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The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 01

By: only_more_so



"I didn't want any of this..." I thought to myself, as I gazed out over my pool and yard. The sun beat down on my bare back as I lay with my chin propped up on the back of my hands. I listened to the girls laughing and playing in and around the pool. Two of my girls were down the hill a ways, trying to fly their kite in the soft summer breeze. The warm air was too tranquil for them to succeed, but they enjoyed the effort, running back and forth through the grass. And I enjoyed watching them as their long tanned legs propelled them along, flipping their light skirts upwards.

"If you don't want it, then make it go away!" That last thought came from Anna. No, Anna isn't a person, she is my conscience, the little angel on my shoulder that tries to get me to do the right thing. All men have a conscience which speaks in the voices of past authority figures or victims of a man's misdeeds. My inner voice is unique in all the world, because Anna is unique.

At least she was before I fell completely and totally in love with her.

* * *

I had a fairly normal childhood until my tenth birthday. There was no magic gift from a crazy uncle, or trip to a voodoo priestess, just a birthday cake with ten candles and a wish. Reflecting back, it could have started long before that, since I had always been a lucky kid. While playing in little league, the other team would always be a little clumsier when I was batting, and in school the teacher never seemed to call on me when I didn't know the answer. It was an accumulation of little things that in hindsight pointed to my special abilities. My tenth birthday, however, was the day I realized that something might be different about me.

My mother had made me invite the entire class to the party, even though I only wanted about half of them there. It wasn't so terrible really, since I was able to invite Mary Beth, the girl I had a secret crush on. She was my wish, I wished that Mary Beth would kiss me.

She arrived at the party with two other girls from my class. She wore a light blue jumper and a white blouse. Her blonde hair was held back by a blue ribbon with a big bow on top of her hair. She was the cliché of an innocent ten year old girl. Cliché or not, she made my ten year old heart flutter. For the entire party the girls stayed on one side of the room and the boys on the other. Occasionally one of the guys would get caught staring which would cause the girls to start giggling and whispering.

The boy who got caught would flush and turn away hastily and say, "I wonder what they are saying." After the scenario played out a few times I seemed to be able to hear what the girls were whispering, things like, "Did you see Billy? He's so gross!" or "David's kind of cute, but he only looks at Betty." I started relaying these bits to the boys and they would laugh, thinking I was making it all up. I even started to believe I was making it all up, since I really couldn't hear their voices.

The two groups finally got together for the cake and opening the presents. I don't remember which was done first, or even what presents I got. All I remember is my wish. As I leaned forward to blow out the candles, I gazed longingly right into Mary Beth's eyes. In my mind, I knew she was wondering why I was staring at her.

I blew and wished as hard as I could. As the last candle guttered out, I thought she said, "He deserves a birthday kiss! That'll show those other girls I'm not a goody two-shoes." I gasped and inhaled some of the smoke from the candles. The ensuing coughs seemed to cover my gasp and made everyone laugh.

There were a couple of games after that, but eventually the party started running down and the parent's arrived to pick up my guests. When Mary Beth's father arrived to pick her and the other two girls up I was crestfallen. She was almost all the way to the car and I hadn't gotten my kiss. Then I heard her say, "I can't believe I am doing this." She suddenly turned around and ran back to where I was standing. She then planted the softest sweetest kiss on me that I have ever experienced. Our lips touched for the smallest part of a second, but the feeling lingered for hours. "Happy Birthday!" she said before running back to her giggling friends and her dad's car.

* * *

For months afterwards I was wishing people would do things, but they never did. I started to be convinced that I had imagined the whole thing. Maybe Mary Beth really liked me and wanted to give me a birthday kiss anyway? Or maybe she had done it on a dare. I even started doubting that I had wished for her to kiss me. Maybe I had wished for a bike, or a model airplane, but changed my wish when she kissed me.

Yeah, it sounds kind of odd to think that I had changed my own memories, but my parent's were both psychologists, and occasionally I would hear them talking shop. Of course, I didn't understand most of what they were talking about, and things would be taken out of context. Anyway, it meant that growing up I was convinced my mind would play tricks on me.

We moved at the end of the school year, my father had gotten an offer from a research company in another state, and my mother was excited about a change of scenery. I was miserable, and kept wishing that Mary Beth would kiss me again. When she never materialized at my house for a goodbye smooch, I knew I had no powers.

* * *

As I thought back on the move I started to get a headache. I get headaches a lot which the doctor tells me comes from too much stress. I tried not to laugh too hard when the doc said that. What could I possibly have to be stressed about? When I think about all the wonderful things in my life that I should be grateful for, I always seem to get more stressed. It's not that I want more, it's that I think I deserve less. "At least we agree on one thing..." I heard Anna say, surprisingly without malice.

Magda broke me out of my revelry by asking, "You seem a bit tense. Would you like me to rub your back, darling?" I knew it was her without needing to turn around, even before I heard her lovely pixie voice made more enchanting by her Czech accent. Since, for all her charms, her voice and her beauty, what I really adored was her fingers and the way she massaged me. Right now, I needed a massage.

"That would be divine, my dear," I said as she settled down beside me. She quickly started spreading the suntan oil over my back and shoulders, making my skin slick for her ministrations. Her clever little fingers played over my back driving my memories, and Anna's voice, far away. My eyes drifted closed and my whole universe became those subtle fingers as they played over my body. Every little twinge was soothed, every tight muscles was quickly discovered and massaged into submission. She poured more oil on my feet, my legs and my bottom. Her massage was so sweet and innocent, and effective, that she wasn't making me aroused. Even as my legs were rubbed against her bare breasts, and her hands were between my legs and on my bottom, I merely felt myself drifting off on a relaxing cloud. Soon my entire body was completely loose, but my head still throbbed.

"Does your poor head hurt too, darling?" I merely nodded and Magda continued working her magic. I felt her leg slide over my bottom until she was sitting on my lower back. I felt her bare sex rubbing against my spine for a moment before I felt her breasts sliding against my back. She lay her nude form on top of mine, resting her check on my shoulder. Her arms draped over mine and her fingers went to work rubbing the sides of my head. Her fingers traced intricate circles on my temples and scalp, chasing away the last of the tension that was causing my headache. I felt her readjust her position on top of me and felt a drop of hot liquid on the small of my back.

She slide her body up against mine so her mouth was next to my ear. "I shaved this morning just for you, so I wouldn't scratch you when I help your headaches." She said such a dirty thing with such innocence that it sent a thrill through my entire body. Magda is the only one of my girls who shaves completely, because it really does scratch my back when her sex rubs against me. She appeared shaved after the first massage session, and has been religiously bare since. No waxing or electrolysis to keep her bare, she seems to know that I appreciate the effort that shaving takes and that I wouldn't want her experiencing such pain just for me.

Who am I kidding, she doesn't seem to know, she does know. Just like she knows when I am tense, or when I have a headache. I could feel my teeth clinching as the thought plagued my mind. I could feel Anna's disdain boring into me. But soon all my thoughts stilled as I felt Magda's cool fingers rubbing my temples more forcefully.

Magda's fingers traced intricate patterns on my head as her hot breath settled into a steady pattern in my ear. The steady pulsing of air from her lungs was like a lullaby to the thoughts in my head. Her fingers held my head in place as her hard white teeth gently latched onto my earlobe. Even as her tongue explored the contour of my ear, her breathing remained perfectly steady.

Her magic fingers and steady heavy breath again banished all stress from my mind. I found my own breathing was matching hers. As my breath became synced with hers, I could also feel my heart beat slowing to match her heart's steady thrum. I could feel her heart and breathe through the entire length of our bodies as she laid stretched out on top of me. The oil seemed to glue our bodies together and add in our joining.

She sensed that her touch had soaked into me completely and began moving ever so subtly. As her fingers continuing massaging my head, I felt her legs slide along my body. She rubbed the top of her foot along the back of my legs. This brought a quickening to my breathe which she quickly subdued. "Shhhhh" her whole body seemed to say to me as she slowly moved her leg against me. I could her the sound from each measured exhalation, which traveled through my ear to my entire body.

Soon both of her legs were moving against mine and I could feel her sex slowly sliding along my spine. This caused another wave of tension to rush through me, but the slow steady rhythm of her body and the constant "shhhhh" drove the tension from me. My cock started hardening, growing with each beat of my heart. I could feel it boring into the cushion, trapped beneath my body.

My concentration wasn't on my own body, so much as the feeling of Magda's taut body against me. I could feel her pulse rate start to rise, my own jumping joyfully to match. Her breathing became first heavier and then faster. I could feel as her sex grew more inflamed, feeling the heat of it on my back. I knew the need that was building inside of her, causing her clit to swell and slip out of its hiding place. She continued sliding along my back, and I could feel as her clit bumped across each ridge of my vertebrae, sending a vibration of pleasure through her whole body, and through mine.

Her nipples hardened against my back and worried runnels into the film of oil. The slickness of the oil subdued the friction making her ache with need. I could feel her arch forward to try to gain friction on her sensitive nipples, trying to milk a little more pleasure from the subtle movements. As she pressed her firm breasts into my back, it robbed the pressure from her clit. The needs of her body had her conflicted and I felt every bit of it.

Our breathing was much faster now, and the beating of my heart seemed to drown out her voice. The calming "shhh" was less heartfelt and was now ending with a groan. Each groan felt like a vibration moving through my body, like the purring of a giant kitten.

Finally the pressure on my trapped cock was too much and I quickly rolled over beneath an only slightly surprised Magda. The slick oil and her naturally litheness meant that we maintained contact as I rolled. The twin points of her nipples were dragged around my side and to my chest where the hairs provided the friction she had been craving. Her clit did not maintain the tight contact through the roll, but quickly pressed into the hair over my pubic bone.

The relatively cool air and breath of freedom had a soothing, and softening effect on my erection. I was too relaxed to will it back to full hardness, especially as the breeze seemed to cool it even more. I kept my eyes closed and allowed my body to sense the entirety of our contact. Her fingers wrapped over my shoulders, just as her legs wrapped around my hips and legs. I could feel the hard points of her nipples boring into my chest, and her sex rubbing against me. Beyond my body, I could feel the frustration growing in Magda. I had thrown off her rhythm, disturbing her building orgasm. I opened my eyes and gazed into her lovely face. I could see the frustration in her eyes as she looked at me with a cute little pout. I could see a smile slowly displacing the pout and heard her think, "I just have to start a new rhythm..." Her thoughts turned decidedly dirty at that point.

Her hands, freed from their labors on my head, moved down between her legs. I soon feel her warm fingers wrapped around my cooling cock. He deep blue eyes, filled with need, gazed mischievously up at me. "I have to get him warm," she said matter of factly. She held me in place as she squeezed her legs shut, trapping my cock between her thighs, and pressed tightly against her hot sex.

Feeling the heat from her sex against me, and the liquid need running down my cock, breathed new life into me. I was quickly swollen back to size as Magda began rubbing herself along the length of my cock. She reached her hand behind her to grab the head of my straining cock and press it more firmly against her. It was impossible for her to get the friction on her clit that she needed in this position, and the head of my cock would poke out from between her legs.

She started to sit up, and my cock felt the absence of her warm flesh. She kept her hand on my cock, pressing my cock against her bottom as she sat astride my body. "It's not working," she said with her mischievous pout. "He keeps sticking his head out and getting cold." Even as she spoke she keep rocking her hips, grinding against me and allowing my cock to slide along the cleft of her ass.

She looked beautiful sitting there. She had her long blonde hair held up in a bun by a couple of blue chopsticks. The light grey eye shadow made her blue eyes stand out all the more. Her cupid bow lips were pursed with a slight frown. My gaze dropped toward her long slender neck where I could faintly see the lifeblood pulsing through her pale skin. There was no mistaking the flow of blood in her chest, where I could see the flush of arousal spread. Her body was twisted slightly as one hand continued holding my erect cock, allowing me to see one lovely breast in profile and the other nearly head on. I love the way they seemed to erupt from her chest, the soft flesh moving straight outward before starting a gentle curve upward toward her nipples. Her nipples which were normally the same color as her peach skin, were now a fiery pink, standing out lividly against her chest.

She lifted her chin in determination and said, "There is only one thing to do." To do about what? I started to wonder. I had been so keen on appreciating her beauty that I had forgotten what we were doing. Forgotten until my cooling erection slowly being submerged into a veritable sauna.

As the head of my cock sank into her body, I could tell there was a battle raging within her. Part of her wanted to have me all the way inside her at once, the other part was enjoying the feel of my cock slowly invading her body. It was as if each nerve the head of my cock passed sent a separate note of pleasure through her body. Every time my heart beat it would send a pulse into her. I could feel the pings of pleasure course through her body and used all my will power not to thrust deep inside of her.

With a mere inch to go my will power gave out, as usual. I grabbed her hips and thrust into her. Her eyes that had been slowly falling shut, opened in outrage and ecstasy. Her fists banged against my chest as I felt the muscles inside of her clamp around me. The orgasm that swept over her caused her to collapse on top of me. She tried to pull into a ball, but my cock spearing into her body only allowed a semblance of one. I could feel all the muscles in her body twitching in spasms of ecstasy.

Now it was my turn to offer her a gentle "shhhhh". My arms wrapped around her back, and I avoided those strangely sensitive spots that I knew would send a new spasm through her body. As my fingers would near one such spot between her ribs, I could feel a feeble tremble in her mind, and avoided it. Eventually she had calmed down, and her entire body, except her vagina had become relaxed.

Her sex trapped my cock in a viselike grip. I could feel the rings of muscle squeezing tightly around me. It felt like my cock was growing inside of her, or her sex was shrinking around me. A need for my own release filled me, and I stopped worrying about her still sensitive body. I started rocking my hips enough to move my cock within her, such a subtle motion that I didn't slide out of her at all. This sent a spasm through her again, and I wrapped my arms tightly about her, holding her still. Every subtle movement would send sparks through her mind, and shivers through her body.

Her legs wrapped convulsively tight to my body as she stayed in as small a package as she could. This filled my mind with a picture of how small she must seem with my large erection thrust inside of her. Soon the erotic image filled my mind, that my cock continued to grow inside of her, and her to shrink around me. It was as if her whole body were merely a tight sheath around my swollen cock.

Magda started saying something in Czech between gasps and shivers. I didn't need to speak her language to know that her words were reflecting my mind's image. I surged within her as she spoke, starting to pull a fraction of an inch out of her with each thrust of the hips. She had clamped so tightly around me that any greater withdrawal from within her actually hurt.

I kept moving within her, in a steadily increasing pace. I felt like I was getting harder and harder inside of her, like my cock was tied in a knot and couldn't find release. Magda started sitting up a bit as my cock seemed to spit her more deeply, forcing her to straighten under its turgid force. As waves of smaller orgasms ran from her sex through her body, I could feel her sex rippling around my cock.

I opened my eyes, to see the real image and not the one in my minds eye. Magda looked down at me with need bordering on desperation, she couldn't take much more. "Please" her eyes said, as her lips murmured in Czech.

"That looks so hot!" I heard, and felt a rush of lust come from a couple of my other girls. They were no longer playing in the pool, but watching the lewd display Magda and I were putting on. I could feel there jealous eyes on the European beauty, wishing they could feel my cock pierce them. I knew it was more than their imagination making them feel the sensations that Magda was experiencing. They could feel Magda's ecstasy as it resonated through me. Their combined desires for my body and my cock, sent a shiver through me, bursting the dam within me. All the pressure that had been building within me erupted out the tip of my cock deep into Magda. My hips thrust upwards as my hands pushed downward, pushing Magda down as far onto my cock as was possible.

Her eyes shot open and her mouth emitted a cry skyward as the echo of my orgasm shot through her mind. I could sense the other girls falter as an orgasm spread through their bodies as well. I knew the two in the field felt it as well, but more as an ache than a release.


The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 01



Magda collapsed on top of me and hugged me close. I soon felt a cold drop on my chest and knew she was crying. My cock was still stiff inside of her, and seemed reluctant to return to softness. As she cried and sniffed, her eyes watch her fingers as they made twirls in my chest hair. She seemed wiped out, and my powers had temporarily fled with my orgasm, so I had no idea what to do.

"What, no snide comment about how cruel I am?" I yelled at the hidden angel in my head. I didn't need her recriminations now, I felt bad enough about making sweet Magda cry. The girls often cried after sex. I guess when my powers flee they realize who I really am, and recover some of their old self. I've asked before, but they never give me a straight answer. They can't believe that someone who knows them so well can't figure out why they're crying.

I could pull the thought from their mind when my powers return, but I am reluctant. A part of me shies away from seeing what a bastard I truly am reflected in their thoughts. Another, much smaller part of me, hopes that they are crying because they are happy. If they are happy, then I have no hope of gaining control of myself.

Anna, my angel, my demon, has never told me either. Instead she simply says very gently, "Just hold her," and I do.



The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 02



Thanks for everyone who has voted on my stories and/or sent me feedback. It means alot to me and the other writers to hear from readers. 

* * *

I laid out on the deck for a long time, simply holding Magda. The soft tears she had wept earlier gave way to sweet dreams. I stroked her hair gently as she slept, and could feel my cock finally softening within her. But as enjoyable as the sex has been, I relished these quiet times even more. Times when the voices in my head were silenced, and my mind was completely my own.

I smiled as I finally realized that it isn't only the silence I enjoy. I really enjoy the warm comfort of having a woman lying on top of me, or lying close beside me. Magda's gentle breath on my chest calmed me as nothing else could.

I have a problem relaxing. Even with my girls' help, over the years it has become more and more difficult for me to find relaxation. I can never decide if it's because my powers are growing stronger, or that my conscience is becoming louder. The only time Anna, my conscience, doesn't seem to bother me is after I come in a woman or while I'm working. That is probably the only reason I work at all. I have plenty of money, enough to have a mansion, a fleet of cars, a private jet, and more than enough to support my family. Well, it isn't a family in the traditional sense, but I consider my girls to be my family.

As I lay there, a part of me felt that I should go to work, even on a Sunday. But I hate to wake Magda while she was sleeping so peacefully. If I had something important to do, I would never have been able to lay here. Anna would be prodding me. If I ignore Anna for too long then my headache returns. When my headache returns my girls start fawning over me, and that makes Anna really dig the spurs in. She really doesn't approve of my lifestyle, sometimes I don't even approve of my lifestyle. When she is at her most keen, Anna says, "You were raised better than this."

* * *

I believe that I've already mentioned my tenth birthday party, and my family's ensuing move. But I think it is important to point out how the birthday party was typical of how my parent's raised me. While my father was a clinical research psychologist, my mother's field was child development and early education. In some ways, I think I was a bit of a guinea pig for her methods, such as having to invite all the kids in the class to my birthday party.

But, even if I was a guinea pig, I never for a moment doubted my parents' love for me. Unlike most kids, when I was being punished and my parent's said they still loved me, I knew that they actually meant it. Some days, when I would be outside playing, I could feel the love from my mom come through the windows as she looked out at me.

Really feeling the hurt you cause someone who loves you, makes it a lot harder to make mistakes. Soon after we moved, I got in a fight with one of the kids at my new school. There was a cloud of disappointment hanging over the house for a week before I broke down crying and begged my parent's to forgive me. Luckily, the same was true when I did something of which they were proud. Their pride in me amplified my own sense of accomplishment.

This process of reinforced behavior was at the strongest toward the end of elementary school and through middle school. Actually, I would say it ended dramatically when my father died. But that is something I only think about when I am far away from anyone I care about, since my sense of loss...

* * *

I began slipping once again into melancholy and could feel my powers returning. I sighed as I thought my relaxation was over. That was when I felt Claire approaching. While Magda always seems to be around when I need a massage, Claire is the one who finds me when I'm hungry. Even if I don't really realize how hungry I am until she tells me the food is almost ready.

As a little girl Claire had been a dancer, or at least that was her passion. I still see her dancing in her dreams. They aren't dreams of something lost, but something that is still a part of her. When her father lost his job and could no longer afford lessons, she learned a more practical and necessary art: cooking. She isn't a gourmet chef, and she doesn't make fancy foods. She makes the sort of home cooking you only see on old black and white TV shows, hearty filling fare that comes in big bowls that get passed around the table.

Actually, Claire does make really fancy desserts, which the other girls love. Most of my girl's have a sweet tooth you wouldn't believe. I only ever have one bite, but it is always delicious and I make sure to tell her so. No, I don't abstain because of Anna, or my upbringing, I'm just one of those people who doesn't really like sweets. But I really do enjoy watching the girls devour Claire's concoctions. Even though I feel a bit jealous of the moans mere chocolate can elicit from them.

As Claire approached I looked up to regard her. She has ash blonde hair and she wears it in a short bob that always seems to cover one of her light blue eyes. As usual, she is wearing her "uniform" which is an white kitchen apron tied around her slim waist by a large bow in the front. Well, when she is cooking or serving food that is what she wears, or should I say that is all she wears.

She gave Magda a playful spank saying, "Get up lazy buns, clean up, it's time for dinner." Magda gave a little shriek, and her pussy clamped down on my semi-soft penis. Apparently she had forgotten that she fell asleep with me inside her, since her eyes shot open and she gave a bit of a shiver.

Magda looked down at me in mock reproach, "You bad man, taking advantage while a girl sleeps." She belied any remaining seriousness by sitting down further on me and giving me a final squeeze before slowly lifting herself off of me.

With one hand between her legs, keeping my come inside of her, she bent at the waist and gave me a quick peck on the lips. The she took off running toward the bathroom to clean up. I watched her cute little bottom running up to the house, with her hand clasped between her legs and grinned.

Claire sat down next to me and gently grasped my penis. She stroked the semi-firm shaft a few times, and licked her lips. "This looks tasty, but I don't want to ruin my appetite." She winked her unhidden eye coyly and said, "Well, one taste couldn't hurt," before lowering her head and to give my still moist shaft a long lick.

As she turned and walked toward the house, my eyes followed the gentle sway of her hips. The sides of the apron cut at an angle across her lower back and the top of her buttocks. The sides of combined with the smooth line of her exposed spine made an arrow that points right at her bottom. Actually the terminus of the arrow would be right were her pouty lips would peek out for an instant on each stride.

She must have sensed my gaze, since she turned around and wagged her finger at me. "Not until after dinner!"

* * *

Growing up, breakfast and dinner were always family affairs, another good parenting practice. I was an only child which meant that my mother, father and I would sit around our small table together. Our meals were always quiet affairs, perhaps a bit about the news, or an interesting case at the office, but also a lot of silence. While my parent's knew that eating meals together was an important part of raising a child, they didn't know how to go about it.

Also, as much as I loved my mother, she couldn't cook very well, and my father wouldn't even try. Until I was perhaps twelve, she would attempt cooking dinner a few days a week. But most of the time it was take out or something from the microwave. I didn't really mind, but I knew it made my mom feel less motherly.

On a few occasions I would get to eat over a friend's house. Everyone else seemed to have loud dinner tables where everyone had fun and laughed. Well sometimes there would be little fights as well, but on the whole they were more good than bad. I grew to envy those friends and those meals, even a meal that my friends and I ate on the living room floor in front of their TV meant more to me than month of silent meals with my parents.

Every couple of months, for a treat, my parents would take me out to a fancy restaurant. I didn't particularly mind wearing a tie, but my good shoes always seemed to be a size behind my sneakers. Oh, and when I say a fancy restaurant, I am talking the sort of place you have to take off your too-tight shoes to count the silverware.

These meals were even more stilted than the ones at home. There was no talking about work, and very little discussion of the news at such fancy places. A little bit of gossip and remembrances of times before I was born, or when I was young, seemed to fill up the evening's conversation. Well, except on nights when my mom had a bit too much wine, then the conversation would get a bit mushy, and I wouldn't understand the jokes. I noticed on those nights my father would drive home just a little bit faster. 

But mushy or staid, I was always "tuckered out" by the time the waiter came to ask about desert. It was a little system we all worked out somehow. I would be "tuckered out", my father would say, "we'll stop for desert on the way home," and then we would all conveniently forget. Like I said, not much of a sweet tooth.

* * *

As I walked up to the house to clean up for dinner, I reflected that I did get something I really wanted: a noisy dinner table. I decided on a really quick shower to wash off the suntan oil and the remnants of lovemaking that had accumulated on me. Magda was already in my shower cleaning up, and we made short work of the mess. It is amazing how quickly two people can get each other clean, when they are actually concerned about cleaning each other. Yes, Magda did clean her favorite part of me a few more times than was strictly necessary, but not a lot more.

After getting dried off, I put on my black velvet smoking jacket (no, I don't smoke, I just like the look and it's comfortable), a pair of my best silk plaid boxers and my house shoes. Magda pillaged my closet to don one of my old button down dress shirts, a very loose tie, and a fedora with a giant feather sticking out of it. I didn't remember owning a fedora with a peacock feather, but she did look adorable so I let it be.

It might seem an odd way to dress for dinner, and someone observing my home from afar would marvel that anyone dresses for dinner at all. A few years before, when the meals in my home started becoming group affairs, the girls were in the habit of coming to the table directly from whatever they had been doing. Those who had been swimming in the pool still smelled like chlorine and dripped onto the chairs. The girls who had been having sex still reeked of musk and lubricant and often brought their toys to the table, and even used them on themselves or the others.

For a while I didn't mind the informality, I suppose a part of me was still rebelling against the staid boring meals I had as a child. But one day I suddenly snapped. I stood up, putting both hands on the table and declared "From now on you girls will get cleaned up before coming to the dinner table and you will all be dressed for the occasion!" Then I fainted.

The next thing I knew, I woke up in my bed with all my girls around me, and I had a throbbing headache. I could feel their anxious presence before I opened my eyes, and when I finally looked at their faces I could see they had been crying. I was also slightly shocked to see them all squeaky clean and fully dressed. When they noticed I had awoken they all started stammering apologies for their behavior; it broke my heart.

I didn't feel any better when Anna explained. She took me on a tour of the girls' battered minds, showing me how far reaching the effects had been. I had unleashed a wave of power at them, burning into their minds the shame and disgust I had felt. This made them disgusted with themselves and each other, and that mass feeling had rebounded toward me. My empathy shut down to protect my mind and knocked me out in the process.

Looking at the miserable faces of the girls I loved, I knew I had to fix this, and to fix it I had to use my powers. I don't like using my powers on my girls. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I usually don't mean to do it. But this time I had to use my powers on them. I projected a wave of love and acceptance to each of them calming them and forcing them to fall asleep. As they slept I went to each girl and with Anna's help tried to undo the damage my outburst had caused. Anna wouldn't let me remove the girl's memories of the actual events that transpired, but I did remove all of the commands I had programmed into them.

By the time I was done, I could hardly see from the tears in my eyes. The girls had scrubbed themselves raw to try to be clean enough, and had been contemplating using boiling water and bleach on themselves to try to please me. I think that is why Anna made me leave their memories intact, so that every time I looked at them, I could see the memory of my outburst looking back at me. Leaving the memories intact also allowed the girls to remember what I had said, even though the consequences were unexpected.

* * *

Most of the girls were already there, but a few were still getting "cleaned up." With the knowing looks and giggles around the table, I knew they weren't in the shower for sanitary purposes. The girls who were present were dressed in a variety of outfits that looked like children had raided their parent's bedroom.

The girls couldn't remember the compulsion that drove them to clean themselves and get dressed up, only that they had done so. That left them to decide why they had done so. For the next few meals they were all very clean and very thoroughly dressed at meal time. Even without my powers telling them, they could tell by my face that I wasn't happy with the change.

During this time, I kept tight reins on my powers, and tried to have patience with them. Somehow, they kept getting together without my knowledge to discuss the situation. At dinner each evening they would unveil a new scheme. It actually didn't take them long at all to find something that made us all happy. The real joy for me was that it was entirely without my influence, since Anna had been watching me like a hawk, and every stray tendril of power was painfully brought to my attention.

The girls realized, before I even did, that what I wanted wasn't a scrub beneath the finger nails, dress to the nines dinner. I wanted the kind of dinner I didn't have growing up. One filled with light conversation about mundane things. No talk of work or the news, but jokes and tales of interesting things that happened that day. We all realized that it was nicer to come to the table clean. The girls also decided, on their own, that even if they spend the rest of the day fully nude, they would dress up for dinner. Of course, their idea of dressing up would cause a riot in a four star restaurant, and be illegal even for strip clubs in most states. But it was always good clean fun, since they made it fun, especially Sunday nights which were theme events.

Tonight's theme seemed to be gangsters and molls night. Half the girls were dressed as molls, and the other half dressed as gangsters. The group of molls seemed to have only two outfits among the lot of them, so while one got elbow length gloves and a corset, another had to make do with loopy pearl necklaces and stockings. I had a feeling the girls who got the dress parts of the outfits were the ones still getting cleaned up. But somehow, even with the shortage of complete outfits, they all did manage to have one of those flapper type hats.

As for the gangster side of the table, it seemed that Magda wasn't the only one who had raided my closet. It seemed that each girl had decided on either a dress shirt, or a pair of trousers. Keeping with the theme, the trousers were held up be suspenders which did little to hide their very womanly breasts. Even with the grease pencil moustaches and goatees and tucking their hair into fedoras, there was little disguising their feminine charms. Actually, it seemed to make them all a little sexier.

* * *

My dining room table seats about twenty people, with two at the head of the table, two at the foot of the table and another eight or so on each side. At the head of the table was a rather unusual table chair, since it was more of a straight-backed love seat. For each meal one of my girls was selected to share the chair with me. Don't ask me how they select who gets to sit there, they don't tell me and I don't snoop to find out. It seems to make them happy to surprise me, so I let myself be surprised.

Evidently it was Claire's turn since Judith and Ellen were sitting at the foot of the table and wearing only aprons. Claire loves to cook, and even seems to enjoy serving the meals, although another one of the girls usually helps her. But on nights she sits with me, she gladly turns over her duty to the others.

I saw Magda to her seat, and walked to the head of the table where Claire was waiting for me. While the sides of the table are occupied by the girls in theme outfits, and the foot of the table by girls in aprons, the woman at the head of the table always dresses elegantly. Sometimes I get the feeling that my "queen for the evening" acts as the surrogate mother for the evening as well. And while I might be brother, lover or even son to the girls during the day, at dinner I gravitate towards being the father.

Claire was wearing a long shimmering black gown that was suspending around her body by a web of silver strands attached to a black choker. The gown was relatively modest in the front, except where a silver web was all that hid her belly from view. The back of the gown, however, didn't start until her hips and revealed the beginning of the cleft of her bottom. I gave Claire an appreciative look and gave her a kiss on the lips before pulling out the chair for her.

This was the cue for everyone to be seated, except today the darling little gangsters all pulled out the chairs for the equally darling molls. They ruined the effect by giggling, since it was an elaborate joke to make fun of me. They thought my table manners were terribly old fashioned, and long since made me stop pulling out the chairs for them, unless they were my "date" for the evening. It is probably a good thing, since as my family grew, it would take a long time to see them all seated.

After everyone was settled, there ensued a moment of silence. I won't say that all the girls were saying dinner prayers, or even that any of them did. I may be a bastard who corrupts girls' minds, but I don't force them to believe as I believe. But I prayed, and we all kept our own thoughts for a minute.

I looked up and everyone started talking at once. Bowls and platters of food were passed around, and everyone ate heartily. Judith and Ellen were kept busy making runs to the kitchen to get this or that, and to bring out seconds that were warming in the ovens. There was such activity around the table that I barely noticed as the tardy girls trickled in. I probably wouldn't have noticed if not for the ribald jokes about what took them so long. The unwritten rule is that if they were busy with anything except for sex, we would have waited for them, so being late meant being caught.

Claire was especially friendly during dinner and leaned against me the entire meal. Usually she was a bit more coy, but tonight she kept one hand on my thigh all evening. She did nothing blatant, but by the time the meal was over and the girls were clamoring for desert, she had me as hard as a rock.

Soon, Judith and Ellen started clearing away the plates to make room for desert. As I've said, desert is always special, and when the latest concoction came out I could feel the girls drooling. I don't know what it's called, but it was light and airy, bathed in a white creamy frosting, and most importantly for the girls, it was made from chocolate. Once all the girls had a serving in front of them, and Judith and Ellen were seated again, I dipped my fork into the desert and brought a bite to my mouth. I barely had time to savor the luscious flavors, before the girls started in on their servings.




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 02



I swallowed the wonderful desert and was about to tell Claire how delicious it was, when she wrapped her hand around my cock with one hand and held my face with the other. She leaned over and kissed me. As her tongue slid over mine she gently squeezed me under the table. When she broke the kiss with an "Mmmmmm" sound, I knew that she had her taste of desert from my mouth. She then dipped her finger in the icing of my remaining desert and lewdly licked it off.

She moved her grip from my cock to my hand as she stood from the table. "Goodnight ladies... er and gentleman," she said as she pulled me from the table. I said, "Goodnight girls, enjoy desert," and allowed myself to be led away from the table.

* * *

I trailed along behind Claire and marveled again at how sexy the sway of her hips was. Even when she walks her body seems to dance. She tantalized me with every step, especially as her dress threatened to ride lower with each movement. But somehow it never did, and I was in an agony of anticipation.

As we stepped into my bedroom, I realized she had prepared the scene. The lights were very dim, causing the shimmering black dress to turn to inky blackness. Claire dropped my hand and continued her slow saunter toward the bed, rolling her hips enticingly. She placed her hands on the bed and prowled forward until she was crawling on the bed. I stood still and mute in the doorway, and felt like I was being held in place by her hypnotizing movements.

She turned to look over her shoulder, and I could see her blue eye looking right into me with absolute lust. Her other eye, hidden by the wave of her hair, seemed to shine for a brief moment in the darkness as she said, "It's time for your real desert."

Her lustful gaze held me for another moment before she settled onto the bed with her legs curled under her, and her graceful back facing me. Her hands went to the dress collar and slowly unclasped it, letting the top of the dress fall about her. I ached to race toward her and place my lips on her neck and suck the salty flavor of her delicate skin, but I was still rooted in place. A part of me knew she wasn't done with the show, and wanted the anticipation to build.

She placed her hands on the bed again and starting crawling forward again. As she moved, oh so slowly, the rest of the dress slowly slide from her bottom, leaving an inky black pool that she emerged from. As she crawled, I could her sex barely exposed as her legs slide past each other. Once she was completely free of her dress, she stopped crawling and arched her back downward. This pushed her sex outward towards me in a wanton display. Her hips started to make little circles and I felt her pulling me in.

As I walked slowly towards the bed, I dropped the jacket to the floor and started pushing the boxers down. I neared the bed and saw that her shoulders were on the bed, and she was looking back at me from the corner of her eye. I could see the corner of her lip pulled into her mouth as she bit it in anticipation, while still her hips moved in little needy circles.

I brought my face towards her sex, and was rewarded by seeing a drop of moisture appear and begin sliding down her labia towards her sheathed clit. My tongue intercepted the errant drop and slid easily into her folds. Her sweet juices had a salty flavor with a hint of citrus. There was no resistance as my tongue pushed deeper into her and gently parted her folds. More juices flowed from inside her as my tongue caressed the tender flesh of her sex.

My neck was quickly tiring from the position, but I took a moment to wrap my lips around the hood of her clit and use my tongue to coax an appearance. As I did this Claire began moaning, and I could feel the sheets pulling taut as she grasped them in her fists. Her hips started moving again, and eventually pulled her clit from my lips, leaving us both frustrated.

I rolled over onto my back and pulled her hips toward my mouth. Soon she was almost sitting on my face with my tongue and lips sucking and probing her. Her hands grabbed my head and pulled me towards her even as she sat down further onto my face. She shuddered as an orgasm rolled through her body causing her to cry out softly.

She rose back to her knees, freeing me from beneath her and then slid forward, lying on her belly. She pulled one of the pillows towards her and hugged it against her body as if she meant to go to sleep. But her hips continued their gentle circles, telling me she wanted more.

I crawled over her body, my cock hanging down beneath me. My arms formed pillars astride her body as I lowered my hips toward her bottom. I could feel the top of my cock graze her sex as it tried to slide inside of her. For a long few minutes we played at getting my cock inside of her. I would lower myself toward her, and she would swivel her hips to try to get herself aligned. The near misses built our anticipation, but were maddening.

Finally the head of my cock found her opening and was poised to sink inside of her. The angle was wrong, and it was a precarious position, as I could feel myself slipping out of her. We both froze in position and groaned. Slowly she rolled her hip slightly more forward and I slide back slightly, until we could feel her opening and my cock becoming aligned. More of my cock slipped suddenly inside of her and we both froze as shudders went through our bodies.

Slowly I slide my knees backwards on the bed, which caused even more of my cock to slip inside of her. I watched as Claire pulled the pillow tightly against her, while my body slowly descended toward her bottom. I could feel her bottom settling in against my hips and belly and lowered my arms till I lay atop of her.

She lay still beneath me as I started to raise my hips slightly. I moved a little more and felt her squeeze the pillow tighter. I started a long slow rhythm, with my hips moving only slightly. I kissed her back, and her hair, until she turned her face slightly allowing me to kiss her cheek and the corner of her mouth.

I started moving faster, feeling her hips start to roll slightly with each short thrust. My movements got faster and my strokes longer as my breathing quickened. I felt an orgasm nearing for both of us when suddenly out combined motions caused my cock to slip out. I groped madly for re-entrance to her slick confines, but each time my cock chose to slide away rather than into her.

Claire began whimpering in a need that both of us felt. I raised myself back to my knees and straightened up until I was kneeling behind her. I grabbed her hips and raised them off the bed, pulling her pussy into alignment with my projecting cock. There was no resistance as my cock passed into her body until our hips were pressed together.

She pushed back against me and circled her hips, causing my cock to stir about within her. She continued the circular motions and I could feel the head of my cock being pushed against the sides of her pussy. Grabbing her hips for leverage I started to pull her back against me as I thrust into her. She maintained her circling as I began thrusting.

Her back arched suddenly as she orgasmed, thrusting herself back onto my cock. I held onto her hips as her body thrashed through her orgasm. Then I slowly began to thrust into her again. I felt a smaller wave roll over as I slid into her over and over. 

We both felt my own orgasm approaching and Claire quickly pulled herself off of me, making me groan in loss. Claire soon had me on my back, as she moved around between my legs. Her hands were wrapped tightly around the base of my cock as her mouth descended to envelope me. I tried to thrust into her mouth, but her grip on my cock prevented it. I could feel the heat from her breath on my cock, but was denied contact as she slowly surrounded me with her mouth.

Finally, I felt the tip of my cock touch the back of her mouth. That is when she closed her lips tightly about my cock, pressing her tongue against me as she did. Slowly her head lifted off me, her tongue gliding along the sensitive underside of my cock.

Her hands had a tight grip, which caused my cock to swell larger than normal, and I could see the veins bulging in earnest as she slurped on my cock. She sucked on the head for a moment before opening her mouth again and slowly lowering her head back down. Another agonizingly slow slurp up the length of my shaft, and another slow touch free descent. After several such strokes, she changed her tactic and just sucked on the head of my cock, swirling the head with her tongue and her saliva.

This tactic soon had my orgasm approaching. She looked up at me as she sucked, her blonde hair hanging around her face obscuring everything except for one lustful blue eye. One of her hands moved down to hold my balls gently as the other maintained its tight grip around the base of my cock. Her head was moving fasters as she worked her tongue down the length of my cock.

Her hand tightened on my balls as I began shooting my come into her mouth. Her eye betrayed no surprise as my come splashed against her tongue. My hips lurched off the bed, trying to push deeper into her mouth, but her hand on my cock kept her head from moving any closer. I bucked again and her head rose with my motion, her lips still tightly sealed around my cock. She sucked hard, and rubbed my testicles to get all of my seed. As my mad bucking ceased her hand released its tight grip and started stroking me, coaxing out a few more drops.

"Thanks for the desert" she said coyly, finally pulling her mouth from my cock. Her hand still stroked me gently as my cock began softening in her grip. She moved up the bed to give me a soft kiss on the lips. 'Now it's time for bed," she said. With her free hand she moved a pillow beneath my head, and then patted my cheek gently, giving me another kiss on the lips.

She moved back down my body and I could feel her warm mouth close around my cock again. She sucked my soft cock gently as I began falling asleep. It was strangely relaxing to have her sucking gently on me as I fell asleep. I looked down at Claire, and saw her eyes were closed. She looked so peaceful with her head pillowed on my thigh, sucking my cock like a baby's pacifier. That image dwelled with me as I fell asleep. 



The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 03



I'd like to thank everyone for reading the story, voting and especially for leaving comments. I would love to hear how you think the story is going.

* * *

I was having a nightmare. It seems that the only dreams I have anymore are bad ones, luckily they don't occur every night. This dream hurts more than most because it's true. The details might be more sinister and fantastic in the dream, but the underlying facts are all true.

Years ago, before Anna's voice became my conscience, I made money playing poker. When I first started, I tried not to use my powers to gain an unfair advantage. It wouldn't be difficult to see the opponents' cards in their minds, but I chose not to do so. As I played, I convinced myself that I was reading body language and discerning my opponents tells. That was a lie.

When I first started playing, my powers merely told me if my opponents were excited or fearful. Playing against people on gambling vacations, that was all that I needed to win. Eventually I started playing against more experienced players who were more in control of their emotions. I found the variation in emotion was much less and to make it even more difficult the emotions often extended beyond the current hand. I still won, but not as easily, and I would win less money.

The more I played, the more I learned from my opponents. With every hand I learned their tricks subconsciously through my powers. I learned betting strategies, how to bluff, how to spot easy money, and my opponent's tells. In time, all I had to worry about was my own tells which I also learned from my opponents.

At some point I realized that I had been cheating all along. I think that was Anna's first attempt at reaching through to me. By that point I was drowning in gambling addiction. Knowing that I had been cheating only convinced me that I should cheat more actively, "in for a penny, in for a pound." At first, I peeked for a glimpse of their strategy, but soon the peeking turn to looking at their cards.

In poker, you can't win every hand, even with perfect knowledge; sometimes you just don't have the cards. At first this frustrated me, until I learned to bluff. Of course, this was another situation where I convinced myself it was natural acting ability that made my bluffs so effective and not my powers leaching confidence from my opponents. It got to the point where the only hands I lost were the ones I decided to lose. But even that wasn't enough. I learned to entice my opponent's into larger bets, convincing them to throw good money after bad.

Eventually the pit bosses became suspicious as the money quickly moved to my side of the table. They couldn't prove I was cheating, but they didn't really have to. I could have changed their minds, but a part of me didn't like intentionally using my powers on other people. I also could have played it cool and taken my time, but time doesn't feed an addiction.

I started in Vegas where I drained the high rollers at a dozen casinos. When I tried to make it a baker's dozen I wasn't allowed on the premises. So I bought a Ferrari and headed to Reno. I only made it through a couple casinos in Reno before people caught on. There was a picture of me in every casino in the state before I finally left.

It was an incredible high, having so much money and with every casino looking like an ATM. As I drove around the country I stopped at every Indian casino and floating casino I could find. I was so flush with cash that it seemed like I bought a new car every time I ran out of gas. I would forget where I parked, or park in a tow zone, sometimes I would even give the cars as a tip to a cute waitress. Eventually I made it to Atlantic City and learned that word had gotten there ahead of me. Every gambling establishment in the United States had a picture of me along with the words persona non-grata.

I bought my first private jet just to fly me to the world's gambling meccas. Realizing a whole country worth of gambling was already closed to me, I managed to disguise my winnings somewhat. But inevitably, my reputation in the States and my consistent winning at their tables led every casino I visited to turn me away. I only made it through a half dozen casinos in three countries before the whole of Europe turned its back on me.

Frustrated I turned my attention much further east and flew to Macao. When my plane landed I knew something was wrong when we were directly to a small hangar away from the main terminal. Inside the hangar were representatives of the city's top casinos, the police commissioner and a score of police officers. They explained that if I so much as set foot in a casino or gambling hall, I would be arrested, tried and convicted for cheating. They played by less forgiving rules.

As I was about to reboard my plane, one of the casino managers stopped me and handed me a card. When I asked for an explanation he smiled and walked away. I looked at the card which read simply, "Oleg Stukova, Import/Export, Vladivostock." The message was clear: I couldn't gamble in the light of day so I would have to play underground.

As I explored the underworld's gambling dens, I actually made as many allies as enemies. As often as not these infamous men were happy to lose money, provided their enemies lost more. But it wasn't only money, since in these games collateral was often the only prize. So I began accumulating cars, yachts, airplanes and villas. I even won odd things like oil fields, shopping malls and fishing boats. The further down I ventured, the seedier the prizes would become. Drugs, guns, and prostitutes started falling into my hands.

Even as I descended deeper and deeper into this depraved yet enticing world, a part of me wouldn't give in to evil. I couldn't destroy the drugs and free the enslaved whores without painting a target on my back, but I found ways to minimize the human damage. I did keep the guns, missiles and bombs, which linger in caves and warehouses even now.

My lingering humanitarian streak even extended to these unsavory people. Even against these disreputable people I never intentionally used my powers to make them bet a losing hand or to make them fold a winning hand. I also hadn't fallen so far that I would take money from people who couldn't afford the loss, since with these people bankruptcy meant certain death.

The time I broke both of those rules is the source of my nightmare.

* * *

I peered out past my wall of chips and pile of counters, at the sweaty man across the table. He had come in a few hours earlier looking like a minnow among sharks. Over the course of a few hours we had combined to eliminate all the opposition. He was the shrewdest opponent I had ever faced and I was surprised to realize he was a stranger to everyone, and not just to me. Who would have thought, I would find a worthy opponent in an illegal gambling hall deep into what would soon be called the Czech Republic.

Here amid the gun runners, drug-traffickers, mercenaries, adventurers and second world playboys, sat an anxious little man who claimed to run a whore-house. He started with a very small stake, too small for the tastes of the villains in the room. To sweeten the pot he produced pictures of three women to use as collateral. The vultures greedily gazed at the beauties, and the pictures were accepted as counters. Amid all the black counters of guns, tanks, drugs and murder for hire, sat three women dressed in white. I watched the three women huddle together behind his wall of chips, looking fearfully at my tanks and bombs arrayed before my own high walls.

Smoke slithered through the room in thick gray tendrils, wrapping about my chips and giving enticing caresses through my open collar. As the dealer shuffled the cards, I took another drink of absinthe, and cherished the bitter flavor. A green fog seemed to rise from the cup to dance sensually with the blue-gray smokes from the opium, hashish and tobacco. The absinthe fumes and narcotic smoke seemed to whisper words of encouragement into my ears as I was challenged by this opponent.

I let the anxious man win a small piece from my wall of chips, and even let him win a couple of tanks and a dozen kilo's of cocaine. He seemed more interested in building his wall of chips higher than in acquiring weapons or drugs. As he gathered them in he did so delicately, as if merely touching the counters revolted him.

"Yes, give him hope, it will make his defeat taste all the more entertaining," I heard the green fairy, absinthe, whisper in my ear. I gazed around at the vultures perched on their chairs, watching with greedy eyes as the army of counters and stacks of chips slid from one side of the table to the other. They might be out of the game, but they were ready to bid on the counters, particularly if I pried the ladies from my nervous opponent.

I heard another voice telling me the sweaty man only wanted one more hand and would then resign. The voice then told me what the man thought, "One more hand... then I can get away from these villains and this evil game forever." My eyes grew cold and I could see the air growing still about me. The smoke tendrils froze and frost grew on my glass. Another voice whispered in my ear, "how dare he lump you in with the other villains!"

I drained the green slush from my glass and with the next hand I started reclaiming all I had let him win. His tanks on their little tracks came back to my side. The guns and drugs were soon back in my control as well. I started wagering only chips to entice him into placing larger bets against me. The vultures crowded about the poor man as his wall of chips tumbled down. The women were tearful as they became exposed.

I finally had all of his chips in the pot, laying the three lovelies bare. I knew he hadn't gotten the card he needed on the draw and that my hand was better than his. "Too bad he is going to fold," whispered the fairy. "Yes, he won't throw good flesh after bad money... unless..." the fog said as it caressed me.

I reached out with my powers and convinced the man I was bluffing. Soon he knew his small pair was enough to beat me. The ladies looked at him in terror as he pushed them blindly into the pot. I sent in a pair of tanks to corral the ladies, calling his bet. The four bullets I threw down were two more than I needed to kill him and his pair of threes.

I raked in all my ill-gotten gains and began arranging for delivery of the counters. The nervous little man approached me and begged to reclaim the ladies. He would do anything he promised. "What kind of a pimp are you, to worry such about your whores?" I said with disdain.

"They are not whores. They are my wife and daughters... My wife is very sick, she needs an operation and this is the only way I could hope to raise the money in time. Please." The man continued to plead and tug on my sleeve, imploring me to have pity. A part of me watched in terror as this scene played out, but I have no control over acts long since done.

"You thought me a villain, so a villain I shall be," I said as I looked at the three ladies. "They may not have been whores before, but they are now." I picked up the picture of the oldest woman as she tried to cling to the other two. I casually threw the photo to the dealer and offered her as a tip. I threw in a pound of cocaine, since the sweaty fellow said she was ill.

"How can you be so heartless!" the sweaty man said. He drew a gun from his coat pocket and shot the dealer, snatching up the picture of his wife. He aimed the gun at me and grabbed for the photos of his daughters from my hands.

I used my powers to prevent him from shooting me. He was shaking and trying to back out of the room, but the vultures were close about him. "You can't kill me, and I will find them," I said. The small man seemed to shrink as if he stood before the devil himself. He tried again to pull the trigger and kill me, but he couldn't. Instead he turned the gun on himself. He was dead before I thought to stop him. As his body fell to the ground, the three photos drifted slowly downward like autumn leaves.

* * *

I sat up in bed, drenched in sweat. The sunlight had just started to shine in past the curtains, giving the room a soft restful glow. I took a few breaths trying to calm my racing heart. But I could still hear the report of the shot, and smell the acrid smoke that curled from the gun.

I felt two bodies quickly press close against me, one from the front and one from behind me. I looked down at Tiffany as she gently stroked my cheek. She made gentle sounds as she offered me comfort. I wrapped my arms around her and pressed my forehead against hers as she continued to stroke my check. I gazed into her hazel eyes and let her soft sounds soothe me. A deep shuddering breath brought her scent into my nostrils, the subtle scent of cherries displacing the remembered acrid smoke.

The arms of the girl behind me squeezed tight, and with that squeeze I realized it was Magda. I turned to pull her around in front of me, joining Tiffany in my lap. I hugged them both and turning to Magda began saying, "I'm so sorry," over and over.

Magda tried to tell me that I had nothing to be sorry for, even as Tiffany continued trying to calm me with soft touches and gentle sounds. I tried to tell Magda how I had wronged her, that I had killed her father, but she wouldn't listen to me, saying I owed her no apology, that she should be thanking me.

Eventually, the panic and distress caused by the nightmare subsided thanks to the love poring into me from my girls. Not just the two in my lap, but also from the few who were peeking in through the doorway, and from the ones who still slept on elsewhere in the house. I had wronged each of them, but they all loved me in spite of it.

* * *

The lurkers disappeared and Magda and Tiffany loosened their grips on me. I looked into Magda's gray eyes and said one last time, "I am sorry for what happened to your father."

Magda looked back at me and said, "I have forgiven you for the small part you played in my family's tragedy. You can't keep taking all the blame. You gave my sister and me another year with my mother, and my mother another year with us and without pain. Since I met you I have seen the world, gotten an education, and have a family anyone would be jealous of." She illustrated the last point by giving Tiffany a hug and a none too sisterly kiss.

Tiffany responded with vigor. I could feel their love for each other, much as I could feel their love for me. I could also feel them growing aroused. With reluctance Tiffany broke the kissing and shook her head gently. She pointed at her wrist and I saw Magda face light up.

"I nearly forgot!" Magda said as she jumped out of bed. She was halfway to the door before she turned around and gave Tiffany a quick kiss. "Thanks for reminding me." She turned away again, but returned for another deeper kiss. She left the room with a quick wave and hurried toward her room.

I looked at the remaining girl on my lap and asked, "What was that about?"

* * *

Tiffany shook her finger in front of my face and pushed me back onto the bed. Without further ado, she reached between her legs and grabbed my cock. It quickly hardened in her hands. When she was satisfied she lifted up enough to line my erection up with her sex. Then, with one hand on my chest and the other guiding me into her, she sat all the way down on me in one slow motion.

After I was safely ensconced inside of her she straightened her left leg and gently lifted it over my body. When it swung past my face I grasped it for a moment and gave her leg a kiss. She smiled at me as she finished the maneuver. Her left leg lay across my chest with her foot against my side, her right leg lay next to my body.

Tiffany thought up the position while we were watching a pornographic movie one evening. I had told her the sexual position we were watching, and imitating, was sometimes called a reverse cowgirl. Apparently this offended her blue blood sensibilities and let me know that real ladies ride side-saddle.

The position is incredibly awkward, but incredibly stirring as well. I looked up at Tiffany as she sat proud, upright and impaled. Her pale breasts are high on her chest and they rose proudly from her body. The neat braid of light brown hair that hung over her shoulder and across one breast added to the image of an uptight aristocratic woman. Even though she was fully nude, her poise and grace made her appear ready to ride out on a fox hunt.

But we both could feel the dirty secret of this fair lady. We could feel it throbbing inside of her as she moved slightly up and down. With her legs so close together, the pressure on my cock was exquisite. As I gazed up at her images leaked from her mind into mine. I could see us in her mind eye, where she was riding a giant stallion through a meadow.

As she sat side-saddle on top of me, I thrust my hips up towards her and allow them to drop back to the bed. I tried to mimic the pace of a stallion to fulfill her fantasy. We started at a slow walk, with regular short thrusts. She clicked her tongue at me to encourage a trot, which I had learned is a faster two beat gait. I made longer thrusts that were slightly further apart.

I could see a bead of sweat drip down Tiffany's neck as she tried to hold her poise. As I let myself be lead through a trot I watched the progress of the drop as it slid down her collar bone. I felt her vagina contract around me on each thrust and felt it release for the downward half of the cycle. I could also feel her subtle shifts in weight that kept her mounted on me as I thrust into her over and over.

She clicked her tongue again asking me for more speed. The first time I tried to imitate the three beat cadence of a gallop, it had disastrous results. But now I moved into the human gallop, which was a long hard thrust, followed immediately by a quick short thrust, and then a pause. With most of my girls it seems to take a steady pace to set them off, but the imagery is so powerful with Tiffany that this awkward rhythm causes her to orgasm with only a few strides.

I was sweating from the exertion of bucking her up in the air, and the bead of sweat on Tiffany's body slid down the reddening skin between her breasts. I saw her bite her lip to remain silent as her still proud body started shuddering in climax. Her head dropped suddenly, and her nipples became rock hard. I watched her sleek abs clench as I thrust into her. She literally rode me through her orgasm.

Eventually she had enough and we slowed down. She smiled at me and patted my chest admiringly. I could hear her thoughts saying, "Good boy," as she slows me down. Even though the ride has tired me considerably, she has me go through a slow walk, to cool me down.

She squeezed me inside her with a hint of regret. She knew that the position was too physically demanding and awkward to make me come. But her expression promises me that she will soon make it up to me, even if her mouth can't.

* * *

As Tiffany sat atop of me, with both of us catching our breath, Magda re-entered my room. She was fully dressed, including shoes, which could only mean she was going out somewhere. As I took in her excited expression and the feelings shining out from her, I knew she was obviously looking forward to the trip.

Tiffany opened her arms and Magda rushed into them. As soon as their embrace was over Tiffany started signing something to Magda. It was times like this when I wished that I had learned sign language. In the past I had used my powers to read Tiffany's mind. I had done so for so long that she assumed I knew how to read her signs. Now that I have given up snooping into my girls' minds, it left me largely out of her conversations.

"Thank-you. I'm excited too. It has been too long," Magda said. She turned to me and said, "Can I take one of your cars? Mine is too small."




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 03



I said, "Of course you can. You know you don't even have to ask."

Magda bent down and gave me a quick hug. "I know, but it's still the polite thing to do. I'm taking Dinah and Marie with me. We'll be back for dinner." She gave me a kiss, gave Tiffany another hug and stage whispered, "You need to give your stallion a rubdown, he's smelly." Tiffany's face broke into a wide grin, and she nodded her head. Tiffany gave a little wave as Magda walked out the door.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on now?" I asked Tiffany. She winked at me, gave my chest a gentle slap and shook her head. With great care she started extricating herself from the side-saddle position. A very difficult proposition with my erection sticking up inside of her. Eventually she managed the feat and was soon standing next to the bed. She grasped my cock and with a gesture of her head indicated the bathroom. She gave me a bit of a tug when I was initially reluctant to get up.

* * *

As I sank into the hot bath, I watched Tiffany move about the bathroom getting things laid out. Once everything was arranged to her satisfaction, she moved to join me in the tub. She pointed her toes downward and delicately judged the water's temperature. As she slowly sank the rest of her leg into the bath, she coiled her long braid loosely about her head. She held the braid in place with a couple of pins as she brought her other foot into the tub. She stood for a moment straddling me as I lay back in the tub. I took in her body, from the long sleek legs to the light brown 'V' of hair over her very pink sex. Her waist narrowed dramatically around toned abs. The blush from her earlier orgasm still lent her breasts and chest a dark pink coloring. She let me appreciate her body a moment longer before lowering herself into the very warm water.

Tiffany had been raised in a very old money family in England, complete with a large staff of servants. Until she was in her teens she had even had a maid who would bath her. As she picked up the sponge and soap, I couldn't help but feel her sense of satisfaction at rebelling against her upbringing.

She proceeded to wash me diligently. At first she used the sponge to apply the lather to my body, but she eventually switched to using her hands, and then her entire body. As her body slid across mine and her hands roamed over me, I felt my erection growing again. Her hand returned to my cock over and over, and I knew this time she would give me release.

Sitting between my legs, she made the sign for "all clean." One of her hands went back under the water to grab my erection. She then looked at me in such a way that I knew she had made a decision about something. She gripped my cock firmly as she started making simple signs with her other hand. She pointed to me, used two fingers to point at her eyes, and then tapped the side of her head.

The thought of being found out caused me to wilt in her hands. I raised my hands defensively and my mind raced with thoughts of how I could explain. She squeezed my cock and repeated the earlier gesture. Her hazel eyes looked at me imploringly and she placed her open hand on her chest and moving it in a circle, the sign for 'please.'

* * *

"Why did you stop reading my mind?" she asked as I made contact with her. I tried to read only the word thoughts that she directed at me, but her grip on my cock made that difficult.

"I realized it was wrong," I said out loud. My words sounded odd, discordant as they reverberated against the bathroom tiles.

"But I miss talking to you." She brought to her mind all the times she wished she could speak like the other girls. She was unable to whisper in my ear while we were cuddling, and while her mind rang out with ecstasy when she came, it didn't reverberate through the house the way the other girls' ecstasy did. Since I had stopped reading her mind and was still so bad at sign language, she couldn't tell me much of anything.

I started to say I was sorry, but she gave my penis a bit of a tug to keep me focused on her. She shook her finger at me and thought, "Don't be sorry. I could have told you that I knew, that I've known for a while. But when I realized you stopped, I was afraid I might lose what I still had." I could see in her mind her happiness at joining my family, the warmth with which the other girls had accepted her. She kept showing me images of all the things that made her happy; things that she received through knowing me.

One of the things that flashed through her mind was waking up early to help Claire cook breakfast. I stopped her there and this time I thought to her, "You only enjoy that because..." But I couldn't finish the thought, I couldn't tell her that I had changed her mind about a few things.

"I know. At some point I realized that my prejudices wouldn't fade on their own, even around people as wonderful as this family. I also realized that my yearnings didn't always make sense, that they were foreign to my mind. It wasn't hard to figure out that it was you who caused the changes to the way I think."

I saw in her mind the incidents that had provoked me into using my powers. I could also see the disgust she felt at the way she had behaved before, especially how she initially treated the other girls as inferiors when she first arrived. I saw tearful apologies she had made, and was happy to see that most of them were not forced upon her by me. "I love who I am now, and I never even liked myself before we met. You found a beautiful English snob who looked down at everyone in the world, and convinced her to be someone who loves those around her, and is loved in return."

