Descend- Seeing Stars

by Sean Oswald

  Chapter 10- Family Time

  Once Jay got himself cleaned up and into new clothes that actually fit, he was grateful to find his wives and other fuses all in one of the larger dining rooms. They had even gone so far as to invite Rosa, Martina, Veronica, Oma, Simone, Harper, and Grace to dinner as well. They weren’t wives or fuses, but they were baby mommas.

  Some of them like Veronica, Oma, and Simone were never going to be fuses. In fact, they had stopped sleeping with him altogether and didn’t even get along with him that well. He didn’t know if that said something about him or them that at the end of the world with only a tiny number of humans left alive these three women had wanted a baby enough to get with him, but after the aphrodisiac was no longer a factor, they no longer had any physical desire for him.

  For Veronica he halfway swore she was autistic. Actually, probably he should just say she was on the spectrum. She related to computers better than people, with the exception being their beautiful daughter, Christina, who she doted on. Oma and Simone had never been that into him and whether it be cultural or what not they just didn’t want him in their lives in that way.

  It was fine with him though as he didn’t get along with either of them. He found them to be a strange combination of prudish and bitchy. That didn’t change that their respective daughters Farah with her dusty brown skin and Afua with her mocha skin were a perfect combination him and their mothers. Both of them brought joy to Jay and both women seemed to try in their odd way to get along with him. Neither could complain that he didn’t adore his children or make time for them the same as the children of his wives.

  Martina, Harper, and Grace had all made it clear that they wanted to fuse with him. He was happy to fuse with any of them when the time came, but oh my there was something about Martina. The way she walked was just calculated to get his blood pumping and she didn’t even have to try. Those hips of hers did all the work for her. He even had to be careful to school his thoughts sometimes when she walked by so as not to irritate any of his wives. Best of all, having their daughter, Jayla, didn’t knock anything off of her sexiness. And Martina had insisted on naming their daughter after him, which was cool.

  The only one who was really a question was Rosa, but he was starting to think she would come around. If he needed to fuse with more girls then in his mind it would be better if they were the mothers of his children first. After all they were going to be in his life for the long haul either way.

  Once he sat down at the table, he had to quash a feeling of being some patriarch from ancient times. Some thoughts were definitely not worth letting his wives hear. He looked around and soon had a baby on his lap. Then coughed, telepathically, to get everyone’s attention. “Thanks for eating with me. Thanks for being here. Thanks all of you for being the people that I need in my life. I am sure you have all made CeeCee feel welcome, but I also…”

  At that point he got cut off when Ava said, “Is it true that she got more than a month alone with you, Master?”

  “You know that it is. You can sense it from her memories or mine,” Jay replied.

  “I want a month with you too then,” Ava blurted out before adding, “Master.”

  Jay was shocked that she felt so strongly about it that she had almost forgotten to call him master. It certainly wasn’t his plan but no matter how many times he had tried to talk her out of it, she always made it clear both in her words and in the emotions revealed by the fusion. Now he had a choice to make. He could make another attempt to break her out of that mold with the opening she had just given him or he could accede to her wishes which would require him to react harshly to the breach of protocol.

  He stood up and said, “Pet, come here right now.”

  Her face blushed, but he could tell that it wasn’t embarrassment at how he had reacted as much as excitement and perhaps some shame for her conduct. She ran over and kneeled in front of him.

  “Pet, I would punish you now, but there are children present,” Jay said as he handed Jaxon back over to his mother, Jessie.

  “Yes, your other women’s children, Master. This pet is well aware,” Ava said.

  Well that was a small victory at least. She used to try to refer to herself as his slave, but he found the word too distasteful. He was willing to help her fulfill her fantasies even if they were 24/7 fantasies, but he drew the line at words like that. “We have discussed this, pet. Are you dissatisfied with serving me?”

  She shook her head vigorously, but it was obvious that despite their conversation the other day she just couldn’t shake the feeling that he didn’t value her as much as some of the other wives. It probably made matters worse that there were women here who had borne his children that had made it clear they had no interest in taking things further in a relationship with him.

  Jay knew that to Ava, there was no greater act of submission than for a woman to give her body over to her man to bear his child. He realized that in some ways it was inherently submissive but in other ways it was the perfection of nature and a meeting of two people. Either way it was becoming obvious what she needed.

  He called out, “We still have other things to discuss but since this has been brought up, are there others of you who feel upset that you don’t have children.”

  No one moved, and he could feel the emotions of almost every one of his fuses draw back behind a wall. He was confident he could push through and read any of their minds, especially with his newfound mastery skills but that wasn’t something he would do to any woman in these circumstances and certainly not to women who had become fused with him, another part of his whole.

