Excuse me?

Hey leave that table alone I just spent...no no no ARGGGGG!!!

Melissa was running from the noisy cars with the monster mouths. They were trying to get her baby. A baby she was busy trying to breastfeed.

Just as one of them reached for her baby she felt ...

Melissa opened her eyes slowly. That was one awful dream.

Weird though how would she even dream of such a thing? She was really a he named Jason. There was no way he could ever have a baby..

A small noise from his chest made him look down. Under a blanked of coats a tiny figure moved. It's ultra tiny fingers and thumb left it's mouth as the forgotten pacifier slowly went further down in between the mounds of her breasts. As if by instinct the tiny little bundle of job slowly moved it's tiny mouth towards where her nipples were and slobbered all over her borrowed top.

Looking up she tried to move her hands but they were under something warm as well. Looking down to her right was Brandy's sister Melony fully asleep using her right hand and arm as a pillow. To her left was Brandy doing the exact same thing. It took her a bit to move either hand out from the two girls. They both stayed dead to the world.

Although Melissa didn't know it. The baby usually stayed up most nights and had recently gotten over a bad case of colic. Both girls, and both the rather happy and unhappy, grandparents were getting a full nights much needed sleep. Brandy's parents thought of the whole ordeal as sweet revenge for the first three days. Then it just became annoying as they tried to get the poor baby girl to sleep. Actually Brandy's father had spent a few hours searching for a modern manufacture of a chastity belt for Melony. He wanted to make sure the girl had left the house before she had her first kid.

With her hands free Melissa looked down to see that both of her hands now sported frenched manicured nail polish with tiny little designs on them. Both were nicely oval. Even though it was her fingers and nails, she could tell after Nikki's false nails the day before, she still couldn't believe they looks so long and natural. Indeed the pushing up of the cuticles had made the nails look even longer. Of course Melissa had been completely passed out in the chair and had no idea that they had pushed up her cuticles.

Both girls and herself were under a pile of coats to keep them warm. Where the coats had come from she had no idea. Trying to detangle oneself from a pile of coats, behind an old desk in a surprisingly comfortable solid oak chair that tilted back, with a baby, was a surprisingly new and moving experience. Melissa couldn't say why or how she knew how to hold the sleeping little girl in the crook of her arm or how to move coats at same time but she did. On a level this bothered her. The little girl just snuggled in after she dug they pacifier out from her cleavage and put it back into the questing mouth.

She should have just left the baby with her mother or aunt, both passed out across the desk where they had been doing her nail. She didn't though she just grabbed the sleeping girl and kinda carried with both arms slightly jiggling as she walked into the back of the old shop.

The back of the shop looked like a train wreck of odd parts, masses of hastily draw paper diagrams of who knows what, bits of different metals heaped here there and everywhere. Tools galore, indeed she was fairly sure there was far more tools scattered around than Pete had ever owned. Added to this mess was different springs, shocks, and even some rims and tires. Last but not least, there was a large amount of beer bottles, and a veritable ton of plastic cups and at least eight empty or mostly empty pop bottles, some of which didn't look like they had contained pop for some time. She knew a bottle of everclear when she saw one. Great paint stripper and fuel additive. Bad for hangovers.

Melissa walked up to the FD. It now sported a couple of stickers on the rear side windows. But that wasn't what she felt. Something was different on the car. Shifting the baby in her arms over she freed her right hand and ran it lovingly over the car. Something was different. She couldn't put it in words. It was like the car, even not running, hummed differently.

While the car was still very much her car it was like it was a new and totally different car at the same time. At the front of the car to one side against the wall was what looked to be her old rear suspension. She could see where the one weld had snapped. She jerked her head around. Her car was on the ground sitting level. Yet her suspension was out. What did she have instead?

Walking along the side she noticed on the bench was the one can of paint they had for minor touchups. Getting actual enamel for the car had been a pain. When they had retrofitted the engine into the compartment they had had to reshape the hump at the firewall as well as some frame work. It had been painted and looked to be original but wasn't. This was the same paint. Someone had done something. Moving the baby to her hip she wanted badly to look under the rear of the car to see what had been done.

There wasn't enough light to do that in the old part of the shop. She stepped into the new part to grab a trouble light and found a sea of old crates on the floor, the heat on, with snoring boys all over. From the snores of one particularly dirty she knew it was the snores of someone not yet awake enough to feel a really bad hangover.

