Chapter 232: The Long Haul; Part Two

Thursday, May 26 to Sunday, June 12, 2005 (Continued)

I told Julia that Carol was going to be a much bigger part of our lives than before. My being Julia's Lord was less of an issue in this dimension, as it'd been the wedding ceremony that'd formalized it in 3B-land. Here I was more of her "lord" (lowercase). Julia still recognized that I was TELLING her about Carol, not inviting a discussion about it.

"Oh. In what ways?"

"I'm tempted to say you'll enjoy it more if you don't know, but you'll easily see it coming. Nothing much is going to happen until I get back to Corvallis and I'd rather wait until we're there before talking about it. In the meantime I want you and Ava to start spending time with Carol. Have lunch with her and her friends in middle school some days, invite her to come to high school for lunch with you sometimes. She'll be worried about not being dressed well enough for that, so please take her shopping for a few outfits she can wear with pride first. I'll reimburse you for that afterward. I know you, so please do NOT go overboard on that, as those clothes are going to be discarded in a few months when Carol's personality starts changing. For now just get her some outfits she feels confident in. What did you do with your old cellphone after Lily gave you the new one?"

"I didn't get around to doing anything with it. I guess you want me to give it to Carol?"

I'd been tempted to ask/tell Julia to give her new Hong Kong phone to Carol, leaving Julia to revert to her old one. I like to think that Julia was realizing that something important was happening, and that she would go along with that request, but I decided it was too much, too soon, especially for Carol. Julia's old phone was easily good enough to make my point, without overdoing it. So I agreed, "Yes please. With the charger and manual obviously. Would you ask The Boys to bring it when they come," (today was Friday. The Boys, Carol and some others were coming up to see us tomorrow). "And please get a SIM card for her later today or tomorrow morning so she can start using it right away."

"Sure. I'm looking forward to finding out what this is about?"

"It's about me having an insight into the sort of person that Carol can blossom into, with the encouragement that we're going to give her. It's VERY important to me that we do this, and it'll work out very well for you and Ava too."

Julia looked mystified. She certainly wasn't going to argue with me about a member of my own family, but she very much likes to know what's going on, and so she asked me more questions about it.

I put her off, quite authoritatively too, which made her even more curious. She asked a few more questions that I also wouldn't answer. It'd be good training for her, for when I become an uppercase Lord.

On Saturday morning, Andrew, Robert, Ava, Carol and Donna came up to Seattle, bringing Julia's old cellphone as well as some stuff for me (my cellphone, some clothes, schoolwork, watch, etc.). I hadn't been discharged from the hospital yet, so I still had my room, allowing my family plus Ava to gather there, Prof's family gathering in his.

I'd asked Julia to join us for a few minutes as soon as she could. When she came in, I got all of their attentions, then started my little speech, "When I was imprisoned I had all sorts of thoughts. Some were so silly they'd be embarrassing to mention now, and others were very important, like it'd be a terrible pity not to be rescued when there are still so many roast chickens yet to be eaten. But I had a couple of realizations that were even more important than roast chicken and pizza added together, so you know they must be serious. One of them is something I'll talk with Mom and Dad about when we all get home, the other is about you, Carol."

"Me? But I haven't done anything?"

"I'm talking about something that I failed to do. I hadn't appreciated your value NEARLY as highly as I should. I'm going to stop making that mistake, and from now on make much more time for you. I'm deeply ashamed now that I didn't include you in the trip we took to LA, especially because there'd been an empty seat. I know you understand that was a trip for my girlfriends, but from now on my girlfriends aren't more important than you. Anything like that in the future is going to have me inviting you first, and then if there are any spare seats, I'll invite other girls."

"You don't want me to hang around when you've got so many high-school girls who want to be your girlfriends. I'd just get in the way."

Mom's and Dad's expressions seemed to be something like benign tolerance. They were probably assuming that my traumatic experience had affected me in some way that made me temporarily sentimental toward Carol. They were going to find out that "temporary" wasn't going to be the case at all, and "sentimental" wasn't going to be the behavior of mine that'd get their attention the most. Not as much as some of my ki abilities were going to though, as I was going to give them a demonstration they'd never forget when I got home.

