I Was a Teenaged Metahuman Ch. 04

"What was I gonna tell her?" Felice justified, "You know what it's like... with him. I love her. I couldn't be the one to say she couldn't have that."

"That's kinda sweet," Lydia realized aloud. "Uh..." she realized further implications of what Felice had said that didn't seem so sweet.

Felice saw her face. "Not at the same time!" she hissed, half amused and half outraged. "I have never even had a three-way. Okay?"

"I believe you. So... Where are you at with this? Because I don't have a lot of friends and this is a weird town, and you and I, we sort of..."

"We have a lot in common," grinned Felice.

"Exactly." Lydia felt something open between them, a new dimension of relationships. They were eskimo sisters, and it was kind of exciting!

They hugged, just a quick one-armed squeeze of their shoulders. Laughing, Felice told her, "Don't let him catch us doing that or he'll get ideas."

"True. But he's a guy. He already has ideas."

"Yeah." Felice rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "Oh, and since we're friends? I kinda lied. Mom and I did get carried away once. We did not do anything with each other. But I just wanted to be straight with you, ya know? Technically, it was a threesome. At least for him."

Lydia would think about all that later, when she was alone and had a vibrator handy. She rushed to say, "That's something I want to talk to you about. What are we going to do when Daddy orders us to... do stuff... to each other?"

Felice's mouth dropped open. "Did you just call him 'Daddy'?"

She felt blood rise in her cheeks. Had she misread this?

Felice asked, "What's going on with you two?"

Lydia didn't want to tell her, but that just made her want to tell her. She leaned in to whisper this directly in Felice's ear, "He's my Daddy. I do what he tells me to do, go where he tells me to go, wear what he tells me to wear, fuck when, where, how and whom he tells me to fuck." Arousal coursed through her body.

Felice's eyes widened. "That's... So wait. Are you telling me that if he tells you to fuck me, you'll..."

Lydia felt a sparkling feeling inside as she replied, "I'll do what Daddy tells me to do."

Felice reared back with an amazed expression and looked Lydia up and down. "Do you want me to tell you I'll say no to that, so you won't have to do anything with me?"

Lydia twisted her fingers around each other and explained, "You make it sound like I don't think you're attractive, but it's just that... I don't know if I'm ready to be with a woman."

Felice thought about that for a moment, then with a gleam in her eye announced, "I can't promise you I won't. Truly. You know how hard it is to say no to him. But I will try my best, and I will always take 'no' for an answer."

"Actually... it's 'rutabaga'. You can ignore the 'no's..." Lydia blushed. She couldn't not picture it. Shaking off the images for a second, she said, "Right. That's why we've got to present a unified front."

They shook on it, then talked for the rest of the period. They got together again at lunch and talked some more, and continued to text that evening. They had much more in common with each other than Max did, not the least of which was their recent arrival into town and their mutual need of a friend.

*

Reared

Max looked up from the counter. "Welcome to Slash Ma—"

"Hello, my boy," said his mother with despicable kindness.

"What are you doing here?"

"Maggie Atwater called me and said she saw your car here."

She looked the same. She'd never change. Same brown hair to her shoulders. Same bulky form under peasant skirts and lace-trimmed blouses. And she had that same disapproving twist to her mouth.

The level of animosity he felt for her was shockingly intense. It was practically a physical thing. He took a deep breath and tried to think of what his Sensei would have him do.

In a low, intense voice, his mother said, "It's time for this foolishness to stop. It's time for you to come home."

Fear gave way to anger. He shot back, "I'm not going to do that. Even if you make me go there, you can't make me stay."

"You will do as you're told!" she suddenly shrieked, and he flinched despite himself. More quietly, she added, "It's for your own good."

"I'm eighteen. I actually have rights, and you can't imprison me against my will!"

"I'm not imprisoning you, I'm protecting you!"

"From what, huh? All I ever did was work and do what I was told! It was a prison."

Tears flowed now as she pleaded, "Why won't you come home? You need your mama!"

"Because I'm tired of being a hostage to your religion, Mother."

