Born In A Storm

Strange things fall from the sky all the time. In 1934, sixteen people in a small community just outside of San Diego died during a storm that produced hailstones the size of softballs. Michel Tebiere, a landscape gardener in the South of France was struck by lightning 37 times in a six year period and survived without incident. In 1978, a woman in a small cottage in Kent narrowly avoided being impaled by a bolt of "blue ice", the technical name for a frozen streak of piss, which crashed through her roof and the first floor of her house when it was jettisoned from a Tristar Jet some 20,000 feet overhead. Worse still, in 2001, a refugee from Afghanistan was found on the roof of a DIY store just outside of Heathrow station, his corpse having also fallen from a passing jet as it lowered its undercarriage. Throughout history, there have been sightings of many strange things falling from the sky – frogs, eels, fish, small crabs – the list is as varied as it is bizarre.

There are various explanations for all these things – meteorologists postulate and theorise and eventually come to the conclusion that if this had happened to that under these circumstances, then here was the explanation. But there are some things that they can't explain, not least because they never get the chance – in some cases the possibilities are so extraordinary, the series of coincidences so improbable, that divine intervention is the only plausible explanation. How else could one explain the virgin birth of Jesus Manuel Delcudia?

It begins in Miami on a filthy night in August. It has rained for three days, Hurricane Flossie is sixty miles from shore but her reach is long and high winds and storms batter the East Coast. Jerome Dukes is out late and drunk, commiserating being left by his girlfriend. Dukes, 42, is no-one special. He works in a meat factory, loading and stacking the slabs of beef into the freezers. His girlfriend, Janette-Ann, left him two days ago for a liquor salesman, the two of them on the road to Miami, so Jerome has been drinking bourbon since noon. Now, at 10.30 pm in the dark, he stumbles down to the beach and stares out over the sea. It's an impressive sight. The waves roil and boil, the heaving grey mass of water illuminated only briefly by the periodic flashes of lighting. The thunder is barely audible over the crash of the waves as they pound against the boardwalk. Dukes, his clothes soaked by rain and saltwater, wobbles unsteadily as he stares out at the furious ocean. He was feeling small and unnecessary earlier, in the relative comfort of the bar, but now, out here, confronted with the awesome power of nature, he is as nothing. Tears roll down his ruddy cheeks to be lost in the storm, and suddenly, it is clear what he must do. He will take his clothes off and walk gracefully into the sea, never to be seen again.

Getting undressed is something of a problem. He falls over several times trying to get his shoes off, eventually giving up the need for balance and tearing them off his feet as he sits, sobbing on the sand. He tears the shirt off his back, flinging his t-shirt after it. Trousers and briefs soon follow, and eventually he rises, his flabby white body covered in sand as he gulps down air. Finally, he wipes the hair from his eyes and with a nod, begins to walk into the surf. It's cold, bitterly cold, but he grits his teeth and continues on, shivering as the water covers his thighs. As he takes his next step, the lightning flashes overhead and illuminates a huge wave about to crash over his head. At the same moment, he falls forward with a gasp, the ground beneath his feet having shelved down sharply towards the sea-floor. He stumbles, his head going under as he tries to keep his balance and as he resurfaces, spluttering and shocked by the cold, the wave breaks over his head.

Under the water, he is spinning. Currents rip at his body as the saltwater stings his eyes and floods his mouth. With arms and legs flailing, he struggles to find something to hold onto. His fingertips brush sand and he reaches for it. Just as he is about to push himself above the water, another wave breaks, and he is pulled back into the black confusion. His head breaks the surface for a moment, allowing him the chance to gasp for air, before a third wave crashes over his head and he is spinning once more. This one, however, lifts him and slams him with a crash of surf further up the beach. Jerome Dukes is able to crawl on his elbows and knees back onto the beach. He lies there, gasping and coughing, his eyes screwed shut as he fills his lungs.

When he opens his eyes, he looks around him and starts to laugh. Alive, he thinks, and chuckles again. I'm alive. He bellows it at the sky. ALIVE! He rises to his feet and stands, looking around at the beach with new eyes. The lightning flashes again, and he cheers it. That's right, he yells, I'm still here, god damn it! He stretches his arms out and howls like a dog. He feels great. He feels fantastic. His head is clear, his vision is clearer than its ever been. His blood tingles in his veins, he doesn't even feel cold any more. And what's more, he has a huge erection. Even that makes him laugh with amazement. Look at that! It's fucking huge! With his hands on his hips he looks down, inspecting it, watching as it twitches, pointing out in the direction of his recent scrape with death.

