Humanity 2.0, Year 002, Day 291

Bethany and I rocked back and forth on the recliner chair she had laid out on her back deck. She was nestled against my chest, curled up so that her legs were resting on my thighs, making almost a low purring noise to herself as one hand rubbed my chest. As welcome as the sensation always was, my attention was wandering to the sight of the sunrise through the trees.

The back deck of her house always had a magnificent view in the fall; the great forest she lived at the edge of, the colors of the falling leaves, the mist on its floor and the songs of the waking birds all coming together to greet the sunrise... I have never since lived in a finer place.

I stroked Bethany's hair with my free hand -- she was so goddamn cute now, and her reaction to it only made her cuter. We had discovered something shocking when she finally recovered from her bedridden state -- the retrovirus didn't just stop the aging process of a normal human, it was actually reversed in her case. Bethany went to sleep at forty-one years old and woke up at just about twenty. She looked younger than any of us now, and she'd lost a few inches of height and gained even better looks -- not to mention a sexier, more energetic and sensitive body, and a generously increased pair of boobs.

For weeks afterward she had been an absolute mess; she would scream things at me randomly, cried herself to sleep, woke up in a rage and threw things at me, fucked me senseless then slapped me so hard my ears rang... I couldn't blame her, to be honest. I never hid from any of it, and let her take out all of her rage on me every time. Trying to dodge it, or blame some now-vanished space alien, would have done neither of us any favors.

I felt horrible about her reaction, even as I tried to explain to her that she had what billions would kill for -- the next best thing to immortality. I had already stolen so much from her; her career, for one thing. When I came back and literally stole her life and identity -- well, destroyed really, I didn't take anything for myself -- and made her externally so young that she couldn't hope to pass as her old self, it drove her pretty much insane for a while.

She avoided mirrors for years afterward, saying that looking at a stranger in the mirror creeped her out like nothing else. At the same time, I was trying to maintain my new relationship with Nina on top of caring for the ongoing catastrophe that was Bethany; the balancing act seemed impossible.

I suppose, in hindsight, that I should have seen through Nina's impossibly pleasant demeanor and tolerance given my erratic disappearances and the odd injuries I came back with. You see, well, it's not a big secret that Nina is smarter than I am; I knew that then and now. What's more, she's wiser, and a better judge of character - so it made zero sense to think she wouldn't be curious about my strange behavior, yet she seemed almost angelic in her patience.

What confused me even more at the time was the fact that she seemed completely unaffected by the retrovirus; she showed no symptoms like Bethany or Emily did, and I began to think she was just immune somehow. In fact, as she told me later, she knew by the fifth day something had changed very profoundly in her body, and she knew that it coincided to just about when she met me. She thought she was pregnant at first, and just sat on the knowledge for a while... until things started to get really weird for her.

It was my own dumb-ass fault that I left the flash drive with 15226's research notes plugged into my computer after a night with her that ended at my place. I didn't even encrypt the files or anything. Smart as she was, she was able to understand more of it in a week than I had in two months, and by the time three weeks had passed after I'd first made love to her, she realized that it wasn't so much that I was some kind of evil mastermind or B-movie space monster - that I was just a confused, horny young man with no idea what he was doing.

When I finally found out she was onto me, she already knew about Bethany, 15226, the Vault, the hominus race and my own retrovirus... everything. I remember the confrontation. She wasn't mad, she wasn't disgusted, she just calmly laid out everything she knew to me, then said that if I didn't fill in the blanks to her satisfaction, that she would walk away and I would never see her again.

It worked. Losing her then would be like losing my own arm; she was already someone I cherished more than life itself. I told her about my semi-abduction, the yacht trip, what 15226 told me about the human race's future, the memories 15226 imbued me with -- that raised an eyebrow -- and I even told her about Emily. I've never kept a secret from her since, probably one the first good decisions I made.

