2 comments/ 9494 views/ 2 favorites The Heart Shaped Mosaic By: Nigel Debonnaire This is a continuation of the "Heart Shaped" series: a reader requested a story about Charlie in his old age. An alternate title could be: "The Lion's Last Roar." The base relationships and local topography are from the previous three stories. Without a full scorecard, most of Charlie's children belong to his long time love Mallory; Robert and Emily are with Mallory's cousin Morgan. The dates are in European style: (dd/mm/yyyy). 11.10.2030 (mid-afternoon) It was a glorious Indian Summer afternoon; the leaves on the trees outside my front window shook with glee in the rare South breeze. Their tossing foretold an end of good weather, but at my age I am willing to savor every sweet moment I can get. A mirror in the front room shows me a man with a weathered face, sunken eyes, a long, white beard and whispy, thinning white hair on my head. My mind is still agile, my imagination still vivid after eighty years, and my body does well to get me where I need to go, with help. My morning cup of coffee sat on the stand beside the sofa half consumed while an early Mozart String Quartet filtered out of the media center. "Not bad, Charlie Fredrickson, not bad," I said to myself as I soaked up the mid morning ambiance. It's hell getting older, as the old saying goes. I still feel the same; I look vainly in the mirror for the young man, but he's gone. My independence is what I miss most of all: my dignity was greatly wounded by needing help with everyday activities at first. Arthritis is my companion most days, and I was weak from a recent bout with pneumonia. Fortunately, I still have the juice to keep my dearest Mallory satisfied sexually, even if all I can do is lie there with my manhood pointed heavenward. The women in my life decided they could handle all my home care needs, but I blushed at first when they gave me sponge baths and changed my clothes. In time, I came to see their love for me coming through their service, and I came to appreciate and look forward to their touch that did things I couldn't.. It was no longer a big deal for any of my daughters to bathe or dress me, or for the boys to haul me around, but it was only stimulating when Mal did it. Emily helped me into my sweats for the impending visit that morning, then darted out the door to the University without much conversation. Prodigies were known for random accessibility, especially those who had entered University at the age of 15 two years earlier, and my youngest daughter was no different. She had been unusually glum that morning, but as much time she spent helping me with daily chores and my writing, we seldom talked about what was going on in her life. I didn't think it wasn't a father's role to inquire aggressively in a daughter's business, and my experience with her two older sisters bore that principle out. A pert strawberry blond head strode up the front walk with a small burden on her shoulder and a fleeting shadow at her waist: my oldest daughter Elizabeth with her two children in tow. A nasal whine informed me that my namesake was doing some sort of vehicle impression in the front yard, while his mother fussed at him. She was a stunning young lady in her late twenties, and she balanced being Chief Editor of the local newspaper with her maternal duties. The door opened, and a blur launched itself my direction with the scream: "Gampa! Gampa!" Unfortunately, little Charlie tripped crossing the living room and instead of ending up in my lap, the top of his head gave my testicles a direct shot at maximum speed before he folded up on the floor. The pain was excruciating: I doubled over immediately and gently rolled off the sofa where I nursed my agony. Quick footsteps brought Elizabeth to my side: "Dad, are you all right? Dad, Dad? Charlie, you have to be more careful around your grandfather: it's too easy to hurt him. Dad, I'll get you an icepack from the freezer, just a minute. Charlie watch your sister so she doesn't get into trouble." More quick footsteps brought cold relief just as I was able to sit up on the floor. "Are you hurt, Dad? I mean, did you hurt yourself falling on the floor?" I shook my head in negation as I let to pain of my abused genitals find respite. Baby Charlene had crawled over to me and was gazing up in concern with big, solemn blue eyes and one tiny hand perched on my knee. Moments passed, and my wits were returning as my eyes brimmed over a couple of rare tears. Charlie stood in the middle of the floor, sobbing: "I sorry, Gampa, I sorry. Dind wanna hurt you, Gampa, I love you, Gampa, I love you." Like the women of his family for five generations, he had strawberry blond hair and blue eyes and a long, lean frame he got from his father. Tears flowed copiously down his face in sincere remorse. When he saw that I was recovering from his blow, he stumbled across and flung his arms around my neck and sobbed into my shoulder: "I love you, Gampa, I love you." After a moment, I put my arm around and gave him a squeeze. "I love you, too, Charlie, you just have to watch where you're going, buddy. That's the key to living a long life: watch where you're going." The storm blew by quickly, and he gave me a quick kiss before moving over to the stash of toys I now kept in the corner to occupy himself. The icepack had done its work, so I moved it aside and picked up the granddaughter named after my first great love, who immediately cooed and began to play with my beard. Elizabeth settled into a chair across from me and after checking to see that her son was harmlessly occupied, relaxed a little bit. "How's it going, Dad?" "That's kind of like saying: 'Other than that, how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?'" "Dad," she exasperated, "I'm sorry that I didn't control Charlie better than let him burst in on you like that. Ever since Charlene was born it's been a major maneuver to get them both out of the house and keep them under control when we have to go out. In a few months, Charlene will be walking and it will be twice as hard." I waved her off. "I'm sorry honey, don't worry about the kids. Your older brother gave me a header in the groin a couple of times when he was that age; once was the day before you were conceived. That pain goes away." I took a sip of my coffee, and made a face at the baby in my lap. "I'm all right for the most part. I've been feeling better and moving better for the past week or so, and I hardly need help with dressing myself right now. It's been tough with your mother absent so much of the time. Emily is a godsend: I don't know what I'd do without her, but I miss your mother in ways you probably don't want to hear about. She'll be back in a few days, and I hope she can stay a while." "I got an e-mail from her yesterday about her adventures filming in Honduras. Tomorrow, she'll be in Vancouver to finish a couple of scenes and then she's coming home. I'm glad she's able to wrap production ahead of schedule." "Amen to that. I hope she can take a long break soon." "Oh she will, she will." Elizabeth glanced Charlie's direction and then looked back at me. "Now that's she's a successful film maker as well as an reputed author, she's entitled. How's the plans going for the big trip next month?" She looked sidetracked and confused for a moment, then recovered: "Fine, Dad. We got the air tickets and the hotel reservation your publisher sent us, and the neighbor's set to feed the pets and look after the house. Dan and I have things lined up at work, so we'll be ready for a week in New York. Are you getting excited about it? It's not everyone who gets his life's work celebrated like this. You're an American icon; a living legend." "A regular pain in the butt is what it will be. I hate suffering through these kind of tributes, and I've gone to far too many for too many people. By the grace of God, this will be the last one. The only good thing about this is a free family holiday where all of us can be together in a nice hotel and none of us will have to worry about who's cooking." "Amen to that, Dad," she said, "but that's not why I wanted to talk with you this morning. It's about Emily." "What about her?" "A friend of mine found her on a website a couple of days ago." "Yes?" "It wasn't a schoolgirl website." I looked down at granddaughter Charlene, who had fallen asleep in my arms, then back at my daughter. Oh, great holy shitballs, I said to myself. 