Chapter 20: Winning the Parents Over

I again revert to a third person perspective, instead of Alex's, to bring yet another set of voices into the story. In this case, it's someone who hasn't yet been heard from, despite their pivotal role, or rather their apparent non-role, in the unfolding story. That's Alex's parents, Frank and Linda Jennings.

The usual reaction is that their behavior is unbelievable in how they allowed their two children into the world without any supervision or support, just as they are facing the biggest challenges of their young lives. However, that view is a bit superficial. As is usual, their perceptions are a bit more complex than that. Hopefully I'll be able to convey just what that perspective is, and how it's grown and adapted over time.

Once again, try not to focus on when this occurs, as the timeframe is at odds to the events in the rest of the story. Just know that it takes place on Friday before Alex's second date with Chalise. And take this into account when trying to wrestle over how Alex's parents could allow what they had for so long.

"You seem particularly distracted, Frank," his wife said to him, worried by his silent behavior. "Are you OK?"

"Hell, no, I'm not OK. Our son is about to make love to not one potential girlfriend, but two of them. And they're going to do it in the presence and full acceptance of his many women. That's bad enough, but you realize what this all means, don't you? It means that everything is wide open now. Once he's screwed his two girlfriends, there's nothing to stop him from doing the same to his other girls. Which also means the same rules apply to Cate. Thus everything I've been worrying about all this time is going to come true. He's going to 'make love' to his sister. Knowing her, she's not going to stop there. She's likely to see this as a great chance to keep him close, both spiritually and physically, by having his baby. If not for that reason, then possibly because she sees it as a necessary genetics experiment!"

"Now, Frank, relax. You know this much stress isn't good for your blood pressure. Everyone else feels good about this. Can't you just relax and accept it? You were fine with it back in New Orleans," Linda argued.

"Ha!" her husband snorted. "Back then Cate was simply infatuated with him. I let things go because Alex seemed to be handling them all so well. He was behaving maturely, not letting himself run wild. He was careful and thoughtful, and everyone around him was trying to help him make rational decisions. I thought reason would prevail. Besides, neither of us has any kind of experience with this kind of thing. It's not like we could advise him on the proper procedure for handling a bunch of women throwing themselves at you."

"And all of that is still true," Linda told him. "The women are very good at keeping him apprised of the options, and they always leave the final decision up to him. And so far he's been very careful in his decisions. He does what he thinks is best and makes sure that he doesn't put himself into a situation that he can't control. So what's the real issue here? Essentially nothing has really changed."

"Cate changed," he complained. "She's been infatuated with him for years. We've both known that, but she seemed to finally be growing up, making plans for her future, planning on a career. I always figured that once she went off to college she'd find a nice boy and she'd get over her feelings for her brother. Even when this started with Alex they both kept it in perspective. She watched out for him and he watched out for her, like always. They were both so much in control I thought it wouldn't hurt for them to keep their own private room, especially after Cate threw that fit about having to come to our room. I figured she'd have enough sense to wander the halls or simply sit on the can or something.

"Instead she lays there and watches him, feeding her own desires for him. But still, they managed to keep that under control. When they had that disagreement I figured it was taken care of. She'd finally figured out she wasn't welcomed in his inner group and she was put out, but that she'd get over it eventually. Then I walk in on them and find out she'd accosted him, getting extremely aggressive with her own brother, and the only reason she finally stopped was that she couldn't face the uncomfortable truth of the situation."

Linda listened to her husband's little tirade. She'd heard much of it before, but she knew better than to interrupt now. He needed to get this out in the open. Letting it fester wouldn't solve anything. That's how he'd been dealing with it up until now, and that approach had clearly been a mistake on his part.

"Then I come home from work and find my two youngest children discussing how they were licking disgusting things off of each other," he grumbled, not even able to repeat what his daughter had said she'd been doing. "She propositioned him, and he let her. But even then I assumed the best. I figured maybe Cate's revulsion would be strong enough to last for a while. With everyone talking about getting Alex a girlfriend, I figured that would end all this fooling around he was focused on.

"Only then things get worse. Despite my talking to them both, letting Cate know how disappointed I was in her, playing on all her fears of unintentionally hurting Alex and hurting his mission, my older daughter goes and screws everything up!

