The Misbegotten

I lay there, stunned for a split second. I saw Ramona’s face hovering over mine, a mask of anger one moment and then one of puzzlement the next.

“Jesus Christ, Steve, were you really gonna fuck my friend right in front of me?!?” she yelled.

There was more disbelief in her tone than true anger. Even then, she was teetering. She hadn’t quite gone over the edge into rage, because there was something else precluding her from blowing her lid.

I glanced around, furtive, to get my bearings.

Katie no longer held back Sandy.

Ramona had Leda by the wrist, her grip vice-like. Her fingers made the smaller girls’ skin whiten from their harsh compression. Ramona must have yanked her off me. That was the only way I could imagine how the teenage girl came away from me so swift.

I peeped over at Leda, who was still only part of the way aware of Ramona. She was looking back at me as though I was some sort of fix she couldn’t have. Her face contorted with internal anguish and longing. Her eyes remained unchanged.

“Fucken shit!” went on Ramona. “Katie, do you have something that Leda can wear so her boobs aren’t flapping in the wind?”

That stunned me for a second. I let me eyes drop a tiny fraction of an inch. Shocked, I saw that somehow - in the midst of our tussle - Leda had managed to take off her bra. Her perky breasts jutted out before her, her dark brown areoles had contracted to the point where they were no more than an inch across. Her nipples were so hard they appeared about to burst. The entire upper portion of her body flushed bright pink, from her neck to the top of her abdomen.

Ramona’s statement seemed to shake her free of the all-consuming desire to screw. Leda glanced down at herself and then back at me. The realization of what she’d done and said sank in. Her eyes bulged, threatening to pop right onto the floor. Her cupid flush turned red and swept to the top of her face like a tsunami spreading over farmland.

“Oh god, no!” she screamed. Humiliated, she got up and ran into the bathroom without a word or backward glance.

None of us moved for a quarter of a minute.

“Son of a bitch!” breathed Sandy, gulping air in quick shallow gasps.

Katie didn’t skip a beat. “I told you the shit was dangerous, didn’t I?” She produced a plain white t-shirt from one of her drawers, scooped Leda’s bra and stormed off toward the bathroom.

From within, we could all hear Leda crying like a baby.

“Yeah, but…,” was all Sandy said.

“We understand, Sandy. You didn’t know how strong Estefan’s new… ability… was,” commented my girlfriend. She was rubbing her hands together. Her rough treatment of Leda must’ve stung the pads of her hands as well.

Hell ya, she’d been rough. She pulled Leda away like she was no more than a ragdoll!

“How do you do it, Eff?” asked Sandy, enthralled by the experience. Her focus was elsewhere and not the disgrace of her friend.

“It starts with smell,” I began, trance-like, rehashing what I’d already said. I was trying to get my head around the idea that it had been Leda that had rushed me. It was her who had kissed me with sexual violence, passion and shameless lechery. It was hard for me to see a girl with her grumpy temperament, her harsh way of dealing with people, in that sort of light. She seemed shut-off and cold to me. I hadn’t been lying when I had mentioned earlier that morning. Yet, she had just shown me the complete opposite. She was a wildcat when she was horny! I just couldn’t believe it.

Sandy must’ve been waiting for me to continue. She prompted of a sudden, scattering my thoughts, “And then what?”

I shook my thoughts from my mind, like so many gnats clouding my head on a hot summer night. “And it goes from there. I smell something. I break it down. I smell it’s’ component parts. Then, I guess some sort of corresponding smell comes from me that. Next, that turns your practical, normal, level-headed female into a nymphomaniac.”

“You can say that again,” agreed Ramona. She slipped out of her heels and padded toward me. Her toes gripped the carpet as she came forth, her arms before her.

I wasted little time and walked into her embrace. She hugged me tight for a few seconds. Then, she pulled her head back a bit, so she could look up into my eyes. Even without heels she was only a couple of inches shorter than me. “You ok?” she asked with such timidity I immediately put her motives in question.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” I replied in kind, choosing to ignore my misgivings. No sense in pushing the limits of her understanding. I bent down to kiss her on the lips with a series of soft pecks that trailed from one corner of her mouth to the other.

