Chapter 49: Obtaining Parental Consent

Thursday, April 14, 2005 (Continued)

Julia led us down the stairs and to the living room. She opened the door, stepped in, then stopped and wailed, "Oh no!"

A moment later Carol and I saw the reason for Julia's reaction. My parents and Donna were in the room, along with all of the Williams family.

It wasn't a situation we could bluff our way out of. The room was done up like a church, with white flowers all over the place and lit candles in stands, with two especially large stands of them in what was obviously the place the three of us would carry out the ceremony. The sofas and chairs were all arranged to focus on the ceremony area, and there was even hymn music playing softly. My girls were wearing matching wedding-type dresses, completing our self-incrimination.

#4: <With revealingly thin tops and no bras, which they're going to be embarrassed about.>

I wasn't going to get out of this by saying, "Hi Mom, what a coincidence your being here too. Is it dinnertime yet or should I go back to my studying?" I was in MAJOR LEAGUE crap!

Donna leaped to her feet and ran at me declaring, "This is so neat!"

#1: <And confusing. What's going on?>

The first clue I noticed was that Donna was wearing a very pretty dress, one I'd not seen before. Other than her field hockey uniform, Donna very rarely wears dresses, especially pretty ones, because they're feminine and slow her down. It has to be a special occasion for Mom to be willing to take on the battle of wills required to force Donna into a dress, but Donna was smiling from ear to ear now, confusing me.

As Donna reached and threw her arms around me, she said, "Congratulations, Mark. I am so happy for you. And for Carol and Julia." After hugging me, she went to hug Carol, "You look so beautiful Carol. Wow, what a neat day."

I looked up, at my parents. They weren't smiling - to put it mildly - but they didn't look like they were about to murder me either. Maybe I'd survive this.

Prof spoke, "Mark, Carol; your parents know about your plans. We have convinced them to listen to our and your reasons, as they have several concerns."

"No shit!" from Dad.

Mom didn't even frown at him for swearing in front of the kids. That was NOT a good sign.

Prof continued, "First of all, let's make sure we are all on the same page. Did you come here to carry out your ceremony? Do you all want to marry each other?"

#3: <Mom and Dad didn't react to the "marry" so they know everything. Fuck!>

Julia, who had moved back to take my arm on the other side from Carol, said, "Yes, we all do."

Carol, in a voice trying very hard to be firm, said, "Yes. I want to marry Mark and Julia."

Even though I knew I was committing suicide, I had to take my turn, "Yes, I do too. Sorry."

Prof said, "Don't start apologizing, Mark. You do that too much. Your parents are not as against this as you probably think."

#2: <I thought we'd be dead by now, so apparently not.>

Then the thought occurred to me that they'd been sitting down here waiting for us, rather than storming up to Julia's bedroom and sledge-hammering the door open. Wow! That meant a lot. I didn't know what, but it had to be a lot. I now officially had no idea what was going through their heads.

I took my life in my hands to ask, "Mom, can you explain what you think about this, please?"

Mom answered, "We've known about this for a couple of days..."

#4: <So much for our thinking they'd find out "sooner or later", and hoping for "years later". We should've known she'd find out "before".>

" ... and have talked to Prof and Vanessa a great deal about it. They believe it's justifiable and they've convinced us to listen to your reasons. Their arguments are that the three of you are very happy and good together; and that your abilities are a strong reason not to abide by society's standard of acceptable behavior and law, both of which are extremely serious issues, especially if you get Carol pregnant. Prof tells us you have a secret ability that he believes will be overwhelmingly convincing. We want to see that before we discuss this further."

#4: <About thirty minutes ago we decided that to avoiding having to kill ourselves meant showing as few people as possible. Now we've got a room full. Seven new people in total. At least we had a few weeks of a good life.>

Julia accused, "Mom, why didn't you tell me they knew? You deliberately kept me in the dark!"

Vanessa acknowledged, "Yes, I apologize for that but we had to see whether you truly wanted to do this. We wanted your honest, best decisions. If the three of you knew that Felicity and Steven knew, we feared it'd push you into making the wrong decision for the wrong reason. Either push you into doing it when you wouldn't have otherwise, out of stubbornness or rebellion; or more likely push you into not doing it despite your love, out of fear or a sense of responsibility. We thought this way was better because now we know - and importantly each of you know - your honest desires."

Carol, who had been hugging my arm very hard, defiantly yelled at Mom, "I love Mark. I'm never going to give him up, no matter what you say! And I'm going to have his babies."

