“So, is some special pose you’d like me to take, while I tell you our tale?” Olivia giggled, swaying slightly with her hands on her hips.

“Yeah,” Joshua nodded. “I like to see someone’s face when talking to them – especially if they’re going to tell me something important which I need to hear.”

“Just my face?” Olivia giggle sounded almost forced to Joshua’s ear, leading him to suspect that she was stalling purposefully.

“Boobs are good too,” Joshua told her, going along with Olivia’s playful banter. Since she was the one to bring it up, he had faith Olivia would talk when she was ready. “I do like boobs,” he admitted, learning in close to his phone to deliberately ogle her chest.

“So, how’s this then?” Laying on the bed, Olivia turned onto her side and rested her head upon her arm, while staring directly into the camera.

“That’s a great pose,” Joshua assured her, whistling appreciatively. “Now, whenever you’re ready, you can tell me anything and everything which you might want to share, about your mom. I’ll just sit her silent, enjoy the view, and work on earning Companion Familiarity, Rank IV. I just got my points for rank three a few moments ago and rank four now requires observing my nude companion for two hours.”

“You’re lucky,” Olivia poured. “I’m still stuck at the thirty-minute mark and only have rank two. Why aren’t you naked so I can be earning my points, as well?” She asked, pensively.

“Are you crazy? I can’t do that here!” Blushing bright red, Joshua glanced nervously over his shoulder and back at his bedroom door. “My room doesn’t have a lock,” he explained wearily, “and my mom, or my n’ister might stick their head in here at any time, without even bothering to knock. I can flip my phone over real fast and hide you and the screen,” Joshua explained, “but there’s no way I’d live down them barging in and seeing me sprawled out like a pervert atop the covers.”

“N’ister? What’s a n’ister?” Olivia asked, pooching her lip out sulkily. “Is that how you think of me? As a pervert?”

“No, no, no,” Joshua rushed to assure her. “I don’t think you’re a pervert. I just think my mom and n’ister would both call me one, if they caught me naked and talking on the phone, without a care in the world.”

“Well fine,” Olivia pouted. “I guess I’ll let you off this time — as long as you tell me what a n’ister is.”

“She’s not my sister — my n’ister,” Joshua sighed. “I promise,” he swore, “I’ll tell you all about her, just as soon as you finish telling me about your mom.”

“Fine. It’s a deal,” Olivia nodded. “Then where should I start with mom’s tale…” Going quiet for several moments, Olivia was lost organizing her thoughts, before she finally started to talk softly.

“Mother… Mother is…” Frowning, Olivia chewed her low lip slightly, before taking a long sigh and then slowly closing her eyes. Saying nothing for several long seconds, when she finally did speak again, she did so in a much louder and certain voice. “The first thing you need to know about mother is that she’s a walking contradiction,” Olivia said, chuckling lightly.

“Almost anything I say about her, or anything I tell you about her, you’ll end up telling me, ‘Wait! Isn’t that a contradiction to what you said earlier?’” Smiling slightly, Olivia’s eye’s twinkled as she stared directly over into the camera of this phone. “And,” she admitted, “you’d be right.”

“Mother is probably the smartest person I’ve ever met – yet she’s a complete idiot. You’ll never meet anyone who lives inside their own fantasy as mother – yet she’s the most grounded person you’ll ever meet. Mother indulges in every hedonistic pleasure there is out there – yet she doesn’t take pleasure in anything. She’s the world’s biggest romantic – yet she doesn’t believe there’s any chance for romance for her.

“Whatever I tell you about mother,” Olivia smiled, proudly, “it seems I’ll come along right after and then tell you the exact opposite about her. I warn you now, it’s not me being contradictory. It’s just the way mother is.”

Nodding slightly, Joshua didn’t make a single peep. He wasn’t certain how absolute his newest quest was being, but it’d said to “Listen to your Companions back story, without complaint or interruption.”, and by golly, that was exactly what he was going to do. Five whole user points and five whole companion points – not minor points – wasn’t something he was willing to take a chance on screwing up on and losing!

“For me to really tell you about mother,” Olivia smiled, sadly, “I guess I need to really start just a while before I was born.” Going quiet for several moments, she gazed off seemingly lost in thought, before slowly starting to speak once again.

