Close to the end now. Just this chapter and then one more. I hope you've enjoyed the story. I hope you'll like the way it ends. Thanks for being here with me.
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Crown Vic to a Parallel World: Stolen Love The third and final installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips
56 Time Flies
"DADDY! DADDY!" The little voices shrilled. I was awake but I left my eyes closed because I didn't believe it was possible that anyone could be that enthusiastic so early in the morning.
Shawn shifted in bed to roll toward me so he could put his right palm in the center of my chest and kiss my right cheek. "Love, the cutest alarm clock in the world is here." He breathed into my ear.
I opened my eyes to see my husband's face and to get my first daily look into the most beautiful pair of frozen blue eyes I'd ever seen. I pulled him against me, kissed his lips and gave them a good morning lick. "But you've been here the whole time." I observed, barely an inch from his sweet face.
Shawn was still breathtakingly beautiful, but I took some satisfaction in the fact that at sixty-four years old, he was finally getting some smile lines around his mouth and the barest hint of crow's feet at the edge of his eyes. I'd had lines on my face when Shawn and I met. They faded a bit as I aged backwards during my first years on Solum, but they never disappeared. Finally, forty-three years later, Shawn was just starting to catch up to me.
Shawn grinned and stroked the side of my face with a soft hand. "You're a flatterer, but you know very well who I mean. Now be a good daddy and get my robe off the chair so I can make myself presentable for our impressionable children."
I used my telekinesis to float the white robe that Shawn wanted off the bedside chair and lower it into his grasp. He slipped it on under the covers and made sure his modesty was intact before he threw the sheets back and hopped out of bed. I sat up and rubbed my expression hard enough that it stung.
I lowered my hands and opened my eyes to see the two little boys who were still bouncing and shouting around the room. Their four-year-old voices were as shrill as dog whistles. They made me wince as, in their excitement, they hit notes that I suspected would shatter crystal, if we had any around.
The boys' volume dipped just slightly when they hugged their Daddy Shawn but went back to full siren when Shawn headed for the bathroom and left me alone with Han and Lee. The four-year-old twins were the last of our ten children that we'd had over a twenty-year period from 2038 to 2058.
We'd planned to stop at eight, but when our next youngest, Drew, turned ten, Shawn decided he wanted another baby for me to raise. It took him several months to convince me, but I eventually agreed to just one more child...to please him. The twins were a joyous surprise, so we settled for an even ten.
I struggled into my own robe and hauled my tired body out of bed. The boys were freshly enthused to see me moving and ran around the bed to greet me.
"DADDY! DADDY! BIRTHDAY, DADDY! BIRTHDAY, BIRTHDAY, BIRTHDAY, IT'S DADDY'S BIRTHDAY!" The identical twins chanted at the tops of their little lungs.
I bent down to scoop them up, one in each arm, and was rewarded with kisses on both of my cheeks. I couldn't help but wear an almost permanent smile when I was around them. They were so perfect, with their frozen blue eyes, their soft features, and their long shining brown hair.
I could already tell they were going to be tall. Their little limbs were long and lean, like their bodies were already stretching out, reaching for height. I hoped, for their sakes, they wouldn't be freakishly tall like one of their fathers. I set that thought aside and left it in God's hands. My sons would be whatever they were meant to be. If that meant they grew to be my height, or even taller, that was between God's will and the combined genes of me and Shawn.
I so glad they were our children, mine and Shawn's, so incredibly happy that it was possible for two men to conceive children, even if they did need help to carry one. I'd originally been dubious about passing on my genetics, but Shawn had insisted that he didn't want children that were half his and half a stranger's.
He'd been adamant about using the technology that could remove the genetic material from a surrogate's egg, and implant that of a male parent's, to be fertilized by the sperm of the other male parent. As I held our perfect children, I couldn't imagine a reality where I hadn't listened to him.
I shoved those thoughts aside. The boys were four and they were mine and Shawn's and they were exactly what they were supposed to be at four years old. I split a fresh smile between them. "Are you two my presents?" I asked them both.
