Despite being the male in a family of teeps I was not immune to a summons for Jury Duty. Sure, I kept the family charged up. Sure, I fathered children who were latent teeps though only three of my eight boys would become telepaths. Sure, I had a job that allowed me to telecommute but that was a business we ran as a family.
My mates were over-protective and I understood why: Male teeps like me were few and far between. This very scarcity made me almost too valuable for them to risk "outside the house" given that other all-female families would find a male worth "stealing".
Now it's not really all that bad being buffered from the outside world by my 15 mates; being teeps and networked together we could share experiences to a degree that made the implicit isolation less of an issue.
To some men I was in the catbird seat, having 15 women who wanted to keep me happy. Fifteen women who could read my mind to find how to keep me happy. Fifteen women who also got hot pants. With one man who could read their minds and know how to please them and derive additional pleasure by doing do. Five women who were pregnant. Three women who were trying to get pregnant. Seven women now too old to have more children.
And children we had, twenty-two of them. Eight were boys. Only three of those boys could become teeps, the other five were "normals". All of the girls I'd sired were latent... and, when they became adults, would need a "jumpstart" to bring them to full activation. Once fully awakened they'd be able to make their own place in the world.
And, believe me, being a fully activated teep, even if the activation fades over a period of time, allows a woman to get a good start in the world. She can start a family. I had three step-daughters, now 21, who had formed their own families by seducing other latent females. It is fortunate that lesbian contact allows latent women to be activated (albeit not as strong as heterosexually) and kept active.
I've even been asked to impregnate all three of my step-daughter's partners and followed through, netting two latent girls and future male telepath. Their families were thriving though there was a need for more "fresh blood" to ensure diversity. Male teeps are so exceptionally rare "in the wild" that it was considered reasonable to try to make more, as many more as we could. I'd already been traded once and, assuming we found another family with a male, I'd probably be traded again, just to ensure genetic diversity.
Now being a teep is not all it's racked up to be. It can often be painful. We don't have "power" over people, which seems, at times, to be a pity; it'd be nice to be able to get out of a speeding ticket. Admittedly I don't have to worry much about getting tickets once my talent was awakened.
We can read "normals" though this takes some effort to do more than read emotional state and hear their subvocalized chatter.
Education is FAST when it's a teep learning something, especially from another teep. Skills are so easily transferred from teep to teep.
Talent... that was something else. You can't transmit any kind of talent. You either have it or you don't. We now know more of where the lines between skills and talents lie.
I had my talents. Each of my "wives" (though none were so on paper) had their own. Few overlapped to any great extent and we found additional synergies given our telepathic connections.
So I was very good with computers and I've done operating system device drivers for various organizations. Some were GPLed while others were under the BSD License. I had work that didn't have me leaving the house on a consistent basis.
I won't kid you about telecommuting. I'd been "trapped" in my house with my work but there were some advantages. For instance, I enjoyed playing with all of my children. I could directly feel their pleasure in play which certainly encouraged my participation.
Additionally, I had the minimum of one sexual contact daily for refreshing each woman's telepathic activation. There were days where this was upped to two or even three sessions. Strictly speaking, this frequency was far more than any of us needed to maintain our activation levels but the orgasmic echo through our network certainly encouraged us to keep the frequency up. It worked well as an antidepressant, too.
And, dear reader, depression is not something a teep is ever completely immune to; we get it from the people around us. We are also subject to suffering from other people's stress. Empathy for everyone is the dark side to telepathy.
Given all of the possible downsides, getting a Jury Duty summons is not reassuring considering the misery I was likely to face (defandants. staff and the other jurors).
My "one day or one trial" duty started on a Monday.
The drive was pleasant enough but I could tell most of my "wives" were listening in and trying to "ride" with me. It is a welcome feeling, though, kind of like a warm hug.
And, of course, it didn't take much concentration to operate my "police detector", a useful feature of telepathy. Even "normals" as cops are single-minded enough when operating speed traps that any teep can feel them with enough warning to avoid a ticket. Heck, it's easier to tell when drivers around us are paying enough attention to their driving.
Finding the parking spaces didn't turn out to be much of a problem. I eventually found my way to the Jury room and signed in.
If you've ever pulled jury duty you already know that all courthouses seem to have lousy facilities for all concerned. This particular courthouse was ugly, inside and out. To top the other aesthetic issues, the practical matter of comfortable seating was also neglected.
