It was spaghetti night, which, as a family, we loved. Though my mother wasn’t Italian, she made the best spaghetti sauce I have ever tasted. And, I’ve tasted it on eleven of the sixteen worlds over the course of my lifetime. Not a one could hold a candle to the shining star that was mama’s sauce.
After my mom and the others had returned from the market, spending over two hours there, the house had been a flurry of activity. We planned the rest of the day, doled out chores and got to it. Because, she would be making twice the amount of food she normally prepared, my mom had started early, but with so many female helpers, there were more than enough hands to meet the task. The picking and chopping, the tearing and separating, the simmering and sprinkling were all done to perfection. The girls were like a symphony orchestra – all movement, talking, and laughing as the smells began to waft about the house. They were simply miraculous.
When my step-father walked through the door, the grime of working on cars all day and the fatigue accompanying it seemed to vanish. His bearing straightened, his body seemed to fill, as he breathed in deeply and let out an explosive exhalation.
“Aaaaah, Spaghetti Night! Alriiiiight!” he exclaimed, peering about with a huge grin on his face.
It was then, he noticed all the young women working in the kitchen and had stood there gaping like a buffoon at all the tight flesh traipsing about. My mom had come up to him with a cold beer and a kiss, and led him off to the TV room. He had turned back around a few times as she led him away, mumbling something about the Miss America Pageant¹ was cooking dinner for him.
I had laughed. My step-dad had always been a sucker for a smooth legs and firm breasts… maybe that’s why we got along so well, even down to the first day my mother had introduced him to me. I had liked him. You see, us perverts, gotta stick together!
When my mom had finished talking with him, he had come back into the kitchen, introducing himself to the girls he didn’t know. He gave both Tirza and Ramona big hugs. For some reason, it was natural to him that two of the girls present, I had dated. The fact they were in the same house, in the same room, was completely sane. Sure, it happened all the time. Really, it’s my way of saying, he didn’t notice. It was the tits and asses he paid attention to. He was gentlemanly about it, though, and only gave me his “raised eyebrow” thingy once when no one was looking. I chuckled into my hand.
He tasted the sauce and was about to get some bread to sop some up when my mom saw and quickly bustled him from the kitchen, telling him to shower and change. He left with an innocent look on his face, which made the girls giggle and then he was gone.
Now, we sat around the table – lengthened in the middle by not one, but two wooden extensions, so we could all fit. We had to grab four more chairs from around the house, so we’d all have something to sit on. We made it work and were enjoying each other’s time.
Everyone was talking. I found myself swallowing a massive portion of noodles, ground beef, and sauce when my step-dad leaned over toward me, talking behind his hand. “Effy, how is it you know so many beautiful, young girls?”
I smiled, dabbed at the corners of my mouth, and then drank some cherry soda. “I don’t know, Pop, I guess I just got lucky.”
“Luck has nothing to do with, my boy, not when you’re surrounded by… by…” He was actually counting! “…five pretty girls and the number is actually higher when you count your cousin, Flavia and that dark-haired doll next to Johan.”
“Jolene, Pop, her name is Jolene,” I corrected.
He waved me off. “I have never seen such a collection of dazzling young girls - all of them different, yes, but, by God, beautiful in their own way.”
I had to ask myself if his eyes were actually misting over. I frowned at him, because clearly all the feminine flesh had loosened a few screws in his head. “I guess, I’m like you then. I like pretty females just like you.” I pointed my chin down at my mother.
“Oh my god, that makes nine!” he bellowed, pounding a fist upon the table. The dishes rattled, causing the noise level of conversation to dip.
“What makes nine, Enrique?” asked my mom.
I nearly spit in my food, barely able to contain a monstrous guffaw.
My step-father scratched his head with indecision. “Ah, well… Estefan and I were talking and…”
“You better come clean,” I counseled.
“Traitor,” he accused.
I chuffed merrily.
My mom was giving him the Stink Eye.
My Dad spread his hands wide, palms facing outward. “I was merely accounting for how many beautiful women are seated about this table and was admiring all of you!” he trumpeted like a herald in a grand hall.