The baby decided at that point to let out a little gurlgel hut hut. This was followed by a very fine light smell. Either the baby had just farted or had pooped her diaper. Neither of which Melissa wanted anything to do with. It was not the biggest sound but more than a few figures moved on the floor. Yeah some people were gonna have really bad hangovers. She grinned it was an experience she had exactly once. Everclear went down smooth as silk but it's kickback was horrible.

The baby was starting to fuss a bit in her arm so she moved it back to both arms. Passing by the old metal shop doors she peered out the dirty grimy window. The parking lot was full. Opening the door while shielding her eyes she peered out. Nick's van looked to have both of them in coveralls of some sort and very dirty. It looked like Nick was missing some hair but she wasn't sure. Both were snoring mounts wide open and perhaps drooling. All around the lot was arms and legs sticking out of windows. No doubt feeding an army of now drunk mosquitoes.

Shaking her head while grinning she slowly made her way back to the front to get the girls. There was going to be a very large crowd of men with killer headaches. She was sorely tempted to wake up the baby girl and let her ear piercing cry make them pay. But she relented.

Melissa carefully placed the fitfully sleeping baby girl ontop of the pile of coats on the desk so that she couldn't roll off and prodded the mounds of Brandy and Melony. They both moaned and moved deeper under the coats. It was a moan she herself had made far to many times. The "I'm awake but don't want to move" moan. All she had to do was wait. The little girl on the other had started to move arms and legs and made "the face" and then gurgled happily.

Melissa hadn't been around too many babies growing up but that was one face she knew. This was now a baby in need of a change. With a sigh she looked around for Melony's bag. She spotted it buried under the desk and reached for it. Inside was the usual, baby wipes, diapers, plastic panties for the one dress in the bag. What was it with mothers. If it was a girl they had to have dresses. Was it like some unwritten rule?

Standing up with a diaper, the wipes and some cream she wasn't sure was needed she looked at the baby girl in her, well it was like a snowsuit that covered everything but at the moment her mind totally blanked on the name. Then again she realized that she was ready to change the diaper on a baby. A diaper change that she had never ever done before.

"Here let me!" a yawning Brandy moved to do it. She guessed the shock of actually changing a diaper had shown on her face. She watched intently as Brandy defly removed the jumper and it's hidden buttons exposing the cloth wrapped plastic diaper. Inside the rather ingenious folds and pins was a more normal plastic disposable diaper. Two velco type tabs and it exposed a rather nasty smelling messy. One the baby happily wigged her little feet in as Brandy removed it.

Brandy used the wipes so fast to clean the little girl. In a very weird way this was the closest she had every been to a vagina and she was kinda fascinated. Of course the girl decided that as soon as she was clean she needed to pee as well so out came this dribble of pee causing Brandy to wipe up some more then tickle the little girl making those goo goo noises all women seem to do automatically. She just hoped whosever jacket that was underneath didn't mind the small damp spot. Melony, now assuming her role, just put the discards into a bag specially kept for that purpose.

The happily giggling girl was trying to twist while her diaper was put on after some ointment in her tiny labia was on. The plastic panties from the bag were put on her along with some tiny lace socks and her tiny dress. The jumper didn't look dirty but she guessed it must be. That and she now knew why dresses were put on daughters. They were a lot less complicated to put on.

From an unknown pocket on the bag a bottle was extracted with some formula in it. Melony put this under her armpit. She could only guess this was to warm it up. Armpits were one of the best ways to warm something up. The next being around one's privates. While she would have been quite happy to see the difference between the baby's vagina and a grown girl's she didn't think it would be appropriate.

At some unknown point Brandy took the now warm bottle and put it into the little girl's very hungry mouth. She sucked hungrily on it. It was so precious to watch. She could almost feel a connection to this tiny spec of life. Worse she couldn't wait to have her own. She stopped thinking at that point as it wasn't the way it should be.

"Where's the boys?" Brandy asked her.

Shaking herself from her troubled thoughts Melissa answered" Oh passed out here and there all with hangovers. Everclear."

"Ouch" Both Brandy and Melony winched in memories of their own experiences probably.

