Jim's harem reconvenes for a baby shower and Jim is again tempted to return.
Mia paused outside the familiar door labeled Penthouse B. It was so strange to be back here, where so much had happened five months ago. Aihan sure had a sense of humor, using the scene of those "baby shower" parties for Jim for her actual baby shower.
That she could even consider hosting it here showed how far they had all come from the panicked confusion of the aftermath of Jim's visit, when nearly all of them had gotten their periods and nearly every pregnancy test was negative. It had been such a shock. They had all felt so certain they were pregnant, then suddenly that was ripped out from under them. At first, Leizu had told them it was implantation failure, and that still about a quarter of them should end up pregnant. But it was soon clear it would be far fewer than that. It wasn't twenty-five percent. It wasn't even two percent. Only seventeen. Out of over a thousand.
Strangely, nearly all the ones who got pregnant were women who had decided to seek a sperm donor before they ever met Jim. Most were lesbians already in long-term relationships, like Xueqin, Meifen, and Chao-Xing. Aihan was one of the few non-lesbians to get pregnant. She was married, and she and her husband had long known he was infertile. It was as if this miracle, or whatever it was, didn't want to happen as cuckoldry. The one possible exception Mia knew of was Song, that little sweetheart college runner. She had somehow managed to get engaged two days after she slept with Jim, and she was one of the few who got pregnant. Or maybe she wasn't an exception at all; the baby in her belly could just as easily be her new husband's.
Amid all the anguish, confusion, and chaos of the month after Jim left, they had bonded even more, becoming like a support group for each other. Or like a few dozen partly overlapping support groups. Mia had ended up mostly with this group of about 30 women who lived nearby and had met Jim and each other on the first two days of his visit. Their bond was the one remaining certainty that came from the whole crazy experience, and it was beautiful. They were like family. The closeness they had felt immediately when they met five months ago had only grown stronger, now that they actually knew each other. They all took care of each other and helped each other process, accept, and move on from the inexplicable experience that had brought them together. The rich among them wouldn't let them give back those trust funds. They had been adamant about that. They would still apply to each woman's next-born children, whenever those came.
The more mystical-minded among them, like Citra, Jiao, and Tung-Mei, had held out the longest, insisting that it was just a test of faith and that they really all would bear Jim's children. But then they too had finally seemed to give in when they got their periods the second time.
And by that point, there was so much happy news to distract them all. Everyone was falling in love. Finding such amazing perfect matches. There were so many weddings it was impossible to attend them all. Weddings almost every day, and multiple weddings most weekend days, for months straight. Everyone was so happy.
Mia still hadn't told any of them she was pregnant. She was following the standard advice of waiting until three months to announce a pregnancy, which meant she should wait another two weeks. But tonight she knew it might be hard not to spill it, especially given the incredible news from her ultrasound.
Despite how often they all had seen each other the past few months, the continual presence of outsiders at the weddings meant they weren't talking much about what happened. So as she joined the joyful crowd at Aihan's baby shower, she realized it was her first time in months among a big group of them without any outsiders around.
Given this, and the setting, it wasn't long before it came up. There was a lull in the conversation. Dandan looked around at the penthouse and said, "This place. Last time we were here. What the fuck even was that?"
Mia shook her head and joined in the laughter. The same familiar conversation followed. They had gone over it so many times in that first month afterward. It was the same confusion, the same inexplicable puzzle, but now after a few months, the tone was completely different. Bemusement, wonder, not panic or anguish.
"We were so sure. All of us," Wing-Yee was saying. "That's what gets me. What was that for? Why would we all be so sure we were pregnant, and then we're all wrong?"
"Well, we weren't all wrong," Anna said. "Chao-Xing and Meifen both knew they'd have twins, and they were right. So the feeling was real for them anyway. Unless that's a coincidence."
"I still believe it was a miracle," Citra said. "Don't laugh. I'm serious. Maybe it's not exactly the miracle we all thought it was. But it's better. Isn't it? Is there anyone here whose life isn't ten times better now than it was before we met Jim?"
There were a lot of smiles and nods.
"Ok, you have a point," Mia said. "But is everything good that happened the last five months because of what happened with Jim?"
There was a long pause as they all thought about that. Then Lily spoke up. "For me, I think it kind of is. It opened my heart. Made me ready, or made me realize I was ready, to settle down. Thinking I was pregnant was a taste of a kind of happiness I'd never imagined. It changed how I looked at life, and how I looked at men."
