Chapter 15

"Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friends..."

I admit it. Sometimes, I'm an asshole.

Actually, that's really not much of an admission, so let me try that again.

I admit it. On more than one occasion, I have found that I can become the biggest asshole in existence.

We had been in the process of deciding what we were going to do, now that we were all together in Washington, and I was explaining to Mary that I trusted Aimee's investigator, a Mr. Voder. I was quite taken aback when Mary asked me if I only trusted Mr. Voder because Aimee trusted him. It wasn't the fact that she asked me that question, but it was the way she referred to Aimee using the words "your wife," implying that she and perhaps Debbie weren't as important to me. I had known that Mary sometimes felt a bit unsure of her role in our relationship, but at the moment, I didn't want to take the time to deal with this.

The result was that I ended up doing something extremely stupid. My angry and unthinking response was to send a terse message mentally to Mary: "Have you decided to leave this relationship?"

As soon as I did it, I saw Mary's reaction. She lowered her eyes. Immediately, I realized that I had crossed a line that I had promised myself that I would never cross. I had made a bald, out and out threat to a person that I truly loved! What had I done? What kind of asshole was I?

Aimee said, almost too quietly, "Master?"

"Yes, Aimee?" I asked, hoping that she hadn't caught my careless slip. After all, it had been a mental thought between Mary and me.

"May I humbly suggest something?"

Oh, shit. Aimee was using her slave persona in front of my other wives. Aimee was submissive deep down, but it was a part of her that she only shared with me. I knew that the other girls normally act submissive with me, although they used to call me "Master." Aimee's doing so now was her unsubtle way of trying to get my attention. It also told me that my thoughtlessness with Mary had not gone unnoticed.

I held my breath. "You may," I said carefully, not wanting to let too much emotion rush out.

Aimee took a deep breath and said, "Let's take some time off. The three of us have been sick with worry about you, even though I personally knew that you hadn't been in any danger. There's still no imminent danger for any of us right now."

Slowly, I let my breath out. Aimee might want to talk with me alone. I knew that I needed to talk with Mary alone as well.

It was obvious that Aimee hadn't finished, yet. She had a look on her face that told me that she just reached a decision. I knew something important was about to happen, so I just listened, waiting for her to speak again.

"Debbie," Aimee said, turning to my other wife. "Our husband needs to spend some time with his first wife." She pointedly emphasized the word "first." "Let's take a walk."

I felt a bit of relief. Aimee was going to give Mary and I some time alone so I could apologize to her. Aimee was always a very smart person--one of the smartest I've met in this life.

Debbie nodded slightly in response. I hadn't seen any indication from Debbie that she knew what I had "said" to Mary, but I knew that Debbie almost certainly saw Mary's reaction. Mary and Debbie were very close; Mary acted much like a mother to Debbie.

Aimee walked toward the door, not bothering to look at me. I knew that I would have to spend some time alone with her. For a person that has a submissive side, Aimee was quite capable of giving orders.

As Aimee went to close the door, she paused. She turned around, and for the first time in my life, I saw my Aimee's face completely free of all emotion. It was as if I was looking at one of those porcelain china doll masks (I know I keep on mixing Asian and Polynesian metaphors when referring to Aimee, but that was the image I had). Aimee's face had absolutely no expression on it at all.

Again, I held my breath. Aimee was going to say something, and it would be important. Everything went silent. If this had been a movie, you might hear crickets chirping.

Aimee quietly released her bombshell. Each word was enunciated perfectly and free of any emotional content--almost strained.

"Debbie and I will meet you for dinner tomorrow. In the meantime, you need to apologize to the woman that pulled you out of your coma, and who is willing to walk nude into the dungeon of the dragon with no weapons other than her fingernails. If I see you tomorrow and I'm not satisfied that you have done your duty, then it will be the last time you will ever see me again."

My jaw dropped, but Aimee wasn't interested in my reaction. She simply turned as soon as she said her piece and closed the door.

My mind couldn't comprehend what had just happened.

Aimee had just walked out on me!

It was a few moments before I remembered to breathe again.

Mary said, "You know, I didn't think it was possible for you to anger her. You may have lost your true love forever."

Would Aimee really leave me? Could she? Was it within her power? Somehow, I knew the answer to those three questions was "yes." Aimee was a very strong-willed individual. She could easily walk out of my life and I would never, ever, hear from her again.

However, there was something new that was bothering me now. Something important. "Mary," I said. "You are wrong. My true love consists of three wonderful wives. For me, true love can not exist without all three of you together."