23.6.1994 It was a hot day, and I was in my basement working on a new novel. The clatter of Charlene's lawn mover oscillated through the window. I took a peek out at the bright, humid morning and saw her plump form: her yellow halter top barely contained her massive mammaries, her shorts rode up to the sweep of her hips, her feet wandered bare with stray green fragments clinging to her toes, and a huge straw hat covered her grey head. People driving through the neighborhood wouldn't have looked twice at a chubby, sixty-nine year old woman working in the morning sun half-naked, but I'm not most people. My gym shorts bulged with sudden urgency as my wild imagination contemplated tackling her on the lawn in broad daylight to strip and defile her in front of the neighbors. A relatively nimble forty-three, I could subdue her easily. The thread of my story left me, and after saving my work, I logged on to the Internet to distract my libido and refocus. She'd at least want to finish mowing before being ravished.. After checking my e-mail and deleting the avalanche of spam, several ideas for innocent surf topics wandered through my mind as I opened the search engine. Old convents, whales at play, a history of blancmange, Wall Street week all presented themselves, but I was ready for pictures of nature so I entered "Irish hillsides" as a likely topic. There were a few sites that provided lovely shots of green idyllic countrysides to rest my eyes, but one puzzled me as it appeared: "The Hills of Irish Morgan." Irish Morgan? Where the hell was that? I downloaded the first page to a stock hillside with a castle, and a notice that this was an adult site, only for those over 18. The lawn mover ceased its erratic serenade; Charlene was finished with the chore. Something about the site jiggled my curiosity, and there was surely no harm in seeing which Rose of Tralee was willing to share her personal landscape with the world. I clicked through to the main page and it hit me: the almond eyes, the long, strawberry blond hair, the dimpled smile looking back over a bare shoulder and bare back, the perfectly rounded hips poured into a scandalous pair of cutoffs, the perfectly shaped long legs. It was Charlene's niece Morgan Sullivan who was the entreé of this feast of flesh, with three series of shots featuring diminishing coverage and six video samples in the outer area to whet the appetite for greater exposure, which could be had for a price. I sat there dumbfounded, jaw open, hands to my sides. Sure, I found Morgan attractive: a young woman in her early twenties prime usually quickened my pulse, but I'd known her most of her life and my loyalty to Charlene made even a fantasy of the nymph beyond contemplation. I glanced at a couple of series: they were both artistic and arousing, and the culmination was beyond my browser's reach sans password. The same was true of the video clips. I didn't want to see more of this young woman I considered my niece than I had already: it seemed like incest, and it repelled me. A voice came through the door: "Hey, Charlie, what's going on?" "Not much. You've got to come down here and see this." The heavy plod of her feet descended the marginally carpeted wooden stairs to my basement. At the base, she struck a pose with her hat, her sunglasses and her pursed lips that drew a chuckle from me despite my mental state of disarray. "I came to see how you were doing, dahlink," she cooed in her best Garbo impression, "and see if I could persuade you to pause for some--refreshment." "Sure, baby. You've got to see this." She pranced over and threw her left leg over my right leg, embracing me with her left arm and pulling my head toward the slick, salty, sagging breast that I loved so dearly. My eyes were turned toward the screen as I put her hand on my mouse. "See if this young lady looks familiar." Charlene was silent as she paged through the free part of the website. The tour ended with the credits page, and she kissed the top of my head when she was done. "Yes, this is my niece Morgan. " Her voice was calm and her demeanor composed. I looked at her in panic. "But I couldn't believe this when I found it. Aren't you shocked? Aren't you stunned? Aren't you upset?" Her eyes searched mine for several silent moments. "Yes, I'm surprised and disappointed that she did this. My sister Andrea always gave her daughter too much latitude when she was growing up, spoiled her quite a bit, and never pried about her activities in high school. Actually, Andrea did a spread in a girlie magazine in the early Sixties that didn't leave anything to the imagination. I don't know if Morgan's told her mother she's doing this or not, but we're not the ones to blow the whistle right now." "Would you have done something like this at her age?" Charlene gave me wry smile. "If the money was right, in a heartbeat, baby," she said as she patted my knee. "Let me give her a call and find out what's going on; I'll get back to you." Her feet padded wetly across the concrete floor and back up the stairs to go over to her own house a few steps away. Andrea was a lovely enough woman, and I was surprised that she would do anything of the sort. I logged off the computer and brought my coffee cup upstairs to rinse it out before brewing a pitcher of iced tea. Fifteen minutes later, Charlene returned, still dressed in the moist yellow halter, blue shorts, and wet, grassy feet, to sit at my table and use her frosty glass to cool off. "I talked with Morgan; she was sleeping in this Saturday. She freely admits doing the website and was happy you found it so easily. Doesn't care what her mother thinks, and says that at age 24 she should be able to do as she pleases. Hopes to make massive amounts of money off the perverts downloading her naked form for future investments, and wants to update and expand the site periodically to keep the business coming in." Her matter-of-fact tone told me that she wasn't terribly concerned about Morgan's enterprise. "Good grief, honey, it's just short of prostitution." Charlene drank in my every word as she continued to rub the frosty glass on the sides of her face and worked down her neck. I continued despite the distraction: "I'd never let a daughter of mine do anything like that; I'd be ashamed. It's objectification of the human being, the root of all evil. We are not things to be ogled at, we are people to be respected." "And you've