4: Inexperience

"You chose me!" she squeaked when the wall opened to admit her. She was so adorable! She was dressed in a shimmering blue gown that hugged her modest but very feminine curves. Her honey blonde hair was piled on top of her head and she wore golden feather earrings that accented the long elegance of her neck and her gently sloped shoulders. I held out my hand and she stepped forward to take it.

"Persephone Student, I am Hero Lincoln. Will you consent to be my caretaker on Crossroads both now and forever?" She gasped and jerked slightly as our fingers touched. I'd read that Cassandran women were highly orgasmic, but surely she didn't just come from my proposal, did she? She sank to her knees in front of me and looked at me through teary eyes.

"Hero Lincoln, I am yours to command. Now and forever." I bent to kiss her fingers and I think she came again. I lifted her from her kneeling position and led her to her place at the table. It was only a step, but I was still a little shaky. I noticed a flower at her place and paused with her to fasten the rose corsage to her dress. Now she truly looked like a prom queen. She sat delicately as I held her chair for her and I pretty much collapsed in mine.

"Let us get to know each other over dinner," I said.

I was nearly overwhelmed by her. The girl was only nineteen years old! All those degrees ... she'd finished the first one at the age of twelve. She was smart, talented, an excellent conversationalist, and turned me on instantly. She correctly identified the ingredients in each recipe and the vintage of the wine. I described my medical condition and how I was feeling since emerging from the healing chamber. She jumped up for a moment and ran to the chamber to look at the readouts. Then she discussed precisely where the damage had been and how it had affected my overall physical condition.

"You are probably experiencing a tingling sensation in your lower extremities. This is because even though the nerves have been reconnected, they have not yet sorted out the signals your head is receiving. Your mobility will be impaired for quite some time while we work on your physical therapy. I am sorry to say that you will undoubtedly experience some pain in the course of regaining the feeling. At the point of the accident, when the nerves were impinged, they stored many of the signals that were not transferred to the brain at the time. These may appear as unexplainable phantom pains," she said intensely. "You must let me know when these pains appear so that I can help relieve them."

"I have been experiencing some lower back pain today that I dismissed as being fatigue."

"That will undoubtedly occur as well, but don't be surprised if there are jolts of unexpected agony."

"How encouraging," I laughed. It wasn't funny.

"Do not fear, Hero Lincoln. It may take a year until you are fully rehabilitated, but I will be here every step of the way," she said. "I will do my best to distract you from any pain." Oh shit! How was I going to tell her this?

"Persephone, already I find myself falling in love with you. So it pains me to say that I will not be staying here for rehabilitation," I said.

"What? No! Please don't. They said when our names were selected that you would probably never be back. Please tell me you meant it when you said 'now and forever.' Please!"

"Persephone, my sweetheart, I did and do mean it. But there are practical problems that I have to live with. First and foremost is that I cannot simply step through the portal fifteen minutes after I left and be miraculously healed, strong, and fit. It would create so many questions that I might not be able to ever get back. I need to do my physical therapy on Earth. That is where I need to recover my strength and prepare for my first mission. I don't dare stay here longer and heal more than I am. I will already have to find an explanation for no longer having a colostomy. The healing chamber sealed up all the incisions and removed the hardware. I'm not sure there are even doctors on earth who can do that kind of thing," I explained. Her lips were trembling and a tear threatened to escape from her eye. I leaned forward and softly kissed her lips.

"Oh," she sighed. "My hero. I understand. But you need a caretaker with you."

"Ah. Perhaps that information was not conveyed to you. You are not my only caretaker." Her eyes were as big as saucers.

"You were given two caretakers? Does that mean that I can go to Earth with you?"

"Sadly, no. Lisa Caretaker, will you join us for dessert and champagne?" I spoke up. I had no doubt that Lisa had been listening to every word that was spoken during our evening. The wall opened and Lisa stepped into the room. I was relieved that she had dressed. Well, sort of. She was wearing red silk pajamas of the sort I expected she had ordered for Persephone and me. Persephone and I stood. "Persephone Caretaker of Cassandra, may I present Lisa Caretaker of Earth. Lisa, Persephone."

Lisa stepped around me quickly and swept Persephone into a hug. She planted a kiss on the girl that was soon returned. I was thinking that Persephone had just had another little orgasm. I wasn't sure about Lisa.

"Oh, I am so happy Lincoln chose you as his caretaker," Lisa said. "I love you already."

"I am speechless! I've never heard of an Earth caretaker; only of companions," Persephone said. Persey? I needed a shortened name for her.

"Well, I believe there will be one of those as well," Lisa laughed. "As soon as she finds out about it. But for now, I plan to travel with Lincoln wherever he goes. Do not worry, though. Here on Crossroads he is all yours and I am your humble servant."

"I accept you as my equal and possibly my teacher in some things. I envy you your ability to travel among the worlds. Perhaps I can arrange for you to visit Cassandra as well. The talk shows would go wild!" she laughed.

"May we have dessert now as we get better acquainted?" The table was magically transformed and our chocolate mousse and champagne was served. The computer seemed to have no difficulty in adjusting to the number of people.

"You mean so you can entertain us," Lisa laughed. "Has he showed you his deck yet?" Persephone blushed scarlet.

