Double Take - Take Two

Shannon found Nora's whereabouts by merely telling the truth to the publisher, a doctor wanting to know what became of a child he delivered. The girl of all these men's dreams lived nearby - in Manhattan. "I'll go with you," she offered.

"You would do that?" Mac asked.

"Have to protect you, Marcus. I think Denise is right. If you run off with this babe, who will take care of the kiddies?" not referring to Macaluso's son and daughter who had grown up and left the nest, but rather referring to the handicapped children in the clinic who depended on him.

"Better call ahead, huh?" he asked, unsure.

"Mmmmm. I don't think so. Worst case, she's not there, and we do a bar."

"Brewskies. Good idea," he agreed.

It wasn't the worst case as it turned out, it was the most complicated case that could have ever presented itself. Standing on the steps outside her apartment, he pressed her intercom button. "Who is it?" an unmistakably sweet, the SAME unmistakably sweet voice asked. Shannon reacted to it. Her voice alone..

"I am doctor Macaluso, the doctor who.." as a click and the loss of hum clearly disclosed that the connection had been broken, "hello?.. hello, can you hear me?' Hello..." He had not gotten to the last hello when the sound of slamming doors and downward bounding, racing was heard.

This lovely girl of eighteen, and she was still, even as Shannon gasped, that same girl of eighteen with gorgeous legs, lovely body, and heaven seeking breasts, copper lucent hair in waves of small ripples trying to catch up to her as she rushed through the door and embraced him and held him as if they had always been in love, pressing her head to his chest then reversing the posture.

"My editor told me that you asked about me - and Marcus."

"And Marcus?" Shannon gasped as doctor Macaluso did his second double take, this time from within her bosoms, God they were warm, "Marcus?" he seconded, drunkenly muffled.

She didn't lose her grip, but with her head still pressed to him, nodded, held tight a few moments more then went to full arms length to behold his more aged look. "You remembered us," as Shannon mumbled about professional men with sustained mental erections, none of them forgets...

At the first opportunity as Nora turned to open the outside door which had closed behind her, "Marcus?" Shannon was still uttering with bug eyed shock. "Did you leave out part of this story?"

"Come-on in," Nora led as Mac muttered, "I guess I did," shrugging his shoulders.

"He's here," she beamed, shaking her hair and wiggling her shoulders as she led.

Mac asked, "Who's here?" thinking maybe a husband with a shotgun might be inside as Shannon quietly remarked, "Hell, I'd grow a dick and go to bed with her. I've never seen anyone so pretty."

"Jesus, Shannon," Marcus whispered to her.

"Here he is!" Nora exclaimed as she opened the door. It wasn't at all clear who was being presented to whom as a startled doctor beheld a young man and the young man beheld him back. "Marcus, meet doctor Marcus Macaluso." The young man gasped, "Marcus? YOU'RE MY FATHER?"

"Oh shit," Shannon punctuated.

"Oh, and this is..." Nora offered..

"Shannon," not offering any more identification than absolutely necessary, and checking the exits.

The young man politely acknowledged, "Hello, Shannon." Turning to the doctor, "Are you my father?" with a microscopic probing gaze alternating with an air of apprehension."

"Hell no! Sorry, son. I'm the doctor who delivered you."

"Oh, I AM SO SORRY! PLEASE excuse me. Mother has told me so often that some day she would tell me who my father was. I just assumed.. you know, there aren't too many Marcus' around... that you... well.."

"Sorry? Don't be. Surprised me too," Mac laughed turning to Nora, "Named him after me? ME?"

Shannon was flopped into a love seat uttering, "Oy."

Young Marcus was mumbling to himself as the others spoke, "My real dad must be an axe killer... She won't tell me who he is.. Why?"

"How can it be that you don't look any different?" Mac asked as the young man hurriedly excused himself for an engagement and left.

"Isn't he beautiful?" Nora asserted with pride as her son departed, "Science! I wasn't about to let the only thing I had just get up and go."

Shannon now into the conversation, "What's that?"

Nora just flipped the loose spaghetti straps of her silky jumper from her shoulders and with a mere shake was there as naked as he remembered her and as beautiful as he had described her.

"Damn," Shannon wheezed, "You don't have any of that for sale do you?"

"You look exactly as I remember you on that first day," Mac said softly, in awe.

"This time no whip lash?" Nora laughed, "Doctors are not supposed to do double-takes," waving her finger with a smile. "What do you think?" turning left and right, "The photographer was your idea. It would never have occurred to me. My nipples turned brown, but I had them lightened. They still point. Don't you think?"

