Kitty’s Cookies — Chapter 25
by Redsliver
* * *I looked Kitty’s mom in the eye and felt the saliva disappear from my tongue. If I couldn’t get angry, I’d have chickened out.
“Hey, Kitty, I gotta talk to your mom,” I said, kissing her. I pushed her towards the dining room door.
“Talk to me?” Judy looked up from the Keurig machine she was loading.
“Yeah, go, Stegosaurus,” I patted Kitty’s ass one more time. Judy frowned at me.
“Or or!” Kitty barked laughing.
I frowned, that seemed almost familiar.
“I swear, my girl’s the only girl that gets excited to be called a multi-ton lizard,” Judy said. “What’s this about? Am I gonna be a grandma? You two have only been together for like two weeks.”
“No… Well, I don’t know, technically. She’s on the pill, I think,” I said.
“She’s supposed to be,” Judy said. “She’s a bit careless, that one.”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about,” I said.
“Did she hurt somebody?” Judy said. “I try to help her with her scatterbrained idiocy. I finally seemed like we were making some headway, but—”
Four minds kept spinning in and out of the room. I turned, Kitty was waiting, just around the door to the living room. I gestured her to go.
“But you’re talking about me!” Kitty pleaded, interrupting her mother.
“Go. I love you.”
“You’re already using the L-word?” Judy shook her head. “She’s your first?”
“Second, sort of,” my high school girlfriend and now my college harem.
“This’ll either be the best thing ever or the greatest blow up I ever witnessed,” Judy sighed. “I saw Dove’s first heartbreak. It was all I could to keep her from hurting herself.”
“Is that why you crack her brain and leave her dead inside?”
“Huh,” Judy said. “Brain? Not heart?”
“Heart pumps blood,” I said. “I know, the girls want me to be more romantic and—”
“Girls? Shit, you had some of the Psychoryl too?” Judy sighed. “Of course you did. She baked it into cookies for god’s sake. Obviously they were for you. How did she mix up a teaspoon of baking soda… It comes in a cardboard box with an arm and hammer on it! In the cupboard,” she pointed to the corner of the kitchen. “I was certain I had kept that pill bottle in my work bag. How in the shit did she—”
Judy shook her head. Her muttering stopped and she looked me in the eye
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Is this about you suing? Do you need money? I’m looking the other way with my daughters. You don’t want this to be a fight.”
“I really don’t,” I said. “but if I don’t fight for them, you’ll keep breaking them.”
Kitty had finally closed the door to her bedroom. I had Judy’s singular mind in my mind’s eye. She was spinning at a one. A wobbly mind of confusion and anger. I could just reach in there, take hold and—
“Hey! I’m home!” Stephen’s voice boomed through the house as he came in the side door behind me. “Baby! Jordan…” He walked by me and kissed his wife. “Kitty not home yet? I think Fox said something about his therapist.”
“I’m in my room, Daddy!” Kitty shouted.
Out of sight wasn’t out of earshot, apparently.
Stephen’s face twisted in confusion.
“I’ve been having a talk with Mrs Baker,” I said.
“He seems to think I’ve done something to Kitty,” she said, tickling her husband under his chin.
I knew there was a male mind in the room. I had never felt one change before now. I stepped back, in a hurry, from Judy.
“What?” she asked.
“You’re not doing that to me,” I said.
“Doing what?” Judy frowned.
“Tickling my heart?” Stephen said, with a smile. He opened the fridge and grabbed a beer. “He’s got that Psycho-Real thing too. Only, he wasn’t as stupid as Fox about it.”
“You knew?” Judy said. “And you let Kitty and Dove…”
“He was a good kid beforehand,” Stephen cracked the bottle. “You’re not driving, are you Jordan?”
“Uh, I took the bus,” I said. He handed me the beer and opened the fridge for a second.
“Right, he was a good kid beforehand. Kitty really liked him. Fox vouched for him. Then Kitty got him caught up in your experiments,” Stephen said. “So long as Kitty kept coming home with that grin on her face, I knew she was gonna be OK.”
“And that changed a few days ago,” I guessed.
“Yeah, but I figured she’d warm back up when you saw her again,” Stephen said.
“No, your wife played with Kitty’s brain…”
Stephen frowned.
Judy crossed her arms.
“It’s not play. Kitty’s hyper-focus on you was costing her her friends, her grades, her hobbies, and her life. I had to step in,” Judy said.
“You broke her brain into three pieces,” I said. “After I had put it back together from two.”
“They don’t break apart, they’re like… morningstars? Or planets and moons maybe. Balls on chains, imaginary chains, orbiting each other.”
