The Oath

AUTHOR'S NOTE

- I want to thank my editor Ditee for all that she has done. She makes my mess readable.

All characters in this story are at least eighteen years old.

Chapter 1

"I wont have it!" She said to John "It's not going to happen."

She was pretty for her age, petite, bleach blond (for him), just slightly overweight and with large breasts that she showed off in tight, low cut sweaters (also for him). John just rolled his eyes in frustration. They had been down this road so many times before. He didn't want to have this conversation again.

"He took the oath, and as far as we know, he was true to it."

"I don't care," she said smugly.

"He's expecting it."

"How do you know he's expecting it? I never said anything to him. Did you say anything to him?"

"I never said anything to him. It's just assumed."

"He's assuming the wrong things. He's my son, and I never gave my permission for this." John didn't say anything. They had been over this so many times before.

"Besides it's barbaric," she added.

"It's not barbaric. I had one myself."

"I know you did. All of your brothers did too. It was probably the same woman too."

"No! You know that that's not true. For me and Kevin it was my mother's cousin, but Jimmy had someone else"

"And you don't think there's something wrong with that?"

"No I don't see anything wrong with it." He thought about his mother's cousin and smiled. She was beautiful.

"It's not funny John. This is one giant fraternity stunt to you men. Isn't it?"

Oh my god, he thought, she is so narrow-minded. Her whole family was like this, but their parents had only had girls, and girls just don't understand.

"Do you want him to get the disease?" He couldn't even call the disease by its name. No one did. It wasn't the only disease left, but it was the only one that mattered. "And what about the 'Moral Codes,' do you want to see him taken away in handcuffs?"

"My God no! How could you say that? He's my son. But this tradition is not the only option."

"It is if he's taken the oath."

"Who did he make this oath to? Not to me. I don't remember discussing this oath. The next thing I know he took it, and we all have to abide by it."

"You know when he took it. All the boys in the class took it together in their freshman year. Katie, this is 2020, we live in a very Victorian age, and we all have to make some adjustments. It's not like when our great grandparents were young."

"Don't preach to me John, and don't treat me like an idiot. I know the necessities of modern life. I don't live in a cave, but it seems to be skewed to a certain proclivity of men."

"Nonsense."

"What if we had a daughter instead? Would you be so eager if she took the same oath?"

"There is no oath for girls."

"That's exactly my point. It's a double standard."

"That's not your point. You're not against a double standard. You'd be against it if there were an oath for girls too."

"Yes I would, because I think it is wrong and perverse."

John loomed over her. It wasn't the fact that he was tall, because he was just slightly taller than normal. It was just that she was short, and she would be shorter still if she weren't in high heels.

Still she wasn't afraid of him, in fact she tended to boss him around, but she couldn't bully him on this subject. He was adamant. Despite his denials, she knew he had promised the boy. Maybe not overtly but tacitly, and she knew that he was going to make good on that promise.

"You are only indignant because it's Justin that's involved. I don't remember you protesting so loudly when it was other people's son's."

"You're ridiculous," she said as she stormed off indignantly.

He was right, and she couldn't deny it. She just couldn't envision he son being defiled this way. Not her son. Not this way. There had to be an alternative.

The fact that it was a beautiful day outside was of no consequence to Justin. He was hung over, and the sun, which was peering in through his window, hurt his eyes.

It was June twenty-ninth, his eighteenth birthday, and he felt all eighteen years of it, at least in his head. He rolled over so that the sun was off his face, and his hand instinctively migrated to in his crotch.

Like any eighteen-year-old boy he had an erection this morning, and although he kneaded it beneath the sheets, he knew from experience that his mother would be knocking on his bedroom door soon, and that was all he dared to do.

Slowly, as he remembered the events of the previous night, he began to smile to himself. Nothing much happened, but he was with his best friends, and they drank an inordinate amount of beer. Beer remarkably supplied by his father.

Now that he was eighteen, and had fulfilled his part in the oath, he was allowed certain "liberties". He was now a man, and yet still a virgin, a feat that would have been embarrassing several generations ago.

