It is not necessary to have read Annie's Story: the Road Trip before reading this one, but it might help with character buildup and some background etc.
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Annie's Story 2: The Stepmother
Annie looked out of the window, a little bored. She had travelled nearly 4000 kilometres on a sexy, eye-opening, cross country journey to catch up with her father and his new "wife", and here she was, just eight weeks on, and she was bored. She looked at her tall thin frame in the window's reflection, and at 18 she thought her breasts might still have time to grow a little bigger than the A's they were, but she wasn't optimistic. She gazed back out of the window as if things might have changed in the last 2 minutes and might give her something to break the boredom: it hadn't. It didn't help that her father was still working for the mine company and would fly-in, fly-out on a two-weeks-on, one-week-off roster. Sure it was great in the week that he was home, except for the noises coming through the walls at night, but then there was the two weeks he would be away up north in the goldfields, leaving her with the new "wife" or the "Stepmother" as she had jokingly called her to Beth, her cross- country travelling companion, whilst on the phone to her three weeks ago.
But to be fair, despite her Mother's prejudices, and name calling about "that" woman, Annie couldn't help liking Catherine, or Cath as she preferred. Her father said that he called her Cat, because he liked the way she clawed her nails down his back when they were...
"Too much information! Too much information!" she had screamed playfully at him, plugging her fingers in her ears.
She hadn't known what to expect when she arrived, her father had just been this voice on the end of the telephone from the other side of the country since she was about 7 years old and she didn't know anything about Cath other than her name. She smiled looking out of the window now, remembering the awkwardness on her arrival, how Cath had stood back and said little, making Annie feel uncomfortable, but now realised that Cath was perhaps a little introverted like herself, and was giving father and daughter some space to catch up. It had been awkward, but that was only at first, and father and daughter had spent many afternoons while he was off work, telling stories about what they had each been up to, Cath nodding and smiling and being involved but taking a back seat.
Annie had been half prepared to dislike the woman, given her mother's dislike and obvious emotional baggage, but Annie couldn't blame Cath for splitting up the family, her father after all had been the one to do that and it was such a long time ago. She had had this image of either an Ogress or a slip of a girl the way her mother talked about being traded in for a younger model, but she was surprised to find Cath quite normal although somewhat shy. She was a lot younger than her mother, around 35 she thought, but rather than the temptress her mother had decided on, she had big breasts and a big bottom compared to herself, and a fleshy midriff to boot. She had the necessary curves in all the right places, and looked good in the tight jeans and T shirts she wore around the house but her mother would have described her as "big boned". Her hair was long and dark and her eyes defied a description of colour, perhaps hazel, but she was a very attractive woman.
So here she was, alone in the house and bored. She had spent many of the preceding days alone catching the train to the Fremantle Markets, dawdling amongst the stalls or training into Perth to see the City's sights but she had seen most of them by now and she was feeling restless. Cath was a casual assistant at a local Museum and would work three days a week when Annie's father was away, so Annie had the house to herself again today and didn't really feel like going out. The house itself was close to the beach at Cottesloe. It was a fairly old house by the standards of those in the region but was one of the first two storied houses in the area. It was set on the side of the hill as the ground angled its way down to the shore, and was about three houses back from the Beachside Drive. Luckily the houses below it were old houses too, and they were single storey, giving uninterrupted views out over the Indian Ocean. On fine days she could see the ships slowing and entering the port of Fremantle and she could also see part of the strip of sand along the waters edge from her window on the side of the house. People were visible as smallish dark dots on the orange background, some strolling off to the water every now and then, most just laying on the sand soaking up the sun. Hadn't they heard of skin cancer over here she wondered?
On the downhill side of the house was a swimming pool, not a huge one but big enough to get a workout and deep enough to dive into at the deep end. She had initially thought it a bit foolish to have a swimming pool when the house was only three houses from the beach, but she changed her mind one afternoon when she had gone to the beach to beat the heat and found herself surrounded by countless hundreds of people cramming themselves onto the narrow strip of sand right up to the water's edge. She had been jostled in the water, sprayed with sand on the beach, splashed, accidentally kicked by people swimming past, it was no fun at all, so she had retired to the pool. She still went to the beach every now and then when it was quiet, but in the height of summer, quiet meant two thousand people instead of five! The other benefit that she discovered, was being able to take a dip at night when it was too hot to sleep, something that she would never do at a beach; the movie JAWS had made sure of that!
Annie strolled out to the pool, towel in hand, the navy blue one piece bathing suit nicely contrasting with the light blue of the water, but clashing with the bright orange of the inflatable floating lounge chair that she inched herself into. With sunglasses in place and a floppy wide brimmed sun hat on her head, she placed her Jim Beam and cola glass in the built in holder and proceeded to open up one of the many Tom Clancy books her father had recommended to her. This was her second of Clancy's books; she found that she liked the intricacies of the plots and the mental agility needed to follow the 16 different threads as they slowly entwined to bring the story to a gripping end.
As the afternoon sun made its way across the azure blueness of sky, Annie felt her skin tingling just slightly and rubbed more sun screen all over her legs that were out in the sun's rays. Her shoulders and chest were covered by the wide brim of the hat, but she applied the cream there too as a matter of course. It was only while she was rubbing it across her shoulders and chest that she looked around at the view from her spot in the pool. It struck her for the first time that the house blocked her view further up the hill, and the Cape Honeysuckle growing on one fence and the Mexican Rose growing high up on a trellis on the other side made her position completely secluded. The patio doors looked out onto the decking and the pool, and the upstairs rooms on that side of the house did too, but with an empty house, she was invisible to the world.