Nina told me to leave afterward so she could think, and I was in despair. I thought she would react like Emily, and began to wonder if every girl would do the same. To my surprise, when I went to Bethany's place the next morning, there she was -- leaning against her car parked on the shoulder, waiting for me to walk her in and introduce her to another of her own kind.

The two hit it off pretty quickly. Bethany's emotional roller coaster seemed to take a break whenever Nina was around; after only a few more days of the two spending almost every waking hour together, Bethany seemed to be herself again. We did things together; nights out at restaurants, movies, walks, long conversations over drinks. Having another female around had some kind of powerful, stabilizing psychological effect on her, like that of a family or an animal pack - even now we don't completely understand it.

Some niggling little voice in me kept hoping for the forbidden fantasy -- but it still was a surprise... there was one day I came home, maybe two months after I'd introduced the two of them to one another. It was already after dark when I walked in, then spent a good half-hour preparing the three of us a fine teriyaki chicken dinner with chow mein and a ginger salad, and put my hand on the doorknob to the back deck to call the girls inside for our meal.

I glanced through the window and saw something that made my cock practically blow my pants in half -- the two of them, topless in Bethany's hot tub, making out. Nina was the instigator -- of course -- and was crowding the smaller brunette Bethany into one corner, those wonderful French-vanilla breasts pressing into Bethany's cappuccino-colored melons.

I just watched them for probably only a few minutes. Pre-come was staining a big spot on the front of my slacks, a dark and glistening region of pure desire. Nina noticed me out of the corner of her eye, and beckoned for me to come outside and join them; she was totally casual, like I hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary, but Bethany was terrified - yet far too excited to stop or resist.

Nina had come to terms with her newly induced bisexuality faster than Bethany, even though it was Dr. Lazar who ostensibly had some past experience with other girls. The two of them both knew about that part of being a hominus female by then, even if they both at first denied there being any truth to it - a few weeks later, after half a bottle of wine and a little truth-or-dare in the hot tub, repressed passions manifested and that intimate girls' night became a lesbian make-out session.

They both had hopped out, and we all sat down for dinner. The girls stayed topless, wearing only their bikini bottoms, but they wouldn't let me strip as we ate dinner -- which they did with agonizing slowness as I watched them play little foot games underneath the glass table. More wine was poured after dinner, and we all ended up in the hot tub... and finally, both girls were gloriously nude.

Nina suggested I keep my hard cock underwater for a while, to keep the pheromones from driving them too nuts -- she wanted to take the opportunity to really explore Bethany, and invited me to watch. When I couldn't take any more, she said to go ahead and just pick one and fuck her as hard as I could.

What a night that was. Bethany, her ass mounted on the edge of the tub, legs spread wide with Nina's blonde head nuzzled up against her pussy... over the rumbling jets I could hear the lapping and smacking sounds of a clit being well-treated, and Bethany's short yelps of pleasure. The young doctor's feet flailed up in the air and she braced her hands on Nina's head as she came. As much as I wanted to use Nina's pussy, I resisted; I wanted to see them both experience each other for the first time.

After another few minutes, they were on either side of me, playing with my cock under the water, making out with one another on my lap; then, after some furtive whispers, they told me to follow them inside. Neither could keep their eyes much off of my stiff cock as we toweled off, and when they did manage it, they were both staring at each other's bodies.

I sat on a nearby chair as I watched them fall together onto Bethany's bed, their bodies twisting and writhing together until they fell to their sides, and one body turned around then each's lips met the other's pussy at once. The tentative exploration became tight and intimate quickly, tits pressing hard against bellies and tongues playing with clits before long as each raced to give the other total satisfaction.

I had gone beyond my ability to wait right around then, and came up behind Bethany, who was on top at the time. With Nina's loving assistance, my girth impaled Bethany inch by inch, filling her tight pussy to the limit. She groaned into Nina's thighs and I saw her nails digging into Nina's skin as I penetrated her once again -- as I had done almost every day since she woke up from her transformation.

