Rag Doll Ch. 05

"Okay, it's a deal! Big sister, huh?" and she smiled back.

"Everyone I know calls me "Shari", you could make a start by calling me that too," she grinned, and I grinned back.

"Okay, "Shari" it is, and welcome to the family!"

She smiled at me, and I had to ask.

"So, really, you're older than me? How much?"

Shereen twinkled at me.

"Oh, a few months, Bobby, enough to make you my "little" brother, anyway; Yaz is nineteen going on twenty, so she's about a year younger than Ricky, so I guess that makes me the oldest, so you better get used to taking orders!"

She smiled as she said it, to show she was joking, and I couldn't help but smile back; she had such a beautiful smile, too!

"Right, Bobby, let's go and make a nice cup of tea, I could do with something hot right about now."

We came back downstairs to find Rick and Yaz sitting in the kitchen drinking mugs of coffee. The scent of the fresh coffee nearly made me swoon; I hate tea, and coffee was so expensive I'd given up on ever buying any ever again on my severely limited budget. Yaz saw my expression and silently handed me her mug with a shy smile. I took it gratefully, sipping slowly while savouring the rich bitterness and caffeine bite. I sat at the table while Shari busied herself making tea for herself and another coffee for Yaz. Rick seemed uncomfortable, until I grinned at him.

"That's a sweet left hook you've got there, Ricky!"

He grinned back, the tension draining out of him when he realised I wasn't going to return the favour and bop him one. Yaz gently turned my head to look at the right side of my jaw.

"There's a bruise coming up, Bobby; would you like some ice on that?" she asked me softly, and I shook my head.

"Thank you, no, it'll be okay in a couple of days." I replied, still processing the fact of these girls, the horrifying story they'd told me, the truths revealed about my mother and what my father had done to her, their mother and what he'd done to her, what he'd done to us, and uppermost in my mind, what he'd done to our big brother.

Yaz saw my eyes filling as I thought about how I'd treated Barbara, about how she must have felt for her sons to so utterly reject her for no reason, and most of all how she must have felt the loss of Nicky, the only one of us who'd loved and honoured her; she wasn't even his mother, she was mine; she was my mother and I'd done nothing, said nothing, felt nothing when my father had brutalised and finally destroyed her. The tears ran down my cheeks as they finally spilled from me, and suddenly Yaz was there, holding me as I cried for her at last, for never knowing her, for letting her go so easily, and for Nicky, for being the one thing she'd been allowed to keep and love in this entire family, and for how easily I'd let him go.

Yaz led me away from the table, and sat me on the couch in the sitting room, sitting next to me so she could hold me, much as she'd held Rick earlier. She never said a word; what could she say that wouldn't sound false, and trite, and banal? Instead she held me close, giving me comfort with her presence while I cried, probably for the first time in my life.

At last I stopped crying; the guilt and sorrow had passed for now, leaving me feeling empty and depressed; what did we do now? This house was a mausoleum, we could all live here, but it was almost completely unfurnished; I couldn't even work out where the girls were going to sleep; most of the beds had been taken away long ago to be sold at auction, and those that were left had been unused for nearly two years now; damp and rot would have claimed them by now, and there were precious few bedclothes and linens left, barely enough for my ramshackle single bed. I didn't have an iron or an ironing table, any pillows or cushions, nothing.

Rick obviously knew what I was thinking, as he tipped his coffee at me.

"Don't worry, Bobby, we've sorted out sleeping arrangements. We did some exploring while you were conked-out and found some single mattresses in the attic; they're old, but clean; someone wrapped and stored them properly, so they're nice and dry. We moved a couple of the single-bed frames into the master bedroom, the girls will stay there. As for bedding, why don't you help me bring it in?"

I looked confused.

"Bring it from where?"

Nick smiled at me

"From the car, Bobby. We stopped off on the way here and bought sleeping bags and pillows, because I knew the girls would need them; come on, they need to get some sleep."

I could only stare stupidly.

"You have a car?" I asked, and Rick grinned.

"Well of course we have one; how did you think we got all the way here from London, hitchhiking?"