She continued stroking me under the water, and began rubbing the soft hair of her sex against me. "I don't know why you stopped reading our minds, stopped trying to change us, but I am proud that you did. And I love you all the more for it."

Again she gave me a sharp tug to keep me from speaking, or even sending thoughts towards her. "The old me thought sex was terribly dirty, and an obligation of a wife. Now I enjoy it, and it makes me all the more excited thinking of how outraged the old me would be." She showed me thoughts of her and Claire kneading more than dough, of her out by the pool with three other girls. She concluded by showing me images of her and Magda from this morning as they ate Claire awake, and then swapped places with her.

"Now, it is time to really shock the old me," she thought with a grin. She raised up out of the bath and moved her body over my erection. Her hand was guiding me into her as she settled down. She was always very tight, but this time she was having a much harder time than usual. She grabbed a little bath oil from the edge of the tub and wiped it on my erection before the water could dissipate it too much.

She tried again and lowered herself onto me, and I felt a wave of discomfort come from her. I was about to stop her when I suddenly felt my cock pop inside of her. It was only then that I realized she was working me into her ass. I could feel the tight ring of her anus slowly slide down my cock until her hips were resting on mine.

"Now, I want you to fuck my ass!" she shouted into my mind. I grabbed her hips and started thrusting into her. The water in the tub started splashing everywhere. She sent dirty thoughts toward me and I could feel her orgasm as she realized I heard every filthy thought. "See what you were missing you bad man. Fuck this prissy ass!"

I wanted to hold on, but I couldn't. I was so open to her need and her sexual excitement that it flooded through me. "Let them know I am shouting!" she thought to me, and for a moment it was like she borrowed my powers to tell the girls that I had my dick in her ass and she loved it. That was the moment I came inside of her. With her shouts ringing in my head I thrust deep into her ass and my seed erupted into her.

Tiffany started planting kisses on my face and I tried to just hold her still as the shockwaves echoed through me. Eventually she stopped and lay against me, both of us breathing heavily. She sat up enough to kiss me gently, looking lovingly into my eyes. I bit my lip as she slowly raised herself off of me, sending a wave of exquisite agony through me. She slid around on the slick porcelain to lean against me as the frenzy of our sex slowly faded from our bodies.

After a few minutes, she grabbed the soap and started cleaning my cock again. She looked at me as if she was trying to speak to me. She was clearly frustrated that I wasn't listening to her. Rather than break the verbal silence, I pantomimed as best I could that I couldn't hear her for a while after I came.

She looked at me shrewdly and I could see that thoughts were racing through her head but I couldn't tell what they were. She glanced toward the door and I was startled when it opened.

Bambi walked in and said, "Magda and the girls took the Maybach. She said that she'd bring back a surprise." Before I could ask what surprise, Bambi continued, "Claire says that since everyone's been woken up, we will have breakfast in about fifteen minutes. She said that should be enough time for everyone to get clean." Bambi gave Tiffany a knowing wink as she emphasized the word "clean."



The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 04



This chapter continues where the previous one left off. As an advanced warning, this is a plot chapter, so there isn't explicit sex. As always, your votes and comments are appreciated.

* * *

Tiffany and I didn't spend a long time getting clean, since we only had to clean off the remnants of our romp in the tub. Although since it was anal sex and we were about to eat, we made sure that everything got cleaned thoroughly. While I enjoyed washing her cute bottom, and really enjoyed her washing my cock, what I really enjoyed was when we washed each others hands afterwards. Feeling her slim fingers slide between and around my own felt incredibly erotic. After rinsing our entwined fingers in the water, I brought my arms up and spread them wide, forcing Tiffany to come closer to me. Pulling my arms further back brought our mouths together in a kiss.

I released her hands and slid mine down her slippery wet arms and shoulders before pulling her into a hug. I continued kissing her as she wrapped her arms around my neck. I began feeling the urge to make love to her again, but then I heard a nagging voice in my head say, "You have to go to work today. Enough playing."

Tiffany seemed to know what happened because she broke the kiss and clenched me tightly in a hug. She released the hug enough to look me directly in the eyes. She put her forehead against mine and extended her lips to give me a quick sympathetic kiss.

We both got out of the tub and toweled each other off with quick pats from thick bath towels. I pulled a plush robe off the hook for her to wrap herself in and then grabbed my own. She took the time to don a pair of bath slippers, while I followed her out barefoot.

* * *

While dinner might be a dress-up occasion, in my family's own quirky way, breakfast was a much more casual affair. So when Tiffany and I headed downstairs to join the girls at the table, we weren't the only ones dressed in bathrobes. There was also an amusing assortment of pajamas, oversized T-shirts and bunny slippers. The sort of clothing that people wear before they decide their day has really begun.

The girls had already seated themselves and were waiting for Tiffany and me to join them. I was surprised to find that all the girls were there except for Magda, Dinah and Marie. Normally quite a few of them decide to sleep in and eat a cold breakfast.

But having everyone for breakfast didn't explain the strange feeling I had as I looked around the table. It wasn't anything I could put my finger on, but something was definitely different. I also noticed that Tiffany was getting more attention than she usually did. Not that she was unpopular, but this morning she seemed to have a magnetic pull that attracted the girls' attention.

Aside from beautiful diners, the table was full of the platters of breakfast foods with enough quantity and variety to fill a restaurant buffet. I took in the aromas as I went to my seat at the head of the table. I was a bit startled to discover that the two person chair was wholly unoccupied. Ever since the chair appeared in my house, there had always been one of the girls sharing the seat with me for each meal.

As I sat down I looked around the table at my girls, trying to figure out what was going on. They were all busy in conversation and hardly seemed to notice me. Tiffany commanded the attention of half the girls as she moved her hands quickly. Whatever she was telling them was most interesting as they were soon whispering to each other as they continuing watching her tell the story. Maybe she was telling them about the sex we had just had, because I could see a few of the girls shifting as if their bottom was sore and not just Tiffany's.

Whatever was going on, it left me feeling left out. I caught momentary glances of the girls sneaking a peek at me, but it was only out of the corner of my eye. I mechanically took food from the platters as they were passed around the table, and passed them on in turn.

I was really getting paranoid. First Tiffany reveals that she knew about my powers, and now I am abandoned and ignored at my own dinner table. A part of me wanted to be angry, but a greater part of me was saddened. Saddened that my idyll was finally crashing down around me.

"It's Magda's turn!" Gwen said suddenly from the foot of the table, loudly enough to silence the rest of the conversation at the table. She continued, "but she's not furred." Gwen thought for a moment before saying, "No, she was disturbed because of her..." Before she could finish what she was saying Claire put a hand on her arm and whispered something.

As the rest of the room feel silent, I began to understand what was happening, or thought I did. Gwen was a perfectly sweet and habitually happy sloe-eyed girl that I found in France. But right now those lustrous eyes were shining with the beginnings of tears as Claire continued speaking in soft words to her. Even in the silence that was filling the room, I couldn't make out the words Claire spoke.

Gwen is the sort of girl who tries too hard to make people happy. Obviously the girls were keeping something secret from me, and Gwen wanted to tell me because not knowing was making me upset. But eventually Claire had Gwen nodding her head, and even smiling, although still sniffling a bit. Betsy, who was sitting on Gwen's other side, added something before escorting Gwen to the bathroom.

I looked around the table at the remaining girls, but they were all looking down at their plates. I was looking at the wrong side of the table, so I missed the elbow or poke that caused Bambi to yelp. Everyone looked her way, and she calmly took a swallow from her water glass before saying, "I think what Gwen meant to say was that it was Magda's turn to sit with you, but she deferred because..." She paused for a moment, risking a quick glance toward Tiffany. Receiving a nod, Bambi finished, "because of the errand she was running."

Evidently unsatisfied with Bambi's response, Linda added, "But Marie and Dinah went with her so obviously they couldn't sit next to you either."

Claire quickly added, "and I couldn't have sat next to you, since I just had the honor last night." That opened the floodgates and soon each girl was offering up explanations about why it wouldn't be fair if she sat next to me, or sometimes why it wouldn't be fair if another girl did. The explanations started plausibly, but by the third time around my head was spinning.

Even without my powers I knew they were covering something up. Since I had recently come inside of Tiffany, I couldn't even use my powers to find out what it was. That was when Anna barged into my brain again and reminded me, "Even if you could, I wouldn't let you." Actually she couldn't stop me, but she would nag at me and make me feel miserable if I did. Looking around at the girls as they tried to distract me from what was really going on, I realized I didn't want to read this from their minds anyway. Clearly whatever they were hiding from me excited them. I also knew that they loved me, so it probably wasn't anything I wouldn't like. Probably.

* * *

I quickly ate my breakfast as the girls continued their bantering. Gwen and Betsy rejoined us and Gwen was now all smiles. She listened to the girls play "not it" and eventually chimed in, "and I can't because my turn's next." This caused the girls to lapse into silence again. Gwen evidently realized she had said something wrong and added, "Does this mean I have to get unfurred to? I get all itchy when I shave down there!"

The laughter that ensued broke much of the tension that had built up. Soon it was normal conversation around the table. I felt another mental prod from Anna who said, "Hurry up, you have to get dressed and get to work."

By a strange coincidence, Bambi took that moment to say, "Can I go with you to work today?" She added, "You know how much I like getting dressed up for work!" This caused another round of laughter, and a slight blush to form on Bambi's face. When I met Bambi, she got undressed for a living.

* * *

Bambi and I soon excused ourselves to get dressed for work. She headed towards the girls' rooms and I headed to the Master Suite. Someone had already laid out a business suit for me, along with a selection of three ties. The girls hardly ever let me pick out my own clothes when I'm leaving the house, but I always get to pick my own tie. Since I would be meeting with the DA this afternoon, I decided on the reddest of the three red ties the girls deigned to let me choose from.

It didn't take me long to put on my suit, so I was amazed when Bambi entered the room fully dressed while I was still attaching my cuff-links. She was wearing a dark gray pin-striped skirt suit with a white silk blouse. Even though the waist of the jacket was tailored to emphasize her womanly curves, she appeared to be all business. Her long luxurious red hair, which had first attracted my lecherous attention all those years ago, was arranged in a conservative yet artful twist behind her head. The dark stockings de-emphasized her pale legs, which normally tended to draw attention toward the hemline of her skirt. Even the black heels seemed designed to distract attention from her sexuality and emphasize her business acumen.

"How is it that you always seemed to get dressed so quickly?" I asked as I brushed off my suit to get it to lie flat. Bambi stood in front of me and adjusted my collar and tie slightly. She took her time dressing me to her satisfaction before acknowledging my question.

She looked up at me suddenly, her green eyes peering deep into me. Still holding onto my tie, she rose up on to her toes and said softly, "Easy, I didn't bother with underwear." Her closeness, her scent, her eyes, and the thought of her without underwear nearly caused me to lose control. When she kissed me softly with her dark red painted lips, I could feel my arousal growing, pressing against my pants and against her body.

I groaned but said, "I can't before work." If I did it again now, I would never have my powers at full strength by the time I got to work. One of the disadvantages of having such a sexy assistant.

She winked at me before turning to sashay out of the room. Somehow she had switched from business assistant walk to stripper walk and turned her conservative outfit into a wet dream. Shaking my head did little good, as I had to walk out of the house following a trail of her seductive scent.

* * *

Gwen was waiting for me at the door with my briefcase. At least one of the girls would wait by the door to give me a kiss before I left for work, sometimes they would all be lined up. But this morning I was glad it was Gwen since she was the one who started the tradition. She was also the one who bought me the briefcase.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me a sweet kiss. I returned the kiss and lifted the back of her oversized T-shirt enough to give her bare bottom a squeeze. She gave me a gentle slap on the chest and said, "That's not how they do it on TV."

"Ward Cleaver never had something this sexy seeing him off to work," I said. I gave her bottom a bit of a spank and was compelled to add, "Now get back to conspiring with the others."

She had scurried halfway down the hall before what I said clicked in her mind. My powers had returned just enough to sense her sudden broadcast of panic. She turned back at me and said, "But it supposed to be a secret!"

I hated to see her distraught so I said, "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone."

"Oh good!" she beamed and hurried off.

* * *

Bambi was already waiting in the driver's seat of the BWM for me. I stepped into the passenger seat and put my suitcase in the back with Bambi's heels. Before I even had the door completely shut or my seat belt fastened we were off.

A couple of years before I had the beautiful and dignified crushed oyster shell drive replaced with slightly less dignified cobbles, just because of Bambi's driving. Well, most of the girls drove to quickly for such a driveway, but Bambi's driving regularly tore grooves in the lovely white surface.

As my gray car rocketed out of the drive and onto the street, I finished fastening my safety belt. I reached into the back seat and opened my briefcase enough to extract my PDA. I looked over the day's schedule and sighed. Betsy had scheduled me for a full day of clients. I beamed the first appointment to the car's GPS computer and began scanning the rest of the day's itinerary.

Bambi tore through the turns that twisted down the mountain on which I had my home built. There had been eight homes on the road snaking up the mountain, but I bought all of them. So except for the mailman, delivery men and the occasional lost tourist, no one ventured up the road to my home. I calmly reminded Bambi that it didn't mean she could use both sides of the road.

I was reading about the last appointment for the day when Bambi finally ran out of private road. In an ironic show of dignity, Bambi turned on the blinker before gently merging with traffic. I gave Bambi a distracted smile as I read the notes that Betsy had made on the case. It was a pro-bono job and Betsy wrote a brief apology for scheduling it so late. Betsy also wrote that Claire already knew that dinner would be late.

I turned off my PDA and leaned back in my seat, trying to organize my thoughts for the first meeting.

Despite living on top of a mountain without a neighbor within a five mile radius, it only took twenty minutes to arrive on the outskirts of the city. I don't know if I dozed or not, but I was suddenly very alert. Bambi was chatting on the car's speaker phone with someone, but that wasn't what caught my attention. I felt like I was being preyed upon, something I hadn't felt since my days mixed up in the underworld.

Bambi went right on chatting and seemed oblivious to the looming danger. Which was odd, since it was her instincts that had saved my life once.

* * *

Nearly a decade ago, I was in England reveling in a huge win against a half dozen men who sold guns to the IRA and other terrorist groups. I won the usual pile of money and guns, but was amused that one of the counters was for a strip club: The Fox's Den. With the deed in pocket, I directed the cabby to take me to see my latest acquisition.

The cabby questioned my choice of destination, insisting that a man of my obvious means would be much happier at one of the city's fine gentlemen's clubs. Or if I was in the market for an escort, he knew all kinds of girls and could find me one that would suit my needs.

When I asked if the girls were unattractive, the cabbie said they were just as foxy as the name implied. As he drove through the streets I interrogated the man about the club, and it amused me to hear him stumble through half truths as I read his mind. The bottom line was the club was notoriously dangerous and patronized by unscrupulous characters.

"Well, seeing as how I just won the deed from these shady fellows you speak of, I must be even more dangerous!" The effect on the driver was delightful since not only did he stop speaking, but he also increased his speed considerably. In fact, he was so grateful to have me out of his cab that he drove off before I had paid the fare.

* * *

The bouncer tried to prevent me from entering the Fox's Den. He didn't believe me when I showed him the deed, he didn't believe when he called his boss. Annoyed I reached into his mind and averted his thoughts from me. While his eyes could still see me and his ears could still hear me, he had no idea I was there or that we had ever met.

I whistled a merry little tune as I pushed the door open and stepped into my new club. The air was filled with cheap cigarette smoke and the light from a few gaudy neon signs and some stage lamps. As I walked through the crowd I could feel a ripple of silence spread through the room. I could also feel eyes on my back even if no one would look me in the eye.

I didn't need my powers to tell me they didn't take kindly to strangers in this place. But I did notice that someone had called ahead warning that I might be stopping by. Apparently that someone was still quite upset about losing the place, but then again they always were. I scanned the crowd and learned there wouldn't be trouble right away, but I kept myself open to be on the safe side.

I looked at the man who had the prime seat at the edge of the stage. Either he had psychic powers as well, or mine were leaking again because suddenly he looked around at me and had somewhere else to be. I claimed his seat and as I did so the crowd starting making crowd noises again.

There were two dancers on side stages slowly working their poles. They were both fully nude except for pasties over their nipples. There were another dozen girls wearing bikinis and wraps that circulated among the men. Two of the circulating girls caught my eye and they were soon on my lap insisting that I needed a private dance. The thought of going into one of the seedy back rooms revolted me, even though I knew the girls would make it worth my while, but I allowed them to ply their trade.

They kept up their sales pitch much longer than they normally would thanks in part to my powers, and in part to being the new club owner. One of the tramps even worked open my zipper to grab my cock. I found it all very amusing, and enjoyed the attempted power play more than the hand job. I would tip them later, but for now I enjoyed watching them work.

That is I enjoyed it until the DJ announced the next dancer: Joanne. From behind the beaded curtain strutted a tall leggy redhead. She had the athletic build found in real dancers and the best strip club dancers. The muscles on her legs and arms were hinted at beneath the soft smooth skin, and her abs were well defined but utterly feminine.

Her skin was pale and entirely flawless from her nicely turned ankles all the way up to her slender throat. Her only flaw as far as I could see was her enormous fake breasts. They seemed so out of place that I found them repulsive. But as repulsive as I found them, I could tell from the crowd's reaction that they adored Joanne. From the few minds I sampled, it seemed it was because of her huge breasts and the thought of coming between them.

I tried turning my attention back to the ladies on my lap, but as Joanne danced I kept finding myself looking up at her. As her dance continued I was entranced. It wasn't just her dancing or her body that attracted my attention, it was something inside of her mind that called out to me. I felt an unusual pang of remorse as I pilfered her mind trying to find what attracted me.

As her G-string disappeared in a flourish, leaving the truth of her hair color a mystery, I finally realized I was so enamored because she was genuinely a good person. She was doing something she hated because she thought it was the only way to survive. The strange thing was that no sign of this inner torment showed on her face. In fact the only active thought in her mind was being good at her job.

I was so distracted by the dancer on stage that I failed to notice the man at my shoulder. I felt a tapping on my shoulder and a disturbance of the ladies on my lap. I glanced up and a rather slimy fellow said, "So you're the new owner, eh? I see you like Joanne, she's a favorite here. Come back to the office and I will arrange a visit."

I searched the weasel's mind, but it wasn't a trap. It was only a way to try to ingratiate himself with the new owner, so that maybe I would ignore his embezzlement like the previous owner had. Joanne had finished her dance and was collecting applause and pound notes. The weasel got her attention and jerked his head towards his office. He then led me towards the back. The two girls who had been on my lap trailed behind me, they didn't want to miss out on a chance to impress the new owner.




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 04



The manager's office was a little room crammed with junk. The only clear spot in his office was the middle of his desk. Fishing a bit in the oily waters of his mind I learned it was because he would screw the dancers while they were bent over the desk, and he hated picking things up off the floor.

As I walked into the office, the girl's tried to follow me in, but I shut the door on them. I could hear them both accusing the other of ruining their chances. When they stopped shouting at each other I found it was because Joanne was heading down the hall. I could feel their loathing through the door, but I didn't let it stop me from opening it just as Joanne was about to knock.

The weasel had poured me a drink and was trying to offer it to me. Instead, I threw him out and ushered Joanne in. She was wearing a green wrap over a lavender bikini and seemed much less confident than she had on stage. Her heart really sank when she saw that my fly was open from earlier. I jerked my zipper up and thought furiously.

I felt another pang of remorse and wondered why. This wasn't the first time I had been with a stripper. Since I'd started dwelling in the underworld I'd also been with prostitutes and girls looking for sugar daddies. While some of them were merely greedy, others had felt trapped just as Joanne did. So why hadn't it bothered me before? Why was Joanne special?

I searched her mind but couldn't find anything that unusual about her. She was smarter than most, but was born on the wrong side of the tracks. Her brother and father had both been criminals before they were killed and their specter had haunted every job application she had submitted since. So at sixteen she became a stripper and had already been in the job for two years. I had seen it all before dozens of times, but somehow this time the girl had a chance. Or maybe I was the one who had a chance.

I went over to the phone and started looking through my stash of business cards until I found the one for the limousine service I had used to ferry me around the cleaner parts of the city. The man on the other end was incredulous when I told him where I wanted to be picked up, but when he realized who I was he was suddenly very gracious.

Joanne was looking at me dubiously as I finished the call. I walked over to her and watched her flinch. She clearly thought the worst before I began putting calming thoughts into her head. "Go get your stuff, you're done for the night."

* * *

It took me a while to unhook from the manager and the other strippers at the club. By now word had passed that I was the new owner and they were all looking for a promotion or a bonus. Finally I told them all to get back to work or they were fired. That cleared enough space for me to see Joanne leaving out through the back door.

Something odd happened to me as I was about to reach out with my mind to stop her: I felt a stab of guilt. I quickly quashed the thought of forcing her to stop and instead found myself running to catch up with her. She was moving rather quickly and I finally called out for her to stop.

When I caught up she said, "I thought you said I had the rest of the night off."

"Yes, but I'd like it if you would have dinner with me."

"I don't date people from work," she said. I saw flashes in her mind of offers from the previous owner, the manager, the other strippers, and of course the clients.

"Would you rather I fired you before I take you out?"

"Are you looking for a sexual harassment lawsuit? Just because I take off my clothes for a living doesn't mean I forfeit my right to a safe work environment." I looked at her in amazement as she spoke. I had been threatened with harassment lawsuits before, it goes with the territory, but this girl really meant it. As I read her thoughts I realized she would sue me, but not for the money, for the chance to earn a living. I also realized that she had actually studied sexual harassment laws.

"Joanne, I'm not looking to take advantage of you. All I'm asking is for you to join me for dinner. We'll go to a very public place and you can leave whenever you like." I don't know why I said it, but I added, "Think of me as your second chance."

Joanne considered my question as the long white limousine pulled up in front of the club. The driver got out and hurried to open the door. I believe it was the chance to ride in a limo that convinced her to take a chance. I watched Joanne climb into the back of the limo, and took a quick look around before following her in.

A few of the regulars were loitering around in front, and I could feel the weasely club manager watching me from the dark alley beside the club. He would soon be calling the previous owners to discuss the situation.

* * *

The ride in the limo was not as comfortable as I would have liked. Joanne clearly did not trust my intentions and sat as far from me as possible. With a few quick mental commands I could have had her sitting on my lap mewling like a kitten, but I decided I wanted her honestly and not because of my powers. The thought made me smile, at least until my seemingly misplaced smile caused a mild panic in Joanne.

So I waited in awkward silence until we arrived back at my hotel. Before she could look out the window and see a hotel instead of a restaurant, I said, "Before you panic, this is my hotel. But they have a very good restaurant that is very well lit. Actually they have a couple of places to eat, and I'll let you choose which one."

Joanne was clearly still nervous, and as I looked at her dressed in her jeans and baggy sweatshirt, I realized she would probably be more comfortable at a less elegant establishment than those featured at the hotel. Then I remembered that they had a couple of boutique shops off the hotel lobby.

"I'm not sure what they call it, but there is a lounge in the lobby that serves light meals, would be more casual and everyone who walked in would see us eating. There is another restaurant off the lobby that is a bit more upscale, I believe they serve traditional English foods. Then there is the French place on the top floor. But I doubt you would want that since it has more of a romantic feel, and you aren't quite dressed appropriately. So the choice is yours, Joanne."

Joanne looked at me and I watched her mental gears spin. I didn't read her thoughts, since I realized long ago that when I did I tended to interfere in the process. But I did notice how much thought was going on behind her placid exterior.

"The French place sounds fine, I just hope I don't embarrass you too much," Joanne said. I didn't know if she was trying to wiggle out of dining with me, or trying to get me to wiggle out. Either way I would be delighted to play her game.

I looked over at her as she cast down her eyes and said, "Joanne, if you are going to dine with me, you will have to stop being afraid of me. Please give me a chance."

She looked at me for a moment, nodded and said, "Okay. But stop calling me Joanne, it makes me feel like a stripper. My real name's Bambi."

* * *

I got out of the limo when the door was opened and offered Bambi my hand. She looked at it as if it might bite her, but took it anyway. She even held my arm as I walked to the front door of the hotel. The doorman already had it opened and was in the process of greeting me when he noticed the sort of girl who was on my arm. Even under the baggy sweatshirt her large implants attracted attention.

Bambi noticed the attention and was on the verge of panic again. She clearly wasn't comfortable in such well-to-do circumstances. A quick mental push from me however, and the doorman stopped noticing her breasts. I was a bit surprised to find that he was just as dumbstruck, but now it was from seeing her face framed by the cascade of auburn hair.

I looked back at Bambi and realized for the first time that she really did have a beautiful face. Her nose was long and straight, her cheekbones high and graceful. Her mouth was a little small, but made her seem all the more innocent and sweet.

I was so pleased that I gave the doorman a twenty pound tip. I was smiling as I walked across the lobby with Bambi on my arm. I noticed the hotel manager loitering in the lobby and nodded him over. Since I had been occupying the penthouse for the better part of a month, he was very quick to respond.

Before he got out more than "Good Evening, Mister..." I interrupted him. "This is my friend Bambi, who just flew in from out of town. Her flight was delayed and they lost her luggage. Could you call upstairs to the restaurant and see if they will honor my reservations a few hours late. Also she will need a dress, so if you could see that the boutique is available? Oh, and she might want to freshen up in the salon, if it is still open."

The hotel manager knew I had no reservations, and suspected that my friend was not from out of town. But service wouldn't be service without accepting little lies with aplomb. I also realized that he would be calling a number of people back to work to make sure the salon and boutiques were indeed open. "Of course, sir. Will there be anything else?"

"No that'll be all. Oh, and put the dress and whatever else she needs on my bill." The manager raised his eyebrow a fraction of an inch at my last statement and I nodded, saying I accepted the cost of greasing the wheels. "Bambi, go ahead with this gentleman, I'll wait for you in the bar upstairs."

* * *

It is always a joy to see a master at work, and the hotel manager was one of the best. With a few quick gestures he had people darting off in a dozen different directions. The manager was better able to disguise his interest in her breasts than the doorman, but I could see it was distracting everyone. So I decided to follow along on the makeover tour and see that things went smoothly.

Just as I had done with the door man at the Fox's Den, I hid myself from view. Bambi and the hotel manager were sure I had left for the elevator but it headed upwards empty, which left me standing not more than a dozen feet from them.

Bambi turned to the manager and said, "That man can't be serious! Are you in on this?"

"I assure you, Madame, I am not in on anything. But you seem very agitated. Perhaps you would like to have a drink at the bar before getting a new dress for dinner?"

I chuckled in amusement. The old dog certainly knew his tricks. By the time Bambi had a couple of drinks, the boutique would be reopened and the salon ready for a quick makeover. I stayed out of hearing range mostly to increase my own the suspense. A part of me desperately wanted to know what Bambi learned about me from the hotel manager, but another part decided to let her have her privacy. He left her in the bartender's capable hands with a few quick words and hurried off.

I worked the disappearing boob trick on just about every man or woman who walked near Bambi, starting with the bartender. She seemed to genuinely enjoy making eye contact with people instead of being seen as a pair of breasts, and I could feel her wondering if that was because it was such a ritzy place.

Bambi seemed much more relaxed and was chatting freely with the bartender when the manager returned. He suggested that they stop at the salon first. Again the manager dropped Bambi off, this time with the beautician. He made a hand gesture to the woman that seemed to signal that she should stall for time. I glanced around and saw that the boutique was still closed for the night.

Soon the hotel manager was off again. I decided he would definitely get a large tip, maybe a car. Yes, a nice Rolls Royce would suit him. A Rolls and a twenty year old blonde.

I watched long enough to make sure that Bambi was in good hands and that the boutique had been reopened. I couldn't use disguise Bambi's breasts from the woman at the boutique, but I made sure she was sympathetic before I left.

* * *

As I sat in the bar nursing my fourth drink, I regretted leaving Bambi alone downstairs. It wasn't that I thought she wasn't in capable hands, it was just that I couldn't handle the waiting. The first two dozen times I felt someone get off the elevator I looked towards the door expecting to see her. I hadn't felt that much anticipation before a date since... Well, since my first date with Anna. But I have learned a lot since then.

I was concentrating so much on my drink and not noticing those around me that I was startled when the bartender said, "The lady at the end of the bar sent you this drink." I looked in the direction he indicated and was amazed at who I saw smiling in my direction: Bambi.

I took in the new Bambi as I walked towards her end of the bar. She had on a sleek black dress that hugged her curves in an elegant and yet seductive manner. Her long red hair hung down her back in gentle waves and was held in place by a black band of cloth. Her makeup was much more subtle and sophisticated than the artless cosmetics she wore for stripping. As my eyes traveled down towards her most pronounced assets, I saw that she was wearing a gorgeous silver and diamond necklace.

She caught me staring and said, "Richard said I could borrow the necklace for the evening. Actually he said that if it pleased you, he would put it on your bill." It took me a moment to recall that Richard was the hotel manager's name.

"No Bambi, if it pleases you he can put it on my bill. Or if you would rather, you can return the necklace and keep the money that I would have paid."

Bambi gasped, "You are making a fool of me! He said the necklace cost over a hundred thousand pounds."

"You don't have to believe me. You can consider this evening a dream and go back to your old life in the morning. But for now, whatever you want I will give you."

* * *

The maitre d' soon found me and escorted us to a table. I don't remember what we ate, or even if I ordered the food or she did. I do remember watching with joy as Bambi was introduced to gourmet dining. The ceremony of the dining experience captured her attention as much as the food itself, which is probably why I can't remember what we ate.

I listened to her tell me about her life, all the things that I had already learned from reading her mind but told as she thought they should be. She told me that she really wanted to be a barrister, but that she had no money for an education. She also explained that no one would hire someone with her background for more than sweeping up a shop. It seems she had been arrested a few times for solicitation among other things, a product of being a beautiful girl in a bad part of town. It broke my heart when I realized I was likely to be the only man who actually believed her when she said she was innocent.

There were a lot of things that Bambi didn't tell me at the time, but were so close to the surface of her thoughts that I couldn't help but hear. Her mother locked her out for being a "whore" when she was sixteen. When she turned to her friend's she found their mother's were turned against her as well. In desperation she applied to the Fox's Den. The manager overlooked her underage status and quickly had her working on stage. At first he didn't make her have sex with him because he was afraid of getting caught with a minor, later it was because she pulled in too much money dancing to risk ruining it.

When Bambi asked me about my life I evaded her questions. She didn't press, but I could tell she wanted to know. As we were having desert she asked, "What do you do that you have all this money?"

A slew of lies played through my mind, but I decided to take a chance on being honest. Well at least somewhat honest, "I win my money in poker games against drug dealers, arms dealers and other criminals. I also take the money from millionaire playboys who like to live dangerously playing in underground games. That is also how I came to own the Fox's Den."

"You must be a dangerous man to play in those kind of games," she said with the tone that implied she thought I was joking, but was afraid I was serious.

I looked across the table at Bambi and considered how to answer. The truth was and is that I am a dangerous man, especially to those closest to me. Here I was sitting across from a lovely young woman, and I was drawing her in ever closer. She was already close enough to¬¬*

I snatched back the tendrils of power that had been slipping into her mind unnoticed by either of us. Bambi suddenly went pale as a primal part of her mind realized she had been in mortal peril. I could see her begin to shake in fear.

"I am a dangerous man, but I keep my word, since it is all that I have left of value." I could see the incredulous look on Bambi's face. I could understand her incredulity, because only the insanely wealthy can truly understand that Rosebud could have been a sled.

I placed one of my private cards in front of her and continued, "Call this number and tell Betsy, my secretary, who you are. If you really want to study law, admission, tuition and a generous stipend will be arranged wherever you wish to go, here or abroad. Or she will arrange for a sizable amount of money to be placed in an account for you to do with what you want. This is a second chance, what you do with it is up to you."

Walking away from the table and the shell-shocked woman was one of the hardest things I have ever done. As I left the restaurant I told the maitre d' to inform the hotel manager that Bambi was to be given a room for the night, breakfast and a limo ride home in the morning.

* * *

I interrupted Bambi's phone call to make one of my own. "Hello, is this the police? There has been an accident on Route 5 between Hill Avenue and the Main Street Exit." I hung up the phone before the operator could interrogate me further. Bambi looked over at me to see if I was crazy.

"Stop the car!" I shouted, even as I reached out with my mind to force her foot to move to the brake. The pedal was mashed to the floor a split second after the tail lights of the car in front of us failed to light. Bambi looked to the left to dodge around him, but we were neatly boxed in.

I finally realized that the impending danger I had been feeling was an insurance scam, and we were only targeted because of my expensive car. I was so angry that I caused the car ahead of us to swerve to the left, and made his buddy to fail to brake hard enough to avoid him. While I was doing this Bambi brought the BMW to a quick and quite safe stop on the side of the road.

The cars of the other two men weren't badly damaged, and the men inside were more frustrated than hurt. I climbed out of the car while Bambi was asking me what was going on. I paid her little heed since I became aware that the men were about to flee the scene. When they saw me coming they redoubled their efforts. But although their cars were only slightly damaged, they were well wedged together. I was also busy thwarting their efforts.

Bambi caught up to me and wrapped her arms around me, asking again what was going on and how I knew to call the police. As if on cue I heard the sirens of the police cruisers as they came to investigate my earlier phone call.

* * *

"Officer, it is a clear case of what they call a swoop and squat. But fortunately for me, Bambi is a marvelous driver and spotted the ploy immediately. You will probably find the tail lights of the front car have been tampered with. Now if you'll excuse us, I have important business to attend to."

"Hold on there, buddy. You aren't leaving until I have a complete statement from you, your driver and anyone else who might have seen anything. We'll start with your name."

I was already frustrated with the delay those damn fools had caused and was on the verge of loosing my temper with the Sergeant. I heard a surprising calm Anna say, "Don't take it out on Sergeant Mackenzie, or his young wife and twin daughters. If you act rashly there is no telling how much damage you will do to his mind." I stopped cold.




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 04



"Sergeant Mackenzie, I know that it is important to take an official statement while the incident is still clear in the witness's mind, but I really cannot delay my morning schedule further. I will come to the police station in lieu of my lunch hour to make a statement at that time." I handed the young sergeant my business card.

"Who do you think you are Mister..." The police officer paused as he glanced down at my card. He was about to say he didn't care who I was, but Bambi stopped him before he could. She placed her own business card on his clipboard next time mine.

"Sergeant, you have our contact information and from your reaction you have no doubt as to our identities. Since you are clearly well trained, you will know that it is unlawful for you to hold us against our will for questioning in a matter once our identities have been established. Now please excuse us," she said as she led me by the arm back to the car.

* * *

Bambi was quiet the rest of the drive. As we were pulling in to the parking garage for my first appointment of the day she said, "You are still a dangerous man, aren't you?"

I felt a lump catch in my throat and could only nod. I tried to lighten the mood and quipped, "By the way you handled the Sergeant, you are a pretty dangerous woman."

Bambi gave a wry smile and reached out a hand to touch my cheek. "I am only dangerous because of the second chance you gave me." She dropped her gaze and my cheek cooled as she withdrew her hand. She added, "But you... You were born dangerous."

I lay back in my seat, my eyes starring blankly through the windshield. "Why? Why do you stay with me?"

She reached out and turned my head to face her, pulling me close enough so our noses nearly touched. "Because I love you, I love the other girls, I love my entire life because of you. You took Joanne the stripper, and gave her the chance to be Bambi McIntyre, JD. You gave all of us a second chance. Don't you think you deserve one too?"

I wanted to say no, but I couldn't disappoint her. When I failed to speak she added, "You poor sweet man. When are you going to stop punishing yourself?"



The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 05



I'd like to thank everyone that has taken the time to vote on my stories and send me comments. I hope you enjoy the latest installment.

* * *

As Bambi and I rode the elevator to my day's first appointment, her question lingered in my mind. When would I finally stop punishing myself for all the evil things that I've done? I expected to hear Anna's voice speak to me on the issue, but she remained as silent.

Just as the elevator bell pinged, Bambi quickly leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. She said, "I know you don't need the luck, but you do need to know that I love you and believe in you."

I looked at the seemingly somber redhead in her dark gray suit and didn't for a moment doubt that she loved me. That is one of the few aspects of my power that never seems to leave me: knowing that my girls love me. I am often confounded as to why they do, but never that they do.

The doors slid open before I could phrase a reply. As we stepped out of the elevator there was a receptionist's desk a dozen paces in front of us. Throm and Lowe is one of the bigger law firms in the city and occupied the entire floor and half of the next one. This was my first experience having them as a client; I was more used to working with the DA proving guilt than innocence.

The blonde receptionist obviously knew we were expected because she made a quick call and said, "Please follow me, Mr. Throm is expecting you." She took off down the hall rather more quickly than decorum would dictate. I sensed that she was a bit afraid of me, but quite afraid of Mr. Throm.

Ahead were imposing double doors that were flanked by a small incongruous sign that read, "Conference Room A". The blonde knocked quickly on the door and walked in without awaiting a response. I heard a distant clock chiming the hour as she said, "Mr. Throm, the consultants are here."

I walked into the conference room with a deliberate casualness and took stock of the other people in the room. At the head of the oval conference table was Mr. Throm in his tailored suit and starched shirt. Along the right side of the table sat a half dozen junior lawyers who looked at me with disdain in their minds if not on their faces. In the center of the left side of the table sat a single man in a white cotton suit.

I took the seat at the foot of the table and Bambi took the seat to my left. This left two empty chairs between her and the white suited client, a distance which didn't seem enough. I sized up the client with a single glance, but found the man sitting directly across from me more interesting. Mr. Throm was the sort of man that people, especially juries, seemed to trust immediately. But as I looked at the vultures sitting to my right, and remembering the receptionist's reaction, I knew that he was rotten to the core. But as I scanned his mind yet again, I realized that despite his corrupt nature he had never broken the law.

I sat quietly and waited. Junior lawyer number 5 was the first to begin to fidget. It only took a few minutes before all of the junior staff exhibited some sort of impatience. But Mr. Throm and the client sat quietly as they both looked at me with cold deliberation.

I could see the client, a Marty Tribido, counting dollar signs with each passing minute. Finally he turned to glare at Mr. Throm. Throm said, "We have asked you here to help our client, Mr. Tribido. He has found himself in a rather tight spot and hoped that your particular expertise might help."

I said, "You have informed him of my fees?" I didn't really need an answer, but it was part of the game. I received a nod from Mr. Throm and Mr. Tribido. "You have also informed him that I will not work for a guilty client and that he will be charged for this session whether I take his case or not?"

I knew that last part broke Bambi's heart. She believed that even the most guilty client deserved the best defense possible. Part of it was her firmly held faith in the adversarial justice system, but a greater part was the naive belief that a guilty person who was graced with forgiveness would mend their ways. She still believed that if her father hadn't been labeled a criminal, he wouldn't have died a criminal.

Mr. Throm said, "I would give you a lecture on how the legal system in this country works and a lawyers obligations ethically and under the law. But you are not a lawyer and have no such ethics. I have advised Mr. Tribido of all salient points." I would have laughed as the shark impugned my ethics, but this was a job. Instead I merely nodded.

The slow play finally wore down Marty's nerve and he blurted out, "Gregory, how is this cutthroat going to get me off for my wife's murder?"

Gregory Throm's facade cracked slightly at his friend's outburst. I knew the man had killed his wife and I was preparing to leave when Gregory said, "He isn't! He has been asked here to consult on the resisting arrest charge."

Marty stood and slammed his hands on the table. He began a rabid rant as a fierce discussion erupted among the junior lawyers. I looked at the crafty shark sitting across from me and wondered what his game was. I looked to Bambi for advice and saw a shocked expression on her face.

I read the surface thoughts running through her mind and realized I had been trapped. The man was not guilty of resisting arrest and a host of other minor included offenses. But he was guilty of murdering his wife. The trap was that I couldn't consult for the district attorney on the murder while I was consulting for the defendant.

The chaos in the room didn't subside until the hour consultation was up. Marty Tribido and the junior lawyers seemed to be in a battle about who could out shout the other. As the battle raged, Gregory Throm and I stared at each other the vast expanse of table. Bambi said things to me during this time, but I can't recall exactly what it was.

Finally I stood and walked out of the room. The tumult hadn't subsided much as Tribido insisted to know why he was spending ten grand an hour to get out of a thousand dollar fine. Bambi followed on my heels and said, "I'm sorry, I should have known."

"You have nothing to be sorry for Bambi, I am the one who should have known." I wanted to blame Bambi, or Betsy who set up the appointment, but I couldn't. One thing I have learned is that I can only hold myself to blame.

We were soon to the elevator and I punched the button with more vehemence than was necessary. The receptionist could tell from our body language that our meeting with Mr. Throm has not gone well. She felt guilty, not because she knew what was in store, but because she had unwittingly lured someone else into Mr. Throm's web.

I looked the girl's mind over and saw that she had potential, but that working for Throm and Lowe was slowly killing her spirit. The lawyers were dismissive and condescending, the other secretaries cold and cutthroat, and the wealthy clients disturbed her deeply.

Bambi stepped into the elevator when the door opened, but I hesitated. Finally I reached into my pocket and pulled out one of my cards. I handed it to the blonde girl and said, "Call this number and tell the woman who answers that you are interested in a job."

As I stepped onto the elevator, I wondered if Betsy would ever get a call from this girl. I thought about giving the girl a mental push so that she would make the call, but as always I decided not to. The doors closed on my thoughts and Bambi said, "You just can't resist giving girls a second chance, can you?"

"Not quite," I said. "I only offer the second chance, it takes someone special to take advantage of the opportunity."

I smiled as I realized I could still make Bambi blush.

* * *

After the night I left Bambi sitting dazed at a table in a French restaurant, I put her entirely out of my mind. It took a lot of effort, but for her protection I had to. I erased her from my mind so completely that four years later I had to ask Betsy who Bambi McIntyre was, and why she would be inviting me to her graduation from Oxford. A little voice inside my head said it still wasn't safe, so I sent a short note in my stead.

Nearly three years after that I received a package. Under the plain brown paper, I found a box, and in the box I found a copy of a Judicial Doctorate thesis, and in the thesis a dedication to a dangerous man who believed in second chances. I also found a hand written invitation to a graduation ceremony at Harvard Law. This time Anna's voice wasn't so little, and she said I should go.

* * *

I lurked in the back of the room as the graduates went through their capping ceremony. One by one I watched as they became doctors of law. For most of them it was the next stone on their garden path through life. For a few, including the striking redhead, it was something that no one thought they would achieve, but through hard work, hard-earned scholarships and determination they did it anyway.

As Bambi's turn came, I could see her scanning the crowd. She wasn't looking for a friend or loved one, she was looking for me. I let my shroud of obscurity fall from around me, and let her see that I had made it. Her gaze riveted me in my seat and I realized that somehow, after one night I had become her friend and loved one.

Luckily the ceremony was a short one, and when it was over Bambi rushed over to me. She stopped suddenly a yard away, and without using my powers I could see the thoughts rushing through her mind. She suddenly realized that she didn't know me at all. Up until the moment she was face to face with me again, she thought she did.

I was the man who paid for her education. I was the man who had talked the dean of Oxford into having her admitted without transcripts or test scores. I was the man who took her out of a strip club and placed her on the path to real freedom. As I looked down at her, I realized I was also the man who paid to have her breast implants removed.

Perhaps it was my examination of her breasts that made up her mind, or maybe not. But I soon found myself with an armful of happy woman. Her tears of joys gave way to a different kind of tear, and her hug became more possessive. "Please don't run away again," she thought, loudly enough that I couldn't help but overhear.

* * *

We walked outside arm-in-arm, and I led her out to where my car waited. I opened the door of the Rolls for her and walked around to the driver's side. I could feel waves of doubt and excitement surging through Bambi's mind as I drove through Cambridge towards Boston. She wanted to know so many things, but couldn't find the words. After almost seven years of silence, I decided a little more waiting wouldn't hurt anything.

"Where are you taking me?" she finally blurted out. She knew it sounded more like what a kidnapping victim would say, than a prodigal child, and regretted it. But there was genuine concern in her mind. The longer I remained silent the greater her trepidation.

"Isn't it traditional for a graduate to be treated to dinner? And unless you are wearing an old sweatshirt and jeans under that graduation gown, you are going to be more suitably dressed than the last time I dined with you."

I could feel the relief surging through her, and the self-recrimination that she had any doubts in the first place. "What if I told you I wasn't wearing anything underneath the gown?"

"I would call you a liar and a tease. Even Joanne wouldn't have gone bare under her gown, and you are six years and six thousand miles separated from her."

"How do you know?" She asked. I could feel the doubt gnawing at her again. Was I going to steal away her freedom now that I've given her a taste? Was I really a benevolent spirit, or did I have a deeper sinister plan for her?

"I saw a hint of white where the gown is closed at the bottom," I lied. I had seen no such thing, but I saw in her mind the possibility and I pounced on it. "You can stop being so suspicious of my motives. You invited me after all."

"I invited you to my Oxford graduation as well..." She let the thought hang in the air, waiting for me to bite.

I stopped the car in front of the restaurant and got out, leaving the car running for the valet. I claimed the ticket as I walked around to find Bambi climbing out of the passenger side door. I stood two paces toward the door of the restaurant from where she stood on the curb.

She stood resolutely. Her body language said as strongly as her mind that she wouldn't move until I gave her an explanation. Finally I said, "Giving you a second chance was one of the first steps towards my own second chance. You can walk away now and never see me again, or you can join me for dinner and we will be friends."

"But why now, and not three years ago?" She struggled to only ask the single question. They had accumulated inside of her for years, begging for release. She really wanted to know why I was freeing her from obligation now, after a further three years of paying for her education and living expenses.

"Because three years ago I was still too dangerous for you to be around. Even now you are at risk being with me, but you have matured enough to make your own decision." I wanted to tell her everything, to allow her mind to be at peace, but I couldn't.

I took a deep breath and said, "Three years ago, I had to ask my secretary who Bambi McIntyre was, and why I would be invited to her graduation. When I received your invitation this time, I didn't have to be reminded, but it was a near thing. I'm saying this not to be cruel, since forgetting you was the greatest kindness I could have done for you at that time, but to let you know that there are no machinations that I have been planning for years. Your second chance was and is a gift that a poor wretched man gave a girl who showed him what hope could look like."

She took a step towards me and said, "You really know how to charm a lady, forgetting about her entirely while she wonders and waits. I know nothing about you, except that you are a gambler who keeps his promises. Yet, I had a feeling all those years ago that you knew everything about me, and looking into your eyes, I see that's still true."

She stopped speaking, and I could feel a shiver run down her spine as she thought of the question she needed to ask, "When you said that if I joined you for dinner we would be friends, you meant it. Not that it is possible, or as a figure of speech, but that we would be friends. That is the decision you waited three years to have me make, isn't it? I either become a part of your life, or leave it forever?"

I didn't trust my voice, and I didn't trust my mind. Closing both my mouth and my powers, I looked into her eyes and gave a short nod. As I waited for her answer, I wondered if I had really meant it that way, or if I had pulled the thought from her mind. As she spoke my supposed ultimatum, it sounded alien and cruel to my way of thinking, but I also realized it was the sort of finality that she needed. Or maybe it sounded alien and cruel to her, and I needed the finality?

I never did decide the truth of the matter, as Bambi put her arm through mine and said, "Let's eat."

* * *

Later that night, I found myself in an elevator with Bambi. She was wearing a simple white dress, with one arm wrapped in her graduation gown, and the other wrapped around my waist. She hummed quietly as we waited for her floor. Eventually the doors opened and she led me down the hall to her apartment. It wasn't as luxurious a place as she could have afforded on the stipend that my secretary sent her, but the modesty made her feel more secure.

Inside the apartment was even more modest than I expected. The kitchen and living room were the same room, and an arched opening and a beaded curtain barely delineated a bedroom towards the back. There was a single door, which I assumed led to the bathroom, since her clothes hung on a bar in the corner of the bedroom.

"You may be rich and powerful, but I have modest needs. To you this is a shoebox, but it is twice the size of the room I rented when you found me. I saved the extra money you sent me. At first it was because I was afraid it would stop coming, but also because I never had any extra money."

As she put her gown and cap away and hurried to clean up the spotless apartment, she told me about the last seven years. That the first year at Oxford was difficult because she still had her implants. How she returned the next year with new clothes and a new body, and began to feel really free. By her senior year she was happy and felt cleansed. But she knew she couldn't stay in England, there were too many bad memories. So she came to New England and fit right in.

I perched on the edge of the single chair in the room as she puttered about. I knew she was self-conscious about having me in her space, that it wasn't as perfect as she thought it should be. Finally I grabbed her hand as she wandered past and made her face me.

"Bambi, you are an amazing woman, and I am amazed at what you did with your second chance. You can stop cleaning your lovely apartment, it is nothing to be ashamed of."

She squeezed my hand and with downcast eyes said, "It's not that... I am just nervous. I want... I want to make love to you, but it has been a long time." I felt a flinch go through her and saw a thought flash through her mind. The last and only time hadn't been pleasant or voluntary for her. To make it worse it had been her brother, shortly before he was killed.

I nearly told her that if I had wanted to sleep with her for the second chance I would have done it seven years ago. But I heard Anna's voice, "Be careful. She is fragile right now. If you say that it will tear her up. If you used your powers to correct what you say you would destroy the wonderful woman she's become."

Instead I said, "Then we'll take our time."

* * *

I soon found myself leaning against the headboard in Bambi's bed, with the covers up to my waist. The only light in the apartment was cast by the moon through the windows, and the golden glow around the rectangle of the bathroom door. Soon the glow switched off, and the rectangle narrowed and was replaced by a pool of darkness.

Bambi slowly emerged from the clinging shadows. As she stepped into the pool of light from the first window her pale body was lit in silvery details by the moon's soft light. Around her neck glittered the necklace she had worn all those years ago. As my eyes traveled down her body I saw that was all she wore. She stood in the light offering herself to me.

Her long limbs were more rounded than I remembered, but still slender and enticing. Her breasts now matched the natural beauty of the rest of her body as they stood proud on her chest. The vivid pink nipples were taut with arousal and heaved slightly with her quickened breathing. My gaze devoured the rest of her body, the long narrow waist that flared wantonly towards her round hips. Her mound was cast in the shadow of her hips, leaving me to wonder what I would find.

I heard her thoughts and even without seeing her face I knew she was smiling. With a movement of her foot, she rotated her hips slowly, allowing the light to fall on her glistening red curls that formed a neat triangle above her sex. It must have been a trick of the mind, but I could swear the movement also sent me a whiff of her arousal that sent tendrils towards me from across the room.

I swallowed and took a deep breath. I wanted to say something, to tell her how beautiful she was, but the gentle glow of the moonlight forbade any sounds. Instead I pulled back the covers to invite her to join me. With careful subtle steps she walked towards the bed. Each step swung her hips enticingly, and I could almost feel the soft pad of her foot making contact with the floor.

For a moment she passed into darkness again, but the diamonds around her neck still sparkled brightly. In fact her whole being seemed to cast glow against the darkness holding it back until she joined me in the pool cast across the bed. She continued moving towards me, walking on her knees across the bed, until she swung a leg over mine. She knelt above me, the outside of my thighs making the slightly contact with the inside of her smooth legs.




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 05



I yearned to reach out to her, but I felt suddenly dirty. This beautiful lustrous woman was more than I ever could deserve. She lowered herself until she was sitting on my thighs and our faces were in alignment. She closed her eyes and brought her mouth towards mine.

I closed my eyes and waited for our lips to meet. I could feel the heat of her body along the whole surface of my own. The heat from her breasts seemed especially close, so close that I was surprised by the soft contact of our lips. She turned her head slightly and opened her mouth to allow her tongue to caress my lips.

She placed her hands on my cheeks and held me as she kissed me again. This kiss was deeper, but still so gentle. Her soft slow motions seemed to pin me to the bed. My arms wanted to wrap around her and crush her too me, but the moment wouldn't allow me that control. Her hands fell to my shoulders and she pulled her mouth away from me. She then waited.

She waited for me to open my eyes so that our gaze could share the moment of our first coupling. She raised herself up and I could feel the hair guarding her sex rub gently on the underside of my straining cock. My cock throbbed and jerked in anticipation as she slowly moved into position above me. She began to lower herself again, and I could feel her lips seeking to guide my cock deep into the heart of her. I felt a hot bead of moisture roll down my cock as her opening suddenly engulfed the head.

She eyes struggled to stay on mine as her stomach clamped down in a pre-orgasm tremor. She pressed her forehead against mine as her body trembled, but she didn't lower herself any further down onto my shaft. When she regained control she bit her lip and lowered her hips. It was a slow almost painful motion as she sank down onto me. I could feel my cock move past each surface inside of her, gradually and steadily moving deeper. As I plunged deep into her the heat was exquisite and soon another bead of moisture left a trail down my shaft.

When our hips finally met, and she was fully impaled on my shaft she wrapped her legs around my back and hugged me to her. She was trembling again and I saw a tear slowly mark its way down her cheek. It glittered in the moonlight and seemed to free me from my bonds.

I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed her tight. Her wet cheek was soon pressed against mine as we pulled together more closely than eye contact could allow. Her legs and arms held me so tightly that I couldn't move to thrust into her as I yearned to do. I pulled in her lower back, causing her hips to rotate slightly. The movement caused her to convulse and throw her head back. I felt her stomach and vagina clenching me tightly inside of her. It was almost painful to watch the orgasm ripple through her.

Finally her body went almost limp and sagged against me. I could feel her skin was now slightly clammy from the sheen of sweat that covered her body. She placed her forehead against mine again and panted softly. I smiled at her and moved a stray lock of hair from in front of her eye.

Now that she got that out of the way, we can really make love, I thought. I gently slid my legs underneath me while lifting her slightly. With some difficulty I maneuvered us so that she was lying on her back, with me on top of her while not withdrawing from inside her. This put her head into shadow again, but I could see her green eyes shining up at me with love and anticipation.

I pulled the covers over us and lay on top of her, with my lips touching her ear. I wanted to say something, to capture the moment. Instead I licked her earlobe gently, the sucked it between my lips. Her arms wrapped around me, pulling me close. When I tried to pull away from her ear she pulled me back. I felt her legs twining around my legs as well, firmly locking us together.

I managed to pull back and keep us separated by placing my forehead on hers and pressing her against the bed. Her lips desperately sought to capture mine in a kiss, but eventually my gaze pulled her attention off such minor games. When her green eyes finally were still and staring into mine I thrust my hips into her.

She fingers scrambled on my back and turned to talons digging in to hold on. I thrust into her again, firmly and insistently. Her eyes widened slightly as the feelings sweep over her body. I saw the realization dawning in her eyes that this wouldn't be a quick orgasm to release pent up tension. As my rhythm increased in pace she could feel a new tension building inside of her, something that is created by the act and not the anticipation.

Her limbs scrambled for purchase on my body as I thrust into her again and again. We were both soon sweating in the confines of the covers, a steamy cocoon filled with gasping breathe and the faint squeak of the bed springs. I felt my orgasm swelling inside me and Bambi looked at me in desperation, trying to hold on against the torrent growing within her.

She was shaking with need as each thrust caused a faint orgasm but no release of the tremendous pressure. I could smell the need growing inside her now half crazed mind. Her breath was coming it short harsh gasps. I looked into her eyes and a single thought pierced my mind, "I love you!"

Like a bolt of lightning shooting down my spine, my orgasm erupted through my body. It was so unexpected that I nearly choked on my own breath as the contractions wracked my body. Bambi's body was finally freed from the torment of small releases and she pulled herself against me, thrusting her hips one final time to unlock her orgasm.

* * *

I awoke sometime later to find myself lying on my back with Bambi snuggled up alongside me. From the way her fingers played over my skin I knew that she wasn't asleep. She giggled and said, "I thought only women fainted from good sex."

I smiled and weakly placed a kiss on her forehead, "But that, dear Bambi, was great sex."

She smiled back and gave me a squeeze before going back to her doodles on my chest. "Did you realize, I didn't even know your name until we made love?"

I looked at her incredulously. Surely she had known before, since I didn't speak the entire time. I said, "You must have forgotten, and only remembered when you went to call out my name in ecstasy."

She gave me a playful slap and said, "No, I remember thinking, I don't even know the name of the man who just made love to me. And then you must have told me, because then I knew you name was..." She stopped speaking suddenly and lifted her head as if she heard a noise. "Did you hear that?"

"I didn't hear anything, darling," I said as I tried to kiss her suddenly exposed neck.

"I have a bad feeling. We have to get out of here." She was quickly out of bed and grabbing some clothes to pull on. She threw mine towards me in a way that didn't allow for discussion. As I pulled on my pants I heard someone moving about in the hallway.

I grabbed Bambi's arm and pulled her towards the window. She had pulled on her pants but was still fumbling with her shirt as I opened the window and hurried her outside. Her breasts bounced enticingly in the warm night air, but I didn't have time to appreciate the scenery. She started to go down the fire escape, but I urged her upwards instead. They always guessed a person would escape down a fire escape.

The faint hum of our feet on the metal ladder up to the roof was soon drowned out by the sound of the door breaking open. There was a series of muffled thumps that startled Bambi so badly that I had to cover her mouth with my hand. We lay on the roof, huddled together and hiding behind the two foot high ledge that surrounded the roofline.

Soon we heard the sounds men scrambling down the fire escape to continue their pursuit. Bambi risked a peek over the meager protection of the ledge to try to spot the men who broke into her apartment.

"Those are the men from the club! The Fox's Den. They must have been watching me in hopes of finding you. But for all of these years? Just for taking me away from that terrible place?"

I looked over at Bambi and realized she didn't know the entire story. I reluctantly explained that I hadn't just stolen their main feature, but I had the whole place torn down. In the process of leveling the building the workers saw guns in the debris. Eventually the police found not just guns, but drugs and a number of videos that manager had made.

"You certainly know how to make enemies!"

"It's a good thing that I am better at making friends," I said as I leaned over and gave her a kiss.

* * *

The elevator dinged open and we walked back to the car. I held the door for Bambi and made sure she was safely seated before walking around to my own door. The girls playfully gave me a hard time about such things, but I loved them all, and would do anything to see them comfortable and safe.

As Bambi drove us to the next appointment, I saw it was with the DA. It seemed strange that Betsy hadn't included the name of the person being charged. I thought about calling Betsy to find out, but then I remembered who it was.

Most of the enemies I gained over the years were dead or in prison. Most of the rest have long since forgotten about me, either on their own, or with my help. But the thugs who owned the Fox's Den were more persistent than the rest, and they knew they could find me through Bambi. The last member of that group with any memories of me is Ian McDougal.

When the former owners of the club started getting released from jail they tracked Bambi down and followed her. That is how they ended up finding us together. Bambi said she would change her name and swear off the law to keep me safe, but I wouldn't let her. It was hard enough for my girls to keep their identities around me without having to give up their names as well.

So I spent long months tracking these men down and wiping their memories of Bambi and me. I found them all except for Ian. Then last month, I heard that they finally arrested Ian at a strip club less than ten miles from my home. It was a slam dunk case for the DA, so he was very curious why I asked to consult on the case and waived my usual fee. I told Betsy to leave his name off the case, so Bambi couldn't accidentally see who it was.

* * *

Bambi was surprised when I told her to stop in front of the courthouse to let me out. "I'm sorry about the Throm and Lowe case," she said as she stopped the car. Her eyes were fixed on the center of the steering wheel and her shoulders sagged slightly.

"This isn't because of that case. I am sure we will figure out what to do about that. This is just something I should handle on my own."

It is very easy to underestimate Bambi's intelligence. Even knowing her as intimately as I do, I sometimes still forget she isn't just a pretty face. She said, "then this is about Ian, isn't it?" When I nodded, she pulled me towards her and started crying.

"He's the last one isn't he? Then you are free from my past?" she managed to say between snuffles.

"Bambi, darling, this is to free you from my past." She didn't agree with me, but she accepted that I believed it. She held me tight for another minute before relenting.

I gave her a kiss on the forehead and started climbing out of the car. Before shutting the door I leaned back in and said, "We have another appointment with the DA at eleven. Can you amuse yourself for about an hour and then meet me in the park, so we can go up together?"

