Shadow Seed 1: The Misbegotten (78 page)

(Summer – 2018)

Busted!

[He is furious now, intent on getting through the most agonizing portion of this chapter from his youth.  He
has
to find answers.  His cousin is missing.]

“So, tell me, Steve, how was it?” demanded Ramona, the very second I opened my eyes.

I blinked rapidly to rid my mind of sleep, attempting to clear if from the tailings of a dream.  My vision improved enough to see my girlfriend’s head hovering above me.  She had one eyebrow raised higher than the other, a sardonic smirk spread across her face.

“How was what?” I asked gruffly, sitting up on my elbows, seeing I had slept at the foot of the bed again, after finishing my late-night talk with Tirza.

Ramona was propped on her elbows too, although she was lying on her stomach whereas I was mostly upon my back.  Her hair was akimbo, but pulled back in an elastic scrunchie, her broad face and grey eyes belying, she too, had just awakened.  She was wearing light, cotton pajama set, sleeveless with short bottoms.  It was plain white with dark, paisley stitching throughout.

She edged her way closer to me on her elbows, her full breasts rubbing together deliciously as they swirled from side to side with her movements.  “How was Tirza?  Did you do her sitting on the toilet or did you lie her down in the bathtub?  Or… did you guys do it standing up?  Was she facing you or did you get her from behind.”  Her voice was light-hearted, but her eyes were too icy, and the tone didn’t sound genuine.

I guess the thought of Tirza and I being together bothered her.  Which might strike one as odd, since she was practically sharing me with three other girls already, but Ramona always had a strange territorial methodology, one I had come to understand during our time as a couple.  She liked to be the one to choose, the one in-charge of what was “ok” and “wasn’t ok”.  It’s sort of simple when you think of it in those terms.

I sighed and wiped at my eyes, feeling the grit beneath my fingertips.  “It was nothing like that, Mona.  We were just talking, confessing actually - if you want to hang a sign on it.”

I reached out and touched her wrist, somehow able to discern the contact would open my mind to her.  It wasn’t a huge leap of deductive reasoning on my part.  Ramona’s mutation had been strengthening along with the rest of ours.  She could see things in an uncooperative mind now.  No, it wasn’t about power or ability.  It was about clarity.  I wanted her to see the night before with the same resolution as a Blu-ray disc.  I
wanted
her to
feel
it. 

Almost immediately, the softness chipped and fell away from her face, leaving behind an inner mask of intense focus.  I purposefully played the events of earlier that morning in my mind, gazing into her eyes, watching the truth of my memories slowly dawn across her visage.  I could feel a tingling sensation spread about the crown of my head as she delved deeper into my thoughts, asking for every nuance of what transpired in the bathroom.  I let her, more than a little glad to show her the unbridled hurt and bitterness that had existed between Tirza and me, including the inescapability of our feelings for one another.  The fact Tirza and I still loved
each other was something she had to know, something she would have to grow to accept.  I had promised my ex-girlfriend I would never leave her side, and it was a promise I intended to keep.

“Told you,” I said just above hearing, a few minutes later, when she finally withdrew from my consciousness.

She blinked back remorseful tears.  “Sorry, Effy, I didn’t know things were really that bad between the two of you, so much left unsaid and all…”  Her voice lost volume as she lost the conviction to keep speaking.

“It’s not like I told you much about it, my dear, so don’t be too hard on yourself,” I said nonchalantly, glancing about the Loft, realizing only Ramona and I were in the large chamber.

“Maybe that’s why I was so jealous of her,” admitted the vivacious teen at my side, “because you didn’t talk about her all that much.”

I half-smiled for her benefit, but my mind was elsewhere.  “Where is everyone?”

She took the scrunchie from her hair and shook her head from side to side, making her hair fan out about her.  “The girls are in the bathroom.  Your brother and sister and Jolene went to their rooms to freshen up, so that just leaves you and –.”

