44 — Footsie

At the dinner table, two women were in a daze, poking at their food absent-mindedly. Freya and Calista. They'd often take sly, furtive looks towards me from the corner of their eye.

They'd make tiny sighs before turning back down with flushed expressions, forks freezing up in their hand.

Not many people at the table could explain their state, and that was excluding Ivy who was too immature to recognize such changes.

Freya, to my left, couldn't help but stretch out a leg and rub a stocking-clad shin along mine. Seemingly by mistake, because not once did she linger long enough to make it obvious.

She shivered delicately, exhaling between her soft lips.

Her appetizingly slender legs nestled up against mine by accident the entire dinner. I was stun-locked in place, pitching a tent that if not for the table to cover it up, it'd have shot straight for the heavens, reaching immortality in one fell swoop.

To my right, Calista, her plate still filled, nudged my shoulder lightly, and after making a fake noise of apology for bumping into me, casually wrapped a lock of hair around her ear and brought her shoulder around, revealing one side of the milky-white nape. 

She had her hair tied in a ponytail, and the smooth expanse of her skin was a magnet for my eyes.

The two ladies were a fidgety mess throughout the whole dinner, and didn't really talk much.

I was right between them.

Ivy did most of the talking and asked most of the questions. "Your song just hit a million streams, Damien! How does it feel? When will you be doing your first concert? When will you be on TV? Oh, oh, will you be signing autographs? Can I have your autograph?!"

It was a barrage of questions, one after the other.

I tried to answer them as best as I could. Yes, I was very happy about the million streams. No, I wasn't sure about the concert thing. I might be on a TV show or two, who knows. And yes, she could have my autograph, but I'll have to think of a catchphrase or something like that.

Hm. I should probably practice a cool signature as well. 

Iris kept eating without much fuss, though she, along with Willow, were quite concerned about my song's success, and the kind of attention it was getting me.

And it was getting a lot.

"I'm glad your song is doing so well, Damien." Iris smiled with a hint of apprehension. "But I'm a bit worried about the comments you're getting. They're starting to borderline inappropriate, some are outright disgusting."

'Yes. Let me guess. About how many are screaming about wanting to drink my precious milk?'

I grimaced.

"Don't pay it any mind. It's just the internet, you know how it is." I tried to brush it off.

Willow, who was seated at the opposite end of the table, looked up from her plate. "Still, it's something to be concerned about. Iris is right… I'm happy you've found something you want to do, Damien, but I don't want this experience to leave you traumatized."

"I'll be careful." I promised. Willow wasn't convinced, but she didn't press the issue further.

Still, this was bound to happen. The internet was always a cesspool of degeneracy. I found it kinda amusing that I myself was subject to their thirstiness. I felt flattered, too. Maybe one day I'd grow fat from the compliments and choke on them.

"Don't worry, I'll be monitoring the comments and any public reactions for the foreseeable future." Calista joined the discussion, brows knitted together as she casually browsed the comment section on her phone with one hand, while with the other she stabbed her steak a little harsher than was necessary, skewering it on the fork. "If any of those bitches even think of trying something stupid, I'll make sure they regret it."

"You don't need to curse, Calista."

That was Willow's only remark.

Freya was just silently picking on her food, lost in thought.

"How did you even come up with such... racy lyrics, Damien?" Iris piped up, her curiosity getting the better of her. "You've always been so... well, meek."

Ivy nodded like a chicken pecking on grain. 

'Meek?' I scoffed inwardly. Then, I remembered that I wasn't the one who was raised in this world, so that assessment wasn't inaccurate.

"Well, the lyrics just came to me, I guess." I shrugged. "I was feeling a bit... uh, adventurous at the time."

That had Calista and Freya both choking on their drinks.

Ivy let out a scandalized gasp and looked at me with wide eyes. "You... you were feeling what?"

Willow placed a hand over her face and sighed. She decided that dealing with my shit was going to give her premature wrinkles, especially now that her adult son was getting thirsted online and making suggestive songs about them. 

She feared that her precious child would soon turn into an infamously corrupted cuntboy, the internet's wet dream and a nightmare for overprotective mothers everywhere. "Freya, you good?" She turned towards her sister with a frown, likely hoping to get an expert's second opinion. 

"... Never been better." Freya managed to reply in a relatively normal voice, waving a hand to dismiss her concern.

"......"

Willow didn't quite buy it, but had enough to worry about as it was, so she couldn't be bothered.

