Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience. Crystal - By Deacon Blues Nine - Running from the Low I awoke slowly, the room was cool and I was warm under the blankets. I peered around. Crystal had awakened at some point, stripped, and crawled into my bed. Her compact form was pressed to my side, and one leg and arm were draped over my chest and leg. I heard her snoring very gently as she slept. My arm was around her, and I could feel warmth coming off of her. I stroked her back gently with my fingertips, all the way down to her round but firm little ass. She responded by pressing tighter to me, and murmuring something in her sleep. I loved watching her sleep, she was so beautiful. She had a little half-smile as she dozed on, and I could see her eyes twitching beneath her lids. Crystal was dreaming, I wondered what she was dreaming of. There was a quiet tapping at our adjoining doors. I slowly moved myself out from under her, figuring I'd wake her, but hoping I wouldn't. I managed to elude her gentle embrace and slipped over to the door. I opened it, and found Marcus had set up shop in here. There was a full-sized computer humming in the corner, on the small table each room had. After he shut his side of the double doors, he said "The police in Atlanta are looking for you and Crystal, saying you shot a private eye, then ran off with your sex-slave daughter. I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair. "My God. They have the cops gunning for me now, too?" I muttered. Marcus nodded and said. "Worse, they've put out an Amber Alert on Crystal." He shrugged. "They say that she's in danger." I sat at the second chair at the little table. "Do you think our disguises will fool anyone?" I asked him. Marcus shrugged. "Maybe, they hang a lot on hair and eye color. We'll get Crystal some dark shades to wear in public. Yours are covered." He looked at the pictures on the web of us on the bulletin. "You two already look pretty different from these photos they have up, especially Crystal." He looked me over. "You're however, not a kid, changing almost daily in appearance." He pointed at my lip, "Might wanna grow a flavor saver, indicating his own moustache with the other hand." I nodded. "I'll let it grow out." I looked at the police bulletin. "Pornographic photos of Crystal?" I said, "What the hell?" He shrugged. "She's had to work around those guys for a while, wouldn't suprise me a bit if they had some just for such an occasion." He pounded on the keyboard a bit. "Don't feel like the Lone Ranger, pal." He said, pointing to the flat-panel monitor. "Take a lookie at that." I looked at it. Marcus was listed as missing, and accused of embezzling funds from our employer. Or I should say, former employer. "Nice." I said. "They like to toss the charges, don't they." "They know the turf, man." Marcus said. "They spend all their time avoiding looking like crooks. I'm sure they know how to make someone look like one, as well." I heard Crystal call daddy from the other room and got up. "Well, since you seem to be the expert on this stuff, I'll follow your directions." I said. Marcus nodded, then went back to pounding on his keyboard. I opened the door and a look of relief came over Crystal's face. She was sitting up in the bed. "You scared me." She said, in a soft voice. I walked over and knelt on the bed, then kissed her forehead. "Sorry, hun." I said. "Marcus wanted to let us know that your buddies back home are making things really hot for us out here." She nodded sagely. "I figured they would." That was followed by a wounded puppy look. "What are we going to do?" I looked down at her, and at those big luminous green eyes. "I don't know, angel." I said. "I guess run till we can find out what to do." With a shock, I had a realization. I ran to Marcus' room, almost forgetting Crystal was sitting naked on the bed. I checked that he was looking at his monitor still, then popped in. "Are these phones fully safe?" I asked. Pointing to my new cell phone. "Should be, why?" He said over his shoulder. "I have to call my dad." I said. "He had or will ship something to me that I don't want going to my house." He nodded. "Should be okay." He said, "Just don't make a habit of it, and I'd be a bit circumspect in talking about it, if its related to our situation." I dialed my father's number. When my ne'er do well brother answered I got a scowl on my face. "Hey, I really need to talk to dad." I said. He grumbled then put down the receiver and yelled for my father. "Nate?" He asked. I could hear concern in