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 A World of My Choosing   An Out-of-this-World Story by Gil Gamesh   Chapter
Fifty

   One evening we were all sitting at two adjacent tables, all fourteen of
us, six leadership council old folks at one, eight Mouseketeers at the
other with two on a bench at the end of the table.  The eight erupted in
hilarious laughter.  I saw James looking at me and knew who had provoked
it. I walked over behind him and put my hands on his shoulders.

   "What was so funny?" I asked.

   "James told us about something that happened when he was twelve and in
the sixth grade," Toby said.

   "Yeah, it was about The Word of God," Pyotr said and I could hear the
capitalized words in his voice.

   "OK, are you going to tell the rest of us?" I asked.

   "Oh, it was nothing much," James said.  "A girl kept trying to get me to
go to her church with her, a really religious girl.  I told her I already
knew The Word of God."

   Again, he very clearly was emphasizing or capitalizing certain words.

   "Well, come on," I said.  "Don't make me pull it out of you."

   "She wouldn't leave me alone and I told her I knew the first commandment
God ever gave mankind.  It was in the Book of Genesis when God kicked them
out of the Garden of Eden.  She thought a minute and then asked, "Go forth
and multiply?" I told her that wasn't right because God was always short
and simple when he issued commandments.  She asked me again and I asked her
if she was sure she wanted to know The Word of God.  She said she was.  I
leaned over and whispered it in her ear: FUCK!"

   "Did you get in trouble at school?" I asked.

   "No, and she never talked to me again either," he said.

   "James, you're bad," I said, frowning.  "That's not something a
gentleman should do.  You deserve to be punished and I'm going to do it."

   "What?" he feigned surprise.  "WhatdidIdo?"

   "You've been bad.  Your punishment is that you are hereby appointed as
leader tomorrow, all day.  Enjoy!"

   James frowned and looked puzzled.  Toby laughed.

   "Don't laugh, Toby.  You've been bad too.  You are hereby appointed as
leader two days after James.  Enjoy!"

   "You mean leader of everybody, like you?" James asked.

   "Yes, that's exactly what I mean.  When the babies come, I may step
aside for a month or so.  One of you may have to join Matt and Iain as the
male half of the leadership council.  If it's you, then Sam will also be on
the council with Caitlyn and Jean-Nicole."

   "But who's going to be the head leader?" James asked.

   "Tomorrow, you are.  In two days, Toby is.  Are you two going to be
ready?"

   <><><>

   We had a spring warm spell so we took advantage of it to finish planting
our garden.  In the morning, we all worked in loincloths under the warm sun
and the slight breeze.  In the afternoon, Jean-Nicole, Anna, Petra, and
Brianne stayed home to prepare a good meal for us.  The rest of us worked
for probably three hours that afternoon and then sang our way home with our
hoes and other tools on our shoulders.  After a quick communal shower, we
dressed in loincloths as usual, for dinner.

   Surprise!  Jean-Nicole announced that we were eating outside for the
first time this spring.  She sent the male Mouseketeers to build a huge
bonfire in our fire pit and to arrange the benches around it.  Then the
Mouseketeers carried the dishes outside, arranged them on two benches, and
let us all help ourselves.

   After another delicious meal, I expected to help carry the remains of
our dinner inside but I was pleasantly wrong.  Iain whispered to the male
Mouseketeers and they promptly piled more wood on the bonfire.  I knew that
something else was going to happen.

   Then Iain announced the evening's entertainment: a dance, not just any
dance, but something special, something freestyle, like nothing we knew or
expected.  He was going to play something he called Jog Din Oas.  He had
made an arrangement on his tallum for Aimee to play, beginning with a
violin and drums.  It was a simple arrangement, repeated over and over, a
total of eight times, increasing in volume and rapidity and embellished
with more instruments with each repetition.  He said the last repetition
would have everything except cannon fire.  I racked my brain for an
occasion when cannon fire had been included and came up with Tchaikovsky's
1812 Overture, something he had played for us previously.

