Chapter 41: Josh

I stood in front of a large blank canvas. Shortly after my studio was constructed, I'd stocked it with stretched and prepared canvases of various sizes along with oil paints and other tools and supplies for a variety of artistic pursuits. Watercolor painting had started to feel restrictive lately. I wanted to work on large paintings, and large watercolors were difficult to control. Besides, I intuitively felt that oils on canvas would be a better medium to render humans and their souls.

Because I usually painted two nearly identical paintings for each subject I chose to paint - three when I planned to give one away - I was frequently forced to paint from memory. Light changed as the sun moved overhead, and I had to remember how the light affected my subjects. Out of the process and with practice, I'd improved my visual memory substantially.

I'd painted the homeless at the luncheon the day before - three times. I gave one of the paintings to Bill Roberts, but I'd kept the other two. They were pinned on white poster boards, which were sitting on two easels on either side of the blank canvas. Could I paint the same scene in oils, using the watercolor paintings for reference points, as well as digging deeply into my visual memory for more insight?

Time would tell. I picked up a charcoal pencil and blocked out the composition on the canvas. I'd just finished when Pierre and Grace walked into the studio. Earlier, I'd tamped down my connection with them to background noise, so I didn't know what they wanted.

"Josh," Pierre said, "we're sorry if we're interrupting you, but we felt we owed you an apology."

I chuckled. "I appreciate the interruption. Blank canvases are daunting, and you don't owe me an apology. You were upset over your loss of privacy, and rightly so."

"Thank you for understanding, Josh," Grace said. "You said something that, upon reflection, eased our minds, no pun intended."

"What?"

"That you and your wives and Darren could read our thoughts, all of them, the good thoughts and the bad ones, and that you still liked us. Were you being honest?"

"Yes. I rarely lie, except small, social lies, probably because I'm a human lie detector."

"You know when we're lying, too?" Pierre said.

"Yes."

He shook his head and smiled. "What else?"

"I'm a fair to middling psychic healer." From their thoughts I knew they wanted more information about my psychic healing abilities. "You were around once when I had to heal myself." I pricked their memories about the time I wore a sling for my left shoulder while in L.A. and for the grand opening of our Belize island hotel. While I explained what had really happened, we moved to a seating area in the studio, and the three of us relaxed.

"About your privacy, don't try to screen your thoughts, please. You'll just drive yourself nuts. Just be you. Like you said, I've heard your good thoughts and your bad ones, and I still like you. No, that's not accurate. I don't just like you, I consider you close friends, as do my wives and Darren. We wouldn't have invited you to our party last night otherwise. Did you enjoy yourselves?"

"I'll say!" Grace said, and then she blushed. "Oops."

I laughed with gusto. "Do you know why I laughed, Pierre?"

"No."

"Grace thought she'd have enjoyed last night more if you and I had had sex with her at the same time."

Pierre grinned. "Kinky."

I looked at Grace and said, "We can correct that error of omission right now, if you'd like." I turned to Pierre. "Do you want her marvelous pussy or her cute ass?"

"What does she want?" he asked.

"She wants me in her ass."

Still blushing, Grace said, "You've been there, Pierre. Josh hasn't."

"Our rooms are close by," Pierre said. "Let's go there."

After returning to my studio from my intermission with Pierre and Grace, I'd just found the courage to brush some paint on canvas when Gloria interrupted me.

"I'm sorry for keeping you from your work, Josh, but I have a request."

I put my brush in a bucket of solvent. "Okay, but I need a root beer first. There's some ice tea in the can in the frig if you're thirsty."

She was fine, so I snagged a root beet and drank half the contents of the bottle before I joined her in the seating area.

"Shortly after Darren returns to Boston, he'll be leaving on a month-long business trip that he's been avoiding and can no longer avoid."

"Gloria, you can stay here as long as you want."

She smiled. "Thank you. It's pleasant to have a request granted before it's asked. When Sandy told me that you planned to stay here for a while instead of returning back east, the thought of being alone in that big house in Boston for a month depressed me."

"Gloria, I'll be driving away in my Hummer in a week to do some painting on location, so you might find yourself alone here, too."