never looked at sites like this before?" "Well, a couple of times out of curiosity. When you were out of town and I was missing you. I've never contemplated signing up for the inner part of the sites, and after while they all look alike to me." I patted my bare foot on the ground rapidly as I hunted for more words. She reached out, touched my face and probed my eyes again, her wrinkles increasing with care. "I wouldn't care if you'd looked at every one in detail, Charlie, and downloaded a library of hot action; we're not married. I think your attitude is sweet and it's a shame you aren't some girl's father. But Morgan's not your responsibility or mine, thank goodness, so you are absolved from having to worry about her." She smiled and gave me a peck on the lips. "You are such a sweetheart. There's a reason that I'd do anything for you, dearie. " Leaning over, she kissed me again on the lips for several sweet moments. Pulling back, her eyebrows furrowed again: "How come you were looking at websites for Irish hills?" I shrugged my shoulders. "It was time for a break and I looked out at you moving the grass. Your scantily clad body and wet, bare feet going by sharpened my grasscutter to a razor's edge, and I thought looking at the green hills of Ireland would blunt my urge to molest you in broad daylight in the side yard. I did want to get back to work." The glass moved down from her neck to her left, descending the upper curves of her breast. She licked her lips. "Did it work?" "Initially, until Morgan jammed my gears." The glass slid its frigid trail down the side of Charlene's left breast, and moved across the fat, luscious mound. The icy dampness made the yellow fabric transparent and the brown eraser point perked outward. Staggering to my feet, I crossed behind her to undo the strap and release the huge, snow white globes of wonder. I grabbed a double handful of ice from the bucket on the table, and reached over to cool the matching nubbins as I licked and teased her right ear and neck. My frozen hand then invaded her blue shorts, questing among the generous folds for the firepit; she responded by turning the swivel chair, pulling down my shorts and inhaling the sap dripping pole that twitched for attention. I found the goal of my quest, and when I pushed an ice fragment into her wetness, she fell off the chair in amazement. After pulling the blue shorts off her huge hips, I pushed another couple of ice cubes inside before plunging into the hot/cold, wet envelopment. The sensations of her frigid, yet warming cunt were electric: my heat built higher and higher as I thrust inside her, and she locked her legs tighter and tighter around my waist as she bucked against me, drinking in my heat. Finally, the tornado in my loins boiled over to flood her cold crevasse, and the last surges of my heat pushed her off the edge into that abyss of chaos that is carnal culmination. 11.10.2030 (early evening) My middle daughter Sylvia brought over dinner: a medley of tastes that was so diverting that I hardly realized that it was good for me. Her red headed daughter Melissa was with her, and at the end of the meal, Melissa said in a voice far too solemn for a six year old: "Grandfather, may I be excused?" I gave her my best grave deliberation before responding. "What is the reason you wish to be excused?" "There's a live podcast of Peter and the Wolf in five minutes that I wish to see. It's coming from the Black Forest in Germany and one of my favorite stars is in it. I've been looking forward to it for days." Her plate was reasonably emptied of the few morsels it had accepted at the beginning of the meal, the cloth napkin was folded neatly by the side of the plate. Her bright blue eyes betrayed her: they danced in anticipation of the program she wanted to see. Stroking my long, grey beard several times reflectively did not break her calm demeanor, so I gave her a hint of a smile. "If it's all right with your mother, then you may be excused." Her mother was busy at the sink, and without looking over her shoulder she replied: "Did you finish your snap peas, Miss Shot-in-the-Dark?" "Yes, Mother," came the calm, angelic reply. "Then you may be excused, Melissa." I nodded my head, and leaned over to her little shell-like ear. "You can use my workstation downstairs if you want to. You know how to use it, don't you?" The curly red head bobbed eagerly in agreement. I kissed her forehead and whispered: "Go ahead." She cheered and darted down the stairs to the basement. Sylvia took the remaining dishes from the table and make quick work of washing them. She sat down heavily across the kitchen table and opened a beer with a sigh. "Long day, sweetheart?" I queried. "Yes, Dad, after three long days. I finally got three website designs sold, but getting all the details right at the last minute wore me to a frazzle. Thank God Eddie and his wife could look after her while I was busy: she and her cousin Ben are closer than twins." The Heart Shaped Mosaic "Just like you and your brother Robert, who are the same distance in ages as Melissa and Ben are. . ." "Yes, just like Bobby and I. That jerk tried to get me to waste a whole evening at The Cardassian Club tonight because he thought I was working to hard. The bum should get a real job." "He'll be finishing his doctorate in Violin this year and will have to work for a living. Next summer he's getting married; he won't be so footloose after that." "I guess you're right, Dad. It's my own fault that I blew my chance for a wild, carefree youth on a dangerous game my first year in college, even though the result was better than I could ever hope for." During Sylvia's first semester of college, she got caught up in an old teenage sex game. Six to ten couples, who weren't necessarily dating, would meet in a large room. The .lights were turned out, the clothes came off, and the participants had sex with the first groper they met in the dark. It was exciting, it was dangerous, and it was sex without strings. After two months, Sylvia found herself pregnant by an unknown partner, decided to keep the baby, and struggled through her education with Melissa at her side. We helped her as much as we could with support and child care, and she was just now hitting her stride as an independent single mother with a real career. Melissa was a delightful child, and a favorite of my six grandchildren from her infancy. "Sylvia, you shouldn't keep calling her 'Miss Shot-in-the-Dark.' You'll have to explain it someday to her, probably before you're ready, and she'll have a difficult time understanding it." "I know, I know. The name helps me keep focused, and reminds me of my folly when things get difficult with her." "That little angel difficult? Really?" A wry look was her response. "Oh, I see, she balances her halo on her horns very well, right?" A nod of agreement came quickly. "Like you used to do." Her eyes shot lightning bolts at me before they changed to concern: "Dad, you look unusually pensive. What's up?" It took me a moment to reply. "Sometimes I wonder if your mother and I did the right thing by you children. We set up this Bohemian household between two then three houses; your mother and I never married; your Aunt Morgan set herself up next door and gave you a half-brother and sister; your grandmother swooped in periodically to spoil you all rotten, shamelessly doting on you. From the outside looking in, it seems a bit bizarre