Chapter 19: Sunday, August 8, 2010

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Jake sat with his arm around his grandmother. Granddad was well into his sermon and was getting charged up. Jake normally enjoyed listening to his grandfather preach, but he had other things to think about that morning.

Although he wanted to focus on his own problem, Jake had not seen Gramma that often lately. He glanced into her mind to see how she was doing. Gramma was paying more attention to the sermon than Jake was. He wondered how she did that. She must have heard everything Granddad had to say over and over.

When her mind did stray from the sermon, she worried. Jake followed her thoughts. She was worried about Carol having sex. She was worried that Granddad didn’t find her, Gramma, attractive anymore. Was he going to be seduced by Carol? Fortunately, she thought, Carol was spending most of her free time with Julie DeRizzo. But that was a worry in itself. Why was Ellen living with the DeRizzo family? Was there something funny going on there? That Shannon girl had been so over the top. How was she involved with Ellen? Ellen hadn’t denied it. That was as good as an admission. Would that stop Ellen from finding a man? Ellen had been blooming lately, showing confidence that she had never had before. So why wasn’t she out dating? And what about Jake? Was he going to be led astray living in that house?

Gramma grimaced at a twinge of pain in her chest. It was just one of any number of aches and pains that came and went at her age, to say nothing of the arthritis in her hands that was a constant irritant. Gramma wondered if any of it was worth going to a doctor. Probably not, she decided. Her own mother had lived into her eighties. When was the last time she had been to the doctor?

Jake pulled her closer to him and whispered into her ear. “You worry too much, Gramma. Everything’s going to work out.”

She frowned at him. “Jake, how do you do that?” she whispered back.

“Don’t ever take up poker,” he said, though he felt a twinge of guilt at the deception.

Jake’s own problems reclaimed his attention. He had slept for about four hours, which was more than he had thought he was going to get. He had snuck out of bed leaving Alice, Leanne and Kara still asleep, grabbed a shower, and driven to Granddad’s early service.

He let his mind wander, hoping a solution would come to him, something that had eluded him the night before. He couldn’t see an alternative to the new Jake — Dom Jake, as he thought of him — taking Ellen as his slave. He and Ellen could not go back to the way they had been. If they tried, a real dom would come along eventually and steal her away. Even with the new personality — which Leanne had not removed — the possibility existed that Ellen might still be seduced away from him, again putting her abilities in the service of someone who was not to be trusted. Jake had to do something to ensure her loyalty. He just didn’t see how he could live with himself afterward.

Soon the sermon was over. Granddad gave the offertory prayer, and then, while the offering was being taken, began to prepare for the Eucharist.

A new thought came to Jake. He could take away her mind-reading power. At least then the outcome would no longer be a matter of life and death. Ellen could then make her own decisions about men and endure the consequences the same as any other person did. He didn’t owe her anything else. She had rejected him. He was no longer responsible for her. But how would the others react? Would they worry that Jake might do the same to them if there was a dispute in the future?

Jake numbly followed the congregation as it variously stood, sat, and knelt. No matter how he tried to arrange things, the final result seemed inevitable. The Ellen he had had and the relationship they had shared was lost to him. And to her. At some level that had to be important to her, even if it had not been important enough to override Ellen’s desire for a more commanding dom.

He felt Gramma’s hand on his cheek. He looked down at her. Her hand drew back wet with his tears. She was looking at him with concern. He smiled down at her sadly.

She asked him for an explanation after the service. All he would say was that he had had his heart broken. When she pressed him, he asked her for some space to come to terms with it.

Where’s Jake, Lizzie asked Leanne who was sitting across from her and serving herself a piece of garlic bread.

Kara answered for her.

He told me that we should go ahead and have lunch without him. He said something urgent had come up. He won’t be able to break away.

Jake had fed those carefully phrased and somewhat accurate sentences to Kara to pull out if Lizzie asked about his absence.

Oh, Lizzie said simply, her disappointment obvious to all, particularly the mind readers.

It certainly didn’t get past Boris who was jealous of her obvious interest in Jake and ashamed that he was having trouble sharing her with him. Jake could picture him looking stonily down at his plate. Jake sent him a wave of sympathy from his bedroom where he was hiding out.

He did say that he wanted to see you this afternoon, though, Kara said. He was planning to drop by later if you don’t mind receiving him.

Oh, Lizzie said again, this time nervously.