Mary didn't say anything. I had withdrawn from all three of my wives' minds after I made that stupid threat to Mary, but I didn't need to read Mary's mind in order to know that she didn't believe my last statement in the least.

I can't truthfully say that I had been unaware of Mary's doubts. I had known about her feelings, especially once Aimee had became an official part of our relationship. Nevertheless, Mary had never outwardly seemed to let it bother her. She seemed to willingly give Aimee and I our time alone, just as I gave Debbie and Mary their time alone. I had apparently interpreted this incorrectly as not being a real problem and something that I could deal with at a later time. It turns out that I had been very wrong.

I had to admit that I did feel that Aimee was something special. Of all the people I knew, she had known and outwardly sensed my special gift without me somehow interacting with her first. This was something that nobody else had ever done before or since.

It was now clear that Mary's doubt really ran deep. It was obvious that Mary thought that perhaps she--and maybe even Debbie--might have been mere stepping stones for me to eventually find Aimee. If that was the case, then I knew that I had done both Mary and Debbie a great disservice.

Did I really act like I loved Aimee more than either of my other wives? I thought about my actions and can see where it could have looked that way.

I truly loved Aimee, but that was also true for Mary and Debbie as well. Aimee and I had a close bond, but I also had a very close one with Mary as well.

I had seen Mary in my mind before I had even come out of my coma. Aimee also mentioned that Mary had been responsible for pulling me out of my coma when she left the room just now. I had never really discussed my personal relationship with Mary with any of my other wives, mostly out of respect for her privacy. Aimee, however, seemed to know that all this and had pointed out that Mary was indeed very special.

While Aimee was catching up on her sleep the previous day, Mary and Debbie had filled me in with what had gone on in my "absence." Mary had come up with a pretty good plan to go after the people looking for us, rather than sit around and wait to be discovered. She had shown extreme courage in coming to Falls Church, which was probably where this Colonel DiPietro was located. Aimee's description of Mary's cool courage in the sight of a faceless and possibly well organized enemy was correct.

Once again, I was surprised at how easily Aimee could look right into the soul of another person. She sensed Mary's doubts, as well as the fact that when faced with a decision, Mary had a very logical and intelligent head on her shoulders.

I didn't realize it, but tears were flowing down my face freely.

Mary moved close to me and held me close. "Aimee won't leave you, Jim. She loves you."

I shook my head. Mary still didn't realize why I was upset.

"No, Mary. You've got it all wrong. Aimee may be angry at me, but that's not why I'm upset."

I felt, rather than saw, Mary simply shake her head.

"I'm upset at myself, Mary, because I have failed you."

I held Mary close to me and wondered how I would fix up this big mess.

Aimee had ordered me to "do my duty" to Mary.

As I said before, despite being a submissive deep down, Aimee didn't hesitate to give orders herself, especially when she knew without any doubt that she was correct.

An important part of my duty to Mary was to make her know how I felt about her, and for Mary to know it as deeply and as completely that Aimee did. I had no idea how to do it, or if I could even do it.

How does one prove oneself to another? If Mary had doubts about how I felt about her, then those doubts were probably due to my own behavior toward her. I was the cause of those doubts, and I needed to erase them.

Of course, you might think that being able to root around in Mary's mind and even change things around, you might think that this was an easy problem for me to solve. That is completely and utterly wrong!

There is no way that you can force a person to trust you. People just don't work that way. Either a person trusts you, or that person doesn't. If it's somebody you have a relationship with, you really need to earn their trust. If somebody trusts you and you betray that trust, then that person will never trust you again. I have always believed that forgiving a betrayer is just giving permission for that person to betray you again.

If I force Mary to believe that I loved her, then I would be betraying her trust. She might believe what I force her to believe, but in doing so, she will have lost that spark that made Mary that unique individual that she is and that I love. It would destroy her soul, for lack of a better word.

Don't let anybody ever tell you differently: there is no fucking way to force anybody to trust you. Trust must always be earned, or it is meaningless and, more importantly, useless.

My only hope is that I hadn't yet betrayed Mary's trust. I had threatened her, but I never had any intention to follow through on it. If Mary didn't think I betrayed her trust, then I may still have a way to fix her doubts right now, especially if her doubts were based simply on insecurity. Maybe, all I'd need to do is to find out how we can get beyond that insecurity.

To do this, there was only one solution. Mary and I needed to talk. This was definitely not a time for those "Jedi Mind Tricks" from that movie that I had watched back in Utah with my three wives. This was serious, and as Aimee pointed out, it needed to be done now.

In retrospect, it was interesting how much I was focused on Mary's trust. I had been talking about trust right before I made that stupid mental jab at Mary.

