked. She hid her face in her big sister's side. "Four, 'bout a month ago.", from Lisa. "How bad did he hurt you?", I asked Lisa. "Not much, you stopped the fucker before he got really started.", she shrugged, then winced at the movement. I looked at her for a long moment, then went to where I had an office area and fetched out a home town phone book. I dialed a number on my cell and got an answer. "Hi Frank, this is Jeff Wilson." "Fine, the job is finished and I'm a little less than an hour from town." "I have an interesting problem. I stopped at the rest area at Franklin Canyon and wound up with three strays." "Girls, nine, seven and four. I paid $500 for them." "Probably illegals. The biggest kid says her mom died a month or two ago and the boyfriend was beating up on her when I pulled in." "I doubt its worth while, I got the license number but they were headed south last I saw of them, most of half an hour ago. If they have any brains at all, the plate will be long gone before you can get it posted." "Short term, no problem. I can feed and house them. Longer term, need some sort of official blessing." "I'd buy you dinner, or at least a piece of pie at Shari's in an hour or so." "Don't wear your Sheriff hat, but bring it. See if you can track down Doc Alice and ask her if she would join us. Have her bring her bag, I expect the kids have bruises, I'm certain the oldest one has some, there's a new one on her face just starting to show and she's moving kinda careful. Perhaps some worm medicine and louse soap too, from the look of them, it wouldn't surprise me." "Sounds good, I'll see you in a bit." I closed up the cell. "That was a friend, the local Sheriff. He'll meet us for dinner when we get to town. "You gonna give us to the fuckin cops?" asked Lisa. "Probably not tonight, long term, don't know. Not the cops, anyway. Children's Services may insist and my ability to buck them is not unlimited.", was my reply. "I need to get on the road, Frank will be meeting us soon, and you guys will want more to eat. One of you can ride up front if you want, or there are seat belts where you are sitting. Wear them anytime you are sitting down while I'm driving. Bathroom is over there, you can use it while we are moving if you need it." I helped Lisa fasten seat belts around all three of them and went to the front, started the engine and pulled back onto the freeway. ************************************************* Chapter 2 Twenty minutes down the road, Lisa came forward and got into the passenger seat in the front. I insisted that she fasten the seat belt, I got the impression that seat belts for the kids weren't in common use in that van -- with eleven people that I had seen, probably didn't even have seats for all the kids. I got off the freeway and headed towards the small town I call home. When we were back up to speed I spoke, "Where are you from?" "All over, he went wherever the fuck there's work. We were in Pasco, WA last. The fucker decided to go back to Mexico for the winter, money lasts longer there and its fuckin' warmer." "You know, Lisa -- using 'fuck' like that is annoying in a kid, or for that matter, anyone. It doesn't help me understand what you mean and just takes up room in the sentence. Please don't use it so much." "Sorry", she mumbled. "What grade are you in?" "Third or fourth, depends on which school. He don't stay in one place long enough to do much in school. Don't always go at all if he don't stay somewhere for long.", she replied. After another few miles, "You gonna fuck us? That why you bought us from Rafe?.", she asked. I look over at her. She didn't seem scared, more like she just wanted to know what to expect. "At least that time, you used the word correctly.", I commented. After a moment more I replied to her question, "I didn't buy you. I bribed him so I wouldn't have to shoot him. Believe me, if I had shot him, it would have cost me far more than $500 even if it was ruled self and kid defense." "But $500 is a lot of money!" "Its not enough to be a problem to me. Being in jail would have been a problem. Watching him beat up on you would have been a worst problem. On those terms, $500 is cheap." "You gonna give us to the cops then?", she asked after a few minutes. I thought a couple of minutes, then answered, "Not by choice. You can stay with me if you want to and we can get the powers that be to let you do it. First step is to talk to Frank, then let the Dr. look you over. If nothing else, I may need her and Frank to testify that you came with bruises pre-installed." "She looked at me oddly." "It would be much better if no one here thought I hit you, and the way you are moving, I suspect that Dr. Alice is going to find some obvious marks." A couple of moments, "Yeah, its been pretty fuckin bad the last couple a days." I looked her. "Sorry", she muttered. We were approaching the edge of town, I started slowing for the exit. I pulled into the parking lot by Shari's and shut down. Went back to the kitchen area and found Julie and Vicky sound asleep. I looked at their fairly grubby hands and faces and went into the bathroom and got a washcloth and towel. I unfastened Vicky's seat belt, took off her tattered coat and picked her up. She was thin to the point of scrawny and hardly seemed to weigh anything. She sort of woke up, but didn't protest. I got the washcloth wet with warm water, then sat down with her on my lap and washed her face and hands, then dried them with the towel. Her hair was greasy and tangled, I decided to let it go for now, It'd be as well to let Frank and Alice see what condition they were in when I collected them anyway. There was a small bruise on her face and another on her right forearm. I sat Vicky on the seat, freshened the washcloth and went over to Julie. Lisa had her out of the seat belt and somewhat awake. I got her out of what passed for a jacket and washed face and hands. I found more bruises. I then turned to Lisa. She flinched a bit, but didn't try to pull away while I took a greasy, ragged sweater off her. All she had under it was a t-shirt, badly worn and quite a bit too big. She had a new bruise starting to show on one side of her face, another pretty bad one on the other side, hand marks on her forearm and what looked like a burn on the back of one hand. I washed as gently as I could, she started to pull away, then visibly gritted her teeth and held still. I got out a pull over sweat shirt of mine and handed it to her. Then took it back and helped her get her arms and head through the appropriate holes. I looked at the other two and their ragged excuse for coats, then went back and got two more sweat shirts, Vicky's came down well below her knees, but she would be warm. None of them could show their hands without pulling the sleeves way up. As we stepped out of the motorhome, I saw Frank's car pull into the lot and park. Vicky held up her arms for me to pick her up off the lower step. I did, again cringing at how light she was, and we walked toward him as he got out of the car, Julie clinging to my other hand. "Evenin Jeff, these must be your stray kittens. I won't offer to shake, your hands seem to be busy." "They are. Lisa, Julie and Vicky. Don't know a last name yet.", Pointing them out with eyes and head motions. "Girls, this is Sheriff Frank Hebner." "Pleased to meet you", He tipped his hat. We walked into the restaurant, Julie still hanging on to my hand and Lisa right beside me on the other side. In a couple of minutes we were seated. I helped the girls out of the sweatshirts. Frank's eyes widened a bit at the marks on them. The waitress came by with water and noticed them too. "The bruises came pre-installed. Jeff got the girls off some wetbacks up at Franklin Canyon an hour or so ago", Frank told her. The waitress's eyes got even bigger, but at least she quit glaring at me. Frank sat there, examining the girls, marks, starvation and the way they snuggled up to me. "So", he said, "What are you planning to do with them." "Short term, feed them, wash them, feed them, then go to Walmart, get a few clothes and feed them.", I replied. "Did you get ahold of Dr. Alice?" He nodded, "She should be here in a few." "In that case, I'll see if she'll examine them before and after the washing. From what I can see of marks with clothes still on, probably should have you witness and take pictures. We ordered, again I limited the size of the orders for the girls, once more promising more food in an hour or so. I got them an adult meal, then split it three ways. Once more, their food vanished in seconds. Dr. Alice Franklin showed up in time for a cup of coffee and the tale of how I acquired three kids. I paid the bill and we went out to the motor home. Once more I carried Vicky and Julie held my other hand, with Lisa brushing my side where I carried Vicky. We went into the dining room/lounge area. I got a washable blanket and large bath towel, and put them on the table. Dr. Alice tried to pick Vicky up to put her on the table, she pulled away and grabbed on to me. Dr. Alice looked at me, I looked back and shrugged. "May I do it Vicky?", I asked her. She looked at me for a moment, then nodded. I picked her up and sat her on the towel. "We need to take your clothes off so the Dr. can see your hurts. Will you let me do that?", I asked. She nodded. I carefully pulled her shirt off. It was ragged and filthy, I got a garbage bag and put her clothes in it as I took them off, including the ratty sneakers. With her clothes off, she was quite whiffy for a small kid and her ribs and hip bones showed clearly. Dr. Alice had Frank take notes as she examined the kid, describing bruises and contusions, some fairly recent, many old and faded. She no longer had a hymen, but no obvious bruising around her genitals. She pointed out bruising on Vicky's scalp from having her hair yanked. Dr. Alice was somewhat handicapped by the fact that Vicky insisted on holding my hand all through the exam. We managed to get her to switch hands as necessary and got by. There was no evidence of lice or fleas, (thank goodness), Dr. Alice suggested that while she saw no obvious evidence of worms, that a stool sample one day soon would probably be a good idea. I tried to leave Vicky for a moment to go get one of my t-shirts to wear, she clung and cried. After a moment, I gave up, hoisted her onto my hip and went into my bedroom. I changed into a pair of swim trunks and got three clean fairly new and thick t-shirts. When we came back out, Dr. Alice had managed to coax Julie onto the exam table and her clothes off. Marks on her were similar to Vicky. One forearm was crooked. Dr Alice checked and noted that it appeared to have been broken and not set properly. Julie and Lisa confirmed this. Once more, her hymen was missing and some evidence of recent bruising on her pussy. When questioned, she said that the guy that hit Lisa had fucked her that morning. The Dr. got out a rape kit. Frank was keeping notes and looking pretty grim. I took Vicky into the bathroom, as is common in motorhomes, the shower head was on the wall above the toilet. I had a hose and spray nozzle on it, I got the water adjusted and gently washed Vicky. Because of the bruising, I wasn't able to scrub as hard as I would have liked to, her hair in particular got a fairly sketchy wash. I figured to work on the tangles and wash it frequently for a few days till I got her clean. She was much better ten minutes later than when we went in. I gently dried Vicky off, then wrapped her in a big fuzzy dry towel. She allowed me to set her down on in my chair. Dr. Alice had finished examining Julie and started on Lisa. I tried to send Julie to take a shower, she insisted that I needed to wash her too. She too quite frankly stank of unwashed kid and tobacco smoke. Her hair was matted and greasy, but at least there didn't seem to be any injury to her scalp so I could wash with more vigor. I dried her off, wrapped her in another big towel and came back out to get a report on Lisa. Lots of bruises, no obvious broken bones, at least as scrawny as her sisters. A fairly fresh cigarette burn on her left hand. She had been fucked last night and this morning by two of the guys from the van group, one adult, one teen. Another rape kit was used. She didn't seem to be concerned at all by being naked with Frank and me, nor being talked about. No lice or other varmints found on the girls, stool samples for worms would be a good idea. Dr. Alice wanted to see Julie in her office soon to take an x-ray of the crooked arm and all of them for full physicals and blood work to check for STDs. She approved of my plan and schedule for feeding them up. We agreed on tomorrow afternoon, end of office hours. I promised to call Frank tomorrow after we were up and breakfasted, he and Dr. Alice departed. *************************************************** Chapter 3 Lisa wanted me to wash her too, Vicky had gone back to sleep in my chair. Julie sat with her and was looking pretty tired. Lisa and I went into the bathroom/shower and she turned and started to pull down my shorts. I stopped her and raised an eyebrow. "You paid for us, you deserve somethin for that $500", she said. "Not this", I replied. "You queer, don't like girls?", she sort of sneered. "I love girls, especially little girls", I told her, gesturing to the partial hard-on tenting my shorts. "If that's why you bought us, why not fuck me then", she seemed a bit confused. "I didn't buy you. I paid him off so I wouldn't have to shoot him, also because with that $500, he won't stop till he's across the border. And with what you told Frank, if he shows up around here in the next several years, Frank will grab him and throw him in jail.", I explained. "He'd a taken less than $500", she said. "Most likely. But $200 might not have gotten them to Mexico." If they got picked up and started telling this story, Frank might have to do something about it. This way, He's gone.", I answered her. That got me a thoughtful look, a hug and room to start the shower. Her hair was at least as filthy as her sisters, but not as tangled. The bruises were sore, but her pussy wasn't as I washed it. I did spend a few extra seconds washing her bottom and some more on her nubbins of boobs. She didn't flinch at all at this attention, leaned against me and gave me a bit of a smug look. I dried her off, one more big fuzzy towel for her. Stripped off my wet trunks showing a partial hard on, dried off and put on dry underwear and shorts. I found Vicky and Julie asleep in my chair. I asked Lisa if any of them were lactose intolerant, this confused her so I asked her if they could eat ice cream without getting sick. That got me a