Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Crystal - By Deacon Blues

   Ten - Feed the Need

   I slept fitfully that night.  Flashes of memory kept zipping through my
mind.  Conversations with Jennifer long ago, mysterious phone calls,
Crystal's cryptic remarks, and my own doubts and insecurities haunted me. I
awoke several times breathing hard and fast, like I had been running, my
heartbeat a pounding presence in my head.

   Crystal slept soundly, it seemed.  I could hear her even breathing and
she moved only twice that I know of.  As the wee hours ground onward, I
finally fell into a more-or-less normal sleep, and didn't awaken until
almost ten.  The sound that woke me up was that of the door being opened. I
popped one eye open and gripped my pistol under my pillow.

   Crystal peered in, and seeing my one open eye said, "Want some
breakfast?" She had a McDonald's bag in her hand, and a jumbo soda in the
other.  I sat up, leaving the weapon where it laid.

   "Sure, angel." I said, trying to pry my eyes open against the glare from
the doorway.  I sighed at the mercy of the door shutting, and cutting off
that intense sunlight.  Crystal came over and sat on my bed.  She foraged
around inside the bag and came out with a sausage biscuit.  Then returned
to its scraping around, emerging with a hash brown patty.  I ate the two
with relish, virtually inhaling them, then washed them down with a huge
gulp of soda.

   Crystal looked a bit astonished.  "You were a hungry boy." She said,
smiling.  "You want more?" She asked me, holding out another biscuit.

   I shook my head a little, still holding a mouthful of soda.  After I'd
swallowed that, I said, "Might wanna ask Marcus if he does, unless that's
yours."

   She nodded and unwrapped the little sandwich and nibbled at it.  She
watched me as she did so.  Finally, after she had eaten it, she said. 
"About last night, dad.  I'm really sorry I went off on you." She looked
down for a moment, then brought her eyes up again to meet mine.  "You
didn't deserve that, you were trying to be understanding." She gave me a
weak smile.  "I'm just a dumb kid, after all.  Despite my delusions of
maturity."

   I held out my arm, and she slipped deftly under it, bringing her head
back up right beside mine and kissing me on the cheek.  She pressed her
head into my neck and wiggled there for a second.  I nuzzled into her hair,
smelling some of the remaining somewhat burnt smell of the dye and her
shampoo.  "I don't understand everything, angel." I said, petting her hair.
"But I do love you, and will do whatever it takes to keep you safe and
happy." She pressed against me harder, and I felt her hand moving to hold
mine.

   "I know." She said, quietly.  "I guess that's why I blew up at you,
because I knew I could and you'd still be there afterwards." Crystal leaned
away from me for a moment and looked into my eyes.  "But what I did last
night was bad."

   "I agree." I said.  "I'd prefer in the future that you not actually tell
me what you've done when you're out on your own." I looked back into her
beautiful green eyes.  "I'm not strong enough for that, which is why your
mother probably kept if from me, too."

   Crystal leaned back and put her head back in the crook of my neck.  "No,
she didn't tell you because she didn't want you to leave her." She said
very quietly.  "She was always afraid you would, any day.  She lived with
that fear, dad, that every morning she would wake up alone, or when she
came home from `being out.'" Crystal's hands made a dismissive gesture. 
"And every time you were still there, she wanted to shout for joy."

   "Must have been hell." I said.  Cringing to think of my lovely and sweet
wife having to live with the constant threat of my leaving her.  I knew I
would never do it, but I guess she never did.  I suppose, me not knowing
exactly what was going on helped.  Crystal has the advantage of being loved
above and beyond that of a mate.  She's blood as well, and mine.  I
couldn't abandon her if I wanted to.  I wasn't sure she fully realized
that, but she had a small inkling.

   "That's why most Chimeras pick twisted guys, perverts and stuff.  They
rarely care at all if she fools around, for whatever reason." Crystal
paused.  "Which, I suppose is good in a way, but also, I think their
relationships are a lot...I don't know...cheaper than otherwise." She
shrugged, an abbreviated gesture given our positions in relation to one
another.