"Alright. I'll do some shopping!" she said with a wink.

* * *

I had been in the park for more than half an hour when Bambi found me. I had almost run out of popcorn for the pigeons when she plopped down on my lap and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. Rather than risk smearing her freshly touched up lipstick on my cheek, she just rubbed her nose against mine.

"Was it really so bad?" she finally asked.

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, when you're in a good mood you don't throw the popcorn at the pigeons."

She was right. I was in a bad mood. Ian was frightened not frightening. He had come into town to beg forgiveness before he got struck down like his friends. When he got out of prison, he contacted his old cronies to arrange revenge on me, but they drew complete blanks. They had never even heard of Bambi, or Joanne as they should have known her.

His concern mounted when he contacted other people who had known me in the underground of Europe. Those he managed to find, who weren't in jail or dead, had no idea who I was. They all remember losing vast sums of money, drugs, guns, even entire freighters but had no idea who they lost them to, or where they went. Ian started hearing rumors that a demon had risen up to take control of the underworld. Other rumors said a vengeful angel had appeared to battle the demon, killing some and bringing others to justice.

A fearful Ian decided to beg forgiveness rather than risk either angel or demon. So he tracked down Bambi and came to town. Somewhere along the way he lost his nerve and ended up wandering around in the city. He heard rumors about the man who lived on the hill, but the rumors only seemed to confirm that there was something unearthly about the man.

Ian was drinking himself into a stupor at a strip club, trying to decide what to do. A fight broke out, the cops came, and he was arrested along with most of the other patrons. Ian was not only in the country illegally, but also while on parole. To make matters worse, Ian was in possession of two concealed knives and had a gun in his hotel room.

Ian was sitting in an interrogation room when I arrived. His public defender was trying to work out a plea bargain with the DA, but knew she was fighting an uphill battle. She was so convinced of the futility of her client's cause that she had no objections to letting me talk to her client without her being present.

When I walked through the door, Ian pissed himself he was so frightened. I told the marshal to wait outside the room and let me talk to Ian alone. Ian sat in his chair and held a small religious medal between his fingers. I heard his thoughts fervently praying for forgiveness and deliverance even as my nose wrinkled from the smell.

"Do you truly seek forgiveness?" I said loudly into his thoughts. I caught glimpses of his thoughts turning back to all the evil things he had done and had planned to do. Unlike the others, at some point he had actually come to realize how wicked he was.

"I don't deserve forgiveness," he said and broke into tears. Even though he only faced a few decades in jail, he felt the headsman's axe on the back of his neck. Before I entered the room, I was ready to be that headsman. But seeing him broken and crying for salvation I knew he was punishing himself more than I had any right to. If I deserved a chance at redemption, then so did this man.

I closed my eyes and entered his mind. I removed Bambi's name and face from his memories as well as my own. He would still remember the events, but it would be impossible to remember us. The last thing I did before exiting the room was send him the assurance that I had forgiven him. I watched his body sag in relief and he kissed his medal before saying another prayer.

Before I left for the park, I told the DA in no uncertain terms that the man was ready to confess and should be given leniency and placed in a minimum security prison. The public defender, who had been discussing the case with the DA, recovered from her shock slightly faster than the DA and threw away the deal they had almost reached. I heard the bargaining begin again as I walked toward the elevator.

I hardly remembered anything else until Bambi plopped down into my lap. "You're throwing popcorn at the pigeons again," she said giving me a bit of a shake. She rubbed my nose again and continued, "come on, we have to see the DA. And on the way, I can tell you about all the things I bought!"

* * *

The rest of the day was a bit of a blur. I helped the DA with a couple of cases, and then helped a public defender select a jury that would acquit his innocent client. I suppose I also went to the police station about the traffic accident, but I really can't recall. My thoughts kept returning to Ian and seeing myself in his chair.

The last appointment finished early, so Bambi talked me into returning to the park to clear my mind before going home. She walked next to me down the path, holding onto my arm. "What happened with Ian?" she finally asked.

I took more than a dozen steps down the path before I replied, "I forgave him. He has decided to come clean with his life, so I forgave him." I felt her hands tighten on my arm in surprise and saw he glance up to look at my face. She didn't say anything and waited for me to say more. "He was terrified of me, like I was the devil himself."

"The devil doesn't grant pardons."

I couldn't help but smile a little at Bambi's remark. "So you don't think I am the devil?"

She punched me gently in the side and said, "Why do you keep doing that? Being so hard on yourself? Don't you know it hurts us to see you all mopey? Ian has done all those terrible things, and he wanted to kill you. He hasn't even made right all the things he's done, but you forgave him. You may have done bad things, but not as many as he did, and you have done so many kind and wonderful things. It is time you accept forgiveness."

I weighed Bambi's words as we completed our circuit of the park. Something clicked in my mind, and I thought, maybe I could be forgiven. I suddenly felt buoyant and grabbed Bambi and gave her a kiss. She was surprised at first, but quickly became enthusiastic.

Bambi finally pulled away and said, "Maybe we should get home? I still want to show you what I bought." She turned and began leading me back to the car. She suddenly stopped and pointed, "Isn't that Betsy?" 



The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 06



I'd like to thank everyone that has taken the time to vote on my stories and send me comments. I hope you enjoy the latest installment.

* * *

Bambi suddenly stopped and pointed, "Isn't that Betsy?"

Had I not been concentrating on the way Bambi's bottom moved beneath her gray wool skirt, and had I not been distracted by the waves of horniness that were emanating from her, I would have seen and felt Betsy long before Bambi did. Before my eyes had risen from Bambi's bottom, I could feel Betsy's mind and her pain. It wasn't a physical pain, but a whirlwind of psychological distress.

Bambi and I were more than fifty yards away, so Bambi couldn't see how distraught Betsy really was. But I could feel the pain and the fear, that was leaking out in tears. I ran past Bambi to get to Betsy and cast out with my mind to let her feel my presence. Betsy looked towards me with tear blinded eyes, and fell into my arms.

I was about to enter her mind and sooth her thoughts when Anna rebuked me, "Aren't you ever going to learn? People need to cry sometimes." I could feel that Anna's voice wanted to say more, but sometimes she made me learn on my own.

So, I held Betsy and she clung to the lapels of my suit. Her tears quickly soaked through the front of my shirt, as I patted her soft brown hair and whispered soft sounds to her. I soon felt Bambi's arms encircling us both, and that was when Betsy finally began to let out long sobs which replaced her silent tears.

I tentatively reached for Betsy's mind and saw that her thoughts and her sadness were centered around death. Someone had died? No, I thought as I pushed a little more deeply, someone was dying.

"My... my, my...," but the next word was too hard for her to get out. "The hospital... they called. Please go with me?" she asked. I looked down into her bloodshot green eyes and dipped my head in acknowledgement.

Betsy worked her arms under my suit coat and held onto me, clasping her hands behind me. With one arm I held her and with the other I reached out to touch Bambi's face. I was a bit surprised to see that Bambi also had a tear on her cheek. She knew as well as I did why the hospital would be calling Betsy.

"Let's go, little one," I said and tried to start towards the car. Betsy refused to release her clasp on me, but did move towards the side so we could walk back towards the cars. I kept one arm around Betsy and the other around Bambi as we made our way out of the park.

Betsy had parked her black Camry next to my gray BMW. Bambi hesitated as I made my way towards Betsy's car. I pulled her along until all three of us stood next to the passenger door. I had to let go of Bambi to open the car door and said, "Betsy, darling, get in and I'll take you to the hospital."

She gave me one last squeeze and meekly climbed into the car. When her legs were clear, I gently close the door, before turning to Bambi. Bambi's eyes were just as green as Betsy's but they were no bloodshot, only full of concern.

I cupped her cheek gently and used my thumb to stroke her cheek. "I have to take Betsy to the hospital. I don't think we will be home in time for dinner. Tell Claire to start dinner without me, and tell the other girls I'm sorry I can't be there tonight."

"Wouldn't it be better if I just called home and followed you to the hospital?"

"No, someone should tell the others what's happening, in person. I need to go with Betsy. Oh, and you better cancel my meetings for tomorrow, I think you know where Betsy keeps such things."

"I will. Take care of Betsy. She's the best little sister and littlest big sister most of us have ever had."

* * *

I really hate driving, probably because I'm so bad at it. Being a bad driver and telepathic means that you are constantly bombarded with curses, insults and accusations about your parentage. But Betsy was clearly in no shape to drive. Frankly, I was amazed that she made it to the park in the first place. I spent the entire trip to the hospital with one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand grasped tightly between both of Betsy's.

As we traveled towards the hospital, I confirmed my suspicions about why we were headed there. I can't recall if she actually told me, or if I pulled it from her thoughts. But at this point, all that mattered was that her father was dying. The hospital had called the house and told Betsy that her father had a severe heart attack. They didn't expect he would last through the night.

Betsy loved her father, even though they hadn't talked for more than half her life. Actually, she had talked to him, but he never said anything back.

* * *

I first met Betsy in the very same hospital where her father, Steven, now lay dying. "Even" Steven had been the first criminal to try to befriend me after I cleaned him out. He was the honest sort of criminal and I couldn't help liking him in return. Soon we did become friends, of sorts. I no longer took his money while gambling, and occasionally threw a good pot his way when he was having a bad day.

I was in the hospital visiting Anna. She had been in a coma for more than four years; a coma that I had put her into. The doctors performed test after test, and they insisted that her mind was wide awake. They couldn't explain why she didn't move and couldn't talk. I looked into her mind and tried again and again to apologize, but there was no one there.

I could sense and even talk to most of the other coma patients. I watched the doctors perform EEG's on Anna and the other patients, and I found that I could communicate at some level with all but the most brain dead. But Anna's brain activity was beyond that of any of the other coma patients and yet I couldn't sense her at all. I kept trying.

At first, I visited her every day after school. When I dropped out, it became every week. When I began gambling, my visits were even more sporadic. Sometimes I would plunge into gambling for months before something woke me up and I would find my way back to Anna's side.

When I met Betsy, it had been more than a year since I last visited Anna. I spent half of that year wanting to visit, but feeling too dirty from the things that I had seen and done. Finally my need to be near her, to beg forgiveness outweighed the other guilt that burdened my soul. I spent two days holding her hand, invisible to the nurses and doctors who came and went.

I started thinking that I would just hold her hand until I died of dehydration, lack of sleep, or simple guilt. But, that was when I heard Betsy's voice break the silence of the ward. If it had only been the noise, I would likely have stayed with Anna. However, Betsy's raw emotions were able to pull me from Anna's side.

I didn't even realize that I had gotten up until I tried to take the first step towards the door and my knees collapsed. I had been motionless for so long that my body barely worked. I rose on shaky legs and staggered to the door. As I looked down the hall I saw a large orderly carrying a scrawny little girl from the ward. The man was accompanied by an uptight social services worker.

Betsy was crying and flailing against the man, reaching for a room down the hall. I couldn't bear seeing the young girl in such a state and forced the man to let her down. As her feet touched the ground she gave the man a swift kick to the shin and ran down the hall. I stopped the social worker and the orderly from following her which left them standing looking very confused.

Eventually, I was able to make my way into the room where she disappeared. I found little Betsy lying with her arms draped across a man. It took me a moment to realize it was Even Steven, since it was the first time I saw him without a smile. He also didn't have his usual ruddiness. "Do you know this man?" I asked. I realized it was a stupid question, but it seemed incredulous that this little girl could possible know a gambler and gangster like Even Steven.

She grabbed him even tighter and said, "He's my father. Please don't take me away from him!"

"I'm not here to take you away from him."

"That's what the others said. But they were lying too!"

Curious, I reached into her mind and learned that the cops were waiting for Steven to wake up, so they could arrest him. Having a little girl hanging around his neck would hardly make such an arrest easier, so they called social services. Social services people saw that if he did wake up, the girl's only living family would be in jail, and if he didn't wake up the only living family would not be living enough to take care of her. So, they wanted to put her in a foster home.

I turned my attention to Steven, and delved into his mind. He was anxious, not that he was on the verge of death, but what might happen to his beloved daughter. Daughter! The bastard had been holding out on me. Not that I could blame him, considering our other associates. I looked around in his mind and saw how completely he compartmentalized his work life from his home life.

Apparently, I nudged something too hard while exploring his thoughts because I felt his awareness latch onto me. He was confused and clearly frightened, and I could hear the heart monitor beeping anxiously.

"Steven, you have to calm down."

"What's he doing here? I thought he was in China," Steven thought, not realizing that I had spoken directly into his mind and what that implied.

"I was visiting an old friend when I saw your daughter making a scene. I came to investigate and found you lying here."

"You can hear me? Betsy! Can you hear me Betsy!"

"She can't hear you, my friend. You can't talk, you're in a coma."

"Then how can you hear me? Talk to me?"

"You were right. I had to be psychic to beat you at cards, playing as poorly as I did."

We ended up talking for a long time, and I watched Betsy as she fell asleep next to her father. But slowly the bright flame of his mind began to dwindle. He was slipping deeper into the coma and I realized that we only had a few minutes left before he would be beyond my reach.

"Steven, you are fading out."

"I'm so tired." He paused for a long time, and I thought he had slipped away. "Please, do me a favor. You owe me for cheating me at cards."

"I owe you for being my only true friend."

"Please, take care of Betsy for me. Don't let them put her in a foster home."

"I promise."

As he slipped away into the darkness, I showed him his daughter as she lay curled up next to him.

* * *

When I began taking care of Betsy, she was a willow thin girl of thirteen who looked like a stiff breeze would blow her away. But a closer look revealed a strong independent young woman who might bend and bend, but would never break. As I learned more about this girl, mostly from reading her mind, I learned how much she'd had to bend.

Her mother had been a casino dealer when Even Steven blew into town. They'd had a brief tender affair, at least that is how Betsy chose to view it, that resulted in Betsy being born nine months later. When Steven heard the news he had rushed to be with his baby girl and spent as much time with her as work and the girl's mother would allow.

Steven had doted on Betsy and would always be sure to leave plenty of money for her care when he visited. But soon the money wasn't being spent on Betsy's clothes or food, it ended up being injected into her mother's veins. Steven found out early on, but mistakenly believed that Betsy would be better off living in a house with a poor excuse for a mother, than rambling around with a criminal father. So he started giving Betsy the money for food and rent, and leaving extra for her mother's habit.

With each visit, Steven spent equal time cherishing his daughter and teaching her about the world. He taught her how to be a criminal, so that she would never be taken advantage of by criminals. He taught her to be strong, so that she wouldn't have to live off a man, and he taught her to be proud, so that she would never want to.

A year before Steven got shot, her mother had finally OD'ed on heroin. This left Betsy living alone most of the time. Steven cut back on his trips, but still could only be in town a few days a week. Betsy had learned well, and did fine living on her own a few days at a time. But now Betsy was left truly alone in the world, except for me.

* * *

I watched Betsy sleep next to her father for hours. Nurses and doctors came and went without noticing either of us. Eventually, Betsy woke from her exhausted sleep to find her father still in a coma. She also found me watching her. She was almost as afraid of me as she was the police and social workers. I said, "Let's get something to eat, you're hungry."

I walked out and waited in the hall. Eventually, a bashful Betsy came out. She shut the door gently, as if afraid the noise would wake her father. I knew she wouldn't take my hand if I offered, so I walked calmly towards the elevators. Betsy followed, but she kept looking back over her shoulder.

"We will come back as soon as you've had something to eat. It isn't healthy for a growing girl to skip so many meals. The cafeteria food isn't terribly good, but I'm guessing you'd rather not wander too far?"

"But, I don't have any money with me."

"Well, it just so happens that I do have money. So, I guess I'll do the buying and you do the eating."

"I don't take charity!"

"It isn't charity. I happen to owe your father a good bit of money."

The elevator doors slid open and I stepped inside. Betsy stood outside for a long time deciding whether she could trust me or not. I patiently held the doors open as she decided. Finally, she stepped aboard the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby.

* * *

It was two weeks before Betsy allowed me to rent her a room in the motel across the street. She only spent a few hour there sleeping, before she would return to her father's bedside. I spent those weeks talking to other coma patients and trying to apologize to Anna.

One day, Betsy caught me in Anna's room, with tears in my eyes. I was so distracted that I didn't hear or sense her come into the room. She had been standing there a long time before she said, "Is that your wife? She's very beautiful." But it was Betsy's thoughts that hurt the most, "Why would a sweet looking woman, like her, have anything to do with him!"

Hurriedly, I ushered Betsy out of the room and shut the door. "She's not my wife," I said. I could feel my heart cramping as it wished I was lying. "She's... She's a woman I owe more than I owe your father."

"Probably because you put her there!" Betsy thought. I would have slapped her for that, if it weren't true. As I gained control Betsy said, "So who are you going to pay your debt to, since you can't pay her?"

Instead of answering, I set off down the hall towards the elevators. It was time for lunch, even if I would only be watching Betsy eat. As the doors for the elevators close, I knew that I couldn't visit Anna anymore.

* * *

After a month, Betsy still didn't believe I was a friend of her father. Every day, I watched another crazy idea come to her thirteen year old mind. For most of the first two weeks, Betsy was convinced I was a cop trying a slow play. The other times, I was some kind of pervert trying to win her trust. Eventually, perhaps because of the incident in Anna's room, she was convinced I was a crook. Either the pedophile sort of crook, or a crook who was after her father's money.

One day, she couldn't take it anymore and she said to me, "Why are you doing all of this for me? He never told me about you, so you must not have been one of his honest friends. That means you're a crook. Or a gambler, and they're just as bad as crooks."

"Actually, I'm more like a crooked gambler. I am doing this for you because your father asked me to. He's the only man who's treated me honestly and with friendship since... well for a long time now."

She was still very suspicious, and expected either rape or robbery. After a month of trying to be her friend, I had only amplified her fears, and she was growing to resent me.

"Betsy, I know you don't trust me, and since you know the sort of people your father associated with, there is no reason you should. But I promised your father that I would take care of you, and I keep my promises."

"A crooked gambler who keeps his promises? Yeah, right."

"Your father was a crooked gambler, but he kept his promises. Why do you think they called him Even Steven?"

"He's not crooked! He might be a crook and he might gamble, but he never cheated!" She yelled and ran at me with flailing fists. I let her hit me as the tears streamed from her eyes. Soon, she ran out of rage and her hands were clenched into my shirt instead of into fists, but she still said "He never cheated..."

* * *

Another month passed and Betsy finally decided I wasn't so crooked after all. I bought a little house near her high school and we told everyone I was Steven's younger brother. I met her teachers, took her shopping, and we seemed like the perfect little family.

The truth was, the whole parenting thing bothered me. I didn't have any idea of how to raise a kid aside from the clinical methods that my parent's had tried on me. I wasn't the only one who was uncomfortable, especially after I made a few too many accurate guesses about boys from school. To make matters worse, I was getting edgy.

At first, I was so driven to provide for Betsy that I was able to block out the past. But, every time we went to visit her father, I would see Anna's room at the end of the hall. In a way, the constant reminder of what I did to Anna saved Betsy. Had I not been dwelling on the subject, I wouldn't have noticed Betsy pushing away her desert claiming she didn't really like sweets. I was the one who didn't like sweets, Betsy was the one who spent fifty dollars of her money for clothes on chocolates.

I pulled in my powers and was on constant guard, thinking Betsy was safe. One night I was having a terrible nightmare and awoke to hear screaming that wasn't my own. I ran down the hall and found Betsy crying and drenched in sweat. I held her as she shook and cried. Eventually I reached into her mind and delicately eased the terror from her mind.

She slumped in my arms and was immediately back to sleep. I spent the entire night watching her sleep, and thinking. Just before her alarm was to go off, I quietly let myself out of her room. I had finally made my decision.

As we sat down to breakfast I said, "Betsy, I'm sending you to boarding school."

"But... I thought..." she said out loud, and her mind finished, "you loved me." I was a bit surprised and embarrassed by the other thoughts running through her mind. I guessed that my powers had leaked more than I imagine, although I have never been sure.

"The truth is, I'm doing a terrible job. I promised your father I would take care of you, and that I wouldn't let you be put in a foster home, so that leaves a boarding school."

"You're doing great. I'm the one who is being terrible. I'll do better, I promise!" I could feel her panic, the thought of being abandoned again.

"Betsy, you are not terrible. You are a wonderful girl. All your teachers speak well of you, your friends parent's say how well behaved you are when you visit, so it is clearly not you. Did you ever have nightmares when you lived with your dad? Did you ever feel bad about eating deserts?"

"No, but it can't be your fault either, you've been really nice to me, even when I didn't trust you." As she said this, I could see that she did trust me now. I would have been joyous, if I didn't have to send her away.

"It is my fault, Betsy. In ways you can never understand. I couldn't stand to see you end up like your father because of me, or like..." I stopped before I spoke Anna's name. "Betsy, I have been deluding myself into thinking that you could be safe around me. I am trying to fulfill my promise to your father, but it simply isn't safe for you to live with me."




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 06



Betsy wanted to deny any concern for her safety, but I wouldn't let her. Every time her mind veered away from the idea I would guide it back. I felt dirty and cruel doing this to her, but it really was for her own good. Finally she admitted the truth to herself and said, "But does it have to be one of those horrible places? My friend Emma got sent to one and cried for a whole week before they let her come home."

In the end, I couldn't bear to send Betsy to a place she was convinced would make her unhappy, but I also couldn't live with her, so I left. I arranged for her to stay with her friend Emma's family while I was "out of town on business." I also gave Betsy access to some of my bank accounts, so that she could get money if she needed it. I stayed in a hotel across town that night, and left the following day.

* * *

As I left town, a blood rage settled over me. While I was around sweet little Betsy, I never even thought about the bastards who had sent Steven to the hospital in the first place. I'd seen their faces in his mind, and knew them well.

It didn't take me long to find them. I dragged them out of the poker game and into a dark, stinking alley. They knelt and they begged. I stood above them with my pistol poised to strike and thought, "This is for you Steven."

But the thought continued, "and for you Betsy." I lowered the gun. I couldn't murder in Betsy's name.

I clipped an article from the paper the next day, "Four Reputed Gangsters Confess to the Shooting of 'Even' Steven Haufman"

* * *

I soon returned to gambling, but I was sure to call Betsy twice a week to ensure she was alright. I would talk to Betsy for a while, and then talk to Emma's mom just to be sure. Betsy seemed to be doing fine for the first two months.

Then one day things changed. I called Emma's house and her mother said, "It's so good to hear that you're back home. It was an absolute joy to have her here these past few months, but you know how it can be having two teenage girls underfoot!"

Luckily I couldn't get a word in edgewise, or I would have blown whatever scheme Betsy was playing at. The call waiting buzzed on my phone before I had a chance to say anything more than "uh-huh." I excused myself from Emma's mother and switched over. It was Betsy and she said without preamble, "Did you know your accountant is stealing money from you?"

"Betsy, why does Emma's mom think I'm back home?"

"Because she would never have let me move out if she thought you were still gone. Now about those accountants..."

"What do you mean you moved out?"

"Well, Emma is nice and all, but after living with her for two months... Well, she's such a ditz. She didn't even understand when I told her about the bogus power of attorney and the real estate swindle."

"What?"

"Exactly. So I fired your accountants and I'm going to handle it myself from now on. I would have called the cops, but then they would have asked why a fourteen year old is calling the cops instead of the man who's being robbed blind."

I guess Even Steven taught his daughter more than I'd thought. Somehow she talked me into letting her live at the house by herself. She then talked me into arranging a fake identity for her to use as my new accountant. I ended up conceding to all of her wishes. But, I did demand that she have a top flight security system installed in the house, and unbeknownst to her I hired a team of body guards to shadow her around the clock.

I thought it a strange way for a girl to grow up, but she seemed genuinely happy.

* * *

Betsy and I finally arrived at the hospital. It had been over a decade since the last time we were both here together, and that had been on the day I had to leave Betsy. I had only been back to the hospital once since that day, when I first recognized Anna's voice in my head. Anna had been so furious at seeing herself lying in a coma that I passed out on the floor.

With my arm around her shoulder, I took Betsy into the hospital. The place had undergone a number of changes since we first met here. For one thing, thanks to a very generous grant from an anonymous donor, the hospital boasted the newest and best equipment that money could buy. It also boasted a new wing called the Steven Haufman Center, which specialized in the treatment and long term care of the comatose. That donation was made by Elizabeth Haufman, who was also responsible for attracting some of the world's top research minds to the hospital.

As we walked into her father's wing and towards the ICU, no one stopped us or even seemed to notice our presence. At first, I thought I was accidentally making them give us our privacy, but I soon realized they were giving us privacy out of respect for Betsy. They loved her, for her devotion to her father, for her generosity with her money, and for her compassionate nature.

The nurse showed us to Steven's room in the ICU and left us quietly. Steven was hooked up to more machines than I imagined possible. It was hard for me to see Steven like this, and I could only imagine how Betsy must feel. But she didn't see the hoses and wires, she didn't hear the beeps and hisses, she just saw her father, and knew he was finally truly dying.

"Hey pops," she said as she took his hand.

"Betsy?" I heard him think. I could see his mind struggling up out of the abyss, pulling himself to the surface through the contact with her hand. I wondered how it was possible, since his brain scans had shown no activity. While I had avoided the hospital, I was informed of all the tests, and would have returned at once if there had been a positive change.

He called out again, "Betsy! My sweet Betsy has come to visit me again. I just wish I could squeeze her hand to let her know I'm here..."

I walked around the bed to take his other hand. "What's this? Someone else is here? That isn't a soft hand like those girls Betsy sometimes brings. It's a man, perhaps a doctor?"

"No, my old friend, I'm no doctor."

"After all of these years, you've returned! Thank you for everything you've done for Betsy. I didn't believe that you could keep your promise, I thought that the gambling bug had you for sure. But every week Betsy returned to me, and told me how you kept her safe."

"Betsy did most of the keeping safe herself. You raised a remarkable girl, Steven."

He was silent for a time, and I could tell all of his feeble senses were concentrating on what Betsy was saying, and where her hand touched his.

"Why didn't you come back sooner? There was so much I wanted to tell Betsy, at least to thank her for visiting me." He paused, then added, "No, it isn't fair for me to ask, since you already granted the only thing a father could wish for."

"You can ask. The truth is, you were too far gone, until recently. You had a heart attack, and that must have triggered something that brought you back to the surface where I can talk to you. I am surprised you even knew she visited you for all these years."

"I remember everything she said, and she's told me everything. That's one of the mixed blessings of being in a coma."

"She told you about the other girls? and how we live?" I said.

"I can't say that it's how I wanted my daughter living, but she has the home I never provided for her. Also, she has all those women who take of her and love her. But most of all she has you. At first she said you were like a father or at least a big brother, and she seemed happy. But she was happiest when she told me you were lovers. She said she had loved you for a long time, but was never quite sure that you loved her until that night."

"This is getting a little embarrassing," I said to him.

"How do you think I feel? But, I love my daughter, and her happiness is all that I can hope for. Now, can I ask just one last favor? Can you let me see her again, like you did the last time?"

I looked over at Betsy, who was still talking to her father. I remembered back to when she was a girl, and saw how she had truly blossomed. Her already long mousy brown hair had grown longer, deeper in color and more lustrous. Her green eyes which had been a bit too startled and large, now were a deeper calmer jade. She had also grown an inch or two, although she was still much shorter than average. Her figure had changed subtly. She was just as slender as she used to be, but was now clearly a woman.

"Thank-you, my friend. For this, and for everything, I thank you." He was again listening to Betsy speaking, but this time could see her as well.

* * *

Steven resubmerged to depths where I couldn't reach him. Eventually Betsy looked across at me and nodded her head. I walked around the bed and lead her from the room. She held me close, this time without the terrible pain that had attacked her earlier. We got to the waiting room and saw Tiffany and Stefani sitting there reading magazines.

They both looked up as we approached and came over to give Betsy a hug. As Betsy hugged them each in turn, she thanked them for coming and said that she could use the company tonight. The three girls walked arm in arm to the desk, where Betsy told the nurse that she would be staying the night in one of the guest rooms across the street.

The guest rooms were another of the changes that had been made with Betsy's grant. The motel across the street had been bought and renovated into a score of efficiency suites for use by patient's families. It only took five minutes to walk from the hospital to the guest rooms.

We walked in and Betsy spoke a few words to the manager. He handed her a key and gave her a smile that had a trace of sympathy. Stefani took the key from Betsy and lead the way up to the room, while Tiffany walked with an arm around Betsy. I followed up in the rear, for once not paying attention to the swaying bottoms in front of me.

The room was very tasteful with a decor that was cheerful, but not oppressively so. There was a small stove, a small refrigerator and enough cabinet space to hold pots and pans for a workable kitchen. The rest of the room was much like a hotel, with a couple of chairs, a TV and a large king sized bed.

Betsy immediately went to the bed and lay down. Tiffany sat behind her, with one hand on her shoulder and the other lightly stroking her head. I sat at her feet and pulled off her shoes and socks and then rubbed her legs gently.

Stefani left for a minute and came back with a small bag which she took into the bathroom. She re-emerged in a baby-doll t-shirt and a pair of panties and switched places with Tiffany. Tiffany took her turn in the bathroom, emerging in silk pajamas. The two girls then took Betsy into the bathroom. I took the opportunity to strip off my suit and get down to my underwear before climbing into bed.

When I heard the bath running, I knew it might be a long wait. I was asleep before they came out.

* * *

I woke up to find myself surrounded by warm female bodies. It wasn't just their bodies that surrounded me with warmth, since I could also feel their minds filling me with warmth. Well the two minds that were sleeping filled me with warmth.

The third mind looked out at me through jade green eyes that were inches from my own. When my eyes opened, she gave a wry smile and said, "I didn't mean to wake you."

"Betsy, you can wake me up anytime you like. I don't mind, especially if you're smiling at me."

Betsy smiled a little more, and flushed faintly. "I like watching you sleep. It is the only time you look at peace. But, except if you fall asleep after sex, you always seem to wake up just as I start to look."

"Well, maybe you should have sex with me."

Betsy really blushed this time, and cast her eyes down. It was then that I felt her little hands were pressed against my chest. Her fingertips curled in slightly, dragging her nails on my chest. I could sense the arousal inside her, but also a reluctance.

"I'm sorry, that was crude of me. I know you're worried about your father."

She quickly put a finger to my lips and shook her head. She sighed and her hand started to trace the lines of my face. Her eyes seemed to follow the track that her fingertips traced without actually looking at me. I wanted to delve into her mind to find what she wanted to say to me, but I held back. Instead, I watched her eyes and savored the feel of her hand on my face.

Her hand stilled, and I realized she was looking me right in the eyes. "I love you," she said. This time it was her thumb that sealed my lips, as her hand cupped my cheek. "You are a strange and wonderful man, and I am glad you were the one who found me. I never believed that he asked you to take care of me, but you did anyway, because you were his friend."

I listened as a tear began to run down her cheek. I wanted to speak, but she hadn't removed her thumb from my lips. So I gently kissed her thumb which caused a small smile to ease the somber tone of her face.

"I can hardly even remember who my father really was. When I think I know, I am sure he would hate who I've become. I'm living in a harem, and everything I have I've gotten from you. I pretend I bought the car, and my clothes on my own, but the money really came from you. Sometimes I think he's never woken up because he's disappointed in me."

Betsy's eyes were full of tears, and I couldn't hold back any longer. I pulled her towards me and hugged her. I kissed her and tasted the salty tears that stained her cheek. "Betsy, I am sure your father is proud of you. I know he only wants you to be happy. Aren't you happy?"

"I could be happier."

"What can I do?"

"Make love to me," she said, starring deeply into my eyes. "I am always happiest when we make love. Please, love me like you did the first time."

I rubbed my nose against hers and smiled, "Well, the first time we didn't have an audience."

Stefani and Tiffany quickly pretended to be asleep. I don't know when they woke up, but they had been listening for some time.

Betsy grabbed my head and pulled me into a fierce kiss. When her tongue finished probing my mouth she said, "Then let them watch!"

* * *

Our first time was on the night of Betsy's twenty-third birthday. We were having a party. This was the first party in the newly completed house on the Hill, and the girls wanted it to be huge. Crews had arrived the week before to begin putting up the buntings, lights and other decorations. Gardeners planted flowers that were grown in a greenhouse so they would be at full bloom for the party. There were champagne fountains, chocolate fountains, cheese fountains and soda fountains. There was a mariachi band poolside and a string quartet in the dining room. A dozen cooks had been working all day to create the food, and that didn't include the enormous cake.

The guest list included the governors of three different states, the city's mayor and town council, half of the state supreme court and one supreme court justice. There were diplomats, bankers, and the deans of a dozen prestigious schools both foreign and domestic. These were all people that Betsy had charmed while going about my business. In all fairness, I had initially charmed them, but Betsy had kept them charmed long after I had forgotten about them.

As I mingled with the growing crowd, I realized that I couldn't find Betsy. She was still living in the little house in the city, but I was sure I had seen her arrive. I even told her she could use my room to get ready for the party, since she didn't have one of her own. I popped a shrimp into my mouth and headed upstairs.

It felt awkward to knock on my own door, but I didn't want to barge in on Betsy if she was changing. I still felt a very paternal instinct towards her and sometimes still thought of her as the thirteen year old girl I had first met.

"Come in," she said. I could hear the emotion in her voice, and on instinct my powers reached out to touch her mind. She was lonely and sad.

I hurried into the room and saw her sitting on the bed in her underwear. Her dress was lying on the bed next to her. I immediately looked for a robe or something to cover her, as I said "What's the matter, darling girl?" There was no robe in sight, so I kept my eyes averted.

"Nothing."

It took all of my developing control not to use my powers to pull the answers from her. Instead I sat next to her, angled away, and said, "You can tell me, Betsy."

"How can I tell you, when you won't even look at me?"

"Well, you aren't wearing a lot of clothes."

"So? You can talk to the other girls when they're naked!"

"But they're my... girlfriends. And you're..."

"I'm what? Undesireable? Ugly?"

That question pulled my head around to look at her. Her lovely green eyes were slightly bloodshot from the tears, but still beautiful. Even unbrushed, her long brown hair was lustrous. My eyes followed the spill of her hair towards her breasts. They were small, but still large enough that with the bra's help they created a hint of cleavage. My eyes traveled down and I could just make out her ribs at the bottom of her chest, before her long flat stomach began. Her waist was narrow and I could see the faint lines of her abs beneath her pale skin. I jerked my eyes back to her face before they went further down.

"No Betsy. You are quite a beautiful girl."

"You still think I'm a girl? I'm twenty-three!" Then her mind and my powers betrayed a thought, "And I've been having sex with Marie for three years." I wasn't proud, but I pried a little and learned that she had been with other girls as well, but Marie had been her first and most frequent lover.

I did still think of her as a girl. But she was right, she wasn't a girl anymore, so I said, "No, you are not a girl anymore."

"Then... Then you don't love me."

"Betsy, how can you say that? Of course, I love you. You were a brat when we first met, but I have loved you for a long time. You're like a daughter to me."

"I don't want to be your daughter! I want..." Then she stopped abruptly and turned away from me.

"What do you want?" I pleaded with her.

"I want you. I want to live here with you, Marie, Bambi, Tiffany and the other girls. I feel like an outsider sometimes. I know you love me, but I want you to love me as a woman."

She looked at me and I couldn't think of a response. Impatient, she leaned forward and kissed me. It was an awkward kiss, but a kiss that spoke volumes to me. She pulled away and cast down her eyes. I didn't need to see the blush color the tops of her breasts to know that she was embarrassed.

"No," I said, "it is more like this." My fingers parted her hair and tilted her head back as I leaned in to kiss her. At first, our lips only grazed each other, but they soon parted and pressed against each other more firmly. As her tongue quested meekly towards mine, I felt lust swelling in me. Somewhere between her tentative kiss and my kiss, Betsy was transformed in my thoughts from daughter to lover.

We were still kissing as my hands quickly undid the clasp of her bra. Her arms worked out of the straps and threw it across the room. She kept her hands busy as they clawed at my clothes. Soon there were four hands working to remove my party clothes, even as four lips worked to keep us connected.

Rather than break the kiss, we left my undershirt on. I pulled her towards me, and even through my shirt I could feel the hard points of her breasts press into me. She felt it too and rubbed them against me. As the contact grew, she breathed a moan into my mouth. I lay back on the bed and pulled her on top of me.

I kicked off my shoes, but couldn't get my socks off without using my hands. But my hands were too busy exploring the soft smooth skin of Betsy's back to worry about socks. Betsy's hands meanwhile were busy trying to undo my belt and lower my pants. With reluctance, I moved one hand to help her, with the other hand slid down her spine and in the back of her panties.




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 06



Kicking my pants and underwear off my legs, I rolled over on top of Betsy. She grunted slightly, but soon was kissing me with even more passion. She could feel my erection pressing against the gusset of her panties. To me it felt like steam was soaking through her panties, trying to get towards my cock. One of my arms was pinned beneath the writhing Betsy, and the other tried to remove her panties. But even with both of her hands helping, it was taking too long for me. So with a quick motion, I tore the lace sides of her panties, and threw the torn material away.

She gasped but she kept kissing me. Her hips were questing to find my cock and she was soon rewarded. I felt her sex laying against the length of my shaft and was amazed at how wet she was already. My animal side wanted to shove myself into her and rut. From the frenzy of her kisses and the frantic movements of her hips, I knew she sought the same thing.

Instead I pulled my mouth away from her. Her head followed and her hands reached to pull me back to her. Gently I grabbed both of her hands in mine and pressed them gently, but inexorably to the bed. I let my weight settle on her hips, holding them to the bed as well.

Looking into Betsy's fierce eyes, I said, "Betsy, let me make love to you. We have all the time in the world for lust, but let this be love."

I saw the fierceness in her eyes fade and the fight in her hips lessen. I also felt her grow even more aroused. My mind was assaulted by her need to have me inside of her. Once her hips were fully under control her control, I lifted my weight. I still held her arms to the bed, but now there was space between our bodies, enough space to maneuver myself to her opening.

I watched her eyes as the head of my cock made contact with her delicate folds. With remarkable self-control, she very slowly rolled her hips to help me gain entrance. Her hands squeezed mine as I slowly sank into her. As I pushed deeper, I felt her legs begin to wrap around my thighs. She kept her eyes locked onto mine until I was all the way into her, and our hips rubbed against each other.

Her eyes fluttered, and I felt her contract against me. It wasn't an orgasm, it was a fulfillment of a dream. She grasped my cock to prove to herself how real it was to finally have a man inside of her. Not just any man, but the man she had dreamed of for years: me. I flexed myself in turn and was pleased to see her eyes fly open.

I let go of her hands and moved my arms under her slim back, both to hold her to me, and support my weight over top of her. Her arms moved to my neck, where they held me as if we were dancing. I gazed into her eyes and felt the song begin.

I moved inside of her slowly with short strokes. The earlier sexual frenzy had left us both, but there was a deeper arousal growing. As the fire burned hotter my strokes grew longer while keeping the same rhythm. Betsy's legs wrapped ever more tightly about mine as I continued moving inside of her with longer faster strokes.

As my strokes continued getting longer I watched Betsy's face slowly lose control. She tried to keep her eyes on mine, but with each stroke they would roll back for a split second. Soon her eyes were back more than they were on me. By the time I felt a thin sheen of sweet form on her back, Betsy closed her eyes entirely.

I had wanted to make her come first, but I couldn't control myself any longer. I was swelling inside of her and knew the moment was near. My arms slid towards her hips as I increased the pace of my thrusting. With one final plunge, I flung my head back and pushed as far into her as I could.

As I shot into her, I felt her legs tighten against me. Her whole body rose off the bed supported by her head pressed into the mattress. I shook as the orgasm tore through my body. I felt her body begin to shiver as her orgasm swept through her.

After what seemed like an eternity, our muscles finally relaxed. I lay atop her, supporting my weight on my elbows as we both struggled to get our breath. I looked into her eyes and saw that she was crying.

I kissed her softly, and whispered, "I love you, Betsy."

She smiled and cried and wrapped her arms around my neck. She put her lips right next to my ear and said, "I know. I love you too."

* * *

This time when we made love, it ended with six eyes brimming with tears. I looked to my left and right and saw Tiffany's and Stefani's flushed tear-streaked faces watching us. I looked back down at Betsy beneath me. She had closed her eyes, and I watched her face go from beautiful to angelic.

She opened her eyes and they were clear and bright. She reached for my face and held me as her lips touched mine. Betsy looked to her left and reached out to pull Stefani closer. They kissed and Betsy whispered "I love you." They kissed again and Stefani whispered, "I love you, too."

Then Betsy turned to Tiffany, and reached out a hand to her. Tiffany was also drawn close for a kiss and a whispered, "I love you." Tiffany smiled and kissed Betsy again. I expected Tiffany to sign, "I love you," but instead she placed her forehead against Betsy's and they just looked into each other's eyes for a moment.

Suddenly Betsy and Tiffany broke into giggles and they hugged each other. It was a bit awkward given that I was still lying on top of Betsy, but that caused them to giggle all the more. Soon Stefani joined in the fun and I had three giggling girls hugging me and each other.

Stefani became a little too enthusiastic with the hugging and ended up pushing my hips down into Betsy. Betsy and I gasped as the unexpected motion sent a spike of sexual energy through us. It also seemed to affect Tiffany and Stefani as their hugs turned into full body embraces.

As they began to grind against us, I watched Betsy's face change from a cherub's to a succubus's.



The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 07



I’d like to thank everyone that has taken the time to vote on my stories and send me comments.  It really helps motivate me to write.  I hope you enjoy the latest installment.

* * *

I looked down at Betsy and watched her post-coital bliss turn to lust.  My cock, which had begun softening inside of her, quickly regained its turgor.  The lust infected Stefani and Tiffany; their mouths latched onto my neck and they ground their sexes against Betsy and me.

Before I could begin thrusting into Betsy, the phone rang.  All four of us knew it could only mean a change in Steven's condition.  Stefani was the closest and reached to pick up the phone.  Tiffany and I held Betsy close as we listened to Stefani reply to the voice on the other end.

Putting down the receiver, Stefani said, "Betsy, your father had another heart attack.  He's still alive, but they don't give him a lot of time."

Hearing the phone ring, and half of the ensuing conversation caused my earlier excitement to wane.  I awkwardly hugged Besty and gave her a brief kiss before climbing off of her.  Tiffany and Stefani both hugged Betsy as well, before helping her sit up in bed.  I caught Betsy saying something to Stefani, but couldn't make out what she said.

I tried to think nothing of it as I gathered my clothes together.  I was about to put on my underwear from the day before when Stefani stopped me, "You need to take a shower.  Betsy does too, but she has more reason to hurry off than you do, right Betsy?"

Betsy already had her panties on and I could see that my cum was already staining the gusset as it leaked out.  She walked over to me as I stood with one foot in my underwear and gave me a hug.  Her small breasts pressed into my stomach as she said,  "You've been my father and lover and every other man in my life for so very long.  But, I need to say goodbye to my real father and having you there..."  Her words trailed off, but I knew what she meant.  In fact, I knew what she meant more clearly than if she had used a thousand mere words.

I looked down at her and she looked up at me while still holding me about the waist.  "Betsy..." I started, but the words failed me.

"I'll say goodbye for you.  And don't forget, a part of you is going with me," she said, releasing me to pat her lower belly.  I was shocked, but the other girls only giggled.  Betsy continued her little joke, "If I can greet governors and judges with your cum dripping out of my naked pussy, then I can see my father with panties holding it in."

I didn't entirely understand the joke, but Tiffany and Stefani seemed to.  Sometimes, I wish I didn't lose my powers when I came, this time more than ever.  While I was struggling to understand, Tiffany started signing to Betsy and Stefani knowing I couldn't understand.  They all giggled and then each girl nodded in turn.

Stefani said, "I get to drive you home, and Tiffany is going to go with Betsy.  Tiffany thinks I'd make better company for you right now."  The last part she said with a wink to Tiffany, that caused all three girls to giggle again.  Although I thought that Betsy's giggle was a little more fragile than it had been.

She was fully dressed now, and I gave her a hug.  I bent down to put my forehead to hers, trying to will her to know how much I loved her.  She grinned and choked me with a hug around the neck.  She finally released me and gave me a quick kiss.

The taste of Betsy's kiss still lingered on my lips as I watched her and Tiffany head out of the room.  It was a bit of a shock to see that it was already daylight outside, it never occurred to me that bad news could come when the sun was shining.  It was also a shock because I was standing in the middle of the room stark naked and was surprised to feel the warmth of the dawning sun on my penis.

An equally naked Stefani saw Betsy out, offering some soft words and a hug.  She shut the door and walked towards me.  She had a calculating look in her eye that made me wish, yet again, that I hadn't just come inside of Betsy.  In an oddly unerotic motion, she reached out and grasped my cock that was still wet with a combination of Betsy's juices and my own.

Slowly she bent down and gave my cock a gentle lick and then she sucked me into her mouth. Straightening up, she said, "Betsy really does taste divine on you, but she said that you wouldn't want any fun just yet.  So why don't you take the first shower while I pack up our stuff?"

* * *

Stefani was driving, leaving me alone with my thoughts.  I wondered if Steven had already passed, if Betsy had made it in time to say goodbye.  I really hadn't known Steven that long when he went into the coma, but outside of my girls I still considered him one of my truest friends.

Stefani suddenly poked me in the side.  It was only then that I realized we weren't home, or even heading home.  We had even gone in the wrong direction.  I looked over as Stefani and she said, "Let's get something to eat, you're hungry."

It was only then I realized how hungry I really was.  It took me a few moments to recall that those were the exact words I had said to Betsy when we first met.  Of course, in that instance I had used my powers to know that she was hungry, now I wondered how Stefani knew.

She must have seen the thought forming in my face, because she said, "Yes, Betsy told me, actually she told all of us at one time or another.  She was a little in awe of you back then, she was convinced you could read her mind or something."  Stefani's laugh seemed a bit too forced, but without my powers I didn't know if it was just my imagination.  "Anyway, now she knows it would have been obvious to anyone.  A girl dodging the cops and social workers all day before passing out next to her father, anyone would know she'd be hungry!"

I laughed a bit with Stefani, but didn't feel entirely at ease.  I said, "But, how did you know I was hungry now?"

Looking at me as if I'd grown a horn she said, "And all this time we thought you were clever?"  She shook her head, but eventually relented, "You missed dinner last night, and Bambi said you hardly touched your lunch.  It doesn't take a mind-reader to know you'd be hungry!"

Strangely, I felt relieved and even more anxious at the same time.  But I didn't want to dwell on those thoughts so I said, "But why did you bring me here, instead of taking me home for breakfast?"

"Waking up in the city, instead of up on the hill, made me feel a bit nostalgic.  I used to work here, remember?"

"How could I forget?"  I had assumed control of the establishment after the previous owner had been sent to prison.  I sold it a few years back, or at least I think Betsy told me I had sold it.  Anyway, it was my first case and what brought Stefani into my life.

* * *

The first time I'd been to "The Painted Doe" was a month after I came home for good.  Over the years since adopting her, I had returned to town frequently to visit Betsy.  Well, at first it was to visit Betsy, but the other girls in my family started accumulating in town.

First it was Magda, who wanted to become a citizen, so she settled in town and Betsy helped her open a massage parlor.  After Bambi graduated from Law School, she traveled with me for a while, but eventually decided she wanted to work and help others.  So she started a law firm that specialized in defending disadvantaged youths.  Each girl's story was slightly different, but they all felt a need to settle down and stop following me around the world.

When I am at my least cynical, I think they settled here because of Betsy, since she already had a home here, and she welcomed each new girl with open arms when they visited.  Other times, I think it is because it was the one place they knew I would return, time and again.  At my most melancholy, I think it is because I unconsciously used my powers on them and encouraged them to settle here, where Anna and my heart lay in a coma.

But, I was far from melancholy when we all got together to dine at the Doe.  I had returned to town expecting to stay a week, maybe two.  I was staying with Betsy and the other girls kept coming by for visits.  That was nothing new, but the way the visits played out was different.  No longer were the girls coming to visit only me, they were coming to visit each other as well.  I watched as their faces and minds lit up upon seeing a girl they hadn't seen for an entire week.  The patterns their minds made seemed to be in harmony.  The sort of harmony I had only seen before in loving families.

At the end of the week, all the girls got together at Betsy's to say what they thought was another goodbye.  They were standing together, and felt my heart swell at seeing the common aura binding them to each other.  I stood before them and started to cry.  I don't know where the tears came from, but they rolled down my cheeks as I stood before these women I loved and who inexplicably loved me.

"It seems like I am always saying goodbye," I began to say.  I looked at them and could feel their sadness growing.  Worse, I could see the familial aura begin to weaken, just as I had watched it grow all week.  Before I even realized what I was doing, I said, "I'm staying."

Between the wave of emotion that the girls broadcast to me, and the tremendous group hug, I passed out.  I woke up in bed with four of the girls under the covers with me.  The others were sitting around the room, and they were all talking excitedly.  There was so much chatter I couldn't understand the words, but from their minds I learned they were planning a home.  Together.

It took three weeks to finalize the deal on the property at the top of the hill, where our mansion was to be built.  Jill was working feverishly on the design, taking input from all of the girls.  They also asked me for my input, but I watched as what I said went in one ear and out the other.  In fact, the only thing I really got to decide was the location, and to get that much I really had to put my foot down.

Once the paperwork was finalized, we decided to go out and celebrate.  Claire suggested we reserve the upper room at the Painted Doe, as she thought they had the best food in town.  It just so happened that the owner of the Doe knew me from my gambling days, so it was a simple matter to get the room reserved, even on short notice.

When I arrived in the limousine with Betsy, I knew we were the last to arrive.  The parking lot was full of exotic cars, most of which I had paid for in one fashion or another.  This didn't even include the other limousines that I saw around the corner.

I asked Betsy if my tie was straight, for what she insisted was the fifth time, before escorting her to the front door.  The doorman pulled open the door and bowed us in.  That was when I first saw Stefani.  She was dressed in a short black dress that clung to her waist and hips before flaring out around her tanned legs.  Her hazel eye regarded us as she said, "Welcome to the Painted Doe."

Well, her smile seemed welcoming, but her thoughts seemed to be inexplicably hostile towards me.  I was too stunned at the unexpected hostility to speak, luckily Betsy spoke up.  On the outside Stefani didn't seem the least surprised that we were with the rest of the girls, on the inside she was completely confused, she evidently wasn't expecting a man to join them.

I could see her working through scenarios as she led us upstairs.  "I guess it can't be a hen party, unless he's the stripper.  No, who would pay to have him strip!  Besides what bride-to-be would walk in on the strippers arm.  Maybe they're junior leaguers?  He's here to give a speech or something?"

I went from embarrassed to amused and back a number of times as we headed towards the private room.  I settled on embarrassed when she thought, "I bet he's starring at my ass right now.  Perv!  Probably be ogling the other women all night too."  The fact that I was starring at her ass is what made me particularly embarrassed.

I flushed so much, that Betsy said, "Are you alright, Uncle?"

Stefani overheard and her thoughts immediately changed, "So, that sweet young girl isn't off the market after all."  I could feel her getting a little aroused by the thought.  Finally, we made it to the room and a long table was laid out.  The head spot was vacant, as was the spot to its right.  I sat at the head of the table and I watched with amusement as Stefani helped Betsy into her chair.

The other girls were all seated already and they were a delight to see.  They were all dressed in exquisite gowns and had their hair and makeup done to perfection.  I looked at each girl in turn and was amazed at their beauty.  I was doubly enraptured because I saw all of their inner beauty radiating out as well.

As Stefani left the room and a swarm of waiters took over, I could hear her departing thought, "lucky bastard."  It wasn't hostile, but strangely sincere, with more than a hint of longing.  As we celebrated our dinner, Stefani checked on our progress a number of times.  In particular she came to talk to Betsy and me.

After one of the visits, Betsy leaned over to me with a giggle and said, "I think she likes you!"

I cast my thoughts towards the young hostess and realized that Betsy was a few feet off.  "Actually, I believe she has a thing for you.  But don't get your hopes up, she has a girlfriend."

"You're horrible!" Betsy exclaimed as she slapped my shoulder gently.  But rather than being embarrassed, I realized she was curious.

Suddenly I heard Anna's voice in my head, "It's bad enough that you mind rape the hostess, but to pry into your daughter's mind."

"She isn't really my daughter," I thought back to the voice.

"You think of her as your daughter.  But you violate her mind, and the minds of the other girls you claim to love."

"I do love them, just like..."  I stopped as I realized I was arguing with a voice in my head.  The voice of the first woman I truly loved.  A voice that had been speaking with ever increasing frequency.

"Just like you used to love me?  Is that what you were going to say?  Are you going to mind rape these girls into a coma like you did to me!"

I put my hands to the sides of my head to try to block out her voice.  My hands were shaking and I was on the verge of being sick.  With Anna's last shout, I realized that the room was deathly quiet.  All the girls sat mutely staring at me, more than a few were crying.

I realized that my mental anguish was leaching into the girls.  Slowly, I pulled back in my powers, and withdrew from their minds.  This left them confused but no longer distressed.  I excused myself and hurried out in search of a bathroom.

* * *

Stefani and I climbed out of the car and made our way into the Painted Doe.  It had been years since I walked through that doorway, the doorway where Stefani had been standing.  My life had changed drastically since that day, but not nearly as much as hers had.  But even as the course of our lives had altered radically, the Painted Doe was pretty much the same.  Sure there were new servers, and I would assume new cooks, but the decor was identical and the menu had only subtle changes.

"I've been meaning to come back here for a while now," Stefani said after we had been seated.  She held the menu in front of her, almost entirely blocking my view of her.  I could just see her downcast eyes and the top of her head.  I didn't need my powers to know she was using it to shield herself from me while she gathered her thoughts.

"Why come back now?" I asked before I thought better of it.  I knew the painful memories that this restaurant must have for her, but I also knew she had many wonderful memories.

"It seemed like the time to face my past.  Just like Betsy is doing with hers," she said.  My power's hadn't returned yet, but I got the feeling that she was including Magda in her thoughts.  I had a sudden sinking feeling about what Magda's mystery errand might have been.

"You haven't been back here since, well, since we were last here?"

"You can say it.  I haven't been here since I walked through the crime scene with the detectives.  It wasn't as bad as it should have been, I think that's because you were there.  You were so calm, and powerful.  Every time I glanced over at you the horror seemed to be pushed away."

I heard Anna's voice chime in, "You really shouldn't have pushed away the terror, it kept her from accepting the truth for so long."  I bore the rebuke silently, and was surprised when Anna added, "but you did it for the right reasons.''  It almost sounded like she was proud of me.

Stefani had continued talking over Anna's voice in my head, "But this time it's different.  You are just as calm and wonderful, but I feel like I'm standing on my own feet this time."  She gave me a quick glance that made me uneasy.  Could she know that I had been holding her up?  That I had used my powers that day?  If she did know that, did she also know my powers were gone now and she was standing on her own?

"Stop trying to read her mind.  It won't work now anyway," Anna chimed in.  She seemed a bit too smug about the last point.

"I'm glad to hear it," I responded to Stefani.

"I never did thank you for what you did.  You helped send your friend to prison because of me, because of my word.  You also saved my life, I just wish..."

I reached across the table and offered her my hand.  She clutched it in hers and the tear, which had trembled in her eye, broke free and slid down her cheek.

"He wasn't my friend, not then.  You had already shown me more kindness in the few hours I had known you, than he had in the years we ran in the same circles."

"Kindness?  I checked on you in the bathroom when your girlfriends were too frightened to do it themselves."  She laughed briefly at that thought.  "I hated you, and envied you.  You were dining with some of the most beautiful and elegant women I had ever seen, and I could see that they all loved you.  Although, I had to admit that you weren't bad looking, for a man."

"The kindness you showed my family, our family now, was kindness to me.  Did I ever tell you, that four of them asked me to give you my card after that night."

Stefani smiled, "Yes, the magic card.  I still don't know why you were in the bathroom for an hour, but it was my salvation.  If you weren't gone for so long, I never would have been able to mingle with the other girls so much."

"Mingle?  Don't you mean flirt?"

"I was being friendly.  Besides, I was..."  She stopped and I saw her mood darken for a moment.  "I was attached."  She looked down towards her menu again.  Then she looked back at me and gave me a little smile, "just like I'm attached to you now.  My father would be so proud, that is if the homophobic redneck hadn't disowned me when I brought Jasmine home."

We had been over this before, or at least, I had heard her discuss the matter while I was present.  She had brought her lover, Jasmine, home from college.  Her father was upset that Stefani's roommate Jasmine, or Jaz, was black, but he threw the two of them out of the house when he found them making love.  Apparently he didn't even give them time to get on their clothes.  They stood naked on the front lawn while he threw their bags and clothes out the window.  Stefani often added that her misogynistic father would probably be delighted that his daughter was one of a dozen women in a harem, just so long as it was a man's harem and the man wasn't black.

"You're emotionally attachment is more to the girl's than it is to me.  One of the perks of living with so many lovely girl's is that occasionally lesbians will consent to having sex with me."

She gripped my hand a little harder and shook it slightly to emphasize her next point, "No.  I am attached to you and through you to the other girls, not the other way around.  I might be a lesbian, but whenever I am with you, I feel straight.  I'd been with a couple of guys before I realized I couldn't fake being straight.  Their cocks revolted me, and feeling their semen made my skin crawl."




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 07



She stopped and looked past my left shoulder.  Then she said, "I'll have the eggs benedict, and coffee lightly sweetened and with extra cream."  She delivered her order to the aghast waiter as if he hadn't just heard her talking about revolting cocks.

I was still getting over being startled at how close the waiter was standing without my sensing his presence, not to mention the things that Stefani said.  Luckily the waiter was equally startled and it took a minute for him to squeak out, "Sir?"

"I'll have the ham quiche, a glass of orange juice, and a glass of water."

Recovered now, that waiter asked, "Flat or sparkling?"

"Flat."

With that the waiter made a hasty retreat.  Stefani gave me a little wink and said, "I feel bad teasing the guy like that.  I hated when customers did that sort of thing to me.  But, I really meant what I said and wanted to finish saying it, and I don't care who overhead me.  I might have fallen in love with Betsy and the other girls first, but you are the center of our family."

Stefani got a far-away look in her eye and added, "I remember being around the other girls after they made love to you.  They weren't just happy, they were glowing and alive.  They would look me in the eye and make me want what they just got.  But I was a lesbian, and the revulsion I knew from earlier in my life kept me at a distance."

Her hazel eyes were now trained on mine, "The first time we had sex, I did it as much to be with the other girls in your bed as to be with you.  But when I felt you inside of me, I felt a connection that I'd never felt before.  When you came inside of me, I understood what the girls had talked about."  She laughed and covered her mouth for a moment.  Shaking her head she continued, "I make it sound like your cock is a syringe that injected a mind altering substance into me.  But it did alter my mind."

As she spoke, I became less and less comfortable since she was closer to the truth than she knew.  I could see that she wanted to say more, but she must have seen my growing discomfort.  Had I done that to her?  Had I fucked up her brain when I had sex with her body.  There would be no way for her to even know she only loved me because my powers had sucked her in.  I can't even remember doing that to her; I must learn better control.

I felt Anna's presence, as I do before she talks to me, but this time she remained silent.  I don't know if she just wanted me to know that she was watching, or if she changed her mind about what she was going to say.

* * *

After the dinner party at the Painted Doe, I did give Stefani one of my cards.  As she took the card, I could see in her mind that she had no intention of ever calling.  Why would a girl with a good job, a steady girlfriend and generally bright prospects need anything from a guy like me.  As Betsy and I walked out together, I noticed that a few of the other girls were making a point to say something to Stefani.

I don't know if something the girl's said convinced her, or if she was grasping for a miracle, but two weeks later, Stefani called.

I was asleep when Betsy crept into my room.  She tried not to disturb Claire or Jill who were curled up on either side of me.  My post-coital sleep had been long enough that my powers were nearly full strength, so I was awake before Betsy's hand even touched my shoulder.  I could feel that there was trouble brewing.

