Courtship by Proxy

"Karen Mayes," she interrupted.

"That's the cloud," he confirmed.

"I know Karen Mayes," she said, "and I know what she believes you did to her life. I knew all about it before I decided to announce my love for you and it didn't deter me. Nothing will deter me where you are concerned Kyle. I will never let Karen Mayes or your memories of her stand between you and me. I will never let her hurt you again."

"I'm not concerned with her hurting me, Bubbles. I'm concerned about me hurting you. I honestly don't know what I did to Karen, but whatever it was, it turned a sweet girl who I thought cared deeply for me into someone who held me in such contempt that I have never been able to forget it. I would rather walk away from you right now than risk doing the same thing to you. If you know Karen, and you know what I did to her, please tell me."

"In the first place Kyle, I will prove that my love for you is stronger than your fear. I won't let you walk away from me over this or anything else, so get that notion out of your head right now. Secondly, you did nothing wrong with Karen Mayes. It was always her, not you or anything you did. I told you weeks ago that I was 'broken' Kyle, and that is why I couldn't just come directly to you and profess my love as I think we both would have preferred. I had to come to terms with a lot of emotions in my life, some involving you, but most involving other people. I was scared, insecure, and even ashamed of my weakness towards you, so I have had to resort to the use of proxies to help me prove myself to you. You couldn't fix me Kyle, and you can't fix Karen Mayes. Please don't try."

"Okay," he said. "I don't want to talk about Karen Mayes anymore. So, do you think there is any chance that I will see you this week?"

"I hope so, but it may not be until after you return to California."

"But I thought you were in the area of the hotel?" he said in confusion.

"Kyle, I could walk to you right now and my shoes would hardly get dirty, that's how close I am, but I don't think I'll be ready to see you until later in the week, which means that if I have to come to you in California, that is what I'll do."

"I hate not being able to plan things for you – for us, like you can. I want to be able to send you flowers, text you with mushy words of endearment, or call just to hear your digitally altered voice. How would you feel if you were in my shoes?"

"I would be miserable, but I'm moving as fast as I can to end your misery – our misery. We share that too Kyle."

"I know we do," he said.

"There is actually another reason why I want us to spend time together on the phone this week," she said. "Once we're together for good, I want you to know that I will still take care of you wherever your travels take you or how far you are from me. So, to that end, would you like to watch a movie with me?"

"Explain the process," he said.

"At the bottom of the basket you received there should be a USB clip drive."

He looked through the basket and found the drive. "Got it."

"Good,' she said. There are five movies on that drive. Why don't you put it in your laptop and tell me which one you want to share with me tonight?"

He booted his laptop and opened the files on the drive. The movie titles listed were, "Air Force One", "Amanda", "Chasing Liberty", "National Treasure", "Notting Hill", and "Serendipity".

"Okay," he said, "I only know some of these titles."

"That's fine," she told him. "Do you have an interest in watching one with me tonight?"

"I am assuming the process is that we will both start the movie on our computers at the same time and watch it together, while apart."

"That's the jest of the idea," she confirmed. "However, all the movies provided come with an added little feature just for you and me..."

"An added feature?" he asked.

"I think so," she giggled. "All these movies are clothing optional for the audience. I've already opted for lying here in my bed naked with the laptop next to me, but you can do what you want."

"This would work better if we were both on cell phones so we could put the phones on speaker. Can you arrange that?" he asked.

"Of course," she said. "You hurry up and make your clothing choice and I'll call you right back on your cell phone." She hung up before he could respond.

His cell phone rang within seconds.

"I am so sorry Kyle!" she said. "I never wanted to end a phone call with you without telling you that I love you, but you got me so excited that I was anxious to switch phones and neglected my own rule. I'm sorry. I love you."

"As far as I'm concerned, this is just a continuation of the same call, so you get a pass this time. Now I'm going to put you on speaker as I get undress and my laptop situated on the bed. Do you have a preference as far as the movies go?"

"You pick," she said.

