Chapter 1: Something Was Not Right

Hello there. My name is Ann Jackman, and I have been asked by Auntie to put together this little tale for you. I say "put together," because, save for these few opening lines (plus one or two at the end), you will hear no more from me in our saga (at least, directly). Others, at Auntie's behest, have done the writing; and I will act in the role of editor. I've never been an editor. I rather like the idea. It has a literary flare, does it not? Editor. Yes, I like it immensely.

(By the way ... a word about those lines at the end: I REALLY like chapters that leave the reader hanging ... and since I AM the editor, that might just happen. If this thing is posted in segments, and you come to what you're worried might be the end, remember: it ain't over until this skinny bitch has sung! Know what I mean? In other words, you might have to "tune in again next week.")

This is (as Douglas Adams would put it) part four in a trilogy, which a few of you may have found in the more esoteric corners of the internet. All three of the previous pieces are included as parts of a complete novel entitled: THE ADDICTED NATURAL. The first part of that particular chronicle introduced Fred and Brenda Fielding (Brenda being the real heroine in the entire series ... as she is in this segment, as well). The second part of the story tells of the lovely Dee, who was so confused in her former life, she did not realize, at first, that her only road to true happiness was through complete physical and emotional surrender to someone she loved. And in the third piece of the tale, you met little Willie, who I had the pleasure of raising as if she was my own daughter here on Auntie's Island ... until she was so savagely taken away from us. If you have not read that tome, I'm afraid I must insist that you peruse it as an advanced reading assignment. I hope you do not find it overly dull. I loved it ... but then, I'm a randy old broad who truly knows how to appreciate a dirty book.

The four people I just mentioned comprise the major part of our staff of writers. It will be MY mission to choose which rendition of a certain event is most clearly presented, depending on whose perspective was most accurate and which parts of their written narratives are germane to our plot.

However, before I turn the stage over to them, please allow me to briefly outline the purpose of presenting the experiences chronicled herein. This will be about destiny ... whether it exists; why we most often choose not to believe in it; and what we can (or should) do about it if we do. It is about the extent to which a woman will go to surrender herself, her body and her soul. And, it is about change ... for we all change. Oh my, how we can change! And virtually everyone in our tale does. Dramatically.

Our story has a tinge of mystery. For Auntie's Island harbors a deep, deep mystery of its own. It always has. Always. I know what it is, of course; and, as is the case in all good mystery novels, I will present certain clues to the reader as we progress. Some of you will figure it out before our tale is done. Others will be so disbelieving about the whole thing, that the nature of the mystery will be lost on them entirely. But belief is something that you either choose or not.

And lastly (unlike Douglas Adams), there will be no part five in our trilogy. This will be the end.

Live with it.

DEE:

Willie was like a bouncy little girl, and once again, I had to question whether we had been correct in our assumption of her true age. She couldn't sit still, and once or twice since our plane had landed, as we were waiting for the taxi, waiting for the ferry, she stood and bounced up and down, hopping like a little girl, clapping her hands, squealing in girlish laughter. Unable to contain her pent up energy, she once again launched herself upward into Fred's arms, clutching at his neck, holding him, kissing him.

Brenda looked tired, but stoic and happy for her young lover. Our young lover. She had taken a turn with little Lizzy, taking the baby into the ferryboat's dingy lady's room to change her, rocking her tiny three-month-old body in her arms until she slept a little. But now she was fussy again, and Brenda plopped down on the long outdoor bench and handed her daughter ... my daughter ... our daughter to me, and took a moment to look around at the scenery that was so exciting Willie.

Barbados was hot, humid and breathtakingly beautiful. I couldn't tell if the water was especially shallow or especially clear, or both, but the bottom always seemed to be visible. The fish that swam around us were like the fish you buy for an aquarium, bright and colorful. Seagulls flocked around the stern of the small passenger ferry, squawking and screeching, swooping and diving. The air was clean and wonderful. A large man wearing some sort of seaman's uniform sat heavily on the bench facing us, leering openly at us. His eyes swept up and down Brenda's body, shifted to my breasts, back to her again.

Willie flung herself onto the bench between us, kissing Brenda on the cheek with more than chaste affection. "We're almost THERE!" she squealed. "I can see Daddy Jonathan's boat ahead in the marina!" She kissed her again. Lizzy started crying.

The man's eyes were all over us. He practically started drooling at the sight of Willie, and to my awe, he rocked himself onto one ass-cheek, stuck his hand down the front of his trousers, and adjusted his obvious erection before he put his arm back to his side and relaxed. His gaze settled once again on my breasts.

"I think you should feed the baby, Dee," Brenda said calmly.

