Part Two-A Flood of Fornication

Month of Adonnamoon, Day 18. Fadak.

They woke to the sound of trumpets in the streets, some ways away. A dissonant melody that relented occasionally to leave room for a herald to shout at the top of their lungs, unintelligibly at first but each repetition grew closer and more clear.

Portia sat up, remembering where she was and what she’d done, and that the trickle of cool semen oozing out of her, was from her son. Her stomach sank with shame while her blood surged with foul excitement. Not now. Her ears perked as she tried to make out the words. Soon the heralds were on their waterfront street.

“They started the city lockdown. So much for rescuing Bowen or Sienna anytime soon. Or getting anywhere at all.”

“All the gates are locked down," Jasper replied, half-awake, rolling from his side to his back. "If it’s as contagious as they say, it’s for the best. You rescued me just in time.”

“Lucky you,” she turned to him. He was positioned awkwardly, with his hand resting on an arm, with the other casually resting on his morning erection, looking even bigger than last night. It trapped her gaze and imagination while her loins surged back to readiness.

After a long sigh, her eyes darted up to his. “Did you come with me because you knew this was going to happen?”

Jasper shook his head. “I had no idea, honestly! I only read your mind enough to know that you were telling the truth. I can't see the future.”

She nodded, then shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. Are we just going to have depraved, incest sex this whole time?”

“Would that be so bad?” his grin swelled into a chuckle. “No! I want to know all about you and your adventures. Our family. My brothers and sisters. But you’re just so beautiful. I can’t concentrate. And you? I think you need to do this a few more times so you can stop feeling guilty about it.”

She shook her head with a coy grin and reached over, guiding his length upright. He was so long that she didn’t have to adjust her posture much to bring her mouth to it. “Well, blowjobs don't count as sex so it's not really incest either. That’s how that works, right?”

“Whatever you say, Mom.”

That word from his mouth did more to her body than it should to any sane woman. She was too horny to think straight.

Nostrils flared, drinking in the pungent, lingering cocktail of last night's sex, then her muzzle came to his tip, her tongue poking free in careful, exploratory laps. Her eyes found his, slack-jawed and transfixed on the scene. It encouraged her more, the wonder in his eyes so much more appreciative than men her age. Her mouth parted, opening wider and descending on her son's erection until her jaw was challenged by his girth long before its length.

The heralds and trumpets grew closer outside. The criers could be made out now. “THE CITY IS ON LOCKDOWN ON ACCOUNT OF PLAGUE. STAY IN YOUR HOMES UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” he chuckled and guided her up by her shoulders, bringing them muzzle to muzzle, then kissing again, the scent of yesterday’s sex fresh on her face. “I want to cum on your big tits, Mom,” he groaned and reached down, finding her every bit as ready as him.

She slowly withdrew with a wet smack of her mouth. "Ok, but I need you to fuck me again first."

He eased her to lay on her back and then moved over her, peppering her flesh and fur with kisses. A delicate hand held her cheek before he came face to face with her, staring into her eyes with a boyish smile. Below, his body and free hand shifted clumsily and blindly, adjusting himself until he found her waiting folds then jammed himself in.

She gasped, suddenly so incredibly full. She huffed a laugh at the corners of her hanging open mouth. “Now this part is definitely incest.”

He was bolder this time, rough, driven and selfish like a man beyond his years. Young eyes transfixed on the direct effect of the violence of his hips on the quaking of her breasts and fucked like he was trying to bruise her pelvis.

It didn’t matter to Portia. Nothing she’d experienced was better than fucking her children and she was going to have to live the rest of her life knowing that. Any pain or discomfort from such a disgraceful act was both deserved and worth it.

She was squirming in her second orgasm just before he pulled out and slung rope after hot, thick rope of semen onto her chest, face, hair and the mattress behind them. His heavy testicles did not disappoint in volume, making a potent mess of the scene. He came for longer than most men, after which he collapsed beside her on the bed, cuddling into her arms, his heavy cock softening as it lay across her stomach.

“We should be saving water. Who knows how long this might last,” Portia said with a sigh, looking down at herself and licking her lips clean.

Silence followed for some time before her son lifted his head from her shoulder, still panting, with an alarming concern in his eyes. It was enough to capture her attention. “Was I better than Joseph?”

The vixen laughed. “My sons competing to see who fucks their mother better? You really are my kids. It doesn’t work like that, though. You’re both amazing. Two virgins that beat anything I’ve ever experienced. And I’ve experienced a lot.”

“Did I last as long as he did?”

“I don't know Jasper. That was a very specific circumstance. We were stuck.”

“I just don’t know how long it’s supposed to go. I feel like I should be wearing you out more.”

Portia chuckled. “I’ve spent twenty years adventuring, exercising, fighting and fucking. You’re a teenager and live in a castle. Don't think that because you're a man and I'm a woman you're going to outlast me! Once you satisfy your partner, it doesn’t matter and I assure you, I am satisfied.”

Jasper looked down at himself and rested his hand on his belly. “I'm out of shape, aren’t I? I’d never make it as a hero, like you.”

He was soft and undefined, even for his age, with gangly limbs and bulk in his midsection. It made sense for someone with a life as cushy as his had been, though her own Royal family had been quite disciplined in the way they ate, in their constant need to punish and inhibit themselves.

“I can help you with that if you want but being an adventurer is a lot more than physical fitness.”

“I always just figured, with my leg…”

“Right. What would I know about overcoming a physical impediment?” she jabbed, twisting just enough to bump his muzzle with an enormous breast. "You think these aren't a detriment to my adventuring career? You see a bow anywhere in my things?"

He perked up. “Sex is good exercise, isn’t it?”

She smiled and nodded. “It is. But if you want to get in shape, we’re going to need to train. And this is the perfect time to do that because what else are we going to do?”

“Well…” he gave a guilty smile and his gaze dropped to his cock, hidden behind the wall of her bosom. He flexed it, tapping the bottoms of her breasts. It wasn't soft anymore.

“Jasper…”

Month of Adonnamoon, Day 21. Predak.

“You can’t keep us inside! This is tyranny!”

Portia sat up quickly in bed at the commotion, naked and a mess from three days of nonstop, explosive, incestuous sex with her teenage son. They’d heard a few other clashes with the city watch from an indistinguishable distance but this one was close. The small windows of the safehouse lit the room in the grayish-yellow of dawn by the ocean.

“You need to be quarantined, Miss. You’re not well.”

Another voice bellowed with authority and muffled by a mask. It sounded like they were in front of the house.

“I’ll do as I wish!” the woman protested. It was feminine but something was off about it, even through the glass.

Portia grabbed the shortsword she kept perched against the nightstand and went to the window. At least ten soldiers surrounded a woman at a distance and all of them were armed with long pikes, like spears more than twice their height. They were weapons better suited for defending a fortress wall than street skirmishes. That was a change for the Stusport City Watch but not as much as their uniforms.

They had adopted new, full-body fatigues of glossy black, oiled skins from head to toe, with their armor plates worn over top. Their faces were concealed completely in hoods that made it difficult to tell one species from another, with brass housings around glass lenses over the eyes. The suits appeared to be airtight.

The closest of them, she could only see their feet, with their boots sealed to their pant legs but over the ones further away, she could see they had a flexible, snorkel tube rising twice as high as their upright pikes, their ends hung from individual balloons that kept them high in the air.

One of the closer guards took a step to the side and it gave her a better view of the woman, a golden-furred cougar of middle-aged. Her hunched and shaky posture alone made clear she was unwell but it was clearer still when Portia noticed the green ooze dripping from her nostrils and mouth, down her chin and jaw.

Was that what the plague did to people?

Portia winced as the woman coughed violently and more vileness escaped her.

“Last chance, ma’am. You’re endangering everyone being out here.”

“I’d rather die than go back inside!”