She accepted them without rancor, displaying great patience. She waited for me to finish, before she spoke once more: “I think I am more shocked than anything else, Effy. That was really an unbelievable display of male sexuality. I have never smelt anything as wonderful as the odor coming from you. I wanted to have sex with you as well, but I was able to think it through. I remembered it was some sort of experiment, although only just, like at the last minute. I think that’s why I didn’t run across the room the way the others did.

“Or maybe, it’s because I’ve been with you so many times already. Maybe my body knew what to expect on some basic level. Maybe that kept me sane enough,” she added with a lopsided smile. Her eyes looked guarded and not solely their own – she was masking other, more personal thoughts.

I stared at her for a heartbeat or two. “It bothered you that it was Leda, huh?”

“Yeah, babe, it did,” she breathed after a time.

“Wanna tell me why?”

“Because if Leda begins to like you, it’ll prove what I’m already beginning to dread. Soon I think there will many other girls and am I going to have to share you with all them.” At least, the honesty had returned to her face, though her statement confused me a bit.

“What are you talking about?”

She sighed, then extended on her toes and gave me a quick chaste kiss on the lips. “You think I don’t know what this is?”

I shook my head in the negative.

“This is something neither of us can get away from,” she explained with a twinge of hurt. She tried to hide behind her eyes but notched the effort.

“Get away from what?” I ventured, feeling a sliver of annoyance beginning to creep into my tone.

“What you are, Eff, don’t you feel it?”

Again, a confused shake of my head followed.

Her gaze was earnest, impassioned. “Why do you think girls love you so much, so deeply? They either want to be with you forever or they hate you. It’s always been there inside you… this ability to say the right thing or be the right person at the right time. All those girls I talked to when I was first asking about the kind of guy you were, they all said the same thing. Or they said something close to it. You had ‘powers’. Remember? Even back then it was palatable enough to comment on with a degree of certainty. They couldn’t describe it or put a specific name to it, but it was there. They all felt it.

“Now, it’s magnified. This sickness was you had this morning has made it stronger by whatever means. And if that is what’s true, then it means it will have to be more than just Katie and me. You watch, Effy, it will be become this inescapable thing that we cannot get rid of or hide from. It will always be there, because it is the way you were born.” She fell silent, her brow like a thunderhead.

I contemplated what she said for a minute or so, but didn’t dare let go of her. I wanted to prove to her, she wasn’t alone in this. “And now, you’re afraid Leda will want to be with me, because of what happened.”

“Oh Eff, all four of us want you, in one way or another. Sandy told me downstairs before all this shit happened, and now. Well, Leda might be crying now, but she’s never going to get over being curious. I know her too well. She’s got a taste of you. It’s gonna make her question her own intentions. She lost it with someone other than her stupid-ass boyfriend. Now, she’s going to want to know why the two of you responded so quickly to one another. It was the same thing Katie told me about your…,” this she whispered, “little adventure last night. She said it felt as though your bodies were acting without thought, like they already knew how to respond, what to do. She said it was all instinct and it was the best fuck of her life.” She spoke more normal now. “Leda is going to want some of that. There is no doubt in my mind.” She surprised me by giving me a hug and rested her head on my chest.

“How do you know this?” I asked still somewhat incredulous.

Her eyes were a matching set of oil-drills, plunging straight for understanding. She wanted me focused when she said: “Because, Estefan, I got sick too. This morning, before I called you the first time, I was throwing up my guts. I thought it was nerves about you and Katie being together at first. As time went on, I began to realize it was something much, much more. Now, after everything you and Katie have learned and been able to explain, since we’ve been here, I get it. Like you, I am no longer the same person I was yesterday. I see things now, things I’ve been ignoring all day, things I can no longer deny. Leda’s little performance proved it to me. I see what you are and I know I will be sharing you with a lot of girls. It’s because you are who you are and there’s no stopping it. You are too strong.”

