Caleb 40 – Growing Pains

Monday rolled around again, reducing the countdown to just three weeks until our exams and less than four until Ness and her parents would be coming up. I didn’t know how long they were going to be staying, but my birthday was the week after and so I was hoping that they would stay at least until then. Now that I had accepted the idea of having a birthday party, I wanted them to be there.

I was also thinking about my parents. We had effectively run out of space. Gracie still had her room, although I suspected that she would still be in hospital by my birthday. Then there was our room, Josh’s and Louise’s room, and Jules’ workshop. That left just one spare bedroom. We had two sets of parents coming. I wasn’t sure how we were going to accommodate them, but I was pretty sure one of the girls might have some ideas. I would check in with them later.

These thoughts were running through my head as soon as I woke. It was just after four and I needed to get to the dojo. I slid out of bed and began my day.

“Good morning,” Kevin said as I entered the dojo.

“Morning,” I replied, before going into the changing room to get into my gi.

“Thank you for looking after Carys on Saturday,” he said, when I emerged.

“It was Josh and Louise who brought her home,” I said. “Not me.”

“I’m not talking about that,” he said. “She told me what you said. When she got in, she was still a little drunk and probably talked a little too much. She told me that she’d made a play for you, and you had turned her down because she was drunk.”

“Does she remember telling you all this?” I asked, a small smile on my face.

He smiled. “I think she does, but she is pretending not to.”

I laughed.

“I know you have an unusual arrangement with your fiancées,” he said. “None of you seem to have any issues with having sex outside of your relationship.”

I stopped warming up and turned to face him, waiting for whatever he was going to say next.

“Carys is all I have left,” he explained. “Her mother abandoned us both while I was away. I came back to find Carys at my parents’ house. I don’t want to see her hurt again.”

“Nor do I want to hurt her,” I said in return. “But Carys is a grown woman who can, and will, make her own choices. She knows that the girls and I are together and that we are not looking to extend our family. She has needs and perhaps she sees us as an opportunity to get those needs met, without all of the baggage of an entanglement that she is not ready for.

“Seeing what we do and how we live, how hurtful would it be for us to turn her away if she came to us? I’m not talking about what happened Friday night but if Carys, sober and in full possession of her faculties, came and asked us, we wouldn’t turn her away.”

“She may think that’s what she wants,” he replied. “But what if she becomes attached to you and to the girls. I just don’t want her to get hurt.”

“I understand that,” I said. “Believe me, I really do. But you are setting yourself up for failure. Carys is going to get hurt in her life – it’s inevitable. All I can promise is that we will not deliberately hurt her. I am not making the plays here; she’s the one who came to me.”

Kevin sighed. “I know,” he said. “But I know her, she is drawn to you. I just…”

He looked at me helplessly and sighed again. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have a daughter, but I saw his anguish in his aura.

We sparred for the rest of the session. I had thought that we were going to be doing more Aikido training, but I suspect that Kevin was not in the right frame of mind for that.

After the session, I got changed and headed for the door.

“Caleb,” he said, I had my hand on the door handle.

“Yes?” I said turning.

“Just know,” he said. “If you hurt her, I will come for you.”

I smiled at him. “I know,” I said, and left the dojo.

The morning passed with little to differentiate it from so many other Mondays I had endured. I had a couple of hypnotherapy appointments, including one video call with Fiona. She had lost enough weight to be rewarded, and the change in her attitude was incredible. She was no longer a grumpy bad tempered brat; quite the opposite, in fact. I could see that losing even just over twenty six pounds had given her hope. I didn’t suppose that the orgasms were doing any harm either.

I ate lunch with the girls and Dana who had made it her habit to eat with us when her lunchtime coincided with ours. Dana was much less skittish around us now. I had expected some awkwardness from her after what had happened on Friday night, but she had come for dinner Saturday and Sunday and seemed to have found her place with us.

The girls and I discussed the issue of bedrooms over lunch.

“Why don’t we turn the den into a bedroom?” asked Jules. “We could store the furniture up in the attic space, there is still the bed and some other bedroom furniture that I would love to get out of my workshop. The only disadvantage is that it opens into the living room. Other than that, it’s a good size and would make a great bedroom. We rarely use it in any case.”

She was right. I could count on one hand the number of times we’d used the den. Even if it was only a temporary change, turning the den into a bedroom would make sense.

“Great idea,” I said. “Maybe get it moved around this weekend? That way we have still got a couple of weeks if we need to get, or do, anything else in preparation.”

“Don’t forget we agreed to go see Nana Babi on Sunday,” said Amanda. I had, in fact, forgotten.

“It shouldn’t take too long,” I said. “We should be able to get it done Saturday.”

After lunch, I went to a class and then went home to cook an early dinner in preparation for meeting Jeevan.

We were in a church hall once again.

“It’s time,” said Jeevan, in his full Maharishi regalia.

“Time?” I asked.

“I’m hoping that the lady with the pancreatic cancer comes tonight,” he said. “If she does, I think we will be able to Heal her. With your power, and my guidance, we should be able to manage it. I hope you are fully rested?”

“I am,” I said.

He nodded. “Good.”

Jeevan went backstage, and I took a seat in the auditorium and watched as people filtered in.