"Okay, how about 'Notting Hill? I haven't seen that one in a long time and it is a nice light-hearted comedy that I would like to share with you."

"Good choice," she said. "I'll get queued up on my end, so let me know when you're ready there."

A few minutes later, he told her he was ready. They both launched the movie at the same time and waited for the opening song to start.

""That is my favorite Elvis Costello song," Kyle said.

"What song is that," she asked in response.

"The opening song of the movie. 'She'. Haven't you ever listened to it?"

"Shhh, let me listen."

She
May be the face I can't forget
The trace of pleasure or regret
May be my treasure or the price I have to pay

She
May be the song that summer sings
May be the chill that autumn brings
May be a hundred different things
Within the measure of a day...

As soon as the song ended, she said, "Hit pause."

He paused with her and waited.

"That song was by Elvis Costello?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said. "I have the MP3 version that I could e-mail to you if I ever had your e-mail address."

"I would love to have it, so just hold it for me until I see you next. Hit play."

He hit play to restart the movie.

"Hello?" Kyle answered the phone in a very groggy voice.

"Good morning sweetheart. I know that it's only 4:00am by your internal clock, but you're here now, so it's time to rise and shine. Your breakfast will be at your door in a few minutes, so if you're still clothing optional, get prepared. I'll call you back in a few minutes so we can chat over breakfast. I love you Kyle."

Kyle looked at the phone and smiled. He would gladly sacrifice sleep for the opportunity to have her voice – even digitally altered – be the first thing he heard each morning. As if on queue, there was a knock at his door. He pulled on the gym shorts that he had left at the foot of the bed and answered the door.

"Hey," said the same young man from the night before. "Here's your coffee and breakfast. Do you have the other basket ready to go?"

"Oh yeah," said Kyle. "Let me get it for you." He went to the table and retrieved the picnic basket. While returning to the door he had a thought. He handed the basket to the delivery boy who simply turned and walked away.

Kyle set his new delivery on the table and examined the contents. There was a carafe of what smelled like Hazelnut coffee and two piping hot raisin muffins fresh from the oven. His cell phone rang.

"You're going to spoil me," he said on answering.

"You have no idea how much I am going to spoil you Kyle. You will never, and I mean never doubt my love and devotion to you. Will you share your breakfast with me?"

"With pleasure. Let me put you on speaker so I can pour some coffee."

"Is your breakfast okay?" she asked.

"Perfect," Kyle said, "I was never a big breakfast person, so this is an ideal setup for me. I can eat one of the muffins now with a cup of coffee, and save the other one for later in the morning when I usually get a hankering for something to eat."

"I remember that about you," she said. "You know what I have been craving all morning?"

"No, what?"

"I have been craving a chance to kiss that dimple on your butt."

He chuckled. Tara had refused to accept that the indentation on his left butt cheek was a scar from when he had been shot in Iraq. She insisted that it was just a dimple.

"You mean you want to kiss my boo boo?" he teased.

"Please don't say that Kyle. You don't know how close to a total breakdown I was when I heard about you being shot. I'm sure the innkeeper in Landstuhl will never forget the crazy American woman who was a guest there the entire time that you were in the hospital at Ramstein Air Force Base."

"You were there?" Kyle asked. "Did you come to see me?"

"I visited you every day, Kyle. I had to see for myself that you were going to be okay."

"How come I never knew?" he asked.

"I only visited late at night when I knew that you would be asleep, except for a couple of times when I came into your room dressed as one of your nurses, wearing a surgical mask, but I think you were asleep those times too. I was so scared of losing you, but I was more frightened of my love for you even then."

"Wow," said Kyle. "I guess you really do like me."

She laughed, and to Kyle it sounded like she may have expelled some coffee through her nose.

Between coughs she said, "Maybe a little, but don't let it go to your head."

"So how long have you known me?" he asked her.

"I wish I could put a chronological figure on it that would clarify things for you, but you need to realize that while I may have been alive, I never really existed except for the times when you have been in my life Kyle. For all intents and purposes, I have known you all my life because I have no life without you."