Carol was genuinely puzzled by why I'd want to waste time with her when I could spend time with - in her mind - beautiful, sophisticated, much-more-important, high-school girls. That was how this Carol thought about Julia and Ava. Using the knowledge I had of 3B's Carol, there were a large number of things I could have said to this one that would have amazed her with how well I understood her. For example, I could tell her, "I know why you like pirate movies so much, and I also know that soon a man you'll love, and who'll loves you, is going to hold you down and take you. You'll be his for the rest of your life, and completely under his control. If he commands you to stand up in the middle of class and strip naked, you'll have to do it." That'd push several of Carol's hot buttons, and certainly distract her from her worrying about "getting in my way." I'd have to whisper that, of course, but even then Mom and Dad wouldn't mistake the sexual flush that'd hit Carol's face.

I certainly wasn't going to say anything like that yet, especially as I didn't want to alert Mom and Dad to the sexual nature of Carol's and my imminent relationship, so I simply said, "You won't be getting in the way. I've had a lot of time for thinking over the last few days and I'm very confident that we're both going to be happy with the changes in our relationship. I don't know how long it'll be before Prof and I return to Corvallis, but if I haven't convinced you I'm right within a month of my return, I'll eat my hat. Julia's got a present for you now."

Julia volleyed the credit right back at me, by opening the bag she'd brought in with her and passing her old cellphone to Carol, saying, "Mark asked me to give you my old cellphone. The charger and manual are in the bag. It's all set up ready to use, and there are several phone numbers already stored in it. Your number is in there too, under 'Carol'. There you go," said Julia, handing over the bag.

"But I can't afford a cellphone. I don't..."

I interrupted, "What sort of gift would it be if you had to pay for it? Besides, I didn't ask Julia to give it to you for your benefit, but for mine. I want to be able to call you up and talk with you every evening, no matter where you are."

"But I'm mostly at home in the evenings. You can call me there."

"And have to abide by Mom's draconian time limit - no thanks! Besides, you'll need privacy so you can tell me all the juicy gossip. And before you try to tell me that you don't have any gossip, that's going to change too. You'll be spending more time with Julia and Ava, coming up to high school to have lunch with them sometimes, or they'll come down to middle school to have lunch with you and your friends, and we'll be doing things together outside of school too. Obviously you'll need some new clothes for that, so Julia's going to take you shopping for some impressive new clothes. I am correct in thinking that teenage girls like cellphones and shopping for new clothes, aren't I? That hasn't changed while I've been locked up, has it?"

It was evident from the look on Carol's face that it hadn't changed. She wanted to be very happy, but she was too busy being doubtful about it. She didn't understand why I should suddenly start spending money on her. In this dimension, as 3B's previous one, there'd not been time for any big spending sprees, but there'd been some talking about it among the family. As a good brother, I'd joked with my sisters that the quality of their birthday and Christmas presents would rise dramatically, and other similar comments. The key point being that I'd treated my two sisters equally. Singling Carol out now puzzled her, especially as Carol was sure she hadn't done anything to deserve my sudden attention. She was just one of my little sisters, and I was far too busy and successful to want to waste my time on her.

"Take my word for it, Carol, there are going to be some big changes in your life soon, and you're going to be FAR happier because of them. For the next few weeks Prof is my number one priority, but when Prof and I get back home, you're going to become the number one most important thing for me. I'm even going to encourage you to do to me what girlfriends are always doing to their boyfriends."

The obvious meaning REALLY confused her. I gave her a couple of seconds, then explained, "In my experience, girlfriends are always ordering their boyfriends around. That's certainly what Julia mostly does to me. SURELY an innocent girl like you didn't think anything NAUGHTY, did you Carol? Tsk, tsk."