She was one of the last to arrive, and she looked terrible. Her skin was jaundiced, and the whites of her eyes looked yellow too. I sent an image of what I was seeing to Jeevan.

“That is not good,” he said. “Her cancer must have progressed. We may already be too late.”

I had already made the mistake of digging into her mind. Now I knew all about her, I had to try to help her.

Her name was Nicola, and she was just forty four years old. She had a husband named Nick and two children who were in their early teens. Despite her diagnosis she was still working as a call handler at a local insurance company. She had initially been on the road, and was a very effective sales representative, but when she became ill the company had brought her into the office.

“Let’s Heal her,” I said. “Whatever it takes.”

“That is exactly the wrong thing to think,” he sent. “You cannot go into a Healing with that attitude. All that will happen is that you may or may not Heal the patient, but you risk your own safety. I fear that we are too late to help Nicola.”

“No,” I said. “Let’s at least try. If nothing else we can give her more time, and perhaps even alleviate some of her symptoms.”

The cymbals crashed and Jeevan appeared on stage to begin his show. As always, I was impressed with both his ability to work the room, and to multitask. He kept up a constant stream of banter, while we assessed and worked on our patient.

“I suspect,” he began when we first started to assess her condition, “that she has perhaps a few weeks left of her life. The tumour has gone everywhere, it is in her lymph nodes, and her liver.”

“So, what do we do?” I asked.

“We have to make a decision,” he said. “Do we treat her, or not. I am not one hundred percent confident that we can Heal her, and if we do not, we may significantly shorten her life.”

“How short?” I asked.

“Possibly to days,” he said. “If we do nothing, I estimate she has about a month to six weeks remaining.”

I examined her mind again. Nicola was ready to die. The only reason she hadn’t taken her own life was that there was a suicide exclusion on her life policy which meant that her family would lose out on the insurance if she killed herself. She was in constant pain and misery. The only reason that she kept coming to Jeevan’s meetings was that they seemed, for a short time at least, to ease her pain. She had no hope of a cure. She was done.

I had shared this knowledge with Jeevan. “If we asked her, she would agree,” I said. “We need to try.”

I felt some small amusement from him at that.

“No consent?” he asked.

“Whatever happens, we are giving her what she wants.” I responded. “If we can heal her then that is the miracle she most desires. If not, and we shorten her life, then we are cutting short her misery. I won’t say it’s a win-win, because it’s not, but in either case she gets relief. I know that is what she would choose if given the option.”

Jeevan was silent for a few moments.

“Very well,” he sent. “Let us begin.”

The next fifteen minutes was the most difficult and taxing I had ever found using my powers. Previously I had just imagined things into being, but this time there was active resistance. It was as if the disease was a sentient creature that was unwilling to let go of its victim. I was reminded of the time I tried to help Ness when she was so far away; this was actually harder. It was working, but it was like pushing a railcar, on rusty rails, uphill.

I kept an eye on my energy bar, and saw it falling at an alarming rate. We were less than five minutes in, and it was already a third gone. Jeevan’s was better but I realized that he was preferentially using my power and just using his to guide. I didn’t mind; it made sense. Hopefully by the time I ran out of power, if there was anything left that needed doing, he would be able to finish it off.

We had implanted all of our plan to her body now. The tumour cells were all set to self-destruct over a period of about two days. All of the cells, not just in the primary tumour but wherever they had spread, would die. At the same time we bolstered her lymphatic and immune systems to be able to cope with all the waste products that the death of so many cells would produce. We didn’t want to cure her cancer only for her to die of rhabdomyolysis.

While we were working on Nicole, on stage, the Maharishi was working on one of his plants. It was apparently a particularly difficult case. When he had finally pronounced her healed, he was on his knees, sweating, and blood was dripping from his nose.

I wasn’t in a much better state. As I was sitting on the end of a row, I was able to turn away from the person next to me, and cover the fact that my nose, too, was bleeding. I was sweating, and dizzy. I actually thought I might black out.

My energy bar was completely gone, and I had encroached by about half a segment into my other bar, the one Jeevan said I should never eat into.

“Bhaiya,” he sent. “We did it, but you and I were both reckless. How far into your life bar did you go?”

“Only a little,” I replied, breathing hard.

“A little is still too much,” he sent. “I shouldn’t have allowed you to convince me to take this on.”

“Did we succeed?” I asked.

“I believe we did,” he said. “I am convinced that we have removed her cancer. She will live.”

“Then it was worth it,” I said. “We will recover.”

“This time,” he sent. For the first time ever, I felt anger in him. “But next time we may not be so lucky. You cannot do what we did here without consequences. For the sake of your girls, please, don’t do this again. It is mostly my fault, I allowed myself to be convinced. We should have pulled back. We succeeded this time. But next time the consequences could be much worse.

“What worries me more than anything is that I have now given you the idea that it is okay to push yourself like that. It isn’t. One or both of us could have died! If you love your girls then promise me that you will never do anything like that again. Please Caleb, promise me!”

I considered his words. I was getting my breathing back under control, and my nose had stopped bleeding. Nicola wasn’t even aware that she had been given a reprieve. In fact, she was disappointed in tonight’s meeting. Since neither of us had anything left, we hadn’t blocked her pain. Her pain would resolve itself over the next few days, but the relief that she had felt in attending these meetings before was no longer evident. She took it as a sign that her cancer was too advanced and that her death was imminent. She would call in sick from work, something that she had resolutely refused to do so far and spend her last few days or weeks with her family.

