The journey home was very quiet. There really wasn’t much to say once we’d updated Eric on the situation.

As we approached Lincoln, Eric’s phone beeped.

“Can you see what that is please?” said Eric as he passed Sandra the phone.

‘It’s from John,” she said as she looked at the screen.

“He says that the Jeff’s have probably done a runner. He wants us to drive past Jeff seniors home in Lincoln to see if there are any signs of activity.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Eric.

“Go on. Let’s do it,” I said from the back seat.

“Please?” added Gwen.

“Oh very well. Anyone got the address?”

“It’s in the text,” said Sandra.

“Well don’t just sit there put it in the Satnav?”

Fifteen minutes later we drove past the house. Outside was a ‘Sold’ sign.

“Can we go back?” asked Sandra.

“Why?”

“I didn’t get the phone number of the agents down.”

“It’s all right. I have it in my phone,” I said.

“Why do you have it?”

“Because one of the owners we manage a letting for works there,” I said slightly smugly.

“Eric, can you stop for a minute, I think you need to update your son,” said Sandra.

“I think you are right,” relied Eric with a tinge of sadness in his voice.

“John, its Dad.”

“Yes. We drove past. There is a ‘Sold’ sign outside. Looks like they’ve done a runner. The agents are King & Barton. Can you follow it up?”

“Ok. Thanks. Bye.”

Eric turned to look at the three of us.

“John is going to contact the agents as well as the police. I don’t think that there is nothing more we can do today is there?”

I suddenly had an idea.

“Why don’t we go back and see if a forwarding address was left?”

Everyone looked at me.

“Part of the Police now are we?”

“Hmmpppphhhh”

We didn’t go back.

The three of us were quiet as we got back to my home.

I was preparing something to eat when Gwen said to Sandra.

“You were ogling John something rotten.”

Sandra just smiled.

“But….” Said Gwen.

I looked at her face. She looked worried.

“What’s troubling you Gwen,” I asked softly.

“Oh… Just as we were having a good time now Sandra’s going off with a man.”

I took hold of her hand.

“Gwen, we’ll be having none of that. I’m not going anywhere. You won’t be on your own again. Besides the new Gwen is far more fun than the old one.”

“It’s all an act you know.”

“What is?”

“Me! This! You really don’t know how hard this is,” came her plea.
A tear formed in her eye.

“Come on let’s go and sit down and we can talk things through.”

I took her hand and led her into the sitting room where we sat down together still holding hands.

“Now what was this about an act?”

She sat silent for a while. Then she spoke quietly.

“Me! I’m nothing but a fake. All what you see is a lie.”

“Everyone has their secrets. Look at me?” I said trying to put a brave face on things.”

“But I’m not what you think.”

“Really? I see a wonderful person in front of me.”

“I was raped when I was fourteen. It was this older student at my school. He was seventeen. I was walking home from hockey practice when he grabbed me. He said that I’d been coming onto him so here he was to get what I wanted to give him. So…”

I wiped a tear from her cheek.

“So he raped me. I was so scared and ashamed that I didn’t tell anyone. Then a week later he did it again. I became his plaything for a few months until one time he got violent and beat me up. I couldn’t hide it any longer so I went to the Police.”

“When it came to court the Defence Barrister tried to make out that it was all my fault. Thankfully the jury didn’t believe him but that was probably down the fact that three other girls came forward and accused him of rape.”

“The whole experience broke me. I retreated into the background. The old Gwen. I could be me in my own world. No one ever looked at plain boring old Gwen.”

“Then I got a bit tipsy at the company thing and left with Sandra because she wasn’t a man.”

“But I’m a man.”

“But Sandra was always there to keep me safe. Now she’s going.”

“Who said that I’m going anywhere?” came a voice from the bedroom door.

We both turned to see Sandra standing there stark naked apart from her collar and a pair of high heels.

I’d forgotten that she was still wearing the collar.

Then she came over and sat with us.

“I am not going anywhere understand. These past two weeks have been brilliant. No more than brilliant, liberating. Why would I even think about going somewhere when I’m having so much fun with you two?”

“But… you were flirting with David?”

“A little flirt is a long way from moving in with him. Besides, didn’t you see the ring mark on his finger? He’s probably married or at least spoken for.”

The level of tension in the room dropped considerably.

“Now? Who’s up for a double up in the shower? Gwen?”

Without waiting for an answer, Sandra took Gwen’s hand and let her into the bedroom.

Two minutes later, two naked bodies ran from the bedroom to the shower.

I sat there for a minute or two before going into the kitchen and turning off the oven. Dinner was going to be a tad delayed and it didn’t bother me one bit.

The next day, two Detectives from Lincoln came and interviewed all of us including Eric. This wasn’t a problem for the others but I got a bit of grief because I’d not made my name change legal. This was soon smoothed over and after a couple of hours they left us alone but none the wiser about what was going on.

