Shadow Seed 1: The Misbegotten (52 page)

She grabbed a hold of my shoulder and turned me to face her squarely, scooting toward me, so she was in my “personal” space.  She was serious, simply that and nothing more, no guile or sarcasm, no anger or angst.  “Ever since I was sick, Estefan, I can see things in people,” she said, forcefully as if to make me understand, “not like I can see them with my eyes.  What I see is nothing like that.  It is emotional, as though I can read their most central thoughts, feelings and desires.  You know, the things that actually drive people to do what they do.”  She raised her eyebrows, her hands splayed to either side of her.  “I can sense them in my mind and my mind… I don’t know… can turn them into images, only these have pictures have emotion attached to them, intent as well  They are so deeply rooted in the people I have seen, I know it would be very hard from dissuading them once their decisions on this level are made.  It would be like trying to stop an avalanche with a wall made out of Legos¹.  It would be an endeavor doomed to failure.  There would be nothing you or I, or anyone else, could do.

“Well, it is the same with these feelings.  They are too strong, too steadfast to hope to alter.”  She came even closer and took me in her arms.  She plac
ed herself over me, straddling, so her public bone rubbed against my knee before she sat fully in my lap.   I felt a thickening in the center of me.  I had a split-second thought that she actually wanted me to have a savage hard-on just so she could make her point.

“So what are you saying?” I asked, trying to stay interested in what she was saying, but my dick kept clouding my mind, even my pulse was betraying me.  I wanted to fuck her, to feel her - .

Come on, man, stop!

“What does that mean, Ramona?”  I made myself ask, almost repeating myself in order to force my mind in a more sane direction.

“It means, Effy, when I look at every one of those girls and I open this…
thing
, this ability that I now possess, I can see that with time, all of them will take you in their arms.  All of them will lay down with you and let you make love to them.  It is an eventuality that you or I, or any of them, cannot escape.  Whether they realize it on a conscious level or not, deep down they have
all
already made the decision to do just that.  They all want to be with you.  They just don’t know it yet… well, some do.”   She hugged me then, not aggressively or tragically, but softly as if she were trying to garner strength from the warmth of my body.

I sat there, statuesque
, barely returning her embrace, moving more out of habit than anything else.  “How can you say you know this for sure?”

She shrugged.  “I just do.”

A long silence followed.

“
Leda, too?” I asked in squeaky voice.

She broke away from me and leaned back, holding up a hand between us.  “Katie,” she said and began ticking off the count upon her finger tips with her other hand as she said each new name.  “Then Leda, then Sandy, and finally Tirza, in that exact order, will come to you of their own choice.  They will tell you they would be willing to share you with the others and you will agree.  Because, when I look at you, I can see you already want all of them – on some level or another, but it’s all the same in the end.”  She shook her head as if she were tired.  “Katie already has, so you can see things are
progressing
quite nicely in that department.”

“Yeah, but we planned that out already, that doesn’t count,” I replied hastily, not really wanting to believe what she was saying, and yet…
fuck, man!  Who wouldn’t want to have FIVE chicks at once!

NO!
I chastised myself; it was too good to be true.  It was all conjecture and based on one of the flimsiest theories I had ever heard. 
Come on, Tirza?  Leda?  Why would those two give me a shot at their holiest of holies?  Tirza was too appalled by me and Leda, well, she was way out of my league.  There’s no fucking way!

“It doesn’t matter, Estefan, what you think.  What matters is what I
know!
Each one of those girls is going to throw themselves at you at one point or another, and when they do they won’t care about how they felt or what they said in the past.  They will do so willingly.”   She stopped then, grabbing my chin and gave me a quick peck on the lips.  Her orbs stared directly into mine.  “You won’t even have to use your ‘powers’, they have been yours since the day they were born…”  Then she let go of me and stood of a sudden, half turning, her arms once again clutched before her, flipping and flopping at the waist.

