101 In the Shade Pt. 01

"It's two blonde sisters, think their shit don't stink, both on their time of the month; still want to stop by?" Clay asked, a little tired of the assumption that he was having a party.

"Uh, no, thanks, think I'll pass," the boy said.

Clay handed the boy a five dollar bill, simply for knowing to put the bags up toward the front of the truck, and handing Clay the three bottles of booze for Clay to put into the cab of the truck.

"Good luck, man," the kid said.

Clay sat in the cab of the truck for a long moment, and then drove to 1815 Morning Drive again.

"Really? Neither one of you locked the door?" Clay asked as he carried in six bag of groceries.

"Jesus! All right! We're horrible people! We're stupid people!" Collette screamed. "We get it! We're two pieces of shit! Okay?"

"More in the truck," Clay said, carrying the bags to the kitchen. "Think one of you could get off your fat asses and go get them?"

Collette wasn't about to leave Colleen alone with Clay, so grabbed her sister's hand and pulled her outside.

"It was him!" Colleen sighed, looking at the truck.

"What?" Collette asked, trying the handle and finding the truck locked. "Now how are we..."

"At Mr. Earl's funeral. It was him. Remember? His truck was..." Colleen said, looking into the bed of the truck and seeing the other bags of groceries.

"Oh!" Colleen gasped. "He bot that pork sausage!"

"Uh huh," Collette said and grabbed the rest of the bags, leaving the bread bag for Colleen.

Clay had already put away the contents of the bags and was quickly chopping up onion and bell pepper while water came to a boil on the stove.

"Let's go; need three leg quarters, carrots, the thing of frozen peas, a couple of potatoes," he snapped.

Colleen hurriedly dug through the bags and found him what he was asking for.

"Oh, crunchy! I love crunchy peanut butter! Oh thank you!" Colleen said and tried to hug him.

"God damn it; what the fuck did I tell you about touching me!" Clay screamed, shoving her away. "Keep your filthy hands off me!"

"Go, go, I'll do this," Collette urged her sister.

"You know, you don't have to be such an ass hole; she was just..." Collette spat angrily, then stopped.

She looked, terrified, as the point of his knife was resting just a hair away from her nose.

"I am cooking," he snarled. "I am cooking this for you. And for your sister. I don't have to do any of this. I have an apartment. I have food at that apartment. I damned sure don't need to spend a hundred and forty three dollars on either one of you."

He made quick work of chopping the chicken to cubes and dropped that into the sizzling skillet.

"If my brains burst into flames, neither you or your sister would have pissed in my ear to save me," Clay went on and dropped a cup of rice into the boiling water, covered the pot and turned the burner to low.

"That's not true!" Collette gasped.

"Bull shit it isn't," Clay snarled and began dicing the carrots and potatoes.

"No, it's not, Clay," Colleen protested from the doorway of the kitchen, voice rising above a whisper. "Clay, we love you."

"You what?" Clay let out a bitter laugh.

"We love you," Collette echoed. "We went to your graduation and when Principal Donovan said you'd joined the Marines, we cried."

"Why? Because you wouldn't have me to torture anymore?" Clay snarled as he added a cup of water to the chicken and vegetables, then covered the skillet.

"When did we torture you?" Colleen asked, again coming into the kitchen, but staying behind her sister.

"Every God damned time I turned around, either you, or you were blaming me for shit I didn't do and of course your mother never believe her two little angels would ever lie," Clay snapped, throwing cutting board and knife into the sink, making Collette and Colleen jump.

"Stealing shit out of my room. God damn, minute I got anything, shit would disappear," Clay said and quickly finished putting the rest of the groceries away.

"We were little girls," Colleen said, clutching her sister's hand for strength. "We didn't know any other way to get you to pay us any attention."

"The white king off my chess set is still missing," Clay said.

"It's in my room," Collette admitted. "I'll go get it."

When they sat down to eat, Colleen and Collette expected him to sit where he had sat before. Both were puzzled, and a little hurt when he sat at the opposite end of the table.

"Whole milk?" Collette complained.

Clay quickly grabbed her glass of milk, poured it down the drain, filled the glass with tap water and slammed it back in front of her, then quietly resumed eating.

If Collette had not been starving, she would have hurled her food at him, hurled her drink at him.

Colleen quietly, as unobtrusively as possible, slid her glass of milk to Collette and the two shared the cold liquid.

"Thank you," Colleen said quietly. "Can I have more?"