Now don't believe the bullshit people try to tell you about teeps. We aren't capable of mind control of normals. We can't even "scan" a normal's memories, contrary to what you may have seen on Babylon-5. We certainly can't tap any of their senses as we can with other teeps and latent teeps. We can't read any dreams a normal may have though we can, when in close physical contact, share dreams with other teeps. Being a teep was not necessarily a good thing.
As teeps, though, we can listen to a normal human subvocalize, being an ability we could do without. Normally we usually just hear a continuous indistinct muttering from normals and a fair amount of concentration is needed to "hear" clearly. The easiest thing we can do is read the emotional state of a normal. It is trivial to know when you are being lied to.
I didn't realize how useful this last feature could be. Any of us was a walking, talking lie detector.
Not the kind of job I'd want, of course.
I learned that someone else was using it that way, though. I could feel an activated teep nearby and was startled to realize that she wasn't networked. I maintained a low profile. I didn't want to get her attention while she was on her way to the courthouse.
The jury room was drab and uninteresting and I pulled out the book I'd brought to read, leaving a portion of me listening for this new teep.
When a teep is within a few miles of another teep, even a latent, they should be able to tell. If you know how it's hard to not "feel" the warmth of another telepath's mind. Despite this "feature" she had not noticed me as she went about her work. The "vibes" she put out without realizing there was a passive listener nearby let me know she was a lawyer of some kind.
The rest of my family was in accord: a lawyer would be a nice addition to our family, if she was available enough and still fertile. We agreed that as soon as I was released for Jury Duty I'd try to sniff her out.
Of course, when the first draft of jurors were called for selection, it figured that I'd be unlucky enough to be amongst those called. We trooped out of the main assembly room.
Right into a courtroom with the active teep. She was a real amazon standing there. It felt odd to be in such close quarters with an active teep yet being unrecognized by them. It was an unnatural feeling.
Now I'm not the smallest guy around but I am no giant either; this woman, looking to be in her early 30s, was taller than me, probably close to 6'4", providing a factor of intimidation right there. Add that she was stacked like a brick outhouse, her weight seemed to be nominal and her face that of a wet dream. All this with long blonde hair tied into a simple ponytail, which didn't seem consistent with her job as an Assistant DA. She dressed in a way that deemphasized her looks, though. This woman did not look all that interested in being a woman.
Normally a telepath will learn how to be a telepath, using their talent, in the process of activation. There's a core "download" that's been accumulated that teaches a new teep about their talent so that can start developing skills. The skills imparted include recognizing other active and latent telepaths. Given this woman's situation I was starting to wonder where and how that initial skills transfer came from.
Actually, it was like it hadn't happened for her.
When I'd first been discovered and activated, over twenty years before, I was in my freshman year of college. I'd been found and adopted by a "family" of five girls who'd kept their telepathic sense active through lesbian sex. Finding a male latent had been a boon to them since I could both raise them to "full" strength, and, through repeated encounters, keep them there. I was in the dorm for only three weeks before I moved in with them to the house they were renting which certainly surprised my parents.
It's funnier now, but I hadn't known I was adopted until that point. Neither of my folks was a latent as we all learned the first time they came to visit (the story of their visits would be amusing, but not right now). Finding a way to learn why I was a teep when neither of my parents had any of the talent took some time but one of the girls managed to find a diplomatic way to phrase the question. (Looking back it might've been as awkward a scene like the beginning of "Real Genius" where Professor Hathaway asks Mitch's parents "By any chance, uh, is Mitch adopted?")
Now realize that there is a loose network of telepaths ranging across the country. When I say network, though, I'm referring to the InterNet since there are range limits.
A "family" of telepaths tends to prefer rural areas to cut down on distractions and visibility, which also gives more room to grow large families when a male is available. When I got my Master's degree in Engineering I was "traded" out of the family that had awakened me (after I'd fathered 10 children) in exchange for another telepathic male. I then bonded into a new family. At this point I was on my third family. My second family had thirteen children from me before I was traded to my current home.
It's not very easy on any of us but it is believed important to minimize any chance of inbreeding. It would not do for us to have a family tree that looks like a line pole.
So for vast majority of telepaths it takes an awakening or activation via sexual contact in order to jump from merely latent to active. That, though, doesn't explain how the first telepaths got activated though. All of the stories, usually laughed at, pointed to the kind of woman standing in front of the jury pool.
She had to be an autoactivated telepath, an almost mythical creature. When she got awakened was a mystery. She had no real skills, no education in how to read and feel others. Given the lack of connection to anyone else, I understood how she could feel so very alone.