“Mother was – is,” she corrected herself, “a child from nothing. In just about anyway you can look at it, she was a child of nothing. There wasn’t any love, any money, any food, any respect… There wasn’t anything in her life, until father came along.

“Mother’s father is what I’d call a fallen preacher man,” Olivia snorted. “He’s probably the type of person which made God decide this World Renewal Project was needed at this time,” she fumed, obviously upset even thinking about him. “In public, he holds his head high, dresses fine, and speaks all the righteous words from the bible. At home,” she snorted, “all he does is drink, rant about sin, and abuse everyone behind closed doors.

“Oh, he never physically abused mother,” she rushed to clarify, seeing Joshua wrinkle up his nose at her description. “I’m not a child of incest, or anything crazy like that,” she hurried to assure him. “He just abused her emotionally and spiritually in just about every way that’s imaginable.”

“Women don’t speak unless spoken to. Women submit themselves to their husbands. Women can’t be priests, and they shouldn’t be heard, or interrupt church.” Wrinkling her nose, Olivia’s voice was mockingly high as she rattled off several of her grandfather’s beliefs. “Women shouldn’t own property. Or work. They should just stay at home, raise children, and leave all that to their husband!”

Sighing deeply, Olivia sadly shook her head from side to side. “Knowing all the stupid stuff that her father drilled into her head while she was growing up, I didn’t have any problem telling her that she didn’t need to buy me any underwear anymore. I just told her I’d found me a true man of my own, and that he didn’t want me wearing anything like that anymore, and it actually made her squeal in joy,” Olivia chuckled.

“Wait! You told her you aren’t wearing underwear anymore?” In spite of his resolution not to interrupt, Joshua couldn’t help but express his disbelief. He couldn’t ever imagine telling his mother something odd and extremely personal like that!

“Of course!” Laughing lightly, Olivia seemed more encouraged by his outburst, rather than bothered by the interruption. “I try hard not to hide anything much from mother, and I knew Maria would notice and say something after doing laundry a few times, so I figured it was just for the best to come clean as much as possible about what’s going on.”

“Stupid World Renewal Project won’t let me tell her anything about it, in particular,” Olivia grumbled, “but it doesn’t do a thing to prevent me from telling her that I’d found myself a man – a lord, as I assured her – or that he’d already set some absolute rules for me to follow.”

“And she’s fine with that,” Joshua asked, blinking disbelievingly?

“Yep. In fact, she’s tickled pink that I found a ‘real man’, in her opinion, who isn’t afraid to speak up and tell me what he expects from me,” Olivia chuckled. “It’s much easier to live up to someone’s expectations, when they tell you what those expectations are,” she imitated her mother saying.

“But that still doesn’t mean I’m not a little miffed at you over this stupid disadvantage,” Olivia grumbled, glaring into the camera.

“Sorry.” Blushing slightly, Joshua bowed her head once again in apology towards her.

“Sorry doesn’t cut it, buster,” Olivia pouted. “Did you know, apparently God’s definition of underwear, and ours, must be fundamentally different?”

“How’s that?” Joshua asked, looking back up into his phone.

“On the ride home this evening,” Olivia grumbled, “my clothes irritated the crap out of me for the whole ride back on the bus. Apparently ‘wear underwear’ means to wear anything under one’s clothing,” Olivia stressed. “The whole time I had my coat on, my shirt and skirt itched and irritated the crap out of my skin, any place that it touched. In God’s eyes, underwear must simply be anything which you wear under a single outer layer,” Olivia grumbled.

“In fact,” she pouted, “it even goes so far as to apply to sleeping at night. I can walk around my room all I want in my panties and bra – as long as that’s all I’m wearing,” she stressed, “but if I try and pull a sheet up over my body, they begin to irritate the heck out of me. Once I take them off, I can rest under a sheet,” Olivia pouted, “but then I can’t pull a blanket up over that, if I want one.”

“It’s literally a ‘can’t wear anything under the outermost layer’, Olivia pouted. “I’m definitely going to become one of those ‘what you see is what you get’ type girls.”