even though we're all artists in our own way. What did you think when you went to school and found out what a normal family was like?" "Dad, most of our friends had crazy families, too. I could tell you stories that would curl what's left of your hair. You're just from a generation too far back in the past. Nobody cared about our family arrangement, and neither did we." "But I wonder if you would have had your troubles, if you kids would have been better adjusted, if we. . ." "Stop it, Dad. I'm responsible for what happened in my life. I shouldn't have gotten into the blindfuck craze, but thanks to Melissa, I wouldn't go back and change it for the world. Elizabeth didn't have any problems at all, Eddie, Bobby, Sam, Will and Chris are all pretty normal, and oh my God, there's something happening with Emily, isn't there?" Her face collapsed into worry. I stared out the window for a long moment, then gave her a small shake of my head. "Dad, whatever it is, it isn't your fault. Emily's always been headstrong like her mother Morgan, and more than a bit obsessive wanting to imitate her. She's always been different, but letting each other be different is a tradition in our family. She'll snap out of it, whatever it is. Just be patient." It was several moments looking out the window before I could reply. Then I looked at her face: she had strawberry blond hair, bright blue eyes; she was the image of her mother at the same age. Indeed, Mallory was her age when Sylvia was born, a senior moment convinced me she was her mother, but I recovered quickly. "I heard there was a website," I murmured. Her eyes went wide. "From whom?" "Elizabeth," I said in a small voice. "I've put every permutation of Emily's name I can think of in the search engines this afternoon, but I can't find it. I'm afraid to confront her without the truth, and if I do, I'm afraid she'll have the same attitude her mother had about the whole thing and blow me off." "Stop it, Dad. I remember Aunt Morgie very well; I spent a lot of time in her house up the hill playing with Bobby. She was extremely nice to me, like a second mother. From the stories I heard about her, I don't think Emily is very much like her at all, at least Emily doesn't have the ruthless entrepreneurial spirit her mother had. Emily is probably the only one going into the family business of poetry and literature, and her IQ is a lot higher than Aunt Morgan's was, from what I've heard." "I never should have gotten her into the University at age 15. I should have found a way to stop her from obsessing about her mother; found her some therapy." "She was bored to tears in High School, and she was bound to obsess about a glamourous, successful mother she never knew. There's only one thing you have to be careful about: her friend Stuart is more than a friend and he's a real Rasputin type. Manipulator par excellance. I'll bet if she's up to anything she shouldn't be, he's pulling the strings." That revelation sent a current through me. Just then, Melissa bounded back into the room and into my lap, eager to tell me about the program she just saw. As I tried to listen to the red headed moppet's account, I saw my dark headed girl in my mind's eye. 14.5.2009 I padded barefoot downstairs with two huge mugs of black coffee in my hands. My dearest Mallory was already at the computer reading her e-mail in the unnatural early morning quiet. It was the day after I traveled back from a literary conference in England, and by long experience my jet lag had been subverted by careful habits, quality rest, good nutrition, and lots of fine coffee. The radio forecast promised unseasonal heat and humidity, so I was dressed in an old t-shirt and shorts; Mal was wearing a bright yellow halter top and blue shorts as she perched on the computer chair. She had kept the figure at age 30 after three children that she had when I awarded her the Heart-Shaped Pendant eleven years earlier: slightly pudgy, with strawberry blond hair, long graceful fingers, deep blue eyes. Her nipples poked up as sweetly as maraschino cherries through her halter top, generous dollops of vanilla ice cream peeked at me barely retrained by her top, and the dizzying swoop of her hips competed with them for attention. It was all I could do after being away from her three weeks to keep from throwing her off the chair and ravishing her on the cold concrete floor. As she heard my approach, she turned on her chair to rise and greet me with a lingering embrace and deep, wet kiss. "Welcome home, honey," she whispered huskily in my ear, "it's good to have you back." "It's been too long, sweetheart," I whispered back. The embrace lasted two minutes and I never wanted it to end. I gave her another long kiss and set the coffee cups down on the table. "You know so well what I like," she said, and let me sit on the computer chair, draping her body over mine. "I can't get over how light you are. How have you been able to stay in such good shape over the years?" "Well, Morgan insists that I exercise with her every day, so that's the main reason. I've never developed the appetite that Mom or Grandmama did, either, and chasing the children helps as well. You should see Elizabeth and Sylvia try to imitate us working out in the Rec Room sometime, it's hysterical." I gave her another kiss on the cheek. "I still wonder why you hang around an old, grey fat man of fifty-nine like me." She gave me a withering look. "I thought you were over that. I wouldn't trade you for a dozen young studs and neither would Morgie. You just overwhelm me for the beautiful person you are inside, and you make me feel like a queen. Don't even think that you're ever getting away from me." "Tilt. All right, my blood sugar is getting far too high. What's going on?" "Not much since school got out last week. Edgar is at day camp with the Scouts, Elizabeth's at a sleepover at a classmate's house, Sylvia and Bobby are at Aunt Andrea's for the week, and Morgie's on a business trip to Houston. I've been working a new book and some new pictures for Morgie's website." "Will she ever give up that bit of vanity? A woman her age shouldn't act like a nymphomanical eighteen year old, and she makes an obscene amount of money without it." "Can't say I disagree with you, but she's proud of the fact she's been an Internet sweetheart for fifteen years, and she still looks pretty fantastic for a 39 year old." "I remember the message she sent me the day after I discovered her website: Uncle Charlie, Glad you found my site; that means a lot of people will find it and I'll make a ton of money. Don't I look fantastic? Let me give you a free membership and password as a present: you can use me as an appetizer when you have Auntie Charlene for dinner. USER: Uncle Charlie PASSWORD: appetizer XOXO, Morgie" Mal chuckled and shook her head: "Modesty was never her problem." She closed her e-mail account and opened a sideshow program. "Let me run the latest pictures by you for reaction before we post them. It's always good to get a man's reaction to what works and what doesn't. I promised to get them online by noon today." "Okay." The bulge in my shorts was already anticipating the end of enforced celibacy, but Mal was all business and I knew we had to take care of that before pleasure. She put her hand on my crotch and pulled it away immediately. "Well, lover, I'm glad you're glad to see me, but we need to start from the relaxed position to