Caitlin: Chapter 6
Larry briefly glanced at the clock before rolling over. He didn’t want to get up, but he had to get ready for work. He didn’t want to get up because lying next to Caitlin was soothing. He was getting more comfortable with her and had started letting her sleep with him.
This initially caused problems since she was wired to get up early. However they soon worked it out. Her idea was that she’d get up at her usual time, do things she needed to do so long as she was reasonably quiet, then she’d slip back into bed just before he got up. It was a weird idea, but so far it worked.
There was another problem on the horizon. Tomorrow was Thanksgiving. He was going to visit his parents, and he’d have to take Caitlin along. He had to because he accidentally mentioned her name to his mother, and she got all excited about him having what she believed to be a girlfriend. So of course she just had to meet Caitlin.
“Do you think you can handle it?”
“Oh yes Master. I’m fine being around lots of people.”
“I mean, can you act normal?”
“Sure, I think.”
That did not give him confidence, but he couldn’t stick around to rehearse with her. He had to get to work.
There wasn’t much actual work for him to do, this being the day before a national holiday. This gave him plenty of time to think about how Caitlin might interact with his family. He thought up scenarios, some of them fairly elaborate, and thought about what to have her say and not to say.
A potential big problem was Uncle Martin. He rented slave girls from time to time. There was a good chance he might recognize Caitlin. He could have her change her hair style and makeup, but what if he still recognized her? One plan he had was to just have her stay home and claim that she was sick. That would work for Thanksgiving, but he’d be back over there for Christmas, and if he didn’t have her with him by then, they’d know something was up. No, better they met her tomorrow. Then for Christmas he could use the sick excuse.
When he walked into his apartment, Caitlin was sitting on the couch, pumping her fists like she was psyching herself up for a big game or something.
“Act normal, act normal, act normal, act normal!”
His face set in a deep frown.
“Please tell me you won’t be doing that tomorrow!”
“Oh! Hi Master! No, tomorrow I will be normal!”
He had to fight off a strong urge to laugh, then another urge to cry.
Driving to his parent’s house the following day, Larry wondered if this was how condemned prisoners felt as they were being led up to the guillotine. Caitlin sat next to him, quietly repeating her mantra. He turned down the street that he grew up on and soon spotted the house.
“Okay we’re here Caitlin.”
“Okay honey.”
He looked at her for a moment before deciding that was a good response. After taking a deep breath, he got out of the car and let her out. They walked up to the door where his mother was waiting to greet them.
“Larry! It’s been too long! Come here and see your mother! And hello there, you must be Caitlin!”
“Hello, Ms.?”
“Oh, call me Joan, honey.”
“Hello Joan. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I want to thank you for inviting me into your home.”
Caitlin sounded totally different. Her manner of speaking had changed considerably.
“I’m glad to have you here, honey. Please, come inside! Uh, shoes by coat rack please.”
Most of Larry’s immediate family was there. His brother John and sister Linda were watching the football game, Dad, who hated both teams, was occupying himself in the back yard with his grand kids, while Larry’s mom was preparing the food. Luckily, Uncle Martin wasn’t able to make it. Everything would be just fine, as long as Caitlin didn’t say anything too weird, and his brother didn’t decide to start arguing politics with their dad.
“Larry didn’t mention much about you. What do you do for a living?”
“Well ma’am, I’m a freelance artist. I just get me an ol pencil and paper and I make happy little drawings of happy little creatures.”
“Yeah, she drew an owl for me, and it was beautiful!” Larry added.
“That’s neat! I’d like to see some of your work sometime.”
“If you have a piece of paper, I’d be happy to draw something for you now.”
“Oh that’s okay honey, you don’t need to do that.”
“I know, but I’d like to.”
Far from ruining Thanksgiving, Caitlin helped make the evening one of the more pleasant family holidays Larry had had in years. His family was captivated as she turned what started out as pencil strokes, into a very well rendered rabbit, eating some clover in a field. Even Linda’s kids who normally ran around the house causing mayhem were captivated. And the whole time Caitlin spoke in that soft, calming voice.
Larry began to wonder if this was the same woman who had gotten into the car with him.
She ended up making two more drawings, then they all pigged out on roast turkey with stuffing, and thank the lord for gravy, because gravy was the only thing that made turkey edible in Larry’s view. But it was all worth it for Mom’s homemade pumpkin pie. The conversation drifted from Caitlin, to sports, to Larry’s least favorite subject: Politics. Then his brother just had to bring up APEA.
“You know it’s the Tandel administration’s fault. APEA would have never passed had Brussert won.”
Caitlin was about to open her mouth to say something when Larry, thinking quickly, beat her to it.
“Oh shut it John! This is Thanksgiving! Nobody here wants to listen to you spew over how much you hate the President.”
“Larry’s right John! Enough!” their mother added.
“All of you know I’m right! Fucking Tandel’s in league with that facility! Hell she came from that facility, they found records of her! She should be impeached!”
That’s when John and their Dad got into it. Their Dad had a seat on the city council, and knew a bit more about politics then John did. When he and John started arguing, it was time to leave.
Larry got up. “Caitlin, we’re leaving.”
While he normally hated when his Dad argued politics with John, this time it was the perfect excuse to get out of there. Caitlin had performed unbelievably well, but he figured it was best to not push his luck.
“Your brother really doesn’t like the facility, huh?”
“Yeah. Honestly though he just spouts this shit when he wants attention. He’s always been that way. He looks for divisive wedge issues to get behind so he can get people to pay attention to him. He’s also jealous because I showed up with a girlfriend and he hasn’t so much as had a date in a year.”
Caitlin yawned and buckled her seat belt.
“I was gonna say to him that the facility and President Tandel have a positive or semi positive view among 82% of the population, and that people are voluntarily recruited nowadays.”
“Yeah I figured you were gonna say something stupid like that.”
She yawned again and slouched down in her seat. “But it’s true.”
“Doesn’t matter as far as John’s concerned. He would simply state that you’re lying and claim he knows the real facts, those facts invariably being something he read off some conspiracy site. Also you saying anything about the facility to him is a bad idea because it wouldn’t take him five minutes to search for you online, which would cause me more headaches then I’d rather deal with.”
“Oh. I see.”
He noticed that she looked pretty tired. She was having trouble focusing on him.
“Hey, are you all right?”
“Turkey always makes me really sleepy...”
“Well go to sleep then. You’ve definitely earned it. You were a totally different person in there. I don’t know how you pulled it off.”
She closed her eyes and smiled. Within seconds she was out.
Later that evening back in his apartment, Larry was trying to get in the mood. He wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving in another way. The turkey was wearing off and Caitlin wasn’t about to tell him no. She laid there on the bed, totally nude and waiting for him.
“Tell me Caitlin, how did you pull off that personality change? It was almost like you were another person over at my parent’s house.
She smiled and looked at him with those spaced out eyes.
“I have a whole bunch of different people living in my head, and I just let Artist Caitlin take over for awhile. She’s the one who made those drawings.”
He stood there in frozen silence and just stared at her.
“I need to go take a shower.”
He left the room with a frozen, staring expression on his face.