Font of Fertility Ch. 40 (Alpha) (Patreon)

The following is the Alpha Draft of Font of Fertility Ch 40. As an Alpha draft, this is not the final work and may see major changes prior to final posting out in the wide world.

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“Anyone else feel like we’re about to try and sell these people vacuum cleaners?” Angie mumbled.

“Knock-knock, hello, have you heard of our Lord and Savior, Jermiah’s Dick?” Lauren smirked.

I rolled my eyes at my two girlfriends, feeling about as awkward as Angie seemed to be. As planned, I’d spent a couple of extra hours at home that afternoon after school so that I’d have more leeway for the rest of the weekend. My mother had appreciated the face time, I think, and when I mentioned I was heading out to meet up with Lauren, all I’d gotten was a reminder to text if I was going to be out late.

A pointed reminder, but nothing worse than that.

Now, however, we were approaching a small home in the middle of a lower-middle class suburban neighbourhood halfway across the country. And even if I’d been a high school student and then a teenager with my Mom in the last few hours, now I had to be something else.

Jeremiah Grant, Lord-Sorcerer, Shaman of Fertility, ruling Seat.

Sex wizard.

And in the house was a woman who had begged for help with her husband, who was allegedly using his ‘wind magic’ to torture her in a domestic abuse situation.

“This feels like something that should be above my paygrade,” I sighed as we started up the path to the front door. The lawn was a little ragged, the driveway was cracked under two cars parked single-file, and the home had a sort of cloistered feel to it. Not ramshackle, but heavy. Like it wanted to fold in on itself. The light, patchy smattering of snow even seemed… greasy, like it had gotten spritzed with some oil or something.

“Except you’ve got the highest pay grade on the continent,” Angie said, grabbing my hand and squeezing it sincerely. “I get this is… a lot for you, Jerry. But unless you find and appoint Judges or something to do this for you, it’s up to you to take care of these things.”

“I know,” I said with a mild grimace. 

“You can do it, and we’re here to help,” Lauren said, grabbing my other hand for a moment and leaning in to kiss my cheeks.

I took a deep breath and nodded. Judgements so far had been… weird. And the more I heard from Lauren and Angie about the requests that were coming in through the emails, the more we were seeing three ‘tiers’ and I developed a feeling that I really needed to get a reputation settled. Tier 1 were Nuisance Requests - people asking for things, and almost always including a low amount of information and almost never offering a sacrifice as was customary. Tier 2 were Civil cases, and we had a list of them already building up. They were almost always long-standing disagreements between magic individuals or groups, sometimes dating back to before Ezekiel did; apparently, his reputation had been somewhat… medieval.

Reading that, even between the lines of some of the responses as Lauren and Angie gathered more information before setting a Judgement date, was a bit of an eye-opener. Up until now, I’d always sort of thought of Ezekiel as… like me. Except I still wasn’t sure how old he’d actually been - he’d apparently had conversations with Jesus, so at least two millennia. That probably put him at least in contention for Top 4 oldest of the Seats while he was alive, and if the others were any indication, Ezekiel might have been a lot… weirder than I imagined.

The Civil cases were at least fairly ‘manageable’ in terms of how we could schedule them - both parties were made aware of all expectations and could prepare for their hearing ahead of time.

It was the Tier 3 requests, the ones I was thinking of as ‘Criminal,’ that were the problem.

We’d only had three big things sent to us so far that I would classify as criminal, though looking back, I would have included Annalise’s request in that category as well. The only reason I’d been free to give her father notification ahead of time was because she’d been under my protection. Of the three new ones we’d gotten, one had been an accusation of murder but Lauren’s request for why the person thought there had been a murder had been met with ‘I just think he’s creepy and probably has bodies in his basement’ so it was a dud. The second one horrified Lauren and Angie because it was a kid being mistreated by his non-magical Aunt and Uncle who were supposed to be taking care of him. I’d been all ready to go do something immediately, except when I stopped to read the email myself, I realised it was the exact events of Harry Potter with a couple of name changes. A strongly worded email had been sent off with no response.

That left the Domestic in front of us. A Judgement where letting the allegedly violent party know it was coming ahead of time would be begging for them to be more violent.

“We’ve got this,” Lauren murmured as I stepped up to knock on the door. “You’ve got this.”

I knocked, sending a silent prayer up into the heavens, and for a moment was distracted as I wondered if technically I was supposed to pray to Fertility, or if I was a representative of the magical force so I was technically praying to myself? And Adama had been pretty dodgy about the existence of deities like God or Allah while being more open that the ancient pantheons were based on powerful Ascended. Thor, Ra, Hades, and even the Buddha and Hindu gods like Krishna or Shiva. 

There was stomping on the other side of the door and a raised male voice. Then the door opened, and we were face to face with the man of the house.

He didn’t exactly fit the immediate mental image I got when I thought ‘wife abuser.’ That picture in my mind was of a slightly slovenly man with unkempt facial hair, baggy or bloodshot eyes, and rocking a beer belly underneath a white tank top and exposed boxers.  

“Can I help you?” he asked, his voice dropping from whatever he’d been calling back into the house. Looking at us in mild confusion and maybe a little exasperation.

“Trent Branche?” I asked.

He raised an eyebrow at me, scowling a little. “Who’s asking?”

Trent was a thin, fit guy. I could easily picture him being at home in some ridiculous, tight running gear and preparing for a triathlon as he was in the nice business-y button-down shirt and slacks he was wearing. His hair, tidily trimmed, was gelled back, and he was clean shaven. If anything, I thought he looked like a high-end car salesman and not the monster he was being accused of being.

“Jeremiah Grant, Lord-Sorcerer and Seat of Fertility,” Lauren announced me.

That got more of his attention as his face screwed up in confusion, then shock, back to confusion. And then settled on perturbed.

“What, um, can I do for my Seat?” he asked, gulping lightly.

“We’ll need to step inside,” I said, gesturing past him through the doorway. “And we’ll need to see everyone in the house.”

“I- Would prefer not,” he said.

“I bet,” Angie murmured under her breath.

“I’m going to have to insist,” I said, returning his grimace.

He screwed up his face a little, glancing back into the house for a moment, then back at us. “This is my home, and this is still the United States of America. You don’t have the right to just barge in.”

I blew out a breath, shaking my head. “I’m not the government or the police, Trent. I don’t need a warrant.”

“Says who?” he said, a bit of a growl entering his voice.

“Says tradition,” I sighed. “Says the Council of Threes, of whom I’m the most reasonable by a mile. And says your wife because she invited me here to begin with.”

“...What?” he demanded.

I slammed the shielding in place between Trent Branch and the Unreal faster than he could turn and do whatever it was he was going to do. It was possible he wasn’t going to do anything heinous, but I also wasn’t going to take that chance. I didn’t know enough about his magic to know if he needed line of sight to cut off his wife’s access to air.

