Chapter 142: Nicky Apologizes

Wednesday, June 16, 1971

Okay, that makes two surprises. That the help Mirthos promised was in the form of his daughter, and that his daughter was Narvenia. Then the irony struck me and I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

Narvenia was puzzled as my laughter caught her off guard.

“I’m sorry, Narvenia,” I managed to choke out amid my chuckles. “It’s just that, here I am, with one of the most beautiful young ladies in TWO worlds, who just happens to be the daughter of one of the most powerful men in the universe, and we’re meeting in a bathroom of all places!”

I laughed harder because it sounded even more ridiculous when I said it out loud. Narvenia processed what I was saying, and smiled.

“Irony, like love, is not natural for us. I see Father was correct. We have much to learn,” Narvenia stated.

“May I ask how you came to be here?” I asked her.

“My father went to tell you goodbye. He has never been bested in combat, even in training. I believe you earned his respect with what you did with the energy bolts. Then he returned and told me that he was giving me a kiquidrum. That is, a mission to study your world for the next forty of your years. And then he sent me here,” Narvenia explained.

“Here? To the bathroom?” I asked.

She hesitated, unsure as to what I meant.

“Michael Gregory Wagner! You can be so dense, sometimes!” Nicky’s thought rang in my head. “Of course she didn’t just turn up in our bathroom. She was on the porch when we came out of the Dining Hall. You must have just missed her. Anyway, she explained what she is doing here, about her mission and all. Since she needs to experience everything while she’s here, she is going to become one of us, and marry you, too.”

“Oh...” I thought.

“Now go to work and show her that Michael Wagner charm,” Nicky instructed, “or else...”

I didn’t want to know what the ‘or else’ was, so I smiled at Narvenia.

“Please, I beg you to forgive a young fool,” I said as I bowed to her, “and let us begin again.”

Narvenia smiled at my sudden change, and nodded, but said nothing.

“My sister says that you wish to experience our world?” I asked. “And that you wish to understand our ... er ... manners of the heart?”

Again, Narvenia nodded without speaking.

“Then I am honored that your father has chosen me to be your guide,” I said, bowing once more.

“It is I who am honored that you would allow me to be such an intimate part of your family. That kind of openness would not be found on my world,” Narvenia replied in equal formality.

I smiled at her.

“While you are truly beautiful, and I want to get to know you intimately. We have a slight challenge,” I said hesitantly, not sure how she would take what I was going to say.

Narvenia cocked her head to the side, contemplating my words.

“What my other ladies do not understand, is that you and I have not had the opportunity to get to know one another. And it is not my custom to open my heart to someone I do not know very well,” I explained.

Narvenia appeared sad and slightly confused as the door swung open and the lights were turned on. The girls all crowded into the bathroom.

“Michael! How could you?” Nicky started. “The poor girl...”

“Nicky!” Catherine said sharply.

Nicky stopped in the middle of her little diatribe, brought up short by Catherine’s rebuke, as she looked to her grandmother.

“Nicky,” Catherine said more slowly now, “I believe you may have overstepped your bounds.”

“What do you mean?” Nicky asked.

“When it comes to affairs of the heart, you cannot manipulate others,” Catherine explained.

When Nicky appeared confused, Catherine continued.

“I know that we have spent many hours with Narvenia, and have grown very fond of her. And we know that she will be with us for a long time. Now, let me ask you, how long have Narvenia and Michael spent together?”

“I don’t know. A lot, I’d imagine. After all he has been visiting with them much longer than we have,” Nicky said defensively.

“Narvenia, how much time have you spent alone with Michael, not counting tonight?” Catherine asked the young girl from another dimension.

“Approximately, four minutes and seventeen seconds of your time,” she answered without hesitation. “I was present while our Radapel instructed Michael on two occasions, but we didn’t have much personal interaction then.”

Everyone looked at Narvenia. I could tell that Nicky was beginning to see what Catherine was getting at.

“Did I say something wrong?” Narvenia asked Catherine.

“Not at all, my dear,” Catherine replied. “On our world, intimate relationships usually evolve over time. It could happen in hours, especially under extreme circumstances, but days and weeks are more common. Even years in some cases. But most definitely more than four minutes.”

“Oh,” said Narvenia.

“Oh,” said Nicky.

“I think that you owe Michael and Narvenia an apology,” Catherine said to Nicky.

“I’m afraid many of us owe Michael that apology,” Anna said. “I thought as Nicky had, that they had spent a significant amount of time together, judging by the way he kissed her goodbye.”

“And that was my fault. I was actually teasing the girls, because they had told me that kissing was not normally allowed on their world, yet it was their idea to bring us into it,” I explained. Then to Narvenia, I added, “It’s another form of irony.”

“Michael...” Catherine’s voice took on a tone of warning as she drew out my name to four syllables. “What have I told you? You have to be careful as the leader of a large company. Everything you do in public will be scrutinized by the press and used against you by your competitors.”

“You’re right, as always, Catherine,” I replied. Then to Narvenia, “Please accept my apologies for a second time. It seems that you have been here no time, and I have had to spend all of it making my apologies to you.”

