Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, except for my own. The rest
belong to Tribune Entertainment.
Remember, I need you to give me R & R to keep me going! I've not been sleeping well lately and it's taking a toll. I've been so busy with work and real life, and it's getting harder to find extra time to write this. So please leave a R & R, it will keep me going. And I do know where this story is going, I have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's all the rest in between that I have to fill in.
Note: This is where the story's title kicks in. I will be attempting a different narrative style. Don't mind it, it's going to get a little implausible. But it's my way of letting reality go.
Rated PG-13, with a mild R at the end
Chapter 4
He paused, still poised on top of her. His breathing was hard and heavy and drops of perspiration were beginning to bead his forehead. The expression on his face was a mixture of conflicting emotions, none that she could read.
Then he rolled over and sank back into the bed. His chest was rising and falling. He sighed, a long drawn one. 'Oh jeez, Emma. You really know how to work up a guy.'
She wasn't sure if she had hurt his feelings. That was what she had been doing lately, hurting everyone's feelings. It was best to assume she did. 'I'm sorry Brennan. It's just that....well... I've had problems...' Damn it, now she was too embarrassed to tell him.
He was still panting. 'Is it me? The fact you're having second thoughts? Is it because of me?'
She raised herself on one elbow to look into his eyes. 'No. It's far from being you.' He was still having an incredibly enormous erection, she supposed it would take some time for him to deflate oh, most women would have loved that. Helplessly, she reached out with her hand and grasped him down there, making him shudder. Somehow this thrilled her - to think that she had just a little bit of power over him, it made her a little less inadequate.
She took a deep breath. 'All my life, I've had this problem. The fact that I'm still a virgin, it isn't for the lack of trying.'
His face took on a look of genuine concern. 'Did someone hurt you, Emma?'
She hesitated. 'In a manner of speaking, yes. I need to tell you my story.....'
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Emma's parents had always been hippie types, modern day hippies in a world that had moved on. In so many ways, they reminded her of Dharma's parents in that television series. Except that even with a daughter in tow, they hadn't changed and hadn't grown up. Or maybe grown-up wasn't the word she should have used, they certainly thought they were championing adult issues and she was the one who needed to catch up.
Anyhow, she was probably a mistake for them in the first place. They never really told her, but she gathered they were 2 college kids high on pot who needed money because they were cut off from their own parents who never approved of their Haight-Ashbury type lifestyle. At that time, college students being drafted into drug trials for a bit of pocket money were the rage. (In fact, they still are). Those were what the pharmaceutical companies called Phase 2 clinical trials and they tested the extremes of drug side effects at different doses. People willingly signed up for them. They were paid fairly huge sums to be guinea pigs, and Emma's parents probably thought they were testing out a new antibiotic or something.
Except the company concerned was Genomex and the experiments were genetic. So when Emma was born as an accident - her parents thought she was their natural love child - , they had gotten their money, thought everything was hunky-dory and did not make any connections until way later.
Childhood was something you couldn't classify as happy or unhappy, it just happened with its highs and lows and Emma's wasn't any different. Oh well, some things were different. Like the fact her parents were total vegetarians (they didn't even eat eggs). They shunned technology, and she was glad they even had electricity, otherwise they would be in total darkness because they didn't even believe in kerosene lamps either. They didn't have a car ('We have to do our best for fuel consumption,' her mother sniffed, 'even if the rest of the world isn't doing so'). And although they provided her the bare basics of everything a child would need, emotionally they were - heck, this was the best she could describe it - absentee parents.
Perhaps because her parents were so permissive sexually (they never married, they continued to have multiple partners despite being together, sometimes in threesomes and foursomes), Emma grew up quite the opposite. Somewhere along the way, between making friends in school who had conservative parents and craving for just some sense of normalcy and order in her weird little world, she decided that sex for her would be something special. Not given to anybody, like her parents seemed to be doing, just to the right guy.
When her parents were killed, Emma had just begun to discover her burgeoning powers. She was 14 and had been in history class when the principal tapped on the glass at the door. He walked gravely into the schoolroom and whispered something to her teacher. Both of them looked at her awkwardly, and she knew something terrible had happened. When they finally told her, she was so stunned she didn't cry for two whole days. Even if her parents had been absent, being involved so totally with each other and their little lives, she did genuinely love them.
It was so ironic, the way they were killed. Having shunned cars their entire lives, they relied on public transport like buses and subways. That particular day, they were at the bus stop waiting for their ride, when a drunk driver suddenly swerved into them in his twenty-ton truck. They were killed in an instant. It was a tragedy that drew the front page of the newspapers.
Emma suddenly found herself famous. Well, for a little while.
When she finally shed the tears she couldn't shed earlier at their funeral, which was organized by her parents' friends, she noticed a elderly woman at the back of the room. She looked out of place at the cheap funeral parlor, which was all they could afford since her parents and their friends were perpetually in debt. Gerdie, her mother's best friend and sometime lover, was looking flustered as she ushered Emma to meet the woman.
'Emma, this is your grandmother.'
For the first time, Emma raised her eyes to look at her maternal grandmother, who was the spitting image of what her mother would like if only she had been allowed to grow older. With a big difference. Emma's grandmother wore a constant disapproving look, like the butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Emma's mother had never looked disapproving, unless someone in the room was eating meat or being pro-Republican, the latter being the worst thing anyone could ever be in her book.
She was whisked off to stay with Mam, which was what she was required to call her grandmother. All she packed were her belongings, since they had to sell everything off just to pay her parents' debts, or so Mam claimed. 'It's unbelievable what your father has gotten into,' Mam would say in a huff. Mam blamed her father for everything that happened to her mother: the lifestyle, the vegetarianism (as if that was a crime), the drugs, the lack of inhibition. Even the accident. 'If he hadn't met her, she would still be alive today, properly married.' Emma could sense Mam was in a way relieved her wayward daughter had died. It saved her the interminable embarrassment of having to explain again and again to her friends what Emma's mother was up to.