“Do it!” Another voice commanded. It was hard to tell who was speaking with all of their faces covered but only one of them attacked, running her through the chest with his pike.

“AGAIN!”

The soldier obliged, stabbing her repeatedly, freeing more ooze than blood from within her skin until she collapsed, pathetic and lifeless. Only then did the others raise their weapons that had not yet touched her.

“DISPOSE OF YOUR WEAPON!”

The pikeman lowered the tip to the ground and then stomped on it, snapping it in half. They gathered up both pieces at their base and threw them on the corpse. The circle parted then and two more, suited-up but unarmored figures jogged in with casks. They were smaller than the soldiers, perhaps squires or other young trainees. They liberally poured oil all over the body and broken pike, then withdrew from the gathered soldiers.

A third, even smaller figure came through the gap they made, carrying a burning torch. He was afraid to get too close and almost missed when he tossed it. The pool has spread on the cobblestone and lit easily, engulfing the remains of the woman.

“What happened to her? The kid with the torch is terrified. All of them are.” Jasper had come up beside her and stood on his toes to see outside.

“I guess that’s what the infection does to people. They’re dressed like it’s highly contagious and airborne, but heavier than air. We can’t open these doors or windows at all. Make sure nothing is blocking the chimney.”

He nodded and did so while Portia ran from small window to small window, ensuring they were closed.

“Chimney is clear, Mom!” Jasper was standing in the middle of the room when she turned back around. He cleared his throat and his facade softened. “I’m scared.”

She stepped over to him, pulling him into her arms.

“Me too, Jasper. I’d been wondering how bad it was and if we should make a break for it. I’m not doing anyone any good locked up in here.”

He slipped back to hold her elbows and looked up at her with intense, sincere eyes under his ridiculous haircut. “I don’t think we should go anywhere.”

She nodded. “We’ll stay here until it’s safe.”

“If it’s airborne, do you think it already got it in?”

“I think we’d be sick already if it did.”

“What about from her?”

She looked back to the window.

“If we’re going to die, I’m glad it’s with you, Mom.”

She turned to him, feeling him swelling up against her. She cupped his muzzle in her hands.

“Well, we’re not dead yet.” She pulled their bodies together in a passionate kiss.

Month of Adonnamoon, Day 27. Vindak.

Portia slipped out of bed without stirring Jasper for the first time, nearly a week into their isolation. It reeked of sweat and sex in the small, basement room, largely from a lack of circulation but also their conservation-minded hygiene and just how often they were after each other. Mouths, pits and privates were being washed regularly but her face, chest and hair bore the crusty, matted scars of all the times her son had cum on them.

He seemed to appreciate his handiwork but the mess was enough that her downy breast fur wasn’t soft anymore but sharp and crispy and more than once, they’d gotten momentarily stuck together. It was at once disgusting, but also a monument to the depths of her depravity: an accumulation of what must've been several pints of incestuous semen by now and at least twice as much had been pumped inside her.

There was a hobble to her walk as she made her way from window to window, opening them all. There had not been a moment of restraint. Why should there be? The line had been thoroughly and irrevocably crossed and they could die any day. Why did it matter how often she had sex with her son, with a dying ember of desire and decency to ever stop?

His appetite was ravenous and unrelenting, the force of nature of a teenage libido crashing into unlimited access to an eager and experienced, older woman. Throughout the days and nights, it was hopeless to count but he was getting months or years of sexual experience in a single week. He’d gone from a boy to a man, to an experienced man and skilled lover, from both repetition and expert guidance. Or maybe she just thought so, since it was so easy to begin with.

She hadn’t once told him “no” or even “I need a break.” At first, it had been the urge to punish herself and wallow in the depravity of it all. She was a bad person doing bad things who deserved any discomfort. The most she’d done to help ease her challenges was introduce him to lubricant after their first, difficult experience with anal sex.

Beneath the excuses, she knew she wanted it every bit as much as he did and she welcomed the challenge. She couldn’t help the self-satisfied elation when she finally wore him down for any amount of time.

As it became more normal for her, a familiar spark of her old self had grown and the idea of denying him sounded like weakness to the competitive vixen. She was more than twice his age but she could keep up. She needed him to adore and admire her unconditionally. She had to be the superior. She couldn’t let him get the best of her and now, a week later, there wasn’t much left they hadn’t done that could happen between consenting lovers. Most every act in an amorous lifetime of promiscuity, she’d now repeated in nine days with her own child.

To make it all worse, the guilt-ridden tossing and turning of the last few months was waning. She’d never slept better. Even when Jasper would wake her in the middle of the night for more rough and selfish relief from some overnight erection, she’d easily fall back to sleep in his arms afterward. It scared her, how easily it had become natural.

There was dried cum on most of her body but only the small of her back was as especially thick as it was on her breasts. Her hips, pelvis, jaw and asshole were all sore from his size and eagerness but one nagging thread that was in decline was any guilt over what she was doing. Jasper knew everything and it hadn’t done anything to quench his fire for her.

Between the marathon of sex, he had taken up her offer for an exercise routine and they’d been at that several times a day, the vixen making sure to ease her son into it and not injure him. He wasn’t in great shape but was committed to it, even agreeing to portion his meals to see results faster.

Portia peered out the sealed window, onto the desolate street and the calm water of the river delta beyond. She desperately wanted to feel the cool, salty air blow through her fur, like she had so many times before. The scent of it all came back to her and it was strange to see the sea so empty. She wondered if or how the fishing fleets were operating.

There had been no news other than the criers coming around every few days to declare the city was still on lockdown from the lethal plague. The day after the incident they’d witnessed with the cougar, they declared that arrest could not be risked and violations would be punishable by death, followed by burning of the dead in the streets. Townsfolk learned quickly to oblige.

One of the days, fliers had been left on windows with simple symbols and pictograms that assumed some level of illiteracy but also, text. It presented a system of signals that explained how households could ask for help and have food or water dropped off. Medical attention would not be administered. They were on their own.

There was no word if the virus had spread beyond Stusport and she wondered if her children were still safe in Zentia, with Booker. She thought of Bowen and Sienna, and how in the aftermath of this, what state she would find them. Her thoughts wandered then to Zhang, Darcy, Sebastian and the rest of the cast of this once-bustling city and how they would fare.

“They’re going to be okay, Mom.” She turned to see Jasper had woken up and sat on the edge of the bed, his arousal standing up into his chest fur.

“What did I tell you about reading my mind?”

“Right. Sorry. You seemed troubled, is all.”

“Do people in the Castle react well to you reading their minds all the time?”

“I try to be more discreet about it with them. Only Father and Mother know… my adopted Father and Mother, I mean. They and a few of their closest advisors. I have to hide it around everyone else.”

“How do they react, Jasper?”

He sighed. “Not good, I guess. I wouldn’t say I have a lot of friends. Or, any really.”

“You can read people’s minds but you don’t use that to find out what people want? I thought that would make you great at making people like you.”

Jasper frowned and shrugged. “They think I’m a know-it-all. Some of them treat me badly because I’m not of royal blood. Some think I’m fat and ugly and the girls sometimes think I’m creepy. I’m glad you found me,” he said, standing up and hurrying into her arms, his hands falling to her rump, squeezing.

“Are you a know-it-all? Are you just using your power to be right?”

He gave a small shrug. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because it makes people not like you. If you have to use it at all, why not try to use it to find out what people need and help them get it?”

She took his wrists and eased his hands back to his sides. “Are you creepy? With the girls?”

He shrugged and shook his head. “They just don’t like me.”

She was not convinced. “And there’s nothing about your behavior you can change to improve that?”

He reached out again, pulling her closer. “Mom, I’m horny!”

She pushed away and stepped back. “Gods, what am I teaching you?”

He swallowed visibly and turned away to hide the glistening of his eyes. She started toward him but stopped herself. He had to learn.