“Why don’t we go back to the other room? I’m sure it will be more comfortable,” Catherine said.

“Should I remove the garment?” Narvenia asked as we made our way back to the great room.

“Sure,” Nicky said, her eyes were downcast and her voice held none of her normal joy.

“Actually, I would appreciate it if you left it on,” I said quickly. “I think you look lovely in it.”

“How old are you anyway?” Amy asked Narvenia. “I mean you don’t look much older than we do.”

“You must understand that our worlds measure time very differently, Amy. Because we live much longer than you do, we appear to age much slower. But to give you a frame of reference, I was born about the same time as the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, when it completely covered the city you referred to as Pompeii,” Narvenia explained.

That stunned everyone for a moment. “That was almost nineteen hundred years ago!” Vickie exclaimed. That she knew that, didn’t surprise me. I knew she had a very high intelligence. But putting a date to Narvenia’s age shocked us even further.

“I guess I was right when I called him ‘Old One’!” I thought to myself.

“In relation to your age, you would be correct,” Narvenia told us. “Even by our standards, he is considered very old. He once told us that he first visited your world at the dawn of your recorded history, more than six thousand years ago. From our best calculations, we probably age approximately one year for each of your centuries.”

“So your forty-year mission would be the equivalent of us going on a five-month mission?” Vickie quickly calculated.

“Excellent, Vickie. I see you grasped the concept very quickly,” Narvenia told her. “However, there are some other differences. We learn most of our motor skills at a relatively younger age than your world. It would be like you being able to run only months after birth. Or reading and writing before the age of one. On the other hand, I have yet to reach my child bearing years, as we become fertile much later in life than you do.”

“So you don’t have a period?” Jessica blurted out. She quickly covered her mouth with her hand. “I’m sorry. I guess that was rude.”

“It’s okay. And no, I have not started my menstrual cycles yet,” she smiled. “That’s another difference in that women on our world only produce eggs for fertilization by male sperm for a brief period of time. The closest comparison I could give you would be like you having a period only once a year for about ten to twelve years. Those are the only times in our lives when we can bear offspring. My first cycle should occur in the next one hundred or so of your years.”

“I have got to ask, hoping I don’t put my foot in my mouth when I do, but why did your Father ground you when I kissed you, then allow you to come with us?” I asked her.

Narvenia looked to the ceiling and smiled as she remembered that kiss, then lowered her eyes to me. “What you ask is not easily explained, without more education on our way of life, but the simple answer is that it symbolized that his daughters were coming of age, and like the fathers of your world, they don’t want to let go sometimes.”

Having been a father in my last life, I knew what she was describing.

“And on our world, kissing is not as ... open? Free? I’m afraid I do not know the correct word. We usually only share intimate contact, kisses or even touching, during our ritual of mating to produce offspring. I am not sure why that is so, it just is.”

“I’m sure that your father had to realize that our customs in that area are much more open, shall we say? And yet he allowed you to stay with us?” I asked.

“Oh, I am certain he did. That’s why he gave me a kiquidrum. A mission. It allows us to participate in the customs of other worlds without being held to customs of our world that might cause us to miss out on aspects we wish to study on other worlds, or cause us to be endangered by standing out or exposed as not of your world.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that,” Abby said. “I guess you would be in grave danger here if the people of our world were to find out where you are from.”

“So we will have to protect her, and keep her secret, just as we must do for Michael,” Catherine intoned as she tried to impress the urgency of the matter on everyone.

“I guess I just find it hard to believe your father let you stay with us,” I said.

“He did not say why he changed his mind. However, if I were to guess, I would say it was the way you handled yourself in the Obrelausten. The test of the heart. You are the only person in our recorded history to have mastered it, and you did it against over two dozen of our strongest and best warriors! In my lifetime, no one has ever gotten past the Radapel. And only a few have ever faced more than three. Our father made it to five, and it is reputed that one of our founding fathers faced nine.”

As I pondered what she had said, Adriana asked, “Can you hear me? I mean like Michael and Vickie can hear me?”

“Yes, Adriana. I can ‘hear’ your thoughts,” she said.

Adriana smiled happily. She now had a third alternative for communicating. I was aware that she had become frustrated lately by her slow process of mastering her larynx.

“Where is your twin sister, Spiro? And why did she not get to come?” Grace asked.

“I am afraid she could not come. She lost, you see. It was a fight to the death,” Narvenia replied. “And the winner got to go with Michael.”

There was absolute silence.

I happen to catch something in Narvenia that felt like ... mirth.

I looked closely and saw her eyes were bright, and the corners of her mouth curled up.

I laughed. Narvenia had made a joke.

My laughter went over like a lead balloon. So I quickly explained. General chaos ensued as they all began talking at once. Well, most of them were talking. Candy came and crawled into my lap. She wiggled around a bit to get herself settled comfortably, then with a purr that almost sounded like her mother’s, she said, “I’ve missed you.”

Meanwhile, Anna and Izzy were trying to explain to Narvenia how certain topics were not usually joked about.

