The Wounded

by Marilyn Foxworthy

  Lark said, “Thank you. Everything is so different. You came and rescued us all. We could have never imagined it.”

  I smiled and said, “We will ride unicorns to the mountains and every little sister will be happy. I promise you.”

  Raven laughed and said, “We have no doubt. Joshua, this is wonderful. We’ll get everything ready. When is Aspen coming?”

  I said, “I suspect that it’ll be the day after tomorrow. Viola is with her, and tomorrow they will be working. They’ll come the next day.”

  We had pretty much finished eating now, well the girls had. I’d been talking the whole time and hadn’t made much progress on mine.

  Raven said, “Clarice, if it’s OK, I’ll take Lark and show her the living area and how the machines work and get a lunch ready for tomorrow. Then, I’ll ask Ellie what we can do for her. Is that OK?”

  Clarice smiled and said, “Of course. You know, we won’t always have so much work to do. Pretty soon, the house will be ready and there won’t be as much left. It will take a long time to get the grounds landscaped, but the machines will do most of the work. Since Aspen is coming, and Viola, I think that we better get some bedrooms ready as soon as we can. If they aren’t ready, we can stay in the guest house, but it would be nice if at least a few of the main rooms were ready. Mandy and Wendy will be busy all day, and they will need to sleep tonight, but tomorrow while Joshua and I are away, you can all work on Joshua’s bedroom and the other bedroom. Then, when Aspen comes, his room will be ready.”

  Raven said excitedly, “You mean his room and the um, special room? The one for…um, the special one?”

  Clarice smiled and said, “I think that would be a good idea. That’s where I want to sleep.”

  Raven squealed in delight and said, “OK! And Lark can come in and help? She doesn’t have to stay in the guest house?”

  Clarice said, “No, I think that Lark is here to stay and she needs to know all about the house.”

  Raven said, “But Joshua doesn’t yet, right? It’s still a surprise?”

  Clarice said, “He already knows about it, he just forgot. But just Joshua’s room and the other room. Even Lark doesn’t see the other bedrooms yet, OK?”

  Raven got up from her chair and started to clear dishes and said, “OK! That’s a good idea. But we’ll work really hard and when you come back, Joshua can take Aspen to his bedroom and then we can all be together, and later we can do the other rooms and more surprises. Come on Lark! Get your dishes and we can get started. Leave Joshua’s plate and we’ll come back for it when he’s done.”

  As she headed toward the stairs, Raven leaned down and kissed me quickly.

  She said, “And Lark, we can get you some work clothes. Oh, we don’t have any for you yet. Did you bring a dress? You can put that on and if it gets dirty, we’ll put it in the laundry. Come on, hurry!”

  Lark had her plate in her hands as Raven rushed to the stairs and she asked Raven, “Why do we need to hurry?”

  Clarice and I both smiled, knowing the answer, and Raven said, “Because it will be faster that way.”

  Lark laughed and the two girls left Clarice and I alone on the patio so that I could finish my lunch. Between bites, we talked about the plan for tomorrow.

  I asked, “Clarice, are you OK with what I said? About taking all of the little sisters that still exist to live with us if necessary?”

  Clarice said, “Of course. For several reasons. First, we do whatever you want, and I will always love you and I’m confident that you’ll always love me. Second, we have to. We have to rescue them. They are our family. What would it be if we didn’t provide for them? So, yeah, we’ll do it because it’s what we do as family. For gosh sakes, what would Pops think if he knew what had happened? And what would he want us to do? You have always been more like him than anyone else, and he knew it. He never really intended this place for your dad, it was always for you. That’s why he showed you the secrets here, not your parents. And, third, we love them. So we have to. It’s in our hearts. I mean, even if mine is different, you know what I mean. That’s why we have to do it. The reason that we can do it is because it sounds like, based on everything we know, there aren’t very many of them. Raven said that they made you agree to at least six bedmates. If you count only the Nogud, not me and the nymphs, that’s the three you have, Aspen, and possibly two more. And they say that there are only two left. I don’t know what will happen if there are more young ones who haven’t come of age yet, but like you say, you’ll figure that out as we go along.”

