bluedragonauthor

BTC 2.0: Chapter 71

Added 2025-01-15 23:19:39 +0000 UTC

-- CHAPTER 71: Every Time A Bell Rings… --

****

I gawked at Mother in confusion, feeling utterly bewildered by her presence.

Mother was in New York, to begin with. There was no doubt whatsoever about that. Her location had been confirmed by both me and by Sam. During our post-Christmas phone call, both mother and I had promised to make a concerted effort to stay up-to-date on each other’s lives with a little more frequency than once every six months. To that end, we’d shared a very brief phone call on New Year’s Eve. And while she could have theoretically flown across the country to come visit in the intervening days, as of this very morning, Mother had texted me to say that she was cross-country skiing with friends in upstate New York, and I had no reason to believe Mother would lie to me.

Ignore me? Sure.

Move across the country, rent out my childhood home, and leave me on my own? Absolutely.

But outright lie to me? No way.

For Mother to start lying to me for no good reason would truly kill any remaining affection I had left for the woman who had given birth to me. From that point on, our relationship would be as dead as a door-nail.

I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that if Mother was going to start outright lying to me, that our relationship would be as dead as a door-nail.

Moving on.

Where was I? Oh yes, spread-eagle and naked. My shrinking, softening schlong set semi-stiff, semi-limp, and still-soaking-wet before Mother’s baleful gaze. My ankles and wrists tied by gift wrap ribbons to the four corners of the king-size bed in our rented house’s master bedroom. The room itself remained completely silent, lacking even the muffled sounds of activity elsewhere in the house.

“What are you doing here?” I asked in surprise, once again tugging vainly at the rudimentary bonds that did not want to release me from my bondage. One wouldn’t think such flimsy strips of nylon would prove to be so durable, and yet the multiple strands of gift wrap ribbon completely resisted tearing. So I remained stuck in my inglorious position, unable to break free.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Mother asked, remaining exactly where she was with her posture stiff and her arms folded across her chest, dressed in that out-of-place business suit. “I’m here to visit you.”

“Where’s everyone else?”

“That’s not important.”

I blinked twice, not expecting that response. “Not important?”

“For now, it’s just you and me,” Mother explained brusquely. “The presence of the many, many young women in your life is not required at this time. Therefore, they are not present.”

I blinked twice again, not understanding. “What?”

“Do please try to keep up, Matthew. This isn’t complicated.” Mother sighed in obvious disappointment.

“When did you get here? How did you get here?”

“The ‘how’ is not important, and neither is the ‘when’.”

“Well then what is important?”

“Now THAT is a VERY good question. Let’s find out, shall we?” Mother turned around and strode to the closed bedroom door, her high heels clacking on the hardwood floor with each step.

She turned the doorknob and started to open the door, and at the same time, I called out to her, “Are you expecting me to go with you? Because at the moment, I’m quite literally tied up.”

“No you’re not.”

“Of course I… am?” I stared in shock at my unclad wrists, now held aloft in front of my face. I then nearly lost my lunch and felt the room spin in circles at the realization that I was no longer naked and spread-eagle across the bed. Rather, I found myself sitting upright on the foot of the bed and dressed in a sharp law firm suit of my own: freshly pressed black slacks, a matching jacket over a crisp white dress shirt, and a black tie. “What the fuck?!?”

“Matthew! There’s no cause for such language,” Mother scolded.

I blinked twice, gawking at my own attire. “How in the world did…?” My voice trailed off when I looked back up at Mother and realized that half of her body was illuminated by a bright white light. It wasn’t just ANY light – the kind one might expect of typical incandescent illumination coming from typical ceiling fixtures in a typical hallway. Rather, it was the blindingly super-bright, super-white glare of an otherworldly portal to another dimension or heaven or something, the kind you see in movies. And I reached down to pinch myself just to see if I was really awake.

But I didn’t awake.

“I’m not dead am I?” I asked.

Figures that ‘Death by Fucking’ would be how I’d gone out. Well, that and maybe a stroke brought on by Sam’s super-pills.

Mother just scoffed and rolled her eyes, which was actually a relief.

“Is this a dream?” I asked, which I supposed still wouldn’t rule out the possibility of a stroke.

“If it was, then I wouldn’t really be here, now would I?” Mother replied.

I frowned. “That doesn’t actually answer my question.”

“Quite right. But I’m not really here to answer your questions.”

“Then what ARE you here for?”

Mother’s eyebrows popped and she gave me a Cheshire grin that was somehow more terrifyingly wider than any smile she’d ever shown me in my entire life. “Follow me and find out.”

