Auntie’s Island

Chapter Two – Waking Trance


WILLIE:

This is so frustrating. I have never written anything before. Auntie told me, one beautiful morning (it seems so long ago now), that I had developed a very large vocabulary. At least for someone my age. Whatever that is. But she never let me read! Anything! And now she wants me to send Mama Ann emails, writing about what happened when I went back home to the island. About what happened to me while I was there. I have only been reading for a few months now, thanks to Frederick and Dee. If you have never been allowed to read, can you begin to imagine what it is like to be made to write? Dee is making me use the computer to write this. She gave me a chart. I can only use certain fingers for particular letters. Touch typing, she calls it. I asked her what “typing” is. She laughed, explaining that the word comes from using some sort of ancient machine. Almost every other word I “type” now is underlined in red on the computer screen, meaning that I misspelled it. Mama Ann says she will correct it, once I have sent it to her. I HATE THIS!

Please imagine that I just sighed. I will do as Auntie says. I have done that my whole life. Even now, after I have given myself to Fredrick, my new Master. Even now. I will do as Auntie says.

After I introduced my new family to my old one, after Auntie asked us to follow her up to the house for lunch, I ran ahead and walked with her. I had talked to her often on the telephone from Illinois, but I was still shocked by her appearance. She looked … the same. Just the same as she always did. The last time I had seen her, I was certain she was dead. I had held her lifeless, naked body in my arms, crying and crying, but through the tears I saw a sight I will never forget. The shotgun that Rudolph had used made dozens of little holes in her, all between her stomach and her breasts; and while the holes were scattered around the edges, the center of the wound was a collection of holes that seemed to form one big one. There was SO much blood!  It was all over my hands. All over my tee shirt and shorts. All over everything! And now, she was just as healthy, just as beautiful, just as alive as she had always been. I asked her how she felt, if she was still in pain from her wound.

But she laughed at my serious expression and told me that she felt fine now. She had been very weak for a long time, she said, and very sick, too. It was still difficult for her to talk about the Captain, her lover, whom she was sleeping with that night. She told me that he was buried here on the island now. And then, she changed the topic abruptly, and I never heard her speak of it again. She scolded me for not telling her how “powerful” Dee was. I insisted that I HAD told her that Dee had strong talents when we spoke on the phone. 

“’Strong’ is a poor choice of words, Little One,” she chided. “Tell me, does she have ambitions?”

I blinked and told her I didn’t know what she meant.

“Is she headstrong, willful, independent?”

I laughed out loud at the question. “Dee?” I said, perhaps too loudly. I calmed myself and leaned toward her to explain. “Dee is the most docile, subservient girl I think I’ve ever met. She worships Frederick, and she’s the best friend I’ve ever had!” I thought about that for a moment. “After Brenda,” I added quietly.

She smiled patiently and patted my hand. “Yes, Brenda. Everything revolves around Brenda, doesn’t it?” I looked at her curiously, but she would not be turned from her topic. “You must teach Dee, Little One,” she continued sternly. “She has no idea what she is capable of doing. Hopefully, she will never fully know. But YOU must help her define her limits.”

“ME?” I shouted, and then lowered my voice so that those walking behind us couldn’t hear. “Auntie, Dee is, like, a gazillion times smarter than me! She knows, like, EVERYTHING! She’s teaching me to read! I don’t think I could ever teach HER anything!”

“Oh yes, you … like … can,” she stated firmly, then looked with mock sternness. “You talk like an American!” I laughed gaily and tucked my arm through hers. She sighed and continued. “I’ll explain things to YOU, Little One, and then you can teach them to her. She values your advice far greater than you can imagine. She loves you.” She regarded me closely. “You have taken her as a lover?”

I blushed. “Yes, Auntie, but I didn’t take her. I don’t think she exactly took me, either. It just happened. And Brenda, too. And, of course, Frederick. I could never deny myself to him. He is my Master.” I felt myself blushing even more. “I would never deny myself to ANY of them.”

“Turned into a little fuck-bunny, haven’t you?” She tried to make her mouth a firm line, but it twitched upward at the ends.

I shrieked a gasping cry of indignation before dissolving into to a fit of giggles. The others were staring at me. I tried hard to stop laughing, and finally whispered in her ear: “Oh, Auntie, you horribly neglected your duties as my teacher and mentor! Why didn’t you ever tell me how absolutely WONDERFUL it could be to serve as the family fuck-bunny?”