yes, please. I got out four bowls, put a scoop of chocolate ice cream in each and woke the other two girls. I got the t-shirts onto them, and managed to get them to eat slowly -- for a value of slowly that only had Julie crying once because she cramped her throat from the cold. Vicky sat on my lap and I fed her, otherwise she would probably have had the same problem. Lisa sat snuggled up to my side, but she did take small slow bites, enough that she finished at the same time that Vicky and I did. I don't think the timing was accidental. We went back to the couch and I put Lisa between my legs and started working on her hair. It wasn't too bad, either for greasy nor tangles. Her bare bottom in my lap had my cock starting to stiffen. She knew that and, I'm quite sure she deliberately squirmed and pressed against it to keep me hard. I got her hair pretty good, and pulled her back against my chest in a hug, then kissed her on the cheek. Lisa squirmed around in my arms and kissed me back on the lips. After a moment, I reluctantly pushed her away and made her move off my lap. This left me with a pretty prominent tent in my lap, Julie looked at it and reached down to grab it. I stopped her hand. "Not tonight, little one. The social services folk will be around in the next few days, and we don't want any hint that you have been doing any sex stuff since I got you for them to find." Julie didn't seem to get it, but I saw comprehension dawn in Lisa. "He bought us to fuck, just not yet." she told her sister. I moved Julie over where I could reach and started working on her hair. It was horrible, matted and tangled. With that much tangle, it wasn't very clean either and still had a noticeable odor. "Lisa!!", I said, allowing a bit of annoyance to show in my voice. She flinched from me. "Like I told you, I didn't buy you. I don't own you. You don't owe me anything except perhaps to take advantage of this opportunity to get away from that kind of life.", I said, much more gently. "You're gonna dump us into foster homes then.", she said, looking at the floor and not quite crying. I stopped working on Julie's hair for a moment and gently, trying to avoid the bruises, turned her face towards me. "Like I told you, you can stay if you want to and social services will let you. I know they are pretty crowded, with Frank and Dr. Alice on our side, they will probably figure you are good enough with me and will let you stay." I slipped an arm around her and hugged her to my side for a moment, then turned back to Julie's hair. I worked at the mess for another couple of minutes then spoke to them. "You can stay if you want, and they will let you. There will be a few rules that you have to follow if you are going to stay." After a moment, Lisa asked, "What kind'a rules". "Don't steal from me." "OK", she answered. "Don't lie to me. If you don't want to answer, say so. But don't lie." She nodded at that. "Don't gratuitously damage my stuff, or your sisters' stuff for that matter." Look of incomprehension, from both her and Julie. Vicky was asleep against my ribs on the other side. I used an example. "Suppose you are washing dishes and drop a glass. It breaks. Should I be mad?" "Rafe would have, prolly fuckin beat me." I just looked at her again. "Sorry, I slipped.", she said After another moment I answered, "Well, prolly, but he's an asshole.", that got me giggles from Lisa and Julie. I will expect you to clean the mess up, very carefully so you get it all and don't cut yourself. Then tell me what happened so I can get a new one if we need it. Accidents happen. Now, supposing you and Julie were using the glass to play catch, dropped it and broke it. Should I be mad at you?" "Yes!", from both girls. "I'd be annoyed at you, that's a pretty dumb thing to be doing. On the other hand, you weren't trying to break the glass, just doing something dumb. I would scold you, would probably find some sort of punishment if it wasn't the first time, but wouldn't get mad about it." "Why not? That sounds pretty fuckin dumb to do.", Julie asked. "Language like that doesn't sound any better from you than it does from Lisa", I told her. Julie looked at Lisa, a bit confused. "He don't like it when we cuss", Lisa said to her. Julie cringed, "Sorry." "Don't worry about it for now. Just try not to use bad words unless you really mean them", I hugged her to my chest for a moment. I continued, "Playing catch with a glass would be dumb, and especially the third time I would need to find a penalty that would get your attention. On the other hand, you are kids. And kids do dumb things.", I shrugged at her. "Now, suppose I came home and found that you had taken all the glasses outside and thrown them against a rock to smash them. Now, I would be mad at you. You were destroying property that I would have to replace and made a nasty mess besides. You did so with the intent to destroy them. Other than the pleasure of watching them smash, neither you nor I got any benefit from your smashing them. Now I have a legitimate reason to be angry. If you were to do it repeatedly, I might start to consider giving you to foster care or just taking you a few hundred miles away and dumping you. It would require you to do something like that more than once or twice. And whatever you did would have to be pretty bad, but I won't have barbarians living with me." I looked at her and Julie -- their eyes were pretty wide. "You think you can avoid busting up my stuff just for the fun of it?" They nodded rapidly. I pulled them into a hug, one in each arm. "We won't have a problem with that rule then." "The last thing is that if you are going to live with me, you will have to go to school and work at it. I don't want to have dummies living with me." "But we ain't no good in school. I'm nine and they put me in second grade last time", Lisa protested. "I don't expect you to know anything when you start. From what you tell me, I'm going to count it as a great win if you can read at all. I expect you to know a whole lot of things when we finish in several years. I just will require you to try your best most of the time. Not do as well as a kid that had parents read to him and teach him to read when he was four. Yes, that would be better, and I will do that with Vicky. You are starting from where you are, so all I require is that you make a real effort to do a bit better every day, not that you jump straight into integral calculus tomorrow." At her look of incomprehension, I modified that last sentence, "We will start with 1 + 1, leave 487 X 683 for later." "K", Lisa leaned against my side and Julie leaned back against my shoulder. I turned her so she was sitting sideways with her legs partly across Lisa's lap. We sat there and cuddled for a bit, then I asked Lisa, "Think you can live with those rules?" She nodded without lifting her head from my side. "In that case, we better go on home." At her look of puzzlement, I said, "I have a place about 15 miles from here. I mostly live in here, but that's where I park when I'm not on the road." ***************************************************** Chapter 4 -- The first evening. I stood and put Julie back in the chair with her sister. I put on a shirt and shoes and went forward, turning off lights as I went. Lisa and Julie followed and sat together in the passenger captains chair. It was nearly 10pm by then, I started the engine and turned on the headlights. Pulling out of the parking lot, Vicky woke up and started crying. Lisa slipped out of her seat and went back to her sister. I stopped at a light a few blocks further on and they came to the front and sat in the passenger chair, Vicky on her sister's laps, pretty much in the middle. Given the city traffic and lights, it was a bit over 30 minutes till I pulled up to my driveway. I pushed the remote button for the gate control and it swung open in front of the motor home. I pulled through and up the driveway for a couple of hundred feet. I have a spot made for the motorhome, level concrete with all the hookups and a roof overhead for storm and shade. When I'm parked there, the motorhome attaches to a house, so I have a larger place to live, but don't need to move stuff back and forth. For tonight, I pulled in and parked on the markers. I put the stabilizers down and brought the rig to the right height. I then got out and hooked up electricity and Internet. Water and sewer could wait till morning, we would use the house bathrooms anyway. I connected the seals between the house and the main door on the rig, then ran out the two expandos and locked them and put down their stabilizers, but left the furniture for morning as well. I took the girls inside, showed them a guest bedroom with an attached bathroom. I was carrying Vicky, I went to put her down in the bed and she started crying and clinging to me. "She wants to sleep with you.", Lisa said. "Can you and Julie sleep here?" "I don't want to, I'd rather sleep with you." I thought for a moment. "OK, You and Julie get in this bed. Stay there for ten minutes. That way we can tell Frank and Alice that I put you to bed in here. If you are still awake after 10 minutes on this clock, you can come back into the motor home and get in my bed with me." "OK", they crawled into the bed, I put Vicky on the floor beside me, covered them up and kissed them on the cheek. I picked up Vicky, found some night lites, brought them back and put one in the girl's room, one in the bathroom, then a couple along the way back to the motor home and one in the middle there. I took their clothes and some of my dirty ones into the house and started a load of washing. I hoped that their clothes would survive washing without disintegrating. I added a bit of bleach to the mix figuring that it would probably kill any vermin. By now it was nearing midnight, I took Vicky to the bathroom, then on to bed. I lay down and she snuggled up to my chest, gave a big sigh and dropped off to sleep. I lay there thinking about what had happened. The seven hours since I pulled into the rest area had been quite eventful. As I dropped off to sleep, I noticed that it had been 30 minutes, Lisa and Julie weren't present. I woke up in the night and noted that I had a warm body against my back. It was 2:45. I reached across Vicky and found another a warm body. I woke again, to full daylight. The clock said 8:30, Vicky was still snuggled up to my left side with Julie beyond her, Lisa laying with her back to me, and touching my right shoulder. I carefully got up, Vicky woke up and held up her arms to be picked up. I lifted her to the floor and covered up the other two, then picked Vicky back up and headed off to the bathroom. Finished there, I put the laundry from last night into the dryer, then we went to the kitchen and got a bottle of olive oil. I stopped in my office area, fired up the computer and checked email. There were a couple that deserved replies that were quick, I tended to them, then sat Vicky in front of me and started working on the tangles in her hair, soaking them with the oil to help loosen the snarls. She endured it with a few whimpers and tears, but allowed me to work for twenty minutes. Lisa came out and came over to watch. I wiped as much of the oil as I could from Vicky's hair and sat her down and got up to start breakfast. I sent Vicky to wake Julie and gave Lisa plates and glasses to set the table, pointing her to the silverware drawer. I fixed soft-boiled eggs, and two slices of toast each this morning, planning to feed them six times during the day, still small meals. Finished up, I set Lisa to cleaning up, watching and telling her what to do as I oiled and worked on the matted tangles in Julie's hair. She wasn't quite as stoic as Vicky had been, but twenty minutes made significant progress. I called Frank as requested, he said he would be there at 10:30, about an hour away. Figuring that we had time, I showered the girls -- I started out with Vicky and Julie, planning to wash the olive oil out of their hair and get some more of the grunge as well. That part of the plan worked. Lisa decided that she wanted to participate too. She came in and started trying to remove my shorts. In a moment the other two decided to help, I lost. I went back to washing kids, only spending a little bit of extra time washing their pussies and nipples. Lisa grabbed the soap and started washing as much of me as she could reach. After a 30 seconds on my cock, which was quite hard by now, I stopped her again. "Don't do that for now", I told her. "People will be asking questions about touching and sex and it will be much better if you don't have to lie to them very much." "But I want to make you feel good so you will keep us", she said. I turned the water off and sat down on the shower ledge. "Lisa!! and Julie. You will never ever *have* to do sex things with me. I will like you without sex. If later, you want to do sex things with me, that would be wonderful. But you should *never* do anything like that because you think I want to. Only because you want to." "But I want to", she whimpered, confused. "Why do you want to", I asked. "So you will like us and keep us." I held her by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes, "I already *want* to keep you, but for now, if you do things like that, and anyone suspects, they will take you away, even if they can't prove it. If they can prove it, they will take you away and throw me in jail." I thought for a moment, "How about for now you wash my back and hair. Then you can rub my back and comb and brush my hair when you want to do something nice for me. I love to have my back rubbed." I pulled her and Julie to me and started rubbing up and down their backs with the tip of one finger, touching very lightly, moving slowly. "Like this", then turning Lisa around I started doing a more conventional back rub, kneading her muscles, starting with her neck and working down her back, "And like this." I left off on Lisa and gave Vicky and Julie short back rubs, then stood up and turned the shower back on. Lisa tugged me around and started washing my back, she did spend a little extra time on my bottom, but I let that go. Then she had me kneel and washed my hair, finishing up with a kiss to the lips. Overall I counted it as a great win. We got out and dried off, I got their clothes from the dryer, they were usable for low values of usable, probably wouldn't get us arrested during a trip to Walmart. After the trip to Walmart they could go in the trash unless the kids insisted on keeping them. Frank showed up on time and spent a couple of hours coaxing a detailed story of their lives from Lisa and Julie. Vicky didn't contribute much, but what she did, fit