I took many deep breaths, trying to bring my emotions under control. I refused to wipe the tears off my face but I willed myself to calm down.

It took time.

Finally, I managed to get myself under control.

I pulled away from our embrace, and looked at my first wife. Mary, that extraordinary woman that actually managed to somehow pull me out of a coma, was an emotional wreck. She looked confused and I could see that she was also trying to get herself steady.

I wished that I could enter her mind and tell her that everything would be all right. I wanted to wipe those tears from her face and shower her with kisses all over her body. I wanted to hug her and tell her the bogey man was all gone and her life would be lived happily ever after.

How did I deserve woman as wonderful as Mary, and how could I carelessly just ignore her feelings and possibly drive her away?

The previous day, when I woke up from my exhausted sleep, I saw an unconscious Aimee in the arms of Mary, who was holding her like a mother would hold a daughter. Mary had her arms around Aimee's head protectively, Aimee's face was resting against Mary's breast. I remembered thinking how mother-like Mary was, protecting her co-wife and good friend. I had seen Mary do this before with Debbie, and I think Mary thought of her relationship with my two other wives to be like she was a mother to them, especially due to the fact that she was almost ten years older than either of the other two.

It was quite obvious that Mary truly loved Aimee, and Aimee loved her back.

When Aimee was unconscious in Mary's arms, I felt within Aimee's mind and found that she was merely asleep, dreaming of a moonlit sky.

Both Debbie and Aimee had been worried sick about Aimee. Apparently, they thought that Aimee might be having the same "dreamless sleep" that I had undergone for a few days. I reassured Mary and Debbie that Aimee was really dreaming, and Debbie explained to me how Aimee had been without sleep all the while that I had been unconscious.

I noticed now that there was something was odd about Aimee's dreaming. As I said, she was dreaming of a moonlit sky. It was a dream I had constantly... the sky as it appeared to me the instant before I was hit by a jeep. There was no way that Aimee had experienced that image first hand, and since it was a common dream for me, I initially figured that it was a dream that she had witnessed when our minds had merged together. However, I was now reexamining that dream that Aimee had.

Thinking about Aimee dreaming about the sky, I glanced at Mary. Aimee's dream was some sort of clue, but I had no idea what it meant. What was so special about that dream? Aside from the fact that it was a second-hand dream--one that Aimee had seen in my mind--something was nagging at me that I was missing something important. Thinking back to the previous day, I realized that her dream was almost perfectly identical to the one that I had. Was there a subtle difference in the dream Aimee had from mine?

After thinking about her dream for a few moments, I thought that maybe it wasn't the difference in the dreams, after all. Maybe I was just groggy from waking up from the long period of unconsciousness. Maybe the difference was just the fact that I misread Aimee's dream.

Suddenly, I had another thought: What if the clue was just the fact that Aimee just simply had that particular dream?

I still vividly remember that dream. It seems to last forever and is very peaceful. My mind refuses to acknowledge anything that happened immediately after I had seen the moon and stars, something the doctors called traumatic amnesia (or was that post-traumatic?). The way they described it, my brain doesn't want to remember certain horrible events, so it locks the memories away. Instead, my brain focuses on the happier memory about the moon and the stars, and it plays it over and over in a seemingly endless loop, a peaceful dance in my brain that replays over and over a wonderful moment...

That's it... it was a wonderful moment!

I remember Mary being surprised after I woke up from my coma and told her that I had been looking at the stars before I had gotten hit by the jeep. She said she had been doing the exact same thing.

At the time, I thought it was because Mary had been looking at the stars, she didn't see where she was driving and hit me. How else was I supposed to take it?

Could I have been missing the point all along?

What if, in that moment before that jeep hit my body causing my head to hit the pavement and the tires to roll over my ribs (I read the accident report)... what if Mary and I had connected, just for that brief moment?

All along, I had thought that my connection with Mary, Debbie, and even Aimee had been due to the fractured skull that resulted after the Jeep hit me. Now, it was obvious that if that had been so, any connection to Mary should have occurred AFTER my head hit the ground. That wasn't the case! As I mentioned, I have no memory of my head hitting the ground... instead, my only conscious memory is from the immediate moment before... the moon and the stars.

All of a sudden, it became clear to me now. I had seen the moon and stars, and so had Mary. That was the connection! The two of us had actually connected immediately BEFORE the accident!

"HOLY SHIT!" I shouted.

My outburst totally terrified Mary, who had been deep in thought herself. She looked at me, her entire body going into a martial arts defensive position automatically.

