LiTTLE CHERiNE Book 01 - post022
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“Isn’t it strange? He is totally at her mercy yet he controls her with his love.”
I no longer felt the urgency to fight off the darkness that was calling me. The last thing I heard was her agreeing to the proposal.
That night the girls slept on either side of me. Their presence held the darkness distant and I had my first night of true sleep. In the morning the girls dressed me, packed the bags and I was carried to the yacht in a chair by four islanders. I slept the whole trip back with both girls holding me. Later, Alki was to joke about what happened during the trip. The weather had not been as calm and it was freezing cold, so Marian had stayed in the lounge most of the trip so as to avoid looking at her daughter lying next to me. A few hours before arriving, perhaps compelled by curiosity, she entered the bedroom, saw us asleep and covered all three of us, her face a study of angry bewilderment. Luckily Alki is not like me, he does not need to keep on proving he is witty, so he did not make any comment to her.
Back at home, Cherine silently watched her mother take her clothes and other personal items, waited until her mother left with Alki, then she brought her things down and Dominique re-arranged my things so that there would be space for their clothing. We learnt later that Alki has continued paying the rent for the upstairs flat, in case we need it, so whatever possessions Cherine or Marian left behind are not lost to them.
Because of the delay in returning caused by me, we arrived just in time for the first day of school. Dominique takes and collects Cherine from school. Despite the youth of both of them, their devotion to me is unrelenting. Apart from school and homework, which Dominique insists on supervising, they have no interest in going out or watching videos or anything else. They spend hours each day holding me and I sleep my nights in their arms. Though we all sleep in the nude, there is not a hint of sexual arousal by any of us, they are only tender and loving. If they run their hands over me, which they often do, it is to remind me of their physical presence, or to show me they still love me or to massage me, so as to try and keep my muscles supple.
They both lost weight and Cherine began to look like a starved suffering child from a war zone. The school were worried. Alki was worried. He has become a frequent visitor, bringing everything he can imagine the girls might enjoy eating, including mezedes and cooked food from the Foinicas, a good taverna.
He tried getting me to talk. He talked about the girls, how they need me, but never by shaming me into making more of an effort. He keeps hoping that if I am reminded how much I love the girls, I’ll make the decision to get better. The only reaction he gets are the tears that fill my eyes - and I’m ashamed to admit that at least half the tears are out of self pity. He ignored my tears and encouraged me, with help, to get out of bed and walk to the sitting room. Sitting up for a few hours each day and being able to use the bathroom on my own, once they’ve left me at the door, has made a difference.
One day he talked about the business, the side of it which he knows interest me the most, the art pages. He began to keep me up-to-date as to how many people are writing in, asking when the new sequel to the Kaleidoscope World would appear, plus what other comments are made. He told me how much the series has already made, showed me the Trust he set up for Cherine. When he told her how much money she already has, he was disheartened by her total lack of interest.
One morning, about two months after returning home, Dominique returned from taking Cherine to school, with a package. She opened it and handed me an artists pad of paper and pencils, similar to what she had seen me use at Ydra.
“It is time for you to draw another Kaleidoscope World.”
I just lay there, blankly staring at the pad.
She grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. “Damn you. You have a job to do and you will do it. You promised to finish the series so that Cherine would have her own money. You will keep your promise!” With wonder I looked up at her. “Now draw!” she demanded.
I tried. I could not, tore the paper and threw everything away. I was angry with her - and frustrated. Dominique calmly picked everything up, put it on my lap. “Try again.”
This performance was repeated a number of times until I was shaking and crying tears of anger and frustration. She left, for collecting Cherine, with her parting shot. “When I get back with Cher, you better have done something with that to make your little girl happy.”
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When they returned I saw the disappointment in her eyes. Cherine however was glowing. She ran to me and hugged me. “I felt you! You were so angry. Thank you Robert, oh thank you, I love you so much.”