"Stove's right there," Clay said, took his empty plate and glass to the sink and quickly washed dish, glass, silverware and cutting board and knife

Then he dried everything and put it all away.

"Good night," he said and turned to leave.

"No, Clay, wait!" Colleen cried out.

"What?" he barked, frustrated.

"No, Clay, please don't go," Colleen begged, close to tears. "I been praying and praying and you're finally here, you're finally home, please, please don't go."

"What? Home? Home! I haven't had a fucking home for fifteen God damned years! And it's because of you two cunts and that whore of a mother of yours!" Clay screamed.

"Please, please stop calling us that," Collette begged, joining them as they stood in the foyer of the house. "We're not that."

"Prefer twats? Whores? Cum dumpsters? What?" Clay said bitterly.

He opened the door.

"And make sure you clean up after yourselves; Momma's not here to wipe your asses anymore," he snarled and slammed the door.

Chapter 6

"He's here!" Colleen yelped that Friday as Clay's truck pulled into the driveway.

"Yay," Collette said flatly as she stirred the spaghetti sauce and meatballs.

Colleen wanted to reach out, put her arms around the handsome man, press her lips to his and feel his big arms around her.

"Friday night; why aren't you out?" Clay asked as he came in.

"No money," Colleen said.

"Well, you know how to make money, don't you?" he sneered and brushed past her.

"Stop it," Collette pleaded. "Please, stop it. We're not whores. I've, we've never even..."

Clay laughed a bitter laugh as he tromped up the stairs.

"With Candy for a mom? Like I believe that!" he snapped.

Clay opened the door to the room his father and Candy had shared for fifteen years. The bed was unmade. He narrowed his eye at this; his bed had to be made and made perfectly each and every damned day.

"Whoa, got a little chubby there, huh, Dad?" Clay asked as he looked at the size on a pair of slacks that lay on the closet floor.

"What are you, you're not supposed to be in here," Collette shrilled, looking into the bedroom.

"It's my house, bitch, my house," Clay snapped. "Guess what? Your name wasn't anywhere on anything. You're the one not supposed to be here."

He looked at the chest of drawers and saw a wedding picture of Earl and Candy, Collette's high school graduation photograph, Colleen's graduation photograph, and then a photograph of Earl and Candy on a Mexican beach. There was no photograph of him.

"And now? With your momma dead? You have nothing," Clay reminded her.

He pulled open the top drawer and found his high school graduation photograph. His face softened slightly. He looked again and saw that Collette was no longer in the room with him.

The next two drawers were of Candy's clothing.

"Supper's ready; you eating?" Colleen whispered.

"Yeah, yeah, smells good," Clay said and turned toward the door.

Colleen stood there, looking at him. He stared at her for a moment. She let a small self-conscious smile play across her lips, then turned and scampered out of the bedroom.

He went down the stairs and entered the living room.

Clay saw that the three bottles of alcohol, the two liter bottle of ginger ale and the two liter bottle of Coke were still on the bar, unopened. He fixed himself a glass of ginger ale and poured approximately a jigger of the bourbon into the glass.

The bin for the automatic ice maker only had a few chunks of ice in it.

"It's broken; Momma was supposed to get it fixed, but..." Collette supplied.

"I'll look at it later," Clay said.

He dropped two ice chunks into his drink and took his seat. He did notice that both girls had slid themselves one seat over, putting them close to him.

"I uh, I used your meat and a couple of cans of tomato paste and the last of your onion and bell pepper," Collette said. "But we already had the noodles and..."

"She's been writing down everything we use," Colleen supplied.

"It's your food; I bought it for you," Clay said. "You don't need to justify..."

"Well you make me feel like I do!" Collette snapped.

"I can't make you feel anything," Clay said, sipped his drink, then started eating.

"So what you do?" Colleen asked after a few long moments of heavy silence.

"What?" Clay asked, looking up.

"What you do? Oh! Do you get paid disability from the Army?" Colleen repeated.

"Disability? Army?" Clay asked.

"For your..." Colleen said, reaching out with her hand to touch his eye patch.

Before he could lash out, though, she pulled her hand back and again grabbed her fork.

"Number one, I am a Marine, not Army," Clay spat. "And number two, I am not disabled, so why would anyone pay me disability?"

"So what do you do?" Collette asked, sipping a glass of milk.

"I work for St. Elizabeth's Distillery; we're getting ready to start distribution of Early's Sweet and Superior Whiskeys," Clay said. "Of course, I also monitor St. Elizabeth's Ales; those are already in a few of the local bars."

