Little Cherine Book 01 - BPost019
She squirmed up against me and I felt her amusement. “You are wrong you know, we did, through you.”
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Feeling Dommi and Cherine happy, I held my little treasure close to me and my contentment was complete. Well, for a little while. The warmth of her body, her weight, the delicious scent of her began to work its magic on me and soon the room seemed alive with our growing passions.
Dommi gave a sad little moan. I’d also felt it. The warm feeling of her blood. Her period had started.
“Oh Robert!! Why now?”
“What does it matter love? It doesn’t change anything.”
“But you will…and what about Cher, it is disgusting!”
“I don’t think so. What about you baby, you think her period is disgusting?”
Typically of her, Cherine's curiosity flared. “Can I see it?”
“Careful love, you are embarrassing her. Okay you two teasers, I’m going to come just sitting here if you keep me waiting anymore.”
“Don’t you dare waste it!” She jumped off my lap and pulled my hand. I stood up and put out my other hand to Dommi. She came to me, hesitating and full of her doubts.
“When are you going to learn that I can find nothing disgusting or unpleasant about you? We have made love before during your period. What is really bothering you?”
“I suppose I’m feeling shy about Cherine. I feel so gross next to her.”
“You heard her. She is only excited, don’t try to teach her otherwise my love.”
Cherine moved over to Dommi and hugged her. “I love you silly. I’m not scared of blood.”
I was suddenly infused with so much energy I grabbed Dommi, lifting her with Cherine in her arms and carried them to the bedroom (the strength I used was not my natural strength, but I don’t think it was my protector). I gently dropped them on the bed and immediately began to undress them both, a bit here and a bit there, eager for both of them. The fire in my fingers ignited them both and they helped me by undressing me.
One last second of hesitation and Dommi let me pull off her panties.
Cherine exclaimed, “It smells like metal.”
“Iron, it’s in the blood.” Dommi sensed me and blushed, her period had also lit fires in her. Cherine felt us and wailed.
“I can’t wait till after.”
“Join us then.”
When the spasms died down we all felt the burning was still twisting our groins into knots.
It seemed this was to be a night of insatiable appetites. We barely rested ten minutes before I felt my kissing and caressing build to an unbearable level the expectant knots in their bellies. I gradually built the pressure, wanting this one to last.
All my attention was on Cherine this time. I poured all my adoration on her smaller but sexy body. She felt it and this increase in self-confidence, the joy of being the focus of my attention opened her heart like a blossoming flower. Both of us poured ourselves into her, our adoration and love creating a stronger effect than my lips or finger could have.
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Every time I felt her body, within me, building up towards an orgasm I would say to her “relax” and turn my attentions to Dommi. She was getting extremely frustrated and hated being left out of our warming touches.
This is one of the fantastic benefits of being able to gauge exactly what gives them pleasure, what is irritating. I could gauge their readiness to an exactness not possible for any other man. My timing was never out, and to them I was the best lover they could have ever had. Not that either of them had much experience to compare me to. The experience of Dommi with Apostolos had not been inspiring, she had shown me in her mind how his lack of interest in giving her pleasure had turned what should have been beautiful into a duty.
Giving way to some deep instinct, like some kind of animal, I let go of Cherine, stopped touching her, and spent long minutes smelling her. From her sweet mouth, to her neck down her body, all the different sweet smells of her. Dommi liked what I was doing and copied me. I fed the pleasures back into Cherine so that she would not feel weird. She could not understand why her scents were so beautiful and exciting to us, but accepted that they are and received a strong sense of satisfaction out of giving us so much joy.
When she hit the roller-coaster she took us with her on the long, long ride of her passion. We were able to sleep well that night, relaxed and happy for a change.
PART SIX
Chapter Twenty Five
As sometimes happens after some very emotional moments, especially if I felt fear the previous day, I felt inspired when I woke up. I could see so clearly my next sequence of the Kaleidoscope World, that it was as if I had actually seen it in the void - maybe some day I will be able to see it, but for that to happen, there will have to be enough of us in our circle for them to form it without me joining them. Once it can happen, we must each take turns, for it would not be fair that any of us don’t have the opportunity at least once. I concentrated on the painting, half lost in the vision, letting my two darlings concentrate on tidying the house and making a mess of lunch.