measure the effects of the pictures. All right, close your eyes and picture this. Imagine Gandalf the White. Imagine him greeting Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli in the forest of Entwood. Imagine him throwing off his cloak and all you see is his old, white wrinkled skin, all of his old, white wrinkled skin shining at his companions, his ancient forked radish dangling oddly and dancing before their eyes, his eyes insatiable with lust. Imagine the nausea spewing forth from the three runners as they retch violently on the ground. . .oh, that did it; now we can start." I smacked her bottom sharply. "That's not fair, corrupting a classic that way. You should be spanked thoroughly for that." "Later, Charlie." She hit the start button and a series of pictures featuring her cousin Morgan processed across the screen. It began with her dressed as Little Red Riding Hood, wearing a blue and white checked dress and a pure white apron under the red hood, with sheer white stocking and red shoes on her feet and she carried a picnic basket. The setting was a woodland scene; in fact, it was the woods near my lake cabin. I recognized the trail that led to a small cave on the far end of the property. Gradually, Morgan's excellently sculpted and tanned form emerged from her clothing, torn from her by a werewolf, until she at last wore nothing but the shoes and stockings. Morgan had always been able to stir my prurient interest, and today's response to her exquisite naked body emerged slowly but surely as her clothing was torn away. The conclusion was of her tied to a tree, stark naked and frightened, as a werewolf threatened her from several directions, pawing her generous breasts to her obvious delight in the finale. "Those are great shots, Mal. Who did them?" She whacked me on the shoulder. "I did. You know I've been doing the photography since Bobby was born." "Well, Robert may be quite embarrassed someday to see his mother running around like this on the Internet." I kissed her shoulder. "You've become a poet with the digital camera, my love. Where did you get the werewolf?" "CGI. It's amazing what you can do with cutting and pasting these days. Morgie is a great model as well; she did all those terrified looks on her own. I was able to get a nice werewolf program I could make do anything. "What's next for Morgie's Bod, Incorporated." She looked at me with a sly grin. "Kitchen fun and games. A hockey-masked chef terrorizes my star with ordinary kitchen utensils." "I didn't know Morgie had that much imagination." "She doesn't; the scenario is mine, just like this series. I'm enjoying shooting the videos and editing them as well." "My little pornographer. Someday you should make movies of your mainline stories." "I hope to. Give me a few years and some backers." "Morgan's paying you for this?" "Oh, yes. Very well." I chuckled and looked through the series again, Morgan's familiar luscious curves working their magic with my libido. "How's Morgan doing otherwise? Any progress on. . ." "No, unfortunately. Her period came on schedule again this month. You two will have to try again before long." Morgan had decided to have children alone around five years ago, and recruited me to help her. It was a difficult transition for me, but we three worked through it. She moved into the house behind Mal's and my houses, tore down the back fence, and became part of our little community. Robert was welcomed as warmly as Mal's children, and Morgan had been desperate for a second child. We had been trying for a year without results. It felt like cheating, even though it was most men's dream to sleep with two women and done with Mal's express permission and help. My glumness passed and the story Mallory presented tweaked my fancy, but a problem tickled at the edge of my consciousness. "This sounds like fun, but where are you going to get a CGI for the monster chef?" "Not planning to. We have a master, monster chef right here." My eyes bugged wide open at the thought. I helped Morgan shoot of couple of bondage stills a few months ago, playing her evil tormentor, on the condition that my face or head could not be seen. Mal's eyes danced with mischief and she handed me a script. I looked it over: my attitude toward giving Morgan pain for her pleasure had modified over the years, but this was farther than I ever thought I'd go. Mal leaned over and began to lick my ear, adding heat to the story I saw on the page before me. After a few moments I couldn't see the words, so I put the script down. "All right, I guess I can give this a try. But I'm concerned about my face being shown: with the PicFinder programs out there, I could be linked to all this and that would be a major embarrassment to our literary careers, not to mention our children." Mal brought her face next to mine, our foreheads touching and our eyes were at point blank range. "You'll wear a hockey goalie's mask the entire time, as well as rubber gloves, with your chef's outfit. I'll dub in your lines from an artificial source; you'll be safe." The twisted appeal of the scenario began to my warped sense of humor. "Okay, it'll be amusing to play in the kitchen with Morgie," I said at last. "Maybe that will get baby number two going for her." Mal began to give me light, flicking kisses on the lips as she changed her position to put her damp crotch next to mine. "You did say that all the children are gone and not expected back soon?" "Yes." She resumed licking my ear while grinding her hips into mine. I undid her halter and flung it aside to knead her breasts, gently squeezing her hardening buds between the fingers splayed on her mounds. I stood up and carried her upstairs with her legs wrapped tightly around my waist and her arms around my neck. When we got to the bedroom, I threw her on the bed, roughly tore off her shorts, quickly pulled off mine, and tied her wrists to the bedposts. Her lips were quivering and her eyes bright with desire as I impaled myself in her sweet, slick channel, and we spent the day and the night in carnal oblivion, with a brief pause before noon to upload the pictures. Nine months later, Samuel Beckett Fredrickson was born. 11-12.10.2030 (late evening-early morning) The rest of the evening with Sylvia and Melissa was enjoyable enough on the surface, but a cloud hung over my heart while I entertained my darling granddaughter. Around 8:30PM, they left and my thoughts were running wild. Sylvia didn't any other inspirations, so I called my son Robert, Emily's full brother. He wasn't current with what his sister might be doing, but wanted to talk. "Dad, I made the first big step in my career. I'm concertmaster of the Plains City Orchestra, the youngest they've ever had. It's a stepping stone for young artists: the past three concertmasters went to the same job in Chicago, Philadelphia and St. Louis. Lots of good students to teach, and lots of chances to make money playing individual gigs. And Uncle Justin's going to see if he can get me some solo dates in Europe playing the Mendelssohn and Brahms Concerti." "That's nice. How's Jennifer?" "She's moving to town next month. We'll go house hunting, then tie the knot. Ready for another wedding?" "Sure, son. Anytime. Be sure and send Mal a note so we can all be there." "Thanks, Dad. The news about Emily sounds scary to me. If you need me to talk with her, or anything else, say the word and I'm there in three hours." "Thanks, son. Love