With that, Mother fully opened the door, revealing a rectangular field of infinite white light seemingly without end. She walked through the doorway, almost immediately disappearing from view, and I simply sat there for a second, my jaw on the floor, momentarily frozen in vapor-lock as to what I should do.

This is a dream, right? There’s only one thing you CAN do, I told myself. Follow her and find out.

What happens if I don’t follow her and find out?

Where’s the fun in that?

Taking a deep breath, I pushed myself to a standing position on the floor in front of the bed. Reaching up, I grabbed hold of my tie and tugged it a little tighter, bracing myself for whatever might come.

“There is no spoon,” I stated aloud.

And then I walked through the open door.

****

In the real world, doorways are built in such a way that ensures a level surface across both sides of the doorway. When typically walking out through a bedroom door, the hallway on the other side is at the exact same elevation to ensure that people don’t fall flat on their face on the other side, right? But perhaps I shouldn’t have expected a glowing magic portal of infinite whiteness to follow the real-world rules of door-making. Come to think of it, the sliding door of my childhood home was built several inches above the back patio so that outside rainwater could never seep into the house, so perhaps my thoughts about the real-world rules of door-making were utter crap.

But I wasn’t thinking about the sliding door of my childhood home, and I was expecting to step through the glowing magic portal of infinite whiteness and step back down onto a surface at the exact same elevation. So you’ll understand that when my foot went down… and then kept going down… I stumbled forward, off-balance, until my foot finally hit the concrete a full sixteen inches or so below the point I was expecting.

Then my hands hit the concrete a second later, arresting my fall just before my face smashed into the unyielding surface. And I sprawled out on all fours across what turned out to be a downtown San Francisco sidewalk complete with moldy green and brown cracks, years-old chewing gum, and a fine layer of car exhaust dust, all while dressed in a (formerly) clean and crisp black suit.

Still better than being butt naked and tied spread-eagle across a bed.

“Ah, there you are. Took you long enough,” Mother scolded.

Face-down in a modified push-up position with my knees and elbows on the cement, I looked up at her and groaned. A split-second later, I saw a heavy brown work boot, complete with steel toes, start swinging directly for my face. On instinct, I yelled and dropped my chest to the ground while blocking my head with crossed forearms, but no impact came. The sounds of footsteps receded behind me, and I half-rolled, half-twisted to look over my shoulder. A CalTrans utility worker, clad in a yellow jacket with hi-vis reflective striping and a white helmet, sauntered away from me without a backwards glance.

More footsteps sounded off in front of me.

Three more utility workers were walking straight for me, but just as I started to duck and cover again, the lead worker’s boot passed straight through my chest as if I wasn’t even there. The next two likewise walked right past without being impeded by what I assumed to be my ghostly, intangible form. And I realized that just like in the movies, they couldn’t see or feel me.

Nor could the really hot blonde with big tits that spilled over the top of her red dress and bounced quite provocatively as she sauntered by.

Actually, the hot blonde turned and winked at me.

What the fuck is going on?

There is no spoon.

“Waitaminute,” I muttered, looking up at Mother as she stood in front of the featureless gray wall beside us. An office-drone walked briskly by me, and when I stuck my arm out in front of him, he merely passed straight through it. “If I’m not really here and people can’t see or touch me, how is that I can feel the sidewalk beneath my hands?”

Mother rolled her eyes. “Don’t sprain something trying to think about it too hard.”

“If I jumped off this skyscraper here,” I asked while getting to my feet and pointing upwards, “would I die on impact?”

Mother sighed. “Are you trying to waste my time, Matthew?”

I waggled a finger. “You keep calling me ‘Matthew’, but you’re not even my real mother. None of this is really happening.”

“Of course I’m not your real mother; your subconscious is what chose my form. But that doesn’t necessarily mean this isn’t real. As far as you’re concerned, what I’m about to show you is very real.”

I blinked. “What?”

She smiled that Cheshire grin again. “Think of me as akin to The Ghost of Christmas Future.”

I blinked twice. “What?”

“Come now. I know you’ve seen A Christmas Carol. Well, I know you’ve seen Mickey’s Christmas Carol. And I know you still have PTSD from that door-knocker turning into Goofy’s Jacob Marley and howling, ‘Scrooooooooge!’”

Mother’s voice had magically changed to that of the voice actor from the cartoon film, and I felt a shiver run down my spine. My jaw hung slack for a moment, but I managed to swallow my spit and straighten my spine. “Waitaminute. Does that mean I’m going to get visited by two other ghosts? Or if this is A Christmas Carol, wouldn’t that make you Jacob Marley? Because you showed up in my room first. And then wasn’t The Ghost of Christmas Future a silent-but-deadly Grim Reaper?”

“Perhaps a more appropriate example would be It’s A Wonderful Life, and you can think of me as Clarence, your guardian angel,” Mother suggested.

