Price of Past Miracles

New Year's Eve 1956 in Washington, D.C. was the night Tom and Lynda Seldon made the ultimate sacrifice for their best friends, Charles and Diana Richards. They had made the most gut-wrenching decision of their lives... and they'd had second and third and fourth thoughts about what they did. But at Charles' insistence, Tom had finally relented to that one-time attempt to help them create a miracle...

**********

"Kiss me, Lynda. I'm going to lose it because I don't think I can do this!" Tom muttered quietly, his eyes closed tightly.

Lynda leaned over her husband and kissed him softly as she reached down under the towel draped over his hips to stroke his half-hard shaft until he was firm again. She released him and gestured with her hand for Charles to move Diana closer.

"No Charles... I'm sorry... I can't do this! Please don't make me do this!" Diana whispered hoarsely.

He helped her to kneel over top of Tom's body as Lynda removed the towel and Charles closed his eyes. "Shhh... pretty lady. I'm right here. Keep your eyes closed. I'm right behind you. It's me... I'm the one sliding inside your body."

You're in for a real treat, my friend...

Tom moaned deeply.

Now do you see, partner... I've told you I can never get enough of her...

"I'm right here, pretty lady... moving with you! Feel me inside your body. That's me, Diana. Feel my hands on your breasts... you know my touch. It's me... that's it baby... rock yourself for a moment."

Can he make you come as fast as I can, pretty lady? It's OK... go ahead and come. Let him feel your tight, sweet pussy pulsing on his hard dick so he'll come faster...

Diana cried, "Oh, God... NO! I don't want to come!" Her body convulsed as her flesh squeezed Tom's shaft. "Oh, God... Oh, God...Oh... ohhhh..."

Charles squeezed his eyes shut tighter. "It's OK, baby... I know you can't help it. Just let go and stroke yourself on me. Make me come, Diana. Make me come inside you, my love."

Fuck him, Diana... make him come! Get this over with before I lose control, too...

Tom groaned hoarsely, "Oh, God... Lynda... I didn't mean to make her..." He shut his eyes tighter.

Oh, God... this isn't going to take long! Damn it... her body feels so fucking good...

Lynda grasped Tom's face. "It's me, darling. I'm the one making love to you. Kiss me, my darling... come for me, my love!"

Do it quickly before I lose my mind! I shouldn't have peeked! Now I have the image of my best friend impaled on my husband's body burned on my brain...

Diana howled, "NOOOOO!!!!" just as Tom erupted inside her, groaning loudly.

Oh, God, Lynda... WHY DID YOU MAKE ME DO THIS? HOW AM I GOING TO LIVE WITH THIS?!!!

She screamed, "Let go of me! Get me off of him! I can't believe I ever agreed to this!! Charles... how could you do this to me? After what you made me promise! How will you ever be able to live with me... or work with Tom? How will I ever be able to face my best friend again?"

She struggled vainly to disengage her body from the one beneath her, her eyes still tightly shut.

Charles still kept his eyes closed. "Shhh... Diana... stop this. You have nothing to feel guilty for... this is all on me. This is my own selfish need to try to give you something that I might otherwise never be able to give you. You've never broken your promise to me and I could never live without you. As for working with Tom... as far as I'm concerned, he was making love to Lynda while I was making love to you!"

I'm saying that for his benefit, pretty lady...

He grasped his wife's shaking body and pulled her sideways to the other side of the bed as soon as he felt Tom's body stop jerking, signaling that his orgasm had ended. He forced her onto her back as he moved between her legs and pulled the sheet up over them.

"Open your eyes, Diana." She lifted her lids, tears sticking to her sparse lashes. She moaned deeply as he entered her slowly.

Does it really feel that different, pretty lady? Are you sure it wasn't me that was inside you just a moment ago...

She closed her eyes again.

Yes... I know your cock... I know that wasn't you inside me! That's why I didn't want to come! I wasn't supposed to enjoy it...

How could you not? As much as I hate to admit it, Diana... this whole scenario excited me. Why would my cock have been this hard and throbbing the whole time? I should feel jealous and resentful... but I feel guilty more than anything else. I enjoyed the thought of sharing you... just this once... with the only man I'd ever trust not to try to steal you from me...

