The Clan

And so, it began, the virtuous cycle of arousal taking hold. Sofie positioned herself, his hair in both hands, nudging his lips closer to the butterfly of her centre.

The Clan, Part 2

Sofie

The two of them laid quietly in each other's arms post coitus, neither eager to address the elephant in the room. It was Nick who finally broached the topic, "So you love me, huh?"

Sofie looked into his eyes briefly turning away and pulling the sheet up so that only her big dark eyes could be seen." Yes.", she replied. She sounded embarrassed about it now.

"You really love me, huh?"

Again, a sheepish, "Yes."

Her response amused him to the point of mischief, so he decided to turn the situation into a game. He began singing a teasing little song that children sang to torment each other if ever it was discovered that one of them held a crush, "Matron, is in love, with Nicholas, Matron's in love, with Nicholas...Matron's in love, with Nicholas!", continuing to sing he rolled on top, straddling her and began relentlessly tickling her ribs which he knew from previous play drove her wild.

She was giggling in fits as he continued to sing the tormenting ditty, tickling her. She was soon frantic, now shrieking with laughter and tossing from side to side trying to escape his assault, "Nicholas, stop. Please stop it. Stawwppit. STOP!", she wailed with laughter.

He knew he had to stop before she peed the bed. Again, she pulled the sheet up to conceal her embarrassment revealing only her beautiful, deeply dark brown eyes. Her shiny dark curls were spread across the pillow.

"How lovely you are Sofie," he said, pausing to closely study what was visible in detail.

He'd never taken a moment to really look into her eyes. They stared into each other for perhaps a minute, as she continued hiding in embarrassment. Reaching up, he pulled down the sheet to reveal the entirety of her oval face. She offered a shy grin as they continued to gaze into each other's eyes.

"The truth is, my perfectly gorgeous Sofie," he said smiling, "I've been in love with you, from the day we met."

"Aw shucks Nick," she said reaching up with both arms for a big hug, "What the fuck took us so long?"

The two kissed for a few moments than a few minutes more. It wasn't long before they were again making love. This time the way lovers do, tenderly, slowly and with no other purpose than to express their emotions and gentle affection for each other.

Sofie Layla Severina was not born into the clan. She was instead what was referred to as a Chosen Daughter or what would be referred to in the common way as adopted. In the tradition of the clan, becoming a Chosen Daughter could only happen one of two ways; either by appointment in recognition for a greatly significant service to the clan, or by adoption in infancy by a high-born woman who was incapable of childbearing. Both circumstances were extremely rare as adoptive parents usually chose to wait until a child of the clan became available, and as the clan had been entirely self-sufficient for a millennium, no service provided by outsiders had been deemed 'greatly significant' for more than two hundred and fifty years.

Sofie's parents had found her in the back seat of a car that had crashed into a telephone pole while rounding a sharp corner in a nasty thunderstorm in the Italian Alps. Both her birth parents, probably tourists and unfamiliar with the road were most likely killed instantly. Her adoptive parents had witnessed the accident occur less than a hundred meters in front of them as they travelled in the opposite direction.

They stopped to help, finding both the adults in the front seat dead, and a screaming infant, seemingly unharmed, strapped into a car seat in the back. The woman, a daughter of a matriarch had two of her own already but decided on the spot, it was Vesta's will that she raise the infant as her own. Without hesitation she retrieved the baby girl who was to become Sofie and left the carnage behind.

This act of heroism created a problem for her mother, Matriarch Valentina Severina who was torn between a love for her eldest daughter and the traditions of the clan for which she was bound to protect. The infant, now Sofie Layla Severina, seemed to be of mixed-race African heritage, which made her appearance notably different from those of the homogeneous clan. She quickly realized her opponents in the Vestalem would use that as leverage to deny her, claiming she could never be anything but an outsider. Valentina's daughter remained unmovable and beseeched the Matriarch to make them see reason. Resistant at first, she only had to hold the new addition to her daughter's family once, for Sofie to capture her heart forever. She pondered a way through the dilemma and one evening while in prayer, she was struck by divine inspiration.

