Ahh September. Summer holidays are over, students go back to school and everyone else settles back into their regular work routines.

This was an unfamiliar experience for Jake.

Jake was the co-owner of JB Yard Works, a business he and his best friend, Bruce, started in grade six. It began innocently enough with mowing lawns on the weekends. However, when they started mowing lawns after school, people started treating them more like a business. The proof was in the pudding when summer break came and the two youngsters worked like it was a full-time business.

It was a drive and motivation people just didn’t see in kids their age. Neighbours were more than happy to pay the boys for their hard work and professionalism—mainly because it meant they didn’t have to do the jobs themselves. The community often held them up as examples of good work ethic, contrasting with the laziness of most other kids. This lack of popularity didn’t stop their friends from working and earning money with them.

Jake was always the frontman. He would pace out the yards and provide a written quote on the spot and then schedule the jobs. Rain would hamper the schedule, but being a professional, he would call to reschedule. After completing the job, he provided a full invoice.

Bruce did not consider himself management material and was happy just to work with his friend.

They worked on Jake’s street, and the adjacent street, which was Bruce’s. Both streets were long and winding, following the south side of Fish Creek Provincial Park—one of North America’s largest urban parks.

Living in such a scenic community meant residents had lots of money, lots of lawn and big driveways since almost every house had, at minimum, a double front-attached garage.

Jake’s parents’ house overlooked the park from the low ridge and, like most houses along the ridge, people had developed the walk-out basement into a separate residence.

The practice was actually quite common along Jake’s street—as kids graduated high school, they could have their own place with a separate entrance, yet still be close to home. Then, when they eventually moved away, the parents could rent out the basement.

So, despite technically living under the same roof as his parents, moving out of the basement wasn’t a priority. Especially since the place had an additional oversized garage, complete with auto-lift. His dad just put his dream hobby of restoring classic cars on hiatus so the boys could use the garage for their business.

Jake’s parents did not spoil or coddle either boy during their teen years. If they wanted something, they had to earn it. Sure, they consulted here and there, and his mom worked part-time as their accountant, but Jake was the boss.

Though a year older, Bruce had been Jake’s best friend throughout their entire school lives. When he was eight, his mom passed away, and with his workaholic dad travelling a lot, his home life was pretty much nonexistent. So, for a few years, Bruce more or less lived at Jake’s.

Once Jake and Bruce got their licenses, Jake’s dad helped the boys buy their first trucks. As senior management for a large corporation that was always refreshing older vehicles, staff always got the option to buy before they went to auction. Sure, the vehicles may have been older, but the trucks were all 4 door with 4-wheel-drive and the staff price was well below market value. The trucks enabled the boys to expand their service area to the entire community.

That summer, Jake’s dad helped the boys buy a third truck, which allowed them to hire more of their friends, and they added dump runs to their services. They had already been doing the odd dump run, but it wasn’t an official service they offered until then.

As the boys started their senior year of high school, Jake’s parents sat them both down and made them consider the future. Jake and Bruce had both talked about going into a trade, which Jake’s dad always supported. In the end, they took a year off to see if they could turn their little venture into a full-time business.

After witnessing how busy they were throughout the summer, Jake’s parents supported the idea, but made the boys quantify their success. They discussed it for a few days and eventually set the bar high and defined specific criteria for monthly net, company reserves, employee benefits and expansion plans. Numbers his parents agreed were attainable, but that they would have to work hard to achieve.

For the next while, when they weren’t working on jobs, they were researching software to make managing their business easier and efficient and commercial-grade equipment they would need to service the more lucrative commercial contracts.

Sadly, three months prior to graduation, their plans and future came into question.

An earthquake hit the region Bruce’s dad had gone to. Bruce tried to call many times, but the disruption of the phone system made connections difficult. Twice he got connected, but it just rang and went to voicemail.

Bruce endured a few days of absolute hell until someone finally contacted him with confirmation that they had found and identified his father’s remains.