The first small worm of wonder grew in me. I glanced over her head at Dominique. Sensitive to me she looked around from where she was collecting the paper and pencils. “Yes damn you, space makes no difference, only your distance from us does. You keep going back to that fucking ‘darkness’ of yours, leaving us alone. How dare you say you love us!”
I felt my first small smile twitching on my face. I pushed Cherine from me so that I could see her face. “You help me? Hand trembles.” I looked at Dommi, “Papers. Pencils, soft, black.”
The room became charged with the electricity of their excitement.
With Cherine’s hand on my wrist I drew. I sketched, with just a few lines, the face of a starving, grieving long-haired girl, eyes huge with pain. It was not good, but it managed to speak for me.
They began to cry. Both of them. Despite her shaking from tears, Cherine kept her hand on my wrist as I sketched the little girl who first came to my magical garden. The girl who looked at me with love and delight as we became one. Exhausted I dropped the pad.
“Where…is my…Cherine…baby?”
She hugged me, joy bringing life back to her face. Dominique sat down on the carpet, looking at the two sketches, weeping as if her heart were broken. I managed to raise my hand and Cherine came to me, holding me so tightly it hurt as she proclaimed, “I’m here Robert, I’m here!”
“Not my Cherine. Want her.”
She sat back, her eyes earnest. “It is me Robert. I promise.”
“No. My…Cherine princess, happy. This sick, sad.”
“Not anymore Robert.” They were both laughing and crying and kissing me.
I shut my eyes, but there was no darkness. I tried to feel Cherine in my mind, but there was nothing. Was that what I lost out there, in the void? I rested a while, then told Cherine, “Afraid.”
Dommi asked, “Of what Roberto? We are here.”
“Dying. Not get stronger.”
“No!” they both shouted.
“Yes. No Cherine, no Dommi inside. Dying…help me?”
“Of course my love, anything.”
“You strong…to take me…back?”
Poor little Cherine tried to be the adult since I obviously was like a child from my fears. “Take you back? Back where? You are with us.” She held my face. “We both love you. You will get stronger, wait and see. Then you will be able to feel me in you. Robert, the link is still there, or else I would have died. Please be brave, for me? For Dommi?”
“No. Take me back, to void.”
Their eyes filled with horror, dread, fear.
Dommi was the first to manage to cry out, “Nooo…you belong here with us, not there. Please Roberto don’t do this to Cherine and I.”
“No. Me…lost there. Get back.”
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Cherine, her eyes filled with fear, nodded and a calmness came over her. Dominique screamed in terror. “Roberto. What are you trying to do. She cannot take you back there, even if she can, you are too weak. You will die.” She pulled Cherine to her, furiously. “Stop it Roberto, you must stop her. Can’t you see. She is getting ready to go there without you, she also knows it would kill you. She nearly died last time. She is weaker now, she will die. Stop her, please, please.”
“Cherine.”
She did not respond to me and I began to tremble. I screamed, “Cherine. Come back. Don’t you dare! Come back right now!”
She lay limply in Dominique’s arms. A thunder was in my ears. A thunder of fear. Without thinking, I grabbed Dominique’s hand and with the other the little hand of Cherine. My eyes were burning with terror. How could I get to her?
The link. I must find it.
I shut my eyes probing with my mind, trying to visualise the link, to feel it. As I began to feel despair, I suddenly sensed a light and rushed to it. It was the link. I sped up it, into the darkness, the void. I searched for her, for the warm mist of light. Finally I sensed her ahead and rushing, I gathered her into me. Without a glance for the void, without any fear, I headed for home.
I shuddered and opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was Dominique, face pale and blood on her lips. Then I realised I was crushing her hand. First I checked her breathing and then Cherine moaned and cried. I quickly let go of her hand.. She opened her eyes and they looked at me in wonder.
“It was you!” Then she became conscious of her hand. “Ow, that hurts” she wailed.