Valentina raised the issue of accepting Sofie as a Chosen Daughter before the Vestalem with a compelling argument that the time had come to introduce new bloodlines into the clan. Fecundity among clan women, she argued had been in gradual decline for several generations- to a point where it had widely become cause for concern. It was generally considered true that widening bloodlines was the key to the continued survival of any society. There was good science behind the correlation between genetic diversity and a healthy birth rate within a population. Adopting babies who would grow up steeped in clan tradition, would help to achieve a rise in natural births with minimal disruption to the clan way of life. Accepting Sofie and others like her would secure a healthy future for generations to come.

The motion to accept Sofie and develop a process to gradually introduce outsider babies into the clan was accepted four to one. And so Sofie, the first adoption in more than a century, became a celebrated pioneer. Since her, there had been sixty-eight baby girls and ninety-three baby boys introduced from outside the clan. Nearly all were born of surrogate mothers using sperm and ova from carefully selected outsider donors. Managing the process had become a subsidiary of one of the clan's extensive business holdings.

Her childhood was typical of most clan girls. She was sometimes bullied for being different as is the way with children but her older brothers and sisters protected her, as did her charm and sense of humour. When it came time, she chose a career in the sciences, specifically biology. For her undergrad she majored in human genetics at the University of Waterloo, before moving on to medicine. Graduating medical school at McGill in Montreal with distinction, she then received a fellowship at the John's Hopkins Fertility Centre with a little push from the clan. There she honed her craft- reproductive medicine.

She had given her entire professional life in a bid to solve the clan's fecundity problem and now that it was well understood and an intergenerational treatment plan in place, she was ready to start a family of her own. Sofie, despite being a Chosen, always seemed to have to try a bit harder and wait a little longer than everyone else to get what she wanted. It sometimes gave pause for resentment but she was also grateful to the clan, realizing that she could just as easily been consumed in fire in that horrific accident that took her birth parents had it not been for her mother's intervention.

Nicholas awoke to the sound of his phone in alarm coming from his room down the hall from Sofie's. He staggered out of bed and stumbled into his own room and picked up his phone. He reset the alarm and thought for a moment, considering something he never would normally do. A moment later he started typing a text message to his boss, "Feel like shit. Need some rest. I'll let you know this afternoon about tomorrow." He thought for a minute, staring at the screen before pressing 'send'. Starting to wake up, he went down to the kitchen and after having a glass of orange juice, poured another for Sofie before starting the coffee maker and head back to her bed.

"Good morning Matron", he announced, placing the glass on her bedside table, "I have a glass of Florida sunshine for you to start the day."

He slid into bed beside her and wrapping his arms around her, began gently rocking her, attempting to help her wake. Sofie was not an early riser by nature.

Now that the genie was out of the bottle, they needed to talk about it. Nicholas realized that they needed to discuss Zara's agenda, as she seemed to be moving quickly. Sofie would have more insight to the process and politics around succession, choosing consorts and the like. She too was the granddaughter of a Matriarch, and could be chosen as a successor as well, although her grandmater was a few years younger than Matriarch Juno. She probably had as much insider information as Zara. His soldier's instincts informed him of the need to plan, and control the situation- in direct conflict with his upbringing and acceptance of the clan's social order, that he serve at the pleasure of the Vestalem, and prepare for a life with Zara.

"What do we do about Zara, Sofie?", he asked.

"Just give her a baby Nicholas," she mumbled rolling away from him, "same as any other clans woman that shows up looking for help trying to conceive."

"You don't understand, she's been chosen successor to Matriarch Juno and will name me as her consort. If its approved, I'm bound to her." He paused before continuing, "We will never be together again. There is no divorce in the royal houses. You know that."

Sofie had sat up suddenly awake. "She is successor? No that can't be. Wait. She told you that?"

"Yes, last night. We were walking along the river and-"

"I can't believe she's been named. She's so young." She paused there, her mind reeling, before continuing, "And such a conservative witch. This is not good for the college. Are you sure she wasn't just making it up?"