   We began by walking slowly around the bonfire, couples together, girls
in front of boys, and then Iain called for Aimee to play the music.  At the
same time, he threw his loincloth to the side and walked naked.  Of course,
we all followed his example.

   For the first stanza of Jog Din Oas we all simply walked around,
listening, and I suppose everyone was wondering when we were going to
dance. On the first repetition, Brianne and Petra started dancing, moving
in sync with the music, arms lifted, twirling around as we all went around
the bonfire in a circle.  Before the third repetition, we were all dancing,
in that's what it might be called, just moving as the music moved our
bodies and our minds.  I felt a little ridiculous at first, a grown man,
tall, hard, but sometimes on tiptoes, arms raised and waving, head weaving
around, but everybody else was doing something similar.

   Then the music became louder and faster and more instruments played and
more embellishments were included.  Soon I was as lost as the rest of the
crew in the music, the dance, the bonfire blazing, the sun sliding toward
the horizon, the breeze blowing upward as the mountain cooled, seeing the
naked girls and boys and women and men dancing.  My naked body danced
without me thinking about how to move, I was part of the music and part of
every one and everything, and all the others seemed to be affected just as
I was.

   Finally, the music became almost deafening and so fast that I could
hardly keep pace with it.  I stumbled, not in falling, just falling out of
sync with the music, and I noticed that the others were having the same
trouble.  Silence reigned after the last notes and we all stood, gasping
for breath, hearts pounding, smiling at each other.

   "David, Iain, can we do it again?" Brian yelled, and a chorus of others
asked the same thing.

   We did.  Jog Din Oas!  Again!  I knew we would be doing it again and
again in the future.

   Exhausted, we finally abandoned the dance and started back inside,
carrying the remains of dinner.  For a moment, I stood with Anna and looked
at Iain and Caitlyn.  I understood why he did what he did.  I went to him,
gave him a big hug, whispered in his ear, kissed him on the cheek, and went
back to Anna.

   "What was that about?" she asked.

   "Iain encourages us to dance and sing for a reason," I said.  "He does
it to build a sense of family, of belonging, of union in all of us.  I just
wanted to thank him for what he does."

   <><><>

   On an afternoon exploration, the Mouseketeers, all eight of them now,
James with Sam, Toby with Renee, Pyotr with Brianne, and Brian with Petra,
found us something new for a food source and had a little accident.

   They were looking at one of many mountain streams when Toby saw
something he recognized: a crayfish or crawdaddy as he called it.  They
waded, even the girls, turning over rocks, and catching the back-scuttling
creatures.  Some were huge, as long as my hand, and about half was tail. 
Toby had eaten them boiled in a tin can on a camping trip back home and he
knew they would be great either plain or in some recipe.  There was a lot
of screaming when somebody got pinched and that happened to both guys and
girls.

   In just a short section of the stream, they were able to fill a backpack
and were talking about heading home when the accident occurred.  Brian
slipped on a rock, fell in the creek, and twisted his ankle.  James and
Toby helped him up but his ankle was too painful for him to stand.  They
knew they had to carry him home.

   I was beginning to worry about them because they were usually back well
before dinner but they finally struggled in.  James and Toby had carried
Brian on their backs up and around the mountain to home and they were
exhausted.  Brian was in misery.  Toby deposited him in Aimee's chair and
Anna took charge.  Aimee couldn't x-ray his ankle but Anna examined it and
felt sure that it was just a very bad sprain.  She prescribed pain pills
and wrapped his ankle and foot and then put him to bed with a cold
compress.

   Jean-Nicole searched Aimee's recipe bank and found a good one.  She put
the rest of us into de-tailing duty and we filled a big pot with crayfish
tails.  She kept some out to boil for anybody who wanted to eat the tails
and slurp the heads and most of us tried them that way.  For a late dinner,
we had a crusty casserole of Crawfish Etouffee and it was a big hit.