Her heart beat a little faster as she wondered if she dared slip the straps from her shoulders and expose her breasts to some fresh air. She looked around again making perfectly sure that no-one could see and, saying to herself "Beth would!" she slipped the straps down and wiggled the swim suit down to her waist. Despite the warmth, the cooler air around her exposed breasts made her nipples tingle and harden, and the naughtiness of it made her flutter a little in her stomach and perhaps a little lower too. She was still looking around trying to make sure no one could see her, when the phone rang, the outdoor bell jangling loudly. She jumped, startled, spilled her drink into the pool and almost lost the book in the water as she quickly pulled her swim suit up.
It had stopped by the time she had awkwardly paddled to the edge of the pool but started up again a few seconds later. It was Cath.
"Annie, could you do me a favour and go to our bedroom and give me the phone number that's on the back of an envelope on my bedside table?"
"Sure...OK.." Annie replied making her way up the stairs with the cordless phone. She made her way into their bedroom and retrieved the envelope and read Cath the number from it. After a few halting sentences about what she was up to today, they said goodbye.
For the first time, Annie was able to have a proper look around a room that she had only previously glimpsed through a partially opened door. The bed was hurriedly made and the bedside tables had all manner of knickknacks and letters and magazines on them. A couple of chairs doubled as clothes horses and the dresser had the usual array of pictures in small frames; Annie was pleased to see her picture on two or three frames that must have been sent to her father sometime in the last 12 years or so. There were pictures of people that she didn't know and she assumed they were either Cath's family or friends. Sitting by the large upper bedroom window was a telescope trained out towards the ocean and on the sill, a pair of high power binoculars. She peered through the eyepiece of the telescope and saw the horizon and found it hard to discern the join of sky and water. She picked up the binoculars and trained them on the tail end of a ship pulling into Fremantle port and marveled at the cargo containers stacked 6 high, defying gravity perched that high above the water line.
From the upper storey, the view from this room was much better than hers, the whole of the Cottesloe beach area was visible, the cycle/skate/running path snaked its way along the esplanade, and the sands stretched as far as she could see in either direction save for the small section invisible due to a hotel's four storey building further down the road. The Indian Ocean stretched out before her, stretched out to...India? No, she thought, Sth Africa would be the next land fall...wouldn't it? And below the window was an uninterrupted view of the decking and the pool in the back yard. She ambled out and downstairs to the lounge where she curled up in front of the airconditioner with Tom Clancy and absorbed herself in his web if intricacies.
The next day was more of the same, although with a much later start, as Clancy had gone on late into the night and had been hard to put down. By the time Annie had risen, Cath was long gone, and it was closing in on lunch time. Annie wandered down stairs not bothering to put anything over her singlet top and boy-leg underwear and couldn't decide if she would have a late breakfast or an early lunch.
She decided she would have a shower first and that would make it closer to lunchtime, but as she passed by her father's bedroom, she heard what appeared to be a door bell sound from inside the room. She peeked in and couldn't find anything that resembled a door bell, but then it happened again and she heard that it was coming from the laptop computer on the little shelf that doubled as a small desk. She walked over to investigate it and found that it was still on and the screen saver was active. She wiggled the mouse and the Webshots display disappeared and in the middle of the screen was what was unmistakably a chat window. She looked around the room as if someone might be watching her and then bent forward to read the message.
' Hi Cuddlepie...are you there?'
'Looks like you're not..'
'I enjoyed myself last night...hope you did too? '
Annie was a little shocked, and re-read it again. The message came from one Snugglepot. Who the hell was Snugglepot and did Dad know she was chatting to some one while he was away? And what were they up to last night. She thought for a moment, and remembered that Cath had gone to bed early claiming to be tired. Annie had thought that it was because her face had been in the book all night and wasn't much company to Cath, but now it seems that there was something going on. She searched the menus but couldn't find a profile on Snugglepot that gave her any info, but she did find a number of saved messages from this person. She opened one or two of them and glanced quickly through them but she couldn't get any further information. The phone rang in the bedroom and startled Annie again.
She answered the phone.
"Hi Annie...this is Cath"
"Oh hi... er.. how are you? " Annie asked breathlessly.
"Are you ok?...you sound a little out of breath"
'It's because I've been sprung poking around somewhere I shouldn't have been' she thought but said "Er ...I just ran to get to the phone...What did you ring for?" she asked, changing the subject.
"I have a late group today coming for a twilight visit at the Museum so I wont be home before dark, you can take care of yourself for a meal? I will get something on the way home probably"
"OK "replied Annie, "I can take care of myself" she said laughing to lighten the moment.
Cath was gone, and Annie let out a slow breath as she replaced the receiver. As soon as it touched down, it rang again instantly, startling Annie once more, a small squeal escaping her lips.
"H..h..hello?" she offered weakly
"Annie?...is that you?... it's Beth....what's wrong?"
" Ohhhh God" she breathed into the phone, and started to tell her all about sneaking around and the phone ringing. She went downstairs, telling her about the computer and what she had found, and the mysterious Snugglepot. Beth giggled very conspiratorially and offered a few crude possibilities which had Annie protesting against them. Annie heard through the receiver the unmistakable sound of the fizzing of a soft drink can lid being opened. When she enquired about it, Beth told her it was a can of scotch and cola. Annie looked at the clock thinking it was too early for Beth to be having a drink and was surprised to see that it was 2.30 in the afternoon already!
She took the phone around the bench in the kitchen and poured herself a Jack Daniels and cola as she talked with Beth.