After a few days, Eric managed to get his son to spill the beans.

“David gave me an update last night. It is all rather complicated to say the least. Firstly, Jeff senior sold his house and used his brothers law firm to do the legal work. Instead of sending the money to the Mortgage Company right away, he delayed it a few hours. This is not unusual but he’d arranged for the completion to happen on Christmas Eve and on that day, the banks shut at lunchtime. That meant that the money was going to sit in their client account over Christmas. Only it wasn’t there when the law firm opened up after the holidays. That and all the other money in the client account had been moved offshore, the Cayman Islands naturally. That’s where the trail goes cold. The two suspects are known to have flown to Miami on the second. After that, who knows eh?”

“They nicked it?”

“Yes. More than two million. Apparently Jeff Senior’s wasn’t the only sale proceeds that were half-inched.”

“What about our Jeff?”

“His flat on Beacon Way was one of the other properties where the sale proceeds were diverted.”

“But he was here with his father on New Years Eve?”

“According to my son, they were tidying up a few loose ends before he scarpered.”

“Loose ends my foot,” said Gwen quiet angrily.

“What about the embezzlement from the company?”

“Apparently that’s how it started. Jeff Senior lost a bundle at the Casino. Small amounts to begin with then more and more as they got in deeper.”

“They?”

“Our Jeff wouldn’t let his Dad get in too deep but it was probably too late. They only took around thirty grand from the company.”

“Only thirty grand?” said Gwen indignantly.

“That is less than the money we make from twenty property sales,” said Sandra. Then she added,

“It is just as well that the lettings business revenue all goes through to Head Office from the bank isn’t it. That’s where all the money is these days,” she said with a resigned tone to her voice.

“What do we do now?” I asked still trying to digest the information.

“I think we should just get on and do our jobs as before. Put in every effort to increase sales and lettings. We really don’t want this place to close now do we?” said Sandra.

“But,” she added, “things will be much harder because we are a man down so to speak. I don’t see a replacement for Jeff in the short term. We’ll all have to all do extra shifts.”

None of us disagreed with that.

[One week later]

“Hi girls,” I said cheerily one afternoon when I returned to the office from supervising a maintenance call at a property on the outskirts of town.

“Just the person we need to talk to,” said Sandra.

“Ok. Let me drop this off in the back and make a cuppa then I’ll be all yours? Any more for a cuppa?”

“I’ll have one, thanks,” said Gwen.

I took my things into my room at the back of the office and put the kettle on.

A few minutes later I returned to the office with two mugs of tea. After putting one down on Gwen’s desk, I sat down on one of the chairs normally reserved for customers.

Just then Eric came back to the office. He’d been off doing a viewing.

“Hi gang. Just made a sale.”
“Well done Eric,” said Sandra.

“Any tea in the pot?” asked Eric as he saw our cups.

“There should be, Louise made it a few minutes ago.”

“Great. Let me grab a cup and we can chat.”

When he returned and had sat down at his desk he was grinning broadly.

“I also have a property to be listed. It’s the one next door to mine.”

“Your neighbour? She hasn’t been there very long,” said Gwen, “I remember the sale. It was handed by the long gong Jeff.”

“Yes. She’s not going far though. She’s moving in with me.”

There was a collective gasp from the three of us.

“You dirty old man!” joked Sandra.

“Not quite,” said Eric still grinning from ear to ear.

He remained silent but still grinning.

“Erica?” asked Gwen silently.

He nodded his head.

“Erica was putting some peelings on the compost bin last summer when Carol spotted me. I thought she’d gone out. Well, I was caught in the act. But it all turned out very well. She calmly invited me around for tea. That was the start of our relationship. I asked her to marry me last weekend and she said yes.”

“Congratulations to you both,” I said.

“Does this mean that Eric is an endangered species?” asked Sandra.

“No. Erica is not really passable out in the street but she’ll be around at home.”

“Does David know?”

“Yes. I managed to get him on the phone a little while ago. I wanted to tell him first.”

“Does he mind? About Erica?”

“No. He’s just happy that I’m happy. He’s going through a particularly nasty divorce at the moment so he has more than his old man wearing a dress to think about.”

“When’s the happy day?” I asked trying to change the subject.

“In the summer. Not sure when yet but Erica will be wearing a dress.”

Sandra went over to Eric and gave him a big hug, which was followed by a kiss on the cheek.

Later that day, Sandra and I went to value the house owned by Eric’s fiancée, Carol.

She made us very welcome and plied us with tea and cake.

“Now Louise, I have to thank you,” said Carol.

“Me why?”

“If you hadn’t come on the scene then Erica would still be in the closet. You gave Eric the confidence to tell his friends.”

“I really didn’t do anything.”

She smiled at me.