“Sorry.” Hanging his head once again, Joshua felt almost like crying. “I definitely didn’t intend for it to be some type of huge burden like that on you. Heck,” he tried to explain, “I’d even tried to give the disadvantage to myself, just to earn some extra points. I really didn’t think it’d be any sort of big deal. I figured I’d just end up going commando from now on – and with underwear being as flimsy as it’s normally made, I just told myself that everybody would probably be doing that once the apocalypse hit. When food, shelter, weapons, armor, and protecting yourself from monsters or demons is the priority, I just can’t imagine anyone spending the time or effect to worry about making anything like underoos anymore.”

“Yeah… Well, apparently our idea of underwear, and God’s is different,” Olivia snorted. “And, I guess that makes sense,” she frowned, shrugging slightly. “After all, what’s the difference between wearing a bikini at the beach, and wearing your underwear? A bikini is considered outerwear, but it doesn’t really cover anything that a pair of bra and panties doesn’t cover; yet we call them underwear. If underwear just applied to stuff like bras and panties, what would keep someone from wearing a bikini from under their clothes?”

“I understand it, in a way,” she admitted, smirking self-depreciatingly, “but that doesn’t mean I like it at all.”

“Ping!” An audible chime rung in Joshua’s ear, which only he could hear, as a screen popped up in the corner of his vision.

Warning! Your quest Companions Tale has been interrupted. Your reward has decreased to a maximum of 4 UP and 4 CP, with a slight decrease in factional adjustment incurred.

“Aww… Shit.” Sighing deeply, Joshua frowned visibly. “I understand it, but that doesn’t mean I like it at all,” he repeated, talking about a completely different thing.

‘Screw it!’ He thought to himself, ‘even if it ends up with me not getting any points from this, I’ve still got to be honest and tell her all I’ve learned about the damn situation.’ Taking a deep breath, he gazed directly into the phone and apologized once again. “Olivia, I’m sorry, but there’s something you need to know…”

“What’s that?” Frowning slightly, his tone instantly caught her attention and made her stop her grumbling as she stared directly into the camera.

“I’m not going to be able to buy that disadvantage off for you,” Joshua admitted, feeling completely terrible about it. “I used my skill to inspect it earlier,” he admitted, “to see how many points it would take to buy it back down, and it’s locked for now. Cannot be altered or removed for a period of ten days per point spent upon acquisition. There’s a 100-day countdown ticking down on the disadvantage.”

“Ping! Ping! Ping!” Several notifications instantly popped up in front of Joshua’s vision.

Warning! Your quest Companions Tale has been interrupted. Your reward has decreased to a maximum of 3 UP and 3 CP, with a decrease in factional adjustment incurred.

Congratulations! You have completed the quest, “Selfless Endeavor I”. You have been rewarded 3UP, 3CP, and your soul alignment has shifted marginally towards good.

“Well… That sucks.” Olivia groaned, frowning heavily. “I told you I bet there was something in place to make it undesirable to just take trivial disadvantages for points. Honestly, I think I would’ve preferred it costing twice as much to pay them off, rather than having a cool down timer.”

“Sorry,” Joshua sighed, hanging his head low and his shoulders slumping. “There’s that too,” he admitted sheepishly. “I only got five minor points for giving you the disadvantage, but it’s ten points and a hundred days to buy it off.”

“No need to waste points and buy it off then,” Olivia sighed. “I’ll either learn to adjust to it in that time, or else I’ll catch pneumonia or something, and die by then,” she snorted. “All I can say,” she glared at Joshua, “is that you better do your other companion the same way!”

“I won’t,” Joshua promised, then blinked stupidly as her words actually slowly sank in. “Wait! What?!”

“You better,” Olivia snorted, glaring into her camera. “I’m not going to be the only one dealing with this, and I sure don’t want some new girl laughing down her nose at me, over it!”

“Umm… Okay?” Frowning stupidly, Joshua realized once again that he really had no understanding of the heart of a woman. If it was so terrible, and she hated it so, shouldn’t she tell him never to do such a thing again? “How can you even be certain I’ll choose another girl for my second companion,” Joshua asked, staring blankly into his phone? “What makes you so certain I won’t choose some big, burly guy to protect us?”

“Are you gay?” Olivia asked, bluntly.