Despite his own parents not really having much to do with his raising, Bruce got quite depressed at the realization that he was fully on his own. Fortunately, Jake and especially his parents, John and Becky, were there to help him with everything he had to sort out.

Bruce inherited everything—the house, the Mercedes-AMG Coupé, a decent investment portfolio and some substantial bank accounts. Becky went through all the financials and, while Bruce couldn’t live lavishly, he didn’t have to work if he didn’t want to.

That wasn’t how Jake’s parents raised him. He was young and had his whole life before him. He wasn’t going to slob his way through life. His initial was half of the JB—the company gave him a newfound sense of purpose.

Upon graduation, Bruce sold the Mercedes-AMG, since that car wasn’t him, and bought some commercial-grade walk-behind equipment for mowing and snow removal. That outgrew Jake’s garage, and they also started using Bruce’s garage for some of the equipment. He also stepped up and took on more of a team leadership role, but still didn’t want to do sales or write up contracts.

With the new equipment and ability to offer commercial services, they launched the website, subscribed to a cloud-based software for managing service businesses and purchased some signage for the trucks and logo’d attire for the team. Then Jake went into full sales and marketing mode, targeting businesses that needed lawn mowing, sidewalk sweeping, and smaller parking lots.

Since most of their clients along the ridge were business owners or senior management of businesses, it took less than a month before the contracts started coming in and Jake could stop cold calling companies. Customers were now calling them!

Even with Jake switching back to the physical work, their rapid growth required adding a fourth truck in July, and then a fifth in August—plus a dump trailer.

Besides himself and Bruce, the company now had six full-time employees and a handful of part-timers—all friends, or friends of friends. Even with the expansion and purchases, they were reaching their business success criteria—they just had to maintain it.

One truck with the dump trailer had two to four people solely doing dump runs and garbage removal. Then one truck with two people was handling the residential customers, while two other teams were handling the commercial contracts.

Jake and Bruce used their trucks to help with whatever was required, but Jake had reluctantly taken on most of the equipment maintenance. It wasn’t what he really wanted to do, but his dad had taught him quite a bit.

The rapid growth now had his mom working almost full time running the office. It was not what she wanted, but fortunately, the software had made several aspects of management much easier. They could schedule, dispatch and invoice from their smartphones, and it integrated with the website for scheduling, contacts and the VoIP phone system, plus it synchronized with the accounting software his mom used for payroll and taxes.

Since the trucks and phones were all tied to the software, anyone could see where everyone in the company was at any moment. Plus, the software managed the phone system, saving all photos, videos, and emails to the cloud. It was a beautifully efficient and redundant system.

With the way their business was growing, the boys hoped they could afford an actual shop by spring, just so his dad could resume his hobby and Bruce could park in his own garage.

Anyway, back to the present.

Saturday was usually the busiest day of the week, but with it being the first weekend of September, it was even busier than normal. Everyone finally realized that all the tasks they kept putting off during the summer were still outstanding, so they simply hired the local boys now that work and school schedules were returning to normal.

This meant that most of the business was garbage removal, and they had four trucks doing that today. The other two trucks were on lawn maintenance, likely the last mowing they’d need to do for the year.

To speed up the garbage removal process, Jake made a deal with a nearby shop, one of their commercial contracts, allowing them to park a large commercial dumpster at the edge of their lot for a small fee. This saved a ton of time for garbage loads, as each dumpster held the equivalent of roughly 16 truckloads and the trucks didn’t have to drive to the city landfill and wait in line.

All the full-time employees in the company were friends from school, but now that they had graduated, two of the full-time guys switched back to part-time so they could go to post-secondary schools. So Jake just partnered them together and scheduled garbage hauling jobs for after their classes and on weekends.

The company officially worked Monday through Saturday, since the dump wasn’t open on Sundays. Winter, however, would require working whenever the snow fell since it doesn’t care what day it is.

It was a habit that Jake and Bruce had always followed. They celebrated the end of the work week by visiting the neighbourhood pub to enjoy a beer and a steak sandwich. Everybody had to pick up their own tab, but usually most of the crew showed up to Steak Sandwich Saturday, as they called it. They would arrive straight from their last tasks for the day and gather at their usual table. It was just nice to relax with friends.