That last statement did NOT help reassure Mom and Dad. Prof and Vanessa looked happy though.

It's extremely unusual for Carol to go head to head with anyone, and even rarer that it be Mom. So Mom answered carefully, "We know you love Mark, that's another reason why we're prepared to think about this. We know the only way we can keep you two apart is to literally 'keep you apart'; to send one of you away. We don't want to do that. But neither do we think your continuing to have sex together is acceptable either, you're his 13-year old sister, for goodness sake!"

#4: <Good grief! They know we've been having sex. How come we aren't dead yet?>

#3: <Like we did with Annette, we need to get rid of our nervousness. We need all our wits about us for this, not to be the nervous wreck we are now.>

I went through my list of symptoms, suppressing each of them. It quickly made us feel MUCH better, other than intellectually because we still thought we were in the crap.

Carol proclaimed, "We haven't been having sex! I'm still a virgin and I can prove it!"

Mom said, "Only because you're saving it for your so-called wedding night. You've done a great deal of sex play at home in the last few days. Don't try to deny it."

#3: <How on Earth do mothers know these things?> [[Mine had noticed the smell in my room, gotten suspicious, brushed my bed's covers to rub her hand through a puddle, and sampled it once she was out of sight. Mothers are damned hard to fool.]]

Carol was wisely silent for a few seconds, then just repeated, "I love Mark and Julia." Mom won that round.

Prof announced, "It's time for you to demonstrate your ability, Mark."

Julia answered firmly, "Only to the parents. Everyone else out. It's too dangerous to Mark for unnecessary people to know."

#4: <Good girl.>

Prof said, "You told us that before. The Boys and Donna will leave the room."

The Boys got up, but Donna didn't want to miss out. She pleaded, "Mark, can I please stay and see it? Pretty please?"

"I hate to say this to you, but 'No.' This isn't a game; it's deadly serious. This could get someone killed, so it's best that as few people as necessary know. It's not necessary for you, sorry."

"Oh. That's scary."

"Yes, it's scary. I'd much prefer not to show anyone, but I have to, to marry Julia and Carol. Please go with The Boys, sweetie."

Donna, to her credit, didn't make a bigger fuss.

Robert said, "Come on, Donna," and The Boys led Donna out of the living room.

I closed the door behind them, checking that no one was listening to the door or watching through the crack (it's a double door), by looking through myself. My proximity sense didn't pick up anything through the door either, although I didn't know whether it worked through a closed door. I made a mental note to test that later, presuming I had a later.

Reassured that no one was spying on us, I turned to face the jury. I had previously decided to show Prof and Vanessa by floating one of his handkerchiefs around the room, but the need to convince Mom and Dad made me decide to considerably upgrade the quality of the demonstration. The parents were standing in a semi-circle, facing us three, very much like a firing squad. There were several floral arrangements behind them at the far end of the room, so I TK-pulled two white roses out of a vase, then floated them toward the mothers. It'd been my intention to float them around to the front of each mother, and then to present one flower to each of them, but my girls reacted when they saw the roses float, and the parents soon figured out that the girls were looking behind them so they all turned around and saw the flowers floating toward them.

Fortunately I foresaw a problem before it happened. To present the flower to the mothers, it would naturally be to their front, but that would put the flowers out of my line of sight, blocked by each mother's body. Having the flowers fall to the floor was not as impressive as I wanted to be, so I changed my intent and the flowers' direction. I raised them higher, flew them over the parents' heads, and arced them down into my fiancées' hands.

Although I had to concentrate reasonably intently on the flowers, I did have a spare mind that informed the rest of us that the parents were gobsmacked. Having the flowers fly directly over their heads was a cool effect (the Williams' house was quite large and grand, including having a high ceiling in the living room).

The parents still hadn't said anything by the time my girls got their flowers, so I followed up with, "Just in case any of you think there might have been hidden wires or who knows what other type of trick, Prof, do you have a handkerchief in your pocket?"

"Can you imagine me coming to a wedding without several?"

"Haha, good point. Obviously there are no wires around them, so can you pull one out please, and just hold it in the palm of your hand in front of you please."

Prof did so.

I allowed it to sit in his hand for a second, to build the tension a little, I then floated it up a few inches. There were intakes of breath from all the parents.

"Prof, run your hands quickly around it, to check for wires." I specified "quickly" to minimize the risk of Prof's blocking my line of sight for more than half a second. I could catch the hanky once it'd fallen back into sight, but it'd be more impressive if it didn't fall, and I REALLY wanted to be impressive.

