Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience. A World of My Choosing An Out-of-this-World Story by Gil Gamesh Chapter Fifty-Six I waited two whole days after their arrival to call together the five of us: Mother, Michael, Aiden, Anna, and me. I announced at breakfast that we would be unavailable until lunch and the others should direct any questions or problems to Iain, Matt, and James, my replacement on the leadership council for the day. He really smiled when I told him to wear the Boys, Anna was the one who wanted us to gather in the unused alcove in our bed chamber. The twins were sometimes difficult to carry and I knew she wanted to relax with her belly against my side. She had joked more than once that I had to help carry them, even before they were born. When we intended to stay in our bedchamber, Anna and I usually dropped our loincloths as soon as we entered. I suppose we were as comfortable naked with each other as we were with a loincloth. This time, I kept mine on and so did Anna and the others. Standing there, holding Anna close, I started. "I want Aimee to make a recording of everything said here this morning," I said. "She must never divulge any of it without my express consent. Do you all approve?" I heard three specific responses but Michael nodded. "Michael, I must hear your voice giving permission as well," Aimee said. "I will then obey you unless your requests contradict my instructions from David." "Yes, Aimee," he said, grinning as usual. "You have my permission to record what I say." "We need to talk, all of us," I continued. "Anna, I did not know whether Mother was even alive after I was fourteen. I never knew she had a son named Michael. Mother, you and I know parts of our story but I don't know the rest of your story. Aiden, it seems you're going to be an important part of our family and I want you to hear the whole story. Michael, you're an important part of this story too and I want you to hear it as well. You're just starting to become an adult and I'm going to treat you like one. I will do my best to be honest and open with everything I say and I hope you all will to. Are we all in agreement? Voice response please." I waited until the others had indicated their approval. Michael immediately raised his hand and I nodded. "I know part of the story already, David," he said. "I know you're my father. I knew it almost as soon as Mother and I arrived." I was surprised. "Yes, Michael, I'm your father. I'm also your brother since we both have the same mother." He shook his head and grinned. "You and Mother have been naughty. I think I'm going to have to spank both of you." I watched Aiden's face. First he frowned and then, when Michael threatened to spank us, he grinned. I looked back at Michael. He was standing close to Mother and she had her arm over his shoulders. He seemed to be frowning slightly. It suddenly dawned on me and I knew what he wanted. I dropped down to one knee and held my arms out to him. He grinned and almost threw himself at me. I wrapped my arms around him, one hand on his back, one on his head, and pulled him into my embrace. He put his arms around my neck, breathed deeply a time or two, and seemed to relax. I didn't want to let him go. I knew to wait until he released me. "Welcome to your new world, Son," I whispered. "I am your father. I promise: I'll be a father for you as long as I live." He began squirming, trying to get closer to me, and started crying. I didn't know what to do but I knew what worked with James. I pressed his head against mine so we were cheek to cheek and stroked his hair. I felt my eyes become wet with tears, and I couldn't say whether they were tears of sadness or happiness. I looked at Mother and saw she was crying too. She turned, buried her face in Aiden's chest, and really let the boo hoos loose. He put his arms around her but looked at me. I smiled and nodded. I looked at Anna. Her eyes were wet with tears too. She smiled at me, nodded her head too, and I knew I was doing the right thing for Michael and for Mother: accepting and embracing my son. Their behavior put me more at ease. When Michael finally released me, I knew it was time for us to talk. "Anna and I thought we might all relax in one bed alcove while we talk," I said. "She's put pillows all around so let's crawl in and get comfortable." "Michael, you're in the middle, against the back wall," Anna said. "David, you're on Michael's right. I'm going to cuddle up to your side so you can help me hold these twins. Mother, you get on the other side of Michael. Aiden, you get on the other side of Mother." I crawled in, put one arm around Michael's shoulders and the other around Anna's. She turned on her side with her pregnant belly resting against me. I looked at Mother and Aiden. She had her hand on his hip, encouraging him