with their story. Lisa's and Julie's language was more than a bit rough -- for this purpose I didn't fuss at them nor did Frank. He did flinch a bit at a few of the things they said, it probably was more the content than the language. The mid morning meal of soup and cheese didn't stop him, he was very good at coaxing the girls to talk, doing minimal guidance most of the time. A few of the bits took some coaxing, and I was pretty sure that Lisa avoided talking about some things. Their mother had gone by Rodriquez, spelling somewhat of a guess, Lisa thought she was 1/4 Mexican. Lisa remembered visiting her grandmother, but didn't know what city nor state she might have been in. It seemed probable that the three girls each had a different father, they had no idea who nor where. They had been molested by their mother's boyfriends for as long as they could remember, sometimes for cash while their mother watched. The guy I had gotten them from had been pretty bad, but not the worst they could remember. Julie's broken arm had been from before that bunch. Frank agreed to take his sheriff's hat off for a bit and I told him the full tale of the rest area encounter, including the baggie with the knife. He didn't much like it, but agreed that paying the $500 was probably better than shooting them or trying to hold them till he could have gotten there, and much better than leaving the kids with them. He took the bag with the knife as evidence to add to the rape evidence and pictures. He got names, the best as Lisa and Julie knew and could remember along with the van license and told me he planned to put out a warrant on them. He admitted that it was unlikely that it would ever be served, but would give him a handle on the problem if they ever showed up in our lives again. "What next", I asked him. "I have three kids, no papers on them at all. Not the faintest hint of any relatives. I'm out a bit over $500 in the deal, so I feel a need to protect my investment. Besides that, I think they like me." All three of them were crowded onto my lap as I said that. Frank snorted. Then more seriously, he answered. "I'll go talk to Sarah Jones at Children's Services and tell her the tale. I expect you will hear from her later today or tomorrow. She can help with paperwork and medical expenses -- if Dr. Alice thinks she can improve Julie's arm, that will probably get expensive. I'll urge her to leave them with you, I expect she'll go along with it for now." I gave Frank one of my cards with phone numbers and email, urging him to have most communication come by email. He left and I went to get my car out of the garage. The girls were pretty impressed with my mobile garage with car and motorcycle. It was snowing lightly again with about three inches of new on the ground from last night as we headed for Walmart. Since it had been a couple of hours since I fed them, I went through the drive through at McDonald's and got them each a Happy Meal on the way. I bought them a couple of sets of clothes apiece along with sneakers, cheap snow boots and fairly good jackets. I figured to take them to a better store in a few days and get some more if they were still with me -- for now, we didn't stand out too bad in the Walmart crowd, and these clothes would be more acceptable in the more upscale stores later. We got brushes and combs along with some hair cutting equipment. I figured to do the very minimum necessary to get all the tangles out and trim the worst of the rough edges, then take them to someone more skilled to finish the job. I picked up a booster car seat for Vicky and a cheap plastic sled on the way to the counter, then thinking about it, detoured through the toy section and had each girl pick out a toy. The girls hadn't gotten overt comments at Walmart, but the clothes, hair and bruises had been noticed. We went on home, I couldn't do much about the bruises beyond having them wear long sleeves when out in public, but the clothes could be improved on and I could work on the hair some more. Second lunch, 20 minutes each on tangles for Vicky and Julie, another shower to get out the olive oil, dressed them in their new clothes and we went out again, this time to get groceries. I refused to buy more than a minimum amount of candy, Vicky started to fuss, Lisa took her aside and whispered in her ear. Vicky gave a scared look at me and shut up. I made a note to talk to Lisa about that when we got home. I did consult with them on the types of vegetables and fruit, insisting on buying a fair amount over their protests. I did allow myself to be persuaded to stock up on ice cream. There is quite a bit of sugar in it, but for them, the fat, protein and calcium would be a very good thing. The sugar wasn't all that bad an idea, they could all stand to put on quite a bit of weight. Later I might want to limit calories, but that would be at least a couple of months in the future. We went home and put stuff away, had a two scoop dish of ice cream each and it was time to go see Dr. Alice. ************************************************ Chapter 5 -- the second evening. It had been a busy day for three kids that were in a strange situation, malnourished and more than a bit battered. All three of them were asleep when I pulled into the parking lot at Dr. Alice's office. I chivied two sleepy girls out of the car, lifted the third onto my shoulder without waking her and we went inside. The receptionist was expecting us and sent us to one of the examination rooms immediately. In a few minutes a nurse came in, took the usual blood pressure, pulse and temperature from all three girls then took us to the lab for blood work. She must have been briefed because she didn't seem disturbed by the bruises, matted lumps in their hair, nor by the thought of all four of us going together. I got lucky, the tech there was very good at his job and pretty good with kids. Vicky tried to pull away at first, Lisa said something to her in Spanish. Vicky kind of froze up, after that she held very still but trembled. The tech hit a vein first try on all three of them, claimed that as scrawny as they were, finding veins was a snap, that finding a vein on a fat kid that was screaming was a much greater challenge. Time he was through, he had charmed them enough that they lost their overt fear of the situation. Our escort then took us to x-ray. I put Lisa and Vicky in chairs just outside the lab and went in with Julie. I helped Julie take off her clothes, turned out the Dr. wanted full body x-rays. We left her new panties on. The tech gave me a lead raincoat, was about as heavy as it sounds, but I didn't quibble, I was going to be present for a whole bunch of shots it looked like. He took eight shots of Julie, then of Vicky and Lisa. We went back to the exam room and waited. A while later, Dr. Alice came in. "The good news is that Julie's arm seems to be the only bone problem. Lisa has a couple of ribs that look like old breaks, but nothing that needs attention. Bad news is that Julie's arm really ought to have attention. Good news is that there is no short term rush. Good news is that it is pretty well healed, looks like over a year old which jibes with what they told me yesterday. Bad news is that it will need re-broken re-set then six weeks in a cast and physical therapy.", was her report. "In that case, in the real short term we will procrastinate. I have no idea what the legal status might be and from what you say, there isn't an emergency", was my reply. "Sounds good to me. At this point, months probably won't matter. Shouldn't be years though." Then to Vicky, "May I look you over again Vicky?" She held out her arms. Vicky turned her face towards my chest, she was sitting on my lap. "You want her stripped again I suppose." a statement rather than a question. "Yes, please." "May I take your clothes off again for Dr. Alice?", I asked Vicky. She nodded, her face still against my chest. I turned her around so she was facing the room and took off her shoes and socks, then stood her on the floor in front of me and took off her shirt, then pants and panties, stood and lifted her onto the examining table. Dr. Alice did a quick but thorough exam, including a pelvic exam. I wouldn't have expected her to have a speculum that small, but one was waiting. While she examined Vicky, I asked Julie to strip. She did willingly and waited for her turn. Dr Alice finished Vicky, dictating notes to a recorder. She took more pictures of the bruises and scars, both front and back. I lifted Vicky down and Julie allowed the Dr to lift her onto the exam table. Dr. Alice spent a couple of minutes palpating and looking at the crooked arm, then eyes, ears, nose and throat and another pelvic exam. And more pictures. While she was busy with Julie, I got clothes back on Vicky and had Lisa strip. She got the same treatment as the other two, minus the detailed exam of her arm. Dr. Alice took stool samples from all three girls while she was doing a rectal exam, so that one was done. "More good news, all three of them seem to be quite healthy. Ears look good, they are rather malnourished and battered, but we already knew that. The lab work shows no signs of any of the more common STDs -- there are more subtle tests that will take a few days, but I will be very surprised if any of them come up positive. I'll want to see them again in a week or so if you are still the responsible person. If not, please pass the request along. Bad news is that on further examination of Julie's arm, I think weeks instead of months, that arm isn't developing properly, time is not our friend.", was her report. "Thank you very much for seeing them, especially for seeing them last night. I presume you know where to send the bill", I reached up and shook her hand, Vicky was firmly back on my lap so I couldn't easily stand. "No problem, and for this, no bill. You put out $500, must be over $800 by now looking at those clothes. I can contribute my bit.", was her somewhat tart reply. "In that case, thank you again", I replied. "Thank you Dr. Alice", from Lisa, then Julie. "Tnk yu", rather muffled from Vicky. Perhaps the first real words I had heard from her. *************************************************** Chapter 6 -- The third evening and fourth day. On the way home I stopped at an Office Max and picked up a couple of new hard drives. I planned to clone the drives on my main computer, less a couple of directories that I would greatly prefer that snoopy officials not know about. I could live for a few months without the nekked kid pics and stories I had collected from the Internet. After all I currently had nekked kids to look at in the flesh and seemed to be living one of the stories. It seemed unlikely that my computers would be searched, but the penalties for being wrong are pretty harsh. We got home, I fed the girls again and started the disk copy. Lisa took me at my word and stood behind me, lightly rubbing my back, after a few moments, Julie got a brush and started brushing my hair. I oiled and worked on Vicky's hair for ten minutes, I had it down to just one big matted lump left and was hoping to be able to salvage at least part of the hair in it. I then moved Vicky to the chair beside me and worked on Julie's hair for another ten. She was down to two fair sized lumps, I was hoping that a couple of more sessions would do it. I brushed out Lisa's hair, hers was doing pretty well and would be ready for the hair dresser as soon as I had the last of the knots out of her sisters' hair. I turned back to the computer, Vicky crawled into my lap and sat there quietly while I worked. I checked email, I had an email from Ms. Jones requesting an interview tomorrow morning at my house. I replied, accepting and suggesting 10:30. A few business emails that I replied to, one more that would require a bit of work to reply properly, I acknowledged receipt and promised an answer within a few days. The copy finished, I shut the computer down, removed the original drive and replaced it with the new one. I fired it back up and verified that everything still worked and the porn directories were gone along with several more that contained sensitive business data that I probably wouldn't need in the short term. I took the old drive and stored it away, buried in a box of books in long term storage. At nine I fed the kids a bowl of ice cream showered them and tucked them into their bed. Vicky didn't want to, but Lisa and I convinced her that she should get into bed with her sisters for now, the ten minute rule from last night still applied, although I explained that it would probably be a couple of hours yet before I came to bed. This time at 11 minutes by the clock, they came back out. I sent Lisa and Julie on to bed but didn't have the heart to kick Vicky out of my lap. I worked on bookkeeping and bills for a while -- Vicky had gone to sleep in less than 10 minutes and I was able to lay her down on the sofa and cover her with a blanket. Finishing for tonight, I saved and closed down my work, picked Vicky up and we went to bed. Lisa and Julie were sound asleep, I stripped down to underwear and lay down, Vicky on one side, Lisa and Julie on the other. When I awoke next morning, I was on my back and Lisa was stroking my morning hard on. I reluctantly removed her hand, hugged her then rolled over, suggesting that she might rub my back instead. She and Julie got one on each side and both worked on my back. Shortly, bathroom needs drove me out of bed, it was after eight and time to be started anyway. Breakfast, work on tangles for a bit, I got the last of the matted knot worked out of Vicky's hair, Julie still had one left when her tolerance was exhausted for the session. Showers and clothes and we were ready to meet with Sarah Jones. She arrived on schedule, we knew each other, and gave casual greetings. "Girls, this is Ms. Jones from Children's Services. "Ms. Jones, Lisa, Julie and Vicky -- possibly Rodriquez." She looked with some amusement at me and the girls. Vicky was in her usual place on my left hip, arm around my shoulder. Lisa was standing with beside me on the left with her hand on my arm and Julie on the right holding my hand pretty tightly. "You appear to have been captured", was her comment. "You've heard about my evening, day before yesterday I assume", I started out. "Yes, Sheriff Hebner told me about it. Quite the tale." "OK, I'm pretty much of an amateur at this, never having stumbled onto a bunch of stray kids and had them follow me home before. What do we do from here?", I asked. "First off, I need to talk to them. I can't really say much before that", she replied. "Here OK?", I asked. "For now, certainly. Let me get set