He let out a loud sigh of relief before he pulled out his phone again, held it to his ear, and simply said “He didn’t switch them out. She’s safe”. He then dropped the phone on the seat in between us, and finally slumped down on the sofa like I just let all the air out of a blow-up doll.
“So ... what happened?” I asked after watching him for a minute, and he grunted before opening his mouth.
“We all got together in my house, like every year. We had a nice lunch, and were Okay for the most part.”
“Just Okay?” I asked, and he gave me a somewhat plaintive look.
“I know you probably don’t want to hear that, but Claire is ... not doing too well. I’m sure you noticed how she looked when she and Mike showed up.”
“Actually, I didn’t. What do you mean?” I admitted, and he at least made an attempt to hide his disappointment.
“She doesn’t sleep much anymore. Or eats, for that matter. Danny thinks she’s a little depressed. It was even worse when they came back after meeting you.” he said, and searched my face for any reaction. I made sure he would not find any, causing him to let out another sigh before he continued. “Anyway, we were doing mostly Okay. Ava had spent the entire day telling us about her stay with you, and the more Ava told us, the better Claire got. Apparently, you did a really good job with your Sister. Despite hating her, you showed her more care than Aaron had in a long time, but still managed to satisfy her. That gave her a new perspective.”
“Dude, I’m long past hating any of you.” I injected, and he perked up at that. “It’s like I told Ava. I don’t care about you anymore.” He slumped down again. “Okay, most of you. Logan can eat a bag of dicks for all I care. What he did to me disqualified him as a brother indefinitely. And your parents should stop acting like I’m a stubborn child they need to force to behave. Ava and Danny seem to try, and you at least tried once, so I can be friendly with you. Only Aaron is probably going to need a pretty good dentist if I ever see him again.”
He suddenly laughed about that.
“If only you knew.” Then he saw the look I was giving him. “We’ll get to that. I can see where you’re coming from, though. I just hope that, one day, you can see that Claire is trying too. Aaron really screwed her over on this one. That’s also one of the reasons they’ve moved in with us.” He took a breath to steady himself, straightened up, and then fixed me with a stern look. “As I said, we were Okay until dinner was over, and we got together for some fun. Then Ava pulled out the condoms and told us what was what.”
“I take it the male part of the family didn’t like the idea?” I grinned evilly.
“Not funny, Tim! I’d never have thought this shit would happen!” This took me aback. I had never heard him swear before. “We all agreed to use them, although Aaron only agreed begrudgingly. And by that, I mean that he tried to use her submissiveness to let him go bareback at first. It was nasty, Tim. That was the first time I realized how far he was taking this crap, but Ava insisted everyone use them. That showed Danny how effective your plan was, despite being so simple.”
“I’m glad it worked.” I nodded, trying not to show how much that praise got to me.
“When Claire noticed what Aaron was doing, she got right in his face and told him to respect their daughter’s wishes. You know that she was already angry with him because of your money, and after noticing the change in Ava, she wasn’t going to let Aaron undo that. So, he agreed. Then...” he took another deep breath. “ ... after about an hour, Claire stormed into the room, walked directly up to Aaron, and punched him square in the face.”
“WHAT?” I wasn’t sure if I was shocked or happy about the development...
“Yeah. Apparently, Aaron stealthed Ava.”
“What?” This time, I was just confused.
“Oh, it’s when the guy stealthily takes off the condom to have bareback sex with a woman without her knowledge.”
I stared at him for a good ten seconds with a stupid look on my face.
“Honestly? I’m more surprised that there’s a word for that, than about Aaron doing it.” I said, matter of fact. “But I still wouldn’t have thought he’d do that to his Princess!”
“Tim ... did you expect that to happen when you told Ava to make us wear condoms?” he asked quietly.
“Fuck no!” He actually flinched back when I looked at him angrily. “Look, my grand idea was to kinda limit his access to Ava, like they limited mine. But I thought that, If I simply told Ava to not let him touch her, he would just get it from someone else instead. But if she made him use a condom, he would still have access to her, but finishing would be just that little bit less satisfying and keep nagging him. Especially if he knew that she wouldn’t make me wear a condom! I wanted to hurt his pride, and make him experience being excluded himself. Not the shit he pulled!”
John thought about what I said, and finally nodded.