The girls ducked their heads in unison, embarrassed, except Katie.
“You old lecher,” labeled my mother, pointing at him across the ten feet of table between them.
“What? Now, I can’t compliment a pretty lady when I see one?” he asked, for clarification, though it was an act.
“You can complement me any time, Uncle,” said Katie, patting him on the arm when he lowered them back to the table.
“You see, why can’t you be more like Katie here, just acknowledge your beauty and be glad someone noticed,” he intoned with a mock scowl.
“You can complement me too,” echoed Ramona, with the wicked gleam she liked to use on my step-dad. It melted him every time.
“Oh, you girls are incorrigible! It’ll only encourage him, you know,” warned my mom, wagging a finger at both of them.
Katie and Ramona were both smiling from ear to ear.
The other girls watched the by-play with nervous smiles, not sure what to make of it.
The phone rang then, loud and harsh.
Me and the girls I’d spent the early afternoon with, froze in place.
Jacob’s warning!
I stood as my step-dad made his way to the phone we had in the foyer. It was the closest handset. I followed him. The table behind me had gone silent. The tension bleeding from me and three girls was palatable enough, the rest inadvertently reacted to it – wordless communication via body language.
From the foyer I could hear: “Hello, the Ernando residence?”
A pause…
“Oh hi, Augustina, how are you?”
It was my grandmother on my mom’s side of the family.
“We were just having dinner.”
A pause…
“That’s okay, we’ll always make time for you.”
A pause… was stretching longer than those coming before it.
“Christ Almighty, are you serious? Ah-ha, but that’s horrible. When did this happen?”
A pause…
I could hear chairs moving behind me as I began to walk to the foyer. Everyone else was following.
“But why, it doesn’t make any sense?”
I was racing toward the phone now.
“All of them, but -,” my step-father was saying when I viciously pulled the phone line from the wall. He stared at me like I’d pulled out my cock and was waving it, back and forth, at him. “Estefan, what the hell is wrong with you?!?” he demanded.
“You can’t use the phone, Pop,” I replied in even tones.
“Why, son, why would you do that?” he asked as he put the useless receiver back in its cradle.
I pointed to the girls behind me. “You see them?”
He nodded, though his brow stormed with incredulity.
“Why do you think they are here?” I queried.
“Estefan, you don’t take that tone with your step -.”
“Stay out of this, mom!” I said much too loudly, and it sounded bad, even in my ears.
“What’s this about, son?” wondered my step-dad. He might have been many things, but one thing I remember most about him was he was the smartest man I have ever met. He could make huge deductive leaps with only the slightest of clues. He should’ve been a Detective.
“Why do you think they are here?” I repe
ated the question.
“I don’t know, you’re mom said something about kids being moved from place to place, and tonight was our turn,” he answered with a nonchalant shrug.
“What did Grandma ‘Gusta say?”
His brow furled, trying to find the connection. “She said…” He gazed back to my mother. “She said Trina had called her frantic, saying Renee and her kids have been arrested and taken away.”
I felt my jaw hit the floor.
My mom, my older siblings, Tirza and Ramona gasped with horrified shock. They knew of whom he was talking about.
Trina was my grandmother on my biological father’s side of the family, actually she was his step-mother. Renee was her daughter, my aunt. Her children were my cousins, and all of them were Jacob’s siblings. The motherfucken NIA had taken Jacob’s family!
I knew they were dead, and there wasn’t a damned thing I, or anyone else, could do about it. My cousins Eric and Valerie were dead. My aunt Renee was dead. Poor Jacob, like Tirza and Jolene, he too had lost his whole family.
I was weeping before I knew what I was doing. When Katie and Ramona came to hug me, I didn’t know I was crying loudly. How long we stayed as such, I cannot tell you. All I recall is being thoroughly exhausted when I finally stopped. I had somehow made it to the TV Room. We all had, in fact. Flavia was still crying as were the little ones, so frightened by our emotional outburst, they didn’t know better than to weep right along with us.