"How long will you be gone?"

"About a week. I'm starting to paint with oils on canvas. I'll use watercolors on location and oil paint here in the studio. I'm not sure what schedule will work best. The ideal schedule will evolve, but initially I plan to spend a week on location and then return to the studio to paint for a week to ten days before returning to the field."

She smiled. "That will be perfect. I'll impose on your hospitality for the week you're here, and then fly back to Boston."

"All right. Can you cook?"

She laughed, nervously.

"Thanks for laughing, that was a joke. Pierre and Grace plan to stay in the compound through the balance of the vacation time he took to cater our birthday party. I'll be working with him and Grace on their new restaurant, so for the next week, Pierre will do the cooking, but he might want a little help with the clean up."

Gloria groaned. "I'm rich, Josh. I don't do household chores."

I couldn't help it. I cracked up. When I finished laughing my fool head off, I said, "Gloria, I have a housekeeper. She and her husband, my groundskeeper, will return tomorrow evening."

She blushed. "I'd forgotten about them. Out of sight, out of mind."

We sat in silence for a couple of seconds.

"Josh, I could be mistaken, but I think Wanda will want to stay here for a while, too."

"She does."

"Will you allow her to stay?"

"Yes."

Gloria nodded. "Good." Then she grinned. "You read my mind and hers. You knew I wanted to help Wanda over some more bumps in the road to wellness, didn't you?"

"Yup."

"You're a good man, Joshua Johnson," she said and kissed me.

The kiss was meant to be appreciative but soon turned passionate.

Just you and me, Josh, she thought as the kiss deepened.

"All right," I said.

Here. Now.

"All right."

Good you're hard. Just push your trousers out of the way. A quickie. That's all I want.

"All right."

Oh! Yes! Yes! Yes! She moved over me, her mouth mashed to mine, my cock buried fully inside her. I love fucking - just love it.

Her cunt was creamy and grasping, and I went with her sudden passion. She wanted a quick, hot fuck. I let her have her way because that's what I wanted.

Last night was incredible, the best group sex I ever had, nothing planned, everything spontaneous, with hot times and quiet moments. And love - lots of love.

I chuckled when I thought about Pierre and Grace's experience with car keys in a fish bowl.

I didn't plan this, Josh.

"I know," I said.

I'm glad it happened.

"Me, too."

I think I'll come now.

"All right."

Nicole provided the next interruption. Was I wrong? Was fate trying to tell me I shouldn't try oil painting?

Hearing my thought, she laughed. "We can talk later if you prefer."

"No, now's fine. To be honest, I don't know where to start." I waved my hand at the canvas.

"You'll figure it out."

"Maybe."

"You've been busy this morning."

"Not so busy. I can't seem to get any work done."

She laughed again. "You know what I mean." She wrapped her arms around my waist and hugged me. "I'll miss you."

"And I'll miss you. You might get paint on your pretty sundress." I was wearing a paint-splotched smock.

"If I do, I'll throw it away and go shopping. You know how much I enjoy shopping." She hugged me again. "I've made a decision."

"I know."

"Are you all right with it?"

"Yes. You need to be all you can be." She'd been offered a position at the Wharton School of Business, Wharton West, to be specific. The campus was located in San Francisco.

"Until I start teaching next fall, I'll live here with you."

"All right."

"Will you help me select our home in San Francisco?"

"Yes."

"This is your home, isn't it?"

"Yes. Nicole, I'm not a man of the world."

"I know. You're an artist."

"Yup."

"Will we be all right?"

"Yes, I love you. I'll always love you."

"I talked about my decision with Sandy and Darren this morning."

"I know."

"Why didn't you join us telepathically?"

"I wanted this time with you, holding you and looking into your loving eyes."

Her loving eyes dampened. "Oh, Josh, I love you so much!"

We were quiet for a moment.

"Will you spend time with me in San Francisco?"

"Of course. I can paint anywhere."

"I listened in on your plans for the next month."

I chuckled. "Why didn't you comment?"

"Touché. The home we select in California will have a studio."

