That Damned Blessing

Author's Note: All imaginary persons I imagined for the purposes of this story who engage in sexual activity of the imaginary variety are 18 imaginary years old or older, I imagine. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is coincidental but obviously fated to be, so blame the Universe and not me.

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Are You Tiffani Caine? Chapter 5

That Damned Blessing, Chapter 4:

In Which the Best is Made of a Bad Situation

Day Ten

Three options had been given. The first - that both of them die - had been rejected out of hand. The second was an indefinite delay of Ryan and Jess' joining of spirits, but one that would be difficult, painful, and temporary, and in their end would change their fates not at all. The third was to abandon all resistance and embrace the changes, to become a blissful couple, to make love and to make babies and to become rich in all the things that made life good. It had been left up to them, and the shamans were breaking up into small groups to speak in their native language.

Mother and son sat naked on stumps in the central clearing of the village as Jake explained it all. Jess leaned back so far she almost fell off her stool. Ryan put his elbows on his knees and covered his face in his hands. Neither spoke for a long time. Finally Jake said, "This is the biggest decision either of you will ever make. Take some time. Get dressed and go inside that house there. Have something to eat, maybe some whiskey. Figure out what's best for you and we'll take it from there."

Like automatons, the mother and only son stood and began to pull their clothes back on. Although they hadn't been able to take their eyes off each other while the shamans were examining them, now that they had been presented with the options, each was in their own world, staring at the ground or up at the sky as they dressed but seeing nothing. Ryan finished dressing first and watched his mother as she buttoned her last few buttons, and then they both headed for the house where they'd been several times before.

As they entered the house, they noticed that one of the shamans, a very wrinkled and elderly man, was following them. Ryan asked him if he was going to listen to their discussion, and the man looked lost for a moment and then turned and said something to Jake in the native language. Jake said, "Oh don't worry, this is Kennan. Doesn't speak a word of English. He'll just be there to interrupt if you two get caught up again and start doing something physical."

Jess and Ryan looked at each other and shrugged, and Jess said, "Good idea. It sounds like if we...if we have intercourse, it might be bad for the magic."

"Well, sort of," Jake said, scratching back of his head. "It would make it impossible to slow down what's going on, but you two goin' at it is actually a part of the ceremony to speed things up. So if you two have a naughty, well, you're makin' your choice."

"Wow," Ryan said, turning to his mother. "It's lucky for us we stopped when we did last night. If we'd have kept on..."

They took a seat at the table while Kennan grabbed a chair across the room, put his feet up on the end table, and started drinking a warm Coke. It was Ryan who spoke first. "Alright, so...speed up or slow down. What are your thoughts?"

Jessica shook her head sadly. "I can't believe we're going to end up together no matter what, that I'm going to become Seetsahm. I'm going to become a whole different person, Ryan, at least physically. I don't know. I just...wish it didn't sound so wonderful right now. It's everything I can do to keep from picking the third option right now and just jumping into it."

"I know what you mean. The idea of getting to put baby after baby into you is so wonderful that I almost can't think of anything else. But we have to."

"Can I tell you something that's so crazy that I can barely wrap my head around it?"

"Of course Seets - ah, mom. You can tell me anything. I think we're past the secret-keeping stage."

"I guess we are at that," she chuckled mirthlessly. "I started getting my height early. By first grade I was the tallest kid in class, and I hated it. I was born with flaming ginger hair and I hated that too. I hated burning and getting sick when I went out in the sun. All I ever wanted to be was short and dark-haired and tanned."

Ryan's eyes widened. "Do you think..."

"I don't know what to think. Maybe...maybe I've been destined to be Seetsahm since the day I was born. Maybe all this was...what, fated? And if that's the case..."

"Then why fight it?" Ryan nodded. "In our dreams or whatever the hell they are, it's always felt that way, hasn't it? Not just that we were supposed to be together, but that we've always been together, like time doesn't mean anything. Like we were together before the Earth formed or something."

"That's what I always felt too," she said. "So do you think we should just get it over with?"

