Marc had always been a misfit. He had always been the smartest kid in school and the best athlete in school. He was much taller and much more handsome than the others.
He had also held back on his abilities to keep from drawing everyone's scrutiny. Most found him to be pleasant but reserved but he could be utterly charming when he felt the need to do so.He did attract girls and got laid regularly; his fuckmates adored his lovemaking, his control, and his attention.
They hated his reluctance to commit. He was now twenty-six years old and had never had a girlfriend for more than three weeks.
At the age of twenty-two he had graduated with a PhD in Physics/Astronomy from a prestigious university. He had also won over a million dollars on a one time pull on a special slot machine in Vegas. Before he pulled the lever he knew he would win. He invested the cash and now had enough money to take him through two lifetimes.
He began to travel around the world on a quest, he intended to visit every major celestial observatory on Earth.
By then he had learned that stardom in sports or music or business or academia were not what he was searching for. He knew he did not want fame. The problem was he had no idea what he was searching for.
He learned the customs and history of the people he met on his travels and made many friends and had a few lovers, all missed him when he left each destination. He remembered each and every one he had a conversation with and had mentally tagged many for further visits but did not know why he did that. He did know all of those people were very smart, very talented, and very pleasant. The kind of people he would like as neighbors.
Some thought he was from a royal house, a few asked him to remember them "when the time comes."
"I will always remember you," he had always answered, and he did.
He had also had some very strange encounters. In Singapore he met an old man called Mr. Wu that after several hesitations asked him to come and visit him at home and have dinner with him. Marc accepted and learned his house was on the second story of a busy restaurant. He was met at the door by a young lady that said to him, "This way please your highness."
He corrected her saying he was just an astronomer from Vancouver but followed her. The home was very well appointed and it was obvious the man was very rich.
Mr. Wu and his family greeted him warmly and with respect. Dinner was sumptuous and he enjoyed it very much. After dinner the old man took him to a large room that was full of pre-teens and teenagers. He said, "These are my children although I am the father of just two, the girl that escorted you up and the one wearing the school uniform.
The others are orphans, abandoned children. All of them will be very helpful in any endeavor. All have brilliant minds. All are good people."
He was introduced to the sixteen teens and pre-teens and he had to agree with the old man, the kids were special. After he visited with each they left the room until only the young woman that had escorted him remained.
"Follow me please," she said.
Her name was Jing Li and was gorgeous, in her early twenties, and a bit taller than her father. She was still treating him as if he was royalty.
She took him to what appeared to be her bedroom. She made herself nude then undressed Marc. She made love to him. He made love to her. She had been a virgin and had not expected pleasure but he made sure she had enormous pleasure and a memorable first fuck.
Afterwards as they cuddled she said, "Our children will be special. They will make you proud. I will wait for you until you return."
He said nothing but understood he may have made her pregnant but also knew that if the opportunity presented itself he would see her again.
He made love to her a second time, which made her proud. He took her to several more orgasms that made her grateful. After another cuddling kissing session he left her asleep in bed, dressed and went in search of her father.
He thanked Mr. Wu for his hospitality. The old man wanted to hug him but couldn't. So Marc hugged him and praised him for rescuing the children.
Several of his lovers were secure in their knowledge she was pregnant with his child. None of them were showing or had children even though for some women it had been well over six years since they last made love.
He had suspected it was a ploy to have him commit to them but none had asked him to marry her and none seemed to expect him to help with her child. In fact all any of them had asked him to do was remember her.
He visited with Jing Li twice more and had stayed with her at her apartment. She was now the executive chef at her father's restaurant. He had become her souse chef on each trip.
They had fucked often during the time he was there and although eight months had passed between his visits she was still convinced she was pregnant.
He had revisited with the children, all had working shifts at the restaurant after school. He got them eight fine chess sets and brought each a book he thought they would enjoy ranging from science fiction to engineering.
All got books full of math puzzles. Many of the books were in English with a few in other languages. Two boys came to him with completed math puzzle books the same day they received them. They were brothers and the oldest one said, "My brother finished first but I did not need him to help me on any of them."
The pride he had in himself and in his brother was palpable. Each book had one hundred problems and Marc checked their answers and pointed out three errors in the older one's book and one in the younger one's. The younger one's book was in Spanish, the elder's was in French.