I was tempted to joke about putting her over my knees and spanking her bottom for having such thoughts. Carol would like that, especially if I included a comment about lifting her long skirt so I could spank her on her panties. She'd be delightfully embarrassed by the threat, let alone the action, but it was way too soon to be making comments like that in front of Mom and Dad. Even too soon for Carol, I realized, as she needed some initial sexual feelings for me for that to work.

I controlled my impatience (plus Julia was already on my lap), making do with, "Sorry Carol, but I couldn't resist teasing you. In a few weeks, you, Julia and Ava are going to be ganging up on me mercilessly, and this is about the only chance I'll have to get in a few little teases of my own."

That pretty much finished that conversation. I didn't have to ask Carol whether she wanted to be involved in this. She looked up to high-school girls in general, and very much to Julia in particular. She was thrilled to be the center of attention, although embarrassed by it (ordinary embarrassment, not sexual).

^

[To leap ahead, I called Carol every day. Initially only for short conversations because I didn't want to leave Prof for long. When Prof was well enough that my conversations with Carol wouldn't disturb him unhealthily, I talked to her while I stayed in his room. Our conversations got longer and more animated as Carol came to believe that I really did want to talk with her, and it wasn't an imposition on my more valuable time. I enjoyed our talks, as it was great fun to hear her coming out of her shell and being excited about the things she was doing with Julia and Ava. Plus talking to her relieved the boredom of sitting with Prof for up to 21 hours a day, especially because he slept a lot. From the conversations he overheard Prof soon realized something was up. He accepted my telling him, "It's one of the things we'll be talking about when we get home."

This dimension's Julia - being exactly as smart as the Julia you've read about - had managed to discover that I enjoy seeing girls get it on together. As a result, she and Ava had gotten together for me, and to their surprise they'd found they quite enjoyed it. It was no surprise to 3B to learn this, as I don't think it's possible not to enjoy having sex with Ava, nor for Ava not to enjoy sex, even if it's with a girl. Despite Julia still discovering her bisexuality in this dimension, group sex wasn't as common here as it had been back in 3B-land. A threesome had been 3A's record until the Saturday night in LA when everyone - Me, Julia, Ava, Alexis, Katelin, Pat - had piled onto the bed. We hadn't booked a second room in 3A-land, so that orgy easily happened. Group sex was distressingly less common here than in 3B-land, but it was still common enough to spur Julia to ask me during one of our phone conversations about Carol, "Are you heading toward Ava and me seducing Carol?"

"That isn't the purpose, but strongly avoiding it wouldn't be good either. Keep building your friendships and her confidence, and don't do anything that might make her think she's being used for sex. But it'd be good for you and Ava to have an open, healthy attitude to sex around Carol, and if she initiates something then use your judgment. We're in this for the long term, so there's no hurry for sex. Being nice to her is more important than anything else."]

^

"I haven't forgotten you, Donna. It seems to me that the best way of making you happy is to get your horse as soon as possible. Have you been talking to the girls at school who've got horses, about where to get them, how to look after them, and all those sorts of things?"

The ensuing conversation made Donna happy, heading off any chance of sisterly jealousy. It led to discussion about when we'd be buying the new house. Everyone had been far too distracted to do anything about it during Prof's and my absence, so the main effect of the conversation was to get Mom thinking about it again. Everyone appreciated that better security would be a very good thing to have. Judging from her silence on the matter, the obvious need for more security was greater than any urge Mom felt to refuse to move into a mansion bought with our ill gotten gains. The architect had finished the work Mom and Vanessa had asked him to do, so the ball was in the moms' court. Vanessa was staying in Seattle until Prof was better, which meant that when Mom, Dad and Julia returned home tomorrow it'd be up to Mom and Julia to get the mansion purchase moving forward. Mom was very concerned to have that responsibility without Vanessa; Julia looked delighted.

I added, "While I remember, I'd like a place with a good-sized swimming pool please. I know I said I wasn't fussy about that originally, but I've changed my mind. Is that okay?" I hadn't had the motivation to make this request in this dimension before, but now that 3B had supplied imagined images of Donna's Ducklings and Carol's Whatevers in tiny bikinis around the pool, I wanted that pool!