I stared after her, trying to put my head around everything she had just said, daring myself to believe even a shred of it.  I felt set upon and a bit overwhelmed.  I struggled to figure out how I was going to be capable of juggling
that
many women.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, I am totally obsessed with the opposite sex.  The combination of a biting wit, a broad sense of humor and a nice, round ass is fucking irresistible to me (and fuck, if you throw in a nice pair of feet… then I’d be reduced to a quivering ooze of jizz).  But let’s face it, you chicks can be as difficult as a motherfucker to try and understand.  When you all group together with a common thought or goal or intent, it is like trying to stop an asteroid from hitting the earth.  The sheer velocity is enough to shred most defenses.

Now, Ramona was telling me I was going to have
five
!

I knew I was screwed, and I wasn’t even thinking about the amount of pussy that would be floating around me.  Trust me – five against one didn’t sound all that good if the shit hit the fan… and like they say, at some point, the shit always hits the fan.

Yup, I was screwed
.

“And you know what sucks even more, Effy?” asked my
girlfriend, startling me out of my reverie.  “It’s the same with me.”

I looked up at her.  She was, once again, gazing my way, her eyes so full with tears, my thoughts scattered in a thousand different directions.

What?
  I thought or maybe I had said it out loud, but nevertheless, she continued before I could discern either.

“I too am foresworn to you by the very fact I have been born.”

I shook my head then, because she said it with an enunciation, an inflection, so unlike her own that for a moment I forgot it was her that was speaking.  I was absolutely certain it was some sort of oracle direct from ancient Greece, twisting and writhing upon the ground in the throes of a drug-infused ecstasy. 
Ramona had never spoken like this before, who was this girl…!?!

“All done!” came the shrill, if not overly excited announcement from my cousin.  Both Ramona and I jumped like we had been goosed by the original
Anal Intruder
itself (you know, the floor mounted one… oh, nevermind!).

My eyes jerked toward the sound of her voice, but stopped of a sudden.

“Don’t forget what I said, Estefan,” said my girlfriend in a rush as our gazes shifted toward the two others as they emerged from the bathroom.

“That was quick,” I commented clumsily, trying to cover whatever discomfiture I had been feeling seconds before.

Katie merely nodded with a wildly gleeful expression topped with a smile.  It was so wide it look as though it was about to split her skull in two.

Something’s up,
I though immediately.  My vision shifted toward Tirza.  She stood before us wearing a long-sleeved, long-legged matching set of flannel pajamas.  They had to be the least sexy sleepwear Katie’s parents had stuffed in her suitcase when they’d sent it to her.  It looked like something right out of the 1950’s, or the “Sandra Dee²” section of the Juniors department at a JC Penny’s.  It was pink, pin-striped with white.  It had a seemingly random smattering of wide pedaled daisies that stood out above the pattern below.  They fit my ex-girlfriend perfectly, which made me wonder, if they were garments Katie had worn to bed when she was younger.  That would explain a lot - the weird print, the overall chasteness of the garments - all of it.

Tirza herself was clean, admittedly beautiful, in her impish sort of way.  Her hair was combed back, still damp, though not dripping.  The style revealed her high forehead above her light brown eyebrows, framing her large oval, dark browns eyes.  Her small angled nose was still more than a few shades redder than the rest of her complexion, so the impression she’ been crying was evident.  Hopefully, she hadn’t felt the urge in the bathroom, while she showered.  She was barefoot and had bundled her torn, filthy clothing before her at her waist.  She was gripping it with hands made into claws.  The trepidation coursing through her was palatable.

“So now what?” asked Tirza, trying to keep her embarrassment from affecting her voice.

Ramona glanced at me and sighed heavily.  She turned back toward the other two teens.  “Well, we have a shit load of crap to figure out, but first things first…,” she began and paused dramatically.

I remember all of our eyebrows climbing upon our foreheads.

“We,” began my girlfriend with a stern tone, “have to figure out the sleeping arrangements.  If we’re supposed to all be together for an extended period of time… well, things could get a little weird in like a heartbeat, especially during the night.”

I felt my stomach turn at that.  I had just barely gotten used to the idea of a threesome, but the way things were going…  I didn’t want to think about an outcome.

