Chapter 2: Wedding Bells

April 30th, 1988

All my life I had hoped, prayed and dreamed for the day which had finally arrived. My mother was to marry my father, and it just sort of hit me all of a sudden while driving up to the huge church where it was going to actually happen.

“Shit,” I said, shutting off the engine and staring at the rather impressive house of God.

While trying to see what I was looking at, Eric asked, “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing really. It’s just I once promised my mom I’d be the first one to throw the rice at her wedding. I forgot all about it.”

“Well, I didn’t,” he said, grinning as he pulled a pinch of rice out of a pocket and flicked it at me.

“Shit, you’re a lifesaver, you know that?”

He said seriously, “Yep. Of course, it will cost you to use my rice.”

“Oh, really? How much?”

“Just a kiss,” he said, turning his head towards me.

“Deal,” I said, giving him a smooch he’d be thinking about for a while.

We got out of the car and strolled up to the center set of front doors, both of us watching the two rather large ape-like men in tuxedos waiting patiently to open the doors for us or anyone else who was invited. I recognized them as some of my dad’s security people from the Marlfield mansion.

I asked, “Hey, boys. Who all’s here?”

The black man who was the larger of the two responded, “The Master, The Mistress, Mr. and Mrs. Connor, Mr. Cord, Mr. Lexington, Mrs. Broth...”

“Mr. Cord? What’s he look like?” I asked, having never met the man who was my father’s childhood friend and one of his groomsmen.

Neither of the two doormen bothered to answer since they knew I would just peek at the image forming in their heads.

“Oh. Thanks ... And thanks,” I said as they reached to open the doors for us.

Once we were in the foyer and the doors had closed behind us, Eric asked, “Why didn’t they answer you?”

“They didn’t have to, that’s ... Wow...”

Stretching out before us was a cathedral large enough to play high school basketball in. If it wasn’t for all the pews and fragile stained glass windows, anyways. Even though it wasn’t anywhere near the size of the cathedral in England I would later visit, it still was an awesome sight to behold for the first time.

There weren’t too many people there yet, and even if there had been a hundred or so, I doubt anyone would have known because the place was so large.

“Hey, Tim,” Eric began as we set out to explore the place. “You never did say if you talked your mom out of going nude at the reception.”

“Shit, Eric. That wasn’t what my dad and I were arguing with her about. She wanted to go naked down the aisle.”

Eric exclaimed, “NO WAY!” then started turning red from the way his voice echoed around the huge empty space.

I said, grinning, “Yeah, way. All she was going to wear was a body length veil and a fifteen-foot long train that the twins and a few of their sisters would carry in the buff too. I’m still not happy about her wedding dress. But at least it covers what it needs to cover.”

“Wow ... You know, I never thought I’d admit this to you, but your mom is...”

“I know, Eric. I know.”

“What do you know?”

“She’s the sexiest woman you’ve ever met,” I sighed.

“Yeah. And she gives great ... Whoa! Look at that!” he said, trying to get his excitement up over a stained glass window of Jesus, attempting to cover up how he had almost stuck his foot in his mouth.

“That’s nothing, Eric,” I said just as my eye caught something vaguely familiar. “Look at that one!” I said, pointing over to one of the bigger ones behind the podium.

“I can’t believe it,” Eric breathed. “Isn’t that ... sacrilege?”

“Probably,” I said, staring at the image of my mom, my dad, and myself sitting at the table with Jesus while the twins served him his drink and dinner.

“If that one isn’t, then that one has to be!” Eric said, pointing to one of the others.

“Shit, dad,” I moaned, recognizing the tops of the twins’ heads sticking up above the table immediately in front of my dad’s and Jesus’ laps.

“I wonder where your mom went in ... Oh,” Eric said just as I noticed that there was one in front of my lap also.

“FUCK!” I said a little too loud as I walked straight for the aisle heading for the doors.

“Tim!” Eric called, hurrying to catch up with me. “Where are you going?”

I shouted behind me, “OUT! I’m NOT going to allow THAT ... THAT THING be seen my mother’s WEDDING!”