"Melinda, of all people, has to go and seduce the idiot boy. As if he needs any more tail than he already has. But that just wreaks havoc. If it was just Melinda and Alex, she would surely have lost interest in a short while and everything would have been fine in the long run. But instead she goes and brags about it to her sister."

"Melinda didn't... ," Linda started to argue, before she recognized that Frank had no intention of stopping his rant and wasn't particularly interested in specific facts.

"So Cate now sees her position threatened. While before she thought fooling around with her brother was disgusting, Melinda adds a sense of urgency to it that gets Cate over that particular roadblock.

"However, once more Alex's good sense saves us. Although they get involved, he insists that they all maintain Shani's silly rule about no fucking until he screws a girlfriend. So Cate settles with sleeping with him every night.

"But when Kitty and Chalise remove that last obstruction, there is nothing stopping Cate. She's liable to go nuts after all of this. And Anh had to go and give her that nonsense about how her spirit isn't really related to him after all, and that's all the justification that Cate needs. She's liable to try to get pregnant immediately. You keep teasing about 'psychic grandbabies', but I think she's taken your jokes seriously. She's out to produce Alex's own master race. But instead, she's liable to end up as an unemployed pregnant teen caring for her brother's baby, and once word gets out what happened no one will ever take her seriously again. Employers will figure out she's mentally unbalanced, potential boyfriends or future husbands won't want to risk getting involved, and she won't even be able to finish the degree she's been so driven to get all this time.

"Damn, I just can't wrap my head around all the craziness she's building up around her," he growled in exasperation.

"Now, dear," his wife said, trying to placate him once again, "you know it isn't either that simple or that drastic. As you've said, each of our kids have good heads on their shoulders and a decent amount of common sense. Alex didn't just stumble into that amount of control over his baser instincts. We both give him that, and he shares it with each of his siblings.

"Cate's not about to risk her academic future by having a baby this young. Besides, she's already talked with me about not wanting to have a child with Alex. Sure, she'd love it if she could. But she recognizes that what Alex has isn't likely to be passed through her any more than it is through his other women. She simply doesn't see it as being simple genetics. No one else in the family has shown any affinity for what Alex can do, so she doesn't think we have any of the necessary genes. Instead, she thinks that Alex is truly unique. He may be able to produce a child with his abilities, but it's highly unlikely that anyone else in the family could. In fact she'd be more likely to try to have a kid with those guys back in New Orleans, David or Peter or someone like that. That way she'd at least be able to have a child that had a chance of joining Alex's movement. As it is, if she had a kid with Alex, it would likely be normal, and wouldn't get the extra attention or benefits of a child he had with one of his 'girls' would.

"Brooke has already shown that their abilities can be passed on. I think that Cate sees that as more important to any kids she may have than simply having a baby by her brother."

Frank hardly looked convinced by her arguments, so she continued, hoping to eventually win him over.

"Cate's interest in her brother's future isn't as simple as you paint it. She wants to help him as much as she can, and that preempts her own feelings for him. It's like his girls all saying they're willing to give him up for his own benefit. Cate feels the same way. If she can advance his supposed mission by standing aside in the magic progeny lottery, she'd do it in an instant. She'd rather see a junior Alex than she would to try for one of her own and fail. Don't underestimate Cate's ambition and drive. She knows she can be of more support to Alex by getting her degree than she could by getting pregnant.

"And let's take a look at reality for a moment," she said, breaking her own rant. "Follow me downstairs," she instructed him. He grudgingly followed her as she guided him downstairs to stand by the doorway into the living room where both their youngest children sat on the couch doing their studies. Cate was sitting in Alex's lap as they both did their homework. She was sitting in his lap crossways, giving them both room to focus on what they were doing.

"Look at her, Frank," Linda whispered. "She's working diligently, even though she's potentially being distracted by Alex. That's because she's on a mission. She wants to help her brother as much as she can. She won't do that by dropping out of school, having an illegitimate baby and being labeled as a freak. She'll only do that by being the best damn scientist in the world. Someone who's enough of a genius to figure out the riddle of Alex's abilities, and can advise him on what he should do with them. She'd never substitute her own dreams for his because she's wholly focused on him and his mission."

Frank quietly acknowledged that she had a point.

