The only reason I tolerate Sally at all is because she is the little sister of my wife, Sara.
Barely two years younger, Sally acted like she was behind and trying to catch up with her sister Sara. Her way of keeping up was to push everything Sara had back a little bit, and she somehow managed to do it in a manner that was sweet as pie so we couldn't just kick her out into a snowbank, so to speak.
If I had a dime for every time she made some snide comment about me to Sara I wouldn't be rich but I sure would have a few hundred bucks extra.
"My job wasn't good enough, so why did Sara put up with it?" or, "Why can't he get a regular job like real people, you never have any idea of what he makes." I overheard that one several times.
Other snotty comments like, "Why did you let him buy that silly 4 wheel drive Jeep, why not a car like real people?" Or, "I can't believe you still live in this ratty little apartment, why don't you make him buy you a house?"
You get the drift.
My name is Dan, I like my job building cabinets for people. Sure, I could maybe have gone on to be a Doctor, a Lawyer, maybe even some kind of politician, who knows? Perhaps end up sitting in a little cubicle somewhere answering a phone or typing reports?
I happen to like making cabinets. I get to look at space and design what I think would be attractive and functional, get input from folks and end up with a final design. Then I cut and fit, finish every single piece with my hands.
I always want things as perfect as I can make them, the delight on the face of a client when they are tickled makes my day without fail.
I even make a few bucks, enough for about anything Sara and I ever need. Things could be worse what with the economy and all, yet I keep right on getting calls with orders. So much so that I hired two guys to give me a hand and have been thinking of a 3rd one.
One store chain tried to hire us to mass produce, but I had to refuse that. No way will a mass produced product ever fit someone's home properly.
Funny thing is, I suggested to the store owner that I would give him a sweet commission on each sale he made for us, then I built and put samples in his stores.
Darned if he didn't sell three jobs the first month, and five more the second month. That made me into one busy boy for awhile there until I got some helpers.
That was four years back, and things never have really slowed down that much.
So the "ratty apartment" Sally always had some comment about is a 2nd floor condo that costs us $2400 per month, it's kind of nice.
My damn Jeep is brand spanking new and big enough to drag around my utility trailer, one that is all steel with a hydraulic tilt bed on it.
We have credit cards but pay them off every month, and we both max out our IRA's. We are doing just fine, dammit.
Yep, Sara's sister Sally is a bit like a ready to pop pimple on my ass, to be frank.
To make matters worse, Sally came to visit way too often, usually overnight or all weekend and thought nothing of running around the condo in her bra and panties. Or shorts and a top that were not designed to hide anything at all.
I swear, when she was around her one goal was to get my goat.
"Sally! Put some clothes on!" Sara would roar, as I would be trying my level best to look around her sister at the TV set.
Not an easy thing for me to do actually, I am a male and I like women but I also like my wife. Plus I have this deep suspicion that Sara would have no sense of humor at all if I dared to even notice her sister.
Which even though I didn't like her much, damn was she something to look at! Nice firm looking up top, flat tummy, and one of those behinds that no guy on the planet can ignore, not really.
I kind of think she is completely aware of that.
"Oh don't be silly, I am your sister and it's just Dan. I doubt he is interested in women much anyway." She would retort.
Grrrrr. But I would just sit there and smile, taking it. Yep. Keep the peace, it's not good to reach out and strangle your wife's sister right in front of her.
That could upset the relationship, besides, we didn't have a yard so no place to bury the body.
Sally had a butt on her that is best described as booty, slim waist and a nice set of jugs that I saw one morning in all of their glory when I came out of the shower and there she stood in a towel. She pretended to be startled and lost control of the towel, baring the works to me for just a moment.
Rather damn long moment in fact.
Right down to her hairless snatch, which couldn't be missed because it was all puffy looking.
"Oops!" She said with a giggle, while appearing to have one hell of a time getting control of the bath towel.
I ignored that, then retreated to our bedroom for safety.
Good thing Sara was asleep, I had just a bath towel wrapped around me also and my reaction was likely to have gotten noticed since that part of me tends to stick out quite a bit when I get fussed up.
No light switch on that, the only thing I could do was find somewhere to hide for awhile.
Don't get me wrong, I like females just fine, but this sister looked to be one with a poison Apple.