his voice. "The police have been here, son. They say you've gone on the run with Crystal." His voice dropped to a whisper. "And they say you've been molesting her." "Dad, you know that's a damn lie." I said, defensively. "There are some people trying to set me up." I paused. "It's to do with the stuff you were gonna send me." I finally said. He paused a moment. "Yeah, I meant to ship it yesterday, but I got sidetracked. Sorry." He said. I smiled widely. "No dad, that's cool, because I need it sent somewhere else." Marcus must have been listening to me, and punched on his keyboard. He rattled the address of a motel in Chattanooga off to me, and I repeated it to dad. He was scratching on his note pad. "In need it overnighted, I'll pay you back when I can, dad." My father clucked at the phone. "You'll do no such thing. Just keep my little angel safe from those people." He said. "And my son, too, even though he's a miscreant." I could tell he was near tears. "Don't worry dad, I have an expert consultant helping me." I said, putting my hand on Marcus' shoulder. Dad scoffed at that. "If you're talking about that good-for-nothing you ran around with in college, I'll go ahead and buy your plot now." Then he chuckled, adding, "No, he's a good guy, a good friend is worth their weight in gold when you're in the shit." He said finally. Good luck son. "Thanks dad." I said and hung up. Marcus looked up at me. "He calling me names again?" he asked, smiling. "Yeah, of course." I said, "But, he downright loves you compared to that brother of mine." That got a laugh from Marcus. "We should probably get going soon." Marcus said. We can get to Chattanooga and go to that motel. I already rented the rooms online." "Okay." I said, heading for my room. I opened the door a crack, Crystal was showering in the bathroom. "I'll be ready to go in thirty minutes." As I shut the door, Marcus said, "When Crystal's decent, tell her there's a message for her on the computer." "Huh?" I asked. "How?" Marcus pointed to a Yahoo mail account. "This is hers, I got the access off of her computer's hard drive." He pointed to one of the two hard drives kludged to his ramshackle computer. "I'll tell her." I said and closed the door. I heard the water shut off and Crystal stepped out a few minutes later. She had a towel wrapped around her and one on her head, holding her wet hair. She came up to me and put her arms about my waist. "I'm squeaky clean." She said. "Wanna make me squeak?" My angels eyes looked up at me with promise of good things. I pondered the possibilities of that for a moment, but discarded them as impractical. "I'd love to, but Marcus needs you in the other room." Crystal gave me a hurt look. "Already trying to pawn me off on other guys?" She asked. Her eyes glinted with mirth. "I suppose I could use a refill." She said, and gave me a wink. "No, angel, I don't thin..." I started. She gave me an exasperated look. "I was kidding, dad." She said, "Despite popular belief, I don't suck every dick I come across." She laughed. "Well I've left a few." She added to my consternation. She ducked into Marcus' room, leaving the door open. Marcus politely got up when she approached, scrupulously averting his eyes from her towel-clad body. She read her mail, then reread it. She got up and thanked him then came back and shut the door. "See, no stains." She pointed at her towel. I chuckled. "From what I've seen, there wouldn't be any stains." I said. Then kissed her, "Sorry I didn't check myself, angel. She dropped her towel and wrapped herself around me. "I may forgive you." She said. "Repeatedly." And pulled me down for a long, warm, and most of all, mind-clearing kiss. She then asked if I could get her suitcase from the car real quick. I went out and grabbed our cases, and headed back inside. Crystal was standing beside the bed, looking at herself in the mirror. She frowned. "Have I gained weight?" She said. "Other than growing an inch per week, I doubt it." I said. "Your stomach is suitable for use as a trampoline by pygmies." I added as I got behind her and wrapped my arms around her and put my hands on her tight belly. She leaned back into me and moved her hands up and behind herself, sliding them over my growing organ. She got to the top of my boxers' elastic, and proceeded down inside them. Her hot fingers encircled the shaft, causing it to finish its hardening trick. Crystal leaned back and kissed my neck. "Daddy, I have need." She whispered hoarsely. Her hands beginning to stroke my cock. I inhaled deeply and moved my hands to her sides