I went outside for a few minutes, then came back in and sought out someone who worked for the church. I found one of the priests talking to some weasel faced woman and interrupted their discussion a bit rudely.

“May I help you, my son?”

“Yes, Father. How much would it cost to replace one of the big stained glass windows?”

“One of our windows?” he said, looking up and around for anything amiss.

“Yes. Just how much would it cost?”

“I don’t rightly know. A considerable amount, I’m sure.”

I got my wallet out and said, “Do you take Visa or Mastercard?”

“I’m sorry, son. I’m afraid I don’t understand. None of the windows are in need of replacing.”

I pulled out two of the seven rocks I had brought in and without any hesitation threw them at the blasphemous image behind us.

“Oops,” I said after one of the two rocks hit the wrong target. “Oh well. I guess you’ll just have to bill me for two then.”

“CHILD! HAVE YOU GONE INSANE?!?” the minister cried as I pulled out two more rocks.

“Nope,” I said, letting them fly, then felt some satisfaction when they both hit their marks.

Even though Eric joined the fun and hit the 100 point bonus area showing Jesus’ orgasmic face, we had to make four trips outside to get enough rocks to knock out enough of it so no one could tell what it had been about.

I’ve never seen my dad so mad before. We were in the middle of helping the staff clean up my mess when he came out with the twins, Sherman - who was his best man - and Mr. Cord, and in moments we were shouting at each other not listening to what the other was saying. It was kind of ugly, and if it hadn’t been for the twins getting in our faces while scolding us in their empathic way, I don’t know what would have stopped us from doing something we would have regretted later.

“He should have known I wouldn’t allow something like that at my mother’s wedding,” I grumbled a few minutes later to Eric in an isolated pew.

Trying to get my mind off my frustration, Eric asked, “Tim, did you notice how that guy looked at you while you two were arguing?”

“What guy?” I asked with some impatience.

“The tall guy that was with your dad.”

“Cord? No. What he do?”

“He never took his eyes off you. I don’t like him. I think he’s up to something.”

I gave Eric a wiry grin, then said, “Since when are you empathic or telepathic?”

“Shut up. You didn’t see him. He looked at you like you were ... you were...”

“What?”

“I don’t know. He was just really interested in you for some reason.”

“Well, I didn’t feel anything from him, and he didn’t try to probe me. Maybe he just never saw someone argue with my dad before. Forget about him, Eric. I’d know if he was up to something. And even if I didn’t catch it, the twins would have.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“Shit. Well, it’s time for me to get changed into my tux. Are you going to wait here?”

“I think so. I want to watch them cover up the missing glass. Those guys have cute butts.”

“Gee, and I thought you liked mine,” I teased, getting up and making it wiggle more than usual as I walked away.

“I do like yours, but I don’t get many chances to watch three cute butts like that.”

I left him to his butt watching and changed, then ran into Margaret on the way back and we ended up talking longer than we probably should have. She was very worried about Joey and even suggested I do something to him to restore his old self. It took forever to explain why I couldn’t do that to him again.

When I went back out into the church, Eric was nowhere to be seen. People were starting to trickle in, and I felt torn between looking for Eric and meeting the guests as they arrived. I decided that since the wedding wasn’t supposed to start for another hour, I wasn’t going to miss anyone that I invited if I spent half that time looking for Eric.

After looking around for ten minutes, I gave up and just used a pulse. I wasn’t sure how many telepaths were in the church or how many of them would detect my pulse. Since it worked and no one seemed to be staring at me, I figured no one had noticed it and just followed my lock on Eric’s mind.

“What the,” I muttered when I felt Eric’s mind go blank a few moments, then found him quickly returning to the pew he had been sitting in when I had left him.

I started tuning in what my newest senses were saying, and just as I had suspected, someone was remote controlling him back to his seat while his mind was asleep. I locked on the source of the stream of symbols then watched carefully to see what their intentions were. Once Eric was sitting down and fully aware of his surroundings again, I did a quick scan to see if he had been altered, then made my way towards the offending telepath.