   "Perhaps." I said.  "Lets talk about it another time, though." I kissed
the top of her head and felt her smile.  "You still want to be a little
girl sometimes, don't you?" Crystal nodded, curling up a bit more.  I
petted her hair.  "I would, too." I agreed.

   We stopped talking and I just held her for a while, maybe for half an
hour.  She just stared at the wall and I felt her hands fumble from time to
time with her shirt's hem or each other.  Finally, she spoke again.  "Dad,
if this all gets worked out, and we're not dead, do you really plan on
staying with me?"

   I thought about that for a moment.  I couldn't think of anywhere else I
could ever be.  "Crystal, I loved you as a daughter before, and I still do.
And now I love you as a lover, and always will." I said, kissing her head
again.  "I don't think that a little girl ever totally stops being her
daddy's angel." I tried to find words, searching.  "Sometimes people fall
out of being `in love,' but between the two, I don't see it happening with
me." I put my other hand over hers, which were not resting on her belly. 
"I'll always be with you." I finally said.  Which was the answer she was
looking for.  I saw her smile gently, in her reflection in the mirror of
the dresser.

   We sat for a bit longer, in silence, just being.  The phone then rang,
causing us to both jump a bit.  It was the reception desk clerk, telling me
FedEx had just dropped of a package for my room.  I got dressed hurriedly
and went and fetched it.  By the time I got back to the room, Marcus and
Crystal were both sitting in the two little chairs that seem to furnish all
motel rooms, worldwide.

   I sat the box on the table.  It was painfully small, only about a foot
square and six inches deep.  I slit the tape with my keychain and opened
it. Inside were packed half a dozen old leather bound journals and some
other smaller boxes of correspondence.  There was also a small leather bag
that looked like a miniature doctor's black bag.  A note inside from my dad
said:

   Dear Nathaniel

   I'm not sure what you've gotten yourself wrapped up in, but the FBI was
here last night speaking to your mom and I.  I fear they may have tapped
our phone, you should avoid calling again on that line.  I had our
neighbor, Widow Maxwell, mail this to you, just to keep them from following
me to the FedEx store.  They're watching the house.

   Your mom is scared for you, and so am I.  Even your brother is worried
for your safety.  Please be careful, son.  And be sure to take care of
Crystal.  She's our only grand child and we couldn't bear losing her
either. We love you.

   Your Father

   I folded the paper carefully and put it back in the box.  Pulling out
the first journal, they had numbers on their spines, I opened it.  It was
in German, which was to be expected.  Luckily my grandfather had meticulous
handwriting, and the text was very legible.  I flipped through the journal,
seeking recognizable words and symbols.  Finally I stumbled upon the
double-helix of DNA, drawn expertly, if not artistically, in meticulous
detail.  I wondered at the time it must have taken granddad to draw this,
hours or days even.  Marcus looked at it over my shoulder.

   "My God, Nate." He said.  "That was years ahead of its time." He sat
back down.  "They knew, of course, about DNA I the forties.  But I had no
idea anyone knew that it could be manipulated by using viral carriers." He
shook his head.  "I'll start translating these things, but it'll require I
take them apart to scan them." He looked at the finely bound books.  "I'm
not sure they'll be able to be reconstructed."

   I closed the book.  "Whatever it takes, man." I said.  "I want these
things in English as fast as you can get them there." I pulled out the
small boxes of letters.  "These, too." Marcus took the books and letters
and headed toward his room.  "Crystal, please go help him, he'll probably
need an assistant to disassemble them, and do gopher work." Crystal nodded
and jumped up, then walked to Marcus' room.

