Shadow Seed 1: The Misbegotten (19 page)

“There’s one more thing, Katie,” I said a little more monotone than I wanted to and immediately regretted it.  I didn’t want her to misinterpret my intent.

She had and let out a huge bellow of air
, clearly irritated.  “Oh god, Eff, do you really have to ruin a perfect morning with all this heavy shit?!?”

“I won’t even buy you a dime bag of oregano
, if you don’t agree to my terms.”  I stated simply, having finished my food, I scooped up my plate and made for the sink.

“Fucken Nazi,” she grumbled under her breath, cradling her head in her hands, over her plate, devoid of food.  I had just turned on the water in order to clean the dishes and
cookery I had used to feed us when she turned around to face me, her expression accepting.  “Alright, what’s the last thing?”

“You can only toke-up when I’m around, no exceptions.  And you’re only taking the edge off, not smoking out to get baked, ok?”  I had already thought that part through, my mind was running in parallel with itself – one track was being protective, the other was thinking of something else.

“That’s it?!?” she exclaimed as if surprised.  “Hell, Estefan, I really hadn’t planned to ‘puff-puff-give’ with anyone else but you,” she joked, using an age-old phrase from back in the day, before either of us had been born.  “I don’t see that being an issue, so I fully accept your terms.”  She put her hands over her head as if she were running for office or something.

“Cool,” was all I said.  My own head was shaking back and forth at her wild antics and her one hundred and eighty degree mood swings.  “Bring me your plate, dork, if you’re done.”

She slid off the stool, turning to grab the stoneware.  “Dork?  Why do I have to be a dork now?”

“Now?” I queried with false gall.  “You’ve always been a dork, girl.  What’re you talking about?”

She laughed from somewhere deep in her throat, it sounded to me as though she was already planning revenge.  I took her plate and began to wash it, my eyes catching hers for a brief second and found nothing but warmth.  She wasn’t scheming.  No, not in any way, she was just enjoying the banter.  I was looking back toward the sink as she walked off into the TV room, without so much as a mention of whether or not I needed - or wanted – any help.  That was my Katie for you, absolute in the certainty she didn’t
have
to help.