I let that descend from the surface of my brain, trying my damnedest to be as open-minded as possible. I willed myself to agree with what she had said, or at least I tried. Except the part about being with females other than her and Katie, of that, I wanted no part. My cupboard was full as far as it concerned me. I wanted no one else. I didn’t…

…Although, Leda had felt pretty fucking incredible. Never more than when the firmness of her pubic bone had rubbed hard against my…

…But seriously, I was good. I didn’t need a gaggle of babes hanging off my belt.

Or so I thought.

“So what does that make me? Am I some kind of freak?” I asked in an attempt to distract myself.

A little self-deprecation, now and again, didn’t hurt, right?

“If that’s the case, then so am I and so is Katie and Leda as well,” replied Ramona with a soft laugh, letting her hands fall to my ass.

I glanced over at where I’d last seen Sandy and found her gone. In fact, we were alone in the Loft. Everyone had gone to the bathroom with Leda; I rationalized just before another question flashed before me.

“How would the three of you be freaks as well?”

“Us four, you mean,” clarified my girlfriend. She giggled out of the blue. “You are the one with the super-attraction techniques. Katie with something to do with heat, because that’s the impression I get when I see her. Leda’s had something to do with her powerful will. And me, well it seems I have the ability to know all this without being told. It as simple as that – four friends, four freaks.”

I chewed on this for no more than a blink of an eye when it hit me. “Are you saying we’re all Mutos?”

That fantastic smile of hers returned in a flash and I knew I was correct.

Son of a mother, fucking bitch! Mutos – are you fucking kidding me!?! What the shit are we going to do now!?! There was a war raging against Mutos as we speak! How are we going to survive? How are we going to keep hidden, keep from snitches from turning us in for the Discovery Cash? Somebody will find out and turn us in for sure!

That was when my phone vibrated, then rang inside my front right pocket. I pulled it forth. I felt my heart fall to the bottom vestiges of my nut sack as my eyes fell upon the Caller ID splash screen.

It was Tirza.

School had let out and she was calling me from her cell.

How could this day get any fucking worse?!?

I had no choice, either way, I was doomed. I broke from Ramona, who was already glaring at me. I knew, whether it was her just professed, newfound ‘power’ or not. She knew exactly who it was.

I turned, swiped the answer icon and spoke: “Hey Tirza, what’s up?”

My timing couldn’t have been any worse. As I turned from Ramona, the three other girls finally emerged from the bathroom. It was impossible for me not catch Katie stiffen at the sound of my words. I saw Sandy and Leda share a disgruntled glance out of the corner of my eye.

“Estefan, oh my god, I am soooo sorry, but I need your help. Can we meet somewhere later on tonight? I have to talk to you.”

Things were spiraling way out of control now. And, there was no sign of it ending any time soon.

As it turned out, it never did end…

*****

“Tirza, I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I spoke into the cell, feeling my heart rate increase two-fold at that point.

There was a huff and, for an instant, I thought she was about to go off on me. Then: “Its soooo not like that, Effy. This is about something else, I promise.”

I peered through my eyebrows at Ramona.

She was gazing back, her own rose, telling me quite pointedly to get the fuck off the phone.

“I believe what you’re saying, I do. It’s just there are other people in my life now, Tirza. Important people that, to be frank, don’t want me to have anything to do with you. I can’t meet you somewhere, alone. It freaks them out.”

“You don’t think I haven’t already thought about how Ramona and Katie are going to behave knowing what I am asking you to do? What do you take me for? Am I that stupid to you, Estefan?” She volleyed the accusation right back at me unable to hold back the scorn in her tone.

I had to admit, I sort of did feel she had been a tiny bit immature, since our break-up. But whatever this was, whatever it was bothering her now, put those specific notions to sleep. This was a different kind of Tirza than before. I could feel it without question, like gravity or armed with the knowledge the sun would rise each day.

“I don’t think you’re stupid, Tirza,” I fumbled. “It’s just that things… are weird now, you know?”

“Not to me, not anymore,” she clarified - her voice quavered. It was jittery in a way I couldn’t describe.