The strangled, painful scream as he clawed at his throat and dropped heavily to his knees just inside the door drew out the other two people in the house. The first was a brunette woman, a little curvy and very pretty, wearing a tight turtleneck and slacks like she’d also just come home from work. The second was a blonde, clearly the younger sister of the brunette, and she was dressed down in a bulky sweater and tights.

“Trent!?” the older sister said in a panic, rushing to him. She went to her knees next to him as he continued to whimper, holding his head with both hands. She looked up at me pleadingly. “What did you do to him?”

“Fuck,” Angie muttered. I knew what she was thinking - here was a woman who was being abused by the man she still loved, however twisted that was.

“He’s not actually hurt,” I said, stepping up and into the doorway, reaching out to try and calm her. “He’s just in shock because I’ve blocked him from his magic, and that’s not something he’s used to.”

It did not help that Trent started openly weeping.

“Maybe we should all move inside,” Lauren prompted and I agreed, making room for her and Angela to follow me in so we could close the door.

“Jesus Christ,” the younger sister said, shaking her head.

“No, Jermiah Grant,” Lauren smirked. “You’re thinking of someone else.”

“Is there somewhere we can all sit?” I asked.

“What’s wrong with him?” the woman asked, ignoring me and trying to soothe her husband. “Trent, come on, talk to me.”

“Barbara,” Lauren said, squatting down next to them. “I’m Lauren, Jeremiah’s Prime, and this is Angie. You’ve been emailing with us. And I see your sister is here like we arranged. Are the kiddos at your parents?” 

Barbara sniffed hard, seemingly remembering what was going on, and she swallowed and nodded.

“OK,” Lauren said, offering to help her up as she looked over to the sister. “Meghan, right? Do you know what’s going on?”

“Um,” the other woman said. “Like… vaguely?”

“Do they have a living room or dining room with enough seats for everyone?” Angie asked.

“Suuuure,” Meghan said, obviously a little confused. “Just, um, through here.”

She led the way, and Lauren guided Barbara to follow, leaving Trent to me and Angie. The look on my girlfriend’s face was one of distaste as she glanced down at the man.

“I got it,” I assured her, nodding for Angie to follow Lauren. She huffed out a breath, gave me a look, and then leaned in and gave me a peck on the lips before following. That left me with the hyperventilating Trent. “Come on,” I said, shaking him by the shoulder. “Get your shit together.”

“What have you done?” he gasped. “What have you done?”

“I made you just like everyone else,” I sighed. “And it doesn’t need to last forever. It’s just for everyone’s protection.”

“Why? Why are you doing this to me?”

Now I grunted. “Because, Trent. Your wife has accused you of domestic abuse using magic and asked for a Judgement. You know what that means, right?”

He looked at me, his face a mixture of panic and anger.

“Yeah, you know what it means,” I said. “Come on, get up. You’ll get a fair shot to explain yourself or refute the accusations.” I hauled him up to his feet and followed him into the living room.

The place was nice, though I got the vibe that there was either a lot of thrifting or inheritance going on - all of the furniture had a sort of vintage feel, and not in a showy kind of way. It just kind of felt… Grandparent-ish. There were more modern elements as well, and it wasn’t exactly cluttered or anything, but it just felt sort of uncomfortable. Like someone had tried to make it feel homey but had only accomplished a bad rendition of comfy.

Barbara, the wife, was sitting on a love seat next to her sister. Lauren was sitting on a couch next to them, trying to be patient as Barbara was sniffling a little. Angie had gone through an open doorway into a dining room, and she came back with an old wooden chair, setting it down firmly across the room from the wife and pointing Trent towards it. “You sit there,” she said sternly.

I was surprised by the pained grimace he managed. “That’s my chair,” he said, pointing at a recliner that didn’t really match the other furniture in vintage or colour. It also happened to be right next to the love seat, commanding the best view of the other non-vintage item in the room - the flat screen TV.

“Not today, it’s not,” Angie said.

“Trent, sit,” I ordered him, a hand on his shoulder directing him towards the wooden chair.

He sat, looking like a kid who was about to be sick, and Angie made a point of sitting in ‘his chair’ while I went and sat next to Lauren on the couch. I almost thought my brunette girlfriend was going to kick up the footrest and everything just to rub it in, but she contented herself with smirking and crossing her arms over her chest.

“Alright,” I said firmly, trying to make sure everyone was paying attention to me and not lost in their current emotional turmoil. I almost felt weird starting a Judgement without summoning Adama to give her advice, but this also didn’t exactly feel like the kind of situation where whipping out my dick was anywhere near appropriate. “Before we get started, I think it’s obvious not everyone is fully aware of what’s going on. First, Meghan, do you understand?”

The blonde looked at me with wide eyes. “Me?”

“Yes, you,” Lauren prompted her. “According to our emails with your sister, you are both a witness and agreed to possibly be part of the sacrifice for this Judgement.”

“Right, um… right,” Meghan said, blushing a little. “Look, this is all kind of really new to me, OK? I just- it’s all a little insane.”

“She shouldn’t know anything,” Trent muttered. Apparently, his shock was wearing off.

I took a deep breath, trying not to roll my eyes at him, and then focused on Meghan. She had to be in her mid-twenties, but somehow I felt older than her. Maybe it was her maturity level or her just clearly being out of her depth here, but it was kind of weird.

“I assume you’ve only recently learned about our world,” I said evenly. “Do you have any questions before we get started?”

“Um… yes?” she hedged. “But I don’t know…”

“The important parts are that Jerry is here to listen to Barbara’s accusations and will have a mini-trial,” Angie said. “And what he decides after is entirely up to him.”

“OK, sure, he’s the… magic judge cop guy,” she said.

“He’s the Seat,” Barbara interrupted, murmuring beside her. “That’s his title.”

“Right, sure,” Meghan said. “But isn’t it kind of…” She looked around, obviously searching for a way to say what she was thinking.

“Your question is why does someone need to make a sacrifice for what happens here today?” Lauren guessed. Meghan nodded, and Lauren leaned forward a little. “Think of Jeremiah like… an ancient Greek god. Like Zeus, or Poseidon, or Hades - like the old Disney movie. He’s good, but there are rules to how him and the other Gods do things. One of them is that if someone comes asking for his action, they need to make a sacrifice. Jerry only needs sex, which seems huge, but the other kinds of Seats either take entire parts of your life by eating your important memories, or literally require a death.”

Meghan gulped.

“Fucking a cute guy doesn’t seem like such a big deal to save your sister now, does it?” Angie asked, still sitting with her arms crossed.

