The Empath Cycle: 1949 In The Beginning

She stroked Ari's and Jules' hair, calling softly to them as she nodded to Martine to do the same with Cat. "My loves, Ari, Jules, this is Sarah. Your Sarah. Listen to my voice. Hear me, please. I need you to come back to me. I miss you terribly. I miss playing naughty games with you." She lay behind Ari, pressing her body as close as she could against hers and reaching over to pull Jules in her embrace. "See, we are playing the sandwich game. I have been a good girl and so have you. Now it's time to play together. Show me that you can hear me."

She and Martine went on relentlessly for long minutes, telling their loved ones how much they loved them and how they missed them, urging them gently to come back to them.

Sarah was beginning to worry. 'Did I misread the situation that badly? Can I have been so wrong? If so, what else can I do? I don't know! Mother, I don't know! They can't be gone forever! Noooo!"

That's when she felt a familiar echo at the edge of her perceptions. Her heart leapt in hope.

Ari turned in her arms and with a grin she said. "Where have you been, Sarah? We have been calling to you, but you were too far and we could not reach you."

"ARI! JULES! YOU'RE BACK!" She shouted, forgetting all of her professional reserve and whatever instructions she may have given her team.

"Yes, our love, we never left, we just could not reach you." Jules said, sitting up behind Ari. "Now we are here and we definitely heard you say you missed playing naughty games with us and that you have been a good girl."

The two bonded women brought Sarah between them and showed her just how much they had missed her too.

Taking her in their arms, they kissed her with all the love and passion they could. Their hands caressed every single inch of her body they could reach. When they used a variant of reflexology she had taught her therapists on her hands, she started. "Cat taught us. We had lots of time to play together and she showed us many tricks." Jules answered her unspoken question. When they came up her arms, they followed the meridians, paying special attention to the nerve clusters which they stimulated, all the way to her neck.

Sarah was overwhelmed by her joy at the return of her loves, but also by their ministrations. As always, their mere presence near her inflamed her senses. Now, it went far beyond that. Just by kissing her and massaging her hands and arms, they had her so near that the brush of a feather would not only send, but catapult her over.

Ari leaned over Sarah so she could look her in the eyes. Softly, but projecting all their love for her, she said. "You are our Sarah, our heart-mate, our love, we are one now and forever."

That sent Sarah's mind blazing in a magnificent orgasm. All of her senses overexcited, all of her nerves overstimulated, she would have gone into shock if not for the nova of love she felt absorbing her, anchoring her to itself. "YEEESSS!!!! I'M YOURS! TAKE MEEEEEE!!!!" With a grin, Ari put the tip of her finger to Sarah's chin and barely touched it. Immediately, reflexively, without conscious thought, her body arched to the extreme of her tendons. Jules came up from Sarah's breasts and clamped her jaws to the offered throat and growled, applying definite if gentle pressure for a second until Sarah unconsciously whined her total and absolute submission to her pack.

The two/one women/woman looked at each other and grinned before resuming making love to their heart-mate, keeping her both physically and psychically at the peak of stimulation. They/she had decided that this would be a wedding bedding to be remembered, if only by the three of them.

Jules went back to Sarah's chest where she left her loving mark from neck to abdomen. She licked and kissed each, healing any minor trauma her bites may have caused. Then she went back to the heaving breasts, kneading the soft but firm flesh as her mouth made love to the nipples with lips, tongue and teeth.

Ari had gone between Sarah's legs. She licked and bit her way down one then back up the other. Stimulating every nerve along the way with her hands and her mouth, stopping for a moment at every nerve bundle and applying Sarah's own version of reflexology to her feet as she sensuously sucked one toe after the other in her wet mouth.

When she arrived back at Sarah's vulva, she was not surprised to see her vaginal opening gaping and a steady flow of cream leaking from it. She kissed the blood engorged lips as she had the others a moment earlier. Her tongue invaded the heated orifice and lapped greedily at the sweet ambrosia. When her tongue reached lower to follow the trail of the flowing love secretions, Sarah lifted her legs instinctively, tilting her hips to give Ari better access to all of her body. She licked the sensitive area between both gaping holes as Sarah had already willingly anticipated her caresses and offered a relaxed anus ready for penetration or whatever Ari wished her to submit to.

