her.
If ever a boy needed a hug, this one did. A woman knows when a boy has never had a mother. As Mildred hugged Bob, she adopted him. She never told Bob or signed any papers, but Mildred would always care for Bob as a mother cares for a son. Bob gratefully ushered Mildred into that place in his heart that a mother would take, and no woman had ever touched. Mildred disengaged herself from the hug and insisted that Bob come to dinner.
Mildred was a skilled cook and the meal was all about eating. After they finished, they had coffee in the living room. They sat around the fireplace, the small fire more for the comfort of the flames than for warmth.
Michael looked at the young man. Mildred was right; Bob probably was far closer to twenty than twenty five. “So how did you get the money to buy the estate?” Michael asked him.
“It’s kind of embracing. I killed three crocs in a gloride mine on Nimbus and a tic in a mine owned by the Falcus.”
“Why would that be embarrassing? Ghoul hunting is hard, dangerous, honorable work. Did the rest of your team retire too, or did they just replace you and keep hunting?”
“No ghoul hunter team, just me. I don’t know how I killed them. It just kind of happened,” I told him.
Michael said “I don’t understand?” What Michael meant was, I hope I don’t understand you, because if I do, you are lying to me and I hate to be lied to.
Mildred felt the same way, only with absolute certainty that the young man’s words had not come out the way he wanted them to.
◊I couldn’t believe I bought the estate so easily and Michael’s wife Mildred was just like what I imagined my mother would have been like had she lived. I was so happy that she invited me for dinner. Things were going very well until they started to ask me about how I got the money to buy the estate. I stupidly told them the truth. Of course they didn’t believe me. I wouldn’t have believed me. I looked at their faces. “I have recordings of me killing them in my luggage, let me get them.” I walked to the door and when it closed behind me I ran to the big house. I desperately wanted these people to like me. I tore through my luggage, pocketed the recordings, and ran back to Michael’s house. At the door I tried to control my breathing. I walked over to their viewer and inserted the recordings.
As I killed the first croc, I explained that while it was happening I had no control and was only an observer in my own body. While they watched me kill the two crocs in the bar, I explained that I was drunk and didn’t remember any of it. When they watched me with the tic, I showed them when I lost control of my body and when I got control back. Michael jumped up and grabbed my hand. “Forgive me for doubting you, you have a rare skill.”
“It’s not a skill, it just kind of happened. I don’t ever want to put myself in a position to find out if it will happen again.”
“So you’re not going to hunt any more gloride monsters?” To say that Mildred looked relieved was putting it mildly.
“If I never see another gloride monster again, it will still be much too soon,” I told her.
“Michael I think we should open the last bottle of wine from the old estate to welcome the owner of the new estate,” Mildred said. They wouldn’t be leaving Cocuru. Michael and Mildred opened the last bottle of wine from the old owner to celebrate the new owner. Three large wine glasses were produced and filled. With each new toast we each took a drink.
“To the new estate,” said Michael.
“To a new life,” I said.
“To Cocuru, may it warm us and keep us and stay gloride monster free,” said Mildred.
“So you have no idea how you killed those gloride monsters or if you would be able to do it again?” asked Michael.
“None at all,” I said.
“So you wouldn’t put yourself in a position to find out if you could do it again?” asked Mildred.
“Not in waking life,” I told them.
All three of us touched glasses, said “AMEN,” and drained them.
<><>
After the new owner said his goodbyes and closed the door behind him, Michael and Mildred just sat and looked at each other.
Michael broke the silence first. “What do you think about him?”
“You realize Bob’s just a little boy in an adult’s body. He’s just a sweet, little boy,” said Mildred.
“You did watch those recordings? You saw the way Bob killed those gloride monsters?” said Michael.
“And we both saw how close those Crocs came to cutting him in half. When I think about what that tic would have done to him it makes the back of my thighs start to ache. What kind of an owner do you think he’ll be?” Mildred asked.
“Bob said he wanted me to run the place as if I owned it. He trusts me to keep the books. Money is not going to be a problem. It’s going to be nice not to have to squeeze each penny three ways before I spend it. Bob came because he loved the wine. Now I think Bob loves Cocuru more than he loves the wine. I think Bob loves Cocuru as much as you do Mildred.”
“And you don’t love Cocuru Michael?”
“I love you. You are Cocuru to me Millie.” Michael turned on the music and pulled his wife from her chair. Michael held her tight. As they moved to the music Mildred let herself melt into him. Mildred felt the bulge in Michael’s pants rub against her leg and wasn’t surprised when his hand slipped under her clothes and caressed her bottom, Michael's flesh touching hers. Mildred knew her husband. Michael always made love to her before he threw himself into a big project and Mildred would hardly see him for days at a time.
Mildred had loved this man from the planet Thracsis since the first time she met Michael. She had put Michael first in her heart from the first time he looked in her eyes as they danced. Mildred would love Michael the rest of her life, Mildred’s last breath a whisper of her love for him. Michael wasn’t lying or twisting his words. Mildred was the planet Cocuru to him, all softness and gentleness and beauty beyond compare. Mildred had been first in Michael’s heart since the first time he held her. Mildred would still be first in Michael’s heart on the last day of his life. The days in between a walking dream.
◊ I gave Michael a year’s salary as a bonus and agreed to give him half of any profits the winery made. This seemed fair, as I knew almost nothing about wine accept how to drink large quantities of it. The winery had been allowed to run down. After paying for the winery, including a fat commission for the Barrillean merchant, which I did not begrudge him, paying for new equipment and the repair of old equipment; I still had enough money to run the winery for a year without any money coming in. I was now officially a gentleman wine producer and I would never need to deal with a gloride monster again.
My master gardener Michael had always wanted to develop wines by mixing grapes from other planets with the house grapes. I approved of this. The winery only used one variety of house grapes to make the house wine I loved, the idea of a new house wine, as I was a new owner and represented a new house, appealed to me. There will always be the old house grapes and the old house wine will always be produced.
I just met Michael and Mildred and I felt