"No silly Daddy." Han smiled like an angel from his spot on my right arm.
"Silly Daddy." Lee agreed from my left arm.
I pushed my bottom lip out into a theatrical pout and whimpered like I was going to cry. "But I want you to be my presents."
"Don't cry Daddy." Han patted the side of my face with his tiny hand.
"Don't cry Daddy." Lee parroted and did the same thing.
I switched my pout for a smile. "I won't cry because it's my birthday." I set the boys down and knelt to talk to them at their level. "Daddy Church and Daddy Shawn need a few minutes to get cleaned up. Why don't you run along downstairs? We'll come down shortly and we can all eat breakfast together. How does that sound my perfect boys?"
"BREAKFAST, BREAKFAST, DADDY'S BIRTHDAY BREAKFAST!" They shrilled and ran in a tight circle like a dog chasing his tail.
I clapped my hands and celebrated with them. "YAY, YAY, BIRTHDAY BREAKFAST FOR DADDY!"
"YAY, YAY!" They shouted and straightened their circle and charged from the room.
I watched them go with a mix of relief to be left alone and unbridled joy that they existed, and that I helped make them. I rubbed the back of my neck with the heel of my left hand and sighed. I shut the bedroom door behind my children and locked it, then turned toward the bathroom to see Shawn leaning against the door jamb. He was grinning all over his face. "What?" I demanded through my own involuntary grin.
"The reluctant father." He teased.
"Yeah...well, he's a little more reluctant this morning than he usually is. After last night, my ass is kicked."
"Kicked, is it?" Shawn mocked, his eyes sensuous slits but his mouth twisted into a wry smile. "I think that's the only thing I didn't do to it."
I closed the distance between us and leaned into my robed husband. I trapped him against the door jamb. He reached around behind me and gripped my stinging butt through my robe. "You're such a beast." I whispered to him.
"Maybe, maybe, but you bring it out of me, Harder."
We both laughed at the use of the ancient nicknames. "How about a shower?" Shawn asked.
"Sounds good." I flexed my ass under Shawn's hands to tempt him. "If I get in with you, will you take advantage of me?"
"Didn't you get enough of that last night? I was hoping you'd be ready to top for a change."
"Me top?" I asked indignantly, like Shawn had asked me to borrow money. I grabbed his thighs just below his ass and lifted him so he could wrap his legs around my middle. His legs locked around me and I moved my hands from his thighs to his ass. "What if I just make a snack out of your bundt cake?"
"And what exactly is my bundt cake?" Shawn asked in a voice that dared me to say something filthy.
"You know what a bundt cake is, Shawn. It's round, and thick, and," I leaned forward to whisper in his ear, "it has a sweet hole in it." I followed my words into Shawn's ear with a jab of my tongue and he reacted like I'd zapped him with high voltage. He shrieked and shook and broke up with the ringing laughter that still made my heart flutter in my chest.
"Oh...you." He laughed at me. "Well, don't make it a feast. Can't have you spoiling your appetite before breakfast."
I promised with no sincerity and carried him into the bathroom.
Sometime later, but not enough time to suit me, we were walking along the third-floor bedroom corridor toward the steps that would take us to the kitchen on the main floor. Gone was the grand entryway, ballroom, and rigidly formal dining room from when the estate was first built.
When Shawn and I started having children, and decided to have many of them, we had a third floor built out over the entryway and ballroom to create bedrooms for our brood. We left our original apartment intact, though we had it remodeled into more of a master suite than an apartment, and we added kid's rooms in a loop around the perimeter of the main central building.
The second-floor became the primary living space. A portion of the entryway served as a far smaller and less formal foyer and a living room, while the ballroom became an eat-in kitchen, a family room, and a family dining room. The former formal dining room was remodeled into a far less formal space and extended to seat an even one-hundred people. As our family grew, so did the families of all our friends and relations, and we needed more space to accommodate them for special events.
The big dining room, as we called it now that it wasn't so formal, was actually due for another enlargement. I'd already engaged an architect to design the addition, but we needed to move fast. Our fourth child would be graduating from secondary school in the spring, and we needed the room ready for her party.