"All right."

"And a nursery."

"I figured."

"Are you all right with that?"

"Yes."

"Not right away. After I get tenure, I'll take a couple of years off to be a wife and mother here with you. After that, we'll see." She hugged me again. "I understand about Wanda. I don't want you to be alone. Will you ask her to marry us?"

"I don't know. We'll see."

The phone in the studio rang. I picked it up.

"Pierre says lunch is ready," Grace said.

"Good. I'm starved. Nicole is with me. We'll be right there."

Lunch was fun - at first. While we ate we talked about novels and novelists. As expected Sandy dominated the conversation, but Gloria gave her a run for her money. Gloria was an avid fiction fan. It suddenly dawned on me that I had mislaid my reading habit somewhere along the way.

Sandy smiled and said. "If you'd like to find it again, when I read a good book, I'll send you a copy."

She'd made a decision, too. She planned to live in Boston with Darren. I suspected they'd interrupt my work after lunch to discuss the subject with me.

Why wait? Sandy said telepathically. Now's as good as time as any. The decision isn't etched in stone, Josh. We want your input first.

Gloria's involved with this decision. Let's talk out loud.

Sandy announced to everyone the discussion at hand, and then turned to me. "Will you feel abandoned again?"

"Are you abandoning me?"

"No. I love you."

"Then I won't feel abandoned."

Gloria said, "My home is your home, Josh."

"No, it's your home and Darren's and will become Sandy's home. I'll be a guest." I smiled. "A frequent guest. I've made a unilateral decision, as well. This is my home."

"I have a home here, too, Josh," Sandy said.

I smiled. "Yes you do, and along with my home and the communal spaces, this is and will remain the home base for our plural marriage."

"Mother," Darren said, "Josh will need a studio in Boston."

She laughed. "It's not as though that old house doesn't have rooms to spare. On your next visit, Josh, select the space you want, and we'll renovate to make the space suitable for a studio."

"All right." With a chuckle, I added, "I had this studio for years and never used it. Soon, I'll have three studios." I became serious. "I plan to use all three of them."

"And we'll spend time here, Josh, as much as possible," Darren said. "That's a promise."

I had no choice. I raised a shield. From their expressions, the shield shocked Sandy and Nicole.

"Lower that shield right now, buddy boy," Sandy said with fire in her eyes.

"You won't like what you hear."

"Please don't put us through that torture again, Josh," Nicole said.

I forced my mind to a blank state and lowered the shield. Would Nicole penetrate my attitude?

Oh, Sandy, he does feel abandoned again. He worries our plural marriage won't survive the separation our divergent lives are forcing upon us.

Tears smarted my eyes. "Sandy, you and Darren will have children soon. You can't deny that the urge to be a mother is pressing you. I can feel the desire heavy and urgent inside you. When a child arrives, your life and Darren's will revolve around the child, which is normal and right. The child will give you pleasure and purpose, so you will have another, and maintaining our plural marriage could become a burden. Nicole, you want a child, and the child will be mine. You'll take time off to be a mother and wife, but the urge for a successful career is as heavy and pressing inside you as motherhood is for Sandy. When you leave to fulfill your career urge, you'll take the child with you. I won't follow you. This is my home." I sighed. "Why, I've asked myself many times, why doesn't everyone want a plural marriage? On the surface, a plural marriage is the ideal expression of love if more than two people love each other. Recently, I've been turning over in my mind one possible answer to my question. Perhaps plural marriages aren't truly possible to sustain over a lifetime."

"God damn you, Josh Johnson!" Sandy said with feeling. "Our plural marriage will prevail!"

"Damned straight," Nicole said, just as upset as Sandy. "Like any marriage, we just need to work at it - all of us, and that includes you, buddy boy."

I smiled. "Oh, I'll work at it. I'll keep the home base homey and visit both of you wherever you are, and you're welcome to visit me. Don't take what I said wrong. I'm not bailing out. I was merely pointing out some basic perils to the survival of our plural marriage looming ahead. Nicole, you read part of my attitude wrong. I am worried our divergent lives will tear us apart. I was worried enough to express my concerns, but I don't feel like I'm being abandoned. I know I'm loved. I raised my shield because I didn't want to have this discussion right now. I wanted this get-together at our home base to end on a positive note."

