The Reluctant Psychic

If you are new to my Reluctant Psychic series, please consider starting from the beginning. This chapter continues the plot and the characters and events will make more sense when given context from the preceding chapters.

If you're returning, welcome back and I hope you enjoy the story.

* * *

When Melodie and I entered the house, I heard the regular buzz of activity filling my home. I reflected briefly on the miserable day when I came home to silence and realized how lucky I was. Melodie stood up on her toes to give me a kiss on the cheek and then departed for the girl's part of the house.

I headed up to my room, pulling off my tie as I went. My jacket joined my tie in a bundle under my arm, by the time I got to my room. I kicked off my shoes in the direction of the closet and peeled off the rest of my clothes. There was a noticeable aroma of sex emanating from the garments, as well as the pungency of my own sweat. I left the garments in a pile near the bathroom door and headed through to the shower.

As I washed the smell of sex and exertion from my body I smiled. Even though she had tricked me into it, being the aggressor during sex was a nice change. I usually let the girls pace the sex, because I was so concerned with using my powers to take what I want, and violating their minds as a result.

My mind was still replaying the encounter as I exited the bathroom, drying my hair with the towel. I glanced down and saw that one of my ever efficient girls had already cleaned up my pile of clothes. I draped the towel over my shoulders and looked towards the bed, wondering what clothes had been laid out for me. Instead, I saw Magda sitting there regarding me.

I quickly realized, she was regarding my cock more than me. My cock seemed to realize her regard before the rest of me, and swelled with pride at being the object of her attention.

"Is that for me?" she asked. It took a moment for me to realize that I wasn't hearing Magda's strong Czech accent, but her sister's much fainter accent. "Or is it for my sister?"

I blushed furiously, for getting caught parading around naked. It was worse because the girl was still very much a stranger to me, and I wasn't just naked, but naked and quite erect. I hastily moved the towel from my shoulders to around my waist. I faint snicker told me that the towel did little to hide my erection. "I'm kind of naked here."

"I'm a doctor; I've seen people naked before."

"Yes, but I'm not one of your patients," I said. She just smiled at me, obviously enjoying my distress. "I'm not even the right sex to be one of your patients!"

"Believe me, I noticed," she said with a wink and a bit of a giggle.

"Oh, ha ha ha. It's easy for you to laugh sitting there, while I'm over here naked and embarrassed."

"You have nothing to me embarrassed about," she said with another wink. Her grin widened, and she added, "Would you be less embarrassed if I were naked too?" Before she even finished what she was saying, she had her shirt off. Her breasts were held lovingly by a lace bra. A lace bra that she was reaching back to undo.

"No!" I said, holding up my hands to tell her to stop.

"Are you sure? You seem to be of two minds on the issue," she said looking between my panicked face and my still erect cock. My cock was once again exposed since my hands were too busy imploring her to stop to continue holding up my towel. I sighed, picked up my towel and once again wrapped it around my waist, this time tying a knot with the corners to encourage it to stay.

"I'm sorry," she said. She was still giggling a bit, but I could tell a hint of regret was seeping in. "I was lead to believe that you'd at least be wearing a robe." She seemed to think for a moment then added, "although Melodie was grinning when she said it."

She stopped again, and the regret appeared a bit stronger. "I really couldn't help it. It's been so long since I flirted with a guy, and you did look so sexy and vulnerable coming out of the bathroom." Here eyes were cast down towards the floor by the time she finished.

"I'll just take it as a sign that you're beginning to fit in around here," I said. I thought that my lighthearted comment would make her feel better. Instead it made her start crying. I crossed quickly to the bed and sat down next to her and put my arms around her. It was only when I felt a tear drop onto my bare chest that I realized how naked I was, and that she still didn't have a shirt on.

"I'm sorry. First, I'm making fun of you, and now I'm crying on you. You must think terribly of me." She didn't pull away though, instead wrapping her arms lightly around my waist.

