Chapter 2

Daymon Strand

25 Argentis 1947, 03:11 local

Daymon woke first and seemed to be confused briefly. His confusion ended abruptly when Sally moved a bit, then snuggled in more tightly to him. His eyes had opened at the movement, then closed in, apparently, happiness, if the small smile on his lips was any indication. He turned to his left and re-opened his eyes. Then, he produced another small smile when he saw the top of Miranda’s head on his shoulder. His mind quickly relived his yesterday from when he first saw the girl on his left shoulder. A stealthy visitor in his room may have noticed the even softer smile that sight caused.

He spent the next five or so metric minutes reveling in the sudden change in his life, in the greatly altered relationship with his mother, and the addition of a gorgeous naked girl into his life. He pondered that he was so taken by a girl whose name he did not know. He thought back to a few, recent masturbation bouts, bouts encouraged by his ever-burgeoning desire for sex, in which he had managed to cum three times. None of those, though, held anything like a candle to his experience yesterday.

In his mind, he said, “Flake! Sex is so much more wonderful with girls than by myself.” However, that exclamation led him deeper into the topic, resulting in, “But, what did they get out of it?”

He thought hard about that question but could dredge no memory from more than a few minutes after returning from the bathroom after his third orgasm of the day.

“Whatever, but I need to ... learn how to make them feel so...” After further thought, he asked, “Is this that girl’s aim? To get me to think? I know Mom wants me to think carefully about ... stuff, but I’m just a boy. How does what I think really matter?”

Daymon’s cogitations broke off as the gorgeous naked girl, with her very mussed hair forming a disarrayed halo around her face, looked at him.

“Good morning, Daymon. I felt you thinking. While I have no clue about the subjects of your thoughts, I’ll tell you that thinking is a very good thing to do, particularly leisure thinking, such as you might conduct at times like this.”

“Thanks, and ... thanks for ... yesterday. Do you ... have to ... leave today?”

She gave him a small smile, one much smaller than the one she felt inside, as she said, “Daymon, I’m Miranda. It’s been very nice meeting you.”

He returned her smile, replying, “Thank you for your name. Mom has always told me not to divulge names I’m not sure are known to others. Are you such a person?”

“Yes. Please don’t mention it outside this room.”

“After what you did for me, yesterday, I’ve no problem with that. But ... but...”

“Why? Is that your question?” When he nodded, she asked, “Can you keep secrets? That is, can you keep many secrets, one of which is my name?”

“After yesterday, I’ll do whatever you tell me to do.”

More emphatically than she meant, Miranda replied, “No! You shouldn’t do my bidding because I had sex with you!” When he recoiled slightly, she thought back, slightly shook her head, then apologized, “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to be that sharp with you. I don’t want you to be ... a slave to me, I want you to assess the world you encounter as you encounter it and think about all aspects of it. And while I will ask you to ... delay trying to figure out my ... reasons for being here or what my agenda is, I ask you to question anyone’s words, everyone’s words; analyze them, preferably in a logical fashion; and determine how they fit your world as you know it. Realize, though, that no single person can accurately ... or even truly ... assess every facet of every facet of every facet. Everyone has ... prejudices, preferences, and most ... virtually all ... are subject to those, even slaves to them. While I would prefer you put off, for now, analyzing my presence in your world, I will not tell you to ignore it, and I will not ask you to put that analysis off for long.

“Daymon, you may suspect something about me, and I’ll tell you that you’re right to suspect. I will show or tell you at least some of my purpose for being here, but, please, hold off on asking questions about my purpose. I won’t answer ... until such time I believe it’s right to do so.”

Daymon looked into the girl’s eyes and thought, “She’s not just a girl. She’s a particular girl and, to me, she’s a special girl.” A modicum of bravery arrived with that thought, so he asked out loud, “May I ask questions?”

She shrugged and answered, “You may always ask, but there are many questions I cannot or may not answer.”

He gave a short nod in acceptance, then queried, “Mom?”

Miranda closed her eyes in ... a bit of pain, but quickly arrived at a reasonable solution ... another question ... another two questions, “Is that important to you and did you like it?”

“Yes and yes.”

From his other side drifted, “I enjoyed what we shared very much. I’m afraid to ask this, but is that something you don’t want to happen again?”

“Will I get in trouble?”

A twitch on his right side caused him to look in that direction to see Miranda looking intently at him, but she said nothing as Sally answered, “No. While ... somewhat frowned on, that’s not illegal unless a child results.”

A frown crawled onto his face, and he responded, “But that wouldn’t have been possible with...”

“With what I did? No. I taught you the rules and laws about sex, but you may not remember the limitations on sex with close relatives. I hope you remember why those laws are in place.”

He frowned, then responded, “Children of close relatives are frequently genetically impaired but for ... different reasons than what causes boys to be rare.”

“Yes. Do you recall why that’s important?”

“You said that boys ... males account for only 10% or so of all live births, but that a bit more than half of those don’t survive long. I remember you telling me why that was, but I didn’t truly understand it and ... was afraid to ask for clarification.”

“I don’t fully understand the mechanism behind the unequal birth rates, but, in a general sense, there is a fatal flaw on or related to the Y chromosome. Our science has not advanced sufficiently to ... Miranda, what is that term used about the various parts of the chromosome?”

“What many are trying to solve is how to ... essentially ... map chromosomes, particularly the Y, to know which gene is where, and how many ... variations of individual genes there are – called alleles, what they are, what effects they have in people, and whether those alleles are dominant or recessive. Do you remember that the Y comes only from the father?”