Sarah had played sex games with and fucked many partners in her life, but never had she truly made love before her wives had come to her that first evening. Now she experienced sexual love/pleasure of a much higher order of magnitude. They stimulated her body to unheard of extremes that should have burned her mind, but she could feel their careful approach as they kept her bouncing from one orgasm to the next for what felt like forever. She was completely in their mental hands and she willingly submitted to their love, truly unafraid in their passionate yet tender care.

"I am here, baby. I never left you. I love you."

"Oooohhhhh! Cat, darling. I was so afraid. I never left your side. I was so worried..."

Cat's tender kiss reassured her lover that she was truly there and that she would never leave her again.

"I know, baby. I know. You were the anchor that kept us from possibly losing ourselves."

"I love you so much, Cat. I was so afraid, but I was strong for you. I knew you would not leave me..."

Cat realized that Martine was going into reaction shock and that it was her turn to need an anchor. She pulled her on top of herself and hugged her fiercely as she kissed her passionately, projecting all of her love as she never had before.

When Martine relaxed, at first, she tentatively returned the embrace and kiss. Then, the love penetrated the shields she had kept tightly locked down for days lest she cause damage to what they thought was a fragile equilibrium. Wonderingly, she slowly relaxed the mental tension and opened herself to her lover. She felt Cat's deep love and with a cry of joy, she opened herself totally as when they made love.

'AAAAAAHHHHH!!!! TOO MUCH!!!!! IT HURTS!!!'

Instantly, she felt a massive force clamp down around her, protecting her from further harm, soothing her bruised mind, loving her unconditionally. As she cried in reaction, she felt like she could almost hear a gentle, loving, motherly voice softly cuddling her mind. "We apologize, little one. You opened yourself too fast. We should have anticipated this. We will shield you from our loving our other wife. One of us will explain. Be at ease, we love you."

Lifting her head to look at her lover through tear filled eyes, she began. "What? Cat? Did you talk to me? I don't understand."

"Baby, I told you that you were our anchor here. We had to hang on to you tightly when we were here. That made you more sensitive to us."

"But I could hear you!" She was on the verge of hysteria, but the strange force asserted itself gently, wrapping her in a loving blanket of reassurance. Calmer now, she asked. "What was that about 'us' and the 'other wife'? Or should I ask?"

Softly laughing, Cat tried to explain without scaring Martine. "Where should I start? Do you remember when you first came to us? I don't know how long ago, we kind of lost track of time out there on the island. No, scratch that, we will explain in detail later. But do you remember that moment?"

"Yes, you were all in pain and you all jumped on me and said you loved me."

"Well, that's because I got caught in between my love for you and our love for each other."

"Isn't that the same thing?"

"No, my love for you and the love between Jules, Ari and I. Don't go tense on me, baby. We had gone through something absolutely incredible and unexpected and I was torn because I loved you so much and it caused me pain to tear myself away from the bond we had formed. When you arrived, we reacted as the single entity we had become and we attached ourselves to you because I love you. The problem came from the missing part: Sarah. One part of the link was deeply attached to you, but the other part was missing your counterpart."

"You're not making much sense, darling."

"I know. I'm making it too complicated, I think. I've gotten too used to total communication and I need to get used to words again. Let me try another way. Jules, Ari and I had sex and it was wonderful. First because they just love sex, but also because we discovered by accident that they are just as powerful empaths as I am, if not more. Let me finish, please, baby. So, first they had sex together and I got pulled in on the periphery of it and it was incredible, then they playfully decided to show me the real thing. That's when things got a little weird. I could feel them communicating almost at the same level as my own perceptions and projections. You know, like perfect twins. Then, when we came together, we really came together. We linked so intensely it blew us to my island. I know, it's impossible, but it happened all the same. We came back because Sarah called us and Jules thought of a 'ritual' to make the transfer. Unfortunately, when we came back, we were still linked deeply. That's the 'us' part, in a very simplified way."

"It's a stretch, but I think I can understand it. We'll talk later about this having sex with strange women when I'm not there."

