[Spirit of Lust 2] Chapters 590 & 591. (Patreon)

Chapter 590: Intermission - An anecdote from an unspoken past.

Sarah took her plate with eggs, bacon and bread to the table along with a large glass of orange juice. There had been a line at the machine to get the juice, so Grace and Fernanda were already at the table. Grace had two donuts, a bowl of cereal with yogurt and a big cup of coffee, while Fernanda had a bowl of oatmeal with fruits, toasts with avocado and a cup of green tea.

Sarah sat down next to Grace and across from Fernanda, still eyeing Grace’s breakfast. Those donuts were heavily glazed, with plenty of sprinkles on top. Not to mention they were very sizable. “You shouldn’t eat those for breakfast. You’ll get a big sugar rush and then crash with low energy for the rest of the day.”

“I’ve been doing it for a while and I’ve been fine,” Grace said, taking a bite out of a donut.

“Really? Because that happens to me,” Fernanda said. “If I eat sweets in the morning I spend the rest of the day all lethargic.”

“It happens to most, but not all,” Sarah said, sighing. “In her case, she’s grown too comfortable and is falling into bad habits.”

Fernanda looked a little confused, but Sarah couldn’t elaborate. It wasn’t her place to tell her that having sex with Oliver was optimizing their bodies through magic to reach their ideal.

“So, Fernanda, how old are you, actually?” Grace said, swiftly changing the topic. “You look older than us.”

“Turned 20 not long ago.”

“You in university?” Sarah asked.

For a moment Fernanda frowned, a little confused again, but shook her head and answered. “Yes, but I had to freeze my semester.”

What was that? Ah, Diana did tell them she talked to Fernanda, but she didn’t give them any specifics. She had likely asked the same questions and Fernanda was surprised she hadn’t told them. That was Sarah’s best guess.

“Were you doing something art related or is drawing just a hobby?” Grace asked.

“Um… Yes, actually. I’m majoring in Fine Arts. I’m… hoping I can do something with my drawings in the future, but…”

Grace crossed her arms and grimaced. “Making a career out of art is… uncertain, right? Got any ideas?”

“...” Fernanda shifted uncomfortably. “I’ve always wanted to write comics, but my stories aren’t good so I’ve been trying to improve my art to work as an artist for other writers. If not that, then I’d like to do art for video games. I’ve also been considering getting into animation.”

“Oh, so you’re keeping your options open.” Sarah nodded. That sounded like a good mindset. Grace, however, frowned.

“You said that before. That your comics weren’t good. Why do you say that?”

Oh, no. Here we go. Should Sarah let Grace push this matter? She wasn’t sure. Grace and Sarah were similar in that they both hated listening to people talk themselves down. It was the one thing that annoyed them about Oliver when they first started hanging out, and they made it clear to him. The difference here is that Grace liked Oliver despite that. Fernanda, though? Grace could very well just get pissed at her.

“...” Fernanda frowned as well, frustrated, angry… At herself? “Because if even I don’t like my stories, what’s the point? I write them in text before I draw them, but none get to that point. They’re all awful. I don’t have the creativity to write a story.”

Grace took a deep breath. She took a sip from her coffee, then a larger one. She set the cup down and looked at Fernanda again. “Do you have anything on hand I could read?”

“Eh?”

Alright, fuck it. Let’s gamble, Sarah decided. “Let her do it,” she told Fernanda, pointing a thumb towards her friend. “This girl devours books. She would’ve been bullied for being a bookworm at school if she wasn’t the one doing the bullying.”

“Hey, a bully picks on the weak. I picked on the assholes. Kind of like Robin Hood.”

“Oh, don’t you compare yourself to Robin Hood.”

They suddenly heard a faint chuckle coming out of Fernanda. The girl was hiding her smile behind the back of her hand. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be laughing. Have you two… known each other for long?”

“She’s been annoying me since middle school,” Grace said, smiling. “Sometimes it’s worth putting up with her, though.”

“Please, you’d be lost without me. You used to be SO stuck up, like you thought you were better than everyone. Actually, you still kind of think you are, only you hide it better. I was the one who knocked you down a couple pegs.”

