Chapter 263: Seeking Parental Permission to Marry

Wednesday, June 22, 2005 (Continued)

At dinnertime, Prof drove to my home in his car, with me following in my trusty Honda to pick up my sisters to take them back to Julia's for our dinner. I had Vanessa and Julia with me so Vanessa could give me her last minute thoughts on what Carol and I might have to say when we had to talk with Mom and Dad about the marriage.

At my place, I talked to Mom and Dad about the car purchase and doing my best to appear at ease and unconcerned so they wouldn't get any forewarning of the doozie that was coming their way shortly. Doing some go-relaxes helped with that. I very much didn't want them to suspect my involvement when Vanessa and Prof started the conversation, because they'd react badly if they thought they were being railroaded.

When we left my place, Donna rushed out and got into the front passenger seat the quickest. I let her have what I hoped was one of her last rides in that seat.

It was easy for Julia to get Donna to help her with something in the kitchen, while I had a quick chat with Carol to bring her up to date with everything Vanessa had told me. Carol's role for when we had to discuss our marriage with Mom and Dad was small and simple, mainly just to say she loved me, loved the idea of having a three-way marriage with Julia and me, and loved the idea of having children with me one day. There was additional stuff about the responsibility of raising possibly special children and being aware that there may be risks from being in my life. Carol already knew all that, but there was no harm in reinforcing it. Vanessa's additional thoughts had included a few points about questions that Mom and Dad were unlikely to ask, but that it'd be wise to prepare for just in case, which I passed on to Carol.

I was reasonably confident that Mom and Dad would agree, because they'd done so quite easily in 3B-land and my abilities were a great deal more impressive now. I even ate dinner quickly to make sure I finished it before we got the phone call that they'd agreed. But time passed, and even after dinner was long gone, there was no call.

We were killing time watching a DVD in the Guys' Room, waiting for some news from the parents. Even Donna - not the most sensitive of people watchers - had asked, "Why are you all acting so weird?"

I answered, "Mom, Dad, Vanessa and Prof are having an important discussion. We're waiting to hear from them."

"What about?"

"It'd probably be best to wait to hear from them first. Sorry."

We waited and worried some more. My phone finally rang at 9:05pm.

Vanessa said, "It's still undecided. Your parents want to talk with the three of you. Can you come now please?"

"Absolutely! There's no one else here now, so we'll have to bring Donna."

"That'll be fine."

"What can you tell me about the situation?"

"As I said before, it's undecided. We'll talk when you get here."

Vanessa hung up.

I told the girls, "All I know is that it's undecided and they want to talk with us."

Donna asked, "Can we see the rest of the movie first?"

"Sorry, sweetie. What's at home is too important. It'll have to wait for another day."

Julia and Carol tried to find out more from me, but there was nothing I could add.

When we arrived at home, I walked inside with considerable nervousness. I was too scared to hold Carol's hand, and too scared to hold Julia's in case it made my not holding Carol's look bad. On the other hand, holding no one's hand looked bad too.

Mom didn't bite my head off when we got inside, or chase after my gonads with a knife, or react in many of the other negative ways I could easily imagine. Nor did she welcome me with open arms and congratulate me for wanting to boink my sister. Judging by Mom's and Dad's reactions, they were as Vanessa had said: undecided.

Mom instructed Donna to amuse herself in her bedroom while the rest of us moved to the living room. For once in her life Donna was smart enough not to ask questions.

When the rest of us were settled, Mom started with, "Vanessa and Prof tell us that you want to pretend to be married to Carol and Julia, Mark?"

#1: <Oh boy. This isn't going to be fun.>

#5: <Don't argue with her. She's probably on a very short fuse.>

I answered, "That's essentially correct, although I wouldn't have worded it that way."

"How would you've worded it?"

"That the three of us wanted to make the same emotional commitment to each other that traditionally married couples do."

"Then why are the vows you've invented so one-sided?"

#1: <Oh boy again.>

"The Vows were written to reflect how the girls already think of me, not to create something that doesn't already exist. Have you ever seen me treat Carol or Julia selfishly since I started changing?"

"You have sex with other girls. That's VERY selfish."

"I'd give it up in a second if that's what it took to get your blessing, even though rejection's the last thing Ava needs. But I don't think I'm being selfish. That means no one else is benefiting, but Carol and Julia are, because I was useless at boy-girl relationships before, and now I'm getting much better."

Carol backed me up, "He's FAR better, Mom. It was amazing to see how confident and friendly he was at the pools. Not long ago he was tongue-tied around girls."

Julia had something to say too, "Felicity, you heard the description of how Leanna got into my bed with Mark. The competition was MY idea and MY doing. EVERY girl Mark has slept with has been my idea. He could've had sex with dozens or even hundreds of girls by now, but he hasn't asked a SINGLE one; I'm the one that keeps pushing girls at him. There's no way that can be called behaving selfishly. I WANT him to do what he's doing, and so does Carol."