God, how I adored her…

~~~~~~~~~~~~♦~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Summer – 2018)

The Slippery Slope

Ten minutes later, I came into the TV room, where Katie and I had been watching the flat screen with my parents the night before.  My t-shirt was splotched here and there with droplets of water and dish soap that had splashed onto me while I was about the dishes.  She was sitting on the same dark brown, leather sofa I had been sharing with her and my mother the night before.  Her feet were tucked behind her, her heels touching the round firmness of her butt, the remote in one hand, flicking through the hundreds of channels my father had piped into the house.  I sat down a few feet away from her when something on Intra-national News Network caught our attention.  She depressed the small button controlling the volume and turned it higher, so we could hear what was being reported.

It was a story coming out of Indochina.

[He ascends to the highest level.]

And maybe many of you remember this.  Those of you, who paid attention in your study of history, will recall this incident as the one that seemed to validate the NIA’s war on genetics.

[He descends once again.]

Apparently, the government of Laos had sent an armored battalion into the jungle after a rebel group of “terrorists” that had somehow or another linked up with a group of Muto’s.

[He remembers some new detail and comes to the surface of his conscious mind.]

I use the term – Muto - loosely, because it has many connotations in the present that frankly didn’t exist back in ’18.   Because those emerging from the “sickness” were genetically different from those around them, no one knew what to call them.  It was the news networks that had begun to use the term, Muto’s, when describing these people as a group.  The title is used in a derogatory fashion now.  A Muto is typically a Human Celeste that has done something incredibly stupid or lacks foresight and makes bad decisions.  Back in 2018, it was the only thing people called those who had been touched by the Shadow Seed.

[He swims back down to the abyssal plain of long lost memory.]

Anyhow, these two groups, working as one, had wreaked havoc about the Laotian countryside.  Until, the prime minister of their small country decided to do something about it.  When the government forces finally caught up with the enemy combatants and surrounded them, something extraordinary had happened.  Instead of being slain to the last – as was the general consensus - “terrorists” unleashed hell.  It was the heavily armed members of the Laotian Army who took heavy losses instead.  What made matters worse was the way the Laotian Army had been annihilated.  No one had seen anything like this throughout human history.  Being completely encircled and cornered, knowing they were about to die, the Muto’s had fought back.  Not with machine guns, rifles, or even knives.  No, they came out of the jungle foliage using only their minds!

I know
, what I’m about to write about are terminology and evens widely known and used in the twenty-fourth century.  But back in 2018, no one had any clue about what was really going on around the world.  We didn’t know back then what were the consequences of exploding Comet 2001ct2 above the Earth’s atmosphere.  The only thing humanity had cared about was it no longer presented a threat to our planet.  After it had been neutralized, we were all too busy rejoicing over the Northern Alliance’s amazing victory over the comet.  The saving of our collective bacon and the partying that ensued, blinded us all.  No one stepped back and took notice of what was happening.  The markets had rebounded, new alliances were forging every other week – all over the globe.  The entire geo-political paradigm hadn’t just shifted.  It was spun on its heel and kicked out the fucking window.  Who knew that the ‘Seed had already spread far and wide by the summer of ’18 when Katie had come to my town in a stolen car?  Who knew?  The Northern Intercontinental Alliance had just strengthened its’ position globally.  The NIA had carved a huge portion of the world’s wealth into three interdependent zones of commerce with direct intent at disrupting the ever-growing Islamic Federation.  Who was now seen as the new enemy, aside from the Muto Issue.  By ’18, the Islamic Federation had already grown to include the old countries of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Dubai, and Jordan, creating an oil-saturated block of power that apparently needed reigning in, or at least that was what the officials in North America, Europe and Asia espoused to the masses.  That was when the Shock Troopers began to walk our streets, ever suspicious, all of them foreigners.  That was when things really began to get bad.  There was so much upheaval and promise, turmoil and hope the pace of events overwhelmed us completely, and most of us couldn’t keep up.  We ignored many things, and overlooked even more… and we paid the price…

Anyhow, I regress
.

S
o, it was, these Muto’s came from the jungle and all hell broke loose among the ranks of the Laotian armed forces.  There were men writhing on the ground, screaming at the top of their lungs, while others pulled forth their survival knives and machetes and hacked their own comrades to pieces.  Some men just burst into flame, seemingly combusting of their own volition, while others merely sat down, put their Kalashnikovs to their chins and blew out their brains - Full Metal Jacket-style¹.  There were even reports of armored personnel carriers being flung high into the sky, as if they’d sprouted wings.

At the time Katie and I thought it was bullshit.  What we didn’t know was those jungle Muto’s consisted of an Empathist, someone who manipulates emotion on all levels; a Combust, someone who command fire; a Brainer, someone who can send pain to others with a mere thought; a Projector, someone who can beguile thought into another’s mind; and a Kenetic, someone who lift things with their mind.  If we had known that morning what we were seeing on TV, it would’ve made more sense to us.  But we hadn’t known.  I think we both just sort of filed what we were watching under the “fantastic” sections of our minds and let the story wash over us only partially paying attention.

That incident tipped the scales against all Mutos, and Katie and I hardly took notice.  We had no idea how much it would change our lives – forever.

After a few minutes, Katie had lain down and stretched herself across the couch.  Her legs were across my lap below the knee and her narrow, white feet were wiggling just off to my right.  I slouched down into the comfortable piece of furniture, relaxing
, after having eaten so much food.  My right hand reached out before I knew what I was doing and grabbed one of Katie’s tiny feet.  I began to rub it, unthinking, while we watched the remote buzz-drone cameras, and the reporters on the ground, attempt to explain what had occurred in Laos.