When I was finished I called Alki and told him. He was happy, but something was distracting him. I asked him what is wrong. He told me he had an enquiry from a major American corporation, asking that I design their web site. He knows I hate that kind of work, but he also hates losing such a major potential client and what else it would do for the reputation of the company. I thought of what I’d recently read on the web.
“Alki, what were you thinking of charging them?”
“I would probably double our fees, ask for about $30,000.”
“I will give it my best, if you ask for $360,000. My fee out of that should be $200,000. Mind you, not a cent less than $360,000, you can increase it if you like.”
“Are you crazy Roberto? No one charges fees like that! Even one tenth of that is too much.”
“Trust me Alki, you have nothing to lose. Five pages I design, your programmers can do the rest and you ask for the amount I gave you. If they want it at one tenth of that I would not do it anyway, so you lose nothing.”
“Roberto, you will be the death of me. Now you want to be the businessman. You blackmail me so I will ask what you said, but they will laugh at us.”
“I think they will pay. Alki, please check what I’m telling you on the web, if they approach any well known web site designer in the States or North Europe, they would have to pay treble what we are asking. That was not what was worrying you. Tell me now that we have settled the other matter.”
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“I am not worried, I’m puzzled. After the experiences of yesterday I expected to at least feel like I have a hangover, if not worse. I am feeling like a twenty year old. And you were wrong, my hair is growing again, I can see it clearly today.”
I made myself sound dejected. “I’ve got some bad news for you old man - er, I would have felt better about telling you while you are with us.”
“What now?”
“You are not feeling like a twenty year old. You are becoming a something or other, maybe twenty, but definitely no longer anything over fifty. Part of your healing every time has been rejuvenation.” I teased. “That means you soon won’t be able to throw at us your old man attitude.”
It was strange to hear panic in his voice. “How will I be able to explain this to my friends?”
“I think you will have to go into hiding - they’d kill you for your secret.” As I joked I saw it was true. “Alki, we better discuss what we are going to do. I had begun to plan disappearing in a couple of years. I’d thought we would move where nobody knows us. A nine year old cannot stay a nine year old when she is eleven or older. I had hoped to be able to keep working by sending you my work and you arrange the cash to be delivered. If you also have to move, what then. Christ! Even our passports will soon be useless.”
“Roberto you are going too fast for me. I need time to adjust to this. Allow me to enjoy what is happening for a while and we worry later, okay?”
It is not often I can take a dig at him, so, as seriously as I could, I said, “This proves one thing.”
“What. No, don’t tell me, you and your surprises are going to be the…”
“Ha!”
“Don’t ‘ha’ me! What does what prove?”
“That your god must truly love you - he was not punishing you as you thought. He blessed you with the age you were born in, and now that the girls are becoming beautiful you are becoming young again.”
I laughed, enjoying the feelings I imagined were going through him. Then it struck me. “Alki, maybe it was planned. Imagine Cherine causing all the changes we’ve talked about, wouldn’t the future gestalt (μορφολογική ψυχολογία) of mankind…maybe of all life, want to ensure she survives for it to come about? With you at the right age, successful, ripe emotionally to fall for the appeal of the young, perhaps the probabilities of our surviving and achieving what is destined swing in our favour? I’ll tell you this Alki, friend and pappou of our family, without you the three of us would have become another statistic of history. Now that the worst of our ignorance is almost over, that we can defend ourselves, it is allowed that you become young again to become a part of what we will be.”
I appreciated that he was stunned, since I also was, so I left him to get used to the idea on his own. It was still strange to me that the healer can foresee these changes within such a short space of time. How can it extrapolate with such meagre data, and be so certain, that I am planning everybody’s life based on it. This new way of life is difficult for me also; I wonder that Dommi is managing to adapt so fast.
The food was awful as usual, half raw and half starting to burn - Dommi tends to try to cook too fast, it’s like a mental blind spot. Of course Cherine did not want to eat. I insisted she must, telling her we do not throw food away; still trying to be a daddy I suppose - at least I did not tell her about all the children starving in other parts of the world, as I used to be told. When the phone rang she ran for it, hoping to get out of eating.
“Mummy why are you crying? What’s wrong?”
“I’ve been fired. They are going to make me leave Greece. What am I going to do baby?”
Cherine looked up at me, total trust in her eyes. “You talk to Robert. He will fix it.”
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I took the phone. “Marian, why?”
“The shipowner said they don’t want someone who gets fits in their office, it upsets all the staff. I only have a work permit for this job, they are going to make me leave. Robert, how can I leave my baby and go? I know I can’t separate you, but I can’t leave her here. What am I going to do?”
