The Misbegotten

She walked through the sliding glass doors and onto the covered patio with an overnight bag slung over her shoulder. She was clad in a brown and white checkered blouse, short sleeved shirt, collared with buttons up the front. She had on tight-fitting, white short-shorts cinched about the waist with a brown leather belt. There was a pair of matching sandals whose straps wound about her ankles and calves. A pair of cinnamon-colored shades she pulled back onto her head. Her chocolate eyes darted from one of us the next. It was clear, she was nervous.

“Hey, Jolene,” I said as I stood, holding out a welcoming hand.

She took it. Our hands bounced up and down twice. Her palm was dry despite her uneasiness. She had delicate bones.

I felt like a clodhopper, afraid I was going to break them. I was born with large hands for my size. It was one of the few traits I’d inherited from my father and found I had to careful with them. I had more than one girl mention to me that my hands were heavy. This was usually after they’d yipped in surprise when I’d swatted their butt cheeks harder than I had intended.

“Hi,” was all she said, gazing up at me as our hands came apart. She was pretty.

I could see why Johan fancied her.

She had her hair down, but it was short enough that it didn’t need a ponytail. Her bangs and the natural bob of her hair framed her narrow face and prominent facial bones in a somewhat squarish manner. She wasn’t wearing make-up, but her eyebrows were perfect, sculpted like a model’s.

I could see the remnants of shadow under the sockets of her eyes, evidence of her sickness earlier that morning. “How are you feeling?” I asked, my observation prompting the question.

She sighed through a chuckle. “Better, though my stomach still feels a like weird.”

“It was like that for us all,” I consoled. “Violent up-chucking wreaks havoc on your insides.” It was a light-hearted jape. I hoped to ease some of her anxiety. It must’ve been hell for her to go through the sickness with no one around to explain what was happening, or at least help. I couldn’t imagine having gone through what I went through without Katie. My cousin had been a life-saver. What would I have done without her?

She grinned thankfully, but didn’t laugh. Her gaze shifted to Ramona as she came up beside us.

Already, I could tell my girlfriend was using her Mutation to divine what had changed within Jolene’s body.

“What do you see?” asked Katie, on the same page me.

Ramona was quiet for half a minute, but with the slowest deliberation a smile crept across her lips. It was the sort that reached her eyes and made her whole face glow with beauty. “Oh man, you guys are gonna love Jolene.”

Johan’s “Squeeze” frowned, confused by the byplay around her.

My brother came up to her side and took one her hands in both of his with surprising care.

She chanced a bewildered glance at him.

“Getting sick brings is the signal declaring the onset of your Mutation,” he said nodding. “Remember what we what we talked about at the front door just now?”

She dipped her head “yes”.

“Well, Ramona’s Mutation gives her the ability to detect the mutations in others. So now… well, now she has been able to figure out ours.” Johan smiled, then turned back toward my girlfriend. “So, what can she do?” he asked like a kid in a candy store.

Ramona had never stopped smiling. “She has the command of thought,” she replied. Her orbs twinkled around the heavy eye shadow and mascara that gave her eyes more color, depth.

“What the hell does that mean?” asked Leda, still seated in the same chair she’d sat in when my uncle had talked to the lot of us. Now though, she had her milky white legs sort of sidesaddle beneath her butt, so she sat higher. This somehow made her look like a queen. It was the set of her slender neck. It was the turn of her chin and the rigidity with which she held herself – combined - she appeared regal.

“Pssh, I don’t know how else to put it, girl. I am barely beginning to understand this crap myself,” attempted Ramona, but it wasn’t a true explanation. “All I can tell you, when I look at her, her entire brain is writhing with electricity. Every time one of us speaks it flares like the corona of the sun. I get a touch of comprehension at what I am looking at. It has something to do with thought or maybe controlling thought, though I’m uncertain.” She shrugged and reached out to pat Jolene on the shoulder. “It doesn’t matter, girl. In a few days, you’ll be showing us what you can do. You won’t need me to tell you.”

Jolene gave her an uncertain look. It was evident she wasn’t quite ready to believe what the older teen was telling her.

I understood though. Being a Muto was scary as shit.

“Do you understand why we asked you to come and stay with us?” I asked her after an awkward moment. I glanced at my brother. “You did explain everything to her when she got here, right?”

“Yeah.”

Jolene blinked at me, then followed my gaze to Johan. “Johan told me, because I got sick the government will now see me as a danger to everyone, including my family. He said they believe that my sickness will cause me to hurt people, though he doesn’t believe it himself.” Her voice was shaky and quivered around each syllable as she spoke. She was peering into my eyes by the time she had finished.

I could tell she didn’t trust a word she had just said. It was in her eyes. They were still searching for answers that wouldn’t come. I decided it was time to give her some. “From what we’ve learned, this sickness isn’t a disease or a condition like ‘being sick’ as in the past. It’s a mutation, a change in your DNA caused by the comet the NIA exploded over the earth back in 2014.”

“The comet did this?” she asked. There was an inkling of confidence in her tone, a sprinkle of hope.

“There was something more than just ice and rock in the comet. There was something in it that changes certain people when they come in contact with it,” I clarified. I was glad she was loosening up a little.

Her immaculate eyebrows came together. “So why did it take so long before it started to come out?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I have no idea. Maybe it takes a while to settle into our bodies before it is strong enough to manifest itself. But, hey, that’ll be a question for scientists to answer in the years to come, right?” I grinned widely.

“Yeah, I guess.” She chortled through a huff, flaring her nostrils.