{ ¹Legos: was a popular line of
construction toys
manufactured by
The Lego Group
, based
once in
Billund, Denmark
. The company's flagship
product, Lego, consisted of colorful
interlocking
plastic bricks and an accompanying array of gears,
mini-figures
and various other parts
that could be assembled and/or connected in many ways. }

{ ²“Sandra Dee”: a fictional character in the musical Grease, who was portrayed as straight-laced and naïve. }

~~~~~~~~~~~~♦~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Summer – 2018)

The Cockroach

I
t was just after 3:45 in the morning when my mother fucking cellphone rang.  By the end first shrill warble, I was thoroughly pissed off.  It had been a long night, after all.

Following Ramona’s straight forward articulation of the unease we’d all been feeling - but not voicing – over who would sleep where and with whom.  And, more to quell any further misgivings Tirza may have been experiencing than anything else, it was decided, Ramona and I sleep in my bed.  My cousin and Tirza would sleep in the, heretofore, unused bed my parents had provided for Katie.

It had been an uncomfortable ten minutes following that decision.  The rest of us made ready to turn in, knowing we had to get up early to make sure we hid Tirza from the rest of my family.  We had a Saturday morning to contend with, which guaranteed the rest of the ensuing day would be just as long and difficult as this last one.  For some reason, both my cousin and girlfriend changed from the bed clothes they’d been wearing already.  Maybe they had felt they’d soiled them after the intensity of Tirza’s appearance.  I couldn’t tell you for sure.  Me, I was content with what I’d been wearing, so I didn’t follow suit.

Katie had put on the pajamas she had worn the night we had fucked our brains out, which made it difficult for me to concentrate.  Ramona donned a pretty, form fitting camisole and a matching pair of bikini briefs.  I got an impression, the moment I saw her, why
she
had changed.   She wanted to make a point.  She was sending a silent message to my ex-girlfriend.  She wasn’t going to alter an iota of her routine with me just because Tirza was present.  If she wanted to wear sexy lingerie to bed, then, by God, she was going to wear them.

Tirza had glanced briefly over at my girlfriend’s full breasts and firm, jutting butt, the edge of her mouth raised slightly.  The eye on that same side of her face, squinted a fraction of an inch.  It was Tirza’s unspoken way of saying,
Ok girl, I get it… but you really didn’t have to go
that
far.
  It was a look I’d seen a thousand times.

Nonetheless, that was Ramon
a, as subtle as a nuke shoved deep up someone’s ass.  She’d even gone so far as sticking her hand down the cotton pajama bottoms I was wearing when we had settled underneath the blankets.  She had gripped my cock firmly, the tips of her fingers caressing the top of my scrotum.  She had leaned close and whispered in my ear, “If you want to make her jealous, now’s the perfect time…”

I merely removed her hand, gave her a quick kiss and rolled over.  I was way too overwrought to stoop to making Tirza jealous, especially after the monumental loss she had experienced earlier that night.  It felt… well, it felt cruel.

Ramona’s giggled, but stayed otherwise silent and snuggled up behind me, her body pressed against the length of mine…

…That was no less than an hour ago, and now, my fucking cell phone was ringing!

Since I was sleeping on the left hand side of bed, my customary side when any of my girlfriends stayed the night, I groggily slithered onto my side.  I reached for my cell phone that had been charging peacefully -
and fucking quietly
- upon the nightstand beside the bed.  Ramona’s hand fell across my bare back and thumped upon the sheets.  She hadn’t so much as twitched, which was typical.  She slept like the dead.

My eyes danced over the digital display of my bedside clock.

You gotta be kidding me!
  I raged. 
3:45 am!  The god damned world better be burning, if some motherfucker’s gonna be calling me at this hour.

“What???” I asked, my voice dripping with accusation, and was maybe a bit petulant.

“Hey, Eff, that you?”
came the voice on the other side of the connection.

My mouth gaped so hugely, I heard my jaw crack in my skull.

JACOB!?!  Could it be true!?!

“Eff?  Eff?  Is that you?”
said my dead cousin into my ear. 
“Oh God, please be you.  Please be you…”