up.", she answered. "Here's a DVD from Dr. Alice with their records, including pictures of their bruises and hair when I got in that night.", I handed her a DVD in a sleeve. She took it, booted up her laptop and spent a few minutes skimming. "Its as well that you had Dr. Franklin examine them that night. Makes it very clear that you weren't responsible.", was her only comment. At my raised brow, "I would have assumed that you probably wouldn't have done any of this, but this avoids even needing to ask the question." "That's part of why I asked her, the other part was that I knew the kids had been beat up and wanted to check for urgent problems.", I said. Ms. Jones started the interview with the three kids sitting with me. She started out mostly talking to Lisa. Things were going OK, but she noticed that Lisa would glance at me before answering some of the questions. Part of it was slips on cussing, I wasn't sure what else she was worried about. I explained about the admonishment regarding gratuitous swearing, and tried to keep a very neutral expression and body language. It must have been good enough because Ms. Jones didn't complain. Her focus was a bit different than Frank's had been, she too was very good at getting Lisa to talk. Some of what Lisa and Julie told about was pretty bad, their current set of bruises was about normal for them and when we checked, there were several cigarette burn scars on all three of them, Lisa having the only fresh one. Neither Lisa nor Julie could remember when they lost their hymens, they knew that Vicky's had been the guy in the van, less than a year ago. Their mother had held her while he stuck his finger in. They both had been fucked for quite a while, Lisa thought Julie had first been fucked about her sixth birthday, and agreed that she had probably been around the same age the first time. Lisa could read a little, somewhere in second grade level, write at a low first grade level and do very simple arithmetic. Julie could read a very little and write her name. She was about at the same level as Lisa for arithmetic. I had the notion and got out some money. They knew money at the $20 level, figuring change and counting, accurately and fairly quickly. She got Vicky to talk a little bit but didn't manage to coax her out of my lap. She seemed unconcerned by this, mostly treating it as a data point. We had lunch then continued for a while. Ms. Jones had some IQ tests designed for pre-literate children. She said that Lisa and Julie did quite well on them, the results weren't very precise, but seemed to show that they were pretty bright kids. She was careful to point out that they were both much older than the typical test subject so the results should be taken with a grain of salt. On the other hand, pretty sure they weren't below average. Vicky was harder to judge, she mostly hid on my shoulder when pressed. She then turned her attention to me. 45, divorced years ago, two daughters, 20 and 22, at college in a different state, they had lived with me during high school. Ex wife living with someone in a third. Well above average income and assets. Well liked member of the community, if considered a bit odd by some. "What do you want to do with the girls? Frank said you would keep them if you could.", she asked at long last. "Yes, that would be my preference.", I answered. "Why would you want to take the responsibility for half breed kids, from a druggie mother. They are nearly feral, Lisa is way behind in school, and it sounds as if she has behavior problems as well." It seemed as if she was deliberately trying to provoke me. I took a few moments to answer. The provoke attempt didn't bother me, but I hadn't really asked that question of myself. I'd been running on automatic so far, see helpless endangered young -- seek to protect and nurture them -- purely on instinct. I mentioned this and asked her to give me a few minutes to collect my thoughts. She nodded assent and sat back in her chair, clearly prepared to wait for as long as I needed. After a bit I spoke, "Well, first off, the half breed comment is so far off the scale for me as to be meaningless. I have no interest in which continents their grandparents came from, nor what religion they were. I have a mild intellectual curiosity about these matters but no emotional concern whatsoever. The druggie mother is dead, so that only matters to the extent that they might be meth babies or some equivalent -- so far I see no signs of that, but I'm not certain I would know what to look for, nor if it would be possible to tell in such a short time. They don't have behavior problems that have been obvious to me yet. For the rest, sort of three reasons I can see for now. First, I find I like being a daddy again." At this, Lisa turned to look at me with very wide eyes and a bit of shock. I hugged her to me and she burrowed her face into my side. "I find I like them and care very much about what will happen to them. Probably quite a bit of instinct driving that, but on this subject, my head and heart are pulling in parallel. So, I'm willing to put out quite a bit of effort to keep them, or lacking that, to see that they have a good home. I'm probably saying it badly, but bottom line, I would very much like to be allowed to keep them." Ms. Jones nodded and indicated that I should continue. "Second, I think they like me and want to keep me.", this with Vicky on my lap with her cheek against my chest, Lisa hugging me from one side and Julie making a sweaty strip down the other. A wry grin from Ms. Jones and indication to go on. "Third, I promised Lisa mostly, but them, that I would make a real effort to keep them from going to a foster home -- yes, I realize that means a different foster home, and wouldn't send them away voluntarily" "And fourthly, sort of a haw-haw, only serious type of joke - I already have over $1000 into them, I want to protect my investment. And yes, I very much realize that if you let me keep them, $1000 is the very smallest of down payments. I raised two, still have them in college. I fully realize that kids are very expensive hobbies, almost on a par with sailboats." At this, Ms. Jones laughed. "You are realistic at least." Then, "You do realize that you have no legal claim on them, that in one sense, you are on shaky ground as a procurer of minor children." "Well, yes and no", I replied. "No, I make no claim in any sense of property rights to them. As I told Lisa, I paid the guy $500 because it would have probably cost me at least ten times that much for lawyers if I had shot him, even in clear self defense or to prevent him from beating up on her. Yes, somewhat in the sense the Chinese use that if you save someones life, you are responsible for their well being for the rest of their lives. (Might be remembering wrong about Chinese, might have been a different culture)." Lisa broke in, "You're gonna be our DADDY!!" Julie tugged at my other arm, "Please!!" "If she lets me", I said, nodding at Ms. Jones. "Please, Ms. Jones, Please", from both of them. "For this week, yes. After that, we will see what happens.", she told them. Then to me, "I think we can check off your point two as being a given." Then back to me, "So, what is your plan for taking care of three kids?" Pause -- I looked at a clock. "Understand that I'm making this up as I go, 46 hours ago, I didn't have any kids nor any expectation of needing a plan. And, its been a rather busy time since. Short term, feed them, finish getting the tangles out of Julie's hair. Feed them. Buy them some more clothes. Feed them. Get them a hair cut. Feed them. Re-arrange the house a bit for kid residence. Feed them." "How do I get authority to get Julie's arm fixed? Will the state help with the medical bills?", I asked her. "I will need to look into that a bit more, talk to Dr. Franklin. Assuming that what you tell me checks out, I can sign off on getting that started. State money ought to pay for most of it since they are in foster care. Ordinary medical, dental and eye care is a part of the short term foster care agreement that we will do before I leave.", she answered. Then asking me, "What would you do about school and work?" I thought about that one for a few moments, "Well, first off, I don't *have* to work another day of my life. Secondly, the work I do is intermittent, and by negotiated contract. If they want me, the contract will include local day care as needed for wherever the job is. My first thought on school would be home school. Lisa and Julie are so far out of whack on school that it would be quite difficult to fit them in to a public school. It sounds as if they need a bit of work on social skills as well. Brownies and /or 4H should be possible. Perhaps some day care to have them a place to be with other kids in a supervised setting. I know several people with grand kids around their age. In a year or three, that could be re-evaluated. It fits with the contract jobs well though. If I have a week or three of intensive work, they can have a short vacation and we pick up when I get over the hump." "That doesn't sound like a very stable life, dragging them around the country.", Ms. Jones said. Lisa snorted, "Sounds real good to me. Sleep in a clean, warm bed every night -- mostly the same bed, eat every day, food probably ain't rotten neither. And he ain't hit me or my sisters even once yet. Bought us lots of real nice clothes too." Lisa paused for a moment, counting on her fingers. "I think he's fed us more since he bought us than we ate in the week before, maybe two weeks." Ms. Jones looked at their thin faces and arms, then at the cheap Walmart clothes and looked a bit sick. "Julie", I said. Go get the sack of clothes you were wearing when I got you." She scampered off and returned in a moment with a garbage sack. "I was going to throw these away, then decided to keep them till you had a chance to see them." She rummaged around in the sack, bringing out several very ragged garments. I continued after a moment, "The clothes and the kids were what I would describe as filthy because I can't think of a stronger word that isn't obscene. In addition, both Julie and Vicky had big matted lumps of tangle in their hair, what you see in Julie's is the last tag end. I washed their clothes so they wouldn't call a hazmat team when we went to WalMart yesterday. Since they are staying, I will buy them more and better clothes. LaMont's might have asked us to leave if I had taken in them dressed in those. Lots of clothes was two changes plus shoes, jacket and snow boots." "OK", she told Julie, Lisa and Vicky, "You can keep him for now." That got her tackled by the two older girls and got me a kiss from Vicky. Ms. Jones spent a while filling out forms, I got the girls a dish of ice cream each while she worked. In a bit, she had a stack of papers for me to sign and/or keep. One of them stated that I would be paid as a foster home. I protested, and Ms. Jones informed me that it was part of the package, that not doing it would cause her much more grief that leaving it in, and might trigger a review from higher up. I hushed up immediately. I was a foster parent for the three girls. There would be a weekly visit by Ms. Jones or a designated alternate. If things were going well at six weeks, that would be extended to every other week, another six weeks and it would go to once per month. If I was going to be out of town on a scheduled visit date, arrangements would be made to have it before or after. For longer contract stays, we would need to return periodically if it was going to be more than two visits skipped. As she prepared to leave she called Lisa and Julie over. She sat down to be about the same height and coaxed the girls into a hug. "You two need to be very careful to not let me catch you sleeping with Jeff. That would be a very bad thing to have happen." She then came over to me and Vicky, ignoring the stunned look on my face and managed to coax Vicky into her arms for a short hug. "Be happy little one." then allowed Vicky to twist and reach back to me. "See you at 10:30 next Thursday", to me as she walked out the door. **************************************************** Chapter 7 -- the third evening. I put Vicky down then sat down, thinking about the last few minutes. Lisa came over to me. "Daddy?", she said timidly. I put an arm around her, "Yes love." She started bawling, crawled into my lap and clung to me. I cuddled her and rubbed her back for a few minutes till the sobs eased. Julie and Vicky were crying some too, and hanging onto me as well. I wished I had three arms. "What's the matter love?", I asked, suspecting the answer. "We ain't never had a real daddy before, not never." "You have one now", was the best I could come up with. It seemed to be sufficient. I shifted them around so all three were inside my arms and where I could kiss their faces. Note to self, go chair shopping tomorrow, I need a recliner that will fit all of us. On second thought, it was only 3:30 so decided to go chair shopping today. I loaded the kids up and we drove into town to search for the perfect chair. It took five stores and two towns, most of the sales people we dealt with were quite amused at the criteria for chair selection. Finally we found one that would hold all four of us abreast, was a high quality chair that would probably last for years and covered in a cloth that would breath, and was advertised as water repellent and difficult to stain. I paid for it delivered, an extra $25 got us immediate delivery. An hour and a half later I was sitting in the new chair, Vicky and Lisa on either side while I ouched Julie's hair. We were down to one small matted lump when I quit, if I couldn't get it out next session, I was just going to cut it out. I wiped most of the oil out of Julie's hair with paper towels, then fixed supper for us all. Both because they weren't starving hungry anymore and were starting to really believe that I wouldn't take it away from them, they ate more slowly. This time they only had to wait while I ate the last half of my meal. After cleanup from supper I took Julie into the shower to wash her hair, the other two followed (Of course). I didn't protest when they stripped me. I returned the favor, noting that the bruises were aging nicely, Lisa's face apparently hadn't been a solid blow, the bruises were fading and some older yellow and green ones were progressing. Julie and Vicky were looking better as well and showed less tenderness. I washed Julie's hair, then the rest of her body, lingering a little longer on her pussy, she leaned against me, nearly purring. I washed Vicky, hair and body, repeating the extra attention to her pussy, this