I thought about my family. How I would feel if one of them were in her position. How I would feel if I lost any of them. Then I realized that I had been incredibly selfish. Risking my own life to heal someone else wasn’t noble…it was stupid. If I died, it wouldn’t matter to me; I’d be dead. It would be my girls, and my friends, that would suffer the loss. They would have to pick up the pieces of each other’s grief. Why would I even consider putting them through that?

I ‘saw’ the twins, Jules, Ness, my parents, even Cheryl and Dean, faces contorted by grief as they stood around my lifeless body All of them were asking themselves and each other the same question: Why? Why did I think so little of them that I would kill myself just to help a complete stranger?

I swore to myself, to them, that I would never do something that stupid again. I vowed that if I wasn’t one hundred percent certain I could Heal someone with the energy I had available that I would walk away. I would try and find alternatives, perhaps stage the healing, but if not then all I would do is make their passing as painless as possible. Blocking pain took little or no effort. I could do that much – if I could do nothing more.

“I promise,” I sent.

Jeevan was silent – I guessed that he had ‘overheard’ my musings prior to my promise and he seemed relieved. He picked himself up off his knees and faced his audience. They were rapt. I don’t think they had ever seen him collapse to his knees before, and the nosebleed was new too. For a moment I wondered whether his demonstration of power would help or hurt his image. He continued the meeting healing another couple of his plants. His audience was the most receptive I had ever seen them.

After the meeting was over he took me to a local diner. It would be an understatement to say that we raided their menu. We both ate copious amounts of food. He paid.

“Next week,” he said as he ate, “we are taking the week off. We need time to recover after we both tapped into our own life forces like that. So, you, and the girls, are coming over for dinner.”

Jules and the girls were waiting in the living room for me when I got home. Josh and Louise had made themselves scarce.

“That’s the last time,” Mary opened, “that you do anything that stupid.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but Amanda beat me to it.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” she snapped. “Putting your own life at risk for a perfect stranger?”

“I…” I began.

“You knew before you started,” Jules interjected, “that you might not have enough energy to heal her. You also knew what that meant.”

The killer was the remote connection – Ness.

“I thought you loved us,” she sent. “Why would you do that to us?”

I sank down on one of the chairs. I felt guilty and defeated; I knew they were right.

“I’m sorry,” I said and sent simultaneously. “I know it was stupid. If it means anything I have already promised myself, Jeevan, and all of you, that I would never do something so monumentally stupid again.” I sent them all the memory of my conversation with Jeevan after the healing, my thoughts, and my promise. “It was only after, when I thought about what Jeevan was saying to me, that I realized how selfish I was being. Again, I promise you all it will never happen again.”

All three girls stood, and came over to me, pulling me to my feet and enveloping me in a hug.

“It better not,” mumbled Jules into my chest.

“Or else…” came over the connection from Ness.

To lighten the mood, I thought to Ness “Or what?”

Her reply was almost instantaneous and directed to everyone. “I’ll put you over my knee!”

I smiled. Everyone laughed. Both Amanda and Jules swatted my ass.

The rest of the week passed without much of interest happening. Kevin seemed to have settled down and our training routine continued as it had previously. Carys wasn’t at the dojo on the Tuesday night when I went to teach my class. But that was not unusual; she sometimes missed an evening session. Her father was there to supervise and lock up when we were done.

Wednesday morning was my ethics class. The topic for debate, for once, had nothing to do with anything that was going on in my life. I enjoyed listening to the arguments without feeling the need to get involved. The professor glanced in my direction a couple of times, as if expecting me to say something, but stopped short of calling on me directly. If he had, I wasn’t exactly sure what I would have said other than – ‘I don’t care.’

Just after lunch, I got a text from Carys.

_Can we talk?

_Sure, I responded.

­_Can you come to the dojo after class?

­_Okay

I let the girls know that I would be late home and where I would be.

The electronic door beeper announced my entry to the dojo. Carys was on the mat teaching a couple of kids in their mid-teens I guesstimated. Business had picked up for them quite a lot, and they had even started giving private lessons.

She glanced up at the sound of the door buzzer and then continued talking to her students. I looked at my watch – it was five minutes to the hour. I guessed that their session would finish on the hour so I settled in to wait.

I had been correct. On the hour, Carys sent the kids to get changed.

“That is my last class of the afternoon,” she said. “Once they get dressed and go we’ll have the place to ourselves until the evening class at seven.”

We sat in uncomfortable silence for about ten minutes until the teens came out of the changing room, bade Carys good night – gawped at me, and then left. Carys closed and locked the door.

I wondered what she had in mind.

“Dad told me he spoke to you,” she opened.

“He did,” I returned.

“It seems I said more than I should have when I got home from the barbecue last Friday,” she admitted.

“He told me that too.”

She worried at her nail for a second.

“Amanda said…” she began but stopped herself.

“Amanda says quite a lot of things,” I said. “If she got her way, I think I would be sleeping with just about everyone we know.”

“Why?” she asked. “Why is she, are they, so okay with you sleeping around. Do they do it too?”

“I don’t think,” I said, “that our relationship’s boundaries are what you really wanted to talk about. Are they?”