Tom kept his eyes closed as he wrapped the towel that was under his hips around his body. He sat up on the edge of the other side of the bed with his back to them. "If you guys will excuse me... I feel the need for a shower. Lynda, sweetheart... would you join me, please?"

"Of course, darling. I'll help you to wash away any bad feelings." The two of them stood up from the bed.

Charles buried himself inside his wife and was still for a moment. "Tom, Lynda..." When they both looked down at them, he said sincerely, "I... don't know what to say. Thank you seems pretty... inadequate at the moment. Whether this works or not... I'm grateful any way."

Tom and Lynda smiled at them sadly and nodded their heads before they turned away and went into the bathroom. Tom started the shower, got in and stood under the tepid spray as the water heated up. He heard Lynda climb in and felt her arms wrap around the front of his body as she hugged him from behind.

"Why do I suddenly feel like a prized stud? I haven't come that fast since I was a horny teenaged boy! I almost feel... used! This is ridiculous! Lynda... when I said I'd do anything in the world for you, I really meant it! But I'll never do THAT again!"

Lynda snorted an ironic laugh. "Good! Because I have no intention of ever putting myself through that again! I love Diana and Charles and I really want them to have a chance at the joy of being parents... but I'm done! We've more than repaid the favor of them making sure we met each other!"

She paused and dropped her arms from around her husband's body. "I made the mistake of peeking while she was impaled on you and I think that's an image that will haunt me the rest of my life! But I guess I deserve a little payback for that night I almost tried to seduce Charles when he was drunk!"

Tom turned around and hugged Lynda to him. "Sweetheart, don't start blaming yourself again for feelings you couldn't control. That was before we met! And you know they don't blame you anymore, either. We're not going to play the blame game. Like you said... I, too, love Diana and Charles and want them to be happy. But we did our part and now we're done. And we'll continue to pray for a miracle. As far as I'm concerned, if Diana does get pregnant, that baby is theirs... in every way. Whether I contributed or not... it will be their child."

He pulled back from Lynda to stare at her. "We will never speak of this again. And Jon and Barbara and Rick and Dawn need never know. Let's finish our shower, dress and go back down to the party. I'm sure Charles will want to make love to Diana as many times as he can... so we'll never really know for sure..."

After the third time Charles had made love to her, Diana could no longer hold back her fear that what they had done was sinful and they had no right to be asking for a miracle as a result and she had burst into tears.

"Don't cry, pretty lady," Charles had said gently as he stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "We did this for us... to make our own miracle happen. We can't keep relying on the powers of fate or destiny to determine our lives. I'm not going to sit back and let the dark forces of the universe continue to try and take happiness away from us. We've been through too much to just give up."

"Oh, Charles..." she'd croaked hoarsely, "What if I still don't get pregnant? This will have been for nothing! What if it's not just you... what if it's me, too?" She'd started to cry harder.

He'd laid his forehead against hers. "Don't think like that, Diana. Pray with me. Pray to God to give us a child. We've done what we could; the rest is up to Him. Pray to Him for our miracle."

They had wrapped themselves around each other and prayed harder than they ever had.

One lone swimmer among millions had been caught up in the primal flow toward a fateful destiny... Inside her body, a rare miracle had taken place. And Diana had been right to fear that there would be a high price for such a miracle...

**********

But their children were the ones who were ending up having to pay the price for that past miracle...

Tom and Lynda and Charles and Diana all shook their heads slightly as they brought themselves back from those haunting memories to the present as they sat down with their kids again.

Diana was still in slight shock having come home from work early to find her daughter Megan in bed with Tom and Lynda's son Brad. And what was worse, they were saying that they were in love...

Tom looked at Charles. "I think you should take over to explain the rest of the story."

Charles nodded and glanced into his beautiful wife's anxious eyes and then he turned to look into his lovely daughter's expectant face as he took her hands in his. "Megan, sweetie... remember when Uncle Tom said that they tried to aid us in making a miracle happen on New Year's Eve 1956?" She nodded with a questioning look on her face and Charles took a deep breath. "Well... what he meant was... he... loaned his body to your mother and me that night... just once and... Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Megan was frowning in confusion, but Brad knew exactly what he meant. He jumped up from the couch and faced all four adults. "What you're saying is that my father fucked Aunt Dee and that's how she got pregnant! Oh, my God! That means... Charlie and Meggie are my half brother and sister?!!!" All the color drained from Brad's face as that realization sank in.

