Shadow Seed 1: The Misbegotten (14 page)

All the while, Katie had stood, walked over to the open door of my bedroom and met my sister at the top of the stairs.  She made as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, asking some mundane question I fail to recall at the moment.

My step-sister answered her.  Then looked at me expressionless and said, between a breath or two and a hardening about her eyes, we should all go down to the dining room and eat.

I think she knew.  I think
, instinctually, she knew she had walked in on something, only she had no clue what it might’ve been.  If she had known, she never would have let Katie see the end of it.  For some funny reason, she was very protective of her step-brothers – both of us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~♦~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Summer – 2018)

Reunion

Those images flashed through my mind when my mother asked me if I could help make Katie feel more at home in Los Angeles.  She was wondering if I was mature enough, if I could keep my head about me and help the girl not think about Oklahoma as much as possible that summer.

No problem, mom, I got this one, mom.  Yeah right…

Had Katie wanted to suck my dick?

I couldn’t think straight.  The entire day at school I was distracted.  I only half-heard and saw what was happening around me that day.  I knew the school year was winding down and all my friends were ecstatic summer vacation was about to begin.  Despite the fact most of us wouldn’t be going anywhere far during our time off, the governments’ restrictions on travel would see to that, but there were other things to look forward too.  The late nights, the parties and the partying were more than enough to assuage our sense of freedom from our rigorous routines while school was in session.

It seemed like forever to get through the day.  We didn’t do much, mostly talked or passed notes, but my mind was elsewhere. 
Even making out with my girlfriend hadn’t helped much.  She had whispered something like, “I can’t wait for school to end, so we can make love every night.”  Still though, her enthusiasm only partially registered.  My mind was preoccupied.  There was only room for Katie.  I managed the best I could.

While I was at school, my mother brought Katie home and told her she would be staying with me, up in the third story Loft.  She would have her own private bed and share a bathroom with no one but me.  None of the other children in the house, or adults for that matter, would bother her in case she felt the need for privacy.

The Loft, as we called it, was really a large room with a partial view of the second floor below at one end.  In truth, it was a walled-in portion of the attic with two “bedrooms” screened off by curtains and a walled in half-bath with a toilet, a small sink, and a shower.  Up until her arrival, the Loft had been my domain.  I had moved up there a month after my step father contractors had built out the attic, adding the electrical and plumbing, turning it into a small apartment of sorts.  It was a place I safeguarded against intrusion with zealous fervor.  It was my little sanctuary away from my siblings, my parents, even the world sometimes, when things proved difficult and I just had to get away.

To tell you the truth, though, after what happened the previous summer, I would’ve been more than willing to share my living space with Katie.  My imagination had been running wild for so long with that one final image in my head… 
Had she really leaned forward?  Had she been on the verge of tasting my cock?  Had she wanted me that way, or was it all just a horny teenage boy’s fantastical wet dream?  Had I invented the whole thing?  Had I created something so I could jerk off in the shower with thoughts of her?  Was it all in my mind?  Or, had Katie leaned forward, wanting to taste my…?

I got home later that afternoon, earlier than usual, because track season had ended for me
a few weeks earlier.  The faster athletes from around the school district smoked me in the city semi-finals of the 400m dash.  I had finished a disappointing sixth and was ineligible to move onto the next round of meets.  Normally, I would have been home around 5:30 pm, but today I walked through the front door (a little anxious) about twenty minutes before 4.  All of my siblings were already home, my mother, having picked up little Martín from grammar school right as it let out, had drove down the street to get Johan from middle school.  Flavia had got a ride from a friend, so she had beaten me home as well.  My baby sister Lucia was too young for school at the time.  She had been picked up first at her day care.

When I walked into the house,
little Lucia had rolled up to me within moments, pushing her bulky “lawn mower” toy.  It glided noisily over the hard wood floors of the entryway as she called out, “Effy!  Effy!  Effy!”  Her tiny hands were reaching out to me as she scooted her way to me at a run.