A lot of other heads were nodding.
"Me too," Xuesong said. "My husband isn't the kind of guy I would have been interested in before. He's too… good. Too kind. He is a perfect partner. He will be a perfect dad. And that kind of thing just somehow never mattered much to me before Jim. Or it wasn't a priority somehow. But then after Jim, I realized it should have been, all along. And I felt like I could see it more clearly, read men better."
Mia nodded along with everyone. It was true. Her husband was like that too. All of theirs were. They were all so kind, so caring, such great partners, such perfect fathers-to-be. And it had suddenly become so easy to see that in men, to tell which ones were for real.
"Same here," Dongmei said. "I used to be into bad boys. It used to be all about attraction. But for me, what happened with Jim was like the ultimate attraction. It's only downhill from there, you know? I could never feel more lust for anyone, never have better sex than that. Right?" Lots of giggles and emphatic nods. "So after Jim, it's like, been there, done that. Time for something more important. Time for someone who really cares about me, really understands me, and really wants to share his whole life with me even when I get old and ugly."
"And you sure found that," Dandan said, hugging Dongmei from the side.
"Yeah, I did," Dongmei said, squeezing her back. "And you did too. Who would have thought two players like us would grow up and choose love? That's a fucking miracle right there."
More laughter and nodding from the crowd.
"Ok, but I'm still not going to call it a miracle," Mia said. "It helped us grow up, helped us see what would really make us happy. I like that. That makes sense to me. And everyone is happier in their professional lives too, it seems. Look at the success of Susu's and Chun-Hua's new restaurants. Same with Xiaohui and Nuying. And Chenguang's massage institute. And Mei's boutique. And Daiyu's salon. But those aren't miracles either. They earned their success with talent and hard work."
"And some generous investments and some publicity help from our new friends in the media," Xiaohui added, smiling.
"Yes," Mia said. "Exactly. Because we've helped each other. Cooperation, talent, and hard work. No magic or miracles."
"No magic, huh?" Chenguang asked as she stepped behind Mia, smiling, and began to massage her shoulders.
"Oh fuck," Mia said, melting with obvious pleasure. "Ok, shit, I was wrong, you are still fucking magic." There was a chorus of giggles. "But you've always been good at that, right? Is that new?"
"Well, yeah. I was good at a lot of massage techniques, but I never knew which ones to use without touching someone. I had to figure that out by how they responded. Ever since that night with Jim, I can just look at someone and know exactly how to touch them. It does feel like magic. And I can't teach it. None of my students can do it. But Chao-Xing still has it too. She had no massage background at all, but when she came to my massage institute she did it just like me on day one, far better than any of my students."
"Maybe the research center should study that. Or have they?" Soraya asked.
"No, they haven't asked us," Chenguang said.
"Mia, any plans to study them?"
"I don't know. I'm not involved with the center anymore."
"What? Why?"
"For security. After… after what happened with Shihan. After she disappeared, they compartmentalized it. They didn't want anyone knowing the big picture, except Xueqin and one scientist acting as director. She's new, a professor they brought in from Germany. They brought in all new researchers who were each trained on only one small part of it. Then they let everyone else go."
There was a long silence. Shihan's disappearance had been a shock and was still unexplained. Bringing that up instantly put a damper on the mood.
Then Caihong spoke up, asking, "They're still so worried about security, even now? Any idea why? I mean, it's kind of over, isn't it?"
"Yeah. I don't know. Maybe they're worrying about outsiders taking an interest in the few of us who did get pregnant, or in Jim. Xueqin said it was too risky to have anyone involved in the center who knew who all of us were. We anonymized all the data on us so the new researchers just know about each of us as case numbers. That's all I know, really."
In an obvious attempt to lighten the mood, Aihan said, "Ladies, please help yourselves, the champagne is untouched."
Nobody moved for a few seconds, then there were giggles.
"And… why is nobody drinking?" Aihan asked, grinning. "It's my baby shower, and I want you all to spill it if you have news. Who else is expecting?"
"Me!"
"I am!"
"Me too!"
A dozen of them at once. Squealing, giggling, hugging all around. That same old joy was suddenly back in full force. All of them were so happy for each other.
And then when things quieted a little, Yuming added, "It's twins."
More squealing and hugging.