………………….

FRED:

Why is it that imagination, that most wondrous of human attributes, can fill the mind with a thousand pictures and still hit so far from the mark of reality? “Beautiful,” Willie had told us, and so I bid Mr. Imagination to pull up a tableau entitled “beautiful.” Height, weight, hair color, all explained. No pertinent information withheld. I’d heard her voice on the phone. One’s mind forms pictures. My pictures were all wrong, to say the least.

Let me put it this way: If my imagination had started with the woman herself, and then been tasked with placing her in a more appropriate environment … well, I’d STILL be hard pressed to explain, but I think I could justify it. If “Auntie” had been a Barbie Doll (imagine a little “R” with a circle around it there), dressed only in undergarments and awaiting directions from the Marketing Department, I would have stuffed her into a white gown over lots of hoop petticoats and made her “Antebellum Barbie” on a southern plantation. Or perhaps “English Country Garden Barbie,” sipping tea and watching the men ride out after a fox. Or maybe “Countess in the Court of Louis XVI Barbie” strolling around the gardens at Versailles. But definitely NOT “Island Barbie” in the 21st Century! Auntie was just as indescribably out of place on that island and in this time period, as she was indescribably beautiful. 

I learned, over a light lunch of fruit, salad and cheese, that her true name was either non-existent or simply ignored. For a very brief time on her internet website, she had been referred to as “Auntie Griselda,” but when I asked about it, Auntie had looked embarrassed and rather peeved, while Ann had laughed uproariously. It seems that Ann is the “webmaster” of the little project to help “gifted” children through a time of “learning and adaptation.” After Auntie had been wounded by our old pirate friend, Rudy, during a period when Ann seriously thought Auntie would surely die, she looked through some records in Auntie’s private room in search of relatives to contact. That’s when she had stumbled across the name. Auntie, once she had recovered, had forbidden its use; but after a petty argument, Ann had posted it online as a joke. A short-lived joke, I might add.

Everybody called her Auntie. Just Auntie. And when I asked the question privately of various individuals, the answer was always the same. “That’s what we’ve always called her.” But I felt extremely uncomfortable calling a woman who was clearly younger than me “Auntie.”

Raul was constantly casting surreptitious little leering glances at Brenda. I actually TRIED to feel jealous about it, and in fact, considered hating the man; but the truth of the matter is that the brawny fellow embodied just about every trait in a human being that I liked. And hell, ALL men leer at Brenda; and practically all people, men and women alike, are attracted to her. No, Raul … and Jonathan, too … became two of my closest friends almost as soon as I met them.

After lunch, Ann showed us all to our room; a gigantic space on the opposite end of the long, ranch-style villa from Auntie’s own bedroom. It had a single, king-sized bed in the middle of the room, with large glass doors and windows overlooking the lagoon below and the sea beyond. Outside the door, a small porch yielded an even more picturesque view, and trails meandered downward toward the sea and along a tree-lined cliff to a small bungalow, which was where Jonathan and Ann lived. Evidently, Raul also had his own dwelling.

Raul asked me to help in the job of hauling everything up from the boat below, noting that if all of us fellows pitched in, we might be able to do it in three … or possibly four trips. There was our luggage, of course, and also about a week’s worth of food and other supplies to be brought up. The only thing we had managed so far was a massive amount of baby paraphernalia. But as I got up to follow him, Willie stopped me and asked if she could have me do something first … only a few minutes, she said; so I excused myself and told him I’d be out shortly.

“Frederick,” she said solemnly, “you haven’t hypnotized us for, like, DAYS now.” 

I laughed at her earnestness, but saw right through her little plot. She loved her hypnosis … there’s no doubt about that … but it was really Brenda that she was concerned about. My wife was the one that was held so much in the grip of raw need, when it came to being hypnotized. Dee and Willie almost didn’t seem to think about it until something or someone (usually Brenda) “reminded them” that they were slaves to its addiction.

I looked around and surveyed the situation. Dee blushed and looked demurely at her feet as she sat on the bed. Brenda was almost panting in anticipation. Fortunately, Lizzy was asleep in her portable “day bed,” which was part of the aforementioned paraphernalia. 

“Okay,” I told them, picking up my backpack and fishing out the slim mahogany box containing the pocket watch. “Everybody on the bed. Sit down.”