   I turned my attention to the doctor's black bag.  I lifted it out of the
box, it had accounted for half the weight of the whole.  I heard the clink
of glass within.  Setting it on the table, I carefully opened the clasp and
folded back the flaps.  Inside were a dozen jars, along with some
rudimentary medical instruments.  There was a syringe, with a very long,
heavy-duty needle, there was a stethoscope, and a half dozen other
implements that I didn't recognize, all crafted from stainless steel.  The
bottles were full of a powder.  On the sides were labels, handwritten in
German.  They said `Verbendung Vorbereiten.' I eyed them dubiously and put
them back.  I snickered to myself, nothing with two `V' words could be a
good thing.  In the bottom of the box were a couple of pictures, old black
and white ones.  They were of a very pretty little brunette girl standing
by a pool with my father as a youth.  He had his arm around her in one, and
was giving her a little kiss in the other.  That must have been Andrea. 
She was lovely, lithe and athletic like Crystal, and smiling broadly. 
Unlike all the other footage and images I had seen of the Nereid, she was
so happy she had gums showing all around in her smile.  In the picture of
them kissing, she actually had one foot lifted upward at the knee.  I could
see Crystal's remarkable eyes in those pictures, and her mother's, too.  On
the back of one my father had written.  "It's probably best if I got these
out of the house, I'd hate to try to explain to your mom who she is.  I
can't lie to her directly, son."

   I put the doctor's bag back into the box, and went over to Marcus' room
to see how things were going.  The had the binding off the first journal,
and were now separating the first set of pages from each other by cutting
the strings that sewed them together.  They started scanning them in as
soon as they got pages loose.  Marcus had produced a large flatbed scanner
from his camper shell, and the project was proceeding apace.  As each page
set was scanned, they were sliding them into protective sleeves of clear
plastic, and Crystal was meticulously labeling each sleeve with the journal
number, and the indicated page numbers.  On Marcus' computer screen a
little three dimensional model of the book was forming, page set by page
set.  The program was smart enough to put the sets into their proper
positions within the simulated book.  I threw myself into the project,
managing the scanning part.  By mid-afternoon, we had finished the first
journal.  Marcus admired our work by manipulating the virtual book and then
ran the text through a translation program.

   "It won't be perfect." He said, as the program worked.  "But it should
work well enough." He grinned, looking at his instant messaging software
icon.  "I also have a friend or two standing by for anything the software
can't handle." After about ten minutes, his computer chirped.  Marcus
burned a copy of the `book' onto a CD-rom, and also stashed a copy on a
internet `data haven.' The file had a conditional release sub-routine.  If
Marcus or I didn't visit the data haven for a month and confirm our
identity, it would transmit the file to hundreds if not thousands of
internet users, who were part of the hacking underground.  The hackers
would, in turn, release the data to the world at large.  Once all five
journals were scanned, the data would be virtually bulletproof.  Marcus
called this `hacker's insurance.'

   Marcus and Crystal set to deconstructing the next book, and I took the
CD-rom to the room Crystal and I were staying in.  I began reading my
grandfather's journal.

   I was horrified by what I read.  The man had performed thousands of DNA
strand combinations, using eggs harvested from condemned Jewish girls.  He
used viruses, like herpes to carry other genetic code into the egg, then
fertilized them.  He would implant them in other Jewish girls, who were
condemned to die, but got a reprieve for volunteering for this program. 
Most fetus' were unviable.  But suddenly, he had successful implantation.
It was the Nereid line, which combined Human, dolphin, cougar, and honeybee
DNA.  I wondered at that bizarre mix of species, but supposed that
sometimes you just run with what works.  Once the first babies were born,
the mothers were condemned as they had been promised.

   This journal apparently only covered that phase of the project, and the
last few pages detailed the births, by both natural means and by surgical
removal.  The clinical description of the surgeries, performed without
drugs, were terrible to read.  I detested the man who was my grandfather.
He was a monster, from what I read, with but one redeeming feature.  He was
a genius.  In early 1939 he had achieved a miracle.  The combining of human
with other species' DNA to breed a human that was substantially different,
yet semi-viable as its own species.

   There were long dissertations on the features being sought by the
experiment.  Coordination, swimming ability, durability, incredible
metabolic control, and more.  I found irony in the Aryan master race using
Jews as a base material to make their `Ubermensch.' Kurz predicted that
they would need special nutritional supplements to maintain their enhanced
metabolisms, even had some notes on his early works on the problem.  A
genetic `slurry' was his solution, he believed.