I never heard what she said next.  Right then, before I could do anything other than sit there struck dumb with shock, the door leading to the Loft opened and my mother walked in, about to tell me something.  I had no more than a split-second to realize she was still in her pink, threadbare robe she wore around the house on the weekends.  Then it dawned on me, this was a Saturday!

What the fuck was I going to do?

She stopped as though a bolt of lightning had struck her from above.  Her mouth opened in a silent “O”.  Her eyes were wide as she peered at both Ramona and I half-naked, lying across the bed.  Our positions were so compromising, I could tell in an instant, she
knew
we were sexually active and had been for some time.

Ramona trailed off, following my gaze.  She sucked in her breath the moment her eyes fell upon my mom.  She spun around like she was a top, coming to sit as chaste as she could manage in the scanty nightclothes she was wearing.

“Ramona!  Estefan!” were the only two words my mother managed to say when the girls emerged from then bathroom, talking animated and loud.  All of them were still in their pajamas, none of them wearing underwear.  My mom had eyes like a hawk.  There was no way she would miss that detail.

There was a collective gasp from them and a resounding, “What is going on here?” from my mother, who was glaring from them before the threshold of the bathroom door to me and Ramona on the bed, fire in her eyes.

“Mom!” I shouted, astonished I was able to make any sound, because it felt like I was being strangled by Darth Vader¹, using his Force Choke² on me with unbridled malice.

She turned on me, her fists balled at her sides.  “I asked you a question, what is going on here?” she repeated herself through clenched teeth.

“It’s not what it looks like, mom.”  (Even though it was precisely as it looked)  “They
all
have good reason for being here, I promise,” was my attempt at mollifying her line of thought.

“If it’s not what it looks like, then why are you girls dressed like this around my son?”  She took the time to glower at each and every one of them, making them squirm where they stood, making them blush beat red.  “Ramona, you know better than that.  We’ve talked about things like this.  I told you what I expected of you.  I don’t like this!”

My girlfriend dropped her head to stare in her lap.  She might be many things, but, more than anything, she was respectful to those who respected her.

“Mom, it’s not that big of a deal, ok.”  I knew I was venturing onto thin ice, but what else could I do?

“Estefan, stop right now,” she wheeled on me like a banshee.  “I told you too what I expect from you.”  She was pointing at me know.  “I don’t want to be grandmother this early.”

We all groaned with agonized embarrassment, no one more chagrined than me.  I could feel my face flushing with heat, and knew full well I as red as the girls.  I guess you could say we were acting a little hypocritical, seeing all of us were anxious for a little action.  But then, I can’t honestly say none of us thought about making a baby when
we were fucking, because… well, we were fucking like the stupid, immature brats.  We didn’t think of the consequences of unprotected sex.  At least, I didn’t, once Ramona got on the “Depo” Shot³, it was out of mind, completely.  Before then, we used the ole’ “pullout method”, which I had perfected after a good deal of practice, although half the time Ramona liked me to spooge on her tits or in her mouth when she finished me off with one of her patented blow-jobs.

Tirza had been my lover before her and she had been on the pill.  It was the first sacrilegious thing she had done in her life – or so she said – because condoms gave her rashes.  It left us only two options, stop having sex or get her on the pill.  Magnanimously, I had let Tirza decide.  After nine days of her jerking me off and me twiddling my tongue between her pink labia’s, she made an appointment at Planned Parenthood
4
.  She got on the pill.  Like she had told me earlier that very morning, she liked fucking me.  Of that, I was glad – very glad indeed. 
Thank you, Tirza, from the bottom of my nut sack.

I knew Katie was on the Shot as well, so the idea of us accidentally creating life hadn’t crossed my mind.  I had purposefully blown my load into her a few times weeks before.  I remembered how hard it had been for me to walk the following day.  I almost smiled when I realized my mother had been watching me the entire time.