Cat laughed uproariously. "Baby, you have no idea how we will talk about it. You'll love it, I promise."

Martine knew her girlfriend's often twisted sense of humor. She frowned, but kept her mouth shut for the moment which gave Cat a chance to continue her explanation.

"We were just pulling ourselves apart when the conflict with my deep love for you hit us. I loved you intensely and all would have been fine if your counterpart for them had entered the equation to balance the whole thing, but Sarah went in 'doctor' mode because she was so worried for us. So, her first thought, we guess, was to call you thinking that our training together would snap me out of it, whatever 'it' was. The opposite happened. We all fixated on the powerful emotion of my love for you and, without the counter-balancing of their love for Sarah, it caused us to temporarily lose our individuality in the mesh."

"And I love you too, darling, but what's that got to do with the 'other wife' thing?"

"I know you love me and you know I love you, but let me give you a small taste of how much we love you. Do you trust me, baby?"

"Of course, I trust you darling. Do you have to ask?"

"Yes, I do. I need you to trust me with all your heart. To know that I love you and that I would never do anything to hurt you. Please, baby, it's important."

Martine thought about Cat's words for a moment, weighing their implications. "Yes, darling. I love you and I trust you with all my heart. If there have ever been any doubts in my heart, they were burned off irrevocably these last few days. You can't scare me and you won't get rid of me. No way! No how!" She said fiercely.

"That's my baby. Tough as nails, as ever. We have no intention to scare you or get rid of you. Quite the opposite, you see. We have found that we love you just as much as I do. Remember, if you want to talk to us while you are in the mesh, all you have to do is 'think' to us."

Before Martine had time to make sense of the words, she felt the strange force assert itself on her mind. Some small part of her knew she should be afraid, but it was gently absorbed in a soft blanket of love.

The motherly voice was back in her mind. "We love you, Martine. We have loved you for a long time and we love you now more than ever because we have seen all that you have done for us in our time of crisis. One of us will show you just how much we love you."

Chapter 14

Martine sits at her desk in the biology class of her first year of Nursing Studies. This morning, there are two visitors in the class. One is a tall shapely woman with bright green eyes. She looks like an athlete, but she has been introduced as Doctor Sarah Grisholm. Martine is quite certain she has heard her grumble "I'm not a doctor" under her breath before she told them to call her Sarah. Well, she definitely doesn't dress like any other Doctor or Professor and she looks like she would be more at ease in a bar than in front of a class. The other is quite literally the most beautiful woman Martine has ever seen, but she doesn't hold herself arrogantly like most beautiful women she has known. Quite the opposite, she exudes friendliness and approachability. Her name is Catherine Lamoureux and she is a therapist. Her speciality is not mentioned, but she puts everyone at ease when she says "Just call me Catherine. I'm the low figure of the totem pole." Everybody laughs at that.

Sarah says that they are here to recruit support therapists for a special project in the Psychology department. She doesn't give details, but she says that it has the potential to bring great good to some special patients and that she is looking for compassionate young women who are willing to add one hour a day to their current course load but that it would be worth it later on.

Martine has no intention of joining the program. She has more than enough on her plate as it is. Why should she add an extra hour a day to her workload?

While Doctor Grisholm is making her pitch, Martine notices that Catherine is looking attentively at the students. At one point, their eyes meet and the woman smiles at her. Martine smiles politely back, but she sits straighter in her chair and the smile accompanies her the rest of the day.

Martine is in the yoga class where a Hindi yogi teaches the physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines with a view to attain a state of permanent peace. Doctor Grisholm says that it's also a great low impact physical training, a technique to learn about themselves and to prepare for their career as support therapist, whatever that is exactly.

Catherine is two mats to her left. As she goes through the different postures, Martine often finds herself glancing her way. The first few times, she does not realize she is doing it, then, after a while, she begins to wonder what's attracting her attention her way. Yes, she is a beautiful statuesque woman, elegantly tall, graceful and attractive with her generous bust, ample feminine curves, long shapely legs, unblemished skin, graceful neck, full lips, straight nose, almond-shaped deep brown eyes and thick long auburn hair with the most spectacular reddish highlights she has even seen outside the pages of a magazine.

