While the Cat's Away

Dawn shrugged. "It is what it is. But what about you? What's going on in your life?"

Cindy toyed with her fork, playing with her vegetables. "Well, I suppose I better find a job soon," she said slowly. "Mom and Dad have made some pretty clear hints about me getting off my ass and out of the house." She sat back in her chair, mouth tight. "They understand why I had to divorce Todd, but they're not willing to let me sponge off them forever. Not that I would."

"Of course not," Dawn said. She took a breath, then asked, "Why did you and Todd split up? He seemed like a nice guy." She caught Don's frowning glance and added, "If you don't want to talk about it, that's okay. It's not really any of my business."

"No, that's all right," Cindy said. She gave Dawn a long look. "It's the sort of thing I think you two should know about."

She took a deep breath. "You know what happened to Aunt Katherine. You don't need me to give you the song and dance again. She and Dad were raised here by our grandparents in a very religious household."

Don nodded. Grandpa Swenson had passed away six years ago, a victim of heart disease and a two-pack-a-day smoking habit. His wife, their grandmother, had followed almost immediately, cut off and rootless without her husband. Katherine had inherited the farm, as their Uncle Eddie had made very clear he was done with the country life.

"Well, your Mom made a mistake. Or not, considering how you two turned out," she smiled. "But catching pregnant at sixteen and being a mother at seventeen wasn't exactly what she had planned for her life.

"When that happens, there are generally two ways a person can go. Either they can rebel completely and break with everything they've known, or they can pull it around them like a blanket and use it to shelter themselves."

"No question what Mom did," Don said quietly. His eyes were thoughtful.

Cindy nodded. "I remember your mother from when I was a little girl. Before you two were born. She was fun. Always happy and laughing. It was only after you two were born that she got so strict. She closed off from everything but her family and the church. When we came to visit you guys and Grandma and Grandpa, we had to dress weird and go to church and it felt like I was being punished for something."

"Okay, but what does that have to do with you and Todd?" Dawn asked, confused.

"Well, the same sort of thing happened to me," she said.

"What? You didn't have a baby, did you?"

"No, Dawn," she said patiently. "I didn't have a baby. In or out of wedlock. But I realized that marriage wasn't for me. Not yet.

"Despite the show we put on when we got together with your mom and the grandparents, my parents are a lot more...open...than you think. I remember that Mom and Dad and your mom had some ferocious arguments about it when you were just babies. Your mom demanded that they "act properly" when they came to visit.

"Dad loves your mom very much. But he and Mom had their own life. And they had moved away from here for the same reason that you are, Dawn. Freedom. A chance to expand their horizons. Rock Island isn't New York City, but it might as well be when you're coming from Morning Glory.

"When I graduated college, I moved up to the burbs and tried to be...tried to be normal. Not like my bible-beating grandparents and aunt. Not like my parents."

"Why? What's wrong with Uncle Eddie and Aunt Carol?" Dawn asked. Cindy shook her head.

"If your mom hasn't talked to you about it, I'm not going to. You'll find out when she decides to tell you. Or my parents might decide to tell you, but I wouldn't count on that.

"So I found a nice guy and got married and settled down and we got a little apartment in Downers Grove. And Todd worked in the city for an accounting firm and I bounced around, trying to find a job I liked with my communications degree. We started saving up for a house and Todd was talking about kids and I suddenly realized I was drowning, and if I didn't run away soon I would be trapped forever.

"So I ran. Ran all the way back to Rock Island. And now I'm back here." She smiled bitterly.

"So what I am trying to say, Dawn, is don't live your life..." she paused, searching for the right words, "...don't live your life opposing something. Don't do something just because it is the opposite of what Aunt Katherine would do. Do it because it is right for you." She took a bite of baked potato. Thunder muttered in the distance.

****

"What did you think about what she said?" Dawn asked her brother. It was nearly bedtime, and she had slipped into Donny's room to talk before they went to sleep.

"About what?" he asked, thumbing through his issue of National Geographic.

"I don't know. Didn't that whole conversation at dinner seem a little...off to you? About what she was saying about Uncle Eddie and Aunt Carol?"

Donny folded the magazine around one finger. "Not really. I've caught a hint, here and there, that Mom and Grandma didn't really approve when Uncle Eddie married Aunt Carol. And especially when they wouldn't come back here when Grandpa died."