“I’ve never seen It’s A Wonderful Life. Heard of it, but never seen it, not that my real Mother would ever care to know that.” I frowned. “Come to think of it, if you’re a figment of my imagination, so you really SHOULD know that.”

Mother rolled her eyes again. “You’re still thinking too hard about it,” she scolded.

Her tone of extreme disappointment stabbed me through the heart with the same icy coldness I’d felt the day she pointed out I’d only gotten an A-minus in U.S. History, and I couldn’t help but swallow thickly while slumping my shoulders and scrutinizing the ground before my shoes.

“Come now, stop dawdling. We must get inside. Let’s not be late,” Mother insisted, waving me towards the large front doors of the building next to us.

I picked my head up. “Late for what? This isn’t real, remember?”

“I just told you: this is very real.” She sighed and checked her watch. “Nevermind. We mustn’t be late.”

Mother snapped her fingers, and the universe disappeared into infinite white.

****

I reappeared in the hallway of an upper floor in a downtown skyscraper office building.

I also appeared some sixteen inches above the hallway floor of that office building, and I let out an awkward yelp of surprise as I dropped like a rock and abruptly landed on both feet, my knees buckling slightly. But I managed to not fall flat on my face this time, merely squatting down a bit with my arms out to the sides before finding my balance and standing up straight.

I blinked. “Are you doing that on purpose?”

Mother shrugged. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I rolled my eyes and looked around. Despite there being a dozen people diligently working in the nearby cubicle farm, nobody seemed to notice my presence nor had reacted to my yelp. So I assumed that I was still more or less “not really here”. And I looked up to find Mother watching me with a hint of amusement in her eyes.

And then she pointedly tilted her head towards the clear glass pane beside her.

It was an internal window between the hallway and the luxurious corner office beside us. I could see straight through the glass to the floor-to-ceiling windows providing an expansive view of the downtown San Francisco Financial District. The Ferry Building was just in view near the floor, with the dark blue waters of the San Francisco Bay and the gray architecture of the Bay Bridge just beyond. But I noticed these details only in passing, with my gaze locked onto the buxom blonde bombshell in a crisp gray business suit before me.

I frowned. Something was… off. The woman standing before me had platinum-blonde hair cut in a mid-length bob above her shoulders and had very nice curves; but the way she stood, the way she carried herself, didn’t quite feel right. She didn’t feel like… Sam.

The blonde paced back and forth in the space between her desk and the floor-to-ceiling window behind her, obviously carrying out some kind of phone conversation. I couldn’t hear her from this side of the glass, but I saw the slim boom mike of a wireless headset protruding forward from her cheek. She held in her hand some kind of device that could have been some kind of cell phone, except that I didn’t see a keypad on it – just a super-large screen. She had three computer monitors side-by-side-by-side, all mounted on a bracket to create additional desk space, all of them impossibly thin. And only then did I remember that Mother had initially said that she was akin to The Ghost of Christmas Future.

Was this… an older version of Sam?

“What is the current year?” I asked without taking my eyes off of Sam.

“Does it really matter?” Mother replied dismissively.

And then the blonde turned to face the hallway.

It wasn’t Sam. No matter how many years had passed, I knew Sam’s face and this woman wasn’t her. Only then did I look to the name permanently carved into the solid mahogany door: Inger Nilsson.

Not Samantha Smith.

I turned around to face Mother. “Inger Nilsson? Why in the world would you bring me to--”

My voice trailed off as a dark-haired woman just past Mother’s left ear caught my attention, this one with Sam’s face.

She was no longer blonde. She was also… well… older. Her face, while still beautiful, had started developing wrinkles around her eyes that reflected the inevitable passage of time – the kind that no skin cream could completely erase. She still wore a nice business suit, the same as always. She still had a stupendous pair of breasts, but it was clear from the rest of her figure that her waist had thickened considerably to match. And with a weary sigh, she accepted a large stack of papers from a departing colleague and then sat down heavily at her cramped desk in the cubicle farm.

A cheap plastic nameplate velcroed to the fabric cubicle wall at a slightly off-kilter angle read: Samantha Smith.

“What happened?” I muttered. “Sam was supposed to be a partner by age thirty.”

“You happened,” Mother stated dispiritedly. Taking a deep breath, she shook her head and sighed, “Rather, you didn’t happen.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Mother shook her head and gave me a sad look. “Let me show you.”

She snapped her fingers, and the universe disappeared into infinite white.

****

I reappeared in the living room of a downtown apartment with a view of nothing but the gray concrete building about twenty feet away across a small alley. Even that view was partially blocked by the rusty black metal of an emergency staircase.