“Look Jasper: the way people think of you isn’t entirely under your control but it’s not out of your control either. If you’re not listening, trying to help them or caring about what they want, fewer people are going to like you. And that’s especially true for girls that you like.”

She stood up from the bed and moved to sit at the small dining table. He lifted his head to watch her walk away, slack-jawed.

She sighed. “I’m so stupid. I thought I was corrupting you by having sex with you. All grossness around that aside, we’re at least consenting adults. I didn’t realize I’ve been corrupting you by needing it so badly. By giving you everything you want. You may be a drug and I may be an addict but you’re probably never going to find another woman like that. You shouldn’t want a woman like that. None of what is happening here between us is how any of this actually works.”

She leaned forward onto her elbows, watching his quaking eyes. “I’ll tell you Jasper: there is nothing less attractive to me or any other woman worth entertaining, than an entitled little brat.”

“I’m sorry, I…”

“Don’t be sorry. Sorry doesn’t change things. Stop doing it.”

Jasper stared at his feet and sniffled and Portia sat back in her chair. Silence followed.

“You’re right. Mother and Father. My adopted ones, I mean. They’re these big, rich, powerful people. They didn’t ever talk about any of that stuff. Worrying about what people think.”

“That is not the same thing as being mindful of others.”

“I guess it’s not.”

“I wouldn’t have gotten very far at all if I cared what other people thought. Lady adventurer? Gigantic boobs? Sexually liberated? Now committing incest five to ten times a day? But I do care about the effect of my words and actions on others. And that’s doubly important for you, young man. Whether you want to find a wife and settle down or sleep with every available female in town, you need to conduct yourself with honesty, grace and respect.”

“No wonder nobody likes me.”

“Well, the good news is you can change.”

“Can you help me?”

She walked back to the bed and sat down heavily, throwing an arm around him. “Of course I can.”

He lifted his muzzle to hers and she met it with a press of her finger. “No more whining. No more begging. And no more sex, if you do.”

He nodded gently, averting his eyes. “Yes, mother.”

She gave his head fur a playful ruffle. “Try harder to be irresistible. Practice on me. It’ll pay off with other girls you meet.” He leaned into her shoulder and she hugged him loosely.

“So I guess there’s no version of this where I don’t have to worry about other girls? Where you and I get married or whatever?”

He could feel her shake her head and laugh before he heard it. “That’s not going to happen, for many reasons.”

“Why not?”

“Besides the societal judgments of me being twice your age and the complete wrongness of being your mother? Because what’s the point? I have no interest in monogamy and I have no desire to wrap up my life in religious or government commitments. I never wanted to have… well, you already know about that. Zarron told me I consented to give up my ability to have children and while I don't remember, I believe him.”

“Yeah,” he turned away.

“Do you want kids of your own?”

“I dunno. Maybe? I guess… yes?”

“Well, you’ve certainly put enough cum in me but I couldn’t if I wanted to. And we shouldn’t, even if we both did and could.”

“Right. Our kits would be double-inbred, or whatever.”

She laughed. “Or whatever. Maybe they’d be twice as psychic. I’m going to be back on the road, helping the rest of your brothers and sisters, just as soon as we can leave. You can join your family or live any life you desire, like you said you wanted to when you ran off with me but our future isn’t you and I, as a happy couple. You should think about that, for after all this: if you really had it so bad or if you thought you deserved more.”

She grinned and added: “Or if you just followed me because of my amazing tits and ass.”

He nodded slowly and she pulled him in tightly but his arms stayed limp in his lap. “You’ll always be my son. I will always love and protect you, and I can protect you better than most mothers. But you deserve… no, that’s not the right word. You NEED someone who can be more than that for you. Time will tell if you deserve it.”

“My sisters. They look like you, right?”

“More or less.”

He finally adjusted himself, nestling into the nape of her neck. “Do you think one of them might want to be my wife someday?”

A laugh burst free of her muzzle.

“Gods, I hope not.”

Month of Adonnamoon, Day 39. Resduk.

It had been over two full weeks of lockdown, with no signs of progress or a return to normal. Other than the regular rotation of hazard-suited town criers, one morning she’d found another flier stuck to the window. It was a woodblock print that had been mass-produced, but it was less professional-looking than the flier from the City Watch.

“THE PLAGUE WAS NOT AN ACCIDENT. IT WAS MAGICALLY ENGINEERED TO TARGET THE POOR AND DESTITUTE. THEY WILL NOT STOP UNTIL THEY BURN HALF THE CITY TO THE GROUND, IN THE NAME OF SAFETY!”

No one had taken to the streets as a result and she’d all but forgotten about it within a day or two of it blowing away. She’d had other things on her mind, and not just sleeping with her son.

The complete release of Portia’s inhibitions and that collision with Jasper’s adolescent urges had raged out of control for days and the tension of the week before hadn’t quelled it for long: it only brought forward that Jasper needed a positive role model more than he needed a mother who didn’t have sex with her children.

There was no part of herself she had to fight to make that happen and she now considered it in their every exchange, even as they made love to sheer exhaustion or discomfort, again and again. Their fires were far from quenched but had been allowed to burn freely, long enough to allow for some return of rational thought, structure and restraint.

Her guilt had mostly passed. Waking up each morning to the fear of death and failure but finding comfort in her son’s forbidden embrace, the familiar intimacy seemed more and more normal and the taboo’s rationality had all but fallen apart. Her connection with Jasper was so strong and the only, obvious consequence was mutual pleasure.

The risks of inbreeding were understood and not every flaw of her children was as benign as a bad leg nor as useful as reading minds but Portia could not get pregnant. Even if she could, there was so much else that could be done to please each other.

Beyond the breeding risks, what was so wrong about incest? Why was it forbidden to have sex with the people who loved her the most? Why was hugging and kissing allowed between a mother and child but the culmination of affection, attraction and release was not? Why should a son not grope the breast he once suckled? What real reason was there, for a mother to not suck her son’s cock when he needed relief?

How was it different from any other part of educating her children? How many cruel and sadistic warlords had perpetrated violence and hate because they weren’t shown love when they were children? How many rough, greedy and selfish lovers had she met, whose own mothers could have taught them to be present for their partners during intimacy? Maybe society had it all backward and every mother should be fucking her sons?

It all seemed so absurd now, that all this had almost driven her mad for months and all she had to do was embrace it.

In the acceptance of her new reality, she was able to focus on how to conduct herself as a mother to him in more meaningful ways. How she could shape him to be a respectful and considerate young man that she would be proud to call her son, in a way that no royal court would see fit to do.

Portia had implemented some structure to their schedule, lest she lose her identity and purpose in a haze of consumption and abundance. There were so many daughters and sons to rescue and she was, for now, helpless to do so. Still, she needed to stay sharp and ready for the moment she could spring back into action.

Jasper’s fitness regimen turned into a more serious commitment when she realized it was key to him learning discipline and for him, it became a matter of making her proud and fucking her longer and harder. After-workout sex was a reliable reward and he was hooked on the high of it. Often, he tried to beat his record in how long he could last until orgasm and how many times he could make his mother climax before he did.

The schedule was broken up into half-weekly intervals: four days of exercise, chores and work, the third of which would be the most intense, with the longest hours and no sex of any kind. He needed to learn self-control and she had the strength to say no for a day when she wasn’t using all of her willpower to resist her urges, though she did masturbate in the water closet once, to keep disciplined.

The fifth day was for rest and recovery, light work and even more sex than the other days.

Such a regimented schedule was more reflective of Jasper’s courtly life than her own of freewheeling adventure. At first, it made her stir crazy. In the absence of books or scrolls in the safehouse to read recreationally, Portia realized the full advantage of the time she had to form a plan, in the face of the herculean task of finding every one of her sons and daughters and rescuing them, if necessary. Jasper, it turned out, was able to help her work on a plan.