After the meal though, Jake, Bruce and Mario were going to a nightclub because Mario had recently met this girl, Kate, and she had planned to go out with a couple of friends on Saturday night.

Jake and Bruce didn’t get out much, so they were going as Mario’s wingmen. They were all single with fit, athletic-type bodies. Jake was the youngest at 18, but he was also the tallest at 6-foot-2, with dark brown hair that was buzzed short, brown eyes and tanned skin.

Bruce was heavier set, but still in great shape. He was roughly 5-foot-9, with red hair buzzed short. He was the oldest at almost 20 since he had to repeat a year in elementary school—it was that repeat year when Jake and he became best friends.

Mario was the stereotypical tall, dark and handsome. He was 19, an even 6-foot, with black hair, brown eyes and dark skin, partially tanned from working outside all the time, but also from his Mediterranean ancestry. He was always a ladies’ man and was rarely ever single throughout high school or since graduation. Mario had moved to the community in grade ten, so while he didn’t have the history Jake and Bruce did, he was one of the closest friends in the crew.

He was the main reason Jake and Bruce ever met women. For the last few years, Jake was always working when he wasn’t in school, and Bruce was usually helping him, plus Bruce was quite shy, which is likely why he didn’t enjoy doing sales. It was usually friends of Mario’s latest attraction that Jake and Bruce hooked up with.

They left the pub after their meals and went home to shower before meeting at Jake’s at 9PM. Since everyone was within walking distance, they arranged for a ride to the bar so they could all enjoy themselves and no one would drive drunk.

Around 8:45, the two friends arrived at Jake’s place. They had a few minutes to talk before their ride at 9:00.

The girls had already arrived at the bar. Kate video called Mario and told him where they were going to be. Her friends leaned in to see who she was talking to, and Mario then panned to show Jake and Bruce.

“The girls are definitely attractive—maybe the change of scene wouldn’t be so bad tonight?” Bruce said.

As their ride arrived, they disconnected the call, promising to see them soon.

Minutes later, they were arriving at the bar, as Mario texted Kate to say they had arrived. Kate actually came and met them at the door and led them to their table at the back.

It was slightly quieter at the back, but Jake still couldn’t figure out why people went to nightclubs. They’re just too loud, and all you do is yell at the person you are trying to talk to, but the upside is that in order to hear what they’re saying, you get to lean in and look down their shirts.

Fortunately, the DJ soon took a break, allowing everyone to introduce themselves properly.

Kate was a dance instructor and model, which fit Mario’s type. He always went for tall, skinny models. She was 5-foot-8, maybe 100 pounds, with A-cup breasts, brown hair that flowed down over her shoulders and hazel eyes. Jake guessed her measurements to be around 33-23-35.

Jake had always been good at estimating weights and measures, which was helpful when trying to price the size of a driveway or lawn for service and for estimating the size of a garbage load.

Sofia was a busty Hispanic beauty with shoulder-length black hair and brown eyes. She was 19, 5-foot-5 and around 160 pounds. Exactly the type that Bruce preferred, since he also had a few extra pounds. Jake guessed her measurements to be 38F-24-35. She was currently studying veterinary medicine at the University of Calgary.

Gabbie was the one that caught Jake’s eye, though. She was 18, 5-foot-7, around 115 pounds, with green eyes, long blonde hair and incredible natural breasts. Jake guessed her measurements at 34E-22-36. Jake normally would’ve classified her as out of his league, but the smouldering look she gave him with those enchanting eyes captured his attention. He was hers, drawn like a moth to a flame.

After more than a few drinks, everyone was getting tipsy and flirtatious. The mixture of the two groups had been perfect. Mario and Kate disappeared onto the dance floor frequently. Bruce and Sofia seemed to hit it off, while Jake and Gabbie had already exchanged phone numbers.