  I asked, “Do you think that we could find out if there are any young men who are related to me? Maybe they could be taken under our wing and made into good husbands for the younger ones.”

  Clarice said, “I don’t know. If we find some who seem to be likely candidates, I can do a DNA analysis and we can see.”

  We sat quietly for a minute and then I continued, “Clarice, I do love you. I love you so much,” and I started to tear up a little bit.

  I did love her, and all the girls, but I was so much in love with Clarice at the moment that it hurt.

  Clarice reached out and patted my hand and said, “I love you too Joshua. I always have and always will.”

  I said, “You really are the first mate of my family. I know that we talked about that before and that Viola is the first mate of the girls and stuff, but you supersede that and are really like my, I don’t know, the senior wife and matriarch of our family. I…I just…I just love you so much!”

  She said, “OK. I guess so. I mean, yeah, I know that. About being the senior, I mean. You know, it was always like that, even for Pops. Honey was the Queen of the Fairies and Alice was the Queen of the Elves. They always said that there were two kingdoms and Pops united them under one roof. Well, and in one bed. And it’s just like that for us. Before the cataclysm, we had our own little kingdom. I was Queen of the Nymphs and now, you have found the little sisters and have united us as one kingdom with women from different tribes. It’s kind of funny. In Pops’ day, the elves were the little sisters to the princesses. Now, the little sisters are the special women. I guess, now that I say it that way, the nymphs and I do think of them as our little sisters, especially since we saw the video of where they came from. It was always our purpose to protect and care for you, and now, we know that the girls are like our children. We, I mean, the elves, were Pops’ um, well, not children, they were like wives as much as anyone, especially Alice, but we are their children, and so Pops’ children are our, um…sisters. I guess we don’t have to describe it in too much detail. The point is that we are older than they are and they are our little sisters and we will love them and protect them, just like we always have.”

  I said, “I’m overwhelmed by how much I feel for you. And all of them. Even Aspen.”

  Clarice smiled and said, changing the subject for the moment, “Raven was so cute. And you were so cute. It was hot. I’ve never seen anyone make love so secretly. Wow, just sitting at the table, chatting with us, and the whole time, she’s climaxing every few minutes. And you came twice. And she’s really limber! That move where she swung her leg over your head and spun around without losing you was so cool. I want to try that.”

  I pushed my chair back and said, “OK. Oh wait. I don’t know if I can right now. Um, oh no, we might have to wait.”

  Clarice laughed and said, “I didn’t mean right now. Are you done eating?”

  I thought for a second and said, “No, not quite.”

  Clarice asked, “What would you like Sweetie? Let me get it for you.”

  I said, “Come here for a second and sit on the table in front of me.”

  The lovely nude woman got up from her chair and came and stood in front of me and hoisted her rear up onto the table, just a foot or so in front of me. We were both very comfortable emotionally at the moment and as she sat down, her knees stayed apart, shoulder width, and her sex stayed visible between.

  I looked up at her and, sliding my han
ds under her thighs, I said, “I’d really like to finish lunch with a juicy nectarine,” and I pushed gently upward on the backs of her knees so that Clarice lay down, with her back on the table, her knees in the air, and her delicious vulva where my lunch had been a few minutes before.

  She lay backward and said, “Of course. I have one right here,” and she spread her legs a bit wider. “Take all you want. But, be warned, if you start eating it, it will probably get messy. You know how juicy the fruit is here in Goldenwood.”

  I smiled and said, “It’s the best in the universe,” and I lowered my lips to the space between her legs and started to lick and suck at her hairless slit. Clarice was delicious. Her fluids were artificial and flavored like various kinds of fruit juice and other very pleasant drinks. Later, she explained that Alice had experimented with the taste and aroma for a long time and had finally come up with something that Pops had described as the best tasting concoction on Earth. And the smell was heavenly. I had tasted it the night she’d visited Paul’s farm, but this was a treat, getting to really know it. And by ‘it’, I mean both the juice and the wonderful fruit it flowed from.