And what friends Mam had. Mam was what Emma's mother would call 'snobbery made flesh', very New England, tea in china cups and lace doilies sort of uppity. Man's husband, Emma's grandfather, had died, leaving a comfortable estate, replete with a nice country house with 11 bedrooms, a lake and a boathouse. There was a housekeeper and a gardener. Emma would have never believed her mother grew up in this sort of environment.
Or maybe she could. The household was so proper it was oppressive. No wonder her mother, such a free spirit, had longed to break away.
Besides Mam and the hired help, there were other people living in the house. Mam had a niece, Dora, who was widowed and had a son who was away at college called Rupert. Since her mother was an only child, they were the closest living relatives Emma now had. Especially since no one from her father's side turned up to claim her.
From day one, she could tell they didn't approve of her. Her powers were waxing on and off and she could read them in bits and flashes, and in those days she pretty much read everyone - in that sense, she had about as much inhibition as her mother. Most of what they didn't approve of was derived from her bastard birth, the drugs her mother must have had been on when she was conceived ('I wonder if she's addled' Aunt Dora remarked to Mam when she thought Emma wasn't listening). And the fact she carried half her father's genes. ('And we all know what was in them,' Aunt Dora rolled her eyes).
'They wouldn't have approved of me,' Brennan interjected.
'Not many normal people would, Brennan,' she said. 'Now hush and listen.'
Mam and Dora enrolled her in an all girls' boarding school right away, which was as religious as it was uppity. They did this with a haste Emma found admirable, signing up all the forms and leaving her at the doorstep with her suitcase, almost driving off without looking back. She didn't have to read them to know they wanted to be rid of her. She was a bee in their tidy, white-laced household bonnet, a reminder of past transgressions her mother had committed. They couldn't wait to get out of her contamination zone. They probably thought life at the boarding school would scrub her past clean before it got too smudgy from her errant genetics, and the sooner it scrubbed her, the better.
It wasn't as though they were unkind in any way. They tolerated her well enough. They fed her well and clothed her, and were generally polite to her in a do-good, 'what to do, she's stuck with us because of her mother' kind of way. Even their friends looked at her sympathetically, like they were pitying the poor relative.
Life at the boarding school was strict, but at least they were out of her hair. She was tired of being treated like an amoeba. And she was so lonely at the country house. Here at least she lived with 5 other girls at a dorm. Life was very orderly, very routine which was the way she liked it. She had to get up at 6.30 to say her prayers. Breakfast was at 7. Classes started at 8.
The nuns were strict and very proper, and they reinforced sexual non- behavior in a way only nuns could. It was not proper for a young girl to think about sex, they iterated. All men only wanted one thing. It was only proper for girls to have sex only after they were married, and the purpose of the sexual union was solely for procreation. For people who never had sex, Emma decided, they sure talked a lot about sex.
In school, she sharpened her powers by practicing them. They were still wonky, she couldn't really control them, but at least she found out that Sister Kathleen, the math teacher, had a stash of whiskey under her bed. And that Sister Pat wasn't really a virgin, she was a reformed bordello owner who had decided to give up her past life. And that Margery Jones, her dorm mate who claimed she wanted to be a saint and prayed five times a day to prove it, actually crept out twice a month to make out with the gardener.
Emma had decided from day one she wasn't going to tell anyone about her powers. She didn't want them to make her more of an outcast than she already was.
Life went on, and she was surprised to find herself adapting quite well to it. Then came the holidays, and she found herself dreading her return to Mam and Dora. But she had to anyway, there was nowhere she could go, and she sighed as she packed her bags.
She had a surprise though when she came home. Rupert had returned from Princeton. He was her second cousin, Ivy League and snotty; much more so than her grandmother and aunt because he was young and his corners still hadn't rubbed off. He was a pale blond with milky brown eyes, the color of tea, and he would have looked quite nice had he not been so serious. He had the fifth best grades in his undergraduate class and was on his way to reading law at Harvard, Aunt Dora claimed proudly.
In the beginning, he was pretentious, arrogant and generally behaved like a boor to her. No doubt he had heard stories of the wild cousin and the offspring from the 'unmentionables'.
She played a lot of mind tricks on him that summer. Like making him nurse an urgent wish to run to the bathroom while they were out boating on the lake together. Or making him believe he was not wearing underwear during dinner with a very severe Mam and Dora. Despite his snootiness, he wasn't a bad person. By the end of summer, he had come down many notches where she was concerned and she had loosened up to even smile a little around him. He had accepted her, maybe not as an equal, but as someone who was not half-bad.
'Even if you don't talk that much and you're pretty much into yourself,' he said. He swatted her head. 'But you're all right, Emma.' He smiled at her and she decided she could like him. In fact, like him a whole lot. Out of the whole household, he was the only one who treated her decent- like. And even if she couldn't open up to fully talk to him, she sensed he would at least listen.
They both returned to their respective schools after that. It was one whole summer before they saw each other again.
And when they did, he was quite taken aback. She had grown a two whole inches, her puberty was fully kicking in. She had grown her red hair long and had just turned 16. 'My goodness, Emma.' (He did after all come from a family who didn't allow him to take the name of God in vain.) 'You've grown. You look.....different.'
She was pleased. He looked different too. He would never be drop dead good-looking, but he wasn't homey either. And he did have pleasant features that did not resemble her pinch-faced cousin aunt. There was an adult air about him, he had graduated, and when she took a reading off him, she could tell the looks he gave her were that of admiration. He was looking at her as a woman, and coming from an all girls' school, she would remember him as the first man to do so.