you." "Love you, Dad. Bye." Emily wasn't answering her cell phone. My speed dial connected me with Samuel and the twins. The boys were at their mother Mallory's house next door, immersed in a game of Mexican Train dominoes, and disappointed their little sister hadn't shown up for supper. They offered to go look for her, but I asked them to stay home in case this was a tempest in a teapot. Emily was due next morning to help me up if needed and work with me on my latest poetry book, and she had always lived up to that commitment. All I had to do is wait patiently for her to come back, as if that would be easy. A call to Mallory eased my spirits a little. She was immersed in principal photography of her third movie as writer/producer/director, shooting had moved from Honduras to Vancouver. I caught her at the dinner break, and she filled me in about the status of the project. "I should be done in another ten days: we'll wrap and I'll come home to work on the editing. The only bad thing is that the window for reshoots is the same time as your deification in New York on your birthday." I snorted at her sarcasm. "Well, you'll just have to get it right the first time, won't you?" "Very funny, Methuselah, very funny. How's Emily doing?" "I'm worried, babe. There's a rumor that she has a website, but I haven't been able to find it. She's been flitting in and out of the house a lot, and a good part of the time she's off the radar: not home, not on campus and not answering her cell. It's circumstantial, but I'm worried about the worst case scenario would be, and don't know what I'll do when I find out." "You'll be fine, sweetheart. Do you have the PicMatch software on your laptop?" "No." "I think Eddie has it, get him to bring it over to you. That will get you to the site: find out what's really there and then you can cope with whatever you find." "Thanks, babe. I should have thought of that sooner. Senility is working very well today." "Bullshit. I haven't spotted trouble with her lately either; guess I'm losing my maternal touch. Haven't been able to IM with her this week." There was a pause as she took a deep breath. "Only Sylvia ever got into this much trouble." "Don't say that." "Sorry. I miss you, Charlie. I wish I was there." "I miss you, too, sweetheart. Can't wait until you're home." "Love you, need you." The Heart Shaped Mosaic "Love you, need you." I flipped the phone shut, and called my oldest son Edgar. A computer programmer by trade, he worked from his house across town where he lived with his wife and three children. He was reluctant to come over at first, but when he learned that Emily could be in trouble, he said he would drop everything and bring the program over. As he drove across town, I got off the couch and began the awkward descent into my basement. My frustration grew as I descended the stairs, not as much with the mountain they had become over the years, but with my own inability to sally forth and play a larger part in my children's and grandchildren's lives. Emily had been such a gem: spending hours helping me with my manuscripts, looking after me when Mal wasn't home, taking me to the parade of doctors that becomes the lot of every senior citizen. I never wanted to see harm come to any of my eight children, but Emily was my special baby. Her boyfriend Stuart was polite enough the two times I saw him, but Sylvia's assessment made me think. He was much older that she was, and there was strange gleam in his eyes that bothered me. Edgar let himself in upstairs. "Dad, Dad, where are you?" "Downstairs, son." A drum roll of footsteps brought him down where he found me at the computer. "Dad, you're getting too old to wander down here alone. I don't want to come over here and find you in a heap at the bottom of the stairs." "All right, son, don't blather. I'm slow and I'm careful; I can go where I like. Don't worry about me. Did you bring the program?" He brought out a flash drive and plugged it into my machine. "This will set it up. Do you have a recent picture of Emily?" "Yes, I do, and it's on the hard drive." I pulled it up from my digital family album. "I'll get the program installed and we'll find what we're looking for." A few keystrokes and the PicMatch program was running and ferreting out any sites that might have Emily's picture. It only took two minutes; and Edgar gasped as he saw the first screen. He shut the browser down immediately and made some more keystrokes to download more software from his flash drive. "What are you doing, son?" Edgar was engrossed in his work. "This--kind of site--is special," he said awkwardly. "We've got to install a program to surf undetected before we can look at this thoroughly. We've also got to get my hacker software loaded as well: I want to trace every direction this site links to, as well as everything I can find out about the man who put it together." When he finished, he scrubbed the memory of the machine, rebooted it, and went back to Emily's site. The content of the pages were too astounding to bear at first sight; it was illegal and forbidden. I got up and went to the window to look at the stars while Edgar activated his hacking program to probe more deeply. He copied files and made notes as I watched the stars wheel above me like a prisoner from his cell. Orion was marching high in the heavens when Edgar finished; I knew I would need that warrior's kind of valor before long. 7.8.2017 It was a glorious, late summer day at the lake cabin. At 6:00PM the temperature in the mid eighties and a rustle of breeze wafted golden puffs through the sky above the cabin. For a moment, I was worried that it would build into a shower, but a glance to the West and the direction of the wind indicated it wouldn't. Mal was busy in the kitchen preparing a feast for our horde: the older kids were swimming in the cove, Edgar (age 18) and Elizabeth (16) on one side opposite Sylvia (12) and Robert (a younger 12) on the other, and the younger kids were making mud pies on the lakeshore. Samuel (7), William (5), Christopher (5) and Emily (4) usually stuck together like a flock of baby geese, which made looking after them fairly easy from my point of view. The kids would scuffle and argue from time to time, but the squalls passed quickly and Mal and I rarely had to intervene. As I lounged in my plaid shirts and jeans, feet up and lemonade at hand, the changes of the past 20 years still seemed incredible. I thought I would never become a parent and was totally at peace with the thought; I assumed that parenthood was a craft I could never master anyway. The transition from one child, to two, then to four within a year and then another four within a period of three years wasn't all easy, but we were making it and I could now call my life as contented as when it was just Charlene and I twenty years ago. We suffered horrible losses, deaths that left gaping holes in our family, but we found ways to cope and the children responded wonderfully, especially the older ones. Sixty-seven was a ridiculous age to be father of such a large, young, vibrant brood, but I sighed as I snuggled into the thought Mal and I were making it work. A long wail approached, running up the path with only a bouncing, black headed set of curls in sight. Drama queen Emily was upset again by something the boys said. She came into full view, her face, arms, legs and dress caked heavily with mud, her bare feet gently pit-patting