   James carried Brian to dinner on his back.  Brianne and Petra sat on
each side of him and pampered him.  He might have been in pain but his
appetite was still good.  He was laid up for five days, carried or helped
everywhere he had to go, and generally babied by the other Mouseketeers.

   <><><>

   One evening, we had another concert with musical numbers mainly from
Broadway musicals.  From Showboat, we performed as a complete chorus and
sang "Why Do I Love You?" We all paired up, held both hands, and looked in
each other's eyes for this.

   Iain wanted a number to showcase my voice and he chose "Oklahoma" from
the musical of the same name.  We'd been practicing it in secret for weeks
and as usual I felt I wasn't ready but Iain insisted I was.  The response
said I was ready after all.

   Anna and I reprised what might be our theme song: "Adrift on a Star"
from the musical "The Happiest Girl in the World." Everybody was silent
when we finished and I suppose they were thinking of the words as I was.

   For himself and Caitlyn, Iain chose "I'll Go Home with Bonnie Jean" from
Brigadoon.  The entire chorus backed him up at times on this one.  At one
point, he left his tallum playing itself while he danced an Irish jig.

   Matt sang "Ol' Man River" from Showboat with an impossibly low bass
voice.  James and Sam and Toby and Renee sang "Summer Nights" from Grease.
Pyotr and Brianne and Brian and Petra performed "What Do the Simple Folk
Do" from Camelot.

   To end the evening, he gave us something he had been practicing.  He
said it was intended for female soprano voices but perhaps we could enjoy
his tenor voice.  He asked us all to close our eyes and keep them closed
until after the song was over.

   He started, pausing seconds between sentences: "The place is the center
of France in Auvergne.  You're in wine country, flying, gliding like a
bird. You see long rows of green vines pregnant with purple grapes.  You
see a river winding between sandstone cliffs, little beaches, and caves.

   He paused and then resumed: "There's a little old house, white stone,
windows and doors open, white curtains blowing in the breeze.  A young
couple, both naked, smiling at each other, is having lunch outdoors under a
vine-covered patio."

   He paused again for a moment.

   "There's a table with two bowls of ratatouille, a freshly-baked baguette
of bread, cheese, olives.  The young man and young woman look at each
other, smiling, giggling, and laughing.  They made love at mid-morning and
they know they will make love again in the afternoon."

   He paused: "Music: Bailero by Joseph Cantaloube from "Chants
d'Auvergne."

   <><><>

   After lunch one warm spring day, I decided to do nothing much for the
afternoon and to do it outdoors.  I wanted to go somewhere with Anna and
spend a couple of hours just lying around in the sunshine.  She smiled and
nodded when I asked her.

   In our bed chamber, I grabbed a blanket, rolled it and two pillows up in
a package, and we walked out in the hallway.  The four youngest were there,
playing hopscotch.

   "Where are you going, David?" Pyotr asked.

   "Anna and I just want to go somewhere in the woods and relax in the sun
for a while," I said.  "Anna wants some vitamin D for the babies."

   "Want some company?" Brian asked.

   I looked at Anna.  She nodded.  The four began yelling to the others. 
In a few minutes, we had seven couples, carrying blankets and pillows,
lined up at the front door, going somewhere in the woods.

   "Let's go to the pines," Toby suggested.  "You know, the grove of big
pine trees where we get the huge cones."

   I knew the spot.  It was a strange spot, almost like an open-air
cathedral, tall pine trees something like long-leaf pines with almost no
vegetation underneath and open cones as big as soccer balls.  There were
lots of the cones in our home being used for decorative purposes.  It was
reasonably close by.  I looked around and saw everybody nodding.  I nodded
too.

   In the pine grove, I picked a spot with mottled sunshine coming through
the trees and a thick carpet of pine needles, dropped my blanket and
pillows, and then dropped my loincloth.  Anna smiled and dropped hers.  An
idea came to me, something I wanted to do before we all lay down.

