Tom vs the Volcano God Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Forward to Book One

  Chapter 1 - The Letter

  Chapter 2 - The First Hours

  Chapter 3 - The First Evening

  Chapter 4 - The First Night

  Chapter 5 - A Day at Work

  Chapter 6 - Planning a Grand Adventure

  Chapter 7 - Headed for Adventure

  Chapter 8 - Descent into Wonderland

  Chapter 9 - Landing in Wonderland

  Chapter 10 - Arriving in Wonderland

  Chapter 11 - It's Scary at First

  Chapter 12 - Into the Jungle

  Chapter 13 - Jungle House

  Chapter 14 - Beach Wedding

  Chapter 15 - Early to Rise

  Chapter 16 - New Positions

  Chapter 17 - New Stuff

  Chapter 18 - Shopping and Stories

  Chapter 19 - Straightening Things Out

  Chapter 20 - Not Doing Anything We Shouldn't

  Chapter 21 - Afternoon in the Sun

  Chapter 22 - NORG

  Chapter 23 - Tribal Wisdom

  Chapter 24 - Castaway

  Chapter 25 - Jungle Elf

  Chapter 26 - Jungle Princess One

  Chapter 27 - Sunken Treasure

  Chapter 28 - The Pit

  Chapter 29 - The Tribe

  Chapter 30 - And Pixie was There

  End of Book One

  About The Author

  Other Series by The Author

  Tom vs. The Volcano God

  The Sea Nymphs: Book 1

  Marilyn Foxworthy

  Copyright © 2019 Marilyn Foxworthy

  All rights reserved.

  Forward to Book One

  My name is Marilyn. I have written before about some of the remarkable men of the Jensen Family. This time, it’s a man named Tom. This is the first book of his story.

  I call it “Book 1: Tom vs. the Volcano God”. It starts with Tom getting a letter from a relative.

  If you have already read some of the other books by me, I shouldn’t need to warn you, but just in case, beware of several things before you go farther. I warn you now. Here’s what you should know before you decide to read the story of our Tom and his wonderful life:

  Ready?

  But first, before you turn the page, beware of several things that you’ll find on the other side of this door. I warn you now. Here’s what you should know before you decide to read the story of our hero and his wonderful life:

  The story is, at times, highly sexual. At times graphically so. If that isn’t what you want to read, you better stop right now. Take the book back to the store and get your money back. There’s a lot of sex.

  The story is long. It isn’t a quick read for a single afternoon. In fact, the tale is several volumes long. This is probably just one book of an epic saga. The entire series is long. If you want a short little diversion, stop now. If you get hooked on the story and spend more time than you wanted to reading, and possibly rereading, the entire adventure, maybe that’s my fault, but I make no apologies for it.

  Spoiler alert: And this refers back to point 1, our hero is remarkable in many ways, but one of those is how several women may fall in love with him at the same time. And because he’s so remarkable, they generally have no jealousy between them. I’ll leave it to you to read how that plays out, but if the implications disturb you, I recommend a more traditional ‘Bodice-Ripper’ romance. OK, let’s just spell it out: there’s probably going to be some harem elements to the story. Heroes know how to satisfy. But, pay attention to the next point…about the allegory aspects of that.

  The story is revealed to a great extent through dialog. The characters talk a lot.

  Allegory alert: If you read the story correctly, many of the people, especially the women related to the primary hero in the story, will actually represent different aspects of the same person. As people, we are complex beings. You will find explanations of the ‘oneness’ of the characters, so keep in mind that what may sound polygamous, may actually be an allegory of one monogamous relationship. Or don’t. You can read it however you want to, but it was written in many respects as an allegory. That doesn’t make it any less fun. It does make it more like eroticism for philosophers though.

  The story was written by me, but in the same style as my other books, as if our hero had kept journals of his adventures, and I just edited and published them. That may have been more the case in some books than others, but it’s the style I enjoy right now. I was a fan of the great pulp writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs, and I think it influenced the language and style to some extent.