"After living around women so long—" I wanted to say that nothing surprised me anymore, but the truth was, I was constantly being surprised, and confounded, and bemused. "Let's just say I've learned to take what comes." I stopped to consider my next words, but remembered that that strategy had never paid off in the past, "What did I say that made you so upset?"

She held me a moment longer and I felt her hands feeling my back as if reluctant to let go. Finally, she did let go and we moved apart enough that our arms were no longer around each other, although our knees still touched.

"I just don't think I belong here. Everything is so strange, and—" She cut herself off. There was something else to say but she couldn't bring herself to speak it out loud.

"What's so strange?" I asked. She looked at me and rolled her eyes before turning them away from me. "I realize there are strange things, but what part of it seems so bad? Surely your sister told you about things here?"

"She told me, but I didn't always believe her. I was shocked when she told me she was living in a harem." She looked at me quickly, and just a bit guiltily before adding, "she didn't actually say a harem, but living with a bunch of other girls and one shared boyfriend sounds an awful lot like a harem."

"Yeah, but I don't think a Sultan has such a hard time getting his harem girls to do what he wants."

"So they don't give you the things that you want?"

"It's not that. It's just that they're always doing things to get a rise out of me." She quirked an eyebrow when I said that just like her sister did when I said something that I found amusing but wasn't. I noticed, however, that Katia used the left eyebrow and Magda used her right. "I meant to frustrate me, to prove that I'm not in charge."

"Why should you be in charge, just because you're the man in the house?"

I almost said it was because I'm the one with the mind control powers. I could also have said it was because it was my house and my money, but I didn't even know if that was the truth. The girls had been handling my life for so long, I didn't even know how much money I actually had, or even if I actually owned the house. Instead I said, "They don't even let me pick out my own clothes."

She started to laugh at that, covering her mouth and ending with a bit of a snort. I suppose sitting here without any clothes on was rather ironic. "Does it matter?"

"That's not the point! I'd like to make my own choices."

"Then why don't you?" She saw that I was going to object again and gave me a stern look before continuing, "Do you really think I'll believe that they force you to wear the clothes they set out for you? You've had a choice all along, but you don't really care what you wear. But they do care, they like it when you look nice."

I almost asked if I was the girls' Ken doll, but thought better of it. First of all it sounded petulant, and second of all it would have opened me up for another I-just-saw-your-penis joke. So, instead I thought about all the frustrations I'd been feeling and wondered if any of them actually mattered. I really didn't care how I dressed, as long as I was comfortable. I didn't care about a lot of the things the girls handled without consulting me. But even though the logic made sense, I still felt that I should have been asked.

I could make them do anything I wanted, but I loved all of them too much. So, whenever they did these small rebellious things, I wouldn't stop them, I wouldn't even ask them not to, because it was too easy to make them instead.

But I was concerned about the secrets. The biggest of them, at least I hoped it was the biggest of them, was sitting right next to me. "Do you know why they didn't tell me you were coming?"

"Actually, I was hoping that you knew. Its part of the reason I came here to talk to you."

"So they're keeping secrets from their doctor too? Not just their boyfriend."

"They don't keep medical secrets from me, but they might have failed to mention that they didn't tell their boyfriend that they invited another woman to move in." She sighed then added, "If that were the only strange thing, I'd be happy."

"You're not happy?"

"Aren't you worried about what I think is strange?" she asked.

I considered what she'd said, and realized I had ignored the strange part. I guess I'm just used to strange things, or maybe I just cared if she were happy. "Maybe, I just want to make sure you're happy."

"Well, maybe, if you could explain some of the strangeness, and convince me that I'm just being paranoid, I can be happy."

"I'll do what I can, but until about five minutes ago, I didn't even understand why the girls bullied me into wearing what they wanted, and why I let myself be bullied."

She places a hand on my cheek, stroking it lightly and said, "You really are as sweet and naïve as my sister said."

"I'm not naïve," I said, with a little more forcefulness than I intended. I'd seen and done things that would make Katia run from the room screaming.

"You are naïve about women. And that might be the strangest part of all. You live around all these women who love you dearly, and you seem to love them in equal measure, and yet you don't understand them."