Like I've said before, being a teep is not all fun and games. We're automatically empathic, it comes with the territory. Empathy is passive and isn't intrusive. I could "feel her out" without probing her and attracting her attention. As a reasonably safe activity it was trivial to carry out.
This woman was not just lonely, she felt emotionally empty. All she had was her work, the only thing she could pin her existence to. She was depressed.
Now being depressed is no fun. Feeling someone else's depression with no way to lift it or even to help lift it is, if anything, a greater burden. I was open to this and it was a bitter feeling.
The only advantage I had was my "wives" who could help me in buffering what I was facing; I was able to keep from sinking completely under the weight she was carrying. It was also agreed that I should work to bring her into the family.
So as the jury panel for this criminal trial were being put together I watched her as unobstrusively as possible, hoping to get more "reads" off of her.
Sure I had to face her depression but one can learn a lot by being able to both watch and feel as a person works without realization of being observered. My target today was empty, fighting her depression by being almost like a machine as she went through the motions of her job and concentrating on the potential jurors she was interviewing with the defense attorney.
And, if she got to me, I'd show like a beacon compared to the normals I was surrounded by. She'd know something was different about me.
Of course some of the muttering voices around me were about her. Mixed in with the men drooling were the women who were envious of her physique and the smattering of lesbians that were all but drooling all over her.
Now, normally I'd have no real problem controlling, say, a latent telepath. Latent telepaths will accept orders from an active telepath without question, but this woman was both active and did not require having her activation "refreshed" on a monthly basis.
While I was currently a stronger telepath than she was by virtue of my heterosexual activation, there were things I wanted to avoid having happen in front of an audience. I'd have to see if I could tell her something when my turn came.
If it came. I lucked out. They never needed to get to me.
Once that jury selection was complete the rest of us finally returned to the assembly room I could feel her glancing probes off of those ahead of me and she didn't go for any kind of depth when she got to me... but she stopped doing any more probes after I stepped out of the room. I could tell from her emotional state that I'd piqued her curiosity. It seemed almost miraculous that she still didn't understand what I really was. I could feel an edge of disbelief that there were others. I suspect that my connectedness may have been camouflage against someone without any training or experience facing a full teep.
After being passed over for two more jury selections it was time to hunt down lunch. Now I'd been keeping tabs on the Assistant DA while she did her work, monitoring her feelings without getting noticed by her, so I knew, roughly, where she was relative to me. Knowing where she was, I ensured that I'd walk past her on my way to lunch on the off chance that I could talk to her in some kind of private situation.
Since I'd not done anything to probe her, knowing that would confirm too much for her, I hadn't realized that she was in such an accessible location to test me . I'd apparently been different enough in feel to trigger her curiosity enough for her to try stalking me.
How was I to know?
I realized she fell in right behind me but I kept walking towards the door, trying to understand her current emotional state. She was no longer "just" a machine, she was now able to feel physical desire, which, I could tell, brought her some confusion.
I stopped walking, she almost walked into me, as I whirled around to face her and, surprising her, I reached out and touched one of her hands that had come up in her flinching reaction. Her physically defensive posture placed her hand where I could touch it, leaving her wide open to me.
It's hard to explain, but skin contact allows much greater, well, bandwidth between telepaths. I took advantage of this contact; we both shivered as I dumped into her a download of needed knowledge and skills, all part of the basic telepathic indoctrination I'd been given when I'd been activated.
Prudence shivered more as she digested this and flexed her mental muscles for the first time, finally sensing my place within a web of minds... and learning she was still outside that web. My own heart was caught in the undertow as her spirits sank.
Feeling her sudden emptiness I spoke to her, "Want to go to lunch with me?"
Hearing my voice for the first time snapped her out of her sudden depressive spike and she looked at me, her inner voice telling me 'But I'm not part of your family!'
I smiled. 'Follow me home tonight and you will be.'
Her sudden smile of radiance damn near blinded me. From an empty shell she discovered she had plenty inside. And, even without mental snooping, I could tell her panties were damp.
She was desperate to belong to something, to someone. The thought of finally being a part of something thrilled her to the core.
I knew how that felt. While I'd not had my nose rubbed in my "oddness" as she had, as a geek I'd not been popular and any ability to socialize was linked to bad memories. I could relate to some of what she was feeling, even though being a telepath had been far greater burden for her-- for she knew why and how she couldn't "fit in".