"Me too! I'm having twins too," Lily cried.
"And me," said Caihong, in a quavering voice. The squealing and hugging was now significantly less enthusiastic. There were confused, worried looks on many faces. Three of the women who thought they were pregnant with twins from Jim were now pregnant with twins. After getting multiple periods and multiple negative pregnancy tests.
"I'm having twins too," Mia whispered in the ensuing silence.
"And me too," said Citra, her eyes glowing. She looked around at them all, almost triumphant. "That's five of us. Five who knew we'd have twins. The only thing we had wrong was exactly when, and who the father would be. That's too many for a coincidence. It was a premonition. A vision. A miracle. You can't explain it any other way."
Mia could. Suddenly, she realized she could explain it another way. Stasis pods. This was what stasis meant. To delay implantation. To hide a fertilized egg, or two, away in stasis in the pod, through multiple periods. So that the already-married women could all believe the babies were from their husbands, and so the unmarried women could have time to get married. So they could all be happy and guilt-free. Her head was spinning. Would she tell them? Or just let them be happy? They were so happy right now, not knowing. But they deserved to know, didn't they?
She opened her mouth to speak but was overcome by a rising wave of nausea. She rushed to the bathroom, closed the door behind her, and threw up into the toilet. She cleaned herself up and then just stared at herself in the mirror for a minute, thinking. There was no hurry to tell them. It was just a hunch. Just a really strong hunch that would explain everything. And the only alternative explanation was magic. But still, she needed confirmation. And they were all so happy not knowing. She needed to talk to Xueqin first. And maybe Fei Fei. They had to be ahead of her on this. There was no way they hadn't noticed. The center was monitoring everyone's medical records, so they must already have noticed everyone who originally thought they'd have twins now was having twins.
Actually, someone else would have noticed even before Xueqin. The person in charge of monitoring everyone's ultrasounds. Shihan. Shihan would have found out maybe three or four weeks ago. And Shihan had disappeared three weeks ago. A chill went down her spine. What would Shihan have done if she realized the same thing about the meaning of stasis pods? Probably the same thing Mia had just decided to do: talk to Xueqin first. Before telling anyone. Xueqin. From state security. It was her whole job to be willing to do anything to guard secrets. She was capable of anything. Another chill down her spine. No, Mia decided. She wasn't going to tell Xueqin, or anyone else. At least not yet.
When she rejoined the party, she reassured them she was fine, saying it was just morning sickness.
Yuming turned back to Mei to resume their conversation. "I still think it's over. And we'll probably never understand it. It's not about Jim anymore. We can't assume he's coming back, and we don't need him to. I wouldn't tell you what to do or think, but I just wonder if you'd be happier if you just accepted it's over."
"If it's over, why are we still recruiting?" Mei said.
"What? We're not recruiting. Who's recruiting?" Yuming asked.
"You. Me. All of us. Yuming, come on. Why did you get that girl's number yesterday at the bakery? I would have if you hadn't. She was stunning. And you, Jia, with those two at the pool last week. And you, Susu, that time you left me to run after that jogger, the one with the spectacular ass. All of you. You're always looking at women, scanning every crowd. Every damn time we hang out. You're recruiting. You may not admit it to yourselves. But you're all doing it. And not just looking, getting their contact info. And that's still so easy to do, isn't it? They always say yes if we make eye contact. Be honest, all of you. Raise your hand if you don't have a list of at least ten women you could contact if Jim came back tomorrow."
Not a single hand went up.
Mei laughed. "I rest my case. Oh wait, no I don't. One more piece of evidence to submit, your honor. I give you exhibit A, Kai-Ming's modeling agency website. Have any of you looked at it recently? They've got a whole new focus, a whole new brand identity. Coincidentally, every one of their new models are exactly Jim's type, like times a million. They're amazing. Fucking goddess bodies with huge thigh gaps, impossibly tiny waists, angelic sweetheart faces, and kind soulful eyes. Elevens on the Jim scale, every single one. And there are dozens of them listed under each of their branch offices around the world, probably hundreds total."