“That’s not what they’re like at all!” I said. I closed my eyes. I found Judy’s mind. It was too fuzzy to do the heavy work on. I spun her up to a six and dragged her down to a zero, breakneck acceleration. She stumbled back, her butt bouncing off the cupboard doors. She dropped her coffee mug and it twisted off and spilled over the countertop before falling down towards her knee.
“Shit!” she said, dancing away from the semi-steaming coffee. Stephen grabbed a towel from the handle of the oven and quickly patted Judy’s leg dry.
“I didn’t mean to do that part,” I said.
“How’d you do it from over there?!” Judy hissed.
“Fox needs to touch people too,” I said. “But I guess it’s different, maybe a genetic thing?”
“Maybe…” Judy said. Her eyes lit up. She grabbed Stephen’s ear. He stood up and turned towards me. “Honey, I need him.”
Stephen took a step towards me. I had nothing but a full beer bottle between me and him. I reversed my grip and made a mess of their kitchen floor.
“What? Dammit, Jordan!” Stephen sighed. He squatted down, still holding the towel and started cleaning up.
“I don’t touch your brain, you don’t touch mine,” I said, harshly to Judy.
“Well, I think I owe you one.” She put on a crooked smile, one I had seen repeatedly on Kitty’s face. I frowned. “Right, but I do need to know. If I can get a handle on this drug, I could cure so many mental conditions. Lack of motivation, directionlessness, insecurity. Imagine being able to choose to have the mind of a driven person!”
“Is that what you did with your daughters?”
“And Fox,” Judy said. “When he was fifteen, he hadn’t done homework. I mean, ever. He hated school, he was only intrigued by video games and girls… Now look at him, he’s going to be valedictorian in physics. He’s a genius and wants to be one!”
“Is he busted like Kitty and Dove?”
“Busted?” Stephen said.
“Kitty’s mind was broken in two,” I said, frowning at Stephen. I walked around him, staying several arm’s lengths away from Judy. I grabbed another towel. I bent down to help sop up the spill. “I put her back together, you know when you thought she was happy? She pulled her apart, rougher this time, ’cause Kitty’s mind’s in threes.”
“How do you even tell?” Judy asked.
“I see them,” I said. “It’s not seeing, it’s—”
“I’ve been calling it sight too,” Judy said.
Stephen and I had gotten the beer. He took my towel from me and walked to the sink to wring them out. I picked the empty bottle back up. I wanted something in my hands.
“Anyway, when there’s not too many of them in a room, like three or less, I can pick them out. Feel how fast they’re spinning,” I said.
“How fast?” Judy’s eyes were lit up. “I need to get you into an mri!”
“Wait, Jude,” Stephen said. “You said you put her back together? Kitty?”
“And I put Dove back on her rotor,” I said. “She kept being disconnected from her ability to care or act or anything but fake a smile.”
Stephen nodded.
“You put her off again?” He looked at Judy.
“She was obsessed again!” Judy said. “Remember Daniel? If she kept following him, she wouldn’t have finished high school, his parents would have pressed charges.”
“If she’s obsessed with me,” I said. “I want her. So it’s OK.”
Stephen sighed. “It’s OK to give you both of my daughters? I want a life for them, Jordan. Families.”
“Family,” I said.
He frowned. “You can’t see your fuckups, Judy.”
“What’s it like, putting her back together?” Judy asked.
“For Dove?”
“Was it different?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Dove needed to have her brain put back on the plate. She was like a gear picked out of a watch or… or... maybe it was like popping a shoulder back into its socket.”
“And Kitty?”
“Like a deck of cards, sliding the plates back together like a riffle shuffle and bridge. Just the bridge,” I said.
“I don’t know card jargon,” Judy said.
“Their minds, they’re like plates, connected on a stick and spinning,” I said. “There’s like, connections between them, bolts of lightning. They let one feeling go to the next thought. Connections.”
“Pathways in the brain?” Stephen suggested.
“Maybe,” I said.
“And you want to put them back together?” Judy said. “Well, we can make a deal.”
“And that deal is: help our daughters. Love them,” Stephen said.
“Stephen! You have no idea what I could learn from him!” Judy said.
“You can learn to let our daughters be themselves,” Stephen said. He held Judy in a hug. I saw a flicker in his eyes. He shook his head. Judy’s face flared up in conflict.
The side door opened. Fox was home.
“Um, hi?” Fox said. He had a girl with him. Woman, mid-twenties, large breasts under a ribbed sweater. She was short with a skinny waist. She had a dark olive complexion and wild black hair. She looked grumpy. “You and my parents, Jordan? Ah, shit did you knock up Kitty?”
“No.”
“Dove? Is that better?” Fox frowned.
“Who’s your girlfriend?” Judy said, looking over the girl.
“I’m a girlfriend?” The woman asked.
