He sat wearily in his chair, winded as though he had been running a mile. The chair creaked mildly, but no more.
There was stunned silence around him, only Flavia seemed to be breathing.
“It won’t change the fact they killed my family once before. I cannot live if it were to happen again,” he mumbled pitifully, his head bowed. None of them had seen his lips move, but he had spoken loud enough for all of them to hear.
“Estefan? Estefan, my love, look at me,” urged Tirza, having come to her knees, her projection closer to him than it had moments ago. She was so tiny before him.
He raised his head to look into her digital eyes.
“They killed my family too,” she said, a single tear falling down her face, the 360-tru-def version of her so accurate, he saw it shimmer as it fell to the ground.
“I know,” he barely managed, his voice cracking.
A new figure approached and knelt next to Tirza. “They killed all of our families, my love.” It was Katie, her eyes full with pain and regret she couldn’t be there to hold him.
“I know…”
“We have to do this, Effy, for them,” came a third voice, a third figure. It was Mena, her razor-thin eyebrows coming together, imploring him to understand.
From further back, “We’ve lived good, long lives, Estefan. We have exacted our revenge. We helped destroy the government that took our loved ones from us. We helped bolster and balance the one that replaced it. We have spent centuries building something special for our living family to the glory of ones that are dead. Now, you tell me, there might be something out there with ability to threaten what we have worked so hard to construct. Now, you say, we might all be in danger again…,” Leda paused to look around at the rest of them. “No one - I mean, no one - threatens my family. I will make sure they don’t, because I vowed long ago, if I could do something about it, I would fight. I didn’t vow to stand aside or turn tale and run. I vowed to fight, and though we may not know all the details, even if it was no more than a trap – I will resist with every ounce of strength in my body, because I refuse to be a victim again. I will not wait this time. I will destroy and kill in the name of this belief, Effy. I will do it again and again, if I must.
“But, in order to avoid all of that, we need to do this, Effy. We need to get the jump on everyone and put this whole Shadow Spark thing to sleep before word gets out and all hell breaks loose. And it will, Estefan, my husband. It will. By the blood of our lost families, we have no choice. The lack of time, the situation… what’s at stake has all conspired to make the decision for us…” She sighed. “The Milandry girls already have an advantage over us. We cannot afford to let that gap widen. We need to close it.” Her expression hardened as she looked directly in his eyes. “We have to make it disappear.”
Around him, he could hear the others agree and knew he would be overruled. He might by the Keeper, head of a meta-planetary empire, but he was not a despot within the Synod itself. One of their closest held secrets was, between the nine of them, they were still a Democracy.
In the end, they voted unanimously – with one abstention – to begin to make plans for the retrieval of the Shadow Spark from the surface of Europa, and to put all their efforts into unearthing whatever they could in regard to the Destro-Mancer. The fact that only the Muslims had heard of his existence still bothered them, especially since their own intelligence resources outstripped Dr. Ahmed’s people tenfold, maybe twenty. Lastly, they would search high and low for those who had tried to assassinate Estefan in his hometown.
They would do what needed to be done, but the first order of business was to call a Full Gathering. The entire command structure of their organization needed to move as one on this undertaking. Estefan made certain everyone knew the importance of that before the women signed-off.
One by one their projections winked out of existence.
He and Flavia were alone once more.
He felt hallowed out, a shell, like the rind of a Cantaloupe eaten from the inside out. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing any one of them. They – and his babies – were all he truly cared about.
Why did they have to be so brave?
~~~~~~~~~~~~♦~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ Chapter 4 ~
(Earth Summer - 2385)
Psychology 101
Estefan propped up his head with the pillows at the head of one of the four, twin-sized beds further back from the living area where the Aegis Synod had met minutes ago. The Null-unit comprised four basic sections, though there were no walls or partitions demarking where one ended and the other began. The one closest to the entryway, was the living area. It had a few chairs a small sofa a bolted down, low slung table and not much else. The next area was a sleeping area, consisting of four beds, some shelving and one closet-like structure where one could store clothing and the like. Beyond that was a kitchen and dining are, followed by a washing space where one could shower or relieve themselves should the need arise. There were only opaque screens for privacy back there, so it was good he and Flavia weren’t squeamish about such things. They had shared much more intimate moments between them over the years.
“Who else could it be, but us, Effy,” murmured Flavia as she came to sit next to him the bed, reaching out to stroke the side of his hard face.
He merely grunted, lost in thought, staring at the wall on other side of the chamber.
“No one can do what we can do,” she persisted, running her fingers over his bald head, wiping at the thin layer of perspiration sticking to it. His exertions earlier must’ve made him sweat for a few seconds. Heavies only perspire from strong emotional release, since they were nearly untouched by the environment surrounding them. Reactions such as this required an internal fuse. “And you shouldn’t worry,” she went on, “I’m sure you’ll take every precaution to make sure none of us get hurt.”