That summer they threw a party for his graduation and his acceptance to read law at Harvard. All Mam's friends came, and they brought their sons and grandsons. For her party dress, they gave her an allowance to select something nice, so she chose a light green pastel that brought out her eyes an which had plenty of feminine pleats in it. If she would allow herself to say so, she looked very nice and grown-up in it.
The reaction she drew from Rupert was unexpected. When she appeared on the stairs, richer with coral lipstick, pale pink eye shadow and a green filigree necklace, he couldn't stop looking at her. 'My word, Emma,' he breathed. 'You're beautiful.' He wasn't the only one who thought so. All the other young men were looking at her as well. She felt giddy with pleasure and femininity.
She was never in shortage of dance partners that night, or guys who wanted to talk to her, or pour her a drink, or get her some tidbit. In particular, Rupert. A girl could get used to this., she thought. He was attentive and caring, and when it was his turn to dance with her, he held her close, even possessively, his breath warming her neck. Once or twice, she caught the disapproving stare of Mam in their direction.
It was around close to midnight when he whispered, 'Do you want to get out of here?' She was a little tipsy, she had drunk watered wine, and she said yes. He led her out to the boathouse. The lake was calm, and the boats were bobbing slightly in the mild summer wind. He refused to turn the light switch on, saying 'I've got a surprise for you. It's better given in the dark.' And he kissed her - her first kiss! - right on the lips.
It felt strange. Was this what kissing was about, this locking of lips? She waited for bells to peal and emotions to rush in her head, like all the romance novels said they would. But nothing happened. She was vaguely disappointed.
But now he was kissing her again, more roughly and with greater urgency. 'I want you, Emma,' he said throatily. He was groping her green dress and fumbling for her zipper. It's coming, she thought, the big S word. This would be special. Was he the ONE for her? She decided he had to be, they had known each other for a while and liked each other. It was worth a try. Only she wished he wasn't quite so rough. He was groping her soft skin everywhere, and wherever he touched her, it hurt. But maybe it's like this, she thought. It gets better when I get used to it.
He unbuttoned his pants, poised himself on top of her and attempted to push himself in. The pain was excruciating, she felt as though her body was tearing apart. 'No,' she cried. 'Stop.' It hurt too much. Down there, her nether regions were throbbing and even though he had not penetrated, she felt as though something were torn.
'But it always hurts the first time, Emma,' he said, sounding a little pissed. And attempted again. Once more, the pain electrified her. 'No,' she said, pushing him away and sitting herself up. 'It's not supposed to be this way.'
They waited for a while, and tried to do it several times more. Each time, she cried out and pushed him away.
'You don't think there's something wrong with you, is there?' he asked. 'Maybe you ought to go see a doctor or something.'
'I don't know,' she said miserably.
They were still in a state of undress and talking about it when a switch was suddenly thrown on. Light flooded the boathouse. Mam was standing there, her face looking like thunder. Oh boy, Emma thought, now I've screwed up real bad. She threw out a reading to her grandmother, met with an image of lightning and axes, and decided it was best to keep mum for a while. Or maybe forever.
They were all disappointed in her. Between them, Mam and Dora undressed her, made her get into a hot bath, and scrubbed her clean. It was the wee hours of the morning, and Dora kept saying, 'I knew it, I knew it. It's those genes, she can't help herself. She's turning slutty, like her mother.' She didn't think it was fair. Rupert was an active party in all this and they acted as though it was all her fault. But they wouldn't hear it. 'Bad blood,' Dora pronounced triumphantly. Mam just looked sad.
They spent the better part of two weeks discussing her. As for Rupert, they bundled him away the very next day after the party. Sent him on a crash European tour. She didn't even have a chance to say goodbye, they had locked her up in her bedroom. As for him, he didn't even turn to look at her window while the cab drove him away.
At the end of it, they had decided she couldn't live with them anymore. Couldn't have her around, tempting poor Rupert, who was going to be a lawyer. They had plans for him. He was going to be married to a blue blood, and they couldn't have him chalking up too much of a past. Especially with a second cousin. It raised too many hairs with the other blue bloods, even if they did it in private.
'Don't worry,' Dora said. 'We're going to make sure you're well taken care of.' They spent the next two weeks on the phone, and again, she had to admire their haste. In the end, they had found a foster family to take her in on the entire side of the continent.
She wasn't that sorry. Although they were blood relatives, she had never belonged anyway. They wouldn't miss her. In fact, this was their chance to get rid of her, for real. They were so gleeful they almost pounced on it.
So it was foster care after that for her. And further foster care, all paid for by the considerable resources of her grandmother and cousin aunt. She got to go to a normal school again. Even made normal friends, if you could call someone like Michelle Bigelow normal.
Much later, when she was eighteen, she tried to have sex again but to no avail. This time, he couldn't even get in. The same problem had cropped up. White-hot searing pain, more pain than she would have thought possible. She wondered if it was because she was a tele-empath. All sensations seemed to be magnified for her.
Finally, she went to a gynecologist. He examined her with great care because she told him she was a virgin. 'You might have just a little problem,' he said. 'Your opening is just a little small. I can make a small incision, or I could give you some dilators and you can progressively dilate yourself. That can account for some of the pain. But only a gragment. The rest of it is in your head. You're scared because you had a bad experience, and that seems to cause a painful clenching of your vaginal muscles.'
'What can I do?' She dreaded the answer. She was doomed to remain a virgin her entire life.
'Maybe you're not doing it with the right people,' the doctor said. 'You need someone very patient, willing to give you plenty of stimulation. Then maybe you won't have vaginismus.' ('It's called vaginismus?' she asked. 'Yes.' He replied. Oh great, she thought, they even have a name for my condition. They made it sound like some sort of yeast.) Besides you're still young. There will be plenty of men for you to attempt it with. Remember, somebody very very patient. And willing to wait.'
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'So that's it really,' she finished lamely. 'I know it sounds ridiculous, the story of my sex life. But I have problems and I don't know what to do about them.'
