I don’t always exercise, but I decided to that night. We have a split-level house. The family room is downstairs, and that’s where we have a corner for our equipment. We have the rest of it set up for entertaining. That includes a big-screen TV on the wall opposite the stairs.

I was only going to get on the treadmill, so I only had on my sweatpants. I also had the earbuds in for my phone, listening to a playlist that I had set just for that. I didn’t even hear the TV when I got down there. I just happened to look up as I got to the bottom step. I could not believe what I saw.

My mother and sister were standing there, with their hands on the back of the couch. I pulled the earbuds out and realized that they were trying to figure out the questions to the Jeopardy answers. That part is normal for them. They are both bookworms, and Nika, as was Mom, is the valedictorian of her graduating class. There isn’t much they don’t know.

No. The thing that threw me for a loop was what they were wearing and how they were standing. I could tell that they had been working out. They both had on a body shirt. Mom’s had long sleeves, and Nika’s were short. They stood there with their legs spread far enough apart that, from the stairway, I could see that all the snaps that held the crotches shut were not snapped.

Then there was the once-in-a-while they would go down for a squat, spreading their knees to accommodate the couch being there, while holding on to the couch. Once when Mom did that, one of her snaps gave way. The crotch then moved into her crack. That’s when I realized that I should have worn underpants under my sweatpants. I looked over at Nika’s, but hers hadn’t come together yet.

I didn’t know whether I wanted to just stand there and watch, or get to the bathroom down there. I stood there for a while. The clock on the wall said about ten after the hour, so I knew it would be a while. It wasn’t. Nika turned to say something to Mom. She looked, first, at my face, then at my crotch. She looked back up and smiled. She said something to Mom, and she turned and did the same thing.

“Can you answer any of these questions, Al?” Mom asked. I stepped up between them, but back a little.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you two,” I said. “I didn’t inherit the brains in the family.”

I took a step forward and put a hand on their waists. As they were cheering themselves on for getting the next question right, my hand slid down on their hips. I was touching skin on both of them then. I didn’t move them for a while. When I did, they went right onto their ass cheeks. Surprisingly enough, neither of them said a word, or turned to me.

“Who is Teddy Roosevelt?” I said.

I was right. Nika turned to me and smiled, then slapped my chest. Mom bent over the couch a little.

“See. You do have some brains,” Nika said. She closed her legs and stepped next to me then, but went right back to watching. A commercial came on, and Mom stood up.

“Is he feeling up your ass too, Nika,” she said, without looking away from the TV.

“Yes. His hand is warm.”

“I wonder just how far he’s willing to go.”

“I don’t know,” Nika said, then spread her legs again. She was on my right. When she spread her legs, she crossed her left foot past both of mine. That put her hip almost right against mine.