   The text also went into detail as to the life cycle, and reproductive
requirements for the Nereids to have `trinary' sexual reproduction.  He
wanted them to be able to have new genetic traits introduced, so he made
them where they would require human input in the fertilization of the eggs.
This first batch had been intentionally produced mostly as females, and he
stated that the second generation would be of mixed births, since they
would be carried out naturally, not in vitro.

   I read from place to place, stopping here and there to read, in detail,
how the DNA interacted to produce a whole greater than the parts. 
Apparently Kurz was quite impressed with his own handiwork.

   I shut closed the `book,' and went back into Marcus' room.  They were a
good way into the second journal, and I lent a hand.  About nine we
finished it up.  We repeated the CD-rom burning and the placing a copy in a
data haven.  I went back to my laptop to look at this second journal.

   This one apparently covered the period from newborn to child age.  The
infants and toddlers discussed were heavily studied, and worked with to
educate them, and educate them well.  But they were given almost no
affection by the scientific staff at Kurz's little institute.  The girls
were raised in a creche, all living in a large open dorm with one another.

   All indications were that these children were developing normally.  They
were mostly bright and alert children, with only two exhibiting any birth
defects at all (one lazy eye and one had a twisted finger).  They all
showed great aptitude in the water, with even the newborns able to hold
their breath for five minutes or more.  The even managed to swim almost as
fast as a normal adult at a few months of age.

   The girls also worked well together, for a period of time.  However,
when affection was offered in exchange for achievement, one of his
assistants found, they would become unbelievably competitive.  In a simple
game, the winner got a hug.  Just a hug, and for that the girls would
actually hurt one another to win the race.  It was also found that when one
received affection, they returned it in spades, becoming bonded quickly and
very firmly to the person who gave the initial affection.

   Kurz decided to curtail all personal interaction toward the Nereids
until this aberration could be tracked down and removed by either by
conditioning or chemical supplement.  Of course, they wouldn't want their
`super soldiers' larded down with a while bunch of emotional baggage, would
they?  His fears about their need for supplemental DNA infusions was not
warranted at this time, apparently, the problem wouldn't manifest until
puberty or thereabouts, as the body sexually matures, and grows rapidly. 
He worked on his solution for when the problem would become an issue.

   Most of the notes were on physical and mental development, he was only
peripherally interested in their emotional and social development, as they
were purely secondary concerns.  He had extensive notes on each child
listed, giving weekly weights, body fat, muscle mass, lifting capability,
and coordination tests.  The few notes listing personality traits and
social development did show that the one named Andrea was taking a
leadership role naturally among them when they were in groups, along with
the two boys, who also fell naturally into leadership roles.  Queen bee?  I
thought to myself, and her drones, too, it would seem.

   The text was pretty dry stuff, and no more monstrous behaviors in my
ancestor surfaced during this phase.  The two with their minor physical
deformities were accommodated as best the current medical technology could.
They were allowed to progress along with the other children, much to my
surprise.  By age five, the children were fully conversant and could read
and write, mainly due to the high teacher to student ratio maintained in
the labs.  They were noted, however, to be somewhat poorly socialized, an
issue that seemed to worry Kurz not in the least, despite some of his
assistants' concerns.

   By the time I was done perusing this work, it was almost midnight. 
Crystal was watching HBO again, sounded like a chick flick to me.  Marcus
had already said his good nights and I was growing tired, too.  When I rose
Crystal piped up.  "You done reading for now?" She asked.  She slid off the
bed and walked toward me.  "Did you find the magic bullet that will fix our
problems?" She added, smiling as she put her arms around my waist.  I
hugged her back, and felt her hands slide down my back to my ass, grabbing
it.

   I noticed that I was growing hard very fast.  Her pheromones must be
coming back online after the last time I switched them off for her.  She
grinned at me when she felt it.  "You should have seen poor Marcus trying
to ignore himself having a raging boner." She said.  "If you hadn't told me
not to, I would have helped him out."

