Inheritance - Reawakening

"HOLY SHIT!" The expletive roared from him into the open air even as the spunk did the same into Patty's swallowing mouth. His entire body jerked in that chair while his wife greedily gulped down his offering, and as every part of him deflated, he gathered the courage to look up again, scared of what he'd see... which turned out to be an empty hallway once more. "Gone."

He'd mumbled the breathy word spontaneously, but Patty paused in worshipfully cleaning his dick with her tongue long enough to giggle, interpreting it in her own way. "Oh yeah, and then some. You're gonna need, like, a week to fill those reservoirs again, big guy." When she got to her feet and wiped at the shimmery trail running across her chin, she kept her t-shirt up, but only because she seemed to have forgotten it was still there. "I just... God. I don't know. I just hope I'm back in time to empty them out again, my love. I really do."

"So do I." Nate fought to regain his composure. "So do I."

The rest of the morning was spent with Patty's weepy announcement of her intentions to their daughter, their daughter's weepy assurances of understanding, and her preparations to leave on her... sabbatical. She packed light, one bag of amenities and clothing only, and Nate wished he knew if that was a good sign or not.

With an extended round of hugs and declarations of love, Patty walked out the front door at Eleven AM sharp, and no one thought it necessary to mention the fact that not one question was asked or explanation given as to where the woman was going, or how long she'd be gone. In the end, what was the point?

__________

As prophesized, Nate's reservoirs were more than sufficiently refilled by the end of the first week of his wife's absence. However, just as with every other prophecy in history, the actual unfolding of events didn't quite live up to the hopes instilled in it.

Patty wasn't back at the end of the week, refreshed and recalibrated. Patty wasn't back at the end of the month, renewed and recommitted. So, by the third, Nate was despondent, if not wallowing in despair.

And it would have been worse, believe it or not, if not for...

"Dad! You would not believe what I saw at the beach today!" The painfully ebullient ball of vim that passed for Nate's daughter literally threw herself into the sofa next to him when she returned from her outing, heedlessly depositing grainy hitchhikers from her yellow bikini to the furniture as she burst with the need to share her latest little adventure with her father. "There was, like, a mini... circus, or something! It was, I dunno, almost retro. Jugglers and guys eating fire... they just showed up and..."

Nate, back from work only about ten minutes, but already slummed out in baggy, drawstring pants and a ratty shirt--because that was pretty much his uniform by that point--smiled with genuine, and relieved, warmth at Claudia's resilient spirit. He listened raptly and nodded encouragingly at all the right spots, and silently hoped that his little girl would never stop talking. I don't know how she does it, but God I don't want her to lose it.

The fact that she was loving her last summer before college, and was allowed to fully do so due to the permissive agreement already set in place that the teenager wouldn't have to get a job, was everything to Nate. It allowed him to keep hope alive, as trite as that sounded. If Claudia hadn't given up, he told himself, maybe there was a reason. Maybe she knew something he didn't.

"Cloud... Cloud..." Nate raised his hand and chuckled when he realized that the girl had moved on from the beach brigade to just how delicious the fries were at this new little shack she'd stumbled on. "That's great, but..." He dropped his eyes. "Do you have any more... updates?"

Updates. The sanitized word for the texts that Claudia had been getting from nearly the first week of her mother's journey of self-discovery that she refused to share with him. The ones, in fact, that always caused her to get up and go to her room once she realized whom they were from. He wasn't angry about that, especially since he knew somehow that Claudia wasn't doing it out of some bizarre loyalty to the woman who'd left her as thoroughly as she'd left him, but he was nervous. For one big reason.

"Dad..." Claudia's eyes took on a look of boundless sympathy, and she leaned forward to give him a comforting hug. "Still nothing from mom. Just... just them."

"Aisha. Serilda." Nate grunted. Claudia had admitted that much. No messages from Patty, but at least a few about her. From her sister and mother. The sister they had both seen with her tongue right up their loved one's twat, among other things, and the mother who'd enabled them. Hope may be the bedrock of sanity... but, Jesus Christ, sometimes you just had to face facts.

Claudia sensed her father's rising despair and squeezed him tighter. "Dad, you know I'm always your girl, right? Always." She shifted her auburn-haired head on his chest raised her eyes to level a long, serious look at him. "So please don't think... I mean, I don't tell you what they send... what they tell me because it's... well, it's not black and white." She lifted herself up and stared deep into his blue eyes with all the optimism that only someone still in the throes of youth can hold on to. "But, please, trust me when I tell you that you shouldn't give up. There are... there's a place..." She grimaced. "Just hang on. For me."