Despite her obvious pain, as we drove to a doctor, Cherine was in extremely high spirits. She hugged me, she ran her good hand over my face, my eyes, lips. If we did not have to be circumspect, I do not doubt she would have been wildly kissing me. As it was, the driver kept glancing in his mirror.
The doctor ordered x-rays. A couple of her bones had tiny fractures, but otherwise there was mostly bruising. When we returned home, she held her bandaged sore hand away from her and standing tiptoe pulled me down and kissed me on the lips. It was not a child’s kiss. She seemed to be burning with a fever. I tried to pick her up, but I still did not have my strength back. I sank onto a sofa and she sat on my lap.
“Why don’t you want to open to me?”
“I can’t. I…no, that is not fair. Whatever else, I must at least always be honest with you. I did try, but I could not. If I tell you, promise not to laugh at me.”
“I know why. You are afraid of me.” I knew that of her life, one of her biggest horrors, is to feel that any person she loves, fears her.
“No Cherry baby. I am not afraid of you. I am afraid of myself. Since this all began I have bumbled my way from crisis to crisis, hurting you, hurting our darling Dominique. We have not even known each other nine months and now, because of me, you do not have your mother and your little heart has suffered pains most adults will never know. Oh god, I do not understand why the two of you still love me. I have been a coward. Every time I made a mistake you blamed yourself and I let you.”
Dominique sat by me, the warmth of her alongside me, her hand on my leg. She stroked the long hair of Cherine and then spoke as if I were not with them. “We better wash your hair now, we want it clean and shiny before we go to bed. And we don’t want to sit here and listen to a man talking a load of rubbish, do we? We women got better things to do with our time.” Cherine laughed and agreed.
Dommi spoke to me, “Roberto, before we go, we want one thing from you. Give us a report, how are you. I can see you are back, your eyes are alive again and you can talk better, but how well are you?”
I really did not want to answer, so I teased, “You are only asking because you both want to return to your evil ways of sex every night.”
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Dominique was her old self. Though Cherine could always tell when I was teasing and would mostly play along, good old Dommi rarely does. She takes everything too seriously.
“I want to know. Are you physically well again? Mentally I have to assume you are, even if you are not open to Cherine yet. I guess that will come and knowing your dirty mind, you will soon be back to sharing from both of us again - joining yourself to our bodies. Explain to me, you were so sick and yet in one second you were strong enough to crush her bones, leap into this thing you call the void and bring back Cherine. How did that happen? How can there be such tremendous change in an instant. Pes mou kai afise ta asteia! (tell me and stop the joking)”
“Why do you ask me? Alki has already told you.”
“When? When Robert?” Cherine piped up.
“At his house, he analysed the three of us. I’m not sure he had it all right, but he did a fairly good job, for he saw some truths I had not.”
Of us all, Cherine has the best memory so I was not surprised when she nodded knowingly. “Remember Dommi, he told us Robert is our protector, our warrior. He said we can always trust him with our safety.” She turned back to me. “He also said something else.”
With a sudden glint in her eye, Dommi said, “He told us your weakness is that you will not defend yourself against us. I think Cherine and I deserve to know, have you put the two of us through hell for over two months just because you were hiding from us?”
I sat stunned by the question, but luckily I did not need to respond. My fierce little cub came to my defence. “How can you say that! You do not know what the void is like.” She shivered. “I never want to go back there again!”
“I do.”
They both looked at me in sudden fear again. Dominique stood up. “If you are going to be doing that sort of thing you can count me out. I would rather leave you now than go through this again.”
“Dommi love, sit down will you? I was not talking about going back now. One day, when we are all a lot stronger. I have to. There is power there. I also believe that is where I will find that thing I call the Kaleidoscope World.”
“You are wrong. It is sitting right here on your lap.” Cherine was so certain of herself, I waited for her to continue, but just like a typical female, she jumped up. “Come Dommi, I’m going to wash my hair. If I don’t he’ll probably waste our whole night trying to lick it clean!” She grinned, “Maybe he was a cat in his previous life.”