"Thousands," Kai-Ming corrected. "We don't list them all on the website. But we're not recruiting them for Jim. We've found that if we do recruit models who fit Jim's ideal type, they all agree to at least do a test shoot and stay in touch with us. It's an amazing edge in our industry. You'd be surprised how hard it is to convince most women to model. Ever since Jim's visit, all we have to do is make eye contact and we can get anyone to agree, as long as we think they're perfect for Jim. During Jim's last two days with us, we made sure he was with at least one model from eighty targeted countries, and now those women are our scouts. It's a huge edge to have an inexhaustible source of new faces. It's all a business strategy. We're not recruiting them for Jim. He's not coming back."
Mei laughed. "Ok, whatever. Believe what you want. But it's not over. You'll see."
"One question, Kai-Ming," Anna said, smiling devilishly. "Since you're just recruiting them to be models and all. Why would a modeling agency pay for dance lessons for all its new models?"
***
They were early for their movie. As they settled into their seats, Catherine turned to whisper to him, "Jim, I'm seven months pregnant. I don't want to have this baby as a fugitive. We need to settle down somehow."
He winced. He had known this was coming. She was right. Time was flying. The baby could come any time now. There was no easy answer though.
"Do you want to just go home?" he asked.
She shook her head. He hadn't expected her to say yes. After what happened with their neighbor. And with her daughter. And with her daughter's seemingly endless supply of sorority friends. And with that optometrist, and her cousin, and her yoga instructor, and her model friend. Oh, and those two random joggers he'd accidentally enthralled while mowing his lawn, just by taking his sunglasses off to wipe sweat from his face. And then the steadily growing stream of runners they brought along on their runs, to try to introduce to Jim. And they hadn't stopped, even after Jim and Catherine had been on the road for four months. Their house was still being watched. They often saw them on their door cam, watching from cars out front or even coming to the porch and looking in the windows.
"No, of course we can't," she said. She sighed. "I just always imagined we'd have support. People around helping. For our first baby."
"What about your parents' house?"
"No. They're now staking out my parents' house too. The sorority girls. Mom told me."
"Your parents could move somewhere with us, couldn't they? Would they?"
"Yeah, I think I could talk them into it. But then what? Jim, we tried our best to keep this from happening at home. The best we could do was less than a month. How is it going to be any different anywhere else? You'll slip up at some point, see someone, and then it will just get crazy. The only thing that has worked is to keep moving, to stay on the road."
"I know. But what else can we do? We just have to be more careful."
"Jim, maybe we need help. Maybe we can't do it alone. We need to be surrounded by a support network of people who truly understand."
He sighed. He knew this was coming too.
"Jim, we can trust them. Haven't they proven that by now? They are the only ones who understand. They haven't come back for you, even after they didn't get pregnant. They're the only ones not stalking us. Jim, they really have changed. They're all in stable, happy marriages now."
She had a point. There had been absolutely no sign of any of the women from his Shanghai trip looking for him, or even wanting to. The fear that they would was what tipped the balance and led them to go into hiding, a month after his Shanghai trip when he found out that almost none of them had gotten pregnant. That news had come right when things were getting crazy anyway with the women he'd accidentally enthralled at home. It was surprisingly easy to disappear, and a lot of fun at first, like a long vacation. Xueqin had trained them well and provided everything they needed.
And along with the thousand pregnancies that mostly hadn't materialized, his sci-fi worst-case scenario fantasies hadn't either. He was relieved to hear that the seventeen women he had gotten pregnant in Shanghai were having completely normal, healthy baby boys and girls. No tentacles. No nodules in the babies' bodies. All of them would be born to families who really wanted him to have been a one-time sperm donor, nothing more. Aihan had even had them sign sperm donor contracts, so he would not have any legal parental rights or responsibilities. The contracts had all been identical, except for Song's, which had an extra clause forbidding him to disclose anything about the sperm donor contract to her husband.
The research center was slowly making progress, and Xueqin was sending him regular reports. They had made two big discoveries. First, the nodules throughout his body were made of modified nerve cells, each slightly larger and denser than regular neurons, together having as much mass as his actual brain. It was like he had two brains. That felt like it explained a lot. The next step, and one that was taking several months, was to develop a custom "contrast," or a chemical they could inject in his blood that would only be absorbed by the modified neurons, so they could map them out everywhere in his body the next time they scanned him.
