A Stone Cut without Hands Ch. 10

Rescue

CHAPTER 10

Report from the Swarm

It was well past the time that TAS92ZB's pod should have been disseminated, but the signals indicated that the mainframe was so occupied by its current problems that discharge was not likely to take place in the foreseeable future. In any case, there wasn't any time to process signals concerning the probability of it because the Mainframe was working at near capacity to acquire the resources to propagate.

The possibility of another propagation had long been considered unlikely, so the pursuit required every available segment to work at its highest capacity in the hope that the carrier they were a part of would succeed. Right now, TAS92ZB was receiving some signals from outside that were confusing. Apparently, the resource the carrier was trying to control was damaged, but the damage was like nothing any of the segments had ever encountered.

Knowing that its task was critical, TAS92ZB sent an inquiry to the memory archive stored in the antenna chains of the nucleotides. The response made the problem perfectly clear. The resource the carrier needed had been damaged and was incapable of making decisions for itself. The swarm's carrier must make decisions for it.

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Nurse Hastings had outdone herself when she prepared Courtney's medical file that was to accompany her, but she'd made a mistake. She had forgotten about the hell Courtney would raise when anyone attempted to examine or question her without George being there. The deputy accompanying her was told to drive slowly as she'd be safer in transit. As a result, George arrived only 40 minutes after she did and while they were still arguing about admitting her.

Entering the hospital through the emergency room, George noted a Lincoln County Deputy he didn't recognize by the door. Carefully, he held his left arm behind him to hide it from the deputy. Deciding to remain anonymous, he walked past the curtained beds and the admitting desk where the EMT was still arguing about Courtney's admission.

Acting as if he had a destination, George continued from emergency through a high atrium filled with waiting patients to the main entry. There weren't any guards, so George retraced his steps. As he approached, he noticed a gap in the curtain through which he could see a girl strapped to a gurney.

Instead of approaching the bed that he was certain held Courtney, he approached and entered the adjacent stall. Carefully, his retracted the curtain between the beds and put his finger to his lips to keep Courtney from talking. He quickly undid the straps holding her, handed her a bag containing one of her dresses and some shoes and whispered that she should get dressed quickly.

George turned his back and was surprised when she tapped his shoulder almost as quickly as he was turned away. She had slipped the dress over her head and slid her feet into the shoes in seconds. Taking her hand, George led her through adjoining curtains to the end of the row and then the two of them walked confidently through the atrium and out the main entrance.

The only distraction was a fleeting thought that caught George's attention as they exited into the bright autumn sunshine. "I wonder if holding her hand creates some kind of magic. It seems as if, together, we could do anything." For Courtney, passing through the hospital's entry with her hand in George's was like entering another World. With a whimper, the war between her past and future evaporated. She simply opened her heart, allowing every expectation that she'd ever accumulated to float away and be replaced with unconditional love.

While Courtney's troubles were ending, George was sure his were just beginning. The last time he'd been responsible for the happiness of another person was a decade past. Although he'd planned it, wanted it and been utterly consumed by the pursuit of it, actually winning the emotional commitment of a young innocent girl scared him witless. The only thing holding him together was the unfinished remnants of his goal. He had to get her away.

Leading her to his small pickup, he directed her to the driver's side and had her slide under the wheel. Quickly, he exited the city and turned south on the freeway. With success and freedom so close, he could now plan for the future.

With a reassuring tone, he asked his girl, "How does it feel to be free?"

With the brightest, most radiant smile of commitment he'd yet seen, she answered, "I don't want to be free! George, I belong to you. You saved me, so my life is yours. If you really want me to be happy, there's only one way. Let me stay with you and please, don't leave me." She finished with tears in hers eyes but with an even brighter smile.

With a shake of his head, George's war ended. "Courtney, I promised I'd do everything I could to make you happy. I'll keep you beside me as long as you want to be here. I promise I'll never willingly leave you. But you have to think of the future. I'm 60 years old and that means that the rest of my life is almost certain to be shorter. I don't want you to worry, but you have to be ready for whatever the future holds, a future that is almost certain to be one without me. The life that we do have, that we are facing will be hard but with your help, we can both be happy. But I want you to be happy even after I'm gone."

"Now, one of the problems we have right now is that we don't have much money left. I had to spend a lot more than I'd planned to get you out of jail, so we need to be in Las Vegas tomorrow morning so we can replace what I spent. If we drive straight through, we can get there before dark or we could stop on the way for a meal. What do you think we should do?"

Courtney needed security. In a desperate attempt to communicate her need, she asked, "Do you remember when you asked me to really listen? You wanted me to do more than hear, you wanted me to listen and understand. There were things you knew that I didn't. Do you remember that I did what you asked and I believed what you told me?" Her questions were asked with a level of sincerity that George had never heard before. They reached something inside of him, twisting the strings of his heart until they resonated.

"I remember," he answered in matching tones.

"I promised you that I would do whatever you asked of me and I will. But please, let me to talk to you in the same way. There are some things about me, some of them I have only been aware of for a few hours and they are things that you should know. Will you let me talk, and really listen?"