As the night progressed, Mario and Kate eventually left—likely going back to his place. The rest of them barely noticed as Bruce and Sofia looked like they were going to fuck right there in the club and Gabbie and Jake were also rubbing each other, getting hot and bothered, and discussing going back to Jake’s place.

Until Gabbie received a text message.

As soon as she saw the message, the flirtatious, sexy look evaporated.

Sofia recognized the look immediately and asked, “Is it your mom?”

Gabbie nodded as she excused herself. Sofia immediately followed her, but not before at least informing Bruce and Jake about what was going on. “Gabbie’s mom can be a real bitch. It’s like she can sense when Gabbie is about to have a good time and she intentionally spoils it.”

Since it now looked like Jake would not get lucky like his friends, he spoke to Bruce. “It sure looks like Sofia and you are going swimmingly.”

“Yeah, she’s great. I thought I was going to get lucky, but I’m not so sure now. I hope we can continue to see each other, at least we exchanged digits. Gabbie sure is hot, and she’s totally digging on you, man! Did you get her number?”

“Yeah, we exchanged numbers as well.”

“So what’s the plan? Mario and Kate already left, and something tells me that Sofia and Gabbie will leave soon after they come back.”

As if on cue, Sofia and Gabbie returned.

Gabbie didn’t look like she had been crying, so maybe not that bad? Jake thought—until she kissed him. That kiss was proof enough that Bruce and Jake’s fun was over for the night.

“I’m so sorry. My mom can be a bit controlling and I have to go. Would you like to go out, just you and me, say Monday night?” Gabbie asked with sad eyes.

“I would love that!” Jake said.

A smile crossed her face as she gave him a much more passionate kiss. “I’ll text you on Monday when I get home from class and we can make plans then.”

“Sure! That sounds good.”

Gabbie gave him another kiss. This time, letting her hand roam down to the bulge in his pants. “I really am sorry. I’ll make it up to you Monday night.”

Sofia more or less repeated the same actions with Bruce and promised to call him and make plans for Monday, as her phone dinged. “Our ride is here.”

Both girls gave their beaux another smouldering kiss before leaving.

Jake then pulled out his phone and called for a ride as he and Bruce made their way out into the cool night air to await its arrival.

A few minutes later, they arrived at Jake’s place, and Bruce walked home from there.

Monday morning at his dad’s garage, aka the shop, Mario bragged about his great weekend with Kate and everything they did, but eventually asked Bruce and Jake how they fared with Kate’s friends—completely unaware of the drama that had unfolded with Gabbie’s mom. He, of course, apologized but wished them both luck with the girls tonight.

Once the rest of the guys arrived, they went over the tasks for the day. The crews went to their trucks and were soon on their way. Jonathan, one of the new guys, had called in sick, which meant Bruce didn’t have a partner for the day, so Jake took Jon’s place. It was just like old times for them, which was beneficial since they could likely complete their tasks faster than working with others, giving them ample time to prepare for their dates.

Mid-afternoon, both Sofia and Gabbie started texting the guys. Sofia’s text messages were simply arranging the date for tonight, whereas it sounded like Gabbie wanted to play around. She said they would have the place to themselves if he got there by 4PM, and they could have some fun before going out on their date to make up for leaving him horny on Saturday night.

Jake suggested she could come to his place, but Gabbie said, “My life would be a living hell if I broke my mom’s rules.”

Jake wasn’t sure why that would matter since her mom wasn’t home anyway, but oh well.

Throughout the afternoon, Gabbie kept sending him racier and racier texts, which made working difficult, but they got done with their tasks early and had enough time to grab a quick shower before it was time to leave.

Jake arrived at Gabbie’s house precisely at 4PM, parking his truck on the street in front of the little patch of lawn that was shared between their house and the neighbours, rather than on the driveway. It was just a courtesy thing he always did in case his older work truck leaked any oil.

Gabbie lived in a nice big house on the ridge that overlooked the park from the opposite side from his place. The house was multilevel and had a front-attached double garage. It looked like most of the other houses in the neighbourhood, with a single tree off to the side of the sidewalk.