Lanci, a modest girl named for Shawn's mother, who looked like my family but took after the Summas side for mannerisms and attitude, had said she didn't want any fuss. In direct opposition of her wishes, I planned to fuss a great deal. She was going to be graduating from medical school, as both a general practitioner and a neuro-specialist, and at the very top of her class. I was proud enough to burst and didn't see how I could let that event pass without a massive amount of fuss.
Shawn and I got to the stairs and made our way down, side by side. I reached out to take his hand, like I did more often than not. Something about being a parent made me cherish my relationship with Shawn even more than I had when we were just a couple.
Back then, I hadn't thought it was possible, but with every child we had, I loved my husband more. It was like each walking, talking, beautiful child was a living representation of our love that increased the love we had for each other by the simple act of drawing breath.
I leaned my mouth close to his ear to whisper. "I had a weird dream last night."
"You had time to dream?" Shawn asked in surprise. "I barely had time to be asleep."
"Thank you again for my birthday present." I said to acknowledge the hours of vigorous sex he'd treated me to. The fun had started when we went early up to bed and finished when we collapsed in the wee hours of the pre-dawn.
He squeezed my hand. "I had fun too. We haven't had a night like that in a long time."
"Probably since our anniversary." I said and wondered if that was true.
"Not even then," Shawn reminded me, "remember, we held off until the night of the event instead of romping the night before? Mom and Paul showed up late and kept us up half the night telling us about their last trip."
"I remember." I recalled how disappointed I was at the time, that when we finally got to bed, we were so tired we went right to sleep. "It's hard to be angry with them though. They're so happy together. I don't think I've ever met a couple who is better together than those two...except for us I mean."
"What about your dream?" Shawn asked to get me back on track. He'd stopped us near the bottom of the steps to give me a moment to say what I wanted to say, because he knew that as soon as we made our appearance at the bottom, the kids would see us and that would be the end of any private conversation we could have.
"Right," I paused to organize my thoughts, "I dreamed it was a couple weeks after we got back from our second honeymoon after you were...uh...you know."
"Kidnapped by my idiot father." Shawn blurted. His delicacy around that event had been lost somewhere in the intervening years.
"Yeah, that. I dreamed of the day when I first told you I wanted children."
Shawn nodded at me and frowned as he remembered. "A lot happened that day. The talk between Bem's father and Paul, Paul's commitment to my mother, and that was the day you decided to believe." I remembered that was the case and agreed with Shawn. "That's true. I forgot it was that day." Shawn paused and gripped my hand. "That day was a turning point in our lives. Nothing after it was ever the same as it was before."
"I wouldn't change any of it."
Shawn agreed. Then he waited with his eyes on me until I made my point. When I didn't say anything, he pressed me. "Well, what about that time?"
I admitted that I had no point to my story. "Nothing. The dream wasn't anything about anything. I relived that day until we got in bed in the apartment, then I woke up to Han and Lee bouncing around our room."
Shawn shook his head at my lackluster story and gripped my hand again. "You are still a silly ass." Shawn accused. "The most vivid memory I have of around that time was the party that we had when you overwhelmed everyone we knew with lusty magic."
I laughed at that. "It ended well enough. Almost everyone got something out of it. I had an incredible night, my brother and your brother started to like each other, Andy got a sore butt."
"And my medical partner almost got stomped by Cy." Shawn remembered.
"That worked out too." I reminded Shawn. "That was when you were finally able to make him respect the patients."
"You win." Shawn said to confirm my idea that all's well that ends well. He reflected for a moment and added another thought. "It wasn't very long after that party..." Shawn trailed off again.
I pulled myself out of my memories to play his comment over in my mind. I realized what event he was leading up to. "It wasn't long after that when we found a surrogate to start our family."
"Speaking of our children," Shawn cast a thoughtful glance to the bottom of the steps, "it's far too quiet down there. We better go make sure they don't have poor Ancillarum locked in the closet or tied to a chair."