I was too hot after the sight I'd witnessed of these two beauties discovering each other... and I felt my inevitable eruption commence, already beyond control. My come flooded her pussy in less than a minute, and it took Nina's gentle assistance after I withdrew to coax her to a long, slow, moaning orgasm. The two played with each other for a while until I was ready again; that second time, I fucked Nina from behind as she was on all fours with Bethany underneath her, face to face.

Bethany said she wanted to watch another girl's face as she came... and she got to. Nina's eyes were closed and Bethany was kissing her face and neck when she came, while the brunette toyed with the blonde's pussy. I was really glad they had such great sexual chemistry; I'd long since decided I loved them both, and if they could make each other happy too, then the last thing I would feel is jealousy.

That first hair-trigger orgasm had held me off for a time, and while Nina recovered, Bethany switched to giving me a sensuous blowjob. Nina joined her after a few minutes, and we finished the night with a bang as ropes of my come squirted onto both's faces and breasts. I could hardly believe how sexy these two girls were when they began to lick it off of each other, then kiss deeply. We fell asleep in a tangle of limbs.

Hardly three months later, I moved in with Bethany, and it was another four months before Nina finally gave in and moved in with us as well - though she'd been spending more nights a week than not in bed with us even before then. It was just a natural decision; it wasn't even a week of sharing one another before we all seemed to just agree it was inevitable, and, if anything, weirder for us to be apart.

It was some legal hijinks for Bethany to basically fake her own identity and pass herself off as the suddenly-extant "Beth Lazar", formerly estranged daughter of Bethany Lazar -- but now that I was getting used to being a multimillionaire, we found that certain things went a lot easier when you were richer than hell. A well-paid lawyer can do some pretty spectacular things in his native environment once the proper motivation was supplied.

The subject of Emily had, of course, come up. The girls wanted to know about the 'others' of their kind; it was odd at the time, it seemed like they already thought of them as their kin even though they hadn't met. Well, Bethany had met Emily, but it was a pretty negative interaction from what she'd described. I didn't hide with happened with Nadine, and they even helped me look for her... but it was no good. All we knew was that she had left town ten days after her night with me.

Three weeks after that, someone with the same name -- Nadine O'Bryan -- had booked a flight to Istanbul. After that, even my fortune was no use; the trail ended. Her mother was distraught, but fortunately, didn't seem to associate me with the disappearance at all; apparently Nadine tended to have flings with young men fairly often, and she hadn't vanished until more than a week after I'd left town.

I might not have been able to say a word to Emily, or even have her pick up the phone, but the girls could. Bethany still had her cell number from their little run-in while I was on the yacht, and not long after she woke up, she called my sister and they talked for a while.

Pretty soon all three of them caught up on the phone regularly, and compared notes about their experiences. They always seemed reluctant to share anything about what was discussed with me; I got the impression that Emily specifically told them not to tell me anything about her other than that she was well.

After about half a year, Nina took a week-long vacation up to New York and apparently the two met up and they had a great time, then Bethany went up, and after that -- much to my dismay -- the three of them went for a two-week cruise in the Caribbean while I was left at home. It's a miracle that the First Four didn't become the First Five or the First Ten over that span of time; I told myself it was a good opportunity for an exercise in self-control, but really, I spent those two weeks re-familiarizing myself with the whole concept of online porn.

Oh right -- we were on the back deck of Bethany's place, more than a year after all that. I was in only my boxers, and Bethany was in one of my discarded shirts from a few days ago -- it had been large enough to function as a nightshirt for her. The evening before, while not quite a repeat performance of the events described just previous, was a more than satisfying night. We were all insatiable young hominus, horny kids basically, and it wasn't unusual for us to each fuck one another two or three times a day. Any combination worked.

I didn't trust myself to find any more girls at that point, and my appetite was satisfied with Bethany and Nina then - so I hadn't gone out and made any more women into hominus. The girls agreed that there was no rush, and they were fine with not adding any more to our little family for a while; by then they understood that they could control their own fertility naturally, and we'd agreed not to make any babies quite yet either. It would be nearly another eight years before I trusted myself to step out and 'recruit' Hannah and Melody.

