It was a bittersweet day.
With the paychecks for going on my first couple of big jobs in the bank, I could safely afford my apartment, truck, as well as the property tax, maintenance, and electric bill on my grandfather's old hunting and fishing cabin. The boss had even quietly given me a cash bonus once he saw my welds and how efficiently I laid them down on that first warehouse project. He told me that he'd do everything in his power to match anybody else's job offers as well.
When you're working for a company with a glowing twenty-year track record, that's a nice little bit of job security right there.
Mom and Dad had been trying to convince me to sell his cabin ever since Grandpa passed away. I was the only one in the family who ever enjoyed outdoor activities, so keeping the land was incomprehensible to them. It was nothing more than paying for something that should have been a windfall as far as they were concerned.
Which is why Grandpa left it to me in the first place. He knew I wouldn't let it get turned into a subdivision or something. As long as I was alive, kicking, and could afford it, the place would stay exactly as it was — wild and peaceful.
Now that I'd started paying back this year's property taxes to Dad, and I would be handling it going forward, their biggest cudgel was gone. With any luck, I wouldn't hear about selling the place ever again.
The sun had only just completely risen above the horizon when I finished loading up the truck and headed out for a five-day weekend at the cabin. After two months of constantly being on the road or under a welding helmet, I needed it.
I keenly felt my grandfather's absence from the moment I turned off the highway onto the gravel. I had to pause and wipe my eyes on my sleeve before getting out of the truck when I pulled up in front of the gate about twenty minutes later.
The meter wasn't showing the disconnect reading it had the last time I came out to do some mowing of the trails, so I assumed they'd turned the power on like they were supposed to. I'd know soon enough.
I unlocked the gate, drove through, and closed it up behind me. The twin trails of gravel beyond the gate were looking even more spotty and overgrown than last time I was out, so I made a mental note. Once I put down a full driveway again, I'd probably get a good decade or two out of it with proper maintenance.
When I pulled up, I saw the door was closed, and none of the windows that I could see were broken, which was a good start. I parked the truck, unlocked the door, and flipped on the porch light.
The dull yellow glow of the old incandescent bug light confirmed that the power was on. I could almost hear Grandpa bragging about how he'd screwed that bulb in back in 1989 and it was still going. I turned the light off and gave the inside of the cabin a look-see. Since everything looked good, I headed back to my truck and grabbed my toolbox.
The pump didn't give me a lot of grief, so soon enough I had running water. With the basic necessities up and running, I unloaded the truck.
By the time I was fully set up for the long weekend, I still had a little time left before noon. As far as I was concerned, that was a sign. I grabbed my fishing poles, and went to see if I could catch myself some lunch.
****
The temptation to sit on the porch overstuffed with freshly-caught catfish and drinking ice-cold beer for the rest of the day was powerful, but there were chores to do. I wanted to get everything out of the way as soon as possible, so I could use the rest of my time off simply enjoying myself and reminiscing about Grandpa. The place was so closely associated with him to me that I could almost feel his presence.
I hiked down to the gate and started following the fence line west. The fence itself looked good, and every
No Trespassing
sign I passed was intact, legible, and at an appropriate distance from the last. I would absolutely need to get the weed-whacker out and spend most of a day trimming along the fence, but it wasn't going to be this weekend.
Despite spending so much time on the property with my grandfather, nothing looked familiar as I neared the northwest corner of the land. We'd never been up there for some reason. I hadn't really thought about it before, but since I had to go that way, my curiosity was piqued.
That doubled as I twisted through some undergrowth and saw a spot that had obviously been mowed up to the fence at one point. Amidst that tall grass was a wooden bench that I knew was my grandfather's handiwork, which was facing the fence. The fence wire between the two posts in front of the bench looked newer than all the rest. On the other side was a lawn, marking it as belonging to the one neighbor who actually had a house abutting the property. Every other property was all woods or had cabins like Grandpa's. I'd never met a neighbor in all the years I had visited, but the bench suggested Grandpa had a relationship with them.
As I approached, I could tell that the bench wasn't weathered enough to have been out there for very long. He must have built it only a few years before he died. I wondered what had inspired him to haul that lumber all the way up there from the cabin when he was already having a bit of trouble getting around.
As I stepped into the clearing, I heard a woman's voice say, "Oh, hello. You must be Kevin."
I turned, and I knew my eyes must have been as wide as dinner plates when I saw them. In the yard on the other side of the fence were two blonde women somewhere around my mother's age, and they were stark naked. Both had easily the biggest tits I'd ever seen bare and in person, and they were walking toward me with easy smiles.
"You are Kevin, right?" one of the women asked.
I tore my eyes away from the bouncing boobies and bent down as if I was inspecting the bench. "Uhm... I... Yes, I'm Kevin."
The woman who had spoken said, "I knew it. Your grandfather talked about you all the time, and the resemblance is there in spades. I'm Marissa and this is my friend Candice."
By the time she had finished speaking, I could see that they were just on the other side of the fence. It felt extremely rude to keep looking away from them, so I turned and tried to make eye contact.
The other blonde waved and said, "Hello."
"Hello," I responded. My eyes — despite my best efforts and intentions — kept drifting to those enormous tits.
Marissa chuckled. "Okay. Elephant in the room," she said while holding out her hands and gesturing toward her bared body — as if it needed any highlighting. "I guess Warren never told you I was a nudist."
"No, he never mentioned that. Sorry, I just..."
"Oh, it's quite okay. I can imagine you'd be a bit flustered by two naked old ladies walking up on you out of the blue."