"Momma said..." Collette started, then clammed up.

Momma had said that Satan himself was dancing for joy when she heard that a distillery would be coming to Bender, Louisiana. Collette didn't think that Clay would much appreciate hearing their mother's views on St. Elizabeth's Distillery or St. Elizabeth's Brewery.

"But what do you do?" Colleen asked and again reached out to touch him, touch his well-muscled bicep.

She again pulled her hand back before he could react.

"I'm the head chemist," Clay said. "Like I said, I monitor each step of the process."

"The head..." Collette said, awed. "I, we knew you was smart but I didn't know you were that smart!"

Clay ate rapidly, again cleaned up his dish, silverware and glass.

"Now, when's the last time the filter was changed on this?" Clay asked, looking at the refrigerator.

"I uh, filter?" Collette asked.

"God damn, really?" Clay snapped. "You really expect to just get through life on your cute smile and blonde bush?"

Clay found the owner's manual, found the part number, and called a distributor in Elgee, Louisiana.

"Close in; I'm leaving now," Clay said into the telephone. "Yeah, I know it's Friday night and you're anxious to get out of there. If I'm a few minutes late, please wait on me, okay?"

And with a slam of the door, he was gone.

Collette let out her breath, then looked at Colleen in surprise. She had not realized she'd been holding her breath.

"Think he could look at the toilet?" Colleen asked.

"I told you; you use too much toilet paper," Collette said.

"I don't! Really, I don't," Colleen protested.

Moments after Clay returned, he had the tools out and was working on the refrigerator. He couldn't help but smile as both girls squealed in disgust when he showed them the old filter for the water line.

"And I've been drinking that?" Collette screeched.

"Clay, could you look at the toilet upstairs?" Colleen asked. "It keeps leaking; Collette says I use too much toilet paper but the one down here never leaks and..."

"One thing at a time," Clay said. "Let me finish this first."

He did finish and then lugged the toolbox upstairs.

"Needs a new seal; I'll get one at the Home Depot," Clay said almost immediately.

"And it's not because I use too much toilet paper?" Colleen challenged, glaring at Collette.

"You probably do," Clay said.

"Ha!" Collette barked.

"Now, anything else?" Clay barked. "I don't want to drive all the way out to Elgee, get a seal and come back only to have you say 'oh, and can you look at...'"

Both girls shook their heads no.

"In the meantime," Clay said, turning off the water to the commode and loosening the bolts that held the commode down. "Please use the downstairs toilet, or the one in my Dad's room."

"It's our Mom's room too," Collette snapped.

"She's dead; ain't her room no more," Clay said and washed his hands in the small vanity.

At the Home Depot, Clay took his time, even picked the brains of the sales associate and a few of the other customers in the plumbing section.

"Two women? One toilet?" an elderly man said. "Get a snake; you won't believe how handy it'll come in."

"Oh be quiet, Stanley," his wife snapped, slapping the man's shoulder.

"Them feminine products, oh my God," Stanley said, shaking his head. "And three teenaged girls and all their friends? A wonder I ever got to use the toilet at all."

"That's enough, Stanley," his wife warned.

Clay patted the man's shoulder and did make sure to grab a relatively inexpensive snake.

"It made ice," Colleen happily told him when he walked back into the house.

"The toilet?" Clay asked.

"No, the refrigerator," Colleen giggled.

"Huh? Oh, oh good," Clay agreed. "Grab the mop and the bucket please.

It took him longer than the associate at Home Depot had advised; his new friend Stanley had warned him of this. He did curse Candy Chopin under his breath a few times for having two girls that just stood in the doorway and watched. If Candy had at least had one boy, he could have a little help.

"Again," he said as he squeezed out caulk around the commode's base. "Please use the downstairs toilet, or the one in the master bath for at least until Monday, okay?"

Then he cleaned up, washed his hands, washed them a second time, then went downstairs.

He fixed himself a second drink and looked up at them. He had an audience of two blonde beauties.

He had to admit, they truly were beautiful girls. Candy had been very beautiful as well, at least on the outside. Both Collette and Colleen Candy's long light blonde hair, oval faces, ice blue eyes. On Candy, those eyes had been on the slightly small side, and had been hard. On Collette, they were large and round and on Colleen, they were large and shiny, almost luminescent.