“Alright, please,” I sighed, holding up my hands to them both. “Meghan, do you consent to be here as a witness in regards to your sister’s accusations against her husband?”

“Um, yes,” she said slowly.

“Do you consent to me using magic to ensure that you are telling the truth?”

She blushed a little bit but nodded.

I turned to Barbara. “You’ve made serious accusations against your husband, in detail. It’s too late to take them back now if you were making them up - the truth is going to come out no matter what. Do you understand that?”

The older sister gave me a forlorn look and then burst into tears, and I honestly had no idea what was running through her mind.

I pivoted to Trent. “Any questions from you before we get started?”

“I don’t even know what I’m being accused of,” he grunted, shaking his head. “You’re just ambushing me here, in my own house.” Then he looked across the room at her wife as she was trying to get control of herself. “You’re just ambushing me here with… what? Do you know what you’ve done? How did you even contact him? How dare you-”

“Stop,” I told him firmly, pointing as a warning. He looked like he wanted to argue, but he shut his mouth. I let out my breath, a little harshly. “Alright, let’s get this started so we can just get on with it instead of dancing around. Trent Branch, a Judgement has been requested against you by Barbara Branche. She’s accused you of domestic violence using your magic, up to and including torture by asphyxiation. You will each have a chance to talk, but hear me when I tell you this - I will know if you are lying, and I will not be happy if you do. Once I’m satisfied with the process, I will make a final decision about what’s going to happen.”

“Where’s my lawyer?” Trent demanded. “This is the United States of America. I’m guaranteed a legal representative. And what about a jury of my peers? Why should I accept anything you say when it should be a jury of fellow Ascended like me?”

Lauren looked like she wanted to say something, but I put a hand on her knee to stop her, and I took a slow breath before answering. “This might be the US, Trent, but this isn’t a US court of law. If you weren’t using your magic to do this, I would have likely referred your wife to the police - but this accusation involves our world, and you know that means someone from our world is going to be the one to deal with it.”

“If anyone is threatening ‘our world’ then it’s my wife and now her bitch sister,” Trent sneered. “This is my home, my territory. I haven’t threatened anything, and I have every right to use my magic outside the public eye. Maybe you don’t know this yet because you’re so new to our world, but what an Ascended does in our own territory is our business and no one else's. You don’t have the right to just-”

I snapped, and the next sound he made was “Mwaa-haauuah?!”

I snapped again, relaxing his tongue so he wouldn’t bite it or something.

“What the fuck-”

“Trent Branche,” I said, raising my voice so suddenly that Lauren actually jumped a little next to me and put a hand on my leg this time, but I pressed on. “For the last eighteen odd years, North America has been without its Seat. Based on your age, I’m guessing you likely hadn’t even gone through your ascension when the last Seat left this world, but let me be crystal clear - your territory is only a mimicry of the system the Seats operate by, dividing the world into operational control. This land, here, is my territory first. You and every other mage living on it have the right to hold it as ‘yours’ only so far as I allow it. Every law you think you know, that you think are agreed to by all of Ascended society, are laws that come down from people of my station and are perpetuated throughout history. You don’t have any rights when it comes to magic except those I choose to allow, even if that makes me feel a little sick to my stomach.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, but he’d just had his second taste of my magic. I didn’t know a lot about the human body, but after getting a leg cramp during sex I’d done a little bit of research and learned more about muscles purely to be able to soothe that issue instead of suffering through it. I was also aware that the tongue was one big muscle. It had barely taken any power at all to make his tongue involuntarily contract in a cramp that had frozen in a painful paralysis, dead in his mouth.

“Now,” I said, lowering my voice. “I don’t plan on being an asshole, but let me tell you this - if what you've been accused of is true, you better be putting together a strong set of mitigating circumstances, or one hell of a believable apology, because I get to dictate the standards in my territory, and torture is off the list.” I took another deep breath, letting it out slowly so I would keep my composure. “In a perfect world, Trent, you would get some sort of representation. And some notice that this was coming. But this isn’t a perfect world, and there’s a lot of shit that needs to be handled - maybe one day I’ll have judges and processes and lawyers. Today, we’re doing things about as traditional as I’m likely to get, even if I don’t particularly like it. That is how seriously I take these accusations. Do you understand me?”

Trent opened his mouth and seemingly tested the use of his tongue briefly before nodding. “I understand,” he muttered.

I let out my breath and then turned to the ladies on the other couch. “Barbara, you requested my intervention, and from your communications with Lauren and Angie, it sounds like you’ve been through some horrible stuff. I know it might be hard, but I need you to tell me as clearly as you can what Trent has been doing that you’re asking me to intervene in.”

Barbara looked at me like I’d asked her to scream at a baby.

This whole fucking thing was awkward. And messy. So fucking messy.

“Barb,” Meghan nudged her sister with an elbow.

“I don’t know,” Barb murmured. “I don’t know anymore.”

I could feel Lauren about to say something, but Meghan pushed on despite her obvious apprehensions about this stuff. “Barb,” she said sharply. “You showed me the videos. You can’t just pretend that shit didn’t happen.”

“You took videos of me?” Trent asked angrily.

“She has videos of you choking her with fucking magic, you dick,” Meghan spat.

“You see?” he snarled, looking at me. “They are the problem here. Not me.”

“God, you really are a fucking limp dick,” Angie grimaced in disgust.

 “How dare you-”

I cut off Trent with a severe look, which I was pretty proud of considering I was at least a decade younger than the man. Then I turned to Barbara again. “Maybe we try this another way - in a perfect world, what would your life look like after this Judgement, Barbara.”

“Um,” she mumbled, looking down at her hands.

“She’d be-” Meghan started, but I held up a hand to stop her as well. She was part of this now, but she wasn’t the person asking me for Judgement.

“I would have my life back,” Barbara finally said. “The life I was supposed to have? The one Trent promised me before we got married, before he told me about magic. Just me, him, and our kids. White picket fence, maybe a dog…”

“Barb-”

“He said a perfect world, Megs,” Barbara said more firmly, turning to look at her sister. “A perfect world.” She turned back to me. “Can you do that?”

Now it was my turn to grimace. Perfect was impossible, but what she was asking for… it felt ‘doable’ but ultimately unrealistic. The amount of mind-fuckery that might be required would be a lot - definitely more than I was likely to be comfortable with, let alone any power the sacrifice would generate. 

And then there was the question of Justice and what sort of standards and precedents I was about to set.

“I might be able to,” I hedged. “But if that’s the best case scenario, then what is he doing that needs to change?”

Barbara closed her eyes for a long time, and a thick tear welled up and dropped onto her cheek to roll all the way down to her jawline. She sniffed in hard, filling her lungs, and let it out slowly before she started talking without opening her eyes.