She worried at the nail again.

“I like you Caleb,” she said hesitantly. “I really like you. When you are around, I feel safe… and comfortable… and…”

“Horny?” I suggested – she blushed, looked down and worried at her nail again.

“What is it that you are looking for Carys?” I asked her. “You know that I have four fiancées that I love more than anything else in the world. I’m neither looking to replace them nor add to that number.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just…”

“I want you to fuck me,” Her mind screamed at me.

“I had a boyfriend,” she began. “Back in Iowa.”

I hadn’t known where they lived before moving to Oregon. They had never offered the information, and I had never thought to ask.

“When we left,” she continued, “Dad offered for him to come with us. He didn’t want to move out here. Obviously, I wasn’t worth moving for. We’ve been out here for months now. I live with my father and I’m either at home or here at the dojo. The only men I have met are sleazeballs who only want one thing Although it is exactly what I want, I don’t want it with them.”

“What do you want, Carys?” I pressed.

“I want you to fuck me,” she said, out loud this time. “I know that you and I are never going to be a permanent thing. I really don’t understand your family dynamic, but I know you make me feel safe, and comfortable - and horny. I also know that you and the girls like to ‘play’ together with others but that really doesn’t interest me; I’m not into girls at all. Amanda told me I could borrow you and I want to take her, you, up on that. Does that make me a slut? Maybe, but I don’t care. I just need someone to make me feel like a woman from time to time, until I find a man of my own.

“Will you do that for me, Caleb, please?”

She stood up and walked over, until she was standing in front of me. She held out her hand, and taking hold of mine, pulled me to my feet.

“Here?” I asked.

“Neutral ground,” she said. “My house has my father; your place has your girls.”

“They would leave us alone,” I said.

“But they would still be there,” she said. “I’d know they were there, just outside the door.”

“It’s kind of public,” I said gesturing to the windows. The whole of the inside of the dojo was visible from the street through the front windows.

“Not ‘here’ here,” she said leading me to the staff changing room. “Here.”

She pulled me inside and, closing the door, pulled me into a kiss.

She tasted of mint, and need.

When I left the dojo an hour later, Carys was back in her gi. We had both showered in the small cubicle in the changing room, separately. It was too small for anything else.

We went back into the main room, and she unlocked the door, her class was due to start in about forty minutes so she expected people to start arriving soon.

“Caleb,” she said as I opened the door to leave. I looked back at her.

She smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “Tell your girls ‘thank you’ too, I hope they’ll let me borrow you again sometime?”

I smiled at her and went home.

“How was she?” asked Mary when I arrived home.

It was simpler to just send them the memories.

“It’s a shame,” said Amanda with a pout. “I would have liked to play with her too.”

“I got the impression that she has issues about that,” I said. “It may be an interesting project for you, but I honestly can’t see you changing her mind.”

Mary shook her head. “We can’t put pressure on her,” she said. “If it’s not her thing, then we’re just going to have to accept it. Caleb can take care of her needs until she finds someone for herself.

“Now, speaking of needs, it’s nearly seven and we are hungry…”

I grinned at her and went into the kitchen to make dinner.

Jules followed me into the kitchen.

“How was it?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” I asked, you saw my memories.

“Only of the ‘event’” she said. “You didn’t share the lead up. How was your first time ‘sharing’ outside of the house without the girls nearby.”

I thought about that for a moment. “You know,” I admitted. “It wasn’t an issue. I knew that the girls would be fine with it, so it never even registered with me. I was sad that she wouldn’t come back and include the girls, but other than that…”

“You know what the next step will be though, right?” she asked looking me in the eye.

I considered her words. “They will share without me,” I said. “Possibly with someone I haven’t even met.”  I considered once again how that made me feel, or how I would feel when it actually happened. I also considered that having sex with Carys would accelerate the opening of those doors.

“Or you may come back here and find a stranger in your bed,” she said. “I’m not trying to upset you, but you need to be prepared. You have a lot of power and you sometimes ‘react.’ You need to be ready for those scenarios.

“The girls are really proud with how far you have come. Judging by your reaction just then, you are not all the way there. Now it may be that, just like the other times, the actuality of it will be much less problematic than the mere thought of it. However, you need to be prepared. You could do a lot of damage both physically and to our relationship if you react badly.”

“Are you trying to tell me something?” I asked. “Have they already shared, or are they planning to share, with someone?” I felt I knew the answer given our network but now I was unsure.

Jules shrugged. “If they are they haven’t told me about it,” she said. “They wouldn’t, or couldn’t, hide it from you in any case. They think that you are okay with it. I know that intellectually you are okay with it. Well, maybe not ‘okay’, but you know it will happen regardless. I’m less certain how you will react when actually faced with it.”

I continued to ponder Jules’ words all through dinner, and afterward as I cleared up. I conjured up scenarios where I came home and found them having sex with someone I didn’t know. I tried to decide how I would feel about it, but I couldn’t. I would just have to wait and see how things played out.

As it turns out, I didn’t have long to wait.

The next night, instead of going to the range, we went to see Gracie. Once again Dylan was there, they were fast becoming a couple. He was apparently spending all of his off-duty hours with her. He fed her her liquid diet, and kept her company. It soon became obvious that we were encroaching on their time together so after about thirty minutes, we left them to it.