left me with a very hard cock that Lisa was gently rubbing. She looked at me, I didn't protest, she bent over and started sucking on the head. I reached down and caressed her cheek, "You don't have to do this, you know." She released me with her mouth but not her hands, "But I want to." Julie, seeing the opening replaced her sister on the end of my cock. I looked down at her, she looked up at me and grinned, mostly with her eyes. I carefully sat on the shower ledge seat, "I give up, ravish me as you will." That interrupted Julie, she raised her head off me, "What?" I pulled her to me, and gave her a kiss on the lips, "Go ahead, just so long as its fun for you." This had given Vicky an opening, and she was now attached to my cock. I decided to relax and enjoy it, only wishing again I had at least three hands to caress my naked girls. It had been a while since my last opportunity with a female of any age, then two days of intermittent naked girls with occasional excuses to fondle them and little opportunity to masturbate. Less than a minute later I started cumming in Vicky's mouth. Obviously a veteran, she kept sucking and pumping until I had finished and was getting pretty soft. We cuddled for a minute or so, then aware that the hot water was finite, I finished washing them and we got out. As I was helping them brush teeth it came to me. Dentist, they were going to need exams, and probably work. Eye exams too. More things for the to-do list. I put them in their bed, we agreed on when the 10 minutes would be up and I went to my room. I read for 10 minutes then the thundering herd arrived. Julie and Lisa had me roll onto my stomach and started rubbing my back, they sent Vicky for a hair brush and had her brush my hair. After a while Lisa rolled me back over, with a bit of wiggling, I managed without knocking any kids off onto the floor. (Note to self, look into a king bed tomorrow, a queen was really too small for four, even if three of them are small kids.) Vicky and Julie cuddled up to me, one on either side inside my arms. I lay there caressing them and kissing them a little. Lisa was kneeling between my legs and playing with my cock, not like she was trying to get me off, rather stroking it for a bit, then rubbing lightly with her fingertips, bending it this way and that to examine it and combing my pubic hair with her fingers. I was fairly hard, but not near an orgasm. After a bit she sort of crawled up my body and lay on my stomach and chest, her head tucked under my chin. "Daddy", she said. "Yes love" "Will you fuck me?" "No love" "Why not, I want you to?" "I'll make love to you." Pause -- "Ain't that the same thing." "No, love. Not even close." Longer pause -- "Why not, you stick your cock in me, slide it in and out, come in me, makes us both feel good." "No love, that's fucking. Sounds like the good kind of fucking, but fucking." Longer pause -- "Whats 'make love' then?" "I'll show you if you want." Pause -- "Is it as good as fucking?" "Oh, much better" "OK. Now?" "In a few minutes love, we have your sisters here, I need to talk to them a little first. Scoot back down between my legs for a moment.", I told Lisa. I kissed Julie, then Vicky, "girls, Lisa asked me to make love to her. This will take a while to do it right, and while I'm doing it, it needs to be her time. You two can have turns later, but Lisa asked first. OK?" They nodded. "So, is there anything you want. It will take at least an hour do a good job for Lisa. You can watch, or help if you want to. Just not interrupt.", I told them. "Can we have some ice cream.", Vicky asked. "Yes love, right away love." I rolled to my feet and picked her up, upside down. "I'm upside down", she half laughed, half squealed. "You sure of that?", I asked giving her pussy a lick since it was convenient. That got me a louder squeal and she tried to double up. "Yes, my head's down here" "Oops, my mistake. Sorry", I gave her pussy another lick. "Turn me right side up", she commanded. I lifted her up till her face was only a little below mine, then bent my neck to kiss her on the nose. "You don't like it this way?" "No!! Turn me right side up now", the force of the command was somewhat spoiled by the fact that she was giggling as she said it. "Yes Mistress, at once Mistress, right away Mistress" I inverted her, settled her on my hip and gave her another kiss. "You're silly", she thumped me on the chest with a fist. "Yes Mistress, I am Mistress", I hung my head. "Get my ice cream", she ordered. "Yes Mistress, at once Mistress", I reached down with the other arm to Julie who was watching the show, giggling herself. She gave a hop and settled herself on my other hip. We went to the kitchen for ice cream. As we were finishing the ice cream, Lisa asked me, "You gonna fuck me for more than an hour? I never saw a guy could last that long. Rafe only took two or three minutes." "No", I said patiently, "I'm going to make love to you. That will take at least an hour to do it right. I'll only have my cock in your pussy for part of that time, quite a bit more than two minutes though." "Oh", she looked thoughtful. Julie and Vicky agreed that they would wait for anything else till after I was done with Lisa. I scooped Lisa up in my arms, gave her a long kiss and carried her back to the bed room with a detour through the bathroom. There I took a piss while she watched, then had her spread her legs so I could watch while she pissed. She giggled. I wiped her, then fondled her for a moment, ending it with another deep kiss. I picked her up again and carried her to the bed, laying her on her back and laying on my side beside her, playing with her pussy and nipples, kissing her and telling her how beautiful she was. "You think I'm beautiful?", she asked. "Very beautiful, one of the top three girls in my life at the moment", I told her. It took her a moment to parse that. "That's us." Another pause, "you got a girl friend?" "Yep, three of them, all of them beautiful", I peppered her face and chest with little kisses. It seemed to distract her. "Who?, her nipples were hardening. "Well, let's see. There's Julie. And Vicky. And... let's see, what's her name ... let me think ... oh, yeah, Lisa. Ow. You hit me." "You deserved it. I ain't beautiful. I got all these marks on me where Rafe and the others hit me. I'm skinny. I got this beak of a nose. I got no tits. My hair's awful. I'm ugly.", by now she was crying. I sat up and took her in my arms and cuddled her against my chest. "No love, you are very beautiful to me." "Rafe and Marga both said I'm ugly" "And you believe *them*? At the moment, you aren't very pretty. But -- the marks will fade and go away in a few weeks. The scars that remain will be badges of honor. I'm working on fattening you up a little. A couple of months and your ribs won't show like that.", I ran a finger down her side, going bump, bump, bump. She pulled away a bit at the tickle. "It is a fine nose, shows your Aztec ancestors. You will grow tits in good time and your hair will look nice after the hair dresser gets finished with you in a few days. Pretty and beautiful are not the same, much like fucking and making love. Pretty is good if I am looking at a girl across the room. For someone I live with and love, it has almost zero value. Ugly is someone like Rafe, who beat up, raped a kid and made her think she was ugly. Beautiful is a kid that grabbed onto a chance to get away from him with both hands and her teeth. Who bravely moved into an entirely different life style and is making the transition with little fuss. Who has put up with the pain of the bruises and burns he left without whinging. Who takes care of and protects her sisters. Who looks me in the eye and demands that I answer hard questions. You know any kids like that?", I hugged her to me and let her cry. Vicky and Julie were cuddled up on either side as I sat on the edge of the bed. After a few minutes I had Vicky and Julie move, and throw the covers back. I lay down in the middle with Lisa still cuddled to my chest, the other two got in beside me and covered us all up. I lay there stroking her back, occasionally kissing her head. "You don't like pretty", came the muffled question from my chest. "Pretty is always good. If all I'm doing is looking, pretty is valuable. Its more fun to look at a pretty young girl than an ugly old man. For someone I'm going to live with for years, it isn't important. It isn't bad, but other things are much more important.", I replied. After a bit, "Like what?" "Trust -- can I depend on the person to do what needs to be done, or if not, tell me what did happen and why. Like -- is this a person that I like to have around me, that I look forward to being with them. Care -- someone who cares about me, if I am happy or sad, healthy or sick, rich or poor, and will do what she can to help with problems. Strong -- someone who can live her own life along with sharing mine, who can tell me 'no' when I am wrong.", I answered her. Another long pause, "What about love?" "Love as shown in romance novels and TV is greatly overrated. If you have all the bits I listed, you will have love. If you have love without them, you will have hell as well.", was my reply. A shorter pause, "What about me?" "How do you fit those four things I listed?", I asked. A nod against my chest. I looked at the bedside clock, it said 8:00PM. "Let's see, it has been about 51 hours since I met you., just over two days. Trust -- don't know yet. So far you haven't given me any reason not to trust you. On the other hand, given your background, it may take a while to get you trained to look farther than what you can get away with right now. And I expect that lying was a necessary survival skill. Again, I expect to need to train you on how and when. I anticipate problems, We will deal with them. We will probably both survive the experience." I looked down at her, "Sound about right so far." She blushed a bit, but nodded. "Like -- I've come to like and admire you in the two days I've known you. It seems as if you feel the same way about me. So long as we don't mess up too bad, we should be good here. That one sound about right to you?" "Uh huh", from Lisa. "Care -- I've come to care very much about you three and believe I have acted to demonstrate that care. You seem to care about me, but we haven't had much opportunity to test that one yet. Not a problem, nor expectation of problems, just not much data yet." Another nod from Lisa. "Strong -- someday when I grow up I hope to be half as strong as you are. You came out of a terrible situation with your eyes open and your head up and are doing a terrific job of adapting to a new world." That got me a giggle and a hug. I repaid with a kiss on her forehead. She turned onto her stomach on my chest and wiggled up so her face was above mine. She kissed my nose then a much longer kiss with tongue. This stiffened me right up, she giggled as I rose and pressed against her buttocks. She continued to kiss me and wiggle, I was caressing her bottom and back. After a bit she sat up, moved back and raised up over my cock. She reached down and guided it against her pussy lips, rubbing the head back and fourth in her slit. She pushed it back to her vaginal opening and pressed down. She wasn't very wet, and I didn't have enough precum to lube her very well. After a moment, I reached down, grasped her by the hips and brought her pussy up to my mouth. I licked her slit for a minute, working lots of saliva onto my tongue, then moved her back to my cock. This time it slid into her opening for a couple of inches before coming to a stop from friction from dry skin. She raised up, bringing some of her lube back out, then down again, getting another half inch. A few more progressively longer strokes and she was sitting down in my lap looking very pleased with herself. I played with her nipples as she sat there, soon she started raising up and then sitting back down. As she established a rhythm, I matched her, thrusting up to meet her as she descended, and back down as she raised up. My first fuck of a preteen girl in many years didn't last as long as I had promised her, I beat the three minutes I think, not sure at all that I made four. As I came back down from the high, I pulled her down onto my chest, rubbing her back and ass, and kissing her forehead, that being as far as I could reach without pulling her off my softening cock. I wanted to stay inside her as long as I could, so held her pushed down a bit, still holding a bit of a thrust with my hips. A minute or so later I had softened and when she giggled she pushed me out. Having lost the connection anyway, I pulled her up to where I could kiss her, she was an enthusiastic participant. After a couple of minutes of tonsil hockey, I raised her up so I could focus on her face. "Do you understand a bit better now, the difference between making love and fucking?" She pushed down and kissed me once more then raised back up. "Uh huh, that was real good." "The main difference was that I wanted to make it good for you more than I wanted to come inside you. And you wanted to make it good for me", I told her, "Fucking can be very good some times if both people want to. Making love is almost always better." "Can we do it again?", she asked. "Not tonight", I replied. "Why not?" "Two reasons. Its getting late and I don't think I could come three times like that in one night. And your sisters each get a turn next." "But Vicky's too little.", she protested. "Too little to fuck, probably. Not too little to cuddle, kiss and be licked", I replied, "She already proved she can suck." "I suppose", somewhat grudgingly. Then kissed me again, "I love you daddy." "I love you, daughter. I'm very glad I stopped at the rest area." She wiggled down on me and lay on my chest, her head tucked under my chin, nearly purring as I caressed her. Vicky and Julie took the opportunity to raise up and take turns kissing me. A few minutes later, Lisa giggled, "I'm leaking." Pause -- "I know, I can feel it on my legs." Pause -- "Should we do anything about it?" Pause -- "I suppose so." I had Julie grab a couple of tissues and pushed them part way into Lisa's oozing hole. "Daddy!, that's not nice." "It worked, didn't it?" "It doesn't feel very good." "OK, if that's the way you're gonna be.", I rolled her off me and sat up, then stood, picked her up, she sort of melted into my shoulder. I headed for the shower with Julie and Vicky following. *************************************************** Chapter 8 Next day I called Dr. Alice and started the process of fixing Julie's arm. I gave up on the last lump in Julie's hair and cut it out. Then I called a friend with kids