He was silent for about a minute. Then 'Boy, no wonder you're so uptight.'
Tears sprang into her eyes. 'Brennan!' She clouted him on the head. 'It is a problem for me and I don't want you making fun of it! I knew I shouldn't have told you.'
He grabbed her hands. 'Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. It just came out.' He looked apologetic. 'I mean I understand about your problem. I'm just trying to absorb it. Just give me time to think about what to do next.'
Another pause. She wasn't sure what he quite meant. He was looking away at nothing in particular, a slight frown as though he was deep in thought. To her amazement, she noticed he was still tumescent. In the softly glowing yellow lamplight, he was quite a sight. Did the guy never abate? Oh, most women would have loved that. Not her though.
'Brennan?' She touched him on the shoulder.
'Hmmm?'
'It's not really your problem. It's mine. You were just trying to help me, and I found out I'm not fully ready, that's all. It doesn't stop me from...' She swallowed, '....wanting it to happen so bad. But not right now.'
She held her breath as he turned to gaze at her. He smiled. His hand rose to stroke her cheek.
'It is our problem.' She was surprised when he said the word 'our.' 'We're best friends and friends see each other through on things. I'm not doing to ditch you on this if you're still okay with it.'
'What?"
'I mean,' he said quietly, 'I'm going to see this through for the both of us. Not tonight. You've been through a lot. But I have a plan.'
'A plan?' She couldn't believe what she was hearing. 'Brennan, this is not one of your commando missions. My hormones and anatomical problems don't follow plans.'
'There is a plan for everything.' He grinned and darted up to kiss her on the lips. She could still taste herself on them. 'Don't you trust me? Aren't I your best friend?'
She had to admit that he was. Ever since the day she met him, he had been there for her. They had made a connection, and this surprised her because he was not a tele-empath. Usually birds of a feather in the mutant world flocked together. But Brennan...it was almost as if they were destined to be best friends. Or more? It was too painful to think of that right now, not to mention downright distracting, with the two of them naked in bed and all.
'Okay. I'll trust you.' She massaged her limbs, suddenly feeling cold. 'Just don't hurt me too much okay?' She meant that in more than just one way, but he wasn't enough of empath to sense that.
'Okay.' He was looking down at himself in chagrin, shaking his head ruefully. 'All dressed up and no place to go.'
She wondered, just wondered, if she dared. She had never done it before. 'Can I...' she hesitated, and plunged. 'Can I help you with that? I mean..... you know, like, what men do when they're on their own?'
He was grinning teasingly. 'Do you know how?'
'No, not really.' Her words came out in a rush and she felt her cheeks burning. 'But...I've read about it and it can't be too difficult, right?'
'Reading about it and the real thing are two distinct experiences. But I think you already know that.'
With that slightly amused expression on his face, he took her hand anyway and guided her there. She circled him timidly, he was so huge that that her fingers would not meet. 'Are you going to take it off?' she asked about the condom. 'No,' he replied. 'Leave it on.' And proceeded to clasp his own hand over hers. 'You can't be too gentle with me, it takes me some time.' And showed her how to do it, back and forth, rhythmic stroking gestures. She hoped she wasn't hurting him. The rhythm grew more frenetic. He was breathing harder, sinking his head back into the pillow, closing his eyes, arching his back. Applying pressure to her hand - she didn't realize it took so much strength to do that, because it had gone on for a while and her forearm was aching; and she was grateful he was helping because she sure didn't have the strength to do it alone.
'Kiss me,' he whispered, fluttering his eyes open for a second. And she did, lips locking, wetly open-mouthed, his tongue reaching down her throat; such passion for a best friend. Such deep, deep kissing, as unnerving as raw sex. He finally convulsed once, twice, then lay back sighing. Basking in the afterglow.
It was a nice feeling, she thought, to be able to give him pleasure like that.
'Thanks.' He pecked her on the cheek, friendly like, and got up. 'Boy what a mess. That's why I always use this back home. Beats having to clean up.'
'You always do this back home?'
He gave her a look. 'It's a guy thing, and don't tell me you girls don't do it either' and strode to the bathroom. She wanted to laugh. He returned later and tucked them both in comfortably, her lying in the crook of his arm and laying her hand on his chest. Mmmmm. She could get used to this. He was so warm and protective, in his arms she felt safe, enriched and very, very loved. (Even though she knew he was just a friend). She wanted to kiss him good night but when she looked up, he was already fast asleep.
When she woke up, her com ring was tingling. She opened her sleep- encrusted eyes, there was a bright glow of sunlight framing the curtains - Oh gosh, it's late, she was thinking. She sat up squinting, slightly disorientated for a while where the heck was she? and remembered some vivid fragments from the night, nothing fully coherent. Oh drat. She had forgotten to report in.
She activated the voice mode on her com ring. A female voice was at the other end. 'Emma? Emma, are you all right?'
Given the nature of their jobs, it was an unwritten rule they had to call in by 10.30 in the morning if they were having a night away, just in case they were captured or hurt or something. And if they were uncontactable, somebody would be mobilized to go find them. It suited them fine most of the time, though Brennan perennially missed datelines 'A saner hour would be 11.30,' he argued .
She looked at her watch. It was 12.30. Oh God. 'Shalimar?'
'Emma, are you okay? When you didn't call in, we got worried.' Her blonde friend sounded petulant on the other side. 'You always call in.'
More like she never had a night out, so there was no need to call in. 'Sorry, I forgot. But I'm okay. I'll come home shortly.' She noted Brennan's com ring on the side table, that dratted man, he had taken his off. Typical irresponsibility.
There was a pause on the other side. Then there was Shalimar's voice, breaking, like she had all her dreams and hopes pinned into that com ring and she didn't really want to hear the answer because it would dash her heart to pieces.
'Emma....' There was a little choke in there. 'Is Brennan with you?'