But, as she started talking, I tapped into my pool of power and cast a mental net over the room, focused on myself like a spider with tendrils of web wrapped around the two sisters, Trent, and my girlfriends. They could say whatever they wanted, but if they lied, I would know.

“About three months after we got married, seven years ago, Trent used his magic on me for the first time,” Barbara started slowly but picked up steam as the words came rolling out of her. “I didn’t even know he was magical or that magic was real. It terrified me when I suddenly couldn’t breathe, couldn’t make a sound or cry for help. And he just stood there glaring at me. I think it must have only been a few seconds that time, but it had never happened before, and it felt like minutes. He was so apologetic when he let me go and realised how scared I was, and I- I thought he meant it. But after the first time, it happened again. Maybe a month later? And then again, and again. I spent an entire week once not saying anything at home, scared I would say the wrong thing and make him mad again. But then we had our first, Trent Jr, and that wasn’t really an option anymore. I hoped giving him a son would fix things, and they did for a little bit, but then it started again… but there was nowhere to go…”

She trailed off, and the lump in my throat made it hard to know what to say next. It was a classic story - almost a trope, explored thoroughly in TV shows. I’d never actually met someone, at least that I knew of, who so exemplified ‘battered spouse.’ Someone who had been living in fear for so long, so deep in the cycle of abuse, that being away from it was almost as scary as being in it.

And the horrible thing was that she hadn’t spoken a single lie. Not even a tremor of a fib or embellishment. 

I nodded. “Thank you for being clear,” I said softly. “Has he ever done anything to you like that without magic? Choking, hitting, grabbing, shoving?”

“Pinching, poking, shushing you in front of others, putting you down on purpose and pretending it wasn’t a big deal, purposefully embarrassing you?” Angie added with a heavy grating in her voice.

Barbara started crying again, burying her face in her hands.

“She’s told me he’s never actually raised a hand to hurt her,” Meghan grimaced, empathetic tears in her eyes as well. “But I can say for sure that he’s done those other things. In front of me, our family, and her friends. Shushing, putting her down or making fun of her, embarrassing her. We never liked it, or him, but she wouldn’t listen.”

No lies.

“Alright,” I frowned, nodding to Meghan as Barbara continued quietly crying into her hands. I turned to Trent, gritting my teeth. “Neither of them are lying, so I know you’ve done all of those things. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Trent took a moment to breathe deeply, clenching and unclenching his hands as his eyes darted in a glare between me, Barbara and Meghan. When I caught that glare directly, making eye contact with him, he quickly looked away and focused on his wife. “You don’t understand what she’s like,” he finally said, and it came out in a rush, almost like it was a relief. “She talks. All. The. Time. I loved how much she talked when we were dating. I loved everything about her. But once we were married, it changed. She would talk, and talk, and talk, and it was incessant, and it didn’t matter if we were trying to go to sleep at the end of a long day, or if she woke up three hours early for some reason, or any time during the day. I could ask eight times in a row to just give me a half hour of quiet after a long day at work, and she’d agree, and then two minutes later, she’s talking to me. And I’d remind her what she’d just agreed to, and she’d apologise, and then two minutes later- Ugh! And the worst part, the worst part, was that it wasn’t the same topics as when we were dating. Once we moved into this house she stopped having her own fucking life. Her entire world was this house, and the things she didn’t like about it and wanted me to change. She decided to stop working after the wedding, wanting to be a housewife - without talking to me about it first, which was fucking ironic. She dropped at least half of her friends the first couple of months after the wedding and most of the rest within the next year. She hated when I would go out to see my friends-”

“This is all just excuses,” Meghan interrupted her brother-in-law’s ranting - and it really was a pretty fervent rant mode he had going. “None of it-”

“You and Barb will have a chance to talk when he’s done,” I said, not disagreeing with her, but also knowing the truth behind what Trent was saying. He wasn’t justified, but he wasn’t lying yet. I turned back to him. “You can continue.”

He swallowed and glanced around, having lost his momentum. “I-” he shook his head. “Everything Barbara said, and she couldn’t let more than three minutes pass without saying something unless she was asleep, was about how I needed to do things. How I needed to fix things around the house when she spent all day here and I was a work carrying us both. All talk, no listening. Constantly. For hours. And hours. Sometimes I just need her to stop. And my magic worked, alright? It was the only fucking thing that worked. And you know what? All those little jabs I would make at her expense, Meghan? It was me getting back at her for all the fucking shit she would say anywhere other than around your family. Barb seems like the sweetest older sister when she’s around you, or with your parents, but God fucking damnit she can’t keep a single fucking thought to herself like she’s trying to backseat drive my entire fucking life. Just a fucking trip to the grocery store I get berated for driving too slow, too fast, taking corners to sharply, taking them too widely, not giving space for other cars, getting too close to other cars, parking too far from the store, and parking too close to the cart return things. My diet is too strict, I need to cut down on carbs, I need to find another job that has a higher pay so we can afford the better cuts of meat, I need to spend more time at home with the kids, and I need to raise the limit on the credit card because she wants to try one of those meal order services. I need to let her do things and not try and do them for her, but I also need to get things for her when she mentions them off-hand as being on the grocery list. I should push the cart, but I shouldn’t just assume she can’t push the cart. Same with unloading the cart at the cash register. And paying. And loading the car. And unloading the car. And that was just this morning.”

Barbara was in tears all over again, and the horrifying thing was that still, Trent hadn’t lied.

Even Angie wasn’t sure what to make of this now.

“So, yeah, I fucking make her shut up sometimes,” Trent growled softly, shaking his head. “Because my wife is entirely incapable of doing that herself. And after years of marriage and thousands of attempts to talk about it, I just need some fucking peace any way I can get it sometimes and that’s between me and her and no one else. So kindly get the fuck out of my house.”

“Alright, thank you for… that,” I said carefully, trying to choose my words without showing bias either way. Glancing at my girlfriends, Lauren looked uncomfortable sitting next to me. She still had a hand on my leg but wasn’t squeezing, and her face was slightly pinched. Angie, on the other hand, looked a little like she was going to be sick and I wanted to check in on her - and I could do that with my telepathy spell - but sitting there silently for a minute having a conversation the others couldn’t hear would be awkward as fuck. “Meghan,” I said instead. “It sounded like you wanted to refute some of Trent’s claims of context?”

“I-” she said, stammering a little. Barb was clutching her hand, huddled over and still softly sobbing. “What the fuck am I supposed to say to that? It’s all bullshit. Barb is the sweetest, most considerate, loving person I know. I always thought she was with this fucking abusive asshole because she was too sweet and didn’t have a spitful enough bone in her body to break it off with him years ago.”