“Oh Max. That feels wonderful,” I heard a girl’s voice say just as I was about to knock on the door. “Mmmmm, right there...”

As quietly as I could, I peeked inside the door to find a girl about my age getting a shoulder massage from a guy who looked to be in his early twenties.

I couldn’t help but grin when I decided to play a little trick on her, and once I made sure the guy wouldn’t see me, I didn’t bother hiding my grin as I entered the room.

My adversary wasn’t monitoring her enslaved boyfriend’s mind, so I began programming him to carefully switch the massage job over to me. Without any interruption to the pattern he was using on her shoulders, I first replaced his right hand with my own, then I moved in front of him. With only a slight break in the rubbing, I replaced his left hand also, then sent the toy boy to stand guard outside the door.

As I turned on my magic touch with the setting on low, I was surprised to find her shoulders and neck muscles were actually quite tense. So for a few minutes, I concentrated on working the knots and stiffness out of them before attempting to put my plan into action.

“Mmmmm, Maxy ... I like that ... Let me lay down if you’re going to do my back...”

I panicked for a moment as she started to move up out of her chair, then almost let out a sigh of relief when she allowed me to guide her to the floor without her ever opening her eyes.

I was being very careful not to overdo my magic touch at first. She was a telepath after all, and if she detected my telepathic manipulation of her body’s nerves, I would probably have to defend myself rather than the fun I had in mind. But once I got her relaxed enough, I would start turning it up, for it was a necessary part of my plan.

“Max...” she sighed softly after a few minutes of my back rub. “Undo the back of my dress so you won’t stretch the fabric,” she said with even less energy.

I complied happily, having gotten tired of the material hampering my style. She gave out several small sighs afterward, and once I had ‘accidentally’ unhooked her bra and didn’t find her the least bit concerned, I knew it was time to turn up the power.

I kept my eye on the time as I pushed her deeper and deeper into her relaxed trance that my magic touch was producing, and once I was sure she was under deep enough, I started whispering little suggestions in her ear about how relaxed she was and how good my hands felt on her naked skin.

I was really enjoying myself as I suggested she wanted me to undo the rest of her dress and lower her panties. I resisted the temptation of touching anything but her back and legs, knowing that she probably would snap out of her little trance if I tried anything funny.

Once my prize was in my pocket, I started to suggest to her she would forget anything but how I (that is Max) gave her a wonderful back rub. Once I redid her bra and had her dress buttoned up halfway decently, I quickly turned the job over to Max, carefully hiding my tampering of his mind with memories of pleasuring his mistress with his massage.

“What took you so long!” Eric exclaimed when I finally got back. “You were gone almost an hour!”

“Sorry. I had some business to settle,” I said with a grin, patting my pocket. “I’ll tell you about it at the reception. Come on. People we know should be arriving soon.”

I really hadn’t invited that many of my friends to the wedding, mostly because of the number of adult telepaths who might take an interest in them.

Joey and Suzi had been invited by my mom before Sarah had released Joey’s true feelings and Suzi had found another lover. Then a few weeks before the wedding, I kind of let them both know that my mom and I would understand if they had changed their minds but was surprised to find they both still wanted to go.

I had expected Joey to do the opposite for obvious reasons, but I guess because it was my mom’s wedding, not mine, and the fact that his own mother was the maid of honor, he had enough reasons to want to go that didn’t have anything directly to do with me.

But with Suzi ... Well, during the few weeks following Suzi’s and Brandon’s two way, I had been sensing some kind of trouble between them, and Suzi had admitted that Brandon had taken a dislike for her displays of affection towards me.

My dad was rather flustered when he found out I had invited Penny, Michael, and David to the wedding, but my mom understood that I just wanted to check up on them, and then suggested I invite Jerry and Dana too for the same reason.

I then considered inviting my other friends from summer camp as well, but I quickly decided against it, seeing I really wouldn’t have much time to spend with them since they would have to go back to school the day after the next.

So the only other friends I had invited were Brad, Sandi, John, and James, the latter, of course, didn’t show.