He drained his mug and stood up, nodding at me to follow him. Their car, a grey Mitsubishi Shogun I'd noticed but not really registered when I first came in, was parked just a little way away, the luggage compartment and most of the back seat crammed with bags and boxes. Rick told me to wait while he got in and reversed the car into the driveway so we didn't have to traipse back and forth while we unloaded it.

The girls came to help as we emptied the car, and with all four of us working it was just a couple of minutes before all the stuff from the car was piled up in the sitting room, with Rick and Yaz sorting through it all.

I noticed that Yaz seemed to be more than usually attached to Rick; at first I assumed it was because they were the younger ones, seeking support from their peers, but then I began to understand it was a lot more complex than that; they were obviously connecting at some deeper level as well, and, strangely, I was glad about it; Rick and I had never had any friends growing up; dad had seen to that. Nicky had gone to school when he was younger, but then dad had decided that we should all be home-schooled, so we never had the opportunity to mix and mingle with other people when we were young, and after Nick was sent to secondary school, Rick and I remained at home with our tutor.

When I'd started work, I had no real idea how to communicate or relate to the people around me; I think my colleagues thought I had some kind of mental impairment, as I never spoke to any of them, but the truth was I had nothing in common with them, no shared background, interests, experiences, nothing; when they'd laugh and talk about girls, I just used to stare blankly; I really had no idea what they were talking about, but I did eventually come to understand that revealing to them that I was still a virgin at almost twety-two was probably not a smart move.

I'd not met any girls yet; pushing a street-sweeper and smelling like a midden are not the most aphrodisiac combination, so meeting girls on the job just never happened, as a result of which, I really had few insights and little to no intuition when it came to understanding the fairer sex. I knew about the mechanics of sex, of course; I could read, and I had the usual collection of girlie mags any single man my age could be depended-on to possess, but no actual experience, not even anything that could be called a conversation with a member of the opposite sex.

As I watched Rick and Yaz unpack, exchanging light touches, pats on arm, or shoulder, or knee, and glances I couldn't understand, smoothing errant strands of hair from each other's eyes, or a lightly touching fingertip to the tips of noses, or chins, gentle horseplay, Shari slid next to me, her arm around mine as she pressed herself against me, resting her head against my shoulder.

"They're such good friends, and good for each other; look at them! Ricky and Yasmin hit it off from Day One; they've hardly spent a minute apart since Ricky first came to us. I think it's a good thing; they both needed someone, she found Ricky, and he found her. Mummy was pleased; she trusted Ricky to take care of his little sister, and Yaz needed a protector, someone to look up to and feel safe with after being frightened for so long of what our father said he was going to do with her."

As Shari leaned against me, the scent of her hair teased and tickled my nostrils, and underneath that the smell of her; soap, clean and astringent, and even more subtly, the scent of her skin; I began to harden; it was purely involuntary; I had no thoughts or intentions towards her, good or bad, it was just her femininity, her warmth and humanity, and the fact that she wasn't shying away from me, as girls tended to do.

I knew what arousal was, and most aspects of sex, or I thought I did, but only from reading the girlie mags under my bed; I'd never even talked to a girl before today, and now I was stirring as my newly-discovered 'older' sister hugged herself close to me.

We continued to watch as Rick and Yaz pulled four bundles out of the pile of stuff we'd brought indoors, four sleeping bags still in their wrappers, and a pile of pillows. We carried them up to the master bedroom where the twin beds had been pushed together to make one large bed. We'd also brought some sheets from the pile of things they'd bought, and we quickly made up the bed for the two girls, sleeping bags laid onto the clean sheets, brand new pillows and pillowcases all ready for them. Rick had reclaimed his old room, so he dumped his sleeping bag and pillows on the little single bed in there, even though the frame was in as bad a shape as mine.

"Tomorrow, Bobby, we need to do something about the bedrooms; Shari wants you to go and do some shopping with her, we need more bedding, crockery, silverware, everything really; four people can't live properly on what we have here, so as you two are the oldest, you get the short straws!"

More bedding made sense to me; I had few spare blankets, not even enough for me, really; winter was always a tough time, and in the past I'd had to resort to covering my feet with old coats on top of the thin blankets I had, and in the depths of Winter I'd had to resort to the old vagrant's trick, interleaving sheets of newsprint between my blankets to try and stave off the brutal Borderlands winter chill; the house was freezing and I couldn't afford to turn the central heating on; it was either heating, or hot water, and not much of either at that.