  You may notice frequent references to quoted movie lines, song lyrics, and passages from other books. They may seem obscure. If you find something that one of the characters says to be a bit weird, it’s probably a movie line. You can look it up on the Internet or something if you want to. If you get it, that’s fun. If not, I hope you don’t feel like you’re missing the joke

  Refer to point 1, above. Really. I’m not kidding. It gets graphic. And pay attention to points 3 and 5 as well. You have been warned. And, just so you know what to expect, there’s no sexual humiliation, violence, bondage, or anything like that presented in any erotic way. If that’s what you’re looking for, something darker, this isn’t for you. There’s a lot of sex, but it is portrayed as respectful, consensual, and loving.

  Well, ready? Our story starts as Tom gets home from a day at the office…

  Chapter 1 - The Letter

  I walked up the front steps and pulled open the screen, opening the letter as I went. It was from Robby, my younger brother. Robby had sort of come into some money a couple of years ago, and that was about all I knew about it. He hadn’t been in contact much, but we had never really stayed in touch anyway. Our parents had died years ago. We had another brother, Mark, but he had gone off somewhere with his son to live in some jungle or something after his wife died. The last time I saw either of them was at her funeral. We liked each other, but we all had our own lives and didn’t really need a lot of family contact.

  The letter was handwritten and several pages long. I plopped down in my chair in the living room and started to read. It said,

  “Tom, I hope that you are well. Of course, I know that you can’t be very well, given what has happened. I’m so sorry for your loss. Your wife was a good woman. I know that you don’t really need money or anything like that, but I have something that I want to send you. Maybe it will be of some comfort. Or at least some fun. But I need you to promise that you won’t tell anyone. It isn’t illegal or anything like that, but it is a sensitive item. Think of it as a secret product development prototype.

  I don’t expect that you know much about my business now, because I keep things private so that the press and my competitors can’t find out much, but I have some pretty advanced stuff going on. Anyway, I have this prototype that I want to give you. I want so much to tell you what it is, or to see your reaction when you see it, but that isn’t possible right now. So, I’m going to let you just be surprised.

  I do want you to sign a non-disclosure agreement. I know you’re my brother, and I absolutely trust you, but this makes sure that you know how very strongly I feel about this. I could just say, don’t tell anyone, but this way you have to read it and think it over and sign something. Hey, if you don’t want to, that’s fine. It’d be stupid, but totally fine.

  Anyway, read the papers and sign them and stick them back in the return envelope and put them in the mail. After you do that, take the key that’s taped to the last page and go to this address and open the PO Box. There’s a package with a new phone. The phone has a new proprietary app just for you. That’s not the surprise.
The phone is just a control device. Sort of. But it needs your fingerprint to use it. Turn on the phone, use the app on the home screen, and I’ll get the prototype to you right away.

  Tom, you have never seen anything like this thing. I swear, you’ll love it. You’ve never seen anything that looks like it and you’ve never seen anything that does what it does. I’m really excited that I can send it to you. If Mark hadn’t run off somewhere, I’d send him one too. I’ll give you a hint. It’s kind of a kitchen and bedroom appliance. Instructions are included. I made this one so that you kind of have to customize it yourself, but it’ll be fun if you give it a few days. Remember those robot dogs that Sony made years ago, and the owner had to train them and they had to learn to walk and everything? It’s kind of like that, but you won’t get bored with it after a few days. I guarantee it.

  Can you tell I’m excited? OK, enough. Read the papers, sign them, go to the PO Box, turn on the phone and log in. The thing will arrive very soon afterward. Day or night. But don’t wait till late at night. But don’t wait till morning either.

  I love you brother. Robby.”

  The letter ended there but there were several more typed pages and places to sign, and a return envelope, and a key.

