Chapter 233: Going Back to Corvallis

Sunday, June 12, 2005

I'd intended to stay with Prof until he was discharged, but I got pushed into going home a week before then. No one wanted me to miss my exams, and Prof was doing so much better that I didn't have a strong reason to stay.

Exams started on Monday, June 13, so I agreed to leave on the Sunday the 12th. [[While I think to mention it, the academic year's start and stop dates varied across dimensions too, with the dates of the dimensions already discussed herein being unusual. I googled for an explanation of why the dates had been chosen, and the consensus was that no one knew. It was an unexplained tradition that everyone more or less stuck to.]]

We'd been rescued on May 23, so I'd had almost three weeks of healing. I was pretty sure my right hand's fingers and my leg bone were healed already, but I kept quiet about that and didn't ask the hospital to X-ray them. That'd leave permanent records, which might not be a good idea. I'd been told the breaks would take longer than normal to heal because I'd been starved and they'd been left broken for a few days. The doctors had clearly seen how broken my bones were, and they probably had a clear idea of how long they should take to heal, which would be the best part of two months, according to what we'd been told.

It was a nuisance, but I could get by. The dressing on my left hand's "hole finger" had been removed already, showing a well-healed stump, so that allowed me to use my left hand for writing my exams. It was slightly awkward to hold a pen without having a middle finger, but adapting to that was easy. My leg's and right hand's dressings were more of a nuisance, but I'd leave them on for longer so my healing rate would appear more normal. I'd only be taking exams all of next week anyway, so didn't need much mobility.

Vanessa was temporarily living in Seattle, but everyone else drove up on the Saturday of my last weekend, Carol traveling with her new friend Julia in the back of Andrew's car. Ava's parents had gotten home from their two-week vacation this morning, so Ava was catching up with them and studying for her first exam tomorrow. Carol's affection toward me was increasing substantially from weekend to weekend, and she arrived on Saturday dressed in what was obviously one of her new purchases and with her hair cut differently.

After seeing Carol enter the room and pose self-consciously waiting for my comment, I told Julia, "What a pity Carol couldn't come, but it's very nice that you've brought me such a beautiful girl as a substitute." Turning to Carol I asked, "What's your name, beautiful new girl?" You get the idea, and I'm sure you can predict the tone of my follow-on compliments and their happy reception. We were soon sitting around Prof's room, with Carol in my arms and on my lap, which wasn't that easy with my being in a wheelchair and with one leg in a cast for most of its length.

As another example of the sort of things I was saying to Carol these days, after a while on my lap, Carol said, "I suppose I'd better give Julia a turn." She started working her way forward to get off, the wheelchair's armrests made getting off sideways too difficult.

I pulled her back, saying, "You get first dibs on being with me, Carol. You can stay until you feel you've had enough lap time. Julia knows how important you are to me, and this is how things are going to be in the future, so she'll wait."

Carol had a low opinion of her value, and she couldn't believe that someone as smart, successful and sought after as me would want to - as she put it - "waste your time with me." It'd taken a couple of weeks of daily phone calls and lots of talk during the weekends to convince Carol that I did value her so highly. When she did start accepting that I truly valued her it affected her very deeply, and the happiness it gave her was obvious to everyone. Julia and Ava were also spending a lot of time with Carol, encouraging her to open up, building her confidence, etc. I talked daily to Julia and Ava too, urging them on, so Carol was having a VERY good time recently.

On the drive back to Corvallis with Mom and Dad, my cast meant only one person could sit in the backseat with me. Carol was determined that it be her, and I wasn't going to argue. Donna got bumped into Andrew's car, and I spent the four-hour drive with an arm around Carol's waist, her arm around mine, and our heads close together talking quietly.

In various ways I told her how much I loved her, how fantastic her life was going to become, how happy she was going to be, how confident and self-assured she was going to become, and every other nice thing I could think of without mentioning sex. Every time Carol asked me a question or made a comment, I tried to turn it into another reinforcing message. Like when Carol questioned that she could ever be self-assured, I told her, "From now on everyone is going to see that you are my number one girl. It'll start with your being in charge of Carol's Cuties, but it'll expand from there. That's going to make people respect and listen to you. They'll do what you say, and you'll gain confidence from it."

"But I can't be your number one girl. What about Julia, Ava, the Liaisons and all the other girls? They all come before me."