as she turned in their grip. She gave me another warm kiss, then got to her knees. I felt her mouth take me in, slowly heating and moistening it. Her teeth gently slid along the length until she had most of it inside. One of her hands moved to my balls and the other she used to steady herself, holding my leg. She sighed and looked up at me, as if to apologize. Suddenly her head became almost a blur on my shaft. Slipping back and forth at a speed that I thought must be painful. I couldn't hold for more than about twenty seconds against that amazing sensation. The heat from the friction alone was somewhat painful, but the grinding buildup of my own release was excruciating at that speed. I felt my orgasm explode, and she slowed to a more reasonable pace, one not likely to cause injury to anyone. She swallowed deeply, applying a massive amount of suction to my rod. When she let me go, most of the shaft, and especially the head was purple from a near hickey due to the negative pressure she had applied. She carefully slid my spent cock back into my boxers, and bowed her head. "I thank you for the gift, father." She said. I pulled her to her feet and knelt myself. I kissed her tight belly and belly button. "I gift to you freely, daughter." I whispered, then kissed my way up her body, lingering a moment on her small breasts, then up her neck then kissed her long and deep, sliding my tongue into her mouth. I could taste my seed in her mouth, faintly. She ran her fingers through my hair as I kissed her, and I clutched her back and ass. We broke the kiss at Marcus' knocking. "We need to get moving, guys." He said through the door. I yelled back. "Okay, man, we're moving." Crystal giggled and dressed quickly, throwing her hair into a pony tail. I just put my shorts from yesterday on, and changed shirts. We took the bags back out to the Jeep. Marcus was out there, securing his computer under the camper shell. He had his camera strapped around his neck, and a pair of `birth control' glasses on. Those kind so ugly they're birth control, because no one on earth would have sex with you. He also had on a plaid shirt and khaki slacks. "My God, you're mega-geeked." Crystal laughed as she threw her suitcase into the back of the SUV. I chuckled too, carrying my case and sliding it into the hatch area. Marcus smiled to himself. "Crystal, honey, remind me to show you some of your dad's pictures form college, okay?" He said, giving me a look. "Besides this is a disguise. No one would expect the super-hip, mega-fly, all-around-studliness that is me to be in this get up." He said, blessing us with a magnificent smile. All of us went back inside to check our rooms for left items, then turned in our keys. Marcus led our little two-car caravan out of the cul-de-sac parking lot. After we'd driven for a few miles, I asked, trying to sound conversational. "What was the email about, angel?" Crystal chewed her cheek for a moment before answering. "It was from Marcie. The Mafia guys are being real dicks, checking up on all the Chimeras and their men." She said. "They think me bolting indicates a general lack of order among our kind." Her face grew ugly in its unmasked hostility. "They even put guards on the mules, thinking that I couldn't resist coming back to one for servicing." She virtually spat this last out. "Most of forty years, they've been ruining our lives, barely letting us have any freedom." Now that we were marked, all bets were off as far as giving me information. And Crystal let it fly, realizing that telling me couldn't possibly make things worse. "Mom was a special case, and Aunt April," she paused, "the mob couldn't find mates to match their DNA typing, so they just let us do our thing, since we weren't worth that much to them." She looked at me askance. "Other than lining up guys for us to get our gift from." Her eyes rolled. "They were real good at that." Her gaze went out of focus. "I wonder how much I made for them in the last year? How much a pop did they charge those guys to get a blowjob from a piece of jailbait?" She shook her head. "Doesn't matter." She plowed on into her monologue. "The mob tolerated mom's relative freedom because doing anything to her would unduly upset the egg cart, you know." She shrugged. "They were going to tolerate mine, too, but someone got nosey." She gave me a sideways glance mixed with a smile. "I'm glad you got nosey dad, it showed you cared for more than just bedding me." She grinned. "The Mafia dudes said that you'd just start fucking me and never ask a single question, so long