  I read the non-disclosure agreement carefully. It was mostly standard and nothing that different from others that I had signed for jobs or beta-testing in the past. Essentially it said, this:

  I’m going to receive an item. I can’t reveal the nature of the item to anyone without written consent from Robby. I can take the item out in public as long as I don’t do so in a way that reveals its unique nature, whatever that turned out to be. When I unpacked the item, I had to have the curtains and doors to the house closed and locked and I had to be alone in the house at the time. I had to unpack it in the house, not the garage or outside, and it had to be in the living room or family room specifically. I had to notify a certain phone number immediately if anything happened to the item or if for any reason it needed to be repaired or I wanted to get rid of it. Then it made me agree that if I violated any of the terms of the contract that I would be buried in ants and have my pants set on fire.

  I shrugged and signed it. I had to initial the parts about the ants and pants individually. Really, that’s what it said. I stuck the agreement in the return envelope and sealed it. I was off work already, and I had nothing to do for the rest of the day, so I took the key and drove to the address of the mail box. I took the agreement with me, assuming that the place would take outgoing mail as well. It wasn’t far. It was actually the closest place of its kind to my house.

  About a quarter mile from where I lived, there was one of those combination grocery, clothing, etc., stores where you could buy potato chips, a TV, and a pair of pajamas all in the same place. And in the same parking lot was an ice cream place, a coffee place, a cheap haircut place, a dry cleaner, a sandwich shop, and a mailbox place. The key was for the mailbox place. I knew right where it was. I bought most of my stuff at the store there.

  I had lived in the same place for over twenty years. All of those years, except for the past eight months, I had lived with my wife. And those past eight months had been hard. It was getting easier some days, but not fun at all. This was the first time that I had been at all curious about anything in a long time. Maybe Robby was sending me something that would become a new hobby and give me something to be excited about again. He said I wouldn’t get bored of it soon, and that I would have to do some customization, and he described it as similar to a robotic dog in some ways. I couldn’t imagine that it would be as exciting as he seemed to think that it was, but I trusted him and would give it a chance at least. I hated the thought of being buried in ants.

  I parked right in front of the mailbox place and walked in. It wasn’t busy. I was the only one there. Me and the man who ran the place. I started to head for the numbered box but remembering the specific instruction to mail the agreement first, I popped it in an outgoing slot and only then looked for the box. I found it on the bottom row, in the very corner. It was awkward to get to. And it was too small to hold a package, even a new phone, if it was in any kind of a box. A claim slip directed me to the counter for pickup.

  I walked to the register at the back of the store and smiled and handed the man the slip and waited. He looked at the slip and went to find the package. A minute later, he returned with a small box. I signed for it and thanked him and started to leave but he stopped me and said that I needed to take the other one too.

  The other one? The man returned again, this time with a large packing case with wheels and a handle. He said that it weighed a bit over a hundred pounds and that he would help me lift it into my car, unless I wanted to make other arrangements. It looked like it would fit in my car OK, so there was no reason to wait, and he helped me get it out onto the sidewalk. Laying down the back seats of my compact hatchback to make room, the two of us lifted the case and got it into the back of my car. I thanked him again and drove the few blocks back home. I considered going into the store and buying a few things for dinner, but I probably had something in the freezer, so I went straight back to the house.

  I backed into the driveway to make it easier to unload the heavy box. I was pretty sure that I’d be able to get the thing into the house OK by myself if I worked carefully. After putting down a blanket to protect the back of the car, I was able to slide the case out and onto the ground. Once it was out of the car, it was a simple matter to pull up the handle and move it like a hand-truck, tilting it back on its rear wheels. I locked the car and rolled the case to the front door. It took me a bit of work to pull it up the step onto the porch, and again to get it over the threshold, but I managed OK. Going through the entryway, past the stairs to the second floor where the bedrooms were, I wheeled it into the large family room and left it in the middle of the carpet, near the coffee table. There was plenty of space to open it there.

  I was a little tired from wrestling the heavy thing into the house and I went to the fridge and grabbed a cold bottle of one of my favorite root beers. Grabbing a kitchen chair, I sat in front of the box and took a few swigs of my drink.

