The Misbegotten

Over the course of the next week, things became routine, much more commonplace around my parents’ house. The longer this regularity, the more careless we became with how we moved or made noise. More than once an hour, we had to tell one another to be quieter or to at least pay attention. None of us wanted my parents to find out there were more kids staying the night than they thought. With everything else going on at the time, I didn’t need my mom (or my step-dad) up in my cheese. I couldn’t afford them hell-bent over the fact I was sleeping with four girls every night. It wasn’t like we were having wild orgies, though we’d come close the night of my dream. They wouldn’t have found us in a nasty, naked pile, but they’d still go ballistic. A seventeen year old boy wasn’t supposed to be sleeping with four girls at once.

Some of the reason my parents would freak-out was my fault. I had painstakingly covered my tracks whenever I’d done something your typical A-B student wouldn’t do. Whether it was smoking marijuana or having sex on the fourth floor at school, I went out of my way to make certain they never found out. I was careful not to get caught. I formulated plans before I acted. I was thorough. It didn’t stop me from doing some stupid shit. But I didn’t launch myself headlong into a given situation without some degree of fore-thought. I guess, even as a teen, I had a decent knowledge of tradecraft and used it whenever and wherever possible.

The downside though, was my parents believed I was a goody, goody kid – well-groomed and straight-laced. The truth would’ve shocked them into next week.

In the situation we were in, any outburst from them would’ve brought undo notice to our safe and sane household. This would constitute notice none of us Mutos needed. It would’ve meant our deaths.

So, we bitched and groaned at one another during the late night and early morning hours when my parents were home. We chastised those one of us that got too noisy. We yelled at those who forgot the places they shouldn’t go in the house at a certain hour of the day.

Jacob called again on the first day, a Friday. He told me he might not be able to call over the coming weekend, because the situation was reaching a critical point. He explained, the night before the NIA had struck yet another home. This was the night following the slaughter of Jolene’s family, except this one attack had been in El Sereno. And, the result had been quite different.

As he told me, members of two other households had come to the aid of the one under attack. The interlopers came armed and ambushed the Shock-troops as they were about to bust down the front door. The outcome the media had made all the more worse by perpetuating rumor. Unconfirmed reports told of Mutations augmenting the defense against the NIA soldiers.

From what he and my uncles were able to find out, there were bodies everywhere. More than three-quarters of them were government agents. Because of the carnage, the status the entire neighborhood changed. It was now deemed a threat to meta-national security. Within hours, the NIA cordoned it off from the rest of the city.

The residents countered the government’s response by erecting barriers and barricades about their properties’. They’d even booby-trapped every egress into the area. Now, an edgy sort of stand-off had ensued. Both sides eyed the other, waiting for the slightest provocation to attack.

Jacob said my uncles had become excited of the development. Within hours, they began to devise methods of smuggle food and water, and heavier weapons, to those trapped in El Sereno. It was what they were calling “one mother-loving, hell of an opportunity!”

He went on to say, if true war was ever going to erupt between the NIA and the Mutos, it would begin there. And our two crazy-ass uncles would provide the supplies and support and make a shit-ton of money.

I found it hard to believe after we’d terminated the call, but in truth I couldn’t put it past my uncles. They weren’t good people. They were opportunistic parasites, preying off every situation they could lay their hands on. Make a quick stack of cash with the least amount of effort was their motto.

And yet, I didn’t completely disagree with what they were doing either. People had the right to defend themselves from any threat, and that included the government. It was the whole “profit” thing that left a sour taste in my mouth. It just didn’t ring true. But sometimes you have to eat shit for the good of the people.

Stupid me though. I didn’t know at the time, but I would one day adopt my uncles’ way of thinking. I would take their methods of doing business to heights undreamed of… all the way to the stars. I became ten thousand percent worse than they ever were. There are many harsh lessons one must learn before they become the Keeper of the Peace.

Rule number one: You gotta be brave enough to enforce it.