“And your parents, what did you tell them?” I knew I was asking a lot of questions, but after our encounter with my Uncle Roberto, I had to make certain we covered all our bases.

The younger teen shook her head to either side. “Not much, I just told them you guys were having sleepovers and Flavia had invited me. Was that okay?”

“That’s perfect.”

She sighed.

“Come one, let’s go get you settled in then,” urged my brother taking her bag from her. It was a simple thing to pull her back inside the house. They hadn’t let go of one another the entire time. His face was bright, almost flushed with excitement.

From a few steps to the side, I saw Flavia’s worried expression cross her face for the second time that day. She was still weirded out by the possibility of Johan taking her friend’s virginity.

I saw Katie staring at her as well with a smirk on her face. I know she thought Flavia was on the prudish side when it came to sex. Then again, my step-sister wasn’t a cock-gobbling freakazoid like Katie was either.

Don’t get me wrong, it suited me just fine the way Katie was. You would agree to if she’d ever deep-throated you the way she had me. So, enough said!

We all watched as my enthusiastic sibling lead his girlfriend back into the house to what we presumed would either be his or Flavia’s bedroom.

At the last second, my step-sister sprang into action and followed them, scampering on the tips of her toes.

“You think the two of them are gonna fuck, Eff?”

Well, at least she had waited until the double-paned glass doors slid back shut before she spoke.

I let my vision skip toward my cousin. I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to have that particular visual in my head at the moment. “Anything is possible, Katie. I mean they’re young, they’re both in that half-curious, half-scared stage. They seem to like each other a whole lot.” I glanced over at my girlfriend, a little curious about what she'd unearthed from Johan and Jolene. She’d always been intuitive beyond normal. Now, she was even stronger in that regard.

All it took was that one peep. She was nodding “yes” within seconds.

“They are?” I asked, flummoxed, my voice cracking.

“Yup, I can see it, Effy. They’ve both made up their minds. If the opportunity presents itself, they will go for it.”

“Can you tell when?” I asked, sounding a little desperate.

Resigned, she sighed. “It doesn’t work that way, you dork. I can tell when people make important decisions based on their intentions, but I can’t tell the future!” She walked up to me and pinched my cheek. “You’re so cute!”

I wriggled free of her clasp. I fucken hated it when someone pinches me on the cheek.

“Besides,” went on my girlfriend, “what’s the big deal? You’ve been fucking since you were thirteen or some wacked out shit like that. Johan’s fourteen, almost going on fifteen, why act so different with him?”

At the end of the table, still sitting, Tirza let out a disgusted burst of air.

“I don’t know,” I squawked, well aware I was acting hypocritical. I had been chasing pussy since I could walk. I’d been pushing into it just about every day since I got my first taste. It was my former babysitter who took me into that dark room and showed me how wondrous it felt to have my dick deep in vagina. Ever since then, I was hooked.

So, why act so jumpy when it came to Johan doing the same? Tirza and I had just started dating when I was his age. Within months we were rolling around on sheets, on carpets, in the grass, exploring one another’s bodies. By the time she had turned fifteen, she was already on birth control.

Condoms irritated the walls of her vagina for some reason, so yes, bonus! for me.

Yet, why did I feel so different when it came to my younger brother? Why did it make my skin crawl like I had a bad case of the heebie-jeebies? It wasn’t like the topic of sex bothered me in any way. I wasn’t a missionary only sort of guy. I liked it all – doggy, cowgirl, reverse cowgirl, Froggy even lying down from behind. You get the picture, right? Plus, I even had a foot fetish, so what the fuck was wrong with me?

“You’re parents have talked to him, right?” inquired Leda, fingering her toes which distracted me in seconds.

“Huh?” I replied, baffled.

“Your mom and dad, have they talked with Johan about girls and such?” she reiterated, talking slower like I was a four year old or something.

“I assume so, yes.” I was finally able to reply.

“Have you talked with him yet?” asked my cousin, walking around the first chair she passed, sitting in the next.

I felt my face twist. “No.”

“So, you haven’t filled him in on all the do’s and don’ts?” She sounded surprised I hadn’t filled in my brother on the secrets of the trade I had garnered over the years.

I shook my head in the negative.

“Jeez, Effy, just think about how many things you had to consider when you and -.”

Katie was about to say “I”, but caught herself. Other than Ramona and Tirza, no one knew me and my cousin were of the kissing sort. She had caught her potential mistake at the very last, possible moment.

“I mean,” she went one, clearing her throat, soldiering forth. “Think about what it was like when you didn’t know shit about girls in a sexual setting. Think about how much he has to know, or at least have told to him. Otherwise, he could ruin Jolene’s First Time!

“How could you not have told him something at least?” She was borderline mad at me.

It made me think I’d fucked things up for Johan (and Jolene) in the royal sense of the word. “I never thought about it,” was the only thing I could think of saying. “You think I should talk to him now?”

The question hung out like a drying piece of laundry in the wind, fluttering and whipping about us. I could almost hear it reverberating, echoing. Until, at last, it finally faded and was no more.

When I glanced around they all were nodding, even Tirza.

I filled my lungs to capacity, put my hands in my pockets and strode from the backyard and into the house.

Behind me, as I walked through the sliding glass doors, I heard Kati. “If he’s anything like Estefan, he’s sure enough fucking the shit out of her as we speak.”

Nothing but laughter followed as I shut the door.

Fucken tit-bags! Did she really have to put me on blast like that?!