Dawn nodded. Her uncle had flatly refused to move back to Morning Glory and take over the farm. He was making a good living in the landscaping and tree nursery business, he said, and had no desire to break his back and his heart in something as risky as farming.

After their grandfather's death, the farm equipment had been sold at auction, which, along with what their mother earned as the church secretary and treasurer at Mount Hebron, had served to keep the family afloat financially for the past several years.

Then had come the miracle, as their mother insisted on calling it. Dawn glanced out Donny's window, to where the signal lights on the huge wind turbines flashed red against the night sky. The lease money they got from Western Illinois Wind & Electric was a huge financial windfall. Dawn smiled, as the turbines were, in a very real way, powering her ability to leave home for a college education.

"I was also thinking about what she was saying about me and Mom," she said quietly.

Donny nodded. "The problem is, Sis, that you've been beating your head against the same wall for the past five or six years. You've wanted out of here since you've been old enough to want anything. I'm different. I'm happy here. I've got a good job. In a year or two I'll have enough money to get my own place. Then I can take some advanced repair courses and get certified on more cars, or maybe learn how to maintain those big boys out there," he added, jerking his head at the window. "Trust me, wind turbines aren't going away any time soon. But I won't have to leave here to do it.

"Mom is wrong about some things. We both know that. But if you rebel against everything she thinks, you'll be just as wrong. Just about different things," he said with a lopsided smile.

Dawn made a rude noise. "You know, it's damn aggravating to have a brother as smart as I am. If I didn't know better, I'd say that you should be going to school to be some sort of therapist."

Donny shuddered. "Oh, hell no," he said. "The only mental cases I'm ever going to deal with are the ones in my family."

"Nice, Bro. Real nice." She bent down and kissed him on the cheek. "Thanks for the advice," she said, hugging him.

His hands were strong and firm as he hugged her back. "Good night, Sis."

****

Dawn ran into Cindy as she walked back to her bedroom. From the towel wrapped around her waist and chest, she had just gotten out of the shower.

"Headed to bed?" she asked. "You know your mom said you could stay up til eleven. It's not even ten-thirty yet."

"Just because I can doesn't mean I have to," Dawn said, in tone of smug virtue.

Cindy made gagging noises. "Well, I'm going to go to sleep too. I'll see you in the morning." She drew her into an embrace.

"Gack!" Dawn complained, shaking loose. "Gross. Now I'm all wet!"

"Not as wet as I am," Cindy replied with a strange smile, and walked down the hall to her mother's room, shutting the door firmly behind her.

****

Cindy tried to calm herself as she paced slowly around Katherine's bedroom.

God, it's just as bad as ever. She dropped the towel and rubbed her mons, trying to still the craving inside her. Damn you, Dad, for making me come down here. How am I supposed to deal with this? If I go into town and pick up some redneck piece of garbage for a quick fuck, how long do you think that's going to stay a secret? Aunt Katherine would just love to hear about that. And the last ties between our families would be snapped like rotten string.

She flopped down on the bed, trying to ignore her father's gentle, understanding voice inside her head.

A high sex drive is a survival trait, Cindy Lou. The people who settled here needed it, with so much that could go wrong, and such high infant mortality rates. A farmer and his wife who couldn't sire several children was taking a terrible risk with his family's future. A farmer farms for his children. Passes the legacy along. And you are the recipient. It is nothing to be ashamed of. Enjoy it.

Recipient, hah. More like victim. She writhed on the bed, empty and aching, then slowly got herself under control. Still naked, she opened her suitcase, meaning to put away her clothes in Aunt Katherine's closets.

Opening the doors, she shook her head sadly at what she saw. A dreary collection of dark skirts, plain dark dresses, heavy, unflattering dark slacks, and thick, dull blouses met her gaze. They were the clothes of a woman who desired, above all else, to be ignored.

What a waste, she sighed, thinking of how pleasant Katherine's face still was when she relaxed and smiled, the sweetly sculpted curves she shared with her daughter. She hung her few dresses and jeans on hangers, then stumbled as her feet encountered a shoebox, laying on the dark floor of the closet.

She bent to put it away, then grinned as she saw what she had discovered.