“Jacob?” I squealed like a
newly crowned Prom Queen.

I felt Ramona stiffen on the bed beside me.  Within seconds, she was sitting up, bouncing her ass across the blankets.  She moved so close to me, I could feel a large breast pressing against my back.

One word had awakened her, where a 7.0 earthquake couldn’t, go figure.

“Estefan?”
asked my cousin from beyond the grave.

“Yeah, man, it’s me,” I replied, though my tone was shrill.  It didn’t sound like me at all.

“How can I be sure that it is you?”
he challenged.

What, Jacob being cautious?  Now the whole world was going to explode.

It came out of my mouth before I consciously thought what to say, “Because, you’re a deeeeck.”

I heard a massive sigh through the cell. 
“Oh thank god, it is you!  I was hoping the fucking NIA hadn’t snatched you up yet.  It’s good to hear your voice.”

It was one of those rare times when we thinking precisely the same thing.  “It’s good to hear you too,” I mumbled barely stifling a sob, choking instead.

My fucking cousin was alive!  My numb-nutted, pain in the ass, dip-shit cousin was ALIVE!!!!!

I couldn’t believe what was happening.  “You fuck
en cockroach, I thought you were dead!”

“I thought I was dead too, cuz.”
  His tone made me frown a little.  Was he tired or trying to give the impression he was tired?  I couldn’t tell which.  Then:
“Cockroach?  Why do I have to be all that?”
  A small bit of his former inflection returned.

“Yeah man, a fuck
en cockroach, that’s what you are,” I explained.  “You could get hit by a ten megaton nuclear bomb and still walk away without a freakin’ scratch!  Fuck, Jake, I really thought you were dead.”  Some of the emotion I had been feeling earlier crept into my voice, and it quieted Jacob.  We typically didn’t talk that way to one another.

I listened on my end of the line, my breath ragged and harsh.

“I’m sorry, Estefan that you had to go through all that…”
  His tone was small and pregnant with regret.

I stayed quiet for almost a full minute, letting go of all the anguish and torment I had been feeling for most of the night and early morning.  I wasn’t completely mad at the dude, but
, maybe I was, just a little, I guess.  Through no fault of his own, I assure you, but I had mourned the fucker.  It had taken a lot out of me.

“Hey Eff, you remember Aunt Irene?”
he asked, the subject caught me by complete surprise.

Aunt Irene?
  I hadn’t thought about her in years.  She’d been gang raped and murdered by her boyfriend and his friends half a decade ago.  Later, she was found stuffed in an oversized cooler under a railroad crossing somewhere in East Los Angeles.  Which one, though, I don’t recall.  The initial uproar had been muted within weeks by The Uncles, who – even from prison – had the ability to reach out and touch those of us in the real world.  They were so good at what they do by the time the funeral was over, the entire situation had been pushed aside and forgotten.  Most of the family hardly mentioned her within a year of her grisly demise.

[He pauses the program and types the following with a vicious smile etched upon his face.]

A quick note to the reader:  If you’re ever bored and have nothing better to do and you find yourself wondering about Angel Free Town.  If, for some reason, you find yourself in Preamber Park (used to called Scholl Canyon) just north of the old Pasadena cattle farm.  If you happen to take the trail to its end at the waterfall two miles in and you walk behind it.  You’ll be standing on the graves of the assholes that violated my Aunt centuries ago.  Dig down a bit, take a souvenir – free of charge, courtesy of the Aegis Synod.  ;) !

[He restart the software, chortling to himself.]

“Eff, you do remember her, right?”
implored Jacob, made impatient by my hesitation.

“Yeah, yeah, man
, I remember.  Why bring that up at a time like this?” I replied with a question of my own.

“You remember how she was always trying to find something we’d done wrong, so she could punish us?”
went on my cousin.

The old memories were beginni
ng to flood my mind.  “Yeah…”  I licked my lips still a little on edge whenever I thought of that mean old bitch.  This was despite the fact, I was seventeen at the time and could’ve easily kicked the shit out of her. 
Some memories from early childhood just stick with you.

“Do you remember the game we used to play, so she couldn’t
figure out what we were talking about?”