"Right." Brandy obviously was the take charge type as she said" We will need some strong coffee and bottled water from Marg at the corner cafe. Better yet. Mel you go to extra foods for the water and oranges. Melissa and I will get the coffee."

Melissa didn't want to go anywhere. Why was it suddenly her responsibility to take care of the drunks? She was about to voice her preference but Brandy beat her to the punch.

"Get used to it huh. This isn't the city. Here a woman's place is to take of these louses." Brandy and Melony were already getting up, purses on their shoulders. The bottle had apparently been emptied and put away as the baby girl was asleep again. Melissa realized she had no idea where her purse was. She was not used to having one. Stupid things. Probably in the Fd still.

She could have stomped all the way to the FD. She should have stomped. But she didn't. She got there and realized that her purse wasn't there either. Not sure where her purse was she wondered about it for a bit then remembered that Pete may have taken it. Knowing Pete it was probably in that one stuck drawer of the desk that was a pain to open. Probably why he kept the lockbox in it. It wasn't locked, nothing on the old desk locked anymore, it was just really hard to open unless you knew exactly what to do.

Grabbing the bar from under the desk she put in, not next to the drawer as that just jammed it, but into the one crack up top and pressed in. Pete had tried to explain how this unjammed it once. She didn't get it then and still didn't. It just worked. Inside was her purse, as an afterthought she opened the lockbox and took out some looneys and twoonies to pay for the coffee. Coffee that she still wanted no part in actually getting.

"He doesn't keep much in there does he?" Brandy said near her ear. This caused her to jump at the surprise.

"You scared the daylights out of me!" Why her hand was over her heart she didn't know. She didn't put it there. Dropping it she put away the bar and lockbox.

"Naw. Most people pay by interact nowadays. No point in keeping anything beyond a few loose change for coffee."

"Why not use the safe?" Melony asked. It was a valid question. Grinning from ear to ear Melissa replied.

"Nobody knows the combination."

The girls were all still laughing as they walked out the front door of the shop. Melony handed the bag over to Brandy, just in case, and took out her wallet then headed off to the Extra foods. Extra foods, had years ago, been Lucky Dollar Foods. Lucky Dollar Foods had been around for at least two decades in an already old building. It had, at one point, had a decaying and spongy floor in a few spots. It was the 'original mall' of the town long before Clearview Mall had opened up in the 80's.

When Extra foods took over they demolished half the old mall and built a new store in it's place. Rumors abounded about why but nobody knew for sure. Of the old mall itself the restaurant, jewelry store, and cigar shop still operated out of it. Although the cigar shop sold more magazines and cards than anything else. It did still sell cigars just not any other tobacco. Cigars were a regular purchase for new fathers in the area.

Brandy confidently walked in front of Melissa by about half a foot. Melissa wanted to duck under any rock as being out about town as a girl was still something she didn't want to be doing. To act out of place, though, would attract too much attention so she put on a smile and braved it. The leers some of the older men gave her and Brandy were slimy at best. Brandy seemed used to it and ignored it completely.

As Jason she had never seen this either. Why were these men so intent on two girls? It was like they were undressing her and sizing up how good she would be in bed or .. better to not go there. Shuddering a little she docilely followed Brandy to the corner cafe.

The Corner Cafe, as it was actually named, had at one time been a general store. The very front of the store had this catwalk area covered by a slanting tin roof. This was held up by squared wooden posts. She was told at one time this was "hand hewn timbers" whatever the hell that meant. There was a small railing of yet more wood all painted white. The outside of the building had been around a long long time. There was even a plaque in bronze explaining how it was the old general store yadda yadda yadda. It's amazing how they can bore the pants off someone.

The inside was much more modern. Tables all around,no booths. Antique looking metal chairs surrounded tables that, depending on the day, were either plain old tops or covered with white lace and candles. She had, again been told and not cared a wink, that the tops of the tables were made of wood that used to be shelving in the old store.

The big draw to her and Brandy stood behind the stainless steel counter at moment reading from a magazine. Marg was a mixed heritage lady of middle age. She had wanted to ask, multiple times, just what her real age was but never did. She had that slightly darker than white skin color that spoke of not just wasp history and her red hair had a curl to it that made one think of the naturally tight curls of someone of african history. It's wasn't as tight as those but there was a tight curl.