Well, Aunt Katherine. It looks like you've still got a little bit of hell left in you after all, she thought, picking through the box of trashy paperbacks. Pick-ups from some old garage sale or library give-away, she sifted them through her hands. Bent, tattered, and dog-eared, they had obviously been read and re-read until they were all but falling apart.

A Farm Wife's Lust; Passion's Prisoner; Love's Savage Fury. She stifled an urge to giggle at the cheesy titles and dime-store Fabios on the covers, all bare chests and brooding faces and dark, windswept hair, holding impossibly-endowed women with their dresses strategically ripped.

What a waste. All that bright, burning intelligence and desire locked away and hidden, with only this as an outlet. Well, I suppose she inherited the family libido after all.

She grabbed the most tattered book of all, and climbed onto the bed, stopping only to retrieve an object from her overnight bag. She lay on the warm cotton sheets, a pool of lamplight highlighting her features, the cool air, damp with the moisture of the passing rain, drifting over her body.

The book all but fell open in her hand, the passages well-thumbed. She glanced again at the title.

Pleasuring the Princess.

Whatever her issues with the way Katherine chose to live her life, she couldn't fault her choice in erotic literature. The author wasted no words as aristocratic bad-boy Duke Rafael Trelawney wooed the suitably horny Princess Sarissa von Steuben of Horstburg-Wittenheim. Inside of three pages Cindy's nether lips were slippery with her juice as her amped-up sex drive responded to the provocative images the book set into her fertile imagination. Moaning softly, she put the book aside and positioned the head of the dildo at her entrance, her other hand busy frigging her tingling bud.

With a deep sigh of fulfillment, she shoved the rubber phallus deep within her cleft, reveling in the primal satisfaction of being filled. The other prong of the toy, capable of dual penetration, probed at her asshole, and she sought to release the muscles of her sphincter to allow it entry.

Quickly she found her desired rhythm, her left hand pistoning the sex toy in and out of her quivering love-hole, the other happily dancing on her clitoris. Her moisture seeped out of her tunnel, coating the inside of her thighs, slowly trickling down the cleft of her ass-cheeks.

With a panting groan, she felt her sphincter ease open, and she changed the angle of her dildo, allowing the pliant finger to slip into her tight hole, another source of erotic pleasure.

Oh, God, it's too much! She closed her eyes, sparkles of orgiastic pleasure spangling the velvet black of her eyelids. The hungry muscles of her channel clenched at the dildo, rippling as her orgasm tore through her. With a tight-jawed cry of release, her hips stuttered upward, pumping lewdly at the ceiling.

Smiling, she pulled the toy out of her slick channel, shifting idly as her slippery lips slid against each other. She quickly cleaned the toy with a wad of tissue from Katherine's bedside table and tossed it onto her bag. Sniffing the deep, earthy scent of her musk, she turned off the light, not bothering to put her sleeping shirt on.

This is going to be the longest week ever, she thought, as she spiraled down into the welcome embrace of sleep.

****

Over the next two days, they fell into a gentle rhythm. Long used to farm life, Dawn and Donny were up at sunrise each day; Donny to feed the small herd of heifers and the two pigs, Dawn to get breakfast ready for them both when he got back. Cindy usually appeared a little while later, tousle-haired and yawning.

After breakfast Donny went to work, and the two women did whatever small chores were needed around the house to keep things neat and tidy.

"Mom will be back sooner or later," Dawn pointed out Friday afternoon after lunch. "I'm not going to be scrambling on the last day to make sure everything's clean. Better to get things taken care of before they become a problem."

Cindy nodded as she folded laundry. The rainfall of two nights before had dried up, and a cooler spell had settled in, noticeably less humid and very pleasant for August in Illinois.

She folded the last pair of Donny's boxers, and set the pile to one side. "What next?" she asked.

Dawn blew a strand of hair away from her face. "I would rather not, but I guess we better look after the garden. Mom will pitch a fit if she comes home and sees that it's a mess." She opened the door that led to the basement and picked up a group of nested plastic buckets.

She handed a couple to Cindy. "Lucky for you, we won't have to weed. Everything that's still bearing is well up out of the ground, city mouse, so all you'll have to do is pick the veggies and put them in the bucket." Her look was teasing. "Think you can handle that?"

