Cockerelles & Posies Pt. 04

"Could I?" she asks uncertain whether or not I'm being serious to look at her.

"Really?" I ask, pretending I was just joking to measure her response.

"It's called griping, Margot, which is expected of a superstar. It won't get you off the ground though acting like every good idea we come up with is a chore."

"Fine," I say positioning myself on the naughty looking couch. "Might as well go all out. Just make the studs good and sharp. I'll try to cry and whimper to make it sell."

Maddie can't keep her humor under control any longer. She curls up with laughter.

"I can't believe you're calling my bluff," she says. "Sharp studs? Your sister's rough and woody branch stuffed firmly between your virgin seat-cheeks? Do you think I'm going to fall for it?"

I spin around and rebuke her with my eyes.

"I am deadly serious, Maddie. I came to realize after my cream and kumquat bath what this family means to me. You know our house is still unnamed by Grandmother Tamera? She planted us in our mother with no intention at all of keeping us together. Josie thinks Tamera feels spite against Mother. Josie's started to believe her own birth was the fruit of some secret tryst making her our half-sister."

Maddie is stunned by my attitude.

"Sorry," she says, showing me her open hands. "I do love you sister. I just thought you were up here trying to get one of your silly rebel fantasies on before you go to masturbate like you used to when we were young. That you want my root, your root, stuffed into you to save our relationships from growing distant is truly commendable from an artistic viewpoint. I could create a whole saga around such a story for your fans that would delight them for years to have uncovered piece-by-piece before their eyes."

"Your sharpest studs," I say to her. "That is the seriousness of my desire. I would service you all in public to keep you from leaving me alone. I don't want our pleasant antics to ever end. I don't want Mother becoming some memory that doesn't recognize her own children when she's wiped the aged wisdom out of her head with Lulu's ancient charms. If Olive is going to forget who she was as our mother, I would have her here discovering who she is as our sister or whatever new role she can play in our circle of Sharps and Song. Then Josie can rename the estate to honor our new family and do the traditional things our sire failed to do to make us a dynasty that will be remembered forever."

"My sharpest studs," she says, taking my head to kiss me firmly in the sensitive spot between my eyes. "I'll play the role of dirty sister to the hilt right out of the gate. I'll get a non-disclosure agreement for my bosses to keep them from spilling the beans. And I mean the lethal kind that causes their trunks to shrivel if they let slip our bargain before you decide you're ready to come out with the truth years from now. And I'll have a talk with the other girls to encourage them to stay if my contract with you is signed by my superiors at the Brim."

Shortly thereafter Maddie has me screaming with very little acting required on my part.

"It's so big," I say as the muscles that keep closed my insides from the outside are stretched beyond their past experience.

"It is quite lengthy too," she gloats, forcing the shaft of it down so all five bands of studs around it disappear inside of me one after the other in slow succession.

It really is grueling, and the tears draining from my eyes are real. Still, the pangs in my heart want things to stay that way forever, having her paw my breasts tweaked by Becka's neckband. The pleasure of Sis' fingers on my chest bring me out of my shock and into an enjoyable kind of pain that I only demand more of.

Maddie takes my cue as I curl back to caress her neck, and she thinks it right to begin stroking back and forth in me.

"Yes, let's make this sell," she whispers in my ear before kissing my neck. "I'll pretend to plant seed in you after a few minutes. I can add the effects later to make it look real."

"Do it," I say, pulling my hips forward and pushing them back again to show her I'm not afraid.

It gets out of hand from there, and I'm made aware that Sis has enjoyed this practice shoot more than she intended to as her hickory juice pulses out of her root and into my insides.

"Oh, sorry Sis," she says, pulling out ever so carefully.

"That was perfect," I say turning around to lick it off for the perfect punctuation to our contract submission. "I'm not a virgin back there anymore thanks to you and your stiff new root."

#9

Josie calls me the following week to speak to her in a room of our house which I have never been able to figure out the purpose of in all my years living there.