Both were crestfallen when he pointed out the errors, but Marc said, "The problems were not with your math but with the language, you misinterpreted the question. Amazing work considering neither language is your own."
Both preened with pride when he praised them. That evening he brought each adventure novels in Spanish and French.?
On his quest he charmed everyone in each observatory into allowing him to use the instruments and made sure they remembered him with a smile. He had visited the JPL lab for two weeks and made good friends and had an exceptional lover there.
She was older than he and an avowed Lithuanian lesbian but was his most energetic lover. She also had a brilliant mind that would interpret data before others realized there was important data to decipher.
He had stayed with her for ten of those days which was second only to Jing Li
At the Lab he was allowed to listen in on their communications with each spaceship and was given the codes to be able to pick it up on his laptop. He was very interested in the Voyagers but the time frame during which they tuned in to them was not when he was there. Budget cuts had made the time to visit with those space ships rare. They did supply him with the schedule before he left and the means to tune in when they did.
He had made useful suggestions to the people at each observatory and all thought of him as a brilliant colleague.
But when he finished the observatory quest he felt he was just adrift, no experience had felt like the end of his search. He had searched the Americas, Australia, Asia, and Africa thinking he would find something. As it turned out what he was looking for was a someone.
He was on his second trip to Europe, his first as a tourist. He had spent two weeks in Portugal and Spain and was on his second week in Italy. He was sitting in the Duomo in Milan watching people go by as he drank a beer.
He liked people watching and it often got him laid. He was sitting across the way from a McDonald's trying to guess the nationality of those going in.
Suddenly he felt a presence behind him and turned to look. A woman was staring at him with intensity. They looked at each other, frozen in place for several moments until he stood and pulled out a chair for her. Both had big grins as she walked to him.
They kissed. It was the kiss of long time lovers. They sat and for several moments they just stared at each other. Finally she spoke to him in Russian. He spoke to her in English. They understood each other perfectly. They had studied each other's language intensely but had also studied five other languages, the same five other languages they would later learn.
The waiter approached the table and she ordered red wine in Italian and he ordered another beer but Italian was not one of the languages they knew well so they continued their conversation in French.
Her name was Natalia and her life had been the mirror image of Marc's including winning a large cash prize four years earlier. Over time her sex partners had become mostly women, men had left her unsatisfied but she already knew this man would not.
A gorgeous redhead that made you smile would describe her perfectly. She was tall with fine breasts and a fine ass. She had a gorgeous grin and a melodic voice. He loved her giggles and her freckles. He really loved her large green eyes.
She loved his grin, his deep voice, his caramel colored eyes and his thick black hair. She loved how he gently touched her.
Each wondered why they had not met before. During their conversation it had become obvious to them that they had been searching for each other for years and had been in the same place at the same time often.
Yet they did not meet at a Melody concert they had attended in his hometown of Vancouver in October of the previous year. Of course that would have been catastrophic since both were on dates with sexy blonde women.
They had not met in a Costa Rica vacation each had taken early that year. They had each taken their Mom's. In fact they had been at ten identical places around the world at about the same time during the last four years but had never met. Most of the time one was leaving as the other arrived.
"It's like something or someone was keeping us apart until now," Natalia said.
"That is exactly right," a lady said to them as she sat at their table. The language she had used was Spanish and their conversation continued in that language.
She was a very pretty woman, small with black hair and very white skin. Marc and Natalia assumed her to be in her late twenties to early thirties. Both adored her immediately.
The woman continued, "You both needed to get those many travel experiences out of the way before you were allowed to meet. Your life would have become centered on each other otherwise and the people and places that made you think would not have been noticed.
You had me working interference often; the most of any couple although your best friends were somewhat close.
"May we assume we have not met our best friends yet?"
"Correct, they met each other yesterday. You two are my last. Call me Carmen. You will not need to get married, for all practical purposes you already are. You have the next three nights in Milan to make love; you already have train passes for all of Europe so may I suggest day trips to Florence and Venice?"
The waiter came by their table and Carmen ordered a red wine. Marc ordered refills on Natalia's and his drinks.
Carmen continued, "I placed the brochures to the Duomo on your dressers before you got here. I followed Natalia when she came this way.
You have a meeting with others like you the Monday after next in Vienna. Your hotel has booked both of you in the same room as man and wife. Your hotel floor will have only your peers, make friends."
"Mom, who are we meeting?"