  “Look, if you can’t speak freely about the things that matter to you in front of your sister fuses then I don’t know what to say. How about this. We will have dinner and discuss the other issues that need to be discussed and then we will have our guests leave and ask some others to watch the children so that just those of us who are fused together can have a heart to heart,” Jay said.

  There were many nodded heads but even more sighs of relief that he felt through the fusion more than actually saw or heard.

  He sat down again, and they all started to eat. After the initial moment of quiet only broken by the occasional cooing of one of the children, Jay continued on, “You all know that I agreed to let you pick the next fuses in the order that you were fused yourselves. I have seen the list of the pods and know that there are a number of pods that have no interested girls or at least only ones that are undecided and a few that have multiples. In fact, I believe every girl in Meikiyo’s pod has expressed an interest.”

  Jay looked to his left where the Japanese beauty sat. She was quiet as had always been the case, but her grief was visible on her face. She simply nodded in confirmation.

  “I don’t want to interrupt whatever order or system that you have decided on and I will honor my word to allow you to pick them in the order that you decide. I will however add that if the next in line wants to pass then they are still the next in line after that no matter how many times they pass. Agreed?”

  There was some clear thinking and obvious telepathic communication between some of the girls but in the end they all agreed. So, Jay said, “That brings me to the other issue to be considered when choosing who should get fused. You all know that when I fuse with one of you that I pass on whichever one of my five base stats is highest to that girl. Obviously, different stats will benefit different people more.”

  “That is true, and it has strengths and weaknesses. Those of us who were fused earlier tend to have more balanced stats as we sync to match the overall total stats of any new fuse with only the variance allowed by level. Having too much disparity between your stats tends to weaken a person overall and so whoever ends up being your last few fuses will suffer from that problem,” Mia said.

  Huong added, “But they will also have the highest stats in a given area.”

  “Anyway, I know the order that the stats will come up in, barring some change to my overall s
tats. Metabolism will be next, then Awareness, Kinesis, Durability and finally back to Formation again. The pattern should hold true from that point,” Jay observed.

  When no one said anything he asked Ava, “Pet, it is your turn to pick next. Do you have anyone in mind that will benefit from having a huge boost to their metabolism?”

  “Actually yes, Master. I only have one who is for sure interested in fusing with you, but I do think that Deja will come along. A couple of the others clearly won’t, and a couple of the others are still too uncertain,” Ava replied.

  “Okay, so is it this Scarlett girl that you will be picking?”

  “Yes, Master. She is one of the girls from Trudi’s cluster but after conducting her own investigation by speaking to many of the girls who were originally part of Team Jay, she seems quite eager. I know you did your initial refining with her today, but I don’t think you know exactly what her power is. I’m confident that it will be pleasing to you, Master, in more ways than one.”

  Jay thought back to the sheet. Scarlett had some type of duplication ability. It didn’t really sound like a power that he needed but he figured he could always find a use for it. “Okay that is good, and what about you, Amelia, do you have someone in mind who would benefit from a boost to Awareness?”

  The blonde said, “Not really need a couple of Kinesis spots and a couple of Formation spots.

  Harper perked up when she heard Amelia say that, but her pod leader turned to her and said, “You know what we talked about. I promised you will get the next Kinesis spot that I am able to nominate someone for, but for the good of everyone it is important that we add Trudi’s ability.”

  Some telepathic communication must have followed but in the end the normally happy Harper looked rather glum, and Amelia had that frustrated, but firm look on her face.

  Jay then asked, “So who will be nominating someone for Awareness?”

  Huong said, “It would be my turn next. I only have one who is a for sure wants to join us, but I have another who I think can be persuaded.”

  “That is fine and I trust your judgment, wife, but remember that we only want those who truly want to be with us, not those who have to be talked into it, no matter what powers they may bring to the table,” Jay said.

  Huong just nodded, but he felt that they had an understanding. From there it took a while, but they came up with the other five girls that he would fuse with this week. Jay liked knowing ahead of time so he could try to get to know them a little bit before the moment of truth, so to speak.

  It showed how out of it Meikiyo was when she said that she would pass her turns and let the others decide. Jay didn’t know how big of a problem that would cause because her group was the only one that had six girls who all wanted to be fused. He decided he would have to speak to her later.

  Once they had a plan in place, Jay waited while the non-fused women left and took the children with them. A couple other girls came and helped so that there would be enough hands. It was still a bit shocking to him that he had fifteen children. Well, he prayed to a God that he wasn’t sure existed that Higen was still alive. It was odd how no matter how powerful you were there always seemed to be a problem that you couldn’t handle. At least that was what Jay was coming to realize. He didn’t really have any faith but it sure would have been nice to be able to put that burden on someone else.

  Now that he was alone with his fuses Jay said, “Okay let’s cut to the chase. Please speak freely here. I know that some of you see yourselves as part of our science team and some as part of our fighting team. The truth is that we all may be called upon to fight at least to defend yourselves. Part of the reason that I am willing to go ahead with more fusions is so that I will be strong enough to protect all of you.”