“I am sorry. As Michael explained it to me earlier, we do not have comparable concepts for your irony or humor,” she said. “The truth is, Spiro did lose. We engaged in a game of chance for the privilege of accompanying you, not a fight to the death. Although you would have thought she was dying to hear her lament.”

Then looking at Candy on my lap, Narvenia changed subjects.

“May I ask you a question, ah ... Candy, right?” Narvenia said looking at her.

“Sure,” Candy replied.

“Why do you radiate such happiness sitting on Michael like that?” she asked.

“Because it feels good,” Candy replied.

“I do not understand. It does not look more comfortable than where you were sitting before. In fact, it appears more awkward,” Narvenia said.

“It’s not, though. I don’t know how to tell you. When I sit on Michael’s lap, I feel ... safe. And loved!” she tried to explain.

“You feel loved sitting on him?” Narvenia asked.

“Yeah. You wanna try?” Candy offered as she slid off and stood beside me.

Narvenia stood slowly and approached me with caution. This was something that she just did not understand. I reached out my hand when she was close and gently pulled her to me. She was larger than Candy, but then, so was almost everyone else, except Abby.

“You gotta kind of wiggle a little bit, until it feels good, then just relax,” Candy instructed.

Narvenia was a little uptight, but she got into it and moved until she found a more comfortable position. Then she relaxed a little.

“Now, put your arm around his shoulder and take a deep breath. Then as you let it out, just feel yourself sinking into Michael. It’s sort of like making love, but without having his thingy in your coochie,” Candy said as she giggled and blushed a little.

Narvenia encircled me with her arms and I hugged her closer to me. She began to relax and as she did, she suddenly became aware of my love. Her chin dropped and she closed her eyes as her body explored the sensations that our close contact allowed.

“It’s even better when you’re naked,” Candy volunteered. “But considering how sexy you are, you’d probably have to put up with his thingy poking your butt.”

Some of the others giggled as a confused look came over Narvenia’s face. “But it’s poking me now!” she said, in all seriousness. Of course, when she said that, everyone roared and the teasing began.

“Don’t pay any attention to them,” I told her. “They’re just jealous!”

“Does this mean that you find me sexually attractive?” she asked.

“No, it means that I am afraid I am going to find you sexually addictive,” I told her. It took her a minute to work through the translation in her mind, and then she turned on a megawatt smile, and nestled a little deeper in my lap, making sure to wiggle her butt against a very excited Little Mike.

The conversation flowed around me as I began to connect with her on a deeper level. The girls continued to ask questions about the differences in the two worlds and even the differences between Narvenia and the other girls.

“From what Spiro calculated, if we were from your world, we would be approximately eighteen to nineteen of your years. Of course, we would excel at any of your institutions of higher learning, and we can probably out-perform your Olympic athletes. Even the males,” Narvenia explained without bragging.

“When do you sleep?” Abby asked from beside me on the couch.

“Well, our normal pattern would be to sleep for what would be two of your days, and then work, study, and other things for about four days. But since we began this project, Spiro and I have tried to adapt more to your cycle. We don’t need the sleep, but I have grown fond of working in the shorter cycles of your days, and using your time of rest to meditate and think,” Narvenia explained. “However, every so often, we find we must shut down for rest, and then we sleep for several of your days. Last week, we went to sleep while you were in New York and woke up when you arrived in New Orleans. So we completely missed the amusement park you visited. When the Radapel informed us, we were very disappointed.”

I made a mental note to take her to the new Disney World when it opened in Florida later this year.

“When our ovulation begins, there is a similar cycle within our males and they become attracted to women who are ovulating. The males will ... ah ... pursue the females, and if we are in agreement, we mate. Some females will mate with different men, some with the same one over and over. However, the male that we ‘marry’ is usually carefully thought out and tested. But our ‘marriages’ have very little to do with sexual cooperation.”

“What happens if it becomes your time, and the male you are married to isn’t?” Hanna asked.

“We still mate with whoever happens to be on our same biological schedule, but most marriages are not established until after our fertile times have past,” Narvenia explained.

“So your relationship with your life-mate is nonsexual?” Izzy asked.

“Why yes. That is part of why my kiquidrum is so important. The sexual nature of your relationships holds much intrigue for us.”

“What do you mean?” Jenny asked.

“I’ll try to explain. We have two types of missions. One is to observe, such as Spiro and I had been doing with your world. There are thousands of those missions. The other type of mission, allows us to interact with the inhabitants, to understand them better. There are not very many of those. That is why this is such an honor for me.”

“So what changed their minds?” Jessica asked.

“It was thought that your world was not worth a kiquidrum, because you were so far behind us in most of your development. But when Michael single-handedly defeated the Council Guard, which was our world’s most elite fighting group. Father had to do something. So, he convened the Council and they issued the kiquidrum, allowing one person to live among you. Normally it would have been someone much older and more experienced, but because your world was not considered that important, my sister and I, through our work here, happened to be the most logical choice. So we tossed, and she lost. I received the kiquidrum,” Narvenia said with some pride.