"I want to, god I want to. But there's another part of me that wants to keep fighting it. That part's gotten smaller every day, but it's still there and it's still loud. If it were just us, then yeah, I'd say take option three and live happily ever after. But it's not just us, is it? It's dad, it's Kim."

"Yeah. Yeah. And if I change all of a sudden, they might just throw me in an isolation ward because they think I've caught some weird disease that's causing all of it. How are we even going to handle this when it eventually happens?"

"I don't know, but...what if it doesn't?"

She frowned. "They said there was nothing they could do to stop it."

"Yeah, but do you trust them? They ain't exactly NASA, you know? What if we get to Australia and it stops? Or back home and it stops?"

"What if it doesn't?"

"Then we haven't lost anything by giving it a shot. If we pick the second option, the delaying one, and we play for time? Maybe the whole thing just wears off by itself. Maybe we just need to ride out the storm."

Jess looked into her son's eyes. "Do you believe that? With everything we've been through, do you really believe that?"

"I...no," he admitted. "At least I don't think it's very likely. But a slim chance is better than no chance."

"But if we just accept it...it's so tempting, babe. So much of me wants to just say fuck it and grab it with both hands."

"Me too." A long pause, then, "We could. I mean, all we have to do is tell these guys that and all this worry and stress will be over. Jake says that us fucking is part of the ceremony - maybe I could even knock you up today."

Jess flushed deeply and squeezed her breast through her blouse. "God that sounds amazing. I just know that when you come in me for real you're going to make a baby in me no matter how much birth control we use. It sounds so fucking perfect."

"And when those big tits of yours fill up with milk," he said, grinning wolfishly, "

that

will be hot as fuck."

"They fed you," she said, pinching her nipple and giving it a twirl through her blouse, "and they'll feed our children too. And you'll help with any milk I have left over, won't you?"

"Damn right," he said. He leaned forward at the same time as she did, and their tongues wrapped around each other in a frantic kiss. At the same moment his hand slipped up her blouse and pushed her bra cup up so that the nipple that had been between her fingers a moment ago was now between his. She moaned in sheer delight, arching her back to press her breast into his hand while her own hands deftly unzipped his fly and pulled forth his thick, rock-hard cock -

A burst of sheer babble pulled them away from the kiss and the looked up in surprise to see Kennan standing in front of them talking excitedly in his own language. Ryan stared at him for a long moment, then leaned back and said, "I guess that was real."

"I guess it was. I'm glad he was here to stop us before we went too far." Another burst of gabble from the old man, and mother and son looked down at her hand, which was still stroking his cock. Very reluctantly she forced herself to relinquish the grip and leaned away.

"Whatever decision we make, we better make it now before this fucking blessing decides for us," Ryan sighed, tucking his junk away.

Kennan sat down again, this time at the table, and eyed them both.

"Right," Jess sighed. "Right. OK. So..."

"So dad. Kim. As much as I want it, we can't just give in without a fight."

After a moment of internal struggle that was obvious on her face, she nodded. "You're right. Of course you're right."

"So. Option number two?"

"Yeah. OK."

"Then let's tell them before we change our minds," he said, standing up from the table and offering his hand. She adjusted her clothes, stood, and took his hand. Kennan fell in behind them as they walked out the door.

Jake must have been keeping an eye on the place, because the instant they appeared, he broke himself away from the little knot of shamans he was talking to and hurried over to them. "Hello. Have you made your choice already?"

"Yeah," Ryan said. "We're fighting it. We may lose, but we'll go down swinging."

Something that might have been pity flared in his eyes, but he nodded. "That's the one we figured you'd pick. Have a seat back on those stumps. I'll let everyone know."

"Do we have to be naked this time?" Jessica asked. Her son's eyes on her bare body were thrilling, so she wanted to hear a yes.

Unfortunately: "Nah, just have a seat. We'll scrounge you up some water and some food. This is going to take the rest of the day, so if you need to use the dunny you should do it before we start." He walked a few feet off, then paused and turned to add, "Oh, and it won't be fun. Sorry, but there's no way around it."