"I'm not sure," Cindy said slowly as they walked out the back door to the garden. "Remind me. Is it the tomatoes that are red when they are ripe, and the peppers that are green, or is it the other way around?"

Dawn snorted laughter as they made their way through the long grass in the backyard to the garden. It was smaller than it had been in past years, when her grandmother had tended it as a point of pride, but it was still big enough to supply them with a steady stream of fresh vegetables throughout the summer months, with enough left over to can and set aside for the winter. Dawn pointed towards the tomatoes.

"Pick all of the ripe ones you can. We won't be able to eat all of them ourselves, and Mom doesn't trust me to do any canning by myself yet. I'll take some into town to drop off at the church or the co-op over the weekend."

She bent over the lettuce patch, picking fresh greens that she intended to make into a salad for dinner, then moved on to the radishes. She looked up at a disgusted grunt. Cindy was wiping her hands on her shorts, mouth puckered.

"Gah," she exclaimed. "I forgot how there is nothing grosser than putting your hands through a rotten tomato." She picked the offending object up and lobbed it into the tall grass that separated the garden from the true farmland, more than head-high with cornstalks, then bent to her task once more.

To her side, Dawn's sexy ass swayed temptingly from side to side as she made her way through the garden. She had to stifle a groan as she moved across her line of vision again, her thighs, noticeably darker now that they had set aside time to sit in the sun each afternoon, contrasting sweetly with the soft beige of her shorts, taut with firm muscle. She felt the familiar tingle of arousal deep within her, and tried to suppress it.

Of course you're not a lesbian, her mother's indulgent voice whispered within her. Neither am I. But that doesn't mean you can't appreciate beauty when it is in front of you, does it? And what harm does it do? If you find a girl attractive and want to demonstrate your feelings for her, how can that possibly be a bad thing?

Dawn paused at the row of peas, climbing up their chicken-wire trellises. "Are you okay, Cindy?"

"Of course," she said, shaking her head briskly. "Why shouldn't I be?"

"No reason," she said, mouth quirking. "You were just hunched over, staring off into space."

"Just woolgathering, I suppose." She swallowed through a dry mouth, watching the tempting globes of her cousin's tits sway back and forth as she shifted to pull pea pods off the vines. A slow throbbing began, deep within her, and she shifted her thighs slowly, savoring the feel as her lust grew stronger.

She grunted, heaving the full bucket of tomatoes to the edge of the garden, and brought back another. "The peppers are doing well," she said, dropping one into the bucket.

Dawn nodded. "Those we'll keep. We'll stick them in the fridge and maybe we'll make stuffed peppers sometime this week. After that, we can do the beans and the squash."

I'd like someone to stuff me, Cindy thought wickedly, and giggled softly, ignoring Dawn's curious look.

"Are you sure you're all right, Cin?" she asked. "You're awfully flushed."

"Just fine, cuz," she answered, her voice deep and sultry. "Just fine."

****

They were hauling the veggies back inside just as Donny came through the front door.

"You're home early, country mouse," said Cindy. "What's going on?"

"Nothing. That's the good thing," said Don cheerfully. "Nobody brought anything in today and the boss let us slide out a couple hours early. I'm going to change and mow the lawn before it heats up again over the weekend."

Cindy helped Dawn put away the vegetables, then poured herself a glass of ice water. Dawn pulled a package of hamburger out of the freezer and set it on the counter to thaw.

"How much longer do you think you'll be keeping livestock?" Cindy asked, as they sat out on the porch swing, overlooking the front yard. Donny clattered past in shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt, heading for the garage and the lawn mower.

Dawn shook her head. "Not too much longer. It's nice to have cheap meat, but it costs to have it butchered. Sooner or later Donny is going to move into town, and Mom has never really enjoyed taking care of the stock. Sooner or later she'll sell the last of it, I think."

"And the farm itself?" Cindy asked softly. Donny pulled the mower out of the garage and started it up, cutting a wide swathe across the green carpet of the lawn.

"It's a miracle we've held onto it this long," Dawn admitted sadly. She was quiet as Donny mowed near them, unwilling to shout over the loud, asthmatic rattle of the old mower. He finished cutting the grass by the porch and moved to the side yard, the house muffling the sound.