He nodded, but said, “I remember ... at least some of that. But wouldn’t a father – who is obviously alive – have to pass on the non-deadly gene?”

Miranda smiled at Daymon and replied, “Very good. Yes, the father has only one version of the Y, so, by producing a pregnancy, the father proves he’s alive – obviously a ‘duh’ thing, but, then, at least 90% of them die in the womb and another 5% are born sickly and virtually all those die within a year of birth.”

She seemed about to say more but closed her mouth on whatever addition she thought to make.

“But if the father can pass only the good gene, how is it that so many die? There must be some other ... factor.”

Miranda gave him another smile, but an even brighter one, and responded, “There must, but we haven’t found it, yet. We’ve ruled out everything ... external that we can imagine, such as toxins, poisons, and parasites. We need ... a ... new science. A lot of people have been working hard on this for a decade, but we’ve discovered nothing substantive about male infant mortality, although we’ve learned quite a few other, but unrelated, important things due to the effort to solve this problem. Daymon, I can tell you that we want and need that solution.”

Daymon furrowed his brow at how she chopped off the last sentence, like she wanted to add something, but didn’t.

“Thank you. May I ... change the subject?”

“You don’t need to ask. Had I had more to say, I’d have done so.”

“Are we going to do ... more ... umm ... sex?”

Miranda grinned, then asked, “I guess you enjoyed that. Right?”

“Umm ... may I speak ... frankly?”

Miranda replied, “Daymon, it’s going to be critical for ... a while that we always speak frankly, and we should always speak frankly about sex.”

“Oh. Good.” The boy gathered himself, smiled, and then said, “I’ve never felt anything even close to that good before!”

“Since we’re on the subject, do you want to learn how to make us feel that good?”

“YES!” After a very short pause, Daymon added, “Please.”

“I need to pee, and we might want to eat before ... sex class starts.”

“Class? Is this ... something like ... official?”

Sally held a hand up to Miranda and answered, “While sex is fun and learning can be fun, to do well at sex requires learning new things, and learning about sex can be very fun, however, it does require paying attention and focus. Daymon, you’ve always been attentive in classes, and I’ve greatly appreciated that. You’ll also need to be attentive while learning about sex. I hope you remember at least most of what I already taught you about sex, as that will enable us to skip some stuff today.”

Miranda studied Daymon while his mother was talking, waited a beat or two after she stopped, then asked, “Daymon, when did you realize that your mother was involved in the sex last night?”

“Umm, was she there for ... all three?”

Miranda prompted, “Three?”

“Oh. Sorry. All three ... orgasms.”

“She was present the entire time, although I did try to keep you unaware of that.”

“Oh. Umm, good, I guess. I ... She was there for the second one, but I didn’t notice her arriving, so Mom being always present makes more sense.”

The three traded places in the bathroom, prepared and shared a common breakfast, and then returned to Daymon’s bedroom.

“Daymon, I’m going to use your mom’s vagina either to teach you about the morphology or to refresh your understanding. I’m glad she’s here, as this is much more difficult using my own as the model. Will being quite intimate with your mother’s genitalia be a problem for you?”

“I ... don’t think so, although it’ll be ... a bit weird.”

Both women chuckled and Miranda smiled at Daymon and stated, “Yes, but probably more than just ‘a bit’ weird. I know we have no solid numbers on how many boys have been intimate with their mothers, but it may be low, given the highly skewed sex ratio. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s quite high, and that could be its own problem.”

“How would that be a problem?”

“Our society depends on a very small number of males to keep it going, maintain an upward trajectory of population. That means that a very small percentage of the population produces the next generation, which can make for an inbred population, a negative feature that could and probably would crash our society.”

She studied Daymon closely for a while, gave a mini-shrug, and then told him, “The Council generally does not inform children, particularly boys, of this problem we, the people in general, have been trying to solve for a century. I believe you can handle this knowledge now. Many years ago, The Council changed a policy and began suppressing the knowledge from males under 25 years old. Very few are told this any earlier, as, in the past, some of those males refused to do what was requested of them. That threatened to cause a reduction in children, and our society simply cannot survive a declining population, as we’re so close to the edge as it is.

“The Council knows the genetic makeup of every person on the planet. You know about the problem caused by consanguinity, of reproduction between close relatives. Your mother and I know that you’re very smart. From the data I’ve highlighted, can you discern what we, the people on this planet, need from young men, need from you? Please think about it and give me your best guess.”

After nearly a metric minute of thinking, Daymon hesitantly said, “Since The Council has proscribed children of closely related ... couples and because it also knows everyone’s genetic makeup, then The Council needs ... men to ... procreate with only ... certain women, women to whom they’re not related or only distantly related.”

Miranda smiled at the young man and his mother patted his back as Miranda continued, “Excellent. Now, what’s the next step, the one that relates directly to you?”

It took Daymon only ten or 15 metric seconds, but his eyes suddenly widened.

When he said nothing, Miranda said, “From your reaction, I suspect you understand. Unfortunately, I need to know you understand. What is that next step?”

He breathed deeply and shook his head, although not in a negating fashion, then said, “I would ... guess that ... The Council has a ... list for me.”

Miranda looked softly at Daymon, showing him, perhaps, the most sincere mien she had allowed on her face since he had first seen her just inside the front door the day before.