"Then there is the fact that there is no jealousy here. In fact, the way the girls talk, they seem to enjoy sharing you. And they never fight! They don't even make catty comments, especially not behind someone's back."

"They just love each other," I said. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world. If you loved someone you didn't fight with them.

"I love my sister, ever since we were little girls we were best friends. But we would still get bitchy towards each other. Do you know that since she's lived with you, she hasn't been having PMS, at least not the bitchiness she used to experience? That none of the women in this house seem to have that problem?"

"The girls told me that's because they're all on the pill. It keeps their hormones more regular, so they don't have that problem."

Katia seemed quite surprised, I could tell by the way her mouth hung open. "They told you that?" she finally managed to ask.

"Yes," I said. "When we first all moved in together, it wasn't always easy. But within a month or two, everything started working out. Actually, I would give Betsy as much credit as anything else. Things really calmed down when—" I stopped. I didn't quite know how to say when I started having sex with Betsy. I could have gone with the euphemism that she joined the family, but she'd been at the heart of the family for a long time before that. And it wasn't after she moved in, since she'd had a room in the house from the beginning, even if she used to prefer her old house.

"You really love her, don't you?" She asked. It sounded like a loaded question, and it many ways I suppose it was.

"Of course, she's like a daughter to me. Legally, she is my daughter. But I also love her as a woman, although I assume you already know that, being her doctor." From her look, I knew that I still faced the other barrel of that question. So I added, "But I love all of my girls. If my love for Betsy has a slightly different flavor because I loved her as a daughter first, it doesn't mean I could choose her over any of the others."

"So where does that leave me?" she asked. I'd missed it. That was her real reason for coming here, she felt like an outsider.

"That's a good question. The girls all seem to like you, and not just because they love your sister."

Katia let out a brief bitter laugh, "That's another strange thing. When did my sister become a lesbian? She never liked girls before she met you. Neither of us did, we even used to joke about how gross it was."

"Well, you don't have to be bisexual to live here. I'm certainly not," I said, giving her a wink.

"That's the thing! I never thought about having sex with a girl until my first night here. When you came to dinner with Gwendolyn my first night -- I've never been so sexually drawn to someone in my life; she absolutely exuded sex. Those feelings were entirely foreign to me, and I was so confused. At least, I was confused until my sister snuck off to have sex with you. Then I just thought about having sex with you, and I felt straight again."

"Well, actually, I didn't sneak off to have sex. I had quite a headache. She just came to see if I was feeling any better."

She didn't seem to hear what I said, continuing her previous thought, "But I could almost feel what it was like! I've always heard those stories about twins reading each others minds, but I never felt anything like that before. It was over a week before I learned my sister lost her virginity, and I was at the party when it happened."

I grew a bit uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was going. Katia had obviously felt something through my powers. It was one thing for the girls I'd been living with for years to know about my powers, but for a stranger to know, that was something else entirely. "But everyone thinks Gwen is sexy. That's not so strange."

"It's strange to me," she said. I heard a hint of desperation in her voice. She really didn't know what was going on, and it frightened her. I couldn't explain why she'd found Gwen sexy, aside from what I'd already said about everyone finding Gwen sexy. As for her sister enjoying female company now, I was pretty sure that my powers were to blame, although I don't remember doing it.

Rather than say anything, I put my arms around her and gave her a hug. She was quick to return the hug, resting her cheek on my bare chest. I felt her bare back, and again I realized how much of our exposed flesh was pressed together. But the intimacy we were sharing through the hug, felt better than having sex would have. Although the way my towel was starting to tent, as Katia said earlier, I was of two minds on the subject.

She started laughing. Eventually she said, "This time I know it's for me." She tilted her head up parting her lips slightly, looking up at me with her beautiful gray eyes. I could see a need there, but I felt it was the wrong kind of need. Her eyes burned with the need to fit in, rather than the need of simple lust. I felt a strong pull to kiss her, to take her, but I resisted.