The tree had long since died, though, with only a couple of weird ornaments that looked like Halloween decorations hanging from its cold, dead limbs. In contrast, it looked like there were lush, full-grown trees in the backyard, which likely added to the privacy that Gabbie had alluded to.

Before getting out of his truck, he set the AWAY function on the work app, so any business calls would route to his mom. He also put the phone on silent, so there would be no interruptions while he was with Gabbie.

As he walked up their driveway, a black cat ran out and sat in the middle of the sidewalk off the corner of the garage. It was meowing and hissing like crazy and shaking its head. Jake wondered if it was their cat or just a stray, but it didn’t look friendly.

Gabbie opened the front door wearing nothing but a bathrobe and a sultry smile. “Don’t mind him. He’s a stray that animal control can’t seem to catch. Just give him a kick and he’ll move.”

Jake didn’t kick the cat, but he used his foot to shoo the cat away.

The place had a large entrance, but as you stepped inside, the dining area was off to the right side. It had weird-looking tall-backed black chairs, and the table looked like some ancient wooden table that was about 3 inches thick with steel bands and carriage bolts holding it together.

Used candles adorned the table and shelves around the room. The paint was dark and looked gloomy. The ambience of the room, along with that weird table, actually reminded Jake of a horror movie where they strapped sacrifices to an altar with candles all around.

Gabbie closed the door behind him, jumped up and wrapped her legs around his waist before kissing him with fervour. Her hands were on his face and neck as her crotch was rubbing against the bulge that was already present in his pants. Since she wore only a bathrobe, Jake’s hands were cupping her naked ass to hold her.

They broke the kiss and, with a mischievous smile, she whispered, “Follow me.” Standing on her own, she grabbed Jake’s hand and led him to the living room at the back of the house.

As they walked through the house, Jake mentally noted that they had a lot of odd, almost macabre, decorations. His thoughts of the decorations faded quickly as they reached the living room, which had a large sectional sofa with the end of the sofa forming a daybed with no sides. She pushed him back onto the sofa and climbed on top of him. He briefly thought she was moving too fast, but as her bathrobe opened and exposed those large, beautiful, natural breasts, his other head started doing the thinking as he began suckling those nipples that were right in front of his face.

She extracted his cock from his pants and was rubbing it between their bodies, coating his cock with pussy juice. Her rubbing strokes got longer and longer until his cock almost slipped inside on every stroke.

Looking up to meet her eyes, she had an odd sparkle in her eyes as her lips formed into a wicked—almost evil—grin, and he could have sworn her eyes turned from green to purple for a brief second.

As she climbed off, the bathrobe was wide open, exposing her nude body to his purview. Staring at her gorgeous body, he didn’t notice her grab a stick from a nearby vase as she stood there with that evil grin and said, “You were such an easy mark on Saturday night!”

Wait! Did she just call me a mark? That word immediately triggering Jake’s mind to go through self-preservation scenarios, as he tucked his cock back into his pants, concluding that this was some twisted game that she was playing—pretending she was a witch.

Witches aren’t real—are they?

Step one of his self-preservation plan was video of this twisted game.

He tapped the back of his phone, which started the camera, which he swiped to video mode, and began recording. He held up the phone and said, “I don’t know what you are up to, but this is just too weird. Gabbie, it was nice to have met you, but I can show myself out.”

Gabbie shook her head. “You’re not going anywhere, you stupid boy!” Again, Jake was sure her eyes changed from green to purple.

As she said that, she pointed her wand at him. If you could call it a wand—it really just looked like a crooked twig of a tree, except very polished.

Just as he was about to speak, Gabbie waved her wand and said, “Silence!”

“Yeah, as if!” Jake said—but no sound came out.

Fuck! Witches are real! He thought, as flipped the phone to selfie-mode to record that he couldn’t talk. With some proof she was up to no-good, he closed that video and started another.

Gabbie’s evil grin then turned malevolent as she spoke with twisted lips and a clenched jaw. “All men are dogs!” Then she flourished the wand and said something—it wasn’t English.