“Hi Lucy!”
I cooed and stooped down to pick her up, bringing her tight into my arms and giving her a big slobbery kiss behind her ear.  She squealed with delight.

My mother walked up then, rubbing her hands on a dish towel, obviously getting a head start on dinner.  I figured she was going to make it a big deal, since it would be Katie’s first formal meal with us.  That was my mother’s way, make everyone feel comfortable no matter the circumstances - a guest was a guest and should be treated accordingly in her book.

My mother might’ve been passed the most comely years of her life – time and child-bearing sapped some of her youth.  But, to me – and many other men – she was still a welcomed sight to gaze upon.  She was a short five foot one with a full bosom and figure of a woman her age.  She still sported the bubble-butt I had inherited from her back then.  From the compliments I had heard for the older men around me, I guess you could say it was her most striking feature.  She might’ve been fifteen pounds heavier than the ninety-eight pound angel I remember from my early childhood, but her dainty characteristics and coarse, black hair, parted down the middle, made her seen exotic.  She was very appealing.

“She loves it when you do that,” commented my mother as she came to a halt, a big smile etched across her face, her eyes sparkling at the glee in my three
-year-old sister’s eyes.

I smiled at both of them, then raised Lucy even higher in my grasp.  I pretended to chew up her belly, which made her laugh and kick, while she screeched at the top of her lungs, “Top it, Effy!  Top it, Effy!” 

My mother chuckled at the display, for a time, and then peered over at me when I stopped messing around with the toddler and the little girl calmed down.  “Why don’t you give me, Lucy-Goosey.  You go up and keep Katie company.  She’s been really shy.  She seems embarrassed about what happened.  She hasn’t really spoken much since we got home.  She hasn’t come down from the Loft either. I explained her she’d be staying up there with you and she just mumbled thanks and took up all of her stuff.  She looked sad, Eff, so why don’t you go to her and try to cheer her up.  In a few hours, I’ll call you guys down for dinner ok?”

I
kissed my adorable baby sister once again, with love, then transferred Lucia to my mother’s arms, concern on my face.  I hadn’t expected Katie to be depressed or remorseful in any way.  It was unlike her to feel bad about what she’d done.  I never would’ve thought she would respond to the situation with genuine regret.  One could say, I was a little shocked.  It cranked my anxiety a few levels higher.  My typical kiss on the cheek I always give to my mother was robotic.  I whispered a quiet, “ok”, in her ear.  Then, I walked passed her and up the stairs into uncharted territory.

I was so nervous; I was almost skittish when I
reached the uppermost landing on the third floor.  I had walked down the main hall of the house, up the main staircase, through the hall on the second floor and up the narrow stairs that lead to the Loft.  The impending encounter with the girl I’d been infatuated with for longer than I could recall made me wooden and stiff as if I were going to my own execution or something.  I pushed open the door into the Loft; I was surprised to find Katie sitting at the foot of my bed, thumbing through my yearbook from the year before.  Her eyes were dancing over what my friends had jotted down, a half smile seeping out of one side of her mouth.  I stepped into the large room, noticing she had pushed back the curtains separating the two sleeping areas, opening up the space to more light and the nice cross breeze that usually blows through the chamber this time of the day.  When I glanced back at her, Katie was already on her feet, looking back at me with tired eyes; dark circles marring what had always been flawless skin.  She had pulled back her hair into a thick ponytail, so all of her face was visible.  She looked gaunt to me; as though the skin on her face was stretched over against her skull, revealing more of the angled bones underneath, rather than the usual, smoother curves of her flesh.  Crow’s Feet I had never seen before were clearly visible at the edges of her eyelids.  She was dressed in a simple sun dress made of cotton with a high waist, ending mid-thigh.  She had pristinely white tennis shoes on her feet without socks and a thin, feminine looking watch on her left arm, loosely riding her wrist just above the widening of her palm.

“Hi,” she said meekly, crossing her legs as if she was apprehensive of approaching me, bobbing up and down on the tips of her toes.  This was definitely not the Katie I was used to seeing.