Shannon and Marcus both gave a hearty, "Sure do. That they do," in unison, followed by another synchronized, "I think we've been around each other too long," now with every body laughing and Nora totally nude and totally comfortable in that state. Nora was offering coffee and cake which she rushed to get ready. She got back into her clothing once the important details of her guests were taken care of. When SHE did these things, it seemed to be the correct sequence. She projected her comfort.

"Nora," Marcus asked, "who IS his father?" as her face suddenly flattened and her eyes welled.

Nora plopped next to him on the sofa and quickly inserted "Are you two married?" Getting a no and a work together muttering, she embraced Marcus with her breasts to his shoulder and her eyes to his. "I have no idea who his father is. I promised him that someday I'd tell him, but I just don't know. I'm looking for him. Would you be him, for me? I would make you happy beyond anything you can imagine."

"Oh my God," Shannon moaned. "Oh, this is priceless. I'm glad I was here for this," Shannon went on as Nora's offer was extended.

"He's a good boy. He can't know how he was conceived. It was different then. Nobody knew what they were doing. A whole room full of sex, with nobody knowing anybody else, men slipping in and out all night long..."

"Oh shit," Shannon dangling her head in disbelief.

"I don't even remember what half of them looked like. I have no idea whose sperm won the race to claim the egg that built that boy. He's wonderful. Like you. You be his father. He will love you. I already love you."

Marcus's central body temperature was at a level that could melt glass and Shannon was just reduced to groaning at this point. But from that groan emerged, "He's married. He is married, Nora. He is already a good father and a loving husband," she went on as Marcus's brain just sizzled. He could not hide the change in his lap as Nora patted it and sighed, "What a waste."

"I'll say," Mac heaved.

"More coffee, Shannon?" Nora offered.

"Sure," looking at Mac's lap, "Hard to hide that emotion, huh?"

"This was your idea, Shannon," he reminded.

Great conversation ensued and the passed years for all three were rehashed, the children and especially the special children. Nora was very wealthy from playing her looks, and more so from her investments that she uncannily made by instinct. "I feel them, here," holding her breasts.

Shannon laughed, "I guess I don't have enough RAM in mine for investment programming."

The ride back home seemed over in a flash, even though it was riddled with laughter induced wrong turns and missed landmarks. The next cafeteria gathering was abuzz with the details of this happening. The oh shit's, oh come-on's and other pretensions of disbelief that really communicated tell me more were silenced by the Polaroid pictures Nora took and had Marcus and Shannon take before they left for home. And, of course, a photo of young Marcus. "Imagine being weaned on those..." percolated as her picture was passed along the table circuit.

"She looks the same," all the men swooned. The bellicose laughter brought on by Shannon's correction "Her nipples are browner, actually, but partially restored in hue," went on and on. It ground to a halt when from out of absolutely nowhere doctor Frank Sumner broke his silence, the long silence, "I'll be the father. Take me there. I mean it. I could be, no, I AM that young man's father. Does he look like me? Would it work?"

Marcus and Shannon stared long and hard, "Could work," they both agreed, once again in unison. It did work. The young man simply accepted that this disfigured yet handsome man did not know that he had a child. He accepted that the very doctor who delivered him also delivered this man, his father, to him.

Nora saw only the beauty in Frank. She embraced him and fulfilled the promise she had offered to Marcus. She made him happy beyond dreams. A false father? Or real? This little twist of facts brought a father to a young man needing a father, a loving wife to a man who carried the burn of his torch too long, way too long, whose pain was anesthetized in her breasts, and a caring stability and connection to family that this gorgeous creature had always wanted but never had. Where's the wrong?

Nora wore Julie's red ribbon on her own jacket - always. She placed Julie's portrait over the mantle in the main room, and endowed the multimillion dollar Julie Sumner Cancer Research Foundation. She explained to her publisher, who later shared it, "He is a man of scars. All together, they are beautiful to me. She is his deepest and sweetest."

There were no losers in this transaction. Yet this was a birth of good not fathered of truth. That did not matter at the table. In medicine, truths and cures are rare. Approximations, palliations, and salves are the day to day reality. Larry quipped, "It's magic. Have to make a note, depression of loss, psychotherapy is out - breastadigitation is in."

What prevailed was a wondering, and a rejoicing that in this instance the meek did inherit the earth. One day at the table as recapitulation went on and on, It "gives hope to the rest of us," as Mary Richards summarized.

There was a brief quiet as Marcus's mind flashed, "Hope feeds trust. Trust is a lure to destruction." Then he thought of Nora - naked.

Osten caught the brief spark in that far away gaze, "Ahh, he's swooning. He's thinking about Nora Sumner naked."

As Marcus confessed, good feelings prevailed. They toasted to it. Would you stuff a perfect Lily in a wool sack? They were all thinking about her naked. What a waste it would be of the craft of God's hand to think of her any other way.