To Justin, and his peers, it was not only laudable, but a necessity for survival, at least statistically. They lived in an age when, if you were not a virgin on your eighteenth birthday, you would probably be dead, or in jail, by your twentieth, if you weren't dead already.

Underage drinking, though still technically illegal, was tolerated, if there was parental supervision, and all of the imbibers had completed the oath.

Justin stopped stroking his cock as he heard a knock on the door.

"Justin honey, are you up?"

"Yeah mom I'm up."

The bedroom door opened up and his mother peered around it.

"Oh my God. What died in here?" She exclaimed as she entered his room.

"Mom!"

"I can't stand it in here. I have to open up a window."

"Mom you'll let in all of the hot air."

"I don't care. How can you live in this stench?" She said as she threw open the window next to his bed. "Were you drinking last night?"

"Mom!"

"You know I don't approve of that. Who bought you the alcohol?"

"It wasn't alcohol. It was a few beers, and dad and Mr. Collins bought it for us."

"Timmy's dad?" She asked as she started to pick up the clothes off his floor.

"Yes, and dad. It was only a twelve pack between the three of us," Justin lied.

"Well I'm going to have to talk to your dad about this."

"Mom really. It's like you are living in 1999."

"Even still. I don't approve of this underage drinking, even if you dad is so permissive."

Justin just closed his eyes and lay back in bed.

"Justin don't fall back to sleep. You have to be in work by twelve."

"I'm not sleeping mom, and besides it's only ten thirty. I have plenty of time."

"Well you can't be late," she said as she started to leave his room with an armful of clothes. "It's only your first week."

Justin opened his eyes to see her walking out the door. If he had seen her with different eyes, he would have seen an attractive, fortyish woman dressed in a tight active-wear outfit, but he only saw his mom.

He grabbed his laptop as she closed the door and the image of a woman came on screen. She was a young Asian woman of about thirty with jet-black hair.

She was a beautiful woman, of Japanese descent, dressed in a business suit and making a video like one would make for a dating service. She was also his dad's secretary, and she was promised to him.

He masturbated to her video even though she did nothing more provocative than talk into the camera.

Tim touched a button on his earpiece to connect the call.

"Hey Justin, what's up?"

"Nothing man. Just wanted to know how it was going?"

"I'm just driving to the coffee shop now. Nothing yet."

"Are you excited?"

"Wouldn't you be? You remember how hot she was."

"I can't believe it, Mrs. Teller, our old history teacher from middle school. How did your parents get that?"

"Her husband is a friend of my uncle's. My uncle set it up."

"Man, you owe your uncle big time. She's too hot for you."

"You're just jealous."

"In more ways than one."

"You still haven't heard anything from your folks?"

"My dad has told me some things, but it's up to my mom, and she still lives in the dark ages."

"She's not going to go for it?"

"I don't know."

"But that's unfair. You fulfilled the Oath like the rest of us. You've kept up your side of the bargain. You'd be the only one in the class that won't get a courtesan."

"I know. What can I do?"

"Talk to her. Talk to your dad. Make them understand. This is a tradition."

"She says that it wasn't a tradition for her."

"That's because she is a girl, and they get it on the other end, if they are still pretty that is. Even my mom did it."

"My mom never did."

"That's because she refused. My mom told me that she had her offers."

"From who?"

"I don't know. You know my mom can't tell me. It would be indiscreet. But I do know that she had more than one offer. If she weren't your mom, I would have liked to have her instead of Mrs. Teller."

"That's disgusting."

"For you man. Not for me. Your mom is really beautiful."

"I don't want to hear this."

"Sorry man, listen, I'm pulling into the parking lot now. I'll let you know how it goes."

"Good luck, Tim."

"Thanks man. I'll talk to you later."

Justin didn't have to disconnect the call. It happened automatically, since Tim ended it on his end first. He felt a bit of self-pity as he walked into the shop where he worked. All of his friends had courtesans. Tim, his best friend, was meeting his now. His father knew a woman that was willing, and yet his goddamn mother denied him. It wasn't fair.

What did she want? Did she want him to catch the Disease and die? Or what if he got arrested. One of the kids from his school, along with some girl, was still in jail for having sex.

All he was asking for was the same thing that all of his friends were getting. Even his dad had one. What the hell was his mother's problem?