“You mean ‘the Op –‘,” I began, but Jacob cut me off.

“Yes!  That one…,”
he blurted loudly.  Then, he paused and seemed to take a deep breath, or maybe it was interference from a gust of wind.  I couldn’t discern which. 
“We’re gonna play that now.”

My brow furled.  Jacob was asking if I still remembered “the Opposite Game”, a game we played years ago.  We would say exactly the opposite of what we really meant
, in order to fool our mean aunt.  That way she’d have no clue what we were saying to one another.  It had worked like a charm back then…

…Then, it all came together.

It made sense.  I slapped my palm against my forehead at my own thick headedness.

From behind, Ramona whispered, “What’s going on, Eff?”

I reached behind me and gave her thigh a quick squeeze – a gesture we used between one another, signaling the other to be quiet for the moment.  She sat back a little, concern clearly written on her face.  Though we sat in the semi-darkness of my room, I could see her clearly.  Jacob’s resurrection had heightened all of my senses it seemed.

Jacob knew how easy it was to tap cell phone calls, and, because of that, he wanted to talk in code.  This told me the NIA was still after him, probably close on his heels.  But it told me something else also.  He had information – intelligence vital enough for him to risk the call in the first place.

“First off, dude, are you ok?  I mean are you in a safe place?”  I had to ask, I had to know he was safe for the time being.

“Hell no!”
he said at once, but he had put too much emphasis upon each word.  Anyone who’d spent a significant amount of time with the kid would’ve known, he was lying.  He was already playing the game. 
“I’m fucking stuck here at Uncle Pablo’s scared as shit, man.  You know how unorganized his stupid-ass is.  Even if he did believe what I’ve been telling him, he’d still be fumbling around the house, trying to figure out what the fuck to do.  Instead, the fucken bastard is passed out drunk on the damned couch.  Can you believe that, shit?”

As I think about it now, all these years later, I cannot help but shake my head at Jacob’s prowess with misdirection.  Even back then, when we were nothing but frightened teenagers, he was a master at it.  It was a mere five sentences, spoken to me in the middle of that night, during the summer of 2018.  Five sentences, and yet they spoke volumes to anyone who’d grown up in our misbegotten family.

First of all, Jacob wasn’t scared, not in the least.  Second, Uncle Pablo was dead and had been so for a decade and a half.  He’d been killed in prison because he’d had a big mouth that needed to be shut.  At least, that’s what was told to us kids whenever one of us got the courage to ask about the disappearance of our wild, skinny uncle, who seemed perpetually drunk, but always had a smile for each and every one of us.  This told me, Jacob was somewhere safe, possibly even secure.  The fact he’d mentioned something about disorganization and sloth, gave over to a third line of thought.  He was somewhere where shit was tight, where things were happening.  I might’ve been left guessing, if he hadn’t mentioned something about “not being believed”.  By the rule of our childhood game, I knew his story had been taken seriously, as the truth.  When I put that together with the other things he’d said in code - efficiency, action and security - I knew exactly where he was holed up.

He was with The Uncles – Juan and Roberto Marquez.  They had both been paroled in 2008 when the “so-called” housing crisis had crippled the economy and the federal government could no longer fully
fund the vast prison system.  They had released many career felons back into society.  How a twice convicted, drug-trafficker and rapist (Uncle Juan) and a self-confessed murderer (Uncle Roberto) managed to eke their way out of jail, none of us ever knew.  From what was said in the streets way back then, the two of them had always been connected and that was enough.  If that were to be believed, then the prospect of two career criminals, beating the broken system that existed back then, didn’t sound all that farfetched.  Actually, it seemed more typical to me than anything else.

Thus, I sat there on my bed with my girlfriend, who was anxiously awaiting some sort of news.  I let it all sink in, and for the first time in days, I began to see a light at the end of the tunnel.  It might be a small light, but it was illuminant nonetheless.