I glanced nervously at her. She was staring at the man across from us.

"Um ... okay. I'll take her into the washroom," I replied nervously.

"No, here," she said, never taking her eyes off the man.

I couldn't believe my ears. Finally, it struck me that she intended to humiliate me in front of this awful sailor. "Oh, Brenda," I pleaded. "Please let me..."

Her lips drew up in a sinister smile. Willie, finally realizing that something was happening, looked questioningly between the two of us, at the man across from us, then back at me. "Go ahead, Dee," Brenda said gently. "Do as I tell you."

I felt myself blush crimson. I reached up with one hand and undid the bow holding the harness straps of my sundress, pulled one side down, fully baring my right breast, and drew the crying Lizzy to my nipple. She immediately sucked it into her voracious mouth, reached up with her tiny little hand, grasping the side of my large breast and hugging it, as her cries subsided into pleased little rhythmic grunts while she fed. I looked up at the awful sailor. He was staring, goggle-eyed at the scene in front of him. I suddenly realized that I was breathing too deeply. My embarrassment was having a familiar but unwelcome effect on me, along with Lizzy's greedy little sucking mouth on my tit. I shifted in my seat, hoping desperately that the moisture I felt between my legs wouldn't leave a spot on my dress. No one spoke for the longest time.

"Willie, go get Freddy and ask him to bring us the stroller, please. We're almost there," Brenda ordered softly.

Willie seemed to become cognizant of her surroundings again with a start. But before she moved to obey, she turned to me, a hand on my bare arm. "Are you okay, Dee?" she asked, concerned.

"Yes, I'll be fine," I said huskily, looking at her, thankful for her concern.

She cast another glance at the leering man, then leaned upward toward me, and before I realized her intent, she was kissing me fully on the lips. Then she was up and moving toward Fred. She was skipping. Like a little girl.

Fred came back from the front railing pushing the stroller, his brow wrinkling when he saw what I was doing in so public a place. But he took in the scene and nodded, his eyes settling on Brenda for a long moment.

"I don't think we'll need the stroller for now, Freddy," she told him flatly. "If you can take it and the other things, we'll follow along with Lizzy."

"Sure," he answered. He nodded a sort of friendly/serious greeting to the man across from us, then picked up the diaper bag and his large backpack, and started walking toward the gangway, which had just been lowered. Lizzy was finally asleep, and as I rose, Brenda turned me so that she could tie the straps of my dress again.

The leering man stood, too. "I'm gobsmacked!" the man said in a deep cockney accent. "This is jus' unfair, this is! One bloke and three gorgeous ladies! Ain't fair!"

"You're absolutely right," Brenda told him emphatically. "It ISN'T fair! We've all BEGGED him to get another girl so we could get some rest, but he won't listen!"

Willie threw back her head and laughed merrily, slipped her hand through my free elbow, and arm-in-arm-in-arm, we flounced off the boat, leaving the leering sailor in our wake.

BRENDA:

Willie ran up to the strong, dark man in the large boat shrieking "Daddy John! Daddy John!" and launched her lithe young body into his arms, burying her face into the side of his neck as he lifted her off her feet and twirled her.

"A hundred thousand welcomes; I could weep. And I could laugh; I am light, and heavy: Welcome!"

He favored each of us with a quotation as Willie introduced us. For Dee:

"By Jupiter, an angel! Or, if not, An earthly paragon!"

For me:

" ... a most exquisite lady. She's beautiful; and therefore to be woo'd: She is a woman; and therefore to be won."

And lastly, Freddy:

"Rest you fair, good Signior!"

Freddy laughed, shook his hand and said: "This is not Venice, sir, and I am no Merchant," and Jonathan was clearly pleased that someone had correctly placed his chosen quotation.

"Daddy, stop!" Willie cried, laughing, and then turned to us. "He never says anything of his own if he thinks the stupid 'Bard' said it better!"

"She speaks poignards, and every word stabs!" he declared dramatically.

We settled in for the long, two hour boat ride across the calm, sparkling sea south of Barbados to the place Willie had continuously been calling "Auntie's Island." (It was with amazement that Dee had finally found the small speck on an online maritime chart and discovered that was the actual name of the place.) The baby was asleep in her stroller, securely buckled in and surrounded by life preservers, which had been tied to it in case of emergency. Willie and Freddy were up front with Jonathan, pointing, gesticulating, laughing. Dee lounged in a deckchair beside Lizzy's stroller. I sat in the rear ... the stern ... in a plastic chair, and I put my feet up in the seat and wrapped my arms around my knees, thinking.

Something was not right.

