Chapter 24: The Calculus of Forever

I watched the Wyoming miles dissolve under our tires, a hypnotic procession of sagebrush flats giving way to rumpled, pine-stubbled foothills. The air through the vents grew cooler, carrying a new, cleaner scent of pine resin and something else, something mineral and ancient. The signs began appearing with increasing frequency: YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK - 80 MI. YELLOWSTONE - 45 MI. YELLOWSTONE - NEXT EXIT.

We were climbing in elevation, and I could feel it in my ears. The station wagon’s engine worked harder, a deeper hum vibrating through the floorboards. Outside, the landscape began to change in earnest. The barren scrub gave way to dense stands of lodgepole pine, their trunks rising like straight, solemn columns. Patches of snow still lingered in shadowy hollows, shocking white against the summer green. We were leaving the world of men and entering something older.

I had been sitting in a deep, contemplative quiet for hours, my right hand resting on Ash’s bare thigh, my thumb tracing idle patterns on her skin. The warmth of her was a constant, soothing presence against my side, a living furnace of trust. After the morning’s declaration at the rest stop, after carrying her, after the suitcase transfer that marked my sovereign domain, a profound calm had settled over me. The anger was gone. The confusion had crystallized into purpose. The ocean was no less vast, but I had found my stroke.

My left arm was draped around her shoulders, my fingers idly toying with the ends of her hair where it brushed her collar. She leaned into the touch, her breathing slow and even, her eyes half-closed. She was dozing, or in that deep meditative state she accessed so easily now. In her sleep or trance, she would occasionally make a soft, almost imperceptible sound, a contented hum that vibrated through her chest and into mine. It was the sound of a machine operating perfectly, of a system in harmony. I would answer with a slight squeeze of my hand on her thigh, and she would settle deeper.

In the middle seat, the sisters were talking in low tones. It was the first real, casual conversation I’d heard between them in days that wasn’t about protocol, strategy, or system metrics. It was about the future. Our future.

“... so Janet definitely won’t be speaking to me,” Claire was saying, her voice holding a trace of wry amusement rather than hurt. “Not after the phone call. But honestly? I’m relieved. The energy required to maintain those friendships ... the constant performance of being ‘Claire who cares about pep rallies in my new state and who’s dating who’ ... it was astronomical.”

Megan nodded, her analytical mind applying cost-benefit ratios. “The social maintenance expenditure for typical adolescent female friendships averages eighteen hours per week, with diminishing returns on emotional support after the first six. Our reallocation of that cognitive and temporal capital to family system stability is a net efficiency gain of approximately 300%.”

Claire snorted. “See, you get it. It’s not that I won’t miss some of them. Sarah, maybe. But it’s like ... I was carrying all these empty boxes labeled ‘things Claire should care about.’ And now I’ve put them down. The space they took up is just ... quiet.”

I listened, my thumb idly tracing the coiling softness of the pubic hair, my fingers charting a path upward to circle her clitoris before easing slowly, deliberately, inside her. The motion was rhythmic, intimate, a silent conversation our bodies understood perfectly. Against that profound physical knowledge, the word “friends” echoed strangely in my mind. It felt less like a memory and more like a relic from a forgotten dig site, a brittle shard of pottery, unearthed and labeled, its original use a mystery for archaeologists to debate.

Have I ever had friends? Technically, yes. There were faces from a sun-bleached past: kids to trade stiff, gum-scented cards on a dusty curb, boys to play catch with until the streetlights flickered on. I was a loner who blended with the paint. But the memory of those bonds was now flat, a faded photograph compared to the searing, high-definition reality of my new life. They were connections of convenience, of proximity, gentle eddies in a shallow stream.

What defined my world now were connections of a different magnitude, vivid, terrifying, and all-consuming. They were tectonic, reshaping the very landscape of the self. They were the kind of bonds that forged you in a crucible of need, possession, and a love so dense it bent the light around you. In that silent room, with Ash’s breath catching in time with my touch, the quiet camaraderie of a shared childhood game seemed like a whispered rumor from someone else’s life. This, here, the scent of her skin, the electric current of response under my fingertips, this was the only reality that remained.

“And you?” Claire asked Megan. “What about your ... study group? The decathlon team?”

Megan was silent for a moment, wondering if all of them wanted me to remain on the team now dressed in this, my skin. “The intellectual stimulation was non-zero,” she conceded. “But it was coupled with significant social friction. The need to modulate my communication style to avoid being perceived as ‘robotic.’ The implicit competition. The waste of explaining basic logical progressions.” She turned her head slightly, her profile sharp against the passing pines. “Here, logic is language. There is no need for translation. My processing speed is unimpeded. My function is clear. The social metric is irrelevant.”

It was the most human justification for inhumanity I’d ever heard. And I understood it completely.

Claire shifted, turning to face me. Her eyes clear now, all traces of rebellion washed away, she rested on my hand, nearly half-buried inside my doll’s moist vagina. What looked back at me was a weary, settled wisdom. “What about you, Sam?” she asked. “Any ... attachments? From before?”

The question hung absurdly in the air. I looked down at Ash as I pushed more of my hand inside her until just my wrist was visible. Running my fingers over her cheeks as she looked up at me with a smile on her face, she closed her eyes again. All I could feel was the steady rhythm of her breath against my head. I watched the sisters’ reactions as the doll repositioned herself so it was easier for me to form a fist seamlessly inside her. “No,” I said, the word quiet but final. “Nothing that matters.”