They had begun to draw on the floors and walls, all around the central goal of the optimized, long-term check-ins and rescues of her many hundreds of children. The process was divided into three elements:

Map: The game board.

Priority: The chess pieces.

Route: The strategy.

Written separately from those three was simply “After?” What would she do with the ones she saved while she rescued the next ones? Without more children in hand, it was the least important but she remembered what Varda had told her a few weeks before: they all but worshiped her in the town of Brummel, which she’d saved some years ago.

For the first phase of the plan, she would need a map, to plot an optimal route. Jasper was more of an artist than she was and so he made a drawing of the realm on the biggest stretch of floor that could go undisturbed. He used charcoal from the wood stove to draft, then she carved into the floorboards with a knife once she’d worked out the proportions and scale.

It took four days to finish the map and carve it into the floor, in between their now strict exercise routines, cooking, sleeping and most days, sex, five to ten times a day.

Even a perfectly optimal route could take years with so many children so the next step was to categorize them by a priority of 1 through 5, 5 the most urgent and 1 the least. The score was then added carefully to the ledger. The factors leading into the scoring were the child’s age, the buyer's stated intention and coldly, the chances of still living at the same location where they were sold and how likely she was to find them there.

Sanna, her third oldest child in the book, merited a 1 which helped to calibrate the others. Sanna had been ordered by a reputable shipbuilder, Lord Truxton, as a “Daughter and Heiress” which already sounded safer than alternatives like “future wife” or “prostitute”. She remembered the news early in her adventuring career, that Lord Truxton was killed by pirates and any trail that existed was gone. Whatever had become of Sanna, she could be anywhere if she were alive at all.

Anya was a perfect example of a 5. Bought to be a wife and weeks away at the time from being old enough to marry, her situation was dire and her remote location was less likely to have changed. There were a lot of 5s.

Zarron, while not a child of hers, warranted his own prioritization, which she’d written on the inside cover of the book: reluctantly, a 1.

After five rescues in three months without much of a plan, many distractions and one citywide lockdown, she was sure with an optimized and prioritized route, she could be checking in on and when needed, rescuing an average of one to four children per week.

Comparing that with the frequency of dates in the more recent pages of the ledger, she concluded she could find her children a lot faster than Zarron was making new ones. With no idea where the wizard was, who had teleported away from her and presumably, would again, revenge would have to wait. Possibly for quite some time.

For the pieces, Portia had dug into their food supply. A dried, red bean was a priority 4 or 5. A white bean was a 1 through 3. The beans were placed on the carved-in map, with the idea that when the entire ledger had been gone through, she could plan a route that visited the most of them, the fastest.

They skipped around in the ledger to keep it interesting, talking through a priority assignment then placing a bean on the map when it was decided and marking each entry with a small check mark when finished.

In the early afternoon, Jasper had retired to the bed, staring at the ceiling. She let him have the break, desperately wanting one herself but there was so much to do.

“Magdelena Mason. Age 17. Father: Gallagher Mason, Coyote,” Portia sat on the floor with the book, reading aloud “Intention: daughter. Mother infertile. They own an inn off the highway, not far from Mudcrest. Sounds low risk to me.”

“I’d give it a two. Low risk but that’s a major route. You’ll pass that way at some point. There’s what, three of them in Mudcrest already?” Jasper rolled over on his side then and she noticed his tip was peaking out of his sheath. “Do you think a half-coyote sister is just as busty as you, Mom?”

Portia shrugged. “Close? It runs strong in the family. My mother was bustier than me. Marina is a half mink and they’re built leaner than coyotes. She’s petite but her chest is still huge by any standard. I’ll put Magdelena down as a two.” She placed a white bean near Mudcrest, next to two other, white ones. “Next is Cormac Mason. He's Magdelena’s twin.”

“Seems like a lot of twins and triplets started around then. It’s kind of hot to think about, even if they are my sisters.”

“All of his other details match Magdelena so let’s call him also a two.”

“Did you ever have a threesome with Anya or Marina?” His eyes grew before he laughed victoriously. “I swear I didn’t read your mind. It was just there on your face. I’m so jealous.”

Portia huffed and scowled, placing the bean for Magdelena. She looked back to Jasper as his eyes opened wide still. "What's the rule, Jasper? No mind reading."

"You went down on each other while the baker guy fucked you both?! That's so hot! I want to do that."

She looked at him sternly but his excitement was relentless.

"You think he's fucking her without you there?"

"Likely."

“Do you think you’re going to fuck Cormac?”

“Jasper…”

“Mom, I’m serious,” he said, propping his head up on his elbow. “We both know it’s not just me or Joseph. This isn’t going away and there’s a whole lot of dicks in that book.”

“Jasper!”

He sat up, halfway to erect now. “Be honest. Sure, it’d be cool if you were in love with me and wanted to get married, but I get it. You’re a woman with needs and those needs can only be tended by your handsome, big-dicked children.” He scooped up a dollop of fat from a well-used, bedside jar then slid off the bed to crawl towards her on all fours until he sat by her side, nipping at her back. “I think you should fuck every last one of us. We all deserve to know our mother's loving embrace.”

“Most of the boys in this book are too young, sons or otherwise.”

“Is that what’s going to stop you?” he grinned. “You know, at first I was a little hurt that you weren’t attracted to anything about ME but because I’m your son. But the more I think about it, it’s hot to think about you having sex with all my brothers. ALL of them. We should rate them based on who else you can fuck!”

“Jasper…”

“My mom, Portia Pridemoon’s Grand, Incest Tour. So many boys, so little time.” he was grinning broadly as he scooted up against her. “We’ll have to rank them on how old they are, how hung they are and how good we think they are in bed. Make sure they’re of appropriate age but catch them before they get married. I doubt that’ll stop them but you don't want to be a homewrecker too.”

“I’m not mind reading but I’ve got a fox’s nose, like yours. I can smell that you’re wet again. You’re thinking about it too. You’ve only had two of our dicks. There are so many more.” He flipped the book back several pages. “Where was that first, half Clydesdale Zarron made?” He stopped and pointed into the book.

“Brario.” She gestured to one of the beans, far south on the map.

“Can you imagine how big his cock is? Let’s go there. Gods, I’d love to see him fuck your ass with that giant, horse dick.” He climbed on her back then, keeping his head over her shoulder. Between them, his finger was at her asshole, pressing in small circles, as she taught him to do after an early, uncomfortable incident. He was skilled at it now after listening and learning, and anal sex with him had become delightful.

“Jasper, we need to focus.”

“We need a break.” Her breath betrayed her distraction. She hadn’t been focused for a while. “There,” he tapped a page. “Lucius. My oldest brother.”

“Second oldest. Allister is the oldest.”

“Right, Allister was where? Stambury?” He was repositioning himself.

“That’s right.”

“I want you to close your eyes and imagine this is Allister,” he said, pressing his sheath-slickened cock against her asshole, hips firm until he entered her.

She closed her eyes and exhaled, long and slow. It was impossible to not take his suggestion as he eased into her ass, inch after inch. He was holding back some of it. Of course she was going to have sex with more of her children.

“Imagine this is Allister’s hand,” he said, slipping his down to the outer curve of her breast. “Tell me to fuck you.”

“Fuck me…”

“No, call me Allister. Think about fucking Allister.”

“Fuck me, Allister.”

He began to saw his cock back and forth, in and out of her. “Gods that’s so hot! You’ve never even met this guy but you want to fuck him because he’s your kid. Now imagine it’s Lucius, your half-horse son!”

He changed his pace immediately, hips galloping on her back, slamming himself to the hilt each time. She leaned forward until she was resting on her cheek on the floor, her hand beneath her touching herself.

“Fuck me, Lucius.”

He threw back his head with an excited laugh then turned the page.”These two: Aaron and Aiden. They’re twins. Are you going to fuck them at the same time?”