I also appeared some sixteen inches above the living room floor of that apartment, but I was prepared for it this time and did not yelp as I dropped like a rock and abruptly landed on both feet, my knees buckling slightly. I was prepared and rather neatly landed, squatting to absorb the shock and then immediately popping upright. And I flashed Mother a rather smug grin.

I did not expect to see pride in Mother’s face, but it still stung to see her roll her eyes and purse her lips with an expression that plainly said I should’ve figured it out a long time ago already.

Why does it sting? It’s not like she’s really your mother.

Shaking my head, I got my bearings and looked around. It looked to be your standard one-bedroom apartment: a little cramped perhaps but perfectly serviceable. It was relatively clean, at least, if not luxurious.

“Oh Matty…” Sam’s voice called from somewhere to my left, her tone somewhat mournful.

I snapped my head around in surprise at the sound of my name. Could Sam see me? Holy crap! Having assumed I was invisible, inaudible, and altogether not really here, I found myself in a complete panic with no idea how to even begin to react.

But Sam wasn’t looking at me. She stood in her kitchen alongside two high-backed barstools parked in front of the kitchen peninsula, her open purse atop the cheap laminate surface. There was no dining room. An open bottle of red wine and a single half-filled wine glass stood alongside her purse. She was dressed in the same business suit she’d worn to the office, although the jacket had been removed and was now draped across one of the barstool backrests. And she stared down at her cell phone (assuming it was a cell phone), the screen that occupied its entire front surface glowing with an image – one that I couldn’t see from my vantage point.

Despite the fact that I stood in the middle of her living room, she didn’t take notice of my presence nor Mother’s. And when I took a few cautious steps forward, my shoes clomping loudly on the floor without Sam visibly reacting, I returned to my assumption that she could neither see nor hear me.

Without glancing up at me, Sam shook her head, set down her phone with a sigh, collected her suit jacket, and walked away down the hallway.

I followed her into the hallway and took note of the photographs decorating the walls. There were photos of her family, and of her siblings’ families. Sam’s older brother John had a pretty wife and two boys, the eldest as tall as his father. Sam’s older sister Rachael had a handsome husband and a darling girl of about ten. And there was a photo of Sam with… a cat.

Not being a cat person myself, I couldn’t tell the precise breed. It was not a large cat, light brown with some darker brown and black striping, and very light green eyes. It was a candid photo with Sam smiling while the cat nested itself atop her head, and it put a smile on my face. Only then did I glance around and notice that there was a cat tree tucked away in the corner of the living room alongside a litter box, although there was no immediate sign of the cat itself.

There were also several photos of Sam’s friends on the walls. One was a photo of The BTC from the summer after high school: seven girls and I clad in sweatshirts and shorts at sundown having a beach barbecue for dinner. I could close my eyes and remember the salt smell of the ocean mixed with barbecue chicken and ribs from that day.

One was a photo of The BTC from college, but from a scene I most certainly did NOT remember. Seven girls surrounded me on the porch steps of the Berkeley house: Sam, Naimh, Belle, Eva, Luna, and Skylar, along with a busty blonde girl I didn’t recognize. I’d grown out my sideburns a bit and wore a cropped goatee without a mustache: a style I had never sported in my life. There was also a small, fluffy dog in Belle’s lap: the beautiful coat and muzzle of a Golden Retriever set on the short legs and funny elongated frame of a wiener dog, its head tilted back while stealing a doggy kiss, much to the pixie girl’s squealing surprise. And I stopped to study the photo for a moment before a noise from the bedroom drew my attention.

I took one last glance at the photos on the walls, noting that there were no other men featured except for me, Sam’s father, and Sam’s brother. I briefly pondered what I felt about that, and then I continued walking down the hall until coming to an abrupt stop in the open doorway.

Sam stood with her back to me. She’d kicked off her heels at the foot of a simple queen-size bed, and I realized the sounds of those heels landing on the floor must’ve been the noise that had drawn my attention. She was in the middle of peeling down her business skirt, and I found a twitching in my pants at the mouth-watering sight of Sam’s bodacious bubble butt put on perfect display by black lace panties when she bent over at the waist.

Do you even have a dick to twitch? You’re an ethereal ghost who’s not really here, remember?

I put a hand to my crotch, feeling my bulge, confirming in my head that yes, I had a dick.

“Matthew, must you?” Mother scolded from behind me.

I jerked my hand away from my crotch.

Meanwhile, Sam stood up with her skirt in hand and turned around. She grabbed her jacket off the bedspread and carried both articles over to the closet to hang them up for future use. The closet was right behind me, and if I stayed right where I was, she’d probably pass right through my ephemeral form like the utility workers had, but I’d already backed away instinctively to let her go by.