A small, understanding smile touched Claire’s lips. “Yeah,” she murmured. “That’s what I figured.” Her gaze drifted past me, settling on Ash’s sleeping form. “It’ll be different in the fall, you know. At school.”

A cold trickle, unrelated to the mountain air, traced down my spine. School. The great, grinding machinery of the normal world, with its bells and halls and thousands of judging eyes. I hadn’t let myself think about it. It loomed on the calendar like a trial by fire.

“How?” I asked, the single word heavy.

Claire and Megan exchanged a look of silent, fluent communication of theirs. It was Claire who spoke, her voice dropping, becoming more confidential, though our parents in the front seat could undoubtedly hear.

“Mom and Dad have been working on it with the Cedar Springs School District, and with our lawyer, Chelsey. It’s ... part of the legal strategy. The ‘reasonable accommodation’ for our ‘sincerely held familial and philosophical practice.’” She said the last part in a faint, mocking tone, quoting legalese.

“Ashley Ash,” she corrected herself smoothly, “won’t be in the tenth grade. She’ll be held back. Officially, due to ‘interrupted studies’ and ‘specialized educational needs.’”

I stared at her. “Held back?”

“To the ninth grade,” Megan clarified, her voice devoid of inflection. “Your grade, Sam. The paperwork is being finalized. She will be enrolled as your educational companion. Your designated support animal.”

The implications unfurled in my mind like a black bloom. All while Ash rested calmly in my lap, her body pliant under my exploring touch, her most intimate places known to my hand. This was the person who, just a week ago, before I’d asked for her silence, had been our sister. My thoughts screeched to a halt on the cold, administrative term.

“... Animal?”

It was Claire who responded, though her voice didn’t stir from her throat. Her message came through the stillness of her form, the utter passivity with which she received every word. Sam, the silence seemed to say, look at your hand nearly pushed so deep in her you could feel her cervix. Look at your doll, at how relaxed her body is in the peace of her master’s desires. We all know how shy our sister Ashley was, even her bra strap showing. If something touched her ... Dam ... Bro, look at her...

My eyes dropped to her. Ash lay cradled against me, utterly overcome, yet perfectly placid. Her eyes were closed, taking in every syllable of her condemnation. She heard it all. She offered nothing back, no protest, no flicker of response. Just the slow, even tide of her breath.

“Yes, Sam,” Megan said, following my stricken gaze. Her tone was gentle but unyielding, a quiet correction. “You need to start seeing her as she is now. Your service companion. Your animal.”

“Everywhere,” Claire affirmed, her voice flat. “Homeroom. Math. English. History. Study hall.” A faint, ironic emphasis colored the last word: “Gym. She is your support animal, not our sister. You took her voice. You took her capacity for individuality. That makes her your full responsibility. And her place is with you. The school has agreed, provisionally under legal pressure, with waivers and conditions. She’ll be listed under a unique IEP. It states her educational progress is tied to her function as your adjunct. Her attendance is contingent on being at your side.”

I looked down at the sleeping girl in my arms. My doll, in a classroom. Sitting beside me while other kids passed notes and whispered about weekends, she would exist in perfect silence, awaiting my command. The image felt both profoundly correct and utterly surreal.

“And what ... what will she do?” My voice was barely audible. “During lessons?”

“What she does now,” Megan replied simply. “She will be. She will attend. Her presence is the curriculum. Compliance. Observation. Absorbing the environment through the filter of your will. She won’t take tests. She won’t complete assignments. Her grade is pass/fail, based on consistent, peaceful attendance as your companion. Legally, it’s a hybrid. Independent study meets service animal protocol.”

The comparison was clinical, stark, and undeniable.

“It gets more detailed,” Claire added, watching my face closely. “You’re responsible for her practical needs. If it’s cold, you bring a coat for her or share yours. To and from school, you’re her shelter. Rain, snow, it doesn’t matter. Her safety, her warmth, her hydration, her nutrition during school hours, that’s on you. They’re converting an old guidance office into a private space where you can see to her needs between classes.”

She leaned in, her voice dropping to a blade ‘s-edge whisper. “And the other kids, Sam. The stares. The questions. The cruelty. You’ll be the buffer. The guardian at the gate. Every day. Seven hours a day, five days a week.” Her gaze held mine, not in warning, but in grim preparation. “This isn’t a field trip. It’s a siege. And you’ll be on the front line.”

I absorbed it. The weight was colossal, yet it settled with a terrible rightness the logical end of everything. If she were mine, then she was mine everywhere. In the Badlands, at Rushmore, in a rented motel room, and in Algebra I. The geography changed. The geometry did not.

“And what about you two?” I glanced between them. “Your grades? Your classes?”

Claire shrugged, a motion that shifted the bare line of her shoulders. Her nudity now seemed an afterthought, as mundane as the upholstery. “We’ll be nude. That’s not up for debate. It’s our baseline. The district is contesting it, our parents’ lawyers are countering, and that dance will keep going. Might mean temporary homeschooling, or some kind of specialized setup. But the objective is full integration. We’re the control group, the ones living the pure, uncompromised truth. Ash, in her dress or not, is more like a diplomatic envoy. The one with a foot in both worlds, since she’s yours.”