“Not at all!” Joshua assured her, feeling flustered by the sudden question out of the blue.

“And there’s your answer,” Olivia laughed. “You’re a straight guy. You have me as a knight to learn to protect you already. And, you have one magic companion slot where you can choose anybody you want to have to serve you and do whatever you tell them to. Only an idiot would think you’d choose a guy in those conditions.”

“It basically breaks down to human nature,” Olivia laughed. “Are you going to choose a guy who might compete with you for my affection, or are you going to choose another girl so we’d have to compete with each other over yours?”

“When you put it like that…” Joshua murmured , softly. “I was just thinking of some big burly guy like Rambo to hide behind, and who I could just point at and say, ‘Get ‘em,’ and then have them go out and deal with any trouble.”

“I don’t think big and burly is necessarily going to be a good thing in the new world,” Olivia told him. “I’m already as strong as most of those burly brutes now, and that’s just by spending my starting points. All big and burley does in the new world, is make you an easier target.”

“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Joshua admitted, before smirking slightly. “And I have to say, I’d much rather snuggle up with a cute girl, than a burley guy, any day of the week, if we’re going to be camping out, or anything similar, in the new world.”

“You’ve talked me in to it,” Joshua chuckled. “My next companion will be another girl, and I’ll make certain she has the same ‘no underwear’ disadvantage for you. Happy now? Can we now get back to you telling me about your mother?” Already, he’d lost two points from the off-topic distraction. He needed to get things back on track, before he lost another.

“Fine,” Olivia laughed. “I’ll tell you all about mother, and yes, I’m happy now. I can’t say that I really was relishing being one girl wedged between two horny teenage boys either. At least if it’s two girls, we only have to deal with your libido half as much between us, rather than it being twice as much if it was two guys.” Compelled by her bond, the truth of Olivia’s concerns slipped out, making both Joshua and her blush brightly and turn embarrassed.

“I… I didn’t mean that like it came out sounding,” Olivia rushed to apologize, while turning red from head to toe. “I… I just meant one guy might go at it a dozen times a day, but for a girl there’s no real limit. If you end up getting ten companions, it wouldn’t be a burden on anyone if it was nine girls and you — if you get tired, or wore down, you could just tell us to hold it and deal with it on our own.

“If it ends up being nine guys, and just me,” Olivia fretted, finally releasing her true concern, “all I’d do is end up moaning all the time for them, if you told me to! Or would you build up jealousy and resentment by keeping me all to yourself and make the others suffer? Or would I end up some prize for whoever worked the best, or contributed the most, at the end of each day? I don’t think I’d like any of those options.”

“Got it,” Joshua promised, trying to reassure her once again. In many ways, the strength and acceptance Olivia was showing astounded him, but from time to time, cracks appeared in the façade she was trying so desperately to project. “I’ll only choose other females for my companions,” he promised her, “and I won’t willingly share them with other guys.”

“And I’ll always be the First Lady of your harem?” Olivia prompted, staring into the camera.

“Yes, you’ll always be the First Lady of my harem,” Joshua promised her, laughing lightly. “That is,” he warned her firmly, “as long as you act like my First Lady. No cheating on me, or snubbing me, or running around behind my back telling folks I’m a bad lover and my feet stink, or anything like that,” he joked.

“Deal,” Olivia laughed, smiling contentedly. “I’ll be a true First Lady for your harem.”

“PING!!” The chime in his ear was much louder this time — almost enough so as to deafen him — as a red notification window popped up hovering prominently in front of his eyes. From the way Olivia’s face suddenly winced up in shock and pain, it was obvious something similar had occurred for her too.

WARNING: User has manually chosen to swap WRP Companion Systems™. WRP system will require internal reconfiguration of data structures and system libraries. This update and maintaince will occur during the next user sleep cycle.

“What the heck?!” Blinking furiously, Olivia obviously had no idea what was going on.

“I… I’ve seen something similar to this, once before,” Joshua tried to assure her. “It was right after I chose you as my first companion – there was a notification that the system needed to upgrade, or some such, during the next user sleep cycle. Nothing I did would work after that,” he cautiously informed her, “until after I went to sleep, and it was when I awoke the next morning that the interface had expanded, and you were listed as my eternal companion.”