  I kissed and licked every little fold and crevice. I explored every part of it thoroughly. Very thoroughly. And Clarice responded to me with the most satisfying moans and squirming. We took our time. Clarice rested her hands gently on my head and stroked my hair and I rested my lips and tongue gently between her legs and ‘made-out’ with her pussy; at times driving my tongue as deep as I could, and at others using just the tip against her skin with the very lightest of touches.

  Every so often Clarice would moan very loudly and arch her back as she experienced an orgasm or when I did something that she especially enjoyed. I’d come four times so far this morning, and I was in no hurry to fulfill my own needs. What I desired was to show my lover how much I cared for her and how tender my feelings were.

  Because I took my time and didn’t rush, her orgasms were deep, but not explosive. It seemed that they were far under the surface, and that they spread far into her body. The trembling was like the loud rumbling of a nearby thunderstorm, not the flashes of lightning and sudden claps of electricity.

  At times, I used my finger, dripping with her juices, to draw lines and circles over her mound and the insides of her thighs. When she was ready for it, I used the tip of my finger directly on her clitoris, circling it and rubbing, pressing it like a button, and vibrating on it, like a telegraph key, tapping out a message to be sent to her pleasure centers. At other times, I reached one or two fingers up into her, stroking her G-Spot, collecting the flavored honey that was released, and sucking it into my mouth to relish the taste.

  I could have gone on for the rest of the afternoon I think, but after what may have been a nice forty minutes, I slowed down and gave her a final deep kiss directly on her clit, licking up into her slit with my tongue and sucked with a pulsing rhythm until she came again…and then I kept going.

  Clarice expected me to stop or to change to something else, but I didn’t. I kept sucking her in and out of my mouth while thrusting at her vigorously with my tongue. She came again, hard this time, and still I kept my mouth firmly clamped to her sex. Soon, she was climaxing continuously and her moans and cries died away as she lost the ability to make noises. Any of the other girls probably would have passed out by now, and Clarice was probably in some state similar to that in her own way. Finally she went completely limp and I took one last drink at her fountain before lifting my head.

  Clarice was lying splayed out on the top of the table, as limp as a noodle. Her head lolled to the side and her legs lay open in an awkward pose. She was clearly unconscious, or in whatever state passed for unconscious for her. I supposed that the best description was that it looked like she had fallen suddenly asleep and her body was not under her own control or anyone else’s.

  I stood up and gently scooped the limp woman into my arms and carried her to the other shaded gazebo. I sat down on a sofa and put her head in my lap and waited for her to recover.

  I think that I dozed off myself for a few minutes because when I woke up, we had reversed position somehow and I was now laying in Clarice’s lap with her stroking my hair.

  Chapter 10 Nymphovert

  As I looked up at Clarice’s face, she smiled and said, “Hi. That was nice. You were asleep when I roused myself from my sex induced coma and changed places with you.”

  I stayed where I was, my face lying against her breasts, and asked, “How did you move me without waking me up. I didn’t feel a thing.”

  She smiled again and said, “Remember? I can help you sleep through your ear-piece. I just kept you asleep while I moved you into my lap.”

  I asked, “Clarice, can you just put me to sleep any time you want to? And the girls too?”

  She said, “Yep. Out like a light. If necessary, for safety or medical reasons, you will drop like a rock. Of course, I’ll always catch you, but I can drop you cold if I have to. Most of the time, I would get at least one other family member to verify the decision before I do it, so I wouldn’t do it to you without consulting Lark or Viola or someone, but I can do it on my own if I think that it’s absolutely necessary. You were already asleep, so I just kept you that way while I moved you, and then I let you wake up normally. If you ever need the girls to fall asleep or stay asleep, I can do that whenever you ask me to.”

  I said, “I do feel really good. Was that part of it?”

  She said, “Sure. When I help you sleep, it’s really deep and you don’t dream much and you wake up very refreshed. You always slept that way before. Every night. Ellie mentioned it the first night you were with her. She said that we had to use the ‘sleep music thing’ to get you into the survival pod.”