Ivy and Iris took turns asking more about how my song came to be, and whether I'd release more soon. The back and forth carried on all through dinner.

It was like I had my very own fan club right there at the house.

Oh, I should text Valeria too.

I had to let her know about my song. I smiled at the thought of the cop losing her shit over my song. 

...

Willow looked like she wanted to talk to me about something. I made my little escape before she got that chance. I wasn't really in the right headspace for one of those conversations. 

My mind was filled with all kinds of dirty thoughts, courtesy of the recent make-out session, not to mention the tent in my pants at the festering thought of it.

'Is this love?'

Fast palpitation, inability to concentrate and that unexplainably queasy feeling I was getting. This was a feeling akin to what I knew love to be, right? I did feel like this a long time ago, I knew I did, and my old heartbreak still hurt me to think about. 

It was probably what had me browsing through the internet that very same night, using some keywords that I immediately deleted right after use, on top of my history; you could never be too careful. I could have Valeria or some other organization spying on my searches. 

I wanted to know if any sort of familial entanglement was socially, biologically, or emotionally accepted. Was it a common thing here?

Not really.

While there were many examples of such relationships, I didn't find many instances where it was favorably looked upon.

I scored through dozens of journals and news, trying to find even one account that would support a healthy, physical relationship within a familial context.

And my expectations weren't high, to begin with, because I'd already known in advance what the result would be if I tried digging for more material, and as expected, my expectations didn't betray me.

"Incest could further compound humanity's genetic crisis, with theoretical risks of increased male birth defects potentially driving the already-catastrophic gender ratio to even more dire levels."

No long-term studies existed to either confirm or deny the theory, but I imagined that in a world tightroping on the edge of demographic extinction, even theoretical risks warranted caution—tampering with humanity's genetic future for personal desire was far too reckless and irresponsible to contemplate.

On the other hand, female advocacy groups on some of the forums I stumbled upon fiercely opposed such unions not on moral grounds, but as a matter of resource allocation. With the male population already critically limited, familial entanglements effectively created hoarding, furthering dwindling opportunities for women outside these closed family systems. And honestly, I couldn't refute their arguments, because if the situation was reversed, I'd be quite pissed off too. 

Like, leave some for the rest of us. 

So perhaps, more than ambiguous morality of it that I was used to back in my world, in this one it was more about distribution issues, resource management, and prioritization.

If there ever was something as unshakable as 'red lines' in a reality facing a pandemic situation, then these were probably it.

Despite all of this, there were still cases, albeit rare ones, where familial relationships happened, with women strongly defending such cases because it likely happened to them. It was one's own private business, after all.

I didn't know what to think of it. And I was surprised I had spent close to two hours trying to find a ray of light at the bottom of this tunnel that, it seems, wouldn't even have any light at the end of it to begin with.

Was this love, then? A feeling akin to it? Lust? A mild case of infatuation mixed with a healthy amount of intrigue. Maybe it was all three at the same time, maybe I was just losing my fucking mind.

Whatever it was, I found myself yet again in front of Calista's door. I hoped her incessant smoking would somehow lend me clarity, and well, we had to work on the second release while we're at it.

I knocked softly, and moments later, the door opened.

Calista stood there, looking at me with a raised brow and a smirk. "What do we have here? Silver is gracing me with his presence, what an honor."

She stepped aside to let me in. Usually, she'd have made a snide comment or a sarcastic remark, but this time her voice was light, almost... sweet. She had changed her clothes, no longer wearing the pajamas she had on during dinner, now sporting a simple tank top and shorts—though anything could be pajamas if you used it to go to sleep. 

Her blonde hair was down, cascading over her shoulders.

I found myself staring at her tattoo as well.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you..."

I did come unannounced when she could've been working. She had the equipment for it in here, so it wasn't impossible.

Calista waved a hand dismissively. "Nah, you're not. I was just... lounging around, I guess."

She closed the door and turned around, her eyes flicking over my body before looking back into my eyes. "So, what's up? I assume you're here to talk about the next song?" She made her way towards the computer chair, sitting down and swiveling to face me.

"Yeah, that... and to hang out a bit." I replied, sitting on the bed. "I'm kinda bored."

I needed to get my mind off of Freya. For real. And who'd have thought I'd come to Calista, of all sisters, to hang with? 

She let out a soft laugh. "Really? What happened to the cool and collected musician who has the world at his feet?"

"He got tired of the world, I guess." I sighed, eyes full of wisdom and mystery.

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