I was out of bed and pulling on my clothes before Betsy could utter a word.  I took a moment to kiss Claire and Jill on their cheeks before I left them there sleeping.  I didn't take more than a moment, because Betsy was clearly agitated.  Without trying I caught the thought that the girl from the Painted Doe had called and it was urgent.

We hurried downstairs and Betsy made a beeline for the door, stopping to snatch up her car keys and coat.  I said, "if it's that urgent, I'll drive my car."

"I didn't say it was that urgent," she said.  Her tone was questioning, and I felt her mind asking itself the question again, "Can he read my mind?"  Of all the girls, she asks herself that question the most, but she also denies it the most vehemently.

"You wouldn't have woken me up if it weren't urgent.  You wouldn't have grabbed your keys if we didn't have to go somewhere."

She nodded her head at my explanation, and I could see relief pass over her face.  She thought, "I knew there was a reasonable explanation."  The relief didn't stay on her face long, since she reached into the desk by the door and pulled out one of her handguns.  I reached for the keys for my Viper, but thought we might need a third seat, and grabbed the Maserati keys instead.  It had the added bonus of being jet black rather than an attention grabbing bright yellow.

 It wasn't long before we were sitting in the car with the engine running.  Betsy sat there looking at me, wondering why we weren't moving yet.  I hated to waste the time, but I didn't want to fuel her suspicions about my psychic abilities.  Finally I said, "you haven't told me where we're going."

"Oh!" she said with a start, and quickly filled me in.  We were soon racing across town to Stefani's apartment.  More precisely we were heading for an all night diner a block down from her apartment.  I might be a bad driver when it comes to dealing with traffic and playing nice with other drivers, but when it came to speed I knew what I was doing.

It took us less than three minutes to cover the five miles.  Two different cops started to pull me over and suddenly thought better of it.  I also had Betsy write down the license plate of a car that ended up in a ditch thanks to a suggestion from me.  He wasn't hurt, but his car didn't enjoy the trip.

Betsy had more confidence in my ability to drive at those speeds than I did, and she was whistling and looking out the window the whole time.  She was about to climb out of the car, when I put a restraining arm across her and leaned over to look out her window.  I made a show of scanning the area with my eyes, when I was really searching with my mind.

I quickly found Stefani, and it seemed she was holding up in the bathroom of the coffee shop.  She was clutching her mobile phone and glancing at her watch.  But aside from Stefani there wasn't a mind doing anything more exciting than cheating on his wife.  So, I let Betsy out of the car, and we headed into the diner.

Aside from a rather tired waitress, the place was empty.  I told Betsy to wait at a table, and I would check the bathrooms.  I noticed with a wry grin that Betsy waited with her gun under a napkin on the table.

I knocked on the door to the women's bathroom, pushed the door open and called in, "Stefani?"  I heard a brief scrape on the floor and knew that she had lifted her feet so they wouldn't be visible beneath the stall door.

"Stefani, I know you're in there."

"I... I have a gun."

"You don't have a gun.  Just like I didn't have a gun when you found me in a bathroom stall," I said as I moved to stand in front of her.  The door that separated us slowly opened to reveal an obviously distraught Stefani holding her phone like it was a gun.  Recognizing me, she dropped her phone and grabbed me in a hug.

"They killed her," she finally said between sobs.  "They killed Jaz."  I got an image of a beautiful woman with mocha colored skin and long curly hair.  The woman bore a striking resemblance to Stefani, except she was a light-skinned black woman rather than a darkly tanned white woman.  The resemblance was so strong, that I immediately knew what must have happened, but I let Stefani tell it in her own time.

She said that she had just gotten home from work and headed into the bedroom to collapse.  Jasmine, or Jaz as Stefani called her, had been in bed reading.  Jaz had gotten up to get Stefani a glass of water, or maybe it was aspirins.  When Jasmine passed into the kitchen, where there were two large windows, she'd been shot.  The hit man had mistaken Jasmine for Stefani.

With a little encouragement she told me the rest of the story, about why someone might want her dead.  She had been working at the Painted Doe and had gone into the manager's office to get some papers.  She'd heard the owner's voice, my old card-playing associate, come down the hall and she panicked.  She hadn't been doing anything wrong, but she knew that she shouldn't be seen in the office, so she hid under the desk.  She heard the owner arguing with someone and then she heard a sickening thunk.  A second later there was a loud thump that she felt through the floor more than heard.

"But no one saw me!  I waited and waited, and eventually he left.  I got out from under the desk and Tony, the manager, was lying there.  So I snuck out.  I didn't call the cops, I didn't leave work early, I tried to behave as if I hadn't just heard--"  She clung to me as she cried.  Two deaths in as many days will do that to anyone.

I looked into her mind and replayed the scenario, looking for some clue that she might have overlooked.  The manager's office was at the end of a hallway which emptied into the back alley.  On her way out of the hallway, she had passed one of the busboys who was taking out some trash.  He must have noticed she was distraught and mentioned it to someone, who mentioned it to someone.  She hadn't even realized she had passed the boy.

I escorted Stefani out of the bathroom and sat her down next to Betsy.  I took the seat across from them leaving my back to the door.  I looked at Betsy and gave her a bit of a nod, then turned my attention back to Stefani.  "We're going to take you to Betsy's place where you're going to stay for the night.  Tomorrow we'll take you to Tiffany's, I just hope you like horses."

I was anxious to get going, but I didn't want to make a scene.  People might have seen us arrive, and if we left too quickly they might get suspicious in a day or two when someone comes around asking questions.  That's always the problem with suspicions, they don't always develop right away.  I would feel it if they were suspicious now, like the waitress, but not if they only decide to be suspicious later, with a bit of prompting.

After having a light dinner, I made the waitress less suspicious with a large tip and a small mental nudge.  She'd remember that three people came in, she might even remember my face and Betsy's face, but Stefani's face, even her gender was all confused in her mind.  Stefani was done crying by the time we left.  She had progressed to the numbness that comes from extreme shock and utter exhaustion.

By the time we got back to Betsy's house, at a much more sedate pace than we left it, Stefani was asleep across the back seat with her head in Betsy's lap.  Betsy was stroking her hair idly and had a strangely content look on her face.  I ended up carrying Stefani into the house, but could only manage that as far as the living room sofa.  As I put down my burden on the couch, Betsy was already returning with some sheets, a blanket and some pillows.

"Betsy, go wake up Gwen and ask her to sit up watching until Stefani wakes up.  I don't want her to wake up alone in a strange place."

"I can stay up with her," Betsy said.  She was eager to help, a little too eager it seemed.  But before I could reach out to investigate that thought, I felt a mental slap from Anna.  Anna told me in no uncertain terms to leave my daughter's mind alone.

"You're tired, the only reason you're still awake is adrenalin.  Now be a good girl and do what I said."

"Good girl?  I'm twenty two years old, when are you going to stop treating me like a child?"  Again I felt that there was more to it than what she said, but I didn't probe her thoughts.  If I had, I might not have waited another year to make love to her.  When I didn't respond, she got unusually petulant and added, "Why Gwen?  She's so..."

I glared at Betsy in a way that I seldom looked at any of my girls.  I knew she was about to call Gwen stupid, all the girl's thought she was stupid and that she was merely my plaything.  The truth was entirely more complicated than that.  I saw a look of fear on Betsy's face and felt Anna pounding in my head to get my attention.  I pulled back in my slipping powers and said in my calmest voice, "Gwen isn't stupid, but she is naive.  She is also the sweetest and gentlest person you are ever likely to meet.  If you were to wake up in a strange place, can you imagine any face that would be more calming and reassuring than Gwen's?"

Betsy was sullen, but she saw my point.  "I'll wake up Gwen, but I'm staying up too.  I'm not a minor anymore you know."  I thought to myself, why would she say a minor, instead of a teenager, or a child.  I didn't even bother thinking about reaching out to find out, since Anna was obviously on the alert.

I turned to go back up to bed, but a sudden wave of hostility hit me from Betsy.  What's going on with her, I wondered yet again.  I realized that I also had too much adrenalin in my system to want to go to bed, and Betsy's emotions were too raw for me to be around right now.  So I left.

As the door closed behind me, a strange sensation took hold of me.  I knew instantly that I had a destination in mind, and a purpose.  I climbed into my red Ferrari and took off.  I laughed to myself and thought about growing a Tom Selleck moustache.  That was when I learned the voice in my head could stick out her tongue, a decidedly disconcerting feeling.

* * *

"I still can't believe how quickly you solved my case," Stefani said suddenly.  The waiter had just removed our plates and we were relaxing over our drinks.

I took a moment before replying, "Well, I already knew who did what, I just had to prove it to the cops.  Once they had Tony's body and they were told about the lamp that was used to kill him, it didn't take them long to have all the evidence they needed."  That was the easy part of the case to explain.

"I wasn't talking about Tony.  I meant Jasmine."  I noticed that she'd stopped calling her Jaz.  I often wondered if it was part of the healing process, a way to mentally distance herself from her dead lover.  Even though I slip now and then, that is one secret I have never investigated.  I am strangely proud of that.

"Well, there are only so many shooters in this town, and I knew all of them in one way or another.  You know a little of my past, how I used to run in the same circles as men like that, and men like the one who owned this place."

Stefani fussed with her water glass for a moment before returning her gaze to me and saying, "You're never going to tell me the truth, are you?  I know you haven't lied to me about any of it, but it isn't the whole truth.  Men like that just don't rat on their employer because someone gives them a talking to."

We had had this conversation before, or variants of it.  But I usually had my powers when it came up, and I was able to maneuver the conversation away with only a few subtle nudges.  Without my powers, I couldn't come up with a clever misdirection, so all I could do is spread my hands to try to show I had nothing to hide.

With a surprisingly loving sigh, Stefani said, "I know, you think there're some things it's best I didn't know.  I also know that you hate it when I ask.  Since this meal is about new beginnings, I'll never ask again.  But, I hope that some day you'll tell me."

* * * 

The drive back home was spent in companionable silence.  At least my half of the silence was companionable; her half seemed a bit agitated.  I chalked it up to my own paranoia, I always seem to assume the worst while my powers are recovering.  But when Stefani took the first turn off the private road leading to the house, I knew something was going on.  She pulled into the garage of the guest mansion that I keep at the bottom of the hill.

The girls use the Tudor styled manse when they have outside friends over, or on rare occasions a family member.  Most of the girls are orphans, or like Stefani they have been cast out of their family for sins real and perceived.  In Stefani's case, her father might have thrown her out, but she still stays in touch with her brother.  He doesn't know her real living situation, so when he visits she pretends to live there with her girlfriend, currently being played by Jill.

Actually, Jill and Stefani could currently be each other's favorite, but I can never keep track without peeking into their minds.  I still don't see how they can keep having a new favorite without anyone's feelings getting hurt.  There also never seems to be any love triangles, except when all three seem to have the other two as co-favorites.  The only evidence I have seen of a girl getting left out is when she is experiencing a "chaste" period, that is a time when she only has sex with me.  Again, a phenomenon that I am constantly confused by.

"Why are we stopping here?" I asked as the garage door closed behind us.

"I want something from you, something a little different," she said as she led me into the house.  I felt my powers try to emerge and seek out her thoughts, but I could only get the barest read on her: she was excited.  Anna knew I failed to read Stefani's mind, but that didn't stop her from clearing her mental throat in admonishment.

"Are you finally going to show your brother that you have a boyfriend?" I said as I followed her sashaying bottom across the parquet foyer.  That was the only use I could imagine for using this house.

"Not quite," she said with a coy look over her shoulder.  She started climbing the stairs to the upper floors and added, "but you were right about the boyfriend part."

She led me into the upstairs sitting room.  The warm wood paneling and Victorian furniture complimented her deep tan making her seem like she belonged in this room.  That is until she knelt on the leather sofa and lifted the back of her skirt.  She then lowered her black panties to her knees and leaned her body against the back of the couch.  Her bright pink sex stood out like a beacon from between her tanned thighs.  In fact, it's color was by far the boldest in the entire room.  I was halfway towards her before I realized what I was doing.

She rested her head on her arms and looked back towards me, and said, "I want you to fuck me.  You're always making love to me, but you've never really fucked me.  Now is the time."  She reached one hand between her thighs, and I saw her fingers emerge briefly before disappearing into her sex.  She closed her eyes and pumped her fingers a few times.  When she pulled out her fingers I heard the thick moisture trying to suck her fingers back in.

My cock was already straining against my pants as her glistening fingers moved towards her face.  She inhaled deeply and moaned.  "Can't you see how wet I am?  Ready for a good fucking."  She took another smell of her fingers and said, "I smell ready, and..." she then sucked her fingers into her mouth and mmm’ed her way into a purr.  Her fingers returned to her sex and she spread her labia wide before delving inside for a second helping.

She continued to masturbate as I stood their paralyzed.  I had never fucked her, because she was still too much a lesbian at heart.  Without my powers, I would be just another man to her.  But I wouldn't be living with dozen's of girls if I had the will-power to match my other powers.

My fingers worked at my pants which soon formed a pile around my ankles.  My underwear joined them and I penguin stepped towards her.  Her lewd display continued unabated, she didn't even appear to remember I was there.  The sloppy sound of her probing fingers filled the room and added more hardness to my cock.

I didn't wait for her fingers to move out of the way, and aimed my cock at her bright pink opening.  As my cock pushed into her, I felt her body tense and her fingers pull out.  But her fingers lingered in the area and I felt them fluttering around my cock as I plunged into her.




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 07



Once I was buried inside of her, she grabbed my testicles with her soaking wet fingers.  She looked back over her shoulder at me and said again, "Fuck me!  Hard!"  Her grip on my testicles tightened as she pulled me deeper inside of her.  She only let go when I acknowledged her demand with a nod.

I pulled out slowly, like she normally likes it, when I remembered her request.  So I plunged brutally back into her.  My balls slapped against her fingers, which were eagerly at work on her clit.  I instinctively reached out with my mind to see if this was what she really wanted.  But nothing came to me, I was blind to her mind.

I plunged into her again and again, each thrust coming harder than the previous one.  Stefani was moaning and I could feel her rubbing her clit faster and faster.  I kept trying to reach out to her mind and kept getting nothing.  Finally I blurted out, "Is this what you want?"  I couldn't help emphasizing the last word with a particularly hard thrust.

"Yes!" she screamed and pushed her body back against me.  "Fuck me!  Fuck me straight!"

She was apparently liking this game, and I joined in, "Take it dyke.  Take my cock.  None of your dyke lovers can give you what a real man can."  I felt her flinch momentarily as the words came out of me, but soon she was moaning even louder.

My thrusts continued unabated and I soon felt her juices running down my testicles.  She had never been this wet before which only inspired me to fuck her harder.  I felt beads of sweat form on my face and wiped them impatiently one my shirt sleeve.

She kept shouting, "Yes!" over and over between her moans.  I felt the urge to come building inside of me, building much too quickly.  I couldn't tell how close she was to coming.  For a split second I was terrified that I might come first and rob her of an orgasm.  But as my orgasm built, her words started to change.

"Yes!" she would shout, and then say, "fill me up."  She suddenly grabbed my testicles and looked over her shoulder into my face, "Fill me with your baby batter, like all those dykes never could."  It was the dirtiest thing she ever said to me and had the affect of an order to my body.  My testicles tried to pull out of her hand as my orgasm tore through me.  She held them tightly bringing a pain that seemed to intensify my pleasure.

As the first shot of sperm was deposited deep inside her, I felt her go rigid.  Her voice, which had continued shouting dirty things, became choked off as she tried to exhale and inhale simultaneously.  I felt concern for her, but it was dwarfed by the primal instincts that caused me to pull her hips tightly to mine and deposit two more streams of semen into her.

Her hand fell away from my testicles which were finally able to retreat into my body.  Her body began to sag beneath me as the affects of the orgasm released her.  I thought I could see a tear in her eye before she turned her head away from me.  I slowly pulled out of her causing a gasp from both of us.  Her pink sex was gaping open and inflamed from receiving my cock so forcibly.  I watched it pull partway closed as a gasp rocked her body causing a hint of semen to escape.

Her hand returned to her sex and she looked back at me again.  "Could you get me a tissue?  Jill would be pissed if I spilled come on the leather couch."

We didn't say anything else as we went about getting cleaned up.  Stefani kept giving me strange looks though.  The looks weren't hostile, just curious.  Eventually we got our clothes back into position and I collapsed on one end of the couch.  She lay down on the couch and settled her head on my lap.  She kept her face turned away from me, but one of her hands was curled around my thigh.

I placed my left hand on her shoulder and with the right I stroked her sweat dampened hair.  I sat like that for a long time waiting for her to say something, or do something.  Eventually, she turned to lie on her back, her eyes looking up at me.

"Are you a lesbian trapped in a man's body or something?"  She stopped when she saw the perplexed look on my face.  She thought for a moment and said, "It almost felt like a woman was behind me at times, fucking me with a strap-on.  But it was real, I could feel your balls slapping into me, and feel the blood pulsing in your cock.  And when you came inside of me, it was..." she broke off and turned her head away for a moment.

When she turned back she said, "Even when you fuck me, you make love to me.  I can feel it."  She patted her belly when she said that, making me strangely uncomfortable.  I don't know why I was uncomfortable since it couldn't have been from my powers.  I couldn't use my powers then, and now I wouldn't be able to for another few hours.

Stefani sat up suddenly and said, "Oh, I almost forgot.  I'm supposed to meet Jill downtown for some shopping."  Her excitement suddenly ebbed and she said, "although we made those plans before Betsy's father took a turn for the worse."

"Well, it's about time I got home anyway.  We'll call Jill on the way up the hill, and if you two are still on then you can just drop me off."

She gave me a quick and unexpectedly fierce hug and said, "You're the best."  She then took my hand and led me back to the car.  I was greatly amused by the swagger in her step that hadn't been there on the way upstairs.

* * *

Stefani dropped me off since Jill was indeed already on her way to the mall, apparently with a car full of girls.  As I walked towards the door, Marie and Linda hurried out of the house with their purses.  They each gave me a kiss and excused their hurried departure, since they wanted to go shopping too.

I was once again glad for my incredible wealth, since it meant that the girls wouldn't end up bankrupting me.  Of course, I had the feeling that if they knew how much money I really had, they would only try that much harder.  "They aren't really that bad," Anna said to me.

"I thought you didn't like them?"  I asked the voice in my head.

She took a long time replying, but finally said, "No, I only disapproved of them because of how they came to be in your life.  But you haven't added to your harem for a while now, so maybe you've learned your lesson."

"You're unusually positive today."

"Well, maybe Stefani is right, it is a time of new beginnings," she said.  I felt her voice disappear back into the deepest recesses of my mind.

I opened the front door of the house and it felt strangely empty inside.  I realized there was no sounds of life and I began to wonder if anyone was home.  "Hello?  Anybody home?"  I called out.  The faint echo of my own voice was the only response.



The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 08



I'd like to thank everyone that has taken the time to vote on my stories and send me comments. I really like to hear what you think about the story. I hope you enjoy the latest installment.

* * *

I stepped across the threshold of my home and heard Stefani driving away. I looked back and gave the car a small wave. Marie smiled and blew me a kiss from the back seat as the car disappeared from sight.

The heavy oak door emitted a long squeak as I swung it closed. I stared at the door in confusion since I had never noticed a squeak before. Eventually, I shrugged my shoulders and headed across the foyer towards the stairs. The heels of my shoes clicked loudly on the marble flooring, another sound that I didn't remember.

I stood in the middle of the foyer, cocking my head from side to side, listening. The house was still and utterly silent. "Hello?" I called out. My voice sounded loud and harsh to my ears, and the following silence seemed even louder. Where were the girls whose laughter and activity filled my home with the sounds that masked clicking heels and squeaking hinges? Maybe they were outside enjoying the sun, I hoped and took a step towards the back of the house.

The loud click of my heel on the floor sent a shiver down my spine. I tried to ignore the foreboding and quickly removed my shoes, tossing them away from me. My socks felt slick on the marble and I removed them as well. I realized I was shamefully afraid of cracking my skull when no one was around.

That's when it really sank in, I was alone. The air felt heavy and listless around me, as if the house had been abandoned for years. Even though I had just watched Marie and Linda hurry out, my home felt abandoned. I tried to reach out with my powers to find someone, anyone, but they hadn't recovered.

I padded towards the back door, hoping to find one of my girls asleep in the sun. I tried to ignore the loud sounds my bare feet made as they stuck briefly to the cold marble floor. I crossed to the back door and slid it open. I hurried across the deck, to the railing overlooking the pool and the yard.

The sun's glare was unexpectedly harsh as it revealed that the grounds were as empty as my home. One of the poles for the volleyball net had been blown down and left there. An air mattress and an inner-tube hung in one corner of the pool, where they had been blown by the same wind that had knocked down the volleyball net. A wind that was also gone.

I noticed that there were half finished drinks at tables around the pool, and a salad with a fork still in it. I went back inside and saw the same sort of thing everywhere I looked: half-eaten plates of food, books left open face down, lights left on, doors left ajar. It was as if everyone had dropped everything and left. I could understand that if they were going to visit Betsy at the hospital, but not if they were going shopping.

I swept through the dining room, but was grateful to see that it had been cleaned off since breakfast. As I walked past towards the stairs and my room, I let my hand slide along the smooth polished surface. The slight warmth that the morning sun had imparted to the wood felt comforting to the coldness that was creeping into my mind.

It took forever to climb the stairs and reach the master bedroom. The scrunch of the carpet under my bare feet echoed loudly, mocking my loneliness. I hadn't been alone since I moved into the house. I hadn't been this alone for years, not since I had put Anna into her coma and fled.

I tensed as the thought entered my mind, but Anna didn't respond. Had even the voice that haunted my thoughts left me? "Anna!" I called into my head, but my thoughts echoed as hollowly as my footsteps in my cavernous home.

A giggle escaped my lips. It was a giggle of pure terror. I was crazy, just like grand-dad had been. No, I decided as I slammed the door to my room and kicked my suit-pants into the corner, I won't go crazy. I can stand being alone for a couple of hours. The girls would be back soon, they always came back.

I ran a bath, and let the hot angry sounds of the flowing water drown out the silence that had fallen over my home. I sat in the enormous tub and curled my arms around my knees as the water slowly filled in around me. The heat from the water caused a sweat to break out on my face, but I found that I shivered in spite of that.

* * *

My self-pity had faded enough that I began to realize the water surrounding me had grown cold. I was stiff and my fingers were severely pruned which told me I had been in the bath a long time. I pulled the stopper and as the water drained I took a quick hot shower to wash off the feelings that had leached into the bath water and seemed to cling to my skin.

I dried myself quickly and pulled on my bathrobe which I realized was just as appropriate for a man alone as it was for the Hugh Hefners of the world. As I walked into my bedroom, I scowled at the unmade bed. I didn't particularly care that it was unmade, except that it was a sign that none of my fastidious girls were around. I hated myself when I realized that I didn't know which of my girls usually made my bed, or if they all took turns.

As I walked down stairs, I realized I didn't know who vacuumed the carpets or swept the floors, only that it always seemed to be done. For all I knew the girls could have hired a maid who came while I was at work. When I caught a shimmering glimpse of the pool through the window, I realized I could even have a pool boy who comes by while I'm out.

The girls ran my entire life and I never really noticed until they were gone. I truly understood this as I headed for the dining room for lunch. I was hungry and whenever I was hungry there seemed to be a meal ready in the dining room. But the dining room was silent.

I could barely remember where the kitchen was. I had been in there before, part of the christening of the house that the girls insisted on, but I had little idea where the actual food would be in the enormous kitchen or if I could find anything I could even cook. Maybe I would starve to death before I slip on the marble floor.

I was halfway across the dining room heading towards the dimly remembered kitchen, when I heard a faint scotching sound. I quickly turned towards the sound and saw Gwen sitting alone in the chair at the head of the table. She was slowly turning the plate in front of her, softly humming to herself. She had been so still that I hadn't even noticed her as I walked into the room. It also reminded me that my powers hadn't returned.

As I approached, Gwen's gaze slowly raised from her plate to my face. As her liquid gray eyes met mine, a delicate smile formed on her lips. It was like watching a flower blossom open and I would have been mesmerized even if I wasn't starved for companionship. Of all my girls, Gwen was the most beautiful, with skin as pale and smooth as the finest porcelain. The smile she was now gracing me with barely thinned her lush pink lips and revealed the hint of her straight white teeth.

"I fell asleep," she said, without preamble. "Besides, it was my turn."

Gwen never quite made sense, and it wasn't just her enthralling French accent. In many ways, talking to her was like talking to a five year old. She answered questions in her own time, sometimes unexpectedly, hours later, other times she made statements without bothering to provide the pertinent context.

"Your turn for what?" I asked, taking the easier of the two statements first.

"To sit next to you, silly."

"Where is everyone else?"

Gwen either didn't hear my question, didn't want to hear it, or decided she needed to think about the answer and would tell me later. She continued her own train of thought and said, "I only know how to make peanut butter, but it's both of our favorites."

I knelt beside her and took hold of one of her hands that was still adjusting the position of the plate in front of her. "Gwen, where is everyone?"

"It is still your favorite, right? You remember how you taught me to make them? With the little smiley face?"

I knew Gwen well enough to know that she was upset or worried about something. Nothing ever showed on her face, except for her delicate smiles, but her hands were restless and her eyes kept straying to the plate in front of her. She also seemed to have an even more difficult time keeping a conversation in context when she was upset.

"I remember, Gwen," I said as I kissed her hand. She looked at me and I could see tension leaving her body.

Her smile was back and she used her free hand to pat the seat next to her. "Hurry up, or they'll get cold."

* * *

Paris has some of the worst slums in the world. Well, some of the worst slums in a supposedly first world country. I didn't intentionally go around touring the world's slums, but I went were the gambling was. For high stakes, high risk, off the record gambling, you need to find a beautiful city and then find its underbelly. In Paris, there are places where the sun never manages to shine, alleys so narrow and deep that it feels as if the city was swallowing you whole.

It was my third trip to Paris and I knew I could find what I needed. The daylight seemed to burn me with its accusations, the civilized people looked at me with eyes full of accusation. But in the slums of Paris, I could find darkness, and people who were as damned as I was. I hadn't killed the man in the Czech Republic, but I could feel his blood darkening my soul. The money I threw at his family didn't assuage the guilt I felt. But if I dwelt with the other shadow-dwellers, my soul didn't feel so dark.

On this trip, I wasn't looking for gambling, I was looking for a hole to crawl into, or perhaps a bottle of absinthe or pernod, or the arms of a comely woman. I sought the very vices that would weaken my control, rob me of my powers, leaving me defenseless and vulnerable. I didn't even realize I was suicidal.

I was staggering through a particularly narrow alley, bouncing from one wall to the other, when I first saw her. A veritable angel was peering down at me from a small window two floors up. When she saw my eyes on her, she quickly ducked back inside.

The gasp that escaped my lips brought on a coughing fit. I fell to my hands and knees in the unthinkable muck of the alley and coughed until my body hurt all over. In between coughs, I also managed to expel most of the bottle of absinthe I had guzzled earlier in the day, or perhaps night.

Eventually I staggered back to my feet, leaning heavily against the masonry wall for support. I scrapped the muck from my hands onto the wall, as my breathing became normal. I looked back towards the window from which the angel had peered down at me, but couldn't seem to find it. So I reached out with my powers, looking for a pretty girl.

I found drug-dealers and whores aplenty, but there wasn't a girl like the one I'd seen. I widened the search and felt a young child, two floors up and behind me. I whirled around, nearly slipping in the muck. Somehow the window I'd seen had gotten behind me, and behind the window was a girl's mind. At least, I thought it was a girl's mind. Whatever mind it was, it was terrified in an unusually primal way.

I reached up with my mind and entered hers. The first thing I felt was pain, followed by weakness. She was hungry, thirsty and trapped. I saw through her eyes the small broom closet she was locked in, I felt the bed of rotting mop-heads that made up her seat and her bed. But no matter how long I waited in her mind, I didn't heard a single word, only a sort of music.

From reading people's minds, I've learned that everyone speaks to themselves. People don't do it all the time, but if I listen for a couple of minutes, everyone says something to themselves. Well, maybe not those meditating freaks, but I steer clear of their minds since they usually start shrieking. But this girl was different. She seemed to think in pictures and actions. The few sounds in her mental dictionary were like Pavlovian bells, triggering fear, hunger, or temporary reprieve from her cage.

I heard the squeak of a door followed by uneven footsteps. That was the sound of terror, and anticipation of pain. I saw an image of a hulking man with large meaty hands that smelled of piss and alcohol. I was so terrified that I pulled out of her mind and back into my own. My terror doubled when I smelled the same piss and alcohol on myself. The power of the girl's terror caused by those scents had spilled into my mind, leaving me afraid of myself.

A part of me suddenly burst into flames. I would not be a man like that, and I knew that if I stood here and allowed him to continue doing what he had been doing, I was exactly the same as he was. I went to the door beneath the window and banged against it. I tried the handle but the door was locked. I backed to the far side of the alley, took a half a step and slammed into the door. There wasn't enough width to get up any speed, so I braced my feet against the far wall and pushed the door with all my might. I walked my legs up the wall until I bridged the alley, straining and panting as I felt the door struggle against me.

I was lying on shards of the broken door. A darkness deeper than that of the alley. It was just as filthy but it was a dry filth. I labored to my feet and looked for stairs that would lead upwards. Luckily they were only a few feet away, since my drunken mind could barely remember what I was trying to accomplish.

Upwards, I thought, and pulled myself up the stairs as much as climbed them. My hands left fresh filthy stains on the walls, to join the countless others that had already dried. The stairs emptied into a hallway littered with porn flyers, pizza boxes, needles and broken bottles. Upwards, I remembered, and looked about for more stairs. Staggering around, I soon found stairs behind me that went down which was the wrong direction. I staggered down the hall and nearly missed the other set of stairs. They were even narrower than the previous ones and recessed behind an empty door frame.

My shoulders brushed both walls as I staggered further upwards. There was another hallway that was nearly as filthy as the one below. The only difference was the boxes were for Chinese food instead of pizza. I stood there in confusion, no longer remembered why I was here.

I heard a little voice say, "hurry." It was the same pesky voice that had been giving me nightmares. I turned quickly to try to grab the person who must be following me, only to trip myself, ending up on the floor.

Getting back to my feet was growing exhausting. I thought about crawling, but the broken bottles and rusty needles that glittered along the floor persuaded me otherwise. With grim determination I pushed myself to my feet. I felt that I had to hurry to, so I started walking quickly. I came to the end of the hall and realized this wasn't where I was hurrying, so I turned back the way I had come.

I was nearing the other end of the corridor when I passed the last doorway. The floorboards squealed as my foot settled in front of the door. I felt a sudden terror seize me again, the same terror I had felt before. No, I realized, I hadn't felt the terror: the girl!

My mind reached through the door and quickly found the beast of a man who was terrorizing the girl. I reached into his mind and would have thrown up, if I hadn't left everything back in the alley. The man hadn't kidnapped her, he had raised her! I could feel the cruel thoughts boiling away in his mind, the torments he had rained down on her.

Under all the cruelty, he thought one thing over and over, "Soon, you little bitch, soon I'll sell you and get out from this hell hole I'm stuck in because of you." I saw a picture of the man who had agreed to buy the girl, provided she was of suitable quality. I recognized the man, a white slaver who I'd won money and women from. I was horrified to think that this is the sort of place those women had come from. I had always released the girls when I won them, and saw that they got back home... Had I sent all those girls to hells like this?

Breaking this door down was surprisingly easy. I hurled myself at the thin wood and the dry rot riddled wood panels burst apart at their seams. My momentum carried me down the hall and I collided the man. He had turned to face the squeak I had made in the hall and so we smashed into each other face to face.

From the imposing image of the man I had gleaned from the girl's mind I thought I would be the one who would fall to the floor from such an encounter, but it was the other man who lost the battle with balance, momentum and gravity. He was below average height and extremely hairy with his face a mask of hate and fear. The fear quickly turned to rage as I saw how much he hated being afraid. That was one of the reasons he enjoyed tormenting the girl.

He snarled his way to his feet and attacked me. His blinding rage and my extreme inebriation offset each other, so that physically we were well matched for a fight. But even drunk, I had enough control of my powers that the fight wasn't fair at all.

I watched his first over eager punch land squarely on the wall. He quickly pulled his hand out of the hole and took another swipe at me. This time I made him punch the other wall. He must have hit something more solid than rotten plaster, since I heard a distinct snap and he wasn't so quick to swing again.

He held his broken hand against his chest and took a swing with his left. I was so surprised that he still had fight in him, that I almost forgot to make him miss me. His left hand shot past my face and his body crashed into me. I clamped down my powers and raised my knee swiftly into his groin. I heard the breath rush out of him as he bent double. I was glad that I remembered to pull back my powers as I watched him vomit onto the floor. I grasped his sweaty, greasy head in my hands and lifted my knee again, this time into his face. There was a sickening sound as his nose was obliterated by my knee and he sank to the ground.

I looked down at my hands and let the tuffs of his greasy hair drift to the floor. My hands were shaking violently as I rubbed them against my pants, trying to wipe away the thought of touching such a vile beast of a man.

I heard a very faint sound and felt tremendous terror coming from the doorway the man had been looming over. I reached a calming thought into her mind and felt her mind and body jump at the contact. I kept trying to send calming thoughts to her, but they were too alien for her to comprehend. So I did the humane thing and turned off her mind while I got her out of there.

I opened the door to see the girl curled up on the floor of a closet that I could barely turn around in. Her skin was pale and slightly waxy, and as I scooped her up in my arms I was surprised at how little she weighed. She was wearing a threadbare nightgown that might have covered her when she was three, but now left her stick like legs bare.

Even though I could make people who might see us forget her state of undress, I didn't feel right taking her out into the slums dressed like that. The second door I opened revealed a small sitting room with a hot plate, a beaten chair and a chamber pot. The third, and last door in the hall opened into the bedroom. A small pallet laid on the floor covered with oily, stained sheets and a coarse surplus army blanket. I set the girl on the pallet and wrapped the blanket around her before lifting her back into my arms.

I thought about kicking the man again on my way out, but knew that I would be lucky to step over him without falling. By the time I got back into the hallway, my adrenaline rush was gone, and the drunken stupor had returned. I didn't even realize I was carrying a girl in my arms as I staggered blindly down the hall.




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 08



"Stop," I heard. So I stopped. I looked around, but couldn't find the source of the voice. "Look right." I looked and saw a set of stairs going downward. I started down the stairs and the voice said "careful" as I tried to negotiate the tight turn at the halfway point of the stairs. It was only with at admonition that I realized I was about to smack the girl's head into the wall.

I was all the way to the mouth of the alley, with my good deed nestled in my arms before I realized the directions had been coming from that pesky voice. I yelled, "Who are you!" and was answered by two barking dogs, a streaking cat and a thrown bottle. When the voice didn't answer, I shook my head and staggered onward.

It took a while to find a payphone, and a while longer to find a cab company that would risk sending someone to the streets I read off nearby signs. I sat on the curb with the wrapped up girl and waited. It took nearly an hour for a cab to pull up, and then the cabbie wouldn't let me in without a down-payment. My mind was so numb from the adrenalin withdrawal that I didn't even think of using my powers on him.

He laughed when I told him to take me to the Four Seasons. But the color of my money ensured that he would get me there. He picked up his radio and called his buddies. I didn't speak French, but I knew he was telling them about the bum he'd picked up, and that they should show up at the Four Seasons for a good laugh.

It was twilight in Paris, and as we weaved through the streets, I vaguely wondered if it was dawn or sunset. I had nearly fallen asleep when I heard a thick Parisian accent say, "Hey buddy, you're here."

I shook my head and opened my eyes to see that it was now uncomfortably bright, meaning it was just after dawn. If my head wasn't pounding so hard, I would have felt proud about figuring that out. I handed the cabbie a few more waded bills as the cab's door was opened by the hotel's doorman.

Doormen at places like the Four Seasons are very well trained, but that didn't keep him from recoiling and saying something that would normally get him fired. I started climbing out of the cab, nearly forgetting the girl in my lap. It took a minute, but eventually I was able to stand up without dropping the girl.

The cabby might have thought it perfectly ordinary for a man to be walking around with an unconscious girl wrapped in a dirty blanket, but the doorman took things differently. I admired his zeal, but I didn't appreciate how loud his little whistle was, that close to my face.

The police arrived almost as quickly as the hotel's security. I was soon circled by a crowd of angry men who were all asking me questions in French. Finally I said to the doorman, "I would like to check in."

Not all of the faces were shocked when I made that announcement, only the ones who understood English. That was when the hotel manager pushed his way into the circle of men. He saw my face and went suddenly pale. He tapped the hotel security guards on the shoulder, spoke a few quick words and made shooing gestures. He spoke quickly to the cops and slowly pulled them away from me. The manager took a moment to tell the doorman, in English, that I was to be taken to the Presidential suite.

The doorman spoke some protesting words to the manager in French. The manager spoke a few more words to the cops before pushing them off down the street. He then turned on the poor doorman and told him calmly, yet firmly to do exactly as he'd said. In fact, the doorman ended up carrying the girl to the Presidential suite for me.

Somehow the maids had made it to the room before we did. I saw a stream of them file out of the room and curtsey to me as we passed in the hall. The head maid waited by the open door and asked if I needed anything. By that point, I was running on fumes and made vague statements and gestures that I quickly forgot.

I staggered towards the bed and was about to collapse into unconsciousness when I heard the doorman clear his throat. I fished a large bill out of my wallet and weaved back towards the door. I only forget to tip when I'm really drunk. Opening my bleary eyes, I realized I had also forgotten the girl, which only happened when I was really really drunk. Of course, usually they are awake to remind me.

My mouth wasn't working too well, so I gestured towards the bed. The maid asked if the girl were alright, if she needed a doctor. I waved her off and pantomimed that she'd need a nice suit and tie like mine, and a wash, and some food.

The hotel manager might have been willing to indulge a fabulously wealthy guest, but the head maid had a greater sense of propriety. "Is she a relative of yours?" She asked timidly, but insistently.

I glared at the woman with the one eye that was still focusing and said, "She's my daughter!" I don't know what possessed me to make that claim, but I decided I couldn't take it back now. I looked at the scrawny little girl laying on the enormous bed and felt my eyes begin to water. "Now please excuse me, I need to pass out. I'm not to be disturbed until precisely noon o'clock!"

I tried to bully the woman from the room, but when I got too close, the stench emanating from my body caused her to cringe. "Might I suggest you take a shower before passing out? I can have your suit laundered and back by noon."

The woman made a lot of sense. I walked towards the bathroom shedding my clothes as I went. Before I took off my pants I fished inside and took out my money clip and handed it to the maid who was busily picking up my cast offs. She looked aghast. I realized the problem, separated the money from the clip, threw the clip towards the table and handed her the money.

* * *

I didn't have the heart to tell Gwen that peanut-butter sandwiches didn't get cold. It took me a moment to realize that Gwen had used the phrase idiomatically rather than literally, and couldn't see the difference. That's the sort of thing that happens when you don't learn to speak until you're fourteen. Even when you have a psychic's help.

I looked into her bright eyes and saw her looking back with utter devotion. The other girl's might be able to leave me, but deep down I knew that Gwen never could, no matter how hard I tried to make it possible. It took years to mold the terror she had lived through into something she could live with, to teach her to speak and behave in a world that was larger than a broom closet and her perverted father. All of that tinkering left too many residues of me in her mind. I still can't tell how much of who she is now is what I wanted her to be and how much is who she wants to be.

I sat on the floor at her feet and wrapped my arms around her legs and hugged them. As I rested my cheek on her thigh she began to gently stroke my hair sending waves of calm through my mind. I clung to her and to her devotion. I selfishly clung to the person that I had ensured could never leave me.

* * *

Waking up under a running shower is dangerous. If you managed to survive passing out in the shower, you are usually okay until you sputter awake. Thankfully, this time there were strong maternal hands that helped me keep my head above water as I thrashed to wakefulness. When I stopped thrashing and was merely sitting miserably in the bottom of the tub, those same hands shut off the flow of hot water.

The head maid looked down at me with the condescending frown that mothers use on their disappointing children. She said, "We have guests who like to sleep in the bathtub, but they have the sense to turn off the water first."

I still felt very groggy and as I made to stand up the world suddenly turned on me. The hot shower had helped eliminate some of the alcohol and other toxins from my body, but I was still quite drunk. "How... time?" I asked half of both questions I felt the need to know.

"You checked in six hours ago, it is now noon," she said. She was going to add, "O'clock," to the end of her statement, but was moved to pity me. Knowing both of those thoughts only made me feel worse. She continued talking as she fetched towels for me. I vaguely heard something about hot water and hypothermia, but was too busy contemplating the irony of my dry mouth.

"Drink?" I asked as I started patting myself dry while still sitting in the tub.

She was professional enough not to harrumph out loud, but I heard it run through her mind. Instead she said, "I brought up orange juice, apple juice, coffee, tea and of course water."

"Water, then coffee, then orange," I said. I tried once again to rise from the tub but failed. I saw the maid's eyes on me and settled for covering my groin from her view. She gave a faint nod of approval and a bit of a smile when I added, "Please."

I was used to breakfast in bed while staying at the Four Seasons, but my bed had never been a bathtub before. I quickly devoured the food she set before me which eventually filled the void in my stomach. But my dry mouth persisted, along with the thought that I was missing something.

"The girl!" I blurted as the maid began clearing my dishes. The maid gave me a queer look, and I amended what she heard to: "My daughter?"

"She's still asleep. I didn't want to wake her, although I have thought about calling child services." The maid gave me a stern look, and I knew that this time she wouldn't leave without a good explanation or use of my powers.

I searched the maid's mind for some plausible explanation, and pieced together a story. I had to use a little of my powers to convince her, but eventually she believed that I had just rescued her from an abusive mother who had fled the States with my daughter. I even had the bright idea to ask the maid to send for someone from the US embassy so I could arrange to take my daughter home.

"I'll tell the concierge to contact them tomorrow," she said. Knowing her thoughts, I understood that she hoped the extra day would allow me time to get sober. She let me know there was a cart of food in the main room, as well as a dress for my daughter and a new suit for me. Apparently my old suit was a bit too damaged to launder. She then left me alone in the tub.

It took some doing, but eventually I managed to climb out and limp out of the bathroom. I sat on the bed and looked down at my latest acquisition. I couldn't foist her off on Betsy, since Betsy was little more than a girl herself. I explored the girl's mind and realized just how deep the psychological damage went. She didn't have a sense of identity and barely had an idea what language was, let alone that one of those words might be her name.

"Well, I'll just have to give you a name," I said out loud. I tried to think of a French name, but the first name that came to mind was Gwendolyn. I tried real French names, but Gwendolyn had already sunk into my mental image of her identity. I whispered her name and saw her twitch ever so slightly. I didn't realize until much later that the name sank deep into her mind and had been the source of the twitch. I might have, except the phone rang.

"Hello?" I asked into the phone.

"Where have you been? I've been worried sick! You're pilot hasn't heard from you in two weeks and your chauffeur and bodyguards lost track of you a week ago. I was afraid someone had killed you." Betsy kept talking rapidly and I felt truly guilty. She'd said she'd been on the brink of calling the police which told me how desperate she had become.

"Betsy, I'm fine." I looked down at the girl on the bed and added, "There is just one little problem." I explained what I remembered from the night before and could hear Betsy scratching down notes. When I'd gotten all the details I could remember, I said, "I'm sorry Betsy. I shouldn't worry you so much. No, I shouldn't give you cause to worry about me. I might not be as horrible a father as the man who did this to her, but I haven't been much good either. I've only ever been able to give you money and safety, and I know that isn't enough."

There was a painfully long silence before Betsy meekly asked "Would you do me a favor?" I could hear a faint wavering in her voice and knew I had made her cry. She continued before I could respond, "Will you at least stop ditching your bodyguards?"

"I'll even stop drinking," I blurted out before I knew what I was saying. I couldn't take the statement back from her over the phone, and I realized I didn't want to. Gwendolyn had been abused and maltreated by a drunk, I had been drunk when I'd caused the Czech man's death... 

"You'd do that for me?"

"Yes. Because I love you Betsy, like you were my own daughter. I wish I didn't have to stay away, and maybe someday I can explain why, but I want you to know that I love you."

This time I could hear her sobbing. Finally she said, "That's what makes it enough. I love you too." She hung up the phone before I could ask her what that meant.

I turned to the girl who was still asleep on the bed and said, "You have an amazing sister Gwendolyn, I can't wait for you to meet her."

Cautiously, I entered Gwendolyn's mind and removed the block that kept her asleep. I saw her mind spring to instant wakefulness but her body didn't so much as twitch. I felt her listening intently, her nostril's flared slightly as she puzzled at the strange scents. None of the terror triggers were apparent, so she cautiously opened her eyes and looked around.

When her brilliant grey eyes fell upon me for the first time, I was struck dumb. They were beautiful and full of beauty and hope. But they quickly filled with panic. She bolted from the bed and disappeared into the adjacent room. I was still too drunk to chase after her, and barely reacted to her movements before she was out of the room.

"Gwendolyn," I called as I walked slowly towards the door to the adjoining room. "I'm not going to hurt you." When I mentioned her new name I felt a wave of confusion and hope enter her panicked mind. "Gwendolyn, please come out," I said as I sat on the chair across the room from where I knew she was hiding.

I kept repeating her name and sending out calming thoughts to her. Her mind was so alien to anything I'd encountered that it was difficult to do. But eventually, I saw her peek out from behind the television. I don't know how she squeezed into the cabinet that held the TV, especially without sending the set crashing to the floor. But as I kept repeating her name she slowly came out of hiding. She oozed around the television with the grace and flexibility of a cat before dropping lightly to the floor.

She walked towards me with her head cocked to the side, as if following my voice more than what she saw. As I said her name again, I could hear her softly humming in response. The notes matching the tone and cadence I used with her name. She crept closer and closer and eventually settled onto my lap. Her hands reached out, one touching my lips and the other my throat. I said her name again, and knew she felt the movement of my lips and the vibrations from my throat.

I didn't move as she sat there, fearing that I would panic her if I did. Eventually she lowered her hands and kept repeating her three bar name melody to herself. She climbed off my lap and started looking around the room, still cautious but no longer panicked. When she was halfway across the room, I risked standing up. I crossed to where the cart of food and called her name.

She stopped and looked at me as I spoke. It took three more times speaking her name before she came to the cart. I lifted the silver covers from the food and motioned to it. I knew she could smell the food and I knew she was hungry, but she was also afraid to take any. I remembered how sounds triggered memories of events for her and soon found the one that indicated she was being fed, not merely tormented with the smell. This porcelain wasn't cheap crockery, and there was no rough hardwood floor to slide it across, so I used my powers to make her believe she heard the sound. But she still didn't touch the food until I set the plate on the floor, then she began eating using her fingers to quickly shovel the food into her mouth.

* * *

"You're making me so wet," Gwen said as she continued stroking my hair.

My gloomy thoughts were quickly interrupted by her statement. She'd never been one to talk dirty, and I was upset that she was thinking about sex at a time like this.

"What?" I blurted.

Her hand went from stroking my hair to run gently down my cheek. She showed me her wet fingers and asked, "Why are you crying? I thought you liked peanut butter sandwiches."

"I do. I was thinking about something else, I was remembering how I found you and how sad it made me, and how alone I would be without you."

"I thought you were happy you found me?" She said, and I could see nervousness creep back into her body.

"I'm very happy I found you. I was sad at the time because of what had happened to you."

"You aren't making any sense," she said, her cute French accent getting even thicker than usual. She grabbed the plate from the table, and the glass of milk and sank to the floor in front of me. She had four open faced sandwiches with smiles drawn in the peanut-butter.

"You don't have to eat on the floor anymore, that's past."

She looked at me in exasperation, as if I were going crazy, "I can eat on the floor, just like you could when you first made me a peanut-butter sandwich." Her face never showed much in the way of emotions or feelings, an effect of her cruel childhood, but I saw a hint of mischievousness creep into her usual smile. "But you didn't show me that they could kiss and become whole," she said as she lined up a pair of smiles and pushed them together. She handed me the completed sandwich and told me it was mine. Then she pressed her own sandwich together.

"We have to share the milk, because I would look silly with three hands."

I looked at her and wondered how she could make so much sense and say everything wrong at the same time. She ate her sandwich in little bites and I could faintly hear her humming the three notes of her name. Then she would hum a single lower note and then the notes she has used for my name before I taught her to speak. She then added something else that I had never heard, but she seemed to hum with love.

"Gwendolyn, what did you just say?"

She suddenly stopped humming and put her sandwich down. "I didn't say anything. I had my mouth full, and you always say don't talk with your mouth full." She then quickly took a large bite of her sandwich and made sure I could see that she was chewing. 

I knew better than to pursue the question. So, I ate my sandwich and shared the milk, listening to Gwen humming with a mischievous smile on her face. It was always incredibly easy to tell when Gwen was concealing something, but it was confoundingly difficult to tell what it was.

When we finished she said, "I really didn't say anything."

"I just thought I heard..."

She cut me off before I could finish, another sign that she was concealing something. She normally listened a couple of seconds after someone was done speaking before replying, but this time she interrupted me and said, "would you take a nap with me?"

Before I could say anything, she floated to her feet. I'm not sure how she did it, but she just untwisted her legs and rose to her feet. She managed to do so while holding my hand. I was soon looking at her lusciously round bottom as she tried to pull me to my feet.

Eventually she got me to my feet and lead me to my bedroom. She gave my hand a tug towards the bed before releasing her hold on me. I let my bathrobe fall to the floor as I slid into the still unmade bed. I straightened the covers as Gwen walked around the room drawing the curtains closed. She then went to the stereo and turned it on, before switching out the lights.

Rich gentle violin music soon began to fill the room. As the notes filled my head, I thought the melody sounded familiar, but I couldn't place the song. I turned on my side and looked over at Gwen as she slowly made her way to the bed. I held the covers open for her, but she seemed to be in no hurry.




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 08



She moved slowly, in perfect harmony with the music. The violin's voice grew richer and lustier. As the tone changed, I watched Gwen's stride changing. Her hips swayed further which each step, a languid grace that kept me mesmerized. I didn't even notice her hands were rhythmically opening the buttons of her blouse. She stopped in the center of the room as the music changed slightly. Her hips moved slowly in a teasing figure eight and they continued their rhythmic motion even as she stopped walking.

Her blouse slowly fell to the ground behind her. I heard a second instrument join the violin, the deeper voice of a cello. The cello played a counterpart to the violin, but the violin stayed in control of the music. But my concentration was on Gwen as she stood in the center of the room, swaying to the music. Her breasts stood proudly up from her chest, her skin seemed to glow in the warm light that managed to push through the curtains. As the cello played louder, I could see her nipples harden and flood with color.

She started walking towards me again and I watched her hands slide over her breasts and down across her narrow waist. As she took each step she inched her pants slightly lower, revealing more and more of her round hips to me. I saw just the hint of darkness at top of her pants when she stopped walking again. Her hips kept moving and seemed to transmit the motion higher up her body. Her round breasts swayed slowly as she spun her head in slow circles. Her long black hair glistened in the dim light, momentarily obscuring her breasts before parting to reveal them again. The long silky black strands parted reluctantly around her hard nipples that stood proudly up from her breasts.

She started moving forward again and I realized she had dropped her pants completely while I was distracted by her breasts. The neat triangle of hair concealed her treasure, but unerringly pointed the way. As her hips swayed and moved to the lusty music, my eyes were drawn to what I couldn't see in the dim light. The contrast between her glowing skin and her glossy curls kept my attention as she slowly came closer to the bed.

I reached out to her and she grasped my hands in hers. Slowly she pushed my hands back to the bed and me onto my back. I looked into her eyes and I could see the lust glowing in them as they were slightly hidden by her flowing black hair. She straddled my body and I felt myself yearning towards her. Her hair formed a curtain around our faces as she looked directly down at me.

The distance between us slowly diminished. I heard the cello strumming loudly as the violin grew even louder. My breath quickened and my nostrils were full of her scent, a rich vanilla that calmed me and excited me at the same time. I felt something warm and wet contact the tip of my straining cock when her mouth descended onto mine. Her normally shy tongue sought mine and rubbed along my lips.

I tried to thrust my hips and my cock into her, but she raised her hips in time with my thrust. I only managed to get the head of my cock nestled into her opening, but no further. I tried to lift my arms to wrap around her and hold her, but her hands were still on mine holding them in place on the bed.

She stopped kissing me and raised enough to look me in the eyes. She said, "Listen, I wrote this song for you." That is when I realized where I had heard the melodies before. The cello kept singing out the three notes for Gwendolyn, and the violin spoke my name and more.

The melody slowed, but the rhythm seemed to intensify. Gwen pressed her forehead to mine and slowly lowered herself onto me. I closed my eyes and lost myself in the music and the exquisite feeling of sliding into her. When her hips finally met mine, she released my hands and wrapped her arms under my shoulders. She laid her head on my chest and I felt her smooth legs slowly encircle mine.

I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight. My cock felt obscenely hard as it throbbed deep inside of her and she clung to my body. She slowly moved her body as she wrapped herself tighter around me. She began to shudder and I felt her teeth bite gently into my chest. The shuddering seemed to originate where my cock impaled her. She took a few slow staccato breaths before releasing the tight grip she had on me.

Her arms slid out from underneath me and her hands sought my face. She held my cheeks as she leaned forward to kiss me. The movement caused my cock to stir deep inside of her and her gentle kiss turned into her teeth gripping my lip. She released my lip and smiled at me before rubbing her nose gently against mine.

Her hands began trailing down my chest as I felt her hips rotate on top of mine. Soon she was sitting up, impaled on me. Her face and breasts were hidden by the dark curtain of her hair. Suddenly and in time with the music, she threw her head back and somehow sank further down onto me. She kept her head back as she started lifting herself off of me. She pressed her hands against my belly as she started her slow rhythm.

I tried to thrust into her, but I heard her insist, "Listen." She began riding me faster and I was soon out of my mind in lust. She used her movements to bring me closer and closer to the edge without giving me quite the right motion to make me come. I tried again and again I heard "Listen."

I listened, while the lust was driving me mad. I watched a flush turn her pale cheeks bright red and then spread across her chest. Her nipples bucked on top of her heaving breasts and strained as they grew harder. I listened and felt the music growing in me. The violin called my name over and over and somehow I knew it was asking me to wait, wait just a little longer. The cello seemed to plead, but the violin insisted.

Then suddenly the music freed me to move and I grabbed her slim waist and thrust into her. The violin shouted, "Now, Now!" as I thrust into Gwendolyn. I thrust into her again, and she met my thrust with a fierceness of her own. The music didn't matter anymore, all that mattered was joining Gwendolyn in ecstasy.

I held her hips tightly to mine as I came inside of her. I let out a silent groan as I trembled and clung to her. Her hips rolled against me and another surge of come shot inside of her. She collapsed on top of me and panted quietly. She insinuated her arms and legs around me again as she shuddered.

I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her to me. Her back felt cool as the perspiration whisked the heat of our love-making from her. I pulled the covers over us with one arm while I continued holding her with the other.

It was only after our bodies were covered that I realized the room was silent except for our panting breath. I thought about asking Gwen how she had arranged the music like that, but quickly changed my mind. Gwen was right, I should be sleeping and not thinking such things.

As I drifted off to sleep, I heard Gwen quietly humming what she had at lunch. The sounds nagged at my thoughts. Gwen let out a long low hum and then started singing something very quietly. It sounded like a lullaby, in French. I had a minute to wonder about when Gwen could have learned French before falling asleep.

* * *

I woke up some hours later, alone. At least I was alone in the bed, but I knew that Gwen was near. The door quietly opened and Gwen padded back to bed. She pulled back the covers and grasped my cock gently in her hand. She stroked me slowly until I began growing hard, then climbed back in bed and slowly lowering herself onto me.

She saw me watching her do this, but didn't say a word. When she was done she looked at me and said, "I like napping with you inside of me, but I had to answer the door."

"I didn't hear it ring."

"You were asleep," she said. As she laid her head back on my chest I heard her add, "Daddy."

"You haven't called me daddy in years," I said.

"I didn't. You're imagining things. Like me talking while I'm eating," she said as she cuddled back down against me. I believed her, even though I could feel her cheek bulging in a smile as she spoke.

"What do you call that song?"

Rather than answer she began humming the same thing she had during lunch.

"You're right, Gwendolyn, I shouldn't ask such questions when I should be napping."

Gwen started rocking her body slightly, lulling my mind to sleep even as she coaxed my cock back to wakefulness deep inside of her. I was asleep for the finale, but had the most marvelous dream. 



The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 09



If you are new to my Reluctant Psychic series, please consider starting from the beginning. The story, characters and events in this chapter will make more sense when given context from the preceeding chapters. If not, welcome back and I hope you enjoy the story.

* * *

I awoke from my nap feeling more refreshed than I had in months. As the fog of sleep slowly lifted from me, my mind savored the pleasant dreams that were already fading. The dreams had been filled with music, warmth and silken caresses. I breathed in the rich scent of vanilla, which told me that the dream wasn't entirely a dream.

My arms were wrapped around Gwen's lush body, with one hand cupping a breast and the other resting on her smooth hip. My nose was buried in her hair and my lips were grazing her ear. I gently kissed her ear and hugged her to me. I realized as I pulled her towards me, that my semi-erect penis was nestled inside of her from behind. How she'd managed that without waking me, I have no idea.

As I hardened inside of her, Gwen let out a deep purring sound. She stretched one arm high over her head, twisting and stretching. She stretched her other arm, and continued her purring sound. Finally satisfied with her stretch, she turned her body from the hips, so that she could look at me without allowing me to slip out of her.

"Good morning, Gwendolyn," I said to her while giving her flushed cheek a kiss.

"Did we oversleep dinner?" she asked, with a slightly panicked look.

"I just meant... No, we didn't oversleep dinner."

I felt her squeeze my cock inside of her, as she closed her eyes and hummed to herself. After a few rhythmic squeezes, which left me as hard as ever, she stopped. She opened her bright grey eyes and looked at me. "I like waking with you inside me even more than falling asleep. But you always seem to fall out. This time I didn't let you," she said. Her smile turned bittersweet and she added, "but we don't have time for making babies, dinner will be ready soon."

"But no one's here, they all left," I said. I could feel Gwen's presence, but no one else. Then I realized I wasn't really feeling Gwen's presence, just the warmth of her body against mine and the strange and wonderful feeling I get deep inside after making love.

I vaguely wondered how long I'd been asleep, and when we had made love. Had I come again while I slept? I thought I remembered a second time, after Gwen had climbed back in bed with me. So it is possible that the house was full of people, and my powers hadn't recovered yet.

Gwen started rocking her hips and settling back into my embrace. Her deep throaty humming sent wonderful vibrations through me. The exquisite feel of her body soon had my thoughts on other things than how long I'd been sleeping. But just as I was beginning to thrust myself into her, she stopped again.

"I don't want to get ready for dinner," she said.

"Who says we have to?"

"You have to wear your tuxedo tonight. And take a shower, even though I like it when you smell like me or my sisters." Without another word she moved forward, making my cock slide from inside of her. She then made shooing gestures with her hands, and I felt compelled to head towards the bathroom.

Gwen hadn't called the other girls her sisters in quite a while, although she still called Betsy her sister, since legally they were both my adoptive daughters. Of course, I reflected, she also hadn't called me "Daddy" in a long time either. I worried that she might be regressing, as the psychologist had warned that she might.

"She's fine," I heard Anna say. I was so surprised that I almost slipped as I was stepping under the shower.

"Where have you been?" I asked the voice in my head.

"Even a man's schizophrenia needs a few hours to herself."

"You're not my schizophrenia," I thought to her. When she didn't answer, I said out loud, "I'm not crazy!"

I looked around as if I could find the voice that had plagued me for so long, or at least someone to tell me I'm not crazy. Suddenly the shower curtain parted and Gwen's face peeked through and said, "I laid out your tux on the bed." Just as quickly her face was gone again.

"Gwen?" When she didn't peek in again, I called, "Gwendolyn?" I wanted to ask her if she thought I was crazy, but realized how foolish a question that would be. I also wanted her to shower with me, if for no other reason than to keep me company.