I let him lead me the rest of the way down but expressed my certainty that the opposite was far more likely. "You forget, our faithful butler was trained by Bem to be the ultimate soldier."
Whatever response Shawn planned to make was lost in the shrill singing of the `Happy Birthday Song' by our twin boys and it's accompaniment by the alto voice of our faithful butler. They were, all three, holding hands, behind a table heavily laden with breakfast dishes. The dishes held scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, fried meat, and toast. There was also a big coffee pot conspicuously placed next to my plate to the right of the head of the table. The twins and Ancillarum sang the whole song through and applauded like I'd done something incredible besides turn eighty-three.
I bowed and took my place at the table. Ancillarum helped the boys into their booster seats and got drinks for them. Shawn sat opposite me and, in deference to the day, waited for me to serve myself from the platters of food and pass them to him. I helped myself but spared a glance to the porcelain-skinned, blue-eyed, platinum-blonde butler, traditionally uniformed in burgundy livery. "Why are you serving?" I asked.
He answered with easy familiarity that we'd developed from being together for a long time. "I know you don't like people around for these family events, so I told Otiosum and Conditam that I would take care of you this morning."
"Good of you, Ancil." I praised his thoughtfulness. "I appreciate it." Ancillarum was always correct and formal in front of other servants or in public, but we'd long since dispensed with formality when we were alone. I'd learned to like the man, to respect him. As much as I hated to admit when I was wrong, I'd been wrong about him, and Shawn's Uncle Ars had been right. Reinstating him to his position in our household after he'd betrayed us had been the right thing to do.
He'd sought me and Shawn out, soon after he returned to his post. I'd scared him during our first meeting, when I had spotted him by the pool and had been less than cordial in my greeting. After I growled at him, Ancil worked himself up into being very nervous. He was worried that we, or specifically I, had some revenge in store for him.
At Shawn's urging, I gritted my teeth to tell him that wasn't the case, that the only thing we wanted was the work he agreed to perform for the pay we agreed to provide. I don't think he entirely believed us at first, but as time went on and nothing happened to him, he started to believe.
When it was announced that the servants who wanted to remain in our employ would receive a substantial raise if they agreed to undertake training as a private security force, Ancillarum was the first to sign up and encouraged many of the others. He threw himself into the training and into his job with zeal. He rose through the ranks both as a servant and as a defender of our safety. He even managed to gain the approval of Cellarius, a notoriously hard person to please when it came to the quality of domestic work.
The man gained my complete trust, and a debt of gratitude I could never hope to repay, eight years later. He single-handedly foiled a kidnapping attempt that targeted our eldest two children. Josephine was seven and our boy Marian was six when it happened.
Shawn and I were away from the estate on business for Ars. In spite of Ars' promise to leave me and Shawn alone if and when we had children, he still called us when he needed something, and we still did what he needed us to do. I'd learned to treat Ars' requests like the natural disasters that Shawn and I still responded to. Ars' will was as much a force of nature as a hurricane and almost as difficult to guard against.
As we were away, the youngest kids were staying with Mary and Bem in the residential wing. The older kids, Josie, Marian, and my nephew, Tobit, who was ten at the time, were `camping' in the main house. They were pretending that they were on their own in the wilderness, but they were actually under a blanket fort they'd built in the old rumpus room on the ground floor.
Ancillarum was on duty in the main house that night. He was doing his regular rounds when he heard someone trying to force the garage door open as a point of entry. We found out later that it was members of a terrorist organization who had an ax to grind against Shawn's Uncle Ars. They'd decided to use our kids as pawns to negotiate the release of some of their imprisoned comrades. They never got the chance.
Ancillarum secured the kids, locked down the estate, notified Bem, mobilized the off-duty servants who were getting their rest in the servant's wing, and guarded our children with his life until help arrived. After that night, Ancillarum went from being someone I tolerated, to someone I counted on.
As I thought of the fear and relief I experienced upon that event, I realized that the memories seemed unusually thick that morning. I tried to push them away so I could enjoy my family breakfast with my husband and two of my children. It worked and we had a nice meal while Ancillarum made sure everything was as it should be. When we finished, Ancil did a rapid but thorough clean up while we chatted around the table.
