Chapter 31 -- Limits

Talk in everlasting words,
And dedicate them all to me.
And I will give you all my life,
I'm here if you should call to me.
You think that I don't even mean
A single word I say?
It's only words,
And words are all I have,
To take your heart away.

--Words (Bee Gees)

As Harry predicted, there were no rape counselors or police officers to take me into custody. Kristen came back out, being wheeled by a nurse and accompanied by June.

Actually, Kristen looked in better spirits.

"I think Nurse Ebson wants to try out our shower," Kristen said.

The nurse wheeling Kristen reddened almost completely to the point where her uniform looked as if it would turn red as well.

"Good," I said, cheerfully. "I'll give her control of the nozzle and we'll see who she wants to embarrass."

June stifled a giggle, and Kristen simply opened her mouth in shock.

I actually got a look of respect from the nurse for my response. I could also hear Harry's quiet chuckle behind me.

As Harry drove us home, I asked Kristen how long it would take to set up a temporary bedroom in the garage so that she wouldn't have to walk up and down the stairs. She looked at Harry and said, "I can buy everything today and have it delivered."

"How about a water bed?" I asked. "Let's make it special."

Kristen smiled. "With a nozzle?"

I sighed and turned to Harry. "Harry, would you be able to handle the logistics of setting up a nice bedroom for our downstairs? I think a water bed with a complete bedroom set, and some dorm room appliances such as a small fridge, a dining room table, and a desk."

Harry answered, "You seem to have a good idea what you want, Jim. I know a contractor that can wall off a part of the garage for us and I might be able to get him in today."

"I just want to have a say in at least one of the rooms at the apartment," I said, laughing.

Kristen continued to smile, appreciating how I was taking charge, and how comfortable I was talking with Harry. "Thank you, Jim. Are you guys going to help me upstairs for today?"

I shook my head. "No, Kristen. I don't want you home alone."

Harry said, "I'll take Kristen into the main house for the afternoon."

I helped Harry load Kristen into the wheelchair, and June and I watched Harry wheel my lovely Goddess away.

June shivered.

"What's wrong, Baby?" I asked.

"The doctor told Kris that the best treatment is ice packs for the next couple of days."

"Yiiiieeeee!" I said, feeling Kristen's pain from the treatment.

June and I spent the rest of the morning and the beginning of the afternoon with Kristen. In the afternoon, workers started arriving to partition off a part of the garage for the additional bedroom, and June and I moved back to the apartment.

As usual, when we wanted to make renovations to the apartment, time was rarely an issue. Things were purchased quicker than I thought possible, and workers were assembled and on site as necessary.

June was the person who directed the delivery people to show how to set up the new bedroom.

I moved back between the apartment and the main house, spending time with June and Kristen alternately.

During one of those times I was alone with Kristen, I told her how Lynette was feeling quite guilty about Kristen's injury.

"Why is she upset?" Kristen asked, quite surprised. "I injured her almost as badly that first time."

"Lynette is completely head-over-heels in love with you, Kristen. When she realized how much you were injured, it was as if somebody ripped her heart out. Think about how you'd feel if you did something similar to my dick!"

Kristen thought about this, and nodded. "I know she is in love with me. I just never realized that she'd react that way."

"I know Lynette, Kris," I said gently. "She will feel a need to demonstrate how sorry she is to you. Just saying the words won't be enough for her. My hope is that she has a long talk with Patty today. Patty is a good tonic for a guilty soul."

"We have wonderful friends," Kristen said.

"We sure do," I agreed. "Just realize that Lynette will feel a need to prove that she's sorry. I want you to understand that."

June came back from the apartment. "Those guys sure work quickly!"

"Got offers for dates, Juicy?" I asked.

June smirked at me.

Kristen asked, "Juicy?"

I laughed.

"That nasty boy called me 'Juicy June' when he was fondling me between my legs in front of my mother as he was getting me ready for my ass fuck. He whispered that to me yesterday in the shower as well."

Kristen laughed. "That's a great nickname. Too bad we can't call you that at school."

June smiled. "I don't know. It might help tarnish Jim's reputation even more."

We all laughed at that.

June got serious. "Patty and Lynette will be getting back here in a bit, Kris. I know for a fact that Lynette really feels bad about your injury."

"Jim and I were talking about that," Kristen said.

"I'm afraid that Lynette might leave," June said.

"What makes you think that?" I asked.

"Lynette was shattered this morning. She looked as if somebody sucked her soul from her body," June said. "She was crying when she left with Patty."

"I'm not angry at her," Kristen said.

"Lynette is angry with herself," June said. "I don't know if she'll ever forgive herself."

I sighed. I was starting to love Lynette, and I felt bad for her. June was right about who was angry with Lynette, though. I couldn't see much that any of us could do about that, though.

I noticed that the two girls were actually late now, but I didn't said anything. I got up and tried to think. I walked toward the apartment, but when I got out of the house, I decided to go back to where June and Kristen were in the living room. Before entering the living room, I took a side trip into the Solarium, walked around the pool, and then exited and went back into the living room.

"Stop that, Jim," Kristen said.