"Not this time," I said. "No, that's a lie. It is because of you, but not now. I want you, but not now when you're vulnerable. If we do this, you'll always wonder if you fit in because we had sex, or because you really belonged."

A part of her didn't like that answer, especially the part that caused her nipples to strain against the lace of her bra. But another part recognized the truth of what I'd said. Apparently lust won out, because she pulled my head down to a kiss. It was a soft, smoldering kiss that caused my cock to strain in earnest and my resolve to begin to melt. The kiss seemed to last forever, but it was just a few moments before she pulled slowly away.

"I wish you weren't so right," she said softly, as my lips still sought hers. I opened my eyes to see her regarding me intently. "I can see why my sister loves you so much. One day, perhaps I will to, and we can finish this conversation."

"I'd like that. In the meantime, we can have other conversations; just don't expect me to behave if you catch me coming out of the shower again."

"I'd like that," she laughed, gave me a give kiss on the cheek and stood up. She picked up her blouse from the bed and started putting it on. She looked around the bedroom and added, "I think you get to pick your own clothes today, choose well."

* * *

As I contemplated the clothes in my closet, I realized I had nothing to do for the rest of the day. As I reached for a pair of old comfortable shorts, I thought about what Katia had said. Perhaps I did owe it to the girls to look nice for them; they certainly took care to look nice for me.

Inspiration took me as I pulled down a pair of unbleached cotton pants. They always made me think of the Caribbean islands, perhaps because that's where I'd gotten them. I added a powder blue shirt, a brown braided belt, and a pair of boat shoes. I regarded myself in the mirror and decided that I looked pretty good. I took some extra time to make sure my hair was neatly combed, that I hadn't missed any spots shaving, and even added a few dabs of cologne.

As I headed downstairs, a plan began forming in my mind. The first thought that sprang to mind was that we should have a luau. But I realized that would be a lot of work to setup and didn't seem that appropriate for the afternoon after a funeral. I was convinced that we should do something outside, and quickly settled on having a picnic.

I headed to the kitchen and started thinking of what I needed to do to get a picnic ready. Walking through the living room, I saw Susan sitting on the couch flipping lazily through the channels. "Are you busy?" I asked.

"What did you have in mind?" she asked in reply. She gave me a lecherous look, shutting off the TV as she walked over. I remembered the way she'd been looking at Melodie and me in the limo and was sorely tempted to accept the implied offer.

Instead I said, "Maybe in a little bit, but I have other plans." Susan cocked her head, clearly pondering what I might have in mind. Finally she shrugged, and followed me toward the kitchen.

"Can I come too?" I heard as I began pushing through the kitchen door. Marie was just walking into the living room from the hallway and headed toward us. Since it wasn't exactly a secret, and there was likely more work than Susan and I could do alone, I nodded to Marie and indicated that she should follow.

"You know you're going to the kitchen, right?" said Susan.

I gave her a swat on her round bottom, and said, "I've been to the kitchen before." I pushed open the door and stood once again in the kitchen. "I believe this makes it twice." Both girls laughed and moved to stand on either side of me as I stared at the kitchen.

The kitchen was huge. But despite the fact that it could serve over two hundred people, it felt like a family kitchen. There were large expanses of granite countertops surrounding the room, pierced periodically by large sinks. There was not one, but four center islands, one contained an eight burner stove, another held a giant sink, the third might have been a butcher block, and the fourth seemed to be the kitchen table.

I assumed it was the kitchen table because it was surrounded by stools. On one of the stools perched Tiffani. She was eating a carrot from the bag in front of her, and seemed to be reading a magazine. She looked up as we came in, and I could see the surprise on her face. She started signing, and I didn't need to read her mind, or know sign language to understand the question, "What are you doing here?" Marie and Susan added their non-voiced question to Tiffani's.

"Well, it's such a nice day outside, I thought we could all do something fun outside." I could feel Marie flinch a little at the thought of something fun. She was very close to Betsy, and didn't look like she approved of anything too fun following Betsy's father's funeral. "Well, maybe not fun, but something relaxing that we can do as a family."