Then, her gaze went back to Ramona.  Her face was stern, her mouth set to one side as she digested a new reality, one she didn’t like in the least.  We had inadvertently confirmed the first thought she’d had when she stepped into Loft unannounced.  We had done so with our body language.  She knew for certain – Ramona and I were having sex.  She breathed in heavily, frowning even deeper when she saw Tirza.  My poor ex-girlfriend was shuffling from foot to foot next to the three taller girls she stood near, dreadfully nervous.

My mother motioned for me to approach her, which I did dutifully, hoping she wasn’t going to do anything rash like tell me I couldn’t go out with Ramona anymore, because she was in for a rude awakening.  I wasn’t dating just Ramona anymore…

“We will talk later of you and Ramona, Estefan, but you will answer me right now what I am about to ask,” she said to me through a clenched jaw, barely moving her lips.

“Okay.”

“Are you using protection?”  Her eyes were like twin daggers.  Thank God, she had the tact to keep her voice down.  My mama might be old fashion in some areas, but even in situations such as this, she too was respectful of our feelings.  Though she could be strict, she enforced it with a light hand.

“Yes, ma, Ramona is on the Shot,” I answered my voice as low as I could make it and still be heard.

She nodded curtly.  “Good.”  She huffed, crossed her arms under her bosom and shook her head at me, and then shot a furtive glance at Ramona.  “Well, I guess it was bound to happen,” she muttered more to herself than to me, so I didn’t respond.  I mean, what could I’ve said? 
Yeah, mom, Ramona’s fucking hot, so you had to know eventually I would try and tap that ass.
  No, I don’t think so.  “Does her mother know?”

My eyes nearly popped out of my head.  “No!”

“From your reaction, it sounds to me that if she found out, it could pose a very serious problem for you, eh?”  She raised her brow to reinforce the point she was trying to make.

“Yeah…”  I shrugged.

My mother drifted in her thoughts for almost a full minute.  “Okay, well, I’ll keep it secret for now, but you are going to have to come clean eventually, young man, especially now that I know.  I am obligated to tell her mother, you do realize that don’t you?”

I nodded, grateful and apprehensive at the same time. 
Fuck, I didn’t want to tell that fat bitch a god damned thing!
  This was going to suck big, huge hairy balls, I could already feel it deep down in my gut.

“Aside for the fact that you and Ramona are… are… well you know,” she waved her hand in the air, blushing.  I felt my stomach twist with discomfiture.  I never expected to have a discussion like this with my mother this soon in life.  If I’d been forty, maybe things would’ve been easier for the both of us – maybe…  “Is there a legitimate reason why
all
these girls are staying overnight with you?  I know I told you the other night they could stay, but you told me only Jolene and Tirza, which in itself was a little weird.  I know Jolene is Flavia’s friend, but Tirza…?  Haven’t the two of you fighting for some time now?”

I nodded lamely.

“Estefan what’s going on?  This is very confusing.”  Despite having learned things she had dreaded learning for the last few years, my mother looked concerned.

“I can’t tell you all of it, mom, because I don’t want you or Dad, or the little ones to get hurt,” I replied circumventing her question.

She was scowling again, not liking my answer one bit.  “What are you talking about, Effy?  Have you guys been something you’re not supposed to be doing?  Drugs?  Shoplifting?”

“No, mom, it’s nothing like that.  Nothing like that at all, I promise.”  I was almost smirking.  I wouldn’t be half as worried as I was if this whole fucking thing had been only about something as insignificant as getting busted for distribution of narcotics or stealing from the local liquor store.

“Then what is it, son?”

“I can’t tell you,” I started to say in greater detail when I thought hit me out of nowhere.  I reached out and touched her arm lightly, careful not to hurt her when my ever-hardening body.  “You remember what we were watching when you said it was okay for a few of my friends to stay the night?”

She went stone-faced, searching her memory, cocking her head to one side, then, “The news.”

I bobbed my head up and down.  “Exactly.”