to spoon up to her. I began my part of the story. "Aiden, you may be wondering why I invited you to meet with us," I said. "I've thought long and hard about what I should do and I've decided to be absolutely truthful. If I try to hide something and you later learn about it, you will never forgive me. It's true that Michael is my son, mine and Mother's. I hope you will understand when I tell you how that happened." "David, I know more than you think I do," he said. "When I asked to come here, the group gave me a huge file on you and told me to study it. I saw the similarity between what happened to your father and my wife. I wondered what happened to your mother too. I had a friend in our Georgia group and he helped me search for her. We did a search in your old country based on things like her name, age, and occupation but there were too many possibilities. I thought she might be using her maiden name and that did it. I was scanning a list of possibilities when I saw Manon Aimee L'Héritier and I felt sure I'd found her." "Manon?" Anna asked. "That's my first name, Anna," Mother said. "And that solves the problem of what I should call her," Aiden said. "I can't call her Mother like David does. Aimee won't work since your avatar has that name." "And I was Michael L'Héritier," Michael said. "Now I'm Michael Gurriere." "And for a while, I believed that I was chasing the wrong cat when I learned about you, Michael," Aiden said. "I saw the discrepancy between when Manon's husband was killed and when you were born and I knew that you could not be his son. I recognized that David might be your real father but I wanted proof. We had David's DNA and we secured your DNA and that answered the question." "So you've known all along?" I asked. "Yes," he said. "Did you know before you sent your children here?" "Yes," he said again. "And it didn't matter, knowing that you were sent here as a possible husband for Mother." "No, David, it didn't matter," he said. "I had no way of knowing why you two conceived a son but I had enough of the story to put together a possible scenario. I was right. I know only too well how grief can affect us all. Now tell us your story." I took a few deep breaths, trying to decide how to begin. "Michael, you're going to hear my part of a long story. It involves love and sex and I'm not going to hide what we did with fancy words. I could say I slept with Mother and that's true. I could say I made love to her and that's true too. I could say I fucked her and that's also true. I'm not going to call my family jewels my penis and testicles. I'm going to call them my dick and balls. I'm not going to refer to what's between a woman's legs as her vulva; I'm going to say her pussy. I assume you know all the words. Am I right?" "Yeah, the kids at school use the bad words." "Michael, in this new world, there are no bad words. We're going to be open and honest about everything, including sex. You can call that thing between your legs a penis, a phallus, a dick, a cock, a pecker, a peter or lots of other words and they're all OK." "Brian calls his dick a tianga," he said, grinning. "He calls his balls tolos." "Those words are OK too. They come from his old world." "And Brianne calls her pussy a bouchi," he said, and grinned wider. "OK, now on with the story," I said, grinning at him. "I think this story is about love, about what having it or not having it does to all of us. We can be taken to the heights of heaven by love or down to the despair of hell by lack of it. What happened to Father took me down. What has happened with Anna lifted me up." I paused for a minute and looked around. Would they understand? Where to begin? "One of my earliest memories is of an afternoon picnic at a beach in France, a sheltered cove at the base of steep climb. Both Mother and Father had on tiny bathing suits that barely covered their genitals and Mother was bare-breasted. I was, I think, about six and, like the other children there, completely naked." "The three of us were sprawled on a blanket in the shade. Father was resting on his side, supporting his head on his lifted forearm. Mother was sitting upright with folded legs. I was cradled between her legs with my head against her bare breasts. She was reading to me from a French book about the exploits of a young girl, Annalise, and a young boy, Etienne. Her finger followed along with the words she was reading and she paused occasionally for me to read for a moment." "You could already read at six?" Michael asked. "French and English?" "Yes, Michael. Somehow I have a natural ability with language." "The teachers at school thought I was a freak when I started and I already knew how to read in both languages." "We played in the water and then slept for a while on the blanket. When we left, Father carried me up the steep winding path to