She reddened. "No! No! Don't you dare!" He flinched when she pointed at him. "Take it back!"

"I'm sorry, I take it back. I guess that was a little too much to tell you at this point."

"It is ours, do you hear? Our faith! It is the very bedrock on which we live, you hear? Without it, you will be lost to sin and sorrow. Your immortal soul will be forfeit! Maximus Leonidas Garland, don't you ever turn your back on the Lord!"

He matched her anger, but his voice was as loud as a bomb. "I never turned my front to Him! I was dragged up the aisle at age five and slam-dunked in the baptismal pool!" Gosh, it felt good to say that!

"You've ruined everything! You've dropped out of home, church and school! This is why you need me, don't you see? I was gone for just a few days and you threw your life away!"

"In not going to school because if I do, you'd mess with me. Don't deny it. You've got all these resources and all these people who follow your orders, and I'm just a homeless eighteen year old. I can't fight you toe to toe. I have to sneak."

"You must go to school!"

"I'd love to. But you would pull something. Wouldn't you? You'd mess with my ride, anything to hobble me. Admit it."

"Max, I am trying to help you!" The door behind her jingled and she whirled to snarl, "Go away!" The would-be customer fled.

"Now you're on camera, harassing our customers. I'm going to kick you out, but first, there's something I need to tell you."

Years of howling, wounded fury lent his voice a growl that was positively feral. "You disapprove of me? When I have done. Everything. You've demanded of me."

"Of course you—"

"Everything!!" he shouted, so loud she flinched. The word shook the whole store.

For a precious moment, she was speechless. Something in his throat felt different, swollen maybe, but as he thought about it, the feeling went away. In a much quieter voice he told her, "I'm eighteen years old. I don't have to live with you or obey your orders, and I sure as hell don't want to."

His curse word was the first she'd ever heard from his lips, and it made her rear back in horror. "Watch your mouth, young man!"

He slammed his hand down on the counter. "Shut up! I don't ever want to go back to my old life, do you hear? I didn't make a single decision in that one. I was cargo. I was nothing but a tchotchke you kept on your shelf. You were living my life for me, and I will never forgive you for taking that away from me."

Her eyes were red with tears. "I was doing what was best for you. You have to understand... Just come home, Sweetheart. I love you! You're my everything!"

Max felt that like a kick to the gut. She really did have nothing, now. Despite himself, he was speechless for a moment. His anger had stalled.

Thinking of Rhonda got it going again. In a voice pulled from his darkest depths, he hissed, "Get out." He felt like the worst, most insensitive person in the world. He simply couldn't stop. The flame of his anger had focused to the blue-hot jet of a blowtorch. "Get out!" he snarled, in a voice that scared him. "Go!"

She raised baleful, red-rimmed eyes to him, and gathered herself for a mighty reply. Before she could speak, however, the customers who'd all this time been coincidentally standing out of sight took this as their cue to emerge.

Her kind was sensitive to scandal. With witnesses, this conversation couldn't continue.

His skin crawled at the sound of her voice as she said, "This isn't over, Son. This will never be over."

* * *

Variant Factoid #1 - Variant Nomenclature

Variant is the official, politically correct term for people with unusual abilities or physical forms. Metahuman was the previous term and is still in common use. Indeed, it's preferred by many because it contains the word 'human', but many Variants object to it on the grounds that the meta part suggests they're not quite there. Despite the official preference, slang terms for Variants abound.

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I keep seeing articles titles like "Two variants have merged into heavily mutated coronavirus" and I think, "Why didn't I just stick with Metahuman?" I just haaaad to have a unique term. Also, again, I'm no condemning religion at all. Miranda Garland is not representative of most God enthusiasts. She's got ISSUES.

I'm so glad to be able to get this story to you after all this time! I had to put everything down for a while so I could come back to it fresh. What I had was good, but you, beloved and attractive readers, deserve my very best. Upgrades were made, changes made, and I made the difficult decision to cut the scene with the porcupine orgy. If you enjoyed the story, let me know in the comments.