as the pussy and suck-jobs kept coming." She looked at me hard, I felt the stare. "I like that there is a part of you in there that doesn't want me to go down on you, and fights you when you sleep with me." Her face took on a very soft and concerned expression. "I know it hurts you, but it's what makes me love you." I nodded, and confirmed that I did, indeed, have a part of me that didn't like the goings on of the other parts of me. She snuggled to me, and kissed my neck. "I'm glad that you can tell that part to shut the hell up for a while when you need to, as well." She said, giving my thigh a playful squeeze. I put my arm around her, and kissed her forehead. We drove for a bit under two hours, she moved back to her side of the Jeep and sat quietly, watching the scenery of the mountains of northern Georgia roll by. We managed to slip into Chattanooga just before rush hour hit and got into our rooms. Marcus payed for two days for both rooms and we all went to a Burger King for dinner. Over the meal we discussed what we could do. Marcus' opinion was that we needed to blow the roof off of this thing, which Crystal vehemently vetoed, saying that the others would likely kill him themselves if he tried, much less the mob. I advised that we wait to see what was in Grandpa's journals. Discussing that, Crystal discovered my lineage and her mouth opened and closed for a few moments. "You're the grandson of Kurz?" She said with disbelief etched on her face. She squinted her eyes shut for a moment, then broke into a peal of laughter that attracted stares from around the lobby of the restaurant. When she had gotten her breath back, she put her hand on mine. "Your dad is my great grandfather." She said, squeezing tears from her eyes. "He was mom's granddad. Her mother came from my great grandmother having a fling with him in Argentina. When she got pregnant, Kurz put a stop to it." Apparently, the Chimera practiced a tight maternal memory. I thought for a moment that it was interesting, but then Crystal said. "Andrea is still alive, you know." She said looking at me. "I'd like to meet her some day. The original fifty are mostly dead, and will all be gone soon." Marcus and I sat stunned for a moment. Then Marcus smiled at me. "You're going at it both ways to Sunday to violate all the rules, ain't ya?" He chuckled as he ate his onion rings. I actually blushed to think that I was committing incest twice over now, with both my daughter and my great niece. Wonderful, I thought. Perhaps I'll also find out my daughter was also somehow my mother, that would just complete the trifecta. He saw the look on my face and said, "Sorry, man, I was just picking, I don't mean shit by it." "Nah, its nothing." I said. "I just thought what a tangled web we weave." After a moment of pause. "It makes sense, actually. Dad's DNA are the rare ones that set your line apart, Crystal." I pondered. "So, naturally, when my sample was taken, it was a match for that line of Nereid." She nodded as she demolished her second Whopper. "It does, actually." She giggled, "Funny how that works out." I blinked in amazement. "And your mother coming into my life and marrying me, then gently cajoling me to move to Atlanta." I said. "Then convincing me to bring Marcus along, too." My God, she was a manipulator. "It was all by design, wasn't it?" "Yes, dad, it was." Crystal agreed. "But don't for a minute think that mom didn't love you to death." She said, getting a bit of a hostile look in her eyes, a flash of the predator. "She did, and so do I." Marcus coughed uncomfortably. "Sorry, man." He said, "But this all does take a bit of getting used to, okay?" Crystal and I nodded to him and dropped that train of talk till later. "I hope there's something useful in those journals." I said. "Yeah." Marcus said. "We need something to go our way in this." His smile was sardonic. "Right now we're losing badly." We finished the mean in relative silence, then went back to the motel. Marcus had set up his digital nightmare again, and was doing his thing in the other room. Crystal sat on the bed watching TV, blankets wrapped around her. It was decided that she might swim tomorrow, but not a good idea tonight. I was working on my laptop, setting it up to decrypt the disk again. It could skip the already decrypted files Marcus managed to download to it. He also put most of my other special software onto it. I set it to decoding again, at least for the night. Marcus took off about four to do some `shopping.' He returned a while later with a pair of handguns and a sawn-off