“You frightened me for a moment. Don’t cry Marian. Pack a bag, we are coming to pick you up. It would be better you stay with us.”
As I shut the phone Cherine quickly came and clung to me, her inquisitive mind trying to see my plans. I kicked her out and bent to give her a kiss. I did not want her to see I did not have any plans. Given a bit of time I trusted I would think of something. Dommi was not so easy, she found it easier to see into me.
“I can ask my father to give her a job, I am sure he can get her work permit renewed.”
“That is a good idea love. The cab will be here soon, we better go pick her up and the ride will give us time to consider all the alternatives.”
We picked her up and with her face calm she looked at me and smiled. We could all read the trust she felt in me. It made me feel guilty, but I would rather die than lose the faith my Cherine has in me, so I have to find an acceptable answer anyway. On the return trip we made a small detour. I passed from Alki. I brought him up-to-date on our new problem and asked him to join us for supper. He had made other commitments, but promised to help solve the problem.
While the girls settled Marian in the guest bedroom I sat to think. There is no way I can allow Marian to leave, but I do not quite like the idea of her staying with us, we would lose our feeling of being a family, interdependent. I told myself it is just a matter of logic. Dommi already has one answer, but to tell the truth I did not like it. Our reconciliation is still too new, too raw. I do not want to go asking her father for favours.
I worked at our finances. My income is in dollars, if I have enough and Alki helps by paying part of it somewhere else, I can bring in a monthly amount in her name, which means she will be allowed to stay indefinitely as a visitor. I have not been doing my usual amount of work and even what I have done was mostly on the Kaleidoscope World series and that money is going to the Trust. I have known for a while now that Alki has been carrying us. I still have to repay him and I know Alki does not need another employee. The only possibility is the latest request for a web site. I regretted upping the price so high, if I had only listened to Alki I could have had that income to solve our problem.
Marian and the girls came to me. Cherine was grinning broadly. “Robert, mummy said she will make supper for us.”
“Now you see why you lost your job Marian, this nasty little creature was hungry. I think we have all lost weight from trying to eat the concoctions the girls come up with.”
“Have you given any thought on how to solve my problem?”
I gave her a reassuring smile, trusting Cherine would not betray me as I said, “Thought, yes. I will need to speak with a number of friends before I can give you an answer. I suggest you relax, enjoy a few days while you can with your daughter.”
“And Dominique.”
“Don’t push it Cherine.” I answered laughing.
The telephone rang and I wondered what now? It did not seem to be a day to be optimistic about calls. I picked up the receiver and heard Nicko, his voice stiff. “I thought I better call you. My parents have told me they invited you for supper. They want me to be there also. I told them I cannot come and they demanded I phone you.” He sounded cold and I felt saddened that I’d lost him as a friend.
“Nicko, it would make us all happy, especially your sister, if you did come. However I will not pressure you. Would you do me a favour though?”
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Reluctantly he asked, “What,” and from the tone of his voice I could tell he had no wish to do me any favours.
“Please come over to visit us for a drink. Then you can also tell your parents and they will be happier. I promise, no tricks, not even any unpleasant conversations. For old times sake?”
“I do not see how that would help anybody.”
“I agree, you will probably leave feeling the same way you do now. It would not surprise either of us. I call upon our years of friendship, one visit before we close all doors.”
“One drink only.”
“Yes.”
Cherine was outraged. First I do not hurt him and now I beg him to visit us. Only as she heard the feelings, the turmoil in Dommi, she quickly changed tack. But she was determined not to talk to him. I turned to Marian.
“His stupid, old fashioned pride, turned a friend and brother into an enemy. It is a big loss, for both Dommi and me. Cherine sees everything in black and white, as the young do. So I will ask you if what I plan is unfair, immoral or unethical. Bearing in mind the damage he has done and what he will probably try to do once he has recovered his sense of bravado. I want to break one of our strictest rules. We are not allowed to use our abilities to manipulate anyone. I want to manipulate Nicko. Try to break through that hatred, which is mostly injured pride and fear. Do you think I would be wrong? Cherine, before your mother answers, I want you to promise her and us that you will not hold it against her if you do not like her reply.” She looked inside me and quietly promised.