"Who do you work for? I mean, what kind of work do you do?"

"Let's just say that in a round-about way, I work for your uncle."

"Would you like to meet him? How about having dinner with him tonight?" Kyle asked.

"Are you serious?" she said.

"Sure," Kyle told her. "He always wants me to stop by while I'm in town so I could arrange for us to have dinner with him."

"Maybe some other time," she said. "I would need a little more prep time before having dinner at the White House with the President, even if he is your uncle."

"Okay, just remember that you have a standing invitation."

"I'll remember. So what does your day look like? A lot of meetings?"

"I only have one real meeting confirmed. I have left some time this afternoon in case I can get a meeting scheduled with an individual at the NSA I have been trying to get some face time with. If that falls through, I may head over to Langley to visit with the Science and Technology department heads."

"So what time can I plan for having your dinner delivered?"

"Are you planning to share a movie with me again tonight afterwards?" he asked.

"Either a movie or phone sex. We'll wait and see how things progress."

"In that case, let's eat early. How about 6:30pm?"

She giggled, "Clothing optional dinner at 6:30pm coming up."

"The nano technology we have been developing in my department is derived from research I began as part of my doctoral thesis in college," the presenter said to her audience.

"Since we are dealing in a cellular level, and with anatomical terminology that really does little to describe the underlying objectives of the program, I ask you all to please take a moment and look at the illustrations currently on the screen before you."

"You will see a robotic arm at one of our nation's auto assembly plants. This particular robotic arm is tasked with taking a bundle of electrical wire, gathering them together into a tight bundle, and then cinching them to produce a wiring harness that will allow for their more efficient placement within the assembled vehicle. Note that none of the wires are damaged in this process, and in most cases, the combined relative strength of the adjoining wires have made the completed harness much stronger than the sum of the individual wires would be if routed separately. If the robot released the gathered wires prior to the cinch being applied, they would return to their normal state."

"Now imagine that instead of wires, a miniature version of a similar robot was injected into the human body and programmed to seek out specific muscles and either clamp down to compress this muscle, or separate the muscle resulting in its expansion. In essence, that is what our program is about."

The presenter paused as the anticipated mumbling and chatter began within her audience. She turned off the projected images and gave her audience a minute before reclaiming their attention.

Smiling she said, "My hearing isn't that good, but I'm sure I heard several among you asking the same questions; 'Why?' and 'What does this have to do with our nation's intelligence gathering capabilities.' Perhaps I can show you with another little demonstration."

She stood facing fully in front of her audience, brushed the few strands of hair hanging onto her forehead back and then pressed a button on the remote control held in her other hand. Her audience gasped in shock as a horrendous scar gash began to appear at her hairline above her right eye, and then continued down over her eyelid, across her nose, and finally ended at her jawbone below her left ear. Her once beautiful face was now a disfigured and terrifying sight for her audience to behold. Many of them looked away, unable to fathom the damaged beauty before their eyes.

She began walking around the room, allowing any member of the audience who chose to do so the opportunity to examine her face close-up. When their examinations were complete, she returned to the front of the room, pressed the remote once more, and allowed her audience to watch her face as it was restored to its original beauty.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, that is just once example of how nano muscle manipulation could be used for Radical Appearance Modification of our assets in the field, disguise confidential informants to keep them safe, or any other number of valuable uses."

She pressed a button on the remote once more and her next words were spoken in a deep Baritone voice that would have made James Earl Jones proud, "We have already developed nano robots specific to arrector pill muscles, which are the involuntary muscles in our skin that cause goose bumps; skeletal muscles, which are the voluntary muscles used primarily for body movement; and smooth muscles, such as those in most body organs like the bladder or uterus."

She pressed the remote again and her voice returned to normal, "Obviously we can use the nano muscle manipulation to alter voices as you just witnessed, we can also induce an involuntary limp that would fool an orthopedic surgeon, and at the risk of offending anyone or providing false hope, depending on the circumstances, the nano muscle manipulation technology could be used to increase female breast or male organ dimensions."