  There was shifting of feet and many of the fuses were clearly looking to the wives to speak up on their behalf. Then suddenly, Meikiyo stood up and stormed out the door. They could all feel the emotion pouring off of her. She was upset with them for caring about what she considered secondary issues that could wait until her son was found.

  Equally though they all could feel that she cared about them and didn’t want to quash their feelings. It was just too painful to sit there surrounded by several women who wanted nothing more than to have children. She didn’t begrudge them the feeling; she just couldn’t be part of the conversation.

  Huong and Jessie both stood up and started to follow her. Huong said, “I better go talk to her. You know where I stand on this but in case I need to make it more clear, life goes on and there will always be another challenge so enjoy today.”

  Jessie followed after her and turned at the doorway. “As the only one with two kids here so far, I can tell you that it is amazing. You all see how great of a father Jay is, so I don’t think you should let fear about an unknown future make your decisions for you.” Then she looked at Jay and said, “And as for you, my love, you need to remember that sometimes instinct takes over, and that isn’t a bad thing.” She made a cat claw motion at him and bit the air sensually before turning to chase after Huong.

  The other eighteen all sat there. Finally, Nalani stood up. “Sofia and I spoke about this. We want more kids later, but we are content with Healani and Charity. Also, neither of us are fighters but we will still fight to protect our children and all of you. Now we are gonna leave so that you can get this settled.”

  As they both left Alexis and Cadence stood up and followed while blowing kisses at Jay. It was clear that they weren’t ready for kids and just didn’t have anything to say about it. Faith stood up and then when all the eyes turned to her, she got red faced. “I was raised to believe that the highest following that I could obtain in life would be to become a mother. I just don’t know you very well yet. So, if it’s okay then we can just talk about this in the future.”

  “Of course, you never need to be worried about making this decision for yourself. Yes, we have to repopulate and that is a real issue, but I’m never gonna force anything on anyone,” Jay said.

  Faith whispered, “Thank you” and then teleported out of the room.

  Trina stood up then. “I’ve been asked to speak for Maddy, Char, Bong-Cha, and myself. We are fighters. Our place is by your side. Having babies now would only split our focus at a time that such things can’t be afforded. Speaking for myself, with some wining and dining, I am very open to helping you repopulate the human race, repeatedly. I agreed to that when I agreed to your marriage proposal.”

  Charlotte looked at Trina then at Maddy and finally at Jay. “We were gonna let Trina speak for us, but I just want to say that we agree with everything that she said. But also wanted to say that you haven’t asked us to marry you. So maybe that is something for you to think about.”

  The four of them moved to the door. It was obvious to Jay that Bong-Cha wanted to say something, but he also could sense that she didn’t want to speak in front of everyone else. He tried to push a feeling of reassurance through the fusion to all four of them but especially to her. She had lost her family in the experiment. Yes, all of them had lost family but not in the same way that she had actually lost them right before her very eyes. He would just need to find her on her own, so that he could reassure her.

  Charlotte’s statement was much more troubling. He needed to come to terms with the question of just how many wives he wanted to end up with. On the one hand, was marriage any more of a commitment than the fusion, but on the other hand, could he marry a woman that he didn’t love. Hell, he had already married seven women and somehow found himself in love with them all. He didn’t know how but even after that he continued to develop feelings for his other fuses and most confusing for some others like Rosa.

  While thinking about that, Jay didn’t notice that Esseme had walked up to him. She ran her finger along his arm and then up his neck and under his chin. She leaned into his ear and whispered, "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?”

  Jay smiled and laughed at himself. Gah, he was such a dweeb
sometimes. He had had sex literally thousands of times with over one hundred women in less than a year and he was still made all wibbly wobbly as her flirting. Before he could say anything, she said, “Cheri, I’m not ready to be a momma yet. If we have hundreds of years, then we can afford to have fun for a while but do feel free to come have some fun with me tonight if you want.”

  Daphne and Samantha stood up. Samantha said, “So Daph and I are willing to wait or ready to go right now. We both believe that we should space out the waves of children but if our children are going to grow up in half the normal time then you should probably have another group of children every few months. Talking about it like this may not be the most romantic, but at least the practice is a ton of fun.”

  After they had left, only CeeCee, Amelia, Mia, and Ava remained. Amelia said, “I was sort of in the mindset that we should all wait, but I do find what Huong and Jessie said to be persuasive. Life goes on and there are always going to be troubles. Then again, how often are we going to be facing galactic-spanning alien monsters?” She shrugged her shoulders at the obvious rhetorical question. “As for me, I’ll be ready for more kids once Michelle is maybe three. I do know I don’t want to have too many little ones at the same time.” Then she also left.