Just to provide some additional hints, I put out my elbow. She was quick on the uptake, I could feel as she recognized what I was doing. I got another brillian smile from her as she took my arm and we walked out the door. Our debate over lunch was short (and silent) as she led me to a small Italian restaurant some five blocks away from the courthouse where we could sit down for lunch.
During the walk we exchanged quite a bit of information.
I'd been fortunate; I'd stayed a latent until discovered. Her auto-activation had forced her to recognize how different she was from everyone else as soon as her first period started, two shocks for the price of one. She'd not been able to explain things well to her parents who didn't believe their daughter really could read feelings. Growing up with this talent had been tough and fortunately enough of the "evil government" movies got her to keep her mouth shut. The babbling in her head from others was not easy for her to cope with and kept her from being comfortable with anyone , despite her efforts to date and fit in. It had taken her until her college years to learn that she could know when someone is truthful or not, and that deep-sixed many of the boys she'd otherwise have considered dating.
Given the knowledge she now carried she realized that she'd met latent telepaths previously, and recognized the missed opportunities to awaken any. All but one of the latents had been in juries, the other had been innocent yet charged and was in a case she'd lost because she could know the defandant's innocence. All of the latents she recalled seeing were female. If she'd had any lesbian tendencies she might have learned by activating such a person, but neither would have known enough about what it meant to be a teep.
Prudence did admit she had an advantage in dealing with her cases since she could know, when interviewing a defendant, whether they were really guilty of the charges. It also gave her a leg up in knowing how to deal with it, to ensure a conviction. Almost an unfair advantage but she'd also worked it the other way for railroaded and framed defendants as well. She had a very good track record for convictions though not a perfect one.
All of this discussion was well and good, even though we did use spoken words for some of it, but sitting down for lunch allowed us time to recognize that she was uncomfortable.
Her sex drive was with her. It had been suppressed for so long that the growth in her drive was getting difficult to deal with. Despite her efforts to keep her dripping pussy under some level of control, the "itchy" urge for her to fuck me was still growing. Apparently the body had it's own ideas when faced with a telepath capable of breeding her.
This was new for me as well. I was surprised, never having faced this before.
Every now and then she rubbed her legs together, not realizing how much that was increasing her drive to jump me. And that, dear reader, was a problem. I'd never faced a woman so close to raping me .
That her excitement was inducing (and reinforcing!) my own sexual readiness can be taken as read; I'm surprised the table did not rise. I was able to keep control because my family was siphoning it off and and using it. Their distant satiation assisted mine, even if only to a minor degree. I was glad for every little bit of help I could get in maintaining control. Lunch was good though we rushed. The restaurant maintained a bit of a romantic atmosphere which did not help to cool things down.
In all of this she could feel my response to her lust and would blush. She was also hurt because now it was her that wanted to be a rapist, which bothered her.
Even if I was happy to be her "victim".
We hurried the rest of lunch; I agreed with her that it was best if she didn't hit critical mass in the restaurant since we'd end up fucking in the booth or on a table.
Leaving the restaurant, we went further from the courthouse as I was dragged into a "hot sheet" hotel where we got a room for an hour (a new experience for me) and we, well, undressed and went at it.
Prudence was certainly no prude. She climbed on top of me and did her very best to fuck my brains out. Our mutual climax-- which coincided with a jump to "full power"-- echoed throughout "my" network, Prudence choosing to bond into our family.
It was easy for us to cuddle afterwards, the pleasure being shared and amplified by all of the minds we were deeply entangled with. Her feeling of happiness in belonging with us hit the rest of us with the power of a drug.
But, as always, reality has a tendency to reassert itself. She had a job to do, I had jury duty to complete... but not looking the way we did just then. I didn't think we'd look right showing up all disheveled.
Now these kinds of hotels are not all that well equipped. Towels are usually pretty threadbare and the wrapped soap is the cheapest they can get away with. A bigger shower stall would have been helpful, too. We had to take turns. It had been years since I'd not had company in the shower.
At least we got the "whiff of sex" off of us, we dressed and headed out to return to the courthouse, getting a smirk from the woman in the booth when we returned the key. I did probe her a little and could feel her envy of me. This gave us a good subject to discuss on the way back since Prudence was unfamiliar with lesbianism. The rest of the women in my family did their best to get her oriented.
Walking in to the courthouse got us looks from the regular staffers and even the folks manning the scanning station. Reaching to recognize their feelings I could tell that they knew something was different in Prudence. She smiled at me when we had a quick kiss and went our seperate ways.
