Chapter 17

I could discuss my first three days in Lovett ad nausium, but I won't. I loved the town at first glimpse and even had wild notions about selling my unsellable cursed house so that I could move down here and join the happy throng. Actually the people were more than a bit subdued and overall perhaps a tad shell shocked, like they'd won some unspeakable pyrrhic victory against unspeakable odds but were still holding out for a vote recount. No one, for love, money or even for the chance of a blowjob from Amy, would even discuss, let alone explain the ruined and broken stone pillar right in the center of town. The weird looks I received convinced me eventually that I probably didn't want to know.

Molly and Andrew's local partners in crime, if experimenting with absurdly illegal and immoral drugs qualifies, were Molly's father Walter and Dr. Myra Scott, or rather, by her slave name 'Mina'. She in turn had her own lovely slave girl Allison, or was it the other way around? They in turn both groveled at the feet of the County Fire Chief, Peter Wells. A man who certainly knew how to use his hose! Sorry, I couldn't resist the joke.

They in turn had the help of another Doctor, a biologist Rosalyn White and her husband Sandy, who were apparently responsible for growing most of the raw ingredients that Batch 32 was concocted from. All of them would just have rather burn all of the greenhouses down to the ground as look at them, but they were taking the long approach. Their drug was too dangerous for anyone to possess, therefore it might as well be them.

For the first day or two, I sat quietly in the periphery and watched all of the brain doctors do their thing. The second and third opinions weren't any more optimistic than Mary and Andrew's initial one.

"Poor dear!" Was the kindest comment I heard, and I'm 85% sure I heard all of the doc's conferring later in private and suggesting that dying (soon) in the bug house might just be the kindest solution for everyone involved. Amy, who was in closer eavesdropping range than me, did hear most of the particulars and went semi-nuclear upon everyone in private behind closed doors for the next few hours. Amy could rival any Mediterranean beauty for volatility when crossed, and right now she saw herself fighting as Kathy's champion. Even a one in ten chance would do; I wasn't quite that hopeful ... or sure that I could live with the fact that her dangerous procedure would likely go entirely tits up, leaving my lover possibly even more permanently fucked up than before.

I can't help it, I was born (to my mother's dismay) an incurable optimist and some majority part of me kept thinking that if I patiently held her hand and babbled sweet nothings to her nonstop day and night, that eventually like Sleeping Beauty, my darling would reawaken.

Amy tried to be polite about the situation, and my apparent lack of reality, but remained improbably gentle with me. Myra was much blunter.

"You're not helping!" She stated in a tone that probably caused chronic bedwetting when offered to the majority of her patients. "I want three things from you! First, I want a loud and sincere 'go or no go' from you. This whole thing is probably pointless but we're willing to try anyway. Even Molly thinks this is pointless, and would entirely be for packing her off to hospital to rot, except ... she swears that you told her that you heard Katherine's voice last, with her final words. She's willing to bet that even if Kathy, Katie or Trixie are gone, that something ... perhaps your Katherine, is still there and can be brought out. Maybe to stay, but probably not. If, and that's my own personal guess, that only Trixie is left ... or it's the only personality that's recoverable, then that's what you're going to get, but I'd advise a few moderate alterations. That's part number two! Fill out this questionnaire, and yes it has a lot of extremely personal questions in it but do it anyway. And be honest too. You'll only be lying to yourself, and then screwing up your girlfriend more in the process if you avoid or lie about any of them. You've heard of the wartime expression 'we had to destroy the village in order to save it'? That's where we're likely going to be ... and if the only way to bring Kathy back to life again is to make her an abjectly obedient little fuck doll, then so be it! She'd probably enjoy it anyway, even if she had the choice. I did have that choice! Made it years ago and don't regret it, so she'll undoubtedly be happy too ... or I'll make her happy with it!"

"Umm, what's the third thing I need to do?" I dared to enquire.

"After you fill out the questionnaire, get the fuck out of my clinic until you're called for! You're being disgusting, just sitting there calmly thinking happy thoughts and I need to get my war face on and prepare for battle. We going into her mind, bit by bit and it's going to take us days of unrelenting focus, and that's if everything goes right the first time, which nothing does! Your girls can stay, Amy especially seems to have her head on straight and for the most part so does Anne-Marie. Some quality time spent eating between my thighs will fix any other residual cheerfulness and unwarranted optimism they might have. Now get busy on those forms and go!"

The forms were extremely personal. There was one full page of questions about our anal sex habits alone. Was it a reward for her or something she did to please me? Where did whipping and other chastisement seem to hurt her the most? Where did it also cause the most pleasure? Did I want her to drink down my pee like it was the finest champagne? Well, I was pretty sure that I knew how Anne would answer that question on her own questionnaire, but I was much less certain about my own wants and desires. Just how did I want my fuck doll 'programmed' anyway? Honestly, having my own personal painslut didn't sound like all that much fun, but then again I still didn't understand why Amy wanted to grovel at my feet when I obviously wasn't worthy of her. She'd become a whore to settle my debts and if she'd resented a minute of it, she'd never spoken a word of it. She'd whore for me again tomorrow, if I so much as hinted it.