"It's called a trophy room," she informs me, giving our home's security system the order to shut us inside. "A place Grandmother Tamera never bothered to decorate in the traditional way of old houses like ours. The head of the family is expected to record their mark on society, trophies of their accomplishments stacked on these many shelves and pedestals to mark the honors brought to the name of the clan's leader. It's a tradition that was abandoned centuries ago by most of society. Only the truly grand dynasties keep them up these days as it can be costly to put such a room to proper use."

"It's an empty trophy room, and the head of our house has abandoned us," I say.

Josie draws my attention to a painting over the fireplace mantle covered in a sheet as if ready to be revealed in some ceremony in the near future.

"I will pull this rope to reveal the painting underneath reproduces the likeness of my cockerelle pendant, Eager Sacrifice. When I wear it publicly it will be a symbol of our house as I am now the oldest cockerelle heir."

"You have no fortune, sis. How will you make such a claim to this place?"

"I have all of Mother's money in my accounts, Margot," she says with a smile that makes her predator brows look proud in the hungry composition they create with her other facial features. "She doesn't want this responsibility. Her hold on it was not something I had to steal. I only had to ask of it, and she gave it willingly. She's obsessed with recapturing her youth, planning to have a second go at prep school when her grandchildren come of age to attend. She's already turning her master suite into a playroom for the day in the near future when she can bring kids her own age home to act out her juvenile dreams. If I hadn't taken the wheel, this house would have become vulnerable to her declining wisdom. Someone has already cured her lower back issues. Soon she'll be in teddy bear patterns and calling her friends to chat all hours of the day about the cute cockerelles they spotted at the shopping malls over the school weekend."

"You're taking my desire to keep our family here seriously, aren't you?" I ask. "I see you've even decided to hook up with your old flame, Red Rose. Will she be your lover, or has she found your lack of a posy disgusting to her tastes?"

"You should talk of loving posies. I've watched Miss Brushnique move into our guest house. I have only allowed it so that I may find a plot which will end her career of hounding us for the rest of eternity."

My heart leaps in my chest, and I surge forward with a warning hand.

"You mustn't send her away, Josie. I cannot be honest about the matter, but I have good reason to put her in that bland log cabin some eccentric fastened to the side of our gaily hued fortress centuries ago. I wish to keep her there as our protector, not our blackmailer. Her intentions are good for our future. You must trust me on this."

"I wish to protect you, Margot," she says, stepping towards me. "If I could prove to myself and everyone that Tamera is not my sire, I would pursue your hand and send Red Rose away."

I nearly crumble under the weight of her statements.

"My hand? What about your rekindled love for Red? Was that all a ruse to make me jealous of you?"

"Rose has no love for me, I see that now. Truthfully, I only saw good in her because she reminded me of you and your desire to rebel against society. I see that now, and I cannot imagine you or me running away from this place. I think your desire to keep us here might be your own heart reasoning the same thing about me. I say these things only because I do not think any of us sisters are blood kin. I suspect many odd things about the history of our planting. I cannot go into detail until I know the truth. Sister Becka is researching the science of it. I only tell you because I have admitted these things to myself lately. Please do not melt away in fear and leave me alone as Red Rose did after graduation."

I take Josie's hand in mine.

"Is it the only way I can keep you here? Must we take our fun experiment on that seat you made for me in your room to such an extreme degree of desire?"

"If Becka's results come back in the manner that I predict, you and I are nothing more than womb sisters in the surrogate who acted in place of our genetic mothers. Even the seed we assume was planted by Tamera in Mother Olive may have from another cockerelle or many cockerelles. Your heritage which you gave me would not be from the woman you believe sired you then, but from some anonymous donor who stood in for our impotent Grandmother."

"I don't understand why Grandmother would do such a thing."

Josie's expression turns sour.

"She was born a posy, recall. I have proof that her transformation was neither natural nor legal. It was all a thing of artifice meant to give her the promotions she needed to pursue her fantasies of becoming a famous cockerelle for the history books. Her seed carried no potency. Our family under her name would be a fabrication."

