“Damn! I’ll be forty by then!” she chuckled. “Maybe I should ask Erin to wait another couple of years and we can have a big party with roast daughter and mum stew?”

“Well the hall does have a spit and a pot outside!” Josh reminded his wife with a chuckle. “But you are just kidding around, right?”

“Maybe I am and maybe I’m not?” Laura teased, wiggling her backside provocatively. “You’ll have to wait and see, won’t you?”

“But who would look after me if you got eaten?” Josh whined in a silly, baby voice. “You know I can’t cope on my own!”

“Well,” Laura turned and put her arms around his neck, looking lovingly but with amusement into his eyes, “Amelia will be long digested by then, of course,” she giggled, “but I’m sure we can find some nice, sensible young lady to keep an eye on you and see to your needs!”

“You’re really considering this, aren’t you?” Josh exclaimed, putting his hands on Laura’s hips. “I can see it on your face! You’re actually imagining you and our new daughter cooking together!”

“Can you honestly tell me you’re not?” Laura giggled. “But anyway, like you said, it’s another seven years until I’m eligible and five or six for Erin. Chances are she’ll have changed her mind by then! She wants to roast now, of course, because that’s what all the cool kids are doing,” she giggled again, “but five years is a long time, especially at her age, and there’s every chance she’ll find a different path by then.”

“Hmm, you might be right!” Josh leaned forward and kissed her lovingly, although as she pressed herself to him, Laura could feel the bulge in the front of his trousers which made it clear that he was not entirely opposed to the idea she had described! Would she really do it if she had the opportunity? She wondered. Could she? Climb naked into a big pot in front of a bunch of friends and family and slowly boil for them while her daughter, would would be a teenager by then, more or less full grown into a lovely young woman, turned on a spit a few feet away? She could not deny how happy Samantha had looked going into the oven, and coming out too! Laura had feared that the pain of cooking alive would be distressing for her young daughter but it was abundantly clear that she had died with a blissful smile on her face.

Perhaps, she decided, she would try joking about it with Erin, as she had with Samantha since she was little following her discovery of “Rosie the Christmas Turkey” and see how her new daughter reacted to the idea. There was a chance her new daughter would not even like the idea of cooking at the same time, might think that Laura was trying to steal her thunder. Still, now that the image was in her head, it was going to be a difficult one to shake.

“I guess we should call them down to make the pizzas?” Josh suggested, feeling the erotic tension in the moment and knowing that the only two choices open to them were to do something to alter the mood or just to fuck on the sofa to get it out of their systems and the latter felt rude while they had guests! They would have plenty of time that night, he was sure, while the children kept each other occupied!

“Good idea!” Laura kissed him again before going to the bottom of the stairs and calling up. The children came clattering down the stairs like a herd of stampeding wildebeest and Laura handed out aprons. In was not exactly the same as when she had made pizzas with Samantha and Amelia as she had also let them pick their own toppings whereas this time she, Ryan and Erin had picked out a mix of generic toppings for everyone to share but what also made this session fun and different was that everyone, parents included, would be making their own personal pizza to enjoy at dinner time. Laura cautioned against piling the toppings too high otherwise the pizzas risked being burned on top and cold in the middle but otherwise everyone was given free reign to add whatever they fancied from the selection on the table.

Everyone had a lot of fun and Laura was very pleased to see the way all four children cooperated together, passing each other things and cutting extra slices of whatever ingredient they were working with for the others. Once the pizzas were finished and the extra cheese sprinkled on top, they carefully placed them on the baking trays, two per tray, and carried them over to the fridge. Laura also planned on making a salad to go with the pizzas, which were relatively small, to bulk the meal out a little but she was happy to do that while the children played or watched a movie.

“So, what would you like to do now?” she asked, once the four youngsters had washed their hands and taken off their aprons and the table was cleared and wiped down.

“Can we watch something?” Erin asked. “Sam once told me you had a load of movies on discs and some of them weren’t available to stream. Can we have a look at those? See if there’s something fun we’ve not seen before?”

“Of course!” Laura grinned, leading them over to the TV unit and pulling out the bottom drawer which contained hundreds of Blu-Ray discs and DVDs which didn’t seem that old to her but which the children reacted to like that were antiques, relics of a lost civilisation discovered in some ancient ruin! Excitedly, all four fell to their knees and began to look through the selection of classic Disney movies and other cartoons, action flicks, comedies and musicals as well as box-sets of TV shows covering a wide variety of genres.

Quickly, they narrowed it down to a small pile then focussed on picking from this short-list.

“Can we watch this one?” Lydia asked, holding up a movie that came out six or seven years earlier but which was a continuation of a very silly horror parody from series from the early nineteen nineties. “It looks funny!”

“Revenge of the Killer Tomatoes?” Josh exclaimed with a chuckle. “Yup! Go right ahead! Just don’t get nightmares, okay?” Not used to physical media for movies or TV but knowing well enough how to operate a games console that ran vintage game discs, Ryan popped the disk into the console and the movie’s menu screen, dominated by a giant, snarling tomato with a mouth full of sharp teeth, loaded up. Using the controller, he set the movie going then the four of them snuggled on the sofa, pulling the quilt over them, to watch while Josh and Laura went to the kitchen to finish getting dinner ready.

“Must be pretty tricky to make convincingly scary monster movies these days.” Josh observed, cutting a tomato in half just as one of the mutant ones on screen was chewing up an old lady, getting her walking stick stuck in its teeth. “Getting gobbled up just isn’t the threat that it used to be!”