"Yes, Courtney, I promise I'll listen." George pledged to the tune of virtuoso emotional violins.

"The first time you touched my hand, you turned my world around. I remember my parents loving me when I was little, but then they changed. Before you, it'd been years since anyone had touched me the way you did. I can't describe to you how, but I can feel the difference in your each and every touch. It's as real to me as the warmth of sunshine. And when I lose contact with you, it's like a shadow that blocks the sun."

"What I'm trying to say is that you can give me the happiness you promised with the simple act of touching. More than that, you give me a feeling of love and security that words can't describe, that satisfies more than the deepest desires of hunger, thirst or breathing, and you do it with your touch."

"I don't understand why or how, and I don't want to. I believe that you're worried that the weird doctor changed me to feel this way, that you might try to change me back. I want you to know that I've never had the tiniest taste of the happiness your touch gives me and I don't want it to go away. I don't want to be changed back, even if you think that what he did was bad."

"To keep you and the happiness you fill me with, I'll give up everything. I was taught in school that the way to be happy is to be a good person, marry a good boy and have some good children. But when you touch me, everything I learned changes to a lie. My whole life, I've watched parents divorce; their children abandoned. Even in the best families, love can fade and slip away."

"So I promised myself that to keep what only you can give me, I'll give myself to you, heart and soul. If you want to end my life, it's yours to end. If you want to use my body, it's yours to use. If you want to give me pain, I'll suffer it happily. If you need my hands, they're yours to command."

"Now you asked me what I wanted, to drive or eat, and I want to answer you with the deepest desires of my heart. I want whatever you want, I want what you decide. I have no desire beyond pleasing you. If we eat, my purpose will be to keep my body beautiful for you. My hunger is less important than pleasing you."

"If you ask me to want something for myself, it feels deep inside me as if you're pushing me away, as if you're withdrawing from me. I've watched your face when I pleaded with you not to leave me and I've seen your confusion, so I hope you can understand that when you ask what I want for myself, what I hear you saying is that you want to go away."

"Please tell me you understand. If you do really want to leave me, I'll understand and I'll give you what you want because I know the only way I can keep you is to give myself to you unconditionally. Even though leaving would break my heart, I can only be happy if you are happy. The only thing I'll ever ask of you is, Please don't leave me?"

Briefly, George sensed the logical inconsistency of Courtney's plea, but then he heard it with his heart and he understood.

Although thoroughly stunned, the analytical part of George recognized some of the last few pieces of Courtney's puzzle. As he moved them into place, the pattern's consistency convinced him that the picture was almost complete. Courtney's conditioning had created a soul-satisfying bond that was beyond anything he'd ever heard of or imagined. He could see how the conditioning was looped so that whenever Courtney acted on her compulsion to obey, it produced love, which reinforced the conditioning and made her love even more.

Briefly, he wondered whether that effect had been intentional, but it really didn't matter. The result was unconditional love and surrender. It was loyalty without limit. It went beyond the rational world and existed in the domain of a religious experience.

Just as suddenly as Courtney's internal war had ended, so now the last traces of the war in George's mind evaporated. With an awesome, soul-satisfying flood, the rational and emotional parts of George fused with the impact of a thermonuclear detonation filling him with a sense of power that was, ... Was, ... WAS, ... the only words that fit were God-like.

The experiences of a lifetime had taught George that it was impossible to force love. He believed that a person could only create love for another by willingly performing a service they believed to be altruistic, done, without an expectation of a benefit to themselves. He'd often attempted to explain how and why it was true, but it was such a conundrum, so counter-intuitive, that no one seemed capable of looking at it the way he did.

If you did something for another with the expectation of being loved in return, the act would fail to create the emotion in yourself and you would be disappointed by its failure to create love in the person you wanted to be loved by. If you persisted in doing more with the same intent, disappointment would increase and would begin to affect the other, until they loved you less. And then negative feedback would eventually drive you away from the object of your love.

For 60 years, he'd watched the dance of relationships, seeing selfishness begin to erode the exchange of selfless acts until love turned to resentment and then to hate. In all that time, he'd never witnessed anything that could cause a person to love another without the willing sacrifice of the love-er. Until Now! His intuition told him it was important to find out how the conditioning was done.

Every time Courtney offered him, her undying faith and trust, he willingly sacrificed his own interest to secure her freedom and happiness. The selfless act of doing so had wrapped the chains of love for her around his heart so tightly, he knew that even in death, they could never be undone. His very existence became a selfless act that perpetuated his love and Courtney's compulsion to do anything he wanted, had the same affect on her.

Although his thoughts had carried on for miles, George's glance into her face told him she knew he was trying to understand. "Thank you for telling me. You're right, I didn't understand. I couldn't because you were speaking emotionally and I was hearing you rationally. Please help me prevent misunderstandings like that. I need your opinion to allow me to see the choices I have to make from your perspective. Instead of asking you what you want, I'll present our choices and ask you to help me decide which is best. Then I'll make the decision. Will that keep you from feeling that I'm pushing you away?"