Nick thought for a moment then shook his head. Zara seemed earnest in everything she said to him, "No.", he paused, "Why would she do that? She was very specific about my not mentioning it though." He felt instantly guilty about that.

"I don't know." Sofie was in an odd place being both taken aback and still waking up.

She and Nick went over the conversation the night before in the tiniest detail. Sofie recounted how on short notice Zara had arrived just after Nick had left for a run and invited herself for dinner. She had asked to be examined, saying that she wanted to get pregnant and some bullshit about wanting the best matron in the province to help her.

"I told her that I was happy to make an appointment, but she invoked privilege of rank to get to the front of the line claiming to be incredibly busy for the next six weeks on important clan business." That had particularly enraged Sofie's sensibilities as she too, was the granddaughter of a matriarch and equally entitled to the rank, title, and privileges that Zara Juno pushed so easily. Sofie, instead accepted the responsibilities and position of Matron, in higher service to the clan.

"She's been charting her period and from my initial exam, it seems likely she'll ovulate within the next three to five days. Hard to know for sure without observing a few of her cycles..."

Nick half listened as Sofie went into some detail on diagnosing ovulation based on temperature and mucus etc. while he was putting the details together, "So you think she wants to go before the college already pregnant, with her choice of consort to force the issue? Why do that? She said it was only a formality anyway- the decision was hers regardless. Why the hurry?" Nick interrupted, thinking out loud.

"No Idea. The Juno's are very conservative. From what 'mater told me they're not comfortable with the whole eugenics program. They want a return to traditional ways. Apparently, the treasured old values are being lost. Bunch of Luddites." she said, then paused to take a sip of orange juice, "Do I smell coffee?"

"Yeah, I made a pot. Can I bring you one?" he asked rising from bed.

"No, I'll come down." she said, donning a bathrobe and followed him downstairs to the kitchen and into the warm morning light.

They resumed their conversation over coffee in the kitchen. Nick had been ruminating on Zara's motives and how much a part of her agenda he was, "Do you think maybe there is some kind of powerplay in the making here?" he asked, "Maybe the Juno's are planning to push a resolution to kill the eugenics program in the Vestalem. If its such a threat to the old ways, then they would be honour bound to do that, would they not?

"Maybe Zara as a charismatic new Matriarch with a shiny consort, could campaign against the program, trying to inspire a groundswell of support in the generation coming up. Maybe spin some crap about opportunity being stripped away from the youth of the ancient houses and handed over to outsiders. 'The source of all that ails us yadda-yadda, with no real clan heritage or proven loyalty etc.' to get people upset. You know some classic Nazi Germany redirect propaganda bullshit."

Sofie considered the idea briefly before answering, "It's absolutely possible. There has always been general unease about what we're doing by introducing these babies into the clan.

"That's because they're the product of very careful trait selection and matching among the donors. Factors including intelligence, athleticism, resistance to disease, determination, a host of others that can only give them a competitive advantage over the rest of the children born of parents matched in the traditional way. That could mean better opportunities for education, more rewarding careers, and higher compensation by the clan to eugenics babies that score higher than clan children. These are all advantages the conservative families want to hold on to for their own children.

"It wouldn't be a hard sell to put a stake in the program, even though in reality, as these children marry into the ancient families and have their children, their 'better' qualities diffuse across the genome, rather than concentrate. The real net effect is a general increase in the frequency of desirable qualities through out the entire population, not a sudden rise of outsider supermen who take over the clan.

"Changes in a population genome happen at a glacial pace, anyway. We're talking about ten or more generations into the future before any kind of statistical difference in the population as far as natural abilities as compared to now would be observable. The intended benefit of improving the number of healthy natural conceptions among clan women will happen more quickly, for reasons that are way more difficult to explain.

"Calling it a 'eugenics" program doesn't help. I put the idea forward of 'Phoenix" instead but that was politely ignored by the administration." she said then finally took a breath. Sofie was very passionate about her work and like all women of the clan had a very strong sense of motherhood. The program, while deemed an ugly child by many was her baby and she defended it with the instincts of a lioness.