“On the other hand,” Laura reminded him, “actually being able to cook or chop bits off your pretty actresses makes special effects a lot easier, cheaper and much more convincing!” She thought of the recent horror remakes “Alligator” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” which both used the promise of real death in the marketing. The only real controversy they either had generated from from animal welfare charities who complained that the real alligators used in the feeding scenes must have been kept hungry to assure that they would attack and eat the various young women and one little girl who were shown falling prey to them on demand.

The laughter coming from the living room made it clear that nobody was finding the giant, man-eating tomatoes too scary and they all cheered when the team of rag-tag heroes used their concentrated microwave blaster to make them explode messily, much to the frustration of their creator, Professor Gangreen, played by the brilliant John Astin who had been ninety-seven years old at the time of filming but performed with no less energy than when he had played Gomez Addams in the nineteen sixties!

When they judged that the movie was about twenty minutes from the end, Josh and Laura put the pizzas in the oven along with some garlic bread and began to set the table, putting out cola for the children and the bottle of wine that the sisters had gifted them for themselves.

“Mm something smells good!” Ella exclaimed as the credits of the movie began to roll. They all got up off the sofa and came over to the table.

“That movie was so funny!” Erin giggled. “Hope the killer tomatoes don’t see what we put on our pizzas or they might come for us!”

“Yeah that would be awkward!” Lydia agreed. “Imagine what you’d have to tell poor Willow? Sorry,” she quoted the imaginary conversation, “I know you were looking forward to eating Lydia and Ella but a giant tomato got to them first!” They all giggled at this idea as Josh brought the salad and garlic bread to the table and Laura began to pass around the pizzas, remembering pretty well who had made each one and only needing to ask for clarification once. Soon everyone was happily tucking in, enjoying the food even more because they had made it themselves.

“So,” Laura brought up the topic on her mind once everyone had got stuck into their meal, “what sort of things do people do at a Sidney party?” She knew, of course, that the entire premise of the party was a new one, based on a vague suggestion from her daughter, but she wanted to understand what expectations the guests of honour would have about games and activities.

“Twister would be fun if everyone’s naked!” Ella giggled.

“Yes, I can imagine that making the game a little more interesting!” chuckled Laura. “We do have that in the cupboard so that’s a definite!”

“There should be good food.” Lydia smiled. “Girl if possible, but I know that’s kinda expensive so don’t worry if you can’t do that. Maybe stuff that looks like body-parts like people have at Halloween parties sometimes?”

“Well I don’t think we can run to a whole girl,” Laura chuckled, “but I’m sure I can get some Girl burgers and sausages if that would do?” She excused herself from the table for a moment and retrieved her notebook which she flipped open to a clean page and began writing notes based on their conversation.

“Of course!” Lydia agreed happily.

“I’ll see what I can come up with.” Laura nodded. “Although I love the idea of Halloween party food too! Maybe I can see what I can get from the butcher and stick one or two real eyeballs in with the peeled lychees, make a game of it!” All the girls liked the sound of this idea.

“How about Guess the Rump!” Erin suggested with a giggle. “That could be a fun game!”

“I’m listening…” Laura nodded with a slight chuckle. “So how exactly do you play Guess the Rump?”

“Well,” Erin explained, warming to her subject. “One player kneels on the floor and puts on a blindfold then another player comes and stands in front of them and the player with the blindfold on has to guess who it is just by feeling their rump. If they guess right, then that player takes their place and has to guess the next rump and if they guess wrong then they have to guess another rump, then another until they get it right!”

“I see!” Laura chuckled, adding it to the list. “Does sound rather fun, I admit!”

“Of course,” Erin continued with a slight frown, “if anyone does show up in a bikini they’ll have to pull the bottoms down otherwise it would make the game too easy!”

“Good point!” Laura nodded, turning to the sisters. “Do you think any of your friends will be unhappy about going naked?” She could not think of anyone on their own short guest-list who would object to the dress code. It was possible that Nadine’s mum would insist she arrive in a swimsuit or leotard but, based on how the Christmas party had gone, she was reasonably confident that anything she did wear would be off within minutes. None of the other girls had shown any hint of shyness or modesty at the party and would likely think it ridiculous, bordering on insulting, to wear a Sidney cosplay that consisted of anything more than hat and boots! She couldn’t help wondering if they would all show up naked, presumably under cosy winter coats, or change when they arrived.

“Nah!” Ella smiled. “Becky and her family go to beaches where nobody wears swimsuits every Summer so she doesn’t care, and Sophie goes to a gymnastics club where they all shower together after every lesson so being naked around other girls is pretty normal to her.”

“Francesca should be fine.” Lydia explained. “She models for her mum’s art class in the nude sometimes. Not sure about Kelly. She’s got three brothers and her parents are kinda old so she might be a bit more shy.”

“Older brothers, I guess?” Josh asked, reaching for another piece of garlic bread.

“Yeah,” his young guest confirmed. “I think the oldest one is, like, thirty or something. She was an oops baby!” she added with a giggle. Something similar had occurred to Josh about Amelia, given the gap of at least eight years between her and her sister, potentially more, yet her parents did not seem to be much older than Laura and himself, forty years old at the absolute most, suggesting that Amelia’s sister had been born when they were very young, barely out of school in Penny’s case or perhaps even during her last year or so.

“Well there’s no pressure for anyone to wear any less than they’re comfortable with.” Laura smiled reassuringly. “Gram and I won’t be in our birthday suits either.”


To be continued...