I heard the toilet flush and Gwen peeked in the curtain again. "I like it when you call me Gwendolyn," she said with a beatific smile. This time her face didn't disappear so quickly. She must have understood that I wanted her to join me, since she said, "I like smelling like you and my hair will be too wet to eat dressed up."

I was having a bit more trouble parsing her grammar than usual, and without my powers I couldn't sense the meaning directly from her mind. She frowned at me for a moment, until I understood that if she showered with me, she couldn't get her hair dry in time to get dressed up for dinner. I mumbled, "Alright, I'll see you at dinner?"

"I love you," she said before disappearing again. It wasn't the answer I was expecting, it wasn't even the answer I was afraid of getting, but it made me smile. It more than made me smile; I began humming the song that Gwen had written for me. No, I realized, she had written it for us.

I had just finished the main theme of the song, which contained Gwen's musical equivalents for our names, and the other notes that felt like words when Gwen's faced appeared. She was laughing this time. "You aren't crazy, just silly. You should say it like this," she said before humming a slightly different melody. It became apparent that I had incorrectly conjugated the verb, since only a woman should hum it the way I had.

Her face disappeared again, only to reappear a moment later. "Now quit calling me back, I have to get ready!" I heard her bare feet quickly slap against the tiles and the door slam shut.

* * *

Looking at myself in the mirror, I was pleased with what I saw. No so much my face or hair, as that I had managed to get into the new tuxedo without any of the girls helping me. It helped that there were detailed pictorial instructions on how to tie a bow-tie taped to the garment bag. I took a last swipe at my hair with a comb, before deciding I probably looked the best I could manage without help.

As I walked down the stairs, I kept expecting the feeling of loneliness to return. I thought it was because I knew Gwen was somewhere in the house, but that didn't feel like the right answer. As I crossed the marble foyer heading towards the dining room, I wasn't overwhelmed by the sharp click my new shoes made on the floor.

I was feeling even better as I passed the living room and saw that the signs of abandonment were gone. The room still wasn't occupied, but it appeared to have been cleaned rather than left behind. As I entered the dining room, I was greeted by soft music and an empty table.

I slowly walked towards my seat at the head of the table, wondering what Gwen had in store for me. As I began to sit down, I thought that she might need help carrying in the food, even if it were only peanut-butter sandwiches again. I thought I heard Gwen giggle, but the thought was as quickly gone as the supposed giggle.

I had only been sitting a moment before I heard the click of high heels coming from the hall. The pitch and temp of those high heels told me they weren't attached to Gwen, since Gwen chooses shoes for their sound more than their appearance. The thought that another one of my girls had come home, brought me to my feet before she appeared.

It was Betsy. She was dressed in a long black velvet cocktail gown complete with elbow length gloves and a black velvet choker. Her long brown hair cascaded about her bare shoulders in soft ringlets. For once, she even wore makeup, very understated, but it helped conceal that she had been crying not too long ago. But she wasn't crying when she saw me and my heart warmed to see a genuine smile light up her face as she walked towards me.

"I'm sor..." I started by her velvet clad finger pressed against my lips. She looked downward for a second and gave a slight sigh before composing herself.

"Not tonight," she said. She used her hand to guide my head down slightly so she could kiss my cheek. "Thank-you" she whispered, before withdrawing her lips and gentle breath from so near to my ear. I didn't manage to ask what I had done to deserve thanks, since I didn't believe it was for starting to say I was sorry about her father passing away, before she asked, "Are you going to make me stand all night?"

The manners I had learned as a child suddenly took over, and I moved quickly to pull out the chair for her. The girls had worked so hard to get me out of the habit, that it felt a bit strange. But it also felt really good, as if I were truly returning home.

With Betsy sitting to the right of my chair, I was just about to sit when I heard another pair of heels clicking in the hall. Bambi walked in wearing a dark green sheath dress that accentuated her figure, especially the way she sashayed into the room. Her red hair was held back by a set of emerald combs that I had given her years before. Apparently she'd seen a jeweler since then, because she had new emeralds around her throat and on her ears that looked to be a matched set.

Bambi stood beside the chair next to Betsy and looked at me with a raised eyebrow and cocked hips. Again, my long dormant training kicked in and I moved to pull out her chair. As I stood holding her chair out, she kissed me on the cheek and whispered "Thank-you." I knew it wasn't for holding the chair, but I didn't have time to ask.

One by one the girls arrived. The clicking of their heels began as each of the previous girls were seated. They would wait for me to hold their chair, kiss my cheek and whisper, "Thank-you." I was halfway around the table before I realized that each girl was arriving in the order she had entered my life.

It was also halfway around the table that the pattern changed slightly. The pattern didn't actually change, but the tone changed. There was a hint of nervousness under the excitement and love that all the girls displayed. I wondered why Magda would be nervous, or why the girls who were already seated seemed to smile a little brighter when they welcomed her to the table.

Even though it took some time, I enjoyed seating my girls. When I finally sat Samantha down in the chair to my left, I realized that something was wrong. There were only enough chairs for everyone to sit at the table if one of the girls joined me in love-seat chair at the head of the table. But all the girls were already seated and my chair remained empty.

I looked around the table and found all of my girls smiling at me. My fingers came up to do the mental math that I had already done twice in my head. The girls began giggling and I quickly shoved my hands into my pockets, trying to pretend they hadn't outsmarted me. But why would they go through all the trouble of sneaking an extra chair to the table?

I heard a faint clicking sound begin in the hallway. Even though the girl's only smiled, it seemed like the room was suddenly full of whispered conversations. I quickly counted the girls again, but they were all still there. Whoever was coming down the hall was a stranger to me.

When she was finally frame in the entrance to the dining room, I saw that it wasn't a stranger, it was Magda! I quickly looked down towards the foot of the table and saw Magda waving at me with one hand and concealing a giggle with the other. The new Magda walked slowly towards me, at least it seemed like it took forever for her to arrive.

She wore a purple and black dress, that I realized in shock was a perfect match for the vest of my new tuxedo. But only a small part of me registered that shock, the rest of me was busy taking in her appearance. Her long blonde hair was combed out straight, draping on her left shoulder to cascade over her breast. She slowly raised her gloved hand towards me, and I eagerly bowed over and kissed it. As I stood up straight she said, "My name is Katia, I believe you know my sister." Her smile spoke volumes, and if I had ever learned to read smiles instead of the thoughts behind them, I might have known what her smile said.

"Welcome to our humble home," I said with a wave that encompassed the house and everything within. Her smile changed when I spoke, but I couldn't tell what the change meant, but she seemed to regard me with more interest than she had before. "Please join us for dinner." I only realized after I spoke that there was no food in sight.

"There only seems to be one seat left," she said, making the statement sound like a question. I finally realized that although they were physically identical, Magda's sister had virtually no trace of a Czech accent. I thought back and realized for all I knew they could be identical twins, since all I really learned about them all those years ago was that Magda was the elder sister.

"I would be honored if you'd join me."

She curtsied and allowed me to pull back her half of the seat for her. We sat next to each other, our shoulders brushing. There were no more rigid formalities to hide behind and a sense of awkwardness began seeping into me. I felt like a boy on a first date, and in a way I was. This was the first time I had truly met a tongue stammering beauty without being able to use my powers to read her, or influence her.

Thankfully the awkwardness didn't have long to set in. I heard a bell ring and moments later the doors to the kitchen flew open. A long stream of waiters appeared and in moments we each had a place setting in front of us. Another stream appeared, this time waitresses bearing glasses and pitchers of iced water. More glasses appeared borne by another set of waiters. They waited a moment while the first set of waiters returned with wine stands and champagne. There appeared to be a waiter and a waitress for each of us, and a wine steward for every four.

How had the girls hidden this many people in the house? This must have taken them weeks to plan. I also wondered how they could have kept Katia's visit from me. "They had help," came a familiar voice inside my head. Before I could ask Anna what she meant, a voice that wasn't inside my head spoke to me.

"Is dinner always such a big production? Magda said that... well.. as she put it, 'family dinners' are special, but I didn't think she meant this." Katia seemed almost nervous, and I don't know if she realized her hand was gripping my forearm.

"No, this is something special. A celebration for your visit." I almost added that it was also a surprise for me.

"But, I'm not visiting," she said. When she saw the confusion in my face the hand that had rested on my arm went to her mouth. "You don't know that I'm moving in? She said that everyone knew and they were all so happy."

I took her hand and gently pulled it away from covering her mouth. "Just because I didn't know, doesn't mean I'm not happy." I paused and realized that might not be entirely true. I had no idea who this girl was, not in any way that mattered. "Well, I'm pretty sure I will be happy, once I get to know you better." My brain was churning quickly, but rather than ask any of the potentially useful questions, I said, "But what about Med School?'

"You mean she also didn't give you the invitation to my graduation? Six months ago?" I could tell she was thinking things through as well. She added, "I'm also going to guess that you also didn't know that I opened a practice in town, that you paid for, and that my sister and your... well, your girlfriends were some of my first clients?"

"They've been sick?" I asked aghast. I looked around at my girls and wondered why they would keep an illness from me. I didn't even know how they could have. The girls were all busy chatting among themselves, being careful not to let me see them keeping an eye on my conversation.

"I'm not that kind of a doctor. I'm an obstetrician/gynecologist." She paused and her hand went to my cheek. "They're all fine. But are you okay? You're very flushed."

"How could they hide all this from me?"

"Don't forget that they also hid it all from me. Well, I suppose not the parts that I'm involved in, but they didn't tell me they were hiding it from you."

I was about to repeat my question with more pointed emphasis on the "me" part. I realized that it would be fruitless unless I told her about my powers. Of course she wouldn't believe me and would ask me to prove it, and it would probably be another hour before I could do that. Then I remembered what Anna had said, "They had help." A wave of nausea struck me, and I felt my world begin to tumble down again.

I was on my feet apologizing to Katia before I knew what was happening, "Please excuse me, my head...." I felt awful leaving the stunned Katia sitting at the table, but not as awful as I felt that my girls had hidden so much from me. It wasn't just that they had hidden things from me, but that Anna had helped them. I didn't know how a voice in my head could help them, but she had. The voice that I once thought was my conscience had turned out to be a fraud.

"Not a fraud," she said.

"So you're back? To kick me while I'm down?" I thought to her as I threw myself down on the lounger in my den. I tried to let the smell of soft leather and old books soothe my mind, but the migraine was jabbing too many ice-picks into my brain.

"At least you haven't been lying in a hospital bed for the last seventeen years."

"That's not you, that's Anna, the real Anna. You're a figment of my imagination. A guilt complex, that's what you are. I'm schizophrenic, I should be locked up right next to my grandfather. Assuming he hasn't died and the girl's conveniently forgot to tell me."

"You are not schizophrenic, you are not crazy, and neither is your grandfather."

"I suppose you're going to tell me my mom didn't mourn herself to death after my father died. Or that my father wasn't stabbed to death by a patient?"

"Shhhh..." I heard a new voice saying. I had been lying with my arm covering my eyes and slowly took it away. It took a minute to blink through my tears and to see that it was Magda, and that she was crying as well.

"You never told me about your parents," she said gently. "I know how hard it is to lose both parents in so short a time." She gently placed a hand on my cheek and stroked me gently. "But I was lucky enough to have a sister," she paused for a long time before adding, "and you."

"You wouldn't have lost your father if it weren't for me," I said with more hurt than she deserved to hear.

"Stop saying that. Never say that to me again, and never say it to my sister. Ever." She was really crying now, but her tears were hotter than they were before. "I know what happened, you've told me before, and I know." She emphasized the last word in a way that unsettled me, but she continued before I could figure out why, "Do you really think he would have made it out of there alive, even if you hadn't been there? If he had, would he have made it out of the slums with any of the money?"

She collapsed against me, her wet cheek pressing against my chest. Her hands clung to me as she cried. "Please don't tell my sister what happened. Don't even think about it. I don't want to lose either of you." I felt a faint glimmer of a thought coming from her. She thought her sister would try to kill me if she knew the truth, just like Magda had tried to do.

Gwen stepped into the room from where she had been waiting by the door. She put her arms around both of us and whispered something to Magda. Magda's soft sob turned into a wet snort and a bit of a giggle. Magda said, "Gwen thinks we'll feel better if we make love."




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 09



I couldn't help but let out a snort myself. "Magda, as much as I love you, I'm not exactly in the mood for making love."

Gwen whispered something else to Magda, then paused and added something else. "Where do you come up with these things?" she asked Gwen. Gwen just smiled blankly and gave Magda a wink. Magda leaned in close to me, and whispered in my ear, "Even knowing that my twin sister is sitting not a hundred feet from here? We are so identical that if we stood naked in front of you, you would only be able to tell us apart because she has a neat triangle of golden blonde pubic hair, and I am absolutely bare down there just for you." With the final words she started nibbling on my ear. The nibbling was merely the coup de grace.

I knew this wasn't going to be making love, so much as two people who loved each other fucking, but neither of us cared. There was too much emotion involved right now, and too much need. At least I was now filled with need. Gwen whispered something else into Magda's ear and I saw Magda's eyes roll back for a moment before she shuddered with need.

Magda was soon clawing at the zipper of my trousers. She was also busy trying to stick her tongue down my throat. Her kisses tasted salty from the tears that had fallen between us, but they were also needy and stirred the same need within me. Eventually Magda freed my cock from my pants so that all that remained was lifting her dress. Gwen was already there to lend a hand and held the skirt of Magda's dress up as Magda lowered herself onto me.

She sat up straight for a moment as her bare pussy swallowed me whole. Gwen took the opportunity to give me a kiss of her own, even though I was gasping too much to make it a good kiss. Gwen then gave Magda a kiss and spent a couple of seconds smoothing Magda dress around us before turning to leave.

I was going to say goodbye to Gwen, but Magda suddenly raised up, causing me to gasp back what I had been about to say. Gwen blew me a kiss and gave her little girl wave and sauntered out. I didn't have long to enjoy the look of the saunter before Magda lowered herself again. Magda was an amazing masseuse, but the massage she was currently giving my cock put her hands to shame.

It didn't take her long to move from individual strokes to a steady rhythm of movements. She lowered her head back to me and kissed me. The kisses weren't as needy as they had been, but they were just as passionate. She turned her head to bring her lips to my ear, but I needed more kisses. I kissed her again, but she grew insistent, finally grabbing my head with her hands and turning it to the side. Her lips latched on to my ear and sucked my lobe into her hot mouth.

Her hips moved slightly faster and she squeezed me harder. She groaned into my ear before saying, "My sister wants to have sex with you too. She probably knows that we are having sex right now. Twins know things like that, she is probably sitting there talking to Betsy while making her seat all wet."

I throbbed inside her, all the more from the dirty things she was saying. This was a side of Magda I had never guessed existed. I grabbed her hips and thrust hard into her, driving the breath from her. I heard her gasp in my ear, encouraging me to thrust into her again. Between gasps she added, "She isn't even wearing panties tonight, I made sure when I helped her get dressed tonight."

The world suddenly dimmed as her last statement put me over the edge. I was so thrilled by what she had said that I came mid-stroke. My body jerked as it tried to finish the stroke and crush Magda to me at the same time. I felt a similar spasm wrack Magda as she jerked in my arms and tried to push her hips down on mine. The orgasm that tore through us was almost painful in its awkwardness, but it was also a catharsis.

I felt free of my guilt for having been a participant in Magda's father's death. I also felt a renewal of my love for Magda. "I love you too," she said as she wrapped her arms around me.

We held each other for a long time before there was a tentative knock at the door. Claire peeked her head in and said, "If you two are almost done, some of us would like to have dinner." I never understood how the girl's could seem so nonchalant about walking in while I'm having sex or just basking in the afterglow. Claire picked up a box of tissues from the desk, came over and said, "You might also need these."

Claire lifted Magda's dress while Magda gathered a few tissues to contain our fluids. It only took a couple of minutes for us to become presentable, and with no obvious stains.

As I walked Claire and Magda back to the dining room, with one on each arm, Magda said, "I hope you know I was only kidding about Katia not wearing panties, and that she would know we were having sex. Twins aren't really as psychic as people think."

Claire said, "I don't know about your real sister, but the rest of us know that you had sex, and not just because Gwen can't keep a secret."

Magda gasped and said, "She didn't tell my sister, did she?"

"She didn't tell anyone. But you know the grin she gets when she catches someone having sex. It's actually quite charming, since she doesn't quite understand that sex and love aren't the same thing." I didn't have the heart to tell Claire how wrong she really was on that point. Gwen's father might have been impotent, but... I blanked the thought from my mind as quickly as I could. I must have startled her, because Magda clenched my arm and gave me a strange look.

I said, "Every time Gwen sees us having sex, she is seeing two people who love each other having sex."

Magda added, "Or three of us."

Claire, "Or four."

"Yeah, yeah, or more. But that doesn't happen much anymore," I said.

"That you know of," they said in unison. Before bursting into giggles.

I stopped before we made it to the entrance to the dining room. I hoped the murmurs of conversation masked our footsteps to this point, since I had a serious question to ask. "Why didn't you tell me about your sister?" There were so many things she and the girls hadn't told me about Magda's sister.

"You've gotten so weird lately about having anyone else join us," Magda started.

Claire added, "We all love her already, first through Magda and now each of us on our own."

They said in unison, "We were afraid you'd say no." Magda seemed a bit startled by the stereo plea, but Claire just smiled.

"Like I could tell any of you no." I might try, but I really couldn't say no to any of them, they meant too much to me.

"We love you too, daddy," they said in unison and pulled me down so they could both kiss a cheek.

"First Gwendolyn, and now you two!"

"Don't forget Betsy."

I shook my head and pulled the two giggling girls back into the dining room. This time a waiter was standing by to pull out their chairs. I was soon back with Katia, hoping I didn't reek of sex. Worse yet, reek of her sister's sex.

I didn't need to worry too much, since Katia had been making good use of the time drinking champagne and gossiping with my girls. They had served salad while Magda and I were gone, but nothing substantial enough to dull the effects of a number of glasses of bubbly.

Katia was a bit flushed and her accent became a bit more pronounced. She placed a hand on my arm and said, "I'm so glad that you're back. I hope my sister was able to massage away your migraine. Betsy was telling me how much my sister is able to help your headaches."

"Yes, at least those she doesn't cause herself."

Katia laughed and said, "Gwendolyn explained all about their little joke. I can't seem to remember exactly what the point of the joke is right now, but it was very funny, and it seems like they fooled us both."

From that point on, dinner was filled with inconsequential chit-chat and a lot of laughter. At least until dessert when Katia said, "By the way, just because you are having sex with my sister and I'm living with you now, doesn't mean you should make a mistake in the dark, if you know what I mean."

"I think I can tell the difference, even in the dark."

"She told you that, did she? Well, I'll let you in on a little secret: Seeing as how I'm her lady doctor, I've seen her much more recently than she's seen me. Just make sure it's not a mistake."

I wondered if she meant that the way it sounded. I wished, again, that I had my powers so what she meant. I looked down at Magda and caught her looking back at me, laughing.

* * *

I hope you've enjoyed the latest chapter. I appreciate your votes and I especially appreciate comments and questions, as they help motivate my writing.



The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 10



If you are new to my Reluctant Psychic series, please consider starting from the beginning. The story, characters and events in this chapter will make more sense when given context from the preceding chapters. If you're returning, welcome back and I hope you enjoy the story.

* * *

I finished my second glass of wine and inverted the glass, signaling the waiter not to attempt to refill it. If I weren't on an emotional roller coaster, I could have handled a third or even a fourth glass, but not now. I was sitting next to a beautiful girl, a girl who didn't know I'd killed her father.

I felt a kick to my shin, or something similar. The sort of swift pain that's meant to derail a line of conversation before it drifts into uncomfortable territory. The girls that were close enough to kick me seemed to be innocently in conversation with each other. The only face that didn't look so innocent was Magda, who gave me the look my mother used when she was giving me a lecture.

Suddenly Magda giggled and whispered something to the girls near her. They all looked at me and started giggling as well. I hate being laughed at, and I really hate not being able to peak into their minds to find out why they're laughing at me, but it was still too soon after sex with Magda.

Before the wine and laughter could leave me feeling too morose, the waiters prepared the table for desert. With swift practiced movements, the old plates and silverware were removed and the crumbs were swept from the table. Moments later new plates were set out and new silverware. I watched the waiter's deft movements, but also noticed the girl's growing excitement. I watched them shift in their seats and sneak peeks back towards the kitchen. I knew that could only mean one thing: chocolate.

When the doors from the kitchen swung open and the line of waiters and waitresses appeared the girls fell silent. As more and more servers streamed out, I realized it wasn't just one desert, there was a plethora of chocolate delights: mousses, cakes, pastries, pies, light chocolate, dark chocolate and everything in between.

The girls quickly began laying claims to the varied confections, pointing out which dessert they would try first, second, and tenth. Even as the smell of chocolate filled the room, they waited. They squirmed and adjusted silverware, but they waited.

Finally, one of the waiters came out bearing a single plate, which he sat in front of me. On the plate was a filet mignon wrapped in thick slices of bacon. As the sweet smell of perfectly grilled and aged tenderloin filled my nostrils, I smiled. The girls could have their chocolate; I had steak.

I picked up my knife and fork, the signal the girls had been waiting for. Before I had even cut the first bite from my filet, I heard the moaning begin. The first bites of desserts went directly from serving plates to watering mouths. I watched the eager forks reach for more chocolate, but before I could clear my throat to show my disapproval of such coarse table manners, Magda did so.

The effect was instantaneous, and the girls began blushing before Magda was through voicing my disapproval. I was glad I wasn't the only one who had appreciation for good table manners. Katia, however, found it very funny. "You really must be a miracle worker. My sister never could resist chocolate, especially for something as simple as table manners."

What little gladness I had for table manners, quickly evaporated in light of the miracles I had done on Katia's sister Magda. I couldn't tell Katia, that I had once accidently caused her sister, and my other girls, to scrub themselves raw because I was upset at their table manner, or that on another occasion, the girls had gone completely without desserts or chocolates for a month because my ambivalent feelings towards sweets had seeped into their minds.

"No, I don't work miracles. She just decided to make the point before I could." I looked down at Magda and watched her use a finger to scoop chocolate pudding into her mouth. I used a morsel of filet to point the action out to her sister, and added, "See, it didn't take."

Katia laughed, Magda gave us a wink, and we all had dessert.

I looked up from my last bite of steak and realized that half the girls were missing from the table. The ones that were left were still busy picking over the remains of the various chocolate desserts. I only had a moment to wonder, before Magda came over and whispered something to her sister.

Katia smiled at me and said, "Please excuse me."

During that brief exchange, more of the girls had gotten up, and I watched as they all headed out of the dining room. Before she left, Betsy gave me a kiss on the cheek. The only person left in the room was Samantha, who up until today was the most recent additional to my household. She stood and walked towards me once it was clear I knew we were alone.

She took her time walking, with the hip swaying movements that my girls must practice when I'm not watching. Because when they move like that, I can't help but watch, as every primal urge in my body takes control of my eyes. As she walked closer, my nose was taken captive, hunting for the scent that was unique to Samantha, but akin to that of every woman who ever wanted a man.

She settled onto the arm of the chair, nudging my arm with her bottom until it was encircling her waist. She looked down on me with a seductive smile and then held her hand in front of my face. As she opened her palm to reveal a small golden bean she said, "I won." I noticed the beam still had flecks of chocolate clinging to its shiny surface and recognized the game that she had won.

"So that is why you were all so excited about dessert."

She laughed, flashing her sharp white teeth. "Don't be silly, we were excited because it was chocolate. Although the bean gave us an excuse to have a little more chocolate than we would normally have had," she paused and added, "and why we didn't serve an entree with dinner."

It took me a moment to realize that there really hadn't been an entree. We'd had soup, salad, an appetizer, some cheese, a lot of wine, and then right to desert.

I heard Samantha laughing again, her blue eyes sparkling with amusement. "You really are so cute when you're confused. Bambi, Betsy and Gwen were the only ones who were sure you wouldn't figure out that we skipped the meal part of the meal. I was sure you would realize, but then again I am still new enough to be awed by your handsome smile, and your unparalleled intellect."

"Um..."

"And your witty conversation," she said with a wink. Just for that I gave her bottom a slap, her very firm bottom. I turned to face her and as I did so, she leaned towards me. Her full breasts pressed against the fabric of her dress causing her cleavage to deepen. Before I realized what I was doing, my nose was nestled deep between her breasts, inhaling her perfume and the pheromones that mankind never quite evolved beyond.

From my new vantage point, I was easily able to discern a marked increase in her rate of breathing. I could also feel the heat coming from her skin as she flushed. The added heat caused more of her scent to invade my nostrils.

She slid gracefully from the arm of the chair to my lap. My nose tried to stay nestled between her breasts, but slowly slid upwards finding a new home near her ear. My tongue snaked out to taste the salty sweetness of her neck. She purred as my teeth nibbled on the thin skin of her neck. She tilted her head back to expose more of her neck to me. I eagerly licked and sucked on the pale skin.

Abruptly, she pushed me away with both hands on my chest. I struggled to pull her towards me, but even though I could see her desires mirrored mine she held back my advances. When I stopped struggling, she stopped pressing me away.

Slowly, with great caution, she leaned towards me. Her hands stayed on my chest, and I knew they were ready to push me away if I didn't behave. I could feel the heavy breath from her nostrils on my cheek and then my ear. Then, in breath more than words she said, "Not here, someone might see." She then used her very white, very sharp teeth to nip my earlobe.

If my mind were operating on anything except hormones, I would have laughed at that. The girls often watched, and usually enjoyed being watched. Samantha especially seemed to enjoy being watched more than most, which probably went with her being a reporter. But, hormones being hormones, they followed the swaying bottom up the stairs without understanding the joke.

* * *

I first met Samantha after helping the DA find crucial evidence that would bury the last mob boss in town. It had been nearly two years since I started working as a consultant for the police and the DA's office, and with my help they had really cleaned up the city. There were still plenty of criminals to put behind bars, but this conviction meant the end of organized crime in the city.

I had always been very careful in my dealings with the law. The obvious reason was that many of the people I was helping to put away knew me from my former life gambling in the underworld. But the real reason was I didn't feel like I deserved to be seen as a hero. For more than a decade, I had been living off the money I had taken from criminals, money that came from crimes. It took me a long time to realize that taking money criminals meant taking money from the victims of crimes.

So between the guilt and cowardice, I didn't want anyone to know that I was the one behind the new law-wave, as the media started calling it. In fact, aside from the DA, a few senior detectives, and my girls, no one else knew. I didn't visit the DA's office after seeing Stefani's case finished, and my only trip to the police station was to identify which detectives could be trusted and which were part of the problem.

But the DA was a scrupulous man. He insisted that I get paid for my consulting work. Betsy was equally scrupulous, and insisted on depositing the fees. They tried to be careful, but you can never hide the money.

A hungry young reporter named Samantha Grabowski arranged to have drinks with the secretary of a certain DA who was at the center of the law-wave. The secretary insisted she had a scoop about her boss. As the wine flowed, the woman related how her boss was embezzling money to pay for call-girls, disguising the money as consulting fees. The woman was suspicious that each case seemed to have a different female consultant, and none of the consultants stepped foot in the office while she was there. A friend in the treasury department traced all the money and found that the consultants lived in the same house. The secretary said in the disapproving manner of Sunday school teachers, "You know: the one on the hill."

While the scent of scandal drove thrills through Samantha's body, she had the dignity and professionalism of a great journalist. She checked and rechecked every detail of the secretary's story. She had friends at the bank trace the transactions on all of the consultants' accounts and was shocked to find them all brimming with more cash than the mob bosses who were being put away.

The first name on her list was E. Haufman. There were only three E. Haufman's in the state, the first was a retired ninety-year old school teacher, the second was a mechanic, and the third was Elizabeth Haufman, who paid for entirely new state of the art wing for the hospital, putting the town on the medical map.

The second name was G. Moreau. After talking to a jeweler, a cop, twin school teachers, and an ugly beautician, Samantha became convinced the G. stood for Gwendolyn. As in, the Gwendolyn Moreau who bought and paid for the renovations of the old opera house. That G. Moreau was a story all by herself. Rumors said she wrote the symphony that reopened the house, that she had a secret tunnel built during the renovations so she could come and go without anyone seeing her. The only thing that wasn't a rumor was that she was absolutely gorgeous and a total recluse.

Then there was B. McIntyre, J.D. At first Samantha was going to toss that one away, because it made a lot of sense for a lawyer to be consulting on a criminal case. But a little digging showed that Bambi McIntyre's address had recently been changed. According to the post office, she lived next door to Gwendolyn Moreau.

Name after name, Samantha tracked them down. Some were professionals in the city, professionals with very impressive credentials and well connected clientele. Others were philanthropists like Moreau and Haufman. Some were completely unknown. But they all lived on the same street, many of them in the same house, a house which according to city records didn't even exist before the law-wave started.

While it might be called the "House on the Hill" by the gossips about town, the deed listed the name as Rowan Manor with an address of 101 Highland. Samantha also pulled the other deeds for Highland and found that all of the houses on Highland had been sold within three months of each other. More than half of the houses had been demolished and the land rezoned, the others had a stack of permits for renovations.

The purchases at the bottom of Highland had all been done by individuals, individuals who bought neighboring homes, demolished one and expanded. The top of the hill was a different story entirely. The last five homes, each at least ten million dollars, had been purchased by a trust fund. The trust fund had demolished all five homes and arranged for the construction of a single house at the very top of the hill. The really odd thing was that the trust fund had no listed beneficiary; just the name Rowan Manor Trust.

Samantha tried her powers of persuasion on the records clerk. Unlike most civil servants she had encountered, he stuck to his principles and wouldn't divulge the information. The tax assessor was much more willing to reveal information but he didn't have any. He kept looking through his files muttering, "I know it's in here somewhere." Every bureaucrat she talked to it was the same, either they were not at liberty to say, or they just couldn't seem to remember where the file was.

So Samantha decided the only way to get the real scoop on the law-wave was to beard the lion in his den, armed with a tape-recorder, and a press pass.

* * *

I was taking advantage of a rare day off to catch some extra sleep. I had been working nearly non-stop with the DA to mop up the last of the organized crime and we finally got to a point where I could take time off. While lying amidst the tangled limbs of a half dozen beautiful women is a cozy, sexy feeling, it actually isn't always that comfortable. On this particular morning, a small delicate heel was tucked a little too far under my ribs for me to be truly comfortable. As a result, when the doorbell rang, it was enough to drag me out of sleep.

The girls were either oblivious to the noise, or simply more comfortable than I was, because none of them stirred. I waited for the doorbell to chime again before I remembered that all the girls were either in my bed or had gone to their "homes" for the night. I didn't know if that meant one of the other houses on the hill or the wing of the manor that they didn't let me visit. The important thing was that I was the only one awake enough and present enough to answer the door.

Assuming it was the DA or one of his men, I didn't bother getting dressed. I threw on my bathrobe and trudged downstairs. The doorbell was just chiming a third time when I crossed the foyer. I must have been pretty sleepy, because I didn't even bother to peep to find out who was on the other side of the door. I sensed no hostility and that was enough for me.

Standing outside the door was an attractive young woman in a conservative, but fashionable, pantsuit. She had her hair in a business-like bun, and I could see a steno-pad and pen sticking out of her purse. I assumed she was the new assistant district attorney I had heard about, and waved her in. Behind a yawn I said, "Do I have time for breakfast before you start grilling me?"

"So you know why I'm here?"

"Yeah, Jack sent you to talk to me about the 'law wave'" I said, complete with finger quotes. I was already walking towards the kitchen, Samantha in tow, before I realized something wasn't right. "Jack did send you, right?"

"Well, of course Mr. Ellis knows what I'm working on," she said by way of evasion. I could see that she left out the part that Jack Ellis had no idea she was brazen enough to come talk to me directly, or she believed he would have put a stop to it.

Jack Ellis wasn't the DA; Mr. Ellis was the editor-in-chief of the city paper. Jack Weber was the DA, which meant that this young thing was not the new ADA. It only took a moment's look into her mind to realize that I had just let a reporter into my home. A reporter who was trying to unravel the careful web that Bambi, Betsy and I had been working on.

"Don't even think of erasing her mind!" I heard Anna yell inside my head.

I must have winced under the mental maelstrom because the young reporter asked, "Are you alright? I didn't catch you too early in the day did I?" Or course, she was thinking that I must have been up all night boozing with my cronies, why else would I look hung-over and be in my bathrobe at noon.

Just for that thought, I nearly wiped her memories of me from her mind. But Anna was in my thoughts again, this time soothing, "You've come so far. You don't have to do it that way." Instead of clearing her thoughts and sending her on her way, I waved her to a seat at the dining room table and took my usual chair.

I was a bit amused to watch her try to readjust to the current situation. She was clearly expecting a much colder welcome, and was only now getting around delivering her pitch, "I'm here to talk to the head of the Rowan Manor Trust."

"Before you do that, I know you wouldn't mind showing me your credentials, Miss?"

She was slightly flustered that she hadn't remembered to introduce herself and fumbled with her purse to extract her Press Card. She had just gotten it out when I sensed Claire approaching with coffee enough for three. I pretended to read her name from the card and as I passed it back to her I said, "Would you like sugar with your coffee Miss Grabowski?"

Before Samantha could get out, "I wouldn't want to be any trouble," Claire pushed the door open and walked in carrying the coffee service. The three cups on the tray told me that my subconscious mind had let her know there was another person with me, but her shirt (well my shirt) held together with only two buttons told me she wasn't aware that it was a guest.

"Claire, this is Samantha Grabowski, she's here to interview me for an article she's writing." I was faintly surprised that neither Claire nor Samantha was too embarrassed by Claire's lack of proper attire. In fact, they were both oddly thoughtful. But before I could pry, Anna gave me a mental slap, and Claire started pouring the coffee.

Claire settled next to me. She placed her feet on the chair between my legs and wormed her toes under my thigh. She then coaxed my arm around her and curled up around her mug of coffee. I knew she wasn't actually cold, but she was undeniably cute. I kissed the crown of her ash-blonde head and was rewarded with a wink.

"I didn't mean to intrude on... anything," Samantha began. Even without actively reading her, I could tell she was having second thoughts about coming.

"Miss Grabowski, you came all this way to talk to me."

"Please, call me Samantha. And you are?"

"I am the Chairman of the Rowan Manor Trust." She clearly didn't entirely like my answer, so I added, "and as I'm sure you've realized by my slip earlier, I'm the source the DA is using to put an end to organized crime in the city."




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 10



Again, I had shifted the conversation in a direction she hadn't dreamed possible. She came expecting a lead on the DA's source at best, but really only expected to find a billionaire tax evader. So she went ahead with her original line of questioning, "Who is the beneficiary for the Rowan Manor Trust?"

"Don't you want to turn on your tape recorder first? Or at least notify me that it's already running?"

"Would you mind if I recorded this conversation?" she said, pulling out her tape recorder.

"Go right ahead Samantha." She hit the record button and began the memo about the day and time and whom she was talking to. Before she could re-ask me her question, I answered, "The beneficiary is anonymous until such time as he, she or they wish to, and are legally able to reveal his, her or their identities."

"I'm not anonymous!" Anna yelled. "Just because you put me in a coma and finagled legal guardianship of my body, doesn't make me anonymous. Go ahead, tell her who I am!"

I winced again, and I felt Claire's soft hand caressing my cheek by way of sympathy. The wince and the sympathy did not pass unnoticed by young Samantha. I watched as she made notes in her memo-pad to supplement the recording.

"You really couldn't care less about the trust fund. You are digging for information about the 'law-wave' that's been sweeping the city. You found a supposed link between the two and are hoping the trust will give you some leverage with the story you are really after."

"I have enough information to do a month long expose on the residents of Highland. I have deeds, permits, voter registration records, immigration documents... I happen to know that Elizabeth Haufman's father is..."

I slammed my fist on the table before she could finish. Betsy's past was Betsy's to tell. I didn't know if Betsy had told Claire or not, but I wouldn't allow this reporter to blab it, or print it. I slowly disentangled myself from Claire and rose to my feet. Generally I'm not an angry man, but she threatened my daughter. "What gives you the right to come into my home and blackmail me and my family? I've spent the last two years of my life getting organized crime out of this city..."

She cut me off. She stood to yell at me face to face, "The people have a right to know! It is all public record, the public has the right. I have the right."

I was about to yell back, that I had the right to tell the people about how she cheated on her college boyfriend with a high school flame, or how she'd gotten a D in Journalism Ethics (even though I knew it was because she wouldn't sleep with the professor). Instead I listened to Claire's pleading hands, which were trying to pull me back to the chair. I also listened to the fearful trembling of my girls who were now eavesdropping from the hall.

"Let her stay," Claire whispered to me. "Let her stay, let her talk to the girls. Once she knows us, she won't say anything."

"Are you sure?" I asked, bewildered.

"If not, you can always buy her paper," Claire said, just loud enough for Samantha to hear. The other girls were no longer eavesdropping, but slowly filtering into the room. I was still so angry, that I knew I shouldn't be around them. But I had faith in Claire and the rest of my girls, so I left them alone with Samantha.

* * *

I had a little hideout made at the same time as the main house was being built. I had it built on a remote corner of the property, far enough away from the main house and grounds that I couldn't sense my girls. More importantly, it was far enough away that I couldn't affect my girls accidentally when I was in a dark mood.

The hideout was perched twenty feet down a cliff on the far side of the mountain from the main house. It's set back in a natural fissure so it would be invisible to anyone in the river valley below. Not that there was anyone in the valley, except for the occasional lost hiker.

Even though it was mainly a place for me to retreat emotionally, it was also literally a hideout in case my enemies came calling when I was temporarily without my powers. So the entrance was carefully hidden in a rock formation over fifty yards back from the cliff. I personally supervised the construction, putting blocks in the worker's minds so they couldn't talk about it when they went home at night, and carefully erasing their minds when the work was finally complete. I was a little surprised that Anna didn't object to the erasures but I knew as much as she seemed to hate me she didn't want to see me killed.

The only person I told about the hideout was Betsy, because she was also a mark for my enemies and because someone needed to know how to reach me in case of an emergency. But it didn't take long for Gwendolyn to find my hideout. She showed up in the middle of one of my bad moods with a plateful of open faced peanut butter sandwiches with smiles drawn in them and a glass of milk. She put down the plate and glass, gave me a kiss and said, "Hurry up and get happy, we miss you," before walking out again.

As I looked out over the river, I wondered once again how Gwen had found me that day. Betsy hadn't told her, I hadn't told her, and the entrance was hard enough to find when you knew it was there. But Gwen did see things differently, so maybe the entrance was obvious to her eyes. Then there was the question of how she had managed to sneak up on me, and how she had managed to keep it a secret.

My mind wandered between that question, and the question of what to do about Samantha. I trusted my girls, but Samantha was a reporter. All reporters do is ruin people's privacy and happiness. Buying the newspaper was a nice idea, but I knew she could just take the story elsewhere, maybe even to a national rag. I certainly didn't want the story going international which was all too likely if the sharks smelled blood in the water.

There had to be a way to do it without tampering with her mind. I realized I would just have to trust my girls. As that thought sank in, I felt a weight lift from my heart and was suddenly at peace. I did trust them. Even if they couldn't manage to stop Samantha from writing a story, they would make everything alright.

With a peaceful heart, I watched the shadow of the mountain finish crossing the valley. One day, I would have to visit my hideout for a sunrise, I thought. That was when I heard the humming. Somehow Gwen had managed to sneak up on me again, I realized. In a way, sensing her approach was like watching the sunrise, only more musical.

I stayed where I was as Gwen approached, letting her sneak under my arm as I leaned against the railing. She hugged me and pressed her cheek against my chest. I moved my hand to her shoulder and we sat watching the last of the light leave the valley. "How do you always manage to find me here?" I asked her.

"But you're not lost," she said, almost making it a question. Then she added, "mostly just sad."

"I meant, how did you find my secret hideout?"

"It's a secret?" I had just enough time to realize she had kept the secret because she hadn't known it was a secret before she added, "Who are you hiding from?"

I didn't have the heart to tell her that I was hiding from her and the rest of the girls. I was hiding really from my own bad moods, which meant avoiding the girls. Finally I said, "I guess I was hiding from myself."

"That's as silly as hiding from me." I couldn't figure out if she meant it would be silly for me to want to hide from her, or it was silly to think I could hide from her. Of course, in Gwen's mind the two could be the same thing.

We just held each other as the stars staring taking over from the sun. Then Gwen said, "So Betsy shouldn't be bringing Samantha here?"

"Why would Betsy be bringing Samantha here?" I asked.

"Maybe Betsy didn't know it was a secret hideout either."

I started to sense Betsy and Samantha approaching. They were at the very limit of my abilities to sense, but definitely intent on coming here.

"Gwen, why don't you go let Betsy and Samantha in; it can be hard to find the entrance in the dark." I watched her go unerringly through the darkened room and into the pitch black passage, humming as she went. As she disappeared from my sight, I realized the chances of my hideout staying a secret were disappearing with her.

I walked across the room to the light switch, managing to stub my toe twice in the process. When I flipped the switch I winced at the sudden brightness. I began going around the room turning off the lights. Halfway through, I decided to turn the lights off and go with a fire instead. I had never used the fireplace, except once to prove that it worked. Even though the smoke was cleverly channeled through natural fissures, I didn't want to risk someone seeing it and learning that I had a secret hideout. 

Of course, it probably didn't make a lot of sense to have a fireplace in a secret hideout anyway. Although, aside from the hidden entrance there really isn't much that makes it seem like a bolt hole. It looked more like a luxury ski cabin, with heavy oak and leather furniture and pinewood floors. The rough-hewn walls were covered in tapestries, and I even had them install an antler chandelier from the irregular ceiling.

The wood piled in the fireplace was so dry that it lit immediately. I flipped the switch on the wall that would start the fan and unseal chimney. The sudden flare from the fire and freshening of the air was the only indication that system was working properly. I turned off the lights and settled in one of the chairs near the fire. I was trying to figure out the least pretentious way to greet my approaching guest when I realized a romantic fire was probably not the best way.

I felt Samantha walking down the passage before I heard the squeak of her borrowed sneakers. She felt uncomfortable in the sneakers, but appreciated having them for the walk through the woods. She was also nervous about how she would look in a conservative blue pantsuit and bright pink sneakers. I relaxed a little knowing that I wasn't the only one who was nervous.

"You can stop prying into her mind now," snapped Anna. I wondered for a moment why she hadn't objected sooner. But I didn't have long to wonder before I heard a tentative knock at the door. I hurried over and opened the door to find Samantha standing there. She wasn't showing the bold confidence that she had when I opened the door for her this morning. This time, her confidence wasn't a bluff, but was born from a growing sense of belonging. I was about to look deeper at this sense of belonging when Anna started yelling at me again.

I waved Samantha in and told Anna she didn't have to shout. Anna suggested that yelling was the only way to get through my thick skull before suggesting that I offer my guest a drink.

"Would you like something to drink, Miss Grabowski?" I asked as I showed her to a chair.

"Please, call me Samantha," she said. I heard a slight plea in her voice, she wanted to belong but couldn't if I kept the meeting formal. Anna let me delve long enough to extract that one thought before mentally clearing her throat at me.

"Would you like something to drink, Samantha?" I said as I crossed to the small bar.

"I'll have whatever you're having. Fifty year old scotch? Or is it moonshine?" She gave a short laugh, to indicate she was trying to make a joke, but suddenly realized it didn't sound so funny. "I just meant," she paused as I put ice into a couple of glasses. "You have such a strange life. You're home is like the Playboy mansion, only without the silicon or pretension. Then I come here and it's like being in Al Capone's bunker, with nicer furniture."

I handed her a glass and sat in the chair opposite her. "I do have enemies. Enemies that even this hideout might not stop."

"Surely it would stop them long enough for the police to get here."

"It takes twenty minutes to get from here to the police station driving like a maniac," or like Bambi I added to myself, "so given response time and sanity, it will take them nearly half an hour. After that it would take another hour for the SWAT team to arrive. Their truck might be able to smash through the wreckage of the police cruisers, but most likely they would try a helicopter. When the FBI learns about the surface to air missiles and the gravity of the situation, they will want to send in a hostage rescue team. The nearest team would take three hours to get here."

Samantha was giving me an incredulous look. "Surely the mob doesn't have surface to air missiles, and they wouldn't be ballsy enough to declare war on the police."

"You are correct in thinking the mob wouldn't declare war on the police, but they do have missiles or can get them within a day. But I have other enemies than just the mob." I paused to let the idea sink in, but clearly she didn't believe me. "Did you talk to Magda? Did she perhaps mention her father?"

"She said you were there when her father was killed, and that afterwards you took care of her and her family."

What Magda didn't say, because she didn't know, was that I could have prevented her father's death, I had practically caused it. But that wasn't pertinent now, so I said, "He was also killed in the presence of Alexander Ilyovitch, Nassan Abdul Caliph and Toan Ho Pack."

"I don't know who the first two are, but Toan Ho Pack is dead. He has been for like twenty years."

"The Butcher is not dead, not yet. The People's uprising mistakenly killed a body double, Pack has gone underground and now trains execution squads for the Triads. Alexander Ilyovitch was a General in the Russian army before the collapse. He still maintains control of a military base that he is slowly depleting of tanks, guns and missiles. The Russian government doesn't stop him because he also controls five nuclear missiles. It is the new Russian cold war, they don't bother him if he doesn't move the nukes, he doesn't bother them in return."

"And that Caliph guy?"

"He's a slave trader primarily. Mostly he buys children from poor European families and sells them to brothels and other buyers in Africa, the Middle East and even India. He often breaks the slaves himself; he is so skilled at physical and psychological torture that crime families will call him to deal with traitors and overzealous law enforcement agents."

"And these men are you enemies? Why were you there, why was Magda's father there?"

"Magda's mother was dying, and her father couldn't pay for her treatment. He was also the best poker player I have ever met. He scrounged up some money to bribe entry into the game, and staked Magda and her sister as collateral in the game."

"Are you telling me you played cards with those people? That you were betting people?"

"Mostly I bet money and tanks," I said, a bit defensively.

"But you also bet people? You bet slaves?" Samantha stood from the chair and looked at her glass in horror. "Is this drugged? Did you trap me here to sell me?" She started backing to the door, throwing the glass into the fireplace where the water hissed.

"I never bet a person. I did accept other people's bets when they bet slaves, but I always freed them when I won." I didn't try to calm her, if she believed half of what I had told her she had every right to be afraid of me. I was starting to wonder if I should stop her from writing the article.

"But you still traded for people, that's still slavery! What about when you lost the slaves?"

"I never lost."

"What do you mean you never lost. Everyone loses occasionally. Even the greatest players lose." As she shouted at me something finally clicked in her mind, "Magda's father lost, that's why they killed him, because he wouldn't turn over Magda and her sister."

"If I hadn't been there, he would have won enough money to pay for Magda's mother's health care and send Magda and Katia to college. They might even have let him live long enough to spend the money. But at the end of the game it was just me and him, and I never lost."

"So you killed him, and now Magda's your slave?" She was close to hysterical now. Her hand was trying to open the door, but she couldn't seem to find the knob.

"He killed himself when he realized what he had lost. He even tried to kill me before killing himself, because he thought I would collect on his debt. But Magda is not my slave, she has never been my slave." I stood and walked towards the balcony, away from Samantha. "I felt guilty. They had always been scraps of paper or photographs, but this time it was a man's family. By winning I had destroyed him, and them. So, I paid for the treatment and for Magda and Katia to go to college and I stayed far away from them."

Samantha's hand finally settled on the doorknob. She turned it and opened the door slightly, reassuring herself that she was not trapped. That seemed enough because I heard the door click shut with her still on my side of it.

I turned back to look at her, she was pale and still frightened, but no longer hysterical. "She came to me. She wanted to thank me, and then she just stayed. I found Bambi in a strip club run by the IRA and sent her to college because I thought she was too nice for a place like that, and she just stayed. Betsy's father was the closest thing I had to a friend, so when he went into a coma, I took care of her. I tried to stay away from her because of all the evil I would bring into her life, but she just stayed with me. Don't you see, I found them all at the worst point in their life and showed them a little kindness and then they just stay! I tell them how evil I am, and the horrible people I associate with, they get frightened but end up staying. I have a secret hideout! I have a bunker in the basement of my home. I own more tanks and guns than North Korea and have enemies scary enough that that doesn't matter, but still they stay." I walked out onto the balcony and stared out over the valley. When I heard her at the balcony doorway I added, "Write you article, but leave the girls out of it. Give me time to see them someplace safe."

"Is it all true?" she asked. I let my silence speak for me. She took a step toward me and said, "That isn't what they said." I felt her hand coming towards me and then withdrawn, "Well, it's the same story but they tell it with you as the hero."

"I'm no hero."

"Then why are you cleaning up the crime in the city?"

"Always the reporter," I rejoined, to avoid her question as much as anything. I felt how badly my retort stung her. She was trying to be nice and I hurt her in return.

"They all told me their stories. They said that you found them at the lowest point in their lives and saved them. You saved them from the mob, from slavery, from abuse, from being orphaned, from... from everything. All they want to do is return the favor." She was talking too fast, to fast for me to accept what she was saying. She stopped, took a breath and said in precise sharp words, "They want to save you."

"Save me from what?" I shouted as I turned to face her. "Save me from the mob? Save me from arms dealers and white slavers? What good could they do against enemies like that? I have more money than I could spend in my life, so obviously it's not poverty. My parent's were a bit strange, but they weren't abusive. Sure they're dead but it's a bit late to save me from being an orphan, so what's left? Who or what could they possibly save me from?" I was shouting, and tears were running down my cheeks, but I didn't care any longer. I collapsed to the floor, leaning against the railing.

"They want to save you from yourself."

She sat down next to me, silent. Eventually the emotions boiling through my veins simmered out, leaving me cold and shaking. She turned to me then, placed a hand on my cheek and pulled my face towards hers. "I think you're worth saving too."




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 10



* * *

As I followed Samantha into my bedroom, I thought back to the day we first met. How we talked all through the night, and ended up watching the sunrise over the valley. I remembered how we were just about to kiss for the first time when all of the girls paraded into their new clubhouse with breakfast.

With Katia suddenly joining the household, it suddenly became important to me to know why Samantha had decided to stay. Samantha grabbed my hand as I slowed down, and pulled me to the bed. She sat on the bed and kept pulling me hand, trying to make me fall on top of her. But I resisted, I needed to know.

"Why did you stay?" I asked. I was so used to my powers subconsciously filling in the gaps, that I was confused by her baffled look.

"Because I got the golden bean," she said.

"I didn't mean at dinner. I meant when you first came to see me, when you were writing the story."

"Why do you want to know now?"

I hesitated, but finally decided to tell her as much of the truth as I understood myself. "With Katia joining us, I suddenly realized that I never understood why you joined us, why you never wrote the story."

"I meant, why do you want to know now?" She emphasized the "now" by baring her breasts to me. Even without foreplay she was flushed with excitement and her nipples were standing up from her breasts. She made an excellent point, and I decided it could wait a little longer.

Her hands were quickly at work on my clothes, and between us it didn't take long before I was standing naked in front of her. Her dress was bunched up around her waist. Her legs were spread lewdly apart causing it to ride up from the bottom, and she'd already pulled it down from the top. But I wanted her naked, as naked as I was. I grabbed the front of her dress between her breasts and gave a savage pull.

She was halfway off the bed before the seams started to tear. She started falling back towards the bed as the seams tore further and further downward. Samantha reached out and grabbed for my neck, holding on as I finished tearing her dress off. It didn't take long before the expensive dress was lying ruined on the floor and our naked bodies were pressed together.

I didn't know what was coming over me, coming over Samantha. We kissed and held each other tightly. I felt her fingernails digging into my back and her leg wrapped over my hip trying to mount me as we stood. Soon our breathing was so hard and fast that our kisses became sloppy panting things. Soon we were just rubbing our lips and cheeks against each other as our bodies sought union.

I threw her down on the bed and watched her naked limbs bounce briefly into the air. She spread her legs wide and pushed two fingers inside of herself. With her other hand she pinched her nipple while beckoning me on with her index finger.

I grabbed her knee and flipped her onto her stomach and quickly knelt behind her. I grabbed her hips and lifted until her sex was aligned with mine. She suddenly pushed back, impaling herself on my cock. She buried her head in the blankets and screamed in excitement as I pounded into her. She clawed at the blankets pulling them into a mound underneath her. Her hands clamped on my wrists as I held her hips.

Her fingernails dug into my skin, and I kept plunging my cock into her. I lost my balance, but I couldn't stop, my hips kept thrusting as I fell on top of her. Her hands convulsed as I fell, and I could feel her body begin to thrash with orgasm.

I kept thrusting into her, belly to back and heard her start to say something more coherent than her previous grunts and moans. "Fill me up!" she screamed. She said it over and over as I pumped into her, trying to fulfill her request. She looked back over her shoulder, and I could see the need burning in her eyes. She said, "Fill me with your seeeeeed!"

My orgasm hit while she locked eyes with me and I could feel her need burn through me. She shook as my sperm shot into her body. She shook again as another spurt left my body.

I lay panting on top of her, unable to get up because of her death grip on my wrists. I turned my head to the side, resting my cheek on her sweaty shoulder. For a split second I thought I saw Magda standing in the doorway watching. But before I could blink, she was gone. The animal need left me as well, sated in Samantha's body.

I kissed Samantha's shoulder, and said, "you can let go of my wrists now."

"Only if you promise not to get off of me," she said. "Just hold me like this, please."

I kissed her shoulder again, and promised that I would. Her fingers slowly released. I shifted my hips slightly to get a more comfortable position, and suddenly her hands were back and she hissed in dismay. I slowly forced my hands upward, and then under her body. When she realized what I was doing she eased her grip and then held my hands underneath our bodies.

"This isn't the most comfortable position in the world," I said after a few minutes of this.

"You seemed to like it just fine when you were fucking me," she said. "Besides, you're like a big warm blanket."

"That's easy for you to say, your bare ass isn't sticking up in the air."

"Well, you'll just have to stay like that if you want to know." I knew immediately what she was talking about. Apparently before sex wasn't the right time, but as we lay in our post-coital union, it was. She turned her head a bit, so she was almost looking at me, and extracted one hand enough to rub my hip.

"I once read a book that said you can't tell if a man is good or evil by talking to him, and if he's smart enough you can't even tell by his deeds. The best way to tell if a man is good or evil is by looking at the people around him. All of the girls, every last one of them, are so good and nice that it was almost sickening. At first I thought they were a brainwashed cult, but they all still have their own minds, their own personalities. They all love you, and they love each other."

"The money and knowledge you have might have come from the wrong places, but it was now being used for the right reasons. If I had written that story, it would have hurt all of them. It would have destroyed all the good you had done and all the love they had."

"But why did you stay?" I asked.

"Because your story sounded too much like my own. I never stopped to care about what my stories might do to the people I wrote about, just like you never cared who your poker games ended up hurting. But one day you woke up and starting caring. You and the girls woke me up."

"Now go to sleep," she said as she flipped a bit of blanket over me, and I did.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed this installment and I do apologize for the long delay. As always, I appreciate your votes and comments, they have really helped motivate me to write.



The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 11



If you are new to my Reluctant Psychic series, please consider starting from the beginning. The story, characters and events in this chapter will make more sense when given context from the preceding chapters. If you're returning, welcome back and I hope you enjoy the story.

* * *

I woke up covered in sweat, with only a vague impression that I had slept. There was a hot, equally sweaty body lying in front of me and apparently we had just finished having sex, since I was still hard and buried inside of her.

This wasn't the first time I had woken up to find myself in this situation, but generally I'm with the same girl I fell asleep with. The short honey blonde hair clinging to my stubbled chin was the first indication I wasn't still with Samantha, unless she'd cut her hair while I slept. I allowed my hands to explore and felt a tiny waist under my fingertips that flared to nice round hips. Finally, I nestled my nose into the fine hair and took a deep breath: Pineapples.

"Linda, did you have fun?" I whispered in the ear peeking out from under the short blonde hair.

"Phooey," she said. 

"I told you he'd know!" I heard a cheerful voice say as the bed began to shake beneath me. I looked toward the foot of the bed and saw Dinah bouncing up and down. If it hadn't been for the smell of pineapples, I might have guessed it was Dinah who'd snuck in bed with me. They were close to the same build and hair style. At least, close enough that lying in bed, from behind, and with dim lighting it was a challenge to tell them apart.

The bouncing dislodged my cock from inside of Linda, causing her to gasp. But she recovered quickly and took advantage of not being engaged belly to back to turn over and face me. She gave me a soft kiss on the cheek and said, "Of course I had fun. I always have fun, but I didn't mean to wake you."

Dinah bounced a few more times until she was lying behind me. She propped her chin on my shoulder and looked down at Linda. "That was really cool to watch. It almost felt like I was having sex with him. Since we kind of look alike, it was so easy to imagine it was me he was fucking, and I was having an out of body experience."

"I felt the same way when you did it last night," she got a mysterious grin on her face and added, "Well, I don't suppose it was quite the same."

"Alright, next time I'll let you go first," Dinah answered.

"Next time!?" I exclaimed. Then I sputtered out, "Wait, what do you mean when you did it last night?" It was one thing to wake up and realize I'd had sex while asleep, but to realize it'd happened twice was a bit disturbing. I looked back and forth between the two of them and began to grow uneasy.

"Oh, relax," they both said, giving me kisses on my nose and cheek. They both started laughing and kissing random places on my face. It was a rather ticklish feel, and I soon smiling and laughing as well. My uneasiness had suddenly vanished.

The face kissing soon turned into a tickle fight. It wasn't long before we were all red in the face, with the blankets kicked onto the floor. Suddenly Linda exclaimed, "Stop, or I'll pee myself!" And just like that the tickle fight ended. We lay together in a tangled heap, panting from the exertion.

Eventually Linda looked over at the bedside table to check the time. "We only have half an hour to get cleaned up and dressed for breakfast."

"Dressed for breakfast?" Dinah and I said in harmony.

"Have you forgotten about Katia so soon? We all promised Magda we would introduce her to everything slowly, so as not to scare her away." Linda looked at Dinah and nodded her head as if trying to make an unspoken point.

Dinah nodded and said, "Yeah, we did promise Magda. Besides, aren't you supposed to go in to work today? You might as well wear your suit to breakfast, maybe it will impress Katia. I know it makes the rest of us all gooey for you."

Whether I agreed or not, Dinah and Linda were soon pulling me towards the bathroom.

* * *

Dinah and Linda were surprisingly professional about getting me clean. I barely had time to rinse the sleep from my face before they attacked me with soap, shampoo and a loofah. I drew the line when they pulled out the razor and tried to shave me. It was a bit tricky to shave with two women scrubbing my body, but I managed.

I rinsed off our combined efforts and was out of the shower in record time. The girls lingered in the shower and began cleaning each other. I could tell by the giggles they were being a bit less professional with each other than they had been with me.

I toweled myself off and headed back to my room, wondering what I should wear. I shouldn't have been surprised to find Magda sitting on my bed next to a suit, a shirt and a selection of ties, but I was. I didn't have long to be surprised before Magda was tearing my towel off. She tsked at me and complained that I never learned how to dry myself off properly. Once I was dry, to her satisfaction, she grabbed the underwear off the bed and tried to lift my leg.

I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her up saying, "Magda, I know how to dress myself."

"I know," she said, her accent sounding especially thick today. She put the underwear and my hand and went to the bed to grab my shirt. I pulled on my underwear as she continued, "I just want you to look extra nice." She handed me my shirt and turned away. As I began doing the buttons, she rushed to give me a hug and said, "I just want her to love you as much as I do."

She began sniffling and getting tears on my shirt. I held her head gently against my chest and let her cry. Why was she so upset now? She'd seemed so happy and confident last night. I tried to look into her thoughts, but remembered that Linda and I had just had sex. I would get my powers back in time for work, but I wouldn't have them in time for breakfast with Katia.

"You don't need your powers to know why she's nervous and upset," I felt Anna say. I wondered yet again whether she was always listening to my thoughts, or just peeked on occasions like this.