Then there was my Sara. Sweet as pie, brown hair, pretty eyes that weren't quite brown and weren't green either but sometimes were both. Slim also, but all over slim, not like her sister at all.
I did think a little bit that I would like it if Sara had a set of boobs like Sally did but lord did I love Sara, so that was just a fleeting thought.
In our bedroom I would make cracks about Sally being found hanging onto a guardrail out on the freeway when she was a baby, no way did that come out of their extremely normal Mom and Dad.
Sara would giggle, but then she found everything I said funny. We were a very happy couple and quite content with our lot in life. No point in making waves though so like I said, I tolerated Sally.
Sara was used to Sally I guess, since they did grow up together. I never did quite get used to her, not even with her being around a lot.
There was always that under current, some kind of basic competition between the two of them. Little sister trying to keep up with the big sister I guess.
+++
Sara and I liked to take camping trips, part of why we bought the Jeep. The seat laid down and created a passable bed, we had a mat rolled up and stored, along with some dried food, some water bottles, an axe, a knife, things like that.
I remember once I took her camping when we were first dating, she had never been camping. Like I also said, her Mom and Dad pretty much held down the easy chairs at home, she cooked and cleaned and he came home from work with a paycheck and handed it to her. That was about it.
Football? Basketball? That was it over there, any conversation about out in the woods, fishing, hiking, just seeing the world was met with a blank look.
I had found a rather beaten up old 1963 Corvette, and I was fiddling around restoring it. Her Dad did let me use his garage for that since we didn't have one, just a carport out front.
A couple of times I tried to chat with him about what I was doing and all I got was a grunt. So I instead usually sat and listened while he told me about someone that I had no idea who it was scored some amazing points somehow in a ball game.
They did go bowling, and were always after us to tag along. I didn't mind that too much, but it was like nothing ever got accomplished. You throw the ball, maybe hit something. If you do get a strike, it doesn't matter because the ball comes right back and every one of those pins gets sat right back up.
I even scored a 206 once, not quite sure how but we all had to go have a drink to celebrate. That was the main topic of conversation for about two weeks.
Often Sally showed up for those games, and she and Sara went at it like life itself depended on it, Sara being smaller should have a disadvantage but she won around 90% of the time.
She nearly always beat me, too.
+++
Anyway, on that very first wonderful camping trip I took Sally on, of course it rained. Now there is rain, and then there is RAIN!
"How are we going to cook?" Sara asked me, well aware that we had Eggs and Bacon, some meat and raw spuds, a few cold canned goods. She sounded a little bit worried, we were way in hell up in the hills, there probably wasn't another living soul for 20 miles.
We were standing there in rain ponchos, looking around the empty camp.
"No problem." I grinned at her.
I used my huge hunting knife which I could shave with and sometimes did, peeled green wood into little curls underneath one of my spare tarps. I piled rocks to make a stove, put a piece of tin I had just for that purpose on top to keep the water out. I stacked more rocks for underneath the fire to keep the water down and out of the flames. I used my folding shovel to dig some trenches to lead the rain water away from the fire.
In very short order the flames were leaping nicely, I found some larger undergrowth that had fallen and soon had a nice bed of coals.
Green wood burns just fine, dead limbs on trees underneath the green branches is nice and dry, dig in the pine needles and six inches down is more dry tinder. I always look for trees growing on steep hillsides, the thick beds of Pine needles act just like a tarp, so there is often dry wood underneath them.
I built that fire and cooked on it in the worst downpour you ever saw. She ate what I cooked, I don't even remember what it was but she loved it.
"I can't believe you can build a fire in weather like this and cook on it!" She said past a mouthful of crispy butter fried potatoes. Her expression suggested she was impressed as we sat there covered by a huge foul weather poncho big enough for two. I had ties to corners of a large log we used for a chair, found some uprights and created a snug little tent for us out of it.
That was kind of romantic, the two of us out there in the dark, lit up by the fire, rain pounding down on the cover over us.
It was a bit cool, too, so we sort of had to snuggle.
I had carefully checked the weather report before we headed out.
We began to make out a little bit right out there in the downpour, the rain beating down onto the weather proof material.
That's a kick all by itself, try that sometime.
Later, in the Van I had back then, we made love for the first time, at least all the way. I had found a big soft mattress, because I wanted her to be comfortable.