There was nothing but silence from them now. Their expectancy was so thick I could feel it. Maybe it HAD been too long. I waited until they had settled themselves in a row, sitting on the big bed facing me, before I held up the pocket watch before their staring eyes. Dee gasped audibly.

“Remember to breathe, please,” I urged. “Just stare at the watch, now. Follow the watch as I swing it back and forth … back and forth … back and forth … just like this … just like this … and relax. Yes, that’s it … relax for me … more and more … back and forth … more and more relaxed. Yes ….”

If I could have devised a contest, a sort of “race to relax” sort of thing, Brenda would have easily lead the pack; but then, she’d been doing this longer than the other two girls. She wanted this so badly that she was constantly one step ahead of me in my induction. Already, her arms were hanging leaden, one in her lap, and the other sliding down to hang over the edge of the bed. But I was hypnotizing three women simultaneously here. I’d done this many, many times, and I had eventually found, sort of by trial and error, the best way to do it. If Brenda got a little ahead of the others, no harm resulted; so I found that I had to arrange things based on the slowest of the group, which inevitably was Willie.

“I am speaking only to you now,” I told them all. “Listen only to my voice. Follow my voice. Follow. Obey my voice and follow. Back … and forth … back … and forth … more … and more … relaxed.” I timed my commands to match the rhythm of the swinging watch. “And now,” I continued, “you feel the heaviness … heaviness in your hands … and arms … and breasts … and head … so … heavy … so … heavy.” They were all sagging noticeably now, slumping, staring. Brenda could hardly keep her eyes open. “And you just follow … my … voice …. Follow … my … voice …. Follow … follow … submit … and obey …. Submit … and obey.”

“Submit and obey,” they each droned, in time with the swinging watch, in perfect harmony and cadence. “Submit and obey.” This is the way I’d set up their hypnotic submission. This is the way it had been from the beginning. This is what they needed. More than anything else in the world.

“Yes, watch the watch,” I continued, and they fell silent again, listening, following the swing of the watch with their eyes. They all seemed to be struggling internally. They had been programmed to fight the watch, even knowing that any resistance whatever was futile. This made the final surrender to the trance sweeter … more total. “Back … and forth … heavier … and heavier … only … my voice … only … the watch … tired … and heavy … and sleepy.”

They were almost gone. All resistance had been vanquished, now. They only wanted one thing. It was time to give it to them. “Surrender and sleep,” I ordered. Even now, after all this time, they tend to surprise me. In this case, they all plopped backward onto their backs in perfect unison. They were out. Completely.

“I am speaking only to you now,” I said, knowing that this greatly personalized the feelings that each of them craved. “You are in your private room, lying naked on your soft, soft bed … drifting … drifting.” Brenda moaned gently. I studied them. I really had to leave to help the guys carry supplies up, but I couldn’t leave them like this while I was gone. There was the baby to consider, and Auntie or Ann might wander in. Finally, I decided on something that was relatively new in our lives … something I’d read about online, called a “waking trance.” I would leave them each in a state that sort of hovered between their two worlds.

“Sit up, now,” I ordered. “Here in the real world, make your body sit up. Do it now.” I waited while each of them struggled into an upright sitting position, next to each other again, but this time without regard for her other two “sisters in slavery,” as they often refer to themselves. “In a moment, I will count to three, and when you hear me finish counting, you will no longer be in your room … you will be in the real world, and yet still in your deep, deep trance. You have done this before, haven’t you? You like this, don’t you? Still in your trance, and yet back in the real world.” They were each nodding, smiling. “And you will stay in your trance until I come back and wake you up … or until Lizzy wakes up from her nap. If she cries, you will wake up immediately and take care of her. But until then, you will still be in a deep, deep hypnotic trance … knowing that if anybody saw you, they wouldn’t know, would they? And you’ll stay here … here in this room, until I return. And if anyone comes in and talks to you, you will answer that person, talk to that person, normally, naturally … and that person won’t know that you are deep, deep in the grip of your hypnotic trance. One. Two. Three.”

They opened their eyes and smiled at me, sitting placidly, calmly. I smiled back. Then I turned and walked out.


………………….


DEE:


Oh, I LOVED being like that! I watched, rapt and silent, as our Master turned and left the room, and I thought: I’m still asleep! I’m sitting here, and I’m asleep, and nobody knows it! But then I turned to my left and looked into Brenda’s glazed eyes, and I turned the other way and returned Willie’s blank stare, and I turned to Brenda once again and said: “You’re asleep, too!”