Darren came to the studio after lunch.

"Let's raise our shields. I want this talk to be private," he said.

"All right."

"Are you shielded?"

"Yes."

"Do you still want to marry me?"

"Yes."

He visibly relaxed.

"Josh, it might not be manly, but you need to know. I love you as deeply as I do Sandy and Nicole."

"I knew, Darren."

"If Sandy moving into our family home in Boston will cause any grief, we'll change our plans."

"Where would you live?"

"Here."

"Have you discussed this with Sandy?"

"No."

"Or your mother?"

"No."

"If you moved away from Boston, Gloria's wonderful soul would dry up and flutter away like dandelion seeds in a soft wind. She needs you there, needs you in charge of the business, needs you to be the recipient of your family's heritage, its traditions as well as its assets, and you and Sandy will provide the next heir so the family heritage will continue."

"You do understand," he breathed, looking at something or nothing somewhere in the distance. He squared his shoulders and turned to me. "Running the family business doesn't need to be as time consuming as I've made it. I can make some simple changes that can cut my time for business in half. Sandy and I could live here six months of the year."

I chuckled. "Skip the summers. They're brutal. Darren, Sandy's research and other projects will use up three of those six months. If the two of you live here three months every year, I'll be happy. Do you know why?"

"Why?"

"Because I plan to be in Boston for three months a year. I'll also spend three months a year in San Francisco. The trick will be coordinating the time when all of us can be together anywhere, especially after the patter of little feet start echoing in the halls, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. To follow tradition, we planned our private wedding for Christmas at the Grand Canyon. One of the three months should be December, and I'd like that get-together to be here at our home base. Nicole will have a teaching break in December, so she'll probably agree.

"I can put December aside," he said. "Besides, December in Boston can be brutally cold. How about a month in Boston in the spring?"

"We need Nicole's input. Sandy's, too, for that matter. Shall we lower our shields?"

"Yeah."

Sandy, Nicole, would you join Darren and me in a telepathic family conference?

Plans were made. Heartfelt commitments were uttered. Would the commitments be kept? Time would tell.

That thought was protected with a shield.

I had my root beer open and was sitting down when Sandy arrived. I'd expected her.

"I want some time alone with you this afternoon. Do you know where?" she asked.

I slugged down the rest of the root beer and rose to my feet. "Yes, where we first made love. In your canopied bed in the small apartment attached to your museum. Let's take my Hummer. I feel like driving."

En route, she said, "Do you remember when you told me I had old emotions?"

"Yes."

"You said my emotional reactions implied that I'd already experienced whatever caused the reaction, so I handled the emotional situation with ease. You went on to say that you used my calm acceptance of our hurly-burly world to calm the turmoil in your soul."

"Yes, I remember. I said you were serene."

"That you did. Well, buddy boy, you've past me up. To me, your emotional responses are more serene than mine - older, more at ease. You told Nicole this morning that you weren't a man of the world."

"I'm not."

"Raise your shield. I want this conversation to be private."

"All right."

"You're my man of the world, Josh, not Darren. Oh, I love him, but you were my first love in this life, and as it turned out, you're also the love of my life. I will never abandon you. Never! I might not be with you all the time. I might have children with Darren, and life might become hurly-burly so it will be difficult to sustain our plural marriage, but know this. I love you." She sighed and brushed an errant tear from the corner of her eye with a fingernail. "I've loved deeply in my past lives, but I've never loved anyone as deeply or as completely as I love you."

I pressed the remote to open the garage doors to Sandy's museum, pulled the Hummer inside, and took my sister, my wife, my love into my arms.

To lose my fear of oils on canvas, I'd need to master oil paints like I did watercolors, and that would take some time. Nicole was right, though. With some practice and perseverance, I'd figure it out.

"Why oils?" Wanda said.

I jumped. She'd surprised me, which was unusual. Then I realized how she'd arrived unannounced to my empathic senses. She was wearing a full-body shield.