I didn't think you could artificially make that kind of love ... and I really didn't want to find out!

So ... I filled out the forms, guessing at what sorts of abuse that Trixie had most likely enjoyed in the past and then I scribbled a long confessional at the bottom that complained that I had no idea about how to actually implement any of these delightful abuses and torments, particularly in any sort of convincing manner that would make any self-respecting slave girl want to curl up her toes and beg for more.

Having done everything that I could do here, Peter took me over to his buddy Chris' café, Chez Chris, and the three of us proceeded to drink exceedingly heavily until the early hours of the morning. It was actually extremely therapeutic, right until Peter got a bit blotted and sentimental and gave me the story of how he lost and found Allison, and what nightmares he endured to bring her back healthy, physically and mentally. Chris's ex-wife Penny had undergone some slight treatment of her own with Batch 31 (the previous less effective version of the drug) and he muttered something about the horrors of a remote semi-mythical East African island called Sao Aynum-Dam, which was Phoenician for 'island of fish-men', and the original biological source for the two rarest ingredients of the world's most powerful mind control drug. I then made the mistake of asking why (blame it on the booze) and to my eternal regret, he told me.

The drinking got very serious after that!

Two days later I was still about half-drunk, although there had been some brief periods of near complete sobriety. I'd discovered the local clothing optional beach and a nice little sand side cantina that served lots of heavily alcoholic potables, the tastiest as frozen concoctions. As I had no car keys on my personage and wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, I made the bartender Phil my best bosom buddy in the world and he kept the hard lemonades flowing.

I had secrets I needed to keep and another secret that was burning a hole in the back hind-end part of my skull. My alleged astronaut father might have held an advanced degree in engineering, but solving the puzzle of the secret garden seemed at once on the tip of my tongue and too far away for me to reach, even if I had a moon rocket.

The women were taking turns baby-sitting me and assisting with Kathy. When either of them ever slept, it was well beyond me! Still Amy kept going. She 'had to', she just explained as she cuddled up next to me on the sand just a few feet above the current tide mark. It was going out, and I wanted to just feel the hint of the spray without getting much more than my toes wet at the moment. Amy slid out of her sundress and cuddled up nude against me. No one deigned to even notice my Asian lover's exceptional charms. This was a very popular nude beach and naked beauties seemed to be everywhere on display this late afternoon.

Especially decorative to the eyes were a collection of teenagers, probably of high school age and well tanned all over. The group was mostly girls but they had a couple of boyfriends along as well. They were splashing and playing about in the surf and sand, but not with any particular meaningful sincerity. They were young and alive, happy with the world and everything in it, and each other. There was quite a lot of grab ass, and not just asses. The girls kissed and hugged often, tugging on a few penises in the process and there was little doubt that the kids probably had some rather complicated sleeping arrangements of their own. As happy as they all looked, I began to think that their particular flavor and variety of love was perhaps unusually complicated (and special) indeed. From what I could tell about Lovett even as a near stranger, the town seemed to be unusually sexually liberated and non-judgmental, and unconventional relationships like Peter, Myra's and Allison's were far from unique, and even common enough to be rather unremarkable.

Phil was giving the teens a smile and laughed but shook his head no when they asked for a 'hard one'. Undoubtedly the lemonades that they then received were of the unleaded variety. Then Phil's eyes suddenly became cold and worried as the last girl of the group now apparently turned away from joining her mates, and her eyes were strictly focused upon Amy and myself.

Why did my blood now run some completely cold out here in the warm sun, sea and sand?

"What did the Moon Runes say on Thrór's map?" The peculiar young long black haired girl suddenly asked us with a curious intonation of her voice and eyes that seemed sparkle an orange gold in the light as if they reflected the sand at our feet and yet also the stars unseen in the daylight sky above.

"Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks, and the setting sun with the last light of Durin's Day will shine upon the key-hole. This was to open the keyhole for the hidden passage into the Lonely Mountain for Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thráin, son of Thrór, King Under the Mountain." Amy immediately replied from rote memory. She was the English Major and the constant book reader for sheer pleasure in our household and she had remembered the quote from "The Hobbit" by heart.

Lucy, that was the young lady's name, just smiled at her. "Indeed so. Thus Bilbo found the secret way into the heart of the dragon's horde, to find what the dwarves had failed to, discover the treasures hidden within, their lost secret garden of their hearts delight, namely the gold and silver. Thrór's map with the invisible moon runes is now gone from where it hung on his wall, but the thrush and the stone still remain. There, you'll find other happier and more needful treasures than just a dragon's horde and you'll find your own secret garden there too, and even find time to sow and yet even reap before the night skies burn with fire and all of the old problems of this world become less than nothing. What you might sow there, do it for all and you will thereafter reap nothing but happiness. Be careful, be clever and be prepared and you too might yet become the next King Under the Mountain." Her words were as a doom and I felt nothing but relief as her eyes then broke contact with mine but became fixed instead upon Amy with some obvious singular purpose.