"Damn right I do," she agreed, still keeping her voice quiet enough not to attract their kids' attention. "Just look at them. Have you ever seen Cate so fucking happy, Frank? Sure, she's been driven. She's also been very satisfied every time Alex takes her into his arms, but she's never really been happy. But now, sitting there, being close to him and helping him in his life's mission, she's positively ecstatic, despite knowing that in a few short hours he's going to be making love and likely falling in love with her new two best friends.

"Their relationship is hardly simple, despite what you'd like to believe. None of these women's are. They all have complex emotions and ties, and they all struggle to do anything they can for your son, all the while being terrified they may somehow unintentionally hold him back.

"Just look at your daughter and tell me that she'd be any better off going to college and screwing any bad boy she can find, like Melinda has? What has Melinda found in her life? She's so confused she grabbed at the first safe, reliable boy she could find, and just when she thought she might have found the secret to happiness that everyone else knew about, Cate goes and yanks it out of her hands.

"Cate has a happiness that you and I can never experience. Just as Alex has responsibilities neither of us can ever truly comprehend. They're a match made in heaven. She'll keep him grounded and look out for him, while he'll dedicate himself to looking out for everyone he ever meets. He'd never survive without someone like Cate and his girls to look out for him, and without him Cate would simply die. There's no two ways about it."

Linda finally shut up, realizing she'd already said as much as she dared at this point. Her husband was quietly watching their two kids as if he'd never seen them in quite this way before. She let him soak it all in without saying anything.

"You know, I think you may be right. Now that I think about it, Cate has been exuberant lately. She's been motivated, she's working harder than ever, and she's been volunteering to do just about every dirty job that anyone has, while still maintaining her grades and her own focus.

"How could I have been so confused? You're right. I'm not sure there is anyone else in the world that could give either of these two kids what the other one does, and they're both conscious enough of how special it is that they wouldn't dare do anything to spoil it. Besides, being exposed for fooling around with his sister is hardly the worst that could happen to them. Alex could be blindsided by another crazy creep at any time, all he needs is for the public to learn what he's involved in and everyone's life would fall apart. Yet they both push on, not because they're carried away by teen age hormones, but because they have to. Because it's the only direction they can move in." Frank spoke with a virtual reverence as he watched Cate and Alex, both focusing on their individual tasks, while each was enjoying their togetherness. Frank and Linda continued to stare for a while longer in complete companionable silence.

"Hey, what's up?" Cate asked, finally looking up and noticing her parents standing by the door staring at the two of them. Alex looked up as well, looking on in confusion seeing his parents simply watching them with no specific agenda or need for them to do something.

"Us, oh, we're not doing anything," Linda told them both. "We're just watching our two little babies all grown up, acting like little adults."

"Dad, are you OK?" Cate asked, still doubtful. "I know you've been upset with me ever since Alex and I ... well, since we got together. I just want you to know—"

"Don't worry about it, honey. I think I may have finally found my own peace," he explained to his daughter. "The two of you are so beautiful sitting there together. Are you sure you're OK? You realize what's going to be happening in a few hours, don't you?"

"Oh, of course, and I couldn't be happier for Alex," she announced. "This is a major event for him. This is something that's going to rock his world and usher him into his own grown up world. I can't think of a better thing to have happen to him."

"And it doesn't bother you that your two new friends are the ones doing it with him."

"Oh, no," Cate insisted. "In fact, I couldn't think of two people more deserving of the honor, or who would be better for Alex than the two of them. If I didn't think they were both good for him they'd never have gotten within a mile of him. No, they're all going to have a wonderful time. And if they don't, I'll find out why they didn't and fix it for him.

"Besides, what Alex needs right now is grounding. He needs to finish growing up in as normal a way as he can. Finding two girlfriends will do that in a way I couldn't. Fooling around with your sister is hardly a way to get grounded in the normal world. He needs them more than he does me right now, and I wouldn't dream of standing in the way of that."

Alex looked to be embarrassed by his sister's enthusiastic response, but he held his tongue, simply enjoying the closeness they all shared together. It was only then that Linda noticed she hadn't observed any of Alex's women around. Looking around, she noticed a few of them scattered about, all quietly observing Frank and her watching the two young lovers. Knowing they were all doing the same, she was filled with a confidence she cherished.

I woke up enthused. Damn, I thought, today's the day I finally get laid! It'd been a long wait. A wait made longer by the fact I'd been having regular sex for the last several weeks with various women, but was limited by what I was allowed to do. I sat up with a big grin on my face. Cate noticed me getting up and smiled at me.