Julia answered, "It should be no problem. Most of the places we're interested in have a pool. If the place we buy doesn't have one, we should be able to get one built at the same time as the rest of the renovations are being done."

[Mom and Julia did fine. They were able to decide on the shortlist, revisit them, find out the extra information they needed, etc. (when the occupants could move out was the item that most interested me). They frequently talked to Vanessa by phone or when they visited the hospital. By the time we came home they'd decided on the short-shortlist (four properties), had the architect give more accurate time and cost estimates for the renovations, and were ready to start negotiating with whichever one they had chosen. To save time, they weren't even pretending that I had a say in the choice, so I knew nothing about which house they preferred.]

Not immediately following the pool conversation, because I didn't want Mom and Dad to think they were so connected, I asked, "Carol and Donna, I imagine my reputation at school has taken a dive because we were caught out lying about my millions in Los Angeles, but I guess that doesn't matter much to the girls in your classes. Do they still get all silly about me?" [I was generally pretty good at avoiding it, but from time to time one of my minds would say "we" when he should have said "I"; this was one such occasion, not that it mattered because it was ambiguous. I just want you to be aware that it sometimes happens. It was slightly more likely these days, because we often thought of ourselves as 3A or 3B, which accentuated our "we-ness".]

From my 3B experiences with the two middle-school groups, I'd seen that my having money wasn't something that mattered much to them. I expected that how I - or Prof, as was now widely believed - had earned the money wouldn't matter to them, so they'd be just as interested in me as before. My sisters' subsequent descriptions of the current attitude toward me taught me that I was about half-right. They didn't care about the source of my money, but they were influenced by many high-school girls' loss of interest in me. That made me seem less desirable, which made me less desirable.

From what Carol and Donna said, there was still enough interest, so I said, "I have an idea for you two to be in charge of a type of informal club, for girls in your grades who're interested in me. One group would be called "Donna's Ducklings", because they'll be little, cute, hang around in a group, and make cheerful little noises, just like ducklings. You'd be like the mother duck, Donna. You'd be in charge of them, letting them follow you to visit me, making them behave properly, choosing who you allow into the group, etc. It'd be the same at your grade too Carol, except I can't think of such a good name for your group. The best I can come up with is "Carol's Cuties" or "Carol's Chicks", which aren't as good names as "Donna's Ducklings".

I discussed what I wanted the groups to be like, de-emphasizing the sexual aspects almost entirely, as this Mom wasn't ready for that. I stressed that they'd be in a group and with one of my sisters the whole time. If I got back to school before the year ended I'd sometimes come down to middle school to have lunch with them (I hoped the mob scenes wouldn't recur), or they'd come to high school. During summer we'd have group get-togethers somewhere or other, or the group could visit us at our home. All good, clean, honest fun.

Dad chuckled at the idea, but Mom was clearly cool about it. I told her, "I have an ulterior motive Mom, and it's not the one you're thinking of. I'll tell you about it later."

For my benefit, later when Mom and Dad were in Prof's room I made sure that Carol and Donna knew I was interested in good looking girls only, and naughty behavior would be highly encouraged. I didn't forget to mention that Diana and Claire Norris should be included. I gave Carol the choice of name, and she chose "Carol's Cuties".

For Mom's benefit (and also everyone else's), later when my sisters were absent I emphasized to Mom that I wanted to help develop my sisters' leadership skills and make them more popular at school. I stressed, "Especially for Carol. She needs to have her confidence improved, and you're going to be amazed at the difference in her when you see her blossoming."

Mom looked at me strangely, adding her eyebrow thing.

I simplified the truth enormously, "It's funny the things I thought about during my imprisonment, and some of the thoughts were much more intense than normal. I had some very deep insights into Carol's character, and a few about Donna's too, although not so much in her case. I have their best interests at heart, and you know I won't hurt them. There are some changes coming that you don't expect, but they're very good ones, especially if you judge them by the happiness they bring your children."