   "Listen, everybody," I said and waited until I had their attention. 
"Before we lie down, let's all form a circle and hold hands for a moment.
Don't say anything.  Just look around and think about our world for a
moment.  We're all part of it now."

   I stood there, one of a circle of fourteen human beings, from two
different universes, from very different circumstances, and I felt the love
which I had in different ways for each of them.  My eyes swept around
looking at the beauty of youth, boys and girls, men and women, naked bodies
standing in the dappled sunlight, unashamed of their nudity, and not
sexually aroused by it.  I wondered if I was really succeeding in creating
a world of my choosing.  Maybe I was.  We all quietly went to our blankets
and pillows.

   On our right, Brianne and Pyotr were closest to Anna and me, Brian and
Petra a little farther away.  Matt and Jean-Nicole were to our left, with
James and Sam on the other side of them.  Iain and Caitlyn were at our
heads, Toby and Renee at our feet.  And I wondered why everyone chose a
spot with me and Anna at the center.  Were we really that central to their
lives?  Maybe it was simply that we almost filled up the little clearing.

   Anna turned on her side toward me, put her head on my shoulder, her leg
over mine, her arm around my chest, and squeezed.  For a while, we lay
there, enjoying the warmth of the sun, the slight breeze, listening to the
birds showing off, and I was as content and happy as I could be, even when
her hair tickled me occasionally in the breeze.

   Anna's hand gently pulled what little chest hair I have, slowly moved
downward, pulling on little tufts of hair, and finally found somethings she
liked to play with: my tolos and tianga.  She held my semi-complacent penis
for a while and then slowly moved her thumb along the shaft to the head. 
My foreskin was still covering the head and she used just her thumb to pull
it back.  I lay there, maybe a little sexually aroused and let her toy with
my play things.  I knew she liked to do it and I loved for her to do me
like that.

   "David, some little girls and boys are watching us," she whispered. 
"Shall I stop?"

   "What are they doing?" I whispered back.

   "The same thing I am," she whispered.  "Petra is playing with Brian's
tianga and tolos and Brianne is playing with Pyotr's."

   "Do the guys have hard-ons?" I asked.

   "Yes," Anna said.  "Nice little stiff dicks."

   "Well, let them play."

   A moment later, she moved downward, held my semi-hard penis in her hand,
took the head in her mouth, and sucked and licked for a few seconds, too
few.  Then she stopped and moved back up with her head next to mine.

   "Two little girls put their mouths on two little guys' tiangas, David,"
she whispered.  "I think they're doing the same thing I do with you.  Shall
I stop?"

   "That's up to you," I whispered.  "What are you going do, with me, I
mean?"

   "After a while, I'm going for a ride," she whispered.  "All you've got
to do is just lie there and let me ride your little pony."

   "I don't know if Brianne's ridden Pyotr's little pony yet," I said. 
"What if she wants to do like you do?  I wish I knew what her father wants
us to do with her or to let her do.  I don't want him angry when he comes
here and he finds out that his two virginal children he sends are now
fucking like rabbits."

   "Both of them said their father told them to listen to you and me until
he arrived," Anna said.  "From the pictures we sent, I think he knows that
everybody else is doing it.  He's entrusted his children to us and I think
he expects them to do the same thing we all do, like James said, `FUCK.'"

   "Yeah, but what if Brianne were ten years old instead of thirteen?  If
we're in loco parentis, shouldn't we protect her from Pyotr's pecker?"

   "Well, she's not," she said.  "She's thirteen and I know she wants to do
the same thing we all do."

   "I'm going to ask her." I said.  I propped up and gestured to Brianne
and Pyotr to come closer.  They crawled over on their hands and knees and
then knelt beside us.  A minute later, Petra and Brian crawled over and
knelt on the other side of us.

   I looked around and saw four other couples all watching us, four guys
with rampant ramrods, four girls probably ready to ride.  I threw my hands
up and the eight of them scampered over and got as close to me and Anna as
possible.