"Stop what?" I asked.

"You pace when you're worried," Kristen said, knowing my moods. "What are you worried about?"

"Lynette."

Kristen nodded.

As if on cue, Patty arrived at the main house. Lynette was notable in her absence.

"Where's Lynette?" June, Kristen, and I said simultaneously.

"She's in the car. She's thinking about going to her family's home."

"Lynette's home is here," Kristen said. She started to get up from the sofa where she was sitting but winced in pain very quickly.

"You should have a doctor look at that," Patty said.

"Harry took us earlier," Kristen said. "I'm going to be sore, but there's no permanent damage. I have some codeine that I can take for the pain. No wine while I'm on medication, and no driving."

Patty nodded. "Jim insisted, huh?"

"How did you guess?" June asked.

"I know Kristen, and I know Jim."

"Jim, can you and Patty help me outside?" Kristen asked.

"Sure," Patty and I answered.

June looked a little left out, but she said nothing.

I got the wheelchair and put one of the pillows on it.

When Kristen was in the chair, I signaled to Patty to push Kristen to the front door.

I saw a look of determination in Kristen's eyes, and she pushed herself up from the chair, her face registering none of the pain that I know she was feeling.

"Thank heavens for codeine," Kristen muttered.

Patty signaled to me that I should accompany Kristen. I went over and put my hand around her. I felt part of Kristen's weight shift to me, but it wasn't overwhelming.

Together, the two of us walked over to Patty's car. Lynette was crying in the passenger seat, and didn't even notice us approaching.

I knocked on the window, startling Lynette.

Lynette saw the two of us outside, and she opened the passenger window.

"I'm so sorry, Kristen!" Lynette cried.

"Stop it, Lynette. I'm not angry at you," Kristen said.

"I hurt you!"

"I did almost exactly the same thing to you, Lynette," Kristen said. "I apologized then and you accepted my apology, telling me it was nothing."

"You looked terrible this morning!"

"And you could barely walk for twenty four hours," Kristen replied. "I'm walking. It's not that bad. The bruising just makes it look bad."

"I'm so terrible," Lynette said, not wanting to listen to reason.

I sighed. "Lynette, please come upstairs. This is your home."

"I don't belong here, I'm a horrible person!"

"If you leave, you'll really hurt Kristen, and unlike the bruising, that hurt won't heal."

Lynette was silent, but showed no sign of wanting to leave Patty's car.

Kristen moved closer to the car, and then bent down, very slowly, until she was able to plant a kiss on Lynette's face. "You didn't do it intentionally," Kristen said softly.

"I did. I wanted to get even with you..."

"No, Lynette," I disagreed. "Sure, you wanted to get even, but you never set the pressure before. It was obvious that you didn't realize what you were doing. You didn't even put on the hot water!"

"I didn't?" Lynette asked.

"You could barely reach the knobs," I said.

"I guess..."

"I know. Please come inside."

Lynette looked at me, and then for a long time at Kristen.

Finally, the door opened, and Lynette stepped out.

Lynette threw her arms around Kristen and kissed her. "I'm so sorry!"

I saw Kristen wince as Lynette did this, but fortunately, Lynette was crying on Kristen's shoulder and didn't see this.

"Come inside," Kristen urged.

I allowed Lynette to lead Kristen and me to the apartment.

When we got into the entrance, Lynette asked, "What's all that noise?"

"We're trying to get a new bedroom down here before tonight," I answered. "Want to take a look?"

"Separate bedrooms?" Lynette asked, crushed once again.

"Recovery room. For females that find it difficult to walk upstairs."

"Huh?"

There was a water hose that led from the shower room into a door across the hallway that hadn't been there the last time I had been in the building.

We all gasped when I opened the door completely. What once was one of the garages was now a bedroom complete with a water bed that was still being filled, four comfortable chairs, a dining room table, and even a miniature refrigerator. There was even a love seat and a padded bench without a back. The floor was newly carpeted with a worker finishing up the tacking, and two walls were bare sheet rock with white patches to cover the nails. There was another worker in the room monitoring the filling of the water bed.

"It's almost ready," I said, amazed at the speed that construction happened on Kristen's property.

"Harry's pretty effective at things like that," Kristen observed.

"Wow," was all Lynette could say.

"Let's let the workers finish," I said. I took the padded bench and led the girls across the hall into the music studio.

I put the bench into the studio and instructed the girls to sit. Lynette did immediately, and Kristen was a bit slower due to her injury, but Lynette helped her.

"I was going to save this for the first day of school, but I think we need this right now."

For the past week, I had been getting up in the middle of the night and would tiptoe downstairs to play in the studio. I already had two of the four tracks recorded, and I was lucky in that the open reel four-track recorder was already cued. I set the two tracks that were recorded to "play" and patched my microphone and electric piano into the two currently blank tracks, setting them to record.

I then turned on the amplifier. I put on the heavy headphones, despite the fact that I had an audience, and plugged them into amplifier as well.

Through experimentation, I found that a fifteen second gap at the start of the recording gave me time between turning on the recorder and getting set up to play. The introduction didn't require piano, so I would get the beat before I started.