and got a recommendation for a place to go to get their hair worked on. A slot for the girls would be available at 10:30 -- we hurried. I sat down at the computer and typeset some cards. ------------------------------------------ The three girls are Lisa, Julie and Vicky. I found them at the Franklin Canyon Rest Area, Sunday night. They came with the bruises and bad hair. You can ask them if you wish, or call Sheriff Hebner or Ms. Jones at Children's Services. They know the whole story. Jeff Wilson ------------------------------------------ I figured the cards would reduce the amount of hostile glares, or at least trade them for a different set of stares. It worked, sort of, at least I didn't have any cops try to arrest me for child abuse while we were shopping. The hair dressing crew were more shocked at the state of their hair than they were about the bruises and the burn on Lisa's hand, at least much more vocal about it. I was denounced as a barbarian, the point that they came with the tangles and matted lumps was only grudgingly accepted as a defense. The manicurist insisted on doing their nails, hands and feet and refused payment. After a bit of argument I gave up, but added twenty to the tip when I paid for the hair work. I departed with one girl with short hair, two girls with very short hair and a large sack of hair care products with instructions on how to use them. We stopped by the home of the friend with small girls. She inspected the sack, instructions and the girls. We left there with a much simpler hair care regime planned. Lunch at Taco Bell, then back to Walmart for a second load of clothes. I figured that the cheap ones would do for now, I had offered a bribe of a dinner to the friend with the kids. She laughed and made a counter offer. If I would ride herd on her kids while we shopped, she would go along as a consultant on a trip to a better department store and get a few sets of good clothes next week some time. We agreed on next Wednesday, after lunch. The current investment in kids and related costs had passed three grand. Back home, I did some measuring and thinking while the girls tried on new clothes. We needed two more dressers in their room. I had two more unused bedrooms in the fixed part of the house, I checked and a king bed would fit OK in one of them. I called a computer geek friend and told him what I needed to do. We agreed on three netbooks, configured with Linux in an education version, a file server and print server -- not very powerful, but one that would allow community storage and controlled printer usage. That and a new wireless router, mine was getting a bit aged, would upgrade my computer system to meet the new requirements. A quick look on the Internet showed a number of choices for home school. For a bit of money, on line schools with teachers were available. Further research and thinking were definitely in my future, but it looked as if that one should work. One more call to the friend with small girls, some contacts and recommendations for day care. I planned to try for two or three hours, three days a week with me in residence. Several phone calls, and a couple of interviews over the next few days and I had things set up for the girls to attend day care from 3 to 6 Tuesday and Thursday, 8 to 11 on Saturday. I was to have a corner where I could read, work and observe. I told the supervisor most of the tale, she understood that the kids had been living rough all their lives, and the purpose of the day care was to have them with other kids in a supervised social/school setting. That I expected some problems and planned to be there to monitor and head things off while they were still small. The supervisor thought my request was strange, but after hearing the history of the girls was willing to try it. There was some problems, but nearly all the parents of the other kids were supportive when they heard the story. Being kept at home instead of going to day care seemed to be considered a harsh punishment, a few sessions of that and Julie and Lisa started being very careful to avoid starting any trouble. I worked on the concept of turning the other cheek, with the codicil that having turned the second cheek, one was allowed to protect oneself, but even then, applying excessive force was still verboten. My real ace in the hole was that Lisa turned out to be very smart in a street smart sort of way, and in some ways, disciplined to the point of being scary. She figured out that she and her sisters were far far better off with me than they had ever been, and she monitored herself and her sisters very closely for anything that seemed to displease me. This, on the one hand was very good because I was able to train her up to have at least a veneer of civilized behavior fairly quickly, bad because her judgment of which part of my reactions were important and which were unthinking conditioned responses on my part wasn't very good. I had to be very careful not to react to unimportant issues, and to explain some of the ones that slipped through before she beat up on herself and her sisters. The incident at the grocery store on the second day was an example. Vicky had begged for candy. I told her 'No', perhaps a bit more firmly than I should have. Lisa had whispered to her to knock it off, lest I dump them back on the streets or to the cops. Vicky was terrified that I might. It had taken a bit of coaxing that day before she relaxed, partly because at the time I didn't understand what the problem was. I regretted having mentioned dumping them when we were discussing rules and property damage the first night. *************************************************** Chapter 9 -- The fourth evening with girls. After supper, I flipped a coin. Julie lost the toss, so Vicky would get my full attention for a while when we went to bed. At eight, I tucked them into their bed. 8:10 had them back in my lap in the new chair. 8:15 had them stripping me, they had shed their sleeping clothes when they left their room. They took turns sucking me tonight, Julie was the one that got the load. After that, we cuddled for a while and a little before 9:00 I picked up Vicky and went to bed. Again, I laid her on her back to start, fondling and kissing her -- talking to her and telling her how much I loved to play with her this way. After a bit I moved down between her legs, then starting with her face I kissed her face, neck, chest, pausing at her nipples to give them a good job, then down her body, pausing to blow a few zoobers in her belly button. When I got her uncurled from that, I worked my way down her belly and gave a quick lick in her slit. That got more squeals and giggles, I kissed for a bit, up and down her thighs, pausing each time at her pussy. I had Lisa and Julie get on each side and suck gently on her nipples, then started licking her slit for serious, working from her clit to her vagina and back again, She started thrusting her hips against my mouth as I worked. I think I got a small orgasm for her, I'm quite sure she enjoyed it. In a few minutes, she seemed to tire, I moved Lisa and lay back down on that side of her, then turned her on her stomach and started rubbing her back. I worked my way down her back, buttocks and legs in a few minutes, then showed Lisa and Julie how to use the tips of a few fingers, barely touching Vicky and moving slowly. Her breathing slowed, and in a few minutes more, she was sound asleep. I lay beside her and moved her so she on her side in the curve of my arm, head on my shoulder. "That was making love? You didn't cum. You ain't even hard.", Lisa asked quietly. "One way -- do you doubt she enjoyed it?", nodding at Vicky. "Yeah, she liked it real good." "Do you think she feels safe and loved?", I asked. "Uh, Huh." "You think she'd rather be anywhere else, doing anything else right now?" "Huh, Uh", Lisa shook her head. "Would you like me do to that with you next time?" "Uh, Huh, 'specially if you fucked me too." "Do you think I enjoyed it?" "Sure seemed like it." "Making love can be anything from a cuddle and a few kisses all the way through mad passionate sex. If you are happy and making me happy, that's all that counts.", I told her, then gave her a kiss. Julie leaned over and kissed me, then went to the foot of the bed and crawled up between my legs. Much like Lisa had the night before, she took my cock and started stroking and examining it. This quickly firmed it up. She giggled a bit and kissed it, continuing to fondle me, combing the hair on my stomach and pushing my balls back and fourth. After five minutes or so of that, she pushed Lisa aside and came up to my shoulder. "Lick me", she demanded. I had to work my arm from around Vicky and scoot over a bit so she could get a knee on either side of my head. I licked her for bit. "Get me real slippery like you did Lisa", she ordered. She then stood and moved back to my cock, standing astride my body. She squatted, I reached down and grasped her hips and helped support and guide her as she sat on the end of my cock. She reached down and rubbed the head the length of her slit then positioned it in the pocket of the entrance to her vagina. The scrawny seven year old hardly seemed to weigh anything, I was able to hold her without any strain. She pressed down on my cock, held it for a few seconds and lifted up a bit, not enough to come clear but enough to remove all pressure. She then settled back down pushing a bit harder, raised up and repeated. Her pussy opening stretched as she did that, each cycle got me a little deeper into her. Five or six cycles and the head popped through her opening. It seemed incredible that this small of a girl could not only have my cock in her pussy, but was getting off on it as well. Julie couldn't take me all in, there was still about two inches left when the head of my cock bumped her cervix. She sat there for a moment, then started doing shallow knee bends, she could only move a couple of inches between loosing me at the top of the stroke and bumping her cervix at the bottom. This soon woke Vicky, she protested, "It was supposed to be my turn tonight." "But you went to sleep", I replied, trying to tease her a little. She looked at Julie who had her eyes mostly closed and her head tipped back. I was matching her motion with about 1" strokes. The thought of fucking a seven year old, along with the other two naked girls cuddling with me was too much and I kind of lost it. I held Julie stationary for a moment, thrusting into her, working hard to not bump her cervix too hard nor fall out at the other end of the stroke, then stiffened and dumped a big load of cum into her tight little hole. Julie got off at the same time and I could feel her cunt spasms milking my cock as I came. We held it for another 30 seconds or so then she kind of collapsed on my chest. Julie lay there, breathing hard -- I caressed her back and buttocks then had Vicky and Lisa get on each side and rubbed her back, like we had done Vicky a little while ago. As happened last night, I softened and in a few minutes Julie giggled about something and popped me out, then started dripping on my belly. She didn't much like tissues stuffed in her pussy either so we did a quick shower. She thought it was kind of cool to have me press the shower head against her bottom and fill her vagina up with warm water, then let it gush back out. We dried off, went back to bed and gave Vicky another session of cuddling, kissing, licking, backrub and sleep. This time however, when Vicky went to sleep, we followed quickly. **************************************************** Chapter 10 With the new, short haircuts, brushing hair didn't take long at all the next morning, they spent more time brushing mine than I did on theirs, much of that time was hardly necessary as my current hair do has a big hole on top and the hair on the sides and back is long by the standards of my father, but fairly short by the standards of high school and college when I was there. They seemed to be having fun, and I certainly wasn't going to protest. Things had eased up a bit for urgency, so I composed and sent an email to my two daughters, Sarah and Andi, telling them of their new foster sisters. I deliberately made it brief, figuring that I would have 'What the hell??' with request for phone call emails waiting for me when we got home later. We loaded up and went off to spend more money. Two used dressers and a king bed frame from Good Will, and a high quality mattress from a sleep shop along with a couple sets of sheets and a collection of bed-covers. Delivery was scheduled for 2-4pm that afternoon. Mid morning meal, then Toys-R-Us furnished some toys that looked like they might help get the girls started on math and reading, then with some guidance and a few vetoes, each girl got two more toys for play. Next stop was a big book store. I got a copy of 'Winnie-The-Pooh' and 'The House at Pooh Corner' and a half dozen Dr. Seuss books. We spent a half hour each evening reading from them. The first pass through, I read to them. It took longer than one might have thought. Some evenings, two or three pages were as far as we got by the time I explained the background of the scene. When we got home, the expected emails from my older daughters were waiting. Half an hour on the phone later, I had semi serious threats from them to come rescue their new sisters from me. I figured that I should expect them one weekend soon, they were in college and shared a car. Gas money was promised, along with the usual warnings that appearing on my doorstep unannounced ran a significant risk of finding an unoccupied doorstep. A call to my dentist go an appointment a few weeks out, a call to the optometrist yielded similar results. We had the mid afternoon meal. Feeding them often seemed to help to establish trust, the rate of eating was still decreasing. Furniture arrived, and was set up. The girls and I spent a while taking tags from clothes and putting them in the dressers and closet. ***************************************************** Chapter 11 -- evening of the fifth day. Early supper then a sit with the girls in the new recliner and the first session of reading -- right or wrong, I started with Pooh, I spent at least as much time explaining background as I did reading. Kids that have lived out of a van, with virtually no parenting are lacking in background that I had taken entirely for granted. Not at all surprisingly, within 30 minutes I had three sleeping girls. I left them to sleep and moved to my desk to work for a while. I got some of the more urgent tasks done, then thought a bit and composed an email to my older daughters. --------------------------------------------- Allie