   Somehow hearing about, and thinking about her and Marcus didn't upset me
like thinking about her and strange men.  I suppose because Marcus is like
my brother, or something like that.  I trusted him not to hurt her, and I
knew she cared about him.  I guess that made it more tolerable as a general
concept, if not in actual fact.  I ran my hands up and down her back,
feeling her squirm at the touch.  "You'd probably scare him to death,
angel." I said.  "Or he'd be afraid I'd get mad." I added as an
afterthought.

   "I know." She said, smiling up at me.  "But it would be fun to see the
look on his face." She hugged me close again.  "But I won't." She murmured
into my chest.

   I leaned down, releasing her and picked her up.  She always seems so
light like this.  I set her gently on the bed, and looked down at her
slender body lying on the bed.  She had stripped down to a tee-shirt and
panties, and I could see the red of the panties peering from beneath the
shirt.  Somehow this was more arousing than seeing everything, just almost
seeing everything.  I put my hand on her thigh, which she obligingly lifted
a little for me, and squeezed it, massaging my way upward.  She moaned
softly.

   My organ pulsed at the sound of her moan.  I was becoming trained in her
body language.  She put one of her hands on my own leg and slid it upwards,
giving me a feather-light touch, it slid under my shorts and boxers and she
expertly found my pole.  Gripping me, she began to stroke my cock under the
loose shorts.  I slid my hand up to the shiny crotch of her panties, they
were quite soaked with her excitement.  I sat on the bed, and she shifted
her grip on my rod, now stroking it in a more natural position.  I reached
to her hips with both hands, grabbing the material of her sheer panties,
and pulling.  She lifted her ass to help me, then her legs.  The tiny
panties slid down and I took them off her feet.

   As my hands moved back up her thighs, she spread them slightly, giving
me a perfect view of her now shaven slit.  I leaned over and kissed her
thigh, a few inches below her groin.  Again she moaned, more huskily this
time.  I used my tongue to walk a trail up her thigh, and passed near to,
but never quite touched her clit or labia.  I proceeded down the other
thigh to hear a soft groan come from her, combining arousal and
frustration. Her hips wiggled a little, like she was trying to reposition
her pussy for my next pass where I couldn't `miss' it.  I started back up,
kissing then licking as I went.  Again I skipped, just barely, her opening.
This time, however, I made sure I was exhaling gently as I went over.  She
again moved her hips to try to force contact.  I put my hands on her hips
and held them in place.  "No you don't." I said.  She grunted a almost
pitiful reply.

   Teasing her was quite fun, actually.  She was so wound up that she
twitched and wriggled at the slightest promise of contact.  By the time I
had played this game for five minutes, she was all but ready to get
forceful about it.  I was waiting for her.  Finally she did what I had been
expecting.  As my lips once again passed mere millimeters from her labia,
she grabbed my head in both hands and pulled my mouth into her mound.  I
opened my mouth as she grabbed my head, and started lapping with my tongue.
When contact was finally achieved.  She groaned, "Oh, Damn, that was mean."
Her hips almost fucked my mouth, she was grinding her pubic mound over my
face, and forcing my tongue roughly against her clit then into her slit.  I
could taste her juices flowing over my tongue, it was definitely plentiful,
if not dripping from her.  It tasted of woman, which, I suppose is about
right.  As I slid my tongue inside her, she moaned again, louder, and I
felt the muscles of her opening tighten on my tongue.  Her hands didn't let
loose of my hair, instead they intertwined with it, tightening her grip on
me.  From the pulling sensation, I assumed she was lifting her head and
shoulders with the effort.  I opened my eyes and confirmed this.  Her face
was a odd mix of pleasure and anticipation.  Her eyes were squeezed shut,
and her mouth partially open.  I could hear her gasps of breath between the
frequent moans.