The first lie of the afternoon pinged in my little spell web. It might have been because Meghan exaggerated on behalf of her sister - Barb was the sweetest and most considerate and most loving person she knew? Or maybe it was something more than that. Maybe there was an actual lie in there, and something in what Trent had said had pinged in her mind as ringing with some truth.

Meghan hadn’t actually given anything concrete, though, so the amount it mattered wasn’t quite to the level of me wanting to call her out. It was just something I had to keep in mind. And, like a creeping pit in my stomach, I was very aware that calling her out in a lie, even just of exaggeration, would make the sacrifice part of this all the more awkward.

And it felt gross to be concerned about that while this all was going on, but I also wondered if it would be even more gross if I wasn’t.

“Barbara,” I said. “Do you have anything else you want to say?”

She shook her head, one hand over her eyes and her lips screwed up, keeping back any sobs.

I looked back at Trent, eyeing him closely. He managed to meet my eyes for a bit before looking away and scowling.

“The problem I’m having,” I said to the room, keeping my eyes on him. “Is that you’re not just guilty of literal torture - shit that would be considered a fucking war crime - but you’re also likely to feel justified in doing it again even now that it’s not your little secret, Trent. You feel justified. And I need you to hear me when I say that I believe your version of events and context; you weren’t lying. Your experience of being married to Barbara sounds like it’s taken a severe psychological toll on you. That doesn’t justify torture, though, even if it’s not leaving a mark on her.”

He opened his mouth to argue but clicked it closed after a moment. The look on his face still told me that I was right - he was likely to re-offend unless something dramatic was done.

“The other problem I’m having, though,” I said, turning to look at the sisters. “Is that Barbara doesn’t want a more… final judgment. On the face of it, I don’t think I’d have a problem making someone who asphyxiates his wife on a regular basis disappear. Unless it was a kink thing, but this obviously isn’t that. You honestly disgust me, Trent, even if I get that you feel like you got pushed to your limits.” I shook my head and let out a huff before looking at Lauren. “Thoughts?”

Lauren shook her head slightly, meeting my eyes and silently letting me know she supported me no matter what my decision was.

I looked over at Angie. “Baby?”

“Honestly, babe?” Angie asked.

“Of course.”

“I think this fuckhead deserves something fucking biblical,” Angie said, turning her gaze and sneer on Trent. “Not just because he’s a fucking worm, but to put the fear in any other abusive piece of shit who has power over their partners by the luck of the draw. Pillar of fire. Turn him to rock salt. Something.”

I nodded but grimaced. I’d had a feeling that was where Angie would still draw her line. I loved her, but she was biased. This was definitely a test for us.

Taking a breath, I looked at Meghan.

“I get an opinion?” she asked dubiously.

“I don’t guarantee I’ll follow it or agree,” I said. “But I’ll take it into account, and you can give it for free.”

Meghan grimaced, side-eyeing her sister for a moment, then looked back at me pointedly. “I agree with her,” she said, nodding at Angie. “He should fucking die in a fire.”

“You would say that,” Trent muttered.

“Enough,” I sighed, looking back at him. He was a piece of shit. There was no denying that. How he became a piece of shit was debatable. He was also a father, and there hadn’t been any actual accusations of him doing anything to his kids or threatening them. Or the rest of Barbara’s family.

It was so strange that some of the biggest accusations from the original email fell away in person with just the slightest pressure.

“Alright, here’s my final judgement,” I said, talking as I concocted the necessary spell in my mind and stood up to make it a little more official than sitting on a vintage, somewhat musty couch. “Trent, whether you were hiding it beforehand or you became this on the way, your actions are disgusting. You’re a petty little man who couldn’t just do the reasonable thing for some reason and leave the relationship if it was so rough on you. I also have absolutely zero trust that if I simply told you to stop that you would, and Angela is right - you’re going to be made an example of here. You deserve to be wiped off the face of the Earth for this cycle of utter inhumanity. But-” I hit that hard because I saw that he was tensing up like he was ready to try and fight me with his fists if it was his last act. “Your victim doesn’t want that. Your wife doesn’t want that. Your children wouldn’t understand. And simply removing you from the equation would leave holes that would take a long time to fill and possibly cause more damage than a softer answer.

“Trent Branche, I declare you guilty of all the accusations Barbara Branche has laid against you. You are a vile domestic abuser, and you’ve used your magic to harm another without any good reason beyond your own petty pride. The first of my Judgments is that I strip you of the right to ever access your magic again since you clearly cannot be trusted with it.”

His jaw fell open at that, his eyes wide.

I still didn’t understand why the magic world thought that was worse than death.

“The second of my Judgments is that I’m putting the following compulsions on you; First, if you ever seek to bring intentional harm to another person or animal, either planned or by pure reaction, you will instead travel to the person you would be the most shamed to know of that action and you will tell them, in detail, what you almost did. Second, if you ever seek to purposefully embarrass, shame or otherwise verbally needle anyone, you will instead admit an embarrassing, shameful or painful fact about yourself short of any details that would reveal the magical world.”

I had approached Trent as I was speaking, his eyes getting larger as I outlined how fucking brutal his life was about to become. Any and every harmful instinct was going to be punished. His social life would certainly suffer - friends and family would start to learn his deep, dark secrets and urges. Likely, his mental health would suffer as well, trying to control every thought and action to avoid the punishment. He might even struggle to keep his job, whatever it was, if he was the most shamed by telling his coworkers or boss.

And he would touch his magic again.

I placed my hand on his head like I was going to try sucking his brain out of his forehead, but instead I was releasing the compulsion spell, and as it washed out of me and over him I grunted. It was a lot, and it wasn’t enough, and no one was going to be completely happy. Not in the short-term, not in the long-term.

I’d read once that a proper compromise usually meant that no one person was completely happy with the results, but everyone could live with them.

Maybe that’s what this was. Maybe that’s what Justice was.

“It’s done,” I said, stepping away from him.

Trent was crying, silent tears, his eyes looking haunted.

And then he stood up.

“Fuck,” he said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He walked out of the room and, a moment later, out the front door.

“That was fast,” Lauren murmured.

I shook my head and let out a heavy breath before turning to the sisters as I realised I’d fucked up the order of things.

Sacrifice, then Judgement.

Now there wasn’t any chance of them trying to ‘bribe’ me, but payment was going to be awkward as fuck.

****-----***-----****

“It couldn’t have been that bad,” Lindsey said.

It was Saturday morning and we were gathered in the living room of the Penthouse. I’d teleportaled Lauren, Angie and I up to the city an hour earlier, and Angie and Stacey were downstairs in the building gym getting a workout in with Leandro and Maya, while Lauren and I caught up with Linds and Annalise.

“Oh, it was that bad,” Lauren sighed, shaking her head. She was laying on the couch, her head in Lindsey’s lap and looking up at the other blonde, while Annalise had snuggled up under one of my arms on the loveseat.