He reaches down to grab it, this throbbing affirmation of his existence, a groan escaping his lips as his fingers curl around the shaft. Christ, he whispers. Has he ever been this turned-on? With a hand running down to his balls, he moans as he finds them cold and tight. Rubbing his scrotum, he brings his other hand down to take hold of the head of his penis, squeezing it hard and groaning. With his legs apart, planted in the sand, he masturbates as the storm rages around him, both hands on his cock as he gasps and grunts. Every now and then his knee buckles and his hips twitch forward. It doesn't take him long, but when it happens, it's like the first he's ever had. His face falls as his scowl of concentration melts into a look of surprise as his frantic strokes slow and he stares down at his jumping cock.

The head swells, the veins standing out clearly on the shaft as his tight grip pulls down hard, right to the base, and then up as he gives a shout and cums. His ejaculation is huge. He knee buckles and he falls to a knee, landing awkwardly, one hand still pumping his cock as the other grabs the sand for stability. The first spurt of cum blasts out his cock like it was rocket-powered and disappears into the storm. The next few do the same, the rest shooting out of him and dripping down the engorged purple head of his cock and down onto his fingers, where it gets rubbed into his shaft as Dukes instinctively keeps jerking off, his head still spinning from the intensity of his orgasm.

And it is here that Jerome Dukes' story sadly ends. After he came, he rocked back, falling to the beach and lay on his back, gasping and giggling, his hand still wrapped around his shrinking member. Within three minutes he was asleep. Within twenty, he was dead, a combination of the huge amount of alcohol he had consumed with extreme exposure to the elements. His body was found the next morning after the storm had gone and removed.

Three days later, a young nineteen-year-old farmer's daughter from the Basque region of Spain, is standing on a hilltop and smiling as she breathes in the smell of rain. Marianna is thought simple by many of her neighbours. She is young and wild in the freedom of her own mind, but in the company of others, she is withdrawn, shy and unable to express herself. She has a deep love of nature, however, and her father is content that she finds happiness wandering the mountains and tending for the sheep. He has other sons, all of whom are married now, and has all but given up hope for his only girl. But she is happy. She loves to climb and swim and explore, she speaks with the trees and the sheep and keeps to herself. But most of all she loves a storm.

There is a story told by a young boy who, out hunting rabbits with his air rifle, once spied Marianna during a storm and that is why they now call her "rain whore". For the next few years, whenever there was a storm, the teenage boys and some of the men would go looking for Marianna, to see if the rumours were true. Some even took to accompanying her as she watched the sheep, imagining that if there were a rainstorm that day, something would happen. Her father had to go with her for a few times after that, a shotgun strapped to his back and a grim expression on his face. Marianna learned to go where she wouldn't be disturbed after that. Who would understand that God visits her in that way? She knows that the Lord is in the storms, but is too shy to tell anyone. Who would understand her? So while the rest of the village prays and sings hymns on Sunday, Marianna watches the weather and gives herself to God during a storm.

There will be a storm tonight, Marianna can tell. She can tell by the way the hairs on the back of her neck are tingling and the way her nipples press hard against the material of her dress. She can tell by the way her hands are trembling and the way her vagina is already quite wet. But the rapture is not upon her yet and she waits, watching the clouds roll closer waiting to see the first signs. She bites into her bread hungrily, reaching again to her bag for the wine. In the distance, her eyes catch a flash amid the clouds and her heart leaps into her throat. Holding her breath she waits, eyes darting, ears tingling, waiting for the sound. And then it comes, a low rumble that comes bouncing up out of the valley, and washing over her. Her eyes close and a low moan escapes her throat. She drops the bread and sits up, her hand grabbing her small breast and kneading it. Her mouth is open as her eyes dart to the corners of the sky, searching for where the next flash will come from. There! Closer this time, the thunder crackles towards her, the sound crawling through the sky like the bolt that spawned it tore its way through the sky towards the earth. The rain, too, began then, great fat drops of water that splashed down onto the hot rocks, turning the dusty sand to glistening brown. Marianna raised her hands, palms outstretched to catch the rain as it intensified. The rapture is on her at last, as she gasps, laughing.