Friday night, we went bowling again. For once Dana cried off, she said she had an assignment to finish and was ‘in the zone’ and wanted to complete it. So, it was just me, the twins, Jules, Josh and Louise.

I was doing really well. I’d just hit my fourth consecutive strike, without powers, and as I came back to sit down, I saw that Amanda was talking to one of the guys who were bowling on the next lane.

I thought nothing of it at the time, although we did have to interrupt them for her to take her next turn.

When I came back from my next shot – another strike -  both Mary and Amanda were talking to him and one of his friends. Their auras showed that all four of them were horny.

As I sat down – it was Josh’s turn to bowl - I watched the twins and the two boys. There was definite chemistry there and it looked like they were getting ready for something more. I gritted my teeth. I could feel something building in my chest, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

Intellectually I realised I was being stupid. The twins needed to share just as much as I did, and so far, other than the couple of episodes with Dean, Josh had been their only outlet. Did other women count for them? I presumed it did, since they played with Daisy and Gracie with me. Even so they needed this. It was wrong of me to get in their way. Emotions are not so logical.  I was severely conflicted over what I was seeing.  These were MY GIRLS and they were overtly flirting…and more…right in front of me.  It stung and I was on the verge of turning the two boys into meat paste.

I felt a hand in mine. Jules.

“Look at the love,” she said. “Look at the love they have for you, and their feelings for those two.”

For a moment I did just that.  I looked at the love that the twins had for me. It was incredible. It was vast, a living thing that permeated their every fibre. Suddenly the burning ball of rage in my chest evaporated. I knew that my girls loved me more than anything in the world, and no matter what they did, or didn’t, do with those guys, they would always come home to me. They needed this as much as I needed it. I thought about Jeevan and how badly he had been hurt by not sharing. Could I do that to my girls? I knew that if I were against it, they loved me enough to not share. They would sacrifice that for me.

I looked over at the twins again, and Mary looked at me. She cocked her head to the side and smiled. Then the boy she had been talking to said something, and she turned back to him.

I looked at the guys they were talking to. They seemed nice enough. I resisted the temptation to pry into their minds. I almost justified it to myself, saying that I was looking out for my girls, but it was  a thin fiction. My girls could easily take care of themselves. They didn’t need me babysitting them.

I won that frame convincingly – not a perfect frame, but almost my personal best score.

“Caleb,” said Amanda, bringing the boys over to meet me. “This is Max and David.”

“Hey,” I said smiling at them. “Nice to meet you.”

“They’ve invited Amanda and I to a party,” said Mary.

“Okay,” I said. “Is it an all-night thing or will you need a ride home later?”

Mary looked at the boy she had been talking to, I didn’t know if it was Max or David.

I heard the thought go through his head.

“If she were my girl, I wouldn’t let her out of my sight. I’d worship the ground she, they, walked on.”

I relayed the thought to Mary and Amanda – they both smiled.

“We’ll call you. But don’t wait up.” Amanda said.

“Are you going to bowl the rest of the game at least?” asked Josh looking far more upset about the deal than I felt.

“Take our turn,” said Mary, picking up her coat. The twins, and the guys, left.

Josh and Louise both looked at me. Josh looked angry.

“What?” I said. “They need to ‘share’ just like I do. They seemed like nice guys.  A bit more notice would have been nice, but they haven’t really had much opportunity to meet guys, have they?”

With the twins gone the last frame took much less time to finish. We left the alley less than twenty minutes after the girls.

The twins were not back by the time I woke the next morning. I felt for them through the connection. They were both asleep. I went out for a run.

I was back and making breakfast when I felt them both wake. Then there apparently was another round of sex before they left the boys and headed home. I would have gone to pick them up, but they chose to get a cab instead.

Jules and I had started moving the furniture in the den by the time they arrived home.

“What the fuck was that!!” said Jules as they walked in through the door.

Mary and Amanda both looked at her with shock in their eyes.

“What?” asked Amanda voice tremulous.

“You go out with us and then dump us and go off like a couple of sluts to fuck two total strangers.”

Mary looked like she had been slapped.

“Jules,” I said.

“No Caleb,” she said. “It’s not okay. Their behaviour was disgusting. I know they need to share. It’s part of who they are, part of who you all are. I get that. But that wasn’t about sharing. Did they think for one second on how that would look to those guys? How it would look to others at the alley? They  arrive with a guy, dump him, and leave with two total strangers like a couple of low rent hookers. I’d be just as pissed at you if you had gone and picked up a girl and left with her.”

“Now go and get showered, the pair of you stink like a couple of ten cent whores.”

“Jules,” I said again. “That’s not…”

“Caleb! Shut the fuck up!!” she snapped at me. “It’s not for you to decide what I can and cannot get pissed off about! I’m royally pissed at the two of them right now!” She turned back towards the twins. “GO!”

They scurried off to the bathroom to get showered.

“Jules?” I said. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s not right,” she said again. “I know you shared with Carys and have shared with others. Up until Carys though you were all together. But even with Carys, you didn’t dump the twins to go off with her. You told them where you were going, and they knew what was possibly going to happen. They had met Carys. They had the opportunity to object and speak to you about it quietly before the fact.