“There will be everything from self-righteous Trû-Knights to insane Tech-Mechs out there looking for the Shadow Spark once word gets out, Flavy. I’m not certain I will be able to protect all of you at the same time,” he replied, sounding wounded.
She leaned down to kiss him on the forehead. “You will find a way,” she whispered onto his skin, scooting down so she could lie along the length of his body, facing him, her tight fitting bio-spandex suit unable to hide the feminine qualities underneath its’ sheer material. Out of habit, she draped a leg over his lower extremities, her left arm came across his chest.
He placed a hand upon her arm as gently as he could, not wanting to bruise her out of carelessness. “I love you, Flavy. I love all of you, how can you ask me to risk something so precious to me?”
She bent around his shoulder to bite him on the ear hard. This made him squirm with delight. It was one of the best things she liked about him being a Heavy, she could get very rough and, to him, it would seem like she was only tickling. “We love you too, and you knew that from the day each of us took you to our beds. We will follow you anywhere, Effy, but, my dear, this is the right thing to do. Maybe, it will make right the many wrongs we have done in these long, long lifetimes of ours.” Her voice lightened. Her face sparkled with hope.
He trembled with a fear unlike anything she’d ever felt with him. He was always so self-assured and in command. It puzzled her to see him so frightened, vulnerable, and yet, it made her want to care for him at the same time, make him feel better. “I would go mad if I lost any of you. I couldn’t go through that again, Flavy; it took me nearly a century to climb out of my self-made shithole of self-loathing and deprecation the last time. I was lost then, even with all of you around me to lend a hand and give me support. I think for a few years I could’ve been considered evil. I was that angry at the world, at everything.” His voice trailed off. Then, he turned to face her. “I haven’t dredged through those feelings for so long, I forgot how they felt. I’ve been so busy caring for my girls, making love to them, raising children, building a safe place for us all. I haven’t had the time –
or the care – to think about those times. I don’t really want to either. They bring back too much.”
She brought the arm she’d draped about him upward to hold him at the base of his skull and pushed him to her until their noses were almost touching. “Why don’t you let me care for you now, make love to you now, so you can lose yourself with me, for a short time at least?”
“I don’t know if I’m in the mood right now,” he replied, gazing up at the rough, metallic ceiling of the Null-unit.
“Since when are you not in the mood?” she teased, running her fingers along his neck to the top of his shoulders, and then back again.
He grunted a chuckle.
She played with his ear.
The silence stretched.
Her hand stopped moving. “Are you seriously going to ignore my offer?” inquired the raven beauty. Her eyebrows came together in the middle.
He glanced at her sideways. “You weren’t joking?”
“Do I ever joke about sex?”
“Well, no,” he stammered, shrugging though he was lying down. “You are never that direct either. I just thought you were trying to make light of the situation.”
“I want to make ‘love’, not ‘light’.”
He frowned uncertain.
“Sometimes, you’re a complete numb-nut,” she muttered, and then she closed the distance between them and gave him a warm, slow kiss on the lips. She closed her eyes and was lost upon the firm heat pulsating from his touch. She melted her body to his, wrapping her leg around him, hooking him with her heel above the knee, so their pelvises came together firmly.
He seemed to recover, letting his free arm roam along her back, until it reached the bulge leading to the twin globes of her rear end. He applied pressure and she immediately responded, rubbing her pelvic bone into the growing hardness between them.
He breathed into her, “You were serious.”
“Numb-nut,” was all she said.
It was their “tell”, something they used to silently inquire if the other wished to make love – slight pressure just above the buttocks from one and the corresponding grinding of the hips by the other. Despite being related by marriage over three hundred and fifty years prior, they had been married for nearly two-thirds of that time. It was familiar dance between their bodies. When the “tell” was given and received, their level of excitement increased just as their ardor skyrocketed. This time there was no exception.
Flavia seemed to explode from the surface of the bed, coming to straddle Estefan across his stomach, peering down at him in the dim light as she touched the fastening sensors along the left side of her garment. It opened at once. She stopped at her waist and then hit the sensor at her neck, pulling her arms free of the sleeves. Within seconds, she was naked from the waist up, her firm, handful-sized breasts bouncing in the dim light, her chest flushing red, her pink areolas rippled with tension, her nipples standing at attention. She stood abruptly, kicking off her heels, hitting more sensors, until she was able to peel away the rest of the bio-spandex suit. She stood there, towering above him. The thin, natural trim of her public hairs hugged along the angle of her pubis until they stopped right at the hood of her clitoris. She was hairless below.
Estefan gazed up at her, his eyes hooded with need, long lost fear still trying to percolate to the fore. But, the sight of Flavia was too arresting, too captivating to enable him to think beyond the firm muscles in her legs, the flatness of her belly, though she, herself, had given him three daughters and a son.
She was standing on the balls of her feet, angling her sex toward him, her fathomless orbs swimming with desire. She wanted him to taste her. She wanted to lower herself upon him and feel the tiny, fervent flicks of his tongue.