“Effy?”
“Yes, Pop.” My voice was raw and my throat burned like hell.
“Why are your friends here, with us, tonight?” He was reclining in his chair, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t looking at me, but his powerful mind never stopped and was working overtime now.
“They’re in hiding, Dad.”
“I figured.”
It was a long, horrendous night. I was so grateful for my girls. Each of them took turns holding me while I slept, even Tirza came onto my bed and cradled my head in her lap, humming hymns she had learned in church. For the first time, those hokie tunes comforted me. I had turned on my side, nestling my nose into her belly, smelling her sweet scent, hugging her around the lower portion of her waist, where her buttocks began to flare. She didn’t move or squirm. She stroked my head, ran her nails behind my ears, humming, never stopping. I slept.
In my dreams, I kept seeing Jacob’s family – my auntie, my cousins - being slaughtered. Formless, faceless figures kept throwing them into a mulching machine - again and again, and again.
{ ¹Miss America Pageant: a one-time, long-standing competition which awards scholarships to young women from the 50 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. The winner of the national pageant is awarded the title of "Miss America" for one year. }
~~~~~~~~~~~~♦~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ Chapter 68 ~
(Summer – 2018)
Sunrise Delight
Five more days passed. Hot, dry, Santa Ana wind sort of days, we spent adjusting to our new routine, now my parents knew precisely how many kids were staying over. There were no more early mornings where the girls had to sneak out, get breakfast and wait for my Mom and Dad to leave. There were no more late-afternoon leave-takings and late-night sneak-ins either. The girls were, for the time being, living with us and it was accepted.
At first, my mother wanted Lucia and Martín to stay home with us older kids, which wouldn’t have been an issue. The more my step-father and I thought about it, the more it seemed like a bad idea. Any change in our typical routine might catch notice. Who knew who was watching us or the house, or both? That was something we could ill-afford, so it was determined the two young ones would continue to go to Daycare. We just couldn’t count on our neighbors any longer.
Things were becoming so bad, nearly half the homes on our street were empty. Mostly from people fleeing to El Sereno or elsewhere, but there were a few instances where whole families had been turned in for the Discovery Cash, which had risen to fifty thousand dollars in the past week alone. It seemed to us, the NIA was dead serious about eradicating all Muto presence in northeastern Los Angeles. They were cutting through household after household like a farmer scything through spring wheat.
My mother had placed quick phone calls (via her cell) to all the parents (except Ramona’s mother) of the kids now living with us, explaining the situation, making promises, setting up visits – whatever it took. For the most part, they were glad, relieved, because, for the time being their babies were safe, hidden, out of harm’s way.
For us, though, it was a different story. We were all so sick with worry. Even if my mother hadn’t made us promise not to fuck each other’s brains out, I don’t think we would’ve. Not even if we’d run around naked. We weren’t thinking of passion or pleasure, or basic gratification for that matter. We were floundering around, going through the motions, but not really paying attention to each other in that way. Don’t get me wrong, we were still intimate with one another. We stayed close and we shared our love, only not in a manner that transcended to carnal pleasures. There were times I woke-up with a raging hard-on nestled nicely against someone’s firm ass cheeks, but after a few dry humps, thoughts of my aunt or my cousins would come to mind. My erection would shrivel like a prune in seconds. My mind was uncaring of anything sexual. There were, after all, more pressing matters to consider.
On the second night, Tirza joined us again in my bed, while Jolene and Johan shared Katie’s. Only Flavia slept alone. There was some kissing and some light petting, but nothing major. Though, I did love the feel of Tirza’s tiny mouth on my neck – kissing, biting, and suckling at my skin. The feel of her small body in my arms was exquisite, the roundness of her firm butt, her perky breasts against my palms, her lips on mine. I thoroughly enjoyed it, though, that was the extent of our play. We were all so worn out from our constant vigil, we just didn’t have the mental ability to do more than that. Instead, we hugged – all of us – and whispered affectionately, and slept and ate, and waited.