our little Citroen, me sitting on his forearm with his hand on my naked rear and my head resting on his strong shoulder." "What fixed that memory in my mind was the purity of the love I felt for Mother that afternoon as she read to me and then the same pure love I felt for Father when he was carrying me up the hill. I flourished in that strong pure love for years until the Summer I was twelve." I hurried through the part about the death of Father and its effect on Mother and me, giving them nothing more than the horrible facts. "I could not speak for six months afterwards. When Father was leaving for the last time, he saw me crying and took me in the bathroom. He wiped my face with a wet cloth and, I still remember his words, told me not to cry for him. He said he had experienced with Mother the best life had to offer and I shouldn't cry if something happened to him. For six months afterwards, I couldn't speak because, every time I tried, I knew I was going to cry. I was twenty-five years old and in sniper training in Arizona when I cried with Anna." I paused to calm down and to judge their reaction to my story. "He's very eloquent; isn't he?" Anna whispered. ""Was he like that when he was a child?" "Oh, yes, he was not only a blunderbuss, he was also quite an orator," Mother whispered back. "I think he could make me believe grass was red. I suppose he got his oratorical skills from his father, among other things." "What other things?" Michael asked. "My Michael's penis was larger than most men's," Mother said. "David's is too and his is almost a duplicate of his father's. Yours probably will be too." "I hope so," Michael said. He flipped his loincloth to one side and looked over me at Anna. "What do you think, Anna?" Anna flipped my loincloth up on my chest and I suppose we all compared. Michael looked like a younger version of me all the way, even down to his penis. As usual, when flat on my back, I had lifted my balls so they weren't scrunched by my thighs when I crossed my ankles. Now my dick was resting peacefully nestled on my scrotum. Michael had done the same. He had a few wispy hairs on his mound and his dick looked soft and peaceful too. The skin on his hairless scrotum was still almost pink. I remembered how mine had turned darker by the time I was fourteen or so. "I think you shouldn't worry," she said. "Que sera sera!" He giggled and wiggled for a moment. I didn't hold back when I told them what happened the summer after I had just turned fourteen. I told them how I had listened too many nights to Mother crying and how I wanted to love her to make her stop, not sexual love, just pure love. Then one morning that love had gone from pure to sexual in a moment of instinctive reaction. Once I had experienced that sexual love, I never once thought of stopping. I described the sexual acts we shared, the first desperate two times in just a few minutes. I didn't mince words telling about the next time, when we shared oral sex and she gave me a blowjob, a horrible word to describe something so wonderful, and then I drowned in the scent of her arousal while I licked her pussy. Finally, I described the blind fucking we did and how I learned what it meant to let the beast loose. When I finished that part of my story, I looked down at Michael's dick. It wasn't hard but it was swollen and looked full of blood, at that stage just before it begins to become stiff and to stand up and look around. It wasn't resting on his scrotum anymore; it was sort of lying on its back with its head pointed toward his navel. I couldn't deny that he was my son. If I remembered correctly his was about as big as mine was when I was eleven and started masturbating. He caught me looking and grinned. I grinned back. Anna rose up to look toward Aiden. He was behind Mother and I couldn't see. Mother squirmed around, pushed him down on his back, flipped his loincloth up on his chest, and we all looked. His penis was about like mine and Michael's, bigger than Michael's, smaller than mine, and swollen almost to the point of turning into a hard-on. He shrugged but he didn't resist. Three guys and two women checked out the swollen condition of three penises. "You're all alike," Mother said. "You damn guys are all just alike." "I hope so," Michael said, and giggled. "I can't help it," Aiden said. "When my tianga hears about all the sex you and David had it listens and responds appropriately." "Finish your story, David," Mother said, shaking her head. I told them about learning who had killed Father and how I had determined to have Pashtunwali, revenge for his death. I described my years at the Academy and how I was a young lieutenant in sniper training when I met Anna and fell in love with her. I told them of my final act in our old world when I killed Grand Ayatollah Muqtada al-Badr, the man who