"Well, maybe it's obvious to you, but not to someone born..." I thought back, but she cut me off before I could finish with, "a man."

"With testicles and faulty tear ducts?" she retorted.

The last bit stung. If anyone else in the world had said that to me, I probably would have laughed and agreed, but I spilled more tears over Anna than I could count. As someone who seemed to live inside my mind, she damn well knew it.

I felt her sigh blow through my mind like a dry wind. "You don't always have to use your powers to know why people do things. You studied psychology, before." For once she was tactful enough not to say before I put her into a coma and then went on a gambling bender.

I tried to think about what was going on, why Magda was crying. It just didn't make any sense. All the girls seemed to love Katia, and she seemed to like them. Apparently everyone got along well enough that they invited her to live with us, and she accepted. So where was the problem?

"What if Katia doesn't like you?"

"But all the girls like me," I said. To be honest, I added, "It's kind of inevitable." I liked to think the girls would love me if my powers didn't keep seeping into their minds reinforcing their attachment to me, but I was never sure.

"You have more control now," she reminded me. There was a long pause while I tried to unravel the latest hint. Finally, exasperated Anna said, "does Magda know it's inevitable?"

I looked down at the golden head pressed against my chest and finally understood. Magda didn't know that Katia would be caught in my powers' snare. Perhaps Anna was right, maybe I did have enough control that I wouldn't ensnare her accidentally. So Magda could only hope that her sister would feel the same way as she did. If not, she would almost have to choose between us. Magda had been with me for so long, that I knew she couldn't leave me, my lack of control had seen to that.

I patted her head and murmured soft meaningless words. As I tried to console her, I wondered why it started now, instead of last night. "Do you have an answer to that one?"

"Endorphins, excitement, hope. Everything was beautiful last night and there was so much going on, but this is the cold reality of morning. All her doubts had the whole night to blossom."

"I think I understand."

I didn't hear the door to the bathroom open, so I was startled when I heard Dinah say, "Why aren't you dressed yet?" and Linda ask, "Who were you talking to?"

Magda must have been startled too, because she jerked away from me suddenly, wiping her face. She saw the dark splotches on my shirt where her tears had soaked through and nearly started crying again. Luckily, Dinah and Linda were quickly and deftly in control of the situation. Dinah hugged Magda and whispered soothing words to her and Linda quickly dashed into my closet and found another shirt. By the time Linda was done helping me dress, Dinah had Magda laughing. Magda's face was still a bit splotchy, but she seemed more confident.

Magda looked me over as I stood there in my suit. She tsked at me again. She told Dinah something and then pushed me back so I was sitting on the bed. She stood in front of me and straightened my tie. She turned my head slightly, and tsked again, just as Dinah was returning from the bathroom holding my razor and a comb.

"You never get your sideburns straight," she chided. She held my chin and with a deft touch corrected my sloppiness. She put the razor down and began combing my hair. It started hurting, but I was afraid of saying something that might set her off.

Dinah came to my rescue saying, "If you keep it up, he'll be bald." Magda sighed, said something like, "It'll have to do," and put the comb down.

"So are we ready for breakfast," Linda chipped in. "I'm hungry!"

I looked at her, and then at Dinah and said, "I thought we were all going to get dressed for breakfast." Apparently, it was only then that they both realized they hadn't put on any clothes after getting out of the shower.

"We'll meet you downstairs," they said as they ran from the room giggling.

I stood up, offered my arm, and Magda and I made a slightly more dignified exit.

* * *

Apparently it was Magda's turn to sit with me, although how her turn came so quickly, I'll never understand. Sometimes I think they switch things around to keep me confused. Betsy was seated next to me, and sitting on Magda's side I was not surprised to see Katia.

Most of the girls were sitting around chatting, wearing their pajamas. It was a strange sight, since even at the occasional pajama party the girls would throw, they usually only wore the top halves, or only the bottom halves. To see them all fully dressed was remarkable, and made me happy in an odd sort of way. There was a sense of innocence about the table that I hadn't seen in a long time.

Claire and her assistants du jour didn't leave us waiting long before bringing out platters full of food. All the usual breakfast favorites were there, from toast to Eggs Benedict, bacon to cantaloupe balls. The food was passed around without a break in the conversation.

When the platters came to Betsy, she passed them on without taking any. With everything going on, I had nearly forgotten that her father had just passed away. As I looked around the table, I didn't need my powers to tell that the girls were worried for Betsy. But unlike Betsy, few of them had fathers who loved them, or whom they loved. Except for Magda and Katia, none of the ones who loved their fathers knew what it was like to lose them.

I took the platter from Betsy, and rather than filling my own plate, I added a few sausage links to her plate, and a couple of pieces of toast. I said, "Have some sausage, I know they're your favorite."

"Actually bacon's my favorite," she said. There was a hint of sauciness in her voice, but mostly it was hollow.

"Chocolate's your favorite, but you can't have any chocolate until you finish what's on your plate."

"You're just trying to make me big and fat," she said. Betsy was never the pouting kind, so I was thrown for a bit of a loop. Aside from that, Betsy was the type of girl who would probably never see a hundred pounds soaking wet, no matter how much she ate.

I almost told her to do what I said because I was her father, but a swift mental kick from Anna warned me before anything came out. Instead I put my hand on hers until she looked up from her plate. "Betsy, I don't need you to grow big and fat, you're beautiful the way you are. But if you did grow a big belly, I'd still love you."

Something I said must have been funny, since I heard one or two quickly muffled snickers. Even Betsy seemed to find something amusing, although not funny enough to break her melancholy. But even though her mood lifted, she still wasn't eating. "Betsy, I know how hard it is to lose your father. Nothing I can say will make you feel better, but don't punish yourself. Please eat something."

"It's not just my father, I'm--" she started. Her eyes opened suddenly and she looked to Magda and Katia. I looked over at the two of them, and it seemed like Katia was about to say something. Magda put her hand on her sister's arm and said something in Czech. Katia looked at her sister with surprise clear on her face.

Katia and Magda exchanged a few more words in Czech, and I once again cursed myself for being too lazy to learn the language. Sure I usually had my powers, so I could understand what was being said without understanding the words, but recently I've seemed to be without my powers when interesting things were being said in languages I could have known. Finally Magda said, "Betsy was a bit sick last night from eating too much chocolate."

A number of the other girls quickly concurred. As I looked around the table, I found a surprising number of the girls were having smaller breakfasts than normal, and there was a lot more toast. I suppose it was understandable since they each probably had a pound of chocolate the night before.  Actually, they probably had two.

I reached up and gently stroked Betsy's cheek. She smiled slightly and leaned into the contact. "You don't have to eat the sausage, but at least eat the toast. Oh, and you still don't get any chocolate until you're feeling better."

"Yes daddy," Betsy said, sticking her tongue out. She flinched when she realized what she said. But after a few moments she turned to me, looking directly in my eyes and smiled. In that moment, she seemed to change in a way I couldn't describe. She seemed happier, so I smiled back, and gave her cheek another caress.

We all soon settled into eating breakfast. I was so worried about Betsy, that I didn't have much of a chance to talk to Katia. I really did want to get to know her better, but it was awkward. I felt especially awkward when I looked over at her after talking to Betsy. She had been watching me, but quickly turned away. That she didn't immediately turn to her sister was reassuring though.

Eventually we did manage some small talk, but with a dozen girls in easy conversational distance, it was very small talk. She did explain, with a lot of help from the other girls, how she had actually moved in on Monday. The dinner had been postponed for one night because of Betsy's father. That was why all the girls had gone missing all day Tuesday, because they had to scramble to rearrange everything.

But, just as I started getting really comfortable talking with Katia, I saw Bambi walking towards me from where she'd been sitting during breakfast. "Ready to do a little work?" she asked. I thought for a minute about taking another day off, with all the strange things that had been happening lately.

"Oh, I should be going too. It might be my practice, thanks to you, but I'm still the junior doctor. I don't want anyone to think I got the job by sleeping with the owner." She flushed and said, "Not, that I'd object to sleeping with you, but," she finished with something in Czech that made Magda laugh. Actually most of the girls were giggling.

I was smiling a little myself. It was nice to know I wasn't the only one feeling awkward about the whole situation.

* * *

Sometime between leaving the house and getting to the courthouse my powers finally returned. Thinking back, it had been an unusually long time. Something had come over the girls recently, and they were even having sex with me while I was sleeping. I realized I hadn't had my powers since Stefani had dropped me off the previous afternoon.

I didn't have too long to dwell on the subject, since Bambi got us to the courthouse in near record time. The courthouse meant juries, and juries meant a long day. Bambi pulled into our reserved spot across from the courthouse, gave me a kiss on the cheek and hopped out of the car. I might have made peace on an intellectual level with Bambi's driving, but it still took a minute for my hand to unclench from the armrest.

I got out of the car and Bambi was there waiting for me. I was feeling rather unprofessional today, so rather than crossing the street with enough distance to indicate we were colleagues, I offered her my arm. She put her hand on my arm and I lead us across the street.

"You are positively shameless with these public displays of affection," she joked.

"Are you kidding? Who's going to notice me? All they'll see is a gorgeous woman whose blouse is too tight."

Surprisingly, considering her previous job as a stripper, she blushed. "I didn't think you'd notice."

She was right, I normally wouldn't have noticed. The only reason I did notice was because she was worried about it and I'd picked up on it subconsciously. I suppose I wasn't as in control of my powers as I'd hoped.

"Maybe you noticed because she kept trying to pull her jacket closed on the drive here?" Anna spoke into my thoughts.

"Aren't you the one who's always saying I need to control my powers better?" I thought to the voice in my head.

"I want you to have better control, but if you doubt that you can do it, then you'll never manage." I was about to snap something back when I noticed that Bambi was adjusting her suit jacket.

Finally, I said to her, "Bambi, quit fussing. You'll only draw attention to yourself." Attention had already been drawn. Of course, with Bambi's long red hair, drop-dead figure and keen fashion sense, attention was inevitable. But her nervousness was attracting more notice than usual.

Eventually we got to the correct courthouse, and Bambi managed to stop adjusting her clothing. I was particularly grateful, because I didn't want to show up in front of the DA with an erection. We sat down behind the DA's table and waited for the rest of the court to arrive. It turned out it wasn't the DA who was handling the case, but a new ADA, a blond bombshell of a new ADA.

I felt a sharp elbow in my ribs and Bambi hissed, "The house is full enough already." She and the ADA exchanged professional poisonous smiles. Bambi usually wasn't the jealous type, but something about the ADA put her on edge.

"You must be the jury consultant, and his assistant. I'm Christina Phelps," she said as she held her hand out to me. Her fingers were long, smooth and cool, but her handshake was firm. When I released her hand she didn't offer it to Bambi.

"Actually, Ms. Phelps, Dr. McIntyre is my partner," I said while motioning to Bambi. "She is the legal brains of the outfit. I'm just very good at reading people."

Ms. Phelps didn't believe a word of it. Even though her face was calm, she was quite angry. She had told the DA that she didn't need a jury consultant. It was an open and shut case, three solid witnesses, DNA evidence and a thug with a rap sheet a mile long. She thought the DA doubted her credentials and that she had gotten the job because of her looks. But she was honest enough to recognize her own potential hypocrisy at assuming Bambi was arm candy. However, since she didn't believe me, it was only potential hypocrisy.




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 11



Since she didn't know I had read all this from her mind, she went ahead and explained it in polite terms. "I know the DA believes that you are a valuable consulting team, but I really don't think it's necessary for this case, especially not at your rates. Mr. Luzzi was caught with the murder weapon in his pocket, with gun shot residue on his hands. There are two witnesses who place him near the crime scene immediately before and another that places him there after the murder. His DNA was found on the victim. It is an easy case."

I turned to Bambi and asked, "Bambi, you've read the case files, is it really as open and shut as Christy seems to think?" Ms. Phelps could hardly suppress her smirk when she heard Bambi's name, she likewise could hardly suppress her grimace when I called her Christy. I felt a twinge of regret at that, but I could feel smug approval from Bambi, so I guess it evens out.

"There were three shots fired, and only one of them struck Ms. Turano. There is only evidence that Mr. Luzzi shot a gun, not that he shot the bullet that killed the victim. The DNA evidence is hardly credible evidence in this case. It was well known that Mr. Luzzi and Ms. Turano were lovers, and there was no evidence that they'd had a falling out. A competent defense attorney would argue that Mr. Luzzi came upon another man killing his lover. He wrestled the gun away, and took two shots at the man as he fled. Since Mr. Luzzi has a long criminal record, he knew he wouldn't get a fair shake with the police, especially since his fingerprints were now on the murder weapon. His only hope would be to catch the real murderer. Of course, he got arrested before he could even find a place to put the gun."

As Bambi was finishing her explanation, the bailiff brought the defendant in. He was one of the men who I definitely wanted out of my city. But one look at his mind convinced me that the scenario was much closer to what Bambi had described than what the ADA believed.

"Do you really think a jury would buy that? Mr. Luzzi is a menace. He has been a capo for more than a decade and is responsible for at least a dozen murders."

I looked at the ADA and motioned her to come closer. I spoke in a low voice, and used my powers to guarantee that nobody heard me, "You have to make a decision. Bambi is closer to the truth than even she realizes. The man who killed Ms. Turano is already dead, neatly arranged while Mr. Luzzi was in prison." I waved her to silence and clarified, "Let's just say it was an inside matter that wouldn't be good for the family."

She looked over at the defendant and seemed to reappraise the situation. I continued, "The decision you have to make is this. Will you accept my help in order to get a jury to convict this man of a murder he didn't commit? Or will you find an honest jury that will end up rightfully acquitting him of this charge and release that monster to kill again?"

"How do you know all this?" she asked. I waved my hand and she now believed what I said, even though I didn't answer her. I didn't, however, tamper with her ability to decide based on what I told her. She turned away from me and sat down to think about it. She was still thinking about it when the bailiff told us all to stand for the judge. We were all seated again and someone was reading something boring in a loud monotone.

Christy turned back to me and said, "I can't do this. If what you say is true, it would be a perversion of Justice. We'll find another way, a legal way to put him behind bars." I was actually surprised by her answer.  I looked over at Bambi, and I knew it was the decision she would have made as well. Unfortunately for Mr. Luzzi, Christy and Bambi weren't deciding his fate, the jury I selected was.

Christy was still looking at me, wishing I would tell her that it was a lie, or a test. I smiled at her and suddenly she was once again certain that Mr. Luzzi had killed his lover, and now she knew what defense his lawyers were going to try to mount. With such a defense, jury selection was going to be critical.

* * *

The rest of the day was business as usual. There was another jury to select, a suspect that wasn't being cooperative and a bank that had a crooked clerk. Sixth months ago, there was a bank executive embezzling millions, now there was a clerk with sticky fingers. Crime just isn't what it used to be, at least not in my town.

Bambi and I ate lunch downtown. While we were eating I said, "You know, Luzzi is the last one."

"The last what?" she asked.

"He's the last crime boss in town. He has a few lieutenants left, but they aren't that bright and will likely get themselves arrested, if not killed, inside a year."

"You don't sound very happy about it. You've done a very good thing here."

"No, I am happy," I said, although I knew I didn't sound convincing. "It's just that I've been doing this so long, and now it seems to be over."

"There is still plenty of crime in town," Bambi said.

"There will always be crime, but it isn't organized anymore, it's the random stuff that happens any time people are around people."

Bambi thought for a while before responding. "So are you talking about retiring?" she asked.

I really hadn't thought of it that way. I just knew that with a diminishing number of exceptions, I wasn't accomplishing much that a good police force couldn't. A good police force could do a lot more, since I was only one man. "I guess I am, although I would always be around if something serious ever came around again."

She asked, "So, what would you do with all your free time?" But the unspoken question in her mind spoke to me more clearly, "Does this mean you've finally forgiven yourself?"

I kept expecting Anna to chime in with her two cents, but she didn't seem to care. I could feel her presence in my mind, but she was only observing. I gave her a few more seconds before saying, "I'll spend it with my family, if you and the girls can handle having me around all the time."

Bambi started crying. She grabbed my hand off the table and gripped it in both of hers. Her hands were trembling. I hurried around the table and knelt next to her chair, hugging her to me. I thought she might be happy to hear that, but I didn't expect her to be so happy she'd start crying. I didn't even need my powers to know she was happy, because she kept saying how happy I'd just made her, and how much she loved me.

Eventually Bambi calmed down and gave a bit of a giggle. "This is so embarrassing, everyone's staring at us." She might not have realized why they were staring, but I knew they all thought I'd just proposed and wanted to know if she said "Yes" or not.

"So is that a 'Yes'?" I asked.

"Yes!" she said in exasperation. She didn't quite understand until everyone in the restaurant starting applauding. She gasped when the realization struck her and whispered to me, "They think you just proposed to me, in the middle of the restaurant, at lunch!" For some reason, she seemed especially scandalized that I would propose during lunch.

"Does it matter what they think?" I asked.

She rested her forehead against mine and said, "I don't care what anyone thinks. I have you, and our family, that's all that matters." She gave me a gentle kiss holding my face in her hands. She stroked my face and my hair and said, "I love you."

"I love you too."

She glanced around, and saw that people were still looking over. "I must look horrible; my makeup must be a total mess!"

"You look beautiful," I said, "positively radiant."

"You better think I look beautiful," she quipped. "You're the one who got me this way." She seemed oddly amused when she said it. I instinctively reached toward her mind, only to be interrupted by Anna.

"You've done quite enough prying into her mind for one day!"

"So, now you've decided to weigh in on the subject?" I asked the voice in my head. Bambi was saying something about getting cleaned up and calling the girls. It was hard to hold two conversations at once; luckily the one occurring in the real world didn't require me to say anything. All I had to do was nod, stand and hold her chair as she went to the ladies room.

"She needed to hear the truth. Not the answer you'd give when you knew I was listening."

"But I knew you were listening."

Anna replied with a loud harrumph, and said, "You don't even believe I exist. You think I'm a figment of your imagination."

"Well, you only exist in my mind, so even if you aren't a figment of my imagination, it doesn't much matter to me, does it?"

"It matters to me!" she yelled, and slammed a door deep in my mind shut.

I gulped down the last of my water and wondered what in the world was going on. A week ago my life was so simple. Well, simple if you consider having an angry voice in your head and a veritable harem of women simple. But at least it was consistent.

Now the voice in my head seemed to be having a nervous breakdown, I found out the girls had hidden Magda's sister from me, and my old friend had died. I just hope it doesn't get any more confusing.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed this installment. As always, I appreciate your votes and comments, they have really helped motivate me to write. 



The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 12



If you are new to my Reluctant Psychic series, please consider starting from the beginning. The story, characters and events in this chapter will make more sense when given context from the preceding chapters. If you're returning, welcome back and I hope you enjoy the story.

* * *

Bambi left me sitting at the table while she went to clean up. The news of my impending retirement had taken its happy toll on her makeup. I just wish she hadn't left just as Anna was slamming a door in my head. Even though I knew she would be back soon, I still couldn't help feeling alone.

My thoughts began wandering which meant I started picking up stray thoughts of the people around me. The thoughts radiating off one gentleman made me realize I didn't have as much control on my powers as I thought. He was telling his lunch partner and mistress that he couldn't see her anymore because he needed to spend more time at home with his family.

There were other people responding to my apparent proposal to Bambi, most of them not influenced by my powers. An older couple was reminiscing about their own engagement decades ago. Our waiter decided to finally to propose to his girlfriend.

But they weren't all happy thoughts. There was another cheating couple present, and they were quite amused by the earlier display. There was a man taking a three martini lunch to face going back to a job he hated. The longer I sat there with the thoughts brushing against my mind, the more negative feelings I sensed.

I concentrated on person after person, and found that mostly they had mundane thoughts: neither good nor bad. Most thoughts seemed to be falling in the happy or good side of the spectrum, the minority falling on the unhappy dark side. Then why did the bad thoughts seem to be seeking me out? I had the nagging feeling that I was seeking them out.

Thankfully Bambi wasn't gone so long that I fully fell into a depression, but I did have a migraine coming on. "Do you think we can cancel the last couple of jobs for today? I have a headache coming on, and I want to go home." As I said it, I realized how true it was. My girls' thoughts were inevitably bright and cheerful. I couldn't indulge in seeking dark thoughts if they weren't around me.

I felt a sudden spark of panic in Bambi's thoughts. She quickly suppressed it, just as I quickly tried to stop reading her thoughts. Why would she panic about going home now, when she seemed so ecstatic about the idea of me being home almost all the time?

Bambi flushed slightly. She parted her lips to say something then stopped. Eventually she said, "I actually called the clients while I was up. I thought in celebration we could take the afternoon off and go to the art museum."

It sounded like an excuse to not go home. But Bambi had mentioned going to the museum a number of times in the past few weeks. I could never remember which artist was having an exhibit, but I thought he was Irish, or maybe Dutch. I looked at Bambi and saw her love shining through to me. She might have been making up an excuse, but it was out of love.

Whether she was acting out of love or not, it didn't help my headache. Actually, the thoughts it brought to mind only made my headache worse. The girls have all been acting so strangely for the last few days. I trusted them and I knew that they loved me, but my faith was being tested. I longed to reach into Bambi's mind and pull out the truth, but I loved her too much and that love said I had to have faith in her.

For Bambi, I decided I would not only have faith in her, but I would face the headache and a couple of hours in an art museum. "I would love to go to the museum with you," I said. I stood up, dropped a hundred dollar bill on the table and offered a hand to Bambi. She took it and rose to her feet with a smile.

"You know the meal didn't cost even half that much?" she asked. Sometimes it was easy to forget that Bambi came from a very meager background. She didn't mind that I spent money extravagantly, but it should be intentional and not careless.

"You're absolutely right," I said. I opened my wallet and dropped five more hundreds onto the table. Bambi looked askance at me, but took my arm without a word as I started walking out of the restaurant. I knew it was bothering her, so as we left the restaurant I confessed, "I'm just helping him make some woman very happy." I held up my left hand and waggled the ring finger.

She gave me a big smile, and hugged me. She also started crying again. I was a bit surprised by the public affection and the tears. But I was really surprised that my finger had felt so empty.

* * *

Augustus Saint-Gaudens it turns out was an American sculptor born in Ireland. As Bambi and I walked through the exhibit I thought I recognized a few of the items. At first I shrugged it off as merely being my unfamiliarity with art. However, when I saw a naked woman doing archery I knew something was going on.

I looked at the plaque, skipping over the mundane details such as the sculpture's name and date of casting. At the bottom, in italics, it said, "On loan from Private Collection." I turned to Bambi and asked her what she knew about a private collection.

She smiled and said, "It was Tiffany's idea. She said a lot of rich people who feel guilty about having too much stuff, loan the stuff out to museums. Tiffany knows a lot more about being rich than I do." She strolled to another piece of sculpture and looked at it for a moment before continuing, "Besides, I like the idea that some school will have a field trip, and a bunch of children will see something beautiful because of me."

"Do you feel guilty about being rich?"

She looked at me with her beautiful green eyes and said, "No. Do you?"

* * *

I don't know why I still seek out these games.

I don't need the money; I can't even spend all of the money I already have, even with dozens of women helping me. I have a squadron of airplanes, a flotilla of boats and a handful of cars in every city I've ever visited. I own diamond mines, oil wells, sardine factories, and steel mills. But it was never about the things I've won.

Then there are my less than legal possessions. I have MiGs, a nuclear submarine, hundreds of tanks and nearly a million guns. The guns and tanks are in storage, guarded by men who are utterly loyal to me. They used to be utterly loyal to rape, murder and themselves, but I've fixed that. I keep the MiGs around for the girls to take thrill rides, and the submarine is handy, and luxurious once it was redecorated. But, since I don't plan on going to war, or supplying weapons for a war, the games were never about that either.

I've won brothels and cocaine plantations, slaves and drugs. I always freed the slaves and found them safe productive lives, and destroyed the drugs. The plantations now grow food. The brothels are still brothels, but the women are safe, clean and keep the money they earn. But the games were never about trying to do right in the world.

I delude myself sometimes, thinking that I play to forget. Maybe that is how it started, trying to forget, but that isn't why I still play. That isn't why I walked through the sewers of Hong Kong in the dead of night to join the game.

It's the power and thrill of conquest. I beat these lords of the underworld. I seek them out in their own dens and beat them. I take their dearest possessions and make them mine. Sometimes they seek revenge; they attack me or hire thugs to attack for them. But they can't beat a man who knows their minds, who can control their thoughts.

There is no thrill tonight. The cards feel rough in my hands, the drink tasteless in my mouth. The smoky room which once added sinister ambiance tonight only makes me cough. The girls lounging on couches, or dancing on tables filled me with revulsion instead of lust.

At some point tonight, I stopped using my powers to win. I didn't even realize until one of the other players pointed out my losing streak. My pile was still the largest, but not by much. Another hand was dealt, and I picked it up to find I had a full house, Queens over Aces. When it came to my turn to bet, I grabbed the keys to the Ferrari out of the pile and pushed the rest of my stack in.

"If I lose, I still want to get home!" I proclaimed. The other men laughed, and set about deciding if it was a bold bluff, or a trap. Eventually, one man decided it was a bluff and pushed his stack in as well. I agreed that we were about even, meaning one of us would be going home.

"You are bluffing!" he shouted, throwing down his three jacks. All eyes turned toward me, waiting for me to show a better hand. Even the man with the jacks believed in his heart that he had lost.

Without showing my cards, I bowed my head and pushed the pile towards the jacks. I dropped my cards into my shirt pocket, blinding their minds to my actions, and then bid the men goodnight. I whistled as I walked out of the room.

What I really needed was waiting for me back in my hotel, and in a city near where I grew up. As I walked back to my girls, I walked away from my last poker game.

* * *

I didn't answer Bambi's question at the museum. I'd actually never even thought about feeling guilty for being rich. I've spent plenty of time feeling guilty that my wealth was acquired through crime. I might not have committed the crimes, but the men I took the money from committed more than enough to taint it. I had freed the slaves I'd won, and destroyed the drugs, but there were so many other crimes that I couldn't expunge from my conscience.

I realized as we were driving home, that there was a form of wealth I did feel guilty about. I spent the time riding home trying to figure out a way to explain, but never quite came up with an answer. Bambi slid the car to a stop on the gravel driveway. I sat still in the car, even as Bambi started to get out. She must have sensed my mood, or maybe my powers told her my mood, because she stopped and turned to look at me.

I sat staring out the windscreen. After a minute or so, I said, "I do feel guilty. Not for being rich, but because of your love for me. Any man would be wealthy having one woman love him liked I'm loved by you. But to have all of you love me, that's more than any man deserves, let alone a man like me." As I stumbled my way through, my eyes gazed forward at my waiting home and the girls who were waiting there for me. When I was done, I slowly turned to face Bambi.

Bambi was crying again. She threw her arms around me and hugged me, sniffling softly. She didn't say anything, she just clung to me. We held each other for a long time, long enough for someone to notice that although the car had come home, no one had walked through the door. It was also long enough for me to wonder why Bambi had been so weepy today, it really wasn't like her. I was so concerned I nearly peeked into her mind. I restrained myself, but it was a near thing. Near enough that usually Anna would have chimed in, but she didn't appear to be paying attention.

There was a knock on the window, and we both turned to see Gwen peeking in my window. There was a knock on the other side and Betsy was peeking in at us. Dinah and Tiffany were standing in front of the car looking in through the windscreen. Bambi covered her mouth and started to giggle. She hit me lightly on the arm and said, "Look what you've done to me! You've turned me into a sniffling wreck."

* * *

Dealing with a crying Bambi, didn't help my nagging headache. I should have felt relief at the prospect of retiring, but I only felt the stress more intensely. There were still plenty of criminals in the world, plenty that I knew personally. Unfortunately, there were just as many, if not more, people waiting to step into any void in the crime world that I might create.

Rather than join the ladies inside, I took a detour around the house. I gave the gentlest of nudges to the girls' minds to not notice that I didn't come inside with them. They were so busy getting the latest gossip from Bambi that I might not have needed to. The news would make them all so happy, and I just couldn't bear to be around that while I was so empty inside. I have more control of my powers than I used to, but even an unhappy face can kill the mood.

I headed instead to my secret hideout. I hadn't visited it in a long time, only once since the girls discovered the secret and claimed it as a clubhouse. With the girls coming and going, it no longer served its purpose of isolating me and my powers from them. Although, there was little chance that it was in use now.

As I walked through the woods, I tried to figure out why I couldn't be happy with the thought of retiring. Why couldn't I be happy with a house full of women who love me? I once heard that happiness was a decision. If so, why can't I decide to be happy? Even without Anna reminding me of the terrible things I've done, I still remember them. Trying to forget the singular terrible thing I'd done only led me to do more bad things. The gambling and drinking didn't even make me forget, they only distracted me for a time, dulled the edges of the memory.

The secret entrance to the clubhouse was still hard to see, even with the obvious trail leading directly towards it. As I opened the passage, the lights flickered on automatically, a new feature. There was also a mat from wiping feet before heading down the steps into the corridor. The corridor had undergone some cosmetic changes, and I couldn't say that I minded. It no longer looked like a fallout bunker; it was amazing what a bit of plaster and paint will do. The lights still had cages around them, but the conduit was no longer obvious and the cages were ornate wooden contraptions. The floor had the rubbery feel of a gymnasium, just without the smell or the ugly black color.

One thing in the corridor that hadn't changed was the cameras. They were subtly placed before, but now they were nearly invisible. If I hadn't been checking to make sure they weren't plastered over, I never would have noticed them. The girls also left the security door intact, aside from a new coat of paint. So, even if it was no longer a place I could be alone with my thoughts, it was still a safe place in case of an emergency.

I pulled the door open and was surprised to see that a fire was burning in the fireplace. I walked toward the fire and didn't notice Betsy curled up in the oversized leather wing chair until I was standing next to her. She looked as empty inside as I felt. I sat down on the ottoman, half turned to the fire and half towards her.

I took the time to study my former lair, and found that not a lot had actually changed. It seemed a little brighter, or perhaps a bit more broken in. The smell of the room had especially changed; it no longer smelled like a leather furniture store but something between a cabin and a well used study.

I was trying to decide whether I should break the silence, or wait for Betsy to do so. I turned towards her, but before I could speak she handed me a newspaper that I'd failed to notice her holding. The paper was folded to emphasize one article: Steven Haufman's obituary. The obituary was pretty standard, saying he was survived by a loving daughter, and would be buried on Thursday.

I put the paper down and looked at Betsy. She asked, "Do you think anyone will come? Aside from you, I don't remember any of daddy's friends."

I thought about it for a time, and I decided that I hoped no one would come. Steven Haufman might have been a nice guy, but most of his associates, including me, weren't nice. Actually, the more I thought about it, the more concerned I was. Steven had made enemies; you don't get gunned down by friends. I had also made enemies, and they had tried to attack me through Betsy before.

"I don't know Betsy, maybe." I reached out my hand resting it lightly on her leg. She put her tiny hand on top of mine and gave me a squeeze.

"I always hoped I could tell him I got married," she said. I looked up at her, and saw her eyes were distant. It took a moment to realize that she hadn't spoken those words out loud. It was such a powerful thought that I had sensed it accidentally. I also sensed something about a grandchild, before I could block out her thoughts completely.

I could never marry any of the girls. It wouldn't be fair to the other girls, and it wouldn't be fair to Anna. If it weren't for laws against polygamy, I suppose I could marry all of them, but somehow that still felt wrong. The thought of children, on the other hand, simply scared me to death. What if they turned out like me?

* * * 

The fire had burned down to embers when there was a knock on the door. Betsy and I were both snapped out of our thoughts by the sudden noise. Betsy got up and headed towards the door, leaving me by the dying fire. It turned out it was Jill, she'd come to tell us that dinner was less than an hour away.

Jill and Betsy were talking about something else in hushed words. At one point Betsy shook her head before looking back towards me. She seemed a bit sadder than she had been. She listened to something else Jill said, and finally nodded her head. Betsy came over to me, gave me a gentle kiss on the lips and headed back towards the door. Jill gave Betsy a hug before Betsy left.

Jill came over and sat next to me. "I never got around to telling you how upset I was when I found out about this place."

I was a bit startled by the unexpected direction of her statement. "All of the girls seemed a bit upset," I said noncommittally.

"Yes, but they didn't have an outsider usurp their place. Why couldn't you have let me design this place? I wouldn't have told anyone."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Jill, you had your hands full with the rest of the house. Besides, I did the design myself, with some practical help from the contractor." She didn't appear mollified, so I added, "I promise, if I ever need another secret lair designed, I'll let you do it."

"Good," she said, giving me a smug nod. She walked towards me, until she was standing directly in front of me, between my legs. She stood so close that her blouse was nearly pressed against my nose. As I breathed in, I smelled a musky fragrance and looked down towards her skirt. She twisted her hips slightly causing the material to swirl around her.

It didn't take me long to know what she wanted, but I was hardly in the mood. I started to speak up, but she pressed a finger to my lips and softly shushed me. She put her knee on the ottoman next to me, followed by her other knee. She pushed her breasts against my face, moving me backwards. She kept pushing until I was lying on my back across the ottoman, with her legs straddling me.

She reached between her legs and began undoing my pants. She opened my pants enough to give her access to my underwear which she pushed down. Her hand continued to work until she exposed my penis to the warm humid air trapped under her skirt. It didn't seem to bother her that I was still soft as she lowered her bare sex against me.

I felt the intense heat and moisture from her sex against the top of my soft cock. She slowly rubbed herself along me and it almost felt like she was pulling me into her. She moved her lips next to my ear and she moaned softly into it. She sucked noisily on my ear for a minute as she kept rubbing her sex against me.

I was still not quite hard, but close enough for what Jill did next. She lifted her head so that her black hair fell in a cascade around my face. Her gray eyes stared at me as she lifted her hips. She watched my reaction as she slowly aligned the head of my cock with her heated opening. The head slowly sank into her and I watched her eyelids flutter and heard her breath coming in short gasps.

She tried to sink down onto me, but she was too tight, and I wasn't hard enough. She again reached between her legs, wrapping her hand around my shaft. Little by little she feed my cock into her until eventually I was fully inside of her. She lifted slightly and pushed back down. The little motions she made were the most my slowly hardening cock could sustain. She tried again, but when I nearly slipped out she decided on a new tactic. She started squeezing me with her sex and rolling her hips slightly.




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 12



"What are you doing Jill?" I finally asked.

"I'm trying to have sex with you," she replied. She sat up straight and arranged her skirt around her legs. I propped myself up on my elbows to get a better look at her. "But you don't seem to be interested," she added with a pout.

"Well, you did kind of get me by surprise. I might be a guy, but that doesn't mean I'm always in the mood." As I spoke, I could feel myself getting softer inside of her.

"I know. It's just that I've been so horny all day," she said. She slowly lay back on me, pushing me onto my back once again. She was talking more quietly now, hushed words spoken directly into my ear, "Stefani and I fell asleep last night after making love, and I woke up surrounded by the smell of our sex. Her leg was pressed hard against me and when I woke up I was rubbing myself against her. I was so close to coming and then she turned in her sleep."

"I wanted to wake her up, but you know how she sleeps. So I began touching myself, but it just wasn't the same. I couldn't get myself off. It just kept building and making me more frustrated." As she spoke she was grinding herself against me. Her motions were eking out friction while trying to keep me inside of her. "I took a cold shower, but that didn't seem to help. It just made my nipples so much harder and even tenderer. All I could think of was having a hot mouth sucking on my breast. I tried splashing cold water on my pussy, but all I could think about was having your heat buried inside of me. All day, I've been in a daze, I keep touching myself, hoping it would be enough." Her words were having the desired effect on my body, since I was now quite hard inside of her. "I was so horny I soaked through my panties. I took them off when I came to find you. I decided that wherever I found you, I would have you right there." For emphasis she slammed herself down on me as she said the last word.

She really began moving her hips, fucking me in short sharp strokes. "I didn't care where I found you, or who I found you with. A part of me hoped I'd find you with the other girls, so they could see how horny you made me." She grabbed my ear with her teeth and moaned as she continued to fuck me. I began to imagine us surrounded by the other girls, and I knew Jill was imagining the same thing.

I wondered for a moment if Katia would watch as well. Was she ready to see that sort of thing? Had her sister or the other girls prepared her for such a thing? I felt myself swelling inside of Jill as I thought about what it would be like to fuck Katia.

Suddenly I felt bad. Here I was having sex with a beautiful girl, and I was thinking of someone else. I grabbed Jill by the hips and rolled. I lowered her to the rug in front of the fire, and slowly descended on top of her. This time I controlled the penetration and didn't need her hand to feed me into her sex.

I looked down into her sex crazed eyes and pushed myself into her. I worked my arms under her and pulled down on her shoulders to push harder into her. Her legs wrapped around my back to pull me into her. With each thrust we both drove my cock deep inside of her. Again and again, I thrust into her, driving her hips into the rug.

It didn't take long before I felt her coming. Her body tried to curl up, but I kept thrusting into her, driving her flat to the ground. Her fingers scrambled for purchase but her nails couldn't grip the slick material of my shirt.

Her eyes shot wide open as my rhythm changed. She could tell how close I was to coming, and held on to me willing me to come inside of her. "Give me your come," she thought while her mouth was busy moaning. "Fill me with your love," she mind screamed to me.

With a final grunt, I obeyed her mind's exhortations and came deep inside of her. As I came, her thoughts faded from my senses, and I was left with the sounds of her frantic breathing. I looked down at her and decided that anytime she wanted to talk dirty to me, I'd be in the mood. I gave her a kiss, but she decided she'd rather have a hug. She wrapped her arms and legs tight around me and gave me a squeeze.

"We should clean up a bit before dinner. We wouldn't want Katia to think we were just having sex." I must have looked guilty, because she gave me another hug and whispered into my ear, "It's alright, I want to have sex with her too."

* * *

I hope you enjoyed this installment. As always, I appreciate your votes and comments, they have really helped motivate me to write.



The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 13



If you are new to my Reluctant Psychic series, please consider starting from the beginning. The story, characters and events in this chapter will make more sense when given context from the preceding chapters. If you're returning, welcome back and I hope you enjoy the story.

* * *

We didn't take long getting cleaned up and were soon walking through the woods on our way back to the main house. Jill held my hand as the darkness settled around us. My thoughts were also turning to darkness.

Betsy's father's funeral was tomorrow, and I was worried. Betsy was taking her father's death as well as anyone can take a death of a loved one. I was more worried about who might show up to the funeral. The local paper, that ran the obituary, had significant regional distribution and could be found at news stands around the country. It was unlikely that any of my enemies would happen to read the obituary, but...

Jill jerked on my hand, pulling me out of my paranoid musings. I looked over at her and saw that she was watching me intently. We stopped in the middle of the woods, holding hands and looking into each other's eyes. She leaned forward, rubbed her nose against mine and gave me a little kiss. Then she smiled, as if to remind me to be happy.

She was right, I should be happy. I was walking through the woods with a beautiful woman, a woman who loved me, and whom I loved. Looking into her eyes, I was reminded of one of Jill's favorite sayings, "Don't borrow worries from tomorrow." I cupped her head in my hands and gave her a gentle kiss then said softly, "Thanks for the reminder."

I could have stayed in her loving embrace for hours, but Jill was a bit more pragmatic, and reminded me that dinner was about to be served. I was about to say they would wait for me, but Jill gave me a look that let me know that that might not always be the case. So we continued our walk back to the house, but with our arms around each other instead of only holding hands.

* * *

Dinner seemed a more raucous affair that usual. Stefanie sat with me at the head of the table, but her attention was mostly on Jill who was sitting on her other side. Stefanie and Jill had been an item almost since Stephanie joined my household. Jill's strange blend of pragmatism and optimism had helped Stefani get over her lover's murder.

On my other side sat Katia, who had become a fixture at the head end of the table. It was the girls' way of making sure Katia and I had plenty of opportunity to get to know each other. They also made sure that Magda wasn't sitting close enough that Katia could rely on her sister for conversation. The later wasn't too much of a concern since Katia seemed to be fitting in with the girls quite well, even if she remained a bit of an enigma to me.

It was strange, really. Here I sat with psychic power, but I hardly knew the first thing about the woman sitting next to me. Of course, I didn't currently have my powers since Jill had seduced me not an hour past. Actually, I seemed to have had that problem quite a bit recently. It seemed like every time Katia was going to join us for a meal...

Dinner certainly was raucous tonight. I had been saying something to Katia and my mind suddenly blanked. To make matters worse, I felt a headache coming on. "I'm sorry Katia, I seemed to have lost my train of thought."

"Are you feeling alright?" she asked. I could see more than a usual amount of concern on her face. "You keep getting this pensive look on your face. Then you suddenly snap out of it and seem to forget what you were saying."

I searched my memories, but I couldn't remember losing my train of thought earlier. I also couldn't seem to remember what sort of brooding thoughts might have been on my mind. "I feel fine, I suppose I just have a lot on my mind right now. Thoughts of retiring, welcoming a lovely new member into our family, and –" I knew there was something else that was on my mind. I looked up and down the table to try to jog my memory.

That's when I realized it wasn't something that was there that was nagging at my memory, but what was missing, or more precisely who was missing. "Where's Betsy?" I asked. There wasn't an empty chair which is likely why it took me so long to realize Betsy was missing.

"She's taking a nap. She hasn't been sleeping, so we thought it best not to wake her for dinner," answered Marie. Marie had been Betsy's first lover and was still her most frequent lover. If any of the girls would be aware of Betsy's trouble sleeping it would be she. But despite the practicality of the reply, I still didn't like the idea of Betsy being alone.

I excused myself to go find Betsy, but halfway through standing up, I found myself sitting down instead. Katia asked again if I was okay. I felt a headache coming on as I tried to stand once more. As I struggled to rise, all I could think was that I couldn't let Betsy down. My head was pounding, and I began to wonder if there really was something wrong with me.

I felt a moment of calm, and suddenly I was able to stand. I could barely think over the throbbing in my temples, but I could move. I excused myself again, and walked out of the dining room. I barely noticed that the table had all but fallen silent behind me.

As I walked, a part of me realized I didn't know where I was going. I had never been to Betsy's room; I had never even been in the portion of the house given over to the girls' rooms. They didn't tell me I couldn't but it had always been an unspoken arrangement.

Even though I had never set foot in the hallway, it seemed familiar. I turned a corner and entered a large foyer that had a marble fountain set in the middle. I looked around the large space with a touch of awe before another wave of pain shot through my head.

Gritting my teeth against the pain, I began walking again. I was in a bit of a daze as I walked the unfamiliar space, but I unerringly navigated to Betsy's door. I entered her room as quietly as I could, and found Betsy asleep on her bed. She was curled up on her side, clutching the lion doll I had given her over a decade before.

I sat on the bed next to her, and with a gentle touch moved a strand of hair from her face. She looked just as frail as she had when I first met her, and tried to buy her trust with a toy from the hospital convenience store. At the time, I didn't know that she was too old for stuffed animals, and she didn't realize that some things you never quite grow out of. The little lion always seemed to be in the closet when I had visited her room during the day, and in her arms if I checked on her at night.

I looked around her room and realized it was almost exactly the same as the room she'd had when she first moved in with me. The computer on her desk might be much smaller than it was a decade before, but everything else was remarkably the same. On the nightstand she had the same picture of her and her father, taken at Disneyland the year before he was shot. The picture of Betsy and me was much more recent, but it was in the same frame as the first picture we had together. I kissed her forehead as she slept on, reflecting that a man couldn't ask for a better daughter than Betsy.

My headache hadn't eased any, but I had been able to block out the pain while I was checking on Betsy. I desperately wanted one of Magda's massages, but I didn't think I could face any of the girls after invading their sanctum. I decided on the medicinal solution and thought of the bottle waiting in my medicine cabinet.

I carefully wrapped Betsy and her lion in her blanket and lifted her out of bed. I carried her out of her room and began walking toward my own bedroom. I don't remember much of the walk, except that at one point Betsy woke enough to wrap her arms around my neck. By the time I settled Betsy onto my own bed, my vision was getting red on the edges.

I staggered to the bathroom and pulled out the supply of pain pills. I spilled four into my hand and swallowed them with a gulp of water. I held on to the bathroom counter with my head hanging, waiting for the pills to start to take effect. Thankfully, the narcotics were quick acting and it didn't take long to take the harsh edge off the pain. I splashed some water on my face and then made my way back to my bed.

It wasn't until I wasn't nearly back to bed that I remembered I was only supposed to take one pill, or two for severe pain. I sat on the edge of the bed, trying to decide if taking four pills was really that bad. The euphoria that started pouring over me pushed the pain far enough away that I didn't really mind anymore.

As I turned to snuggle up behind Betsy, a voice told me to lock the door. 'Why should I lock the door?' I wondered. Does the door even have a lock? The latter question somehow seemed more relevant to me, and I made my way over to the door to investigate. There was a little button on the doorknob that did indeed seem to be a lock. I pushed it in and it gave a click.

Now the other lock, the voice told me. The voice was very patient explaining where I could find the secret button that would engage the door's deadbolts, and reminded me that it was a secret. Eventually I found the button and felt more than heard the strong bolts settle into place. I walked to the door and discovered it was so secure that it didn't even rattle in its frame.

The voice was now happy, and would let me go to sleep in peace. I lay down in bed, snuggled up close behind Betsy and wrapped my arms around her, just as her arms were wrapped around her stuffed lion. Just before the drugs dragged me into the darkness, I asked the voice if this meant she had forgiven me, but I didn't get a reply.

* * *

I woke sometime later, sweating out my nightmares. I was still disoriented by the pain medication but my headache seemed to have gone away completely. I felt a cool hand gently stroking my face and heard faint calming murmurs. I opened my eyes to see Betsy lying in front of me, one hand still clutching the lion, the other stroking my cheek. The really strange thing was that we were lying on the floor next to the door.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I should ask you the same thing," she replied. She gave a sigh and dropped her hand from my cheek. "I woke up and I was lying in your bed. You sounded like you were having a nightmare. Some of the girls knocked on the door but they couldn't get in. I tried to unlock it but it just wouldn't budge. Then you got out of bed and tried to open the door."

She stopped and hugged the lion closer to her. I hadn't seen her so hesitant in a very long time. She looked up at me again and said, "You looked like you were afraid of who was on the other side of the door. After a little while you just kind of collapsed, so I joined you."

Her description seemed to mirror my nightmare, and I felt a faint throbbing in my temples. "Maybe I should have let you sleep in your room. But I didn't think you should be alone. Everything at dinner was so confusing, and then I got this terrible headache. I can barely even remember going to your room, or how I got you back here."

"I think we need to talk," Betsy said. She stood up and offered me a hand, helping me to my feet. She led me over to the bed. She sat crossed legged in the middle of the bed and I lay back against the headboard.

"There are too many secrets in this family," she started without preamble. "A family can't stay happy keeping secrets from each other. The girls and I have our secrets, and you have your secret." She looked down at her stuffed lion and worried the lion's ear in her fingers. With a sigh she set the lion aside and looked me up at me. "I know your secret; we all know your secret."

I wanted to deny that I had a secret, or pretend that she was talking about a different secret. But I knew the truth just by looking in her eyes. I felt her thoughts, as if she were yelling at me to hear her. I felt her sense of betrayal, her self-doubt, and her anger. I was surprised to sense a thread of love weaving through all of the negative emotions. Behind it all, I felt her desire to hear the truth, no matter how terrible it might be.

"I can read minds," I started. Once started, it was like a dam bursting, and I told her all about my powers. I told her that I could control people's minds, not just read minds. I also told her how little control I seemed to have at times, unintentionally reading thoughts and influencing people's actions. "Remember when I left? How I would call and send people to check on you, but never visit in person? I cared for you too much to be around you when I had so little control."

She thought for a moment and said, "But you weren't doing anything to my mind."

"Then why did you stop eating chocolate?"

"Because I was getting fat from eating too much hospital cafeteria food," she replied, utterly convinced it was the truth.

"That is the excuse your brain came up with to explain why you stopped eating chocolate. You really stopped because I don't particularly like chocolate and that preference was getting transferred to you. That's how I knew I was corrupting your mind, that and when you started sharing my nightmares."

"But, I never had nightmares! " she cried, still trying to disbelieve. I looked at her pleading eyes and had to drop my eyes in shame. "You took away my memories of the nightmares?"

"They weren't your nightmares, they were mine. I only did it to try to undo the damage I had caused. I realized that all I was spending all my time causing problems and then trying to undo the problems without causing more problems." I tried to look her in the eye again, but I was still so ashamed of my past. "So I left."

We sat together for a long time, neither of us wanting to break that uncomfortable silence, but wishing that it would end. Finally Betsy said, "It all felt so real! Now all I can think about is what else isn't what I thought?"

"I don't know. That is one of the most horrifying things for me: I don't know what I've done to you, or to the other girls. I can't even be sure if you love me because you really love me, or if my subconscious mind made you love me. Are we always such a happy family because we all naturally get along, or because I want us to get along?"

I felt more than saw Betsy react to what I was saying. It took all my concentration not to pull the thought from her mind. "Is that why you always seem to doubt that we love you? Not because we don't actually love you, but because you don't know why we love you?" I could only nod my head in response. Betsy actually grinned a bit and said, "Nobody ever really knows why they love someone, at least we have the excuse of having a mind controlling boyfriend."

The joke was bitter sweet at best, but I forced myself to smile. "I hope you know I'm trying. Actually, I'm trying not to. But it's so hard! It's like trying not to overhear a conversation that people are having in front of you. And influencing thoughts is even harder to control."

"We know. We know more than you think." She bit off what she was going to say next, and it was clearly very difficult for her to do so. Instead she said, "but just think: You had no idea that Katia was moving in with us. You allowed us to keep her move a secret." She paused for a moment, clasping my hand in both of hers, "You also didn't know that we knew about your mental powers. Maybe you should give yourself a little bit of credit."

"Maybe," I agreed half-heartedly. With that, she stood up and offered me a hand. I took it and let her help me off the floor and lead me to bed. She had me lay down, then went to get the covers mounded by the door and carried them over. Soon we were under the covers faces only a few inches apart.

She stroked my face gently and rubbed her nose against mine. "We still have a lot to talk about, there are still too many secrets, but they can wait. Now go to sleep, my love."

* * *

I woke the next morning with a terribly dry mouth brought on by the excessive dose of pain medication. I wondered briefly whether the conversation I'd had with Betsy had been a hallucination caused by the pills, or if it'd really happened.

I left Betsy asleep in bed and went to brush the cotton from my mouth. I was halfway through gargling when I heard her call from the bedroom, "I forgot to ask you last night: how do I unlock the door?" I nearly swallowed the mouthwash when the full impact of last night's conversation hit me in a rush. While the conversation was fresh in my mind, I couldn't remember exactly why I had locked the door in the first place.

I spat out the mouthwash and headed back into the bedroom. Betsy stood by the door with her stuffed lion, looking a lot like the girl she'd been when I first met her. Suddenly I was overcome with a sense of paternal affection and wrapped her in my arms, lifting her off the ground and crushing her lion between us.

She gave a bit of a squeak as I squeezed her, and when I finally let her back down she gave me the "what was that for?" look. I said, "Because I'm your father that's why," before heading over to the secret button which would unlock the door. I pressed the button and felt the low clang of the bolts being retracted from the door.

From the surprised look on Betsy's face, she hadn't been aware of how tightly locked the door had really been. She tried the handle and the door opened freely, the little button lock popping open. She turned back towards me insinuated her arms under mine and gave me a squeezing hug. With the side of her head pressed against my chest she said, "I hope you can get yourself dressed today?" She didn't wait for a reply, just released her grip and headed down the hallway to her bedroom.

* * *

I didn't really have that many somber suits left, the girls kept replacing them whenever I managed to buy one on my own. But as I descended the steps for breakfast, I thought I was suitably dressed to attend a funeral.

When I entered the dining room, the first thing I noticed was that the girls were also dressed for a funeral. The second thing I noticed was that they were all unusually quiet. I realized that the silence wasn't for the somber occasion, but from an underlying nervousness that the girls shared. They all must have known about the locked door last night, but they couldn't already know what Betsy and I had talked about.

Betsy entered the room looking better than she had in days. She was still a bit pale, but she walked with a confidence that had been missing since her father died. The other girls looked at her with questions in their eyes. They knew the status quo had changed, but they didn't know in what way.

The awkwardness continued through breakfast. Betsy was sitting next to me at the head of the table so the other girls could not question her without me overhearing. Likewise if they were to question me, Betsy was sure to hear.

I rested my hand on Betsy's leg and gave her a gentle squeeze. Since she now knew my secret, I sent her a thought, "Would you like me to leave so you can tell them about last night?"

She turned to me and opened her mouth to talk, before she realized my words were not spoken aloud. I allowed myself to sense just her surface most thoughts and heard her inner dialog, "How do I respond, can he just pick the thought from my head or do I try to speak it to him? If I don't say anything will he just read everything in my mind? Will he find out about—"

I cut her off by replying, "I'm just reading your surface most thoughts, your inner dialog. That's why I cut you off, so you wouldn't reveal something you would rather I didn't know. It is human nature to think about exactly what you don't want to think about, so I'll stop until you let me know you're ready to answer." With that I pulled away from her thoughts, wondering what she didn't want me to know, and trying to take my own advice about not thinking about it.




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 13



It took a few minutes, but eventually Betsy gave my hand a squeeze. "I think I'm ready, it's just so strange, I don't know when you're going to start and when you're going to stop. Are you already reading my mind? I don't want you to leave me, not now. I'll just keep thinking that, that I don't want you to leave me. You left once, and it hurt so much, even though I knew you loved me. But you came back. I'm babbling, just stay at the table, I'll tell them later. Stay at the table, stay at the table."

Her thoughts were flowing so quickly, and bringing in so many associations. I pulled back again, hating myself for listening as long as I did. I thought back to her, "I'll stay at the table, you can stop repeating yourself now, and I'll stop listening." 

I saw Betsy relax slightly as I withdrew from her thoughts, but I let her feel my love for her as I did. She squeezed my hand again and whispered, "I love you too."

It wasn't until breakfast was over that I realized that Katia hadn't joined us. When I asked about her absence I was told that she'd been called away on some sort of emergency at work, but she would try to make the funeral.

* * *

The funeral was a modest affair, to be held at graveside. A slew of black limousines arrived shortly after breakfast and took us all down the mountain. By unspoken agreement, Betsy and I rode alone in the first limo and the rest of the girls followed behind us. She settled in under my arm, resting her head against my shoulder. We didn't talk, and I left her thoughts alone as my own thoughts occupied my mind.

I was so concerned with what might become of Betsy's revelation that I forgot my concerns about the funeral until the limousine pulled into the cemetery. I scanned the people in the cemetery and didn't see any openly hostile minds waiting. I scanned as far as I could before I let Betsy climb out of the limousine.

There was a much larger crowd of people than I was expecting. Most of the hospital staff that worked in Steven's ward was present, as was the hospital's chief administrator and half of the board of trustees. I was pleased to read that they were there because of their deep respect for Betsy, and not just because an entire wing of the hospital was named after the deceased.

The mayor was also in attendance, standing close to the hospital trustees. The district attorney and his wife were also present, as were a few judges, city councilmen, and the like. Sometimes I forgot how well connected, and well respected, Betsy had become over the years. Being philanthropist of the year, tended to bring recognition.

But as I scanned the crowd, aside from myself and Betsy, there didn't seem to be anyone who actually knew Steven. I scanned further and finally found a duo hiding behind a mausoleum. They had been part of the old gambling circuit, rough around the edges but generally decent people. They'd come to pay their respects, but didn't feel proper mixing in with the respectable crowd.

The funeral was sadly generic, since it is hard to eulogize a man who'd been in a coma for more than a decade. As Steven's only friend openly present, I spoke a few words, "Steven was one of the greatest men I've known. He never had a lot in life, but he knew what things were important and held on to them. He once told me that only two things mattered to him: The first was being an honest man. He grew up and lived in a place where honesty was a weakness which brought only misfortune and pain. But even as men cheated him, he still played an honest hand."

What I said next I ensured that most of those gathered didn't hear. They heard me speaking, but phased the words out entirely, making up the usual eulogy words. I spoke for Betsy, but allowed the other girls to hear as well, "He never told me the second thing, not until after he was shot. The only thing Steven held more precious than his honesty was his daughter. In the circles we ran in, his love for her was a potential liability, something his enemies would gladly use against him. But that just made his love fiercer. I know he didn't have many choices left when he left Betsy to my care, but his trusting me to care for her, is one of the most humbling experiences of my life."

I let the others remember the rest, "To say that Steven was a good man and a loving father isn't enough, but there really isn't enough that can be said."

I stepped back over to stand with Betsy, and she looked up at me with thanks in her eyes. Her small hand snuck into the crook of my elbow, and she leaned against me ever so slightly. Not for the support so much as knowing the support was there. I didn't pay much attention to the rest of the service, not that there was much of it. I was too busy scanning the crowd and the cemetery, still worried that someone might be lurking.

I felt a tug at my elbow and realized that Steven was being lowered into the ground. Betsy had both hands on my elbow now, clinging to me. I wanted to put my arm around her, but I would have had to break her grip to manage. Instead I wrapped my free hand over her hands and squeezed gently. I thought of speaking soft words to her mind, but it seemed inappropriate to think words at a time when saying them would be indelicate.

The service concluded, and Betsy threw a bouquet of flowers onto the coffin. The girls each took a turn dropping in a single flower. I was last to walk by and instead of a flower I threw in a deck of cards. The pack was still sealed and the tamper proof markings in place. It was an odd sort of tribute, but it was easy enough to ensure that Betsy and I were the only ones who actually saw what I threw in.

An informal receiving line followed, where each of the guests took a moment to speak a few words to Betsy. I handled the hand shaking, encouraging the guests to be brief through subtle use of my powers. Of course, politicians being politicians, they easily picked up on the situation and sized up quickly what was expected and then parted discretely.

I sensed the two men hiding behind the mausoleum growing anxious. They were becoming unsure whether this was the right funeral, and wanted to sneak close to say a few private words. As the crowd thinned down, I encouraged them to come over. Betsy needed to know that her father had friends.

In fact, they were better friends to Betsy's father than I had been, because he'd trusted them with his secret. I felt more than saw Betsy go rigid in surprise as the two men approached. "Uncle Ron? Uncle Jeremy?" she asked in surprise tinged with happiness.

"Is that little Bets?" Ron asked in return, grinning down at her with a tear in his eye.

"Little Bets!" exclaimed Jeremy. He continued, "She's at least mid-sized Bets now."

I stood apart and let Betsy talk to the men who had known her father and her once upon a time. I wondered vaguely if I hadn't been around would one of these men have taken her in. From the way they talked about her father, and felt their words in their hearts, I knew they would have found some way to help. I could also see that they had very little help to offer.

I felt my heart lighten a bit as I came to understand that despite all my failings through the years, I might just have been a good father to Betsy after all.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed this installment. As always, I appreciate your votes and comments, they have really helped motivate me to write.



The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 14



If you are new to my Reluctant Psychic series, please consider starting from the beginning. The story, characters and events in this chapter will make more sense when given context from the preceding chapters. If you're returning, welcome back and I hope you enjoy the story.

* * *

As the girls slowly filtered through the cemetery and back to the waiting limos, I headed in a different direction. It had been years since I'd last been to the cemetery and I felt obligated to make a few visits while I was here. The cemetery isn't large, but it is old, with a number of rolling hills and shade trees which naturally divide it.

I walked towards one of the older sections where some families had buried over a dozen generations. My family had only buried four. My great-grandfather had helped turned the town into a city and earned the right to be buried here with his wife. His wife was three decades younger than he was, but died a week after his passing. There were rumors she'd committed suicide, others said she died of grief, but I know better.

I next walked to my grandmother's grave. Miss Oklahoma 1942 had been doing USO shows when she met my grandfather. He was a newly minted army lieutenant on a two week furlough between tours on the German front. They were married the next day, and when my grandfather finally came home from the war they made the perfect couple. He was the son of privilege who still answered the call of duty and came home a hero; she was a beauty queen who turned Rosie the Rivoter during the war, and demurely became a housewife when the war was over.

