"He's Family" (closed)

[Alice2015]

"He's Family"​

Alice Marker turned before the mirror and stroke a pose to view her latest tattoo. It had taken the body artist three weeks of periodic sessions to finish the very detailed work. And he'd finished just in time. This afternoon she was being sent off to serve a 60 day sentence as her Uncle's house slave.

Oh, okay, it wasn't all that. But it certainly wasn't what she'd had in mind for the summer between her freshman and sophomore years at Community College.

"Why me?" Alice had whined to her mother, Sarah, when she had first been told. "I don't understand why I have to take care of him."

"Three things," her mother responded with aggravation. "First, we had an agreement that you would take your first year at college seriously, but instead you have a GPA of two-point-eight. And you got busted at not one but two MIP parties."

Alice tried to correct her mother with, "I only got picked up, not arrest--"

"And...!" her mother interrupted. "Second, you promised to supplement your financial aid and the money your father and I give you with a job--"

"I got a job!" Alice countered.

"You lost a job," her mother corrected. "Six of them as a matter of fact."

"Five!" Alice did manage to correct this time around. After her mother only stared at her for a long moment, Alice mumbled, "You said three things. That's only two."

Sarah said simply, "He's family."

That was the clencher, of course. Alice may have been a screwup in many areas of her life, but when it came to family, she was dedicated. She had been raised to understand, accept, and even agree with the concept that family always came first. Family, school, community, sports, friends. It was the palindrome the family lived by, if you could call the first initials of five words a palindrome: F-S-C-S-F. Family was priority one, which meant that Alice was going north to live with her uncle for the summer.

Frank wasn't actually Alice's uncle. He was her mother's mother's brother, so Alice's great-uncle. Thinking about the relationship, it made Frank sound so old. Great-uncle. But he wasn't really. Alice contemplated and chronologically compared the relatives he and she shared. Doing some quick math, she concluded that Frank was somewhere in his late 50s. So, he was about three times her own age of 18. (Despite being a horrific student in high school, she'd actually graduated at 17 and finished her first year of college at 18.) So, both old and not old at the same time.

<<<<<< >>>>>>​

The train ride north took a little more than 4 hours. Alice disembarked and headed straight for a stall in the station's bathrooms. She changed out of her comfy traveling sweats and into a tight fitting dress she'd borrowed from a friend. Snapping a selfie in the mirror, she sent her latest boyfriend the pic and a text: Will miss you and your cock horribly. Only 59 days til you are inside me again. I will wait if you will.

She didn't meant that, of course. 60 days without sex? Are you kidding?

Alice grabbed her wheeled suitcase and thumbed a ride to Frank's neighborhood with a man who was simply incapable of pulling his eyes off Alice's perma-hard nipples. He drove off only after getting a phone number and a promise of a date. (The number was Amtrak's Lost and Found line, which had a local area code rather than an 800 one.) Then she walked the final block and a half to Frank's door, knocked, and smiled when he answered.

"Hey, Unc!" she said with a smile that was more feigned than sincere. "Got a beer?"

 

[Alice2015]

“Hi Alice?” her great-uncle responded to her greeting.

She wasn't immediately sure of why he seemed so surprised. Had he forgot she was coming today? Had he simply not recognized her? Was he going fuckin' senile? He was old, after all. Alice caught how Frank's gaze fell to her body for a quick ogle. It didn't even faze her. She was used to men looking at her like that. Even relatives. Hell, she had a cousin who literally and seriously put the moves on her at a family reunion once. She'd been flattered and had even returned some of his kisses out behind the house. But then she'd kneed him in the nuts when he'd refused to get away from her. Needless to say, they hadn't kept in touch.

About his having a beer handy, Frank responded, “Erm....yeah....probably in the fridge.”

"Thank God," she said with humor as she stepped up, kissed him on the cheek, and surged by. "I'm about to die of thirst."

“Wait...are you even old enough to drink beer?”

"I'm old enough to do a lot of things, Unc," Alice called back. "Nice to see you, by the way."

She hadn't meant for her answer to sound sexually suggestive. But after she'd said it, Alice laughed, wondering what Frank might already be thinking about her. The tattoos, the tight dress, the desperate need for alcohol, the language. They chatted about her finding his house, to which she flashed her cell phone. She assumed he would understand that that meant she'd used Google Maps. But then, did he even know what Google Maps was?