The second discovery was that all of those modified neurons were infected with the eroflu virus. In fact, the tissue from those nodules had the highest concentration of eroflu virus ever recorded in a human sample. The levels were so high that it made them wonder if the sample had been contaminated after collection, so they sent someone to visit and collect another sample from Jim, which produced the same results. They were now studying the genetics of the virus and the modified neurons, trying to establish whether the virus had caused the modifications. And for that, they needed to add new specialists to the team. The four they sent to meet him had all been gorgeous. And of course, Catherine had not only understood but loved it. She had instantly bonded with them, enthusiastically helped them seduce Jim, and celebrated joyfully with them afterward.
Catherine continued, "Every time I visit the Shanghai bakery I feel it more and more. They're the community I always wanted. And Jim, I just know you'd love their husbands. Especially Yuming's, and Lily's. Oh, and Anna's husband too, he's hilarious. And you have to try Chun-Hua's restaurant. And Susu's. I just know you'd love their food, and they'd treat us like royalty. Jim, every time I'm there I feel it more and more. It's just where we belong. With them, either in Shanghai or on Emma's private island. She has a house there for us. Did you look at those pictures I sent you? It looks so wonderful. There's like a whole private village with no outsiders allowed, separate from the resort area, with its own private beach, private dock, and sailboats. They have everything we'd need there, including a birthing center, a pediatric clinic, and a school."
He was saved from having to respond by the theater lights beginning to dim. He took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes.
And then it happened. As if to prove his wife's point. When he opened his eyes, he saw the gorgeous face of one of the two extremely hot girls he had seen in the lobby. They had been waiting in the long line to buy popcorn, but his gaze hadn't affected them due to his ever-present sunglasses. And now they were in the row in front of them, about to sit. The blond one had happened to glance back at him just as he opened his eyes. She froze and gasped, staring at him, her eyes going wide. Her brunette companion followed her gaze and gasped too.
"Shit," Jim and Catherine both said together.
The two girls kept stealing glances at Jim throughout the movie. Squirming in their seats. Panting. He could smell their lust. And Catherine's, too. It made her so hot to watch them want him. She cuddled up next to him and soon was stroking him through his pants, hidden under a sweatshirt she had draped over his lap.
An hour into the movie they glanced at him again and he knew. They were ready. That feeling, that certainty that they were as fertile as could be. He still felt it, even though he didn't believe it anymore. Catherine felt it too, and it redoubled her own lust. Soon she had fished out his cock and was working it with both hands under the sweatshirt as she nuzzled his neck. The two enraptured strangers stared, no longer even pretending to watch the movie. They only had eyes for what was obviously happening under the rapidly moving sweatshirt, each with a hand in her own pants now too, busily rubbing. He stared back and forth between their gorgeous faces. They were getting close along with him. His wife's hand sped up. He was nearing the brink. The two hot strangers were both there too, waiting, holding themselves on the edge of orgasm. He gasped out his peak, spurting wildly into his wife's hands as the two lovely strangers joined him, coming so hard with him, all three of them struggling to be quiet as they rode out their pleasure, still staring at each other, still never having said a word to each other.
And then Catherine was holding out a cum-filled hand to the two girls. They stared at it for a long moment, breathing hard, eyes wide. Then one reached a trembling hand out and scooped up a fingerful, then carefully brought it to her crotch, holding her pants and panties open with the other hand, then sliding it deep inside herself with a quiet moan. The other followed suit. Then they both came back for another fingerful. And then the blond gasped and the joy hit, and spread to all four of them. She thought she was pregnant. And Jim felt it too. He still felt that same certainty and joy. It didn't matter that he didn't believe it anymore. The joy was still so powerful, all the same. The brunette was on her fourth fingerful of cum when it finally hit her too, and the joy doubled. Beautiful sweet bliss, utter happiness.
Catherine pressed tightly against him, nuzzling his neck and whispering, "Jim, I'm so happy right now. I love this. I know you think I shouldn't love this. But I do. I really do. I love these moments. I love sharing this with you. It's beautiful. Please, at least for this next year, this important time in our lives when we're becoming parents, can we just go where we don't have to worry about anything? We'd be in such good hands in Shanghai or on Emma's island. They can take care of everything for us. Can we please stop running and worrying and just let ourselves be happy?"
***
End of book 1.
Thanks for reading! If you got this far, I'd love to hear your thoughts and any ideas about what you'd like to see happen next in this world. Please drop a comment either here or at deviantart.com/eroflu
I'm inviting other authors to write their own Eroflu spinoffs, each with another man like Jim as the main character. There's an Eroflu Author's Guide coming soon with details on that.