"Don't say that. I won't hear you call us fake. Paper dreams? Really?"

"I will make us a family, sister. I will make us blood kin. I will make the name Sharp legitimate. I simply need your trust in the matter."

"Is this the reason for Mother's mad ideas to escape her memories?"

"The very truth of the matter, I promise. And when I expose Grandmother Tamera who has left us out of fear for her sins discovery against us and our society, I will clear all of our names of incest, and we can be legal lovers who deserve the respect of even the ancients who might call our family queer otherwise."

"How is it that you took my root if I am not your kin? That was a requirement was it not?"

"Only that you believed it," she says, gripping my hand firmly in her own. "This crazy society of posy submission is something the two of us can escape together. We can unmake it with our love. And some day we can raise our children in honor, posy and cockerelle, eye-to-eye in all things of love, business, and politics. We can change the world together, Sis. We can make the Sisterhood of Light venerable again."

"My heart is about to burst with affection," I say. "Yet I fear what might become of me if I commit myself to this dream. Would my love grow to be as big as the love you feel for me?"

"I won't force the decision," she says, releasing me and stepping away.

I am left there to fan the heat from my neck and face. All of these perverse acts I have been playing with my family take on a new light I never imagined in even my loveliest of romantic dreams. I feel as though the gods themselves are calling me to accept eternal sainthood.

"I will think on it deeply, my love," I say, my words struggling out between lips caught by the snares of bated breath. "I will only commit once I have assured myself that I can do such a thing with the utmost preparation in my delivery on my promises. I do not wish to let those dreadful moles trip our feet with their misleading rules and cause our disaster. I must insist that Becka and Maddie and even Mother vow the same commitment that we would share with each other lest it fall apart and my reckless behavior leave you more broken than you were when you failed to achieve your dreams at Fission."

"Such sweet concern, Margot. You see, I do believe you feel that love that I feel for you. I will do nothing to hinder it's release. I have already spoken in private to all three that you mention. I only worry about the loose ends which your Miss Brushnique has saddled on our potential affair."

"I will remove her tongue myself if she breathes a word that could diminish the honor and respect you deserve for making this move to secure our family name."

"It is good then," she agrees. "I already named the house to match my great ambition. Kin Rising is the new name on the title of the estate. I wish history to record that the bloodlines of the Sharps were started with authentic heritage."

"Wouldn't life be spectacular if we made this dream a reality? The gods themselves might reveal their true identities to us for accomplishing such a heroic feat in this love-sterile plane of existence."

"And you would be the mother a hundred of my children. An army of cockerelles and posies to ensure our message is shouted throughout time and space."

#10

It was some eccentric, forgotten figure who sewed a log cabin to the bottom right corner of our home's otherwise towering architecture facade. I describe these things from the perspective of a person looking south approaching our residence from the north across the flowery front lawn that none of us planted. Whatever founders cobbled this house together over the centuries, they obviously had a fascination with spires and the color orange on roofs with white exteriors presenting tall, and wide windows. And when I say towering I mean about as broad and flat as a windbreak could be set on a piece of property to advertise its purpose of resisting the flowing gales. Or home is four floors front-and-center with an even grander facade added to the right of its already tall central one. The pair looking like a woody sibling pushing their little posy sister behind as it grew taller and wider than the one who came before her from mommy's womb.

That central part is where I have my residence. Josie commands the fore of the estate on the right with its even steeper orange-metal top. The color up there is scattered with tinges of fluffy-blue, yellow-orange, and creamy-reds as age and rain have their way with eating away the compounds that make up the once singular-hued veneer.

The wings to the left and rear of my proud apartments are taller still, though not as pronounced as Josie's domain. They give the eye the impression of a much smaller house, though as tall in proportions as its two sibling buildings up front. Those two seem better fed than the smallest rectangle-child of the brood that begins its rise on the eastern most side of the front portions of the house. It is the number and height of four great spires that cling to the side and up along the top of its roof line in stair-step fashion which win the contest for elevation. These rounded rooms look to me like the smallest child is using arms to reach upwards to profess her anticipated peak at maturity.

