101 In the Shade Pt. 01

"Jesus, no wonder my dad had a heart attack," Clay said.

Colleen screamed at the top of her lungs, startled that there was a man in their house.

Collette came thundering down the stairs, baby doll top fluttering as she ran.

"What? What is it?" she screamed as Colleen stood, hand over her heart, trying to catch her breath.

"He, he..." Colleen gasped.

"Guess I scared her," Clay said and Collette screamed.

"Jesus! Do have to do that?" Clay complained.

"What are you doing here?" Collette screamed.

"It's my house!" Clay bellowed back. "Remember? It's my house! Now, both of you, go put some clothes on, huh?"

Moments later, the girls returned, wearing fuzzy terry cloth robes over their sleepwear. Since the robes ended at mid-thigh, it was minimal coverage and when Collette bent over to get her box of Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal, Clay got an excellent view of her lace covered crotch.

"I reactivated the gas cards so you should be able to go fill up," he said and finished his cup of coffee.

"Oh thank you!" Colleen said and reached out, only to jerk her hands back.

"Welcome," he said, cleaned coffee cup and coffee pot, then turned and went upstairs.

A moment later, he was back down the stairs again.

"Minute you're finished your breakfast, both of you need to go upstairs and clean your rooms, hear?" he snapped.

"You looked in my room?" Collette screeched.

"No, I looked in my room," Clay snapped back. "My room. My house, my room, hear?"

"That's why Momma made us keep our doors closed; so she wouldn't have to see it," Colleen admitted.

Clay looked at Colleen for a long moment and she let her small smile self-conscious play across her lips. He then went through the kitchen door into the garage.

A moment later, he returned and marched up the stairs.

"What the..." Collette said when they heard a rending sound.

"There it is again," Colleen said when they heard the sound again a minute later.

They finished their cereal, put the bowls and spoons into the dishwasher then went upstairs.

"What the.. What did you do?" Collette screamed, seeing that the door to her room had been removed.

"But Clay!" Colleen complained.

"Hey, I had to live like that, remember?" Clay said from the master bedroom. "Now, when y'all are finished cleaning up your rooms, need y'all come look at some stuff."

"Clay! I can't..." Collette complained.

"Hey, five years. For five years, I had no door on my room," Clay spat. "I learned how to live like that; y'all can too."

"But, how am I going to put clothes on?" Colleen asked.

"Figure it out," Clay said.

Colleen stood guard in the doorway of Collette's room while Collette hurriedly put clothes on, then Collette stood guard while Colleen got dressed.

Then both girls began the laborious task of cleaning up their rooms. The rooms actually weren't dirty, just unkempt.

"Okay, good God, took y'all long enough," Clay said when they entered the master bedroom. "Your mother's jewelry. Look through it and see what y'all want to keep. Or keep it all; I don't care."

"What are you doing?" Collette asked.

"Cleaning up," Clay said. "There's a consignment shop on Hermosa in Elgee that will take the clothes."

Clay gathered his father's clothing into his arms, then went down the stairs.

Collette and Colleen looked through their mother's gaudy costume jewelry, rejecting the cheap, clunky junk.

"Oh, but this..." Collette said, finding a diamond necklace.

"And this goes with that," Colleen observed, finding a matching bracelet.

Earl had given Candy the neckless and bracelet on their tenth anniversary. Further into the box, they found the sapphire necklace and bracelet he'd given Candy for their fifth wedding anniversary.

Candy had been making noise about a platinum set at David's Jewelry that would be perfect for a fifteenth wedding anniversary. Earl had actually considered giving her a set of divorce papers instead; the shine had long worn off the marriage. Fortunately for Candy's daughters, Earl had died before he could make a decision

"Don't forget the earrings," Clay said from the doorway. "Now, look and see if there's any of her clothes you want; I'm going to grab the stuff out of my old closet."

"We don't... Momma wouldn't let us pierce our ears," Collette admitted.

"Just look, huh?" he barked.

Again, most of Candy's earrings were junk, but there were also a few diamond and a few sapphire earrings and some gold ones as well.