had murdered my father. And last I told them I was seconds from being killed when I was transported to this new world. I looked around when I finished. I saw four other serious faces, tears in some eyes, but, when I asked, no questions for now. So I asked a question. "Mother, when you disappeared, you left a one-sentence note: `I love you, David, but I must leave you'. That's all the note to me said. Why? Why didn't you tell me why you were leaving and where you were going? Why didn't you tell me you were pregnant? You told me that you and Father had tried for years to have another child and I thought you couldn't get pregnant." "I thought the same thing, David," Mother said. "When the test told me I was pregnant again, I didn't know what to think or what to do. I finally decided it was best for me to simply disappear." "David, try to put yourself in her place," Anna said. "What would you have done?" "I don't know," I said. "I've kept all this secret for years, wondering if she was still alive or if the drugs and alcohol had won. It was all just a mystery to me and I blamed myself for it." "David, you saved my life," Mother said. "When I learned I was pregnant, I had to stop thinking about myself and what I had lost and start thinking of my child, our child, and about what I had gained, a baby inside me. I knew I could not have an abortion. I could never bring myself to do that. Before, I despaired of ever having another child. I so much wanted another one but without Michael I thought it would never happen. After, I was filled with joy to be pregnant again. I was determined to stop the drugs and alcohol and I did. You didn't intend to give me a child but you saved my life by doing it. You gave me a gift just like Michael did when he gave me you. A child is the most precious gift a woman can ever have." "Then why did you leave?" I asked. "I still don't understand." "I had to leave," she said. "I knew I couldn't stay with you and Grandfather and Grandmother. They were very loving but we would have hurt them so much if they knew I was carrying your child. The people in our community were loving people too but many of them were old fashioned and religious and would have ostracized me." "But I wouldn't have done anything like that," I protested. "I've always loved you and making you pregnant wouldn't have changed that." "David, you were a fourteen year-old boy," she said. "You could never have managed all the difficulties we would have faced if I had stayed." "Well, where did you go?" Anna asked. "I knew someone in Knoxville, Tennessee, another nurse. She was from France too. I called her and she was the answer to everything. She worked at a pediatric center, part of a large hospital, and she said they were in need of nurses. She helped me get a job there and I've been happy there ever since. She even let me move in with her until I got my own apartment. When I told her I was pregnant, I let her think it was just a fleeting romance but I wanted to have the baby. She was the answer again. She helped me with everything. Michael didn't have just one mother; he had two." "Do you understand you were sent here to be with Aiden?" I asked. "The jihadists killed his wife in the London subway bombings. He left because he didn't want his twins growing up in our world." "I know I was," Mother said. "A middle-aged couple, Dr. and Ms. O'Connor, approached me and said they could help me be reunited with you. They told me you were still alive, were married, and your wife was expecting twins. We met a few times and they never would tell me exactly where you were. They said I'd have to agree to come to you." "That must have been Iain's parents, David," Anna said. "You're probably right," I said. "They told me Michael and I would fit right in, that there were other young children with you, that my skills as a pediatric nurse would be very helpful, and that there was a man here with two small children, one who had also lost his wife in the terrorist war, and I might find love again with him." "Did they tell you where they were from?" Anna asked. "They said they were originally from Ireland but had recently moved to a small town north of Atlanta to work with a group of people there. He was a scientist of some kind." "Did they tell you where you were going?" I asked. "The journey from there to here is unbelievable but all of us accept it as true. How did they convince you?" "They said I had to trust them, that they were simply trying to do something good in an evil world. I didn't know what to believe until they showed me a picture of you and Anna and the others. I knew that it was you in that picture. You were standing beside Anna with your arm on her shoulders, hers around your waist, both wearing nothing but loincloths, and it was evident she was pregnant. I knew I had to come here then. I