Prof circled his hands and arms all around his hovering hanky. He could clearly see where I was pinching it as the rest of the hanky draped down from that point, and he particularly waved his hands back and forth above and around that point. I already had a grip on a lower edge, in case he blocked my line of sight for too long, but he didn't. He also moved his eyes right down to the pinch point, only an inch away from it, but he couldn't see anything, of course.

I said, "To make the absence of wires even more convincing, I'll move it in ways that would tangle any wire." I floated the hanky up to one of the room's main lights. It wasn't quite a chandelier, but it had several arms. I passed the hanky around and through them several times, the fingertips only passing out of sight for moments.

The parents were starting to make comments such as, "Incredible" | "Wow" | "Is that really you doing that, Mark?"

I nodded, wondering what Vanessa - who'd asked the last question - thought the alternative might be, and wouldn't that still be equally impressive.

I flew the hanky to be in front of Prof, and then said, "Yours, I believe."

He took it, and examined it very suspiciously, but ended up finding nothing untoward, and put it away.

I said, "Mom and Dad, just in case you think Prof was an accomplice of mine, why don't you each remove something from your pockets or purse. I especially recommend hundred-dollar bills, haha."

Unfortunately neither took the hint, although they got the joke and Dad managed to squeeze out a small smile. Dad pulled out his car keys, Mom a tube of lipstick.

"Hold them in your palm, and when you're ready, turn your hand over and let them drop." I'd figured that catching them in midair would look even better. It was easy to do as TK-fingertips can move as fast as my eyes can track.

Dad, whether he intended to or not, set me a little challenge. He said to Mom, "3, 2, 1, drop!"

Mom and Dad turned their hands over at the same time, but with each of my minds able to control an eyeball, and both objects still being within my stereoscopic field of view, it wasn't a problem. Dad's key ring had quite a few keys on it, and metal being heavy I'd already allocated two minds to catching that, with one mind to Mom's lipstick.

I caught them as quickly as I could, before they built up much downward velocity. I raised them both so they were at about eye level, two or three feet in front of Mom and Dad. Noticing that the key ring itself was probably wide enough for the lipstick to pass through, I made sure I could hold the key ring up with one mind (yes), which gave me a spare mind. Then I aimed the lipstick at the ring and moved it in that direction. I passed the tube through the ring very slowly, 'handing off' to the spare mind when it was halfway through as there wasn't enough clearance for the lipstick's fingertips to pass through the ring with the tube. I thought the effect looked seamless and quite cool.

Holding the lipstick stationary, I used two minds to move the key ring to above Dad's head, almost touching the ceiling and slightly in front of him. Everyone watched it. When it was in position, I said, "Catch, Dad," as I dropped them.

Dad caught them easily. Just like Prof had done with his hanky, Dad examined his keys very suspiciously.

After a few seconds I said, "If I might direct your attention to the magically floating lipstick."

When they were all looking, I used all three minds to take it on a high speed tour of the far corners of the room, to emphasize my range and - in my opinion - my coolness. It was so light that I could zoom it around quite impressively, even zooming it down to 'strafe' the carpet in a clear area partway along the long length of the room, before raising it to the ceiling again, where I did most of the movements to ensure a clear line of sight. I also weaved it around the light fitting as I'd done with Prof's hankerchief.

After a complete orbit I headed it back directly over the top of my parents, once more to the far end of the room. In passing, I noticed that Mom's handbag was at her feet and open, as she'd left it after extracting her lipstick. It was quite small and I had a little idea. I had to use three minds to slow the lipstick down, and once I had it returning toward the parents slowly, I left one mind on it and used two to try to lift the handbag. That was enough force to enable me to raise the bag a few inches up and behind Mom's legs. Then I floated it farther behind them. All the parents were facing the lipstick coming back from the far end of the room so none of them saw the handbag move. Once I had the bag three or four feet clear of my parents, I raised it to about waist height, and held it hovering there with one mind pulling each handle apart so it was open.

The lipstick passed overhead of the parents, then started slowing so as to stop roughly above the handbag, whereupon I started lowering the lipstick.

Vanessa was the farthermost from the handbag, and was able to spot it first. She just said, "Oh." The others saw the bag in turn, as the lipstick dropped toward it.

I stopped the lipstick a few inches above the purse, saying, "I believe you dropped this, Mom," bobbling the lipstick up and down a couple of times. "Let me put it away for you."

I dropped it into her handbag. I used all three minds to slowly move the purse toward her hand: two minds to hold it up, one to push. "This is yours too, I believe."