and Sarah -- To give you a bit more background on your new sisters. I stopped at the Franklin Canyon Rest Area four nights ago and found them getting beat up by what was probably an illegal immigrant. He was the leader of a group -- I counted eleven, there may have been more kids in the van that I never saw. They, plus these three, were traveling in a stretch van with all their worldly possessions. I will let your imaginations fill in the details, mine suffered from severe back strain when I tried it. They are battered, thin to the point of emaciation and were being used as fuck toys by the males in the group. Somewhat surprisingly, Lisa, the oldest sister jumped on the chance to get away from them when I offered. When I offered, I was holding a guy that had been hitting her at gunpoint after he had threatened me with a switchblade. Instead of shooting him, I offered him $500 for the girls and he took it. Was last seen heading for Mexico -- hope he will stay there. At any rate, I made the mistake of feeding them and being nice to them. They followed me home and I haven't been able to get rid of them. They seem to feel that since I bought them, I should keep them. (I will have to confess that my efforts to rid myself of them have been pretty feeble -- actually rather negative, comes right down to it. Oh well, you have accused me of picking up strays before.) When you show up -- Two things I can see at the moment where you should use care. One) They are not yet convinced that I want them to stay, they are quite fearful that they will make me mad and I will dump them. Please make no jokes that might be construed that they might lose their place here. No comments about them stealing your dad. Try to work into the role of big sister/mother instead. Two) Try not to tempt them with opportunities to steal from you. Don't need to be real paranoid, just keep your stuff like you would if staying at a distant relatives house where you don't know the kids at all. They've been living rough all their lives, especially the last few months. I fully expect that they stole a significant fraction of what they were eating since their mother died 'til I acquired them. Lying has to have been a survival skill as well, and I expect that Lisa is very good at it. I have no reason to suspect that she has stolen from me or lied to me about any matter of import, but I fully expect that 'yet' is the operative word there. I told Lisa and Julie up front that not stealing from me nor lying to me was a condition for them to stay. I expect relapses, hope to catch them early while the problems are little. I have no confidence at all that she and Julie will consider you off limits, but hope that they won't make an effort to create an opportunity to steal. I've been feeding them every hour and a half or two hours when we are awake so the immediate urgency to forage hasn't been there. You are, as always, welcome to visit at any time, see you soon. Love, Dad --------------------------------------------- I reviewed it and sent it off, then woke the girls for the bedtime dish of ice cream. I tucked and kissed them into bed, went back to the new chair and waited to be attacked. 11 minutes on the clock, right on schedule I was accosted by three naked girls. Julie had apparently been plotting and scheming with Lisa because they grabbed my hands, pulled me out of the chair and towed me into the bedroom. She pulled me to the foot of the bed, then crawled to the top and laid on her back in the center of the bed with her legs spread wide. Lisa turned me so she could reach, bent down and stared sucking and pumping on my cock. I hardened quickly, she let go, turned me and pushed me towards Julie. I crawled up the bed, then moved one of Julie's legs down straight and moved on up to lay beside her. She protested, "I want you inside me." She reached down and grasped my erection. "You do?", I asked, then kissed and stuck my tongue in her ear. "Yes!!", she turned her head so I couldn't lick her ear. She turned towards me, so I kissed her nose, then licked her eyelids instead. "I was inside you and you pulled away." "Not that way, I want your thing in me." "OK", I stuck the tip of my finger in her mouth. "Not that way, put your cock in my cunt." "What if I'm not ready yet?", I asked, tracing patterns around her nipples with the tip of one finger while leaning over her to lick the other ear. "But its my turn tonight!", she squeaked. "Your turn for what?", then kissing her with little peck kisses all over her face and neck. "To fuck." "But I don't want to fuck you.", I said then spent a moment licking and kissing her flat little nipples. She raised up and looked at my rampant cock. "Yes you do, you're all hard." I made a show of looking, "How about that. It is hard isn't it.", I lay back down and drew circles around her nipples with the tip of a finger, then a pass down her stomach and caressed her pussy for a moment. Julie's frustration wasn't improved by Lisa's giggles as she watched me tease her sister. I took a moment to kiss and fondle first Lisa, then Vicky. I turned back to Julie and pulled her into a long kiss, fondling her pussy and rubbing circles around her clit with a finger. She arched her back and thrust her hips against my hand. I stayed with her for four or five thrusts, then removed my hand and used it to fondle her nipples. "Noo", she moaned and tried to push my hand back down to her pussy. I shifted around and started kissing my way down her body, reaching her pubic mound in about 30 seconds. Now she was trying to push my mouth onto her swollen pussy lips. I teased her for another 30 seconds then moved so I was between her legs and moved them so they were wide spread. I had Vicky and Lisa move on either side and caress and kiss her nipples while I started giving Julie a serious tongue lashing. With the build up, less than a minute had her cumming. I kept licking while she peaked, then came back down, then immediately crawled up and slid my very hard cock into her. She went wild, thrusting against me and cumming again. I didn't try to hold back and came almost at once, filling her with semen. I held it, pushing against her till she came down and relaxed, then had Vicky move and collapsed over onto my side holding Julie impaled on my cock. I rolled on over onto my back holding her down against me while I held the thrust with my hips. As before I was only able to stay in her for a couple of minutes -- soon I softened and she pushed me out. This time I had Lisa get a towel to catch the drips so we could lay there and cuddle for a while. "Wasn't that better than just fucking?, I asked Julie after a bit. "Uh, huh", a nod against my chest. "Roll over", ordered Lisa, pushing at us. I rolled onto my side, continuing to hold Julie. Lisa started rubbing my back lightly with just the tips of her fingers, moving slowly. I think I purred a bit, after a moment I moved Julie onto her stomach in front of me and started working her back in the same way. I had Vicky move to Julie's other side and rub her legs in the same way I was working on her back. We stayed there, for fifteen minutes or so, then I rousted everyone out to take a shower. A fairly long shower with lots of touching, a after bedtime bowl of ice cream, and we collapsed back into bed, this time with cuddles, kisses, and caresses. The three girls didn't last long before dropping off to sleep, I followed very shortly. *********************************************** Chapter 12 Wednesday we met my friend for lunch then clothes shopping for a couple of hours. Each girl got two full outfits of high quality clothes, one with pants and one dress with accessories. I ran a quick total in my head and noted that stray kids had cost me nearly $5500 in out of pocket costs so far -- more than half capital expenditures, but cash spent anyway. I was running a bit under estimate so didn't fret. Noted that I should start a spreadsheet at least to track money spent on them, it might be useful when negotiating with Ms. Jones or successors. Soon it was Thursday again. I got the girls up, fed and dressed for the one week call by Ms. Jones. Bruises still showed on faces and arms, but fading. The one week followup with Dr. Alice had found no unexpected problems. A week of being fed well was already showing some in their condition, they didn't tire nearly as easily as they had the first few days and their faces had filled out a little. Assuming approval for work on Julie's arm, we had an appointment with an orthopedist early next week. Ms. Jones arrived on time. She noted the hairdos, the improvement in condition and the fact that the girls weren't clinging to me full time. She expressed amusement at the chair, we were siting in it, Julie and Lisa on either side and Vicky in my lap. The difference was that Vicky was sitting up and talking to her, Julie and Lisa, while touching me on either side, were also sitting upright and bubbling on about the clothes, toys and books. She listened while they told her of their week, Julie and Lisa took her on a tour of their bedroom and clothes. After half an hour, she gave us provisional approval for long term foster status. She had birth certificate equivalents for the girls, as Lisa, Julie and Vicky Rodriguez, social security card applications and approval to get Julie's arm fixed. Saturday I took the girls to their first session at day care. Saturday morning daycare was fairly sparse, there were only four other kids in residence -- one of the reasons I choose to have the first session on a Saturday. I had gone over the rules with the kids the evening before -- the essence was no violence, no matter the provocation. No cussing at all, and no yelling at the other kids. If they tried to take a toy, let them have it. If they asked for a toy, should probably let them have it. They should participate in any activity the teachers/attendants suggested and make a real effort to co-operate. If they felt they had any problem at all, they were to come to me and we would talk about it. If they felt they couldn't cope with the other kids or teachers, they could come sit with me and just watch for a while. Given my fears and expectations, things went well. I only hand to scold Vicky once for swatting at another little boy. Julie needed a bit of coaxing to let another girl play with blocks. Lisa spent about half her time sitting with me. She would go for a while then seem like she reached a limit on her self control and she would voluntarily withdraw for a while. They kept swearing to a minimum, I needed to do little because they corrected themselves pretty well. On the way home I praised them for their efforts. Lisa got very quiet. When we got home I took her and snuggled in the chair for a while, talking to her. Being praised was totally foreign to her life experience and she didn't know how to respond to it. Sunday we cleaned house and cooked a full dinner with home made chocolate pudding and ice cream for desert. Turned out that real cooking was nearly as foreign to them as praise, if a bit less traumatic. ********************************************** Chapter 13 Monday morning I started them on scheduled school work. I figured to just do all three together for a while and see how it worked out. My plan was 30 minutes on reading, 15 minutes on coloring with crayons, both as a break and to work on hand/eye coordination, 30 minutes on math, another 15 minutes on coloring, then 30 minutes on writing skills. A three lap run around the outside of the house between each of the five classes and a meal break somewhere in the middle. I figured to try one session per day for a week or two then add more time to speed up the pace. As soon as reading skills reached a threshold, I should be able to start them on computer aided training so they could work without 100% supervision. Vicky had no problem keeping up for the first while -- her relative youth balanced by the fact that she didn't know she couldn't do the work. I wanted her to do it, praised her for her efforts and success, she took it and ran with it. Lisa actually had the most trouble, she had failed so often that she didn't have any expectation of success. At three weeks, Vicky was ahead of her in reading and about even in math. Vicky's motor skills were lacking when it came to penmanship, but her spelling skills were on a par with her older sisters. Julie was, as befits a middle sister, in the middle in most areas, she too had a failure complex, but not as deep as Lisa. At about the three week mark, she kind of got it and started reading when she didn't have to. I made it a point to praise and reward her actions -- it took two more weeks for Lisa to get over that hump but she too started reading outside of the class requirements. Math, starting out with money, wasn't too bad. We started with counting, then simple addition and subtraction. All three girls were pretty bright and knew and cared about money. That got me started and I was able to gradually abstract the arithmetic away from money and get the concept of bare numbers into their world picture. Penmanship and spelling was interesting -- it took a while to get through to Lisa and Julie that they were desirable. Still though, they were bright kids and when Lisa decided to work at learning, things went pretty fast after that. At the nine week point she could read the Pooh books out loud with few stumbles over unfamiliar words, and write equivalent text so that I could read it. I did wind up with an unanticipated problem. Lisa and Julie would cache food around the house. The third time I found some moldy bread and cheese, this time with ants working on it, I took them to the store and bought a collection of food that would keep indefinitely. Stuff that I hoped would be somewhat edible years later. Canned Vienna sausage, hard crackers and raisins in individual servings and Twinkies. I put the supplies on a shelf that the girls could reach easily, and compelled a promise from Lisa and Julie that they would only hide food from that shelf. I promised that if they reported that their supply was getting low enough to worry them, that I would replenish it. About a quarter of what I bought was gone when I checked a few hours later, and there was a surprising pile of stale, dried out stuff in the garbage. I made it a point to thank them for replacing the perishable food in their hides, and was careful not to disturb caches of the food I had furnished them when I found it in the future. It took a couple of years for Lisa to quit caching food in odd corners around the house and yard. The transition was when she came to me and we discussed, then created a supply of