   "Go on, Brianne, Petra," Pyotr said.  "You said you would."

   Brianne and Petra looked at each other.  I knew somebody, perhaps Pyotr,
had coaxed them to do something, probably involving me.  After James, he
was the next biggest trouble-maker.  But still, maybe two little
thirteen-year-old girls had dared each other to do it, whatever it was.  I
knew next to nothing about girls that age.

   The two girls looked at each other and giggled.  I waited.  I didn't
know what I was waiting for but I was in no hurry with anything on a warm
sunny afternoon.

   "Well, if you two won't," Anna said.  "I will."

   She leaned over me, took my hard-on in hand, stroked it a couple of
times, licked up the shaft from my balls to the head, pulled the skin on my
dick down tight, took the head in her mouth, and tried to suck my balls
empty.  I closed my eyes and let her do whatever she willed.

   She stopped.  I opened my eyes and looked around.  Petra was just
getting settled on my right side.  Anna moved and Brianne knelt on my left.
I looked from one of them to the other and waited.

   Brianne took my dick in hand, slid the skin down tight, and then just
sat there looking at it.  She breathed deeply a few times, leaned over, and
licked it from balls to head.  She settled back, kneeling beside me, and
turned loose of my dick.

   "That's not enough, Brianne," Petra said.  "We agreed we've got to take
at least the head in our mouths.  If you do it, I will."

   I remembered taunting Petra with the monster once and I decided to show
off for Brianne.  I pulled down on my scrotum so that every little
centimeter of my penis was showing, full to bursting with blood from my
brain, red and angry and dangerous looking.  Her eyes widened and she
pulled back for a moment, looked at my dick first and then my face, smiled,
and leaned over.

   She breathed deeply again and I wasn't sure why since I knew she wasn't
going to try to deep-throat my dick.  Then she summoned her courage, leaned
over, and took the head of my tianga in her hot little mouth.

   I looked at Anna.  She grinned and winked at me.  I looked at Petra. 
She was watching Brianne.  Brianne was licking up the sensitive underside
of the head.  She did it just right for a minute, stroke up and down with
her soft little hand, lick under the head, take the head in her mouth,
suck, stroke, suck, stroke.  But, damn, she quit and settled back with her
haunches on her heels.

   "OK, Petra, it's your turn," she said.

   Are all women born cocksuckers?  Maybe Petra was just emulating what
Anna and Brianne had done but she did it just right, hand and mouth and
lips and tongue all doing their part.  I looked around at our audience. 
Everybody and I mean everybody was standing or kneeling around us and
grinning.  I waved to the crowd.

   "That's enough, Petra," Anna said.  "When his tolos draw up like that,
he's close to coming.  I don't think you're ready to have your tonsils
hosed down yet."

   I lay there, stiff dick hovering over my belly, balls drawn up on each
side of the shaft, looking at Anna with Petra and Brianne and maybe I knew
who the mischief maker was: my wife.  I decided that, if I had to be
teased, I was going to tease back.

   "Brianne, would you like to go for a ride on my Clydesdale?"

   "David!" Anna chastised.  "You know she's not ready for that."

   "Well, is she ready for some guy's little Shetland pony?  She's hardly
got any hair on her little bouchi.  Brianne, what do you want to do?"

   "I want to do like Petra did," she said.  "She said Pyotr didn't hurt
her for her first time and now she really likes it."

   "What's your father going to say when he arrives and his children are
already enjoying sex?  I don't want any problems with him as soon as he
arrives."

   "He told us we should listen to you and Anna and then, if you approved,
we could do what we wanted to.  He knows we were thinking about doing it."

   "What do all of you think?" I asked, looking around and saw everybody
nodding.

   "OK," I said.  "You do what you want to with Pyotr."

   "Oh, I don't want to do it with Pyotr for my first time," Brianne said.
"I want to do it with Brian.  Our parents have always loved us but he's
always loved me the most.  I'd like to ride two ponies, first Brian's and
then Pyotr's.  Is that OK?"

