Fishing.

“Eight confirmed, then...”

“Tom... They are not numbers...”

“How is Elfie?” Didier asked.

“Better, but quiet. She eats again, normally. She sleeps less, goes on recon missions, but I miss her tenacity. I sit by her at times, but she barely speaks to me. It will take time.”

“Perhaps she just wants to forget.”

“Perhaps, Didier. How is Lina doing?”

Didier sighed.

“That bad?” I frowned.

“No. Oh no... She doesn’t want to take it calmer, she keeps doing the work, commanding me back and forth until my head is spinning.”

“And your other girlfriend?”

“Worse... Amelie just wants to nurture me, comfort me, taking over stuff she shouldn’t do.”

“So, wait... You have Lina commanding you, and Amelie does it for you?”

“No... She does the stuff I want to do, and leaves me with the rest.”

“Ha! Poor man...” Tom laughed.

“Like you have it so much better...” Didier countered.

“Aheum... well, you’re right about that... Eva and Maria are one front, I can’t do anything with one before the other buts in. Gina... is... eh... a bit like Sophia... but with less tact.”

“Even less?” I reacted surprised. “I thought she was abused by her ex-husband? How did that go, then?”

“The fucker hit her, but barely touched her. He couldn’t get it up. He got frustrated. And worked it out on Gina. And Gina is now free of him, realized she couldn’t keep excusing him, and was very happy when you exiled him to that house. And now...”

“She wants to really live her life...”

“Yes... Look, the sex is really great, and I have quite the stamina for it, if I may say so, Alex.”

“Don’t worry about it, Tom.”

“But with three at the same time, I get a bit...”

“Depleted...” I whispered.

“Yes...” Tom sighed.

“You need to date them, separately. Tell them it is to get to know them better, individually. Which is true. They are not soldiers, they are civilians thrust into our world. They need a lot of time to adapt. To figure out who they are without their previous relations, a husband, a partner or a father. And so do you, Tom. My girlfriends are not a package deal, to say it crudely. Each of them is her own. Sure, they sometimes act as one... well... most of the time... but they have their own reasons to agree with the others. You need to figure out who they are, and you can only do it, with one on one dates.”

“Oh... Now, that is a good idea. But how do I enforce it?”

“Oh, Tom, that is the easy part. Simply denial of access. If your willpower is strong enough, you will enforce it quickly enough. They will test you of course, but once you get the dates, they will comply easily enough.”

“Hmm... Perhaps I should try that... A sex strike...” Didier mused.

“Didier, in your case, with a pregnant woman and rampaging hormones, you could be in real danger...”

“Fuck...”

“Besides, you have only two girlf... What’s going on?” I saw Didier staring over my shoulder.

“If I’m not mistaken, Alex, your future number nine is slowly ploughing her way to you...”

I turned around and indeed, Elfie was leisurely snow walking towards us. I was surprised to see her on her own, either she escaped or... the women let her free, which meant... they deemed her fit to... harass me... on my Sunday fishing day... Again...

“Welcome, Elfie.” I smiled at her.

“Hi Tom. Hi Didier.”

Not one mention of me. Looks like there is fire in her today. Let’s see.

“Alex. Are you praying to the fish god again?”

“No, no... we sacrificed enough fish to him. Today we are contemplating the deeper meaning of life as a fish.”

“Yes, we are... He was free to swim in the water, happy as he was, then suddenly...”

“He got hooked and never got away anymore...”

“Dropped into an aquarium...”

“To be viewed as a unique curiosum of past times.”

“You men are just silly... A fish doesn’t think, it just swims, eats and lays eggs or fertilizes them. All on basic instinct.”

“Basic instinct, wasn’t that a movie?” I asked the men.

“Before my time, man, way before my time...” Tom replied.

“Face it, Alex, you’re the curiosum now...” Didier smiled.

“Et tu, Brute...” I sighed. “What brings you here, Elfie, on my Sunday morning fishing trip?”

“You left. You promised to train me.”

“Odd, I don’t recall such a promise.”

“You forgot again. Don’t worry, it is normal for older men to forget things...”

“Ouch!” Didier exclaimed.

“Stabbed in the heart...” Tom was shaking his head in mock disbelief.

“That could be the case of course, Elfie, but I have noticed in my years of wisdom, that younger women tend to make up things along the way. Typical puberty stuff...” I teased her.

“Whoa!” She gasped.

“Easy now, Elfie.” I stood up, took her hand into mine and walked off the ice. “What is this training you wanted me to do with you?”

“Alex... I just missed you.”

“I missed you too. I’m glad you’re back, more or less.”

I hugged her, she hugged me, without tears this time. With a light smile on her face.

We walked back to the camp, with another detour as usual.

“Alex.”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for what you did for me, after I crashed.”

“It was bound to happen, Elfie. I just did what I needed to do, the best I could.”

“I feel I am changed by it, Alex. I am more scared. My teasing you is just a...”

“A cover, I know, Elfie. But I like it, it proves you still have fire in you.”

“I like it too, but I’m afraid sometimes I will hurt you.”

“You never did. What hurts me is seeing you in pain. My girlfriends intervened in time. That doesn’t mean though that you have to keep your pain hidden. We’ll take care of you, as a group.”

“Alex, what the Russians did to me... It was the first time I experienced sex.”

“It wasn’t sex, Elfie. It was ****. It was **** of power.”