Fernanda chuckled again. “Is that true?” she asked Grace.

“...Ugh, yeah,” Grace reluctantly admitted. “At one point Sarah had enough of me. We got in a fight, she threatened to kick my ass. I told her any gorilla could win a fight, that she should beat me in smarts if she wanted to talk big. Honestly, I was trying to get her to hit me. A suspension for her and free sympathy for me. She didn’t hit me, though. She walked away, stomping her feet. We had finals two days after that. She actually beat me in science and social studies and BY GOD did she throw it in my face. I was a laughing stock for the next week.”

“Because she was always bragging that nobody could beat her because we were all too dumb. Everyone had it against her, so they took the chance to laugh at her.” Sarah then let out a heavy sigh. “But then I never got a better grade than her again.”

“Then… How did you become friends?” Fernanda asked.

“Oh, we already were!” Grace said, laughing. “That was just our biggest fight. I was mad for a week, then we went back to hanging out like nothing happened.”

“The ones who had it worse were our other friends, Mila and Alice. They thought we would never speak to each other ever again.” Sarah smiled. That was a good memory for her, and of course it was. She won the argument, managed to humble her friend and she ended up accepting it. Grace would probably never admit that she was glad it happened like that, but Sarah knew better. And speaking of Grace, Sarah had decided to back her up here, so… “But in the end, Grace really is ridiculously smart. She’s already finished 16 books in half a year, and that was even while we were still in school. You already think your stories suck, so why not let Grace check them out? Have you ever let anyone else see them? Maybe what you need is feedback.”

Fernanda pursed her lips and thought hard about it, but after a moment, she brought out her phone.

************

Chapter 591: Intermission - Feedback and shared interests.

“I have a couple of stories here on my phone,” Fernanda said.

“Send them to me. Add me. Here.”

Just like that, Grace now had Fernanda’s number. Sarah would bet she beat Oliver to it, too. Only moments later, Grace received two text documents.

“Please don’t feel rushed. Just read them when you have time,” Fernanda said, nervously.

“I have time now. Oh, they’re only 10K words each. Give me 15 minutes?”

“Wait, what? 15 minutes?”

“I told you, Grace devours books,” Sarah said, grinning. “She reads insanely quickly.”

The conversation suddenly stopped. Grace was busy on her phone, eyes scanning from left to right as she read Fernanda’s work. But it wasn’t like she was going to get distracted even if they talked next to her. After all, the only problem with Grace being as smart as she was was that she used to lord it over everyone. Now that that little issue was gone (for the most part), Sarah was free to feel proud of her friend’s talents.

“By the way, I’ve been wondering what else there is to do in this place,” Sarah said. “You know, other than bathe in the pools or swim in the river. I only ever came here years ago when I was a child, so I don’t know if they have anything new.”

“Oh, I saw a padel court!” Fernanda said, excited for once. Sarah liked that tone a lot more. But…

She frowned. “What the hell is padel?”

“You don’t know it? It’s pretty popular in Brazil, at least. It’s like tennis, but you use different rackets, a smaller, softer ball and the court has walls, so the ball is allowed to bounce off them.”

Sarah blinked. “Oh, that sounds like fun. Do you play? Mind teaching me? I used to play tennis, so I should be alright.”

Fernanda smiled. “Really? I’d love to. I play with my mom sometimes. Ah, but the court is made for doubles. Though I suppose we could still play 1v1…”

“No need, we have Grace here, and… Why don’t I invite Diana? I think she used to play tennis, too.”

Fernanda’s eyes widened. “Y-You think she’ll want to?”

“Sure, why not? She looks scary at times, but she’s actually really caring. We haven’t known her for that long, but she already feels like an older sister to us.”

“...” Fernanda chuckled. “I… I think I see it. Hey, can I… ask you a question?”

“That’s a question already, but I’ll give you another one for free,” Sarah teased. It made Fernanda laugh.

“You’re all… dating the same guy, right? How… How does it work? Actually, DOES it work?”