When the table was clear, Ancil said he had some announcements. "I am sorry to say that both of your brothers, Master Joseph and Master Primis, have sent their regrets that they will not be able to come to your celebration as they'd previously hoped. It seems their wife, Dignissim, cannot get away.
"Her one woman, one act play, `Thoughts of a Coffee Bean as it Gives It's Essence for Your Breakfast, as Interpreted through Dance' has been held over at the Diende Theater in Epistylium indefinitely. They say popular demand, being what it is, cannot be ignored or they risk alienating the theater-going public."
I rubbed my face with my still-greasy breakfast hands and made another futile attempt to understand what the hell had happened to Joe. I remembered the event when Joe first admitted to the feelings he had for Primis, but the rest of it still hurt my brain to think about. The idea that homophobic Joe and timid Primis had somehow discovered their mutual love of art, and love for each other, and their mutual love of an artsy woman, and entered into a bisexual three-way marriage...it had been a fact for a while, but I still struggled with it.
The whole thing had grown out of Primis' interest in the art that Joe had been doing for Andy's new fashion collection. I still suspected that most of the love Joe had for Primis was about having Primis as a permanent audience for Joe's art lectures. I remembered how much Joe loved to talk about art and suspected that Joe would do anything for an audience. At the time, I never suspected that butt-sex fell under that heading.
I originally hoped Primis would take the reins of Shawn's father's leaderless wealth management and investment firm. That was something he never seriously considered. By the time I'd been ready to make the offer, Primis was already well along into his art fascination. In the long run, it hadn't mattered. In fact, it turned out for the better.
Lenis had the idea to roll the whole of the wealth management firm into my charity for the rescued sex slaves of Litus Decendit. The firm transitioned its management to come under the purview of the charity and any profits generated were used to fund the non-profit. The charity was already self-sufficient, but the addition of the business to support it allowed the charity to grow even faster and take on new issues. It would eventually become one of the largest non-profits on Solum and would help tens of thousands of people, all victims of various abuses.
As for Joe and Primis, they set off together with Andy and Comet on their tour of mountain ranges, organized by color temperature, whatever the hell that is. While they were away, several things happened. Joe worked on the palette of colors for what would eventually become Andy's `Andy Philips Natural Wonders: Breathtaking Vistas Collection.' He also schooled Primis on everything art. To support the collection and the fashion shows that would follow, Andy sought and enlisted the services of a troupe of interpretive dancers. Dignissim was one of those dancers.
One thing led to another and the chemistry that had been developing between Joe and Primis was catalyzed by the addition of a woman. Dignissim was the necessary addition that made the three-way-relationship work. Joe wasn't homosexual enough to be exclusive with a man, and Dignissim was far too much personality for timid Primis, and Primis wasn't assertive enough to keep either for himself.
To use her words paraphrased by my memory, she was `completely taken with Joseph's tall commanding presence and with Primis' soft, unassuming nature.' She went after both of them and managed to quickly worm her way into their affections. They married less than a year later.
Andy and I were understandably bitter for a while, considering the way Joe always treated us because we were gay. It was tough to stay mad at Joe when we saw how happy he was. That didn't mean I didn't tease the hell out of him whenever we were together. Joe always got mad about it but endured with little comment. I think he realized he more than deserved any amount of grief we decided to give him and tried to make the best of it.
Those memories cycled through my mind in rapid succession while Ancillarum busily fooled around with the controls of the wall screen that made up the inside wall of the kitchen. He'd been trying to upload a file that he said was my birthday present from Joe and Primis and Dignissim. The wall turned pure white and Ancillarum said a pleased and relieved, "finally!"
I leaned back in my chair to see what was going to happen. I watched while a tiny Dignissim danced onto the screen. She wore a black bodysuit that clung to her amply feminine figure and a maskless hood that hid her full head of curly read hair. She twirled and turned and high-kicked her way across the screen.