That all ended when she was killed in a store robbery, my dad was thirteen. The grief didn't kill my grandfather, but it broke something inside of him and he started fading into the shadows. My father barely remembers those years, in fact few people who knew my grandfather during that time remember much. But they all remember the trial.

It took a few years, but the police arrested one of the men for an unrelated crime and found the gun that had killed my grandmother. In return for leniency, the man had turned on his three friends. Even with the testimony the charges would only land the men in jail for a dozen years. There was public outrage, and my grandfather's picture ended up on the front page of the local paper a dozen times as the face of the maligned public.

On the last day of the trial, the jury convened for barely half an hour before coming back with a guilty verdict and a recommendation of the maximum sentence. The furor erupted when the judge set aside the verdict, except for the minor included offenses, and set the sentence to time already served. A hundred cameras were popping as my grandfather stood up, pulled out his service knife and attacked.

My father never talked about what happened next, but I've heard, and seen, the story from other people who were there. People were shocked when the first of the men died and there was pandemonium when the second man died. The bailiffs were so scared they couldn't even draw their weapons to try to stop my grandfather. Everyone was gibbering in horror as my grandfather killed the third man. The fourth man, the one who actually shot my grandmother, tried to run. They said he was too frightened to work the doorknob, since he was clawing frantically at the door when my grandfather killed him.

With insanity burning in his eyes my grandfather turned on the judge, stalking across the courtroom. No one could move except for my father. He stood in front of my grandfather and yelled, "Stop!" They stared each other down the middle of the courtroom. No one was quite sure how long the impasse lasted, but they were both drenched in sweat and shaking when one of the bailiffs finally shook off his terror and clubbed my grandfather from behind.

A jury found my grandfather insane, and locked him up in an asylum. Every few months he would escape and my father would drag him back. He showed up at the house a few times when I was young, dressed in a new suit with a nurse on either arm. The nurses would end up in my father's clinic, I would end up with a migraine and my grandfather would return to the asylum.

My grandfather's powers are stronger than my father's powers were, but he lacked the will or possibility the sanity to overcome my father. When my father died, my grandfather stopped breaking out of the asylum, he'd lost the will.

"Thinking about your parents?" I heard a voice ask. I turned to see Melodie standing beside me. "I know it's an obvious sort of question to ask, but I've been standing here for ten minutes and you didn't seem to notice."

"Actually, I was thinking of my grandfather," I said. Wondering how I could have missed her approach. I'd been missing a lot of things recently.

"Is he buried here as well?"

"Actually, he's still alive," I replied.

I felt hurt emanating from her. I also felt how hard she was trying not to let the hurt through when she asked, "Why haven't I heard about him?"

"It isn't a very comfortable topic. He's in the Met." Most of the other girls would have needed an explanation, but Melodie knew that the Met was what the residents of the Metzger Memorial Psychiatric Hospital call it, at least the ones who know where they are. I felt her anger fading, although it didn't disappear entirely.

"So that's who you go visit every couple of months," she said. She thought briefly of the person she believed I had been visiting and felt some relief that it wasn't her. "Why don't you let any of us come with you?" She especially included herself in that group. She knew the stigma of having a relative in the Met, since her mother had been one of my father's patients.

"It's too dangerous." I said before I could think of a lie.

* * *

When I'd had to leave Betsy alone because of my inability to control my powers, I was in a very dark place. I seemed to destroy everyone I touched. I thought of living as a hermit in the middle of the woods, I even thought briefly of suicide.

As I drove out of town, I saw a small sign for the Metzger Memorial Psychiatric Hospital. On instinct I turned in. My father had occasionally referred patients to the Met when they were too dangerous, or suicidal to be left alone. I had even served a semester internship there before I dropped out of college. This time I was thinking of something on the other side of the padded doors.

The long drive winds through the woods so that the hospital is not visible from the road, only a relatively small discrete sign. As I made it through the trees and caught sight of the hospital, I felt a migraine coming on. The pain seemed to increase as I approached the building, and I desperately wanted to turn around and leave.

I left my car in front of the main entrance and walked toward the lobby. I was holding my head in both hands by the time I got to the doors. The electric eye triggered the doors to open, and I heard bedlam pouring out. I walked in to find a scene from a mad house, or at least what most people imagine them to be. Toilet paper was strewn everywhere, along with broken furniture and the occasional item of clothing. There was also a lot of noise, which I followed until I found people.

In the middle of the courtyard there were a hundred madly cavorting people. Occasionally they would grab a handful of detritus and throw it in the air. They were all dancing to the music produced by a man with a pair of ladles banging on a tree, two men playing air guitar and a woman playing air violin. My headache flared and for a moment I could actually hear the music. The music was manic, loud and tragic, but with a beat you could dance too.

I shook my head to clear the music and stared at the crowd of people again. I realized the crowd held doctors and staff as well as the patients. Toward the middle of the group, I saw a circle of naked women, doing a much slower dance. Some of the women I recognized as nurses from the days of my internship, but their minds were nearly vacant. The other women were patients and seemed to be enjoying the party more than the nurses, although the moaning issued from all the women.

I used my powers to clear a path in front of me, and walked towards the circle. It was much more difficult to get the people to move themselves than it should have been. Their thoughts were along the lines of, "I can dance wherever I want!" Eventually I resorted to encouraging them to dance over there, rather than telling them not to dance over here.

The circle of naked women parted as I approached, and seated on a marble bench, dressed in purple curtains, was my grandfather. It had been nearly ten years since I'd last seen him and he looked much the same as I remembered, except for the robes.

When he saw me there was no recognition in his eyes, or his mind. He waved a hand at me and said, "Dance!" I felt a strange compulsion to do just that, my leg began twitching to the ladles' beat. My grandfather stared at me and said, "If you won't dance, then leave!" This time I felt the compulsion coming, radiating from my grandfather.

I pushed back. He tilted his head to the side, as if listening to a distant sound. As his head leveled his eyes bored into me. "They told me you were dead!" I felt another wave pushing against me, this time it was just minding numbing power. I pushed back, my head pounding with the heavy thudding of my heart. I pushed harder and area around me grew silent. The nurses and some of the patients collapsed to the ground sobbing. The other patients began yelling.

I struggled to contain my grandfather's will and use my powers against him. But unlike my father, or my grandfather, I had a second power, inherited from my mother. I could read minds as well as influence them. I used my mother's gift and searched my grandfather's mind for something to use for leverage against him.

Deep inside his memories, I found the image of my grandmother. She was a near perfect beauty and everything a man could want. In fact, she was everything my grandfather had ever wanted, in large part because he had made her that way. The irony was that he fell in love with all the foibles and quirks she'd had before he'd slowly remade her.

I triggered those memories, and dragged them to the front of his mind. I showed him how he'd tainted the thing he'd loved most in the world, even before she was taken from him. His attack wavered, and I thrust the image into his mind's eye again. He fell to the ground crying.

I pushed with brute force to collapse his power, but there was no fight left in him. I spent the time to reach into his mind and find the source of his power. I couldn't turn it off, but I could reroute his thoughts so he couldn't access them.

"I didn't mean to do it, Son," he said. He rambled and sobbed, calling me by my father's name. When he started to claw at his chest, I reached into his mind once more and put him to sleep. I looked around at the circle of naked women, and the writhing mass of people outside the circle, and put them all to sleep.

It took me two days to return sanity to the hospital staff. My father had never been able to return their minds to normal, since he couldn't see what was actually broken or what the changes he made actually did. I remembered all the nurses that my father had to check into facilities like this one because my grandfather's insanity had infected their minds.

As I finished returning some sanity to the asylum, I prayed that I wouldn't become my grandfather, treating the minds of the people around me as negligently as a three year old treats his toys. But I knew I had already taken the first step down that road, and who could stop me?

* * *

"I had no idea," Melodie said. She had tears in her eyes and rushed forward to hug me.

"I didn't realize I'd spoken out loud," I said aloud, although I meant it to be internal dialog. My fingers gently stroked Melodie's strawberry blonde hair, as I gently probed to find out exactly what she had heard or thought she'd heard.

"You didn't. Sometimes, when you're stressed, we can—" she broke off and hugged me tighter. She pulled back enough to look at me with her pale blue eyes. The hesitancy was clear, but so was her determination. "I know Betsy already told you, but we've been keeping the secret for so long."

"So Betsy told you what we talked about last night?"

"Actually," she started with some hesitancy, but continued, "you did. Sometimes you talk in your sleep, or when you're really stressed. Some of us can hear you more clearly than others. Sometimes your father did the same thing." She blushed suddenly and said, "Not in his sleep, but at the hospital. I remember once I was visiting my mother and heard his voice echoing down the hallways. Everyone thought he just had a loud voice, so did I. At least until I found out about your—" She broke off, unsure what to call my abilities. In her mind she was picturing one of the old school mesmerists with the top hat and undulating hands.

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

She led me over to a bench under one of the shade trees and sat me down. She held my hands in her lap and began, "How could we tell you? At first I thought I was crazy, that I would end up just like my mother. The other girls felt the same, although most of them didn't have a family history of such things."

She stopped, and I could see a revelation blossom in her mind, "But, now I know how my mother lost her sanity and why your father took a special interest in her case."

I felt an icy dagger of shame shoot through me as I realized what Melodie was telling me. Her mother was one of my grandfather's early victims, and one of my father's special patients. "You're doing it again," she said in exasperation. She squeezed my hands and said, "I don't blame you, not for that. I'm just glad that I finally know, and that I don't have to worry about inheriting her schizophrenia."

"You don't blame me, but you do fear me," I said. I didn't need to read her thoughts to sense the omission.

"How could I not fear you? You're the most terrifying person in the world. Most people can only hurt, or kill, but you can reach into my mind and change me, make me into something I hate, or would hate if you hadn't changed me. The most terrifying part is that I wouldn't even know what had happened to me, what has already happened to me."

I didn't know what to say. I couldn't even answer her implied question, because I didn't know what I might have done to her. I looked into her eyes and realized she was following along as I was thinking and I abruptly pulled back. She blinked in shock, but then reached a loving hand up and cupped my cheek. "We know you try and that you don't want to hurt us."

How could I not have known? Why didn't Anna warn me I was broadcasting my thoughts? Did she even know or was she as ignorant as I was? I realized I was treating Anna's voice in my head as real again, even though I knew she was a figment of my imagination. Well, I was pretty sure she was a delusion.

"So, any more earth shattering secrets you want to reveal?" I asked. It was a spiteful question, and I immediately regretted the venom I'd laced it with.

"I think you've have enough shocks for one day." She leaned forward and gave me a kiss on the cheek before standing up. She brushed at her dress for a moment, and waited for me to stand as well. She wrapped her hand around my elbow and led me back to the last waiting limousine. The other girls had already departed, letting Melodie take care of seeing me home.

* * *

"Can we stop and get ice cream?" Melodie asked as the limo pulled out of the cemetery.

I didn't ponder the seeming incongruity of the request, but leaned forward and asked the driver if he knew where to find an ice cream stand. It wasn't long before the limousine was parked outside of the local Dream Queen.

I felt more than a little out of place wearing a suit and tie when the rest of the customers were wearing shorts and sneakers. Melodie didn't feel out of place as she leaned against the counter to order, "I'll have the chocolate soft-serve with the chocolate dip, large. And he'll have the plain old vanilla, small."

"Actually, I'll have the large, with the colored sprinkles." I don't really know what possessed me to order sprinkles. But when I saw Melodie grinning at me, I knew she'd tricked me into being a bit more daring. And she didn't even need psychic powers to do it.

I paid for the ice cream while Melodie took hers outside. I would have opted for someplace a little less conspicuous, which was probably why she didn't wait for me. She was already sitting and the concrete table, under an umbrella when I got outside. Actually, she was a good way through her ice cream by the time I sat down to join her.

"See, isn't this nice?" she asked. She was smiling, with chocolate beginning to drip down her chin. If her legs weren't so long, I knew she'd be swinging them like a little kid. I looked around, and did feel a sort of peace. There were kids running around, but not being loud enough to be a nuisance. There was traffic on the street and the wind would occasionally cause the umbrellas to shake, so it wasn't quiet. But between the ice cream, the blue skies, the sunshine and the company, it was quite calming.

We didn't talk as we ate our ice cream, although Melodie laughed when I wiped the chocolate from her chin. I realized she'd left the chocolate on her chin to entice just such a reaction from me. By the time I wiped the sticky residue from my fingers, I was feeling much better. I even loosened my tie and took off my jacket.

After we climbed back in the limo, I gave Melodie a hug, and said thanks.

"But you're the one who bought the ice cream," she said with a grin.

"But you're the one who convinced me to get the ice cream, and tricked me into ordering sprinkles."

"Zounds! You found me out. My nefarious plot is all for naught." She started laughing at that, her cheeks becoming slightly rosy.

"You know what I meant. Thanks."

She was still smiling, but her grin grew a bit wistful. "You just can't stay happy, can you?" She leaned forward as if to touch her forehead against mine. But then she reached out suddenly and twisted one of my nipples.

"Ow, hey!" A whole stream of such nonsense escaped my lips as her fingers continued their assault, pinching, tickling, seemingly everywhere at once. Eventually I managed to grab her wrists and hold them away from me, but she still reached out to bite at me playfully.

"This isn't like you!" I said, as I wrapped her in my arms with her back to me. She started rubbing her bottom against me, and kept trying to get her head far enough around to nip at me.

"But it is like me. You've just forgotten. I'd forgotten." She said the last with a sense of loss, and pain, but underneath I felt a determination. She turned around and bit me on the shoulder. It was playful, but still painful. I pulled her a little tighter, so she couldn't bite me again.

"What's gotten into you," I said.

She squirmed a bit more against me, and said, "From the feel of things, you want to." With that she ground her bottom against my crotch making me painfully aware of how aroused I was. "Is that a banana in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"

I was about to ask what the driver would think, when I realized the partition between his seat and ours was closed. She was right though, I did want her, even if she was still trying to bite me. I pinned both her arms with one of mine, and worked the other down the front of her dress.

I pulled her dress up, exposing her panties to my fingers. I quickly slid my fingers under the sheer fabric. She bucked against me, struggling against what she really wanted. My fingers worked through her red-blonde pubic hair that was already soaked with arousal. The heat was intoxicating and I moved slowly, pressing my palm against her to hold her in place.




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 14



I had to resort to wrapping my legs over hers to hold her open to my questing fingers. It wasn't comfortable, but it allowed me to slip a finger inside of her. As my finger slid over her clit and wrapped around and inside of her she quit trying to bite and started moaning. She pushed her hips back against my arousal causing my finger to slide partway out. I felt her body shudder at the friction that motion put on her clitoris.

She was rocking her hips in earnest now, her motions so strong I had a hard time keeping a hold of her. I tried to reach more deeply inside of her dripping sex but her motions were to frenetic. I was also losing control of her arms as she continued to struggle.

I rolled us over, pinning her beneath me on the floor of the limousine. Her arms came free as I maneuvered us, but she was facedown and had great difficulty reaching me. Eventually I was able to pin her wrists together at the small of her back. I used my knees to hold her thighs apart, and with my free hand I reached for her sex.

She continued to writhe on the floor below me, but it was easy for me to work two fingers inside of her. With the tips of my fingers I pressed down against the front of her vagina, seeking and then finding her G-spot. As my fingers rubbed the tiny lump of tissue she let out an animalistic moan. It didn't take long before I felt her body quiver beneath me, and I saw a flush of orgasm form on her throat.

By this point my penis was straining in my pants, yearning for release. I pulled my fingers from inside of her, earning a whimper of loss. I wasted little time undoing my belt, undoing my pants and pulling my erection from my underwear. She started fighting me in earnest again when she felt my cock slap against her bottom.

I pressed my weight down on her bringing my lips close to her ear. She was still struggling as I grasped her ear in my teeth. I bit down a bit to get her attention and then said, "If you keep squirming, it might go in the wrong way." I felt a wave of curious desire from her, but her more pressing need was to feel my cock her overheated sex.

She stopped rocking her hips, but she still tried to turn her head to nip at me, letting me know the game wasn't over yet. Her sex was so wet that the head of my cock slid across the opening twice before finding the soft spot to sink into. She started making a clever remark when my cock slid home, changing her words to moans.

The sensitive underside of my cock was soon pushing hard against her G-spot. I forced myself against it with short strong strokes. At some point I had released her arms, and she clutched at me awkwardly as I pushed her into the limo's floor. I felt her body shudder again as my ministrations forced another orgasm from her body.

I kept pumping into her, taking longer strokes allowing her some respite. She had much less fight in her as I continued pushing my cock into her from behind. She still wanted the game, but I felt her desire to face me as I fucked her. She wanted to see my face as I came inside of her.

I pressed my lips close to her ear, feeling her sweaty hair against my cheek. "Are you going to behave if I flip you over?" I asked. She tried to snap at me again. I rubbed my cock hard against her G-spot eliciting a moan from her. I asked again, and again she snapped at me. I gave her spot a long series of strokes and then pulled my cock almost completely out of her. She moaned and thrashed, but couldn't get my cock back inside of her.

When I asked a third time, she whined softly and nodded her head. I lifted my weight from her and came to my knees, pulling her with me. I plunged deep inside of her as I pulled her hips tight against mine. It took some maneuvering, but eventually we managed to get her turned around, without my cock completely pulling out of her soaking sex.

I laid her back down on the floor, and her legs quickly wrapped around my body. I worked my arms under her back and pulled down on her shoulders as I thrust into her. She moaned and rolled her hips against me as I thrust, over and over. Her lips sought my ear and sucked frantically on my ear lobe. Her fingers clutched against my back as I continued relentlessly. Her mouth fell open and her fingernails dug into my back as another orgasm wracked her body. A part of me wanted to slow down, to give her a chance to recover, but the need in me was too great.

I thrust into her remorselessly, even as her back arched in ecstasy. I had to pin her hands above her head as her fingernails grew too painful on my back. She tried biting at me again and I resorted to holding her head to the floor with mine. Our eyes were an inch apart with our foreheads pressed together. I saw the animal need in her eyes and knew she saw it in mine.

My orgasm came so quickly, I was surprised. All the muscles in my back clenched as I thrust deep inside of her. Her hips rotated to meet my thrust, giving me access to the deepest part of her. As my seed burst forth inside of her, I was trapped in her eyes. As my body shuddered and tried to pull my eyes shut, I was trapped in her gaze. I felt her sex spasm around me and her breathe come in staccato bursts.

I tried to collapse on her as my orgasm stole the strength from my body. But her legs and hips pulled me deep inside of her again, causing a second wave of spasms to wrack my body. She did it again, and the third spasm left me panting and shaking in an excess of pleasure.

I collapsed on top of her, panting. She wrapped her arms and legs around me, squeezing me in a full body hug. She even wrapped her lips around my ear lobe for good measure. She left her arms and legs around me, but stopped squeezing, just holding me to her. She sucked gentle on my earlobe, a distant pleasure to my exhausted mind.

I was almost asleep when I felt her sink her canine into my earlobe. It wasn't quite painful, but as she moved her head side to side and puppy growled at me, I knew she was tired of me lying on top of her. She knew she had my attention and let go of my ear, whispering, "I think the limo driver wants to go home."

I panicked briefly as I realized the limo wasn't moving. I looked up and saw that the privacy partition was down. But instead of a random limo driver, Gwen, Tiffani and Susan were kneeling on the seat watching us. Gwen had happy tears on her face. Tiffani and Susan were flushed and had a hungry look in their eyes. Susan took off her chauffeur cap and threw it in the back. She climbed out of the limo, pulling Tiffani with her. Gwen blushed, the reached for the switch that closed the partition again, waving goodbye.

Melodie started laughing, and she gave me another squeeze. I looked at her, wondering if she had set the whole thing up. "I didn't know they were going to watch, but I was hoping for a little alone time with you on the trip back. So Susan switched places with the driver while we were at the Dream Queen."

I thought about it and it all made perfect sense. Melodie cleared her throat and said, "As much as I love having you lie on top of me, with your big juicy cock leaking love juice into me, the limo floor isn't exactly comfortable."

"Well, then you should pick a more comfortable place to seduce me," I replied. I sank back down on top of her and began snoring loudly. She spanked my bottom to let me know she wasn't amused then laughed to say she was. I gave her one last kiss before we disentangled ourselves, adjusted our clothes and went inside.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed this installment. As always, I appreciate your votes and comments, they have really helped motivate me to write. I especially enjoy hearing your thoughts on how the story is going and where it's headed.



The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 15



If you are new to my Reluctant Psychic series, please consider starting from the beginning. This chapter continues the plot and the characters and events will make more sense when given context from the preceding chapters.

If you're returning, welcome back and I hope you enjoy the story.

* * *

When Melodie and I entered the house, I heard the regular buzz of activity filling my home. I reflected briefly on the miserable day when I came home to silence and realized how lucky I was. Melodie stood up on her toes to give me a kiss on the cheek and then departed for the girl's part of the house.

I headed up to my room, pulling off my tie as I went. My jacket joined my tie in a bundle under my arm, by the time I got to my room. I kicked off my shoes in the direction of the closet and peeled off the rest of my clothes. There was a noticeable aroma of sex emanating from the garments, as well as the pungency of my own sweat. I left the garments in a pile near the bathroom door and headed through to the shower.

As I washed the smell of sex and exertion from my body I smiled. Even though she had tricked me into it, being the aggressor during sex was a nice change. I usually let the girls pace the sex, because I was so concerned with using my powers to take what I want, and violating their minds as a result.

My mind was still replaying the encounter as I exited the bathroom, drying my hair with the towel. I glanced down and saw that one of my ever efficient girls had already cleaned up my pile of clothes. I draped the towel over my shoulders and looked towards the bed, wondering what clothes had been laid out for me. Instead, I saw Magda sitting there regarding me.

I quickly realized, she was regarding my cock more than me. My cock seemed to realize her regard before the rest of me, and swelled with pride at being the object of her attention.

"Is that for me?" she asked. It took a moment for me to realize that I wasn't hearing Magda's strong Czech accent, but her sister's much fainter accent. "Or is it for my sister?"

I blushed furiously, for getting caught parading around naked. It was worse because the girl was still very much a stranger to me, and I wasn't just naked, but naked and quite erect. I hastily moved the towel from my shoulders to around my waist. I faint snicker told me that the towel did little to hide my erection. "I'm kind of naked here."

"I'm a doctor; I've seen people naked before."

"Yes, but I'm not one of your patients," I said. She just smiled at me, obviously enjoying my distress. "I'm not even the right sex to be one of your patients!"

"Believe me, I noticed," she said with a wink and a bit of a giggle.

"Oh, ha ha ha. It's easy for you to laugh sitting there, while I'm over here naked and embarrassed."

"You have nothing to me embarrassed about," she said with another wink. Her grin widened, and she added, "Would you be less embarrassed if I were naked too?" Before she even finished what she was saying, she had her shirt off. Her breasts were held lovingly by a lace bra. A lace bra that she was reaching back to undo.

"No!" I said, holding up my hands to tell her to stop.

"Are you sure? You seem to be of two minds on the issue," she said looking between my panicked face and my still erect cock. My cock was once again exposed since my hands were too busy imploring her to stop to continue holding up my towel. I sighed, picked up my towel and once again wrapped it around my waist, this time tying a knot with the corners to encourage it to stay.

"I'm sorry," she said. She was still giggling a bit, but I could tell a hint of regret was seeping in. "I was lead to believe that you'd at least be wearing a robe." She seemed to think for a moment then added, "although Melodie was grinning when she said it."

She stopped again, and the regret appeared a bit stronger. "I really couldn't help it. It's been so long since I flirted with a guy, and you did look so sexy and vulnerable coming out of the bathroom." Here eyes were cast down towards the floor by the time she finished.

"I'll just take it as a sign that you're beginning to fit in around here," I said. I thought that my lighthearted comment would make her feel better. Instead it made her start crying. I crossed quickly to the bed and sat down next to her and put my arms around her. It was only when I felt a tear drop onto my bare chest that I realized how naked I was, and that she still didn't have a shirt on.

"I'm sorry. First, I'm making fun of you, and now I'm crying on you. You must think terribly of me." She didn't pull away though, instead wrapping her arms lightly around my waist.

"After living around women so long—" I wanted to say that nothing surprised me anymore, but the truth was, I was constantly being surprised, and confounded, and bemused. "Let's just say I've learned to take what comes." I stopped to consider my next words, but remembered that that strategy had never paid off in the past, "What did I say that made you so upset?"

She held me a moment longer and I felt her hands feeling my back as if reluctant to let go. Finally, she did let go and we moved apart enough that our arms were no longer around each other, although our knees still touched.

"I just don't think I belong here. Everything is so strange, and—" She cut herself off. There was something else to say but she couldn't bring herself to speak it out loud.

"What's so strange?" I asked. She looked at me and rolled her eyes before turning them away from me. "I realize there are strange things, but what part of it seems so bad? Surely your sister told you about things here?"

"She told me, but I didn't always believe her. I was shocked when she told me she was living in a harem." She looked at me quickly, and just a bit guiltily before adding, "she didn't actually say a harem, but living with a bunch of other girls and one shared boyfriend sounds an awful lot like a harem."

"Yeah, but I don't think a Sultan has such a hard time getting his harem girls to do what he wants."

"So they don't give you the things that you want?"

"It's not that. It's just that they're always doing things to get a rise out of me." She quirked an eyebrow when I said that just like her sister did when I said something that I found amusing but wasn't. I noticed, however, that Katia used the left eyebrow and Magda used her right. "I meant to frustrate me, to prove that I'm not in charge."

"Why should you be in charge, just because you're the man in the house?"

I almost said it was because I'm the one with the mind control powers. I could also have said it was because it was my house and my money, but I didn't even know if that was the truth. The girls had been handling my life for so long, I didn't even know how much money I actually had, or even if I actually owned the house. Instead I said, "They don't even let me pick out my own clothes."

She started to laugh at that, covering her mouth and ending with a bit of a snort. I suppose sitting here without any clothes on was rather ironic. "Does it matter?"

"That's not the point! I'd like to make my own choices."

"Then why don't you?" She saw that I was going to object again and gave me a stern look before continuing, "Do you really think I'll believe that they force you to wear the clothes they set out for you? You've had a choice all along, but you don't really care what you wear. But they do care, they like it when you look nice."

I almost asked if I was the girls' Ken doll, but thought better of it. First of all it sounded petulant, and second of all it would have opened me up for another I-just-saw-your-penis joke. So, instead I thought about all the frustrations I'd been feeling and wondered if any of them actually mattered. I really didn't care how I dressed, as long as I was comfortable. I didn't care about a lot of the things the girls handled without consulting me. But even though the logic made sense, I still felt that I should have been asked.

I could make them do anything I wanted, but I loved all of them too much. So, whenever they did these small rebellious things, I wouldn't stop them, I wouldn't even ask them not to, because it was too easy to make them instead.

But I was concerned about the secrets. The biggest of them, at least I hoped it was the biggest of them, was sitting right next to me. "Do you know why they didn't tell me you were coming?"

"Actually, I was hoping that you knew. Its part of the reason I came here to talk to you."

"So they're keeping secrets from their doctor too? Not just their boyfriend."

"They don't keep medical secrets from me, but they might have failed to mention that they didn't tell their boyfriend that they invited another woman to move in." She sighed then added, "If that were the only strange thing, I'd be happy."

"You're not happy?"

"Aren't you worried about what I think is strange?" she asked.

I considered what she'd said, and realized I had ignored the strange part. I guess I'm just used to strange things, or maybe I just cared if she were happy. "Maybe, I just want to make sure you're happy."

"Well, maybe, if you could explain some of the strangeness, and convince me that I'm just being paranoid, I can be happy."

"I'll do what I can, but until about five minutes ago, I didn't even understand why the girls bullied me into wearing what they wanted, and why I let myself be bullied."

She places a hand on my cheek, stroking it lightly and said, "You really are as sweet and naïve as my sister said."

"I'm not naïve," I said, with a little more forcefulness than I intended. I'd seen and done things that would make Katia run from the room screaming.

"You are naïve about women. And that might be the strangest part of all. You live around all these women who love you dearly, and you seem to love them in equal measure, and yet you don't understand them."

"Then there is the fact that there is no jealousy here. In fact, the way the girls talk, they seem to enjoy sharing you. And they never fight! They don't even make catty comments, especially not behind someone's back."

"They just love each other," I said. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world. If you loved someone you didn't fight with them.

"I love my sister, ever since we were little girls we were best friends. But we would still get bitchy towards each other. Do you know that since she's lived with you, she hasn't been having PMS, at least not the bitchiness she used to experience? That none of the women in this house seem to have that problem?"

"The girls told me that's because they're all on the pill. It keeps their hormones more regular, so they don't have that problem."

Katia seemed quite surprised, I could tell by the way her mouth hung open. "They told you that?" she finally managed to ask.

"Yes," I said. "When we first all moved in together, it wasn't always easy. But within a month or two, everything started working out. Actually, I would give Betsy as much credit as anything else. Things really calmed down when—" I stopped. I didn't quite know how to say when I started having sex with Betsy. I could have gone with the euphemism that she joined the family, but she'd been at the heart of the family for a long time before that. And it wasn't after she moved in, since she'd had a room in the house from the beginning, even if she used to prefer her old house.

"You really love her, don't you?" She asked. It sounded like a loaded question, and it many ways I suppose it was.

"Of course, she's like a daughter to me. Legally, she is my daughter. But I also love her as a woman, although I assume you already know that, being her doctor." From her look, I knew that I still faced the other barrel of that question. So I added, "But I love all of my girls. If my love for Betsy has a slightly different flavor because I loved her as a daughter first, it doesn't mean I could choose her over any of the others."

"So where does that leave me?" she asked. I'd missed it. That was her real reason for coming here, she felt like an outsider.

"That's a good question. The girls all seem to like you, and not just because they love your sister."

Katia let out a brief bitter laugh, "That's another strange thing. When did my sister become a lesbian? She never liked girls before she met you. Neither of us did, we even used to joke about how gross it was."

"Well, you don't have to be bisexual to live here. I'm certainly not," I said, giving her a wink.

"That's the thing! I never thought about having sex with a girl until my first night here. When you came to dinner with Gwendolyn my first night -- I've never been so sexually drawn to someone in my life; she absolutely exuded sex. Those feelings were entirely foreign to me, and I was so confused. At least, I was confused until my sister snuck off to have sex with you. Then I just thought about having sex with you, and I felt straight again."

"Well, actually, I didn't sneak off to have sex. I had quite a headache. She just came to see if I was feeling any better."

She didn't seem to hear what I said, continuing her previous thought, "But I could almost feel what it was like! I've always heard those stories about twins reading each others minds, but I never felt anything like that before. It was over a week before I learned my sister lost her virginity, and I was at the party when it happened."

I grew a bit uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was going. Katia had obviously felt something through my powers. It was one thing for the girls I'd been living with for years to know about my powers, but for a stranger to know, that was something else entirely. "But everyone thinks Gwen is sexy. That's not so strange."

"It's strange to me," she said. I heard a hint of desperation in her voice. She really didn't know what was going on, and it frightened her. I couldn't explain why she'd found Gwen sexy, aside from what I'd already said about everyone finding Gwen sexy. As for her sister enjoying female company now, I was pretty sure that my powers were to blame, although I don't remember doing it.

Rather than say anything, I put my arms around her and gave her a hug. She was quick to return the hug, resting her cheek on my bare chest. I felt her bare back, and again I realized how much of our exposed flesh was pressed together. But the intimacy we were sharing through the hug, felt better than having sex would have. Although the way my towel was starting to tent, as Katia said earlier, I was of two minds on the subject.

She started laughing. Eventually she said, "This time I know it's for me." She tilted her head up parting her lips slightly, looking up at me with her beautiful gray eyes. I could see a need there, but I felt it was the wrong kind of need. Her eyes burned with the need to fit in, rather than the need of simple lust. I felt a strong pull to kiss her, to take her, but I resisted.

"Not this time," I said. "No, that's a lie. It is because of you, but not now. I want you, but not now when you're vulnerable. If we do this, you'll always wonder if you fit in because we had sex, or because you really belonged."

A part of her didn't like that answer, especially the part that caused her nipples to strain against the lace of her bra. But another part recognized the truth of what I'd said. Apparently lust won out, because she pulled my head down to a kiss. It was a soft, smoldering kiss that caused my cock to strain in earnest and my resolve to begin to melt. The kiss seemed to last forever, but it was just a few moments before she pulled slowly away.

"I wish you weren't so right," she said softly, as my lips still sought hers. I opened my eyes to see her regarding me intently. "I can see why my sister loves you so much. One day, perhaps I will to, and we can finish this conversation."

"I'd like that. In the meantime, we can have other conversations; just don't expect me to behave if you catch me coming out of the shower again."

"I'd like that," she laughed, gave me a give kiss on the cheek and stood up. She picked up her blouse from the bed and started putting it on. She looked around the bedroom and added, "I think you get to pick your own clothes today, choose well."

* * *

As I contemplated the clothes in my closet, I realized I had nothing to do for the rest of the day. As I reached for a pair of old comfortable shorts, I thought about what Katia had said. Perhaps I did owe it to the girls to look nice for them; they certainly took care to look nice for me.

Inspiration took me as I pulled down a pair of unbleached cotton pants. They always made me think of the Caribbean islands, perhaps because that's where I'd gotten them. I added a powder blue shirt, a brown braided belt, and a pair of boat shoes. I regarded myself in the mirror and decided that I looked pretty good. I took some extra time to make sure my hair was neatly combed, that I hadn't missed any spots shaving, and even added a few dabs of cologne.

As I headed downstairs, a plan began forming in my mind. The first thought that sprang to mind was that we should have a luau. But I realized that would be a lot of work to setup and didn't seem that appropriate for the afternoon after a funeral. I was convinced that we should do something outside, and quickly settled on having a picnic.

I headed to the kitchen and started thinking of what I needed to do to get a picnic ready. Walking through the living room, I saw Susan sitting on the couch flipping lazily through the channels. "Are you busy?" I asked.

"What did you have in mind?" she asked in reply. She gave me a lecherous look, shutting off the TV as she walked over. I remembered the way she'd been looking at Melodie and me in the limo and was sorely tempted to accept the implied offer.

Instead I said, "Maybe in a little bit, but I have other plans." Susan cocked her head, clearly pondering what I might have in mind. Finally she shrugged, and followed me toward the kitchen.

"Can I come too?" I heard as I began pushing through the kitchen door. Marie was just walking into the living room from the hallway and headed toward us. Since it wasn't exactly a secret, and there was likely more work than Susan and I could do alone, I nodded to Marie and indicated that she should follow.

"You know you're going to the kitchen, right?" said Susan.

I gave her a swat on her round bottom, and said, "I've been to the kitchen before." I pushed open the door and stood once again in the kitchen. "I believe this makes it twice." Both girls laughed and moved to stand on either side of me as I stared at the kitchen.

The kitchen was huge. But despite the fact that it could serve over two hundred people, it felt like a family kitchen. There were large expanses of granite countertops surrounding the room, pierced periodically by large sinks. There was not one, but four center islands, one contained an eight burner stove, another held a giant sink, the third might have been a butcher block, and the fourth seemed to be the kitchen table.

I assumed it was the kitchen table because it was surrounded by stools. On one of the stools perched Tiffani. She was eating a carrot from the bag in front of her, and seemed to be reading a magazine. She looked up as we came in, and I could see the surprise on her face. She started signing, and I didn't need to read her mind, or know sign language to understand the question, "What are you doing here?" Marie and Susan added their non-voiced question to Tiffani's.

"Well, it's such a nice day outside, I thought we could all do something fun outside." I could feel Marie flinch a little at the thought of something fun. She was very close to Betsy, and didn't look like she approved of anything too fun following Betsy's father's funeral. "Well, maybe not fun, but something relaxing that we can do as a family."




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 15



They all looked at me curiously then suddenly Tiffani smiled and looked to rub her hands. I didn't realize she made the sign for picnic until both of the other girls exclaimed, "Picnic!" together and hugged me from either side.

"It sounds like you like my plan," I said. I glanced around the kitchen, trying to figure out where to begin. "Um, where's the refrigerator?"

Marie showed me the door to the pantry, a second door that lead to room full of refrigerators and a third door that led to the walk-in freezer. We started with the fourth door, which led to a storage room. There was a trap door in the floor which she said led to the wine cellar. But for the moment I was interested in the picnic baskets that were off in one corner.

I pulled down two baskets and started back to the kitchen. When I saw Marie grab two more baskets, I almost stopped her. I realized how much food and supplies we would need to carry outside, and went back to get two rolling coolers. I returned with the coolers, as Susan entered the kitchen carrying a large beach bag full of blankets. She put the bag on the floor and I placed the coolers on the floor next to them.

Tiffani made four lists, and put one in front of each picnic basket. She regarded the fourth picnic basket, tilted her head for a moment and then carried it back to the storage room. She came back with a rolling cooler and but it on the table instead.

As we worked to gather everything for the picnic, my powers started returning. I didn't notice at first, but I realized that I didn't need to puzzle out Tiffani's sign language any longer. She eventually caught on that I was reading her mind instead of her hands, and smiled at me. If I were in her place, I wouldn't have been so eager to have someone read my thoughts, but it was the only easy way for her to communicate with me, since I had yet to learn sign language.

With the return of my powers, I also realized how useless my attempts at helping prepare the picnic were being. I didn't know where anything was, and ended up getting in the way more often than not. The girls found it amusing, and were quite patient with me. Eventually, I just stood off in a corner, trying to stay out of the way.

Occasionally, some of the other girls would start making their way to the kitchen for a snack. Since I wanted the picnic to be a surprise, I reached out with my powers and encouraged them not to come to the kitchen. I hoped there was food stashed elsewhere, because some of the girls seemed particularly hungry.

Claire was the most persistent in trying to get to the kitchen, since she knew lunchtime was approaching and she's the queen of the kitchen. I didn't want to push too hard with my powers, so I wouldn't cause any unintentional side-effects. Eventually, I resorted to just telling her that I had a surprise for lunch and she didn't need to worry.

Tiffany was on her second bag of carrots by the time we, actually the girls, were finished. Since I had done the least work, I thought it fitting that I do the most carrying. I put the beach bag over my shoulder and grabbed two of the baskets. Susan and Marie carried the remaining basket between them and wheeling a cooler each. That left Tiffany with her bag of carrots and the last cooler.

As we trooped out of the kitchen and towards the back yard, I sent my thoughts out to the girls, letting them know that lunch was going to be outside. I didn't include Katia in the broadcast, but made sure the girls let her know. We encountered a few of the girls on the way outside, and a few more were already in the field playing Frisbee. They helped us carry, and when we got to the field we quickly setup the picnic.

The rest of the girls arrived in a wave. They were chatting excitedly and quickly tucked into the food. I was astonished at how quickly the baskets and coolers emptied of food. But after the initial ravenous wave, nearly a third of the food was still left. This was eaten at a more sedate pace as we all sat together in the sun.

* * *

I was lying with my head cradled in Tiffany's lap, her fingers gently combing my hair. Marie and Susan lay on either side of me, using my belly as their pillow. The girls seemed quite happy with the picnic, they even seemed happy with my choice of clothing. I could feel the joy and laughter radiating all around me.

I was just about to drift off to sleep when I heard the laughter fading. I could feel the joy draining from the group. It wasn't fear that I was sensing, but a certain trepidation that slowly changed to acceptance and resolve. Tiffany's hand stopped combing my hair, and Susan and Marie sat up.

I sat up as well, and saw the girls were gathering in front of me. The girls sat in an arc around me and Tiffany moved around to join the others. She sat in the front row, and I realized there was a bit of space between the girls in the front row and then rest of the girls who were sitting in a group rather than a neat row.

The only one left standing was Katia, who was off to one side. She seemed the most anxious, and I got the impression she was the cause of whatever was about to happen. I looked over the girls and sensed something, and realized Katia wasn't the cause, she was the catalyst. Whatever the girls wanted to say would have been said eventually, but Katia got them to do it sooner.

Gwen, Betsy, Claire, Tiffany, Bambi, Melodie, Stefani and Magda sat in the front row. They conferred with their eyes to see who would actually do the speaking. I wasn't surprised to see the consensus shift to Betsy. But Betsy turned to Gwen, put her hand on her knee, smiled and gave her the nod.

Gwen glanced at the other girls, turned to me with pride and said, "Daddy, I'm going to be a mommy! I'm pregnant."

Betsy said, "You'll have another grand-child, I'm pregnant."

Claire, Tiffany, Bambi, Melodie, Stefani and finally Magda also said, "I'm pregnant."

They were all beaming with happiness, but each pronouncement left me feeling number and number. By the time Magda finished, I could barely hear, let alone see their angelic faces. One of them said that they wanted to keep it secret a little longer, but Katia convinced them they should tell me now. I felt love pouring out of them more strongly than I ever had before. They were also proud, and relieved that they weren't keeping it a secret any longer.

I felt horror. The girls' loving words were slowly being drowned out by the word "no." Over and over I heard the word in my mind, growing louder and louder. First it drowned out the girls' words, then it drowned out my own thoughts, the voice's terror mirrored my own.

I passed out hearing Anna screaming the word "NO!"

*

I hope you enjoyed this installment. As always, I appreciate your votes and comments, they have really helped motivate me to write. I especially enjoy hearing your thoughts on how the story is going and where it's headed.



The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 16



If you are new to my Reluctant Psychic series, please consider starting from the beginning. The story, characters and events in this chapter will make more sense when given context from the preceding chapters.

If you're returning, welcome back and I hope you enjoy the story.

* * *

I didn't wake up so much as I became aware of my surroundings.

I was in a small room, lying on a narrow bed that squeaked in protest as I moved. The scent of a cherry scented candle filled the air. I sat up and looked around the room, trying to puzzle out where I was. The room seemed familiar, with textbooks neatly arranged on a bookshelf, two carefully aligned movie posters, and a not so carefully arranged bulletin board.

I walked over to the bulletin board and looked at the variety of things that were pinned up. There were tickets to concerts, old friendship bracelets, photos of people I couldn't recognize. In the center of the board, in a place of honor was a Valentine's Day card. The card was propped slightly open by the pin through the back page.

My hand was shaking as I reached to push back the front page of the card. I saw that the colors on the heart had run, and the edges of the paper were worn as if the card had gotten wet. As I open the card, I saw the writing inside was in my handwriting, "Dear Anna," it began.

I pulled my hand back as if I'd been bitten by a snake. It wasn't possible. It couldn't be possible. I looked around the room and memories started crashing into place. The books were the usual freshman texts, but also included Introduction to Psychology. The posters on the wall were for "Casablanca" and "Back to the Future." I looked back to the bed and recognized the quilt I had been lying on, a memory of a long dead, but loving mother.

I turned back to the bulletin board and began to remember some of the events that the ticket stubs and bits of paper represented. Concert tickets, play programs, and matchbooks from restaurants I could hardly afford were placed in a rough circle around the board, hidden amidst all the other signs of an outgoing life.

Only two things stuck out, the Valentine's Day card, and a single movie ticket. The ticket was torn in half and had once born the words, "Admit One." It was the old roll type movie ticket that the classic theater in town used. I touched the ticket remembering the event that it symbolized: my first date with Anna.

"I was about to give up hope," she said. I turned to find Anna standing at the foot of the bed. She looked exactly as I remembered, exactly as she did—I looked back at the bulletin board, following the circle around to its end, a matchbook for the Mandarin. It was where I took Anna for our six month anniversary, the night when we—Anna touched my shoulder, pulling my attention back to her. "I thought you'd never ask me out on a date."

I felt my heart hammering in my chest as she stood before me. Her eyes were blue and clear, gazing up at me, piercing my soul. Thin twin braids pulled her pale blonde hair back from her face, leaving her small slightly elfin ears, and long delicate neck expose. "In the study group you always seemed so sure, but when I got you alone you became so bashful."

"When you finally asked me out, I was so excited. I didn't think I'd like an old movie like Casablanca, but I was afraid if I said no, or suggested something else, you would be scared away." Her hands were pressed against my chest as she stood so very close. I felt the heat from her hands, and the nearness of her body.

This was exactly how it'd happened, all those years ago. It was happening again. I braced for the kiss that I knew was coming, closing my eyes in fear, just as I closed them years ago in anticipation. But the kiss never came, and I felt the cool air replacing Anna's presence. I opened my eyes when I heard the bed squeak, and saw Anna sitting on the bed, her legs crossed demurely.

"I fell in love with you that night. I had liked you for a while, but when I turned to look at you at the end of the movie, and I saw the tears in your eyes, I was in love. I couldn't tell you then, I couldn't even tell you months later when you slogged through the Valentine's Day blizzard to give me that card. You wouldn't even come inside to get warm, you were so afraid of being improper."

"What happened to that man?" she asked.

I couldn't answer. I felt all the confusion, all the self-loathing returning.

* * *

"...you would be scared away." Although my hands didn't shake, I could feel the anxious energy burning through my body. My hands rested on her slender hips and I closed my eyes and bent my head. I felt her nose slide slowly against mine, as we guided our lips blindly together.

Her soft lips pressed against mine, gently. I felt them withdraw slightly, and then press against me again. This time her lips were parted slightly, wrapping softly about my lip. Our lips parted again, this time we pressed a little bit harder, but her lips felt just as tender.

My hands tightened on her waist, pulling her body towards me. Her arms wrapped around my neck, pulling my face towards hers. We kissed again, tilting our heads to being ourselves closer together. An electric thrill went through me as her tongue slid along my lips. My tongue quested outward, encountering hers and rubbing against it affectionately.

I held her tight, trying to pull her even closer. Her legs parted around my thigh, one leg wrapping around mine as her hips pressed against me. Her arms were just as insistent, pulling me into an ever deepening kiss.

As she kissed me and pressed against me, I felt myself growing hard. I knew she could feel my hardness pressing into her hip, both in the way she moved against me and feeling the excitement from her mind. I could also feel her wondering if I could feel the moisture and heat coming from her as she rubbed herself against my thigh.

I pulled back from the kiss, trying to block out her thoughts. But she was all around me, her scent filled my nostrils, her purring, moaning breath filled my ears. Her arms wrapped around me, her fingers entwined in my hair. Her body conformed to mine as if we were sculpted from a single stone. Her desire was such a perfect mirror of my own that I lost track of where her needs ended and mine began.

I panted, and tried to evade her questing lips. Instead of finding my elusive lips, she sought out a new target, and I a shiver ran through me as she sucked on my earlobe. Goosebumps formed on my arms as she kissed and sucked on my neck. I felt her hands open the top button of my shirt and froze in panic.

As the second button parted I pushed her away from me. It was too much, I was about to lose control. Already I could read her thoughts as clearly as if I were actively trying. I felt her need burning inside of her. I felt her confusion at being pushed away. I felt her hurt.

Her hurt broke my heart.

She thought I didn't want her. She thought I believed her a slut for coming on so strong. She felt every rejection in her life, amplified because it was from the man she loved. She tried to turn away from me, but my hands held her hips firmly in place. Her hurt compounded as she began crying, cursing herself for crying in front of the man who rejected her.

I collapsed to my knees. I had never been so overwhelmed by someone else's emotions. The only time that came close were the feelings pouring out from my mother when we heard of my father's death. But then I was so insulated by my own numbness that I wasn't overwhelmed. But now, with my own feelings in tatters, Anna's feelings tore through my mind like a cyclone.

I felt her confusion, and saw through her blurry eyes as we looked down at me kneeling on the floor. I wondered why there were tears in my eyes, as I rubbed them from my own. "What's wrong?" I said reaching out to touch my cheek.

Vertigo swept through me as her touch snapped me back to my own thoughts and my own body. Her eyes were tender and loving as she looked at me, even as tracks of tears shone wetly on her cheeks. Her hurt, anger and self-doubt were replaced by confusion and overshadowed by love.

"I'm afraid," I said. I couldn't tell her why I was really afraid. How can you tell someone that you can read their mind? That you can control their thoughts? How could I tell the woman I love that she'd be safer a thousand miles away from me, even as I wanted her even closer than she was now?

"I'm afraid I'll lose control, I'm afraid I'll hurt you." I never knew if I said it out loud, or projected the thought into her mind. I saw a hundred thoughts race through her mind, thoughts that I was trying to let her down easy, thoughts about a joke to allay my fears, thoughts about taking the warning seriously. As her mind worked on interpreting what I said, I watched as her thoughts coalesced. She decided to trust her original instincts on the kind of man I was, that I had spoken honestly. She believed that I honestly thought I'd hurt her, but she didn't agree with what I thought.

She knelt down, her knees on either side of mine. It was an awkward position, with her nearly sitting on my lap as I knelt on the floor. But it allowed her to hold me against her. She cooed gently to me, her thoughts only on giving me comfort and showing her acceptance and love. I cried on her shoulder, damning myself for being too weak.

She was still confused, but she refused to dwell on that. She'd made her decision, and her decision was to love me. If only I'd loved her enough to leave her hurt and confused. But, I needed her, more than anything or anyone I'd ever known. From the first moment my mind touched her mind, I needed her.

"Anna, will you marry me?" I asked. It came from somewhere deep inside. I said it with the same longing and simple need of the Valentine's that say, "be mine." I finally understood why my mother died two days after my father, why my grandfather had gone crazy when my grandmother died. Their marriages weren't about the legal and religious trappings; they were about possession of each other's hearts. I had to give Anna the choice, before my powers made her decision to love me irrevocable.

I used all my will to keep my powers in check. I would not unfairly influence her decision. I wouldn't use my powers to answer her questions before she decided to ask them.

"We can wait to have sex," she said, although her tone turned it into a question. I could only guess that she thought I wanted to wait until I was married to have sex.

"It's not about sex," I answered. I paused and thought about it some more, wanting to explain. "I lo—" I stammered, unable to say the three simple words. "It's not about the sex. It's, it's the passion I feel. You make my emotions go haywire. Not just when we kiss. But, when you thank me for... for buying you a milkshake, I want to buy you a thousand more. If I couldn't buy them, then I'd steal them, just for the look in your eyes and a simple 'thank-you.'"

I wanted to tell her I was dangerous. That I was perhaps the most dangerous person she'd ever know, but I couldn't. She'd never believe me. Instead, I continued, "And I know you feel the same way. I see you light up when I stop by to see you. I hear tone in your voice when you speak to me, that you don't use for anyone else."

She looked at me, and she was crying. "Please, speak plainly. I don't want to hear about milkshakes," she said. She gave me a stern look for a second, "which you better never steal." I thought the look in her eyes turned to one of need and I felt myself reaching out with my powers to check. But I managed to stop myself, barely.

I stopped because I loved her, and it was time I admitted it. "Anna, I love you. I fell in love the first time I saw you, and have grown more in love every day since."

She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. She squeezed so hard that her shoulder pressed into my throat was choking me. But when I heard her murmur into my ear, "I love you," I knew I would die a happy man. She eventually pulled back, and I tried not to reveal how close I was to suffocating.

"But why marriage? Isn't love enough, for now?" she asked.

I looked into her eyes, and desperately wanted to tell her the truth. But no matter how wonderful a person I believed Anna to be; no matter how much she loved me, there was no way she could accept the truth. Instead I told her the closest thing I could, "Anna, I love you so much, that I have to make a decision, tonight. Either I set your heart free and go far away from you, or we become one, forever."

"I think you know how melodramatic you sound," she said. She thought for a moment before adding, "But, I really think you mean it. If I say no, you'll walk out that door and I'll never see you again." I could only nod mutely in response. She stood up, and walked to the window, sliding it open. A crisp breeze blew in, causing the candle on her desk to flicker.

She sat against the window sill, backlit by the moonlight. The winded gusted, lifting her fine hair around her. If her face hadn't been covered in deep shadows, I would have said she resembled an angel. Instead she seemed to be caught between two worlds. Or perhaps I was the one who was caught.

"I also don't think you believe in divorce. Until death do you part, right?" She half-laughed and added, "Now, I'm being melodramatic."

"No, merely dramatic," I said as I stood up. I wanted to go to her, but she seemed to want the space to make her decision. I realized no matter where I stood in her small dorm room, I would seem to tower over her. So, I sat on the corner of her bed and said, "There has never been a divorce in my family and it is not because they didn't believe in divorce. It was because their love was so strong that being separated would kill them."

The breeze chilled me while I waited for her to say something, or do something. Her only action was to wrap her arms around herself, to ward off the chill, or perhaps my words. Another gust of wind managed to blow out the candle, leaving us lit by only the moonlight. As the column of smoke twisted in the wind, she said, "You're serious, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"But, what if we don't love each other more everyday? I'm not even nineteen yet, you've only been nineteen for a month. Neither of us has any family left. What business do we have getting married?"

I stood up. Trying to decide whether it would be kinder to remove her memories of me, or avoid the potential risk. As I walked towards the door, I decided I'd caused enough harm and I would leave her mind alone.

"Wait," she said. It was so soft that I barely heard her. When I stopped, she said a bit louder, "I haven't said no, yet."

My heart leapt in my chest, but I knew the ordeal wasn't over yet. She walked slowly towards me, the breeze catching stray hairs and lifting them up to be lit by the moonlight. She stopped at arms reach, and studied my face. "If you walked out that door, where would you go?"

"Someplace—" I stopped and gave her a slight grin, "melodramatic."

"I would hate to say no, and have you crawl out into the woods, living like a hermit and cursing the world."

"I could always move to the Riviera, trying to replace love with a string of meaningless relationships with shallow women."

She took half a step closer and said, "I don't think you could have a meaningless relationship."

"I don't think I could live like a hermit, but if I couldn't have you, I would curse the world."

She was a half step closer, close enough that the stray strands of her hair tickled across my skin as they were lifted on the breeze. "Will you always love me?" she asked, her brief playfulness gone.

"Until my dying breath," I promised.

She took my hands in hers, looked me in the eyes and said, "I do." I was expecting a yes or a no, so I stood dumb for a moment. "As in, I take this man to be my husband," she explained.

"I do, take you to be my wife," I replied. She looked at me expectantly, and I leaned down and kissed her. As our lips touched, I felt a tingle run down my spine, and I knew she felt the same. There would be no paperwork, or religious ceremony, only our commitment and our love.

I kissed her again, wrapping my arms around her. She managed to work her arms under my half opened shirt, placing her cool hands on my bare back. She broke the kiss so she could place her head against my chest, simply hugging me. I felt her nervousness, and excitement. She surprised herself by being nervous, since she hadn't been nervous before we'd exchanged vows. She also realized her makeup must be a mess, and a hundred other little things that would make this less than perfect.

"Would you like a minute to freshen up?" I asked. She gave a half-giggle half-snort, and I realized she had been crying against my chest. She gave me a kiss, nodded and went toward the bathroom she shared with the next dorm room over. She turned on the light before closing the door, and the sudden brightness momentarily blinded me.

She closed the door and turned on the water in the sink. She splashed some water on her face, trying to convince herself she wasn't crazy, or silly, or a number of other things. As she looked herself in the mirror, she saw a condom poised on the edge of the sink. The girl in the other room had teased her, saying she might just need it tonight. She took the condom and threw it in the trash. She thought to herself that she didn't need a condom to have sex with her husband.

I shared her thrill at the thought of me being her husband, and then withdrew from her mind, giving her a few minutes to prepare herself in privacy. As my thoughts pulled away, the last thought I picked up was her wondering what I was doing while she was getting ready.

I felt a bit ashamed that I had been eavesdropping on her thoughts, instead of getting ready myself. I went to the window, and lowered the sash until just a slight breeze blew in. I looked at the stereo and the unlit candle, but decided against them. I looked at the bed, and decided to turn back the covers. I thought about waiting under them, but didn't want to seem too anxious. I took off my shoes and socks then decided to take off my shirt as well. After waiting another minute, I decided to take off my pants as well.

I stood at the foot of her bed, wearing nothing but my boxer shorts and a silly grin. It took all of my concentration not to pace the room, and a couple of times I found I was about to sit on the bed. I wanted to reach out to her, to make sure she hadn't snuck out the far bathroom door.

I was growing extremely restless when the light in the bathroom went out. The door slowly opened and I saw Anna standing there. She still had on the dress she'd worn to dinner, but she'd taken down her hair and brushed it so it fell straight down her back. She stepped into the room, pulling the door closed behind her.

She was still nervous as she stood before me, and I let her feel some of the love and desire that was coursing through me. She flushed, took another step towards me, and let her dress fall to the floor around her. He pale skin seemed to glow in the moonlight coming in the window. My eyes drank in the curves of her body, the dark pink of her nipples and the near invisible golden curls forming a triangle between her legs. I took a quick step forward, but slowed my approach as her eyes widened in trepidation.

As I took the four slow steps toward her, I saw goose bumps form on her skin, and her nipples tighten. I stood before her, anxious to touch her, but afraid of doing something wrong and ruining the moment. She reached up and placed a hand on my chest. Her other hand touched my neck and pulled me towards her. I bent down and kissed her.

As we kissed it was the most natural thing in the world to lift her into my arms and carry her to the bed. I slid her between the sheets and flowed in after her. I felt her chilled skin against my body, and felt her press against me for warmth and merely to be closer to me.




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 16



We lay side by side, kissing and touching each other. But mutual accord our hands explored, but only above the waist. Our legs meanwhile, entwined with each other, locking us together. My hands roamed over her back and felt the curve of her narrow waist, as her hands caressed the muscles of my shoulders and side.

As our activity and closeness warmed her body, we broke our kiss and our hands tentatively explored each other's chests. I wanted to touch her nipples, but delayed, first exploring the gentle slope of her breast. As my fingers got closer to their goal, I was rewarded with ever sharper gasps. Anna's fingers were exploring my chest as well, and felt no qualms about touching my nipples.

She pinched my nipple gently between her fingers and a thrill shot through me. I was already quite hard, but her action caused me to twitch inside my boxers. Something she felt against her hip. I was just about to get to her nipple when she suddenly pulled me into another kiss.

While I kissed her, her hands traveled down to pull off my boxers. Soon all four hands were moving to take off our last vestige of clothing, while our lips struggled to maintain the kiss. From our hands the task was transferred to our legs, which eventually kicked the offending garment out of the bed.

Our legs entwined again and our arms clutched each other close. My erection was pressed hard against her hip, and for the first time I felt her bare sex against me, pressed hard against my thigh. Her legs wrapped around mine, grinding herself against me. I felt the heat and moisture, as well as her raw need. My hips begin to grind against her as well, trying to increase the friction for both of us.

I worked one hand free to go back to exploration of her breast. My thumb and forefinger formed a circle around her nipple, cupping her breast in my hand. She gasped as my thumb slowly worked inward. She arched her back and gasped as my thumb finally grazed the taut flesh of her nipple. I felt a small wave pleasure course through her.

She worked a hand free and I felt her reach for my penis, still trapped between our bodies. I tilted my hips enough to give her access, and soon felt her hand delicately wrap around me. Her strokes were awkward at first, but she soon discovered exactly what I wanted. I tweaked her nipple when her strokes were getting too proficient, I wasn't ready to end our first time so soon.

I could feel the moisture on her hand as she went back to holding me tight against her. The precum excited her and seemed to wash the last of the nervousness from her mind. We kissed and rolled slightly on the bed, until she was halfway on top of me. Her left hand entwined with my right hand, and her right hand entwined in my hair as we kissed.

I let my left hand slide down her back, and cup her bottom. I could feel her excitement increase, as she ground herself against me and kissed me with increased passion. My hand continued downward and I could feel her heat inviting me in. My finger tip slid easily into her causing her to gasp suddenly. I wanted to explore, the warm wet entrance with my finger, but we were both ready for the true consummation.

I rolled her onto her back, so that I was now halfway on top. I didn't need to see the desperate look in her eyes to know she wanted me inside of her. We slowly aligned ourselves so she was on the center of the bed, and I was directly above her. I held my hips above hers and felt her legs slowly loop over mine. I felt my cock rub against her entrance, merely to slide along her sex. We both moaned in frustration as I tried again. On the third try she reached between us, grabbing my cock and aligning me with her vagina.

Once the head of my cock was inserted, she placed both hands on around me neck. I slowly pushed into her and felt a moment of pain come from her body. I stopped as I saw a single tear slide down her cheek. She didn't say anything, but her mind begged me to keep going, it would only last a moment and she needed me all the way inside of her.