“Yes,” she answered simply, quietly, smiling back at me. “Yes, he’s done it to all three of us at once.”

“This is wonderful,” Willie said beside me, an awed tinge to her voice. 

Fred had done this before, but it had always been to only one of us at a time ... or if it HAD been all three of us, he hadn’t let us know it. He had even taken us out in public while in this state (one at a time) and let us experience it. When it had been my turn, I was overwhelmed knowing that anybody (ANYBODY!) could tell me to do something and I would do it … anything; anything at all. Only the presence of the others prevented that from happening. I was helpless … utterly helpless … just as I was now … just as we ALL were. I sat there, thinking, amazingly calm, sleeping yet awake, awaiting whatever came. Minutes dragged by. I’ve never been so quiet and tranquil on the outside, and yet so helplessly filled with anticipation on the inside.  

And then, suddenly, there she was.

“Hello, ladies,” Auntie said gaily as she walked into the room. She stopped when she was halfway to the bed, staring at us, silently observing us. And I thought: she doesn’t know. I’m deep in a hypnotic trance, and she doesn’t know. We said nothing. She canted her head slightly to the right, lost in questioning thoughts for several long moments, and then she said: “You’re all in a hypnotic trance! All three of you!”

I felt myself blink. This wasn’t right. She wasn’t supposed to know!

“Willie, you’re hypnotized!” she declared.

“Yes, Auntie.”

Again she pondered this for several seconds. “How deep are you?”

“Oh, VERY deep,” Willie answered immediately.

“Does he do this to you often?”

“Yes. Well, not like this, exactly. He hypnotizes us almost every day or so, but he had to leave, and so he brought me out of my Room and left me here, like this. I’m hypnotized, but nobody can tell. Except you, I guess.”

“Your room?”

“My Special Room,” Willie explained in a calm, droning voice. “He lets me go there when he hypnotizes me.”

“Tell me about it!” Auntie ordered.

“I can’t,” Willie answered without hesitation. “I can’t remember my Room after I leave it. I can never remember. I only remember that I love it SO much, and that I can’t WAIT to go back there!”

Auntie thought about that for a minute. She tilted her head again in thought, her perfect, curly red hair bouncing slightly after her head had stilled. “Will you obey me while you are in this trance?” she asked pointedly.

“Yes, Auntie,” Willie said. “I’m hypnotized. I have to obey.”

Auntie stepped in front of Brenda and ran a finger through her hair, tucking it behind her ear. “And you, Brenda?”

“Yes, Auntie. I have to submit and obey.”

She stepped in front of me, bent forward at the waist and stared into my eyes. Hers were like a sky at dusk, dark blue with tiny streaks radiating from the pupil like the last rays of pale sunlight. “And you, Dee? Will you submit and obey, as well?”

To my utter amazement, I hesitated. “Yes,” I said at last in a small, meek voice.

She continued to stare at me, locking me into her commanding eyes. “Oh, you are a willful little lady, my Dee,” she told me. I felt myself shudder slightly at the statement. No one had ever called me willful, and I had never thought myself so. “Don’t you see, Dee?” she continued. “It takes all of your willpower to suppress it! What a conundrum you are!” I could only stare helplessly ahead. “I am going to take care of you last, Dee. You are about to change, my dear. As the strongest, you deserve to hear what the others say first.” Strongest? Change? Something wasn’t right! Nothing she was saying made any sense!

But she had left me now, and was standing in front of Willie. “How do you get into your ‘Special Room,’ Little One?” she asked, hooking a finger under her chin and lifting her face so that she was gazing directly into her eyes.

“I don’t know, Auntie. Frederick takes me there. If I could do it myself, I’d stay hypnotized all the time!”

Auntie laughed softly. “Of course you would, my dear. Now, look into my eyes and relax. That’s it. Relax for me. More and more relaxed. Just like you do with your Master. You are so relaxed now. Do you feel sleepy?”

“Yes,” Willie whispered. “And heavy. My head and arms and breasts are heavy.”

“And your eyes,” Auntie intoned. “So heavy. So sleepy now. Just let go, My Child. Tell me how you get into your room.”

“I say the special words,” Willie mumbled, her eyes barely open, her head wobbling.

“And what are your special words?”

But to her surprise, it was Brenda who answered. “Submit and obey,” she intoned. “Submit and obey … submit and obey ….” Willie joined in on the second iteration, and they chanted together. It took me a long moment to realize that I HADN’T joined in. How was that possible?

