Chapter Five
December 11
th
, 2020
Even though he was perfectly capable of washing himself, Piper stripped down with him and entered the shower alongside him, mainly because she could tell something was on his mind. "You okay, Andy?" she said as she spread soap along his back.
"Is it that obvious?"
"It wouldn't be to most people, babe, but I'm not most people," Piper said, her fingertips smoothing softly along his skin.
"That's fair. I'm unhappy that Emily is making a habit of keeping things from me right up until the moment of decision, so I can't have time to consider things properly," he sighed. "I understand why she's done it, but we can't have her keeping things from the rest of the family. I have some very genuine concerns about someone joining the family with a large chunk of her memory missing, regardless of it being for a good cause. I would've liked to have a bit of time to consider the further ramifications of that decision, and to talk it over with all the rest of you ladies, the fiancées at the very least, if not the whole household. This isn't a minor thing, you know? Someone could ask her a simple question and she could have some kind of mental meltdown."
Piper sighed, wrapping her arms around Andy's waist, pressing her tits against the backs of his shoulders, her chin nestled against his temple. "Yeah, we need to sit that girl down and have a talk with her about keeping secrets from the family. She may think she's doing us all a favor, trying to shoulder the big decisions on her own, but all she's really done is strip us of our agency in these kinds of things. I know she just wants to do right by everybody, but I'm with you on this one. I don't feel entirely comfortable having a potential mental timebomb in our household that we need to worry about either."
"You say this as we're getting ready to go bring another potential timebomb in," Andy laughed as Piper rubbed her hand along his crotch, spreading the soap all over it slowly. "But that one's okay because
you
gave her a pass."
"No,
I
gave her a pass, but I also gave
everyone
else in the house a chance to say no, and nobody chose to take me up on it," Piper said. "That's the difference. Anybody could've shot this whole thing down. Everything the rest of you know about Melody Park is based on what I've told you, so that'll be enough for the family. Everyone still had a chance to say no, they didn't want her around, once they had all the facts. Em sort of sprung that thing with Mali's memory on you, and
only
you, and that isn't fair of her, especially since she waited until Mali was just a few feet away. We'll need to have a long talk with her tonight, not just the three of us, but all the fiancées, so everyone can voice their concerns to Emily. I'm more bothered by the idea that she didn't even tell Sarah. Those two are thick as thieves and the fact that Em was keeping it from Sarah makes me wonder how much Mali must have stressed that nobody talk about it."
"Are
you
worried about seeing Melody again? I know you two don't exactly have the smoothest of histories," he said as he dipped his head underneath the water, letting it run over his freshly shaven scalp, trickling down through his goatee.
"I'll manage, Andy," she said softly to him, kissing his cheek. "But it's sweet that you're more worried about me than you are worried about you."
"Eh, I'm convinced that whatever's gonna get me will be something I didn't see coming, so I'm not going to worry about it," he said as he turned off the water. They'd hosed him down pretty good, but Piper had avoided getting her hair wet, so she wouldn't have to dry it afterwards. "The one promise I made to myself when all of this started was that I wasn't going to be scared all the time, no matter how dark and moody it got."
"You think you're going to be able to handle Melody? Covington certainly snapped the whip and kept all the girls of his house in line, but that's
so
not
you
, baby."
"I think you girls are going be paranoid enough on my behalf that it's going to be my role to show kindness, mercy and forgiveness. She rejected Covington remember, and I have to prove to her that there's another way for us few remaining men to be."
"But not so much that she thinks she can walk all over you..."
"No, certainly not that much. But she's seen me stand my ground against her old boss before, so I think she knows that I'm not entirely a pushover."
The two of them toweled down and got dressed again, just in time for a knock at the door to the bathroom before Niko poked her head in. "They're just about ready for you, Andy. If you two are good?"
"I thought you were driving Em and Mali back and Lexi was going to stay here."
"We decided to swap, in case Piper needed emotional support from another fiancée. Anyway, you ready?"
"Yeah, I think we're good. Piper?"
"Yep, let's go induct my wicked stepsister," the athletic woman joked.
The three of them headed down the hallway and reached a door marked 'Reassignment Induction Suite #3,' with Niko opening the door to lead them inside. "You ready, Charlotte?" she said.