Mom caught it when it was close, and even pulled it open and looked down suspiciously, perhaps not believing the lipstick was in there.

I said, "I think that's a sufficient demonstration, don't you?"

That broke the dam. MANY expressions of incredulity followed, from all four parents speaking on top of each other.

My girls just stood beside me quietly, their flowers in one hand, an arm of mine in their other. I remembered my original idea, turned to Julia, and quietly told her to let her flower go. She did, and I floated it around in front on me so I could keep it in sight when I talked to Carol. I asked her to let her flower go too. I then sent one flower each to Mom and Vanessa. Now my girls could hold me with both of their hands, and more importantly, the parents were holding physical proof of my ability.

The parents had fallen silent when the flowers had started moving, and once they were being held cautiously, the questions restarted. All four of them were asking questions at the same time.

Julia let go my arm and stepped in front of me. She held up a hand and announced, "Mark will NOT answer your questions. You know enough to know that he's superhuman, which is what we agreed to show you so you would allow us to marry each other. You've seen your proof and now you're just being curious, which is too risky. Mark's life is at stake, and his security and safety takes priority over your curiosity. Now I want to get married, so please let's get on with it."

#3: <Wow, she's brave!>

Prof and Vanessa went quiet, both clearly thinking. Mom and Dad neither quieted nor stopped to think. Dad's voice particularly dominated, "It was an impressive trick, but claiming lives are at stake is going too far and it doesn't change my mind about your misbehavior."

Julia started responding when Prof overrode her, "Steven, Julia's correct. This is a great deal more serious than it seems. Julia has had longer to think about this than we have, so you should give her credit for understanding it better than we do yet. In my opinion, we've seen the proof we insisted on. Mark is truly exceptional, and I know several physicists who would cut off important parts of their anatomy to be allowed to study what Mark just did. Mark is, as Julia told us he was, superhuman. I agree with the wedding proceeding."

Vanessa added, "I also agree it should proceed."

Mom was sufficiently confused by Vanessa's and Prof's being convinced so quickly that she wasn't sure what to say. Unfortunately she wasn't convinced herself, only confused. Dad was a different story. "Flying flowers doesn't convince me of anything. Mark's my son and I can question him all I want, regardless of what Julia says."

Uh oh, this was getting ugly, especially because Mom wasn't going to stand up to Dad on an issue she didn't understand.

Prof said, "If I understand Julia correctly, she's refusing our asking questions because the more we know the greater the danger of one of us making a slip in public. Is that correct, Julia?"

"Yes, that's the main reason, but also because we made a deal to DEMONSTRATE Mark's ability to you. We've done that, and now you're trying to change the deal by wanting to question Mark about it. That's not honest or safe for Mark, so I object."

Prof replied, "I think the problem is that Steven and Felicity don't understand how scary Mark's demonstration was."

#1: <They're not the only ones. The demonstration was halfway impressive, but I can't see why it was scary as we didn't touch anyone, let alone their eyeballs. It takes the eyeball thing to make us scary, like what Julia did to Carol upstairs.>

#4: <I'm happy Prof and Vanessa won't be asking any questions though. I'd bet their questions would be much tougher than Mom's and Dad's.>

Prof turned to Dad, "You're right that flying flowers aren't scary or dangerous in any way, but you saw Mark 'stealing' Felicity's handbag. What's to stop him from stealing handbags from women in public, or standing outside a jewelry store and making all their expensive diamonds fly out the door? He could even hide his tracks by unplugging security systems or covering cameras with bags, or by shorting out electrical systems by flying pieces of metal into the right places.

^-- "He could plant listening devices - bugs - in otherwise inaccessible places just by flying them there, even floating them into the pockets of his victims. He could plant bombs the same way, or fly poison into the drink or food of someone important. Or how about flying rocks into the engines of a plane as it was taking off? What do you think the government would do if they knew Mark could crash any plane using nothing more than his mind and whatever rocks were around? There are countless groups who would kill to get control of Mark. Every spy service and every criminal organization for a start, and doubtless others too.

^-- "If word of Mark's ability got out he'd be in great danger, as would your whole family. Even if the authorities got to you first, your rights would fly out the window faster than Mark could fly a tube of lipstick. The authorities couldn't let you be free again, not when you could be used to threaten Mark to work for terrorists, for example. Julia considerably understated the case when she said there were safety issues. This isn't just a cute way of delivering roses; this is an extremely impressive and scary ability. Are you getting the idea?"