Do you want me to tell him not to come over? Kara asked.

No, I guess not. Maybe we should have a talk. Where’s Ellen?

She’s feeling under the weather, Kara said. It’s nothing serious.

Lizzie and Emily were the only two who didn’t know that something was askew in the house. Even Christine had detected the tension when she had arrived with Jan for dinner. Conversation was halting. Leanne gave terse answers when anyone attempted to talk to her. Otherwise she was silent. She ate little.

Jake used the time to take a long, close look at Lizzie’s mind. She was uncomfortable about Jake coming to see her later. Her mind was caught in a curious attraction-repulsion tension. When she thought about how she was drawn to him, feelings of shame and panic erupted. When she considered rejecting him, loss and longing disheartened her. It had apparently been that way since Jake had met her in June. No wonder she was a basket case. The complication with Boris just made it that much more difficult for her to get her head around the whole affair.

That woman is a mess, isn’t she? Kara sent to Jake.

You know, I hadn’t realized how confused she is.

Why not? She’s been like this at least since they moved here.

I should have seen it. It’s just that I always seem to be in the middle of things when I’m around her. This is the first time I’ve had the chance to sit back and observe her since the day I met her in Branson.

So is the plan still on? Kara asked.

When Jake had finally tired of ruminating about his problem with Ellen, he and Kara had spent an hour that morning talking about how to resolve matters with Lizzie. Jake steadfastly refused to tamper with her mind. Given that restriction, Kara recommended that Jake spend more time with Lizzie in low key situations, avoiding circumstances in which Lizzie was forced to deal with Jake as a possible romantic partner. Seeing Lizzie’s agitation, Jake saw the wisdom in Kara’s plan.

Yes, I think so. Do me a favor. Find out how Lizzie and Emily like pass the time among themselves.

Emily, Kara asked, how are you keeping yourself occupied now that you’re moved in?

Mostly I read, she said. We won’t have cable and Internet hooked up until this coming week. It’s like being back in the dark ages.

Whatever did you old people do back in the days before the Internet, Julie asked Leanne.

I always had stuff to do. Even after the dinosaurs died out, I still had things to occupy myself, such as running the household or gardening when the weather was nice.

When Emily was younger we played board games, Lizzie said.

Yeah, we did, Emily said, suddenly animated. Life, and Chutes and Ladders. Games like that. It was a lot of fun. We used to do that all the time before Dad started getting flaky.

That thought brought her back down again.

Poor Emily, Jake thought, but that was useful intelligence. Lizzie, he saw, had enjoyed the family time lingering over board games, too. That fleshed out his plans for his next move with Lizzie.

He kept an eye on the dining room, following the conversation, watching everybody. He should do this more often. He had a gift, but he got so caught up in doing things that he seldom took the time to just get to know his friends better. Except, that is, Ellen. He had always spent time with her late at night, the two of them communing. That was when he had been happiest, sharing thoughts and emotions with her.

But that line of thought was too painful. He forced his thoughts back to the dining room table. He should spend more time communing with the other mind readers, too. Of course, he couldn’t ask them to do what he had felt free to order Ellen to do, but there was no reason he couldn’t at least do like he was doing now with Lizzie — just spending time reading them.

Dinner was just about over when Brian stood up.

Can I say something, please? he said.

Jake read him. Son of a bitch. Brian had finally worked himself up to apologize to Carol. He did not want to do it in front of Lizzie and Emily, but Jake’s absence was an opportunity he could not pass up. He would not have to worry about having his real attitudes exposed.

A while back I lost my temper and did something I regret to Carol. My behavior was inexcusable and I wish I hadn’t done it. I offer Carol my apology, and I promise to never do anything like that to her again.

Son of a bitch, Jake thought. Son of a fucking bitch. Not only had Brian apologized, but he had also done a pretty good job of it. And at the worst possible time. Now he was going to feel free to rampage through the females just when Jake had withdrawn his protection from Ellen.

Now all of Jake’s options sucked. He had to either let Brian have his way with her, take control of Brian to keep him away, or take control of Ellen so that she wouldn’t respond to Brian the way she was wired to. Son of a fucking bitch.

Jake cast out to Ellen. She was in her room, watching him, but she was aware of what Brian had done, even if she was too upset at the moment to feel like doing anything sexual.