“This is Sami,” Jordan said. “No, she’s not. I just needed a ride home and she was getting out of Dr Hacksmith’s the same time as my sessions were ending. Cute, huh?”
“Is that a wedding ring?” Judy frowned.
“I’m separated, the divorce’ll be final in a few weeks,” Sami answered. “Can we go somewhere else?”
“In a sec,” Fox kissed his new girl. “I just gotta grab something from my room.”
He rushed between his parents and me.
“What did you change about him?” I asked.
“I gave him work ethic, ambition,” Judy said.
“Um… Like genetically?” Sami asked. “Oh my god! He’s not a kid is he?”
“He’s nineteen,” Judy said. “You’re not going to get pregnant, are you?”
“Not today,” Sami said, after some mental math.
“Thank god,” Stephen said.
Sami frowned, but nodded.
Fox came dashing out and gave his mom a quick hug. “I’ll see you guys by the weekend.”
“Be careful,” Stephen said, sternly.
“Yeah,” Fox said, dismissively. “Bye Jordan.”
I nodded and he jetted out the door with Sami.
“Did I screw him up?” Judy asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I couldn’t see much beyond your two and Sami’s eleven.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Speed,” I said. “A faster brain is more, um, motivated.”
“Uh huh!?” Judy’s eyes lit up.
“And if it goes too fast, like a 15 or more, it tends to break. Hard.”
“And I’ve been pushing our children to be motivated, successful,” Judy said.
“Yeah,” Stephen said. “That’s probably why Fox kept after Hillary all through high school. Marie these last few months. You wouldn’t let him take no for an answer.”
“But I didn’t break him so he forced a yes,” Judy said. “Oh my god. These new girls? The nurse, the cop, the waitress?”
The TA. Whoever Sami was.
All single, or in the process of getting a divorce. He didn’t push on Marie once she was with me. I felt better about Fox in the moment. I didn’t feel guilty about taking Marie. He hadn’t accepted her no, but if she was giving nos, she was free to give me my yes.
I tried not to smile.
“When I help Kitty and Dove tonight,” I said. “You can’t go wrecking them anymore. You can’t make them someone they’re not.”
“Tonight?” Stephen said. “You can do it in a night?”
“I did before,” I said. “But Kitty wasn’t as messed up then.”
“What do you need?” Stephen asked.
“A few hours of questions and brain scans,” Judy mumbled.
“I need to know Judy can let her daughters be,” I said. “Oh, and you’ll probably want to give me time and privacy…”
Judy stroked Stephen’s hand. He caught up her fingers and shook his head at her.
“You didn’t go for my heart this time,” he said.
“What if I’m hurting you too…” Judy finally let her curiosity fade back. Her face looked ashen in the moment.
“I’ve loved you long before you made that shit,” Stephen said. “So I take out the garbage on time now. That’s OK.”
Judy sighed.
“Can you… record it?” she asked me.
“Oh my god!” Stephen said. “He asked for privacy because he was going to get very intimate with our girls. Right down to their hearts. No, I do not want recordings.”
“I… This is my life’s work.” Judy crossed her arms over herself again. “And so is being a mom. I don’t know.”
“I’ll record it,” I said.
“Please! Don’t!” Stephen said, hands up in supplication and half a smile on his face. His was more like Dove’s. Toothier and straighter.
“Thank you,” Judy said. “C’mon, let’s go get a hotel.”
“He can’t do anything until Dove gets home,” Stephen said. “Have you eaten yet? Do you want to go get dinner? Kitty you hungry?!”
“No, go get a hotel! Quickly! The others are almost here!” Kitty shouted out.
“Almost here?”
The doorbell rang.
I turned and my heart sank to see Kitty’s brown eyes friend. Marie leaned in from behind the girl and waved. That lifted my spirits. Avril hopped into frame as well. Stephen walked by me and opened the door.
“Can I come out now?!” Kitty yelled.
Judy looked at me. I nodded, but with the door open I was being pressured by three new minds, Judy’s. “Yes Kitty!” and three of Kitty’s.
I couldn’t even gauge what brown-eyes—
“Hey Jackie, uh, Marie, and Sharon? I haven’t seen you with black hair in about five years.”
“Racist!” Kitty snorted. “That’s Avril not Sharon. Why are you here Jackie?”
“Uh… Because we had plans after school and your boyfriend tried to—”
“Yep, and he succeeded. Shoo.”
Marie looked brown eyes up and down. She looked over to me and gave a thumbs down. Avril leaned back and checked out Jackie from behind. Thumbs up.
I shook my head.
“Ugh, you’re boyfriend’s a dick, Kit!”
“Better than yours!” Kitty stuck her tongue.