“What they did last night was totally different. They just grabbed the nearest two cocks, gave you a cursory introduction, and then fucked off with them. You could have objected sure but that would have made you look like a whining cunt. In addition, they also did it in a very public place. Now every time we go to the bowling alley guys are going to be drooling around them thinking that they are a pair of sluts who will go home with anyone that sniffs their skirt.

“That’s without whatever rumours those boys start. And if that is not enough, they both come home stinking of sex, of those boys, and most likely still full of their cum. What were they hoping? That you would go down on them and eat their cum from their twats? They treated you like a cuck – and that is not okay. Not only that, but what were you supposed to do? Go home and jerk off?”

The twins came back into the room. They had showered and changed.

“Jules?” Amanda said. “I’m sorry. I heard everything you said to Caleb, and you were right. We acted as if we were unattached and just picked up a couple of random guys. It was wrong, and no, we weren’t expecting Caleb to ‘clean up’. We just wanted to get back.”

“Caleb,” began Mary. “Thank you for not reacting last night. I felt your anger, your rage, and felt you control it. And in hindsight, given your feelings, we shouldn’t have left with the guys. If you had asked us not to, we wouldn’t have gone, but as Jules said what we did was wrong.

“Yes, we need to share, but we could have, and should have, done things very differently. To go off with those guys, leaving you to come home with Jules was wrong. If we’d have thought about it, I guess we might have thought that Louise could have taken care of you. But the bottom line is we didn’t think.”

“Mary, Amanda,” I began, then turned to Jules, “Jules. I love all of you. You have stood and watched me make mistake after mistake and forgiven me for all of them. This is only the second, maybe the third one you guys have made. I would say let they who are without sin, but then Jules would stone us all to death.”

Mary and Amanda both looked at Jules. I could see her still simmering but her rage was cooling.

“Jules?” said Mary, noticeably making no attempt to use her power. “I’m sorry. Please, I love you. I promise that nothing like that will ever happen again.”

“Me too,” echoed Amanda.

“Was the sex good at least?” asked Jules.

Amanda smiled ruefully. “It was barely okay,” she said. “It was nothing like it is with you guys.”

“Jules,” I said to her gently.

Mary and Amanda both looked at Jules, who quirked a smile at them. “Sluts,” she grumped pulling them both into a hug. I felt a hand on my arm and realized that Mary had reached out to pull me in too. I joined revelling in the love and contact with three of my four girls.

We spent the rest of the morning moving furniture around. I used my TK to lift everything out of the den up into the attic space and store it there. Then we moved the bedroom furniture out of Jules workshop. Jules was happy to have more space in there.

The den made a nice bedroom. But for the fact it didn’t have an ensuite I might have moved in there myself. The sixty-inch television on the wall helped.

Once all that was sorted out, we had some lunch, and did our usual weekend chores; shopping, tidying, and homework. Normally we would do the later on the Sunday, but we were going to see Nana Babi with Josh and Louise the day after.

_Are you coming over for dinner? I sent the text to Dana.

_Yes please.

_We’ll come pick you up.

There was a knock at the front door. When I answered it, Dana was standing on the porch – grinning.

“How long have you been out there?” I asked.

“Just arrived,” she said. “I was hoping you were going to invite me. I guess I jumped the gun.”

I laughed. “You have a permanent invite,” I said. “You know that. But we’re away tomorrow so you’ll have to fend for yourself I’m afraid.”

“Away?” asked Dana.

“Going to see an old friend of Louise’s,” I said. “We probably won’t be back until late.”

We had dinner, and a nice evening. Dana, once again, slept in the spare room.  Despite Dana being down the hall, the twins and I made up properly.  Make-up sex is, truly, great sex.

I was pondering as I was making breakfast the next morning. Instead of training in the yard I had gone out for a run and had just showered.

“Penny for them?” asked Jules as she walked into the kitchen. She was often the first up, having been used to getting up early back home.

“I was thinking about Dana,” I said. “Wondering if we should offer her a room once the holiday is over.”

“You think Gracie will move out?” she asked.

“I do,” I said. “Probably as soon as she is back on her feet. But even if she doesn’t, now we have the den as a spare room, or possibly playroom, we could let Dana use the room she is in now.”

“Why?” Jules asked.

I stopped to consider that question. It was valid.

“Because aside from us,” I said, “she has nobody here.”

“She managed for two years,” said Jules. “Why should the last year be any different.”

I looked at her and realized that she wasn’t objecting, merely playing devil’s advocate. Making me think about what I was suggesting.

“I know,” I said. “But she was miserable for those two years. Why should she be miserable for the rest of the time she has here?”

“You realise that that will put her under all three of your influences,” she returned. “Full time. You know what is likely to happen then.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I said with a little grin. “She needs to come to terms with sex as part of her gender identity. However she wants to express it, she does need to do so. Right now, she is suppressing it, and that is not good for her.

“She’s not ace. She has a sex drive, but no outlet. Whether she goes on to fully transition or not she needs to learn to express herself sexually, otherwise she is going to suffer.”

“And you want to help her do that?” asked Jules.

“Not specifically,” I said. “I just want her to be happy, or at least less miserable, for the last year of her university career. If anything else happens then it happens. I won’t be looking for it, but I won’t shy away from it either. Who knows we may just rev her up and she might go off and find herself someone.”