  The box wasn’t that big. Maybe the size of a large suitcase, but sturdier. Like a case that you’d put sensitive sound or computer equipment in. There was a cover over some kind of panel on the top.

  I set aside my bottle and stood in front of the box and lifted the small cover. When I did, a display lit up with a message that said to activate the app on the phone before trying to open the box. OK. I sat back down and opened the package with the phone in it and held the power button until the phone started to boot up. The only way to unlock the phone was by fingerprint. I had no idea how Robby had programmed the phone with my fingerprint, but when I swiped my index finger across the sensor, the device did unlock to a home screen. On the screen was a single icon. The name of the app was simply ‘Surprise’.

  I started the app, and a video of my little brother Robby started to play.

  It said, “Tom, cool cool cool. Hey, I don’t want you buried in ants. Are the drapes closed? Nobody can see, right? Just say yes when you are all private and secure and locked down and ready for an adventure.”

  I looked around, and though it seemed excessive, I made sure that the blinds on the windows were closed. The ones on the glass door to the backyard were still open so I got up and closed them and told the app that I was ready.

  Robby’s image said, “But are the doors locked? You locked the doors, right? The ants are a horrible way to go. Lock the doors.”

  I got up and locked both the front and back doors and told the app I was ready again.

  Robby said, “OK, cool. Now Tom, you aren’t going to believe what I have for you. Yeah, yeah, you’re going to open the box and go, one of those? Oh, come on! But big brother, this is so much better than you can imagine. Hey, there are sensors in the box, so the app knows when each step is completed, so we’ll walk you through it step by step. Ready?”

&n
bsp; I said I was.

  Robby’s video face said, “OK, you took the red pill now, boy. Let’s see how far this rabbit hole goes. At the sound of the beep, open the box.”

  There was a beep from the box, and I stood up and lifted the lid. It had unlocked itself.

  Robby said, “Now, pull off the foam protective cover. But don’t react the way that I know you will.”

  I thought, “What?” and I pulled out the cover.

  And then I reacted exactly the way that Robby had told me not to.

  Damn Robby! A sex doll? Really? An ultra-realistic sex doll? Really? Funny joke dude. Fine. Yeah, maybe I had fantasized about having one sometimes, you know, now that I was alone, but really? That’s what you sent me and made so mysterious and secret and everything? And I can just hear the jokes next time we talk. It’s kind of nice, in a way, since I never would have had the guts to buy one for myself, but really?

  Robby’s video said in a mocking tone, “You did it didn’t you? You were all like, Robby, what the heck? A sex doll? Dude, you kidding me? Well, Tom, you’re wrong. Well, half wrong at the very least. Probably closer to ninety percent wrong. You don’t have a clue. First, notice it’s wearing clothes for one thing. If it was a joke, I would have put it in naked and upside down, so that when you opened the box you would have been staring at its crotch instead of the top of its head. So, calm down. Oh, little clue though, it does have a very pretty crotch, but that’s for later. OK, if you’re still with me, it’s time to unpack. Take out the second layer of packing from around the sides.”

  I stuck the phone in my pants pocket and looked more closely at the ‘item’. Folded up in the case was what looked like a woman, sitting down with her knees pulled up against her body. It had to be a mannequin of some kind. All I could see so far was the top of a head of brunette hair and the upper part of a face and the tops of the ears. The packing that I had removed was a sheet of white protective foam about six inches thick that kept the head in place. I pulled at the next layer, and a form-fitted piece of the foam about a foot thick came away from the inside of the box. The instructions had been to remove only the second layer, so that’s all I did. But the phone sensed it and Robby’s voice told me to remove the next piece as well. The next piece was an insert that fit in front of the knees; and then there was another that wedged in behind the back. With that out of the way, the mannequin leaned back about ten inches in a less cramped position. Now it looked like it was sitting in a small chair, relining slightly, its knees still bent, but more like someone might sit at a beach on the sand or on the grass at a picnic.