Penny’s group was the first to arrive, and I was happy to see Michael and David looking more like themselves, even though David was still bulkier than Michael from all the muscles he had put on last year. But Michael appeared to have been working out himself to catch up to his brother’s mass, and while I hadn’t recently been working out like he had been, I got a kick out of discovering that I was just as strong as he was just from my Eta experience.

Mindy and Veronica were their precious four-month-old identical twins, and I swear Michael and David were more protective of them than they had ever been of Penny. I got to hold Mindy for about twenty seconds before David decided he wasn’t happy with the way I held her and snatched her before I could even peek inside her head.

Suzi and Brandon joined us about then, and I was a little ticked off at how Suzi got to hold both of them for several minutes without either of the boys seeming to mind in the least. I wasn’t sure if it was because it had been Penny’s idea or it was from the fact that Suzi was a girl and I was a guy. But I didn’t bother to find out for Joey had arrived.

Talk about an entrance. He walked in with two beautiful women just hanging off of him, and I couldn’t help but notice how the eyes of every male in the room seemed to be drawn to them.

That included David and Michael, and you should have seen them jump when Penny cleared her throat in annoyance. I couldn’t stop myself from grinning and then went over to Joey thinking I could share the moment of humor with him.

Boy, talk about stupid. Not only did he assume my grin was intended to be some kind of insult, but I almost lost my cool when he accused me of being jealous. The only thing I could think to do that wouldn’t infuriate him or myself more was to shrug and walk away.

When Jerry and Dana arrived, they were very uncomfortable finding Penny and her two babies there. I quickly pulled them aside to where the others wouldn’t hear, then didn’t have to ask anything since they volunteered.

Dana’s and Jerry’s parents had talked them into putting their baby up for adoption shortly after its premature birth. Even though they knew it was for the best, they both since then had regretted it. They thought they had come to terms with their feelings. But the sight of Penny with her two baby girls had added their regrets on top of their resenting Penny having such good fortune after what her family had put them through.

Dana was practically in tears by the time Jerry admitted he wished they had kept their own little girl, and I was feeling pretty down myself, recalling how none of it would have happened if I hadn’t given Penny that knowledge from the grad girls.

Penny startled me by walking up with her two girls in her arms without my detecting her, and before any of us could really react, she carefully slipped one of her babies into Dana’s arms, then gave Jerry the other once Dana had gotten a good hold.

“I know this doesn’t make up for what Steven and I did to you,” Penny said with a sniff, “but I really am sorry. Our babies should be just about the same age, and if you want, I’ll try and share them with you...”

“You’d do that?” Dana said, looking up with fresh tears in her eyes.

“It’s the least I could do...” Penny said before choking up.

I watched my two friends as they cuddled and held the infants in their arms for a while, then gave Penny a gentle kiss on her cheek before leaving them since it was getting close to showtime.

After trying to assure David and Michael that everything was fine, I left the two standing by a window looking just as lost as before I had said anything to them. Brad, John, and Sandi were talking with Joey and his two ornaments, but Joey took his two centerfold companions with him to get a seat when he saw me walking up.

It was clear that while John had been impressed with the two slaves Joey had borrowed from his brother-in-law, he was much more interested in Sandi, probably because she had fucked him in the back seat while Brad had drove them there. Brad, on the other hand, was far more interested in figuring out what he could offer Joey to let him get some of that grade A pussy he was flaunting around.

Sandi of course only thinking about what would make Brad happy, but John’s affection towards her wasn’t going unnoticed. I was pleased to find she was aware of her own feelings where concerning others, even if she felt it all had to be sexual in some way.

Finally, it was time. The organ was starting to play the wedding march, and my mother’s maids and my father’s groomsmen were pairing up and going down the aisle. I was in the back, waiting for my mother and the twins to escort them up the aisle myself. The moment I saw her in her white gown of sparkles, I was captivated by the sight of my mom in all her splendor and bliss.

“Wow, mom. You look spectacular,” I said as she walked up to me.

“Thank you, dear,” she replied with love. “I...”

She was cut off by a loud crack of thunder and the flicker of the lights.

“That’s funny,” she said. “There weren’t any thunderstorms in the forecast this morning.”