Charles stood up and grasped Brad's shoulders and helped him sit back down. "That's not exactly how it worked out Brad. Megan and Charlie are fraternal twins; two separate eggs were fertilized. Biologically, I am Charlie's father... but... you were half right. Megan is biologically your half-sister... even though she's my daughter."

Everyone looked at her when Megan made a strangled noise in her throat. Her eyes were welled with tears and her face was ashen. Her mother reached for her but Megan brushed her hands away. She turned her tear-filled eyes to the man she'd always known as her father. "Daddy?"

Charles held his arms toward her and she stood up to throw herself against him. "It's OK, sweetie. Nothing has changed... you have always been and always will be my little girl! I couldn't love you any more if you did carry my genes... you carry your mother's and I love both of you more than life itself. We'll do everything we can to help you get through this. I'm so sorry, Meggie... we should've told you years ago. We had no idea something like this would happen! I'm so sorry for both you and Brad!"

Charles broke down and wept with his daughter. Everyone else in the room had tears rolling down their faces as well.

Diana suddenly felt sick. The looks of passion and desire that she'd seen on her daughter's and her half-brother's faces as they were making love flashed through her mind. The shock made her stomach lurch. She jumped up and rushed out of the living room and down the hall to the bathroom and made it to the toilet just in time.

Lynda followed her best friend. "Diana... are you OK?" she called outside the bathroom door. She could clearly hear that Diana was not OK. When she no longer heard the sounds of retching, she knocked again. "Diana... are you OK now? Please, honey, open the door!"

The toilet flushed and then she heard the sink faucet running. A minute later, Diana opened the door and looked at her with a weak smile. "I'll be OK, Lynda. You just have no idea what a shock it was to me to open that bedroom door and see them together... like that." Tears came into her eyes again. "Oh, Lynda... they were looking at each other the way we look at our husbands and the way they look at us! They really are in love! How are they going to get past this?!! What have we done?!!"

Linda hugged her tightly. "It's nobody's fault, Diana. We could not possibly have predicted this would happen! None of us ever saw any indication from those kids that they had these feelings for each other. As far as we could tell, they had always treated each other like they were brother and sister. I think we need to go back and talk to the kids and find out how this came about! Come on... we have to face this now and try to help them work through it."

When they got back to the living room, Megan and Brad were sitting on opposite ends of the couch avoiding eye contact. Charles and Tom were standing at the bar pouring themselves drinks again. Diana walked over and took the glass of whiskey from her husband's hand and downed it. The liquid burned all the way down and pooled hotly in her empty stomach but its warmth somehow calmed her.

She glanced at both Tom and Charles. "Did they say anything while we were gone?" The men shook their heads.

Charles said quietly, "They won't even look at each other. They've just been told that what they feel for each other is wrong. They've innocently loved each other all their lives not knowing that it would be against the laws of nature for them to do so. This must be the worst day of their lives..."

Diana gasped. "Oh, my God... You know what today is, don't you?" They all looked at her in confusion. "Didn't you notice what today's date is?" They shook their heads. "It's June 13th... Friday the 13th... Why do things like this always seem to happen on these Fridays?!! It all started when I was raped..."

They also recalled the incident the day the twins were born when that sick woman had tried to kidnap Charlie... and it was in December 1963 when they were six years old that Charlie and Meggie had gotten so sick. They did all kinds of blood work on them to figure out what was wrong and it was discovered that the kids had different blood types. Charlie was AB positive like Charles, but Meggie was O positive, like Tom. The doctors had told them about that on the 13th of December... it was a Friday!

The doctors had taken Diana aside and told her that the only way that could've happened was that her eggs had been fertilized by sperm from two different men. She could tell by the looks on the doctors' faces that they were trying to protect her by not letting her husband know that she must've had sex with another man. They were shocked when she'd called Charles over and had them explain it to him and even more shocked when Charles just nodded his head and said that he understood.