Perhaps it was my own mood, which had been swinging rather dramatically of late. Maybe it was just runaway hormones. I'd been off the pill now for three ... no, going on four months, but of course I still wasn't pregnant. It was much too early to start thinking dark thoughts, but a girl thinks them anyway, I guess. Maybe my grumbling nerves were a reaction to something Freddy wasn't providing ... and I don't mean sex ... although, it had been a few days since THAT had happened, too. He hadn't hypnotized me. That could be my problem. It often was. I needed that. I craved it.

Willie's giggling laughter made me look up at her. SHE could be the problem. She WAS a problem, of sorts, though it's very, very hard to describe, and I could NEVER tell HER about it. I'll try to write it down here. Maybe I can make you understand. You see, there's something that makes me different from other girls. If someone needs something, I find that I HAVE to help them. And it isn't the case with just anybody ... because, let's face it, everybody needs SOMETHING! But, that's how I met Willie. She needed me, and so I helped her. But when her problem was finally rectified, she still needed me ... there was still some problem that needed solving ... still some need that was left unfulfilled. Sometimes, I can be with a person, talk with a person, hold a person, and it's as if that person's problem ... that person's need ... just melts away. When that happens, it always seems to leave me feeling kind of drained ... but happy, too. It gives me a feeling of satisfaction; sort of a "job well done" kind of feeling.

But I'd done that with Willie time and again over the past six or seven months. And now, she LOOKED happy. She SEEMED contented. And no one could see it except me. No one noticed except me. Willie still had a need ... buried deep down inside. There was still something she had to do ... no, something I had to do ... to fulfill that need of hers. Like I said, if I had tried to explain it to her, she would have denied it. Not even SHE knew it was there. But I did. She had a need. And I needed to help her.

Oh, I wished Freddy would hypnotize me.

I thought back over the past few months. I don't know why I got online and searched for Willie's "Auntie" that day. And it had been sheer luck that I had stumbled across the right webpage. Willie had been absolutely certain that her Auntie was dead, absolutely positive that she had watched her die. We had simply taken it for granted. But, there she was, not only alive, but open for business again, helping children who had "psychic gifts" refine and accept their way of life. I had told Freddy first, of course, and asked his permission to break the news to Willie. She had been so surprised, when we told her, that she'd fainted dead away. And there were tears of joy. And there was this trip planned by the whole "family," though it was not so urgent that we couldn't wait until Lizzy was three months old to make the trip with us. Willie had talked to Auntie at least once a week while the plans were being made.

Why hadn't "Auntie" flown up to Illinois to visit? Why hadn't she come with Jonathan to Barbados to meet us? Was she still hampered by her wounds? It might have helped my peace of mind it I knew what she looked like. We'd never even seen a picture. Willie thought she was beautiful, but then, every child is raised to think that her mother (or lacking a mother, her aunt) is beautiful.

Was she really a succubus? Should I be worried about Freddy? Should I be worried about myself?

No, I was worried about Willie. She needed something.

I decided to think about something else for awhile. The incident with the staring sailor on the ferry still bothered me. Not because he had stared ... all guys stare. Rather, it was my telling Dee to bare herself in front of the guy. Dee thrilled at the very concept of humiliation. She thrived on it. She NEEDED it. And so, of course, I needed to help her fulfill her need. It's just what I do. But nobody ever thinks about MY needs!

Oooh, that sounded so selfish! I took a deep breath. Willie called me empathic. Maybe she was right ... not that monikers really matter. Perhaps I felt the desire for subjugation and humiliation so strongly because Dee felt it so strongly. Perhaps this was just some sort of emotional transference on my part. I thought back again to that day three weeks ago. It had been nothing more than a silly game for everyone else ... and it SHOULD have been nothing more than a silly game to me, too. But oh! I shivered, despite the hot Caribbean sun. Oh, it had been one of the most exciting days of my whole life!

It was the day Freddy "turned the bunch of bananas over," as he put it. I had complained to him, on one of my moodier days, that I wished I didn't always have to be "top banana" in his little harem. That, and the concept of "Naked Dee Day," which we celebrated from time to time (like I said, just a silly game), gave him the idea to make ME the player in our periodic charade. He had circled the day on the calendar, just to tease me; but neither he nor anyone else had the slightest idea how dramatically the whole concept affected me. I found myself standing in front of that damned calendar ... just staring at that red circle around the number 23 with "NBD" in red ink next to it (for: Naked Brenda Day) ... letting my imagination run rampant ... letting unbidden images fill my head ... feeling the moisture between my legs. The night before, it was my turn to go to bed with Freddy, and I couldn't sleep, thinking about it. My tossing and turning woke him up, and he flipped on the bedside lamp. With a flourish, he produced the pocket watch from his bed stand. So much for a sleepless night.