shotgun. He gave me one of the handguns, a very small twenty-five snub. The other, a Browning like my own, he kept, along with the shotgun. He had some other goodies, too, electronic bits and stuff that he said weren't ready yet, so to leave him alone and let the artiste ply his art. I went back to our room to leave him to is solder and circuit boards. Crystal was still sitting on the bed, engrossed in some movie. I sat beside her and it took me all of five seconds to realize it was the Soprano's on HBO. A Mafia soap-opera. "Studying the enemy?" I asked, giving her a little smile. She blinked her focus off the TV, then smiled. "No, I just like it, I wish the real Mafia was half as honorable as these guys, even if it is twisted." She gave me the puppy-dog eyes again. "You know, they're probably going to kill us, sooner or later, don't you?" I slid closer to her little cocoon. "Not if I can help it, angel." I said. "You didn't let me know what was going on, so I couldn't protect you before. But I'll sure as hell try now." I stroked her hair and she leaned toward me. "Not like we have a choice now..." She muttered and I felt tears on my shoulder where her head was laying. I soothed her as best I could for a while, then the show went off. She looked up at me. "I sure hope that those journals do have something useful in them, but I don't see how it will help us with the mob." She said. Then put her head back down. "But any help to the other Chimeras might be a good thing, even if just a little." "Marcie wrote me again." Crystal said in a somewhat alarming monotone. "She says they're convinced the other Chimeras are helping you hide." She squirmed to get closer to me while staying wrapped in the blankets. "They're starting to hurt people, dad. Smacking them around, trying to get them to fess up." I sighed. "I'm sorry, angel." I said. "But I can't help all of them right now, just you." "I know." She said absently. "I just wanted you to know that we're not the only ones in trouble." I gave her the little handgun. "Only against bad guys." I said. "If cops get us we're not shooting any of them, they're just doing their job." She looked at the gun distastefully. "I hate guns." She said, but a hand snaked out of her blankets and took the pistol from me, and vanished back into the swaddling. I dearly wished I could comfort her more. Crystal was terrified, and worried about her fellow Chimeras. I was worried too, I liked Marcie, even before her special `request' of me. And Sarah was a good kid too. Thinking that they were being pressured over us disturbed me. I was likewise scared. Much more for Crystal and Marcus than for myself, naturally, but I was plenty scared just for old yours truly. As well. We sat and comforted each other for a little while, then Crystal looked up at me. "Dad, I hate to bring this up. I know neither is in the mood for it. But I have need." She said, giving me a weak grin. "You're my only source now." She said. I saw now that despite her good humor regarding this aspect of Chimera existence, it was a necessity, and couldn't be put off much more than eating and drinking water. "I have to tell you, you won't be able to provide for me alone. Not for long." "What are you getting at?" I asked. "I need your blessing to go out a while, dad." I won't if you say no, but I have to eventually. She refused to make eye contact with me, looking downward instead. I tried to pour understanding into my voice. "I know. Will you be careful?" I asked. "Yes." She said, and nodded. "I am always careful when with men I don't know." She started uncocooning herself. "I can't take this." She said, putting the pistol on the night stand. She put her shoes on, and went out the door, she didn't say goodbye and didn't look back. The next couple of hours were pure hell on me. My jealousies raged unchecked as I thought about what she was doing and whom she might be doing it with. I imagined myself shooting or strangling men with sweaty foreheads and palms as they watched my little angel satisfy their urges with her mouth. I paced the floor, and checked the computer's progress a dozen times. I even tried to bother Marcus for a little distraction. He spoke for a few minutes, but then would fall silent as he became engrossed in his work again. Plus, I didn't want to actually explain my problem to him, or what Crystal was doing right now. At about ten-thirty, she knocked on the door. I had the only key. I jumped to the door and pulled it open. She looked at the floor as she came in, and immediately went into the bathroom. I