“Definitely.” The ideas were driving her wild and it was only all the more encouragement to Jasper. His hand dove between her legs past hers, pushing fingers inside her sex to the knuckle.

His pace changed again. Less rhythmic. Harder. “Ooooh, two dicks at once! And Aaron and Aiden are kind of rough! You want all of us, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” she nodded off-tempo from the rhythm of Jasper’s hips.

“You’re going to fuck us all, aren’t you?”

“I might.”

“You should. Every fucking one of us.”

They were both moving faster and louder, worked up at the thought of her vast potential for incest.

“This makes being an inbred feel not so bad, though it’d be better if you and Bjorn actually had sex.”

Rocking roughly under her son, it was getting harder to talk the closer she came but some thoughts thankfully managed to still be outrageous and disgusting. “Jasper!”

He was undeterred with a devilish grin, his speaking more staccato while he fucked her as hard as he could. It had only been two weeks of intense exercise but she was sure it was harder than he could before. “You’ve got what, four brothers? I’m dying to know if it works with them too. You can’t get pregnant so who cares?”

His sick words were almost enough of a turnoff to stop her from cumming. Almost. She responded with a sucking groan of strain and pleasure, fingering herself furiously with her face pressed to the floor. Jasper was over her in his desperate, final thrusts. His hands grabbed her hips to pull against her and wedge his swelling knot past her asshole just before he howled out in delight.

The hot flood of his orgasm erupted deep in her straightened-out guts and he held himself there with triumphant groans, pumping more and more of their familial seed inside her.

Finally, he collapsed on top of her, panting and groaning, gently caressing with wandering fingers. ““I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too. But don’t talk about my brothers anymore. Not like that. That’s not going to happen.”

“Sorry Mom.”

There was silence for a moment.

“The rest of them though? When they’re old enough?”

She gave a huff of a laugh. “I’m probably going to fuck them all.”

“Probably,” he repeated, stifling a smile.

Jasper grinned and looked over the map before them, then sat on his haunches, pulling her into his lap. “Well then, let’s get back to it.”

Month of Iridimoon, Day 4. Readak.

“I can’t believe I’m about to do this.”

“This is the thing you can’t believe? After everything we’ve done in the last 27 days?”

“Admitting was hard enough. But writing it down?”

“Do it, Mom. We have an hour more of work to do before we can take another sex break. Those are your rules.”

She looked back at him flatly and he grinned, laying back on the bed. He’d taken well to her discipline.

The intense workout regimen and forced rationing of their situation were also showing results. Softness on Jasper’s body had started to retreat and reveal toned lines all over his body but especially his torso, where some abdominal definition had appeared. She’d goaded him into letting her cut his hair a few days prior, a hack job with a sharp dagger that was now short and spiky like his fur, clumped together with sweat.

The transformation had been more than physical and Jasper sat with confidence, comfortable in his nudity. He laid back on the bed, leaned on one arm, his legs apart, his sheath still swollen and glistening from a long morning she spent riding him and he, her.

“We may have to burn down this building when we’re done, just to truly scrub it clean.” Portia sighed and took the charcoal to the wall, writing out:

“THE RULES OF ETHICAL INCEST.”

“I’m so honored to help you write your manifesto on fucking your own kids and not feeling bad about it,” He grinned. She worried sometimes he was getting too cocky. She knew from experience that young royals often were that way but did her best to talk to him about being a decent person instead of just chastising him when he wasn’t.

“Jasper! You know how hard this is for me.”

He nodded. “Sorry, I know. Okay, so the first rule?"

Portia started writing, her bare breast mashing into the wall.

"One: Complete Consent," she said as she wrote it. "Completely consensual, free of manipulation and deception. I can't just be the titsy fox crawling into teenage boys' bedrooms, wanting to fuck." She paused and looked back at him with a grin. "Even though I'm getting wet just thinking about it."

"Focus, Mom. We just got started," he laughed. "What's number two?"

She nodded. "You're right. This is important. Number Two: Age of Consent. All parties must be old enough to consent to sexual activity."

"Is that a number or a judgment?"

She looked back at him and shrugged. "Adulthood?"

"So, a judgment."

"I don't know. It varies from kingdom to kingdom. Eighteen is legal just about everywhere, but incest is illegal almost everywhere so it seems silly to base it on the law. I don't have anything better though."

"So, eighteen."

"Are you going to write it that way?"

"I think it's fine this way. Now, the illegal part. Number Three: Full explanation of potential consequences."

"Shouldn't 'make sure they know you're their mother' come first?"

She paused. "It should. Three: Full disclosure of blood relation. They have to know exactly where they came from."

"...before they put their dicks back where they came from," he smirked.

"Stop trying to turn me on, Jasper. We're working."

"Sorry Mom. None of this would have stopped me from wanting to have sex with you."

She paused. "Well, stopping you isn't really the point, is it? It's making sure I'm handling it as ethically as can be. Also, I can't assume the way some of these kids are being raised, that they even understand that incest is bad or taboo or whatever. So, number four: Explain potential consequences.

"Incest is illegal, almost everywhere, at least between immediate family. Brothers and sisters, mothers and sons. In some, it's punishable by banishment or death. They need to know that it's a crime."

"Also not a big deterrent when a beautiful woman crawls into your bedroom window, wanting to fuck you but okay sure." He laughed then paused. "If these rules are supposed to be general and not specific to you, you should add 'no offspring.'"

She frowned and looked back at him.

"It's fine, Mom. But we both know that things go wrong with inbreeding," he said, straightening his legs out and wiggling his toes, one set noticeably further than the others. "It should be in the rules. And when I fuck my sisters, I'll just pull out. Or do it in the butt."

"Very taboo and very illegal, which leads to what I think is the last one: The relationship must remain a secret! On every level. If people know I have children, they'll use them against me. And if people see me getting handsy with them in public, refer to rule number four."

She stepped back and looked at what she wrote, reading aloud:

"ONE: COMPLETE CONSENT.

"TWO: AGE OF CONSENT.

"THREE: EXPLANATION OF BLOOD RELATION

"FOUR: ETHICAL AND LEGAL CONCERNS

"FIVE: SECRECY."

She folded her arms over her chest, scratching her chin. "That looks pretty good,"

"Let's practice."

She turned to her son, naked and sprawled out on the bed. "Sure. Okay, hello. I'm Portia, your biological mother. I didn't physically give birth to you but you are my offspring. However, I'd also very much like to have sex with you, because I'm a sex-addicted pervert who is turned on by incest. You should know that while I am incredibly beautiful, smart, athletic and have amazing tits, having sex with me is illegal, so you can't tell anyone. Also, I'm infertile, so we'll never have children no matter how much cum you pump inside me. What do you say?"

Jasper laughed. "I've told you before and I'll say it again: every one of my brothers is going to take that offer."

“Right. I introduce myself and make sure they have all the facts, that I’m their mother, that it’s frowned upon by society but that we have different definitions of physical affection in this family. Then we're probably going to fuck but they aren’t required to participate in any of that to join us.”

“Yes. And for the ones that jump at the chance, you should make extra sure they see that map, and know that running off with you isn’t just the fantasy of sex with a beautiful woman but something more like a refugee.”

Portia slumped. “You didn’t run off with me knowing this would happen. You said you wanted to leave!”

Jasper averted his eyes. “I know. I guess I didn’t really understand what I was signing up for.”

She gestured to the door. “Well, no one signed up for this.”

He nodded. “I know. I didn’t like my life. A beautiful woman showed up and offered me a better one. But unless this plague never ends, and it might not and I might be okay with that, it looks like my options for a better life are going to be working at a bakery with some sisters who won’t fuck me, moving to some remote village or homesteading some new place for a family I’ve never met.”

“Your options are supposed to be whatever you want them to be.”

“Sure. With the education, experience and wealth I have at my disposal, which isn’t much, without a title or my… adopted family’s money and status.”