TBC.
Remember, I need you to give me R & R to keep me going! I've not been sleeping well lately and it's taking a toll. I've been so busy with work and real life, and it's getting harder to find extra time to write this. So please leave a R & R, it will keep me going. And I do know where this story is going, I have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's all the rest in between that I have to fill in.
Note: This is where the story's title kicks in. I will be attempting a different narrative style. Don't mind it, it's going to get a little implausible. But it's my way of letting reality go.
Rated PG-13, with a mild R at the end
Chapter 4
He paused, still poised on top of her. His breathing was hard and heavy and drops of perspiration were beginning to bead his forehead. The expression on his face was a mixture of conflicting emotions, none that she could read.
Then he rolled over and sank back into the bed. His chest was rising and falling. He sighed, a long drawn one. 'Oh jeez, Emma. You really know how to work up a guy.'
She wasn't sure if she had hurt his feelings. That was what she had been doing lately, hurting everyone's feelings. It was best to assume she did. 'I'm sorry Brennan. It's just that....well... I've had problems...' Damn it, now she was too embarrassed to tell him.
He was still panting. 'Is it me? The fact you're having second thoughts? Is it because of me?'
She raised herself on one elbow to look into his eyes. 'No. It's far from being you.' He was still having an incredibly enormous erection, she supposed it would take some time for him to deflate oh, most women would have loved that. Helplessly, she reached out with her hand and grasped him down there, making him shudder. Somehow this thrilled her - to think that she had just a little bit of power over him, it made her a little less inadequate.
She took a deep breath. 'All my life, I've had this problem. The fact that I'm still a virgin, it isn't for the lack of trying.'
His face took on a look of genuine concern. 'Did someone hurt you, Emma?'
She hesitated. 'In a manner of speaking, yes. I need to tell you my story.....'
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Emma's parents had always been hippie types, modern day hippies in a world that had moved on. In so many ways, they reminded her of Dharma's parents in that television series. Except that even with a daughter in tow, they hadn't changed and hadn't grown up. Or maybe grown-up wasn't the word she should have used, they certainly thought they were championing adult issues and she was the one who needed to catch up.
Anyhow, she was probably a mistake for them in the first place. They never really told her, but she gathered they were 2 college kids high on pot who needed money because they were cut off from their own parents who never approved of their Haight-Ashbury type lifestyle. At that time, college students being drafted into drug trials for a bit of pocket money were the rage. (In fact, they still are). Those were what the pharmaceutical companies called Phase 2 clinical trials and they tested the extremes of drug side effects at different doses. People willingly signed up for them. They were paid fairly huge sums to be guinea pigs, and Emma's parents probably thought they were testing out a new antibiotic or something.
Except the company concerned was Genomex and the experiments were genetic. So when Emma was born as an accident - her parents thought she was their natural love child - , they had gotten their money, thought everything was hunky-dory and did not make any connections until way later.
Childhood was something you couldn't classify as happy or unhappy, it just happened with its highs and lows and Emma's wasn't any different. Oh well, some things were different. Like the fact her parents were total vegetarians (they didn't even eat eggs). They shunned technology, and she was glad they even had electricity, otherwise they would be in total darkness because they didn't even believe in kerosene lamps either. They didn't have a car ('We have to do our best for fuel consumption,' her mother sniffed, 'even if the rest of the world isn't doing so'). And although they provided her the bare basics of everything a child would need, emotionally they were - heck, this was the best she could describe it - absentee parents.
Perhaps because her parents were so permissive sexually (they never married, they continued to have multiple partners despite being together, sometimes in threesomes and foursomes), Emma grew up quite the opposite. Somewhere along the way, between making friends in school who had conservative parents and craving for just some sense of normalcy and order in her weird little world, she decided that sex for her would be something special. Not given to anybody, like her parents seemed to be doing, just to the right guy.
When her parents were killed, Emma had just begun to discover her burgeoning powers. She was 14 and had been in history class when the principal tapped on the glass at the door. He walked gravely into the schoolroom and whispered something to her teacher. Both of them looked at her awkwardly, and she knew something terrible had happened. When they finally told her, she was so stunned she didn't cry for two whole days. Even if her parents had been absent, being involved so totally with each other and their little lives, she did genuinely love them.
It was so ironic, the way they were killed. Having shunned cars their entire lives, they relied on public transport like buses and subways. That particular day, they were at the bus stop waiting for their ride, when a drunk driver suddenly swerved into them in his twenty-ton truck. They were killed in an instant. It was a tragedy that drew the front page of the newspapers.
Emma suddenly found herself famous. Well, for a little while.
When she finally shed the tears she couldn't shed earlier at their funeral, which was organized by her parents' friends, she noticed a elderly woman at the back of the room. She looked out of place at the cheap funeral parlor, which was all they could afford since her parents and their friends were perpetually in debt. Gerdie, her mother's best friend and sometime lover, was looking flustered as she ushered Emma to meet the woman.
'Emma, this is your grandmother.'
For the first time, Emma raised her eyes to look at her maternal grandmother, who was the spitting image of what her mother would like if only she had been allowed to grow older. With a big difference. Emma's grandmother wore a constant disapproving look, like the butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Emma's mother had never looked disapproving, unless someone in the room was eating meat or being pro-Republican, the latter being the worst thing anyone could ever be in her book.
She was whisked off to stay with Mam, which was what she was required to call her grandmother. All she packed were her belongings, since they had to sell everything off just to pay her parents' debts, or so Mam claimed. 'It's unbelievable what your father has gotten into,' Mam would say in a huff. Mam blamed her father for everything that happened to her mother: the lifestyle, the vegetarianism (as if that was a crime), the drugs, the lack of inhibition. Even the accident. 'If he hadn't met her, she would still be alive today, properly married.' Emma could sense Mam was in a way relieved her wayward daughter had died. It saved her the interminable embarrassment of having to explain again and again to her friends what Emma's mother was up to.