"Well I'm just a dumb physicist that studied engineering, and pulls wire for a living but it seems intuitive to me that it's a good idea and an elegant solution to a complex and dangerous threat to the survival of the clan." he replied. "We're talking about highly educated and sophisticated elders who have a solid understanding of all of that. How can they feel in any way threatened by what you're doing? I don't see it Sofie."

"Dumb physicist my ass. You know that your genetic screening records show a complete absence of any hereditary disease markers and on your lowest test result, your sperm count is at least two and a half times higher than the average, with a huge motility index. You also test in the ninety-eighth percentile on intelligence, and damn it all, you are over the top hot as well-" Sofie paused. She knew that singing his praises made Nicholas a little uncomfortable, "You would be the jewel in Zara Juno's crown, and she types out highly as well. The two of you would have beautiful babies for sure. That's why she wants to lock you up for herself." She trailed off.

"Nah. There has to be more than just optics at stake," responded Nick, "somehow there's money or control of something valuable in play here..."

Sofie had started putting together a breakfast of toast and scrambled eggs with some fruit. She decided to broach a topic she'd been mulling over for a while now. It was risky but her heart need to know which direction to turn.

"Would you consider a life outside all of this Nicholas. A fresh start in the commons- leave the clan behind?"

"What? Are you suggesting that we run away, cut ourselves off from family, the resources and protection of the clan?" said Nicholas, despite having a similar notion.

"Protection from what Nicholas? You're a highly trained military guy and a skilled professional. What threat is there that you couldn't easily handle? she replied having rehearsed this part, "I'm a highly qualified gynaecologist, board certified in reproductive medicine. We would thrive in the commons and you know it."

Her next statement came out as more of plea, "You said you loved me Nicholas. We could be together- have a family of our own. No Vestalem, no rules just us, for us."

She had wrenched his heart strings. Taking her into his arms he kissed her tenderly and then holding her close said, "Of course Sofie, I'll do anything you want, but my family- It's not just 'us' we need to think about.

"Yeah, I know. Its easier for me. It's just my parents, Grandmater, and my sister really, if I'm being honest that I would miss, but there are ways of staying in touch as you well know. We're both highly qualified professionals. It would be so easy to make a fresh start. We can rely on our own resourcefulness. Build our future." She replied, now bargaining with him.

Despite his declared affection and her logical argument, she knew he was predisposed to be an obedient servant of the clan. The product of a millennium of selection, all clansmen predictably were loyal to a fault. She had a better chance of keeping a water dog out of a lake full of ducks than convincing him to walk away from his heritage. As a Chosen Daughter, she was able to see the forest for the trees, when it came to the clan. She would never be able to convince him with logic to leave his family behind.

She decided that she would have to use her sexuality to gain an advantage and fair or unfair, get things her way. Although not her default means of getting what she wanted, she had the upper hand and if she manipulated him only slightly, he would find his way to her point of view on his own. That meant he would be more committed once a course of action was decided.

"What time are you home from work today?" she asked.

"I called in sick. I wanted to be with you this morning, after what we talked about last night, it seemed the right thing to do."

"I see. Don't you feel a bit guilty taking time off on such short notice?" she asked. She already knew that he did.

"A little yes." He had lowered his gaze to the floor, unable to make eye contact.

"It's okay, come here Nicholas. Sweetheart, that's amazing, I love that you did that." She said, extending her arms toward him. She'd allowed her robe to open exposing her toned golden-brown body, from neck to pubic mound.

He moved towards her, feeling an awkward combination of guilty child and a rising desire for make love to her.

She took him in her arms and spoke softly in his ear, "Whenever you choose to spend more time with me, you're making a good decision Nicholas."

She then kissed his mouth softly for a moment before holding his lower lip gently between her own lips, then drawing it slightly into her mouth. "I want you. Right here in the kitchen," she said, forcefully pushing him away, "I want you on your knees before me."