She stands, her hands pulling open the front of her dress and smiling with her eyes closed as the heavy drops fell onto her breasts. Her nipples are standing hard and proud, sending sensation rippling through her every time a drop lands on one. Her hands stroke her breasts, rubbing the rainwater into her, pulling at her nipples and causing her to groan. There is another flash, and this time Marianna sees it, the forked lightning burning a pattern into her eyes. The amount of rain falling doubles and Marianna's other hand reaches down and under her dress. Her fingers slide up her thigh and into her pubic hair. Her lips are swollen and wet, and melt apart as her fingers probe. But she only strokes the lips, pulling them apart, grunting as she lowers herself to a crouch. With her other hand she pulls the skirt up around her thighs and she looks down between her spread thighs. She watches as she begins to rub her clitoris, gasping and making guttural noises, her hips writing and bobbing. She falls back and raises her hips to the storm, holding her lips apart with one hand, opening herself to the wind and the rain, while the other rubs her clitoris with almost savage intent. There is another flash of lightning, and another, and the world is filled with thunder, as Marianna screams.

The storm rages for half an hour. It's the biggest storm that Marianna has ever seen. For thirty minutes, she lies on her back, screaming with orgasm after orgasm. Her hands hold her vagina lips spread wide open, fingers never far from her clitoris or nipples, until finally she can take no more. She crawls, shaking and almost sobbing, her hand still between her legs, towards her bag. Her dress hangs on her like a soaked rag half the size it started off as. She reaches into the bag for a thick woollen blanket, which she pulls over her and curls up under the tree. Eventually she catches her breath, and sits, serenely, thanking the storm with her thoughts and giving her love to God. The rain slows eventually, and Marianna pulls some clean clothes from the bag and makes her way gingerly down the mountain.

They say it would have been normal for it to end there. Jerome Dukes would have remained four column inches in the local paper and a statistic on a government chart, and Marianna Delcudia would live out her days as a local legend and figure of fun. But it was just one of those things. Statistically, it is possible that Dukes' sperm could have been whisked off into the storm. Dukes, who remained just the four inches, could have contributed that much at least. And the sperm, well that could have been carried on winds high, into the centre of the maelstrom and preserved, frozen by the gusts and the altitude. And it could have been that the storm, which made its way across the Atlantic Ocean, rode the Gulf Stream east towards Europe, met a warm front over Portugal and passed directly over Mount Marianna (as it was later known) three days, six hours and thirty-three minutes later.

Four months later, Marianna's father was arrested for threatening one of his neighbours with a shotgun. According to his statement, the man had raped his daughter. Marianna gave no comment or reason for the bulge in her belly that could only be child, and the terrified girl, along with her father and the alleged rapist, were taken to Madrid for testing. Marianna was indeed pregnant, but the child's blood did not match that of the neighbour, who went home shortly after. Marianna had to be sedated, so great was her fear, when they tried to examine her. There were no signs of forced penetration, they discovered – no signs of any penetration whatsoever. Marianna was still a virgin.

In came the press. The fathers, brothers, priests, bishops and archbishops. The critical, the cynical, the amused and amazed. And the faithful. In their thousands, they swamped Madrid as world leaked out. The Pope came especially, as did the leaders of the Christian world. Medical experts followed religious experts followed political experts. Marianna had a very hard time dealing with all the attention. But she knew the story and understood what was happening to her. She gave herself up to her fate, became serene and mostly silent. She later asked, in a whisper, that people call her 'Mary'.

She was questioned. How had this happened to her? What did she see? It took several attempts before she would answer. When she told them, in a calm, still voice that her lover was the storm, and that the storm was God, the world began to change.

So could it have happened that way? In 2002, Jesus Manuel Delcudia was born. The world held its breath for five years until finally, with the consent of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, Jesus Manuel gave his first press conference. Was this, as most believed, the Second Coming? The product of a medically certified virgin birth, with both secular and government approval, how could this be anything other than an act of God? Or did a butterfly flap its wings in Beijing, creating a ripple of air, the ripple becoming a wind, the wind becoming a storm, the storm becoming a surrogate, that carried Jerome Dukes' final act to the womb of Mary Marianna, Daughter of Storms? It's about as plausible as a rain of frogs, I suppose.