And what friends Mam had. Mam was what Emma's mother would call 'snobbery made flesh', very New England, tea in china cups and lace doilies sort of uppity. Man's husband, Emma's grandfather, had died, leaving a comfortable estate, replete with a nice country house with 11 bedrooms, a lake and a boathouse. There was a housekeeper and a gardener. Emma would have never believed her mother grew up in this sort of environment.
Or maybe she could. The household was so proper it was oppressive. No wonder her mother, such a free spirit, had longed to break away.
Besides Mam and the hired help, there were other people living in the house. Mam had a niece, Dora, who was widowed and had a son who was away at college called Rupert. Since her mother was an only child, they were the closest living relatives Emma now had. Especially since no one from her father's side turned up to claim her.
From day one, she could tell they didn't approve of her. Her powers were waxing on and off and she could read them in bits and flashes, and in those days she pretty much read everyone - in that sense, she had about as much inhibition as her mother. Most of what they didn't approve of was derived from her bastard birth, the drugs her mother must have had been on when she was conceived ('I wonder if she's addled' Aunt Dora remarked to Mam when she thought Emma wasn't listening). And the fact she carried half her father's genes. ('And we all know what was in them,' Aunt Dora rolled her eyes).
'They wouldn't have approved of me,' Brennan interjected.
'Not many normal people would, Brennan,' she said. 'Now hush and listen.'
Mam and Dora enrolled her in an all girls' boarding school right away, which was as religious as it was uppity. They did this with a haste Emma found admirable, signing up all the forms and leaving her at the doorstep with her suitcase, almost driving off without looking back. She didn't have to read them to know they wanted to be rid of her. She was a bee in their tidy, white-laced household bonnet, a reminder of past transgressions her mother had committed. They couldn't wait to get out of her contamination zone. They probably thought life at the boarding school would scrub her past clean before it got too smudgy from her errant genetics, and the sooner it scrubbed her, the better.
It wasn't as though they were unkind in any way. They tolerated her well enough. They fed her well and clothed her, and were generally polite to her in a do-good, 'what to do, she's stuck with us because of her mother' kind of way. Even their friends looked at her sympathetically, like they were pitying the poor relative.
Life at the boarding school was strict, but at least they were out of her hair. She was tired of being treated like an amoeba. And she was so lonely at the country house. Here at least she lived with 5 other girls at a dorm. Life was very orderly, very routine which was the way she liked it. She had to get up at 6.30 to say her prayers. Breakfast was at 7. Classes started at 8.
The nuns were strict and very proper, and they reinforced sexual non- behavior in a way only nuns could. It was not proper for a young girl to think about sex, they iterated. All men only wanted one thing. It was only proper for girls to have sex only after they were married, and the purpose of the sexual union was solely for procreation. For people who never had sex, Emma decided, they sure talked a lot about sex.
In school, she sharpened her powers by practicing them. They were still wonky, she couldn't really control them, but at least she found out that Sister Kathleen, the math teacher, had a stash of whiskey under her bed. And that Sister Pat wasn't really a virgin, she was a reformed bordello owner who had decided to give up her past life. And that Margery Jones, her dorm mate who claimed she wanted to be a saint and prayed five times a day to prove it, actually crept out twice a month to make out with the gardener.
Emma had decided from day one she wasn't going to tell anyone about her powers. She didn't want them to make her more of an outcast than she already was.
Life went on, and she was surprised to find herself adapting quite well to it. Then came the holidays, and she found herself dreading her return to Mam and Dora. But she had to anyway, there was nowhere she could go, and she sighed as she packed her bags.
She had a surprise though when she came home. Rupert had returned from Princeton. He was her second cousin, Ivy League and snotty; much more so than her grandmother and aunt because he was young and his corners still hadn't rubbed off. He was a pale blond with milky brown eyes, the color of tea, and he would have looked quite nice had he not been so serious. He had the fifth best grades in his undergraduate class and was on his way to reading law at Harvard, Aunt Dora claimed proudly.
In the beginning, he was pretentious, arrogant and generally behaved like a boor to her. No doubt he had heard stories of the wild cousin and the offspring from the 'unmentionables'.
She played a lot of mind tricks on him that summer. Like making him nurse an urgent wish to run to the bathroom while they were out boating on the lake together. Or making him believe he was not wearing underwear during dinner with a very severe Mam and Dora. Despite his snootiness, he wasn't a bad person. By the end of summer, he had come down many notches where she was concerned and she had loosened up to even smile a little around him. He had accepted her, maybe not as an equal, but as someone who was not half-bad.
'Even if you don't talk that much and you're pretty much into yourself,' he said. He swatted her head. 'But you're all right, Emma.' He smiled at her and she decided she could like him. In fact, like him a whole lot. Out of the whole household, he was the only one who treated her decent- like. And even if she couldn't open up to fully talk to him, she sensed he would at least listen.
They both returned to their respective schools after that. It was one whole summer before they saw each other again.
And when they did, he was quite taken aback. She had grown a two whole inches, her puberty was fully kicking in. She had grown her red hair long and had just turned 16. 'My goodness, Emma.' (He did after all come from a family who didn't allow him to take the name of God in vain.) 'You've grown. You look.....different.'
She was pleased. He looked different too. He would never be drop dead good-looking, but he wasn't homey either. And he did have pleasant features that did not resemble her pinch-faced cousin aunt. There was an adult air about him, he had graduated, and when she took a reading off him, she could tell the looks he gave her were that of admiration. He was looking at her as a woman, and coming from an all girls' school, she would remember him as the first man to do so.
That summer they threw a party for his graduation and his acceptance to read law at Harvard. All Mam's friends came, and they brought their sons and grandsons. For her party dress, they gave her an allowance to select something nice, so she chose a light green pastel that brought out her eyes an which had plenty of feminine pleats in it. If she would allow herself to say so, she looked very nice and grown-up in it.