“Okay then,” she said. “Then I’m for it.”

“You’re for what?” asked Louise entering the kitchen, naked as usual.

“Did you forget Dana is here?” I asked. Louise snorted.

“She never gets up this early,” said Louise, and then turned around, coming face to face with Dana. She went scarlet and began to stutter. “Oh hi, er um.” I dropped the illusion and Dana vanished. It took Louise a second to realize and then she glared at me.

“Bastard,” she said. “I really thought that was her.”

“Maybe some clothes?” I suggested. Louise stuck her tongue out at me and grabbed some OJ before retreating back to their room. She yelped as I swatted her ass with TK just as she reached sanctuary.

“That was cruel,” said Jules, grinning. “But funny.”

The twins joined us, and we discussed the idea with them. They, predictably, were all for it. We decided to wait to ask Dana until the end of term.

Since there were so many of us going, we had to take two vehicles up to Nana Babi’s. We set off at just after ten, dropping Dana back at her dorm on the way. We got to Nana Babi’s place just after twelve.

Claire answered the door. Her face broke into a wide smile when she saw Louise and the rest of us.

“Come in,” she said. “She’s been looking forward to seeing you all since I told her you were coming.”

“When did you tell her?” asked Louise.

“Yesterday,” Claire said. “I didn’t want to get her hopes up in case you had to cancel.”

We followed Claire into the same room we had been in before. The old lady was seated in the same place, a book on her lap. I remembered that she had been reading the last time we had come. I wondered at her literary tastes.

“You came,” she said. “I’m so pleased.”

Claire bustled off to get refreshments and I followed to help. I left the girls and Josh, who had seated himself beside the old lady, talking to Nana Babi.

“You said she was ill,” I said as we collected the things together in the kitchen. Claire looked at me.

“Bowel Cancer,” she said. “It’s aggressive. She’s had one course of Chemo, and they wanted to take her to the OR and remove most of her bowel. They say it won’t stop it, but it might give her a little more time.”

“Is she having the surgery?” I asked, but Claire shook her head.

“She won’t,” she said. “She refuses to be sliced about and, when they told her she would end up with a bag, she damn near attacked the doctor with her stick.”

“Has it spread?” I asked. Claire nodded.

“She has secondaries in her lungs and liver,” she said. “Thankfully not in her brain, yet.”

I thought about that. I wondered if I would be able to do anything for the old lady.

We took the tea tray back into the drawing room and I sat beside Amanda opposite the old lady. Josh, Nana Babi, and the girls were twittering like birds, so I simply sat back and assessed her.

She had a very aggressive form of cancer. Already it had spread to her liver and lungs, and despite what Carol had said there were small seeds of it in her brain. They would be undetectable to current medicine, but I could see them.

The interesting thing was that the tumour in her bowel wasn’t that large- it was just diffuse. There were cancerous cells spread almost throughout her bowel, any and all of which could develop rapidly into tumours which would themselves go on to seed more tumours. Put together though, I guessed that she had about half of the actual cancer cells that the woman with pancreatic cancer had.

I could do something about this. The question was, should I?

Nana Babi was old. In and of itself that’s not a reason not to help, but she was tired too. She was tired of being alone and stuck in the house with just Claire – who she loved. She knew that Claire was wasting her life looking after an old lady. Most people on seeing this setup would assume that Claire simply waiting to cash in her inheritance. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. All her life Claire had loved her Nana Babi. She had vowed to look after Nana Babi until the old lady no longer needed her. Claire was thirty three years old and still a virgin. She hadn’t even had a boyfriend. She had spent her entire life, since leaving school, looking after her great aunt.

In some ways Nana Babi was happy she was dying because, although she knew she needed Claire, she wanted the younger woman to get on with her own life.

I couldn’t decide. My gut instinct was to go ahead and heal her, but would that really be what she wanted. Other than the cancer she was in remarkably good health. The likelihood was that she would live another twenty or thirty years without it. That would mean that Claire would have spent her entire life looking after her. A waste of a life as far as Nana Babi was concerned.

There was no way around it: if I was going to help her, and I was convinced that I could, I would have to talk to her. To ask her. That led to a whole host of other problems, not least of which being that I would have to reveal my power to her.

My other option would be to simply walk away and let nature take its course. I guesstimated the old lady had about a month before the tumours in her brain manifested. She would be dead within three months.

Two things made me want to help. One was that I liked this irascible old bird. Moreover, Louise loved her and would be devastated when she died. The second, and much more self-serving, was the thought of her living for another twenty or thirty years thereby delaying when Keenan and his family of vultures got their hands on her money. I had to admit that was a very strong and persuasive argument for helping her.

I sent Nana Babi and Claire to sleep. I needed to talk to the girls.

“Nana!!” said Louise seeing the old woman slump into sleep.

“It’s okay,” I said to her. “I did that.”

“Why?” she asked confused.

“Because I need to talk to you all,” I said. “And I don’t want them overhearing. They won’t even notice.”

“How bad is it?” asked Mary.

“She has between one and three months,” I said. “She has tumours in her liver, lungs and tiny ones as yet undetectable in her brain. They will grow though. And quickly too.”

Louise put her hand to her mouth. “Can you help her?” she asked.

I nodded. “I’m certain I can Heal her,” I said. “Get rid of her cancer all together. She could live for another twenty years.”

