Dorsai - Jan

Kathy jumped at the sudden noise, and I could see a wet spot appear at the crotch of the jean cutoffs she was wearing; May Alice all but had heart failure before the two of them bolted for the door.

When the door slammed, I turned to look at Jan and Kelly, a smile on my face. When I saw their expressions, I burst out laughing. It took them a few moments to realize that I really had been putting on a show, and the relief in their faces caused me to go into another bout of near-hysterics. Both came over to me, looking at me as though I was someone they'd never met; after realizing that I was laughing at how they'd looked, they got a bit sheepish before considering how funny they'd looked, and joined in. I moved over to sit on the couch, and both of them came with me, Kelly sitting next to me, and Jan on my lap, facing Kelly.

When I finally stopped chuckling, Kelly said "Damn, you're good. When you made that noise, that kind of growling, I wasn't sure if you were playing, or not!"

Jan joined in, saying "Jesus, Uncle Dan! You had me afraid to move or say anything, cause I thought if I did, you really would lose it!"

I snickered a bit, and said "Good. Then those two will believe it, too."

Jan said "Yeah, they'll believe it. I've never seen Mary Alice look scared of anybody, but you absolutely terrified her. And Kathy wet her pants, she was so scared! How the hell did you do that? I mean, pretend to be so mean and everything?"

I laughed, and said "Simple. When you believe in yourself, other people believe in you, too!"

Kelly looked surprised, and a little doubtful, as she said "You mean you really would do something to them?"

Now it was MY turn to be surprised. "Heavens, no! Hell, I was even careful not to do anything that looked like it even Might be some kind of threatening gesture. It was all attitude, and voice."

Looking a bit chastised, Kelly said "I guess it was attitude and voice!

I could almost feel how upset you seemed, and when you didn't shout or anything, that just made it worse."

"I'll say. But you're still a stinker for scaring US like that!", Jan said.

The two of them looked at each other for a moment, and then joined forces in an attack – trying to tickle me, while insisting that I give them an apology for making them worry so much. They might have had a chance, if it weren't for two things. First, I'm not particularly ticklish. Second, I cheat: any time some interesting bit of anatomy got within range, I'd do something to it. Their plan pretty much came apart when Kelly tried to pin my arms over my head: doing so, she revealed a stretch of her tummy where her blouse had come loose; I simply stuck my face in it, and blew a 'fart' noise into it, tickling her and making her laugh at the sensation. No matter how she tried to avoid it, I kept going, and eventually, she gave up to hold her stomach and laugh. That left me free to do pretty much the same thing to Jan, leaving her in hysterics, since she was far more ticklish than Kelly. After that, all I had to do was to even pretend to come after one of them, and they'd collapse in laughter again, totally at my negligible mercy. Finally, though, I did give them a reprieve, and got up to get us some drinks from the kitchen. By the time I got back, they'd mostly recovered, though both still had bouts of giggles every so often, and both had tears running down their faces from laughing so hard. Even then, they were careful to sit out of my reach, and kept an eye on me.

When they'd finally gotten themselves back together – clothing excluded; we were all pretty disheveled – they looked at each other again for a few moments, before looking at me. I readied myself for another assault; I was completely unprepared for what actually happened.

Jan said "Uncle Dan, it's been a while since Kelly has been over here, right?"

"Ye-e-e-e-s" I answered, puzzled, and more than a little suspicious.

"Then I think you ought to spend some, uh, 'quality time' with her.", she continued.

Looking back and forth between them, I could see that they'd already worked it out, and were simply waiting for me to concede the loss.

I did, as gracefully as possible: "I'd be delighted. What's the plan?"

Jan spoke again, saying "I really do have to go to the library to take back some books, and pick up some other ones. I'll just stay there for a while, and leave you two alone."

That said, she got up, and headed toward the second bedroom, where her bags were still mostly unopened. A couple minutes later, she came out, and headed to the garage, where we heard the engine to her car start (apparently, Kelly had taken her home long enough to get it), followed a bit later by the sound of her heading down the street.

As we heard her leave, Kelly looked at me, and said "She really is a dear, you know. This is supposed to be HER time with you, but she absolutely insisted that we have some time together after I didn't come over for so long. Not that I don't want to be with you; it's just that I don't want to intrude, you know?"

I smiled at her, and answered "Yeah, I know. It probably won't surprise you to know that she keeps telling me how nice you are, and how she doesn't mind – even wants! – for us to be together. She told me that she thought we'd be a good couple."

Kelly smiled back and said "She tells me the same thing; and she really means it, too. Before Kathy and Mary Alice got here, she told me that as much as she loves you, she knows that you and her aren't really 'right' for each other. She really does want to go out and find her own guy and get married and have kids; she knows that if she ever spent too much time with you, it would get in the way of the friendship you have with her dad, and she loves both of you too much to want anything like that to happen."

"She does seem to have a way of not letting what she can't have get in the way of making herself happy, if that makes any sense."

"It does.", Kelly replied, smiling.

"But I don't know that I agree with her that we would make a good couple."

Surprised, Kelly asked "What do you mean?"

"I mean that I'm simply not as certain about it as Jan is. I think that we could make a good couple; I even think that we might make a good couple. But the difference in our ages worries me, as well as a couple of other things."

"Such as?"

"First, as nice as we get along, we haven't spent all that much time together; we're comfortable with each other, and enjoy making love with each other, and all that; but there's still the problem that a couple of hours or a few days together at a time aren't really anything to judge a long term relationship on."

"What else?"

"It's kind of the age difference thing: you're still young, and just don't have a lot of the experience with the world that I have; as much as I'd like to have you as a bigger part of my life, I'm really reluctant to push for it."

"Why?"

"Because you are still young. There's a whole world of experiences out there for you to sample, and I worry that if I push for any kind of long-term commitment from you, I'll be making it harder for you to feel that you can go out there and find your own way in life."

"And?"

"And you're 17 – barely! – and I'm 44. That's twenty-seven year's difference, more than you've even been alive. By the time I turned old and gray, you'd still be fairly young; by the time I died – say, at 80 – you'd still only be 53; young enough to still be able to enjoy life without having to deal with the loss of a husband. Even when you were middle-aged, I'd be old enough that the, uh, physical part of our relationship might be less than what you wanted. I mean, you've got to admit, you DO enjoy making love!"

She laughed a moment, and said "Yeah, I do enjoy it – but it's not the only thing in my life. As much as I like making love with you, it's the other time we spend together that means so much to me. Like I told you before, you spend more time talking with me during my time here than my folks have, ever. And the stuff we talk about and do together is so much more interesting than what I can do with almost anybody my own age that it's ridiculous. Even when I come over here and all we do is sit next to each other and listen to music for a couple of hours, it makes me so happy that I can put up with the other nonsense for days."