Plates were brought for each of them: Thick slices of grilled Spam, some kind of salad consisting of local greens and vegetables, a little fruit. Fortunately the awning was still up so neither of them burned to death under the late-morning tropical sun as the shamans buzzed around them getting things set up. The old geezers actually seemed excited to be a part of it, but then it was the most interesting thing to happen in Ranu Ratu for centuries. Toilets (really, barely outhouses) were used. Mother and son whispered quiet "I love yous" and "Good lucks." Finally Adouwe asked, "Are you ready?"

"I guess as ready as we can be," Ryan answered. "Are you sure this is going to work?"

"As sure as we can be," Adouwe echoed Ryan's uncertainty with a shrug. In the face of such overwhelming confidence, Ryan and Jess exchanged nervous glances and set their mouths into grim frowns.

The ceremony began simply enough, with some call-and-response chanting from Adouwe to the rest of the shamans and back. At some point someone lit a pile of wood - one of six that had been laid out in a circle around them - and it quickly caught, producing copious amounts of bluish smoke that made mother and son cough. After that, more chanting.

It had been going for five minutes or so before Ryan felt something tugging at the corner of his mind, an insistent pull that distracted him from the unavoidable erotic thoughts about Seetsahm. It felt like a persistent itch in his mind, and like any itch that you can't scratch, it quickly became the focus of his attention. Also like any unscratched itch, it quickly swelled from an irritant to something more akin to pain, but inside his thoughts - not inside his brain, but the ideas his brain produced. It was the damnedest thing, and a quick glance at Jessica told him that she was experiencing the same thing.

Do not do this.

The thought was powerful, unavoidable, standing in defiance of that itch and demanding that his mind return to thoughts of his mom's plump lips wrapping around his shaft, to the way he knew her pussy would taste if they just abandoned this futile resistance and gave in to destiny, to the rapture that would accompany their first real time together and the creation of the first of so many healthy, wonderful children.

The itch recoiled, hovered, zoomed in like a dragonfly to snip at the edges of that sexual resolve. The conflict between the two opposing paradigms

fucking hurt,

and a few feet away Jess moaned aloud and clutched her skull in both hands. The pain only grew, and in a couple of minutes it was a headache that made the world's worst migraine feel like a warm compress after a stressful day. He heard his mother screaming for a while before he realized he was doing the same. He wanted to shout

Stop

, to help her, but he was paralyzed -

And then without warning the pain receded to a dull throbbing in the center of his mind that was only as painful as it had been when he had gotten a moderate concussion a couple of years ago: still very painful, but nothing to what had come before. Squinting against the bright sunlight, he saw his mother looking around in bleary, confused discomfort. "Mom, you alright?"

"I...uh...yeah, I can hack it. Are you hanging in there, kiddo?"

"Yeah...screaming helps, kinda."

Then Jake was in front of them. "Drink some water, you've both been sweating like orangutans."

"I didn't know they sweated," Jess muttered.

"They're covered in long hair in tropical jungles, they sweat like humans. The first part of the ceremony went great, so just hang in there."

"How many parts are there?" Ryan mumbled.

"Six."

"Well. FML."

Another pile of wood was lit, this one giving off sweet, pinkish smoke that made it hard to keep their eyes open. The ceremony continued, for a moment Jess panicked because the way her chest exploded into agony and the pain raced down her arms made her certain she was having a heart attack. The agony arched her spine and opened her mouth in a silent wail - and then was gone, leaving an ache all through her upper body. She looked at her son, and from the way he moaned as he shifted in his seat, she knew he had just felt the same thing. And then the pain hit again, receded again, hit again, receded again, over and over, too many times for her to count...

And then it was done, leaving her feeling like she had just been beaten with a club, in addition to still feeling the pain in her mind from the first part of the ceremony. They drank more water, at least a gallon each without feeling satisfied. Jake came around to check on them and told them that what they were feeling was normal - well, not

normal

normal since nothing about this was

normal,

but at least expected. He assured them that things were going well and according to plan, and he sounded like he meant it. Oddly, it didn't make them feel better.

