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When
after several months living with shady friends and not even thinking
about going to school, Lola was taken by the cops and driven to her
mother's home, she had no idea that instead of her mother regurgitating
the same stupid lectures at her again she'd only find the charred remains
of said mother, buried in the long-cold ashes of what used to be the
kitchen.
Lola found that it made her *furious* - now the damn woman was gone,
not even caring what was going to happen to Lola. In a last act of defiance
and hate against Lally, Lola smashed the remains of her body into tiny
pieces, trampled on them and spit on them. It didn't help her situation,
but it certainly made her feed better. In fact, she felt downright gleeful
by the time she had swept her mother's ashes up and dropped them in
the nearest dumpster, right next to a heap of rotting fast food.
She was oh so very tempted to run away again, for good time time - and
she would have, if it wasn't for Geraldine Cheater. She'd managed to
keep in contact with her by occasionally sneaking into the computer
room of the local library, and Geraldine had promised her that once
they were both adults, they could move in together, be a couple, a family.
And Lola wanted that - and so she tried her best, because Geraldine
had told her that she wasn't going to live with someone who hadn't even
finished school.
It was damn difficult, and many things didn't make sense, but thankfully,
Geraldine had quite a gift for explaining things, even if it was only
via email.
Finally, it was time: Lola managed to graduate, and Geraldine had started
a job and found a house of her own: a small one, right at the edge of
town, at the end of a lane. Private, cozy - and perfect for a little
family. Lola was pretty nervous - would their feelings for each other
still be there when they saw each other face to face, not just as letters
on a computer screen?
Happily, yes, they were just as much in love (and lust) with each other
as they had been during these few hours at the Strict wedding party.
And so they decided to have a wedding of their own - private, just for
the two of them.
Their wedding night was as exciting as they hoped it would be, ...
and even after Geraldine had returned to her Science job, and Lola had
started to work at the local fast-food place, they spent nearly all
of their time together in various states of undress ...
and in sometimes rather strange positions (thankfully, they didn't mind
if sometimes whatever they were doing ended with them collapsing in
laughter instead of in sated bliss).
Timing it exactly to the day when their first wedding anniversary came
around, Geraldine gave Lola a wonderful gift: they had been planning
to adopt a little girl for some months now...
but Lola would never have guessed that Geraldine would manage to track
down her little sister, Mali, who'd been taken by the social worker
over 3 years ago, and adopt her. Lola was ecstatic - she had her little
sister back! Granted, officially, she was Geraldine's daughter now,
but she knew that Geraldine would never get between her and Mali.
They managed to hold Mali back from school for one year, so they could
teach her the many things she had completely missed while living under
the not-very-good care of the social system. When she finally started
school, Geraldine and Lola had managed to help Mali overcome all the
disadvantages her missing 3 years had caused. Sure, she still occasionally
needed Geraldine to explain things to her, especially mathematics, but
then, many of her classmates had similar problems.
Having Mali around brought home again to Geraldine how much she wanted
children who where her own, of her own flesh and blood - and she knew
that Lola felt the same. So, after some years of intense research, she
and Lola started an experiment - and it was successful: Lola was pregnant
with an egg fertilized with Geraldine's DNA. They were both overjoyed.
The fact that Lola gave birth to twins was unexpected, but not unwelcome
at all: they hadn't been able to settle on a name for their daughter
or son, and now, both of them got their way. Thus, Henrietta and Leni
joined the family.
Eventually, all three children grew into friendly and well-adjusted
teenagers,
and Mali was the first to bring home someone who was more than a friend:
she'd fallen for Felicitas Cheater, and Lola had to deal with the fact
that her little sister was now all grown up.
Soon, Leni also had a boyfriend: the rather serious Bernard FilthyRich.
They all enjoyed living together, even if it was sometimes a bit crammed
in their little house. But eventually, Mali - who'd been enjoying quite
a bit of success in her after-school modelling career - grew into an
adult, and moved in with her lover Felicitas, because the Cheater home
was closer to the center of Normalville, and thus enabled her to better
continue her modelling career. Besides, she wanted some privacy with
her lover.
While Geraldine was busy working on a stressful government project,
Lola caught a weird cold that didn't seem to go away. She spent more
and more time at home - although she didn't really tell Geraldine that,
not wanting to worry her. Which turned out to be a mistake, since what
she'd caught was actually a mutated variant of the virus Geraldine had
been working on - curable in the early stages, but after a point, it
led to abrupt respiratory failure.
Alas, by the time Henrietta and Leni came home from school, Lola had
been dead for several hours. The girls were traumatized, but it was
Geraldine who was utterly devastated - surely Lola could only have come
in contact with this viral mutation via her, so she was to blame that
her lover, her wife, was dead.
She refused to bury Lola at the local cemetery, deciding instead to
keep her close, in a grave next to the house, near the place where they
had exchanged their vows. Grief and guilt seemed to twist her, and she
spent many a night mourning at Lola's grave, railing against fate.
Leni and Henrietta grew up, and quickly moved out - the house had ceased
to be a home with Lola's death. Leni moved in with Bernard, who married
her immediately, and Henrietta lived on her own in a small flat for
a bit until she, too, found a husband to move in with.
Geraldine was actually glad to see them go, because her research had
taken her into areas that were no longer safe, or savoury: combining
ancient rituals with the newest science, she attempted to raise Lola
from the dead! Unfortunately, her guilt and grief had made her hasty,
and the ceremony, while not a failure, was not a success, either...
for Lola's mind came back to life, but was trapped inside a still half-dead
(and rotting) body. And also, while her mind was there, it was ... strange,
somehow twisted by her experiences, and she was resentful of having
been woken.
But Geraldine was not faint of heart, and willing to do anything for
her beloved Lola. And so, ever so slowly, she gained back first Lola's
friendship, and then her affection and her love.
But still, often Lola's attention would wander, and she would stare
into space, seeing or not seeing things - Geraldine could not conceive
that which Lola felt. And at night, holding close the cold and clammy
body of her lover, she wondered, she fretted, and most of all, she planned...
She had the property surrounded by a mighty security fence, and she
let the road leading to it fall into ruin. She set up monetary funds
and accounts, and arranged for automatic payments for property taxes.
And once all that was done, Geraldine proved that there really was nothing
she would not do for Lola: she found a way to kill her body, but then
reanimate it; and keep her mind alive through it.
Generations later, there were rumors, stories and legends about that
house, out in what was by then wilderness, surrounded by an old but
still non-crumbling fence. Some said that occasionally, there was movement
to be seen through the old and dirty windows - but most considered this
an suburban legend.
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