"Like heck they do! The Liaisons and the other girls don't come within miles of you. You leave them in your dust! Ava's very nice and good to have around, but she's well below you in my affections. Only Julia is close. She's very close, but if I had to choose one of you to spend the rest of my life with, I wouldn't hesitate to choose you."

"But she's your girlfriend! And she's wonderful and clever and beautiful and, umm, sexy with you too. I can't do ANY of those things!"

"Carol, you are already EVERY one of those things, apart from the last one, which is unimportant compared to how fantastic you are at everything else. You're my number one, and your arguing with it is pointless because you're not going to change my mind about loving you. One thing that is changing though, is one of our plans for the new mansion. No longer is the main house going to contain the four parents, you and Donna; with the 'Mark Wing' containing Julia, me and sometimes Ava. You'll be staying with Julia and me."

"Me! I couldn't do that. Julia wants you to have lots of girls visiting you, and her and you do things together a lot too. I'd be in the way all the time..."

"You can't be in the way. You're my number one girl, so all the other girls could be in the way, but never you. Fortunately I don't have to make a choice between you and Julia, because I intend to have both of you in my life. You, Julia and I are going to be living together very soon, and starting from right now our three lives are going to be totally wrapped around each other."

"But I'm just a little girl. I don't know how to do anything..."

"Carol, the ONLY thing that matters is that we love each other. You, Julia and I are going to build a fantastically loving and happy three-way relationship. Your doubts are completely unnecessary, because you're a wonderfully loving and caring person. Julia and I are lucky to have your love..."

I'm sure you get the general theme by now; I kept reinforcing my compliments. I'd say Carol 'swallowed it hook, line and sinker', but that'd imply I was insincere, which was the total opposite of how I felt. Carol could tell I was deadly serious too, and it melted her heart. She was somewhat lonely and she very much enjoyed being in a caring relationship with a guy who wasn't obviously after her body, especially with someone she respected. Respect is very important to Carol, which is probably Mom's 'fault' - if it's a fault - because Mom makes a big deal about that to the girls and me. Obviously it hasn't had much affect on me, because every teenage boy knows that tits are more important. Whatever the reasons, Carol was feeling some emotions strongly with me, and with Julia and Ava too, and they were enough to have Carol on the verge of tears sometimes.

Although I was totally sincere, I can't claim to be totally honest. Much of the praise I gave Carol was something she hadn't earned yet. I was praising the Carol that 3B had lost, rather than this one, but I never doubted that my praises would become true. This Carol behaved exactly as I expected her to, except that she was even emotionally hungrier than the other Carol had been at the time of her seduction. I'd figured that was because this Carol had gotten to know Julia much better by now; had seen me and Julia in a successful, loving relationship for three months; and had been impressed by the many good changes to my character that Julia had pushed me into developing. Last, and I'm sure of considerable effect, Carol had seen that I was extremely popular with the girls at school. Julia had convinced me that it had a powerful psychological effect on other girls. When it comes to something as basic as perceived desirability, at least 90% of a girl's opinion is taken from the group's opinion. Guys also suffer from the same group-think syndrome, as convincingly proved by Paris Hilton's manufactured popularity sustaining itself.

Carol was an easy seduction. She was so hungry for the emotional aspects that I wasn't so much pulling her in the direction I wanted her to go, as giving her a slight push and then jogging after her to keep up. That's an exaggeration, as it had taken a few weeks to work on her, but comparing the Carol of now to that of a month ago makes that description seem reasonable.

Physically I hadn't done anything beyond hugging her and kissing her on the cheek, but knowing her sexual buttons as well as I did, I didn't think physical seduction was going to be much of a problem, unless I stupidly rushed it. Holding myself back was my main problem. I REALLY wanted to slide my hand up to Carol's breast, or whisper something very sexual to her, or use NP to rub between her legs (after giving her the right verbal preparation, so she wouldn't freak out). Unfortunately, it was too early for any of that. Mom and Dad sitting in the front seat had an inhibiting effect too, especially later in the trip when Mom was looking back at us more often, clearly wondering what was going on in the backseat. The expressions on Carol's face certainly let Mom know something was "going on". 3A had been a good, loving brother to Carol and Donna before 3B's arrival, and had often been affectionate with them, but not to the extent that I was with Carol now.

Not long before we got to Corvallis, Mom asked, "What are you two up to back there?" Mom was looking mostly at me, as it was pretty obvious who she thought was responsible for whatever it was that was going on.