Our happy, white castle-house looks as though it's been painted by an expressionist whose finishing strokes were added upon a heavy drunk. Yet, there in the bottom right corner of this picture is a blot of weathered wood and dull clay that smacks of colonies and roughing it. Well, at least the designer had some fantasy of being there at our nation's founding as the kooky addition was only built only within the last century. Many an aspiring artist has sat on our front lawn over the centuries throwing pastels and oils at their canvases trying to capture the absurdity of it all.

Image by sbelov.

It is here that I find my darkest new secret waiting for me in the west-side shadow of Josie's residential monolith. We huddle in the cozy little cabin like mice who've found a secret heaven abandoned in the woods.

"Would you hazard a request?" I ask her, sitting down where she has put us a tea set blue and white and completely anticipated in its presentation considering the surrounding decorations which color the place quaint.

"What are you talking about?" Tora demands with scrunched-up nose. "You sound silly putting those two words together. Are we in some kind of danger?"

I check the temperature of my forehead with my hand to make certain I'm not speaking in a haze of fever.

"What would you say if I asked you to abandon your heritage and become a part of our dynasty? I could use that pillar in you to help keep this roof above your head and mine. Would you go along with it?"

"Claim kinship with you and abandon my own family line? What a silly thing to ask."

"And why is it silly?" I say.

"Because it screams your ignorance. And it makes me laugh inside. You're asking a bee if it would like to make honey, dear Margot. You're asking a raindrop if it would like to fall from the sky. You're asking a flower if it would like to bloom."

"I don't understand," I say. "Stop with the nonsense."

"It is the very goal of my society to do exactly what you say. Don't you see? We wish to rid ourselves of the old ways and bring in a new age where posies are born to be posies and not slaves in their hearts. You are the first bee to truly love the honey it makes. Do you understand? The making of it, that is. There is no labor in your love except the labor that is love. That we could join hands in a war to free ourselves from our bonds is the very definition of what heaven is to the Guardians of our Happy Deliverer.

"You really do want to do these things," I say, my heart stopping a beat.

"I am yours to torment however you like. But know that my passion will be real. I will defend it. I will do whatever is necessary to make all who see us know that the tension between us is like the fire that lit the first sun in the sky in the first universe that existed. Here is our meaning, don't you see? This is why we live. This is why we exist."

"If my family name is raised up to the heavens, then you can have whatever cruel games you like to make your passion send you soaring a shining light throughout all eternity, or whatever. But do not forget the value I hold in my heart for my sisters and mother. If you sacrifice any of my kin, I will die."

"I promise," she says. "I would take the name Song myself and sing praises to our family line forever if it would make you stay in my orbit."

"Do not tell anyone," I insist with a brutal bite on the skin of her thumb. "I will eat your flesh if you whisper a word of what we do here in this room."

"I would gladly be consumed by you," she answers, "so that I could be forever a part of the future I so desperately wish for."

We kiss like proper ladies, and then I let her take a sample of my flesh willingly to make our new daughter.

"Blood that beats through my heart, keep the Sharps close," I say as the rouge fluid is extracted.

Tora is overjoyed.

"The gods called them adopted and stepsisters. But I think we should use a term more agreeable to our wood and flower ways of seeing love. I would be your clipping then, right?"

"Yes, and plants can be cut to reproduce. I think this idea sounds pleasant. We do read of clippings in our founder's histories."

Tora wraps the vial of blood in a pink cloth and then packs it away in a silver tin made to keep things cool.

"This culture has turned us into lab experiments with deadly consequences should blood ties come too close. Our world, the one I see in our future, would return some of the good that once hung in the air of our ancestors' talk of love and family before science and strict gods turned our love into grotesque and alien ideas."

"I see the truth in your love for me," I say. "And I can see myself return that love to you. But will the dull-minded cockerelles who wish to rule with brute strength see it your way?"