I pushed further into her, and felt her muscles tighten as the pleasure slowly overcame the pain. I felt nothing but ecstasy as her warmth slowly engulfed me. I opened my mind, allowing her to feel some of the pleasure she was giving me. I felt her relax, and her eyes stared up at me with love and pleasure.

My hips settled against hers and hers legs wrapped tight around me. Her arms wrapped around my neck and chest pulling me into her. It felt like her whole body was trying to pull me into her, and I felt her mind opening to me as well.

I shared the feelings of pleasure my body was feeling, just as I tasted her pleasures. Our bodies moved together as one, a shared mind controlling us both. My rhythm changed to heighten her pleasure, and hers changed to build my impending climax still higher.

We changed positions and Anna was now on top. She briefly sat up tall and proud so I could see her beautiful body, and the flush of excitement painting her breasts pink. But the closeness we both needed and desired soon had her body pressed against mine again.

She sat up again, to feel me deeper inside of her. This time I followed her up. She quickly wrapped her legs around my back and her arms around my neck. I placed one hand on her back, and the other helped pressed her hips against me. I felt her orgasm take control of her body, and take control of her mind. I was lost in the ecstasy and moments later my own orgasm roared through my body and into hers.

As the orgasms rocked our bodies, we held each other, rocking so very slowly back and forth. Eventually the cool air coming in through the window won out over the heat generated by our love making. I felt her skin growing cool as heavy breaths still shook her body.

I wrapped the quilt around us as we sat there, limbs and sexes still entwined. Eventually we untangled enough to lie back down, but she whimpered when I thought of pulling out of her. So, we fell asleep, her lying on top of me and me deep inside of her. 

I remember dreaming. The dreams were unfamiliar and seemed out of place. But despite their foreignness, they were pleasant dreams. When I woke up, the dreams faded quickly, leaving only a memory of a memory.

Anna was still asleep on top of me, with her cheek resting against my chest and one hand curled around my shoulder. She looked so peaceful, that I hated to disturb her sleep, contenting myself with gently stroking her hair.

The morning light was streaming in through the window, accompanied by the sounds of birds. It was the perfect beginning to a day, and the perfect beginning to a new life, or so it seemed.

Eventually other sounds began intruding on my reverie: people walking up and down the hallway, the shower of the shared bathroom running and a raucous game of some sort outside the window. I also felt the call of nature, but held out as long as I could. Eventually, and with great care, I slid out from beneath Anna, leaving her asleep in bed.

When I got back, Anna was still asleep. I stroked her bare shoulder, and gently whispered her name. "Anna, darling, it's time to wakeup," I said. I called her name a little louder, and shook her shoulder gently.

I tried to reach out with my powers, but I couldn't touch her mind. I grew worried as I was unable to wake Anna, and I was unable to touch her mind. She breathed steadily, and seemed to merely be asleep, but she just wouldn't wake up.

I tried for over an hour, growing increasingly agitated. Eventually, I realized that something must be wrong with her. I got dressed and knocked on her neighbor's door. The neighbor tried to wake Anna, then the RA. By the time the paramedics arrived I was a wreck.

I blamed myself for what happened to her. So did the police when they were called in. They asked if I wanted to confess anything before the results of the tox screen came in. I tried to convince them that it was nothing of the sort, but they wouldn't listen. They said there were signs of rape, and said I used a date rape drug when she wouldn't have sex with me. I tried using my powers to convince them of the truth, but nothing happened.

I spent the day in an interrogation room. I tried telling them what happened, but they wouldn't believe me. I told them I'd asked her to marry me, and she'd accepted, but they laughed. What was worse, was that they wouldn't tell me how Anna was doing.

It was late in the night when the school sent over a lawyer. The lawyer got them to stop badgering me, and let me know that Anna was okay, but still asleep. But despite the lawyer's efforts, I remained in jail overnight, unable to obtain bail. I didn't sleep, but still managed to have nightmares.

Eventually my powers returned, and the toxicology tests came back clean. There were no charges filed, nor apologies given. Anna's medical file read "Comatose -- Cause Unknown."

* * *

"You left me," I said. Her eyes bored into me, and I knew I wasn't being fair. How could I be fair when I had no idea what happened? "When it happened, I went through hell. I'd lost my parents and less than a year later I lost the woman I loved. But it was worse than that, because somehow I knew I'd caused it."

"I didn't leave. I was trapped in here. For a long time, I just replayed that night, and I was truly happy. But every time it got a little darker, and things started changing." She stood up and went to the window. She opened it and beckoned me over, "Look."

Instead of seeing the campus quad spread out beneath the window, I saw a circle of concerned faces. Their faces were enormous, as if I were sitting too close to a movie screen. But I realized that, I wasn't just seeing them, I could feel their presence. It was like seeing them with my powers, but much more intense.

I turned back to look at Anna, but caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. But as I walked over, I realized that I wasn't the one looking back at me. It was Anna. I lifted my arm, and the image of Anna lifted her arm.

I backed away from the mirror and further away from the window. "Is this some kind of a dream? A nightmare?"

"No, this is my life," she said.

She showed me other things. The door to the hall led to my memories. The door to the bathroom led to my emotions. With the phone, she could talk to me. Although, I noticed that the phone cord had been torn from the wall.

Her tone grew suddenly serious again, and she asked me, "How could you get them pregnant? You promised me that you wouldn't."

I had promised. My powers had brought pain to the one person I'd loved more than anything in the world. I couldn't undo the pain I'd caused, but I could prevent it from happening in the future. Even before she became a voice in my head, I'd promised Anna that I wouldn't have children, lest they do as I had done. "I tried! I had a vasectomy, and the girls told me they were on the pill. This shouldn't have been able to happen."

"Did you ever tell them you didn't want any children?" she asked.

The idea had never occurred to me. "It never came up," I replied, stomach churning from the weakness of my response. "Perhaps, I should have told them. But, they always seem to know what I want, so surely they would know about this?"

"Surely they don't!" she said, crossing her arms across her chest.

"But that doesn't matter, it should be impossible. I had the operation a long time ago; I even got tested a year later to make sure that it took. On top of that, the girls are on the pill."

"How do you know they're on the pill?"

"They told me. That's why they don't have PMS anymore."

"Are you really that gullible?" she asked. She came towards me, and I was suddenly afraid. She stabbed a finger out and stabbed it into my forehead.

* * *

Suddenly, I was back in my bedroom, watching the conversation I'd been having with Katia just a few hours ago.

Katia said, "I love my sister, ever since we were little girls we were best friends. But we would still get bitchy towards each other. Do you know that since she's lived with you, she hasn't been having PMS, at least not the bitchiness she used to experience? That none of the women in this house seem to have that problem?"

"The girls told me that's because they're all on the pill. It keeps their hormones more regular, so they don't have that problem."

Katia seemed quite surprised, I could tell by the way her mouth hung open. "They told you that?" she finally managed to ask.

* * *

I snapped back to reality. Or at least as real as the replica of Anna's old dorm room could be. "See?" Anna asked.

"See what?"

Anna turned her back suddenly, muttering in frustration and hands forming claws before clenching into fists. "How can you live with so many women and not be able to read them at all?"

"I thought you didn't want me reading their minds? Besides, I couldn't read Katia's mind, I'd just had—" I cut myself short. It was one thing talking about sex with a voice in my head, it was quite another to Anna face to face.

"I didn't mean using your powers! Didn't you notice the surprise on her face? And how she questioned what they said? Those should have clued you in that they were lying about the pill."

"Why would they lie?" I asked. As I asked the question, a part of me accepted the fact that they had lied to me. I no longer doubted that they lied, but I still wondered why. Before Anna could answer, I said, "So they could get pregnant. But that still doesn't explain how they managed to get pregnant when I've had a vasectomy."

Anna didn't appear to have an answer to that question either. She pulled the chair away from her desk, and sat down. "You were right though. They shouldn't have wanted to have children. The way you haphazardly use your powers, they should have been brainwashed into not wanting children a long time ago."

She looked down at the ground forlornly. I looked at a similar spot, trying to reason it all out. Suddenly it came to me. I looked up and Anna was staring at me as the same thought occurred to her. "Unless you really do want to have children!" she exclaimed as I said the same thing.

She paled as she realized what I'd said. I'd meant to switch the pronouns, to leave the onus of wanting children on myself. But I hadn't. From the way Anna was reacting, I was more correct than she.

I walked over to her, got down on my knees in front of her and asked as softly as I could, "Do you want to have children."

She started crying. I reached out my hands to clasp hers and was a bit surprised she didn't pull away. She started to shake her head, to try to deny it. But when her halting words came out, they didn't agree with her shaking head, "I do. No matter how much I've tried to hate you, I still love you. When you came inside of me—" She stopped shaking her head and looked directly at me. "I could feel you, your mind and soul were laid bare to me. I wanted that feeling to stay, to quicken inside of me."

"And my promise?"

"I never asked for that promise. But I was so proud of you for making it, and it is a very good idea considering that your powers run in the family." She dropped her gaze again, adding softly, "And it meant that they would never have what I couldn't."

Before I could say anything, she clutched my hands to hers saying, "Don't misunderstand. I am jealous of them. How could I not be? But I know them, even better than you do. And if I can't be with you, I'm glad that such wonderful people are with you." 

I didn't know what to say. To be honest, I didn't understand quite what she was saying, and didn't believe the part I did understand. Instead of proving my ignorance, I asked, "So, what do we do now?"

"Well, we need to get you back to the girls. They are quite worried about you," she said. She wiped her cheeks briefly and they were suddenly clear of any sign of the tears that had been there moments before. She tugged on my hands to get me to my feet.

I stood before her, waiting. Anna made a shooing gesture then added, "You can go now."

"I'm not even sure how I got here, and I sure don't know how to get out."

* * *

I hope you enjoyed reading this installment as much as I enjoyed writing it. I know some of you have been waiting for this chapter for a while.

As always, I appreciate your votes and comments, they have really helped motivate me to write. I especially enjoy hearing your thoughts on how the story is going and where it's headed.



The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 17



If you are new to my Reluctant Psychic series, please consider starting from the beginning. The story, characters and events in this chapter will make more sense when given context from the preceding chapters.

If you're returning, welcome back and I hope you enjoy the story.

*

Anna and I stared at each other, both at a loss for what to do. The only doors in the room led to my memories and my emotions. The former was a source of shame, and the latter something too disturbing to confront. Even if I did go through those doors, they didn't provide an exit. That only left the window.

I looked out the window of Anna's room and my view of the girls was suddenly eveloped by a blinding light. The light seemed to warp my view of the girls and form a tunnel into the distance. I felt a sudden heaviness in my stomach as I realized I must be dying.

I must have said something to that affect, since I felt a sudden slap on my shoulder and Anna said, "You aren't dying, just watch for a minute." I rubbed my shoulder, a bit surprised to realize I could feel pain in what felt like a dream.

I watched, and sure enough the light went away. There was a dark spot floating in space where the light had been. On the edge of the dark spot, I could make out what appeared to be a penlight. Soon the penlight disappeared once again behind the bright light. On either side of the light I could just make out Magda's face.

I corrected myself, one of the images was Magda and the other was Katia. I couldn't tell them apart from their appearance, but my powers had no problem discerning the difference. Suddenly the shade was dropped and Anna pushed herself between me and the window. As the shade closed, my powers evaporated.

"How did you do that?" I asked. But another question came to mind, "How did you know about the flashlight?"

"This isn't the first time you've passed out, you know," she said. "Normally they don't do the whole flashlight thing, but now that you have a doctor in your h—" she stopped, reconsidering what she was going to say. "Your home," she finally concluded, shrugging her shoulders.

Before I could say I wasn't aware of having flashlights being shined in my eyes, she said, "as for the other thing. I hoped that it would work. Since you've been here the only time you've used your powers was when you looked out the window." She pushed me away from the window and said, "now turn around, I want to hear what's going on."

I walked sullenly over to the bed, sitting on the far side. I hear the shade being raised and the window being opened. Then I heard the girl's voices fill the room.

"This has happened before?" a slightly anxious Katia said.

"It's happened a few times," Magda answered. By the way she said it, I could hear the lie. Apparently Katia heard the lie as well, since Magda quickly amended, "It happens every couple of months. He doesn't do well with surprises."

"How long does it usually last?"

"Usually only a couple of minutes, but once it took a whole day."

"What did the doctors say? Did they do a CT scan? An MRI?"

I heard Betsy's voice chime in, "We didn't take him to the hospital, we were," she paused. I could guess the look she exchanged with the other girls before she finished, "busy."

I felt my gaze pulled towards the door to the hall. As I watched the hall door opened of its own accord and I felt the memory coming for me. That would have been the hand washing episode, when I'd lost control of my powers and thrown what amounted to a tantrum. I felt grateful that Katia didn't ask what had kept them too busy to call for an ambulance.

"Well, if he doesn't wake up soon, he'll need to go to the hospital for some tests. Even if he does wake up soon, he should go to the hospital for tests. A man his age, and with his health shouldn't pass out from a little surprise."

There was a long silence and Katia asked, "What did she say? I still don't know much sign language."

"Tiff said that it was a big surprise. He thought we were all on the pill."

"Well, the pill isn't 100%, so with the amount of sex going on it's still a possibility," Katia said. The way she said it sounded odd. I turned back to the window, to try to see the expression on her face. But Anna must have anticipated the move since I felt her hands on either side of my head, directing it back to the far wall.

"Just pay attention. You might learn something so you don't have to rely on your powers so much."

There was a silence, finally broken by Gwen, "He got snipped." The silence was almost palpable. The girls must have been starring at Gwen because she added, "What? That's what he said when I asked him about the little scar. I cried the whole day when I found out what that meant." From the sound of things, she was crying again.

"So, he's had a vasectomy and he managed to get eight of you pregnant?"

"Actually," I heard Susan pipe in, "I think I might be pregnant too. I kind of feel it, even if it's too early for the test." This announcement was met by a soft murmur of excitement.

Katia's voice cut through the whispered encouragements and asked, "How does a man who's had a vasectomy father ten children? Maybe even eleven?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Anna and I said in unison. I was secretly pleased to hear our voices mingle like that. But the pleasure quickly evaporated as Anna's hands on the sides of my head kept me from turning to see if it'd made her smile too. Then something else clicked in my head, "Did she say ten?"

"Shhhh... I'm trying to listen."

There wasn't much to listen to. The girls were all talking so quickly it was hard to make anything out. One thing that did become clear was that Gwen was the only one to have noticed the vasectomy scar, or at least to understand what it meant.

I heard Gwen's humming. The humming seemed to be growing louder because one by one the girls stopped speaking. The room was silent except for Gwen's music for a minute before Betsy said, "Gwen is there something else you want to tell us?"

"Well, I was going to wait, but I really want to get a dog, one of those little ones with the floppy ears."

"No, Gwen is there something about the vasectomy, about being snipped?"

"Oh! I asked him why he made it so he couldn't have any children. He said it was because he had crummy jeans he didn't want to pass on to his children and that if it weren't for that he'd love to have children. Then one day on TV I saw a show where a guy got unsnipped at the hospital," Gwen slowed to a stop. "Did I do something bad?"

Poor Gwen, I thought. She saw the world through the eyes of a child, everything in such simple terms. But behind the seemingly vacuous gaze lay a mind as clever as any adult. I'd wondered why all of my jeans had disappeared after my appendectomy. I briefly wondered how Gwen had talked the surgeon into reversing my vasectomy when he did the appendectomy, but it didn't really matter.

The girls were all chattering again, but I didn't want to listen. "Anna, could you please close the window." Apparently she was just as surprised by the latest revelation, since it took her a moment to register what I said. With a hasty, "of course," she moved across the room, closing the window and lowering the blind.

I laid down on the bed, turning my back on the window, and the confusing world that lay outside of it.

* * *

I don't know how long I lay there, curled up on my side. I was too stunned by the recent revelations to think, let alone face what seemed to be happening. After a time, I heard Anna open the window once again. The girls' voices intruded on the silence, but my mind was incapable of understanding anything they said. The ebb and flow of the mingled voices soon lulled me to a sort of half sleep.

Nightmarish flashes intruded on my thoughts. They arrived and disappeared so quickly that I couldn't even tell what they were about, only that they scared me to my very core. Each time I would become aware of my body, lying locked in sleep paralysis.

A number of flashes went by, before I remembered that this wasn't really my body lying curled up on my side. Were these nightmares part of my dream of Anna's room? Was I finally going crazy, like my grandfather?

Eventually, the aftershock of the terror induced by the nightmare flashes subsided, and I could once again think rationally. As rational thought became dominate, my pulse slowed, my adrenalin ebbed and I would be lulled once again into the state between waking and sleeping. But the peace never lasted long before another nightmare would flash through my mind, starting the cycle again. The only thing that changed was that I became increasingly aware of the cycle itself, which in no way mollified the abject terror of each episode.

* * *

I was trapped in my dream body, a body that was paralyzed by sleep, when something changed. The world seemed to heave around, and I couldn't even reach out an arm to brace myself. I could feel my body resting heavily on the bed, but my other senses told me I was falling.

A hand on my shoulder suddenly snapped me out of the nightmare cycle, and my hands instinctively grabbed the bed to brace against the spinning of the world.

"You were twitching again. I can't even imagine the nightmares you were having," I heard Anna's voice say. It wasn't the often angry voice that I usually heard in my head. It was the soft, loving voice I remembered from before, before I'd ruined her life and my own.

"You've been asleep for a long time. It's hardly surprising considering how little you've slept in the past few weeks." I rolled onto my back and looked up into Anna's face. She sat on the bed next to me, looking down with a mixture of compassion and something darker.

"What do you mean? I've been sleeping fine," I said.

"So having sex two or three times a night for the past month doesn't interfere with your sleep?" She crossed her arms and the compassion quickly faded from her face.

"What are you talking about? I haven't been having sex two or three times a night." Anna was glaring at me fiercely and I amended, "Sure I usually have sex before going to bed, but I certainly haven't been waking up to have more sex."

She continued to glare at me. "You don't think I know when you have sex? I won't say my world gets rocked, but the lights dim, and a veritable flood of lust pours into the room." She stopped for a moment, and I was greatly disturbed by the look that crossed her face. Lust was a strong component of the expression, but there was anger as well. "And I feel it. Every time you enter another woman, I feel it as if you were entering me. I could be sitting at my desk writing, when I suddenly feel a wave of lust and your cock entering my vagina, my mouth, or my ass. The closer you are to the woman, the more strongly I feel it."

"When you contented yourself with one-night stands, I hardly even noticed. But when you make love to the girls, it's like you are making love to me, especially the ones that have been with you the longest." She seemed almost ashamed, "I feel so dirty."

I tried to stammer an apology, but nothing seemed adequate. Had I been raping Anna all these years? I don't think I could live with that sort of shame. I tried again to express this, but Anna put a finger to my lips. "Let me finish," she sad quietly, insistently. "It doesn't feel like rape, at least not what I think rape would feel like. I feel dirty, because I want it. I want to take the girls' places, to actually be able to wrap my arms and legs around you. Then, when it's over, I'm alone again, thrown back into my own body. If this can be called a body," she said, gesturing to herself.

She sighed, the points of color on her cheeks slowly fading, "But my point is, I know when you have sex: Two or three times every night, not including the nightcap."

"But I don't remember any of that," I said vehemently. But even as the words slipped out of me, I remembered waking up to find Linda having sex with me. "Was I awake?" I burst out.

"What do you mean were you awake?" she asked.

"Was I awake for the two or three times during the night?" I asked. She still looked incredulous, so I added, "I woke up the other morning to find Linda having sex with me, or just finishing up." I thought back and added, "and it's happened with Gwen as well."

"Are you suggesting that the girls have sex with you while you're asleep?" she asked. After a moment, the look on my face must have convinced her, since she sighed and said, "I guess it makes sense, since you were pretty lousy." She thought about it a moment longer, "Now that you mention it, it did feel like I was," she blushed and stammered a correction, "that the girls were just trying to make you come, rather than enjoying the act itself."

"Why would they do that? If I were asleep, it isn't like I'd be enjoying it, at least not consciously. And if they were just trying to make me come, they wouldn't be enjoying it."

"No, they enjoyed it, just not as much as usual," she said. She thought for another minute before saying, "What if it has to do with your powers?"

"You mean: I make them have sex with me because I dreamt about it?" I asked. I really tried not to use my powers to take women against what would normally be their will. But, even though I tried to control the subconscious use of my powers, I wasn't perfect. Apparently, even unconscious my powers leaked.

"What did you say about using your powers unconsciously?" she asked.

"I didn't. At least not out loud," I replied. She waved her hand as if whether I said it out loud or not was irrelevant. I responded by saying, "I was just thinking, and I mean thinking, that maybe I made them do it unconsciously. I have always had a problem with my subconscious using my powers, what if I can do it unconsciously as well."

"You can definitely use your powers unconsciously. That's why the girls' part of the house is so far way, to help prevent your dreams from taking over theirs." Her face suddenly lit up, "But what if that isn't enough?"

"What do you mean? That they need to move to another house now? Or I do?"

"No, what happens after you have sex?"

"Well, generally a bit of cuddling, and a nap," I said, at a loss for where this was heading.

"No, you lose your powers. If the girls figured out that you have mental powers, then they are probably sharp enough to have figured out that you lose your powers after you have sex!"

I thought about that for a moment and blurted out, "Katia!"

"What's she got to do with this?" Anna said, a bit peckishly.

"Every time I've been around Katia, I haven't had my powers. Every time I felt my powers coming back, something would happen and I'd have sex with one of the girls. Like during dinner her first night here. Heck, I couldn't use my powers at all the first day she was here."

Another light went off in my head, "And the only reason I had my powers for the funeral was because I locked the door to my room." I looked at Anna, and remember that she'd warned me to lock the door. "How did you know?"

"I didn't. At least, I didn't know that they were preventing you from using your powers." She took a moment to gather her thoughts before saying, "When you left the table to go find Betsy, it felt like the times you've had to deal with your grandfather. It spooked me, especially when you got up in the middle of the night to try to open the door."

"You don't think that there is someone else out there who has my powers, do you?" I asked. "I've never encountered anyone outside my family who has even a trace. Aside from my grandfather and my mom's Aunt Gretchen, both being locked in an asylum, I'm the last."

"Or at least you were," she said. She stood up and walked over to the window, opening the blinds to see out. "They're taking you to the hospital."

* * *

Anna did not object this time as I joined her at the window. The paramedics allowed Betsy and Gwen to ride with them, since they were legally my daughters and Katia because she was my doctor. I could sense that the rest of the girls were following in a number of vehicles. As we travelled to the hospital, the paramedic took various readings, and although I could see him acting on what I knew was my body, I couldn't feel any of it.

Katia spent the trip reassuring Betsy. She reminded Betsy that we were going to the best hospital in the world for neurological disorders. Betsy was well aware of this, since her donations and influence had brought it about. But in spite of that knowledge, she could only think that her real father had never woken up from his coma.

When we got to the hospital, we skipped the emergency room and went directly to testing. Apparently it had all been arranged before the paramedics had been called to transfer me to the hospital. A few of the technicians inwardly grumbled about my special treatment, but were professional enough not to say anything. The doctors on the other hand were anxious to give me special treatment, since they felt they had let down Betsy, their benefactor.

As the tests progressed, I could tell the doctors were confused by the results.

"The EEG says that he's awake. If I didn't see his body lying perfectly still, I would say the EEG says he's up and walking around."

"The MRI shows activity in the motor centers as well."

"The patient's Basal Ganglia are incredibly overdeveloped. At first I thought it must be a tumor, but it seems to be a perfectly healthy development. Actually, his Amygdala is the size of a lemon, and incredibly active." The last comment was followed by the thought that the Amygdala's size would explain why there were twenty women waiting for the test results.

There were plenty of other comments, but the general consensus seemed to be that there was nothing wrong with my brain, and that I should be awake. Most of the doctors wanted to concentrate on the structural abnormalities.

While the doctors were discussing my chart, a nurse came in. I vaguely recognized the man, which was hardly surprising considering the number of times I'd visited Betsy's father at this hospital. The man's handlebar mustache and longish hair belied the gentle way he approached me, and saw to my bedding and various machines I was now attached to.

He heard what the doctors were saying, and shook his head slightly. The man turned to the doctor, and just before he began to speak I recognized him. Not from my trips to visit Betsy's father, but before that, when I visited Anna. "Is it possible this condition can be contagious, or hereditary?"

A couple of the doctors looked with scorn at a nurse presuming to tell them their job. But a couple of the doctors knew the man well. One of these asked, "Why do you ask?"

"You said all the tests seem to indicate that he's awake. There is another case down the hall that's very similar."

"There are plenty of cases that are similar," snapped one of the other doctors. "But the abnormal Basal Ganglia is unique and must be the cause of the problem."

I could see the nurse working to maintain control. I also could see he was about to reveal my connection to Anna. I wanted to stop him, but Anna put a hand on my arm, whispering, "He's a good man, don't touch him with your powers. If you didn't resort to them so often consciously, you wouldn't use them so often subconsciously."

"I know this man," the nurse began again, only to get cut off.

"We all know this man. He's Elizabeth Haufman's guardian, and rumored to be the richest man in the state." And, the doctor quipped to himself: he seems to have more girlfriends than Hugh Hefner.

"Enough Richard, let the man speak," said Doctor Conners, one of the doctors who respected the nurse. I made a note to make sure the man got a raise or a promotion when I woke up.

"The patient down the hall, the one who has the same mysterious EEG, is this man's," he hesitated. He didn't actually know our relationship, only that I was legally responsible for her. "Well, he's either related to her or married to her. Either way, he's listed as her next of kin, and I regularly had to roust him from her room when visiting hours were over."




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 17



"Well, genetics is certainly a possibility, although if memory serves, the girl presented as a teenager, and this patient is in his thirties. Contagion is also a possibility, although it would be an incredibly long incubation period," Dr. Conners said.

There was some more discussion, but it ended with Dr. Conners telling the nurse that I could have visitors. The doctors filed out, and soon the girls filed in. Even without my powers, I could see all too clearly the concern on their faces, but with my powers it was agonizing. I turned away from the window, and gratefully, as before, my powers shut off when I stopped looking out the window.

I sat down on the bed, with my back against the headboard and my legs stretched out in front of me. I kept my head turned away from the window until I heard Anna draw the blinds again. She came over and sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed, her knees scant inches from my feet.

As I looked at her, the unreality of the situation hit home once more. She was just as beautiful as I remembered, more beautiful if that was possible. She was the sum total of everything I ever wanted in a woman, plus all the things that I never knew I needed. My eyes began to tear, and I felt both doors swing open, flooding me with memories and emotions I hadn't faced in years.

* * *

It happened during winter break my sophomore year of college.

The year before, I had made the mistake of going home for the holidays. I'd thought that I could hang out with my high school friends, and not have to be alone. But they had all changed, and we'd grown apart. I also couldn't take the pity: every time they looked at me I could see them thinking about my dead parents. We were all uncomfortable, so I returned to school before New Years, switching off the TV in my dorm room an hour before the ball dropped.

But my sophomore year had been much better. Once I stopped moping around, I started making friends. I was no longer the guy who'd lost his parents; most of my friends didn't even know what happened. Before my friends left for Christmas, we all made plans to have a giant New Year's party back at school.

Unfortunately, a blizzard hit two days before hand, followed by a second squall the day after. The roads were impassible, the power lines were down, and the entire school was closed. The school's administrators shoved those of us who hadn't gone home for break into the smallest dormitory. Even with a dozen generators, they could barely keep the temperature above sixty and they definitely couldn't spare electricity for lights.

Most of us were huddled together in one of the common rooms, playing cards by candlelight. Some people were walking around with blankets wrapped around them and the others were resigned to wearing their jackets indoors. I had just given up trying to learn cribbage from a thoroughly sloshed English student, when I felt it. I looked around the dark cramped room, and knew I needed to leave.

I zipped up my jacket, grabbed my hat and hurried down the dark hallway to the lobby. I pushed through the doors to the outside and immediately felt the slap of cold air. The sharp cold immediately broke through the ennui that had been growing inside of me. As my boots crunched in the snow, I was amazed to see how bright it was outside. The further I walked, the brighter it became, as the moon drifted higher in the sky.

I found that I was walking directly toward the student center. I tended to avoid the student center at this time of year, because the giant Christmas tree out front tore at my heart. My mother had always loved Christmas, and facing it without her hurt too much. But, in spite of my feelings, I felt inexorably drawn forward.

The tree was unlit and heavily covered by snow. As I crunched closer to the tree, I saw that a ring of snow had been stomped flat. I also heard a voice singing, "Fah Who, For-aze, Dah Who, Dor-Aze." My face scrunched up at the oddity of hearing the song from the "Grinch who Stole Christmas." I started walking around the tree, trying to find who was singing.

The singer must have been circling the tree as well, since she was still on the opposite side of the tree when I'd made it halfway around. I stopped and heard that the voice was still singing and travelling around the tree. Eventually I saw an overstuffed parka come twirling around the tree. I couldn't tell if the girl was so tightly bundled that she couldn't drop her arms, or if she just enjoyed spinning with her arms out.

Because her hood was drawn so tightly, she didn't notice me until she nearly spun into me. She stopped abruptly when she did, and cut her singing off mid-note. I could barely make out a bright red nose, clear blue eyes, and wisps of blonde hair peeking through the hood. I can only imagine what she saw on my face, but she said, "Merry Christmas, Mr. Grinch," before bursting into laughter.

"It's nearly New Year's, not Christmas," I said.

"But you don't mind being called a Grinch?" she asked.

"I'm more the Ebenezer Scrooge sort, I don't want to steal Christmas, it's just not my thing," I said. Then I added quietly, "any more." Before she could say anything else, I asked, "What are you doing out here? It's freezing."

"I could ask you the same thing," she said. "But to answer your question, I'm just having fun, being silly. Don't you ever want to be silly?" Before I could answer, she continued, "I know it's not Christmas anymore, but the tree is still here, so it can be Christmas just a little bit longer."

I sensed, as much as saw a shiver run through her. A bad memory had surfaced in her mind. I quickly withdrew my thoughts from her mind, feeling dirty for having invaded her so. But even without reading her thoughts, I could tell she was in a fragile state, so I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, "Why not Jingle Bells?"

"Because Christmas doesn't have to make sense," she said. "It isn't about going places, or presents, it's about good cheer, and glad tidings."

"And family, and friends," I added to her list. It seemed natural, even if this particular year, I was sorely lacking in both.

"They help," she said, a bit hollowly. She pulled in her arms as if she suddenly started feeling the cold. I realized in a flash that she was as alone this holiday season as I was.

"None of my friends stuck around for Christmas either," I said. "I can't blame them, I'd go home too if—" I looked at the mysterious girl, all bundled up against the cold. I wanted to tell her, but I just couldn't open myself in such a way to a stranger.

"Too far away?" she asked, going with the more obvious and least painful choice.

"More like too long ago," I said. "All my friends changed their first semester away at college, and things just weren't the same."

"And your family?" she asked. She looked at me earnestly, and at some point had taken a step closer to me. As she spoke, the fog from her breath briefly bridged the gap between us.

"If I asked about your family, I think you would dodge my question, as I'm dodging yours," I said.

"I suppose I shouldn't pry. But, I like to know what people are thinking," she said. She looked up at me, and I felt myself falling into her clear blue eyes. "Especially what could turn a handsome young man into Ebenezer the Grinch."

"You would probably be disappointed to know what most people are thinking," I said, with more truth than she could possibly understand. "But prying isn't so bad. It can lead to a very healthy catharsis."

"Are you a psychology major too?" she asked.

"It kind of runs in the family," I replied.

"I thought you were dodging questions about your family?"

"That wasn't a question about my family," I said. She was looking at me so intensely that I felt compelled to say, "My parent's were both psychologists." She kept looking at me, not voicing the obvious question, "Were?" So I added, "My father was killed by a patient, and my mother died a week later."

"She was also attacked?" she asked. She was a step closer. So close that she could have wrapped her arms around me, if she chose.

"No, she died—" I could hardly believe I was going to say it. Even after more than a year, it sounded corny. Worse, it sounded like a lie. That I made it up so I wouldn't have to say she took her own life. But she hadn't taken her life, she had died the same day as my father, it just took her body a week to realize it. "She died of a broken heart."

I felt her mitten against my cheek. She pulled it away, and held it in front of me. It glistened slightly from the tear she'd wiped away. "I didn't mean to be so cathartic," she said. I could hear the regret in her voice, but there was more sadness. The sadness wasn't from my story but from her story. I watched her as she considered the freezing tear on her mitten.

She caught me staring at her, and said, "You seemed to have already guessed that my parents are dead as well. It was a car accident when I was ten. We were on our way home from visiting my grandmother for Christmas," she shrugged. The shrug said all the things that she couldn't say out loud. "I lived with my grandmother after that. She hung on long enough to get me to college, but her mind can no longer take the loss of her daughter."

"The same thing happened to my grandfather when his wife was—" I didn't want to seem too dramatic with all my relatives meeting violent ends, so I concluded simply, "died."

"Another death by broken heart?" she asked, as much to distract herself from the feelings thrashing inside of her.

"No, he's in the Met," I said, referring to the Metzger Memorial Psychiatric Hospital.

"So it really does run in the family," she said. It was a poor joke, but enough of one to break the melancholy atmosphere that had developed.

"Well, I'm not the one dancing around a Christmas tree singing a song from a Christmas movie," I said, then added, "On New Year's Eve."

"You should try it Mr. Grinch." She looked up at me, and I felt a jolt shoot through my body. It was like a giant bass drum was causing my insides to vibrate. She added very quietly, "Maybe your heart will grow two sizes this day."

I leaned down to kiss her, but the fur surrounding the opening to her hood stymied me. I couldn't even see her lips. My nose managed to pierce the confines of her hood, and for a brief moment our noses rubbed against each other. Her eyes grew wide, and I knew she felt the same spark that I did.

Her mittened hand grasped my gloved hand and she pulled me along as she started backwards. "You should try it," she said giving my hand a squeeze. Then she started singing again. I looked around, as if anyone would be outside to see us. She led me halfway around the tree, singing the whole time, before I tentatively joined in.

We circled the tree a half dozen times before heading back to the dorm, singing the entire way. She didn't let go of my hand until we were all the way back to her temporary dorm room, and then just long enough to remove out mittens, gloves and jackets.

We sat together the whole night, talking and laughing. We kissed briefly when our eyes grew too tired to stay open any longer. She drifted off to sleep lying against me. I fell asleep as well, pulling the thick comforter around us both.

I was half awake, in the close heavy air of our shared cocoon, when I felt her lips seek mine once again. There was a brief moment of intense passion that threatened to wake me fully. But before the kiss was over, I was asleep once more. I didn't even know if she awoke at all.

* * *

"My jacket didn't look that silly, did it?" Anna asked. I was once more back in the present, as if being trapped in Anna's college dorm room was really the present.

"You saw all of that?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. I hoped that she'd say something else, but she lapsed into silence, alone with her thoughts.

The silence grew too uncomfortable for me, but I was unwilling to break it by speaking. Instead, I stood up and walked to the window. I slowly lifted the blinds, and looked outside. Only six of the girls were present, three standing on either side of the bed. They were talking to me, and each other, making the half-hearted jokes that keep a person from facing a tragedy directly.

"I wish they wouldn't stand three to a side like that. They look like pall-bearers."

"They are too young and beautiful to be pall-bearers," Anna said from the bed. I turned by back on the window, and sat down on the sill. She had come to some decision: I could see it in her face. "I think I know why you're here."

"Because I'm dying?" I asked.

"It has nothing to do with the pall-bearers; it has to do with you and me. I know you have never forgiven yourself for what you did to me. It is especially hard when the person you hurt can't grant you that forgiveness. So, you've tried to atone. When that atonement failed, spectacularly I might add, it was too much for your psyche."

"Can't forgive me, or won't?" I asked.

"If I said, 'I forgive you,' would you believe me? Could you believe that it was the real Anna speaking and not a delusion or a coping mechanism?"

"No, I don't suppose I could," I said. I thought for a minute and added, "So, I have to forgive myself for failing to atone for the mistake I made?"

"Either that or find your ruby slippers."

"But, I've just fathered a dozen monsters!"

"They aren't monsters! You aren't a monster. You are a human being with powers he didn't understand. They will be human beings who do understand their powers. They will have a father, who can make sure they don't make his mistakes, and mothers who are beautiful and generous spirits."

I shook my head, doubtful that the solution could be so trivial. "So, instead of ensuring there are no more people in the world like me, I should just be sure to raise them properly? It's that simple?"

"Raising children isn't simple. But just think of all the good they could do in the world? How much good you've done in the world?"

"I put a few criminals behind bars. That hardly evens the tally sheet compared to the harm I've caused."

"What about Bambi? How long do you think she could have lasted in that strip club before she lost her virtue, or had it taken? What about Gwen? Do you think she would enjoy life as a sex slave? Do you think Betsy would have enjoyed the foster care system? Do you think Stefani would even be alive?"

"What about you?" I asked.

"What's one life against a dozen?" she asked.

"Everything," I said. Before she could respond, I added, "But I meant, what about your part in all of that? I couldn't have done half of that without your guidance. I might have conquered half the world by now, if you hadn't have been my conscience."

"Then listen to your conscience. Go back to your girls, they need you. Raise your sons and daughters to be strong of body and conscience."

"What about you?" I asked as I started to feel the room fading away.

"Do me a favor," she said. I saw tears forming in her eyes as she spoke. I tried to reach out to her, but I was fading too quickly.

"Anything," I said.

"Anything?" she asked.

"Anything, I promise."

"Turn off the machines, let me die."

"I ca—" I tried to say no. I desperately wanted to say no. But, I couldn't refuse, no matter how much it hurt. I drifted closer to her, seeking to hold her in my arms one last time. My arms passed right through her. She reached a hand up, stroking what would have been my cheek. "I promise," I said as the room filled with white.

"I forgive you," I heard as the white light consumed me.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed reading this installment as much as I enjoyed writing it.

As always, I appreciate your votes and comments, they have really helped motivate me to write. I especially enjoy hearing your thoughts on how the story is going and where it's headed. 



The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 18



If you are new to the Reluctant Psychic series, this chapter will not make much sense, if any, without the context of the previous chapters.

For those of you who are returning to the series, thank you for your patience, and I hope you enjoy the story.

* * *

I was afloat in a sea of light. I readied myself to be pulled back to my body in a vertigo inducing moment. But I kept floating. The crisp whiteness of the light started to fade into the sullied color of old snow. As the intensity of the light faded, so did the feeling of weightlessness.

The light grays turned to dark grays, and I felt pressure surrounding me. I couldn't say on what part of my body the pressure pushed, because I couldn't even tell if I had a body. In this formless gray on gray world, there was no anchor of reality, only unbalanced forces pulling and twisting me.

I tried to concentrate on one streak of gray that appeared darker than the others. But as I watched it seemed to become a lighter gray, or perhaps the surrounding grays got darker. I couldn't tell if I was even looking at the same streak of gray as they moved around, or perhaps I was moving.

Why couldn't I get back to my body? My mind went in circles chasing after the answer, but it was as elusive as the streaks of gray that faded through each other in this strange place. How did I even get to this strange place?

Anna's room, I recalled. I was talking to her, remembering our first meeting. No, it was after that that the light consumed me. Anna said, "Then listen to your conscience. Go back to your girls, they need you. Raise your sons and daughters to be strong of body and conscience." That was when the light began.

I noticed a streak of red standing out starkly from the sea of grays. My senses latched on to it, only to have it skitter away. Or did the whole world go red long enough to let the streak dissolve into obscurity. Was the color a figment of my imagination, was this whole world a construct of my mind?

"Of course, it is" a voice whispered. The sound resonated my entire being.

If it's in my mind, then I should be able to stop it. I should be able to wake up from the coma. I thought back to the classes I had taken, everything I learned when Anna fell into her coma. A hysterical coma happens when the mind can't adapt to an event or situation. It is a protective mechanism where the subconscious tries to sort everything out.

But I had sorted things out. Anna helped me realize I had to go back to the girls. I could raise my children to use their powers for good purposes. They wouldn't have to be like me. Once I realized that Anna's room began fading away. So I should be back in my body by now.

The world turned an angry shade of black as I remembered what Anna asked me moments before the light took me away from her. She wanted to die. The sky turned darker still as another thought occurred to me: the only way she could leave me was through death.

She didn't want to die, she just wanted to be done with me, leave me alone in the world.

"You aren't alone in the world, only in here," another voice said.

"Anna?" I asked the formlessness.

"She loves you still," a voice called from the distance.

"Who are you?" I cried out. The void refused to answer.

I was on the verge of cursing the interminable silence when I finally heard, "Do you love her?"

"More than life itself!" I cried.

"Her life or your own?" The voice asked. I felt like a particular dense child being lead to an answer that was obvious to everyone except him. The obviousness of the answer was all the more vexing for being out of reach.

"Speak clearly! Who are you?"

"Who are you?" the voice asked, very clearly.

"I know who I am," I said, wishing I had arms that I could cross over a chest I also wished to possess.

The voice left me alone and quite confused. Of course, I'd meant my own life. What sense would it make to love Anna more than her life? How could I love her if she were dead?

How could I love her in a coma? How could I love a voice in my head, a voice that might not even be Anna?

The pressure began to ease, and I felt myself floating again. I was at the bottom of an ocean, and the salty water was pushing against me, slowly squeezing me towards the surface. As I ascended, I became aware.

* * *

"Tell the angel who will watch over your life to pray now and then for a man who, like Satan, believed himself for an instant to be equal to God, but who realized in all humility that supreme power and wisdom are in the hands of God alone," I heard Gwen voice say.

"Am I really like Satan?" I asked, or tried to ask through a parched throat.

"You're awake!" she exclaimed as she hurried to my bedside. I tried to reach out my hand, but my arms felt strangely heavy and stiff. She grasped my hand, and a moment later I felt my other hand being clasped as well. I looked over to see Betsy standing on the other side of my bed, tears streaming down her face.

"I was so afraid I'd lose you too," she thought. I realized that I read her more clearly that I ever had before. I also felt her intense fear of being left alone, as she'd been reliving the horror of her father's coma.

I tried again to speak, but my throat was much too dry. Instead, I clasped her hand and sent my thoughts, "I'm so sorry that I frightened you." As I looked at her, and then Gwen, and saw the depth of their relief I wondered, "How long have I been out?"

"It's been more than a week," Betsy said simply. She squeezed my hand then bent down to give me a kiss. "I have to call the others, Gwen will fill you in." Betsy hurried from the room, and I knew she needed time to compose herself as much as anything.

"The doctors wouldn't let all of us stay. They did the first day, but only because Betsy made them. You would have been so proud of her, she can't do the things you can but she made them let everyone stay anyway." Gwen went on to explain that the hospital only allowed relatives into the patient's room outside of visiting hours. So Betsy and Gwen took the night shift, and the other girls had stayed with me during the day.

"I almost got through the whole book while we were waiting for you to wake up. The nice doctor said that reading to someone in a coma can help. But later I overheard the mean doctor say that wasn't true and they just tell people that so they don't pester the doctors with questions while they're waiting."

Betsy came back into the room with a nurse in tow. The nurse gave me a glass of water, and then asked the sort of questions they always seem to ask in a hospital. I answered her questions, said I didn't have any of my own, and took her assurances that the doctor had been paged and would be with me shortly.

Although Betsy looked much better than she had when she left, she reminded me all too much of the young lady who I rescued from the hospital a decade before. "Has it really been that long?" I murmured.

"It's more like twelve years." Then she added softly, "almost half of my life."

Where had the time gone, I wondered, as we lapsed into silence.

* * *

Doctor Conners arrived just ahead of a wave of women that didn't believe in the concept of "visiting hours are over." Since it was Gwen's nice doctor, he told the nurse she didn't need to call security. But he did insist that all the girls wait outside while he checked on me.

As the door closed the girls outside, I said, "Before we begin, I need to ask about one of your other patients."

The doctor insisted.

I insisted.

The doctor said, "Well, you've shown yourself recovered enough to be stubborn. Just promise me that after I answer your questions, you'll answer mine before you go back into a coma."

"I'm not going back into a coma," I told the doctor. "I'll answer all your questions after you tell me about Anna."

The doctor surprised me by walking to the side of the bed and sitting down in a chair. "I won't ask if you're sure you want to hear about it now, because you have a determination about you that won't tolerate questions."

The doctor took a deep breath and took a moment to gather his thoughts. "I've been that girl's doctor for over a decade and she's a bona fide medical mystery. There is no reason for her to be in a coma." The doctor stood up and started pacing as he said, "Hell, every test we run says she's not in a coma."

He turned to look me straight in the eye, "That is until you got here. The second day you were here it all changed and she went vegetative. What do you have to do with that girl? Don't give me any of that legal guardian stuff, because I know it's all a lie. Nineteen year olds don't become legal guardians of other nineteen year olds without chicanery."

I couldn't help laughing, even though it hurt my throat. "You're something else, Doc. I can see why Gwen likes you." The doctor handed me a glass of water and waited for me to drink. "You're right, it was chicanery. The truth is, she's my—" I stopped for a moment, wondering if I could really say it, wondering if it was really true.

"She's my fiancée. I proposed the night before she fell into the coma. I had to fake a few things to make sure she was taken care of, since I'm the closest thing to family she has in the world."

The doctor nodded his head. It was an answer he could clearly accept. Even though it wasn't legal, it was in the best interest of the patient, and it looked legal enough. "But what about the change in her condition? You seemed to know about it before I told you."

I looked the doctor over and asked, "Can I trust you?" The doctor looked at me quizzically, but didn't answer right away. I could have probed his mind to find the answer, but simply posing the question brought everything to the surface so I wouldn't have to go deep.

"I'm glad," I said before the doctor could speak. "I'm glad that you were going to qualify the answer so you wouldn't violate your Hippocratic Oath or your faith. I'm also glad that I can trust you, now the question is whether you will believe me."

So, I told the doctor the truth. I told him how I had psychic powers and when I made love to Anna she lapsed into a coma. I told him that Anna talked to me, or at least she had. I didn't tell him all the gory details of my life, but I told him enough.

"You're wondering if I'm crazy, which doesn't require psychic powers to figure out. But underneath all the skepticism and years of medical training, you believe me. You believe me because it simply can't be a coincidence that I went into a coma, and her coma changed for the first time in years."

"It's an intriguing story that you tell," the doctor said. He was struggling to remain skeptical because he actually wanted to believe. He wanted to test the truth, but was afraid. He was partially afraid because I might be telling the truth, he was also afraid of being made to look foolish.

"You want to test me by thinking of a color and having me guess. Red," I said. He recoiled a bit, but I pressed on, "You're right, colors are too easy. Yes, let's do some number guessing. Nineteen, your daughter's age. Fifty two cards in a deck. Pi? Really, you want to go transcendental?"

"Stop! I believe you," the doctor said. It was only then that I realized how close to panicking the man was.

"Sorry Doctor, that was rather rude of me. I don't usually do that sort of thing. At least I'm trying not to," I said. He was still nervous so I added, "I'll stop." The doctor appeared somewhat mollified, but his heart was still racing and his mind reeling.

"So," the doctor began. He pursed his lips and his mind churned as he tried to make sense of it all. "Can you read anyone's mind?"

"Yes, even some of those in comas," I replied. The doctor took a step back, and I realized my mistake. "I made an educated guess, Doctor. I thought that was something that might appeal to you."

"It does offer an amazing opportunity," the doctor said.

"Doc, when you're so excited, and agitated, it makes it hard for me not to read your mind," I said. I really was having a hard time blocking his thoughts out. It was almost as if some of my control went away with Anna.

I felt the doctor make an effort to settle his mind. He also switched gears, "So, why do you want to know about Anna's condition?"

I was a bit blind-sided by the question. The question was inevitable, but I didn't expect to face it so soon. I stared across the room and said, "When I fell into the coma, I became trapped in a room. Not just any room, it was Anna's room." I started to get choked up, and this time it wasn't merely the parched throat.

"She was there, wasn't she?" He asked. My eyes swiveled from the blurred painting on the wall, to look the equally blurry doctor in the face. I could only nod in agreement. "Take your time," he said as I struggled to find my voice again.

He handed me a glass of water and a box of tissues. I needed both, and a few calming breaths before I could continue. "She's been trapped in there ever since," I said struggling for words to describe what happened. I finished lamely, "Ever since it happened."

"She's tired," I said. "She can't live like that any longer. She asked me—" My throat closed up and the words wouldn't come out. I turned my head away in shame.

"It's alright," Doctor Conners said. "I won't make you say it, not yet. I've lost track of the number of times I've seen families struggle with this issue. At least you know what Anna wants. That is more comfort than most people will ever have."

I nodded my head, but kept my face turned away. I heard the doctor walking away and said, "What about your questions?"

"I think it's safe to say your cognitive functions are working. That's enough for now," he said. He stopped at the door and turned back to ask, "Would you like a few moments before I let your," he paused to consider the appropriate word, finishing, "family back in?"

I nodded, and proceeded to blow my nose rather loudly, and try to wipe my face clean.

* * *

It wasn't until the next day that I could talk to Doctor Conners alone again. I had undergone another battery of tests and visits from a half dozen specialists. The tests and specialists declared me fit for discharge as soon as Doctor Conners signed off.

Once again he shooed the girls from the room before commencing our interview. "How are you feeling today?"

"I'm ready to get out of bed, that's for sure."

"Well, you've checked out fine, so I'm ready to sign your discharge papers," he said. He didn't actually move to sign the pages clipped to his board, however.

"Before I leave," I started. The room only blurred slightly as I continued, "I need to see to what we talked about." I exhaled violently. "No, I have to see Anna again. I want to be with her when you turn off the machines."

"She's waited this long. You can go home, take a few days and then come back," the doctor said. He was offering me a last respite, even though he knew I wouldn't take it.

"No, Doctor Conners, I can't. She's already waited too long."

"I thought you might say that," he said as he walked out the door. He came back a moment later with a wheelchair. "I'll tell them I want to keep you a couple more days for observation, but I'm afraid until then you'll get around in this."

"I can walk," I said, as I swung my legs off the side of the bed. As I stood up, the world started going black, and only the doctor's hands on my arms kept me from falling back on the bed.

"I'm sure you can," he said in a way that almost didn't sound condescending. "But it is hospital policy."

I relented, but only because my legs were so stiff it would have taken an hour to walk to Anna's room. At least, that's what I told myself. In reality, I would have preferred it to take an hour, or a day. I settled into the chair and let the doctor push me to Anna's room. It turned out that it wouldn't have taken me an hour, since she was right next door.

I took a moment to look around the room, noticing how similar it was to mine. I also noticed that not only was her room right next to mine, but there was a door that looked to connect them. I almost asked the doctor why he didn't take me through that way, but as I turned my head I caught a glimpse of Anna lying on the bed.

I had looked at every part of the room except for the bed. It was as if my mind shied away from seeing Anna in her current condition. The doctor left me just inside the room, leaving me alone for a moment to confront my feelings. I slowly rolled the chair towards the bed.

Even after all these years, Anna looked beautiful. Her long blonde hair was neatly brushed over her shoulder. Her faced had thinned over the years, losing the baby fat that had made her seem part cherub. But the lean lines of her face were still beautiful, even angelic, just an angel of a different type.

I grasped her hand and felt how thin it had gotten. I recoiled inwardly as it felt like I was holding the hand of a skeleton. The prominence of her bones was disturbing enough, but I also couldn't feel anything behind the thin flesh. I strained my powers to their limits, but I couldn't feel even a spark within her flesh. I had never been able to feel anything in her, but before I'd always had hope.

The doctor returned with a lawyer and some paperwork. I don't remember the doctor's explanation, or signing the papers. I don't remember turning off the machines. All I remember was saying "I'm sorry Anna," over and over.

* * *

At some point, I returned to my room. I must have eaten as well, because when I woke up I had to use the bathroom. I almost called the nurse to help me, since I felt much too stiff to make it on my own, especially since I had to navigate through a room full of women. Somehow they must have talked the doctor into letting them stay with me. I used just a hint of my powers to keep them asleep as I saw to my needs.

I was about to climb back into bed when I noticed the door that lead to Anna's room. I slowly navigated my way towards the door, and through into Anna's room. I dragged one of the chairs to her bedside and sat with her.

As I sat there, holding her hand, my mind started to clear. I found that I was talking to her as I gently combed her hair with my free hand. "How long did we have Anna?" I asked.

I laughed slightly, "No, not including when you were a passenger in my head." I could almost hear her voice talking to me, but unlike before I knew this time it was my imagination. "I didn't mean for it to happen. I hope you know that."

I heard gentle movements coming from the room next door, and my thoughts turned to my girls. "They are all really wonderful. I wish you could have met them. Although, I suppose if you hadn't gone into a coma, I never would have met any of them."

"You're right. That was the first time I said you fell into a coma instead of saying I put you into it. It wasn't your fault, but I guess I just can't carry the entire burden any longer."

Again, I heard noises from the next room. I sent my thoughts over to the girls, but they were all still asleep. I tasted their dreams and couldn't help but smile. I saw images of baby rooms, and baby toys, and of course babies. My smile started to fade, as I felt the stress this ordeal was putting on the girls. They loved me, and were willing to put my needs before their own.

My mind suddenly lurched as I came to a realization. They weren't putting my needs before their own; they were putting Anna's needs first. My vision blurred as I really began to understand. All these years, I've been punishing myself for what I did to Anna. In doing so, I had forced the girls to be second to a ghost.

"How long did we have?" I asked Anna again. "Was it really only six months?"

I stroked her hair again, reluctant to speak aloud what I felt growing inside of me. I took a deep breath, and then another and said, "I'm sorry Anna. I will always love you, but I can't keep on this way. I've been holding on so long, because I don't deserve happiness after all the things that I've done. But the girls do deserve happiness. They deserve more than I have ever given them. They deserve all of my love, not just the scraps I can tear away from loving you."




The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 18



"I have to go now, they are waiting for me. They have been waiting much too long. I will always love you, and I swear that I'll teach my children not to make the mistake that I made."

I stood up, leaned over Anna and placed a kiss on her forehead. "Goodbye Anna. I hope you find the peace in the next life that I took from you in this one."

With tears brimming in my eyes, I slowly made my way back to my room, gently closing the door to Anna's room.

* * *

I was staring at the ceiling as the sun rose and filled the room with light. The girls started to stir as the darkness fled. Bambi was the first to wake up enough to check on me. She clasped my hand and stroked my cheek. "How are you feeling?" she asked softly.

"I feel like going home," I said, looking deep into her eyes. She didn't need powers to know what I meant. She hugged me tightly and cried with happiness. It didn't take long for the other girls to wake to what was happening.

It took the hospital staff a bit longer to get my discharge sorted out. But, by the time we had finished a very crowded breakfast in my room, Doctor Conners came by to sign me out. The good doctor and I shared a brief but significant look. There was no way he could understand it all, but he understood enough and he promised to have the hospital call. He didn't say why the hospital would be calling, he didn't need to.

I was soon driving away from the hospital in a caravan of cars. As we drove, my mind kept wandering, unable to concentrate on the conversation buzzing inside the car. But as my eyes wandered, rather than seeking out the clouds outside the window, they settled on the girls.

* * *

Dinner that night was a muted affair. Out of respect for Anna, they left the seat next to me empty. It was a touching gesture, but it was also a nagging reminder. The side of me that was normally kept warm by a close pressed body instead felt tingly cold as if I was sitting next to a ghost.

The girls acted as if I was sitting next to a ghost as well. At first they engaged me in conversation as usual, but as the meal went on, I caught more glances toward the empty seat followed by averted eyes. They were happy that Anna was soon to be out of our lives, but ashamed for feeling that way. They were sorry for me, and for Anna, but they knew it was for the best.

Katia was also missing from dinner. I heard something about a patient who went into labor, but I wondered if she was absent because she didn't know about my powers. Or perhaps it was because she didn't know the true story about Anna. She would have to learn soon enough, but now was perhaps not the best time.

By the time dessert was served the girls and I had little appetite left. I doubt there was ever so much uneaten dessert as there was that night. The girls started drifting away from the table. They each came to my chair and gave me a kiss on the cheek before departing. Some started to offer words of encouragement, or consolation, but one glance of the empty seat and they scurried off without a word.

Betsy and Gwen were the last to leave. I could sense how much they wanted to leave, to have time for their own thoughts, but they stayed to keep me company. Finally, I told them that I needed time alone with my thoughts as much as they did. They didn't believe me, but eventually they departed, relieved and concerned in equal parts. In my mind's eye, I watched them walk slowly back to the girls' side of the house. They walked with their arms around each other, talking quietly.

I looked at the remains of our dinner and the empty chairs surrounding the table. I then did something I had never done before: I took my dirty plate and glass to the kitchen. After a bit of looking around I found a cart and pushed it back to the table and loaded all of the other dishes onto it. I took my time, allowing my mind to wander as I cleared the table. I seldom, if ever, even wondered who cleared the table after meals. I'd always taken such things for granted. I took a number of things in the house for granted. Perhaps this was the first step in making sure I no longer did.

It must have taken an hour to clear the table and load the dishwashers. I didn't know what was usually done with the leftovers, and nearly decided to throw them out. But with nearly a dozen pregnant women in the house, I decided it was probably best to leave some pre-cooked food around.

Once I was done in the kitchen, I went around the house, turning off the lights. This task, at least, I was familiar with. There were many nights when my dark memories stirred too close to the surface to face sleep. Tonight, I knew, was going to be such a night.

As I shut off the last light downstairs, I found my feet taking me towards the back door rather than the stairs. I soon crossed the terrace, and then the yard. My pace slowed as I entered the woods, as the moon's illumination grew too feeble to travel quickly. But even in the near blackness of the woods, my feet knew the way to my not-so-secret lair.

The lair, turned clubhouse, was far enough away from the house that my powers couldn't reach from one to the other. Inside I could be isolated from the girls' thoughts, and they could be isolated from mine. I neared the edge of my range and stopped, casting my thoughts back to my girls. My touch must have been clumsy from such a distance, since I could feel many of them focus their attention on me. I told them all goodnight. I must have sent more than just goodnight, since there were no protestations of concern or offers to keep me company.

A few more minutes of walking and I was out of range entirely. I made my way through the hidden door, and the long corridor to my hideout. I crossed immediately to the far doors that lead out onto the balcony cut into the cliff face. I stood there and watched the stars spin slowly across the sky. I let my mind wander and tried to find some sort of peace with the world.

* * *

The next few days were a blur. It was as if I fell asleep watching the stars and awoke to here Betsy telling me that Doctor Conners was on the phone for me.

I remember how very steady my hand was as I reached for the phone. I put it to my ear and said in a perfectly calm voice, "Hello Doctor Conners."

My hearing seemed to fade in and out as I listened to Dr. Conners. But while my conscious mind might only have heard, "...I'm calling regarding Anna..." my subconscious mind heard the entire conversation.

I heard myself say, in a perfectly calm voice, "Thank-you for calling Doctor." My hand was still steady when I put the phone down on the cradle. As the line clicked shut, the world suddenly began to spin as my legs collapsed, leaving me sitting on the floor. I cradled my head in my hands waiting for the world to stop moving, and grimly holding on to consciousness.

Eventually the world stopped spinning, and I became aware of my surroundings. All of my girls were around me, some close enough that they struggled to resist grabbing me in their arms. They sat, knelt and stood around me, waiting for me to say what they all already knew.

I looked up, and in the back of the group, I saw a young blonde head. Of all the faces that were turned towards me, hers was the only one at peace. She touched her slim fingers to her lips and blew me a kiss, before folding her fingers in a small sad wave. The sadness only touched her face for a moment and caused only a single tear to slide down her cheek. The peace settled over her face again. I felt a small portion of that peace settle into my heart. I closed my eyes and took a deep shuddering breath. When I opened my eyes again, she was gone.

"Goodbye Anna," I said.

* * *

I hope you have enjoyed the story as much as I have enjoyed writing it. I'd like to thank everyone who has stuck with the story through the many delays. I'd especially like to thank the people who have taken the time to write me comments on the story and who have voted. It really means a lot to me.

I would also love to hear your reactions/comments now that the story has ended.