There was an electronic solo from the mini-organ that I already recorded on the tape. When that introduction was over, I started to play the piano and sing:

Do you remember,
When we met?
That's the day,
I knew you were my pet.
I want to tell you,
Just how much I love you.
Come with me,
My love,
To the sea...
The sea of love!
I want to tell you,
Just how much I love you!

I already recorded a trumpet track, as well as the organ track, and during one of the instrumental breaks, I performed a live duet with my piano and voice. During the break before the final reprise of the chorus, there was a prerecorded trumpet solo. During that solo, I noticed that both Lynette and Kristen had their eyes opened wide. I ignored their responses and considered adding some acoustic piano accompaniment during the solo.

When the song ended, the two stunned blondes were still sitting there with their mouths open. I turned off the open reel recorder. I knew that I made a couple of flubs on the piano track, but I could always re-record that track some other time.

"That's just you?" Kristen asked.

"Yeah," I said, sheepishly. "That's four tracks now. I'm going to need a patch board and a mixer to..."

"You did this here?" Kristen interrupted.

"Um, yeah? What do you think I do in here?" I asked.

"This is what you were showing to Marla?"

"No! I just finished these tracks last night after everybody was asleep. I'll need to re-record the piano track, but this is the first time I did all four tracks."

"You did this... by yourself?" Kristen asked again.

"Of course!"

"For me?"

"For you and Lynette," I said. "I am going to need to figure out how to mix it down to a single track so I could give each of you a personalized cassette."

"It's all there on that tape?"

"Of course."

"And you just recorded the last two tracks?"

"Yes." I was a bit confused about Kristen's questions.

Kristen paused for a moment, and then asked, "Can you play it back again?"

I shrugged. I rewound the tape and set all four tracks to play.

After the fifteen second pause, the intro started again.

I wasn't trying to imitate anybody on this song, so it was my own voice. It sounded quite nasal when it played back, as it usually did, which is why I liked imitating other singers. I would have tried Elvis, but I never liked his version of the song. I was actually a bit embarrassed.

Sure enough, I heard the piano flubs and I winced at each one.

When the song ended, I stopped the recorder again.

I looked at Kristen and Lynette, and both of them had tears in their eyes. I turned to Lynette and made my appeal. "Lynette, please don't leave us. Kris and I know that you didn't intend to hurt Kris, and nobody is angry at you."

Lynette was a basket case. She put her head in her hands and started bawling like a baby.

I moved over to her and held her head. "Please, Lynette..."

Lynette started crying even harder.

Kristen joined me, hugging Lynette from her seat.

"What's wrong, Lynette?" I asked.

Lynette shook her head.

There was a knock on the studio door. I wondered who would do such a thing when the DND light was on. I left Lynette temporarily to answer the door.

"I'm sorry, Jim," Patty said, sheepishly. "I need to leave for Roman's. June is still in the main house."

"Oh, thank you, Patty."

Patty saw Lynette completely shattered with Kristen hugging her.

"I know it might be a bad time, but could you walk me to my car?"

I knew Patty well enough that I knew her request wasn't callous. I simply nodded and left Lynette and Kristen.

"What's up, Patty? Is June angry?"

"Of course not. I wanted to tell you that Lynette is angry at herself, and the only person that can forgive her is herself."

"I know that," I said.

"The best way to allow her to forgive herself is to let her show you how sorry she is. I take it from where you were that you just played the recording you said you were going to make for them."

I nodded.

"Lynette is feeling very terrible about herself," Patty said. "You played a special song for Lynette didn't you?"

"Of course..."

"What you did was wonderful, but it might not have been the right moment for her," Patty explained.

"She's crying her heart out right now."

"She needs a moment alone with Kristen."

I nodded. "I'll accept that."

Patty got into her car, and said, "The only way that Lynette will get over this is to let her prove herself to Kristen."

"How?"

Patty sighed. "I don't know, but right now, Lynette is focused on what happened yesterday. She will never get past that until she forgives herself."

I kissed Patty good-bye, and went back into the garage. I looked in on the new bedroom, and saw that the water bed was now full and the worker was gone. I was about to see if I could move Kristen and Lynette into this room, when another worker came in with rolls of wallpaper and a bucket of paste. I asked to see the pattern, and he showed me. It looked like foil and consisted of gold butterflies. It was quite pretty, and matched the dark brown of the furniture without being too dark. It wasn't too masculine or feminine, either.

I left the room, and passed a worker who was carrying what I recognized as an intercom panel and other electrical gear. I was about to go back to my studio when I remembered that Patty told me that the two needed to be alone.

I went into the playroom and called to the main house. "I'm in the playroom, and I'd like to play a game of pool. Can you inform June?"

After about thirty seconds, June answered. "Be right there."

I then hit the studio signal.

I didn't get an answer, but I didn't expect an answer immediately.

June arrived in the playroom confused. "You said you were here, but the red light is on in the studio!"

"Kristen and Lynette are in there, talking."

"Oh," June said.

The two of us played two games of pool, each winning once.