Clay had brought a garbage bag for the contents of his drawers and stopped, frowning, when he found three hardcore pornographic magazines in his underwear drawer.

'Shaved Blonde Sluts'

'Big Tit Anal'

'Lesbian Roommates'

He found what Colleen had not, when she'd quickly glanced at the magazine on the top; some of the pages had been dog-eared.

"Well no shit!" Clay laughed when he turned to the first dog eared page and saw his step-mother sucking on a black cock while a white cock pounded her hairless pussy.

In the photograph, she looked a few years younger than when she entered their home. Clay also noticed that her breasts were slightly smaller too.

'Big Tit Anal' also had some dog-eared pages and in these pictures, Candy Simone, or 'Honey' as she was dubbed in the magazine had gotten her breasts enlarged. Clay winced as he saw the size of the cock Candy managed to take up her ass.

The third magazine had Candy, a large breasted red head, and a large breasted Asian girl on the cover, smiling for the camera as both red head and Asian girl were pulling Candy's panties down.

Clay put the magazines into the top drawer of the chest of drawers, smirking as the magazines covered the Bible from view.

"Okay, what else?" Collette asked just as Clay closed the drawer.

"Your room cleans?" Clay asked. "I go look in there, I'm not going to find all the shit just shoved into the closet, huh?"

"No sir," Collette said.

At ten fifteen, Clay reminded the girls that they had service appointments. They quickly brushed teeth, hair, then raced out.

And, sure enough, when Clay opened Collette's closet, much stuff did spill out. The same thing happened in Colleen's room. His handy Philips screwdriver took care of their closet doors, which joined the two bedroom doors on top of the desk in his old bedroom.

The consignment shop owner looked at the clothing and agreed to take it all, except for the undergarments or socks. Clay smiled and shrugged; there was a Salvation Army a few blocks away that would have no trouble accepting those items. He didn't imagine that there were a whole lot of women with 40F sized chests shopping at the Salvation Army, but it was still a possibility.

The BMW Service Department called him as he was leaving the Salvation Army and he agreed to swing by and pay for the services.

"Thank you, Mr. Simone," the service manager smiled.

"What'd you call me?" Clay snapped.

"Oh I uh, I'm sorry, Mr. Chopin," the man stammered, seeing the name on Clay's credit card.

"It's Doctor," Clay snapped, sighed the charge slip and left.

"It's Ass Hole," the service manager muttered under his breath.

"Ha ha, very funny," Collette groused when Clay returned after eating lunch at his apartment.

"What?" he asked, looking through that day's mail.

"Where's my closet door?" Collette asked.

"I asked you, point blank, if I was going to find a bunch of stuff just shoved in there," Clay reminded her as he put the mail down on the counter. "And you stood there and lied to me and told me 'No sir' right?"

"Yes sir," Collette admitted, blushing.

Clothing out of the way, cosmetics and lotions and perfumes thrown out, Clay began to look through the personal items in the drawers. He smirked when he found Candy's vibrator. He then lost the smirk and prayed he didn't find anything like that among his father's stuff.

There was a fairly large jar of desensitizing lubricant in Candy's drawer, supposedly designed for anal penetration. Clay raised an eyebrow; the twenty ounce jar was nearly empty.

"And how long does a jar of 'But Fuck Juice' last?" he asked aloud.

"What?" Colleen asked as she stood in the doorway.

"Here, take a look at this," Clay said, tossing the jar to her.

The second drawer in Candy's nightstand had pictures, mostly of the girls, but there were a few of him and his eyebrows went up.

"Ew!" Colleen gasped, dropping the offensive jar to the floor. "O.M.G! People really do that?"

Clay chuckled and put the photographs back into Candy's drawer.

"I don't, oh! Just thinking about..." Colleen continued while Clay opened his father's nightstand.

Clay found an opened box of condoms, a pair of tweezers, nail clippers, some narcotics prescribed to his father, found a 2004 tassel and assumed it was his graduation tassel, still in the plastic bag.

His father's Bible, he noticed, was well worn and he pulled it out and put it on top of the nightstand.

