KATE AND EDITH TOO
Part ONE of FIVE
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THE ICE QUEEN
PROLOGUE
About the title - My parents liked country music and there was a song I remember hearing by the Statler Brothers, "You Can't Have Your Kate and Edith, Too," which plays on the saying, "You can't have your cake and eat it, too." I thought it was kind of funny, and recent events brought it to mind, hence the title for this story.
Last year, at the beginning of May, right after my wife and I celebrated our fifth anniversary with a vacation in Alaska, she got a call from her sister, Jennifer. She wanted to come for a visit, something she hadn't done since in our six years together. They get along fine, but are not all that close, anymore. Her sister and her husband are very different from us, live very different lives, and we're separated by distance - they live at Lake Tahoe, on the Nevada side, and work in Carson City/Reno area, and we live east of Phoenix, Arizona, just outside Mesa. Also, the two rarely talk on the phone or text, except for birthdays and calls concerning their aging parents.
Therefore, we were surprised when she said she wanted to come see us - well, see Liz at least. We both knew she wasn't including me in the "I need to see you" statement. Yeah, we're less than buddies. Also, a bit of a surprise, Charles (never Chuck or Charlie), was not accompanying her, which was fine with both of us. Neither Liz nor I are big fans of his. We only met him twice, once at their wedding, and once for the 40
th
wedding anniversary of Liz's parents. To say he is an arrogant, self-centered prick, is being generous.
Anyway, we were both curious about the visit, and not entirely excited about it. But Liz and I had just returned from vacation, and although wonderful, it was a long and exhausting trip. We had to hit the ground running as soon as we returned - demanding jobs, getting the house, the grounds, and the pool up to snuff, and such. So, the timing could have been better. We weren't ready for company, especially not someone as high maintenance as her sister.
But there was nothing for it. The Ice Queen was paying a visit.
INTRODUCTIONS
I'm Jack (my given name - not a nickname), 33, and my wife is Elizabeth (always Liz), 34. We live in Gold Canyon, Arizona, a small community just east of Mesa, located next to the foothills of the Superstition Mountains. Liz is a P.A. and works for a physician in Mesa who specializes in Geriatrics. I'm a remodeling contractor and am also based in Mesa. I have an office and small warehouse in an industrial park on the outskirts of town. Until a couple years ago, we lived in Mesa, but I kind of inherited my dad's home in Gold Canyon when he married a woman from Virginia and moved back east. She didn't like the heat and the desert.
The house is larger than we need, but very nice, and one which we couldn't have afforded straight up, but my dad turned it over to me for what he owed on it, which resulted in a very manageable mortgage for us. So, we ended up with an upscale home that is currently worth three times what we paid for it, on. The decent-sized, southwestern-style (think pseudo-Mexican adobe), mostly one-story house, has a large loft over the garage that looks down on the entry, and main living area. It sits on a large lot at the eastern perimeter of the quiet community of Gold Canyon, a place with mostly retirees and snowbirds - we are probably among the youngest residents here by a couple decades, which is fine with us. It backs up against the rugged desert terrain of the foothills, with the Superstition Mountains looming up not too far off. It is a great view to wake up to; and we have the added benefit of only one directly-adjacent neighbor, who is located on the garage side of our house, and out of view. We are surrounded by the desert on most of three sides. There is only a decorative, split-rail fence with adobe pilasters, outlining the rear and sides of the property, allowing an unrestricted view of the surrounding, rugged desert and mountains. The good-sized lot has a large pool, with the surrounding yard done in attractive desert-themed flora, decorative boulders, rocks and soils - or xeriscape.
When we are not hiking in the foothills or local mountains, you'll find us swimming and lounging in our backyard.
With my work and our outdoor lifestyle, I'm a physically fit, solidly built guy, 6-foot even and 210 pounds. I wear my wavy, slightly-reddish, medium-blond hair just over my ears and over my collar in back. My face has no particularly unique or remarkable features - blues eyes, a slightly crooked nose, and a solid jawline and chin. I'm clean-shaven with but sport a permanent 5-o'clock shadow due to a dense beard that is somewhat darker than my hair. My wife and others say I have a great smile. I smile a lot - I have a lot to smile about. After a disastrous first marriage, I met and married a wonderful, beautiful woman at a point when my personal life was not going so well. I'm pretty buff, and both in looks and physically, my wife says I resemble Chris Pratt - though I'm a little shorter, a little stockier, and, yeah, maybe not quite as handsome...and there is a small disparity between his net worth and mine.
Liz is sweet, intelligent, and dynamic. Her fairly carefree approach to life helped me learn not to let problems get me down, but to go with the flow, to be optimistic. All of which would soon come in handy - and be put to the test. Did I mention, she is very pretty and has an awesome body?
She has a lovely, oval face with overall moderate features, including an average, well-shaped nose, moderately full lips that almost always wear a devastating smile, and cheeks that are just prominent enough to be noticeable. She has bright blue eyes that really set off her pretty, inviting face. Her light-blond hair is worn long to about mid-back. And besides the natural sun-bleaching, she also does subtle highlighting and lowlighting which really sets it off.