"I've been waiting a very long time for us to meet together like this today and for me to relinquish my gift." The young beach girl giggled and she briefly hugged my lover. Then she placed an open hand upon Amy's stomach and let it slide gently down a bit until it rested just over her public bone. The lovely young lady then smiled again.

"I will be eighteen tomorrow and I always knew that this day would come and that I would not have to bear this anymore, but instead I am fated to pass it onwards now, to gift it to your daughter. She will be beautiful, even prettier than either you or I, and she will be the other delight of your heart, so cherish her for another shall not come, but you will take equal joy from the children of your beloved sister-wives. More importantly, she will be wise, a better woman than any of us as well and long after the skies turn bright with the colors of the rainbow bridge it shall be by her hand the world is rebuilt, and into something a great deal nicer than this old world. You and your lovers shall fight to preserve what was past, but to your daughter Elanor the Fair, your golden Elanorellë, falls the tasks of creation and restoration, so cherish and love her, for her burden will be heavier than mine ever was. The old cold fires of this old world will mostly never burn again, except for the far too rare refuges, places like your secret garden, but she will back an yet older more primeval and wilder fire and with it begin to forge a different sort of world, perhaps even a better one. Will you on her behalf accept my gift to her?"

Amy just nodded and the two women hugged for a long moment, then kissed first as sisters and then as lovers would and as their mouth's met for a moment I thought I saw a spark enter into Amy's womb, which was apparently newly fertile with our child. Conceived I think that desperate unhappy night together as we made love in my study. Lucy then placed something into Amy's hand and closed it up tightly.

"This last gift is also for your daughter, but if you wish you may bear it for her for a time. This was from the hand of a very good and kind man whom we called Father Al. He's gone now, but he knew that you would be coming and he told me he wanted you have it. Yes, the ring on my own hand is very similar but not quite the same, but still original gifts from the original ancient Majii. There was no place for magic in our soulless modern electronic world but the seasons change and what was once very old shall in due course become all new once again like fresh leaves on a tree in spring. We, your daughter and I are fated to do different things, but I think we shall meet some day long in the future. I think I met her in a dream once, and my dreams have always come true, although I wish many of them had not. Be well my aunt of spirit!"

"But what do I do? It's all too much!" Amy begged the girl as she fell to her knees in the wet sand in misery as Lucy started to turn to leave.

"Always love those closest to you. Then hope for the best but prepare for the worst ... the worst you can possibly conceive of! You'll be fine ... now hurry up and go visit your sick lover. Katherine's there but she just doesn't want to talk to Myra. I wouldn't either ... she's really quite often a very rude bitch and deserves all of the delightfully delicious whippings that Allison and Pete can give her, but her heart's good ... so humor her, but make her let Kurt talk to Katherine or soon she'll fade away and be lost like the others."

The schoolgirls then all left, and in something of a hurry. They had undoubtedly seen Lucy's displays often enough, but this one had to be odder than most. My lover Amy was in something of a shock and without words, so I helped her to her feet and got Phil to pour her a cold one (unleaded). She drank it all nearly in a gulp and was still in something of a shock for some few minutes thereafter.

"Phil, that was fucking weird!" I exclaimed. "Please tell me that she's just someone's potty daughter perhaps on weekend release from some rubber room somewhere!"

"Sorry, bud. If Lucy, says something... anything, then it's either true and did happen or it will happen. Trust me. She's been like that since she was a little girl and her grandmother had the gift too. It skips generations, her mom told me once and I didn't know that she could 'give away' her gift, but she told me yesterday when she was walking on the beach that it would be gone tomorrow, given to someone who would need it more someday, and that she'd be a completely normal girl afterwards, or mostly so anyway. Darned if I think that's just what happened!"

"It all true then... everything?"

"Yep, the night turns to day and the sky fills with fire and civilization ends with a bang, not a whimper. I heard about it first right before Father Al died. You didn't know him ... Hell, no one really knew him, but he confirmed from the pulpit the day before he died that the world as we knew it would end, just right before Christmas. I saw Lucy give you his ring, and that means that that this is very serious, and more important than you can possibly know. It's not the only one of those rings in this town, but it's one of the very most important. Lucy said she could wear it, and it will undoubtedly be useful, but it should be kept secret, more secret than even the hint of a whisper and keep it hidden in the safest darkest place you can find to hide. It doesn't look like it here, or well, maybe it does ... we've had something of a war here ourselves. Secret hidden evil organizations and even worse secrets that you don't want to know about anyway, and rings like Lucy's and Father Al's helped to preserve us ... and were also worn by several of those what would have destroyed us ... and they nearly did. That story's too long to tell, so anyway, we won ... sort of, and believe it or not we might actually have really saved the world from a still worse fate. Or at least, this was the best of the available outcomes, as it could have gotten much worse. Maybe somewhere in some other happier dimension we won big and this particular mini-end of the world was evaded entirely, but it's not happening here so I wouldn't invest in any long term investments. Prepare for something absolutely biblical and you'll likely be prepared for the worst."