A second later, he heard Collette screech, "O.M.G! Where'd you get that? Oh my God, that is so disgusting!"

"Me things thou dost protest overmuch," he said to himself and continued to rifle through the drawers.

Mostly papers, business related and Clay remembered, he needed to meet with Bonnie about his father's business. According to Bonnie, Jim Taylor had expressed a desire to buy the business.

"Where'd you get this?" Collette demanded to know.

"Mother's nightstand, top drawer," Clay said, finding some letters underneath everything else.

He felt the sting of tears as he realized, they were letters from his mother to his father.

Clay had never stopped to think just how deeply his mother's betrayal must have hurt his father. He placed the letters on top of his father's Bible.

"This is so dis..." Collette continued.

"Okay, Collette, you made your point, please stop," Clay said.

He heard her place the jar on top of the nightstand.

Collette looked at his muscular back, watched as he softly, tenderly touched some letters. She then heard him give a sniff and realized, she was watching a private moment and quietly left the room.

A few hours later, he was placing some items on the bed out of the closet when he found a safe behind a few of the blankets and pillows shoved in the corner on the floor of the closet.

"Clay?" Colleen asked quietly from the doorway of the bedroom.

"Yeah? Jar's on the nightstand," Clay said as he struggled with the quite heavy safe.

"The... EW! Clay!" Colleen screeched. "No, Collette wants to know if you're eating here, oh God, oh Clay, I can't believe..."

"Tell her yeah," Clay said and tried to think what the digital combination for the safe might be.

"Okay, is about thirty minutes, oh Clay, really," Colleen said, leaving the room.

Clay tried his father's birthday with no luck. He then tried Candy's birthday and again nothing. His mother's birthday didn't work either.

On a whim, he tried his own and again it was stuck. Then he remembered, his dad constantly forgot that his birthday was on the twenty first, always thinking it was on the twentieth.

'Click'

Inside, Clay could see why the safe was so damned heavy. There were a few hundred gold coins and silver coins. Very quickly, he sorted then into two stacks, gold on one side and silver on the other. Then he counted them in fives, a counting trick he'd picked up as a child.

One hundred and seven gold coins and two hundred and twelve silver coins. He had no idea what they were worth but he could guess, he probably would never have to work again if he didn't want to.

"Clay?" he heard and looked up to see Colleen peering into the bedroom.

"Dinner?" he asked and she nodded.

He put the coins back into the safe, closed and locked it, then washed his hands vigorously in the master bathroom.

He smiled an evil little smile and grabbed the jar of lubricant and walked into Colleen's room. He put the jar on her nightstand, then went downstairs, actually smiling a little.

Collette had cooked the pork sausage, with plenty of onion and bell pepper, and cooked the last of the frozen peas.

"It's good," Clay complimented her. "Where'd you learn to cook?"

"Well, don't know if you remember or not, but Momma hated cooking," Collette said.

"Yeah," Clay agreed.

"So, I just kind of started doing it and she got me some cookbooks and I just went from there," Collette said.

Clay finished eating, made himself a vodka and tonic and sat in the den.

On the wall was a fairly new television. Clay wondered what his father had to do to convince Candy that they wouldn't burst into flames if there was a TV in the house.

"Clay?" Colleen asked quietly as she stepped into the living room.

"Yes?" he asked, wondering if Anita Lopez would let him develop a vodka.

"It's uh, we, Collette and me? We like this show and..." Colleen stammered.

"Really. Your mother let you watch TV," Clay said flatly. "I got my ass beat raw when she found out I watched 'Beavis and Butt Head' but she let her precious little angels watch TV."

"Clay, I'm sorry," Collette said, voice rising. "All right? I'm sorry Momma was s mean to you, but that's not our fault."

"No, no, it's not your fault," Clay spat, getting to his feet. "Didn't do much to stop it, though."

He shut out her response by closing the door to his father's home office.

Obviously, someone had already been in there; the drawers were a mess. If Clay had to guess, it was probably Candy, looking for some source of money.

(His guess was a correct one.)