Candy's lips had been artificially plumped up but both Collette and Colleen's lips were full, light pink lips. Candy's teeth had been scrubbed a gleaming white. Both Collette and Colleen's teeth were white as well, but both girls had one incisor on the left that stuck out slightly. Clay was willing to bet that Candy had possessed that small imperfection as well but had altered it.

Candy had stood at five feet, seven inches in her bare feet. Because she wore four to five inch heels everywhere, though, Candy looked taller. Collette stood at five feet, four inches in her yellowing white canvas sneakers. Colleen stood at five feet, two inches in her flip-flops.

Clay knew that Candy's breasts had been size 40F; he'd snuck a look at the tag on one of her bras when he was a thirteen old hormone. Since then, he'd gotten much better at guessing chest sizes. Debbie Thompson had been proud of her size 34C chest and sweet, shy Allison had been a 42DD. Clay was willing to bet that Collette was a 36D and Colleen was probably a 34DD. Because of both girls being cheerleaders in high school, they had flat bellies and muscular legs. And both had tight little bottoms.

He took his drink into the kitchen and dug out some ice. Then, taking a seat at the kitchen table, he began going through the stack of mail.

"This all of it?" he asked as Collette and Colleen stood in the kitchen, unsure of what to do.

"What you mean?" Colleen asked.

"I mean, when's the last time you checked the mail?" Clay asked, sipping his drink.

Colleen scampered out to check the mail and Clay fought down his annoyance.

Yes, their mother had pampered them, spoiled them, had done very little to prepare them for the real world. But surely one or the other would at some point have the sense to go check the Pelican mailbox right there, in front of the house.

"Holy cow we got a lot," Colleen said as she carried an armful of mail into the house.

"And make sure that door's locked," Clay called out. "It wasn't locked last time."

He looked up sharply when he discovered two envelopes from the University of Louisiana at DeGarde.

"Semester's already started; you two missed the first three weeks, no, four weeks now, what the hell have you two been doing?" he asked.

"We didn't have the money," Collette whispered, embarrassed.

"Really?" Clay asked. "Really? Neither one of you ever heard of Pell Grants? Student Loans? Scholarships?"

"But we didn't know where to go," Collette burst into tears.

"Sign right there, says 'Student Financial Aid,' right there on Gilbert Hall; what the hell did you think that was there for?" Clay asked, exasperated at the two children he was looking at.

"For the poor students," Colleen admitted, sniffling back her own tears.

"Hey, Stupid, go look in a mirror," Clay yelled. "Guess what? You're the poor student!"

A notice for service on their BMWs was also in the stack of new mail and Clay sighed in impatience.

"Well, please tell me you two are at least keeping up with this," he demanded, draining his drink.

"No gas," Colleen whispered, flinching against the explosion that was sure to come.

"Un fucking believable," Clay sighed, taking out his cell phone.

He entered the phone number on the notice, then entered the code. "Okay, you're confirmed for ten forty five and you're confirmed for eleven on the dot," he said and got to his feet.

"But we..." Collette whimpered.

"I'll get the fucking gas," Clay yelled, fixing another drink.

"Just unbelievable," he said, sitting down again. "I couldn't have a driver's license; it would lead to sin and depravity. But you? You get beamers?"

He continued to sort through the mail.

"Don't you two have anything better to do than stand there and stare at me?" he finally snapped, sipping his drink.

"And we can't use the toilet..." Coleen whispered.

Again, there's one right down here, or there's another one upstairs," Clay snapped.

It was late, and he was pretty buzzed by the time he'd thrown out what mail needed to be thrown out, paid what bills he could from his cell phone, and set aside what he'd look at later.

He walked upstairs and entered his old room. Just looking at the worn out mattress made his back hurt, so he went into what had been his father and step-mother's bedroom.

Since the left side, the side closest to the bathroom had a jar of cold cream and a few cheap rings sitting on the night stand, Clay assumed that was Candy's side.

The sheets had obviously not been changed in a while so Clay found a clean set and quickly stripped the bed, then put the new sheets on then crawled into bed, on his father's side.

Chapter 7

Clay had already gotten up, made his bed, done his morning exercises, gone to his apartment, showered, shaved and dressed, gone to the gas station, filled two cans with a gallon of premium unleaded, and poured the gas into Collette's and Colleen's cars and made a pot of coffee before either girl stirred.

Colleen was the first. She came down, dressed in nearly translucent panties and extremely short camisole top that left a good portion of her belly exposed and fuzzy pink flip-flops . She opened the pantry and bent over to grab the box of Apple Jacks cereal, a maneuver that stretched her panties over her ripe butt.