   I took a deep breath and slowly let it out.  I looked at Anna.  She
nodded.  I nodded.  "We all watched Petra and Pyotr with each other.  Is it
OK if the rest of us watch you and Brian?"

   "Yeah, but since he's already done it, I'm just going to spend a minute
or two riding him and then I'm going to let Petra have him," Brianne said.
"I'm going to do it with Pyotr the rest of the time."

   "Damn, who would have thunk it?" I pondered out loud.  "Are you and
Petra going to do the same things the rest of us do this afternoon?"

   "We want to, if it's OK." Petra said.  Brianne nodded.  I looked at
Anna.

   "Anna, if all the ladies want to go for a pony ride, don't you think
there's something the guys should do to get them ready to ride?"

   "You're right, David," she said.  "You know what I like for you to do to
make sure my little bouchi is ready for your tianga.  It's the same thing
most women like for their men to do."

   "Before we do, Anna, dearest, sweetheart, love, did you encourage the
little sprites to do what they just did to me?"

   "No, David, they came to me," she said.  "We discussed it and I just
made sure they told Brian and Pyotr what they wanted to do."

   Brianne giggled.  "Yeah, she said we should always dance with the one
who brought us to the party and if we danced with anyone else we should
make sure our partner didn't mind."

   "Danced?" I didn't understand.

   Petra giggled too.  "She meant we shouldn't do anything with you unless
Brian and Pyotr knew we were going to and they were OK with it."

   Brianne again, still giggling.  "Uh, huh, she said we should do it first
with our dance partners and after that we could do it with you a little."

   "Well, I thank you for your kindness," I said.  "Now you two should go
back to your partners.  I'm going to show all the guys how to get a woman
ready for his tianga."

   Brian looked puzzled.  "How?"

   "Did you like what Petra did to you?" I asked.

   "Yeah, I really liked it."

   "Well, now it's your turn to do something like that for her."

   That was the last word I had to say for a while.  I crawled between
Anna's spread legs, caught them behind the knees, and pushed back.  Her
pelvis levered upward and her bouchi was in the perfect position for me to
get her ready for my tianga.  I shut my eyes, opened my mouth, and gave her
a long gentle lick with my tongue.

   A minute or so later, I looked up just once and saw six other couples
doing the same thing.  Damn, seven women flat on their back, legs bent
back, bouchis in just the right position for licking, seven guys on their
knees bent over, legs spread, balls dangling or drawn up, dicks hugging
their bellies, heads moving up and down.  And Pyotr and Brian with Brianne
and Petra and going at it like experts.

   Anna let me know when she was ready to ride.  She sat up, pushed me down
on my back, straddled me, grabbed my tianga, notched in the right place,
and slid down until it disappeared under her and her ass cheeks settled on
my tolos.  I relaxed and got ready to be ridden.

   "Look, David," she said.

   On the blanket next to us, Brianne was just getting settled on Brian and
Petra was getting in position on top of Pyotr.  I looked around and
everybody, all eight, were lying or kneeling and watching the two sets of
twins about to go for a ride.  Four other guys were all showing a ready
saddle horn.  Four girls looked ready for a long ride in the woods.

   Brianne closed her eyes, held Brian's tianga straight up, evidently
notched it in her bouchi, then put both hands on his chest and slowly
lowered her hips.  I looked at her face and saw it flickering between
smiling and grimacing but she kept slowly dropping down until his tianga
disappeared under her.  She smiled widely, opened her eyes, and looked
around at everybody else.

   Petra was doing the same thing on top of Pyotr.  The two girls looked at
each other, nodded, and slowly began to ride.  The rest of us watched the
two sets of twins briefly.  There was a hurried scramble as four other
couples mounted up.