At 5'-6" and around 130 pounds, her figure is a nice balance between 'womanly' and 'athletic' - subtly well-muscled but shapely with full C-cup breasts, a flat stomach, shapely hips and a full but firm derriere that is just right for her build. She has slightly wider than average shoulders, prominent collar bones, and a moderately V-shaped torso which tapers to an average width waist which boasts a very flat, slightly wash-boarded stomach - in other words, she doesn't have the classic 'hour-glass' figure but a more athletic one that is still quite sexy. For what it's worth, her measurements are 38/27/36. Her legs are well-toned, slightly muscular. As I said we hike a lot, and do some moderate rock climbing, plus regular workouts in our makeshift gym (It's located in the loft and shares the space with my home office).
.
Physically, Liz's sister, Jennifer, couldn't be more different. They had different mothers and it shows. Jen is tall and slender, kind of willowy at about 5'-10" and 125 pounds, best guess. From her wedding dress, I could tell she had narrow shoulders and a narrow torso with probably B-cup breasts, a very narrow waist, obviously flat stomach, and only nominally-flared hips. Her derriere appeared to be small, but evident, and other than to say her legs were obviously long and probably slender, I couldn't comment on them. Until her visit, I had only seen her in pants suits and her floor-length wedding gown.
She has a dramatically beautiful, slightly angular face, that is dominated by a wide, sexy mouth, with full, sculpted lips. Dark eyebrows and long, thick eyelashes nicely frame her penetrating, dark-brown eyes. Her dark-brown hair is worn in what my wife calls a 'sleek, long, bob-cut' that hangs almost to her collar bones in front, and angles up to the base of her neck, in back.
As far as personality goes, you wouldn't believe the sisters are related at all. For all her beauty, she is not a beautiful person - demanding, opinionated, critical - at least in my experience. The way she looks at you with those dramatic eyes of hers, also reveals a superior attitude she makes no effort to conceal. The severe set of her mouth is not inviting. Even at her wedding, her smiles were pinched and closed-mouth. It was like she was always disappointed by what was going on around her, that nothing measured up to her standards and expectations. Her wedding was pretty spectacular, but you wouldn't have known it from her demeanor.
THE STORY
I. THE PHONE CALL
Our Saturday had been hectic - unpacking, opening up the house, doing laundry, tending to the yard, running to the store to restock, and so on. Sunday was a day to unwind. We gravitated to the patio and pool for relaxation and soaking up sun after two weeks of cool to cold weather and nonstop activity. It was a typical, warm day for early May, reaching the low 80's by afternoon, with a clear, azure-blue sky and only the lightest breeze - perfect for sunbathing.
Liz's cell rang and she almost ignored it, but it could have been her mom, so she jumped up from her lounger and skipped to the patio table to answer it.
She looked at the 'caller I.D.' and expressed surprise, "Hi, Jen. Everything okay...Uh huh...Mm hmm...Oh...Um, sure...Yes, of course...When...Okay, well, we'll see you then...Mm hmm, bye now."
"Hon, that was Jen. She's coming for a visit."
"Yeah, so I gathered. What about Charles?
"Nope, just her."
When?"
"Tuesday," my wife mumbled as she slowly sat on her chaise and reached for her iced tea.
"Tuesday? And she's just now letting us know? Really? Why, what's up? Did Charles croak?" I kidded and chuckled.
She playfully smacked my arm, then turned serious, "Um, no...I don't know. She just said some things had come up and she needed to see me...and a place to stay for a bit, that she would explain when she got here. You know Jen."
I replied sarcastically, "Yeah, she couldn't be bothered with anything so insignificant as explaining to her only sister why she was showing up out of the blue, and inviting herself to 'stay for a bit'..."
Liz slapped my arm again, "Don't be an ass...You know, she sounded off, unsettled. I think she's leaving Charles."
"Good. Never liked Chuck," I quipped.
"You are hell bent on being an ass, aren't you?" Liz playfully chided me. "Come on, let's hit the pool and cool off."
She got up and headed for the water. I sat and watched her butt gyrate and her back and leg muscles subtly work as she approached the edge of the pool. I never tire of looking at my wife, at her gorgeous, well-tanned, sexy body. We both have pretty solid tans, though we do use a lot of sunblock lotion and try to not over-expose our skin. For outside work in the sun, I wear a hat, long sleeves, and jeans. Other than our sunbathing, we limit our exposure to the sun - don't want end up looking like saddlebags. We both know the dangers of skin cancer, and know we spend more time sunbathing than we should, but we do it, anyway.
Liz dove in the pool and I followed her in, surfacing next to her as she gathered long strands of wet hair off her face. She laced her arms around my neck and pressed her warm body against mine, engaging me in a hot, wet kiss.
She leaned back, "You know, this will be the first time we aren't going to have our privacy since we've been married. We're going to have to quit running around the house naked while she's here," she noted with a playful smile.
"About that, how long is a 'bit'?"