“So, we just need to go to sleep?” Olivia asked, frowning uncertainly.

“Well yeah,” Joshua chuckled, “and then we’ll be able to see what the heck has changed. Apparently, you talked me into changing companion systems, and agreed to it yourself, so now we’re going from being Eternal Companions to becoming an Eternal Harem? I guess you’re going to be end up becoming the first of twenty virgins to serve me eternally, or something like that,” Joshua joked lightly. Truthfully, he was worried – everything about this World Renewal Project worried him; especially new things, or anything that might change what little he’d already been able to figure out about what was going on – but he didn’t want to admit that and burden Olivia any further than she already was.

“But before that,” he chuckled, smiling weakly, “why don’t you tell me more about your mother? We can go to sleep afterwards. I don’t think there’s anything else that we can do to change what’s going to happen now anyway. The system is locked in sleep mode and needs us to rest before it can update anything again.”

“Fine…” Sighing deeply, Olivia bit her lower lip slightly, and then drifted back off to silence for several long moments.

After waiting for what seemed like an eternity to him, Joshua couldn’t take the quiet coming from the other end of the phone and slowly prompted, “You were telling me about how your mother was a woman of contradictions and your grandfather was an ass.”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call grandfather that,” Olivia chuckled softly, as she blinked a few times and slowly brought her focus back to the subject at hand. “He’s just one of those overly religious nutcases who lives a life opposite to what he preaches. In public, he preaches kindness and compassion for all of God’s creatures. In the privacy of his home, he expects subservience from the women around him, and alcohol as tribute.”

“As much as I don’t like to admit it,” Olivia admitted, wrinkling her nose slightly, “his bigotry and morality has had a huge impact on both my mother’s life, and my own. Grandfather doesn’t believe that a woman should wear pants,” she offered, as an example, “so mother still doesn’t wear any, and she’s never bought a pair for me. If you’ve ever actually noticed, all I ever wear is dresses, or skirts. That’s all just one of the subtle influences grandfather still holds over our lives.

“And there’s a million more,” Olivia rushed to add. “His overly strict upbringing of mother cast shadows and impressions on her, that will probably shade our family legacies for generations to come. If you study my list of disadvantages – at least, what the system calls disadvantages – you’ll see that the majority of them are probably things he pushed into teaching mother, that I’ve inherited. Honestly,” she whispered, turning introspective for a few moments, “I’d never thought that he’d had such a huge impact on my life, and who I am, until I ran down that list and saw that a lot of the things listed are things that he’s always pushing…”

Shaking her head slightly from side to side, Olivia looked almost like she was going to start crying again, as she slowly lost herself in her own thoughts. “I’ve never even met the man,” she whispered softly, “and yet, he’s reached out and shaped who I’ve become so heavily, and I never even realized it.”

“Well, that’s okay,” Joshua told her, laughing lightly, in an attempt to stop her from falling into a self-reflective depression. “I’m your man now,” he assured her, “so he’s not going to have that hold over you in the future, anymore. If I want to put you in pants, then I’ll buy you the thinnest, sexiest, skinniest-tightest yoga pants that they make and pant them on you, and if he doesn’t like it, he can take it up with that God of his and the WRP which He created.”

“I think I’d just as soon go bottomless,” Olivia laughed, smirking slightly. “What the heck is the point of those type of pants? Especially when you know I’m not going to be wearing anything at all under them? It’s not like they actually hide anything! They might as well just be pantyhose!”

“Oh! That’s a great idea too,” Joshua agreed, smirking lightly. “I’ll just buy you a couple pairs of panty hose to wear around town!”

“I might have to wear them, if you tell me too,” Olivia laughed, sticking her tongue out at him, “but you’d end up being the one having to pay the fines and bail me out of jail when I do! I hope you’ve got a good job!”

“Not at all,” Joshua admitted. “I’m just a worthless teen bum who likes to stay at home and play video games as much as possible. If you’re going to be counting on me to bail you out, you’ll probably be sitting in jail for quite some time. Unless there’s some way in the WRP to turn points into money,” he added, brightening up somewhat at the thought of it.