The reaction she drew from Rupert was unexpected. When she appeared on the stairs, richer with coral lipstick, pale pink eye shadow and a green filigree necklace, he couldn't stop looking at her. 'My word, Emma,' he breathed. 'You're beautiful.' He wasn't the only one who thought so. All the other young men were looking at her as well. She felt giddy with pleasure and femininity.
She was never in shortage of dance partners that night, or guys who wanted to talk to her, or pour her a drink, or get her some tidbit. In particular, Rupert. A girl could get used to this., she thought. He was attentive and caring, and when it was his turn to dance with her, he held her close, even possessively, his breath warming her neck. Once or twice, she caught the disapproving stare of Mam in their direction.
It was around close to midnight when he whispered, 'Do you want to get out of here?' She was a little tipsy, she had drunk watered wine, and she said yes. He led her out to the boathouse. The lake was calm, and the boats were bobbing slightly in the mild summer wind. He refused to turn the light switch on, saying 'I've got a surprise for you. It's better given in the dark.' And he kissed her - her first kiss! - right on the lips.
It felt strange. Was this what kissing was about, this locking of lips? She waited for bells to peal and emotions to rush in her head, like all the romance novels said they would. But nothing happened. She was vaguely disappointed.
But now he was kissing her again, more roughly and with greater urgency. 'I want you, Emma,' he said throatily. He was groping her green dress and fumbling for her zipper. It's coming, she thought, the big S word. This would be special. Was he the ONE for her? She decided he had to be, they had known each other for a while and liked each other. It was worth a try. Only she wished he wasn't quite so rough. He was groping her soft skin everywhere, and wherever he touched her, it hurt. But maybe it's like this, she thought. It gets better when I get used to it.
He unbuttoned his pants, poised himself on top of her and attempted to push himself in. The pain was excruciating, she felt as though her body was tearing apart. 'No,' she cried. 'Stop.' It hurt too much. Down there, her nether regions were throbbing and even though he had not penetrated, she felt as though something were torn.
'But it always hurts the first time, Emma,' he said, sounding a little pissed. And attempted again. Once more, the pain electrified her. 'No,' she said, pushing him away and sitting herself up. 'It's not supposed to be this way.'
They waited for a while, and tried to do it several times more. Each time, she cried out and pushed him away.
'You don't think there's something wrong with you, is there?' he asked. 'Maybe you ought to go see a doctor or something.'
'I don't know,' she said miserably.
They were still in a state of undress and talking about it when a switch was suddenly thrown on. Light flooded the boathouse. Mam was standing there, her face looking like thunder. Oh boy, Emma thought, now I've screwed up real bad. She threw out a reading to her grandmother, met with an image of lightning and axes, and decided it was best to keep mum for a while. Or maybe forever.
They were all disappointed in her. Between them, Mam and Dora undressed her, made her get into a hot bath, and scrubbed her clean. It was the wee hours of the morning, and Dora kept saying, 'I knew it, I knew it. It's those genes, she can't help herself. She's turning slutty, like her mother.' She didn't think it was fair. Rupert was an active party in all this and they acted as though it was all her fault. But they wouldn't hear it. 'Bad blood,' Dora pronounced triumphantly. Mam just looked sad.
They spent the better part of two weeks discussing her. As for Rupert, they bundled him away the very next day after the party. Sent him on a crash European tour. She didn't even have a chance to say goodbye, they had locked her up in her bedroom. As for him, he didn't even turn to look at her window while the cab drove him away.
At the end of it, they had decided she couldn't live with them anymore. Couldn't have her around, tempting poor Rupert, who was going to be a lawyer. They had plans for him. He was going to be married to a blue blood, and they couldn't have him chalking up too much of a past. Especially with a second cousin. It raised too many hairs with the other blue bloods, even if they did it in private.
'Don't worry,' Dora said. 'We're going to make sure you're well taken care of.' They spent the next two weeks on the phone, and again, she had to admire their haste. In the end, they had found a foster family to take her in on the entire side of the continent.
She wasn't that sorry. Although they were blood relatives, she had never belonged anyway. They wouldn't miss her. In fact, this was their chance to get rid of her, for real. They were so gleeful they almost pounced on it.
So it was foster care after that for her. And further foster care, all paid for by the considerable resources of her grandmother and cousin aunt. She got to go to a normal school again. Even made normal friends, if you could call someone like Michelle Bigelow normal.
Much later, when she was eighteen, she tried to have sex again but to no avail. This time, he couldn't even get in. The same problem had cropped up. White-hot searing pain, more pain than she would have thought possible. She wondered if it was because she was a tele-empath. All sensations seemed to be magnified for her.
Finally, she went to a gynecologist. He examined her with great care because she told him she was a virgin. 'You might have just a little problem,' he said. 'Your opening is just a little small. I can make a small incision, or I could give you some dilators and you can progressively dilate yourself. That can account for some of the pain. But only a gragment. The rest of it is in your head. You're scared because you had a bad experience, and that seems to cause a painful clenching of your vaginal muscles.'
'What can I do?' She dreaded the answer. She was doomed to remain a virgin her entire life.
'Maybe you're not doing it with the right people,' the doctor said. 'You need someone very patient, willing to give you plenty of stimulation. Then maybe you won't have vaginismus.' ('It's called vaginismus?' she asked. 'Yes.' He replied. Oh great, she thought, they even have a name for my condition. They made it sound like some sort of yeast.) Besides you're still young. There will be plenty of men for you to attempt it with. Remember, somebody very very patient. And willing to wait.'
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'So that's it really,' she finished lamely. 'I know it sounds ridiculous, the story of my sex life. But I have problems and I don't know what to do about them.'