Portia set down the charcoal and walked over to the bed, sitting down at his feet. “If you want to go home, just say so. The City Watch would send one of those suits for you. We could both get one, get out of this place and on with our lives.”

He sighed and turned back to her. “Sorry Mom. I’m loving all of this time with you. All this time away from my old life I think has been really helpful for me. I’m just getting a little stir-crazy here and wondering what it’s going to be like after you’re back on the road. And maybe I didn’t think through what I was signing up for.”

She crawled up next to him and laid on her back. “I don’t think either of us did.”

He rolled on his side to face her, resting a hand on her hip. “It’s been fine so far! Anya, Evita, Edgar, Marina: wives, breeders and whores. Even if they never leave that bakery, they’re better off. But me? I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t appreciate how good I had it or how much of the bad was my fault. But I don’t want to go home. Not yet.”

She nodded, swallowing visibly. “Well, I’m still figuring all this out.” She sat up and stared at the fresh writing on the wall.

"Honestly Mom, you worry too much about this incest thing. You can’t get pregnant and that’s the only actual problem with it. The rest is just cultural. I think you’re going to find that every one of your sons is going to want to. Don’t pressure anyone into it and wait until they’re old enough to make good decisions."

“I’m thirty-eight and I still don’t make good decisions,” she grinned, running her fingers over his sheath.

“I disagree. Whether I go home after this or not, I’m never going to regret this. But maybe the next plan we work on is what to do with all of us. You’ve got a whole town's worth of children out there. If you’re offering a better life, you need to be prepared for what that means for them.”

“I’ve been pretty selfish.”

“You’ve been preoccupied.”

“You make it easy.”

His head dipped down, nosing at her nipples.

“I mean with guilt. Let’s fuck that right out of you and get down to the business of saving your kids.”

“I think we already did the first part.”

“Clearly not. I think you need a reminder that me fucking my beautiful mother is only a big deal because society convinced us it was.”

She pulled him close, rolling him on top of her. “I think I do too. You’re so smart, Jasper.”

“I get it from my Mom’s side of the family.”

Portia grinned, her cheek to his while her fingers wrapped around his swelling erection. “You’ve only got one side of your family, Jasper.”

Month of Iridimoon, Day 18. Fadak.

Portia sprung up from bed and grabbed the short sword from the nightstand.

“Who’s there?!”

It was the middle of the night but she could see well enough in the dark. the room was as empty as it was supposed to be. A chill washed over her, a wave of outside air like she hadn’t felt in over a month but it was a noise that had woken her. Something dropped? A mechanical click?

“Everything okay, Mom?” Jasper had stirred from her motion, with a total lack of alarm.

“Stay in bed.”

She moved near the walls, scanning the small, divided room for any place to hide. Under the table, under the bed frame. The deep pantry. They were all empty. She went to the front door and slumped as she inspected the lock. “Jasper! Did you unlock this?!”

“Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know but it’s unlocked.”

“When was the last time you even checked? No one’s touched that door in weeks. It could have been unlocked this whole time?”

She looked sternly back at him. They’d come here being chased. It was unlikely but not impossible that she’d forgotten. She locked the door and leaned against it, lowering her sword. “Did you hear anything? Feel any cold air?”

Jasper shook his head and sat up with a stretch that pulled the sheets off of him, his cock standing at full erection. “I was dreaming.”

Portia relaxed with a huff of a breath, looking around the empty room once more. “What about?”

“Burying my cock in my mom’s ass and fucking her until her eyes roll back in her head,” he grinned, reaching for well-used a jar of salve from the bedside then smearing it over his length.

She checked the door once more before turning back to him. “That sounds like a nice dream,” she said, walking back to the bed and propping the sword back up against the nightstand.

“C’mon Mom. It'll help us get back to sleep.”

She nodded and crawled up onto the bed, her son's groping hands meeting her to beckon her close, then finding her breasts, then back to her rump as she slid into his lap. His finger met her pucker, circling it in a gentle but impatient massage.

Portia brushed back his hair and wrapped her arms around his shoulders before her muzzle came to his in a deep and hungry kiss. They rolled to the side and he jockeyed around, on top of and behind her. "I'm so horny, mom,"

She nodded and twisted herself around to get up on her hands and knees. He brushed her tail aside, then one hand descended to her sex, rubbing her wetness while the other hand's lubed finger probed at her clenched ring until he slipped inside with a quiet gasp.

on all fours and he scurried up behind her, lifting her tail and warming up her pucker with his finger, not a moment longer than it took for her to relax enough to take him. A second finger quickly joined.

"Can I..."

She looked back around the dark and empty room with her last hesitation. "Do it!"

He drew his hands back to his cock and lined himself up, before slowly pressing her open, inch by precious inch.

“Unnnnghhhh! Fuck, Jasper! Fuck your mother’s ass with your big boy dick!” She reached down to touch herself as he sank to the hilt inside her. He started to thrust then.

He was hard and fast, urgent and selfish, gathering her hair in a ponytail and tugging it back as his hips slammed relentlessly. He watched her face and listened for her climax, making sure she was satisfied before knotting her and exploding in release. Flopped down on her back, draped over her like a sheet, she shifted herself to lay flat and they embraced in tender affection.

“I love you, Mother.”

“I love you too, Son.”

Nearly as soon as they’d exploded into action, they both fell asleep.

Month of Iridimoon, Day 35. Marketday.

Portia gave a sucking inhale as she pulled herself off Jasper’s deflating knot, perhaps a few minutes too early. “I’m thinking of cutting off my hair. It’s getting heavy.” She slid out of bed and walked to the kitchen, not minding the semen leaking down her inner thighs.

“Don’t cut it! It looks good long.”

“I practically have dreadlocks, Jasper. It’s so hard to clean without a proper bath.”

“How does it get so messy?”

She stopped with her hand on a cabinet handle. “Really, Jasper? My hair is half your cum at this point and I’m starting to look more like a hedgehog than a fox. I can feel the weight of it when I move but you just can’t seem to stop pulling out and cumming all over me.”

“You said it was okay, Mom! And you said most girls don’t like it or have such big targets, so I should while I can, right? If you want me to stop pulling out, I will. I love cumming inside you too.”

She sighed, then squinted looking back at him as she pulled the door open. “No, Jasper. I like it too. It’s a little degrading and yes, most women don’t like it. Me? I deserve it.”

“I know we only have a bucket to clean up with but we have plenty of time. Should we finally wash more than the usual face, pits, crotch and crack?” Hair had been included sometimes but not recently.

She mused then gave her head a shake. “No, let’s leave it. I think I like wearing a few pounds of your cum. But I think I’m going to wash my hair again.”

Looking back in the cabinet, she slumped. “However, I would like to see you stop sneaking more food. All that effort of exercising has paid off but the fat can come back if you’re eating too much.”

“You keep saying that, Mom. I told you, I’m not eating anymore!”

“Where’s it going then?”

“Do we have rats?”

“I hope not. We’re using up food faster than they’re bringing it at this point. We have to be more careful.”

“You think they’d notice if we changed the food sign from 2 people to 3?”

“Yes, Jasper. I think that’d be a bit suspicious. Ready for lunch?”

Month of Iridimoon, Day 40. Wodad

The room was dark. They blew the candles out after dinner to conserve them and it was late, nearly time for sleep. It was the third day of their five-day regiment: the “strict” one according to the rules, with the most intense work and workouts and no sex but the plan had been iterated on again and again at this point until there wasn’t much of a case to keep refining it.

They’d moved on to planning other options to offer rescued children than Booker’s Bakery or refuge in the remote village of Brummel, which the vixen had once saved.

The Martial Academy in Westerkerk was an option, where Anya had hopefully arrived safely by now. They were among the best at combat training but Portia didn’t care for their politics.