“It was just the sister, right?” Annalise asked.

“I wasn’t about to have sex with the wife,” I sighed. “Not with the state she was in, and with her planning to try and make it work with him still. The best thing for both of them is probably an amicable divorce at this point, but I’m not in the business of forced matchmaking or relationship-splitting.”

“Not that Angie wasn’t a little ticked off that you let them stay together,” Lauren sighed.

“I’m going to have a longer talk with her today after the Judgement,” I said. “Make sure we find a middle ground.”

“You could always choke her,” Lindsey said with a devious smirk. “She likes a good little moment of asphyxiation while getting your-”

“Too soon, Linds,” I said.

“Way too soon,” Lauren said, but then she snorted lightly, which cut the admonition heavily.

“Whatever. So you took her to the sanctum?” Linds smirked and pivoted the conversation back to the original topic.

“It made the most sense,” I shrugged. “I wasn’t going to fuck her in the living room, or upstairs in her sister’s bed. And doing it at the Sanctum meant maximizing the gains in the Amplifier, and when it was all done and buttoned up, I was already connected and able to cast the Forgetfulness spell for cheap. Which I’m still not thrilled about.”

“But it was necessary,” Annalise assured me, and the others nodded.

I didn’t want to mess with people’s minds, but Meghan had heard and seen too much while also not having it really affect her life directly. She was going to have a four-day gap in her memory around anything to do with magic, which could cause an issue or two for her, but ultimately was better than risking her knowing and saying too much or seeking out more info.

The Humanistas were out there, and I had no idea how deep they were into governments and organisations. It was entirely possible that the wrong Google searches could draw their attention.

“OK, but the sex itself…” Lindsey prompted, letting her horniness get the best of her. My genius girlfriend tended to have a one-track mind at times.

“Awkward,” I said. “We got naked, she blew me in the Amplifier while Lauren and Angie waited in the bedroom, and then I offered to eat her out and she just told me to get on with it. I asked her what positions she liked, and she just said to do her in doggy, so I did that.”

“She wasn’t bad looking,” Lauren said. “Though the older sister had better tits for sure.”

“Did you finish in her?” Lindsey asked.

“Jesus,” Annalise murmured, still not entirely used to Lindsey’s brashness.

“For science,” Lindsey explained, even if that didn’t make any sense and you all knew it.

“Yes, Linds. I finished in her,” I sighed. It was the largest power gain for my magical batteries.

“Anal?”     

“No, it was awkward enough already,” I said, trying not to laugh at the look on her face. “I wasn’t going to ask about that.”

Lindsey shrugged, that smirk still on her lips. “That wasn’t a request for information, baby,” she said. “That was an offer.”

“Horny slut,” Lauren laughed, sitting up so that Lindsey could stand up and come over to me.

Lindsey held out her hands to me but looked at Annalise. “You can come too, Anna,” she grinned. “The more, the merrier.”

“You guys have fun,” Annalise blushed, giving me a kiss on the cheek before standing up to free me from my cuddling obligations. 

I sighed and rolled my eyes playfully as I let Lindsey pull me up to my feet, and I wrapped my arms around her and crushed her to my chest as I kissed her.

“In the bedroom, you horny kids,” Lauren said, prodding us to start moving. “Maya or Leandro could come back at any time.”

I grunted and grabbed Linds by her deliciously full ass, lifting her up so she could wrap her legs around my waist and lock her ankles behind me without breaking our kiss. Then I took two steps and knocked my shins against the coffee table, grunting in pain.

“Come on,” Lauren snickered, putting a hand on my arm to guide me. “Let’s get this over with. We’ve got a lady to get pregnant in a couple of hours.”

****-----***-----****

This was going to be a problem.

Everything with this Judgement was technically going great. There was a slight amount of awkwardness, sure, but it was very clearly nervous excitement for everyone involved, and the topic was a happy one. Nothing like yesterday. 

We’d teleportalled to the Ancaster’s home outside Washington, DC and everything about their house had felt… warm. Inviting. It was the same mildly overcast, kind of gross weather conditions as at the Branches the night before, but the vibe was just there.

And the Ancasters were absolutely lovely people. Ned Ancaster, the husband, worked for an NGO that organised aid relief for natural disaster sites and was the ‘mundane’ partner in the relationship. Grace Ancaster was a legal secretary and had control over water - she could move it around and make it freeze or unfreeze. In another world, she joked, she could have been some sort of Ice Witch and made a killing by shipping suspended ice to hot climates. Her sister Christiane was also an Ascended with water powers, but she had more fine control and didn’t have the whole freeze-unfreeze thing.

Christiane was excited to be an Auntie, and for her sister and her husband. The Ancasters were thrilled to host us, and Ned had even proved himself ready to be an excellent, organised Dad by having a whole plan laid out for what they would need like he was proposing their pregnancy for approval for a work project, but while also offering us his home-baked cookies.

And it was us. Lauren and Angie had come with me again, needing to see the ups along with the downs of these Judgments so they could refine their organisation of the system and share in the emotional rollercoaster, and Lindsey had joined us so she could witness the use of the Tree of Life wand and gather info about the artifact and its effects.

All of it was going fucking great, and everyone was all smiles and excitement by the time we’d let Ned run us through his whole plan in the living room.

The problem, the big fucking problem, was that Grace Ancaster and her sister Christiane were fucking hot. Absolute, utter smoke shows. The kind of attractive that tingled something magnetic in my brain. They could have walked into any model agency, porn studio - hell, any job location anywhere in the world - and be likely to get whatever job they wanted. They weren’t identical by any means; Grace, the older sister, was a little more willowy, and her blonde hair was a lighter shade while she wore it long enough to reach the top of her ass. She was stunning, with a touch of aristocratic high cheekbones but a slightly more hollow cheek than her younger sister, and both of their eyes were a pale blue with the same distinctive shape to their brows. Christiane wore her hair shorter, just a little past her shoulders, and it was more of a dark, dirty blonde with a bit more wave to it. She had the same cheekbones and jaw as her sister, but her face was a little more full, like she wasn’t quite as concerned about looking as sleek as Grace. And that did wonders for her - she was tall, but a little less willowy, and had just a slightly larger bust and hips while remaining model-thin.

But not only were they physically gorgeous and utterly lovely as we sat and talked, but they both also had British accents. Glorious, warm, posh accents because their mother had previously been the Minister (or second-in-command) at the UK embassy in Washington, and they had grown up flying back and forth between the two countries.

And I wanted them. I wanted them both. I wanted to fuck them. More than that. I had this primal urge, a caveman desire, to take them. To take their hands or throw them over my shoulder and bring them home with me and have them lounge around half-naked, enjoying a rich life of luxury with my other harem members and hearing their warm, joyous laughter as I turned my attention to them whenever I wanted.