“Will you?” asked Josh. He had become fond of the old woman. He also knew how devastated Louise would be by her death and wanted to spare her that.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Why not?” asked Louise. I explained how I wasn’t sure if she would want to be cured. How Claire was wasting her life caring for her, and that she wanted her to go out and live a little. The only way to be sure would be to ask Nana Babi, but to do that I would have to reveal my powers.

“The Council and the FBI would both be very unhappy if you did that,” said Mary.

I grinned. “So that’s two points in favour,” I said. “Any against.”

She sighed exasperatedly but I did see the ghost of a smile.

“She wouldn’t tell anyone,” said Louise. “I’m certain of it.”

“Ask her,” said Jules. “It’s her life, and her decision. I also think we shouldn’t be party to that conversation.  Louise will want to persuade her to say yes, as will Josh. Send us all to sleep, wake her up, and ask her.”

I looked at Mary and Amanda. After a moment they both nodded.

Nana Babi woke up. Immediately she looked around and saw all the girls, including Claire, sleeping. She looked at me. “What did you do?” she asked.

“I needed to speak to you,” I said. “In private.”

She cocked her head on one side. “Louise said you did hypnotherapy,” she said. “But this isn’t that is it?” I shook my head. “You’re a power user?”

“You know about powers?” I asked. “How?”

“My first husband worked for the NSA,” she said. “Stupid really, that man couldn’t keep a secret for anything. They used telepaths and sometimes others to do their dirty work.”

“Then you understand how big a risk I am taking to talk to you like this,” I said. She nodded.

“Thank you,” she said. “For not doing something nasty to Keenan. He is an asshole, but he is also my grandson.”

I grinned at her. “I can’t say I wasn’t tempted.”

She laughed. “As am I,” she said. “But I love him all the same. So – why the tete-a-tete?”

“Because I need to ask you a question,” I said. “And tell you something. I don’t know how much you know about powers, but I have several.”

“You’re a multi?” she asked. I nodded.

“Then are you… a Healer?” she asked. Her eyes widening.

I nodded again.

“How long do I have?” she said. Knowing I would know the answer.

“Between one and three months,” I said. “The cancer is already in your brain.”

“Shit,” she said. “I thought I had longer. I need to get things sorted.”

“Or I could cure you,” I said.

Her jaw dropped.

“You could?” she asked.

I nodded. “I’m ninety five percent certain I could,” I said. “Complete cure. Everything gone. You could live another twenty years. If you want?”

She contemplated me for a moment.

“You think I want to die?” she asked. It was kind of rhetorical, but also she kind of wanted an answer too.

“Don’t you?” I asked. “Aren’t you tearing yourself apart because Claire is wasting her life looking after you?”

“Fuck,” she said. “Did you get my bank details while you were in there?”

I shook my head. “What do you want Esme?” I asked. Using the name that I don’t think anyone alive still remembered.”

“I want her to have a life,” she said. “I really do. But do I have to die for her to have that? When I thought that there was nothing that could be done, and I was dying, I admit it was a relief. Poor Claire would get out from under my shadow. But now I know a cure is available…”

“What about Claire?” I asked.  “She will be in her mid-fifties and still a virgin. She has already spent a significant portion of her life looking after you. Doesn’t she deserve to have a life of her own?”

“Is that your price?” she asked. “For your cure?”

“I have no price,” I said. “I am just asking. If you wish me to cure you, then I will. This conversation was about finding out what you want. I just wanted to point out that it’s not just your life; Claire has one too. I had thought, from talking to you, that you were a decent person. Am I going to find out that you are just another selfish, self-centred, rich old woman who feels that they are entitled to take whatever they want?”

“You don’t pull your punches,” she said. “Do you?”

“You’re too old,” I said, “and I’m too ornery.”

That actually raised a smile.

“I don’t need you to answer,” I said. “I got the only answer I needed. You want to be Healed so I’ll Heal you. I’m not going to labour the point about secrecy. You know that all the agencies have whole departments that will have you locked in an asylum the moment you start talking about power users.”

“I know,” she said. “And that’s best case.”

“I’m trusting you to do right by Claire,” I said. “Please don’t let me down.”

She didn’t get a chance to respond, as I sent her back off to sleep.

I had used almost all my energy healing the old woman. Within the week, all of her cancerous cells would have self-destructed, and she would be one hundred percent cancer free. She was due a routine scan in nine days, and they would be amazed to see that she was fully and completely in remission.

Claire was the only one that didn’t notice that she had lost an hour of time, and that was only because I Compelled that she didn’t. Nobody else mentioned it though.

When we left, we all gave the old lady a hug.

“I’m having a party in about a month,” I said. “Why don’t you come? Louise will send you the details.”

The old lady looked at me.

“I might just do that,” she said with a smile. Claire looked dumbfounded.

“How did you get her to agree to travel?” asked Claire as she showed us out.

“He has a huge cock,” said Louise, “and she wants some.”

I looked at Louise in amazement.

Claire snorted in laughter. “You are terrible,” she said to Louise. “If she could hear you…”

“It was her that told me,” said Louise. “Ask her.”

We piled into the two cars, and Claire stood at the door, waving us off.

“Stop at the nearest diner,” I said. “I’m starving.”