There was formal education that could be bought into, magic academies for any who demonstrated a talent for sorcery and any number of apprenticeships for any number of trades in any number of places.

It was comforting, considering there were more options but were all of those bringing them toward a better life? They had considered locations where they could all be together, safely and sustainably. Remote islands, moving into old ruins or abandoned farming communities were all options. For any option, she would need to find it first. In the end, they concluded it wasn’t a problem the two of them could solve without knowing the other children or what they would want.

For the last four of the “focus days”, Jasper had convinced her that ending the day with sex didn’t mean they were being undisciplined because they’d finished the plan and she hadn’t been hard to convince. Besides, it helped them both sleep.

It had been more than fifty days since she’d allowed herself to fall into the full thrall of her incestuous desires, with her son at her beck and call but there was no shame or secret left in her desire: she had hundreds of sons she’d never met but the thought of every one of them warmed her loins.

It wasn’t Jasper that drove her mad with lust; it was incest. They talked about it openly, speculating which sons would be disgusted by the idea of sex with their mother and which would be turned on. He insisted most would jump at the chance to be with her. He knew it was a surefire way to turn her on.

She had crossed one of her few, remaining lines and it had become so casual, she was free to admit to herself that she’d never been so sexually satisfied in her life.

And so the bedframe creaked with a steady, familiar rhythm, a noise that was getting worse over the weeks but a testament to its craftsmanship, for all the abuse it received.

“Fuck your Mother, baby. You’ve got me so hot, I’m burning up! Fuck your bad, bad mother, good and deep with that big dick I gave you!!” she groaned, Portia’s feet planted firmly on the ground between his, her hands on his knees, hunched forward as she jammed herself back. She needed to hear those taboo words, again and again, even more when she wasn’t looking up or down at his familiar body and face. It was hard to imagine sex with other men ever having had the appeal of her own offspring.

“Me too, Mom! I’m all sweaty! You feel so good! Cum for me!”

It wasn’t just boyish arrogance. He’d been a quick learner in all things and even though it had taken so little for either of her virgin sons to drive her wild, Jasper had accumulated enormous experience in a short time and likely read her mind more times than he admitted. Between that, her guidance and his transformational fitness, her son had become quite the masterful lover. His now handsome body boasted of his development, as well.

She gritted her teeth, driving herself down on his thrusts until she obliged, another in a countless series of howling orgasms. It was like eating dessert for every meal, without the sickness of overindulgence. The regiment of restraint was more for her than him now, to ensure she was fighting fit when it came time to leave. Now her self-control was only fucking him once a day, every fifth day between four days of marathon debauchery.

He grunted triumphantly, rolling her back to lay on top of him before his erection slipped free, already gushing skyward and raining on her, compounding the crusty mess of old cum he’d made of her over weeks of relentless sex. It had been laborious but this much sweat wasn’t normal for either of them. The room was hot.

She sat up, panting and dizzy, his leaking cock rising between her legs to poke at the bottom of her cleavage, as if it were her own. She stroked him as she surveyed the room. “Somethings wrong,” the words struggled to form in her exhaustion but something was off about the window. It wasn’t as dark as it should be.

Her nostrils flared past dulled wits. “Smoke… There's smoke. She was suddenly aware through a surge of adrenaline. “Jasper. There’s a fire.”

She jumped to her feet and moved to the window first. The view outside was hazy and the glass was warm.

“What do we do?! The plague!” He was wide-eyed and frozen on the edge of the bed, fingers dug into the mattress and still erect, drooling precum down his sternum.

“The fire will kill us if we don’t get out. Get dressed,” she started for her own neglected armor, unworn for over a month.

As if on queue, a small flame burst into existence in a corner of the room and Jasper screamed. He threw the bed’s quilt around him and jumped to his feet then charged to the door. “There’s no time.”

She cursed, grabbed one of her tomahawks and gave the new fire a second look, while Jasper fumbled to unlock the door.

“MOM! COME ON!’ he swung it open and turned back to her offering the blanket, hanging around his shoulders. She ran to him and scooped him up against her, then pulled the door behind her as they rushed out into the night.

Crisp, sea air enveloped them for the first time in weeks and the blue darkness of the waterfront at night flickered orange with flames. They’d barely gotten a look at their surroundings when they’d hurried to the safe house and had seen nothing more than the view out their window since.

The Lowtown docks were needled with cranes, ramps and carts for loading and unloading of ships, several large ones of which were moored. Between the ships were stacks of crates of several, standard sizes.

Pockets of other residents and workers were already gathered outside, a few groups standing apart from each other as best they could at shouting range, well aware of the continued plague. Some looked their way.

“The door didn’t shut, Mom!”

She spun around to see, then set him down. “Wait across the street,” she ordered before ripping away, his still-swollen, cudgel of erect, vulpine cock falling free like an extra forearm and fist, glistening with fresh wetness in the firelight.

Her eyes and jaw fell as it did and the heat in her loins reignited. After all this time, it was as easy as salivating. He wrapped himself up in the blanket, wide-eyed and embarrassed, far more aware than her that they were not alone.

She shook it off and pressed the tomahawk against his chest. “Hold this.” She twisted away and started back toward the door, hugging her cum-crusted breasts to restrain them as she ran, naked in the street.

Portia ducked half into the doorway to grab the door handle before she froze, mortified: the ledger! It was on a small table, in the middle of the room, which was mercifully not yet burning. She’d almost lost it again!

“Mom! What are you doing!?”

She hurried in and scooped it up in her arms. Hadn’t there just been a fire inside? It had gone out and she gave herself an extra moment to scan the room for anything critical. Equipment was all replaceable and she could only carry so much. Her fitted armor was expensive but took too long to put on. The Religite necklace! She'd left it on the nightstand, a rock on a chain that nullified all magic directed at its wearer.

She didn’t like to take off but the safehouse was a haven. The charm was small but surprisingly heavy and was on a chain long enough to batter her chin, breasts and sternum when Jasper had her bent over at his most enthusiastic, so it had sat for over a month on the bedside. It was so rare that few believed relagite even existed and after all she’d been through to get it, it was almost certainly irreplaceable. She ran for it and set the ledger down to put on the necklace, then scooped it back.

That was enough. Her son was alone out there and the smoke was getting worse. The neighbors had already seen her naked. and she hadn't been shy about her body for ages, She rushed out of the safehouse, stopping to pull the door securely shut. Her son waited for her as told, wrapped up and holding her weapon with his back to a stacked pile of shipping crates. She hurried back to him and he opened the blanket to beckon her, trying to obscure his own nudity as best as he could.

The ground was cold and wet under her bare feet from the misty air, the cobblestone extending beyond the width of the street, a thick border and seawall before the wood planks of the docks began, just behind him. Even for the stink of old kelp and barnacles, the smell of the sea was a welcome change to the stuffy and stagnant sex den they’d been trapped in.

“You almost forgot the book!?”

Portia pulled him close, turning them so they could both see the spreading fire. “Almost.”

Their building, a four-story, wooden warehouse block, topped with attic windows and sat upon a stone foundation and below-ground-level basements, was burning at its far end. Down the street in one direction, several others also were aflame, seeming to be shops and apartments. The other direction, where there was no fire, was purely industrial and not burning at all.

It was then she noticed how many of the people were looking at them. Some staring. Some leering. Some scowling. She couldn’t imagine how they appeared: vixen and tod, woman and boy, just barely a man. Mother and obvious son? How much did they know? Could they see the cum caked in her fur when they’d all seen her run back in, naked? Had they seen Jasper’s erect cock, still wet from the warm passage he’d been meant to be born from?

Her muscles tensed instinctively. No time for such worries now. “We need to see if anyone is still inside.” She started to move but he squeezed her tighter.

“I’m psychic, Mom. Remember? Let me check from here. People are still sick.”

She sighed and nodded, nestling back against him. “Do it fast. I’ll go in if you find someone.”