“Don’t antagonize your friends, Stegosaurus…” I wrapped my arm around Kitty’s shoulders. Part of it was to center myself while I was on my feet.
“This is it then? Marie, Avril—Hello nice to meet you—and your sister?”
“There’s four others!” Kitty said brightly. “Lynsey, Vickie, Eerya, and Pauline.”
“Ira and Paula,” I said, face burning as I met Stephen’s eyes.
“Paula, right! She’s a redhead!” Kitty giggled.
“I really wasn’t expecting to run into parents,” Avril said, quietly. “It’s nice to meet you too, Mr Baker.”
“I was never expecting to run into my daughter’s polygynous girlfriends,” he said. “Stranger days ahead no doubt. We’re gonna get out of your hair. Do you need a ride anywhere Jackie?”
“I have the car,” she said, jingling her keys.
“She has a car!” Marie turned her thumb upward.
“It’s dad’s,” Jackie murmured.
Thumb went down.
“Well fuck you all!” Jackie stormed out of the house.
“Needy bitch,” Kitty mumbled.
“Kitty!” Judy grabbed her daughter by the elbow. “That girl has been your best friend since you were eight. You better make up with her.”
“She will,” I said. “When I put her back together.”
“My daughters get to be who they are, Jordan,” Stephen said. “You have to agree to that, or we’re not leaving her to you.”
“Of course,” I said. I caught his stern look. Stephen had always been a bit laid back, hippieish, cool. At that moment he was as hard as I had ever seen a man. I nodded. “I promise.”
“I believe you,” Stephen said, sighing lightly. “Oh my god. Judy, come with me. Now.”
“We’re going to get a hotel room for the night?” she asked. “I should grab an overnight bag—”
“Now.”
Jesus Christ! Some brain, I’m guessing Judy’s, skyrocketed to a nine in a blink. I’d never seen a brain ramp up that high without intervention. I don’t think Stephen knew what he did though. Judy patted Kitty’s arm. “Trust Jordan, your father does.” Judy strode out to the porch, head high, face unreadable. She slipped into a pair of shoes and stepped out the door.
“Wait?” Marie said. “Your dad just left you to—”
The door burst back open. We all twisted and turned as Vickie charged inward. Her mind came in like one of Zeus’s thunderbolts. She jumped, hitting me with a tackling gripping hug, and proceeded to shove her tongue down my throat.
“I was thinking about you,” Vickie said, gasping for air she had denied us.
“I see that,” I said, grinning.
“Tell me we can really fuck tonight?!”
“We can,” I said, juggling her ass to rest on my left wrist. I took up Kitty’s hand in my right. “Once we have my girls sorted out.”
“I’m not edging,” Vickie nuzzled her nose into my neck. “Not a chance in hell.”
“Looks like Paula, Lynsey, and Ira are getting the last words with your parents’,” Avril said. “Oh, and they got Swiss Chalet takeaway.”
“He’s gonna need the energy,” Vickie said, licking one ear.
“And the protein!” Kitty laughed and licked my other ear.
“Well,” Marie said, stepping to the left so she wasn’t in line of sight out the side door to the driveway. She ripped off her sweater letting her dark breasts jiggle in their bra. “Hopefully we can get Kitty done before Dove arrives. Because we just got the house for the night. Rec room in the basement?”
“Why?” Avril said. “Let’s go to Kitty’s room.”
“The couch pulls out into a queen,” Marie said. “Hey girls!”
“Hi~ii!” Paula said, the smell of chicken and spice wafting from the bag in her hand.
“Oh, a queen instead of one of our dorm room twin sized mattresses? Oh my god, we’re in heaven.”
“There’s a king mattress in mom and dad’s room,” Kitty said.
“The king-sized is out. To the downstairs,” I said. Or tried to. A lot of my communications were intercepted with Vickie humping and kissing me as I spoke.
Lynsey booed.
“Yeah, no, Lynsey, I am not comfortable fucking in her Dad’s bed,” Marie said, hooking a thumb at Kitty.
“Oh, I didn’t think of that. Ew!” she scrunched her face.
“Alright, each of you downstairs, one at a time, I’ll take you aside and get you charged up,” I said. “I guess Vickie’s good to go.”
“So am I!” Ira beamed.
“I think I am,” Kitty said. She was probably 1 in 3.
“I need a tune up,” Paula said. Ira grabbed the redhead from behind and took handfuls of tit. Ira’s tongue lapped up the edge of Paula’s neck. Paula melted back into Ira’s arms. “No~oo, I’m good!”
I laughed and followed the quickly nakedifying set of girls downstairs.
My girls, and when Dove showed up in a few hours, I’d have them locked in. They’d be who their brains would let them be. They’d be who they were supposed to be.
And, right down to the last neuron, they’d be mine.
* * *