Other than that she really didn't stand out. Average height of five six, not skinny nor pudgy, voice was average. Face well nice but not supermodel. Heck Melissa had a better bust than Marg. What really made people remember her was her friendly demeanor and how she just always seemed to know who you were and what you needed. Whether it was chocolate fondu, blueberry pancakes, or a simple burger and fries.

"Hey Brandy! And you must be Pete's daughter Melissa." She was really gonna have to do something about that.

"Hey Marg! The boys were working on Melissa's boyfriend's car and they opened a bottle..."Brandy started.

"And they all got huge hangovers because of it. Serves them boys right. So little Jason Haywood is your boyfriend huh? Makes sense. I don't think he would let just anyone drive that car. He is so protective of it. I guess your minding things while he is away with the fam visiting Megan huh?" Marg was already putting a large takeaway thermos of black coffee on the counter with a bag of cups and whatnot beside it. How she knew exactly what to have on hand was a mystery to her. Wait what? Melissa raised her hand to object.

" I know right! I mean at school he drives and parks the car away from any other car! He has a hard time driving it. While his girl Melissa here..."

"She is the unofficial Drift Queen as she drives the car to it's limit and just blows people away. Yeah the boys couldn't stop talking about the cute redhead yesterday morning. Poor John has already been by. I swear that guy's head is in the clouds. I mean common Melissa your what 16? Poor John is all talking about marriage and kids and whatnot. Here you girls go. $10.84"

Melissa's mouth was halfway open. How did things go from bad to worse! Now she was her own girlfriend and two years younger to boot!

"Well don't just stand there. Pay the girl!" Brandy spoke.

Why she paid and didn't make a scene was beyond her. As the two girls walked back, Melissa holding the large warm thermos, she kept wondering why she didn't say anything. Brandy, of course, was trying to drag information out of Melissa. She had, and she was still puzzled as to how, had this idea that Jason had met her while they were working on the car. It was this coy and shy routine that had somehow gotten Jason infatuated with her. She asked what the first kiss was like and all Melissa could do was get red in the face from anger but didn't say anything. However Brandy took this as a blush instead and joked "Not telling huh? It's okay I wouldn't either we barely know each other."

By the time they got back to the shop Melony was already passing out bottles of water to feet and hands with the instruction to swallow it all down. Many sounds of retching could be heard. But the water would help, when they could get it down.

Nick and Mark were kinda walking funny like they were on ice but otherwise ran to help Melissa with the large thermos. They found Pete drinking from one of his special bottles. What exactly was in the bottle nobody knew for sure. An old Mennonite guy made them for those who had earned his respect. They tasted absolutely vile. However after you finished your hangover was gone. From the looks he was done about half the bottle.

"Hey Pete." She said as lightly as she could.

"Ugggg not so loud yet please.." he held his head in both hands before he took another gulp.

Just then the whole shop filled with the sound of the large old air compressor starting up. With both side doors open it was almost a comedy as just about every one of the men tried to bury their heads into anything handy. It was a good compressor. Pumped up fast and held pressure even for extended sand blasting. However it was as loud as a church bell. Melissa ran to the fuse box and pulled the old double fuse for the machine. Silence filled the shop with the occasional sobbing heard. She returned to Pete and put the fuse out of reach but where he could see it.

"Thanks. Should have done that last night." he whispered.

"No problem" she whispered back. Just then Brandy's little girl started to whimper and stir. Pete's eyes went wide and he scrambled for his wallet and pulled out some money.

"Here go shopping anything!" he croaked out. She was about to refuse but Nick had seen it already.

"Good idea as you need a new dress for tomorrow. Here take this you girls need other things." he didn't elaborate but Melissa knew exactly what he meant. He didn't want to appear to know too much. She didn't want to go near any dress store let alone actually buy one. She went close to Pete's ear.

"I'll get you for this Petra!" she whispered. Pete winched.

Lil Jaci stopped to cough yet more phlem up. Her nose was all stuffed and she was out of klenix. Heading to the bathroom she muttered as she walked.

"Stupid writing! Always run out of room before I can even get to the whole point of where I wanted."

Lil Dottie overheard this comment as her door was open and she was playing with her barbies on the ground. She was in a dress as close as she had to Princess Anna's.

"But I never have enough words to make a chapter." Dottie said with a frown.