A Mother And Her Twins, Part 2

A Mother and Her Twins

CHAPTER 2

Over the next few months, Beth went on with her life in a little bit of a
daze. The twins were great; they understood that things had not worked out
with their parents not because they didn't still love each other, but that
sometimes these things happen. The two girls had pretty much been inseparable
for the first 15 years of their lives, but were now growing into fine looking
young women. Kate was the older of the two (by 10 minutes!) and loved to
remind her sister of the fact. She was by far the more outgoing of the girls,
and loved going out to the local malls and hanging around with her friends,
testing out new make-up products or the latest fashions. By contrast, Anne
was more likely to be found in her room, with her head tucked into a good
book. She never went out much, and didn't have any real friends to speak of,
apart from her sister. The one thing they did together over the few months
was provide support for Beth, who was slowly coming to terms with the
divorce.

Beth herself had limited her activities to staying indoors and watching TV.
She didn't have a lot of her own friends; most of the people she hung around
with when she was married had actually been Jim's friends, and they had
pretty much stopped coming around when he left her. To be honest, Beth didn't
mind so much, as she preferred staying at home and tidying the house for the
millionth time. One person who had come more into Beth's life was Ellie.
Although they had been more acquaintances at work than friends, Ellie became
the person Beth went to when she was feeling upset or angry. She supposed it
was due to the support Ellie had provided on the day Jim had left her for
good that she felt a special bond had been made, and Ellie seemed to like her
company also. They shared breaks together at work, although the subject of
smoking had never came up again (not that it had been a bad experience for
Beth; she just never felt the urge after that first time). About four months
after that day in the car park, Beth and Ellie even started visiting each
other's houses (they lived less than  a mile apart), which pleased both of
them; Ellie because it meant Beth was starting to get over the separation,
and Beth because it gave her some focus to her life again.

The twins enjoyed Ellie coming over, also. Ellie was quite an outspoken young
woman of 29, with flowing black hair and exquisite looks. She was often
compared to Dita von Teese, the fetish model. She always dressed up, even if
she was just coming round to Beth's for a meal or a drink. This obviously
endeared her to Kate, who loved to dress up too, and the two of them could
sit for hours sometimes discussing the latest fashions in Vogue or Elle. 

Anne also found common ground with Ellie in their taste in books and music.
Both liked the "dark" side of things, and enjoyed the works of Stephen King
and Chuck Palahniuk, or listening to Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson.

Beth was pleased that the four young women got on together, as this meant
there were no feelings of discomfort when Ellie came over, even when she
revealed herself to be bisexual a few months after getting to know them. This
never got in the way of their friendship, and Ellie didn't flaunt it, so the
topic never came up much in conversation (although Ellie certainly wasn't
embarrassed by it!)

The only sticky subject when Ellie came to visit was her smoking. Beth never
allowed smoking in the house, as it caused a stink that would not go away for
days. At first, Ellie didn't mind; after all, it was Beth's house and her
rules. However, when the winter started to come in and Ellie had to sit out
in the cold on her own on the porch to smoke (which she did roughly 2 times
an hour), it did start to irritate her. To ease her discomfort, either Beth
or Kate started joining Ellie outside her for a chat (never Anne, as she was
very anti-smoking and preferred `not to poison her lungs with filthy smoke')
and this seemed to have the desired effect, as Ellie stopped moaning about
having to sit outside on her own to smoke. 

Then the night came when everything changed.

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