"Why the shield?"

"I want to talk with you, and I don't want my emotions and thoughts getting in the way, and I'd like our talk private. Would you raise your shield?"

I complied with her request.

"Who told you about shields?"

"Nicole." All at once she looked fearful. "Are you upset because I know about shields?"

I smiled. "No."

Her look of fear vanished. She straightened her back and took a deep breath. "I want to stay here, live with you."

"All right."

"That's it? No argument?"

"No."

"Do you love me?"

"Not like you love me."

"Josh, that's not an answer. Please tell me how you feel about me."

"All right. I love you, Wanda, but not like I love Sandy and Nicole."

"Is it possible that someday you'll love me like you love them?"

"Love is limitless, so my answer is yes, but before I can love you that deeply, you'll need to be whole. When I questioned you after the intervention, I didn't ask a question, perhaps the most important question I could have asked, because I knew your answer would be no. Have you forgiven yourself, Wanda?"

She shuddered and clasped herself with her arms.

"No."

"For me to love you deeply, you must first love yourself. That won't happen until you forgive yourself. You can stay here and live with me, but subject to two conditions. One, find support in Phoenix besides me. Retain a competent therapist, one who understands your problem and can help you. Two, do not cling to me as if you were in a turbulent sea and I was a life raft. My conditions might sound harsh, but..."

"No, they're reasonable, and I understand."

"What about your work?"

"Josh, fifteen of the fifty artists I represent provide ninety percent of my income. Another ten are up and coming. I'll keep them, too, but I'm cutting the non-productive half loose."

I grinned. "Do I need to find a new artist's agent?"

"No! You're... Oh, you're teasing."

"Yup."

"I can do my work from Phoenix as well as New York. I'll need to lease some office space and..."

"That'd be silly. Have you seen the office space here in the compound?"

"No."

"I'll take you on a tour tomorrow after my wives and Darren leave. The space is sitting there. Use it."

"I'll pay rent..."

"No you won't. You'll be living here. We'll be lovers. You will not pay rent."

"We'll be lovers?"

I smiled. "Yup."

She got clingy. I didn't mind at all.

I was painting on canvas with oils, and I was having small successes. I stepped back and studied my progress.

Yup, I can do this.

Of course you can, buddy boy, Sandy said.

I laughed. You don't know what I was talking to myself about.

Doesn't matter. If you want to do something, you'll get it done. I miss you already. Last night was special.

Yeah it was.

Sandy and Nicole had spent the night with me. We'd made love into the wee hours of the morning. Darren didn't join us. He spent the night with his mother, which pleased me. Gloria would miss her son like I'd miss Sandy and Nicole.

I'd taken the three of them to the airport in my Hummer a couple of hours ago. Gloria had ridden with us to say her goodbyes.

What were you talking to yourself about? Nicole asked.

Painting on canvas with oils.

Did you have serious doubts?

I had doubts.

Did I interrupt your concentration? Sandy asked.

No, it was time for a break. I expect a call any second from Pierre announcing lunch. Darren, are you there?

Yes.

Your mother is fine. Her tears dried up before we left the airport complex. She's out by the pool soaking up some sun, determined to get an all-over tan before she returns to Boston.

That was the moment my life started to end. Suddenly, I lost my connection with Darren completely, and I felt Sandy and Nicole rolling around like they were in a blender. I also heard their screams of terror as they held each other in their arms.

What's happening? I shouted mentally and cast my empathic scan around the aircraft. I cut that scan immediately. The pain I felt had to be a heart attack coming at me from someone.

What's happening? I shouted again.

An explosion. The plane's going down, Josh, Sandy said.

Serene. She was serene. How could that be?

I've died before, Josh. I'll live again.

Josh, Nicole said, I love you. Sandy, I love you. Darren... what happened to Darren?

He's gone, Nicole, Sandy said. Josh, I love you. You were my love for this life. Goodbye, love.

No! I screamed. No!

Goodbye, Josh, Nicole said.

I felt them holding each other.

And then I felt nothing.

I was alone.