“No need for that! Points are too valuable to be turned into money,” Olivia corrected. “I’m certain if worse came to worst, mother would happily wheel into the courthouse and pay every fine I have, while my other grandparents would hire the mafia or something to off the idiot prosecutor and judge who dared to put me into jail.”

“Mafia?” Blinking slightly, Joshua chuckled slightly for a few moments – and then he had to swallow back a small lump of dread that formed in the back of his throat, as he remembered that she couldn’t lie, or deceive him.

“Yeah,” Olivia chuckled, as if it were the most usual thing in the world to talk about. “My other grandparents are rich. Not nouveau-rich, as they call these upstarts like Billy Gates, but ‘patiently-established' rich. They’re also part of the reason why my mother is the way she is,” Olivia admitted.

“Back when mother was a young girl, she was a rare, world-class beauty. Grandfather loved to have her dress up, just to show her off, for the attention which it helped bring to him, as her father. Honestly, I think he was going to try and marry her off himself, or something,” Olivia frowned, wrinkling her nose in disgust at the antiquated-in-her-mind idea.

“Instead,” she chuckled, “all he did was add enough sparkle to her already dazzling shine, to catch father’s attention. Father was the child of wealth, born from a legacy of wealth, and he was used to getting whatever he wanted – and the moment when he first saw mother, he wanted her.”

“Wooed her with chocolates, and flowers. Clothes and jewelry. Gifts and presents of all shapes and sizes. To hear mother tell of it,” Olivia chuckled, “he was Eros -- descended from the heavens – and his whole existence was to woe her and win her over.”

“And he did,” she admitted, softly. A small sparkle glinted in Olivia’s eyes as she tried to imagine the whirlwind romance of the two star-struck youths. “At least,” she frowned slightly, “until mother ended up pregnant with me.”

“Mother’s father was furious – she wasn’t even thirteen yet, when she ended up with me growing in her stomach. Father’s father was just as bad – how could his boy be so stupid as to knock up some idiot child to cause such a scandal?! Both of them pressured mother to get an abortion, and they’d even set up an appointment to flush me down the drain,” Olivia whispered softly, “but mother wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Instead, she talked father into running away with her. Riding off into the sunset, like in the stories,” Olivia smiled sadly, “and then they could live together forever, in defiance against the world…” Olivia got silent for several moments, as her face reflected the visible sadness of her heart, while she struggled to form the words for the next part of her mother’s tale.

“Barely fifteen himself,” Olivia finally whispered, “father stole one of grandfather’s cars, and him and mother tried to escape. They should’ve known better,” she whispered, sadly, as a small tear trickled down her cheeks, “but they were young, stupid, and in love. They thought they were invincible.”

“The cops caught up to them right before they made it across the state line,” Olivia sighed, hanging her head slightly. “Father ran into a set of those nail strips that they use to stop suspects from escaping, and they burst the tires on the car he was driving. With almost no experience behind the wheel,” she sighed, “he over-corrected and flipped the vehicle a dozen times.”

“Father died in that wreck.” Olivia’s voice was barely a whisper as she struggled to get the words out. “And mother had her spine broken. The doctors say it’s a miracle that I survived the impact of the crash, but somehow mother managed to keep from miscarrying me though all that trauma.”

“Of course,” Olivia sighed, staring up into the camera sadly, “everything changed after that. Father’s father absolutely refused to let mother’s father force her into an abortion. The child in her stomach – me – was the last legacy of his bloodline. Father was his only child, and grandfather can’t have more children of his own… He’d be damned if he was going to let someone destroy his legacy upon the world!”

“And yet,” Olivia sighed, deeply and sadly, “he hates mother with all his being. As far as grandfather is concerned, she’s the she-devil who lured his son off to his death. If she wasn’t my mother, she’d probably have had an ‘accident’ of some sort by now, but even he isn’t the type to take a child from her mother.”

“But that doesn’t mean he’s going to support mother in any way, shape, or form,” Olivia sighed. “This house that we live is, is in my name. The income we get each month, is my allowance. Grandfather will spend his whole fortune for something, if I ask him for it – after all, I’m the last of his blood and it’ll all be mine anyway in a few years – but he wouldn’t give mother a crumb of bread from a stale loaf in his house.”