“Oh man, that’s not easy to answer.” Sarah blinked. “Actually, no, it is actually pretty easy. Yes, it works. It works perfectly. How? Um… With blind trust?” Sarah grimaced, not happy with her own answer. “It’s not exactly blind, but you’ll have to believe me that it’s something like it because I can’t say anything that’ll make you believe me. All jealousy is harmless. Like, even I was jealous that Noelle was the one who got to be carried all the way here yesterday. We also get along well. Hell, more than well. I would kill for any of these girls, you know? Or at least beat the shit out of anyone who hurts them, but that is if Oliver doesn’t get there first.” Sarah grinned. “He’s… amazing. The best. And weird, very weird. Very special. If it’s him, I don’t mind sharing. He’s more than I could handle alone, that’s for sure. There are six of us now, but I don’t doubt there’ll be more in the future.”

“M-More?”

“Yep.”

“And you… don’t mind?”

“We encourage it.” Sarah snickered. “I guess that also makes us weird.”

“Done,” Grace said, putting her phone down.

“Those weren’t 15 minutes,” Sarah pointed out.

“Well, the writing style was… basic,” Grace said.

Fernanda swallowed. “And… What did you think.”

Grace crossed her arms, glanced up to the ceiling and then back down at the table. “First, I’d like to know why you wrote these. Fantasy setting, kid on a farm, village gets attacked, kid learns he has some magic power inside him, goes on a journey to get stronger. The other is a basic roman coliseum-type setting that’s obviously there to be the reason to have plenty of fights. As a story, there’s nothing actually there. There are a million of these out there, so why choose them?”

“I… I like fantasy settings. I’ve always wanted to draw a story with swords and magic, knights and dragons… Things like that.”

Grace nodded. “That’s what you know and like, so that’s what you made. I get it.” Grace took a moment to gather her thoughts again. “I called the writing basic, but that in itself isn’t an issue. You’ll be drawing the stories, not writing them, so it’s fine if the stories are more of an outline than a novel. You don’t need to worry about prose.”

Fernanda nodded and patiently waited for Grace to continue, but she was quiet for a long while.

“It was really bad, wasn’t it?” Fernanda finally asked.

Grace sighed. “The issue it’s not that it's bad, it’s that it’s boring.”

Fernanda tilted her head in confusion. “How is that different?”

“Being boring is worse than being bad. A bad story is one that fails to accomplish its goal, but maybe it had a decent idea. A boring story was never interesting to begin with.” Grace tapped her finger on the table. “There’s a lot I could say, a lot of advice I want to give you, but I don’t know where to begin or how much I should actually say. Fernanda, what are your inspirations?”

“Huh?”

“Where do you get your ideas from?

“Um… I, uh… A-Anime?”

Sarah snickered. “Why do you sound like you’re ashamed? A friend of ours made us watch a few shows and they were pretty good.”

“Yeah, nothing exactly wrong with anime, but…” Grace sighed. “Look, there are plenty of free resources out there that will teach you what, in theory, makes a good story. I could regurgitate it all for you if you wanted me to, but I’m sure you don’t. The best advice I could give you is to focus on writing good characters. Good characters can carry a boring plot and setting. Hell, my favorite books to read are romances, especially of the… spicy variety.”

Fernanda seemed to blush, but with her skin being a bit darker, it was hard to tell.

“When you think about it, romances are pretty predictable, right? But people still read them because it’s fun to see the chemistry between the characters. I’d recommend reading romance books to get an idea, but most importantly, really try to analyze what makes a story good, think about what it is that makes you enjoy it beyond what’s at surface level.”

“Do you… have any specific recommendations?” Fernanda asked.

“No, Grace, don’t…!” Sarah interjected.

“I won’t recommend her erotic books, Sarah!” Grace said before glancing at Fernanda. “Unless she wants to.”

“...I wouldn't mind.”

Grace’s eyes shone as she fist-pumped. “Yes! Finally someone with good taste! I’ll send you a list of my favorites!”

Oh, boy. Well, Sarah had been duped into reading a couple of those, so she could at least accept that they were… engaging.