Most of what he found would be more for Bonnie, or if he did sell to Jim Taylor, for Mr. Taylor to look through.

But in the last drawer, which he had to use the key he found in the top drawer to unlock, he found several one hundred dollar bills neatly stacked.

Again, using his method of counting, Clay quickly found one hundred and forty five thousand dollars in the desk.

"One hundred and forty four thousand," Clay said, peeling ten one hundred dollar bills off the top stack and putting those into his wallet for a little walking around money.

"One forty three," he said and peeled a second thousand off the stack, then securely locked the drawer and added the small key to his keychain.

A quick search of the closet revealed, as smart as she thought she was, Candy wasn't very smart. His father had stock certificates inside a fire-proof safe, key in the lock. She could have very readily converted these certificates to cash.

Had she slowed down her frantic search, Candy could have found the key, found that the key opened the bottom drawer, and been able to maintain a decent life for herself and her two immature brats.

He entered the living room, Candy's sanctuary. She often held Bible studies in this room. Many of the women from her stuck-up, pretentious church came in here and drank coffee from the silver serving set and the silver carafe.

Clay paused to admire Candy's personal Bible, with its mother of pearl cover, as well as the rosewood stand it rested upon.

The side table that held the solid silver serving set had many more silver implements in its drawers. Clay shook his head as he could hear the television set blaring. Those two girls were on the verge of starvation and there had been a few thousand dollars' worth of silverware just a few feet away.

"That show about over?" he asked, stepping out of the living room.

"Huh? Oh, oh yeah, the one we was watching earlier?" Collette said. "Yeah, that ended about twenty minutes ago.

"Okay, come see," Clay said as he poured another drink.

They sat at the dinner table, both girls looking worried. Clay counted out ten one hundred dollar bills and put them in front of Collette.

"That's for grocery shopping and whatever other bills come in," he said. "Now, you don't need to run out and spend it all in one day. Try to budget it, all right?"

"And what I need to do?" Collette whispered, frightened to touch the money.

"I'll do it," Colleen blurted out. "Don't make her; I'll do it."

"No, Colleen," Collette cried out.

"Both of you, shut up," Clay said and took a sip of his drink. "What? Think I'm going to make you fuck me for money?"

"Well, yeah," Collette whispered, close to tears. "I mean, you keep saying we're like our..."

Colleen had also assumed the same thing, had actually hoped Clay was going to make them fuck him for money.

"Good God," Clay sighed. "Like I would risk catching..."

HE drained his drink and stood up.

"There. There's some money. Take it, don't take it, I don't care," he said and left the room.

A few moments later, Colleen and Collette heard an odd sound coming from upstairs.

Cautiously creeping up the stairs, they saw that Clay had pulled the door of the attic down and had unfolded the wooden steps.

They'd lived there for nearly fifteen years, but neither girl had ever been up in the attic. Collette had been in Mr. Earl's office twice; Colleen had never been in that room. And they had both been in the living room to participate in the Bible studies.

Looking up, they could see a single bulb burning and they could hear dragging sounds.

Inside the attic, Clay found several footlockers. Thankfully, none were locked.

One, he realized, was full of his childhood memorabilia and he smiled as he looked at his bronzed baby shoes, his first tooth, and other artifacts. The dim lighting in the attic was not conducive for a thorough search, though.

Collette and Colleen scampered back down the stairs when they heard Clay coming close to the attic door.

"Useless," Clay muttered to himself; they could at least have helped him lower the trunks.

One trunk, he realized, held his mother's things. He wasn't sure how hard it would hurt to look through that one and decided to save it for last.

Finally, the seven trunks were neatly stacked against the wall in his father's bedroom.

Even though he had no clean clothes at the house, Clay showered quickly, using his step-mother's floral shampoo and greasy feeling soap.

"Ew! Clay!" he heard Colleen screech and had to chuckle, knowing she'd found the jar of anal lubricant.

"Clay! Really!" Collette's voice followed suit.

THE END of Part 1.

**Author's Note: I write these stories for my pleasure; I post them here for your enjoyment. Thank you for reading my stories.