Then he thought about the videos that they had shown him in school. He thought about the images of people dying that horrible death, that horrible bloody death. And he knew that people were still dying that way now.

Poor people, people in the ghettos, people in the undeveloped world, were dying this excruciating death every day, and there was no cure, only prevention, and the prevention was abstinence.

Except if you knew that the person was not infected. It was easy to test for the disease, and it was 100% accurate, but it was expensive, and would take a few days to complete. Those were two things that meant nothing to people in the heat of passion, or to people in the third world.

He knew that he didn't want to die, and he especially didn't want to die that way; drowning in your own blood and body fluids, and then infecting others, maybe his mom and dad, with those same body fluids.

He didn't make this world, he thought as he checked in with his supervisor, other people had. People who had used sex carelessly, indiscriminately, and without a thought for their actions.

It was a world made by people who used sex as a game, a game in which they didn't have to pay a penalty. It was generations later that people, like Justin, who had to pay that penalty, a penalty of abstinence or death. You choose.

Linda Teller sat in the coffee shop and she was actually nervous. She also felt a bit ridiculous that she was meeting this young boy for a possible tryst. The most amazing thing was that her husband, Phil, and others, had encouraged her to do this.

Phil had a courtesan (she hated that term) as a young man, and if that woman's husband didn't go along, then he wouldn't have benefited.

"I don't like the idea of you fucking someone else, but it's just physical not emotional, and it's supposed to be for the boy's benefit; not yours," he added with a sarcastic grin. He sounded though like a man who was trying to convince himself.

"So I'm not supposed to get any pleasure from it?"

"No, just fuck him and come home." He was smiling, but she knew he was serious. It was a tradition that he believed in, but she felt that his best friend Jack, who had brought it up at dinner that night, had pressured him into it.

"This isn't a one time thing, you know?"

"I know. I know."

"This could last for months. How long did yours last?"

"Well I went away to school in the fall, but we did continue to see each other when I came home on vacation," he admitted.

"I've heard that some last for years." She kidded him, but then she saw the look in his eyes, and she knew that she went too far. "I don't have to do this. You know?"

"What do you mean?" He said defensively, but then he saw the look in her eyes as she tilted her head. "I'm okay with it." He said convincingly. "Go ahead, lay your young stud, but it's not lasting YEARS, and you're not to enjoy it. You hear?"

"Okay, if I must. You know that I'm only doing it for tradition's sake," she couldn't resist giving him one last dig.

She looked in her reflection in a metallic counter, and fixed her shoulder length brown hair. She also smoothed out a wrinkle in her blouse. She wanted to look pretty, but her husband had been watching her as she got ready, so she settled on a simple blouse and a knee length skirt, like ones she would have worn for school.

She felt nervous, like she was on a blind date. She had never met the boy before, though she had seen a picture of him, and he apparently knew who she was from school.

She didn't know how to act. She had undone a few buttons on her blouse when she was driving to the shop, but then buttoned them back up once she had arrived. She also wished that she had worn another blouse, one that wasn't so tight.

And then she saw him walk in the door. Oh my god, she thought, he's gorgeous. She undid the two buttons on her blouse again before she waved to get his attention.

He was tall and thin with auburn hair, and he wore a tight short sleeve shirt that showed off plenty of muscles.

"Hi Mrs. Teller, my name's Tim." He leaned in to shake her hand and she noticed that he had bright green eyes.

"Sit down Tim, and please call me Linda." She felt a tingle in her crotch at the realization that, unless he was a complete asshole, she would be sleeping with this young man before the day was through.

He sat down and smiled at her. "I have to say Linda, that you are just as beautiful now as when I last saw you." Linda blushed. Maybe she would sleep with him even if he were a complete asshole.

"Yes, I know," she replied. "Six years has a way of aging a woman." He smiled and he closed his eyes. Good, she thought, he got the joke. He might be intelligent after all.

"I guess that was a stupid thing to say."

"What, that I'm beautiful?"

"No. I guess it's not what I said, but how I said it."

They talked for a while, he told her about his plans and she told him about her family. She found herself flirting with him and he flirted back.