Megan had been lost in her jumbled thoughts. She was sitting on the couch trying to pretend that the only boy she'd ever loved wasn't sitting just six feet from her, and yet he may as well have been a thousand miles away. They would be forever separated by an invisible boundary that they could never cross again. Then she heard what her mother was saying... something about how Friday the 13th was always such an unlucky day for them...

That's not true... It was a Friday the 13th when I first realized how I felt about Brad! Oh, God... It is true...

She couldn't stop the tortured whimper that bubbled up from the pit of her stomach. Everyone turned to look at her.

Diana immediately went to her daughter. "What is it sweetie? Tell us what you're thinking!"

Megan swallowed and looked into her mother's sympathetic gray blue eyes. "I heard what you were saying... about all that bad stuff happening on Friday the thirteenths. I was just thinking that something wonderful had happened to me on one of those days... Friday, November 13, 1970..." She looked at Brad and his head snapped around to stare at her.

The looks in their eyes reflected their tortured souls. "Brad and I were at a school dance that night. He asked me to dance a slow dance. He looked at me in a way I'd never seen him look at me before... That was when I fell in love..." She turned away and hung her head down to cry. She squeaked, "I guess that was an unlucky night..." She started to sob.

Oh, God, Meg... I can't stand to see you in so much pain...

Brad launched himself off the couch and stalked up to his father, angry tears streaming down his face. He shoved his hands against Tom's strong, unyielding chest. "This is ALL your fault! You SON-OF-A-BITCH! How could you have agreed to something like that! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!"

Megan jumped up and screamed, "BRAD! STOP IT!" When he turned to look at her, she said softly, "You're forgetting one important fact here... I wouldn't exist if it wasn't for him!"

Brad turned back around to Tom with a grief stricken look. His shoulders slumped and his head dropped forward. He couldn't stop the sobs that tore from his soul. He leaned on his father's chest for support as his body was wracked by painful waves of despair. Tom held his son and quietly cried with him for a minute until Brad pushed away from him.

He wiped his face and then eyed each one of the adults. "You should have told us. I can almost understand why you did what you did... but you should have told us. If we had grown up as kids knowing that we had this connection, it would've prevented us from thinking about each other as anything other than family!

"My feelings for Meggie were so strong even when we were only thirteen, so I forced myself to continue to think of her as my sister..." He paused as he took a couple painful deep breaths to keep from sobbing again, then he continued. "I knew she felt the same about me and if I had allowed myself to act on those feelings when we were younger... I just knew things would get beyond our control too fast. I loved her so much..." He stared at her painfully.

I still do...

She stared back.

Oh, Brad... I still love you, too... What are we going to do?

I don't know, Meg... I can't think when I feel so empty... I've lost my heart and soul... I've lost you...

No you haven't! I still love you! You haven't lost me...

You know what I mean Megan... I can't HAVE you... We're lost to each other... We can't be together the way we wanted... We have to figure out how to let go... How do we release each other's souls? How do we stop loving each other? I can't stop wanting you... even knowing now how wrong it is...

Brad and Megan had unconsciously moved toward each other as they traded their thoughts. He reached out to brush his fingers on her cheek. She leaned her head until he cupped her cheek in his palm. She closed her eyes and frowned painfully as she nuzzled her face against his hand.

The four adults all glanced uncomfortably at each other. They could clearly read the thoughts on their children's faces. They could feel the despair emanating from their souls in waves. They could almost hear the sounds of their hearts breaking...

At that moment, the front doorbell rang and Charles answered it. Jonnie North and Barbie Estevez came bounding in, completely unaware of the tension as they headed straight toward their best friends.

"Hey, you guys! Are we still going out for pizza and catch a movie tonight?" Barbie asked in her naturally exuberant manner.

Jonnie paused and frowned when he saw the looks on Megan and Brad's faces.

What the hell is going on here? Why is she looking at Brad like that? Oh, no, Megan... please tell me you haven't fallen for Brad! It should've been me! Damn you, Brad...

He cleared his throat. "Uh... what's going on here? Have we interrupted something?"