had to see my grandchildren. I wanted to believe them but I had to think of Michael too. Then they let me read a file on you, hundreds of documents telling what you had done and I wanted so much to come to you but I kept thinking of Michael." "I wish I could see that file," I said. "I've got about a million questions to ask." "And they're the ones who told you to sleep with Michael?" Anna asked. "Yes. They told me it was important but they wouldn't tell me why, just that I had to trust them. We slept together for a week, not naked, like here, before we were sent here. Michael and I have seen each other naked all his life and we sleep together occasionally. He says he likes sleeping with me. He likes to have his hand on my breast when he goes to sleep." "They wanted the two of you together at night so they could transport both of you at once," I said. "I understand now," Mother said. "What finally made up your mind?" I asked. "Something in the newspapers did it," she answered. "They started reporting that it was an Army sniper named David Blunderbuss who killed the Grand Ayatollah Muqtada al-Bada and said that you were almost a mythic figure in military circles. I was afraid the media would eventually learn your true identity and then connect you with me. I knew I had to protect Michael from that kind of publicity. If the jihadists learned who he was, he wouldn't have been safe anywhere in our old world." Michael elbowed me. "Dad did you really do that, I mean, kill the Grand Ayatollah Al Badass? That's what one of my teachers called him." "Yes, Son, I did," I said. "I've killed seventeen other men and one woman, all jihadists, and I don't ever want to live through that hell again." "Merde, c'est incroyable," he said. "Michael!" Mother said and I remembered how she fussed at me when I cussed. "Michael's just starting into puberty," I said. "What does he know about sex?" "I've given him books and talked to him. He knows as much as a ten-year-old boy can. He's never done anything sexual with me unless you call cuddling a form of sex. When he sleeps behind me, he likes to put his hand on my breast and I like it too. It's not sexy, just loving." "Hay, David," Michael said. "I'm here too. Remember? You can ask me." "I'm sorry, Son," I said, remembering what I wanted to call him from now on. "What do you know about sex?" "Nothing," he said, and then laughed. "But I want to learn and I'm a fast learner. I think Brianne or Petra could teach me a lot." "Have they told you about the sex play parties we have?" I asked. "When we have another, do you think you should play with us?" "Dad...David...Dad, that's going to take some getting used to," he said. "I don't know about participating `cause I don't know what goes on. The twin `teers told me a little about the parties and I don't know whether I want to do much but I'd like to watch. I want to learn." "He's like you, David," Mother said. "He's a voracious reader and he's interested in everything. He does very well in school. They don't offer French in his middle school so I've taught him that. We usually talk in French when we're alone." "Comprenez-vous les Francais quand ils parlent vite?" I asked. "Oui, mais, merde, je ne comprenez pas anglis," he said and giggled. "Merde! Moi aussi," I said and laughed. Anna, Mother, and Michael looked at me and giggled. Aiden just looked mystified. "Do you masturbate yet?" I asked. "Do you ejaculate yet?" "Yeah, I've been jacking off for about a year. I like it. It feels good. For the last few months, I've been coming, I mean, ejaculating a little. I've talked to Mom about it and she says it's perfectly normal, that all boys do it, and I shouldn't worry about it." I looked at Mother and she understood that I wanted her comments. "I've talked to him about sex for the last few years, David," she said. "I think he was eight when he asked what a blow-job was and I told him. You wouldn't believe some of the questions he brings home from school. From now on, you can answer his questions." "Michael, a father and a mother should try to teach their children about sex and then guide them when they want to become sexually active," I said. "Mother and I will get together with you one day soon and help you decide what you want to do with girls." "Dad, I already know what I want to do," he said. "Maybe I could get an older woman like Renée to teach me. She's hot." I looked at Mother. She shrugged, smiled, and said. "He's your son." "David, Jean-Nicole wants to know if all of you are ready for lunch," Aimee said, seeming to be standing in the door. "She says it will be ready for you in about ten minutes if you want to potty and wash up." "Thank you, Aimee," I said. "Tell her we'll be there in ten." "Yeah, Aimee, tell her I'm hungry," Michael said. <><><> Some might call our lunch simple fare but to me it