   I remained partially raised up on my elbows for a while and watched six
other couples all doing the same thing, taking a leisurely ride on their
favorite steed in the woods on a warm spring afternoon.  Then when Brianne
and Petra swapped steeds, I relaxed and closed my eyes.  I intended to let
Anna ride me until she came and then I knew I would take my turn, that is,
unless I came before she did.  She had ridden me often enough in this
position and I knew, as long as I relaxed and kept a stiff dick for her, I
could usually hold out and let the lady come first.  Then I could do what
it took to make me come, some fast and furious fucking up into her, until I
exploded and blasted her four feet up in the air.  Damn, it was good.

   <><><>

   In the middle of an afternoon, thirty-nine days after Brianne, the
twins' father, Aiden, finally appeared in Aimee's chair.  They had said he
planned to follow them and, when he had not arrived in thirty-five days, we
began to worry.  When he finally arrived I knew we had real cause to worry.

   Aiden was thin, almost too thin, with dark circles around his eyes,
unshaven for days, fresh bruises on his body, conscious but hardly able to
respond to any questions I asked.  When he did respond, his answers were
slow and spoken in a tired monotone.  As usual for the males, I glanced at
his penis to see how urgently he needed to pee.  It was swollen but normal
appearing, no piss-hard.

   I was surprised by one thing: Aiden did not look his age.  Either Brian
or Brianne had told me he was forty-three years old but he looked much
younger, maybe like a man in his late twenties.  He was blond, head and
pubis, and that explained the blonde hair and complexion Brianne had.  His
hair was short and rumpled and there seemed to be little hair on the rest
of his body.  He had very little body fat and looked lean and hard.  He
would be called a handsome man when he healed and put on a few pounds.  The
bruises on his arms and torso looked fresh and angry, some of them probably
from fist blows, some from something like a stick or billy club.

   From the twins, I knew what had happened to his family.  About five
months ago his wife was killed by a jihadist group in the London subway
bombing.  Three months later, he sent Brian on his journey.  Four months
later, he sent Brianne.  Now he had arrived and I did not see him as the
strong and confident man Brian and Brianne had described.

   I knew only too well how the death of a loved one could affect a person.
My father's death had been devastating to me and the disappearance of my
mother was another almost-unbearable blow.  I could not imagine how the
death of a spouse could affect a man, especially when they had two small
children.  And why the bruises?  Why the lethargic condition?  What has
happened to him?

   As usual, Anna and I were the ones Aimee called first and we decided
when to call the others.  I didn't want to do it but I knew we had to call
the twins.  He sat up and tried to smile at us and I saw his face register
pain.  I knew the first order of business.

   "Aiden, do you need to pee?"

   He nodded.

   "Aiden, your children are here with us and they're both healthy and
happy," I said.  "We'll call them in a few minutes.  We're going to take
you to the toilet, bring you back here, and wrap you in a blanket.  I don't
think you want your kids to see the bruises on your body.  Do you
understand?"

   He nodded again.

   "Aimee, tell Matt I need him.  Then tell everyone else I said for them
to go to the lounge chamber.  When they've cleared the hallway, let me
know. Matt and I are going to take Aiden to the toilet before we medicate
him and call his children."

   TO BE CONTINUED:

   Lyrics from "Adrift on a Star" from the musical "The Happiest Girl in
the World

   ANNA

   Here we are adrift on a star, Alone in a silent sky, Lost in space,
together we face The wonder of where and why.

   Why a sky without an end, A sea without a chart, Why the rain, and why
the rose, And why the trembling heart?

   DAVID

   The moon, the tide, the years, They go drifting along.

   ANNA

   Oh, music of the spheres, Are there words to your song?

   DAVID

   Is there a bright gleaming goal Ending this brief barcarole?

   TOGETHER

   Here we are adrift on a star, And what is the journey for?  Can it be
the heart is a sea, And love is a golden shore?

   DAVID

   That wherever we are

   ANNA

   In this star-sprinkled sky

   TOGETHER

   If there's love in your star You're home, you're home.



















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