Ocean's Edge Book 01: The Tides

While I knew we were going to learn a lot about how things were done, the back stories of Charlotte and Sarah were stories I knew wouldn't be told that day. I wonder, though, if we would ever know them.

"I also know that it's a private affair and not for the meddling eyes of others. When the bond is finally cemented, it's a personal and touching moment that is shared only by those involved. With that said, I'm sure our new friends would like to know how we choreographed the execution of your fantasy," Sarah said as she looked at me.

"I'm dying to hear this," I said with a wide grin.

"As I mentioned to you before, this is a company house. With that, we were able to make several modifications to the property. Do you remember when you had trouble working out the differences between the spacing of the doors and the size of the rooms?"

I nodded.

"You weren't crazy. There's a hidden room there, accessible only from the garage. In that room is where we run the entire show. Now, you might think there were video cameras and microphones all over the place. You'd only be half right. There are absolutely no video cameras on this property. We only use audio queues to move the role play along. Charlotte, Chloe and Nathan all had small inserts in their ears that we were able to use to communicate to them."

I raised my brow and nodded my head slowly in appreciation of the effort they put into everything for us.

"Most of the people here manned the secret room at some point and helped make everything as seamless as possible."

I looked around at everyone and would not have guessed so many people to be involved.

"Even better," she added, "they were all previous customers that volunteered. Everyone else who did not help in the house helped in some other way specifically related to your vacation."

"That's impressive," I said out loud.

"Thank you. With all that knowledge out in the open, what questions can I answer for you? Come on up here, you three."

We made our way to the foyer and stood next to Sarah.

"How did that ad appear on my computer," I asked. "Knowing what I know now, it felt targeted."

"It was," she said, "Ralph over there was able to target multiple websites and isolate multiple instances of single IP addresses and figure out who was hitting the same websites multiple times. We didn't have any information other than your IP address, so we targeted you based on that," Sarah informed us.

"I assume that it would have been a simple fantasy vacation if there were no siblings involved?"

"Yes, we would have just made a sixth day for you without all the fanfare that you got to be a part of."

I shifted my position a little, "How did you know to target Angie's computer?"

Sarah looked at me apprehensively, "We took your situation and used our hacker, Johnny, to locate your nearest relatives. That's how we came up with everything you experienced."

"You were able to locate Angie through me?"

Johnny walked up to the front of the crowd, "I sincerely apologize, but I did trace everything I could find to her."

"You have absolutely nothing to apologize for," I told him. "I'm glad you did what you did."

Sarah chimed in, "We have a system of checks and balances and if we thought the targeted family member would not have submitted to the theme of the "party" as it were, we would not have engaged them personally."

"Have your investigations ever failed?"

"Absolutely," Sarah admitted, "I would say our success rate is 50/50 at best."

"And you compensate for every failure you encounter?"

"Yep," she said.

Sarah looked to me for more questions.

"What would have happened if we rejected the actors you placed here when we arrived for day one?" I asked.

I knew it was a touchy question.

"That's never happened to us, but if it ever did, we would have had the actors leave the house."

I considered what she said and had one final question.

"What would you do in that instance to make the guests feel like their beliefs weren't invalid?"

Sarah scrunched her face at my question, but didn't dismiss herself, "We don't have a contingency plan for that. We would have to make a decision on the fly with that scenario."

"How long have you been doing this?" I asked.

Sarah looked me over before responding, "It's been fifteen years since my son seduced me."

"Is he here now?" I asked.

She pointed to a man standing in the middle of a group of other men, "That's him."

"Did you do something like this?"

"No, he did it the old-fashioned way. Things like this weren't available back then," she recalled, her eyes fixed on her son.

"I'm full of questions, I know."

"It's okay," she assured me, "ask anything you want!"

"We noticed there wasn't much in the way of cars when we showed up and never saw any trace of anyone when we ventured outside. What's going on with that?"

"Oh, well we own this house and the ones that directly have views of the back yard," she said confidently. "Everything across the street is owned by another company since they wanted something along the river. We try to use this one as much as possible since we know there will be no one in the surrounding houses."

"So, everything about the drones was just a show?" I asked

"I'm afraid so," she said with a shrug of her shoulders.

"So, how did you know how to set up this room and the master bedroom like my sister's place?"