"That's right!" agreed Carol.

Prof contributed, "Mark has to learn the true value of the various temptations, Felicity. Whether money, sex, having power over people, the arrogance of genius or the arrogance of being superhuman. You're not going to protect him from those by being cautious now. Nor are you protecting Carol, because their lives are going to be intertwined for many years. It's better they learn now when there is much less at stake, including having four years to prove their relationship works before children are considered."

Dad said, "You don't really think Mark's motivated by sex, do you Fely?..."

#3: <GO Dad!>

" ... If they're after sex, they'd do it behind our backs."

The conversation went on and on. Mom wasn't happy, even though when Vanessa asked Mom to list her objections, none of them were dramatic. Merely things like, "They could get in trouble if it got out," or the even less impressive, "It's not right." Fundamentally, Mom was just VERY uncomfortable. Chances were that Mom's specific objections had already been destroyed by Vanessa and Prof, so Mom was left with only vague 'reasons'.

The "Big Picture" didn't work on Mom. She wasn't too interested in the "Long-Term Picture" either. It was simply "wrong" for Carol and me to be having sex together, let alone intending to have babies.

One of the ideas I'd had before this discussion was to fly Julia around the room. I'd even made sure the living room drapes were fully closed before we sat down. That would've impressed the heck out of nearly everyone, and Julia and Carol would've both LOVED it (for very different reasons), but special effects weren't going to do the job with Mom. Her objections were moral, so the only special effect that might've helped would be my putting a halo around my head. Unfortunately Mom knew me too well to fall for that.

[A week ago Carol had told me she weighed 130 pounds. I'd weighed my NP on the inaccurate household scales, and knew that I was roughly one month away from having an 8-mind maximum lift of 130 pounds. I'd need more than 130 pounds to actually do anything with Carol, so I was probably about three or four months away from being able to 'Peter Pan' her. I doubted it'd be a surprise to her though, because I expected to yield to the temptation to demonstrate the effect with 70-pound Julia before Carol could be flown. I already had well over half a g of acceleration available for Julia, which would allow some impressive swooping.]

Mom held her ground in the face of everyone else's disagreeing with her. There's nothing cowardly about Mom, unfortunately. We kept things VERY polite, even though we skated close to the edge a few times, such as when Mom accused me, "You've been seducing Carol ever since your rescue, haven't you?"

"I realized many things during the kidnapping. Your fear about Dad having an affair, or Carol's stated intention of going to college really being an avoidance tactic. I composed the first three vows at that time too; not for me, but for Julia and Carol. They could spend all summer working on drafting vows, and not be able to create anything that better reflected THEIR feelings for me than what I wrote.

^-- "Our three-way marriage will be superb. I know that for a fact. Carol will blossom with Julia and me. I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't know that. Your using the word 'seducing' sounds selfish, but Julia's and my motivations aren't selfish. I realized how fantastic it'd be for everyone, and that's what I've been working toward."

During the discussion, Vanessa made sure we understood that Mom was trying to make the best decision she could, so we shouldn't get angry with her for any reason (such as, for instance, out of our damned frustration).

"What about marrying Donna?" was one of Mom's questions.

I wasn't in the best of moods, so I had to reject the first couple of replies that occurred to me. Instead I said, "I can't imagine why Julia or Carol would want to marry Donna, or why Donna would want to marry them."

"What about you?"

"I just answered that question, Mom. My opinion is first and foremost what's good for my spouses. That's the same criterion Julia and I have for adding Carol, and why one of the first things I did was explain to Carol why she was good for Julia."

Unfortunately, there was no reason why we had to decide this quickly, other than my previously mentioned frustration. After an hour's conversation, the parents decided to call it a night. Prof suggested, "We'll think about it for a while and resume some other time."

#8: <Bugger! No marriage, and I bet sex with Carol would be a bad idea too.>

#6: <We'll also have to keep a very low profile with other girls, to avoid antagonizing Mom.>

#8: <Sheesh! That's not my idea of progress.>

#1: <Everybody except Mom wants it, so she'll give in eventually. She probably just needs time to get used to the shock of it.>

Carol started complaining, and looked about to get very upset.

I hastened to reassure her, "It's all right, sweetie. Mom's reluctance doesn't stop anything important. We live in the same house so we'll see each other every day. You'll still come to every fun thing that Julia and I do, like we did at the Aquatic Center. We can do almost everything we'd do if Mom agreed, except no hanky-panky. Well maybe a little bit of hanky, but definitely no panky. Not until Mom stops unfairly projecting her lack of trust onto our relationship."