My mouth hung open as I stared at Mary. I had never given any thought of what Mary's job had been in the military. Her rank of lieutenant seemed to be associated with a paper pusher, and I had imagined her as some sort of receptionist or records keeper. Her jobs after leaving the service--waitress, store manager, some sort of manager at a bank--none of those really required too much experience, and had confirmed that her role had been secretarial. Mary never mentioned that she had ever taken any kind of martial arts training, although I had heard her suggesting to Debbie that a downstairs gym might be a nice addition to the house in Hawaii.

"I'm sorry, Mary," I said, hurriedly. "I just realized something."

Mary's stance eased into a less active, but still defensive position. She noticed that I was watching her body movements and forced herself to relax into an even less active and less threatening position.

I ignored this interesting little facet of information for the moment. It wasn't important now, but I tried to make a note to remember it.

Mary still hadn't answered me, but I realized that the worry and the confusion that I had seen in her had completely disappeared. She was breathing heavy, and her limbs had a slight shake to them, but that was almost certainly due to the release of adrenaline into her bloodstream after my outburst.

I willed myself to calm down, and did so. Mary watched me with amazement on her face.

"I'm really sorry, Mary. I didn't mean to shout."

Still no answer.

"I'm also sorry for threatening you by asking if you wanted to leave our marriage. It was utterly stupid and cruel, and I wouldn't blame you for being upset or even leaving me, just like Aimee has threatened."

The shakes left Mary's body, and her own breathing was returning to a normal level. She still said nothing.

"There's something important you need to know, Mary."

Again, no answer. Mary's entire body was relaxed, as if she hadn't been upset or ready to pull my arms out of their sockets just moments before. It was amazing. I knew how to do this; I just willed it in my brain. I had been able to do it since I came out of the coma, and was probably doing it while I was in the coma, which is why the people monitoring me hadn't seen all the brain activity going on when I was "visiting" Mary.

"I just realized that you are very much like Aimee," I said.

Mary seemed confused. "In what way?"

"I thought Aimee was unique in that she connected with me without me reaching out to her," I explained. "Now, I just realized that you connected with me the same way that first time."

"You mean, right before I ran over you?" Mary asked.

"Yes. When I was looking at the sky. We connected."

"Of course," Mary said, surprised that I had only just realized that.

"You knew?" I asked, feeling very surprised myself now. "When did you know? How did you know?"

"That day we had the picnic after you got out of the hospital," Mary answered. "You mentioned about the stars, and told me yourself... we connected!"

I thought about that conversation and shook my head. "No! I was talking about connecting with you after I got hit by the jeep. I had been 'visiting' you."

"Oh!" said Mary.

Holy shit!

At least, Mary and I were talking now.

"Why didn't I realize that before?" I asked.

"Maybe you never looked before," Mary replied, simply. "You saw it with Aimee, and I guess you thought it was unique. Maybe that's why I felt so hurt."

"I just found out because I was thinking about you." I said. "I made the realization that I had made some assumptions that weren't true."

Mary nodded. "I was wondering what you were thinking about. You had been quiet for about a half hour."

"Aimee was dreaming of the moon and the stars yesterday when I woke up," I explained. "I just realized that she was only the second person other than me to have seen that."

I pulled Mary close to me and we kissed.

"I'm truly sorry, Mary. I truly am. I never meant to hurt you."

I instinctively knew that words would never be sufficient. "Come into my mind, darling," I whispered. "Let me show you how much I love you."

For the first time in my life, I opened my mind to Mary. Without any hesitation, Mary entered my mind.

Somewhere, I heard a phone ring.

I was in a bed, and had a nude Mary on my arms. Her body was partially covering my right side.

I waited for the phone to ring again so I could locate its direction.

I was lucky in that the phone was to my left, the side that Mary had left relatively uncovered. Still, I needed to move a bit in order to reach the phone.

"Hello," my voice croaked.

"It's Aimee."

Aimee. My beloved Aimee. She's still speaking with me. I had news for her... good news!

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Five thirty."

"AM or PM?"

There was a pause. "Late afternoon."

"Who is it?" whispered a totally exhausted Mary.

"Aimee," I whispered back. "It's five thirty in the afternoon."

"Thursday or Friday?" Mary asked.

"Good question," I whispered back. "Thursday or Friday?" I repeated into the phone.

"Friday." I could hear ice dripping from Aimee's words.

I sighed. "Did we miss dinner?"

"No, Jim. I was calling to ask if the two of you were going to be joining us." Aimee had emphasized the word "two" so I knew that I was still in hot water with her.