'What the... Am I jealous of this beautiful woman? I never thought of myself as so superficial. Well, I'm just glad my boyfriend will never meet her.' She thinks.

Martine is in a t'ai chi ch'uan class taught by an old Chinese man. Doctor Grisholm has asked him to keep to two of the five elements, neigong & qigong, which are breathing, movement and awareness exercises and meditation. What a strange course for a future therapist. She finds it pretty boring with its slow movements.

Catherine is also there, but this time she is in the row before Martine. She is so graceful. How does she do it? Martine tries to emulate her perfect forms, but she always goes too fast and is out of balance. She grits her teeth and forces herself to go at the same rhythm as Catherine.

Martine is in a meditation class taught by a Tibetan man. She thinks he is a monk, but he has hair and does not dress like the monks she has seen in the National Geographic magazine. He is teaching techniques designed to promote relaxation, build internal energy or life force or ki. Doctor Grisholm says it is to teach them to center themselves.

Martine doesn't understand what she is supposed to center, but she goes along. She is comfortable enough in the lotus sitting position, but when she closes her eyes and softly chants the 'om' mantra, it makes her doze off. She leans to her right and is about to fall on the woman there when a gentle hand on her shoulder halts her movement. She snaps awake, but blushes deeply because she knows that it's Catherine who has caught her. For some reason she can't understand, she is ashamed to have shown such lack of discipline to the woman. She looks over her shoulder to smile a 'thank you' to her and gets a warm feeling in her belly when her smile is returned.

Catherine lifts her hand and clears her throat to get the attention of the teacher. She tells him that in this calm and quiet room, many people have trouble staying awake because this is such a different exercise from everything they have ever been taught, that, maybe if some of them turn around and maintain physical contact with a meditation partner, it would make things easier. The teacher is dubious about this approach, but he defers to Catherine and says that those who can't stay awake can do so.

Martine feels a tap on her shoulder and turns. Catherine asks her if she wants to partner with her as she also is dozing off. So Martine shifts around, brings her mat closer to Catherine's and resumes the lotus position. She asks Catherine how they should go about it. Catherine says that if they got closer so their knees are just about to touch, they could lightly hold hands and maybe it would work.

They shift forward and try it, but when their fingers touch, Martine feels as if a jolt of low level electricity runs up her arms and sets a buzz in her ears. She says nothing because Catherine shows no such effect. Well, she knows she certainly won't fall asleep, but how is she supposed to meditate?

Martine is in the women's locker room at the university pool. She is there for another of Doctor Grisholm's special classes, but she doesn't mind. She likes to swim. She used to swim in the lake all summer long when she lived on her parent's farm, but, in the city, the opportunities are few and far between. She is about to undress before putting her one-piece swimsuit on. She does it every Saturday when she takes advantage of the free public hours. But something is holding her back.

Martine is certainly not shy, in fact she is proud of her body. She has been a tom-boy all her life, playing sports and games with the boys, helping load and unload the bales of hay at harvest time, doing all sorts of physical activities that have kept her body slim and trim, muscular but more tough and wiry than the bulging kind so her abdomen is flat and hard if without the muscle definition. When she developed feminine curves, she considered herself lucky that her breasts were big enough to entice boys when she chose to wear more revealing shirts but not so large that they impeded her activities like the udders some girls were so proud of and most boys salivated over. Her hips are just wide enough to make appealing curves with her tight but shapely ass when she wears tighter skirts or pants. She cuts her dirty blonde hair short to keep it out of the way and she has been told by many boys that she has beautiful blue eyes and that when she smiles, her face lights up.

So why does she hesitate before taking her clothes off this time. She stands there with her hands on the top button, but she feels like she has forgotten how to undo it. She is confused until this strange feeling of peace comes over her, her confidence in herself returns and she undresses. Not one to preen in front of other girls, she quickly dons her swimsuit, closes her locker and turns toward the entrance to the pool. She comes face to face with Catherine and greets her unselfconsciously. They walk together to the pool like the two classmates they are, discussing the other classes they share.