None of the three of us packed a whole lot for the trip we were leaving for that morning -- long though it was to be. Nina had produced a small green-and-white striped roller bag the night before, and Bethany had some old leather duffel-looking thing she crammed a few outfits in and tossed in the back of the car.

I myself only kept a backpack; in the few times I'd been back to the yacht since 15226 gave it to me, I had stocked it with a whole wardrobe. Nina had brought some of her own sexy beach outfits to wear when we'd been sailing together a few months ago, and only needed to pack a few warmer outfits for our destination.

Half of what I'd stocked the boat with would be too small by now, though. By right around then, I had passed six feet high. Ah, sorry, that's about two meters. Sasha put us all on the metric system when we were holed up in the Vault, but when I'm not working or doing math, I find myself slipping into old habits.

I'd put on about fifteen kilograms as well, and my exercise routine had become so intense that I occasionally had people scouting me for college football and the like. I had to keep them all at arm's length, of course -- one medical exam and I would shock them all -- but it was a good feeling all the same, confirmation that my physique was obviously impressive to anyone at the time.

The trip had been Bethany's idea, actually. She occasionally went back and studied the overview of 15226's notes I'd brought from the Vault, and complained from time to time that she really wished she could see more detailed files that they summarized. We'd been meaning to go for a long time, but something else always came up, and we wanted to make it a thing we all did together. Today, finally, we would pack up and hit the road, and hopefully be at the island inside a month.

No planes went out that way, and it wasn't like we had real jobs to rush back to; I had long since begun paying all our expenses out of 15226's fortune. Nina only stayed in school just for her own enrichment, and every day Bethany was cramming her head full of medical and biological research -- cutting-edge stuff she hadn't gotten much exposure to working in the emergency room -- and me, well, I basically slacked off a lot. Essentially, we all did what we were best at.

Nina was in class that morning, and we weren't planning to leave until she got home. I lounged with Bethany on my lap for nearly an hour before she finally seemed to awaken from her extended nap and sit up, mumbling something about being hungry and looking at me expectantly. Ever since I'd fed her the whole time she was sick with the retrovirus, she seemed to think that I was her personal chef. I sighed, and left her on the back deck as I went in to make us something.

I lost myself in cooking as Bethany studied her notes, scribbling down all kinds of stuff she intended to look up on the Vault's supercomputer. I'd thought the two-gigabyte file of the notes would be comprehensive, but Bethany told me that it was woefully inadequate. We knew that 15226 had been surprisingly utilitarian in the way she thought -- instead of writing new genetic code all the time, she basically cribbed solutions from Earth creatures that already solved the problems she was looking at.

Lobsters, for instance, were where she got the inspiration for how to bypass the aging process; from dinosaur DNA she imported the biological polymers that naturally toughen our bones and ligaments, our musculature was a mishmash of the best from cheetahs, bears, and dolphins, she cribbed our improved vision from the mantis shrimp's eye... on down the line like that, cherry-picking the best the whole of Earth had to offer genetically speaking. Even beyond what we knew, there were tantalizing hints that she had included other elements that went beyond simple enhancements to normal human capacities.

We were just sitting down as Nina returned, and she joined us after giving the both of us a kiss. We wolfed down the pancakes and scrambled eggs I'd made, then we stashed food in sealed bags and coolers which we planned to take with us on the yacht. I excused myself to get changed and grab a few last things, then returned with a pack slung over my shoulder and wearing linen summer clothes.

It was still a little cool outside for that, but temperature didn't bother me the way it used to before, and I knew we were heading to where it was warmer anyway. Bethany was ready to go, and Nina was already out at the car waiting for me. We all got into Nina's little black Mercedes that I could barely fit inside anymore, and the two girls took the front seats. Nina still remembered the way from the last time.

The girls talked to each other for a time, but I had zoned out and was watching the scenery pass. We had just crossed the city limits of San Diego when, after a little bit of silence, Nina looked in the rear view mirror at me.