was another tribute to Jean-Nicole's gourmet talents. For the salad entrée, we had chunks of vine-ripe tomatoes swimming in their juice with olive oil and vinegar and a little fresh black pepper. With the salad, we had fresh Italian bread, crusty, toasted, and smelling of garlic. For the main dish, we had a fish stew: chunks of boneless white fish with potatoes and carrots, all in a thick tomato-based soup, eaten with more of the warm bread. For side dishes, we had three kinds of squash: patty pan squash simmered with onions in olive oil, and fried yellow, and zucchini. That's it. I filled my bowl half full of tomatoes and juices, broke my bread up into chunks, stirred it up with the tomatoes, and ate, savored, and groaned. I looked around at the others and they were all doing the same. Mother was smiling at me and chewing and I knew she was remembering how she had prepared it for me. Michael had his eyes closed and was chewing slowly. I knew what that meant. There were seventeen of us now, all with tomato salad and bread, quietly chewing and delighting in the taste. After that we ate fish stew and squash and groaned at how good the food was. When you've picked the vegetables out of your own garden and caught your own fish, both just that morning, you couldn't want anything better. I wished for a glass of good wine and made up my mind to make some when grapes were ripe this fall. In appreciation, I stated to wash dishes but Mother pushed me away. She washed, Anna rinsed, and Caitlyn racked. What was Jean-Nicole doing standing there talking with them? After cooking, she should be sitting down relaxing as usual. I walked over, thinking maybe I should let her know how much I liked my lunch but Anna told me to go away. Girl talk? Whatever? I decided to go for a walk. Michael decided to go with me. James decided to go too and then Toby and the rest of the Mouseketeers decided to go as well. I got a Nutty Buddy and cut it into small pieces. I saw the others smiling. They knew where we were going. As I started to leave, Mother yelled at me. "David, be back in about thirty minutes. We're making plans for this afternoon." My heart sank. I didn't know if I was ready to tell all the others about that summer when I fathered a child named Michael with Mother and never knew about it for all these years. I knew I had to face them but I wanted time to get ready somehow. Lightning and his family were happy to see us. Both Lightning and Thunder performed for treats and then, surprise, Rain and Snow ran circles around the rock and stood up with cocked heads waiting for their treat. I looked at James. "Yeah, Toby and I have been training the little ones," he said. Lucky sat quietly as long as he could, obeying James' command to heel, but finally he had to bark. The chase was on. Lightning and Thunder chased after him. He ran around for a short while and then let them catch him. The sight of a dog, maybe four times their size, squirming on his back, mouth open, tongue lolling, ears flopping, while two squirrel creatures attacked his belly was enough to make all of us smile. My smile disappeared when we started back. I really wanted to have a little time to organize and think about what I had to tell everybody. I breathed deeply a few times, walked in the kitchen, and faced the four lionesses. They were sitting at a table ready to pounce. "David, we've made up our minds," Anna said. "We want you to sit down and relax. Aimee is going to replay everything we said this morning. That should explain everything and there's no need for you to go through it again." So that's what I did and what we did. We all sat there and listened as Aimee played back her recording of the morning, every word that was said, every groan and gasp and giggle. I put my elbows on the table, leaned forward with my head in my hands, closed my eyes, and listened. I kept wondering what the reaction of the others would be. Maybe I could get through this. With the last words, I lifted my head and stood up. Michael walked over in front of me and looked up. "Hey, Dad, don't be sad," he said, grinning. "Be glad. You and Mom made me and I'm glad." I pulled him against me, tucked his head under my chin, put one hand on his back, the other behind his head, and stroked his soft hair. When I looked around, all the others were smiling and walking toward either Mother or Michael and me. I didn't try to count the hugs I got, no comments, just smiles and hugs, but I was satisfied. Michael was still by my side, looking up at me. "Dad, what's for dinner? I'm hungry." TO BE CONTINUED: Comprenez-vous les Francais quand ils parlent vite?" Do you understand the French when they speak quickly? "Oui, mais, merde, je ne comprenez pas anglis," he said and giggled. "Yes, but, shit, I don't understand English." "Merde! Moi aussi. "Shit! Me too." 12