He was silent for about a minute. Then 'Boy, no wonder you're so uptight.'
Tears sprang into her eyes. 'Brennan!' She clouted him on the head. 'It is a problem for me and I don't want you making fun of it! I knew I shouldn't have told you.'
He grabbed her hands. 'Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. It just came out.' He looked apologetic. 'I mean I understand about your problem. I'm just trying to absorb it. Just give me time to think about what to do next.'
Another pause. She wasn't sure what he quite meant. He was looking away at nothing in particular, a slight frown as though he was deep in thought. To her amazement, she noticed he was still tumescent. In the softly glowing yellow lamplight, he was quite a sight. Did the guy never abate? Oh, most women would have loved that. Not her though.
'Brennan?' She touched him on the shoulder.
'Hmmm?'
'It's not really your problem. It's mine. You were just trying to help me, and I found out I'm not fully ready, that's all. It doesn't stop me from...' She swallowed, '....wanting it to happen so bad. But not right now.'
She held her breath as he turned to gaze at her. He smiled. His hand rose to stroke her cheek.
'It is our problem.' She was surprised when he said the word 'our.' 'We're best friends and friends see each other through on things. I'm not doing to ditch you on this if you're still okay with it.'
'What?"
'I mean,' he said quietly, 'I'm going to see this through for the both of us. Not tonight. You've been through a lot. But I have a plan.'
'A plan?' She couldn't believe what she was hearing. 'Brennan, this is not one of your commando missions. My hormones and anatomical problems don't follow plans.'
'There is a plan for everything.' He grinned and darted up to kiss her on the lips. She could still taste herself on them. 'Don't you trust me? Aren't I your best friend?'
She had to admit that he was. Ever since the day she met him, he had been there for her. They had made a connection, and this surprised her because he was not a tele-empath. Usually birds of a feather in the mutant world flocked together. But Brennan...it was almost as if they were destined to be best friends. Or more? It was too painful to think of that right now, not to mention downright distracting, with the two of them naked in bed and all.
'Okay. I'll trust you.' She massaged her limbs, suddenly feeling cold. 'Just don't hurt me too much okay?' She meant that in more than just one way, but he wasn't enough of empath to sense that.
'Okay.' He was looking down at himself in chagrin, shaking his head ruefully. 'All dressed up and no place to go.'
She wondered, just wondered, if she dared. She had never done it before. 'Can I...' she hesitated, and plunged. 'Can I help you with that? I mean..... you know, like, what men do when they're on their own?'
He was grinning teasingly. 'Do you know how?'
'No, not really.' Her words came out in a rush and she felt her cheeks burning. 'But...I've read about it and it can't be too difficult, right?'
'Reading about it and the real thing are two distinct experiences. But I think you already know that.'
With that slightly amused expression on his face, he took her hand anyway and guided her there. She circled him timidly, he was so huge that that her fingers would not meet. 'Are you going to take it off?' she asked about the condom. 'No,' he replied. 'Leave it on.' And proceeded to clasp his own hand over hers. 'You can't be too gentle with me, it takes me some time.' And showed her how to do it, back and forth, rhythmic stroking gestures. She hoped she wasn't hurting him. The rhythm grew more frenetic. He was breathing harder, sinking his head back into the pillow, closing his eyes, arching his back. Applying pressure to her hand - she didn't realize it took so much strength to do that, because it had gone on for a while and her forearm was aching; and she was grateful he was helping because she sure didn't have the strength to do it alone.
'Kiss me,' he whispered, fluttering his eyes open for a second. And she did, lips locking, wetly open-mouthed, his tongue reaching down her throat; such passion for a best friend. Such deep, deep kissing, as unnerving as raw sex. He finally convulsed once, twice, then lay back sighing. Basking in the afterglow.
It was a nice feeling, she thought, to be able to give him pleasure like that.
'Thanks.' He pecked her on the cheek, friendly like, and got up. 'Boy what a mess. That's why I always use this back home. Beats having to clean up.'
'You always do this back home?'
He gave her a look. 'It's a guy thing, and don't tell me you girls don't do it either' and strode to the bathroom. She wanted to laugh. He returned later and tucked them both in comfortably, her lying in the crook of his arm and laying her hand on his chest. Mmmmm. She could get used to this. He was so warm and protective, in his arms she felt safe, enriched and very, very loved. (Even though she knew he was just a friend). She wanted to kiss him good night but when she looked up, he was already fast asleep.
When she woke up, her com ring was tingling. She opened her sleep- encrusted eyes, there was a bright glow of sunlight framing the curtains - Oh gosh, it's late, she was thinking. She sat up squinting, slightly disorientated for a while where the heck was she? and remembered some vivid fragments from the night, nothing fully coherent. Oh drat. She had forgotten to report in.
She activated the voice mode on her com ring. A female voice was at the other end. 'Emma? Emma, are you all right?'
Given the nature of their jobs, it was an unwritten rule they had to call in by 10.30 in the morning if they were having a night away, just in case they were captured or hurt or something. And if they were uncontactable, somebody would be mobilized to go find them. It suited them fine most of the time, though Brennan perennially missed datelines 'A saner hour would be 11.30,' he argued .
She looked at her watch. It was 12.30. Oh God. 'Shalimar?'
'Emma, are you okay? When you didn't call in, we got worried.' Her blonde friend sounded petulant on the other side. 'You always call in.'
More like she never had a night out, so there was no need to call in. 'Sorry, I forgot. But I'm okay. I'll come home shortly.' She noted Brennan's com ring on the side table, that dratted man, he had taken his off. Typical irresponsibility.
There was a pause on the other side. Then there was Shalimar's voice, breaking, like she had all her dreams and hopes pinned into that com ring and she didn't really want to hear the answer because it would dash her heart to pieces.
'Emma....' There was a little choke in there. 'Is Brennan with you?'
TBC.