“Thanks for coming to help out, I’m not as mobile as I used to be,” Frank half joked.

It was now that Alice began looking about herself at the condition of the house. It was a mess!

“It’s just household maintenance really, cleaning, cooking, yard work...”

Alice found dishes in the sink and all about the counters. Stacks of newspapers, magazines, and other papers filled every table and desk top, some room corners, and one entire side of the hallway that led back to what she presumed were the bedrooms. In the upper corners were cobwebs. She could barely see out the windows because of dust from the world beyond them. Clothes were tossed over the backs of exercise equipment which (looking at her uncle) hadn't seen any use in years.

He continued, "...my wife used to do all..."

Alice's immediate thought was And when did she leave you? The 1960s?

“I’m not really great with computers or phones either,” Frank admitted, probably looking for a change of subject.

"I can help you with that," Alice mused without really even knowing she was saying it. She looked around this room, then the next with obvious horror. When she looked back to Frank, she smiled with amazement. She handed him the half filled beer bottle, turned back for the fridge, and told him, "We're gonna need more beer. Lots more beer!"

She opened another bottle and turned to study her great-uncle as she chug two or three big swigs. He was as she'd expected. But then, not. He was handsome beneath his several days growth of facial hair and wrinkled shirt. He was just the kind of man she could see herself sleeping with. If she was 30 years older!

"We need to get you the fuck outta here, Unc," Alice told Frank as she walked back his way. "Get outta that shirt, and find some pants that match. The new shirt, not that one. We're gonna find a pizza parlor that has dark beer on tap, and you're gonna tell me how the fuck you ended up like this. And I'm gonna tell you how we're gonna fix you."

Although the words may have sounded critical, the tone was supportive. Alice didn't always know how to explain her intentions to people who didn't know her well. But those intentions were always well meaning. And she always followed through. She drained the beer, set the bottle aside, and gestured Frank to get to it. "Let's go! We've got a lot of work ahead of us."

 

[Alice2015]

Alice smiled up to their order taker, matching the smile on the drivers's license. His gaze moved from the license to Alice's face to the license to her face, then her tits, then back to her license again. He handed the fake ID back without knowing it was fake, and went off to get their beers.

“You know I can’t even remember the last time I saw you Alice. How old were you then? How long ago was that?”

Alice smiled. She knew he was trying to figure out whether or not she was legal age for drinking. Hell, he was probably trying to figure out whether or not she was legal for fucking. Not that he wanted to fuck her. She was his niece, after all. But, still, men have fantasies, even about family members.

"My 12th birthday party," she began. She laughed. "You brought me that little video game console thing because my dad told you I was into stuff like that. I wasn't, but, it was still very sweet."

She looked around for eavesdroppers, then clarified the age thing, "That was six and a half years ago."

Alice gave him a moment to do the math, laughed again, then explained, "There's an App you can get that searches social media for images of you. You know, Facebook Instagram. Revenge porn sites. The like. You can vary the parameters and find images of people who aren't you but who look like you."

The man from behind the counter arrived with two tall tankards of dark beer, then departed. Alice continued, explaining a complicated process identifying her doppelganger, pretending to be her at the DMV, and getting a real drivers license in that woman's name. "It takes a while, but it's a real license. Nothing fake. I only use if beer. And wine. Maybe a little tequila from time to time."

“Do your mom and dad let you drink?”

"Let me?" she asked with a laugh. If only her parents knew some of the things Alice did when they weren't around. She said casually, "No, they don't let me. But, I'm sure they know I do. From time to time. It's not like I've ever been arrested for MIP or anything."

That much was true. She'd been picked up. But never arrested. Never charged. She changed the subject as their server delivered plates, silverware, and napkins and said their pizza would be out in six minutes. "Mom says you write. Or, that you used to. Or wanted to, I don't remember. Is that what you do now?"

Alice didn't want to say aloud that she knew Frank was unemployed. Men took working for a living so seriously sometimes. As far as she was concerned, so long as you could legitimately pay your bills and support your family, it didn't matter to her whether or not you put in a 40 hour week.