She let the tittering laugher subside. "Are there any questions?"

"How did you find time to make a pot roast in time for us to eat dinner at 6:30pm?" Kyle asked Bubbles as they sat down together, talking on their cell phones over their dinner.

"Honestly?" she asked. "What a silly question," she giggled. "Of course you want an honest answer."

Kyle had his mouth full of food, so just mumbled, "Um hum."

"My boss' boss' boss knows about my project related to you – I mean 'us', and has paved the way for me to have a very flexible work schedule for as long as I need it. For example, today I only needed to go into the office for a quick meeting, and then I worked from my home office the rest of the day. It was easy to prepare a meal and keep up with work under those conditions."

"Well, I'm going to have to thank your boss' boss' boss sometime. This is a wonderful dinner," Kyle told her.

"Thank you Kyle. It was my pleasure fixing it for you, and I really mean that. It was probably a good thing you weren't around because I was smiling so much while preparing the meal that I wouldn't have been able to pucker my lips to kiss you."

"Oh that wouldn't have been good," teased Kyle.

"Plus," she continued, "This has been a clothing optional meal since I started it this afternoon. I dripped gravy on my body a few times and had to wipe it off myself. Had you been around to clean it off, we would never be eating dinner."

"There are some sacrifices worth making," Kyle said.

"Yes there are," she agreed. "So how was your day?"

"Not as productive as I had expected," he said. "Both of my hoped for meetings with the NSA and at Langley fell through. The customer meetings went well, so it wasn't a total loss."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that. Have you given any thought to whether you want to watch another movie tonight, or do something else?"

"I thought about it," he said. "Let me ask you something..."

"Go ahead," she said.

"On a scale of one to ten, how likely is it that I will see you later this week?"

"Hmmm," she said in hesitation. "I would say the likelihood is somewhere around a 17 or 18 on the scale you provided."

"In that case," he began, "I would prefer to watch a movie with you, with maybe some friendly teasing about what our first night together physically will be like. I don't mind being aroused, and in fact that has proven impossible to avoid since not meeting you, but I think saving my release for when I can share it with you in person would be much more satisfying for me."

"That's fine for you," she said, "and I will go along with your plan. However, you should know that I am not as good at controlling the release of my arousal where you are concerned, and never have been."

"How so?" he asked.

"I'll describe my very first orgasm to you at some time, but I will tell you now that virtually every one since then has occurred simply by thinking of you. I have learned how to fake a coughing attack, stubbing a toe or other bodily event to cover what sometimes seem to be spontaneous orgasms brought about merely by conscious thoughts of you. These orgasms are nowhere near the quality or intensity of what you stimulated when you were physically with Tara, but they have been rocking my world for years."

"Are you telling me that you can just be sitting in a room, or walking down a street and achieve orgasm without any manual stimulation?" he asked.

"All it takes is thoughts of you," she confirmed. "However, it seems that talking with you tends to sooth the savage beast. Well, that's not really true. I guess what talking to you does is that it channels everything to a more physical need so that my body, rather than achieving orgasm, it just becomes hyper aroused in anticipation of physical contact with you. Does that make sense?"

"Too Freudian for me to comment on one way or the other," he said. "But I look forward to much more research into the subject with you."

"Oh me too," she said. "So which movie do you want to watch tonight?"

"I picked last night," he said. "Your turn tonight."

"Okay. Have you ever seen 'Amanda'?" she asked.

"No, is it good?"

"Kind of quirky, and takes some patience to let the story develop, but I liked it," she said.

"Then let's watch it. I think I will enjoy seeing your definition of 'quirky'."

"That was a fun movie. Thanks for sharing it with me."

"You have put up with 'Chick Flics' with me two nights in a row. Do we need to have your testosterone levels checked?" she teased.

He laughed. "Maybe. I would take one of your 'Chick Flic' movies over some action-packed car chase gore-fest or zombie thriller with no substantive plot any day. Much in the same way that I would rather read a novel than simply thumb through a comic book. If that makes me less a man, I can live with that."