the ground. The skinny four-year-old who shared my birthday dashed up the stairs to throw herself in my arms and sob heavily on my shoulder. I held and rocked her until she was ready to talk. Her lips quivered when she finally confided her grief to me. "The boys called me a doody head, said I was stupid and slow and I don't know how to make mud pies right. They said if my mommy were alive she wouldn't love me 'cause I'm such a doody head, and my hair's the wrong color to be in this family. They said I was lucky to be their sister and if I wasn't careful, they'd kick me out of the family for being a doody head." A fresh set of sobs wracked her little body as she buried her head in my chest while gripping me tightly with her bare arms. I sighed and chastised myself for being too complacent: I should have known things seemed a bit too blissful for one afternoon. I broke out my paterfamilias voice and called the younger boys to come up to the cabin, but they ignored me. A blast from my air horn brought them running; their pace slackened dramatically as they approached the cabin. The three little mudballs stood meekly before me as I looked at their sheepish expressions; they knew they were busted. "Did you call your little sister a doody head?" Six eyes refused to meet mine, and a faint, ragged chorus of yeses insinuated my ears. "Did you tell your little sister that her hair was the wrong color to be in this family?" The same timid chorus repeated their mantra of admission. "Did you tell your little sister that her mommy wouldn't love her if she were alive today?" Another mantra from the penitent chorus. "You will sit on the edge of the porch facing the cabin for fifteen minutes in time out. If your mother comes out, you are to tell her exactly why you're in time out. If I hear of you saying anything this mean to your sister again, the next time I will punish you more. There will come a time when you will have to take care of your little sister, and I expect you to protect her from anything that might hurt her. Think about that while you're sitting here quietly." Emily was almost too big for me, but I carried her around the corner of the cabin that had a better view of the lake. She gasped and aahed as caught sight of the sailboats: she was easily entranced by them. Her foul mood lightened and she pointed out breathlessly the different colors and types of boats on the lake. When I was sure her mood was buoyant again, I looked her squarely in the face and said, "Do you know whose hair color's the same as yours?" She shook her head. "Mine. You are the only one of my children who got my hair color." She laughed at me. "Don't be silly. Your hair isn't black, Poppi, it's white, it's always been white." "Well, when I was your age it was black just like yours, and I'll show you some pictures to prove it when we get home tonight. You are not a doody head; you are one of the smartest little girls I've ever known. And your mommy loved you very much; she loves you today up in heaven, I know it." She looked down for a minute, then back out at the sailboats. We went back around as the boy's punishment ended, and I blasted the air horn twice to call the older kids in. They came up the path, and I pointed around the corner of the cabin. "We have four little mudballs here who need to be hosed down before supper. The towels are in the usual place inside. Get going." The children gleefully dashed around the corner to the hose; I put Emily down with a gentle pat on her backside to propel her after them and entered the cabin to give my Mal a kiss. A dubious look greeted me. "Finished playing peacemaker, Daddy?" I snuck a potato chip from the table where sandwiches, pickles, chips and carrots waited for our attention. "I know Emily's a drama queen, but Samuel and the twins hit her below the belt today," I said. "They need to know what's unfair to say to somebody, even if it's their sister, and she needs to know we love her even though she's different. I worry about when she'll want to start imitating Morgan. She's much more vulnerable than her mother ever was." My lady turned to give me a big hug and a kiss. "Look who turned into the protective daddy at last. We'll be there for her; she'll be fine." "How did we ever get to be parents of such a mob?" Incredulity curled her face. "Well, from time to time, you've gotten tired of oral sex. . ." I smacked her backside. "Smart ass, you know what I mean. We didn't plan this when we set up our arrangement." "Well, the first three was a fairly normal family-making strategy, and Morgan added Robert. We've never had to worry about money, between our book sales, Morgan's burgeoning fortune, and doting relatives around the corner ready to spoil them. About five years later, I was ready for another baby, then we thought he should have a sibling two years younger, but we got two for the price of one. Then Morgan had Emily. . ." Her voice trailed off into somber silence, and I held her closer, resting our foreheads on each other's in silence for a long time . Shrieks and laughter tumbled through the windows; flesh colored imps flashed through our view. "Let's see what's going on outside," she said as we wrapped our arms around each other to go out the door and look in on the kids. The children were having a grand water fight; the older kids still in their swimsuits squirting the little ones with the hose and dousing them with their drink glasses, and the little ones devoid of their muddy clothes were darting in naked innocence through the clearing and ducking behind trees. Mal looked as if she were going to put a stop to it after a minute, but I pulled a bucket of water out of the rain barrel and upended it over her head before she could say anything. We played with the water for a half hour in the fading light before drying off on the porch and going in to eat our supper in the reddening evening, wearing towels. Loading the vans took an instant and we were headed home. I looked in on Samuel, William and Christopher to show no hard feelings through some fatherly horseplay. Then I looked in on my little drama queen to make sure she was still in good spirits as she fell asleep. 12.10.2030 (small hours) I clicked through one picture after another from Emily's pornographic website all night long, pausing to look down at Edgar's notes from time to time. He found all of it: the abuse, the lies, the manipulation, Stuart's criminal record. Tears coursed down my cheeks from time to time, and I went back upstairs painfully a couple of times for glasses of water to keep from dehydrating. Opening Morgan's old pictures, the difference sprang out immediately: Morgan clearly loved what she was doing, no matter what pose; Emily clearly hated what she was doing, no matter what pose. Of course Emily found her mother's site a year ago, as Edgar discovered from her computer, and I cursed myself for not telling her about it sooner. I felt impotent, numb, useless, a failure. Yet I kept clicking through the awful pictures of Emily, obsessively burning them into my brain so I could not hide from the truth. My daughter needed me, and my heightened outrage would give me strength and energy to carry through the ugly tasks of the day to come. Shortly after dawn, the door opened upstairs. "Poppi, where are you? You tried to call me last night; sorry I couldn't get back to you." "Down here, Little Bird." I was amazed that my voice carried up the