“Are you going into your room now?” Auntie asked gently.

“No,” Willie said in a pleading, little-girl voice. “You have to TELL us, Auntie! You have to tell us to surrender and sleep!”

“Surrender and sleep!” Auntie said immediately. At once, Brenda toppled back, lying face up on the surface of the bed. Willie wobbled for a second before falling over sideways, sprawled across Brenda’s midriff. I just sat, staring at them. Something was definitely wrong! This just wasn’t right!

Auntie looked over at me and smiled. I parted my lips to say something, but she put her finger to her lips as a signal, and I remained silent. I should wake up now, I told myself, but Fred had told me to remain in my trance until he came back.

“Tell me where you are now,” Auntie ordered. Both Willie and Brenda began speaking at once, so she ordered silence and commanded Willie to remain quiet until she stroked the side of her face. She then repeated her question to Brenda.

“I’m in my Wonderful Room,” Brenda replied dreamily. “I’m on my Bed of Truth, and I’m naked and open and obedient and submissive and OH, so happy! Everything you tell me here is the truth … and of course, everything I say is the truth, too.”

“Describe your room to me, please.”

And she did … every little detail. She described the bed she was “lying” on, deep and comfortable, and oh, so soft. She described the wallpaper, its pattern, its texture. The rugs on the floor, an antique makeup table and chair and mirror, the chandelier, which had little pocket watches dangling among the crystals. I hung on her every word. I had never been allowed to remember my Special Room … none of us had. Was mine like hers? It sounded wonderful! But I was evidently not supposed to be privy to this information, or Fred would have LET me remember. I tried to shake my head, but I couldn’t get it to move. This just wasn’t RIGHT!

“Quiet, now, Brenda,” Auntie told her. “I’ll stroke your face when I want you to hear me again.” She fell silent, and I watched as Auntie reached out and stroked the side of Willie’s face. “Sit up, dear,” she ordered. Willie did so, and then, after being ordered to, described her own room. It was almost identical to Brenda’s. So, that answered that. Since hers was the first, Brenda’s “Room” was obviously the pattern for Willie’s and mine. 

“Now, Little One,” Auntie continued, “tell me … is there a stairway in your room?”

Willie seemed flustered. “No. Only what I’ve described to you.”

Auntie thought for only a second or two. “How about the rug? Can you move the rug?”

She frowned deeply. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Do it now, Willie. I command you.”

“Oh!” she said, after a brief few seconds. “Oh, there’s a door under it!”

Auntie smiled and nodded. “I thought there might be. What’s down there?”

“My soul,” Willie informed her meekly, visibly frightened. “It’s … ME. Who I am. It’s the way it always was, and the way it always will be. I don’t want to go down there, Auntie! Please don’t make me!”

This wasn’t right. I needed to do something. Fred would NEVER have intended Auntie to take Willie down to a place so deeply imbedded in her mind that she could … what? What WAS that place? Auntie had obviously figured it out, but I couldn’t seem to get my mind to work properly. I should wake up right now! I should wake up and stop this! But I still couldn’t get my head to move, even a little. What did Auntie intend to DO to us? I needed to know!

And suddenly, I realized that I COULD! I’d just … do that thing I could do. I’d just stare at Auntie, and I’d concentrate, and I’d just … go … go inside …. I’d just go right inside …. Nothing happened, so I tried harder. And then harder.

I couldn’t suppress the sound of moaning surprise as I hit something inside her head with an almost physical “thump.” It was like accidently walking into a wall! Auntie spun around to face me, her eyes going wide. “Oh, Dee! Oh, my, but you’re powerful!” She ignored Willie now, and turned fully to face me, grasping my shoulders with her hands and bending forward to stare directly into my eyes. Our noses were almost touching. Oh, those eyes! I should wake up now. If I kept looking into those eyes … just a little while longer … I’d be lost for sure! However, she seemed anything BUT adversarial. The truth of the matter was, I admitted to myself, she had never seemed actually threatening. But the things she was doing were ….

“Dee,” she told me earnestly, never taking her eyes off of mine, “please … I beg you, please don’t fight me. I’m your friend … please believe me.” I could only stare into those eyes. She sighed. “Take a deep breath for me, Dee. Yes, that’s it. Now another. There. Now, stay in your deep trance, but talk to me normally … just as if you were awake. I’ll let you think normally, too. Now, tell me what’s wrong.”