His eyes darted over the building, scanning in deliberate passes and she tapped her feet, shifting her weight as she waited.

“No one’s left in there. We were the last ones.”

She exhaled a deep relief. “A little distracted, I guess. Down the street?”

He obliged, furrowing his brow to concentrate, then moving his eyes from building to building. “I’m not sure what kind of range I have but as far as I can tell, they’re all empty. More people are living here than I expected.”

“Same here. I didn’t think this was a residential area but we’re probably not the only people in town hiding from something. What about them? Can you tell if any of them are worrying about someone left inside?”

Jasper nodded and scanned the block slowly, from one end to the other, eyes darting from person to person. “None of them are. Everyone is accounted for. But… a lot of them saw you. Those sailors up there are talking about you.”

She followed a gesture of his muzzle down the docks to a small group of various species, peeking over the bow of one of the larger ships, half consumed by the fog of the harbor. They watched the fire but also, the two of them. Crooked grins and gleaming eyes greeted her. They had the look of scoundrels.

She drew up the deepest, longest cough she could fake, the tomahawk tight in her hand, now under the quilt. It became more convincing when she coughed herself hoarse and it trailed off into a real one. Jasper was distracted.

“Some of them saw both of us. Those people saw my penis!” He turned away from a family of dogs.

“Oh.”

“Just the parents.”

“Oh…” she repeated, this time with relief.

“But the parents… I think they know exactly what we were doing. And they figured out that you’re my mom.”

She sighed and shrugged. I don’t care.” The words just fell out, like an instinct. Didn’t she? Two months ago she considered abandoning her family to cure a burning shame. She’d considered a magical lobotomy to escape it. She couldn’t deny the darker thoughts she’d had, peering over the Bridge of the Allicans. Now it all seemed so trivial, no worse than any other vice. It felt strangely natural to say it and mean it.

Portia opened the quilt enough to set the heavy ledger down on the pile of crates then pulled him close, turning him to face off with her, then cupped his cheek in her free hand. She nuzzled his nose then kissed him on the mouth, first chastly, then not. He shivered as he broke the kiss, his eyes trapped by hers.

“She has to fuck him while I get to fuck you.” She looked back to the dog family, the wife seeming particularly appalled. “And I’m thinking about fucking you.”

Jasper chuckled. “I don’t think they do that very often. Something is weird though.” Don’t look around but…”

She gave a huff as she caught herself. The shame of her incestuous desire was gone but she still needed her wits in a moment like this.

“Shit. Did anyone recognize you?”

“No. I haven’t been part of the ceremonial stuff yet. But a city watchman is hanging out in the shadows. An otter lady. That pile of crates between the two galleons. Look now. She’s transfixed by the fire.”

Portia nodded slowly and turned her eyes first only down the road, then her head just enough to get the rest of the way. The fog was getting thicker, quickly but a single figure in the full protection suit of the City Watch, balloon and all, lurked against one of the taller stacks of crates.

“She was the one who did this. They think the plague is because of dirty, poor people.”

“That notice stuck in our window. Let’s get her.”

Horns rang out then, a delayed warning from the arriving fire brigade and the otter turned to run. Jasper squeezed her close by her shoulders. “We can’t prove anything. “

“There’s more justice than just the law.”

“Yes, but there’s still a plague! And you’re naked. And we’re both wanted.”

She sighed again.

“Also, I think those sailors might follow you if you did.”

“A person’s mind is as distinct as their face. I’ll remember her. We can deal with that once all this is over.”

The air grew thicker as they spoke until dew was accumulating on their fur. The fog was rolling in from the sea like a wall. She watched the ships that were disappearing in it.

“Could we escape on one of those?” Jasper asked.

“They’re all too big for a crew of two, at least a crew of two who don’t know how to sail.”

“You don’t know how to sail?”

“Your mother isn’t perfect, dear. Just close. We could try to find a rowboat or canoe but in this fog?"

She lifted her muzzle over his to look back to the buildings and the fire, also fading into the mist. Fewer of the other groups could be seen and heard now, muffled by the dense air, then silenced. It was relentless until it was opaque, leaving the pair all alone on the street, but for some crates and a neglected gaslamp. The light of the flames was the last distant thing to be swallowed in the fog.

She walked them carefully to the crate and put his back against it. She slipped back from him, free and naked with her weapon at ready, bringing her back against her quilt-wrapped son.

“Mom, is this normal?”

“You live here. I was going to ask you.”

“I can see fog in Low Town often but it’s always so far away from my window in the Palace. I never thought it would be so thick.”

Jasper started to shiver and pulled his arms around his mother. The cool sea air was as thick with moisture as she’d ever felt air to be and she twisted the tomahawk in her grip to see its metal finish glistening with dew, as if she'd left it out overnight.

“Don’t worry. No one is coming.”

She nodded, halfway to relaxed. “Keep it up. You never know.” His limp cock was nestled between her cheeks but she wasn’t about to let her guard down when she could only see a few feet away.

The moment was tense and long, the passage of time distorted from so much time indoors and out of the sun. It felt like forever but it could have been nothing.

“Mom? What do we do if the safe house burns down?”

“Then we’ll deal with it. We have our health and our wits. We’ll find shelter, clothing and safety. And a rowboat.”

“What if we don’t have our health? What if we got the plague from being outside?”

“We haven’t gotten close to anyone, and all these people were locked up too. If any of them were ill, they’d have died weeks ago.”

“What if they survived but they’re still carrying it?”

“You read their minds, didn’t you?”

“Sure but it’s like reading faces, but like, a layer deeper. It doesn’t tell me everything.”

“Was anyone thinking about being sick?”

“No. They were scared of getting sick.”

“See?”

Jasper fell silent and pulled her closer. “Mom, I’m scared too.”

Portia sighed and inspected the weapon in her hand, then bent down to set it at her feet. She turned around and scooped an arm into the quilt, pulling him against her. Her other hand brought his head to her bosom. “Who wouldn't be?”

She squeezed him tighter. “But we’re going to be fine. We’re strong.”

“Are we?”

“I’m strong, right? You saw your mother crack some heads.”

Jasper chuckled. “You are strong.”

“I am. And you have my blood. Twice as much as I do!”

“Right. Because I’m inbred.”

She clenched her jaw and winced. She hadn’t thought that out. He’d read the book just as she had and knew most of the inbred children hadn’t turned out well. Some of them were flawed, A few runts. A beast, a couple of troublemakers, a daughter who killed a man when she was still a child.

"You're the most handsome, most fuckable inbred I've ever met."

Her joke didn't shake him as well as it should have, so she squeezed his shoulders and pulled him to look into his eyes.

“We’re not weak, Jasper. You’re not weak. And we’re going to survive this. Do you understand?”

He nodded meekly.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

His eyes glistened and he nodded again, now with a hint of confidence before he slipped back in to hug her. “I love you, Mom.”

She held him against her, his head over her shoulder. “I love you too.”

“You’re a good mom. Your other sons and daughters are going to be so happy to meet you.”

Her eyes closed before she could cry silently. In shame. In joy. She could feel the tears escaping to his shoulder beneath but his back was wrapped in the quilt. He hopefully wouldn’t notice and so she let them fall.

Time passed but there was no urgency anymore. Whatever was to happen, would happen.

Jasper was the first to move. “Mom, the fog is breaking. And I think the fire is out!”

She opened her eyes to the pile of crates behind him and looked around. The fog was thinning and slowly revealed the waterfront, with all fires extinguished. Their building emerged, every bit as intact as they’d left it.

Horns rang out from down the street, shouted through a cone. “The Fire brigade has extinguished the fire. Please return to your homes immediately! The lockdown is still in effect!”

“How’d they…”

Portia shrugged then scooped him up against her and walked back to the safehouse. “Who knows? Let’s go to bed.”

To be concluded...