The following day was Saturday, so I had no work, but I was a little worried about how we were going to pay for all the stuff we needed to make this place habitable; I had no savings other than what I'd set aside to pay the bills, and I said as much to Rick, who just grinned happily.

"Come with me, Bobby, let's have a little chat with the girls..."

Mystified, I followed him to the girls' room, knocked, and waited for them to make themselves presentable. Shari answered the door, wearing a short bathrobe that showed off her long, long creamy legs, and twin peaks in front where I swear her nipples were almost poking through. I blushed, but she seemed quite unconcerned about seeing me while dressed in just a flimsy, short bathrobe. Yaz was dressed almost exactly the same, and I noticed Rick studiously avoiding looking at either her or Shari.

"Shari," I began, "We have to talk about how we're going to live here; I only have a little money saved, and I don't earn enough to support four people, I don't know how to stretch what I earn four ways. How are we going to make this work?"

As I spoke, she began to smile, then shook her head.

"Bobby, it's okay; we have money; a lot of money, more than enough to keep us going for a long, long while yet. Sit down, please; I want to tell you something."

She led me into the room, and sat down on the bed, patting the mattress beside her. Yaz sat on the other side of the bed, with Rick next to her.

"Bobby, remember when I said that all mummy had left was her house by the time that...man was extradited? In the two years following that, she managed to build a successful property development company using the house and the trust it was held in as security to acquire a portfolio of quite valuable rental properties scattered around East London. Not too many, just enough for her to manage, with Yaz and I working for her. Ricky had been with us for a while, and worked for mummy too, he worked hard, renovating the properties, doing repairs, keeping them in a fit state for the tenants, and when she died, we learned that mummy had left the business to all three of us."

She looked sadly at Rick, at Yaz, then looked back at me.

"We decided to sell everything and come away to find you; none of us wanted to stay in London anymore; too many of Robert Davies' old cronies were around, and Ricky was worried about our safety, so we decided to make a clean start a long way away from London. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we have more than enough money, quite a lot, in fact, and we want to stay here, with you. All the family should be in one place, and even if we're not really a family yet, I think we can learn to be one; Ricky learned how to be part of our family, now Yaz and I want to be part of yours, if you'll let us."

I was trying to take this all in, but those long, smooth legs and intriguing little points on the front of her robe were giving me serious distraction issues. Shari seemed to realise the direction of my attention, and I swear her back arched a little more to thrust them even further against the already tightly wrapped front of her robe, and the whisper of skin against skin as she crossed and re-crossed her long, smooth legs were almost deafening.

I caught myself at this point. What the hell was I thinking? This was my sister, for Chrissake! I had no business being so interested in her legs, or her chest, or her clear, satin skin, or her deep-coral, bee-stung lips...just stop it right there!

Shari smiled at me, a warm, understanding smile.

"Thank you for thinking of us, Bobby, but you can stop worrying. We even have all the furniture from the house; when we sold up it was all put in storage, and there's plenty of it to fill up this place; that is, if you don't object?"

She waited apprehensively, biting her lip in a way I found totally distracting and absurdly attractive.

"How can I object when you put it so nicely!" I smiled back, liking the feeling, and Shari hugged me, those intriguing points on her robe pressing into my chest like two little fingertips, and once again I felt the stirrings of interest; sister or no, it felt good, and I had to catch myself; nice as it was, this couldn't be a good thing...

"I was hoping you'd say yes, Bobby! And no more silliness like this evening, yes? You've got us, now, we've got you, and no-one will ever be left out again, deal?"

"Deal!" I murmured in her ear, enjoying the feel of this beautiful young woman in my arms, a first for me, and a wonderful feeling.

In the morning, Shari woke me with a cup of coffee. She was dressed in skinny jeans and a sweatshirt, furry Ugg boots and a warm jacket, all topped off with a Von Dutch baseball cap; she looked cute, sexy and playful, and once again I had to remind myself that she was my sister.