And then she began to strip off the rest of her clothing.

My mouth gaped open, and I felt a voyeuristic little thrill at the sight of the bodaciously beautiful brunette unbuttoning her dress shirt right before my eyes, revealing a black lace bra that matched her panties. It was the kind of matching lingerie a woman would wear when anticipating she might need to show them to someone.

Sam took no notice of me, shrugging out of the shirt and tossing it into the left side of a dual-pocket hamper parked against the wall. Then she methodically unsnapped her bra and whipped it off, revealing her massive mammaries that had barely sagged over the years as she’d progressed towards middle age. But she turned away right before I was afforded an amazing view of her awe-inspiring assets. So I only got a side-view of her big boobies bouncing around as she walked over to the hamper, collected a sheer bra bag, and tucked the article through the open zipper.

Finally, Sam peeled off her panties and tossed them into the right side of her hamper. Fully naked, Sam walked away from me while I stared at her bountiful booty, switched on the bathroom light and bent over the sink while collecting makeup wipes to clean up her face so that I had a side-view angle on her again. I’d seen her and the other girls remove their makeup while naked a number of times – one of the little joys of being The BTC’s boyfriend – and I felt a fond sense of nostalgia for the moment before realizing I’d witnessed nearly the exact same scene only a couple of weeks ago during Finals Week.

Well, a couple of weeks ago for me. I had no idea how long it had been for this future-version of Sam.

When her makeup had been fully removed, Sam walked into the bathroom to turn on the shower. I allowed myself a little smirk as I folded my arms across my chest and leaned against the wall, fully prepared to enjoy the continually evolving show. So what if she’d put on a few pounds? Sam was still very bangable. But right after she turned the knobs to get the water running, the cat from the hallway photos suddenly appeared at my feet and rather pointedly glared at me.

Oh, shit. Can the cat actually see me?

Standing up from the wall, I uncrossed my arms and took two steps further into the bathroom.

The cat turned its head, bared its fangs, and hissed at me loudly.

I took three steps back the way I’d come, exiting the bathroom entirely. The cat still approached my feet, stared up at me, and hissed at me again.

Shit.

And then the cat spoke. “You’re dawdling again. We’re wasting time.”

The cat had Mother’s voice.

“Um, what?” I glanced around. “It’s not like I’m choosing the where and when I am right now.”

“Nevermind. Moving on.” The cat raised one paw, and I got the distinct impression it was about to snap its fingers, nevermind the fact that cats don’t even have fingers that can snap.

“Wait-wait-wait,” I protested, gesturing at the naked brunette stepping into the shower.

Too late. The universe disappeared into infinite white.

****

I reappeared in Sam’s apartment living room and immediately bent my knees, preparing myself for impact.

But my feet were already pressed to the floor. I hadn’t appeared sixteen inches up this time. And after rather sheepishly looking up at Mother from my crouched position, I stood up straight once more.

Mother (no longer a cat) rolled her eyes at me.

Sam’s actual cat sat in her lap. Sam herself reclined comfortably on the sofa, dressed in plaid long-sleeved pajamas suitable for lounging around the house: the top a button-down that revealed oodles of cleavage. Her dark brown hair was still somewhat damp after her shower, and she held what appeared to be a small TV screen or computer monitor in her hands.

The device was very light and very thin, and not connected to a keyboard or anywhere else I would’ve expected the hard drive and circuit boards to be located. And to my surprise, I realized that Mother’s face was on the screen.

“Hi, Beverly,” Sam greeted pleasantly. “I hear congratulations are in order!”

“Why thank you, Samantha dear. Yes, I am now triply blessed,” Mother replied back with a pleasant tone I couldn’t recall ever hearing from her myself. Despite the apparent passage of time, Mother looked exactly like she’d appeared to me while escorting me around this little vision of the future. Well, she didn’t look like Sam’s cat anymore, but I still found myself wondering, Did the woman not age?!?

Further, the version of her that had been escorting me around had disappeared, leaving me all alone standing next to the sofa, staring down at Sam with her cat in her lap and that monitor in her hands.

“It’s nice to see you,” Sam continued. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Tonight was the big night, was it not?”

“‘Was’ is perhaps the best way of putting it,” Sam replied wearily. “I’m happy to put that all in the past now.”

Mother frowned. “I must assume that tonight’s date didn’t go very well.”

“That would be an understatement,” Sam muttered with a shrug, petting her cat.

“What went wrong?”

“What didn’t go wrong? Ugh,” Sam grunted and shook her head. “Men at this age only want one thing. Perhaps I shouldn’t have expected any differently. All the good ones get taken before they hit thirty. It’s not that I’m particularly interested in settling down and popping out kids, but still, it would be nice to meet someone with a genuine interest in finding lifelong companionship.”