He grinned and held up his hands to her. She edged forward, so they cupped the back of her taunt butt cheeks, while he pulled her to his mouth. He could tell what she wanted by the expression in her face.
Make love to me with your mouth…
Ever so slowly, though she was dying with anticipation, she went flat footed, bent her knees, dropped her hips, and arched her back until… she felt the broadness of his tongue lick her from the top of her anus to the folds concealing her clitoris. She couldn’t hold back any longer. She fell upon him and he kissed her as intimately as any man could kiss a woman, his practiced flecks and swirls making her delirious with delight within seconds.
“Aaah, how I love you…,” she cried with a cracking voice.
She spread her knees further apart and grabbed him by the skin upon either side of his face, yanking him upward and into her sex. Her labia’s spread at the same angle of her thighs, her vibrant bud completely exposed to his manipulations. She felt him breathe into her and she shuddered as his warm breath caressed her internal walls. His hands roamed the length of her back, his nails gentling raking as they went. She ground her hips into his visage, using slight pressure at the knees to give her the necessary leverage, her toes pointing until they almost hurt. The strain filling her body was building, becoming immense, and she knew, before long, it would be more than she could handle. It would overwhelm her, crash through her, but not yet…
His hands drew downward, his fingers splaying as wide as he could make them, filling them with as much of the fleshy mounds of her butt as he could. He used this most delicate push forward to open her further before his tongue. It was just the right sort of nudge and her quivering button came free from its sheath and he sucked it, placing warm lips around the super-charged nodule, sucking, sucking… sucking.
Above him, she arched her back, an inaudible, “Uuuunnnh!” escaping her. She threw her arms behind her, placing her hands atop his knees, giving him more of herself. Her legs opened further as she began to churn her hips in tight, jerking circles in exact rhythm with his suckling of her – faster, and then faster again, the need building, the tension growing. She could feel the brink was near. It felt as though her chest was on fire, her nipples so rigid with the lust filling her chest, they became sensitive to the air surrounding them. Still, she ground womanly mound into his face.
“Oh, oh, oh, E-Eff, oh, oh, h-how I love you!” she groaned through clenched teeth.
He could feel the woman above him was close. He could feel the massing desire, the want for release in her thighs at either side if his head. Her entire body was as tight as a bowstring, pulled full and ready to fire. His body was responding in kind. He could feel the ache within his slacks, his member gorged and throbbing. His clutch of her rear end became intense, his fingers digging into her flesh, kneading, grabbing as hard as he dared, but only for a while longer.
Then, instinctively, he switched tactics and let go of her engorged clitoris and she gasped, a low moan escaping her mouth as her head lolled to one side. He had to shift his hands to the lower portions of her back to keep her from falling.
So close!
He found her pea of pleasure again and without warning vibrated his tongue as fast he could with a side-to-side flicking, barely grazing the surface of the drenched skin there.
“I’m, I’m, I’m -,” she kept saying over and over, having no other words.
It took no more than four seconds. She came – hard, relentless – and she was like putty in his grasp, bucking and shaking violently as he held her to him, elongating the sensations coursing within her as long as he could. All the while, he drank of her, every single gushing drop that came from her. He took it all, savoring her taste, inflamed with her femininity as he swallowed her into himself, suddenly crazed with want for her. He had to have her. He had to plunge himself inside her, spill his seed as deep as he could within her sugary folds. He had to, he needed to.
He sat up, lowering her to the bed before him, between his legs. She was like a feather. He couldn’t feel any of her weight. His ardor had increased his strength. It was another “Heavy” thing. He would have to be careful or he would hurt her.
She lay on the bed, her head turned to one side, one hand lying upon her
right breast, the other clutching at the bed coverings within a fist. Her whole body thrummed now and again like guitar string, her sprawled legs vibrating, her shoulders quavering. Though he had stopped loving her with his mouth, she was still cuming. She was still within the throes of her orgasm.
It was his turn now. He stood above her and he shed his clothing. Above her, his penis, thick with anticipation, bobbed. Its head dappled with pre-cum. She could see he was ready for her, eager to part her and feel her clutching warmth within.
He watched her twang like a tuning fork one more time. He came between her burnished-colored thighs, pushing them wider, so she could accept his hips. The motion opened her, and like a lotus flower, her petals emerged flushed with blood, dripping with the juices he had illicited from her. He edged forward and her legs rose as his body aligned itself with hers, her feet coming from the bed, bent at the knees. She opened even further and he felt his member enlarge at the sight of her, brush against the soft moistness of her womanhood.
Below him, her consciousness was just returning from the brink of heaven when she felt him position himself, felt the layers of her vagina gape for him. His touch, it was only the tip. She had never been more willing, though she was certain she’d felt like this every time he was about to enter her. Only now, she didn’t care to remember, this time was all that mattered. This was all that was important. She let him open her legs further. Her eyes still closed. She wanted to imagine him as the fleshy embodiment of masculinity edged her apart and they became one.
Shadow Seed 1: The Misbegotten Page 7