Mom kept looking at me strangely. The 3B guys made a mental note to refer to Carol, Donna and me as "us", not as "your children". That'd been caused because 3B were having a little trouble identifying with Mom as our 'real' Mom. She looked the same, but the situation was different enough that 3B was very aware that she wasn't the same mom, therefore "us" hadn't naturally rolled out of the 3B-controlled mouth.

I added, "I'll explain things fully when Prof and I get back to Corvallis. It's too complicated to explain here." I left out - wisely I thought - the delicate issue of Carol and me having babies together. It'd probably be best to wait until Mom was blown away by my ki abilities.

Even later, Julia talked to me about my standing in high-school society. Some high-school girls were positively scathing about me now, especially those eliminated from a pipeline group. Quite a few were still interested though, as indicated by Ava's bringing up a monster-sized, many-times-signed "Get Well" card. My favorite second-tier girls - Alexis, Pat, Lily and Katelin - hadn't changed their opinion of me, and neither had a good number of the other 10th graders, as they knew me personally. 3A had never been as popular in school as 3B because of the absence of the "I Love My Sister Carol" speeches, and from that lower level, my reputation had taken hits since the news of Prof's casino win broke. It'd only taken a moderate hit in the 10th grade, but major hits in the 11th and 12th grades (even I had to admit that the 12th didn't matter, as the school year was nearly over). My reputation in the 9th grade wasn't affected much, but it'd never been high there anyway. There was plenty of variation among girls in each grade, but those are reasonable accurate descriptions of the general sentiments.

There were a lot of other conversations and other minor topics not worth quoting in full. To briefly comment on them:

One was about my watch. We hadn't bothered thinking about our watch, so the 3B guys were very surprised to see it when it was delivered to me. It was weirdly identical to the watch in the 3B dimension, including that its color matched the Lordship/wedding ring that didn't exist in this dimension. The 3A guys had admired the color when Lily had given it to them, but hadn't known that it was special in any way so didn't grill Lily about why she'd chosen it. It did complement the cellphone Lily had bought (which, in this dimension, we wore on our left), but we didn't think that was a strong enough reason for Lily to have chosen this exact color of watch.

I asked Julia, "I like the color of my watch. Did Lily explain to you exactly why she chose this color?"

Julia made a couple of guesses, but she had no real idea. I made a mental note to ask Lily about it when I saw her after our exams. I wasn't going to see her before then because I'd asked Julia to tell all the girls at school that "Visitors are restricted to the two immediate families," (we kept quiet about Ava's visits). I didn't want to bother with the school scene yet, didn't want to be distracted from giving Prof as much kiatsu as I could, and didn't want to distract the girls from their pre-exam studies for the whole day it'd take them to get from Corvallis to Seattle and back).

[[I didn't see Lily for a very long time, and by then I knew why the watch was the same color. Its color wasn't important in itself, but it was a very good example of what I came to call the "Puddle of Water Effect". If you put a measured amount of water in a hole in the ground, it will form a puddle. If you drain it, then refill it with the same amount of new water, the new puddle will look the same as the old one. That's not because the two amounts of water cooperated, copied or communicated with each other in any way, but because they both obeyed the same natural laws. There are some physical laws that operate across the W-Dimension to produce similar effects in many of them. Had I known them, I could have used them for a very indirect way of sending information across many of the w-dimensions, which would've been very interesting. But by the time I understood those laws, I had no need for indirect communication.]]

^

The doctors had told Mom and Dad that my recovery was going very well and I'd be discharged shortly. Mom and Dad were surprised by my insistence on staying with Prof for as long as he took to recover, but it was easy to give them an emotional reason.