It was the first time that I felt like I was really feeling the temptation to be… a Seat of Fertility. The way the others were. To take what I wanted and make it mine, just because I could. The way everyone expected me to act.

And based on the little looks that I could see in the eyes of my girlfriends, I knew that all three of them found Grace and Christiane to be fucking hot, too. I could see, in my mind, my girls accepting the two gorgeous women with open arms and integrating them smoothly into the group. Adapting our lives to include them.

Except that wasn’t who I was. It wasn’t who we were. And Grace seemed by all measures to be extremely happily married.

“It sounds like you guys are totally ready for this,” Lauren said with a warm smile, sitting forward on the couch as she addressed the couple and sister-in-law. “Not that any of us are in a place to really give you tips on parenting or anything. Honestly, guys, I’m so happy for you that we can do this.”

“Thank you, that’s very kind of you to say,” Grace grinned, her bright eyes having a tendency to squint a little when she was smiling so broadly. “And also, thank you so much for taking our request seriously. Ned and I have been trying for what feels like forever, and when we found out it couldn’t happen… Well, you’re an answer to our prayers, Lord Jeremiah.”

“Please,” I said. “Jeremiah is fine. Or Jerry, even.”

“Jeremiah,” she nodded, her smile changing to just a little more shy at being on first-name basis with a Seat. It was going to take some time for me to navigate how wildly different people seemed to treat my position - some were deeply respectful or even reverent. Others seemed to almost resent my position, like Annalise’s father or Trent.

And then there was the fact that their accent made my name sound… Mmm.

“Can I ask something… slightly odd?” Christiane piped up. She’d been a little more quiet than her sister and brother-in-law, but not in a shy way. If anything, she was a little more bubbly, whereas her sister Grace was a little more happily serene.

“This whole thing is a little bit weird,” Angie laughed. “I don’t see how you could make it any weirder.”

“She’s not wrong,” Lindsey grinned. “But it’s a good weird. Go for odd, and we’ll try not to make it worse.”

Christiane laughed with the others, her smile bright. “OK, I just- I’m so curious about your whole situation,” she said. “Like, I was six when the last Fertility seat died? And since our grandparents were both Ascended, we used to dream about maybe one of us being a Seat and going on adventures and such. But there hasn’t been a new Seat in… well, hundreds of years?”

“I’m the first in about five hundred,” I nodded.

“Right,” Christiane nodded. “And she’s the Death Seat, right? Down in South America. So, I mean, there’s stories and rumours and such. But what’s it like becoming a Seat of Fertility? Every Ascended has a story of when it happened for them, and some are big and others are small. What happens for a Seat, though?”

Lauren snorted softly, covering her mouth, and I chuckled at her and smirked. “I don’t know if this is the right time to tell that particular story,” I said. “I’ll just say that it was a really great moment, that turned really weird, and then got really great again.”

“His powers triggered when we had sex for the first time,” Lauren smirked. “And, let me just say, he did a pretty good job for a virgin even before the magic.”

That had me blushing a little and wiping my face, and the ladies all laughed good-naturedly at my embarrassment.

“Speaking of Jeremiah’s sex skills,” Angie said. “I think it’s fair to say that your Judgement is going to move forward,” she glanced at me for confirmation since it was ultimately my call, and I nodded. “So the only thing we need to finalize is the Sacrifice. I know in the e-mails with me and Lauren you guys said both Grace and Christiane were willing?”

“To be clear,” I said before they could answer. “I’d have to be deaf and blind not to find either of you, uh, ‘suitable.’ You're both gorgeous and absolutely lovely so far. But if it’s going to be you, Grace, I want to make sure you and Ned are both entirely sure it’s OK within your relationship. And if it’s going to be you, Christiane, I want to be sure you’re 100% on board.” I left my hard desire not to have a repeat of the previous evening unspoken. That had been the most lackluster sex I’d ever had. 

Grace and Ned looked to each other, smiling softly as they locked eyes and had a quick ‘couple moment’ to confirm between them, but Christiane spoke up first. “I’m totally on board,” she said, then grinned with a flush creeping up her neck and rolled her lips in to bite them nervously for a moment. “Not to say I’m, um, easy or something. But I’m not a prude, and you’re… well, you’re a little young for me but also kinda hot, Jeremiah, and you’re like… a sex wizard, and your three entirely beautiful girlfriends are clearly happy with what you do so I feel like I’d kind of be a fool not to take my chance.”

Sexual liberation was a hell of a thing.

“Ned and I are completely fine with it being me, too,” Grace said, blushing almost exactly like her sister, but her slightly fairer complexion showed it a touch more. “We’re not, um, swingers or anything like that, but before we got married five years ago, we did knock off some sexual bucket list items and that included a threesome with one of his college buddies.”

“It was fun, and I never had any jealousy issues,” Ned said. “And for something like this? To help bring our first child into the world? I’d fuck you if that’s what you wanted. And you seem - well, you seem like a good kid, if you don’t mind me saying, uh, sir? I don’t think you’ll do anything Grace wouldn't want.” 

I had no fucking clue how Ned wouldn’t feel a certain way about someone putting hands on his sweet, gorgeous wife (or girlfriend/fiancee back then), but maybe we were just built different. I hadn’t even liked the two-guy threesome with Aidra, and that had been before she and I were… what we were.

There was also a bit of a punch in the gut in there. Not him calling me a ‘good kid,’ but him trusting me not to do anything untoward… like kidnap his wife into my harem.

“I am pretty much still a kid, so I’ll take the compliment,” I said. “And you can call me Jerry too, Ned.”

“I have an idea,” Lindsey piped up, and by the look in her eyes, I knew this was going to be something that would either make me sigh or force my heart to skip a beat. “You two could Rock-Paper-Scissors it to decide which one of you gets fucked by the Mega Sex Wizard, or you could just both take a turn.”

The sisters turned to look at each other.

****-----***-----****

“Oh, shut up,” Grace panted, her words coming out as a whimper as her sweaty body writhed under me and her accent making them tingle in my ears. “Shut up, shut up, shut up. Oh my God.”

I grinned a little ferally and leaned down to kiss her again, my hands sliding from her petite hips to run up over her sides and ribs, pausing to thumb her pointy nipples on her little tits, then higher up over her armpits and trailing up her arms over her head.

“Emagrmd,” she mumbled against my lips, kissing me back and pulling me deeper into her with her ankles locked behind my back.

I chuckled, grinding my cock deep into the thirty-year old wife, and pulled my lips from her so that I could look deep into her eyes. “Ned is one lucky, lucky man,” I told her. “And so am I.”