heard the shower start and the clinking of the shower curtain. Very faintly over the sound of the water, I could hear sobbing. She didn't like this any more than I did, and she had been doing it for a while now. I stepped to the shower doorway and looked in. I could see her silhouette in the semi-opaque curtain. "Honey, I love you." I said. Crystal spoke quietly, just barely louder than the running water. "I love you, too, Nathan. But I need to be alone a little while, though, please." She said. I closed the door and went back to my laptop. It was showing two-thirds done with a new file. She got out of the shower a little while later, and emerged towel draped again. She still refused to meet my gaze, and just got her little toiletries bag out of her suitcase and went back to the bathroom. She brushed her teeth, and seemed to do so for a very long time. She came back out and put her bag away. She came over and sat in the other chair. "Is that stuff off the disk that I got from Sarah?" She asked. Still avoiding my eyes. "Yes." I said. "There were a whole buttload of encrypted files on that DVD, almost ninety percent of it." I said, talking tech to keep me from trying to soothe my baby. "It seems to all be Chimera-related." "I wonder how it all got on there?" Crystal said, looking at the screen. "Maybe Sarah just dumped a big chunk of the hard drive onto the disk and that ended up in the files." I said. "I think Mr. Nelson was doing some research of his own on Chimeras." Crystal shook her head. "I doubt that. He was in the know. This stuff isn't a secret to him, well at least the general stuff." "I don't know then, angel." I said. I leaned back in my chair, determined to have the next conversation out. "Look, angel, I understand you having to do what you have to do." I said, "I know you don't like doing it, but your needs must be met. Please don't let it upset you so much." Crystal stared at me a long second. "You don't understand." She said. "But I'll go ahead and tell you so that you do, and maybe then you can dwell on it." Her eyes were hostile and I was taken aback by that. She breathed deeply for a few seconds. "You're right that I have to do it." She explained. "But you're wrong about my enjoying it. Dad. I do enjoy it. I enjoy it a lot. That's what upsets me. I shouldn't enjoy giving other men blowjobs," She paused at the use of that word, "but I do. All of us do, it's the way we're wired. We need what we get from it, yes, but we also get a thrill from it." She grinned wickedly. "I suppose its our own way of staying sane." Her eyes hardened again. "We also enjoy sex with our mules, you know. They fuck the shit out of us, they have to, but be damned if we don't like it." That's the part that I don't know you will be able to handle in the long run, the part that will hurt you every time I have to `go out.'" Tears were welling in her beautiful eyes. "That makes it painful for me is knowing I'm enjoying myself, and you're hurting." She paused a long moment. "I won't have to do it often, thank God." She added. "Even though I would like to, deep down." She stood up and moved over to the bed where she had the blankets all disheveled. "You know, I gave ten men blowjobs in the last two hours?" She looked at me with wide eyes. "I know you thought about it. Wondering what I was doing." She was on a roll now, and determined to give me every ounce of hurting she could out of it. "I went into the mens room of a mini mall. Every guy that came in I gave the story of I was doing a dare for some friends, that I give the first guy that comes in a blowjob." Her smile turned vicious. "Out of eleven guys, ten took me up on it, you know that?" She chuckled without humor. "Only one good man of the bunch, or a faggot." Crystal shook her head. "The rest of them just dropped their pants and let a obvious minor suck them off in a shithouse stall." Then she stopped talking for a moment, looked me dead in the eye and said. "The real clincher is that I loved doing it." She tilted her head. "So, please, tell me again how you understand." I just sat there. "I guess I really don't." I said. "Sorry Crystal. I won't make that assumption again." I stood up and went to the bathroom myself. I closed and locked the door and started the shower. I took a long shower and then loitered in the bathroom for another twenty minutes before emerging. Crystal was lying in the bed and wrapped in her blankets in such a way that defied me to come close. I got into the other bed and after over an hour of contemplation of the ceiling, I went to sleep.