Marian took her time answering me. “If you are thinking of using that extraordinary love you forced on me, I do not think it will help. It only affected me temporarily on Ydra. Within a few days I was just as angry as I had been. If there is hatred in him for you, I do not know what you can do to change it. If you have a way, then I suggest you use it. For her sake and for the sake of you all.”
“Thank you. Now who votes against me?” Cherine kept quiet, but her eyes were glowering at me. I could sense Cherine, so I said, “It is not good enough, I am going to need all the help I can get. Either you both give me your support or we forget it. Cherine?”
“You going to want me to send him love?”
“I might. Yes or no?”
“I can’t.”
“So your mother is right. Hatred is stronger than love.”
She admitted, “I don’t feel any love for him. I never liked him!”
“I meant your hatred for him is stronger than your love for Dominique.”
Dommi got angry. “That is not fair Robert! You are using emotional blackmail. I never asked for this and you do not have the right to use me against her.”
“I bloody well do. You talk to me of rights! If you have the slightest sliver of grief in you, who do you think feels it. Your feelings are not just yours. We share and I told the truth, it is not emotional blackmail. There is no point discussing it any further. Cherine, the law unto herself has made her judgement and we will have to live with it.”
Not giving anybody a chance to speak I stormed out of the room and sat at the computer, designing in quick angry strokes the pain that was flooding me. I had so strongly believed we are one creature, a unique entity of the future that bases its existence on love, not on hatred as mankind has. Because of the size and intensity of my dream, my disappointment was keener. I called myself a romantic fool and draw harsh lines to form the tortured creatures of my creation. They were shrinking, their bodies twisted and tortured as the anti-Kaleidoscope World, a place of hatred, darkness and evil hovered over them. I worked, lost in the horror of my fantasy world that I was creating out of my anger and pain.
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A scream pierced through me. I turned in shock and saw Cherine staring at me in horror. Not at me exactly, at my screen. “What have you done Robert. Oh what have you done!! How could you do it?”
The protector and healer acted instantly. They blocked off the sight of my screen from her. They tried to flow into her, but she repulsed them and turning eyes of despair on me she collapsed. Even then they were unable to enter. Anything that came from me it seemed was anathema to her. For the first time there was no trace of a link between her and me. By the time the others came running in I was toppling over.
I had lost all contact with Dommi at the same moment I was cut off by Cherine, leaving me with no one to cling to. I lay isolated in a cocoon of darkness with no possibility of being saved this time, for the fight to survive was gone from me. I knew that and I sank into a despair that began to consume me. I was in the void and it was eating away at me, claiming me finally in victory. For this time the void was within me, nothing could save me. I knew that now I would never become part of the Kaleidoscope World, the unity I had fought against.
As I felt myself being eaten, in a dissolving mist, I resented that expansion of my soul, the scattering of my spirit. I wanted, needed to hold myself compressed into a ball of such density that nothing would ever again break through. I hung in that balance, still losing parts of myself for what felt like a long time. Then I no longer felt the void. I no longer felt myself falling or floating. I felt nothing. Now I was what I deserved to be. Nothing.
Unknown to me, I was not falling or floating. I was being held by the healer. It had lost most of its power as I disintegrated, but it held me. By the time it was too weak to hold me anymore, Dominique had arrived. She tried to enter me, to soothe and allow her own magic of motherhood to heal me. There was nothing she could do. She would have fled in despair, but was afraid of losing me. She left enough of herself to strengthen the healer and returned to Cherine.
Dommi had brought Cherine back before coming for me, thinking, knowing she would need her help. Cherine tried desperately to re-establish her link to me. She could not find anything to link to. As she began to sink into her own despair, Dommi returned and told her she has found me. I am not outside in the void. I have taken the void into myself and most of me has dissolved, there is only a small ball of blackness within that darkness. She cried in her despair, “I cannot break through. He has sealed himself in. The healer is dissolving, weakening, almost gone. What can I do?”
“Mummy call Alki. He must look after us until we can get Robert back. Dommi I do not know how to get in, you must take me with you.”
“Dominique where are you taking her?” Marian was in a panic.
“If she does not take me, Robert will die, and if he dies I will die also.” As Cherine closed her eyes, Marian grabbed hold of her, kissing her face and holding on to her tightly. Cherine felt a strength from this that helped give her courage and hope that she might be able to save me.
When Nicko arrived for the drink, still burning with anger, hatred and shame at having given in to my request for the sake of his family, Alki was already with us. He stared at us. When he saw the grief on the faces of Alki and Marian he bent down and cradled the limp form of his sister.