We were just about to ignore the sound of the wind picking up as it was almost time for our walk up the aisle when two louder booms shook the church. The lights flickered and went out, and after the organ music died with the lights, the sound of the wind became seemingly even louder.

Suddenly the four center doors behind us burst open, the wind which followed nearly knocking us over. I was just recovering my wits when I saw the sea of symbols flooding in through the open doors and the walls around them.

I instantly raised my barriers and focused my mind at countering the tidal wave of sensory commands from altering my sight and hearing but was unable to shield my mother or anyone else in the hall.

The gasps of my mother and the few men who had run up to aid us stirred my curiosity about what they were seeing, and once I figured out how, I opened a hole in my barrier and the spewing of counter symbols to allow my right eye and ear to receive the illusions the others were believing to be real.

I too gasped as my right eye showed a golden chariot descending from above with a man wearing a white flowing gown fluttering in the wind of the violent storm. Lightning flashed all around him, yet never got near enough to harm him, and then suddenly my right eye noticed the two angels descending from the heavens, landing beside the golden chariot the moment it had touched the ground.

That’s when my left eye started agreeing with my right one. I had failed to notice the yellow cab pulling up, but I had seen the two women get out and help the man out of the cab just like they did in the illusion. And as the two glowing women escorted the long white-haired white-bearded man towards us, the cab left, then I found the waves of symbols coming to an end.

It wasn’t until the man and his two escorts reached the door before anyone said a word.

“Daddy?” my mother said with a squeaky sound of awe.

“Yes, my child,” the old man said, spreading his arms out in a hug like gesture, the flowing robes cascading down from his arms giving him a winged look.

“Daddy?!” I echoed as she gave him the hug he had requested.

My eyes peered intensely at the old man’s face, finding the familiar features of the man I had studied from the painting and pictures of my grandparents. I was startled when I realized his own eyes had been focused on my face the entire time mine had been on his, but I felt he was as curious of me as I was of him and was reassured by the smile he gave me then.

“What is going on?” I heard my dad’s approaching voice say. “Who the hell are you?”

The two “angelic” women tensed up at his blasphemous remark, and my grandfather seemed to grow two inches taller as he straightened up, becoming extremely serious and ... I suppose parental would be the best word for it.

“I am thy lord and master, thy creator, and the father of your intended bride,” my grandfather boomed out without actually raising his voice.

“Shit,” my dad gasped, realizing he had just insulted his soon to be father-in-law. I was impressed, however, at how quickly my dad recovered his wits, and the next moment he was doing something I never would have believed him to do.

“Forgive me, Lord, for my words spoken out of haste,” my dad said after kneeling in front of my grandfather and bowing his head in respect.

I think it even surprised my grandfather, and the look on my mom’s face was probably a lot like my own. To submit to my grandfather like that went against my dad’s personality. He always tried to appear, not necessarily superior, but never inferior, especially to other telepaths. It basically was a defense mechanism that he had needed in order to live in the same house as his father when he was growing up. His father intimidated the hell out of him, but to show that he was weak in front of his father would have been just asking for a punishment of some kind.

“I can forgive you for your blasphemy while present in my house, but I cannot forgive your treachery and deceit.”

“What treachery and deceit?!” my dad said, dropping the worshipper act.

“Daddy...” my mom said with a warning tone.

“Hush, child,” my grandfather said as my dad rose to his feet and the two men exchanged glares of hostility.

“I will NOT be hushed, Dad! This is my wedding day!” she said, stomping her foot and breaking the one-inch heel. “Shit! Now look what you made me do!”

“What treachery and deceit?” I echoed my dad as I had my mom lean on me while she took off her broken shoe.

“He did not ask for my daughter’s hand in marriage,” he simply put. “If he had, I would have said no. This cretin is not worthy of marrying the daughter of...”

“Excuse me, but how would you know anything about him?” I said, defending my cretin father’s honor. “I mean, as far as I’ve heard, you’ve been living on an island for the past twenty years. I bet you don’t even know who I am, let alone...”