Several times my parents made comments like, "It was lucky someone saved your ass by calling the police," (that particular comment was from Dad when Mom was out of the room). I didn't attempt to claim any credit for our escape, always agreeing by saying something like, "I'll say!" I'll correct their misunderstanding when we get home, and show them enough of my ki abilities to blow them out of their socks, and to eventually get permission for me to get Carol out of her panties. Prof, Vanessa and Julia knew I had killed the baddies, and that I'd somehow got out of the chains to call the cops, but we hadn't discussed it beyond the couple of cryptic questions Vanessa and Julia had asked to have their suspicions confirmed. I'd let the Williamses know that I'd be having a big discussion with my parents when we got home, and for the Williamses to say nothing themselves yet.

^

It was nice to talk with Ava, but nothing of that conversation was particularly noteworthy. I thought of giving kiatsu to her parents, especially because I had four times as much ki as I had pre-merge. I decided not to even try, for several reasons:

• Mostly because I didn't think I could help. I'd been able to help Prof's recovery by little amounts by spending nearly 24 hours per day pouring ki into him. Ava's parents' diseases were both FAR nastier than Prof's situation, and there were two of them to split my efforts over, so I doubted I could make any useful difference. All I was doing was speeding Prof's getting better anyway. Turning around two cancer cases that were so bad that the doctors had been shaking their heads months ago was obviously outside the range of the slight boosts I could give. I thought that if I spent weeks with them, I might be able to draw out their lives by a day or two. Effectively losing weeks of their and my lives while we did kiatsu in order to add a couple of days to the duration of theirs made no sense.

• A great deal of my motivation to help Prof came from my feeling responsible for his being kidnapped, and in return for how wonderfully he'd treated me during the kidnappings. Especially in 3B-land, but it would've been the same in 3A-land. It's harsh, but neither of those applied to Katie or Carson.

• And it would've been extremely difficult to explain to everybody, including Katie and Carson, why I had to be with them for as many hours per day as possible. How could I spend time with them when they were at work? Or when they were sleeping? They might let me spend an hour a day with them, but that was pointless.

[[At the cellular level, there's nothing 'wrong' about cancer. They're just cells going about what they 'think' their business is. Kiatsu stimulates a body's processes, so it would have stimulated the cancers too. As their cancers were already more powerful than their bodies' defenses, stimulating both would have sickened them even faster. I had a suspicion of that at this time, but it was too vague to specify it as a reason.]]

^

Prof had a couple of visitors who were his personal friends, so not part of my life. They were representatives for the others who'd wanted to come, but had been told that Prof was still too sick to receive more than the bare minimum of visitors. They could see I was healthy enough, so they were eager to get details of our adventure from me.

I refused, saying, "I'm sure the papers have been full of all the gory details. Any details beyond those are getting personal and I won't answer those, especially not on Prof's behalf. You'll have to ask him yourself when he's better. Not to mention that the LAST thing I want to do is relive that experience."

^

My strong lack of desire to relive the experience takes me straight to the next topic: the hospital had been keeping the media away while we were too sick, but I was now well enough to face them.

You know what media interviews are like (or if you don't, you're lucky). My favorite question was, "Were you happy to be rescued?" Even for reporters, that one was truly a waste of oxygen. (The previous sentence is ambiguous because "that one" could be referring to the question or the questioner. Both meanings are intended.)

I remembered my media training so I bit my tongue. Instead I repeated my stock answer for the sixtieth time, "I don't remember it. Like I said before, I was unconscious." I was hoping to win the award for "The World's Most Boring Interview."

In one respect I quite enjoyed it, as it was fun to see how dreadfully boring I could possibly be. It's a very effective strategy against the media, and there are lots of enjoyable tactics. I umm'ed and ahh'ed more often than I said real words. I repeated myself, put large pauses into my answers, or outright forget what the question was mid-answer. They'd have to edit the tape like crazy to make a coherent answer, but another of my tactics was to move my body a great deal, so an edited tape would show my head jumping around unacceptably. I was hoping that the people back at the network would take one look at the tape and throw it in the trash as unusable.

By the time Prof recovered enough to face the press, the story was ancient history, so the press didn't want to interview him. I claimed some of the credit for that, for being so dreadfully dull during my interview.

^