There were other factors that made us edgy and irritable. The fact the girls and I slept in the same bed didn’t help. Because we were teenagers, not quite adults, we were flush of hormones. We were old enough to act on adult desires, but not seasoned enough to deal with having to forego acting on those urges.

Our pact regarding vigilance didn’t stop me from getting erections or any one of the girls from waking wet and moist. Since we were always touching, physical manifestations of our want surfaced often. There were times, in the depths of the night, I’d opened my eyes to one of them kissing my neck or fondling my errant, midnight wood. Since I slept without a shirt, my nipples got nibbled or sucked many times a night. I began sleeping with a shirt on. But every time I climbed into that bed with all those girls within minutes the heat would become unbearable. Off came the shirt.

Once, female moans that had nothing to do with me awakened me from my dreams. I turned over to find Ramona and Katie making out. Each girl had a hand down the others’ pajama bottoms. They were making furious circular motions with their fingertips.

My cock swelled fast. I gasped in pain as blood filled the vessels down there so swift it felt like my penis tore from the inside out. I was about to join them when Leda sat up, hovering over us all.

Groggy, she began pulling us apart. She mumbled for us to stop, saying we had to stay the course, etc., etc.

Blah, blah, blah! I remember thinking.

She physically planted herself between the two other girls, shoving me further away with her foot.

My dick was so hard it ached. I wanted someone, any of them, to scoot down there and take me in their mouth. I wouldn’t have lasted that long. What was the big, fucking deal anyhow?

But they gained their composure and fell back asleep.

I stroked my pole a few times frustrated beyond belief. After a spell, I forced myself to let go of it. I rolled to the side and forget all notions of a quick, but deep blow-job.

I woke the next morning sullen and withdrawn. The need to release was almost as bad as the pending doom that seemed to drape over us all like an invisible blanket of lead. It wore us down by the minute, pulled at our shoulders, made our backs bow.

Add the sexual dissatisfaction to the mix and things could’ve gone nuclear in seconds. The tension was thick. I could almost taste it. A little pussy would’ve helped big-time, but in the end, we stayed cool. We stayed just far enough away from each other to endure the nights, but it was hell – for every one of us.

Of course, there were other things, to keep us occupied whilst we waited for something, anything, to happen.

Saturday afternoon, during our usual midday swim, I found Ramona staring intently at Flavia. I kept asking her what the matter was, but she kept pushing aside my questions. Deflecting them by saying she would tell me later. Finally, when my step-sister emerged from the pool and walked by us, Ramona reached out and grabbed Flavia by the wrist.

My step-sister had stopped at once, peering into my girlfriend’s eyes for almost a minute. The cords in my step-sister’s neck strained more and more with each passing second.

When Ramona had finally let go, she said Flavia’s vision would be “special” too. She couldn’t define it more than that, but there would be no denying it. Flavia’s eyes were not going to be normal for long.

Being the practical girl she was, Flavia shrugged and said, “thank you.”

I could only squint at them as if I’d tasted something sour.

Girls could be so fucking weird at times.

Other aspects of “hardness” developed, during those few days as well. And it had nothing to do with my reproductive organ. With every twelve-hour interval, both Tirza and I grew harder.

Again, I’m not referring to anything sexual or even sexual in nature. I mean precisely what I am saying – we grew harder. I remembered my first encounter with this physiological change occurred while I was shaving. I had shattered the shaver when I should’ve flayed my cheek.

This though was somewhat different. I was becoming denser, as if the billions and billions of molecules in my body were realigning. It was like they were moving closer together, making space for more mass to infuse itself into my body.

As a consequence, I was getting heavier. I made the floor and my bed creak with loud protestations whenever I stepped or moved about. This was true of Tirza as well.

We didn’t feel any different or lose equilibrium or anything along those lines. We just had to be more careful of what we grabbed or bumped into.

One tiny, inadvertent knock of my hand against the drywall in my bathroom had left the impression of my knuckles behind. I had stood there shocked, because it had been such an innocuous movement. Yet the result was ten, maybe fifteen, times beyond what it should’ve been.