“I thought you said that HE had stated a genuine interest in lifelong companionship.”

“He did. During our last two dates.” Sam rolled her eyes. “But tonight was our third date, and I should’ve known he would’ve had certain… expectations… about our third date.”

“Such an outdated, androcentric notion. One would like to think our society had evolved beyond such patriarchal nonsense. I assume you didn’t, dear?”

“If he’d played his cards right and didn’t come off as an entitled arsehole, well… maybe.” Sam shrugged and waved dismissively. “I did the whole Big Night grooming session this morning just in case I was feeling it and would want to get naked. I don’t regret that, at least. It’s nice to look in the mirror and feel a little sexy again - as sexy as I can be with the help of a razor.”

“Fishing for compliments, Samantha?” Mother asked before going ahead and indulging her. “You could be the most desirable woman in that building if you wanted. Come visit and we’ll spend a day updating your style and wardrobe.”

Sam smiled wanly and politely demurred. Mother’s words, sincere as they were, didn’t touch my Aphrodite’s heart. And I realized that even though there was nothing about Sam’s looks that a little dedication to the gym couldn’t transform back into her bombshell vixen self, somewhere along the way she’d stopped believing that she was the gorgeous young woman I knew who took it as her birthright to give mere mortals transcendent sexual experiences the way she’d given me.

It made me want to show her how bewitching she still could be. Deep in my heart, I knew that if she could just see me and feel my touch, it would make all the difference in the world. We’d kiss as if we were made to fit together, she’d let go of all her troubles in my arms, and we’d move. My First and I would always… always… be something truly incredible, and she’d wake up in the morning feeling sensuous, sought-after, and satisfied.

But I could do nothing but stand there. I’d established that I did, in fact, possess a dick. But it did neither of us any good.

“I’m very sorry, Samantha.”

“Not your fault.”

“I should indeed bear some of the blame. The man is my business partner’s nephew, and I was the one to give him your name.”

“You asked if I’d like to meet him. I didn’t have to say yes.”

“I just want to see you happy,” Mother said soothingly.

“I know you do. But it’s not like you’re obligated to help find me a boyfriend.”

“We both know that in truth, I feel like I am.”

Sam shook her head. “It’s not your fault Matty and I broke up.”

Mother sighed. “But in some ways it is my fault you didn’t move on with your life sooner than later. I realize now that I was being overly sentimental…”

Sentimental? ‘Mother’ and ‘sentimental’ were two concepts that did not fit together for me.

“… I admittedly encouraged you into staying with him longer than was perhaps healthy, for either of you,” Mother continued. “Long after the spark of love had gone out.”

“Every extra day I spent with him was a blessing, and I wish I could still be with him now.”

“I wish you could still be with him now, but that is not how things turned out. Were it not for me, perhaps you would have found love and companionship with someone else sooner. You could have perhaps found one of the good ones before he hit thirty.”

“I HAD one of the good ones before he turned thirty,” Sam insisted. “He was the BEST one. And I lost him, through no fault of yours.”

“Matthew lost you. He thought he could simply wait for you to return to him. He thought it would be sufficient to be your ‘home’ and assumed you would always return. He didn’t take enough action to keep you, and the love you two shared for each other suffered for it.”

“It takes two to tango. It wasn’t all Matty’s fault.”

“It wasn’t all your fault either.”

“We’re rehashing old arguments again.” Sam sighed and gestured at the screen. “Yes, some dreams come true. And yes, some dreams fall through. There’s still hope. You certainly found a good one well after thirty.”

“And I was very lucky indeed. But waiting until you’re post-menopause to find a healthy, rewarding relationship is NOT something I want you emulating from me. That’s not the life I want for you.”

“Working a dead-end job as a high-level senior associate and getting repeatedly passed over for partner isn’t the life you wanted for me either, and yet here I am.” Sam sighed.

“It’s not a dead-end job,” Mother insisted.

“I might as well have listened to my dad and become a doctor. At least then I’d be doing something good with my life and truly helping people instead of just being another cog in the great machine for the partners.”

“You’ve still plenty of time to make partner yourself,” Mother insisted. “So what if you didn’t make it before thirty? You can still get there.”

“What’s the point?” Sam let her head fall back while stroking her cat’s back a little more vigorously. “If I make partner, I get an office of my own. And then what? The last thing I want right now is to feel even lonelier than I already am. I’ve got friends in the cubicle farm – friends I get to talk to every day.”

“Fear of loneliness is not a very good reason to not apply yourself.”