“Which is why I said mother is a woman of contradiction,” Olivia smirked, sadly. “She’s an idiot who never graduated school after her accident, yet she’s smart enough to keep everything up and running. We’re living off my trust fund, but mother, as my guardian, manages everything.”

“Mother’s a helpless romantic,” Olivia chuckled, “yet she doesn’t think there’s any chance for love in her life. She had her knight in shining armor, but the evil dragon of fate ripped them apart. She’ll never love another, in this world, until she goes to rejoin him in the next.”

“Mother’s dead broke, without a cent to her name,” Olivia laughed lightly, “and yet she lives on a million-dollar estate, has a personal maid, and won’t have a single issue with finances for the rest of her life. Sure, she’ll lose access to grandfather’s money, and my trust, when I turn twenty-one, but be fine.”

“See,” Olivia smirked again, proudly, “mother is the most conniving, most innocent person you’ll ever meet. She never really grew up after her accident,” Olivia chuckled, “and in a lot of ways, she still exudes the innocence of a young child — but she’s also had to endure the harshest of realities of life.”

“While she was in rehab, mother met Maria — that’s our maid,” Olivia added, off-handedly. “She’s a child of some serious abuse, and was mama’s roommate for almost a year while she was in rehab. When mother got out, and grandfather set her up with this place her to live and raise me in, mother hired Maria to be her maid.”

“And her cook. And her caretaker. And her physical therapist. And her gardener. And her manicurist. And her maintenance guy. And who knows what else!” Laughing lightly, Olivia was grinning proudly now. “Grandfather has a fortune, and he’s used to paying dozens of people to do various jobs in his home. He’s never once thought it odd that he’s paying for a dozen different people to help tend to my needs. Nanny. Tutor. Bodyguard.”

“Grandfather pays for all those things, for me,” Olivia laughed, “yet he doesn’t have a clue that it’s just one person filling all those positions!”

“And Maria…” Olivia shrugged slightly, while grinning brightly, “Maria would have to be mother’s eternal companion. She was born and raised in a home even worse than mother’s, and mom is the one who pulled her up and out of it. Mother feeds her the best food. Buys her the best clothes. Provides warmth, shelter, friendship, and family for her. Maria is truly mother’s eternal servant. After almost eighteen years of funneling countless money into Maria’s account, I’m utterly certain she’d sign it all back over to mother, the very second she told her to.”

“Which is why I said mother’s the most innocent person you’ll ever meet — she doesn’t lie, curse, swear, complain, gripe, or dwell on the negatives of life — yet she’s cunning enough to siphon countless millions off grandfather and to Maria.”

“Millions?” Joshua blinked stupidly, while staring wide-eyed at Olivia through the phone. “I had no idea you came from a family with that much money! You certainly don’t seem it at school! I thought you were just another one of us common plebes, though a bit prettier than most.”

“Well, I am a ‘common plebe,’ as you put it,” Olivia laughed, snorting slightly. “My mother doesn’t give me a large allowance — yours is probably bigger than mine, I’d bet — and all of grandfather’s money is in a trust which I can’t access until I’m twenty-one. Our maid is actually the one with all the ready cash on hand, in our home, and even though she’d give it all to mother, she’d spank me if I asked for it!”

“And as for being prettier than everyone else,” Olivia sighed, “that’s all because of mother too.” Sitting up on her bed again, she gently placed a hand underneath each breast and lifted them slightly. “Like these?” Olivia asked, watching Joshua’s face through the camera.

“Yeah, I sure do,” Joshua nodded, grinning stupidly. “I am a guy after all, and those are probably some of the nicest, roundest, fullest boobs in the school! Every boy daydreams about them,” he chuckled lightly.

“Well, they’re not real,” Olivia sighed, letting go of them and laying back down on her side again on the bed.

“Plastic surgery?” Joshua gasped, staring hard to see if he could see any sign of them being fake. “Implants?” Guessing wildly, they certainly looked real to him.

“They’re one hundred percent organic,” Olivia chuckled. “They’re just not one hundred percent natural.”

“Ever since I first started puberty,” Olivia smirked, “mother has paid for a doctor to come out and give me shots in my breast every week, to help them grow. Estrogen, Progesterone, and several other things, to help stimulate breast growth.”