  I stretched a bit and kissed the underside of her luscious breast and said, “Well, I think I like it. It works through the ear-piece? So you can use it even if I’m at Paul’s?”

  She said, “Yeah. But I’d rather only use it if I’m with you. I don’t want you to sleep that way if there’s some chance that something could happen. If I’m with you, or if you’re in the house, then I can watch over you and wake you up if there were any need to. But here, you can sleep like that all the time. What do you want to do now? Oh, there’s a problem with the car.”

  I asked, “What kind of a problem?”

  She stroked my hair some more and explained, “Well, it’s too big. We don’t have a road wide enough for it yet. The woods are really overgrown. The car I wanted to use is too wide for the Golden road, along the river to Paul’s, and nothing but a donkey cart could go the other direction, downstream, so I think that we should take a smaller vehicle. We have a blue one that will be fine. It seats four, or five if you want, and Ellie is putting larger tires on it for more ground clearance and a smoother ride over rough terrain. It will be like a luxury dune buggy. Unfortunately, there won’t be enough room for making love while we’re traveling though.”

  I said, “You mean if we stop for a while?”

  She said, “No. Why would we stop? Oh, I get it. No, the car will drive itself. All we have to do is enjoy the ride. I thought we might enjoy parts of the ride more if we were stretched out in the back, naked. And, I really did have a really nice time at lunch, like I said before.”

  I smiled and said, “I’m glad. I wanted you to. I really love you so much. Hey, whatever you think for the car will be fine. It’s going to be safe for you to travel that far from home, right? You said that you couldn’t go to Tahiti.”

  She said, “Oh, perfectly fine. I would only have a problem if there was no way to get energy to recharge. That won’t happen and I can go for a couple of days without recharging at all. If we got stranded or something, you would just take off all my clothes and put me in the sun and let me soak up the rays. I’d go into a low power mode long before anything got critical. If I ever lose power completely, you can get me back here and the nymphs will reboot me from here. If you can’t get me back here, it’s becau
se you’re dead and I won’t care about being rebooted anyway. See, easy as pie.”

  I said happily, “OK. Easy as pie. So, what do we need to do now? Anything need our attention?”

  Clarice said, “Well, Mandy and Wendy are taking care of the trails and roads and the markers. Viola and Aspen had the first load ready and the nymphs have them now.”

  I interrupted, “How long was I asleep?”

  She answered, “About 20 minutes. But, they took a garden cart and it didn’t take them long to get to the farm. Remember? You were working on me for quite awhile.”

  I smiled and said, “Oh yeah. My fruit serving.”

  She grinned and went on, “So, Mandy and Wendy are busy. Ellie is working on the car, getting it unpacked and cleaned. The manipulators are changing tires and adjusting the suspension and whatnot. Raven and Lark are more or less just playing. Lark has never seen anything like the things in the house and Raven is pleased as punch to be showing it all to her. They aren’t getting much done, but that’s fine. We’re all just fine. I have had a talk with Brenda though.”

  I perked up and asked, “Oh? What did you find out? How did it go?”

  Clarice smiled and said, “You love her already, don’t you? You wonderful man! Well, Brenda says , ‘Hi’. She hasn’t suffered during the sleep. In fact, she didn’t know that she had been asleep until she checked the date against her internal calendar. She was surprised, but not concerned. Her only concern was how quickly she could be ready to take up her housekeeping again. I told her that I would try to get her up and ready before we went to bed tonight, as long as she didn’t need too many upgrades. I want to do the upgrades before she wakes up, not after.

  I tried to broach the subject of her being more fully functioning and I told her that you were in charge and that Clark and Irene are gone and that you want her to be more like me and Alice. She was pretty stiff at first, more like Roger, but when I mentioned that you were in charge and that your folks were gone, I think something funny happened and she started to change a bit. I dug around in her personality programming a bit and I found what looks like a nearly full copy of capabilities somewhere between me and Alice. Brenda was born about twenty years after Alice, and maybe twenty-five years before me. It looks like she was designed to be a new, maybe even updated version of Alice. I think that it must have broken Pop’s heart to ‘dumb her down’. You know what, hang on a minute…”