I answered, "Have we got time to stop at the Williams' for a talk? I'd prefer to have it in Julia's soundproof room because I've got some huge secrets to tell you."

"Why not tell us now?"

"Because it'll cause Dad to drive off the road in shock. I'd much rather wait until we were in a stationary room."

Mom and Dad exchanged glances, then Mom said, "Okay. We've got a lot of questions for you too."

I knew that. They'd asked several questions in the hospital and I'd put them off. They wanted to know why Prof and I had been so confident that our so-called business would be profitable, through to why the Williamses had had such a strange attitude to my spending all my time with Prof in the hospital, with several other questions in between. I'd previously let Mom and Dad know that there was more to the story of our imprisonment than what Prof and I had told the cops, so the upcoming talk would include that. For the last few weeks, I'd been putting Mom and Dad off until later. It was about time "later" became "soon". I'd use answering the question about winning at roulette as the introduction to my demonstration. I'd rejected starting by telling them I'd killed the two baddies. It would certainly get their attention in a dramatic way, and Dad might react favorably to it, but I doubted Mom would. And I'd also rejected repeating the Killer and Immobilizer light blob attacks on this Dad, because they'd scared my other Dad so much I'd felt sorry for him.

I said, "I want Julia there too. I'll call her to find out how far behind us they are." It was a pretty safe bet they were somewhere behind us, as the Williamses are all cautious drivers.

There'd been repeated stories in the news over the last several months about the Government spying on us, including tapping our phone calls, so the Williamses and I speak circumspectly on the phone about my abilities. Having been questioned by the FBI several times a few weeks ago was a good reminder to be careful, so I just told Julia, "I'm planning to stop off at your room on the way home to have a talk with Mom and Dad. I want you there too. How long until you get home?"

"About twenty minutes. I'm looking forward to this; I've got some questions too." They were about ten minutes behind us.

"I'm sure you do. I've been amazed by your patience. See you soon."

I didn't have my front door key to the Williams' house with me as no one had thought I'd need my key ring, so it'd been left in Julia's room. We killed time by stopping for some milk and bread, then parking in front of the Williams' to wait. Mom turned around to ask me, "Are you going to explain why you've been so affectionate with Carol recently?"

"Yes, but not today. Before you can understand why I've changed my relationship with Carol you need to understand some other things about me, which is what I'm about to tell you. Getting your head around those is going to take you several days at least, by which time Prof and Vanessa should be back. Which works out well because I want to include them in the discussion about Carol's and my relationship. I can see you want to ask more questions, but it'd be best to wait until we're inside. Aren't you the one who's always saying that, 'Patience is a virtue'?"

"Yes, but I'm referring to your patience, not mine. Your experience has changed you in ways I wouldn't have expected. I would have thought you'd be less self-assured, not more. And your sudden affection for Carol is a mystery too. Why just Carol and not Donna as well?"

"Patience, Mom. I'm not trying to keep things from you, it's just that I want to explain everything in the way I think best."

Five minutes later Julia and her brothers arrived. I extracted myself from the car with considerably less than my usual gracefulness, and hobbled inside on my newly issued crutch. I was pretty sure my leg was already healed so I could have walked on it, but I preferred not to let the general public see me do that so soon, so hobbling was required for a few days.

Inside I asked, "Robert or Andrew, can one of you look after Donna for half an hour or so please? I need to have a confidential talk with everyone else in Julia's room."

"I will," agreed Robert. "We can play 8-ball or..."

"Aww," disagreed Donna. "I want to know what you're talking about."

"Come here Donna," I said, patting my lap.

When she was in position I asked, "You like knowing secrets?"

"Sure. They're always the most interesting stuff."

"Let me show you something." I moved her left hand to the chair's armrest, clamped it there with my comparatively good hand, then with my right hand quickly pulled one of her fingers back to the point of causing her quite a lot of pain.

"OWW! Stop it! That hurts!"

I released her finger.

"That HURT!" she accused. "Why'd you do that?"

Mom clearly thought I was out of line too. It'd happened too fast for her to react, but she clearly wasn't pleased with me, and the expression on her face said I'd better have a damned good answer. I held my right hand up in front of Donna's face. "They did that to every finger on this hand. Not just pulled it back a little bit like I did to you, but pulled it back ALL the way, until the bones broke. Do you want me to show you what that feels like?"

I moved my right hand toward her fingers again, which caused Donna to IMMEDIATELY snatch her hand back. I relaxed my grip to let her get it away.