Inside of the room was a sort of modified gynecologist's chair, designed to elevate and spread legs, but there were also restraints on the ankle mounts, and on the base for the wrists, something Andy knew all too well why they were needed. The one time he'd seen a woman reassigned in person, it had taken several people to hold the woman from breaking loose and just grabbing the first man that she saw. The whole thing had been more than a little terrifying, considering the woman straining at the others was Doctor Merriweather, who wasn't exactly young and muscular. Andy could only imagine what a woman twenty years her younger and in peak physical condition could do unrestrained. There was also a small wooden table and a couple of soft chairs, mainly for observers or security, Andy guessed, as this kind of thing still wasn't second-nature around the base.
"Just going over the final confirmations with Miss Park here, stressing that this reassignment is a one-time only thing, and that should she go through with it, she will be inextricably tied to you until one of the two you die, so it's not a decision to be made lightly."
There were only two women in the room before they entered - Dr. Charlotte Varma and Melody Park. Melody was dressed in a white crop top and a pair of cotton white panties that weren't meant to be flattering in any way, although Andy had to admit she still looked damn fine in them. Her hair was pulled back into a neat, low ponytail, as if it was mostly to keep her hair out of her face than in any effort to try and make herself visually appealing, not that Andy minded.
"I keep telling her," Melody said, "that anyone else is gonna be way better than Covington was, so she can stop asking. Hey Piper. I know I've said it before, but I'll keep saying it - sorry about how we treated you when you were under Covington's watch."
"You weren't as bad as Hope was," Piper said with a sigh, clearly trying not to think about her time spent at the House of Covington. "But you better know we're going to keep you on a super tight leash at first, so we can ensure that you don't have any harm planned for us or our man."
"He's going to be
my
man, too, Piper," Melody said, her voice calm and a little resigned, like she was prepared to have to prove herself. "But I respect your caution and skepticism. It's good to be careful and not to just trust in unproven actors, even if that is Andy's established brand. Whatever it takes to buy my place in your house, I'll do it. Covington was... well, I didn't feel much like myself while I was there, I guess because I didn't do my homework before getting imprinted on him. I'd been given the impression that it was only a temporary thing, only to find out that it wasn't
after
it was too late to change my mind. That... that put me in a dark place for a long while, and I turned nihilistic and defeatist. It... it wasn't like me at all, but I'd lost so many people in such a short period of time. Both brothers, my father, my brother-in-law, almost all the men of my former unit... It was like anybody I knew with a dick died within the span of just a couple of weeks, and I couldn't even go to anyone's funeral. How do you handle that sort of mass grief and loss? I went from having a support network to being alone in the fucking world. When this lifeline from Covington came, I... I should've looked before I leaped. And that was foolish of me. By contrast, I've done my fair share of homework into you, Mister Rook, and all the women of your family. Well, soon-to-be
my
family, I suppose. I'd better get used to saying it that way. Anyway, there's a surprising amount of information about you on the internet if you know how to look."
"What should I be worried about?" Andy asked. He'd certainly been a lot more public over the last month than he'd ever anticipated, and it seemed like every other day, someone wanted to do a short phone interview, or video interview, and Andy tried to agree to as many of them as he could without them utterly consuming his life. He knew that in some ways, they were being looked at as the public face of how people would get through this, so he felt expected to play the part.
"That's the thing, Mister Rook," Melody said with a little laugh, looking down at a tablet that Dr. Varma was holding out to her, skimming through the paperwork on it. "I don't see
any
of it as something to be worried about. It's kind of endearing, actually, how open and transparent you are about your life, your trials and tribulations, what sort of challenges you've been through. With the exception of the infamous poker game - which I've seen nary a whiff of
anywhere,
so bravo for that - you've been remarkably willing to talk to anyone about pretty much anything. I suspected the 60 Minutes would be a one-and-done for you, but you've done quite a few email and phone interviews since then. And you've been astonishingly willing to be frank and honest about your feelings, your fears, the loss of your brother... it's been refreshing seeing someone be so open, and if you
do
have any secrets to hide, which I assume you do because who doesn't, then you've done a phenomenal job of keeping them from even being hinted at. But you've got a very eclectic family. Whether intentionally or accidentally, you've got a wide collection of different kinds of women, from those in the upper echelons of society to people who, before they met up with you, struggled each month just to scrape together enough money to pay their rent off. Your partners range in age from 18 to 38, in height from 5'1" to 6'6"... you've got blondes, brunettes, redheads... you run the gamut. In fact, the only real surprise to me right now is that you don't have Miss Blake with you."
"Ash and I had a long conversation about both of the women we're adding today, but she didn't think she needed to be here for the actual process," Andy responded. "Whereas Emily and Piper both had stakes in these matters."
"And I'm here to make sure he's safe," Niko added.
"Ah yes, 2
nd