The third wood pile gave off a maroon smoke when it was lit, and one smell of it was enough to make them both give involuntary shrieks of pain. Ryan felt like he was burning, aflame head to toe, and it would have made him leap up and flee but there was no way his muscles were obeying. The briefest of lulls between waves of misery allowed him to look at himself and see that he looked perfectly normal and was definitely not on fire, and that Jessica was plainly doing through the same thing. Another wave of pain hit and on and on, so that by the time this part of the ceremony concluded, he was barely capable of rational thought.

A break then when they were urged to eat. They both refused initially, but the shamans wouldn't let up until each of them had consumed a fair amount of fruit in addition to the huge amounts of water they craved. They sat there panting as the shamans finished their meal and prepared to light the next pile, and Jessica finally summoned enough steadiness to turn to her son and ask, "Are you hanging in there alright?"

"Barely," he said. "I don't know how much more of this I can take. You?"

"Same. Do you feel like it's having any effect on you?"

He thought for a moment, at least as much as the pain allowed, and recalled the most erotic dream they'd shared, the one where he was fucking her on the field during a Brewers game and the whole crowd was cheering on the conception of their first child. After a moment he shook his head and said, "Thinking of us fucking doesn't do a thing for me now."

She paused, plainly thinking of something they'd done in dreams, then said, "Me neither, though that might just be because I'm in so much pain right now that I couldn't get horny no matter what happened."

"Good point," he nodded. "My blood isn't even on speaking terms with my D at the moment."

"So...progress?" she asked hopefully.

"I think so. Progress. Yeah."

The next pile burned faintly green and smelled like cinnamon, which was quite nice for about thirty seconds before Jess's groin and abdomen flashed a pain so intense that it knocked all the wind out of her body. It felt like her entire reproductive system from vagina to ovaries and from vulva to uterus exploded all at once. And then of course the pain reduced and redoubled in its now-customary waves, so intense that it made her see colors she didn't know existed, and it was all she could do to cling to the very edges of consciousness as it went on and on endlessly.

But not endlessly, because suddenly the pain dwindled (though, like the other pains, it merely reduced itself to a barely-tolerable level and stayed there). A look over at her son revealed that he had leaned over and was noisily vomiting, looking ghastly and gray. She supposed she looked the same.

Jake made his inevitable appearance. "Hey, you're doing great. There's just two parts left, and neither of those will be half as bad as what you've just been through."

Jess looked up at him, eyes red, face slack from the experience she'd just been through. "I hate you. I hate all of you."

"Oh yeah, no, yeah, no, totally understand that," he said with a nod. "Drink more water, it will help put you right. Oh, there is one thing: how do you say the name of your home town again?"

Ryan and Jess both wondered why that was so important (they'd said it about twenty times during the first blessing) but both felt too terrible to question it. All Ryan could so was mumble, "I guess the name of the place must be pretty important."

"That it is," Jake agreed with his habitual cheer. "Getting that right is as important as getting everything else right."

The two repeated the name of their city a dozen times until Jake had it down perfectly, then guzzled water as the shamans got themselves set.

"Mom?"

"Yeah, sweetie?"

"When we decided to take this route, I was really doubting myself. I wanted you so bad that putting it off felt like cutting my own throat. But now, after so much of this has been done, I don't feel that anymore. I want us to go back to being a normal family. I want dad to be able to come back to you being a faithful wife. I want things to be the way they were before we came to these islands."

Jess nodded as her son spoke, and then carefully thought about her response. Finally she said, "I was right there with you. We we told Jake that we wanted to delay it, I wanted so badly to knock you down and ride some cum out of you so we could just be together. But now...now, I can't even remember how that felt, only that I felt it."

"I'd jump for joy if I didn't feel like I'd die if I tried it."

"There's my little smartass. I love you, kiddo."

"Love you too, mom."

The smoke from the next pile was a sooty-grayish black that smelled like freshly-turned earth, and at the first whiff of it Ryan's head started to swim. Within moments his vision had gone blurry, and less than a minute later all he could make out of the world around him were vaguely-colored blobs that whirled and spun in clashing directions. He clutched the sides of his stump in a desperate effort to keep oriented, but up and down didn't seem to want to stay in their places, and left and right became concepts that were difficult even to remember.