“Kara told me about your definition of virginity. Do you think it applies to me?”

“It applies to everyone. Including me.”

“Alex...”

“Yes?”

“Kiss me.”

For her it was extremely important to take control. As it is for me. But more for her.

So I kissed her. Very gentle, very soft, the way Ambra had done. Brushing her lips with mine, but she kept her eyes open and looked at mine. Her breathing accelerated but calmed again. She broke the kiss on her own and hugged me once more.

“Thank you, Alex.”

“You’re welcome, Elfie.”

“Am I your girlfriend now?”

“Only if you want to be.”

“I want to wait.”

“That is fine by me.”

“But I want to...”

“Slowly, Elfie. Don’t overstretch yourself. You will take control, over yourself, over the situation. I will understand.”

“Ambra is the same?”

“Yes and no. She is...” I sighed.

“Her abusers trained her, molded her into... a puppet without a will of her own. She is sensitive to the needs of others. For her abusers it was as if she did without being commanded, seeing their needs and anticipating on it before she was ordered to. So she learned empathy as a means to survive, I think. She applied the same with me. But it... backfired, as I don’t need sex, I don’t need to hurt to feel good. On the contrary. In a way we used her empathy to teach her about our world. About us. She is learning now everything we can offer. About caring for others, protecting each other, loving each other.”

“She has learnt a lot...”

“Yes... She is extraordinary in it. She feels things before I even can express them myself. It’s almost magic. And her logic skills are really, really good. Now that I think about it, perhaps that too is a survival skill. Like turning off your emotions and just think without them. Sometimes it feels like she took our lessons as a direct order of learning as much as she could, when she arrived, literally, and applied it to everything.”

“So, she is changing by using the same skills she needed to survive. But now on a better path.”

“I hope so. But she is different from you, as she is just learning now how love is supposed to work. How it is supposed to feel. She feels overwhelmed by it. Her first kiss was proof of that. She cried of happiness, and we have never seen her cry in all the time she is with us. Emotions may be... how odd it sounds... completely new to her. She has faked them for so long, just to react, to sound exactly as she felt her abusers wanted her to feel. It is odd... She can feel exactly what others feel, but cannot feel herself or is confused by it.”

“Whatever she feels, Alex, she feels happy now, with you. It is genuine. She shows it when you are not around. She radiates it to everyone, including me. I feel warm, like I feel protected and safe with you. I don’t know if it is really love I feel for you, but I want to find out, Alex.”

“Take your time, Elfie. I’m not saying you should wait, but take it slowly. I am here for you, we all are here for you. You will not burden us, we will make sure of it.”

“Ella explained to me about you...”

“Elfie, you may feel the need to tell what happened to you, but I don’t.” I said as gently as I could.

“I know, don’t worry, I won’t ask you for it. But in a way, you are the same as Ambra, you empathize easily, too much at times. You were at my side for a week, then they dragged you out. I couldn’t understand, but she told me, you were overwhelmed. I’m sorry...”

“No, Elfie. Don’t say sorry. You don’t need to. I too am learning about myself, thanks to my girlfriends. They notice things in me, before I even notice them. They will intervene before I even recognize what happens inside me. And sometimes they nudge me, knowing it is a risk to nudge me. But also knowing I wouldn’t hurt them afterwards. That I even would feel grateful for it. Not that I will admit it of course...” I smiled at that. “It’s one of the fun things in our relationships...”

“Nudging... as in forcing you to take me with you on your walks for two months?”

“Oh, yes... Kylie saw it in a split moment how I admired your strength after we got you out. Kate immediately recognized my need to take care of you in the hospital. Ella liked the fire in you, immediately challenging me, even before she did at the time we met, so she went along with the nudging, doing practical jokes with me, making sure you wouldn’t be intimidated by me, even if you weren’t. The rest quickly followed, but each with their own reasons.”

“You nurtured my contrarian behavior...”

“Oh, yes, I did. We all did. I did it on instinct, I wanted that fire burning in you. I wanted to prevent your crash for as long as I could, until you felt safe.”

“And then I did.”

“And then you did, but you felt safe with us, with a man around you. I wasn’t sure you would want me around then, but Ambra ensured me you wanted me around. So I did.”

“You listen to all of them.”

“We all listen to each other. We take over the parts of each other we like and slowly integrate them in ourselves. Kate, for example, would never have taken the initiative to scheme for that long, until she learned from Kylie. Kylie learned it probably from me. Ella is taking over some tenderness from Clara. Emma is incorporating some command skills in times of urgency, and learns to flatly refuse things. Clara is experimenting, challenging her own beliefs. Sophia is taking control of herself. Kara is standing up for herself. And Ambra is growing in strength very fast now. In fact... we all are growing.”

We finally arrived back at the camp, but there was one more question on Elfie’s mind. She wanted in, but wanted to stay out at the same time. She wanted to wait, but also wished to be in a relationship, so she asked the next best thing.

“Will you allow me to watch you in your relations?”

“You can watch everything you want. But make sure you do it with respect for yourself, and with others. Some are not ready to be watched... in everything, and some things you are not ready to see, if you know what I mean?”

She blushed. She understood.

“You blush easily, we should do a contest between you and Kate, see who can set the speed record or intensity record...” I teased her, breaking the serious mood.

“Insufferable...”

“Yes, he is...” Sophia surprised us from behind, being on guard duty.