“What has that bastard done to my sister.”
“He is dying and the two girls, yes, your sister, have gone after his soul to try and bring him back. There is nothing we can do Nicko. Doctors cannot help. We must stay to look after them until they return or die. Nicko be gentle with her, Marian you carry Cherine, I’ll carry Robert. Put them on the bed next to each other.”
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Somehow they managed. Nicko was distressed to see Alki lift Cherine and, after moving Dommi so that she was touching me he placed Cherine on top of both of us. He did not want to see his sister touching me, but Alki was so sure of himself he became afraid of his own ignorance and kept silent. But his anger and hatred simmered, affecting the atmosphere in the room. Alki wisely pretended to ignore him.
After about an hour Alki swore at himself. He rushed over to us and when Marian saw what he was doing she helped. They stripped us so that we were touching skin to skin and put the sheet over us. Nicko was outraged and finally Alki was angered by his narrow-mindedness.
“Stop being so stupid. Do you think they have lived together all this time without being in the nude? They need to be touching to draw strength from each other. Get it into your head. If one of them dies, they all die. Would you rather see your sister dead?”
Where there had been a gloating, beneath the concern for his sister, at the thought of my death, now there was a growing anxiety. He asked Alki what is happening. Alki tried to explain about us, as much as he felt was safe to mention, and that, with what Nicko had heard from the tapes, helped him understand a little of what was happening. Alki told him that this was, he thought, the fourth or fifth time the girls have killed me. He admitted he is worried this time, as it has never taken so long before. Nicko wondered what my life must be like if I have been killed by Cherine and his sister that many times, but he decided Alki was exaggerating. His curiosity was not strong enough to open him to empathy, so he continued hating me.
The hours passed, the night was lost and dawn broke. They could see our faces drawn, drained, less life-like by the hour. They reached their own despair. It was obvious to them I was the worst, there was not much life left. My body convulsed and my chest stopped rising. Alki gave a cry of despair and flung himself on me trying to bring me back by pummelling my chest. Nicko pulled him off and began artificially giving me breath. When he was exhausted Marian took over and then Alki.
All this time the girls had held me and fought to break in. They had taken into them the vestiges of the healer. For them an eternity was passing, but they refused to give up. When Dommi held me, Cherine concentrated on trying to link to me and on entering through my shell. When she would despair, they exchanged roles. Afterwards, Dommi was to say, that when Cherine held me, I looked like a perfect precious black pearl wrapped in a gauze of light.
It was Cherine who sat back and exhausted, just spun slowly, not trying to enter or call me out. As she watched, she felt my body die. Then she remembered. *Dommi, there must be a link from him to his body. His body has just died. The link will break, I have to find it quickly. What must I do?* Dominique showed her what she thought might be a way. Cherine found it as it was already fading. She entered it and strengthened it with her own life-force. She flowed through it and entered into my darkness. I had forgotten who I was or what had happened. All I sensed was the calling, the light and love. Afraid, not understanding, I shyly responded, a baby crying my fear. Her joy seemed to light my whole spirit.
By talking to me as if I were a toddler, she gradually was able to jolly me into relaxing my hold and to make me dissolve the shell. I did not understand, but I did seem to recall that the only thing protecting me was the shell I had woven around myself. I was reluctant to let go, but I was powerless to refuse the beautiful light and her sweet love. As a part dissolved, another presence was there. My mother. She poured her love, the healing touch of her love. We seemed to be rising to a place of light. I had a sense of being home and settled there, not wanting to go further, certain there is danger waiting for me.
The girls would take turns to return for a short moment to their bodies to strengthen themselves and returned to nurse me. Alki called Themi and explained. He asked for medical help in strengthening the girls in their fight. Soon the room looked like a clinic. I was put on the drip. I was injected and given oxygen. To a lesser extent the same was done for the girls. Mostly they were fortified with vitamin injections and hot soup.
As the days passed, the bitterness dissolved and Nicko even began to hope for my return. This he realised could not be a trick. The girls were too close to death. As for myself, he had started me breathing again. Without him I would have died. He had given me breath from his own lungs, but I was slowly turning into a gaunt skeleton, my flesh wasting away.
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I’ll probably never know what excuses Nicko used, but our supper with his family was cancelled. He understood there was no point in telling them what is happening. They would not have been able to understand and only would have caused problems - they would certainly have tried to take Dominique away so as to place her in a clinic.