“And I’m a lucky woman,” she panted, arching her back and dragging her nipples across my chest.

Wanting a little bit of privacy for the proceedings, I’d teleportaled Grace and I to the Sanctum. It felt wrong to just fuck her in the Amplifier, though, so I’d led her to the bedroom and she’d marveled for a long moment at the magical and historical decor - the bas reliefs, the hot spring tub and cool stream, the panoramic walls. Before we’d left, with Lauren, Lindsey and Angie staying at the Ancaster home, Grace and Ned had shared a kiss and had a quick, whispered conversation, and then the bright blonde had taken my hand gamely. She kept that energy up when we migrated to the bed, and she did a pretty decent strip tease for me before sucking my cock while kneeling on the bed, humming happily at what she’d found in my pants.

Then I’d taken over, and I did what Lindsey had whispered in my ear that I should do while Grace and her husband had been talking - I showed her exactly why she might want to cycle back around for another Judgment or two later on when her and Ned were ready for more kids.

Her first orgasm had left her flushed and her legs quivering as I slurped it out of her with oral, laughing breathlessly as she ran her fingers through my hair. And that was just the first of many orgasms I teased out of the gorgeous woman, unafraid to use my magic to heighten things for our hour-or-so of fun.

“I’m going to come again,” Grace moaned. “Oh, God, I’m going to come again. I’m going to come on your big cock, Jeremiah. Your big cock so deep in my- Ooh, that’s amazing. That’s so fucking good.”

“Do it, gorgeous,” I murmured to her, leaning down to press my chest to her more firmly as I sucked on her earlobe, something I’d learned quickly that she loved during our short foreplay. “I’m going to come when you do. Pull it out of me, you beautiful, amazing woman.”

I started to thrust into her again, pumping our bodies together.

“Oh, fuck,” she moaned. “Oh, fuck. That’s so naughty, Jeremiah. You’re going to fill my pussy up with your cum? You’re going to make me walk around with it in me? You’re going to leave your mark in this pussy you’re- ooooh - you’re treating so good?”

“Damn- Fucking- Right,” I grunted and then kissed her again.

She whined into my mouth as her orgasm boiled up out of her, her pussy making the tell-tale squishy sounds of her juices bubbling over even if she wasn’t squirting. She inhaled sharply as she entered her climax, and I grunted hard and let go of my magical hold on my own orgasm, feeling it dump out of me like I was unknotting a firehouse. My mind overloaded a bit, and I focused on the feel of her. On my cock, but also my hands on her skin, and her lips on mine as I kissed her again.

When we were done, both of us breathing deeply, Grace blinked her eyes open and looked up at me with something I would have called adoration. And it hit me hard.

“I love my husband, and he’s a great lover,” she told me. “But that was hands-down the best sex I’ve ever had.”

“That’s my job,” I chuckled, and then gave her a friendly peck on the lips because I was scared of what I’d be tempted to do if we started kissing deeply again. Or what I would say if I didn’t give my lips something to do.

I eventually pulled myself out of her, and Grace took a moment to giggle deliriously at the rock ceiling above us while carefully feeling her well-used lips before she rolled over onto her side and gave me a wicked grin. “I wouldn’t be a very good houseguest if I didn’t clean up after myself a little,” she said with an impish grin, and then she started to lick and suck me clean. And I think she loved the fact that she had me groaning and still mostly hard all the way through until I was thoroughly clean.

Then she sat up, clearly thinking something as she looked down at me on the bed.

“What is it?” I asked, reaching up and running my fingers through her blonde bangs to shift them behind her ear.

She huffed out a sigh and a laugh, shaking her head. “For a moment there I thought you were reading my thoughts,” she said.

“I could, but I’m not a fan of messing with people’s minds,” I said. “Even just to take a peek.”

“That seems like a fairly reasonable boundary,” she said, giving me another odd look. 

“Grace, gorgeous, you’re either trying to make me feel like a piece of meat, or you’ve got something you want to ask me. Considering how fucking good we just fucked each other, I think you can feel comfortable to just ask it.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes, grinning a little before slipping down to snuggle up next to me on the bed, her head at the same height as mine on the pillow and her naked, sweaty body gloriously pressed to me. It was a position I was very used to with my girlfriends, and loved, but having a thirty-year-old woman I barely knew naked and comfortable like this with me was a bit of a trip.

“If anything, I’m even more glad we did this than before you brought me here,” she said. “And now I- well, honestly, I feel a little weird about asking you this because I have no right to feel a little jealous over you, but I kinda do in the post-coitus haze I’m in. I know I won’t be a few hours from now, though, and I’d thought about this before and now I really know it’s the right thing to ask even if I’m having momentary… weirdness.”

I grinned, shaking my head slightly. “Have you considered just asking me this thing and not trying to justify it?” My arm was around her, and I was trailing my fingers along her shoulder familiarly, but I couldn’t resist the short time I had to be intimate with her. I let my hand trail lower, teasing her little breast and nipple instead.

She gave me a playful glare at that, and my words. “Christiane needs a fucking like this,” she eventually said with a sigh. “Seriously. She hasn’t been with anyone in almost two years, and in the five years before that she’s had two boyfriends and a girlfriend, and they were all apparently awful at sex for one reason or another. I’d argue that it’s hard to suck at sex if you’re any good at intimacy, and all three of them were walking red flags. Thankfully, she never got burned, but she’s also never had… anything like an intimate moment like this. So I guess I’m asking you to really, really fuck my sister - which, yes, I hear it as I’m saying it. But I still mean it. She is the best person I know, and she deserves to feel just as special as you made me feel. Or even more.”

I had to swallow the lump in my throat. “I think I can do that for you and for her,” I told Grace. “I think she seems like a great, lovely woman from everything I’ve heard and seen.”

“Excellent,” Grace said, then broke into a little grin. “Hell, Jeremiah, she’d probably love it if you got Lauren and the girls to join in. She’s bisexual and secretly a bit of a freak. She’d absolutely die if she knew I was telling you this, but she likes writing smut and posts it online anonymously.”  

“She’s a writer?” I asked in surprise.

“She doesn’t call herself one and says it’s just a secret little hobby, but she let me read a couple of her stories and they were pretty good,” Grace shrugged.

Oh, no, I thought to myself. It’s happening again.

I was crushing, hard, and had about five hours to fuck my crush senseless before I was supposed to have a dinner meeting with another older woman I cared for - and was crushing on - to help her decide if she could handle our polyamorous relationship. I had six girlfriends, an Aidra, and several fuckbuddies to go along with Moira’s pending decision. Not to mention my mild confusion over my attraction to Beth.

I didn’t need another… something.

But God did I want it.

“That sounds amazing,” I said after swallowing down the newest lump in my throat. “I’ll do my best.”