The subvocalized voices from the normals reflected shock that the "cold bitch" actually had a warm side. Prudence didn't get shocked hearing that with me; she let me know it was a normal thing to 'hear' from people saying "Good morning" to her.
I managed to get to the Jury room just in time and I sat down again and relaxed, my attention following my new family "member" where she could feel my accompaniment.
Her emotional state had undergone a quantum leap during our lunch date. Prudence was far more relaxed and her comfort in dealing with co-workers had gone way up. I could tell that she was using her newfound knowledge in depth to listen for clues from the other ADAs and could feel their recognition of this change to her mien.
It was a bigger jump for her than I'd ever had to face and her sense of relief in belonging with us was pleasure to feel.
Despite lucking out by not being selected for a jury it was still a drag. It would have been far more of a drag had I not been "riding" with Prudence as she worked through her cases. When all of the remaining potential jurors were released for the day, I hung around waiting for Prudence to make her way to the lobby. During my time I did "feel around" for any latents nearby and found, to my surprise, none. Or, at least, none within my range.
She had me follow her to her cubicle where she put away her files and packed herself up for the trip home. We were soon headed out each in our own car for the drive to "my" home.
Despite not sharing a car we still shared quite a bit, as my family asked more and more questions as we got closer to home.
It was a foregone conclusion that one key questions was held until we'd both parked at the main house and it was spoken rather than 'sent'.
And it was my most senior "wife", Johanna, who was 70 years old, who got to ask her the question, too. "So, Prudence... are you on the pill? Are you fertile? When is your next period?"
The eyes of my new mate opened wide and her jaw dropped, and we all read the answer; she was not merely fertile but, given when her last period ended, likely to ovulate any day now.
All of the women cheered her as she blushed, still letting some of the traditional beliefs in decorum disturb her.
Johanna was one of the strongest telepaths in the family; I was next to weakest, only Heidi, my youngest mate, had a weaker telepathic sense than I. So Johanna, between her age and strength was the acknowledged leader. She looked over Prudence carefully as we got into the house and we were soon naked, undressed by the adult members of my family.
Prudence was almost frightened as she was under inspection but she also looked around and saw that three of the women she'd joined were in various phases of their own pregnancies, all the more obvious once we were all naked.
"So, Prudence, how would you like to have a baby?"
She started crying. "Can I? Can I really?" She'd let her doubts and social programming drive her again, but we got through to her, letting her know that her children would be most welcome here. Her relief was palpable.
We were led to the "big bedroom" and Prudence and I started, so slowly, as I worked her up to full excitement, using my hands, lips and tongue. She was finally learning why we enjoyed sex as I was reading her, teasing her, bringing her to complete readiness.
I'd learned to draw out the first orgasm for a woman via foreplay; it ensures that her body is very receptive, and, if there's a chance at conception, having a uterus go into suction mode with the orgasms made the goal of impregnation more likely.
Prudence hovered on the edge of a big orgasm for several minutes as all in the room found places to sit, knowing that the shared climax would knock down anyone trying to stand. As I readied my newest mate, I was readied as well by the feelings she was experiencing.
When our bodies finally slid together it was exciting. We slowly worked ourselves together towards a climax and her body and soul merged more and more with my own, our climax finally arriving, all of our identities almost merging into one, as we all shared the echoing orgasm that ran through our whole family.
We came down from that high, back into ourselves, and I held Prudence to me. She was physically and emotionally sated, the sensation one we found common, and Johanna covered us with the sheets, telling us to take a nap.
I'd been the agent to bring in a new member for our family. A new person to love and be loved by. A person who'd been hurt and who could feel whole.
It was very, very easy to hold her as she fell asleep. Her gentle snores soon lured me to sleep as well, a nap before we had dinner.
As I faded it felt good to feel her hurts healing.
If you would like me to respond to your comments, you need to provide a return e-mail address.
Why provide feedback? Feedback is the lifeblood of authors here on asstr-mirror.org; we don't get paid in any currency beyond hits on the pages and feedback from our readership. Encouragement, questions, critiques, typos... as a reader you may be surprised how much your words mean to us.
It is a good feeling to know my words have been read ... and enjoyed.
If the above does not work for you, try: ASSTR Msg Form
Author: Jack C Lipton Title: JumpStart: Jury's Prudence Part: Universe: psi phi Summary: Keywords: Revision: $Revision: 1.3 $ Archive: http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/CupaSoup/www/ Mailing List: FAQ: RCS: $Id: jurysprudence.x,v 1.3 2004/11/07 18:41:02 jcl Exp $