On the fourth day I was able to open my eyes. On the fifth day the girls remembered and released the vestiges of my healing power into me. It did not draw it’s power from me, else it would have remained helpless for days. Whatever plane it draws it’s strength from, it found its way there and returned in full strength. As is its prime command, it first cared for my sweet loves. They began to glow. Before it reached out to Alki and the others, a sob of joy broke out of Alki.
“They are all safe now. Praise God!”
As the healer went through each of them, they did not need an explanation. The only one left untouched was I, as far as they could see. It gently strengthened my body, but it mainly tried to re-knit my torn mind. As the pieces came together it found it easier to place the next pieces. In hours it did what medical science could not have done in years. Through her link, both Cherine and Dommi felt me returning slowly. They held on to me tightly, refusing to leave me for a second.
When I was able to open my eyes and see what they saw, I saw Cherine first of all. Her face was directly in front of mine, her eyes searching mine, fearing to let herself believe, even though she felt me inside her. As I lit up with joy at the sight of her, she softly put her lips to mine in a wordless happiness. Dommi then held my face and kissed me tenderly. They were both crying and I turned to soothe them, not even aware of others in the room. Once they were snuggled in my arms I then saw everyone else. I saw and smiled.
“Finally, all my friends together at last.” I looked at Nicko and he nodded his head.
It was very disorientating for me to so suddenly be at full health. I should imagine even more so for the others. I think the biggest impact was on Nicko. If he had not felt the miracle of his aching exhausted body within minutes being refreshed, revitalised, his mind sharpened, he might have again suspected some kind of trickery.
As the girls sent me their love and I returned it with a power they had never felt before, Cherine, to thank the others, started sending it in ever-increasing power around and around until she created the same effect as she had on the yacht, a golden glow of love seemed to flow around the room binding all of us in its warmth. There never was a need to explain to Nicko. He became a convert, I think that is the only word to describe it. He even became friends with Cherine. Death makes strange bedfellows of us I suppose. If that is the correct saying.
The sudden return to perfect health did not make me want to walk and run and do other kinds of pointless exercise. It left me feeling fey, a little bit at odds with my personality - in other words, a little bit unbalanced and restless, without my being able to pin down what it is I want. If I started reading a book, even if I found it very interesting, I would soon set it down and move around the house, looking for something else to do. Even the girls felt a little bit the same way and I don’t know how Marian made patience with us.
I finally found that the only thing which could hold my interest for long is painting. I found the sketches from our wedding, placed canvas on the easel and as I worked I soon saw that I really was inspired, doing excellent work. It seems I was sympatico with the joy we shared at our wedding and was thus able to express it in ways that came from my heart.
I was careful not to let Marian see these paintings, but she did grow suspicious, for the girls were soon in and out of my office/studio and Alki took to visiting often so as to see my latest painting. I am glad I waited to paint these scenes, for they lit up my inner world and these were a few of the happiest days I’ve ever had. I don’t know why the girls and I did not explode with passions, as we have always done after a crisis - I think it may be that something in me needed this time for completing my works of love.
After I’d finished the last wedding painting, I got myself a gin and tonic and sat in the lounge, still covered in dabs of various colours of oil paints. I was musing over all that has happened and how Marian must view us.
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I began to speak aloud. “Marian, when we first met and you showed you did not like me, I suspected you felt that way because of my being an artist. Not all artists are like me, most of them are actually very practical and some are greedy, but enough of us are impractical dreamers for all artists to have to bear the stigma of being poor catches for any woman who dreams of having a family, a home and who needs to feel safe and cared for. Us poor artists are meant to be, in the main, either drug addicts or alcoholics and we only think of today, never about the future.
These thoughts led me to wonder about the way the three of us have grown and what it is likely our future will be like. My over-sensitivity, the times I have died or hurt my loves, could they all be thanks to my being an artist? What if I had been…an accountant, or a businessman like Alki, how different would the road we have taken been? Would we have been stronger?”
There was only the beating of my heartbeat for a few seconds, and then Dommi shifted and spoke, answering my question in her own way. “Only a person like you could have loved me, once you’d met and loved Cherine, so I would not have been part of the group. As for Cherine herself, remember that she was attracted to you before meeting you. For her gifts of empathy to blossom, she had to have a man like you love her, not someone like Alki or Nicko…and definitely not an accountant!” She gave us a small smile as we chuckled. “Roberto mou, you do not have to try and imagine how it would be for Cherine with someone else, someone harder, more practical. All you have to do is recall those times you were like that.”