“I am all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-wise!” my grandfather boomed with the thunder outside echoing his words. “If thou were not my daughter’s son, your insolence would be punished! I am thou Lord, thou father in thy heaven come down to this mortal land to oversee this injustice to My work is corrected!”

“Bullshit!” my dad and I both said at the same time.

My grandfather suddenly spread his arms out away from his sides while the wind began picking up speed. As I had somewhat suspected, my grandfather flooded the room with symbols for another illusion, and as the others began seeing the walls and ceiling fade away, I concentrated on keeping my own senses clear of his influence.

Everyone but my grandfather and I found themselves no longer sitting in a church, but in a jungle-like garden.

“Behold, nonbelievers!” my grandfather cried. “The Garden of Eden! Take a good look! For none who approve of this marriage will ever see it again!”

There was no way I could stop the flood of symbols he was emitting, barely keeping my own senses clear as it was. But then I realized I didn’t have to prove anything to anyone but myself, for my empathic abilities had finally sorted his intentions out.

“Okay, Grandpa,” I said loudly enough for most to hear. “We’re sorry we didn’t invite you to the wedding, and we can all see how incredibly powerful you are. Can we please go back to the church before mom’s dress gets all dirty from this dirt floor?”

I felt a shiver pass through me as his eyes peered into my own, finding they strongly resembled the ones from my hallucinatory dream while trapped in that small room with Leanne in my grandfather’s old house. I kept my slight uneasiness from showing while we exchanged our steady stares but was obviously relieved when he simply grunted his consent while lowering his arms and stopping his flood of symbols.

“Charles Richard Grodmen,” my grandfather announced looking over my father’s head. “Because thou have been as good to my daughter and grandson as you are capable of, I await your plea.”

My dad looked at my mom, then after my mom gave her father a calculating gaze, she nodded her head. But that wasn’t enough for my dad, and once I saw he wanted my opinion also, I could only give him a shrug and a look that said, “It couldn’t hurt.”

So my dad kneeled down again and respectfully asked my grandfather for his permission to marry his daughter. My grandfather made him sweat it out a little before finally announcing to the world (or at least everyone in the church) his daughter was to be married that day.

“Can we PLEASE finish this now?” my mother said as she took her heels off so she wouldn’t hobble up and down the aisle.

“Yes, my child,” my grandfather said. He then waved his left hand above his head and exclaimed, “LET THERE BE LIGHT!”

When the lights instantly flickered on, I grinned from having caught the symbols he had sent out to whoever had switched the power back on. He caught my smile, and with a sparkle in his eyes he thought to me, <I’ve always wanted to say that.>

The organ started up again as my father walked back to his position at the altar, and I was about to ask my grandfather if he was going to take a seat before I took my mother down the aisle. But before I could open my mouth, my mom said to me, “Timmy, don’t you think you should go join your father?”

“But I ... Oh,” I said, quickly turning around and walking to my seat to hide my disappointment from both of them.

I had refused to be one of my father’s groomsmen because I felt giving my mother away was my part in their wedding and didn’t need to do anything more. But now I found myself feeling extremely left out, almost as if this was just the beginning of their excluding me from their lives and affairs.

Even though my mom and grandfather didn’t notice the look on my face, my dad had. I was sitting silently next to Eric and wasn’t paying attention to what was going on around me when I suddenly realized my dad was calling my name from the aisle.

“Sorry, what?” I said, looking up at his face.

“You can’t sit there,” he said with a serious face.

For a moment my feelings of being left out tripled in strength while my body went cold from shock, but then my empathic senses kicked in and his love and fatherly feelings for me came through.

“I don’t understand,” I said, my heart starting to race.

He broke out in a grin and said, “I am thou father, all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-wise. Come, my son. Your place is at my side.”

When I hesitated, he added in a softer voice, “I can have two best men if I wish, and that is what you will always be to me ... My best.”

The next thing I knew, I was hugging my old man, and I was surprised to find him hugging me back just as hard. I guess our earlier dispute over the stained glass windows had upset him more than I had thought, for when we broke apart, he had to wipe his eyes while we both sniffed a few times.