“Let’s just talk about it over the phone. We don’t have to meet in order for me to give you advice,” I offered. I hoped to find a fertile middle ground.

Ramona began to tap her foot, shifting her weight to one side as she did so. She shared an “I’m going to end this soon” look with Sandy, who nodded back in what seemed complete agreement.

Fucken females! Shit!

Tirza huffed again, louder than before. “Estefan, I don’t trust talking to you over the phone on an open line.”

That took me aback. “What’da’ya mean you don’t trust talking on an open line? You’re talking crazy, girl.”

“I have my reasons,” was all she said.

Ramona put out her hand, wiggling her fingers at me, silently asking for the cell.

I cupped the microphone with my finger and shook my head “no”.

This only served to sharpen the glare in her eyes. She placed both hands on her hips.

I could see her jaw tighten underneath the skin of her cheeks. I put her out of my mind for the moment. “What is this about, Tirza? I mean on the real. You should tell me, because you know Ramona is standing right here next to me about ready to explode.” It was my way of delaying the inevitable by stating the obvious.

She snorted through her nose. “I can imagine, and I am sorry to the both of you for being so insistent, but I cannot tell you over the phone. All the same though, I’m still desperate for your advice. I need your help. I need to see you…” Her voice tailed off.

It startled me when I thought I heard her stifle a sob. I wasn’t sure if she’d made the sound in the first place. So, I did nothing but listen for a few moments.

She made no other sounds.

“Ok,” I began.

Right away Ramona’s eyebrows shot to the ceiling. She took an involuntary step forward, but stopped when I waved her off emphatically.

“I hear you,” I continued and turned from all them to face the windows of the Loft opening to the hallway below. I couldn’t see it from where I was standing. I was too far back from the edge. I didn’t give a crap about the lack of a view though. “I understand the severity of the situation, even though you can’t explain it to me over the phone. I acknowledge that. But, girl, I’m still gonna have to talk this over with Ramona before I can give you any final decision. And it may be that she comes with me. Ok?”

“I don’t want her to get implicated in any of this, Estefan,” she retorted. Her choice of words bewildered the shit out of me.

Implicated? What the fuck was this little chick talking about?

I breathed, heavy, but was still glad that Ramona and the others had stayed put for the time being. “That’s the deal, I’m afraid,” was all I could offer her.

“I see, ok…” She sounded worn out, beaten, completely deflated and that bothered me. Tirza always had so much fight in her. She was always out to prove how tough she could be. This loss of spirit didn’t feel right. There was something else in play, something I could only guess at.

But, I had to end the conversation soon. The girls would no doubt yank the phone out of my hands. I could sense of them at my back. “I will talk with Ramona and get back to you, ok?”

“Yeah, sure.” Now she sounded forlorn, lethargic, as if the wind got knocked out of her.

“And I won’t drag my feet. I’ll get back to you by the end of the day or by early tomorrow. Does that sound ok?” I was doing whatever I could to make her feel better. I just didn’t have many options with four, near-angry girls boring holes in my back with their eyes.

She perked up at that. “Ok, Effy, if that’s all you can do for now, then ok. I understand - thanks.”

She cut the connection before I could answer.

Upon me taking the phone from my ear, Katie said: “I don’t think you should go alone. There is something going on that she knows about and she’s not telling you. Whatever it is – and even if it doesn’t involve her trying to get you back – it can’t be good. You should just stay away.”

Sandy and Leda were both nodding like bobble-heads.

“You did well, my love,” came Ramona’s smug comment. She came to me and hugged me sideways, by the waist, planting a wet kiss on lobe of my ear. “Let’s go eat and we’ll talk about this later.”

“That sounds good, because now I’m like super hungry!” announced Sandy.

With that we left the Loft and went down the two flights of stairs to the kitchen.

It was not long after, in the dining room, with food reheated, the five of us feasted on everything I’d cooked earlier. It wasn’t all that bad, but what Katie had said stuck with me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible was looming upon the horizon. I couldn’t shake the feeling my immediate future didn’t look all that good.