I could see how she had not compared the possibilities fairly, but her last comment, it sealed the mind of Cherine, so that she could not even allow herself to imagine the possibilities I felt might have been better possibilities for her. I sensed Marian smile to herself, but she did not speak. A pity, I would have liked to hear what she thinks - but I could not provoke her for an answer, as I do not want her relationship with Cherine to be strained yet; they are still both too new at loving each other.
Chapter Twenty Six
As was expected, Alki solved our problem regarding Marian. In a small country like Greece, every wealthy person either knows, or knows someone, who knows the other wealthy person. He arranged that she keeps her job, for purposes of her permit, as long as she does not go to the office. The shipowner continues to pay her salary, but Alki refunds him in cash. When we tried to thank him and I offered to refund his payments, he refused to listen to us.
It has felt rather weird for the three of us. Alki and Marian had drawn close to each other during our last crisis. The changes in Marian, the re-emerging youth in Alki and their common worry, had combined to light a little fire that is growing almost daily. I teased Cherine about it.
“Looks to me like you will have to stop calling him pappou and start calling him daddy.”
“Never. I’ll call him Alki. I only have my real daddy and you as my daddies, so, never, and I don’t care what anyone says.”
Gently I corrected her. “You love him a lot. If it goes the way it looks and him and your mother get together, I think you will call him daddy, if only because you know how happy and proud that will make him feel. We are too much of everything to each other for me to mind. You may be my love, my lover and my wife, but you will always be my little girl. You are the daughter of my heart and my own personal miracle of love in every way, and none of it depends on you calling me daddy.”
I don’t know what prompted her, she probably wanted to help strengthen my argument, but Dommi interjected, “You’ve made me think of a poem.”
THE LITTLE BOY LOST
"Father, father, where are you going?
Oh do not walk so fast!
Speak, father, speak to your little boy,
Or else I shall be lost."
210
The night was dark, no father was there,
The child was wet with dew;
The mire was deep, and the child did weep,
And away the vapour flew.
- by William Blake
Dommi looked at me, “Sometimes you are a little like that father, there, but not there, but your love can always be felt.” She then added, “Cherine, if I was not part of this magical love of yours and Roberts’ neither of you would be any poorer in the amount of love you…”
“Oh shit, stop talking nonsense!”
Even as I told her off, I was laughing. “Cherine that is not the way to talk to your wife, or to my wife. Even if it reflects my exact feelings.” I gave Dommi a thoughtful look, “I had not imagined you would know any poems by William Blake. Sometimes the way Cherine affects me reminds me of this one,
When the voices of children are heard on the green,
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast,
And everything else is still.
It comes from a poem called ‘Nurse’s song’, but his poem, ‘On Another’s Sorrow’, he seems to be talking more directly to us,
Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief,
And not seek for kind relief?
Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow's share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?
Can a mother sit and hear
An infant groan, an infant fear?
No, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!
I find it amazing that as a species we are aware of empathy and yet have attached so little importance to it - even by our philosophers.”
A while later Cherine came to me, sweaty from the sun, and threw herself in my arms. From somewhere below my chin she spoke. “Daddy you were right. I am sorry, it was stupid of me.”
“What is this about now?”
“Dommi reminded me I owed you an apology. What you said about hate and love, about Nicko. I was very immature she said. I think I agree with her. But I am growing up. I am learning. And I learnt one very important thing, it is more important than anything else.”
“And that is?”
“How much I love you.”
“You are one really cunning little kid. You know exactly what to say to make me melt. Oh my love, you must never think that if you argue with me it will make me doubt your love,” (in the back of my mind, I had the thought, ‘how is that for foul hypocrisy, after nearly dying and causing her death so many times for that reason’), “I am rather stubborn and you are also strong-willed. I would not want you to change. You fight back and may the person in the right, or me, always win.” I grinned at her, having to wait a few seconds for her to hear what I’d said, as I’d said it. She lightly bit my finger and then giggled.
Αλέξανδρος Ζήνον Ευσταθίου
(Alexander Zenon Eustace)11th March, 2019
* posted on Steemit: 11th March, 2019
@nikosnitza
If you wish to have your name added above, I would be honoured.