"Always." Nate tried smiling, and succeeded for a second, then had to concede to reality. "I just... I wish you'd tell me more."

Claudia got a mischievous gleam in her emerald orbs. "Trust, daddy. Fortitude. Perseverance." She laughed and put one of her dainty hands over his heart. "A boatload of other inspirational words... you fill in the blanks. Things will turn out right." The teen paused then and seemed to study her father like he was a modern art painting that needed to be picked apart and interpreted. Probably. At least, that was Nate's own interpretation.

Claudia paused then, and, for the life of him, Nate could only call her posture... nervous. "Daddy... do you love me?" She began idly running her index finger in circles on his shirt.

Nate had to laugh, only hoping it didn't come off as mean. "Is that a serious question?"

Claudia grimaced. "Sorry. Wrong way to say it, I meant..." She looked away. "Do you... want to love me?"

Nate quirked a brow at her, utterly lost. "Cloud, that wasn't any better."

"Right." The girl began giving off a decidedly fidgety air. "Man, this is harder than I--"

Click.

The sounds of a key in the front door may as well have been a gong ringing right next to the pair on the couch, and they both shot right to their feet to face the opening entranceway.

"I'm back!"

The celebratory announcement threatened to shake the rafters when Patty strode into her home like a conquering hero returned from a brutal campaign in foreign lands; complete with booty, if the new, large case that she plunked down on the floor was any indication.

Nate could only goggle wordlessly at his wife; her sudden presence was so unexpected, so completely mind-boggling, he questioned whether he was even truly awake in that moment. "Patty?"

His bride grinned at him, but along with the affection, there was a thread of wariness as well. "Nate, God, it's good to see you again." She strode unhesitatingly right up to him and planted a nice, long, though relatively chaste kiss on her estranged husband's lips. When she was satisfied, she pulled back, out of his trembling arms, and cupped his cheek lovingly. "There's no doubt in me that you hate me a little right now--"

"Patty..." The rasp of her name was suffused with everything from need to anger, and she took it in stride, nodding.

"I know, Nate. I'm sorry... well, I'm sorry it had to go down like that. But I'm here again." She grinned excitedly at him. "Better, now. Truly." A hesitation, and she seemed to have to gather her resolve a bit then. "But... and please don't take this the wrong way..." She sighed. "Call me Cleo from now on. I'm... it's just something that has to be accepted, now."

Before he could comment on that, before he could give voice to how much he truly didn't like it, Patty... Cleo... had stepped away from him and begun the second stage of her... reintroduction.

Nate, more than a bit bemused, truth be told, watched his wife sweep up their daughter in her ropily-muscled arms and swing her about in a wide circle, like she was a child. "My pure, soft, fluffy little Cloud! I missed you most of all!"

That shouldn't have stung, Nate never thought of himself as needing a monopoly on his wife's affections when it came to their daughter, but there they were. Most of all. No hesitation.

"Mooommm!" Claudia squealed with joy as she was hefted, then giggled like the little girl she was being treated as when her mother set her back on her own two feet. "When Aunt... um, when I was told you were going to show up today..." She began to sniffle. "Sorry, but I didn't actually believe it."

She knew? Nate didn't know how to feel about that, but it was very apparent then that his daughter was in much deeper communication with her newfound extended family than was indicated by what he had thought were a handful of brief texts.

"Believe it, baby!" Patty--fuck, Cleo--laughed joyously and kept rubbing her daughter's bare arms, the two women still pressed close. "Larger than life and ready to take it by the horns." She grabbed Claudia by the wrist and began yanking, not hard, but very insistently towards the front door. "Let's go out and get some food. There's... oh God, there's just so much we have to talk about..."

Feeling like a chump, Nate had actually taken a few steps behind the laughing women as they streaked towards the door, until it became clear that his own invite had been lost in the mail. When they were out of sight, he could only blink. Once. Twice. Three times. Then there was nothing else to do but say what had to be said, even if no one felt they had to hear it.

"Well, shit."

__________

A couple weeks. Not so bad, right? Not even two weeks, just thirteen days. Thirteen spans of twenty-four hours. Just northward of eighteen thousand minutes of Nate living in limbo, waiting to see exactly what kind of existence he would have going forward. Gathering data to make important decisions. Two weeks... not so long.

A fucking lifetime. He couldn't fool himself. Day-after-day of watching his spouse go about her business like nothing had changed--other than the fact that she hadn't touched him yet beyond bumping up next to him by accident at night in bed--was torture. How could she just... be this way? Be the same person he'd loved for decades, and also someone who was nothing less than a horror-movie creature who was wearing his wife's face to mock him?

Call me Cleo. That said it all, he supposed.