She had let out a long coo of pleasure and immediately shifted her knees in my lap.  Now, with the angle improved, I
had better access to her soles.  I massaged those pale feet with all the skill I could muster.  My eyes flicked between the TV and Katie as I thumbed her arches and spread her little toes with my fingers.  I cupped the balls of her foot, flexing them back and forth, then placed her heel in the palm of my hand and applied just enough pressure to make her groan.  I went on like this for a long time.  Every time I stared at those small, pale feet, I felt my cock spasm slightly.  I hadn’t realizing that yet, even as a teenager, I had a deep-seeded fetish for women’s feet.

As I think back over my long life
, I must admit, there is nothing better than having my dick between a pair of dainty feet, especially along the bottoms, the tiny ripples of flesh there, when oiled feel like rougher, cooler walls of a vagina.  Any woman I have been with will tell you, I came on their feet just as many times as I came elsewhere when I climaxed. 
I love feet, so what, don’t bitch!

Three-quarters of an hour later, the doorbell rang, making me jump and waking up Katie.  She had fallen into blissful sleep
, because of my rubbing of her lower extremities.  She brought herself up off the couch and into a sitting position.  I made to get up and go for the door when, out of nowhere, she stopped me with a firm tug on my arm.  This retarded my forward motion so much, I couldn’t do much else, but sit back down upon the couch.

I turned to look in her direction to see why she had pulled on me like that when I realized she had crept very close to me and was still approaching.  I had no more than half a second before her thin, warm lips closed over mine in a long, slow kiss, startling me at first.  A heartbeat later, I relaxed when her hand came up to hold the back of my head.  I knew this was something more than a sisterly peck of thanks the very next moment.  Her tongue pushed between her own lips to taste mine.  It was tentative, a question made physical, asking if it was ok to take things to the next level.  I didn
’t hesitate as my tongue came forth, questing for hers and found it.  She tasted sweet, I told myself, but it was more likely some residual saccharine left over from the coffee we had drunk earlier.  I sucked her tongue, savoring her, but she would have no hesitancy with our first real kiss.  She brought her knees under her and moved as close as she could beside me and held my head with both hands and pushed her tongue into my mouth.  I accepted it.  I sat up straighter myself, so that I could feel her body along mine.  I pushed onto the small of her back with one hand and held her with the other.  I wrapped my tongue around hers and sucked.  She breathed heavily through her nose, preparing to do the same.  I crushed her breasts into my chest and eased my rock hard dick onto the thigh of one her legs.  She wasn’t about subtleties, on that day, and ground her thigh into my crotch, as a small gasp escaped her.  I could feel my blood rising, the beat of my heart increase as my ardor rocketed skyward.  I wanted her right then, right there on the couch.  I wanted to see, feel, smell and taste all of her.  I wanted to lick her neck, suck on her nipples, knead her ass cheeks, put her toes in my mouth, spread her buns apart and dive in with my tongue.  I wanted everything, all of it.  I wanted her in every position imaginable.  I wanted to see her gag on my cock as she took it all in her mouth.  I wanted her to squat on the balls of her feet and drive my shaft inside of her until I could go in no further.  I wanted to suck her clit, while inserting a pair of fingers into her to massage her g-spot.  I wanted her to swallow everything that spilled from me, while I lapped up every drop from between her thighs.  I wanted all of her…

…And Katie wanted all of me too.

I could feel the sexual tension in her body. I could smell the pheromones pouring off her.  I could feel her hands all over me.  She wanted me just as bad as I wanted her, and if things had been different we would have fucked ourselves sore.  Splashed sperm and cunt juices all over the couch, but things weren’t different on that day…

…The doorbell rang again…

…And we both sighed in frustration, knowing Ramona and Jacob were just on the other side of the door, waiting for us to answer.  Our lips parted.  We stared at one another, panting, our pupils made large by lust.

“Oh god, Eff, I
want
you.  I know that I shouldn’t, but I do, badly.  I want you in my belly,” she said breathlessly, her hand at her chest to slow her racing heart.  “You think that is bad?”

I heaved for air, shaking my head.  “No, Katie, I don’t, because I want you too.  I mean other people might think it bad, but I don’t.  I want to, but not just because you are beautiful and sexy.  I want to because it seems so right, in my mind, I love you, and not like I told you in the past.  I
’m in love with you.  I think I have been for some time now.”  My eyes flooded before I could stop them.

She tipped her head to the side.  “You mean that, Estefan?  Do you really mean that?  Tell me you’re not just saying that because if your girlfriend and your cousin weren’t on your doorstep we’d be fucking our brains out right now.  You’re not saying it out of regret, are you?”

I looked into her eyes, put my middle finger under her jaw, and brought her close with it.  “I mean it…,” I whispered and kissed her lightly, but didn’t pull back.

The doorbell rang again, only this time more urgently.

“Oh my,” she mumbled into my lips.

I rumbled with mirth, deep in my chest.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.  I wasn’t sure if she was talking to herself or asking me the question.

Instead, I asked, “Do you feel the same?”

She pulled back slowly.  Her eyes blinked rapidly as tear-filled as my own.

“Well?” I implored just above being heard.

“I’ve always denied the fact I was attracted to you.  Especially, in my heart, because I knew if I even admitted it, then I would have to face what lies beneath.”  She paused to take a breath I shared with her, nervous now.  “But I can’t help it, Eff, being older now; it’s harder to stay away.  I force myself not call you.  I use other boys to distract me when it doesn’t work and I grow weak.  Just being here and having you all to myself, even with all the crap going on in my life, it still comes out.”  She played with skin behind my ear.  I relaxed.  I knew what she was going to say already.  “My body responds to you, my mind is always wondering about you, and I am completely at home in your arms.”  She closed her eyes and her face edged heavenward as if she were praying or about to give confession. 
Maybe it was both? 
In that moment, I couldn’t tell one from the other.  They were indistinguishable.  “I love you, Estefan.  I do.  I admit it now and take it fully into my heart.”  She opened her eyes and gazed at me as the tears spilt.  I wiped them away and brought my fingers to my lips to taste them.