"Come on Bobby, we need to do some shopping; I spoke to the storage place early this morning and they're arranging to have all our stuff shipped up here overnight for delivery tomorrow morning, so we need to get this place ready, and we need a whole bunch of stuff, so you and I get to go shopping! Come on, it'll be fun!"

I grinned as I drank my coffee; having a beautiful girl invite me out to have fun shopping was such a new experience I had no pre-programmed response except to nod foolishly and grin like an idiot! Shari ruffled my hair and turned to leave.

"Ten minutes, Bobby, we have to leave in ten minutes, so chop-chop, Big Sister's given you an order!"

I grinned as she threw the "Big Sister" at me yet again, leaving me thinking she may be my big sister, but she sure didn't feel like it! I watched as she walked out of the room, captivated once again by the sight of her tight little bottom bobbing inside her tight jeans, with yet another moment of guilt for finding her bottom so cute, then jumped out of bed and ran into the shower. I took a cold shower out of habit, even though something told me hot showers were no longer going to be a luxury, and got dressed in double quick time.

Shari was waiting for me downstairs as I tried to get ready to go out with her without showing any unseemly haste; however, I'm not very good at either communicating with girls, never having actually spoken to one before, or understanding their expectations in even the most superficial way, so I think I came off looking more than a little pathetically eager to please her, judging by the small smile on her face. However, she was kind enough to not comment, and even helped me put my old jacket on properly, her eyes clouding when she saw how short the sleeves were; I'd had it since I was 17, and there'd been a couple of growth spurts since then, but it was all I had.

"We'll do something about that soon, Bobby!" she whispered, then straightened my collar and patted my chest in approval.

"Right, Bobby, now you look 100% adorable, let's show you to the world at large!"

Adorable? That word bemused me so much I just followed her out to the car, trying to work out where she was coming from; Shari and Yaz had happened to me so quickly I was still trying to carve out a 'sister' niche in my head to fit them into.

Rick seemed to have managed it quite well, his ease and easy manner with them proved that; he was obviously completely comfortable with suddenly having two sisters out of the blue; maybe he was just more adaptable than me.

I knew I had a lot to unlearn, and there was still a lot I was just unwilling to let go of just yet; it was still too soon, despite what the girls had said. Shari's touchy-feely attitude to me was still more than a little disconcerting; it was like she was trying to be my best friend, although her hugging me last night had been more than a little ambiguous, and certainly not what I thought was the way best friends behaved; no, I was troubled by all these sudden changes and revelations, and still a little wary when it came to other people.

Shari scrabbled around on her phone for a while, one of those Galaxy things, then tapped in a postcode on the Sat-Nav and started the engine. I asked her where we were going.

"Bobby, we agreed last night we needed more bed linen, plates, cups, cutlery, everything, so we're going to the Dunelm store on Castle Street to get some basic housewares; Ricky and Yaz are going to start getting the place ready; by this time tomorrow we'll all have some proper beds, chairs, blankets and duvets, home comforts. It's all the stuff out of our old house."

She stopped the engine and looked shrewdly at me.

"Bobby, I know you're still not feeling the love when it comes to Yasmin and me, but we really are your sisters, and we're not going to hurt you, I promise. Ricky wanted to come home, and we love Ricky, so we came with him; he offered us somewhere we could be safe, and be a family, his family, and yours too. I don't want you to feel like we're pushing our way into your home and your life, but the simple fact is, we feel safer with both our brothers than without them. I want to have my brothers around, I want to get to know them, and I want them to want me around, but if you can't do that, we'll go, and I mean that, truly; just say the word and we'll find somewhere else. I don't want to push you out of your home..."

Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke, filled and then spilled down her cheeks. I was mortified; my mean suspicious nature had made this lovely girl cry, who'd done nothing to me except treat me kindly and try to make me part of a family again, to include me in her family. Without thinking I reached up to rub her tears away, wondering at the way she flinched as I touched her. Shari smiled tremulously at me as more tears spilled down her cheeks, and I suddenly realised she was terrified of me; she was probably waiting to see if I was my father's son, if I was going to get violent, and then I suddenly understood why she'd brought me out with her; it was to decoy me away from Yasmin in case I did become violent.