"Nate, could you pass the milk?" Cleo looked up from whatever she was reading on her phone and smiled guilelessly at him from across the kitchen table. "Running dry here." She waved her spoon at the cereal bowl in front of her and shook her head with a self-deprecating little grin. "How the hell does someone forget to put milk in their cereal before they start eating it? I'm losing it in my old age."

"C'mon, mom. We both know you're fishing for compliments." Claudia, her chair so close to her mother that they were actually touching shoulders, reached her hand up from her lap and poked the older woman in her hard stomach, playfully. "Well fine then, your wish is my command." She cleared her throat dramatically. "You have a body that made every last one of my friends green with envy. There. That what you want to hear?" She poked again. "You trying to make me relive the trauma of every single one of my sleepovers? Do you remember how bitchy jealous pre-teen girls can be?"

Cleo had been affectionate, cordial, and even blithely upbeat every minute she was around her husband after her return. And that was it. With Claudia, however...

"Cloudy Skies! It was all for you, my sweet baby girl!" Cleo twisted her body in a flash and lurched at her daughter, fluttering her fingers on the teen's ribs, succeeding in forcing a loud guffaw in return. "I had to show you just what can be achieved with focus and a clear goal." Those fingers kept going, and the effect on Claudia's body, under that half-unbuttoned pajama top, was distinctive, to say the least, and not wasted in the slightest, judging by Cleo's fixed stare.

After a minute, the wheezing mother and daughter finally wound it down and sat back, both having to catch their breath. Cleo tilted her head, gazing on her offspring with fondness. "I'm so proud, though." She lifted her hand and snaked her fingers between the girl's arm and upper chest, insistently pulling her a bit closer as her thumb moved to and fro over the cotton separating it from the rounded flesh underneath. "You learned that lesson." The middle-aged beauty licked her lips absently. "And then some."

Claudia's smile faded into seriousness as she locked eyes with her mother. She raised her own hand then and ran her palm down Cleo's disheveled, though still lustrous black hair. "Nothing beats a good teacher, huh?"

Cleo pulled her daughter's fingers away from her head, squeezed them with her own, and gave the tips a light kiss. Her voice was low, almost husky when she let them go. "Gotta keep tradition alive."

Simultaneously, both women let out a long, shuddering breath and jerked as if they were coming awake from a deep sleep. Cleo shot to her feet suddenly, and the one hand still pressing on her daughter's side pulled the girl up with her. "Get your tushy up there and get changed, baby. Today's the... we're going to the beach."

"Mom." The teen giggled, but she began following orders like a dutiful daughter. "It's like, seven in the morning..."

Cleo, following behind, smacked the jiggly rump leading the way. "The sun will catch up. This summer won't last forever, and we have to make the most of it while we can. The future may await, but right now is for us."

The next few minutes went quickly, if that could be considered a mercy. Nate could only sit and give little shakes of his head as his two women got changed into what had to be the skimpiest bikinis on the planet, snatched up just one beach blanket, not even a big one, and took off like the house was on fire, without even a perfunctory goodbye to him. Without even a look his direction.

It was long, consequential moments later that the man spied what the ladies had left sitting behind on the table, and he finally nodded once to himself. "Well then. Here we are."

It seemed the decision he'd been struggling with had pretty fucking thoroughly been made for him. Without hesitation, Nate picked up his daughter's cell phone, the one that the teen girl had actually, insanely forgotten to take with her; and if that didn't put a shitty little exclamation mark on the whole debacle, then there was no possible way in existence to sum things up.

He wasn't proud of it, but it was the work of seconds to punch in her password and unlock the device. Not long ago, he'd paid closer attention than he should have over her shoulder as she'd activated her home within a home, and the mono-digit code she lazily utilized was seared into his memory. Up till that moment, he'd vowed to respect her privacy. To trust her as she'd begged him to, but that bit of resilience was complete toast in the face of the soul-crushing suspicions--hell, call a spade a spade; the near certainties--that filled his skull to the exclusion of all else.

Nate took that cursed little rectangle to the living room and got comfortable on the sofa. He had a feeling that he'd be there awhile in his hunt for answers, but that was okay. He was just as sure that Cleo and Claudia would give him more than enough time to get them.

Let's start at the start I guess. He thumbed through the history, at once relieved and deeply disheartened at finding that Claudia had changed her settings to keep her feed from being automatically deleted. Day one; Patty's disappearance.

As he took it all in, his eyes going rounder and rounder with each new revelation, one thought kept repeating itself like a broken record. A broken record whose jagged edges were being plunged into his brain.

Disappearance is exactly the right word.