Next, Primis danced onto the screen. He also wore a black bodysuit. The image of the dancing Primis brought a grin to my face and a muttered `oh my' from Shawn. Primis twirled and turned and high kicked but not at the same time as Dignissim.
Next, Joe, also in a black bodysuit, twirled and turned and high kicked his way across the screen. Joe's appearance elicited a delighted sniggering chuckle from Shawn and a muttered `fuck me,' from me. The three of them, Dignissim, Primis, and Joe, danced at opposite ends of the screen, each out of phase with the other two.
As we watched, more action was added to accompany the dancers. Colors in ill-defined shapes started to snake and swirl across the white of the screen. They joined the dancers, to twirl and turn and high kick, out of phase with the dancers and with themselves.
Another dimension was added to the presentation when multiple Dignissims, Primises, and Joes danced onto the screen, each out of phase with the copies of themselves and with the others. A kaleidoscope of color and dancers filled the screen in a display that attracted the kids but left me feeling slightly nauseous.
I covered my eyes with my hand. "Ancil...make it stop please." I begged.
I heard Ancil's frustrated muttering as he struggled with the controls and eventually won over them. When I uncovered my eyes, the screen was frozen with all the players on it, but no motion. The image faded out and the screen went back to being a wall.
I was amazed that my brother, the attorney who didn't swear, the reluctant Solum resident, the one who was pragmatically religious, had given me an interpretive dance for my birthday.
"Ancil." I said to get the butler's attention.
"Sir?"
"I don't know how, but we need to respond to this in kind."
Ancillarum's face took on a thoughtful expression and I swore I could see his mental gears mesh and start turning, grinding out a smart-assed response to my birthday present. "Yes, sir...I'll...I'll give it some thought." He promised.
I knew I could count on him. The other trait of his personality that I'd come to count on, was his wry sense of humor. I looked forward to whatever deviousness he came up with. "Thank you." I said to dismiss the problem for the moment. "Is there anything else?"
"Yes, sir, there is." Ancillarum announced with a voice full of anticipation and a hint of pride. "This you'll like. To celebrate your birthday, and to thank you for their extra day off, Otiosum and Conditam prepared dessert. They made this by hand from a recipe your sister helped them with."
Ancillarum made a quick dive behind a counter and came back with a large plate with a dome over it. He set the plate in front of me and snatched the dome off to reveal a vanilla bundt cake that dripped with translucent white sugar glaze. "Glazed bundt cake! It looks delicious!" Ancillarum commented with unveiled glee.
I licked my lips and raised my eyes to meet Shawn's. "It certainly was."
Shawn's eyes darted away from mine, and he flushed to the roots of his hair. I broke up into howling laughter that left me unable to breathe. Tears streamed down my face as hysterics racked my body. I didn't know what was funnier, the coincidence of the cake or Shawn's mortification that only I understood.
Shawn's embarrassment was just so much more icing on the bundt cake. I would have liked to have said something like, `I usually don't glaze it until after I eat it,' but I was laughing too hard to get the words out.
Ancillarum stared at me as I laughed. He seemed worried at my reaction. "Sir?" He asked.
"Tell you later." I gasped between guffaws.
"You can't!" Shawn objected sharply.
"The hell I can't." I argued. "I'm gonna have my cake...and...and...and...EAT IT TO!" I shouted and erupted into fresh hysterics.
Ancillarum looked between Shawn and me several times. He knew there was something going on but had no way to know what it was. He tried his best to do his job, but only made things worse when he asked if I wanted ice cream with my cake. "No...no thank you, Ancil." I said when I was almost breathing normally, until I added, "but if you have any fresh whipped..." and broke up again.
We were finally able to have our cake, but it was difficult to keep it together. The next time we had a moment alone, Shawn demanded to be told if I knew about that bundt cake when I was talking about eating his ass that morning. I swore that I hadn't, and he had to believe me because of our link, but some suspicion remained. Later on, when Shawn wasn't around, I made good my promise to let Ancillarum in on the joke. He laughed almost as hard as I had.