While driving to the shop she had told herself that it would be purely professional. She had a job to do, and for the sake of her husband, and her marriage, she would do it without emotions. But she found herself, in just the short time they were together, starting to like the boy.

What was not to like? He was intelligent, funny, self-deprecating, and not the least of all, handsome. It could have been his hormones talking, but he also seemed to find her interesting.

All of a sudden their conversation dried up, and they were left with an awkward silence.

"So where do we go from here." She tried not to sound too eager.

"Well, are you attracted to me?" He asked. She was taken aback by the question. It was a subjective question and this whole situation was supposed to be objective.

"It's not a question of attraction on my part. This is all supposed to be for your benefit."

"I know. I just..."

"I'm a married woman you know." She cut him off.

"I know. You kind of had to be."

"Oh yeah, the rules." The courtesan tradition had certain unwritten rules. "I have to be married, over thirty, and, of course, disease free. Did I leave anything out?"

"Yes. You have to have a smokin' hot body," he replied tongue in cheek, and it caught her off guard so much that she almost spit out the coffee she had just sipped. "I'm sorry Linda. I know that you are married and this is all supposed to be without complications. I just wondered if you found me to be without appeal?"

"Oh, you are appealing all right," she said, as she made sure that she hadn't spit up on her blouse.

"I mean physically." He pushed.

"Don't worry Tim, you are a very good looking boy."

"Well if it's okay, my dad rented a room for us in a hotel not too far away."

She felt a tinge of apprehension. It was all happening so fast, but she couldn't back out now, and as she looked at him with his good looks and charm, she really didn't want to back out.

"Okay, you drive," she said and it was done.

"It's funny," she said as she sat in the passenger seat of his car. "Sixty years ago your first time would be done illicitly with someone you loved maybe on a beach, or in the back seat of a car. Now it's done in a hotel room with a perfect stranger."

"That's kind of why man got in this trouble in the first place."

"Maybe, but it seems that back then it was done with a bit more romance. Now it seems so clinical."

"Believe me, I won't be clinical."

"Don't be crass, Tim."

All the way to the hotel he kept sneaking looks at her. He was cute. My God, she thought, he must be going crazy knowing that in a little while he would be fucking her brains out.

Still it was surreal to her. She had just met this boy and now she was committed to a sexual relationship with him. She almost hadn't agreed to it, and ultimately it was a conversation she had with her mother-in-law, of all people, that convinced her to go through with this thing.

"I hear that you are thinking of being a courtesan?" Mrs. H, as Linda called her, said brusquely over the phone last week.

"Oh, your son told you?" Linda said a little annoyed. She liked her mother in law, even though she was a little rough around the edges, but the fact that there were no secrets between mother and son was irritating.

"Yeah, he probably shouldn't have, but you know your Phillip."

"I'm not sure that I'm going to do it," Linda admitted.

"Why not? If you don't mind me asking."

"Ahh, it's your son. I think that he's getting a little jealous."

"Oh please, they can be such children. He'll get over it. Besides he had one, and I also became one back years ago when I was almost as pretty as you are."

"You did, really?" Linda didn't let on that Phil had already told her about his mother.

"Believe me it will be the best thing for your marriage. Your father-in-law was taking me for granted until I became a courtesan. Then afterwards he couldn't do enough for me. They are funny that way."

"You really think so?"

"I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it. It'll put Phillip in his place, and you'll have some of the best sex of your life."

"I thought the woman wasn't to get anything out of the sex."

"That's just some bullshit that those men feed us. Yes, I know that you are there to fulfill the arrangement this boy has made with his parents, but your main job, and you are doing this for his future wife, is to teach him how to please a woman. How are you going to teach him how to please a woman, if he isn't pleasing you?"

"You make it sound like it's my duty," Linda said amused.

"It is honey, it is. Listen, I never had a daughter, only sons, but if I did, I would tell her the same thing that I'm telling you. And don't worry about Phillip. He had one when he came of age, and now it's his turn to step aside. Besides he wasn't so worried about the husband of his courtesan. I know the couple, they are still together, and she always asks me how Phillip is doing every Sunday at mass. I think she got more out of that relationship than Phillip."