Leanne asked Brian a few questions to probe the genuineness of his repentance, but she did not go into much depth. She was just relieved that after three months Brian would finally be going back to normal.

Jake waited until Brian left the table and removed the controls that kept Brian feeling afraid and ashamed. He also blocked the nerves in Brian’s face that kept him in pain.

Jake rolled onto his side and stared at the wall, letting his mind hammer at the problem. A minute later the bedroom door opened. He sensed Jan. She sat next to him on the bed and rubbed his back.

“I thought I had done it,” he said softly. “I thought Ellen was safe. I thought we had something great. And now it’s all unraveled. I can’t protect her anymore. In fact, thanks to me, she’s living in the same house as one of the worst predators. And she’s helpless. They kissed yesterday. He’ll come back today for more, and she’ll be powerless to stop him. In fact, she probably won’t even try. She’ll be thrilled to submit to him. He’ll be between her legs by sunset.”

Jan kicked off her shoes and lay down next to him.

“I want to hear the whole thing from start to finish,” Jan said. “Tell me what happened.”

Jake told her the entire story and laid out his options as he saw them.

“It seems to me that the solution is obvious,” Jan said.

“Well, I don’t see it.”

“Yes, you do. It’s one of the possibilities you just mentioned. Tweak her loyalty. If you do, everybody involved comes out ahead, except for Brian who, mercifully, will never realize how close he came to having the sexiest love slave in Texas.”

“But you know that I don’t do that. I don’t change my loved ones into something I like better. If I do that I risk damaging the thing that holds this family together. Everyone will lose faith in me.”

“Your unwillingness to change others is a good policy. It has served you well for the most part, and there’s a certain natural justice to it. It prevents you from taking the fate of others into your own hands. It forces you to accept them as they are. It gives them the freedom to choose their own destiny.”

“That’s how it seems to me.”

“But it breaks down in this case.”

“How so?”

“No principle exists in isolation. That’s not the way the universe works. Some situations, like this one, are too complex. You have to balance competing considerations — trust within the family, security, the individual rights of those affected. All these things are in play. It’s good that you’re thinking about the stability of the family, but Ellen has an interest in this, too. If she wants to be altered, I don’t think you should forbid it.”

“God knows that I’d like to be able to choose that option, Jan. I want to solve this problem. There are too many ways this could end in tragedy if I do the wrong thing. But I just don’t know if I can trust myself.”

“How so?”

“I don’t want to lose Ellen. What if it’s just a rationalization to do something I desperately want to do anyway?”

“Losing perspective is a problem. When that happens, it’s better to let the matter sit for a while. Then later, you can look at it again with fresh eyes. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like you have the luxury of time.”

“I’m so fucked here.”

“But you’re not alone. You have people here who can help you. You can take my advice if you want to. If you’re still undecided, check with someone else whose judgment you trust. Leanne would give you excellent advice.”

“That makes sense.”

“Meanwhile, I don’t think we’re finished reasoning this out. Let’s try a thought experiment. Let’s examine how everyone would be affected if you were to change Ellen. Let’s start with her. Is she harmed or helped?”

“Aside from the loss of her freedom of choice—”

“Aside from the voluntary relinquishment of her choice...”

“Okay. Aside from that, she ends up in a safe place under the protection of someone who loves her. With my new personality, she also gets the thrill of dealing with a real dominant.”

“Good. Now how does it affect you?”

“I still lose Ellen. That’s the worst part of this whole thing for me, but it was going to happen eventually. I’m not sure what effect this new personality is going to have on me. There may be issues that I don’t yet see.”

“And how will it affect the people around you?”

“That’s what I worry about, maybe even more than I worry about losing Ellen.”

“You worry that they will think that if you are willing to change your own mother, you might do it to them, too.”

“Exactly.”

“Then why not explain to everyone what’s going on — how this change is Ellen’s choice, and how you still harbor reservations — but that you reluctantly agree to do it because it is a good solution for all concerned. Don’t you think they will understand why you do it? Won’t they see that you’re not trying to pull a fast one?”

“I would hope so, but what if they don’t react that way?”

“Why don’t we go see? Everybody is here except Alice. Call a family meeting. Try to reach a consensus before you act. It’s an important decision. If you make it openly, it should increase their trust in you, not undermine it.”

Jake looked down the dining room table at the members of the family. His happy family had degenerated into an unhappy mess pretty damn fast.