stairs, as weak and strangled as it was, but she pounded down the stairs two at a time to get to the basement. She was the image of her mother at the same age, except for the coal black hair that was my contribution to her genetic makeup, above medium height and just flowering into womanhood. She wore purple sweats and black tennis shoes; her eyes were alive with worry until she saw the computer monitor beside me, when they turned livid. "I have to apologize to you, Little Bird," I said gravely. She stood straight and defiant like a defendant before a court; tears began whipping down her cheeks.. "No, father, no. It's not like that. You need to listen to me; it's not what it looks like. Please, Poppi, please." "Honey, I should have told you about your mother's website. We should have taken it down, but her will stipulated that we leave it up as long as it made money for you and your brother Robert. Your mother loved you both so much, wanted you both so much, wanted to provide for you even after her death, so I was reluctant to defy her wishes. I'm sorry, Little Bird. You should have never seen her like that." Red, damp eyes looked at me desperately. "But she's so beautiful, Poppi. My mother was a beautiful lady who wasn't afraid to share her beauty with the world. Look at this picture." She came over to sit on my lap and pulled up a black and white picture of her mother Morgan. Morgan was nude, her arms were poised gracefully above her, her palms resting gently on her head, her lustrous hair trailing down in a vain attempt to cover her full, round breasts, her nipples poking out sweetly above her thin waist and rock hard stomach. "Why shouldn't I be like her? Don't you think I'm beautiful, Poppi?" Tears streaming down my cheeks threatened to betray me, but I steeled myself. "Of course, Emily, I think you're beautiful, every bit as beautiful as your mother was. That's not the point: you're not her." A fresh spasm of sobbing lost a couple of minutes. She shrieked: "I know I'm not her, I'm constantly reminded that I'm not her and I'll never be the woman she was. I'm a failure, I'm hopeless. You never really loved my mother and I'm not as good as she was." I took her face in my hands and tried to bore through the self-pity: "Emily, I've loved you from the day you were born and I'd do anything for you, anything! You don't have to earn my love, Little Bird, I'm proud of you. Your mother would have never wanted you to try to be like her; she would have wanted you to be the best Emily you could be. She wouldn't have cared if you couldn't be the athlete she was. You went to university at the age of 15 to major in English Literature and Creative Writing: she would have hired a press agent to spread that news. God help you, you inherited a bit of me beside my hair, and that would have made her happy." The flood subsided and she looked a bit confused, her face wrinkled and her almond eyes dazed. After a moment, I felt strong enough to continue: "I can't say that Morgan was a great love of my life, but I loved her. She was a precocious tomboy as a little girl, a manic whirlwind as a teenager, an aggressive entrepreneur as a young woman, and left us when she was still in her prime. I couldn't love her as she deserved, but she found it hard to let anyone love her. You don't have to make that mistake, she wouldn't want you to make that mistake just because she did." She collected herself and protested. "But I can let someone love me. Stuart loves me, and I love him." "Ah, yes. I can see that by the red marks around your wrists and the bruises you've almost covered up on your face and neck." "He says its no better than I deserve. He says he's the only one that really cares for me.' "I'm sorry, Little Bird, but I have some bad news." I pulled up Stuart's blog, full of preening, ego-driven attitudes, proudly boasting of his conquests of Emily and three other young women. Then came the sites for the other women, the lurid poses he clearly forced them into, the clips of degradation beyond what Emily had endured. Emily's face grew cold as she looked at page after page, then she shut down the browser and rested her head on my shoulder. "What do we do now, Poppi?" she whispered. " I'm scared of him." I hugged her a moment. "You stay here for now. Go upstairs and take a long, hot bath while I take a nap. I'll call Edgar and we'll deal with Stuart tonight." She hugged me back hard until I thought I would burst. I kissed her on the cheek. "I'll protect you, Emily. It will be all right. You're safe, Little Bird." 14.5.2025 It was a windy May afternoon in the park, and I wore an Irish wool sweater under my windbreaker. A flock of twelve and thirteen year old girls were going through their hitting and fielding drills; the softballs taking on a green sheen as they bounced off the freshly cut grass. Large, murky black clouds crowded the sky, but gave no indication that they were about to unleash their heaviness to curtail the game. I looked around the stands at parents old enough to be my grandchildren; they had tolerated my presence gladly the past three weeks. Three of them were children of my students from University days, and I regaled them with stories of their parents' misadventures readily. The storytelling was a great service to the girls: my distraction of their parents kept them from yelling encouragement and frustration at their children with every practice grounder, swing or throw. The team broke into two sides, and I settled into my customary role as scorekeeper. The manager gave me the lineups, which I recorded on the scoresheet in order to detail how every girl performed. It took me back to the childhood days of scoring Mickey and Maris, Yogi, Whitey, Elston and the rest of my beloved Yankees. Those were great summer days, laying flat on the floor by the radio or the TV with pencil and paper, sweltering while my heros worked their diamond magic. Later on, my Charlene and I spent many happy hours entwined on her couch watching the Cubs on cable, scoring them through good times and bad, mostly bad. My Emily was a tall, pale, gangly kid in her t-shirt, long shorts, tube socks and baseball shoes, her training bra was just beginning to train and her long, black hair was wound up on her head under her hat. Given her family's medical history, it always worried me when she went out on the field, the dance studio or the gymnasium, and I had her checked by her pediatrician twice a year to be sure she was all right. I shot her a wink as she glanced my direction; she returned a brief smile before turning to cheer on her teammates from the bench. As the innings progressed, I had to make my writing smaller and smaller to accommodate the long innings that averaged ten runs each. Emily started in left field, pitched for one inning, then played third base, all positions Morgan had played. My daughter was one of the greatest hustlers the diamond ever saw, diving for flies and grounders, sprinting into perfect position for every play, swinging from her heels at bat. I loved seeing her love for the game made manifest. Unfortunately, she wasn't even mediocre for all her hustle, she managed only two foul balls in four strikeouts, her dives for the ball almost always came up empty, she was off target with all of her throws, and she was shellacked on the mound. The game ended at last, and I didn't need to listen as the manager read off the list of girls who made the team.