Epilogue: Josh

Sixteen Years Later

It's a good painting, I decided as I dropped a brush in solvent.

A wrinkled old man and a pretty young girl stared back at me from the canvas. An old soul, and a new one. One ready for death but still fighting for life, angry about his decaying body and mind, but somehow serene with the understanding that he would live again in the heaven or hell his faith and acts specify or move on to a different, unsullied body to live a different life. The viewers of the painting would decide his fictional fate, not me.

The young soul in my painting was unconcerned about death and eager for the future and all that it could offer. She was fresh and clean, without evil and anger, but with a lurking, dark understanding that someday, if she lived long enough, she too would be angry at her condition in life.

Both souls were indomitable, perpetual, separated and differentiated only by their location on their current lifelines.

The painting fit my recent creative theme. Serene old souls juxtaposed with eager new souls. Serene Sandy and eager Nicole. They weren't in my mind anymore, but I couldn't get them out of my mind.

I went crazy when they left me. After a burst of rage when I destroyed all my paintings in the studio, I did nothing, could do nothing. I sat and stared a thousand-yard stare, my soul so heavy with grief my body couldn't move. The destructive sounds of my rage brought Gloria and Wanda to the studio. When Gloria finally understood what had brought on my rage, she collapsed. Poor Wanda, un-whole as she was, held us together. One day, Gloria's sister came and took her away. Wanda stayed.

I lost weight because I didn't eat. Wanda fed me as if I were a baby. I became dehydrated because I'd forget to drink anything. Wanda had to tip a glass of water to my lips to get me to drink. I napped sporadically during the day, but couldn't sleep at night. Nightmares of the plane crash brought me upright and screaming in my bed. Nicole and Sandy's bodies weren't recovered, only pieces, and in my nightmare, fiery chunks of bloody flesh, pieces of Nicole and Sandy's flesh, fell down on me, splattered me as if thrown by an angry God.

I was inconsolable.

I hadn't said goodbye. I hadn't told them that I loved them.

I didn't paint. I did nothing. Silent tears rolled from my eyes until my tear ducts dried up. Days later, the tears would start again.

It was the silence that got to me. No one said, "Josh, are you there?"

If I'd connected with Wanda, she could have said the words, but I refused to make the connection, and I tamped down all other thoughts, emotions and sensations until I heard only background noise and felt only the heaviness in my heart and soul.

I remained in that state for months. But for Wanda's persistence to keep me alive, I would have died. I wanted to die.

And then one day, everything changed. The nightmares stopped. I rose from my bed refreshed and fed myself, and I started to paint again. I went from a depressed, almost catatonic state, to a flurry of activity. I painted night and day, and the work was good. I developed Pierre and Grace's restaurant, and it became one of only a few five-star restaurants in the Phoenix metro area.

I flew to Boston. Gloria was a shell of her former self. She tried to be cheerful, but failed. Just before I left her she told me she wanted a new body and a new life, that this life had no meaning for her, that she could find no joy in her soul. She died peacefully in her sleep a year later.

The explosion on the plane had been an act of terror, so I declared war on terrorism. I contacted Special Agent Dot, and she guided me, sent me to far away lands, put me next to terrorists and would-be terrorists. I didn't fuck around. If my scans produced evil, if I entered the mind of a terrorist, I sucked out his memories and rearranged his neurons, and then regurgitated the memories for Agent Dot. Far away lands and terrorists can be dangerous. Three more bullet wounds puckered my flesh. I walked with a limp.

Painting was my cover for my covert trips to foreign soil. I painted lost souls. I painted enslaved and impoverished souls, and although lost, enslaved and impoverished, they were indomitable - all of them. I painted souls and heartrending scenes normally reserved for foreign correspondents and photographers. I captured the souls and scenes with watercolors and my visual memory and took them back to my studio and painted them on huge canvases in oil. I kept the watercolor paintings and sold the canvases. Wanda became rich on her percentage as my agent from the sale of my paintings. She didn't care about the money. She cared about me, and three years ago something happened that made me understand that she needed more of me than I'd given her over the years, so I connected with her and said, "Wanda, are you there?"