food that would feed us for several months without power for refrigeration. She took over monitoring that supply and rotating it so it would always be available. We never really had to use it, but it was sometimes nice to know that we had it there in case of a serious 'Oh Shit'. ******************************************** The orthopedist examined Julie's arm and agreed that it would benefit from reconstruction, and that sooner was better than later. She was scheduled for surgery in the third week of residence with me. A week of daycare socialization took some of the very roughest edges off of Lisa and Vicky, I had a possible sleepover available with the friend with girls. It turned out to be necessary, Julie was OK going into surgery, I stayed with her till the anesthesiologist put her under. When she started to come out a couple of hours later she would become frantic if I tried to leave her. Even when I was there, she was agitated enough that her sisters weren't doing well. I talked with Lisa, then called the friend who showed up shortly and took the two girls. I watched Lisa go into emergency mode -- deal with the bad situation and protect the sisters -- near full shutdown of emotions. I briefed Angela on what I could see and checked that she had my cell number, urging her to call if there were problems. Lisa held it together all night and till mid morning the next day when Angela brought them back. When she saw me, she sort of lost it, I picked her up and held her while she cried for a couple of minutes. Vicky clung, but didn't seem as distressed. I made a special point to praise and reward Lisa for doing what needed to be done under stress. Julie was doing well enough that we went home around noon the day after surgery. She was somewhat sore, but not, by her standards, in severe pain. She had lived through the original broken arm without a cast or pain killers, she didn't think this was too bad at all. The six weeks of cast life passed without incident, her most vocal complaint was because the arm was too sore for sex for the first week and a half. We both survived with minor scarring. ************************************************* The second Friday night after the arm surgery, we were awakened at around 2:30AM by having the lights turned on and the covers dragged off by my naked older daughters, who then did a quick round of rock-paper-scissors. Sarah lost, Andi crawled up between my legs and started playing with my cock. Sarah came to the side of the bed, leaned over Julie and gave me a deep kiss. None of this was entirely unscheduled nor unexpected, emails had been bouncing back and forth since they discovered that they had little sisters. They had cut an afternoon class, headed out and had driven the 500 or so miles to my house. Joining me in bed was pretty traditional as well although dragging off the covers wasn't the normal method of waking me. I reinforced the warning to be careful of Julie's arm although most of the sore was finished. "Do you want us to leave?", asked Lisa, rubbing her eyes. "Nope, we just want to borrow Dad for a little while, but you were here first", responded Sarah, "You can stay and help or just watch if you want to. Or leave if you don't want to stay." "Help how?", asked Lisa, waking up more. By now Andi was sucking on a very erect cock. "In a few minutes, Dad will be getting close and she will move up and sit on him. When she does, there will be two tits that could be sucked. Or if you don't want to suck on hers, you could play with and suck on Dad's while she fucks him." While Sarah was saying this she was playing with my nipple on her side, drawing around it with a fingertip, then grasping it and rolling it between her fingers. This left her leaning over Julie a bit with her breasts dangling above her. Julie reached up with her good hand and touched Andi's breast. Sarah looked down at Julie, "Good morning little sister", then tracing down Julie's stomach towards her pussy with the hand that wasn't playing with my nipple, "May I?" Julie nodded. Sarah caressed her pussy for a moment, then started gently rubbing Julie's clit. She leaned over to give me another kiss, this put her breast near Julie's face -- Julie latched on to her nipple and started nursing. Sarah froze for an instant, then started working Julie's pussy more actively and kissing me harder. As expected, Andi moved up and sat on my cock, wiggled a bit then started moving up and down. With three girls working on me at once, a couple of minutes and I started filling Andi with cum. Andi came too before I started to soften, then sort of flopped down on my stomach. I held her and rubbed her back for a couple of minutes, then mentioned that breathing was an effort with a 120 lb beautiful lady laying on me. Sarah asked, and Julie assented, she picked Julie up and they departed for the girls official bed. Andi got a wash cloth and washed me and herself then snuggled up and we all went back to sleep. Next morning after breakfast I called and told day care that we had company and the girls wouldn't be attending. I was sitting in the recliner with Julie on one side and Sarah on the other. After a bit Julie ask, "Am I a queer now?" I raised an eyebrow. "I spent the night with Sarah, she licked me and I licked her. That's what queers do isn't it?" Sarah responded before I could get my thoughts organized, "To start with, 'queer' is a bad word to use. 'Lesbian' would be better. The short answer to your question is 'No, you aren't a lesbian." "Why not", Julie asked, clearly having trouble phrasing the question she was trying to ask. I gave it a try, "Did you like having Sarah rub and lick you and make you cum?" "Uh, Huh", from Julie. "Did you like licking Sarah and making her cum?" "Uh, Huh", once more. "In that case", I said, you aren't entirely heterosexual. "Straight", I added at her look of confusion. "Would you rather sleep with me and have me lick you, or sleep with Sarah and have her lick you?", I asked her. "With you, Sarah can't fuck me", she replied positively. "Then you aren't a lesbian, they only like girls. What you are, as are most people even though they won't admit it, is bisexual, leaning towards preferring guys", I told her. "What about you?", she asked me. "Me too, I prefer little girls, then big girls and little boys. Not very much attracted to other men", I responded. *************************************************** A few weeks after Julie's cast came off, I got a call from a former customer. They wanted me for a job estimated to take one to two months. They were good people to deal with and I was reluctant to turn them down. I explained my new lifestyle and the need for care for the girls -- the short answer from the manager -- daycare will be available from 7am till 10pm or later if needed, if I have to do some of it myself. Can you be here Tuesday? I discussed it with the girls, they were used to moving around and didn't seem to understand what the fuss might be. Further discussion made it seem as if two to three weeks on site, then a month or so of work that could be done remotely, probably with another week or two on site for finish and cleanup. A network connection to my motor home could be arranged. I suggested, and he agreed to furnish me a secretary for the duration, he had a grandmother working for him that was underutilized and deserved a chance to expand -- he felt that this would be a good test for versatility, and if she did well he had plans to move her into a new position. A phone interview/discussion, the two of them on one speaker phone and the four of us on another and we came to an agreement. I would park the motorhome adjacent to their facility every work day. Mrs. Andrews would secretary for me, monitor the girls and coach as necessary on their home school work, and take them to a nearby park for recess analog. She would cook/order lunch and dinner and do she and the girls would do household maintenance while I worked. This would allow me to put in 10+ hour days for the customer, while maintaining contact with the girls and keeping them supervised and on track with their work. I added a codicil to the agreement -- If Mrs Andrews worked out as well as she sounded, I would be allowed to subcontract with her for the same task while working for other companies. My customer agreed to a maximum of six weeks per year. I had a further private discussion with Mrs. Andrews, telling her about the girl's history and my attempts at teaching deportment. I had decided to not fuss too much about inappropriate vocabulary (swearing) rather focusing on when and how to use it, and when not to -- with emphasis on how the use of language, demeanor and clothing allowed one to influence how others saw you, thereby manipulating them to your advantage. Lisa understood the underlying concept almost at once and was an active participant in the project. When I explained this to Mrs. Andrews, she went from shocked, to amused, to a gleeful co-conspirator in twenty minutes. I hoped I hadn't unleashed a couple of monsters on the world, the notion of Lisa doing strategy with a coach for tactics was a bit unnerving. I contacted Ms. Jones, the day care people and the security firm that monitored my house when I was off site. We spent a day cleaning and stocking the motorhome and arranging the stuff they would need, I got up and was on the road at 5AM on Sunday. A few hours later, the three girls were up and we stopped for breakfast. Continuing on, I had a fairly long discussion with Lisa about public face regarding our relationship. She understood that the muggles (everyone else but the six of us, me and all five daughters) needed to remain unaware of our sleeping and sexual arrangements, and with Mrs. Andrews sort of living with us 10 hours or more per day that public face would be essential. We then had a shorter session with Vicky and Julie, they had no problems with it, they had been accustomed to keeping secrets in a crowded stressful situation, saw no problem with this one. We pulled into the company parking lot around 3PM on Monday, pretty much right on schedule. I.T. and plant maintenance came out and we established network and electrical connections. Sewer and water would be internal in the daytime, hooked to the campground systems at night to replenish the system. A 50ish lady showed up shortly and introduced herself as the expected Mrs. -- Shirley will be quite sufficient, thank you -- Andrews. She came with a tote bag that among may other things, held a high end laptop and cell that allowed connectivity from just about anyplace. I came to suspect that it was a true bag of holding, she almost never came up short of a needed item. She spent 20 minutes briefing me on how to use her secretarial services, then I and the girls spent a couple of hours getting her up to speed on their classwork. Shirley was quite impressed by the progress Lisa and Julie had made, considering they were effectively illiterate a little over two months ago. She had worked with computer geeks before and understood that interruptions were OK, but blocking them up would increase my productivity for her company. She got quite good at putting off trivia till either a scheduled break time or something of import came up, then giving me the whole queue and seeing that I noticed all issues. That and correctly sorting the urgent from stuff that could be delayed a few hours was invaluable. I don't know what the company paid her, but considering what they were paying me, the increase in efficiency must have paid her wages several times over. Three days into the project, things had settled into a comfortable routine. I would get up and drive to the site, to be there and hooked up at 8AM. Shirley would come in and supervise the girls with morning tasks, specifically dress and grooming. I would take a breakfast break with the girls at 9:00. Readin, ritin and ritmatic for the girls till 12:00 noon. If I didn't have a lunch meeting, I would join them for lunch. Shirley and the girls would do various things in the afternoon, afternoon tea for them, they were still somewhat underweight. Dinner with them at 7:00, practicing formal dress, manners and place settings, then she would depart at around 8:30. I would drive back to the campground, put the girls to bed and most nights work another two or three hours. With her cell and netbook, Shirley was on duty as secretary for the entire time, physically present or not. Shirley turned out to have an art and music background, she took the opportunity to teach that for the weeks we were on site -- sometimes taking them to other places, sometimes working with them here. In four days she was grandma to the girls, both spoken to and of. That one stuck, 25 years later she was grandma/great-grandma still, complete with presents and holidays. My fears about the skills she taught the girls regarding social management and deportment were both fulfilled and soothed. If I had searched the entire country, I couldn't have found a better coach for teaching feminine wiles to the girls. She was a master at presenting a public face that was beyond reproach, while taking no bullshit whatsoever as it touched on matters of import. She taught Lisa not only what was considered proper, but why it was done that way, exactly where the lines were and why, how, when, and how hard to cross them. Fortunately she had vowed to use her powers for good, and even more fortunately managed to instill that ethos into Lisa and Julie. Because of her, I remained on site for a full month, making one trip home for the foster care status meeting with Ms. Jones. At the end I had three little girls that could dress and act like little angels when they choose, Lisa in particular was able to turn it on and off with very good judgment as to when, and could put most adults down if they got what she considered out of line with impressive skill. To quote, She could tell them to go to hell, and make them look forward to the trip. When I departed, I hired Shirley Andrews for three hours per week of evening online art classes. Through the home-school networks, she soon had classes as large as she was willing to supervise, and a significant improvement in finances. $7.50 per kid per session adds up if you go 25 x 3 x 4 That approximates $2250 per month for 8 hours per week. *************************************************** The end (for now) I kinda' ran dry on this one. It seems as if there should be more story here, or at least a more definitive ending. I'm going to post it any way for now, then add to it or fix the ending when it comes to me. Ah well, near 25k words ought to count as a very short novel, or a very long short story.