I decided to dispense with the bullshit and briskly walked forward, dropping my school shit on the floor as I came to her and gave her a big hug, slow and reassuring.  I hoped.

“Hi yourself,” I mumbled in her ear as she slowly returned my hug, though her arms hung limply against my back.  When we broke apart a few moments later, I saw she had tears in her eyes. 
Holy shit what the fuck had happened to her?
I thought as I held her back by the elbows.  I looked her over to see if she had been injured in the car wreck, but she appeared wound free to me.

“You ok?” I asked lamely, not sure what I could do to assuage an ailment I couldn
’t see.  This was
not
the Katie I was used seeing, the hard, gross girl with little care about who she offended or what she said.  This was
not
the strutting, flaunting upstart that flounced custom and dared to upset tradition.  Something had reached her, punched the steel-reinforce veneer she had surrounded her heart.  Something had taken a nice deep bite.  This had to be a first for her, or so I deemed.  She was rocked to the core, stunned by it; even I couldn’t deny what I was seeing.  It was clearly visible in her body language, the way she moved, how she carried herself.

I had absolutely no idea of what to do about it.

“I’m fine,” she said after a time, “just a little worn out, I think.  It’s been a tough couple of days.”  She broke free from my grip, but hesitated long enough to pat one of my hands before they fell away.  She returned to my bed and sat upon its edge.

I felt more than a little guilty at having obsessed about our little incident the year before
.  I hadn’t spent the time to think about all of the shit she might be going through right now, in the
present
.  I was the one fixated on that memory, not her; she was in a completely different place, thinking about entirely different things.  What an idiot I’d become.

“You’re ok, though, right?  I mean no broken bones or anything like that.”  I tried to forge on in lieu of what I’d been thinking only minutes before.  Changing my train of thought seemed the right thing to do.

She sniggered.  “Only a bruised ego and a tear, here and there, to my self-esteem,” she relied plaintively, her hands in her lap, pale legs peeking the hem of her dress.

“Wanna talk about it or something therapeutic like that?” I queried a mild attempt to light the mood.

“Naw, not right now, if you don’t mind.  It’s all still too new, surging through my mind every time I close my eyes,” she replied almost at once.  “Besides, I don’t want to cry all over again,” she added with a quick glance at me.  She turned her head to look over my shoulder, and out the window on the other side of the large room.  Her eyes seemed a million miles away.  She was lost.

The silence follow
ing was so thick, it almost made me choke.  I had to say something, anything or I was going to lose it.  I was going to make things worse for her, because I was so utterly inept at things like this.  “How did you guys get so far from Oklahoma with the travel restrictions?” I asked.  The stupidest thing coming to mind and, of course, I had blurted it out like an idiot.

She glanced at me with a frown.  Her eyes blinked rapidly, holding in the tears threatening to flow.  I could see her wrestle with my question, her thin lips twisted at one corner.  “It wasn’t all that bad really until we got closer to California,” she began.  “Once we got close to the border, there were cops and NIA troopers all over the place.  They were the ones that ran the plates of the car.  The stupid, fucken troopers with their foreign accents, thinking they’re better than us.  It’s not even their damned country to begin with.”  She clipped each syllable as she spoke, some of her usual attitude coming to the fore.

I nodded, grateful to see some of the old Katie back.  The Northern Intercontinental Alliance’s influence in the western portion of the United States had been growing over the course of the past year.  To the point, many of us, living in this part of the country, had begun to rankle over their invasive tactics, their way of looking down at us as if we were lab rats and nothing more.  I guessed then, because she was from the Mid-west and didn’t know better, the conditions I and my family were living, though oppressive to us, might seem downright draconian to her.  The NIA was cracking down on Muto Terrorism.  What could we do about it?

I glanced back at her and saw her fighting tears once more.  “There’s nothing wrong with crying, Kat.  You know that, especially here with someone who’s got your back,” I explained
, not sure if she was trying to be tough or if she wanted to appear that way, so she could allow herself to break down later.  Or maybe she was afraid of the troopers that had arrested her and her loser boyfriend.  Maybe the realization of the act had just registered.