There was a screech, like an extended emphasised screech, all girls, and I thought 'oh god no, they're not fighting I hope'. No they weren't fighting. By the time I got through the circle of bodies that had collected around a central piece in the garden, one of my nieces and her Aunty who was, by complexities of complex families just a few years older than her at twenty five were in a deep, deep kiss. And they were really going for it. I assumed that they had spent a period of time dirty dancing and this was the culmination. I guess the correct thing to do would have been to gently part them and then Chloe to lead one off in one direction and me lead the other off in the other direction. But what the hell. We just looked at each other and smiled. It was a party and everyone was having fun. Yeah sure a bit risqué but I didn't want to risk being called a party pooper. In more recent years I had found it better to be on the side of the younger generation than stay in with the dead beat mothers - those being in the main, my sisters. I had thought that to the extent of supplying beds in the upstairs rooms for those with offspring of their own. For those nieces that couldn't get babysitters I supplied cots and beds so that they didn't miss the party. I quite liked being Miss Popular with that other generation. By the time the Aunty and niece were in that kiss, the toddlers had all gone to bed. And they would be gently woken when the cars came to pick them up in the early hours of the morning. Quite literally I had thought of everything.

That had been some kiss with each swapping saliva and tongues like there was no tomorrow. But it hadn't been the only eye opening happening. I guess all in all, the night turned into something barely short of debauched. At least it looked like that on first glance. That was one thing that the younger generation had carried through from their mothers, and that was that they were all, if nothing else, exhibitionists. That is they looked good, they knew they looked good they had no problem showing themselves off. If that meant kissing and caressing each other and tonguing each others mouths in the most suggestive of ways, then so be it. Times had changed. The world was more 'sexual' and people were more sexual. It did leave an unanswered question though as to how far these girls and young ladies would actually go. That was at least partly answered in just about the only jaw dropping moment of the night for me was when I had slipped off, to one of the more quieter parts of the garden - dark and unlit, for a sneaky cigarette. I felt like I deserved one of the few I ever had. It seemed though that I hadn't been the only one who had sneaked off. One of my nieces, a mixed race girl of about eighteen was on her knees under a tree and she had her full, semi negro lips around, what seemed to be a massive cock. That cock was attached to the common law husband of one of my sisters. She was completely oblivious to my presence and so was he. But he was holding her head by the hair and was fucking her mouth firmly and completely with full length strokes of his fat cock. I didn't light that cigarette. If I had I would have let my presence be known. Instead, I watched. I watched that man fuck that girls mouth and I watched her swallow his cum without spilling a drop. Then I watched him, after zipping himself up, give her money notes, like in payment. If truth were known I was a little taken aback and shocked to see what I saw but that shock giving way to a wry amusement. She was the daughter of my middle sister, and he was the common law husband of the sister who liked to make the most obvious comments about me. Supposedly behind my back but never enough behind my back that I didn't hear. I liked it. I liked it a lot. I slipped back to the party as it began to wind down. What a night!

 

The mornings after the night before;

 

Outside the sun was coming up properly and was shining through the trees. Those trees were casting weird shadows across the lawned back garden. But you know, I'm not going to lie, for some strange reason, for some weird reason I had a feeling that seemed to be coursing through the core of my spine - that feeling confirming to me that I really, really wanted to be out in that back garden right at that time and feeling that sun come streaming through the trees. But that was like a split, split second in time. Because no sooner had that feeling ridden through my spine and those thoughts been computed in my now rapidly clearing head, then my finger tips just brushed the pane of double glazed glass. As my finger tips did that, I felt like a tingle and with the tingle there was an almost electric 'crackle' and what had been a super clean, super clear pane of glass snapped into a severely frosted one. One that might be used in a bathroom window except the degree of frosting was more severe. The refracted light scattering making nothing clear or visible through it. There was a dumbed, defused light, but nothing else. Even the strong sharp definition of the sun shining through the trees was now indistinct. If anything, the light coming through the window was less. It made the room darker. I certainly couldn't make anything out through the glass. If that was the case looking out from the inside with that strong sharp sunlight - then should anyone outside be looking in, or trying to look in, they would see nothing. I think I stumbled back on my heels as though I had received a real electric shock. I hadn't - it was just a shock. I stumbled back on my heels and for an instant my knees seemed to give way. But I saved myself from going down. I felt my hand to go my head again and for some reason I knew my head was moving side to side as though in disbelief.

In a kind of panic I guess I moved to the side doors - the fully glazed double doors. They would be normal doors that swung out on to a patio. But in this instance it was just that they opened out onto the side of the cottage - just where the side gate was located. I don't know why, but I just pressed both my open palms to the glass and in a micro second they frosted as well. Identical, impenetrable frosting to that of the back window. This seriously was beginning to not be funny or even remotely amusing. The light in the lounge diner dimmed again and I felt my nylon sheathed knees go a little. This time I had to sit down. I reversed onto the sofa and sat. I must have looked like an idiot because I just sat looking - flicking my eyes from the frosted door glass to the frosted back window - like as though expecting them to suddenly 'defrost' and the doors to magically 'unlock'. I could feel my mouth drying up a little and my tongue was searching for saliva as my lips peeled red from red. I'd decided I wouldn't touch any more windows. Once I was feeling a bit stronger in the legs I would just look for the keys. That's what I would do - find the keys, unlock the doors and then just laugh about it later. I had been spooked a bit but I'd get over it. At least that was what my mind was telling me. Unfortunately my mind wasn't asking me the questions it needed answered. Such as what was that frosted glass all about? I didn't touch any more windows, I swear in didn't. I looked at the front window and it simply frosted in that minute portion of a second. The window in the little hall, that looked out into the drive, frosted. The glazed door to the halls from the lounge diner, frosted. The little window in the front door itself frosted casting that whole half of the house into this almost surreal semi-gloom. Not a darkness just a semi subdued light. From my position on the sofa I looked down a corridor, like a passageway to the downstairs en-suite. I could just see one window in there, but before that frosted over, the double doors from the drive and into that bedroom zapped, frosted. Then the window. An awful, terrible chill ran down the core of my spine again. I was sitting in this semi darkness that was not a darkness at the same time. I was kind of comforted by the fact that from the made to measure staircase, some natural and proper light streamed down, let in by the roof windows and the dormers that had been fitted. But there was like that crackling noise from up those stairs and little by little that light was obliterated as each of the roof and dormer windows were frosted out. It's difficult to describe a darkness that is not really a darkness. I just sat there.

I experience in sleep. But this was jangling nerves that I didn't know that I had.