“You shouldn’t be doing this!” I told her earnestly. “This is for our Master, only! You’re about to CHANGE Willie! Change her forever and ever! You can’t DO that! I won’t let you!”

But she looked at me with infinite tenderness. “I have to, Dee. I love her. I need to protect her.”

Her sincerity and compassion confused me even more. “Protect her from WHAT?”

“Protect her from you, my dear.”

I blinked once … twice. I stared into her eyes and realized she was speaking with absolute, candid honesty. “I … I would NEVER hurt Willie,” I stuttered meekly.

“I know you love her, dear, but accidents happen. If you ever tried to go inside HER mind with the force of thought you used just now with me … you could severely injure her. You could hurt anybody! You MUST have limits, Dee. Over time, Willie could teach you. She doesn’t think she knows how, but this little ‘room beneath a room’ presents an excellent opportunity to overcome her reluctance.”

Despite my sudden clear-headedness, my thoughts were swirling around frantically. I forced my mind to slow until I could think reasonably again. “You’re going about this all wrong,” I told her calmly.

“And why is that?” 

“I am the source of your concern. You shouldn’t be changing Willie. Why don’t you just change ME and be done with it?”

She smiled. “Because YOU resisted falling into a deeper trance, dear. You may not believe it, but I don’t think I could ever overcome your sheer force of will. I could never take you deep enough without your consent.”

I reached out and put my hand on her arm. “Please Auntie. If you promise not to change Willie or Brenda, I’ll let you do ANYTHING to me. I’ll surrender to you completely, and you can take me wherever you want in my room … do whatever you need to do … limit my powers … I don’t care. Just please, please don’t change the people I love.”

A tear sprang to her eyes. Without warning, she leaned forward and kissed me on the lips; a long, lingering kiss. When she drew back, I found myself panting slightly. 

“You have my word, Dee. And this way will be SO much better. Very well, then. Just look into my eyes and relax. Take a breath. Another. Relax. Yes, that’s it. Let the heaviness come, now. And submit … and obey.”

“Submit and obey,” I found myself saying. “Submit and obey.” And my whole world just sort of drifted away.

Lizzy was crying. I awoke with a start. I was lying on my back on the bed. Auntie was sitting beside me, stroking my hair, smiling down at me with a sort of surprised look on her face. “He told you to wake up when you heard the baby cry,” she said. “Of course, he would do that.”

I struggled up onto an elbow and watched as Brenda and Willie fussed over Lizzy. They smiled at me, then put her on the floor and started changing her diaper. I returned my attention to the remarkably beautiful young woman next to me. “Did you finish?” I asked her. “Did you ‘set your limits?’ Did you change me?”

“Yes.” She smiled pleasantly, placing a hand on my bare arm. “Yes, it’s done. Thank you, Dee. Thank you SO much. That was the only danger … the only obstacle.”

“Obstacle to WHAT?” I asked her.

“To Destiny. You were the only thing that could stop the events that had to take place. Now, they will.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to. But … thank you.”

“Well! Did you ladies have a pleasant hour together?” Fred walked into the room carrying two suitcases. He seemed surprised to see Auntie there, but was immediately distracted when Brenda and Willie rushed to him and threw their arms around him.

“Let’s make love, Freddy! Please!” Brenda squealed.

Auntie barked a laugh while both Brenda and Fred blushed, casting glances our way. “We always want to have sex when we wake up from a trance,” I explained to her. I still reclined beside her. Her eyes met mine and held. “I can still taste our kiss,” I told her quietly.

“So can I,” she said, and leaned in for another. This one was better than the first. Our mouths opened. Her tongue was small and soft. I moaned with physical need.

“I guess you two have … um … gotten to know each other better while I was gone,” Fred said, a slight look of awe on his face.

Despite my panting, I found my voice. “Fred, can we talk?” I asked.

“Sorry, my dears,” Auntie said pointedly, standing up, “but I’m about to exert my rights as Hostess and steal your Master. Fred, let’s take a walk. I’d like to show you my island.” She held out her hand to him.

Brenda and Willie stepped reluctantly away from him, maintaining touches with their fingertips for long moments until he finally stepped away from them and took Auntie’s proffered hand. “Let’s start with the trail along the ridge,” she told him, drawing him to herself and tucking her arm through his. They left the room.

“Poor Freddy,” Brenda said with a sigh, looking after them as they walked down the hall and out the door. “He doesn’t stand a chance.”