Dommi grinned. “More likely a chimpanzee.” That made Cherine laugh.
I slapped her bottom and slowly pushed myself to my feet. “I’m coming with. I need to be with you, I can’t stay here alone. And what is this Cherine? Since when did you steal my pet name for her?” I laughed at her outraged expression. “It’s okay, was just wondering.”
“Why do you keep calling me that silly name. Cherry-baby. I’m not a cherry and I’m not a baby!”
“You may not be one, but you sure have one. And you are a baby. You are my baby love.”
“What are you talking about. Where do I have a cherry?”
“In my childhood, I don’t know if it is still used, young men called a virgin a cherry, and talked about picking a girl’s cherry.”
“Oh! So you are calling me a virgin baby?”
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“If you ever deserved to be called a baby it is now, you have shrunk to half your size. Come on girls, wash and let’s get dressed. We are going out for supper to put some meat on those bones. To tell you the truth, I’m starving.”
“Have you taken a look at yourself? You are more of a skeleton than Cherine is. Roberto, why are you limping?”
“I’m not in pain. My one leg feels weaker, that’s all. It will go away. Stop being a mother hen and get her ready.”
Cherine stripped to her panties and knelt beside the bath for Dommi to wash her hair. As her lovely long foamy hair hung in the bath I gestured for Dommi to get out of the way. I began by massaging her scalp, the back of her ears, her ears, the nape.
“That feels lovely.” I smiled and kissed the back of her neck, my lips massaging her. She shivered under me.
“Will you do that again tonight?”
I grinned, “Yes.”
Seeing her body so thin had shocked and hurt me. Her tummy was still rounded, but the rest of her was so awfully gaunt.
As I washed her hair I could not help telling her how I felt. “You are a remarkable little creature. I love you so much it hurts…you are also the bravest person I know. Most men would have been too terrified to go into the void, but not you. But I am also very cross with you. There is a difference between bravery and foolhardiness. To go back there just because I had an idea and was moaning like a baby, that was criminally stupid. You would have died there. Think, if you love us, what do you imagine would have happened to us if you had died there? When you risk your life you put us all at risk. If either Dommi or I die, the two left can carry on, but you die and we all die. Enough said about it now. Just never do it again. If I get another stupid idea, next time argue with me and only go ahead if I convince you I am right, don’t just go ahead because I’m feeling weak and selfish. Understood?”
“I had to go, I need all of you back. I feel like only half of me is here. Robert I ...” and she began to weep.
“I know my love. Remember, I feel the same as you do. Perhaps worse. At least you are aware of the link, you can pick up my emotions. I feel nothing. I have been thoroughly amputated. After living with the glory of being a part of your sweet heart and soul, I am not even half alive without you. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope that it is only my fear which is responsible for the block and I will soon be able to return to you.”
She swung around, dripping water and hugged me. “You really think so? Oh please say yes.”
I laughed with a joy in me that she must have felt. “Oh yes my baby. I do.”
Dommi quietly left the room. I looked at Cherine and she explained to me, “Don’t worry she is not unhappy. She is too happy.”
We came out as Dommi was putting down the phone. She just turned away without explaining and went to dress. Being thoroughly wet I also changed. The little minxes timed it perfectly. As I stripped they came to me, both just about nude and hugged me, pressing every inch of their warm flesh against mine. We stood silent, all drinking in the sensations, the delicious warmth. Without a word, just a glow, we all started dressing again. I could feel myself semi-swollen and aching for them. I read somewhere that a bout of lovemaking boosts our immune system and awakens our metabolism. I can only hope that being aroused will also stimulate my body so that I can love my girls that night.
Though Cherine and her gifts change Robert, and his responsibilities vastly increase, weighing ever more heavily on him, till the last of my books that follow their lives, Robert in essence remains at heart an artist.
Will this fact help him as a leader of a people who must break away from the past and find a new way to live?
Molis to diavada..foveri ekseliksi.. kalo bradi..