“You are far too modest. Eric said that you were and now I can see for myself.”

When we’d finished the valuation, Sandra sat down with Carol.

“Carol, my valuation for the property is One Nine Five.”

“That’s about what I expected. The place over the road sold last year for around that. This place is cheap when you want to buy into the area but getting out is a real problem.”

“But you aren’t going anywhere?”

“No. I was just saying that the price of property is good then you move here but going just about anywhere else is a big problem because prices here are so cheap. Take my sister for example. She moved to Mablethorpe two years ago from Leeds, to be near me. Fat lot of good that was because she goes and dies six months ago and left everything to me. Her five-bedroom bungalow, quite why she wanted five bedrooms, was sold for One eighty, twenty grand less than what she paid for it.”

Carol saw the look on my face.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to pop my clogs just yet. Erica has given me a new lease of life.”

We left her making dinner for Eric and headed back to the office. Sandra was by her standards very subdued.

As we pulled up outside the office I said,

“Ok, Sandra what’s going on in the devilish mind of yours that you wanted to talk about earlier?”

She didn’t answer right away.

“Later. Let’s talk later ok?”

I sighed.

“Ok.”

Later turned out to be after dinner. As usual, I’d done the cooking so it was up to the others to clear up. Sandra drew the short straw this evening so Gwen and I went to sit down.

“Do you know what’s on Sandra’s mind?”

She shook her head.

“No. She wouldn’t tell. All she’d say was later.”

“Yeah, she did that to me aswell.”

Sandra came in from the kitchen and sat facing the two of us.

“This can’t go on,” she said.

“What do you mean can’t go on?” asked Gwen.

“The chaos that is the three of us trying to get washed, dressed and makeup applied and at least one cup of tea or coffee in the mornings. There are nowhere near enough washbowls, makeup mirrors and everything for the three of us. As much as I love being here, I can’t do this much more.”

She was right. Mornings were totally chaotic and that was being kind.

“What do you suggest to solve the problem?”

“Move,” came her succinct reply.

“Where do you suggest?”

“Carol’s house.”

“Carol?” asked Gwen.

“Eric’s fiancée,” said Sandra.

“Oh, the place you valued today.”

“Oh yes. Sandra put a value of £195,000 on it.”

“That’s a lot of money. There are plenty of cheaper places. So why that property?”

Sandra grinned.

“Well, I’m not getting any younger and I would like to have a family. The place is great for that and there are two people who would love to babysit their god children right on tap.”

Neither Gwen nor I said a word.

“Look, I know we haven’t gone the whole way in bed but I think it is time we did. If I got pregnant I’d be the happiest person alive but we if we are going to carry on as a threesome, then we need somewhere more suitable to live.”

“How can we afford it? That is a lot of money,” said Gwen totally ignoring the issue of sex.

“Well, can’t this place can be sold?” I offered.
“I only paid ninety grand for it. I have a little over fifty outstanding on the mortgage. So that’s easily the deposit. What about the rest? Mortgages are hard enough to come by but three women living together is going to be hard work given the new rules.”

No one disagreed with that.

“Why not ask Carol about renting it. From what you said, she does not need the money?” asked Gwen.

“But we couldn’t make the changes we need to,” I replied.

“Perhaps she would pay for them?”

“That’s asking an awful lot from someone we don’t know isn’t it?”

“Why don’t we go and ask them?” suggested Gwen.

“Now?” said Gwen.

“Why not. Strike while the iron is hot?”

Sandra stood up and started to turn away.

“Can I say something?”

She stopped and looked at me.

“If we are going to do this and try to start a family then there are some things that we need to think about. For starters, I think the two of you should get married. That way you will have at least some security if there are children involved. But I think we should all adopt the same surname.”

I took a deep breath.

“I know that both of you think that I sometimes have a hard time making decisions and this has one not come easy but I think it is for the best if we want to be a long term unit.”

Sandra looked at me. Then a huge grin spread over her face.

“Wow!”

Then I felt Gwen wrap her arms around me. Then her lips were plastered all over mine.

We didn’t go out that night and neither did we get a lot of sleep.

At breakfast the following morning, I gave the others the rings that I’d bought before Christmas.

“I’d like us to each wear one of these to show that we are a threesome,” I said to a suddenly quiet kitchen.

The answer from the others was to hug the living daylights out of me.

Sometimes hard decisions can have unexpected results especially when you add the laws of unintended consequences into the equation.
Deciding to answer the door to two wonderful women could well turn out to be the best decision I’d ever make in my life.

[The End].

[Authors note:]
I got the idea for this story whilst standing on a bleak seashore on 'The Wash' in late November trying to photograph the miriad of seabirds flying as the tide pushed them towards us. There were intermittent snow showers all afternoon yet all the time in the distance were the lights of Skegness on the Horizon.