Sarah stopped gazing at her son, "When I went there to sign her up, I asked her to get some papers that I was sure she was not prepared to have ready. When she went to get them, I snapped a couple pictures. The bedroom I was able to see when I used her bathroom before leaving."

"Hey!" Angie said loudly from across the room.

We both turned our attention to my sister to ensure she wasn't offended at the intrusion.

"You're super sneaky!" she added.

"Dear, you have to be to do what we do here," Sarah replied.

I didn't have any questions left. They had planned almost everything to perfection, and we finished our afternoon meeting everyone who had a hand in our fantasy vacation. While Sarah and Charlotte's story wouldn't be revealed, we learned about other vacations that brought families together in a new way. We had more drinks and dinner before we ended up leaving. Angie said goodbye to everyone, spending a lot of time thanking Sarah for including her into our vacation. Chloe gave Brandie her number in hopes of meeting up with her again.

As we began to make our way to the door, I realized there was one more thing left I needed an answer to.

"Charlotte!" I said loudly, calling her over to us.

"Yes?"

When she was out of earshot of everyone else, I asked about her and Nathan.

"That moment you and Nathan had in the living room. You seemed pretty emotional about it. What happened?"

She turned and watched her son for a moment before returning her attention to us.

"There was something new in the way he approached me that day. I often felt he we were just enjoying each other's bodies. We always retained the natural love we had for each other, but that day, he showed me something different for the first time."

Our stories were similar.

"Did you end up talking about it the night you left?"

"We did. He confirmed my thoughts. He confessed a new and renewed love for me in his heart. Our experiences together will be significantly different from now on, for sure."

Angie wrapped her arms around my waist, and I put an arm around her shoulder.

"Thank you for doing everything you did. You made such a difference to our lives."

"It's no problem at all, Frank," she said with a sly smile, "I liked having you here and glad I could help you like they helped us."

I scanned the room one more time.

I looked everyone over.

"Let's go home, ladies," I whispered as I turned around and headed out of the house for the last time.

In our story, the tide came in strong and brought a new layer of sand. It started wet and firm as we walked and enjoyed the prospect of creating a new path forward. The next story will bring a storm that will remove any sense of familiarity that we thought remained ahead of us. It will also bring us closer than even the incoming tide was able to do.

BIOGRAPHIES

Frank:

Frank is a six-foot-tall, 263-pound man. Don't let the weight fool you, he is no slouch. His half American, Half Italian frame is built on strength and endurance. His muscles are toned and ripple his skin, exhibiting his muscular frame. He is an older gentleman with greying brown hair and matching goatee. His eyes are a deep European brown. As with your stereotypical Italian, he naturally speaks with his hands. His closest friends and family each have their own nicknames, the rest are subject to his more American persona. "Bitches" is a common and loving reference to his friends; that choice ruling over "killers" as his second favorite. He's a favorite choice of women everywhere since he's done time in the big house for crimes committed in the name of women everywhere.

Brandie:

Brandie is a spitfire of a woman standing at five feet ten inches tall with a muscular frame weighing in at 185 lbs. Like Frank, she is toned and sculpted in all the right places. What will draw you to her is her fiery red hair that many strive but fail to mimic. To lure you in even more is her hypnotic light blue eyes that will fill your mind with song as you stare into them. Her breasts measure a nice 30C that have all the men and even some of the ladies gawking. She's an athlete with a heart of gold, always laying hands on her closest humans. She comforts those she loves with a soothing touch to your arm or back letting you know everything will be okay. The intensity of her stare hypnotizes even herself as she quite possibly could lose herself in the moment as she focuses her entire being on you. You'll know she's in deep thought when her fingers specifically rub the space behind her left ear. While that action may put make her sleepy, her true trance-like habit comes when she focuses on a book or movie and mouths the lines she's exposed to.

Angie:

Angie is Frank's sister and absolute mirror image of him in this world. She fits the stereotypical Italian-American role than her brother but also embraces the American culture. She'll greet you with a pleasing "Ciao amore mio" but leave you with a nice "later gator." She also not afraid to create a uniquely American insult such as "dick hole" and will reserve that special label for those who upset her. She's of average height and weight but will grow into a freight sized load of dynamite if she gets upset. Don't get in her way. Even with all this, she has more going on under the hood. She's particular about certain things like leaving a towel in an unsightly manner or making a cup of coffee in a manner that didn't suite her. Stirred precisely four times with the handle presented to the right will get you where you need to be. Anything else and you might be subject to her fury.