“I know that. But at the same time, I’m coming to the point in my life where I’m finally realizing that there’s more to life than career success. What’s the point of being rich and powerful if there’s nobody next to me to share that life with?”

“Well…” Mother began before finishing lamely, “You still have Little Matty.”

The cat in Sam’s lap meowed on cue and picked his head up.

Sam gave Mother a wan smile and then scratched her cat’s head. But rather than snuggle into his owner’s embrace, Little Matty promptly got up from her lap, scampered across the backrest of the sofa, and then leaped neatly onto his cat tree before ducking into his little hidey hole.

The sad brunette on the couch gestured futilely after her cat and shook her head before running her fingers back through her dark hair and sighing. And then she picked up her cell phone in her other hand, held her thumb over the base, and suddenly the screen lit up.

The screen lit up to display a photograph of me, although it wasn’t exactly me.

I looked older, and I was smiling broadly, with some of those wrinkles forming around the eyes that reflected the passage of time. And I wasn’t alone in the photo.

I held a baby in my arms: a tiny newborn with a chubby, wrinkly face, still flushed bright pink. A caption below the photo read: Baby #3. It’s a boy!

Mother snapped her fingers, and the universe disappeared into infinite white.

****

I reappeared in the master bedroom of the rented Mammoth Mountain house.

I also appeared some sixteen inches above the floor, and I let out an awkward yelp of surprise as I dropped like a rock and abruptly landed on both feet. Not expecting it this time, my knees buckled as I pitched forward, planting my hands down to keep from falling over entirely.

At least I wasn’t naked. And at least I wasn’t tied to the bed.

I was still dressed in the crisp black business suit that would’ve fit right in at Sam’s law firm. The room was still dark save for the illumination from the table lamp, still completely silent. As far as I could tell, no time had passed at all. Standing up, I pinched myself again.

Still, I did not awake.

Mother stood beside me with her arms folded across her chest. But she wasn’t looking at me. Her gaze was distant… pensive. She wasn’t looking at a different where. She was looking at a different when.

After taking a deep breath, I turned to face her. “Even though I’ve never seen It’s A Wonderful Life, I think I know the basic plot. The main character wishes he’d never been born, so the guardian angel shows him different scenes of how things might’ve turned out differently had he never been born, right?”

“Clearly, you were still born.”

“But you still just showed me a scene of how things might turn out if I’m not in Sam’s life anymore, right?”

“I’ve shown you a scene of how things will turn out if you’re not in Samantha’s life anymore.”

“Like It’s A Wonderful Life.”

“‘Strange, isn’t it?’” Mother intoned solemnly, staring off into the middle distance. “‘Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?’”

I blinked twice. “As I said: I’ve never seen the movie, so I’ll have to assume that was a quote from it.”

Mother nodded, still not looking at me.

I took another deep breath and pursed my lips. “What happened between me and Sam?”

“Nothing happened between you. That’s the whole point.” Mother shook her head. “‘You were always a good man of business, Jacob,’ faltered Scrooge. ‘Business!’ cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. ‘Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!’”

I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion, not understanding what Mother had just said, although based on the ‘Scrooge’ reference, I assumed the quotation must have come from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

“YOU should’ve been Samantha’s business,” Mother muttered somberly. She then raised tired eyes to me and added, “You should’ve been MY business. I’m sorry about that, Matthew. Truly, I am.”

I swallowed thickly and stared back at my mother(?), unsure of how to respond.

“Samantha coming to realize you’d fallen out of love with her will absolutely break her. She’d believed you would always wait for her, always love her unconditionally.”

“I will always love her, unconditionally,” I insisted.

“A garden cannot survive on love alone. A garden needs water, sunlight, and care.” Mother shook her head sadly. “When Samantha realized it was her own inattentiveness that led to the loss of her ‘home’, it shattered her self-confidence. Her work suffered. Her emotional health suffered. Her physical health suffered. She got off-track, and she never recovered.”

“But this is only a possible future, right?” I asked.

“This is how the future will come to pass if you continue to passively accommodate Samantha’s focus on her career,” Mother said somberly. “This is how things will turn out if you continue to promise to always be Samantha’s ‘home’, let her take you for granted, and allow your love for each other wither and die on the vine.”

I pursed my lips and frowned.

“This is a critical point in your relationship,” Mother continued. “Samantha has promised to devote more quality time and energy to you. But the life she’s chosen won’t stop demanding her attention. She needs you to hold her to that promise. It will be so easy to slack off, just a little. You’ll tell yourself, ‘It’s fine’ and continue to be the undemanding, always accepting, patiently understanding boyfriend you have always been. And that will be the day that your relationship with her truly dies.”