“Mother read, or heard an article on television, which claimed women made more money and got promoted faster at work, if they had larger breasts, and she wanted to give me, quote, every advantage in the world, quote.” Wiggling her fingers in the air, Olivia made air quotes as she wrinkled her nose.

“So they’re real,” Joshua laughed slightly. “Just grown with Miracle-Grow!”

“Something like that,” Olivia sighed. “Personally, I don’t see where they’re useful at all. All they do is hang around, bounce stupidly when you run, hurt your shoulders and back, and make every guy drool like an idiot while staring at them and not your face,” Olivia griped.

“Uh huh. Uh huh.” Opening his eyes as wide as he could, Joshua stared slack-eyed directly at her chest. Mouth opened exaggeratedly wide, drool slowly oozed down his lips. “Yep. Yep,” he agreed, nodding his head stupidly.

“Oh quit that!” Laughing lightly, Olivia stuck her tongue out at the screen. “You’re not that bad. At least you were watching my face while I talked,” Olivia complemented him.

Honestly, Joshua was surprised with himself, the moment she mentioned it. “I guess I did,” he mused, thinking. “I suppose I’m just getting used to seeing you, thanks to the ‘Companion Familiarity’ task.”

“Oh, so I’m already losing my allure as a woman,” Olivia pouted.

“Not at all,” Joshua rushed to assure her. “I think I’ve just been overwhelmed, as a man. My hormones can’t cope with all the stimulation,” he chuckled, “so they’ve all went on strike. Besides,” he felt himself compelled to say his honest thoughts, “what type of jackass would I have to be, to focus on a girl’s breasts when she’s opening up her heart? I’m not that type of person — at least, I don’t want to be,” he added lamely, feeling completely embarrassed.

“Aren’t you cute as a button,” Olivia teased, sticking her tongue back out at him again. “But, that’s more, or less, my mother. She’s still a hopelessly romantic child at heart, heavily influenced by her father’s overbearing morals, so she has absolutely no objection at all to me finding my own prince. I’ve always been too headstrong to be a princess, she claims, so it’s just wonderfully perfect that I’ve found some prince to accept me as his knight.”

“The only thing you have to worry about with mother,” Olivia warned, “is she might just end up packing me up and shipping me off to you. She’ll never be one to get in the way of two souls destined to roam eternity together.”

“In fact,” Olivia chuckled, “she wants you to come over this Saturday so you can give me my next set of shots, and then we can all go shopping together so you can pick out the proper clothes for me.”

“Mother truly believes its up to a guy to make decisions and take care of his woman,” Olivia warned him, seriously. “It’s why she has no problem with me telling her I’m not wearing underwear anymore — my man doesn’t want me to, so I shouldn’t. Now that I’ve told her I’ve found my man,” Olivia chuckled, “mother’s going to start pushing all the decisions for me over to you.”

“I’m certain, that before she’ll sign a permission slip for me to join cheerleading next year, she’ll wait to ask your opinion first,” Olivia told Joshua, smiling slightly. “You’d better get used to being part of our family now,” Olivia warned him again, “because mother probably won’t make a single decision, or buy a single thing, for me now, without consulting you first.”

“And what if I don’t want to buy you any clothes,” Joshua laughed, wiggling his eyebrows at her evilly.

“Then mother would probably pull me out of school and just make me run around the house naked,” Olivia told him, dead serious. “I’m certain she’d find it exotic and romantic, if my man wanted me to lead a naturalist lifestyle. You might have chosen me on a whim,” Olivia chuckled, “but now we’re stuck with each other, for better or worse.”

“You make it sound like we’re married,” Joshua told her, blushing uncomfortably.

“Aren’t we?” Olivia asked, staring directly into the phone. “If not, then it’s something dang similar — at least according to the biblical definition of marriage. Heck, even a man having two wives wasn’t unheard of, or uncommon, back in the days of the bible.”

“So… I’m married?” Joshua felt faint, just thinking about it in those terms.

“Well, we’re married, yes,” Olivia agreed, laughing slightly. “Which is why I want to hear about my n’ister-in-law.”