By the end of the third day, needles could no longer penetrate our skin. Both Tirza and I were over sixty percent heavier than we had weighed seventy-two hours prior. We both became hyper-aware of our surroundings. We didn’t want to hurt anyone out of carelessness.

This still didn’t stop the others from taking pot-shots at us now and again. They were so curious; they just had to test whether we’d feel their punches more than they did. Usually, they felt it more.

My ex-girlfriend and I began to joke about all the sore knuckles we had given them without so much as lifting a finger.

By the end of the fourth day – Monday, the 18th - our little community rouse began to unravel as well. The angst amongst our parents reached its’ highest level and real fear was beginning to take over.

The first to crumble before the onslaught was Sandy’s mother. She called her mid-afternoon and told her she couldn’t stay the night at Leda’s anymore. When Sandy protested, her mother would have none of it and said she expected Sandy to be home when she got home from work at 6:30 pm. Sandy shrugged at the phone and said to no one, “I’m sorry to disappoint.”

The second was Ramona’s mother, Maria. As predictable as always, she wasn’t as diplomatic. Her and my girlfriend went back and forth for a few minutes until her mom had enough. Maria had yelled at Ramona then, promising if she didn’t come home that night, she would report her as a runaway.

Ramona threw the phone on my bed in anger. She skulked where she stood, facing out one of the back windows of the Loft. She was so annoyed, she was on the verge of tears.

When Leda made to go to her, I stopped her. It was always better to leave Ramona be when she was about to cry. The slightest miscalculation could set her off screaming in the other direction.

Instead, I wrapped Leda in my embrace. I held her for a few moments, letting her know I understood what she was trying to do, even if my girlfriend couldn’t. She had turned her head and laid it against my chest and stayed there for a while.

We all knew Ramona would now be a runaway.

When my mom got home on Friday, the seventh day of our tedious wait, she settled little Lucia. After leaving my baby sister with a Sippy-cup of juice before the TV, she came directly to the Loft. With only a cursory knock, she stepped into the large room. Her face registered mild shock at the sight of the girls, the air mattresses, all the blankets and the general untidiness of the room. She frowned, and would’ve rounded on me with a stern remark upon her tongue when she saw Flavia and Jolene. Then her gaze found Johan and Martín sitting on my bed with the rest of us.

We were watching the local news station.

I had extricated myself from the group and met her half way, apologizing for the mess.

She wasn’t looking at me anymore. Her eyes festooned onto the LCD screen depicting story after story of Muto infestations. The networks made it sound like terrorist uprisings were never-ending.

When I said I was sorry for the mess for a second time, she just waved me to her. There was worry and uncertainty in her expression.

I went to my mother.

She gave me a firm hug, and then did an amazing thing. She whispered in my ear that it was okay if any of my friends wished to stay over. From her standpoint, she didn’t want anyone on the streets once the sun went down.

I lied a white lie, saying that only Jolene and Tirza would be staying. I just couldn’t see her accepting the real number of people who’d be – and had been – staying for two weeks now.

When I motioned to Tirza, her eyes just about popped out of her head in confusion. I knew she was fighting to comprehend how Ramona would allow Tirza to be within one hundred feet of me.

But, my mother, being the great woman of tact that she was, just pursed her lips. Under her breath she said, “I’ll wait to hear you explain that one later, young man. Until then, be good.” Her eyes were direct and bore into mine. Like always, she was telling me – and not all that subtle I might add – to keep my hands to myself and my junk in my pants.

I sighed, dramatic for effect, while she waved her “hi’s” and “good-bye’s” and took her leave. Not before she told me, looking through her eye lashes, to clean up.

[He rockets into himself, his fingers flicking so fast, it is hard to follow them.]

My mother was always such a pain in the butt, always so watchful of us. But I would do anything to have her back as exasperating as ever. How I miss her now. It has been so many years.

R.I.P. Mama…

[To avoid the anguish, he dives back down – gone.]