I shook my head not believing her, “I’ve always promised to be what the girls need me to be. If Sam needs a little time--”

“Have you not been paying any attention Matthew?” Mother returned full of scorn. “If you do that, if you don’t hold tightly to your Aphrodite, you will lose her. Not because she’ll stop coming back home, but because one day she’ll look into your eyes and realize she can’t see her home in them anymore. Your love for her will have faded, replaced by obligation and a desire to not be the bad guy by failing to be there for her the way you’d always sworn.”

I swallowed thickly, not wanting to hear the truth in Mother’s words.

“Samantha won’t leave you immediately. She won’t stop loving you. In fact, she’ll love you all the more for your sacrifice and understanding. She’ll try to make amends only to feel you pulling away to safeguard your heart. You won’t realize it, but she will. And when the two of you come to a fork in the road - when she realizes you’ve ‘stopped grabbing her arse’ - she’ll give you your release without even putting up a fight.”

“I would never ask for a release. Not from Sam.”

“In words? No. Never. In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of life. When Samantha asked herself the question, ‘Would you seek her out and try to win her as you saw her then?’ and found the answer against her interests. And as gladly as she would think otherwise, once the impression found purchase, it became the strong, irresistible Truth.”

In the silence that followed that pronouncement, Mother worked to rein herself in and took a deep breath. I’d rarely seen her this worked up. Not since the anger-filled days before the divorce anyway. She closed her eyes for a moment to refocus and continued.

“It won’t be easy on either of you. There will be times when you may need to confront Samantha, and she won’t always be happy that you’re asking her to put you above whatever goal she’s chasing at that moment. But she’s made her promise, and as angry as she may be in the moment, you will always mean more to her than the unending deadlines in her life, even if she sometimes forgets that herself.”

“Are we talking about Sam or about you?”

Mother didn’t answer me. Instead she asked, “Will you continue to let events wash over you as you always have? Or will you take action to force a change?”

“I’ll take action to force a change,” I insisted.

“Do you promise to take action to force a change?”

“I promise I’ll take action to force a change.”

Mother’s smile was all teeth. “With that promise and a nickel, you’d have a grand total of five cents.”

****

Nothing tickled my balls, and I didn’t jerk awake.

No stray beam of sunlight woke me up.

I didn’t grind my morning wood into the cleft of anyone’s bare buttcheeks. I didn’t even HAVE morning wood. At least now I could be certain it was morning, if the quantity of light in the room was anything to go by.

My head still hurt. A splitting headache… well… split my head. Not wholly unexpected, given the splitting headaches I’d always gotten on previous occasions after taking Sam’s super-pills. And I groaned while reaching up to squeeze my noggin with both hands.

At least I could reach up and squeeze my noggin with both hands. My limbs were no longer tied to the bed, although the leftover remnants of gift wrap ribbons were still fastened around my wrists.

I was also alone in the master bedroom of our rented house. Last night was supposed to have been my night with Sam and Zofi, but neither girl was presently in the room. I had to assume both had already woken up and gone downstairs to let me sleep in, and the muffled sounds of conversation floating in through the closed bedroom door reassured me as to their presence.

It took me a few minutes, but I eventually gathered up the gumption to drag my morning-wood-less body off the bed, get up, and get dressed. I took my time, not in any rush. It was our final day in the house, and there were no firm plans to do anything but pack up and start the nearly six-hour drive back home. I put on my clothes, went through my morning routine, and sauntered on down the stairs to the pleasant sounds of giggling girls happy to be together, the familiar voices bringing warmth to my heart.

And yet despite hearing a number of familiar voices on the way down the stairs, when I entered the great room, I found only one girl seated on the sofa: Naimh.

And she wasn’t alone.

My freckled Irish redhead was with a guy.

And they were kissing.

My eyes went wide. My mouth went dry. My lungs stopped working.

Mother stepped up alongside me, her posture stiff and her arms folded across her chest. She smirked at me, a wicked sort of gleam in her eyes.

“You didn’t think I was done with you yet, did you?”

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Prologue & Chapter 1: The BTC: https://www.patreon.com/posts/99290461

Chapter 2: Hoalauna: https://www.patreon.com/posts/99357682

Chapter 3: E10: https://www.patreon.com/posts/99433482

Chapter 4: Leeloo: https://www.patreon.com/posts/99506524

Chapter 5: The Fifth Element: https://www.patreon.com/posts/99618767

Chapter 6: Lily: https://www.patreon.com/posts/100326143

Chapter 7: The Hangover: https://www.patreon.com/posts/100548952

Chapter 8: Quality Time: https://www.patreon.com/posts/100806434

Chapter 9: The Favor: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101140618

Chapter 10: Ku’uipo: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101372817

Chapter 11: The R-word: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101672192