   She neared climax rapidly, and began pulling my head up.  Remembering
the last time I had done this, I went willingly.  As my pelvis grew level
with hers, I felt her slim warm fingers take hold of me and guide me into
her.  I pushed inward and felt her open to me.  A scalding heat engulfed my
organ.  I thought surely it must be causing burns, but cared little at this
point.  My ministrations with my tongue didn't go to waste as she gave a
massive grunt, holding back the scream she wanted to give out with.  I felt
her body buck beneath me, lifting me up for a moment, then she relaxed.  I
wasn't ready yet to spend, so I kept on pumping into her, thrusting faster
and harder as I went.  After another minute or two she started thrusting
back up, having regained her wits.

   "Don't waste the seed." I heard her grunt between thrusts.  I looked
down and saw she was watching me intently while I thrust into her.  Her
emerald eyes taking in every sweaty detail as I continued.  The predator
was there, for sure, and it was hunting even now.  She was watching my face
for my orgasm, even though I planned on telling her.  I closed my eyes
again, and launched myself into the final drive to release.  Our bodies
slammed together so hard I was sure I must be hurting her, the grunts she
had been emitting became whimpers that sounded almost pained.  But when I
looked she goaded me on with her legs, wrapping them around me and pulling
me with even more force into her.  A second climax was building in her, and
coming from deep down.  "OhdearChristthat'sgood." She said, she added her
hands to the pulling, grabbing my hips and putting their additional
strength into my hips.  She pushed upward with incredible strength from her
back and her legs dropped from my back to lift herself up to me, lifting me
and her both.  She grabbed a pillow from beside her head and covered her
own face with it, to my surprise.  Then she ripped a scream that would have
set the windows to rattling in their frames, and would have definitely
gotten the attention of the motel's other occupants.  Even through the
pillow it was pretty loud.  I felt her small frame go limp beneath me, and
her remaining hand fell from my hip.

   My own orgasm was building up fast, with each thrust, I felt it move up
a tiny bit.  It was almost to the top of my ability to control it.  When I
came, it would hurt, and be incredible.  Crystal moaned softly with my
continued penetration.  "Oh, lord, aren't you done yet?" She said, giving
me a exhausted grin.

   "Not...yet...but...I...like...it...more...when...you...call...me...GOD!"
I grunted with each thrust.  I yanked my cock from her body with what felt
like a audible snap and sat upright on my knees.  She scrambled to flip and
get her head to my pulsing organ.  Crystal almost didn't make it, the first
stream of semen splashed her neck and chin.  But she got her lips around my
pulsing organ.  Moaning as she did so.  I felt her swallow after each
twitch of my rod, and she moaned in time with it.  She held it there until
I stopped twitching, and let it fall from her mouth, and began licking and
kissing my head, shaft, and balls.  She was making sounds almost like a
growl as she did so.  When she had thoroughly covered the area, she kissed
the head once more, licking a bit of semen from the tip.  She gathered the
come from her neck and chin with her fingers, and lapped it off with what
could only be described as relish.

   She finally realized there was someone else here, and looked up at me.
Her smile turned from relish to mildly embarrassed.  "Best of both worlds."
She said quietly, and gave out a quiet giggle.  She looked down and licked
the last of my spend from her fingers.  She then rose and went to the
bathroom and took a quick shower.  Less than three minutes later she came
back in, still dripping from the shower.  I expected to see steam rising
from her, such a furnace as she had just been.  When she cuddled up to me,
upside down on the bed, she was actually cool to the touch.  She had taken
a cold shower.  I ran my hand over her goose-pimpled back and down the
curve of her small ass.  She wriggled slightly and stroked my now shrunken
organ.

   "Thank you for your gift, father." She said into my neck.  Now she was
massaging and fondling my balls.

   I took her hand from my nuts and kissed the palm.  "I gift to you
freely, daughter." I said.  I was really beginning to like this ritual. 
"I'm honored every time you accept me into you." I added, improvising.

   Crystal cooed and kissed my neck.  "Too sweet." She said.  I wondered
what kind of guys wouldn't thank a girl back for such a pleasurable time.
The same ones that figure they can blissfully run and ruin other's lives
for their own gain, my mind answered.

   I found the disheveled sheets and blanket and pulled them over us and we
both fell asleep head-down on the bed.  In the night I spooned with her
protectively, using my body to conceal and comfort her in her sleep.