Midday, on a Tuesday, I believe – the afternoon of the third day – news broke across all the networks surrounding the globe that the NIA had finally attacked what was now being called Fortress El Sereno en masse. The TV, our cell phones and pads had howled and buzzed and dinged with updates, sometimes by the minute of the goings-on in that tight-knit portion of Los Angeles. I don’t have to say here what most of you already know from reading your history. It was a well-documented event. Some even say it was the true beginning of the war against the Muto’s, which eventually led to our War for Los Angeles and the devastation that followed.
For those few of you who were either bad students or were born on some isolated mining colony at the edge of the Solar System, let me say this. The fight for El Sereno was brutal – on both sides. Losses were costly, heavy and horrific. Huge weapons were brought to bear upon the civilian population, while Muto’s entrenched there fought, in concert, eradicating company after company of NIA Shock Troops. With time, each side escalated the slaughter. Each side was determined to completely destroy the other. Horrendous crimes were committed on both sides. What were we to expect? This was genocide – no one was spared innocence. There was no place for it on a battlefield such as that. It would go on, day after day, week after week, atrocity after atrocity.
By the end of the day, we’d had enough. It was time for us to cross our “t’s” and dot our “i’s”. It was time to prepare, time to make sure we were ready. I remember, we stayed up late that night, getting organized, just in case.
At the dawning of the sixth day, a Friday – yes – it was Friday, June 28th, 2018.
I awoke just as the first rays of the sun peeked over the horizon and for some reason I can’t describe, I was drawn to watch. I untangled myself from Leda and Tirza, pulled my feet and legs from Katie. For some strange reason, she liked to sleep as close to my dick as she possibly could, so she I usually awoke with her astride the lower half of my body.
I came from my bed in only my boxers, naked otherwise. I climbed out the window and made my way to the roof of the Loft as we had the night we’d got high and the NIA blasted a family to death a mere mile from my house.
I sat and watched as the rays of sunlight turned from indigo to imperial blue, able to discern the sky from the ground, the distinct angular shapes of human habitation beginning to take form. Then, I saw the smoke, dark and roiling, blanketing one portion of the sky, casting a sickly pallor over my thoughts. Off in the distance, I could hear the ratta-tat-tats and booms of war. Every once and a while, I would feel a gigantic “whooshing” sound, my ears would threaten to pop. I could almost envision the massive explosions in my head. The battle was still rampaging, spreading. Martial Law had been declared in the entire State of California as more and more Muto sanctuaries began to rebel, began to fight back.
I was peering toward the south, looking through the boughs of the trees surrounding my parents’ house, watching a swarm of military helicopters fly across the horizon toward the fighting.
It was neither cold nor warm, but somewhere in between, the temperature so balance to my body couldn’t feel it, one way or the way. There was a breeze, but it was faint, fleeting only noticeable if I had been waiting for it to swirl lazily about me. I brought my knees up and rested my arms atop them, counter-balancing by leaning backward ever so slightly. My hands dangled from limp wrists, lost in thought – feelings, notions, and nuances of the past few days. I couldn’t get over how much had changed. It had been less than a month and yet… so much. I buried my head in my hands and probably would’ve cried, if I she hadn’t heard her. I looked up and she appeared before me. She was off to the right, where the cornice of the second floor made it possible to attain the roof of the Loft, stepping lightly upon bare feet. She wore a loose-fitting nightgown so sheer I could see her blossoming figure underneath, though the sunlight silhouetting her form was weak. Her hair was down, jet-black in the anemic rays of the sun. Then, it was suddenly shiny and lustrous as blinding flashes filled the air, tracers and flares making the dawn seem like the middle of the day. I hungrily watched the back and forth sway of her gait. It was a soothing pendulum of motion. As she came closer, I was able to see her pale complexion, her coal-black eyes, her perfect skin and the narrow set of her lips. Though she had come directly from my bed, Leda was a sight to behold. I was relieved, at once. She was so much nicer to gaze upon than the landscape I had been scrutinizing moments before.
Shadow Seed 1: The Misbegotten Page 74