"We've been fully dressed ever since I arrived. Honest!" Lisa and I both broke out laughing.

"Damn! I left it in the bedroom," I said.

"It's detachable?" Seph said. Yeah, I liked that.

"Computer..." I began. My deck of cards materialized on the table in front of us before I'd gotten the words out. "Deck," I said. "Deck of cards. Although my magic pales in comparison to computer's."

"Magic? The computer is technology. There is a synthesizer on Crossroads and computer merely transports the synthesized products to the desired location."

"Any sufficiently advanced form of technology appears to be magical to those of lower technological development. Think what it would be like on Chaos if they saw an airplane."

"I see what you mean," Seph said. "So your cards are an advanced form of technology?" I shuffled the cards and arced them from one hand to the other. I cut them, shuffled them, and fanned them out in my hand. "Ooh."

"Neither technology nor magic, Sephie. Pick a card."

"That one," she said pointing. Lisa laughed.

"Withdraw it from the deck and look at it without showing me. You may show Lisa for verification. I'm going to have to learn a whole new patter for Chaos, aren't I?" Seph looked at the card and showed it to Lisa before holding it against her chest. "Put it back in the deck without letting me see it." She inserted the card.

I pinched the deck to prevent it from going all the way in as I closed the fan, cut the cards and did a false shuffle to keep the card on top. I placed the deck on the table and palmed the top card. "Now, cut the deck." Seph reached for the knife at her place, but of course computer had cleared it with the other dishes. "Uh, not with a knife," I said. "To cut the cards is to divide the deck into two piles and place the bottom half on top." Seph did a very nice job and I thought she might be playing with me a bit. I didn't think she really intended to use a knife to cut the deck. "You see, your card is as attracted to you as I am, so naturally it has come to the top of the deck." I turned over the top card—a nine of diamonds. Seph looked at me strangely and Lisa looked shocked. "That's not your card, is it?" I moaned.

"No, Hero Lincoln. I would have said it was, but Lisa saw it and I couldn't lie."

"Of course, it is not your card because you tried to deceive me," I scolded. "You should never lie to me about anything. Instead of returning your card to the deck, you hid it, didn't you?" Persephone looked truly alarmed.

"No, my Hero. I did what you said. I promise I did."

"Oh?" I said, reaching toward her slowly. The girl was near a panic. "Then what is this hiding in the bodice of your gown against your beautiful bosom?" I asked, pulling the queen of hearts from her dress.

"I didn't! Please believe me! Computer! Did you transport the card to my dress?"

"No, Persephone Caretaker."

"Don't lie to me!"

"As you know, I am incapable of lying. It is not in my programming. You see, the card was..."

"Computer!" I snapped. "Never give away the trick!" There was a moment of silence.

"Ah. I see. I beg your pardon, Hero."

"Trick?" said Seph. "I see now. That's why you called it magic." She started grinning.

"It's called sleight of hand. Or prestidigitation. Or legerdemain. I do it to entertain people, including myself. I don't do it to frighten beautiful, intelligent, loving ... trusting ... blue-eyed ... blonde..." I lost track of where I was going with that as my lips closed on hers.

"I think it is time for our coffee," Lisa said after a minute or an eternity. "Then you can go kiss all night long if you want." Both Persephone and I were blushing.

"There might be a problem in that," Persephone said softly with her head bowed. "I will do anything to please you, my Hero. But I am not very experienced. I've read a lot. But, I am one of those Cassandran rarities: A teenage virgin." I laughed.

"Well, welcome to the club!" I said. Lisa scowled at me.

"Persephone, dear," she said, "we were told that the Cassandran women were highly sexed. How did you manage to become a caretaker and still be a virgin?"

"Um ... Well, you might have noticed that I've always been a little precocious." We nodded. First degree at age 12? "I started my first Master's thesis just at the time my body started female cycles. Even though we who are caretakers have little chance of ever becoming pregnant, our bodies still go through a monthly cycle. Here at Crossroads, the healing chamber prevents that. Otherwise, we're just like any other woman with a menstrual cycle. That's also when the hormones start kicking in. So, I thought that I would do my History thesis on the sexual preferences of Earth Heroes. I was given access to the notes of many caretakers of the most sexually dominant heroes. In reading, I noted how the men often wistfully spoke of the girls whose cherries they had popped. I had to look that up to find that it meant being the first to place his penis in her vagina, thus ending her virginity. However, there were also several other definitions of virginity, some of which included any sexual experience at all, some of which required that the hymen be intact, and some that simply said no penetration or female manipulation. Since I always intended to apply to become a caretaker when I was eighteen, I decided that it probably wasn't that big a strain to abstain from all sexual contact until I had either been chosen or had been rejected three times. I had plenty to keep me busy in the meantime. Then, one way or the other, I could have all the sex I wanted, as long as I could get a man erect."

"So you saved your virginity for your hero," Lisa sighed. "That could be a problem."

"Oh no! Why? Do you wish for me to be deflowered before we make love? I will do that for you, my Hero."

"No, no. It's not that," I said.

"The problem," Lisa broke in, "is that there is another who has saved her virginity for her hero. And he, inadvertently, has saved his for her." She looked meaningfully at me.