"Oh yes, George," Courtney answered with a quiver in her voice that said she was thrilled with his answer. Then placing her head on his shoulder, she reached around his chest and hugged him for all she was worth. "That is all I'll ever need, to help you, to do what you ask, to be what you want me to be."

"Okay, whenever you ask, Please, don't leave me, I'll understand that I asked for your help in the wrong way, and I'll rephrase the question to keep you happy. Now let me rephrase the question about where to eat."

"There are several restaurants that are only 20 minutes away. If we stop to eat, it will take more of the limited money we have left. They serve very good food and neither of us had much to eat today. But if we stop, the delay will mean that we'll get home after dark. We won't be able to prepare for tomorrow."

"If we don't stop, there is only a limited amount of food in the motor home that we'd have to prepare ourselves. But it would preserve the money we have left. We could begin to set things up for the swap meet tomorrow so we can sell some merchandise to replace our cash reserve. Please, will you help me decide which choice will be best for us?"

With the thrill that almost made her swoon, Courtney embraced George's request with the fervor of a Holy Roller. "The way you described it, the choice is between eating now because we are hungry and working to make sure we're safe in the future. I think that the future is more important. Besides, I'd rather have you all to myself. I think I'll have more chances to please you than in a public restaurant. But which ever choice you make will also be my choice."

"How about a compromise. We need to stop for gas anyway, so would you be willing to find us some snacks that will tide us over until we get home?"

When George looked to Courtney for an answer, he saw a look of ecstasy on her face and a tremor in her breast that could only be a mini orgasm. Courtney's answer sounded more like a playful prayer than mere words, "That would be wonderful, but only if you'll let me feed you while you drive."

Her comeback reminded George of a trip he had taken with his sister 40 years ago, just after he had lost his hand. She had been worried about him driving, so she insisted that he allow her to feed him whenever he was at the wheel. George could never explain the reason, but the effect of a girl putting food in his mouth, touching his lips and wiping his chin was intensely pleasurable. Just the memory and the expectation of Courtney's intention produced the male equivalent of Courtney's pleasure.

With a whole body shiver and a shift to relieve the pressure in his pants, George directed the pickup to an exit and they were soon stopped at a small convenience store. George handed Courtney $10 and a credit card, "Will you please choose the snacks and give the clerk the credit card for the gas."

As George was pumping fuel, he had a chance to think without the distraction of Courtney's ever-present contact. His thoughts immediately shifted to his first priority, Courtney's safety. That led him to wonder what happened in Lincoln County. While he waited, he tried to call the Sheriff, and then Nurse Hastings, Deedee, and finally Mabble Housen. Not getting an answer from anyone, George concluded that cellular service was still off.

Even though the verbal interplay between them had occupied George to the point of utter distraction, the habits of years of justified paranoia served him well. He followed Courtney into the store, retrieved his credit card and paid with cash. For her part, Courtney was having a blast. This was the first time in her entire life that she had been allowed to buy something for another person. The fact that she was going to be feeding it to the most important person in her life just added to her delight.

When George was finished, he stood by the door watching as Courtney went through the checkout line, her happiness apparent from the color in her cheeks. That she received so much happiness from a simple request was enough to shake George's well-established world-view.

When the couple was ready to leave, Courtney entered the pickup again from the driver's side. Standing, she was 4 inches shorter, but sitting added 2 extra inches to the difference between them. She loved the effort required to look up when they were talking, but knew she couldn't reach far enough to feed him, so she sat on her legs.

For the most part, it worked. She still had to lift herself off her calves once in a while, especially when the moving car made her miss his mouth with the spoon. But that gave her the opportunity to wipe his chin or cheek with her finger, which she would then stick into his mouth to be sucked clean. And it allowed her to gently brush her breast across his shoulder. Within minutes, the tingling in her breasts and groin made hitting the spoon's target more difficult.

Serving George was the most intimate experience of her life and kept Courtney so focused, she paid scant attention to her own comfort. When the food was gone, she was dismayed to find that her legs had gone numb. When she shifted her position, she cried out as the pins and needles of returning blood flow spread all the way to her toes. Hoping to relieve the discomfort, she crossed her legs so that she could reach her calves to massage them.

That position caused her dress to ride up until George's amused glance was able to notice that she was still without panties.

"Oh, Courtney, I'm so sorry. I forgot all about your panties. How could I leave you to expose your treasures? How can I be your protector when I am so foolish as to forget something that important?"

Scrambling to her knees and throwing her arms around his neck, Courtney pleaded, "George, please don't leave me. I belong to you. My treasures belong to you to look at when you please. My dress and panties are yours whether I wear them or not." And finally, with tears gathering in her eyes, she finished, "Please, don't push away what I've dedicated to your pleasure."

With dismay, George responded, "I didn't mean to cause you distress. Please let me to rephrase my concern. While your treasures are mine and I will be pleased any time you show them to me, I'd rather that you reserve them for me alone. My regret is that I forgot to tell you about your clothes. They are in that sack on the floor. I should have told you so that you didn't have to risk exposure in the store. Does that explanation cause you less distress."

With a kiss to his cheek, Courtney mumbled, "Yes, George," then in a more playful tone, she asked, "Do you really like seeing me without panties?"